#when the company has banned recruitment

[zadien]

Kai's shoulders slumped, and he shoved his hands into his pockets as he gazed up at the sky above them. Stars had begun to pierce the blue and the pale white moon lingered like a ghost. Frustration leaked from every pore as he clenched his jaw, sending that little muscle flickering in his cheek. "I hate this. I hate having to tell you this shit. I hate having to fight with Miyami and try to convince a bunch of bone heads that beating up an asshole wasn't a good idea." That teased a reluctant smile to her lips. Poor Kai. "With great power comes great responsibility." His brow furrowed before he rolled his eyes. "Even I know that's from Spider-man, Ember." She reached up and lightly tapped his cheek. "I'm so proud." Seizing her hand, he used it to tug her closer, the heat of his body pressing a line against her own. Her breath caught as his dark eyes darted over her face as if attempting to read the thoughts lurking in her brain. Uncomfortable with the idea that he could see right through her, she dropped her gaze and shifted away, her chest clenching at his sigh. "You should text Miyami, tell her that you've got a plan and you're willing to talk. Maybe she can convince the boys to meet with you." "Fine, but if this doesn't work I'm coming back to find you." His feet crunched on the dried leaves as he left her. She watched him disappear into the gathering shadows and blew out a breath. She wasn't really sure if that was a threat or a promise.

Crappy, shitty day at work so here have an old chapter.

[mariacallous]

MYKOLAIV, UKRAINE—Kateryna Nahorna is getting ready to find trouble.

Part of an all-female team of dog handlers, the 22-year-old is training Ukraine’s technical survey dogs—Belgian Malinois that have learned to sniff out explosives.

The job is huge. Ukraine is now estimated to be the most heavily mined country on Earth. Deminers must survey every area that saw sustained fighting for unexploded mines, missiles, artillery shells, bombs, and a host of other ordnance—almost 25 percent of the country, according to government estimates.

The dogs can cover 1,500 square meters a day. In contrast, human deminers cover 10 square meters a day on average—by quickly narrowing down the areas that manual deminers will need to tackle, the dogs save valuable time.

“This job allows me to be a warrior for my country … but without having to kill anyone,” said Nahorna. “Our men protect us at war, and we do this to protect them at home.”

A highly practical reason drove the women’s recruitment. The specialized dog training was done in Cambodia, by the nonprofit Apopo, and military-aged men are currently not allowed to leave Ukraine.

War has shaken up gender dynamics in the Ukrainian economy, with women taking up jobs traditionally held by men, such as driving trucks or welding. Now, as mobilization ramps up once more, women are becoming increasingly important in roles that are critical for national security.

In Mykolaiv, in the industrial east, Nahorna and her dogs will soon take on one of the biggest targets of Russia’s military strategy when they start to demine the country’s energy infrastructure. Here, women have been stepping in to work in large numbers in steel mills, factories, and railways serving the front line.

It’s a big shift for Ukraine. Before the war, only 48 percent of women over age 15 took part in the workforce — one of the lowest rates in Europe. War has made collecting data on the gender composition of the workforce impossible, but today, 50,000 women serve in the Ukrainian army, compared to 30,000 before the war.

The catalyst came in 2017, years before the current war began. As conflict escalated with Russia in Crimea, the Ukrainian government overturned a Soviet-era law that had previously banned women from 450 occupations.

But obstacles still remain; for example, women are not allowed jobs the government deems too physically demanding. These barriers continue to be chipped away—most recently, women have been cleared to work in underground mines, something they were prevented from doing before.

Viktoriia Avramchuk never thought she would follow her father and husband into the coal mines for DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company.

Her lifelong fear of elevators was a big factor—but there was also the fact that it was illegal for women to work underground.

Her previous job working as a nanny in a local kindergarten disappeared overnight when schools were forced to close at the beginning of the war. After a year of being unemployed, she found that she had few other options.

“I would never have taken the job if I could have afforded not to,” Avramchuk said from her home in Pokrovsk. “But I also wanted to do something to help secure victory, and this was needed.”

The demining work that Nahorna does is urgent in part because more than 55 percent of the country is farmed.

Often called “the breadbasket of Europe,” Ukraine is one of the world’s top exporters of grain. The U.K.-based Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which has been advising the Ukrainian government on demining technology, estimates that landmines have resulted in annual GDP losses of $11 billion.

“Farmers feel the pressure to plow, which is dangerous,” said Jon Cunliffe, the Ukraine country director of Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a British nonprofit. “So we need to do as much surveying as possible to reduce the size of the possible contamination.”

The dogs can quickly clear an area of heavy vegetation, which greatly speeds up the process of releasing noncontaminated lands back to farmers. If the area is found to be unsafe, human deminers step in to clear the field manually.

“I’m not brave enough to be on the front line,” 29-year-old Iryna Manzevyta said as she slowly and diligently hovered a metal detector over a patch of farmland. “But I had to do something to help, and this seemed like a good alternative to make a difference.”

Groups like MAG are increasingly targeting women. With skilled male deminers regularly being picked up by military recruiters, recruiting women reduces the chances that expensive and time-consuming training will be invested in people who could be drafted to the front line at a moment’s notice. The demining work is expected to take decades, and women, unlike men, cannot be conscripted in Ukraine.

This urgency to recruit women is accelerating a gender shift already underway in the demining sector. Organizations like MAG have looked to recruit women as a way to empower them in local communities. Demining was once a heavily male-dominated sector, but women now make up 30 percent of workers in Vietnam and Colombia, around 40 percent in Cambodia, and more than 50 percent in Myanmar.

In Ukraine, the idea is to make demining an enterprise with “very little expat footprint,” and Cunliffe said that will only be possible by recruiting more women.

“We should not be here in 10 years. Not like in Iraq or South Sudan, where we have been for 30 years, or Vietnam, or Laos,” Cunliffe said. “It’s common sense that we bring in as many women as we can to do that. In five to 10 years, a lot of these women are going to end up being technical field managers, the jobs that are currently being done by old former British military guys, and it will change the face of demining worldwide because they can take those skills across the world.”

Manzevyta is one of the many women whose new job has turned her family dynamics on their head. She has handed over her previous life, running a small online beauty retail site, to her husband, who—though he gripes—stays at home while she is out demining.

“Life is completely different now,” she said, giggling. “I had to teach him how to use the washing machine, which settings to use, everything around the house because I’m mostly absent now.”

More seriously, Manzevyta said that the war has likely changed many women’s career trajectories.

“I can’t imagine people who have done work like this going back and working as florists once the war is over,” she laughed.

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

How are the Vees with kids/teens? For example, let's say they have young fans who are really interested in their work, like Velvette's fashion brand etc.

Velvette hates kids. She has this edgy Twitter girl attitude like ugh, shitlings and probably would constantly post about banning children from public spaces, but that would be bad PR. Teenagers she hates due to her school bullying trauma, so she actively makes their lives more miserable with fake, aspirational content. However, she's always willing to take a photo with a fan if it means creating an even stronger parasocial relationship.

Vox has mixed feelings. He likes meeting his young fans because there's something so rewarding in being loved by kids. It's just... They see you as a god almost (like, work with children is so rewarding? When you buy them, they are amazed by everything you do) and that's not a feeling he could resist. But at the same time, children are chaotic and unpredictable and teenagers can be so darn judgmental he'd rather not spend much time with them.

God, I hope that even in Hell Valentino doesn't have any kid fans?? Though he likes children similarly to pets. They can be entertaining for a few hours if they are of the 'fun, non-crying' kind. He's so irresponsible though; you shouldn't give him one. His teenage fans he loves because they mostly think about sex and drugs, which are his two favorite things, so they can party. Though it's not his preferred company because after a few times, it simply got boring; there's only so much entertainment some high schoolers can offer to the grown-ass man. But it's a great pool to recruit from.

