#post inspired by my disastrous group-run today :)

[continentalblue]

the most unrealistic part of jurassic park/world is not the dinosaurs, it's the people who can run for like hours on end without panting a lot

[scotianostra]

The Gaelic singer Calum Kennedy was born on June 2nd 1928 at Orosay, Isle of Lewis.

Calum spent his early years in a remote community without electricity or running water. But music and dancing were strong features of his upbringing with villagers regularly converging for ceilidhs and informal music sessions.

His father ran a bus service to and from Stornoway and the family became quite a focal point of the local community and not merely for the sound of melodeon and fiddles regularly heard in their home. When Calum was 10 they acquired a radio - "the first in our village" - a novelty that attracted many visitors and opened his ears to the wider musical world around him. 

He regularly sang in church, but attributed his unusual range and powers of projection to wandering on the moors near his home and singing to the cows and sheep as a way of calling them home from the hill.

At this time he had no thoughts of a career in entertainment and moved to Glasgow to work on Clydeside as an apprentice plater. He didn't last long there and went through a series of abortive careers, including a brief period training to be a doctor, a spell as an accountant and three and a half years in the Army.

His sister then suggested he try his luck singing at the Glasgow Mod, a competition-based annual festival of Gaelic arts. Victory qualified him to compete in the National Mod held in Dunoon. He didn't win that year but it inspired him to take his singing much more seriously and resurrect the songs of his childhood, which he performed with rare zeal and passion.

In 1953 he met and married Anne Gillies, herself a fine Gaelic singer, and they started performing together. Calum took the gold medal at the National Mod in Aberdeen in 1955. It was a triumph that launched him to stardom.

Concerts followed in London and elsewhere, and his first recordings. He broadened his repertoire from Gaelic ballads and mouth music to incorporate English-language material and, with his mop of curly hair, boyish looks and dramatic sense of delivery, he caught the imagination of the public at large.

In 1957 he travelled by train to Moscow with another would-be singer and actor, Richard Harris, to compete in the World Ballad Championship, during which the two became good friends and Kennedy acquired a taste for drink and a reputation as a party animal. It proved to be a momentous trip as Kennedy beat 500 singers from all over the world, was presented with a gold medal by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and got to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre. He returned a hero and his subsequent recording career included many orchestrated populist songs, with material ranging from "The Skye Boat Song", "Bluebells of Scotland", "The Whistling Gypsy", "Ae Fond Kiss" and "Amazing Grace" to "Keep Right on to the End of the Road" and "Donald Where's Yer Troosers"? His most famous and most acclaimed interpretations, though, were the Gaelic love song "Peigi a Ghraidh" and Byron's tribute to his childhood in Aberdeen, "Dark Lochnagar". Later he composed his own material, like "No No Geordie Munro" and "The Skyline of Skye", though the best-loved was probably the sentimental evocation of his own roots on "Lovely Stornoway".

As powerfully emotive a singer as he was, however, it was his engagingly forceful personality that won the hearts of the public and his escalating fame throughout the Sixties was largely built on regular television appearances. He hosted the first live show on Grampian Television and also starred in his own variety show on STV, almost inventing the template for the archetype Scottish performer of the day with his quips, kilt and irrepressible beam presenting long-running series Calum's Celidh and Round at Calum's.

He lived an expansive life, making big money selling out venues all over the country with his own travelling show, while also leading a busy social and family life, with five daughters. Anne and the girls all featured in his television show Meet the Kennedys and for a while performed on stage as a family group, the Singing Kennedys.

However, luck turned against him in the Seventies. His wife died suddenly in 1974 at the age of 40 after being admitted to hospital for a routine operation. AIt him him really hard and about the same time he was afflicted by throat problems, he didn't sing for two years and when he did return he found that his theatrical approach had lost favour with a public that now saw his robust, kilted persona and sentimental singing as representative of a one-dimensional, stereotypical image of Scottishness. He diversified and became an impresario, buying Dundee Palace and Aberdeen's Tivoli Theatre, bringing Shirley Bassey, Frankie Vaughan and the Billy Cotton Band Show to Scotland.

He was never again to recapture his glories of the Fifties and Sixties, but continued to perform. In 1985 he was the subject of an unintentionally funny BBC documentary, Calum Kennedy's Commando Course, which followed him on a disastrous variety tour through the north of Scotland. In 1986 he married his second wife, Christine, and they had a daughter together, but divorced.

Despite persistent health problems that resulted in a heart bypass operation, he made a stage comeback in the 1990s and was still performing at the age of 70. He suffered a stroke in 2005 but there was a continuing awareness of his work through a couple of compilation CDs, The King of the Highlands and Sailing up the Clyde, of tracks recorded in his heyday.

His eldest daughter, Fiona Kennedy, has taken on his mantle as a television presenter and singer of Gaelic songs, she continues to tour and sing, her latest album coming just a month ago.

There are so many songs I could have chosen to post to celebrate Calums birth date but as it's my birthday today I have chosen my favourite song from him, The Skyline of Skye, the lyrics are below.....

The islands are calling me back home again And I long for the skyline of Skye. A lassie is waiting, sweet flow'r of the glen, 'Neath the beautiful skyline of Skye. I left her one springtime; oh, I loved her so! The blue mountains whispered, "You're foolish to go." As I sailed with the tide, something died here inside. How I cried for the skyline of Skye! In mem'ry I'm hearing the ghost of her tune That keeps haunting my heart with a sigh. It tells of her parting that sad afternoon. It's the song of the skyline of Skye. The road to the islands comes down to the sea, And that's where my love will be waiting for me, And together we'll stay till we're both old and grey 'Neath the beautiful skyline of Skye.

[cinemavariety]

The Director’s Series: Nicolas Winding Refn

The director series will consist of me concentrating on the filmography of all my favorite directors. I will rank each of their films according to my personal taste. I hope this project will provide everyone with quality recommendations and insight into films that they might not have known about. Today’s director in spotlight is Nicolas Winding Refn

#9 - Fear X (2003) Runtime: 1 hr 31 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1         Film Format: 35mm

When his wife is killed in a seemingly random incident Harry, prompted by mysterious visions, journeys to discover the true circumstances surrounding her murder.

Verdict: Refn’s most forgotten about film, even I have a hard time remembering that this film is part of his oeuvre. Nevertheless, Fear X is a quiet and lingering exercise in style. It’s a surrealist film noir with heavy influences from David Lynch. It’s also the first time where Refn began experimenting with color and started to move away from shaky cam.

#8 - The Pusher Trilogy (1996/2004/2005) Runtime: 1 hr 45 min / 1 hr 40 min / 1 hr 30 min Aspect Ratio: 1.66 : 1 / 1.85 : 1 /  1.85 : 1                 Film Format: 16mm / 35mm / 35mm

A drug pusher grows increasingly desperate after a botched deal leaves him with a large debt to a ruthless drug lord.

Verdict: I made the decision to categorize all three Pusher films as one entry for this post (otherwise it would just be too many). Nicolas Winding Refn started off his career with the strong crime tale of Pusher, and made the last two films to complete the trilogy after his English language debut Fear X ended up bombing. While I love the first and third entry more than I do the second, all three Pusher films are captivating and anxiety-ridden crime docudramas. It’s a great way to see how far Refn has evolved by starting with these films first.

#7 - Bleeder (1999) Runtime: 1 hr 38 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Two stories for the price of one: Lenny works in a video shop and tries to get acquainted with the waitress Lea. Leo can't cope with the pressure of becoming a father, leading to trouble with his pregnant wife and especially her brother.

Verdict: While Bleeder might be Refn’s lowest budget film to date, and not all the violence comes off as extremely convincing, I enjoyed it more than all three Pusher films because of the emotional stakes within the story. Multiple characters lives intertwine and interconnect in oftentimes disastrous circumstances. I also loved how Mads Mikkelsen’s character is a huge film aficionado, all of the scenes he is featured in bring a much needed reprieve from the turmoil and abuse.

#6 - Too Old to Die Young (2019) Runtime: 15 hr Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1                     Film Format: Arri Alexa Digital

The numb existences of Martin Jones, a police officer with secrets to hide, and Jesus, a traumatized avenging son, collide in a ghostly Los Angeles where several ruthless criminal gangs fight for their turf and dictate who lives and who dies. Verdict: Too Old To Die Young finds the celebrated auteur, Nicolas Winding Refn, sharing his view of humanity and society at its most despicable. All of his usual motifs and creative decisions are employed in full force with Too Old To Die Young, sometimes to an almost unbearable degree unless you are a truth Refn aficionado. His long takes, infinitesimal silences between lines, neon lighting, synth score and characters belonging to a criminal underworld are all utilized to great affect within the series. And while I believe that Refn’s sensibilities are best conveyed through a film medium, the limited series allows Refn to explore what he wants to convey like an artist adding layer upon layer of colors onto a blank palette.

#5 - Bronson (2008) Runtime: 1 hr 32 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson. Verdict: Bronson is quite possibly Tom Hardy’s most impressive performance, and that’s saying a lot. It exudes such a hypnotic quality that every time I watch it, it’s as if I am seeing the film for my very first time. It tells the true story of one of Britain’s most infamous criminals.Refn’s visual flair and unique filming style make it unlike any other prison film I’ve ever witnessed. This is the beginnings of Refn’s disinterest in traditional narrative structure.

#4 - Only God Forgives (2013) Runtime: 1 hr 30 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: Red Epic Digital

Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family’s drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother’s recent death. 

Verdict: This is easily Refn’s most frustrating film. Whenever I watch it, I’m unsure whether I adore it or dislike it. But the fact that it’s the Refn film I have probably revisited the most is extremely telling of the ambience that Refn creates. Only God Forgives is arguably the most beautifully shot film from Nicolas. The neon drenched streets of Bangkok are presented to look like a netherworld. It’s a revenge fantasy thriller mixed with Oedipal undertones. Also, Gosling looks like a treat in every frame.

#3 - Valhalla Rising (2009) Runtime: 1 hr 33 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: Red One Digital

1000 AD, for years, One Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the Norse chieftain Barde. Aided by Are, a boy slave, One Eye slays his captor and together he and Are escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness. On their flight, One Eye and Are board a Viking vessel, but the ship is soon engulfed by an endless fog that clears only as the crew sights an unknown land. As the new world reveals its secrets and the Vikings confront their terrible and bloody fate, One Eye discovers his true self. 

Verdict: Valhalla Rising is Refn’s dirtiest and bloodiest work, and it certainly finds the director at his most surreal and existential. If anyone wants to know a film that epitomized what it means to be considered art house - this is it. It’s a film about a slave finding emancipation from his tyrannous slave owners, and finds himself on a doomed voyage to the New World with a group of fanatical Christian vikings. The story is told in separate chapters, with each section the audience finds itself traveling down a rabbit hole that resembles something of an acid try gone awry.

#2 - The Neon Demon (2016) Runtime: 1 hr 57 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: Arri Alexa XT Plus Digital

When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.

Verdict: The Neon Demon has grown to become my second favorite movie from Nicolas. The film succeeds in shedding light on the hedonistic lifestyle of deranged young women in a tongue-in-cheek, almost satirical fashion. It’s one of the best looking Refn films to date, with even banal or commonplace locations drenched in neon hues. Composer Cliff Martinez outdoes himself with the synth-heavy score which guides the audience along a fairytale of horrors. In Refn’s surreal vision of Los Angeles there is no such thing as going too far to reach fame, even if it means bloodshed. As one character says in the film: “Beauty isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” It would be nice to write off this statement as pure subjectivity, but what else has the media taught us but this ideal?

#1 - Drive (2011) Runtime: 1 hr 40 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: Arri Alexa & Cooke S4 Digital

A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman for criminals discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong. 

Verdict: Seeing Drive in theatres back in 2011, without even having seen a film from Refn and not knowing much of the plot in general, is hands down one of the most memorable and inspiring theatrical experiences I ever had. Drive, among many other films that came out around that time, acted as a catalyst for me to branch out and discover more independent and arthouse filmmakers. I believe that it is undoubtedly Refn’s best film, and I might dare say that might be credited to the fact that is one of the only Refn films in which he didn’t write. These characters, while quiet and mysterious, have more depth to them than any of his others. The quiet romance between Drive and Irene provide more emotional stakes than any of his other works as well. All the elements of Drive complement each other and build off of each other. As cheesy as it may sound, if any film could be considered cool - it’s this. It’s already gained a cult status and it will most definitely go down in history as one of the most beautiful crime noirs ever made.

[oh-its-souichi]

I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket

Dabi X Reader

Yo!

I was listening to “I’m low on gas and you need a jacket” (who would have guess -.-) by Pierce the Veil when I was writing this because I’m still low key emo (uh) check it out if you need a good song to jam 2.

Also half way through I lost all inspiration for this.. if you couldn’t tell.

Update-

Part 5 of Gone will be posted within the next two days

Demolition Lovers part 3 is still a work in progress. 

I also have one more request I am working on

Warning- ehe fluff, mentions of crime and drinking.

The night air was cool on his skin as he walked down the sidewalk; so cool he couldn’t help but shiver.

His right hand was shoved in his pocket and his left was holding his phone nonchalantly.

He looked apathetic and cool as usual but on the inside he was.. nervous. Every few seconds his eyes would dart down to the phone, his chest swelling up with anticipation only to deflate when the screen didn’t light up with your name

He hadn’t heard from you for a while now; since this morning to be exact.  Which normally wouldn’t be a problem, he wasn’t a clingy guy and you both had lives you had to live but today was different.

It was Saturday.

Saturday night.

This was the one day of the week he absolutely dreaded because of two words.

Two words that were often associated with innocent fun and gossip, laughter and pillow fights.

Not for you though

It was the day of unyielding chaos and destruction.

Girls night.

It was fucking girls night.

On these dreadful days you would run around with this group of girls mostly drinking and committing petty thief and vandalism; reeking havoc on the city with your girly powers.

He felt his head begin to throb.

Some nights you and the rest of your friends would be to drunk to handle yourselves so all of you would invade his (kinda) apartment; leaving HIM to nurse all of your asses back to health. He made a big deal out of it but honestly he didn’t mind. At least you were safe with him.

At a last ditch effort he text you again.

Night. Don’t bring you and your heathens to my apartment when you can’t handle your shit.

With a smirk he pressed send and put it into his pocket.

There was no real reason for him to worry your quirk was powerful and you knew how to fight. ‘Stop being a pussy’ he thought looking out at the city.

It was pretty busy tonight. Sirens wailed in the distance and the sound of stray chatter filled the air. Up ahead of him he could smell meat being grilled accompanied by the perfume let off by the flowers that grew on trees lining the sidewalk.

Despite the chill it was pretty nice.

To caught up in his observations he was caught off guard and jumped when a girl stumbled out of one of the ramen shops and collided into him. He was going to pull his arms up to avoid catching her and falling but once the initial strong scent of alcohol faded and he caught a whiff of a familiar pomegranate and ginger smell. ‘Shit’ he thought and ducked to catch you but was to late.

You fell to the ground but instead of crying out in pain you giggled cutely to yourself. “You douche bag” you said sadly attempting to stand up. “Maybe you should watch where your going” He smiled and watched as you got yourself steady on your heels but fell once again.

His eyes softened and he felt his heart thump in his chest.

“Get up drunkey” he said reaching. To his surprise before his fingers could wrap around your arm; you slapped his hand away with a scowl on your face. “Don’t touch me I have a boyfriend!” you yelled rocketing to your feet. Once your eyes met his a light blush spread across your face. “Oh... baby!” you said jumping and embracing him in a tight hug.

‘Well I guess I don’t have to worry about her fucking around with other guys’ he thought hugging you back. “Where’s your ‘girl gang’“ he mocked moving his head to look at you.

Your eyelids drooped down and your cheeks were rosy most likely from the alcohol. Some of your make-up ran was smeared on your cheeks but you still looked so beautiful. A disastrous princess; a hot mess, if you will.

You slapped his chest lightly and separated away from him. “They went home after we spray painted that statue in a park. Do you know which one I’m talking about? That statue that is in that park?”

He smiled and grabbed your hand dragging you in the direction of your apartment. “Yeah sure whatever sweetheart. Come on let’s go home.”

You looked at him momentarily seeming to mull his words around in your head before latching onto his arm happily. “Okay! 

You were a pain in the ass. 

But you were HIS pain in the ass. 

Half way into the walk to your apartment he ended up carrying after you threw up on the side of the road. 

When you finished you looked at him apologetically. “I didn’t drink any water tonight” you whispered wrapping your arms around yourself shivering. He smirked at you and took off his jacket wrapping it around your shoulders. 

“Just don’t puke on it alright?”

As you carried you- your body was limp in his arms; your head buried into his neck. Every now and then you would groan or mumble something but he didn’t pay it any mind. 

Honestly he was just glad you were with him now. 

You smelled awful but he was still happy. 

Once the two of you got to your apartment he set you down on the bed and walked into the bathroom and started the shower. Pulling up his sleeve he adjusted the temperature then walked out into you living room/bedroom expecting to see you still laying down on the coach but instead you were sitting on the ground a cup of water in your hand. 

When you saw him a smile lit up your face. “baby” you said softly. 

“Come shower time” he said hearing his voice waiver. You nodded and crawled up to him resting your head on his leg. He sighed. “Your really going to be a brat and make me carry you again?” 

You nodded your heart slowly, rubbing your forehead against his shin. He sighed and leaned down picking you up. 

