#thread : june greer / | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

oflightfeet · 3 years ago

Photo

i am not your protagonist; i’m not even my own.

biography // statistics // pinboard // playlist // thread tracker // tasks // full nav.

↪ read more for a timeline.

July 3rd, 1995. Born to Xander Lightfoot and Mary Cheadle. The latter does not stay in their life long and Wren is raised by their father in Spennymoor.

March 12th, 2007. Xander Lightfoot dies of a heart attack. Wren is placed in foster care and is placed with a foster family quite soon after.

January 2008. Wren moves to another foster family and the cycle of changing families begins, never staying long enough to feel like they belong.

2011. Wren is placed with their final foster family in London. They venture into the world of crime for the first time, alongside Vincent.

2013. Wren starts university and is studying to become a social worker. They meet Greer in a class.

2015. Wren drops out due to money and mental problems. They start working odd jobs, some less legal than others.

Early 2018. Wren and Genie meet and their friendship ( with benefits ) soon blossoms.

2019. Now roommates, Wren and Vincent admit that they love each other as more than friends. They sleep together. The morning after, Vincent is arrested and the two fall out of touch.

April 2020. Wren is kicked out of their shared flat due to missing rent and becomes homeless. They spent a few nights crashing on Genie’s couch, their close friend with benefits.

June 2020. Wren is recruited into doing a job for famine by Belladonna after showing up at an illegal racing event hosted by famine. They start out as an illegal bookie and errand runner.

July 2020. With their newly made money, Wren moves into their small studio in Spitalfields, where they are neighbours to Sacha.

January 25, 2021. Wren is rumoured to be Remus’ new lover.

January 26, 2021. Wren starts working at FemEn as Ikki’s personal assistant.

February 5, 2021. Wren and Kitty save Thomas’ life.

February 18, 2021. Wren stabs Mitzi per Rafael’s request.

February 27, 2021. Wren and Ikki witness the Tower being blown up.

February 28, 2021. Wren and Vincent sleep together, rekindling their romantic relationship.

March 19, 2021. Wren and Vincent break up.

March 30, 2021. Wren finds out that Thomas has been murdered at MORTEM.

June 24, 2021. Wren gets their driver’s license.

#pinned #psd by bladeology!

10 notes · View notes

blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years ago

Photo

It is always dangerous for soldiers, sailors, or airmen to play at politics. They enter a sphere in which the values are quite different from those to which they have hitherto been accustomed.

- Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm

**Pictured above: Seated, left to right: Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal; Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Rt Hon Winston Churchill; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Standing, left to right: the Secretary to the Chiefs of Staffs Committee, Major General L C Hollis; and the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence, General Sir Hastings Ismay.

No one serious has ever doubted the statesmanship of Winston Churchill. However a broad criticism of Churchill as warlord only came to light after the war. Many historians thought that he meddled, incurably and unforgivably, in the professional affairs of his military advisers.

The first surge of criticism came primarily from military authors, in particular Churchill’s own chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, and Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke. The publication of his diaries in the late 1950s shocked readers, who discovered in entries Brooke himself retrospectively described as “liverish” that all had not gone smoothly between Churchill and his generals.

On 10 September 1944 he wrote in his diary (an entry not known until the 2001 updated version was published:

“[Churchill] has only got half the picture in his mind, talks absurdities and makes my blood boil to listen to his nonsense. I find it hard to remain civil. And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of this world imagine that Winston Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no conception what a public menace he is and has been throughout the war! It is far better that the world should never know and never suspect the feet of clay on that otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again….Never have I admired and disliked a man simultaneously to the same extent.”

Many of the British field marshals and admirals of World War II came away nursing the bruises that inevitably came their way in dealing with Churchill. They deplored his excessive interest in what struck them as properly military detail; they feared his imagination and its restless probing for new courses of action. But perhaps they resented most of all his certainty of their fallibility.

Norman Brook, secretary of the Cabinet under Churchill, wrote to Hastings Ismay, the former secretary to the Chiefs of Staff, a revealing observation: “Churchill has said to me, in private conversation, that this was partly due to the extent to which the Generals had been discredited in the First War—which meant that, in the Second War, their successors could not pretend to be professionally infallible.”

Churchill’s uneasy relationship with his generals stemmed, in large part, from his willingness to pick commanders who disagreed with him—and who often did so violently. The two most forceful members of the Chiefs of Staff, Brooke and Cunningham, were evidence of that. If he dispensed with Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill as Chief of Imperial General Staff, he did so with the silent approval of key officers, who shared his judgment that Dill did not have the spirit to fight the war through to victory.

As General Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay (later 1st Baron Ismay), Churchill’s chief military asdvisor and link to the CIG, and others privately admitted, however, Dill was a spent man by 1941, hardly up to the demanding chore of coping with Churchill. “The one thing that was necessary and indeed that Winston preferred, was someone to stand up to him, instead of which Jack Dill merely looked, and was, bitterly hurt.”If Churchill were to make a rude remark about the courage of the British Army, Ismay later recalled, the wise course was to laugh it off or to refer Churchill to his own writings. “Dill, on the other hand, was cut to the quick that anyone should insult his beloved Army and vowed he would never serve with him again, which of course was silly.”

It was not enough, of course, to pick good leaders; as a war leader, Churchill found himself compelled to prod them as well—an activity that occasioned more than a little resentment on their part. Indeed, in a private letter to General Claude Auchinleck shortly before he assumed command in the Middle East in June 1941, Dill warned of this, saying that “the Commander will always be subject to great and often undue pressure from his Government.”

The permeation of all war, even total war, by political concerns, should come as no surprise to the contemporary student of military history, who has usually been fed on a diet of Clausewitz and his disciples. But it is sometimes forgotten just how deep and pervasive political considerations in war are.

Take, for example, the question of the employment of air power in advance of the Normandy invasion.

As is well known, operational experts and commanders split over the most effective use of air power. Some favored the employment of tactical air power to sever the rail and road lines leading to the area of the proposed beachhead, while others proposed a systematic attack on the French rail network, leading to its ultimate collapse. This seemingly technical military issue had, however, political ramifications, because any attack (but particularly one targeted against French marshalling yards) promised to yield French civilian casualties. Churchill therefore intervened in the bombing dilute to secure a promise that French civilian casualties would be held to a bare minimum. “You are piling up an awful load of hatred,” Churchill wrote to Air Chief Marshal Tedder. He insisted that French civilian casualties be under 10,000 killed, and reports were submitted throughout May that listed the number of French civilians killed and (callously enough) “Credit Balance Remaining.”

This is not to say that Churchill’s military judgment was invariably or even frequently superior to that of his subordinates, although on occasion it clearly was. Rather, Churchill exercised one of his most important functions as war leader by holding their calculations and assertions up to the standards of a massive common sense, informed by wide reading and experience at war. When his military advisers could not come up with plausible answers to these harassing and inconvenient questions, they usually revised their views; when they could, Churchill revised his. In both cases, British strategy benefited.

In The World Crisis Churchill wrote: “At the summit, true strategy and politics are one.” The civil-military relationship and the formulation of strategy are inextricably intertwined. A study of Churchill’s tenure in high command of Britain during the Second World War suggests that the formulation of strategy is a matter more complex than the laying out of blueprints.

