#you can actually see this in the infamous 100 companies study

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

i think climate change discourse often uncovers ways that people have trouble thinking about things on a certain scale… for example it feels counterintuitive to say that on the one hand, the US is iirc the second biggest emitter as a country and the biggest per capita (since number one is china whose population is famously quite large), and on the other, if we waved a magic wand tomorrow and the US went fully net zero, that would not really have a huge impact on the situation as a whole. but it’s true, because there are just that many more people living Not In The US. or like, it is both true that taylor swift traveling is probably responsible for more emissions in a year than you or i would be in several lifetimes, and that banning private jet use entirely in every single country in the world would be a drop in the bucket at best because it’s a relatively small subset of a relatively small fraction of global emissions. a lot of ostensibly justice-focused climate rhetoric has a very moralistic viewpoint on what we might call disproportionate emitters - which is why many people read a sentence like “taylor swift’s private jet use is mathematically negligible in the grand scheme of things” and assume it’s some kind of ethical or moral defense of taylor swift (or the US, or 1%, or whatever) - but i am starting to feel like “what we really need to do is hold the rich accountable” is just as much performative magical thinking as whatever alleged greenwashed bandaid someone is bringing it up to criticize, because saying it feels radical or serious but betrays a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the actual scale of the problem.

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Chapter 1: Fingolfin x Maglor

Ah, one pairing that was actually on the Bingo sheet (not cheating 100% here)

Pairing: Eönwë x Gothmog, Fingolfin x Maglor

Prompt: Business Rivals

Words: 1865

Warnings: Details of Fëanor's death, @cilil cameo, incestuous relationship referenced, uncle-nephew incest, no explicit interactions...

Nobody would readily have claimed that Gothmog was a coward, but the company lawyer—a ruthless demon in the guise of a young woman—made him nervous, nevertheless.

Cílil, who had studied under Námo, the most infamously merciless lawyer of his time, scowled at the interruption, and Gothmog nearly shuffled his feet like a naughty schoolboy.

“I am not asking for your sources,” he opened without even bothering to rattle off the usual formalities. “I’d merely like to see your results.”

“Who are you to question my findings?” she inquired in the dispassionate yet cutting tone for which the so-called Doomsman was both feared and renowned—she evidently had been an exceptionally gifted student.

“I…no…I need to know what intel you have on Fëanor. Who might have wanted to kill him?”

“Who wouldn’t?” Her grin was so sharp that he knew that she was not joking in the least.

“I need a list.”

“I need a sandwich. Maybe we can come to an understanding?”

An agonisingly tense hour later, Gothmog was in possession of enough gossip and incriminating evidence to bury Fëanor twice.

As for Eönwë, he felt much less elated. Fëanor, he was informed, had been stabbed and burned, and it had been only thanks to his overabundance of jewellery and his dental records that a positive identification had been made.

“I do not expect much to come from this,” Manwë had sighed, looking out of the window pensively as if he had already given up on the case.

“I do have a few leads,” Eönwë had exclaimed, dismayed by his superior’s uncharacteristic and highly worrisome despondency.

The astonishment painted on Manwë’s face had been outright insulting, and this hurtful lack of faith made Eönwë all the more determined to actually solve this case.

He was unusually grim as he burst into the deserted pub, looking even more desolate and decrepit in the bleak daylight, but seeing Gothmog devouring his club sandwich with visible gusto instantly lifted his spirits.

“Here,” the hulking henchman mumbled around his lunch as he shoved over a neatly typed-up page of paper. “I thought we’d start with the brother. He might give us some insight into who else would have benefited from Fëanor’s sudden demise!”

After having been forced to order and eat a surprisingly delicious lunch, Eönwë found himself in a sleek, slate-grey SUV, speeding out of the most disreputable part of town.

The file on Fëanor’s half-brother in his lap was discouragingly thin—Fingolfin was, as far as the official accounts went, a regular goodie-two-shoes.

Their father, Finwë, had perished under suspicious circumstances, and Fingolfin had managed his part of the estate that had been left to Finwë’s children much more conservatively than his famous older sibling.

Of course, people chalked this up to the notable difference in nature and temperament between their respective mothers, but Eönwë was curious to discover if there wasn’t more to the story than met the eye.

He had slept very little the previous night, trying instead to memorise all the members of Fëanor’s extensive family as well as the numerous feuds and sources of resentment that might well muddy the waters before they got very far in their investigation.

The man who opened the door of the sober, clean-cut mansion was not Indis’s firstborn, though—young and alarmingly pale, he had flashing eyes that reminded Eönwë of the ocean and a soft, sensual mouth that was presently downturned in deep sadness.

More unusual and suspicious yet, he was wearing a thin camisole and the kind of comfortable trousers people usually only ever donned in the privacy of their own home.

“Who is it?” A moment later, Fingolfin—the top buttons of his creased formal shirt undone—appeared in the marble foyer.

“Police,” Eönwë said in a calm, professional tone.

“Bodyguard,” Gothmog growled unnecessarily.

With a flabbergasted side glance at his companion, Eönwë cleared his throat. “I would like to ask you a few questions about your brother.”

“Which one? Oh, Fëanor, of course…” Fingolfin blushed. “I am sorry—my nephew, Maglor, has just come by to inform me of the tragedy. As you may understand, I am utterly distraught.” Rubbing his face as if to dispel the treacherous bloom of blood mounting into his hollow, pale cheeks, Fingolfin made a jerky, only vaguely inviting gesture with his left hand. “Come in—I’ll answer any query you might have!”

“No ring,” Gothmog hissed as he ambled into the house behind Eönwë.

“I thought you and your half-brother had not been on the best of terms,” the detective commented, trying hard not to be distracted by the looming presence of the thug by his side. “You were business rivals, weren’t you?”

“Hardly,” Fingolfin replied with a brittle chuckle. “I focus mainly on the preservation and steady growth of our assets, while my brother was always more interested in innovation.”

“If that is so,” Gothmog intervened sharply. “Why would your nephew seek you out—in the most informal, cosy outfit I’ve ever seen—so soon after the news broke?”

“Ah…Well…As I just said, I am good at dealing with eventual crises. I will advise him and my other nephews on what comes next—is this really necessary? I did not kill my brother if that is what you’re trying to get at. I loved Fëanor.”

Letting his gaze sweep across the room ostentatiously, Gothmog pursed his lips.

“The boy has been here before…often,” he whispered into Eönwë’s ear as he watched Maglor flit through the room with such self-assured grace that it was evident to him that—in his evident state of distress—he could not have feigned his intimate familiarity with the layout of the house.

Eönwë blinked owlishly; he had expected hostility and barely concealed resentment in this cool, clean abode.

Instead, he’d found a man who seemed earnestly devastated by the loss of someone he’d reportedly never considered a detested rival at all. Moreover, Gothmog seemed to insinuate that Fingolfin, pretending to be much more forgiving than was credible, was entertaining a morally questionable relationship with his nephew.

Of course, he had also noticed the way Maglor’s hand lingered just a little too long on the shoulder of his uncle, and the subsequent grateful smile had not struck him as entirely appropriate, but he had been ready to give them the benefit of the doubt.

After all, grief did strange and terrible things to people, and he was not there to judge the ways in which they dealt with so unspeakable a loss.

“We’ve got to ferret out the other sons,” Gothmog remarked sotto voce. “There is something fishy here, to say the least. Even if that fool means it when he says that he’s not seen his brother as a foe, Fëanor would surely not have welcomed whatever little imbroglio is taking place here!”

Fingolfin, Eönwë decided as he opened his trusty notebook, was at the same time much more and much less suspicious than he had anticipated, and this was due to totally unforeseen developments and revelations.

“Loved him?” he asked pensively, forcing his mind back to the actual statements of their suspect rather than Gothmog’s outlandish speculations. “He did not seem the kind of man who was loved. Revered, admired, and envied, yes, but cherished? Hard to believe!”

“I cannot think of a single person who’d want to harm Fëanor,” Fingolfin insisted, looking up with wide, honest eyes that gleamed feverishly. “Why don’t you visit my brother’s ex-wife? She might have a better overview of any potential enemies.”

Nerdanel—famous sculptress, headstrong businesswoman, and winner of a short but vicious divorce—had been the next person on Eönwë’s list to interrogate anyway.

Nonetheless, the detective, dizzy with all the discoveries he had made during this first foray, schooled his face into a grateful smile.

“What happened?” Fingolfin asked suddenly, lifting his doleful gaze pleadingly to their stern faces. “Can you tell me?”

“I’d also love to hear that,” Gothmog agreed quietly.

“He’s been poked viciously by a pointy object—probably in one of a downtrodden, insalubrious apartment complex uni—and thrown from a considerable height before being set aflame. I am sure you can appreciate now why we’re looking for someone who hated the man enough to try and murder him thrice over,” Eönwë reported in a detached, professional voice.

He’d had very little time thus far to come to grips with the gruesome nature of the crime he was investigating, and he preferred to keep his profound incomprehension and instinctive pity in check in front of his suspects.

“Unimaginable,” Fingolfin cried out and slung his arm around Maglor who buried his face against his chest with a piercing cry of inarticulate, raw despair.

Gothmog’s jaw tightened—while he was more convinced than ever that Melkor was not guilty, another nagging doubt started to take root in his heart.

Even though his boss was usually not the kind of person for such long, convoluted sequences of deliberate, calculated violence, his second-in-command would undeniably have delighted in so elaborate a staging.

Seeing the picture of heartbroken desolation before him, Eönwë realised that he should have minced his words and softened the blow of the truth—he felt terrible for having misread the situation once again and was suddenly very eager to get out of this hopeless situation, fraught with unspoken truths and involuntarily revealed secret affections.

“Neither one of you is to leave the city while we’re investigating,” he informed the two mourners who seemed to have forgotten about the rivalry between their family branches, good manners, and common decency, as well as the rest of the world in general. “Thank you for your insights—I will probably circle back to the both of you in due time.”

Gothmog merely tapped his finger to the side of his nose and winked. “Good luck comforting one another,” he hummed provocatively and was promptly bodily shoved out of the room by an endearingly flustered Eönwë.

“When we get to the wife, please keep your impertinent comments to yourself!”

“Whatever you say, guvnor,” Gothmog chortled cheerily. “They are more than workplace rivals or distant relatives; this I’d bet my head on. Let’s see what Maglor’s mum has to say to that!”

“Tomorrow same place? I must go write up what we’ve found out so far,” Eönwë mumbled, strangely reluctant to part from the uncouth giant ambling up the elegant driveway.

“Same place, same time. Can I drop you off somewhere?” Gothmog asked amiably, apparently also not eager to let their collaborative moment end.

“I’ll walk,” Eönwë said waveringly. “I need to clear my head and go over the facts…Thank you! See you tomorrow!”

The clumsy lie tasted like stale coffee and cheap lemonade on his tongue, but he couldn’t bear to be observed—and potentially mocked cruelly—while he tried to work through their discoveries.

Eönwë had ever been slightly squeamish when it came to romantic and sexual innuendos—despite superficial appearances, he was not a prude so much as a woefully inexperienced, lonely soul, though.

He might not have known much, but he was certain that he’d better keep that little, inconsequential truth about himself under wraps for the time being.

So, @tolkienpinupcalendar here's another pairing!

Lots of love from me!

-> Masterlist

[microwave-kid]

Going to preemptively break this post down for people since hating (flips through notes) the concept of a set of sciences, theories and techniques (including mathematical logic, statistics, probabilities, computational neurobiology, computer science) that has been around for 60 years is a trend.

"Silly AI image generator births "the sopping wet beast from Walmart"! People rejoice at the humorous nature of the event"

This part of the post isn't meant to invoke actual images of the sopping wet beast from Walmart (an AI-generated image that became a small meme in 2021) but rather it's meant to invoke the idea of how before popular social media influencers and (mostly Republican) mainstream media influencers started campaigning against AI, barely anyone gave a shit since, objectively, artificial intelligence in all forms (generative, adaptive, probabilistic, etc) were seen as the inherently neutral tools that they were.

Thinly veiled fascist ideals are unwittingly yet equally uncaringly spread through anti-AI rhetoric and the term "degenerate" sees a resurgence both as an insult and to describe an entire field of art and study.

For those of you who missed it, DC comics artist Fernando Blanco made a somewhat infamous Tweet that went as follows:

Now, if you've attended 8th grade, you've probably just cringed extremely hard due to the accidental use and encouraged spreading of Nazi terminology. And while in the minority, there were people who were pointing this out. (Unfortunately the example I have to give includes some Techbro Cryptodudes because those were the only ones Fernando would reply to)

And while Fernando did eventually delete his Tweets and replies, that wasn't until after he had doubled down, despite confirming he knew the historical connotations with calling an art medium "degenerate" and... didn't care?? (unfortunately only the replies to those Tweets remain)

And it's worth noting that unlike with most instances of this happening on the internet, a VAST majority of people, again, so-called Libertarians, either turned their cheek to this because it was more hate towards the thing they hate, or AGREED? AND STARTED UNIRONICALLY USING THE TERM? AND STARTED SPREADING IT ON DIFFERENT PLATFORMS???

"there are genuine cries to get congress involved in impeding or even CEASING the development of technological systems that would undoubtedly and VASTLY improve the fields of (a comical amount of fields of research)"

Government restriction is literally one of the most important things in the world and is the reason your walls don't have asbestos in them and you don't tend to find shards of glass in your food, and despite what many Republicans say, deregulation, avoidance of regulation, and entrusting corporations and politicians with individual safety and privacy typically, in a Capitalist society, results in those shards of glass finding their way in your food because it was 12 cents cheaper to not look for them. That's massively oversimplifying, but the long and the short of it is due to the profit-first societal structure we find ourselves in, the fact that it's way cheaper to dump toxic chemicals in drinking water means that if it weren't explicitly illegal companies would and DID do it all the time. Now, companies that do it break the law to do it, which is better.

The reason this applies to Al is that, as you may have noticed or even may have done yourself, there is a massive and intercontinental cry for regulation and Government intervention into Al fields. And while that's all fine and good - in fact, the recently proposed "Al Bill of Rights" whose blueprint can be viewed on whitehouse.gov here almost 100% includes every possible point of contention an individual could have (Safe and Effective Systems, Algorithmic Discrimination Protections, Data Privacy / Protection of Intellectual Property, Notice and Explanation / Informed Consent Requirement, and Alternative Options), not to mention all of the regulations that already exist in every field of research because, again, AI systems have been in use for 60 years, there are some people, again, mostly Republicans but for some reason also a ton of so-called Libertarian Tumblr users, think that Government restrictions should be way, way more intrusive, impeding, or that forms of AI generation should be outright outlawed.

While I sincerely hope this is obvious, begging and pleading with the Government to essentially make the backdoor "Restrict / TikTok Ban" act (which is notorious for giving the government abundant control over personal and private affairs and financial endeavors) but for AI instead of social media is a fucking insane and unreasonably uninformed thing to do. So many people say that "Images need to have a copyright system comparable to music!" or that "the government should just make it so only big corporations can make or use generative AI!" and it's like You're asking a majority Republican senate to have major influence over almost every field of research. you're asking for that. you understand that you're asking for that right. please god tell me you understand that

"Ableist views on art and individuals and genuinely appalling attempts to quantify and define what can, could, should, and would be considered artwork is somehow becoming justifiable"

An AI artist, (I know, that's a scary term for some reason) who goes by @reachartwork has been the subject of harassment and severe ableism, which has ENTIRELY begun (at least on their art blog) in the modern day due to the extremely modern trend of hating all things AI. Here's their own posts on the subject. Long and the short of it is, they are disabled. They cannot painlessly create traditional artwork in other mediums, end of sentence. Because of this, they use ethically and consensually trained systems which they've created themself to create AI artwork, which they are extremely good at, in my opinion. They have expressed and demonstrated incredible skill in regards to coding, dataset training, and generative language. Despite this, for some reason, so-called progressive Tumblr users, and I know, I've said that so many times, but I need you to understand that this isn't just a problem that's caused by random Republicans on Twitter, but actual people, some of whom are popular users!!! take time out of their day to harass this creator, tell them that nobody will ever respect them, and then demand that they just power through their disability like they're a horribly tone-deaf Disney Channel original movie where the only thing that was impeding the protagonist from running the marathon was the wheelchair that they use. I deeply implore you to check out that person's own posts about this situation but I just want to make it as abundantly clear as possible, people are riding the trend of hating AI so hard that left leaning, progressive, otherwise morally strong users are spreading Nazi rhetoric and re-inventing ableism because the hatred of the rapidly advancing development of systems in use since before most of these people's parents were born is trendy and has rotted these people's brains to the degree of genuinely believing the computer to be inherently demonic. Log off of the fucking internet

2021: Silly AI image generator births "the sopping wet beast from Walmart"! People rejoice at the humorous nature of the event

2023: Thinly veiled fascist ideals are unwittingly yet equally uncaringly spread through anti-AI rhetoric and the term "degenerate" sees a resurgence both as an insult and to describe an entire field of art and study. This is concerningly comparable to Republican and even Neo-Nazi views. there are genuine cries to get congress involved in impeding or even CEASING the development of technological systems that would undoubtedly and VASTLY improve the fields of general entertainment, general robotics, digital storage, quantum computing, communications, disease / cancer research, theoretical physics, astronomy / geography, mathematics, medical study, mental and neurological understanding, BCI technologies including but not limited to neural-prosthesis and bodily reconstruction, CBI technologies that could possibly include advancements in human evolution and inwards expansion, due to roughly ~1% of said systems being used for, in most cases, not even illicit but just immoral purposes. Ableist views on art and individuals and genuinely appalling attempts to quantify and define what can, could, should, and would be considered artwork is somehow becoming justifiable to so-called progressive libertarians. Takes that could genuinely be compared to declaring it moral to harass individuals because they use the .mp3 file format in their projects become increasingly commonplace especially among Tumblr users, Twitter influencers and, of all people, Elon Musk.

[canmom]

Animation Night 130: Hayao Miyazaki’s Aeroplane Movies

Oh that Hayao Miyazaki! We sure have a slightly complicated relationship to him here on Animation Night!

See for example...

Animation Night 70, where I talk about his early career and years as a Toei union man, up to the founding of Ghibli;

Animation Night 100 where I tell you about one of my favourite ever films Mononoke-Hime;

Animation Night 111 where we look at the fascinating My Neighbour Totoro-Grave of the Fireflies double bill of 1988.

Tonight, we’re going to look at two films, Porco Rosso and the controversial The Wind Rises, which indicate his particular arc through life in, honestly, a rather sad way. Putting them alongside each other to see what we learn...

If there’s one thing old Hayao loves, it is aeroplanes - particularly planes from the early-mid 20th century. No surprise, really: his dad Katsuji Miyazaki ran a company Miyazaki Airplane, which manufactured parts for world war II aeroplanes such as the infamous Zero fighter plane. (Put a pin in that one!) Despite working to arm the Imperial Japanese military, Katsuji was able to get out of actually serving in the war by telling his commanding officer that he didn’t want to fight when he had a wife and kid, which somehow got him discharged with just a lecture.

The young Hayao, born 1941, was therefore surrounded by planes, which were the source of his family’s comfort. He spent his earliest years fleeing from American air raids, suffering from digestive problems, and watching his stern, intellectual mother Yoshiko suffering from spinal tuberculosis (though she ultimately made it to 1983, at age 72). At school in the 50s, he took an interest in manga - which in those days naturally meant Osamu Tezuka; he also went to see drama films with Katsuji such as Meshi (1951).

In ‘58, he saw Toei’s Legend of the White Snake (白蛇伝 Hakujaden), notable as the first colour anime film, sneaking out from studying for his exams. The film had a profound effect on him. In Starting Point, he writes that he fell in love with the film’s heroine Bai-Niang, and yet gradually started to imagine how he might have done the film differently to better show the secondary characters.

Hayao went to university to study political economy with a focus on ‘Japanese Industrial Theory’, and at the same time, started drawing in earnest, cranking out thousands of pages of manga and spending a lot of time sketching and chatting politics with his middle school art teacher. The 60s and 70s were a high point of left-wing activity in Japan, the time of the Japanese New Left and the Anpo protests against the US-Japan security treaty (c.f. Toku Tuesday 33 on Nagisa Ōshima for a truly fascinating filmmaker who rose to prominence at this time!) So Miyazaki fairly naturally became a Marxist, and stayed such as he got his start working in animation, which I’ve covered in other posts.

So at this point perhaps we can see the curious contradiction that sits in so much of Miyazaki’s work: he genuinely loves aeroplanes and other kinds of military hardware on a kind of aesthetic level, and yet this sits pretty curiously against a worldview that went from Marxist to environmentalist and has no love of war or nationalism.

With all this in mind, let’s take a look at a few of Miyazaki’s early depictions of planes. First would be his work on episode 21 of Moomin (1969), by TMS entertainment. On this infamous episode, Miyazaki’s senpai Yasuo Otsuka called in his protégé to handle of all things a battle scene with planes and tanks - one which infuriated Tove Jansson, already dissatisfied with the tone of the adaptation, to the point that she pulled the show out of TMS Entertainment and A-Pro’s hands and gave it to Tezuka’s rival studio Mushi Pro instead.

(I can’t find any embeddable version, but I did get my hands on this episode eventually! Lain bless soulseek.)

This did not deter Miyazaki at all. In his work on ‘Green Jacket’ Lupin III Part I, which he co-directed with Takahata and Masaaki Ōsumi as well as animating several scenes, we start to see his love of mechanical detail shine through once more. Miyazaki’s plane obsession would shine through even more strongly with his direction of two episodes of ‘red jacket’ Lupin III Part II (1980), under the pen name “Tsutomu Teruki”, directing animators like the spectacular Kazuhide Tomonaga as @kbnet​ documents here. By that point his style had matured - the character designs and motion feel like something drawn in Ghibli’s early years, and the plane backgrounds are astonishingly dense with detail. The Castle of Cagliostro is by comparison relatively light on aeroplanes, but truly elevates Lupin’s car to a character - not to mention the film’s ridiculously elaborate finale where the characters battle through an enormous system of gears.

In between these two Lupin jackets came Future Boy Conan, where we start to see Miyazaki find more things to say about planes than “damn cool!”; a full of wonderful plane adventures, yet they also represent the sinister forces of industrialism which destroyed the world once and threaten to do it again.

In an essay from 1979 that opens the collection Starting Point, Miyazaki remarks on the qualities needed to animate a plane on Conan, giving a sense of his philosophy around animated machines - and his perfectionism:

Quite a few of toda’s younger animators plunged directly into this line of work because they were fans. But if I were to ask them to draw a picture of what they think a chaika (a flying boat in Future Boy Conan) would look like in flight, they would only be able to imagine what they had previously seen on past TV anime shows. And I wouldn’t be able to use their work as a result.

To draw a chaika flying in a truly original fashion, you would need to have read at least one book on the history of flying, and then be able to use your imagination to augment what you have read.

This is followed by an anecdote about Russian pilot, and builder of the first four-engine biplane, Igor Sikorsky - the man who for Miyazaki “symbolises the way men really fly”.