After fighting with you to get in the shower; the deal breaker being if he showered with you which stung his wounds but you had him pretty much wrapped around his finger, he laid with you in bed the water from both of your wet hair seeping annoyingly into the pillows you laid on. .

He was staring up at the ceiling on hand behind his head, his thoughts and attention focused on the rhythm of your breathing. It was normal; a little slower then normal but that could be credited to you about to fall into a deep sleep. 

He flipped onto his side and pulled you tightly to his chest, bringing a sheet in between you so your shirt didn’t get caught on one of his staples and pull one of them out... again. 

You sighed wrapping your arms sweetly around his. 

“I love you” you groaned. 

His eyes widened at your words. 

You had said it before but it wasn’t something the two of you said often. He felt the same way of course but found it difficult to say it back. 

“Yeah” he said and kissed the back of your neck letting his lips linger on your skin. 

...

The following morning when he was sitting shirtless on the edge of your bed eating a bowl of cereal the news flashed on broadcasting about a group and “armed and dangerous girls” who broke into a toy store and tipped over all of the shelves. 

“Nothing was stolen from the store but the property damage was insurmountable. This group is also suspected of multiple break in’s around town. We will now show you a photo of the culprits that was caught on a security camera. If you know any information please inform the police.  

On the screen flashed an image of you and your friends celebrating the hell you created in the toy store. You had you back turned to the camera and were jumping with your hands up above you. 

“Hey baby” he said slapping your feet. “you’re famous!” 

You sat up slowly and looked a the screen. There were deep bags under your eyes and your hair was a rats nest on your head. 

“I don’t even want to know” you groaned flopping back onto your pillow. 

[patriotsnet]

Why Do Republicans Stand Behind Trump

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-stand-behind-trump/

Why Do Republicans Stand Behind Trump

Senate Republicans Are Not Going To Convict Trump

Donald Trump: Some Republicans did not honor their pledge to stand behind Trump

It is not likely there are enough votes to convict Trump. President Biden himself said in an interview on January 25 that Democrats did not have the votes in the Senate to convict Trump. Even though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was not sure how he would vote, signalling the first significant break between Trump and the most powerful Republican in the Senate, he and 45 Republican senators voted on January 26 in favour of a motion proposed by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul to dismiss the impeachment trial. The strategy behind this motion was to question the constitutionality of convicting a former president, another first in American history. Only five Republicans opposed the measure. This is the most glaring indication that nowhere close to 17 Republicans will vote with the Democrats to convict the former president.

Moreover, Trump has threatened political retribution against those GOP members of Congress who support impeachment. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump and his closest aides were in discussions about creating a new Patriot Party to challenge Republican candidates. However, Trump recently disavowed these reports and reassured Senate Republicans. Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota relayed to Politico that The president wanted me to know, as well as a handful of others, that the president is a Republican, he is not starting a third party and that anything he would do politically in the future would be as a Republican.

The Partys Core Activists Dont Want To Shift Gears

This is the simplest and most obvious explanation: The GOP isnt changing directions because the people driving the car dont want to.;

When we think of Republicans, we tend to think of either rank-and-file GOP voters or the partys highest-profile elected officials, particularly its leaders in Congress. But in many ways, the partys direction is driven by a group between those two: conservative organizations like Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation, GOP officials at the local and state level and right-wing media outlets. That segment of the party has been especially resistant to the GOP abandoning its current mix of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, opposition to expansions of programs that benefit the poor and an identity politics that centers white Americans and conservative Christians.

You could see the power and preferences of this group in the response to the Capitol insurrection.

In the days immediately following Jan. 6, many GOP elected officials, most notably McConnell, signaled that the party should make a permanent break from Trump. Pollsfound an increased number of rank-and-file GOP voters were dissatisfied with the outgoing president. But by the time the Senate held its trial over Trumps actions a month later, it was clear that the party was basically back in line with Trump.;

related:Why Being Anti-Media Is Now Part Of The GOP Identity Read more. »

Trump Breaks Silence With Cpac Speech

Most notably, these state and local parties launched a barrage of censures or other forms of condemnation not long after a violent pro-Trump mob inspired by the former presidents lie about a stolen election and egged on that day by Trump himself stormed the Capitol intent on disrupting Congress as it formalized President Joe Bidens win. Many of the efforts were aimed at the small number of Republicans who voted in favor of impeachment or conviction after House Democrats moved swiftly to impeach Trump on the charge of “incitement to insurrection.”

In Louisiana, the state GOP censured one of its U.S. senators, Bill Cassidy, moments after he voted to convict Trump. North Carolina’s state GOP passed a similar measure aimed at Sen. Richard Burr just days later.

In Illinois, Larry Smith, chair of the LaSalle County Republican Party and a leader in the effort to censure Rep. Adam Kinzinger after he voted to impeach Trump, told NBC News that local GOP leaders in his state are overwhelmingly still pro-Trump, and that the detractors amount to a splinter group by comparison.

I think they’re stunningly naive or have completely misread the tea leaves, he said of Republicans who believe they can leave Trump behind.

He pointed to comments from Kinzinger in The Atlantic in which the lawmaker expressed hope that the segment of the GOP base ready to move past Trump could grow to 35 or 45 percent by the midterm elections.

Read Also: What Cities Are Run By Republicans

Why Dont Republicans Stand Up To Trump Heres The Answer

Rep. Mark Sanford

If youre still flummoxed by the abject servility of congressional Republicans, by their refusal to confront Trump and stand up for American values, check out last nights primary election in South Carolina. The purging of Mark Sanford says it all.

Sanford is a long-serving conservative lawmaker who typically votes with his party, but on a few public occasions, he has actually dared to suggest that Trump is not the supreme very stable genius that the deluded Republican base deems Trump to be. The result: Sanford loses his job.

For the inexcusable sin of speaking his mind about factual reality, the Republican base voters in Sanfords House district threw him out last night, handing the GOP nomination to a far-right Trumper who repeatedly denounced Sanford as disloyal.

This is why rank-and-file Republican lawmakers refuse to speak out. Theyre afraid of their own constituents. Its Trumps party now, and the constituents in red districts virtually worship the guy. Forget about putting country over party, because its actually worse than that. Sanfords colleagues wont put country over career. Theyll vow that what just happened to Sanford will not happen to them.

As conservative commentator Erick Erickson said today, Mark Sanford losing in South Carolina is pretty much proof positive that the GOP is not really a conservative party that cares about limited government. It is now fully a cult of personality.

I stand by every word.

Why Do Republicans Continue To Support Trump Despite Years Of Scandal

It was late September last year when a whistleblower complaint revealed that President Trump had tried to force the Ukrainian government to investigate Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Within moments the scandal captured headlines. What followed was months of back and forth as Republicans supported the president while the Democrats used their political capital to get him impeached.

But this was not the first time ;;or the last time ;the president was caught in the middle of a scandal.;Since the impeachment trial that followed the Ukraine incident, episodes from The New York Times uncovering unsavory details from President Trumps tax returns, to his questionable dismissal of multiple Inspectors General, to his refusal to clearly condemn white supremacists have all sparked widespread media attention and partisan fighting in 2020.;

Although with his polls dropping, some Republicans may finally be distancing themselves from the President, the question has been regularly asked the past four years: why do the Republicans continue to support the President despite these troubling charges being leveled at him? And, what is it that the Democrats stand to gain from repeated allegations?

;In addition to demonstrating how polarization accelerates scandals, the paper also found that:;

Read Also: Which Republicans Voted To Impeach Trump Today

Trump Is Still A Force In The Party

After the 2012 elections, prominent Republicans sharply criticized Mitt Romney and his campaign. Democrats did the same to Hillary Clinton after 2016 and sometimes included former President Barack Obama in their criticisms, too. For a political party to change direction, it nearly always has to distance itself from past leaders.;

Or put another way: For there to be an autopsy, there has to be a dead body.

Republicans’ Choice: Stand With Trump Or Risk His Wrath

Trump has already informed at least two GOP lawmakers of his dissatisfaction with their defense of his racist tweets.

Sen. John Cornyn prides himself on winning a large share of the Latino vote in Texas, campaigning in the Asian American community and running ads in three languages. Its a crucial strategy for a Republican in a diverse state and one that is sharply divergent from President Donald Trumps approach.

So as Cornyn seeks reelection next year with Trump on the ballot, hes making sure that he isnt dragged down by the presidents more inflammatory politics, exemplified again this week by his racist tweets telling four liberal Democratic congresswomen to go back to where they came from.

I dont have any trouble speaking to any of my constituents. They dont confuse me with whats happening up here in D.C., said Cornyn, who has gently criticized Trumps battle as a mistake that unified Democrats. I know we are consumed by this here, but it doesnt consume my constituents when I go back home.

Its a common refrain for Republicans trying to deflect a Trump-fueled firestorm and highlights the dilemma that the party will face for months to come.

GOP lawmakers, especially those facing potentially tough reelection bids, need to create independent identities to win over Trump skeptics. But if they break too fiercely with the president, he and his grassroots supporters might turn on them, with disastrous political consequences.

Also Check: How Many Seats Do Republicans Have In The Senate

A Clue About This Difficult Political Surgery

Reuters: Yuri Gripas

Trump is like a drug Republicans are yet to find a way to kick. By most accounts, few Republicans in Congress want him back, and many believe that if a secret ballot had been held in the Senate on the weekend, more than the required number of 17 would have joined with the 50 Democrats to convict him and ban him from holding office in the future.

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s speech condemning Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the deadly January 6 attack on Congress by his supporters, offers a clue about the difficult piece of political surgery he is now trying to perform.

“Seventy-four million Americans did not invade the Capitol,” McConnell said. “Hundreds of rioters did. Seventy-four million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it. One person did. Just one.”

Have Expressed Reluctance Or Misgivings But Havent Openly Dropped Their Backing

Why military veterans stand behind Donald Trump

Paul Ryan and John Boehner, the former speakers of the House: Both have expressed their dislike of the president, but have not said whom they will support in November.

John Kelly, a former chief of staff to the president: Mr. Kelly has not said whom he plans to vote for, but did say he wished we had some additional choices.

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: She has said that shes grappling with whether to support Mr. Trump in November. She told reporters on Capitol Hill in June: I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.

She said: I think right now, as we are all struggling to find ways to express the words that need to be expressed appropriately, questions about who Im going to vote for or not going to vote for, I think, are distracting at the moment. I know people might think thats a dodge, but I think there are important conversations that we need to have as an American people among ourselves about where we are right now.

Mr. Sanford briefly challenged the president in this cycles Republican primary, and said last year that he would support Mr. Trump if the president won the nomination .

That has since changed.

Hes treading on very thin ice, Mr. Sanford said in June, worrying that the president is threatening the stability of the country.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Also Check: Which Republicans Voted Against The Budget Resolution

Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of Voters

There is no both sides do it when it comes to intentionally keeping Americans away from the polls.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstandingvalues. It is separate from the newsroom.

As of Sunday afternoon, more than 93 million Americans had cast a ballot in the November elections. Thats about two-thirds of the total number of people who voted in 2016, and there are still two days until Election Day.

This is excellent news. In the middle of a global pandemic that has taken the lives of nearly a quarter of a million Americans, upended the national economy and thrown state election procedures into turmoil, there were reasonable concerns that many people would not vote at all. The numbers to date suggest that 2020 could see record turnout.

While celebrating this renewed citizen involvement in Americas political process, dont lose sight of the bigger, and darker, picture. For decades, Americans have voted at depressingly low rates for a modern democracy. Even in a good year, more than one-third of all eligible voters dont cast a ballot. In a bad year, that number can approach two-thirds.

Why are so many Americans consistently missing in action on Election Day?

For many, its a choice. They are disillusioned with government, or they feel their vote doesnt matter because politicians dont listen to them anyway.

Republicans Almost Won In 2020

To torture this autopsy metaphor even more: Theres a good argument that the party is still very much alive.

Historically, parties have done more self-reflection and been more likely to change course when theyve hit electoral low points. In the 1988 presidential race, Democrats carried only 10 states and Washington, D.C., and that loss was their third consecutive failed bid for the White House. In 2008, Obama won the popular vote by 7 percentage points Republicans didnt even carry Indiana. So of course the parties were ready to rethink things after those defeats.

In contrast, Trump would have won reelection had he done only about 1 percentage point better in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and about 3 points better in Michigan. Republicans would still control the Senate had Republican David Perdue won about 60,000 more votes against Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgias Senate runoff. A slew of court rulings that forced the redrawing of House district lines in less favorable ways to the GOP helped the Democrats win several seats otherwise, Republicans might have won back the House. Add all that up, and 2020 wasnt that far from resulting in a Republican trifecta.;

Also, Republicans did really well in state legislative races and gained ground among Black and Latino voters nationally .

related:What Did CPAC Tell Us About The Future Of The GOP? Read more. »

Don’t Miss: Which Republicans Voted For The Resolution Today

Dire Rhetoric Used To Describe Democratic Political Opponents What’s At Stake In Country

During the second impeachment trial, the core of the House impeachment managers’ case was this: Trump’s extreme rhetoric about the presidential election being “rigged” incited a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol.

Every Democratic senator and seven Republican senators bought the argument, voting to convict Trump. In both the House and Senate, even Republicans who did not vote to impeach or convict Trump, respectively, criticized his rhetoric and actions surrounding the election.

But at CPAC, while there were few mentions of Jan. 6, several speakers’ rhetoric was similarly inflammatory as they described political opponents in extreme terms and painted a dire picture of a nation led by Democrats.

During his speech, freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., delivered a line eerily similar to one Trump gave on Jan. 6, when the former president said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

“If we sit on the sidelines, we will not have a country to inherit. If we do not get involved and say that it is our duty to make sure that our country is responsible, that our country doesn’t take away our liberties, then my friends, we will lose this nation,” Cawthorn said. “The Democrats, my opponents and adversaries on the other side are brutal and vicious and they are trying to take away all of our rights.”

Opinion: Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of A Fair Fight At The Polls

THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic has left state leaders scrambling to run a fair election this November. Ramping up absentee voting is the most sensible response, but unfortunately it also is becoming a partisan choice. President Trump continues to spew disinformation about the supposed dangers of mail-in voting, some state Republican leaders are refusing to make voting easier, and party officials are fighting states that are trying to do the right thing.

There is NO WAY that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent, President Trump tweeted May 26, accusing California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, of proposing to send ballots to anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there. In fact, voter fraud of any kind is rare, and states that conduct all-mail-in elections, such as Oregon and Utah, have not seen widespread fraud. Mr. Trump may have been spurred by a lawsuit the Republican National Committee filed May 24 against Mr. Newsom, demanding that the courts stop the governor from distributing absentee ballots in California. That lawsuit, too, is built on fearmongering.

If Republicans fear that enabling more people to vote will hurt them, they should offer more attractive policies and candidates and stop trying to suppress the vote, in California and everywhere else.

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🟣 WKM03: 1stDraft

⬛️ THEMATIC EXPOSITION

The theory of The alienation of the self ¹, developed by Karl Marx in 1932, describes one of the consequences to being one mechanistic part of the ensemble. Fifty years later, the Situationists International guaranteed that this global misery of social alienation has been spreading to every aspect of life and culture², due to the dictatorship of advanced capitalism.

On another level, social structures and over hierarchised forms of power have led the mass to master the art of social performance, a role-play cultivated through normalised education. This performance of embodying perfectly our own selves makes us strangers to our Gattungswesen, our species-essence¹.  The role-player, the everyday man, loses his ability to determine destiny and life. He is deprived of the right to conceive and to direct his own actions¹.

Debord’s spectacle may well be the everlasting sun³ that never sets over the empire of modernity. It burns and consumes the personal experience of consciousness. This mechanisation of reality leads me to investigate human's relationship to the I and the It⁴. To the I and the else. Indeed, an ability to position oneself within its environment could be key to define and, therefore, re-design its scope of action within the possession of its consciousness.

environment | ɪnˈvʌɪrənm(ə)nt, ɛnˈvʌɪrənm(ə)nt |, noun 1 the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.

The sensitive relationships our bodies have with their territories⁵ question politics of living together, both in terms of spatiality and sociability. Space, for example, models an objectified version of the world we live in. Its complex architecture, both physical, its buildings, streets, signs, and immaterial, its social structures, ways of navigating; geophilosophically, holds hierarchical systems. Ways to behave are preconceived. The perspective of an informed cognitive experience fades away as we acknowledge our impotence in the impact of the surroundings. It seems like we are not given the choice. We do forget that we have the choice .

Did we loose the skill of questioning our environment and acting for it?
How could be arouse in people a remastered sensation of power over the design of one's life experience?

experience | ɪkˈspɪərɪəns, ɛkˈspɪərɪəns | noun 1 practical contact with and observation of facts or events 2 an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone

Critical discourses have socially been confined to distinct areas within the polis, from the museum to the university; where the simplest notion of accessibility is still questioned. Creative thinking struggles to pass the walls of standardised learning environments and to find application within society's re-design agenda.

Participative experiences can help the wider audience to effectively regain that creative instinct to question, experiment, play with, learn and to position oneself within the world. It's inviting them to become more than a mechanistic part, they have control over the final creation. They are now considered. In Deleuzian words, I call for co-creative ways to foster transformable and transformative situations ⁶.

Through the 20th century onwards, we have witnessed artistic, political and theoretical attempts to challenge and nurture collective creativity. The Situationists have experimented with methods such as psychogeography ⁷ to disrupt mapped conceptions of urban environments. Another call for a total dissolution of the boundaries between art and life. A call for applied creative thinking. Modern and avant-garde artists explored mediums such as installation, performance, in-situ pieces to engage people in reflective, critical exchanges. They sparked debates using effective information assemblages, providing the public with keys to generate an opinion on current matters.