In the world of affairs, as any close observer of government or business knows, conception or vision make up at best a small percentage of what a leader does—the implementation of that vision requires unremitting effort. The debate about the wisdom of Churchill’s judgments (for example, his desire to see large amphibious operations in the East Indies) is largely beside the point. His activity as a strategist emerges in the totality of his efforts to shape Britain’s war policies, and to mold the peace that would follow the war.

The Churchillian model of civil-military relations is one of what one might call an uneven dialogue - an unsparing (if often affectionate) interaction with military subordinates about their activities. It flies in the face of the contemporary conventional wisdom, particularly in the United States, about how politicians should deal with their military advisers.25 In fact, however, Churchill’s pattern of relationships with his Generals resembles that of other great democratic war statesmen, including Lincoln, Clemenceau and Ben Gurion, each of whom drove their generals to distraction by their supposed meddling in military matters.

All four of these statesmen, Clausewitzians by instinct if not by education, recognized the indissolubility of political and military affairs, and refused to recognize any bounds to their authority in military activities. In the end, all four provided exceptional leadership in war not because their judgment was always superior to that of their military subordinates, but because they wove the many threads of operations and politics into a whole. And none of these leaders regarded any sphere of military policy as beyond the scope of his legitimate inspection.

The penalties for a failure to understand strategy as an all-encompassing task in war can be severe. The wretched history of the Vietnam War, in which civilian leaders never came to grips with the core of their strategic dilemma, illustrates as much. President Johnson, in particular, left strategy for the South Vietnamese part of the war in the hands of General William Westmoreland, an upright and limited general utterly unsuited for the kind of conflict in which he found himself. He did not find himself called to account for his operational choices, nor did his strategy of attrition receive any serious review for almost three years of bloody fighting. At the same time, the President and his civilian advisers ran an air war in isolation from their military advisers, on the basis of a weekly luncheon meeting from which men in uniform were excluded until halfway through the war.

A Churchillian leader fighting the Vietnam War would have had little patience, one suspects, with the smooth but ineffectual Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler. He would, no doubt, have convened all of his military advisers (and not just one), to badger them constantly about the progress of the war, and about the intelligence with which the theatre commander was pursuing it. The arguments might have been unpleasant, but at least they would have taken place. Perhaps no strategy would have made the war a winnable one, but surely some strategic judgment would have been better than none. Nor can strategy simply be left to the generals, as they so often wish.

The Churchillian way of high command rests on an uneven dialogue between civilian leader and military chiefs (not, let it be noted, a single generalissimo). It is not comfortable for the military, who suffer the torments of perpetual interrogation; nor easy for the civilians, who must absorb vast quantities of technical, tactical and operational information and make sense of it. But in the end, it is difficult to quarrel with the results.

#churchill #winston churchill #quote #generals #military #leadership #command #world war two #war #strategy #politics #admirals #military high command #civil-military relations #history #britain #army

51 notes · View notes

braverytaught · 7 years ago

Text

a timeline and family tree of the mcgonagall family.

this is more for my own reference than anything, because i’m heckin tired of recalculating the ages of all of minerva’s relatives every time i reference them in a thread. this covers only three generations (minerva’s parents, her own, and her nieces’ and nephews’), though minerva also lives to have grandnieces/nephews and great-grandnieces/nephews. maybe one day i’ll add those too, but for now that would be way too much work.

The McGonagall family: Robert McGonagall - born August 17th, 1910; died November 4, 1979 - muggle, minister Isobel McGonagall nee Ross - born April 9th, 1913; died June 13th, 1987 - pureblood, Ravenclaw, housewife Minerva McGonagall - born October 4th, 1935 - half-blood, Gryffindor, DMLE ministry worker/Transfiguration professor/headmistress Malcolm McGonagall - born February 21st, 1940 - half-blood, Ravenclaw, potioneer at St. Mungo’s (antidote specialist) Robert McGonagall, Jr. - born June 15th, 1942; died October 20th, 1980 - half-blood, Gryffindor, broomstick servicing & repair

Malcolm’s family: Angela McGonagall nee Lancaster - born January 29th, 1940 - half-blood, Ravenclaw, ministry worker in the department for the regulation and control of magical creatures, spirit division Moira Angela McGonagall - born November 2nd, 1966 - half-blood, Hufflepuff Lucas Malcolm McGonagall - born May 25th, 1969 - half-blood, Gryffindor Isobel Minerva McGonagall - born March 18th, 1973 - half-blood, Ravenclaw

Rob’s family: Christine McGonagall nee Armand - born May 5th, 1944 - Muggle-born, Hufflepuff, Callum Michael McGonagall - born September 10th, 1972 - half-blood, Gryffindor Greer Alexis McGonagall - born February 3rd, 1975 - half-blood, Hufflepuff

timeline: 1935 - minerva born 1940 - malcolm born 1942 - rob born 1947-1948 - minerva 1st year (gryffindor) 1951-1952 - minerva 5th year; malcolm 1st year (ravenclaw) 1953-1954 - minerva 7th year; malcolm 3rd year; rob 1st year (gryffindor) 1954 - minerva graduates; courts dougal mcgregor; begins job at ministry 1956-1957 - malcolm 6th year; rob 4th year; minerva’s first year as professor 1958 - malcolm graduates 1960 - rob graduates 1964 - malcolm & angela marry 1966 - moira born 1969 - lucas born 1970 - rob & christine marry 1972 - callum born 1973 - isobel born 1975 - greer born 1978-1979 - moira 1st year (hufflepuff) 1979 - robert mcgonagall sr dies, age 69 1980-1981 - lucas 1st year (gryffindor) 1980 - rob dies, murdered by death eaters, age 38 1982 - minerva & elphinstone marry 1984-1985 - callum 1st year (gryffindor); isobel 1st year (ravenclaw) 1985 - moira graduates; elphinstone dies from a venomous tentacula bite, age 68 1986-1987 - greer 1st year (hufflepuff) 1987 - lucas graduates; isobel ross mcgonagall dies, age 74 1991 - callum & isobel graduate 1993 - greer graduates

#long post //#; that explains a great deal ( headcanons. )#; mcgonagall family tag #( this took.......forever )#( doesn't help that for the past yEAR i've been saying that rob was in his 1st year when minerva was in her 7th #but also that malcolm was in his 7th year (and rob thus in his 5th) when minerva first started teaching )#( which given that those dates are only 3 years apart APPARENTLY means they both got their hands on some illegal time turners #or some shit. SO I HAD TO FIX THAT. )#( some fun things to note: )#( 1. those death dates make it clear that elphinstone was less than a decade younger than minerva's parents whOOPS )#( that's what an 18-year age gap gets u. but they didn't marry until minerva was 47 so shhh it's fine )#( 2. minerva actually had one niece still at hogwarts for two years of harry's school career; a niece and a nephew graduated just before )

21 notes · View notes

donnamiscolta · 5 years ago

Text

Without the existence of small presses, it’s pretty certain I would not have two published books and another forthcoming to my name.

Small presses, some of which release only a few books each year, are run with limited resources by small, dedicated staffs. Many were established to publish books that have been overlooked (or underlooked? not given a look at all?) by the big presses. Many specifically state their intent to publish diverse books. Overlooked and diverse are not just coincidentally linked. They are often the same thing.

