#that she called at least four different people including her supervisor over to help

[greatfay]

since ur answering asks and shit can u explain what u meant by generational differences in communication

Damn it’s like 2015 tumblr when my inbox used to be WET. So if you’re talking about the controversial opinions post, YES, like I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that generational divides aren’t real (because they aren’t, they’re arbitrary) and distract us from real problems and yes they paint past generations as collectively bigoted when Civil Rights protestors in the 60s (who are in their 70s and 80s now) are mirrors to BLM protestors today, who could be of any age, but the most vocal and famous (at least online, especially irt to the founders, like Patrisse Cullors who is 37.

But how we communicate is sooooo different. I really point to the Internet and Social Media as a major influence in how younger millennials (more Tom Hollands and less Seth Rogans—see even there, I feel like there are two different types of Millennials) and Gen Zrs/Zoomers and even Generation Alpha behave and communicate. We live in a world where we grew up either knowing right out the gate or discovering the hard way that what we say and do has permanence, the kind of permanence that prior generations have never experienced until today. The dumb things kids have been saying since forever can now follow them... forever. We have an inherent understanding of how online spaces work. Compare that to, idk, let’s say you posted on your Facebook (for the first time in 18 months) “All these big and bad grown ass Senators going after actual child Greta Gerwig lol ok, you’re so brave for attacking a CHILD over climate change” and then your aunt, who’s turning “forty-fifteen” in May replies to your post with “So happy to see my passionate niece! Much love from us, hope you’re doing well. Paul is doing great, waiting on his screening results. Tell your mom I said we miss her, we need to get together, we forgive her for last Christmas.”

Like... ok there’s a lot going on there, but your hypothetical aunt is oversharing on a publicly accessible post. And even with the most strict of privacy settings, she’s oversharing where your other Facebook friends (which may include classmates, coworkers, etc.) can see. But she’s saying things that would only be appropriate in a 1-on-1 conversation. This Aunt doesn’t have an understanding of such boundaries, she’s not as technologically literate and hasn’t grown up in a world of Virtual Space, she still gets most of her news from TV, she trusts what a reporter on Channel 4 will read off a script more than what actual video footage of an incident might reveal on Twitter, and she has no clue that she’s been sharing her location data with every post she makes.

There’s such a huge difference. I think it even affects how we experience and express stress and frustration. I think growing up partially in online spaces has made me more accustomed to conflict and consequence-free arguing than someone who never had to worry about that. I’ve been exposed so much to harassment and bullying, triangulating and echo chambers in forums and threads, and vastly opposing point of views at such an early age that it’s had an effect on how I see the world. Compare this to a customer I helped two weeks ago who was looking for a specific type of supplement for children. I found it for her, I handed her exactly what she was looking for, even though her description of the product actually matched several different products; to make sure I’d done my job thoroughly and that she leaves happy and satisfied and doesn’t bother me again, I then show her more products that match her description so that she knows she has options. And she proceeds to freak out, saying “NO, NO, I’M LOOKING FOR [X] AND IT HAS TO BE [XYZ]” and when I say freak out, she looked stressed and PANICKED. And being a retail employee wears you down bit by bit, and add COVID on top of it and little shit like this makes you snap, sometimes. So I have to cut her off like “Why are you screaming and freaking out, jfc you’re holding what you said you wanted. It’s in your hands. I gave you what you wanted, I’m just showing you more things.”

That customer is not an exception, she’s not a unique case. She’s representative of a frightening percentage of her generation, the kids who watched Grease and The Breakfast Club and Ghost in theaters when they were originally released. This is how they communicate and process information. She could not, for some reason, register that her need had been fulfilled, and defaulted to an extreme emotional response when given new and different information.

I’ve yet to deal with someone younger than 35 act the same way, the exceptions being the kids of very wealthy people at my new job who reek of privilege I gag when they walk in—but even they are like *shrugs* “ok whatever” and understanding when there’s something I can’t do for them.

Me: “sorry, we are totally out of that one in your size, but I can order it for you, it’s 2-3 day shipping at no cost to you and we ship it straight to your house”

A rich, white, attractive 22-year-old who’s had access to organic food, a rigorous dermatologist, and financial security since she was born: “mmm... sure, I’ll order it”

A 47-year-old of any socioeconomic background, of any race, in the same situation: “AHHHHHHHHHHH”

I just think it’s crazy how three generations of kids and young adults raised in a world where everything moves so much faster, where knowledge and entertainment and communication can be gathered so much faster, are often so much more polite and patient and understanding. Yesterday I told an older man (mid-50s) whose native tongue is the same as mine, as clearly and succinct as possible, that what he’s looking for is “in aisle 4.” He proceeded to repeat back, “Aisle 7?” four time before I dropped everything to show him what he needed in aisle 4, despite his insistence that he didn’t need me to walk him there. 4 and 7 sound nothing alike in English. There’s just something going on up there 🧠 that’s different.

Oh, other generational divides!!! We have different approaches to labor and working. Totally different! I’m a “young” millennial where I’m almost Gen Z, and I’ve noticed an awful trend among my demographic where people actually brag about working 90 hour work weeks. Or brag about how they skip breaks and live on-call to get the job done for “the hustle” like this “hustle, become a millionaire by 30″ culture that’s dominated these kids, idk where tf that came from. Like why are you proud of being a wage slave, getting taken advantage of by your millionaire/billionaire overlords. Compare this to my mother’s generation (she’s a borderline Genius X’er, she and her best friend were a year too young to watch Grease when it came out and had a random older woman buy tickets for her; she went to Prince concerts, took photos of him, then sold the photos on buttons at school, that’s her culture and teenage experience), where she’s insistent on her rights and entitlements as an employee, and these things she instilled me: “whatchu mean they didn’t schedule a break for you and you’re working 12 hrs today? oh no, you’re off, don’t answer your phone cuz you are NOT available!” There are Gen X’ers who entered the workforce at a time that America was drifting toward this corporate world, with more strictly defined regulations, roles, and understandings of labor rights (and also, let’s talk about how the 80s there was so much more attention on workplace harassment, misogyny and gender divides in wage gaps, etc. etc... not that much has changed, but at least it was talked about!). There are young people today who are taken advantage of because they aren’t as informed or don’t feel as secure and valuable enough to claim what belongs to them.

At the same time, those generations (Gen X and older) have a different viewpoint of hierarchies in the workplace and respect irt our direct supervisors. That’s how you get this blurring of boundaries between Work Life and one’s Personal Life that leads to common tropes in media written by their generations, where oh no! I’m having my boss over for dinner and the roast beef is still defrosting :O is such a “relatable thing” for them... meanwhile us younger generations are like I don’t even like that you know where I live, and if I see your 2017 Honda Civic pass my place one day, we’re going to have a problem. I think older generations have a different relationship with the word “Respect” than we do. Like, my grandma, who’s turning 87 (?) this year, and the other seniors in my area, they have a different concept of honor and an expectation of professional boundaries that I, and my mom and her generation, just don’t see (so then there’s something in common with Gen X’ers and the rest of us.) My dad grew up in a world where talking and acting like George Bailey and knocking on someone’s door with a big smile could get you a job, a job that could pay for college and rent no problem. My mom grew up in a world that demanded more prestige, where cover letters and references could get you into some cushy jobs if you’re persistent and ballsy enough. And I grew up in a world where potential employers literally don’t see your face when you apply unless they lurk on any social media profiles you have publicly available and they hold all the cards, and you need all those CVs and reference letters just to make minimum wage... so I feel like I am powerless in the face of such employers.

[jamielea81]

Just a Simple Lie

Chapter 4

Description: Having worked on small independent films for the better part of a decade, your friend tells you about an opening for a script supervisor with a large studio. Wanting to advance your career, you apply and get an interview. The only downside, they prefer to hire crew who are married. It’s just a simple lie, right?

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings: Cursing and drinking

A/N: This fic is simply for fun. I know nothing about the personal lives of the two actors in this series and mean no harm. I am also totally guessing regarding the studio talk. Comments, reblogs, and likes are always welcome.

Catch up with Chapter 3

Tomorrow was the start of a short break before the whole production moved to Vancouver for filming. You had been to Canada for work before, but that had always fallen in the summer or early fall. This would be your first time there during the winter months, but you weren’t worried. You were from the Midwest. You even had your own winter coat since you often went home for the holidays. It was already in your suitcase ready to go. Not that anything else was packed, but technically, you had almost two weeks to get it done.

Chris hadn’t come by since the day of the love scene with Maggie. Or rather the day he practiced his moves on you. Okay, so it had been one day, but still, he didn’t come by with your afternoon treat yesterday and you were a tad disappointed. During treat time as you dubbed it, the two of you would talk. It was nice. You had to admit, he was smooth and you pretty much had a full fledge crush on him at this point. But nothing could happen there. You were “engaged” and would be for the foreseeable future. Besides, he has such a charming presence, there was no doubt in your mind that he didn’t come off as flirty to everyone else as well.

It was nearing four and most people had closed up shop at the studio. Offices were cleaned up and you were told the soundstage was a well. Everything that was needed was packed in large crates bound for Vancouver. You had spent the majority of your day going over notes and polaroids of costumes. Any costumes that were shot in the interior scenes that also were being shot outdoors had to be accounted for. That’s when your meticulous notes came in handy. It was always the accessories that got left behind, but you were on hand to make sure that didn’t happen.  

You had popped into your office to grab Mr. Fern, your laptop, and your bag because you were finally on your way home. Just as you were about to shut the lights off, your phone dings with a text. Setting everything back on your desk, you dig out your phone and see you have a text from Chris.

Chris: Are you still at the studio?

You sat down in your chair and quickly replied.

Y/N: Just leaving. What’s up?

Chris: I’m going to stop by. Don’t leave.

Y/N: That sounds like a threat Evans.

Chris: …

Your fired off a text to Joanna to let her know you might be a few minutes late. The two of you were having a good old fashion sleep over to kick off your “winter break” as she liked to call it. Ian would still be home, but apparently, he was banished to the basement for the evening.

“Knock. Knock,” Chris says as he actually knocks on your open door.

“Hey you,” you answer.

He’s got one hand behind his back as he enters, but doesn’t sit.

“I, uh, got you something special.”

He seems nervous because he’s not exactly making eye contact and he’s fidgety. This is a strange turn of events because generally you’re the one that’s nervous around him.

“Oh, yeah?” you ask, leaning back further in your chair, clearly enjoying this side of Chris.

His arm moves from behind his back. Resting on a napkin is a snowman shaped sugar cookie with white frosting, black dots for eyes, and a blue hat.

You break out in a huge grin as he places the cookie in your open palm, before taking a seat in your other chair.

“Took me three bakeries before I found that. Sure, everyone has sugar cookies, but not frosted ones.” He seems to relax a little, rubbing his hands on his thighs before taking in your grin.

“Thank you. Really. This is such a nice surprise.” You place the cookie on your desk and then look back at Chris. “Is it bad I want to eat it right now?” you ask.

Chris shakes his head and laughs. “Please do.” Crossing his arms and looks at you pointedly.

You take a large bite and set the remaining cookie back on the napkin. It’s surgery and sweet with just a little bit of crunch. Shutting your eyes appreciation.

“Right for the head I see,” he says with a smirk.

You throw him a wink and lick your lips. “This.” You gesture to the cookie. “Is perfect.”

“Glad I could finally follow through on your demands,” he jokes.

You sit forward in your chair and lightly slap his knee with the back of your hand. “Demands,” you mutter shaking your head.

He chuckles but then straightens up.

“Can I talk to you about something?” he asks. He’s all serious all of a sudden.

“Sure. What’s up?” you asked.

“I just wanted to apologize for the other day,” he started. Your brow furrowed; the confusion evident on your face. “When you were helping me with that scene. I think I crossed a line. I know I crossed a line.” He looks down at his hands for a moment before looking up to meet your eyes. “Shouldn’t of point my hands on you. You’re engaged and it wasn’t right for me to hold you like that. You’re not an actress, so it’s different. I’m sorry.”

Apparently being shocked into silence was a real thing. How do you respond to that? It doesn’t help that he’s looking at you with sad eyes.

“Chris, honestly I didn’t think anything of it. We were working and sometimes actor need that  hands on if you will, visual to understand what is needed. Travis works in the industry, it’s not a big deal,” you explained.

He gave you a soft smile but remained quiet. You slapped his knee again and then leaned back in your chair.

“Quit being weird,” you said.

He faked a scoff which had you rolling your eyes. “Not being weird,” he pouted.

“We’re friends, right? At least I like to think of us as friends.”

Chris grabbed your hand and squeezed it. “We are,” he nodded his head.

 Despite being told Ian would be banished to the basement, he spent most of the night with you and Jo. She was still in the very early stages of her pregnancy, but that didn’t stop Ian from waiting on her hand and foot. You also took advantage of this new found man servant by asking for a fresh drink and snacks anytime he got up.

“You’re a stinker. You know, he’s going to get you back for this when he realizes I can get my own water,” Joanna said.

“Oh, I’m sure. I’ll just buy him a beer and all will be forgiven.”

“You know him too well.”

Shrugging your shoulders, you grabbed the remote from her lap and changed the channel until you found the Food Network channel.

“If we keep watching crap like this, I’m going to be as big as a house before I even officially start showing,” Joanna snarked.

“It’s either this or Bravo and I know you hate that more. Pick your poison babe,” you said.

 The short winter break from filming included lots of sleeping in, cleaning, and shopping. It also found you with your hair back to its normal shade. Visiting the mall for the third time this week wasn’t part of the plan, but you needed a few cozy sweaters for those long days on set. Luckily you were able find plenty of options, even in California. Along with the sweaters, you purchased a pair of cute but warm winter boots and a few pairs of warm socks. Somehow it all fit in your suitcase and carryon bag. Nothing like waiting last minute to pack. Your flight was in the morning and you were feeling unprepared. All your bills were set to auto withdrawal from your account and Mr. Fern was dropped at Joanna and Ian’s yesterday. You just couldn’t shake that feeling that you were forgetting something.

 The studio set everyone up in a total of two hotels. Monica was your roommate which you were fine with. The two of you were kind of friends. Neither of you had hung out outside of the job but you got along and had similar working styles. Work friends. The two of you were work friends. You had heard but didn’t know for sure that Keanu and Chris had both elected to rent houses for the duration of filming.

Filming was expected to wrap in two months, maybe a bit more. You knew you’d be in Vancouver for a month and a half. David was convinced it would be two months. Those with families or extra cash flow would go home when there were three day breaks which was set to happen twice during your time there, but you would be sticking it out. Not that you couldn’t afford to fly home, but rather you wanted to enjoy a new city, even if it was covered in snow.

After dropping your bags in your room for the next six weeks or so, you took a shower, dug out your boots and gloves and decided to find somewhere to eat. Monica hadn’t arrived yet so you were heading out on your own. The first meeting wasn’t until the next afternoon, so she decided to fly out later in the day.

Stopping at the front desk, they handed you a map of the area and circled a few restaurants they recommended that were in walking distance. You decided on a coffee shop that served hot panini sandwiches as well as wine and beer.

The coffee shop was rather large, definitely larger than it looked from the outside. Several small two-seater tables sat side by side with a mix of chairs that did not go together, but somehow worked. The shop had rows of windows on two sides of the large room. Both sides were lined with bench seating littered with colorful throw pillows and a large bookcase next to the door. You would keep this place in mind for when you needed an escape from the confines of the hotel.

Deciding on a turkey with swiss along with a local brew, you waited by the pickup window for your name to be called. It only took a few minutes for your order to be up, so you didn’t have to wait too long. The sandwich was good as well as the beer, so you know you would be back. Your meal came with a bag of kettle chips that you stuck in your purse to snack on later. Waving goodbye to the staff you decided to head back to the hotel to unpack.

Opening the door to your room you were surprised to see Maggie rather than Monica.

“Crap. Did they give me the wrong room number?” you asked.

She stifled a laugh and shook her head, getting up from the wingback chair in the corner. “No, I’m just waiting for Monica to get out of the bathroom. We’re heading to dinner,” Maggie said.

Oh. Apparently, you’re not the only one to make friends with the talent.

A second later Monica came out of the bathroom with her makeup bag in hand.

“Oh hey,” she said.

“Welcome to Canada,” you said with a smile.

Yeah, this wasn’t awkward at all.

“We’re going to grab something for dinner. Do you want to come with?” she asked.

“I just ate. Thanks though. You two go have fun,” you replied.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m totally stuffed.”

Maggie waved goodbye as she opened the door while her and Monica slipped out.

