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irenethewoman · 1 year ago

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Mrs. Shelby - Chapter Two- First Shot

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December 1914, Birmingham:

As I settled into life within the Shelby household, it became apparent that observing and adapting were my best courses of action. Even though their workforce was currently absent due to the war, the Shelbys were far from ordinary laborers. When Polly and I went out shopping, I noticed passersby respectfully addressing her as "Good morning, Mrs. Grey." I had encountered workers in my grandfather's factory, but they never held such prestige and status. "Mrs. Grey," "Mrs. Shelby," "Miss Shelby" – the Shelby surname wielded an almost magical influence in Birmingham. I was beginning to grasp their line of work. The Shelbys were undoubtedly the same sort of people who had caused my father endless headaches and filled Nurse Claire with terror. Truth be told, when I had a clear understanding of their activities two months ago, I couldn't help but shudder. Gangsters weren't much better than brothels or No. 10 King's Road. It was akin to moving from one perilous situation to another. If my father knew that his little princess had landed in such a predicament, it would break his heart.

But as time passed, my perspective on the past 15 years began to shift. Yes, they were gangsters who earned their living through gambling, extortion, and collecting protection money. However, wasn't that the way of the world? How could they support such a vast family on meager factory wages? They relied on squeezing ordinary people to secure a better life, just as gangsters, politicians, and capitalists did. In essence, nobility was not fundamentally distinct; it boiled down to whether one's actions were legal or not. But who decided what was legal? If the law itself was one-sided and severe, where did justice originate? My noble relatives had either aimed to divide my inheritance due to my parents' demise or had avoided me for the same reason. After I was rebuffed when seeking aid from my aunt and uncle, I disregarded Nurse Claire's objections and ventured north alone. Furthermore, the Shelbys, the gangsters I had tried to avoid in the past, hadn't treated me unkindly. Even without the title of Baroness, I could still enjoy white bread, bacon, and chocolate that factory workers could only dream of.

After work, I'd rest on a comfortable bed by a warm fireplace. While it might not have been on par with my previous accommodations, it was leagues ahead of my recent fugitive lifestyle. All of this was thanks to the Shelbys, particularly Polly. Although she wore the mantle of the family's matriarch and appeared stern, she was not the kind of boss who criticized her employees relentlessly. In fact, she displayed more consideration for her workers than my maternal grandfather or the officials of the East India Company ever did. Beneath her veneer of cold and ruthless efficiency lay a softer, more compassionate core. While she hadn't immediately believed my story, like Ada and Martha, she had at least not sent me back to London, albeit explaining it as not wanting to "waste money on strangers."

Martha, with her oval face, was Finn and Ada's sister-in-law. Apart from her slightly protruding blue eyes, she was rather attractive. With three children to support and one more on the way, Martha was the only member of the family who could appreciate the poetry collection I had purchased with my earnings. She was kind and gentle, and she, along with Bo, regularly attended church services and provided food for the less fortunate in our community. She claimed to have been a pastor's daughter in the past, but her actions contradicted that background. I had encountered pastors before, and none of them resembled Martha. It was evident that she, too, grappled with hardship on the fringes of society.

As time passed, I found myself missing the life of a young lady from when my parents were alive. However, my new existence no longer held the same allure it had when I first escaped, and I refrained from incessantly comparing it to my past. These two months had wrought profound changes in me, challenging nearly every preconceived notion I held. Virtue and vice were not permanent fixtures in this world; no one could lay claim to absolute goodness or wickedness. It was a realm governed by natural selection, survival of the fittest. Initially, I had found this concept to be harsh, but now I recognized it as the unvarnished truth.

I no longer concealed my past. I had come from a privileged background. For the first fifteen years of my life, I had been a sheltered heiress. My sole misfortune was having a contingent of ill-fated relatives. Initially, Polly had tasked me with maintaining the household accounts and teaching the children arithmetic and reading. The Shelby family possessed few books, and the poetry collection I had purchased wasn't suitable for educational purposes. Thus, I had to buy a newspaper each morning during our grocery trips. I learned to read at the breakfast table, gradually absorbing the words.

My father had always read newspapers, both in English and German. Perhaps because my investigation had been thorough, Polly gradually began granting me access to the Shelby family's external accounts. These documents contained receipts related to horse racing, protection money, and dealings with the police station. It wasn't easy for Polly. The war had not ended as swiftly as we had anticipated, and the cost of living was steadily rising. Finn and his three nephews were still quite young. Ada had no desire to engage in the family's "business." Martha was pregnant and exceedingly gentle. This left Polly as the family's sole provider, responsible for the entire household. She had to be tough when dealing with others, ensuring her family's betterment, only to return home and seek solace in her prayer room. She was good to me, and as December approached, I planned a surprise for her on Christmas.

However, what could I possibly offer? As Bo grew more comfortable with me, I found myself assuming additional responsibilities. I had become the Shelby family's accountant, tutor, nanny, and even their cook. Despite the decent life I was leading and the kindness shown to me by the Shelbys, I still felt like an outsider. Perhaps it was because I couldn't master the art of smoking or tolerate the pungent taste of whiskey, or maybe it was because I couldn't casually toss around expletives as freely as the others did.

One day, as I finished my work and wandered the streets lost in thought, I suddenly heard Ada's scream, "How dare you! We're Shelbys!" My heart clenched in anxiety. Despite her upbringing in this environment, Ada retained an underlying romanticism and innocence that even surpassed my own. "Oh my God!" I recalled Martha mentioning the family's intention to confront Liz Stark today. I found the address and knocked on the door with urgency. Upon entering, I was greeted by chaos. "Ada!" I called out, searching for her. Please, let them be safe!

"Diana! Get your filthy hands off!" I hurried upstairs but found myself unable to open the locked door. It was then that the person who had let me in followed me up. He was tall and bald, with sparse black hair on his forehead. Even his touch on my forearm made my stomach turn. "Unlock the door," I demanded,

withdrawing the pistol from my bag and aiming it at his belly. It was a firearm Polly Shelby had loaned me, and I hadn't returned it yet. My hands trembled; it marked my first time pointing a gun at a living being. I feared that his appearance was deceptive, that he possessed greater strength than me, that I wasn't capable enough. I was anxious about getting entangled in a violent confrontation. I worried that my impulsiveness might harm Liz Stark, preventing her from earning a living. All these fears churned within me.

He seemed to notice my apprehension and boldly placed his other hand on my waist. I clenched my teeth, loaded the pistol, and jabbed it into his gut with determination. "Unlock the door for me—now!" He reluctantly acquiesced, fumbling with the key, and I allowed him to depart before rushing into the room.

Inside, I found Ada protecting Martha, while Liz Stark was being held by the hair and struggling. Another man had his back to me, undoing his belt, and turned around when he heard the door open. "Oh! We've got another visitor." He smirked, his mouth tainted by yellow nicotine stains. His lewd words, ones I didn't fully comprehend, made the man holding Stark's hair burst into laughter. "It was you who begged for this…" he muttered.

"Bam!" In a decisive moment, I fired my first shot at a living person, striking the man in the left thigh. He screamed and crumpled to the ground, clutching his injured leg and wailing like a banshee. The stench of blood and urine filled the small, enclosed space, nauseating me. I struggled to suppress the urge to vomit and aimed the gun squarely at the remaining assailant's head, "Release them. Let them go!" After firing the first shot, my hands steadied, and I possessed a firmer grip on the gun. This time, I pointed it directly at him.

"Don't mess with the Shelbys, not even with a woman." I declared firmly. Afterward, when I returned to 6 Waterley Lane, I rushed to the bathroom and, with as much grace as I could muster, promptly emptied my stomach. Gazing into the mirror afterward, I couldn't help but feel a sense of strangeness. The girl with black hair in the reflection looked pale, her mouth smeared with remnants of vomit and dirt. As I raised my hand, she mimicked the motion. I had genuinely transformed.

Martha convinced Ada and me to rest, and I prepared mulled wine for both of us. We huddled together, wrapped in blankets, sipping our drinks in silence by the warm fireplace. I, or perhaps we, were awaiting Polly's return. A gunshot had rung out; a man had been shot in a brothel, nearly disfigured. It was odd that neither Liz Stark nor Polly Shelby had received word of it. Perhaps Polly would dismiss me at the height of the impending storm, perhaps she'd grow infuriated over my use of the Shelby name. Regardless, I needed to explain myself face-to-face.

"Why did you use a gun?" Ada's question broke the silence, interrupting my reverie.

"What?" I hesitated, unable to meet her gaze, fearful that she might perceive me as a ruthless assailant.

"I noticed you often drift into thought... I mean, why did you use a gun?"

"My father taught me to hunt, ma'am, and I know how to use a shotgun." I replied, averting her eyes.

Another uncomfortable silence ensued, eventually broken by Polly Shelby's return.

Upon seeing her in the living room, relief washed over me. Even if she decided to expel me, I wouldn't be left homeless.

"Are you alright?" She checked on Ada before turning to me. I watched as she examined me, patiently waiting for her verdict.

"Go get some rest, Ada."

"Don't blame her, Aunt Polly. It was for me and Juliet that Diana fired." Polly remained silent but gave Ada's shoulder a reassuring pat before pouring herself a glass of wine. Despite the uncertainty of what lay ahead, I exchanged a reassuring glance with Ada.

"Why did you use a gun?" It seemed everyone was curious about a young woman who could wield a firearm, especially considering my age.

"My father taught me to hunt, ma'am, and I know how to use a shotgun."

"You rarely speak of your past," Polly noted, and I confessed, "But you never asked, ma'am."

Polly smiled, "I wasn't interested in a secretary's past before, but it's different now."

"My name is Diana Elizabeth Turner. My father was Baron Charles Turner, and my mother was Elizabeth Barton. I have an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister." I shared this information as Polly's gaze remained fixed on me.

She then put down her cup and embraced me. At that moment, tears welled up, and I allowed myself to cry. I did know how to use a shotgun, but the first time I had threatened someone with a gun, I was terrified. Fear had consumed me, fearing that his appearance concealed great strength, fearing that I wouldn't be effective enough, fearing I would become embroiled in violence, fearing for Liz Stark's safety, fearing Martha and Ada might view me as a merciless demon, and fearing Polly Shelby might expel me from her home or send me back to King's Road.

"Silly girl, go rest." Polly comforted me.

"Madam, are you going to send me away?" I asked, my tears finally subsiding.

Polly seemed to find my question amusing. "Why would I send you away? Because you protected my family?"

"Silly girl, right now, the Shelbys only need to use their guns to show Birmingham that even when the men are away, the Shelbys are untouchable. Besides, you and I are the only ones in this household who can handle a firearm."

Following that day, Polly asked me to address her as "Polly" or, like Ada and the others, as "Aunt Polly." On Christmas Eve, Polly presented me with a gift. She instructed me not to open it until everyone else had retired to their rooms. Inside the box was an elegant lady's pistol.

"The old gun I lent you belonged to Tommy. This one is more suitable for you," Polly explained, her cheeks slightly flushed from wine. "Just remember, don't let the children see it, let alone play with it, unless it's empty."

I held the unloaded pistol in my hands, examining it, and then looked up at Polly, questioning, "Who is Tommy?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. Tommy is one of Finn and Ada's nephews, the second brother. All three brothers enlisted in the army. Tommy is a handsome young lad, inheriting his mother's striking blue eyes." Polly remarked, gazing at me. "You bear a striking resemblance to him."

"Really?" I responded, my fingers tracing the contours of the gun, my gaze still locked onto the pistol. Polly's words had left me pensive, and I couldn't find the right words to reply.

The town bell chimed, signaling midnight. I leaned down and planted a kiss on Polly Shelby's cheek. "Merry Christmas, Aunt Polly."

