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I have been tagged to answer book questions by @boxboxlewis!!!! it’s an honor to be nominated! ty ty ty!!
An estimate of how many physical books I own: about 450, mostly collected 2005-2015
Favorite author: terrifying question. Historically I progressed through Madeleine L’Engle, Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula Le Guin, Geoff Dyer…lately though when I really love a book I almost hide from the rest of the author’s work, in case it’s not as good or heaven forfend BETTER. My current instant preorder list is Bryan Washington, Brandon Taylor, and Isaac Fellman! The last authors to knock my socks off were Olga Tokarczuk and Sayaka Murata! Perhaps I will never love cleanly again!
A popular book I've never read and never intend to read: Game of Thrones.
A popular book I thought was just meh:
Fourth Wing, Black Cake.
Longest book I own: Bulfinch's Mythology
Longest series I own all the books to: apparently Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series
Prettiest book I own: 1940s copy of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s collected sonnets
A book or series I wish more people knew about: Leonora Carrington's Hearing Trumpet and its cranky batshit joyous old ladies
Book I'm reading now: The Chinese Groove, Kathryn Ma (our protagonist is so loveable and disastrous and funny, I am so anxious for him)
Book that's been on my TBR list for a while but I still haven't got around to it: My library hold on A Sense of Wonder comes up every month or so and I keep throwing it back, to get bigger or be less about basketball or something
Do you have any books in a language other than English: poetry anthologies in Spanish and French left over from college language classes. Also the xeroxed course packets, that's where the spicy stuff is
Paperback, hardcover, or ebook?: I read 95% ebooks borrowed from the library, on my phone, I love it, it suits my degraded lifestyle. The perfect format is a slightly floppy trade paperback printed on recycled paper. Hardcovers hurt my face when I drop them.
I want to tag people but I am nervous of tumblr etiquette so: if you are reading this I have tagged you with the laserbeam of my heart. Please tell me about your books.
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INFLUX AI Review
Welcome to my INFLUX AI Review Post. Generating leads and securing free buyer traffic stand as a pivotal aspect in any business endeavor, be it online or offline.
The ability to attract potential customers serves as the cornerstone for sustained success. Leads are not merely contacts; they signify potential sales, conversion and ultimately revenue.
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While the market brims with a plethora of tools and platforms for lead generation and traffic acquisition, a substantial number of them come with a hefty price tag. Subscribing to multiple services or investing in premium features can swiftly escalate into substantial monthly expenses.
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Their collaborative efforts and forward-thinking approach have birthed a groundbreaking platform that leverages a loophole in 2024, granting user’s access to free buyer traffic and the potential for effortless income generation.
Their commitment to innovation and value provision has solidified Art Flair and Pallab Ghosal as trailblazers in the digital marketing sphere. Through InFlux AI, they have empowered countless individuals to reach their financial aspirations.
Their track record speaks volumes, with successful launches like SLICK AI, DART AI, Perpetual Host, RISE AI, VIP NEW YEAR DEAL, Flipped AI, AI MOGUL, MIRACLE AI, STELLAR AI, PREMIER AI, and many more, serving as testament to their expertise and influence.
InFlux AI emerges as a comprehensive marketing automation platform harnessing AI to optimize lead generation, nurture leads, and facilitate conversions into loyal customers. Its array of tools is meticulously crafted to simplify marketing endeavors, enabling businesses to realize their growth objectives seamlessly.
Picture abandoning laborious manual lead scouting and generic outreach strategies. InFlux AI employs AI algorithms to pinpoint and engage with your ideal customer base, thereby conserving invaluable time and resources. The platform hosts an array of features tailored to streamline the entirety of the marketing journey.
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read more : https://rkt-review.com/influx-ai-review/
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It’s okay.
Erik Stevens/Killmonger.
Requested imagine:
1. I request a Killmongerx reader where Erik had a GF who dumped him because of his increasingly scary vengeance (one night she thought he was going to attack HER), but months later he shows up at her place, having been given another chance at life and now working with Tchalla...
2. Love your stories they are so well written and vivid in description. Can I request a Erik x reader where Erik lives and has been redeeming himself with his family and he asks T’Challa to go to the US to take one person back to Wakanda—-the girl he loved but didn’t treat right die to his issues...
Note: This was one of the first requested imagines, Anon(s) I am so sorry for taking so long to get this imagine out, I do hope you like it but I could have done better. Love and Wakanda Forever x
Warning: Strong Language, Violence Themes
The rays of sun above his head cause his eyes to flutter open. He exhales and rubs his eyes. He sits up and scratches his chest, the pads of his fingers rubbing through the ridges of his numerous scars. He yawns and swings his feet over the bed.
He stands, stark naked, and enters his bathroom. He gets himself ready with a mixture of anxiety and determination in his heart. He bites his lip as he looks at himself in the mirror, seeing the eyes of a man in the midst of a emotional and political deradicalisation. The fragments of his irises lay abandoned in his pupils. He’s slowly putting back the pieces of his view.
The last year of his change has come with unparalleled hardship for Erik Stevens, or as his family calls him - N’Jadaka. The things he’s done to this nation are irreversible. It only took him a couple of days to scar the once untouched land. He’s revealed an ugly in the world that many Wakandans couldn’t bear or accept. He was only accepted by a small number of people in the nation, but he is slowly being accepted into the society.
He is more than grateful. It’s the first time he’s been given a chance. The first time since her.
“Erik,” she questions quietly, the tired lilt to her voice floats through the quiet and brightly lit apartment.
He sighs and leans against the closed door. He lifts his head and walks into the living room. He walks past the couch and she gasps when her eyes register the blood stained clothes clinging to his body.
“Erik, babe, what happened?” She strikes up from the couch and goes to stand in front of him.
He huffs out and moves her aside with a slick movement of his arm. She crashes against the wall but the worry and curiosity compel her to follow him. Following him into the dark seems to be something she does quite a lot, the bedroom is black and the dim light from the corridor is barely any help to either of them.
“Erik? Erik?” She steps slowly and carefully on the floor, her bare feet making a slightly weird noise on the wood. “Just talk to me babe. I promise I won’t judge...” her voice is soft. “Baby, I just want to know. that you weren’t doing what we discussed you wouldn't do - anymore.”
Erik exhales, feeling a minuscule tug in his heart - wanting him to just rant and tell her the truth about his fears and needs. He just wants to give himself up to her, sometimes.
“Please Erik.” The lilt of her voice is soothing to him, and he almost lets her find him in the dark, but he moves away as her hands almost grasp him.
“Damn, Y/N, can’t a nigga just breathe?” He growls loudly, she squeals but bites her tongue - holding back her full blown scream.
She sighs, feeling the regular attitude and bad boy behaviour scent masking any clean particles on her room. “Erik,” she pauses and sighs, “Please baby, just talk to me calmly. I just want to understand what you’ve been doing until five in the morning.” She shrugs.
“Y/N,” a growl punctuates her name, this time taking five steps to her, she understands the direction he’s taking to her, hearing the ring around his necklace clashing against his dog tag violently.