There’s a pervasive and very wrong, not to mention insulting, view that being a small press author means you’re not good enough to be published by the big ones.

Erika T. Wurth, a writer who is Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee, is the author of several highly praised books of fiction and poetry. In response to the Twitter hashtag #PublishingPaidMe, in which writers of color revealed the paltry sums they were paid by their presses to contrast them to the sums paid to white writers. Wurth, whose books are from small presses, tweeted, “For all these straight, white, dudes going, well! Publishing hasn’t paid me shit! Let me tell you what folks have been telling me for years, when I’ve complained about the same thing: maybe you’re a bad writer?”

But here’s another more likely maybe: The big presses are not good enough at recognizing good work, even great work, because they can’t see past their white bias to appreciate stories outside of their own experience. That topic resulted in Twitter threads generated by writers Jenny Bhatt and Maaza Mengiste.

In a recent article in Entropy called “Floorboards and Gatekeepers,” writer Rosalie Morales Kearns who is also the founder of Shade Mountain Press, related both the thrill and disquiet at finding Kirsten Imani Kasai’s The House of Erzulie in her submissions pile.

“It was exhilarating to read such an unforgettable novel, but I was also gripped by a dismaying sense of isolation: No one else knows about this book, and I want everyone to read it.”

“A much more pragmatic question kept nagging at me too: Why the author was sending this brilliant work to an unknown, untried press with barely the hint of a track record. Why the gatekeepers—literary agents, editors at publishing houses—had turned her down.”

“And of course we can’t talk about gatekeeping in literature without talking about whiteness. Those keepers of standards, so lofty and mysterious as they hand down their momentous judgments—you will be published, you will not—are overwhelmingly white.”

Read the full article.

Breaching and dismantling those gates to publishing can be helped by pressure from readers such as through the #Blackpublishingpower effort currently trending on Twitter. It recommends readers buy two books by Black writers during the week June 14 to June 20. I ordered The House of Erzulie from Shade Mountain Press and The Through by A. Rafael Johnson from Jaded Ibis Press, which Kirkus reviews calls “an intricate and often beautiful magical realist treatment of the South.”

I suggest readers consider these other two as well: Mulberry by Paulette Boudreaux and As a River by Sion Dayson. I read and loved them both and am honored to be on the same press lists.

Mulberry by Paulette Boudreaux was released in 2015 by Carolina Wren Press (now Blair Publishing) a year ahead of my book Hola and Goodbye. Mulberry won the press’s inaugural Lee Smith Novel Prize. Set in the segregated towns of rural Mississippi in the early 1960’s, it’s the absorbing and vibrantly told story of a young girl suddenly thrust with the responsibility of caring for her three younger brothers, while her mother takes their baby sister to a distant hospital for treatment and her father grapples with the psychological wounds of combat. Vivid characters and a powerful sense of place put the reader deep inside the story.

As a River by Sion Dayson was released September 2019 by Jaded Ibis Press, a year ahead of my book Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories which will be released this September. In Dayson’s novel, which is set in rural Georgia, Greer Michaels returns to his hometown to care for his dying mother ten years after a trauma-induced departure. The narrative switches back and forth in time, mainly between the years 1966 and 1977. This book is quietly enthralling, its prose, characters and setting beautifully rendered, the events of two time periods woven together to produce a deeply moving ending.

When you choose books such as the ones mentioned here, you’re supporting black voices and small presses. And you can always search on the Internet for other black writers or ask your favorite independent bookseller for recommendations.

Small presses, important voices Without the existence of small presses, it’s pretty certain I would not have two published books…

#A. Rafael Johnson #Black Publishing Power #Erika T. Wurth #Jaded Ibis Press #Jenny Bhatt #Kirsten Imani Kasai #Maaza Mengiste #Paulette Boudreaux #Rosalie Morales Kearns #Shade Mountain Press #Sion Dayson

0 notes

chxrrypcp · 4 months ago

Text

closed for @dxncemacabre !

" begging is a good look for you. "

#partner : dxncemacabre .#thread : june greer .

3 notes · View notes

lovcrsrock · 3 days ago

Text

continued from here for @everseens !

" fuck you. " june spits the words at them as soon as they finish speaking, lip curling in a way that is decidedly unpleasant. " first you freak out on me saying i ruined your fucking friendship, and now you want me to take a breather ? " manicured hands gesture frantically, contradicting her next words to an almost laughable extent. " i'm calm as fuck, okay ? you're the one who's freaking out-- danielle doesn't even suspect anything, you're literally making shit up. "

#i literally just made up a name for the gf/best friend kjshg if a different name fits better lmk!!#also im sorry she's a literal nightmare #partner : everseens .#thread : june greer .#pairing : june & wren .

1 note · View note

biofunmy · 5 years ago

Text

Can Recycled Rags Fix Fashion’s Waste Problem?

Tucked away in the bowels of the Brooklyn Army Terminal is a 4,000-square-foot warehouse filled from wall to wall and floor to ceiling with garbage bags. They contain castoffs from New York’s fashion studios: mock-up pockets ripped from sample jeans, swatches in next season’s paisley print.

There is denim here in every wash, spandex in every hue. Dig through one bag and it is possible to find a little rug of carmine-colored fur and yards of gray pinstripe wool suiting. In another, embroidered patches from GapKids and spools of ribbon in velvet and lace.

Nearly 6,000 pounds of textile scraps arrive each week to be inspected, sorted and recycled by five staffers and many more volunteers at FabScrap, the nonprofit behind this operation. Since 2016, it has helped New York’s fashion studios recycle their design-room discards — the mutilated garments, dead-stock rolls and swatches that designers use to pick materials and assess prototypes.

So far, the organization has collected close to half a million pounds of fabric from the design studios of large retailers like Express, J. Crew and Marc Jacobs and independent clothiers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Their discards have been shredded and recycled into stuffing and insulation or resold to fashion students, educators and artists.

“So much waste gets created in the design process,” said Jessica Schreiber, the executive director of FabScrap. “But it’s the tip of the iceberg.”

As climate change has accelerated, corporations of all kinds have become increasingly preoccupied with their sustainability cred. Four-fifths of consumers feel strongly that companies should implement programs to improve the environment, according to a recent Nielsen study.

Clothing companies in particular have faced pressure to change, from politicians, protesters at fashion shows and shoppers of all ages who want to reduce their carbon footprints. The fashion industry is often erroneously cited as the second-most polluting business in the world, but overproduction, chemical use, carbon emissions and waste are certainly issues it contends with.

Ms. Schreiber understood early the angst that waste was causing designers. In 2014, she was overseeing the Department of Sanitation’s refashionNYC program, which collects old clothing and textiles at farmers’ markets and in participating apartment buildings.

She received a string of similar calls from brands including J. Crew, Eileen Fisher, Express, Mara Hoffman and Marc Jacobs. The companies were sitting on piles of seasonal prints and swatches that couldn’t be donated but shouldn’t be thrown out.

“It really hit a nerve with people,” Ms. Schreiber said. Half of the designers had resorted to hoarding scraps under their desks as they tried — and failed — to find places to give them away. “There was a lot of guilt,” she said, and no clear path.

