#to be clear there are absolutely legitimate grievances to be had with LOST

[thelivingautomaton]

"at this rate severance is just going to turn out like another LOST" oh, you mean one of the best high-concept television shows to ever do it, which frustrates viewers who approach it solely on the basis of "solving" its central puzzle-box mystery instead of acknowledging the puzzle-box as primarily a vehicle for the character-driven narrative and commentary on human connection? man i really hope so

[professoruber]

Incorrect Quotes: Bruce giving money to the Bat-Family | Part 2

Previous Part: Link | Next Part: Link

Stephanie: You're trying to give me... money?

Bruce: Yes. With your growing responsibilities, I've decided you should receive a fund to help support your vigilante activities.

Stephanie: ...Is this because you're finally feeling guilt for all the times you've treated me unfairly?

Bruce: What? Name one time I hav-

Stephanie: Ahem. <Clears throats and takes out a long lost which rolls out to the edge of the room, title; 'All the times Batman has wrongfully wronged the amazing Stephanie Brown'>

Stephanie: It all began long ago when we first met, and you sicked your unreasonably handsome sidekick onto my innocent self.

Bruce: <;Tired sigh> Is this really necessary Steph?

Stephanie: Absolutely. In every conceivable way. Now where was I? Oh right, all the times you've wronged me.

Bruce: How long is this going to take?

Stephanie: At least all day, might have to come back tomorrow though.

Bruce: ...I'm leaving.

Alfred: Now, now, Master Bruce. It's little Miss Stephanie has put quite a bit of effort into her itinerary of grievances against you. The two of you have had an undoubtedly rather turbulent working relationship, perhaps granting her some catharise will do her some good.

Bruce: Ugh...

Stephanie: Thanks Alfred! Now back to the list... oh right, the first of many times you tried to order me to quit like you're the Bat-God of Vigilantes.

Bruce: If I double your budget will you just skip to the end?

Stephanie: No way, Bruce. This is long overdue.

<4 Hours Later>

Stephanie: Do you know how weird it was dating a dude I didn't even know the name of because you didn't let him? FYI Alvin Draper is almost as bad as Drake when it comes to Tim's aliases. I mean Draper? Way to be on the nose that it's a fake identity. The Alvin wasn't the best way to disguise his rich kid status either.

<Another 14 Hours Later>

Stephanie: Seriously! I was like the only Robin until Damian who had actual prior experience you %(#$@!

<Another 10 Hours Later>

Stephanie: ...and last but definitely not least, you dissed my favourite jacket. Uncool dude.

Bruce: Are you finally done?

Stephanie: ...

Stephanie: I guess I am. Man, that felt good to get that off my chest.

Bruce: While most of those were clearly just petty complaints you added solely for the purpose of making the list longer for dramatic effect, I do admit you have some... legitimate grievances.

Stephanie: Wait? You're... actually admitting that?

Bruce: Yes. And that's all I'll say today.

Stephanie: Works for me! I'll let you go brood on your totally unfair treatment of me... I'm still getting the funds right, by the way?

Bruce: ...

Stephanie: ...Bruce?

Bruce: Fine. But only because Alfred will stare at me disapprovingly if I back out now.

Stephanie: Yes! <Heads off to get suited up for her patrol>

Bruce: And Steph?

Stephanie: Hm?

Bruce: Keep giving them hell out there.

Stephanie: Don't need to remind me twice!

———————

Honestly this kinda went on for a bit longer than I intended. Was neat just going with the flow. Still am getting into comics and stuff so my apologies if I'm not too good yet with their dynamic.

[migleefulmoments]

Please, please, please publish Abby’s new diatribe as I have apparently been blocked (or perhaps just don’t know enough about tumblr to find it). I’m dying to see what she worked on for two months to justify her existence!

Anonymous said: Oh dear, looks like Abby’s family didn’t get her help after all, a lost cause then, what an absolute waste of a life. It’s actually sad. A shame her family didn’t get her help

Le sigh...she is not well. She hasn’t learned one thing while she’s been away and she still has the exact same grievances- mostly about how much she hates Mia and how much she feels sorry for herself because we aren’t lapping up her fantasy and showering her with adoration for being the leader of the ccship. Her main complaint, the reason she popped back in to write the same tired complaints and criticisms, is that she’s tired of people blaming Darren for the ccsituation. It’s always about her love for ccDarren and her need to absolve him of all responsibility for all of the things the cc fandom dislike about him and his life. IT’S ALWAYS MIA’S FAULT and the defacto fandom leaders aren’t reminding everyone “it’s never Darren’s fault” and “always blame Mia’s”.

She lashes out to criticize the “hate blogs” but ultimately she blames Ricky and Mia for EVERYTHING including the “attack on her family” (which of course, was NOT an attack on her family, it was a plea for her family to get her some help).  She claims “they” tried to shut her up and then lists all the evidence that “they” tried to end her blog:  HER copyright strikes (lots of us have one) and the “hate” blogs before listing individual grievances against several bloggers, amping up the grievance for dramatic effect and making it seem like they were coordinated, well-planned attacks against her. She negates her own part e.g. I published the photo ONLY after she dared me to several times. All of this because  “If this is what they were willing to do to me, a mere fan, imagine what they are well to do to him, their absolute life sources?” “They” aka Mia and Ricky.  