Miyazaki of 1979 seemed to have a lot on his mind about the relationship of humans to machines. He criticises the mecha shows of the time for a lack of focus on how the character creates and maintains the machine: “the protagonist should struggle to build his own machine, he should fix it when it breaks down, and he should have to operate it himself”. And true to form, when Miyazaki’s films portray machines, there is as much loving depiction of the maintenance as the actual machines in flight.

We’ll fast forward now, since I talked quite a bit about The Castle of Cagliostro, Nausicaa and Castle in the Sky back on AN 70, and Totoro back on AN 111. I haven’t covered Kiki’s Delivery Service yet, although you can trust we will before too long! No, the first film of interest to us tonight is a bit of an oddball in the Ghibli oeuvre; well known to fans of the studio but not quite as much of a household name. That’s Miyazaki’s flying pig movie, Porco Rosso (紅の豚 Kurei no Buta).

^ here’s your obligatory Yoshinori Kanada-animated background animation scene!

Porco Rosso is Miyazaki’s first movie to not just feature planes, but be truly overwhelmingly about planes. Set in a vaguely Mediterranean world, it expresses Miyazaki’s nostalgia for a lost era of flying before he was born, and yet it’s also tinged with the impending horror of the second world war and the recognition that the planes that Miyazaki loves so much are above all weapons.

Unlike many of Miyazaki’s movies, it centres on mostly adult characters and its narrative arc doesn’t really move to any sort of definite resolution; it’s more a portrait of the era, or rather, Miyazaki’s fantastical imagination of the era, in which there can be sky pirate families flying with dozens of children and, of course, a man can get transformed into a pig. The central character of the film, the eponymous Porco Rosso (so called because he’s a pig (porco) that flies a red (rosso) aeroplane), is an outcast due to his pig curse, but also perhaps because he insists on flying for himself rather than for the Italian military, a stance that is already becoming obsolete.

So Porco ends up adopting a young aircraft engineer - a bishōjo character in the spirit of The Castle of Cagliostro - who is eager to see the world. The largest conflict in the film is Porco butting heads with an arrogant American pilot over the affections of Gina, a woman who runs a bar for pilots - yet the two are clearly more similar than different.

By this point Studio Ghibli is well-established, and Miyazaki can take his pick from some of the best animators in the entire industry. So we see not just Yoshinori Kanada, but also sakuga aces Mitsuo Iso(!!!) and Shinya Ohira(!!!), and with Ghibli money they can truly go all-out. All that attention to mechanical detail, the buliding of machines, is there. Events like the testing of an aeroplane engine are accompanied by incredibly complex multi-layered shots that only a drawing demon like Ohira could accomplish. Only someone whose grasp of 3D form is as precise as Mitsuo Iso could animate some of these shots of subtle wobbles in the pre-CGI era. And on top of that, the colour design of Michyo Yasuda is there in all its beauty, Joe Hisaishi truly came into his own with a score as wistful and nostalgic as such a film demands; it’s an incredibly accomplished work of animation. 

But, planes though.

One of the film’s most memorable scenes - one which unites the two films we’re going to see tonight - sees Porco fly up high into the sky to a kind of flying graveyard of aeroplane pilots. It’s here we especially see the ambivalence that obsesses Miyazaki: he finds aeroplanes one of the most beautiful things in the world, idolises their pilots, and yet of course this period of aviation was an incredibly dangerous one, and moreover the aeroplane development was catalysed by war and soon would lead to a level of destruction never seen before in human history with the bombing campaigns of the second world war.

It would be natural to imagine that the workshop where Porco recruits Fio may in some way resemble the workshop run by Miyazaki’s parents - in spirit, as he imagines it, if not in detail. Like Miyazaki Airplane, this workshop in Italy cannot be doing anything but supplying aeroplanes to Mussolini, and indeed we see Porco utter one of the most quoted lines in the film when he tells his old air force buddy “I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.” even though this leaves him essentially a fugitive, on his own with a plane and a girl (like half his age I guess?).

^ This swarm of tadpole-like children was animated by Masashi Ando.

If you actually read Miyazaki’s comments about his dad, it seems a little different. Far from being lovingly crafted, Miyazaki writes, Katsuji would make defective parts and bribe officials to look the other way. He would go to nightclubs right into his 70s and ask Hayao if he’d started smoking yet.

At the time this film came out, Hayao Miyazaki’s father Katsuji would die only a couple of years later, in 1993. We can find a short piece that Hayao wrote about it in Starting Point (page 208-209, My Old Man’s Back):

...And after the war, he had no sense of guilt about having been involved in the military arms industry or having produced defective parts. In effect, for him war was something that only idiots engaged in. If we were going to war anyway, he was going to make money off of it. He had absolutely no interest in just causes or the fate of the state. For him the only concern was how his family would survive.

(...)

When he died two years ago, those of us who gathered together agreed that he had never once said anything particularly lofty or inspiring. If I have one regret, it is that I never discussed things seriously with my old man. From the time I was young, I always looked at him as a negative example. But it seems, after all, that I am like him. I have inherited my old man’s anarchistic feelings and his lack of concern about embracing contradictions.

So the actual reality of aeroplanes around Miyazaki had little to do with the romantic images we see in his films. But that ‘lack of concern about embracing contradictions’ seems important...

In 2013, 20 years after Katsuji’s death, Miyazaki would direct a new film, The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ Kaze Tachinu, lit. The Wind Has Written) - to date, his last film, although of course like clockwork he’s since come out of retirement to work on another one. Ostensibly, this film is a biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, the inventor of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane so vital to the Imperial Japanese war machine.

However, if you look into the details, you soon realise that the story present in the film - particularly its central element of Jiro love interest and eventual wife Naoko Satomi - is a complete fiction. Jiro Horikoshi did marry and eventually had five children, but there is very little information about them, even in Horikoshi’s own autobiography. An article comparing the film against it remarks...

The Story of the Zero Fighter is 80% plane design ideas, measurements and stories surrounding Jiro’s career. There’s so much focus on the construction of the planes there’s a measly 20% left for autobiographical material.

According to that article, Horikoshi’s autobiography describes his initial thrill at reports of the Zero’s success in the invasion of China, then later, the psychological impact of a bomb striking nearby and his gradual realisation of what a war actually meant. It’s an arc towards increasing horror at the measures the Japanese Empire was taking to win the war with it, particularly the announcement of the Kamikaze suicide-bomber tactic:

Jiro was approached by the press to write a short essay on the Kamikaze, but he declined. He found it too emotionally difficult to think when he looked at photographs of smiling pilots boarding Zero’s, knowing they were doomed to death. Sobbing, the only sentiment that encouraged him to put pen to paper was dedicating his writings to the families who had lost their loved ones in the war. In the haunted depths of his mind he wondered why Japan had not just given up the war, and why they had gone to such measures with the Zero’s.

Very little of this arc makes it into The Wind Rises. Nationalism is glimpsed only at the margins. In one trip to Weimar Germany, Horikoshi witnesses a Jewish man being pursued; later, he meats a privately anti-Nazi German man at the hospital who talks briefly about how foolish nationalism will make a country ‘blow up’, and his final oblique conversation with the dream-ghost of his idol, Italian aircraft engineer Giovanni Cabroni, about what it means to build planes when they will be tragically be destroyed.

Instead, we find Miyazaki draw in a different source for the primary character arc of this movie: a novel by Tatsuo Hori that also has the title 風立ちぬ Kaze Tachinu. Set in a sanitarium much like the one in which Horikoshi spends the latter half of the film, it tells the story of the relationship between a nameless protagonist and a woman dying of tuberculosis.

It seems an odd connection at a glance: why would you take this seemingly entirely unrelated novel and apply it to an actual historical person? To me, the most plausible answer is that this isn’t really a film about Jiro Horikoshi. Because recall that, of Miyazaki’s parents, his mother also had spinal tuberculosis, and his dad also made planes for the war. Yet, the Horikoshi of this film hardly resembles Katsuji Miyazaki either, who we’ve seen was far from a workaholic like the film’s Jori Horikoshi. Instead, this would better resemble Hayao himself. So instead, it seems to be using this historical setting as a kind of place to explore Miyazaki’s feelings about his parents, his own craft in animation (wedded to the technical industrial world as it is)...

Inevitably that’s a pretty fraught thing to do! More so than any of Miyazaki’s other films, the film sparked a lot of controversy, mostly for how it handles the topic of the war. You could argue that like, OK, do you need a movie to moralistically lecture you on how invading most of Asia was bad? Must it rub our faces in the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy to be a worthwhile movie?

One answer is that with the amount of modern nationalism and historical revisionism out there, it might not go amiss for national hero Hayao Miyazaki to take a stand there! But honestly it’s more that, with such subject matter, seems to go out of its way to avoid showing what the Zero was actually used for. The main tragedy, as far as Horikoshi was concerned, seems to be that so many pilots of this beautiful aeroplane die; that his pursuit of engineering beauty was corrupted by worldly matters like a war.

Which isn’t necessarily a completely inaccurate portrait of the real Jori Horikoshi’s attitude to his creation. The quote that inspired the film was “All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful.” But then this film goes out of its way to emphasise Horikoshi as a caring family man, a wholly sympathetic character, when to much of the world, Jiro Hirokoshi is a symbol of....

That. (And that’s the low estimate. It could easily be four times higher.)

But let’s look at how it relates to old Hayao and the contradictions he talks about living. If not to the same degree as old Isao Takahata, Miyazaki is an infamously exacting and demanding boss, heavily correcting nearly every cut that passes his desk. He’s spent his life working at a frankly kind of insane pace and expects his employees to keep up. Studio Ghibli has at least one dead body on its hands. Yet if you look at his films, they’re all about freedom and romanticism and the importance of enjoying nature. In Totoro, the dad is pulled away from his desk to play outside by his children. Probably not a good idea at Ghibli.

Then there are all the family relationships, all the way from the panda in Panda Kopanda to the mother in Ponyo. But Hayao Miyazaki was a distant father (he writes in Starting Point that his children were basically raised by their mother), and infamously callous to his son Gorō when he attempted to direct a film that Hayao didn’t think he was ready to handle.

Can we analogise animation to an aeroplane? It is beautiful in much the same way as an aeroplane is: elegant shapes, the technical coordination of many disparate parts to achieve an effect that would perhaps otherwise sound far-fetched (a flying machine? a picture that moves?). What’s the cost of animation? Well, thankfully nothing comparable to killing millions of people. But it is not a light undertaking. It is something that does eat lives. Is that a comparison that Miyazaki would have had in mind? I doubt it, honestly, but it’s what occurs to me faced with this film.

Thus I read the film’s Jori Horikoshi is a strange emotional blend of Hayao Miyazaki himself, an idealisation of his father or perhaps the sort of man he wishes his father was, and the real man who invented an effective fighter plane which helped enable his country to pillage most of Asia. And the rest of us? Well, the person working through these contradictions is Hayao Miyazaki, at the head of one of the highest concentrations of skilled animators the world has ever seen, so it’s going to be shared with nearly everyone. Would it probably have made more sense to do this in something like a manga, instead of a high profile movie? ...Well, I think so. But that’s not what happened, so we have this movie.

Inevitably for a late Ghibli movie, this film is crazy good looking. No Yoshinori Kanada anymore since he died in 2009, but Shinya Ohira is still alive, and he is absolutely capable of handling a Kanada-like background animation sequence. One of the most breathtaking sequences is the portrayal of the Great Kantō Earthquake by Atsuko Tanaka and Taichi Furumata, which combines both brilliant multiplane shots and unbelievably complex full background animation scenes of waves rippling through houses and streets. Tanaka also handled these mindblowing shots of cloth flowing in the wind as Naoko paints that form the film’s major recurring image.

The film uses slightly more digital compositing effects than the 90s pre-digital Ghibli films. For the most part the colours are just as lush as those older films, and there’s even very effective use of CG with handpainted textures now and then; Ghibli weathered the transition to digital a lot better than many studios.

And yet, despite all of this, it is a movie that leaves me feeling pretty unsatisfied, like a lot of late Ghibli movies. Hayao Miyazaki has said that he’s attempted to move away from familiar kishōtenketsu structures and try something novel, but when I watch films like Howl’s Moving Castle, I’m left wondering like... what did all of that amount to, in the end? For all its spectacle, what is this film even saying that Porco Rosso didn’t say... honestly, say better?

Maybe I’ll find an answer on a rewatch. It’s... far later than I planned to start, but if you’re willing to join me, please hop into twitch.tv/canmom and we’ll watch Hayao Miyazaki’s two big films about planes! And I’ll show you the Moomin thing too.

[t9digitalmarketing-blog]

Top Tips & Budget Friendly Ways To Experience Paris Like A Native

Hi guys, welcome to my blog. My name is Caroline, I am 22 and I am Irish. I am studying Commerce International in University College Dublin and I spent a year in Paris studying commerce through French. I have learned the ins and outs of the city (sometimes the hard way) and some of this information I would love to have known prior to moving there. The majority of tourists spend hours queueing to see (some impressive, some not so impressive) tourist attractions and frequently get ripped off. As a result their Parisian experience ends up being very unproductive and costly.

Paris is known for being expensive but you can definitely do it on a budget and I am going to tell you how! Young people tend to avoid travelling to Paris because it has a name for being notoriously expensive, however Paris is not actually any more expensive than any other European city. Paris is very much geared towards young people and it has become my favourite city in Europe. There is a never-ending list of things to do for young people and it is simply an amazing place to live/study/visit.

I am going to share my top tips with you and help you experience Paris like a French native, and as a young person, the best spots to visit so that you can get the most out of your trip to this incredible city.

Culture

Paris is a fantastic city if you have a European passport and you are under the age of 26 as you can get into the majority of cultural sites and museums for free on any day of the week! (Admission to most museums is pretty cheap anyway but when you are on a budget it all adds up very quickly). There are hundreds of museums in Paris but my two favourite are Musée du Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. The Louvre (Musée du Louvre) is a great place to start and the Mona Lisa is a must see! Musée d’Orsay is another great museum even if you don’t enjoy art, the layout of the museum and its architecture is well worth seeing (a scene from Gossip Girl was also shot in this museum).

L’Arc du Triomphe is an absolute must! It is an arch that acts as a roundabout with 12 different streets leading up to it. You have to go underground to get to the centre of the roundabout/the arch. You can then climb up to the top of l’Arc du Triomphe which in my opinion has one of the best views of Paris. You have to climb a long windy staircase in order to get to the top so wear comfortable shoes. You can even see La Défense, the infamous business district from the top. You will also see the longest street in Europe, the Champs Elysée. The “roundabout” has no rules as such and as a result it is chaotic all the time, from the top looking down it is like watching a colony of ants frantically moving around attempting to dodge one another.

Sacre Coeur is well worth the visit even if you don’t actually enter the basilica. It is situated at the very top of a village and there is a long hilly walk up to it but the views from the top are incredible.

Palais Garnier is a spectacular opera house. You can do a day tour of it which costs €15 and tickets to the shows can go up to €500. If you are keen to see a show, you can queue at the ticket kiosk (several hours prior to the show) and get tickets to the ballet/opera for as cheap as €10 – that is if you have half the day to spend queuing for a show that could sell out.

Trocadero is an absolute must-go! This is where you will find the best view of the Eiffel Tower. I wouldn’t recommend going to any restaurants or bars in this area as they are all very overpriced (this where a lot of tourists get caught out).

Day Trips & Tours

Chateau du Versailles is magnificent and well worth visiting on a sunny day. It is about an hour (by train) south of Paris and then a 20 minute walk from the train station. The entry fee to the palace is free for European residents under the age of 26 and the entry fee to the gardens is €10 for a student (buy tickets in Versailles because they are cheaper at the door than they are online). The gardens are more impressive than the palace in my opinion. The gardens are so vast it would take you all day to walk around them however you can rent golf buggies or bikes in order to cover more land in less time. During the summer months you can rent rowing boats and row/float on the lake. Most people bring a picnic with them and enjoy their lunch on the designated grass areas soaking up the sun. There is only one coffee shop here and several ice cream kiosks so definitely bring your own snacks.

Disneyland Paris is an absolute must if you are spending a few days in Paris. You can take the RER A (main underground train line in Paris) towards Marne la Vallée and it leaves you right at the gates of Disneyland. It takes approximately 40 minutes from central Paris. The queues are not nearly half as bad here as they are in Disneyland in America and it really is a magical experience. There is something for all ages and the firework display every evening is spectacular. If you book tickets online they are usually around €50 however if you buy tickets at the door, the price is double. There are lots of restaurants and bakeries here but they tend to be pricey so I would advise bringing snacks from Monoprix and baguettes/croissants from a bakery in Paris with you. Check the weather before booking your tickets!

You can buy tickets online here https://www.disneylandparis.com/en-ie/

Boat tours are a great way to a get an overview of the city, learn some interesting facts and get some great photos. Paris is stunning at night time when all of the famous monuments are lit up so I would recommend doing a boat tour at night. There are several companies that do boat cruises, however don’t waste your money purchasing a “dinner experience” package etc. as you will be too busy eating (a very basic meal) to see any of the sights. I would recommend getting the cheapest and most basic tour ticket and choosing a boat that has an upstairs. I found that Bateaux Parisians were great and their most basic ‘illuminations’ tour cost €13.50 per person. The boat sails up and down the Seine pointing out the famous sights/monuments/areas. The tour lasts around 75 minutes.

You can buy tickets online here https://book.seine-river-cruises.com/book/7944/checkout

When in Paris do as the French do

The Parisians are the most sociable people you will ever come across. They love any opportunity to be amongst people and sipping on wine. There is a famous saying “when in Rome do as the Romans,” the same concept applies in Paris! Even if it is lashing rain, sit outside under a canopy and enjoy some food and a few drinks. However if the weather is good, follow the French to any of the gardens (my personal favourite is Jardin des Tuileries), bring your picnic blanket, a few croissants, baguettes and a bottle of wine and soak up the atmosphere – this is a favourite pass time for the French.

On summer nights when the parks are closed you’ll find everyone with their bottles of wine and snacks sitting along the banks of Seine – the whole way along it! It is honestly one of the most fun enjoyable and cheapest things you will do and you will feel just like a native.

Another great location during the day/early evening for doing this is on Champ de Mars which is the grass area just in front of the Eiffel Tower. It is a really popular meet up spot for students and workers alike with one of the most iconic views.

Bars & Restaurants

Brunch is a huge thing in Paris, everyone does it and you will often queue for up to 90 minutes to get a table in some of the best places. Brunch is expensive (usually €25 per person) but it is 2 meals in 1 and you get a crazy amount of delicious food! My personal favourite is Paperboy situated on Rue Amelot – all of their food is incredible! But some other great spots include Lockwood, Hardware Société, Le Pain Quotidien and the Soul Kitchen.

If you love acai bowls make sure to check out Love Juice Bar and the Juicerie. If you are a hot chocolate lover, Angelina’s is renowned for having the best tasting hot chocolate in France. It is one of the most famous ‘tea rooms’ in the world and quite an experience. However one hot chocolate costs €9 but you can opt for the take away option which is half the price. Another spot for chocolate lovers is Lindt – there are several Lindt stores in Paris all of which have sit down Cafés. I am a huge chocolate lover and Lindt did not disappoint and was much cheaper than Angelina (although 2 very different atmospheres).

Chatelet is an area full of bars and restaurants all of which are extremely affordable and it is an area that is usually buzzing from 1pm on a Saturday right up until the early hours of Sunday morning.

Pizza Populaire is a restaurant with a really alt style and cool vibes that have a pizza margaherita on the menu for just €5! However you need to be at the doors 25 minutes prior to opening (6pm) in order to get a seat as there is always a queue.

If you are on a really tight budget, there are plenty of Mc Donald’s and Dominos scattered around Paris too.

Happy hour is very popular in Paris usually between 3-7pm so if you want to enjoy a drink in a nice bar on a budget, then choose your times to do so wisely. There are several must see bars even if you only purchase a bottle of water for €3 or one alcoholic drink for €11. ‘Off Seine’ is a hotel shaped like a boat in the Seine River. Its bar area even has a pool and there is live music there every evening. 100 yards from this, there is a rooftop bar called ‘Café Oz Rooftop’ – it is another great spot that is on the Seine and turns into a rooftop nightclub every night. They also have themed events during the week such as “Erasmus student nights” etc.

Le Perchoir Marais is also a rooftop bar with very chilled, cool vibes and since waiters don’t serve customers here (you have to queue at the bar to get a drink), you can even experience it without ever buying a drink!

Rue Saint Honoré, located in the 1st arrondissement is one of the most expensive streets in Paris however there is a bar on this street called ‘Le Musset’ that does great cocktails for €6 until 7pm every day. They have a seated area outside with a canopy so you can feel and live just like the Parisians; sipping on nice drinks watching the world go by.

General Tips

In my opinion going up the Eiffel Tower is a waste of time and money. The queues can be quite long and it is expensive enough. When you get to the top there isn’t much to see other than high rise buildings. It is usually a disappointment for tourists.

The Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour once it is dark so make sure and look out for that!

An absolute must-buy is a transport pass called ‘Navigo’. It costs €27 (or if you are repurchasing €22) for a week and it allows you to hop on and hop off every RER (main underground train line), every metro and all public buses. You will get more than your value for money with this – even if you’re only in Paris for a few days! Make sure and bring a passport photo to attach on to the Navigo card because if you are stopped by the Navigo wardens you will be fined if your card doesn’t have a photo of you on it. You can check it out online here but buy it at any train station when you arrive in Paris - https://www.ratp.fr/en/titres-et-tarifs/navigo-monthly-and-weekly-travel-passes

Download the RAFTP app on your phone and it will tell you which train lines/ metros/ buses to take to your chosen destination.

Charles de Gaulle and Orly airport are the most accessible airports from the city. There are trains and buses from both into the city – all of which you can use your Navigo on. Even though flights are often cheaper to Beauvais airport, there is no public transport to Beauvais airport from the city – you either have to pay privately for the airport bus (€30 return to the city) and taxis cost approximately €120 to the airport from the city.

Place du Vendome is lovely to walk around too and a popular area for seeing celebrities during Paris Fashion Week.

I hope you found this blog helpful, let me know in the comments section if you have any questions and enjoy Paris if you are visiting! If you leave your email address in the comments section I will add you to my mailing list and send out an email when my next blog post is up so that you don’t miss it.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored nor does it contain any affiliated links. I took all of the photos shown in this post.

[mfmagazine]

Mayra Veronica

Article by Lauren Weigle

Photo by Bruno Talledo

She can do it all… USO spokeswoman, accomplished singer, revered television host, and FHM cover girl.  In addition to FHM magazine, Mayra Veronica has also graced the likes of Maxim, Edge, Smooth, and over 100 other national and international covers.  She’s fearlessly traveled across several countries in support of the U.S. troops and has rung the New York Stock Exchange’s infamous bell.  Mayra’s held the title of Ms. Miami and interviewed many big names as a prominent television correspondent.  Her resume of celebrity interviews is comprised of many well-known faces including Donald Trump, Oscar de la Renta, Hugh Heffner, and Dennis Rodman.  Like I said to her myself, beauty AND brains! As a noted spokeswoman for the USO, what kind of tasks are you given to carry out?

