#russia league 1

[hunterrrs]

Evgeni Malkin said he's always felt slightly overlooked.

One of the premier centers of his generation, the 37-year-old has played his NHL career as the second center on the Pittsburgh Penguins behind longtime teammate Sidney Crosby. He was the No. 2 pick in the 2004 NHL Draft. Alex Ovechkin, possibly the only Russia-born player more statistically accomplished, went No. 1 to the Washington Capitals.

Malkin doesn't mind. Actually, it's just the way he likes it.

"I'm not the kind of guy that wants media around me. I like to be quiet a little bit," Malkin said. "I want to just play the game. Probably, people want, like, my private life a little bit more. But I'm, like, a little bit closed.

"Maybe my English is not good before, not talk too much with media. Again, this is kind of myself. I'm OK with that because I know I'm a good player."

Numbers do talk, though. In his 18th season, Malkin is third in Penguins history with 1,261 points, 485 goals and 776 assists, trailing Mario Lemieux (1,723 points; 690 goals, 1,033 assists) and Crosby (1,540 points; 571 goals, 969 assists).

Ovechkin reached out after Malkin eclipsed Fedorov.

"He's a star in the League," Ovechkin said. "I think he's a tremendous player. He knows how to win. He knows how to play. It's not a surprise he has so many points, so many goals and assists."

"People are talking about Ovi a lot. They talk about (Connor) McDavid. They talk about (Nathan) MacKinnon," Letang said. "You don't hear Geno's name a lot. What he's been able to do in this league for that long and at this age still, being the goal scorer that he is, it's just special.

"I think it's always been (that way), except maybe the year he won the Hart and everything. I think it's always been a little bit like that. He's not seen to his true color."

Without Malkin, Crosby said his NHL career would have been more difficult. That pair, along with Letang, has won the Stanley Cup three times (2009, 2016, 2017). They qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 16 consecutive seasons together before missing them last season.

"There are nights where you don't feel great or have your best," Crosby said. "You're watching Geno do his thing out there. That's happened a lot. I think we've pushed each other over the years, but he's a guy that has always stepped up when he needs to. I think that's just the competitive nature in him.

"I think the consistency is the biggest thing. You don't have that kind of consistency without being as competitive as he is. He's been amazing for a lot of years. The stats show it."

"I think the biggest thing for me that I admire about Geno is how competitive he is," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. "Just his competitive spirit is off the charts. His will to win, his want to win, and his will and want to score and produce offense. I don't think anyone likes scoring goals more than 'G.' You can see it in his raw emotion when he scores.

"Sometimes, I don't think Geno gets the credit that he deserves in the hockey world for the body of work that he's put together in this league and how talented he is. He's without a doubt one of the greatest players of all-time."

love a good geno lovefest

[themissingchildfromhistory]

Just a few things on my mind that I haven't seen anyone talking about yet for The Umbrella Academy season 4......

1). I think it would have been drastically cooler if, when Ben spiked the sake with the marigold, everyone's powers got switched around. At least for a bit. Allison gets the knife thing, Viktor getting Ben's tentacles, etc. Mainly Diego getting Five's blink ability. That way the whole Lila-getting-lost-in-a-time-subway-with-a-Hargreevees actually makes sense. Her and Diego could have used that time to actually talk and spell out their grievances with each other, instead of the three sentence bullshit they got. Maybe they didn't speak to each other for a few months. But they slowly realized, hey. I do love you. I love you lots. Our lives aren't perfect, given all the trauma we've been through and how we were shoved into this normal domestic life (which isn't a bad thing, but definitely requires an adjustment time after what they're used to) but I still love you, and our life together. And our three kids, who all actually have names and importance.

1.5). WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RANDOM GUY/WAITER WHO GOT DRENCHED IN MARIGOLD SAKE FROM KLAUS?! DID HE GET POWERS TOO?? OR WOULD THE MARIGOLD HAVE TO BE INGESTED FOR THAT TO HAPPEN??

2). The mothers. They weren't all impregnated and gave birth on the same day, but that doesn't mean they possibly wouldn't go on to have children. And while the kids they had would have human/real fathers, that doesn't mean the Umbrellas couldn't have still been born. I think the ending would have been so much better if it showed all 8 of them in their respective homes living out their lives had their mother's given birth to them normally. Klaus in the Amish community, Ben in Korea, Viktor in Russia teaching violin, hell, maybe a few of them still managed to meet up somehow. Maybe we see the Sparrows too. Who knows. But just because this version of them "had" to die (that's obviously a whole bunch of bullshit on its own) doesn't mean they wouldn't somehow exist later, when and if their mothers decided to have kids.

3). I think Diego should have been there when Lila saw the kids off in the subway. Five being there and being the one to chase after her/comfort her was part of the whole grossness that was their relationship. Diego should have been able to say goodbye to all of this kids/family as well.

Other thoughts that don't particularly pertain to just season 4....

If Reginald was on Earth in the 1800s, why did it take him till 1989 to release the marigold and cause the Umbrellas/Sparrows/Phoenixes to be born??

What is the purpose of marigold??? Why did Abigail invent it??

If Durango is the side effect of creating marigold, are there others out there who have Durango instead of marigold?? Could some of the other 40 something kids born in 1989 have Durango instead of marigold??

If the whole goal was to eventually use marigold to.... reset the timeline? in the end of s3, why use it to impregnate women in the first place???? Why not just use the fucking marigold as is??!

What was the purpose of the league of generic men in season 2?? Why assassinate Kennedy?? I had originally thought the other 12 men were aliens like Reginald and they were in the rockets seen fleeing the other world. But clearly not

There's definitely more, but these are the most pressing ones I can think about right now. In conclusion season 4 was trash with a few good highlights thrown in and would have been better if the cast just put on a stage production in a high school auditorium

[hockeymarriage]

(hi its keller-clayton) ok for the AU ask game:

AU where sid went to play in the KHL as a teenager instead of rimouski

oh wow! back when they were such babies... their round baby faces!!!!!!

1) I think Sid goes to the KHL for one year before his draft bc he's a big fan of Russian skating and wants to experience a different style of play and an adults league before the NHL draft. also maybe some personal reasons that make him want to escape North America for a bit. he's 17 and Zhenya is 18 and was just drafted by the Penguins :)

2) Sid takes a few months intensive of Russian and also billets with Magnitogorsk's Canadian coach, so he's not entirely helpless when he gets there. but there's still a huge language and cultural barrier. Sid is NOT prepared for the realities of living in Magnitogorsk and how the team basically does everything together. Russians are different in a way he can't articulate but he's just here to focus on hockey, not make friends.

3) HOWEVER Sid and Zhenya are drawn together immediately even though they don't share much language, just like in canon. I think their personalities just click together. they meet and shake hands and Sid says something in halting Russian about Evgeni's skating and then they're just beaming at each other and everyone is like ???? what is going on??? instant chemistry.

4) they become fast friends. they learn each other's language together. Sid becomes "Sidnya" and Sidnyushka". Malkin becomes Evgeni becomes Zhenya becomes Zhenyushka. they tear it up on the ice. Zhenya is fiercely protective of Sid when others on the team are jealous and other players are rough and rude (though it's a less physical game in Russia). Zhenya invites Sid to his house to hang out and eat dinner with his family.

5) they're so absorbed in this exciting best friendship that they don't quite realize that they are also horny for each other. but maybe there's a shared bottle of vodka in a shared room on the road and they share fumbling first-times 🥺

6) best part about this is that Sid leaves for the NHL draft and knows they might never play again. he gets drafted by the Penguins but Zhenya is stuck in Russia Sid's rookie year and Sid misses him so much!!!! it's a hard year and he's not even sure when Zhenya will be able to leave his home club ((((( very first-love teenage tragedy with the biggest emotions.

[czerwonykasztelanic]

asking you your "top 5" anything: (persons with rabbit pfps) Lenin quotes

5. "Things are harder for our generation than they were for our fathers. But in one respect we are luckier than our fathers. We have begun to learn and are rapidly learning to fight [...] We are fighting better than our fathers did. Our children will fight better than we do, and they will be victorious." (from The Working Class and NeoMalthusianism - the past must not eclipse the present, nor should it be seen as superior the future, for a new world will come!)

