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#Author: Karen Abbott
saywhat-politics · 1 year
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By Karen Brooks Harper, The Texas Tribune
Oct. 27, 2022
“Texas diverts $359.6 million from prisons to keep Greg Abbott’s border mission operating” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Gov. Greg Abbott said on Thursday that he and other state leaders are pulling $359.6 million out of the state prison system’s budget to fund his Operation Lone Star border security operation through the next 10 months.
So far, more than $4 billion has been spent to keep thousands of Department of Public Safety troopers and Texas National Guard members stationed along the Texas-Mexico border and other areas of the state.
This latest infusion was among $874.6 million in “emergency” budget transfers authorized by Abbott at the request of the Texas Legislative Budget Board, composed of GOP state leaders and budget writers.
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whisperstemptations · 21 days
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formerly, kiissme. penned by, Y V E. 30s. she/her. SMUT CENTRIC but not exclusively. low activity. semi-selective. most muses are 30+. no minors engage and will be blocked on sight. no personals, pls. discord on request. under construction.
wanna interact? opens ! — memes ! — muse list ! — wanted plots ! — wanted opposites !
be sure to read the rules. ( when I write them )
Where in the world is (👉゚ヮ゚)👉 y v e ?
@whisperstemptations ( fandomless multimuse - you are here! ) @ofashesandthorns ( got / historical - margaery tyrell ) @qveenofnoise ( stranger things / fandom based - jane bardot ) @quinntessentialmuses ( joe quinn muses, wip. ) @corrodedmaster ( stranger things based - eddie munson, wip. )
IN QUEUE — 5 / 31
mobile muse list under the cut !
💋 — FAYE BROOKES, OG, 36, bisexual, journalist, karen gillan fc. 💋 — FAYE BROOKES, CEO, 46, bisexual, publisher, lotte verbeek fc. 💋 — FAYE BROOKES, 30s, bisexual, historical lady, eleanor tomlinson fc. 💋 — FAYE BROOKES, 40s, bisexual, historical countess, lotte verbeek fc. 💋 — SHEILA BROOKES, 59, hetero, english teacher, michelle fairley fc. 💋 — PATRICK BROOKES, 64, hetero, construction foreman, gary lewis fc. 💋 — JERRY BROOKES, 60, hetero, pub owner, john hannah fc.
💋 — ALYSSA MITCHELL, 30s, bisexual, criminal lawyer, amy manson fc. 💋 — KEITH MITCHELL, 30s, hetero, detective, sam heughan fc.
💋 — LYDIA COLLINS, 40s, bisexual, bookshop owner / author, laura fraser fc.
💋 — CHARLIE CLARK, 30s, hetero, music journalist, matt smith fc. 💋 — NATHAN COLE, 30s, hetero, craftsman, joseph quinn fc.
💋 — ELLIE MATTHEWS, 30s, bisexual, graphic designer, felicity jones fc. 💋 — LIAM JACKSON, 40s, hetero, CEO of family oil, josh henderson fc. 💋 — JADE HART, 30s, bisexual, assistant to FAYE BROOKES, kat dennings fc.
💋 — FELICITY HARRINGTON, 40s, bisexual, actress, natalie dormer fc. 💋 — ALISHA KNIGHT, 40s, bisexual, heart surgeon, freema agyeman fc. 💋 — JEONG-EUN KWON, 40s, hetero, CEO of father's company, hyun bin fc. 💋 — BRYAN ALEXANDER, 40s, hetero, college professor, chris evans fc. 💋 — SANTIAGO BARRERA, 40s, hetero, artist and professor, diego luna fc. 💋 — RICHARD LIVINGSTON, 40s, hetero, duke / royal, henry cavill fc. 💋 — KURT BAKER, 40s, hetero, private investigator, dan stevens fc. 💋 — CHERYL ABBOTT, 20s, bisexual, young actress, sydney sweeney fc. 💋 — SCOTT WEST, 40s, hetero, talent turned talent manager, idris elba fc. 💋 — ABIGAIL CHAMBERLAIN, 20s, bisexual, preacher's daughter, lili reinhart fc.
💋 — CARVER ASHFORD, 50s, hetero, architect, timothy olyphant fc. 💋 — JASON ASHFORD, 30s, hetero, chef, joe keery fc.
💋 — ALICE ASHE, 40s, bisexual, brothel madame, natalie portman fc. 💋 — VIOLET DARLING, 30s, bisexual, escort, lily james fc.
💋 — TRIXIE HOLMES, 40s, bisexual, corporate lawyer, january jones fc. 💋 — ROXY WRIGHT, 20s, bisexual, OF content creator, josephine langford fc.
💋 — JOHNNY BARRETT, 50s, hetero, rock legend, jeffrey dean morgan fc. 💋 — JOY BARDOT, 30s, bisexual, law secretary, brianna howey fc. 💋 — JANE BARDOT, 20s, bisexual, aspiring singer, danielle campbell fc.
💋 — LUISA GUERRA, 30s, bisexual, influencer / business owner, melissa barrera fc. 💋 — DANIELA GUERRA, 20s, bisexual, investor, camila mendes fc.