I found it hard to read. She’s not in a good place.  

***************************************  

Hello CCLand!  Have you missed me?  I know I have missed you all.  This post is not me coming back, frankly, I still have not decided how I want to navigate the future, but for the past 2 months all of this has been festering inside, so I need to post and make a few points.

First and foremost, I want to say that I am incredibly proud of my blog. I spent 5 years building a relationship with my readers and trying to provide a voice for 2 people who have been marginalized and frankly had their voices largely muted. I will never apologize for this or feel bad about it. Nor will I feel bad about pointing a finger at people that I know are truly evil.  

I am far from perfect and I admit, I made 2 massive errors.  I overshared because I was naive and never thought the information would be used against me.  And I did not pay enough attention to the hate blogs and their threats.

This was a blog that I started when I first learned about CC and frankly it grew out of love and a need to try to bring justice to a person that is absolutely a victim of a completely antiquated and abusive system.  Further, I don’t THINK D is closeted, I KNOW D is closeted.  And I have substantial facts to back up that statement.  I never intended to become the most read CC blog or to meets so many wonderful an amazing people that I admire, but that is what happened and that has given me great joy.

But with the good comes the bad, and what happened to me is absolutely sick and depraved.  And I am writing this post in hopes that someone will read it and see just how fucked up the behavior of a few “fans” has been towards me and to help them to extend this to what has been done to D and C.  Please do not feel sad for me, or send me sympathy, it is not my point.  But I hope that perhaps it will inspire some of you to be more active and to fight a little harder as I try to navigate the harassment that occurred to my family.

Pretty much since I started to write, I have been receiving hate, something to be expected when you join a fandom like this. But at some point, it became much more frequent and took a turn from manageable hate to harassment and bullying.  In October of 2017, I got my first ask with my full name and from that day forward there has been an active attempt to try to bullying me off the internet. Now ask why that is?  I am just a fan, with what most think is a crazy belief, with a relatively small following. I do not and have not tagged the players nor do I contact them directly. I have never been anything but incredibly polite to  D and C, and frankly I have ignored M whenever I have been in her presence because she is not worthy of my time or energy. I have never reached out to them over SM to make one statement about fandom. So why such an effort to silence my voice?  Especially if it is as insignificant as they claim?  

They tried deleting my blog, that failed. They tried with copyright infringements but I got smarter about making sure to post links.  So, what did they do?  They started with vicious attacks on my character on their hate blogs. Posting my full name and image.  Analyzing every word i wrote, desperately trying to debunk me, stating that i had severe mental health issues.  Tagged C, W, and A/lla to warn them about my presence at a book signing.  They stalked my friends and I at a festival, made false accusations, and published a photo. This meant that had to seek us out, locate where we were sitting and wait for a moment when they could get an image that they could twist to their favor.  That is insane. And there is no way to twist it to say its normal or expected.

But that apparently was enough harassment.  They threatened my work and my career.  Next, they started to stalk my family on the internet and use a devastating injury and a charity to harass and bully my family to the point that I did have to make the painful decision to not just stop posting but to protect my blog. This is completely vile and inexcusable behavior.  And the fact that it was not stopped, is a strong statement about the people clearly in control.

Why am I recounting? Because I want people to wake up and stop blaming D for every twist and turn.  If this is what they were willing to do to me, a mere fan, imagine what they are well to do to him, their absolute life sources? I am just another body left behind in the carnage, D is their source of money and fame. And not just his team and his “bride” but all of the people that have ridden his coattails to have name recognition.  

I wish people would realize this is not choose your own adventure book, D is a human who has been held against his will due to an enormous amount of power they clearly wield over him. How do you not see that if he could, he would end this?  This has not been about him being straight in so long, straight is how they control him and how they are able to make M relevant.  

And if you though this was a choice, how were you not woken up in the days following his dad’s death? I would guess not 48 hours after he buried his father, he was dragged from his mother’s home, forced to play dress up and pose for a ridiculous, cruel and inhumane set of pics.  D has lied about many things, but never about his parents, he has always been nothing but reverent when he speaks about them and his love and respect for them is clear.

Clearly, I have not gone anywhere, and I am still watching and reading every word. I have actually been incredibly proud of D during the majority of press for HW.  He has made so many statements that are a foundation for the truth, including telling us that young actors do things that they later learn to regret, telling us that HW has not changed, and stating that the person you see has a story we will never know.  

The press to legitimize and canonize M has been laughable and beyond transparent. It is so obvious this is on his list of required duties and the fact that they did not pause if for 1 week when his dad died is absolute proof that this is not a choice.

I do have to laugh at the irony of the d “quote” about fans being mean to his poor “wife” (that he himself has called a big girl).  So it is ok to bully a fan off the internet to the point that they stalked and harassed my family (and it does not matter if his was led by his team, her, her friends, or a fan in her name), but it is not ok for a small handful of fans to discuss the sad reality and point the finger at the truth?

Anyhow, this got way too long, but it has all been building up inside.  This blog was  such a massive part of my life and I miss it and you more than words can say. I encourage all of you to keep supporting these incredible men, I have no doubt they are worth it. I do think they next few months will bring about change, but what they change is, we still don’t know. I hope that D wins sooner than later. I am not certain how much longer he can be expected to sustain this weight.   If you reached this point, thank you for reading.    I am going back to my quiet corner now.  

