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ironwoman18 · 8 months ago

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Rather Be - Part 7

Chapter 7: Yor's mission

“Next weekend will be our mission, Thorn Princess,” said Matthew Braun, looking around and whispering to her, “The party will be on Saturday night and we will act as a couple. I have already a copy of the keys and at night we will kill our objective. The gun dealer Martin Luthen” she nodded.

“Perfect, I will make up an excuse for that night. Normally, Loid and I spent our weekend nights watching a movie before bed”

He nodded and looked around. “You are lucky to have him and that little girl in your life” he said a bit bitterly.

“Hey... You are like family to me Matt” he sighed.

‘but not the way I wanted’ he thought as the taxi arrived and said “well... See you around Yor” he hugged her and got in the taxi.

Code name: Yellow Jacket.

Specialty: Long range weapons, poison, hand-to-hand combat, stealth abilities.

He was trained in military strategy and left the army as a major but could have gotten a higher rank if he decided to stay, he left normal military service but joined a special and secret unit due to his exceptionals abilities, this unit specialized in protection to high ranked politicians from the government, he killed a lot spies from Westalis and other countries, he wasn't part of the SSS. He joined Garden when he got bored of his job as a lawyer. He was train to resist torture and he has a high tolerance to pain and alcohol.

He left her house still a little angry at not being able to date her as he wished all those years ago.

“I just hope that... When we grow up we get married, Yor” he said, smiling big. His brown hair is messy and wet after playing at the pool in his house.

He had some tears as he remembered it and signed thinking he lost her because he didn't arrive earlier in her life.

‘She deserves happiness and to have someone who won't question her about her missions, and that person should have been me’ he thought looking down and signed.

He arrived home and got in bed to rest, thinking about his mission with her, next week.

That week passed without another incident. Yor did her normal things with her family and at work. However before going to sleep she read the information of her target, memorizing his appearance and the amount of guards he had.

She also learned about the cars he used and how big is the place they will be in. Her dress was fixed and looked perfect for the occasion, her high heels were also in perfect condition and her weapons too.

What she doesn't have yet is an excuse for that evening, she hasn't told Loid she will be home late on a Saturday night. But that changed when, on Thursday late afternoon, the manager called her in his office.

“Mrs. Forger, we will be hosting a party for some special guests from our government and we will need you to go. A car will pick you up at nine o'clock then drives you back home at one thirty” she nodded.

“Ok sir. Thank you for this opportunity”

“Oh and Mrs. Forger. The party will be a masquerade ball so please get yourself a pretty one that covers your eyes” she nodded “you may leave now” she walked out of the office and straight to her desk.

Thankfully her coworkers were engaged in a conversation about the latest episode of Berlint in Love and neither of them noticed her leaving or arriving thanks to her ability to walk without making noises.

At night she told her family. Loid looked a little uncomfortable but nodded understanding the situation.

Her Friday was normal at work and at home and finally Saturday arrived. In the morning she walked Bond with Anya then went to the supermarket and bought food for the week.

Then she cooked lunch for them as a compensation for not being there for their normal Saturday night activities.

At six Loid and Anya went to the park with Bond and Yor stayed there to start to get ready. The car will be there at nine so she took a long bath, then applied her skincare products on her body. She never uses things with strong scents but since tonight was a special occasion she allowed a little bit of perfume, a common one that won't attract unwanted attention.

Then she got out and got dressed. Her beautiful black dress with golden details around her neck and other places. She also wore her normal jewelry for her alter ego, Thorn Princess, she brushed her hair and grabbed her long hair in a tight bun, she put some makeup on and at eight thirty she was done. She took a black coat, black gloves and her purse with her weapons in it.

She walked out of her room and looked at her family. Anya was watching Bondman on the TV while Loid was cooking dinner. He lifts his head to check on their daughter when his eyes meet hers and suddenly he blushes a little.

“You look stunning, Yor” he said blushing even harder and she was blushing too.

“Thank you Loid” she was blushing harder.

Anya looked at them reading her mother's mind ‘I need to focus on my mission but Loid’s complement made me regret my decision of continuing with this job’

‘Mommy has a mission... How exciting!!’ thought the little girl.

Then her mind went to her father's mind ‘I wish I could be there with her, but the invitation was just for her'

“Have fun tonight and I hope everything goes smoothly for you,” he said, smiling at her.

“Thank you Loid. I will and I will be here after midnight but don't worry and don't stay up for me” she said walking to him.

“Mommy and daddy are flirting” said Anya breaking their eye contact and both looked at her.

“We are not!!!” Said them at the same time.

Then Yor checked the time and kissed Anya's forehead then she went to Loid and kissed his cheek, a gesture that became normal for them.

“I promise to return home in time and tomorrow we will have fun together” she whispered only for him to hear and Loid nodded.

“Enjoy tonight” he smiled at her and she smiled back then walked out the house after putting on her coat.

She took a deep breath and went downstairs. Thinking about her family and how this will be for them, she will keep doing this until there aren't bad people trying to hurt them.

When she arrived, a back truck stopped by and a man opened the back door for her. She got in and inside was Matthew wearing a back suit, black tie and white shirt.

He looked at her and was in awe of her beauty. His intense stare made her blush which force him to clean his throat and looked away.

“Umm... Good evening Yor” he said blushing “glad to see you again” then he looked at her now his normal sweet green eyes, turned cold “You are the boss tonight, but the Director allowed me to create a strategy for us”

She nodded looking at him “I agree with him. He knows I'm not used to work with a partner, normally I just attack”

He nodded looking at her “perfect Yor..” he got out the map of the hall “...as you can see. The red spots are the places I put guns in case we need it” he pointed to the map “the should be here at twelve, three, six and nine” he pointed those specific points like a clock “according to mine and Mr. McMahon’s research there will be about twenty guards just in the hall” he said looking at her “We will be the Falkers, a married couple. You will be Yenifer and I will me Mark” she nodded “I will look for the right opportunity to get in his office and kill him”

“Ok, got it” she nodded and he smiled.

“We can do this” he looked at her and she nodded, trusting him.

The rest of the ride was in silence, but a nice one. Both concentrated on their mission. Yor was memorizing everything he told her.

Before they arrived they put on their mask and the moment the car stopped in front of the door of the hall, Matthew walked out quickly and opened Yor’s door like a perfect gentleman. He offered her his arm which she took and walked to the main door. All eyes on them and she can hear some people complimenting them as a handsome couple, talking about her dress or how gorgeous she looked.

“You are stealing stares, my love” he said loud enough for them to hear him. She blushed at that, even when she was aware they were a fake couple, those compliments made her blush.

Then they walked in and he whispered “you did it great” he smiled then looked around “I was right, there are five guards at twelve, three, six and nine. They are using sharpshooter rifles and they seem good using them”

“Do you think it will be easy for us to sneak in?”

“Well we are good at stealth but there should be another way” she nodded and the party began with music and the waiters walked around offering champagne “gets a cup and take small sips of it, we don't want to be tipsy while we work” she did it as he said because she knew the effects of the alcohol on her.

The night went as expected, they ate some snacks, looking around for their target but he wasn't around, so they socialized with the others.

Yor was acting pretty good as a fake wife, she thought that acting with Loid made it easier but she did things like holding hands or using pet names that she never dared to use or do with Loid.

Why was that? She wondered, why couldn't she? Maybe because every touch with Loid's hands feels like electricity or because his beautiful kind eyes made her feel butterflies. Maybe she feels more around him than with Matthew?

Then the realization hit her like a train... She was in love with him! She was so clumsy and so innocent that she never thought about those feelings until now.

At twelve Martin arrived “good evening my dear guests, I'm so glad to have you all here tonight. I would have been happy to be with you tonight but business are business and need to be attended by me and my partners” he said with a smile “but now I'm here and I would love to talk to all of you, but sadly I can't so I will give an audience to the best couple of the dance floor” he said looking at all the guests in the room “I will pick each song and will eliminate the couples I don't like. Let's begin”

Yor was nervous, she wasn't a good dancer what if they weren't good enough to win it. Matthew on the other hand was confident, he wasn't an expert but if he can guide Yor well, they might have a chance.

“Trust me” he whispered and held her hand as a waltz starter to play. Yor let him guide her and they move smoothly around.

Yor was a naturally athletic woman, just like Loid, which means her muscles can learn new sports and physical activities very quickly so she was dancing pretty good.

The song switched to a salsa, which forced them to adapt pretty quickly. During the waltz about five couples were eliminated but with the salsa the number of couples eliminated increased and at the end of the song there were only five couples remaining.

The next one was a rock and roll song. This one was able to eliminate three couples.

“Only two couples remain. Now let's use a very difficult one” said Martin and a tango began.

Yor and Matthew cursed but he remembered some dance classes he took with an ex-girlfriend. He looked at Yor, he looked her in the eyes and he could see her determination to win it.

So they used it to create a passionate atmosphere that made everyone else intimated by the intensity. The tango was a passionate dance and if you managed to show it in your moves, others would notice it and feel it.

In the end they won the private meeting with Martin.

They were led to his office and they decided to apply plan B, which was using a poison that won't kill him immediately so no one will suspect them.

She had it in her purse and she looked at him “are you immune to these?” She whispered and he nodded.

The Shopkeeper made sure his assassins are immune to poisons, especially the ones they use.

When they arrived he congratulated them and started to talk about “their gun dealing” business. Yor made sure to pour the poison in the champagne and he poured them two cups.

They drank it with confidence which made him thrust them. They finished their conversation and left the room.

An hour later at one some guards ran in the office to find him dead. Yor and Matthew walked out after their target's death was confirmed.

A few hours early.

Meanwhile Loid put Anya to sleep and Frankie came to visit him.

“Did you investigate Matthew Braun?”

“Yes and it's scary what I found... He was part of a secret group after leaving the official army. They called him the spy killer. He was responsible for the death of your former trainer and the former handle” Loid bit his nail.

“Dammit... That means he lied to Yor about him leaving the army at eighteen” he said sighing.

“He is a powerful enemy if your identity is revealed because his aim is impeccable”

“We have to be careful and if he lied to Yor it means she doesn't know my identity and she isn't aware of his real job”

“He actually works in that company but he is still dangerous” said Frankie looking at him “you have to be careful with him”

“Yor is surrounded by dangerous people... Her brother and now a childhood friend” he looked at his informant “luckily they don't tell her about their secrets life”

“Do you think we should have invested more of her life before meeting you?”

“This information could be difficult to find even for us... I found out before I knew that story about the wine. Well Frankie I will be careful, don't worry. Now it's time to go to bed and it's time for you to leave”

He left the Forger's home still worried about his friend and his family. Scruffy, as Anya calls him, got attached to them and he would hate to see either of them getting hurt.

Back with Yor and Matthew hours later and on their way home.

“It's a shame we didn't get to fight but at least we completed the mission” he said looking at his partner.

“Yeah, I'm happy with the final results of this mission” he nodded “we did a great job together and I'm looking for a next mission together”

“Great, me too,” he smiled. He still has a crush on her but he's not stupid, he knows he is a friend, even after their act in the party, he could tell her heart wasn't committed to him.

The rest of their journey back home was in silence. He was looking out the window and so was she, still wondering if she was actually in love with Loid or she just felt weird around him.

They arrived at her home and she said her goodbyes to him and walked in the building and up to her apartment.

She walked in and saw all the lights off so she went straight to her bedroom and changed into her most comfortable pajamas and laid in bed.

She laid in bed and started to think about the mission and her new feelings towards her fake husband, and with those thoughts she fell asleep.

OOooOOooOO

This one was pretty long and I wanted Yor to figure out her feelings towards Loid.

Hope you liked this one.

#loid forger #yor forger #loid x yor #spy x family #anya forger

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godisofknowledge17 · 1 year ago

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What you see on my page is who eye am online and who you get offline Eye am my (CROWN CHARKA💜) On my spiritual journey, EYE am my (THIRD EYE CHAKRA💙) Eye am very aware what’s going on in this matrix , Eye am my (THROAT CHAKRA🩵) Eye like to talk and share bout the lies that’s been told to us by the Government, and how they are killing us everyday by poisoning our air spraying us like roaches, poisoning our food, and water, Doctors and how they feeding us their poisoning that’s inside the medicine, Christianity and how the holy bible is the original book of brainwashing to slavery, Eye am my (LOVE CHAKRA💚) Eye am only here to share and spread some love and peace to everyone, Eye am my (SOLAR PLEXUS CHARKA💛) Eye am here to spread knowledge and wisdom on the side, Eye am my (SACRAL CHAKRA🧡) Eye am a freak it’s part of my nature it’s who eye am so I will be posting bout spirituality, healthy benefits, and the matrix, and my freaky side..eye have embrace who eye am..eye am a spirit in this human vessel. Eye am allowed to experience human activity, Eye am my (ROOT CHARKA❤️) Eye trust the universe in all it has in store for me Eye am analyze with my CHARKA’S Asé 🦂♏️💜💙🩵💚💛🧡❤️

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aureliosinistrum · 1 year ago

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Dragons in The Modern World Project

Howdy, it's me again! The guy that made that whole analog video thing.

I wanted to post this to explain more about what exactly my modern dragon world is all about, or as I have put it so far, the Dracoverse.

The Dracoverse exists almost completely in sync with our own, with the main deviation being that dragons exist and have for some time. The dragons themselves are less so monsters and more like people, with societies, language, cultural norms, and more. Currently, I am developing a conlang for one of the draconic languages, called "Kaltó'get", or as the federal government refers to it, "Draconic". There will probably be more conlangs for the dragons in the future, especially for the dragons in China and South America. Speaking of that, dragons are all over the planet in the Dracoverse, or well, used to be. The introduction of humans and global climate change following the ice age caused many problems for dragons, especially ones that did not live in the mountains.

Overtime, dragons begin to die out on a massive scale, mainly by the time of the middle ages to early modern history. This was because of a lot of factors, but a few key notable ones are important to mention. Of course, humans were one of the main causes, but food also became harder for dragons to find. Not only that, but dragons started to turn on each other for resources, especially in Europe. All in all, you have a very chaotic situation starting to arise. European dragons were already screwed leading up to the modern era, but what really hammered in the final nail in the coffin for them was the first and second world wars. Both wars caused massive damage to the dragon populations, especially in world war 2, where both the Axis and the Allies targeted them. By the time the main events of the world take place, IE the later 20th and early 21st century, they're only about 15 to 13 dragons left in Europe.

Then, they're is North America, with over 10,000 dragons. The reason why North America has such a large population of dragons is because the dragons were able to isolate themselves really well from people. That, and they had a large population of food available to them that was not under the protection of or nearby human settlements. However, this started to change once colonization began and suddenly North America was being flooded with new people. With this, the population suffered, and is critically endangered by the 20th century. Dragons in North America existed all over the place, but were massively killed off on the east coast. Now, the real only stable population of dragons live in the west, which actually is to their benefit in some ways. The Rockies and the great basin are places where not a lot of people live, and since the government gifts them with supplies, the dragons aren't starving that much.