Mostly to build awareness for the organization, visit troops worldwide, and thank them for the amazing job they do for this great nation. Also, to establish the need for all to become more involved in thanking our men and women in uniform instead of seeing it as a pro war pro peace situation; making sure people understand it is a pro Americans stance. How did you become involved with the USO to begin with?

After gracing the covers to several of the men's magazines, we began receiving requests for posters so I arranged for my management to send over 7500 calendars to our troops stationed in Iraq at the time.... Upon receipt of these calendars I was named favorite pin up girl by the US marines and asked by the USO to attend a tour with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to six countries including Iraq and Afghanistan. After seeing the amazing job our troops do I want nothing more than to continue supporting them. Tell me about your experiences on the USO tour.  

I used to think it cliché' when I'd hear of legends like Marilyn Monroe saying it was the most amazing experience of their lives, now I see how true that statement is.  On our first tour there were three performers, Wilmer Valderrama, Comedian Russell Peters, and myself... The tour included six countries including, Greenland, Turkey, Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, The Republic of Djibouti and back to Germany. We rode in Ospreys, Blackhawks, C130’s, C17's, armored trucks, and hugged and kissed over 7,500 young men and women in uniform. Afghanistan seemed the most secluded although their spirits that year were high. In Iraq we stayed in Sadaam Hussein's palace which was actually an official military base, and then we met with political leaders in Turkey for the Marines anniversary, and visited with the wounded and purple heart recipients in the hospitals of Germany.  The one thing I will always remember and take with me is our troops’ sense of heroism even after being wounded. When the wounded were asked if they were happy to be returning home, they all answered no that their biggest wish was to return to battle to back up their own. A sense of brotherhood one seldom sees. Definitely the most amazing experience of my lifetime. Let’s talk about some of the other organizations you’re involved with.

When asked to ring the NASDAQ bell, I was allowed to bring with me two organizations I had done work for or strongly supported, and I had always been a firm supporter of the USO but also of UNICEF and their children’s efforts worldwide so I brought UNICEF and remain a spokesperson for their organization. So how did it feel to be the first Cuban-American to ring the bell at NASDAQ and how did this opportunity arise?

That was such an honor, I cannot, to this day, explain.... Just one of those cosmic surprises you're never quite ready for! How did FHM go about asking you to be their cover girl?

After working for the largest show on Spanish television worldwide as both a host and model [“Don Francisco Presenta”], editors of the magazine had seen me on the show and decided to do a feature of me in the magazine. After the extraordinary response from readers they asked me to return this time on their cover. So, how did you feel, being showcased on such a prominent U.S. magazine?

It was cool, considering they always had the top 100 sexiest women in the world list, and making that list up at number 12 was quite the feat, hah.... Considering I did not hold myself to such esteem.... I was always the smart one not necessarily the prettiest or sexiest while growing up. Well, now you’re both!  When did you finally come into your own and begin your career as a professional model?

I began my career with a Bachelor’s in Theatre and my aspiration to go into film, one thing led to another and I got a job as a celebrity reporter and entertainment news show host, once the network I was working for shut down, Univision asked me to begin working on the premiere of their new show with Don Francisco, who is an icon to Spanish television, I accepted and began model/co-host work. You were in some major campaigns including Coca-Cola and L’Oreal.  Can you tell me a bit more about some of the work you did?

As a popular face on Univision, I was hired by some of the top companies to head their Spanish language TV campaigns in the United States; this included top spot national Spanish language commercials. Tell me how you stretched your modeling career to television in the first place.

After winning runner-up position as Miss Miami there was a casting for an entertainment news show which I attended and landed. This began my TV career. Any acting gigs coming up that we might be able to see you in?

I am now heavily involved with my music career and have deflected any further offers to pursue acting, as my soul craves music, my theater degree and Strasberg lessons were however great experience and a great foundation. You have a successful music life.  What kind of songs and sound do you tend to take on as an artist?

I began with my Spanish roots, and after being friends with some of the top Spanish producers it made sense to have my first album intertwined with Latin rhythms, such as salsa, meringue, and ballad sounds... But after growing into my own in this realm I realized the ultra-feminine pop with a dash of rock was all me, and this is how I see my sound. How would you describe your voice?  Was singing always something you wanted to pursue?

My father was a very famous singer in Cuba, so I grew up around someone who sang and rehearsed daily for most of my life... I never intended to do the same, but fate has a funny way of guiding you where you need to be. My voice is strong and big, not soft and small. I do not carry a Celine range but I hold my own, what I am above all is an artist, I create. Tell me about some of the songs that you’ve put out there for listeners to hear and your upcoming album Saint Nor Sinner?

Saint Nor Sinner is based on my life, having been described as both at some point by many. The songs are co-written by me, with a very pop sound. So, acting, modeling, singing… where does your heart lie first and foremost?

Music is an on-going creation that allows you an empty palette and just your artistic ability to create; you're not allowed that in modeling or acting much.... The latter are more about expressing someone else’s creation.... With music you're allowed expression of creation, and this is what my soul craves. I hear you studied dance while growing up.  Was that ever in the cards for you as well as a possible career choice?

It is very much a part of my music career, as it is incorporated into all videos. Not, however, the more classical type of dance, ballet, which I enjoyed for over 12 years and still do, nor Flamenco which was another of my loves of dance. But it all very much serves as a foundation. Well, what would you like to take on next in your career or even just with your life in general?

    I want to continue with my music for as long as I can speak, I want to write a book of it all, and I want to enjoy the fruits of my hard, hard work. (She smiles.)

[digitalmarketingt9-blog]

Top Tips & Budget Friendly Ways To Experience Paris Like A Native

Hi guys, welcome to my blog. My name is Caroline, I am 22 and I am Irish. I am studying Commerce International in University College Dublin and I spent a year in Paris studying commerce through French. I have learned the ins and outs of the city (sometimes the hard way) and some of this information I would love to have known prior to moving there. The majority of tourists spend hours queueing to see (some impressive, some not so impressive) tourist attractions and frequently get ripped off. As a result their Parisian experience ends up being very unproductive and costly.

Paris is known for being expensive but you can definitely do it on a budget and I am going to tell you how! Young people tend to avoid travelling to Paris because it has a name for being notoriously expensive, however Paris is not actually any more expensive than any other European city. Paris is very much geared towards young people and it has become my favourite city in Europe. There is a never-ending list of things to do for young people and it is simply an amazing place to live/study/visit.

I am going to share my top tips with you and help you experience Paris like a French native, and as a young person, the best spots to visit so that you can get the most out of your trip to this incredible city.

Culture

Paris is a fantastic city if you have a European passport and you are under the age of 26 as you can get into the majority of cultural sites and museums for free on any day of the week! (Admission to most museums is pretty cheap anyway but when you are on a budget it all adds up very quickly). There are hundreds of museums in Paris but my two favourite are Musée du Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. The Louvre (Musée du Louvre) is a great place to start and the Mona Lisa is a must see! Musée d’Orsay is another great museum even if you don’t enjoy art, the layout of the museum and its architecture is well worth seeing (a scene from Gossip Girl was also shot in this museum).

L’Arc du Triomphe is an absolute must! It is an arch that acts as a roundabout with 12 different streets leading up to it. You have to go underground to get to the centre of the roundabout/the arch. You can then climb up to the top of l’Arc du Triomphe which in my opinion has one of the best views of Paris. You have to climb a long windy staircase in order to get to the top so wear comfortable shoes. You can even see La Défense, the infamous business district from the top. You will also see the longest street in Europe, the Champs Elysée. The “roundabout” has no rules as such and as a result it is chaotic all the time, from the top looking down it is like watching a colony of ants frantically moving around attempting to dodge one another.

Sacre Coeur is well worth the visit even if you don’t actually enter the basilica. It is situated at the very top of a village and there is a long hilly walk up to it but the views from the top are incredible.

Palais Garnier is a spectacular opera house. You can do a day tour of it which costs €15 and tickets to the shows can go up to €500. If you are keen to see a show, you can queue at the ticket kiosk (several hours prior to the show) and get tickets to the ballet/opera for as cheap as €10 – that is if you have half the day to spend queuing for a show that could sell out.

Trocadero is an absolute must-go! This is where you will find the best view of the Eiffel Tower. I wouldn’t recommend going to any restaurants or bars in this area as they are all very overpriced (this where a lot of tourists get caught out).

Day Trips & Tours

Chateau du Versailles is magnificent and well worth visiting on a sunny day. It is about an hour (by train) south of Paris and then a 20 minute walk from the train station. The entry fee to the palace is free for European residents under the age of 26 and the entry fee to the gardens is €10 for a student (buy tickets in Versailles because they are cheaper at the door than they are online). The gardens are more impressive than the palace in my opinion. The gardens are so vast it would take you all day to walk around them however you can rent golf buggies or bikes in order to cover more land in less time. During the summer months you can rent rowing boats and row/float on the lake. Most people bring a picnic with them and enjoy their lunch on the designated grass areas soaking up the sun. There is only one coffee shop here and several ice cream kiosks so definitely bring your own snacks.

Disneyland Paris is an absolute must if you are spending a few days in Paris. You can take the RER A (main underground train line in Paris) towards Marne la Vallée and it leaves you right at the gates of Disneyland. It takes approximately 40 minutes from central Paris. The queues are not nearly half as bad here as they are in Disneyland in America and it really is a magical experience. There is something for all ages and the firework display every evening is spectacular. If you book tickets online they are usually around €50 however if you buy tickets at the door, the price is double. There are lots of restaurants and bakeries here but they tend to be pricey so I would advise bringing snacks from Monoprix and baguettes/croissants from a bakery in Paris with you. Check the weather before booking your tickets!

You can buy tickets online here https://www.disneylandparis.com/en-ie/

Boat tours are a great way to a get an overview of the city, learn some interesting facts and get some great photos. Paris is stunning at night time when all of the famous monuments are lit up so I would recommend doing a boat tour at night. There are several companies that do boat cruises, however don’t waste your money purchasing a “dinner experience” package etc. as you will be too busy eating (a very basic meal) to see any of the sights. I would recommend getting the cheapest and most basic tour ticket and choosing a boat that has an upstairs. I found that Bateaux Parisians were great and their most basic ‘illuminations’ tour cost €13.50 per person. The boat sails up and down the Seine pointing out the famous sights/monuments/areas. The tour lasts around 75 minutes.

You can buy tickets online here https://book.seine-river-cruises.com/book/7944/checkout

When in Paris do as the French do

The Parisians are the most sociable people you will ever come across. They love any opportunity to be amongst people and sipping on wine. There is a famous saying “when in Rome do as the Romans,” the same concept applies in Paris! Even if it is lashing rain, sit outside under a canopy and enjoy some food and a few drinks. However if the weather is good, follow the French to any of the gardens (my personal favourite is Jardin des Tuileries), bring your picnic blanket, a few croissants, baguettes and a bottle of wine and soak up the atmosphere – this is a favourite pass time for the French.

On summer nights when the parks are closed you’ll find everyone with their bottles of wine and snacks sitting along the banks of Seine – the whole way along it! It is honestly one of the most fun enjoyable and cheapest things you will do and you will feel just like a native.

Another great location during the day/early evening for doing this is on Champ de Mars which is the grass area just in front of the Eiffel Tower. It is a really popular meet up spot for students and workers alike with one of the most iconic views.  

Bars & Restaurants

Brunch is a huge thing in Paris, everyone does it and you will often queue for up to 90 minutes to get a table in some of the best places. Brunch is expensive (usually €25 per person) but it is 2 meals in 1 and you get a crazy amount of delicious food! My personal favourite is Paperboy situated on Rue Amelot – all of their food is incredible! But some other great spots include Lockwood, Hardware Société, Le Pain Quotidien and the Soul Kitchen.

If you love acai bowls make sure to check out Love Juice Bar and the Juicerie. If you are a hot chocolate lover, Angelina’s is renowned for having the best tasting hot chocolate in France. It is one of the most famous ‘tea rooms’ in the world and quite an experience. However one hot chocolate costs €9 but you can opt for the take away option which is half the price. Another spot for chocolate lovers is Lindt – there are several Lindt stores in Paris all of which have sit down Cafés. I am a huge chocolate lover and Lindt did not disappoint and was much cheaper than Angelina (although 2 very different atmospheres).

Chatelet is an area full of bars and restaurants all of which are extremely affordable and it is an area that is usually buzzing from 1pm on a Saturday right up until the early hours of Sunday morning.

Pizza Populaire is a restaurant with a really alt style and cool vibes that have a pizza margaherita on the menu for just €5! However you need to be at the doors 25 minutes prior to opening (6pm) in order to get a seat as there is always a queue.

If you are on a really tight budget, there are plenty of Mc Donald’s and Dominos scattered around Paris too.

Happy hour is very popular in Paris usually between 3-7pm so if you want to enjoy a drink in a nice bar on a budget, then choose your times to do so wisely. There are several must see bars even if you only purchase a bottle of water for €3 or one alcoholic drink for €11. ‘Off Seine’ is a hotel shaped like a boat in the Seine River. Its bar area even has a pool and there is live music there every evening. 100 yards from this, there is a rooftop bar called ‘Café Oz Rooftop’ – it is another great spot that is on the Seine and turns into a rooftop nightclub every night. They also have themed events during the week such as “Erasmus student nights” etc.

Le Perchoir Marais is also a rooftop bar with very chilled, cool vibes and since waiters don’t serve customers here (you have to queue at the bar to get a drink), you can even experience it without ever buying a drink!

Rue Saint Honoré, located in the 1st arrondissement is one of the most expensive streets in Paris however there is a bar on this street called ‘Le Musset’ that does great cocktails for €6 until 7pm every day. They have a seated area outside with a canopy so you can feel and live just like the Parisians; sipping on nice drinks watching the world go by.

General Tips

In my opinion going up the Eiffel Tower is a waste of time and money. The queues can be quite long and it is expensive enough. When you get to the top there isn’t much to see other than high rise buildings. It is usually a disappointment for tourists.

The Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour once it is dark so make sure and look out for that!

An absolute must-buy is a transport pass called ‘Navigo’. It costs €27 (or if you are repurchasing €22) for a week and it allows you to hop on and hop off every RER (main underground train line), every metro and all public buses. You will get more than your value for money with this – even if you’re only in Paris for a few days! Make sure and bring a passport photo to attach on to the Navigo card because if you are stopped by the Navigo wardens you will be fined if your card doesn’t have a photo of you on it. You can check it out online here but buy it at any train station when you arrive in Paris - https://www.ratp.fr/en/titres-et-tarifs/navigo-monthly-and-weekly-travel-passes

Download the RAFTP app on your phone and it will tell you which train lines/ metros/ buses to take to your chosen destination.

Charles de Gaulle and Orly airport are the most accessible airports from the city. There are trains and buses from both into the city – all of which you can use your Navigo on. Even though flights are often cheaper to Beauvais airport, there is no public transport to Beauvais airport from the city – you either have to pay privately for the airport bus (€30 return to the city) and taxis cost approximately €120 to the airport from the city.

Place du Vendome is lovely to walk around too and a popular area for seeing celebrities during Paris Fashion Week.

I hope you found this blog helpful, let me know in the comments section if you have any questions and enjoy Paris if you are visiting! If you leave your email address in the comments section I will add you to my mailing list and send out an email when my next blog post is up so that you don’t miss it.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored nor does it contain any affiliated links. I took all of the photos shown in this post.

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2018 Year In Review

Previous Posts: (2017) (2016) (2015) (2014) (2013) (2012) (2011) 

2018 has not been a banner year for self care. It has not been a banner year for much of anything, to be honest. This year in review will be much less colourful and exciting than they traditionally tend to be. It has been a year of hard work, stress, and feeling the pressure of the less-fun parts of adulthood creeping up on me. It has been really hard, to be totally honest. I have spent the majority of the year in a deep state of exhaustion and distress. There are positives within it all, though. Big positives, such as: 

I went on my longest trip ever away from home. 

I have developed so much in the professional sense and have fallen so deeply in love with social work and my future career path. 

I have made new friends who reflect these changing influences in my life, and the enduring friendships that have survived all of these years continue to strengthen and deepen as time goes on. 

January: 

Tell me - why does January always suck? 2018 began with an opening double shift on New Year’s Day, which I feel is strongly symbolic of the year as a whole because you have an exhausted Megan struggling to responsibly balance my professional responsibilities, self-care, and partying. On January 3rd, Alex and I booked our flights to Asia and in doing so, solidified that we were going through with a plan made drunkenly over the table last summer at a karaoke bar. 

I did get to spend an awesome ski weekend with Alesta, Sydney x 2, and Shelby. It was especially nice because this particular group of people had never spent time all together - we were just united by being a group of girls who love to ski. We hit Lake Louise on Saturday, stayed overnight at a hostel in Banff, and Alesta and I hit Sunshine on Sunday. In Banff, we got a free jug of sangria because we are cute girls. We went to High Rollers and Sydney was drinking IPAs and porters like a pro. I went alone (like... what? Who am I? How drunk was I?) to Dancing Sasquatch after and made friends with some Nova Scotians in line. One of them paid for my cover and bought me not one but two of those infamous Time Machine drinks and extra bonus - Alesta and I got FREE lift passes at Sunshine. 

At the end of the month, my mental health took a sharp nosedive into oblivion and I don’t even really know why. I started experiencing a violent resurgence of something I haven’t felt since the end of the 12th grade, having what I now recognize as panic attacks. The first one came when I was studying on a Sunday at Higher Ground and I had no idea what the fuck was happening, I’d been there for several hours when I suddenly felt the urge to throw up. I packed up all my shit and burst out the door literally gasping for air but ended up being fine. Just shaky and confused. They started happening more frequently after this, with no predictable trigger, and I started to feel the physical manifestations of stress. That was new and it freaked me out. This lent itself to a lot of strange patterns around eating (since I was constantly feeling nauseous, or I thought I was, I didn’t want to have a full stomach. I also thought I had a food intolerance, and because I’m me was 100% convinced I was pregnant because the stress caused me to miss my period). 

February 

Things started to get so bad in February that I had to plead my manager at Famoso for less hours. He was an idiot in general but also did not seem to grasp the severity of what I told him. He would frequently schedule me for these long swing swifts all weekend long, leaving no time or energy for the mountains of homework I had to do. It did not help. 

February was especially busy with school. That’ll be a recurring theme throughout this year. It could honestly be a summary of this entire year - so I’ll spare you the details. But five courses at the University of Calgary is no joke. 

I never needed reading week so badly in my entire life. I was beyond happy to just be able to take a long weekend and not be at Famoso. Shelby arranged for a giant group of her friends to spend the weekend at her friend Sawyer’s massive, absolutely beautiful cabin in Invermere. I got to spend some quality time with two of my favourite people on the planet - Emma and Sydney. From the minute we got into Emma’s car together, to having ciders at the Emerald Lake Lodge on the way, to eating A&W and sharing a bed and “she gon’ fuck the fridge.” Sydney and I spent one afternoon on homework while everyone else went skiing and I was with her when she got the news that she’d won this massive grant and we celebrated by sitting in this magical massage chair and just loving life. We played Drink, Talk, Learn! And I gave a drunken presentation on the history and etiology of pugs. Emma and I went skating on Lake Windermere to cure our hangovers on Sunday. A keg and a bonfire were involved. It was so Canadian, honestly LOL. And so perfect. 

March 

Although I was still struggling with this weird panic-nausea cycle, it lessened through March as more and more assignments were completed. I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to use a cliche. I gave three presentations in a week, I remember that being particularly awful. 

I attempted Mellow March for the second time and once again failed. Mildly concerning. I caved on a Wednesday wing night with the Famoso friends. It was 27 days in. So close, so close. 2019 will be my year! 

I started getting really into podcasts at this time because I started commuting using public transit. I got really into Guys We Fucked (which I still love), and This Is Actually Happening. TIAH is kind of fucked up though, and after a while it started to fuck me up. I would have weird dreams about the content and I started becoming paranoid that there was something wrong/extraordinary about me. So I stopped. I guess that is something I have learned about myself this year, is that even when it’s not overt, I am really deeply effected by some of the things I learn. Typically, people of this nature do not excel in the field of social work so allow me to flag this as a place for improvement in the future.

I ran the 5km at the St. Patrick’s Day road race, which was awesome and I won the draw that everyone was entered in and got a FREE pair of these super nice, hot pink New Balance running shoes that I now cherish with my life. 

I had my first round of practicum interviews, which only ended up being one interview because I was offered the placement at CommunityWise before I could interview anywhere else. This is one of the best things to happen the whole year :) 

And a special moment for me as well was on March 31, I got to see Alvvays live. 

April 

In April, I finished hell semester and immediately jetted off to Thailand.

From the get go, the trip was a bit of a shit show. This was my second time to Asia, and my first experience with really planning a trip including flights, hostels, and transportation from place to place without the aid of a tour guide or travel company. We had a time even getting to Bangkok due to an untimely snow storm the day of our departure that forced our flight to Vancouver to be late and causing us to miss our connecting flight to China. After two hours in line at the Air Canada desk, an agent produced a new itinerary for us. Calgary to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Bangkok. He printed the sheets out and when I looked at the times on the paper, the mental math wasn’t adding up. With me, the mental math never really adds up but this time it seemed impossible that we could leave so much later than planned for our trip and arrive in Bangkok only three hours later than we were supposed to. I brought this up with him and he assured me it was fine. I wasn’t satisfied though, and asked a bunch of other airport personnel the same question. They all said we were fine but lo and behold, we land in Hong Kong and are waiting for the Thai Airlines desk to open so we can retrieve the tickets for the last leg of the journey when the agent there tells us, “They put you on the flight that left yesterday.” Anger and distress ensues. I call Air Canada from the airport in Hong Kong and the call drops. I’m straight up crying on the floor at this point. But in the end – we fucking made it.

In Bangkok, I was welcomed back to the stifling heat and humidity of Asia. We met American doctors-to-be who were at the end of their trip and were totally sick of one another and were very happy to have company. We ate massaman curry for every meal, partied on Khao San Road (those nitrous balloons!!! God, they’re so fun!!), and spent a lot of money on a single cocktail just for a photo op at the top of a skyscraper but the sunset was perfect and it was totally worth it.

In Chiang Mai we drank Sangsom and Coca-Cola by the pool and ate street food out of Styrofoam containers. We met these Americans who were teaching English in Chiang Mai and they took us to a night club on the back of their motorbikes. I did a drug I said I’ve never do in one of the bathrooms at this night club and ended up going home with one of the aforementioned teachers. It was funny to me because at about 3:00pm, Alex and I went back to our hostel to change and get ready for the evening and at that point I said, “I think I’m going to end up hooking up with Cory.” I fucking knew. I KNEW.

In Pai, I had the DIRTIEST hostel experience of my life. I was showering… just fully naked and vulnerable in this nasty ass shower when I saw a bug I did not recognize from my sheltered upbringing crawl out of a hole in the wall. I have never felt more small. It was also 43 degrees and we were staying in a tiny hut with a plug-in fan that only worked half the time and somehow had the effect of making the room hotter? Pai was also the first time we rented motorbikes. It’s honestly so dangerous… like, what the fuck, Thailand. We experienced our first flash rainstorm. We went to a place called Sunset Bar and took mushroom shakes and holy shit I’ve never experienced more potent mushrooms in my entire life. We met our Irish friends who we’d later see in Koh Pha Ngan, and I slept with an Israeli soldier on our second-to-last night and I’m almost 100% certain I took his virginity.

