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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 5 years ago

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Disability and Loren

@zarohk asked for my thoughts on a Disability Studies/Media Studies perspective on the disability depictions in Animorphs. Which was foolish, because I’m teaching an entire dang class on the subject of superheroes and mental health, so I have Many Thoughts. [PLEASE NOTE: I am nondisabled, so if I err, please tell me so.]

Loren’s role in #49: The Diversion does a lot of things right, and a lot of things wrong. She incurs a traumatic brain injury that results in memory loss and blindness a couple of years after Tobias is born, and lives with said injury for about ten years before Tobias finds her and gives her the ability to morph, which restores her sight but not her memory.

A few places where I commend the depiction of Loren:

It gets into the massive underemployment of disabled Americans. Loren is smart, canny, athletic, compassionate... and working a call center job in exchange for state benefits. Said state benefits do not afford her a decent standard of living; Tobias notes that she has few possessions and almost no time for leisure activities. Americans with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed as those without, and those who do have jobs are ten times more likely to be paid less than minimum wage, e.g. in sheltered workshops.

It shows how inaccessible a lot of systems are in the U.S. Tobias notes that Loren accidentally grabs an expired quart of milk — because nothing on the label is printed in Braille. Putting raised text and/or Braille on food packaging is a health and safety issue, one that the U.S. ignores even though it violates its own laws (e.g. the ADA) because companies tend to do what they want and “what they want” is usually not to spend more money on packaging. The call center and bus system are both marginally more accessible, especially when Loren has Champ to help, but they’re still clearly spaces set up for sighted people that don’t take blind users into account very well.

It shows some of the workarounds that help deal with accessibility problems. Loren’s house is set up so that there are clear paths to and from all of the relevant spaces. She’s doing that to allow herself to move around comfortably in that space, because she’s made it accessible for herself. She memorizes the layout of the local store, and uses that to get around as well. All of those details help show that she’s adjusted, and actively interacting with her own circumstances.

It drives home the difference between service dogs and pets. This distinction is extremely important, and it gets ignored all the time by entitled ableists who want to bring their pets into stores. Tobias and Marco both assume from the outside that it can’t be that hard to become a service animal — just do what Loren says to do, right? — but it takes Tobias 0.02 seconds to realize that it’s not that simple and that he cannot imitate Champ’s lifetime of training on the fly. He says that he manages to get his mom home in one piece, and that that’s about all that can be said for his sad performance as a guide. Champ has skills like ignoring interesting smells and applying exactly the right amount of pressure to the harness that most pets don’t have and also most pets can’t learn. Champ is not a pet, at least not while he’s in that harness; he’s a gainfully employed expert assistant.

It rounds Loren out as a character, and definitely does not just make her into a lesson or problem for Tobias. Loren is gently humorous, tolerating her coworkers’ teasing and Ax’s attempted juvenile delinquency with an eye-roll. She’s compassionate, listening to other people’s problems on the phone with genuine concern and not swatting flies if she doesn’t have to. She’s tough-minded and stupidly brave, chucking rocks at Visser Three’s head and flying at attack helicopters as a three-pound bird. She’s fallible, unable to support Tobias emotionally even when he asks her to do so and unwilling to check in on him after leaving him with her sister. She’s a fully rounded person, one whose personality is informed but not defined by her disability.

It talks about some of the unromatic aspects of a Traumatic Brain Injury. Too often in other works of fiction, we see a person get bonked over the head and wake up with no episodic memory but all other brain functions intact (*cough* Rachel in MM1 *cough*). Loren actually gets into the fact that she forgot huge chunks of language, forgot how to brush her teeth, forgot how to walk across a room. She obviously lost her sight as well, and she mentions lifelong balance and coordination problems. Even her amnesia isn’t absolute — she has some traces of recall, but can’t make anything coherent of her impressions. Her injury isn’t 100% realistic, but it’s more so than many TBIs we see in fiction.

It focuses on the intersection of disability and social class. Tobias notes that Loren is under a compounded threat because of her inability to move to a more secure neighborhood and her obvious vulnerability. He feels a lot of disgust with himself when he and Marco and Ax are harassing Loren, because it’s so clear that this isn’t the first time she’s been harassed. Tobias understands that his experience with poverty as a nondisabled male minor is different from Loren’s for those reasons.

A few places where Loren falls into the common traps of implied ableism creeping into fiction, as written about in Narrative Prosthesis:

She gets “cured.” Loren falls into the “kill or cure” dichotomy, like most of the other disabled characters in Animorphs. In her case, it’s that she gains the power to morph and in the process regains the ability to see. It isn’t a complete cure, true — she still has no memory — but it means that she’s no longer blind for the rest of the series. Having the occasional character no longer be disabled sometimes isn’t automatically problematic; having every disabled character get either “fixed” or killed off inherently treats the disabled body as a problem that needs to be solved, through sci fi nonsense if no other way is available.

She implies that she’d rather die than continue to be disabled. When injured by dracon burns, Loren initially refuses to morph out even though Tobias tells her she’ll die if she remains a bird, because (they both assume) to morph out is to return to her blind human body. This moment buys into the stereotype that it’s better to be dead than disabled, again inherently devaluing the lives of actual blind individuals.

There’s a certain amount of mystery around how she became disabled. It’s interesting that we never actually get a definitive answer on that one — Loren says she was told it was a car crash, but there’s also an implication that she was attacked by controllers, and we don’t know for sure. However, the fact of her disability is treated as an aberrant state that needs to be explained, the book inherently asking “why are you like this?” By contrast (for instance) she doesn’t ask Tobias “why are you in the body of a hawk?”

She views herself as a burden, and the narration doesn’t do enough to contradict her. Loren says that she couldn’t possibly be expected to raise a child while also blind and coping with a TBI. Real blind people raise kids all the time, however, including blind single parents, and it’d be nice to see some evidence in the story that Loren’s assumption is wrong. Loren also apparently assumes that she can’t begin to play a role in Tobias’s life even now that Tobias is more self-sufficient, again because she views herself as relatively helpless and non-contributing due to her disability. There are some hints that she’s wrong, but we don’t really see her either begin to contribute to the resistance or build a relationship with Tobias until after she’s become un-blind.

Tobias’s view of Loren is often pitying. As much as Loren doesn’t initially view herself as a potential maternal figure to Tobias, he doesn’t view her as a potential mentor either. He repeatedly expresses horror or sadness at her life circumstances, and assumes that her life must be barren due to the spartan nature of her home. (Of course, that begs the question of why the hell a blind woman living alone would ever bother hanging pictures on her walls or putting doilies on her coffee tables, but Tobias doesn’t consider that angle.) Again, Tobias is allowed to assume that her life must be meaningless if she’s disabled, but it’d be nice to see some contradictory evidence in the form of her having close friends or inane hobbies or some other proof that to lead a disabled life is not to automatically lead a lonely one.

Loren expresses bitterness and desperate desire to be nondisabled. Again, it’s fine for any character to say “I wish my life was different,” and it’s a common consensus among blind writers/bloggers that being blind is often a pain in the butt. However, views as extreme as “you need vision to have a fulfilling existence” or “vision is part of what makes us human” are ableist crocks of shit. Loren doesn’t go so far as to espouse those extreme views, but she also doesn’t seem to view herself as having a well-rounded life in spite of her disability. It’d be nice to see Loren talking about sight as handy or enjoyable or a thing that the designers of 99% U.S. environments assume everyone must have, rather than a necessary precondition for a minimum standard of life.

Loren’s disability is somewhat medicalized. Same caveat as above: disabilities are by definition medical things that some bodies do or have that other bodies do not. However, discussing disability primarily through “this is how your body is different from Implied Normal of Nondisabled Body” and focusing on doctor’s notes, diagnoses, physical differences, etc. can serve to disconnect the lived experience of the individual from their body. It also tends to focus on the ways that the body is “the problem” rather than focusing on the ways that environments and attitudes are problematic, which then prevents anyone from asking hard questions about the environments and attitudes. Loren’s doctor’s note, discussion of scarring and loss, and repeated physical descriptions are somewhat more medical than social. It’d be nice to see a little more emphasis on the social factors that make blindness a disability (e.g. improperly labeled milk), and less on “your eyes are different from those of Implied Normal Nondisabled Person.”

