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oliverdant · 5 years ago

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The Hollywood Reporter rounds up the major twists, epic fights and big reveals on all the DC Comics TV shows.

Welcome back to The Hollywood Reporter's weekly DC TV Watch, a rundown of all things DC Comics on the small screen. Every Saturday, we round up the major twists, epic fights, new mysteries and anything else that goes down on The CW's Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Black Lightning and new series Batwoman. This week, we're rounding up all the teases to the upcoming Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover so far and what it means for the Arrow-verse.

Which shows are participating? | For the first time, the Arrow-verse crossover will be five episodes long, one hour for each Arrow-verse series: Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow and new series Batwoman. The epic event will be split into two chapters: three episodes airing December 2019 and the remaining two airing January 2020 with the holiday hiatus in the middle. This will be the last crossover including Arrow, as the flagship series of the franchise will end with a 10-episode final season that brings it right to the crossover (with one or two episodes remaining after to tie up loose ends and say goodbye with a proper series finale).

Which character will die? | Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past six months, you already have a pretty clear idea of what the Crisis is. First introduced during this past Elseworlds crossover, otherworldly being Mar Novu aka The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) came to Earth-1 to test the heroes of the world to see if they'd be enough to fight the impending Crisis. In the fight, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) made a deal with The Monitor to save Barry (Grant Gustin) and Kara's (Melissa Benoist) lives. But as fans learned in the Arrow season seven finale, Oliver had no idea what kind of a deal he made. It wasn't until The Monitor showed up at Oliver's new off-the-grid home after he had retired from the superhero life with his wife Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) and their newborn daughter that he learned it was his life he traded for theirs. Oliver now knows that he will die in the Crisis, but he went with The Monitor anyways to help save the world. And in the Arrow season seven finale, his death was confirmed in the future flash forwards, as his gravestone revealed the year he died: 2019. That means Oliver will die at some point in the first chapter of the crossover (the first three episodes airing in December 2019), with the second chapter in 2020 dealing with the fallout.

What is the Crisis? | But for what exactly is Oliver going to die? The conflict of the upcoming Crisis comes ripped straight from the comics in the huge, 12-issue series published in 1985-86, widely regarded as one of the most important comic arcs of all time. The story was designed to get rid of the multiverse and make one continuity for readers, making the world of DC easier to understand and more exciting with more opportunities for characters to cross over with each other. And the effects were far-reaching for every single comic book series. The Crisis kicks off with The Monitor's evil counterpart, The Anti-Monitor, as he begins destroying Earths with antimatter so he could become the ruler of all realities. This means Garrett will most likely pull double-duty to play both The Monitor and the evil twin. However while The Monitor does return briefly to recruit heroes from all Earths to stop The Anti-Monitor, he's killed pretty quickly. The Anti-Monitor plays a much bigger role.

What will the Crisis do to the Arrow-verse? | Aside from claiming at least one major hero's life (expect many, many other casualties from the big event in addition to Oliver), the ultimate goal of the Crisis is to destroy the multiverse. That's right: while the heroes do ultimately defeat The Anti-Monitor, they don't succeed in stopping his plan fully. At the end of the arc, there is only one single shared universe left standing, a merger of five different Earths. While Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and new series Batwoman all take place on Earth-1, it's important to note that Supergirl takes place on Earth-38. As of now, Kara requires breach technology to cross dimensions for crossovers. But after the Crisis, whatever Earth is left over will have all of the remaining Arrow-verse heroes who survive, making crossovers that much easier to pull off and explain. But could Black Lightning also become a part of this new reality? It's currently not part of the Arrow-verse, but if The CW really wants to make an impact, having a surprise appearance of the other DC TV series in the crossover would be the best surprise. The possibilities for lasting impact are endless with this crossover if the writers fully lean in to the potential.

What teases have dropped so far? | So many clues that the Arrow-verse was heading in this direction were planted from the very beginning of the franchise. When The Flash first debuted, Barry had access to a future newspaper headline: "Flash Missing, Vanishes In Crisis," which has always meant the show was going to take on the Crisis arc. It was also referenced throughout the entire Elseworlds crossover as The Monitor noticeably kept using the word "crisis," warning that one was imminent, and that was why he was rewriting reality to test every Earth to see if there were any heroes good enough to face whatever was coming. But the end tag of Elseworlds confirmed that he was indeed trying to prepare Earth-1 (along with all the other alternate versions of Earth) for Crisis on Infinite Earths.

After that, the Arrow-verse had fun dropping in even more teases leading up to the biggest crossover yet. First The Monitor showed up in the Arrow season seven finale to collect on the deal he made with Oliver, bringing him along on his otherworldly journey as he tries to stop the Crisis. In the future, he brought Felicity through a portal to presumably reunite with her dead husband, implying that she was moving on to the afterlife. Then The Monitor showed up on Supergirl in the season four finale, bringing a revenge-motivated Martian with him and doing something to Lex Luthor's (Jon Cryer) dead body. Then he showed up again in the Legends of Tomorrow season four finale, but he didn't do anything besides observe the Legends in action and eat popcorn while shaking his head and smiling. This was the first time The Monitor came in contact with the Legends since they had sat out the Elseworlds crossover, and it will be interesting to see how they fit into Crisis.

The final tease (so far) came at the very end of The Flash season five finale, when the future newspaper headline first seen in the series premiere changed as a result of the timeline changing. The date of The Flash's disappearance moved up from 2024 to 2019, confirming that it's always been warning of the Crisis. In the comics, The Flash is one of two heroes to die during the Crisis. But there's no way The Flash is going to kill off Barry Allen. It's more likely that he'll actually disappear at some point in the first three episodes of the crossover (since it occurs in 2019). And while The Flash's disappearance was permanent in his daughter Nora's (Jessica Parker Kennedy) original timeline, that doesn't mean Barry won't ever return from the Crisis now that the timeline has changed. In fact, he could return during the second chapter of the crossover airing in 2020, after that newspaper headline is printed. Seeing as how The Flash has a full season six, the star probably won't be written off entirely. And Oliver did trade his life for Barry's, so it wouldn't make sense for both heroes to disappear permanently even though Barry is one of the casualties in the Crisis comic book arc. Expect the Arrow-verse to make some changes from the source material in that regard.

One last prediction ... | Since Oliver traded his life for both Barry and Kara's, it would stand to reason that another major hero is going to fall to make a balance. So what other Arrow-verse hero will likely die in the crossover alongside Oliver? Since Supergirl sacrifices her life to save Superman's in the comics, the inverse could come true onscreen. Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) is the obvious choice for the second major casualty, both because he wouldn't take down an entire show with him and because he would serve as an equal trade for Supergirl, laying down his life to save hers. And it would be all the more heartbreaking to lose him, as he received news from Lois Lane (Bitsie Tulloch) that she's pregnant with his child during Elseworlds. So if Superman were to die in the fight against the Anti-Monitor, he would do so knowing that his legacy (and love) would survive with Lois and his child, and the world would be in good hands with Kara. He left Earth-38 at the end of Elseworlds to live with Lois on Argo City with their unborn child, but that he'd return if the world needed him (and it will be all hands on deck for Crisis). Plus, he told Kara point-blank he felt he could leave because Kara was the hero the world needed. Sure sounds like the groundwork for Superman's death has been set.

#arrow #crossover #arrowverse #crisis of infinite earths #series finale #the monitor

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sunshinesunsethappiness · 6 years ago

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Time for some speculation! Some spoilery stuff for future episodes from filming stuff and other info sprinkles throughout

- I already made a post about this after Todd’s comments in TVLine’s May Sweeps I think Jessica Parker Kennedy will be back in some capacity next season, at least during the crossover. Plus I feel like they’ve invested so much into her character that they’d want to keep her around in the universe at least if not on the show since she’s from another time

-As for Nora, I go back and forth on how they’ll handle her storyline. I do think there will be some repercussion of her timetravel on who she is. Obviously just the fact that Iris plans to raise her differently should make a big difference regardless of if Barry disappears or not. And I like the idea of her gaining a twin.

However, and I’ve written about this before, I don’t think she will be fully erased. At the very least any other version of Nora will be played by the same actress, but I also think there will be some essence of Nora that will survive, because Nora being completely erased would essentially be a character death and I don’t think the show will go that dark. After getting to know her the entire season as their daughter, her being fully erased would be traumatic for Barry and Iris. Barry and Iris will still have memories of Nora regardless of what other children they’d have in her place so they’d still heavily feel that loss.

That’s why I think that while there will be some measure of erasing/change to her character, I think they’ll avoid having it go too dark by having some essence of Nora retained and by keeping the same actress. A soft erase if you will. This is what I wrote in another post:

This is the Flash and I feel like in things like this it goes beyond science and things. Meaning that even if Nora ends up erasing this version of herself the story will be that. despite that technically it would be someone else if Barry and Iris had twins instead, some essence of Nora will remain and that child will be Nora (albeit with different experiences). she’d just be ‘reborn’ as a different Nora. I think it would be too tragic otherwise (and it would be tragic enough like this, since Barry and Iris would still live with the memories).

(as an example:it’s the only way to explain the existence of the doppelgangers on earth 1 and 2 and even other earths. It’s very unlikely that on earth 2 Barry’s parents, Iris’ parents, Caitlin’s parents, Ronnie’s parents, Cisco’s parents etc etc all got pregnant at the exact same time as their Earth 1 counterparts. Somehow those people are born no matter when the pregnancy happens and what the other circumstances are)

I’m not sure what that essence being retained would look like, though. (Maybe she’d be able to have her memories from both timelines or something?)

And alternative theory completely separate from being erased has to do with the negative speed force:

I think Nora’s (partial) turn to the dark side will only last for one episode, but I think the effect of using the negative speed force will last longer than that. Episode 21 is called the girl with the red lightning, so it seems like she’ll still have that red lightning, but filming pics show Nora and Barry (and the team) working together again and a conversation with Barry, Iris and Nora, so I think the anger issues will be solved next episode and then 21 and 22 will deal with the aftermath.

In the 2016 rebirth comic Barry at some point has the negative speed force. Apparently in that run the negative speed force messes with your emotions, (I think that’s what’s happening with Nora). Also, apparently in this run having the negative speed force slowly starts killing Barry.

So maybe in the show the negative speed force also starts killing Nora, or starts zapping away her speed?

Some finale pics were released that show Nora attacking Thawne but then stepping back and looking at her hand like something is wrong. Like many, I thought that might be a sign that she was being erased, but there was one thing that I didn’t understand: why the symptoms started showing after she attacked Thawne. It could be a delayed response to something that happened earlier, but with the introduction of the negative speedforce it might actually be that something is happening with her because of that.

We know that Thawne created the negative speed force so maybe that has something to do with why something bad seems to happen when Nora attacks Thawne?

-Perhaps in order to save her life they have to sever her connection to the speed force. Which would mean she could never time travel again. They take her back to the future and say goodbye?

-Perhaps Barry takes over the negative speed force to save Nora’s life?

There were some pics of Barry and Iris in the future looking at something (episode 22). The scene looks to be bittersweet. They look kind of sad and like they’re comforting each other a bit, but not completely broken so it could easily be a saying goodbye to Nora while knowing they’ll meet her again when she is born type situation. (this could also work for the new version of Nora theory)

#the flash #flash speculation #nora westallen #flash spoilers #the flash spoilers

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ezatluba · 7 years ago

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DOG FIGHT

Rescuer Theresa Strader says she’s seen a change at the breeder auctions, with more rescuers attending and some paying high prices for dogs—a practice she questions.

Dog rescuers, flush with donations, buy animals from the breeders they scorn

By Kim Kavin

April 18, 2018

An effort that animal rescuers began more than a decade ago to buy dogs for $5 or $10 apiece from commercial breeders has become a nationwide shadow market that today sees some rescuers, fueled by Internet fundraising, paying breeders $5,000 or more for a single dog.

The result is a river of rescue donations flowing from avowed dog saviors to the breeders, two groups that have long disparaged each other. The rescuers call many breeders heartless operators of inhumane “puppy mills” and work to ban the sale of their dogs in brick-and-mortar pet stores. The breeders call “retail rescuers” hypocritical dilettantes who hide behind nonprofit status while doing business as unregulated, online pet stores.

But for years, they have come together at dog auctions where no cameras are allowed, with rescuers enriching breeders and some breeders saying more puppies are being bred for sale to the rescuers.