“Erik, I just-“
“Nah, you just talk too much. You know exactly what I was doing until five in the damn morning. Stop trying to patronise me.” He breath beats against her face, her body shrinks as he talks down on her. “I ain’t your baby. And I ain’t your goddamn man, Y/N.”
Her back feels frozen against the wall of the bedroom. She swallows and her eyes focus on his clenched fists, each one poised tightly besides her face.
“Fuck that!” He slams both fists against the wall, almost shattering her eardrums.
She jumps, startled. Her heart pounds against her chest violently. She hyperventilates and her fingers cover her mouth, muffling her panicked breaths. She inhales. His eyes bore into her, not an ounce of compassion floats in his eyes.
He stalks off into the bathroom, the noise of the dog tag and the ring clashing against one another repeatedly drags her into a sunken place. A sly, tiny tears drops out of her eye. She wipes it quickly and forcefully pushes her body off of the wall.
“Erik!” She storms up to the closed door of the bathroom. “Open the fucking door.” She bangs on the door, any care for how much noise she is making goes out of the window. “Open up, Erik.” Her fingers wrap around the door handle and she pushes it down. The door doesn’t budge.
“You need to leave Erik.” She mumbles as her efforts don’t result in success. She lets her forehead fall against the door, her pants audible to both of them. “Just go Erik, go away from me. I don’t want you here.” She whispers.
The sadness in her voice makes him bite his lip as he watches himself in the mirror. Looking into the eyes of a man in the verge of breaking.
The process of personal reconstruction and social rehabilitation have been long and tedious for Erik. He’s had to learn that despite what his mother had said during his late childhood - he wasn’t always right.
He’s learnt from the elders of Wakanda as they have from him. He’s learning to adapt and cooperate with others.
“N’Jadaka.” T’Challa’s strong voice calls out from behind him.
At first he doesn’t respond, not entirely accustomed to the name, but as soon as T’Challa places his hand on his shoulder Erik almost jumps into a fight stance. His swift movement knocks his cousin’s hand off of his shoulder.
“N’Jadaka, calm down, it’s just me.” Erik’s shoulders slacken and he sighs. “How are you?” T’Challa looks at his cousin, his arms behind his back.
“I’m cool.” Erik nods, his own arms behind his back. “I’m cool.” He licks his bottom lip. He looks up at T’Challa.
Not much of the animosity was left between the two. T’Challa forgave Erik easily, understanding that as he had mentioned before - he was a monster of their own creation. Erik was unable to understand and accept why his cousin kept him alive. He would have rather died than face the consequences of his poor actions.
But he’s alive. That’s it.
“I’ve been thinking about the outreach program.” Erik straightens himself up, a serious tone washing his voice. T’Challa nods and puts his full attention on his cousin. “I’ve been thinking that I can extend my abilities back home.”
T’Challa’s eyes widen and he raises his head - his interest piqued. “Okay.” He nods.
“My abilities will be better suited back in the US. I can get across to the people there. I’m from there.” He purses his lips, and then sighs. “I got unfinished business there.” He bows his head for a split second and looks back at T’Challa, square in the eye.
“Of course,” T’Challa smiles tightly, trying not to show Erik his enthusiasm at his initiative. “I’m happy that you’re excited to do something with the outreach programme that you inspired.” He places a hand on Erik’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I have to contribute, don’t I?” Erik shrugs, a gleaming smirk stretching his lips as he and T’Challa walk to the council room.
The feeling of rain on his skin is not registering in his brain. He looks up at the windows of her home. The lights are on and it gives him a pang of nostalgia.
A sliver of a smile graces his lips. He watches for any movement in her windows, but nothing happens - no shadows go past her windows.
He tilts his head, his eyes glancing side to side, watching the cars drive on the road. As his foot hits the road as the flow of traffic slows - he sees her. His eyes widen and he glides across the road, she approaches her own home. He barely registers his travel to her.
She juggles her bags to her left hand and uses her right hand to fish out her keys. She struggles to balance the keys and drops them. He speeds up his walking and stops behind her.
She picks up her keys and in the process drops her bags. She growls and huffs out in frustration.
He picks up her bags from the ground, slowly to not startle her.
But she squeals, she bursts into a spin to look at her assailant. Her wide eyes are highlighted by the headlights of the incoming traffic.
A gasp escapes her lips.
She looks just the same as the day they met. Except for the fact that it was raining and she didn’t have the eyes of a heartbroken and scorned woman.
“Aye, you dropped something.” He yells to the girl with one earphone in.
She turns, a suspicious expression greeting him back. She narrows her eyes, stops and whips her dreads behind her back.
“You talking to me?” She quips, a manicured hand coming to her chest in question.
He nods, speechless at the beauty in front of him. But he shakes out of the trance. “Yeah, I’m talking to you. And since you stopped, I’d like to ask for your number.” He throws out his most charming smile, bearing his teeth out into the sunny day.
She chuckles, her teeth gleaming under the sun rays. “Ha, good one,” she backs away from him slowly, the chocolate of her eyes spreads over his body as she sizes him up and down. “But no-“
“Just let me get your number, and if you ain’t feeling me like that - just block my number and I’ll bounce.” The mischievous look on his face makes her giggle.
And Erik finds it one of the most sublime views ever seen. Not even the sights of the ocean, the snowy mountains or of tropical flora can beat the sight of this woman - whose skin shines under the spotlight of the sun.
“Hey baby girl.” He winks at her, gripping her bags tightly.
She blinks. She gulps, and she stares.
Erik fears she’s frozen, he takes one step closer to her. She wakes out of her reverie as she sees that he’s closer to her.
“Get away from me!” She yelps and turns like a bird going into flight. “Stay away from me Erik Stevens.” She fumbles to find the right key to open her door, she does just as Erik climbs the stairs to her door. She slips in rapidly and shuts the door in his face.
“You’re going to have to let me though, baby girl, I got your stuff.” He feels the raindrops roll into his clothes, they drip through his scars.
The response is absolute silence from the other side of the door. Not one floorboard creeks, and not one light is turned off or on. It’s as if she’s disappeared into thin air.
But the door slams open and she pokes her head out, “Give me my bags.” Her tone is blistered with anger and betrayal.
Her raises his eyebrows, “Well you gotta let me in to get your bags.” He shrugs.
She tries to snatch them off of him, but she can’t as he steps away from the door. “Give them,” her lips barely move as she crosses her arms over her closed coat.
He shakes his head and steps back to the door, “Talk to me and I will.” He feels his face setting like stone, trying to convey the seriousness of his reappearance in her life.
“No!” She yelps out. “No, no, no!” She almost screams. A frustrated glare etches her face, and she reminds him of the people of Wakanda when they realised he was still alive. Angry.
“Just go, Erik. Take that shit with you and disappear from my life. Again.” She shuts the door, but he traps it with his foot. She shakes her head and closes her eyes. “Why are you back?” She huffs out, keeping her body weight against the door.
“I need to talk to you about... us.” He inhales slowly as he finishes.
She raises her eyebrows and nods, “There is no us, but okay. Continue.” She flicks her wrist.
“I want you to come and live with me.” His voice bursts out of his mouth after a long pause.
She stares at him, assessing the sincerity of his statement. And she bursts out laughing. The laughter that he hears completely breaks him.
