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king-gob · 1 year ago

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Ben Reilly Reading Order

A friend asked me for a reading order for Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider, and it turns out that is easier (MUCH easier) said than done.

Four and a half hours later, here it is. I figured I’d share it here as well, for anyone who might want it.

ORIGINAL CLONE SAGA Amazing Spider-Man #139-151

CLONE SAGA PRELUDES "Shrieking" - Amazing Spider-Man #390-393 "Live and Let Die" - Web of Spider-Man #113-116 "Beware the Rage of a Desperate Man" - Spider-Man #46-49 "The Predator and the Prey" - Spectacular Spider-Man #215-216 "Son of the Hunter" - Spider-Man #50

CLONE SAGA: ACT I (OF III) "Power and Responsibility/The Double" - Web of Spider-Man #117 - Amazing Spider-Man #394 - Spider-Man #51 - Spectacular Spider-Man #217 "The Exile Returns: Part One" - Web of Spider-Man #118 - Spider-Man #52 "Back from the Edge: Part One" - Amazing Spider-Man #395 - Spectacular Spider-Man #218 "Second-Rate Choices" - Spider-Man Unlimited #7 "The Exile Returns: Part Two" - Web of Spider-Man #119 - Spider-Man #53 "Back from the Edge: Part Two" - Amazing Spider-Man #396 - Spectacular Spider-Man #219 DETOUR: "Separation Anxiety" - Venom: Separation Anxiety #1-4 "Web of Life/Web of Death" - Web of Spider-Man #120 - Amazing Spider-Man #397 - Spider-Man #54 - Spectacular Spider-Man #220 - Amazing Spider-Man #398 - Web of Spider-Man #121 - Spider-Man #55 - Spectacular Spider-Man #221 "Behind the Terror" - Spider-Man Unlimited #8 "Funeral for an Octopus" - Spider-Man: Funeral for an Octopus #1-3 "Smoke and Mirrors" - Web of Spider-Man #122 - Amazing Spider-Man #399 - Spider-Man #56 "Puppet" - Spider-Man: The Clone Journal #1 "Players and Pawns" - Spectacular Spider-Man #222 - Web of Spider-Man #123 - Amazing Spider-Man #400 (Also Part 1 of "The Parker Legacy")

CLONE SAGA: ACT I (ACT II) (OF III) "Aftershocks/The Parker Legacy" - Spider-Man #57 - Spectacular Spider-Man #223 DETOUR: "Carnage Unleashed" - Venom: Carnage Unleashed #1-4 "The Mark of Kaine" - Web of Spider-Man #124 - Amazing Spider-Man #401 - Spider-Man #58 - Spectacular Spider-Man #224 - Spider-Man Unlimited #9 DETOUR: New Warriors #59-60 "Lives Unlived" - Web of Spider-Man #125 "Crossfire" - Amazing Spider-Man #402 - Spider-Man #59 - Spectacular Spider-Man #225 DETOUR: Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man #1 "The Trial of Peter Parker" - Web of Spider-Man #126 - Amazing Spider-Man #403 - Spider-Man #60 - Spectacular Spider-Man #226 "Planet of the Symbiotes" NOTE: If you read this (and you should), you should also read the Venom detours above. - Amazing Spider-Man Super Special #1 - Spider-Man Super Special #1 - Venom Super Special #1 - Spectacular Spider-Man Super Special #1 - Web of Spider-Man Super Special #1 "The Lost Years" - Spider-Man: The Lost Years #1-3 NOTE: There is an issue #0 but it's all reprints of stuff earlier in this list.

CLONE SAGA: ACT II (OF III) "The Jackal Files" - Spider-Man: The Jackal Files #1 "Maximum Clonage" - New Warriors #61 - Maximum Clonage Alpha #1 - Web of Spider-Man #127 - Amazing Spider-Man #404 - Spider-Man #61 - Spectacular Spider-Man #227 - Maximum Clonage Omega #1 "Exiled" - Web of Spider-Man #128 - Amazing Spider-Man #405 - Spider-Man #62 - Spider-Man Unlimited #10 DETOUR: At this point, Ben joins the New Warriors. He will be involved with them until issue #71, four issues before the end of the volume. The Maximum Clonage prelude in issue #61 is the only one that really matters for the Clone Saga so read those or don't, depending on how comprehensive you want to go and/or how much you enjoy New Warriors. - New Warriors #62-71 "Time Bomb" - Spectacular Spider-Man #228 - Web of Spider-Man #129 "The Greatest Responsibility" - Amazing Spider-Man #406 - Spider-Man #63 - Spectacular Spider-Man #229 "The Parker Years" - Spider-Man: The Parker Years" DETOUR: Spider-Man Team-Up #1-5

CLONE SAGA: ACT III (OF III) "You Say You Want an Evolution" - Scarlet Spider Unlimited #1 "Virtual Mortality" - Web of Scarlet Spider #1 - Amazing Scarlet Spider #1 - Scarlet Spider #1 - Spectacular Scarlet Spider #1 "Cyberwar Part One" - Web of Scarlet Spider #2 - Amazing Scarlet Spider #2 INTERLUDE: Green Goblin #1-3 "Cyberwar Part Two" - Scarlet Spider #2 - Spectacular Scarlet Spider #2 NOTE: The next several issues aren't a "story arc" in a traditional sense, but just follow Ben settling in as the One-And-Only Spider-Man. - Sensational Spider-Man #0 - Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1996 - Spider-Man Holiday Special 1995 - Amazing Spider-Man #407 - Spider-Man #64 - Spectacular Spider-Man #230 - Spider-Man Unlimited #11 "Nightmare in Scarlet!" - Web of Scarlet Spider #3 - New Warriors #67 - Web of Scarlet Spider #4 "Family Plot" - Spider-Man/Punisher: Family Plot #1-2 "The Final Adventure" - Spider-Man: The Final Adventure #1-4

CLONE SAGA: ACT IV (OF III) "Media Blizzard" - Sensational Spider-Man #1 - Amazing Spider-Man #408 - Spider-Man #65 "The Return of Kaine" - Spectacular Spider-Man #231 - Sensational Spider-Man #2 - Amazing Spider-Man #409 - Spider-Man #66 "A Show of Force" - Spectacular Spider-Man #232 "Web of Carnage" - Sensational Spider-Man #3 - Amazing Spider-Man #410 - Spider-Man #67 - Spectacular Spider-Man #233

CLONE SAGA: ACT IV (ACT II) (OF III) "Blood Brothers" - Sensational Spider-Man #4 - Amazing Spider-Man #411 - Spider-Man #68 - Spectacular Spider-Man #234 - Sensational Spider-Man #5 - Amazing Spider-Man #412 "It Begins with a Bang Not a Whimper" - Spider-Man #69 DETOUR: Venom: The Hunted #1-3 "Who Did Spider-Man Murder?" - Spider-Man Unlimited #12 NOTE: The following issues follow a loose storyline of Ben fighting villains while Peter slowly becomes sick. - Spectacular Spider-Man #235 - Daredevil #354 - Sensational Spider-Man #6 - Amazing Spider-Man #413 - Spider-Man #70 - Spectacular Spider-Man #236 - Sensational Spider-Man #7 - Amazing Spider-Man #414 - Spider-Man #71 - Spectacular Spider-Man #237 "Redemption" - Spider-Man: Redemption #1-4

CLONE SAGA: ACT IV (ACT III) (OF III) "Onslaught Impact" - Amazing Spider-Man #415 - Spider-Man #72 NOTE: Some more filler. Editorial problems at this time caused the Clone Saga to majorly stall out. - Spider-Man Unlimited #13 - Sensational Spider-Man #8 - Spectacular Spider-Man #238 - Sensational Spider-Man #9 - Amazing Spider-Man #416 - Spider-Man #73 - Spectacular Spider-Man #239 - Sensational Spider-Man #10 - Amazing Spider-Man #417 - Spider-Man #74 - Green Goblin #13 (end of this run; Ben is there) - Spider-Man Unlimited #14 "Revelations" - Spectacular Spider-Man #240 - Sensational Spider-Man #11 - Amazing Spider-Man #418 - Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75 (title change from adjectiveless SM)

CLONE SAGA: EPILOGUE - Spider-Man: The Osborn Journals #1 - Spider-Man: 101 Ways to End the Clone Saga #1

POST-REVELATIONS "Who Was Ben Reilly?" - Amazing Spider-Man Annual #36 - Amazing Spider-Man #608-610 "Scarlet Spiders" (Spider-Verse tie-in) - Scarlet Spiders #1-3

THE CLONE CONSPIRACY - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #16-18 - Captain America FCBD 2016 (B story) - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #19 - Clone Conspiracy #1 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #20 - Clone Conspiracy #2 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #21 - Clone Conspiracy #3 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #22 - Clone Conspiracy #4 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #23 - Clone Conspiracy #5 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #24 - Clone Conspiracy: Omega

BEN REILLY: SCARLET SPIDER "Back in the Hood" - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #1-6 DETOUR: Secret Empire "Death's Sting" - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #7-9 "The Slingers Return" - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #10-13 "Bad to the Bone" - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #14

DAMNATION - Doctor Strange: Damnation #1 - Doctor Strange #386 - Doctor Strange: Damnation #2 - Doctor Strange #387 - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #15 - Doctor Strange: Damnation #3 - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #16 - Damnation: Johnny Blaze, Ghost Rider #1 - Doctor Strange #388 - Iron Fist #78-80 - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #17 - Doctor Strange: Damnation #4 - Doctor Strange #389

BEN REILLY: SCARLET SPIDER (ACT II) "Untitled Mysertio Arc" - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #18-19 "Deal with the Devil" - Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #20-25

SPIDER-GEDDON - Edge of Spider-Geddon #1-4 - Spider-Geddon #0 - Superior Octopus #1 - Spider-Geddon #1 - Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #311-312 - Spider-Geddon #2 - Spider-Girls #1 - Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #1 - Spider-Force #1 - Vault of Spiders #1 - Spider-Geddon #3 - Vault of Spiders #2 - Spider-Force #2-3 - Spider-Geddon #4 - Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #2 - Spider-Girls #2-3 - Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #3 - Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #313 - Spider-Geddon #5 - Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #4

DETOUR: BATTLE FOR THE SERPENT CROWN NOTE: Cameo from Ben in this Conan team-up book. - Conan: Battle for the Serpent Crown #1-5

DETOUR: IRON MAN BY CHRISTOPHER CANTWELL NOTE: Ben is one of Tony's "Space Friends" that join him in his crusade against Korvac. He drops out of the book around issue #19, when the group disbands. - Iron Man Vol 6 #1-19

SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND - Amazing Spider-Man #75-78 - Amazing Spider-Man #78.BEY - Amazing Spider-Man #79-80 - Amazing Spider-Man #80.BEY - Amazing Spider-Man #81-85 - Devil’s Reign – Spider-Man #1 - Amazing Spider-Man #86-87 - Mary Jane & Black Cat: Beyond #1 - Amazing Spider-Man #88 - Amazing Spider-Man #88.BEY - Amazing Spider-Man #89-92 - Amazing Spider-Man #92.BEY - Amazing Spider-Man #93

DARK WEB DETOUR: Hellions #1-18 DETOUR: New Mutants #25-28 NOTE: These detours will set up the Madelyne Pryor half of the Dark Web scheme. Completely optional for the purposes of this list, but recommended (They are good!) - Spider-Man/Venom: FCBD 2022 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 6 #14 - Dark Web #1 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 6 #15-17 - Dark Web: X-Men #1-3 - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 6 #18 - Dark Web: Finale #1 NOTE: I would read Hallows' Eve, as that book is about to circle around back into ASM for Ben plotlines. Might be a good idea to watch the upcoming Dark X-Men, as well.