Bidders affiliated with 86 rescue and advocacy groups and shelters throughout the United States and Canada have spent $2.68 million buying 5,761 dogs and puppies from breeders since 2009 at the nation’s two government-regulated dog auctions, both in Missouri, according to invoices, checks and other documents The Washington Post obtained from an industry insider. At the auctions, rescuers have purchased dogs from some of the same breeders who face activist protests, including some on the Humane Society of the United States’ “Horrible Hundred” list or the “No Pet Store Puppies” database of breeders to avoid, maintained by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

After the investigation: USDA says individuals and groups may need license if buying dogs for rescue at auction

Most rescuers then offered the dogs for adoption as “rescued” or “saved.”

Most of the breeders who sell dogs at auction are commercial, which means they have at least four breeding females, sell to intermediaries and are federally regulated. Years ago, when more commercial breeders existed, rescuers attended auctions to buy surplus dogs that seemed to be everywhere, longtime auction participants say. But the success of the rescue movement in reducing shelter populations, some rescuers say, has been driving rescuers to the auction market. As the number of commercial kennels has decreased, so has the number of shelter animals killed in the United States: A February 2017 estimate put the total for dogs alone at 780,000, a steep drop from estimates for all shelter animals that were as high as 20 million in the 1970s.

The smaller populations of shelter dogs make it harder for some rescue groups, especially those dedicated to specialty breeds, to find what adopters want. One golden retriever rescue group turned to the auctions after seeing 40 percent fewer dogs coming in as of 2016. At the auctions, such rescuers describe buying purebreds and popular crossbreeds like goldendoodles and maltipoos as “puppy mill rescue.”

Golden retriever puppies, center, at Sugarfork Kennels in Goodman, Mo., on March 7.

“We have breeders that breed for the auction,” says Will Yoder, a commercial breeder of Cavalier King Charles spaniels in Bloomfield, Iowa. “It’s a huge, huge underground market. It’s happening at an alarming rate.”

Many people are unaware of the practice. About 50 of the 86 groups that The Post linked to auction bidders made no mention of auctions on their Web pages, 20 described what they were doing as “puppy mill rescue” or “auction rescue,” and 10 mentioned words such as “bought” or “purchased” at auction but did not say online how much they paid per dog.

Leading nonprofit animal-welfare groups, including the ASPCA, HSUS and the American Kennel Club purebred advocacy group, say rescuers are misguided in buying dogs at auction because the money they pay only encourages more breeding on a commercial scale.

Abigail Anderson, who owns Sugarfork, checks on huskies.

“Although they may be doing good things for individual dogs purchased at auctions, it perpetuates the problem and tends to create a seller’s market,” says Brandi Hunter, the AKC’s spokeswoman.

Rescuers at the auctions say their purchases save individual dogs and weaken the commercial breeding chain by removing, spaying and neutering dogs that would otherwise be bred again and again. They say donors ranging from average dog lovers to show-dog breeders understand, and financially support, their efforts.

“It’s a very controversial thing, for rescuers to buy dogs at auction,” says Jeanette DeMars, founder of Corgi Connection of Kansas, who discloses to donors that she buys auction dogs. “Some are of the opinion that you’re putting money in the breeders’ pockets. Others say you’re saving the dogs from a life of breeding. My opinion is that if people are willing to donate and it doesn’t take money out of my regular rescue, I will do it.”

“There are very good, responsible rescues that just love the dogs … and I think there are malicious, lying, cheating rescues that are in it for the money.”

Bob Hughes, owner of Southwest Auction Service, the biggest commercial dog auction in the country

JoAnn Dimon, director of Big East Akita Rescue in New Jersey, says that buying breeding-age dogs not only cuts into overbreeding but also makes it harder for commercial breeders to profit in the long run.

“That breeder is going to make thousands of dollars off that [female dog] if he breeds her every cycle,” Dimon said. “I just bought her for $150. I just took money out of his pocket. I got the dog, and I stopped the cycle.”

The majority of the $2.68 million The Post documented was spent since 2013 at Southwest Auction Service, the biggest commercial dog auction in the country, with some additional spending at its smaller, only remaining competitor, Heartland Sales. Southwest originated in Wheaton, Mo., in 1988, and Heartland was founded in Cabool, Mo., in 2003, as a marketplace for breeders. As the last remaining government-licensed auctions, they let buyers and sellers see hundreds of dogs at a time and are a legal part of the country’s puppy supply chain. They are regulated by the U.S. and Missouri Departments of Agriculture and open to the public.

RESCUERS BUY DOGS FROM BREEDERS AT AUCTIONS

Documents obtained by an industry source reveal a shadow market:

The dog rescuers put the puppies up for adoption as rescue dogs.

Commercial breeders produce specialty puppy breeds.

The breeders sell their puppies at auctions, often to rescue groups.

The customer may not know the dog was bought at an auction.

“I’m not going to lie about this: Rescue generates about one-third, maybe even 40 percent of our income,” says Bob Hughes, Southwest’s owner. “It’s been big for 10 years.”

Hughes said his auction is open to everyone but people with cameras because “our customers don’t want to be on animal-activist websites being called ‘puppy mills.’ ”

Hank Grosenbacher, owner of Heartland, says rescuers usually account for 15 to 25 percent of his business. He says he gets fewer rescuers than Southwest because he often bans from his auction rescuers who publicly call breeders “puppy mills.”

“At our auction, I think 75 percent of the people who sell dogs, and the rescues who come to our sale, will do things the right way,” he said. “The particular rescuers who come to our sale, they’re a blessing. For the most part, they buy dogs that breeders don’t want, and they’re not paying a lot of money.”

Jolene Roper takes two German shepherds for a walk at National Mill Dog Rescue in Peyton, Colo., on March 9.

Hughes says he sees those types of rescuers at Southwest, too, but also those who use auction purchases to rake in huge online donations.

“I honestly think there are very good, responsible rescues that just love the dogs and want to get them out of the breeding industry,” Hughes says. “And I think there are malicious, lying, cheating rescues that are in it for the money and the glory and the funding.”

In early February, Grosenbacher’s auction brought in $132,000, while Hughes notched his biggest sales revenue ever, taking in more than $600,000. One rescuer, Jessica Land, who helps operate Dog Ranch Rescue and Lone Star Dog Ranch in Texas, paid $8,750 for a pregnant French bulldog at Southwest, an invoice shows. Land declined to comment for this article.

“The French bulldog that Lone Star paid $8,750 to buy in February was pregnant with five fetuses,” Hughes said. “An ultrasound showed it. Now, if there’s five fetuses worth $2,000 a puppy, that’s $10,000 in puppies and the mama’s a young female, so a breeder would say, ‘I got all my money back in one litter and own the dog for free and she’ll produce for another five years.’ ”

After this article was published, Lone Star posted on Facebook that it adopted out the five puppies for $1,850 apiece, and the adult dog for $1,350, a total income of $10,600. The group wrote that after paying medical expenses it would lose $2,421 on the deal—including possible refunds of as much as $750 should all the adopters, in the future, choose to spay or neuter the puppies.

“For rescues like ourselves who take care of all the vetting the dog needs no matter the cost…THERE IS NO PROFIT,” the group wrote in its post. “You see we actually take care of every medical need that these dogs have that have never been addressed.”

Two female huskies at Sugarfork.

‘I’d never sold a dog for $10,000’

The Southwest auction may be the country’s largest, but finding it requires knowing that it’s there. It is held behind a gate and down a dirt driveway, in a barn on private property. It is in a part of Missouri so rural that the 2010 Census showed the nearest town — Wheaton — had only 696 residents.

Prospective buyers park in a dirt lot, then go inside to register for bidding cards. They sit in bleachers that surround a table down in front, where dogs and puppies are brought out from a room in the back. Sometimes, the auctioneer puts one dog up for bid, and other times, a whole litter of puppies will be on the table. Some of them play while the people all around put a price on them, and children in the bleachers — whose parents are bidding — eat snacks and watch.

At any given auction, as many as several hundred dogs and puppies might be sold, with bidding starting in the morning and running until dinnertime, even past sundown. At most auctions, various breeders typically offer anywhere from a handful to two dozen dogs, so the mix available for bid can run the alphabet from Akitas and Australian shepherds to wire fox and Yorkshire terriers.

HIGHEST PRICES PAID PER BREED BY RESCUERS AT DOG AUCTIONS

Invoices from Southwest Auction in Missouri, received from an industry source, show people affiliated with dog rescue organizations paying high prices to buy some of the most popular U.S. purebreds in a practice they refer to as “puppy mill rescue.”

* Will Yoder, a commercial breeder, bought two Cavaliers at Southwest Auction for $7,550, but sold them an hour later in a post-auction deal when a rescuer offered $10,000 per dog.

The auction at Southwest on Nov. 22, 2014, was different — and showed that a breed-specific rescuer, flush with donated cash, will pay five figures for a single dog.

An Alabama breeder of Cavalier King Charles spaniels was going out of business, so the sale would have more than 130 Cavaliers. There was serious money in play that day from Cavalier rescuers. One rescuer’s GoFundMe.com campaign had netted $188,815, and another’s YouCaring.com fundraiser brought in $157,955. “Don’t Let These Sweet Cavaliers go to a Disreputable Home,” a rescuer wrote on the YouCaring.com site, warning donors of the “many other less than reputable breeders at this auction.”

For the first few hours that day in Missouri, rescuers won every bid. Then Will Yoder, the Cavalier breeder from Iowa, broke through. He says he does not support or usually attend auctions, so he can still remember the moment that he won two Cavaliers, for $3,600 and $3,950.

“There was just dead silence,” Yoder says. “This was, like, the first dog that went to a breeder that day. The pressure was on. The first dog just went to a horrible puppy mill. That’s what they’re thinking.”

As he waited to pay at the checkout counter, Yoder says, a rescuer approached and blurted, “So, how much profit?”

“It was like, they hate me, and they assume I hate them, and she just walked up and looked at me,” he says. “I knew what she meant: What do you want for your dogs? I looked at her and said, ‘I’m sorry, but they’re not for sale.’ ”

Yoder left with his two Cavaliers, but online pleas had already gone out to raise more money to buy his dogs in a post-auction deal. A forum run by Cavaliers Co UK, in Britain, listed the email address of Alabama-based rescuer Angie Ingram and said she was a person collecting PayPal donations.

Comments on the forum emphasized the urgency: “Money is still being donated, hopefully an agreed fee for the dogs can be met with the money that is still coming in!!”

Cavaliers Co UK and Ingram did not respond to requests for comment.

“I didn’t think they would actually pay it. But it’s not their money, so money wasn’t an issue. I’d never sold a dog for $10,000, so I just thought, ‘Let’s see.’”

Will Yoder, a commercial breeder, bought two Cavaliers at Southwest Auction. He sold them in a post-auction deal.

Yoder says he was oblivious to the crush of fundraising. He was heading home to Iowa, sitting in the passenger seat with his Cavaliers in the back, when he reconsidered.

“I told the driver, ‘They really wanted those dogs,’ ” Yoder says. “We were just talking, and I said, ‘Money is obviously not an issue for them.’ ”

Yoder called the auction owner by cellphone and said he’d take $10,000 per Cavalier if the rescuer still wanted them.

“I was just curious,” Yoder says. “I didn’t think they would actually pay it. But it’s not their money, so money wasn’t an issue. I’d never sold a dog for $10,000, so I just thought, ‘Let’s see.’ ”

Within minutes, the auction owner and Yoder say, the deal was done: Documents show that Ingram paid $24,200 to buy the two Cavaliers for which Yoder had paid $8,305, with all the totals including the auction’s fees; the check was one of four that Ingram wrote that day, totaling $218,325 for 54 dogs, according to documents submitted by lawyers for Ingram and others in an Alabama libel lawsuit filed in the wake of the auction.

Southwest Auction’s owner says the dog sale held in early February was his biggest ever, generating more than $600,000. Dogs up for bid that day included a pregnant French Bulldog that, according to this invoice, a rescuer paid $8,750 to buy.

See more documents involved in reporting this story.

Ingram and six others sued several other rescuers alleging that they libeled the plaintiffs by publishing statements on a Facebook page called Beware Cavalier Rescue of Alabama, accusing them of using donated money to buy dogs for themselves and duping donors about rescuing Cavaliers.

“The Beware page and the information posted by others lacked any factual support and the unconscionable allegations contained therein were and are false, defamatory and libelous,” the plaintiffs complaint states.

Documents show that bidders now affiliated with the nonprofit Cavalier Rescue of Alabama, where Ingram is listed as animal welfare program director, have paid $406,872 buying 172 dogs and puppies at auction since 2014 — an average price of $2,365 per dog. Last year, more than half the dogs the nonprofit group says it saved were bought at auction, according to a link the group posted on Facebook showing that it has placed dogs in homes in 14 states.

Following this article’s publication, the group posted on Facebook that it pays an average price of $1,600 per dog at auction.

“We have NEVER profited off an auction dog,” the group stated in its post. “We are in the hole with EVERY single dog that we rescue from auction. We know this going into it and it is never about the money, it is only about saving lives.”