#tommy shelby #thomas shelby #peaky blinders #oc #fanfiction

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mapsontheweb · 1 year ago

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The expansion of the Roman Empire to AD 117.

by Undevicesimus

From its humble origins as a group of villages on the Tiber in the plains of Latium, Rome came to control one of the greatest empires in history, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Tigris and from the North Sea to the Sahara Desert. Its extensive legacy continues to serve as a lowest common denominator not only for the nations and peoples within its erstwhile borders, but much of the modern world at large. Roman law is the foundation for present-day legal systems across the globe, the Latin language survives in the Romance languages spoken on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and beyond, Roman settlements developed into some of Europe’s most important cities and stood model for many others, Roman architecture left some of history’s finest manmade landmarks, Christianity – the Roman state religion from AD 395 – remains the world’s dominant faith and Rome continues to feature prominently in Western popular culture… Rome rose in a geographically favourable location: on the left bank of the Tiber, not too far from the sea but far enough inland to be able to control important trade routes in central Italy: southwest from the Apennines alongside the Tiber, and from Etruria southeast into Latium and Campania. In later ages, the Romans always had much to tell about the founding and early history of their city: tales about the twin brothers Romulus and Remus being raised by a she-wolf, the founding of Rome by Romulus on 21 April 753 BC and the reign of the Seven Kings (of which Romulus was the first). According to Roman accounts, the last King of Rome – Tarquinius Superbus – was expelled in 510 BC, after which the Roman aristocracy established a republic ruled by two annually elected magistrates (Latin: pl. consulis) with the support of the Senate (Latin: senatus), a council made up of the leaders of the most prominent Roman families. Often at odds with their neighbours, the Romans considered military service one of the greatest contributions common people could make to the state and the easiest way for a consul to gain both power and prestige by protecting the republic. The Romans booked their first major triumph by conquering the Etruscan city Veii in 396 BC and went on to defeat most of the Latin cities in central Italy by 338 BC, despite the Celtic sack of Rome in 387 BC. Throughout the second half of the fourth century BC, the republic expanded in two different ways: direct annexation of enemy territory and the creation of a complex system of alliances with the peoples and cities of Italy. Shortly after 300 BC, nearly all the peoples of Italy united to stop Roman expansion once and for all – among them the Samnites, Umbrians, Etruscans and Celts. Rome obliterated the coalition in the decisive Battle of Sentinum (295 BC) and thus became the strongest power in Italy. By 264 BC, Rome controlled the Italian peninsula up to the Po Valley and was powerful enough to challenge its principal rival in the western Mediterranean: Carthage. The First Punic War began when the Italic people of Messana called for Roman help against both Carthage and the Greeks of Syracuse, a request which was accepted surprisingly quickly. The Romans allied with Syracuse, conquered most of Sicily and narrowly defeated the Carthaginian navy at Mylae in 264 BC and Ecnomus in 256 BC – the largest naval battles of Antiquity. Roman fleets gained a decisive victory off the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, ending the war and forcing the Carthaginians to abandon Sicily. Taking advantage of Carthage’s internal troubles, Rome seized Sardinia and Corsica in 238 BC. Rome’s frustration at Carthage’s resurgence and subsequent conquests in Spain sparked the Second Punic War, in which the Carthaginian commander Hannibal crossed the Alps and invaded the Italian peninsula. The Romans suffered massive defeats at the Trebia in 218 BC, Lake Trasimene in 217 BC and most famously at Cannae in 216 BC where over 50,000 Romans were slain – the largest military loss in one day in any army until the First World War. However, Hannibal failed to press his advantage and continued an increasingly pointless campaign in Italy while the Romans conquered the Carthaginian territory in Spain and ultimately brought the war to Africa. Hannibal’s army made it back home but was decisively defeated by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, securing Rome’s hard-fought victory in arguably the most important war in Roman history. Firmly in command of much of the western Mediterranean, Rome turned its attention eastwards to Greece. Less than fifty years after the Second Punic War, Rome had crushed the Macedonian kingdom – an erstwhile ally of Hannibal – and formally annexed the Greek city-states after the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC. That very same year, the Romans finished off the helpless Carthaginians in much the same way, burning the city of Carthage to the ground and annexing its remaining territory into the new province of Africa. With Carthage, Macedon and the Greek cities out of the way, Rome was free to deal with the Hellenic kingdoms in Asia Minor and the Middle East, the remnants of Alexander the Great’s empire. In 133 BC, Attalus III of Pergamum left his realm to Rome by testament, gaining the Romans their first foothold in Asia. As the Romans expanded their borders, the unrest back in Rome and Italy increased accordingly. The wars against Carthage and the Greeks had seriously crippled the Roman peasants whom abandoned their home to campaign for years in distant lands, only to come back and find their farmland turned into a wilderness. Many peasants were thus forced to sell their land at a ridiculously low price, causing the emergence of an impoverished proletarian mass in Rome and an agricultural elite in control of vast swathes of countryside. This in turn disrupted army recruitment, which heavily relied on middle class peasants who were able to afford their own arms and armour. Two possible solutions could remove this problem: a redistribution of the land so that the peasantry remained wealthy and large enough to be able to afford their military equipment and serve in the army, or else allowing the proletarian masses to enter military service and make the army into a professional body. However, both options would threaten the position of the Roman Senate: a powerful peasantry could press calls for more political influence and a professional army would bind soldiers’ loyalty to their commander instead of the Senate. The senatorial elite thus stubbornly clung to the existing institutions which were undermining the republic they wanted to uphold. More importantly, the Senate’s attitude and increasingly shaky position, in addition to the growing internal tensions, created a perfect climate for overly ambitious commanders seeking to turn military prestige gained abroad into political power back home. Roman successes on the frontline nevertheless continued: Pergamum was turned into the province of Asia in 129 BC, Roman forces sacked the city of Numantia in Spain that same year, the Balearic Islands were conquered in 123 BC, southern Gaul became the new province of Gallia Narbonensis in 121 BC and the Berber kingdom of Numidia was dealt a defeat in the Jughurtine War (112 – 106 BC). The latter conflict provided Gaius Marius the opportunity to reform his army without senatorial approval, allowing proletarians to enlist and creating a force of professional soldiers who were loyal to him before the Senate. Marius’ legions proved their efficiency at the Battles of Aquae Sextiae in 102 BC and Vercellae in 101 BC, virtually annihilating the migratory invasions of the Germanic Cimbri and Teutones. Marius subsequently used his power and prestige to secure a land distribution for his victorious forces, thus setting a precedent: any successful commander with an army behind him could now manipulate the political theatre back in Rome. Marius was succeeded as Rome’s leading commander by Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who gained renown when Rome’s Italic allies – fed up with their unequal status – attempted to renounce their allegiance. Rome narrowly won the ensuing Social War (91 – 88 BC) and granted the Italic peoples full Roman citizenship. Sulla left for the east in 86 BC, where he drove back King Mithridates of Pontus, whom had sought to benefit from the Social War by invading Roman territories in Asia and Greece. Sulla marched on Rome itself in 82 BC, executed many of his political enemies in a bloody purge and passed reforms to strengthen the Senate before voluntarily stepping down in 79 BC. Sulla’s retirement and death one year later allowed his general Pompey to begin his own rise to prominence. Following his victory in the Sertorian War in 72 BC, Pompey eradicated piracy in the Mediterranean Sea in 67 BC and led a campaign against Rome’s remaining eastern enemies in 66 BC. Pompey drove Mithridates of Pontus to flight, annexed Pontic lands into the new province of Bithynia et Pontus and created the province of Cilicia in southern Asia Minor. He proceeded to destroy the crumbling Seleucid Empire and turned it into the new province of Syria in 64 BC, causing Armenia to surrender and become a vassal of Rome. Pompey’s legions then advanced south, took Jerusalem and turned the Hasmonean Kingdom in Judea into a Roman vassal as well. Upon his triumphant return to Rome in 61 BC, Pompey made the significant mistake of disbanding his army with the promise of a land distribution, which was refused by the Senate in an attempt to isolate him. Pompey then concluded a political alliance with the rich Marcus Licinius Crassus and a young, ambitious politician: Gaius Julius Caesar. The purpose of this political alliance – known in later times as the First Triumvirate – was to get Caesar elected as consul in 59 BC, so that he could arrange the land distribution for Pompey’s veterans. In return, Pompey would use his influence to make Caesar proconsul and thus give him the chance to levy his own legions and become a man of power in the Roman Republic. Crassus, the richest man in Rome, funded the election campaign and easily got Caesar elected as consul, after which Caesar secured Pompey’s land distribution. Everything went according to plan and Caesar was made proconsul of Gaul for five years, starting in 58 BC. In the following years, Caesar and his legions systematically conquered all of Gaul in a war which has been immortalised in the accounts of Caesar himself (‘Commentarii De Bello Gallico’). Despite fierce resistance and massive revolts led by the Gallic warlord Vercingetorix, the Gallic tribes proved unable to inflict a decisive defeat on the Romans and were all subdued or annihilated by 51 BC, leaving Caesar’s power and prestige at unprecedented heights. With Crassus having fallen at the Battle of Carrhae against the Parthians in 53 BC, Pompey was left to try and mediate between Caesar and the radicalised Roman proletariat on one side and the politically hard-pressed Senate on the other. However, Pompey had once been where Caesar was now – the champion of Rome – and ultimately chose to side with the Senate, realising his own greatness had become overshadowed by Caesar’s staggering military successes and popularity among the masses. When Caesar’s term as proconsul ended, the Senate demanded that he step down, disband his armies and return to Rome as a mere citizen. Though it was tradition for a Roman commander to do so, rendering Caesar theoretically immune from any senatorial prosecution, the existing political situation made such demands hard to meet. Caesar instead offered the Senate to extend his term as proconsul and leave him in command of two legions until he could be legally elected as consul again. When the Senate refused, Caesar responded by crossing the Rubicon – the northern border of Roman Italy which no Roman commander should cross with an army – and marched on Rome itself in 49 BC. Pompey and most of the senators fled to Dyrrhachium in Greece and assembled their forces while Caesar turned around and conducted a lightning campaign in Spain, defeating the legions loyal to Pompey at the Battle of Ilerda. Caesar crossed the Adriatic Sea in 48 BC, narrowly escaping defeat by Pompey at Dyrrhachium and retreating south. Pompey clumsily failed to press his advantage and his forces were in turn decisively defeated by Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus on 6 June 48 BC. Pompey fled to Egypt in hopes of being granted sanctuary by the young king Ptolemy XIII, who instead had him assassinated in an attempt at pleasing Caesar, who was in pursuit. Ptolemy XIII was driven from power in favour of his older sister Cleopatra VII, with whom Caesar had a brief romance and his only known son, Caesarion. In the spring and summer of 47 BC, another lightning campaign was launched northwards through Syria and Cappadocia into Pontus, securing Caesar’s hold on Rome’s eastern reaches and decisively defeating the forces of Pharnaces II of Pontus, who had attempted to profit from Rome’s internal strife. Caesar invaded Africa in 46 BC and cleared Pompeian forces from the region at the Battles of Ruspina and Thapsus before returning to Spain and defeating the last resistance at the Battle of Munda in 45 BC. Caesar subsequently began transforming the Roman government from a republican one meant for a city-state to an imperial one meant for an empire. Major reforms were required to achieve this, many of which would be opposed by Caesar’s political enemies. This was a problem because