[raileurta]

In the miko in tfa au

As established miko is danm menace, she goes for the kill whenever she can so shes banned from fighting the human villains, (thanks inpart to her telling professor princess to go after the ceos and shareholders of the companies she hates if she really wants to make a difference)

When it comes to the cons however? Well she agreed no murder so they just throw her at the cons and try to stay out of the way. Shes treats fighting them like a game most days so they figure its best to let her do her thing. The decepticons as a whole are obviously freaked out by this nightmare autobot that suddenly showed up. Half of them are convinced she's a former decepticon the rest just think she's straight up insane. I can see megatron trying to recruit her if only to keep her from traumatizing his troops further.

Meanwhile miko has developed a frenemy rivalry with soundwave because she's both immune to his power and really into his music which poor boy has no idea how to respond to other then to declare her his rival and constantly try to destroy her in epic musical battles. He gave her his guitar to male this happen so miko thinks they're friends and that the battles are just jam sessions. That doesn't stop her from casually throwing him around like a rag doll whenever they fight but still.

Hahaha I'm loving everything about this ask. Yeah Miko is definitely eating the rich type person and will try to get everyone on board with her.

Miko is the autobot's feral attack dog and to the cons she's a living nightmare. The dynamic essential is:

Why not both be a former decepticon and insane! Most of them probably think she's both. I bet there's bets going on what the hell her deal is.

The visual of Megatron trying to recruit Miko to prevent trauma™️ is hilarious.

--------------------------------------------------

Megatron: Join us Joyride prime! (Please please please I don't have therapists please)

Miko: I'll eat your skin.

Megatron: 😟

--------------------------------------------------

I'm now just thinking of an anime AMV type thing with rock music playing in the background. Soundwave and her would totally jam out! Their jam sessions would be legendary to witness. They totally fight like little siblings now lol.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 11/19/2024

no silly little witticism here this week! just heartfelt thanks for helping me pay my rent this month :)

listening

absolutely wild pick from last week's spotify weekly recommenced, Things Will Fall Apart by Louis Cole feat the Metropole Orkest and conductor Jules Buckley. it's been on loop all week for me and im a little sad it won't pop up in my spotify wrapped

when you make a dance pop song with a full orchestra backing, it has a really interesting effect somewhere between Golden Age of Hollywood swashbuckling film score and marching band?

Yes, understood Things will fall apart just likе they should This little shred was good Don't think it through Things will fall apart, they always do At least, something's always true

the syllables are so choppy they don’t even register to me as English at first, i was fully willing to believe this was German for the first couple lines. like @dying-suffering-french-stalkers, i have a deep fondness for works about putting an era to bed. or works focused on the sunsets of things, or one of the last living practitioners of an art. putting the chairs up on the table, sweeping the floors, and turning the lights out and locking the door behind you. this song has that sort of quiet post-wake-party remembrance.

however once you think the song has ended but it keeps going, you can turn it off. you don’t really need that extra minute and a half of strings and light vocalizations.

Lately, Louis Cole has been doing live shows with the Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest and conductor Jules Buckley. Cole recorded nothing with the ensemble. In a press release, he says, “Sometimes, when I’m mixing my own solo stuff, I’ll feel like a song needs a little magical dust. But mixing an entire orchestra and your own rhythm section, there’s so much human energy! You don’t have to add any magic. It was there the whole time.”

i don’t hear many pop songs this millennium with a full orchestral backing. perhaps i need to look harder. unfortunately spotify took this extreme interest in this song as a newfound extreme interest in electroswing, which is really not what this song is. i hope this artist does more albums like this so they can wear grooves in my brain

-

reading

very hard to focus on anything book length this week. some depressing local news (my local paper's links do Not want to preview nicely here, which is annoying:

At a city council meeting in October, district Vice President Dan Joyce told council members that the management district was not attempting to "criminalize homelessness." The city’s civility ordinance bans people from sitting, lying down or placing personal items or bedding on sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

cool piece from our pals at 404 Media. i am So fascinated by crime infrastructure

Based on interviews with malware developers, hackers who use the stolen credentials, and a review of manuals that tell new recruits how to spread the malware, 404 Media has mapped out this industry. Its end result is that a download of an innocent-looking piece of software by a single person can lead to a data breach at a multibillion-dollar company, putting Google and other tech giants in an ever-escalating cat-and-mouse game with the malware developers to keep people and companies safe.

(via longreads) my interest in how and why systems fail extends to invasive species management. plus i used to live in florida just above the everglades and these fuckers (the snakes) were everywhere

[I]magine thousands upon thousands of pythons, their slow digestion transforming each corpse into python muscle and fat. Unaided, Florida’s native wildlife doesn’t stand a chance. “That’s what I think about with every python I catch,” Kalil says. “What it ate to get this big, and the lives I’m saving by removing it.” Biologists are taking a multipronged approach to the issue. They have experimented with enlisting dogs to sniff out both pythons and nests—a technique that has proved difficult in such hot weather and inhospitable landscapes. Ongoing projects use telemetry to track pythons to find “associate snakes.” Researchers use drones, go out in airboats, or even take to helicopters to locate their subjects in the interiors of the Everglades. Always, agencies and individuals are looking for the next best methods. “But for now, the python contractor program is the most successful management effort in the history of the issue,” Kirkland says. “We’re capturing more and more—something that is indicative of the python population out there and indicative of us getting better at what we do.”

-

watching

continuing noirvember, watched hitchcock's Notorious to see if i still dislike hitchcock. the answer is yes. there are bond girls and there are hitchcock girls, and not that bond girls are paragons of female agency in film, but hitchcock girls are mostly fluttering little pathetic things. a scrap of agency they showed in the beginning of the film becomes a running joke and something their noses are rubbed in for the rest of the film. not for me!

patrick mcgoohan is leading me into some real dad-ass movies. Ice Station Zebra (1968, dir. Sturges) is a real you're stuck at home sick with your dad and it's on TV for the whole afternoon kind of movie. they truly do not make two and a half cold war submarine espionage films in super panavision with an overture, intermission, and interact music any more. i get why howard hughes was really obsessed with this one. it is a suspense film, but full of people competently going about their business, which i find oddly comforting.

unfortunately i do not feel this really needed to be two and a half hours long. the loving closeups of sub interiors and instrumentation really did keep me amused, though. despite how cluttered every shot is with actors, there is tremendous clarity of purpose and motion with the camera movement. just a really technically brilliant film.

how similar the russian and american control rooms and instrumentation were made me chortle. ties nicely into a little diatribe mcgoohan goes on much later in the film, "The Russians put our camera made by our German scientists and your film made by your German scientists into their satellite made by their German scientists." funny and darkly true! every allied nation had some sort of Operation Paperclip going on! mcgoohan is the focus of every scene he's in, as a spy who is really hanging on by the last remaining shreds of his fingernails.

i had a good time with it, but one of many cold war suspense films im glad exist in the world but don't necessarily need to see again. it might join Escape from New York as a film i put on when im very sick though.

-

playing

this pc needs some sort of replacement something, bc it has a really persistent overheating problem. it only tolerates powerwasher simulator on the lowest possible settings and genshin impact on basically mobile settings. it does not even want to run new vegas. i popped my head out of goodsprings to look out over the desert at the Strip and it said no thank you! too many polygons! naptime!

speaking of genshin, major update this week and new character i will be pulling for. she has a sister who died in the last patch, which i do Not care for as someone with a beloved little sister, but her moveset and skills are unique so far in the game. i feel like her skills are little too complicated for me to fully take advantage of with my "hit enemy very hard until he is dead" playstyle but she has a limited flight ability that will genuinely be very useful for exploration.

if i do not get her when i hit pity on the banner i won't bother pulling another nine times or whatever, bc the next patch has a character i really desperately want and i am saving for her

-

making

the local crew is all getting art this year, bc i already have bristol board and a selection of small frames and zero budget. people who have pets are So easy to get gifts for bc u can simply get them stuff for their pet or that looks like their pet. way less gray cat than black cat merch in the world tho

aiming to send out international holiday cards by the end of the week, and canadian cards by american thanksgiving. the rest of you they'll get there when they get there ok

[beardedmrbean]

July 24 (UPI) -- Meta said Wednesday it removed tens of thousands accounts based in Nigeria in a crackdown on sextortion schemes stemming from the country.