#animorphs #animorphs meta #long post #loren fangor #ableism #disability studies #disability representation #accessibility #social model of disability #animorphs criticism #blindness representation #49 #the diversion

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77marvelimagines · 6 years ago

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Red Headed Angel

Red Headed Angel

Natasha Romanov X Female!Reader

Prompt(s): Could I possibly request a Natasha x female reader where the reader is an Avenger with angel wings and also Nat's girlfriend and when she finds out about Nat's sacrifice for the soul stone, she was so heartbroken but after Steve traveled back in time to return the soul stone, he also brought back Nat to the present time and Nat finds the reader sad and alone in her room, she hugged her from behind and told her that she's home now and they both had a tearful reunion?

Note(s): Hi I love this. “It’ll be simple,” I said, “just a hint of angst with some fluff!” I don’t think I have to explain that this is exactly,,, the opposite of what I wanted to happen skskssksk I’m so sorry! Enjoy your large heaping of angst with a curveball of fluff!!

Warning(s): Character death/character un-death, angst, fluff.

Word Count: 1091.

They didn’t even give her a funeral. She was the heart and soul of what remained, after everyone was unjustly taken, and she was one of the only few who stayed to do what needed to be done. She was the reason why there was even an ‘Avengers’ to come back to in the first place.

And she didn’t even get a funeral.

Perhaps the only one to understand was Clint, who had gone on the mission and watched her fall, who had watched her transform from this cold and calculated assassin into a secretly heart-on-the-sleeve do-what-it-takes hero. He was the only one who knew, who cried into her shoulder, and (y/n) sobbed right back into his.

At least he understood, if nobody else did.

Well...

Maybe that was a bit rude. A gander too far into a bias on how everyone else must have been feeling. Steve, at least, gave her a hug. He was mindful of her wings, big and beautiful and scrunched behind her back to make her look- because she felt- smaller at Tony’s funeral. Steve always dealt with grief differently. Maybe it was because of the time era difference. Man out of time and all. He’d been close with her too, yeah, but he hadn’t been there like Clint, or in love with her like (y/n).

Bruce had, but, well, he’d admitted after coming back five years ago that he didn’t really feel that way anymore. He’d congratulated the two of them, awkwardly, and he was just as clumsy as he offered his condolences, which (y/n) had to bite out back.

The Avengers hasn’t only lost their best defender. They’d lost their driving one, the glue in their whole operation, their heart too.

That was perhaps why she couldn’t watch Steve, Mjölnir in hand, stones in the other, step onto the dais. (y/n) had said her goodbyes, pulled her wings more stiffly around her and bolted for the guest room that Pepper had been more than gracious to set up. (y/n) couldn’t stand to watch their team lose another member, and the funky feeling in her gut wouldn’t go away, and she was certain that Steve, if he ever came back, wasn’t going to be the same.

She slammed the door to her room harder than she necessarily meant to. Sue her, but she could hear the machine, and she couldn’t bear it. Losing another Avenger, another teammate, family member. They shouldn’t have even lost Nat in the first place.

God, they shouldn’t have sacrificed Nat in the first place.

It was with every fiber of her being that (y/n) wished that she’d accompanied the Avengers on their mission. She should have been sacrificed, or Christ, she should have gone down with her. Just the thought ripped loose the torrent of sobs that had racked her chest all afternoon, and with nothing to support her but the door to her back she slid down and sobbed.

(y/n) screamed and cried and sobbed because nothing was going to bring back her dead girlfriend. Natasha had died for the universe, (y/n) should respect that, but despite it all, it felt like a slap in the face to the family that Natasha had been hellbent on trying to glue back together. (y/n) had no family without Nat. And now, because they’d done their job and accomplished their mission, she never would. And oh, didn’t that just hurt, just pulled deep on the depression caging her heart and squeezing it, because she’d never get Nat back, ever.

If Pepper could hear her sobs from the kitchen, or if anyone had caught sight of her red, tear-stained cheeks and ruffled, unsteady wings that clumsily encircled her from the still-opened window, then, well, nobody had ever mentioned it.

It’d barely been a few minutes but (y/n) already felt as horrible as someone who’d cried hours. Her throat felt thick with mucus, nose stuffed, and the tears still wouldn’t stop, even if her eyes and cheeks burned. God, she just wanted Nat back, why did the universe have to be so cruel?

There was a whirring sound outside. Then silence, followed by what (y/n) could only describe as Bucky’s emotional cry. Jesus, Steve hadn’t come back well, had he? She felt another large sob tear hard through her sore throat and she tried not to hiccup with her stuffed nose.

Footfalls, fast approaching (running, people were running), hit the ground outside the house, shortly before storming against the porch and through the house. (y/n) barely had enough time to sniffle and lift her head in confusion before her door was catapulting her forward. A snarl, ugly and twisted, erupted onto her face as she whirled around with raised, ruffled feathers in a threatening attempt to establish a territory. The sight of who stood in the doorway, however, was enough to drop the pretense in a matter of nanoseconds.

“.... Nat?”

“Hey there, Angel.”

Another sob, relieved, escaped unbidden as (y/n) took in the sight of her girlfriend, red hair and all, still in her black uniform, standing frenzied in the doorway. Cautiously, a smile warmed against her soft cheeks in the most loving and familiar smile (y/n) ever wanted to be on the receiving end of. It was the go-ahead that she needed to rush forward and collapse into a brilliant heap in Natasha’s arms.

“Oh sweetheart, I’m here, I’m right here, hey, don’t cry, Angel,” Natasha soothed. She lowered them to the floor into one messy cuddle-pile, right in the middle of Pepper’s cabin hallway, so she could run her very real fingers through (y/n)’s hair and messy feathers. (y/n) couldn’t help but laugh, suddenly, as she looked up at Natasha through her tears.

“I don’t think I’m the angel in this situation, Love,” she sniffled. Nat laughed and (y/n) only stopped her glorious melody so she could soundly kiss her living, breathing, alive girlfriend. Red hair tangled in her fingers and (y/n) nuzzled their cheeks together. “I love you,” she breathed, an oath, a promise, and a truth all rolled into one.

“I love you too,” Nat honey whispered against her lips, sealing the deal, before pressing them together again and again and again.

Now that, (y/n) unanimously resolved, was the most beautiful feeling in the whole entire damned universe. And the best part? Natasha Romanov, her very alive girlfriend, was right there in her arms, like her Angel always would be.

Tag list:

@princess76179 @kalechipps @a-confused-blogger @agent-valkyrie-romanoff @starkslaufey @bad-black-angel @pieceofsupersoldiertrash @chari-a @bluudhavens @wowitstonystark

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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#10yrsago All publicly funded content should be in the public domain.

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest-blogger, is the host of TVO's

Search Engine

podcast.

A few years ago I hosted a mini-series for CBC Radio called The Contrarians, a show about "unpopular ideas that just might be right". Each week I'd take a controversial opinion and try it on for size. Sometimes the show was serious, sometimes it was silly- I rarely agreed with the positions I took, but operated on the principle that no idea is so radical or offensive that we should be forbidden to contemplate it (if only to learn why we should discard it). The CBC brass was incredibly supportive of the project and I was given license to explore a lot of unorthodox subject matter. Topics included:

*Multiculturalism doesn't work (we just eat each other's sandwiches).

*Feminism isn't dead, it's just finished (take a bow, ladies- you won!).

*It's a myth- Canadians aren't funny.

*Copyright should be abolished.

I'd love to link to these shows now, but I can't. They were never posted online or offered as podcasts. I tried posting them on my personal website, and was instructed to take them down by CBC management. I was told I was violating their copyright. Every now and then I'll get an email from a teacher or listener requesting an episode of The Contrarians, and I have to explain that I'd be breaking the law to send one.

Let's put aside my personal frustration at having my work locked away. The real question here is, since CBC content is funded by the public, shouldn't the public own it? Or at least have access to it? Actually, the CBC archives are just the tip of the iceberg: the overwhelming majority of stuff made for Canadians with Canadians' money is inaccessible to Canadians.

In Canada, movies are supported by Telefilm, TV by the Canadian Television Fund, books and art by The Canada Council for the Arts, and so on. But most of this stuff isn't distributed very well or for very long, and you can only get your hands on a fraction of it.