[thenuanceddebater]

Civil War Response to @uppermandible

So, for whatever reason, I can’t reblog the response @upermandible made to my Civil War post which you can find here. I don’t know why that is, but assuming that I wasn’t blocked and that it’s a tumblr glitch, I’ll do the response here instead. 

so because the union made a law that nobody could leave it the south was just supposed to sit there and take its unfair treatment?

No, but this law “the Union” made (which actually comes from the Constitution which was ratified by both the North and the South) means that the Confederacy has no legitimate right to secede under US law. That means that every single action the Confederacy takes is an act of rebellion against the United States, and that under US law the Confederate States of America doesn’t actually exist. Hence, why the term “Civil War” is still applicable legally speaking. You don’t seem to understand this based on the initial analogy you used (which discussed divorce-- which is a legal matter) and based on your later thoughts in this response as well. 

lets remember that the southern states were disproportionately footing the bill for federal expenses, and were being locked out on how that money was spent, because they had less power in the federal government than the northern states

Disproportionately footing the bill for what exactly? They were being taxed based on population. They artificially exapnded their population numbers through the 3/5 Compromise in the US Constitution. They also agreed to the form of government that was now instituting the bills they didn’t like very much. Also, if you really want to pretend that economics and taxation (or even tariffs) were the primary cause of the Civil War, you’re going to need a heck of a lot of evidence. Since most of the documents of secession didn’t actually mention economics, taxes, or tariffs in the slightest. Do you know what most of them did mention? Slavery. And mistreatment because of slavery. So, please provide me with some primary sources that prove your position here. Otherwise, I’m going to dismiss your argument based on the evidence that actually exists. Oh, and this entire thing is just one gigantic switching the goalpost from “the Confederacy was legitimate in attacking Fort Sumter” to “the Confederacy had moral and understandable reasons for attacking Fort Sumter”. Moral and understandable reasons =/= legitimate. 

the south was not going to be able to afford much of what the federal government was pushing for, and they were otherwise helpless to stop it. their only recourse to this was simply to pack their shit, show Lincoln their favorite finger, then make like horse turds and hit the trail.

You... are aware that the South was wealthier than the North prior to the Civil War, right? Much of that wealth was in land and slaves, but still the South was not a poor area of the United States. Also, none of this makes the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter legitimate. That’s not how legitimacy works. You can tell whatever sob story you want about oppression, but legally speaking oppression does not guarantee legitimacy (especially when that oppression is mostly imagined as opposed to actually extant). 

throughout the interim leading up to the firing on fort sumter, the union was increasingly aggressive to the seceding states. deploying troops to occupy Kentucky, blockading the south, etc. 

...And we’re just going to completely ignore how the Confederacy was attempting to seize federal forts and weapons? Because that doesn’t fit the narrative? Okay. Oh, and also Kentucky declared neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after an attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state failed, they petitioned the Union Army for help. So, that goes against your narrative as well. Especially because Kentucky didn’t come fully under Union control until 1862- well after Fort Sumter fell and the Civil War began. So, maybe check your facts on that one. They seem to be a little off. 

As for blockading the South, you are aware that seeing as the Confederacy had absolutely no legal legitimacy whatsoever it was considered an “area in rebellion” and thus was automatically considered essentially at-war with the United States right? The idea of the blockade was to bring the areas in rebellion back under US control without actually engaging in pitched-battle against American citizens. And again, the United States wasn’t the only side being aggressive. You can’t look at the facts of the situation and tell me that the Confederacy was peaceful and the Confederates were a bunch of angels. Well, I mean you can. But you’d be really, really wrong. 

Most the war was fought in the south. 

Over the course of the war the union lost 642,427 of its 2,672,341-strong military. the confederacy lost  483,026 of its 750,000-strong military.

Irrelevant information is irrelevant. None of this means anything when discussing whether or not the Confederacy’s secession is legitimate. Although, it is worth pointing out that the Union had the harder victory objective, and the South only needed to fight a defensive war. 

Sherman’s army burned everything from atlanta to the coast.

...You are aware that the Union aren’t the only people who burned/ destroyed things right? And you are also aware that the burning of Atlanta wholesale actually wasn’t Sherman’s original plan (or even his plan at all), right? And of course you’re aware that Sherman didn’t in fact burn Savanna Georgia. So, that’s a little misleading. 

very little mercy was shown to even civilians in the south by the union forces

Aaaaand this is downright false. Actually, even the wildest Union troops tended to act much, much better than expected in Confederate households and toward Confederate women. If you don’t believe me, I recommend you read diaries of Confederate matrons who were occupied by Union soldiers, or read some literaure collecting these accounts if you don’t want to track them down individually. I recommend When Sherman Marched North from the Sea: Resistance on the Confederate Home Front. That should clear up some of your misconceptions. 

where even generals ordered that historical monuments to be vandalized 

Not the monuments! Oh the humanity! Still, regardless of whether or not this is accurate (I really don’t know what you’re talking about- it’s general enough to refer to quite a variety of things) destruction of historical monuments is not the same as monumental cruelty to civilian populations. You’re going to need more than just assertions in order to prove that. Sorry. 

even after the war the north took great pains to keep the south crippled

I mean, if you want to talk Reconstruction, we can talk Reconstruction. But, I’m not going to make this post even longer by detailing all the ways this statement is wrong when Reconstruction is unrelated to the Civil War and especially unrelated to the legitimacy of the Confederate Secession. Actually, most of your post is irrelevant to that point. 

even today the south is still responsible for the bulk of federal funds while hardly having a say in how it’s spent.