Nevertheless, these attempts were still socially and spatially assigned to the domain of art. Accessibility still questions. Design has a role to play to reach wider audiences and to open the dialogue even more. Historically, designed products and ads played a predominant role in the growth of the spectacular capital age. It shaped our perception of things, pushing consumption forward. Although, other graphic designers, Barbara Kruger, Rick Poynor, David Carson, understood its power to transmit messages and to provoke deeper emotions than: "Oh my god, I really need that anti-wrinkle lotion!". User-based experiences and the internet also helped significantly.

More recently, The Rodina, a duo of dutch graphic designers, ask themselves: How can design foster freedom and playfulness for its users? How can we create objects and situations that promote activity and participation for social good? ⁸

Their practice of performative design ⁸, is one way to challenge the action of co-creating the surface and its content. Designers, then, become facilitators of rich experiential debates. The act and choice of being present and conscious of the shared reality is necesarry for both designer and audience. It finally feels like we are looked upon as potent and powerful vectors of future re-designed possibilities.

Carrying one, my personal intentions as designer, researcher and facilitator are to break down pre-established knowledge formations and to provide individuals with accessible choices into learning and understanding the power of applied creativity. In other words, their power of influence. Within the spectrum of ‘post-critical’ design, I experiment with collective ways to inspire and engage people in the re-modelling of the everyday.

To design such tools and platforms, I work on combining theoretical research work (sociology, phenomenology, geography, politics) and practical creative experiments (art, design, vernacular). Thinking through making is another component of my creative journey, feedbacks are essential to re-assess my design's capability to challenge particular environments and beliefs systems.

I believe that this socialist approach to design can play a role in the decrease of established power structures, which constrain the act of deciding one's experience of consciousness and, therefore, life. Contrary to the affirmative design approach, I intend to defy the context instead of aligning with it.¹⁰ I consider participation as a soft power tool that can help to free oneself from Marx's theory: the estrangement.

⬛️ CASE-STUDY EVIDENCE

🟣 

As explained above, I aspire to question systems of knowledge and access to critical judgement in the everyday life. This focus on reformative education has been central to this first project: on classroom.

“People learn to learn as they learn.” Hein, G. (1954) Constructivist Learning Theory

Through the learning of hand-weaving, I had wished to regain a self composure by avoiding the digital realm. The technique did not really impress me, at first. Indeed, "I have always been a manual person".

Surprisingly, I had been wrong. My learning curve turned out to be far more disastrous and uncomfortable than I expected. Pressure and anxiety lead me to realise: how could I ever be legitimate enough to teach weaving to others? Doubt is present, but must be overcomed in my quest to become facilitator. With this in mind, I started to experiment and user-test early drafts.

My first and second attempts focused on achieving a gratifying individual learning experience. I would design an accessible customisable step-by-step guide to weaving, with a focus on relaxation and mental wellbeing.   But then, I started to question this guide's capacity to accomplish such ambitions. Again, "will anyone be able to complete weaves on my advices, and balance its natural emotional response to failure?" This desire for accessibility and optimal efficiency led me to reconsider the scope and agenda of the project. Looking back, I realised that the focus should be on the underlying issue: mental health awareness and mindfulness.

The target audience quickly drifted and became group-based. Indeed, a retrospective look at education seems essential to understand how and why stress and anxiety are so prevalent in today's world. It is certain that the race for progress and the strong competitiveness of society and its education system condition children to become alienated and profit-driven adults. A balance needs to be found. Without being too radical, reaching higher levels of empathy and mental health support given in schools nowadays, could be a first positive step towards change.  

Focusing on that perspective, my new designed attempt would target school groups of middle-aged children and facilitate interpersonal exchanges, practical mindfulness and human debates between adults and young people. In other words, a progressive educational space, re-evaluating the conscious and grounded experience of one's life in a world of constant, rapid mutations. I now ask myself, which design system could work in introducing active, mindful participation within the collective classroom space?

Mindfulness is recently gaining more public attention. We notice a current boom in initiatives towards wellbeing and better consideration of the individual. As an example, The Anna Freud Center is currently running a UK study named 'Inspire', introducing mindfulness as part of the national curriculum, through awareness classes, relaxation exercises and meditation. Though, it could be pushed forward.

Considering all this research and experiments, I started to draft a designed set of rugs allowing children to lie down, meditate, exercise and debate. Weaving will still be introduced by the textural aspect itself of the surface. The system will also be developped as a talking pillow with each rug stating words, topics of discussions opening up debates over the co-creation of the social classroom -break-schedule-pressure-community. etc. The emphasis is placed on the experience of understanding the feeling of being oneself within the environment, both in the present (as child) and in the future (as adults). My role here, as facilitator, is to provide enough informations, structure and materials for the experiment to thrive; and enough 'free' space to not over-power the specific needs of different classroom environments. Education has a role to play in the support of healthy and peculiar individual's learning journey.

Summerhill school is one positive example of a self-governed, co-designed community. "Our school decision-making process is democratic. Each adult and child has an equal vote." In a utopian world, perhaps my framework could, uniquely, facilitate the voting of common rules, as this affects everyone's well-being.

The outcome, informed by the craft, various experiments, my personal learning curve and a new approach to spatial participative mindfulness, is definitely one way to challenge our current relation with the I and the It in education and society nowadays. This conscious experience of body language intertwined with a re-discovery of the senses, the space and others will allow this third space to flourish. The focus is placed on the acknowledgement of the self and the community and how they can smoothly function together. Really, "We live at the same time in the common property world and in a private world" (Merleau-Ponty 2008, 335).

🟣 

A second project, on museum, provided me with more elements to critically reflect on another learning environment: the structure & agenda of the museum. The brief brings up another kind of challenge, it is anchored in reality. In fact, I will design an interactive for the '150 years of postcards' exhibition. This experience definitely supports my ongoing search for balance in between theory and practice.

The museum institution is shifting in its purpose and aspirations. Rapid societal developments urges the need for a change in the current museum definition. Debates are vivid, international committees are struggling to find agreements.

As of now: “A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.” (24 August 2007, ICOM, current definition)

A new definition was proposed in 2019, but got refused; categorised as outrageously inappropriate and politicaly-driven. Its lengthen, utopian formulations around equal rights, transparency, social justice and planetary wellbeing, potentially, does not represent what museums and cultural spaces are at the moment. The situation remains unclear. However, this call for hope and action inspires me deeply; things are starting to move and knowledge structures are being open to new, great potentialities.

Following my interest of creating tools for a greater interactive understanding of space, I primarily focused on designing a transparent publication encouraging visitors to be actors in the writing of the new museum definition. My positionning within the critical discourse was necessary to start clearly conceiving my final interactive for the Postal Museum. My first outcome, a 10 pages publication, leaves, meaningfully, fill-in-blanks texts and spaces to engage the public in a guided creative brainstorming. My intentions are to easily generate ideas and to collect countless personal perceptions of the museum, present and future.

To work out an enhanced, enjoyable experience for all, I experimented with ways to conduct the visitor through its pre-existing knowledge and awareness of the cultural space. Customisations and disruptions are encouraged. The conceptual window created by the page frame situates the artefact and the information it holds in dedicated environments, both the wire and the proposition. You are being considered within the co-creation of 'futurabilities'.

The artefact works as a sophisticated metaphor of the twenty-first century' museum. The use of glass as medium and the standardised printed format question the notions of transparency and openness. The publication's thickness allows it to stand on its own, as an exhibit piece. It becomes object of contemplation and a significant evidence of culture, in this instance, of the human participation towards collective knowledge.

“Visitors stop being passive observers; they change instead to active players who feel they’re somehow influencing the outcome of events.” (Sarah Fellows, Museum at play, p19)

Interactions transform the museum into a social and creative space. A greater visitor inclusivity, as primary source of knowledge, could enrich a positive learning and teaching practice in the everyday.

“Games allow the audience to look at objects in different ways, giving permission to question previous assumptions about the museum, its content and its place in the users’ lives. A recurring theme is the museum’s shift from a traditional “keeper of artefact” to a collection of “stories”.  (Katy Beale, Museum at play, p24)

As a second step, I designed a speculative workshop for the '150 years of Postcards' exhibition. Visitors are invited to imagine future means of communications, their own view on the future of postcards. Will be at their disposal, a designed set of blank postcards and contextual stickers to set up imaginary scenarios. Indeed, they are part of the story, they are the story, they are writing the story.

The power is given to the public to construct singular narratives. They will also be able to slide their newly found ideas and stories on a wall display. They are given immediate power over the exhibition.

The 'Changing Relationships to Play' workshop ('Permission to Play') given at the Wellcome Collection in February 2020, investigates ways to play, educate and spark creativity in same ways. The system escorts you through the re-creation of specific museum spaces by picking 3 cards  -an urban space or feature… -that senses or measures… -that makes you… - Together they form a context for you invention.

“How might creativity be nurtured in learners, teachers as well as in our existing and future learning environments?”  ('Teaching for Creativity', medium.com, Nov 9, 2018)

As these two projects unfolds, I strongly confirm my interests for a search towards creative teaching and learning through space and participation. I wish to provide people with clever and accessible tools to  comprehend their environment and the creative impact they can have on it. Such interactions will hopefully lead towards a growing inclusiveness in the (re)creation of the common world.

⬛️ ANALYSIS  Both of my design processes, for classroom and museum, strongly relied on the thinking foundations of my practice. Indeed, the process of conscious experience is acquired within the very walls of schools, within the home or other learning environments such as museums. These social, educational spaces are key and build on our understanding of the local and global environments surrounding us. In a positive or negative way, they do shape our vision of the world and the role we will have to play in it.

For the museum brief, my capacity of balancing theory and practice was well challenged. Indeed, I wished to work on the museum and for the museum at the same time, incorporating conceptual notions of progressive structures as well as tangible informations and systems to be used by specific audiences. This quest for legibility, accessibility and theoretical depth is certainly very ambitious to achieve, and can sometimes make the outcome unclear on both sides. However, I try to push my practice further everytime by experimenting and user testing a lot.

As with my classroom brief, mutliple attempts were necessary to finally realise that the scope of action had been mistaken from the beginning. By printing out one, two, three versions of step-by-step guides I understood that focusing on single individual's learning experiences were maybe less efficient and impactful than reaching out established classrooms, and so, the educational system itself.

On another level, aligning my medium choice with the brief and re-considering the act of creating the surface and its content everytime helps the generation of exciting and playful situations, as I am constantly learning as well. Co-creation is also, in the end, still a difficult process to attain or even enjoy fully. Letting go challenges my control over visuals and narratives. Nonetheless, a consensus can still be found between authorship and participation. Studios like Metahaven, do combine both aspects and still have some control over the visual creation or written texts. As long as what's being presented sparks discussions and engage people in action, a meaningful piece of work has been, in my point of view, accomplished.

"To design is to express something while disappearing as an author, even though you are the author. That is also unlike art. Designers are stealth authors, secret agents, ghostwriters. Yet, the definition of “ designer ” and what a designer is doing is not something that is fixed for eternity. There have always been different kinds of designers and different interpretations of design as an activity, including the social and political implications. Unlike what we are being told, it is not that all these interpretations merely peacefully coexist."(https://indexgrafik.fr/in-pratice-metahaven/)

⬛️ BIBLIOGRAPHY

¹  Karl Marx, (1818 –1883) , Theory of Alienation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation)

 ²  The Situationists International, (1957 –1972), On Marx’s Theory of Alienation.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International)

 ³  Guy Debord, 1967, The Society Of The Spectacle.

 ⁴  Spike Art Magazine, 2014, Artist’s favourites by Metahaven. (http://www.spikeartmagazine.com/articles/artists-favourites-3)

 ⁵  (1925–1995) Gilles Deleuze, and (1930–1992) Félix Guattari on Geophilosophy. (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze)

 ⁶  on Gilles Deleuze. (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze)

 ⁷  on Psychogeography.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography)

 ⁸  The Rodina, 2015, Action to Surface. (https://www.therodina.com/actiontosurface/)

 ⁹  on Phenomenology. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy))

 ¹⁰  Liene Jakobsone, 2017, Critical design as approach to next thinking, The Design Journal.  (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14606925.2017.1352923)

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Adil Rashid: England's World Cup winner on faith, heart, unity & celebration

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Adil Rashid: England's World Cup winner on faith, heart, unity & celebration

A man begins to count down: “30, 29, 28… You’ve got until zero to get your selfies and after that it’s finished.”

Adil Rashid has just spent over an hour greeting jubilant supporters at Masjid Umar, his local mosque in his home city of Bradford, and is scrambling towards the exit. “Sorry about this,” he says as I attempt to keep up.

A few more excited children and adults sneak in a picture with their neighbourhood hero and he continues to apologise each time he is stopped. He suggests we head for his car, parked outside – the only peaceful place we’ll find for a chat.

As we get in and the doors are locked, he puffs out his cheeks and widens his eyes. It has been a whirlwind few days since England’s victory in the Cricket World Cup, and Rashid’s part in it.

After lifting the trophy at Lord’s following an incredible final on 14 July, he was mobbed by a raucous crowdon his homecoming, before meeting the prime minister with his team-mates at Downing Street a day later.

“I’m still on a high,” Rashid says. “It’s a good feeling to see everyone here, especially the kids. They’re seeing someone from this area who has made something for themselves and achieved something massive.

“There is hope there for them. He has done it and so can we. If I can be an inspiration to the youngsters – or anyone for that matter – then I have done my job.”

A celebratory event is being held at the mosque where Rashid prays and he points out that just a few yards up the street is where he first started playing cricket at the age of eight.

There are about 400 people there and, like England’s celebrations at The Oval the day after victory over New Zealand – when kids were given the opportunity to touch the trophy and get close to the players – the 100 or so children present are again ushered up to the front row.

Imam Sajid congratulates Rashid on his achievements and tells the captivated crowd to “aspire to be the best” in whatever field they choose. He gets a good laugh when he jokes: “We were all supporting England…as soon as Pakistan were knocked out.”

But it was not Rashid’s 11 wickets, including three in the semi-final win over Australia, or the 45 runs he scored in his five innings that the imam eulogised over. Instead, it was the “sacrifice he made for his country” in attempting a second run from the penultimate ball in the final, which allowed Ben Stokes to get back on strike.

Rashid was run out without facing a delivery. Stokes managed a single off the final ball of the innings to tie the match. Then came THAT super over. The imam adds: “Don’t forget your identity. First and foremost, we are Muslims – but we are born here and should serve our country.”

The leg-spinner fields a few medium-paced questions from the children. What would you be if you were not a cricketer? “A teacher to help the kids in the community.” Who’s better, you or Stokes? “He’s probably better, he’s a world-class player.”

As with all Muslim functions, such as weddings, presentation ceremonies or talks like this, a few Islamic verses are read and Rashid’s nephew, Haseeb, recites from the chapter of Yasin, seen as the heart of the Qur’an. It was through a chance meeting with a future colleague eight years ago that Rashid’s own heart changed for the better and helped turn him into the person he is today.

The crowd listened intently as Rashid spoke at his local mosque

Rashid became a professional for Yorkshire in 2006 at the age of 18. He played five one-day internationals for England in 2009, but was quickly dropped from the side. He has admitted he struggled to deal with that career “low”.

It was not until May 2015 that he was recalled to the international set-up, brought back two months after a disastrous World Cup that England exited at the group stage.

With 129 dismissals, Rashid was the leading wicket-taker in the world in between that World Cup and the one England hosted this summer, better than India’s Jasprit Bumrah, New Zealand’s Trent Boult and Australia’s Mitchell Starc.

The 31-year-old’s development has been aided by the appointment of Saqlain Mushtaq as England’s spin consultant. The former Pakistan international has been a huge influence on the field – but even more so off it.

“It was 2011 in this very mosque that I came for a prayer and I bumped into Saqlain, who was on a spiritual retreat here. I tagged along with him for around 10 days and it was an eye opener for me,” Rashid says.

“It brought up questions about what I am doing with my life outside of cricket. As a Muslim, what is my duty? What do I need to do? Am I being a good person? Am I reading all five compulsory prayers? I had to think about all that, because prior to that I was not a fully practising Muslim – it was all about cricket.

“You have a good day, you are buzzing. If you have a bad day then you feel depressed. I really got into Islam and started reading up on stuff so after that, whether I had a good or a bad day, I knew Allah was in control. That really got me content, level-headed and relaxed. You still work hard but the outcome became irrelevant.

“My emotions were more on an even keel – and that has been the case over the last six or seven years. Before that, the highs and lows were having a negative effect, not just on myself but those around me too. You get moody and down around friends and family but then get overly happy.

“That was something I was stuck into because I did not have a strong belief in Islam. The religion gave me a sense of a way of life around my actions, my etiquettes and how to interact with people. I’m very thankful to Allah that that happened to me.”

Saqlain Mushtaq with Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali before England’s match against New Zealand

That change saw Rashid take his faith much more seriously and he reveals that he, Saqlain and team-mate Moeen Ali pray together all the time, whether that be in the dressing room during matches or at the hotel.

They remind each other of the prayer times and make sure to “keep each other in check”, while the other players are now familiar with their rituals and everyone is “very respectful” of one another.

A custom which was widely shared on social media includes taking a team picture then “sliding away” when the players spray the champagne after winning a tournament, because touching or consuming alcohol is forbidden in Islam.