This is what you wanted though. It was part of your rules to get that fulltime contract with the studio. You’re not here to make friends. Chris didn’t count. It wasn’t like the two of you were hanging out outside of work. Your office didn’t count as a true hangout, so he totally got a pass. Besides, you wouldn’t see him again once filming wrapped. So, Monica and Maggie can be friends, that just takes the pressure off of you. Yep, you are totally okay with this.

 After the large meeting where everyone was required to attend, all you wanted to do was find your office, or cubical rather, and get organized. David had other plans. After setting your notebooks and pens on your desk, David was at your cubical wall. The not having an actual door was going to take getting used to. Technically it was nicer than an office cubical, it was twice the size and they were spaced out with large potted plants in between for “privacy”.

“Alright, grab your bag, we are out of here!” David says, arms crossed, leaning on your cubical wall.

You gave him a questioning look, not budging from your chair. “I’m sorry, what now?”

“We are going out for drinks. I suppose we’ll eat too.”

Now you were really intrigued.

“Does your wife know you’re taking me out?” you say with a raised brow.

He laughs nervously and then clears his throat. “Let me rephrase that. You and I will be joining others for drinks. Now, lets go,” he says clapping his hands together.

“David, I’m tired and I just want to get settled before tomorrow.”

“We all have a late call time, you’ll have plenty of time tomorrow to get set up and settled. We’re here for the long haul kid,” he said.

“Kid, pfft,” you echoed.

“The car’s waiting. Chop. Chop,” he says with a smile.

 Three drinks later, you were plenty relaxed. The group at the bar was larger than you anticipated. Besides you and David, there were couple of writers, a few from wardrobe, a couple of the camera operators, and Monica, who brought Maggie. The person you weren’t expecting to see when you were at the bar grabbing round four for you and David was Chris and his PA Tyler. He walked in with a hooded sweatshirt and Bruins ballcap down low, but he was still easy to spot.

You shuffled your way back to the table, two beers in hand.

“That for me?” Chris asked.

“Shouldn’t you be buying me a drink Evans?” you sassed.

He squeezed in across from you, others scooting down to make room. He takes off his hat, dropping it on the table and then runs his hands through his hair.

“How about I get next round?” he asked.

Nodding your head, you gave him a wink.

  Maybe you shouldn’t have taken Chris up on that fifth round because you were soundly very talkative. At least you weren’t a grumpy drunk, but learning to sit quietly and let others talk would probably aid you in the long wrong.

Monica was talking about the last guy she dated. Something about how he had to see her every single night. It appeared to be a funny story because everyone was laughing and she apparently had no shame about her love life. And at that point, you lost your damn mind.

“Ughhh,” you groaned. “I haven’t gotten laid in so long.”

Did you just die? Is that your body floating from above you right now? It has to be.

You look up from your drink to see all eyes are on you. Maggie giggles and David lets out a low whistle. Chris’ eyebrows are raised and his mouth is hanging open.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

“Aren’t you engaged?” Monica questions. She says it quietly, but everyone is looking at you, so you know they heard.

“Yeahhhh,” your drunk self spits out. “I just meant that he was working when we were on break, so we never saw each other.” You shrug your shoulders and grab you glass taking a long drink. In reality it’s been more than eight months, so it does feel like forever.

Monica laughs and pushes on your shoulder. “Oh no, you haven’t had sex for two weeks. That’s such a long time,” she rolls her eyes.

You catch the giggles at that point but it seems to do the trick as conversations pick up. You can’t help but avoid Chris’ eyes for the remainder of the night.

Here you are on day two in Vancouver breaking all your rules. Drinking with co-workers and getting too personal. You really needed to rein it in.

Tag List: If you are crossed off, Tumblr won’t let me tag you @tanelle83 @pinknerdpanda @allaboutthebooz @estillion14 @panicfob @patzammit @heartislubbingdubbing @collinsstanharbour @twittytelly @thefandomzoneisdangerous @linki-locks11 @mywinterwolf @ab-baybay @rda1989 @impalaimages @jesseswartzwelder @rainbowkisses31 @chrisevansforever @southerngracela @chrisevansfanfic @zsuzstyina @peach-acid @grtchn @hista-girl @trynnabemultifandom @symonlyjen5 @mrshiddleston @tfandtws @xxloki81xx @heyyouwiththeassbutt @denisemarieangelina​ @evanlys19 @cheeseburgersstuff @linki-locks11 @evemej @whymalu​

[hellyeahomeland]

“Deception Indicated”: an HYH recap

[The very final season of this show really does seem the perfect time to kick off a new series on this blog! Over the years I’ve expressed my dislike of recap culture, so I don’t know why I think this is a good idea. But I do! My goal here is to offer something a bit more light-hearted than Director’s Chair, a bit broader than the extremely niche Things Carrie Wore This Week, and much less time-consuming than listening to a 1-hour podcast. Let me know what you think! --Sara]

Our final season opens with Carrie, sleepless in bed, recounting some truly horrific memories of her time in capture. How does one describe this? She screams “not the coat, not the coat!” presumably talking about a straitjacket. She has what I can only describe as an imaginary orgasm, surrounded by wooden figurines to which she whispers, “don’t be scared!” Are we on the set of Girl, Interrupted? I have to believe this is the footage Claire talked about filming in 2018 that never made it into the final cut of “Paean to the People.” It’s all very…. wtf. I really don’t need it in my life.

Carrie has a mini anxiety attack (episode count: 1), because honestly who wouldn’t. She’s in Landstuhl Medical Center. Which is where Brody was before they brought him home in the pilot, and where Quinn was before Saul and Carrie effectively killed him too. ~memories~

Carrie asks for a half of a Lorazepam before returning back to bed. Apparently she’s seen our Twitter bio and feels the same! 

We then get the rarest of Homeland occurrences: a montage! This montage has EVERYTHING! Carrie running, Carrie bun, Carrie getting her blood pressure taken, Carrie wearing an oversize sweater, Carrie going to meet Doug who is not Doug.

Instead it’s some hard ass CIA man Jim, who is Doug’s supervisor, believes Carrie is a Russian agent, and also apparently can’t read her file because he is asking her the same questions she’s already been asked 439 times. Three things:

1) This scene reminds me so much of a point in “Game On,” when Carrie is trying to get out of the psychiatric hospital and does her very best “I’m so grateful and agreeable and kind” act—which is an act, but also not really an act? She declines water, and makes small talk with Jim, and actually attempts a smile.

2) This scene also has a strong callback to the scene in the pilot where Carrie is questioning Brody at Langley. It’s intercut with flashbacks, similar to Brody with Nazir, and most importantly has a defining air of “hmm what is actually going on?”

3) Carrie sighs and sucks in her teeth at least 76 times. I LOVE YOU, CARRIE!!

Carrie is understandably pissed at Jim’s accusations but we don’t sit with that for too long because now we’re in Qatar, with Saul. He is still, for some unknown reason, the National Security Advisor to Beau Bridges. There is a scene where Saul explains what’s going on to a group of journalists and it has so much exposition and information-dumping in it it’s kind of admirable.

I had to watch this twice to understand what was happening but it goes like this: America is helping facilitate peace talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban, because it would really like to get out of Afghanistan after 20 years. But no one really trusts anyone else, and everyone is still pissed at everyone for literally everything that’s happened in the last half century. So yeah, things are going great! And this episode has TWO references to the embassy attack in Islamabad in season four, in case we’d forgotten (how could I ever).

Then the Afghan VP G’ulom  is like FUCK THIS and calls a surprise press conference and says they’ll never agree to giving up Taliban POWs and don’t you know that Afghanistan is a lion? The dude who plays G’ulom has probably the best voice of any actor I’ve ever heard. The way he says “lions” over and over gives me chills.

So now Saul is like, hmmm what do I do?… Oh, I know, my homie Carrie! She’s just the person for this task in a war zone. Also the last time I asked her to do something like this it ended very well for everyone involved.

Saul goes to Germany to say exactly this and Doug and Jim look at him like he’s basically crazy, which he is. But Carrie is all in, but she’s still basically crazy too.

MEANWHILE, Max is also en route to Afghanistan for a mission. That’s right, Max gets his own band of hot Marines this year too! At least one of them looks like he would have been on Friday Night Lights 10 years ago. Mr. FNL thinks the mission is bullshit because it’s very dangerous and he has no idea what’s going on. That makes two of us, Mr. FNL! Also there is a hat.

The next day Carrie is in Kabul, being very Cool Girl with Mike Dunne (good lord I wish his name was Nick Dunne just for funsies), the Kabul Chief of Station. He introduces her to Jenna, who is…. both deer-in-headlights and also trying desperately to be Cool Girl too? This CIA culture is toxic. There is a glorious scene where Jenna is taking Carrie to her room and Carrie is forced to be in an elevator with her and is this the first time Carrie’s been alone with another woman who’s not a blood relative in years? Carrie’s annoyance is palpable. She tells Jenna to stop whining and stop taking no for an answer. The Carrie Mathison way™!

Tasneem smokes a cigarette while waiting for Saul, and it is glorious. I actually screamed! Saul apologizes for his earlier comments blaming her for Americans dying in the Islamabad embassy attack. In true Saul fashion, he uses this as a segue to accuse her of tanking the current peace talks, implying that he needs an “adult” at the table and GOD WHY DON’T YOU JUST WANT PEACE?? Tasneem is like, HOLD UP!!! You left the region when the USSR left, then you came roaring back after 9/11. Also, we fucking live here! We know that if the US leaves now, the Afghan state—WHICH BY THE WAY YOU BUILT—will collapse and the country will enter into a civil war, and all of this is not PEACEFUL the last time I checked. Saul just kind of stares at her, because she’s actually right and he knows it.

Cut to Carrie, doing all of her most “old school” spy tricks, including: something with a dial tone that this millennial does not understand, dressing up as someone else, flicking on lights as some sort of code, exiting through the kitchen, and riding a dusty motorcycle. I know it was a stunt double but Carrie just revealing her ability to ride a motorcycle after 8 years is thrilling. It’s like when she showed up in Tehran in season three with different hair and spoke French fluently.

She goes to meet an old asset, who drives her to meet another old asset, who it turns out is dead. Killed five months ago for being a traitor to the Americans. Carrie has another anxiety attack (episode count: 2) as it dawns on her that she probably gave up his name in the Russian prison.

Back on the Afghan mountains, we finally learn just what the hell Max is doing. It involves a decoy rock that has some sort of computer or listening device under it. Apparently they have no way to tap into Haqqani’s phone and Max is gonna save the day and get that fixed. We have to stan.

Carrie gets back to her hotel room and Mike Dunne is waiting for her, very concerned dad. Doesn’t Mike know Carrie already has a fake dad who feigns concern about her well-being? Their conversation goes something like this: 

Mike: don’t give me that ask for forgiveness, not permission crap!  Carrie: lmao dude, I don’t need your permission. I am here because Saul asked me, no one even knows who you are.  Mike: we have THREE TEAMS looking for you.  Carrie: I could not give fewer fucks.  Mike: ...  Carrie: ...But, by the way, how real is Russian/Taliban cooperation? Like… do they share advisors… or what about intelligence? Say, intelligence given up by former CIA officers while in a Russian prison?

Oh, she leaves that last part out. I’m struck here both by how bad of a liar Carrie is and also how good of a liar she is. She brings up Russia for some unknown reason (doesn’t she know that looks really shady?) and then nods her head, does the “oh, I see” routine, eyes darting… but then comes up with a perfectly believable cover story. There is a strange moment where Carrie and Mike Dunne both sort of agree to drop it and I don’t know why but I had this palpable feeling that there is way more to this relationship from pre-season four days (I guess that means there was a shift from concerned dad to ... something else). After he leaves, Carrie has another panic attack (episode count: 3).

Max and Mr. FNL and the rest of the crew have finally made their way back down the mountain but the hardest part remains. There is an excruciating sequence where, one by one, they make their way across this exposed field. Eventually the Taliban fighters do see them. There are gunshots but somehow, miraculously, they all make it out alive. Mr. FNL says Max is their “frosted lucky charm” and Max only stares at them because the mission? It was actually a success. They’re all up in Haqqani’s comms now.

The next morning, Carrie and Jenna are at the meeting to see G'ulom. Jenna—unwisely!—asks if Carrie is ok. She knows from Mike she was out late last night. Carrie gives a terse “I’m fine” before mentioning, oh by the way you know you’re just gonna wait outside of this meeting like a silly chaperone, right? Did Mike tell you that too? 

Again, she doesn’t actually say this, it’s just coded Carrie language, dripping with passive aggression. I suppose when you’re brought up in a toxic, misogynist work culture, you’re probably trained to believe that every woman who is nice to you just wants something from you. (And Carrie may be right but my God is it amusing/depressing to see Jenna, dejected, plop herself down and sit silently with her hands in her lap.)

Carrie paces and does her trademark Brody finger tapping outside G’ulom’s office… when out walks a Russian delegation. Including one Mr. Yevgeny Gromov. WHO LITERALLY WINKS AT HER. I have to say I find Costa Ronin extremely hot, 75% of that attraction being that he wears a turtleneck 50% of the time. 

His presence sparks a memory in Carrie: he was the one she implored to stay in the Russian prison, to not leave her here (was this a shock to anyone else, or just Carrie). She goes all wide-eyed, starts breathing heavily, and has her fourth panic attack of the episode. Cut to black.

[queenangst]

Do you have any tips for people who want to study animation and be an animator?

hi, nonnie!

so it’s not really a secret that i’m an animation student, but i also want to put a disclaimer that this is my first year in college, and also my first time really learning to animate. 

for more information before i jump into it: i study an art & technology degree with a pathway in animation (with some game knowledge) at a public university. i will also say that animation at my program, because it is different from a private art school, i’m not technically in the animation pathway — it’s something that you learn foundations for the first three semesters, and apply to get into your desired pathway (animation or games) to focus. 

i have learned a LOT since i started school, though, so… let’s go! 

art school is not the only optioni thought i was going to go to art school, but i really couldn’t afford it without taking out a loan and putting myself in debt. please, please keep in mind that there are other options to learn animation - many public universities have related/similar programs, and i honestly wouldn’t go to art school if i couldn’t afford it. do your research.

there are going to be people who are better/know more than you. when i started off the year, i knew nothing about 3d animation or any part of the 3d animation pipeline. i’d never touched maya before, or any of the programs in my school lab. like me, there were kids who’d never done anything like this before (about ½ the class), and there were kids who’d been modelling and animating for years. there are kids who did animation programs in high school, or who had opportunities like having animation mentors. my school district did not.you’re going to feel behind. you’re going to look at these people with really cool projects, and who already know how to animate, and who do lots of crazy cool things. and you’re going to meet people whose relative is working in the animation industry. regardless of your skill level, there’s going to be someone who seems to be ahead of you. that’s okay. you’re learning. 

don’t commit right away (to one job/focus).this is a big one. when you go in to study animation for the first time, there are going to be a TON of different positions and interests. don’t focus on one thing and lose yourself in it. try everything. try modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting and compositing. there are people i know who are already like “i want to be a character animator at blizzard” and that’s cool, and totally possible, but don’t limit yourself! you might have a knack for environment design, or maybe, like one of my professors you really want to be a lighter but after you get hired, your supervisor goes “you suck at lighting… but hey, you’re really good at grooming do hair and fur instead.” don’t do that!  there’s also a growing demand for generalists, which is something i think i might be interested in myself. being a cg generalist means you focus in one thing (ie lighting) but you have knowledge of other parts of animation as well. that means that when companies hire you, you might light a model, but then maybe they’re short a texturer, and then you can pop up and go “HEY i can texture!”

use your resources. please. once you get into college, oftentimes your school has stuff for you. that’s included in your tuition. use it! for me, there are whole courses on lynda and the linkedin e-learning thing. youtube. vimeo. books. find things that are available to you and squeeze every last drop out of it. 

get involved. this is the biggest takeaway from being in animation. you could be a great animator, you could be technically really, really good. but nothing matters if you don’t put yourself out there. look up local animation events. i recently went to one, and i spent an entire day listening to industry professionals such as mark simon, the storyboard artist for the walking dead. talk to people! ask them questions! i actually connected with an artist at airship syndicate who was at the event - she’s the daughter of an art teacher i went to studio with for years, and meeting her and talking to her was really nice. and i have her number. and if you have the chance to meet someone, talk to them. don’t be scared. this is your chance to get your foot in the door, or your chance to get advice from someone who’s actually made it. talk. to. them. 

join student organizations. my school has an animation guild chapter, as well as a game developer club and some other related orgs. JOIN THEM. pay the $30 or whatever membership fee. the animation guild at my school has given me, out of all the things that i’ve done, the most opportunities during the school year. i went to an amazon prime screening of Undone. a dreamworks skype call. discounted tickets for that industry event i mentioned earlier. and there is so much more to come. it’s 100% worth it.

try to make friends! this is something that i kind of struggled with, but it’s really important.having friends is going to be your lifeline. every monday you accidentally sit next to a new person in the animation lecture? introduce yourself. when you and two other people are the only freshmen in the labs at 11pm? there is no better bonding experience. having friends means you can 1) pester them for help 2) suffer together 3) get excited about each other’s work. these people are going to be your future co-workers. some might be your future bosses. also make friends outside of your major. you need a break. 

making animation =/= watching animation. this is a big, big, big thing. don’t go into animation if you don’t think you can handle it. what you see on the screen is NOT the same as the work that gets put into it. when you’re an animator sometimes you’ll put in over a hundred hours a week. when you’re an animator you have to keep up with industry changes; every year the programs and tech change, and every year there is something new and different that you need to keep up with or else you’re out. animation is not easy. it’s up to you to put in the work that will make you successful: spend time honing your craft and talking to people. you will cry a lot. you will work your ass off. you will fail all the time. but you have to keep going because you love it. and if you can’t do that, don’t be an animator.

eat. sleep. take care. being an art student is not an excuse to not sleep. it’s not. period. you’re going to have friends who “haha i slept at 5am.” it’s not a competition, there is nothing for you to prove. with the rigor and the difficulty of being in animation you need to take care of yourself. set yourself a schedule every day - set aside time for you to eat THREE meals and sleep for at least 6 hours. treat those like work time. if you take care of yourself, eventually you’re going to look around at your peers who are struggling and suffering and you are going to be better off than them. because you had a meal at lunchtime. because you got more than two hours of sleep. you’re going to learn better, work better, live better. don’t skimp out. it’s really easy to forget, so i will set alarms/reminders for myself. i typically go to bed around 11pm-1am every night, so i usually get around 7 hours on better days. i eat. just don’t be dumb, okay? you don’t want to graduate and just fall apart because you worked yourself too hard and you didn’t sleep for four years. take care. 

i’m stopping this post here because it’s getting a little long but i still have so many experiences and thoughts i can share. so anon, if you’re reading this - feel free to come back and ask more questions!