#comics #spider-man #scarlet spider #ben reilly #marvel #m #I hope this helps you guys because I worked really hard on it lol

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terrence-silver · 1 year ago

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Valek headcanons with his beloved?

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― Love is eternal for a vampire and doubly so for one so loyal and devoted as Jan Valek. He's dedicated to his people. To his coven. To what he feels like is their plight. To the cult that sprouted out around them and himself over the centuries as the patron saint of the unliving. He's dedicated to avenging them. Shielding them. Leading them. Being their father. The father of all vampires and the first of their kind. Giving them ability to walk under god's sunlight, or at least fighting to reach this goal. He's devoted to the very concept of devotion in equal measure. A group of vampire hunters hurting and killing even the lowliest grunts that belong to him is enough for him to massacre a hotel full of said hunters singlehandedly in retaliation, because every one of his pack counts, even the most seemingly miniscule of members is someone worthy of justice in his eyes. So, one can only begin to understand what truly love means to him. Love in all shapes. Love for his kin. Love for his beliefs. Love of the romantic sort, in this case. His zeal is simply fierce, albeit elegantly subdued most times. Most times.

― So, when he finds his beloved, he's found them. This zeal kicks in and he considers it a thing of destiny --- of fate --- giving it an almost religious connotation, although he's as far from holiness as he can be and he has an innate understanding of that. Nonetheless, he thinks God himself has given him a rare mercy in his six hundred years of being a vampire. He thinks you're a blessing. His blessing. In fact, he's convinced of it. He thinks you're divine providence. He thinks you're a being of light. Beauty. An angel. His sun. He's hardly pious about his emotions or their scale even though he was a priest in his former human life, but he's not unkind either. He's intense, yet gentle. Enamored, yet sweet. Sexual and dangerous, yet unusually respectful. He proclaims his ardent love fairly quickly for a being that has all the time in the world simply because he's a man of impulse and honesty. He could take a mere whiff of his beloved's scent from afar. Perhaps, gaze into their eyes for the first time, and he'd just know. Feel it. They're meant for him. Wouldn't it to be a sacrilege not to be sincere about such things outright?

― Of course, it can only aid his cause when his whole coven, wherever they might be in the world, is mentally connected to him and they feel what he feels too. See what he sees. Sense the scope of their master's longings. Of his love. Of his yearning. Feel that Father Valek's beloved is meant to be his beloved and can optionally function like a virtual army off to do his bidding, retrieving beloved for him if they ever ran and taking them where they belong and should be, by the eternal groom's side, extreme circumstances and all, not that this necessary because he can be oh so kind all on his own. Oh, so considerate. Oh, so tender. To the point it is easy to just...forget...that he is a vampire at all, least of all, the most dangerous, deadly and ancient of his kind. He's quiet. Calm. Seductive. Lulling. He doesn't want to scare his beloved. He just wants them by his side and his verbal oratory is sufficient enough for him to very ardently and very patiently convince them of this, no powers needed. Just his words. His presence. A kiss on the lips. The neck. The hands, in an almost antiquated gesture. Then lower, between their legs.

― If his beloved was human, would he turn them? For a vampire whose entire goal is becoming a Daywalker (and ensure all of his vampires are Daywalkers too) by acquiring the Cross of Berziers, Jan is very unlikely to bereft his mortal love of what he considers the light of all lights. The joy of enjoying daytime, even though he himself cannot. Of enjoying the sun. The full experience of what means to be a person unhindered by being condemned to infinite darkness. In fact, his motivation to become a Daywalker himself and walk by their side becomes even firmer, more resolute, borderline revolutionary, so rather than turning beloved into a vampire, he'd much rather work on changing his own circumstances instead so they can coexist equally, side by side under the heavens, demonstrating an odd selflessness and even consideration. Dare I say, moral values? His holy crusade turns even more personal. With the element of love added to the mix, Jan Valek wants to be able to walk in sunlight so he can walk with you; a cause he'd kill for. Die for. Martyr himself for, and it isn't even the first time he's been martyred.

― But, he's not just a noble romantic, and his priestly, saintly, formerly Christian and very Catholic sensibilities can run very thin very fast when his beloved is threatened. In any danger whatsoever. In jeopardy. Bodies can pile up by the hundreds and entire villages, outposts, groups of vampire hunters, monasteries and settlements can end up eradicated within hours because he'd singlehandedly massacre them for his love with no question and laugh while doing so, but in equal measure, once he's done, with the same bloody hand he's done the terrible deed with he's capable of caressing beloved's cheeks, reassuring them and comforting them amid the carnage he's created for them and because of them, treating them like someone or something breakable and fragile, ensuring them it is all fine, right before scooping them up and carrying them off into the night and into safety, ever gentle, ever careful, oscillating from one extreme to another. Prince Valiant he is not. Except every now and again.

― He makes love with the same dedicated selflessness and he leans towards pleasing rather than being pleased himself --- even though, you being pleased is very much his pleasure as well and there's no two ways around it. He's a kind lover. Truly and nonironically. He's a willing and eager giver, primarily. He thinks beloved moaning, throwing their head back, begging, pleading, curling their toes, riddled with lust and desire and being flushed with contentment is a beautiful sight. A sight angels could only envy. A sight that belongs on a fresco of some coveted church, to be admired and worshipped, even though he'd rather not have unworthy eyes gaze upon it. On you. A sight he loves seeing again and again and again as he tastes them, hits all the right spots, drinks their blood, feeds them his own, puts his hands around their neck, careful not to break them, grazes them with his teeth, his fangs, as he holds them down, whispers praises and psalms in their ears, loving beloved's body, lavishing every erogenous spot, ensuring they feel heavenly, as they should.

#jan valek #jan valek x reader #jan valek x beloved #john carpenter's vampires #vampires 1998 #people disregard how jan valek is actually oddly heroic

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queer-geordie-nerd · 11 months ago

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Israel was not there, then. That is my point.

The Israeli government wants to bomb and bomb, making the land virtually unlivable - they told Palestinians to go to the West Bank. Then the IDF raided them there. They held an airstrike there. They tell them they'll be safe, and then they bomb them.

The government has bombed schools, universities, hospitals - and yet Israel are supposed to have best, most on-the-spot security in the Middle East. Why, all the sudden, are they so reckless? Why are American and Israeli government officials talking about Palestinian resources and property? Why, all the sudden, is the SAFE act being proposed, which would ban Palestinians from seeking asylum in the US?

Stand against antisemitism. Stand against Hamas' rule. But do not ignore the Palestinians' right to their own land.

I have never once ignored Palestinian’s right to be there - show me exactly where I have done so. Oh, you can’t, because I’ve said no such thing.

If we’re talking about who was there first, which isn’t really the point, they’re both there now, neither of them are going anywhere, then you must know that that land was Jewish land belonging to the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea literally thousands of years ago and the Roman Empire changed the name to Palestine in order to attempt to erase Jewish connection and indigeneity to the land as punishment for revolt. If you’re going to come at me putting words in my mouth I’ve literally never said, at least get your history right. You just look like an idiot.

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truly-quirkless-a · 2 years ago

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Headcanons center around: YagiFin/Bloody Cinnamon.

Theme: Homes/Living Together

Fin lived in an apartment prior to moving in with Yagi. It was well-kept, not a single book out of place (not that they had a ton, they only brought about five from the states). The apartment was big enough for a small kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room.- Fin’s bedroom didn’t have a bed, but was instead a mess of gathered comfortable blankets and plushies they loved, alongside posters of things/fandoms they liked. Their kitchen was pretty neat, with not a hint of cooking utensils outside of one spatula and one pan, and a few plates and the like. Pretty tiny place but they’re small too, so they didn’t really notice until Yagi started hanging out.

Since they lived in an apartment, their home was nothing too impressive to look at, and I didn’t bother trying to find any special images. It also appeared relatively unlived in- save a thin layer of dust that coated most of the solid surfaces that didn’t see regular use (so most of the kitchen counter). They had snacks hidden all over the place, however.

Fin owns a pet cat (Prism, but the eyes from the photo are wrong- Prism has light blue eyes) whom they love and cherish.

Yagi’s home prior to finding a new place + moving in with Fin looked about like this in my head. He got massive blackout curtains installed after his injury hit, and the home was cleaned pretty regularly/was fairly immaculate. He had a small library of books and manga, as well as an entire collection of American films on DVD, and enough snacks to choke ten men to death all over the place, discreetly hidden away. His bedroom was fairly regular (for someone rich). A king-sized bed and sheets, with the decor mostly involving the colors red, white, blue, and/or gold (a reference to his last Hero outfit’s color scheme).

Due to his private life basically being nonexistent, much like Fin, his home appeared virtually unlived in despite the decor- like someone had put everything up to get ready to sell the place, and then forgot to sell it.

The home these two end up moving into together is an amalgamation of desires from each. Thanks to Yagi’s life and injuries, he wants someplace at least a bit removed from the general population, and Fin... Just wants a pool. The two are comfortable at this point with each other, and Yagi even goes so far as to get a room built for Fin’s cat... And ultimately, their home ends up being an open-plan space with windows for each room overlooking a pool in the main ‘living room’, although there are less windows to the outside world in their home than in the reference image.