Spinning a Sustainable Yarn

For a designer, cutting down on waste isn’t as simple as recycling a few bags of fabric every week. It requires overhauling the brand’s business model: forgoing seasonal collections; eschewing — or being rejected by — traditional retailers that accept only large orders and standard packaging; selling directly to consumers; and getting design teams to think about the sustainability and supply chain of each material and garment.

Dana Davis, the vice president of sustainability at Mara Hoffman and an early FabScrap adopter, remembered feeling anxious about how the company could better deal with waste. “It just felt burdensome,” she said. But after a conversation with Ms. Hoffman, the designer, it became clear to them that change was necessary.

The company began shipping swimwear in compostable bags and made long-term commitments to the materials it purchased. To cut excess inventory, the brand moved away from the fashion cycle and the industry norm of placing orders on projection.

There are still challenges — like making sure consumers and retailers actually compost the bags — but other brands are getting on board with changes at the design, manufacturing and distributional levels.

It’s hard to pinpoint how much waste is created before a garment even reaches the consumer. Factory waste is not tracked by outside agencies. Supply chains are now so complex and reliant on remote contractors and subcontractors that the companies can’t account for all the materials.

Even if a brand wanted to find out how much fabric waste it created, “it would be very difficult for them to research that, because different factories might have different processes,” said Timo Rinassen, an assistant professor of sustainability at Parsons School of Design.

Wendy Waugh, the senior vice president of sustainability at Theory and a FabScrap client, knew that determining the brand’s total waste would be a challenge. The company works with many different fibers, which are sourced from all over the world. The company’s “Good Wool,” for instances, comes from a farm in Tasmania, and is scoured, spun and dyed at a mill in Italy before it is warehoused and sold around the world.

After a fiber is harvested and spun, it is sent to a factory where it is cut, dyed and trimmed. Reverse Resources, a software company that works with major apparel factories in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, found that 20 percent of the fabric used in the cut-make-trim phase is ultimately thrown out.

Linda Greer, the founder of the Clean by Design program and a former toxicologist at the N.R.D.C., has advised many garment and dyeing factories in China. She said that brands frequently reject fabrics because they don’t match the desired shade exactly.

“I’ve seen so many ‘weeping piles’ of miscolored fabric,” Ms. Greer said. “Sometimes they can touch it up. And sometimes they throw it away.”

Once a garment is complete, it can present another problem: excess inventory. In some cases those garments are incinerated, which prevents them from being resold at a discount, Mr. Rinassen said.

Last year, Burberry burned $37 million of clothing and cosmetics to maintain “brand value.” The previous year, H&M came under scrutiny after it was reported to have incinerated 60 tons of unsold merchandise.

Stephanie Benedetto founded Queen of Raw, an online marketplace for dead-stock fabrics and a FabScrap partner, after seeing how much manufactured material was sitting in warehouses ($120 billion worth, by her estimate). At that volume, she said, waste isn’t just environmentally irresponsible — it’s “a C.F.O. issue.”

Apparently, also, a marketing issue. Fashion companies have been quick to invest in environmentally friendly marketing. There have been capsule collections derived from natural fibers like orange pulp (Salvatore Ferragamo), pineapple leaves (H&M), grape skin (& Other Stories) and mushrooms (Stella McCartney), and a wide selection of recycled polyester made from fishing nets (Burberry) and beach-strewn plastic bottles (Adidas).

These usually amount to little more than P.R. gambits and short-term fixes.

Samantha MacBride, an assistant professor at Baruch College and a former waste management professional, said that the ideas big brands implement often reflect a lack of understanding about waste management.

The way to minimize trash, she said, isn’t by devising a green marketing strategy or using new technological fixes. “The key is to produce less,” she said.

Sorting Through Scraps

Standing on the FabScrap floor, it is impossible not to feel overwhelmed by the enormous pile of trash.

Ms. Schreiber noted that the bags in the facility were “almost irrelevant in the scheme of what is probably generated.” None of the overstocked garments languishing in company warehouses are here. Nor are the huge quantities of fabric that are tossed from the factory floor.

Beneath the heap, seven volunteers slowly and manually sorted by material every scrap that came in. They inspected and removed labels and rubbed the fabric between their fingers. It could not have been further from the mechanized processes at a recycling plant, which employ feats of engineering — eddy currents, magnets and near-infrared scanners — to identify and categorize various types of metals, plastic and paper.

There is no technology in use that can detect the differences between, say, spandex and wool. “The infrastructure is lacking,” Ms. Schreiber said. “Like the fact that the sorting still all happens by hand is bonkers.”

The recycling processes are similarly decades behind. Today, there are a number of companies, like Evrnu and WornAgain, that are just beginning to recycle fibers, a process that involves shredding and dissolving the fibers into a pulp that can be respun into a new fabric.

Ms. Schreiber said that if clothing scraps were treated “as a waste-commodity stream, not a nonprofit-managed material, we would be further along in the tech.”

In the back corner of the warehouse is one of FabScrap’s two shops, where it sells many of the larger pieces its employees and volunteers find among the scraps. On any given day, some fashion students stop by, shopping and drawing inspiration from the ends of dead-stock rolls that are cheaper here than at fabric stores in the city.

Jasmine Velazquez, a fashion student at F.I.T., studied some green leather that she wanted to use for an upcoming assignment. “I’d rather buy leather from here than support the industry like that. Sustainability should be more important to me because I am a student,” she said.

In June, FabScrap opened a second shop, on a block in the garment district teeming with secondhand shops, and just a stone’s throw from F.I.T.

Camille Tagle, the director of reuse and partnership at FabScrap and a former evening wear designer at Pamella Roland, pointed out some of the special fabrics that filled the shelves. There were rolls of baby blue suede and white cotton with geometric fil coupé accents. Above the shelves were nearly full cones of thread in colors that evoked a Pantone guide.

“If it doesn’t match by a fraction of a shade, it’s out,” she said.

One piece in particular, a shawl’s length of pink crinkle chiffon with sequined flowers, caught her eye. Each flower had at least three or four colors arranged in a different pattern. “It takes a lot of time,” Ms. Tagle said. “A designer had to communicate all of those details to the mill.”

A steady traffic of students and hobbyists came in to peruse the shelves and scour the scrap bins. Olivia Koval, who is pursuing an M.F.A. in textiles at Parsons, left the shop with a tote bag full of mutilated jeans and denim scraps. She planned to overdye and felt them together to make a larger fabric.

“For people to feel inspired by something that was headed for the trash is really important for me,” Ms. Tagle said.

Since opening six months ago, the Chelsea store has served 4,800 customers. Next year, FabScrap plans to set up operations on the West Coast.

In spite of what she has built, Ms. Schreiber is measured about FabScrap’s success. “This is such a small group of self-selecting companies, and this is a very niche part of their waste stream,” she said. “That’s what’s so frustrating.”

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

from WordPress http://bit.ly/390VGJy via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

bittenpath-blog · 6 years ago

Text

48cm:Yeti Cycles Vida Mtb Series Presented By Shimano Launches 2019 Schedule

Lakewood, CO.— The Yeti Cycles VIDA MTB Series presented by Shimano launches their 2019 schedule and registration. Dedicated to women's mountain bike skills clinics and programming, VIDA remains focused on creating accessible programming for women seeking experiences to elevate their riding, push boundaries, and most importantly find community.