4. "The sacrifices of the Commune, heavy as they were, are made up for by its significance for the general struggle of the proletariat: it stirred the socialist movement throughout Europe, it demonstrated the strength of civil war, it dispelled patriotic illusions, and destroyed the naïve belief in any efforts of the bourgeoisie for common national aims. [...] The lesson learnt by the proletariat will not be forgotten. The working class will make use of it, as it has already done in Russia during the December uprising. [...] And although these magnificent uprisings of the working class were crushed, there will be another uprising, in face of which the forces of the enemies of the proletariat will prove ineffective, and from which the socialist proletariat will emerge completely victorious." (from Lessons of the Commune - when reactionary forces temporarily triumph over world-historical progress, to assert that failed revolutions are revolutions nonetheless is to avoid despair)

3. "One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes made by Communists is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone." (Popular support! The vanguard must be firmly rooted in the masses to wield legitimate power! Thermidorrrrr)

2. "I must say that the tasks of the youth in general [...] might be summed up in a single word: learn." (from his speech to the Youth Leagues; ever time I question the importance of education and self-improvement, every time the pursuit of knowledge appears to me a futile and vainglorious squandering of time, I remember that it is not just a right, but a duty - even if it's as trivial as, I don't know, reading the procès-verbal of the National Convention from June 1794)

1. "[...] there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). Communists who have no illusions, who do not give way to despondency, and who preserve their strength and flexibility "to begin from the beginning" over and over again in approaching an extremely difficult task, are not doomed (and in all probability will not perish)." (from On Ascending a High Mountain; predictably enough, I have a certain weakness for geographical metaphors...)

[blackhistorystoryteller]

This is a message to my black brothers and sisters

Learn about your history

Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in Africa; the emergence of Ethiopian civilization dates back thousands of years. Abyssinia or rather "Ze Etiyopia" was ruled by the Semitic Abyssinians (Habesha) composed mainly of the Amhara and Tigray, the Cushitic Agaw. In the Eastern escarpment of the Ethiopian highlands and more so the lowlands was the home of the Arab-descended Harari that founded Sultanates such as Ifat and Adal and the Afars. In the central and south were found the ancient Sidama and Semitic Gurage, among otheres. One of the first kingdoms to rise to power in the territory was the kingdom of D'mt in the 10th century BC, which established its capital at Yeha. In the first century AD the Aksumite Kingdom rose to power in the modern Tigray Region with its capital at Aksum and grew into a major power on the Red Sea, subjugating South Arabia and Meroe and its surrounding areas. In the early fourth century, during the reign of Ezana, Christianity was declared the state religion. Ezana's reign is also when the Aksumites first identified themselves as "Ethiopians", and not long after, Philostorgius became the first foreign author to call the Aksumites Ethiopians.[The Aksumite empire fell into decline with the rise of Islam in the Arabian peninsula, which slowly shifted trade away from the Christian Aksum.[citation needed] It eventually became isolated, its economy slumped and Aksum's commercial domination of the region ended.The Aksumites gave way to the Zagwe dynasty, who established a new capital at Lalibela before giving way to the Solomonic dynasty in the 13th century. During the early Solomonic period, Ethiopia went through military reforms and imperial expansion that allowed it to dominate the Horn of Africa.

How did Ethiopia Resist Imperialism?

Ethiopia, formerly Abyssinia, is one of the world’s oldest countries. Dating to around 400 BCE, the region is documented in the in the King James Version of the Bible as the Kingdom of Axum. Along with Rome, Persia, and China, Axum was considered one of the four great powers of the era. Throughout the millennia of its history, the willingness of the country’s people—from farmers to kings—to come together as one, coupled with its geographic isolation and economic prosperity, helped Ethiopia score decisive victories against a series of global colonialist forces.

Ethiopia is considered “never colonized” by some scholars, despite Italy's occupation from 1936–1941 because it did not result in a lasting colonial administration.

Seeking to expand its already considerable colonial empire in Africa, Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1895. In the ensuing First Italo-Ethiopian War (1895-1896), Ethiopian troops won a crushing victory over Italian forces at the Battle of Adwa on March 1, 1896. On October 23, 1896, Italy agreed to the Treaty of Addis Ababa, ending the war and recognizing Ethiopia as an independent state.

On Oct. 3, 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, hoping to rebuild his nation’s prestige lost in the Battle of Adwa, ordered a second invasion of Ethiopia. On May 9, 1936, Italy succeeded in annexing Ethiopia. On June 1 of that year, the country was merged with Eritrea and Italian Somalia to form Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI or Italian East Africa).

Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie made an impassioned appeal for assistance in removing the Italians and re-establishing independence to the League of Nations on June 30, 1936, gaining support from the U.S. and Russia. But many League of Nations members, including Britain and France, recognized Italian colonization.

It was not until May 5, 1941, when Selassie was restored to the Ethiopian throne, that independence was regained.

Ethiopia's ability to resist being swept up in the "Scramble for Africa" can be credited to the stability of its longstanding imperial government, beginning with the Abyssinian Empire in the 13th century, and lasting into the late 20th century, with the exception of a brief Italian occupation during the 1930s. King Menelik II, the Emperor during the period of rampant European exploration and colonization in Africa, was careful to cultivate an alliance with the smaller surrounding kingdoms of North Africa, and with European powers including Italy and Russia. When Italy began to turn the sights of their imperial ambitions toward Ethiopia, the Ethiopian military became the only African kingdom able to successfully resist the military might of European colonial power, using Russian-supplied weapons to defeat the Italian invading force at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. In the aftermath of the battle, in exchange for permanent recognition as an independent empire, Menelik II granted Italy the right to claim the neighboring territory of Eritrea under their imperial umbrella.

Ethiopians have a history of taming lions.

Many Emperors kept pet lions including Halie Selassie. Occasionally visitors like Kwame Nkrumah could pet one of the lions!

This practice of keeping lions is said to date back thousands of years to the Axumite period.The descendants of the Royal Lions currently live in the Addis Ababa zoo.

Meet his imperial majesty, the King of the Jungle.

And if, with his thick, shaggy mane Challa seems to have something of a frisky regal air about him - it's because he knows that he is a genuine blue blood.Challa is a direct descendant of Mochuria and Mollua - royal lions, which the late Emperor Haile Selassie kept as pets. The Emperor's practice of keeping pet lions is said to date thousands of years back to the Axumite period.Years ago in Ethiopia, Lions were pets to the people, some were used like donkeys, some like dogs kept at home. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia had lions he kept as pets, while some Ethiopians could even ride on them. These were not wild lions, they grew up with humans and became domesticated.They didn't go after human blood or other animals, lions roamed around the streets of Ethiopia and live was beautiful with them. Ethiopia is in East Africa, it's a rugged, landlocked country split by the Great Rift Valley, Ethiopia is a place of ancient culture, they believe and still hold on to ancient affairs.

Any lion that goes wild was immediately hunted killed, they were only killed if they kill a human and not animals like goats and chickens. They forbid killing and eating of any lion because lions were pets used in different palaces.

Ethiopia as a country had its origin in about 980 B.C., which makes it one of the oldest nations in the world.

Due to this very long history and an unmatched diversity of people and cultures, the country has often been described as a “museum of peoples”. With such a highly diverse population, Ethiopia houses an intricate tapestry of language and ethnic groups.

Also nicknamed the “Land of 13 Sunshine’s”, Ethiopia is often described as one of the most enthralling and enchanting places in the world – and definitely in Africa.

Ethiopia may not be the first place any traveller think of when planning or booking a next holiday, but it may just as well soon be the case. As African country Ethiopia can boast about having been at peace for at least the previous 15 years or more years and its economy is consequently one of the fastest growing in the world.

With the added bonus of an astounding diversity of landscapes, mixture of cultures and history that tracks back to when homo sapiens first started to raise itself up onto two legs, a traveller suddenly may look forward to a surprising and breath-taking travel destination.

But talking about planning and holiday dated, you probably didn’t know that this unique nation even has its own calendar?

This is but one of a myriad fascinating facts about the country, of which a number are discussed in this article. Looking at the country’s ancient and statutory history, its religion, culture, people and natural phenomena, here are at least 44 random but fascinating facts that you can ponder in anticipation of a visit to this eastern African country in the near future:

Fact number 1 – The oldest people in the world probably lived here.

Fact number 2 – Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa and the only African country that could evade colonial rule.

Fact number 3 – Ethiopia was one of the first African forces to achieve a significant victory over a European colonial power.

Fact number 4 – Ethiopia has a rich history of rulers, including emperors and queens.

Fact number 5 – Ethiopia is perceived to be the diplomatic capital of the African continent

Fact number 6 – Ethiopia is the country with the second highest population in Africa, and with almost 1,5 % of the world population.

Fact number 8 – Ethiopia has the most orphans in the world.

Fact number 10 – Addis Ababa is the highest capital city in Africa.

Fact number 11 – More than 200 dialects are spoken by the peoples of the country.

Please like and share so others can see, drop your comments below and let me know what you think.