The company said it took down 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria, including a smaller coordinated network of roughly 2,500 accounts linked to 20 people.

"Financial sextortion is a horrific crime that can have devastating consequences. Our teams have deep experience in fighting this crime and work closely with experts to recognize the tactics scammers use, understand how they evolve and develop effective ways to help stop them," Meta said.

Meta also removed Facebook accounts, Pages and Groups it said were run by Yahoo Boys, a loosely organized group of cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria. Those accounts are banned under Meta's Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy.

According to Meta those accounts were trying to "organize, recruit and train new scammers."

The removed Nigerian Instagram accounts targeted primarily adult men in the United States. Those accounts were identified using new technical signals Meta has developed to spot accounts engaging in sextortion.

Meta also removed approximately 7,200 Facebook assets, including 1,300 accounts, 200 Facebook pages and 5,700 Facebook Groups based in Nigeria that were allegedly providing tips for how to conduct sextortion scams.

"While these investigations and disruptions are critical, they're just one part of our approach," Meta's statement said. "We continue to support law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting these crimes, including by responding to valid legal requests for information and by alerting them when we become aware of someone at risk of imminent harm, in accordance with our terms of service and applicable law."

In April, two people in Nigeria were arrested and charged in the sexual extortion case of an Australian teen who died by suicide.

The boy took his own life after threats that intimate pictures he shared online with someone he thought was a female would be sent to family and friends.

The term sextortion refers to the act of getting victims to create and send sexually explicit material, then demanding money for not releasing that material.

Also in April, Meta tested new features to fight sextortion by automatically blurring nude images in Instagram by default on accounts for users younger than 18.

Meta said then that it had spent years working closely with experts to understand how scammers use sextortion to find and extort victims online.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ben Makuch at The Guardian:

Some far-right extremists have fled Telegram for a new haven: SimpleX, a messaging service that just secured over $1m in funding with the help of Jack Dorsey, once the CEO of Twitter, now known as X. The migration from Telegram began after the app’s founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, announced a crackdown on illegal content and cooperation with law enforcement requests. Just weeks ago, Durov was arrested in France on a litany of charges that allege Telegram helped spread child sexual abuse material and fuelled criminal activities among its users. Some of those users are far-right extremists who are now avowedly nervous to use the app and have pivoted to SimpleX, an obscure secure messaging app promising unparalleled privacy and encryption options. The app is perceived as a safer alternative and consequently gaining momentum, because it does not require any user authentication or identifications in the form of an email or phone number, which SimpleX says “radically improves your privacy”.

[...]

Steven Rai, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), said several extremists he monitors could see the upside of replacing Telegram with SimpleX. “SimpleX has numerous security features that extremists view as advantageous compared to Telegram – in addition to having end-to-end encryption activated by default for all messages, it boasts being the first chat platform that circumvents the need for user IDs,” he said. Rai continued: “On most social media platforms like Telegram, accounts are assigned a unique identifier that remains static even when users change their display name, which allows law enforcement and other investigators to track them across time and space, find out who they are communicating with, and possibly identify them.”

All of these features combined, became a selling point for far-right extremists to begin downloading SimpleX, which has the option for one-to-one messaging and broader chat groups – similar to Telegram. “Nothing is bulletproof,” said one far-right user in a discussion on SimpleX about how the app was better than Telegram, “but [SimpleX] doesn’t need your email or phone number (unlike Telegram and such) and doesn’t store chats on their server”. In August, the company announced more than 100,000 downloads of its Android app and that it “raised a $1.3m pre-seed round” of funding led by Dorsey and a Boston-based venture capital firm. “Jack, we are super lucky to have your support and investment,” said the company in an online press release. “Thank you for believing in our ability to build a better messaging network!” Dorsey had sung the praises of SimpleX on X in 2023, calling the app “promising” and potentially better than Signal, a well-known secure-messaging app considered the gold standard among privacy experts.

[...] The near “Whac-A-Mole” game of chasing extremists on alternative social media apps is a long-running problem among national security officials trying to limit the online activities of terrorist organizations. During its heyday in 2014, Islamic State used everything from the question-and-answer site Ask.Fm to Facebook, Instagram and X as recruitment sites. Bans on bigger apps led to Telegram eventually becoming the choice platform for most terror groups looking to find new members. Things did begin to change as the Dubai-based app came under more and more public scrutiny. As early as May 2023, IS members signaled that SimpleX could be a new haven for covert organizing.

Far-right extremists have begun to migrate from Telegram to SimpleX over Telegram’s crackdown on illegal content in the wake of Pavel Durov’s arrest and greater privacy protections.

[andro-dino]

Since there has been a lot of Dan and Reiki posts recently, I am curious about what kind of things you think they were doing during Masters and Fury?

honestly? therapy mostly. I mean that post-fusion in general actually. yk sometimes I think a lot about how dan and reiki were there to see gan gan galaxy off with the rest of the group when they first left during masters. I think about that frequently.

The wbba-mandated dark nebula kid support group hc is still one that holds very firm in my head and I very much believe that it was beneficial for dan and reiki. Yk what else I think about? Dan and reiki have been at the dark nebula the longest compared to some of the other recruits (obviously sans Ryuga and probably Reiji) since their first appearance was early on in fusion while everyone else joined way later. You ever think about that? I think about that a lot. Can you tell I think about that a lot? Can you tell I think a lot about how much the dark nebula probably really fucked them up and how their main episode after their first appearance showed how desperate they were for doji’s approval and were willing to do like anything in order to win back his favor and prove their worth? Cuz I think about that a lot. And I definitely also think a lot about how much their conflict stems from the fact that the team battle dynamic that they have is clearly dysfunctional for them because despite how similar they are, they are so fundamentally different to the degree that having them control one bey is just setting themselves up for failure bc of how much their differences clash with each other but they don’t really get the opportunity to acknowledge that because they’re always seen as a team because they’re twins.

A lot of what I imagine them doing post-fusion is kinda working through all that, both their need for approval and validation from a higher figure but also acknowledging more of their individuality. That’s part of the reason why I draw them with different hairstyles. One reason is bc it’s more fun for me and I HATE drawing their canonical shaggy boy band cut, another is bc it makes it easier for other people to tell them apart, but the main reason is because I like it as a show of them becoming their own separate people and being able to individualize themselves more.

I also do like to think about their potential friendship dynamics with other characters. One that I’ve thought abt a little bit is I think they’d both be good friends with Tobio, and by extension they hang out with dss a lot, which I can only imagine would be the most chaotic matchup of people and they are probably banned from a lot of public spaces, but it’s a lot of fun. Tsubasa also I like to think of as one of their more voice of reason friends. The main reason they even hang around each other is bc of the whole support group thing but they enjoy Tsubasa’s company a lot and he checks up on them and introduces them to new people and I think that’s fun. Hyoma is one of the people I could see Tsubasa introducing them to which is also an extremely silly dynamic, and Hyoma then introduces them to Axyl, which is how gemios trio happens. They mean a lot to me, obviously <3 gemios trio is also how the idea of the twins and their beef/also extremely silly friendship with zhouxing came to be. I just think they’re funny I like them a lot. (I also. haven’t talked abt this ever. but the idea of crackshipping zhouxing and reiki has crossed my mind more than once. for reasons I think are obvious. but it’s very silly and I love them.)

In general I just enjoy pairing the twins up with a bunch of different characters, either together or individually, I like giving them friends and more character interactions because I think it’s fun and they deserve the world. But yeah that’s most of what their post-fusion shenanigans are in my head, individualizing themselves, exploring different hobbies and means of self-expression, unlearning their dark nebula trauma, and making friends and hanging out and being silly because they deserve it <3

[coochiequeens]

Ladies, always keep stickers on you

China’s Surrogacy Debate Extends to Women’s Toilets 

From universities to hospital toilets, women are finding themselves surrounded by small ads recruiting surrogacy candidates as well as customers. They, and some companies, are hitting back.