He never in his wildest dreams thought a woman could do this to him. Laugh at him. Make him feel stupid. The only one to blame is him.
“Stop it.” She chuckles dryly. “Where? Huh? In a maximum security mental facility? Where the likes of Ted Bundy and the Zodiac killer’s ghosts will haunt me?” She smiles mockingly at him, and he feels like waste. “Huh, Erik?”
“I’ve changed.” His whisper breaks into the noise of the pouring rain and her light laughter. “I’ve really changed.” His bottom lip begins to quiver.
“Oh have you?” She smiles mockingly at him, her nod is one of disbelief.
He nods, sincerely. “I have, I promise you.” He purses his lips and places her shopping bags on the floor of her entryway.
“Your promises mean nothing to me, Erik Stevens.” She hisses, going to close the door but he stops it with his hands this time.
He shakes his head and pushes the door open - as softly as he can. “N’Jadaka.” He sighs, raindrops rolling into his eyes, but he doesn’t remove his hands from the door. “That’s my name. N’Jadaka. And with this name, comes a lot of change. And a new me.” He closes his lips quickly as the rain gets heavier and the raindrops almost fall into his mouth.
She scoffs but doesn’t make a move to shut the door again. “A new you?” She raises her eyebrows and he nods. “That means nothing to me. You caused me pain, you hurt me Erik!” She points at her chest, her irises on fire. “The last time I saw you, you almost hurt me physically!” She yells, her eyes glistening with tears, but the tears don’t fall.
“Y/N,” he barely feels it but he sees his change in perspective suddenly change. One by one, his knees drop to the ground. He doesn’t know if it’s the weight of his guilt and the heartbreak he himself is feeling, or if it’s the notion that the woman he loves won’t take him back - but he’s on his knees. And that’s all he knows.
“I need you.” He doesn’t know which are his tears on his face and which are raindrops, “Baby, I need you so much. I can’t be without you, I’m so, so sorry.” he chokes out. Her eyes widen in raw shock, and he himself cries harder at the fact that he’s just given up his deepest feelings. “I love you.” He sobs.
She bites her lip, willing the tears back. She’s unwilling to succumb to the pity and want in her heart. She can’t. He’s a madman.
“Erik stand up.” She mumbles, her lip quivering. She wipes her wet face and crouches down to his level.
“No, I can’t. Not until, you tell me that you at least forgive me.” His hands are intertwined and his voice is almost inaudible as he shivers under the pouring rain. “I’m so sorry - for all that I did to you.” He buries his head into his chest in shame.
Her own tears fall this time. She sniffles and hugs him. “We need to get out of this rain.” She whispers into his ear.
He lets her pull him inside. She shuts the door and turns back to him, watching as he hiccups in the corner of the small entrance.
“I accept your apology.” She whispers softly, a tear that streams down her face is wiped away quickly by her.
She crawls over to him and takes him into her arms.
He sobs into her chest. “I know you don’t forgive me. But give me some time, and I swear, I’ll be a better man to you.” He sniffles, his hand clutches her bottom of her top in desperation.
“It’s okay,” she strokes his dreads slowly, “It’s okay.”
#black panther#black panther imagine#black panther x reader#black panther fanfiction#Erik Killmonger#erik killmonger fanfic#erik killmonger imagine#Erik killmonger x Reader#Erik killmonger imagine#michael b jordan#michael b jordan imagine#Michael b Jordan fanfiction#Chadwick Boseman#t'challa imagine
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Saturday, November 21, 2020
Biden turns 78, will be oldest U.S. president (AP) President-elect Joe Biden turned 78 on Friday. In exactly two months, he’ll take the reins of a politically fractured nation facing the worst public health crisis in a century, high unemployment and a reckoning on racial injustice. As he wrestles with those issues, Biden will be attempting to accomplish another feat: Demonstrate to Americans that age is but a number and he’s up to the job. Biden will be sworn in as the oldest president in the nation’s history, displacing Ronald Reagan, who left the White House in 1989 when he was 77 years and 349 days old. The campaign has made the case that Biden isn’t your average septuagenarian. His physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, reported that Biden works out five days a week. The president-elect told supporters that during the pandemic he has relied on home workouts involving a Peloton bike, treadmill and weights.
C.D.C. Pleads With Americans to Stay Home on Thanksgiving (NYT) Faced with a seemingly unstoppable surge in coronavirus infections, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday urged Americans to avoid travel for Thanksgiving and to celebrate only with members of their immediate households—a message sharply at odds with a White House eager to downplay the threat. The plea, delivered at the first C.D.C. news briefing in months, arrived as many Americans were packing their bags for one of the most heavily traveled weeks of the year. It is the first time that the agency has warned people away from traditional holiday celebrations.
California enacts coronavirus curfew for majority of state's 40m residents (The Guardian) California is imposing a curfew affecting nearly all of its 40 million residents beginning this weekend, as the state tries to control a surge in coronavirus cases. The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced what officials are describing as a limited stay-at-home order on Thursday, saying that all nonessential work and gathering must stop from 10 pm to 5 am. The order will apply to the 41 counties currently in the most restrictive tier of reopening rules, which accounts for 94% of the state’s 40 million residents. The order will last until 21 December, but could be extended if infection rates and disease trends don’t improve.
Mexico tops 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, 4th country to do so (AP) Mexico passed the 100,000 mark in COVID-19 deaths, becoming only the fourth country to do so amid concerns about the lingering physical and psychological scars on survivors. José Luis Alomía Zegarra, Mexico’s director of epidemiology, announced late Thursday that Mexico had 100,104 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, behind only the United States, Brazil and India. Besides the trauma of the deaths, many coronavirus survivors say the psychosis caused by the pandemic is one of the most lasting effects. With little testing being done—Mexico tests only people with severe symptoms and has performed only around 2.5 million tests in a country of 130 million—and a general fear of hospitals, many in Mexico are left to home remedies and relatives’ care.
They Championed Venezuela’s Revolution. They Are Now Its Latest Victims. (NYT) The host of a popular radio show, “The People’s Combat,” had always diligently praised Venezuela’s governing Socialist Party, even as millions sank into penury under its rule. But when acute gasoline shortages paralyzed his remote fishing town this summer, he strayed from the party line. On his show, the host, lifelong Socialist José Carmelo Bislick, accused local party chiefs of siphoning fuel, leaving most people queuing for days outside empty gasoline stations. Just weeks later, on Aug. 17, four masked, armed men burst into Mr. Bislick’s house and told him he had “run the red light,” before beating him in front of his family and hauling him away into the night. He was found dead with gunshot wounds hours later. His death appears to be part of a wave of repression against leftist activists alienated by President Nicolás Maduro, who seems intent on consolidating power in parliamentary elections in December. Longtime government supporters who in recent months flooded the streets of provincial towns to denounce the collapse of public services have been suppressed by security forces. Public employees who denounce corruption are charged with sabotage. Members of the ruling electoral alliance who decided to run as independents are disqualified. Those who persevere are harassed by the police or charged with spurious crimes.