So I want to put forth one more contrarian position: I think that any publicly funded content should (within, say, 5 years of its creation) be released to the public domain.

Thoughts? (Un-Canadians welcome. Let's open an international discussion about this.)

https://boingboing.net/2009/09/14/all-publicly-funded.html

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stimtoybox · 8 years ago

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Have you ever considered adding another mod who could just act as your editor? Idk, I was just thinking about your recent posts about how you can't make your posts as good as you want to, and I thought it might help take some of the pressure off if you had someone to help, so you can focus your spoons on more important things than fixing typos.

Oh, anon. You’re not the only one who’s reached out to me this week, by the way, on the subject of help and mods, so I’m kind of answering everyone in the one discussion. Can I say that it floors me, absolutely floors me, that people are taking such an interest in this little blog, and me, and want to see it keep going? I don’t have words, not really, but there’s teardrops splashing onto the keyboard. Thank you. Just - thank you.

I’ve been thinking about another mod for the last month or so and thinking about it more the last week. And I keep running up against one thing: me. So I’m going to talk it out here, so you can get a sense of where I’m at.

I’ll be honest: part of me very much wants to wrap this blog this chest and go mine, mine, mine. (Think the seagulls in Finding Nemo.) This is, I admit, because I’ve spent years and years blogging on various platforms and struggling to gain an audience for my writing and now … now, somehow, I’ve happened across the right topic on the right platform to not feel, for the first time in my life, as though I’m shouting into the void. And that? That is phenomenally amazing, and something about which I feel extremely possessive.

But it’s also unfair. This blog serves a community and this blog would not exist without the hard work of other people. Tumblr blogs, unless they’re all the blogger’s own content, are a collaboration. That mine, mine, mine feeling is factually incorrect and largely born of my own deep insecurity.

I don’t know if people realise it or not, but I started this blog as somewhere to post my own findings and collate and tag other things. Because Tumblr being as ephemeral as it is, it’s hard to find information that’s grouped together, and most blogs tag with an eye of other people finding their blog or advising for content; I’m doing the latter and tagging for grouping and collecting. (I’d be shocked if anyone found this blog through the tags!) There’s lots of great stim toy blogs out there, and I reblog from them, but I don’t think anyone is quite so obsessive about the archival side. Which is pretty understandable, because it’s a big job.

(It makes answering asks like the autism-owned store master post and the DIY master post so much easier to create. Tagging is annoying and the HTML coding for the tags pages even more so, but it is worth doing.)

That I’d have nearly two hundred posts in my draft folder (not counting the 100 posts in my queue) wasn’t in the plan; I thought I’d have problems finding enough content for regular posting. That anyone would ask me anything, about anything, ever … how do I express the depth of my surprise that it happened and has continued to happen? It never crossed my mind. Not even once. That I’d end up in a position of knowing things? That my time as a dabbling crafter and fashion doll collector would be relevant?

I’m trying to say that I’m spectacularly unprepared for what happened and I still have no idea how I ended up having to have this very conversation.

But. The thing is that I don’t play particularly well in shared sandboxes. (It’s a personal failing, one of many.) I’m particular and controlling and very much enjoy the freedom of doingthings my way, to my standards. Even when that way drives me up the wallbecause I cannot myself live up to it!

For example, I couldn’t give the tagging over to someone else. (There’s amulti-page document beside my keyboard instructing me on how to tag and I still make mistakes.I could never unbend enough to watch someone else tag and do it “wrong” - andby “wrong” I mean not “incorrect” but “not following my system 100% to theletter”.) I would likely drive a fellow mod up the wall by complaining or drive myselfup the wall by trying not to complain.

I like answering asks - Igenuinely enjoy looking things up and discovering new information, so a fellowmod would have to pry that out of my dead hands unless I have to take time off for resting/writing/appointments. If I were to ask someone tomod with me, in all honesty, I’d be asking them to do the grunt work of editing, image descriptions, maybeproduct links if I unbend enough … while I do all the fun stuff. And I think that’s a little or a lot unfair, personally, which is why I hesitate to ask. There’s also the financial aspects of things like affiliate links - in honesty, I’ve only made a dollar or two from my links, but I don’t know that I feel comfortable with making any kind of money when someone else is doing some of the work. I’ve also been thinking about putting up a tip jar (I suppose for that one, at least, the theoretical co-mod can and should do the same) so that those of you who might have an extra dollar or two and feel moved to help me out can do so.

(It’s complicated, because there’s always a part of me that’s thinking about my online presence and how I might make either any income out of it or gain the kind of internet presence (read: something that appears to be an audience already inclined to buy my work) that means an agent or publisher doesn’t toss my fantasy novel abouta physically-disabled, autistic, non-binary, stimming protagonist and hir mentallyill, ace trans companion straight to the slush pile as financially unjustifiable. I wish, I really wish, I were in a situation where neither was a factor and I could do this blog just for the fun of it, but I’m not, and so I hope you’ll forgive me for seriously thinking about the ways in which I can use this blog, now that the miraculous thing of people following me has happened, to help me with, well, living as a disabled, autistic creative who’s in the un-fun position of being far too disabled for full-time employment and not disabled enough for governmental support. Part of that might be through affiliate links and a tip jar. Part of that might be making you all look like an audience.)

Plus, in truth,there’s a high chance my fellow mods would come to hate me with a passion that flaresundimmed until the world ends…

So, I’ve dithered, and I’m still dithering. (And, like always, I’ve written a lot of words to describe said dithering.) I don’t know if it’d be best to take on a mod or two, or to post a list of posts and ask people to describe them for me, or … I don’t know. I don’t. Dithering makes it hard to know!

If this doesn’t get me closer to an answer, it at least lets you know what I’m thinking about and why. At this stage, I’m pretty firm in the “no decision yet” camp, despite taking on a mod being the super obvious answer, but is absolutely something that needs thinking about and deciding on.

(If anyone read this to the bottom … wow. Just wow. You’re amazing.)

#text #mod chatter #ask #anon #long post #very long post #personal #not a toy #off topic #mod K.A.

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undeadmoonrabbit · 8 years ago

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Undead Moon Rabbit

Well it’s a bit late, but I felt like making a new years’ post. 2016 was a big year for me. Huge, actually. The hugest. The year I rose from the dead. When I started going by undeadmoonrabbit online, I was in a dark place; socially isolated and despairing of the future. The emphasis at the time was on dead. Rabbits die of loneliness (as the story goes), and I was a dead thing that was somehow still moving. But at some point the meaning changed. I’m an undead rabbit now. Returned to life and full of hope. Parts of me, body and mind, don’t work exactly right. Other parts are falling apart or need regular maintenance. But that’s just how things are with the undead. It’s a patchwork, haphazard kind of existence, but not a bad one for what it is.

This is long, and 100% just reminiscing about my transition. If you know me you’ve almost certainly heard all this before. I just wanted to have this written down for myself, I think. You’ve been warned!

I’ve come a long way since that night last January, crowded in a basement, a group of friends sitting down to play Undertale (which will always be special to me now, for several reasons), mustering my courage, promising myself that I’ll do it after dinner for sure. I remember saying something like “before we start, I have something I need to say,” and then just shaking violently for like an entire minute.

It’s never been that hard since.

I’ve come out to my family, other acquaintances, my supervisor at work, then my peers at work, the neighbors... never once did I shake like that. (I do remember there being some shaking with my supervisor). Anyway if I had to conjure a patronus tomorrow, that would be the memory I’d use.

Since then, my life has been a whirlwind of transformation. I’d intended to transition for a long time, but coming out made it real. Suddenly it wasn’t something I could put off to the distant future, but an aching, urgent need. Because of my circumstances, I ended up seeking treatment in a foreign country where I only 70% speak the language. But I got it! In the end I figured out what I was supposed to do, and I did it.

I’m still a bit staggered that I did. Sometimes it feels like I’m living someone else’s life. If you told me five years ago that in five years I would be living alone in Japan as an out trans woman, I would have been.... surprised. At the risk of self-deprecation (self-aggrandizement?), it sounds like something someone much cooler than me would do.

And I had two huge, pleasant shocks!