"Over 4,000 women have pedaled through VIDA clinics and programming since 2013, and every year we strive to create new opportunities that break down barriers, explore new riding destinations, increase the visibility of women riders everywhere, and build community connections," said Sarah Rawley, founder of the VIDA MTB Series. "We are also very excited to work with longstanding and new partners that extend how and where we reach women."

Shimano joins VIDA as presenting sponsor in cooperation with Yeti Cycles' seventh year of title sponsorship. Ergon Bike, Smith Optics, Skratch Labs and Wild Balance Jewelry return, and Thule joins the ranks of industry-leaders who support women's mountain biking.

"Shimano is thrilled to support the VIDA MTB Series in its effort to grow and educate the women's mountain bike community. We are excited to take part in VIDA's efforts to empower more women to explore all the benefits mountain biking brings," said Megan Duehring, Shimano Bike Marketing Specialist.

VIDA's flagship series of one- and two-day clinics anchors the season with seven destinations and eight clinics. Additionally, the Rider to Racer Program will continue to grow in its second year of bringing an entirely new category of first-time women enduro racers to select events in Colorado.

Sedona MTB Festival (Sedona, AZ): March 2 Lunch Loops (Grand Junction, CO): April 27 Valmont Bike Park (Boulder, CO): May 11 Beti Bike Bash (Lakewood, CO): June 1 Snowmass Bike Park (Snowmass Village, CO): August 17-18 Purgatory Resort (Durango, CO): September 7-8 Golden Giddyup (Golden, CO): September 28 Valmont Bike Park (Boulder, CO): October 19

The VIDA MTB Series continues its five-year streak as the women's hub of the Sedona MTB Festival in Sedona, Ariz., March 1-3, offering a one-day clinic on Saturday and additional activities throughout the festival weekend including yoga, tech talks, and group rides, open to all festival attendees to join.

New for 2019 is a one-day clinic in Grand Junction, Colo. in cahoots with Boneshaker Adventures, on the infamous Lunch Loop trails of the Western Slope. The clinic will also be skills prep for the Grand Enduro race on June 1-2.

"We are incredibly excited to work with Dawn Cooper, owner of Boneshaker Adventures and VIDA coach. Her shared energy and mission to empower riders of all ages and abilities will amplify the experience for women and girls, ages six and up, to build skills and confidence at our favorite desert destination," said Rachel Gottfried, VIDA MTB Series director of operations. "We also look forward to a second year of collaborating with EveryPedal MTB in both Grand Junction and Durango, to provide an affordable and fun clinic experience for young girls."

VIDA returns to Valmont Bike Park in Boulder, Colo. for a spring and fall clinic, May 11 and October 19. Participants of the spring session will have access to the full gamut of vendors to test bikes and gear at the Sports Garage Front Range Demo Day. The fall session offers an additional opportunity to build upon a summer's worth of riding and progress.

Local group rides, shop nights, and trail maintenance in partnership with COMBA (Colorado Mountain Bike Association) ramp up in March and April on the Front Range — check out VIDA's calendar on www.vidamtb.com for details.

"COMBA is dedicated to the development and preservation of great mountain biking experiences through outreach, advocacy and stewardship," said Brittany Greer, COMBA Women's Program manager and VIDA Ambassador. "These values align with VIDA's commitment to connecting women to the outdoors in a sustainable way."

VIDA's sister event and roots of creating community events, the Yeti Beti Bike Bash will celebrate a decade of women's mountain bike racing on June 2. VIDA will host a one-day clinic on Saturday for women to learn fundamental skills and race strategy before race day.

"When we put on the first Beti Bike Bash in 2010, never in our wildest dreams did we think it was going create waves that to this day has made mountain bike racing accessible to thousands of women and young girls," said Amy Thomas, co-founder of the Beti Bike Bash and manager of Team Yeti Beti.

When the summer days feel endless, VIDA heads to the high country to explore Colorado's premier bike parks — Snowmass Bike Park, August 17-18 and Purgatory Resort, September 7-8 — for two-days of lift-accessed and trail riding, on top of healthy meals, yoga, tech talks and happy hour socializing.

VIDA will partner with Big Mountain Enduro for their season finale in Snowmass, Colo. to culminate the Rider to Racer Program. Women will have the opportunity to sign up for a stock two-day clinic or one-day clinic/one-day race experience. The program will officially launch April 2019.

In the fall VIDA returns to its backyard trails for a one-day clinic on September 28, part of the Golden Giddyup, a community-sponsored bike event based out of Golden, Colo. Each clinic registration donates $15 to the Giddyup Trail Team trail stewardship program.

Above and beyond learning skills at clinics and events, participants have the opportunity to demo gear and bikes from Yeti Cycles, Smith Optics, and Ergon.

"We are thrilled to continue a partnership with the VIDA MTB Series after a successful run in 2018. With their goal of getting more women riding more confidently on bikes, it's a perfect avenue to introduce the conversation of how a proper saddle and grips can play into their enjoyment on the bike," said Karen Jarchow, Ergon Bike assistant marketing director. "This matches Ergon's mission of helping the cycling world ride for longer and more frequently without pain."

The VIDA Ambassador Program will open the application process in February 2019. "VIDA Ambassadors make up the fabric of our network. They represent our core values and keep us connected and grounded to our mission," Rawley said. "Over the years, a reoccurring theme that has grown within VIDA is the cycle of the student becoming the teacher. There is more to this story and we can't wait to share it in 2019."

Registration is open for all events at www.vidamtb.com. If you are interested in applying to coach for the VIDA MTB Series, email [email protected]. For more information, email [email protected] or visit us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest updates.

ABOUT VIDA MTB Series — The VIDA MTB Series stems from 15 combined years of producing events that connect people through bikes and experiences. At VIDA, our mission is to foster a passion among women for mountain biking through the highest quality instruction and to create a lifelong community of riders. We are focused on inspiring a movement that promotes cycling as a way of improving lives. We will achieve this by organizing events that communicate our philosophy and reflect our values and thread together a network of ambassadors who share our passion on a deeper level in communities around the world.

#48cm road bike #Bicycle Retailer and Industry News

0 notes

melindarowens · 8 years ago

Text

2017: Right Splits over Civil Disobedience, Left Splits over Political Violence

This week’s biggest political controversies exposed fault lines within the country’s major political factions, with the right fighting about civil disobedience while the left fought over the attempted murder of a Republican Congressman.

Shakespeare in the Park

On Friday night, two conservatives disrupted a New York performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that escalates the left’s campaign of imagery designed to cathartically depict the death or murder of President Donald Trump. TheRebel.tv’s Laura Loomer was arrested for running onstage during the Shakespeare in the Park production, while activist Jack Posobiec taped her demonstration and shouted at the crowd: “The blood of Steve Scalise is on your hands!”

“Old Right”

Several authors at anti-Trump conservative publications condemned Loomer and Posobiec, arguing that the two infringed on the free speech of Shakespeare in the Park and their tactics were too close to the Occupy of Black Lives Matter movement.

