#to the changes of laws and how this effects in hundreds of years of different dynasties

[the-monkey-ruler]

I was reading some Chinese texts and stories, and I have seen that while the immortals have their magic, they despise sorcery. Why is sorcery seen as negative by immortals and why are they different? (like, I think it's mentioned that Shen Gongbao relied more on sorcery even thought he has an immortal teacher)

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the English difference of how 'sorcery' and 'magic' are different things let alone how the translator from what you read translated the original characters. I have never seen any king of cultivation in Daoism being translated as 'sorcery' so I can't say what really say what the original characters could be talking about. It could be talking about 巫术 which I think sometimes include blood rituals but never seen in stories as something ‘bad’ or even acknowledged in Daoist stories. If anything, I think they were more regarded as doctors with unusual methods and fairly good with technology. But I really only seen it to describe Western wizards/witches the most so I cannot say how mush it is used in Daoist stories.

As far as I have been aware Shen Gongbao uses cultivation just as any other immortal and I do not think that he has ever killed/taken his cultivation from any other living creature. That is the only thing I can assume would be 'bad' as it is feeding off another's life force or perhaps even just meaning 'using cultivation for trouble.' I recall that most of his 'evil' deeds come more from Shen Gongbao's ability to manipulate people are his words and being a vengeful man rather than anything dark with his cultivation.

The best guess I can give you is that Shen Gongbao in your translation is the bad guy of the narrative and thus the term 'sorcery' has negative implications in Western term and that is why it is used. Similar to how 'fairy' is used for 仙 when 'immortal' is more proper but this chance depends on whether the immortal is a woman or not.

You can take a read yourself but I think it is just a translation preference.

"Taoism branched from witchcraft. During the Jin and Tang dynasties, due to the participation and compilation of literati and the absorption of a large number of Buddhist scriptures and theories, the original religious form of witchcraft and Taoism became theorized, and Taoism developed a large distance from witchcraft. Taoism has since risen to the level of the upper ruling class, while shamanism has continued to flow among the people. Since the ruling class in history banned witchcraft and " obscene sacrifices" from an orthodox position, the survival of witchcraft has become very difficult. Therefore, witchcraft began to seek survival and a way out. First of all, it was to get closer to Taoism. So that the people also agree that they belong to Taoism. As this development continued, witchcraft and Taoism gradually merged, forming a form of shamanism consisting of both witchcraft and Taoism, and the "two gates of Taoism and Law", namely internal witchcraft and external Taoism.

First of all, shamanism must identify Taishang Laojun , the ancestor god of Taoism , as its leader to confirm that shamanism also belongs to "Laojun's religion" or "Laojun's sect". So based on the legend of Laozi , I compiled the origin of Taishang Laojun, thinking that witchcraft became the original version of Taoism. In addition to moving Taishang Laojun, Zhang Tianshi , Sanqing , Sanyuan, Sanguan, Wuyue , Sidu , Xuantian God and many Taoist gods were also moved into the witch altar, and they were named "Taishang Wuling Laojun" Or "The Supreme Three-Yuan Heart Zhengfa", "The Supreme Five Thunder Purple Micro Thunder Court" and other titles were listed on it, and they absorbed a large number of Taoist scriptures such as "The Supreme Sutra of Changing Purity", "The Supreme Xuantian Miao Sutra", "Tai Shang Zi Wei Treasure Repentance", "Tai Shang Laojun Xing Treasure Repentance", "Three Officials Sutra", "The Three Officials of Heaven, Earth and Water to Eliminate Disasters and Sinless Confessions", "Eleven Days", "South Dou Sutra", The Beidou Sutra and other sutras and confessions are enriched in the witchcraft and Taoist altar with Taoist rituals.

- "A Discussion on the Formation of Witch-Tao Culture in the Symbiosis Cultural Circle" by Ye Mingsheng

[bonefall]

I know in BB StarClan cats over time as they become remembered become more distant from their original life and more a spirit distanced from normal cat concerns and experience of the world, but when you talk about DF cats that doesn't seem to be the case, even the older DF cats like Cloudberry and Ryewhisker basically act like normal cats (except for Snowtuft losing his memory). If this doesn't occur for the Dark Forest, why? Would some cats actually prefer the DF to StarClan since they are scared of losing their former selves when they die (in which case it wouldn't serve as a very effective punishment/deterrent from StarClan's perspective...)

It's something I took from Christian theology that always stuck with me. The way that because Heaven is a collective and separation from God is a punishment, logically, with time you start to become more "one" with it. In some doctrines, you can't feel sinful human emotions like greed or pride if you're accepted into Heaven; meanwhile in Hell you're the exact same person you were in life.

Hell is other people, basically.

In BB, the reason this happens is because there's more power to be had in StarClan. Thunderstar isn't really himself anymore, because generations of cats have been filling him with their ideas of justice along with their prayers. It's kind of like being a quilt; the original square is the core of this new blanket, but eventually... the amount of quilt that is Not You begins to outweigh You.

Same happened to the Four Gods. One Eye is actually WILDLY different from who he was in life. It happens with all Pantheon systems. Power with an unknown side effect.

The Dark Forest is different because Hells are unnatural. They don't abide by the "natural laws" of the religions in this universe. The Place of No Stars doesn't forward the same sort of multiplying force into the Demons that live there, so they're more direct, but "diet" versions of StarClan Angels.

Undiluted, you could say. That's why their pulsars don't get warped with time, no matter how old they are.

Anyway, no, this is on such a huge and massive timescale that it doesn't typically influence a spirit's decision-making. We're talking about literal generations, the equivalent of hundreds of years. Would you be so afraid of not being the person you were at 10 years old, enough that you'd leave all your friends, family, and power behind?

That's how they see it. It's change.

Besides. Most don't even get that strong. Typically, a spirit fades after they're no longer remembered and no longer carrying strong emotion, and even the Dark Forest won't stop that.

(It just happens to be that most cats who go to the Dark Forest end up going there for quite emotional reasons.)

(and also BB!Snowtuft isn't going to be magically forgetting anything, he just doesn't LIKE to think or talk about it)

[mariacallous]

Thousands of Airbnbs and short-term rentals are about to be wiped off the map in New York City.

Local Law 18, which came into force Tuesday, is so strict it doesn’t just limit how Airbnb operates in the city—it almost bans it entirely for many guests and hosts. From now on, all short-term rental hosts in New York must register with the city, and only those who live in the place they’re renting—and are present when someone is staying—can qualify. And people can only have two guests.

Gone are the days of sleek downtown apartments outfitted for bachelorette parties, cozy two- and three-bedroom apartments near museums for families, and even the option for people to rent out their apartment on weekends when they’re away. While Airbnb, Vrbo, and others can continue to operate in New York, the new rules are so tight that Airbnb sees it as a “de facto ban” on its business.

Short-term rentals can bring noise, trash, and danger, and they can price local residents out of their own neighborhoods. Some landlords in New York are prolific and have hundreds of Airbnb listings. But other New Yorkers who have listings on Airbnb are trying to make ends meet, either leasing their place while they’re out of town or renting half of a duplex to help cover their mortgage costs.

Airbnb is also popular with some of the 66 million visitors a year looking for accommodations that are cheaper and sometimes larger than hotels. In 2022 alone, short-term rental listings made $85 million in New York. The city might be a relatively small slice of Airbnb’s global market, but the new rules show how local governments can effectively stamp out short-term rentals overnight and lessen their impact on dense residential areas. And New York is just one of many cities around the world trying to calm the short-term rental gold-rush.

And everyone is taking a different approach. Dallas has limited short-term rentals to specific neighborhoods to avoid disruptive and dangerous parties. Elsewhere, the Canadian province of Quebec and Memphis, Tennessee, among others, now require licenses for short-term rentals. In San Francisco, the amount of time someone can list their entire residence for rent on Airbnb is limited to 90 days each year; Amsterdam puts that limit at 30 nights per year, Paris at 120 days. Berlin previously banned nearly all Airbnbs but walked the decision back in 2018.

Airbnb’s attempts to fight back against the new law have, to date, been unsuccessful. The company sued New York City in June, but a judge dismissed the case in August, ruling that the restrictions were “entirely rational.” Airbnb did not comment on whether it would appeal the decision. Hosts are also fighting for the right to list their apartments as short-term stays by meeting with city officials to try to change the law.

The rules “are a blow to its tourism economy and the thousands of New Yorkers and small businesses in the outer boroughs who rely on home sharing and tourism dollars to help make ends meet,” says Theo Yedinsky, global policy director for Airbnb. “The city is sending a clear message to millions of potential visitors who will now have fewer accommodation options when they visit New York City: You are not welcome.” Yedinsky says Airbnb has a goal of working with the city on “sensible” home-sharing rules, but he did not elaborate on the company’s next steps.

