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onebadwinter · 4 years ago

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The Joker Tropes Part 2

Taken From Here and here

Nether Realm Studios especially seems to love making Joker out to be evil incarnate. In Injustice: Gods Among Us and its sequel, he loses all his cred (and life) once he nukes Metropolis; Harley ditches him entirely, Batman just completely gives up on indulging him any more, even Guest Fighters like Hellboy consider him worthless, and non-Batvillains such as Grodd and Brainiac and even Darkseid loathe him for either Metropolis, or just in general principle. Mortal Kombat 11 shows that even the MK cast see him as a scourge upon the realms, and also express distaste toward him for either his nuking, a previous outing, or because he's seen as a buffoon who cannot be taken seriously (this is usually the case for other villain characters).

About the only person who can tolerate him for long is Lex Luthor, only because they both have the same level of hatred for their respective enemies. Even then, Luthor prefers to keep his distance from the Joker, if only because a bored Joker screws with everything For the Evulz.

In the animated series, he claims to have been beaten as a child when interviewed by Harley Quinn. It is unknown if this is true. According to Batman, he's simply making it up.

In one issue of New 52, he claims to have been driven insane by an abusive grandmother, who also bleached his skin to its present pallor.

In the same continuity, he is one to a baby gorilla he adopts, trains up as a gun-wielding henchman, and ultimately gets killed off for laughs.

In the comic book adaptation of Injustice, it's implied Harley fears Joker would be one, and gives their daughter to her sister, lest he kill the child. It's left ambiguous whether the Joker's even aware of the ruse.

Averted in one story, wherein one of Arkham's doctors realizes Joker's faking insanity just to piss off Batman as revenge for his disfigurement. Another doctor finds the report and excitedly reveals it to the current head doctor, only to learn that the Joker left it for everyone to read, since the paper's written by Harley Quinn, and therefore worthless as evidence.

In Batman: The Man Who Laughs, it's established that the name "The Joker" was given to him by the media, and he liked it so much that he decided to call himself that.

The same happens in Joker (2019), where Murray tells the audience to "look at this joker" when talking about Arthur. Arthur took it to heart.

Batman: Arkham Knight takes this even further by revealing that being forgotten is the only thing the Joker truly fears.

Just to demonstrate how much disregard he has for his henchmen, a reoccurring motivation for offing his own lackeys is failing to laugh at one of his jokes. Or laughing too late. Or laughing for too long. Or laughing at the wrong joke. He's... unpredictable.

The Joker loves it when people laugh with him, whether genuine or not, but if someone laughs at him, they're most likely already dead.

Joker loves attention and being above the normals, so never imply that he's not interesting or unique. Terry exploits this flaw in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker just to drive him to a Villainous Breakdown.

The Batman Who Laughs. Since the character's first appearance in Dark Nights: Metal, the mere mention of him is enough to put The Joker in an uncharacteristically un-jolly mood and is a good way to get on his bad side. In fact, the dislike of this twisted version of his archnemesis is so great, that when Lex Luthor and The Legion of Doom started cooperating with him against Joker's protests, he quit the legion (after non-lethally jokerizing every other member of it) in disgust.

If you're going to hurt Batman, do it right. One of the supplementary stories for Joker War had him beyond furious with Bane - to the point of promising him he'd kill him in a way he would never see coming - for showing so little imagination in killing Alfred in City of Bane without even letting Batman listen to it to torture him. By his reckoning, if you have a great gag to break the Bat, use it to break the Bat - don't blow it by having Robin be the only one to witness it.

Originally Conrad Veidt from The Man Who Laughs.

Later portrayals base themselves on his actors, with Cesar Romero a popular candidate, and after Jack Nicholson came in, artists such as Alex Ross base him on him, such as the actor's distinct widow's peak and slicked back hair.

During Knightfall he and Scarecrow killed several members of a SWAT team, and one of his last actions in Batman: No Man's Land was to kill Commissioner Gordon's second wife, Lt. Sarah Essen.

One of the alternate realities seen in Zero Hour! was one where he killed Commissioner Gordon instead of crippling Barbara.

Part of the reason Gordon takes over the post of Commissioner in both The Dark Knight Trilogy and Batman: Arkham Series is due to the Joker killing Gillian Loeb. Additionally, the first game in the latter series, Asylum, he sees several of Arkham's guards killed by him and his men.

He's holding a dead cop's corpse in his intro in Injustice: Gods Among Us and using it as a puppet. He also talks to the body of one of the Regime enforcers who captured him once he breaks out and heads to Gotham.

Whether he was driven insane or was already insane and became completely bonkers.

Where he is on the spectrum between "wacky prankster" and "utterly depraved and sadistic sociopath and murderer".

Whether he is a senseless, performative terrorist wreaking havoc for kicks or a deceptively cunning and competent criminal mastermind. Or both. Usually both.

He's no Batman, but sometimes he is a proficient hand-to-hand combatant, Knife Nut or marksman, and other times a flimsy wimp who goes down in one punch. In some of the grittier settings, his raw strength, numbness to pain and viciousness are enough to level the playing field with Batman.

Whether he actually loves Harley Quinn varies. In the animated series, (where Harley first appeared) the writers haveoutright said he's a sociopath incapable of loving anyone, and just sees her as a useful mook. Some other works imply he really does love her on some level (although he's usually still an abusive asshole.)

He can either be Faux Affably Evil, Laughably Evil, just a Monster Clown, or some combination of the three.

At least one such incident implied he would be interested in Batman... but only after he was dead. Again this may only have been a tactic to get under Batman's skin or truthful admission. The readers will never know for certain.

His plot in The Killing Joke is to put Jim Gordon through the wringer hard in the hopes of driving him mad. He'll also try to drive Batman over the edge (particularly, drive him to break his "no killing" rule), sometimes by cutting off all of Batsy's human connections.

The Dark Knight reworks it into Driving Gotham To Senseless Violence with wanton acts of destruction or terrorism, just to prove everyone's as bad as him deep down.

Ironically, a 1952 story has the Joker get himself falsely committed to an insane asylum, to question a patient who knew the location of a cache of money. The end of the story has him Laughing Mad due to a prank Batman used to disguise his identity.

He didn't have his signature laugh. This seems to have been a way to "goofy up" the character to make him less terrifying in the days of the Comics Code Authority. Later on, he'd learn to giggle while remaining terrifying.

He actually committed crimes for moneynote , and wasn't really interested in causing chaos or terror for a joke's sake.

Building off of that, his plans weren't really "insane" until the Silver Age (at which point it's not even fair to say this was exclusive to him), nor was there any question of the character's mental stability.

His obsession with Batman wasn't there, much less the idea that he would pass up chances to kill the Bat or learn his identity. This aspect was probably introduced to explain the Bond Villain Stupidity he (and every Batman villain) had become infamous for in the Silver Age.

His clown-like complexion was actually makeup in his early appearances. He even removed his makeup to disguise himself as a cop, which was referenced in The Dark Knight. It's later revealed that the look is permanent after falling in a vat of chemicals.

The Brave and the Bold #111 and #191 have him team up with Batman to clear his name after being framed for several murders. The first instance turned out to simply be a framing the guilty part occasion but the second instance was actually genuine on Joker's part (except the person Joker seemingly murdered turned out to be faking their death).

He also does this with Batman whenever The Batman Who Laughs is involved (specifically in the Dark Knights: Metal series).

He abruptly ends a partnership with Red Skull when his Nazi affiliation comes out. Red Skull simply wonders why he is so surprised when he thinks that the Joker would make a great Nazi. The Joker is NOT happy about this, proclaiming "I may be a criminal lunatic, but I'm an American criminal lunatic!" It even provides the trope's image. And yes, folks, even an equal-opportunity murderer like the Joker despises the Nazis!note

The exception is mentioned again in the Last Laugh arc where the Joker immediately refused to join the American Neo-Nazi Aryan Alliance group in the Slab after he was offered membership. Joker: I'm evil and all that, but you guys are just plain mean.

Will not harm dumb animals and doesn't condone it. There's no humor to be had in that. Higher primates apparently do not qualify but a lot more effort went into that one.

While in Arkham with villain Warren White, AKA the Great White Shark, Joker calls him the worst person he ever met. He states that while he may kill people, even he doesn't steal their kids' college funds.

Sees nothing funny about someone parking in a handicap spot when they're not handicapped. However, he does think it's hilarious to hurt them in ways that will make certain they'll always be able to park there.

A girl named Janey Bennett, whose class was studying criminal behavior, became pen pals with the Joker while he was in Arkham. When Janey revealed that her father, the mayor of Motor City, was abusing her (exactly how isn't specified, though it was implied to have been really bad) the Joker broke out and, convinced that the authorities would be of no help, tried to force the mayor into admitting to his crimes and giving him Janey (so that he could find a better home for her) by threatening to contaminate the city's blood supply, going through with it (because the ends justify the means) when the mayor refused to give in to his demands. He originally intended to give her to Batman as well so he could protect her but at the end decided to give her to her mom. Joker: I mean, stealing a city blind is something I can admire... but being mean to one's own daughter... that just makes my blood boil.

For a rather literal form of "standard", the Joker's team-up with Carnage in Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds fell apart in part because the Joker, known for his love of theatrics, found Kasady's desire to get straight to killing boring. Conversely, Kasady didn't like the Joker's flair for theatrics.

The Joker absolutely loathes The Batman Who Laughs, to the point where he drops his usual joking demeanor and is deathly serious whenever directly referring to him, even willing to work together with Batman to face him when it comes down to it. When Lex Luthor goes behind his back to make a deal with The Batman Who Laughs (going against the only condition Joker has for joining his plan), Joker responds by Joker-gassing the Legion of Doom, putting Lex into a series of deathtraps, trashing Lex's Power Armor, and quitting the Legion. In the process, he tells Luthor how he had planned on ruining the Legion utterly on the verge of victory, and as nightmarish as his plan sounded, he claims it is nothing compared to what the Batman Who Laughs is going to do.

While he still gloated about it and found Commissioner Gordon kneecapping him funny after remember that he'd crippled Barbara, the actual act of killing Sarah Essen in the penultimate issue of Batman: No Man's Land is one of the few times the Joker wasn't happy with something he himself did, considering he's seen walking away while scowling afterward, leaves the babies he originally planned to murder unharmed and immediately turns himself in to the police.

Emperor Joker sees the Joker disgusted with a corrupted Jimmy O Lsen tormenting the Superfamily and Batman when they're turned int animals.

Later one he is disgusted when his minions vandalize the Moai on Eastern Island.

Again, when he rescues Lex from The Batman Who Laugh's infected minions in Hell Arisen, the mere mention of his alternate universe rival prompts him to have a very uncharacteristic Freak Out. The Joker: I told you. I told you not to deal with him. You should have shot that thing in the head the second you had it in a cage! It is wrong. It is a wrong thing.

Played more straight in his relationship with Punchline. Only time will tell if it lasts.

There’s also a comic storyline when Hush informed that a dirty cop Office Halmet killed his wife Jeannie. The Joker wanted nothing more than to kill said cop in revenge. Then there’s Batman: Three Jokers where, despite it being being heavily implied he was abusive, the “Comedian” Joker is seen setting up fake tea parties with dolls, clearly trying to substitute them for his wife and child showing that he does miss them and desire to be a family with them.

While The Dark Knight is one of the few times the Joker's clown-like appearance is the result of make-up, he does sport a Glasgow Grin.

While Joker still has the permanent clown look, it's combined with the Glasgow Grin.

While Batman: Endgame would see the skin of his face restored with a chemical called Dionesiumnote , at the start of The New 52, the Joker had the Dollmaker skin his face and then, after he recovered it, spent Death of the Family wearing it like a Leatherface-esque mask. And even in Endgame, his restored face ends up badly burned as the result of the finale battle between him and Batman, though it still ends up restored again.

Gotham sees neither Valeska escape this. After his death in season 2, Jerome (the proto-Joker) ends up resurrected in season 3, but because Dwight thinks his attempt to revive him failed, Dwight ends up cutting off Jerome's face ala Death of the Family and Jerome ends up stapling it on when he catches up with Dwight and while he later has it properly reattached, there's still scars from what happened. Jeremiah, Jerome's twin and the show's true Joker, ends up with the "perma-clown" appearance due to Jerome having the Scarecrow brew something up to spray in Jeremiah's face, but season 5 sees his fateful fall at Ace Chemicals badly scar his face and sear off most of his hair with only stringy patches left.

Averted entirely in Joker (2019), where his clown appearance is entirely makeup, and the worst it gets is painting his iconic smile on his face with his own blood from a car crash. Not even a Glasgow Grin or anything, the blood is from his hand and his face only has a few normal cuts on it.

While Batman is a rather serious character who refuses to kill anyone, The Joker is a rather comical character who revels in death.

Joker's gadgets tend to be rather goofier but much more lethal, such as the Joker Venom that he often uses to kill his victims.

While Batman gets along well with his sidekicks Robin and Batgirl, Joker frequently abuses his sidekick Harley Quinn and has tried to kill her before, not to mention all the times he has been a Bad Boss by killing his henchmen for any reason you can think of, sometimes for no reason at all.

While Batman's backstory is well known, even by the citizens of Gotham who know of the tragedy of the rich Waynes' in Crime Alley, no one knows anything about the Joker's backstory, but most versions he tells are consistent in two things: he was a nobody, and possibly someone poor.

In most adaptations, his voice is high-pitched in contrast to Batman's Badass Baritone.

Why he went by the name the Red Hood has changed over the years: The Killing Joke claims he was a failed comedian driven to crime to support his pregnant wife. The trauma of his disfigurement from jumping in the acid and his wife's earlier accidental death drove him insane. However, even this backstory is questionable, as the Joker himself calls it "multiple choice".

In Injustice 2, an intro with Atrocitus has the Red Lantern wondering what drove the Joker to nihilism.