Koh Pha Ngan was alllll thunderstorms. We also decided to splurge a bit on food on this island and gorged ourselves with seafood and lavender Moscow mules at this nice restaurant down the road from our hostel. We partied so hard. We went to the pre-parties for the Full Moon – they have the Waterfall party two nights before, and the Jungle party the night before. I had sex with a total stranger at the Waterfall party up against a rock (when I recounted this story to Steven upon returning home he put on a redneck accent and said, “C’mon baby let me take you down to the fuck rock” and now that’s all I hear when I think about this experience in my head). The Full Moon Party was fun but not AS fun as the pre parties. It wasn’t as wild and the beach is so big but everyone concentrates in one little area. I took some kind of mystery pill (as you can see, I was very safe in Thailand) and had yet another sexual experience with a casual partner. I also witnessed a fight in the taxi back because one girl called another girl a stripper. It was bad.

May 

Continuing on with our Asia trip.

We landed in Krabi and intended fully to chill out a little bit after the wildness of Koh Pha Ngan. The first night was chill, we were staying in the Muslim quarter of the Krabi area so there weren’t a ton of nightclubs to go to and the hostel had some kind of run-in with police and weren’t able to take us out on the pub crawl we signed up for (lame). We had a roommate from Vancouver on the second day who bought a bunch of Xanax from a Thai pharmacy and gave me one. I can never do it again because it was so. good. But of course, I took one pill and stopped drinking just in case. This bitch continued drinking and took six or seven Xanax throughout the night. I honestly don’t know how she lived. We went rock climbing and drank beers on a boat tour one day and it was soooo great. We had the hottest tour guide. I did a hike by my lonesome that I nearly died on.

On the ferry ride from Krabi to Koh Phi Phi is where I got the sunburn that will likely give me skin cancer in later life and kill me. 90 minutes on the outside deck of a ferry (because I felt nauseous as fuck and didn’t want to vom in the cabin) absolutely fucked. me. up. We stayed at another pretty fucking gross hostel in Koh Phi Phi, and my roommates were all male which was a new experience for me. I went on a solo booze cruise cause Alex was sick. We took mushrooms again with our Canadian friend Kelsey and god, I was laughing so hard I was crying and I could not stop. I was like rolling around in the sand laughing so fucking hard about Fisherman’s Friends candy. It was so blissful. So pure.

And then… the sickness. This is going to be TMI but… fuck it. A bit of indigestion and stomach trouble is expected whenever a white person enters Asia. Different microbes etc. etc. But this… this was on a new fucking level. I knew something was up because on the morning that we woke up to take our ferry from Koh Phi Phi to Phuket, I vomited. And I never vomit, and I wasn’t that hungover (especially in relation to much of the rest of the trip). I felt okay afterwards though so we soldiered on. Three hour ferry ride, totally fine. We board our bus that will take us from the ferry port in Phuket to our hotel and about halfway through this bus ride, I feel it. I am wearing overalls. My heart starts beating loudly in my chest, sweat begins to bead on my forehead. Holy fuck, I am going to shit my pants. I clench until we get to the hostel – which is, of course, the last stop. It’s like a solid 45 minutes of pain. My stomach is ROILING. I have never felt anything like it.

I honestly know nothing about Phuket because I spent the entire 72 hours we were there running from my bunk bed to the bathroom. I would go so far as to say every ten minutes. At one point, I just brought my laptop into the washroom with me and watched Netflix for a few hours. A roommate who was with us switched rooms (understandably… I’m sorry, Helen). I didn’t eat for four days, literally not a fucking thing. Just Gatorade and water so that I didn’t die of dehydration. Because we had an airplane to catch and I needed to not be shitting the contents of my body out, I saw a doctor. He prescribed me like five different medications and told me just to take like eight of these pills and to expect stomach pain but it would at least get me through the flight to Seoul and hopefully home.

It worked, and we spent the last few days of our trip in Seoul. What an absolutely fascinating and beautiful part of the world. With Kieun as our guide, we got to see the best parts of Seoul. People took photos with us and gave us free shit. I had the absolute best meal of my life (it was the first thing I’d eaten in like four days… I really risked it all with the Korean barbecue honestly…). All-you-can-eat thick fatty slices of pork belly, grilled in front of us and dipped in sesame oil and salt with garlic and spices. Spicy chicken feet on the side, corn with cheese. It was wild. I cannot believe I stomached it.

And on May 12th, we returned home back to our lives and school and work and all of that boring ass shit. I remained ill for a solid six weeks upon returning home. To a lesser degree, I still have not fully recovered. At this point, I am unsure if I ever will. I truly think that second-round Asia gave me skin cancer and permanently altered my gastrointestinal functioning. Worth it? Unsure. But it happened nonetheless.

June 

My brother graduated from university and won a very prestigious award and it was very nice to watch him cross the stage and hear a nice speech about his accomplishments (he won so many scholarships that he basically had a free ride to school – I think it’s clear who inherited the brains).

I finished up my spring courses. Can I just say - spring courses are the worst? The two I picked were especially bad. The one about human sexuality was basically Sex Ed 101 which made for an easy A but I was hoping to investigate deeper on a number of topics. And the second one was way too hard for my tiny brain to accommodate and I got the lowest mark I’ve ever gotten on my paper and it brought me down.

I had a very random unexpected night where I slept with a really close friend of mine (like, friends for over a decade) who I used to have a little bit of a crush on in high school. We were very drunk and it was kind of a curiosity-satisfying move that has actually not resulted in a very big change to our relationship at all but I think it’s worth mentioning because younger me would have been stoked. This one’s for you, younger me!

We went to the High River Rodeo and Cabaret – another unexpected move but oh my god it was so fun. Matt, Steven, Amanda and I. You could buy as many beers as you wanted at a time and they were cheap because fuck the AGLC apparently. The rodeo was actually super fun. The cabaret was redneck af and I happened to see my roommate from the hostel in Koh Phi Phi and his buddies there? Although it was not a friendly reunion because I had unknowingly exposed him for cheating on his girlfriend when he was in Phi Phi (which he did. I shared a room with him, and the girl he loudly banged every night until 4am). Two-stepping ensued and I passed out in the car ride home. I have a great photo of Steven from this night next to a bottle of hot sauce. I do not recall why. I will include it below. 

July 

Okay, I am just going to preface this by saying July was a hot mess. 

Myself, Madison, Maeghan, and Cayley were all single and messing around on dating apps so we decided to create Tinder bingo. It’s exactly what it sounds like. The rules were that you could only cross off two things per date (so that you had to go on a minimum of three to win), you got bonus points for going on a Tinder date with the same person someone else had gone out with, and the first to win got their drinks paid for on a night out. So, I went on exactly one Tinder date. Which is something I said I’ve never do and never really saw myself doing but I went for it on this occasion because I think that in this day and age, a Tinder date is an experience everyone should have. So I bit the bullet, and went for a drink with this guy James at the Oak Tree Tavern. And oh... my god? What a terrible experience? LAUGHABLY terrible. His only desired topic of conversation were the nationalities of people I had slept with and in what circumstances. At one point he asked me, “when was the last time you had sex? Was it good?” He also talked at maximum volume and I guarantee you everyone else at that bar overheard our conversation. Midway through the date, he asked for a review of how he was doing and I told him he seemed a bit nervous. This angered him. He said, “I’M NOT NERVOUS” and I was like, “you asked, buddy.” He asked me if I would pay for him. Cayley literally had to come rescue me and I ran out of his car where he had unbuttoned his pants and had his dick out and was literally on the verge of tears begging me to touch it so hard. I literally bolted out of his car and he yelled out the window, “CALL ME!” He still hits me up on instagram sometimes. I hope his life gets better. 

I also moved again. This is my favourite living situation I’ve ever had. Great roommates who are almost never home. Cute house. Good location. A+ choice by me. 

I got really obsessed with the Thai cave rescue. It was just such a compelling and unique STORY and I would literally come home from work and refresh the BBC live update feed for hours until I fell asleep, then I’d wake up and refresh hoping for good news. I cannot wait for the movie. I will go opening day. #Obsessions 

Stampede!!! Oh my god, what a wonderful Stampede. The most memorable thing is that Steven and I went to the standing rodeo one afternoon and got absolutely. fucking. hammered. Whilst there, we met and befriended two Australian retirees named Lyn and Ken. They are rich and are obsessed with horseriding and rodeo stuff. They purchased many drinks for us and we convinced them to come to Nashville North with us, where they purchased MORE drinks for us and Steven attempted to show them how to two-step. They later invited me to go horseback riding in Banff and I accepted. They literally picked me up, drove me to Banff, we crushed two bottles of wine at the Park gin distillery, went on a three-hour horseback ride through the mountains, they drove me home and I paid for NONE OF IT. It was........ a day. I sat on my bed later and thought to myself, “that was fucking weird.” But now, if I ever go to Melbourne, I will hit them up. 

It was Ali’s birthday and we went camping in Waiparous. We took mushrooms on Saturday and just as they were beginning to fully kick in, the RCMP rolled in and kicked us out of our campsite. What a wild time to be faced with an interaction with the cops. Also - no one could drive except for two people who had stayed sober and they had to shuttle us to a new campsite. Have you ever tried setting up a tent on mushrooms? Do you know how difficult and hilarious it is? 

And lastly at the end of July, I went to Folk Fest. I saw Alvvays again. Front row! Like, against the barrier front row. It was awesome. It was folk fest that inspired me to cut my hair and get bangs again. No regrets. I love my bangs. I also experienced a level of street harassment that I didn’t know was possible from some random, innocent-seeming guy. It was terrifying. I called the police. No bueno. 

August 

In August, I got promoted at my job and basically became a baby manager. It was better in theory than in practice because my shifts got longer, I made less in tips (but more hourly), and the cash out for a restaurant is a long and frustrating process that depends on a lot of small pieces working together correctly in a big ass spreadsheet and I suck at math.

In happier news – August was also the establishment of podcast club. Podcast club is one of the best and dorkiest things I have ever been involved with. We pick a podcast each week to listen to, and get together on Sunday mornings at 10:00am to discuss the contents of the podcast. It was initially open to whomever wanted to come but has since whittled down to a core group and at this point, we’re all so close that it would almost be weird to introduce a new person into the mix. There is Kendal, who I go to school with and who started the whole club. Her boyfriend, Mitch. Lachlan and Maddy who are siblings. Matt, a YouTuber who was kind of a wildcard. Chad, also kind of a wildcard but who works as a youth counsellor – and me! Podcast club has made my life infinitely better and is probably the best thing to come out of 2018, in all honesty.

I also got obsessed with Harry Potter and read like almost the whole series and my new at the time roommates thought I was such a loser because I would literally post up on the couch in the living room with a HP book and they would come back five hours later and I hadn’t moved and all I wanted to talk about was Harry Potter. 

September / October / November 

I am lumping these three months together in this review because truly, they are lumped together in my mind and heart. 

On September 11, I started my first practicum at CommunityWise. I really had no idea what to expect when I started there but looking back, I cannot believe how hard I lucked out. The U of C is VERY clinically-based when it comes to how it educates and describes the practice of social work. CW was the opposite of it all and day-to-day so much happens there that it is honestly impossible not to get dragged in at such a deep level that it literally forces you to care. When I was in practicum, I did a lot of reading and I came across this concept of a “disorienting dilemma” which is “an experience within which a current understanding is found to be insufficient or incorrect and the learner struggles with the resulting conflict of views. Such experiences often are those to which learners point as the beginning of the process of questioning their understanding and views and entering the transformative learning process” (Source). Truly, being in that space over the course of 300 hours created this for me. I was forced to confront a lot of racist and otherwise problematic shit that I have been brought up with and that comes up in small ways for me that I try and quash down for the sake of saving face. Poverty, addiction, mental health issues showed up LITERALLY on the doorstep and I was thrown into it all. The experience was a disorienting dilemma and it shook me out of my bubble and I have never fallen so deeply in love with social work. My supervisor and I formed a VERY close relationship that probably broke some ethical and professional boundaries and she was there for me to discuss social issues and experiences I was having in an honest way that really deconstructed things. I had my debit card stolen by a client on one occasion, had to call the DOAP team because I witnessed people in overdose more times than I can count, had to talk many a person down from suicide, befriended a very mentally ill person who suffers from delusions that they are an alien in a human body sent here to observe earth and report back to their master. We had to kick someone out of a workshop for being racist. It was a wild ride, honestly. There were many many positive things to come out of practicum. I built my professional network in ways I never would have been able to, I was able to move out of the “student” realm and step into the role of a social worker and advocate and professional. I did a lot of public speaking! I was out in the community talking to a million different people. I made videos and posters. And the best part of all is that even when my practicum ended, my connection to CW did not. They have hired me on as a digital storytelling intern (paid!) for the new year. Which is a major confidence boost and I just love CW and everyone there so much. I will literally be forever grateful to them for taking me under their collective wing and showing me I have the skills and abilities to be an effective social worker :) 

Ahem. Now on to some not-so-good things... 

The end of October was kind of difficult because I was attempting to manage practicum responsibilities, actual class projects and homework, second-round practicum interviews, and Famoso. I was very stressed out and it was not good, especially because I got a rejection from one interview and didn’t even get an interview at my top choice. I was feeling very sorry for myself and may or may not have cried at my desk at practicum. It all worked out in the end though, and actually I was offered a placement at the first place I interviewed – they just took a while to get back to me. She called me to let me know this while I was on a run and being idiot me, I picked up… panting and gasping for air in Nose Hill Park. She was like, “We’d like to offer you the place… wait, are you okay?”

I would also like to just slide it in here that I slept with my ex in October. Which wasn’t a particularly momentous occasion and was actually kind of funny because it felt so much like a one night stand. I am mostly putting this in here because I don’t think many people know that and I want to see who reads this far.

Along similarish lines – I PUT MYSELF OUT THERE AND ASKED SOMEONE ON A STRAIGHT UP DATE AND GOT REJECTED AND IT WAS HONESTLY SO EMBARASSING AND BRUTAL and it’s okay now but oh… my god. This also happened around the same time as the rejections from practicum placements and I had such a bad night where I got drunk on my couch alone and Cayley brought me burnt ends from her new job at a brewery because she was #concerned for me and I didn’t want to be alone. That’s a true friend right there.

December 

December is only halfway done - but I feel I can summarize it accurately. It has been a nice, tidy wrap up to the year. A month of podcasts, cleaning my house and my car and my life up, a mysterious knee injury that is really fucking me up, working a lot at Famoso, finishing my practicum and school semester. One thing I am dreading is that my brother’s girlfriend who our family is not particularly fond of will be joining us in Saskatoon this year. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. 

In General 

2018 has been very stressful for me. But despite the stress, and sometimes out of it, have come some very nice, beautiful things. I said last year in my post that I wanted to become more deeply involved in my community and in activism and social work and in that way I think I have excelled. I’m in it now, you guys. I feel capable. I feel motivated. I feel CONFIDENT. And I’m fucking excited to see what comes in the future. 

I nearly doubled the amount of people I’ve slept with so that’s... a notable thing that happened this year. 

It has been nice to feel a return to a sense of belonging with my old high school group of friends. In a way, I feel more united with them than ever. I guess not having a partner that they all hate helps. But also, I think I’ve just been feeling more and more like myself. But to Connor, Steven, Matt, Adam and the assortment of new(er) members that come and go - I am very grateful for you all. It has also been good for my heart and soul to become so close with people from podcast club. It’s actually like... really hard to make new friends. Podcast club made it easy. And I found myself on a Friday night in Maddy and Ben’s apartment, watching cooking shows and teaching them how to play card games, laughing until I cried and drinking wine. And it’s like... who else gets together on EVERY Sunday morning to discuss podcasts? For fun? I know relationships change and dissolve and grow from each year to the next but I just have a deep feeling that some of these friendships are the real deal. And I’m really lucky. It sounds so ~fake deep~ and lame but honestly podcast club is making me a better, happier, less anxious person. 

2019: 

I think 2019 is going to have to be the year that I really, truly grow the fuck up. I’m not mad about this. I look forward to crushing through 400 more hours of practicum, graduating and getting my degree. Hopefully entering the work force for real (this prospect is honestly so exciting to me... I creep the job boards every day daydreaming about what I might eventually do when I leave the world of waitressing) and making some adult money. 

I also like... totally got fat in 2018 so 2019 will involve some activities to counterbalance this. AND I have a ticket to Big Valley Jamboree. Which is hilarious because I think if you asked 2015 Megan what she’d never do, it would be “go to BVJ” but here I am, ticket in hand, excitement mounting by the day. Boots on, bitches. 

Some of my goals or things I’d like to work on in 2019 are to become less attached to social media and more invested in the actual moment/doing of things rather than recording them (ironic as I type this MASSIVE year in review post, yes), to get into a healthy and sustainable pattern of exercise where I don’t just like become obsessed with it for a little while and then slowly taper off and then do none of it for like six months... and honestly? I want to download a bunch of those dating apps again and just go for it. I think you can learn so much about yourself through dating and I’ve been such a recluse this year for the most part because I have been sort-of-but-not seeing someone since literally JULY but we’re not actually together and I don’t know what’s going on. I just need to get over my own insecurities and anxiety and just jump in with both feet. It’ll be fun. It’ll be crazy. I’m excited. 

The rest of it, as always, is an open book. Who knows where I will be, what I will be doing, or who I will be doing it with by this time next year? Not I. 

[dwestfieldblog]

REVELATION: 2021

...’Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth...see, the home of God is among the mortals.’ Hope you are staying sane. Meanwhile, from my war room (arf) inside a deep (astral) state within a non binary body...hallucinating realities...

Imagine, if you will, millions in a democratic country, who gladly make (and addictively want to) their private thoughts known via social media and are quite happy to tell random pollsters on the street their feelings on any subject of which they are asked. And plenty on which they are not. So pleased to be asked their righteous opinion, so ego led deluded that anybody might ‘like’ their words that they will spout the hatred their hearts feel on issues of the day and in their lives without a care where such information goes. They want to be heard and so, they are. Now imagine a computer driven listening and watching station with instructions from media masters, political leaders, and advertising companies paying close attention to the data gathered. Not actual facts as such but almost all emotion led opinions, collated to show the group mindset of a subsection of a country.

An algorithm can be created for what products would most likely appeal to that mass. Guns, (for random example), waterproof bibles, clothing for survivalists. You have direct knowledge of this already when You tube, your email, Alexa etc ‘suggest’ something you might/should like, based on what you have ordered, written, or spoken online. This year I have been getting dozens of spam emails for bad eyesight, Viagra type stuff and hair loss. HA. My age must be written somewhere. Not much stress on imagination to see how simple it is for organisations like the ex Cambridge Anal lytica etc to capture and utilise such info via Facebook. Or how enemies of a country could understand in no short order what makes a country really tick below the surface and how to manipulate those emotionally crippled, poorly educated AND those who seek power over others. Psychographic profiling...stop giggling at the back there...

Cui bono (who benefits) from seeding disorder? Follow the money, ‘it’s only business’. An algorithm which reveals just what people believe and who can then be exploited en masse as useful idiots to disrupt the usual inbred spastic normality of daily life in a human country. And it is dirt cheap because people WANT to reveal themselves and a rival country need only a minimum outlay of actual infiltrating agent provocateurs (many of whom will be actual natives.) A set up involving ‘sock puppets’ which serves the same purpose as APs...the legendary bots and fake identities rattling off tweets and false flag Facebook pages, rallying the disaffected faithful. ‘More evidence that the targeting works and predicts our behaviour’.

Now, once the group targets have been identified, seek out those among them who long for their moment of fame, their years of special importance and time of power. They will have already made clear their characters in online posts. Weakling Alpha types cowering their insecurities behind a loud voice. They hunger for followers, to be ‘liked’, (a basic larval human need for most) and admired for their rightness. Show them support, aid their voices to spread, mysterious donors for the message; Anybody not similar to you MUST be the opposite...and therefore, the enemy. Step by step, the daily hormone rush reprogrammes and the opinions become a self fulfilling prophecy, imprinting over all sense of reason. So now you have your moronic masses (and those dumb enough to want to lead them) most of whom are too stupid (or busy surviving) to realise they are being manipulated from afar by those who understand what is within and do not have their countries’ interests at heart. Bombarded with attack ads and propaganda... ‘Until they saw the world the way we want them to’...

Some of the leaders, big or small, will actually know they are puppets but will think it acceptable as long as they are given a little pat on the head via position and power. And a lot of money. Most, (whether mass or leader of such infiltrated countries) will be certain they are doing what they do in the name of Freedom and Democracy, while all the time, being used to further limit the same. Hilariously, bleakly, deathly ironic. From hubris to nemesis.

Yes, I am writing about Brexit and Trumpists and Q Onan. Et al, etc. Ad infinitum. Almost. Those in democratic countries who are ceaselessly working unbeknown to themselves against most of what they demand the most. ‘To take back control’. No children, you are creating a system where you will have less and less of this. ‘Follow the white rabbit’? No, you are following an algorithm in highly predictive patterns to those who own it and by extension, you.

‘I love my country!’ Do you? Why are you working free of charge for another who only wants to see your Union and partnerships broken? You vote for ridiculous men like Trump and Farrage because they are not the government and think you are rebel anarchists who will herald a new dawn of purifying flame...by substituting yet more slime who care only for their own power.

Someone points the finger, uses a trigger word and you do the Pavlov dog. Someone claps their hands and you pay unquestioning attention to their misinformation. Look over there, the world is being run by Satanic, child abusing faggot socialist liberals and foreign scum. Arf. So why are you obeying one of the above mentioned groups in the name of taking back control of your freedom? Because they already know how you will react. Because you created the infamous All Seeing eye yourselves by feeding information into the data base. Because you are so easy to trick into believing you are thinking for yourselves. ‘They’ don’t need to insert chips or vaccines with nano bots, they can just implant you with audio visual media and Nuremberg style rallies.

Take two blonde, fat stupid white men. Liars to the highest degree. One an entitled megalomaniac spoiled child and the other with half the megalomania. A glance at their track record and into their eyes should have told you all. Seems it didn’t. It took over four years and up to the week Trump left, for the rats to finally start jumping ship and for the band of the Titanic to start changing their tune. Twitter took four years to decide to cut off his fix. Nero played golf while America burned with Covid. 414,000 dead. Incitement to riot? Incitement to riot.  Investigate his wannabe aristocratic family and do not allow his children anywhere near politics. Or Smug petulant Kusher anywhere near business.

Over 74 million still think Trump is a go to guy rather than a take a running jump at kicking him up his arse. He pardoned various criminals, including Bannon, (lest the fascist scuzzball fink on him)...and no pardon for Maxwell... who still could, unless she also should manage to ‘kill herself’ by accident fnord in prison. Seems likely Donald could run for office again, form his own party....What? Pence announced ‘Space Force’ personnel will be called Guardians; yes really...this year will see their first battle against the children of Thanos. Thanos, thy name is Trump. But lacking the compassion or humour.