However, just because the feds supply the dragons, doesn't mean that the dragons and the fed have a good relationship. For the longest time, the feds and dragons hated each other. The DDA (The Department of Draconic Affairs) and the US Fish & Wildlife service made several active attempts to greatly hinder or cause the extinction of the dragons out west. One notable example is, in 1959, the DDA approved nuclear testing right on top of a dragon nest in the middle of nowhere Nevada. That test itself was very brutal, and any dragons that survived the bombing were later seen suffering the effects of radiation poisoning, and any children that they had often had some form of genetic mutation.

This hostile and negative perception of the dragons was starting to change greatly by the mid 90s up to the mid 2000s. By that time, the DDA and other associated governmental agencies finally started treating the dragons better, even removing the classification of "DRA entity" in 2003. DRA Entity being a term created in the 1960s, as a way to make the dragons sound less like animals and a people, and more like monstrous and evil beings. Overall, human and dragon relations greatly improved. However, this did not stop a lot of dragons and humans from protesting and wanting to kill off each other. Notably, the more younger generation of the dragons wanted to rebel against humanity and create their own nation-like state in the Rockies. On the other hand, the more violent human members of the DDA wanted the near or total extinction of dragons as a whole, labeling them as a threat to humanity.

As such, both dragons and humans took efforts to quell this anger and hate on their sides. However, some instances made this more harder over time. For example, there were multiple cases where dragons attacked towns and minor railways over the years. These events were used by the more hostile members of the DDA as a justification that the dragons were dangerous. On the other side, young reactionary dragons told stories to their families and friends about how humans brutally killed dragons, and how humanity and dragon-kind could not get along. Overall, the situation was incredibly difficult, and it started to begin boiling over when both sides began to get more drastic in their measures. Young dragons took to destroying highways and more major railway networks, making it more difficult for the government to hide them from the public sphere. Then, members of the DDA began to secretly insert disease into the food given to the dragons, which caused numerous deaths.

So far, this is as much as I have developed. I currently want to explore what would be happening to the dragons in South American and China, and how they have their own unique problems and what not. If any of y'all have any suggestions or comments, I would love to hear them. Thanks!

TL;DR: Dragons in the modern world in North America, Europe, South America, and China. Humans and Dragons don't like each other.

#worldbuilding #writing

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mint-moon25 · 2 years ago

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CORRECT TITLE - DISNEY + - STREAMING - NOW -

EPISODES - ‘INTERWTINED’ - (’ENTRELAZADOS’) -

SPANISH - ‘CRISS - CROSSED’ - BETTER - WORD -

EPISODE - ‘THE - MOMENT’ - ABOUT - PLACES -

THAT - PUT - ON - STAGE - MUSICAL - LIVE OF -

‘FREAKY - FRIDAY’ - 3RD - VERSION -

MARCO - AFFECTS - OUR - TEEN - STAR - FOR -

HE COMES - ON - STRONG - MR - TOUGH GUY -

SONGS - SANG - AS - THE - ORIGINAL - IN - YES -

SPANISH - ENGLISH - DUBBED - 4 - DISNEY+

TODAY - TGIF - FRIDAY - 26 MAY 2023 - EST -

10:40A EDT - MORE - HANDSOME - MARCO -

WAS - COMING - UP - VERY - SMALL - GOV’T -

CENTER - AISLES - BECAUSE - ELEVATOR -

INSIDE - NOT - WORKING - MIAMI FLORIDA -

IMPORTANT - FREE - BUT - ALWAYS - THEIR -

ELEVATOR - NOT - WORKING -

$1 BILLION - BRICKELL - CITY - CENTRE

EIGHT STREET - 2 ESCALATORS - 2 YES

ENTER - ACTUALLY - FRONT - BACK HAI

NOT - WORKING

A - GREAT - GOVERNMENT - FINES - YES

ALREADY - CLOSING - EIGHT STREET - 2

AFFECT - MALL - INCOME - LONG - TIME

AGO - USA - IS - BUSINESS - ILLEGAL -

MANY - TIMES - UNTIL - THEY’RE YES -

CAUGHT - WAITING - UNTIL - STABBED -

2 - DEATH - SHOT - 2 - DEATH NATIONS -

LOTS - OF - PEOPLE - EXTREMELY -

UNCARING - ABOUT - DEATH - ONE -

YEAR - PATRIOT DAY - REPLACED -

BY - GRANDPARENTS - DAY SINCE -

2 - TWIN - BUILDING - EXPLODING -

DIDN’T - REALLY - BOTHER - USA -

THEIR - BLOOD - STILL - SPEAKS -

FR - THE - GROUND - FOREVER 2 -

THE - MOST - HIGH - AS - U KNOW -

THAT - AREA - THE - TREES - NOT -

AS - GREEN - HARD - 2 - GROW - LIKE -

KOREA - ANYTHING - IN - THAT - AREA -

SOUTH - KOREA - MANY - DEAD LANDS -

WHERE - THEY - SLAUGHTERED THEIR -

FAMILIES - TREASON - NEW - RELIGION -

NATIONS - SAME - DEAD AREAS WHERE -

BLOOD - POURED - THUS - I - WASN’T -

STEADY - WITH - MY - STEPS - SINCE I -

COULDN’T - CALL - WITH - FREE - APP -

ONLY - ONE - THAT - WILL - HELP - US -

HIGH - MBPS - 2 - MAKE - CALLS - YES -

BEST - PRICE - OF - FREE - COULD -

ACCEPT - TEXT - WITH - BOX VAULT -

I - CAN - ORDER - AGAIN - WALMART -

MAILING - ADDRESS - 2 - START YES -

AGAIN - MY - SAFELINK - WIRELESS -

4 - TEMPERATURE - OF - RAIN - JUST -

KILLED - MY - MOBILE - FLIP - PHONE -

BUT - GLAD - BECAUSE - OVER - $35 -

DIDN’T - COMPARE - 2 - ALCATEL -

FRONT - OF - FLIP - PHONE - THE -

TIME - BIG - NUMBERS - THE DATE -

ALSO - AND - DAY - AT - LEAST - FR -

MEMORY - AND - $19.99 - ONLY - 2 -

NOW - CAN - ACTIVATE - THAT YES -

AGAIN - BECAUSE - WHEN - U CAN -

NOT - USE - SMARTPHONE - U YES -

ONLY - HAVE - 1 TEL NO - THUS - U -

DON’T - WANT - 2 - GIVE - THAT - 2 -

JUST - ANYONE - INDEED - SO THE -

FOOD - STAMPS - PRIVILEGES - U -

GET - SAFELINK - WIRELESS WITH -

TRACFONE - BUT - U - MUST - BUY -

THE - MOBILE - OR - SMARTPHONE -

WHY - BECAUSE - THEY - FLOODED -

THE - FREE - ONES - COULDN’T YES -

MAKE - CALLS - SO - LONG THE ADS -

AND - CUTS - OFF - CALLS - SO VERY -

DANGEROUS - BUYING - YOUR - OWN -

BACK - 2 - FREE - CALLS - TEXT - AND -

DATA - BUT - LOW - MBPS - 24/7 - AND -

HOLIDAYS - BECAUSE - OTHERWISE -

BIBLE - ‘RICH - RULE - OVER - THE -

POOR’ - AND - FRANCE BEHEADED -

THEIR - ARISTOCRACY - BUT FELT -

ETIQUETTE - MANNERS - STILL - IS -

VITAL - BUT - THEIRS - ARE WORST -

BINDING - NOT - VERY - SMART - 4 -

‘RICH - RULE - OVER - THE - POOR’ -

ONLY - ONES - EDUCATED AND WHAT -

GOD - SAID - 2 - OBTAIN -

‘MONEY ANSWERS - ALL’ -

ICING - TOP - WITH - YES -

BIBLE - ‘LOVE - NEVER - FAILS’ -

SO THIS MORNING - AT - GOV’T - CENTER -

UP & DOWN - GOING - UP - EASY - I - HAD -

2 - USE - RESTROOM - AGAIN - 4 - I - WAS -

PREPARING - 4 - CHANGE - AS - FASTER -

INTERMITTENT - (12P - 6P) - SCHEDULE -

18 HRS - FASTING - EATING - ONCE/DAY -

THEIR VERY - BEST - OR - THROUGHOUT -

WHEN - U - EAT - NOT - WHAT - U - EAT 2 -

OR - NO - EATING - EVEN - BETTER -

REMOVES - TOXINS - POISONING & -

MORE - OF - WHAT - U - HAVE EATEN -

WEAKNESS - U - BECOME - LIGHTER -

HAPPIER - WORRY - FREE - IS - WHAT -

HAPPENS - NOT - PAIN - SO - U - GET -

FORGETFULNESS

ITS - MAJOR - WEAKNESS

THUS - HUGE ESCALATOR - GOING -

UP - BETTER - FR - METROMOVER -

FREE - TRAINS - BUT - INSIDE YES -

FURTHER - AWAY - MON - FRIDAY -

OPEN - GOING - DOWN - I WASN’T -

STEADY - SOLUTION -

STEP - FIRST - WHILE - BRINGING -

UP - SMALLEST - LUGGAGE - WITH -

WHEELS - MY - WALMART - LIGHT -

BLUE - THEN - MY - L HAND - THE -

CALVIN KLEIN - DUFFLE - BAG - & -

WHEELS - SO - STEP - FIRST - WHILE -

REMAINING - ABOVE - 2 - BRING 2 THE -

STEP - IN FRONT - OF - WHERE - YOU -

ARE - STANDING - ONLY - WAY - 2 - DO -

OR - U - FALL - FORWARD - WITH THE -

175 LBS - LUGGAGE - 2 - OF - THEM & -

ROSS - DRESS - 4 - LESS - $0.99 - YES -

WATER - RESISTANT - PRETTY - BAGS -

SO - MY - LIGHT - BLUE - WALMART -

CARRY - ON - LUGGAGE FELL WITH -

WHEELS - SO - I - USED - RIGHT XO -

FOOT - 2 - KEEP - IT - FALLEN - BUT -

NOT - FALLING - JUST - THERE WELL -

PRETTY - HISPANIC - MARCO - BOY -

SAW - THAT - WENT - 2 - HIS - LEFT -

AND - BROUGHT - HANDLE - UP - AS -

I - SAW - THAT - TOOK - HANDLE - AS -

I - SAID - ‘MUCHAS - GRACIAS’ -

‘THANK YOU - VERY - MUCH 2 -

‘SENORITO’ - A - SQUIGGLE - ABOVE -

N - ( ENYE ) - ‘YOUNG - MAN’ - TRUE -

‘BUENOS - DIAS’ - A - LOVELY GOOD -

MORNING 2 U - ‘GRACIAS’ - THANKS -

WHAT - HAPPENED - THIS - AM - AT -

GOV’T - CENTER - CHANGING - YES -

GLASS - SO - LARGER ESCALATORS -

OUTSIDE - CLOSED - UNTIL - 30 MAY -

TUESDAY - AFTER - MEMORIAL - DAY -

29 MAY 2023 - MONDAY - SO - GOD IS -

GOOD - AND - KEPT - MY - FEET - ON -

SOLID - GROUND - SUREFOOTED XO -

LIKE - DEER - WHEN - WE - DON’T -

HAVE - A - CHOICE - BUT - 2 - HAVE -

A - GREAT - GOD - BUT - ALSO OUR -

HEAVENLY - FATHER - LIKE - DISNEY -

‘HERCULES’ - HIS - DAD - IS - ZEUS -

THE HIGHEST - GOD - AND - HOW -

HE - TALKS - 2 - HIM - JUST - LIKE -

THAT - EATING - DRINKING - FIRST -

B 4 - LEAVING - 4 - BOX - VAULT -

SAME - ZIP CODE - 33130 - YES -

LIFE - IN - MIAMI - SPANISH - SPEAKING -

FLORIDA - CITY - I - APPROVE - SPANISH -

MY - ROOTS - ALSO - WARD - OF - THE -

KING - AND - QUEEN - OF - SPAIN - FOR -

MY - ROOTS - MADRID - THEIR CAPITAL -

MY - NAME - AT - LEAST NAME CHANGE -

BECAUSE - I - SPOKE - PORTUGUESE -

ON - PURPOSE - THEY - CALLED - ME -

‘PETUNIA’

MY - NAME - WITH - THE - KING - OF -

SPAIN - PLAYED - CLASSICAL PIANO -

WHO - AUTOGRAPHED - MY - P 5

EMILIO AGUINALDO

1ST - AND - YOUNGEST PRESIDENT -

OF - PHILIPPINES

THAT - MONEY - DISCONTINUED AS -

RIZAL - CITY - WHERE - MAKATI WAS -

CANCELLED - EXECUTED -

DR JOSE RIZAL

BIBLE - ‘HOUSE - DIVIDED - AGAINST -

ITSELF - WILL - NOT - STAND’

TODAY - THEIR - ADDRESSES

4 - KIDS - 2 - WRITE - WITH - HAND(s) -

CAPITAL - MANILA

175 DEGREES - VOLCANIC - MOISTURE

STRONG - HOT - SUN - ON - HEAD - AND

I - WAS - ALWAYS - WET

FACE - NECK - BACK - LEGS - ARMS YES

ADDRESS -

MANILA - METRO MANILA - XXXX

PHILIPPINES

EXAMPLE -

1853 STA RITA ST (SANTA RITA)

MAKATI - METRO MANILA - XXXX

PHILIPPINES

GLAD - COMPUTERS - SMARTPHONES

LAPTOPS - TABLETS - AND - MORE YES

WELL - EATING - SOON - MAIN LIBRARY

DISNEY+ - STREAMING - EPISODES

‘INTERTWINED’ - DUBBED FR SPANISH

MUSICAL - ‘ON - STAGE’ - IN - SPANISH

‘FREAKY - FRIDAY’ - 3RD - REMAKE

ENJOY - HAVE - FUN - PRAY - 4 ME

#youtube

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the-firebird69 · 2 years ago

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The major criminal investigations into Donald Trump, explained - Vox

There's so many cases against him it's unreal and it seems that Tommy f wants to have him tried and convicted and they're not letting him and it's because of reputation of the president has to be upheld they say and that is partially true but not fully true in this case. They left it a bum and they know he's a bum and they know why he's a bum and everybody understands he's a bum but it would wake in the position and they don't want to do that so Trump is using it and he's getting all his people killed because he's avoiding prosecution and all the other cases and he's not going to take any punishment is not going to stop his illegal activities against the people who are demanding he quit doing it and it is obvious that's why and there are reasons for things happening Trump you have so many trials and so many criminal trials and civil suits against you as Trump that you have lost track of it and there's tons of cases in this other people and in moments you're going to fall all those cases are going to come by and into Federal cases and the government is going to crush you and hunt you down and you're a major criminal usually against your own but then you start turning on us and our son and you're sitting out there like a fruitcake saying it and you get hit and you won't shut your mouth and you're doing it here the point is that you're a violent person you're near our son and you're a problem and I have to tell you we say soon you'll be gone but now it's true in a few minutes your people are going to be gone from the Midwest and the upper Midwest well no but tonight they will be then you're going to start spewing again cuz you have a program that everybody else took it's not even Davids or carrolls program you're a loser