several of these people enjoyed significant political influence and popular support (cf. Cicero) and while none of them could really challenge Caesar individually and publicly, collectively and secretly they could be a serious threat. To render his enemies politically impotent, Caesar consolidated his popularity among the Roman masses by passing reforms beneficial to the proletariat and enlarging the Senate to ensure his supporters had the upper hand. He then manipulated the Senate into granting him a number of legislative powers, most prominently the office of dictator for ten years, soon changed to dictator perpetuus. Though widely welcomed by the masses, Caesar’s reforms and legislative powers dismayed his political opponents, whom assembled a conspiracy to murder him and ‘liberate’ Rome. The conspirators, of whom Brutus and Cassius are the most famous, were successful and Caesar was brutally stabbed to death on 15 March 44 BC. Caesar’s death left a power vacuum which plunged the Roman world into yet another civil war. In his testament, Caesar adopted as his sole heir his grandnephew Gaius Octavius, henceforth known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian, in English). Despite being only eighteen, Octavian quickly secured the support of Caesar’s legions and forced the Senate to grant him several legislative powers, including the consulship. In 43 BC, Octavian established a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate with Caesar’s former generals Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus. Caesar’s assassins had meanwhile fled to the eastern provinces, where they assembled forces of their own and subsequently moved into Greece. Octavian and Antony in turn invaded Greece in 42 BC and defeated them at the Battles of Philippi. Octavian, Antony and Lepidus then divided the Roman world between them: Octavian would rule the west, Antony the east and Lepidus the south with Italy as a joint-ruled territory. However, Octavian soon proved himself a brilliant politician and strategist by quickly consolidating his hold on both the western provinces and Italy, smashing the Sicilian Revolt of Sextus Pompey (son of) in 36 BC and ousting Lepidus from the Triumvirate that same year. Meanwhile, Antony consolidated his position in the east but made the fatal mistake of becoming the lover of Cleopatra VII. In 32 BC, Octavian manipulated the Senate into a declaration of war upon Cleopatra’s realm, correctly expecting Antony would come to her aid. The two sides battled at Actium on 2 September 31 BC, resulting in a crushing victory for Octavian, despite Antony and Cleopatra escaping back to Egypt. Octavian crossed into Asia the following year and marched through Asia Minor, Syria and Judea into Egypt, subjugating the eastern territories along the way. On 1 August 30 BC, the forces of Octavian entered Alexandria. Both Antony and Cleopatra perished by their own hand, leaving Octavian as the undisputed master of the Roman world. Octavian assumed the title of Augustus in January 27 BC and officially restored the Roman Republic, although in reality he reduced it to little more than a facade for a new imperial regime. Thus began the era of the Principate, named after the constitutional framework which made Augustus and his successors princeps (first citizen), commonly referred to as ‘emperor’, and which would last approximately two centuries. Augustus nevertheless refrained from giving himself absolute power vested in a single title, instead subtly spreading imperial authority throughout the republican constitution while simultaneously relying on pure prestige. Thus he avoided stomping any senatorial toes too hard, remembering what had happened to Julius Caesar. Augustus and his successors drew most of their power from two republican offices. The title of tribunicia potestes ensured the emperor political immunity, veto rights in the Senate and the right to call meetings in both the Senate and the concilium plebis (people’s assembly). This gave the emperor the opportunity to present himself as the guardian of the empire and the Roman people, a significant ideological boost to his prestige. Secondly, the emperor held imperium proconsulare. Imperium implied the emperor’s governorship of the so-called imperial provinces, which were typically border provinces, provinces prone to revolt and/or exceptionally rich provinces. These provinces obviously required a major military presence, thereby securing the emperor’s command of most of the Roman legions. The title was proconsulare because the emperor enjoyed imperium even without being a consul. The emperor furthermore interfered in the affairs of the (non-imperial) senatorial provinces on a regular basis and gave literally every person in the empire the theoretical right to request his personal judgement in court cases. Roman religion was also brought under the emperor’s wings by means of him becoming pontifex maximus (supreme priest), a position of major ideological importance. On top of all this, the Senate frequently granted the emperor additional rights which enhanced his power even more: supervision over coinage, the right to declare war or conclude peace treaties, the right to grant Roman citizenship, control over Roman colonisation across the Mediterranean, etc. The emperor was thus the supreme administrator, commander, priest and judge of the empire – a de facto absolute ruler, but without actually being named as such. It is worth noting that Augustus and most of his immediate successors worked hard to play along in the empire’s republican theatre, which gradually faded as the centuries passed. The most important questions nonetheless remained the same for a long time after Augustus’ death in AD 14. Could the emperor keep himself in the Senate’s good graces by preserving the republican mask? Or did he choose an open conflict with the Senate by ruling all too autocratically? Even a de facto absolute ruler required the support and acceptance of the empire’s elite class, the lack of which could prove to be a serious obstacle to any imperial policies. The relationship between the emperor and the Senate was therefore of significant importance in maintaining the political work of Augustus, particularly under his immediate successors. The first four of these were Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero – the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Tiberius was chosen by Augustus as successor on account of his impressive military service and proved to be a capable (if gloomy) ruler, continuing along the political lines of Augustus and implementing financial policies which left the imperial treasuries in decent shape at his death in AD 37 and Caligula’s accession. Despite having suffered a harsh youth full of intrigues and plotting, Caligula quickly gained the respect of the Senate, the army and the people, making a hopeful entry into the Principate. Yet continuous personal setbacks turned Caligula bitter and autocratic, not to say tyrannical, causing him to hurl his imperial power head-first into the senatorial elite and any dissenting groups (most notably the Jews). After Caligula’s assassination in AD 41, the position of emperor fell to his uncle Claudius who, despite a strained relationship with the Senate, managed to play the republican charade well enough to implement further administrative reforms and successfully invade the British Isles to establish the province of Britannia from AD 43 onward. But the Roman drive for expansion had been somewhat tempered after Augustus’ consolidating conquests in Spain, along the Danube and in the east. The Romans had practically turned the Mediterranean Sea into their own internal sea (Mare Internum or Mare Nostrum) and thus switched to territorial consolidation rather than expansion. However, the former was still often accomplished by the latter as multiple vassal states (Judea, Cappadocia, Mauretania, Thrace etc.) were gradually annexed as new Roman provinces. Actual wars of aggression nevertheless ceased to be a main item on the Roman agenda and indeed, the policies of consolidation and pacification paved the way for a long period of internal peace and stability during the first and second centuries AD – the Pax Romana. This should not be idealised, though. On the local level, violence was often one of the few stable elements in the lives of the common people across the empire. Especially among the lowest ranks of society, crimes such as murder and thievery were the order of the day but were typically either ignored by the Roman authorities or answered with brute force. Moreover, the Romans focused on safeguarding cities and places of major strategic or economic importance and often cared little about maintaining order in the vast countryside. Unpleasant encounters with brigands, deserters or marauders were therefore likely for those who travelled long distances without an armed escort. At the empire’s frontiers, the Roman legions regularly fought skirmishes with their local enemies, most notably the Germanic tribes across the Rhine-Danube frontier and the Parthians across the Euphrates. Despite all this, the big picture of the Roman world in the first and second centuries AD is indeed one of lasting stability which could not be discredited so easily. The real threat to the Pax Romana existed not so much in local violence, shady neighbourhoods or frontier skirmishes but rather in the highest ranks of the imperial court. The lack of both dynastic and elective succession mechanisms had been the Principate’s weakest point from the outset and would be the cause of major internal turmoil on several occasions. Claudius’ successor Nero succeeded in provoking both the Senate and the army to such an extent that several provincial governors rose up in open revolt. The chaos surrounding Nero’s flight from Rome and death by his own hand plunged the empire into its first major succession crisis. If the emperor lost the respect and loyalty of both the Senate and the army, he could not choose a successor, giving senators and soldiers a free hand to appoint the persons they considered suitable to be the new emperor. This being the exact situation upon Nero’s death in AD 68, the result was nothing short of a new civil war. To further add to the catastrophe, the civil war of AD 68/69 (the Year of Four Emperors) allowed for two major uprisings to get out of hand – the Batavian Revolt near the mouths of the Rhine and the First Jewish-Roman War in Judea. Both of these were ultimately crushed with significant difficulties, especially in Judea where Jewish religious-nationalist sentiments capitalised on existing political and economic unrest. Though the Romans achieved victory with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the expulsion of the Jews from the city, Judea would remain a hotbed for revolts until deep into the second century AD. The fact that major uprisings arose at the first sign of trouble within the empire might cause one to wonder about the true nature of the Pax Romana. Was it truly the strong internal stability it is popularly known to be? Or was it little more than a forced peace, continuously threatened by socio-economic and political discontent among the many different peoples under the Roman yoke? Though a bit of both, the answer definitely leans towards the former hypothesis. While the Pax Romana lasted, unrest within the empire remained limited to a few hotbeds with a history of resisting foreign conquerors. Besides the obvious example of the Jewish people in Judea, whose anti-Roman sentiments largely stemmed from their unique messianic doctrines, large-scale resistance against the Romans was scarce. It is true that the incorporation and Romanisation of unique societies near the empire’s northern frontiers led to severe socio-economic problems and subsequent uprisings, most notably Boudica’s Rebellion in Britain (AD 60 – 61) and the aforementioned Batavian Revolt near the mouths of the Rhine. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the Pax Romana was strong enough to outlast a few pockets of rebellion and even a major succession crisis like the one of AD 68/69. The Year of the Four Emperors ultimately brought to power Vespasian, founder of the Flavian dynasty (AD 69 – 96) and architect of an intensified pacification policy throughout the empire. These policies were fruitful and strengthened the constitutional position of the emperor, not in the least owing to the fact that Vespasian’s sons and successors Titus and Domitian were as capable as their father. However, their skills did not prevent Titus and especially Domitian from bickering with the senatorial elite over the increasingly obvious monarchical powers of the emperor. In the case of the all too authoritarian Domitian, the conflict escalated again and despite his competent (if ruthless) statesmanship, Domitian was murdered in AD 96. A new civil war was prevented by diplomatic means: Nerva emerged as an acceptable emperor to both the Senate and the army, especially when he adopted the popular Trajan as his son and heir. Thus began the reign of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty (AD 96 – 192). Having succeeded Nerva in AD 98, Trajan once more steered the empire onto the path of aggressive expansion, leading the Roman legions across the Danube to crush the Dacians and establish the rich province of Dacia in AD 106. Subsequently, the Romans seized the initiative in the east, drove back the Parthians and advanced all the way to the Persian Gulf (Sinus Persicus). Trajan annexed Armenia in AD 114 and turned the conquered Parthian lands into the new provinces of Mesopotamia and Assyria in AD 116. Trajan died less than a year later on 9 August AD 117, his staggering military successes having brought the Roman Empire to its greatest extent ever…