The change will make short-term rentals “a lot less attractive” for many people coming to New York, says Sean Hennessey, a professor at the New York University Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality. And in a city where hotel rooms are small and expensive, it could “make the city a little less accessible.”

There are currently more than 40,000 Airbnbs in New York, according to Inside Airbnb, which tracks listings on the platform. As of June, 22,434 of those were short-term rentals, defined as places that can be booked for fewer than 30 days. Many Airbnbs are concentrated around downtown Manhattan, along the Upper East Side, and in Williamsburg and Park Slope in Brooklyn. While the number of rentals may be small compared to New York City’s population of 8 million people, Murray Cox, founder of Inside Airbnb, says some desirable neighborhoods are overly burdened by short-term rentals, which can result in housing shortages and higher rents. The new law, in theory, could open these homes to local residents. New York City is facing a housing shortage that has increased rents and rates of homelessness.

The implementation of the law shows “very clearly you can cut down on short-term rentals,” says Cox, who was part of the Coalition Against Illegal Hotels, a group that advocated for the registration law. “You can make these platforms accountable.”

There’s an older law on the books that prevents short-term rentals of entire apartments for less than 30 days in New York, but it’s been difficult to enforce without the registration mandate that takes effect Tuesday in place. Compounding the sudden shortage of Airbnbs in New York is another piece of the new law that allows landlords to ban entire buildings from short-term rental platforms. As of July, nearly 9,000 buildings across New York City were on the list. New York’s laws on short-term rentals exempt certain entire apartments on rental platforms that are zoned as hotels and boarding houses, meaning there will still be some entire units advertised on rental platforms.

Some small-time hosts feel the law unfairly loops them in with professional landlords. Margenett Moore-Roberts rents out a two-bedroom apartment in her Brooklyn brownstone; she lives in the home’s other unit with her husband and teen daughter. She says she doesn’t want to rent the apartment to a full-time tenant and lose the flexibility to host family and friends there, or, as she did during the pandemic, use it as a home office. But because her family doesn’t occupy the second two-bedroom unit, it can no longer be listed on Airbnb for stays of less than 30 days.

Restore Homeowner Autonomy and Rights, a group of homeowners in New York, is advocating for amendments to the regulations that would allow owner-occupied one- and two-family homes to register their units with the city and do away with capacity limits. They believe people like Moore-Roberts should be able to rent out units, and that they don’t fall into the same category as bigger landlords.

Moore-Roberts says she isn’t against the rule change entirely, but she wants to see the law reworked with more nuance to protect renters with just one property, like herself. “They’ve used a very blunt object when they should have used a scalpel,” Moore-Roberts says. She is currently out of work, and she says a drop in income from the short-term rental compounds that financial stress. “Putting us all in that same bucket of players is really unfair and not helpful.”

Airbnb says it is canceling and refunding reservations in unregistered accommodations from December 2 onwards, but those up until December 1 can remain in effect to lessen the impact on hosts and guests. Guests won’t be penalized if they book and stay in an unregistered rental, but hosts and the platforms they advertise on could be as of September 5.

Airbnb also says unregistered stays were blocked from future bookings past September 5 as of August 14, but a search showed dozens of entire apartments for more than two people still available to book beyond September 5. These listings should not pass New York’s registration requirements for short-term rentals. Airbnb did not comment on why these are still on the platform. Vrbo declined to comment for this story. Booking.com did not return a request for comment.

There are 3,250 short-term rental hosts who had submitted applications for registration by August 28, according to Christian Klossner, executive director of Office of Special Enforcement in New York City. More than 800 applications had been reviewed, and the office had granted 257 registrations, returned 479 to seek additional information or corrections, and denied 72. As of Tuesday, the office will focus on working with booking platforms to make sure they are using the verification system for registrations and that they are not processing unverified transactions, Klossner says.

A growing number of cities might be trying to clamp down on Airbnb rentals, but the company continues to grow. It made $2.5 billion in the second quarter of 2023, up 18 percent year-on-year, with the number of nights and experiences booked on the platform growing by 11 percent in the same period.

[happybunny999]

The goddess with pink hair and rose gold eyes

(Hyrule warriors age of calamity x human goddess reader fanfic) (various x reader) botw alter universe

Part 1

( the reader is a powerful goddess with in inner god of her own abilities and was in the multiverse looking over people and when a strange portal opens and brings her to hyrule where she must find a way back to the multiverse and help hyrule’s warriors with their problem against the calamity)

Calm , quiet, peaceful… is what you can call the void I am in as I watch over the multiverse and keep it protected from any thing that might pose a threat to it and I find it interesting that with the entire multiverse and everything in it is at my command and control but I’m not corrupt I just find it enjoyable to watch over it.

I have been keeping the multiverse in order for a very long time and yet still look the same as I did before as I still have the appearance of a 17-18 year old girl and have been caring for the whole multiverse at a very young age since then. And I still have extremely beautiful, long, light pink hair, and light dark skin. Wearing a beautiful,cute, and colorful three layered flowing and frilly pink and sky blue dress (that resembles an alternative version of madoka kaname goddess dress) with tights and pink and white Thigh boots that go above my knees and long finger gloves and on my right hand is a symbol of a big star with 8 sides and 4 dots on the point angles with white wings in front of it and lastly My beautiful yet powerful rose gold eyes. (The rest of the design is up to you if you want) (the star on your hand represents the law of cycle and cause and effect along with everything else. I took the symbol from madoka’s law of cycle) 

Oh, and while I do watch over the multiverse I also use my power to summon video games for me to play with to keep myself entertained but my most favorite game the legend of Zelda game series especially the DLC called “Hyrule warriors; age of calamity”

“I love this game so much but I wise I could help them” I said with a bit of an hopefulness but I knew that would never happen.

Suddenly As I turn around to check the multiverse for the one hundred times I saw something that I hadn’t seen before it was a purple and black portal that appeared out of nowhere and it started pulling me towards it as I tried to get away but it was too late as the portal pulled me in and everything went black.

-

A warm and bright light is what greet’s when I slowly open my eyes confused and wondering about what was going on as when my eyes full opened and adjusted to the bright sun above me and the feel of dirt and grass

Wait…sun light, grass, dirt… my eyes shot open and I immediately sit up from where I was laying down quickly looking around my surroundings and saw a pond and crawled over to look and saw how my appearance had changed my dress had turned into a white, small, frilly dress with golden sandals laced up my legs (to which I didn’t like at all) and also realized that I’m in an open field with lots of grass and beautiful flowers and as I stand up I caught sight of a castle not to far way from me which made me confused and started to remember the strange portal that I got pulled into and realized that I might have brought me to a different world so I take a deep breath and close my eyes and try to use my ability to see which world I’m in and not the void. As my eyes were closed and take a calm and focused stance I could feel the wind start to whirl around me as I open my eyes start to glow bright and as I peer through the eyes of a random person and what I see shock and excited me at the same time because the castle from afar had a familiar symbol that I knew immediately as the Hyrule Triforce symbol and I couldn’t help but smile with excitement because I couldn’t believe that I’m in my favorite game?! “Omg I’m actually in Hyrule!” I shout with pure enthusiasm.

After a few seconds I had calmed down and started to think what to do and how to find way back to the void since I had no clue until I hear loud and destructive noises from the village just a few feet away from me and see monsters attacking the people who lives there so decided that I should help them so quickly used some magic and changed clothes I was comfortable with which was a modern long sleeved shirt and style pants along with soft boots and created a pink cloak and put it over my head so that I covered my face so it would be hard to see my face.

As I made my way to the village I see monsters everywhere and the soldiers having a hard time fighting them with their large numbers and some tried to attack me but with my abilities I defeated them easily and help the wounded soldiers by using healing magic as they looked on shock and confusion about my sudden appearance and my ability but I didn’t answer their questions and just started running and fighting the other monsters while helping other people until I found my self outside the gate of Hyrule Castle and turn to see the all too familiar egg shaped teapot laying on the ground powerd down for now and when I approached it to use magic on it to start it without the skein slate(sorry if I miss pronounce it wrong) but as soon as I tried to power it I hear foot steps and turn to see a young man in armor and bright sky blue eyes, dirty blonde hair with his sword drew at me and I recognize him immediately as my favorite character Link.

As we both looked at each other I could see that he is confused and suspicious upon seeing me and my weird looking outfit with my cloak covering my face and doesn’t lower his sword but I didn’t want to blow my cover just yet so I tried to walk away but heavy and loud footsteps caught my and Links attention as we both turn to see a whole group of monsters chasing a young woman with white hair and wearing a ninja outfit she look at us and called for our help while running towards us and ends up tripping over and allowing the shaekin slate to fly in the air. I watched as Link runs forward towards the woman named Impa ( I learned the name with the ability to see the future) as I watched the tablet fly in the sky in slow motion and stare back at the small robot start to power on and the ground begins to shake leaving both Link and Impa confused as I looked on unfazed then a monster try’s to move towards to attack and Link was ready to defend and I start to smile as a huge tower erupts from the shaking ground while Link and Impa looked on surprised and confused. Me and Link turned around to see that Terrako was standing and happily beeping at us and it made me smile even more.