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ear-worthy · 8 months
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Pod-Alization: iHeart & LinkedIn Link Up; The Real Great Gatsby: For Hallmark Christmas Movie Fans
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iHeart & LinkedIn announce podcast partnership iHeartMedia and LinkedIn have announced a strategic partnership that will leverage iHeartMedia's extensive infrastructure and distribution capabilities and LinkedIn's global community of more than 930 million members, to introduce new offerings to the business podcast space. LinkedIn also offers a space for communities to continue the conversation and engage with each other across a variety of content experiences on the platform, including Posts, Newsletters, and Live Events, all within a trusted, safe, professional context. Key elements of the partnership include: Launching New Podcasts: LinkedIn and iHeartMedia will collaborate to produce new shows for the LinkedIn Podcast Network and will monetize these new podcasts, connecting brands to important conversations in the professional space. Collaborating with Leading Industry Podcasters: LinkedIn and iHeartMedia will partner to license leading business and B2B podcasts, offering a differentiated promotional playbook to help them grow and monetize their content. Enhancing Resources for Emerging Podcasters: LinkedIn and iHeartMedia are teaming up to offer new resources for niche and emerging business podcasters. With this partnership, qualifying podcasters will gain streamlined access to LinkedIn’s tools, best practices, and coaching, and to iHeart’s hosting, distribution, monetization services, while receiving co-branding opportunities from the LinkedIn Podcast Network and iHeartMedia. Courtney Coupe, Head of Original Programming at LinkedIn, said, “We are excited to partner with iHeartMedia to bring a new level of connection and conversation to the podcast space. Whether it’s around negotiation, the latest disruption in tech, or job seeking, our members have shown us they are hungry to listen and discuss these professional topics. By combining the scale of LinkedIn’s professional platform and iHeart’s reach and resources, we can offer podcasters a truly unique experience and build the communities and conversations that we know our members crave.” Conal Byrne, CEO of iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group, said, “iHeartMedia is thrilled to team up with LinkedIn to help propel professional conversations through the podcast space. The combination of our vast reach and industry resources and expertise with LinkedIn’s professional network will allow us to bring a new level of innovation and growth to the communities’ business creators care about most.” All podcasts on the LinkedIn Podcast Network will be distributed through iHeartPodcasts.
The REAL Great Gatsby
 Remus: The New Bootleg Kingis a new podcast from Karen Abbott, New York Times-bestselling author. Listeners will be invited into the world of George Remus, a teetotaling bootlegger, erudite madman, and a real-life inspiration for Jay Gatsby. His wife, Imogene, was his crown jewel. Together they ruled their empire from Cincinnati, bribing officials and living a life of luxury. But Remus’ world came crashing down when a pioneering prosecutor named Mabel Walker Willebrand went after him, his wife betrayed him, and he was sent to prison. It sent Remus spiraling into madness—with deadly results. Tune in Tuesdays.
 A Podcast For Hallmark Christmas movie fans
Okay, you are given permission to make fun of me. Yes, I enjoy Hallmark Christmas movies. My favorites are The Christmas House, Next Stop Christmas, A Timeless Christmas, and Christmas With The Darlings.
Can you blame me? Election deniers? Vaccine deniers? Insurrection deniers? Racism deniers? I need a break from reality. Say hello to Hallmark Christmas movies. Where society's blemishes are well hidden, and everyone gets along.
  Hallmark Junkies is the podcast perfect for any Hallmark Christmas movie fan. Join Kerri Carpenter, a published romance author, industry insider and Hallmark super-fan, and Jenny Mitchell, Kerri's best friend and certified Hallmark junkie, as they review these movies.  In 2022, iHeartMedia and Seneca Women, a global women’s leadership platform, announced the first-ever Seneca Women Podcast Academy, a program designed to help amplify the voices of women in podcasting. The inaugural class consisted of 10 winners from iHeartMedia’s nationwide initiative, “Seneca Women to Hear: The Search For the Next Great Female Podcasters,” which set out to find the next breakout female podcast stars. The Seneca Women Podcast Academy helped these winners develop and launch their own shows on the Seneca Women Podcast Network, distributed by iHeartMedia.
The six-week intensive program kicked off in May and included one lecture per week with direct access to industry-leading mentors, all women who are at the top of their respective fields in podcasting. These workshops were led by established podcast hosts, producers and executives, allowing the winners to gain valuable information about all aspects of the podcast business including development, sound engineering, distribution, marketing, sales, and overall operations. Creators also received a stipend and top-of-the-line audio equipment to produce episodes of their shows, which will all become part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network.
Carpenter and Mitchell were attendees at the Seneca Women Podcast Academy and launched this podcast via that program. 
Right now, Hallmark is doing a Christmas In July event with Christmas movies playing while the country bakes in the heat and the humidity. I think it's even hot and steamy at the North Pole, You’ll hear Kerri Carpenter and Jenny Mitchell break down the Hallmark Christmas movies you can’t get enough of—all the old classics plus the new movies coming out this year.  Their first episode explores the movie "Christmas Under Wraps" with Candace Cameron Bure.
 Don’t miss out on “Hallmark Junkies” premiering every Thursday.
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heathersappenfield · 2 years
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BOOKS IN BLOOM IS BACK!!! I’ll be Master of Ceremonies for this warm, intimate afternoon with authors Abbott Kahlor (Karen Abbott), @carterwilsonauthor & @melaniebenjamin_author Tickets are limited and on sale now! Thank you @EVLD: I’m honored to host the Vail Valley’s biggest literary event. https://www.evld.org/booksinbloom https://www.instagram.com/p/Ccl7C2qpBqN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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mediaebooklibrary · 3 years
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READ [EBOOK] The Last Castle The Epic Story of Love  Loss  and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home Pdf [download]^^
[EBOOK] The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home Pdf [download]^^
The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home
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[PDF] Download The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home Ebook | READ ONLINE
Author : Denise Kiernan Publisher : Atria Books ISBN : 1476794057 Publication Date : 2018-5-1 Language : Pages : 416
To Download or Read this book, click link below:
http://read.ebookcollection.space/?book=1476794057
PDF DOWNLOAD
Synopsis : [EBOOK] The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home Pdf [download]^^
A New York Times bestseller with an 'engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold, true story behind the Biltmore Estate—the largest, grandest private residence in North America, which has seen more than 120 years of history pass by its front door.The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House. Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates. Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore—and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy. This is the fascinating, “soaring and gorgeous” (Karen Abbott) story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day.
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coochiequeens · 3 years
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We believe that sexist attitudes and contempt for women run through the fabric of society, and we are angered and upset by the fact that every three days a woman is killed by a manin the UK. Women are raped, beaten and murdered by our own partners, husbands, brothers and fathers, as well as by complete strangers. The domestic abuse services we need are being defunded and shut, and the selling of social housing stock means women at risk of violence in the home have no safe alternative long-term accommodation for themselves and their children. Rape is effectively being decriminalised in this country and this is as unacceptable as it is disturbing.