It’s easy to tell these two clash in certain aspects- Yagi mostly eats home-cooked meals with little seasoning, and eats more often, meanwhile Fin mostly eats quick-make meals you can toss in a microwave, and only eats once/twice in a given day. Of course, Fin’s not above trying to make food for Yagi- and the portions the two have are often seen as ‘less’ than what they should be having, but small stomach and no stomach, so... They’re fine.

The two share their bed, although the sheets are a bit of a mixed bag. It’s, of course, king sized- huge by Fin’s standards and normal by Yagi’s when he’s not out and about on trips. Fin’s blankets don’t even begin to cover the whole thing, and the home itself is a mish-mash of American posters and anime posters, there’s a room dedicated wholly to reading/listening to music, the library’s nicely sized and the DVD collection ends up (eventually) going digital. Like when both lived on their own, the home is immaculate- although it does look a lot more lived in, now.

And keeping Prism out of the pool is a nightmare.

There are nightlights scattered throughout the house due to Fin’s fear of the dark, and Yagi’s got a security system set up just in case. The two may be capable of combat, but he’d still rather have some warning a fight is incoming.

#Twenty Days of Fluff | Writer’s Yearly Challenge #I’ve got nothing else to lose/I’ve got nothing else to prove | headcanons #Look into my eyes/Everything I’ve left behind | Finley Musings #One For All/Coursing through as I stand tall/No threat will ever take hold | Toshinori Musings #Ain’t it funny how love hits you when you least expect it to?/Any time/Any place/It can come out of the blue | Bloody Cinnamon Musings

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momo-de-avis · 2 years ago

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I say this as kindly as possible: please go fuck yourself

#i am all for open borders and welcome every immigrant #but digital nomads are fucking up the country #you literally contribute 0 to the country and raise real estate prices #to the point that it's virtually unlivable #fuck you

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wuxiaphoenix · 2 years ago

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Worldbuilding: Virtual Samurai

If we ever get actual Sword Art Online style VR up and running, I expect three things: First, a massive jump in the proportion of people who take historical martial arts very seriously indeed. Second, someone’s going to try to recreate the Battle of Sekigahara. Third, there will finally be a Pennsic War in which the archers have their day. Mwah-ha-hah....

One of the problems with any realistic martial arts training is there’s a limit to what moves you can use without someone actually dying. Blows to the throat, naked steel, and just about any use of archery that’s not on an unliving target. All of these can end up with a person in the hospital - or the morgue.

Which is exactly the point. All of these skills were designed to keep their practitioner alive in extreme circumstances, often by making someone else very dead. But it leaves the learner with a conundrum: how can you know what you learn, what you teach, really works?

You can’t. Unless you end up in a situation no one sane wants to be in - fighting for your life.

Actual VR, on the level of SAO or Gundam Build Divers, would change all that. If you could simulate the reactions and weaknesses of a real human body... you could, indeed, train with lethal intensity.

And people would. A surprising number, I suspect. Most would be driven by the urge to compete, like any sport. But there would also be those who’d had or anticipated having encounters with violence, who’d appreciate a hardheaded look at, what am I actually capable of? How can I improve?

I think it’d lower anxiety rates, too. If you’re reasonably confident that if you get into a bad spot you’ll have some idea of what to do besides die, you can go about your day with less free-floating stress.

It might also be great stress treatment on a general basis. The human nervous system is not meant for grinding, day to day “I have to get the project done by X month or I’m fired”. It’s meant to dump adrenaline into your system to survive a life-or-death short battle with a lion, then flop over if you survived. With real VR, you could get through the workday, go home, have that fight - and let your nerves actually relax.

I could see psychiatrists writing X number of to-the-VR-death battles a month as a prescription. It could lower stress-related deaths dramatically, and help mental health more than antidepressants.

Archery would also push VR to its limits. Simulating all the factors that go into a shot - wind, fletching, humidity, grip, probably a dozen more I don’t know about - would take both raw computing power and knowledgeable programmers to get the calculations right. But oh, the possibilities. Who wouldn’t want to try hunting a virtual zombie tiger through an ancient Chinese forest with a compound bow? Just once?

Granted, you’d probably try it and swear off anything else that crazy for life. Nightmares might or might not be optional. Still. I’d like to try. Once.

And then, oh wow, historical recreation; either real events like Gettysburg and Sekigahara, or the more improvised fun of SCA wars. There’s always going to be a group of people who want to do it all for real. But the prospect of adding actual artillery and archery? So tempting.

How would you see VR used in your world? Would someone try to recreate Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu?

#creative writing #worldbuilding #stray thoughts

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chiseler · 3 years ago

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The Chiseler Asks Noam Chomsky About Israel-Palestine

Yesterday, May 24, 2021, Daniel Riccuito of The Chiseler conducted the following email interview with Noam Chomsky.

Daniel Riccuito: This latest assault against Gaza seems contradictory: both part and parcel of Israel's abiding agenda and more obviously cynical, bearing no relationship to the usual talking points about national defense, etc. Is it wrong to overestimate public opinion as surprisingly informed, seeing through Israel’s state propaganda more swiftly this time around?

Noam Chomsky: Each time Israel launches some barbaric act of terror, its sophisticated Hasbara system faces a more difficult task of justification, and its grip on popular opinion weakens. The horrors of Israel’s latest war against the civilian society in its Gaza prison are impossible to suppress, so propaganda seeks to restrict attention solely to Hamas rockets attacking innocent Israel in an act of unprovoked aggression: every country has a right to defend itself, and in self-defense Israel has been remarkably restrained considering the nature of the Hamas attack.

That still works in some circles, but fewer than before. Though the media do not convey anything like the hideous reality of Israel’s murderous strangulation of Gaza or the regular brutality of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, nevertheless a fair amount is seeping through, a good deal more than before, enough for many to dismantle the propaganda line.

Yes, Hamas is a pretty awful organization and Palestinians deserve much better. But there are ways to deal with its rocket launches. The narrow answer is to eliminate the reason for them. Many are aware that they were fired in retaliation for Israeli crimes in Jerusalem, particularly the military attack on worshippers in Al-Aqsa. Hamas announced a deadline saying that unless the attacks stopped by then it would retaliate with rockets.

The more fundamental approach is to end Israel's vicious imprisonment of Gaza, which has rendered it virtually unlivable, without even potable water, let alone any hope for decent survival. A brutal jailer and torturer is hardly in a position to ask how to defend himself from occasional resistance by the prisoners. I think more and more people are coming to understand that, despite intensive suppression of the background, which continues.

Along with the limited reporting of the barbarity of Israel’s periodic assaults, the deepening recognition of Israel’s exploits in the illegally occupied territories and within its borders is making it harder to sustain the image of the embattled guardian of democracy and righteousness in the region.

Daniel Riccuito: Is the solidarity among geographically divided Palestinians (East Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank, and within Israel) wholly unprecedented?

Noam Chomsky: Not unprecedented, but taking new forms as circumstances change. One change, which has received some notice, is the further “Judaization” of the few cities where there still are remnants of the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, “mixed cities,” so-called. Resentment of the further marginalization and repression of the Palestinian minority seems to have been a factor in the protests there against the Israeli actions in Greater Jerusalem, initially dispossession of still more Arab families in Sheikh Jarrah, then the assault on Al-Aqsa worshippers, among other events. One was Israel’s decision to prevent East Jerusalem participation in forthcoming Palestinian elections for the first time, in violation of its commitments under the Oslo accords, another step in Israel’s imposition of its nationalist-religious agenda in the Greater Jerusalem it has established, a core part of the Greater Israel project it has imposed throughout the West Bank.

Daniel Riccuito: I won't ask for predictions, but are there specific opportunities available, here and now, to those committed to seeing a semblance of justice for Palestinians?

Noam Chomsky: There definitely are opportunities. For the first time, there are calls in mainstream media for cancellation of US military aid to Israel along with congressional legislation calling for conditioning such aid (Betsy McCollum). These are openings that can be pursued well beyond. This unparalleled aid to Israel is in violation of US laws that bar aid to military units engaged in systematic human right abuses. The IDF provides many candidates. Many Americans can come to understand that. Even a threat to the huge flood of aid could have major policy repercussions.

A more far-reaching issue that should be highlighted is Israel’s nuclear weapons programs. The US pretends not to know that they exist, for good reasons. Abandon the pretense, and serious questions arise about whether all US aid to Israel is illegal under US law because of Israel’s development of nuclear weapons outside the framework of international arms control agreements. By bipartisan agreement, and media complicity, that crucial matter has been effectively suppressed.

And it is crucial. A lot is at stake, quite apart from the legality of US aid to Israel. One obvious matter is a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. That has been strongly supported for years by the Arab states, Iran, the Global South (G-77), with general support in Europe. It is regularly vetoed by the US, most recently Obama. The unspoken reason, of course, is what I have just described: protecting Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons system, and arguably illegal US aid to Israel.

A ME NWFZ with effective inspections is entirely feasible, as we have seen before Trump dismantled the Joint Agreement on Iranian nuclear programs (JCPOA). It would go far beyond the JCPOA in ending alleged concerns about an Iranian nuclear threat. It would end any shred of justification for the vicious US sanctions on Iran, to which Europe is compelled to conform. It would end a very serious threats of escalation to major war. It would lay the basis for punishing Israel for its campaign of assassination and sabotage against Iran, and its threats of much worse.

In brief, such initiatives could have major consequences. All matters that would be of much concern to Americans if they knew about them.

There is a lot more that can be done. Choice of tactics is no trivial matter, a consideration that should be second nature to activists. The choice must be based on realistic assessment of existing circumstances – not what we might like them to be, but what they are.

Existing circumstances in Israel-Palestine are not obscure. For 50 years, Israel has been systematically creating a Greater Israel in the West Bank in which it takes for itself whatever it finds of value while bypassing Palestinian population centers so as to avoid the dread “demographic problem”: too many non-Jews in a “democratic Jewish state,” an oxymoron more difficult to sustain with each passing year. There is no need to run through the details, evident on the ground. Greater Israel is so closely integrated into Israel proper that Israelis are barely aware of the international border. The creation of Greater Israel has been undertaken in brazen defiance of Security Council resolutions and in perfectly conscious violation of international law. It has been advanced across the Israeli political spectrum, with only marginal opposition. Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, for example, were among its most forceful proponents.

Discussion of tactics and options is meaningless unless this reality is recognized. In particular, current 1-2 state debates are empty unless the Greater Israel option is recognized. As long as the option exists, we can be confident that Israel will never consider disappearing in favor of “one state” --- that is, a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority. Nor is there any force in the world supporting this, or likely to be such a force in the foreseeable future.