In the animated series, he claims to have been abused as a child when interviewed by Harley, but according to Batman, it's just another ruse to escape Arkham.

The purple suit and matching pants with either an orange and/or green shirt with a bowtie or tie, remains the definitive Joker look one that many artists and costume designers have given spin on. He is sometimes known for wearing a cool hat but other times goes hatless. Heath Ledger's custom-designed purple long-coat, trousers, blue shirt and green Waistcoat of Style with a tie has likewise become iconic and famous for its contemporary and downright stylish update on the classic look.

The original Red Hood outfit which is a black suit, white shirt, bowtie with an opera cap and a bizarre red dome is also quite famous.

The Hawaiian tourist outfit he wore in the notorious scene in The Killing Joke.

The white suit he wears in Miller's The Dark Knight Returns as well as the white nurse maid outfit with red wig in The Dark Knight is also quite notable.

The Future Joker look from Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker which went with a mime look (black body suit, slicked-back hair) is also quite distinct and unique.

The first issue of Batman with Joker's debut has him described as having "burning, hate-filled eyes" and the moniker, "the harliquin of hate".

The Man Who Laughs had Bruce dosed with a light version of the Joker Venom and he felt his perspective shift into a paranoid vengeance were he felt everyone deserved to be punished for his parent's death just for existing.

Death of the Family had Batman describe how Joker's irises are always narrow when looking at anyone but Batman and that it is usually an indication of negative feelings toward something with Bruce mentioning that his eye are the eyes of someone who hates everything he sees.

In the Justice League storyline "Rock of Ages", Martian Manhunter has to put in incredible effort to reorganize Joker's mind long enough for him to give up the cataclysmic Philosopher's Stone. The briefly sane Joker immediately says My God, What Have I Done? verbatim as he hands it back, before quickly losing his mind and going back to the laughing madman.

The famous example from the end of The Killing Joke, where Batman tries to convince him to allow Batman to rehabilitate him before their vendetta kills them. Joker considers it for a long, somber moment before quietly reflecting that they're both too far gone.

Batman: Cacophony ends with Joker being pumped full of an inhuman amount of antipsychotic drugs to keep him under control while in recovery from a near-fatal stabbing. Batman takes the opportunity to have a relatively-sane conversation with him, though it's somewhat subverted by Joker still being a homicidal sociopath even while heavily sedated.

He even gives multiple reasons on how he came Back from the Dead in Injustice 2 and will go along with whatever his opponent thinks is true, despite being Dead All Along in story mode and only appearing as a hallucination to his ex-moll.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns sees him kill David Endochrine and Ruth Weisenheimer, who were clearly based on David Letterman and Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

During Knightfall, once he realizes that Azrael isn't Batman, his plan's gone to hell, and one too many criticisms from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert stand-ins, he kills the stand-ins.

In one of the issues for the The Batman tie-in comic, The Batman Strikes, he terrorizes a stand-in for Conan O'Brien. This becomes darkly Hilarious in Hindsight as the real O'Brien voiced Endochrine in the animated version of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In the series proper, Harley's debut had the two of them terrorize a stand-in for Dr. Phil for the climax.

If you want to know how truly terrifying The Batman Who Laughs is, look no further than the way Joker acts whenever discussing him. He doesn't laugh, he doesn't smile. He becomes calm and serious and simply tells whomever he's talking to that the TBWL is "a wrong thing that shouldn't exist". Someone HAS to be scary if the very thought of him makes Joker act like a calm rational sane person.

In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the clown has a massive Villainous Breakdown when Terry mocks him for his failed attempts to break Batman.

On the rare occasion Joker gets bored and leaves Gotham, expect everyone to think of him as just a silly clown, until the bodies start piling up.

One issue of the Robin Series had him talking about having Abusive Parents, only for a psychiatrist to tell him it's the seventh story he's told now.

Batman lampshades on this to Harley in the animated series, thinking it's another lie to gain sympathy.

The Killing Joke claims he was a failed comedian driven to crime to support his pregnant wife. The trauma of his disfigurement and his wife's earlier accidental death drove him mad. However, even this could be a lie, as he himself calls it "multiple choice".

It's even discussed in Injustice 2, as Atrocitus wonders what drove the Joker to nihilism. Despite only appearing as a hallucination to Harley in story mode, he spews out multiple theories for his Unexplained Recovery and will say Sure, Let's Go with That in non-canon fights. Was he resurrected by someone, or is he from another universe? Did he escape from either the Source Wall or the Phantom Zone, or is he just an apparition?

Shadow of the Bat #38, Tears of a Clown: He celebrates his anniversary of the day he was a still sane, but hapless comedian, and was thrown out of an exclusive Stand-Up Comedy club for an unfunny act the patrons mercilessly heckled. It was the last straw as he agreed to provide to his family by pulling a job for the Red Hood gang. So he kidnaps all the patrons and reenacts his act with control collars that will kill them when they laugh. Oddly enough, the patrons are hardcore Stand-Up Comedy fans, so they can't remember the number of times they've booed someone. However, even this origin story could be a lie.

It's come to be his primary disfigurement over the original skin bleaching.

In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Terry McGinnis exploits this by delivering an epic Boring Insult so the clown will have a Villainous Breakdown.

King Barlowe proved to be a big one in his Thanatos Gambit in the episode "Joker's Millions" of The New Batman Adventures. In a spiteful Video Will, he gives the clown his millions, revealing in his tape that most of it was fake. Expecting the clown to splurge on it, he won't have enough to pay off the IRS, allowing Barlowe to get the "last laugh" after his death, without the Joker coming after him.

Alan Moore's "I go Loony" from The Killing Joke, an in-panel song-and-dance tune that was eventually made into an actual song belted out in Batman: The Killing Joke.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold has "Where's the Fun in That?" from the episode "Emperor Joker".

Batman: Arkham City ended with him covering The Platters' "Only You (and You Alone)", Batman: Arkham Origins had him cover Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold, Heart" and Batman: Arkham Knight had him provide an original composition, "Can't Stop Laughing".

Action Fashionista: This incarnation of the Joker has a wide variety of garish outfits for every occassion — most of them straight from the comics.

Adaptational Attractiveness: Metal teeth, lack of eyebrows, and tattoos aside, he's still being played by the youthful-looking real life Pretty Boy Jared Leto; especially since the last two cinematic Jokers were a creepy middle-aged gangster with a botched face-lift and a filthy, scarred vagrant (even the mentally unwell clown-for-hire doesn't scream Mr. Fanservice one bit). This version looks more like Marilyn Manson.

Adaptational Nice Guy: A very downplayed example. While he's otherwise the same Clown Prince of Crime we all know and love to hate, he appears to genuinely care for Harley, and even throws her out of a falling helicopter to save her life. Almost any other iteration of the Joker would do that to save his own skin or rid himself of her.

Adaptational Skimpiness: This version of the Joker tends to be shirtless a lot more than he has in any other medium. It mostly seems like an opportunity to show off his tattoos.

Adaptation Distillation: Leto's Joker seems to be less of the "evil philosopher" that Heath Ledger portrayed him as in The Dark Knight, and instead seems to be a cross between the garish, larger-than-life Mark Hamill version from the animated series and the Arkham games, and the creepy, deeply twisted Brian Azzarello version. David Ayer had also stated that he looked specifically to the Golden Age Joker for reference, providing reason for many to believe that Leto's Joker is a modern re-imagining of that incarnation.

Advertised Extra: Heavily featured in Suicide Squad promotional materials, barely appears in the film for more than seven minutes. According to Jared Leto, several of the scenes he shot were not included in the theatrical cut.

Ambiguous Disorder: In Suicide Squad, most of the time the Joker seems... not all there compared to Harley. In addition of psychopathic tendencies, the Joker has random bouts of maniacal laughter, confusion, and slurred speech-like patterns. All attributes that stem from punch-drunk syndrome. Considering he has faced Batman one too many times, it makes sense that the Joker's mental stability is finally catching up to him.

However, come Birds of Prey, they broke up, mirroring the comics where they do have an Relationship Revolving Door. It appears to stick, as Harley publicly calls it quits between the two of them.

His tattoos are very reminiscent of the Joker in All Star Batman and Robin.

Ax-Crazy: Like all the incarnations before him, calling him a violent psychopath is one of the biggest understatements you can make.

Bedlam House: Spent some time at Arkham Asylum, where he met Harley. Then he broke free from it with the help of both Harley and his gang.

Chewing the Scenery: An important part of the character is his theatricality.

Cool Car: A bright purple sports car with underglow lights and a "HAHAHA" license plate.

Dented Iron: It's subtle, but the numerous scars on his body and metal replacement teeth in his mouth are clear signs that his frequent run-ins with Batman are taking their toll.

Disney Death: He seemingly dies in the crash of his helicopter... only to come back to free Harley from her high security prison at the end of Suicide Squad.

The Dreaded: In true Joker fashion, everyone is terrified of him.

Establishing Character Moment: One that takes place before he even makes his official debut in the setting - he killed Robin (a minor) and vandalized his outfit to mock Batman over his inability to save him.

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Insofar as much as the Joker can love anyone, anyway, but he does seem to genuinely care about Harley. Eventually, subverted.

Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: He considers the brutal murder of a minor as a joke he played on Batman. When he's torturing Harleen Quinzel, he promises not to shatter her well-kept teeth while flashing his own hideous metal dentures. When Harleen later has him at gunpoint, Joker just says "please don't kill me, I'll be ya friend" in a snarky tone.

Evil Is Hammy: It's not The Joker if he's not Chewing the Scenery. And, sure enough, he does.

Evil Is Petty: The graffiti on Robin's costume seems to imply that Joker murdered him just to prod at Batman. It is confirmed in Suicide Squad that Joker and Harley killed him.

Evil Laugh: It's kind of his thing. One notable example is when he chuckles while surrounded by an arsenal of weapons.

Fake Shemp: Indie rocker Johnny Goth stood in for Jared Leto in Birds of Prey, in the flashback where he and Harley torture and tattoo the big mafia thug Harley later bumps back into.

Foil: To Batman as usual, but with some new additions. After 20 years, Batman became more jaded and cruel, while the Joker somewhat mellowed out and his criminal activity became more professional. Batman didn't settle down until the death of Superman while the Joker grew attached to Harley Quinn.

In Suicide Squad Griggs' smug indifference about his gambling debt immediately becomes pure terror when he realizes the Joker has gotten involved.

He is so feared that even the likes of Black Mask would rather steer clear of him. Harley's enemies only start gunning for her in Birds of Prey when it's become clear that she's no longer with him.

G-Y

The Ghost:

There is an allusion to him in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ("HA HA HA Joke's On You, Batman" painted across the chest of the dead Robin's empty suit in the Batcave), but he doesn't actually appear.

He gets mentioned a lot in Birds of Prey, but he's only seen very briefly in some flashbacks, always from the back (including footage from Suicide Squad). There is a whole Deleted Scene where he and Harley have a domestic dispute. Harley leaves the house through the window and the Joker throws her stuffed beaver out through the window. In the film proper, she's just kicked out of the house, with no shot of Mr. J.

Greater-Scope Villain: His role in Batman v Superman. Despite not actually appearing his murder of Robin by this point has driven Batman down a darker, more vengeful path that goes against Batman's traditional moral code; the one that the Joker is always trying to prove is wrong. Batman's rage towards Superman blinds him to the possibility of Lex Luthor being the real threat long enough for Superman to die fighting Doomsday. In a way the Joker's actions contributed to Batman's failure.

Guttural Growler: This Joker is noticeably more snarly than previous incarnations.

Handshake Refusal: He doesn't like to shake hands, as Monster T finds out.

Hell-Bent for Leather: Wears a purple crocodile skin duster at some point in the film.

Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Despite being a homicidal sociopath, he seems to truly love his girlfriend Harley Quinn. Then in Birds Of Prey, he coldly and violently breaks up with her.

Joker Immunity: He appears to die when his helicopter is shot down about halfway through Suicide Squad. To absolutely no one's surprise, he shows up alive and well in the final scene. It helps that he's the Trope Namer.

Knife Nut: And by God, does he have enough blades.◊

Lean and Mean: This Joker, while muscular, is quite lean, especially compared to the heavily muscled Batman.

Love Epiphany: Well, "love" is pushing it, but Joker realizes his affections for Harley when she dives in the chemical bath that ultimately turned Joker into what he is. Symbolic in the sense she was agreeing to join him in madness. Further adding to the complexity of the scene; Joker was tying up a loose end, having used Harley to escape from Arkham. He lead her to her demise and intended to leave her for death but at the same moment realized she had entered his world and his madness. Joker never anticipated the amount of utter devotion Harley would have for him, something inside him just couldn't walk away from her, so he jumped in to save her.

Manipulative Bastard: He manipulated Harley into helping him escape Arkham because she fell in love with him. When she served her purpose, he would have had her kill herself jumping into a bath of chemicals to prove her feelings. He instead saves her from this demise because he has a Love Epiphany in the moment.

Monster Clown: Like the previous film versions, Joker is an Ax-Crazy criminal with clownish makeup. Green hair notwithsanding, his white makeup, red lipstick and absence of facial scars make him look closer to a mime than his predecessors.

Noble Demon: In Suicide Squad, his whole motivation is to rescue Harley Quinn. His commitment is so strong he doesn't even waste time with pranks or petty acts of cruelty. Everything he does is for someone else.

Only Known By His Nickname: He's only known as The Joker, or "J" / "Mr. J".

Outlaw Couple: He and Harley Quinn are lovers and partners in crime.

Sadist: Even though there was only a few select scenes of him, one of them is him torturing Harley. It's disturbingly obvious that he is positively gleeful over it. And he doesn't seem to have lost any sleep over murdering Robin, either.