...You actually can’t be serious with this. Texas (2), Florida (4) [(which isn’t really the South any more)] Georgia (9), North Carolina (10) and Virginia (12) are the Confederate states in the top 15 of states by GDP. Next is Tennessee and Louisiana at 24 which rounds out the Confederate States in the top 25 of states by GDP. South Carolina is 26, Alabama 27, Arkansas is 34, and Mississippi is 37. So, no. The South is definitely not responsible for the majority of federal funds. I have no idea where that nonsense is coming from. But it’s completely and utterly absurd. 

it can be called the war of northern aggression because that is exactly how it went down.

...Except it didn’t. You failed in proving that. Sorry. 

it can be called the war between the states because it was

I mean, sure. That’s a term that;s more popular in the South, but it’s not blatantly incorrect like “War of Northern Aggression”, though the framing is a little off. Also, fun fact: It was called “The Great Rebellion” in the Union during the war.

civil war isn’t really accurate because the confederate states of america was a sovereign nation.

...No it wasn’t. Not legally. If the Confederacy won the Civil War, it’s possible that the war would have been seen as the Confederacy’s Revolutionary War, but they lost. The Confederacy had no legal legitimacy and was not recognized by the United States government as a legal nation. It was an area in rebellion. Simply declaring that you are now a sovereign nation doesn’t actually make you a sovereign nation. Just like simply saying you’re divorced doesn’t actually make you divorced. So, seeing as it was a gigantic rebellion the term Civil War suits it quite nicely. 

And before you even try the American Revolution argument, the United States was not legitimate prior to the Revolutionary War. The Founding Fathers knew this. That’s part of the reason why signing the Declaration of Independence was so courageous. Victory in the Revolutionary War is what made the United States a legitimate nation. Without that victory, even though the Americans did have legitimate political grievance with the British Empire (as they actually were unrepresented unlike the South) they would not have created a legitimate nation through the Declaration of Independence. 

All in all, this was a pretty weak rebuttal. You shifted the goalposts, made assertions without evidence, and got your facts wrong. You’re going to need to do a heck of a lot better if you want to continue the debate. Because this? This was nowhere near good enough. And I think you know that. 

[goodqueenaly]

Hey! I'm thinking of writing a short-ish TPATQ-style AU piece, and wondered if I could grab your thoughts, as such a great ASOIAF thinker! My rough POD is, following the Tourney at Harrenhal, an hour before Rhaegar "fell upon Lyanna Stark", Rhaegar's horse takes a tumble and the Prince of Dragonstone breaks his neck. Do you have any ideas as to how politics of the 7K might play out? I'm assuming the SA bloc won't all be plain sailing, for one thing...

Hmm.

Well, in the absence of Rhaegar, Lyanna never runs away with him, presumably thinking that he had forgotten about whatever pact they had made to meet or had decided against it. She’s still engaged to a man she very decidedly does not want to marry, but now she has no crown prince to marry instead and escape her arranged marriage. (And while Lyanna might have tried to find someone else to marry, a marriage to the crown prince would have been so much obviously higher than a marriage to Lord Robert that - at least, perhaps, in Lyanna’s hopes - RIckard could not successfully protest it.)

With no “abduction” to protest, Brandon never has to ride for King’s Landing, which means he marries Catelyn in a timely fashion (Littlefinger, unfortunately, is probably still left alive, though this may not be as great a problem as IOTL). If I’m right and Lyanna’s marriage was set for both cultural and political reasons for later in 282 AC, after Brandon’s, then she might have then proceeded to Storm’s End, to be married to Robert - possibly accompanied by Brandon and his new wife, more remotely perhaps by Rickard, almost certainly with Robert and Ned coming together from the Eyrie to meet her at his ancestral castle. Lyanna is unhappily married and becomes Lady of Storm’s End. (It’s possible that Hoster - having by this point discovered Lysa’s pregnancy and forced an abortion, hastily works to secure a marriage with either Lord Arryn or his nephew Elbert - still alive in this timeline - both to cover up the indiscretion and to secure her as great a posting as he had her sister Catelyn. Jon Arryn may or may not have been interested in taking a new wife (he had already named Elbert his heir, and after two childless marriages may have accepted he would never have children), but a Tully of Riverrun was both a great prize for nearly any House and a means of emphasizing the Stark-Tully-Arryn-Baratheon alliance - and if Elbert suspected his bride was not a maiden, well, Hoster might have cited Cersei’s comment IOTL.)

In King’s Landing, Aerys has to deal with the death of his son and heir. Rhaegar’s only son, Prince Aegon, is maybe weeks old, no more than a few months; Aerys’ second son, Viserys, is around six years old. By strict reading of the law, Aegon should come before Viserys, but the by-now deeply paranoid and insane king is not going to sit quietly and let his despised Dornish daughter-in-law and his half-Martell grandson take power at his death. Instead, I’d think he’d declare - as he seemed to do IOTL - that Prince Viserys was the new Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne. Aerys might have been pleased to do so, but his legal right to do so may not have been as clear as he believed: after all, the last time a legitimate, dynastically superior male-line grandson had been displaced in the succession, it had taken a Great Council to name the new king, and the right of a king to name an heir outside traditional succession rules had, in part, led to the bloody Dance of the Dragons.