The Metropolitan police use heavy-handed tactics to silence people, as was clearly demonstrated during the Clapham Common vigil on 13 March. We are appalled by the behaviour of the Metropolitan police. As opponents of violence against women, we have a human right to gather to show solidarity and support to one another. It is clear to us that the police cannot be allowed to have absolute power over the right to freedom of association, and we are calling for united opposition to the policing bill because we believe that this will have a detrimental impact on our human rights and civil liberties as women.
Our demands are as follows: investment in domestic abuse services, rape crisis support, the NHS and other vital care and support services for women; investment in social housing for women and children at risk of domestic abuse; and an immediate and urgent inquiry to the unacceptably low conviction rates for rape and the systematic failure of the criminal justice system to provide justice for women.
With regard to policing in the UK, we demand that a full apology is issued by the Metropolitan police for the events on Clapham Common; a full external inquiry is opened into the attitudes and behaviour of the police force towards women; and that the policing bill is dropped and our right to protest is upheld. Julie Hesmondhalgh Actor, Maxine Peake Actor, Juliet Stevenson Actor, Dr Mary Bousted Joint general secretary, NEU, Diane Abbott MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Zarah Sultana MP, Paula Barker MP, Helena Kennedy QC Labour, House of Lords, Ramona McCartney Women Will Not Be Silenced, Amelia Womack Deputy leader, Green party, Sara Pascoe Comedian, Professor Wendy Savage, Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, Dr Feyzi Ismail Academic and campaigner, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah Executive director, UK Black Pride, Francesca Martinez Comedian and author, Pritee Varsani Musician, Fran Heathcote President, Public and Commercial Services Union, Jen Brister Comedian, Jennette Arnold Labour London assembly member, Lindsey German Author, Rehana Azam National secretary, GMB Union, Laura Pidcock National secretary, People’s Assembly, Laura Alvarez Campaigner, Ellen Clifford Disabled People Against Cuts, Laura Smith Labour councillor, Karen Reissman National Executive Unison member (PC), Mira Salat Director, Mira Performing Arts, Grace Blakely Economist and author, Amy Jackson Head of politics, Unite the Union, Hilary Wainwright Editor, Red Pepper Magazine,Katie Barlow Filmmaker, Katherine Connelly Historian and biographer of Sylvia Pankhurst, Kiri Tunks Women’s rights activist, Lynn HendersonNational officer, PCS Scotland, Jess Edwards National executive member, NEU, Poonam Ball Marketing director and creative chef, Madhu, Emma Mort National executive member, NEU, Louise Regan National officer, NEU, Karen Ingala Smith CEO, nia
Sign your name here: https://www.womenwillnotbesilenced.co.uk/
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seymour-butz-stuff · 3 years
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On Tuesday, Joe Biden demanded the resignations of all 10 of Donald Trump’s appointees to the Federal Service Impasses Panel, a powerful labor relations board, in a major victory for federal unions. Eight members resigned, and two were fired after refusing to step down. Trump’s appointees—a group of partisan anti-labor activists—had hobbled federal unions for years, sabotaging their ability to organize and bargain collectively. Biden’s clean sweep, which was first reported by Government Executive’s Erich Wagner, marks a crucial step toward ending his predecessor’s campaign of federal union busting.
The Federal Service Impasses Panel plays a major role in disputes between executive agencies and federal unions—disputes that often affect the government’s ability to administer programs fairly and lawfully. When unions and managers reach a stalemate at the bargaining table, the panel steps in to referee. It is supposed to find common ground between the parties to further the government’s official policy of promoting “collective bargaining in the civil service” and encouraging “the amicable settlements of disputes.” The panel has authority to write binding, unreviewable terms into unions’ contracts, and its members do not require Senate confirmation. Trump’s appointees consistently defied the panel’s legal obligations to remain a neutral arbiter. Instead, they displayed a clear pattern of siding with management and sometimes even imposed harsher terms than management requested. In an unprecedented and radical move, the panel even imposed terms that management did not request at all, like extending the length of an unfavorable contract. In other words, it functioned as intended: Trump stacked the panel with deeply ideological conservatives with extensive experience busting unions.
For example, Trump installed Karen M. Czarnecki, a leader of the avowedly anti-labor Mercatus Center who previously worked at the American Legislative Exchange Council (which ghostwrites anti-union legislation for Republican legislators) and the Heritage Foundation (which publicly promotes that legislation). Patrick Wright and F. Vincent Vernuccio, two more Trump appointees, work at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, an anti-union pressure group funded by the DeVos family.
Most of Trump’s appointees were affiliated with similar anti-labor groups, including the Freedom Foundation, Americans for Fair Treatment, the Goldwater Institute, the Fund for American Studies, and the Illinois Policy Institute. Others were management-side lawyers who specialize in union busting. Some appointees had questionable credentials, and many lacked any experience in mediation or arbitration. Panel member Michael Lucci, for instance, holds a B.A. in philosophy, and his official profile cryptically stated that he “completed self-directed coursework in economics” after college. (The fired members’ profiles were removed from the agency’s website on Tuesday night, but you can read an archived version here.)
30 days do undo 1,460 days of damage?
Predictably, Trump’s impasses panel sided against unions at almost every turn, empowering management to crush workers’ rights during bargaining. The existence of an anti-union impasses panel undermined collective bargaining across federal agencies by discouraging managers from compromising with employees. If managers reach a deadlock, after all, they can simply get the panel to rule in their favor. Indeed, union representatives have complained that managers have bargained in bad faith by manufacturing shortcuts to the panel, where they knew they’d get everything they want and even more. The Senate Democratic Caucus backed these complaints in a furious letter to the agency’s Trump-appointed commissioner, Andrew Saul. (Biden has not yet removed Saul, who remains in control over the Social Security Administration.)