[icedbatik]

I always breathe easier when Geno's back in the U.S. ...

From TH, September 5, 2023

The KHL is setting a scary precedent with the handling of Russian prospects who were drafted by NHL teams.

A timeline, to catch you up:

June 2015: Flyers draft goalie Ivan Fedotov in the seventh round. Fedotov develops into one of the top non-NHL goalies in the world.

2021-22 season: Fedotov signs for a year with the KHL club CSKA. CSKA is owned by a Russian state-run oil company.

February 2022: Fedotov says publicly in interview at Olympics that he intends on moving to the NHL

May 7, 2022:  Fedotov signs one-year deal with Flyers

Early June 2022: Fedotov arrested by Russian law enforcement for suspicion of evading military service and sent to remote military base in eastern part of the country

July 1, 2022: Fedotov becomes sick and rushed to hospital. His lawyer said that Fedotov had been given some kind of injections on the base, and that he and Fedotov's family weren't allowed to see him in the hospital. Fedotov is released from the hospital after a couple of days, but misses the entire 2022-23 season while at the military base. His contract with the Flyers slides a year to 2023-24.

July 8, 2023: Fedotov's KHL club CSKA signs him to a two-year extension, giving him two competing and active contracts.

Aug. 14, 2023: The IIHF completes its investigation of the competing contracts and rules in favor of the Flyers, saying that the CSKA contract is invalid. The IIHF gives CSKA a one-year ban on signing  players for international transfers. Fedotov is also suspended from international competitions for four months, which is irrelevant given that Russia isn't competing in national tournaments anytime soon. The IIHF suspended Russia from international play after the invasion of Ukraine. The IIHF suspension of Fedotov doesn't affect his ability to play in the NHL.

Sept. 1, 2023: CSKA has its regular season opener ... and starts Fedotov. KHL president and former Penguin Alexei Morozov releases a statement essentially saying that because they disagree with the IIHF ruling, they're going to do what they want: “The KHL accepted this roster in accordance with our central database, therefore Fedotov can play. Neither the KHL nor the club agree with the IIHF’s decision, which infringes the constitutional rights of a Russian citizen to work. Russia’s prosecutor general spoke in defense of the player, and sent a message to the Russian Hockey Federation, the club and the league about the consequences of violating his right to work and insisting that Fedotov be allowed to take part in the championship.”

Fedotov allowed five goals in a loss in the opener.

That same day, the IIHF fined CSKA 5,000 Swiss Francs (roughly the equivalent $5,600 USD) for playing Fedotov, and says that if Fedotov continues to play, CSKA will be subject to further sanctions. 

Since then, CSKA has played two games. Fedotov has been dressed and listed as the backup for both. Those are still violations, even though he didn't start.

To sum things up: The KHL is going rogue and setting a dangerous precedent. This is the first time the league has totally disobeyed the IIHF, and it'll be interesting to see how the IIHF moves forward here.

The Penguins have three prospects in Russia: Goaltender Sergei Murashov, drafted in the fourth round in 2022 and the Russian junior league's top goaltender last season; forward Kirill Tankov, drafted in the seventh round in 2021 and playing in the Russian second league after missing all of last season with a broken neck; and forward Mikhail Ilyin, drafted in the fifth round this summer and starting the year in the KHL.

NHL signing rights don't expire for players drafted out of Russia because of the lack of a formal transfer agreement between the NHL and Russia. The Penguins hold onto their NHL rights indefinitely.

Russian teams playing dirty to try to keep their top players isn't new. Evgeni Malkin had to escape to get to Pittsburgh in 2006. His club Magnitogorsk convinced him to play one more year in Russia after he was drafted by the Penguins to show his loyalty to the city and country. He did that, but the next summer team officials followed him to his home and coerced him into signing a one-year deal. The team had his passport, so he couldn't leave on his own. Magnitogorsk had an August tournament in Finland to start the year, so Malkin had his passport, and he hid in Finland for a few days until he could get a U.S. visa and flight to Los Angeles.

With Russian teams and the national teams not playing in other countries now because of the bans due to the invasion of Ukraine, prospects like Fedotov don't have the same opportunity to escape while in another country.

As an aside, this whole situation shows why the hope some fans had to ban Russian players from the NHL because of the invasion of Ukraine is totally misguided. ... You have the league and its government-owned teams doing all they can to keep one guy sticking around at home, even sending him to a military base in Siberia for a year. Giving the KHL all their top players back would be a dream for Russia and the KHL.

[someonewhogotanaccount]

It's intro post time!

Hi! I'm KitCat!

~The end~

Okay okay maybe you need a little bit more.

As I already said, I'm KitCat, master procatsinator and moving catastrophe, nice to meet you. (Though, everybody calls me KitKat, Kit or Chocosy, which is perfectly fine as well as any other name you want to give me ;)

I'm a minor, so all the creeps please leave now. My motto in life is "live and let live", so if you're here to hurt somebody, please leave too. Thank you :).

The typical things (that I actually forgot when I first posted this): I'm a straight white European Christian girl (teenager) and therefore probably the person with the most boring background, according to Tumblr ;).

I have two "adopted daughters": 1. My Killercat and tuna-demanding master Pauline 2. ";)", the bracket face (she can adapt any form of bracket face if she wants to, but the winking one is her favourite)

Some random facts about me: - my favourite colour is something between purple and dark blue - I have no clue how to write the word color/colour - I'm a German and from Germany (obviously) - I have no clue about the 'typical German culture', since my family was in Poland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia for around three hundred years and only came back to Germany 30 years ago or so - I love brackets and bracket faces - I have no clue about aesthetics - I consider myself a writer - I have no clue how to continue my stories - I love cats (who would have guessed that) - I have no clue how to make an intro post - I have a stupid sense humour - I have no clue in general but I'm trying :)

You can consider me as: Your silly Tumblr neighborhood KitCat and founder of the hug-ducks ;).

Do I take Tumblr serious? No. I'm that one friend that will be hyperactive the one day and then just dissappear for the next three weeks without a word. But if you ever need me, my inbox is always open. Vent as much as you want to, I'll try to comfort you.

Random stuff: I often misunderstand stuff, so if I'm acting weird, there is a 1/3 chance that I misunderstood you, a 1/3 chance I wanted to make a silly joke and you misunderstood me, and a 1/3 chance that I'm just weird ;). I'm a "Very vibey" (@mushroomcarrotstick) person, btw. @hijabi-desi-bookworm told me once I was "literally one of the best and ~vibest~ people" she knows. Do with that whatever you want, but my name is KitCat Chaos Vibey Clueless Badass Silly for a reason. Oh and if ANYBODY tells you that I'm cute, they are liars. All lies. I'm a pure badass and never ever search after the leta vs. kitkat war. It's better to let the past behind us and move on.

Sooooo, what else can I write here? Hmmm.... AH! MY MOOTS! I FORGOT MY MOOTS!!!

How do I do this now... you know what? I'll just make a list of the moots and then put the link here.

What else? Fandoms, maybe? (current obsession right on the top) - Worm (Parahumans) - Renegades - Claim the Stars (still waiting for the second book) - pjo, hoo, toa - The Inheritance Games (currently reading the second book) - tpq - kotlc - Warrior Cats (don't make fun of me. These books are my childhood and I will read them until I die) - Shadow League (never read the fourth book as it wasn't translated)

Also I enjoy listening music by Imagine Dragons :).

Yeah well, that's it, I suppose. I have an ao3 account as well, but that's only Renegades fanfiction so far. If you want the link just ask or smth.

Since everybody does this, I'll drop an "aesthetic picture" that should give the same vibes as my blog:

(source for the chaotic arson cat ;)

[dailyanarchistposts]

FAQ Volume 1 Appendix — The Symbols of Anarchy

1 What is the history of the Black Flag?

As is well known, the black flag is the symbol of anarchism. Howard Ehrlich has a great passage in his book Reinventing Anarchy, Again on why anarchists use it. It is worth quoting at length:

“Why is our flag black? Black is a shade of negation. The black flag is the negation of all flags. It is a negation of nationhood which puts the human race against itself and denies the unity of all humankind. Black is a mood of anger and outrage at all the hideous crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of allegiance to one state or another. It is anger and outrage at the insult to human intelligence implied in the pretences, hypocrisies, and cheap chicaneries of governments … Black is also a colour of mourning; the black flag which cancels out the nation also mourns its victims the countless millions murdered in wars, external and internal, to the greater glory and stability of some bloody state. It mourns for those whose labour is robbed (taxed) to pay for the slaughter and oppression of other human beings. It mourns not only the death of the body but the crippling of the spirit under authoritarian and hierarchic systems; it mourns the millions of brain cells blacked out with never a chance to light up the world. It is a colour of inconsolable grief. “But black is also beautiful. It is a colour of determination, of resolve, of strength, a colour by which all others are clarified and defined. Black is the mysterious surrounding of germination, of fertility, the breeding ground of new life which always evolves, renews, refreshes, and reproduces itself in darkness. The seed hidden in the earth, the strange journey of the sperm, the secret growth of the embryo in the womb all these the blackness surrounds and protects. “So black is negation, is anger, is outrage, is mourning, is beauty, is hope, is the fostering and sheltering of new forms of human life and relationship on and with this earth. The black flag means all these things. We are proud to carry it, sorry we have to, and look forward to the day when such a symbol will no longer be necessary.” [“Why the Black Flag?”, Howard Ehrlich (ed.), Reinventing Anarchy, Again, pp. 31–2]

Here we discuss when and why anarchists first took up the black flag as our symbol.