[fishylife]

spoilers for longest day in chang’an ep 23 and 24

I’m halfway through the show and I think that this was a big turning point. Li Bi is no longer in his lofty tower with his crew of intellectuals and now must rely on himself. Same with every other character because now 朝廷 is far too messy and no one can wholly rely on any authority figure.

I knew that Cui Qi was going to die halfway through the show because I spoiled myself like a dumbass. So it wasn’t surprising that it happened. However, I did think that the sequence of scenes could have been a little better executed.

Cui Qi had been wavering between career ambitions and loyalty to the Jingansi for a few episodes, but before episode 23, he’d basically accepted the higher ranking general spot with the 右相. Only in episode 22/23 did he return to Jingansi, but it didn’t really feel like he was returning because he needed to do right by his brother. It just felt like he was returning because he thought it was the right thing to do, and he was bound by morality rather than by love.

The fight scene itself was okay. It wasn’t as refined as some of Zhang Xiaojing’s, but Cui Qi is a more gritty dude, considering his weapon of choice was twin maces. By the way, I was really banking on him whipping out his signature weapon at the very end, because at the very least, he needed to be true to himself.

I’m not totally certain on why Long Bo decided to grant that bit of leniency based on Cui Qi having served in the same squad as him. Anyway, at his death, first Cui Qi had a bite of his bread, which was a tribute to his brother (if I remember correctly), and then on the tag, he wrote Chang’An, which I guess was his other ambition in life, to be there for the people of the city.

During the scene in which Long Bo attacked Jingansi, I thought that Jackson Yee’s performance wasn’t as good as it should have been for such a turning point for Li Bi. When his team was being attacked, Li Bi yelled for the guards, for anybody to help, but they were alone. Li Bi’s dialogue showed his helplessness and his shock, but the delivery just wasn’t there. It really didn’t feel like those words came from the heart like they were supposed to. The words that were said by Li Bi were not the rational, precise words that we would usually hear from Li Bi. They were desperate words by a boy who was mildly panicking. 

Just a side note, Li Bi had called all the scholars back to Jingansi and they were hanging out having goodies before they started working. When they saw Li Bi had arrived, they all scurried over to him and offered him treats. I thought that little part was cute; despite Li Bi technically being their supervisor, I think the scholars, especially the older ones, were perhaps fond of him like a son that they were proud of for being so successful. And when Long Bo had arrived, they were all desperately trying to get Li Bi to hide. Part of that was definitely loyalty, but I think some of that was due to love too.

After the fire, Li Bi went on his own to follow Long Bo, so he’s really on his own now. Li Bi was caught following and taken back to the hideout. I think Long Bo and Wen Ran might try to play mind games with Li Bi, whereas Yu Chang will probably try to beat him up because she’s not so subtle. Somewhere along the way, He Fu may show up. I think if Li Bi talks to any of the four of those characters, we will be able to find out more about their back story. The info they tell Li Bi may not necessarily be that helpful to him, but it would mean something to the audience since we’ve seen more of those characters than Li Bi has.

Now that it’s been established that Tan Qi and Zhang Xiaojing are an item, I’m worried that Tan Qi might be relegated to the “love interest” role. Before, Tan Qi was an extension of Jingansi and despite being a slave, had her own agency and even some authority when acting on Li Bi’s orders. She’s been assigned by Li Bi to help Zhang Xiaojing, but I was pretty sure Zhang Xiaojing could have managed on his own. I think perhaps Li Bi just wanted to have eyes on Zhang Xiaojing, especially because it might’ve been hard for the people in the signalling towers to keep track of him during the festival. Along with the Christian deacon, their first task involved confronting that guy who used to be Zhang Xiaojing’s friend in the army. However, as we could see in that scene though, the deacon and Tan Qi were sort of in the way of Zhang Xiaojing getting real information out. I hope we don’t get more of those scenes. I want to see Tan Qi doing real substantive work, like we know she can.

While I enjoy the Christian deacon as a sort of comedic relief character, as well as a character who had some parkour scenes, I hope he’s more than just a tag along character to Zhang Xiaojing, and that he is able to contribute more to the investigative side of the story.

It seems like the Crown Prince asked 右相 Lin Jiulang to investigate the fire at Jingansi on his behalf. It seemed like Lin Jiulang just wanted to get the matter off of his hands and called on Ji Wen to find the culprit as soon as possible. Ji Wen used the easiest target and pinned Zhang Xiaojing as the culprit of the fire and also of everything bad that had happened that day, including the kidnapping of Wang Yunxiu. 

Now I think Jingansi will become the battlefield of the Crown Prince and Lin Jiulang in the sense that they will use Jingansi as a pawn against each other. In a weird sequence of events, Yao Runeng has sort of become the representative of the scholars of the Jingansi. He was with them from the beginning of the investigation (sort of) so I guess they expected him to stand up for them. He didn’t, and he told the scholars that they have to heed Lin Jiulang’s words, but I think he also did it for self preservation, and the preservation of the scholars’ lives. Yuan Zai had warned Yao Runeng when he was going to confront Ji Wen, but I think Yao Runeng also did want to protect the scholars too. The past few episodes were sort of a coming out for Yao Runeng; he’s stopped being so scared all the time, just wanting to survive and live the rest of his life doing nothing. Instead, I think he realizes that he has a calling here. First it was joining the battle at Jingansi, although he did it a bit late. But I think he will do a bit of his own political maneuvering to get more information, rescue Li Bi, and/or help out Zhang Xiaojing where needed.

It looks like Yuan Zai has become Lin Jiulang and Ji Wen’s default guy to carry out their bidding. However, I refuse to accept that Yuan Zai does not have his own agenda. He has definitely kept Wang Yunxiu with him for political protection. Nobody wanted to let anything happen to her because that would enrage her father, so as a result Yuan Zai himself could be protected too. I also worry that Wang Yunxiu has become a character with no agency. Her only role so far was to get kidnapped, and she’s technically been kidnapped by Yuan Zai too. Like I know Yuan Zai has been treating her well, but as I mentioned about, it really seems like he kept her for political reasons rather than because he actually likes her company. 

General Guo’s been getting more scenes in the past few episodes, with all the messages he’s been delivering to Lin Jiulang, as well as the behind-the-scenes stuff he’s been helping Li Bi with. I wonder if he’s going to continue helping Li Bi.

There’s still a question mark for Wen Ran in terms of how she fits into all of this. We’re probably going to learn more about Zhang Xiaojing’s history with his squadmates, and I think Wen Ran is related to that somehow, considering how her dad died a very strange death in Chang’an.

We also need to find out how Wen Ran and Long Bo are related, to the point that Long Bo considers her his family, and that he’d planned the attack for her.

I think we will also learn more about He Fu’s back story, and maybe more about what exactly Lin Jiulang did to destroy his family. 

I think Lin Jiulang, who was portrayed as the big bad in the beginning and still sort of is, will kind of move to the sidelines. I don’t really think he’s the big bad here. I think he’s just acting out of self interest, rather than anything more sinister than that.

We still haven’t even seen the emperor. From what I’ve seen and heard, it seems like his presence was a little underwhelming, which I get, because we’ve already bonded with all of the other characters already.

I really want to see more of the Crown Prince. I’m pretty sure he has a close relationship with Li Bi, considering Yao Runeng said that he used to supervise them learning and training together when they were younger. However, this Crown Prince isn’t particularly evil or conniving and just seems like a normal dude who’s trying his best. So I want to see how he does his part to help Chang’an, or if he just succumbs to going with the flow of 朝廷.

Yeah, so this half way point was a big change in atmosphere to the story. For one thing, now it’s night time so all the buildings and architecture just feel different. But as I mentioned, Li Bi is on his own so he doesn’t have Xu Bin or his other scholars to give him more information. Now he really has to rely on not only his own smarts, but his own position and reputation (or what remains of it) to not only get out of Long Bo’s grasp, but probably try to get help from 朝廷.

I’m mentally preparing myself because as some people said, the episodes later on get really draggy. But I’m still excited to see how everything unfolds. I’m also excited to see my favourite characters overcome their challenges. 

I’m really falling in love with Chang’an the city, which is first and foremost the main character of the story, let’s be real here. All the characters speak about Chang’an like it’s a spirit or treasure to be protected, and they’re right. What they have in Chang’an is so special. Ahhh I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic but I really am excited. 

[rambling-at-midnight]

False Image: Part 1

It is also posted on my AO3 and can be found HERE

Sam Winchester x reader

Background Destiel

Sam cringes when Dean sighs, loudly, as they wait for their supervisor to call them into his office. What had started out as a little prank war had somehow evolved into a station-wide fight that somehow also included the police in the building over, dogs, shaving cream, and an entire bathroom filled with bread.

So it had escalated a little bit. And he and Dean had started it, so they’re the ones in trouble, even though they’d had nothing to do with covering the dogs with shaving cream and letting them loose in the police station or buying all those loaves of bread and clogging the ladies’ toilets and sinks with them.

“Winchesters?” Bobby, their grumpy old supervisor, calls, sticking his head out of his office. He doesn’t sound like he’s in a good mood, but then again, he never sounds like he’s in a good mood. And he usually has a soft spot for him and Dean, seeing as how their dad had worked at the station too and Bobby’d practically adopted them after John started taking crazy long trips.

At least Rufus isn’t supervising today. They would have their asses handed to them on silver platters.

“Come on, Bobby, you know this isn’t our fault!” Dean says the moment the door shuts behind him.

“You started the pranks, and company policy—”

“Technically, Sam was the one who did the first prank,” Dean interrupts.

“Hey!”

“Don’t interrupt me, boy,” Bobby growls and Dean rolls his eyes. Sam shoves him with his shoulder and Dean retaliates.

Before the brothers end up wrestling on the floor (which happens more than Bobby, who claims responsibility for raising them, would like to admit) Bobby orders them to sit down.

Sam sits immediately, but Dean makes a production out of it as usual, as he always does. “It wasn’t even us who did the whole bread thing, that was Gabe the Crime Scene Investigator next door!”

“And ‘Detective’ Cas,” Sam adds. “Dean just doesn’t want to get his boyfriend in trouble. And guess how they got in in the first place?” He tilts his head to Dean and looks at Bobby, who rolls his eyes, but he can’t help but chuckle when Sam sticks his tongue in his cheek.

Dean blushes and ignores his little brother. He hadn’t even known Cas could be that devious. It had been a good move, though.

“I still don’t know how Gabe persuaded him to do that,” Sam adds thoughtfully. He yelps when Dean smacks his shoulder.

“You two have proven you can’t handle working together, so I’m separating you for the next two weeks.”

Sam frowns. He and Dean work in the same department and live together. Pretty much the only time they’re not together is when Dean’s on a date with Cas.

“Sam, you get regular shift, Dean, you get night shift. Long hours.”

Dean sits bolt upright. “Bobby—”

“You’ll survive not seeing your boyfriend for two weeks, Dean,” their surrogate father responds. “Don’t argue with me, boy.”

“It’s not fair,” Dean whines. “Sam’ll still get to see his girlfriend.”

Bobby’s eyes widen as Sam blushes and kicks his brother.

“It’s Y/N,” Dean says, grinning wickedly at Bobby’s shocked expression and Sam’s red face. “She’s our cute neighbor in apartment 67. Man, I wish she could have been on the other side of 68.”

“Dean, shut up,” Sam hisses.

“Look at this!” Dean crows. “He can run into fires with no fear, but the second I even mention his little crush he blushes like a schoolgirl. She’s not much better, either. If it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t even talk to each other. They’re too shy.”

Sam pushes his brother out of the chair.

Bobby pushes them out of his office and leaves them to wrestle on the ground, much to the amusement of the passing Jo and Gordon, who’d just got back from actually helping a girl get her cat out of a tree.

Day three of no Dean, Sam thinks to himself while walking up the stairs to his apartment floor, bone tired from helping extinguish an electrical fire across town. It’s surprisingly peaceful without his brother, albeit boring. The most he’s ever seen his brother is that one time Dean was driving home and Sam was driving to the station and they waved at each other. Working 12-hour shifts can be exhausting. He can’t wait until the two weeks are over.

The thing that annoys Sam, though, is that Dean was right—without him pushing the two of you to talk to each other and him, the most you ever do is smile at Sam and mumble a quick hello if you ever catch each other in the halls. Sam isn’t sure if you’re just that shy or avoiding him. Knowing his track record with girls, probably both.

Cas is sitting at the kitchen table when Sam gets back. “Hello, Sam,” he says without turning around. Neither of the brothers know how he does it.

“Hey, Cas. What’re you doing here?” Sam replies, smothering a yawn with his hand.

“Dean hasn’t spoken to me in three days,” Cas says in that deep, slow Cas way of his. “Do you know if he is mad at me?”

It takes Sam’s head a few moments to catch up. “Oh! Oh, I thought Dean told Gabe to tell you—he probably forgot—but, uh, me and Dean got in trouble at work for that whole prank thing so he’s been working the graveyard shift and I’ve been working the day shift—anyways, Jo hid his phone somewhere in the station as punishment for the whole bread thing because, well, she can’t do it to you so she’ll do it to your boyfriend, because she’d gotten her period and Gabe told her it was you that had taken all the tampons out of the dispenser thing—”

“What?” Cas whirls around, blue eyes wide. “That wasn’t me! That was definitely Gabriel!”

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know why Jo trusted him, but yeah. Dean says she’ll give it back in three days if he hasn’t found it yet, but he’s determined to find it before then. I guess he’s been too tired from working all night that he hasn’t been able to call you. He’s fine, though.”

“I apologize,” Cas immediately says, standing up. “You are exhausted as well. I will try to contact Dean and help him find his phone. He still doesn’t know about Fluffy’s new veterinarian. Hopefully today will be a slow day of work. Goodbye, Sam.”

“Why’d Fluffy need a new vet?” Sam asks, amused. Cas’ bunny, it seems, needs to go to a different vet every other month. Cas hasn’t been able to find one he likes.

“He was refusing food,” Cas replies. “Goodbye.”

“Say hi to Ash for me!” Sam calls, but the door’s already closed. Hopefully Cas heard him anyway.

A little disappointed he didn’t get to see you, Sam plugs in his phone and hops into the shower. He can’t wait to get in bed.