Pro-Trump conservatives labeled this faction the “old right,” stating that there is no moral equivalence between this disruption and the violence of left-wing protesters in dozens of recent incidents.

The old right losers who are upset about what Laura did don’t realize that unlike them, we fight – and that’s why our guy won. #FreeLaura

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) June 17, 2017

Which is appropriate

She broke the law.

To fight an injustice

Just like #RosaParks https://t.co/VubPBkRbuH

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

They’re literally shooting at us and you want to play Marquis of Queensbury.

Cowardice.

Fight the enemy or fuck you.

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

Oh yeah, leftist students threatening conservatives with violence is the exact same as a 1 minute interruption of Shakespeare in the Park https://t.co/5oMTc5YIV0

— Scott Greer (@ScottMGreer) June 17, 2017

This is the mentality that has sat, patted itself on the back, and watched for decades as America has gone further and further Left https://t.co/pcEf3YbZ2C

— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) June 17, 2017

We went to one play and accomplished more for the message than the millions donated to think tanks and handed to K Street. Let that sink in

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017

Schlichter vs. Podhoretz

One archetypical exchange in the aftermath of the Julius Caesar demonstration saw Tablet editor and “Never Trump”-er John Podhoretz facing off with lawyer and author Kurt Schlichter.

I’d say I just learned tonight you’re a drooling, immoral, melodramatic idiot, but alas, I learned that long ago. https://t.co/2WuZPvp0Ux

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

you want affirmative action for being a moron because you wore our country’s uniform? Happy to oblige.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

Cernovich vs. Shapiro

Even more heated was the war of words between independent author and White House reporter Mike Cernovich, responding to criticism from former Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and “Never Trump”-er Ben Shapiro.

This obnoxious stupid snowflake crap is no better than the protesters who try to block college speeches. https://t.co/mDyOL6fO7J

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

He doesn’t matter. None of those guys matter anymore. They don’t break news or make news. Controlled opposition for media to abuse. https://t.co/NXMhrqtt2m

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

This is total, complete horse crap. She invaded a public performance to obstruct it. She has no right to the stage. https://t.co/YgcpKQrvPf

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

This is what a coward looks like. #FreeLaura https://t.co/EyiGZnR1a3

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

After trading a few intense personal insults, both men reiterated their arguments — but no longer directly to each other.

They took stage for 1 minute.

The left pulls fire alarms, uses pepper spray, hits people with bike locks.

It’s not even close.

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

Use free speech in ways that irritate the left. Do not impede other people’s freedom of speech. This is not difficult.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 18, 2017

At the same time, the left was infighting over a much more high-stakes topic: targeted political violence.

Steve Scalise

On Wednesday, a 66-year-old Illinois man opened fire on Republican lawmakers practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game, wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and putting him in critical condition through the weekend. The attacker — James Hodgkinson, who was killed by police returning fire — also shot Two Capitol Police officers, a congressional staffer, and a lobbyist. The Daily Caller has reported that investigators found a list of GOP lawmakers’ names on Hodgkinson’s body.

Instead of universal condemnation, Hodgkinson’s attack has brought about a tone-policing feud between the establishment left and the social justice left.

Impulse Control

Over the weekend, several Verified progressives of varying prominence — an L.A. Times blogger, the creator of #OscarsSoWhite, a rapper with 250 YouTube subscribers, an Uproxx editor, and TV actor George Takei — argued that sympathy for Rep. Scalise should not outweigh his sinful acts as a lawmaker. In most cases, more traditional liberals scolded their more radical peers for generating bad optics.

When will it be time to move Scalise’s opposition to gun control from the last graf of a story to the first? https://t.co/D3ZkHjFr2w

— Michael Hiltzik (@hiltzikm) June 18, 2017

You can despise Scalise’s politics and also despise the fact someone thought gun violence would somehow change his or anyone’s mind.

— John Haltiwanger (@jchaltiwanger) June 16, 2017

Wounded Congressman Scalise, who the GOP are so sad about, voted TWICE to not recognize the #MLK holiday. https://t.co/LKhFbJtIn9

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 18, 2017

I ask you simply to look at Rep. Scalise’s record. Do you have sympathy for other white supremacists?

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 15, 2017

Was Scalise a “human” when he voted against Marriage Equality and spoke at a white supremacy function? Or do only Dems need to be “human?” https://t.co/5lzMbfnKk0

— April (@ReignOfApril) June 16, 2017

and don’t tell me the man has a family and allat shit, because so do folk with their premiums traveling on a rocket to Mars

— SUPER SIZE (@GrandeMarshall) June 14, 2017

Made the mistake of looking up Steve Scalise voting record on women and LGBT rights. Time to break out Milkshake Duck.

— Donna Dickens (@MildlyAmused) June 14, 2017

I don’t have any tolerance for caveats on condemning political violence right now. You’re opening the door a crack. It needs to stay shut.

— jessicashortall (@jessicashortall) June 16, 2017

Cool – I guess enough time has passed since Scalise got shot that we can go back to attacking him as a homophobic bigot. Stay classy, Sulu. https://t.co/Pjkiai4yIN

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) June 17, 2017

Why do we have to list Philando’s accolades? How come the headlines aren’t, “Steve Scalise, a bigot who is trying to kill you, got shot”?

— Brandi Geography B. (@ItsTheBrandi) June 17, 2017

Josh Barro, an editor at Business Insider, wrote a thread on how the dehumanization of the left’s political opponents is “bad for society.” Dozens of progressives rebuked Barro in the responses, calling him misguided, “insincere,” and “white boy.”

This feels like the wrong week to do an analysis of whether Steve Scalise is a good congressman.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 18, 2017

On the other side of the argument, New Jersey Democratic strategist James Devine urged progressives to “hunt Republican Congressmen.”

Scarborough vs. Reid

On Saturday, MSNBC host Joy Reid called the situation “delicate” because, while “everybody is wishing the congressman well and hoping that he recovers” from an apparent assassination attempt, Reid lamented that “Scalise has a history that we’ve all been forced to sort of ignore on race.”

Joe Scarborough, one of Reid’s colleagues, appeared to attack this segment — without naming his target. CNN anchor Jake Tapper co-signed the condemnation.

Rep. #Scalise was shot by a white man with a violent background, and saved by a black lesbian police officer, and yet… #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/Qm96T90c6Y

— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) June 17, 2017

If you are attacking Steve Scalise’s voting record right now, do yourself a favor and just stop now. I can’t even believe what I’m seeing.

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Who would even think for one second that it is appropriate to attack a man who is fighting for his life after an assassination attempt?

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Agreed. Unfathomable. https://t.co/nh4BbDH4OM

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 17, 2017

Pelosi vs. Pelosi

Septuagenarian Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s conflicting reactions to the Scalise shooting provided the clearest example of progressive id vs. progressive super-ego.

On the day of the shooting, she said — in direct contradiction to virtually every other statement she has made about President Trump and Republicans — that she prayed for unity in the wake of the attack.