As for the two Cavaliers bought for $24,200, Ingram adopted one, and another rescuer adopted the other, both animals becoming personal pets, court documents show. Ingram and the other adopter each paid a $300 fee.

Lisa Thompson, co-founder of Cavalier Rescue of Alabama, said that on the advice of legal counsel, no one from her group would respond to The Post’s questions.

Yoder was thrilled to talk. He said he could not believe so much money was raised so quickly, or that he ended up with so much of it, given to him by people who say they despise commercial breeders.

“I was just like,” he pauses, chuckling, “this is crazy.”

One of Sugarfork’s female huskies. French bulldogs after mating at Sugarfork.

An elusive marketplace

Rescue groups generally are organized as nonprofit charities and raise money through fundraisers, adoption fees, grants and bequests. Shelters and rescue groups connected to the auction bidders have annual revenue that runs from $12,000 to $1.5 million, and they charge adoption fees that range from $50 to $1,850 per dog. The individuals who run these organizations receive salaries as high as $78,000, but many receive no compensation, according to tax forms.

The rescue movement used to include only shelters, but today it has an expansive network of home-based nonprofits, too. The noticeable increase in the number of such rescuers at the Missouri auctions began around 2005, about the same time that the nation’s rescue movement began to evolve. That is also about the time that self-described “puppy mill rescue” began to move into the mainstream.

Social media is boosting the “puppy mill rescue” movement today, with some rescuers seeking donations specifically to buy auction dogs. Amanda Giese, founder of Panda Paws Rescue in Washougal, Wash., posted several Facebook videos after spending $18,140 buying 32 dogs at the Southwest auction on Feb. 18, 2017, an invoice shows. Giese tells viewers, sometimes through tears, that she bought the dogs to save them from lives of sickness and torment in facilities with 400, 500 or 600 dogs that live in “rabbit hutches.” She is shown with Siberian husky puppies that she purchased, asking as she unloads them from the back of a van, “Do you want to touch green grass for the first time?”

Two of the Husky puppies that Giese bought, documents show, came from Sugarfork Kennels in Goodman, Mo., which has sold puppies to pet stores and directly to consumers since 1999, and which invites buyers to visit the kennel. At least one of Sugarfork’s grassy, sun-drenched enclosures, where big dogs such as Huskies run and play, is the size of a ballfield.

1:40A look inside one dog breeder’s business in the Ozarks

Giese, reached by telephone, said she could not respond to The Post’s questions.

Rescuers who have been buying auction dogs for many years say it is unfair to characterize all commercial breeders as “puppy mills.” They say they consider some of the breeders at the auctions to be their friends who, for various reasons, have dogs or puppies they cannot sell in other ways, leaving them for rescuers to acquire.

“I think that as long as there are people raising dogs, there’s always going to be the adult dog that got too old,” said Jane Rosenthal of Storm Lake, Iowa, a former breeder and longtime auction buyer for numerous rescue groups. “There’s going to be the puppy with an overbite or its eye got hurt — the unsellable puppies. To me, that’s really what I always did for the most part, was pick up the crumbs at the bottom, those that nobody wanted.”

Rosenthal is a buyer who shows the nationwide reach that even a single rescue bidder can have from inside the auctions, making it all but impossible for consumers or regulators to determine a dog’s provenance. She has spent at least $150,972 buying 434 dogs at Southwest since 2014, an average price per dog of $347; and $103,304 buying 619 dogs at Heartland since 2009, at an average price of $166, documents show. She has bought corgis, Akitas, Cavaliers and many more breeds for rescue groups from California to Minnesota to New Jersey, records and interviews show.

“She has this great big van and gets dogs for all the rescues,” says Faith Humpal, president of Paws to Love K9 Rescue in South Dakota, who has attended auctions for about 15 years. “A lot of the rescues say, ‘We don’t buy dogs’ or ‘We don’t do this,’ but, yeah, they do.’ ”

Rosenthal said she is a volunteer bidder who does not consider her actions to be the same as buying dogs. She said she bids at the auctions for other rescuers who reimburse her. She said she cringes at the high prices some rescuers pay before showing off their auction-bought dogs online with descriptions such as “puppy mill rescue,” using the dogs “as poster children” to generate more donations from the public.

“You didn’t save that dog,” she said. “You paid $3,000 for it. You bought it, and you’re going to sell it. I don’t want any part of that.”

Helen Slate grooms a 4-year-old poodle at National Mill. Sonja Row cradles an 11-year-old male Maltese that has been at National Mill for just a few days. The National Mill rescue facility.

Theresa Strader agrees. She is founder of National Mill Dog Rescue in Colorado, a leading “anti-puppy mill” nonprofit organization with a website that states, “We do not pay the mills to rescue their dogs.” Invoices show that Strader paid breeders nearly $44,703 for 193 dogs at 11 auctions from 2014 to 2016; prices ranged from $1 (for a Chihuahua) to $1,325 (for a golden retriever), for an average price of $231 per dog.

“At least half of that money was groups that asked me to get dogs for them,” Strader said. Rescuers told The Post it is a common practice for rescuers to buy dogs for others. Strader used to get “penny dogs” with her personal money at Southwest before about 2013, she said, and today is disgusted by the large amounts she sees some rescuers spending.

“It became all the rage for rescuers to show up,” Strader said. “They’re creating an industry inside the industry. It’s really, really wrong.”

Strader is among those who say buying dogs for high prices at auction is not a form of rescue at all: “People who call this puppy mill rescue? That’s not honest. It’s just not.”

“The rescuers come in here with more money than the breeders.”

Hank Grosenbacher, owner of Heartland Sales

The owners of Southwest Auction Service and Heartland Sales say the auction business is well-regulated and humane. Read more of what dog auctioneers said here.

Most breeders used to reserve all of their puppies and younger dogs for pet-store brokers and consumers. Now, at least some are taking them to auctions to sell to rescuers, Grosenbacher and some rescuers say.

“Originally, rescues attended auctions to get the old and the sick dogs, and we paid very little for them,” says Penny Reames, a Kansas rescuer who has attended the auctions for a decade, transferring the dogs to Northern New England Westie Rescue in New Hampshire, which adopts them out for as much as $1,000 apiece. “We don’t see those dogs so much anymore. Now it is primarily puppies who did not get bought by the brokers for one reason or another.”

At Heartland, owner Grosenbacher said, rescuers bid against each other for designer crossbred puppies such as morkies and puggles, and breeders consider the rescuers to be a reliable market for those pups because adopters clamor for them, making them a “cash cow” in the rescue community.

Kennel technician Tara York spends time with a golden retriever and her litter at Sugarfork.

“That’s the one thing that rescues will get in competition over,” he says. “They’ll stand right there and look each other in the eye and outbid each other. By and large, it’s the rescuers knocking each other out.”

Numerous rescuers told The Post that before every auction, in a secret Facebook group and in person, rescuers meet to decide who will bid on which dogs, so they do not bid against one another. But Dimon, the Akita rescuer, says the longtimers do not always recognize the newcomers — who, upon seeing auctions for the first time, are so eager to “save” every dog that they will pay just about anything. Numerous longtime rescue bidders say breeders are lying in wait for those novices, to bid them up and take every dollar of donated money they have.

Melissa McClellan of New York City-based Posh Pets Rescue, said she attended her first auction at Southwest in January and paid $1,700 for a male Maltese. The seller had listed the 11-year-old dog as “well proven, still using,” and McLellan kept raising the bid because she thought she was competing with a breeder for the dog.

What McLellan did not know was that her bidding blew right past that of at least one longtime rescuer, Laverne Clark of Powersite, Mo., who was there for the same dog.

“I could’ve gotten that dog for $100,” Clark says. “They paid $1,700.”

A husky checks on her puppies at Sugarfork.

Bans on puppies for retail sale

As of January, the Humane Society of the United States said, 250 municipalities had enacted retail pet-sale bans, which are often called “puppy mill bans” in the news media. The laws require pet stores to obtain puppies only from shelters and nonprofit organizations. Activists and lawmakers tell the public that the laws help homeless dogs and choke off income to the kinds of breeders who sell dogs and puppies at auctions.

Los Angeles enacted a ban in 2012, and California followed in October by enacting the first statewide version in the United States. Activists say it is a model for the rest of the nation to follow. Similar statewide bans have since been introduced in nine states.

But despite the efforts, commercially bred dogs have continued going to consumers in places with the municipal bans, including Los Angeles, by way of nonprofit groups and the auctions. The Post identified four California-based rescue groups tied to auction purchases, and two more that operate in the state.

An invoice shows that on April 8, 2017, Kristin Cramer — founder of the nonprofit For Pete Sake Foundation in Sherman Oaks, Calif. — placed a successful phone bid with Southwest for nearly $17,200 to buy a dozen English and French bulldogs. Within a week, a fundraising drive featuring Cramer’s dogs appeared on the Facebook page of Los Angeles-based Road Dogs & Rescue, telling donors: “The goal was to pay as little as possible so as not to line their pockets, but to save some lives and have these dogs put real faces to the horrible industry.”

The fundraising announcement did not reveal the per-dog price, which an invoice shows ranged from $675 to $2,500.

One auction seller who got some of that rescue cash was Gary Phillips of Adair, Okla., a district president with Northeast Oklahoma Pet Professionals. He is on the ASPCA’s “No Pet Store Puppies” warning website.

Phillips said Cramer paid him more than he could have made selling the same dog through a pet store. Documents show that she paid $1,750 for his 19-month-old English bulldog, which was too old for pet-store consumers and had allergies that diminished her breeding prospects.

Cramer said her single venture into buying at auction would be her last. The founder of Road Dogs & Rescue, while happy with the outcome for the dogs, called the experience “a painful lesson,” adding, “It’s too easy for rescues to be ruled by wanting to save a life at any cost.”

Phillips said that he was surprised and pleased with the price the rescuer paid, and that at least one colleague had taken note — not of the laws being enacted to try to shut down commercial breeders, but instead of where their new cash flow was emerging.

Sydney Noah, a breeder at Sugarfork, holds days-old Shih Tzu puppies. Notes with expressions of love and protest adorn a wall at National Mill. Sugarfork owner Abigail Anderson inside one of the kennel buildings.

“A breeder friend of mine said she’s thinking about saving her puppies until they get about a year old and take them to the auction,” Phillips said. “The rescue people will pay more than the pet-store brokers.”

Nationwide advocacy groups that support the pet-store bans include Bailing Out Benji, an Iowa-based nonprofit that promotes pet-store protests. Its website home page urges readers to watch a 2015 documentary that “educates about the puppy mill industry and the money that keeps it thriving.”

Terra Henggeler is the Nebraska team leader and a volunteer for Bailing Out Benji, according to recent news reports. A 2017 story quoted her at a pet-store protest in Omaha telling the media that she and other rescuers had to “fight for those dogs” inside because the shop bought puppies from “less than desirable breeders.”

Less than a month before and again after that protest, documents show, Henggeler bought dogs at Southwest, paying as much as $1,500 per dog; they were among 24 dogs that she has spent $24,255 to purchase at auction since 2016, some as young as 5 months old.

Henggeler and Bailing Out Benji did not respond to requests for comment.

Bailing Out Benji issued a statement following this article’s publication that its connection to auctions is “nonexistent” and that its volunteer “went on behalf of other rescues in the Midwest to purchase retired breeding dogs at auction.” The group also said in an email to The Post that buying dogs at auction “goes against how we operate at Bailing Out Benji.” Henggeler is also a member of the Board of Directors for Pug Partners of Nebraska, which did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.

Bob Hughes, Southwest’s owner, says that what goes on at the auctions shows that nobody has the moral high ground in America’s puppy wars.

“In their minds, the rescuers think they’re better,” he says. “The industry is all alike. We’re all supplying puppies and dogs to the general public in some form or fashion.”

A poodle seeking a view leaps inside its enclosure at Sugarfork.

About this story

This investigation is based on hundreds of documents provided by an industry insider and additional open-records documents from numerous states, and more than 60 in-person, phone and email interviews with rescuers, breeders, animal advocates and auctioneers. It is the first time that anyone has ever documented—in dollars and cents—the multimillion-dollar river of cash that is flowing from rescue nonprofits, shelters and dog-advocacy groups through auctions into the pockets of dog breeders.

Kim Kavin is a member of The Washington Post Freelance Network. She is also the author of “The Dog Merchants: Inside the Big Business of Breeders, Pet Stores and Rescuers” (Pegasus Books, 2016), a book of investigative journalism.

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casualarsonist · 7 years ago

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Dune (novel) review and analysis

In commemoration to Frank Herbert’s epic novel, I’ve decided to make this review 10,000 words long.