Sam wakes up fifteen minutes before his alarm is supposed to go off. Two people are running around inside his apartment.

“Heya, Sammy!” Gabriel practically shouts upon seeing that he’s awake.

“Sorry, Sam!” someone else yells and Sam shoots upright. He’s never heard you shout before.

A fluffy orange monster jumps onto his bed and right off it before bolting over to the small kitchen. Sam can only watch with an open mouth as it jumps onto the counter and into an empty shelf, conveniently just above how far you and Gabe can reach.

“God damnit,” you swear, and Sam realizes that he finds that pretty hot. “I’m so sorry, Sam. This is all Gabe’s fault, I swear.”

Gabe just laughs and pulls a lollipop out of his pocket. “Y/N, I am offended.”

“I hate you,” you say out loud, though it’s unclear if you’re talking to your cat or the trickster. As it is, the cat soothes its ruffled fur and squeaks at you. It has really big eyes.

“I can get him,” Sam offers and throws the sheets off. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you guys get in here?”

“Well, I had knocked on her door and had a bunch of catnip in my pockets,” Gabe explains as Sam hesitantly reaches for the cat in his shelf. Unlike the abomination that had jumped on his bed, this cat just rubs its head against his hand and starts to purr. “He came out and started running around in the hall. I picked your lock and got him in here.”

“And why did you want that to happen?” Sam asks while lifting the cat out of the shelf. He is very aware that you are standing right next to him and don’t even come up to his shoulders. Your smile when he hands your cat to you makes his stomach flip.

Gabe shrugs. “It was fun to see Y/N running around.”

“You’re paying double the next time you come in,” you inform him and hug your cat, who meows in protest and tries to get out of your arms immediately. “Thank you so much, Sam.”

“I’m your favorite customer, sweetheart!” Gabe calls to your hastily retreating back.

“Please, Cas is so much politer!” you call back.

Sam can’t help but feel a small bit of jealousy at how easily you talk and joke with Gabe but can’t even look at Sam.

“Wow, Deano really wasn’t lying,” Gabe says, tossing the lollipop stick into the trash can. “You’ve got it really bad.”

“How—how do you know about that?” Sam asks, already blushing as he glances at the door. You’d closed it behind you. Hopefully you can’t hear what they’re saying, though the only way that would happen is if you were eavesdropping directly the behind the door.

“Dean was telling my baby bro about it so I decided to see if it was true.” Gabe shrugs.

Sam’s mouth shrugs open. “So that was all… you did that all on purpose?”

The other man winks. “You’re gonna be late for work, Sammy.”

Sam looks at the clock and curses when he sees he’s right. “Screw you, Gabriel!”

“You wish,” he replies. “See ya, Sammy!”

“And stop calling me ‘Sammy’!”

“That sounds…” Sam can’t help his grimace.

Cas just smiles at him. “Bobby already said he doesn’t mind. There haven’t been many fires for a few weeks, so there’s no need to worry. Please, Sam? I have the address for Fluffy’s vet, the office number, and the vet’s personal number just in case.” He hands Sam a piece of paper with that information on it, as well as Dean and Cas’ numbers (as if Sam needed any reminders) and some other random numbers Cas apparently thought Sam might need for his four-hour babysitting gig. Most of them are different pizza places’ numbers.

“Cas, what do you think is going to happen to Fluffy while you’re gone for four hours?” Sam asks, staring at the paper. “You leave him alone for longer while you’re working.”

“Luci watches him since he’s still on house arrest,” Cas answers, looking through his pockets. “I’ll have to figure out if someone would like to babysit him when his sentence is lifted. Can I have the paper back?”

Sam hands it back. “Couldn’t you just bring him to the station? There’s always officers there and everyone loves rabbits, right?”

Cas scribbles another number on the paper and hands it back to Sam. “That’s Luci’s number. And that is a good idea, Sam. I’ll have to ask Amara if that would be allowed.”

“What about Chuck?”

“Chuck’s on vacation right now.”

“Fine, go enjoy your romantic picnic at the station,” Sam finally agrees, even though there was no question that he would. “I still think putting up a picnic blanket in the vending machine room isn’t very romantic, but whatever.”

“I think visiting my boyfriend while he’s working because I haven’t seen him lately is very romantic,” Cas replies seriously.

“Huh. Well, you go, Casanova.” Sam wishes he could be as brave as Dean was when he’d finally asked Cas out. Look where it got them: they’ve been going steady for two years and the only fights they ever have are about throwing themselves in the line of fire while doing their jobs.

“My full name is Castiel, Sam. It is not Casanova.”

“Get out, Cas.”

“Goodbye, Sam.”

Sam turns to look at the deceptively cute-looking bunny Cas had left him with. Dean had gotten Cas Fluffy for, like, their third date or something and Cas had loved him ever since. He had brown eyes, grey fur, and one white ear.

This bunny costs Cas more than any other pet Sam has ever known just by having health problems and going to the vet because of ‘emergencies’ where most of the time he’s faking symptoms, and is a master escape artist. He bites everyone except Cas.

Sam and Dean hate him, which is one of the only things they can agree on.

It takes two hours for Fluffy’s first emergency to start. He’s choking and coughing a lot. “Goddamnit,” Sam mutters, pacing around his room while the demon bunny tries to kill himself. “Luci, pick up.” Sam calls three times and he doesn’t, so he finally has to look at the vet’s numbers that Cas gave him. When he calls the office, he’s told that the vet’s already gone home so, gathering up his pride, Sam dials the vet’s number to ask her to help save the life of a demon bunny trying to kill itself.

“Hello?”

Sam pauses and cocks his head. “Um, Y/N?”

“This is Y/N Y/L/N, yes,” you answer. “Who is—Sam?”

“Yeah.” Sam smiles (you’d remembered what he sounded like!) but the renewed sounds of choking behind him wipe it off his face. “Sorry, Cas Novak gave me your number because he said you were his bunny’s vet but—”

A series of knocks sound at the door. When Sam opens up, you’re standing there in your scrubs and carrying a bag with your phone to your ear.

“Um, hi,” you say. Sam hears it through the phone too.

“Hi,” he responds and stares at you.

“So, um, Fluffy?”

“Oh, yeah!” Sam steps back and rubs the back of his neck. “So I guess you are his vet after all.”

You laugh softly. “Yeah.”

To Sam’s awe, you reach inside Fluffy’s cage and pick him up without him even trying to get away, which might have something to do with how he’s choking, but it’s still impressive.

“You little bastard,” you mutter, crooking a finger and putting it in his mouth.

Sam laughs. “I never imagined you cursing so much.”

“I’m polite, Sam,” you reply without looking back at him. “I don’t do it in front of the owners, but I bet you won’t tell on me. And I don’t really curse at people I barely know.”

“You barely even look at people you don’t know,” Sam mutters to himself but he thinks you hear him; you stiffen a little bit.

“Can you hand me his water bottle?” you ask, your voice definitely a little sharper than it had been just seconds earlier. Sam scrambles for the weird upside-down dispenser thing he’d never really understood and places it in your hand. You tip a few drops of water into the rabbit’s mouth and rubs his throat. He stops choking, leaving the apartment so quiet Sam’s ears ring.

“Oh, you’re bad,” you coo, holding him up. “I don’t know if you were faking it or really choking, but you are bad. I’ll text it all to Cas, but I would take away his food for the time being and put the water back in. From now on I’d recommend smaller bits of food, because Fluffy can’t seem to handle anything big.”

“Thanks, Y/N.” Sam smiles big at you after you put Fluffy back in his cage and you immediately redden. “If he’d died when I was babysitting him, Cas would’ve killed me.”

You pick your bag up off the floor. “It’s really no problem. I like seeing Fluffy a few times each month. He’s sweet if you’re a girl, or Cas.”

“And me and my brother aren’t either of those things,” Sam realizes. “Which would be why he hates us.”

You nod and poke your fingers through the mesh of the demon bunny’s cage to scratch at his fur. “Well, knock on my door if you need anything else, all right?”

Sam nods and escorts you out of the apartment. In the doorway, you hesitate.

“Hey, why are you babysitting Cas’s bunny? I thought his brother Luci normally did that.”

“Well, Luci told Cas that he didn’t want to deal with the little demon tonight so Cas brought him to me since him and Dean are going on a ‘date’ in the vending machine room of the fire station.” Sam rolls his eyes.

You brighten visibly. “Your brother Dean is Dean Winchester? What a small world!”

“How—”

“Cas is pretty talkative,” you shrug. “And we got to know each other more every time he brings Fluffy in. Let’s just say I didn’t think someone could talk about green eyes so much.”

Sam makes a face.

After hearing that you’d already heard about him, Dean goes out of his way to talk to you so much that you feel comfortable enough to say hi to both brothers by the end of the week. Now Sam’s a bit jealous his brother got the graveyard shift, because he can say hi to Y/N whenever he’s going to work or coming home.

“I swear, Sammy, I’m gonna get you two together soon,” Dean says loudly as the brothers and Cas walk through the park. The station is closed today because of a holiday. If any fires start, they’ll all get alerts on their phones.

“Shut up,” Sam hisses, glancing around with paranoia as if people will be able to figure out what he’s talking about immediately. More importantly, he’s making sure you’re not around.

“No, I’m serious, you two are perfect for each other. She’s always carrying books when I see her, and once she was wearing a Harry Potter shirt!”

“I read Harry Potter,” Cas says, swinging his and Dean’s entwined hands like a pendulum. “I think Dean is a Gryffindor. Sam is a Ravenclaw. I think I am a Hufflepuff. Maybe—”

“Yeah, but you’re not obsessed with it like Sam is. He’d probably want Y/N to wear that shirt while they’re having sex, he’s that into Harry Potter.”

Cas squints.

“Look, I just think it’s a good series!” Sam exclaims. “And that’s nothing compared to the cowboy hats I found hidden underneath your bed, Dean. You can’t really talk.”

That shuts Dean up for a while, but the comparison must explain it all to Cas, because he gives an exaggerated nod.

As the trio strolls downtown, nearly everyone says hi to them. It’s that sort of town where everyone knows everyone, and everyone especially knows them.

In the supermarket’s parking lot, Jody and Bobby are talking while Jo and Ellen argue a few feet to the side. Sam sees them and nudges Dean with his shoulder, nodding in their direction with his chin.

“Jody, Bobby, Ellen, Jo!” the elder Winchester yells, waving frantically at them with the hand Cas isn’t holding.

All the adults’ faces brighten. Dean has that effect on people.

“It’s my three least favorite idjits,” Bobby grumbles when they’re in earshot, but he’s the first to hug Dean, Sam, and Cas, in that order.

“Hey, loser,” Jo says, breaking away from Ellen and punching Dean playfully in the arm.

“Hey yourself,” Dean replies to their almost-sister. “You and Mo—Ellen still arguing, then?”

“She still wants me to be a lawyer. I’m happy with my job. For now, at least. How you doing, Cas?” She switches her attention to her favorite out of all of them, though she’ll never admit it, and Sam and Dean shrug at each other.

Dean moves in to hug Ellen and then Jody as Sam and Bobby talk quietly. “My two favorite ladies!”

Ellen rolls her eyes. “Your sweet-talk won’t work on me, boy. Bobby was telling me all about your mischief at work. What do I always say?”

“‘Don’t get caught’,” Dean repeats her mantra, rolling his eyes. “Where’re the kids, Jody?”

“Claire and Owen wanted to hang out with their Aunt Donna. God knows they’ll have at least fifteen more toys and clothes by the time I get home,” Jody replies. “Hey, did you know Sean and I are thinking of getting one more?”

“Really?” Ellen turns to Jody. “That’s the first I’ve heard of this.”

“It turns out Claire has a friend named Alex whose grandma died when she was about six. We haven’t met her yet, but Sean already seems sold.”

Dean drifts away from the two moms, who don’t even seem to notice him leaving, and back to Cas, who takes his hand immediately.

“—but I bet there will be at least a minor one today, considering all the bonfires and grilling,” Sam’s saying to Bobby, who’s nodding. Jo shakes her head and crosses her arms.

“What are they talking about?” Dean whispers to Cas.

“Sam thinks we will get a text,” Cas whispers back. “Jo thinks we won’t.”

“Five bucks, Jo?” Dean offers.

“You’re on, Winchester,” Jo grins after checking her wallet. “You’ll have to put it on my tab, though. I’m not packing cash.”

Dean groans. “You’ve already got twenty on the tab! I’m never gonna get my money, am I?”

“You will!”

“I won’t!”

“You will!”

A familiar form exits the supermarket and heads in the opposite direction of the shouting siblings. Cas tugs away from Dean, who doesn’t notice as he’s now competing with Jo as to who can be louder. “Y/N?”

You turn around at the sound of your name and smile when you see Cas. “Cas! I should have known the shouting was Dean. What are you doing here?”

“I was walking with Dean and Sam when we saw Jo, Ellen, Bobby, and Jody,” Cas responds, following after you as you try to listen and walk to your car at the same time.

“Wow, you really do know everyone, don’t you?”

“Some people we know better than others,” Cas responds, which isn’t really an answer to the question you asked, but you’ll let it slide. Cas is like that. “We help people. And people get into trouble a lot.”

“Tell me about it,” you puff, struggling with unlocking your car and holding the grocery bags at the same time. When Cas takes the bags from you, you grin at him. “Thanks.”

“W-would you like to come meet them?” Cas offers hesitantly. “Our family really is quite nice.”

You look over at the group. Jody and Ellen are talking normally, Sam and Bobby look to be discussing something serious, and Dean has hoisted Jo up and is carrying her like a sack of flour. It must be a normal occurrence if all the adults are ignoring the two.

You check your watch and grimace. The time’s not a problem, but it is an excuse. You’d feel too much like an outsider if you went over, you know already, and what would you even talk about? “Sorry, Cas, I really am, but I’m on my break right now and I’ve got to get back. Everything’s just been so hectic lately what with the move and all—”

“You’re moving?”

You nod and take your bags back from him. “Yeah, hopefully. I want to be closer to my work so I won’t have to drive as much every day. Plus, Crookshanks would probably like a larger house and what with his recent escape, Mr. Azazel’s patience with us is pretty thin. I’m getting the paperwork finalized next week, and the actual move is in two weeks.”

“Won’t you miss Sam and Dean?”

You avoid his eyes as you shut the door on your now-full backseat. “Well, I guess, but really, we aren’t that close and if you ever really want to see me, you could find me. It’s not a large town, and you already know where I work. You could just bring Fluffy in,” you joke and open the driver’s door. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”

Cas nods.

“Could you tell anyone you know that has a dog about the clinic’s new training program, if it’s not too much to ask?” You smile. “I’ll be working there when I’m not needed but we need dogs to attend.”

“Are bunnies invited?”

You laugh, but Cas was serious. “Again, it would be great if you could, Cas, but no pressure. I’m hoping the people here have some cute dogs. I love dogs.”

“But you have a cat.”

You shrug. “In my space, it was all I could do. Besides, I’m so busy that a cat was the best option, but I’m hoping to get a puppy soon that can hang out at the training center while I’m working or maybe work as a volunteer at the hospital. I was talking to a woman named Hannah who works as a nurse about it a while ago.”

“Hannah is my sister. She told me about you.”

“Wow! It really is a small town, I guess.” You get in your car. “I’ll see you later, Cas. It was nice talking to you!”

You pull out before Sam gets to Cas. “Hey, was that Y/N?”

Cas nods. “Yes. She was on her break. She says she’s moving soon.”

Sam frowns and shuffles his feet. “R-really?” He huffs.

“Well, I wouldn’t lie about that,” Cas replies. “She says she wants to be closer to her work. You should get a dog.”

Sam cocks his head at the abrupt subject change. “What?”

“Well, Y/N says that her clinic is opening a training center for dogs and that she’ll be working in both the clinic and center. Since you want to see her so badly, you could get a dog and have her be the vet and trainer.”

“I—really? I mean, I don’t want her to—I don’t—”

“Sam, you are very bad at hiding your feelings. So is Y/N.”

“There are no—”

“Dean, your brother is in love!” Cas yells, then starts sprinting for his boyfriend. Dean stops pretending to drop Jo and sets her on her feet, sees Sam chasing Cas, and starts to sprint too.

“Idjits,” Bobby mutters.

“In love?” Jody yells.

“Cas, Dean, if you say a word I will kill you!” Sam bellows, gaining steadily on his brother and his brother’s boyfriend with his longer legs.