Tactics therefore have to be directed at undermining the Greater Israel option. There are many possibilities: an arms-trade embargo conditioned on terminating this project, for example. Insofar as that can be accomplished, other options can be considered. I won’t proceed here but it takes little thought to recognize what the possibilities are. What is important is to keep all of this clearly in mind in devising ways to reach some tolerable settlement, one that can be a basis for moving on to something better.

#The Chiseler #Noam Chomsky #Israel #Palestine

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agardenandlibrary · 3 years ago

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I’ve been reading a cyberpunk novel called Tea From an Empty Cup

It’s uh, well. Let’s just go through some points here:

weirdly obsessed with Japan (which has broken into unlivable tiny islands) and looking Japanese (people get cosmetic surgery)

(the author is white)

it’s about virtual reality and capitalism and obviously people get sucked in and spend all their time in VR

plot: someone died in VR and in real life

the two point of view characters are both VR-outsiders: neither of them gets the appeal of it which I think was a mistake. Having an insider and an outsider perspective would’ve been more interesting. As it is, the two POVs read almost exactly the same.

it’s also repetitive. I’ve seen the phrase “more real than real” more times than you would believe

it’s exploring some interesting ideas: an “Out” - somewhere you can ascend to beyond VR. People in VR being puppeted by other people.

I’m 3/4ths through. how I feel about this book is probably going to heavily depend on how it ends. Right now I’m a little more annoyed than interested.

#cara reads #tea from an empty cup #pat cadigan #cyberpunk

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thdorkmagnet · 3 years ago

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Light of the Sun and Stars Chapter 46: A Mewman and a Monster (Preview)

Summary: His whole life Marco Diaz has been raised by monsters, living under the cruel rule of their leader, Toffee. But one day Marco escapes into Mewni where he meets a magical princess and Mewman like himself, who begins teaching him all about her world. Together they will learn about life, love, and the lights within each of them, as they change their world forever.

Chapter Synopsis: Slime has asked his crush Princess Penelope Spiderbite out on a date and needing support, both emotionally and literally, calls upon Star and Marco for help. The two graciously lend a hand in helping create the most romantic date possible but, as usual, things rarely go the way they want it too.

Check out my other stuff on Fanfiction!

Index

The dimension was completely lifeless. Once a sprawling community had dwelled there, setting up residence in its green pastures and lush landscapes, living a simple and basic life amongst the natural resources all around them. But that peaceful lifestyle had changed when technology was first introduced to the humble society. At first it had been small changes, as it always started, machines and many mechanisms made to help make life easier. Need to plow the fields? Build a machine that could do it half the time you could.

Soon people were using machines for every part of their everyday life and with the invention of robotic helpers… everything changed. Their once grassy hills were torn up to make factories, their land broken and scarred for the sake of 'progress'. Soon their dimension more closely resembled a machine than a once thriving, living place. And the numbers of robots steadily grew, until they outnumbered all living beings 10 to 1.

Sunlight was blocked by heavy smog while frequent and heavy storms began to tear apart what was left of the landscape. The dimension became virtually unlivable and the people were filled with dismay.

That was until a mysterious benefactor appeared one day, offering to buy up the remaining usable land for unknown reasons. The people happily accepted the offer, using the money to relocate to a new dimension (hopefully with better luck than the last), leaving the new owner of the dimension to do with it however they wished. Soon they began construction on a single building, employing the many robots that still inhabited the place to the effort. It took a long time, even with beings that didn’t have the need to eat nor sleep at the head of construction, but eventually it was finished, a single living place in the dimension of dead architecture.

The place was a sight to behold: a clean, cut courtyard leading up to a grand, multi-story building. The architecture was ancient, borrowed from famous castles and cathedrals throughout the multiverse, a sharp contrast to the sleek, modern buildings the dimension had been so known for.

But for as magnificent as it seemed, there was something sinister as well, something dark lurking just behind the smoothly cut stones or grand balconies. A large metal fence had been built around the building, electrified at all times to deter anyone from entering or exiting through anything but the gate. A large tower stood above the building itself, pulsing with some dark magic that had been lost to time long ago. The building's architecture was full of sharp edges and spikes that could seriously harm anyone who was not weary of their surroundings. And though the grand double doors were made of the finest wood in any dimension, they opened onto halls of endless turns and deadends, a labyrinth built to keep everyone trapped inside forever.

But the creator of this school did not care how others viewed it, because this place was serving a grand purpose, educating and enforcing positive change on the future monarchs of the multiverse. St. Olga’s Reform School for Wayward Princesses was a school like no other, standing superior to any other education system that dared to compete with it, for it was focused solely on punishment and strict results. Every young princess that was sent there, no matter how rebellious or resistant they were, would eventually be broken. It didn’t matter if it took days, weeks, or years, St. O’s and its founder and principal, Heinous , had a perfect record that had never once been broken.

That was until a certain four-armed princess blew the whistle on the academy's “less than reputable” penalties and the school was shut down by the dimensional knights. The great Miss Heinous was forced on the run, leaving every part of her life, her career, her home, her minions, her legacy, to rot. She spent years on the run, just barely managing to stay one step ahead of the dimensional knights and any other form of military power a noble might hire to capture or kill her. But through it all, Heinous only had one thought that kept her going day in and day out. Revenge. Or rather, her legacy finally fulfilled. She often confused the two but it didn’t matter. The path was the same. The path to ultimate victory and control. The path of perfection.

And that path had led back to where it all began.

Nostalgia and old memories came flooding back to the once-proud principal as she stood in front of her old, decaying school. She could still picture it back in the prime of its life, see it as clear as if it were standing in the memory itself rather than the broken dream that stared back at her. Reality was far from the picture perfect days of old. Oh how the mighty had fallen.

Her once proud school was now in desperate need of repairs, walls caved in over the course of time, entire sections of the school now gone. The courtyard was now filled with untamed weeds and overgrown plant life. The tower that had once stood as a beacon of power for her school had been the first thing taken down by those pesky knights and it lay in shambles around the area, an ever present reminder of the injustice Heinous had suffered. The fence was bent and disfigured, was now full of giant, gaping holes in its structure making it completely useless, now it couldn’t even keep out the gust of wind that blew through the empty courtyard. The school had become nothing but an empty shell that had once housed life within it. Heinous couldn’t help but scoff at the irony, her greatest masterpiece was now no different to the rest of this forgotten waste of a dimension.

She took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. No, she couldn’t start dwelling on all that now. She had come here for more than just reliving her past failures. Today was about seizing her future. A small cough behind her caused Heinous to roll her eyes. She had almost forgotten her hired hand had come with her, just in case some dimensional knights were lurking there and needed to be disposed of. It was clear that Rasticore, unlike her, was less than content with her dimension. She could practically feel Rasticore’s discomfort as he shifted from one foot to the other, over and over again. It was obvious he wanted to get this over with, something at least they could agree on, Heinous was ready to achieve the next step of her decade-long scheme.

“So are we going inside or not?” Rasticore finally asked and Heinous turned back to him with a narrowed glare.

“Why? Don’t tell me you are frightened of my school?” she accused him, point blank.

Rasticore tensed, before gritting his fangs, clearly holding back the retort. Instead he replied, “No, just all this smog is aggravating my condition.” He then made a point to cough into his claw.

Heinous highly doubted that was the reason for his rush. Not when it was more likely her minion was playing up his sickness to hide his discomfort from her. After all, he was recovering remarkably well from the poison, ready to resume his work in just a few short weeks, so a little foul air shouldn’t be upsetting him as much as he was pretending it was.

Still, she didn’t see any reason to delay things any further so Heinous just turned to her minion and said, “Very well, follow me.”

Entering into her old home was like walking into a portrait in time, everything left exactly as she remembered it. The knights must have left things the same for evidence reasons but Heinous ws surprised her school was still mostly intact. A few rooms had been caved in or hallways blocked and everything certainly needed a good dusting but from the view outside she had been expecting much worse. Paper and pencils lay on the dusty desks, ready to use, as if some child had just set them down and then vanished from this dimension. The banners holding old phrases and mottos Heinous would often repeat in classes were decaying but still hung up even after all these years. The only thing missing was her beloved robotic staff.

Shortly after her escape she had gotten word that all robots operating under her name had been discontinued and dismantled to “prevent further harm” as they had put it. Ha, as if her precious staff could be so cruel, every punishment was fully justified and all for the greater good. If only the royals of the multiverse had seen it that way. “Cruel and unnecessary” they had called it. Hypocrites! They were always happy with the results, even quick to praise her or offer her large sums of money as thanks, but the moment they knew how their beloved child came to be cured of their faults suddenly she was the villain, torturing their bratty children by making them perfect.

Well if they were too stupid and cowardly to see her perfect vision all the way through, then it was up to her to fix this miserable, chaotic world.

Heinous entered into her old office, staring at it with wistful eyes as memories came flooding back to her all over again. Every detail of the small space was exactly as she had remembered it, not a single stone out of place, even after all these years. She ran her hands across her desk, her fingers brushing the loose pieces of paper she had been reading through when the alarm had sounded. Old student files and report cards now yellowed with age and beyond salvaging Heinous could have read them with ease, every single letter saved to her subconscious.

Rasticore stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching as his temporary boss reminisced her old life. It was shocking in all honesty, the lizard assassin hadn’t even known Heinous had a smile that wasn’t sinister but she seemed… almost genuine now. That was until she came across a certain file and the peaceful look switched to a frown, the spell she was under was broken. She picked up the piece of paper, ripping it to shreds in a matter of seconds. Rasticore jumped but didn’t say a word as his boss fell deeper and deeper into a blind rage, picking up several other files and ripping them apart as well. Soon the room was coated in paper shreds and the desk was empty. Rasticore risked a look at what remained of the original file, surprised to see it was a young curly haired princess with four arms. He couldn't imagine what she had done to invoke such fire from the level-headed woman.

Once the temper tantrum was over, Heinous straightened her clothes and smoothed down her hair, making herself look presentable again before turning to her minion. “Well, let’s get started, shall we?” she said as if nothing had even happened. She reached her hand into one of the many pockets that lined her oversized dress and pulled out a small key covered in intricate carvings. Without a word she shoved the desk to the side, Rasticore taken aback by the sudden show of strength. He certainly hadn’t expected it from such a petite woman.