Meanwhile, England captain Eoin Morgan also received widespread praise after the final and a clip went viralwhere he said the team won because “Allah was definitely with us”. Rashid explains the context behind the quote.

“An England captain saying this after winning the World Cup with the media around the world watching, it will have shocked many people. ‘This is the captain of England, how can he say this?’

“It didn’t take me by surprise because Morgan is someone who believes in a higher power. The surprising thing was that he relayed a private conversation into the public by talking about it in the news conference after the game.

“When you win the World Cup, you have so many emotions and when the guy asked him the question about having the luck of the Irish, he remembered the chat and gave that response.

“For him to say that in the media was a big thing for him as a person. He has gained so much respect from Muslims around the world – and, from my behalf, it was just to tell him that God was with us, don’t worry.

“It will be taken positively and negatively, but he also said that the team is united, so I am thankful to him. He is a very nice person. He has a good heart, he wants the best in people and is very well respected.

“Just by that comment, it will change perceptions of Muslims. I have seen people locally and around the world going crazy over it. Morgs is respected so much.”

Drummers welcomed Rashid’s arrival in Bradford on Tuesday, two days after winning the World Cup

Rashid grew up in the working-class Girlington area of Bradford. Streets are lined with terraced houses predominantly occupied by Muslim families from Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afghan backgrounds.

A quiet and unassuming character, described as “humble” by former Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousaf,Rashid is now relishing the responsibility of helping others and says his schedule over the next few weeks includes supporting a Yorkshire cancer research event and speaking at a local school.

Last month, a six-part TV series that aired on BBC One called Hometown: A Killing delved into a world of drug disputes, gun crime and violence in West Yorkshire, particularly among the Pakistani community, but Rashid is optimistic despite the well-documented issues in the region.

“We are looking at the youngsters who are on the wrong path, not getting anywhere with their lives. Maybe they are involved in dealing drugs. It is them we want to target and get off the streets and get them knowing they can change their lives.

“For us as a team, being so diverse – with myself, Moeen, Morgan, Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes – it shows how we can come together and unite and play under the England banner. Unity can achieve so many things. We want to give the message that regardless of race, religion or colour, we have to respect everyone and be 100% committed to what you want to do.

“Hopefully it will open doors to many things. It was not just about winning a World Cup, it was about how we won it, who was involved. There were people from Pakistan, the West Indies, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa all coming together, showing that we can work as a team and achieve something.

“People will see that anything is possible. There is a lot of negativity around at the moment, and the uncertainty with Brexit, but hopefully this can turn things to a positive.

“This World Cup win will do wonders for the country. Inshallah.”

Rashid and the team met then Prime Minister Theresa May at Downing Street after their World Cup triumph

Read More

[static-enterprises]

The Origin of Static Enterprises

(Welp, I hope you guys enjoy the company’s origin story. I assure you, you won’t expect everything that happens in it. This post is so long. I’m so sorry.)

About three and a half years ago, before Static Enterprises was even a glimmer of a spark of inspiration, all three men that would make up the company were pressed for cash; no money influx was coming in for any of them and their respective landlords were two seconds away from kicking them out on their asses. Having escaped from jail two states over, authorities were close to closing in on them and no access to hiding places would not help in that situation.

The prospect of going to jail again is enough to sour the mood of just about anybody, so the trio was in a anxious funk for the longest time. That is, until Rodney decides:

“You know what? FUCK THIS! So we’re broke, so we’re about to get booted out onto the streets, so the police are gonna come and probably drag us to jail whenever. SO WHAT! I say: we gather up all the money we got, hit the internet, book ourselves on a cruise and wreak some havoc on a goddamn tropical island before the fat lady sings! If we’re gonna go out, we go out with a BANG, BITCHES!”

Though not to the same...extent as Rodney, Steve and Vincent got fired up as well. They didn’t just roll over and die! They steamrolled as many as possible before going out in a blaze of glory! Thus, Steve got to work hacking into an elite cruise liner’s website to give them a low-down discount on their tickets. And by ‘low-down discount’, I mean, make it seem like they added money for their tickets virtually when in reality, nadda. The day came two weeks later and they were ready; so ready that they marched onto the boat long before anybody else was even there.

TSK! Wrong boat they got on. It was a cruise liner, yes, but not the one they were supposed to be on. This one was meant...for villains...from all over the world....to attend the infamous convention...on Hannibal Island. 

If you asked Steve how they managed to fuck up that badly, to this day, he can’t tell you.

To make matters even worse for the unfortunate group of delinquents, Steve is mistaken as a new upcoming villain; apparently, some newb decided to be an anonymous entry to give themselves a sense of being an enigma and didn’t even fucking show up. (Killed in an accident before the con, what can you do?) So the most unfamiliar (and unique) face of the three of them just had to be who everybody was looking for. And to add onto this disastrous train wreck of a situation: he was expected to prevent an invention at a expo...that. very. night.

Needless to say, when they got into their suite, he started freaking the fuck out.

“WHAT THE FUCK?! I can’t do this shit!” “Well, it ain’t like you got a choice! Unless you wanna go out there and tell every villain from here to Timbuktu, we just civilians that got on the wrong ship.” “Yeah man. I’m down for a fight whenever, but uh, even I think that’s a little out of our skill sets.” “Oh okay, so what the hell am I suppose to do then?! I don’t have nothing!” “You were tinkering with something on the drive here, weren’t you? Use that!” “It doesn’t have a power source! Everything I’ve tried to use hasn’t been strong enough; from double A’s to a truck battery, nothing works.”

Upon hearing this, Vincent springs forth an idea.

“Well, we are on a ship filled with villains. I’m pretty sure one of them has to have something you can use.”

“Oh yeah, Vincent, let me walk up to one of these festering cesspools of villainy and horror; ask them for a cup of radioactive materials and see how well that goes over.”

“................Who says we have to ask?” “................Vincent, are you telling me you want to rob one of these heinous monsters?”

“Sure, why not?”

Outvoted, out of fucks to give and running out of time, Steve allowed Vincent to go and find a power source for him. Minutes turned into hours and hours ticked by till Steve found himself about to be thrust onto stage, nothing to his name and about to crap his pants. It’s in those few precious seconds that Vincent decides to grace them with his presence with a glowing, green crystal in hand; the TV head didn’t have time to question his friend as to why the hell it took him so long, what he had shoved in his hands before he was rushed on stage. He barely jammed the thing in there before he was in the spotlight...

To make a long story short, his invention; “The Iron Maiden Apparatus” was a massive hit to all the villains in attendance. Save for an unimpressed eye roll from one Black Hat, mind you. Upon exiting the stage, he is met with the enthusiastic chattering of Rodney and smug thumbs up of Vincent.

“Man, this stuff works great! Where’d you get it from?” “I found it when I parkoured up to a room, bout two stories up from us. I saw some green glow coming from a gun on the table and decided fuck it, pried it open and grabbed the crystal. Real weird thing was in there too; a big ass blue bear that had a daisy on its head. Almost pet it, but stopped myself just in time.”

“.......Steve, why you looking like you wanna cry?”

Sure enough, Black Hat was up next to present his latest invention and Steve felt like he’d gotten sucker punched in the gut. Immediately, he tried to take the device off his wrist to hide it, but the energy was so strong, that the clamps had melded together. And it didn’t take long for Black Hat to notice that his ray wasn’t doing what it was designed to do and immediately...pinned the blame on Flug, giving Steve the false hope that he’d get away with this. Unfortunately for him, the scientist wasn’t all that keen on getting mauled on his behalf and pointed out that their power source had been stolen by someone since the green aura was gone. The eldritch horror immediately turns to the gallery and demands that the thief made themselves known.

Everybody looked at one another for a few seconds, muttering before some little snitch goes:

“Hey, wasn’t the last guy’s invention glowing green?”

Steve hadn’t even waited around after Flug pointed out the power source was gone. Was out and running around the ship by the time it was pointed out. So his night was spent, running around to avoid Black Hat in all his otherworldly wrath while everybody else got a good night’s sleep.

As soon as the boat docked at Hannibal Island, the trio were the first ones off the boat and managed to hijack one of those luggage carts to make their getaway. Staying in town was a big no-no, so they ended up roughing it out in the jungle that surrounded the entire island. Steve, being the one that had initiated and bore the brunt of Black Hat’s ire, was rightfully panicked.

“Okay guys, stay calm. Stay calm. Don’t think about the fact we’re stuck in the middle of the ocean, no way off of it. Don’t think about the fact that the biggest villain in the world is after us. DON’T THINK ABOUT ANY OF THAT! STAY CALM! STAY CA-” THWACK!

“Thank you. I needed that.” “Anytime, buddy. Now we can focus on how we’re getting out of there.” "Ah, come on guys! What did we pledge to do before we went on this trip?" "Not die?" "Er, before that one." "Rodney, I don't see how we could POSSIBLY have fun with the situation we're in right now." "We can play a game: 'Find the way off the island'! First one to find something to get us out of here...wins!"

Steve is...flabbergasted for lack of a better word.

"That sounds like a terribl-" "One two three, go!" "I'm gonna beat you, Rodney!" "In your dreams, Vincent!" "......Those two will be the death of me. And probably today at that."

Deciding he had nothing better to do, Steve decides to start searching as well. Game aside, he knew they still needed a way off of the island and decided searching was better than sitting around like a passive waste. An hour, hour and a half goes by and he ends up in some reclusive river that's connected to the ocean...and finds- "A SWAMPBOAT? Here, of all place? ....Ah well. I ain't one to look a gift horse in the mouth." But the boat's battery is completely drained and the engine will backfire, but won't start. Plus it roars up noise like you wouldn't believe, so using it to escape incognito was a definite longshot...

Steve heads back the way he came to check and see if Vincent or Rodney were back yet...only to have the both of them ram into him at breakneck speed.

"Aaaah! What the hell is the matter with you dumbasses?! Why are you racing around like two bats out of hell?!" "Because I totally found something to get us off the island!" "Nu-uh! What I found is way better than what you found!" "Is not." "Is too." "Is not." "Is too." "Is not!" "IS TOO!" "Why am I friends with you two toddlers?"

Vincent presents first.

"Behold! The key to that gigantic cruiseliner we were on! I managed to sneak on board and snatch it; we can take the boat and leave whenever we want!" "Sooooo....you really expect no one to notice that the giant ship, which is the only way off of the island for all the villains mind you, is leaving port? And you expect that there are really no people on board? Like at all, Vincent?"

"Well, why not right?" "Step aside, loser. Check THIS out!" "Is....is that a toolbox?" "Yup." "..........How. Is a toolbox gonna help us?" "Because we've got you, silly! All you gotta do now is invent something to get us out of here." "You really overestimate just how much I can do sometimes, Rodney."

"Though in this case. You may have accidentally delivered our only chance of escape." "He did?" "I did? Yes! I won, I won, I won!" "Come on, I'll show you." So upon showing them to the swampboat, Steve gets to work actually examining everything. The hull is sound and doesn't have any cracks in it, so they won't sink out on the ocean. "Wow, all things considered, this...isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Hell, we'll be out of here come dawn if I really put my back into it!" "Yes! Nothing will stop us!" 

And on cue, a loud radio broadcast goes off that rings throughout the entire island: "IT's that time again, folks! Time for the fabulous all-you-can-eat buffet fit for a million tyrant dictators! And you could even end up winning this year's grand prize of secret service's evil lair design!"

Aaaaaand Vincent's stomach rumbles. ".......Nooooo." Aaaaand Rodney's stomach rumbles. "...Noooooo!" "LET'S EAT!" "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" When Steve's stomach rumbles, though, he knows it's all over. 

"Look, we check out the spread, eat a little bit, grab some doggy bags then bounce, alright?" "But what about the raffle?" "What about it?! We're not villains!" "Yeah, but we are about to get kicked out onto the street. What harm could it do to just enter?" "Gaaaaah, fine! Fine! Who cares at this point, do it!" "Yaaaaaaay!" 

So two of them go towards the buffet, the other towards the raffle. Somehow this split ended with them careening through the streets of the island on a flaming food server tray with peking duck still on it... Black Hat and his motley crew are right behind them in a golf cart that he stole from a caddy, so it's a pretty spectacular sight for sore eyes. Luckily, golf carts weren’t made to support a lizard chick, an eldritch horror, a scientist and a gigantic bear. It's what really gives the band of idiots the head start they need to get back to the swampboat and let Steve get it semi-operationable.

"Oh god, the battery is still dead! Gee, I can fucking go into town to gorge myself on fancy lobster, but I can be asked to bring the battery for a charge?! NOOOO!" "Wait! We do have the technology!"  "What are you on about, Vincent?"  "Remember that thing that got's Black Hat so mad at you in the first place? The one that's still attached to your wrist?"

"Are you telling me to hook my wrist up to a boat battery that's been festering in who knows how many bacteria for who knows how long until we get back to the mainland?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"

"But...but the bacteria!" "Hey, does anybody else hear something that sounds like the piercing wails of a thousand forsaken souls or is that just me?" | "..............But the BACTERIA!"

Steve, very reluctantly, sticks his wrist onto dirty battery with a squeal of disgust and right as an angry Black Hat cuts down the trees hiding them, the boat takes off like a shot through the narrow river it was situated in. 

"This is so gross, I'm gonna need, like, fifteen tetanus shots when we're back home, guys!" "WEEEEEE HOOOOOO! We're going so fast!"

It's only when they get out to sea does Vincent get the brilliant idea of- "Let's be villains!" "What?!" "Yeah, let's do it!" "WHAT?!"

"Ah, come on, Steve! Let's face the facts, none of us are really any good at being, well, 'good'!" "Yeah, we don't even fit in the lawful neutral category that most people are in. Just last week, you and I set fire to a grocery store because the owner was a bitch!"

"YOU set fire to the store because the owner was a bitch. I cut the brakes out of her car while you were pouring gasoline inside the store, remember?" "EXACTLY! And being bad is AWESOME! They loved your invention too; imagine the dough we could wrack in if we were able to auction off your ideas!"

"But Black Hat-" "And it would get such a rise out of that smug motherfucker to have someone FINALLY go up against him in the black market business!" "Yeah! And he'll know that it'll all be because he couldn't catch us that ONE. TIME. Ah, so delicious I can almost taste it!"

"But...But...BUT! .........Ah, fuck it, why not?"

"Wait, really? Just like that?" "Yeah, I know. I should be kicking up a fuss right now, but....I guess I want some payback for him ruining our vacation too."

Thus, on a swampboat in the middle of the ocean at one in the morning, "Static Enterprises" was born!

[leftpress]

The Bizarre Far-Right Billionaire Behind Trump's Presidency

When all seemed to be falling apart for Trump this summer, one shadowy billionaire offered up his own massive political infrastructure, which included Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, and saved Trump’s campaign from demise

July, 2016 and a very disorganized Trump campaign is headed into an equally chaotic Republican National Convention. The latest fundraising numbers for June are dismal, and according to CNBC, Trump is second guessing his decision to make Mike Pence his running mate, making last minute phone calls to assess the pick just days before the event. Past GOP candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney have decided to skip the convention. So have both former Bush presidents. One day before the convention and there’s still no official list of speakers. Nevertheless, July 18th roles around and the GOP has to move forward with the show. 