Pet the Dog: David Ayer confirms that while he did push Harley out of the falling helicopter, his intent was in fact to save her life.

Satellite Love Interest: To Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. His characterization revolves entirely around Harley, not even getting involved with the main plot.

Scary Teeth: Several of his teeth are made of metal. According to David Ayer, Batman punched his teeth out after he killed Robin, leading him to replace them with metal teeth.

Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Although he has a presence at the start of the film, The Joker appears to have left Gotham City to be controlled by Black Mask in Birds of Prey, with Roman saying that Joker has already skipped town.

The Sociopath: He's chaotic and remorseless, much like his previous versions. Special mention goes to his murder of Robin, which he topped off by spray-painting a cruel taunt for Batman onto the boy's costume.

Tattooed Crook: His torso is covered in jester-themed tattoos. He also has a few on his arms and face.

Villain of Another Story: He mainly appeared in Suicide Squad, but his biggest act of villainy to date — killing Robin — happened some years before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in which he doesn't appear. The spray-painted message on Robin's empty suit ("Ah ah ah joke's on you Batman!") in the latter film can't be anything else than his doing.

Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Is seen with a rather impressive arsenal of guns and knives. And even says to warden Griggs, at some point, "I can't wait to show you my toys." note Notably, he manages to hijack the gunship which was sent to extract Waller and the squad so he can rescue Harley.

Would Hit a Girl: In the past, the Joker electroshocks and manipulates Dr. Harleen Quinzel into allowing her to fall into a vat of chemicals, in order to become Harley Quinn.

Would Hurt a Child: He killed Batman's sidekick, Robin, while the boy was an underage minor.

You Gotta Have Blue Hair: His hair is bright green.

"Knightmare" Joker

"You won't kill me. I'm your best friend..." Appearances:

Zack Snyder's Justice League

"You need me. You... need me... to help you undo this world you created, by letting her die."

The Joker meets up once more with Batman in the nightmarish alternate future where Darkseid has conquered the Earth and Superman turned evil. But things aren't the same anymore between the two legendary foes.

See also the Knightmare page for more on that setting's characters.

Break Them by Talking: He deliberately tries to agitate Batman by reminding him of how many people have died on his watch.

Cop Killer: He wears a bulletproof vest with at least two dozens police badges on it. Whether these were good cops killed prior to the apocalypse or servants of the oppressive regime of Superman after the apocalypse is not detailed.

Costume Evolution: He has ditched his garish gangster suits for what looks like either a medical gown or a butcher gown, complete with orange gloves and a bulletproof vest with a dozen police badges pinned on it. He got rid of his "Damaged" forehead tattoo, let his hair grow and put red makeup around his mouth, looking closer to more common depictions of the character.

Enemy Mine: He and Batman had the worst kind of enmity imaginable, but the Earth being conquered by Darkseid is enough of a Conflict Killer for them to call a truce and work together to try undoing this mess.

Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: He utters the line "We live in a society" while gazing upon the devastated landscape in the trailer. This is clearly a Meme Acknowledgement, and it's quite awkwardly used given the context (is there really any society left in this post-apocalyptic world?). It doesn't appear in the actual film, however. The line was improvised by Leto.

Evil Laugh: Even with the world being in such a sorry state and him still being sane enough to acknowledge how bad the situation is, he'll still let some laughs out, even though they sound more subdued than ever.

Evil Versus Oblivion: Even he sees the necessity of teaming up with Batman to try undoing what Darkseid did to Earth.

Future Badass: He survived the apocalypse brought upon Earth by Darkseid and looks like he's geared for guerilla actions.

My Card: He gives a Joker card to Batman as a symbol of their truce. Shall the Dark Knight want to break that truce, he'd just have to tear that card up. The card could be seen strapped on Batman's assault rifle in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Joker gets a high reminding Batman how costly his mistakes in the past have been.

The Nicknamer: He nicknames Mera "my little fish stick" and Robin "Boy Wonder".

Progressively Prettier: Despite being worse for wear, this Joker is arguably even better looking than his previous appearance, with his over-the-top tattooed gangster image toned down and his androgyny played up. Ironically, this version also more closely resembles the Heath Ledger incarnation.

Thousand-Yard Stare: He has such a stare when looking at the devastated horizon as he starts talking to Batman.

Villain Has a Point: While he’s the one who killed Robin, he gives Batman a minor What the Hell, Hero? for sending “a Boy Wonder to do a man’s job.”

Vocal Evolution: His voice is much softer and higher pitched than it was in Suicide Squad.

#TheJokerInformation

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fearsmagazine · 3 years ago

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Screamfest Horror Film Festival Announces Initial Lineup for 21st Edition

Screamfest® Horror Film Festival, the largest and longest-running horror film festival in the United States, announced their first-wave lineup of competitive features and shorts for its 21st edition. Running October 12th through 21st at the TCL Chinese Theater, Screamfest® welcomes audiences back to the big screen for a collective experience they won’t soon forget. Tickets can be purchased here: https://screamfestla.com

The Retaliators will open Screamfest® LA on October 12th for its North American premiere with a red carpet prior to the screening. The film follows an upstanding pastor who uncovers a dark and twisted underworld as he searches for answers surrounding his daughter's brutal murder. Directed by Bridget Smith and Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and written by the Geare brothers, The Retaliators also features a high-octane original soundtrack and cameos from some of the biggest names in rock music, including Five Finger Death Punch, Tommy Lee, Papa Roach, The Hu, Ice Nine Kills, Escape The Fate, and more appear on screen. Marc Menchaca (Ozark), Michael Lombardi (Rescue Me), and Joseph Gatt (Game of Thrones) star in this horror-thriller which reveals a game of revenge played using a new set of rules.

Considered the "Sundance of Horror," Screamfest® is proud to showcase new work from independent filmmakers from across the globe. Highlights from this year’s program include the World Premieres of Father of Flies, the haunting tale of family life and the supernatural and Teddy Grennan’s Wicked Games where a long weekend at a country estate is turned into a nightmare when a group of masked intruders invades the property. Little do they know one guest has a surprise for them.

Four films will be making their North American debuts at the festival. In addition to The Retaliators, Richard Waters’s dark folk horror Bring Out The Fear traps its protagonists in an unsolvable maze where a sinister presence awaits; Clare Foley stars in the sci-fi horror The Changed where an alien presence takes possession of the hearts and minds of her city; and Isolation depicts nine tales of terror which are woven together as remote people work to survive an increasingly deadly outbreak.

US premieres at the festival include Russia’s #Blue_Whale produced by Timur Bekmambetov, which follows Dana as she works to uncover the truth behind her sister’s suicide; Argentina’s fantasy horror film Nocturna: Side A- The Great Old Man’s Night which depicts one old man’s journey to rethink his past and present and question his reality; and Kratt by Rasmus Berivoo in which children stumble upon an instruction manual to create a supernatural being.

West Coast premieres at the festival include a joint production between the US, Mexico, and Venezuela, Exorcism of God which follows an American priest working in Mexico who, due to a botched exorcism, carries a dark secret with him; hailing from Ireland, Let the Wrong One In dives into the complications of family ties when a vampire is discovered in the family; Erik Bloomquist follows twins who spend a night at a remote inn to investigate their missing father in Night at the Eagle Inn; North American distribution rights to the Argentinian The Returned (Los Que Vuelven) - which follows a woman in 1919 prays to a mythical deity to resurrect her stillborn son - were acquired in a new venture between Peter Block of A Bigger Boat and Seth Nagel, Scott Einbinder and Garrick Dion of 5X Media; What Josiah Saw explores a farmhouse haunted by the past; Alone With You stars Emily Bennett, Emma Myles, and fan-favorite Barbara Crampton in a twisted tale of memory and horror unfolding over a romantic homecoming for a distant girlfriend; and When I Consume You by Perry Blackshear where two siblings get more than they bargained for when hunting a shadowy stalker.

The festival will also feature a Special Presentation of Daniel Farrands’s Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeyman starring Peyton List and Lydia Hearst, which follows the notorious killer through a little known chapter of her life in Deland, Florida.

“After a challenging year for cinema, we are excited to return to our home at the TCL Chinese Theatre for our latest lineup of frights,'' says festival founder Rachel Belofsky. “While last year’s drive-ins allowed us to continue to celebrate horror films as a community, we have missed the magic of the traditional theatrical experience.”

Formed in August 2001 by film producer Rachel Belofsky, Screamfest Horror Film Festival is a female-run 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that gives filmmakers and screenwriters in the horror and science fiction genres a venue to have their work showcased in the film industry.

Please find the 2021 Screamfest feature line-up below:

Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeyman (US, 2021) - Special Presentation Written and Directed by Daniel Farrands Produced by Lucas Jarach, Daniel Farrands, Meadow Williams, Swen Temmel, Luke Daniels, Daniel Davila Executive Producer(s) Nicolas Chartier, Jonathan Deckter, Lydia Hearst, Alan Pao Cast Peyton List, Lydia Hearst, Tobin Bell, Nick Vallelonga, Swen Temmel, Meadow Williams, Andrew Biernat Based on a little-known chapter in the life of America's most notorious female serial killer, "Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeyman" takes place in 1976 when 21-year-old Aileen (Peyton List) arrives in Florida attempting to escape her tragic past. Soon she marries wealthy yacht club president Lewis Fell (Tobin Bell) who offers her the chance to become part of Florida's high society. Ultimately, the victimized Aileen surrenders to her murderous impulses and wreaks havoc on the peaceful seaside community of Deland, Florida.

Alone With You (US, 2021) - West Coast Premiere Directed by Emily Bennett & Josh Brooks Written by Emily Bennett & Josh Brooks Produced by Andrew D. Corkin & Theo James Cast Emily Bennett, Emma Myles (ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK), Dora Madison (BLISS, VFX), and Barbara Crampton (RE-ANIMATOR, YOU'RE NEXT) Charlie (Emily Bennett) is setting the atmosphere in her sleek, two-story apartment in Brooklyn for a romantic homecoming for her distant girlfriend Simone (Emma Myles) who’s been away for work. There are past glimpses of visual tension between the two, so we’re led to feel that this meticulous setting of mood may be a peacemaking gesture. Enamored beyond all good sense, Charlie begins to experience a myriad of unsettling incidents, and the horrors of what has transpired are slowly revealed in the shards of Charlie’s resistant memory.

#Blue_Whale (Russia, 2021) - US Premiere Directed by Anna Zaytseva Written by Evgeniya Bogomyakova, Anna Zaytseva, Olga Klemesheva Produced by Timur Bekmambetov, Anna Shalashina, Igor Mishin Cast Anna Potebnya, Timofey Eleckii, Ekaterina Stulova, Diana Shulmina, Olga Pipchenko, Polina Vataga, Daniil Kiselev After her younger sister Julia commits suicide, troubled adolescent Dana decides to find out what led to her death. Examining her sister’s computer, Dana finds a secret chat group where adolescents are encouraged to kill themselves through a challenge called "Blue Whale". Dana’s investigation leads her ever closer to the truth, but to really discover what happened, she herself must play the deadly game. #blue_whale // #I_want_to_play_the_game is inspired by real events that happened in Russia in 2015 and 2017.

Bring Out The Fear (Ireland, 2021) - North American Premiere Written and Directed by Richard Waters Produced by Alison Scarff & Richard Waters Cast Ciara Bailey, Tad Morari, James Devlin Rosie and Dan are a couple in a doomed relationship. While taking a final walk in their favourite forest, they find it has trapped them in an unsolvable maze. The paths lead nowhere, the trees never end, the sun never sets, and a sinister presence stalks and torments them, trying to drive them insane... There is no escape. But what exactly are they hiding? This dark folk horror will leave you questioning what is real and what is malicious trickery.

The Changed (US, 2021) - North American Premiere Written and Directed by Michael Mongillo Produced by Taylor Warren and Eloise Asmuth Cast Clare Foley, Jason Alan Smith, Carlee Avers, Doug Tompos, introducing Olivia Freer, with Kathy Searle, and Tony Todd Something has taken possession of the hearts and minds of the populace. Kim (Clare Foley), Mac (Jason Alan Smith), and Jane (Carlee Avers) try to convince themselves it's paranoia, but before long the city is besieged by the changed. By the time they realize an alien intelligence has merged with their neighbor, Bill (Tony Todd), a horde of changed is amassing outside their suburban home.

Exorcism of God (US/Mexico/Venezuela, 2021) - West Coast Premiere Directed by Alejandro Hidalgo Written by Alejandro Hidalgo, Santiago Fernández Calvete Produced by Alejandro Hidalgo, Joel Seidl, Karim Kabche & Antonio Abdo Cast María Gabriela De Faría, Will Beinbrink, Joseph Marcell Peter Williams, an American priest working in Mexico, is considered a saint by many local parishioners. However, due to a botched exorcism, he carries a dark secret that's eating him alive until he gets an opportunity to face his own demon one final time.

Father of Flies (USA/UK, 2021) - World Premiere Directed by Ben Charles Edwards Written by Kirsty Bell Produced by Kirsty Bell, Phil McKenzie Cast Nicholas Tucci, Camilla Rutherford, Davi Santos, Page Ruth, Keaton Tetlow, Colleen Heidemann A haunting tale of family life. A vulnerable young boy finds his mother pushed out of the family home by a strange new woman, and he must confront the terrifying supernatural forces that seem to move in with her.

Isolation (US, 2021) - North American Premiere Directed by Larry Fessenden, Andrew Kasch, Dennie Gordon, Bobby Roe, Alix Austin & Keir Siewert, Christian Pasquariello, Alexandra Neary, Zach Passero, Adam Brown & Kyle I. Kelley Written by Larry Fessenden, Cody Goodfellow, Dennie Gordon, Zack Andrews & Bobby Roe, Kyle I. Kelley & Adam Brown, Keir Siewert, Zach Passero, Alexandrea Neary, Christian Pasquariello Produced by Nathan Crooker, James P. Gannon Cast Larry Fessenden, Dennie Gordon, Graham Denman, Damien Gerard, Bobby Roe Sunny Roe, Bodhi Roe, Adam Brown, Alix Austin, Hannah Passero Marieh Delfino, Alex Weed, Fine Belger, Hans Gurbig Woven together are nine tales of terror that follow isolated citizens from around the world as they confront their darkest fears in an attempt to survive an increasingly deadly outbreak.