The first is that the two problems that had plagued me all my life - my longstanding desire to be a girl/dislike of being a boy, and my depression - were actually the same problem. Perhaps it’s overly simple or premature to declare my depression cured. It’s not like I’m never sad these days (honestly I had kind of a bad day today), but it’s different. And it’s been different since I started taking hormones. I still have bad emotions, but the screaming hollow sensation that would accompany them is gone. And I don’t spiral downwards so eagerly anymore. And my overall mood is just, higher. Much.

I remember, a few weeks ago, realizing with a start one day that I genuinely hadn’t wanted to die or had a suicidal thought since I started hormones. I still haven’t. It’s been months. I mean. It used to be a constant in my life. It’s so weird for it to just be gone.

And the other shock. Well. Everyone (every American, that is) told me that Japanese people and especially rural Japanese people are conservative and intolerant.

They were wrong.

My boss, my neighbors, my doctor (who literally told me ‘let me be your strength’/力になります), even my coworkers (mostly (they take a lot of reminding)), have all accepted me. I guess the remaining test is how the students will react.

Well, I think we teach people to be afraid maybe more than we need to. Almost everyone who stood in my way during this process did it because they thought they were protecting me.

This got long, but I want to express how grateful I am. First, to my enbyfriend @ureshiiichigo. Thank you for supporting me, and encouraging me, and pushing me forward whenever I would falter. You never gave up, even when I almost did.

Falling in love with you was the other miracle that happened to me this year. Being in a long distance relationship has not always been easy, or as satisfying as we’d like, but it infallibly makes me smile whenever I talk to you.

And all my other friends, thank you for accepting me and welcoming me and really giving me no reason to shake like that time I came out last January.

And I want to thank all of the wonderful transgender bloggers on tumblr, who showed me that transgender can be a thing of hope and not despair.

It’s a harder path than some, but one worth walking, I think.

Here’s to 2017!

#Transgender #Personal #New year #Suicide mention

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kpopreplay · 4 years ago

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MÁS ESTRELLAS COREANAN SE SUMAN Y MUESTRAN SU APOYO AL MOVIMIENTO BLACK LIVE MATTER

Cada vez son las estrellas de Kpop que muestran su apoyo al movimiento “Black Live Matter”.

Black Live Matter es un movimiento activista que hace campañas por el fin de la violencia y el racismo sistémico hacia la comunidad negra, incluida la brutalidad policíaca y los asesinatos de personas negras. A principios de la semana pasada, la indignación creció una vez más por la muerte de George Floys, un hombre de piel negra desarmado, luego de que los agentes policiales blancos en Minneapolis lo inmovilizaron. Las protestas se han extendido por todo el país, siendo ya más de quince estados de EE.UU. en movilizarse de esta forma, y muchas personas están donando para ayudar al movimiento.

Celebridades como Jay Park, Tiger JK, Mark de GOT7, Jae deDAY6, CRUSH y pH-1 ya han utilizado su plataforma para crear conciencia sobre el movimiento, mientras que muchos más se unen activamente con su apoyo.

Además de sus donaciones iniciales, la agencia H1GHR Music de Jay Park y sus artistas han donado colectivamente US$21,000 a organizaciones que apoyan el movimiento Black Live Matter.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 https://t.co/TLkd2Ze0DY

— JAY BUM PARK (@JAYBUMAOM) June 1, 2020

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@h1ghrmusic as a Label and the Artists at the label have collectively donated 21k to the Black Lives Matter organization. We will also be participating in black out tuesday and our 6/2 release has been pushed to 6/4. To all the people protesting stay strong and keep fighting. We support you and are with you🙏 #blacklivesmatter #justiceforgeorgefloyd - -하이어뮤직은 최근 조지 플로이드를 비롯한 과거 다수의 희생자들과 흑인 인권을 위한 운동 'BLACK LIVES MATTER'를 지지하며, 하이어뮤직과 아티스트들은 마음을 모아 해당 운동 관련 캠페인 단체에 2만 1천 불을 기부하였습니다. 또한 6월 2일 예정되어 있던 음원의 발매 일정을 6월 4일로 변경하며 BLACK OUT TUESDAY 운동에 동참하겠습니다. 하이어뮤직은 모든 인격이 평등하게 살아갈 수 있는 세계로의 변화를 응원합니다

Una publicación compartida de Jay Park / 박재범 ($hway bum) (@jparkitrighthere) el 1 Jun, 2020 a las 8:11 PDT

Jessi compartió dos publicaciones, una pidiendo justicia para George Floyd y otra compartiendo un comentario con otros asiáticos estadounidenses. En sus historias de Instagram, también compartió una publicación enfatizando que el racismo no es un rasgo intrínseco.

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This is fuckin disgusting to see that racial injustice and police brutality is still happening in this world. There should be no tolerance for racism and murderers to roam free after killing a man.. It breaks my heart to see people of color being mistreated like they are criminals... This is not right... this is not humane. We want justice for George Floyd and all the others that fell victim to this. #justiceforgeorgefloyd

Una publicación compartida de Jessi / 제시 (@jessicah_o) el 28 May, 2020 a las 10:58 PDT

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The only true way to destroy hate is to spread love... Let’s all show someone we know an act of love today. 🙏🏻 #unity #blacklivesmatter #justicewillrise

Una publicación compartida de Jessi / 제시 (@jessicah_o) el 30 May, 2020 a las 9:20 PDT

En sus historias de Instagram también, Yeri de Red Velvet compartió una publicación de su amiga Seo Herin, ex aprendiz de SM Entertainment y concursante de “Idol School”. La publicación describe el problema y proporciona enlaces a peticiones para que las personas firmen.

Jiwoo de KARD enlazó dos publicaciones separadas en sus historias de Instagram. La primera resume el caso de George Floyd en coreano y el mensaje dice: “Este es el caso de la muerte de George Floyd, que actualmente es un problema en los Estados Unidos. Para difundir las noticias de este caso en la medida de lo posible, lo dibujé utilizando solo los hechos y ninguna opinión personal. Por favor, siéntete libre de difundir esto”.

Ravi de VIXX publicó una foto de George Floyd y comentó: “Todo el mundo lo es todo para alguien”. Agregando la etiqueta Black Live Matter.

MOMOLAND compartió la misma publicación en sus historias de Instagram con Ahin y luego agregó su propio mensaje y un enlace a las peticiones.

LE de EXID subió un video a sus historias de Instagram de una multitud levantando sus puños en solidaridad en una protesta.

Muchos otros artistas que se han posicionado son: AleXa, Hoya ex-miembro de INFINITE, Lee Hi, Subin de Dal Shabet, Eric Nam y Minzy.

pic.twitter.com/uVjb7LXZzT

— AleXa (@AleXa_ZB) June 1, 2020

pic.twitter.com/UFov4lQnvz

— Lee howon (@hoya1991) June 1, 2020

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#justiceforgeorgefloyd #blacklivesmatter

Una publicación compartida de DALsooobin (@dalsooobin) el 1 Jun, 2020 a las 2:17 PDT

it does not matter what color your skin is, this affects you. RACISM IS NOT DEAD. George and Ahmaud are just two of the countless number of black men and women who have lost their lives senselessly. sign the petitions, raise your voice, and do what you can. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/nJFYvchv7O

— 에릭남 (Eric Nam) (@ericnamofficial) May 29, 2020

Si sentís la necesidad de sumar tu granito de arena, podes hacerlo sumándote al movimiento Black Live Matter aquí.

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cedarrrun · 5 years ago

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Explore the ethics of smudging and learn about alternative plants for your cleansing rituals.

Palo Santo

Since the time of the Incas, the fragrant palo santo tree has been harvested by shamans in Peru and Ecuador, who use its essential oils or smoke to cleanse away evil spirits before initiating ayahuasca rituals or to aid the dying on their journeys to the afterlife. The very act of foraging for the wood by the shaman is a critical part of this spiritual process. Only mature plants, around 50–70 years of age, develop the “heart”—a dense, deeply resined core—necessary for distillation into an essential oil. And palo santo trees produce the finest oils when they die naturally and sit on the forest floor for several years.

Can we get the same spiritual effect from a questionably sourced box of sticks snagged on Amazon? You’d think so: The scent of this bewitching, spicy, citrusy “holy wood” (a translation from the Spanish) is everywhere these days—infused in candles; wafting from yoga studios; for sale at mystic shops, home stores, and Anthropologie. You can buy palo santo smudge sticks from Etsy and follow along on YouTube as a woman in yoga wear teaches viewers how to cleanse a room without burning the place down.