Good morning to billionaire Mr Robert Mercer...a ‘Christian’ Conservative, gun lover, climate change denier, donor of over 100 million dollars to right wing candidates, 15 million of which went into Cambridge Analytica/Brexit and more to Breitbart and Trumps 2016 campaign. On the face of it, both he and his second daughter Rebekah would seem to have their fingers hard on many triggers of chaos, all of which serve only the rich and Russia. Breaking up partnerships, friendships, splitting unions and sowing discord. Check. Encouraging  the working  and middle class to merely shift their belief across to another band of disreputable rich guys by telling them how corrupt the other rich guys are. Look out! They might be Socialists! A lot of them are Europeans! They eat children and want immigrants to swarm over your town! Works like a charm. It would be so nice if billionaires would actually behave in a decent moral way (yes, sarcasm) and actually help out more, regardless of whether there is a return on their ‘charity’, instead of being the James Bond villain scum they act like.

And speaking of Q...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Arf. That narcissist prick in horns Jacob Chansley of Arizona...Shaman? Shame man. Bullhorn? Bullsh...t. No hanging lawmakers for you boy. He only eats organic food? So what? A lover of nature? Which is why he wears fur and horns and wishes death upon fellow Americans who are ‘traitors’. The Kremlin and Mercer have done a job as sweet as they did with Brexit divisions. Just let the rabid cretins do all their work for them splitting unions. Well, it’s what the CIA did so well against communism. Now it is our turn. Watching yanks and brits demand more control of their democracy while pulling it apart. Hilarious. Q Onan wanked their conspiracy to death and are now confused the Golden One has not led them to the revolution...not exactly levitating the Pentagon are you?

They believed the world is run by a paedo satan worshipping elite who plot against Trump and operate a global child sex trafficking ring. Yes really. So you can see how they appeal to the deranged righteous Christian gun toting hordes and internet savvy youth against the Deep State. Arf arf arf. The Kemlin will have studied key points as to what gets the average American and British goat and exploited it. People are so keen to share their beliefs, ideas and fears on social media that it is simple to collect and combine such info...(as happened with Cambridge Analytica) and use it for manipulating gain. Putin/Mercer probably told Trump the nature of the beast. ’If you want followers, do this...’Follow the algorithm. Dying covid patients continue to deny they even have it in South Dakota etc...that is how well the misinformation works.

Boris. A pathetic deal with Europe after an endless mantric blather of an ‘oven ready Brexit’. The chumocracy in full force as Ayanda Capital receive a 150 million pound PPE contract and provide no masks at all. And tax exile Tory donor (Lord) Ashcroft’s firm lands a 350 million pound vaccine contract (without a tendering process). Well, rather help a pal than put money into the National Health Service eh Boris? In 2019, the music industry brought in around 5.8 BILLION pounds, whereas the fishing industry netted (arf) 446 million. Sunak and Johnson have not seen fit to grant work permits for musicians to play in Europe and bands from outside will find it harder to get visas to tour in Plagueland. ‘Health’ secretary Matt Hancock said it was ‘Peculiarly unusual’ why British people went to work when they were ill. ‘Why in Britain do we think it’s acceptable to soldier on and go into work if you have flu symptoms...’Hmm. Germany pays 100 percent of sick pay. Czech Republic pays approx 60. The UK? 26. Good enough answer you prick? This guy also voted against food parcels for children, and then reversed only after an outcry.

The ever lovely Good Catholic William Rees Mogg called UNICEF’s feeding of poor English children during a pandemic at Christmas a ‘publicity stunt’. Hmm...well in 2019 the charity received 6.4 billion in contributions of which the Tory government of the UK donated 494 million. Perhaps UNICEF wanted to make a point that the UK has the largest number of food banks in the democratic world (over 2000, Germany has 900) and that it was a little beyond shameful that this was necessary. Still making money from selling birth control/termination pills in Indonesia after having said all contraception even in cases of rape was wrong Billy? The English gentleman also said he found the rise in food bank usage as being ‘rather uplifting’. Verrry Christian man. And that rotting British fish are ‘happier’ now out of Europe. A joke? The 2019 EU clampdown on tax avoidance will be avoided by him thanks to Brexit. Heavenly off shore interests, Glory! ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God’. It easier for a camel to piss through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god. Mark 10 21:25. Good luck Billy.

Met a Christian guy again who tried to tell me a parable of sorts. A little bird was flying and suddenly fell into a field dead, a cow walked over and took a dump on the little bird and the heat of the manure brought the bird back to life. Overjoyed he started to sing and was heard by a cat that killed it. The moral being, don’t interfere with God’s plan. I wondered if that had been where Christ went wrong...perhaps he should have left lepers to die...but obviously no...he was a special case. Aha, so nobody should try and help anybody ever if they have a problem or are suffering. No one should help their own children, no doctors or surgeons...but priests are allowed because the intermediaries through whom the pious live vicariously are essential workers. Great parable. If you believe in God, don’t help anyone else. That’s the story of Christ eh?

The man who told me the story also said Donald was a great guy...I need to remind him Trump has broken every single one of the Ten Commandments (apart from direct murder) The burning cross is a T for Trump... ‘The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning’. ‘The function of theology? The recitation of the incomprehensible by the unspeakable to pick the pockets of the unthinking’. RAW. Natures God. Hilaritas Press.

The most wisdom from China since Confucius was tweeted several weeks ago to the smug frog like Nigel Farage who had written ‘Christmas cancelled. Thank you China.’ Upon which, the Middle Kingdom between Heaven and Earth replied ‘Wear a mask and stop talking s..t’. Wonderful...shame the state media Global Times then spoiled it by writing a pot/kettle article which suggested that such politicians...’care only about their political ambitions and see ordinary people as roadside grass.’ From a regime which mowed its own teenage children down in tank fire, ran over their bodies and sent the price of the bullets used in the execution of young rebels to their parents.

Meanwhile, back in the temple of ketamine far away from all that nonsense... Universe will respond non locally to my thought...All pure chance as exists cross divided in all encircling mode, arf...non-local effects...’the ‘maybe’ in between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in Quantum Logic, of ‘solid’ ‘objects’ that are superimpositions of waves, according to one quantum model, and of ‘minds’ that are superimpositions of waves if the ‘minds’ are transactions involving brains and the brains are made of cells which are made of atoms which are made of electrons which are superimpositions of waves’. RAW THE NEW INQUISITION. Yes. And...

The hidden variable theory of consciousness asserts (1) there is a subquantal level beneath the observational/theoretical structure of ordinary quantum mechanics; (2) events occurring on this subquantal level are the elements of sentient being. Drs Walker and Herbert.

‘Consciousnesses in this model is not ‘in’ our heads. Our brains are merely local receivers ‘consciousnesses ‘is’ ‘an aspect of the non-local field’ The ‘ego’ then is the locally tuned in aspect of this usually not-tuned-in non local field.

‘...we find that our consciousness controls physical events though the laws of quantum mechanics.’ Magick. Rise in Love, ‘arouse the coiled splendour within you’ :-)

[wesleyv21-blog]

Galapagos: Been there, done that(;

Hello once again!

Quito has never felt quite like home until now. After about 6 hours total of travel (including the hour I lost due to the time difference) from the Galápagos back to the Andes, I’m very glad to be back home-loosely speaking. There’s so much to tell yet so much that words can’t express, but I’ll give it my best shot to review everything that was our excursion to Guayaquil and the famous Galápagos Islands.

Last Wednesday we flew from Quito to Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city. Nicknamed the Pearl of the Pacific for its beauty and the pride of its inhabitants, Guayaquil is the financial hub of Ecuador and really always has been. It’s named after the legendary figures of Guayas and Quil, an indigenous couple who according to legend led the resistance against the Spanish in what is now the area around the city. It was damn beautiful—and hot as hell compared to Quito! Upper 80s with 100% humidity and no clouds! Our first stop was the centrally-located Parque Histórico, where we took a tour of the zoological/botanical gardens that featured animals and plants from all over Ecuador. Crocodiles, otters, parrots, mangroves, monkeys—it was pretty cool! After that, we ate lunch on the famous Malecón (Boardwalk) that sits right on the River Guayas. Then, we toured an art museum that housed an impressive collection of pre-Columbian art from all around Ecuador. Ecuador is home to the first culture in South America to make pottery (the Valdivia culture). The Ecuadorian coast can also boast to be the home of the Manta-Wantawillka culture, the best and only ocean navigators in the southeastern Pacific. In addition, the infamous Spondylus shells are found in the depths off the Ecuadorian coast. These shells were traded as far north as Baja California and as far south as Chile and formed an important part of the economies of various ancestral societies. Alas, our time in Guayaquil was limited to a day, but what a day we spent! It’s a beautiful city that doesn’t have a tradition of tourism interestingly enough, yet I couldn’t recommend it more.

Thursday was the big day, the one we were all looking forward to: the arrival in las Islas Encantadas, the Galápagos Islands. The word “Galápagos” comes from old Spanish and means a saddle; it originally referred to the various species of tortoises that inhabit the islands and then came to refer to the islands themselves. We spent Thursday and Friday in San Cristobal, the capital and home of the oldest human settlements on the islands. Unlike mainland Ecuador, there is no history of ancestral communities living on the islands. Even though the Manta-Wantawillka were the first to discover the islands, they didn’t settle them because they’re very inhospitable. Only 2 islands have natural sources of fresh water. Only 4 are inhabited. I never knew the meaning of “desert island” until I came here. Yet they’re a curious mix of tropical, desert, and high altitude. On the same island (such as San Cristobal or Santa Cruz), you can encounter 5 different micro-climates, each with their own vegetation, animal life, and weather. And then there are the islands that look like they’re otherworldly, such as Bartolomé or Baltra. Bartolomé is red and rocky with an occasional cactus sprouting out of the lava flows and this scraggly grey lichen sprawled out over the entire surface of the island. Baltra has completely red soil, like deep red soil, and the same grey lichen except in much vaster quantities. There are also ruined buildings all over the island—probably dating from the WWII U.S. military base—which give the island an Old West-type feel.

But anyway, Thursday we spent on San Cristobal. We checked into our hotel and chilled the rest of the day, heading down the boardwalk to the beach and swimming with sea lions (which are called lobos marinos in Spanish, or sea wolves, which to me makes a whole lot more sense than sea lions). Sea lions are literally everywhere on San Cristobal—on the benches, on the beaches, on the sidewalk, on the outdoor patios of the restaurants, sometimes on the street. They’ll chase you sometimes if you get too close—as some of the students found out! The way human settlements work on the Galápagos is that 97% of all the territory of the islands is reserved as the national park, leaving 3% for human development. San Cristobal boasts a population of about 8,000 people; Santa Cruz is the biggest in population with around 18,000. So yea, Thursday we spent exploring and swimming and trying to avoid sunburn (which would prove a losing battle the entire trip, as there was hardly ever a cloud in the sky all the days we were there. The sun would be roasting us from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. every day).

On Friday we took a boat out to a tiny rock called León Dormido to go snorkeling! This was the first time I had ever gone snorkeling and it was amazinggggggg. We wore wetsuits, flippers, and masks—the whole outfit lol. The current around this rock was such that you could just float effortlessly while looking at all the wildlife literally right below you. We swam with schools of fish, sea lions, sharks, and even sea turtles! It was absolutely incredible to be only 10 feet from all these animals you see at the aquarium or on TV. One of the students brought a GoPro camera and got the whole experience—including the animals—on video! After eating lunch on the boat and taking a wonderful nap in the sun (which I later came to regret due to sunburn), we returned to San Cristobal to hear a talk by a local political activist about the tourism industry and local relations of power. This to me is far more interesting than the wildlife, although it’s never emphasized. The activist told us that some people come to the Galápagos not realizing that people actually live on the islands lol, which is indicative of the image projected to the rest of the world. There’s basically 4 entities that run the islands. There’s the Charles Darwin Research Station, which has the most funds of any of the entities I’ll discuss and enjoys the most privileged access to all of the islands—such unrestricted access that not even the local politicians or national park people have. Their agenda, which is ostensibly one of conservation and study, often prevails over the local interests of the people who inhabit and try to make a living on the islands. Second, there’s the Parque Nacional Galápagos, which is the administrative body of the national park aspect of the islands and is overseen principally by the Ministry of the Environment. Their agenda often meshes with that of the Charles Darwin Station, yet the key difference is the amount of money the two have. Whereas the Parque Nacional is funded by the state (meagerly), the Charles Darwin Station is an NGO affiliated with the Charles Darwin Foundation, which receives much more money from international donors. Third, there is the political system on the islands which includes local governments for each of the 4 inhabited islands as well as an overarching political body. Whereas the local governments are elected directly, the Minister of the Galápagos is appointed by the president and thus often a) is corrupt, b) is unpopular, c) does not govern with the interests of the local population in mind, or d) some combination of a, b, and c. Finally, there is the tourism industry, which really comprises two sets of individuals and companies: local and foreign. The foreigners are technically not allowed to operated in the islands by law, yet one always sees the fleets of international cruise ships circling the islands like vultures with their tourists on board. The corrupt politicians allow the international cruise lines to operate illegally, and the fucked up thing is that the conservationist agenda usually goes along with it because the rhetoric of tourism in the Galápagos is ostensibly to minimize the environmental impact of tourists by having them take up as little space as possible for as little time as possible. So, it’s very common for a trip to the Galápagos to be spent almost entirely on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship or another similar one, which then lays anchor at various ports only long enough for tourists to disembark to take pictures, buy things, eat, etc.

We’re not taking this route obviously. In fact, this piece is important for yall to know in case you ever want to come to the Galápagos or have friends/family who do. It’s vital that visitors to the islands DO NOT rely on big-name, international travel agencies to visit the islands. In addition to the environmental impact these companies leave behind, they siphon money out of the local economy. Only 1/3 of the money spent in the Galápagos stays in the pockets of the local galapagueños. Even though the islands are the richest province in Ecuador, they should be a lot better off. Instead, their environment and their jobs get auctioned off to foreign companies because of corrupt politicians and because tourists don’t know any better and go with the household names over the local establishments and tours. The latter is wayyy more fun, trust me. And part of the fun lies in knowing that I’m contributing to a responsible tourist ethos. I came into this trip thinking that tourism was inherently exploitative. Now I understand that that’s not the case. However, when big transnational companies appropriate the livelihood of the local population, that’s when tourism becomes a problem. Now yall know and can plan a smart, eco-friendly, and relatively sustainable trip to these magical islands.

On Saturday we arrived on Santa Cruz, the biggest island population-wise and the tourism hub. We stayed on land and checked out the Center of Environmental Interpretation, a system of trails with cool information about the formation of the islands as well as sociological information about the human aspect of the islands. We hiked up breathtaking (literally and figuratively) trails and spied frigate birds, boobies, big spiders, marine iguanas, giant cactuses, etc. I found out that the colonists as the residents are called have their residency pretty much for life; the only way they can lose it is by failing to renew it once every 10 years or so. Yet obtaining residency in the first place is tricky: one must marry someone with residency or be born to parents who have residency. Living on the islands is so exclusive so as not to upset the delicate ecosystems or overburden the economy. This whole time we had been eating fabulously. I’ve never had seafood so fresh in my life. Lobsters, tuna, shrimp—out of this world delicious. At dinner some of us met this random U.S. dude touring the islands after having just graduated college. He rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning, but then he mentioned how he really wanted to try ayawaska recreationally. Ayawaska, or ayahuasca, is an entheogen that combines two vines found in the Amazon—one contains a neurotransmitter released at birth and at death, and the other contains an enzyme that allows for the metabolization of the neurotransmitter. This combination is distilled into a drink and taken by shamans (yachakuna in Kichwa, where the term ayawaska comes from) of various Amazonian nations in order to divine the future, receive instructions or warnings, or cope with loss or other powerful life events/emotions. It is a sacred plant, and partaking in an ayawaska ritual requires years of dedication, preparation, and for outsiders, trust and bonds of communion with a local population. It cannot be taken recreationally, and the fact that this tourist expressed an interest in doing so even after one of us pointed all the above out to him just really irritated me. However, it’s important I use him as an example and continuously strive to root out my own ignorance and prejudices toward cultures different than my own.

Sunday was the best snorkeling day by far. We took a boat from Santa Cruz to the little island of Bartolomé, which is home to perhaps the most iconic image of the islands (Google Galápagos and you’ll probably see it, or check out my Facebook as I posted a picture of it). Bartolomé is so inhospitable that it’s been used as a site to film movies that take place on Mars. There’s dried lava plumes, ridges, cliffs, and tunnels everywhere, and the sparse vegetation only adds to the merciless landscape. With no trees and no clouds to shade us, we were sizzling as we climbed up to the summit to look down on the bay. But it was all worth it once we jumped in the water! We snorkeled and swam with penguins! The second smallest species in the world. They were adorableeee! And they zoomed in the water right past us as we snorkeled! We also saw numerous sharks lurking on the seafloor, as well as seastars and tons of fish. There’s this giant fish called a parrotfish that is as brightly colored as its namesake. They are absolutely breathtaking. And the water was a bright turquoise—I’ve only ever seen water that beautiful in the movies haha. We also ate lunch on the boat (an incredible experience), and on the way back to Santa Cruz (about a 2 hour ride), I sat up top with the captain and jammed out to his playlist of reggeaton classics while the wind whipped my hair and the sun beat down on my back. Simply beautiful.

Monday was our last full day. We visited two sinkholes that are named Los Gemelos (the Twins) because they’re right next to each other. They were pretty cool but uneventful haha. Then we visited the famous Charles Darwin Research Center. We toured the tortoise breeding program and saw baby tortoises! They were absolutely the cutest things ever—only like the size of your hand, moving all around their enclosures exploring to their precious little hearts’ content, and eating leaves like you’ve never seen anything eat a leaf. The day passed far too quickly and left us all with sadness and nostalgia. We played classic group games like Hot Seat and the question game and games of that sort through the night. As we were leaving today, I couldn’t help but feel that this is an adios and not a chao—a goodbye forever and not an “until next time.” I certainly would love to return but I just don’t see how I’ll ever be able to for the rest of my life. Then again, I’m one of the 1% of the world population who has ever visited the islands. And what a fulfilling trip it was. Still though, returning to Quito has filled me with a profound sadness. It’s not just leaving behind such a paradise and knowing that I’ll never be able to recreate that experience in the same way. It’s also returning to the daily grind of classes and homework. But even more than that—being in an airport for the first time since January has filled me with homesickness for one of the really only times so far. I can’t really explain why beyond that just physically being in an airport made me recall the flight to the unknown that took place what feels like eons ago. The domestic and international arrivals share the same exit point, so I was literally back in the same place I was when everything was so new and I didn’t know anybody or anything. It was a weird feeling.

So, there ya have it—the Galápagos episode over and done with. These words fail to do justice to the sights, smells, sounds, emotions, and thoughts that comprised this trip. I encourage yall to go and see for yourselves, because the Enchanted Islands will certainly enchant you—as they have done me.  

[charlenewaterhouse]

Web 2.0 Backlinks Can Be Fun For Everyone

Table of Contents

Getting The Das To Work

Domain Authority Stacking Things To Know Before You Get This

Domain Authority Stacking Fundamentals Explained

More About Web 2.0 Links

MozRankMozRank is measurement of your site's link authority and popularity on a 0-10 scale. This view reveals your site's score in comparison to your competitor's websites gradually. MozTrustMozTrust is a measurement of your website's "link trust" on a 0-10 scale. This view reveals your website's score in contrast to your rival's websites with time.

Simply click the "Include Rival" button in the top right corner, enter the competitor's domain, and select "Include Competitor". It will take a while for information to appear about that rival, as Pronto Analytics begins aggregating information about the competitor's site every week. Removing a competitor's websiteTo remove a competitor, click the gear icon to the right of that listing and pick "Delete".For more information about DAS visit our Official Website.

Provided by Ashley Greene at MozCon 2018 When everyone else zags, the winners zig. As winners, while your 101+ rivals are attempting to automate 'til the cows get home and split test their method to greatness you're zigging. Whether you're B2B or B2C, you're marketing to people. Genuine individuals. Homo sapiens.

Das for Beginners

In this talk, Ashley will offer a framework of simple user interview and study techniques to construct consumer compassion and your "voice of customer" playbook. Using genuine examples from companies like Slack, Pinterest, Intercom, and Airbnb, this talk will assist you reveal your consumers' greatest problems and discomfort points; understand what, when, and how your consumers research study (and Google!) a requirement you solve; and find brand-new sources of information and influencers so you can unearth circulation channels and partnerships. domain authority stack.

Some Ideas on Authority Link Building You Should Know

Prior to we dive into the nitty-gritty, let's start with the basics: Established by Moz, a software company that constructs tools to assist in SEO, link structure, content marketing and incoming marketing, Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking metric "that anticipates how well a site will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs)." DA varieties from one to 100, with a greater score agent of a higher capacity to rank.

Seems direct enough, right? Wrong. The problem with DA that has left many SEOs with much to be wanted was how they tackled computing ball game: weighing greatly on the quantity of links a website gets, but not necessarily the quality of 1) those links, or 2) the material on that website.

In reality, according to an short article in Search Engine Journal, decreasing the value of link sellers is one of the primary objectives for Domain Authority 2. 0. Moz's Principal Browse Scientist Russ Jones discusses the thinking for this update in the following declaration: "Domain Authority has actually become the industry standard for determining the strength of a domain relative to ranking.

The brand-new Domain Authority is better at understanding sites that do not rank for any keywords at all. Moz is changing, from an intricate linear design to a neural network. This offers numerous benefits, consisting of spotting link adjustment. In addition to taking a look at link counts, Moz is now able to incorporate their proprietary Spam Score and complex circulations of links based upon quality and traffic, in addition to other aspects.

The Of Domain Authority Stacking

According to Jones: "These essential improvements to Domain Authority will provide a much better, more trustworthy metric than ever before. We can remove spam, improve correlations, and, most importantly, update Domain Authority relative to all the changes that Google makes." The change is coming on March 5, so anticipate to see some fluctuations in your score.

"We staked the model to our existing Domain Authority which decreases modifications, but with all the improvements there will no doubt be some variation in Domain Authority scores across the board." These changes will enable online marketers to make more informed strategic and data-driven decisions. Having a more concrete DA that isn't manipulated toward black hat link practices should reveal your real ranking capacity, now that link purchasers and sellers are becoming devalued.

Because the infamous Penguin Update, lots of webmasters have been rushing to eliminate backlinks Google might have penalized them for (a. k.a. high risk links, toxic links, bad links, and so on). However how do you identify which links are toxic and should be removed? There appears to be a conversation regarding whether Domain Authority must be used to determine which links are high quality vs which links are hazardous and need to be gotten rid of.

The 6-Minute Rule for Domain Authority Stacking

But correlation does not equal causation. I believe that using domain authority as a primary metric to figure out which links are hazardous and should be removed is a potentially unsafe error - DAS. Here's why ... According to the main SEOmoz glossary, "Domain Authority represents SEOmoz's finest prediction about how a site will carry out in search engine rankings" and it is computed by "combining all of our other link metrics (connecting root domains, variety of total links, mozRank, mozTrust, and so on) into one single rating." In other words, domain authority is a measurement of a website's backlinks.