Kratt (Estonia, 2020) - US Premiere Written and Directed by Rasmus Merivoo Produced by Rain Rannu, Tõnu Hiielaid Cast Mari Lill, Ivo Uukkivi, Jan Uuspõld, Paul Purga, Nora Merivoo, Harri Merivoo When children are left at Grandma's without smartphones they’re bored to tears. That is until Granny finds them loads to do. She also tells them about a magical creature named KRATT that’ll do whatever its master says. When they stumble upon an instruction on how to build one they don’t hesitate. All they have to do now is to buy a soul from the devil…

Let The Wrong One In (Ireland, 2021) - West Coast Premiere Written and Directed by Conor McMahon Produced by Trisha Flood, Ruth Treacy, Julianne Forde, Michael Lavelle Cast Karl Rice, Eoin Duffy, Anthony Head, Mary Murray Let the Wrong One In follows young supermarket worker Matt, who is a little too nice for his own good. When he discovers that his older, estranged brother Deco has turned into a vampire, he's faced with a dilemma: Will he risk his own life to help his sibling, with blood being thicker than water? Or will he stake him before he spreads the infection further? The film stars upcoming Irish talent Karl Rice and Eoin Duffy, along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer icon Anthony Head, in the role of Henry; a taxi driver with a sideline in vampire hunting.

Night at the Eagle Inn (US, 2021) - West Coast Premiere Directed by Erik Bloomquist Written by Erik Bloomquist, Carson Bloomquist Produced by Erik Bloomquist, Carson Bloomquist Cast Amelia Dudley, Taylor Turner, Beau Minniear, Greg Schweers, Erik Bloomquist Fraternal twins spend a terrifying night at a remote inn to investigate the last known whereabouts of their father. As they dive deeper, the property's dark secrets ensnare them in a hellish labyrinth they must escape before dawn.

Nocturna: Side A - The Great Old Man’s Night (Argentina, 2021) - US Premiere Directed by Gonzalo Calzada Written by Gonzalo Calzada Produced by Alejandro Narváez, Javier Diaz Cast - Pepe Soriano, Marina Artigas, Lautaro Delgado Synopsis - Ulysses is a hundred-year-old man, he lives alone and is on the verge of death. The last night of his life, he will experience something that will force him to rethink his past, his present and his view about his reality.

The Retaliators (US, 2021) - North American Premiere - OPENING NIGHT Directed by Bridget Smith, Samuel Gonzalez, JR. Written by The Geare Brothers Produced by Allen Kovac, Michael Lombardi, Mike Walsh Executive Producer(s) Dan Lieblein Cast Michael Lombardi, Marc Menchaca, Joseph Gatt, Jacoby Shaddix, Katie Kelly, Abbey Hefer, Ivan Moody, Zoltan Bathory In THE RETALIATORS, an upstanding pastor uncovers a dark and twisted underworld as he searches for answers surrounding his daughter's brutal murder. A high-octane original soundtrack and cameos from some of the biggest names in rock music set the tone as this horror-thriller reveals a game of revenge played using a new set of rules. Marc Menchaca (Ozark), Michael Lombardi (Rescue Me), and Joseph Gatt (Game of Thrones) star. Five Finger Death Punch, Tommy Lee, Papa Roach, The Hu, Ice Nine Kills, Escape The Fate, and more appear onscreen and on THE RETALIATORS Original Soundtrack, coming soon via Better Noise Music.

The Returned (Los Que Vuelven) (Argentina, 2021) - West Coast Premiere Directed by Laura Casabe Written by Laura Casabe, Paolo Soria, Lisandro Colaberardino Produced by Alejandro Israel Cast Maria Soldi, Lali Gonzalez, Alberto Ajaka South America, 1919; a landowner's wife is desperate for a child of her own, having suffered through multiple miscarriages. She finds hope, however, in a seemingly outlandish plan: she'll pray to a mythical deity to resurrect her stillborn son. The plan works, but along with the child comes something else...something evil.

What Josiah Saw (US, 2021) - LA Premiere Directed by Vincent Grashaw Produced by Ran Namerode, Vincent Grashaw, Bernie Stern, Angelia Adzic Executive Producer(s) Cole Payne, Scott Haze Written by Robert Alan Dilts Cast Robert Patrick, Nick Stahl, Scott Haze, Kelli Garner, Tony Hale, Jake Weber Everyone in town knows about the haunted Graham Farm on Willow Road. You'll hear there's a bad history to it. Josiah and his youngest son, Thomas, are all that remain of this estranged family. But after experiencing terrifying visions from beyond, Josiah decides they must change their ways to right a great wrong. After being away for over two decades, Eli and Mary, Josiah's eldest children, are enticed to sell the property and reunite at the old farmhouse in hopes of closing this haunting chapter of their lives for good. Sins of the past will be paid in full.

When I Consume You (US, 2021) - West Coast Premiere Written and Directed by Perry Blackshear Produced by MacLeod Andrews, Perry Blackshear, Evan Dumouchel, Libby Ewing Cast Libby Ewing, Evan Dumouchel, MacLeod Andres, Margaret Ying Drake Siblings Daphne and Wilson Shaw practically raised one another. They’ve protected each other from everything life has thrown their way. Daphne’s professional life is soaring and she’s looking to adopt a child. Wilson is interviewing for a position at a local school, hoping to become a teacher. But Daphne has an unsettling, dangerous stalker whom she can’t seem to shake, and now threatens to destroy them both. They hunt for their tormentor through the shadowy streets of Brooklyn, honing their bodies and minds for a showdown. But this foe may prove to be more than they can handle. They will break and rebuild themselves if necessary to save each other, and protect the light they know is in this world for them... if only they can persevere.

Wicked Games (US, 2021) - World Premiere Written and Directed by Teddy Grennan Produced by Bennett Krishock, Heath Franklin, Burton Gray, Teddy Grennan, Christopher Walters Cast Christine Spang, Markus Silbiger, Michael Shenefelt, Conner Ann Waterman When Harley joins her new boyfriend for a long Halloween weekend at his country estate, they're invaded by a bank of masked freaks and forced to play a Wicked Game. To the intruders' unpleasant surprise, Harley's hard-boiled history has endowed her with a bag of tricks which give the game a surprise ending.

Standing out as one of the top tastemakers in the genre of horror, Screamfest has been a launchpad for top tier franchises and storytellers. Among the numerous films that have been discovered and/or premiered at the festival include box office hit The Wretched, Tigers Are Not Afraid, We Summons the Darkness, Pledge, The Master Cleanse, Tragedy Girls, American Mary, Paranormal Activity, 30 Days of Night, Trick ‘r Treat, and The Human Centipede.

Screamfest selects award winners at the close of the festival. Film entries are accepted in the categories of Best Feature, Directing, Cinematography, Editing, Special Effects and Musical Score. In addition, there are special categories for Best Animation, Best Short, Best Documentary and Best Student Film as well as a Screenplay competition.

Screamfest® takes the health and safety of its guests seriously and proof of vaccination or negative COVID test with a temperature check will be required for entry. Masks are required at all times while inside the venue. Hand sanitizer stations are placed throughout the theater and lobby with special cleanings in between screenings. Screamfest® will comply with all LA County regulations and policies are subject to change.

For more information or the latest news, visit screamfestla.com

#film news #movie news #festival news #screamfest #selections #lineup #2021

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ucflibrary · 6 years ago

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May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

Asian Pacific American as a topic covers vast oceans of identity and information. By definition, an Asian Pacific American is an American (whether born, naturalized, or other) who was born on or has heritage from anywhere on the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island). These areas cover a wide array of languages, cultures, religions, and ethnicities that have brought countless skills, hopes and dreams to the United States.

UCF Libraries faculty and staff have (very enthusiastically) suggested 24 books and movies within the library’s collection by or about Asian Pacific Americans. Click the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links. These, and additional titles, are also on the Featured Bookshelf display on the second (main) floor next to the bank of two elevators.

A Concise History of China by J. A. G. Roberts

In this overarching book, J. A. G. Roberts refers to recent archeological finds--the caches of bronze vessels found at Sanxingdui--and to new documentary reevaluations--the reassessment of Manchu documentation. The first half of the book provides an up-to-date interpretation of China's early and imperial history, while the second half concentrates on the modern period and provides an interpretive account of major developments--the impact of Western imperialism, the rise of Chinese Communism, and the record of the People's Republic of China since 1949.

Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese confinement in North America by Greg Robinson

Most remarkably, A Tragedy of Democracy is the first book to analyze official policy toward West Coast Japanese Americans within a North American context. Robinson studies confinement on the mainland alongside events in wartime Hawaii, where fears of Japanese Americans justified Army dictatorship, suspension of the Constitution, and the imposition of military tribunals. He similarly reads the treatment of Japanese Americans against Canada's confinement of 22,000 citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry from British Columbia. A Tragedy of Democracy recounts the expulsion of almost 5,000 Japanese from Mexico's Pacific Coast and the poignant story of the Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped from their homes and interned in the United States

Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II. Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the "floating world"—the nocturnal world of pleasure, entertainment, and drink—offer him both escape and redemption, even as they punish him for betraying his early promise. Indicted by society for its defeat and reviled for his past aesthetics, he relives the passage through his personal history that makes him both a hero and a coward but, above all, a human being.

Suggested by Rachel Edford, Teaching & Engagement

Born Confused by Tanuja Desair Hidier

Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the Americans, as she sees her hypnotically beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of both her heritage and the boy she likes.

Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Cora Cooks Pancit written by Dorina Lazo Gilmore and illustrated by Kristi Valiant

When all her older siblings are away, Cora's mother finally lets her help make pancit, a Filipino noodle dish. Includes recipe for pancit.

Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong

Named one of the Los Angeles Times's Best Science Fiction Books in 2007, Dance Dance Revolution is a genre-bending tour de force told from the perspective of the Guide, a former dissident and tour guide of an imagined desert city.

Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian—half, his mom’s side—and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life. Darius has never really fit in at home, and he’s sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn’t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they’re spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city’s skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he’s Darioush to Sohrab.

Suggested by Peter Spyers-Duran, Cataloging

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

“Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

Suggested by Rachel Edford, Teaching & Engagement

Fa Mulan: the story of a woman warrior by Robert D. San Souci

A retelling of the original Chinese poem in which a brave young girl masquerades as a boy and fights the Tartars in the Khan's army.

Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. Number 1: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, ten-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Number 2: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed. Number 3: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language? It will take all of Mia's courage, kindness, and hard work to get through this year. Will she be able to hold on to her job, help the immigrants and guests, escape Mr. Yao, and go for her dreams?

Suggested by Peter Spyers-Duran, Cataloging

Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the censored images of Japanese American internment by Dorothea Lange

Censored by the U.S. Army, Dorothea Lange's unseen photographs are the extraordinary photographic record of the Japanese American internment saga. This indelible work of visual and social history confirms Dorothea Lange's stature as one of the twentieth century's greatest American photographers. Presenting 119 images originally censored by the U.S. Army―the majority of which have never been published―Impounded evokes the horror of a community uprooted in the early 1940s and the stark reality of the internment camps. With poignancy and sage insight, nationally known historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro illuminate the saga of Japanese American internment: from life before Executive Order 9066 to the abrupt roundups and the marginal existence in the bleak, sandswept camps.

Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

John Okada: the life & rediscovered work of the author of No-no boy edited by Frank Abe, Greg Robinson, and Floyd Cheung

No-No Boy, John Okada's only published novel, centers on a Japanese American who refuses to fight for the country that incarcerated him and his people in World War II and is cast out by his divided community. The novel faced a similar rejection until it was rediscovered and reissued in 1976, becoming a classic of American literature. As a result of Okada's untimely death at age forty-seven, the author's life and other works have remained obscure. This collection offers the first full-length examination of Okada's development as an artist, placing recently discovered writing by Okada alongside essays that reassess his legacy. Meticulously researched biographical details, insight from friends and relatives, and a trove of photographs illuminate Okada's life in Seattle, military service, and careers as a public librarian, technical writer, and ad man. This volume is an essential companion to No-No Boy.

Suggested by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

Little Fires Everywhere: a novel by Celeste Ng

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned -- from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren -- an enigmatic artist and single mother -- who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town -- and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.

Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.

Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

Music for Alice by Allen Say

As a girl, Alice loved to dance, but the rhythms of her life offered little opportunity for a foxtrot, let alone a waltz. World War II erupted soon after she was married. Alice and her husband, along with many other Japanese Americans, were forced to leave their homes and report to assembly centers around the country. Undaunted, Alice and her husband learned to make the most of every circumstance, from their stall in the old stockyard in Portland to the decrepit farm in the Oregon desert, with its field of stones. Like a pair of skilled dancers, they sidestepped adversity to land gracefully amid golden opportunity. Together they turned a barren wasteland into a field of endless flowers. Such achievements did not come without effort and sacrifice, though, and Alice often thought her dancing days were long behind her.

Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

No-no Boy by John Okada

No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life "no-no boys." Yamada answered "no" twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle. As Ozeki writes, Ichiro’s "obsessive, tormented" voice subverts Japanese postwar "model-minority" stereotypes, showing a fractured community and one man’s "threnody of guilt, rage, and blame as he tries to negotiate his reentry into a shattered world."