There are ample accounts of the use of black flags by anarchists. Probably the most famous was Nestor Makhno’s partisans during the Russia Revolution. Under the black banner, his army routed a dozen armies and kept a large portion of the Ukraine free from concentrated power for a good couple of years. On the black flag was embroidered “Liberty or Death” and “The Land to the Peasant, The Factories to the Workers.” [Voline, The Unknown Revolution, pp. 607–10] In 1925, the Japanese anarchists formed the Black Youth League and, in 1945, when the anarchist federation reformed, their journal was named Kurohata (Black Flag). [Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, pp. 525–6] In 1968, students carried black (and red) flags during the street fighting and General Strike in France, bringing the resurgence of anarchism in the 1960s into the view of the general public. The same year saw the Black Flag being raised at the American Students for a Democratic Society national convention. Two years later the British based magazine Black Flag was started and is still going strong. At the turn of the 21st century, the Black Flag was at the front of the so-called anti-globalisation protests. Today, if you go to any sizeable demonstration you will usually see the Black Flag raised by the anarchists present.

However, the anarchists’ black flag originated much earlier than this. Louise Michel, famous participant in the Paris Commune of 1871, was instrumental in popularising the use of the Black Flag in anarchist circles. At a March 18th public meeting in 1882 to commemorate the Paris Commune she proclaimed that the “red flag was no longer appropriate; [the anarchists] should raise the black flag of misery.” [Edith Thomas, Louise Michel, p. 191] The following year she put her words into action. According to anarchist historian George Woodcock, Michel flew the black flag on March 9, 1883, during demonstration of the unemployed in Paris, France. An open air meeting of the unemployed was broken up by the police and around 500 demonstrators, with Michel at the front carrying a black flag and shouting “Bread, work, or lead!” marched off towards the Boulevard Saint-Germain. The crowd pillaged three baker’s shops before the police attacked. Michel was arrested and sentenced to six years solitary confinement. Public pressure soon forced the granting of an amnesty. [Anarchism, pp. 251–2] August the same year saw the publication of the anarchist paper Le Drapeau Noir (The Black Flag) in Lyon which suggests that it had become a popular symbol within anarchist circles. [“Sur la Symbolique anarchiste”, Bulletin du CIRA, no. 62, p. 2] However, anarchists had been using red-and-black flags a number of years previously (see next section) so Michel’s use of the colour black was not totally without precedence.

Not long after, the black flag made its way to America. Paul Avrich reports that on November 27, 1884, it was displayed in Chicago at an anarchist demonstration. According to Avrich, August Spies, one of the Haymarket martyrs, “noted that this was the first occasion on which [the black flag] had been unfurled on American soil.” By January the following year, ”[s]treet parades and mass outdoor demonstrations, with red and black banners … were the most dramatic form of advertisement” for the revolutionary anarchist movement in America. April 1885 saw Lucy Parsons and Lizzie Holmes at the head of a protest march “each bearing a flag, one black, the other red.” [The Haymarket Tragedy, p. 145, pp. 81–2 and p. 147] The Black Flag continued to be used by anarchists in America, with one being seized by police at an anarchist organised demonstration for the unemployed in 1893 at which Emma Goldman spoke. [Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 1, p. 144] Twenty one years later, Alexander Berkman reported on another anarchist inspired unemployed march in New York which raised the black flag in “menacing defiance in the face of parasitic contentment and self-righteous arrogance” of the “exploiters and well-fed idlers.” [“The Movement of the Unemployed”, Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, p. 341]

It seems that black flags did not appear in Russia until the founding of the Chernoe Znamia (“black banner”) movement in 1905. With the defeat of that year’s revolution, anarchism went underground again. The Black Flag, like anarchism in general, re-emerged during the 1917 revolution. Anarchists in Petrograd took part in the February demonstrations which brought down Tsarism carrying black flags with “Down with authority and capitalism!” on them. As part of their activity, anarchists organised armed detachments in most towns and cities called “Black Guards” to defend themselves against counter-revolutionary attempts by the provisional government. As noted above, the Makhnovists fought Bolshevik and White dictatorship under Black Flags. On a more dreary note, February 1921 saw the end of black flags in Soviet Russia. That month saw Peter Kropotkin’s funeral take place in Moscow. Twenty thousand people marched in his honour, carrying black banners that read: “Where there is authority there is no freedom.” [Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, p. 44, p. 124, p. 183 and p. 227] Only two weeks after Kropotkin’s funeral march, the Kronstadt rebellion broke out and anarchism was erased from Soviet Russia for good. With the end of Stalinism, anarchism with its Black Flag re-emerged all across Eastern Europe, including Russia.

While the events above are fairly well known, as has been related, the exact origin of the black flag is not. What is known is that a large number of Anarchist groups in the early 1880s adopted titles associated with black. In July of 1881, the Black International was founded in London. This was an attempt to reorganise the Anarchist wing of the recently dissolved First International. In October 1881, a meeting in Chicago lead to the International Working People’s Association being formed in North America. This organisation, also known as the Black International, affiliated to the London organisation. [Woodcock, Op. Cit., pp. 212–4 and p. 393] These two conferences are immediately followed by Michel’s demonstration (1883) and the black flags in Chicago (1884).

Thus it was around the early 1880s that anarchism and the Black Flag became inseparably linked. Avrich, for example, states that in 1884, the black flag “was the new anarchist emblem.” [The Haymarket Tragedy, p. 144] In agreement, Murray Bookchin reports that “in later years, the Anarchists were to adopt the black flag” when speaking of the Spanish Anarchist movement in 1870. [The Spanish Anarchists, p. 57] Walter and Heiner also note that “it was adopted by the anarchist movement during the 1880s.” [Kropotkin, Act for Yourselves, p. 128]

Now the question becomes why, exactly, black was chosen. The Chicago “Alarm” stated that the black flag is “the fearful symbol of hunger, misery and death.” [quoted by Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 144] Bookchin asserts that anarchists were “to adopt the black flag as a symbol of the workers misery and as an expression of their anger and bitterness.” [Op. Cit., p. 57] Historian Bruce C. Nelson also notes that the Black Flag was considered “the emblem of hunger” when it was unfurled in Chicago in 1884. [Beyond the Martyrs, p. 141 and p. 150] While it “was interpreted in anarchist circles as the symbol of death, hunger and misery” it was “also said to be the ‘emblem of retribution’” and in a labour procession in Cincinnati in January 1885, “it was further acknowledged to be the banner of working-class intransigence, as demonstrated by the words ‘No Quarter’ inscribed on it.” [Donald C. Hodges, Sandino’s Communism, p. 21] For Berkman, it was the “symbol of starvation and desperate misery.” [Op. Cit., p. 341] Louise Michel stated that the “black flag is the flag of strikes and the flag of those who are hungry.” [Op. Cit., p. 168]

Along these lines, Albert Meltzer maintains that the association between the black flag and working class revolt “originated in Rheims [France] in 1831 (‘Work or Death’) in an unemployed demonstration.” [The Anarcho-Quiz Book, p. 49] He went on to assert that it was Michel’s action in 1883 that solidified the association. The links from revolts in France to anarchism are even stronger. As Murray Bookchin records, in Lyon ”[i]n 1831, the silk-weaving artisans … rose in armed conflict to gain a better tarif, or contract, from the merchants. For a brief period they actually took control of the city, under red and black flags — which made their insurrection a memorable event in the history of revolutionary symbols. Their use of the word mutuelisme to denote the associative disposition of society that they preferred made their insurrection a memorable event in the history of anarchist thought as well, since Proudhon appears to have picked up the word from them during his brief stay in the city in 1843–4.” [The Third Revolution, vol. 2, p. 157] Sharif Gemie confirms this, noting that a police report sent to the Lyon prefect that said: “The silk-weavers of the Croix-Rousse have decided that tomorrow they will go down to Lyon, carrying a black flag, calling for work or death.” The revolt saw the Black Flag raised:

“At eleven a.m. the silk-weavers’ columns descended the slops of the Croix-Rousse. Some carried black flags, the colour of mourning and a reminder of their economic distress. Others pushed loaves of bread on the bayonets of their guns and held them aloft. The symbolic force of this action was reinforced by a repeatedly-shouted slogan: ‘bread or lead!’: in other words, if they were not given bread which they could afford, then they were prepared to face bullets. At some point during the rebellion, a more eloquent expression was devised: ‘Vivre en travaillant ou mourir en combattant!’ — ‘Live working or die by fighting!’. Some witnesses report seeing this painted on a black flag.” [Sharif Gemie, French Revolutions, 1815–1914, pp. 52–53]

Kropotkin himself states that its use continued in the French labour movement after this uprising. He notes that the Paris Workers “raised in June [1848] their black flag of ‘Bread or Labour’” [Act for Yourselves, p. 100] Black flags were also hung from windows in Paris on the 1st of March, 1871, in defiance of the Prussians marching through the city after their victory in the Franco-Prussian War. [Stewart Edwards, The Communards of Paris, 1871, p. 25]

The use of the black flag by anarchists, therefore, is an expression of their roots and activity in the labour movement in Europe, particularly in France. The anarchist adoption of the Black Flag by the movement in the 1880s reflects its use as “the traditional symbol of hunger, poverty and despair” and that it was “raised during popular risings in Europe as a sign of no surrender and no quarter.” [Walter and Becker, Act for Yourselves, p. 128] This is confirmed by the first anarchist journal to be called Black Flag: “On the heights of the city [of Lyon] in la Croix-Rousse and Vaise, workers, pushed by hunger, raised for the first time this sign of mourning and revenge [the black flag], and made therefore of it the emblem of workers’ demands.” [Le Drapeau Noir, no. 1, 12th August 1883] This was echoed by Louise Michel:

“How many wrathful people, young people, will be with us when the red and black banners wave in the wind of anger! What a tidal wave it will be when the red and black banners rise around the old wreck! “The red banner, which has always stood for liberty, frightens the executioners because it is so red with our blood. The black flag, with layers of blood upon it from those who wanted to live by working or die by fighting, frightens those who want to live off the work of others. Those red and black banners wave over us mourning our dead and wave over our hopes for the dawn that is breaking.” [The Red Virgin: Memoirs of Louise Michel, pp. 193–4]

The mass slaughter of Communards by the French ruling class after the fall of the Paris Commune of 1871 could also explain the use of the Black Flag by anarchists at this time. Black “is the colour of mourning [at least in Western cultures], it symbolises our mourning for dead comrades, those whose lives were taken by war, on the battlefield (between states) or in the streets and on the picket lines (between classes).” [Chico, “letters”, Freedom, vol. 48, No. 12, p. 10] Given the 25 000 dead in the Commune, many of them anarchists and libertarian socialists, the use of the Black Flag by anarchists afterwards would make sense. Sandino, the Nicaraguan libertarian socialist (whose use of the red-and-black colours we discuss below) also said that black stood for mourning (“Red for liberty; black for mourning; and the skull for a struggle to the death” [Donald C. Hodges, Sandino’s Communism, p. 24]).

Regardless of other meanings, it is clear that anarchists took up the black flag in the 1880s because it was, like the red flag, a recognised symbol of working class resistance to capitalism. This is unsurprising given the nature of anarchist politics. Just as anarchists base our ideas on actual working class practice, we would also base our symbols on those created by that self-activity. For example, Proudhon as well as taking the term “mutualism” from radical workers also argued that co-operative “labour associations” had “spontaneously, without prompting and without capital been formed in Paris and in Lyon… the proof of it [mutualism, the organisation of credit and labour] … lies in current practice, revolutionary practice.” [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, pp. 59–60] He considered his ideas, in other words, to be an expression of working class self-activity. Indeed, according to K. Steven Vincent, there was “close similarity between the associational ideal of Proudhon … and the program of the Lyon Mutualists” and that there was “a remarkable convergence [between the ideas], and it is likely that Proudhon was able to articulate his positive program more coherently because of the example of the silk workers of Lyon. The socialist ideal that he championed was already being realised, to a certain extent, by such workers.” [Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 164] Other anarchists have made similar arguments concerning anarchism being the expression of tendencies within working class struggle against oppression and exploitation and so the using of a traditional workers symbol would be a natural expression of this aspect of anarchism.

Similarly, perhaps it is Louise Michel’s comment that the Black Flag was the “flag of strikes” which could explain the naming of the Black International founded in 1881 (and so the increasing use of the Black Flag in anarchist circles in the early 1880s). Around the time of its founding congress Kropotkin was formulating the idea that this organisation would be a “Strikers’ International” (Internationale Greviste) — it would be “an organisation of resistance, of strikes.” [quoted by Martin A. Miller, Kropotkin, p. 147] In December 1881 he discussed the revival of the International Workers Association as a

Strikers’ International for to “be able to make the revolution, the mass of workers will have to organise themselves. Resistance and strikes are excellent methods of organisation for doing this.” He stressed that the “strike develops the sentiment of solidarity” and argued that the First International “was born of strikes; it was fundamentally a strikers’ organisation.” [quoted by Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, 1872–1886, p. 255 and p. 256]

A “Strikers International” would need the strikers flag and so, perhaps, the Black International got its name. This, of course, fits perfectly with the use of the Black Flag as a symbol of workers’ resistance by anarchism, a political expression of that resistance.

However, the black flag did not instantly replace the red flag as the main anarchist symbol. The use of the red flag continued for some decades in anarchist circles. Thus we find Kropotkin writing in the early 1880s of “anarchist groups … rais[ing] the red flag of revolution.” As Woodcock noted, the “black flag was not universally accepted by anarchists at this time. Many, like Kropotkin, still thought of themselves as socialists and of the red flag as theirs also.” [Words of a Rebel, p. 75 and p. 225] In addition, we find the Chicago anarchists using both black and red flags all through the 1880s. French Anarchists carried three red flags at the funeral of Louise Michel’s mother in 1885 as well as at her own funeral in January 1905. [Louise Michel, Op. Cit., p. 183 and p. 201] Anarchist in Japan, for example, demonstrated under red flags bearing the slogans “Anarchy” and “Anarchist Communism” in June, 1908. [John Crump, Hatta Shuzo and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan, p. 25] Three years later, the Mexican anarchists declared that they had “hoisted the Red Flag on Mexico’s fields of action” as part of their “war against Authority, war against Capital, and war against the Church.” They were “fighting under the Red Flag to the famous cry of ‘Land and Liberty.’” [Ricardo Flores Magon, Land and Liberty, p. 98 and p. 100]

So for a considerable period of time anarchists used red as well as black flags as their symbol. The general drift away from the red flag towards the black must be placed in the historical context. During the 1880s the socialist movement was changing. Marxist social democracy was becoming the dominant socialist trend, with libertarian socialism going into relative decline in many areas. Thus the red flag was increasingly associated with the authoritarian and statist (and increasingly reformist) side of the socialist movement. In order to distinguish themselves from other socialists, the use of the black flag makes perfect sense as it was it an accepted symbol of working class revolt like the red flag.

After the Russian Revolution and its slide into dictatorship (first under Lenin, then Stalin) anarchist use of the red flag decreased as it no longer “stood for liberty.” Instead, it had become associated, at worse, with the Communist Parties or, at best, bureaucratic, reformist and authoritarian social democracy. This change can be seen from the Japanese movement. As noted above, before the First World War anarchists there had happily raised the red flag but in the 1920s they unfurled the black flag. Organised in the Kokushoku Seinen Renmei (Black Youth League), they published Kokushoku Seinen (Black Youth). By 1930, the anarchist theoretical magazine Kotushoku Sensen (Black Battlefront) had been replaced by two journals called Kurohata (Black Flag) and Kuhusen (Black Struggle). [John Crump, Op. Cit., pp. 69–71 and p. 88]

According to historian Candace Falk, ”[t]hough black has been associated with anarchism in France since 1883, the colour red was the predominant symbol of anarchism throughout this period; only after the First World War was the colour black widely adopted.” [Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 1, p. 208fn] As this change did not occur overnight, it seems safe to conclude that while anarchism and the black flag had been linked, at the latest, from the early 1880s, it did not become the definitive anarchist symbol until the 1920s (Carlo Tresca in America was still talking of standing “beneath the red flag that is the immaculate flag of the anarchist idea” in 1925. [quoted by Nunzio Pernicone, Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel, p. 161]). Before then, anarchists used both it and the red flag as their symbols of choice. After the Russian Revolution, anarchists would still use red in their flags, but only when combined with black. In this way they would not associate themselves with the tyranny of the USSR or the reformism and statism of the mainstream socialist movement.