Frank Herbert’s Dune has long stood as one of science fiction’s towering giants - a monolithic feat of imagination and a landmark science fiction novel. And as a work of fiction, this it true. Over the greater part of a thousand pages lay stories of sprawling civilisations, with dozens of unique characters engaging in complex power-plays whilst battling the brutality of the ecology of the sand-planet Arrakis. Following it’s release in 1965, it was (and still is) regarded as a masterwork in world-building - a milestone for the genre, and the Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones of its time. As a work of fiction, it’s a triumph. As a piece of literature…well…

Frank Herbert was great at many things in his life. Writing was not one of them. And while Dune is a standout novel that, all things considered, has aged better than many novels (particularly of the sci-fi genre) of a similar time, it is, at least in my humble opinion, a spectacularly average work of prose. But I say this with the works of Cormac McCarthy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kurt Vonnegut, and others in mind, so I am probably doing him a disservice in comparing his work to what I believe to be the cream of the crop. But if you’re going to tout a novel as ‘one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time’, I think you have to allow it to undergo rigourous scrutiny from all angles. So with that in mind, let’s scrutinise this motherfucker.

Spoilers abound, including a spoiler for Metro 2033.

It is thousands of years in the future, and mankind has conquered the stars. Dune centres around the Atreides family - one of a number of Great Houses united under the pseudo-feudal collective ‘Lansraad’, owing allegiance to the Emperor Shaddam IV. Duke Leto Atreides - a hard but compassionate man and a competent leader - has been given charge over the desert planet Arrakis, displacing House Harkonnen - the Atreides’ mortal enemies. Leto senses correctly that this dangerous exchange of power is an intentional move by the Emperor to set his family up on the losing side of an inter-House rivalry, and with the help of the traitorous Yueh - the Atreides doctor - and the armies of the Emperor, the Harkonnen’s capture and kill Leto, whilst his son Paul and pregnant concubine Jessica disappear into the desert. There they encounter Arrakis’ indigenous inhabitants - the Fremen - and are accepted amongst them after proving their worth through combat and their uncanny abilities of deduction and prescience, abilities taught to Jessica and Paul by the Bene Gesserit, a powerful sisterhood who wield abilities of superhuman physical and mental conditioning to influence and manipulate society.

Paul, for his part, has been prophesied to be the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ - the name for a messianic male Bene Gesserit, a child born of generations of genetic manipulation with the power to see through time and space. And when I say he is ‘prophesied’ to be the Kwisatz Haderach, I mean that he is the Kwisatz Haderach, and this, like most questions and mysteries the novel establishes, are answered immediately and conclusively without exception.

But anyway, after their escape the book jumps a number of years ahead, and Paul has had a son with a Fremen woman, while Jessica has given birth to Paul’s sister, Alia, a child imbued with all of Jessica’s Bene Gesserit powers in the womb, who speaks and acts like a grown adult despite looking and sounding like an infant.

Under Paul’s command, the Fremen tribes have been performing successful raids against the Harkonnen forces and reducing the flow of the addictive spice Melange - the galaxy’s most valuable trade commodity, and one that occurs only on Arrakis. This brings the Emperor to the planet, followed by the armies of every house in the Lansraad, and with the Fremen tribes at his back, Paul drives over them like a steamroller, taking back control of Arrakis with little to no complications because he’s the Kwisatz fucking Haderach, as we were told in the first chapter. His infant sister knifes the Baron Harkonnen to death, and Paul forces the daughter of the Emperor - Princess Irulan - to marry him while promising that he will never love her or otherwise show her affection. Jessica celebrates this. The end. So, I hope you could keep up with all the terms; my spellcheck was going absolutely mental as I was writing that.

But where to begin? Firstly, despite some of the criticisms I’ve read (as well as some of the criticisms I will make), I should note that I didn’t find Dune to be a particularly laborious read. Its length is obscene, yes, but my Tube rides would pass by in a flash when I was buried in the text. And although I personally don’t understand the decades-long literary trend of putting fake songs into a text (I’m looking at you, Lord of the Rings), I never found the numerous pages of songs in Dune to be as big an impediment to my interest as I did in, say, Lord of the fucking Rings (and skipping over reading them sped the whole process up considerably). I understand that saying that Dune ‘isn’t unreadable’ isn’t exactly high praise, but I think it’s worth at least outlining the extent of my criticisms of the text, because I’m going to tear into Herbert’s writing as we go on, but I don’t want you to think that sub-par prose necessarily translates into an odious reading experience. And in any case, Dune didn’t become one of the biggest selling sci-fi novels entirely without reason. The one thing that it does unquestionably well is exercise Herbert’s imagination.

Rarely has a imagined universe been so clearly realised before or since Frank Herbert’s seminal series, and this can be ascribed chiefly to one particular detail: his research and preparation. In reading George Arr-Arr Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, for example, one can detect in the convoluted and meandering text the fact that he doesn’t actually know where his novels are going when he starts writing them. The swelling word count of each successive entry in the series also bears testament to an increasingly relaxed editorial oversight, and this has resulted in each book becoming more bloated and complicated than the last. And while Dune itself is bloated terms of its length and complicated in terms of the language it introduces to the reader, there is a specific and unerring clarity in Herbert’s vision of the Dune universe that one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere, and this is because the world itself was layed out by Herbert in detail, and years in advance, of the final writing and publishing of the novel. One can get a taste of this preparation and backstory in the supplementary appendices in the back of the book, as well as the accompanying glossary, which offers a definition of every single alien term that appears in the course of the preceding nine-hundred pages, and whilst not every creature or machine is described in minute detail, all the pieces of this puzzle fit together in the greater context of the novel.

There is also a sense of uncanny timelessness in the world of Dune, and Herbert has achieved this via a number of paths - the first being that he drew from real-world sciences as a foundation upon which the ecology and engineering of his universe is built. Rooting his fantasy work in a bed of modern fact (and remaining restrained enough in his vision to avoid sending his characters to absurd destinations such as planets made of cheese, or inhabited by talking animals, for instance) bestows a tangibility in one’s mind’s eye to the people, places, and things, and interestingly leaves Dune feeling relevant even to an audience for whom the technologies of the Sixties seem archaic and obsolete. The second factor that gives the novel life is its appropriation of Middle Eastern cultures as inspiration for that of the Fremen. This is obviously an accidental boon, but as with the surge of Middle Eastern cultural influences spreading throughout the Western world in the Sixties, so too has the region, its people, and its customs come to the forefront of Western attention in the last few decades. People are far more common with the word ‘jihad’ now than they would likely have been at the turn of the millenium, and this coincidental familiarity left me feeling a greater understanding of the desert-dwelling Fremen than I might otherwise have had, had I read the book as a teenager, for instance.

So before I launch into a diatribe, it’s worth pointing out that Dune IS a genuine landmark work, and with good reason, but it has its limits. And now that I’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, I can begin the fun part: talking about all the reasons Dune shits me off.

1: It starts each chapter with a spoiler for the rest of the novel.

Now I don’t know how you feel, but if I had to guess, I’d say that one of the main things that keeps an audience engaged in the plot of a piece of fiction is the fact that they don’t know what’s going to come next. Hell - this is why we engage in fictional stories at all, and why every series of Game of Thrones is preceded by an onslaught of social media statuses proclaiming that someone is going to get their eyes gouged out if they reveal whether the Immodium cures Daeneryus’ chronic diarrhea at the end of S03E05.

Frank Herbert has other things in mind, though, for every chapter in the novel begins with an excerpt from a piece of in-universe fiction - usually written by the Emperor’s daughter, and almost always regarding Paul’s actions in the future. Through these excerpts we get a glimpse into the world beyond the novel, specifically, into a world in which Paul is both a god, and not dead. This didn’t seem to perturb Herbert though, and he soldiers on admirably in his endeavor to supply multitudes of cliffhangers, the outcome of which have either already been revealed to us, or are revealed in the paragraph following the incident itself. Tracts of text are rendered wasted and pointless by Herbert’s own premature narrative ejaculation, and the trials that Paul undergoes on his journey towards godliness hold no weight because we know the outcome of his character from the opening of the very first chapter. In the most egregious instance, one chapter ends with Paul near death after poisoning himself. 'Will he survive?' I asked myself, 'Maybe the prophecy is wrong! Maybe something, anything, that hasn't already been revealed to us is about to happen!' In the very first sentence of the next chapter, an excerpt written far in the future that tells us specifically that Paul lives and gains the powers of the Kwisatz Haderach, like a time-travelling dickhead who has come back to the past to spoil your good time. Herbert then decides that blowing his load is no impediment to making the reader sit through six pages in the eyes of a character that doesn’t know of Paul’s situation, and we watch them trip clumsily over their own emotions and agonise over a question of his survival that was answered for us literally as soon as it was posed.This moment is so utterly confounding in its dramatic ineptitude that I was agape, staring at the page in disbelief. It’s as if The Usual Suspects began with a Kevin Spacey monologue directly to the camera talking about how he is Kaiser Soze, and then the rest of the film conducted itself as if it were still a mystery. It’s as if the opening crawl of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ told the audience that Darth Vader was Luke’s father, and then still tried to pull off the reveal. And this pattern is repeated from start to finish - every time you reach a point in which you wonder ‘will they make it out of this?’ Herbert comes back from the dead, strips the book from your hand, smacks you in the face with it, and emphatically replies ‘YES’.

2: Its inner monologues are prolific, and terrible.

No-one thinks to themselves like the characters in Dune think to themselves. If you are at McDonalds and you want to buy a burger, you don’t stand in line thinking to yourself ‘I am at McDonalds, and I am hungry. I wish to buy a burger, and I can see the burger menu in front of me, but I don’t know which to choose. I must hurry because I am almost at the front of the line - if I cannot choose in time, I will end up at the front of the line having not made a choice, and everyone around me will be inconvenienced!’

But Frank Herbert thinks people think like that.

He uses the character’s inner monologues as a medium for clumsy exposition, and eradicates any sense of realism or immersion they may hold. Now that’s not to say that one can’t use an inner monologue for that purpose, but the characters of Dune project a constant and unfiltered analysis of even the most basic social interactions, redundantly vocalising things made obvious in the text. Paul will do a thing, and Jessica will think that ‘Paul is doing that thing!’, and it will all be presented so dramatically that it makes you want to hurl the book into traffic. Herbert takes swathes of description that most writers would simply frame from a third person perspective about the characters and the world, and presents them instead as unedited, actual thoughts that the characters think in real time. In the midst of action and a threat to his mother’s life, Paul stops and takes a minute to recite this in his head: ‘They will concentrate on my mother and that Stilgar fellow. She can handle them. I must get to a safe vantage point where I can threaten them and give her time to escape.’ No-one alive has ever had a thought that forms itself like that, and this actually ends up having a tangible discriminatory effect on the reader, for whom all of the characters whose thoughts we don’t hear seem like pretty normal people, and all the central characters end up coming across as fucking weirdos, and one finds oneself subconsciously disliking them. Which brings me to my next point…

3: The Atreides are fools, assholes, or both, and the writing doesn’t help.

Now to be fair, it’s important to note that one of the key themes of Dune, according to Frank Herbert, is the danger of the ‘superhero’ myth. Through his genetic talents, his lifetime of training, and the legends and prophecies sewn into the Fremen culture, Paul takes a straight-line trajectory towards becoming the foretold Kwisatz Haderach, but despite his triumph over every challenge and his ultimate and all-encompassing victory over his enemies, he is not a character to be envied - he seemingly loses his attachment to the people around him and is consumed by his own myth, becoming more of a dictator than anything else. However, there are two problems with the portrayal of Paul et al. that confuses the intended message. The first is that a large proportion of the Atreides’ characterisation goes into establishing their constant control over their emotions, reactions, and decision-making processes; the effect being that from the very beginning of the novel the Atreides’ all seem to exist in their own little bubble, separated from the world at large as well as those around them by their own singular brilliance - Leto is a ‘great’ commander bearing the burden of the his people on his shoulders; Jessica is a Bene Gesserit and a concubine, viewed with suspicion by many around her due to her powers and her unofficial place within the family; and Paul is a demi-god in training. And since the tone of Herbert’s prose is so lacking in emotional nuance and resonance, it becomes difficult to discern whether he is intending to convey that, in any given situation, a character is displaying an intentional control over his or her reactions, or whether they are actually supposed to be displaying an unhealthy emotional disconnect. Within the text both instances appear the same, and it is only whether the control or the disconnect are explicitly stated that I, for one, could decipher the points in which it was intentional. Such as it is, the off-screen death of Paul’s son reads like a footnote for all the pause it gives him, and I still can’t figure out whether that’s because Herbert is trying to indicate the depth of Paul’s depravity, or whether he’s just a shitty writer who failed to properly demonstrate his character’s emotions, because honestly, it could be either.