[Transcript Below Break]

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GOP Convention “Keep on singing […] USA, USA” The convention is considered a disaster. It exposes a party in disarray. Delegations from Iowa and Colorado stage a walkout over a critical rules vote. Delegates chanting, Denver 7 Broadcast “Roll call vote, roll call vote […] Right there in the top right you can actually see Kendal Unruh in blue. She’s one of the leaders of the never Trump or dump Trump movement, trying to get the rules changed at the start of the convention to let delegates vote their conscience.” Subsequent polls show Trump trailing Clinton in need-to-win swing states. Coupled with a string of bad press stories, including Trump’s fight with the family of a fallen Iraq vet, the Trump campaign seems to have lost its momentum. Joe Scarborough, MSNBC “Donald Trump is just not doing what is required to win.” In a surprise move, the Trump campaign shakes up it’s leadership at the eleventh hour, bringing on far-right editor in chief of Breitbart News Steve Bannon along with former Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway. Days later, David Bossie, head of the corporate advocacy group Citizens United, is brought on as deputy manager of the campaign. The campaign also hires the data mining firm Cambridge Anayltica tasked with probing the American voters mind. At a glance, these last-minute developments look desperate and disjointed. Dana Perino, FOX “I don’t know what they’re doing. I wish I could tell you.” But a closer look reveals something different. It reveals a hidden connection between these players, a thread between this seemingly random cast of actors. Enter billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. They’ve been eyeing Trump ever since their first choice, Ted Cruz, dropped out of the primaries back in May. SOT — Ted Cruz “We are suspending our campaign.” Robert Mercer is part of a new class of billionaires, along with the Koch brothers for example, who’ve used the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allows for unlimited amounts of cash contributions in US elections, to set up their own powerful political infrastructures that today they rival that of the two major parties. The fuel behind Mercer’s influence, along with most of the top activist billionaires in America, is the absurd sums of money he accrues at the investment company he runs, Renaissance Technologies, based on Long Island, New York. Its famed Medallion fund is one of the most successful hedge funds in investing history, averaging 72 percent returns before fees over more than 20 years, a statistic that baffles analysts, and outranks the profitability of other competing funds, like the ones George Soros and Warren Buffet run. In 2015, Mercer had single-handedly catapulted Cruz to the front of the Republican field, throwing more than $13 million into a super PAC he created for the now failed candidate. But with the Trump campaign faltering and struggling for support, there’s a second chance for the Mercers to make a big bet. The Trump campaign is well aware of this. In fact, sources within Mercer’s super PAC would later tell Bloomberg news that moments after Cruz drops out of the race, Ivanka Trump and her wealthy developer husband, Jared Kushner, approach the Mercers, asking if they’d be willing to shift their support behind Trump. The answer is an eventual but resounding yes. In the months leading up to Trump’s presidential win, the Mercers would prove a formidable force. Beginning after the disastrous Republican convention in July, they would furnish the Trump campaign not only with millions of dollars but with new leadership. But they would furnish him with something more: a vast network of non profits, strategists, media companies, research institutions and super PACs that they themselves funded, and largely controlled. Carrie Levine, Center for Public Integrity “I think what you’ve seen is a lot of these organizations in this network come out to play a role in the 2016 elections.” With the Mercer family in the picture, the post-convention shake-up starts to make sense. Take Steve Bannon. He and Robert Mercer have been close for years. And Mercer is a top investor in Breitbart news, where Bannon was chief editor. Mercer’s also funded a number of Bannon’s media projects. Kellyanne Conway also comes out of this network. Before becoming co manager of Trump’s campaign, she headed up operations for Robert Mercer’s super PAC when it was supporting Ted Cruz. Deputy campaign manager David Bossie was president of Citizens United before joining the campaign, an organization Mercer has heavily funded since at least 2010. Cambridge Analytica, the mysterious data mining firm that received grudging praise after predicting the race’s outcome more accurately than any other polling company, is also heavily funded by Robert Mercer, and was employed by the Cruz campaign before Mercer switched over to Trump. In fact, the Mercers’ political infrastructure is so entrenched, that Rebekah Mercer herself sits on the 16 person executive committee of Trump’s transition team. Mercer’s foray into the White House may seem to have been born partly out of luck, especially with Trump instead of Cruz as his stalking horse. But his rise to power was systematic, and it was years in the making. The web of connections Mercer’s built over the last decade is vast and complex. It includes efforts to dismantle tax law and weaken the IRS; it’s about funding quack scientists and conspiracy theorists who blame the government for, among other things, playing a role in the San Bernadino massacre and of colluding with the United Nations in using climate change as an excuse to implement environmental laws meant to depopulate America’s midwest. It’s about pouring money into the neoconservative John Bolton Super PAC, which props up candidates who ascribe to Bolton’s very hawkish foreign policy. But one of Mercer’s earliest activist ventures was financing a slew of fringe documentary projects that’ve helped raise the profiles of people like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and most notably, the director of those films, Steve Bannon. Bannon, who was previously a naval officer and Goldman Sachs investment banker, made his first documentary in 2004 about Ronald Reagan. It retold his biography using washed out, black and white archival footage of the Hollywood actor, painting him as brave protector of western democracy from the threat communism. In the Face of Evil “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this the last best hope of man on earth or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.” The film wasn’t a commercial success. According to the reviews, it was a flop. But it developed a cult following. And it revealed that there was an untapped audience for this sort of film, which demonized America’s current establishment while lamenting the death of old-time conservatism under Reagan. In the Face of Evil would also connect Bannon to conservative author Peter Schweizer, who’s namesake book the film was based on.  It would also connect him to another rising conservative figure Bannon met at a screening of his Reagan film in Beverly Hills, a man Bannon recalled in a Bloomberg piece who came up to him after the showing like a “bear,” he said “who’s squeezing me like my head’s going to blow up and saying how we’ve gotta take back the culture.” His name: Andrew Breitbart, a conservative commentator who for the next few years would join Bannon and Schweizer in their efforts to establish a fresh conservative narrative, with Breitbart himself focusing on an idea for a new media company, something partly inspired by a trip to Jerusalem and the need to create an outlet "that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel", something that would come to fruition in 2007 and that he would call breitbart.com. “One of the things I admired about [Breitbart],” Bannon said in that Bloomberg story, “was that the dirtiest word for him was ‘punditry’ […] Our vision—Andrew’s vision—was always to build a global, center-right, populist, anti-establishment news site.” But that wasn’t all. What Bannon, Schweizer and Breitbart really wanted to forge was a multi-teared effort to push their agenda. They wanted to fund Schweizer’s books and Bannon’s films. They wanted a research wing. Ultimately, they wanted to create a media infrastructure big enough to pump their ideology into America’s national discourse. But they needed more investors. And they needed large investors, people who could fund this giant operation for a sustained period of time, because what this right-wing trio had set out to do wasn’t to simply start a business. It was to transform America’s rage, it’s largely white, rural, working class discontent into a political movement that would storm Washington, first in the form of the Tea Party, and again six years later in the form of Trump. That influx of cash would come from the organization more famous now for the Supreme Court decision it inspired than for the media and political work it’s done for decades, thanks in part to funders like the Koch brothers and, of course, Robert Mercer. The pro-corporate advocacy group Citizens United was created in 1988, and for years it had pumped out television ads, films and other forms of media content that sought to put pressure both on Democrats as well as more moderate Republicans to embrace a far-right, corporate-friendly approach to politics. Citizens United Promo “Remember that the left controls Hollywood. They control entertainment. They control the movies. They control television. They control mass media. They control certainly journalism. And so, what Citizens United has figured out is that through the media, they can in fact move public opinion. They can shape America, and thereby shape Washington.” It was that effort that gave rise to the film Hillary: The Movie, which in turn lead to the supreme court case that changed the way politics is done in the United States. It’s worth noting that the Citizens United decision to allow for unlimited campaign contributions through super PACs didn’t originate from any billionaire or corporation directly complaining about contribution limits. It originated from this documentary, which Bannon directed, and which FEC rules barred from being shown because it fell under the category of “electioneering communications.” Essentially, union and corporate funded groups like Citizens United couldn’t air anything critical about a candidate within 30 days of the primaries, and 60 days of the general elections. The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down that rule opened up the floodgates for unlimited campaign spending, which Citizens United and its billionaire and corporate donors seized upon. Citizens United has been heavily funded by the Koch Brothers and their network of donors, which Mercer joined early on. But in 2010, Mercer decides to extend his reach and influence beyond the confines of that network, beginning first with Breitbart News, which at the time had hit a bit of a rough patch. Andrew Breitbart had put out a misleading video that showed a Department of Agriculture official, Shirley Sherrod, making what people characterized as racist remarks towards white people. Sherrod was fired, and when it came out afterwards that the clip had been manipulated, Sherrod sued Andrew Breitbart. The lawsuit fell on the heels of another false video exposé Breitbart had done a year earlier involving the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, which had resulted in their loss of private and government funding. After the Sherrod video, the media virtually blacklisted him along with his site from mainstream. The hiccup prompted Mercer to capitalize on the event. According to Bloomberg news, he puts upwards of $10 million in the company later that year, making him a top investor. The next two years are spent expanding and sharpening these media connections. Bannon continues to produce documentaries, including The Undefeated, featuring the rise of Sarah Palin, as well as Occupy Unmasked, which aimed to discredit the 2011 protest movement. Occupy Unmasked (Breitbart): “These people feel morally justified to commit crimes.” Schweizer continues publishing his books, most notably Clinton Cash in 2015, which Bannon adapted into a documentary and which fueled the right’s obsession with Hillary Clinton and the sources for her foundation. Meanwhile, Mercer is quietly lubricating his political and financial empire, doling out money to a whole slew of conservative non profits such as the Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute, Citizens United and many more. Then, in 2012, Andrew Breitbart dies suddenly from a heart attack. Wolf Blitzer, CNN “[…] dead at the age of 43. Breitbart was certainly a driving force in the Tea Party movement as well as a very influential political voice on the internet.” Mercer and Bannon, who was a board member at Breitbart, quickly rearrange leadership roles in an effort to not lose any momentum. In fact, Breitbart’s death seemed to have been a morbid blessing for the group. Breitbart, unlike his compatriots, had always been more of an old-school, more moderate conservative. He’d worked at the Drudge Report, which many saw as a bullhorn for the Bush administration. More surprisingly, he’d been a researcher for Arianna Huffington, and helped create an early model for what would become the liberal Huffington Post. So: Mercer, Bannon and Schwiezer crank up the heat. In the months after Breitbart dies, Bannon is made executive chairman of breitbart.com. Schweizer, meanwhile, founds a new research group that focuses on feeding content to Breitbart news and Citizens United for their documentary projects called the Government Accountability Institute, where Mercer is a top funder while Bannon sits on the board. These shifts are all taking place in the shadows of the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Romney epitomized the GOP establishment, and Mercer must have been reluctant to give to his campaign: he ended up throwing about a million dollars into a super PAC supporting Romney, a paltry number compared to the $15 million he spent on Trump, and the $13 million he spent on Cruz. Romney’s loss was a heavy defeat for Republican voters around the country. With so many Americans still struggling to get back on their feet after the 2008 economic crisis, his defeat angered many GOP voters. Some blamed Obama and the Democrats. Others blamed the Republican establishment, including Romney himself. But at the NYU Club in New York, moments after the news of Obama’s reelection, one unsuspecting voice would take a small group of wealthy donors by storm, blasting the Romney team for dropping the ball on their data mining and canvassing operations. That woman was Rebekah Mercer, Robert Mercer’s daughter. After Romney, Rebekah became her father’s right hand. Before that, Robert Mercer’s role in his political dealings was to supply money to the people he admired and trusted, people like Bannon, Schweizer and Breitbart. Rebekah wanted to change that. She wanted accountability over the money her father spent. And Romney’s failure provided an opportunity to step into the republican arena and assert her and her father’s agenda. Between 2012 and 2016, she would take formal leadership positions at the think tanks and non profits her father funded. She became a director at Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute. She took over the Mercer Family Foundation. And more recently, she managed her father’s super PAC, alongside Kellyanne Conway. She and her father began to engage more in what you might call a kind of sniper fire politics, investing money in very specific races and causes. Carrie Levine “We’ve seen Robert Mercer put money into super pacs in races that have something to do with often tax. This cycle he gave money to a super pac backing a primary challenger to senator John McCain in Arizona. McCain is a Republican and he was the cochair of the senate committee that investigated Renaissance’s tax strategies.” McCain would later say he thought Mercer was doing this because of that investigation, which was looking into whether RenTec had avoided more than $6 billion in taxes over the course of 14 years. For the 2016 Republican primaries, Robert Mercer decided to put his support behind Ted Cruz and so did Bannon. But as Cruz faltered and took positions that ran counter to Bannon’s conservative agenda, like supporting the TPP, Mercer and Bannon began questioning their support of a candidate who was too obviously trying to appease both the disgruntled American voter as well as corporate interests in Washington. In the end, Cruz’s evangelical christian persona failed to cover up his true identity, which was as a Harvard-educated lawyer who’d worked for years in Washington including as a young clerk in the Supreme Court. Robert Mercer seldom makes public appearances and he never talks to the press. The only time he’s spoken publicly was in 2014, after he received a lifetime achievement award from the Association for Computational Linguistics. In the hour-long acceptance speech he gives in Baltimore, Maryland, Mercer spends almost all of his time talking about his passion for computers. Robert Mercer “I loved everything about computers. I loved the solitude of the computer lab late at night. I loved the air-conditioned smell of the place. I loved the sound of the discs whirring and the printers clacking.” None of his remarks are political, except for one comment he makes, when he’s talking about the time he worked at the Air Force weapons lab in New Mexico, and the one day he discovered how to make their computers run 100 times faster. Robert Mercer “A strange thing happened. Instead of running the old computations in 1/100 of the time, the powers that be at the lab ran computations that were 100 times bigger. I took this as an indication that one of the most important goals of government-financed research is not so much to get answers as it is to consume the computer budget. Which has left me ever since with a jaundiced view of government-financed research.” Mercer doesn’t quite fit into an established upper class. He isn’t exactly a Wall Street type, and neither are the 300 employees, many of whom are, like him, advanced mathematicians and physicists, who work at Renaissance Technologies’ brainchild, the Medallion fund. Carrie Levine “I think it’s interesting to note that this is a guy who has a programming background, a coding background who didn’t start out on Wall Street and so he’s come to this through sort of a different route […] He’s spoken very little about his political giving and so we can’t say a lot about his motives, at least not [from] what he’s said.” The fund is known for its secrecy. It’s been closed to outside investors since 2005, and what exactly they trade isn’t fully understood. What is known is that what Mercer along with retired Renaissance Technologies founder James Simons and co CEO Peter Brown have done is master the math behind something called quantitative trading, which involves gaming the stock market using advanced algorithms and data analysis to create unprecedented profits.   Bill Black, former bank regulator “All they do is make one group of literally billionaires slightly richer than another group of billionaires […] but they add absolutely nothing to the economy or the world effectively.” 2016’s list of biggest political donors is stacked with billionaires who’ve made their money by engaging in what amount to different forms of gambling. The largest donor of the cycle, Tom Steyer is a hedge fund manager. The second, Sheldon Adelson, is a casino magnate. The third, Donald Sussman, is a quant fund manager. Strangely enough, founder of Renaissance Technologies James Simons, who’s one the Democrats’ largest donors, is number 5 on the list, while his colleague and Republican counterpart Robert Mercer is number 7. Bill Black “It’s not a coincidence that the enormous amounts of wealth go to people who are connected with gambling, but recall that they don’t gamble. Adelson is the House. The House, mathematically, is going to win. And the idea at the hedge fund is that is, again, to have better math than the other billionaires so that you have — statistically you’re going to win.” Casino capitalism has given people like Robert and Rebekah Mercer riches and power beyond most people’s imagination. But the role of activist billionaires in American politics isn’t new. It’s just become stronger as wealth is concentrated in fewer hands, with the top 1 percent of Americans today holding on to 40 percent of the country’s wealth, and with much of that increase taking place in the finance and energy sectors of the economy. The rise of people like Robert Mercer and the Koch brothers reflects how billionaires have gradually taken more direct control over politicians and the state. Bill Black “One of the things that is really useful if you’re a billionaire and that you get your money by doing nothing socially useful, is to valorize what you’re doing and to demonize anyone that might actually restrict it by law, regulation even social mores. And propaganda is historically, the answer to that.” 

[blschaos3000-blog]

Its 1:26 pm warm/Memorial Day/never forget

Welcome to 8 Questions with…….

Today’s interview is a little different in a couple of ways. Today’s guest,Blaine Kelley,is my first politicallt active guest. Now I usually find the folks I talk with via Facebook or a third party.  But Blaine is also my first Twitter guest,he and I have been friends on that platform for around three years now. And yes,Blaine is one of the most active voices against Donald Trump and his fascist regime. He posts different news articles,gets out in the street and encourages everyone to excercise their right to vote no matter how hard the Republicans are trying to deny and suppress that right. I have found Blaine to be a warm and generous man who loves his family and his country. He is willing to discuss just about anything as well….in fact he and I have had some really nice chats about life in general. What I respect most about Blaine is that he will be friends with just anyone based on face value,he doesn’t judge anyone and lets their actions speak for themselves. In today’s world,that is rapidly becoming a rare trait. I know by posting this interview that I am showing where I stand in today’s world and while I plan to interview other activists,my blog is not a political one nor will it become one. Simply because I think politics are dead and good people like Blaine Kelley are fighting for the life and the future of this country. So I hope you will really read the answers to the 8 Questions (plus a couple more) that I asked Blaine Kelley……

Please introduce yourself and share a little bit of your background with us.

Hello- My name is Blaine Kelley. I am from central California. I have always lived here and have no desire to live elsewhere.  I went to school at Pepperdine University where I studied Economics and Literature. I Attended Law School at Southern Cal.  I worked as a civil attorney for over a decade until I burned out on the grind.  My mother was suffering from cancer and I spent several years attending to her while she battled it. I began to feel the need to go back to work so I invested in a construction corporation and became a board member and the VP of operations. I continued this for a decade finally selling my shares and entering the corporate consulting world.

How are you and your family coping with the Covid-19 lockdown?

  During this time I met my spouse and we relocated from San Diego to The Bay Area. When Covid-19 struck I had been following the science for several months. I was not surprised at the lightening speed of the spread in the US. I was prepared.  We have been sheltering In place longer than most of the country and it shows on the infection growth curve for California.  I feel very lucky for this.  We have two children, 10 and 14, whom I have taken the responsibility of educating during the pandemic. Many of you know this is quite a challenge. Beyond this the “lockdown’ has presented many obstacles: Being isolated from friends and family is a challenge the video calling only partially overcomes.  Further it is a daily challenge to stay physically mentally and physically fit without access to the “normal” outlets that keep me and my family on an even keel.

When did you become politically active and what was the issue that peaked your interest?

  I am 50 and became interested in politics during high school.  The Iran Contra Affair was interesting because my best friends neighbor was arrested for weapons trafficking. We lived in a small beach community so this was A BIG DEAL.  My family was always involved in political activities. My grandfather was a contemporary of Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta. He marched with the farmworkers from Delano to Sacramento. It wasn’t uncommon to visit them and dine with famous social and political figures.  The strong pro-union sentiment is something I still support and am proud of to this day. Political corruption has always been one of my main areas of interest when thinking about the political perspective. Weather local or national, corruption has been and will be, the single biggest danger to the democratic ideal most Americans cherish.

What is “the Resistance”?

  The Resistance to me is merely a group of citizens who are fed up with the corruption that is choking our Democracy right now. We see the questionable validity of our election process, and more importantly, the disastrous results that political apathy and general ignorance have delivered upon us all.  Within my circle of allies you will find individuals from across the political spectrum. What we have in common is a passionate love of our Country and a steadfast belief in the Rule Of Law.  Without fair and balanced laws society will not function as envisioned by the founders, the citizenry, and the our allies across the world who, by necessity, need the United States to be the Beacon of Justice for the World.