Heinous bent down and inserted the key into a small slot in the ground and turned it with a click. Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet collapsed and a long spiral staircase stretching into the darkness beneath was revealed. Heinous returned the key to her pocket before looking at Rasticore expectantly, much to his confusion. He had been caught off guard thanks to the multiple, unexpected turns this trip had taken and couldn’t for the life of him figure out what she was wanting. Her sharp eyes dug into his skin before she impatiently snapped, “Well? You are the one with the light.”

Rasticore could slap himself for being so stupid and he quickly pulled the lantern out from behind his cloak, already brightly lit by phoenix embers. Without a word he started down the stairs, practically feeling Heinous roll her eyes behind his back and he had to clench his claw so tightly a few trickles of blood formed on his leathery skin. For not the first time, Rasticore seriously debated on just how bad a reputation he would get for killing his employer in cold blood. The lizard assassin cursed himself for his integrity as a killer for hire, every other job had been so easy but this one was really testing just how far he was willing to go for his reputation. He probably would have quit entirely if he weren’t for those stupid brats that eluded him mulitple times. Every attempt he made to take that worthless Princess Star resulted in complete and utter failure and the humiliation ate away at him almost as much as his anger. So if having to endure Heinous a little longer meant seeing the looks on those brats' faces when they finally got what was coming to them… well Rasticore wouldn’t miss that for the world.

Rasticore smiled, imagining the faces of Butterfly and her friends when they realized they had lost and that brought a new fire back to his soul, descending the staircase with a new vigor. The lizard got a good look at his surroundings, his night vision easily spotting what it was they were down there for: robots. Dozens of them, old and rusted over to the point Rasticore questioned if they would even activate. He looked back at his boss, who was eying the robots with a glimmer of dark ambition, not at all concerned about their obvious defectiveness.

“Thought all your robots were dismantled,” Rasticore questioned suspiciously.

Heinous shook her head. “That’s just what you would think,” the woman replied in a condescending tone. “And I knew those idiot knights would believe the same thing, hence why I had these hidden away in case I was ever found out. Imagine it, they all believed they had beaten me and yet my true power was right under their nose all along.”

“Well that explains their poor condition,” Rasticore mumbled to himself, low enough he knew Heinous couldn’t hear him.

The two reached the bottom of the staircase and Heinous began inspecting her machines closely, running her gloved fingers along their metal casings and grimacing at the layer of dirt left behind. “The truth is those robots from my time as principal were simple worker drones, but these, my dear Rasticore, are my army.”

“So you had these things hidden away this whole time and you never thought to use them before now?” Rasticore asked in a deadpan, trying to hold back his rising anger. If she had an army this whole time, why bother hiring him for her dirty work? How much time had he wasted fulfilling her goals when she could have just as easily sent a robot to do it.

“Of course I did,” Heinous replied with quite a bit of malice. “They were my plan from the beginning. I just had to wait for the right time to use them.”

“And only after I’ve been poisoned for your little mission do you suddenly decide it’s the ‘right time’,” the lizard Monster grunted, doing air-quotes for emphasis.

“Hold your tongue!” Heinous snapped, her voice echoing around the dark chamber. The two stared each other down, neither breaking eye contact for even a second. “You cannot possibly comprehend the amount of time and planning I put into this,” she continued, spitting every word violently at her minion. “I spent years concocting the perfect scheme to take back everything I lost, to regain control and create a perfect world order. And yet you dare to believe I would overlook something so carelessly. No. Everything has been planned out.” The woman turned her back to the assassin, stating smugly, “In a scheme like this, timing is everything, my dear Rasticore.”

She approached the nearest robot, wiping the dust off its metal surface, pulling out the same key from before and examining it closely. “And the time has finally come for the next phase of my master plan,” she whispered decisively. With that she rammed the key into the center of the robot’s chest, causing its eyes to blink open and light up red. Heinous took a step back as the machine slowly rose to its feet, creaking and groaning loudly, its rusted body protesting greatly. Branches that had formed around its hollow shell snapped and broke as it pushed itself upward with great strength. Finally, the machine was up, standing tall and at attention, its red eyes blinking as it waited for new orders, somehow menacing despite its deteriorating body.

Rasticore took a step towards the robot body, still eyeing it skeptically but didn’t see a point in arguing, if his boss wanted to gamble all their plans on some old, dumb robot then she could deal with the consequences. It wasn’t his problem if her plan failed, so long as he got paid. “So what, we send this hunk of junk after the Butterfly brat and finally be done with her.” He had to admit the idea of a robot taking her down instead of him left a sour taste in his mouth.

Heinous admired her machine with a satisfactory smile, her hands delicately running along its frame. “Patience, Rasticore, patience. Star Butterfly will receive her punishment in due time. But for now she is too highly guarded to risk an attack on her. We must tread carefully from here on out, no more half-witted schemes, we must deal with her delicately or all of this will be in vain.”

Rasticore grit his teeth at the small insult but kept his calm, extended time with Heinous had really helped him with his temper, the one good thing he could say about being stuck with the snooty, high-and-mighty ex-principal herself. “So who are we targeting?” Rasticore asked impatiently. “I thought the whole point of this field trip was so you could get your hands on Butterfly. You yourself said you needed a Mewman for-”

“And I what I said still holds true,” Heinous interrupted, turning to her minion with a very evil expression. “Which is why we will be targeting another old student of mine, one who is much less guarded and much more obtainable.” A dark look passed over Heinous’ face as she thought of one of her oldest and most successful students, just speaking her name again filled her with a satisfaction and pride Heinous had almost forgotten about. “Princess Penelope Spiderbite.”

#star vs #star vs AU #Light of the Sun and Stars #Preview #Starco #Spiderslime

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southeastasianists · 6 years ago

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There is a history of Singapore that is taken as a straightforward truth by millions of people in the world. According to this narrative, up until 2004 the city-state was an unliveable hellscape where violent crime, drug trafficking, terrorism, murder, and corruption ran rampant. Women were practically raped on sight, the streets were strewn with garbage, and traffic was insolubly chaotic.

All of this changed that year, when the new prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, instituted the death penalty for all violent criminals, drug traffickers, and corrupt officials. As a result, the prison population was reduced from 500,000 to 50 within six months (presumably through mass executions). Moreover, in what appears to have been a matter of weeks, crime vanished, Singapore became an economic powerhouse, its universities shot up in the world rankings, and its citizens became trilingual. The draconian use of capital punishment, according to this narrative, is the secret to having a peaceful, developed country.

This narrative was popularised on the Spanish-speaking internet through a postauthored by a Cuban pastor based in Honduras named Mario Fumero. Fumero’s blog, United Against Apostasy, published a series of articles extolling Singapore’s purported crime-reducing policies. Fumero suggests that all Latin American countries should emulate Singapore’s example and exterminate all offenders (either through judicial or extrajudicial means), so that Latin Americans will promptly reach the desired development that Singapore now enjoys.

To get a sense of how widespread this narrative is, Fumero himself comments that these articles on Singapore are by far the most popular posts on his blog, a blog which has attracted over 20 million views. The actual reach of this particular article, however, goes much further. Its text has been copied or paraphrased in various YouTube videos that, taken together, add up to hundreds of thousands of views. It has been reproduced on several posts on Taringa! (an extremely popular Spanish-language “community knowledge” website), and reposted on countless blogs and forums. Its contents have even been copied in printed newspapers (with evidently poor fact-checking standards), and they have been cited as the basis of numerous editorials published throughout Latin America.

The number of Spanish speakers who have been exposed to this narrative through social media can probably be estimated in the millions; for many of them, this portrait of Singapore is axiomatic by virtue of its ubiquity. Few people have sufficient familiarity with Singaporean history to challenge this narrative.

Fumero has a concrete political agenda: the reinstatement and dissemination of the death penalty in Latin America. Although he has stated that he is against capital punishment, he immediately qualifies such statements by arguing that “…there are situations in which it [the death penalty] can be justified even biblically, becoming the only option for instilling fear in a system where impunity prevails, and where there is a lack of respect for life.” In fact, a quick glance at the many columns written on the basis of his article—as well as the comment sections of any of the websites where his article has been reproduced—reveals that the “successful” Singaporean case has become a key touchstone for the pro-death penalty agenda in Spanish-speaking virtual forums. Along with them, Fumero insists on the exemplary success of the alleged Singaporean policy of indiscriminate judicial executions.

For Fumero and his supporters, it is precisely Singapore’s prosperity and rigidity that they find useful in their attempt to promote a particular political agenda. Latin Americans may not know much about Singapore, but they have heard that it is a rich and seemingly excessively disciplinarian country—the ban on chewing gum is well-known. Along with almost complete ignorance of the country’s history, due to hitherto relatively limited cultural and academic exchange, the conditions are perfect for historical visions like that one conjured by Fumero to flourish. With a contemporary Orientalist twist, he fabricates history to create a simulacrum of an “exotic” country to advance his disciplinarian agenda. The fable he creates serves to answer questions such as “why are they prosperous and we are not?”, or “why is there so much crime here and not there?”. These questions correspond to Orientalising impulses which presume that, unlike North America or Europe, Singaporean prosperity is not natural, and there must therefore be some kind of secret to success that Latin Americans could appropriate as a shortcut to “development.”

But why should we care about this? After all, a generation of young Spanish-speakers with a completely distorted view of a remote country like Singapore could be dismissed as a mere anecdote, as a sort of contemporary version of the Prester John myth. However, Fumero’s article is not just a harmless fable; it is the historical narrative that frames a call to action, action which would ultimately promote the judicial or extrajudicial execution of thousands of people. The sobering reality of Rodrigo Duterte’s popularly-endorsed campaign of extrajudicial execution of alleged drug pushers is too blatant, too painful, for us to ignore historical narratives which might justify such policies. Law and order narratives have been successfully deployed time and time again to win elections in Latin America, claiming to end crime and drug trafficking in blood and fire, but without producing significant results.

Like Fumero, the Singaporean state and many Singaporeans have their preferred historical narrative as well, albeit one that is demonstrably less fanciful. It runs something like this: the People’s Action Party (PAP), headed by Lee Kuan Yew, steered Singapore through the chaos of separation from the Federation of Malaya in 1965. Since then, it has, through technocratic competence and indomitable strength of will, propelled Singapore towards a multi-ethnic meritocracy, good governance and a dynamic capitalist economy. If authoritarian-leaning practices were developed along the way, they are dismissed as the price of success in the face of adversity. This narrative is integrated into the national curriculum, espoused by politicians, and provides the thematic framework for performances staged by students and volunteers at the annual national day parade. It pervades journalistic discourse in both Singaporean and international media organisations. Naturally, this treasured mythos of nation-building elides many unsavoury things, but there is more than a kernel of truth to it.