After that “dilemma” Impa was looking up at the tower wondering and Link was keeping an eye on me and Terrako as I played with the small robot with a big smile on my face. Soon Impa turned her attention towards me and started to ask me questions “um… hello there who are you” and “what’s with the weird clothes you are wearing” as Link looked at me suspiciously with his hand close to his sword but I didn’t pay attention to it and was already running with Terrako to the castle with Link and Impa chasing after us yelling to stop. (This is going to be a fun adventure)

I said with a smile.

[newtonsheffield]

Sophie calls Kate, "What is the magic of adorable children and puppies? Because we had Ned for an hour and now Benedict wants kids."

Kate goes "Do you want kids?"

"Yes! But that's not the point!"

Kate just blinking at her brother in law’s girlfriend in her living room after Sophie’s hissed-

“Your adorable son made my boyfriend ask me for a baby.”

“Neddy, honey, come get your grapes.” Kate waited for him to run into the room, hugging her tightly around the legs before he grabbed the bowl off the counter, grinning at Sophie.

“Thanks, Amma. Hi Soph.”

“Hey Neddy.” Sophie smiled, ruffling his hair.

“Maybe you can come play with me and Uncle Benny when you’re done talking to my Mummy.”

“Definitely.”

Both of them watched him jog back to the living room with his bowl of grapes before Kate tutted.

“Firstly, thanks for calling my son adorable.”

“No problem, he’s a sweetie.”

“He is a sweetie.” Kate hummed, “Anthony and I make good babies.”

“And another on the way, Congrats.”

“Anthony’s excited.” Kate nodded, “And I am too.”

“Another sweet little baby to get Ben to pester me to procreate.” Sophie groaned putting her head in her hands.

“Do you not want kids?” Kate asked, “I mean… it’s totally valid if you don’t.”

“I want kids I’m just… only 23? Which I’m realising now sounds rude because you were eighteen when you had Neddy.” Sophie sighed, “Sorry, that was rude.”

Kate raised her eyebrows, “I had a baby at eighteen because Anthony told me he’d pull out and then I told him not to and the contraceptive pill is not a hundred percent effective. It was a stupid decision sure. I was… god, I wasn’t even eighteen yet and it changed the rest of my life.”

“You’re like… a walking advertisement for motherhood though. You love Neddy, and you and Anthony honestly might not be back together if it weren’t for him.”

Kate nodded, “That’s true, and I wasn’t ready, and I’m thankful I have Neddy, and Ant, and this new little bean and i don’t regret having Neddy for a second. But I also know how hard it was, when I was still figuring out my life to have a baby. So just tell him you want to wait, if you do. He can keep it in his pant for another year or so.”

“Thanks,” Sophie said softly before she blinked, “Now, I don’t know how different Anthony is, but Ben’s… never been great at keeping it in his pants.”

“Kate scoffed, “Hello, I’m pregnant so fucking soon after we got back together. Literally three days after we met again after all those years, we had filthy sex in my bedroom. That’s how he bloody found out about Neddy.”

[kyndaris]

The Price of Peace

Before the war, Hiroshima was a sizable city known for its castle town were on par with Himeji or Osaka Castle. During the war, it became a focal point of military activity with large depots of military supplies. Not too far away was the location for where the Akatsuki Corps, a special cadet system set up by the Army as the war situation grew more severe. These young men were trained daily in preparation for suicide attacks against the Allied Forces.

Everything changed, however, on 6th August 1945 when the United States of America dropped the 'Little Boy' atomic bomb and killed approximately a hundred thousand people in the blast, and upending thousands more in the intervening years.

With this one mighty blow, the death knell of World War II was rung with the Allied Forces anointed the winners.

But what was the price for this victory?

As the film Oppenheimer opined, perhaps the creation of the atomic bomb had ignited the world into a downward spiral to destruction. Humanity was so beholden with the idea of if they 'could' create such a bomb there was too little consideration on whether we 'should.' War is tribalism at its best, where we paint those like us as the 'good guys' and demonise the opposing side.

We might all be humans struggling to live on this planet we call home but should someone come to disrupt the equilibrium we live in, humans are very quick to lash out and attack those they feel are too 'different.' In societies of old, blame was laid on 'outsiders' for all manners of ills. The witch hunts are one such example.

In any case, the creation of the atomic bomb led to several more weapons of mass destruction being constructed as a means to threaten and deter others despite attempts from the survivors to prevent their proliferation. A macrocosm of a race to have the bigger weapon or to 'protect' one's interest because you see the neighbour across the street has bought a gun.

As an aside, America's gun laws are a mess and if the world ever needs to see what stocking weapons of mass destruction could lead to, look no further than the mass shootings in America that happen almost every day.

It only takes one imbecile (or, in the case of nuclear weapons, a nation of imbeciles) to plunge the world into disrepair.

Anyways, what I wanted to say was that listening to the testimonies and reading the stories of those who lived through the endless days of Hell after the atomic bomb, it became very hard for me to reconcile why anyone would want to keep nuclear weapons on hand. The pain and death it caused. The aftereffects due to radiation. And the shattering effect it had on families as they grappled with their loss.

No dispute, be it over bruised pride or resources, should ever need the use of nuclear weapons for the victory attained would be Pyrrhic at best. Even the Akatsuki Corps members, boys who were trained to give up their lives in service to their nation, could not equate the destruction of HIroshima with 'glorious' war.

This was all laid bare to me at the Atomic Bomb Museum and the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims.

Now, I'm not sure how telling it is but while Hiroshima had a large number of peace tourists visiting the cenotaph and the Atomic Bomb museum, there hadn't been as many visitors to Nagasaki. Rather, Nagasaki had more local tourists flocking to the region wishing to try out specialty dishes such as champon noodles and castella.

After appreciating the gravity of the events that shaped modern Japan, including the Atomic Bomb Dome, bleachpanda and I enjoyed a very noodle-heavy okonomiyaki at a nearby restaurant before we headed to Hiroshima Castle.

Hiroshima Castle was established by Mori Terumoto in 1589 at the delta of the Otagawa River. In 1600, following the battle of Sekigahara, Terumoto was forced to retreat and Fukushima Masanori from Kiyosu took control of the castle. However, after restoring the castle following the flood of 1619 without permission from the Tokugawa shogunate, Masanori was dismissed. Asano Nagaakira then became lord of Aki and the Asano family continued to hold this position up until the Meiji restoration.

Inside Hiroshima Castle, we climbed, reading about its history from the exhibits until we managed to reach the top and looked out on the city. After seeing the tragedy of the atomic bomb, it was nice to learn some of Hiroshima's early history as a bustling city and its ties to the Tokugawa Shogunate before its abolition.

Despite the cloudy day, Hiroshima glimmered before us int he afternoon light.

Our key tourist sites finished, bleachpanda dragged me to Animate - a weeb store filled with gacha capsules on the ground floor with figurines (including Ichiban Kuji prizes), mang, doujinshi and other merchandise from popular anime available for purchase.

While I picked out some tasteful Detective Conan acrylic stands, bleachpanda ended up buying a Demonslayer shirt that cost more than half of my purchase! Truly, she is a fiend who cannot be stopped. And will then turn around the next moment to blame an innocent, such as myself, for her extravagant spending!

As the day drew to a close, bleachpanda and I ended the day at Sensui, a restaurant at the Hilton. The two of us got the Onomichi set (a place I would have liked to visit because Yakuza 6: The Song of Life had its early story beat set here. And it is where we get the mascot Ono Michio! With his charming hassaku face, steamy Onomichi ramen hat, cute fish pouch and cool boots, vital for any fisherman, and his cool and trendy Ono shirt!) and which cost us approximately 100,000 yen each!

Given half our holiday was over anyways, i thought it a nice touch to splurge a little and treat ourselves. Tomorrow, after all, was another day of transit as we headed further east to Osaka. And while I wouldn't be able to see the sights of Miyajima or Onomichi, I did have one thing I was excited for.

Universal Studios Japan, here we come!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nicole Narea at Vox:

For 49 years after Roe v. Wade, Americans had the right to obtain an abortion if they became pregnant. Then, two years ago, with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court put an end to it. The Biden administration and some blue states — supported by a network of nonprofits focused on reproductive care — aggressively sought to compensate, while many red states enacted near-total bans on abortion.  But Dobbs has nevertheless had a devastating effect on pregnant people in huge swaths of the country. While the number of abortions across the country actually increased last year — thanks in large part to increasingly cheap and accessible medication abortion — that has not changed the fundamental realities of post-Dobbs America. Large reproductive care deserts have emerged in which there are no abortion providers for hundreds of miles. Pregnant people are being denied necessary medical care as their doctors fear the legal repercussions of providing it. All of this has exacerbated long-standing inequities. 