Employees at agencies throughout the executive branch have been scorched by Trump’s impasses panel. Its treatment of employees at the Social Security Administration, which oversees the country’s largest government program and operates the largest judicial system in the nation, provides a case in point. Shortly before the pandemic, the impasses panel rewrote the SSA union’s contract to roll back the agency’s teleworking program, which had increased employee efficiency. (Managers partially restored telework in 2020 several weeks after many other agencies switched to remote work.) It slashed the amount of time that workers could spend on union activities far beyond what management requested. And it abolished the agency’s responsibility to inform union members of their right to representation. To lock in these anti-union changes, the panel also extended the agreement by four years—though Biden’s new appointees should be able to reopen negotiations after overturning their predecessors’ policies.
The panel’s assault on the SSA union has implications for millions of Americans. Administrative law judges at the SSA hear claims for disability benefits, and because they exercise judicial powers, they are meant to be independent. Their union contract safeguards this independence from political interference. At the bargaining table, however, the SSA’s leaders stripped these safeguards from the contract—and the impasses panel backed their decision. Melissa McIntosh, president of the agency’s administrative law judge union, told me that the panel “took away our ability to protect our independence through the contract,” thereby depriving disabled Americans of their due process right to a neutral arbiter.
Trump’s appointees to the impasses panel were set to serve five-year terms, most of which will not expire until 2024 or 2025. Biden decided not to wait, cleaning house less than two weeks after taking office. (Trump, too, fired the entire panel toward the start of his presidency.) Biden can now appoint 10 replacements, who are not subject to Senate approval. He is expected to select candidates who will fulfill their duty to reach “amicable settlements” that protect federal unions from management overreach.
Biden’s dismissal of the entire panel on Tuesday is the latest in a string of triumphs for organized labor. During his first days in office, the new president promptly ousted Donald Trump’s notorious union-busters at the National Labor Relations Board, appointed a labor-friendly replacement, and reversed executive orders that had severely limited federal unions’ ability to organize and bargain.
But Biden’s work is not yet finished: The Federal Labor Relations Authority, which houses the impasses panel, remains in Republican control.
The FLRA is governed by three members who issue binding decisions about federal unions’ rights. Trump appointed Republicans Colleen Duffy Kiko and James Abbott to the agency, giving it a 2–1 Republican majority. Kiko and Abbott issued a number of “policy statements” granting more power to managers and, by extension, eroding union rights. In an unusual move, these officials spontaneously released statements altering labor law because they were too impatient to wait for an actual dispute to come before them. Trump’s appointees also gave management new powers to restrict collective bargaining. For instance, they stripped unions of their right to bargain over workplace conditions before their current agreement expires. That move was especially devastating in light of the pandemic, blocking federal unions from negotiating new health and safety rules to limit infections. Kiko even tried to abolish the FLRA’s own union of nearly 40 years.
When Biden took office, he elevated Ernest DuBester, the agency’s lone Democrat, to the chairman position, shifting some power away from the Republican majority. Still, the FLRA’s anti-union bent will continue until Biden replaces Abbott with another Democrat—which he can do almost immediately: Abbott’s term has already expired, and he can only continue serving until Biden appoints his successor (with Senate approval). Yet the new president has not named a candidate to succeed Abbott. Nor has Biden named a general counsel, a position that Trump left vacant to prevent the agency from effectively enforcing union rights.
These remaining tasks do not diminish the importance of Biden’s restoration of the impasses panel. If anything, they reveal just how much work the president must do to rid the federal government of Trump holdovers who are burrowed in. These individuals are not civil servants, but partisan activists who were selected to destroy their agencies from the inside. Ousting them is necessary to prevent the dead hand of the Trump administration from strangling the executive branch.
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maddie-grove · 5 years
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Bi-Monthly Reading Round-Up (July/August)
PLAYLIST
"Breakaway” by Kelly Clarkson (The Wonder)
“The Lusty Month of May” from Camelot (Between a Highlander and a Hard Place)
“Blood on My Name” by The Brothers Bright (Vampires in the Lemon Grove)
“Too Good at Goodbyes” by Sam Smith (A Prince on Paper)
“All I See Is You” by Dusty Springfield (The End of Everything)
“Your Song” by Elton John (Patience and Sarah)
“Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” by Diana Ross (Touchy Subjects)
“When You’re Young and in Love” by the Marvelettes (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda)
“No Sleep Tonight” by the Faders (Can’t Escape Love)
“Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)” by Kim Weston (Bury Me Deep)
“Cold Bread” by Johnny Flynn (Fludd)
“Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen (The Rest of the Story)
“How Can I Meet Her?” by the Everly Brothers (Someone to Honor)
“A Matter of Trust” by Billy Joel (The Scandalous Secret of Abigail MacGregor)
BEST OF THE BI-MONTH
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (2016): Lib Wright, an English nurse who worked with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, is hired to observe Anna O’Donnell, an eleven-year-old Irish girl who claims to have not eaten for four months. Initially exasperated at the everyone’s credulity, Lib gradually realizes that there’s a lot more going on with Anna, her family, and her village than she thought...and that the girl may be in serious danger if she doesn’t intervene. Despite my love of Donoghue’s work, I put off reading this one for a while because the subject looked so grim. Although Donoghue does deal with difficult material, the growing relationship between prickly Lib and bright-but-haunted Anna makes the novel transcendent.
WORST OF THE BI-MONTH
Between a Highlander and Hard Place by Mary Wine (2018): After her highborn suitor shows his true colors, Athena Trappes sets fire to his house in self-defense and flees to Scotland. There she attracts the attention of Symon, Laird Grant, a melancholy widower. This Elizabethan romance has its moments, notably a lovely meet-cute at a May Day celebration, but it’s mostly dull with some irritating tropes.
REST OF THE BI-MONTH
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (2013): In this collection, Russell tells the stories of various oddities, including women who turn into silkworms, presidents who are reincarnated as horses, and, yes, vampires in the lemon grove. The collection is remarkably consistent, and Russell shows enormous range in it. My favorites are the utterly chilling prairie horror of “Proving Up,” the hilariously absurd “The Barn at the End of the Term,” and the heartbreaking “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis.”