Singapore’s national mythos is primarily meant for domestic consumption, but it is also part of how Singapore projects itself to the rest of the world. Its preferred origin story of chaos to order, of insecurity to wealth, is an integral part of Singapore’s carefully-cultivated image as a good place to do business, park one’s money, and educate one’s children, or even to hold international summits. This narrative is deployed for specifically political purposes: the trope of dependable PAP stewardship leading to economic success is routinely deployed at campaign rallies before each general election.

By contrast, Fumero’s reformulated narrative of Singaporean history deliberately misrepresents the underlying reasons for Singapore’s perceived success to an audience familiar only with a fleeting image of Singaporean “success”. This (ab)use of Singaporean history is instructive, because it sheds light on how powerful a tool history can be in the “post-truth” era—even when it is deployed far from its point of origin and targeted at a very different audience.

Fumero’s article represents an unusual permutation of the weaponisation of history: we are used to the idea that history is weaponised, usually by states (authoritarian or otherwise), for domestic political purposes. We are less used to the notion of history being mined far from its point of origin to generate political gain in seemingly irrelevant contexts, especially by non-state actors like Fumero.

That, however, is exactly the opportunity that the post-truth era of social media-driven news affords, and various actors have not been slow to seize it. The destabilisation of informational legitimacy—which until recently for most people was embodied in whichever newspapers and televised news channels were most readily at hand—is not the heart of the problem. The number of gatekeepers, and the location of the gates themselves, have changed. With the low barriers to entry afforded by internet access, both state actors with modest budgets and non-state actors with virtually no budget at all can now shape historical narratives, with serious consequences for the societies in question.

Fumero’s article may be an outlandish example, but it forces us to confront the reality of how history can be successfully weaponised; the consequences of his historical fabrications are hard to measure and may have yet to flower. How much easier would it be for an organisation with more resources to weaponise history, and what havoc could it wreak? The state’s existing tendency to weaponise history already gives citizens sufficient cause to equip themselves mentally to resist these historical narratives, and the cultivation of citizenries capable of evaluating or filtering information (though inconvenient to the state) has become more important than ever for democracies.

#Southeast Asia #Singapore #Death Penalty #Latin America #History

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thebindlestiff · 3 years ago

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Noam Chomsky on Israel, Gaza and the Road Ahead

On May 24, 2021 The Bindlestiff conducted the following email interview with Noam Chomsky. Note: our final question, a follow-up, was posed to Professor Chomsky on January 25, 2022.

The Bindlestiff: This latest assault against Gaza seems contradictory: both part and parcel of Israel’s abiding agenda and more obviously cynical, bearing no relationship to the usual talking points about national defense, etc. Is it wrong to overestimate public opinion as surprisingly informed, seeing through Israel’s state propaganda more swiftly this time around?

The more fundamental approach is to end Israel’s vicious imprisonment of Gaza, which has rendered it virtually unlivable, without even potable water, let alone any hope for decent survival. A brutal jailer and torturer is hardly in a position to ask how to defend himself from occasional resistance by the prisoners. I think more and more people are coming to understand that, despite intensive suppression of the background, which continues.

The Bindlestiff: Is the solidarity among geographically divided Palestinians (East Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank, and within Israel) wholly unprecedented?

The Bindlestiff: I won’t ask for predictions, but are there specific opportunities available, here and now, to those committed to seeing a semblance of justice for Palestinians?

In brief, such initiatives could have major consequences. All matters that would be of much concern to Americans if they knew about them.

Discussion of tactics and options is meaningless unless this reality is recognized. In particular, current 1-2 state debates are empty unless the Greater Israel option is recognized. As long as the option exists, we can be confident that Israel will never consider disappearing in favor of “one state” — that is, a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority. Nor is there any force in the world supporting this, or likely to be such a force in the foreseeable future.

The Bindlestiff: Are any of the various solidarity efforts to assist besieged Palestinians making progress, in your opinion? Since Israel’s May 2021 assault on Gaza, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has called for global responses with a renewed sense of urgency. In the past, you have expressed fundamental criticisms of BDS. How do those criticisms fit into a positive agenda for the future?

Noam Chomsky: The basic criticisms are very simple. I think some of the tactical decisions are mistaken, and that important initiatives haven’t been taken because they don’t fall within an overly rigid doctrine as to how to proceed. I think that a general unwillingness to discuss these issues has been harmful, adopting a kind of “with us or against us” approach, very much unlike many other solidarity movements I’ve been involved with over the years.

The movement to boycott and divest from Israel (there are no sanctions) was, to my knowledge, initiated by Uri Avnery and Gush Shalom in the ‘90s. Their guiding principle was that BD actions should focus on the occupied territories, both on Israel’s criminal actions there and on outside actors who participate in them (US multinationals among them). I think there were good reasons for that. If we look at the record, I think we find that the successful actions typically have kept to that framework, and have had some effect – not anywhere near enough, plainly. But it’s the right way to proceed.

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phantom-le6 · 3 years ago

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 (6 of 6)

As we continue our run of episode reviews for Star Trek: The Next Generation, we now come to the last two episodes of season 5, beginning with the wide-acclaimed episode “The Inner Light.”

Episode 25: The Inner Light

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise finishes a magnetic wave survey of the Parvenium system and finds an unknown probe. The device rapidly scans the ship and directs an energy beam at Captain Picard, who collapses on the bridge and then wakes up to find himself on Kataan, a non-Federation planet. His wife, Eline, tells Picard that he is Kamin, an iron weaver recovering from a fever. Picard speaks of his life on the Enterprise but Eline and their close friend Batai try to convince Picard that his memories were only fever dreams and incorporate him into their society as Kamin. Picard begins living his life as Kamin in his village, Ressik, having children with Eline and learning to play the flute. Kamin spends much time outdoors and with his Dobsonian telescope studying nature. As years pass for him, he begins to notice that the drought is caused by increased radiation from the planet's sun. He sends reports to the planet's leaders, who seem to ignore his concerns.

On Enterprise, the crew continues attempts to revive Picard. They try to block the influence of the probe but Picard nearly dies, so they are forced to let it continue. They trace the probe's trajectory to a system whose sun went nova 1,000 years before, rendering life extinct in the system. Years pass and Kamin outlives Eline and Batai. Kamin and his daughter Meribor continue their study of the drought. They find that it is not temporary; the extinction of life on the planet is inevitable. Kamin confronts a government official who privately admits to him that they already know this but keep it secret to avoid panic. The official gravely points out to Kamin that they have only recently launched artificial satellites using primitive rockets: their race simply does not possess the technology to evacuate people before their planet is rendered uninhabitable.

One day, while playing with his grandson, Kamin is summoned by his adult children to watch the launch of a rocket, which everyone seems to know about except him. As he walks outside into the glaring nova light, Kamin sees Eline and Batai, as young as when he first saw them. They explain that he has already seen the rocket, just before he came there. Knowing that their planet was doomed, the planet's leaders placed memories of their society into a probe and launched it into space, in the hope that it would find someone who could tell others about their species. Picard realizes the context: "Oh, it's me, isn't it?", he says, "I'm the someone... I'm the one it finds", realizing that Kamin was the avatar they chose to represent their race.

Picard wakes up on the bridge of the Enterprise to discover that while he perceived many decades to have transpired, only 25 minutes have passed. The probe terminates and is brought aboard the Enterprise. Inside, the crew finds a small box. A somber Riker gives the box to Picard, who opens it to find Kamin's flute. Picard, now adept at the instrument, plays a melody he learned during his life as Kamin.

Review:

Apparently, this episode was created by combining two ideas. The first was Michael Piller wanting to do an episode where Picard lives a life he never really lived at all, and the second came from freelance writer Morgan Gendel wanting to do a story about Picard and Riker getting memories of a war beamed into their head in an anti-war story. After multiple re-writes, the two ideas end up combined in this episode, and yet both also later appear in other episodes within Trek. Picard ends up experiencing another life unlived in the episode ‘Tapestry’ in season 6 and within the Nexus during the film Star Trek: Generations, while the anti-war story would later be the centre of a Star Trek: Voyager episode.

Until I saw the episode synopsis on Wikipedia, I for one thought the memory dump concept was somehow not quite realised properly; I thought it would make more sense for Kamin’s memories to be dumped verbatim into Picard and he’d just play along with them right from the start of the alternate life. However, in actuality he’s not really getting a simple memory dump; rather, he’s living a kind of virtual reality simulation based on the collective memories of an alien world. As such, the issue then becomes why isn’t that explained more explicitly, and how did they manage that technical feat when they were barely getting rockets up into space? Basically, the containing premise for Piller’s idea sadly has a few technical flaws that slightly spoil the overall experience.

That all being said, this is a great episode, especially in-so-far-as it never tries to get the audience to buy into Picard’s virtual life being any kind of substitute for reality. There’s another TNG episode in one of the remaining seasons, and an episode of the Batman animated series from the same era that TNG was being made in, where the show seems to be trying to get us to buy into the idea that the reality of the show isn’t reality. Frankly, I hate episodes like that; once a show establishes what its reality is, that has to remain constant or I get very angry and lose interest. Reality is reality in all things, and while we might all perceive it differently, its most basic laws are immutable. Our sun, for example, always exists until such time as it may burn out; the coming and going of night time or clouds cannot alter this. A kettle will always boil water after a set period of time according to its design and will only truly take longer when its components start to fail; whether it is watched or not will only make it seem like it takes longer; it will not actually take longer.

Because the episode doesn’t ask us to buy into Picard’s alternate life ourselves, we can actually sit back and enjoy it, and it is an enjoyable episode in that Patrick Stewart delivers a great performance as Picard, and he is actually joined by his real-life son Daniel Stewart in this episode. It’s very much a character piece, though, so don’t go expecting any kind of issue exploration. The closest we get to that is inadvertent parallels between the on-going cover-up by the officials in Kaman’s life around the impending super-nova and how many people in real life react to the concept of climate change. However, that matters even less when you also consider that the experience does change Picard somewhat, and it’s good to see Next Generation create something that can be called back to. Even by the time of this episode, overarching continuity was something the show was reluctant to do, though the Deep Space Nine and Voyager spin-off shows would compensate for this.

So overall, we have a great episode that for me almost manages to hit a top score, but falls just short through the technical flaws of the memory dump, though not by much. My end score for this episode is 9 out of 10.