Both abortion bans and attacks on reproductive rights are broadly unpopular, and elections in the years since Dobbs showed that abortion rights were a potent motivating issue for voters. But in this year’s matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — both of whom have been reluctant messengers of their party’s stance on abortion — there’s a question as to whether the issue will continue to motivate American voters.  It is not too late for their votes to make a difference for reproductive access. It may seem like the worst has already come to pass for the abortion rights movement: though once protected by the constitution nationally, access now increasingly depends on where you live or whether you can afford to travel for the care you need. But Republicans have also made clear that they have no intention of stopping there.

How the legal landscape has changed

In the wake of Dobbs, 13 states immediately implemented “trigger�� bans on abortion, while others sought to enforce abortion restrictions that were on the books before Roe v. Wade was even decided in 1973 or quickly moved to pass new bans on abortion. A new patchwork of abortion laws was established in the US within months. A total of 14 states have enacted near-total bans on abortion.

Many of these bans involved narrow medical exceptions in which abortions could be performed when the health or life of the mother was at risk. But those exceptions have proved exceptionally difficult — in some states, nigh impossible — to qualify for. 

[...]

Republicans aren’t stopping now that they have overturned Roe. They have continued to advocate for a national abortion ban, even though Trump has indicated that he would not sign it, and opened up new attacks on contraception and in vitro fertilization.  If Trump wins the election, he could also order the FDA to rescind its approval of the abortion drug mifepristone after the Supreme Court left open that possibility in a recent ruling upholding access to the drug for now. In short: The dust has still yet to settle post-Dobbs, but it’s clear that abortion was only Republicans’ first target in a larger war on reproductive freedom.

What that has meant for people seeking abortions

Despite the new restrictions on abortion in many parts of the country, the number of abortions performed nationally has actually gone up slightly since Dobbs. But it would be a mistake to see that statistic and say that everyone has improved access to abortion equally across the US. “While the numbers have gone up a bit nationally, in some states, there are virtually no abortions happening,” at least in a formal health care setting, said Usha Ranji, associate director for women’s health policy at KFF, a health policy research and news organization.

The use of medication abortion, which can end a pregnancy during the first trimester, has gone up in particular. Though it was already the most common method of obtaining an abortion pre-Dobbs, it is now cheaper and easier to obtain quickly, especially via telemedicine. That’s because, amid the pandemic, the FDA suspended the requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in person, resulting in an explosion of telemedicine abortion services.  

[...] Anecdotally, physicians have also reported concerns about their ability to provide adequate reproductive care since the Dobbs decision came down. A KFF national survey of OBGYNs found that significant shares of respondents were concerned about their ability to administer a level of care consistent with the medical profession’s standards, their potential legal liability in states where abortion is banned, and health outcomes for their patients. In states where abortion is banned or restricted, for example, six in 10 OBGYNs say their decision-making autonomy has become worse since the Dobbs ruling. “They’re in this place where they have to really contemplate whether they continue to provide care within that state, or whether they leave the state so that they can actually practice medicine in a way that complies with the standards of care,” Gibson said.

2 years ago, when the reactionary right-wing Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the impacts of the Dobbs ruling were a disaster in several red states and significantly increased the amount of abortion access deserts.

But anti-abortion extremists are not stopping there, as they are also going after a wide swath of reproductive rights, such as mifepristone, IVF, birth control, and contraception.

[raw-law]

Anything you'd change in the law, of you had the chance to?

Light:

My answer is, dear Anon: nothing. I'd change absolutely nothing about the law. Let me explain.

The laws---if you're talking about international ones, that is---they're generally well thought-out. Well formulated by a group of intelligent people over hundreds of years. All we, the general public, have to do is simply: follow the law.

But there are people in the world who aren't part of this 'general public'. Politicians, world leaders, presidents, ministers, who hold a lot of power in their hands.

Anon, the sad truth is this. No matter how many changes you make to the law, no matter how fair you try and make it, how hard you try for justice to be served, there will still be people escaping the long arm of the law.

For people with power, that's the problem. No one can stop them, even if every single law says that they're wrong. Much less if the person is a world power, a powerhouse country with others backing them up.

That's why my views align so much with Kira's own. If the law can't get them, then it's time to go beyond the law to delegate out punishment to those criminals. We can't let them get away scot-free, can we?

Thanks for your question, Anon.

L:

i don't think i'd change anything with the law either, but i share a slightly different mindset.

in my eyes, there's not much you can change to suddenly cure the world of all its evil. no matter what laws you add, there will always be people who wish to wreak havoc on others. if anything, adding more laws might tempt people to break them even more... what would really need to be changed is how we go about keeping people like this contained.. how do we effectively weed out the sick and prevent them infecting anyone else?

well, we have trials. lawyers. prosecutors... but, let's be honest. i think everybody knows it's not a perfect system. nothing can be. there's no point in changing law if you can't change the government itself. and even if you are to change the government itself, nothing is ever going to be ideal. humanity is inherently flawed. anything humanity tries to create, especially when based around their society, will be flawed as well. if anything, the current law is probably the best we'll be able to construct.

i still can't excuse kira's murder sprees but... in a question like this..? i'm afraid i can't entirely oppose his thought process either...

[handeaux]

Cincinnati Surrendered To The Automobile When Jaywalking Was Outlawed

How many Cincinnatians subscribed to Popular Mechanics magazine in 1912? And how many of those subscribers recognized, in the September issue, a tiny article on Page 414 that laid out the future of the Queen City? It all seemed so innocent:

“The city pedestrian who cares not for traffic regulations at street corners, but strays all over the street, crossing in the middle of the block, or attempting to save time by choosing a diagonal route across a street intersection instead of adhering to the regular crossing, is designated as a ‘jay walker’ in Kansas City. Kansas City recently adopted a new ordinance for the control of foot traffic as well as vehicles, and ‘jay walking’ is to be prevented as rigidly as ‘jay driving.’”

That squib appeared adjacent to another brief item on how the brand-new town of Speedway, Indiana allowed only motorized vehicles on its streets, banning anything pulled by horses. In combination, the two articles sounded the death knell for a way of life that had existed for millennia.

Look at the illustrations that grace the old books about Cincinnati. There is no such thing as jaywalking. The streets were owned and enjoyed by the people. Pedestrians share the road with wheeled vehicles, crossing wherever convenient, even stopping in the middle of the street to chat. Horse-drawn carriages and wagons hauled passengers and freight. Men pulling handcarts and pushing wheelbarrows dodge the throng. The only motorized vehicles were the electric street cars, and they were confined to their tracks.

During election season, Cincinnati’s streets filled with torchlit political parades. On at least one occasion, a parade filled Vine Street from Fourth Street to McMicken with chanting men waving flaming brands, lighting the clouds above with a rosy glow. When any dignitary showed up in town, they were expected to speechify from their hotel balcony and people thronged the street below, halting traffic as they cheered. People crossing the street from any direction weren’t “jay walking.” They were just “walking.” The automobile changed all that.

Horse-drawn vehicles and electric streetcars killed a fair number of people, but the motor car quickly notched more than a hundred fatalities and many more injuries every year. Local media often blamed the victims. The Cincinnati Post [8 January 1916] piled on:

“Fourth-st. is the mecca of Cincinnati’s jay walkers. Most of the jay-walking is done between Vine and Race-sts. The other day we counted 20 persons crossing the street at different points at one time – and none was using a cross-walk. Fortunately accidents are rare on this street because of the extreme care exercised by autoists.”

It appears not to have occurred to the writer that this behavior, just five years previous, would have been considered normal.

The hammer landed in 1917. Cincinnati joined the ranks of other auto-infested cities that criminalized jaywalking. The new law went into effect in May of that year, restricting automobiles to no more than 8 miles per hour in the business district and 15 miles per hour in residential districts. For the first time, pedestrians were restricted to sidewalks and crosswalks. Pedestrians – literally – fought the new law. According to the Post [23 May 1917]:

“Theodore Mitchell, 38, agent, 631 Maple-av, is the first person to be arrested on a charge of jay-walking since the new traffic ordinance went into effect. Traffic Patrolman [Edward] Schraffenberger charged Mitchell attempting to make a short cut at Fifth and Walnut streets. When reminded of his mistake, Mitchell became angry, Schraffenberger said. Mitchell, charged with disorderly conduct and violating the traffic ordinance, was cited to appear in court Thursday.”

If you’d asked the cops, however, they would unanimously aver that the chief violators were women. The Post [21 May 1917] quoted Police Lieutenant Charles Wolsefer:

“The women are awful. They just don’t pay any attention at all. Just take a look at them crossing on Race-st.”