Fascination About Das

To put it simply, the link was acquired mainly to manipulate search rankings, not to offer value to users. Examples of manipulative links consist of paid links, link exchanges, spam blog sites, and poor quality directories. I have actually seen a number of correlative studies, consisting of one really extensive study, planned to determine what factors are related to a natural link profile vs.

The elements identified were: Anchor text. Sites that had an excessively high portion of backlinks that utilized "money keywords" as anchor texts were more likely to be punished. Natural link profiles consisted of more top quality and URL anchor texts. Relevance. Websites that had an excessively high percentage of backlinks from sites that were on unrelated subjects were more likely to be punished.

[theabigailthorn]

What I’m Reading: Susan Faludi, “Backlash”

This book is written around a really interesting concept: rather than a history of feminism and feminist progress it’s a history of the steps backwards taken as a result of misogynist reactions to feminism, what Faludi calls the Backlash. The book came out in 1992, and so it covers the Reagan Era most thoroughly, though the patterns it identifies are still operating today so in some ways it’s also very prescient. It doesn’t discuss trans women much at all, so for a look at the link between transphobia and misogyny I still recommend Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl.

This is 100% recommended reading for the person in your life who says that sex discrimination in hiring or pay doesn’t happen because it’s illegal: through multiple detailed case studies Faludi shines light on the sneaky underhanded ways women have been kept down, for instance the women workers of the American Cyanamid Corporation who in 1976 - nineteen seventy six - were offered a choice between losing their jobs or undergoing medical sterilisation thanks to the company’s “foetal protection policy” that was based on zero evidence and by its own logic should have applied equally to male workers. See also Sears, Roebuck and Company vs EEOC, a 1986 case where Sears & Roebuck were taken to court for systematically excluding women from higher-paying sales jobs and argued, in an actual legal court, that women “just chose” lower paying, less-demanding jobs because they weren’t interested in the big ticket work - a conclusion they reached by asking zero of their female employees. In these cases (and many, many others) the onus was on the female employees, who often had families to support, to spend time and resources mounting legal cases, and run the risk of being fired or muscled out for rocking the boat.

Faludi also covers the Backlash in popular media, both news and entertainment, and in fashion - including in one fantastic section about the workings of the lingerie industry whose all-male Intimate Apparel Committee just flat out made shit up in 1987 to sell underwear that women didn’t want: they sent out a press release saying that “more and more” women were buying sexy underwear, and the fashion press dutifully repeated it, but in fact the opposite was true! Lingeries sales were falling because companies hardly ever asked women what they actually wanted their underwear to be like: The Limited, the company who bought Victoria’s Secret in 1982, conducted no market research but instead asked their male managers what their ‘romantic fantasies’ were! The exception was Jockey, who, despite objections from senior executives, marketed a line of women’s underwear in 1983 that was based around actual market research asking women what they wanted - within 5 years they were the biggest women’s underwear company in America. This success went all but ignored in the rest of the lingerie industry, who instead mass-marketed the thong, so the 80s saw an extremely sexy overproduction crisis. I said the book was prescient, and you might notice the parallel between the Sears case and the now infamous Google Bro Manifesto by James Damore, in which Damore argued similarly that women are underrepresented in tech jobs because they just have different interests and dispositions, a conclusion he, like Sears, reached by consulting zero of his female colleagues. That’s an incredible thing about Backlash - the arguments that antifeminists make come up again, and again, and again, and almost never change. In particular, the ‘Women are taking over male spaces!’ argument was made by Cato in circa 198BC when Roman women were permitted to drive chariots - imagine saying women were taking over male spaces when women couldn’t even vote! See also the ‘feminism has made women unhappy’ argument which dates at least to Victorian times. This is an astonishing, detailed, and very accessible book. You can get it here, and it comes highly recommended! Thank you to Nkanyiso Khwane, who sent it to me from my Amazon wishlist!

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

Ultimate Video Toolkit Review

Ultimate Video Toolkit Review

The core concept behind Ultimate Video Toolkit is to enable anyone to develop After Effects high quality video clips, by dragging and also dropping a couple of files, and by duplicating as well as pasting their text right into placeholders.

With Ultimate Video Toolkit individuals can produce almost ANY kind of video, without a pricey software program like After Impacts, without previous video clip editing expertise, as well as actually within just a few mins.

The Ultimate Guide to Conveniently Make Educational Video Clips

Find out precisely what to do to make your very own how-to, tutorial, as well as training video clips.

What do you do when you require to find out something brand-new? What happens if you require to understand just how to fix something? Or what happens if you require to find out how to utilize a brand-new software program or service?

You most likely search for a video.

According to a recent Ultimate Video Toolkit research study, 53% of people reported viewing two or more instructional video clips each week (up 152% contrasted to 2013).

Regardless of your industry, educational videos are the most effective distribution approach if you're serious about showing others, growing your organisation, or developing an on the internet training course.

If you're wanting to level-up your video skills as well as expertise, you'll like this overview.

No time at all to review the entire guide?

Do not worry. Get a complimentary PDF version so you can review it whenever you desire.

Research shows that when individuals try to find response to their questions, they prefer to consult a video. Actually:

4x as many people choose to view a video clip regarding a product as opposed to check out it when purchasing choice.

2 out of three employees full tasks better when instructions are given visually, as well as they soak up info 7% faster.

7 out of 10 millennials are likely to view a company video clip when shopping online

Understanding as well as academic web content are viewed over a billion times a day on YouTube.

Online video program websites like Ultimate Video Toolkit, Lynda.com, as well as Skillshare are growing to 10s of countless trainees.

Regrettably, it can be an obstacle for several small companies, instructors, and also entrepreneurs to find the time to develop video web content.

That's why we're right here to help!

In this guide, we share our tricks to creating top quality training and tutorial video clips. We know what jobs (and also what doesn't) as well as we're going to show you specifically what to do to make how-to and training video clips.

Below's what you'll locate in this totally free overview to produce fantastic training video clips:

Component 1: What is an instructional video?

Component 2: Typical errors people make when producing videos

Part 3: Exactly how to make an instructional video with screen recording

Part 4: Exactly how to develop a training video with a cam

Component 5: The true expense of making tutorial, training, as well as explainer videos

Part 1: What is a training video?

A training video is any type of video clip that demonstrates a process, transfers understanding, discusses an idea, or reveals someone how to do something.

Developing educational video clips isn't restricted to training layout specialists. A minimum of, not any longer. Any person, in any kind of industry, can (and also most likely must) produce instructional video clips. Instances of educational video clips you can develop include:

Micro video clips

Micro video clips are short instructional video clips that focus on teaching a solitary, narrow topic. They're typically less than a minute lengthy and appeal to today's media consumers, who have infamously attention deficit disorder.

Guide videos

Tutorial video clips are the best educational technique for educating a procedure or offering step-by-step instructions. Generally between 2-10 mins long, tutorial videos may leverage several training approaches.

Occasionally described as "how-to" videos, the most effective ones are carefully intended and have a professional touch.

Educating video clips

Educating videos are developed to improve an employee's office skills. Ultimate Video Toolkit typically develop on-line training videos to cover interpersonal subjects, such as conformity as well as harassment training, or job-related topics, such as software and hardware training.

Training video clips typically utilize video footage of real people to attach the fitness instructor and also student. These can be interactive videos and frequently suit amongst a bigger training course.

Explainer videos

Explainer video clips are short videos (usually less than 2 mins) that explain a service principle or product in an amusing, aesthetic way. They normally utilize standard animations to discuss a larger subject, product, or service. Explainer videos streamline complicated ideas into easily absorbable material.

Ultimate Video Toolkit Testimonial & Overview

Developer: Max Rylski

Item: Ultimate Video Toolkit

Date Of Introduce: 2020-Jan-27

Time Of Introduce: 11:00 EST

FE Rate: $37

Sales Web page: https://www.socialleadfreak.com/ultimate-video-toolkit-review/

Niche: Software application

Ultimate Video Toolkit Testimonial - Quality & Perks

Pre-Made Storyboard Templates Consisted Of - Produce Multi-Scene Videos SUPER QUICK

To make it SUPER EASY for you to develop videos, I'm consisting of full multi-scene ready-to-go videos. All the material is currently prepared nicely, and all you have to do is duplicate as well as paste your message and photos. You can essentially have a full video developed in under 5 mins with these layouts.

150+ Editable Scenes Consisted Of - Mix & Suit Scenes To Develop Your Very Own Storyboard Sequences

There more than 150 specific scenes. Each scene is well formatted with text, photos, animations, transitions, and so on. You can take these scenes, and prepare them in any order you desire. Developing your own multi-scene video clips.

REAL Drag & Decrease Editor Consisted Of - What ever you see on the screen, you can drag & drop anywhere

Position text where ever before you desire, place images where ever before you want, relocate anything you want anywhere on screen. Develop your own unique layouts.

Mix & Suit Aspects From Different Templates - Combine genuine footage videos, with computer animated text, with explainer components, with 3D computer animations, etc.

1,000+ Premium Video & Video Properties Included

With Ultimate Video Toolkit you can add your very own pictures, videos and logos inside the layouts. That indicates you can develop videos for ANY specific niche subject. And to obtain you began I'm including 100's of possessions like pictures, backgrounds, components, and a lot more. Drag & Drop these assets right into the themes OR import them right into any other video editor you currently have.

Intermediary Individuals Photos

These pictures have been skillfully removed of their backgrounds, so they're really versatile. You can include them on top of any type of background.

HD Video Clips

To obtain you began developing video clips, I'm consisting of a collection of hand chose HD video clips. These video clips can be found in all type of different classifications like: city, fitness, laptop computer, phone, crowd, nature, and so on.

Ultimate Video Toolkit Develops Virtually Any Sort Of Video, For Any Type Of Particular niche

Business Promotion Videos

Create streamlined, modern-day and clean looking company videos. Add your own images (or video) into placeholders, after that copy & paste your message. It's that very easy.

3D Computer animations

Wish to REALLY get your visitors attention? Add these eye-popping 3D animated scenes to your video clips!

Recipe Video clips

Turn your plain text recipes into stunning VIDEO CLIP recipes.

Explainer Videos

Develop prominent explainer design videos with animated objects and message.

Travel Videos

Flaunt your travel video clips in vogue with these traveling layouts.

Item Discount Rate Videos

Let individuals know about your unique sale with these product discount rate videos. Can be utilized for ANY sort of item, in any niche. Simply change the placeholder images with your own.

Quick Trimming Video Clips

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Stylish Videos

Desire a slower, much more sophisticated video? We have themes for that also. These are wonderful for fashion, beauty products, or anything else "sophisticated".

3D Laptop Computer Slideshows

Put your video clips inside a 3D computer animated laptop computer. Create trendy looking 3D laptop computer slide shows. It's something one-of-a-kind that looks cool and makes sure to get attention.

Action Videos

Turn any kind of images (or video) right into fast reducing activity video clips. They come with motion picture transitions that whip, rotate, as well as zoom between scenes. Providing that "action" really feel.

Occasion Promo Videos

This is one more tidy and also streamlined design template that can be made use of to advertise an event. OR can be used for any other discount kind video (not just events).

Fitness Videos

These layouts utilize VIBRANT shades, and quickly motion to produce upbeat videos. Great for fitness as well as sporting activities.

Picture Slider Videos

Existing your photos in vogue with these "image sliders". You can place the photos anywhere you want on the display-- simply drag and also drop.

Fancy Logo Reveals

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If you require a more tidy as well as straightforward logo stinger, these themes are for you. They work excellent with social media sites icons also, not simply logo designs. So if you want to promote your social channel web link, these are fantastic for that.

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[toriashappy]

Marketing in the 21st Century

Today, i’d like to take everyone through something i’m passionate about: marketing. I’m in my final year at my business school and though i’ve learned so much from my classes and professors, it’s important to consider the information we’re taught in a bigger context. It can be helpful to not only know what to do, but to see examples of what to do in action with the contrast of marketing that did not go as planned and needs to be learned from in order to improve in the future. So please read on to enjoy the contrast of two companies with marketing as a huge part of their business: Fyre Media Inc. (behind the 2017 Fyre Festival) and L’Oreal (behind many of the most popular cosmetics, skin care, nail care and hair care brands). 

Introduction

For my project, I have chosen two companies which I think representation both my marketing major and interests. I wanted a way to pursue my interest in business and my creativity at the same time, which is why I chose marketing as my concentration. One day, I’d love to have both my marketing world and performing interests collide so I can have a career pursuing both of those interests. I don’t have a selected marketing career in mind, but I’m interested in working in industries like entertainment, cosmetics, mental health, music or publishing. So, the two companies I chose reflect two of those interests, a company based in the entertainment industry and another that is a dominant force in the cosmetics world.

As my unethical company of choice, I have chosen to discuss Fyre Media Inc. Fyre Media Inc. was behind the infamous Fyre Festival in 2017 which was promoted as a “luxurious music festival” that promised, “the full VIP experience” with tickets ranging from $500 - $25,000 per person (Hanbury, 2019). Their main marketing of the event involved many prominent influencers like Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber and Bella Hadid partying on a Pablo Escobar’s private island in the Bahamas where the festival was set to take place (Hanbury, 2019). However, when festivalgoers arrived, they were greeted with school bus transportation, crowded hurricane tent accommodation and cheese sandwiches for dinner (Hanbury, 2019). The aftermath of the event included a $100 million-dollar lawsuit and their 27-year-old CEO Billy McFarland faced a six-year prison sentence for allegedly defrauding investors (Hanbury, 2019). I chose Fyre Media Inc. to study as I believe Fyre Festival is a good example of what unethical and misleading marketing looks like in the 21st century. McFarland illustrates some unethical leadership concepts caused by bases of power, shadows of power, personality disorders, the romance of leadership, faulty decision making and more. I think it is important to understand that having a marketing career means that you need to have a good understanding of proper practices when advertising your product to the consumer and that the image that a company chooses to project can eventually hurt them if they present themselves in an untruthful light and don’t fulfil what they promised.

The organization I have selected as my ethical organization is L’Oréal. L’Oréal is a house of brands and owns over 30 cosmetic, haircare and skincare companies such as Urban Decay, Clarisonic, Maybelline New York and Lancôme. The brands that L’Oréal owns are sold in high-end stores like Sephora and drugstore brands that are in Shoppers Drug Mart. L’Oréal has been recognized by Ethisphere Institute as one of the most ethical companies in the world nine times (L’Oréal, 2018a). L’Oréal prides itself on being one of the only companies in the world with a “Chief Ethics Officer” (L'Oréal, 2018a). L’Oréal identifies four core ethical principles it works to abide by which are trust, integrity, courage and transparency (L’Oréal, 2018a). Not only was L’Oréal named one of the most ethical companies, but it was also in the top 10 for the diversity and inclusion index. (L’Oréal, 2018b). I chose L’Oréal because I want to dig deeper into how it upholds its core principles through avenues like communication of expectations, proactive influence tactics, commitment, consistency and the Caux principles.

Before I start, it is important to consider that no company is ever perfect. Every company, no matter how successful they are can always strive to better themselves as there’s always something to learn about the world and processes that could be tweaked. And it’s now more important than ever before to recognize that marketing a company truthfully to the consumer is critical in the 21st century.

Overview of Fyre Media Inc.

Fyre Festival was posed to be one of the coolest events the world has ever seen. The purpose of the festival, however, seemed to get lost in the actual execution of it. Before Fyre Festival was born, in 2013 McFarland had released his first viral company called Magnises (Bloomberg, 2017). Magnises was marketed specifically to millennials as an exclusive black card, which turns the user’s current credit card into a sleek metal rectangle so they can “swipe in style” (Bloomberg, 2017). The duplicate card gave its members access to exclusive workshops, wine tastings, hotels, fashion shows and even a clubhouse where members could go to socialize with other millennials (Bloomberg, 2017). McFarland stated that Magnises had 100,000 cardholders by 2016 but crowd funder Wefunder (who brings startups and investors together) only listed 10,000 members, a tenth of what Billy indicated (Bloomberg, 2017). Unfortunately, Magnises also had its problems including a $100,000 lawsuit after the clubhouse they rented out was completely trashed (Bloomberg, 2017). Many of its millennial customers indicated they were not happy with their experience as they would purchase tickets for events but wouldn’t receive the tickets or they would be cancelled at the last second (Bloomberg, 2017).

While Magnises was taking off McFarland decided to put his attention into launching a new company with hip hop artist Ja Rule called Fyre Media (Gabai et al., 2019). Fyre was supposed to be an online marketplace where customers could go to book celebrities for their events such as birthday parties and weddings (Gabai et al., 2019). When McFarlane’s team was developing the marketing plan for the app, one of the Fyre employees MDavid Low suggested they host a kickoff festival with some of the talents that could be found on the app (Gabai et al., 2019). What started as a small concert, grew into what is now known as Fyre Festival. Once McFarland bought Pablo Escobar’s (an infamous drug lord) former island to host the festival on, McFarland and Rule immediately decided to create a promotional video to create a buzz on social media, without the actual logistics of the festival planned out yet (Gabai et al., 2019).

McFarland paid over four million dollars to get the most famous supermodels on the planet to participate in the video and then post about the festival on social media (Gabai et al., 2019). The video shoot ended up being more of a party than a marketing tactic as 90% of the footage was not marketing friendly and the talent didn’t understand what they were there to do (Gabai et. al., 2019). Before the video was released over 200 influencers posted an orange tile in what McFarland described would be the “best coordinated social influencer campaign ever” (Gabai et. al., 2019). When the teaser was released it was not clear to many people what the purpose was of the festival or who the target market was, as many consumers didn’t realize that this was to support the marketplace (Gabai et. al., 2019). When the campaign went live, McFarland immediately lost Escobar’s island as they were not allowed to mention him in the promotion, which they unfortunately did. The Fyre team scrambled to find a new island and moved the festival to the Great Exuma Island and only had about 100 days to pull it off (Gabai et. al., 2019). Though the Fyre team promised a luxurious experience in a cabana, partying with the hottest celebrities and being treated like a VIP the 100 days of development was not enough time to make a dent into seeing McFarland’s vision go through (Gabai et. al., 2019). The experience began with school bus transportation to a camp that was covered with hurricane tents for the attendees to sleep in which made so many people furious and began the disastrous public fallout for McFarland and his team members (Gabai et. al., 2019).

A few days after Fyre, a few dozen of the attendees banned together to get their lawyers in court to go after McFarland for $100 million in compensation for their experiences and he was soon afterwards arrested (Gabai et al., 2019). As the district did not have too much evidence yet, McFarland was released on a $300,000 bail but instead of laying low he went back to his old ways (Amato et al., 2019). A few weeks after the festival former attendees started to receive emails from a Frank Tribble at NYC VIP Access offering tickets to the Met Gala, The Victoria Secret Fashion Show, Beyoncé concerts and even Coachella VIP passes (Amato et al., 2019). As people would not recognize Tribble’s voice, McFarland wrote Tribble a script to follow when calling each customer about buying tickets (Amato et al., 2019). However, the tickets were determined to be a scam as individuals can only receive a personal invitation from Anna Wintour to attend the Met Gala and Coachella passes were not yet on sale (Amato et al., 2019). McFarland was later rearrested and plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud, which meant his unethical behaviour was finally catching up with him (Gabai et al., 2019).

Overview of L'Oréal

           L’Oréal’s mission can be described in three words “Beauty for All” but its strategy is one word: universalization (L’Oréal, 2018b). L’Oréal has over 86,000 employees that support their 36 brands and distributes its products to 150 countries around the world, grossing over forty billion dollars last year (L’Oréal, 2018b).  L’Oréal has a global vision where they are striving to deliver the best products globally that are not only made with the highest of quality and safety in mind but that L’Oréal “captures, understands and respects differences” (L’Oréal, 2018b). Not only is L’Oréal committed to delivering amazing products, but they have committed themselves to not only delivering financially but actively encouraging its team to be committed corporate citizens (L’Oréal, 2018b).

“In the 21st century, only companies that have integrated ethics in their culture, strategy and day-to-day practices will be sustainable” was said by the CEO of L'Oréal Jean-Paul Agon as the forward for their 40-page code of ethics report (L'Oréal, 2015). Agon is right, now more than ever companies need to think of sustainability as the most important part of their business plan which helps establish a healthy workplace creates mutual respect between superiors and their followers and reinforces the best practices for conduct in both personal and professional lives (L'Oréal, 2015). L'Oréal has four main ethical principles it guides its team with which include courage, transparency, respect and integrity (L'Oréal, 2015, p. 3). L’Oréal knows that consumers trust their brands, so they have tried to operate themselves with transparency so that consumers know exactly what is put into their products (L’Oréal, 2018b).  L’Oréal is focused on maintaining both an in-store presence, growing its online presence and broadening its technological capabilities by experimenting with virtual reality, artificial intelligence and data processing (L’Oréal, 2018b). The people behind a company can make it or break it so L’Oréal only hires the most passionate and committed people to make sure their brand is of the utmost excellence (L’Oréal, 2018b).  

Analysis of Fyre Media Inc.

Bases of Power

Two of the bases of power you can see reflected in McFarland’s leadership is expert power and referent power. Expert power is the influence that comes from having valuable skills or knowledge in a specific area (Busch & Wilson, 1976, p. 3). One of the reason’s McFarland had expert power was because he was viewed as trustworthy and credible by his followers (Lunenburg, 2012, p. 4). Billy’s credentials from him practically being an entrepreneur since he was 9 years old which built up his expertise and made others believe he had gained the necessary credentials since he did end up starting Fyre in the first place (Lunenburg, 2012, p. 4).

The second base of power McFarland possessed is referent power which comes from being viewed as a role model who is deeply beloved by his followers (Busch & Wilson, 1976, p. 3). As McFarland was viewed as a very talented salesman, he often turned his followers into admires of his outward traits such as his “compassion has no bounds” or that “Billy was and still is a visionary” (Amato et al., 2019). When McFarland needed character references during his trial, many people praised him for his kindness, creativity, talent and one even said that “He is the most inspiring and motivating person I have ever met aside from my mother” (Amato et al., 2019). So, because Billy was highly admired, many people respected his decision to proceed with the festival as many thought he knew better since he had a good reputation and was very charismatic (Lundenberg, 2012, p. 4).