#maps #Undevicesimus #roman empire #117

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purpleajisai · 1 year ago

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"Promise"

Chapter 2: Hatachi

> Chapter 1

Madara Monday!

Notes: This chapter is centred in the brotherhood dynamic of Madara (20 years old) and Izuna (17 years old). You may notice several references to being 20 years old (hatachi / 二十歳), which had been considered the age of maturity for centuries, both culturally and legally in Japan. Here you have two links on the subject if you’re interested: link 1 link 2

Hatachi

A cold breeze entered from the half-shut windows of a simple room, furnished by a desk and many shelves stacked to the top with documents. Two men were working together, opening the fancy seals of delicately crafted scrolls. Madara, who had just become an adult according to his clan’s custom, was scowling at the workload. Even more than usual. His eye bags were nearly the colour of his navy blue robe as it was clear he hadn’t been sleeping well for several days. As the sound of another seal being opened by his brother snapped him out of his choleric state of mind, he turned his head and read the message.

“If I get another damn marriage arrangement proposal from that daimyo once again, I will burn his lands to a crisp!”, he exclaimed as soon as he saw the title of the message. This particular daimyo had already sent him five requests. One for each daughter he had, trying to blindly guess what sort of woman Madara would like.

“Well, this guy is determined to get one of his daughters into this clan one way or another. Goodness, let’s hope I don’t have to deal with him once I’m 20!”, Izuna replied. The younger Uchiha shook his head and handed his brother a blank scroll for him to write a rejection letter once again.

“I will be blatant with him this time. I’ll make it clear that if I get another proposal from him, we will never provide services to his lands ever again.”

Madara submerged his brush on the suzuri, letting the black ink be soaked into the bristles and then he started writing with a frown. Izuna peeked at the contents of the reply and was quick to interrupt, slamming his palm onto the table.

“No, elder brother! Not like that! You can’t be so rude, he pays well for our services! Just say something like… um, you’re not looking for a wife? That you don’t want to rush it?”

“I’m done with this crap. You write the rejection letter and I’ll drink some of the tea before it gets cold.”

Izuna simply rolled his eyes and smiled a little. He knew that his brother was stressed and that it was best to let him relax before he got back to the many duties of a clan leader. After redacting a polite rejection letter explaining that Madara had too much on his plate to go and tie the knot, Izuna closed the scroll and closed it with a ribbon. Madara was finishing his mug of tea while gazing into the horizon through the window, so Izuna decided to snap him off of his trance by patting his shoulder.

“You should cheer up a bit, elder brother. Take the constant requests from many daimyo as a flattery or something. You think any sane, rich man would want his daughter to marry a bad catch? We’re a powerful clan, we have lands and prestige! I would safely bet a nice barrel of umeshu that the daimyo were counting the days until you turned 20 to start sending these.”

Madara, now more present in the moment, put down his mug and sighed as soon as he glanced at the mountain of similar messages on the desk. Sure, he had a big ego but this wasn’t the way in which he wanted to be appreciated. He lowered his head and ran a hand through his pitch black hair before speaking in a rather quiet voice.

“If Father was here, I wouldn’t have to deal with all of this nonsense. Instead of writing the same rejection letter over and over again, I could actually have time to find a partner for life and read my books. I don’t think I’m doing a good job at this clan leader thing, Izuna.”

“Oh come on, you’re doing amazing! You’ve been the youngest leader this clan has ever seen and we’re seeing an improvement in many areas. When was the last time we had more than ten trained doctors, hm? Or the last time we got over 30 customers?”, the younger man replied with a comforting voice to cheer the worn down leader while quickly skimming through another message. The mention of their father was a sensitive topic, as both men missed him dearly.

“Being the youngest clan leader ever comes with a downside. I don’t remember the end of my teens and the start of my adulthood. It suddenly came to an end as soon as I swore in that ceremony and renounced part of my independence. Would Father be proud of the way I’m handling things? Maybe I’m too immature and selfish for this.”

“Of course he would be proud. Don’t you remember what he used to say every single time he took us to battle with him?”

“You’d have to narrow it down. He was always saying that you tied your sash the wrong way, hah!”, he joked. Izuna grinned slightly as his attempt to lighten the mood was working. Then, the younger brother cleared his throat and made his best imitation of their late father’s voice.

“This clan crest entails the great honour of a caste of mighty warriors. It is a symbol of strength and duty”. Madara laughed as Izuna made a small parody of their father. When they were boys, they’d dislike having their father constantly saying such things. But now it was a fond memory.

Madara didn’t reply to that, he simply pondered silently about what it meant to be… himself. The prodigy, the wielder of a mangekyou sharingan, the clan leader, the son, the older brother. That was until he spotted something from the corner of his peripheral vision just seconds later. What caught his eye was the sight of his beloved younger brother piling up all of the leftover messages from daimyo who were in a haste to get their daughters married.

“Hey, what are you doing? Leaving those for later?”

“Um, technically I am. Or I am not.”

Izuna then held all the scrolls in both hands and channelled his chakra through his fingers, causing the paper to burst into flames and burn down into mere seconds. Madara was impressed, that was a dangerous move!

“No! We have to reply or we could lose the good relationships with those lands! You were the one suggesting that we reply politely!”, he cried out, using his hands and another piece of paper to try and make the fire die down.

“We can’t keep wasting time! These people know that you’re not interested and yet keep sending requests! I am indeed an advocate for harmonious diplomacy but this is getting repetitive and useless! I’ve read through them all and it’s the exact same daimyo as always!”

Izuna exclaimed with a hint of anger while throwing the remains of the burnt paper to a bucket that served as a trash can and shaking the ash off his fingers. While Izuna was the one who always helped Madara avoid unnecessary problems caused by the shinobi’s sharp tongue and disdain for weaker ninja, he drew the line at wasting his time with menial tasks. That was the only case in which Izuna would allow himself to have a more aggressive approach.

Madara simply sighed and looked at the pile of ash in the trash can. That must have been at least 50 scrolls, all of which were marriage arrangement proposals. He couldn’t understand why so many adult men, most of which were well educated, would be so eager to have their daughters marry a complete stranger only because of his power and status. It made the idea of marriage become shallow, as if it were only a tool. There were a series of important doubts clouding his mind: would he ever find someone that saw beyond the outside? Someone who saw his heart below the many layers of duty? What people would call a “soulmate”?

After two long hours of working side by side, the brothers called it a day and began to classify the scrolls into the many shelves of the room. One shelf contained the scrolls to be sent with a messenger hawk in the morning, another one served as an archive for the clan’s accounting, a third one was a record of the daimyo who had requested their service as mercenaries and so on. Madara arched his eyebrows at the many service requests that Izuna had handled, then looking at the much smaller amount of accounting and negotiating he had done that was now piled in the shelves.

“You’re quite the productive man, eh?”

“Oh please elder brother, taking care of the requests is simply saying yes or no. You have to do maths, economics and those things. You’re the clan leader, you deal with the main stuff.”

“I wouldn’t have the time to do this if you didn’t help me with those boring service requests. Don’t put yourself down, Izuna.”

“Hm. May I ask something, elder brother?”

“Shoot.”

“Was any of those proposals from… Fuyumi~?”, he said in a mocking tone to his brother. Izuna knew that Madara was slowly catching feelings for that young woman. And in fact, he would be glad if the two ended up together. They were a good duo in the battlefield and knew each other even before they learned how to speak. But Izuna was still in his late teens, so he would never treat the subject seriously at this point. What kind of younger brother misses the chance to annoy his older brother?

Madara had somehow sensed that Izuna would find a way to involve his crush on Fuyumi. So instead of saying a comeback, he jokingly slapped his brother’s nape and laughed.

“Shut up, you little rascal! Finish that so we can go greet Father!”

“Haha! Fine, fine, I’m almost done. But you can’t deny that you wish one of those proposals was from Fuyumi~”

“Hmph! I said shut up!”

Izuna continued to make jabs at his brother until they finally finished stacking the scrolls in their respective places. When the two men in charge of running the Uchiha clan stepped out of the office towards the little graveyard beside the house, the position of the moon indicated it was midnight. Both of them sat down before a long tombstone and placed incense in front of it, perhaps even praying for the soul whose name was engraved in the rock. Izuna broke the silence and nudged Madara with his elbow.

“Elder brother…”

“What is it?”

“Don’t put yourself down. I’m proud of you. And I’m sure Father’s proud of you, wherever he may be now.”

Madara smiled softly at his brother and put an arm over his shoulder. Izuna had been much too young when they lost their father, so the least an older brother could do was comfort a hurt and grieving young man. A single tear rolled down the clan leader’s cheek as many thoughts filled his mind. He remembered his father, all of his advice and what he should do once he grew up. One particular piece of advice resonated within his memories.

“Find yourself a good woman just like I found your mother. Someone whom you will love, protect and cherish. And help your brother find one as well when the time comes, after you both turn 20. You two are meant to stick together and watch each other’s backs.”

Being 20 years old and a clan leader surely did entail a lot of responsibilities, but at least his little brother was proud of him.

#madara monday #fanfic #madara #madara uchiha #uchiha madara #izuna #izuna uchiha #uchiha izuna #oc: fuyumi uchiha

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beautifulpersonpeach · 8 months ago

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Sorry if you already said something, but do you have any thoughts on sm losing both baekhyun and now taemin as soloists? Is this snowballing likely to continue, and what do you see sm being in five years?

***

Hi Anon,

I've answered the question of where I see SM in 5 years here <- that's from about a month ago.

My view of Baekhyun and Taemin both jumping ship is that they were overdue. It was always a question of when not if. SM has a long, prolific history of bleeding talent and abusing their idols - that company is quite literally the worst offender among the Big3 just going by the number of lawsuits filed every 3 - 5 years from idols under their management. And this is aside the fact that SM is the only major company that compels their artists to sign 10-year contracts using a legal loophole, where the industry standard is 7 years. The reason SM's known practices aren't talked about more in fact, is because SM also has the largest amount of company stans in the wider k-pop fandom who strongly influence where scrutiny is placed.

And that reason is why even if this snowballs, it won't change anything dramatically for the company, because nobody is more committed to keeping illusion of SM's legacy/prestige alive more than fans of SM groups.

That said, based on debut dates, the group next up for contract negotiations is NCT. Because most of the founding members have promoted outside Korea (the legal loophole SM uses), this means they have 10-year contracts and so they'll only begin negotiations from the latter half of this year through 2026. As some of the members are due to enlist starting this year (Taeil, Jaehyun, Doyoung and Taeyong are the four oldest Korean members), it's assumed they are speedrunning negotiations ahead of that deadline, and it could be why we've seen solo and sub-unit projects for Taeil, Taeyong, Jaehyun and Doyoung in the last year. I'm highlighting those four in contrast to a member like Mark, who is easily NCT's most prominent member (alongside Taeyong) who still doesn't have a solo EP, and it's probably just a coincidence that he's Canadian and not up for military service. And so his negotiations can happen much later. Given the state of SM's dwindling idol portfolio and how they've been handling NCT so far, I expect almost all the members to re-sign (WayV is the wild card here), but I expect more bleeding from EXO and other legacy acts.

Anyway, I'm already rambling.

Baekhyun/Taemin have been associated with SM for a decade and that's not going to change even with them leaving the company, for two reasons:

They are still signed under SM for group activities.

SM stans won't relinquish that connection no matter how hard those idols attempt to rebrand their image. Like I've been saying, most fans of SM groups are actually company stans despite what they'll tell you.

So long as the make-up of k-pop fandoms remain dominated by SM stans, nothing is changing significantly for SM in this space in the next 5 years. Their new girl group will debut to much fan fare, Taemin and Baekhyun will continue being included in conversations about SM talent and influence, and SM company norms will continue as they have like every other time a high-profile talent has left their company - just fine.

The one caveat I didn't include in my prior post (linked above) but feel compelled to include now, is that the non-compete HYBE placed on Lee Sooman in 2023, expires in 2026. Given everything I've mentioned about how SM operates and the cult-like following LSM has both with his staff and k-pop stans generally, if he establishes a competing agency in the next 5 years, that could dramatically impact the life of SM Entertainment beyond any of the expected M&A scenarios I mentioned in point 3 of my linked post.

Overall, expect more of the same but there's a chance we get more fun times ahead. :)

#kpop #sm entertainment #hybe #kpop fandoms #sm stans #baekhyun #taemin

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Over the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, labor shortages have garnered considerable attention, including among public school teachers. Nationwide, the teacher shortage exceeds 55,000 unfilled positions, with nearly five times as many positions held by underqualified candidates. These gaps have been generated, in part, by increased pandemic-era teacher turnover and a 35% enrollment decline in traditional university teacher preparation programs in the decade preceding the pandemic. Meanwhile, interest, prestige, and satisfaction related to the teaching profession have reached 50-year lows.