The reporter did so, and counted 48 jaywalkers, of whom 37 were women. A few days later, another Post reporter followed another policeman on patrol who confronted 25 jaywalkers, of which only two were men.

Among the first arrested was Miss Ella Bright of 538 Howell Avenue, Clifton, a teacher at Woodward High School. Miss Bright did not care for the attitude of the city policeman who accosted her. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [7 June 1917]:

“She declared she had been upbraided unduly by an officer because she crossed the street in a manner which was a violation of the traffic laws after alighting from a street car.”

In August of that year, Mrs. John Mongan, 4217 Glenway Avenue, Price Hill, was arrested for striking a police officer who grabbed her arm as she executed a “Dutch Cut” (diagonal jaywalking) across the intersection at Sixth & Race.

Former U.S. President William Howard Taft, then on the law faculty at Yale, was visiting his hometown that year and blithely jogged across Sixth Street near Main, only to be corralled by Officer Joseph Schindler, who gave the law professor a little legal lesson.

The Post even enlisted its “boy reporter,” 12-year-old Freddy Printz, to test the city’s ability to enforce the new jaywalking regulations. On 7 July 1917, Freddy reported his fruitless attempts to get bawled out by a police officer. Despite blatantly jaywalking at five different locations, he only earned a polite reprimand from one officer.

While the local constabulary was doing their best to enforce the new laws, the automobiles were merciless. On 21 May 1918, the Post reported on the 25th traffic fatality of the year. The victim, a 12-year-old girl, was the twelfth child killed by an automobile that year.

Curiously, although Cincinnati outlawed jaywalking, the city had omitted one very important detail that might have contributed to compliance with the new law. A letter signed only “Chicagoan” appeared in the Post on 13 June 1917. The writer suggested that, like other cities attempting to get pedestrians to cross at intersections, Cincinnati should assist pedestrians by painting white lines on the street to mark approved pedestrian crossing paths. Cincinnati’s mandatory crosswalks were unmarked!

[reasoningdaily]

“We’re Going to Be Overwhelmed”: How Louisiana Just Ballooned Its Jail Population

Louisiana's governor championed a raft of new laws that double down on punishment, fueling a cycle of incarceration that sends more money into local sheriffs' coffers.

Piper French   |    March 8, 2024

In February, as the Louisiana legislature debated Senate Bill 3, which would move all 17 year olds charged with a crime out of the juvenile justice system and back into the adult system, Will Harrell, an advisor to New Orleans Sheriff Susan Hutson, went to update the department’s Prison Rape Elimination Act coordinator on the proposed changes. He watched as tears came to her eyes. Teenagers are uniquely vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse in adult jails, and federal law requires they be separated from the adult population, which often translates to solitary confinement conditions. “She knows what that means for these kids,” Harrell told Bolts. 

The bill quickly passed and was signed into law by Louisiana’s new governor Jeff Landry on Wednesday. Now, Harrell is scrambling to figure out how to absorb dozens of 17 year olds into the already-overburdened Orleans Parish Justice Center once SB 3 takes effect in April. “We’re already at capacity. We’re under a consent decree,” he said. “I talked to deputies who were there seven years ago when they had kids. And they were like, ‘oh, this is just going to be a mess.’” 

“In conjunction with other legislation pending during this special session, we anticipate a massive, unmanageable population explosion at OJC,” Hutson wrote in a statement.

Landry sailed into the governor’s office last November after a campaign filled with crime-and-punishment rhetoric. Despite the fact that Louisiana already has the nation’s highest rate of incarceration, he made one of his first acts as governor convening a special legislative session on crime. In an extraordinarily fast nine-day session which ended last Friday, Republican lawmakers passed all 37 bills under consideration, a grab bag of tough-on-crime proposals that included restricting post-conviction relief, increasing law enforcement immunity, and legalizing execution methods such as nitrogen gas and the electric chair. 

Sarah Omojola, the director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s New Orleans office, called it a “one hundred percent” rollback of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, the raft of bipartisan criminal legal reforms passed under former Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards in 2017. “In some instances, this isn’t just a rollback,” she added. “This is taking us back to the early 2000s, late ‘90s.”

Observers are just starting to take stock of what this flurry of new legislation will mean for crime deterrence, and for the state budget. But Omojola, Harrell, and others are already certain that several different measures will work together to significantly grow the state’s pretrial populations, as well as the number of people sentenced and serving time. Other bills effectively eliminate parole, vastly restrict “good time” credits, and mandate prison time for technical violations of parole and probation. 

“Of course it’s going to balloon the prison population. Every single time these kinds of laws go into play, the incarceration rate jumps,” said Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, a University of Kentucky geography professor whose 2023 book, Prison Capital: Mass Incarceration and Struggles for Abolition Democracy in Louisiana, examines incarceration in the state. “That’s just basic math.” 

And in Louisiana, that means, once again, a profound and reverberating impact on parish jails and sheriffs. Owing to a unique arrangement designed to address overcrowding and bad conditions at Angola prison back in the 1970s, Louisiana’s local lock-ups house more than half of its state prisoner population. 

Jails operate as sort of a carceral shadow system: deadlier than the state prison system, lacking many of its resources and offerings, and run by sheriffs, who are comparatively unaccountable to state officials. East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, a dangerous jail that has for 15 years running been presided over by the same notorious sheriff, for instance, does not allow in-person visits, even though some of the people held there have been incarcerated for years on end. If someone dies in custody in a Louisiana jail, officials have no responsibility to notify their loved ones.

The Louisiana Sheriff’s Association, which lobbies on behalf of the state’s 64 sheriffs, testified in favor of SB 3, despite Hutson’s opposition. “It’s not just a bill that we are supporting, this is a bill that is part of our plan,” spokesperson Mike Ranatza told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This is what we asked the governor to entertain for us in the special crime session…this is what the overwhelming majority of our sheriffs have asked for.” 

The jail system runs on “per diem” payments that the state grants local law enforcement in exchange for jailing people who have been sentenced to state prison, payments which this year will total $177 million. More prisoners means more money for sheriffs across the state—and likely future efforts to expand jails, according to Pelot-Hobbs. 

“Louisiana law enforcement agencies are uniquely invested in incarceration” because of the per-diem system, Omojola told Bolts. “They financially benefit from people who are being held in their jails without providing any of those programs or resources.” 

The origins of today’s jail arrangement has its roots not in tough-on-crime policies, but in a lawsuit filed by four Black Angola prisoners challenging the conditions of their confinement. In 1975, in response to the lawsuit, a federal judge limited Angola’s population. Rather than build new prisons, it was cheaper and easier for the state to transfer some prisoners to local jails to serve the remainder of their sentences. At first, Pelot-Hobbs writes in Prison Capital, sheriffs protested. But after the per diem system was instituted, they began to consider their new prisoners a boon, even asking Angola to send them more people.

By the 1990s, Pelot-Hobbs argues, jails had gone from being a “temporary spatial fix” to “the long-term geographic solution for the Louisiana carceral state.” Sheriffs, now reliant on the per-diem money, organized for jail expansion to hold more state prisoners. Between 1999 and 2019, the state added some 14,000 jail beds. “Other parishes built out huge jails that they’ll never need for their local population,” said Harrell. “It’s like a hotel. You open up the hotel, DOC sends you some kid from New Orleans, they pay you for the hotel rooms. And that literally is why you have the jail.”

This system may financially benefit local sheriffs and the state department of corrections, but it comes at the expense of the people locked up in their jails. “There’s nothing on the inside,” said Amelia Herrera, an organizer with Voice of the Experienced’s Baton Rouge chapter who spent time in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison in 2015 and has a loved one currently incarcerated there. Officials, she said, “will say the reason there’s no type of programs inside of this facility is because it’s a pre-trial facility…But when we have people in there for six and seven years?” 

“You can’t visit,” she added. “They make it almost impossible to keep a connection with the outside.”

As it stands, providing no programming or visits even for people locked up for years on end is legal. Louisiana’s regulations governing how people should be treated while incarcerated in its jails are notably minimal and vague. While the state has a set of “basic jail guidelines” that apply to facilities that house state prisoners, a 2023 report by the University of Texas at Austin’s Prison and Jail Innovation Lab found that they fell short compared to regional counterparts like Texas and Florida. The report determined that the state’s jails have little to no requirements regarding transparency around in-custody deaths, adequate heating and cooling systems, or in-person visiting rights, and that their regulations around discipline are the least comprehensive of anything they reviewed. It also noted that the family members of incarcerated Louisianans contend that the regulations that do exist are routinely flouted. 