[pedripics]

hi! may i ask you something about this Super League? im confused because im new here. and what about that 1 billion euros for? thank you

Hi, of course 🫶🏻

The Super League is a rather complex topic, so I'm gonna give you a short summary and a longer version with the history and stuff under the cut.

In short, the Super League is a proposed football competition for football clubs in Europe that is aimed to rival the UEFA competitions, such as the Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League.

Format (this is the new version they just released):

It would include 64 men’s (spread across three leagues) and 32 women’s teams (spread across two leagues) playing midweek games in a league system across Europe. All clubs would play in groups of 8 – home and away – resulting in a guaranteed minimum of 14 matches per year. At the end of the season, a knockout stage of 8 clubs will be played in each league to determine the league champions. There would also be annual promotion and relegation between the three/ two leagues. The idea is that it would not interfere with domestic leagues.

History:

Proposals of Super Leagues in European football have been around for decades with the earliest ideas dating back to 1968. There were attempts to create a 'Super League' in 1987 and 1990 but they were abandoned after UEFA and FIFA threatened to sanction all involved clubs. In 2009, Florentino Pérez (president of Real Madrid) began planning a 'Super League' because the Champions League, in his words, was too "obsolete and problematic for the quality of the sport and an obstacle preventing clubs from growing their businesses and developing infrastructure." That idea resurfaced in 2020 when big clubs started suffering financially from the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing debts. That got American investors interested who pledged US $5 billion towards its formation. In January 2021, FIFA and all six football's continental confederations (AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC, and UEFA) issued a statement that rejected the formation of any breakaway European Super League and that they would ban any club or player involved from any competitions organised by FIFA and its six confederations.

Current 'European Super League':

In April 2021, Pérez announced the formation of the 'European Super League' (ESL) via a press release signed by twelve clubs that signed up to be involved (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspurs, Inter Milan, Juventus, AC Milan, Atlético Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Real Madrid). The aim was a new competition that "provides higher-quality matches and additional financial resources for the overall football pyramid, provides significantly greater economic growth and support for European football via a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments, which will grow in line with league revenues, would appeal to a new younger generation of football fans, and also would improve VAR and refereeing." Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Juventus were the three leading clubs. There is much more to the financial aspect of it (like solidarity payments, welcome bonuses, participation payments, commercial revenue, etc.), but that's rather complicated and depends on what newspaper you wanna believe.

Reception:

The announcement led to a joint statement from the governing bodies of the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A condemning the formation, with all governing bodies declaring to prevent the ESL from proceeding any further. Football governing bodies from Germany, France and Russia released similar statements. UEFA reiterated their statements made in January 2021, warning that any clubs involved in the Super League would be banned from all other domestic, European and world football competitions and that players from the clubs involved would also be banned from representing their national teams in international matches. (The Premier League and their governing body FA ruled out barring the six clubs from domestic competitions and preferred to not take legal action.) Numerous politicians expressed their opposition to the proposal of the ESL. Amongst commentators, footballers and managers, the ESL sparked contrasting opinions. Media companies were mostly opposed to the idea (which does not come as a surprise as ESL promises free viewing of all live matches). Many football fans, including the fans of the involved clubs, were not in support of the idea of the ESL. The backlash led to nine clubs (all clubs, except FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Juventus) announcing their intention to withdraw from the project in April 2023. However, eight of these nine clubs remained involved as stakeholders. In June 2023, Juventus announced their decision to leave the Super League project after facing a rumoured 5-year ban from all European competitions if they went through with the project. (That only leaves FC Barcelona and Real Madrid)

Legal issues:

In May 2021, the Super League filed a complaint to the Court of Justice of the European Union against UEFA and FIFA for their proposals to stop the competition. UEFA had opened disciplinary proceedings against FC Barcelona, Juventus, and Real Madrid, which were threatened to be excluded from all UEFA competitions, in order to sanction them but these measures were stayed until further notice as a result of the rulings from the Spanish commercial court and Swiss authorities. In June 2021, the Swiss Department of Justice and Police and the Spanish Commercial Court referred the issue to the Court of Justice of the European Union to question whether UEFA and FIFA have violated two articles of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. Article 101 prohibits cartels and other agreements that could disrupt free competition in the EEA and Article 102 aims to prevent businesses in an industry from abusing their position or taking action to prevent new businesses from gaining a foothold in the industry. On 21 December 2023, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that FIFA and UEFA's rules, which banned clubs from joining rival competitions, such as the Super League, are contrary to EU law. UEFA's and FIFA's rules making new football projects subject to their prior approval are also unlawful.

What does the ECJ's ruling mean:

The ECJ's ruling is binding and not subject to appeal. The ECJ's decision on UEFA's rules does however not rule on whether the Super League should (or is allowed) to exist. UEFA needs to change and clarify its rules now to comply with EU law. Once the regulations are updated, the Super League will still need to acquire authorisation to set the competition up. The ruling basically gives companies like A22 the right to pitch a new football competition and for their application to be judged on criteria which are "transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate".

Revival of the project:

In December 2023, A22 announced a new, updated proposal (which I already explained under format). However, many clubs have issued statements opposing the idea (including clubs, who were once involved in the ESL). As of right now, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and SSC Napoli have issued statements in support of the ESL. There are reports about various clubs from Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and other European leagues who are keen on joining (but no official statements from the clubs).

Why could Barça and Real Madrid receive €1 billion?

I believe this has not been confirmed by A22, but it has been reported by various newspapers. They would receive €1 billion as a reward for their loyalty, as they are the only two clubs who remained firm on their decision to take part in the Super League. That would obviously only happen if they find enough teams to set up the ESL.

[hetalia-club]

Got Bored And Made An Entire Hetalia Baseball League (HBL)

the league is meant to have fictitious and near impossible goals for regular humans to achieve. They are all scaled beside each other accounting for superhuman strength.

~France's Stats~

France's Batting Averages Regular Season- .279 Projected- .283 Career- .282

Running Speed MPH- 19-22 Hitting Power MPH- 85-90 Regular Season Stolen Bases: 1 Career Stolen Bases: 10 (avoids it and only takes the opportunity if there is a play error)

France would be a good player, valued for his consistency, strategic approach, and balanced hitting profile. He would likely be a dependable presence in the lineup, contributing solidly to the team’s offense with a mix of singles, doubles, and some home runs. His experience and understanding of the game would make him a key player in critical situations, both offensively and defensively. While he might not be the most powerful player, his strengths lie in his reliable batting, good plate discipline, and ability to perform under pressure. France would be a well-rounded player who adds significant value to his team through his consistent performance and baseball intelligence.

Other Players: (will update with link as they are added) America Russia Sweden England Ireland Iceland Canada Denmark Turkey France Scotland Greece Germany Japan Nyo!America Prussia China Nyo!England Spain Austria Italy Norway Romano Finland

breakdown below >> (Chat GTP helped with this part because I'm not good at describing things or sports talk)((it also made me the lay out above I made the stats and it put them in MLB format for me & calculated batting average because math :/ ))

Considerations for France’s Stats:

Balanced Stat Distribution:

Regular Season:

Games Played (GP): 150, indicating he is a regular and dependable player, though he might take a few games off.

At-Bats (AB): 520, showing consistent involvement in the lineup.

Runs (R): 80, reflecting a significant contribution to the team's scoring.

Hits (H): 145, indicating a solid batting average.

Doubles (2B): 28, Triples (3B): 4, Home Runs (HR): 20, showing a balanced hitting profile with some power.

RBI: 75, demonstrating an ability to drive in runs.

Walks (BB): 60, Strikeouts (SO)**: 100, reflecting good plate discipline and contact skills.

Projected:

Slight improvements across the board to reflect continued growth and consistency.

Career:

Games Played (GP): 1800, reflecting a long and productive career.

At-Bats (AB): 6200, showing sustained participation and consistency.

Runs (R): 1000, Hits (H): 1750, Doubles (2B): 340, Triples (3B): 60, Home Runs (HR): 270.

RBI: 950, indicating a consistent ability to contribute to the team’s offense.

Walks (BB): 750, Strikeouts (SO)**: 1150, showing excellent plate discipline over his career.