The Shadows of Power

Arguably, the shadow that counted for McFarland’s downfall was the shadow of mismanaged information. Mismanaging information involves choosing between hiding the truth or lying (Johnson, 2018, p. 14). Leaders may keep information a secret, so they avoid certain questions or delay any repercussions (Johnson, 2018, p. 14). Not only does mismanaging information involve lying, but it also includes fudging the numbers, so they look more attractive than they actually are (Johnson, 2018, p. 15). McFarland often inflated the numbers he told his employees and even the public about so that he could gain the necessary investment and trust necessary to keep his schemes operating (Gabai et al., 2019). When McFarland was arrested the FBI was able to find discrepancies between what he said to investors and the truth (Gabai et al., 2019). For instance, McFarland told investors he owned over 2 million shares of Facebook when in actuality he owned about 1000 shares (Gabai et al., 2019). McFarland also indicated in a spreadsheet that the Fyre team paid over 34 million dollars for talent when they only paid 1.5 million dollars (Gabai et. al, 2019). If employees knew about the Facebook shares, they may have been resistant to spending more money, which would have affected McFarland’s vision and investors may have pulled out if McFarland didn’t get the talent, he said he would hence his delay of the truth. Not only did he spend less than he indicated but he charged some of his bills to his employee’s personal credit cards, charging as much as $150,000 (Gabai et al., 2019). In the Hulu documentary (the only interview he was willing to do if he was paid) McFarland stayed resistant to releasing any truth as his responses would involve using the line “I cannot legally discuss this”, even though legally he could (Amato et al., 2019). When McFarland was called out for allegedly lying, he asked the interviewer to let him know of one thing he said that wasn’t true, which they were able to prove more than just one time (Amato et al., 2019). McFarland engaged in an ongoing practice of impression management, so he could create an ideal image called a prototype in his followers’ minds (Johnson, 2018, p. 16). McFarland took the societal ideal of an entrepreneur like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs so that people would accept his influence (Johnson, 2018, p. 16). The issue with impression management is that it can be difficult to tell if a person is acting as a character or as themselves (Johnson, 2018, p. 17).

Personality Disorders

           Not only did McFarland have bad leader traits, but he also appears to have had aspects of all three of the personality disorders outlined by Johnson. McFarland did appear very narcissist, especially when he refused to alter his grand festival vision and he did have “a very unrealistic sense of what he could accomplish” (Johnson, 2018, p. 40). His obliviousness to the limits of his vision was seen when he refuted failure claims with the unwavering belief that he’d handle everything and that all everyone had to do was stay positive (Gabai et al., 2019). McFarland’s narcissism projected traits like confidence, not being afraid to think big and appearing as inspirational to followers, but those traits also made it more likely that he would partake in unethical practices (Johnson, 2018, p. 40). As a narcissist he was not afraid to abuse his power so he could meet his personal interest of greed, claiming special privileges like excessive partying and had an lead in an autocratic capacity where what he said goes and any feedback from others would be ignored as he believed they did not know better than him (Johnson, 2018, p. 40). McFarland’s vision was impossible to implement as not only did he have a tight timeline but he fired the caterer a few days before the festival, the island was practically a construction site and he did not allow any of his team members to alert any of his investors that everything was going wrong (Gabai et al., 2019). McFarland kept his methods of getting more money or more investors close to his chest so he did not have his employees believe he was untruthful and so they kept doing their jobs (Johnston, p. 43, 2018).

           McFarland also possessed Machiavellianism, which is described as the ability to manipulate everyone while maintaining a highly virtuous image, even if it meant he was upkeeping his image by engaging in unethical practices (Johnson, 2018, p. 42). When everything was bursting at the seams, McFarland tried to think of every twist he could implement to get more money such as offering a $25,000 yacht party with Kendall Jenner or listing a $50,000 cabana on the website, even though both of those offers did not exist yet and most likely wouldn’t come to fruition (Gabai et al., 2019). McFarland wanted to successfully execute his vision even if it meant he scammed investors, customers and even his own employees (Gabai et al., 2019). People who are highly Machiavellian often remain cold and emotionless (Johnson, 2018, p. 42). McFarland remained stoic when he was asked about things that would make most people very emotional like his close mentor passing away and if he had any remorse for what he did (Amato, 2019).

           The final personality disorder McFarland demonstrated was psychopathy. Psychopaths are not remorseful and use their charm to rise the ranks with the goal of prestige and wealth (Johnson, 2018, p. 43). McFarland took advantage of the fact that the people he was closely working with were very inexperienced such as his marketing director didn’t have any previous event experience and the talent booker was 22 years old and had never booked talent in his life (Gabai, 2019). Instead of hiring more workers when he realized more work needed to be done, he kept increasing the workload of his employees which disheartened his workforce and made them no longer enjoy the place they worked (Johnson, 2018, p. 44). McFarland was focused on the short-term gain of wealth and did not seem to consider how he would pay back his investors in the future or the shame his employees would feel if his event was a failure (Johnston, 2018, p. 44). When more problems started to pile up during the festival, McFarland was often absent and just drove around on his scooter and completely disappeared when the backlash started to leave his team to pick up the pieces (Gabai et al., 2019). And of course, psychopaths are the ones we are most likely to engage in fraud which is what McFarland was later arrested and plead guilty for (Gabai et. al, 2019).

Faulty Decision Making

           Faulty decision making also played a large role in McFarland’s downfall as a leader. McFarland did not have a realistic view of how the world works as he did not consider how other parties could be affected, that his unethical behaviour could be exposed to the public or that the decisions he made could cause long term consequences to his future (Johnson, 2018, p. 44). Even when the festival was over and McFarland was out on a $300,000 bail, he lived in a penthouse and continued to live his life as if we were still at the top of the pyramid (Gabai et al., 2019). McFarland may have seen his unethical behaviour as his way to save the festival and protect Fyre Media so he could justify his actions (Johnson, 2018, p. 46). McFarland was not very sensitive to any moral issues and options, as shown in the failure of moral imagination. McFarland did not care that he offered packages that did not exist for thousands of dollars which drove people to sell everything they owned just so they could go (Gabai et. al., 2019). His failure is further proven when he introduced the Fyreband which was an RFE bracelet each attendee could add their money to so they could pay wirelessly (Gabai et. al, 2019). McFarland failed to take into consideration the impact the bracelet would have on others, some attendees added up to $800,000 to their bracelets and he was happy to take all of their money even when he knew the bracelets would be worthless at the end (Gabai et. al, 2019).  McFarland even had some of his employees call attendees to pressure them into adding more money to the bracelet, which further demonstrated that he was not ashamed about what he was doing (Gabai et. al, 2019).

The Romance of Leadership

One of the most important things to consider is that McFarland alone is not responsible for the downfall of Fyre Media or the Fyre Festival. The press added to this illusion that he was responsible by normally including his name and Fyre Festival in the same headline. In fact, McFarland’s counterpart Rule was barely mentioned in the news headlines. In Meindl and Ehrlich’s essay on the romance of leadership, they found that leaders were most likely to be mentioned if results of the company were either a complete failure or a total success (Meindl & Enrlich, 1985). So, if things were at the extreme ends of the spectrum of failure to success, the executives were the ones in the spotlight and the impact from other lower level employees were not considered (Meindl & Enrlich, 1985). The time period of the festival was also only a few months after the tumultuous election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, which meant that more people were interested in learning about leadership as many citizens felt like they were in a downturn and were more likely to ignore other contributors (Meindl & Enrlich, 1985).

Another individual the Fyre staff wanted removed from the company was the marketing director at Fyre named Grant Margolin. Margolin was described as very hardworking, but he had no prior experience with advertising festivals or events in general, so he did not have the expert power needed to be a good leader (Gabai et al., 2019). Many of the workers cited Margolin as abusive and that he caused a lot of problems, although that matter was not further elaborated on (Amato et al., 2019). McFarland’s counterpart Ja Rule seemed to be more interested in not doing any work and instead party all the time but still get the credit (Gabai et al., 2019). One of the clearest moments that it’s apparent Ja Rule didn’t take things seriously was during a toast “here’s to living like movie stars, partying like rock stars and f**king like porn stars” (Amato et al., 2019). Though McFarland hired the best of the best to help him with his marketing and social media reach, another issue was that the groups worked in different offices, so each team couldn’t get the full picture of what was going on which meant none of them were clear on what the festival was actually becoming (Gabai et al., 2019). The social media company McFarland hired Jerry Media, said it felt an overwhelming sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) since the festival to them looked so great, but they never set foot on the island until the real event (Gabai et. al., 2019).  

Seeking Forgiveness

           In the aftermath of the festival, McFarland did not apologize to the public and would not take responsibility for his actions. Many attendees with access to the internet posted photos of the now infamous cheese sandwich, the barbaric experience of everyone fighting for tents and the loud music that played while trying to quiet everyone’s complaining (Gabai et al., 2019). When McFarland was informed about the negative posts, he had his lawyers send cease and desist letters to each account and threatened to pursue legal action (Gabai et al., 2019). He made many excuses in interviews including that someone stole the key box to the 250 villas he rented on the island and that the rain the evening prior was to blame and refused to take personal responsibility (Amato et al., 2019).  It wasn’t until he was a month into his six-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud that he released a public apology from prison (Keating, 2018). McFarland seemed to realize that apologies are critical in rebuilding or repairing relationships and that he has to say more than just sorry to start repairing his image (Kadar, 2009, p. 3).

In McFarland’s apology he shared with the magazine PEOPLE he seems to follow some aspects from Kadar’s 5-R model for apologizing (Johnson, 2018, p. 124). The first step is recognition, he did not list every wrong he committed but said overall “I am incredibly sorry for my collective actions and will right the wrongs I have delivered” (Keating, 2018). He then took responsibility for his actions and did not place blame on anyone else using “I made many wrong and immature decisions along the way and caused agony” (Keating, 2018). He used remorse at the beginning of his statement with “I am incredibly sorry” (Keating, 2018). Following his apology, McFarlane took restitution and spoke about trying to aid the people he has hurt “I’ve lived every day in prison with pain, and I will continue to do so until I am able to make up for some of this harm through work and actions that society finds respectable” (Keating, 2018). He finalizes his statement with repetition to show that he will not repeat his behaviour with “I’m devastated, but accepting, and I’ll use this opportunity to live my apology and become the family member, friend, business person and good citizen I should have been all along” (Keating, 2018).

Analysis of L’Oréal

Proactive Influence Tactics

L’Oréal has a lot of great things going for their corporation. L’Oréal’s leadership team demonstrates four proactive influence tactics to help motivate its workforce in the right direction. The first tactic is rational persuasion which uses logical arguments or explanations that will help tackle company objectives (Johnson, 2018, p. 212). One example of rational persuasion is seen in L’Oréal’s code of ethics where they put a lot of money into research and development so they can deliver consumer products that are “innovative, highly effective, practical and pleasant to use and which are manufactured to the most demanding standards of quality and safety” (L’Oréal, 2015, p. 3). The second tactic is apprising which acts to explain the benefits of complying with someone’s wishes (Johnson, 2018, p. 212). At L’Oréal apprising is a common tactic used especially in areas of social responsibility, which employees and investors may not understand on how it benefits them. For instance, L’Oréal shows the benefits to why potential job seekers would like to join “L’Oréal has already – thanks to its initiatives and the positions it has taken – managed to establish its position as an opinion leader and driver of change in a number of areas in the beauty industry” (L’Oréal, 2015, p. 3). The third tactic is inspirational appeals, which are clearly demonstrated when L’Oréal communicates it’s corporate responsibility passion with “We want to make a positive contribution to the countries and communities in which we are present, and respect local cultures and sensitivities” (L’Oréal, 2015, p. 3). The fourth tactic is consultation, so that management can create a conversation within the workplace so that they can constantly improve the business (Johnson, 2018, p. 212). To make sure consultation can occur L’Oréal encourages “an atmosphere of openness, courage, generosity and respect, so that all our employees feel free to come forward with their questions, ideas and concerns” (L’Oréal, 2015, p. 3).

Communication of Expectations

Because L’Oréal is such a large company, they’ve set strict standards and targets that they want to achieve so they can be the best company possible. L’Oréal has taken the practice of communicating its expectations so that company wide performance is consistent (Johnson, 2018, p. 215). The L’Oréal team realizes that goals cannot be accomplished overnight or even within a year, so they’ve set targets that they believe are possible for hot issues like climate change or labour (L’Oréal, 2018b. Not only have they laid out their goals, but they’ve added benchmarks that define what success means for them and how they will know they’re closing to their goal (L’Oréal, 2018b). Even though L’Oréal is not 100% emissions free or completely green, they celebrate how far they’ve come with stats like their emissions have been reduced by 77% and that 88% of their brands have assessed their social or environmental impact (L’Oréal, 2018b).  L’Oréal uses three of the channels that signal high or low expectancies. Climate is the environment leaders have created for their followers and in most of L’Oréal’s materials they have raved about their award-winning diversity movement as well as how flexible their work schedule is (L’Oréal, 2018b). Feedback may occur internally, but it is also reflected in L’Oréal’s annual reports which provide detailed feedback on how they are doing and describes the performance of each division (Johnson, 2018, p. 215). The third channel is input, which is how leader’s may give challenging projects to their workers to help advance their careers so that they are encouraged to stay motivated and perform positively (Johnson, 2018, p. 215). L’Oréal uses its company website to showcase what each division is doing and will even spotlight select employees on their website when they have made big accomplishments (L’Oréal, 2018).

Commitment and Consistency

           One of L’Oréal’s biggest strengths currently is its unwavering commitment and consistency towards its vision. L’Oréal hired their ethical leader in 2007, where the world wasn’t that aware to issues like climate change, child labour or animal testing which to many investors at the time, could have been viewed as a risky choice. L’Oréal was committed to being more than just a makeup company, they wanted to change lives (L’Oréal, 2018b). But as mentioned by Johnston, once we as individual’s or as a company take a clear stance, we will experience pressures to behave according to what we’ve promised (Johnston, 2018, p. 229). And when a company like L’Oréal commits to end its emissions, they become way less likely to abandon that vision because of the public pressure (Johnston, 2018, p. 229).

The Caux Principles

           Some of the principles that seem integral to L’Oréal’s commitment to corporate citizenship are the Caux Principles. The first principle is that corporations must go beyond what concerns their shareholders even if it means they sacrifice some profit (Johnston, 2018, p. 394). L’Oréal has clearly followed their own vision, as they have taken on environmental initiatives that cost them money to change which would take money out of shareholders pockets (L’Oréal, 2018b). The second principle is that corporations need to recognize the impact they can have in society moving forward so they can enrich the lives of others (Johnston, 2018, p. 394). L’Oréal is already thinking towards the future which is shown by its adoption and research put towards technology so that they will make the most innovative products and keep up with the growth of technology (L’Oréal, 2018b). The third principle is that businesses need to promote a culture that is transparent and honest (Johnston, 2018, p. 394). L’Oréal’s commitment to the third principle is shown by having an established code of ethics that is made available in every language and contains pertinent information for each business unit (L’Oréal, 2015). The fourth principle is that international rules must be respected, which must be the case since L’Oréal has expanded into 150 countries (Johnston, 2018, p. 394). The sixth principle is that companies have a duty to protect the environment through sustainable development (Johnston, 2018, p. 395). It’s quite well known that L’Oréal has an established environment program where they are committed to reducing their carbon footprint and finding more environmentally friendly ways to develop its products (L’Oréal, 2018b). And the final principle is the companies need to conduct themselves ethically and should not engage in illegal activities (Johnston, 2018, p. 395). Luckily, L’Oréal has ethics lines available to workers so that if they are suspicious of any activities happening at the company, the concerns can be communicated safely (L’Oréal, 2015, p. 7).

Recommendations

           When caught in a sticky situation, to save the company’s reputation there needs to be apologizing not just to the public, but individually to the people he has hurt. Not only did McFarland need to apologize but he should demonstrate “a commitment to move that desire into practice” (Kadar, 2009, p. 15). The next step McFarland should take is getting into contact with the people’s he’s hurt individually to show that he has accepted responsibility and does express remorse for the pain he has caused (Kadar, 2009, p. 15). McFarland should not ask for forgiveness but to recognize the consequences he caused by his actions and should not make the other party feel guilty for him (Kadar, 2009, p. 17). It’s important that McFarland realizes that his apology cannot undo the pain he’s caused or suddenly make everything better, but “transformational leadership can sometimes get close” to restoring the relationship (Kadar, 2009, p. 19). If McFarland can make his way into the working world again, there are a few things he should keep in mind to help fix his leadership issues. One area he could work on is temperance which is “enjoying life’s pleasures but not being controlled by them” (Johnson, 2018, p. 74). McFarland is shown to have an overwhelming desire for more wealth, so he needs to learn how to control his impulses by acknowledging them and understanding the pain that they can cause (Johnson, 2018, p. 75).  McFarland needs to understand what issues or trigger points may push him towards wanting more wealth like social pressure from others to keep doing great things (Johnson, 2018, p. 75). To avoid having the pressure placed on himself to make decisions, McFarland should also seek to practice wisdom and prudence (Johnston, 2018, p. 76). McFarland should let employees ask more questions about the work they do and be willing to work collaboratively with them so they can mitigate problems together (Johnston, 2018, p. 76). McFarland should always think in the long term and contemplate what decisions he makes today could affect him or others around him in the future (Johnston, 2018, p. 76).

           For L’Oréal to expand into new countries they need to have a good understanding of the four value orientations and how they can be applied to each culture so that their products sell. The first orientation is power distance which is a culture’s preference for unequally distributed power and status which is decided by both leaders and the followers (Hofstede, 2011, p. 9). For instance, one culture may expect a tier of roles for convenience and the other may have a separation of roles just based on spreading the status of members (Hofstede, 2011, p. 9). This could affect L’Oréal if they try to move into a country that is against makeup and does not let any women wear it, which would be a big problem for L’Oréal’s operations. Uncertainty avoidance is how a culture responds to uncertainty which is based on three indicators; anxiety level, employment stability and rule attitude (Hofstede, 2011, p. 10). For L’Oréal uncertainty avoidance could mean that some places will not be appropriate to launch new products unless the culture is familiar with what they are. The third value is regarding the attitudes about gender roles in a culture which is called masculinity versus femininity (Hofstede, 2011, p. 12). Gender roles may be the most important consideration L’Oréal can make if they decided to release a campaign that just had men wearing makeup, but it’s released in a country that dislikes breaking gender norms and would receive lots of backlash. The fourth and final value is individualism versus collectivism, where the former is based on each individual’s needs and desires and the former is based on the collective needs of society (Hofstede, 2011, p. 11). An issue L’Oréal could run into is if the message of the campaigns is “makeup for everyone” or “makeup to help you stand out”, depending on if they like to be joint or separate. Therefore, it is important that L’Oréal keeps these programmed value patterns in mind if they decide to expand to more unfamiliar or underdeveloped countries.  

Conclusion

We live in a day and age where everyone’s appearances can be carefully manipulated in both good and bad ways. Even if you don’t join a company, everyone has their own individual brand that they need to protect and learn how to best operate in the society. Marketing is the act of showcasing the vision of your brand and often in the best way possible, but it was important for me to pick a company where marketing blinded the behind the scenes chaos and how a company should conduct itself especially in the marketing world. It was important for me to get across that McFarland’s manipulativeness & unethical conduct did not start or end with Fyre Festival. His deception is still ongoing and it’s difficult to imagine McFarland recovering from this incident and ever having the same power he did before, especially since he is banned from serving as a CEO or director for the rest of his life (Amato et al., 2019). Many of the team members admitted that if they knew how things were going to end, of course they wouldn’t have gone through with helping him (Gabai et al., 2019). I also want to point out that Jerry Media produced the Netflix documentary I refer to in the case, so there could be some bias or more blame shifted onto McFarland that he doesn’t deserve and may just be a self-preservation tactic of Jerry Media. And though L'Oréal is my ethical example it’s important to note that no single company in the world is perfect and they all have more room to improve their strengths and work on their weaknesses. And hopefully when I’m out in the real-world next year, I can find a way to positively impact those around me with the most ethical marketing possible.

References

Amato, J., Barkin L., Freedman A., Gandhi S., Gasparro M., Miller D., Zwickel J. (Producer), Furst J., Willoughby Nason J. (Director). (2019, January 14). Fyre Fraud [Documentary]. United States: Hulu.

Bloomberg. (2017, August 30). How a Black Card for Millennials Went Down in Flames. Retrieved from https://fortune.com/2017/08/30/fyre-festival-billy-mcfarland-magnises/.

Busch, P., & Wilson, D. T. (1976). An Experimental Analysis of a Salesman’s Expert and Referent Bases of Social Power in the Buyer-Seller Dyad. Journal of Marketing Research, 13(1), 3–11. doi:10.1177/002224377601300102

Gabai, D., Purzycki, M. (Producer), Smith, C. (Director). (2019, January 18). FYRE: The Greatest Festival That Never Happened [Documentary]. United States: Netflix.

Hanbury, M. (2019, January 19). These photos reveal why the 27-year-old organizer of the disastrous Fyre Festival has been sentenced to 6 years in prison. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/fyre-festival-expectations-vs-reality-2017-4#fans-were-expecting-to-see-blink-182-perform-14.

Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014

Johnson, C. (2018). Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications, ISBN-13: 978- 1506321639

Kador, J. (2009). Effective Apology: Mending Fences, Building Bridges, and Restoring Trust. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Keating, C. (2018, November 6). Fyre Festival Founder Apologizes from Prison: 'I've Made Many Wrong and Immature Decisions'. Retrieved from https://people.com/music/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcfarland-prison-apology/.

L’Oréal. (2015, November 20). Code of Ethics - The Way We Work. Retrieved from https://www.loreal.com/group/governance/acting-ethically/code-of-ethics-and-speak-up-policy/code/list.

L’Oréal. (2018a, December 2). L'Oréal named as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute for the 9th time - L'Oréal Group: World Leader in Beauty: Official Website. Retrieved from https://www.loreal.com/media/news/2018/feb/2018-wme.

L'Oréal. (2018b). L'Oréal Finance: Annual Report 2018. Retrieved from https://www.loreal-finance.com/en/annual-report-2018.

L’Oréal. (2019). Frequently Asked Questions - L'Oréal Group: World Leader in Beauty: Official Website. Retrieved from https://www.loreal.com/sustainability/l'oréal-answers/the-question-of-animal-testing/frequently-asked-questions.

Lunenburg, F. C. (2012). Power and leadership: an influence process. International journal of management, business, and administration, 15(1), 1-9.

Meindl, J., & Ehrlich, S. (1987). The Romance of Leadership and the Evaluation of Organizational Performance. The Academy of Management Journal, 30(1), 91-109. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/255897.

PETA. (2010, July 7). L'Oréal is included on PETA's "do test" list. What does that mean? Retrieved from https://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/is-loreal-cruelty-free/.