The state legislature had commissioned the report, which concluded with a set of recommendations for jails to adopt guidelines prohibiting corporal punishment and the denial of basic needs like water or sleep. But when the lab’s director, Michele Deitch, and her team submitted their work last fall, the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association immediately sent a letter expressing appreciation for the work but signaling they would not follow the bulk of their recommendations, citing concerns over security plus limited capacity. 

The report was completed several months before Landry took office. Now the new raft of bills passed during the special crime session threatens to turbocharge Louisiana’s cycle of jail expansion, exacerbating the problems already on display in the report’s pages before the state does much to try to remedy them. 

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry speaking at CPAC conference in Texas in August 2022. (Lev Radin/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Omojola highlighted three bills proposed by Republican Senator Debbie Villio, HB 9, 10, and 11, which, taken together, “essentially work to make sentences much much longer—and therefore fill our prisons and our jails,” she said. HB 9 aims to abolish discretionary parole in most cases, HB 10 limits the accumulation of “good time” credits meaning that an individual would be required to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence without exception, and HB 11 increases the penalties for even technical violations of parole or probation. 

Harrell noted that HB 9 and 10 may have an indirect impact on the pretrial population as well, because they take away people’s incentive to accept a plea offer. With vastly reduced prospects of getting out on parole or getting a sentence reduced with “good time” credits, people may be less keen to accept a conviction and start getting their time over with, and more likely to wait out a trial date in jail. “When that’s taken away from them, they are like, ‘Well, then why should I leave? I’m just gonna stay here in jail and roll my dice and hopefully somebody on a jury will decide that I’m not guilty,’” he said. 

Villio, the bills’ sponsor and an ally of Landry’s, contends that these laws won’t increase prison populations as long as judges adjust their sentencing decisions accordingly. In a text message to Nola.com, she said, “It requires a mind-reset on sentencing that in the end should result in a wash. We, of course, will be monitoring that.” When Bolts asked how this sort of paradigm shift for judges would work in practice, Villio said, “I have the utmost confidence in our judiciary,” noting she believes that trainings have already been scheduled. 

The Crime and Justice Institute, a policy analysis group, has studied other states’ implementation of similar determinate sentencing laws; Leonard Engel, the group’s director of policy and campaigns, told Bolts their research shows that judges do not ultimately adjust their sentences anywhere enough to make up the difference in years served.

HB 11, the bill dealing with technical violations of probation and parole, is also alarming to reform advocates like Bruce Reilly of Voice of the Experienced. Under the terms of the bill, people on parole or probation who are merely re-arrested, not even convicted, could get sent to prison. “That’s really where the sheriff and jails are gonna get their bread and butter,” Reilly said.

The special session also passed a law requiring 20 year mandatory minimums for carjacking cases that involve bodily injury and established financing to establish a state trooper force for New Orleans. “That’s gonna rack up a whole bunch of new arrests,” Harell said of the state trooper force. “Where do you think those people are gonna be housed?”

Overcrowding is likely to lead to an expansion of the footprint of local jails in what Pelot-Hobbs predicted could be a repeat of the same patterns of the 1980s and 1990s. The Crime and Justice Institute estimates that the additional prison time people in a given year serve under HB 9 and 10, instead of getting out on “good time” credits or parole, will cost the state upwards of a billion dollars over time. And that’s before any budget increases sheriffs could ask for—and they are likely to ask, Pelot-Hobbs said. “We’re going to see sheriffs organizing and pushing to expand their jails for this moment,” she said. “We are going to see sheriffs mobilizing and organizing to get either property taxes or millages or sales taxes to get more jail space to incarcerate the state prisoners. I also think we’re likely going to see them lobbying the state legislature for higher per diem rates.” 

Advocates worry that the growth of local budgets and contracts, combined with Landry’s efforts to reduce accountability for law enforcement, will add to the state’s problems with cronyism. “It’s going to fuel the corruption, the closed circle of sheriffs and the folks who contract with them, who will know that there’s more money to be had if they can land the contracts for this jail expansion and for the increased services needed for a larger population,” says Julien Burns, the communications lead for Sheriffs for Trusting Communities. Along with Common Cause, the group has documented how sheriffs receive millions in campaign contributions from guard uniform makers, telecoms and bail bonds companies, and contractors that may hope to secure lucrative contracts with the department. 

In the waning days of the special crime session, a discussion finally arose about the collective impact of these bills on Louisiana’s jails, with even conservative lawmakers such as Villio, the sponsor of HB 9, 10, and 11, expressing an awareness of the need for greater programming and services in the jails. “Everybody’s on record, saying the right thing—like if we’re gonna do this, we can’t just warehouse [people]. We’re gonna have to address the issues,” said Harrell. The legislature now moves to its regular session, where some of these issues could be hammered out. 

Dramatically expanding jail programming, of course, would mean an even greater expansion of the carceral budget in Louisiana. Pelot-Hobbs said that she doubts that substantive programming will actually materialize in the jails. “I just think it’s a false promise,” she told Bolts. “And even if the promise came true, it’s still just acquiescing to the general kind of commitment to incarceration as the solution.” 

Still, in Harrell’s view, allocating such resources is crucial given the vastly restricted terrain for criminal legal transformation in the state as long as Landry is in office. “These tough on crime Republicans are running the show,” he said. “There’s no going back right now, at least for the next four years. And so to the extent people are concerned about the health and safety of people who are currently incarcerated, who will soon be incarcerated under these legislations, they need to understand that programming resources matter.”

Nola.com reported this week that the exact costs of the laws that have already passed in February are uncertain because lawmakers rushed them through, suspending usual rules that would have entailed more attention to the budget. 

The state’s decision to double down on incarceration, Pelot-Hobbs added, will affect public spending in other areas, too. “As money gets more and more directed towards these kinds of expenditure projects, less funds are going to be available for road construction, levy construction, schools,” she said. “The criminal legal system never operates in a silo.” 

[catbountry]

I think calling gender dysphoria a disorder, maybe if you're uncomfortable with the term illness, is just being honest. I think a person needs to have gender dysphoria to be trans, full stop. People who have gender dysphoria need treatment by way of transitioning to the gender they feel like they are. Some of that is hormones and surgery, which is medical treatment. I also didn't say that hormones are being handed out like candy, I was saying that they shouldn't. Yes, some of the effects of hormones are reversible but some are not and to say it doesn't matter is trivializing the pain of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people. Detransitioners who thought they were trans but have a different mental disorders are real. That is a thing that happens.

I know there's a lot of emotions caught up in all of this but that's not all that useful to me, since I'm pretty analytical. I want trans people to get the care they need. I also want the medical establishment to be accountable to their patients. This should include a process of making sure medical transition is right for a patient. That also includes giving their patient all of the possible side effects and drawbacks, no matter how unlikely.

In my opinion, transitioning without the medical backing is just another kind of body modification. Which I'm fine with, by the way. If you're 18 and you want to cut off your fingers, then that is that individual's right. Just like it's a person's right to take hormones, with the medical side effects plainly stated, whether they have gender dysphoria or not. However, that person might then experience gender dysphoria because of the changes in their body since they weren't actually trans to begin with.

If it were up to me, all trans issues would be dealt with by doctors, the social groups around the trans person, and the trans person themselves with not a peep from politicians but we don't live in that world. Because of that I can understand the aversion to calling gender dysphoria or transness a mental disorder but I think it's better than the alternative of pretending that aren't measurable, scientific reasons for people transitioning from one gender to the other.

You don't need to respond, I just wanted to explain what I said and why I said it.

You sound a lot like me a few years ago. I feel like I need to address this publicly, though, since I had my mind changed through looking at articles and talking to trans people.

I'll give you some links. Here's the Human Rights Campaign page on Gender Affirming Care. Surgeries on transgender minors are incredibly rare. The scientific consensus is that these treatments save lives and are safe. Meanwhile, death threats towards doctors who treat minors seeking gender-affirming care are far more common. Laws banning gender-affirming care are based on bogus science. I personally know people who have detransitioned, with one living happily and being able to reverse the effects of HRT, and the other transitioning again because it just wasn't the right time for them, something that's actually a very common reason for those who detransition to do so. I've seen those detransitioner video testimonials on YouTube, and I've seen how many of those people become mouthpieces for TERFs and transphobic pundits whose only goal is to make the lives of all trans people miserable, while cynically using the stories of detransitioners as examples... even though there are plenty of people who detransition and don't become pick-mes. Doctors are aware of detranstioners (called "retransitioners" in this study), and we're constantly trying to tweak and rework these things to have the best results possible, and even still, the overwhelming majority of people seeking treatment are happier with their transition.