On days like today, there are no Democrats or Republicans, only Americans united in our thoughts for the wounded. https://t.co/HcsiRCcFiP

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) June 14, 2017

Yet the very next day, in a seemingly unscripted moment, she returned to her default position of partisan blame:

Somewhere in the 1990s, Republicans decided on the politics of personal destruction as they went after the Clintons and that is the provenance of it and is what has continued. Again, I feel as if we’re having a family moment that is very, very serious and we’re talking about things that we can say, the discussion—save the discussion for another day. When you have a president that says, “I can shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and nobody would care,” when you have people saying, “beat them up and I’ll pay their legal fees,” when you have all the assaults that are made on Hillary Clinton, for them to be so sanctimonious is something.

The New Political Landscape

Two parties — Republicans and Democrats — still essentially rule American politics, but their constituencies are becoming more tribal and divided, even against their electoral allies. Trump voters hate Republican lawmakers, such as Sens. John McCain and Ben Sasse, for publicly attacking the president and his agenda during and after the 2016 election. Democrats are still picking up the pieces from a contentious DNC leadership race, where establishment-friendly Obama ally Evan Perez narrowly defeated far-left Rep. Keith Ellison.

These same divisions play out in cultural institutions, such as the social justice warriors purging classical liberal professor Bret Weinstein from the Evergreen State College campus or Fox News’ internal fight over the future of its programming style.

The arguments taking place now are over what are appropriate means to victory over the other side: for the right, whether to be polite or ruthless — and for the left, whether to be ruthless or violent.

Source link

source http://capitalisthq.com/2017-right-splits-over-civil-disobedience-left-splits-over-political-violence/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/06/2017-right-splits-over-civil.html

0 notes

everettwilkinson · 8 years ago

Text

2017: Right Splits over Civil Disobedience, Left Splits over Political Violence

Shakespeare in the Park

“Old Right”

The old right losers who are upset about what Laura did don’t realize that unlike them, we fight – and that’s why our guy won. #FreeLaura

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) June 17, 2017

Which is appropriate

She broke the law.

To fight an injustice

Just like #RosaParks https://t.co/VubPBkRbuH

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

They’re literally shooting at us and you want to play Marquis of Queensbury.

Cowardice.

Fight the enemy or fuck you.

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

Oh yeah, leftist students threatening conservatives with violence is the exact same as a 1 minute interruption of Shakespeare in the Park https://t.co/5oMTc5YIV0

— Scott Greer (@ScottMGreer) June 17, 2017

This is the mentality that has sat, patted itself on the back, and watched for decades as America has gone further and further Left https://t.co/pcEf3YbZ2C

— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) June 17, 2017

We went to one play and accomplished more for the message than the millions donated to think tanks and handed to K Street. Let that sink in

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017

Schlichter vs. Podhoretz

One archetypical exchange in the aftermath of the Julius Caesar demonstration saw Tablet editor and “Never Trump”-er John Podhoretz facing off with lawyer and author Kurt Schlichter.

I’d say I just learned tonight you’re a drooling, immoral, melodramatic idiot, but alas, I learned that long ago. https://t.co/2WuZPvp0Ux

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

you want affirmative action for being a moron because you wore our country’s uniform? Happy to oblige.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

Cernovich vs. Shapiro

This obnoxious stupid snowflake crap is no better than the protesters who try to block college speeches. https://t.co/mDyOL6fO7J

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

He doesn’t matter. None of those guys matter anymore. They don’t break news or make news. Controlled opposition for media to abuse. https://t.co/NXMhrqtt2m

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

This is total, complete horse crap. She invaded a public performance to obstruct it. She has no right to the stage. https://t.co/YgcpKQrvPf

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

This is what a coward looks like. #FreeLaura https://t.co/EyiGZnR1a3

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

After trading a few intense personal insults, both men reiterated their arguments — but no longer directly to each other.

They took stage for 1 minute.

The left pulls fire alarms, uses pepper spray, hits people with bike locks.

It’s not even close.

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

Use free speech in ways that irritate the left. Do not impede other people’s freedom of speech. This is not difficult.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 18, 2017

At the same time, the left was infighting over a much more high-stakes topic: targeted political violence.

Steve Scalise

Instead of universal condemnation, Hodgkinson’s attack has brought about a tone-policing feud between the establishment left and the social justice left.

Impulse Control

When will it be time to move Scalise’s opposition to gun control from the last graf of a story to the first? https://t.co/D3ZkHjFr2w

— Michael Hiltzik (@hiltzikm) June 18, 2017

You can despise Scalise’s politics and also despise the fact someone thought gun violence would somehow change his or anyone’s mind.

— John Haltiwanger (@jchaltiwanger) June 16, 2017

Wounded Congressman Scalise, who the GOP are so sad about, voted TWICE to not recognize the #MLK holiday. https://t.co/LKhFbJtIn9

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 18, 2017

I ask you simply to look at Rep. Scalise’s record. Do you have sympathy for other white supremacists?

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 15, 2017

Was Scalise a “human” when he voted against Marriage Equality and spoke at a white supremacy function? Or do only Dems need to be “human?” https://t.co/5lzMbfnKk0

— April (@ReignOfApril) June 16, 2017

and don’t tell me the man has a family and allat shit, because so do folk with their premiums traveling on a rocket to Mars

— SUPER SIZE (@GrandeMarshall) June 14, 2017

Made the mistake of looking up Steve Scalise voting record on women and LGBT rights. Time to break out Milkshake Duck.

— Donna Dickens (@MildlyAmused) June 14, 2017

I don’t have any tolerance for caveats on condemning political violence right now. You’re opening the door a crack. It needs to stay shut.

— jessicashortall (@jessicashortall) June 16, 2017

Cool – I guess enough time has passed since Scalise got shot that we can go back to attacking him as a homophobic bigot. Stay classy, Sulu. https://t.co/Pjkiai4yIN

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) June 17, 2017

Why do we have to list Philando’s accolades? How come the headlines aren’t, “Steve Scalise, a bigot who is trying to kill you, got shot”?

— Brandi Geography B. (@ItsTheBrandi) June 17, 2017

This feels like the wrong week to do an analysis of whether Steve Scalise is a good congressman.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 18, 2017

On the other side of the argument, New Jersey Democratic strategist James Devine urged progressives to “hunt Republican Congressmen.”

Scarborough vs. Reid

Joe Scarborough, one of Reid’s colleagues, appeared to attack this segment — without naming his target. CNN anchor Jake Tapper co-signed the condemnation.

Rep. #Scalise was shot by a white man with a violent background, and saved by a black lesbian police officer, and yet… #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/Qm96T90c6Y

— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) June 17, 2017

If you are attacking Steve Scalise’s voting record right now, do yourself a favor and just stop now. I can’t even believe what I’m seeing.

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Who would even think for one second that it is appropriate to attack a man who is fighting for his life after an assassination attempt?

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Agreed. Unfathomable. https://t.co/nh4BbDH4OM

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 17, 2017

Pelosi vs. Pelosi

Septuagenarian Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s conflicting reactions to the Scalise shooting provided the clearest example of progressive id vs. progressive super-ego.