A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole (2019): Nya Jerami has existed under a cloud of suspicion and gossip since her abusive father, an adviser to the king of Thesolo, was sent to prison for poisoning his political rivals. Eager to start her life properly but unsure how, Nya finds unexpected help from Johan van Braustein, the seemingly devil-may-care stepson of the king of a European micronation. This is my favorite contemporary romance I’ve ever read, with two dynamic, endearing protagonists and a strong sense of setting. Cole expertly blends realistic modern-day concerns with frothy wish fulfillment (plus a dash of fairy-tale Gothic).
The End of Everything by Megan Abbott (2011): When her best friend Evie disappears, thirteen-year-old Lizzie only has scanty clues regarding where or why. As she becomes more and more consumed with finding the answer, she discovers dark secrets underlying her seemingly placid 1980′s suburb. Of all the Abbott novels I’ve read, this is the simplest and perhaps the most disturbing. I didn’t love it, but it’s very effective.
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller (1969): In 1810′s Connecticut, educated “spinster” Patience White finds herself intrigued by sweet, rough-hewn Sarah Dowling. Although their families contrive to keep them apart, they eventually make it to New York and start a farm together. Of the five f/f romance novels I’ve read, this is my very favorite. Miller captures the feel of early American literature very well, and the romance has a nice balance of tension and sweetness.
Touchy Subjects by Emma Donoghue (2006): This collection of short stories is, naturally enough, organized around “touchy subjects” like babies, domesticity, strangers, desire, and death. There are some jewels in this collection: the sad/funny “WritOr” (about a struggling author who takes on a resident-writer position at a rural college), the bittersweet “The Welcome” (about a naive young lesbian with a crush on a reserved trans woman), and the strangely uplifting “Enchantment” (about a rivalry between Cajun fishermen). There’s a lot of chaff to separate from the wheat, though; many of the stories are very slight.
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (2015): Simon Spier, an upper-middle-class teen in suburban Atlanta, isn’t 100% sure why he hasn’t come out as gay to his liberal family or friends, but for now he prefers to keep his sexuality (and a flirtatious email correspondence with an anonymous boy called Blue) under wraps. When a classmate finds out the truth and blackmails Simon into setting him up with his friend Abby, that task becomes a lot more complicated. Despite the rather disturbing premise, this is a super-cute YA novel that I would have loved when I was a YA. (At twenty-eight, I still liked it a lot; it’s just got a sense of immediacy that was a little lost on me thanks to my relatively advanced age, but would’ve been very appealing to me at sixteen.) 
Can’t Escape Love by Alyssa Cole (2019): Regina Hobbs, highly successful proprietor of a website about nerdy stuff, has it all together, except she’s suffering from a wicked case of insomnia. She’s convinced that only the voice of Gustave Nguyen, a puzzle designer she got to know after tuning into his livestream, can get her to sleep, so she contacts him to see if she can have a recording of his voice. Even though they both think it’s kind of weird, her request gets them talking...and MORE. This is a short but absolutely delightful novella about two neat people hooking up. The stakes are low, but the tensions stemming from Regina’s family keeps things interesting.
Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott (2009): In the depths of the Great Depression, Marion Seeley finds herself alone in Phoenix while her morphine-addict husband chases redemption in Mexico. Working an administrative job at a local hospital, she falls in with party-girl nurse Louise, her TB-afflicted girlfriend Ginny, and (much to her sorrow) corrupt, handsome Joe Lanigan. Abbott’s historical crime novel takes a little while to heat up, but once it does it’s a very satisfying thriller. However, I was never convinced of Joe’s attractiveness even at a surface level, which was kind of an impediment to enjoying the story because Marion sure is.
Fludd by Hilary Mantel (1989): A mysterious stranger comes to a deeply Catholic, determinedly miserable English village in the 1950′s, claiming to be the new curate. While there, he greatly affects the lives of an alcoholic priest, his prim housekeeper, an unhappy young nun, and a pompous bishop. This is a highly peculiar, often enjoyable fable, although it drags quite a bit in the third quarter.
The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen (2019): Emma, an anxious seventeen-year-old who lost her mom to addiction five years ago, ends up spending part of the summer with her seldom-seen maternal relatives, who own a downscale motel in a lake town. While there, she learns about her mother’s secret history, observes the tensions between her family’s working-class community and the upscale resort people across the lake, has a low-key romance with a childhood friend, and practices her driving. This novel isn’t among Sarah Dessen’s best--the ending is a little rushed, and the romance feels perfunctory--but the setting is cool and Emma is an interesting protagonist.
Someone to Honor by Mary Balogh (2019): Years after her dad’s bigamy was revealed, resulting in her de-legitimization, reserved Abigail Westcott shows no interest in trying to re-enter society, instead opting to hang out with her convalescing Napoleonic War veteran brother. Unfortunately, his surly friend, Lieutenant Gilbert Bennington, is also intent on keeping her brother company to avoid his own problems, and he and Abigail don’t exactly get along. They come to understand each other, though, and decide to take a chance on marriage when Gilbert finds himself in trouble. I found this Regency romance to be solid but overly somber (not an infrequent issue with Balogh). I never got a great sense of who Abigail was and, while I sympathized with Gil, I also found him very irritating at times.
The Scandalous Secret of Abigail MacGregor by Paula Quinn (2015): In the late 1700′s, Queen Anne summons Davina MacGregor, secret eldest daughter of James II (and, were she not Catholic, rightful ruler of Great Britain), to court. Because Davina is sickly, her daughter Abigail, who has ambitions of being clan chieftain, goes to court in her place. She’s accompanied by Captain General Daniel Marlow, a Jacobite-hating English soldier and close friend of Anne’s. He’s got some trust issues and a stalker. This romance had a lot of potential, but too much of it is spent on the road and not enough on juicy court drama. The straight-version-of-Rachel-Weisz’s-character-in-The-Favorite villain was also, unfortunately, usurped by her much more boring lover.
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mariacallous · 5 years
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In our current cultural norm, where the route to fast (if fleeting) fame is to package and peddle moments once considered in the private domain, there is something compelling about a woman who achieved lasting, worldwide renown without letting a single person truly know her. The "most private public figure of her time," as one friend eulogized Gypsy, sold everything - sex, comedy, illusion - but she never once sold herself. She didn't have to; she commanded every eye in the room precisely because she offered so little to see.