The members of the southron ambitions bloc might have seen this as an ideal opportunity - the chance to challenge the king’s (arguably) illegal change in the succession, and by that argument present their grievances against the historical caprices of the crown.  Certainly, they’d have on their sides those who had backed Rhaegar in life, most notably the Prince of Dorne - after all, he’s already lost the opportunity to see his sister made queen, he’s not going to accept his nephew being disinherited. The combined heads of the North, Stormlands, Riverlands, Vale, and Dorne might then pen a declaration to the king, essentially stating that they formally protested the king’s actions and that would look to depose him if he did not restore baby Aegon to his blood rights. Predictably, Aerys would name them all traitors and call for their heads, but then the question would become who would play their headsman; the Westerlands under Tywin are absolutely not going to fight for the king who continually publicly humiliated the lion of Lannister, and while the Reach has no obvious ties to either side, its position sandwiched between the pro-regency Riverlands, Stormlands, and Dorne would make Mace Tyrell very uncomfortable drawing his levies for the king. If there were any sort of war, it would not last long before the protesting lords managed to depose Aerys II and install the infant Aegon VI. (Because Aerys had lost the right to rule, I’d guess the victorious coalition would say that extended to young Viserys - but to be safe, they’d probably want to pack him off to the Wall post haste.)

Now the victors would have some political negotiating to do, and this is where real tensions might start. I would guess that, in Prince Doran’s mind, there should be only one regent - his sister Elia, mother of the new king - with maybe himself as the baby’s Hand. But Rickard, Hoster, and Jon (and Tywin Lannister, presumably) would likely have thought they had come too far to simply hand all power to the Martells. There’s precedent to a regency council of lords from different regions, but that only secures the bloc power for as long as Aegon VI is a baby; once he grows up, there’s nothing to stop him being another Aegon V or Aerys I. What I might guess would happen is an evolution of this, something like Henry VI: a council of regents as with Aegon III, but giving itself so much power, and leaving the baby king so politically weak and uneducated that by the time he did come of age, the kingdom would have grown used to rule by a set of nobles and allowed them to retain power. 

[lindamcsherry]

FIFTEEN YEARS ON, PROPOSITION 12 CONTINUES TO EXPAND HEALTH CARE OPTIONS ACROSS TEXAS

FIFTEEN YEARS ON, PROPOSITION 12 CONTINUES TO EXPAND HEALTH CARE OPTIONS ACROSS TEXAS

Advocates of Historic Lawsuit Reform Amendment Cite Significant Increases in Access to Health Care on Proposition 12’s Fifteenth Anniversary

  AUSTIN, TEXAS — As Texas marks the 15th anniversary of voter approval of landmark medical liability reform, the state continues to see dramatic improvement in access to health care. Voters in September 2003 passed Proposition 12 — the Texas constitutional amendment that capped non-economic damages in medical liability lawsuits.

The reform was passed to address a worsening crisis in health care access brought on by soaring awards for non-economic damages, questionable lawsuits and abusive legal practices against doctors. The result was skyrocketing medical liability insurance premiums and doctors leaving high-risk specialties and areas of the state known as lawsuit abuse hotbeds.

“The results achieved by Proposition 12 are nothing short of impressive,” said D’Anne Buquet, Executive Director of Bay Area Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (BACALA). “When you look at how health care access has improved dramatically over the past 15 years, it’s clear that Proposition 12 has delivered on its promise.”

Further, while Proposition 12 placed caps on non-economic damages, compensation for traditional, measurable damages like lost wages and medical bills was left intact, maintaining continuity in the justice system for those who need it most.

Roger Borgelt, member of the board of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas (CALACTX), commented on the state’s recovery following the passage of Proposition 12: “Back in 2003, the rate of physician licensure was shrinking not just relative to the booming population, but also in absolute terms. This put a dangerous strain on the state’s medical resources as the population grew rapidly. Since then, we’ve seen annual physician licensure more than double.” Borgelt also noted that over the past six years, only California has added more patient care doctors than Texas, and only four states bested Texas in percentage growth.

However, the gains that have resulted from Proposition 12 are more than just quantitative: Since Proposition 12 passed, the number of physicians in high-risk specializations — such as vascular surgery, neurosurgery, and emergency medicine — has increased by more than 60 percent, as many doctors in those specializations no longer fear getting hit with a frivolous lawsuit.

Additionally, the benefits of Proposition 12 have extended to remote and traditionally under-served areas of Texas. Since 2003, sixty-one rural counties have added an emergency medicine physician, including 45 rural counties than previously had none.

Sergio Contreras, President of the Rio Grande Valley Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (RGVCALA) added that the benefits of Proposition 12 extend beyond health care access: “Besides the obvious health care benefits, lawsuit reform has relieved our civil justice system of thousands of questionable lawsuits, making the system more efficient for those plaintiffs with legitimate grievances.”