In response, individual states and the federal government have proposed and enacted various policies to strengthen the teacher workforce. These policies vary widely in scope, encompassing both financial interventions (e.g., teacher pay, loan forgiveness) and non-pecuniary policies around teacher working conditions. While debate over the depths and distribution of the teacher shortage continues, public opinion of enacted and mooted policy approaches varies widely. In this context, improved understanding of public support may inform voter-conscious policymaking, especially in contexts where the effects of policies intended to attract teachers may extend beyond school walls and in instances where policy enactment requires direct voter approval.

To explore public sentiment concerning several teacher recruitment and retention policies, we fielded four questions on the fall 2022 Cooperative Election Study (CES) surveys, which were administered to a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. While many respondents support the proposed strategies, including teacher bonuses, grants, loan forgiveness, and shortened school weeks, significant partisan differences remain evident.

Public opinion in a partisan era

Policies to improve teacher recruitment and retention vary in scope; some specifically target teachers while others focus on broader economic incentives. We posed four survey questions capturing support for the following policies: 1) Expanding the federal Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant from $4,000 to $8,000; 2) Accelerating federal loan forgiveness programs (e.g., the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program, Perkins Loan Cancellation); 3) Enacting permanent four-day school weeks (4DSWs); 4) Distributing one-time teacher bonuses between $1,000 and $5,000.

The first two proposals focus on potential federal policies to recruit and retain teachers (and broader loan relief objectives) while the latter two proposals focus on state and district approaches to teacher labor markets, primarily addressing teacher retention.

Though the two federal policies may not be predicated directly on their public support, both have garnered significant national debate; the doubling of the TEACH grant stalled through President Biden’s American Families Plan proposal while loan forgiveness remains mired in long-term legal proceedings. Conversely, state and local policies often require direct voter support, either through local school board elections or referenda. Four-day school week policies have grown rapidly, primarily in rural locales, though recent evidence indicates largely negative impacts on student academic outcomes, while questions about their effects on parents, families, and communities remain. Teacher grants and bonuses have proliferated through COVID-19 federal relief funds, a revenue source soon due to expire.

While the efficacy of these policies to stabilize teacher labor markets may vary, our focus lies not in assessing their effectiveness but rather in documenting their public support to inform the feasibility of their enactment and sustainability through public buy-in. The pertinent portions of the CES surveys—which we partnered with YouGov to administer to a national stratified sample of approximately 1,000 adults—queried respondents on their support and opposition to these policies, also collecting their demographic characteristics (e.g., race, income, employment status), and political ideology, factors previously linked to policy support. Each question was contextualized for respondents as a potential tool to improve teacher recruitment and retention.

Polarization and partisanship frequently predict policy preferences, eclipsing demographic factors like age, race, and ethnicity, and even material self-interest. Combined with rhetoric from political leaders, partisanship can lead voters to oppose policies from which they stand to benefit. In our increasingly polarized political environment, Americans often view members of the other political party with distrust, which can lead voters to oppose policies based on political endorsements and to impede goals of the other political party. Thus, we expect partisanship to influence respondents’ preferences regarding education policy, particularly on politicized issues.

Contemporary public opinion on teacher shortage policies

On the one hand, each policy proposal garnered at least a plurality of public support. One-time bonuses (63.6%) and grants to teach in high-need schools (59.4%) were most popular; expanded loan forgiveness (47.3%) and permanent 4DSWs (40.7%) received more limited support (see Figure 1). In addition, support for each policy outstripped opposition by between 10 (4DSWs) to as many as 50 percentage points (one-time bonuses); between two and three in 10 respondents remained unsure of their support for each policy.

On the other hand, significant partisan variation underlies this support. Whereas most liberals support enacting each tactic (between 59.1% and 87.6%), only a plurality of conservatives supported one-time bonuses and a majority disapproved of the remaining strategies (see Figure 2). In fact, only slightly more than one in four conservatives indicated support for expanded loan forgiveness (26.0%) and 4DSWs (27.4%).

Only a few additional characteristics beyond partisanship predicted respondent preferences. Racial minority respondents and those holding a bachelor’s degree each indicated greater support for grants to teach in high-need schools. Additional characteristics like family income, gender, employment status, urbanicity, and age rarely, if ever, predicted policy preferences.

Situating our findings

Recently, scholars have explored partisan sorting in education, showing increasing polarization in education-focused topics, including in familiar debates concerning Common Core State Standards, public school quality, and education spending. Our findings showing partisan differences in support for these policy ideas are not entirely surprising, as some topics in education policy have become well-publicized, polarizing hot-button issues (e.g., ESAs, COVID-19 protection measures, book content, instruction discussing sex, gender orientation, and race and ethnicity).

Republican trust in institutions has been declining for several years. A summer 2023 Gallup poll shows a 34-point partisan gap in confidence in public schools, second only to the gap in confidence in the presidency. Affective partisanship and rhetoric from Republican elites also seems to have impacted Republican views of higher education. For example, a Pew Research Center survey illustrates a rapid decline in the number of Republicans who believe higher education has a positive effect “on the way things are going in the country,” declining from more than half in 2015 to only one in three in 2019. We find that these polarized views impact support for policy issues in education that have yet to feature in the so-called culture wars.

Teacher salaries: The annual Education Next Survey explores many hot-button education-focused topics ranging from perceptions of school quality to preferences for the enactment of new policies and practices. In 2022, responses to queries regarding the trajectory of teacher salaries varied widely by partisan ideology, with 70% of Democrats versus 46% of Republicans generally supporting salary increases.

The cost of education: Loan forgiveness and free two- and four-year college: Consistent with our findings, other survey results regarding loan relief showed a significant partisan divide. While 47% of Americans support some federal loan forgiveness, results from the Quinnipiac University Poll indicate a large partisan divide, with 88% of Democrats indicating approval and 81% of Republicans signaling disapproval. Similar partisan differences emerged in EdNext’s questions regarding free two- and four-year higher education, with Democrats indicating much stronger support (84% and 80%) than Republicans (44% and 36%).

Four-day school weeks: Though we found the least support for 4DSW policies (40.7%), the PDK International Poll recently indicated 53% support 4DSWs, up from 25% two decades ago. The PDK poll motivated 4DSWs with district cost savings whereas our question prioritized teacher recruitment and retention, which district leaders now typically cite as a primary objective of the policy and teachers value as a job perk.

The 2023-24 school year and beyond

As students begin the 2023-24 school year, many will return to schools either under-staffed or staffed, in part, by underqualified teachers, making post-pandemic academic recovery more challenging. Though we find a plurality of adults support a range of teacher recruitment and retention policies, even seemingly politically neutral strategies to address teacher shortages may now court a partisan divide similar to other issues in contemporary education policy, one which may feature prominently in upcoming elections. As a result, the feasibility of implementing local policies like 4DSWs and one-time teacher bonuses may hinge on the direction of local partisanship, while federal policies like loan relief may continue to languish with single-party support.

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horizon-verizon · 1 year ago

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Was Westeros an absolute monarchy?

*EDITED POST* (11/14/23)

No, it was a feudalist society with a monarch more powerful than any real feudal monarch because they had dragons and were able to create a new concept of divine-ish rule through the Doctrine of Exceptionalism. The Doctrine didn't say that the Targs had power b/c the Seven granted it to them (like how absolute monarchs claimed) but it did say that no one in Westeros could criticize or rebel against the dynasty for its custom of sibling marriage. The reason the Doctrine gave was that the Targs do not come from a Seven or Andal background. It said that since they have dragons and used them to conquer Westeros (there are such things as the "right to rule by conquest" in real history, you can check out William the Conqueror), they are the rightful rulers.

Feudalist societies are structured by groups of units holding land in exchange for service or labor AND those landholders having rights to the land through inheritance & kinship [in one of the reblogs below]. There is a set of reciprocal legal & military obligations among the warrior aristocracy: lords have fiefs that their vassals live on, and those vassals owe allegiance, services, and/or payments to the lord. The monarch in such a system was the "supreme" holder of the lands and territories and everyone owed their allegiance to them, but monarchs also were sometimes dependent on non-royal nobles to provide armies and in the earliest periods of the Middle Ages, the "great" lords grew & retained their power/resources separate from the monarch, governing their fiefs as independent states. Even minor lords could govern their fiefs as if they were separate states as long as they could self-supply.

Monarchs were usually kept in check by other lords' powers bc these lords had their own fiefs and vassals. The more ability you, the monarch, have to raise armies (or other tools) to intimidate other lords, the more you could impose and support your own monarchist agendas/laws. (This is all how we learned what a "feudalist" state is, through how historians broke it down. The very description of feudalism actually only came up after it ended.)

In absolute monarchies, the monarch's power & actions aren't questioned or limited by any written law, legislature, court, economic sanction, religion, custom, etc. In other words, there are no official or organized checks on a monarch's power. And they accomplish or maintain this by:

insisting on the concept that their power is God-given and "partner" with the "papacy" (or whatever supreme religious institution is there) to enforce that concept through violence or reconstruction

OR doing away with the prior supreme religious institution: taking the "Church's" lands or rights to lands or breaking the country off from the "Church" so they create a new Church/religion and take over as its head (make that a royal hereditary office)

raising totally independent, royal armies

seizing nobles' lands and absorbing them for such armies, palaces, reconstructions of critical infrastructure for the crown's own use or ownership

setting up large royal courts where all/most nobles and their families (or most) were required to attend to the monarch and the royal family -- may be for a specific period of time and this isn't like a visit where the monarch hosts, this is like being called in and told to stay -> but an absolute monarch could make as if these families having their own quarters within the grand palace is a great honor or these quarters may come with pecuniary and other social benefits/prestige

OR pushing most/all nobles (the lords and a huge chunk of their clan/families) to live in certain cities/areas together close to the palace

And absolute monarchies developed as "solutions" to a monarch's checked powers back in the feudalist days.

This is what I say in this reblog:

Westeros does not have an absolute monarchy and none of the Targs were absolute monarchs like the Louis and Sun Kings of France in the 18th century, as a reblogger pointed out. [...] At the same time, The lords' rights to their family's properties are partially determined by the king, in the existence of legitimization, which can only happen if is the monarch doing it. Lords can only acknowledge bastards, not legitimize them, in Westeros. The king/monarch can legally strip lands, titles, privileges, etc from anyone they choose. Westeros is not a constitutional monarchy, either. And the word of the feudal or absolute monarch still is FINAL--both of these types have the monarch give the final authority.

Basically in ASoIaF, the Targs can act/are closer to absolute monarchs but live in a "feudalist" state. Even after they lost their dragons, they were never seen as tyrants or inherently tyrannical because:

the Targs did not oppress, kill, or menace large swaths of nobles or smallfolk (the nobles' jurisdiction) on the whole nor consistently

as per feudal ideology, they were the kings and supreme rulers whom nobles swore oaths, and like we saw in Ned, many lords and their families do believe or pragmatically rely on the social hierarchy facilitated through bonds of loyalty to the king and his family...it supports their own right to rule

the nobles, evident from the very beginning, wanted their own ins into royalty/power through the Targs--dragons or not

NOR do anything the nobles themselves would not do if they had dragons

(for the commoners)there hasn't been anything like the Black Plague where nearly a third of people died and the value of their labor increased enough for negotiation held AND the Doctrine of Exceptionalism and its Faith-support reinforced the Targs' right to rule

Robert even didn't dislike the Targs until one made moves on "his" girl.

However, there has never been a constitutional monarchy in Westeros or in any pre-Westerosi kingdom in the same continent.

Constitutional monarchies are those where the monarch's decisions are checked by a written constitution and have a legislative (law-making/approving) body of people who judge and prescribe some of the monarch's decisions or actions. Their actions are bound by an established legal system. These monarchs usually cannot set public policy or choose political leaders for specific positions...at least legally.