You're no special hold in her son and you're trying to prove it and nobody believes you and they kicked you out of Carnegie Mellon MIT kicked you out recently Caltech said don't come back and kicked all of your people out and the other schools kicked all your people out recently Harvard kicked you out and said we don't ever see you again if we do you'll be shot upon trying to enter campus and Oxford said if you come here you're dead meat all these schools don't want you near them they're taking everything you've done out of their books they're pulling all your names off of everything and they're getting your character out of everything companies like Tesla are taking you off the books completely and people who are business people are taking you off the list of who to call for anything and people are blacklisting you everywhere you're being blacklisted from going to restaurants and pubs and bars and all government buildings all over the world and soon you're going to get it aren't you no you're asleep while you like it they are blacklist you from being a vagrant here and going to arrest you every time you're a vagrant they came looking for you too today all day to get you off the street tons of people or after you for your crimes against them and you didn't show up for any of the meetings today about food and we know why so at least a huge package we released it and you are in trouble your people are being pulled in all over the place and by Max and interviewed and there's poisonings of them and murders all the time that are on film that you had at work huge numbers of people were being threatened because of it and you kept threatening us over and over and we had enough of you so you start breaking your back but the empire is going to crush you tonight and to tell you it was going to arrest you and you sit there like some sort of confident idiot bothering our son and they're going to shoot you they don't take you in and shoot you and then I shoot you wherever you are here in town you're a scumbag that's what they say we say it too we're going to stop you from doing anything to our son further and we're going to pull you out and we're going to play you would do all sorts of nasty things I'm going to make you do things you don't want to and you're going to have all sorts of time to do it cuz you're going to have nobody else and nothing else to think about right no you're going to be in prison and you're not going to do any of these shows and stuff you think you're doing except for Star wars when you die. You're a horrendous a****** and you need to pay your complete moron and you need to leave and you're here illegally in the apartment they're going to start evicting you everyday until it works

Thor Freya

I'm bringing a lawsuit against the neighbor and I'm pointing out he's the same person and CAA says he'll go to court this is down there all day anyways for someone who the hell knows why reason has to do his laundry there that's the only Park you can sit in so we're going to go after him I'm going to present all sorts of evidence of what he's doing to renters into this person and we're going to say that he is an unreasonable man and doesn't let him sleep or have a decent time and a stalking people who are in my apartments on top of international crimes on top of atrocities against his own on top of killing his own family which is on trial for now he's stalking people who are in apartments near him like who the hell needs this guy he's an animal it doesn't get anything from it and we're going to present a lawsuit and we're going to have our friend go to court and he wants to testify he's going to testify as to what he did and to what treatment he's giving his neighbors it is a horrible horrible thing about you in the news today John remillard. It was about you having sex with an animal they found it with a raccoon and it was yesterday and it's your name and you should be in prison so people took the article and sent it to the police and said this man should be in prison and he's screwing a raccoon and they will put an APB out on you and some people sent in your alternate ID they have aliases and they looked it up and it's you next door so you're going to get screwed because you're screwing a raccoon

Stan

I can't believe you stand for being angry so I tried to kill you so many times and I don't know what to say it's like poison me being near people I can't stand it but they're saying and thinking and even though most of the time they're not I'm going to tell you something this guy next door is so arrogant I can't stand looking at him and he can give a s*** cuz I'm a piece of dirt I agree I'm a sleaze ball and I'm doing a lot of bad things to people and I should probably pay for it

Trump

Boy aren't you an upset little boy. Have you Friday and oil for your big mouth you think it's false or fake or something he's more than just me and you see them in movies and they kill your kids they fall out of a helicopter they kill them and they they pop up you keep you entertained tonight you can go look at movies and stuff jerk off in public or jerk off to the movies still trying to solve your own family again what an upstanding citizen I've never heard of anybody that's so foul you and you advertise it and you say everybody else does it, it really threatening to tell him people but people have gone past it and you don't get it. You have the money okay they want the money maybe you should give them the money cuz they're killing you for the money

Zues Hera

I don't care what you're saying I'm going after for you for what you're saying it's really good you're laughing cuz you think I'm a c*** a little Playboy a f** he says no I know you're getting hit all the time you meters and all sorts of s*** you think don't exist and people can't do cuz you're teeny now so I admit something it's doing it's going very badly I'm getting desperate

John remillard

So you'll start hitting you John remillard because of what you're saying cuz you're a f****. And you park this poor raccoon I'm going to f*** you up using the raccoon I never seen anybody as dumb as you for christ say get the hell out of the apartment you a****** then enough for a s*** dragged out in front of everyone feel insist on going to court we're going to put you in prison again and make sure you don't get out

Max

So I'm a loser and I'm mad at you Max so I'm going to seek you out and kill you I'm a killer and you should respect it

Trump

I'm currently annihiling your areas was left of them you can have several small enclaves in New Zealand the rest of you will be dead in other races of your kind are going after you and they're going after all of yours and killing them because of what you're doing and saying here. Just wanted to know if you're aware that is everybody else knows about it

Mac

I'm glad you find humorous shut the f******so you hear it right I certainly see something why don't you get a f****** life you want to annoy me and piss me off I'm going to have you kill I'm going to have people rip your throat out with their bare hands I'm going to have them pull your eyeballs out and let you walk around I don't f****** care about you John remillard you bother me and torture me and keep me up you're going to be f****** dead you understand that you're going to be tortured your skin is going to come off your body all sorts of s*** because the people I associate with are giants and we f****** hate you, well sort of get something it's been really uncomfortable here and I'm starting to feel a lot of pain everyday and people are kicking my ass I sort of get something tell me after shooting me I can't bow down to what you're saying and he doesn't care at all he'll just keep on getting rid of us so I noticed something I'm saying I can't bow down to him and he's like just one guy is what appears to be and I'm breaking All the rules and so what yeah he says so what too. I swear to get something you say iced a lot of us and I'm a f****** loser one of them blew up in a fantastic way the whole shitload of them actually I'm sorry I wonder something else I don't really need to know this but it would have been nice I don't really care I don't care cuz I'm majoring he says ignoring and I don't know what he's talking about it isn't care cuz I'm a p**** it's what it says so I'm going to try and do them in all night and I'm going to end up dead people saying I'm dead every night

Trump

Looks like is we're going to come in there and get you and we know what you're doing to him and he doesn't care cuz he's healing you stupid s*** and we're going to give you advice don't f*** with us so we're going to kill you I'm going to kill all your people tonight we're going to take care of you stupid s*** you need to go years ago Jill watch your f****** loser you got a f****** loser Joe Watts you always been you're just those f** running around saying dumb s*** to everybody that was friends with you for a while sort of and I know what he's saying there's nothing to this guy he talks about stuff and doesn't understand what he's talking about he says stuff and it doesn't have any convictions he goes around and he bothers people and he's just massive f****** fleshy fish so that stick you and I'm going to kill you until you don't come back

Mac

You're the best John Reema Lord and you happily admit it you run around piss people off tell them what you took tell them the crimes you did and they're coming back tonight to kill you come over here and you're dead I told you that I don't care if you believe me I would so much love to kill your stupid f****** ass too no weapons all over here they're not real weapons that they kill people like you weak sleaze balls we get punched out with one punch piece of s*** why don't you go bother some old ladies it's more your speed

Zues Hera

It's just this oversized bully and your reputation is much bigger than what you do and we're going to hit you you f** I'm not going to take it from you anymore you're a wimp Trump

Dan I'm going to convict you and keep you in prison and kill off your s*** heads for the money

I knew it was you Dan saying all this stuff

Trump

You said the last part right moron

Zues Hera

I'm pissed off of you again so we're going to start hitting you

Dan

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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VICTORY! New Free File rules ban tax-prep firms from hiding their offerings, allow IRS to compete with them (a love-letter to Propublica)

Six months ago, Propublica began beating the drum about "Free File," a bizarre, corrupt arrangement between the IRS and the country's largest tax-prep firms that ended up costing the poorest people in America millions and millions of dollars, every single year.

The scam is one of those baroque, ultimately boring and complex stories that generally dies in the public imagination despite its urgency, because "boring and urgent" is the place where the worst people can do the worst things with the least consequences.

With that warning, here's a short summary: in most wealthy countries, the tax authority fills out your tax return for you, using the information your employer already has to file every time it pays your wages. If all the numbers look right to you, you just sign the bottom of the form and send it back, without paying a tax preparer. If, on the other hand, you want to claim extra deductions, or if something complicated is going on with your finances, you can throw away that free tax return and fill in a form from scratch, either on your own or with the help of a professional.

When Americans asked to have the same courtesy extended to them -- a move that would save the vast majority of Americans millions and millions of dollars they were currently paying to the likes of HR Block and Intuit/Turbotax, every single year of their entire working lives -- the tax-prep industry mobilized to kill the proposal. The industry (which is highly concentrated and dominated by a small handful of firms whose top execs have mostly done time in all their competitors' board rooms, making them into essentially one giant company whose different divisions have different shareholders) lobbied the IRS very hard, and won a resounding victory.

That victory is called "Free File." Under Free File, each tax prep company is required to serve a slice of working Americans with free, online tax-preparation. The arrangement was hailed as a victory for public-private partnerships, harnessing the efficiency of the private sector to perform this public duty of the state. Importantly, it meant that the IRS would not expand its headcount or budget, both of which had been slashed by successive right-wing presidents and their legislative enablers. The move was cheered by anti-tax extremists like Grover Nordquist, who was delighted by the "efficiency" of you saving a bunch of pieces of paper the government already had, typing them into an online form, and hoping that a company's website came up with the same calculations that the government had already made about your tax-bill.

Part of the Free File deal banned the IRS from creating a competing offer and it banned the IRS from advertising the existence of the program or telling people where to find the free offering.

As soon as the ink was dry on Free File, the tax-prep companies set about to sabotage it. Intuit -- a massive company led by a bizarre cult figure -- and its competitors hid their Free File offerings deep in their sites, and used the "robots.txt" system to instruct search engines to hide them. They took out search ads for the phrase "Free File" that directed users to paid offerings with the word "free" in their names. They created "Free File" systems that would make you go through hours of work entering your data before surprising you with a notice that you didn't qualify for Free File because you'd paid interest on a student loan (or some other normal thing) and then ask you if you wanted to pay to keep your work and finish your tax-return in the non-free system.

There's a simple name for this kind of activity: fraud.

But it was a fraud in plain sight, one that went on for years and years, and which created a stealth tax on the majority of Americans, which they had to remit not to the IRS, but to the tax-prep companies, which used the money to lobby to make it even harder to get away from handing them your money every year.

Enter Propublica, whose relentless reporting did the seemingly impossible: it made a complicated, boring important thing into something that millions of Americans cared about. Something they cared about so deeply that they actually managed to shame the IRS into taking action.

Remember, the IRS is an administrative agency, under the direct control of the Trump administration. That means its commander-in-chief is a guy who said dodging his taxes means that he's "smart." While the IRS has many good, hardworking staffers, it has also been demoralized and gutted by the right, who have convinced millions of poor people that it's somehow in their interests if it's easier for rich people to duck their taxes.

Despite all this, the IRS has enacted new Free File rules: first, these rules ban tax-prep companies from hiding their Free File offerings, and it bans them from using deceptive names for non-Free File offerings (Turbotax will no longer be allowed to confuse Americans by offering "Turbotax Free" -- which is not free -- as a competitor to "Turbotax Free File," which is).

Second, the rule allows the IRS to develop its own competing Free File product, which means that the government agency that already knows how much tax you owe will allow you to review its findings each year and then either challenge them, or simply click OK, without paying a single cent of tax to Intuit or HR Block, and free you from filling in lengthy, bureaucratic forms.

This outcome is nothing short of miraculous: it did not come as the result of Congressional action. It did not come as the result of the Trump administration's inattention (the release came out the same day that the Trump administration revised its tax rules to allow money launderers to retain billions in the loot they've stashed offshore).

It came about as the result of fucking journalism. Propublica wrote its way into a better world, with relentless, deep, accessible reporting that made this boring, important thing come to life.

I am sympathetic to the idea that talking about politics isn't doing politics, but that's not entirely true. Learning about what's going on and telling the people you know about it and getting them to tell others is part of how we make change. Propublica's excellent reporting wouldn't have mattered if people hadn't read it -- and talked about it.

And Propublica has done this repeatedly over the past year, deeply reporting on naked, grotesque corruption in ways so vivid and undeniable that they actually changed things, and not in some abstract, boring way, but in ways that matter to the immediate, lived experience of real people who had been brutalized and poisoned and jailed and mistreated with impunity, for years, until Propublica wrote about it.

Here are some examples, just from the stories I paid attention to this year (Propublica does so much good work that I can't manage to cover all of it):

* Reformed South Carolina's "magistrate judge" system that let "judges" with no legal background and less training than barbers sentence poor people (most of them Black) to prison in defiance of their constitutional rights;

* Dismantled Illinois's system of Quiet Rooms where special ed kids were put into solitary confinement, sometimes for days at a time;

* Shamed a "Christian" hospital into ending its practice of suing thousands of patients, many of them its own employees, for inability to pay their medical debts, and forcing it to jettison the private army of debt collectors it kept on its payroll.

* Killed an Illinois scam whereby affluent parents temporarily gave up custody of their own children so they could steal college grants earmarked for poor children;

* Got two Louisiana cops fired for encouraging people to murder Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez;

In addition, Propublica has done lots of reporting that hasn't yet created political transformations, but has changed our debate and laid the groundwork for change to come: called attention to the penniless hero of the ransomware epidemic; discredited a "walking polygraph" system used by police forces to frame their preferred suspects with sheer junk science; documented the link between pharma company bribes and doctors' prescribing; named every former lobbyist in the Trump administration; tracked every penny of the 2008 bailout money; documented Wayne LaPierre's self-dealing from the NRA's war-chests; documented the grifty conservative PACs that scammed millions out of scared old white people with racist Obama conspiracies and then kept the money for themselves; published a blockbuster story on the theft of southern Black families' ancestral lands through a legal grift called "heirs' property"; debunked the "aggression detection" mics being installed in America's classrooms; outed a "ransomware consultant" that was working with ransomware crooks to simply pay the ransom, while pretending that they were able to get you your files back without enriching the crooks who locked them up; named and shamed Alabama sheriffs who lost their re-election bids and then spent thousands of public dollars on frisbees or stole discretionary funds, or destroyed food earmarked for prisoners, or drilled holes in all the department computers' hard-drives in a form of "vindictive hazing"; followed the payday lender industry to a Trump hotel where it staged an annual conference, funneling millions to the president's personal accounts shortly before Trump reversed Obama's curbs on predatory lending; documented how TSA body-scanners single out Black women for humiliating, discriminatory hair-searches; revealed the secret history of wealthy people destroying the IRS's Global High Wealth Unit; and did outstanding work on the Sackler family, a group of billionaire opioid barons whose products kickstarted the opioid epidemic that has now claimed more American lives than the Vietnam war.