By Yang Caini

May 15, 20233-min read #gender#surrogacy

Women in China are covering up surrogacy ads in toilets with stickers and lipstick as they try to discourage other women from becoming surrogates or take up their services.  

In late April, a video of an anonymous woman covering up a surrogacy ad with stickers in a women’s bathroom in a hospital in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region went viral online.

Her actions were widely praised, with netizens sharing similar experiences about covering up surrogacy ads they encounter: “I erased these sorts of ads in the toilet of a movie theater.” “I’ve seen ads like this in dorms and school bathrooms.” “They can be found in all three toilets in a Changsha shopping mall.” 

These ads look to recruit surrogates as well as customers. They are usually made up of very few words, with a price and a contact number provided. Many also guarantee a son, the favored sex in China.  

Five university students from five different cities told Sixth Tone that they’ve seen the ads “countless times” in toilets. Zhao Yifei, a master’s degree student at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, said that these ads can be found in almost every toilet on campus. She sometimes feels conflicted when scratching them out with her keys. 

“On the one hand, I think (surrogacy) can help those families who cannot conceive because of physical reasons. On the other hand … the most likely result is that the rich use surrogacy in large numbers and exploit the poor,” said Zhao. 

Commercial surrogacy is banned in China, together with all sales of gametes, fertilized eggs, and embryos. The prohibition has led to the emergence of black markets and cross-bordersurrogacy services that target infertile and same-sex couples.

Surrogate mothers in China can receive up to 280,000 yuan ($40,282) for their services, while customers reportedly pay up to 1.1 million yuan for a surrogate baby with a chosen sex.

The question of whether to legalize surrogacy in China is a heated debate. In 2017, state-run media People’s Daily published an article that discussed legalizing surrogacy to ease the country’s falling birth rate and help infertile senior couples. Opponents, however, decry the practice for exploiting vulnerable women.

Li, who insisted on only using her surname, has kept a marker pen and anti-surrogacy stickers in her handbag since 2019, when she first erased a surrogacy ad in a shopping mall toilet with her lipstick in her hometown of Zhengzhou, the capital city of the central province of Henan.

“I’m embarrassed to say it, but I was thinking about whether the lipstick can still be used afterwards. But this was only for a few seconds — after all, this matter is much more important than lipstick,” Li, 26, told Sixth Tone.

Afterwards, Li purchased anti-surrogacy stickers in case she ran into the ads again. Some of these stickers mention that they are 30 centimeters long, the same length as a needle used for retrieving a woman’s egg. She hopes this scares women thinking about surrogacy by showing what it will mean in practice. 

Some women’s products manufacturers, including sellers of pads and skincare products, are supporting these anti-surrogacy efforts by gifting customers free anti-surrogacy stickers with their purchases.

SISCOM, an online vendor with over 40,000 followers on e-commerce platform Taobao selling feminist merchandise, began giving customers free anti-surrogacy stickers in 2021. “Surrogacy exploits women. It’s banned in China. You will be punished for it,” the stickers read, with a reporting hotline included. 

Qiqi, co-owner of SISCOM, told Sixth Tone that she has seen many of these ads herself. 

“Sometimes I can’t help but feel that the people who make these ads are so smart … The toilet compartments are so private that you can hardly catch them and ban them,” she said. 

Women’s public toilets have been in the news before. In 2020, advocates launched a campaign to install pad-sharing boxes in women’s toilets, which swept across the country. 

Editor: Vincent Chow. 

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

since the end of world war two - which was a reset as the world was devastated by war and shocked about the holocaust and other atrocities committed by nazi germany and the axis powers - the usa (in no particular order):

had segregation until only around 50 years ago despite taking the moral high ground for beating the racist nazis

granted immunity to nazis and actively recruited nazi scientists

declared the war on communism costing hundreds of thousands of lives and ravaging vietnam as well as funding islamistic terrorism as a countermeasure

then declaring the war on terrorism after the war on communism backfired with 9/11 costing another thousands if not millions of lives with devastating consequences for countries like afghanistan

destabilised and hindered democracy in several countries and regions that still deal with the consequences today such as venezuela

declared the war on drugs but also had a cia funded crack epidemic

have built a wall on the mexican but not the canadian border

spent billions over billions for military and other operations to control other countries and have the most power on a global scale while many of the population cant even afford healthcare and live in very precarious situations or even without housing due to the unwillingness to regulate corporations and grant better workers and tenants rights

refuse to regulate big corporations and let technology companies grow unchecked which is kind of ruining the internet

claim to hate religious fundamentalism when its about islam while evangelicals are one of the most powerful political groups and fundamentalists are allowed to homeschool and isolate their kids

abused the jews wish for their own country to install the state of israel for control in the middle east, funding displacement and systematic cleansing of palestinians with the help of the british

still systematically discriminate against the native population and leave them in a vulnerable position leading to a huge issue with kidnapping, trafficking and unsolved murders of native girls and women

has almost 5 % of its population incarcerated who then are not allowed to vote with 30 % of the female prison population being prostitutes

have a sham democracy run by billionaires and reagan is mainly responsible for undoing social progress by enforcing neoliberalism and lying about trickle down effects

have no public broadcast and all news sources are privatised

still have the death penalty and abortion bans in some states

probably a shit ton more im forgetting now

yet usamericans have the gull to get on a high horse and point fingers at other countries because what? a european was mean online? lmao. and what gets me the most is that they often couldnt even name the president or point out said countries on a map.

people joke about the usa because they have made themselves out to be land of the free, the best country in the world, the worlds cop, the poster child democracy, while miserably failing their own people, immigrants following the promise set by the usa for a better life, and every country that was unlucky enough to be invaded and destabilised by the us military and the cia. on top the usa have a hegemonic grip on the majority of the globe and export culture wars and propaganda through hollywood movies and shows especially to other western countries. so give me a break

[nrdmssgs]

Writing poll tag game grand finale

Masterlist

So earlier my dear @gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot tagged me in a game, and I made a voting poll and you guys were amazing as always! Here are your finalists, enjoy.

Draw your swords

(König x reader. F2L with mutual pining. Oneshot.)

On his work König has been shot, beaten, strangled, cut, smothered, burnt and drowned. But it was nothing compared to what your eyes did to him when you opened your door. The impact of your tired, disappointed stare is so drastic, it feels as if all the air swiftly left his lungs. König is ready for whatever you have to throw at him: it may hurt, may crush him for good, but he needs it - needs to hear your voice, even if you just send him off back home and ask to never contact you again.

Despite his fears, you don't break down, or yell at him, or slam the door in his face - you turn around and slowly make your way to the kitchen, knowing that he will follow you. You turn on the electric kettle and freeze over the countertop without saying a single word.

König tries to calm down his trembling hands, but it only gets worse every next minute, so he surrenders, gets up, comes closer and touches your shoulder in a silent plea to react to him anyhow.

Outsider

(Rudy x reader meeting. Fluff and comfort. Oneshot)

You roll a bottle of beer between your hands, observing the liquid slowly swirling inside. Of course, you should be celebrating with others, but you swear, if you happen to hear the sudden loud exclamation of Colonel Vargas one more time, this bottle will slip out of your hands. And you had enough embarrassment for one evening already.

You hear a short tactful cough, meant to indicate that you are not alone on the veranda, and turn around. Of all people out there, it must be Sergeant Major Parra, who was for sure sent to bring you back. As if they all knew, you can't deny this man anything, when he asks so nicely.

"I know, I'm sorry, coming back already, promise." You turn back and stop in your tracks in surprise, seeing him handing you a blanket over.

"It's ok, if you want to stay here, I just wanted to make sure, you don't catch cold." His voice is much quieter and more peaceful than Colonels.

A voice to drive away anxieties, to tell long stories on a hot afternoon, to soothe and lull. Actually, the only voice here, that doesn't make you jump. The voice you grow so accustomed to. And this is why it was a good thing, you were soon to leave these guys.