Do you feel only having two political parties have led us down this path in which we have a fascist president?  What three things would you reform if you could do so?

  I have little experience with anything other than the two party system. Accordingly, my thoughts on a parliamentary system are not favorable. I think 90-95 percent of Americans all want the same thing but want to take a different route across town to reach the destination. Accordingly, more parties won’t solve this issue but more imput and cooperation will.

Do you feel a corporate owned press does more damage then good and why/why not?

  The so called free press is partially at fault for the current fiasco we have in Washington. We have ZERO requirements that “the press” report Facts, Truth, or anything advising the consumer that opinion is being presented as NEWS.  This is an epic failure of Congress and the Courts. It is difficult to determine if the big three (MSNBC.CNN.FOX) are mostly responsible for the authoritarian crisis we currently face. What is clear, Ratings (income) are the primary goal of all media in the United States. This is problematic as the echo chamber effect is fully our current reality.  Obviously this is not the way to unite all citizens for any common good. Divide and conquer is a successful strategy that has been effective for thousands of years.

How can we recover our country or have we gone past that point?

I definitely think we can save our county and political system. We have not yet lost all respect and understanding for and of the Rule Of Law. We are close as normalization of authoritian actions is “normalized” by Fox news and to a lessor extent by the other two daily. We also see most Members of the GOP doing the same in furtherance of personal and professional necessity. The margin is razor thin for the upcoming election. If America is to be saved some wholesale changes must be made if the Authoritian corporate machine is defeated in November. Among these are Citizens United, wholesale voter repression/suppression ,and  term limits to nave a few.

How do you explain what is happening to your kids?

10 and 14 have a basic understanding of the problems we face. I explain how (corny but deal) Truth and Justice are integral to the American Way. I define Justice as; those who fail to follow the laws of man, as passed by our court or, made by our lawmakers, are punished according to those same laws. That clearly is not happening!

Do you feel the revisionist policies in our schools have played a part of the rise in fascism here?

I don’t consider revisionist content in schools the major problem but rather the wholesale elimination of content the culprit.  Ignorance of the designed mechanisms of the political and legal worlds is the biggest educational failure I see. This has led to a loss of respect for both The Law And The Political Process. Loss of respect has led to apathy.

How do you encourage people and which people encourage you?

I try to encourage others to do one simple thing….VOTE. By explaining that the ability to vote is a privilege I hope to inspire others to become more aware of their ability to affect other lives in a positive way. I tend to barrage people with facts……sometime too many. Lately I have just pushed the idea that if you vote you rightfully have a say in the outcome. People that inspire me are those who understand that wisdom is important yet easy to acquire. It isn’t all  about IQ but about paying attention and digesting what you see in a meaningful way.

Do you feel we as a society have become much to reactionary because we feel powerless to do anything?

  No on the contrary we are way too fucking apathetic.  Many will passively sit by and watch while tragedy occurs RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM.  Two examples: Last year my Spouse and I were at the store and witnessed a man hitting his wife!  I ran up and, along with another, grabbed the man separating him from the woman. There were at least 15 other bystanders doing NOTHING. Four months ago I was driving and a woman was running in traffic. She was  screaming….. She was being chased by a man.  I pulled over and inserted myself between her and the man allowing her to get in her car and escape. Taking personal responsibility to make my city a better place for all is what everyone needs to do. We have to get out of our personal bubble and take some responsibility to make life better for everyone. Liberty and freedom are not going to last for any of us unless all of us work together.

 What do you like to to do for fun when you’re able to do so?

I enjoy a wide variety of things. Books, live music, and the outdoors are my favorites. Somehow eating delicious things seems to be involved in most of those activities. My family is the center of most of these a interests. Traveling to a concert, sporting event, or a National Park we find a way to experience new foods along the way.

The cheetah and I are flying over to watch to attend a political rally but we are a day early and now you are playing tour guide,what are we doing?

Accordingly I would encourage you and the Cheetah to check out the bay and the museums here. Mainly because great food is always near. A trip to the Capital is a short hop as well. The Cheetah would love a romp through the many estuaries in search of things to smell and chase………

I like to thank Blaine for talking the time to chat with us and being candid  about his views on the state of America. As November gets closer,this next vote is the most important in our nation’s history. If we don’t retake back our country then,we never will.

You can follow Blaine on his Twitter by clicking here.

Feel free to drop us a comment below. 

8 Questions with………political activist Blaine Kelley Its 1:26 pm warm/Memorial Day/never forget Welcome to 8 Questions with....... Today's interview is a little different in a couple of ways.

[tobinifesi]

The Word I Needed To Know Right Now

How Tom Hanks called my attention to the word that emphasizes the essence of these crazy times

Words are capable of demystifying and filling blank spaces. 

If you walk into an empty hollow hallway in a forgotten and mysterious building in the middle of nowhere, your eyes will capture the nothingness that surrounds you and your brain will calculate the probability of something - someone or some creature - springing out from one of the hollow ends of the hallway. However, the moment you make a sound or utter a word, an echo fills the hallway, detaches you from your anxiety and reminds you that you are, in fact, safe; thus weakening the mystery of the empty space. 

Sometimes, our minds are filled with such empty spaces. When this happens, there are gaps in our thought, comprehension and interpretation of our reality. Things don’t add up. The details don’t make sense. It becomes increasingly difficult to control the narrative. We are thrust into a world of uncertainty and unknowns. So much might be said but none of it resonates with you. This goes on until you stumble on a word - somewhere and somehow - that bridges the gap and fills the blank spaces. 

Amidst the realities of the world today, I recently stumbled on a word. The word doesn’t necessarily solve the issue at hand but it gives me some much-needed perspective on the state of things as they are and have always been. Most importantly, it sets me on a path towards having a deeper understanding of the nature of our societies during pandemics like the COVID-19. 

Before January 2020, I had never heard the word ‘coronavirus’ despite my academic background in the sciences. I may be wrong but I do not believe that it has ever been a popular term amongst laymen and biology undergraduates. Keep in mind that the word ‘coronavirus’ isn’t the word I’m referring to in my last paragraph (or in this article’s title and subtitle) but I found it interesting when I heard it. It was a novel word to me and so, as I lay in my bed on the evening of January 23, I googled the word ‘coronavirus’. 

The first two Wikipedia pages I read agreed that the coronavirus wasn’t exactly a virus. It was actually “a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds” and the novel coronavirus (now known as COVID-19) just happens to fall into that group. Suddenly, the news article I had been reading earlier that day about the Chinese government imposing a lockdown on Wuhan, the capital city of the Hubei province, began to make sense. The news made sense but the idea of locking down an entire city didn’t make much sense. I marvelled at the thought of a lockdown. At the time, I could barely imagine what that would look or feel like. 

It seemed crazy to me. 

I needed some clarity on the current situation meant for us in the long run. I wanted to know what the world might look like after almost half of its population are either advised or forced to stay within closed doors and away from each other. 

As of March 23, I had been on a province-wide lockdown in British Columbia for 12 consecutive days. By this time, the World Health Organization had labelled the novel coronavirus a pandemic. Even after 12 days of staying at home, I was still a little bit confused about what all of this meant - and how it could affect our societies. There was no news of a possible end date for the stay-at-home mandate. Later that week, an article written by The Atlantic’s Joe Pinsker suggested four possible timelines for the pandemic. His best-case scenario was one to two months and his worst-case scenario was 18 months. Neither of the two timelines made sense to me. I needed some clarity on the current situation meant for us in the long run. I wanted to know what the world might look like after almost half of its population are either advised or forced to stay within closed doors and away from each other. 

The 13th chapter of the biblical book of Leviticus describes the mosaic law regarding skin diseases - specifically, leprosy. The law is quite straightforward: once an individual has been diagnosed with a skin disease, “the priest is to isolate the affected person for seven days.” (Leviticus 13:4 NIV). With the proclamation of the mosaic law, isolation became the ideal response for dealing with skin (and many other forms of) diseases in those times. By the time Jesus Christ arrived on earth, isolation was still the norm. In Luke’s version of the gospel, as Jesus “was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” (Luke 17:12-13 NIV). Notice the verse suggests the lepers stood at a distance. They did so because they knew they ought not to come in close contact with others. Hence, isolation. 

By the 14th century, isolation was still a thing. At the time, the bubonic plague was ravaging cities and communities across Europe and Asia. Measures had to be taken to curb the continued spread of the infection. One notable measure was taken by the port authorities at Ragusa (now known as Dubrovnik in Croatia.) The officials established a trentino that ordered the isolation of ships arriving at the port for a 30 day period. Within the next century, other European communities - like Venice, Genoa and Marseilles - began to introduce similar laws. During this time, the 30 day period was increased to 40 days. In other words, the trentino became a quarantino. 

Quarantino (or Quarantine) is derived from the Italian word for 40, quaranta. Many historians have suggested that the introduction of the 40 day isolation period was inspired by the biblical or Christian references to and significance of a 40-day period. The observance of Lent, the great flood in the days of Noah, Moses’ stay on Mount Sinai, Jesus Christ’s fasting period in the Judean deserts and the period between his resurrection and ascension have one thing in common - they all happened in 40 days. Just as many historians believe there is a correlation here, many others dispute it. 

Nevertheless, the term ‘quarantine’ was born from the terms ‘quarantino’ and ‘quaranta’ in the 14th century. Since then, many quarantine laws have been passed in several countries around the world and the outbreak of any major diseases always calls for such laws to be invoked. Quarantine laws were invoked in the 18th century when the yellow fever epidemic hit Philadelphia, in the 19th century when cholera epidemic arrived in Canada’s Quebec City, in 2003 during the SARS pandemic as 30,000 Torontonians were quarantined (although in Canada, the law was actually introduced in 2005, its stipulations were observed in 2003), in 2014 when the Liberian government ordered the isolation of a local neighbourhood called West Point during the Ebola outbreak, on January 23, 2020, in Wuhan, and on March 25, 2020, when Canada’s Minister of Health, Patty Hadju, ordered all travellers entering the country to be isolated for 14 days. 

Despite being such a significant term over the last seven centuries, the word ‘quarantine’ and its fascinating history don’t shed much light on the essence of the times we are in. One thing is for sure: history is being written as we speak. Generations will speak of the plague that caused at least half of the world to stay indoors. The stories that are being lived out right now will inspire the creation of books, artworks, movies, documentaries and music that will ensure these moments aren’t easily forgotten. Yet, you can’t help but wonder what the world will look like then. 

Like most people, when I heard about the coronavirus in January, I didn’t think much of it. I knew it was a tragedy in Wuhan but I didn’t think it would become a global tragedy - one that would have large-scale disastrous impacts on global healthcare systems, economies, infrastructures and laws. On March 1, I was on a phone call with my friend - Solace - and we agreed that a pandemic was coming. 10 days later, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, charactered the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic. Later that day, an NBA player - Rudy Gobert - tested positive for the disease and as a response, the NBA 2019-2020 season was suspended. The next day, Tom Hanks, his wife and Sophie Trudeau (the wife of Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau) all tested positive for the disease. 

That day - March 12, 2020 - was the first day I heard the term ‘flatten the curve’. I heard it while listening to a live broadcast of British Columbia’s Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry’s daily coronavirus update. She had urged British Columbians to avoid large gatherings so we could ‘flatten the curve.’ Another novel term that didn’t make much sense to me and although I now understand the message behind the term, it does little to help me understand the depth or importance of the situation we are in. It wasn’t until four days later that I found the word I had been looking for. 

Four days after announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19, Tom Hanks shared an Instagram post. In the post, the Cast Away actor attempted to encourage his 8.7 million followers by sharing a picture of some toasted bread slices covered with spreads of vegemite, accompanied by a caption that read:

“Thanks to the Helpers. Let’s take care of ourselves and each other. Hanx”

There it was. The word I needed to know. 

In Hank’s caption was one word that put the puzzle together for me. The caption references a famous quote from one of the longest-running children’s television shows, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. On the show, the host - Fred Rogers - is quoted as saying,

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Decades later, this quote - specifically the line, “Look for the helpers.” - continues to be repeated and referenced during times of discomfort or shared crises.

Tom Hanks must have been acknowledging the helpers when he gave a nod to Rogers’ quote in his caption. By including the word ‘helpers’ in that caption, he was calling attention to the individuals around the world who have been and continue to risk their lives or provide essential services or assist the elderly or make key and life-saving decisions or share messages of hope and comfort or obey the law and stay at home to help curb the rapid spread of the diseases he had just tested positive for. 

The word ‘helpers’ is the word I was looking for. 

I am a Christian. I believe my help from God and the ultimate helper - the Holy Spirit - lives within me and gives me more peace than I can actually fathom. According to my belief, the Spirit of God in me counsels and comforts me - and for that, I am grateful. However, just as I believe there is a helper within me, I believe that there are even more helpers around me. Some are within my reach and others are far from it but, as Rogers said, I must look for them and acknowledge them. 

As you read this, there are healthcare professionals around the world who are risking their lives to care for and treat patients who have been infected with COVID-19. The majority of these professionals are working without adequate resources, information, time or physical and mental energy. They are being stressed and stretched by the influx of patients storming into their workplaces. Many retired professionals have come out of retirement and the elderly amongst them - who are highly susceptible to being infected - are knowingly putting themselves in danger. These are the helpers. 

There are community and world leaders who have been forced to make key decisions despite the fact that they can’t guarantee the outcomes. Presidents, prime ministers, premiers, governors, government officials, religious leaders, activists and heads of organizations and families who, despite being personally affected by the pandemic, must still lead and speak to and for their communities. They must listen carefully to experts, make the right calls, invoke the necessary laws, enforce orders, inspire hope in a seemingly hopeless situation, mourn the loss and sufferings of their community members and continue to do this regardless of how long the pandemic lasts. These are the helpers. 

There are employers and employees who should be at home. If they had their way, they would be with their families indoors all day and far away from scenarios that could get them infected with these diseases. However, our communities need their services. As such, they risk their lives by continuing to work at the grocery stores, deliver food and essential items to our homes, protect our communities by maintaining law and order, work in call centres for healthcare and emergency services, be first responders to emergency situations, work as caregivers for children, the elderly and individuals with disabilities, serve in organizations that support vulnerable populations, immigrants and refugees, manufacture goods and provide services necessary to keep our infrastructure and industries in good condition, and document and share information through media outlets. These (and many other essential occupations not referenced here) are the helpers. 

Yet, there you are. 

You are baffled by this crisis. It has affected your daily routine, income, wellbeing, peace of mind, plans for the future, family and fellow community members. You are not sure what the future holds for your family, career or immediate plans or what to do while you’re home or how you will fend for yourself after being laid off or what will happen if you get infected. Despite this, you listen to healthcare experts, obey the laws invoked by your government, stay at home as much as possible, practice physical distancing if you must go out, encourage people in your communities by sharing messages of hope and refocusing their attention on information that edifies them, work or live in uncomfortable conditions for long periods of time, donate to or volunteer with organizations supporting vulnerable populations, check in on family members, friends, and those in isolation, pray and virtually support those who are anxious, ill, mourning the loss of loved ones or in need, and maintain your sanity in these crazy times. You are the helper. 

No words can describe how much the world is hurting right now but I realize that I don’t need such adjectives. I need a noun that defines who we are, have always been and will be after the pandemic subsides. We are helpers and this is a call to the helpers. Humanity can’t survive without human beings and human beings can’t survive without help. The good news is that, in many ways, we are the help we need. Each and every human being is the helper we need right now. Humanity needs us to do our part. More than ever before, it needs us to unite and stay united. This is the essence of the times we are in - to remind us that we need each other. 

If you walk into an empty hollow hallway in a forgotten and mysterious building in the middle of nowhere, your eyes will capture the nothingness that surrounds you and your brain will calculate the probability of something - someone or some creature - springing out from one of the hollow ends of the hallway. However, the moment you make a sound or utter a word, an echo fills the hallway, detaches you from your anxiety and reminds you that you are, in fact, safe; thus weakening the mystery of the empty space. 

By acknowledging the word that defines us, we can weaken and demystify the mystery of this pandemic. The echoes of our daily, and sometimes seemingly small, decisions and actions can fill the void and remind us that we are not alone. We are safe because we are helpers and are surrounded by helpers.

I believe that my help comes from God and a helper lives in me. Yet, it is equally important for me to acknowledge and call on the helper that I am and the helpers that are around me. 

Helpers, help!

[gyrlversion]

HENRY DEEDES watches as Tory leadership hopefuls make their pitch

Matt Hancock spoke to the cameras not the audience: HENRY DEEDES watches as Tory leadership hopefuls make their pitch

By Henry Deedes for the Daily Mail

Published: 19:53 EDT, 9 April 2019 | Updated: 20:28 EDT, 9 April 2019

When the cat’s away and all that. With chief moggy Theresa May off scouring Europe with her begging bowl, some of her little critters were scurrying around back home causing plenty of mischief.

The starting gun to succeed the PM popped long ago – no doubt you’ve noticed the ‘look at me’ interviews flying around these past weeks – but gathered in Westminster Hall yesterday morning we had our very own miniature leadership debate.

The event: a presentation by Onward, a Right-wing think-tank run by two tousle-haired brainiacs barely out of short trousers. 

The contenders: Health Secretary Matt Hancock, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat (Con, Tonbridge and Malling).