Karen Abbott, from her author’s note at the beginning of American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
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What other fandoms are you familiar enough with to use as an AU prompt? Pokemon Trainer AU? Homestuck AU (they'd still probably die but at least there are lots of ways to come back to life)?
I’m not that familiar with Homestuck, definitely not enough to do an AU.  I read the novelizations of the Pokemon show as a kid but never saw the show or played any of the video games.  I did play the super-obscure Pokemon board game, but most of my trading cards were printed in Japanese (I had a strange childhood), so my experience there is, uh, probably not quite overlapping with everyone else’s.
Anyway, if you want list of all my fandoms… Boy howdy.  I don’t think I can come up with them all.  However, I can list everything that comes to mind between now and ~20 minutes from now when I have to end my procrastination break and go back to dissertating.  So here it is, below the cut:
Okay, there is no way in hell I’ll be able to make an exhaustive list.  But off the top of my head, the fandoms I’m most familiar/comfortable with are as follows:
Authors (as in, I’ve read all or most of their books)
Patricia Briggs
Megan Whalen Turner
Michael Crichton
Marge Piercy
Stephenie Meyer
Dean Koontz
Stephen King
Neil Gaiman
K.A. Applegate
Ernest Hemingway
Tamora Pierce
Roald Dahl
Short Stories/Anthologies
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Dubliners, James Joyce
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
Who Goes There? John W. Campbell
The Man Who Bridged the Mist, Kij Johnson
Flatland, Edwin Abbott
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison
To Build a Fire, Jack London
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bier
At the Mountains of Madness/Cthulu mythos, H.P. Lovecraft
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Close Range: Wyoming Stories, E. Annie Proulx
The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
Bartleby the Scrivener (and a bunch of others), Herman Melville
Books (Classics)
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Secret Garden, Francis Hodgson Burnett
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The Secret Annex, Anne Frank
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
The Stranger, Albert Camus
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Atonement, Ian McEwan
1984, George Orwell
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
The Iliad/The Odyssey, Homer
Metamorphoses, Ovid
Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne
The Time-Machine, H.G. Wells
The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, MacBeth, Othello, and The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Thomas Stoppard
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Books (YA SF)
Young Wizards series, Diane Duane
Redwall, Brian Jaques
The Dark is Rising sequence, Susan Cooper
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Diana Wynne Jones
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
Abhorsen trilogy, Garth Nix
The Giver series, Lois Lowry
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Uglies series, Scott Westerfeld
Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Song of the Lioness, Tamora Pierce
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
Unwind, Neal Shusterman
The Maze Runner series, James Dashner
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia C. Wrede
Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Louis Sachar
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
Coraline, Neil Gaiman
Among the Hidden, Margaret Peterson Haddix
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
Poppy series, Avi
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
Tithe, Holly Black
Life as We Knew It, Susan Beth Pfeffer
Blood and Chocolate, Annette Curtis Klause
Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Haunted, Gregory Maguire
Weetzie Bat, Francesca Lia Block
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
East, Edith Pattou
Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O’Brien
The Looking-Glass Wars, Frank Beddor
The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Homecoming, Cynthia Voigt
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
The Landry News, Andrew Clements
Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson
Bloody Jack, L.A. Meyer
The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner
A Certain Slant of Light, Laura Whitcomb
Generation Dead, Daniel Waters
Pendragon series, D.J. MacHale
Silverwing, Kenneth Oppel
Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Define Normal, Julie Anne Peters
Hawksong, Ameila Atwater Rhodes
Heir Apparent, Vivian Vande Velde
Running Out of Time, Margaret Peterson Haddix
The Keys to the Kingdom series, Garth Nix
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken
The Seer and the Sword, Victoria Hanley
My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George
Daughters of the Moon series, Lynne Ewing
The Midwife’s Apprentice, Karen Cushman
Island of the Aunts, Eva Ibbotson
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, Nancy Farmer
A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray
A School for Sorcery, E. Rose Sabin
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs
The Edge Chronicles, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Hope was Here, Joan Bauer
Bunnicula, James Howe
Wise Child, Monica Furlong
Silent to the Bone, E.L. Konigsburg
The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pene du Bois
Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters, Gail Giles
The Supernaturalist, Eoin Colfer
Blue is for Nightmares, Laurie Faria Stolarz
Mystery of the Blue Gowned Ghost, Linda Wirkner
Wait Till Helen Comes, Mary Downing Hahn
I was a Teenage Fairy, Francesca Lia Block
City of the Beasts series, Isabelle Allende
Summerland, Michael Chabon
The Geography Club, Brent Hartinger
The Last Safe Place on Earth, Richard Peck
Liar, Justine Larbalestier
The Doll People, Ann M. Martin
The Lost Years of Merlin, T.A. Barron
Matilda Bone, Karen Cushman
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
The Tiger Rising, Kate DiCamillo
The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
In the Forests of the Night, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
My Teacher is an Alien, Bruce Coville
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, Julie Andrews Edwards
Storytime, Edward Bloor
Magic Shop series, Bruce Coville
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
Veritas Project series, Frank Peretti
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
Raven’s Strike, Patricia Briggs
What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy, Gregory Maguire
The Wind Singer, William Nicholson
Sweetblood, Pete Hautman
The Trumpet of the Swan, E.B. White
Half Magic, Edward Eager
A Ring of Endless Light, Madeline L'Engle
The Heroes of Olympus, Rick Riordan
Maximum Ride series, James Patterson
The Edge on the Sword, Rebecca Tingle
World War Z, Max Brooks
Adaline Falling Star, Mary Pope Osborne
Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo
Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi
Parable of the Sower series, Octavia Butler
I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
Neuomancer, William Gibson
Dune, Frank Herbert
The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Emily M. Danforth
The Martian, Andy Weir
Skeleton Man, Joseph Bruchac
Comics/Manga
Marvel 616 (most of the major titles)
Marvel 1610/Ultimates
Persepolis
This One Summer
Nimona
Death Note
Ouran High School Host Club
Vampire Knight
Emily Carroll comics
Watchmen
Fun Home
From Hell
American Born Chinese
Smile
The Eternal Smile
The Sandman
Calvin and Hobbes
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
TV Shows
Fullmetal Alchemist
Avatar the Last Airbender
Teen Titans (2003)
Luke Cage/Jessica Jones/Iron Fist/Defenders/Daredevil/The Punisher
Agents of SHIELD/Agent Carter
Supernatural
Sherlock
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Firefly
American Horror Story
Ouran High School Host Club
Orange is the New Black
Black Sails
Stranger Things
Westworld
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Movies
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Jurassic Park/Lost World/Jurassic World/Lost Park?