Black man’s death after savage beating by security guards outrages Brazil (Washington Post) A Black man died after being savagely beaten by two supermarket security guards in southern Brazil late Thursday, igniting widespread outrage in a country increasingly grappling with structural racism and the violent treatment of Black Brazilians by security forces. Video shows a man identified as João Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40, being held by one of the security guards as another struck him repeatedly in the face outside the entrance of a Carrefour grocery store in the city of Porto Alegre. The man can be heard crying out, and he is forcefully brought to the blood-slicked ground and restrained. Video afterward shows emergency responders failing to resuscitate him. In a country increasingly reckoning with racism and the enduring imprint of its history of colonialism and slavery, the grisly beating of an unarmed Black man by two security guards reported to be White was met by rage and horror. It immediately dominated newscasts and the homepages of the country’s biggest newspapers. Activists planned protests. Politicians on both the left and right expressed condemnation. Many said it was disturbing that the death occurred on the eve of Brazil’s Black Consciousness Day.
Lawmakers seek to buttress post-Brexit Britain as a financial centre (Reuters) Britain’s lawmakers launched an inquiry on Friday aimed at ensuring its financial services remain globally competitive after the country’s full departure from the European Union next month. Britain left the EU last January and full access to the bloc under transition arrangements ends on Dec. 31, with 7,500 jobs and assets worth around a trillion pounds having already left the City of London for new EU financial hubs.
Vatican seeks answers (Foreign Policy) The Vatican has appealed to Instagram for answers after the account belonging to Pope Francis appeared to click “like” on a racy picture posted by Brazilian model Natalia Garibotto. “We can exclude that the ‘like’ came from the Holy See, and it has turned to Instagram for explanations,” a Vatican spokesperson told the Guardian. Divine intervention has been ruled out in the case of the mysterious like; the Pope is, however, known to have a social media team that assists in his earthly outreach efforts. Garibotto herself has seen the lighter side of the mini-scandal. “At least I’m going to heaven,” she said.
Trump and Pompeo embrace Israel’s one-state reality (Washington Post) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid the capstone this week on the Trump administration’s four-year ideological project in Israel. Pompeo made an unprecedented visit to settlements located in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, marking the first time a U.S. secretary of state has appeared at such sites, which much of the world views as illegal and, in many instances, a direct obstacle to a viable Palestinian state. At an event alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Pompeo also said the Trump administration would be taking further measures aimed at “countering” the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS, which seeks to pressure companies and governments to avoid doing business with Israel until it offers more concessions to Palestinians living under occupation. “The Trump folks have done all sorts of things to blur the lines between Israel and the West Bank and effectively adopt a one-state policy,” tweeted Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum, “but this may be the measure that goes the farthest in that regard.”
Deadly Protests Erupt in Uganda After Arrest of 2 Opposition Figures (NYT) The national police in Uganda said Thursday that at least 16 people had been killed and hundreds arrested in protests that erupted across the country after two presidential candidates were arrested while campaigning ahead of a highly anticipated January election. The violence began Wednesday as word of the arrests spread in the East African nation, where President Yoweri Museveni is vying for a record sixth term in office. The unrest in Uganda echoes recent election-related violence in other African countries, including Guinea, Tanzania and Ivory Coast, where opposition figures accused entrenched leaders of having manipulated the rules and rigged the polls in order to extend their stay in power. Although Mr. Museveni is credited with bringing peace, promoting economic growth and reducing rates of AIDS, his government has faced criticism over growing corruption, widespread surveillance tactics and intolerance of dissent.
Bad Passwords (Vice) The password manager NordPass released its annual report about the state of passwords, and things are not great on the creativity and innovation front. The most popular password was “123456,” which was used 2,543,285 times per the analysis. Of the 275,699,516 passwords in their database, 44 percent were unique—showing up just once—though users alone are hardly at fault for the abysmal situation of passwords on the web. The average user has 25 percent more passwords now compared to earlier this year, as a shift to life online means that in-person events like school, work, and Dungeons & Dragons now necessitate password-protected user accounts for online services.
In multiple countries, alarm over hunger crisis rings louder (AP) U.N. agencies have warned that some 250 million people in 20 countries are threatened with sharply spiking malnutrition or even famine in coming months. The United Nations humanitarian office this week released $100 million in emergency funding to seven countries most at risk of famine—Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo, and Burkina Faso. But David Beasley, head of the World Food Program, says billions in new aid are needed. Without it, “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021,” he said in an Associated Press interview last week. In multiple countries, the coronavirus pandemic has added a new burden on top of the impact of ongoing wars, pushing more people into poverty, unable to afford food. At the same time, international aid funding has fallen short, weakening a safety net that keeps people alive.
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We have made this so basic that you just CAN’T afford to keep your hands off Vidtasia. Awesome, EASY & Fast Video Creation is finally here! You just can’t afford to have your competitors making better videos then you are, and now you don’t have to watch them walk away with the winnings! With Vidtasia, you’re going to be the BEST ON THE BLOCK! As an editor, I see the importance of being precise and have seen for myself what great editing can do even for not-so-great video content…heck, that’s how Hollywood makes the big bucks! I think something so essential shouldn’t be out of reach for so many video marketers out there. That’s what inspired me to create Vidtasia, to let the process of piecing together a great video be out there for you to grasp with both hands!
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Your Average Video Training drones on endlessly on how to Create BORING videos that SUCK
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High-end Video Effects Software Costs a Ridiculous Amount And You Will Need To Spend Months Learning It!
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Udemy courses to sell to a huge marketplace looking for new things to learn!
Vidtasia Modules :
MODULE 1 | Choosing The Right Software
You may be on your way to learning the smartest tricks in the trade, but even for those to come into effect, you need a smooth platform that allows you flawless working and experimental space. Camtasia makes it easy to create professional screencasts (capturing all actions on screen) for demonstration videos, instructional videos, and other screen-recording projects. The interface is fairly easy to understand right away with your media, transitions, animations, and effects working in sync with your canvas. This is by far the easiest platform to build your videos on.
MODULE 2 | Screen Recording
If you’re doing anything with videos, know that screen recording plays a vital role in audience engagement. To literally take your audience by the hand and simplify any process for them makes your offer easily comprehensible and all the more lucrative for your target audience. You are literally breaking down the entire process and explaining to your audience step by step, which makes you a popular option for them!
Module 3 | Screen Capture Video Editing
You Have The Video Power.. Now You Can Add Some REAL Power To Your Video Creations — Starting With Screen Capture Video Editing! If you record more than what needs to be watched, it’s taxing for your audience. For an easy crisp video, we have a module on how to remove errors or unwanted parts of the video. Learn how to ace video engagement by adding elements like text and graphics!
Module 4 | Live Action Video Editing
Viewers remember and apply more of what they learned watching a video than by reading the same information. Because video delivers the knowledge prospects need to convert, customers are more informed and better inclined to find out more about what your company has to offer. But to get your customers to act the way you want, you need to deliver your message in the most effective manner possible and that’s why you need this module on how to shoot and edit quality live action videos from inside Camtasia.