I'm saying this because I thought the same things you do right now. I thought these were all pretty reasonable positions, only to learn that these procedures are so overwhelmingly safe. The youth are in more danger from having legal restrictions when these are decisions aren't just between them and doctors. The number of trans people that told me that they would gladly take the risks I thought were associated with puberty blockers to transition anyway because it's just that important to them, that got through to me. There is no reason for this division to exist, especially when the doctors are more permissive and nuanced than the so-called "transmedicalists," and especially when the right of trans people to live as their true gender is under constant threat. The detransitioners as a talking point are a distraction, anecdotal and meant to pull on the heartstrings of people who are skeptical of this newfangled "transgender" thing that isn't newfangled at all. I'm not saying that detransitioners don't deserve any kind of compassion; I've been as supportive of my friends who have detransitioned as much as I have been of my friends who have transitioned. But if they're only sharing their stories to be used as ammo by people who want to restrict access to life-saving medical care? Then they can fuck off, and I don't care about them, and they don't care about other trans people. No amount of kissing up to TERFs and transphobes will make those people ever actually accept them. And the gatekeepers are likely bitter because of the perception that these kids are having an easier time than they did which... isn't that the point? To make things easier for younger generations? It just kinda feels like the trans version of "I had to walk 15 miles of school in the snow barefoot, and you wouldn't hear me complain!"

I can't make you come to this conclusion. I can post links and try to argue my case the best I can and tell you how I came to change my mind. It might not feel like there's that much of a gap between the two of us, but there is a gap put there by people whose main agenda is to undermine trans rights. I hope you can recognize that. Maybe not now, but eventually. I hope.

[hoursofreading]

The short answer is that focusing on vegan outreach just doesn’t work. Diet is a core part of a lot of people’s identity, and to a random person walking down the street (or browsing the metaphorical street online), being approached by a vegan activist asking them to “simply” stop eating animals is a major imposition. They’ll probably think the activist is telling them what to do, and most people don’t like being told what to do.1 As a result, even after orgs have spent decades talking to people about veganism and distributed over 30 million pamphlets, the number of vegans and vegetarians per capita has barely changed. Welfare campaigns, like the Shrimp Welfare Project, are different. They cast corporations and the government, rather than individual consumers, as the actors at fault for animal suffering. And by leading with a message focused on suffering and systemic change rather than diet and individual choices, they manage to raise public awareness of factory farming while actually boosting support for the total abolition of animal agriculture. This is true even when they successfully curtail egregious factory farming practices that one might think would catalyze opposition to animal agriculture. Multiple research teams have tested how welfare campaigns affect support for animal product consumption and abolitionism by presenting survey participants with either a news article about a new corporate or government animal welfare policy or a control article. They consistently find that participants who are shown the treatment article say they’re more likely to reduce their consumption of animal products, and sometimes by wide margins. As law professor and researcher Justin Marceau remarked at one of the leading animal advocacy conferences this year, participants in a yet-unpublished study “who learned about the fact of a Prop 12 type [animal welfare] law [in their state] were about twice as likely to think that pigs should have more rights, and to say that they were less likely to eat pig.” For all the good you can do by going vegan — or talking to people you know personally about veganism (as opposed to random people on the street) — you can do even more good by supporting or raising money for corporate and political campaigns to improve farmed animal welfare. Corporate pressure campaigns to stop companies from using eggs laid by hens who are confined in tiny cages can improve between 9 and 120 years of animal life for every dollar spent, while cage-free ballot initiatives improve about 5 years of life per dollar spent, without even accounting for their effect on public opinion. Yesterday’s highlighted charity, the Shrimp Welfare Project, estimates it can help 1,500 shrimp per dollar. If the average person in the United States gave just 1% of their disposable income to effective animal charities or volunteered an equivalent amount of their time, they could help at least hundreds of chickens and thousands of shrimp per year — far more than the average person eats. This point was made, albeit in a more incendiary manner, in a 2007 article by animal rights lawyer and activist Wayne Hsiung titled “Boycott Veganism.” Hsiung argued that the vegan paradigm, focused on diet change, completely obscures the object of the animal protection movement — which is a social and political revolution in ideas about animal rights, rather than just a change in how individual people behave as consumers.

On Boycotting Veganism - by Glenn

[luxe-pauvre]

For us today, it is still difficult to imagine a future society in which paid labor is not the be-all and end-all of our existence. But the inability to imagine a world in which things are different is only evidence of a poor imagination, not of the impossibility of change. In the 1950s we couldn’t conceive that the advent of refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and, above all, washing machines, would help prompt women to enter the workplace in record numbers, and yet they did. Nevertheless, it is not technology itself that determines the course of history. In the end, it is we humans who decide how we want to shape our destiny. The scenario of radical inequality that is taking shape in the U.S. is not our only option. The alternative is that at some point during this century, we reject the dogma that you have to work for a living. The richer we as a society become, the less effectively the labor market will be at distributing prosperity. If we want to hold onto the blessings of technology, ultimately there’s only one choice left, and that’s redistribution. Massive redistribution. Redistribution of money (basic income), time (a shorter working week), taxation (on capital instead of labor), and, of course, of robots. As far back as the 19th century, Oscar Wilde looked forward to the day when everybody would benefit from intelligent machines that were “the property of all.” However, technological progress may make a society more prosperous in aggregate, but there’s no economic law that says everyone will benefit. Not long ago, the French economist Thomas Piketty had people up in arms with his contention that if we continue down our current path we’ll soon find ourselves back in the rentier society of the Gilded Age. People who owned capital (stocks, houses, machines) enjoyed a much higher standard of living than folks who merely worked hard. For hundreds of years the return on capital was 4–5%, while annual economic growth lagged behind at under 2%. Barring a resurgence of strong, inclusive growth (rather unlikely), high taxation on capital (equally improbable), or World War III (let’s hope not), inequality could develop to frightening proportions once again. All the standard options – more schooling, regulation, austerity – will be a drop in the bucket. In the end, the only solution is a worldwide, progressive tax on wealth, says Professor Piketty, though he acknowledges this is merely a “useful utopia.” And yet, the future is not carved in stone. All throughout history, the march toward equality has always been steeped in politics. If a law of common progress fails to manifest itself of its own accord, there is nothing to stop us from enacting it ourselves. Indeed, the absence of such a law may well imperil the free market itself. “We have to save capitalism from the capitalists,” Piketty concludes.

Rutger Bregman, Utopia For Realists: And How We Can Get There

[africa-space-com]

The mysteries of the Earth's rotation: from the origin of the solar system to the tilt of the axis

Do you know why the Earth rotates?

The Earth makes a complete revolution around its axis in 24 hours, creating the alternation of day and night. And our planet orbits the Sun at 30 kilometres per second. But do you know why the Earth rotates at all and where this strange tilt of its axis that creates the seasons comes from? It turns out that the reasons lie in the distant past.

The origin of the solar system

To understand why the Earth rotates on its axis, we need to look back a few billion years, when our planetary system was first formed. It is thought that about 4.5 billion years ago, the Sun was a rotating cloud of gas and dust that was gradually compressed by gravity.

Inside this protoplanetary disc, matter began to stick together into ever larger clumps - the future planets. Since all this mass slowly rotated around a common centre of mass, the rotational motion was transferred to the forming celestial bodies.

Thus, due to the conservation of momentum, the rotation "inherited" and already cooled Earth. Over time, it took the form of a ball, flattened at the poles due to rapid rotation, and so has been rotating for more than 4 billion years!

Causes of the tilt of the Earth's axis

The primary rotation must have been much more chaotically orientated. But why exactly is the Earth's axis tilted relative to the orbital plane by as much as 23.5 degrees? Here, too, factors from the planet's distant past are at play.

According to one theory, the root cause was an accidental planetary catastrophe - the collision of the young Earth with a large celestial body the size of Mars or even larger. This super-collision knocked out of its original orbit the fragments of rock from which the Moon was later formed.

And the Earth itself after such a powerful impact "fell" on its side, maintaining the tilt of the axis. True, alternative versions point to the lasting influence of the other planets or the Sun, which could "unwind" the Earth's axis to the modern position.

In any case, it is 23-degree tilt and provided the change of seasons on Earth. In fact, it makes the illumination of the surface of the planet by the Sun during the year very uneven in different hemispheres. So all the diversity of climate on our planet is the result of the tilt of the axis of rotation, which has been inherited from ancient times.

Slowing down the rate of rotation

Over 4 billion years, however, the speed of the Earth's revolution around the axis has noticeably decreased from the original 6 hours to the current 24. The reason is the gradual loss of rotational momentum. The Moon, tides and other processes as if "brake" the rapid rotation of the Earth. And, apparently, in another half a billion years our planet will be turned to the Moon all the time one side, and the duration of the day will be equal to the period of circulation around the Earth its natural satellite.

Curiously, the slowing down of axial rotation in the distant future may turn into a new ice age for mankind. The point is that the reduction of angular velocity should slightly change the shape of the globe, making it a little more flattened at the poles.