#westerosi society #asoiaf asks to me #doctrine of exceptionalism #absolute monarchy vs feudalism #definitions #feudalism #absolute monarchy #constitutional monarchy #monarchies #the targaryens

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 5 months ago

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By Mike Lofgren

"Two or three years ago it was just another snake cult. Now ... they're everywhere." — "Conan the Barbarian"

Last summer’s federal indictment of Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol released a flood of concern-trolling from the establishment media. The arguments revealed something sadly defective about the intellectual tenor of the present age, a mindset that cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy. It is the root cause of American political and social dysfunction.

The verdict of the prestige journals was remarkably consistent: Trump’s eventual trial would hinge, not upon facts, evidence and patterns of behavior involving him or other actors in the case, nor on whether the trial scrupulously upheld the law and proper judicial procedure, but on subjective matters concerning the defendant’s beliefs, feelings and motivations, as well as how the public perceived the trial through the polarizing lens of political partisanship.

You know what’s coming when you read a headline like this New York Times howler: “Trump Election Charges Set Up Clash of Lies Versus Free Speech.” Really? Conspiring to violently overthrow the government and then inciting a mob to do it is just a little free-spirited political rhetoric, such as to allow legitimate disagreement? Does that require us to set aside the fact that people were killed?

The Wall Street Journal, as you might expect, chimed in with this one: “Trump Is Being Prosecuted, but Justice Department Is on Trial, Too.” Both-sides-ism, much?

But the absurdity of the media mentality is perhaps best captured by this Washington Post headline: “Heart of the Trump Jan. 6 indictment: What’s in Trump’s head.” Absent some breakthrough in neuroscience, what goes on in the minds of others is denied to us; just as a scientist can’t infer the intentions of the solar system, only its behavior, we can only draw conclusions from a person’s words and actions, not his subjective state of mind. In all the media reports I have cited, the journalists seem to have made Trump the final arbiter of his own intent.

If criminal conviction depended on a defendant’s own representation of his state of mind, there could be no law enforcement. But the unspoken premise of legal experts typically quoted in the media is that a default assumption of benign intent only applies to certain claimants like Trump. Try robbing a 7-Eleven or stealing a police cruiser and I doubt the judicial system will be unduly concerned about what was going on in your head, or your claims that it was free expression under the First Amendment.

In the last several years, we’ve been inundated with similar claims: Refusing to get vaccinated is a matter of religious conscience; Jan. 6 rioters were honestly convinced the 2020 election was stolen; the anti-abortion crowd fervently believes that life is sacred; refusing service to a retail customer or firing an employee is dictated by sincere faith, burning like a pure flame, rather than mere spite or ill will.

These extraordinary claims have long been embedded in law, politics and social convention, and they are related to, or devolve from, a particular form of ideological advocacy: religion. Religion and its adherents, contrary to assertions that the faithful are beleaguered by the aggressions of secular society, have obtained extraordinary privileges well beyond their tax-exempt status.

When the U.S. had military conscription, formal adherents of certain religions could obtain exemptions from the draft if the religion in question explicitly espoused pacifist principles. That loophole did not, however, apply to a nonreligious individual who merely objected to killing. While the attitudes towards taking human life were identical, the law granted legal exemption to one and not the other.

The Supreme Court ruled, in a Wisconsin case involving members of the Amish community, that parents have a constitutional right to withdraw their children from public school by the eighth grade. No one, however, consulted the children to determine whether their rights to become educated, functioning citizens might have been infringed. The same religious or “conscience” exemption from generally applicable law prevails in many states with respect to home schooling or childhood vaccination if a petitioner claims he doesn’t “believe” in public schools or vaccines, whatever that may mean.

What is a belief, anyway? It can be defined, approximately, in terms of the mental perception that something is true based on generally accepted evidence or established standards of logic. But belief also has a secondary meaning: an attitude, disposition or emotional commitment that has nothing to do with facts or logic. It is a stance that can be firmly maintained regardless of evidence to the contrary and, taken to an extreme, becomes the willful suspension of critical thinking.

In contrast to the doubt and uncertainty that assail most people when considering complex matters, the dogmatic vehemence with which adherents of various fringe ideas often advocate their case can tempt us to conclude that an “untrue” belief is held more strongly than a “true” one. But this certitude can only be sustained if it is never questioned, because the leaders of authoritarian movements that propagate these beliefs instinctively know their doctrines are brittle and cannot survive open debate.

That is the reason fundamentalist Christians have built an entire subculture of home-schooling, Bible colleges, retreats and a vast body of approved literature to reinforce their dogma and avoid contact with contaminating ideas; conservatives have done much the same with their Fox News bubble. Since all authoritarian movements are founded on obtaining followers of weak character and low intellectual curiosity, and sustaining them within that information bubble, an outsider challenging even absurd doctrines will have a difficult task.

Adding to the surrealism of the situation, the very doctrines that gain privileged exemption from generally applicable laws (like taxation and nondiscrimination against retail customers) may not even be sincerely held. Russell Moore, a former Christian fundamentalist and current editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, has described why he sees religion in crisis:

“It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — 'turn the other cheek' — [and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?' And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ,' the response would not be, 'I apologize.' The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.' And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.”

Being a devout evangelical these days apparently does not require church attendance: “In the farming communities of Calhoun County [Iowa] . . . church adherence fell 31% from 2010 to 2020 — the steepest decline in the state — even as 80% of the population continued to identify in surveys as white Christians. More than 70% of the county’s voters cast ballots for Trump in 2020.”

This apparently contradictory phenomenon of devout yet nonobservant evangelicals can lead to some peculiar theology: “Ron Betts, a 72-year-old Republican who said he plans to caucus for ‘Trump all the way,’ said he felt the former president ‘exemplified what Jesus would do.’" One wonders if that includes paying $130,000 to a porn actress to hush up a tryst.

Aside from the legal deference given to purported holders of such beliefs, there is social convention: Most of us are brought up not to question or argue about another person’s faith. This exemption from the rough-and-tumble of genuine debate allows the purported believer to wield religion as a stick to beat others and a shield against accountability.

This deference, and the impunity it breeds, carries over into public policy debates. Those Americans wondering how insurrection-supporting judges landed on the Supreme Court should read excerpts from the establishment media’s coverage of Samuel Alito’s nomination hearing. He lied about his previously documented position on abortion and obfuscated when his membership in a Princeton alumni association that discriminated against women and minorities came to light, yet the supposedly godless press scolded Senate Democrats for bullying a man of faith, rather than correctly calling out Alito as a liar.

Iustificatio sola fide: Justification by faith alone. This is the core tenet of Lutheranism, and, more broadly Protestant evangelicalism. When William L. Shirer, probably the most widely read of all chroniclers of the Nazi regime, drew a straight line from Martin Luther to Adolf Hitler, he was mostly referring to Luther’s notorious antisemitism. Shirer received a lot of subsequent criticism for an exaggerated historical determinism, and there is probably some merit in that critique – but we are left with the fact that Luther did indeed write a furious 65,000-word tirade against the Jews and, 400 years later, Hitler approvingly quoted him.

Missing from the controversy (which still sputters on, to the present day) was a broader look at Luther’s thinking, and a recognition that its implications don’t just affect German history but are universal. What Luther was propounding was the acceptance of a complex of beliefs based on blind faith, without any reference to facts, evidence or reason. It is not difficult to see how this mindset leads to dogmatic inflexibility, intolerance and epistemic closure. With Luther, those attitudes preceded the antisemitism he espoused later in life — his pathological hatred of a nonconforming out-group logically flowed from his pre-existing mental disposition.

After the European wars of religion that culminated in the Thirty Years’ War (which may have killed 20% of the population of Central Europe), most of the branches of evangelical Protestantism, along with the Roman Catholic Church against which they had rebelled, gradually shed their zealotry, if only from sheer exhaustion. Undoubtedly in part from the disgust with the desolation that zealotry always brings in its wake, the dawning of the Enlightenment showed a new way of explaining the world, a worldview that required neither gods nor demons.

When the great scientist Pierre-Simon LaPlace presented a copy of his "Celestial Mechanics" to Napoleon, the latter asked why LaPlace never mentioned the divine creator of the system he had described. His reply: "Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là" (“I had no need of that hypothesis”). And so we thought, with LaPlace, that the ghosts would gradually be banished and the world made a little more straightforward and sane once the God hypothesis received critical scrutiny.

But just as there was no straight line from Luther to Hitler (else how can we account for Beethoven and Schiller?), there is no straight line of civilizational progress. I grew up as an Eisenhower Republican and thought that I, and the party, would remain more or less as such, despite the transient shock of Barry Goldwater in 1964. I spent most of a decade in Europe during the 1970s; the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's resignation came and went. I might as well have been living on Mars, given the ideological transformation which occurred in America in that misunderstood decade. Out went the cloth-coat Republicans, the small-town bankers and matrons with big hats. In came Jerry Falwell’s dervishes, back-country Southern accents and the Party of Ideas. And what ideas!

When I came to Capitol Hill in the 1980s, I gradually discovered that the country had catapulted itself back into the Age of Faith. One congressional staffer informed me, with the air of wearily cluing in a gullible friend, that dinosaurs were a hoax. I was too startled to ask whether the fossil remains had been counterfeited by evil Darwinians intent on subverting the faithful, or by God himself for some inscrutable purpose, perhaps as a test of faith.

Another staff member I’ll call Jim, because that was his name. A self-cultivated religious eccentric, he once declared the now-universally accepted Gregorian calendar, adopted because it was more accurate than the preceding Julian calendar, to be no good. The reason was that it was a product of Pope Gregory’s “atheist astronomers.” Yes, these people make the policy that runs the country.

The same person announced to me that he was philosophically indifferent as to whether stars were celestial bodies many light years away or just tiny, twinkling lights in a dome over the earth, like LED lights above a suburban patio. Aside from the fact that GPS wouldn't work on his cellphone if scientists had somehow miscalculated distances by many orders of magnitude (as well as having to adjust for relativity), there are enormous problems with this point of view.

Precisely those people who rant about eternal values and verities have now lurched into nihilism, the diametric opposite of what they claim to espouse. This is nowhere more evident than in the fanatical devotion to Donald Trump expressed by nearly 80% of evangelical Christians. They have tossed overboard every tenet of decency, religious or secular, to embrace Trump’s hatred, because his burning torch of ill will, in their minds, is the royal road to the only thing they care about — power and domination.

How ironic, then, that religious “belief,” by abandoning every constraint imposed by empirical reality, has adopted the nihilistic theories of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in George Orwell’s "1984." In that novel, we read of protagonist Winston Smith's exchange with his interrogator, the cynical O'Brien, as to whether objective reality exists apart from the Party's commands:

“'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach forever.' 'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of fire a few kilometers away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the center of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'”

I might have been tempted to doubt the plausibility of the fictional O’Brien’s declaration of the triumph of belief over reality — if I had not actually heard someone say it to me.

#us politics #news #op ed #salon #republicans #conservatives #donald trump #gop #organized religion #fundamentalists #fundamentalist christianity #evangelicals #Protestant evangelicalism #Lutheranism #Mike Lofgren

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coochiequeens · 11 months ago

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Just men using their authority and the legal system to silence people who tell the truth about their crimes.

By Genevieve Gluck December 2, 2023

A prominent LGBT activist and former member of Dutch Parliament has filed multiple defamation claims against his critics despite resigning amid accusations he sexually abused multiple young boys. Sidney Smeets, formerly an elected representative for the States General for the Democrats 66 (D66) party, had also come under fire for defending men involved in a pro-pedophile organization whose leaders have since been jailed for sex crimes.

On November 29, medical professional Jan B. Hommel stated that he had been notified of a legal complaint lodged against him by Smeets for a prior comment he made on social media calling the former MP a “pedophile.”

Hommel defended his use of the term, citing “testimonials from various boys, as have been frequently reported in various media,” referring to allegations of child sexual abuse made against Smeets in early 2021 which ultimately led to his decision to step down from his role in parliament.