Module 5 | Visual Effects and Motion Graphics
Motion graphics and visual effects are an important part of all video production. Whether it is incorporating motion graphics along with video, or producing a bespoke info-graphic or animation, graphics and visual effects are a great way of promoting your business. This module is all about simplifying them how to add some visual effects to your videos and creation some animated videos inside Camtasia for higher engagement values.
Module 6 |Green Screen Video Editing
With green screen, it’s simple to superimpose anything or anyone into any shot. Whether you can transport yourself to the moon, appear in your favourite film, or make a presentation along with all the relevant facts and figures, Greenscreen adds great aesthetic value and boosts the attention of your viewers. And even though it sounds difficult to produce, this module ensures that you get a firm grip on Green Screen talking head video and mock up editing in Camtasia.
Module 7 | Audio Editing
An often-overlooked aspect of a successful video production is the audio. Even if the quality of the video images is great- poor audio will make your video absolutely redundant! And good noiseless audio, with good leveling and sound effects will break the vocal monotony of your video and up its quality To help ensure that you get the best results for their video project, we have crafted this module that takes you through the technical essentials of audio in video editing.
Vidtasia Testimony
Forget about the next “shiny object” software that will make you rich with the push of a button… Vidtasia is a SOLID product you’ll be happy to invest in. Camtasia is an essential tool for business owners and marketers in order to succeed with online video. It combines all kind of high-end features with a low learning curve…One video software to rule them all!! About Cham, he’s not only a highly experienced video creator and marketer, but also a great teacher. He clearly knows his stuff better than most of guys out there, and you’ll learn all of the magic if you decide to invest in his training. If that wasn’t enough, the professionally pre-made templates included will help you achieve awesome results much faster. Really good, I can’t help but 100% recommend this. – Angel Corman, Graphic designer and Video Maker
Thank you for creating such a great course. It couldnt have come at a better time. I had just downloaded the latest Camtasia just a few days ago and Vidtasia is a great compliment to one of my most favorite softwares…Camtasia. – Steve Davies, Internet Marketer
Great training, I bought everything and am I so glad. I’ve bought a lot of stuff in my time, and this training is by far the best. Thank you so much! – Bob Santero, Owner of goodlocalmarketingexpert.com
Exactly What You Get With Vidtasia
7 Modules detailing the underlying factors that make for GREAT video marketing
DFY Templates to make simplify your video creations and give a slick professional touch to your video
Instruction and never heard before tricks of the trade from a top notch video editor with more than 10 years experience in the field
If you were to buy separate trainings, It will cost you…
Video Editing Training
Live Action & Animated Videos Training
Motion Graphics, Screen Capture Videos & Green Screen Videos Training
10 DFY Templates
Vidtasia : FAQ
Q. Is this a new video creation software?
No. This is a comprehensive training on how to use Camtasia (a highly recommended video creation software for marketers) in creating videos for your business.
Q. Can I use the templates for my clients?
Yes you can. You’ve got developer’s license to all the templates so you can use them for your own or clients’ business as many times as you want.
Q. Can I sell the templates as a collection?
No you cannot do that. You can only use them to create your own or clients’ videos.
Q. Can you help me when I get stuck?
Absolutely! There’s a comment section below each of the lessons where you can ask questions. We also have a private FB group where you can hangout with me and other members, for us to help you when have concerns.
Q. I’m a total newbie, will this work for me?
Of course. We did the training very simple to follow so whatever your skill level is, you can surely follow along. We have 500+ members and most of them were also beginners but they were able to learn.
Q. Do you have a money-back guarantee?
Yes we have. Although we truly believe that the training and templates are HIGH quality, if for some crazy reason you think they are not for you, within 30 days, just contact us and we will refund your money.
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Laughing at ISIS to defeat them
Mumbai, India (CNN)Deep in the outskirts of Mumbai, India, tucked away in a small conference room among dozens of buildings known as Bollywood's "Film City," the US government is implementing a unique, and until now, unknown counterterrorism program aimed at diminishing the online influence of terror groups like ISIS - by making fun of them.
Standing next to a white board that reads "Fighting Terror With Comedy," Mathur is joined by East India Comedy, a wildly popular collective of stand-up comedians and sketch writers based in Mumbai, who, like the other comedians in attendance, have been invited by the US government to participate due to their influential social media accounts and online presence.
They screen and discuss East India Comedy's latest video sketch, "I Want to Quit ISIS," which spoofs one man's attempt to quit the terrorist group. It is set in a boring, run-of-the-mill business office, where the man's efforts to quit the terror group turn into a bureaucratic nightmare as he's forced to debate his boss on the tenets of Islam, all while artfully highlighting the contradictions of ISIS' ideology and methods.
"The basic premise was the corporatization of the terrorism process and just the idea of terrorists wearing blue shirts and ties and going to an office to get work done was what the idea was and I think just like every other brainstorming process it just changes and changes," Kunal Rao, a member of East India Comedy, said.
Uploaded to their YouTube and social media accounts just a few weeks earlier, the five and a half minute video had already been viewed well over one million times by their fans and followers in South Asia and despite tackling such a thorny subject, it was one of their most well-received sketches. Compare that to the number of views the State Department's previous videos garnered in an effort to dissuade those interested in joining ISIS and it's clear Mathur's approach has been more successful, at least in terms of getting eyeballs.
"There are a few government controlled YouTube accounts that put out anti-ISIS videos, the Global Engagement Center by the State Department has put out about 42 videos in the last couple of years but you know, they've gotten a combined total of about 55,000 views," Mathur said. Most of the State Department videos have hundreds or a few thousands of views, although there are some exceptions. One video that pairs extremely violent and graphic content with irony has close to a million views, but that video is also several years old.
"So, if you're a 16-year-old kid in Islamabad, what would you rather watch: an exciting action movie that looks like "Call of Duty" or a PSA from Uncle Sam? You would watch the action movie," says Mathur of videos put out by ISIS as opposed to the others from the government. "But what if we could fight back with our own entertaining videos that didn't look like government PSA's because they weren't made by the government, they were made by local, social media superstars that local people actually looked up to and enjoy watching."
The journey from stand-up comedians to counterterrorism advocates began the previous month when East India Comedy members received a mysterious phone call from their manager informing them that officials from the State Department had invited them to lunch at the U.S. Consulate and wanted to have a discussion about counterterrorism. "We had no idea why they were calling comedians," Rao said. "It was free lunch, that's why we went," recalled his colleague Azeem Banatwalla.
It was at this meeting that they met Mathur, who had pitched his idea to former counterterrorism colleagues in Washington, DC. Keen to see it implemented, they helped him find funding through the little known, and currently unfilled, Office of the Special Representative to the Muslim Community that existed during the Obama Administration. They're hoping the success of their video could lead to more videos in other countries through different government agencies.
Asked about the program a spokesman for the State Department offered this comment:
"The Department of State continues to engage with Muslim communities and leaders both domestically and internationally on key foreign policy priorities through bilateral, multilateral, and civil society outreach. We are in the process of exploring and evaluating ways to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency, including optimizing the impact of available resources."
"It was a really strange meeting because no one in that room ever thought they would ever be in a room with the other people," Mathur recalled. "I said you guys ought to be working with local social influencers in places like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, where there is a large Muslim populations and create videos that are actually cool and are entertaining that people would want to watch that also, kind of subtlety, counter the narrative of these extremist groups and reveal how absurd their ideologies are. And the State Department, to their credit, was open to this idea."