And this will further increase the effect of the tilt of the axis, increasing the difference in seasonal illumination of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Some models predict that in tens or hundreds of millions of years on the Earth will resume epochs of cover glaciations because of weakening of axial rotation of the planet!

Conclusions about the causes of the Earth's rotation

So, let's summarise the answer to the question of why our planet rotates and how its axial tilt originated. The fundamental reason lies in the laws of conservation of momentum, inherited from the rotation of the protoplanetary cloud around the Sun. The characteristic tilt of the axis was the result of either a giant collision or gravitational disturbances.

And the gradual deceleration of the initially rapid rotation of the Earth is caused by the loss of energy due to tidal friction of the Moon and the Sun. So even the most fundamental features of our planet's motion are tied to natural phenomena that originated in the deep antiquity of the solar system.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Erec Smith: Redefining "Harm" Infantilizes People of Color

"Harm" has become an almost ubiquitous term in social justice circles. Hear a Mandarin word that sounds like the N-word? You’ve been harmed, according to students and administrators at USC. Famed author of White Fragility Robin DiAngelo’s latest New York Times bestselling book is even subtitled “How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm”; it seems to argue that anything other than full adherence to her worldview perpetrates harm against people of color. 

In contemporary social justice parlance, the word harm has broadened from its original meaning of physical and sometimes mental injury to anything that offends, creates discomfort or, through "slippery slope" logic, can eventually lead to physical harm. The word "harm" does not mean what it used to mean. 

The standard definition of harm has undergone concept creep—the broadening of a word's meaning to incorporate thoughts and actions formerly considered outside its purview. When you see the definition of “white supremacy” go from the KKK and Nazis to “individualism” and “objectivity”, you’re seeing an example of concept creep. 

Where once the potential for harm existed in contact sports, accidents, physical altercations, traumas and so on, one might now find it while reading a reference to a racial slur in a question in a law school exam, or listening to a recorded debate in a classroom, such as when teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd played for her class a debate on transgender pronouns featuring psychologist Jordan Peterson, or encountering any of millions of possible triggering opinions on social media. 

The redefinition of harm infantilizes people and I, for one, refuse to be “harmed” so easily. I would never let someone else have so much power over my wellbeing that a "mean tweet" or a mere question—especially one asked out of curiosity or a request for elaboration—would shake me to my core.

Americans of African descent have been resilient through 250 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow apartheid. Now that we have overcome physical oppression and segregation, is now the time to give others so much control over our minds? Our happiness and fulfillment? I don't think a world in which people give their power away so easily is one any self-respecting person would want to see. 

As author and lawyer Van Jones so eloquently said, quote, “I don't want you to be safe ideologically. I don't want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That's different. I'm not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots and learn how to deal with adversity. I'm not going to take all the weights out of the gym. That's the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.”

My anti-racism is about promoting empowerment. Defining harm as shallowly as many other self-proclaimed anti-racist activists do leads them to mistake symbolic gestures for concrete strategies for change. Complaining about triggering language and hurt feelings directs energy away from ameliorating real suffering in the world: hunger, violence, homelessness, and so much more. Paying Robin DiAngelo’s 5-figure speaking fee enriches her but doesn’t get anyone out of economic deprivation. Encouraging students at Loyola University Chicago to report cases of perceived “emotional harm” to the school does nothing to help the hundreds of Chicagoans literally dying of homicide each year. 

I understand that certain words and statements do hold historically disquieting connotations. Being called a racial slur or being associated with a particular negative stereotype never feels good. This take on harm is closer to the original meaning of the word and such actions must be addressed effectively. However, eradicating “harm”—newly redefined—may only amount to performance art, in which the semblance of action is all that is needed. 

When you see someone complain about the “harm” imparted by someone else’s words, ask yourself if the complainer’s ideas and tactics will make any real difference in the lives of the truly injured. When harm begins to mean everything, it ceases to mean anything at all. 

Join me in building a culture of resilience and optimism at FairForAll.org

==

This kind of thing is virtue theater, the type of self-satisfied pretending-to-help that could be called secular prayer.

"If someone tried to take control of your body and make you a slave, you would fight for freedom. Yet how easily you hand over your mind to anyone who insults you. When you dwell on their words and let them dominate your thoughts, you make them your master."

-- Epictetus

The people who like to lecture others on their "fragility" are reliably the most fragile of all.

[infectedshq]

tw:  infecteds,  mouth  gore,  bone  gore,  guns  /  gun  wounds,  death.

it’s  a  normal  friday  not  unlike  any  other.  the  civilians  report  to  their  assigned  duties  as  normal,  tending  to  their  posts  &  making  small  talk  with  one  another  in  passing.  the  wasps  are  milling  about  the  sidewalks  with  easy  statures,  not  as  rigid  as  they  are  when  pete’s  around  &  even  less  between  shift  changes.  there  are  a  few  children  whose  laughter  seems  to  travel  up  the  length  of  even  the  tallest  run - down  apartments,  floating  in  open  windows  &  filling  the  air  with  nostalgia  for  what  once  was.  

the  chatter  of  memphians  switching  guard  is  cut  with  a  blade  with  a  piercing  shriek.  civilians,  wasps,  &  fireflies  alike  flinch  to  attention,  silence  blanketing  the  streets  as  hundreds  of  eyes  search  for  the  producer  of  such  a  sound  —  a  familiar  sound.  the  inhuman  cry  crescendos,  forcing  few  loiterers  to  clamp  their  palms  over  their  ears  before  the  origin  of  the  scream  is  found.  an  infected,  to  the  instantaneous  incredulity  of  the  onlookers,  is  clamping  a  grotesque  hand  over  the  end  of  the  20 - foot  wall  separating  humanity  from  the  sick.  its  nails  rake  against  the  iron  &  leave  midnight  blood  streaks  in  their  wake,  &  some  would  later  claim  they  watched  a  knife - like  smile  spread  across  it’s  half - rotted  flesh.

shouts  spread  across  the  street  like  wildfire.  this  is  something  unseen  &  unheard  of.  the  infecteds  are  slow  &  unable  to  climb,  swim,  or  drive.  they  can’t  run  &  are  otherwise  unintelligent.  barbed  wire  can  keep  them  at  bay  —  a  20  foot  steel  wall  has  never  allowed  a  breach  before,  until  here.  until  now.  the  wasps  in  close  vicinity  to  the  infected  spring  into  action,  hoisting  their  rifles  up  &  firing  round  upon  round  at  the  infected.  it  continues  on.  it’s  over  the  wall  in  mere  seconds,  its  feet  hitting  the  concrete  of  the  quarantine  zone  with  a  deafening  crack  &  pale  yellow  bone  protrudes  from  the  greyed  meat  on  its  shin.  it  doesn’t  immobilize  the  infected  at  all.  the  once - person,  now - monster  races  forward  with  implausible  speed,  the  bullets  lodging  in  its  body  doing  nothing  to  weaken  it,  &  slams  against  a  nearby  wasp  with  full  force.  they  barrel  to  the  ground,  where  petrified  screams  of  agony  ring  like  an  alarm  as  four  other  wasps  creep  towards  the  infected,  continuing  to  fire  at  the  corpse.  once  it  takes  the  fifth  shot  to  the  head,  it  keels  over,  but  the  damage  is  done.  the  wasp  is  bitten.

wails  of  horror  begin  in  a  symphony,  civilians  who  had  witnessed  the  entire  encounter  either  keeling  over  to  vomit  or  falling  to  their  knees  in   distress.  people  are  speculating  about  the  sudden  autonomy  of  this  infected,  the  level  of  strength,  speed,  resistance.  it’s  unnatural,  it’s  unlike  anything  in  the  last  eight  years  —  &  it  just  happened  two  months  prior,  though  that  wasn’t  seen  by  the  masses.  are  they  evolving ?  is  this  a  new  strain  of  the  infection ?  how  many  more  will  breach  our  walls ?  

the  crackle  of  a  megaphone  dominates  the  voices,  &  all  attention  is  deferred  to  a  wasp  perched  atop  a  police  cruiser.  “a  lockdown  is  now  in  effect.  everyone  inside.  lock  your  doors.  do  not  come  out  onto  the  streets.  pete’s  orders.  anybody  outside  of  their  buildings  will  be  shot  on  sight.”  

we  are  now  open  for  interactions  !  following  the  events  of  the  breach,  the  city  is  on  lockdown,  with  civilians  ordered  to  remain  indoors.  while  this  is  the  law,  many  citizens  of  memphis  may  choose  not  to  follow  it.  additionally,  those  who  live  in  apartment  buildings  (  majority  of  the  civilians  here  )  may  quarantine  with  those  in  different  households  so  long  as  their  building  remains  locked.  the  only  citizens  allowed  on  the  streets  at  this  time  without  consequences  are  the  wasps.  if  you  have  any  further  questions  feel  free  to  shoot  me  a  message !