In addition to Hommel, social commentator Sander van Dam stated that he had received a phone call from the police in regards to calling Smeets a “groomer.”

“Just received a call from the police who told me that I can soon expect a summons from the Public Prosecution Service regarding a report that Sidney Smeets has filed against me. They have time for that. What a country,” van Dam wrote.

Former Rotterdam district councilor Rick Timmer was also made to defend himself in court in December of last year for calling Smeets a ‘kleuterneuker,’ which roughly translates in English to ‘toddler-fucker.’ In March 2023, Timmer was ordered to pay a fine of €750 ($816).

Smeets first resigned from his position representing D66 in April of 2021 following allegations that he had been sexually inappropriate with “dozens” of boys.

A social media post which kicked off the controversy was made by a 17-year-old claiming to be speaking up on behalf of the victims. He stated that Smeets would “often reach out to underage boys” on X (formerly Twitter), and said that he had known “dozens of boys” who had been approached by him in a sexual capacity. The teen further lamented the fact that Smeets, who he called a “pedo,” was representing “LGBTI rights” in a position of authority.

One of the victims told Hart van Nederland that he was 16 years old when he connected with Smeets on gay hook-up app Grindr. The boy had told Smeets that he was a minor, and the lawyer invited him to to his home. “He was quite direct and soon started kissing me and leading my head to his dick,” he told the newspaper. “I sucked him and I was outside again soon.”

The unnamed victim said that Smeets also shared photos of underage boys with him, and told the teen that it was his “worst fantasy” to have sex with someone under the age of 16. According to the victim, Smeets inquired as to whether he knew anyone “under 16” that the teen “trusts.”

Another victim who spoke to the press described a similar pattern: he met Smeets through Grindr, and accepted the invitation to his home on multiple occasions, where Smeets would show him pornography to “get [him] in the mood.” On one occasion the boy, then 16, says he was pressured into performing sexual acts.

“Several people state that they have experienced contact with me as undesirable… I was very shocked about that, because it was never my intention,” Smeets said in a statement publicly announcing his resignation in April 2021. He did not deny the allegations, but said he was stepping down “to prevent the prestige of the House and the interest of the party from being harmed.”

In addition to being accused of grooming and child sexual abuse, Smeets has a history of defending a notorious pro-pedophile activist group. In 2014, Smeets was one of several signatories to a public appeal requesting that Vereniging MARTIJN be permitted to continue their pro-pedophilia advocacy. However, in April that year the Supreme Court banned the organization.

Smeets also spoke in defense of the group’s leader, Marthijn Uittenbogaard, in 2021. Uittenbogaard was charged with a criminal offense after he was found to be disregarding court orders by continuing Vereniging MARTIJN despite its official annulment. Smeets argued that Uittenbogaard was distributing pro-pedophilia materials on his own behalf as an individual rather than as a representative of the organization.

In 2022, Uittenbogaard and associate Norbert de Jonge were handed brief prison sentences for continuing the “activities of the banned association Martijn” by placing publications on various websites and making statements in favor of “pedosexuality” via a mailing list and on X (formerly Twitter). While released on appeal of his six-month prison sentence, Uittenbogaard fled the Netherlands.

Both Uittenbogaard and and his husband Lesley Luijs were detained in Ecuador, where they had been luring children to their hotel in order to sexually abuse them. The men were sentenced to ten years in prison by Ecuadorian authorities earlier this year.

The disgraced former MP additionally acted as a legal representative for a prominent member of Vereniging MARTIJN in 2020. Nelson Maatman was arrested in February that year on charges related to the possession of child pornography. According to the Public Prosecution Service, more than 10,000 images depicting minors in a sexual context were found on Maatman’s devices.

“You can make moral judgements about that, but you have to wonder whether it is child pornography. The Public Prosecution Service says so, but it is clear that this man was not looking for child pornography,” said Smeets in defense of Maatman.

At the time, critics on social media noted that Smeets had been interacting with Maatman on Facebook, where he had been “liking” his posts.

Maatman would later be detained in Mexico after allegedly attempting to arrange for the purchase of a child. Maatman was arrested in Mexico City on June 5, after an anonymous tip was handed to the Mexican prosecutor’s office indicating that he intended to purchase an adolescent and sell child sexual exploitation material.

Upon arrest, police found Maatman in possession of 4 terabytes (4000GB) of child sexual abuse material across a number of external storage devices. Maatman also had photos of children in his clothing pocket, a weapon, and drugs.

The party for which Smeets was previously a representative, D66, actively promotes the concept of “gender identity” and was involved in drafting a proposed sex self-identification legislation in May 2021.

The proposal would allow teenagers, beginning from 16 years old, to change the sex marker on their birth certificate. On social media, Smeets has repeatedly stated his support for gender identity ideology, by posting photos of the transgender pride flag, for instance, or sharing videos of clownfish.

At the time, critics on social media noted that Smeets had been interacting with Maatman on Facebook, where he had been “liking” his posts.

Smeets has also expressed derision at women who oppose gender identity ideology, branding them “evil” and “sickening” TERFs, an acronym meaning “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists,” used in an attempt to discredit opponents or to advocate for violence against them.

In June, Smeets showed his support for a controversial animated video released by Oxfam designed to celebrate Pride month. The promotional video appeared to depict a version of renowned author JK Rowling, with red eyes and a snarl, wearing a badge that read “TERF.”

He also hurled the term at outspoken Dutch women’s rights advocate Lydia Daniel, who has become a target for trans activists and is awaiting confirmation of whether she will face charges in response to a hate speech report filed against her by a trans-identified male for stating “a woman is an adult human female.” Daniel attracted Smeet’s ire after she protested during a public meeting of the Dutch Democratic Party (D66) in May and challenged the party’s leader, Sigrid Kaag, on whether she was aware that “women’s rights are being destroyed.”

Earlier this year, D66 came under fire after it was discovered that the official website for the Young Democrats, the “independent” youth wing of the political group, had published statements sympathetic to pedophilia which endorsed the production of “virtual child pornography,” and even the teaching of pedophilia as a sexuality in schools.

#Dutch Parliament #Sidney Smeets #States General for the Democrats 66 (D66) party #Public Prosecution Service #kleuterneuker #Silencing survivors of abuse #Abusive men hate women who speak up to protect women and children

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pilawturkey · 10 months ago

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Turkish Business Lawyer

This article seeks to examine the particular role of Turkish Business Lawyers in Turkey. Turkey is surrounded on three sides by the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Aegean Sea. Therefore, our country is based on a critical geography. It connects three continents including Africa, Asia and Europe. There is a growing interest of foreign entrepreneurs in making investments.

What is the meaning of Turkish Business Lawyer in Turkey?

Law and its application necessitates a great deal of knowledge about the legal framework in every single country. Every single investment project needs an embracing analysis of applicable Turkish norms. Commercial activities such as company formations, opening a branch, mergers and acquisitions, franchising system must be managed through an efficient legal guidance by foreign investors. Turkish business lawyers provide in-depth services to large, middle or small scale of corporations and|or individuals for their upcoming investment activities.

What is the role of Turkish Business Lawyers for the recent achievements of Pi Legal Consultancy?

Pi Legal Consultancy is a legal consulting and business consulting international law firm in Turkey. Pi Legal Consultancy working groups aim at setting up a wide network inside and outside Turkey. Currently, Pi Legal Consultancy enjoys solution partners and lawyers based in most European and African countries as well as Canada and the United States. Additionally we have three offices based in İstanbul, Ankara and Batman. It necessarily means that Pi Legal Consultancy has a robust network around the globe. Based on a detailed overview of our client profiles, our service quality, satisfying nature of our articles and papers together with our marketing and branding efforts, we have been recently chosen by the London-based Prestige Awards Group as the international law firm of 2022/2023. Currently, we provide legal and business consultancy to leading French, British, Norway, USA, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, Israel, Canadian and Kuwait companies and the Ministry of Health of Kuwait. We have also created a great collaboration with the Embassy and Istanbul Consulate General of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. Pi Legal Consultancy also offers legal guidance to numerous foreigners living or working within the jurisdiction of Turkey. On one hand, Turkish Business Lawyers in Ankara are of utmost importance in meeting the growing interest of particularly individual foreigners. On the other hand, Turkish Business Lawyers in Istanbul are of great importance in offering detailed services to foreign corporations for their investment activities in Turkey.

Conclusion

Pi Legal Consultancy is very pleased to provide a comprehensive business consultancy to foreigners. Qualified commercial lawyers in Ankara and qualified commercial lawyers in Istanbul undertake paramount duties under the umbrella of Pi Legal Consultancy. They provide legal and business consulting to citizens of foreign countries. Form more information about this topic, please click to https://www.pilc.law/turkish-business-lawyer/

#business #lawyer #business law #turkish #legalconsultancy #legal advice #legal services

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contentment-of-cats · 2 years ago

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WiP bit 24

Yissa Hammerly: Age 21: Corulag: Curamelle: Hall of Citizens: Bride's Room

The Nightingale · Percival Schuttenbach. Click link above for music.

It became the thing her family was most famous for and they hated it. Yissa had been the perfect Corulagi Citizen's daughter. The Hammerly family's wealth and prominence was wholly due to the ability of producing marriageable sons and daughters, and ownership of refineries that produced hyperfuels for commercial fleets and government vessels. Yissa completed her degree and served her three years of youth service before her family decided that her bride price outweighed service in the Bormea Sector Defense Force.

Yissa knew better than to argue. There were two paths to becoming a full Citizen - military or civil service for five years or giving birth to three live-born children. Yissa knew the path she wanted to take. Numerous female relatives and ancestors had married after their terms or even full careers. However when a Gwain and a Mansom had a bidding war for the youngest Hammerly daughter, everything went right out the airlock. At least with Mansom Corporation, Yissa could have used her skills. Gwain won, and she'd be hosting inane garden parties until she went mad. All she had to do was bide her time. Her sisters had gone tamely to the altar, and her brothers married complacent young ladies. Any deviation from standard would see her escape routes closed off. So, she waited.

If she managed to make it to the recruiting office and swear in, the betrothal would be annulled. Even on the day of her wedding, the law would uphold her which told Yissa that a Runaway Bride was likely more common than anyone in her family wanted to talk about.

Cutting it close was an understatement, but there was no opportunity until the morning of the legal ceremony. The celebration of the groom would last for hours as they showed off the family's wealth and prestige. After that shitshow, they'd come for Yissa. The enthronement called for her father and uncles to carry her to the hall and set her on the bridal throne. Mother would then remove her shoes, then her future husband would lower her veil and put the bridal crown on her head. Just like that, she would be someone's wife, no longer her own person.

Fuck that.

The whole thing made her want to puke.

When the music started, Yissa opened the window and looked down.

Somehow this had not looked quite as far up when she was planning this.

It took a minute to figure out that she should grab the vines next to the window and then ease out onto the ledge. the door was locked from the outside, and the mechanism was filled with Quik-Glue from her cosmetic bag. Dressed in her full bridal dress of nine mets of cloth, bracelets three quarters of the way up her arms, ear sets, headbands, necklaces, rings, and even a pouch at her waist filled with more jewelry, she swung out, dipping one slippered foot down to catch in the flowering vines.

"Don't look down. Don't look down."

She didn't scream even when she lost one slipper, then the other - and both took an uncomfortable amount of time to hit the ground. Nobody raised the alarm, but there was nobody in the adjoining buildings to raise the alarm this early on Free Day. Yissa's feet were cut and bleeding, leaving prints on the duracrete as she ran to the stand of rental speeder bikes, groping the credit chip out of her breast supporter. Years later, security camera images would show her descent and then flight, red bridal dress whipping our behind her.