The Breakfast Club
Cloverfield/10 Cloverfield Lane/The Cloverfield Paradox
Attack the Block
The Prestige
Moon
Ferris Bueler’s Day Off
Django Unchained/Kill Bill/Inglourious Basterds/Hateful 8/Pulp Fiction/etcetera
Primer
THX 1138/Akira/How I Live Now/Lost World/[anything I’ve named a fic after]
Star Wars
The Meg
A Quiet Place
Baby Driver
Mother!
Alien/Aliens/Prometheus
X-Men (et al.)
10 Things I Hate About You
The Lost Boys
Teen Wolf
Juno
Pirates of the Caribbean (et al.)
Die Hard
Most Disney classics: Toy Story, Mulan, Treasure Planet, Emperor’s New Groove, etc.
Most Pixar classics: Up, Wall-E, The Incredibles
The Matrix
Dark Knight trilogy
Halloween
Friday the 13th
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The Descent
Ghostbusters
Ocean’s Eight/11/12/13
King Kong
The Conjuring
Fantastic Four
Minority Report/Blade Runner/Adjustment Bureau/Total Recall
Fight Club
Spirited Away
O
Disturbing Behavior
The Faculty
Poets
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Marge Piercy
Thomas Hardy
Sigfried Sassoon
W. B. Yeats
Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden Nash
Margaret Atwood
Maya Angelou
Emily Dickinson
Matthew Dickman
Karen Skolfield
Kwame Alexander
Ellen Hopkins
Shel Silverstein
Musicals/Stage Plays
Les Miserables
Repo: The Genetic Opera
The Lion King
The Phantom of the Opera
Rent
The Prince of Egypt
Pippin
Into the Woods
A Chorus Line
Hairspray
Evita
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Fiddler on the Roof
Annie
Fun Home
Spring Awakening
Chicago
Cabaret
The Miser
The Importance of Being Earnest
South Pacific
Godspell
Wicked
The Wiz
The Wizard of Oz
Man of La Mancha
The Sound of Music
West Side Story
Matilda
Sweeney Todd
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Nunsense
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown/Snoopy
1776
Something Rotten
A Very Potter Musical
Babes in Toyland
Carrie: The Musical
Amadeus
Annie Get Your Gun
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
The Final Battle
Rock of Ages
Cinderella
Moulin Rouge
Honk
Labyrinth
The Secret Garden
Reefer Madness
Bang Bang You’re Dead
NSFW
War Horse
Peter Pan
Suessical
Sister Act
The Secret Annex
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Disclaimer 1: Like a lot of people who went to high school in the American South, my education in literature is pretty shamefully lacking in a lot of areas.  (As in, during our African American History unit in ninth grade we read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn… and that was it.  As in, our twelfth-grade US History class, I shit you not, covered Gone With the Wind.)  There were a lot of good teachers in with the *ahem* Less Woke ones (how I read Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Bluest Eye) and college definitely set me on the path to trying to find books written/published outside the WASP-ier parts of the U.S., but the overall list is still embarrassingly hegemonic.
Disclaimer 2: There are a crapton of errors — typos, misspelled names, misattributions, questionable genre classifications, etc. — in here.  If you genuinely have no idea what a title is supposed to be, ask me.  Otherwise, please don’t bother letting me know about my mistakes.
Disclaimer 3: I am not looking for recommendations.  My Goodreads “To Read” list is already a good 700 items long, and people telling me “if you like X, then you’ll love Y!” genuinely stresses me the fuck out.
Disclaimer 4: There are no unproblematic faves on this list.  I love Supernatural, and I know that Supernatural is hella misogynistic.  On the flip side: I don’t love The Lord of the Rings at all, partially because LOTR is hella misogynistic, but I also don’t think that should stop anyone else from loving LOTR if they’re willing to love it and also acknowledge its flaws. 
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A government of Chris Graylings
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By Ian Dunt
It's like a merry-go-round of ministerial defects. It's genuinely difficult to finishing reading the details of one government screw-up before they've done the next one.
During the Blair era, government figures were forced to resign if a row lasted a set number of days on the front pages. That now seems laughably old-fashioned. If you go into the kitchen to make a sandwich, there is a good chance that two Blair-era resignation-level offences will have been committed by the time you come back. Everything is much faster nowadays: Music, cars, political incompetence.
This week, Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley - who admitted when she took the job that she "didn’t understand things like when elections are fought people who are nationalists don't vote for unionist parties" - said that killings by soldiers during the Troubles were "not crimes".
On a basic moral level, it was obscene. Soldiers are not exempt from criminal behaviour by virtue of wearing a uniform. To claim otherwise is to give them carte blanche to behave in any way they like, no matter how murderous. To think they should be exempt is bad enough. But for a minister to actually say it sends a clear message to soldiers that powerful figures will work to protect them regardless of what they do.
On a political level, it was unforgivable. It inflamed tensions in Northern Ireland, in a week which already saw suspected terrorist activity from dissident Republican groups. It suggested the secretary of state was incapable of coming to impartial judgements on the delicate issues her department is supposed to preside over.
That's even more damning than it would otherwise be, given the Northern Irish Assembly is not functioning during a period in which a Unionist party is propping up the Westminster government. That type of scenario requires a very careful set of hands. Instead, we have a moron.