“With our hot neighbor—” is how far Dean gets before a burst of speed helps Sam take a flying leap at his brother. They fall into a bush and Cas takes the badge out of his pocket.

“This is Detective Novak, may I ask what is going on here?” he asks, to his own amusement. The brothers hardly hear him over their own fighting, but he doesn’t mind. Cas’ humor is strange and rarely amuses anyone but himself.

“Well, it’s about time,” Ellen mutters to Bobby. “Look at our boy, all grown up. He’s got his first crush—”

“And yet he’s still enough of an idjit to tackle his brother and wrestle with him in front of the supermarket,” Bobby grumbles back. “All right, you two! Stop! Save it for the bedroom!”

“Gross!” Everyone else complains (except Cas), but it gets Sam and Dean to stop.

“Hey, Dean?” Cas asks, squinting as he looks at his ruffled boyfriend.

“Yeah?”

“You and Sam should get a dog.”

Jo spends the rest of the next day gloating about how she only owes Dean fifteen dollars now, and that the number’s sure to drop until Dean starts owing her too.

Dean finds his phone. It was in one of the dispensers in the women’s room. Gabe had been the one who had hinted at ‘poetic justice’ and he’d put two and two together.

@lemirabitur @annymcervantes

[epacer]

Cal Matters

California Schools Proving Easy Targets for Growing Ransomware Attacks

Sixth grade teacher Hilary Hall had just started teaching one Monday morning in September when her teacher’s group chats at Newhall School District exploded with confused messages. Teachers in the Santa Clarita school district — located just north of Los Angeles — were panicking.

While Hall had no issues logging onto her computer from home, many of her colleagues, connected to the school district’s server, were met with a mysterious pop-up message.

It said users wouldn’t be able to log into the server.

People turned to Hall, co-president of the district’s teacher’s union, for information, but she didn’t know what was going on, either.

A few minutes later, an answer arrived via phone call from each grade’s head teacher: The school district, all 10 schools representing under 6,000 children, had been hit with a ransomware attack. All teachers were instructed to log off immediately.

“Read a book!” Hall told the kids in her class, trying to think of educational activities on the spot as she quickly logged off.

While incidents like the Colonial pipeline ransomware attack and the Kaseya attack received international attention, schools and universities have also been on the wrong end of cybercriminals.

Experts interviewed by CalMatters — including researchers, cybersecurity companies, IT employees and the FBI — all agree the number of cyberattacks has increased over the pandemic. Many believe the number of attacks on the education sector has also increased, but it’s an area so new to cybercrime that there’s virtually no comprehensive data on it.

California schools, colleges and universities have scrambled to adjust. In the past five years, more than two dozen California school systems have been targeted, from Rialto Unified School District in San Bernardino to Stanford University’s School of Medicine.

Prior to the ransomware attack last September, Newhall had implemented what experts consider common sense security measures like internal firewalls to prevent malicious software from affecting entire systems. A few times a year, the IT department even sent students and employees fake “phishing” emails — deceptive emails enticing users to click on malicious links or reveal sensitive information — to see if they would click on suspicious links that could compromise their networks.

But none of these efforts stopped cybercriminals from attacking the district’s computer systems and rendering over 6,000 elementary school students and teachers without normal school for a week.

“When we heard that it was ransomware, it was almost like, ‘Are we in a movie?’ Like, what in the world?” Hall said.

How Ransomware Attacks Work

Ransomware attacks use a specific type of malicious software to encrypt files on computers connected to the Internet, essentially locking out organizations from accessing their files. The cybercriminals then demand a ransom to decrypt the files.

Sometimes, these attacks are “double-pronged,” meaning the criminals will threaten to sell (or when there’s potential for blackmail, release) sensitive information in order to provide an extra incentive for fast payment. Coveware, a well-known Connecticut-based ransomware recovery firm, found that 77% of ransomware attacks threatened to leak data in the first quarter of 2021.

Emsisoft, a New Zealand-based software company, expects these data theft attacks to double in 2021, with cybercriminals finding more ways to make stolen data useful in extracting a ransom.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which tracks complaints of cybercrimes (not just ransomware), said it received 791,790 complaints in 2020, a 165% increase from 2016. The complaints only reflect crimes reported to the FBI, so the actual number in any given year is larger.

And as COVID-19 forced many organizations, from schools to huge corporations, to move even more of their systems online, cybercrime increased, said Ronald Manuel, a supervisor on the FBI’s Los Angeles cyber task force.

Schools and universities confronted an unprecedented increase in attacks.

In 2020, cybercriminals attacks affected at least 1,681 schools and universities across the country, according to research by Emsisoft. In 2019, only 89 were attacked with ransomware, although over 1,000 more were potentially affected. These numbers represent a minimum of ransomware attacks, Emsisoft said — there are no federal reporting requirements.

Seculore Solutions, a software company based in Maryland, has recorded 122 cyberattacks in California across the public safety, government, medical and education sectors since 2016. At least 26 of those cyberattacks have targeted California school districts, colleges and universities, including the University of California, Sierra College, College of the Desert and Visalia Unified School District.

If the data on cyberattacks seems sketchy and incomplete, that’s because it is. Nick Merrill, a cybersecurity researcher at UC Berkeley, said he doesn’t know of an archive for cyber attacks in California. “But if you find one, please let me know,” he wrote in an email to CalMatters.

While it’s ultimately a mystery how ransomware crews pick their specific targets, the education sector is vulnerable for a few reasons, according to multiple experts. Tight budgets prevent them from having the resources to stop cyberattacks. Unique characteristics — like an open WiFi network — make schools particularly vulnerable. And they are also dependent on their online systems: They wouldn’t be able to function without grading systems or other file-sharing software.

“They’re essentially low-hanging fruit,” said Andrew Brandt, a malware researcher with SophosLabs.

Schools could also be a quick and easy payout for “ransomware crews” who make a living off of these attacks, Merrill said. Experts believe that many of these cybercriminals are located in Russia or the former USSR, where ransomware is a lucrative business in an otherwise depressed economy.

“There are a lot of them, so you can keep hitting these (schools and colleges) all across the U.S., all across maybe even the world, and you can get a pretty consistent payout every time,” Merrill said.

But while ransomware attacks are increasing in schools across California and the country, key players are struggling to play catch-up. School administrators, experts and government officials are having different conversations, if any at all.

Should Schools Pay Ransomware Attackers?

The week of the ransomware attack at Newhall School District, teachers uploaded videos to the school district’s website as a form of makeshift online school. All students in the district watched the same videos. Hall said some of her students felt that week was “a bit of a waste,” because the lesson plans were so generic. She said teachers felt guilty about “leaving our kids stranded without our support.”

Meanwhile, the district’s four person IT department was working overtime. The district’s 310 teachers were at a standstill until the systems were online and ransomware-free.

Luckily, the district had purchased cyber insurance a few years back. Its insurer — Alliance of Schools for Cooperative Insurance Programs — contracted with Alvaka, an advanced network services and security company, to help retrieve files, according to one Newhall administrator. District officials would not say if they paid the ransom or not. Doing so would be considered controversial; The FBI advises against paying ransoms.

But Superintendent Jeff Pelzel did say teachers’ intellectual property — their lesson plans — were taken into consideration.

“Of course, the FBI doesn’t want anyone to pay anything for the ransom,” Pelzel said. But if you put a dollar value on the time it takes to make lesson plans, some of which have been developed over a decade, it can become difficult to decide whether to pay or not. “It would be devastating for staff,” he said.

By the next week, students and teachers were able to access their online classrooms again. Within a few months, most of the district’s other programs and servers were running.

Newhall has since upped its cybersecurity efforts: more frequent phishing exercises, required cybersecurity training for every employee, more operations in the cloud, and two-factor authentication for administrators, among other measures.

Ransomware Protocols for Schools Evolving

A couple of months after the ransomware attack, Newhall applied for an exemption from the California Department of Education to add days onto the end of the school year. These are typically granted for school shootings, wildfires and other emergencies where students had missed days of quality instruction from school.

But the department initially denied Newhall’s request, only to reverse itself about half a year later. Cyberattacks did not meet the state’s criteria and it took months of advocacy from Pelzel to reverse the decision.

Pelzel has said the federal government should fund cybersecurity for all school districts. He also called for a crisis manual for ransomware attacks, similar to crisis procedures for active shooters and earthquakes.

“In general, we live in a society where governments are reactive rather than proactive,” Walters, president of Newhall’s school board, said. “It takes usually some sort of disaster for people to take a hard look at what needs to be improved. California is frankly, behind … but eventually (it shows) a history of catching up.”

Trade organizations — including the California School Boards Association and Association of California School Administrators — don’t offer cybersecurity resources or guidance and directed CalMatters to the California Department of Education.

But the department started working on cybersecurity for schools just recently.

Mary Nicely, the department’s point person for cybersecurity efforts, said she was tasked with working on cybersecurity just a few weeks ago, although the department’s data management team had previously provided resources to help schools understand digital literacy.

“We can’t say, ‘Hey, everybody put your money into cybersecurity or allocate this much of your budget to that,’” Nicely said. “Those are individual decisions of the school districts. I think we should be giving more guidance in that area. I don’t think (the California Department of Education) has done that in the past.” *Reposted article from the Times of SD by Zayna Syed, July 18, 2021

[stephenmccull]

‘I Wanted to Go in There and Help’: Nursing Schools See Enrollment Bump Amid Pandemic

This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free.

Last December, Mirande Gross graduated from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, with a bachelor’s degree in communications. But Gross has changed her mind and is heading back to school in May for a one-year accelerated nursing degree program. The pandemic that has sickened more than 27 million people in the United States and killed nearly 500,000 helped convince her she wanted to become a nurse.

“I was excited about working during the pandemic,” Gross, 22, said. “It didn’t scare me away.”

Enrollment in baccalaureate nursing programs increased nearly 6% in 2020, to 250,856, according to preliminary results from an annual survey of 900 nursing schools by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

“In the pandemic we saw an increased visibility of nurses, and I think that’s been inspirational to many people,” said Deb Trautman, president and CEO of the association, whose members represent nursing programs at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels. “It’s a profession where you can make a difference.”

Two-year associate nursing degree programs seem to be experiencing a similar bump, though hard numbers are unavailable, said Laura Schmidt, president of the Organization for Associate Degree Nursing.

There’s no way to know exactly what is propelling the new applications. But medical schools also saw an 18% boost in applications last year, a jump partly attributed to the pandemic and high profile of key doctors, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the crisis.

It’s possible that the media stories, social media accounts and front-line medical workers’ personal accounts of battling the novel coronavirus have played a role. “Nurse” was the No. 1 term that people queried “how to become” on Google in 2020, according to Google trends data.

For Gross, it was a turn back to an initial career choice. When she started college, nursing was her chosen path. But after fainting twice while shadowing a nurse at the hospital, she switched to a major that didn’t involve needles or blood. For the past two years, she’s worked as a newborn photographer at a hospital near her Louisville home, and she no longer gets squeamish at the sight of IVs or injuries.

“When I saw on the news nurses being so overworked, I thought, ‘Gosh, I wish I could be in there helping,’” said Gross.

Demand for nurses was strong even before the pandemic hit. There are about 3 million registered nurses in the United States, but employment is expected to grow 7% between 2019 and 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, faster than the 4% average for all occupations. Many hospital medical staffs are stretched to the breaking point as they deal with a surge of covid-19 patients and at the same time cope with staff shortages as medical personnel have become ill with covid or had to quarantine.

Meeting the demand for nurses is hampered by long-standing capacity issues at nursing schools. According to a report by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, programs at the bachelor’s and graduate degree levels turned away more than 80,000 qualified applicants in 2019. The reasons included not having enough faculty, clinical training sites and supervisors or classroom space, as well as budget constraints, the report found.

“The people who are prepared to teach are at least master’s degree level and frequently have doctorate degrees,” said Beverly Malone, president and CEO of the National League for Nursing. “They can work at hospitals or community care centers for [significantly] more money.”

Malone and others also noted that it can be difficult to ensure access to the clinical training slots that nursing students need. This problem was exacerbated during the pandemic when many hospitals sent nursing students home to avoid their getting sick and to conserve scarce personal protective equipment for staffers treating covid patients.

For some nursing students, the pandemic has opened their eyes to new possibilities for patient care. David Namnath is finishing a two-year associate nursing degree at the College of Marin in Kentfield, California. He learned last spring that his clinical rotation at the local hospital would be canceled because of covid.

Instead, he and other students took on a telenursing project, in which he made regular wellness check-ins and provided health education related to chronic conditions such as diabetes and back pain with eight patients over video and phone.

“It was really helpful for me,” said Namnath, 29, who has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and worked in a lab before starting nursing school. “It’s not something you normally learn. I think we became more three-dimensional because of it.”

Some people who got nursing degrees in years past but didn’t practice also may be taking a fresh look at the profession, said David Benton, CEO of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. More than 222,000 nurses who were educated in the U.S. took the National Council Licensure Examination last year, a figure that was 5% higher than the year before, he said.

The economic downturn that has shuttered thousands of businesses may have made nursing more attractive, he said.

“We know that, nationally, services like the restaurant industry have shut down,” Benton said. “But one thing that hasn’t shut down is demand for health care.”

Nurses who worked in hospitals made $79,400 a year on average in 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But as the covid crisis hit and hospitals scrambled to find staff last year, nurses who were willing to travel to covid hot spots could make many times that amount, in some cases up to $10,000 a week.

There are many paths to becoming a nurse. A growing proportion of nurses get a bachelor of science degree in nursing at four-year colleges. But many still go to community colleges for two-year associate degrees in nursing. These programs are more affordable and may appeal to older students who are parents or going back for a second degree, said Schmidt.

Both types of graduates can take the nurse licensing exam and become registered nurses. But nurses with bachelor’s degrees may be better positioned for higher-level jobs or supervisory roles. They may also earn more money. According to the association of nursing colleges’ annual survey, 41% of hospitals and other health care facilities require new nursing hires to have a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Many nursing schools have “RN to BSN” programs that enable registered nurses with associate degrees to get the additional training they need for their bachelor of nursing degrees. And numerous accelerated programs, like the one Mirande Gross will start in May, allow people to fill in their nursing education gaps in a compressed time frame.

Not every nursing student sees the pandemic as an opportunity, however. Steven Bemben worked as a paramedic in Uvalde County, Texas, west of San Antonio, during the first frightening months of the pandemic last year. Personal protective equipment was hard to come by, and sometimes the calls to transport very sick covid patients came nonstop.

“It was extremely stressful, and people were getting fatigued and burned out,” said Bemben, 33, who had been on the job for nine years.

Last October, he quit his paramedic job, and in January he started a two-year bachelor’s nursing program at the University of Texas-San Antonio. (He already has an associate degree, although not in nursing.)

When Bemben finishes school, he hopes, the pandemic will be in our collective rearview mirror.

“By the time I graduate, I’m trying to stay optimistic that we’ll be past all this stuff,” he said.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

‘I Wanted to Go in There and Help’: Nursing Schools See Enrollment Bump Amid Pandemic published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

‘I Wanted to Go in There and Help’: Nursing Schools See Enrollment Bump Amid Pandemic

This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free.

Last December, Mirande Gross graduated from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, with a bachelor’s degree in communications. But Gross has changed her mind and is heading back to school in May for a one-year accelerated nursing degree program. The pandemic that has sickened more than 27 million people in the United States and killed nearly 500,000 helped convince her she wanted to become a nurse.

“I was excited about working during the pandemic,” Gross, 22, said. “It didn’t scare me away.”

Enrollment in baccalaureate nursing programs increased nearly 6% in 2020, to 250,856, according to preliminary results from an annual survey of 900 nursing schools by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

“In the pandemic we saw an increased visibility of nurses, and I think that’s been inspirational to many people,” said Deb Trautman, president and CEO of the association, whose members represent nursing programs at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels. “It’s a profession where you can make a difference.”

Two-year associate nursing degree programs seem to be experiencing a similar bump, though hard numbers are unavailable, said Laura Schmidt, president of the Organization for Associate Degree Nursing.

There’s no way to know exactly what is propelling the new applications. But medical schools also saw an 18% boost in applications last year, a jump partly attributed to the pandemic and high profile of key doctors, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the crisis.

It’s possible that the media stories, social media accounts and front-line medical workers’ personal accounts of battling the novel coronavirus have played a role. “Nurse” was the No. 1 term that people queried “how to become” on Google in 2020, according to Google trends data.