Episode 26: Time’s Arrow (Part 1)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is recalled to Earth on a priority mission regarding evidence of aliens on the planet 500 years before. They are shown a cavern near Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco containing 19th century relics, and the disembodied head of Data. Investigation reveals cellular fossils native to the planet of Devidia II, indicating a race of shapeshifters were visiting Earth's past. The Enterprise leaves for the planet, taking Data's second head. Upon arrival they discover a temporal disturbance on the planet. Though no life forms are visible, Deanna Troi senses the presence of suffering humans. The crew determine that the aliens are slightly out of temporal phase with them. Data notes that his android body has a phase discriminator that would allow him to see the aliens. Captain Picard reluctantly allows him to join the away team. Data establishes a means of communicating what he sees to the rest of the crew while in temporal sync with the aliens. Once in phase with the aliens, Data describes them as absorbing strands of light from a device in the centre of the cavern, appearing otherwise benign. He describes two aliens entering a time portal, that he is drawn into. Data finds himself on Earth in San Francisco on August 11, 1893.

Data realizes he needs money to accomplish his goals. He wins a sizable amount beating card sharks at their own game in poker. Data takes up residence in a local hotel, befriending the bellhop (future author Jack London). Data claims to be a French inventor. He enlists London to acquire 19th century supplies under the pretense of building an automobile engine, when in fact Data is building a detector to find the aliens. Data sees a photo of Guinan, the bartender from the Enterprise, in a newspaper photo. He goes to a reception she will be attending, believing she also came back in time from the future. Data interrupts her speaking with Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), speaking to her as if she is from the 24th century, which spark's Clemens' curiosity. Speaking privately, it becomes clear to Data that Guinan is native to 1893 and has yet to meet the Enterprise crew. Clemens is discovered eavesdropping on this conversation, and he becomes determined to discover the truth behind Data and Guinan.

Meanwhile in the 24th century, the Enterprise crew has determined how to build a similar phase discriminator to Data's. This will allow them to see the aliens, and go back in time to rescue Data. Guinan convinces Picard to join the pending away mission, warning that otherwise Picard and Guinan will have never met at all. The away team activates the phase discriminator and see the aliens as Data described. The strands of light are human life forces, taken at the moment of death. The away team uses the time portal to travel back to investigate further and to hopefully find and save Data as well.

Review:

There’s not much to this episode; basically, TNG was trying to make sure that they ended on a cliff-hanger in order to quash rumours generated by the start-up of the DS9 spin-off series that Picard and his crew were on the way out. Now in some respects, there’s a lot of elements that certainly drum up interest. You’ve got the idea of Data going back in time to late 19th century Earth and potentially dying, an encounter with a past Guinan that present-day Guinan suggests is pivotal to her mysterious acquaintance with Picard, random time-travelling aliens and the curious ramifications of having Mark Twain thrown into the mix. The problem, however, is that beyond this there’s not much really going on. There’s not much character development and no issue exploration, creating a cliff-hanger that is more about plot than these other things. Granted, that’s a change of pace, but it’s not the stuff of great Trek. Hopefully part 2 compensates for this. Overall, I’d give this episode 7 out of 10.

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architectnews · 4 years ago

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Markham Residence, Melbourne

Markham Residence, Victoria Building Project, Australian Real Estate Design, Architecture Images

Markham Residence in Melbourne

8 Jan 2021

Markham Residence

Design: Preston Lane Architects

Location: Brunswick, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Markham Residence is a significant heritage renovation to an existing unliveable house in Brunswick, Victoria.

What was the brief? Our client’s brief for this project called for a four-bedroom house with two living areas as well as off street parking via a rear lane.

What were the solutions? Our design approach retained the front section of the original house and converted the front two rooms and original entry hallway into a master bedroom suite. This maintained the original entry from a visual streetscape point of view, however introduced a new physical entry into the middle of the house from the eastern side through an unusual second gate located within the original front fence.

This approach ensured the new extension was located to the rear and did not impact on the streetscape of Collier Crescent. This new entry and study space set up a zoning to the house ensuring separation from parents at the front, living spaces to the rear and then kids bedrooms upstairs. Given the new extension was built boundary to boundary a large void was inserted to allow eastern light deep into the plan above the kitchen space as well as connecting the upper-level kids living room with downstairs.

Weatherboards were an obvious choice for the upper-level rear mass providing a contextual fit with the materiality of the original house and formally the bedrooms extend to the north providing shade to living spaces below. This dark upper level sits on light coloured masonry walls that wrap internally through the living room providing a contrasting texture.

What were the key challenges? The main challenge of this project was trying to achieve our clients brief in terms of a large house on a medium size block in a heritage overlay. The existing house was severely dilapidated and virtually unliveable, however located within a heritage overlay, meant the existing house had to stay and any new proposal had to respect the existing dwelling and heritage streetscape.

Markham Residence in Melbourne, Victoria – Building Information

Design: Preston Lane Architects Completion date: 2019 Building levels: 2

Project team: Structural Engineer: MTO Engineers Interior design: Sarah Decorsey Builder: DeBuildGroup

Photography: Dylan James

Markham Residence, Melbourne images / information received 080121

Location: Brunswick, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

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multiverseforger · 4 years ago

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Edit

Simon Williams is the son of rich industrialist Sanford Williams, owner of Williams Innovations. Simon inherits the munitions factory after his father's death, but the company's profits fall due to its biggest competitor Tony Stark and his company Stark Industries. On the advice of his brother Eric, Simon tries to embezzle funds from his company but is caught and incarcerated. Simon blames Stark for this and accepts the proposition of master villain Baron Heinrich Zemo after the Enchantress pays his bail, as a pawn is required to infiltrate the Avengers. The desperate Simon Williams agrees and is transformed into an ion-powered being with superhuman powers. His powers are tested, and he is shown to have great superhuman strength and durability, even defeating the Executioner. Called Wonder Man by Zemo, he is then sent to meet and join the Avengers, with instructions to betray them at a critical moment so that Zemo's Masters of Evil can destroy the Avengers. Zemo ensures Wonder Man's loyalty by advising him that as a result of the treatment his body now requires periodic doses of a serum to survive—a serum that only Zemo can provide. The Avengers are lured into a trap and captured. The plan fails when Wonder Man decides to save the Avengers and aid them against Zemo, apparently at the cost of his own life. Iron Man (Tony Stark) records Wonder Man's brain patterns in the hope that one day he can be revived.[9] Unbeknownst to the Avengers, Wonder Man's body has simply entered a catatonic state as it adjusts to the effects of the treatment.[volume & issue needed] Eric Williams becomes distraught over the apparent death of his sibling and, blaming the Avengers, assumes the identity of the Grim Reaper in an effort to destroy them. The Grim Reaper steals Simon's body at one point,[10] and attacks the Avengers three times before Wonder Man finally returns.[11]

Wonder Man remains in suspended animation for years, and it is during this period that Ultron, the evil robot creation of Hank Pym, steals the brain patterns recorded by the Avengers for use as a template for the synthezoid Vision.[12] It is later revealed that Vision is built from the original Human Torch, an android created by Professor Phineas Horton.[13] This only happened in mainstream continuity and other origins were possible courtesy of the Forever Crystal of Immortus.[14]

During this vulnerable time, Wonder Man is used as a pawn on three occasions. Wonder Man is briefly revived by Kang the Conqueror to battle the Avengers as part of his Legion of the Unliving,[15] and later "resurrected" as a zombie by Black Talon and the Grim Reaper to attack the Avengers once more.[16] On the final occasion, the Living Laser hypnotizes a now-awake but still very weak Wonder Man, in an unsuccessful attack on the Avengers.[17] After this encounter, Wonder Man was restored to true life and chooses to remain with the Avengers, aiding them against Attuma and Doctor Doom.[18] He also fought the Vision, and helped the Avengers battle Graviton.[19] He soon after defeats the Grim Reaper, who was intent on destroying the Vision as he was "artificial" and a "mockery" of his brother; Wonder Man at this point is revealed to have become a being of ionic energy.[20]

Wonder Man eventually joins the Avengers in a full-time capacity and becomes close friends with his teammate, the Beast. For several months after his resurrection, Wonder Man suffers from slight claustrophobia and a fear of dying in battle, as he did once before. Wonder Man finally overcomes his fear of death during the final battle with Korvac.[21] Wonder Man invaded his former plant which had been taken over by the Maggia, and fought Madame Masque and the Dreadnought.[22] Developing an interest in acting, Wonder Man stars in minor roles before moving to Hollywood, where fellow Avenger Hercules uses his contacts to establish Wonder Man's career.[23] Wonder Man also works for a time as a stuntman, an ideal vocation since he is invulnerable to virtually all conventional weapons.[24]

Wonder Man helps form the West Coast Avengers,[25] and his new-found confidence begins to become arrogance. He develops a serious rivalry with Iron Man, but sees the error of his ways after a brutal battle with the Abomination.[26] He also foils Doctor Doom's plot to control the world.[27] Wonder Man eventually accepts the Vision as his "brother", but there is a setback when the Vision is dismantled and rebuilt as an emotionless machine by a global conglomerate. The Scarlet Witch—the Vision's wife—asks Wonder Man to provide his brainwaves once again in order to rebuild the foundational personality matrix of the original Vision, but Wonder Man refuses, having feelings for her himself. The Wasp further deduces that the Vision's original relationship to the Scarlet Witch may even have been predicated by Wonder Man's initial donation for the original personality matrix; at this, Wonder Man confirms that several of his hesitations about making the attempt arise from these doubts and the subconscious desire he's felt toward the Scarlet Witch since her separation from her husband.[28] He is then ensorcelled by the Enchantress, and battles the Avengers.[29]

Wonder Man battles old foes Goliath[30] and the Enchantress,[31] before meeting his would-be sidekick "Spider" and battling Gamma-Burn, resulting in wrecking his jet-pack.[32] Wonder Man then battles the assassin Splice for the first time.[33] Wonder Man takes part in the Kree/Shi'ar War, and had his powers altered when he and the Vision failed to prevent the Shi'ar Nega-Bomb from detonating.[34] He battled Angkor,[35] and then journeyed to Hades where he battled Mephisto, Blackheart, the Enchantress, and the Grim Reaper; he then learned that he was immortal.[36] When Avengers West Coast (renamed) disbands after a dispute, Wonder Man becomes a founding member of its successor group Force Works, but is disintegrated in an explosion during their first mission against the alien Kree.[37] Many months later, the Scarlet Witch accidentally resurrects Wonder Man in ionic form; while in this form he appears when she is in need.[38] Several months later, the Scarlet Witch is able to fully revive Wonder Man and he now exists in an independent, more human form. It is also discovered later that the Grim Reaper - dead at the time - is also revived.[39] Wonder Man becomes romantically involved with the Scarlet Witch, but ends their affair during the Kang Dynasty saga, due to her residual feelings for the Vision.[40]