Still, CALA members urge vigilance to preserve the benefits of Proposition 12: “We’ve definitely moved the needle in the right direction over the last 15 years,” said Contreras of RGVCALA. “But we need to sustain and protect those gains as we move toward a future where all Texans have even greater access to the medical care they deserve.”

# # #

Learn more about Texans Against Lawsuit Abuse online at tala.com or via Twitter at @TexasTALA.

  https://www.tala.com/fifteen-years-on-proposition-12-continues-expand-health-care-options-texas/

[theconservativebrief]

Former President Barack Obama’s Tuesday speech in South Africa, his first major address since leaving office, tried to answer perhaps the biggest current question in the world: Can democracy as we know it survive?

The goal of the speech was to define what Obama sees as the central dynamic in 21st-century politics. It’s a battle between a hopeful, egalitarian political vision, embodied by 20th-century figures like Nelson Mandela (in whose honor the speech was given), and a new wave of right-wing populists and ambitious authoritarians.

This backlash, in Obama’s diagnosis, is wrapped up in both legitimate grievances (anger about the 2008 financial crisis) and less illegitimate ones (white male anxiety about social change). The central challenge of modern democratic politics, he argues, is defeating this backlash — a fight he’s hopeful about winning.

Most of the speech is spot-on. But it suffers from a characteristic Obama flaw: over-generosity toward his political opponents. The former president gives too much leeway to the legitimate grievances of right-wing populists, particularly overemphasizing the role of economic grievances in their rise and underplaying how committed these groups’ supporters are to bigotry and xenophobia. The result is a speech that advocates trying to change the minds of many people whose minds are most likely unchangeable.

Obama never once uttered the word “Trump” in the speech, but the president looms over it like the lettering on one of his hotels. This is both in the content — Donald Trump is a living, breathing avatar of the politics Obama decried — and in the tone. You could never imagine Trump giving a speech so intellectually alive, one whose flaws are subtle rather than glaringly obvious.

This dynamic makes watching Obama’s speech, or even reading the text, a deeply melancholy experience. You think about its ideas, appreciating what’s right and arguing with what’s wrong — and then are struck by just how far America has fallen since this man was president.

When you put all this together, you get a speech that’s at once deeply valuable, deeply frustrating, and deeply sad.

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Obama’s speech begins, appropriately, with nostalgia. He fondly recalls the heady days of the late ’80s and early ’90s — when Soviet totalitarianism and South African apartheid collapsed in rapid succession.

“Do you remember that feeling? It seemed as if the forces of progress were on the march, that they were inexorable,” Obama said. “You felt this is the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and ancient hatreds that had so long stunted people’s lives and confined the human spirit — that all that was crumbling before our eyes.”

He then recited all of the very real progress the world has made in the following years — a massive decline in poverty, the lowest percentage of people dying from war in modern history, a majority of the world’s governments becoming democracies for the first time ever. Fundamentally, Obama attributes this all to the triumph of a very particular kind of liberal political vision — one that prioritized individual rights, limited the power of the state over the individual, and saw all people as fundamental moral equals regardless of their gender or race.

“The progressive, democratic vision that Nelson Mandela represented in many ways set the terms of international political debate,” Obama says. “It doesn’t mean that vision was always victorious, but it set the terms, the parameters; it guided how we thought about the meaning of progress, and it continued to propel the world forward.”

But this triumph of egalitarian politics was, in Obama’s retelling, short-lived. The rise of violent Islamism, Russia’s return to authoritarianism, and China’s growing assertiveness as a global power each posed a kind of threat to the liberal consensus. But things really started to take a downward turn after the 2008 financial crisis, which led to a rise of xenophobic populism even inside liberal democracy’s Western strongholds:

Perhaps more than anything else, the devastating impact of the 2008 financial crisis, in which the reckless behavior of financial elites resulted in years of hardship for ordinary people all around the world, made all the previous assurances of experts ring hollow. … The credibility of the international system, the faith in experts in places like Washington or Brussels, all that had taken a blow. And a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear, and that kind of politics is now on the move. It’s on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago.

In the West, Obama argues, this spirit has taken hold among “many people who lived outside of the urban cores,” tapping into “fears that economic security was slipping away, that their social status and privileges were eroding, that their cultural identities were being threatened by outsiders, somebody that didn’t look like them or sound like them or pray as they did.”

The global backlash to progress has created a fundamental fault line in global politics, a return to the kind of ideological conflict we haven’t seen since the Cold War. Obama sees a world-defining clash between the people who want to extend the progress of the late 20th century and the people who want to reverse it — to return to a pre-modern politics defined by strongman leaders and “hostile competition between tribes and races and religions.”

The challenge of our time, in Obama’s eyes, is defeating this backlash — which can be accomplished by reversing the economic inequality that created the conditions for such a backlash, and forthrightly confronting racism and discrimination wherever we encounter it.

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In the press and among pundits, Obama’s speech was widely covered as an extended, veiled jab at Trump. That’s obviously part of it, but there’s a lot more to the speech — for better and for worse.

There’s a lot to like in the worldview Obama laid out. He’s absolutely correct that there’s been unparalleled progress for humanity in the past several decades, and equally correct to link those to the spread of democracy, mixed economies, and ideals of equality. He’s right that there’s a major backlash to social progress surfacing around the world, and right to say that confronting it is a major — if not the major — task of current politics.