On days like today, there are no Democrats or Republicans, only Americans united in our thoughts for the wounded. https://t.co/HcsiRCcFiP

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) June 14, 2017

Yet the very next day, in a seemingly unscripted moment, she returned to her default position of partisan blame:

The New Political Landscape

Source link

from CapitalistHQ.com http://capitalisthq.com/2017-right-splits-over-civil-disobedience-left-splits-over-political-violence/

#TrumpNews #CapitalistHQ.com

0 notes

esprit-de-corps-magazine · 8 years ago

Text

THE ELITE WOMEN OF CANADA: Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, aka The Wrens, served Canada with pride

(Volume 23-12)

By Maeve Giffin

The Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) played an integral role in the Canadian effort during the Second World War. Although the women in the naval service, affectionately known as the Wrens, only served ashore in Canada, their efforts were essential to the Allied victory and helped empower women by entrusting them with non-traditional roles and specific technical and operational responsibilities, making the Wrens far ahead of their time.

The Second World War saw the beginning of Canadian women’s official participation in the military. Forty-five thousand women served in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, Women’s Division of the Royal Air Force, and the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service. Of the three services, the WRCNS was the smallest, comprising close to 7,000 women. The Royal Canadian Navy was reluctant to admit women into the service because of their long-ingrained male traditions. As the Battle of the Atlantic began to escalate in 1942, the Navy was in desperate need for more manpower, which would force them to abandon their trepidations of accepting women in their service.

In 1941, the war had erupted around the world and by January 1942 U-boats were attacking off the North American coast and threatening the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The war in the Atlantic took a toll on naval personnel, causing the Navy to revise their plan of enlisting women. With a lack of naval experience amongst Canadian women, the Admiralty requested the assistance of three qualified officers of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) to contribute to the establishment of a similar women’s naval service in Canada. These three British officers provided Canadian women with naval training, which would allow the WRCNS to officially become established on July 31, 1942.

Sixty-seven women were chosen to comprise the first class of the WRCNS and commenced their training at Kingsmill House in Ottawa. Twenty-two of the women in the first class “were passed as officers of His Majesty’s Royal Canadian Navy — the first women ever to carry the King’s commission in any British Navy,” wrote Rosamond “Fiddy” Greer in The Girls of the King’s Navy. The WRNS was a much older and established service, but it was an auxiliary to the Navy, not an integral part of it as in Canada. It was the role of these first WRCNS members to be trained and continue the recruitment process across Canada. They looked for women between the ages of 18 and 45. In their first year, the WRCNS recruited over 4,000 Wrens into the service, exceeding their initial goal of 3,000.

With the WRCNS continually growing with new recruits, there was a demand for suitable accommodation where these women could establish an appropriate training centre. In June 1942, Commander Eustace A. Brock, Director of the WRCNS, “located a vacant girls’ reform school site in Galt, Ontario, for use as a basic training depot,” as was noted by W.A.B. Douglas in A Blue Water Navy. The reform school was transformed into a brand new training centre for the Wrens and was given the ship name HMCS Conestoga. The first group of Wrens arrived at Conestoga in October 1942, eager to commence their training. At first the work was mainly domestic, transferring their regular civilian duties for this time period into a naval setting. They worked as cooks, laundresses, mess stewards, supply assistants and sick berth attendants. The initial feminine trades available for Wrens allowed for a smooth integration into the Navy and for the eventual progression into more diverse and technical roles.

Every Wren had a personal reason for enlisting in the naval service. Some of these reasons ranged from serving due to a lost loved one, for the love of their country, or seeking excitement and adventure. There was also the attraction to the uniform that caught the eyes of many women and inspired them to volunteer. Upon arrival at Conestoga, the new recruits were immediately given their standard “kits” which consisted of a dark blue “flared skirt and double-breasted coat, fastened with black buttons,” a dark blue “pork pie hat … with tally band the same as any able seaman’s, with H.M.C.S. in white letters,” as was described in Proudly She Marched: Training World War II Women in Waterloo County.

The Wrens cherished the uniform because it instilled a sense of pride and accomplishment in them. It was not the pay of 90 to 95 cents per day that motivated the majority of women to enlist in the Navy, rather it was the possibility of travel and adventure. In Greatcoats and Glamour Boots, another former Wren stated, “Most people who were attracted to the service had to be gamblers at heart, because none of us really had any conception of what it would be like. We simply took our chances.”

Taking this leap of faith turned out to be the best decision one Wren, Audrey McCaskill, ever made in her life. Prior to joining the WRCNS, McCaskill had never left her small hometown of South Porcupine in Northern Ontario. The Wrens provided her with the opportunity to escape and try something challenging, which she thought was “exhilarating.” Wrens had the potential opportunity to serve in provinces across Canada, including Newfoundland, and even locations down south in the United States. A select few were asked to serve across the Atlantic at Royal Navy stations located in London, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Greencock. For a time period when “newspaper advertisements encouraged ‘Mrs. Housewife’ or ‘Mrs. Consumer’ to do their bit for the war by planning frugal meals, spending wisely and buying war bonds,” these women proved to be extremely brave and more capable than ever expected. The first class of the WRCNS set a high standard for its future members. Many were already “prominent leaders in their line of work, whether scientific, educational, civic or social” and expected no less of the aspiring Wrens. This was a tall order for a period in time when women felt a high level of frustration for not being accepted as equals. As stated in Proudly She Marched, all 6,781 Wrens would complete “a month of basic training, to learn the essentials of organization, traditions and customs.” Immediately following basic training in Galt, they would be relocated to a position that operated or accommodated the specific trade assigned to them.

As the WRCNS trades broadened and expanded many became more specialized and technical, requiring additional training. These more advanced trades involved accurately recording the progress of tactical games, working in Halifax and St. John’s as assistants in the operational training centres, operating the spotting table for gunnery training, and also running the necessary activities for the night escort teacher. The most sought-after technical and specialized occupations in the WRCNS were communications-related trades, such as visual signallers, coders, and wireless telegraphists. These various techniques were primarily used to locate enemy U-boats and also direct Allied ships as they manoeuvred from shore to shore. The technical assistance in these specialized fields was so essential to the Allied war effort that they were deemed top secret. Wrens had to follow the Naval Discipline Act and learn the Official Secrets Act in order to understand what could be said and what must remain confidential. The confidentiality of some of the WRCNS assignments has often left them unrecognized and insufficiently appreciated.

This responsibility, leadership, and respect entrusted to the Wrens had a significant impact on the rest of their lives. Not only did they pave the way for future generations of women in the Navy, but they also set a new precedent for women in society. The WRCNS gave women more confidence, which carried into the rest of their lives whether they returned to domesticity or not.

In her book Proudly She Marched, Anne Kallin states, “even those who picked up the threads of their earlier lives where they had left off were changed: while they may have assumed traditional roles, they raised daughters who would not.” Many Wrens still remember their time in the war as the best years of their lives. Today, women are able to serve in any capacity of the Royal Canadian Navy, which can largely be credited to the courageous Wrens from the Second World War. They were successful in maintaining the established image of the Canadian Navy in the fashion that the original officers had always intended, “that of a professional, well-trained, and highly dedicated service,” which is still upheld to this day.

On the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the WRCNS, a statue named Jenny Wren was unveiled in Galt, Ontario to honour the Navy women who served during the Second World War. More than 600 former Wrens from across the nation returned to the location of their basic training to observe this commemoration. Ann Kallin described the statue as “alert, self-confident and leaning slightly into the wind with a sense of adventure and a touch of whimsy, she will be the tiddley Wren remembered by citizens across Canada.”

0 notes