2019 was a dumpster-fire of a year and 2020 could be worse -- or it could be the dawn that breaks after our darkest hour. Finding Propublica's victory lap on Free File on New Year's Day was just the sunrise I needed to give me hope for the year to come. Sometimes, simply finding the truth and telling it to the people can make a change.

I'm a Propublica donor, and an avid reader. I admit that sometimes when I see that PP has published another 15,000-word expose, I am slightly dismayed at the thought that I'm about to lose 1-2 hours of my life to digesting and writing up the new story, but that dismay is always overcome by excitement at the thought that they have turned over a new rock and found something genuinely awful beneath it, and that, with all our help, we can sterilize that foetid sludge with blazing sunshine.

https://boingboing.net/2019/12/31/go-propublica-go.html

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sweetiepie08 · 4 years ago

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RebelZ (Chapter 9)

Invader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn, @agentpinerulesall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list feel free to message me. Also, if you’re on the tag list and you changed your name, please just let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

[-]

“Care to tell us what the fuck that was?” the Dib shouted as they ran down the hall.

“A coup, obviously,” Zim shot back. “Just not one where you seize power at the end. So, half a coup.”

“So then who seizes power now?”

“The Tallest Red and Purple still have it,”

Dib nearly tripped over his own feet in his shock. “You mean you didn’t kill them?”

“It’s nearly impossible to poison an Irken,” Tak explained. “The PAK filters out most toxins. You can incapacitate them, though, for a short period of time.”

“So you basically just quit your job in spectacular fashion,” Dib said indignantly.

Tak almost couldn’t believe it. Zim must be sincere in his betrayal. He poisoned the Tallest and declared to the entire upper crust of the Irken military that it was intentional. There was no coming back from that. Every other disaster he caused could reasonably be argued as a mistake. But there could be no doubt here. Zim truly had turned on the empire.

Yet, something still didn’t sit quite right with her. If he had gone rebel, if he had truly turned traitor, then his life clock would have gone off like hers did. One would reasonably assume the impotence for this betrayal was her discovery of the Control Brains parasite, but she was with him ever since she told him that news and she never saw his life clock go off. But that could only mean something else prompted him at an earlier date. So the question was, what made Zim finally snap?

They came to a split in the hallway. Tak started going right while Zim went left.

“Uh, the Voot is this way,” Tak called.

“I’m not going to the Voot,” Zim yelled back. “I’m going to the control room.”

Dib and Tak cast each other a glance, then followed him. They found him crouched behind a door at the end of the hall and joined him in his hiding spot. Dib took a peak inside. There, dozens of Irkens worked at their stations. They seemed unaware that, for now, their leaders were incapacitated.

Zim tapped his PAK and a metal ball flew into his hands. He pulled a pin, tossed it in, and smashed the control panel, shutting the door. They heard coughing from the other side and, after a few minutes, opened the door to find the Irkens unconscious on the floor.

“So, what are we doing in here again?” Dib asked, as they stepped into the room.

Zim grabbed one of the Irkens who still slouched in their chair and threw them to the floor. “Wiping Urth off the navigation map.” He sat down and the monitor and started messing with the buttons. “If I’m going to continue to use it as my home base, I can’t have them finding it.”

“Not so fast,” Tak slapped his fingers away from the buttons. “Before this goes any further, I need answers. If you’re truly on our side, there’s only one way your life clock didn’t go off.”

“We don’t have time for this!”

“You had a rebellious thought!” Tak declared. “When?”

“Three Urth years ago.”

“Three years?” Dib shouted, stepping up to them. “But I’ve been watching you. Why were you still trying to conquer Earth if you kinda-quit three years ago?”

“I wasn’t.”

“But I saw you building machines!” Dib argued.

“They weren’t for me!” Zim shot back.

Tak began to ask “But how-” before Zim cut her off.

“Silence!” he shouted. “Silence your questions! I need to concentrate.”

Zim continued typing on the buttons until a picture of the Earth appeared on the screen. The stats were scarce, save for the coordinates and the note, ‘that place where Zim is.’ The little blue ball of dirt and water had gone unnoticed by the empire, noteworthy only as a banishment site. To them, it was merely a place to keep Zim contained, far away from anything important. But after the stunt they pulled today, it would be a target.

Another few clicks of a button and the Urth was gone, leaving only a blank file in its wake. All Irken military ships automatically synced with the Massive. If it was gone from this data base, it was essentially invisible to all Irkens. If they wanted to find Urth again, they’d have to scour the universe for it. But why stop at Urth?

“Let’s dump it all,” Tak said.

“What?”

“Erase the database,” she said. “It’ll be a crippling blow to the empire.”

“Do we really have time to erase everything?” Dib asked. The human made a good point.

“Jut the maps then,” she suggested. “They would have to rebuild their navigation systems from scratch and it would send the fleet into disarray.”

“Zim is no radical!” Zim snapped. “I’m only doing this to cover my own ass.”

“Not a raical?” Dib scoffed. “You just poisoned your own leaders.”

“That was personal,” Zim argued. “This is political.”

“And what about those weapons you’re building?!” Dib shot back. “If they’re not for Irk, then who are they for?”

“Zim’s business deals are none of your… um… business!”

“Shut up!” Tak commanded, taking a seat at another monitor. “We don’t have time for this! Let’s get these maps erased and get out of here.”

“If you even make it that far,” a chorus of voices answered.

Dib looked around. “Who said that?”

“We did, human.”

Every Irken in the room rose to their feet. Tak prepared herself for a fight. Her eyes darted as she watched them all, poised to deploy the weapons in her PAK. But none made a move to attack. They all stood there, stalk still, with a dead look in their eyes.

Dib gaped at the sight. “H-how are you…”

“Silence Urth Creature!” the possessed Irkens shouted in unison, turning their cold eyes toward Dib. “Do not interrupt us again!” Dib shut his mouth and the Irkens calmed. “Congratulations defectives” they said, now addressing Zim and Tak. “It’s been centuries since we had to resort to total override, but mark our words, you will pay for this waste of food.”

“What do you care for waste?” Tak spat back at them. “You throw Irken lives away every day in your conquest.”

“A calculated cost to bring me more to feed from in the long term,” the Irkens explained with their eerily monotone voices. “You should know about calculated risks. Don’t forget, we see everything you do.”

“When have I ever sacrificed good soldiers?”

Every possessed Irken in the room wore the same mocking smirk. “All through your training days. Don’t you remember? We saw everything you did, every little cheat to get ahead.”

The Irkens tapped buttons on their control boards and soon, every monitor showed various scenes from Tak’s training years. “Electrodes hidden in your boots to cripple race opponents. Stealing test answers and planting them in a rival’s locker after copying them for yourself. You got top scores on your exams and excelled at your drills, but is it really victory if you have to sabotage your competitions? Oh sure, you studied and trained, but it never felt like enough, did it? Never thought you could win a fair fight. Had to tear someone else down first. Maybe, if it weren’t for all your cheating, we’d have let you make up your Elite ranking test. After all, we allowed everyone else who was inconvenienced by the blackout to take it.” Their smirks grew as they twisted the knife further. “Just not you.”

Tak ground her teeth together as she watched the images play out on the screen. There was no denying them. The monitors played footage from her own memory bank. They showed her and everyone else who she really was. She work so hard. She clawed her way to the top and did everything she could to stay there. But it was all a lie. And now they knew it. What was worse, Zim knew it. That little pain in the ass managed to make it to elite the first time, even while being a walking disaster, and he never had to deliberately cheat. The idea of him lording that over her was enough to make her blood boil.

“Perhaps you can prove everyone wrong, though,” the Irken voices went on. “Take the honest route for once in your life. Tell Zim what you learned on your little trip to Refirencee. Tell him what you suspect.”

“Fool!” Zim scoffed. “Zim already accessed Tak’s memories. I know everything she knows about the Control Brain parasite.”

“Yes, you saw the same books. But did you reach the same conclusions?”

“Guys! Don’t you see what it’s doing?” The Dib burst in. “It’s distracting you. It’s keeping you here until your leaders recover. Let’s erase those maps and get out of here!”

“Silence!” Zim snapped at Dib, then turned back to the dead-eyed Irkens. “Tell Zim what you know, creepy hive-mind…thing!”

“Have you ever wondered why you’re such a failure? Why you destroy everything you touch? Why, no matter what you do, everything always blows up in your face? It’s because you have no choice in the matter. It’s what you were made for.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Before we push for something big, we require extra sustenance. We take this sustenance in what some have called a blood toll. On our first planet, we made many mistakes, one was asking our hosts directly for sacrifices. We know better now.”

“Ans what does this have to do with me?” Zim growled impatiently.

“Since the beginning of our reign, one PAK has been passed down through generations, carrying a suppressed impulse for destruction. We need only to activate it and we have our blood toll. Clearly our PAK has become quite damaged over the years. It no longer works quite right. You’re so defective, you couldn’t even declare your name right.”

The screen flashed the name Zim across it. It then reversed the letters and spread them out to reveal an acronym. ZIM became MIZ. And MIZ became Massacre Initiator Z.

“You were supposed to live as a low-ranking drone until we activated your destructive impulse and die in the disaster. You, however, defied us at every turn. We kept you alive out of sheer curiosity. We wanted to see how your life would play out. It’s been entertaining, however, you’ve become too great a burden to bare.”

Zim stood motionless, staring straight ahead. They waited for the typical Zim outburst of “lies!” or declaring his greatness, but nothing came. His eyes looked as dead as the possessed Irkens around them. He said nothing, did nothing. As much as Tak couldn’t stand Zim’s obnoxious voice or erratic behavior, watching him be so still was chilling.

Tak’s antenna perks at the sound of footsteps trooping down the hall. The Dib’s head darted for the door. “Guy! Come on! We’re out of time!”

Tak smacked Zim’s lifeless body away from the control panel. “Do you think you can stop us by getting into our heads?”

“Oh simple Tak,” the Irkens sighed. “We've lived in your heads since you were fitted with your packs.”

Tak sneered at them. “I cut you off for me and I won't rest until every Irken is free of you.”

“Please, you worked your whole life to get our attention. You finally have it. Do you want to throw that away? Perhaps we can find a place with someone of your drive and ingenuity.”

“Liars!” Did they think she was stupid? She knew as well as it that treason of this scale would never go unpunished. Even if they tried to appease her with a higher rank or a cushy job, it’d only be a matter of time before they got rid of her. But even the fact that it was trying to negotiate meant something. She was a threat to it, and she would stay a threat until the day she died.

“We you know you, Tak. You’re a plotter. You won't do anything rash.”

They don’t know me half as well as they think. “Want a bet?” She started hitting buttons on the control board. An alert came up on the screen and the voice blared from the speakers. “All maps queued for deletion. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

She hit one more button and the screen went black. “Deletion successful.”

“Take that you parasite bitch.”

“Come on,” Dib begged, pulling on her arm. The footsteps were noticeably louder. “We have to go now!”

Tak took off running and Dib pulled on the frozen Zim until his legs moved. They burst into the hall and immediately came across a group of Irkan soldiers. “There they are!” one of the soldiers cried.

Tak led the way as they ran toward the ship’s hanger. The soldiers fired at them. A laser cannon popped out of Tak’s pack and returned fire, but it was difficult for her to aim while leading the dash to the Voot. She wished one of her companions had could back her up with a pistol but Zim was still barely conscious and Dib was preoccupied with keeping his legs moving. The sound of little metallic feet running beside them gave her an idea.

“Zim, tell me your SIR unit to go into defensive mode.

There was no response. Zim was as helpful as a sack of empty ginzor cans.

“Hey Zim’s robot,” Dib said to the little SIR unit.

Gir looked up at him curiously. “Hmm?”

“Don't you have any weapons or something?”

“Huh?”

“You know, something that makes pretty lights and goes ‘pew, pew’?”

“Oh that. I got that.” A giant laser cannon popped out of his head and he fired wildly into the soldiers behind them, forcing the Irkens to scatter for cover

Finally, they made it to the hangar and all jumped in the Voot. Zim slid zombie-like into the pilot seat.

“Come on,” Dib said, shaking Zim’s shoulder. “Get us out of here!”

“Zim!” Tak snapped. “If you don't fly this ship, I will!”

That seemed to work. Zim shook off whatever stupor he was in and his usual look of single-minded determination returned to his eyes. “No one pilots Zim’s ship but Zim!” He took hold of the controls and the ship roared to life. In a flash, they took off into the stars.

#invader zim #invader zim fanfic #invader zim fanfiction #parasite au #iz parasite au #zim #tak #dib #gir #rebel zim #rebel leader tak #iz #zadf #sweetiepie writes #sweetipiewrites #sweetiepie fanfiction #sweetiepie fanfic #sweetiepie08

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ifitlookslikeaduck · 3 years ago

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The Legalization of Drugs

Most every consciously aware American has heard of “The War on Drugs” at some point in their life. Unfortunately, most even have at least one personal encounter with the adverse and negative affects of this “war”. Over the years there have been changes as to which narcotic garners the most attention, examples being the crack epidemic of the 80’s and the current opioid crisis of the last decade. Being born in an inner city and growing up around a tri-state metropolitan area, I was no stranger to the harsh realities of drug usage. Even more so now living in the most impoverished county in the state of Maryland, which is sometimes called the heroin capital, I have a very personal understanding of the negatives of use as I have encountered many users throughout my time and lost many friends to their addiction. The pain of these losses often makes us jaded in our understanding of narcotics use, but I believe a deeper look is warranted into what is to blame for our current predicament. Is it the use of narcotics themselves, or is our society’s approach to combating narcotics the true cause of such negative results? Are there any alternatives that may yield a positive outcome? And how does the current state of our society’s relationship with narcotics affecting our overall culture?

Although many would cite prohibition of alcohol to be the beginning of drug regulation in the United States, these measures actually began in San Francisco, California in 1875 as a way to control the spread of then popular opium dens (DEA Museum). While this was a state level action it laid the groundwork for these kinds of bans and legal actions to be taken on a federal and therefore national level. In 1906 with the passing of the Pure Food and Drug act national drug control measures began to combat the abuse of prescribed medicines by forcing drug manufactures to publish the ingredients used to make their products effectively killing the industry of patent medicine (DEA Museum). The Harrison Narcotics act of 1914 was the initial legislation that began a chemical scheduling of substances which was followed up by the Marijuana Tax act of 1937 (DEA Museum). Each of these federal actions set up our current system of drug control which is established through the Federal Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, better known as the Controlled Substances Act (NCBI). Under the provisions of this act narcotics and chemical agents are separated into five classes or schedules varying depending on the medicinal applications of the substance and its level of addiction. In this system, schedule 1 narcotics are considered to have the highest potential for abuse whereas schedule 5 are considered to have the lowest. A more elaborate explanation can be found on the website for the National Center for Biotechnology Information website which describes schedule 1 as “high abuse potential with no accepted medical use; medications within this schedule may not be prescribed, dispensed, or administered", while describing schedule 5 as “medications with the least potential for abuse among the controlled substances" (NCBI). Examples of schedule 1 narcotics are marijuana, heroin, and LSD, with mid-level schedule 3’s such as anabolic steroids and ketamine, while schedule 5 includes items such as Robitussin.