It’s true, smudging with palo santo has reached latest-craze status. A quick #palosanto search on New Year’s Day revealed that plenty of palo santo went up across the United States as people smudged their homes to banish bad spirits and welcome in a promising new year. “Burning Palo Santo and doing some cleaning! So excited to be in a new year! I’ve got good feelings about this year!” declared one Twitter user.

See also 6 Simple Ways to Clear Negative Energy

Is Palo Santo a Threatened Species?

But some wellness bloggers have suggested that palo santo is critically endangered. If it is, your smudging ritual may be contributing to the annihilation of a sacred tree. That’s some bad juju, so I wanted to know: Are the rumors true?

First, let’s clear up some confusion. There are actually two trees called palo santo. One, known as Bulnesia sarmientoi, grows in Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia; this plant has indeed been placed on the Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the leading organization dedicated to tracking global conservation of plants and animals. Due to overharvesting and habitat loss, the tree is near extinction.

The other species, Bursera graveolens, is also called palo santo but grows closer to the equator and isn’t on the Red List—yet. This is the tree often used for spiritual purposes. But just because it’s not on the watch list doesn’t mean it isn’t threatened. With its long, shallow roots, this tree thrives in tropical dry forests from Mexico to Peru, in areas that undergo severe droughts for up to seven months at a time. Because these forests have such extreme dry seasons, they are particularly vulnerable to soil erosion if the mix of flora and fauna is compromised due to over-harvesting or clear-cutting. “Only 5 to 10 percent of dry tropical forests are still intact around the world,” Susan Leopold, PhD, the executive director of United Plant told the New York Times. As these ecosystems vanish, she warns, palo santo may go with them.

See also Addressing Scent and Sensitivity in Class

In Peru, for example, palo santo forests have been ravaged for the industrial market, which has forced the country’s government to categorize Bursera graveolens as being in “critical hazard.” While the cutting of live trees is prohibited here, it’s difficult to enforce. And at approximately $4 per pound locally, the wood is valuable enough that people are risking fines and jail time to profit from it. Peru’s National Forest and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) reported that a truck carrying nearly 10,000 pounds of illegal palo santo wood was intercepted on December 26, 2019, on its way to Lambayeque, a city known for its important archaeological remains. Just two months earlier, another 7,500 pounds had been intercepted, the wood hidden among bananas and lemons to disguise its distinctive scent.

For a more intimate look at the situation, I reached out to my friend, Lima-based designer Fiorella Yaksetig. Recently she traveled to northern Peru where palo santo grows and spoke with the farmers who cultivate it (possibly illegally). She confirmed that palo santo forests have been devastated. “It’s been planted and cut so many times that the lands where it lives can’t sustain it anymore and it just doesn’t flourish the same way it used to,” she told me. “The tree is becoming extinct."

While it’s unlikely that all of these harvested trees were bound for the wellness and ritualistic markets, demand combined with illegal and unsustainable practices may result in Peruvian palo santo forests disappearing forever. Given how high the stakes are, how much do you trust an online source to give you the straight scoop on how that tree thousands of miles away was harvested?

See also The Best Incense Bundles

Sustainable Palo Santo

See also 5 Good Buys from Brands that Give Back

So in theory, if you are careful and do your research, your palo santo purchase may support positive development in certain regions.

Palo Santo and Cultural Appropriation

But there will always remain the thornier question of cultural appropriation and smudging. If you’re non-indigenous, should you even be using palo santo as a spiritual aid?

Watch Live Be Yoga Takes a Yoga Class Mixed with Native American Spiritualism

Native peoples have fought long and hard for the right to say this. If Keene says don’t burn white sage, I won’t.

See also Green Your Practice: 39 Eco-Friendly Yoga Essentials

Grow Your Own Cleansing Herbs

#sleep sounds #sleep music #white noise app #nature sounds #relaxing sounds #rain sounds for sleeping

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olaluwe · 6 years ago

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Whetting your appetite!

If you're here, I want to believe you find the post's title kind of engaging.

It’s probable too that you're indeed hoping one day to be a writer like the title rhetorically posed.

Whichever way, I can assure you that you're in the right place and at the right time too.

To make myself clear, I want to state categorically that I design this tutorial primarily for the next generation of writers in mind.

And the reason is simple; I see myself yet as a trying writer and could be mentoring everybody else but the big-uns.

I couldn't be even dreaming.

You know what; there are far too many iconic writers out there to whose faces I couldn't lift the lantern of my writing adventurism.

And I’m not being modest here at all, far from it.

As aspiring writer, I want you to congratulate yourself first of all for stopping by.

The thing is you need to focus on what matters and leaving out what doesn't.

And what matters, to start with?

Soldiers can brag they're courageous types because they lay down their lives in the defence of territorial integrity and for continuous existence of their countries and the likes.

That kind of make a lot of sense; you'd agree.

Let’s face it, troops are not the only one who died or get killed in the line of service; writers do too.

But then it's all by choice granted conscription is not on the card,

We all choose what to become in life and the cart is simply brimming with endless choices.

Let assume you're familiar with what being a soldier entails- the rigorous training, the clean and crispy uniforms, the shining jackboot, the colourful parades, the wars and the likes.

Fantastic, what a panoply of noble stuff!

You know what, I've been close to these guys and in my candid opinion they are a bunch of idlers who arrogate too much to themselves.

And I’m honestly not hating on them.

But they think they have a calling that's by far superior to others.

And to this unnecessary professional aggrandizement, I always disagree.

And the few who’ve actually met me in person can testify how robust my arguments were on this topic.

Most time all they could mutter in defence was if I think it’s that easy to be a soldier why I didn’t try it. My answer as always is I don’t need to try anything to be sure it’s tough or not.

Career, I repeat, is mostly a function of choice.

Besides I’ve tried enlisting with near success.

“But nearly like you know don’t ever kill a bird.” Hope that fits the narratives and isn’t too diversionary?

Needlessly, they sometimes resort to taking out their frustrations on the harmless civil folks out there. Faced with desperate lack of preferred options, I've encountered many too who are simply in there for the glam and the pay.

They pray all day for peace to reign supported by well-meaning people from the polity and religious institutions.

Ring the bell of war, and they run into hiding.

And traditionally they cover four major domains namely-land, air, water and space.

But we writers are nobler breeds of professionals with kinder souls too. And we're no less courageous to any. History can testify to that.

While the weapons of their warfare are guns and grenades; battle tanks and gun boats and frigates; the weapons of our warfare is nothing but the innocuous pen and paper or sometime the computer.

And our battle cry is simply 'everybody deserves to know'.

Isn't that more sublime to taste?

Yes it is!

According to Novelist Stephen King, if you ever write anything of note, of value then is prepared for hate e-mails. And that is because writing polarizes.

From history and experience too deaths threatening calls are not out of the picture.

In the time past and now, writers have faced and are still facing criminal censorship in various countries of the world.

For instance, the death of Mr Dele Giwa, a co-founder of Newswatch magazine in Lagos who was killed via a parcel bomb in 1985 comes to mind.

Not forgetting also Mr Dimgba Igwe and Mr Mike Awoyinfa both of Concord Newspaper Lagos who were killed covering the Liberian civil war.

Nor of Maltese anti corruption journalist, Mrs Daphone Curiana who was murdered 2017.

Finally mention also must be made of the substantive fatwa placed on British-India writer, Salmon Rushdie, by Islamic extremists after publishing his book: ‘Satanic Verses’.

He’s currently on exile in the UK. In functions, we're on a mission says Jon morrow of smart blogger to change the world for the better.

And getting paid for this wouldn't be a bad idea altogether.

The pay, however, might not be enough to buy us luxury homes, cars and other existential comforts like we would've loved but we most time take solace in the fact that we love what we do.

In case you don't know, ours is the fifth domain of warfare which is 'information' with equal companions like education and entertainment.

Even military institutions world over know the importance of this long ago and have resorted to adding it to their operational cart too.

But I doubt they understand it the way writers do.

Isn't propaganda all they do and calling it war information?

I might be wrong in few instances.

It is not uncommon to hear outright lies from battle fronts; a case of information censorship here and there.