Wonder Man is blackmailed into working for S.H.I.E.L.D. during the Civil War storyline. Due to charges of misappropriation of funds in his non-profit organization, Wonder Man is pressured to work for the pro-registration side in the ensuing Civil War drama. In addition to capturing renegade vigilantes and criminals, Wonder Man is instrumental in creating televised messages to educate the public and yet-unregistered superhumans about the specifics of the Registration Act.[41] Wonder Man became a member of the Mighty Avengers.[42]

Wonder Man began a romantic relationship with fellow Mighty Avenger Ms. Marvel warning her not to use her position as leader of the Avengers to keep him out of potentially dangerous situations just because of their relationship.[43]

Following the events of the Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn created a new team of Avengers, effectively retiring Wonder Man during the Dark Reign storyline. Wonder Man later appears on television, lamenting his tenure as an Avenger, claiming it was all a waste of time, and that using violence to uphold justice has caused nothing but heartache and death. He ends his speech by sadly admitting that having Osborn in charge is exactly what the country deserves.[44] After this, Wonder Man is imprisoned as a member of the new Lethal Legion. This group opposes the tyrannical efforts of Osborn; Wonder Man joins to try to keep them from hurting innocents.[45]

Wonder Man has been seen alongside his old West Coast Avengers teammates, Ronin, Mockingbird, Tigra and War Machine in battle with a new version of Ultimo.[46]

During the Heroic Age storyline, Simon is approached by Steve Rogers to join the new team of Avengers. Simon refuses stating that the Avengers have caused more problems than they have solved and implies as Rogers leaves that he will make sure his old allies realize the mistake they are making. Simon also mentioned as having been in jail until Steve bailed him out.[47] After learning that Rogers had disregarded his advice, Wonder Man attacks the new team causing some damage to their base before inexplicably disappearing.[48] Thor and Iron Man later contact him to try and reason with him, but Simon refuses to listen to their arguments, stating that the dead heroes that have resulted from the Avengers working together should be a clear sign that the concept is doomed, departing as Thor and Iron Man try to argue that all heroes are aware of the risks when they begin. Significantly, Iron Man notes that Simon is 'leaking' ionic energy, suggesting that his current mental condition may relate to his powers rather than being simply a matter of choice.[49]

Wonder Man put together the Revengers, a team of super-powered people to stop the Avengers because he believes they do more harm than good, blaming the Avengers for Ultron's existence, the damage caused by the Scarlet Witch and the Hulk, the Civil War, and Osborn's Dark Avengers. His team subsequently defeats the New Avengers in a quick attack on the mansion before he moves on to attack Avengers Tower,[50] stating that he will destroy the tower unless the Avengers immediately disband. Although Iron Man manages to trap him in a prison specifically designed to contain his ionic energy with the Revengers being quickly defeated by the combined Avengers teams, Wonder Man has still successfully managed to spread doubt among the population about the merits of the Avengers as a concept particularly since Captain Rogers has yet to officially rebuff any of his arguments, asking Beast to remember his words simultaneously reflecting that he may be able to see the Avengers from the outside as he has not been 'real' since his resurrection before he apparently disappears from his prison.[51]

Wonder Man later reappears to Captain America (Steve Rogers), telling him that he feels sorry for his past actions and that he is trying to redeem himself. Before he can accept help from the Avengers, he is attacked by the Red Hulk. He managed to take him down and looks at Avengers Tower, claiming that he will "earn his way back".[52] He later plays a pivotal role in rescuing the Wasp from the Microverse. After this, Wonder Man is shown celebrating Jan's return alongside the rest of the Avengers at Stark Tower.[53]

At Wasp's urging, Simon later joins the Avengers Unity Squad. During conversations with Jan and Sunfire, he makes it clear has no intentions of fighting, and only wants to help use his PR skills to win over skeptical citizens.[54] He and the Scarlet Witch rekindle their relationship. During the final confrontation with the Celestial Executioner, he allows Rogue to absorb him to give her the power to oppose the Celestial,[55] but his essence remains in Rogue after Wanda expels the other absorbed powers from her,[56] leaving Rogue with Simon's powers and once again unable to touch others.[57]

During the AXIS storyline, Wonder Man's consciousness was still in Rogue at the time when the X-Men and the Avengers were inverted by an inversion spell. Rogue used Wonder Man's powers when helping the X-Men.[58]

At the time when the Avengers Unity Squad traveled to Counter-Earth to find Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, Rogue was captured by High Evolutionary's right-hand man Master Scientist who removed Wonder Man's consciousness from Rogue.[59]

After Rogue was unable to see or hear Wonder Man, he was still in Rogue's mind. When Rogue kissed Deadpool, Wonder Man was freed from Rogue's body as the result of Deadpool's healing factor acting like a circuit breaker that enabled Wonder Man to escape from Rogue's body.[60]

During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Wonder Man appears as a member of the Underground which is a resistance movement against Hydra ever since they took over the United States.[61]

During the "Empyre" storyline, Wonder Man, Quicksilver, and Mockingbird deal with the Kree and the Skrull's fight with the Cotati near Navojoa. When Quicksilver is hit by special spheres fired by the Cotati magicians, Mockingbird and Wonder Man come to his aid and help the Kree and the Skrull turn the tide against the Cotati.[62

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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Chomsky on Israel’s Hindering of Palestinian Pandemic Response & Threat to Annex Occupied West Bank

JULY 30, 2020 | Democracy Now

Noam Chomsky says Israel’s planned annexation of the occupied West Bank “basically formalizes” what has already been official policy over the last half-century, from both left-wing and right-wing parties in Israel. He compares Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to anti-immigrant policies in the United States, and says the main goal of annexation is to take over as much territory while excluding its Palestinian inhabitants. “Israel does not want to bring Palestinian populations into the greater Israel they’re constructing.”

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about Israel. Thousands of people have been protesting the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dealt with the coronavirus pandemic. Also protesting his corruption. This comes as the United Nations warns Israel’s threat to annex parts of the West Bank has hindered Palestinian efforts to control the pandemic. The UN Special Envoy made the remarks a day after Israeli authorities demolished a coronavirus testing center in the West Bank city of Hebron. Can you talk about what is happening there, both the issue of the coronavirus pandemic and Netanyahu’s express attempt, any day now, to annex the West Bank?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, what’s happening with the virus is pretty horrible. You look at the records of the main Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, they actually report cases in which settlers, what’s called the Hilltop Youth—extremist right-wing, ultra-religious settlers in settlements that even the government of Israel regards as illegal, but leaves them alone and supports them—some of them did have coronavirus. These young, crazed militants broke into Palestinian villages to try to spread the virus. And that’s at the extreme end. Destroying those centers as you described, is the legal part of it.

In fact, Israel is treating the Palestinians, it has for a long time, in modern history, pretty much the way the United States is treating immigrants in the virtual concentration camps south of where I live. The annexation, which they are holding off for the moment, basically formalizes policies that have been implemented over the last 50 years.

This is both major political groupings. The Labor Party has pretty much disappeared, but it used to be the major party. Under the Labor Party, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and others, under Shimon Peres, under the Labor Party as under the Likud-based coalition, the same policies have been carried out, trying to create a greater Israel, which takes over everything in the West Bank that is valuable and integrates it into Israel with huge infrastructure projects, and ban Palestinians of course. You can drive from Ma’ale Adumim—built mostly during the Clinton years, a town east of Jerusalem, kind of virtually bisects the West Bank—you can drive from there to Tel Aviv without even seeing a Palestinian on a superhighway.

So you take what’s important, but avoid the population centers. Israel does not want to bring Palestinian populations into the greater Israel they are constructing. That is what is called the demographic problem—too many non-Jews in a Jewish state; can’t have that. So we want to avoid the population centers, don’t take over Nablus and other population centers. Take over the areas that are of value to us. There is a Palestinian population and try to get rid of them as much as possible by making life unlivable, or else isolate them in unviable cantons, probably almost 200 of them in the areas that Israel is taking over, where people are cut off from their fields, from their olive groves. They have to pass through checkpoints to cross the road. Just make life as impossible as possible, and try to limit the population and take over what is valuable.

The Jordan Valley, about a third of the West Bank, take that over. Palestinian populations have mostly been removed by one or another technique. Set up military firing zones, where nobody is allowed in it. So you kick out the Palestinians, then you put in a Jewish settlement and tie it to the electrical and water grid. Pretty soon, it’s settled by Jews. Do the same with the Gurion Park, and so on. And that’s the policy for the last 50 years. Do it slowly, sort of under the radar, so outsiders can pretend they don’t see it. But that is what has been happening. Annexation will essentially formalize it.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I wanted to ask what you would like to see happen here in the U.S. in the months leading up to this election, which you have said is the most important in human history. What should happen here in the country, in the U.S.? What should people be doing to organize?

NOAM CHOMSKY: They should be doing anything they can think of—demonstrations, protests, political organization, pressure on every pressure point you can think of, to try to block the very transparent effort of Trump, backed by his party, to set up major military confrontations, which will be an excuse for trying to either eliminate the election or to affect its results so that he does not have to leave the White House.

Also stressing the fact that we are in a major crisis. The pandemic is the immediate crisis; meanwhile, the environmental crisis is growing seriously, has to be addressed now. We cannot wait. We must put into practice means to mitigate the crisis and overcome it. To get off of fossil fuels. To get to zero net emissions within a short time. All of this has to be done now.

We have to strongly act constantly to try to prevent the crazed lunatics in the White House from carrying out nuclear weapons tests. That’s the next thing on the agenda, breaking down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Trying to pressure them, it’s possible, to renegotiate the new START treaty. If the Democrats win the election, they’ll do it, even thought it may be too late to get anywhere. All of these things have to be done right away. No let-up. We are in a very dangerous period for the next few months. What happens may determine the fate of the country, the fate of the species.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author joining us from Tucson, Arizona, where he is sheltering at home in the midst of the pandemic with his wife. Noam Chomsky is 91 years old. He is Professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for more than 50 years. Now laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Author of more than 100 books. To see part one of our interview we broadcast last week, go to Democracynow.org.

And this news just in, the U.S. economy contracted by a record 33% in the second quarter and another 1.43 million people filed for state unemployment last week. More than 50 million people have filed for unemployment since the start of the pandemic. And that does it for our show. I am Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks so much for joining us.

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