No Sky lands

(Nikolai x my OC. This happens after 'A heart full of pity')

"Five murder charges, a treason, ban on visiting not one, not even four, but six countries... Is it a CV or a hire-a-crazy-boy-to-ruin-your-company bingo?" Nikolai chuckles, but it is obvious that he is not happy with her choice.

"You gave me the green light on whoever I want to hire..." As Nik waves potential recruits papers, pointing at the guy down in the hall, she catches the papers and pulls them out of his hand.

"I can work with that." She rises from the table and heads for the exit of their private room when Nikolai catches her arm and pulls her closer.

"I know. And that is yet another reason, I'm so in love."

Perfect, he just couldn't wait to ruin her cold working demeanor, could he? How is she supposed to interview the man now, when her face is red?

To her relief, their applicant was too engrossed in studying the menu to notice her from afar.

"Herr Krueger, schön, Sie kennenzulernen!" The man rose his gaze on her and squinted displeasedly.

"Eigentlich meine Name ist Doss..."

"Eigentlich deine Name ist Krueger. Jetzt hör auf mit dem Unsinn und lass uns zur Sache kommen."*

*"Mister Krueger, nice to meet you." "Actually, I`m Doss" "Actually, you are Krueger. Now cut the crap and lets talk business"

It's always the rowdy ones

(Soap x reader meeting. Angst and comfort. Oneshot)

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch the glass dance in his hands. This man does not even think of emptying it - he only pretends to drink on a par with the rest.

At their table, he is the noisiest. Sprinkles others stories with jokes, says toasts, fools around.

But you notice something in his eyes. Some might call it just a sadness, longing. But in your head pops up another word: emptiness. Cold sticky emptiness, absorbing a person from the inside - you have already seen something like this and it did not end well.

For a while you get distracted and lose sight of him. But when the pub-goers start chanting the New Year's countdown loudly, you look for his eyes again... and you don't find them.

Nine! You start worrying. It's ridiculous, you don't even know this guy. Seven! You search and search and search - nothing. Five! You jump up from your chair and make your way to the exit, pushing the others aside.

Three! You crawl between two lovers about to kiss. Two! A hand grabs you, but you forcefully pull away, not caring how rough it might look. One! You finally break out of the pub, look around and spot him sitting on the ground, leaning against the side of the building. His eyes glazed over and froze in horror.

In the snares

(Ghost x reader. Colleagues to friends. Platonic. Oneshot)

You cover your mouth with your hand to keep from screaming. Your squadmates are so close and at the same time incredibly far away. One by one they sneak past without noticing you. The pain becomes unbearable: it seems that the teeth of the trap are already grinding your bones. Tears well up in your eyes, but you still don't let yourself break the silence, knowing that screaming will reveal more than just your position - it will reveal the whole squad.

It's only when you see the last person - your lieutenant, a small, painful exhale escapes your lips. And as soon as it happens - he stops in his tracks.

"Go on, please, go on, don't stop," you think, watching him silently from the pit, you fell in. But Ghost doesn't even think to go further after his squad - instead he looks around.

This man just has inhuman instincts. You follow his gaze, scanning the environment: trodden grass, broken branches of bushes, dew wiped with fingers from large leaves. And then his eyes fall on you. You are ready to swear that due to the dense layer of deadwood, your body cannot be seen from the point where it stands. But he looks into your eyes and orders with one glance: get up.

To gift a touch

(Alex x reader friends to lovers. Fluff. Oneshot)

"Oh, what smells that nice?" You hear an unfamiliar voice from the hallway.

"None of your business, Soap. Stay where you are, I'll bring your papers," Alex replies calmly, but after a minute you hear footsteps approaching the kitchen.

An unfamiliar man peeps in and waves enthusiastically at you. You're not sure which pleased him more: the new face or the plate of cookies on the table in front of you.

"Wow, Alex, you could have just say that you are not alone!" a man speaks loudly, comes up to you and holds out his hand.

"Hi, I'm Soap, a colleague of your, uh, friend?" He shakes your hand, and you don't even have time to answer, because he immediately grabs the cookie and asks, "Did you bake him one?"

You shake your head and start laughing softly.

"Wait, he, Alex Keller, baked the cookies? I didn't know he had any talent other than organizing popular uprisings..." You laugh harder as Soap adds loudly, "Fights for the good guys AND bakes delicious pastry - what a wife-material!"

You are about to lose it, when Alex returns to the kitchen. "Soap, you know, I love you with all my heart, but right now I really consider something, i will regret later..."

[eretzyisrael]

by Sam Westrop

Recent analysis published by Israeli analysts place Hamas’s annual budget in Gaza at between $2 and $3 billion. At least an estimated $500 million of this is provided by the “Hamas Charity Coalition” and various investment entities. New sanctions imposed by U.S. Department of the Treasury are based on similar conclusions, and target a range of charities and companies.

One named entity in the U.S. government document is the “Gaza-based and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]-affiliated Al-Ansar Charity Association (Al-Ansar),” which “provides millions of dollars … for the families of terrorists affiliated with Hamas and PIJ. Al-Ansar claims to provide funds to families affiliated with these terrorist groups as an extension of Iranian support to the Palestinian people, but the funding ultimately serves as a recruiting tool for terrorist activities.”

Indeed, radical movements have long used charitable programs and promises of social welfare to build a base of support and help with recruitment. Crucially, as the U.S. government realizes, charities do not have to fund Hamas’s terrorist operations directly to benefit the terrorist organization financially or ideologically.

Across the Islamist world, in fact, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Khomeinists, Wahhabis, ISIS, and al-Qaeda and, indeed, Islamist groups all around the world, have made use of charitable programs to expand and consolidate control over Muslim communities. Hamas and other terror groups refer to this approach as da’wa. The term is usually employed to mean a proselytizing call to Islam, but in the case of Islamist movements and its terror offshoots such as Hamas, it serves as a call to Islamism – and thus a vehicle to impose Islamist rule. Counter-terrorism experts and an increasing number of governments note that the use of da’wah through charity facilitates an influx of largely-unchecked foreign funds, helps to recruit to new members, frees up money for violent operations, and serves to sanitize the reputation of terror movements.

Much of the charitable work is indeed real, but it still serves to benefit terror. In Gaza, for instance, decades ago, Hamas came to the fore by distinguishing itself, through its charitable work, from the incompetence and corruption of the PLO. While Palestinian nationalists embezzled millions, their Islamist rivals set up medical clinics, orphanages and summer camps for Palestinian youth, winning grassroots support. Decades earlier, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt pioneered a similar approach.

The designation of Al-Ansar is certainly not the first time the link between charity and terror has been officially recognized. After the 9/11 attacks, Western governments quickly came to realize, with horror, the ease with which these foreign terrorist organizations could exploit nonprofit industries. Worse still, Western governments eventually began to notice that extremist networks within Western Muslim communities were willing to set up nonprofits on behalf of these foreign terrorist groups.

In response, a slew of prosecutions, designations and bans across America and Europe during the 2000s shut down significant numbers of these Islamist charities, but political enthusiasm for prosecutions and investigations eventually waned. Since then, a decade of lax oversight and fears over the political fallout from new prosecutions has allowed the Islamist nonprofit industry to grow once again.

Nonetheless, in 2010, the solicitor-general, Elena Kagan, now on the Supreme Court, reiterated that “Hezbollah builds bombs. Hezbollah also builds homes. … When you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs.”

Today, however, the law is still simply not being enforced. The activities of terror-aligned charities are largely ignored by law enforcement and policy-makers. Sometimes, the taxpayer even funds these radical charities through a wide array of obscene government grant programs.

There is a broader problem too. A search by the Middle East Forum of electronically-filed Schedule F forms (part of nonprofits’ 990 tax returns) – which are supposed to disclose foreign spending by 501(c)s – for mentions of “Palestine” or “Palestinian(s)” yielded hundreds of millions of dollars of expenditures in the Palestinian territories in recent years, with hundreds of millions more likely uncountably listed under broader regional terms such as “Middle East.” Actual recipient names are redacted or unprovided, making the true amounts going to Gaza impossible to track properly.