Home to approximately 175 million Muslims and a population that has the second most cell phone users and the fourth most internet users in the world, according to the CIA World Factbook, the cultural conditions in India made it an attractive location for a pilot program for the State Department to test this idea. But these same conditions are also what makes the Muslim population in India an attractive recruiting pool for ISIS, although Indian officials pride themselves on the country's pluralism and democratic values that they believe are perfect antidotes for violent extremism.
Having already recruited tens of thousands of young Muslims from dozens of countries around the world, ISIS dramatically transformed the strategy of terrorist propaganda. Long gone are the days of Osama bin Laden taping a message for the world to see three months after being filmed in a dimly lit cave surrounded by bodyguards with AK-47's casually propped up around the room.
And while the Muslim community in India has not yet experienced having hordes of its youth eager to go fight in Syria, like many other Asian or European countries, the bullet holes that still riddle the facade of the Leopold Cafe, one of the many targets of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed more than 150 people, are a constant reminder that India will never be immune from terrorist attacks.
ISIS knows their target audience and they appeal to it as any other company or brand would hocking their products in the West. By using slick imagery, fast-paced music, and action sequences, ISIS has been able to best government efforts to dissuade young people from joining.
"I thought, how are we, the country that invented Madison Avenue and Hollywood and arguably the greatest messaging machine in the history of all time - how are we losing, what is essentially a messaging battle to folks halfway across the world that are operating on a shoe sting budget. And so I think to counter what they are doing, we need to up our social media game," Mathur said.
And while Mathur had the US government on board, he anticipated a hard time getting an influential comedy group to publicly mock ISIS. "This is a risky ask, when you ask someone to make a video that criticizes ISIS or some other terrorist group, that's a lot to ask because you're asking them to put themselves out there and put themselves potentially in harm's way and no one wants to attract the ire of a terrorist group like ISIS," Mathur said.
"I never really found there to be a risk in it because I'm Muslim anyways," laughed Banatwalla. "And I've made all the terrorist jokes about having like four wives, and blowing yourself up, and haram, and not drinking, and pork and all of that and I've never really felt any problems."
So, to Mathur's surprise, none of the comedians had any reservations, despite knowing the inherent risk involved. Mathur even recalled one comedian explaining that, while they usually get approached by brands to sell soda or potato chips, they've never had the opportunity to do something as important as fighting terrorism.
"I didn't think what we were most afraid of was the terrorist implication but the fact that terrorism and religion is unfortunately connected. So we were most worried about was the pushback in terms of like 'why are you generalizing it in terms of this religion.' That's where we found it difficult but otherwise a joke is a joke is a joke," Rao explained. "But it's cool man, I think it's great that the government, some government is taking action and trying to do it it in a very different way and that's what we like about it," Rao said.
"I Want to Quit ISIS" was not the only video funded in India by the US government through Mathur's program, but the State Department was hesitant to discuss these types of programs further with one official saying, "we fund these types of things all around the world and we don't always want people to know about them."
While Mathur begins searching for funding to export his project to other countries with large Muslim populations, he's hopeful the Trump Administration will see the value in continuing this program. "I do think the new administration is uniquely poised to appreciate exactly what we're doing and that's because who better understands and who better appreciates how effective social media and entertainment can be in spreading a message than President Trump," Mathur said.
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Laughing at ISIS to defeat them
Mumbai, India (CNN)Deep in the outskirts of Mumbai, India, tucked away in a small conference room among dozens of buildings known as Bollywood’s “Film City,” the US government is implementing a unique, and until now, unknown counterterrorism program aimed at diminishing the online influence of terror groups like ISIS – by making fun of them.
Standing next to a white board that reads “Fighting Terror With Comedy,” Mathur is joined by East India Comedy, a wildly popular collective of stand-up comedians and sketch writers based in Mumbai, who, like the other comedians in attendance, have been invited by the US government to participate due to their influential social media accounts and online presence.
They screen and discuss East India Comedy’s latest video sketch, “I Want to Quit ISIS,” which spoofs one man’s attempt to quit the terrorist group. It is set in a boring, run-of-the-mill business office, where the man’s efforts to quit the terror group turn into a bureaucratic nightmare as he’s forced to debate his boss on the tenets of Islam, all while artfully highlighting the contradictions of ISIS’ ideology and methods.
“The basic premise was the corporatization of the terrorism process and just the idea of terrorists wearing blue shirts and ties and going to an office to get work done was what the idea was and I think just like every other brainstorming process it just changes and changes,” Kunal Rao, a member of East India Comedy, said.
Uploaded to their YouTube and social media accounts just a few weeks earlier, the five and a half minute video had already been viewed well over one million times by their fans and followers in South Asia and despite tackling such a thorny subject, it was one of their most well-received sketches. Compare that to the number of views the State Department’s previous videos garnered in an effort to dissuade those interested in joining ISIS and it’s clear Mathur’s approach has been more successful, at least in terms of getting eyeballs.
“There are a few government controlled YouTube accounts that put out anti-ISIS videos, the Global Engagement Center by the State Department has put out about 42 videos in the last couple of years but you know, they’ve gotten a combined total of about 55,000 views,” Mathur said. Most of the State Department videos have hundreds or a few thousands of views, although there are some exceptions. One video that pairs extremely violent and graphic content with irony has close to a million views, but that video is also several years old.
“So, if you’re a 16-year-old kid in Islamabad, what would you rather watch: an exciting action movie that looks like “Call of Duty” or a PSA from Uncle Sam? You would watch the action movie,” says Mathur of videos put out by ISIS as opposed to the others from the government. “But what if we could fight back with our own entertaining videos that didn’t look like government PSA’s because they weren’t made by the government, they were made by local, social media superstars that local people actually looked up to and enjoy watching.”
The journey from stand-up comedians to counterterrorism advocates began the previous month when East India Comedy members received a mysterious phone call from their manager informing them that officials from the State Department had invited them to lunch at the U.S. Consulate and wanted to have a discussion about counterterrorism. “We had no idea why they were calling comedians,” Rao said. “It was free lunch, that’s why we went,” recalled his colleague Azeem Banatwalla.
It was at this meeting that they met Mathur, who had pitched his idea to former counterterrorism colleagues in Washington, DC. Keen to see it implemented, they helped him find funding through the little known, and currently unfilled, Office of the Special Representative to the Muslim Community that existed during the Obama Administration. They’re hoping the success of their video could lead to more videos in other countries through different government agencies.
Asked about the program a spokesman for the State Department offered this comment:
“The Department of State continues to engage with Muslim communities and leaders both domestically and internationally on key foreign policy priorities through bilateral, multilateral, and civil society outreach. We are in the process of exploring and evaluating ways to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency, including optimizing the impact of available resources.”
“It was a really strange meeting because no one in that room ever thought they would ever be in a room with the other people,” Mathur recalled. “I said you guys ought to be working with local social influencers in places like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, where there is a large Muslim populations and create videos that are actually cool and are entertaining that people would want to watch that also, kind of subtlety, counter the narrative of these extremist groups and reveal how absurd their ideologies are. And the State Department, to their credit, was open to this idea.”