Suggested by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

Severance by Ling Ma

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she's had her fill of uncertainty. She's content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won't be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They're traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

The Chinese Exclusion Act by directed by Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu

Examine the origin, history and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens. The first in a long line of acts targeting the Chinese for exclusion, it remained in force for more than 60 years.

Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

The Making of Asian America: a history by Erika Lee

The definitive history of Asian Americans by one of the nation's preeminent scholars on the subject. In the past fifty years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day. An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured "coolies" who worked alongside African slaves in the Caribbean; and Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States only to face massive racial discrimination, Asian exclusion laws, and for Japanese Americans, incarceration during World War II. No longer a "despised minority," Asian Americans are now held up as America's "model minorities" in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States.

Suggested by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dance-hall girl to help pay off her mother's mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin plunges into a dark adventure: a mirror world of secrets and superstitions. Eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy Ren also has a secret, a promise he must fulfill to his dead master; to find his master's severed finger and bury it with his body. Ren has forty-nine days to do so, or his master's soul will wander the earth forever. Dazzling and propulsive, The Night Tiger is the coming-of-age of a child and a young woman, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible.

Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn't so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Thich Nhat Hanh: essential writings by Thicht Than

Zen master, poet, monk and peace advocate, Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who has lived in exile in France for 30 years. Through his writings and retreats he has helped countless people of all religious backgrounds to live mindfully in the present moment, to uproot sources of anger and distrust, and to achieve relationships of love and understanding.

Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

To the Stars: the autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu by George Takei

This is the autobiography of one of Star Trek's most popular stars, George Takei. It tells of his triumph over adversity and of his huge success, despite an inauspicious start in a wartime US Asian relocation camp. In his lifetime, he has become an actor, a successful businessman, a writer, and a man deeply involved in politics and the democratic process. His story also includes his early days as an actor when he had brushes with greats like Alec Guinness, Burt Lancaster and Bruce Lee, as well as his first meeting with a writer/producer named Gene Roddenberry.

Suggested by Tim Walker, Information Technology & Digital Initiatives

#asian pacific american heritage month #ucf library #ucf #book suggestions #reading #booklr

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knifeonmars · 6 years ago

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Desert Island Comics, Part 1

I'm moving this month, for the fairly exciting reason of attending graduate school, and one of the stranger and more distressing things in the lead up to that is that I've had to put the vast majority of my unnecessarily sprawling library of comics into storage. I have been able to fit a small amount into my luggage to take with me, so I thought that I might write about what I've taken with me and why. The comics I chose to save also probably say something about my tastes and who I am as a person, so there's that. In paring things down I was primarily concerned with stuff that I could read over and over as well as lend to anyone who might be interested. Sexcastle - Kyle Starks I'm a huge fan of Kyle Starks, and while I had a few options to choose from, I went with Sexcastle for the reason that it was his first big book and as such is a great encapsulation of his whole approach. Silliness and violence masking deep introspection and a genuine unironic appreciation of action tropes. Through the Woods - Emily Carroll Emily Carroll is a complete rockstar and this book is gorgeous and creepy and endlessly engrossing. I love revisiting it and it's a great book to give to someone who doesn't have much interest in comics as most people know them. HP Lovecraft's The Hound and Other Stories - Adapted by Gou Tanabe I'll be honest, this one isn't here so much for any personal connection, more that I've only read it once and I think it could merits rereading. Also, as my Masters program is English, it's somewhat pertinent to my interests. Godzilla: The Half Century War - James Stokoe I just love James Stokoe's work so much. I had a few of his books to choose from, but I went with The Half-Century War because while it's a licensed work, it still feels passionate and personal, and unlike the awesome but sadly incomplete Orc Stain, it's a complete story. It's also a pretty easy sell to lend to someone, which while unlikely, is something I consider important. Superman: Secret Identity - Kurt Busiek, Stuart Immonen, Todd Klein Probably the second best Superman story ever in my opinion, even though Secret Identity, strictly speaking, isn't really about "Superman" at all. But it so beautifully gets to the heart of the character, the humanity and the responsibility of it, that it's very much a definitive take on the character for me. It's also a largely relaxing read, free from misery and angst, and despite what the rest of this list may suggest, I do actually like a nice comforting read once in a while. Batman: Year One - Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, Todd Klein, Richmond Lewis Of Frank Miller's much vaunted Batman work, Year One holds up best. It's gorgeous, human, and oh so memorable despite, or perhaps because of, how low key it is. There's no big name supervillains or anything, but this is the ur-example of a pseudo-realistic Batman and also the best execution of that premise. It's such a classic that it barely needs elaboration, so I couldn't leave it behind. Extremity - Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer, Rus Wooton Daniel Warren Johnson's recently concluded creator owned series might not be on everyone's radar, but it certainly should be. Described by critics as Mad Max meets Naussica in the Valley of the Wind, it's a bold, brutal, and lavishly drawn epic with an instantly compelling world and characters. It might not be for everyone, but it's also a book which I know I'm going to be revisiting and thinking over for quite a while, and given how it wears its influence on its sleeve, it's a great series to loan out. Batman: Superheavy, Batman: Bloom, Detective Comics: Blood of Heroes I wrote about this before in my 2017 roundup, but these Batman vols 8 and 9, and Detective Comics vol 8, are a great character reinvention which I warmed to somewhat slowly but now love. Jim Gordon as an in over his head version of Batman who's largely cut off from the somewhat unwieldy mythology of the Bat-Family was a great and totally unexpected concept. I often wish there had been more of this era, but as it is it's a fun if short read that I like to revisit because it reminds me of how fun superhero comics can be. Moon Knight - Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, Jordie Bellaire, Chris Eliopoulos This shot in the arm reinvention of Moon Knight is one of the 2010's greatest revamps, and I wanted to bring it along purely as an all time great popcorn read. That's the thing about the revamp, despite how drastically it revises things, the six issues of From the Dead are in substance compulsively readable action comics. It's the kind of book that I find gratifying to take down from the shelf and revisit once in a while for the pure joy of it rather than any emotional resonance. All-Star Superman - Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and Jamie Grant What can I say? All-Star Superman is potentially the greatest Superman story ever told, and it's a personal favorite, so I had to bring it along. I considered getting a smaller version since I only have the giant Absolute edition, but even I have limits when it comes to frivolous purchases. Anyway, Morrison, Quitely, and Grant's opus was a formative read for me, possibly one that I read earlier in my relationship to comics than is necessarily recommended given how much it riffs on continuity and deep cuts, but nonetheless one that I've always connected with and which is something of a gold standard for me. American Barbarian - Tom Scioli Tom Scioli's a beast, and American Barbarian is an incredibly fun and weird comic that I like revisiting. It's also pretty long as these things go, a veritable epic, and I love the various phases and sections of the story. Nowhere Men - Eric Stephenson, Nate Bellegarde, Jodie Bellaire, Fonografiks I'm continuously aggrieved that Nowhere Men has slid into permanent hiatus one issue sort of completing a second volume, but as it stands volume 1 is one of the best superhero adjacent comics out there. It reads something like a stylish update of the Fantastic Four concept with a group of doomed astronauts developing bizarre, at times horrifying powers, but it's so much more than that. It's a strange alternate universe when science is placed alongside popular culture, with rogue celebrity scientists and text pieces throughout expanding on the strange world. It's a ride, one I'm always eager to finally see more of, but even with just the single volume it tells a satisfying story which I like to revisit with some regularity. I also decided to pack a couple of monthly comics, just stuff that's currently ongoing and I want to be able to read as a whole. Mister Miracle I wrote elsewhere about having mixed feelings on this book, but I decided to bring it along because I do enjoy Tom King's writing and I have a hankering to read it in one shot once it's wrapped. I've actually just been sitting on the issues since around #4 for that very purpose. Batman: Creature of the Night Superman: Secret Identity is on this list, so I don't think it ought to be much of a surprise that its companion series made it as well. I've been loving Creature of the Night, though it's a very different beast from Secret Identity, and I can't wait to see where the conclusion takes us.

#comics #moving #personal #words

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hollyoaksloversx · 6 years ago

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Larks in Llandudno

Rounding up a week in Hollyoaks (23rd-27th July 2018)

The sun is shining, the temperatures are soaring and it’s the perfect time for a wedding. Well, it would be if the groom hadn’t slept with the bride’s Mother and it wasn’t the 20 year old bride’s second wedding day. Let’s face it, this wedding was doomed from the start. As everyone (minus the bride’s half-brothers and two best mates) headed to Llandudno for the ceremony, trouble was lurking just under the sea as Milo emerged ready to wreck havoc...

Believing that Cindy was the cause of all the heartache in the Cunningham family, Milo issued her with an ultimatum, telling her that he would tell Holly about her one-night stand with Damon if she didn’t leave the village, and the family forever (she was allowed to take Hilton, though, Milo’s not a complete monster). Deciding that she couldn’t destroy her daughter’s happiness, Cindy broke things off with a devastated Dirk and made plans to leave after watching the wedding. However, Milo hadn’t banked on Damon wanting to get everything off his chest, and he told Holly about him and Cindy at the alter. Devastated, Holly called off the wedding and told Cindy she wanted nothing more to do with her.

With the secret out in open, Cindy realised that she no longer had to leave and told Dirk about Milo’s ultimatum. Dirk was furious about what Milo had put Cindy through and headed off to confront him. The pair ended up outside by the swimming pool, where a scuffle broke out. Dirk ended up in the water, seemingly unable to get himself out. Going to switch the pool lights out, Milo failed to notice a warning that the wiring was dodgy and Dirk was electrocuted and killed. “There’s been a terrible accident”, Milo told Cindy, Liberty and Tom as they arrived outside. Funny how these water and electrical based accidents always seem to happen when you’re around, isn’t it, Milo?

The family were left devastated by Dirk’s death, although it did seem to bring Cindy and Holly back together. Milo soon showed up at the Cunningham’s, and Cindy decided to let him stay, much to Holly’s annoyance. There was some comfort for Cindy when she discovered a message for Holly on Dirk’s video camera. The camera had also caught footage of Dirk’s confrontation with Milo and thus, the revelation that he’d been responsible for the crash that killed Helen and Gordon. Frustratingly, though, Cindy fell asleep before she got to that part! Meanwhile, Holly threw herself into a new relationship with Zack, seemingly not too badly affected by Dirk’s death. However, she finally broke down when she accidentally smashed some bits and bobs Dirk had ordered for the emporium before he died.

Elsewhere, it was Yasmine’s 18th birthday and Prince and Hunter decided to use the occasion to make some money, deciding to throw her an Ibiza themed rave party and charge people to attend (yes, even the birthday girl). The party got off to a great start, despite Ste attempting to undercut Prince and Hunter with his own refreshments, however, things soon when to pot with the arrival of Romeo, James’ son who we met briefly a couple of weeks back. Romeo was instantly taken with Lily and attempted to chat her up. Despite Lily turning him down, pointing out that she was married, Hunter, who had taken a load of dodgy anxiety pills, got the wrong end of the stick, and lunged at Romeo, breaking the speakers in the process. With the party over, a dazed and confused Hunter ran into the woods, where he came across a dead body...

The following day, Hunter was acting strangely and later told Prince about what he’d seen. However, Prince was skeptical and even more so when he found out that his Brother was still taking the dodgy pills. Prince threw the pills away and attempted to take Hunter’s mind off the situation by volunteering him to paint the mural at the high school. Unfortunately, Hunter was plagued with flashbacks and painted a hand emerging from the soil, much to poor Sally’s horror! With Hunter still going on about the body, confiding in Sylver that he thought the body may be Carl, he offered to take Prince down to the woods to prove that he was telling the truth. However, once they got there, there was no body to be found. Someone had been along before them and buried it...

In other news this week, Grace met with Farrah at the Duke Street Social, but their date was cut short by the arrival of Glenn. Glenn warned Grace that he would be watching her, and she was later left shaken when she discovered a notebook, dropped by Zack, detailing her movements over the last couple of weeks. Harry continued to hide his prostitution from Ste and went to visit James in prison. Leela struggled to cope when she was left to look after Rose, Daniel and Iona on her own and employed Breda McQueen as the family’s new nanny (bit cheeky, that, surely she needs to speak to Courtney and Tegan first?!) Tegan wasn’t very taken with the idea and sacked Breda, telling her and Leela that she didn’t want anyone interrupting her time with Rose. However, she eventually reconsidered and Breda was reinstated. Finally, Diane was forced to tell Dee Dee that Tony had gone away for a while.

5 Things We Learnt This Week:

1. NHS budget cuts have finally hit Dee Valley Hospital. As I pointed out last year, Dee Valley Hospital seemed to have no problems with funding. Farrah was able to provide Kim with two counselling sessions in one day whilst a spare ambulance was used to help Sienna escape from Warren. However, it seems the hard times have now hit, and they’ve been forced to employ Prince to clean the windows. Most hospitals will employ window cleaners with professional, industrial equipment, not any old guy with a bucket and squeegee.

2. Hollyoaks have more chairs than they know what to do with. Why were about 50 chairs set up for Damon and Holly’s wedding when less than 10 people were present? I get that it would have cost the show money to hire a load of extras to sit in them but it would surely have also cost them to buy/hire a load of fancy chairs that weren’t going to be used? Just put out one chair per guest and have done with it!

3. Health and safety standards are slipping. Surely if the wiring of the pool lights were faulty, the pool would have been drained, or at the very least, cordoned off? They wouldn’t have just put up a sign that idiots were evidently going to ignore?

4. Best friends and Brothers don’t matter. Did anyone else notice the strange lack of Alfie, Ellie and Cleo at Holly and Damon’s wedding?

5. You’re never too old to mosh with those 10 years younger than you, as Ste proved this week.

Characters Featured:

Alfie, Bobby, Breda, Brody, Buster, Cindy, Damon, Daniel, Dee Dee, Diane, Dirk, Farrah, Grace, Glenn, Goldie, Harry, Holly, Hunter, Iona, James, Kim, Leela, Liberty, Lily, Mandy, Mercedes, Myra, Romeo, Rose, Sally, Scott, Simone, Ste, Sylver, Tegan, Tom, Yasmine and Zack.