And this brings me to the second problem, which is that the prose itself is complicit in the confusion. As stated, Herbert’s grasp of dramatic tension is so feeble, his demonstrated understanding of interpersonal emotions so poor, and his writing so matter-of-fact and lacking in colour, that it buries whatever philosophical subtext it may have and confuses speculation on its themes by virtue of the simple fact that any supposed ‘mystique’ could just as easily be chalked up to the author’s failed hold over his own material. The way Herbert fumbles with the tension he tries to invoke and the clumsiness of his writing when he gets inside his characters heads leaves it equally possible in my mind that his characters are complex as it is that they are simple - a situation I’ve never witnessed before - and in any other circumstance I’d admit that there was a kind of brilliance to this, if it wasn’t for the fact that the general tone of his writing clearly conveys the infancy of his talents as an author. My inclination, then, was simply to take everything at face value because the novel is written so explicitly. Which finally brings me to my actual point here:

If the novel is to be taken as it is written, then all of the main characters are giant idiot dickheads.

Let’s begin with Duke Leto. It’s kind of strange that everyone in Leto’s shadow exhibits an explicit and almost unfathomable loyalty to someone who’s temperament is almost exclusively characterised by flushes of anger, harsh words, and a deep belief in the feudal hierarchy - the idea of ‘right by birth’ being an absurd inflation of self-importance that Paul himself adopts as an awful character trait later on. Most of Leto’s subordinates seem to display symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome, seeing brief moments of kindness following a rebuke or an outburst as a sign of his famed benevolence and compassion. ‘Show, don’t tell’ is an adage that comes to mind when pondering the writing of this character, and for all the tales of a 'great leader' that surround him, we see little of this in the timeline of the novel itself. A man whose idea of ‘strong leadership’ is a calm word after an outburst isn’t a figure of worship, he’s a cunt. And I can see the typing fingers of fans a-flurry as they rush to point out that Leto is supposedly uncharacteristically stressed by the danger his family has been put in - an excuse that would hold far more weight if Herbert had found time to actually demonstrate this somewhere within his novel’s nine-hundred pages, but he didn’t. Instead, we’re simply told that he’s not usually like that, which has as much meaning to a reader as being told your neighbour’s shithead Chihuahua ‘isn’t usually like that’, right after it bites the tip of your dick (true story, don’t ask). And after all this - after all his bluster and bullshit, and after spending a good deal of his story ostracizing the mother of his child in an effort to supposedly fake out the true traitor in his family’s midst - he succeeds in exactly none of his efforts, and the Harkonnen plot plays out without a hitch. To make matters worse, his final living act is to activate a poison gas capsule hidden in his tooth in an attempt to kill the Baron Harkonnen, and he even fucks this up, killing only himself and one of the Baron’s disposable offsiders. His capabilities as a leader are nil, and his compassion limited, at best.

Meanwhile, for her part, Jessica spends the majority of Dune pinballing between disgust and fear of her son because he is turning into the very thing she has been training him to be for the entirety of his existence, and vengeful joy as he rains destruction down upon their mutual enemies. In what you’ll come to see is a pattern amongst the Atreides, any sense of genuineness one may garner from her faint echoes of self-awareness is reversed and erased by the fact that she continually makes the same decisions she spends so much time regretting, and then comes to regret those decisions as well - simply put, she's written to be self-aware, but not written to learn. For instance, as the focus on her dwindling attachment to Paul begins to grow as he gets more powerful, she willingly undergoes a ritual whilst pregnant that bestows all her powers upon her unborn daughter, resulting in the birth of what the Bene Gesserit call an ‘Abomination’ - a child that she once again finds disconcerting. Typically the Bene Gesserit kill these children as they risk being dangerously possessed by the spirits of dead Bene Gesserit, but Jessica doesn’t care about that because she is the mother of Paul Atreides and she can do whatever the fuck she wants. And far be it from me to say that a mother shouldn’t be able to keep her child if she wants to, but there’s a distinct difference between wanting to keep your unborn daughter; and forcing upon her powers that she cannot refuse, making her a target for a powerful order, and then having the audacity to look down upon her as something unnatural simply because she is what you made her to be. The point I’m making is that whilst the character of Jessica constantly reminds the reader that she is disenfranchised or a passive observer amongst the events that take place around her, such claims are a hard pill to swallow coming from a character for whom a core motivation of their order is the pursuit of power, and particularly the desire to manipulate it from behind the scenes. Jessica is demonstrably one of the most influential and powerful people in the universe - she is a master of wits and observation, outsmarting even Leto’s security expert (who, it should be mentioned, is a human computer), and a master of combat, easily besting the chieftan of the first Freman tribe they encounter. She even has the power to force others into doing her bidding by the use of ‘The Voice’ - an ability she uses at least half a dozen times. And yet what is the one thing that gives her solace? The fact that her son plans to marry an innocent girl for political reasons, and then torture her for the rest of her life by withholding any kind of affection in favour of his concubine. These are the last words of Dune:

“Do you know so little of my son?” Jessica whispered. “See that princess standing there, so haughty and confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary nature. Let us hope she finds solace; she’ll have little else.” A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. “Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she’ll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she’s bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”

After everything that has happened, to the end, Jessica’s one gripe is that she was never treated with the respect of a Queen all those years ago when Leto was alive. Great. What a wonderful person. And make no mistake - she is talking about the innocent daughter of their enemy here; a girl who only wants to be a writer and scholar and will spend the rest of her life recording the history of this woman’s fucking son. And for some incomprehensible reason, Herbert decided that this, a petty display of spite that boils the most powerful female character in the novel down to the desire to be 'a wife', that this would be the perfect way to end his epic science fiction novel.

So what about Paul? We’ve already discussed in brief his descent into war mongering and self-absorption that makes him one of the most singularly unlikable characters in the book, but what makes it worse is that, once again, every single decision he makes leads him directly to the one point that he swears he never wants to go. His one steadfast moral handhold is his understanding of the fact that encouraging the Fremen to worship him and playing into the prophecy of the Kwisatz Haderach runs the risk of drawing these people to the edge of waging a religious war. But he also knows that their military might united under his leadership is his one way of winning back his seat as the ruler of Arrakis. So what does he decide to do?

We already know the answer to that.

Time and again Paul fans the flames of religious fervour and further asserts his singular command over everyone, ultimately leading his army to the brink of jihad. At various points he sets out to demonstrate that he fulfills the requirements of the prophecy, at others he demands fealty based on his birthright as son of the former Leto Atreides. By the end of the novel he literally says that he lives by two separate moral codes - that of a noble family, and that of the Fremen - and that a course of action illegal for an Atreides (i.e. the murder of the fucking Emperor) is not illegal for a Freman. You understand what this means, right? Paul is making the argument of a crazy person - he genuinely ascribes the blame for an illegal murder at the feet of a different version of himself. And while it’s true that Frank Herbert came out a decade after the release of the novel and talked about how it’s supposed to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of hero worship, it’s also true that Tommy Wiseau asserted that The Room was a drama, right up until he realised that everyone was laughing at it.

Dimitri Glukhovsky’s ‘Metro 2033’, for instance, ends with the protagonist realising at the last moment that the assumption upon which his last mission rests is incorrect, and that the race of beings that he is about to destroy are actually intelligent and benevolent, rather than the violent demons they are thought to be. This climax is a crescendo of swelling emotion and tragedy that leaves the main character broken and disillusioned, and it is one of the few times I’ve cried whilst reading a novel. Glukhovsky devotes the entire final section of the book to the failure of his protagonist, and of humanity at large, to realise what they have done until it’s too late, and the emotional repercussions of this.

Frank Herbert devotes a couple of lines to Paul's awareness of his ultimate failure.

And much like the death of the Paul’s son, this too reads like a footnote. So how are we supposed to understand the intentions of a novel that presents itself so dispassionately? One that portrays enormous and important events in such an off-hand manner? I’m not entirely sure to be honest. For certain, I could delve into a debate about the possible meaning of this and that and dive into the encyclopaedia of interpretations, and again, perhaps a certain amount of merit should be given to Dune for opening itself up to that kind of discussion. But I could also just take it for what it is, rather than what it accidentally might be, and that is a very imaginative but flatly-written tome, with passionless two-dimensional characters, and a storytelling style that constantly undermines its own drama. I bought the sequel - Dune Messiah - because it’s about one fifth of the length, and I was keen to see exactly how Herbert expands on the foundation he has laid here. Perhaps it has all the answers? Perhaps it will confirm that every assertion I have made in this turgid article is incorrect? If so, I’ll be sure to let you know. But for now, I only know what I know, and that is that Dune is a phenomenal work of imagination, a great fiction, and a poor, poor text.

6/10

Just Okay

#dune #novel #frank herbert #literature #review #sci fi #science fiction #fantasty #paul atreides #duke leto #jessica #bene gesserit #arrakis #spice #melange

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turnertimeline · 7 years ago

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Meet the Characters

Content warnings: brief discussion/mention of domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, miscarriage and suicide

Canon

Patrick Turner

Doctor Patrick Turner is the Doctor for Poplar and the surrounding area. He attends to the midwives and nurses if they need his help in the course of their work, works at clinic, and at the surgery and the maternity home. He is married to Shelagh and is Tim’s Dad, and will become especially close to Janie over time, particularly as they bond of their respective trauma.

Our Patrick is kind, compassionate, gentle, and kind of a dork.

Shelagh Turner

Shelagh is Patrick’s wife, an ex-nun, a nurse and a midwife - the best one in Poplar, maybe the East End, according to her husband. She loves all of her children, and has an open heart and more than enough love to go around to anyone who needs it.

Our Shelagh is loving, passionate, taught Tim how to throw a punch without breaking his own knuckles and will stand up to the bullies whatever size they are.

Timothy Turner

Patrick and Shelagh’s eldest son, Tim is studious, independent and very like his Father.

Our Tim is studying towards his medical degree to follow in his Father’s footsteps when he meets Annie in his first semester. Tim clashes with his misogynistic peers and tutors, but excels academically. He is loyal, sarcastic, affectionate and gentle, and loves his little siblings very much.

Angela Turner

Patrick and Shelagh’s second child and only daughter.

Our Angela, nicknamed Angie by her family and friends, is headstrong and has a very firm idea of right and wrong. She adores her siblings and her nephew and niece and has also inherited the Turner family’s affection and compassion. Angie is quite serious and likes to observe and listen to what the people around her are doing, and won’t hesitate to make her opinions known. She also takes after Tim and her father and finds that knowing how things work is reassuring, from thunderstorms to how babies grow.

Edward “Teddy” Turner

Patrick and Shelagh’s youngest child and second son.

Our Teddy is three when Tim goes off to university. He is less head strong than his sister, although confident in himself and easy going. Where Angela takes after Shelagh’s determination, Teddy takes after his Dad and is very gentle and kind, to the point he gets teased sometimes by his peers. Nevertheless he is happy and likes to cook with his Mummy and help Annie take care of her baby.

Non-Canon

Annette “Annie” Thompson Turner

Annette is Tim’s university friend, and becomes pregnant by her abusive boyfriend before he rejects her for refusing to terminate the pregnancy. She is also kicked out by her parents.

Annie is taken in by the Turner family and adopted into their family and into the wider Nonnatus family, too. It takes a while, but Tim and Annette get married when Daniel is a couple of years old, and they have a daughter, Elizabeth, a few years later.

Daniel Timothy Turner

Annette’s son, Danny is a sweet-natured and affectionate little boy, whose slight temper only comes out when he feels like something isn’t fair. Danny’s grows up to be just like Tim, whose been his Dad since before he was born, although prefers to read to his little sister and help his Mummy take care of her.

He is thoughtful and sometimes a little sad, and as he gets older worries that he could turn out like his biological father.

Elizabeth Bernadette Turner

Annie and Tim’s second child, Lizzie is born five years after Daniel. Lizzie is particularly close to her cousin Cam, and enjoys playing with Teddy and her big brother Danny, and idolises Angie. It’s Elizabeth that inherits most of Tim’s more academic interests.

Jane “Janie” Thompson Turner

Janie is Annie’s youngest sister. Janie is independent, lively, and very artistic. However she is also deeply scarred by what she experiences in the Thompson household after Annette is disowned and can be distrustful and struggles with anxiety and depression. She is formally adopted by Shelagh and Patrick after Shelagh sees her father hit her, and she forms a very close bond with Patrick, although it takes a long time for her to trust him. She found a particular refuge in art and in journaling, which she continues, often using them to express herself to those around her and producing artwork as gifts.