The contenders: Health Secretary Matt Hancock. The starting gun to succeed the PM popped long ago – no doubt you’ve noticed the ‘look at me’ interviews flying around these past weeks

They were there to discuss the party’s lack of appeal among young voters. The perfect platform, in other words, for this thrusting trio to present their lofty vision for the party’s future.

Has any issue, barring Europe, given Conservative strategists as much bellyache in the past two decades as the dreaded ‘yoof’ vote?

Ever since Tony Blair waltzed cockily into Downing Street twanging his guitar, the Tories’ attempts to court this tricky demographic has provoked a buttock-clenching embarrassment. David Cameron petted a husky and made ‘at home’ YouTube videos. Worse, William Hague wore a baseball cap and boasted of regularly glugging down 14 pints a day.

The Onward brainiacs announced matters were as hopeless as they had ever been. We were shown damning charts and graphs, one which Brainiac 1 ominously dubbed the ‘bow-tie of doom’. Brainiac 2 kept referring to something called ‘age cohorts’. Their language was typically wonkish but their message unambivalent. If there were an election tomorrow, young ‘uns will vote for the other guy.

Tugendhat responded first. He contrasted his own formative years, a time of increased home ownership, the fall of the Berlin Wall and defeat of Communism, with today’s youth who have endured a global financal meltdown, an out-of-reach property market and the disastrous Iraq war. They needed inspiring.

With chief moggy Theresa May off scouring Europe with her begging bowl, some of her little critters were scurrying around back home causing plenty of mischief

Lively speaker, Tugendhat. The ex-Army officer is one of those rare politicos who passes what I term the pint test. You can probably go for a drink with him without being assaulted with verbless sentences.

Penny Mordaunt described the brainiacs’ presentation as a ‘wake-up call’. Ugh! Actually, her speech was peppered with other horrid Americanisms. 

She repeatedly said people needed to ‘lean in’, a cringey phrase popularised by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg. Her accent also occasionally veered into a mid-Atlantic twang.

But there was a nice adage about the age of the ‘political hero’ being over. The country needed ‘servant leaders’, she said. Don’t be surprised to see that slogan brandished on coffee mugs in the next few weeks.

Bouncy Hancock was in full hustings mode. People used to vote Tory, he said, when they got their first pay cheque. 

Now it’s when they get their winter fuel allowance. It is noticeable this was announced not to the audience but to the television cameras at the back of the room. Catchphrases galore followed. 

He wanted the Conservatives to make a ‘Britain of now not a Britain of 1940’ and to be about ‘hopes, dreams and a sense of a belonging’. He spoke of ‘helping people achieve their potential’. 

There was talk of ‘fresh starts’, ‘lots of work to do’ etc. If he doesn’t stand for leader, I’ll sweep floors in my local NHS ward for a month.

This was an attempt to grasp a particularly thorny issue for the Conservatives, though it was noticeable that most people in attendance were middle-aged men. The arrival of courtly Sir Nicholas Soames (Con, Mid Sussex) did little to lower the median age.

Meanwhile, up the road, human hand grenade Mark Francois (Con, Rayleigh) was addressing a meeting of the Eurosceptic think-tank Bruges Group, still advocating a No Deal Brexit while garbling out verses of Tennyson’s Ulysses. Whoever succeeds Mrs May, it is clear a long road lies ahead.

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[writingguide003-blog]

Forget Dystopias, These Sci-Fi Writers Opt For Optimism Instead

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Forget Dystopias, These Sci-Fi Writers Opt For Optimism Instead

Its hot, and youre walking. Shuffling, actually. Youve spanned a seemingly endless chalk-dry plane, and youre thirsty, run-down, exhausted. You think about your flaking, parched lips and aching muscles, and about how your arduous journey will be worth it if you ever reach your destination. An immigrant, youre searching for a new place to live, because the place you call home has become barely livable. Youre thinking about the hot dirt sweat-caked on your skin when youre interrupted by an even greater pain — your tooth, recently implanted with a geo-location chip, is practically vibrating. This means youre close.

So begins Madeleine Ashbys short story, By the Time We Get to Arizona, published last year in Hieroglyph, a collection of science-fiction stories meant to inspire readers about the possibilities the future holds, rather than invoke fear about impending societal doom. Solutions to climate change catastrophes abound in the series; so do suggestions for jumping forward in our approach to space exploration technologies. Ashbys story — a spinoff of her Masters thesis on making border security more humane — explores a world where guns and guards are replaced by sensors and facial recognition technology.

Conceived of by Neal Stephenson — a celebrated writer whose most recent novel ventures a guess at what post-Earth diplomacy might look like — Hieroglyph showcases a growing crew of writers who, by commission or by choice, present sunnier alternatives to the now-prevalent, Hunger Games-fueled dystopia trend. These arent the stifling factions of Divergent or the heart-pounding twists and turns of The Maze Runner; they arent the bleak worlds crafted by Margaret Atwood or even the fable-like, anti-technology morals embedded in movies like Wall-E. Although many of the stories in Hieroglyph highlight societal problems, they have technological solutions to those problems embedded within them.

The anthology, along with the few others like it, was divisive in the science-fiction community. One camp, headed up by Stephenson, holds the belief that scientists and engineers could use a positive push from the writers whose job it is to imagine what the future will look like. Writers, Stephenson asserts, have a responsibility not only to confront social problems, but to provide potential solutions, too. So, a socially disheveled community like The Hunger Games Panem might feature a technology that allows citizens to communicate with each other, and fight back. Because these writers are using their fiction to provide solutions to contemporary problems, many necessarily couch their stories in grim scenarios the characters must escape from. Sexism, racism and classism are addressed, if subtly.

This doesnt sit well with the other school of readers and writers, who lament the days when an interstellar story was a joyride, whizzing quickly past social justice issues towards thrilling plot twists. One particularly rabid breed of decriers are the writers who make up a group called the Sad Puppies, who banded together during The Hugo Awards to stack the vote against minority and women writers. The problem, they claim, is that the science-fiction community has prioritized social justice and diversity, ignoring superior prose and more inventive stories as a result. Science-fiction, they say, is about fun. Its about escaping the problems of the real world through otherworldly scenarios — including dystopias — in which a central hero implausibly conquers evil alone, rather than with the aid of collective thinking and the useful technologies that arise from it.

The future of science-fiction — which, if George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four or Aldous Huxleys Brave New World are indicators, runs parallel with the future of science and technology on our own planet — probably lies somewhere on the vast, auroral spectrum between these two approaches. So, its worth examining both, and the groups of writers propelling them.

***

Now is not a time for realism, Margaret Atwood said in a recent interview with NPR, succinctly summarizing why so many literary writers flock to fantasy, to dystopia, to amplifying the threat of impending problems — environmental and political — that arent yet a reality.

Though the genre has seen a spike in popularity within teen-centric reading communities, its seeped into the realm of grown-up storytelling more than ever. Which isnt to say its unfamiliar territory for writers of adult literary fiction. In fact, dystopian stories began, arguably, with a weird, little book written by Mary Shelley in 1826 thats since become a beloved classic: The Last Man. The story centers on a plague-addled Europe, where a man named Lionel struggles to survive alongside various extant communities. Theres a false messiah, political turmoil, and all the other makings of a present-day dystopia. Though Shelleys book wasnt recognized until the 1960s, others like it by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells surfaced shortly thereafter, spawning a sub-genre of writing that asks timeless questions about human nature, and how it responds to dire, life-threatening scenarios.

But today, with a few notable exceptions (Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins), popular dystopian stories have lost a bit of their original complexity. They tend to be thinly cloistered morality lessons, better suited for young readers. Rather than highlighting the nuances of human interactions, they tend to generalize, and draw hard lines between good and evil.

Why are more and more adult literary writers, and adult literary fiction readers, opting into the rather nihilistic and juvenile genre? Its a quandary posed again and again by columnists, providing more questions than answers — perhaps because the answer is hazy. It could be that the genre distracts readers from present realities, or provides a puzzle-like, limited scenario for a protagonist to work through, so different from the more fractured plot of real life. Or, it could be that our present realities seem increasingly fantastical, due to the quick proliferation of disastrous events filling our Twitter feeds alongside our friends quotidian musings.

Madeline Ashby believes its the latter.

There are elements of dystopia in everybodys lives, she said in an interview with The Huffington Post. Remember the Christmas protests in Ferguson? Theres this image of riot police under this big electrified, Seasons Greetings banner. If you search for Ferguson plus Seasons plus Greetings, youll find the picture. I found it, and I tweeted in all caps, WHY DO SO MANY KIDS LOVE DYSTOPIA? HM, I WONDER.

Ashby cites her own dystopia-like governmental interactions as inspiration for many of her sci-fi stories, including By the Time We Got to Arizona. In 2006, she immigrated to Canada, and says the process, for her, was dehumanizing.

My immigration took over a year, she said, adding that she feels fortunate — for other people immigrating to Canada, two years is the average wait-time.

During that process youre essentially a number and a sheet of paper. You feel it every time they ask you progressively more invasive questions, Ashby added, sharing an anecdote about how immigration questions reduce complex romantic relationships to statistics-based judgement calls. [Theyd ask] things like, Can you describe to us the number and monetary value of gifts exchanged between the two of you. And then you start to think, oh, OK, the quality of my relationship is already interpreted through capital. I have a monetary value.

In her short story, Ashby acknowledges these issues, but also offers solutions to the problem. She notes that by working change-inspiring technologies into her plots, she’s at the very least offering readers a sense of hope. 

Dystopia is very useful in grappling with the world as it exists, Ashby said. Its a really stylized, formalized way of talking about things that are already happening in practice. But utopia, or more optimistic stories, can also be useful, because you can imagine a future that you actually want.

Ashbys fiction is informed by her other, more technical approach to writing. After studying Strategic Foresight and Innovation at the Ontario College of Art and Design, she started getting gigs drafting potential future scenarios for organizations such as Intel Labs and Nesta. Envisioning the future on behalf of corporations and research labs isnt exactly an established career path — actually, it sounds a little like something out of a sci-fi novel. But Ashby isnt the only writer who moonlights as a narrative scenario practitioner. Theres a host of organizations dedicated to allowing sci-fi writers to draft potential outcomes for specific companies or entire industries. Sci Futures, a sort of think tank dedicated to providing these services to clients such as Crayola, Ford, and Lowes, has a pithy tagline encapsulating their mission: “Where sci-fi gets real. A comparable organization, 2020 Media Futures, describes its mission as, an ambitious, multi-industry strategic foresight project designed to understand and envision what media may look like in the year 2020.

So, the research interests are vast. Of her work with Intel Labs and beyond, Ashby said, They often tell me, we want the future of intelligent systems, or the future of warfare in smart cities, the future of a world without antibiotics, the future of programmable matter, or the Internet of things.

Because Ashby spends considerable time dreaming up innovative solutions to social problems, she cant help but imbue her stories with similar gizmos and features. Her stories dont always involve positive situations for her characters, but they do often incorporate technologies that could solve said characters problems.

This is the central tenet of techno-optimism, the breed of science-fiction writing thats working to counter the rough terrain of dystopia, barren and desolate as it is; thirsty, it sometimes seems, for a solution thats bigger than a big-hearted narrator.

Writer and anthology editor Kathryn Cramer was a reluctant adopter of the genre. When aforementioned writer Stephenson, author of Seveneves, approached her to edit a collection of stories united under the banner of positive change, she worried the stories themselves would suffer from lack of plot, and lack of diversity. But, as she commissioned works of techno-optimism, she realized the genre promotes diverse voices rather than suppressing them. Her fears were quelled.

When we contemplate dark scenarios or disasters for the future, it is perhaps an ethically and morally good thing to do to figure out what the solutions might be, especially technological solutions, Cramer said in an interview with HuffPost. If we look at the 20th century, there are a whole lot of things that changed our lives in good ways, and solved a lot of problems, ranging from vaccines and refrigerated food transportation to frozen food. Some of them are sexy, like space travel, but a lot of them are things that improved everybodys lives in ways we might notve expected. Preservatives, things like that.

Cramers altruistic outlook hints at her thoughts on what a book can, and should, accomplish. While she believes writers have a responsibility to push innovation in a positive direction, some readers and writers think that mindset interferes with the quality of a story. So addressing societal problems, be it via extended, post-apocalyptic metaphors, or via similarly bleak settings peppered with hope, doesnt sit well with all sci-fi readers. Most notably, there are those — cue the Sad Puppies — who are nostalgic for the days of so-called Golden Age sci-fi: Star Trek-like space-travel adventures that offer a means of briefly escaping the restrictions of the real world. Nimble writing and world-building is supposedly the aim for such stories; political opinions, solutions-oriented and otherwise, are actively eschewed.

But the Puppies agenda — which resulted in No Award being given at the Hugo Awards this year in categories for which only white men were nominated — extends beyond particular tastes in writing styles. Claiming science-fiction has opted for affirmative action-guided decisions rather than supporting story-centric writing, they lobbied to place white, male writers — including themselves — on the award ballots.

Ashby spoke passionately against the Puppies movement: Thats part of their battle cry: Why do we have to think about social issues in our science fiction? Why do we have to think about other genders, or sexualities, or economic circumstances? Why cant it just be fun like it used to be? Well, yeah, Im sure it was really fun when you werent thinking about it. Everythings a lot more fun when youre not thinking about it.

Thinking about it, according to Ashby, involves confronting the dire state of life for some social groups. It involves constructing a narrative that encourages the reader to consider the lives of others, rather than just getting lost in his own fantasy world, in which he alone is the hero and the solution. It involves hope not in the form of a triumphant narrator, but in the technologies we can create when we do something really miraculous: work together.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

[milantilmarch]

Happy 1 Month Anniversary Milano

Cheers to Italy & my beautiful city I am so fortunate to call home until March! Today marks exactly 1 month that I have spent in Milan

Here I want to reflect on what the first month has really been like. And share some photos to my very photo-less blog. 

So, here we go!

I left the United States from JFK on Saturday, January 6th. I had taken a direct flight to Malpensa Milano with my soon to be roommate in Milan who I had met at our gate. She and I flew one of the most horrendous flights. Long story short, everything that went wrong could have gone wrong, but thankfully the flight was safe & our plane didn't fall out of the sky. 

Our flight was an over night one. I couldn't sleep. Sure I slept an hour here and there, but it wasn't an honest rest. We landed at Malpensa International 3 hours later than our scheduled arrival. Had gotten picked up by the driving arrangements courtesy of our housing, and had gotten checked into our apartment around noon Sunday January 7th. 

So, landing on a Sunday sounded like a great idea. We could hit the ground running Monday morning, beginning our crash course of learning italian for 2 weeks, spend the whole day getting settled in, unpacked, all that. Come to realize and experience first hand that Sundays in Italy are sacred. Yes I understood that Italy was a religious country, but not so religious that everything was literally closed. After unpacking and settling in a little, my roommate and I were quite famished from our disastrous flight, and went on a hunt for some food and groceries to stock our fridge. Obviously, we didn't know where ANYTHING was. And we also didn't know that EVERYTHING would be closed. I won't ever forget, aimlessly walking around the areas nearby our apartment, searching for an open restaurant, an open anything just to get something to eat. We ended up finding a spot, and asked the cashier where the nearest grocery store was to go shop at. After a 10 minuet walk in the father direction of our apartment, we walked through a very damp and wet city, realizing that Sundays are a day of rest, recover, and worship in this country.

Got home, and began to prepare for the week. We had 2 weeks of survival Italian courses at a well known language school called Linguadue. I had taken Italian 101 at my college all fall semester prior to leaving, so I knew the very VERY basics. Combating jet lag, adjusting to a new city, and wishing my mom was here for this entire experience, naturally resulted in me skipping a handful of those courses. 

My first 2 weeks in Milano were quite grueling. Our schedule was language class from 9-12 with a 30 min. break, then class with the chair of the fashion department from Buffalo State from 1-5. I really enjoyed class with my professor Dr. Boorady, much more than my language classes at Linguadue. Our school was in a beautiful & perfectly positioned location of Milan. Corso Buenos Aires. 

We did so much sight seeing, so much exploring, chased the tail end of mens fashion week, and so much more that is a huge blur in my memory now (thank god I took pictures of everything I did). We visited various shopping districts, between luxury and lower end brands, different neighborhoods of Milan, sooo many breath taking cathedrals, and more. Since there were only 3 fashion students from Buffalo State here doing internships, we were a small intimate group. 2 design students and 1 merchandising student aka me. And we really made our own class schedule every day for those first 2 weeks. We were given a course syllabus and journal. We have a project due at the end of our internships when we return to the states. And the journal is for documenting everything we see, feel, experience, smell, eat, learn, obtain inspiration, you name it. I actually carry it around everywhere. And almost have used it every single day, event into the first couple weeks of my internship. Sometimes I’ll take it out at a restaurant or cafe and just write. Draw. Jot down whatever. We have to hand the journal in when we get back, then well get it back once Dr. B is done grading our assignments. I’m really looking forward to holding onto that journal for ever. 

We visited so many museums, so many window displays, so many libraries, and I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves here.  My next post will be about the start of my internships and adventures in-between shifts. Enjoy!

CiaoCiao!

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Logan Merwin: The T1 Boy Behind the 'Fueled By Insulin' Race Truck

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/logan-merwin-the-t1-boy-behind-the-fueled-by-insulin-race-truck/

Logan Merwin: The T1 Boy Behind the 'Fueled By Insulin' Race Truck

Since he was just a toddler, 10-year-old Logan Merwin in Connecticut has had a love for cars that's evolved from playing with Hot Wheels toy cars to big dreams of monster truck racing when he grows up. Given that he's been living with type 1 since just 17 months old so it's all he's ever known, Logan is channeling his passion into making a difference through diabetes awareness and advocacy.