But our own concern is the 'defence of the truth' at all time. In addition, we make this civilization tick from ages to ages.

We keep track of knowhow, events and teach it to all.

And what doesn't matter, to end it all? I say nothing and I repeat nothing!

To the writers who know his onions, everything matters because the people deserve to know it all.

And as a writer it is your primary duty to ensure this. No more no less.

As a take home, folks, the writer’s job are definitely not an easy one but I can assure you its quite fulfilling if you fall in love with it enough.

And that I hope you'd do from today on.

Mastering the language of your medium

Either in its written or spoken form, language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols with which a social group cooperate through sharing a schemata of ideas and impressions from ages to ages.

So it is the first media of communication to be mastered,

I couldn't just place my fingers to it, but I know a bewildering number of languages are spoken the world over.

From Mandarin which is the most spoken language in the world, to say Izon language of a minority Riverine tribe in the Niger delta creek of southern Nigeria.

As an aspiring writer then I know you're either a native speaker of one or more/ or a received speaker of one or more as well.

By extension too, you must have been groomed by the educational system of your country to a varied level of sophistication.

Be that as it may, I presumed you're sufficiently mastered it as a user of one or more assemblage of these global community of languages.

But to gain worldwide audience, a writer must necessary writes in any of the major languages like Mandarin, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish etcetera etcetera and hoping your works get translated into more as the cultural and educational values it carries become common knowledge to influential personalities, academic institutions and governments from around the world.

It's on record for instance that, Nigeria's Chinua Achebe's monster hit novel 'Things Fall Apart' has been translated into many international languages which definitely accounted for its global success.

Of course that's the dream of an average writer. But only a few will get there. It's not a curse.

All it takes is, however, hard work and some elements of luck.

To do this, books play very important role.

I'm a received speaker of the English language, and I've been exposed to quite a number of them all my life.

Now, do I've recommended textbook on English language in mind?Frankly speaking I don’t.

As a matter of fact, quite a number of writers (speaking specifically about writing for the web) have written at length on this same topic with express biases or preferences for some books.

'Elements of Style' is a name in this respect as given by writers in charge's Bamidele Onibalusi.

As far as I'm concern, there are tons and tons of textbooks on English Language in bookstores both online and offline waiting to be picked up for the right prices.

Go get yourself one, and you're well on your way to success as a writer.

Choosing a mentor

Why mentors?

Agreed, God's the only source of inexhaustible inspiration.

So connect to him or her today.

But Mentors are prime example of people we all wish to be like some day.

Mentor provides us with inspirational and practical pathway by their own success stories through direct and indirect frameworks of reference or benchmark in the otherwise crowded and confusing world of aspirations and dreams.

And they exist either in close or distance proximity.

They're both living and dead. Whichever way, there's always one or more for everyone.

And in this industry, they come aplenty.

If I start to name names now, I'm not sure we wouldn’t leave here in a lifetime.

At this juncture, I think it rests solely on you to know who does it best for you granted you must have met a sizable number in your academic journey.

It is possible too perhaps while you're reading for the fun of it.

Think back now and you'd be amazed about who strikes you the most for the mentoring roles.

For me before I let you go, it is Wole Soyinka, Nigeria literary juggernaut.

Believe me; it has nothing to do with sentimental stuff like lineage or some racial or nationalist suasion.

I love him for he represents the ambassadorial best Africa nay Nigeria can get to advance the cause of its cultural heritage consistently under attack by the imperialist west.

For his voice is unique, and his identity super peculiar.

And to whom I dedicated a poem titled: 'Doyen of Letters'

He's, finally, as it happens a winner of Nobel Prize for literature in 1986.

Creating engaging content.

Writing essentially is all about content creation textually speaking.

But it doesn't stop there.

The content must be engaging, riveting so to say driving us ultimately towards studied steps based on the writer's position supported by facts and not myths.

The question remains how then do writers go about creating content that's engaging?

To be factual, engaging content starts with creating engaging title or headline if you like.

Engaging headline we're told in journalism school is like a beautiful gateway into a palatial building.

On the other hand, a headline that's not as engaging is an immediate put off any day.

No matter how well decorated is a house's interior nobody will take a chance to look in if it has a twisted gate.

So, the more attractive the headline is the more the likelihood of readers clicking through in other to interact with the content proper which must be equally engaging.

Or else the visitation might not be a memorable one for the visitor. And you may not have a second chance. Now don't worry unnecessarily about that.

Writers like other professionals do have their bad days in the office.

And it doesn't always call for needless self flagellation. That's why not all novels, dramas, poetry even by the same author achieve the same level of success.

Not all articles as well by the same writer would go viral online; though he may wish it so.

Be motivated, however, as a writer to do your best under the constraints changing time and season throw at you.

But for any content to come close to being engaging, which has at its heart the core of communication’s tripod of information, education and entertainment; it must equally meet all these five principles of composition namely:

#1) PURPOSE: For every composition to be engaging it must get good response from the reader.

It must be purpose driven.

To be moderately successful then as a writer you must adapt your words to your readers.

Granted that people have attitudes and beliefs which they drawn from experiences both of the past and the present.

It is only proper for a writer who wishes to explain a new idea to connect it with what’s already known.

And if he’s to convince at all, he must start from known or agreeable beliefs.

#2) CONCRETENESS:

Concreteness in write-up is brought about when the writer says to the reader: ‘Here is an example,’ or ‘let me illustrate with an anecdote’.

Believe me, what is concrete or specific in all situations holds attention as much as it frees us from needless dialectical tussle.

#3) EMPHASES:

Another word for emphasis is repetition.

If a writer repeats a word or an idea he calls attention to it.

And isn’t just for the fun of it because it has long ago been an accepted standard that for learning to take place emphasis is key.

Doing so automatically leads to meaningful engagement and action from the reader.

#4) UNITY:

The writer who wishes to convince or explain old or new ideas must hold the rein properly lest he wanders aimlessly away from the focus of his assignment.

The piece he’s to post must be seen to function like a unit despite having so many parts in terms of thought-groups.

#5) COHERENCE;

Writers ordinarily are advocates.

They argue for or against a proposition.

They argue also for the relative merit of a choice over another based on the hard fact of life that the human person is always confronted by problem of choice.

For this, the ability to think straight and to dependable solution is required which coherence is all about.

Creating a style.

Why style?

Style gives identity to the one acting in a professional environment.

It makes identification an easy task. Any professional who's got style is automatically branded.

What then is style?

Style can be defined as a consistent flair discernible in the human operation or execution of a task.

It could also be define as uniqueness of approach to things by a particular person.

Style for writers emerges from the rubble of conscious experimental writing activities.

While it is not always easy to come up with, trying on the other hand to imitate other iconic writers is equally counterproductive.

So it is highly recommended that you write the way most suitable to you; and overtime a style might just emerged from such background.

Finally, equally important in style creation are your level of education and how widely read you’re.

Editing your composition.

For many reasons, believe me, there's no such writer anywhere whose work cannot be edited.

Why editing?

Editing is the last of all writing tools.

Defined, it is the refinery of all writing activity.

It helps filter the unwanted from the wanted.

After the creation of your content, to make it more epic by bringing all its inherent values into sharp focus it must be edited.

Why then do we edit?

We edit for the following reasons:

#1 For grammatical correctness:

Language as an arbitrary vocal symbol through which a social group cooperate follows a set of rules called grammar that writers must necessarily obey or else it thought trains breaks down.

So editors try as much as possible to see if a given content conform in entirety with these rules.

So where the rules are violated corrections are made.

#2 For space:

Where the constraints are the space like in the field of print journalism editing becomes very important.

The task of the editor therefore is to make sure contents are trimmed to size in other to fit into allotted space or spaces.

#3 For fonts and style:

Writing is all about fonts and style:

Editors try also to see which font is best for the chosen medium and their stylistic arrangement.

For instance, the font that will be applied to newsprint will be different to the one that will be applied to a billboard which is something passersby see from the distance.

#4 For narrative unity:

Content is also edited to be sure story ideas follow consistent pattern.

Every part of a story must be seen to help advance the course of the story itself.

No part must be contradictory. Every part must function as one unit.

#5 To eliminate excess words:

Like student of landscape painting who begins by covering too much ground; often too, writers do commit the sin of verbosity.