Nonetheless, through open-source investigation, in the wake of the October 7th attacks, Focus on Western Islamism has put together a list of Islamist nonprofits in the United States, along with fellow travelers, which we believe make-up a major Hamas-aligned charitable industry in North America. Through searches of the electronic 990 filings, we have also gathered and summarized these charities’ top funders through the 501(c) system, totaling a worrying $262 million.

(Note: 501(c)s’ 990 Tax Returns occasionally contain inaccurate information. Misspelled names, incorrect EIN numbers, among other problems. Every effort has been made to ensure the funding data is comprehensively accurate and the grantees listed in these 990s are indeed the nonprofits listed in this report, although it remains possible that a negligible number of false positives have made their way into the final data.)

By Hamas-aligned, we mean that our list comprises charities that have previously collaborated with Hamas or related terror groups, funded charitable proxies for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, or employed officials who publicly express support for Hamas with apparent impunity. A second list of additional Islamist charities with extremist histories relevant to their work in Gaza, but whose current involvement with Hamas or Hamas proxies is unknown, is also included. The charities in both lists (see table of comments) deserve close investigation by media, law enforcement and policymakers.

Hamas-Aligned Charities

Rahma Worldwide Aid & Development

Rahma Worldwide, also known as Rahma Relief, is a Michigan charity run by Shadi Zaza.

[mariacallous]

“Many of us are pissed,” wrote the “commander” of a Three Percenter militia in Kentucky in a post. “We need to have a location all patriots from all states can come to when the time comes,” he continued. “Thoughts?” Other militia members replied, affirming their readiness. “It’s time the enemy paid a price for their treason and crimes against humanity,” one person responded.

These plans for militia activity in the wake of the US election are not from a private conversation on an encrypted platform. It was unfolding on a public Facebook profile.

Anti-government militia movements have been continuing to use Facebook to recruit, coordinate training, promote ballot box stake outs, and prepare for a civil war that many militants believe will break out after election day. And in some cases, the movement is attracting people who don’t appear to have any prior background in a militia. Meta is even doing the work for extremist movements by auto-generating some group pages on their behalf.

Data shared exclusively with WIRED by the Tech Transparency Project shows that these groups have only continued to grow on Facebook, despite WIRED previously flagging this lapse in Meta’s moderation.

The brazen proliferation of paramilitary activity on the social media platform days before the election highlights Meta’s lackadaisical approach to enforcing its own bans against groups it has labeled dangerous extremists. Militias require platforms like Facebook to grow: It’s a tool for the paramilitary movement to strengthen and radicalize its network. It also helps them facilitate local organizing, state by state and county by county, and boost their membership.

The American paramilitary movement is much less visible than it was in 2020. Militias largely retreated from the streets after the January 6 Capitol riot exposed them to intense public and legal scrutiny, which was intensified by the prosecution of dozens of Oath Keepers. Some groups tried to distance themselves from the movement altogether by dropping any language about a “militia” from their websites, opting instead for more euphemistic names like “civilian guard” and “patriot group.” But after the dust settled following the Capitol riot, the movement began quietly rebuilding on Facebook. And they ramped up training and began coordinating, across counties and states.

The Tech Transparency Project has compiled a list of 262 Facebook public and private groups and 193 Facebook pages for militia and anti-government activists that were created since January 6, 2021. Nearly two dozen of those groups and pages have been created since May, according to the TTP. Some make minimal effort to conceal their affiliations to extremist networks: One new public group created in May is called The Michigan III%. Increasingly, the movement is also relying on individual profiles associated with leaders of local militia, the TTP says. Moderation has put a dent in the presence of American Patriots Three Percent (AP3), one of the largest active militias that Facebook explicitly banned in 2020 as a “militarized social movement” and “armed militia group.”

Meta, Facebook's parent company, says it carried out a “strategic network disruption” of AP3 in 2020 and again earlier this year in June, removing from Facebook and Instagram a total of 900 groups, pages, and accounts associated with members.

"Adversaries are constantly trying to find new ways around our policies, which is why we continually enforce against violating groups and accounts by investing heavily in people, technology, research, and partnerships,” a Meta spokesperson told WIRED in an email. “We will continue to remove any groups and accounts that violate our policies.” Meta says the company is investigating some of the screenshots of groups that WIRED shared and will remove any content that violates its policies.

But WIRED reviewed posts from AP3 groups and profiles that are still on the platform, including examples where members and leaders brandish AP3 insignia and share photos from their in-person training sessions.

There have also been some recent instances where Facebook has even auto-generated pages for militias. In May, Facebook auto-generated a page for AP3’s Arizona chapter. In June, Facebook auto-generated a page for “AP3 NM [New Mexico] Training Range.” If you hover over the information widget on the page, Facebook’s explainer reads: “This unofficial page was created because people on Facebook have shown interest in this place or business. It’s not affiliated with or endorsed by anyone associated with AP3 Training Range.”

WIRED sent Meta two examples of auto-generated pages. In a statement, the company said: "One of the two auto-generated Pages had one follower and has been removed, and we couldn’t even verify that the second example of an auto-generated Page exists on the platform."

Meta has repeatedly come under fire in the past for auto-generating pages for extremist, white supremacist, and terrorist organizations; a whistleblower first flagged the issue in 2020 in a supplement to an earlier petition filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Nearly four years after the January 6 attack on the capitol, Facebook remains a significant recruiting and organizing tool for militias like the AP3, despite creating policies that ban them,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. “How can Meta be trusted to effectively thwart extremists that have a record of engaging in and stoking political violence when its own systems create business pages for them?”

In a video from 2022 that was recently published as part of a leak to Distributed Denial of Secrets, AP3 leader Scot Seddon stressed the importance of Facebook to his group’s operational success. “We’ve always used Facebook, Facebook has been our greatest weapon. It has gotten us where we are today,” Seddon told the camera. “We need to use the tools that are in front of us to achieve the goals of where we want to be. Our goal is to network, be as big as possible, have as many like-minded patriots in our states that we can rely upon should shit hit the fan.”

Extremist groups need access to mainstream platforms like Facebook to reach and radicalize people. When those groups are banned from larger platforms and relegated to fringe sites, their reach and recruitment opportunities are limited and their numbers can become stagnant or start dropping.

“We know the power of Facebook as an organizing platform, to pull in people who have fallen down rabbit holes and radicalize them further,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “We should be concerned that actual organized domestic extremist groups have free rein on platforms that millions of Americans use.”

Now, as the election fast approaches, the paramilitary network on Facebook has been a hive of people looking to link up, train, and prepare. A review by WIRED of recent Facebook posts in a number of these militia groups also suggests that the paramilitary movement has lately been attracting individuals who don’t have previous experience of being part of a militia.

“I’m looking for a group of people that see and understand the dire situation our country is in,” wrote one poster in the Facebook group U.S.A. Militia We The People last month. “A group of people that understand that civil war is at our doorstep if Kamala makes it into office. Am I in the right place?”

In another post earlier this month in a group for a county-level militia in Virginia, a member shared that he and his wife were interested in joining up, before asking for more information about how to do so. Also earlier this month, a new member of a militia group in Oklahoma introduced himself as a military veteran and said he was a member of a militia from 2015 to 2017 but wants to get involved again. “My battle rattle is ready to go any time,” he added.

Two county-level militias in Virginia have created Facebook pages in the past month, which they’ve used to coordinate their inaugural “musters” (militia speak for a meetup) in recent weeks. Another local Virginia militia has organized a meeting for two days after the election.

The “commander” of a Three Percenter group in Kentucky—who posed for a photograph viewed by WIRED with Representative Thomas Massie last summer while wearing full gear and insignia—has used his profile to share images from training sessions and regularly makes inflammatory statements. In a recent post, he suggested that state militias ought to rally at their chosen state parks: “Three national base camps could be state or national parks … (for example) west in NV or CO, central Missouri and east WV or VA. Then get comms established.”