The government in part serves a paternalistic function of creating structured laws and rules to ensure the safety of its citizens. For instance, wearing a seatbelt is mandated by law as a measure to ensure the safety of motorists and this same logic is applied to the scheduling and criminalization of narcotics. However, in the text The Legalization of Drugs philosopher Douglas Husak introduces two compelling arguments that counter the current system of drug control. In the first Husak speaks on the value of drugs as they apply to a recreational activity, and in the second, he addresses the counterproductivity of drug enforcement. The first argument contextualizes narcotics in comparison to legal drugs such as alcohol which is regulated and sold throughout the Unites States. Alcohol has adverse effects not only on an individual level, but also socially as the drug is highly addictive and is a leading cause of death yearly whether by vehicular accidents, alcohol poisoning (effectively an overdose), or a plethora of other related deaths. Further comparisons can be drawn to other life-threatening activities such as scuba diving, sky diving, racecar driving, and even combat sports which are all legal recreational activities. Through this lens banning narcotics is an egregious affront to personal freedom and liberty as it takes away an individual’s right to their pursuit of happiness.

Husak’s second argument is the most pertinent to our current situation. As it currently stands our methodology for drug prevention and enforcement creates a variety of issues which are counterproductive to the original intent. According to the RAND corporation, an organization dedicated to researching and addressing issues of public policy, in 2016 American spending on marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine reached almost 150 billion dollars which is comparable to what was spent on alcohol (RAND). RAND also states that the sale of marijuana increased from 34 billion to 52 billion, a 50% increase between 2006 and 2016 meaning that marijuana sales are comparable to both cocaine and methamphetamine sales combined (RAND). The report details that heroin sales through the decade increased at a rate of almost 10% each year now making the heroin market closer to the market for marijuana than any other illicit substance (RAND). This is one of the most concerning facts as opium has been a target of drug control since the inception of these measures in the U.S. Recalling the action taken in San Francisco which initiated drug control, how is it that the longest regulated narcotic is the one with the highest increase in usage? If these current measures were working shouldn’t there be a steep decline in this area by now?

Between 2008 and 2020 there have been 324 fatal overdoses in Allegany County with 52 of those being in 2020, accompanied by another 715 overdoses being non-fatal (Prescribe Change). These numbers are continuing to rise here at home and are much more severe in areas like Baltimore City which totaled 1,028 fatal overdoses in 2020 (PC). In a 2018 survey conducted by the organization 67, or 4.9% of middle school students in Allegany County responded that they have abused prescription medications in a way other than intended and this number jumps to 212 or 13.4% of high school students who responded in kind (PC). In context to the earlier statistics, the trend is continuing with kids beginning opioid usage at a young age with the number of users increasing as they get older. The current methods just are not working. If the goal of these drug control measures is in fact harm reduction, what other options are available?

The most common answer to the current epidemic seems to be a new method of harm reduction. Understanding the reality that people will always find a way to use if they truly wish to, safe injection sites have been authorized in some places around the world to help with the regulation of use and decrease the chances of fatal overdoses and overdoses in general. The largest majority of these safe injection sites (SIS) are located in Europe, Australia, and Canada and according to a group of 75 studies conducted in 2014 it was determined that SIS allow for better access to healthcare for marginalized users, reduce overdoses, and promote safer injection practices (NPR). The largest amount of research stems from two locations, the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Sydney, Australia, and Insite which is a location in Vancouver, Canada. Insite opened its doors in 2003 and has had over 3.6 million supervised injections take place at the facility whilst dealing with over 6,000 overdoses, all with no fatalities (NPR). If the goal of harm reduction is mitigation, these numbers tell the story alongside the facility reporting that there has been no statistical data to allude to an increase in drug usage. It was also discovered that within the first four years of operation Insite’s presence averted about 50 deaths, safer needle practices were used averting HIV, and more people were likely to begin drug detox than those who hadn’t had access to a SIS (NPR). Applying this information to the earlier numbers about Allegany County, a program such as this could have a substantial effect on the death toll.

There are an ever growing number of subtopics related to potential drug legalization and decriminalization including the dangers of creating a black market, however safe injection sites are so far a proven methodology to help combat the harms created by the restriction of narcotics. This method offers a significant reduction of harm to society by regulation and education which should always be the main goals when addressing societal issues at large,

#philosophy #law #drug education #Frostburg State University

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alarawriting · 5 years ago

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52 Project #8: Crab People

The aliens had studied the world they were traveling to for years. Transmissions of primitive radio waves from the hairless, bipedal mammals’ world told the Katalk everything they needed to know. The humans, though fractious and inclined to war with one another, did not have weapons that could pierce the thick natural body armor of the Katalk. Their world was mostly ocean, in a salinity similar to the oceans of the homeworld, teeming with life. Technically, the Katalk could simply conquer the ocean, and leave the lands where the humans dwelled alone, aside from the beaches and the other land areas closest to the sea, where Katalk who enjoyed spending time on land could make their vacation homes. But because the humans themselves poured poison and garbage in that ocean, and because they valued that sea-adjacent land very highly themselves, it was determined by the High Command that the Katalk needed to subjugate humanity in order to hold the oceans of the world the natives called “Earth” in their pincers.

While the discordant, warlike humans had many separate tribes that they called “nations”, and had no unity in the governance of their world, there did appear to be one nation that dominated all the others, producing the majority of the radio transmissions that contained visual information. Radio transmissions emanating from the other nations frequently included information that had originally been transmitted from that nation. So the Katalk carefully studied that nation. Its capital was heavily guarded with flying machines carrying metal projectile ordnance—mostly a nuisance to the heavily armored ships of the Katalk, but they had not become the dominant conquerors of the galaxy by allowing a nuisance to wear at their defenses when there was a better way. Besides, the capital was on a freshwater river, not particularly near an ocean.

A short distance north and east of that capital, barely twenty skroons of travel at the speed Katalk ships could go, there was another city… on a bay. A brackish bay whose salinity was perfect for Katalk, even better than the oceans of the world, where the salt was perhaps a little overly-strong for comfort. And that city had far, far less of an active military aerial defense. The city seemed to be somewhat infamous for the number of humans killing other humans with personal ordnance, but the personal ordnance used by humans would be, again, no more than a nuisance against the hard shells of the Katalk.

The Katalk broadcast on all the radio wave frequencies that were being transmitted out of locations near the city. Some of these frequencies could apparently transmit visual information, so they recorded images of their fleet leader, flanked by his chief war captains. “Human creatures. We are the Katalk. Our weaponry is far superior to anything your species has developed, and our natural armor can resist the strongest weapons you have. We claim your world in the name of the Katalk Empire. Surrender yourselves immediately or face the consequences.”

This was broadcast in all the languages that the radio waves were transmitted in. Then the Katalk ships descended to land in the bay. It was a perfect strategic position; from within this bay, they could quickly reach the capital of this nation by water, and there were multiple large cities within their reach now.

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the humans crowded up on the piers and the shoreline of the harbor, watching the ships, but there had been no response from anyone who had authority, yet. “Let us get their attention unmistakeably,” the fleet leader said, and commanded the gunner of the lead ship to destroy the top few floors of their tallest building.

The top of the building exploded, mostly vaporized, but with enough chunks of solid matter spraying out over the city that many of the humans were injured, and a few were killed – as, obviously, were the ones who’d been at the top of the building. A new broadcast went out. “We are tired of your delays! Your ruler must come and surrender to the Katalk immediately, or we will annihilate this city!”

Within ten minutes, a brown human female surrounded by an entourage of humans in policing uniforms and humans holding microphones and cameras walked out on one of the piers. “Katalk ship! I’m the mayor of Baltimore, here to discuss the surrender,” she said.

“At last,” the fleet captain said, and left, with his own entourage. He didn’t have to – in fact, some might say that the fleet captain meeting with the mayor of a conquered city was bending low to a level far beneath his status. But he had been in space for months, and wanted to take the opportunity to breathe the planet’s air for himself.

The ship floated over to the pier and laid down its gangplank so that the fleet captain could stride down onto the pier. As he did so, he heard someone – not the mayor, but someone in her entourage – say “Oh my god, they look just like giant crabs!”

“We are not like any of your pathetic Earth life!” the fleet captain’s chief aide said. “We are superior beings, and you will treat us as such!”

“Of course,” the mayor said. “Please forgive my aide, he was just startled. You do bear a strong coincidental resemblance to an Earth life form called a ‘crab’, which is one of the most common and enduring symbols of our city. I feel as if God must have intended for you to come here to Baltimore as your first experience of our world.” She bowed deeply. “May we exchange names? I—”

“We may not,” the fleet captain said brusquely, interrupting the mayor. “It is taboo among the Katalk to share names.”

“Oh,” the mayor said, her face and tone showing the pattern humans exhibited when they felt surprise. “How do you tell each other apart, then?”

“We address each other by title. I am the Fleet Captain of the Katalk Expeditionary Fleet to the Sol System. These are my aides. I do not actually care who your servants or assistants are. You are here to surrender.”

“I most certainly am,” the mayor said. “I can take you to the place where we run our government right now. But I’d like to invite you to a ceremony tomorrow night, a ceremony we perform for our most honored leaders.” She bowed again.

“Describe this ceremony,” the fleet captain barked.

“We begin by inviting all of your crew to watch you be honored at the ceremony. We give you a ceremonial key that represents control of this city. Then we anoint you and your crew with herbs and spices that smell beautiful to us, and bathe you.”

This wasn’t the behavior the fleet captain had expected. Usually primitive races attempted to use violence to harm the Katalk, and needed to be taught a harsh lesson before their subjugation. And every human fiction broadcast on the radio waves from their planet, and every story of what was actually happening on their planet, said that this was what humans did as well. Yet the human woman was treating the Katalk as honored rulers of high status. Could it be that, because the humans of this city venerated a creature that looked much like the Katalk, they were prepared to accept Katalk rule near-bloodlessly?

That would be excellent. It was always best to take the primitive natives as slaves rather than destroying them. They would best understand the wildlife and the vegetation and how to utilize them as food.

“We will accept your ceremony of honor,” the fleet captain said.

He allowed the woman to guide him and his entourage to the place called City Hall, where she introduced him to many humans, by their titles only, and attempted to show him how to do the paperwork. He used his side weapon and vaporized the paperwork. “Your bureaucracy means nothing to me,” he snapped, claws clacking. “We will rule as we see fit.”

“Of course, my lord Fleet Captain.” The mayor bowed again. “Let me make arrangements for your ceremonial anointing tomorrow.”

She slipped away, leaving an aide to explain things the Fleet Captain did not need explained. Why would the Katalk care about humans having parking permits?

***

Interlude:

Come to Baltimore, and walk downtown, and perhaps you might be fooled into thinking there is an underground subway system, or something of that nature, because you’ve seen steam rising from vents in the streets and sidewalks. But it’s something else that causes the steam.

Beneath the streets of Baltimore, in the downtown area, there are pipes that feed chilled water, hot water, and steam to businesses in the area. These connect to heating and cooling systems in the local buildings.

Naturally, there are no buildings where the steam comes into the open areas where people are.

There are many engineers who work in Baltimore, for the energy company that supplies the steam, who would know how to redirect the steam. It might be a very difficult task. It might cause excessive cursing, and complaining about short notice, and overtime work. But if the mayor needed steam to be somewhere that it usually is not, and was willing to commit to whatever the cost would be, there are engineers who work for the energy company that supplies the steam, and they could do it. ***

The conquest was going well. Wherever the Katalk went, the humans pointed and made sounds of amazement. The mayor was incredibly deferential, and humans moved smoothly out of the way as the Katalk approached.

One of the fleet captain’s aides overhead the mayor speaking on a telephone, one that was connected by a wire rather than one of the ones that transmitted by radio waves. “No, Mr. President, there’s no need. No, we have the situation under control… Yes, that’s right. They’re right outside my office. I’ll let them know to expect you to arrive and surrender to them after the anointment ceremony… sir, it’s a Baltimore thing, don’t worry about it.” She hung the phone back on its cradle and looked up. “I’ve made all the arrangements! The ruler of our nation will be here to surrender formally to you after the ceremony! He wanted to send troops to fight you, but of course I told him that would be futile; your technology is far too advanced, so he’s agreed to surrender.”

“If you are planning some sort of sneak attack or subterfuge, this city will be destroyed,” the fleet captain said when he was told what the mayor had been doing.

“Of course! Don’t worry, I know I couldn’t outthink you. You must be far more intelligent than humans, with such advanced technology.”

“See that you remember it,” the fleet captain said.

***

The place where the ceremony was to be done had the sign “ROYAL FARMS ARENA” in large letters on the front of the building. “What does this mean, Royal Farms?” the fleet captain asked.

“It’s a figure of speech. The idea is that we grow a king or queen into their power and potential, the way that farmers grow plants,” the mayor said. “That’s why we hold the ceremony there.”

All of the Katalk filed in, with the exception of those who’d been left behind on the ships, one or two per ship, per regulations – they couldn’t have humans sneaking aboard the ships while they were all gone, after all. There were nearly six hundred Katalk coming into the ceremony. “We do ask that you leave your weapons here, at the front,” the mayor said. “Of course you can easily retrieve them if you need them, and it’s hardly as if humans are any kind of threat to you, but it’s symbolism.”

The fleet captain considered telling the mayor that he didn’t care about human symbolism, but decided to humor her.

As each Katalk entered the arena, several humans sprinkled large quantities of a strange-smelling orange powder over them, from tubs labeled “Old Bay.” “Our research on your radio wave broadcasts revealed that you have a product you refer to as ‘Old Spice’,” the chief researcher on humanity said to the mayor. “Is this similar?”

“It’s very similar, but this is the Baltimore version. We call the spice mix ‘Old Bay’ because we’re on a bay,” the mayor said.

The researcher touched his two large claws together in the gesture the Katalk used to express sudden understanding, or acknowledgement of a truth. “Sir, it makes sense,” he said to the fleet captain. “I haven’t seen anything about this specific ceremony, but I do know that highly honored culture leaders called ‘celebrities’ are often invited to ceremonies at arenas like this, and I also know that ‘Old Spice’ is considered a scent compound that is highly desirable and is seen as making the males of the species superior to those who are not scented with it.”

“Understood,” the fleet captain said.

After all the Katalk were in the room, the mayor went to the stage and spoke into a microphone, which was broadcast throughout the arena. “Our honored crab overlords, the Katalk, are here to be given the keys to our city, and to be anointed with the sacred Old Bay and bathed in the traditional manner. Let us give thanks that they came to Baltimore before any other city on Earth!” She called the fleet captain to the stage. “We are very, very pleased you have come to us,” she said. “Please accept this symbolic token of our surrender to your leadership.” She had two aides show him a ridiculously huge key.

The researcher whispered, “It ties out; they used to have walled cities to protect themselves from marauding humans. Since then, the ‘key to the city’ seems to represent a great honor.”