That's using too many words to convey an experience when ordinarily fewer words would do.

So, these flabby or wordy excess in content is sometimes the focus of editing.

And as he or she puts the editing jigsaw to it, content becomes trimmer and sharper in mind of reader.

Publishing your content.

Now we have come to the last but very crucial stage in the life of a writer.

Publishing is the Icing on the cake of content creation.

Publishing involves making your work available to the public who pays to get it.

And there are basically two ways to go. It either you publish your works in paperback or as e-books.

It has been said that's no matter how epic your content is until promoted it is useless.

Or not worth more than the paper on which it is printed.

But publishing your work online and promoting it through the right channels is essential if it is to reach greater audience and have the right impact.

I've read severally writers calling it the queen of content creation.

But publishing has never been easier or liberalized than now.

These days we now have both free and paid platform to advance the course of your career as a writer.

While some resource people insist that to have a good start to writing career online, platform A, B, C must be the choice forgetting the fact that money plays important role in career pursuit especially writing online.

Starting from any of free platform may after all not be a bad idea.

At least it helps to sharpen your writing claw preparatory for the big moments.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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quarksnleptons · 7 years ago

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THE TOP 10 NEWSMAKERS OF 2017

As 2017 comes to an end, here's a recap of the headliner person/s or events in the Philippines which marked our minds:

1. MARAWI SIEGE AND DECLARATION OF MARTIAL LAW IN MINDANAO

On May 23, 2017, the ISIS-inspired Maute group and the Abu Sayyaf have laid siege of the Islamic City of Marawi.

The Marawi attack by the Islamic extremists is a reaction to a botched operation to capture Isnilon Hapilon the self-proclaimed emir of the ISIS inspired radical extremists by the AFP and PNP operatives. In short the AFP has initiated the armed hostilities and the Abu Sayyaf and Maute group have just reacted and executed their seemingly pre-planned siege of the Islamic City of Marawi. It resulted to simultaneous but coordinated attacks in the central and commercial areas in Marawi. They have burnt the City jail, occupied the medical center, burnt a college and the St Mary Cathedral. They had robbed all the banks, occupied strategic buildings and blocked highways. They also have held more than two hundred hostages (mostly Christian including a priest) to shield them away from the bombs to make their successful escape. Buildings including the commercial center as well as residential in the central trading center of Marawi have been destroyed and literally flattened to the ground as a result of artillery fires and direct hits of air strikes and surgical bombings done by the AFP in spite of the well-known fact that civilians are still trapped in many of these buildings.

It led to the declaration of Martial Law by President Duterte not only to Marawi but to all 27 provinces and 33 cities in Mindanao. President Rodrigo R. Duterte declared Martial Law in Mindanao through Presidential Decree (PD) 216 which takes effect starting 10pm of the 23rd of May 2017.

The President made the proclamation when he together with his top military and security advisers were starting with his State visit to Moscow. The PD 216 declaration was made a few hours after the botched AFP/PNP operation to serve the warrant of arrest for Jihadist leader Isnilon Hapilon and the early hours of rampage by extremist followers of Marawi City

2. RESORTS WORLD MANILA ATTACK

A lone gunman triggered panic in Pasay City last June 2, 2017, after gunshots were heard and a fire broke out at Resorts World Manila (RWM).

The SITE Intelligence Group reported that a Filipino operative of the Islamic State (ISIS) was behind the attack, but police said the "isolated" incident was not a terrorist attack. The gunman was later found dead after apparently burning and shooting himself.

He is identified as Jessie Carlos, a former tax specialist at the Department of Finance who was heavily in debt due to casino gambling. He fired gunshots and set ablaze gaming tables at the casino floor of the Resorts World Manila.

The attack left 37 people dead, including Carlos himself and the wife of Pampanga 3rd District Representative Aurelio Gonzales Jr.

3. WAR ON DRUGS AND EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS

Extrajudicial killings were rampant ever since Rodrigo Duterte became the president of the Philippines. There were a lot of young victims including Kian Loyd Delos Santos and Carl Angelo Arnaiz.

Both Delos Santos and Arnaiz were killed by Caloocan policemen and were accused of being involved in drugs and fired shots to the police prompting the police to return fire but were innocent. Both their families even deny that they were drug addicts and drug pushers.

Up to now, their families still continue to seek justice for them.

4. MOCHA USON APPOINTED AS PCOO ASEC. AND BOARD MEMBER OF MTRCB

Entertainer-turned-blogger Mocha Uson was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as assistant secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).

She is the lead vocalist of the group Mocha Girls writes Mocha Uson Blog on Facebook and also a staunch supporter of Duterte on social media, was earlier appointed as board member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

The PCOO is being run by Secretary Martin Andanar. Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella, meanwhile, is in charge of the PCOO’s content and messaging, including the final release and distribution of information.

Uson’s term will expire on September 30, 2017.

5. CHR'S P1000 BUDGET FOR 2018

Lawmakers frustrated over the performance of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) gave the agency a P1,000 budget for next year, effectively rendering it useless. One-hundred nineteen lawmakers voted for the token budget, while 32 were against it.

Reps. Raul Del Mar (1st district, Cebu) and Edcel Lagman (1st district, Albay) said giving the CHR a P1,000 budget would mean abolishing it.

CHR Chair Chito Gascon said the commission will keep doing its job despite the budget given by the House.

Aside from the CHR, the House also gave the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) a P1,000-budget for 2018.

The Senate will have its own decision on the fate of the budgets of the CHR, NCIP, and ERC. The Senate will act on the proposed 2018 budget bill as approved by the House of Representatives. Differences will be reconciled in a conference committee. The reconciled version will be returned to the two chambers for ratification.

The administration plans to have President Rodrigo Duterte sign a new budget law before the next fiscal year begins in January.

6. MARLOU ARIZALA AKA XANDER FORD

Marlou Arizala now Xander Ford took social media by storm after he revealed his new look.

Internet personality Marlou Arizala, who goes by the name Xander Ford, appeared before national TV on ABS-CBN's lifestyle show "Rated K" after he went through cosmetic enhancement procedures.

His transformation caused an uproar on social media, as #XanderFord immediately became one of the top trending topics on Twitter.

Arizala was a former member of Internet group Hasht5 before leaving in 2016 to pursue his solo career.

7. THE HAZING CASE OF HORACIO CASTILLO III

Horacio "Atio" Castillo III, a 22-year-old freshman law student at the University of Santo Tomas died after a supposed "welcoming party" of the Aegis Juris Fraternity (AJF) on September 16. As it turned out, what happened that night was a hazing rite and Atio died.

AJF is based at the UST Faculty of Civil Law. Its current dean, Nilo Divina, is an alumnus of the fraternity. Atio brought this up to assuage his parents' apprehensions when he asked permission to join the fraternity. He also assured them that the fraternity does not conduct hazing.

He has been laid to rest, but the fight for justice by his loved ones continues.

8. THE 31ST ASEAN SUMMIT AND RELATED SUMMITS HOSTED IN PH

Leaders from twenty countries from the ASEAN Member States, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia, United States (US), Canada, European Union (EU), and the United Nations Secretary General gathered in a two-day summit in Manila for the 31tst ASEAN Summit and Related Summits last November 13 and 14, 2017. It is the second of the two ASEAN Summits that the Philippines hosted this year.

Under the theme “Partnering for Change, Engaging the World,” ASEAN Leaders discussed the implementation of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the way forward and the appointment of the new Secretary-General of ASEAN. They also exchanged views on pressing regional and international issues.

Pres. Duterte is also the chair of the ASEAN’s 40th Anniversary Commemorative Summits with the United States of America, Canada and the European Union; 20th ASEAN Plus Three Commemorative Summit; the 20th ASEAN-China Summit, 19th ASEAN-Republic of Korea Summit; 20th ASEAN-Japan Summit; 12th East Asia Summit; 15th ASEAN-India Summit; and the 9th ASEAN-UN Summit.

The ASEAN Leaders signed the ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, a landmark document that further seeks to strengthen social protection, access to justice, humane and fair treatment, and access to health services for the migrant workers of Southeast Asia.

At the Closing Ceremony of the 31st ASEAN Summit and Related Summits, President Duterte hand over the Chairmanship of ASEAN to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, the incoming Chair of ASEAN for 2018.