Home to approximately 175 million Muslims and a population that has the second most cell phone users and the fourth most internet users in the world, according to the CIA World Factbook, the cultural conditions in India made it an attractive location for a pilot program for the State Department to test this idea. But these same conditions are also what makes the Muslim population in India an attractive recruiting pool for ISIS, although Indian officials pride themselves on the country’s pluralism and democratic values that they believe are perfect antidotes for violent extremism.
Having already recruited tens of thousands of young Muslims from dozens of countries around the world, ISIS dramatically transformed the strategy of terrorist propaganda. Long gone are the days of Osama bin Laden taping a message for the world to see three months after being filmed in a dimly lit cave surrounded by bodyguards with AK-47’s casually propped up around the room.
And while the Muslim community in India has not yet experienced having hordes of its youth eager to go fight in Syria, like many other Asian or European countries, the bullet holes that still riddle the facade of the Leopold Cafe, one of the many targets of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed more than 150 people, are a constant reminder that India will never be immune from terrorist attacks.
ISIS knows their target audience and they appeal to it as any other company or brand would hocking their products in the West. By using slick imagery, fast-paced music, and action sequences, ISIS has been able to best government efforts to dissuade young people from joining.
“I thought, how are we, the country that invented Madison Avenue and Hollywood and arguably the greatest messaging machine in the history of all time – how are we losing, what is essentially a messaging battle to folks halfway across the world that are operating on a shoe sting budget. And so I think to counter what they are doing, we need to up our social media game,” Mathur said.
And while Mathur had the US government on board, he anticipated a hard time getting an influential comedy group to publicly mock ISIS. “This is a risky ask, when you ask someone to make a video that criticizes ISIS or some other terrorist group, that’s a lot to ask because you’re asking them to put themselves out there and put themselves potentially in harm’s way and no one wants to attract the ire of a terrorist group like ISIS,” Mathur said.
“I never really found there to be a risk in it because I’m Muslim anyways,” laughed Banatwalla. “And I’ve made all the terrorist jokes about having like four wives, and blowing yourself up, and haram, and not drinking, and pork and all of that and I’ve never really felt any problems.”
So, to Mathur’s surprise, none of the comedians had any reservations, despite knowing the inherent risk involved. Mathur even recalled one comedian explaining that, while they usually get approached by brands to sell soda or potato chips, they’ve never had the opportunity to do something as important as fighting terrorism.
“I didn’t think what we were most afraid of was the terrorist implication but the fact that terrorism and religion is unfortunately connected. So we were most worried about was the pushback in terms of like ‘why are you generalizing it in terms of this religion.’ That’s where we found it difficult but otherwise a joke is a joke is a joke,” Rao explained. “But it’s cool man, I think it’s great that the government, some government is taking action and trying to do it it in a very different way and that’s what we like about it,” Rao said.
“I Want to Quit ISIS” was not the only video funded in India by the US government through Mathur’s program, but the State Department was hesitant to discuss these types of programs further with one official saying, “we fund these types of things all around the world and we don’t always want people to know about them.”
While Mathur begins searching for funding to export his project to other countries with large Muslim populations, he’s hopeful the Trump Administration will see the value in continuing this program. “I do think the new administration is uniquely poised to appreciate exactly what we’re doing and that’s because who better understands and who better appreciates how effective social media and entertainment can be in spreading a message than President Trump,” Mathur said.
Read more: http://ift.tt/2tloXtm
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Building a Global Network
In my network, I am that person and these were actual questions I was recently asked. I am always happy to share the information with my people and by extension, their people. I have been fortunate enough to benefit from other people's networks and want to keep up the transfer of tips, people, and assistance. As we say on the Internationality In the Know page, there is nothing that can take place of first-hand knowledge and suggestions from people who live there. I am not a digital native, so I built my core network the old fashion way—meeting and exchanging addresses and phone numbers of people on each of my trips. In 1997, I studied in Bahia, Brazil. There I met a group of fellow American college students. Twenty years later, we are spread across the globe but still in relatively consistent contact offering support for each other's projects and efforts to continue to actively participate in changing the world. From this small network, I met around thirty other globalcreators. Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. Jane Howard When Friendster was the network, I remember a girlfriend from middle school describing it to me over drinks as a guilty pleasure for "shameless self-promotion." I registered as soon as I got home. The ability to reconnect with people from my past was amazing. I found someone I went to school with in Abidjan in the late 80s, another guy I had met on an 8th-grade graduation cruise around the Caribbean, and of course the people from my burgeoning globalcreating network. As more social networks came online, I found myself living and commuting between Buenos Aires and Lima. My international network was growing in the professional and social arenas.Around this time I was also invited to join ASmallWorld and Internations, both social networks with large global footprints, invitation only membership, and constraints on how you can contact members to whom you are not connected. My slick skinning of MySpace pages, blog about African fashion designers, and work as the public-facing representative for a web development firm meant I was constantly getting friend requests from around the world. While my natural inclination was to reject anyone I didn't personally know, I learned to advantages of reviewing people's profiles instead of summarily rejecting them. Around this time I was also invited to join ASmallWorld and Internations, both social networks with large global footprints, invitation only membership, and constraints on how you can contact members to whom you are not connected. Expanding my online networks to include the requests from people I didn't personally know but whom shared a connection and industry helped to propel my career forward. I received opportunities to promote a fashion show in Swaziland; to create and stock an online store with ethically sourced people positive products from across Africa; set up a girls scholarship program funded by Qatari youth, rebrand a community outreach program in Palestine, design a line of Black Greek apparel in China and Peru, work on a film in Cape Verde, speak at conferences, and numerous others which have kept my life interesting. Building and maintaining an international network is the key to globalcreating, I agree with Florence Adu, an Internationality member, who said, "Use your network to help open doors." While you may apply blind to a volunteer opportunity or job that you see published on this site, it doesn't hurt to look up the organization on LinkedIn to see if you already know someone who is working there. Take a look at a visual representation and analysis of your network using tools from Socialab. My Social Lab Scores Effective Size: 92.53% Shows most of my contacts to not know each other. Network Constraint: 88.52% Shows my network spans different groups. It's not only work that can expand your base. Activity groups like Hash House Harriers or Capoeira Angola Center both have strong international networks. Friends from these groups describe how they can land in a new city and have an instant people. Perhaps for me, it was slightly easier, I have a fair amount of childhood friends who moved abroad. The number increases when speaking of college and including those who did a study abroad, participated in an international volunteer program, taught English overseas; or simply chose to be expats. If you don't have this existing base, I encourage you to join our Facebook community where through discussion with our multi-national members you can begin to build your own globalcreating network. By the way, I was able to successfully answer all the opening queries with the help of a few friends. Click to Post
#amsallword#argentina#asw#brazil#buenos aires#Cape Verde#Capoeira Angola Center#facebook#friendster#guam#Hash House Harriers#internations#lima#martinique#myspace#networking#peru#socialab#study abroad
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Laughing at ISIS to defeat them
Mumbai, India (CNN)Deep in the outskirts of Mumbai, India, tucked away in a small conference room among dozens of buildings known as Bollywood’s “Film City,” the US government is implementing a unique, and until now, unknown counterterrorism program aimed at diminishing the online influence of terror groups like ISIS – by making fun of them.