[calamiticus-blog]

welp. had to pick up a third. i apologize for the mess this intro will likely be. this here is my original trash child mickey and i’m super excited to bring him here. just a quick note: he is a legilimens and i fully intend to play this out in the most logical and realistic manner. i’ll have more beneath the cut on this, but you all have my promise that i will not use this to godmod and will only ever use his ability with your permission. i see this as an exciting plot device for interactions and larger connections but don’t want anyone to think i’ll be taking it lightly. as always message to plot and i promise i’ll be on the dash more often

❝  but you can’t get away from yourself. you can’t decide not to see yourself anymore. you can’t decide to turn off the noise in your head. ❞

TOM WEBB? No, that’s actually MIKOŁAJ KOWALSKI. About to begin SIXTH YEAR, this RAVENCLAW student is sided with THE NEUTRALS. HE identifies as CIS MALE and is a HALFBLOOD who is known to be QUIXOTIC, TREMULOUS, and CLUMSY but also INTUITIVE, ADROIT, and EMPATHETIC.

general.

name: mikołaj jacob “mickey” kowalski

age: 16

house: ravenclaw

student functions: herbology club, astronomy club, hogwarts orchestra, president of wizard’s chess club, 

boggart: scary clowns. kinda like ‘it’. no deep reason - just fuck them. 

patronus: meerkat

orientation: heterosexual / heteromantic

headcanons.

two whole generations of kowalskis had passed before another legilimens came around. queenie kowalski was the most infamous in the kowalski family tree. first witch in thefamily, and an accomplished legilimens, almost everyone in the united states knows who she is and her part in the fight against grindelwald nearly 100 years ago. jacob jr. (or jj, as he’s most often called) and aneta kowalski are not nearly as notorious as the former’s grandmother. while she remains in new york, alone in the flatabove her deceased muggle husband’s bakery, jj and aneta lead quiet lives in london, where they’ve openedup a kowalski’s bakery akin to jj’s grandfather’s, one with a back entrance that leads to a completely identical, albeit more magical, bakery in diagon alley. simpletons who devote their lives to delivering baked goods to the masses, there was never a question of where the future kowalski children would end up. with three boys and two girls, the kowalskis saw nothing more than five more sets of hands to carry on the family’s muggle legacy. the only connection they had to the goldstein side of their family was the magic that ran strong in their blood. big boned and generally husky, the kowalskis were all pucture perfect replicas of their muggle patriarch. 

all except for mikołaj. second eldest of the kowalski clan, mikołaj - or mickey, as he preferred to be called - was not your usual kowalski. a tall and skinny beanpole with bright blue eyes and chocolate brown messy hair, freckles like constellations all over his ruddy face, seemed to take more after his mother’s side of the family. but it wasn’t just his looks that separated him from the other kowalskis he shared a tiny flat with. from a young age, mickey always felt a little… different. it wasn’t always easy to explain, because as a young child he didn’t quite understand what was going on with him. he couldn’t quite place the voices that were constantly consuming his thoughts, distracting him and driving him crazy. it wasn’t until he’d heard his grandmother bring up that “annoying thing nana queenie does” at a christmas dinner when he was eight that he’d even realized that these voices were not figments of his imagination but in fact the very thoughts of those surrounding him. like his great-grandmother, mickey was a born legilimens - gifted with the keen ability to tap into the thoughts of others as she was. rare and exceptional, this gift should have been something to feel good about, but all it’s ever done for mickey is caused trouble, embarrassment and harassment. his family felt uncomfortable and guarded around him, his siblings taunted him with their thoughts, and it only created awkward moments and troubles in the muggle bakery. 

when it came time to head to hogwarts, mickey was nervous how his “special gift” would affect his time. he’s had to learn to tune it out, to ignore the natural instinct to read and see into people’s minds without their permission, and haslearned to do so by occupying his mind with other things. puzzles, advanced studies, books on topics he barely understands - anything that keeps his mind occupied. he’s isolated himself from other, preferring the company of plants and animals over that of people. plants and animals can’t think, there’s nothing for him to stumble upon uninvited. 

he wishes he could shut it off completely. his great-grandmother - the withering old thing - has moved into the family’s tiny london flat in order to help mickey cope with his ability, helping him perfect his gift as well as learn to tune it out. he tries his hardest to shield his thoughts from her. he doesn’t want her to know that he secretly hates this inheritance he got from her. he would rather be a squib than bear this cross. 

despite this gloomy outlook, mickey carries himself in a rather cheerful way. he’s always smiling, a goofy and silly smile, often times because he’s tapped into the wild minds of the younger years and stumbles upon some humorous thoughts. he tries his best to act rather “normal” so as not to give off the suspicion that something is off about him. with these troubling times, mickey is well aware of the lengths any would go to get a legilimens on their side. he has chosen to remain neutral and outside the conflict for this very reason. while kowalskis and goldsteins have almost always been on the good side of these fights, he couldn’t allow his mind to be a tool for even the right cause. considering he’s often on the brink of a mental break down, it only seems fitting to keep out and silent about his little trick. 

that being said, he’s had a lot of fun using his legilimens for gain.he’s become captain of the wizard’s chess club, unbeatable in the game, though he’d hate to admit that occasionally he peeks into the mind of his opponent to stay a step ahead of the game. he’s also known to mess with the muggle patrons at his family’s bakery, sometimes pretending to be a medium or psychic and using their thoughts to make a convincing show of it. it never gets too serious, though - jj wouldn’t allow his son to be so careless after all. mostly, however, mickey avoids the use of his “talents”, choosing to occupy his mind with other things. constantly learning and consuming new information, mickey is a clever and intelligent young man - a perfect fit for ravenclaw house, as it would seem. 

he looks forward to the day that he leaves hogwarts. his family has already planned out his future for him: he’ll settle in london nearby and work at the bakery until he dies. but mickey has bigger plans for himself. taped to his wall, above his desk, littered with pins and strings connecting them, post-it notes and photos cut out from magazines and print-outs from the internet, is a map of the world. he wants to travel, to run away from his home and see what’s out there. every place pinned is a fascination, an eight wonder of the world, lush and exotic, inhabited by no one. far from the voices he’s constantly listening to. it’s a blissful dream but it’s the only one he holds onto.

he’s an insomniac, a hypochondriac, asthmatic and anxious 24/7. it’s a deadly cocktail. he can’t sleep because of the voices. he’s constantly seeking out thoughts to silence the static and once spent a whole night reading about deadly diseases and infections, which lead to the hypochondria and his abnormal obsession with every little symptom he’s shown since. the asthma is just another thing that makes him stick out like a sore thumb in his family - and he’s had one too many occasions where his inhaler has been stolen as a prank. this only spikes the anxiety, which in turn makes the mind-reading worse, which makes the insomnia worse, which leads to restless nights of researching fatal cases of magical disease and so on and so forth. someone once likened him to a shaking chihuahua. 

he talks a mile a minute, and he never lets himself stay on one topic for very long. if he gets bored, his mind wanders. if his mind wanders, he hears things. and nothing ruins a day more than overhearing your classmate’s inappropriate thoughts about your charms teacher. puberty was a pretty uncomfortable time for mickey, because he wasn’t just experiencing his own bodily changes - he felt like he was experiencing everyone’s. this is why he’s always occupied with something. books. puzzles. music. anything. it’s also why he avoids quidditch games and often times meals. the whole entire school in one enclosed space? no thank you. that is a nightmare. it was a nightmare his first night. the best choice is for mickey to keep away. it’s why he’s almost never present. he even sneaks off in the evening, using his gifts only then to avoid the prefects. he’s like a ghost this way. in and out, without anyone realizing it. he knows it’s wrong to break the rules, but sometimes he needs to get away. and the forest is the quietest place for a legilimens to go and think. shame, really. he’d love to be a chaser for the quidditch team, if he could shut everyone up. 

he has very few friends, and has only let a select few in the know of his “secret”. again, he just can’t let that get out. if anyone were to find out… he’s afraid of how people will perceive him. he knew from stories and conversation that his great-grandmother wasn’t always well received. and he’s aware of how uncomfortable his family is from having to live with the “mind-reader”, so his best bet is to keep it quiet and between a small group. he tries to socialize, to appear normal and part of the group. he even attends parties (drunk minds can be fun) though he never stays long and half the time he misses half of what anyone says because he’s busy trying to filter through the noise surrounding him, trying to figure out what’s a thought and what’s been said to him. he isn’t sure how he comes off to others, perhaps annoying or too awkward to function. he’s had absolutely no success in the romance department, having heard the thoughts from girls before having the courage to attempt to flirt. he knows before speaking to them that they don’t find him attractive or think he’s “weird” or “odd”, so he just never tries. but he does pine, because he’s a teenage boy with teenage hormones and definitely finds a few girls attractive. thank merlin they can’t hear his thoughts. 

wanted connections.

with a little help from my friends - mickey’s skawd. crew. bros (maybe some hoes). whatever. there are only a few he actually considers friends, and he trusts them enough to let them in on his little “gift”. they’re the only people he would ever let know and even take advantage of the legilimency, often leading them on sneak outs under the prefect’s noses and on wild adventures at hog’s head. they’re the only thing that feels right about his life. the only thing that resembles normal. with them he doesn’t feel like a freak. he feels accepted and even loved.and he adores them for that. ( can be multiple muses )

tormentor - mickey is… odd, to say the least. it’s not his fault, he’s constantly fighting an inner battle against everyone’s inner commentary. give him a break. but this is not known information, so to anyone on the outside looking in, the dude is just… weird. so it isn’t a stretch to think he would have a bully or two that like to mess with him. when he’s so engrossed in his studies or puzzles or whatever mind-numbing activity he’s picked up now to fill the void, he can’t catch himself quick enough before their harassment falls on him. it’s what he gets for coming off so anxious and abnormal. ( can be multiple muses )

what’s inside - being a kowalski, mickey is an expert baker. one of his many random hobbies include wasting away in the kitchen with the house elves, making confections after another. sometimes the desserts served with dinner are actually a kowalski original. he’s seen this person in the kitchens, and soon enough he’s started sharing his little treats with them. baking is just another way to focus on anything but the static, so their conversations have been smooth and without the awkward of mickey avoiding their thoughts. the block out just comes naturally. this could be the start of another friendship. could be something more. if mickey wasn’t so focused on the baking, maybe he’d actually get a good hard look at the person and see that they’re building up a solid friendship from their far more natural conversations. he feels less anxious and weird around them. he wonders if maybe this was how nana queenie felt around great-grandpa jacob. ( only one muse, preferably female ) 

idk guys honestly i’m at a loss. i’ll take anything really. 

so about the legilimency: like i already said - i’m dedicated to making this work and making it realistic and done in a way that it won’t lead to sticky situations such as godmodding. that’s the last thing i ever want. so out of respect to everyone, i have decided to not use the legilimency in interactions unless it has been agreed upon between myself and the player. obviously this is an opportunity for fun, angsty, tense interactions when used properly. terms agreed upon by the players and proper plotting out of the use of the legilimency will always be practiced whenever anyone wants to interact with mickey and potentially plot with him. i encourage anyone to indicate what mickey may hear, whether by italicizing it or marking it in the reply, mentioning it in the tags, or just talking it out with me before we start our interactions, i want it to be made clear what are the limitations with mickey’s gift and your character. obviously i don’t want him running around outing everyone’s deepest secrets and alliances, hence the neutrality and his own guarded nature over his secret. it would be unfair of me to have my kid blab everyone’s thoughts and secrets when he’s keeping his so close to himself. i want everyone to feel comfortable playing this angle out, to want to interact with him. so i invite everyone to message me if you want to, and we can seriously plot this out and figure out how this will play into our characters’ interactions. if i ever, in any way, step out of line - please please please message me. call me out. poke me. i don’t care how, just let me know. because i never wanna overstep the boundaries with this part of my character. it is a huge part of his characterization (everything about mickey is laced with mention of the legilimency and how it affects his every day life) so i don’t want to ever portray it improperly or allow it to cause issue. so i will make sure to ask everyone whether or not mickey could listen into something their character thought, and always take your thoughts on the portrayal of legilimency into consideration. i hope you guys will want to plot with mickey!

[ READ MORE ]

( feel free to message me with plots or connections, even if they aren’t listed on here ! i would be open to everything and anything ! )

[howtoloseweightfastsafely]

10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

There are several chemicals that companies use in processed foods to "improve" their flavor and texture despite near-unanimous condemnation by the United Nations, the European Union and other countries around the world.

The United States has not taken the same steps to remove these chemicals from our own food supply.

Here's a list of highly dubious chemical ingredients currently allowed in American foods that you should stay away from:

1. Azodicarbonamide. This is a "dough conditioner" that creates even air pockets within the dough, giving industrial-processed foods a light, fluffy, fresh-baked texture. However, azodicarbonamide is actually a yellowish powder that is most commonly used for creating foamed plastics. The FDA considers it "Generally Regarded As Safe," but the United Kingdom and the World Health Organization both recognized the chemical as a potential cause of asthma and allergic reactions. Also, once the chemical degrades due to heat, it transforms into a well-known carcinogen. The United States is one of the only countries in the world that allows the use of this chemical in food - it's illegal in the U.K., across Europe and in Australia.

2. BHA and BHT. These are two chemicals - closely related - that the FDA has also classified as "Generally Regarded as Safe." They have a waxy consistency and are used as a preservative to keep food from going bad. They're often used in potato chips, breakfast cereals and sausages. The trouble is, studies from the U.S. National Toxicology Program have shown that they are carcinogenic - meaning they raise a person's risk of getting cancer if they are ingested. BHA and BHT are banned in Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and all across Europe.

3. Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). These are lab-made hormones administered to cows in the United States that makes them produce more milk. Unfortunately, it also makes them more susceptible to disease, causing farmers to subsequently pump the cows full of antibiotics. Those antibiotics eventually make their way into people's bodies through milk, which could potentially lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and other health problems.

4. Blue Dye #1. Also called Brilliant Blue, this chemical has been linked in scientific studies with allergies, learning disabilities, aggressiveness and irritability in children.

The only reason it's used? To "improve" the look of foods like ice cream, peas, icings and certain liqueurs. There aren't any "brilliant blue" foods in nature - and there shouldn't be any in your cupboard, either. This chemical is banned in most of Europe.

5. Yellow Dye #5. Also known as tartrazine, more than half of the studies performed on this chemical have conclusively shown that it deteriorates a person's DNA - making it dangerous not only to a human being, but to their potential future children, as well.

You're most likely to find tartrazine in cheese-flavored crackers like Goldfish and Cheez- Its, as well as in chips, puddings and macaroni-and-cheese boxed dinners.

6. Yellow Dye #6. Another yellow dye to finish things off - this chemical is found in breakfast cereals, Eggo waffles, American cheese and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese boxed dinner. These were banned in Northern Europe after studies showed the chemical was linked to adrenal and kidney tumors in rats.

7. Astaxanthin. Found primarily in farm-raised salmon, whose diets give them an unappetizing gray color of flesh (instead of the healthy pink found in wild salmon,) astaxanthin is a petrochemical (meaning it's derived from oil) that is used to turn farmed salmon meat pink. Astaxanthin has not been approved for human consumption and is banned in Australia and New Zealand.

8. Brominated Vegetable Oil. Usually found in Gatorade, Squirt, Sprit and other citrus-flavored soft drinks and energy drinks, brominated vegetable oil (BVO) was originally patented as a flame-retardant chemical. BVO has the unfortunate tendency to build up in people's systems, and in large doses, it's been shown to cause reproductive and behavioral harm to animals. This is banned in many countries in Europe.

9. Arsenic. Yes, the infamous poison is regularly fed to poultry in the United States to make them grow more quickly, and make the meat appear more pink and fresh. Although arsenic-drugs are administered in very small doses, large doses of arsenic are outright lethal, and it' a known cancer-causing agent. The reasoning the FDA uses to keep it legal in the United States is that organic arsenic is less dangerous than inorganic arsenic, so only organic arsenic is allowed to be used. The European Union says, "Arsenic is arsenic, and it doesn't belong in food."

10. Potassium Bromate. This is another additive to breads, like azodicarbonamide, but its point is to make bread "enriched" with potassium - a vital nutrient. The problem is, potassium bromate has been linked to kidney damage, nervous system damage, thyroid problems and cancer. Canada, China and the European Union ban potassium bromate, but it's still used as an "enrichment" here in the States.

So, How Can You Avoid Obesity-Causing Chemicals?

The best way to avoid these harmful chemicals is to get back to a natural diet.

Cut out all processed foods, and stick to the pure, unadulterated foods (you'll find these on the perimeter of grocery stores, rather than inside the aisles).

It is also important to choose organic foods whenever possible. True, organic foods can still contain trace amounts of pesticides and other chemicals. However, the amount of chemicals is significantly less, which means you don't have to worry so much about your endocrine system spinning out of control.

But, of course, it's easy to say "just eat organic." In reality, not all of us can afford to eat 100% organic, myself included.

So what do we do?

Find a healthy balance/safe medium.

Since keeping a tight budget is very important right now, I'm selective about eating organic. 

I only eat organic for foods that have the highest levels of pesticides/chemicals.

If you're on a budget too, buy organic for the following products (which typically contain very high amounts of pesticides and insecticides):

Apples

Celery

Peppers

Spinach

Peaches

Nectarines

Strawberries

Cucumbers

Grapes

Green beans

Lettuce and other greens

My rule of thumb for buying organic produce on a budget: if the skin is exposed, buy organic. If not, buy the regular stuff.

In line with that statement, you'll notice that all the foods on the list above have their skin exposed, meaning organic versions are preferred.

Some great veggies/fruits that I usually buy non-organic are avocados, onions, mangoes, cabbage, oranges, bananas, etc.

Check out the Environmental Working Group's site to learn more about "clean" and "dirty" produce.

Additionally, follow these guidelines to avoid chemicals in your food:

1-2x per week is enough to get your Omega-3 needs

Frozen wild fish can be GREAT, since the fats are frozen upon catching and are therefore preserved much longer.

Costco/BJ's is great for large packages of frozen wild fish.

Conventionally-made meats contain high levels of hormones and antibiotics)

Don't worry about buying organic beef or organic chicken. It can help but it's really more of a farce if anything. Organic meats are still fed grains and starches that their digestive systems are not accustomed to, meaning the end product is still tainted.

Note that chicken is higher in Omega 6 than Beef, Lamb, and Goat (the 3 main low-omega 6 meats)....so only eat organic chicken, and it eats for variety. Stick to the low-Omega 6 meats for most meals.

Grass-fed or pasture-raised insures they are eating their natural diets, allowing for a superior, healthier end product.

Try to stick to cultured dairy, which is most types of dairy besides milk.

Raw milk is the only type of milk that seems to not cause dairy allergies/intolerances

If you eat canned foods, eat them sparingly and make sure to soak/heat the food

If you're too lazy to cook the fresh/frozen versions, then FINE...buy canned. If it'll help you stick to your diet then I'm ok with it (at least until you're in shape! After that, ditch the canned foods).

For added benefit, pick up Berkeley water filters, which are the "cream of the crop" in removing chemicals/toxins from water.

If the Berkeley is out of your price range, just use a Brita and/or look for a water bottle with built-in filters.

Even if it says "microwave-safe", if it's plastic, don't do it!

Instead, I highly recommend mid-sized glass Pyrex bowls. They are awesome, cost about $7, and will last forever.

With that being said...you know the drill: While chemicals are important, they still do not trump eating more calories than you burn (if weight loss is your goal).

So, don't let yourself fall into the trap of "well I know they're cookies...but at least they're organic!", and then end up eating 12 cookies.

Capiche?

Onward.

 Interested in losing weight? Then click below to see the exact steps I took to lose weight and keep it off for good...

Read the previous article about "How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)"

Read the next article about "How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")"

Moving forward, there are several other articles/topics I'll share so you can lose weight even faster, and feel great doing it.

Below is a list of these topics and you can use this Table of Contents to jump to the part that interests you the most.

Topic 1: How I Lost 30 Pounds In 90 Days - And How You Can Too

Topic 2: How I Lost Weight By Not Following The Mainstream Media And Health Guru's Advice - Why The Health Industry Is Broken And How We Can Fix It

Topic 3: The #1 Ridiculous Diet Myth Pushed By 95% Of Doctors And "experts" That Is Keeping You From The Body Of Your Dreams

Topic 4: The Dangers of Low-Carb and Other "No Calorie Counting" Diets

Topic 5: Why Red Meat May Be Good For You And Eggs Won't Kill You

Topic 6: Two Critical Hormones That Are Quietly Making Americans Sicker and Heavier Than Ever Before

Topic 7: Everything Popular Is Wrong: The Real Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Topic 8: Why That New Miracle Diet Isn't So Much of a Miracle After All (And Why You're Guaranteed To Hate Yourself On It Sooner or Later)

Topic 9: A Nutrition Crash Course To Build A Healthy Body and Happy Mind

Topic 10: How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)

Topic 11: The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

Topic 12: Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit

Topic 13: How To Determine Your Optimal "Macros" (And How The Skinny On The 3-Phase Extreme Fat Loss Formula)

Topic 14: Two Dangerous "Invisible Thorn" Foods Masquerading as "Heart Healthy Super Nutrients"

Topic 15: The Truth About Whole Grains And Beans: What Traditional Cultures Know About These So-called "Healthy Foods" That Most Americans Don't

Topic 16: The Inflammation-Reducing, Immune-Fortifying Secret of All Long-Living Cultures (This 3-Step Process Can Reduce Chronic Pain and Heal Your Gut in Less Than 24 Hours)

Topic 17: The Foolproof Immune-enhancing Plan That Cleanses And Purifies Your Body, While "patching Up" Holes, Gaps, And Inefficiencies In Your Digestive System (And How To Do It Without Wasting $10+ Per "meal" On Ridiculous Juice Cleanses)

Topic 18: The Great Soy Myth (and The Truth About Soy in Eastern Asia)

Topic 19: How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)

Topic 20: 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

Topic 21: How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")

Topic 22: The Truth About Buying Organic: Secrets The Health Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Topic 23: Choosing High Quality Foods

Topic 24: A Recipe For Rapid Aging: The "Hidden" Compounds Stealing Your Youth, Minute by Minute

Topic 25: 7 Steps To Reduce AGEs and Slow Aging

Topic 26: The 10-second Trick That Can Slash Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality By 37% (Most Traditional Cultures Have Done This For Centuries, But The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Be Up In Arms If More Modern-day Americans Knew About It)

Topic 27: How To Clean Up Your Liver and Vital Organs

Topic 28: The Simple Detox 'Cheat Sheet': How To Easily and Properly Cleanse, Nourish, and Rid Your Body of Dangerous Toxins (and Build a Lean Well-Oiled "Machine" in the Process)

Topic 29: How To Deal With the "Stress Hormone" Before It Deals With You

Topic 30: 7 Common Sense Ways to Have Uncommon Peace of Mind (or How To Stop Your "Stress Hormone" In Its Tracks)

Topic 31: How To Sleep Like A Baby (And Wake Up Feeling Like A Boss)

Topic 32: The 8-step Formula That Finally "fixes" Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested (If You Ever Find Yourself Hitting The Snooze Every Morning Or Dozing Off At Work, These Steps Will Change Your Life Forever)

Topic 33: For Even Better Leg Up And/or See Faster Results In Fixing Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested, Do The Following:

Topic 34: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 35: Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 36: Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 37: Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 38: Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 39: How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence (These Strategies Will Reduce Stress, Increase Productivity And Show You How To Fulfill All Your Dreams)

Topic 40: Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Topic 41: If You Want Maximum Results In Minimum Time You're Going To Have To Work Out (And Workout Hard, At That)

Topic 42: Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Topic 43: How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain

Topic 44: Nutrition Basics for Fast Pain Relief (and Weight Loss)

Topic 45: How To Track Results (And Not Fall Into the Trap That Ruins 95% of Well-Thought Out Diets)

Topic 46: Advanced Fat Loss - Calorie Cycling, Carb Cycling and Intermittent Fasting

Topic 47: Advanced Fat Loss - Part I: Calorie Cycling

Topic 48: Advanced Fat Loss - Part II: Carb Cycling

Topic 49: Advanced Fat Loss - Part III: Intermittent Fasting

Topic 50: Putting It All Together

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