Past Characters Mentioned:

Rhys Ashworth, Fraser Black, Carl Costello, Gordon Cunningham, Helen Cunningham, Max Cunningham, Steph Dean, Grace Hutchinson, Maggie Kinsella, Nathan Nightingale, Jason Roscoe, Robbie Roscoe, Trevor Royle, Dennis Savage, Dodger Savage, Nick Savage, Shane Sweeney.

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kamenwriter · 7 years ago

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Went back-issue diving with @psychoandy today, here are the spoils.

Of note:

The Doom 2099 by Warren Ellis collection. I didn’t even know this existed in trade and apparently it’s all ready out of print, and going for double cover price online (I got it for cover price)

Detective Comics #424 featuring “Batgirl’s Last Case” in which Barbara Gordon is elected Gotham City’s Congresswoman. The cover is literally not attached to this book, so I might buy a better copy later on if I find one.

Uncanny X-Men #312, Joe Madureira’s first issue penciling X-Men.

#kamenwriter adventures

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the-bargainista · 4 years ago

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Comic-Con for all

Updated: 7/26/20 12:59 p.m. ET

I’m going to miss not going to San Diego this year for five days of celebrity sightings, swag, sleeplessness, and snaking lines. But the good news for anyone who has never gotten a chance to experience the unique craziness that is Comic-Con is that the event will be free online for everyone from Wednesday, July 22, to Sunday, July 26! The official information is a little overwhelming, so here is a guide to getting the most out of Comic-Con@Home.

Panels

No camping out for Hall H necessary! Over 350 panels have been pre-recorded, and they will be released on the Comic-Con YouTube channel at certain times over the course of the five days. The majority of panels will be available beyond July 26.

The full schedule of panels is now posted, but it will be continually updated. Given the sheer volume of information, I recommend viewing on a computer rather than your phone. I also recommend viewing by day so that you can see the descriptions and viewing links.

You can create a MySCHED account to keep track of the panels that interest you. I just put them on my Google calendar. Keep in mind that all times are PDT. My SDCC group created a Slack so that we can have viewing parties and chat about the panels.

Now that the logistics are out of the way, here are some of my suggestions for panels to check out.

GeekED: Re-storied: Re-imagining creative privilege Wednesday, July 22, 3-4 p.m. PDT Panelists who work in higher education, theatre, and gaming will discuss how the narrative world is changing to include more diverse experiences.

Star Trek Universe Virtual Panel Thursday, July 23, 10-11 a.m. PDT There will be a discussion with the casts and producers of “Star Trek: Discovery,” new animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” and “Star Trek: Picard.”

DC@Home Day One and Day Two Friday, July 24, 10-11 a.m. PDT, and Saturday, July 25, 11 a.m.-12 p.m. PDT Some DC Comics legends such as Brian Michael Bendis and Jim Lee will give you the scoop on what’s in store for your favorite heroes and villains.

Marvel Comics: Next Big Thing Friday, July 24, 11 a.m.-12 p.m. PDT Marvel editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski will discuss what’s in store with comics writers and editors such as Tom Brevoort and Al Ewing.

AMC’s The Walking Dead Friday, July 24, 1-2 p.m. PDT Moderated by Chris Hardwick, this panel will highlight the forthcoming standalone episode “A Certain Doom” and feature the cast and producers.

Building Your Own Themyscira: Connecting With Other Geeky Bosses Friday, July 24, 6-7 p.m. PDT Jordan Ellis of Jordandené and “The Sartorial Geek” will discuss networking and finding your community with Robyn Warren of Geek Girl Strong, Matt Cox of “Puffs” and “Kapow-i GoGo,” comics marketer Jazzlyn Stone, and Rose DelVecchio of FanMail.

Blast Off with Disney+’s “The Right Stuff” Saturday, July 25, 1-2 p.m. PDT NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison moderates this panel about the first scripted series for Disney+ from National Geographic. This show follows the early days of the U.S. space program. Much of the cast and crew will participate. I’m excited for Colin O’Donoghue (Captain Hook from “Once Upon a Time”) as Captain Gordon Cooper.

Careers in Geek Fashion Sunday, July 26, 4-5 p.m. PDT This is an admittedly shameless plug for the panel moderated by my friend, GeekFold founder Lisa Granshaw. Professionals from multiple aspects of geek fashion will discuss their careers and the impact of coronavirus on the industry.

Exhibit hall/exclusives

You can view the “exhibit hall” map and a full list of exhibitors, which will go live with interactive links on Wednesday, July 22. My understanding is that all exclusive merchandise will be available directly through the vendors, and there is no Comic-Con exclusives portal, which was used to assign timeslots in years past. Since the portal also used to serve as a full list of the exclusives, your best bet for finding out what’s for sale is probably the comprehensive SDCC Unofficial Blog.

Be sure to check out the LEGO “booth,” which is offering a chance to design your own minifigure and comic book, which will be emailed to you.

Other activities

The masquerade is always a signature event of Comic-Con. Submissions to the Comic-Con@Home Virtual Masquerade have closed, but the Masquerade website will go live on the @comicconathome Tumblr on the evening of Friday, July 24.

The Comic-Con@Home Art Show (sans auction) will be viewable on the @comicconathome Tumblr starting Wednesday, July 22.

Comic-Con@Home also created some fan activities to help you recreate the Con experience at home. There are challenges such as the Cosplay Challenge, badges and signs that you can print yourself, sound clips of the announcements, and recipes so you can create your own hospitality suite.

“Off-sites”

My favorite part of Comic-Con actually has been the off-site activations outside the convention center, where you can have unique experiences like a “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” escape room. Fortunately, some networks have found ways to have virtual activations this year.

Adult Swim Con Thursday, July 23-Saturday, July 25, 4-10 p.m. PT Adult Swim will have online experiences such as behind-the-scenes looks at “Rick and Morty” and “Robot Chicken,” including a Q&A with the casts and crews of both shows. Check the website for the full schedule of events.

Amazon Virtual Con Thursday, July 23-Sunday, July 26 You can watch exclusive announcements, game reveals, live drawings, costume how-tos, and more. There are also interactive experiences, such as a “Hanna” escape room.

FX Unlocked This site features a virtual pyramidal structure that you can swipe to explore different TV show experiences. For example, you can test your “American Horror Story” trivia knowledge or play a “What We Do in the Shadows” game.

FutureTechLive! You can download an immersive World Builders activation for Windows, Windows VR, or Mac.

Let me know if there’s any other information you want, and I’ll update this post. Enjoy Comic-Con@Home!

#Entertainment #freebies #fun

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gokinjeespot · 5 years ago

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off the rack #1305

Monday, March 16, 2020

It's official. We have cancelled our tropical vacation plans. We were supposed to fly to Cuba in April for a week but now that Canada has called for the return of any Canadians abroad as soon as possible, we feared that if we went we wouldn't be able to return as scheduled. I'm good with our decision being the reluctant traveller anyways. "Self isolation" and "flattening the curve" are two new terms that have entered the collective consciousness and I wonder how many average citizens understand what these terms mean. A good education has never been more important than during this time of crisis. Learn what's real and protect yourself and your loved ones.

Catwoman #21 - Joelle Jones (writer) Fernando Blanco (art) FCO Plascencia (colours) Saida Temofonte (letters). Thank Thor that's over with. Selina saves the day after fighting off a zombie horde. The wicked Raina Creel gets what's coming and Catwoman hits the road outta town. I love this character but I didn't like her stay in Villa Hermosa and the art these last few issues wasn't nice to look at. The art in the next issue will decide whether I keep reading this book or not.

Avengers of the Wastelands #3 - Ed Brisson (writer) Jonas Scharf (art) Neeraj Menon (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). The team is joined by new member Viv Vision as their search for Doctor Doom continues. Their trip across the Wastelands will have an unexpected detour when more super villains get in their way. I like how Ed is using the Wastelands version of Marvel's heroes and villains.

The Dollhouse Family #5 - M. R. Carey (writer) Peter Gross (layouts) Vince Locke (finishes) Cris Peter (colours) Todd Klein (letters). We find out how the dollhouse was made and it's gross. I hope Alice's inheritance isn't the death of her.

Punisher Soviet #5 - Garth Ennis (writer) Jacen Burrows (pencils) Guillermo Ortego (inks) Nolan Woodard (colours) Rob Steen (letters). Ah man, Frank's buddy won't make it to next issue's bullet filled conclusion. I liked Valery.

Young Justice #14 - Brian Michael Bendis & David F. Walker (writers) John Timms & Michael Avon Oeming (art) Gabe Eltaeb (colours) Wes Abbott (letters). Impulse tracks down Sideways, Spoiler, Aqualad and Arrowette to help the team find Conner and give the evil S.T.A.R. Labs scientist what for. Mission accomplished. But wait! There's more. I can't wait to hear what Dr. Glory has to say for herself. I'm not a fan of Michael Avon Oeming's art but I have to say that it's marginally more palatable in colour.

The Immortal Hulk #32 - Al Ewing (writer) Joe Bennett (pencils main story) Ruy Jose & Belardino Brabo (inks main story) Paul Mounts (colours main story) Javier Rodriguez (pencils & colours Xemnu sequence) Alvaro Lopez (inks Xemnu sequence) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This new version of Xemnu is even freakier than the original. Xemnu has managed to totally change the world's perceptions with the promise from Dario Agger that he will rule the planet once Dario is done with it. Bruce's brain might have been affected, but his alter egos are still their good old green selves. I can't get enough of this Hulk.

The Batman's Grave #6 - Warren Ellis (writer) Bryan Hitch (art) Alex Sinclair (colours) Richard Starkings (letters). Okay, I'm done with this 12-issue maxi. Just over half of this is Batman and Commissioner Gordon running a gauntlet of criminals to get out of Arkham Asylum. The rest is Batman spouting a running monologue at a crime scene where someone has been murdered. This issue just annoyed me so I'm burying the rest.

Avengers #32 - Jason Aaron (writer) Ed McGuinness (pencils) Francesco Manna (inks) Jason Keith (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This issue features Earth's Mightiest Villains and has to be this week's Earth's mightiest scripted comic book. Boy, there is a lot of dialogue. The forces amassing against the Avengers are overwhelming. There's no way the good guys are going to win against these evil allies. You've got bad Namor of Atlantis, Dracula and his vampire army, the Red Widow and her Russian Winter Guard and the turn coat Agent Coulson and his Squadron Supreme of America. Wait until you see the bad guys' ace in the hole. This war on the Avengers is going to be epic.

Hawkeye: Freefall #4 - Matthew Rosenberg (writer) Otto Schmidt (art) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). I love this convoluted plan to take down the Hood that Clint has concocted. Him hitting the villain's criminal empire as Ronin while joining his super hero buddies in trying to catch Ronin is hilarious. I love all the guest stars. I can't wait to see how everyone reacts when they find out Clint's scheme.

Jessica Jones: Blind Spot #5 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Mattia De Iulis (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). A trap is set for the bad guy and Jessica closes a cold case. I thought that this would be the last issue but I see that #6 will hit the racks March 25. Is it an epilogue or a new case?

The Amazing Spider-Man #41 - Nick Spencer (writer) Ryan Ottley (pencils) Cliff Rathburn (inks) Nathan Fairbairn (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). "True Companions" part 1. Spidey teams up with Boomerang to track down pieces of a powerful mystical tablet to keep it out of the hands of Wilson Fisk. Meanwhile, the Lethal Legion reforms. I don't find this new story intellectually stimulating but I'm a die hard Spider-Man fan so I'll keep reading.

X-Men #8 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Mahmud Asrar (art) Sunny Gho (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). The X-Men are fighting battles on multiple fronts and a new one breeds this issue as the Brood land on Krakoa. They're on an egg hunt just in time for Easter. This could have been an issue of New Mutants since Rahne, Dani and Magik play a big part in this story. I'm starting to get overwhelmed by all the plots in these new X-books and am thinking of dropping more titles.

Decorum #1 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Mike Huddleston (art) Rus Wooton (letters). Meet Imogen Smith-Morley. She's an assassin who insists on good manners. I like her. What I didn't like was all the rigmarole leading up to her contracted hit. Did we really need all the information about this science fiction universe? I don't think it added anything to the main story. If I read more issues it's because I think Imogen is cool.

Cable #1 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Phil Noto (art) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). Most of this debut features young Nathan Dayspring Askani'son Summers AKA Cable. For some reason there's a 3-page scene in the back with old man Cable. This issue was nothing to write home about but the art is nice and the kid's got potential. If you're looking to add another X-book to your pile, this one would be okay.

Superman #21 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Ivan Reis (pencils) Joe Prado & Oclair Albert (inks) Alex Sinclair (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). Oh Mongul, you're such a jerk. Mucho macho punching between Mongul and Superman with the fate of the embryonic United Planets at stake and then Mongul laughs it all off and leaves. Meanwhile, Lois has to deal with fallout from the big secret ID reveal. Things are interesting again in this book.

Thor #4 - Donny Cates (writer) Nic Klein (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). The Black Winter is coming and Galactus is ready to face it with help from King Thor. I really liked the epilogue to Thor's fight with Beta Ray Bill that starts off this issue. The Lady Sif is now the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge and the changes in her character are awesome.

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years ago

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%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

News What Pete Buttigieg gets wrong about free tuition - The Washington Post

News

The two Democratic presidential candidates who came out on high in the Iowa caucuses — outdated South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — had been butting heads over the query of how to pay for bigger education. All thru the Jan. 14 Democratic debate, Buttigieg sought to say aside himself from Sanders by drawing on the very language of sophistication that has transform the senator’s hallmark. Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) maintain proposed to fight the big cost of faculty education in the US thru tuition-free public universities and forgiveness of pupil debt. Buttigieg rejected these proposals, announcing, “I don’t judge subsidizing the young other folks of millionaires and billionaires to pay completely zero in tuition at public colleges is the easiest use of these scarce taxpayer dollars.”