Summary:

Regular Season: France’s stats reflect his charming, experienced, and skillful nature, making him a productive and stylish player.

Projected: Small improvements in key areas such as hits, runs, and home runs to reflect potential for continued growth.

Career: Cumulative stats that highlight a long, consistent, and productive career, aligning with his experienced and artistic character.

Player Analysis: France

Character Traits:

Charming and Elegant: France is known for his suave and charming personality, suggesting a refined and stylish approach to the game.

Experienced and Wise: His age and wisdom imply a deep understanding of the game, possibly making him a strategic and thoughtful player.

Passionate and Artistic: France’s passion and creativity might translate into a flair for dramatic and skillful plays on the field.

Strengths:

Consistent Hitter: With a batting average around .279 to .283, France demonstrates solid hitting skills. He can consistently get on base and contribute to the team's offense.

Balanced Power: France’s stats show a good mix of doubles, triples, and home runs, indicating he has some power and can hit extra-base hits effectively.

Plate Discipline: With a decent number of walks (BB) and a relatively moderate number of strikeouts (SO), France shows good plate discipline. He understands the strike zone well and can draw walks, adding value to his on-base percentage.

Experience and Wisdom: His strategic approach to the game, driven by his experience and understanding, makes him a valuable player in critical situations. He likely has a good baseball IQ and can anticipate plays and pitches.

Weaknesses:

Consistency Over Explosiveness: While France is a reliable and consistent hitter, he might lack the explosive power of elite sluggers. His home run totals are good but not exceptional, suggesting he contributes more through consistent contact and situational hitting rather than sheer power.

Fielding: Based on his character, France might be more focused on his offensive contributions. There’s no strong indication that he would be an elite fielder. His fielding might be adequate, but not a standout aspect of his game.

[heavenisaplaceonearth-with-you]

tw - ed

i don't like talking about my ed but i just got massively triggered the other day.

obviously this happened at my skating rink bc everyone there is toxic af about food, some more than others.

this one girl who's older than me and has her training session right after mine was watching me go through my program and i'm supposed to have this stupid difficult jump in it (i only landed it one time (1) but my coach insists if i landed it once i can land it again. i think it was a fluke but whatever) so as one does i fell out of it and nearly broke every bone in my body.

so as i'm getting off the ice this girl comes up to me she's like, "you know if you lose a little weight i think you could land that."

i just blinked and stared at her tbh it caught me soo off guard

then she was like "i mean don't get me wrong you're super skinny yeah but the twelve year olds in russia who are landing that jump are much skinnier. especially your legs, they're a little bulky."

me: blinking and very confused

her: idk. just a tip. (goes onto the ice)

i fucking bolted to the changing room to check my weight and it was still the same (as usual) which kinda calmed me down bc trust i'm fully aware that i'm underweight. but what if it's not enough? thennnn ofc i spiraled and watched interviews of russian figure skaters talking about their eds and how much they weighed during the olympics and that messed me up more bc this one girl weighed 3kg less than me and that made me feel like i was doomed to wallow in the minor leagues of figure skating even though i did start almost as early as all these other skaters did, the barrier was my weight, i wasn't aerodynamic enough.

but then i realized -- i passed my senior test skate and this girl who's older than me and trying to give me advice is still skating at a junior level. she has no right to give me comments like that that clearly aren't going to help. men can land this jump and men don't weigh as much as 12 year old girls.

i'm going to go eat fucking ice cream idgaf what some random girl thinks about my body or my legs or my jumps.

thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[justinssportscorner]

Li Zhou at Vox:

Caitlin Clark, a college basketball phenom and the top pick at Monday’s WNBA draft, will make a staggeringly low salary in her rookie year compared to her NBA counterpart. Despite her record-breaking performance in the NCAA and the energy that she’s generated for the sport, Clark’s base salary will be $76,535 as a rookie. In the NBA, meanwhile, the first draft pick is expected to make roughly $10.5 million in base salary their first year.

Players like Clark, who was picked by the Indiana Fever Monday night after multiple blockbuster seasons as a point guard for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, and former Louisiana State University forward Angel Reese, who was signed by the Chicago Sky, have helped women’s college basketball achieve a landmark year. For the first time ever, the women’s final March Madness game, which drew as many as 24 million viewers, surpassed the viewership of the men’s final. “It’s been catapulted this year to a whole new level,” says University of Michigan sports management professor Ketra Armstrong. “People are tuning in to the WNBA draft that never had before.” The fresh attention for the WNBA draft, however, is also spotlighting the problems the league has had with pay equity. For years, the WNBA’s salaries have lagged the NBA’s by a massive margin. That’s due in part to the leagues’ differences in revenue and season lengths. But other factors, like differences in collective bargaining agreements and revenue-sharing, also play a big role. [...]

The pay-gap problem is bigger than any one player

Despite her record-breaking performance in the NCAA and the energy that she’s generated for the sport, Clark will earn less than 1 percent of what her male counterpart will make in her first year. She will be able to supplement her salary through endorsement and marketing deals, but even with those, her estimated earnings will be lower than the base salary of a first-round NBA pick. Clark isn’t alone. WNBA star Brittney Griner — who spent months jailed in Russia — spoke about the reason she played abroad in the offseason, and noted that a big part of it was to supplement her income: “I’ll say this ... the whole reason a lot of us go over is the pay gap,” she said at a press conference in April 2023. In 2023, a WNBA player made a $113,295 base salary on average, while an NBA player made an average base salary of $9.7 million. The NBA’s much larger revenue is part of the reason for this discrepancy: It takes in an estimated $10 billion annually, compared to the WNBA, which has been projected to bring in roughly $200 million. Its season is also about twice the length of the WNBA’s, including 82 games compared to 40 games. Those factors alone, however, don’t tell the full story.

It's a grotesque insult that WNBA stars (and potential stars) such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Brittney Griner are appallingly underpaid compared to their male counterparts in the NBA.

The large gender pay gap between WNBA and NBA players is why WNBA players choose to play in overseas leagues during that league's offseason to supplement their income.

[fedorahead]

ICJ Hearing Updates by @totallyseiso

(hopefully these are the most recent rbs of each, in the relevant order. if not, please feel free to offer corrections. it was a pain in the ass trying to read them in order/backwards because of the weird way reblogs and archives work. i'm struggling with the earliest days, when seiso wasn't using the reblog chains so if you have better links please send)

Intro

We'll start here, with the thread of who's slated to present

Then we can go to the tweets where the PM of Israel preemptively rejects the ICJ (reblogged from @papasmoke)

Not exactly the ICJ hearings, but the US calling for ceasefire ASAP after rejecting ceasefire resolutions.

Why Israel tends to kill more women and children than is normal for these situations. (reblogged from @tamarrud)

Updates

I feel like I'm missing something here, this is announcing the end of the first segment on the 20th

Just the fact that Saudi Arabia presented at all (lol)

Mention of looking forward to Ireland

Netherlands

Belize

End of the first 10 speakers

Day 3, Columbia, Cuba, Egypt

US (post 1) (post 2)

Russia and then Russia and France

Day 4, morning (China, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Japan, Jordan)

Day 4, afternoon (Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya)

Day 5, morning (Namibia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar)

Day 5, afternoon (UK, Slovenia, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia)

Day 6, morning (Turkey, Zambia, League of Arab States, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, African Union)

Day 6, afternoon (Spain, Fiji, Maldives)

[allycat75]

Important events that actually took place on September 9th and were in no way a figment of a sad, delusional man and his advisors' imagination in order to continue a nefarious and daft lie.