Linda

Linda is Janie’s eventual wife. Although less demonstrative than the Turners, she and Janie have a fulfilling and happy life together.

Jessica

Linda’s daughter. She’s reserved at first and hesitant around new people, but quickly warms up to Janie and to the Turner family.

Melissa

Janie’s first girlfriend. Although the relationship doesn’t last, they remain on good terms, and Melissa becomes a life long friend and has a standing invitation to Turner family dinner.

Margaret Thompson

The middle sister, Margaret’s response to their father’s increased violence after Annie’s pregnancy is to try and become the ‘perfect daughter’. She sees her sisters a few times a year for the sake of their children, but the sisters never formally reconcile, and she continues to parrot many of the things her father told her about Annie and the Turner family.

Richard “Dick”

Margaret’s husband. His nickname isn’t actually Dick, Shelagh simply refuses to refer to him in any other way and it stuck.

Camilla “Cam”

Richard and Margaret’s daughter. Although Richard isn’t violent with her the same way George was with Janie, she grows up isolated and largely alone. She has greater contact with the Turner’s via her grandmother Ruth, who reconciles with Annie after George’s death, and spends a great deal of time with them once she starts at the same grammar school as Elizabeth. The Turner family take her in once she’s eighteen and she begins to date girls.

Richard Junior “Little Dick”

Richard and Margaret’s second child, and very much a chip off the old block, and bullies Cam mercilessly throughout her childhood and into her adolescence. He is not allowed to spend as much time with the Turners as his sisters, as Richard believes Tim and Patrick to be ‘unmanly’.

Ruth Thompson

Annie, Margaret and Janie’s mother. Ruth reaches out to her daughters once George dies and she realises how utterly alone she is, and also once she no longer had to fear him. Annie and Ruth achieve a sort of reconciliation, and she enjoys a good relationship with the grandchildren. Janie cannot forgive her for allowing George to treat her the way he did, although they reach a cordial agreement and Ruth comes to Turner family dinners at Annie and Tim’s house.

George Thomson

Annie, Margaret and Janie’s father. George is a violent, abusive, and cruel bully. He is violent towards his wife and his daughters and disowns both Janie and Annie. He dies a few years later, at which point Ruth attempts to reconnect with her daughters.

Kenneth

Annie’s abusive boyfriend, and Danny’s biological father. The most important thing to know about Kenneth is Tim punches him twice.

#admin

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latitudelongitudegratitudein · 8 years ago

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M.A.S.H at 27

M.A.S.H.

Mansion, Apartment, Shack and House

I don’t know any decent millennial that didn’t play MASH growing up, who wouldn’t want to predict their future on a piece of paper? In Mexico (I am a born and raised Mexican), we’d switch the apartment for a trash can because that can actually happen back home–but hey! It can happen here too, just substitute the trash can for a camping tent for two in your friendliest neighborhood, Skid Row. I remember one of the five times I’ve shit myself was when I wandered around Downtown LA in the company of me, myself and my shadow and ended up in Skid Row with 2% battery life on my phone. But, that’s a story for another day.

Back to Mexican MASH. You could end up living in a trash can, so the stakes were high as fuck. I mean we were talking about our future! Playing MASH, you find out who will you marry, the number of babies you’re gonna pop out, the kind of car you will drive, the pets you will have, and your job. Most importantly (drum roll please), the age you will be by the time you amass all those goodies. That number was everything–mine was 24. ALWAYS. I had that number engraved in my brain (finger and uterus), I was going to be happily married by 24, live in a mansion, drive a Lamborghini Diablo (yeah whatever, I was 10 years old, don’t judge me), have 7 kids, 10 dogs, be a vet/model, have the most handsome husband, and a big fucking rock on my finger to prove it. Everything by 24 because M.A.S.H said so.

Introducing Mr. and Mrs…insert record scratch. Nope that didn’t happen. I am 27 and have reached the point that the idea that I haven’t found the love of my life yet doesn’t traumatize me anymore. (I was severely traumatized, I’m talking pre-marital PTSD, as in started having panic attacks at 23 because I KNEW I had failed and would end up alone with 25 alley cats. I fucking hate cats) I wish I could time travel and tell my 20 year-old self “relax bitch” or even better, tell my 9 year old self, who is probably alive right now in some parallel universe, that MASH doesn’t mean anything. Being married at 24 doesn’t equal success and that I’d put my index finger over my luscious, prepubescent lips and tell her “hush my child”, you don’t have to worry. (If the butterfly effect is real, I may be saving her a lot of trouble).

I also remember I thinking that MASH was a commitment that I made to myself–a promise. If you know me, you know I keep all my promises. I promised I would walk down the aisle, filthy rich and happily ever after at 24. Period.

Growing up, I remember constantly thinking about being 24, I knew that in 2014 I would cross a magical threshold that would lead me straight to happiness, hand in hand with my Leonardo DiCaprio look alike husband. (That has changed too. I’m now looking for Ben Dalhaus’ doppelgänger).

In middle school and high school, I noticed my friends had superpowers, they could find boyfriends anywhere and for some reason I just didn’t. My superpower was being unboyfriendable. They were like Wonder Woman (secretly dating Superman) and I was like Catwoman doomed to remain in the shadows. (Fuck there go those cats again).

In my mind, I thought it was because I was not pretty and there was something wrong with me (The real reason being I never gave anyone a real chance and I was to busy making out with tons of boys to prove myself I wasn’t ugly. Don’t get me wrong I did it because that was super fun too). Those days turned me into the amazing kisser that I am today.

Sidebar: It’s funny how I see pictures of me at 14 and think, “ Nope you weren’t that bad. It was just the horrors of puberty passing by and there is nothing that a hairstylist and wax strip wouldn’t have fixed”. Mind you I slicked my hair back with shit tons of gel just like Michael Corleone from the Godfather (it was a thing at my school ‘kay).

See below a picture of me at and Lorenza at 13.

“ My glorious days as a member of the Corleone-Kahlo clan.”

10 years later, all “grown-up” playing with fireworks. Te amo Lorenz

I eventually took matters into my own hands when my mom told me I was too young to wax my eyebrows. She’d only let me wax my uni-brow. Yep, as a proud descendant of Frida Kahlo. By taking matters in my own hands I mean freeze framing on Elisha Cuthbert while watching The Girl Next Door and copying her eyebrow shape (just a piece of advice if you are a Latina and your eyebrows are bushy as fuck don’t go copying porn star eyebrows). Really you should just imagine Bert from Sesame Street shooting for Jessica Rabbit’s eyebrows. Not good. I managed to have shaped eyebrows–squares are a shape right?

So yeah the years went and I left my days as a member of the Corleone Clan behind by high school my hair style and eyebrows recovered.

One day at 18, I felt a little better about myself and actually thought “okay maybe I can land someone”. I tried to be open to meeting someone but no one really came. It’s as if I left the bread crumbs for the guy to find me and he decided he was going no carb. I mean boys came, but not looking for something serious. I guess those were the vibes I put out, but deep down I just wanted to be asked out on a nice date, and not lured onto the dance floor for a make out sesh.

At some point I asked one of my best friends with superpowers if she thought I’d be single forever. She didn’t so but explained that nightclubs weren’t the best place to meet the kind of boys I wanted to date. That always stuck with me.

I began to understand how the clubbing scene wasn’t such an ideal place to meet someone. It’s a hub of predators ready to pounce on their prey. Let me clarify by saying that I don’t think wanting to “get some” at a club makes you a bad person (coming from the biggest predator I know), it makes you a visibly horny person. So “aha” moment–meet boys in other places.

Days as a young 20 year-old predator. Very proud of my fake ID and my almost exposed private parts.

Ever since then, I thought I’d meet him at a museum, frolicking at the beach, or maybe at the library (but that would mean I’d have to physically get my books instead of using The Prime). Honestly, most guys I’ve seen in public libraries either look like they just pissed their pants, are part of a gang or are serial masturbators. (Look at me judging a book by its cover…I know, I know, I’m being superficial. I’m working on my flaws). However, I do spend a lot of time at Barnes and Noble fantasizing about some guy walking up to me and striking up a conversation about the book I’m reading. Afterwards, he pins me against the bookshelves and kisses me senseless.

In all my fantasies, the guys had to HURRY THE FUCK up because I needed my ring by 24. I was held hostage by the 10 pieces of paper I saved in my third grade pencil case that read M.A.S.H.

I had another dream where a guy would show up at my door professing his love for me, but I was usually awakened by Carl asking me if I’d ordered the thin crust Hawaiian pizza from Domino’s. He is the most stable relationship I’ve had in my life and I am totally okay with that.

Enough about my fantasies and Carl (he’s mine, so don’t think about luring him to your door with an order). My point is that throughout my early 20’s I felt like the guy who ended up with me would think his luck was mediocre at best, and I that should consider myself lucky that someone would actually see some value in me. But I held on to what MASH said–that I would have my huge ass mansion and shiny things. MASH kept me distracted from focusing on myself and my non-existent self-esteem (it’s kinda sad but true). I don’t believe that anymore and I am okay with being alone because I have the privilege of my own company and newsflash I am fun as fuck.

By 27:

* I am nowhere near having a rock adorn my finger that’s okay. For the longest time I tortured myself thinking I would end up alone because there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I kept blaming myself for not being pretty enough or good enough to have a boyfriend. But, that isn't true. It took a lot of work and I changed the perception about me. Im capable of many things, there isn't anything wrong with me and I am at peace.

* The asshole depression that stole my personality and started creeping on me at 23 (aka panic attacks) is finally gone. I am not scared anymore. The panic attacks no longer seize control of my mind or my body.

* Now I see that meeting the love of your life isn’t all there is to life. Loving yourself and your life is vital to your happiness.

* I don’t get frustrated when I see all my friends getting engaged, pregnant, or married. (Not that in the past I wasn’t fucking stoked to see my friends walk down the aisle, but there were moments when I felt like “ Omg. Catwoman, you have failed, what if it’s the same story from high school played over and over again? Everyone gets married while I get drunk and make out with their younger cousins in the bathroom” Yeah it sounds amazing but after a certain age a hot mess isn’t cute anymore. There’s an expiration date for that shit). I’m getting rid of my Catwoman costume (burn baby burn).

* Turns out 27 was the magic number after all. Three years after the deadline I break a lifelong promise to my 9-year-old self and I couldn’t be freer. I can see that I am a keeper and he will come when the time is right (I believe that to be true and not just a generic line people say to sound hopeful). I used to be super bitter about it. Today, I can only work on becoming a better person.

I am actually grateful for everything I have been through because it has taught me a lot about myself and now I know I am wiser and I will choose better things for me; Including a stable relationship with a nice bro ( Sorry Carl, it’s not you, it’s me)

Funny enough the definition of Mash is:

Reducing (Something) to a uniform mass by crushing it. Thanks Wikipedia. Yeah, I got owned and crushed by it.

So yeah, I recently ripped all the M.A.S.H’s I had saved for 16 years to pieces (I save everything and no I won’t have a separate entry for compulsive hoarding). I tore MASH a new one. And with that a new meaning came to light…

M.A.S.H. is just B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T

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clusterassets · 7 years ago

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New world news from Time: Colombia Was Just Starting to Deliver Justice to Women. Will a New President Get in the Way?

With the election of a new president Sunday, Colombia threw the future of its peace deal into uncertainty. Conservative candidate Ivan Duque has repeatedly pledged to roll back parts of the landmark 2016 peace agreement with rebels from the FARC group—a deal that formally ended more than 50 years of conflict in the South American nation. Some saw Sunday’s vote as a referendum on the controversial peace deal, which allowed most of the more than 7,000 rebels to avoid prison.

“This is the opportunity that we have been waiting for—to turn the page on the politics of polarization, insults and venom,” Duque told supporters Sunday night after winning by a 12 percent margin. Duque has said he wants to make it clear that “a Colombia at peace is a Colombia where peace meets justice.”

The question of what justice means in a country where conflict killed at least 220,000 people is a complicated one. While critics of the deal, like Duque, tend to focus on the brutal actions of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), government groups and paramilitaries were also responsible for much of the violence. And throughout the war, it was women who suffered the brunt of it.

Tomas Ayuso—Bloomberg via Getty ImagesIvan Duque, Colombia’s president-elect, speaks during an election event at the party’s headquarters in Bogota, Colombia, on Sunday, June 17, 2018.

“Bodies have been turned into a battleground”

Conflict began in the 1960s and was fought between the government, far-right paramilitary groups, left-wing guerrillas and the drug cartels—all of whom used sexual violence against women during the conflict to achieve military objectives, marking their territory and intimidating communities. Guerrilla groups used rape and assault to recruit girls as combatants, and as “payment” to protect other family members. Women were also subjected to crimes by the state’s security forces, leaving them with no authority to turn to for justice.