Nothing could convey the pounding of her heart, or the lurching of her stomach as she gunned it for the nearest recruiting office. The BSDF officer was locking up but the second she saw Yissa, the sergeant reopened the door. Getting off the bike became a panicked tumble, and Yissa left bloody red footprints as she hauled up the three layers of skirts and ran.

"My name is Yissa Hammerly, a legal adult and I want to join the Bormea Sector Defense Force!" The door shut and locked behind her, the words leaving her in a rush. "Please-"

The sergeant would not be rushed, taking Yissa's information, looking over her record. She transmitted the request, Yissa in a cold sweat as she realized that she could hear the sounds of pursuit. A chime from the terminal made the sergeant nod.

"Out the back, we're getting in the speeder. There's a ship leaving for officer training on Chandrila." The shutters slid into place oevr the windows and Yissa ran. "Repeat after me, Candidate Hammerly-"

Yissa's but barely touched the seat before her hand was over her heart.

"I, Yissa Hammerly-"

The engine started, the sergeant backing the airspeeder out of it's space.

"-being an adult of sound mind and no criminal background-

Turning for the spaceport.

"-do solemnly swear that I wish to enlist in the Bormea Sector Defense Force, pledging my life and sacred honor to defend my people and home against all enemies from without and within-"

Her parents looked furious. Good thing that walling your daughter up alive wasn't legal anymore.

"-this I affirm, pledge, and aver."

"Yissa Hammerly, you are a Cadet Candidate of the BSDF."

Yissa's head fell back against the headrest and she closed her eyes. Thank Coru. It was over, but at the same time everything was beginning anew.

#thrawn #hammerly #backstory

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lgbtqiamuslimpedia · 1 year ago

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LGBTQI+ Rights in Bangladesh 🇧🇩

LGBTQIA+ rights are heavily suppressed in Bangladesh.Generally LGBTQ+ community face stigmatization and marginalization among the broader population.Hijra as third gender has somewhat more tolerance in the state.However, some islamic radicalists & conservative muslims consider hijras as immoral.

LGBTQ+ pride flag of Bangladesh

Legal Status of Homosexuality

Homosexuality is illegal under under the British-inherited Penal Code Section 377 since 1860.Penal Code section 377 of 1860 forbids anal sex & oral sex, regardless of the gender and sexual orientation of the participants.Sentences include a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or 10 years imprisonment with fine.There is some evidences of the law being enforced in recent years, & LGBTQ+ people are regularly subjected to discrimination and violence.

In 2009 & 2013 UPR cycle, Bangladesh refused to overturn Penal Code Section 377.Therefore law enforcers often use Section 54 (Code of Criminal Procedure) to harass gender & sexual minorities as it allows arrest of anyone without a warrant.

History

Homosexuality was widely tolerated & accepted in south asia untill 1860s. Delhi Sultanate,Mughals also tolerated several sexual fluidity & gender variance.There were homoerotic & homoromantic writing in Islamic literature.

From 1750-1830 female homoromantic narratives were documented in Urdu poetry.Gender-diverse folks enjoyed high prestige during Mughal era.Hijra identity is documented to have evolved during the Delhi Sultanate (1226-1526).Most of them were served in royal harem.Furthermore they were rulers,military commanders,guardians of harem,manual laborers,political advisors in Mughal era.The dominant school of Islamic thought in the mughal empire, hanafism was much more tolerant of sexuality; did not mandate punishment for homosexuality.During the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, which mandated several types of punishments for homosexuality.

Since 1850s, British colonist started criminalizing diverse sexuality & genders in Indian Subcontinent.Section 377 Penal Code of British Raj which criminalizes sexual minorities, was enacted on 6 October 1860 & went into force on 1 January 1862.British labeled hijra as criminal group under the ''Criminal Tribe Act of 1871.Later started a widespread campaign against this sexual minority.As a result, hijras became a marginalised, ostracized group in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh & Nepal.British colonists deployed various strategies to eradicate hijras & sexual diverse folks, whom they saw as "a breach of public decency. Such barbaric colonial laws were carried over into the Pakistan following the partition of India in 1947, and continue to be part of Bangladesh's legal code since its independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Discrimination & Violence

LGBTQI+ rights in Bangladesh has been heavily affected by radical political islamism, violent extremism,societal values & morals. LGBTQI+ people often faces violence, bullying, rape, sexual harassment,hate crimes,etc.Some are forced for conversion therapy in order to change their sexuality.Bangladesh's LGBTQ+ rights groups,NGOs reported official discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare and access to government services.

Transgender Rights

Transgender women,non-binary,gender non-confirming & intersex persons are traditionally known as Hijra in South Asia.Although Hijra umbrella term does not include trans male or FTM transgender.

In November 2013, the government of Bangladesh recognized the Hijra community as the 'third gender or sex'. Subsequently, the cabinet issued a notification on 22 January 2014 regarding the recognition of third gender/sex.On January 26, 2014, a gazette was published recognizing the gender identity of the transgender community.Trans people cannot legally undergoes a gender reassignment surgery in Bangladesh.However there have been several reports of gender transitions,gender change treatment or sex reassignment surgery.

In early 1990s a transsexual woman Hosne Ara Begum's story was published in a bengali educational magazine.The magazine covered the journey of her gender transition & made her a big sensation in Bangladesh that time.From 2010-2013, 18 surgeries were performed in Dhaka Medical College Hospital,despite the availability of treatment at nominal or free cost.Although this gender transition treatment has been conducted in the country illegally for more than two decades.

''Hijra Life Welfare Programme,'' conducted under the Bangladesh Social Welfare Department from 2012-2013, to educate and develop school-going Hijra students,to provide monthly special allowance to disabled & senior Hijras.Bangladesh Social Welfare Department also increased the skills of the Hijra population through vocational training and to involve them in income generating activities and to bring them into the mainstream of the society & provide financial assistance after training.Since 2019, trans women who identify as Hijra can choose third gender option on National Identity Card.

Media

LGBTQI+ Association

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angelenohq · 2 years ago

Text

in the city of angels.

NAME: Gabriel "Gabe" Miller FACE CLAIM: Joe Keery AGE & DATE OF BIRTH: 28 & June 6th, 1994 HOMETOWN: Los Angeles, California TIME IN LOS ANGELES: Born and raised NEIGHBORHOOD: West Hollywood OCCUPATION: Musician, lead singer for Midnight Mystics

biography.

trigger warning: abuse, suicide, homophobia, depression

andrew miller was a man perpetually busy and always in high demand. this was hardly surprising, given that his top client was none other than alfonso "al" herrera, a prominent figure in the sinaloa cartel based in california. although the friendship between the two men might have raised eyebrows, there was no one herrera trusted more than his loyal attorney, andrew miller. andrew had a gift for bending the truth, manipulating an entire court into believing that they were in the wrong, rather than his client. his success in most of his courtroom appearances had earned him the reputation of being a formidable legal shark, indifferent to the opinions of others, and unyielding in the face of incompetence or cowardice. with his cold heart and icy demeanor, andrew was not someone to be trifled with, especially in court. these days, he ran one of the most respected law firms in los angeles, and his services were in high demand, but they came at a premium.

despite his prominence and prestige, there were always questions surrounding andrew's family. his wife, deborah miller (nee laurent), was a kind-hearted woman who was a prominent figure in the los angeles art scene. her bizarre and original paintings were highly sought after, and she was known for her quiet dedication and unwavering passion. she was a stark contrast to her husband, with her infectious laughter filling any room she entered and her eccentric style turning heads wherever she went. at social functions, she was rarely seen with her husband, and more often than not, her arm was linked with that of alfonso herrera. to an outsider, it might have seemed that deborah was al's wife, rather than andrew's.

however, this was a well-kept secret that nobody dared to discuss openly, as no one wanted to risk their necks with such foolish rumors. the truth was that the miller and herrera families had always been close. they grew up together as if they were cousins, and their bond was unbreakable. andrew miller had always been far from pleased with the situation at hand. as a man who was known for his sharp mind, he was keenly aware of what was going on around him. if he was unable to confront his wife and alfonso directly, he took out his frustration on his youngest son.

andrew refused to believe that gabe was his son, despite the fact that he bore a striking resemblance to andrew's side of the family. this disbelief stemmed from gabe's artistic tendencies and his soft-spoken ways, which he inherited from his mother. gabe's disinterest in academic subjects and passion for playing various instruments and creating noises with his mouth had always frustrated andrew. to him, these pursuits were not indicative of a "real man," and he viewed them as signs of weakness and softness.

growing up, gabe was constantly bombarded with these beliefs from his father, who held him to an impossible standard of masculinity. when verbal abuse and emotional manipulation were not enough, andrew often resorted to physical violence, fueled by alcohol and frustration. gabe bore the brunt of his father's toxic masculinity, which left him feeling isolated and alone in his own home.

despite the difficulties he faced at home, gabe found solace in music and the unwavering support of his mother and alfonso. while alfonso may not have been his biological father, gabe always longed for him to be. alfonso was a constant presence in gabe's life, attending important events such as anniversaries, graduations, concerts, and even his first breakup. he was a father figure to gabe, supporting him every step of the way. alfonso genuinely appreciated the arts and had been a well-known supporter in the local community. his support for gabe's career not only came in the form of financial backing but also through his extensive network of contacts in hollywood. despite rumors circulating about their relationship, no one dared to bring them up directly to gabe or the herreras.

gabe achieved considerable success in his music career, with two grammy awards under his belt, a viral tiktok hit, and a devoted fan base that couldn't get enough of his music and his hair. with his future looking bright, it seemed that gabe finally found a way to rise above his toxic father and sibling. his visits home mostly were for his mother's benefit, and most of the time they met at her studio or at alf's home.

unfortunately, the man was not immune to human flaws– incapable of maintaining lasting romantic relationships, he had a reputation for breaking hearts. opting to leave before getting hurt was a personal rule, which was easy to maintain, especially when he was traveling and focusing on work. despite his hatred for his father, gabe’s work ethic mirrored his father’s: tireless, determined, and always busy. though words were easily expressed on paper, sharing his innermost thoughts to others was difficult while shouting them at an anonymous crowd did nothing to him. an introvert at heart, time alone was needed after social events. interviews were the bane of his existence, and he used work as an excuse to decline them. at gatherings, the man gravitated to people he knew and preferred to stay on the sidelines, which again, the irony wasn’t lost on him. he found it easier to be inspired when he wasn't the center of attention, so being a master of the irish goodbye didn't bother him.

the band’s success, the midnight mystics, which he founded with his best friend david many, many years ago, came to a halt tragically a year ago. success had always been heavy, and came with its own challenges. drugs, sex, rock n’ roll– while gabe’s philosophy was to ride the waves and hide for days when tsunamis arose, david always preferred to face everything head-on. but what gabe never saw was the hurt and the anger underneath his best friend’s hard exterior. he thought that surely, his friend would let him know if something was wrong. surely he would know.

but he didn't.

when gabe found david, it was as if the world stopped moving. in the wake of his best friend's tragic death, he found himself adrift in a sea of uncertainty and grief.

the once-solid foundation of his band crumbled under the weight of this tragedy, leaving him feeling lost and uninspired. the guilt that weighed heavily on his heart only served to exacerbate his struggles, and he found himself slipping deeper and deeper into a dark hole of depression. despite his best efforts to push forward, inspiration was nowhere to be found. nothing of substance was created, stifled by the weight of his emotional turmoil. he struggled to find comfort, his mind plagued with doubt and fear.

in the midst of all this chaos, gabe made some regrettable decisions that only served to aggravate his problems. from a disastrous interview with oprah to an ill-advised visit home, and even agreeing to fake a relationship with brie barlow, it seemed like every choice he made only pushed him further from the shore.

#joe keery #new rp #town rp #oc rp #bio #m #west hollywood

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