The fleet captain clacked his claws against each other in acknowledgement, and stepped on the stage. “Humans, your days of self rule are at an end, but if you continue to cooperate and embrace our rule as eagerly as you have done, you will be spared and allowed to continue to live and serve us.”

There was dead silence from the humans, and then the mayor said, “Let’s hear it for the Katalk!” All the humans started slapping their hands together loudly, which looked much like the human version of the Katalk acknowledgement gesture. The fleet captain assumed that they were signifying that they understood and accepted their fate.

“Now, for the ceremonial bath,” the mayor said. “We’ll let some cleansing steam into the room. It’ll really make your carapaces shine and bring out the scent of the Old Bay beautifully. We humans won’t be present for this, because it’s a taboo among our people to see someone else bathe unless they’re our mates. As soon as the bath is over, we’ll return, and take you to the places you’ll need to be after that.”

“And tomorrow your nation’s ruler will surrender to us as well?”

“He’s told me so, and none of the ruling class of America would ever dare lie to anyone as powerful and intelligent as you.”

“That sounds a bit dubious,” the researcher whispered. “Apparently their rulers frequently lie, according to the radio waves, and make promises they cannot or choose not to keep.”

“It’s no matter. If the nation’s ruler doesn’t come tomorrow to surrender, we will move on their capital, using this city as our base, and force him to his knees.”

The humans bowed as they left the room. The mayor said, “I eagerly look forward to meeting with you after your bath, fleet captain! No one in Baltimore can imagine anything more enjoyable than spending time serving you.”

The mayor’s obsequiousness was starting to get on the fleet captain’s nerves. “Just go. Let this bath begin so it can be over with.”

She left, and the doors to the arena were closed, as would obviously be necessary if there was to be a steam bath. “Let’s see if this steam bath is all that the humans say it is,” the fleet captain said.

The researcher said, “It is something they speak of highly in their radio waves. They also enjoy spending time in desiccating rooms where it is very hot but there is no steam, and in tubs of hot water. They are much more comfortable with water than we would expect from land mammals.”

The steam came in from under the seats. When the captain sent an aide to tell him how it was being done, he reported that it looked like there were dozens of pipes that had been hastily inserted into the walls. Steam rolled in from the pipes, and it was pleasant; the weather on this planet was chillier than the Katalk homeworld. The fleet captain relaxed and let himself enjoy the warmth, as the rest of the Katalk did the same.

But then the warmth began to grow uncomfortable. “It’s time we left,” he said. “If the humans haven’t come to bring us out, we will just go on our own. We don’t bow to their timetables.”

Two Katalk went to open the doors. They didn’t open.

More steam rolled in.

Katalk started desperately searching for doors, trying to batter the doors down when they found them, or bash holes in the walls with their powerful claws. The steam rose. Katalk fled up the stair-step seating, trying to find a place out of the heat. The steam rose. Swirls of it fogged the room and made it hard to see one’s fellow Katalk.

The fleet captain commanded that they form a giant pile and try to reach the roof. It was plain that the humans had betrayed them and lied to them, and had locked them in, but perhaps there was a way to escape via the roof.

Military discipline broke down completely. None of the Katalk wanted to be on the bottom of the pile where the steam was hottest and thickest. They climbed over each other frantically, sometimes ripping each other’s claws out in their fervor to climb higher than their fellows. The fleet captain bellowed orders, that were ignored.

It was so very hot.

***

Outside the Royal Farms arena, the mayor smiled grimly at the doors, which had been quickly screwed to a large piece of corrugated steel, so even if the doors gave way under the Katalk claws, there would still be no escape. “My son worked on the top floors of the Transamerica building, you sons of bitches,” she said, her voice quiet but her tone vicious. “Burn in hell… once you’re done boiling alive.”

She turned toward the crowd behind her. “Citizens of Baltimore, in about forty-five minutes, we’re going to have the biggest crab feast this city has ever seen, here at Royal Farms arena. And then our National Guard, who’ve been dispatched down here by the governor, are going to take these guns and use them to root out any of these crab people who might have stayed behind on their spaceships.”

“What are we gonna do with the spaceships?” a man in the crowd yelled.

“What else would we do with the spaceships? We’re gonna use them to go to space,” the mayor said. “Prepare to enter a new era of jobs and industry for Baltimore, all courtesy of our tasty friends in there.”

More and more people gathered at the Royal Farms Arena over the next forty-five minutes, milling around excitedly. Eventually, the steam was cut off. The mayor gestured at the sealed doors.

“Everyone! Please step out of the way to let the caterers through. They’ve been preparing corn on the cob for us to enjoy with our feast, all day long, because you can’t have a real crab feast without corn on the cob. And I’ve asked hardware stores around the city to donate hammers, because I think those shells are a good bit harder than we’re used to, and our wooden mallets probably won’t be enough to do the job.”

Everyone cheered and backed out of the way as the caterers wheeled forward large tables covered with brown paper, actual hammers, butter dishes, and stacks of corn on the cob, and the firefighters unsealed the doors. Steam escaped through the open doors, into the air, up and away from the waiting crowd. The appetizing scent of Old Bay wafted out, as the caterers waited for all the steam to clear before going through the door to prepare for the crowd.

It was going to be the crab feast to end all crab feasts.

“Save at least one for the president,” the mayor said to the catering manager. “I promised him one when he comes tomorrow.”

#52 project #baltimore #science fiction #comedy #time for crab #please imagine that this president is not trump #things probably would have gone a lot worse had he been prez

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arizonamansions-blog · 4 years ago

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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IN-DEPTH: Unraveling the Ecology Behind My Favorite Anime and Manga

Ecology is a widely misunderstood term that is often confused with environmentalism. The word "ecology" originates from the Greek word oikos (home or household). As that suggests, ecology is the study of the organism and its oikos — its home or environment. Land, water, air, sunlight, plants, animals, other individuals of the same species, and itself — everything is part of an organism's environment along with the way everything relates to everything else. That’s ecology.

Most information on ecology is in the form of research papers, textbooks, and popular science. In short, nonfiction. We may read nonfiction books on topics we are interested in, but for topics we aren’t interested in or even aware of? It’s unlikely. Fiction bridges the gap between education and enjoyment. You may not want to watch a documentary about agriculture, but you’d certainly be interested in watching Silver Spoon. It’s a win-win.

Anime and manga have always had an interesting way of approaching topics of nature and ecology, whether it be a celebration of nature like A Place Further Than the Universe, a subtle treatise on ecological topics like Parasyte, or environmental commentary like Weathering With You. Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is probably the most important anime/manga piece of eco-fiction. These are all important works, but let's look at the ecological themes in three of my most treasured anime and manga, each of which embodies a different branch of ecology.

Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World) and Behavioral Ecology

From the New World might have the most overt connection to ecology. Author Yusuke Kishi was inspired to write the original novel after reading Konrad Lorenz’s 1963 book On Aggression. Konrad Lorenz is widely considered to be the father of modern behavioral ecology, perhaps best known for his studies on imprinting in geese. In On Aggression, Lorenz attempted to explain aggression (defined as the intent to harm another individual of the same species) through the framework of evolutionary biology. According to his (now outdated) "hydraulic model," frustration builds in the individual like a fluid until it is "released" by an outlet — namely, aggression.

Aggression is a curious phenomenon. You are probably accustomed to seeing animals in grand fights to the death in nature documentaries. Except, this actually almost never happens. All organisms seek to be as "successful" as possible. In evolutionary terms, "success" comes from leaving behind as many descendants as possible. Can’t do that if you’re dead, can you? Even injuries have the potential to impact success: an injured individual might be viewed as an undesirable mate, for example. Animals will actively avoid violent escalation of conflict as much as possible — especially social animals where conflict is an inevitable byproduct of increased interaction, and powerful carnivorous animals who have the capability to kill. Lorenz wrote of how these animals must evolve behaviors that will reduce the impact of aggression. One of these anti-aggression adaptations might sound familiar to From the New World fans: attack inhibition.

In From the New World, attack inhibition is one of the key properties of humans with the psychokinetic powers called Cantus. Basically, a human with Cantus will feel strongly unable to physically attack another human. Persisting with such an attack will result in the triggering of "death feedback," killing the attacker. This is similar to natural phenomena — fights among wolves or dogs usually have a clear winner and loser but rarely end in serious injury because bite strength is carefully moderated so as not to cause injury (a phenomenon called soft mouth). The loser will turn upside down, exposing their vulnerable regions to the winner, who will not attack as they have already established dominance. Similar behaviors can be observed in many other animals, such as ravens. According to Lorenz, this is the result of an innate attack inhibition that has evolved in these species.

While the “death feedback” of From the New World might seem like a harsh punishment for aggression, it’s not too far off from the truth. A species whose individuals engage in wanton violence is not a species that would last long. In the words of Lorenz, “a raven can peck out the eye of another with one thrust of its beak, a wolf can rip the jugular vein of another with a single bite. There would be no more ravens and no more wolves if reliable inhibitions did not prevent such actions.” In other words, violent escalation of conflict is undesirable for the individual, and by extension for the species. Natural selection is real-life “death feedback,” isn’t it?

Lorenz also had a theory that less-powerful animals such as doves or rabbits have not evolved such inhibitions because they aren’t as necessary — except in captivity, where individuals are forced to confront each other with no possibility of escape. And what of us normal, Cantus-less humans, then? Lorenz describes us as "a dove which, by some unnatural trick of nature, has suddenly acquired the beak of a raven." In From the New World, the supposed “greatest danger to society” comes in the form of humans with weak or nonexistent Cantus — these individuals are not burdened with attack inhibition or death feedback. In short, individuals like you or me. Humans are a curious species, even without Cantus. Our use of tools bypasses conventional evolutionary pathways. We have not had time to adapt, but will we? Are war and conflict an inevitable byproduct of our aggressive tendencies? Both Lorenz and From the New World have one common thing to say: that there are no easy answers to this.

Golden Kamuy and Conservation Ecology

Golden Kamuy is an ecologist’s paradise. Manga creator Satoru Noda packs pages with everything from delicate drawings of local flora to elaborate footnotes on the pooping habits of bears, really bringing early 20th-century Hokkaido to life. On the surface, Golden Kamuy is a classic gold rush western, a wild tale of conflict between the protagonists (ex-soldier Sugimoto and Ainu hunter Asirpa) and various other parties in search of lost Ainu gold. Beneath lies a greater conflict: humanity versus Hokkaido itself.

Hokkaido is Japan’s largest prefecture, and one of its least-populated, accounting for 22 percent of Japan’s land area but only 4.4 percent of the population. Hokkaido is an island, physically separated from mainland Japan to the south by the Tsugaru Strait. This physical separation is known as Blakiston’s Line (after English explorer Thomas Blakiston). Several plants and animals found north of Blakiston’s Line (in Hokkaido) won’t be found south of it (in mainland Japan), and vice versa. So you have black bears and flying squirrels on the mainland but brown bears and chipmunks in Hokkaido.

Into this unique environment stepped modern human civilization in the form of settlers from mainland Japan and beyond — mostly ranchers, gold prospectors, and prisoners. In short, the majority of the Golden Kamuy cast. Although the Ainu people had lived in Hokkaido for a long period of time, their impact on the environment was minimal, as they lived sustainably off the land. The settlers were a different bunch, altering the environment in many ways. One of those ways was through farming. The Meiji government sought to modernize agricultural techniques in the country and brought in advisers from the West to do so. One of them, in particular, would change the landscape of Hokkaido for good — a certain Ohio rancher named Edwin Dun, who you might recognize as Eddie Dun from Golden Kamuy.

Well before his first appearance in Volume 7, Dun’s role in de-wilding Hokkaido was hinted at in Volume 3 — Noda mentions an American rancher responsible for driving the Hokkaido wolf to extinction. Brought in to introduce scientific agricultural methods in 1873, Dun realized horse ranching in Hokkaido faced a significant hurdle: predation. Hokkaido wolves were slaughtering a good portion of horses and foals, so Dun took it upon himself to exterminate wolves from Hokkaido. His method of poisoning horse carcasses, combined with a bounty hunting system, worked a little too well — the last record of the Hokkaido wolf is from 1896.

The other major way settlers impacted the environment of Hokkaido was through the very foundation of Golden Kamuy’s plot: gold mining. It has been well documented that even small-scale gold panning at rivers has serious consequences for fish populations — the mining activity disturbs the riverbed and increases the amount of sediment in downstream waters. This sediment contains greater levels of mercury and other trace minerals that can impact fish. The Hokkaido gold rush endangered the salmon of Hokkaido — one of the most important species of the ecosystem as a food source to bears and Ainu alike.

Ultimately, Golden Kamuy is as much a study of human-nature conflict as it is of conflict between humans. Each of the three main factions of people — settlers, soldiers, and Ainu — view nature differently. To settlers like Eddie Dun, nature is an inconvenient hurdle to be tamed. To soldiers like Lieutenant Tsurumi, nature is a powerful hazard to their daily lives that is to be feared. And to Ainu like Asirpa, nature is an equal, meant to be treated with respect.

MUSHI-SHI and Community Ecology

MUSHI-SHI's central concept of enigmatic life-forms — called mushi — that flit on the edge of existence, enables it to tackle a whole bunch of ecological themes, but central to it all is what is known as community ecology. Community ecology studies the way different organisms interact at various scales in space and time. At the core of this field are interspecific interactions — how different species interact with each other. An interaction between two species could be anywhere between mutualism (where both parties benefit) or parasitism (where one exploits the other).

The depiction of parasitism is extremely close to real life. Some mushi take over the host’s ears, some take over the eyes. Some take control of the entire body, leaving but a husk of a person behind. This horrifies us because, as humans, we aren’t really accustomed to parasites aside from the occasional hair lice or intestinal worms. To see the worst of parasitism, one needs to look at other species. Parasitoid wasps will "drug" large insects by stinging them before laying eggs inside them, when the young hatch, they can eat the host alive from the inside out. Why not outright kill the host? To keep them fresher for longer.

The most intriguing parasites are those that alter the host’s behavior to their benefit. In Episode 3 of MUSHI-SHI The Next Passage, we encounter a man who seems to shun warmth of any kind, embracing the cold of winter. The most notable thing is the fact that he is not truly cold-resistant — his body is suffering from the effects of exposure, yet he seems not to notice. Unbeknownst to him, he is infected by a cold-loving mushi. This is textbook behavior alteration. Behavior-altering parasites have some of the most complex life-cycles of any organism. Toxoplasma, a small microorganism, infects rats. However, its true host (the one in which it can reproduce) is the domestic cat. To ensure that it reaches a cat, the Toxoplasma alters the behavior of its rat host, making it braver and less fearful of cats. Once this foolhardy rat is eaten by a cat, the Toxoplasma can finally reproduce, releasing spores via the cat’s droppings, ready to be eaten by — you guessed it — a rat. Thus the cycle starts over. This isn’t an isolated case — there are hundreds of such parasites, some with even more complex life cycles.