An Amnesty report from 2004 noted: “All the armed groups—the security forces, paramilitaries and the guerrilla—have sexually abused or exploited women, both civilians or their own combatants, in the course of Colombia’s conflict, and sought to control the most intimate parts of their lives. By sowing terror and exploiting and manipulating women for military gain, bodies have been turned into a battleground.”

Although many women signed up to guerrilla groups—they made up 40 percent of the communist group FARC—gender-based violence was still a powerful weapon of war, even against those fighting in it. Female fighters were banned from getting pregnant, and no matter how far along they were, women would be subjected to forced abortions.

As thousands of men were murdered during the conflict, women were left to raise children and bring in money. “We couldn’t do anything but go out to the streets to demand the truth,” says Jessica Hoyos, 30, who founded justice group Hijos y Hijas por la Memoria y contra la Impunidad [Sons and Daughters for Memory and against Impunity] after her father was murdered in 2001 by paramilitaries. “Mothers gave their children to the war. We suffered differently to men. We were the ones left behind.”

The group unites young people who are fighting to expose the real reasons behind their parents’ murders—which were often covered up and left unsolved, without the perpetrators being brought to justice. Like many female activists, Hoyos says she has been threatened with sexual violence by people who “do not want the truth to come out.”

Data from 2016 showed 97 percent of conflict-related cases of sexual violence against women remained unpunished—but women in Colombia began raising their voices years ago.

Repeated demonstrations and protests over the treatment of women during the conflict, as well as the country’s troubling record of domestic violence and attitude toward dealing with it, resulted in the Colombian senate introducing a landmark law in 2014 that recognized sexual violence as a crime against humanity. There are likely to be thousands such cases appearing in the tribunals because of Colombia’s high rates of sexual violence. (Because few women report acts of violence, it is hard to measure the scale of the problem but one 2011 survey carried out by Colombian feminist charity Casa de la Mujer estimated half a million women and girls were raped or sexually assaulted between 2000 and 2009.)

Guillermo Legaria—AFP/Getty ImagesWomen hold pictures of people who went missing during the armed conflict, during a march for peace in Bogota, on October 20, 2016.

The path to justice

Rising pressure from women’s rights advocates, as well as support from international parties, means that the government was finally moving toward integrating women in the conflict resolution process.

In September 2014 the government and FARC jointly announced a gender sub-commission to ensure any peace agreement included gender-sensitive language and women-specific provisions. The announcement followed demands from women activist groups, such as Red Mariposas de Alas Nuevas Construyendo Futuro (Red Butterflies of New Wings Building Futures) and the National Association of Indigenous and Peasant Women of Colombia, both of which have campaigned for justice and equal rights for women.

In 2015, the country established a national day to commemorate the women who suffered sexual violence at the hands of guerrilla and paramilitary groups, a sign of the government’s efforts to recognize such crimes and deliver justice to women.

Female judges will account for 53 percent of lawmakers presiding over war tribunals, which were due to begin in November but have been delayed by parties who oppose the transitional justice system, including Duque’s Democratic Center. The transitional justice system was approved by the Senate in September, and was set up to prosecute those on both sides of the conflict accused of human rights violations. It’s unclear what Duque’s election will mean for the peace process now.

Involving women in conflict resolution and the judiciary process has proved effective in other countries attempting to build peace and bring justice to female victims of sexual violence. In Rwanda, several women held key roles in uniting the country post-conflict and delivering justice, such as Domitilla Mukantaganzwa, who headed up the ‘Gacaca’—courts trying genocide-related cases. In Latin America, countries are starting to take steps towards addressing violence against women. El Salvador, a country where 524 women were killed in 2016 alone, has recently appointed two female judges to preside over sexual violence courts.

At the Colombia peace talks in Havana in July 2016, commission co-chair María Paulina Riveros said: “We recognize the important role of women in conflict prevention, resolution and peace building, where their leadership and equal participation are necessary and essential.”

In Colombia, judges for the peace process were selected from a pool of more than 2,300 applicants and international parties have backed the appointment of women. Sweden, in particular, supported Colombia in including women in the peace agreement, advising on how to use women as “actors for peace” and Swedish police have collaborated with Colombian forces, providing training on how to investigate domestic violence.

Hoyos believes female judges will ensure women receive fair treatment in a country where justice for sexual violence has rarely been delivered. “Women have been heard during this peace process because we demanded it. It’s important to have women as judges because I’m sure they can put themselves in the shoes of other women more easily than a man could. They will focus on the sexual violence aspect and how it affects a woman.”

GUILLERMO LEGARIA—AFP/Getty ImagesPeople march at Bogota’s National Park on June 3, 2012 to reject the brutal torture, rape and murder of thirty-five-year-old Rosa Elvira Cely.

A long way to go

Isabelita Mercado, a 27-year-old human rights lawyer, has been working in the government’s transitional justice team since 2013. When the October 2016 referendum on the proposed peace deal returned a “no” vote, the government was left to re-negotiate terms. Part of the issue for some voters in the strongly religious country was the perceived “threat” from women’s rights activists.

“We had to sit down with Christians who thought that gender ideology was a threat in the agreement. They thought voting yes to peace meant women would take over Colombia. Politics has collided with tradition,” Mercado says. The Evangelical Church argued a “no” vote was a defense of the traditional, patriarchal family that they felt was coming under attack from feminists and women’s rights activists.

Angela Anzola, Bogota’s high commissioner for peace and victims, says the country is finally starting to recognize the scale of sexual violence against women. “It’s one of the worst things that happened to all Colombians. And we are now having to face the aftermath. I deal with so many women who are raising children born out of rape. The men left to fight for each side, so they were left on their own, up for grabs for whoever wanted them.”

The majority of displaced female Colombians in Bogota have been widowed by the conflict, and struggle to enter the labor market. Around 80 percent of the displaced population, which numbers more than 5 million, are women and children. “The women are living on the outskirts of Bogota, no light, no electricity,” explains Anzola. “They just settle there because there is nowhere else to go.”

Not only are Colombian women demanding justice for the past, they are fighting for equality and protection for their future. The sub-commission highlighted the need for prevention of dangers that overwhelmingly affect women, such as domestic violence, rape, sexual assault and femicide. On average, a woman is killed in Colombia every two days.

In 2012, the death of 35-year-old Rosa Elvira Cely, raped and tortured in a public park in the Colombian capital of Bogota, brought thousands of people onto the streets. They marched in Rosa’s name to protest the endemic sexual abuse of women in Colombia, carrying placards that read “not one more” and “no more violence against women.” Her death prompted a bill, eventually passed in 2015, that introduced tougher sentencing for crimes against women and defined the crime of femicide in Colombian law.

“Sexual violence is still happening and no-one is willing to talk about it, because it is still dangerous for women to do so,” justice campaigner Hoyos says. “It is so frustrating to still have to struggle to be heard in the 21st century. But you know, we are used to fighting, and in history you can’t get any rights without fighting for them. Now we’re being listened to, it’s given us hope. Now we think we can build a new country where our sons and daughters can live in an inclusive society.”

Anzola emphasizes the importance of women taking part in the justice process. “It’s not good enough that we just have women in the tribunals—we need them in the truth and reconciliation commission too,” she says. “Sexual violence—it will not be talked about by men, even if they are victims, because of the social stigma.

“There are many issues that will only come to light if women are there. We will only find out the truth if women are there.”

Lucy Sherriff is a Colombia-based contributor to The Fuller Project for International Reporting. This report is part of an ongoing series on women, security and peacebuilding supported by Women, War & Peace II broadcast series and The Fuller Project.

June 19, 2018 at 10:00PM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

#Time #world #news #ClusterAssets #ClusterAsset #Cluster Asset Inc.#ClusterAssets Inc.

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queerwomeninmedia-blog · 7 years ago

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Moving Beyond Bury Your Gays: Queer Women in Television and Film from Glee to Today

When discussing queer women on television, the conversation has shifted in recent years. Originally, the most common topics of conversation would be Ellen DeGeneres' controversial coming out on her sitcom Ellen and the similarly controversial relationship between Willow Rosenberg and Tara Maclay which ended in Tara's death on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The death of Tara is just one of many examples of the bury your gays trope, which involves the death of a queer character, often seemingly as punishment for a subversive sexuality. Today, it seems as if we have begun to move past the use of this trope for queer woman on television, but the question remains as to how far we've really come in terms of representation?

Glee:

Often cited as a transformative moment in television history, including its citation in various timelines of how pop culture changed the political landscape that allowed for the ruling in the Obergefell v. Hodges case which legalized same sex marriage in all fifty states, Glee premiered in 2009. The most oft referenced queer character on the show is the young gay man Kurt Hummel, but beyond his character, there are two queer women who were presented on the show, Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce. While Kurt's coming out was a central plotline on the show, warranting its own episode where he was able to come out to his father, bisexual Brittany was never given the opportunity to come out-and was never allowed to say the word bisexual, instead being given tongue in cheek colloquialisms like bilingual and bicurious-and Santana's coming out as a lesbian was shoehorned into a male savior storyline where quarterback Finn Hudson attempted to "save her" from herself as she struggled with her sexuality. In the episode “I Kissed a Girl,” named after the Katy Perry song about a heterosexual woman having a "gay" experience, Santana comes to terms with being outed by Finn, but never once in the episode is she allowed to converse with her girlfriend Brittany, and instead is subjected to a bunch of her "friends" singing "lady music" to her while she is forced to listen. The only moment of her genuinely being able to embrace her sexuality without a male influence comes when she speaks to her grandmother-and is subsequently disowned by her, which is hardly the same happy ending Kurt was given when he was embraced by his father and his friends and was given his own sense of agency in his story. Even when it comes time for her to sing her own song during "Lady Music Week," she shares the lead vocals with Kurt and guest star Idina Menzel, instead of giving her an opportunity to shine in an episode that is supposed to be about her. Years later, after Santana and Brittany were given only a few scenes together-and Santana, having broken up with Brittany, worries about bisexual women "straying for penis"-they are finally given a wedding storyline, which seems to be the happy ending that queer women watching the show could hope for. But instead of giving them their moment in the sun, in a last-minute plot twist, Kurt and his ex-boyfriend Blaine decide to get married with them, once again proving that it is impossible on Glee for queer women to be given the A-plot of an episode without the inclusion of men. Additionally, in the series finale, Santana and Brittany are among the only main characters not given a closing arc, proving that it was easy for showrunners to ignore their queer female characters in a big way. Despite this though, it is still relevant to note that the Huffington Post claimed that Glee’s queer female representation was something that would not have been seen on television ten years prior.

Grey’s Anatomy:

One of the most critically acclaimed queer female characters on television is Dr. Callie Torres, played by Sara Ramirez, on Grey's Anatomy. Initially introduced as a nemesis for Katherine Heigl's Dr. Izzy Stevens and a love interest for George O'Malley, Callie's role expanded far beyond that, and her subsequent relationships with Erica Hahn and Arizona Robbins gave her a storyline all her own. Where Glee sidelined their queer female characters in favor of male stories, Grey's allowed them to shine. Often a taboo statement, especially on network television, Callie has repeatedly been allowed to express her bisexuality, and take issue with others who don't believe that there is a B in LGBT. In the season six episode "Invasion," airing just as Glee began its regular run, Callie's religious father brings a priest to "pray away the gay," but it is her girlfriend Arizona who convinces her to sit down and have a conversation with her father because she has loved men her whole life and it is an adjustment for him as well. Callie's relationship with Arizona progresses, up until the point where Arizona plans to move to Africa, and after they break up, Callie sleeping with her male best friend Mark Sloan does not negate her queer sexuality and is handled deftly when Arizona returns to find a pregnant Callie. Eventually, Callie and Arizona are given the opportunity to marry, though it is notable that heterosexual couple Meredith Grey and Derek Shepard get married on a Post-It at the same time their wedding ceremony is going on. Unlike Glee though, this Post-It wedding does not overshadow the brides, and they are given the beautiful wedding ceremony that queer female fans hoped to see. Subverting the bury your gays trope, when a plane crash kills several doctors from Seattle Grace hospital, and Arizona is on board, she does not die. Instead, she loses her leg, and marital difficulties between Callie and Arizona occur, ultimately leading up to Arizona's infidelity, which is common on Grey's Anatomy, and does not simply occur because the women are queer. After Callie and Arizona's divorce, Grey's continued to handle LGBT issues with care, devoting a whole story arc to a custody battle between the two women for their daughter Sofia-who Callie was the biological mother of, but Arizona believed she had rights to custody of her when Callie decided to move to New York. Ultimately, Grey's made a radical choice by granting custody to Arizona and solidified itself as one of the foremost examples of LGBT representation on television…but then Sara Ramirez exited the show. In the time since she left, Arizona floundered in relationships, and then just last month, it was announced that Jessica Capshaw, the actress who plays Arizona, would be leaving the show. With that revelation, Grey's Anatomy went from having some of the best queer female representation on television to quickly having none, and this represents a trend of queer women being underrepresented on television, while straight characters, and even gay men, have an abundance.