In a “Patriot Group” in Barron County, Wisconsin, a recent lively discussion led by a “top contributor” urged members to “organize and monitor” ballot drop boxes. Several members of the group proposed planting small cameras in the vicinity of the boxes. Ballot drop surveillance has continued to be a hot topic of discussion among election deniers and paramilitary groups. Militias also teamed up with election deniers to conduct covert surveillance of ballot drop boxes during the midterm elections, recent leaks published by Distributed Denial of Secrets and reported by WIRED show. A recent DHS intelligence memo warned law enforcement agencies that domestic extremists could try to sabotage or attack ballot boxes.

The administrator of a New Hampshire–based group called the MAGA Continental Army claims that he recently met with the local police chief to discuss preparations in the event that a civil war breaks out. “He told me if it came to civil war that he will be directing his officers to defend the people—they will not be coming after your guns,” he wrote. He added that the chief said all members should come to the police department if conflict broke out.

In one public group called The Party of Trump, with 171,000 members, a discussion about ballot drop box monitoring prompted someone to suggest that Trump supporters come armed with their AR-15s to stand guard. In another public group called We Fight for Our Lives, someone urged others to get organized ahead of the election and suggested enlisting bikers and militia. “I’m ready to fight,” one person responded. “I’ll pull the fuckin trigger fo sho” the original poster added. In another public group called SAVE THE FLAG AMERICA, someone put the stakes of the election in bleak terms: “In a matter of days, we will ascertain our financial capacity to procure essential commodities such as groceries and fuel, or, alternatively face the prospect of engaging in armed conflict.”

“Trump 2024,” someone responded. “God is always in control.”

[applbottmjeens]

bellegraves couple bullshit

Anna likes to use Phillip's credit card. Not for the Gucci store, but to go to the Asian supermarket/Costco to buy groceries and stuff in bulk. He always insists on carrying the bags of rice in spite of his knee lmao. (Of course this doesn't mean she's above dragging him to Sephora)

Phillip likes old movies. They watched Roman Holiday and he swears that a young Audrey Hepburn resembled his mom when she was younger.

Phillip always complains about how he wished he would've recruited her before Laswell did when she was discharged for not acknowledging Farah Karim's ULF as a terrorist group, (thank God the CIA cleared her of that.) And how she would've thrived in the Shadow Company at the time. Anna argues she probably wouldn't be with him if she was working directly under him that way.

The two of them like to nap together. Alot. When they say they "sleep" together, they mean sleeping together. He's gotten so used to having her just lying ontop of him he struggles to sleep without some weight over him.

When Graves was trying to win her back while she was casually dating Tommy's father, he wrote her literal letters. Handwritten letters that were one way or another "Please take me back". She has them in a box.

Anna genuinely expected Graves to dip as soon as he learned she was pregnant with another man's baby. Him insisting on helping her was part of what convinced her to forgive him, and to eventually join the Shadow Company.

She will STILL annoy him with her random unfiltered questions and thoughts.

"How do you think dinosaurs have sex?"

"Let me finish my coffee before I even consider answering that, Annie."

Anna is amazing at karaoke but only sings when she's drunk. There's a video of her on his lap singing at a karaoke booth with friends where he's just smiling and watching her all smitten.

Anna has tried to explain "not too sweet" as an Asian compliment to Phillip thousands of times. He still doesn't get it.

Anna cannot wrap her mind around the amount of churches needed in one place in the entire state of Texas.

They had a legitimate argument over the Spurs or the Warriors (NBA Teams) being better. Graves was this close to banning blue and gold in the household.

There's an entire folder of photos in Anna's phone dedicated to Phillip's dog being cute. Her favorite is a clueless Graves using the dog as a pillow while he scrolls through his iPad.

They forget about the age gap sometimes. Well, she does. Sometimes he uses her "immaturity" as an excuse to take charge/be right.

Anna has taken Phillip to the Philippines before. She had to convince him not to adopt every street dog/feed every askal he saw on the road. He left a rose on the memorial of her grandmother Isabella.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Forgive me for posting again about a character whom nobody knows, but I'm going through Grant's appearances with the JSA and I just have a Lot of Feelings.

Grant personally can't catch a break, but he does have the advantage of repeatedly having teammates who try to look out for him. This time, on the JSA, it's his former Titans teammate Jesse Chambers (formerly Jesse Quick, now going by her mother's old codename Liberty Belle) and to a lesser extent Jesse's husband Rick Tyler (Hourman). They recruit him onto the team (...much to his reluctance) and take him under their wing. They're the ones who find out why he wears the full-face mask now and have seen his severely scarred face.

And the narrative never brings this up, but they have a sort of familial connection to Grant too. As a result of the experimentation done on him, Grant has DNA from quite a few members of the JLA and JSA, including both of Jesse's parents and Rick's father. So Jesse and Rick are probably the closest to biological siblings that the orphaned Grant's likely to get. Sort of.

Anyway, there's one particular scene I'd like to talk about, from Justice Society of America 2007 #8.

When Grant was sixteen and had just developed his powers (a few years prior to this story?), he got banned from the state of Georgia after he accidentally blew up downtown Atlanta. The JSA are going to Georgia on a mission and make it clear at the state line that he can't legally join them, but he follows them anyway because Zoom, the speedster supervillain who is responsible for his disfiguring scars, has been sighted there. He wants revenge. He tracks Zoom down and is trying to kill him when Jesse comes to talk to him.

We never get to see Grant's entire scarred face, as if out of respect for his privacy, but there are glimpses of parts of it, such as here, that get the idea across. I suspect the scars might have been less of an issue for him if he didn't already have deep-seated problems with self-loathing and feeling unlovable. Someone with more inner resources might have been able to approach this differently, but for someone like Grant the scarring is just a tangible sign of what he's already struggling with, and his response is accordingly intense. He has gone from a generally agreeable boy with some anger issues to a young man who is angry almost constantly.

Jesse tries to talk him down, but he's pretty worked up. "Your face isn't who you are," she tells him. This is reminiscent of Grant's words when he chose to call himself Damage because "What I do is who I am." And now he not only causes damage but feels that being damaged is all he's reduced to.

His comment about not being able to be with a girl again seems kind of out of place for his motives? He hasn't dated anyone since his first love interest got fridged. But maybe he had finally gotten to a place where he was ready to open himself up to that again...and then all this happened.

Jesse reminds him that she has seen his face and hasn't rejected him (back in #4). Unlike her husband, who responded to the sight of the scars with shocked concern, she made a point of not staring or commenting, handed Grant his mask, and told him to get back into the fight. But his core belief that others will reject him is so strong that the only way he can justify Jesse's supportive behavior to himself is to insist that she's an anomaly. He changes the subject to his resentment of Jesse's being "perfect."

This is a sore subject for Jesse. She was pressured since childhood to carry on her father's legacy, with insinuations being made that she wouldn't be "special" if she didn't. The mantle of the Flash was once promised to her and then turned out to be a ruse to try to motivate the actually intended successor--and she was quite hurt by that. She has juggled running a large company after her father's death, attending grad school, and being a superhero (all while being constantly overshadowed by other speedsters). And then she gave up her speed to help Wally and had to start over with a new heroic identity.

Zoom takes the opportunity to taunt her about losing her speed, but she ignores him and opens up to Grant about her struggles with perfectionism and how her husband's support helped her see herself and her capabilities differently.

"Just because something has a crack in it doesn't mean you throw it away."

Her new codename, Liberty Belle, isn't just her mother's mantle. It's a reminder that there's still value in things that are cracked. Broken. Damaged. And for someone who's been so pressured to be perfect, that's a liberating mindset.

But to Grant, this approach still seems too easy. As far as he's concerned, he's not merely cracked but beyond repair. The doctors tried and failed to reconstruct his face. His attempts to heal after addressing his past of abuse while on the Titans apparently weren't successful. The state he used to live in ("hometown" is incorrect...he had just recently moved there before the explosion and has moved too often to definitively call anywhere a hometown) has utterly rejected him and won't revoke the ruling.

Jesse isn't so convinced though. She's not going to give up on him. And Grant stands down.

And that's when Zoom attacks, both physically and verbally. He mocks Jesse for attempting to be "a big sister" and proceeds with his intention to kill Grant.