For Gross, it was a turn back to an initial career choice. When she started college, nursing was her chosen path. But after fainting twice while shadowing a nurse at the hospital, she switched to a major that didn’t involve needles or blood. For the past two years, she’s worked as a newborn photographer at a hospital near her Louisville home, and she no longer gets squeamish at the sight of IVs or injuries.

“When I saw on the news nurses being so overworked, I thought, ‘Gosh, I wish I could be in there helping,’” said Gross.

Demand for nurses was strong even before the pandemic hit. There are about 3 million registered nurses in the United States, but employment is expected to grow 7% between 2019 and 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, faster than the 4% average for all occupations. Many hospital medical staffs are stretched to the breaking point as they deal with a surge of covid-19 patients and at the same time cope with staff shortages as medical personnel have become ill with covid or had to quarantine.

Meeting the demand for nurses is hampered by long-standing capacity issues at nursing schools. According to a report by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, programs at the bachelor’s and graduate degree levels turned away more than 80,000 qualified applicants in 2019. The reasons included not having enough faculty, clinical training sites and supervisors or classroom space, as well as budget constraints, the report found.

“The people who are prepared to teach are at least master’s degree level and frequently have doctorate degrees,” said Beverly Malone, president and CEO of the National League for Nursing. “They can work at hospitals or community care centers for [significantly] more money.”

Malone and others also noted that it can be difficult to ensure access to the clinical training slots that nursing students need. This problem was exacerbated during the pandemic when many hospitals sent nursing students home to avoid their getting sick and to conserve scarce personal protective equipment for staffers treating covid patients.

For some nursing students, the pandemic has opened their eyes to new possibilities for patient care. David Namnath is finishing a two-year associate nursing degree at the College of Marin in Kentfield, California. He learned last spring that his clinical rotation at the local hospital would be canceled because of covid.

Instead, he and other students took on a telenursing project, in which he made regular wellness check-ins and provided health education related to chronic conditions such as diabetes and back pain with eight patients over video and phone.

“It was really helpful for me,” said Namnath, 29, who has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and worked in a lab before starting nursing school. “It’s not something you normally learn. I think we became more three-dimensional because of it.”

Some people who got nursing degrees in years past but didn’t practice also may be taking a fresh look at the profession, said David Benton, CEO of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. More than 222,000 nurses who were educated in the U.S. took the National Council Licensure Examination last year, a figure that was 5% higher than the year before, he said.

The economic downturn that has shuttered thousands of businesses may have made nursing more attractive, he said.

“We know that, nationally, services like the restaurant industry have shut down,” Benton said. “But one thing that hasn’t shut down is demand for health care.”

Nurses who worked in hospitals made $79,400 a year on average in 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But as the covid crisis hit and hospitals scrambled to find staff last year, nurses who were willing to travel to covid hot spots could make many times that amount, in some cases up to $10,000 a week.

There are many paths to becoming a nurse. A growing proportion of nurses get a bachelor of science degree in nursing at four-year colleges. But many still go to community colleges for two-year associate degrees in nursing. These programs are more affordable and may appeal to older students who are parents or going back for a second degree, said Schmidt.

Both types of graduates can take the nurse licensing exam and become registered nurses. But nurses with bachelor’s degrees may be better positioned for higher-level jobs or supervisory roles. They may also earn more money. According to the association of nursing colleges’ annual survey, 41% of hospitals and other health care facilities require new nursing hires to have a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Many nursing schools have “RN to BSN” programs that enable registered nurses with associate degrees to get the additional training they need for their bachelor of nursing degrees. And numerous accelerated programs, like the one Mirande Gross will start in May, allow people to fill in their nursing education gaps in a compressed time frame.

Not every nursing student sees the pandemic as an opportunity, however. Steven Bemben worked as a paramedic in Uvalde County, Texas, west of San Antonio, during the first frightening months of the pandemic last year. Personal protective equipment was hard to come by, and sometimes the calls to transport very sick covid patients came nonstop.

“It was extremely stressful, and people were getting fatigued and burned out,” said Bemben, 33, who had been on the job for nine years.

Last October, he quit his paramedic job, and in January he started a two-year bachelor’s nursing program at the University of Texas-San Antonio. (He already has an associate degree, although not in nursing.)

When Bemben finishes school, he hopes, the pandemic will be in our collective rearview mirror.

“By the time I graduate, I’m trying to stay optimistic that we’ll be past all this stuff,” he said.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

‘I Wanted to Go in There and Help’: Nursing Schools See Enrollment Bump Amid Pandemic published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[memorylang]

Reunions | #29 | March 2020

Fitting, this 29th story from my Peace Corps Mongolia life marks my reunion with our M29s, the senior cohort who taught me so much about how to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. 

From blurred goodbyes with mentors and friends, to an uncertain transatlantic journey, my continued evacuation felt nostalgic, new and every emotion between. In this story, I bring you from my city of service across Mongolia’s north central Khangai region, to pick up fellow Peace Corps Volunteer evacuees on our caravan to the capital. 

With every familiar face I saw, leaving Mongolia felt more and more real. 

Last Sunrise 

Sunday, March 1, I awoke early for my last sunrise in my apartment. 

Next, I went around the rooms, stowing the rest of my needs in my luggage and sweeping dust around the linoleum floors. I felt Mongolians were always tidier than my best. I left aside a few household things I didn’t mind whether they stayed or went. 

As I packed myself snack bundles in the kitchen for my journey ahead, I thought to my summer host mom. She made lunches for my day trips to Дархан /Darkhan/ on Peace Corps business. Those were great. 

Lastly, I heated on the stove my supervisor's remaining бууз /boe-z/ steamed dumplings she gifted at Tsagaan Sar. 

Just then my supervisor contacted me, she was on her way with бууз.

Mongolian hospitality’s the best. 

Sunday Rush 

The moment my supervisor arrived, through the next 45 minutes, was a lightning of activity. 

My supervisor wanted to make sure anything remotely useful to me, we’d stow away for my return. People from the uni were coming to clean the apartment, so she wanted nothing taken. 

I tried to explain I wasn’t sure I’d be coming back, for none of us knew Peace Corps’s situation. But I too wanted to come back. And I appreciated her planning for it. 

A supervisor wouldn’t plan for my return unless she wanted me to come back. 

So stowed away items and helped me complete every last detail needed to secure the apartment. She and one of the school workers showed me how to run thread through putty we pressed onto my closet doors. This way, if someone tampered with my doors that couldn’t lock, they’d know. We stamped the date on one side then pressed my key’s grooves into the other. 

As we wrapped up duties, I handed my supervisor my card for our department and an “Omnibus” student poetry book my training clustermate asked me to give my community. I also gave her some “Laubach Way” to Reading/English textbooks I referenced from teaching English in Reno, Nev., fall 2018. I hoped our department would use these. 

My priest friend from the night before returned, so my supervisor helped me load his vehicle. She insisted I haul this huge bag of snacks with me for my journey. I’d been offering them for others, but I finally acquiesced. I had my backpack, my small IKEA bag, my suitcase checked bag, the food sack and my stranded sitemate’s hiking backpack and camera bag. 

At last, goodbye. Throughout the week I’d ask my supervisor when I should leave my apartment key with her, since there was no use taking it with me to America. She’d told me to hold on to it, so it’s easier when I get back. I wasn’t sure I’d get back. 

During this last visit, well, she asked if I wanted her to have my key. 

The moment felt like an acceptance of this uncertainty. We locked the door. I gave her my key. 

I parted ways with thanks. My priest drove me to my senior M29 cohort sitemate’s apartment. Meanwhile, my supervisor shared in our department’s group chat my card. My colleagues wished me safe travels. I felt disappointed leaving them from just after our Lunar New Year. 

Bittersweet with Final Friends

After that rush, I’d a breather. 

My priest dropped me off by the curb, where a group of my friends gathered. They were from our coffee shop speaking group, including the English teacher who invited me over a couple nights before Tsagaan Sar. I felt touched they came to see me off. They left me with more food, snacks and gifts. 

With selfies and warm wishes, I wished my friends good-bye and came up to my sitemate’s apartment. 

Assembled within were our Peace Corps Volunteers’ long-time engineering friend, his friend, and our eager high schooler who visited me the night before. What a nice bunch. My sitemate related how the kid after receiving my Peace Corps key chain and name tag excitedly told him. Indeed, the kid still wore “Daniel Lang” when I arrived. What a cool lil’ dude. The guy resolved to be my first and last Mongolian visitor. He won. 

The first time I visited my Peace Corps sitemate’s apartment might have been the only time before now. That August 2019, I’d just arrived in town, and he offered up the left-behind M28 cohorts’ things. (That’s where I got the cork board I described in my packing story.) Now my sitemate’s apartment looked bare, save its furniture. 

On to business, my sitemate and I compared when we expected Peace Corps’s driver to reach town. We got different stories, so we called the driver with our Mongolian friends’ help. The driver just picked up our friendly spiritual sitemate from the village in our province over. We reasoned we’d plenty hours before leaving. 

We got squad pics. Beyond handing off keys to the colleagues of our stranded sitemates two or three days before, my friend here and our friends already grabbed a few belongings for our other stranded sitemate. With nothing left to do, we went out to find lunch. 

I loved the light snow flurries, quaintly reminding me of the auspicious Lunar New Year. But we found most places closed around the city to ward off COVID-19. (Mongolia doesn’t drive-through like America.) At least, we found open the bakery I visited the Saturday before with my translator friend. So our group got to-go and headed back. 

I enjoyed the meal. I had the pastry my speaking group friends gave me, plus the new бууз from my supervisor—my last from Tsagaan Sar 2020. They’d pizza. On a thrilling note, Peace Corps Mongolia emailed our flight itineraries. Turns out my sitemate and I’d fly Thursday before dawn. I felt shocked and awed that after Russia we’d come through Germany and the Netherlands! An overnight in New York City seemed weird. By Friday I’d touch down in Vegas...

We got our friendly sitemate’s calls, our driver was in-town. Time to go. 

Picking Up Pals in Peace Corps

I descended the apartment stairs, opened the front door and felt heartened. I'll never forget the Sunday sight of my fellow spiritual Volunteer. Before me was my Episcopalian Peace Corps friend’s delighted face. We’d assembled. 

My friends and I loaded up the white Peace Corps SUV. We strapped my suitcase among the bags up top, while I protected my stranded sitemate’s things in the vehicle. We exchanged small talk while we wrapped up. 

Moments later, our three local friends stood waving by the curb as we pulled away. What a blur. I didn’t catch a photo, but I felt their sight ingrained. 

We had a U.S. Embassy driver instead of a Peace Corps one, which explained why I didn’t recognize him. He had a wonderful sense of humor. With my friend, we shared snacks and compared evacuation stories. He told this wild one of how they almost drove off a cliff! I remembered Peace Corps’ Safety & Security emailed us about snow storms but I hadn’t thought of ‘em. 

We drove across the snowy world’s whiteness to the neighboring province for our next sitemate. As we entered a beautiful forested town, we could see why she hadn’t left her site much. Her village could have passed for a winter resort if tourism ever touched this. 

When we pulled into the yard of basically our sitemate’s host family, her dog barked, and the family welcomed us to tea and Tsagaan Sar food. ‘Evacuating’ felt surreal. I loved this little countryside stop. 

Our journey continued. 

Farewell in Sorrow

We had a mission. 

We headed on to one of our stranded sitemate’s places. Unfortunately, no one had been able to visit her area to pack her things. And like my senior M29 sitemate, she was of that cohort—the one not coming back. 

As we rode into site, I recalled an autumn day trip when my and my sitemates’ party of four came to visit. We cooked together. I wandered out a few hours back then. 

Now the site's covered in snow, and our different party of four came to her apartment with her colleague, instead of her. We forwarded to each other our stranded sitemate’s email of what to pack. Then we got to work, splitting up on rooms to take to scavenging her year and a half’s worth of memories. She helped over video call. 

She was among my Peace Corps mentors. I felt sad coming in and having to rummage her things for her. But if we didn’t, who could? 

We finished. We readied to leave. Then, watching our sitemate over video say goodbye to the colleague she couldn't come back to see in-person, I felt heartbroken. 

But we had to keep going.  

Police State? 

With the Health Volunteers in our car, Sunday, March 1 became the first day I actively heard people calling the creeping Coronavirus crisis a pandemic. 

But as we pulled into police and military checkpoints, the likes of which my priest described, I felt like were entered a police state. Americans and I commented among each other, people in the States would so resist measures like these to quarantine our nation. 

At checkpoints, we needed to show our passports and accept the forehead temperature checks. (If one in our party coughed after the health person walked away, we laughed about our luck.) 

After getting all set at our province border, our vehicle awaited the coming of our neighboring province’s Peace Corps evacuation party. We travel together the rest. 

Avengers Assemble

Fun fact: I naturally tend to frame my life in terms of adventures I’ve read, watched or played through. 

Seeing my old friends again, for instance, under these grave conditions reminded me of every time watching Steve Rogers first step onto a scene in “Avengers: Infinity War.” 

A white microbus arrived. Our fellow Volunteers arrived. 

Stepping out of our vehicle felt like being the Avengers, assembling in Wakanda for our Infinity War. All of us were evacuees. We all left behind our Mongolian homes. And we’d seen better days. But we were together. 

And yet, I felt somber with the sense we’d already ‘lost.’ With a snap, COVID-19 was wiping out half my Peace Corps Mongolia universe. Our senior M29 cohort would undergo their Close of Service. Their service would finish in the capital. But my cohort’s wouldn’t—or it may.

So we were in our Endgame. If we return to Mongolia, it'll be the greatest comeback. But half our Volunteers would still be gone, maybe more. We'd be starting a bit fresh, becoming the new senior cohort. But that'd be our duty—to continue where we and others left off, to keep going.

We shared moments of grins and hugs and small talk. I saw my Catholic friend again, what a guy. Then we re-boarded our vehicles. We left from Mongolia's second-largest city to its third. 

Hometown Snow Storm, That Winter Night

Riding back east across Mongolia, I recalled my previous trips in the country.

Further east, near dusk, we passed a turn off, where another driver head of us turned left. Our U.S. Embassy driver called that driver crazy. I’d been down that way before, during my day trip with Japanese JICA Volunteers to the historic monastery. But there was scarcely a daytime road—I couldn’t imagine getting there with this snow storm and night. 

Further down, we drove through Хөтөл /Khutul/, the soum where many of my Peace Corps cohort friends lived this summer. With darkness and snow all around, I could barely recognize the city of 12,000, beyond its street sign. 

Then we pulled through Номгон /Nomgon/, my Mongolian hometown. 

My senior sitemate and I both trained here, albeit during different years. With blowing snow and darkness surrounding, we couldn't even see the iconic mountain on our right. But to our left, he spotted the green of our school, and we saw the lights of the street-side convenience store beside the red tractor monument. 

We meant to visit home for Tsagaan Sar, before travel banned. I realized, I was the only one from my cluster who got to see our Mongolian hometown during winter. I taped a video of our passing and shared with my host family and training cluster. 

We continued on. 

Between Mongolia’s Largest Cities

At times, so much powder snow blasted across the road, I couldn't even see its edge. But we could see the red lights from the microbus of Peace Corps Volunteers ahead. 

Finally, we arrived in Дархан /Darkhan/, on the dark road that felt nothing like our summer rides in light. We stopped a while somewhere near the city proper’s border, somewhere I recalled from my host family driving me on a summer day trip. 

Besides briefing exiting a train during my winter trip to the capital for a Peace Corps conference, I'd never seen Дархан during winter. 

We stayed in a hotel overnight to wait out the snow storm before continuing for the capital the next morning.

I reorganized my food sack, enjoyed some nibbles. My Catholic friend roommate caught me up more on the peace of our situation. I felt awed, my senior sitemate played a Nintendo Switch. I hoped I could play someone’s back in the States. 

Change of Pace

Monday, March 2, we hurried our bags downstairs and had a quick lamb stew breakfast. 

Curiously, a Volunteer asked to switch from the microbus to our SUV. Cool, I swapped with her. Coincidentally she was the very first I met in my cohort during Staging in Philadelphia last May, before reaching Mongolia. We both gave speeches at our Swear-In Ceremony in August 2019. 

In the microbus were many Volunteers from our senior M29 cohort. I felt (maybe too) elated to see them again. They pointed out they’re processing their abrupt Close of Service—They needed space. 

Within a few hours, we’d hit the capital. Life gained speed, and, of course, I’ve more to share there. For now, though, I gazed out the window at our snow-blanketed world, with my fellow Volunteers in mind. Our lives, theirs especially, were changing fast. 