Standing next to a white board that reads “Fighting Terror With Comedy,” Mathur is joined by East India Comedy, a wildly popular collective of stand-up comedians and sketch writers based in Mumbai, who, like the other comedians in attendance, have been invited by the US government to participate due to their influential social media accounts and online presence.
They screen and discuss East India Comedy’s latest video sketch, “I Want to Quit ISIS,” which spoofs one man’s attempt to quit the terrorist group. It is set in a boring, run-of-the-mill business office, where the man’s efforts to quit the terror group turn into a bureaucratic nightmare as he’s forced to debate his boss on the tenets of Islam, all while artfully highlighting the contradictions of ISIS’ ideology and methods.
“The basic premise was the corporatization of the terrorism process and just the idea of terrorists wearing blue shirts and ties and going to an office to get work done was what the idea was and I think just like every other brainstorming process it just changes and changes,” Kunal Rao, a member of East India Comedy, said.
Uploaded to their YouTube and social media accounts just a few weeks earlier, the five and a half minute video had already been viewed well over one million times by their fans and followers in South Asia and despite tackling such a thorny subject, it was one of their most well-received sketches. Compare that to the number of views the State Department’s previous videos garnered in an effort to dissuade those interested in joining ISIS and it’s clear Mathur’s approach has been more successful, at least in terms of getting eyeballs.
“There are a few government controlled YouTube accounts that put out anti-ISIS videos, the Global Engagement Center by the State Department has put out about 42 videos in the last couple of years but you know, they’ve gotten a combined total of about 55,000 views,” Mathur said. Most of the State Department videos have hundreds or a few thousands of views, although there are some exceptions. One video that pairs extremely violent and graphic content with irony has close to a million views, but that video is also several years old.
“So, if you’re a 16-year-old kid in Islamabad, what would you rather watch: an exciting action movie that looks like “Call of Duty” or a PSA from Uncle Sam? You would watch the action movie,” says Mathur of videos put out by ISIS as opposed to the others from the government. “But what if we could fight back with our own entertaining videos that didn’t look like government PSA’s because they weren’t made by the government, they were made by local, social media superstars that local people actually looked up to and enjoy watching.”
The journey from stand-up comedians to counterterrorism advocates began the previous month when East India Comedy members received a mysterious phone call from their manager informing them that officials from the State Department had invited them to lunch at the U.S. Consulate and wanted to have a discussion about counterterrorism. “We had no idea why they were calling comedians,” Rao said. “It was free lunch, that’s why we went,” recalled his colleague Azeem Banatwalla.
It was at this meeting that they met Mathur, who had pitched his idea to former counterterrorism colleagues in Washington, DC. Keen to see it implemented, they helped him find funding through the little known, and currently unfilled, Office of the Special Representative to the Muslim Community that existed during the Obama Administration. They’re hoping the success of their video could lead to more videos in other countries through different government agencies.
Asked about the program a spokesman for the State Department offered this comment:
“The Department of State continues to engage with Muslim communities and leaders both domestically and internationally on key foreign policy priorities through bilateral, multilateral, and civil society outreach. We are in the process of exploring and evaluating ways to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency, including optimizing the impact of available resources.”
“It was a really strange meeting because no one in that room ever thought they would ever be in a room with the other people,” Mathur recalled. “I said you guys ought to be working with local social influencers in places like India, Pakistan, Indonesia, where there is a large Muslim populations and create videos that are actually cool and are entertaining that people would want to watch that also, kind of subtlety, counter the narrative of these extremist groups and reveal how absurd their ideologies are. And the State Department, to their credit, was open to this idea.”
Home to approximately 175 million Muslims and a population that has the second most cell phone users and the fourth most internet users in the world, according to the CIA World Factbook, the cultural conditions in India made it an attractive location for a pilot program for the State Department to test this idea. But these same conditions are also what makes the Muslim population in India an attractive recruiting pool for ISIS, although Indian officials pride themselves on the country’s pluralism and democratic values that they believe are perfect antidotes for violent extremism.
Having already recruited tens of thousands of young Muslims from dozens of countries around the world, ISIS dramatically transformed the strategy of terrorist propaganda. Long gone are the days of Osama bin Laden taping a message for the world to see three months after being filmed in a dimly lit cave surrounded by bodyguards with AK-47’s casually propped up around the room.
And while the Muslim community in India has not yet experienced having hordes of its youth eager to go fight in Syria, like many other Asian or European countries, the bullet holes that still riddle the facade of the Leopold Cafe, one of the many targets of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed more than 150 people, are a constant reminder that India will never be immune from terrorist attacks.
ISIS knows their target audience and they appeal to it as any other company or brand would hocking their products in the West. By using slick imagery, fast-paced music, and action sequences, ISIS has been able to best government efforts to dissuade young people from joining.
“I thought, how are we, the country that invented Madison Avenue and Hollywood and arguably the greatest messaging machine in the history of all time – how are we losing, what is essentially a messaging battle to folks halfway across the world that are operating on a shoe sting budget. And so I think to counter what they are doing, we need to up our social media game,” Mathur said.
And while Mathur had the US government on board, he anticipated a hard time getting an influential comedy group to publicly mock ISIS. “This is a risky ask, when you ask someone to make a video that criticizes ISIS or some other terrorist group, that’s a lot to ask because you’re asking them to put themselves out there and put themselves potentially in harm’s way and no one wants to attract the ire of a terrorist group like ISIS,” Mathur said.
“I never really found there to be a risk in it because I’m Muslim anyways,” laughed Banatwalla. “And I’ve made all the terrorist jokes about having like four wives, and blowing yourself up, and haram, and not drinking, and pork and all of that and I’ve never really felt any problems.”
So, to Mathur’s surprise, none of the comedians had any reservations, despite knowing the inherent risk involved. Mathur even recalled one comedian explaining that, while they usually get approached by brands to sell soda or potato chips, they’ve never had the opportunity to do something as important as fighting terrorism.
“I didn’t think what we were most afraid of was the terrorist implication but the fact that terrorism and religion is unfortunately connected. So we were most worried about was the pushback in terms of like ‘why are you generalizing it in terms of this religion.’ That’s where we found it difficult but otherwise a joke is a joke is a joke,” Rao explained. “But it’s cool man, I think it’s great that the government, some government is taking action and trying to do it it in a very different way and that’s what we like about it,” Rao said.
“I Want to Quit ISIS” was not the only video funded in India by the US government through Mathur’s program, but the State Department was hesitant to discuss these types of programs further with one official saying, “we fund these types of things all around the world and we don’t always want people to know about them.”
While Mathur begins searching for funding to export his project to other countries with large Muslim populations, he’s hopeful the Trump Administration will see the value in continuing this program. “I do think the new administration is uniquely poised to appreciate exactly what we’re doing and that’s because who better understands and who better appreciates how effective social media and entertainment can be in spreading a message than President Trump,” Mathur said.
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