1543- Mary Stuart, at 9 months old, is crowned Queen of Scots

1675- New England colonies declare war on Wampanoag Indians

1753- 1st steam engine arrives in North American colonies

1776- Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (from the United Colonies)

1817- Alexander Twilight, probably first African American to graduate from a US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College

1836- Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his influential essay "Nature" in the US, outlining his beliefs in transcendentalism

1850- California becomes a state

1880- President Rutherford B. Hayes visits San Francisco

1888- Easter Island / Rapa Nui in the Pacific is annexed by Chile

1892- Edward Emerson Barnard at Lick Observatory discovers Amalthea, Jupiter's 5th moon

1904- Boston Herald again refers to NY baseball club as Yankees, when it reports "Yankees take 2," Yankee name not official till 1913

1908- Orville Wright makes 1st 1-hr airplane flight, Fort Myer, Virginia

1908- Russia annexes part of Poland

1911- 1st European post delivered by air (Hendon to Windsor, England)

1921- Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador agree to Central American Union

1922- Turkish troops take the Greek-held Anatolian city of Smyrna during the Greco-Turkish War

1926- National Broadcasting Company created by Radio Corporation of America

1936- New York Yankees beat Cleveland Indians, 12-9 at League Park to clinch AL pennant on the earliest date in history

1939- Nazi army reaches Warsaw

1942- Compulsory work for women, children and old males in Batavia

1944- Allied forces liberate Luxembourg

1945- 1st "bug" in a computer program discovered by Grace Hopper, a moth was removed with tweezers from a relay & taped into the log

1950- 1st use of TV laugh track by "The Hank McCune Show" in the US

1951- 1st broadcast of soap opera "Love of Life" on CBS-TV

1955- Don Zimmer, hits 4,000th Dodger home run

1956- Elvis Presley appears on "The Ed Sullivan Show" for the 1st time

1957- US President Eisenhower signs 1st civil rights bill since Reconstruction

1960- Pakistan ends India's run of 6 consecutive Olympic field hockey gold medals with a 1-0 win over their sub-continent rivals at the Rome Games

1963- Alabama Governor George Wallace served a federal injunction to stop orders of state police to bar black students from enrolling in white schools

1965- LA Dodgers future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax throws his 4th career no-hitter and first perfect game in a 1-0 win over the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium

1966- The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1st federal safety standards for vehicles and roads

1967- 1st successful Test flight of a Saturn V

1969- The Official Languages Act comes into force in Canada - making English and French the country's official languages (replaced 1988 by new Official Languages Act)

1971- Apple Records releases John Lennon's second solo studio album, "Imagine" in US; it tops the charts in US, UK, Australia, and 3 other countries

1972- West German equestrian rider Liselott Linsenhoff follows her dressage teams gold in Mexico City with the individual dressage title at her home Olympics in Munich

1975- Paul McCartney & Wings begin their "Wings Over The World" tour in Southampton, England; 65 concerts in Europe, Australia, Canada, and United States, runs through October of 1976

1978- Ayatollah Khomeini calls for an uprising in the Iranian army

1979- 31st Emmy Awards: "Taxi"; "Lou Grant"; Ron Leibman & Ruth Gordon win

1983- Radio Shack announces their color computer 2 (Coco2)

1985- President Reagan orders sanctions against South Africa, targeting apartheid

1987- Larry Bird of the Celtics begins an NBA free throw streak of 59

1987- Gary Hart admits on "Nightline" to cheating on his wife

1990- George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Helsinki & urge Iraq to leave Kuwait

1990- Liberia president Samuel K Doe is captured by Mr Johnson's forces

1991- Mike Tyson indicted for rape of Desiree Washington

1993- Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization exchange letters of mutual recognition

2010- A court in the Philippines orders Imelda Marcos to repay the government almost $280,000 for funds taken from the National Food Authority by Ferdinand Marcos in 1983

2012- Armenia wins the 40th FIDE Chess Olympiad

2015- Apple unveils the iPad Pro and iPhone 6S in San Francisco

2015- Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain's longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria

2017- Egyptian archaeologists announce the discovery of a 3,500-year-old tomb of a goldsmith and his family in Draa Abul-Naga, Egypt

2018- CBS chief Les Moonves departs the company after six more women make allegations of sexual abuse in "The New Yorker"

2019- Poet John Milton's own copy of Shakespeare's First Folio of 1623 has survived with his annotations according to scholar Jason Scott-Warren in Philadelphia library, could be world's most important modern literary discovery

2020- San Francisco Bay area blanketed by dark orange skies and smoke due to California wildfires

2021- Tom Brady becomes first player in NFL history to start 300 regular season games as he guides Tampa Bay Buccaneers to an opening day 31-29 win at home to Dallas Cowboys

ALL of these are more important than something that never happened on this day.

[old-school-butch]

Why did Hamas take hostages and start a war?

I'm tempted to use the fable of the scorpion and the frog here, because what is Hamas without war? It was always going to be war, their entire existence is dedicated to overthrowing Israel and taking it for themselves. They went through a bit of rebranding in 2017 when they created a new charter that said they accepted the 1967 borders of Israel as the basis for a 10 - 100 year ceasefire (not a peace treaty though - that means recognizing the existence of Israel and of course, and never giving up claims to the 'right of return' of Palestinians into Israel, which would give Palestinians majority control over country), and they realized it was more acceptable to say they were anti-Zionist instead of anti-Jew.

But I'd argue they've never been too interested in the leadership of Gaza for the sake of the Palestinian people. They don't govern Gaza really, UNWRA manages most of the foreign aid that sustains schools and hospitals. Little interest is shown in building infrastructure. Hamas' main achievement in holding power was to establish a security force to consolidate it's own power, but at least reduced the anarchy, gang violence and competing terror cells that were running rampant. Gaza has received billions in foreign aid over the last 2 decades, it should look like a seaside paradise by now. I've noticed this with the Taliban too and even the Muslim Brotherhood during it's time in power in Egypt - ideologues and revolutionaries aren't really in it for the bureaucracy and daily work of governing a state. They want to be either unimaginably wealthy or powerful, they dream of running a global caliphate, and destroying Israel is just step 1 in creating the Arab superstate, destroying Western corruption, consolidating power and expanding from there. Hamas is a short form of its official name - Islamic Resistance Movement, and it is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamist organizing to create the new caliphate goes back to the 20s but it was overshadowed by a more secular pan-Arab movement until the six day war with Israel dealt the Arab league a resounding defeat. Islamism has been the new, organizing principle to rally around to consolidate regional, and ideally, global power. I'm finding wikipedia a surprisingly unbiased source if you want a quick overview, although you have to read a few different entries to get the full picture.

Israel has made so many attempts at appeasement and containment, which are ironically now dragged out as if the Israeli government was somehow complicit in creating Hamas because they allowed Qatari money to enter Gaza to be paid to Hamas political leaders (now spun as 'Israel brought briefcases full of cash to Hamas') or that they supported Hamas to undermine the PA (Hamas was elected and fought a war with PA to control Gaza so I'm not sure how Israel could have ignored them. I really can't imagine juggling the PA, PLO and Hamas, and every time you make peace with one the others splinter off and reject your agreements). Hamas, in turn, has spent the last 2 years preparing this attack, while also convincing Israel it was moving away from seeking conflict.

Anyway, you were asking about this war in particular, and not the first and second intifada, their war with Fatah, or the wars against Israel in 2008-2009 or 2014. I'm not privy to what intelligence Hamas possessed that now would be a good time to start another war, but I can make a few guesses:

Opportunity: They learned of security holes in Israel that they could successfully exploit to make a devastating attack.

Method: They had friends willing to supply weapons, training and intelligence. Most significantly, Iran and Hezbollah, but they also met with Russia, they sent a delegation to the Saudis in April and to Syria in June to try to smoothe over those relationships.

Motive: They felt that supply of support might fade in the future, and thus the time to strike was now. The U.S. has been simultaneously getting Arab countries to recognize Israel and normalize relationships with Israel. The Palestinian 'cause' couldn't exist without external support. There's not enough people and, let's be honest, no real history to support a sustained nationalist campaign. The Levant was a sparsely-populated, dirt poor backwater where remnant populations of invading Arab caliphates were overtaken by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. Without external support, anyone who didn't want to be in or near Israel would have left and been absorbed by any number of the 22 Arab Muslim states in the region. Its claim to fame is that it's the site of religious significance to multiple religions and thus, its has symbolic significance.

But Hamas was formed as proxy fighters in a proxy war, and the U.S. efforts were moving toward peace at an alarming rate by sidestepping direct intervention (as they had with Camp David negotiations in the past). Instead, they took their message to the regional powers who, over the years, have now all had their own run-ins with iterations of this movement and now see it as a threat to their own rule. Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain have all recognized Israel. The Saudis were in the process of joining them, which threatened to tip the balance of power in the area.

The goals of this war were to make Israel respond so they could be freshly blamed for regional problems, make Hamas and Palestine relevant again to global interest and as a regional force and remind everyone that making peace isn't possible as long as radical groups remain a force that can undermine that process.

[iibislintu]

Finnish goverment has voted to pass a law that takes away the human right of seeking asylum. This is yet another move in the record breakingly far right government's 1+ year track record.

The bill was proposed by the far right party True Finns, and expectedly backed by the Prime Minister party National Coalition, as well as minority parties Christian Democrats and Swedish People's Party.

The main opposition party Social Democrats also backed the bill for the most part, as well as Finnish Center. The Green League and the Left Alliance, both small opposition parties, voted against.

Out of tens of law experts interviewed for the bill, almost everyone maintained the position that it is unconstitutional and in breach of international human rights agreements. The bill was still passed.