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me~

[timalexanderdollery]

Why we need a more forgiving legal system

The Supreme Court on March 12, 2019. | Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Harvard law professor Martha Minow on the possibilities of restorative justice.

The American justice system’s approach to crime seems to be: Lock up as many people as possible. This is one of many reasons why we’re the most incarcerated country in the world.

Punishment has a role in any criminal justice process, but what if it was balanced with a desire to forgive? What if, instead of locking up as many people as possible, we prioritized letting go of grievances in order to create a better future for victims and perpetrators?

These ideas are central to a growing “restorative justice” movement in America, which seeks to bring together criminals, victims, and affected families as part of a process of dialogue and healing. Think of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a model for this approach to justice.

A new book by Harvard law professor Martha Minow, titled When Should Law Forgive?, explores how the restorative justice philosophy might be scaled up and applied to the broader criminal justice system. Minow was dean of Harvard Law from 2009 to 2017 and is known for her work on constitutional law and human rights, especially the rights of racial and religious minorities.

Minow’s book is very much what the title implies: a plea for a justice system that emphasizes forgiveness over resentment, resolution over punishment. It’s not a call for abolishing punishment altogether, but it is an attempt to challenge some of our most basic assumptions about law and order.

What we have now, Minow argues, is a system that forgives some and not others, that favors the powerful over the marginal. And the only way to change it, she concludes, is to rethink the incentive structure that guides our entire criminal justice process.

I spoke to Minow about what that change might look like, whether it’s compatible with the American philosophy of justice, and why some people have reservations about abandoning the status quo.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

The law, as you point out in the book, already forgives, but it’s very selective about when and who it forgives. Who gets forgiven now and why?

Martha Minow

One of the central reasons to write this book is that many of the inequalities reflected in the distribution of power in this country help explain who gets forgiven and who doesn’t, particularly when there’s discretion that’s given either to a judge or to some other law enforcement official, like a police officer or a prosecutor.

When there’s discretion, then the biases of the individual come into play. One of my favorite cartoons shows a judge with a big bushy mustache and a large nose looking down from the bench at someone with the exact same mustache and nose saying obviously not guilty.

There’s an understandable but dangerous tendency to identify with people like ourselves and to not identify with people who are different. Developing a jurisprudence of forgiveness is partially about developing criteria for judging when and how discretion is exercised.

Sean Illing

Can you give me an example of a type of person or institution that receives forgiveness now?

Martha Minow

Right now, for example, we have a bankruptcy code that allows a for-profit college or university to declare bankruptcy but does not allow the students who took out loans to go there to declare bankruptcy. That reflects a political judgement about who or what can be forgiven. And it’s an expression of who has the power to lobby in this country, of who has the power to influence legislation.

We should be critical of these sorts of imbalances and fight for a system that extends the same sense of charity to less-powerful individuals and institutions.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

Loss Prevention Supervisor Lonnie Hernandez looks over some of the 55 letters he has received from shoplifters that have been through the Longmont Community Justice Partnership in Longmont, Colorado on August 19, 2016.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

A letter Lonnie Hernandez received from a shoplifter is seen on his desk. Part of his organization’s restorative justice program includes offenders writing letters apologizing for their crimes.

Sean Illing

What are some crimes right now for which there is no mechanism of forgiveness but you think there should be?

Martha Minow

America is the most incarcerating country on the planet, and one consequence of that is the presence of fines and fees that are layered on top of people who are convicted of a crime. Many systems actually impose on the criminal defendant the cost of a probation officer or the cost of monitoring anklets with which they’re discharged, and the fines and fees accumulate.

These are often people without a lot of resources and there’s no forgiveness mechanism and therefore they can face even more incarceration for nonpayment. I think that’s an area where absolutely we should have mechanisms of forgiveness. Although there’s some efforts now to do just this, it’s not nearly enough.

Sean Illing

Who would you say gains the most from a more forgiving legal system?

Martha Minow

Not to be too simplistic, but I think we all do. In an interpersonal context, the one who forgives often gains as much if not more than the one who was forgiven. To let go of a grievance is to be freed in many ways.

More transparency and a more forgiving and pragmatic approach to crime also benefits the entire community because it constrains law enforcement and prevents the needless break-up of families, which is what incarceration does.

Sean Illing

There’s another prosecutor problem, though, which you discuss in the book and which New York Times legal reporter Emily Bazelon has written about. We have a significant number of overzealous prosecutors, people who are benefiting politically from from locking up as many people as possible. How do we address that?

Martha Minow

The emergence of progressive prosecutors is encouraging. It’s part of a broader movement to support and demand the election of people who are very clear about their intention to be less punitive and to pursue alternative models like restorative justice.

Another technique, of course, is to not have elected prosecutors at all, which is flawed for countless reasons. We can also develop ways to measure and reward other indicators of success besides how many people did you lock up. For example, we should pay more attention to how many people end up falling back into the criminal justice system after their initial contact with it.

If prosecutors are just tossing people in jail who continue to commit crimes after serving time, well, that’s obviously bad. But that’s just not part of the incentive structure right now.

Sean Illing

Do you worry that more forgiveness means prioritizing the interests of perpetrators over the needs of victims?

Martha Minow

I certainly do. And as much as I criticize mass incarceration, I do believe that we need vigorous law enforcement, and often the people most victimized by crime are the most disadvantaged. They’re poor people, people of color, people who are most likely to be targeted by violence. So while we need to talk about fairness, there are definitely dangers in taking the concerns of perpetrators too far. At the same time, we can’t let that concern get in the way of thinking more broadly about how to construct a more just, balanced, and forgiving system.

Sean Iling

Some people have raised concerns that there’s an imbalance in terms of our expectations about who should forgive and that simply calling for more forgiveness risks normalizing certain forms of oppression or violence. How do you respond to this?

Martha Minow

These are very important objections and I don’t think it’s accidental or unique to our society that people with relatively less power are either more likely to be expected to forgive than people with more power.

People of color and women in particular, at least in our society, have developed more muscles when it comes to forgiveness, even when they may be more often on the receiving end of harms. We see this now with the Me Too movement where very often someone who’s been identified as engaging in sexual assault or sexual harassment then expects their victims to forgive, and that’s often an expression simply of the power that they had in the first place.

I don’t think the problem here is forgiveness, though. Forgiveness is a resource every human being has and indeed every religion, every major moral philosophy, and every society has tried to cultivate. The real problem, as you suggested, is the unequal expectations around who should forgive and when.

Sean Illing

The idea of forgiveness seems at odds with our whole philosophy of justice in this country. Do we need a fundamental shift in how we think about justice and law?

Martha Minow

Every law student learns that there are multiple purposes of the criminal justice system. Deterrence of crime is one, incapacitation of people who are dangerous is another, but so is retribution and finally rehabilitation. Those are the four classic goals.

The United States doesn’t have a criminal justice system — we have many, many local fiefdoms of criminal justice systems and many of them have been moving away from rehabilitation for a long time and very much toward retribution and not even always thoughtfully using deterrence as a goal.

Since most of our system operates by plea bargain, much of it’s not even public. Prosecutors often work by stacking up as many charges as possible so that people will plead to something and then using that as leverage to press them into some admission of guilt and then some kind of punishment.

So how does that feed back into a deterrent system? It’s not clear. I think we’ve swung way out of balance from the goals that the system itself is supposed to have.

I think that we can learn some from other systems. I’m very encouraged when I hear that there are delegations from a city in the Midwest going to Norway or Finland to learn about how they engage in more restorative practices. There are increasing experiments in this country. The District of Columbia has decided to use restorative practices for its juvenile justice docket. I think there are a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life, different political persuasions, who are saying, “There’s something very broken here and we can change.”

Sean Illing

Let’s say we did shift to a more forgiving legal system, are there any trade-offs that concern you? Is there something our current system does well that we might lose if we made this change?

Martha Minow

I think we have to step back and recognize that we have too many people incarcerated and too many people in debt and we need a reset. That’s what I’m calling for.

But are there risks? Of course. One danger is that introducing more forgiveness into the system could further jeopardize the principle of equality under the law if it’s not applied fairly. If we don’t eliminate the imbalances we were talking about earlier, then more forgiveness could easily deepen the inequalities that already exist.

So, above all, we have to ensure that the benefits of a more forgiving system extend to everyone and not simply to the most powerful forces in the country. If we can do that, the country as a whole will be better.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2XegO9Q

[gracieyvonnehunter]

Why we need a more forgiving legal system

The Supreme Court on March 12, 2019. | Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Harvard law professor Martha Minow on the possibilities of restorative justice.

The American justice system’s approach to crime seems to be: Lock up as many people as possible. This is one of many reasons why we’re the most incarcerated country in the world.

Punishment has a role in any criminal justice process, but what if it was balanced with a desire to forgive? What if, instead of locking up as many people as possible, we prioritized letting go of grievances in order to create a better future for victims and perpetrators?

These ideas are central to a growing “restorative justice” movement in America, which seeks to bring together criminals, victims, and affected families as part of a process of dialogue and healing. Think of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a model for this approach to justice.

A new book by Harvard law professor Martha Minow, titled When Should Law Forgive?, explores how the restorative justice philosophy might be scaled up and applied to the broader criminal justice system. Minow was dean of Harvard Law from 2009 to 2017 and is known for her work on constitutional law and human rights, especially the rights of racial and religious minorities.

Minow’s book is very much what the title implies: a plea for a justice system that emphasizes forgiveness over resentment, resolution over punishment. It’s not a call for abolishing punishment altogether, but it is an attempt to challenge some of our most basic assumptions about law and order.

What we have now, Minow argues, is a system that forgives some and not others, that favors the powerful over the marginal. And the only way to change it, she concludes, is to rethink the incentive structure that guides our entire criminal justice process.

I spoke to Minow about what that change might look like, whether it’s compatible with the American philosophy of justice, and why some people have reservations about abandoning the status quo.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

The law, as you point out in the book, already forgives, but it’s very selective about when and who it forgives. Who gets forgiven now and why?

Martha Minow

One of the central reasons to write this book is that many of the inequalities reflected in the distribution of power in this country help explain who gets forgiven and who doesn’t, particularly when there’s discretion that’s given either to a judge or to some other law enforcement official, like a police officer or a prosecutor.

When there’s discretion, then the biases of the individual come into play. One of my favorite cartoons shows a judge with a big bushy mustache and a large nose looking down from the bench at someone with the exact same mustache and nose saying obviously not guilty.

There’s an understandable but dangerous tendency to identify with people like ourselves and to not identify with people who are different. Developing a jurisprudence of forgiveness is partially about developing criteria for judging when and how discretion is exercised.

Sean Illing

Can you give me an example of a type of person or institution that receives forgiveness now?

Martha Minow

Right now, for example, we have a bankruptcy code that allows a for-profit college or university to declare bankruptcy but does not allow the students who took out loans to go there to declare bankruptcy. That reflects a political judgement about who or what can be forgiven. And it’s an expression of who has the power to lobby in this country, of who has the power to influence legislation.

We should be critical of these sorts of imbalances and fight for a system that extends the same sense of charity to less-powerful individuals and institutions.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

Loss Prevention Supervisor Lonnie Hernandez looks over some of the 55 letters he has received from shoplifters that have been through the Longmont Community Justice Partnership in Longmont, Colorado on August 19, 2016.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

A letter Lonnie Hernandez received from a shoplifter is seen on his desk. Part of his organization’s restorative justice program includes offenders writing letters apologizing for their crimes.

Sean Illing

What are some crimes right now for which there is no mechanism of forgiveness but you think there should be?

Martha Minow

America is the most incarcerating country on the planet, and one consequence of that is the presence of fines and fees that are layered on top of people who are convicted of a crime. Many systems actually impose on the criminal defendant the cost of a probation officer or the cost of monitoring anklets with which they’re discharged, and the fines and fees accumulate.

These are often people without a lot of resources and there’s no forgiveness mechanism and therefore they can face even more incarceration for nonpayment. I think that’s an area where absolutely we should have mechanisms of forgiveness. Although there’s some efforts now to do just this, it’s not nearly enough.

Sean Illing

Who would you say gains the most from a more forgiving legal system?

Martha Minow

Not to be too simplistic, but I think we all do. In an interpersonal context, the one who forgives often gains as much if not more than the one who was forgiven. To let go of a grievance is to be freed in many ways.

More transparency and a more forgiving and pragmatic approach to crime also benefits the entire community because it constrains law enforcement and prevents the needless break-up of families, which is what incarceration does.

Sean Illing

There’s another prosecutor problem, though, which you discuss in the book and which New York Times legal reporter Emily Bazelon has written about. We have a significant number of overzealous prosecutors, people who are benefiting politically from from locking up as many people as possible. How do we address that?

Martha Minow

The emergence of progressive prosecutors is encouraging. It’s part of a broader movement to support and demand the election of people who are very clear about their intention to be less punitive and to pursue alternative models like restorative justice.

Another technique, of course, is to not have elected prosecutors at all, which is flawed for countless reasons. We can also develop ways to measure and reward other indicators of success besides how many people did you lock up. For example, we should pay more attention to how many people end up falling back into the criminal justice system after their initial contact with it.

If prosecutors are just tossing people in jail who continue to commit crimes after serving time, well, that’s obviously bad. But that’s just not part of the incentive structure right now.

Sean Illing

Do you worry that more forgiveness means prioritizing the interests of perpetrators over the needs of victims?

Martha Minow

I certainly do. And as much as I criticize mass incarceration, I do believe that we need vigorous law enforcement, and often the people most victimized by crime are the most disadvantaged. They’re poor people, people of color, people who are most likely to be targeted by violence. So while we need to talk about fairness, there are definitely dangers in taking the concerns of perpetrators too far. At the same time, we can’t let that concern get in the way of thinking more broadly about how to construct a more just, balanced, and forgiving system.

Sean Iling

Some people have raised concerns that there’s an imbalance in terms of our expectations about who should forgive and that simply calling for more forgiveness risks normalizing certain forms of oppression or violence. How do you respond to this?

Martha Minow

These are very important objections and I don’t think it’s accidental or unique to our society that people with relatively less power are either more likely to be expected to forgive than people with more power.

People of color and women in particular, at least in our society, have developed more muscles when it comes to forgiveness, even when they may be more often on the receiving end of harms. We see this now with the Me Too movement where very often someone who’s been identified as engaging in sexual assault or sexual harassment then expects their victims to forgive, and that’s often an expression simply of the power that they had in the first place.

I don’t think the problem here is forgiveness, though. Forgiveness is a resource every human being has and indeed every religion, every major moral philosophy, and every society has tried to cultivate. The real problem, as you suggested, is the unequal expectations around who should forgive and when.

Sean Illing

The idea of forgiveness seems at odds with our whole philosophy of justice in this country. Do we need a fundamental shift in how we think about justice and law?

Martha Minow

Every law student learns that there are multiple purposes of the criminal justice system. Deterrence of crime is one, incapacitation of people who are dangerous is another, but so is retribution and finally rehabilitation. Those are the four classic goals.

The United States doesn’t have a criminal justice system — we have many, many local fiefdoms of criminal justice systems and many of them have been moving away from rehabilitation for a long time and very much toward retribution and not even always thoughtfully using deterrence as a goal.

Since most of our system operates by plea bargain, much of it’s not even public. Prosecutors often work by stacking up as many charges as possible so that people will plead to something and then using that as leverage to press them into some admission of guilt and then some kind of punishment.

So how does that feed back into a deterrent system? It’s not clear. I think we’ve swung way out of balance from the goals that the system itself is supposed to have.

I think that we can learn some from other systems. I’m very encouraged when I hear that there are delegations from a city in the Midwest going to Norway or Finland to learn about how they engage in more restorative practices. There are increasing experiments in this country. The District of Columbia has decided to use restorative practices for its juvenile justice docket. I think there are a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life, different political persuasions, who are saying, “There’s something very broken here and we can change.”

Sean Illing

Let’s say we did shift to a more forgiving legal system, are there any trade-offs that concern you? Is there something our current system does well that we might lose if we made this change?

Martha Minow

I think we have to step back and recognize that we have too many people incarcerated and too many people in debt and we need a reset. That’s what I’m calling for.

But are there risks? Of course. One danger is that introducing more forgiveness into the system could further jeopardize the principle of equality under the law if it’s not applied fairly. If we don’t eliminate the imbalances we were talking about earlier, then more forgiveness could easily deepen the inequalities that already exist.

So, above all, we have to ensure that the benefits of a more forgiving system extend to everyone and not simply to the most powerful forces in the country. If we can do that, the country as a whole will be better.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2XegO9Q

[corneliusreignallen]

Why we need a more forgiving legal system

The Supreme Court on March 12, 2019. | Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Harvard law professor Martha Minow on the possibilities of restorative justice.