Quite literally, Logan is "Fueled By Insulin" and is the inspiration behind a very cool diabetes-themed racing truck dubbed "New England's First Type 1 Awareness Racing Truck." He's made the New England news recently, with truck driver and team owner Tony Lafo Racing and their sponsor American Sign Motorsports taking Logan's story to heart and creating the Fueled By Insulin campaign to support the beloved Children With Diabetes organization. Longtime racer Lafo is taking this cool diabetes-themed #82 Ford F-150 Pro-Truck to races all around the New England, most recently on April 29 and this coming weekend on May 7.

Very cool, and it happens to coincide with the month of May, when America revs up its engines to mark NASCAR racing season. Coincidentally, but unconnected to Logan's story, the JDRF has a new initiative on that front: T1D, Motorcraft, and Me, that makes this an especially timely of story to share.

Today, we're thrilled to share an interview with Logan's devoted D-Mom Samantha, all about the awesome stuff they've got going on these days.

Talking Insulin and Trucks with D-Mom Samantha Merwin

DM) Hi Samantha, of course we're going to ask you to start by sharing Logan’s diagnosis story...

SM) Logan was diagnosed July 11, 2008, and is now 10 years old, and next summer we’re planning great things for his 10-year dia-versary in 2018.

As a baby, he was always playful with us, energetic and ready to start his day. He had his 15-month pediatrician check and had been sick right afterwards for days. He recovered, but a couple of weeks later at 16 months we noticed that he was eating less and drinking more. He was filling diapers constantly and withdrawn. Over the course of a couple more weeks he stopped eating anything but small snacks. We still thought it was one of those kid’s phases but grew more anxious when we were at a birthday party and he wouldn't play or connect with the kids; he just kept drinking and hanging around us. We called the pediatricians office 3 days later because when he started sleeping several hours later every morning, we knew something was wrong -- as he was always like he is now, jumps up ready to start his day. We asked for an appointment later that week but thankfully they recognized the symptoms and called us back to come in that same night. They were literally waiting for us, whisked us in, pricked his finger and sent us to the children’s hospital. We caught it early as he wasn't in DKA yet, his blood sugar was in the higher 500's so we didn't have to get admitted.

What a scary transition to have to make...

Yes, we went back and forth for a few days getting educated on what we would now have to do to keep him alive. Those first three months were a rough road until we put him on a pump. He hated the shots and it was mentally draining on all of us to do them.

Anyone else in the family with diabetes?

No one else in my family has it, but my husband’s brother was diagnosed with type 1 when he was in college, in his early 20's.

Did that create a special bond between Logan and his uncle, and how is your brother-in-law doing these days with his T1D?

I wish they lived closer so we could have free, safe babysitting! We have no relatives within close geography here. When they see each other during our annual visits to Chicago, they definitely have their own conversations about type 1 and they definitely do test together.

Well, it seems you're creating an extended online family with your blogging. Can you share the story behind the Elbow Bump Kid blog?

Logan was trying to think of a catchy fundraising name or slogan when he started fundraising for CWD in 2016, and he decided on elbowbumpchallenge, which turned into elbowbumpkid -- since he bumped the most elbows EVER at the FFL events! Pretty funny, but he's known for it in school as well. They usually shake hands when entering the classroom and Logan has been elbow bumping instead every year. Here's our very first blog post, about the origin of the elbow bump.

We understand Logan's also a runner, doing 5K and 10K events. How did he get started with that?

Logan wouldn't play team sports until second grade and his favorite part of soccer, etc., was always the running. We had a running club at school that year and he loved it. That started his love for running. I wish we had more time in the day to have him practice more; we rarely have time for more than a mile after school.

Does diabetes get in the way when he’s running?

Well, since he was diagnosed as a baby, he has never known a life outside of T1D.

His diabetes does slow him down with running occasionally but mostly it's the combo of the asthma. We really have to prep well for both diseases or it's disastrous, as we have experienced! He did a great job in the Disney 5K running for JDRF in January, and he's looking forward to practicing to run the 5K for JDRF and the 10K for Children With Diabetes in January 2018.

And how did he first develop such a love for cars and racing?

He’s always been into cars in some form, he used to sleep with a Hot Wheel in his hand when he was 2 -- it was a little gold car. When we lost power during Hurricane Sandy for days, we piled Hot Wheels outside our house and let him race them down our walkway. He was into monster trucks and classic cars for a while as well. While the Hot Wheels phase died down for a bit, it came back in full force over the past year. For a school project last year, he pulled the town tax records on cars listed registered in town, then sat in center of town recording cars that drove by to see if it matched with town records.

He also decided last year that he was saving to buy a Lamborghini when he's 18, so as he gets money he goes to the bank (with whatever he doesn't spend) and deposits it. He's pretty dedicated to that. We ran into a dealer when we were in London and he was able to get a pic or two up close!

That’s too funny! Any plans to go into racing when he gets older?

Since he was around 4, Logan decided he was going to be a monster truck driver on the weekends when he grows up. His main job will be running the hotel he plans on building and working at his bank. Or as a coin inspector for one of the federal mints. He can't decide... then again, he’s 10. But it's always something involved with cars on the weekends. Who knows with this kid, anything is possible!

Anyone particular in the racing or running communities who's been an inspiration to Logan?

When Logan was little, my friend Jen sent him a video of NASCAR driver Ryan Reed, who we had never heard of prior to that. He has looked up to him since as a role model. He also met IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball at Friends For Life in 2016 so he has multiple role models that he follows related to racing cars. On running, he recently met Diathlete Gavin Griffiths while we were on spring break in London and has enjoyed following him on social media and reading his stories.

We are really lucky as he has had opportunities through FFL and otherwise to meet amazing role models in sports and life. He really feels like he can do anything and won't be limited when he grows up thanks to these experiences.

Let’s talk about race-truck driver Tony Lafo and the fundraising support…

I'm sure you listened to Stacey Simms' Diabetes Connections podcast, and what I said there is true about how we met Tony Lafo, driver and owner of Fueled By Insulin – it really was that simple!

He was a mystery donor to Logan's random JDRF campaign pushes over the years, as I always post them in our town Facebook group once a year when I want to make a goal. We didn't have an email or address for him until this year when for some reason the website had his email listed, so I could send a personal thank you. A few weeks later, I had posted a fundraiser Logan was doing at a local supermarket and Tony reached out to us to discuss the race truck partnership.

We brought it to Jeff (Hitchcock) and Laura (Billetdeaux) of CWD, and here we are, days from the first race on April 29. He's SUCH a nice guy and his whole crew has been so nice to Logan. He's been stopping down most Tuesdays and either playing Hot Wheels with at least one of them or sweeping their floors while they work on the truck. He doesn't know any other type 1's other than Logan, and he would prefer to help somebody local than send off a check somewhere. When he's not racing he's a full-time Fire Service Volunteer.

How cool! What’s the fundraising commitment?

Tony Lafo Racing, LLC, will help raise awareness by featuring the CWD logo on the #82 Ford F-150 Pro-Truck, as well as the Hauler and T-shirts and will donate 10% of race winnings to Logan's fundraising efforts during 2017 -- with a minimum pledge of $1,000.

What kind of challenges are you facing as Logan trains?

Logan isn't out of school until mid-June so his running right now is a running club on Thursdays and whatever we can do on weekends. We plan to do a practice 5K each month starting in May to gear up for January, slow and steady at first. My biggest challenge is figuring out the minimum I have to carry with me, his supplies weighed me down a lot. When we practice locally, I usually just toss the bag down somewhere but having it on me the whole time was a lot of weight (EpiPens, inhaler, smarties, juice, Dexcom, meter, and so on). We have been concentrating on the fundraising part right now, planning events to fundraise to meet his goals.

What else does this amazing kid have planned?

He will definitely take his advocacy to the next level, sooner rather than later. Right now he's focused on fundraising and raising awareness for type 1 where he can. I suspect in future years, he will be involved with advocating to ensure everyone has access to basic supplies. We have had a lot of conversations, once he realized that not everyone can afford insulin or a Dexcom. It's an ongoing conversation and if I felt there was a good opportunity for him to get involved in a couple of years, I'd present it to him and let him decide. We always make him feel comfortable that no matter what happens, he will have access to his Dexcom and insulin, but he's aware of the challenges and concerned for others. He's a very active kid and can't imagine not having his Dexcom to help manage his care.

Your family seems very supportive of so many different D-Community orgs. Can you tell us about those connections?

We have been touched by so many nonprofits over the almost 9 years with type 1. We have a love for JDRF and do the run every year; Logan loves the pen pal program from Beyond Type 1, and I love their ongoing constant articles and communication. I really feel like they have connected the larger diabetes community.

Regarding the CWD Friends for Life conference, I knew about the event for years but didn't sign up until 2015 as we were starting to experience our 7-year itch. I was looking for something different to help rejuvenate us and not free-fall into burnout. CWD does a great job with these events, bringing children and families together in a safe environment where they bond and have fun while learning. As parents there are a ton of sessions for us on everything you can imagine from learning about new technology to support groups. So we both loved it our first year. Logan even had a bunch of people sing happy dia-versary to him on his 7-year date. When returning to the event in 2016, Logan was inspired to write a speech to ask other kids to help CWD and bring awareness to the need for fundraising for the event. He loves being around "his people," especially the teenagers and young adults with T1D. He's inspired by them and can't wait to help at a CWD event when he's older like them!

And you're involved with the #WeAreNotWaiting movement too, right?

Yes, there are so many other nonprofits we adore and I hate leaving anyone out, like Nightscout Foundation, where we have access for the nurse at school to view Logan's blood sugars when he's there to help keep him safe. While we have to narrow our financial/fundraising focus to make an impact, we will support the organizations that help Logan and other T1 kids wherever we can, whenever we can. Logan always says that while JDRF funds for a cure, so many other nonprofits like CWD help kids in their lives every day until there's a cure. So we focus on both aspects -- fundraising for a cure and helping kids live full and healthy lives with the disease.

Thanks so much for sharing your family's story, Samantha! Can't wait to see what the future has in store for Logan, and we'll definitely be on lookout for that cool race truck!

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from Xavier. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.

//

When planning your preps, you’re faced with a myriad of options and contrary to the popular social campaign to be unique, I urge you to follow the masses. Not only do the masses USUALLY get things right in aggregate, but it can make your life easier in the long run to just go with the crowd. There’s no need to be exotic with your preps. Consider a tiny slice of prepping: bug-out vehicles, electronics, and firearm selection. The same concept can be applied to almost anything you’re prepping for!

Cars and bug-out vehicles

When looking for a car: don’t be exotic. Play the numbers. The most popular small car in America for MANY years going back decades is the Toyota Corolla. The most popular minivan in America for MANY years going back almost a dozen years is the Honda Odyssey. Care to guess which two vehicles I own? They’re not the most stylish vehicles, not even the best performance or features. That’s not why I own them. I own them because they’re EVERYWHERE! This makes it cheaper and easier to find parts for them NOW, and will make it that much easier to find the parts I need after SHTF. If I were to buy a pickup, I’d likely end up with a Ford F-150 for the exact same reason.

The ability to find spare parts shouldn’t be overlooked.

Consider your geographic area where you live now, your path to your bug-out location, and eventually your bug-out location when making these decisions, and what you’ll need to do with the car. I’ve heard that AWD Subaru’s and Toyota 4Runners are common in Colorado and for a good reason.

Having a popular car makes it easy to find parts. Knowing which cars are compatible make it even easier. For example, the Toyota Corolla and the Toyota Matrix (and even the Pontiac Vibe) use the same 4-cylinder engine & drive train & suspension for any given year. When I do work on my Corolla, I use the Matrix repair manuals. The Honda Odyssey, Honda Pilot, and the 6-cylinder Accord share their frame and most engine components. The Toyota 4Runner, for instance, uses the same size oil filter in 2015 that it did in 1988. If you can, having two cars that share the same frame/engine components can simplify purchasing parts; this way you only have to keep one type of spare on-hand. Even if you can’t, at least keep them all metric or SAE, so you only need to carry/own one set of tools.

This can also come into play when you’re planning your preps with a group. If everyone in your group has the same or realistically similar vehicle and one completely dies, it can serve as a Frankenstein parts donor for other vehicles in your group. Your group can share the cost of a parts-pool for your bug-out camp, as it will benefit every member. Even something simple as having the same oil filter or tire-size may save a life in a pinch. Be wary of aftermarket parts on your vehicle if it prevents you from using standard parts as a rip & replace and doesn’t require welding or metal work.

Electronics

Solar Panels give you a tremendous grid-down advantage.

When thinking of survival electronics, the same rules apply – play the numbers. The most likely ways to use electronics after grid down are AA batteries, 12vDC and USB. Without reliable grid power or a generator the most common way of using portable electronics is battery power. The most common battery is the AA. All of my flashlights and most of my radios use AA batteries. They’re readily available, and can be scavenged from many household accessories such as TV remotes or children’s toys if needed. Don’t be exotic. Don’t get stuck trying to find specialized batteries because you bought a tacti-cool flashlight.

Next up is 12vDC power. This is available from just about any car battery so there should be no shortage, at least in the short-term after grid-down. They can be recharged using solar power generators. Inverters are available to make 120vAC available in a pinch for devices such as laptops, though they’re not always electrically efficient. Many popular survival related electronics operate on 12vDC power, such as CB or HAM radios and GPS units. I would recommend having a 12v deep cycle battery and a way to recharge it at your bug-out location. Having cigarette lighter adapters for your accessories can help while bugging out if you encounter an abandoned vehicle and need to make a quick contact with a radio or to recharge. Many smaller capacity 12v batteries can be found in lawn-care equipment, or as backup power for home alarm panels and garage door openers. There are even personal computers that run completely on 12v. These may be useful in short-term grid down events such as local natural disasters or for EMCOMM groups that have a need for digital communications.

USB ports and accessories are ubiquitous in today’s technological world. Understand that USB isn’t a /source/ of power, but rather an interface that I wouldn’t want to be caught without. Most cell phones and tablets charge using USB. Many small FRS/GMRS or even HAM radios can charge via a USB port. I have a small solar chargeable battery with USB interfaces in my bag. Again, having charging cables for each of your devices along the way can facilitate your travels. Travel adapters to take a 12v cigarette lighter to USB port are also very convenient. Try to make sure your devices use the same USB interface or at least stick to the most common plug types such as usb-micro for most Android phones, or the lightning style plug for newer Apple devices.

Ammunition and Firearms

guns, pistols, rifle, revolvers, and ammunition

When looking at purchasing firearms for self-defense or hunting, one of the first and largely asked questions is “what caliber”. Often it comes down to what’s the most powerful round you can reasonably handle or what has the most ‘stopping power’. However, the most powerful handgun in the world is useless if you can’t find ammunition for it. Don’t be exotic. Picking and standardizing on the most common rounds works in your benefit, and thus often cheaper to acquire now; and more importantly are the most easily obtained after SHTF. Even if you create a substantial stockpile at your home or bug-out location, there’s no guarantee it will not be plundered before you arrive, destroyed by malicious individuals or natural disaster, or that you can remain indefinitely at your bug-out location. You may have to abandon it; how much ammo can you carry with you?

For a standard loadout, you pretty much can’t go wrong with NATO rounds or those inspired by them. This means 9mm for handguns, 5.56mm for your light rifle, and 7.62mm for your long-range rifle. A word of caution: use only ammunition that fits your particular firearm. Many other articles available online explain the differences between the NATO 5.56mm and the common .223 Remington round and the inherent compatibility issues that are involved with these two related rounds. A similar discussion should be had regarding the .308 Winchester and the NATO 7.62, as well as ‘standard 9mm’ vs ‘9mm +P’. Also be aware if you carry a backup/pocket/ankle gun in .380, it’s very similar in size to a 9mm. .38 special and .357 magnum rounds are both basically physically identical. Don’t put the wrong round in the wrong gun or you could have disastrous results.

These rounds pack enough punch for what we’re likely to encounter and are small and light enough to carry a substantial amount. If you own multiple firearms for the same caliber, it would be wise that they are identical. This gives 2 primary benefits. The first is part compatibility. You only need to stock one style of part that can match both of your guns instead of having a plethora of parts for different guns. Your accessories and magazines will be interchangeable. If one gun is incapacitated or damaged, it can be used for loaner parts for your other firearm. The second benefit is weapon familiarity when training. Muscle memory built on one weapon can fail you if you resort to your secondary or backup gun in an intense situation. If you are prepping with a group of others, the same wisdom applies: get the same weapon platform.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the ubiquitous .22LR. It’s never a bad idea to have a weapon in this caliber and to stock up on plenty of ammo for it. It’s suitable for both handgun and long-gun usage. All in all a very versatile round. Another highly popular and useful gun not to neglect is the 12ga shotgun. They’re considered very reliable and pack a punch. There are a myriad of options available for ammunition that are almost 100% compatible with any modern 12ga shotgun.

Consider this just food for thought as you plan your preps. This mindset of shooting for the average can not only minimize your costs for prepping, but stretch your ability to survive after SHTF. If we end up WROL and there’s a need to barter something, having the most popular items makes your trading agility that much higher, rather than the high-priced exotic item that can only be used by a select few.

Be the gray-man!

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