Carol:

In 2015, one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year was the film Carol, which was based on Patricia Highsmith's lesbian novel The Price of Salt. Carol is centered around Carol Aird and Therese Belivet and is set at Christmastime in 1952. The two women meet in a department store, and a forbidden love affair ensues. Unlike many lesbian love stories, Carol avoids the male gaze, shooting even the love scenes between them from a more sensitive perspective. But even considering that, Carol does center around a male driven plot, where two men present the obstacles for Carol and Therese to be together. For Therese, the obstacle is Richard, her boyfriend who wants them to travel to Europe together and eventually marry. When she meets Carol though, all of that is complicated by her increasingly intense feelings for the older woman. Even more central to the plot is Carol's divorce from her husband Harge. It is heavily implied throughout the movie that Therese is not Carol's first female lover, but as was typical in a time of little to no acceptance for homosexuality, Harge attempts to have Carol deemed as an unfit mother for their daughter Rindy. Even the private investigator hired by Harge is male, and with the exception of Carol's best friend Abby, the remainder of the main cast is male. The story becomes heavily women versus the patriarchy, when Carol and Therese attempt to be together, and even their meeting again for the first time after breaking up is thwarted by a male colleague of Therese's. While Carol and Therese are given the A-plot of the movie, their story could not occur in this incarnation without the inclusion of several males who exist as adversaries to them. Additionally, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year, Carol lost largely when it came to awards season, and one has to wonder if this has to do with an audience who does not believe a story with a female love story can be successful. We've seen Brokeback Mountain, Moonlight and Call Me By Your Name win awards, both with homosexual men, but despite the positive Oscar buzz, Carol went home without one. Does this mean a lesbian love story will never win an award, or was Carol just not strong enough to cut it? With a male driven industry, it seems entirely possible that a movie with a love story that focuses on two women may never topple the patriarchal power structure of Hollywood.

The Bold Type:

Despite the fact that 2016 saw a dramatic drop in lesbian representation of television, with only seventeen-percent of all queer characters on television identifying as lesbian, the 2017 show The Bold Type presented some of the most positive queer representation of the year with Kat Edison and Adena El-Amin. The Bold Type centers around three women working at a magazine and avoids traditional stereotypes of catty co-workers and bitchy bosses. Additionally, they've managed to eschew the traditional coming out story for queer characters, The Bold Type presented viewers with out and proud Muslim woman Adena, and Kat, who initially believed she was straight, but who fell for Adena without feeling the need to announce a new label for herself to the world-though, in the episode "No Feminism in the Champagne Room," she accidentally tweets "This lesbian shit is intense!" from her work account for all the world to see. The presentation of two queer women of color who navigate a relationship together is revolutionary in its own right, as it negates the idea that in order to have an interracial relationship, one of the characters must be white. Unlike Glee, Kat and Adena's story does not revolve around men, and unlike Grey's Anatomy, the showrunners at The Bold Type have promised viewers that Kat and Adena are here to stay, even if that does not mean they're together. The relationship between the two women is organic, and their story does not revolve around contrived tropes of cheating, coming out, or death. Presented in contrast with the heterosexual relationships of the other women on the show, Kat and Adena's has proven to be the healthiest, and Kat, as one of the main characters, does not have her entire storyline based around her sexual identity. She is a woman, she is a person of color, she is queer, but none of those things define her. Instead, she is shown as fiercely committed to her career, a loyal friend, and a little scared of commitment. The fact that she's given real storylines outside of her sexual identity is important, as it keeps her from existing just to check off a diversity box for the show runners-who, by the way, have an A- on the diversity scale by including not only queer women and women of color, but also aging women. If shows like Grey's Anatomy set the bar for how to represent queer women, then The Bold Type has met and exceeded it, and so long as the showrunners don't choose to eliminate their queer characters, then the show represents a new generation of television for queer female viewers.

One Day at a Time:

In 2017, Netflix premiered the reboot of the sitcom classic One Day at a Time, with the reboot centering around a Cuban family living in Los Angeles. One of the standout characters on the show is Elena Alvarez, fifteen at the start of the show, who struggles with her sexual identity and what that means for her life in a Cuban family. The majority of her storyline in season one focuses on coming to terms with how to tell her family that she's gay-and not a struggle for Elena to actually accept it for herself. Her mother is supportive, and in a revolutionary scene, her strict Catholic grandmother delivers a monologue where she initially believes that it is against God, but then, within thirty seconds, decides that even the Pope says that it's not for her to judge, and quickly accepts her granddaughter for who she is. Compared to Glee's shunning at the hands of a religious grandmother, One Day at a Time represents a new normal where women support women, even if it may go against their initial beliefs. Like many stories with queer women, the main adversary for Elena comes at the hand of her father who is embarrassed by her sexuality and refuses to accept her. In the season one finale "Quinces," Elena is left on the dance floor alone at her quinceañera when her father is so humiliated by her sexuality that he leaves the party. But, proving that queer women are deserving of love, the rest of her family joins her on the floor, and she dances with them-wearing the pant suit that her grandmother made for her, because she knew she was uncomfortable in a dress. Season two expands on Elena's story, giving her sexuality an important role, and even allowing her to find a non-binary partner, something that is even more uncommon than queer women in popular media. She develops as a woman and as a character, and though sometimes it seems like a lot of her storyline is based around her sexuality, by the end of season two, she's found her own ground to stand on.

So where does that leave us now, with shows like The Bold Type and One Day at a Time attracting growing audiences? Well, the truth is, shows like that are still a small minority, and other network shows like The 100 and Supergirl continue to queerbait their audiences. For the sake of this post, I focused on a more positive representation of queer female characters on television, and showrunners who do this are proving that they're deserving of a queer audience, while shows who perpetuate old stereotypes are dipping in ratings. Despite the fact that we have a conservative president in office and a conservative congress, the majority of Americans support gay rights, and by showing more queer women on television and in movies, we normalize that for people in less liberal parts of the country. What we need now is more. More positive representation, an equal number of queer women and men, queer women who are not sexualized or tokenized. Showrunners need to take a page from the playbooks of The Bold Type and One Day at a Time. They need to replace queer female characters when they eliminate them, especially when they've represented them so well as Grey's Anatomy did, and Hollywood at large needs to take into account that queer women exist and to award movies that feature them just as they award movies with queer men. We are existing in a new future, and that needs to be recognized.

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takenews-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Who Ought to Twitter Ban Subsequent?

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/who-ought-to-twitter-ban-subsequent/

Who Ought to Twitter Ban Subsequent?

The arrival of social media has caused a complete new set of issues. Many celebrities have used the facility of the Web to lift cash, specific opinions, and choose fights. For some, this has been harmful!

Political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was not too long ago banned from Twitter after a collection of inappropriate tTweets, and many individuals have known as for different celebrities to be banned from the location. They vary from teenage stars, to rappers, and even the mega-famous! You’ll by no means consider who made this record!

Listed below are 20 celebrities who Twitter ought to ban.

Beginning us off is former teenage heartthrob Aaron Carter. It appears that evidently he hasn’t been too completely satisfied along with his life after his rise (and fall) to fame within the 1990s, so he’s turned to Twitter to specific his frustrations. Apparently, nearly all of his tweets are written in caps lock. He doesn’t simply need sweet — he needs followers!

Scrolling by Lisa Rinna’s Twitter feed is a bit like enjoying Russian Roulette. Most of her tweets are unproblematic and even humorous, however each as soon as in awhile, she throws in a number of posts about her… um…. toilet habits. TMI, Lisa! She doesn’t have to be banned, essentially, however a few of her tweets positive must be.

Rapper Sean Combs (higher generally known as P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, or just simply Diddy) has utilized his Twitter account as an promoting platform. Previously, he has featured Ciroc and Beats by Dre Headphones in his posts.

Spencer Pratt actually appears to like himself. We’re all for self-acceptance, however his ego is absolutely inflated! He as soon as tweeted “since Miley Cyrus left Twitter I assume that makes me essentially the most well-known individual within the Twitterverse! I will probably be throwing myself a celebration tonight!”

Up subsequent is his determined mannequin spouse!

Spencer Pratt’s spouse additionally appears to have a reasonably large ego! She has requested her Twitter followers to “get her trending” by utilizing particular hashtags, and sharing particulars about her spray tanning adventures. Her recognition has taken a nosedive in recent times however she remains to be energetic on the social community.

Humorous man Seth Rogen has had some severe points on Twitter! Final 12 months, he issued some controversial tTweets evaluating the American battle film American Sniper to a “Nazi propaganda movie.” These are some harsh phrases! On the identical time, he may make us snicker in 140 characters or much less.

Tila Tequila grew to become well-known due to social media. So, it’s solely becoming that that is what results in her demise. She has posted overly-revealing tweets about her being pregnant, her husband, and, most not too long ago, an epic tribute to the dictator Adolph Hitler. It’s time to take away this Nazi from the Twitterverse.

President Donald Trump has been utilizing Twitter to make some enemies! His posts have insulted practically each ethnic group, non secular faction, and gender. We’re not stunned to study that his unhealthy Twitter conduct continued after he grew to become President!

Chris Brown actually misplaced a few of his mates when allegations of home violence had been raised towards him, and his Twitter habits aren’t serving to his trigger! His tweets are vulgar, racist, and extremely self-serving.

Jessica Simpson actually is only a regular lady. A traditional lady with an over-sharing drawback, that’s! This girl as soon as requested if tuna actually was the hen of the ocean. She has used Twitter to debate her indigestion, her little sister, and her love for Texas-style residence cooking!

Should you’ve been paying any consideration to social media not too long ago, you’ve in all probability heard about Jaden Smith’s introspective, deep tweets. Sadly, none of them make sense! Amongst his most well-known are “Dying Is Mainstream” and “Most Timber Are Blue.”

Kim Kardashian very nicely will be the world’s greatest private model marketer. She has used her huge quantity of Twitter followers to earn a bit of additional money by paid ads. Nonetheless, her fixed barrage of Tweets about Carl Jr’s and weight reduction dietary supplements are a bit tiring! We don’t know which tweets she really believes in, and that’s an enormous drawback on so many ranges.

This former teenage sweetheart has been something however candy on her Twitter account! She has despatched out messages about “how broke (she) is,” and even known as President Barack Obama “ugly” utilizing the social media web site. She likes to personally assault folks for no purpose. She could also be probably the most well-known web trolls of all time.

Soccer star Chad Ochocinco must tone again his Twitter schedule! He was fined $25,000 by the NFL for utilizing the web site throughout a recreation. That shakes out to $158.57 per character in a 140-character tweet! Yikes! His tweets sometimes usually are not clever and yawn inspiring.

Azealia Banks has had her personal points with Twitter executives over time, leading to a number of suspensions as a result of racist and homophobic language. Heated fights with fellow celebs have put her on the Twitter hit record, and he or she not too long ago introduced that she goes to be “quitting social media for good.” Right here’s hoping!

Singer-songwriter Rihanna doesn’t maintain again on Twitter! Like many, she makes use of the social media platform to argue with folks she doesn’t agree with on sure points. Not like former beau Chris Brown, although, her Tweets don’t use foul language! We will’t stand celebrities who use their powers for evil as an alternative of fine.

John Mayer’s physique is a wonderland! Effectively, not less than in accordance with his Twitter. He has famously overshared about his life on social media. His tweets have ranged from specializing in his feelings to expressing his frustration when his “broomstick falls asleep.” Ewww.

Erykah Badu doesn’t maintain again in terms of her social media presence! She live-tweeted her being pregnant AND her residence supply. Each element was shared with the world, and Badu was completely satisfied to specific her emotions all through the entire course of! Over-sharing to the acute.

After taking a beating from Azealia Banks on Twitter, I-G-G-Y determined to log out for awhile. However, when she is gracing social media together with her presence, she likes to argue with different celebrities. We don’t really feel too sorry for her when she’s attacked as a result of she does the identical factor to others.

To shut out our record is a really well-known former teen starlet!

Poor Lindsay. She’s had a tough few years. Sadly, her Twitter tirades actually aren’t doing her any favors. She has turned to the social media platform to vent at ex-boyfriends, beg for followers, and air her deepest feelings. She just about does social media mistaken in each sense and now we have no sympathy for her at this level.

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