But whereas the moderate Buttigieg embraced the rhetoric of sophistication battle more generally related with Sanders or Select Wall Avenue, he is championing a coverage that has repeatedly — and maybe surprisingly — ruin working-class and heart-broken People for the reason that slack 19th century. Well-liked social programs corresponding to Social Security maintain created a security gather that one and all People are eligible to raise part in. Manner-examined programs, on the other hand — that are on hand only to a shrimp subset of the inhabitants, in conserving with earnings or other factors — had been poorly funded, attacked, marginalized and meagerly supported. This pattern is seemingly to repeat itself with college tuition advantages. While the scions of rich families might maybe well presumably merely not need executive aid, except they're integrated, efforts to address the costs drowning the less fortunate are doomed to fail.

The origins of anti-poverty coverage in the US in the first three a long time of the 20th century illustrate the dichotomy between current and formulation-examined social programs. Clear groups of reformers charted two very diverse visions for making a social security gather for People.

The major, which developed into Again to Households With Dependent Children (AFDC) — or what we now name welfare — started as an experiment in offering declare “mother’s pensions” to single moms. The reformers who created this program, a good deal of them feminine activists, supposed this system to be shrimp and diminutive by blueprint. They believed that the realm off of poverty among ladies folk changed into the absence of male breadwinners, a scenario exacerbated by the Depression, and as well they envisioned the AFDC as a stopgap measure to rescue heart-broken ladies folk whose plights had been non everlasting. As soon as a girl started incomes a current wage, or when she married a particular person anticipated to provide for her, advantages would dwell.

Alternatively, this system soon grew to rework embroiled in bitter debates about which ladies folk had been “deserving” of public enhance and an obsession with conserving welfare rolls low. Because “welfare” changed into understood to be a closing resort, its recipients had been eyed with suspicion in the event that they gave the impact to stay around too long. When financial stipulations improved, affluent People grew far more skeptical of the AFDC.

By the 1960s, Original Deal programs and strong federal spending on infrastructure, housing and education had created a burgeoning white middle class. Nonwhite People, particularly African People and Latinos, had been explicitly excluded from accessing a good deal of these advantages, exacerbating the racial wealth hole and creating the (unsuitable) impact which formulation-examined programs corresponding to AFDC served only nonwhites. The new white middle class changed into largely ineligible for formulation-examined programs corresponding to AFDC and furthermore changed into unable to snatch why others might maybe well presumably need it. AFDC grew to rework a political approved responsibility for liberals, who largely uncared for the underfunded program. As historian Linda Gordon explains, “The truth is that a tiny welfare system affords no one what they need and thus makes itself universally unpopular.”

Foundation in the 1970s, AFDC itself grew to rework related with disgrace and failure. When President Invoice Clinton pledged to “kill welfare as we perceive it” in the 1990s, he resolved to fabricate “welfare” officially non everlasting (altering the name from AFDC to TANF — Brief Assistance for Needy Households). Recipients had been held to diminutive aid phrases, strict morality policing and new laws stressful they meander to monumental lengths to safe paying jobs. As sociologist Myra Marx Ferree explained, welfare recipients’ “dependency and neediness had been the necessities of help, nonetheless furthermore the basis for marginalizing them.”

By distinction, Social Security, which emerged at the same time as AFDC, changed into crafted as an entitlement on hand to all People and has never persisted the same political assaults that AFDC has weathered. As a consequence of its purported universality, Social Security changed into not imagined as a program offering “lend a hand” nonetheless as a make of insurance, offering unemployment, illness and oldschool-age advantages as a straightforward moral of citizenship. But, whereas touted as benefiting all People, Social Security in the origin omitted the huge majority of African People and white ladies folk, who had been employed in occupations particularly excluded in the laws.

This actuality exposed the truth that AFDC and Social Security had been more related than they seemed. Each and each programs relied on assumptions about which forms of staff “deserved” a serving to hand and which of them had been “entitled” to security. But because most People had been eligible for Social Security and, crucially, since almost all white men had been eligible, this system grew to rework understood, in the phrases of Ferree, as “a moral of social citizenship.” While AFDC weathered a large substitute of political assaults by the purpose it changed into dismantled in the 1990s, even moral-cruise activists generally shield entitlement programs corresponding to Medicare.

This two-tiered system of “welfare” and “entitlements” has been particularly devastating for ladies folk, African People and Latinos. Cultural narratives connect African People and Latinos with welfare, despite the truth that bigger than half of of security-gather recipients are white. While distorting the scurry of recipients, these narratives furthermore attack their worthiness, presuming that they fight not thanks to inequality and structural impediments corresponding to the legacies of slavery, immigration coverage and redlining, nonetheless thanks to their very possess heart-broken choices. This perception that recipients are not well-known has resulted in stringent stipulations on advantages, and aid ranges which might maybe well presumably be inadequate to help preserve families out of poverty.

This historic previous teaches us that whereas it sounds shapely to help “millionaires and billionaires” from going to school freed from tuition, this rhetoric might maybe well presumably without considerations transform step one against making a reform that pleases no one. Manner-examined tuition advantages — worthy worship we now maintain got in the make of Pell Grants, that are meagerly funded — elevate administrative burdens whereas nice looking questions on whether or not grant recipients in point of truth “deserve” enhance. These which might maybe well presumably be ineligible surprise why recipients deserve advantages whereas they assemble not.

This logic is one reason Pell Grants are so shrimp and disbursed to this kind of shrimp substitute of faculty college students. Applying this same logic to a broader system of tuition enhance would lead to a program that affords inadequate aid to a shrimp pool of People, since non-recipients would maintain little passion in forking over more in taxes to fabricate bigger advantages. Buttigieg proposes a answer that is, genuinely, a lose-lose proposition.

Most importantly, strong public enhance for public universities would maintain one other aid, one that might maybe well presumably lessen the flexibility of the filthy rich. Over the last 10 years, states maintain diminished their spending on bigger education by $9 billion, leaving public universities in a budget crunch that has opened mountainous questions on who will be footing the bills. One byproduct has been the hike in tuition that college students pay, using a pupil debt disaster that limits young adults’ opportunities to pursue the careers they need, purchase homes and begin families.

One more, far-less-discussed consequence has been that public universities maintain had to undercover agent more and more to personal donors to balance the budget, which essentially formulation aligning with the priorities of the filthy rich. Federal enhance for public universities that fabricate them tuition-free to all college students attributable to this truth would fabricate them less beholden to the filthy rich and more accountable to all of us who depend on bigger education to help resolve the well-known considerations of the 21st century.

Correction: An earlier model of this share acknowledged that TANF stood for Brief Again to Needy Households. It's in point of truth Brief Assistance to Needy Households.