The American justice system’s approach to crime seems to be: Lock up as many people as possible. This is one of many reasons why we’re the most incarcerated country in the world.

Punishment has a role in any criminal justice process, but what if it was balanced with a desire to forgive? What if, instead of locking up as many people as possible, we prioritized letting go of grievances in order to create a better future for victims and perpetrators?

These ideas are central to a growing “restorative justice” movement in America, which seeks to bring together criminals, victims, and affected families as part of a process of dialogue and healing. Think of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a model for this approach to justice.

A new book by Harvard law professor Martha Minow, titled When Should Law Forgive?, explores how the restorative justice philosophy might be scaled up and applied to the broader criminal justice system. Minow was dean of Harvard Law from 2009 to 2017 and is known for her work on constitutional law and human rights, especially the rights of racial and religious minorities.

Minow’s book is very much what the title implies: a plea for a justice system that emphasizes forgiveness over resentment, resolution over punishment. It’s not a call for abolishing punishment altogether, but it is an attempt to challenge some of our most basic assumptions about law and order.

What we have now, Minow argues, is a system that forgives some and not others, that favors the powerful over the marginal. And the only way to change it, she concludes, is to rethink the incentive structure that guides our entire criminal justice process.

I spoke to Minow about what that change might look like, whether it’s compatible with the American philosophy of justice, and why some people have reservations about abandoning the status quo.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

The law, as you point out in the book, already forgives, but it’s very selective about when and who it forgives. Who gets forgiven now and why?

Martha Minow

One of the central reasons to write this book is that many of the inequalities reflected in the distribution of power in this country help explain who gets forgiven and who doesn’t, particularly when there’s discretion that’s given either to a judge or to some other law enforcement official, like a police officer or a prosecutor.

When there’s discretion, then the biases of the individual come into play. One of my favorite cartoons shows a judge with a big bushy mustache and a large nose looking down from the bench at someone with the exact same mustache and nose saying obviously not guilty.

There’s an understandable but dangerous tendency to identify with people like ourselves and to not identify with people who are different. Developing a jurisprudence of forgiveness is partially about developing criteria for judging when and how discretion is exercised.

Sean Illing

Can you give me an example of a type of person or institution that receives forgiveness now?

Martha Minow

Right now, for example, we have a bankruptcy code that allows a for-profit college or university to declare bankruptcy but does not allow the students who took out loans to go there to declare bankruptcy. That reflects a political judgement about who or what can be forgiven. And it’s an expression of who has the power to lobby in this country, of who has the power to influence legislation.

We should be critical of these sorts of imbalances and fight for a system that extends the same sense of charity to less-powerful individuals and institutions.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

Loss Prevention Supervisor Lonnie Hernandez looks over some of the 55 letters he has received from shoplifters that have been through the Longmont Community Justice Partnership in Longmont, Colorado on August 19, 2016.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

A letter Lonnie Hernandez received from a shoplifter is seen on his desk. Part of his organization’s restorative justice program includes offenders writing letters apologizing for their crimes.

Sean Illing

What are some crimes right now for which there is no mechanism of forgiveness but you think there should be?

Martha Minow

America is the most incarcerating country on the planet, and one consequence of that is the presence of fines and fees that are layered on top of people who are convicted of a crime. Many systems actually impose on the criminal defendant the cost of a probation officer or the cost of monitoring anklets with which they’re discharged, and the fines and fees accumulate.

These are often people without a lot of resources and there’s no forgiveness mechanism and therefore they can face even more incarceration for nonpayment. I think that’s an area where absolutely we should have mechanisms of forgiveness. Although there’s some efforts now to do just this, it’s not nearly enough.

Sean Illing

Who would you say gains the most from a more forgiving legal system?

Martha Minow

Not to be too simplistic, but I think we all do. In an interpersonal context, the one who forgives often gains as much if not more than the one who was forgiven. To let go of a grievance is to be freed in many ways.

More transparency and a more forgiving and pragmatic approach to crime also benefits the entire community because it constrains law enforcement and prevents the needless break-up of families, which is what incarceration does.

Sean Illing

There’s another prosecutor problem, though, which you discuss in the book and which New York Times legal reporter Emily Bazelon has written about. We have a significant number of overzealous prosecutors, people who are benefiting politically from from locking up as many people as possible. How do we address that?

Martha Minow

The emergence of progressive prosecutors is encouraging. It’s part of a broader movement to support and demand the election of people who are very clear about their intention to be less punitive and to pursue alternative models like restorative justice.

Another technique, of course, is to not have elected prosecutors at all, which is flawed for countless reasons. We can also develop ways to measure and reward other indicators of success besides how many people did you lock up. For example, we should pay more attention to how many people end up falling back into the criminal justice system after their initial contact with it.

If prosecutors are just tossing people in jail who continue to commit crimes after serving time, well, that’s obviously bad. But that’s just not part of the incentive structure right now.

Sean Illing

Do you worry that more forgiveness means prioritizing the interests of perpetrators over the needs of victims?

Martha Minow

I certainly do. And as much as I criticize mass incarceration, I do believe that we need vigorous law enforcement, and often the people most victimized by crime are the most disadvantaged. They’re poor people, people of color, people who are most likely to be targeted by violence. So while we need to talk about fairness, there are definitely dangers in taking the concerns of perpetrators too far. At the same time, we can’t let that concern get in the way of thinking more broadly about how to construct a more just, balanced, and forgiving system.

Sean Iling

Some people have raised concerns that there’s an imbalance in terms of our expectations about who should forgive and that simply calling for more forgiveness risks normalizing certain forms of oppression or violence. How do you respond to this?

Martha Minow

These are very important objections and I don’t think it’s accidental or unique to our society that people with relatively less power are either more likely to be expected to forgive than people with more power.

People of color and women in particular, at least in our society, have developed more muscles when it comes to forgiveness, even when they may be more often on the receiving end of harms. We see this now with the Me Too movement where very often someone who’s been identified as engaging in sexual assault or sexual harassment then expects their victims to forgive, and that’s often an expression simply of the power that they had in the first place.

I don’t think the problem here is forgiveness, though. Forgiveness is a resource every human being has and indeed every religion, every major moral philosophy, and every society has tried to cultivate. The real problem, as you suggested, is the unequal expectations around who should forgive and when.

Sean Illing

The idea of forgiveness seems at odds with our whole philosophy of justice in this country. Do we need a fundamental shift in how we think about justice and law?

Martha Minow

Every law student learns that there are multiple purposes of the criminal justice system. Deterrence of crime is one, incapacitation of people who are dangerous is another, but so is retribution and finally rehabilitation. Those are the four classic goals.

The United States doesn’t have a criminal justice system — we have many, many local fiefdoms of criminal justice systems and many of them have been moving away from rehabilitation for a long time and very much toward retribution and not even always thoughtfully using deterrence as a goal.

Since most of our system operates by plea bargain, much of it’s not even public. Prosecutors often work by stacking up as many charges as possible so that people will plead to something and then using that as leverage to press them into some admission of guilt and then some kind of punishment.

So how does that feed back into a deterrent system? It’s not clear. I think we’ve swung way out of balance from the goals that the system itself is supposed to have.

I think that we can learn some from other systems. I’m very encouraged when I hear that there are delegations from a city in the Midwest going to Norway or Finland to learn about how they engage in more restorative practices. There are increasing experiments in this country. The District of Columbia has decided to use restorative practices for its juvenile justice docket. I think there are a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life, different political persuasions, who are saying, “There’s something very broken here and we can change.”

Sean Illing

Let’s say we did shift to a more forgiving legal system, are there any trade-offs that concern you? Is there something our current system does well that we might lose if we made this change?

Martha Minow

I think we have to step back and recognize that we have too many people incarcerated and too many people in debt and we need a reset. That’s what I’m calling for.

But are there risks? Of course. One danger is that introducing more forgiveness into the system could further jeopardize the principle of equality under the law if it’s not applied fairly. If we don’t eliminate the imbalances we were talking about earlier, then more forgiveness could easily deepen the inequalities that already exist.

So, above all, we have to ensure that the benefits of a more forgiving system extend to everyone and not simply to the most powerful forces in the country. If we can do that, the country as a whole will be better.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2XegO9Q

[shanedakotamuir]

Why we need a more forgiving legal system

The Supreme Court on March 12, 2019. | Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Harvard law professor Martha Minow on the possibilities of restorative justice.

The American justice system’s approach to crime seems to be: Lock up as many people as possible. This is one of many reasons why we’re the most incarcerated country in the world.

Punishment has a role in any criminal justice process, but what if it was balanced with a desire to forgive? What if, instead of locking up as many people as possible, we prioritized letting go of grievances in order to create a better future for victims and perpetrators?

These ideas are central to a growing “restorative justice” movement in America, which seeks to bring together criminals, victims, and affected families as part of a process of dialogue and healing. Think of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a model for this approach to justice.

A new book by Harvard law professor Martha Minow, titled When Should Law Forgive?, explores how the restorative justice philosophy might be scaled up and applied to the broader criminal justice system. Minow was dean of Harvard Law from 2009 to 2017 and is known for her work on constitutional law and human rights, especially the rights of racial and religious minorities.

Minow’s book is very much what the title implies: a plea for a justice system that emphasizes forgiveness over resentment, resolution over punishment. It’s not a call for abolishing punishment altogether, but it is an attempt to challenge some of our most basic assumptions about law and order.

What we have now, Minow argues, is a system that forgives some and not others, that favors the powerful over the marginal. And the only way to change it, she concludes, is to rethink the incentive structure that guides our entire criminal justice process.

I spoke to Minow about what that change might look like, whether it’s compatible with the American philosophy of justice, and why some people have reservations about abandoning the status quo.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

The law, as you point out in the book, already forgives, but it’s very selective about when and who it forgives. Who gets forgiven now and why?

Martha Minow

One of the central reasons to write this book is that many of the inequalities reflected in the distribution of power in this country help explain who gets forgiven and who doesn’t, particularly when there’s discretion that’s given either to a judge or to some other law enforcement official, like a police officer or a prosecutor.

When there’s discretion, then the biases of the individual come into play. One of my favorite cartoons shows a judge with a big bushy mustache and a large nose looking down from the bench at someone with the exact same mustache and nose saying obviously not guilty.

There’s an understandable but dangerous tendency to identify with people like ourselves and to not identify with people who are different. Developing a jurisprudence of forgiveness is partially about developing criteria for judging when and how discretion is exercised.

Sean Illing

Can you give me an example of a type of person or institution that receives forgiveness now?

Martha Minow

Right now, for example, we have a bankruptcy code that allows a for-profit college or university to declare bankruptcy but does not allow the students who took out loans to go there to declare bankruptcy. That reflects a political judgement about who or what can be forgiven. And it’s an expression of who has the power to lobby in this country, of who has the power to influence legislation.

We should be critical of these sorts of imbalances and fight for a system that extends the same sense of charity to less-powerful individuals and institutions.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

Loss Prevention Supervisor Lonnie Hernandez looks over some of the 55 letters he has received from shoplifters that have been through the Longmont Community Justice Partnership in Longmont, Colorado on August 19, 2016.

Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

A letter Lonnie Hernandez received from a shoplifter is seen on his desk. Part of his organization’s restorative justice program includes offenders writing letters apologizing for their crimes.

Sean Illing

What are some crimes right now for which there is no mechanism of forgiveness but you think there should be?

Martha Minow

America is the most incarcerating country on the planet, and one consequence of that is the presence of fines and fees that are layered on top of people who are convicted of a crime. Many systems actually impose on the criminal defendant the cost of a probation officer or the cost of monitoring anklets with which they’re discharged, and the fines and fees accumulate.

These are often people without a lot of resources and there’s no forgiveness mechanism and therefore they can face even more incarceration for nonpayment. I think that’s an area where absolutely we should have mechanisms of forgiveness. Although there’s some efforts now to do just this, it’s not nearly enough.

Sean Illing

Who would you say gains the most from a more forgiving legal system?

Martha Minow

Not to be too simplistic, but I think we all do. In an interpersonal context, the one who forgives often gains as much if not more than the one who was forgiven. To let go of a grievance is to be freed in many ways.

More transparency and a more forgiving and pragmatic approach to crime also benefits the entire community because it constrains law enforcement and prevents the needless break-up of families, which is what incarceration does.

Sean Illing

There’s another prosecutor problem, though, which you discuss in the book and which New York Times legal reporter Emily Bazelon has written about. We have a significant number of overzealous prosecutors, people who are benefiting politically from from locking up as many people as possible. How do we address that?

Martha Minow

The emergence of progressive prosecutors is encouraging. It’s part of a broader movement to support and demand the election of people who are very clear about their intention to be less punitive and to pursue alternative models like restorative justice.

Another technique, of course, is to not have elected prosecutors at all, which is flawed for countless reasons. We can also develop ways to measure and reward other indicators of success besides how many people did you lock up. For example, we should pay more attention to how many people end up falling back into the criminal justice system after their initial contact with it.

If prosecutors are just tossing people in jail who continue to commit crimes after serving time, well, that’s obviously bad. But that’s just not part of the incentive structure right now.

Sean Illing

Do you worry that more forgiveness means prioritizing the interests of perpetrators over the needs of victims?

Martha Minow

I certainly do. And as much as I criticize mass incarceration, I do believe that we need vigorous law enforcement, and often the people most victimized by crime are the most disadvantaged. They’re poor people, people of color, people who are most likely to be targeted by violence. So while we need to talk about fairness, there are definitely dangers in taking the concerns of perpetrators too far. At the same time, we can’t let that concern get in the way of thinking more broadly about how to construct a more just, balanced, and forgiving system.

Sean Iling

Some people have raised concerns that there’s an imbalance in terms of our expectations about who should forgive and that simply calling for more forgiveness risks normalizing certain forms of oppression or violence. How do you respond to this?

Martha Minow

These are very important objections and I don’t think it’s accidental or unique to our society that people with relatively less power are either more likely to be expected to forgive than people with more power.

People of color and women in particular, at least in our society, have developed more muscles when it comes to forgiveness, even when they may be more often on the receiving end of harms. We see this now with the Me Too movement where very often someone who’s been identified as engaging in sexual assault or sexual harassment then expects their victims to forgive, and that’s often an expression simply of the power that they had in the first place.

I don’t think the problem here is forgiveness, though. Forgiveness is a resource every human being has and indeed every religion, every major moral philosophy, and every society has tried to cultivate. The real problem, as you suggested, is the unequal expectations around who should forgive and when.

Sean Illing

The idea of forgiveness seems at odds with our whole philosophy of justice in this country. Do we need a fundamental shift in how we think about justice and law?

Martha Minow

Every law student learns that there are multiple purposes of the criminal justice system. Deterrence of crime is one, incapacitation of people who are dangerous is another, but so is retribution and finally rehabilitation. Those are the four classic goals.

The United States doesn’t have a criminal justice system — we have many, many local fiefdoms of criminal justice systems and many of them have been moving away from rehabilitation for a long time and very much toward retribution and not even always thoughtfully using deterrence as a goal.

Since most of our system operates by plea bargain, much of it’s not even public. Prosecutors often work by stacking up as many charges as possible so that people will plead to something and then using that as leverage to press them into some admission of guilt and then some kind of punishment.

So how does that feed back into a deterrent system? It’s not clear. I think we’ve swung way out of balance from the goals that the system itself is supposed to have.

I think that we can learn some from other systems. I’m very encouraged when I hear that there are delegations from a city in the Midwest going to Norway or Finland to learn about how they engage in more restorative practices. There are increasing experiments in this country. The District of Columbia has decided to use restorative practices for its juvenile justice docket. I think there are a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life, different political persuasions, who are saying, “There’s something very broken here and we can change.”

Sean Illing

Let’s say we did shift to a more forgiving legal system, are there any trade-offs that concern you? Is there something our current system does well that we might lose if we made this change?

Martha Minow

I think we have to step back and recognize that we have too many people incarcerated and too many people in debt and we need a reset. That’s what I’m calling for.

But are there risks? Of course. One danger is that introducing more forgiveness into the system could further jeopardize the principle of equality under the law if it’s not applied fairly. If we don’t eliminate the imbalances we were talking about earlier, then more forgiveness could easily deepen the inequalities that already exist.

So, above all, we have to ensure that the benefits of a more forgiving system extend to everyone and not simply to the most powerful forces in the country. If we can do that, the country as a whole will be better.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2XegO9Q