No episode of MUSHI-SHI better encapsulates the ecology of parasitism than the Rosemary’s Baby-esque “Cotton Changeling” (Season 1, Episode 21). We encounter a mother and her strange, green-skinned, near-identical children. These "children" are not human — they are merely mushi pretending to be human. While the first "children" are barely able to walk, later generations are impressively human-like, with fully developed speech and intelligence. They resist protagonist Ginko's attempts to convince the mother to stop caring for them. This generational improvement mirrors nature, where parasites are engaged in an evolutionary arms race with their hosts. The hosts change to counter the parasite, and the parasite must keep pace too. A classic example can be seen with that most classic of parasites: the cuckoo. Over time, host birds learn to recognize cuckoo eggs or chicks and throw them out. In response, the cuckoo begins to lay eggs that are more similar to those of their host.

If you thought parasitism was solely about harming the host, you’d be wrong — MUSHI-SHI understands this. In many episodes, mushi infection actually confers a benefit upon the infected person, who are sometimes unwilling to be cured by Ginko. Once again, this isn’t far off from real life. Researchers now believe there is a spectrum between mutualism and parasitism. In fact, many mutualisms began as parasitic interactions. One of the most widespread parasites — bacteria called Wolbachia that infect insects — confers benefits like viral immunity and insecticide resistance upon its host. Some insects are incapable of breeding without Wolbachia infection. But if you thought the Wolbachia was doing this out of benevolence, you’d be wrong again — Wolbachia is simply committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure its own survival. If the host dies, so does the parasite.

Host-parasite interactions are cyclic, and MUSHI-SHI is all about such cycles. Shots of humans and mushi are contrasted with long shots of the forest floor, where leaves decay and rot, returning to soil, fueling the web of life. Mushi exploit humans, who exploit mushi, and the cycle continues. At the center of it all is Ginko, an ecologist if I’ve ever seen one. To Ginko, the mushi are neither good nor evil, they simply exist. Everything is only the way it should be, nothing more or less. Taking on the role of a neutral observer rather than an exterminator, he goes from place to place, motivated as much by his own curiosity as he is by a desire to help people. It is through Ginko that MUSHI-SHI shows us what it means to be an ecologist.

The Power of Fiction: A Personal Story

I mentioned earlier that fiction has the power to make us interested in things we aren’t interested in. It also has the power to make us regain interest in things we lost interest in. I was once an ecologist-in-training. Since childhood, I had been fascinated by the natural world, and becoming an ecologist seemed like the natural culmination of such interests.

It didn't pan out that way, sadly. I hated college. By the end of my long and protracted Master’s degree, I no longer had any love for ecology. I actively shied away from scientific discussions with my more illustrious colleagues and no longer made an effort to keep myself informed about current research. Me and ecology, we were finished. Or so I thought. I began to explore anime and manga — longtime interests of mine — more deeply as a sort of escape from my "failures" in academia. It was through the three titles discussed above that I was able to reconcile with the subject. My ecological knowledge actively enhanced my watching and reading experience and I suddenly felt a desire to rediscover what it was that made me love the subject so much in my early days. I was genuinely grateful for everything I'd learned because it helped me better appreciate such fine works of art. While I may never return to academia, I no longer feel the need to forget my time there, to push it out of my memory. I no longer feel that shame. It goes to show that anime and manga not only have the power to teach us about our world but can also touch our lives in strange and unexpected ways.

By: Manas B. Sharma

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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rockofeye · 5 years ago

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Spiritual Colonialism and the Doctrine of Discovery

On the eve of the annual US celebration of the colonial occupation and settlement of Indigenous lands and the long-term, still-unfolding process of eradication of Indigenous cultures and nations, it’s important to think about how this came about, how the concepts of the Doctrine of Discovery have harmed Indigenous spiritual systems, how these concepts are still alive and well among spiritual seekers, and how to divest ourselves and our spiritual communities of this specific flavor of spiritual violence.

The Doctrine of Discovery was primarily established by the Roman Catholic Church in the 15th century, and was utilized as a means of conversion of discovered peoples in what European nation-states saw as unclaimed territories. As government structures in that time period and for quite awhile after that were very mixed with religious structures (the pope was considered equal to or above sitting monarchs), this bled from missionary activities to government-funded explorations of previously unknown territories. Cristoforo Colombo/Christopher Columbus is a good example of this; his funding coming from the Spanish crown, which in turn had sought the approval of the papal state. The Conquistadors (literally ‘conquerors’) were missioned out in the same way: sail for new land, claim it for the monarch, and convert and enslave anyone already living there. The Crusades were similar: claim/re-claim primarily the Holy Land/Jerusalem for the Church (and other territories later) from Muslim rule (interestingly, participation in the Crusades was considered as an indulgence of sorts--the Church promised remission of sins for going to slaughter Muslims).

As most of us know, all of these ‘undiscovered lands’ were already populated with complex societies that had all the trappings of European city-states: government structures, division of labor, technological pursuits, family structures and units, and, perhaps most important in the quest for land as funded by the Church, spiritual and religious beliefs and systems. All of these European invaders showed up to Indigenous nations and, by most early accounts, were welcomed warmly. In return, these invaders brought diseases that killed wide swaths of the established societies, used interpersonal and large-scale violence to control and conquer, and did what we know as colonialism: seized land, declared it belonging to someone else, and essentially did a pop-up of European culture on the spot.

The thread that kept this alive in European culture and religion was the belief that these pre-existing cultures were inferior to European thought and belief. What was present was clearly not the same as European culture but instead of being able to use higher thinking skills and reason out that what is different is not inherently evil, colonizers under the direction of religious monarchs declared these differences as spiritually poisoned, demonic, and uncivilized. This brought forth what quickly became an overculture of white supremacy that declared all non-European influenced thought as in need of conversion and erased differences in European cultures.

At the same time, missionaries had been spreading into the Kongo basin region of Africa. Christianity had been present in northern Africa essentially since the very beginning; many early figures in Christian history were recorded as being from Africa, three early popes were recorded as being Black, and the first recorded established Christian monastic community dates to the early 1100s in modern day Algeria. But, in the 1400s, the Portuguese arrived and spread inward. Many accounts from the Kongo region talk about Catholic beliefs being folded into Indigenous beliefs without real issue (and this is reflected in a lot of Kongo art from that period) and a significant number of folks from the Kongo region were already aware of Catholicism--and in some cases willingly converted--before the Middle Passage and Age of Enslavement began.

But as the Age of Discovery waned, the Doctrine of Discovery did not. Instead, it has continued to play out in interactions between religious bodies and Indigenous communities as well as government entities and Indigenous communities. It is almost 2020 and the Roman Catholic Church has still not done with with the Doctrine of Discovery, as published and supported in many papal bulls/documents issued by a pope re: official Church policy and belief.

In the US, we see this in the continual denial of basic rights to Indigenous individuals and nations. Treaties are still not honored, the sitting government still gets to decide who is an ‘Indian’ and who is not, blood quantum has been enforced by government entities and trickled to nation governments, and individuals and groups continue to suffer at the hands of colonialist rule. To even determine if you can be called a Native American, you must consult the Dawes Rolls/Final Rolls, which was essentially a census of individuals associated with five recognized Indigenous nations in the US, to determine if an ancestor of yours was named there. Given that there are currently 573 recognized tribal groups and nations in the US, the problem with this is obvious...and that does not even take into account the number of tribes and nations who cannot receive federal recognition due to low membership, blood quantum debates, or lack of financial resources to fight the colonialist government. Indigenous government services are some of the lowest funded services in the US, and the statistics of poverty, hunger, murdered and missing Indigenous woman, and substance use among Indigenous individuals is staggering...all of which can be related to lack of funding and support.

This doesn’t even account for the historic--and present--reality of ‘Indian schools’ in the US and Canada that were essentially re-education camps aimed at stripping Indigenous children of their cultural identity and family, and indoctrinating them with Catholic beliefs. There’s a lot of blood of a lot of hands about that, and it is shameful that the Church has not taken an official stance of removing the doctrines that support these crimes against humanity.

In Haiti, the Doctrine of Discovery has taken an interesting and insidious new turn. The Catholic Church is very present, but in a lot of ways has become somewhat socially neutered..there are a lot of services provided by Catholic orgs that DEFINITELY express some of the racist ‘noble savage’ arguments and engage in a lot of voluntourism, but the real problem is the Protestants.

In the last 10-15 years, the presence Protestant missions and missionaries have exploded in Haiti. Almost to a fault, they incite social and cultural violence towards practitioners of the Indigenous religion of Haiti (Haitian Vodou), and they utilize American-derived prosperity gospel ideals twisted to really disgusting ends: convert and we will give you food. In a nation where food insecurity and malnutrition are literally life and death issues, this is an outright abuse of essential human rights. Religious gatekeeping of what people need to survive is beyond words (this also plays out in the US via orgs like the Salvation Army).

One of the most painful things I have ever watched was a Haitian megachurch pastor in Port-au-Prince promising abundance if only people would denounce their Vodou practice and be exorcised of their ‘demons’. The footage of this aired on CNN, and what CNN didn’t know was what was being said by the woman being exorcised was not speaking in tongues, but a spirit who had mounted the head of the sèvitè begging not to be sent away and for this to be stopped. This particular megachurch is backed by American missionaries, and their Haitian partner-pastors know exactly what they are doing.

Protestants can’t stop at that sort of stuff, though...they engage in outright violence as well. I have heard first hand accounts from family members of being assaulted on their way home from ceremonies because they were wearing white clothes (standard dress for most ceremonies), and Protestants show up to LOUDLY protest ceremonies often with cars that have large speakers hooked up to broadcast music and messages of damnation/redemption. I’ve seen and heard that myself, with Protestants standing outside my mother’s compound during my initiation and other ceremonies and confronting house members about their presence there. They desecrate sacred spaces and are generally awful.

This has American roots in that this style of Protestant religion and engagement directly grows from the hellfire and damnation style of Southern US conservative Protestantism. It’s a not-so-subtle insertion of white supremacy couched as religious belief.

In all of this, the Doctrine of Discovery lives and thrives and gains ground; the work of Protestants on the island--both American-influenced Haitian groups and awful American voluntourists in matching tshirts that I see EVERY SINGLE TIME I fly to or from Haiti--is to repress culture, convert people, and grow a militant power base.

But, the current iterations of the Doctrine of Discovery and how they interact with Indigenous religions is not limited to actual in-person missionary encounters. The internet has made this particularly insidious via the ease of access to some information about the religions. Many people discover that Vodou (and other Traditional or Diasporic religions) is actually a real-deal non-tourist thing on the internet, which is not in and of itself a bad thing.

It becomes bad when it starts getting scooped up out of context and re-packaged to fit other agendas. What does this look like? Sometimes it’s neo-pagans trying to cast the lwa as cartoonish, toothless figures who are only present to bring us thing and do our bidding--all of these ‘Ezili Freda amulets’ and ‘Ogou elekes’ and Legba-as-a-candy-swilling-devil things and backyard pup-tent ‘kanzos’. Sometimes it is stripping Haitian Vodou of it’s inherent Haitian-ness and repackaging it in a pan-Africanist light, where Hathor is Ezili Freda is Oshun is Mama Chola and it all descends from thoughts and feelings about what ancient Egyptian culture was. Sometimes it is trying to drag the lwa into hoodoo, rootwork, and conjure as beings who can be sent out to do work with no license to ask for that, no ceremony, and no understanding of the dynamics of the religion. Sometimes it is the ascertain that Vodou is really just about what you think or feel connected to, not a continuous line of historical, lineaged practice. Sometimes it is the idea that elders are irrelevant and someone can improve upon what they are taught or do it in a way that they feel is more authentic. Sometimes it is casting the lwa as vegetarian/vegan because animal sacrifice doesn’t feel marketable. Sometimes it is treating the religion as a treasure chest that can be mined--pay what is conceived of as an ‘entrance fee’ and then collect all the information that is thought to be important while ignoring what the religion actually is.

The internet has created this brand of self-appointed experts who use their own discovery of Indigenous practice as a means to feel or present themselves as some sort of spooky without actually bothering to speak to the people who carry the culture and religion. This isn’t dependent on skin tone or background, and it isn’t dependent on initiation or not; plenty of non-white folks do this and plenty of folks who initiate into the religion use it like a vending machine and point at their initiation as a reason why they can do that or as a way to say that what they are doing is without fault.

It all relates back to the Doctrine of Discovery as an assertion of ‘we know better’. It’s become more insidious because it can be couched in language and images that look right to folks who may not know how to look at the religion, but it’s still the same old thing.

So, what to do?

There’s no real easy solution to spiritual colonialism because there is no one prevailing Indigenous religion anywhere with one central governing body. It’s not as simple as ‘don’t provide access’ and ‘don’t document’ because that is contrary to what the lwa of Haitian Vodou have largely expressed that they want, and it’s not as direct as going toe-to-toe with folks we feel are being exploitative because, frankly, it would be an unending battle and practitioners have too much stuff to do as it is.

There are ways to engage and explore our own internal biases and colonial attitudes, though, and steps to take if we have begun a process of determining whether an Indigenous religious community might welcome us or if we are simply interested in knowing more:

Do the homework. Research and reflect. While Indigenous practices do not live in books, books can be useful for gaining historical understanding and cultural context for folks who did not grow up in the Indigenous practice they are in contact with or want to learn more about. Compare and contrast what you are reading and push at the differences--why does this author say that? What is their source material? What is the general opinion of their source material? Who are their informants? What is their personal history, if any, with the religion? Read the bibliography, and go find those sources. The Columbusing of Indigenous religions and fraudulent folks bank on the idea that people are uneducated and won’t look further. Read critically. Question influences.

Ask questions. Find elders and culture bearers of the religion and ask if they might have a little time to chat with you about their experiences and practice of their religion. Many, MANY elders and practitioners are quite happy to share what their religion means to them with a respectful party. Be prepared to compensate them for their time and energy.

Ask questions, again. If folks are presenting themselves as knowledgeable or are presenting things about the religion that seem somewhat out of touch (see Do the homework), ask them where they learned these things and who their elders or authorities are. These should not be hard questions to answer, nor should anyone tapdance around them.

Learn the language. If a religion has a written body of knowledge, it will likely be in the cultural or liturgical religion which, if you are allowed to access that body of knowledge, you will need to learn. Many Indigenous religions are passed orally, and so the language is a must as many important things are lost in translation. With Vodou, when folks claim there is no good written information about the religion this inevitably points to them only looking for information in English, as there is an IMMENSE body of solid work in Kreyòl ayisyen, French, and, surprisingly, German. If you are welcomed to participate somewhere, learning the language is a must. For instance, in Vodou, all services are conducted in Kreyòl with bits of French, and it is a mark of respect to work towards fluency and it is necessary if one wants or needs to travel to Haiti for ceremony.

Support the communities. Spend your money with Indigenous groups or orgs...make donations that support communities and buy products and services from legitimate practitioners. If there are public events and/or political movements by Indigenous religious groups, attend them and/or boost the visibility of them. Ask how you can help (and be prepared to be told you cannot without getting offended) and listen/observe what is being said and taught.