And some of his proposed solutions are genuinely interesting. He called for consideration of a universal basic income, an idea with the potential to end poverty everywhere, and for a “review of our workweek,” a vague phrase that looked like radical proposals such as a four-day workweek. These are the kinds of large-scale policy ideas needed to deal with the hyper-inequality that characterizes our era, and it’s refreshing to hear someone with Obama’s stature talking this grandly.

The problem with the speech, though, is it gets the sources of the backlash to progress a bit wrong. Part of the problem is lumping things together: The spread of jihadism, the rise of Vladimir Putin, and support for far-right parties in the West all have very different causes. It’s a little too pat to treat them all as part of a unified “backlash” to social progress and globalization.

A bigger problem, though, is the centrality of the 2008 financial crash in Obama’s narrative. While the Great Recession was catastrophic in human and economic terms, and damaging to political parties in power at the time, there’s surprisingly little evidence that it contributed significantly to the problems Obama is discussing. Far-right populism in the West, in particular, had been around for decades before the crash — and didn’t gain too much electorally in the immediate wake of the crash.

In Europe, the surge in support for far-right parties really kicked off around 2015 — when refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and other places began flowing into Europe in large numbers. In the United States, close parsing of the data shows that a recent rise in anti-minority sentiment had very little to do with the financial crisis.

“Multiple studies, using several different surveys, have shown that overall levels of racial resentment were virtually unchanged by the economic crash of 2008,” UC Irvine’s Michael Tesler writes at the Monkey Cage. “Some data even suggests that racial prejudice slightly declined during the height of economic collapse in the fall of 2008. The evidence is pretty clear, then, that economic concerns [were] not driving racial resentment in the Obama Era.”

Instead, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the backlash Obama is concerned with reflects cultural resentments and prejudice. White Westerners are flocking to anti-immigrant and racially hostile parties because they feel that their status, their privilege, is threatened. It’s less that economic struggles are making people racist, and more that developments that threaten white privilege — such as large-scale nonwhite immigration and the election of one Barack Obama — has sparked a racist backlash.

Obama shies away from this diagnosis of the problem, seemingly because he wants to see the best in people. “Democracy demands that we’re able also to get inside the reality of people who are different than us so we can understand their point of view,” he says. Maybe we can change their minds, but maybe they’ll change ours.” At the end of the speech, he suggests that this idea — people can be persuaded not to hate — should become the cornerstone of our politics:

[Mandela] reminds us that: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart.” Love comes more naturally to the human heart; let’s remember that truth. Let’s see it as our North Star, let’s be joyful in our struggle to make that truth manifest here on earth so that in 100 years from now, future generations will look back and say, “They kept the march going — that’s why we live under new banners of freedom.”

The available evidence, sadly, suggests this isn’t entirely true. Today’s backlash politics isn’t being pioneered by people ignorant of the ideals of 20th-century liberalism; it’s coming from people who are steeped in them, and choose to center their ideal political movements on tearing down those ideals.

A universal basic income might well be a good idea as a matter of economic policy — I personally think it’s a great one — but it’s unlikely to make European Christians much friendlier to Muslims. Nor is it going to persuade hardcore Trump supporters that mass Latino immigration is good for the United States.

For much of his presidency, Obama tried to see the best in his Republican opponents — to compromise with them, to transcend the “red and blue America” dichotomy. This approach foundered after Democrats lost Congress, as a united Republican opposition simply obstructed whatever Obama wanted to do. Obama was eventually forced to stop trying to compromise with Republicans and start fighting them.

Yet when it comes to the global backlash against progress, Obama is endorsing the same failed playbook from his early presidency. His impulses are admirable; to have gone through eight years of the presidency without losing your ability to see the best in your opponents takes a strength of character I’m sure I wouldn’t have. But Obama’s politics of compromise isn’t enough in a moment that calls for a politics of combat.

Pres. Obama: Democracy demands getting inside “the reality of people who are different than us.”

“You can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you because they’re white, or because they’re male…that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.” pic.twitter.com/NHPR9cQmpQ

— ABC News (@ABC) July 17, 2018

Ultimately, though, my problems with Obama’s speech are the kinds of disagreements that are worth having. Political science, history, political strategy — these are subjects we should be debating. Obama’s speech may not be right on everything, but it’s a good-faith contribution to a series of important arguments about the big questions in 21st-century politics.

Meanwhile, the current president was, on the same day as Obama’s speech, busy lying about misspeaking during a fawning meeting with Vladimir Putin. And that contrast makes Obama’s speech kind of hard to watch.

You don’t have to agree with Obama’s policies or approach to politics to recognize that he’s an intellectually serious, thoughtful guy. When he speaks, he puts care into his words and tries to convey his particular worldview honestly and clearly. Trump’s rhetoric, by contrast, is barely coherent, peppered with crude insults and casual musings about violence.

Trump’s defining characteristic, as a public speaker, is frequent and transparently political lying. The New York Times compared Trump’s record on truth-telling to Obama’s and found a huge discrepancy: “In his first 10 months, Trump told nearly six times as many falsehoods as Obama did during his entire presidency.” The result is that presidential rhetoric is now fundamentally suspect; when the president speaks, it makes more sense to assume what he’s saying isn’t true than to do the reverse. A baseline level of good faith and decency in American public life has, at least for the time being, simply been wiped away.