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clubofinfo · 7 years ago

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Expert: If you find yourself lost and confused in a dark wood, then perhaps following this network of knots strung on a long string of dates listed below will help you find your way back home, where the bread of truth awaits you on the kitchen table. As we know, children love to trace, to connect the dots, to make connections, but often the connections they make frighten adults who try to ignore their points or offer some ridiculous circumlocutions. Maybe we adults are much like children in our desires to make connections, but the thought of it frightens us, even when we are already frightened by being lost amidst a forest of propaganda. Suppose we could for a while calm those fears and concentrate long enough to trace through the dim glimmerings of a faded pattern a clarifying story that would jolt us into an awareness that could change our lives and society. I offer here an arc of history that you may consider tedious. Try patience. I could yell, I could scream, I could try all the classical argumentation and logic that comes “naturally” to me. I could be a wise guy, amuse you, try to provoke you, curse, sing a song, stomp my feet – even write post-modern gibberish. As Andre Vltchek says, it’s hard – I’m putting it nicely – to get through, to have an impact that counts. We desperately want to believe in a world where we really are children and BIG Daddy (apologies to Burl Ives) has told the truth. And yet we know that is an illusion. Obviously I have reached some stern conclusions, but I think the conclusions follow from the facts. See what you think. Follow these knots. They are a sampling. There are many more. * 1957 – Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy delivers a Senate speech in support of the Algerian liberation movement, in support of African liberation generally, and against colonial imperialism. The speech causes an international uproar, and Kennedy is harshly attacked by Eisenhower, Nixon, John Foster Dulles, and even liberals such as Adlai Stevenson. He is praised in the third world. * 1959 – George H. W. Bush moves his oil company – Zapata Offshore – to Houston, Texas. One of Zapata’s drilling rigs, Scorpion, having been moved from the Gulf of Mexico the previous year, is now operating 54 miles north of Cuba * 1960 – On March 17 President Eisenhower approves the Bay of Pigs project. * 1961 – On January 17, in anticipation of Kennedy’s inauguration in three days, the Belgian government in complicity with the CIA assassinates Congolese nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba. On February 13th a devastated Kennedy receives a belated phone call informing him of Lumumba’s murder. * 1961 – April. More than a week before the CIA led Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba – code-named the Zapata Operation – the CIA discovers that the Soviets have learned the date of the invasion and informed Castro. Knowing the invasion is doomed in advance, the CIA Director Allen Dulles doesn’t tell Kennedy. When the invasion fails, the CIA blames JFK who angrily says he wants “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Kennedy fires Dulles. * 1962 – On June 13 Lee Harvey Oswald, ex-Marine and alleged traitor, returns from the Soviet Union with a loan from the State Department that also arranges for him, together with his Russian wife, to be met at the dock in Hoboken, New Jersey by Spas T. Raikin, an official of an anti-communist organization with extensive intelligence connections. Oswald soon moves to Dallas, Texas where, at the behest of the CIA, he is chaperoned around by CIA asset and George H. W. Bush’s old friend, George de Mohrenschildt. * 1963 – June 10. JFK delivers his famous American University address calling for an end to “a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.” * 1963 – On October 11 Kennedy issues National Security Action Memorandum 263 calling for the withdrawal of 1,000 American troops from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and all of them by the end of 1965. * 1963 – November 2. At the last minute JFK cancels his trip to Chicago to attend the Army-Air Force football game when it is learned that a four-man rifle team has plotted to assassinate him. The four are never charged or named, but an alienated ex-Marine scapegoat with CIA connections, Thomas Arthur Vallee, is arrested on a pretext. Vallee works in a building overlooking a dog-leg turn where JFK’s car was to pass. * 1963 – November 22. JFK is shot in Dallas on a dog-leg turn at 12:30 P.M. and dies at 1 P.M. At 1:38 P.M. Walter Cronkite makes the first public announcement of the president’s death. At 1:45 P.M. George H. W. Bush, who is in Tyler, Texas an hour and a half southeast of Dallas, telephones Houston FBI agent Graham W. Kitchel to inform him that he’s heard gossip that a Houston man, James Parrot, has been talking about killing Kennedy when he comes to Houston (JFK had been in Houston the day before). Parrot is questioned and deemed harmless. Bush tells the FBI agent that he’ll be going to Dallas in the evening, though he fails to mention that he was there the night before. At 1:50 PM the Dallas police arrest Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas Theatre and charge him with the murder of Dallas police Officer J.D. Tippett. A few minutes after Oswald’s arrest and his exit out the front door to waiting police cars, a second Oswald is arrested in the theatre and surreptitiously taken out the back door. Later in the day Oswald is charged with also killing President Kennedy from behind from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. But the fatal shot to Kennedy’s head comes from his right front. * 1963 – Two days later Jack Ruby kills Oswald, who claimed he was a patsy, in the Dallas police building. That same afternoon LBJ tells Henry Cabot Lodge that “I am not going to lose Vietnam.” * 1963 – November 29. LBJ announces the formation of the Warren Commission whose key member is Allen Dulles, the former CIA Director fired by Kennedy. * 1963 – On December 24th Johnson tells the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Just get me elected, and then you can have your war.” * 1964 – August. The fraudulent Tonkin Gulf Incidents and Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The Admiral in charge of the U.S. fleet is George Stephen Morrison, the father of the singer Jim Morrison, who the following year will settle into Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles together with, among others, Frank Zappa, “Papa” John Philips, David Crosby, and Stephen Stills, all children of parents of the military/intelligence complex. Johnson orders the bombing of North Vietnam. The Vietnam War starts in earnest. * 1964 – September. The Warren Commission findings are made public. Oswald is declared the lone assassin with the magic bullet explanation being the key. * 1966 – The CIA’s Phoenix Program, an intelligence gathering, assassination, “pacification,” and drug running program, is organized in Vietnam. It conducts countless assassinations and tortures throughout Vietnam. Its organizational structure later becomes the structure for Homeland Security and the “war on terror,” while its drug-dealing modus operandi, joined to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), floods the United States with illegal drugs up to the present day. * 1967 – Martin Luther King delivers his Riverside Church speech – “A Time to Break Silence” – denouncing the Vietnam War and calling for opposition to it, while linking it to social, racial, and economic oppression at home. He says that the three linked devils of militarism, racism, and economic exploitation can only be solved together. * 1967 – On June 8 Israel attacks the USS Liberty in international waters, killing 34 U.S. sailors and Marines and wounding 171 others. * 1968 – April 4. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis. The authorities blame it on James Earl Ray, a petty criminal loner. It is later proven that King was killed by U.S. government forces in coordination with Memphis police and local Mafia. * 1968 – On June 6 in Los Angeles, Senator Robert Kennedy, on the cusp of becoming the Democratic nominee for president, is assassinated. The accused lone assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was standing in front and to the right of RFK. None of the bullets from his gun struck the Senator. The autopsy shows Kennedy was killed by a bullet from behind and below that entered his head behind his right ear. Sirhan is subsequently convicted as the lone crazed gunman, despite many witnesses seeing a girl in a polka dot dress with a male companion, running down the back stairs of the hotel, shouting. “We shot him! We shot him! We shot Senator Kennedy.” * 1968 – November. Richard Nixon, vowing to end the Vietnam War, is elected President after secretly sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks. He subsequently continues the war and secretly expands it to Cambodia and Laos. * 1972 – June 17. Five CIA employees and veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation are arrested inside the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Together with H. Howard Hunt (CIA) and G. Gordon Liddy, they are later indicted. The burglars are caught by a security guard who notices that these skilled undercover operatives have taped locks open from the outside so that the tape is showing. * The Watergate story is primarily reported by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who work at the Washington Post under Editor Ben Bradlee. Woodward had earlier served in Naval Intelligence, as had Bradlee, while Bradlee and the Washington Post have deep ties to the CIA and intelligence communities. * 1973 – September 11. A CIA organized coup overthrows the socialist government of Chilean President Salvador Allende, killing thousands. * 1974 – August 9. Nixon is forced to resign. He is the second president in eleven years to be removed from office. Gerald Ford, a former member of the Warren Commission, assumes the presidency. Dick Cheney is named White House Chief of staff and Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense. * 1976 – January 30. Having been nominated by Ford, George H. W. Bush assumes the Directorship of the CIA, despite critics arguing that he has no intelligence experience. He serves in that capacity for 365 days. * 1976 – George de Mohrenschildt, Oswald’s CIA handler and George H. W. Bush’s old friend, writes a letter to CIA Director Bush begging for help “we are being followed everywhere….” * 1977 – March 27. George de Mohrenschildt, about to be questioned by investigator Gaeton Fonzi of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, allegedly commits suicide in Florida. * 1979 – November 4. Fifty-two Americans are taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. * 1980 – Ronald Reagan is elected president and George H. W. Bush, vice-president. It is later alleged that Bush, CIA officer Robert Gates, and CIA Director William Casey met secretly with Iranian officials in Paris before the election and made a secret deal to insure Reagan/Bush an election victory by not releasing the hostages before the vote. The hostages were subsequently released a few minutes after Reagan and Bush were sworn in on January 20, 1981. * 1985-88 – The Iran-Contra scandal plays out as it is discovered that the Reagan administration was secretly selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and using the proceeds to illegally arm the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua in violation of the Boland amendment. Oliver North becomes the public face of the secret machinations while Reagan and Bush plead ignorance. Many are indicted, while Bush, when running for president in 1988, claims he was “out of the loop.” * 1988 – July 16. In the midst of the presidential campaign pitting Bush against Dukakis, the Nation magazine publishes an article by Joseph McBride, “The Man Who Wasn’t There, ‘George Bush,’ CIA Operative.” The article centers around a newly discovered memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, dated November 29, 1963, concerning the JFK assassination and an oral briefing the bureau had given on November 23rd regarding the assassination to “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency.” A Bush spokesman denies it was candidate Bush. * 1988 – July 3. The USS Vincennes shoots down in Iranian airspace civilian Iran Flight 655 killing 299, including 66 children. Vice President Bush says, “ I will never apologize for the U.S. I don’t care what the facts are … I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.” * 1988 – George H. W. Bush is elected president. * 1990-91 – President Bush attacks Iraq, called the Gulf War, public and congressional support for which is given a huge boost on the testimony of a nurse who claims she witnessed Iraqi soldiers In Kuwait City hospital grabbing babies out of incubators and throwing them on the floor to die. It is later discovered that the “nurse” in question was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and that she hadn’t lived in Kuwait at the time. Her story had been hatched by the Hill and Knowlton public relations firm and was a lie – a successful lie. * 1991 – May 19. A few weeks after filming had begun on Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK, the Washington Post’s national security reporter George Lardner, Jr. writes a scathing review of the film based on a stolen copy of the first draft of the screenplay. * 1991 – December 20. Stone’s film, JFK, is released. * 1991 – On December 24 President Bush grants pardons to six former members of the Reagan/Bush administration facing prosecution in the Iran-Contra scandal. * 1993-2000 – President Bill Clinton bombs Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Sudan … killing untold numbers of people, while maintaining economic sanctions on Iraq. * 1995 – April 19. The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, blamed exclusively on Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Evidence pointing to others involved was dismissed, even the report of Air Force General Benton K. Partin, the U.S. Air Force’s top explosive expert, showing in detail that explosives were planted inside the building at critical structural points on the third floor. * 1996 – May 12. On CBS’s Sixty Minutes Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albrecht says that the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of the sanctions are worth it. * 1997 – The Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative enterprise, three of whose signees are Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush, is launched. Among other things, they call for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Ten signees of the statement of principles go on to serve in the George W. Bush administration. * 1999 – On April 26 CIA headquarters was named the George Bush Center for Intelligence in honor of former president George H.W. Bush who served as CIA Director for 357 days. * 1999 – A jury in Memphis, Tennessee returns a verdict in a civil trial brought by Martin Luther King’s family concluding that King was killed, not by James Earl Ray, but by a conspiracy involving agencies of the U. S. government and the Memphis police. * 2000 – September. The Project for the New American Century releases a position paper, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” stating that the United States will not be able to enforce its will on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan and maintain a Pax Americana “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” The paper introduces a new word to refer to the United States of America – “the homeland.” * 2000 – November. George W. Bush is elected president after a disputed ballot count and the intervention of the Supreme Court. Dick Cheney becomes vice-president and Donald Rumsfeld is named Secretary of Defense. * 2001 – May 1. George W. Bush gives a major foreign policy speech at the National Defense University and says that the U.S.A. must be willing to “rethink the unthinkable,” giving public notice that the U. S. planned to withdraw from the ABM treaty. He warns against “weapons of mass destruction” and “weapons of terror” in the hands of rogue actors. The speech closely follows the reasoning of the PNAC paper of the previous year in urging an aggressive foreign policy. Cheney and Rumsfeld are in the audience. * 2001 – June 22-23 Exercise Dark Winter takes place at Andrews Air Force base. The scenario involves anonymous threatening letters sent to mainstream media. The letters threaten more letters to come with anthrax. Judith Miller, author of Germs, and a notoriously deceptive Iraq war hawk for The New York Times, participates, playing Judith Miller of the New York Times. * 2001 – September 11. The terrorist attacks in NYC and Washington, D.C. occur. The media immediately starts referring to them as another Pearl Harbor, a new Pearl Harbor. CBS News reports that before going to bed at night George W. Bush wrote in his diary, “The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today.” The site of the Twin Towers is first referred to as “ground zero,” a nuclear war term, by Mark Walsh, identified as a freelancer for Fox News by the Fox News interviewer on the street of lower Manhattan. Presciently anticipating the official explanation for the buildings collapse, Walsh adds that the towers obviously collapsed “mostly due to structural failure since the fires were too intense.” * 2001 – September 12. The New York Times headlines a story: “Personal Accounts of a Morning Rush that Became the Unthinkable.” Another headline under the byline of future editor Bill Keller, Iraq war hawk, reads, “America’s Emergency Line: 9/11.” The endless emergency and war on terror begin. Henceforth, for the first time in American history, a very important day is referred to by numbers, not by name – an emergency phone number. * 2001 – September 22. Tom Ridge is named Director of the newly created Homeland Security and becomes in charge of politically motivated terror alerts. * 2001 – September-October. Real and fake anthrax attacks occur. A sham investigation follows with the FBI eventually accusing government scientist Bruce Ivins on little to no evidence, resulting in Ivins’ alleged suicide. * 2001 – Throughout the first three weeks of October the major media use the word “unthinkable” repetitively, echoing its association with nuclear war, just as the World Trade Center site is similarly referred to as “ground zero,” another nuclear term. A phony “anthrax” letter containing a harmless white powder, postmarked in St. Petersburg, Florida on September 20, is sent to Tom Brokaw of NBC. The letter, not made public until October 22 after the media’s repeated use of the word “unthinkable,” begins: “The Unthinkabel” Sample Of How It Will Look. Judith Miller of the New York Times receives an anthrax threat letter also sent from St. Petersburg. * 2001 – October 7. The U.S.A attacks Afghanistan. * 2001 – October 27. The Patriot Act is passed. * 2001 – December 4. George W. Bush says when he was outside the classroom in Florida on September 11th he “had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on….” Problem: No one saw the first plane hit the North Tower since it wasn’t televised live. Much later a tape someone had made was shown on television. * 2002 – October 2. At the Cincinnati Museum Center President Bush gives a speech linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks and says that “we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” He urges the disarming of Iraq. * 2002-10 – Regular color-coded terrorist alerts * 2003 – February. Secretary of State Colin Powell gives false testimony at the U.N., asserting that Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and must be confronted. * 2003 – March. The U. S. attacks Iraq based on lies. * 2003-8 – Bush wages war on Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Homeland “security” leads to indefinite detention, black sites, torture, spying on Americans, the loss of Constitutional rights, etc. * 2007 – February 10. Barack Obama, having been a U.S. Senator for 2 years 1 month announces he is running for president. * 2008 – September. An international financial meltdown occurs. The government claims it was unforeseen. The Bush administration bails out the big banks and financial institutions. * 2008 – November. A seriously inexperienced Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, comes out of nowhere to be elected president on a populist platform of “hope” and “change.” He receives more backing from Wall Street than his Republican rival. Liberals and progressives go wild for joy. Hope and change is proclaimed. * 2009 – Lawrence Summers, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, takes up his position as head of Obama’s economic team. Timothy Geithner, former head of the New York Federal Reserve, whose father, Peter Geithner, oversaw the Ford Foundation’s programs in Indonesia developed by Obama’s mother (who also worked for another notorious CIA front, USAID) becomes Secretary of the Treasury. And Robert Gates, former CIA Director and George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense continues in that position for Obama. * 2009 – March. Obama meets with the CEOs of fifteen big banks and tells them that “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks …. I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you.” * 2009 – Obama intensifies the war on Afghanistan. * 2009 – October 9. Obama is given the Nobel Peace Prize. * 2009 – December. Obama sends 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan, saying this “will bring this war to a successful conclusion.” * 2010 – Obama vows to carry forward the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans. * 2010 – and ongoing. Obama chooses his drone war kill list every Tuesday; says the killing of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki “is an easy one.” * 2011 – Obama and partners attack Libya and brutally kill Muammar Gaddafi. Libya descends into chaos. Hilary Clinton exults. * 2009 – and ongoing. Obama attacks Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, etc. Does nothing to stop the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. Supports and arms terrorists in Syria and other countries. Engineers a coup d’etat in Ukraine and supports neo-Nazi forces attacking eastern Ukraine. Encircles Russia with NATO troops and military exercises. Starts a new Cold War. Maintains military commissions and indefinite detention. Prosecutes more whistleblowers than all previous American presidents combined, but does not prosecute any banksters or torturers. Charges Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, et al of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Acquiesces in the military coup against the democratically elected leader of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi and his subsequent imprisonment. Spies on Americans and other countries. Maintains a national state of emergency and the Patriot Act with minor adjustments. Prosecutes “the war on terror” initiated by George W. Bush. Rules over a technological, computerized war of killing all over the globe and a technological, computerized spying apparatus here at home. Spreads USAFRICOM throughout Africa, killing black Africans and undermining governments with Special Forces. And does all this and more with a smile. Then, before leaving office he creates the fraudulent Russia gate story to continue the new Cold War and to undermine any possible cooling of US/Russians tensions under a possible Trump presidency. * 2016 – Trump is elected President to the shock and awe of the Democrats and their supporters. Immediately, the undermining of Trump begins to make sure he doesn’t follow through on his promise to reduce nuclear tensions with Russia. * 2017 – Donald Trump, the new reality-TV president, takes office and comes under incessant attack from the Democrats and the main stream media. He reneges on most of his campaign promises, including reconciliation with Russia, and tweets so many moronic messages that he plays into the Democrats’ hands. Propaganda expands exponentially as the game of personality politics plays on. Meanwhile, the structures of oligarchic rule continue un-abated, both at home and abroad. Trump continues Obama’s war policies, killing people around the world. It should be clear from this small portion of events over the years that there is a connecting link, that there is a bloody thread running through them connecting key players and the obvious ongoing presence of a secret structure that recruits its team to maintain this oppressive system. To see it should be gutsy child’s play. It is not an issue of either/or; we can’t explain how we have come to this terrifying situation of rule by a murderous, militarized national security apparatus serving the wealthy elites by concentrating on either individuals or structures. People such as Barack Obama, the Bushes, Trump et al don’t emerge from thin air (though in Obama’s case it seems that way, and some have speculated on his CIA links). These people grow out of a system that has cultivated and nurtured them. They become spokesmen for the secretive and powerful moneyed forces some call the Deep State, the shadow government, the power elite, etc. (The scholar Peter Dale Scott sees a hidden link between the JFK assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11.) Spokesmen, yes, they are that, but executive spokesmen; they are not innocent victims; they are free executive executioners, ordering death and destruction around the world and threatening a nuclear holocaust. People and ongoing structures are intertwined. Individuals count, but so do structures. We are now living within a structure of non-stop and almost total propaganda that individuals, with the help of alternative structures of communication such as alternative media, can penetrate and understand, but only if they are willing to trudge through the forest of history that will allow for context and the connecting of dots. In the end, it takes desire and work. There are no excuses when, at least for now, the World Wide Web makes available so many voices for truth. Many individuals concluding alike can lead to change. Connect and be outraged. This is the path to true patriotism, a love of one’s home country and the world that is our home. We are not lost children without a way out of the forest of deception and fear. Follow the knotted string to freedom. Add to it. The psychiatrist Allen Wheelis once wrote a brilliant little book called, How People Change. His “childish” conclusion was that they change because they want to. Simple but true. http://clubof.info/

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