9. IMPEACHMENT COMPLAINT VS CJ LOURDES SERENO

The House committee on justice reviews the verified impeachment complaint against Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

There were two complaints against Chief Justice Sereno. The first complaint, endorsed by at least 25 members of the House of Representatives, was filed by Atty. Larry Gadon on August 30 and the second complaint, filed by the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) and the Vanguards of the Philippine Constitution, it was filed on September 4 after 16 lawmakers endorsed it.

Atty. Larry Gadon accused Sereno of failing to be truthful in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN). He also questioned her travel expenses and allowances she had supposedly given her staff, as well as SC resolutions that did not go through the en banc.

Sereno was appointed as the country's first female chief justice in 2012, after the impeachment of then Chief Justice Renato Corona.

10. THE DENGVAXIA CONTROVERSY

Dengvaxia, a vaccine aimed at protecting hundreds of thousands of school children from dengue may have put their lives at risk. Around 10 percent of over 800,000 students who were immunized with Dengvaxia, but did not have a prior dengue infection, now face contracting a "severe disease," according to the vaccine's manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur.

The World Health Organization has issued a recommendation that Dengvaxia should not be administered to people who have not had dengue before. The WHO said Dengvaxia "prevents disease in the majority of vaccine recipients but it should not be administered to people who have not previously been infected with dengue virus."

Following the announcement, the Department of Health (DOH) halted its nationwide dengue immunization program and has demanded billions in pesos as a refund for the vaccines.

Meanwhile, both Congress and the Justice Department are digging deeper into the controversy, with officials from the current and previous administrations pointing fingers at each other.

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teachanarchy · 8 years ago

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One of the oldest, most consistent and most offensive cliches about Syria is that “there is no alternative to Assad".

That regime loyalists would claim such nonsense is a given. But that it would be repeated ad nauseam by various governments and mainstream media is ludicrous, especially when millions of Syrians have now paid the ultimate price for begging to differ.

Should Syrians be treated like minors, made to parrot lines in unison and show good behaviour before they can be considered as part of an alternative to a genocidal regime?

The Syrian opposition did not magically appear in 2011. Civil society movements have attempted to establish dialogue and demand changes for decades, even knowing full well how this notoriously brutal regime was likely to react.

In fact, much of what happened in the first decade of Bashar Assad’s reign was a precursor to how today’s larger opposition would form itself, because way before the Syrian revolution, there was a Damascus Spring.

The threat of pens

Syrians always had the right to remain silent, and anything they said could and would be used against them, not only in the repressive 1980s and 1990s, but at the turn of the century when the Syrian regime graduated to a new level, becoming the modern era’s first hereditary republic.

Bashar al-Assad waves to supporters as he marches behind the coffin of his father, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, during his funeral in Damascus on 13 June 2000 (AFP)

On 10 June 2000 - the day “the eternal leader” died - a parliament of minions changed the constitution in minutes to proclaim: Assad is dead, long live Assad. This blatant, formalised inheritance of power left no room for maneuver, but civil society activism persevered nonetheless.

Many of those 99 found themselves invited for the infamous cups of coffee in intelligence buildings

In September 2000, 99 Syrian intellectuals, writers and artists published “The Statement of the 99”, a restrained yet incredibly bold open letter to the regime calling for increased freedoms. Published in Al Hayat and circulated in hushed tones by stunned Syrians, it was ignored by Assad as many of those 99 found themselves invited for the infamous cups of coffee in intelligence buildings.

This warning did not subdue them, and they penned a bolder statement known as “The Basic Document”, this time signed by 1,000 Syrians in January 2001. Demands then were already formulated around the basics of a more democratic and pluralistic system, including freedoms of speech and assembly, democratic practices, open elections, liberation of political detainees, equality of citizens, and independence of the judiciary.

While this document may seem tame in today’s context, it was a phenomenon and a testament to growing political maturity. As always, their pens were a threat to the regime, and in an interview with Asharq Alawsat a few weeks later, Assad claimed that these signatories thought of themselves as elites but represented no one, and that they were either simpletons or foreign agents hurting the country, a leitmotif from which he never veered.

The “simpletons” and “foreign agents” dared to continue with the publication of the “National Social Contract” of April 2001, but Bashar Assad was already killing the Damascus Spring, closing the civil society forums and throwing well known dissidents into jail for “threatening state security".

After relative quiet during the invasion of Iraq, with a state of regime alert palpable all over Syria, the opposition demonstrated its tenacity with its “Damascus Declaration” of October 2005, signed by over 250 figures of whom several ended up in jail.

When hundreds more signed the brave “Beirut-Damascus Declaration” of May 2006, as dissidents were jailed in Damascus and assassinated in Beirut, the regime’s wrath was fully unleashed on those who dared to question its authoritarianism in Syria and beyond.

Hard to miss

These events, and many other details of serious Syrian activism over the years, have been either forgotten or ignored when discussing the travails of the opposition today as it tries to effect change in the most difficult of circumstances. Adding insult to injury, it is often claimed today that “we don’t know what the opposition stands for” or that its commitments to democracy and pluralism are unclear.

These events, and many other details of serious Syrian activism over the years, have been either forgotten or ignored

Yet, it was those same opposition figures, now joined by a new generation of bloggers, activists and revolutionaries, who helped carry the voice of the uprising to those who were willing to listen in 2011, and whose troves of statements and positions are readily available to anyone willing to read them.

The first major post-uprising document on which most in the Syrian in opposition agreed was the “Cairo Document” of July 2012. In essence, it repeated what Syrian activists had been demanding for years, in very different conditions: democracy, pluralism, equality, good governance and the works.

The Syrian Opposition Conference in Cairo in July 2012 (AFP)

Further iterations of all these principles and outlines of transition plans have been issued at various stages of the uprising by different formal groups. To name but a few, the Syrian Coalition issued “Basic Principles for a Political Settlement” in February 2014, and the High Negotiations Committee a “Transition Plan” in September 2016.

These documents and others have been tirelessly circulated amongst Syrians, delivered to UN officials and governments, and distributed through mainstream and social media. One would have to try hard to miss them - or to miss the multitude of principles and positions which have been issued by increasingly active civil society groups, demonstrating acumen and commitment.

False logic

As the Syrian opposition’s decades-long civil and political struggle continues, there is much room for improvement in both planning and consensus, and accusations of disunity and lack of cohesion, even from exasperated supporters, are routine.

But Syrians never wanted to replace the regime with another, exchanging one set of leaders with a custom-made alliance supposed to tick everyone’s boxes; the whole point of their struggle, as idealistic as it may have once been, was for transition to an equitable, participative system - not regime change.

On 16 July 2014, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is sworn in for a new seven-year term, during a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Damascus (AFP)

Observing the politics of any senate or parliament true to its name is a reminder that democracy can be chaotic, noisy, adversarial and, at times, infuriating. Having only recently found an open stage to air their similarities and differences, should Syrians be treated like minors, made to parrot lines in unison and show good behaviour before they can be considered as part of an alternative to a genocidal regime?

Syrian opposition and civil society groups already agree on the fundamental issues and already commit to a transition to democracy, as they have written and declared repeatedly, a transition which takes into account the integration and adaptation of current state institutions into the new system of governance to which they aspire. Demanding much more of them at this stage neither makes sense, nor saves Syrians from unabated horror.

There are a multitude of reasons why a transition has not yet been approved by those in control, but it is certainly not because there are no alternatives to Assad, and it is certainly not because nobody knows what the opposition’s aspirations are.

- Rime Allaf is a Syrian-born writer and political analyst. She was an Associate Fellow at Chatham House from 2004 to 2012, in the Middle East and North Africa Programme. She has published numerous analyses and articles on the region, with Syria being the focus of her area of expertise, and continues to write, speak and advise on Syrian affairs. She is on the Board of Directors of The Day After, a renowned Syrian-led civil society organisation working to support a democratic transition in Syria, with grants from several Western institutes and governments. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Syrian Economic Forum, a think tank working on building a strong economy to support a free, pluralistic and independent state.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo: Unidentified Syrian opposition activists chant in Antalya on 1 June 2011 during the opening session of a three-day meeting to discuss democratic change and voice support for a simmering revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's regime (AFP)

#syria #world history

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