Listening to Obama give his first major post-presidency speech, then, isn’t just an experience of engaging with ideas. It’s a brutal reminder of just how much we’ve lost — and how quickly we’ve lost it.

Original Source -> Barack Obama just reminded us what we’ve lost

via The Conservative Brief

[geekpellets]

Here Comes the Blair Witch.

Here Comes the Devil  “I touched her pussy, and I smelled it. It smelled like pee.” WTF am I watching!? I made the mistake of thinking this was a legitimate horror film. I should have known different when the first thing I saw was two lesbians fucking. I have no problems with lesbians having sex, it’s just how these movies tend to use lesbians having sex. After that, it was weird/cheesy dialogue and a camera that just wanted to zoom in on everything. Like The Editor this is B-Movie Grindhouse shit, but was it intentional? What’s worse I watched a dub version and that is a mistake, but I won’t take off points for the horrible dub. It does bring up a question, however. I find the acting to be bad at times without taking the dub into account. The actors often seem non-committal about their physical acts, be it hugging or kicking furniture in frustration. Even in these silent or frustrated moments that are understood by most people, the acting just seems bad. Is it generally bad or did the dub move me to think that way? Hmmm. There are jump cuts that throw you forward in time quite a bit, too, that are a little weird. You know what else is weird? The sound design. Fuck it, this movie is really all over the place, not in terms of plot or character, but literally everything else. It is such an awkwardly made film. I’m really fucking confused. It really feels like you showed an alien a bunch of horror movies back to back over three days, gave it 50k, and told it to make a movie. This movie seems to know horror elements but not really how, why, or when they work. It’s such a fucking hodgepodge. I could get into plot and characters, but trust me, none of it is worth talking about. Instead of talking about what this movie is, I want to talk about what it isn’t. It isn’t scary, at all. It isn’t suspenseful. It isn’t dramatic. It isn’t tense or atmospheric, it doesn’t have any unique or interesting imagery, and it fails at setting a mood. It is a thing that exists with no interesting qualities aside from being a confusing chimera of tropes from different horror and thriller sub-genres smashed into a single uninteresting unexciting narrative with moments of questionable dialogue. The film has nudity, and the film has gore, gore on par with The Editor at some points, and weaker at other points. Reminder, The Editor is parody. The other effects, as few as they are, are laughable. This isn’t the worst movie, but it is certainly skippable, not really worth the hour and thirty minutes. You can let this one ride on by. Blair Witch A bunch of young adults decide to go to the woods to see if the Blair Witch is real. Duuuh. When it was discovered that The Woods was actually another Blair Witch film, I was intrigued. I was there when the original Blair Witch took the world by storm and kick started the found footage subgenre in a big way. It wasn’t the scariest or best horror film I had seen at that point, but it left an impression on me and the industry at large. So,  was this film just the first film all over again? Kind of, but mastered. I liked the characters here. I didn’t think any of them were too stupid or too troupish, although none of them were that complex. I did buy their friendship.  What both of these Blair Witch films have done well (What? Book of Shadows? That doesn’t exist. Shut up!) is that they know how to set a mood. They set the mood so well that it becomes a world unto itself, and that is why I really enjoyed this particular entry. They make being lost in the woods more unsettling than you expect being lost in the woods to be, even if you already think being lost in the woods is unsettling. The editing and cuts are really good. The pacing, to me, is fantastic. The movie is like an hour and twenty-eight minutes long, maybe shorter, and I thought I was only twenty minutes in when I was forty minutes in.  What this film does so well, perhaps more than any horror film I have ever seen, is sound design. Sounds of all different kinds, of all different volumes, used effectively and affectionately without ever coming off as cheap. The sound is what elevates this movie. The sound is what teleports you into these woods more so than anything else in the film. The sound is everything in this movie, is treated like it is everything in this movie, and that is so cool to me. This is one for the home theater and the surround sound system, or a great pair of headphones.  But that’s not the only thing I like about this film. I also like the world building. SPOILERS UNTIL THE NEXT PARAGRAPH:  There isn’t a lot of it, but it’s the tiny things that I appreciate. I appreciate the return to the witch’s cabin and actually exploring it for a decent length of time. I also like how they added rules to the Blair Witch. How they came upon that knowledge is questionable, but I love a creature with rules. I also like how it feels like they are being hunted. In the first movie it’s a question until the end. Now it isn’t a question, and now her methods kind of reflect and add character to the witch, as much as we need, imo, as she is ultimately better left a mystery.  She kind of reminds me of a Japanese spirit in so much that she’s basically a force of nature, and there’s no getting out, rules or no.  The only flaw I have with the movie is there are some jump scares, I noticed three of them, of which one of them was absolutely unearned, and the other two are arguable. It’s a minor grievance. Lots of found footage films rely very heavily on jump scares, and I think it’s clear that’s not really the film Blair Witch wanted to be.  Blair Witch is not a very deep movie, it’s not a very effect heavy movie, it’s not a very gory movie (although there is one scene just for people that want to be grossed out), or story driven movie. What it is, is a well acted cinematic experience. It might not scare you, but if you turn off the lights and turn up the volume it will bring you into its world for an hour.