Grant has some degree of superspeed but not enough to keep up with a speedster on this level. He freezes, almost as if resigned to his own death. Almost, but not quite. He's in tears...maybe for the first time since his difficult conversation with Roy.

Jesse goes even more into big sister mode. It's enough for her to suddenly be able to reaccess her speed, stop the debris from hitting Grant, and throw it back at Zoom, incapacitating him.

Grant is impressed and grateful, and Jesse has finally worked through her mental block. Helping him has helped her too. She and the rest of the JSA manage to prevent him from getting arrested for setting foot in Georgia, and things move on.

But this conversation proves to have an impact. In #11, Grant comes to the defense of a new superhero, Judomaster (Sonia Sato), who has taken up a legacy mantle to avenge her father's murder and is about to get arrested after a destructive public fight.

As he tries to explain why he's interfering on her behalf, he repeats Jesse's words.

He has spent his entire time with the JSA so far wallowing in his own misery, but now he's using that sense of hurt to advocate for someone else in a similar position to prevent her from having to suffer what he has. He was alone and unsupported during the Atlanta incident, and he doesn't want that for Sonia. Jesse passed on something that helped her; now Grant is doing the same for someone else.

This growth is not lost on Jesse and Rick!

And of course nothing is magically solved, and Grant continues to struggle a lot and more terrible things happen, but this moment is a much-needed respite from the mental mire he's been trapped in for so long, and I wish this arc had been allowed to fully continue.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

J D Crowe, Alabama Media Group

* * * *

THE HEART OF JUSTICE CAN NEVER BE KILLED (UPDATED)

TCinLA

“The heart of justice can never be killed.” Those were the final words of Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson today in his refutation of the actions taken against him by the unreconstructed Southern Confederate Traitors that comprise the Tennessee Republican Party.

He’s right. “The heart of justice can never be killed.”

Justin Pearson and Justin Jones reminded me so sharply of those brave young black men and women I met sixty years ago in the civil rights movement. Fire breathers. Their words arrows to the hearts of the ignorant, mendacious, malicious, malevolent white Southern men who thought because they were accidentally born white and Southern and male they had the right to lecture any “uppity” young black man who disturbed their “decorum,” to expel them from the state legislature - a body that had only three times before expelled member when they expelled one for taking a bribe, one for being credibly accused of child rape and the third credibly accused of sexual misconduct with underage women - for daring to say that the “legends in their own minds” had no clothes.

I first met Southern whites sixty years ago in the Navy. They were like a separate species from any other people I had ever met anywhere. Most prominent was their ignorance. There wasn’t one of them in my recruit company who scored over 35 on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, the test that determined how much intelligence the test-taker had and determined what kind of training and assignment he would get in the service. Most of them didn’t score above 20! I’d never seen people so stupid before in my life.

Not only were they stupid. They were ignorant in a way I had never seen before, and they reveled in that ignorance. They were proud of their ignorance. The representative who led the effort at expulsion rose to break into the speech by Justin Pearson and lecture him on why he was being expelled, and how he had harmed the decorum of the legislature by failing to “properly behave.” Pearson replied after he sat down, asking if there was anyone in the room who would like to be “spoken to like that.” There were no takers. He then went on to say that what had just happened demonstrated the problem, that the interruptor believed he had by nature of his position, the power to act as he did.

As Elie Mystal, the justice reporter for The Nation magazine put it, “people have learned more today about what Critical Race Theory is and what it describes than they will ever learn in any book banned by a Republican legislature.”

The Tennessee Republicans could act as they did because they have a 75-vote supermajority thanks to their redistricting of the state after the 2020 census, in which they turned Tennessee into the most-gerrymandered state in the United States. In creating that new map they cracked Democratic-leaning Nashville, dividing it among three districts in which they overwhelmed Democratic voters with Republicans from the suburbs. Representative Justin Jones, the first of the two expelled, was the only Democrat left representing any part of Nashville.

Once they took supermajority power following the 2022 election, the first piece of legislation passed required Nashville to cut its city council in half. They followed that with laws prohibiting people with a past felony conviction from voting, which cut more than 470,000 people from the voter rolls.

This lock on power has given Tennessee Republicans the ability to do as they please, and in so doing to demonstrate that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The Republican-dominated House began pushing for the expulsion of Justin Jones, of Nashville, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville and Justin Pearson of Memphis after the three legislators participated in a protest against lax gun laws from the floor of the chamber last week in the wake of the Nashville school shooting that left six people - three children and three school staff members - dead.

Since the Thursday protest, House leadership made bad faith and over-the-top comparisons, likening the trio’s behavior to the January 6 “insurrection” - thereby acting to define the assault on the nation’s capitol as nothing more than a “passionate protest.

Today it pleased them to expel two young Black legislators who were trying to force the Republicans to do something about the epidemic of gun violence killing their constituents.

As the young demonstrators in the hallways shouted, “You ban books, you ban drag, kids are still in body bags!”

And then they yelled “You fucking fascists!”

Johnson, a white woman, was not expelled, after some lawmakers cited her calmer demeanor during the protest. As she pointed out afterwards, she did everything the two legislators who were expelled had done. As to why they were expelled and she wasn’t, Johnson said ���I think it has to do with the difference in our skin color.”

The White Racist South has never changed since the day the Barbadian Pirates arrived in Charleston harbor with their slaves and their philosophy of white supremacy 300 years ago. In the three centuries since, the White Racist South has never missed an opportunity to publicly celebrate their racist, white supremacist beliefs. Losing a war never made them examine their beliefs. The limited success of the civil rights movement only made them more committed to their white supremacy.

Confronted by anyone pointing out their mendacity, their maliciousness, their malevolence, their plain meanness, their ignorance, their murderous violence, the White South has always reacted by recommitting themselves to each and every one of those negative values, and the praising themselves for so doing. White Southerners always accuse Northerners of disrespecting them by saying they sound stupid, then they go publicly celebrate their moron stupidity.

Back in the 1970s, White Southerners tried to convince the rest of the country that they had “changed.” Anyone who went there found the change non-existent once outside any major southern city, and non-existent in most of those cities’ white suburbs. While that bullshit was being peddled, the Republican Party remade itself beginning with Nixon’s “southern strategy” in 1968, maintaining the party’s national power by welcoming the unreconstructed Confederacy into the party. Ronald Reagan chose to announce his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the 1964 KKK murders of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Cheney, proclaiming his belief in and support of “states’ rights.” It wasn’t a “dog whistle” to the unreconstructed Confederacy. It was the Queen Mary’s foghorn.

Justin Pearson was right today when he said that “The heart of justice can never be killed.”

Democracy didn’t die in the well of the Tennessee State Assembly today. It was reborn there.

As Obi-Wan Kenobe says to Darth Vader in the good Star Wars Movie, “Now I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine,” as Vader delivers what he thinks is a killing blow.

The inbred ignoramuses, the unreconstructed Confederates, the mendacious, malignant, malicious, malevolent white supremacist scum in the Tennessee State Legislature are about to find out the truth of those words come Monday morning.

The speech below is 22 minutes well-spent:

Justin Pearson speech in legislature

“You are seeking to expel District 86’s representation from this house, in a country that was built on a protest. IN A COUNTRY THAT WAS BUILT ON A PROTEST. You who celebrate July 4, 1776, pop fireworks and eat hotdogs. You say to protest is wrong because you spoke out of turn, because you spoke up for people who are marginalized. You spoke up for children who won’t ever be able to speak again; you spoke up for parents who don’t want to live in fear; you spoke up for Larry Thorn, who was murdered by gun violence; you spoke up for people that we don’t want to care about. In a country built on people who speak out of turn, who spoke out of turn, who fought out of turn to build a nation.

“I come from a long line of people who have resisted.”

“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.” - John Adams

Here is video of the Tennessee Republican exercising his White Privilege to lecture Justin Pearson about “keeping his place.” Everything you need to know about how White Supremacy works in one short video.

Tennessee lawmaker lectures Justin Pearson

TCinLA