Decentralize experience. Personal experience IS central to religion and spiritual practice, but when folks are being invited to ceremony or into an Indigenous practice, it is not just about our experience...there is an entire community that is drawn together and has it’s own means. methods, and reality. We can center the community without losing our own experience, and that’s good practice towards undoing to colonial influence that places Self at center stage at the expense of the broader Us.

These are places to start, but the whole of the work will unfold as steps are taken forward. It is the labor of outsiders to do this, versus expecting the insiders of the Indigenous practice to carry the burden of unpacking bias along the lines of the Doctrine of Discovery. Rejecting colonial actions and filters means doing the heavy lifting, which everyone is capable of if we remain willing to engage in this way.

On the day of celebration of colonialism and destruction of Indigenous communities, I challenge folks to explore their own internalized colonialism towards the othered Indigenous communities of our local areas. What are our attitudes towards Indigenous communities? What do we think about and feel when we see commentary that tells the truth about what Thanksgiving is? How do we engage with the idea that our current lives are built on the colonization of lands and communities that were already established before we got here? How do we engage with the idea that we continue to benefit from colonialism as non-Indigenous individuals living in settler states? What definitive actions can we take to contribute to reparitive attitudes and actions that recognize the reality of colonialism in our current societies?

Writing from illegally occupied Massa-adchu-es-et land, and bearing benefits from illegally occupied Nipmuck lands and un-ceded Taino territory, I wish you a thoughtful and reflective Day of Mourning and research-driven National Native American Day.

#vodou #haitian vodou #vodou culture #thanksgiving #day of mourning #doctrine of discovery #Catholic

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things2mustdo · 4 years ago

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We hear the word a lot, it’s what separates males from females and men from boys. So what exactly is it? It is the principle male sex hormone and acts as an anabolic steroid. Having lower testosterone can have horrendous effects on men: decreased muscle mass, weight gain, reduced energy levels, and lower libido.

In a study conducted by VA Puget Sound Health Care Systems and the University of Washington, Seattle, found that “about 19 percent had low testosterone levels; 28 percent had varying low and normal levels”. In addition, testosterone levels decrease 1.5% every year after age 30. Which means you become less of a man every year past age 30. It was also found that “men with low testosterone levels had an 88 percent increase in risk of death compared with those who had normal levels”.

So with all this negativity, is there any hope for man? Yes.

There are plenty of ‘natural’ ways to increase your testosterone levels.

1. Vitamin D3. This vitamin has been linked to increasing testosterone in men and increasing sex drive. (Source)

2. Eat your steak and whole eggs. Testosterone is derived from cholesterol. Sure egg whites and grilled chicken might be a great way to get your protein in, but cutting the red meat and yolks won’t help raise your testosterone. Eggs are very nutrient dense, eat the yolks and reap the benefits. Same goes along with red beef, enjoy your steak. (Source)

3. Workout. Pushing and pulling heavy weights in a compound movement (squats, deadlifts, benching, clean and press, etc.) cause a hormonal change in the body, producing more testosterone (with proper diet of course). (Source)

4. Avoid sugar. It will increase your insulin levels. Not only is that linked to weight gain, but also a reduction in testosterone levels. (Source)

5. Eat your fats. Don’t leave out olive oil, peanut oils, avocados, egg yolks, nuts, and red meat (grass fed). (Source)

Just following these few points can have a dramatic effect on increasing your testosterone levels; your sex drive will rocket, your hard work from the gym will start to show, and women will be so turned on by your pheromones. Moral of the story: don’t underestimate the most important hormone in your body, it’s THAT important.

https://www.returnofkings.com/152812/10-ways-that-modern-society-lowers-your-testosterone-levels

It is no surprise that the current world agenda seeks to destroy men from within but also from the outside at the same time. Only by attacking from all angles can their plans come to fruition. We do not know exactly when this attack started, but in recent years, it has become clear that the intensity of the current agenda’s intentions has increased tenfold.

Why are men targeted? Could it be the fact that by reducing the amount of true men with testes they reduce the chances that authentic revolutions against oppressive governments will happen? Any voice of reason against a corrupt society would swiftly be silenced. It happened 2,000 years ago (Jesus), and it is happening now more aggressively than it has ever happened in history.

Let’s see how men are being targeted for total destruction and implicitly and how to avoid these attacks…

1. Our Food Is Filled With Hormones, Antibiotics And Pesticides

Hormones are abundantly in beef, chicken or dairy products. We eat these daily, however, the hormones have an impact on a man’s health. Testosterone levels are lowered and estrogen levels increase. Manboobs, anyone?

Pesticides are well known chemicals that cause infertility and lower testosterone levels. Yet non-organic vegetables and fruits are abundant in life threatening toxins.

2. Cycling And Jogging

Doing physical activities is so beneficial that writing down all the benefits here would take forever. Yet there are a few physical activities which are unhealthy for the human body. Those kind of activities which have never been done by our ancestors.

For obvious reasons, cycling is unnatural because it uses an invented device. Constant pressure on the testes leads to infertility, reduces testosterone production and diseases.

Like cycling, jogging is an unnatural activity. Our ancestors would either walk or sprint, never jog. It is a useless activity. Jogging and cycling are activities which put continuous and constant stress on the body, leading to an overall decrease in testosterone over time. Do you think it is a coincidence that so much emphasis is being put on activities such as jogging and cycling?

3. Blue Light Bulbs

Blue light exposure has been linked to decreased testosterone levels. It is everywhere. Naturally occurring only in the morning when it helps the body wake up, nowadays we see it right until we close our eyes and go to bed. It is in our phone and computer screens, but most importantly, it is used to illuminate our rooms, bedside lamps and our offices.

Due to “environmental” reasons, it was decided that the classic incandescent bulb uses up too much energy, therefore it is better to use the new LED bulbs with carcinogenic gases.

You can’t run and you can’t hide. These blue-light bulbs are everywhere, creating anxiety and making us feel constantly tired. A tired mind is easy to control, and so is a low testosterone individual.

4. Our Drinking Water Is Filled With Female Hormones

Let me explain. The tap water that you drink also contains treated and cleaned water from our toilets, no mystery here. What we don’t know is that the hormones from a female’s period are flushed down with this same water. Chlorine does not remove hormones, it removes bacteria.

Drinking bottled water could be a solution, but then again, the plastic is also carcinogenic and also lowers our testosterone. Unless we have our own spring, we are fucked.

5. Sugar

Sugar reduces our metabolism to that of a sloth and promotes cancer. It also dramatically lowers our will to do anything meaningful with our lives. It takes down our testosterone due to our bodies prioritizing insulin production. It is addictive, more so than heroin, as proven on lab rats.

6. Aspartame

In an effort to soothe the minds of people concerned with sugar, they have created an even worst product called aspartame. Aspartame produces neurotoxins that excite our nerve cells so much that they die. However, our brain protects itself with a barrier from excess neurotoxins. If the barrier is passed, neurons are killed. The pituitary and pineal glands are also affected, leading to a disruption in our circadian natural rhythm.

Aspartame lowers testosterone and avid consumers would require a prolonged time for their testosterone to recover.

7. Veganism

Veganism is another new fad that keeps people excited about healthy lifestyles. What they don’t know is that this diet is aimed at reducing our aggressiveness and making us docile animals like say… sheep.

Go ahead and tame a lion. Obviously, veganism lowers testosterone and the lack of vitamins and nutrients, which I will explain in future articles, further leads to a pale and unforgiving future for our bodies and brains.

8. Soy

Soy has been part of the hype train of miraculous natural super foods for some decades now. Soy is an estrogenic food and guess what? It lowers your testosterone.

It should be simple by now: anything that is being promoted by the mainstream media should be considered false and damaging to our well-being.

9. The War On Fats

This is another worldwide mass deception promoted by the mainstream doctors and media. Fat is actually healthy and it helps reduce cholesterol due to the fact that if the body receives external cholesterol, then it does not need to produce it on its own, which would lead to the bad cholesterol in our blood.

Testosterone feeds on cholesterol. The higher amount of testosterone you will have, the lower your cholesterol will be. And the more external cholesterol you bring in, the more the testosterone can thrive and increase.

Eating fat meat will increase your health and improve your metabolism (unless you have some condition, in which case you should seek a doctor’s advice).

10. Coffee

Yes exactly, coffee. Caffeine is poison used by plants to protect themselves. Guess what happens when you ingest coffee every day?

Coffee depletes the adrenal glands responsible for regulating our hormones. Combined this with stress and we are sure to fall into an adrenal exhaustion. Testosterone is also one of those hormones, and when the adrenal glands become depleted, there is no way to produce any free or total testosterone within your body.

It takes three weeks to get rid of caffeine. Do you know why caffeine produces bowel movements? Because the body wants to get rid of the poison.

Conclusion

In case you are wondering what would be the best course of action to avoid exposure to factors that are detrimental to our health, the solution is as always simple: life should be lived the way it was meant to, in accordance with nature.

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reading-writing-revolution · 4 years ago

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September 2, 2020 (Wednesday)

As I wade through the flood of news today, all of it trying to tilt the playing field toward Trump in the upcoming election, it strikes me there is an elephant in the room that we really need to identify: why is Trump so hell-bent on reelection? He has made it clear he doesn’t particularly like the job. He has no real goals for a second term. He feels victimized by the media and his opponents. He prefers Florida to Washington, D.C., and he really likes to golf. He claims to be wealthy enough to do whatever he wants. So why on earth is he apparently determined to bend our democracy to the point of breaking in order to win reelection to a job he doesn’t seem to want to do?

According to today’s news, Trump's acting Director of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, recently buried the release of a bulletin from the Intelligence Community warning that Russians were trying to undermine Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by saying he is deteriorating mentally. The bulletin was produced for federal, state, and local law enforcement, but DHS Chief of Staff John Gountanis stopped the distribution of the bulletin and referred it to Wolf. It disappeared. Congress will not be able to ask about what happened because on Saturday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced it would no longer brief Congress in person on election security.

A DHS spokesperson said the bulletin had been pulled because it had not met the agency’s standards, but analysts who produced it said they had determined with “high confidence” that the disinformation effort was taking place. Trump, of course, has tried repeatedly to establish the idea that Biden, who stutters, is slipping mentally.

Although the administration tried to bury this intelligence committee report about actual Russian interference in the election, today Attorney General William Barr told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer a fake story. He said that hostile foreign powers could send thousands of mail-in ballots to this year’s election, creating massive voter fraud. When pressed, Barr admitted there was no evidence for such a claim. The U.S. Intelligence Community has no evidence that foreign countries are trying to manipulate mail-in ballots.

Trump is also continuing his attacks on mail-in votes, insisting they will usher in voter fraud despite their widespread previous use that showed no evidence of fraud, and despite the fact that the president himself votes by mail. Today, in North Carolina, he urged people to vote twice in the November election, once by mail and once in person, to test the validity of the election. Voting twice is illegal under federal law. Under North Carolina state law, it is also illegal to induce someone to vote twice.

On Monday, we learned that Barr has recently replaced the head of the Office of Law and Policy, a Justice Department office that oversees the FBI’s intelligence-gathering activities. Barr has removed Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brad Wiegmann, a 23-year career public servant, and replaced him with 36-year-old Kellen Dwyer, a prosecutor who made headlines two years ago when he accidentally revealed that the U.S. government had indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The timing of this replacement, just before the election, might reflect Barr's planned release of a report of his own on the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Barr has dispatched his own investigator to counter the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate established that the investigation was legitimate, and that Russia did, in fact, intervene in the 2016 election to bolster Trump.

Remember, that while world leaders are condemning Russia for the recent poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Trump has still not commented on it. Neither has he addressed the story that Russia offered bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to kill U.S. and allied soldiers in Afghanistan, nor the growing Russian aggression toward U.S. troops in Syria.

There is yet another possible attempt to skew the election on the horizon. Led by Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), federal health officials have told states to get ready to distribute a coronavirus vaccine by November. Vaccine-makers say this timing is impossible, and that they will not know by then if their vaccines, which are currently in development, are safe and effective. The chief of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Stephen Hahn, insists that the agency won’t approve a vaccine simply to help Trump get reelected, but the FDA’s recent authorization of emergency use of convalescent plasma despite concerns about its effectiveness has worried public health experts. In any case, Redfield’s letter suggests the CDC might authorize a vaccine itself through its emergency powers.

Trump is also pushing hard on the idea that Democrats have created a crisis of violence in the country and he is the one advocating “Law & Order,” as he keeps tweeting.

On CNN today, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley blamed Democrats for the shooting a week ago in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that took two lives and wounded a third person. Seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly crossed state lines with an AR-15-style gun that was illegally in his possession and, after scuffling with some people, opened fire. Gidley insisted that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. He blamed Democrats for restraining the police, leading citizens to have to step in. “If you don’t allow police to do their job then the American people have to defend themselves in some way.” While Gidley said he was not defending vigilantes, it sure sounded like he was inciting violence. He noted that “we have a Second Amendment in this country” and warned that Democrats were stripping “cops” of their ability to protect us, leaving American families “in grave danger.”

Of course, protests against police have been driven not by a general disregard for law enforcement, but rather by such horrors as the murder of George Floyd by Milwaukee police officer Derek Chauvin, who casually knelt on Floyd’s neck until he died; the murder of Breonna Taylor of Louisville, Kentucky, shot in her bed by police looking for her ex-boyfriend; and, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, by the shooting of Jacob Blake seven times in the back as he reached for his car door. Leading Democrats, including Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, have called not for getting rid of police departments, but rather for addressing what appears to be deadly racism within some of them. Biden has actually called for increasing funding to help law enforcement officers handle functions outside the normal expectations of a police force.

The suggestion that Democrats are responsible for a young man’s deadly decision to carry a friend’s weapon to a city in another state is a campaign ploy, and today the president made another such ploy when he signed a memo that sets out to restrict federal money from going to what the White House calls “anarchist jurisdictions.” It orders the Office of Management and Budget to examine what federal funding goes to cities where Trump insists—despite their adamant denials—that Democrats want to “defund” police. The memo leaves Trump loyalist Attorney General William Barr in charge of determining which cities fall into this category according to “any… factors the Attorney General deems appropriate.” The memo does spell out certain parameters. A so-called “anarchist jurisdiction” is defined as one that “disempowers or defunds police departments” or one that “unreasonably refuses to accept offers of law enforcement assistance from the Federal Government.” The memo specifically lists Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; and New York City as “anarchist jurisdictions.”

The memo says: “My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones…. It is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities.” “This is a campaign document coming out of the White House,” said Sam Berger, a former OMB official. “Any actual restriction on funding in court will immediately be sued and almost certainly struck down.”

Trump's effort to convince Americans that he is defending law and order does not appear to be working. In Politico, JR Ross, an expert on Wisconsin Politics, noted that Trump’s fearmongering isn’t working because “after such a tense, violent summer, the protesters might look bad, but Trump, and his law-and-order supporters, don’t look much better.”

According to pollster Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, when asked which candidate would “make you feel more safe or less safe,” 35% of those polled said Trump made them feel more safe, while 50% said less safe. Forty-two percent said Biden made them feel more safe while 40% said he made them feel less safe.

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