It also seemed to pre-empt the announcement next week by the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service into whether any members of the security services would be prosecuted for the events of Bloody Sunday. If there are no prosecutions. her comments will help create a sense of establishment cover-up outrage.
But even if you could dismiss all of that, it was profoundly unhelpful on a general strategic level. Britain is currently embroiled in Brexit negotiations which, you may or may not have noticed, are not going very well. The key issue relates to Ireland. The Republic has a veto on almost every aspect of this process. And this was what the Northern Irish secretary had to contribute. If she had sat down and tried to formulate the least useful combination of words for our current predicament she could not have been any more effective.
Not that those Brexit talks were going particularly well anyway. Geoffrey Cox - the boom-voiced attorney general tasked with securing changes to the backstop and then also simultaneously assessing their legal status - was in Brussels this week in a desperate bid to secure something before next week's vote. He insisted that the backstop breached the European Convention on Human Rights.
Diplomats looked on in astonishment. After all, the backstop was a British idea. It was the UK which had demanded an open border in Ireland as a red line, and then sought, for nearly a year, to expand it to the whole of the UK. And now it had turned around and claimed that its own policy was to breach human rights. It was so desperate and tawdry and self-interested that it did nothing to convince the Europeans to help him and quite a bit to discourage them from ever wanting to do so in future.
By the time he returned to the UK, Cox was Brian-Blesseding his way through a Commons statement when he cannily decided to start elaborating on why "'Cox's Codpiece' was in full working order". Much mirth and lots of chuckling news reports ensued. But he knew what he was doing. It was a dead codpiece strategy. Because away from the mock-hilarity was the stark failure of his negotiating tactic. All was in tatters. He had reportedly cancelled his trip to Brussels for the end of the week. Even plans for the prime minister to go on Sunday seem to have been shelved. The whole sorry spectacle of renegotiation is ending without anything to show for it.
And there was more. The ministerial failings simply would not stop. Work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd was forced to apologise for calling Labour’s Diane Abbott "coloured". Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said worries about Islamophobia should be addressed to the Foreign Office. Liam Fox spent £1.9 million on an 'Exporting is Great' online campaign, which included £107,000 for a podcast no-one listened to.
Back in the day, any one of these events would have ended a ministerial career. But now, no-one one ever has to resign, because there is no authority in Downing Street. May cannot really prise anyone out of their job because they would just become another malcontent on the backbenches, on either the Brexit or Remain side.
But in reality the poison runs deeper than that. These errors do not lead to resignations because honour has stopped playing a functional role in the way Britain does politics. Even a terrible prime minister like David Cameron resigned, just a few years ago, when the referendum campaign he was in charge of failed. But May struggles on regardless, as if it were a sign of strength rather than political sociopathy.
She lost a majority in an election she chose to call. No resignation. Her government was found in contempt of parliament. No resignation. She was handed the most overwhelming defeat in British political history over a deal she used the full bandwidth of government to secure. No resignation.
The shame is gone. And that permeates all the way down the system, from the ceaseless lies told by MPs to the limitless cash ministers waste on pet projects. Organisations take on the character of those at the top. We have Theresa May, so shamelessness, ignorance and inadequacy have now tricked down to every part of the governing structure.
This is basically an entire administration made out of Chris Graylings. It's like that bit in Being John Malkovich where Malkovich himself goes down the tunnel and everyone is him and all they can say is his name. Except that it's Grayling, and he's in every government department, at every level, ignoring advice, making disastrous errors of judgement, acting with a grotesque combination of naivety and malice, and never facing any consequences for it, no matter how many ruined policy portfolios or wasted taxpayer banknotes or broken lives he leaves scattered in his wake.
That's where we are. That's what this week was like. And honestly? It was one of the better ones.
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scottdonaldinfo · 3 years
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Neil Cook's The Activist Revolves Around A Political Activist and His Challenging Journey To Innocence
August 19, 2021: The Activist is one of the recently published works by Neil Cook, a great author who received some accolades on Amazon. Cook's debut book revolves around political activist Nick Freeman, who is falsely accused of assassinating his prominent nemesis, United States Senator Michael Cutler. Freeman seems to be guilty after delivering a passionate statement on a radio broadcast accusing the senator of orchestrating the attempted assassination of the current President during his primary campaign.
Freeman is on the verge of being arrested and realizes he must establish his innocence. His sole hope is a young FBI agent called Karen Abbott, who is on the rise in the Bureau. Karen's confidence is challenged despite her achievements when she is nearly killed while apprehending Raul Vega, a deadly international criminal, and contract assassin. Karen feels Vega is the actual killer of Senator Cutler and develops an uneasy alliance with the activist to acquire the evidence she requires to support her theory.
On January 25, 2021, the book was released by Global Summit House. The book is already accessible on sites like Amazon throughout the world. The Kindle version costs $1.99, while the hardback and paperback versions cost $23.22 and $11.73, respectively.
About Neil Cook
Neil A. Cook was born in 1981 in Vallejo, California. When he was in first grade, his family relocated to Ukiah. Neil was raised in a working-class household that fought to make ends meet but finally rose to the middle-class position. He was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, early in his childhood. Neil became interested in art, music, history, film, comics, and the written word as he got older. He desired to work in a creative area and, after considering several options, settled on writing. His debut work, The Activist, was self-published in 2021 with the literary platform service Global Summit House. Neil currently resides in Ukiah, where he writes and works a day job at a restaurant.
To know more, click
https://www.amazon.com/Activist-Neil-Cook/dp/1637957246/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1626446343&sr=1-1
 Media Contact
Company Name: Global Summit House
Contact Person: Anna Reid
Author's name: Neil Cook
Book title: The Activist
Website Link: https://www.authorneilcook.com/
###
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gardenebookpdf · 3 years
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[PDF EPUB KINDLE] American Sherlock Murder  Forensics  and the Birth of American CSI READ [EBOOK]
[PDF EPUB KINDLE] American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI [EBOOK]
American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI
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[PDF] Download American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI Ebook | READ ONLINE
Author : Kate Winkler Dawson Publisher : G.P. Putnam's Sons ISBN : 0525539565 Publication Date : 2021-2-16 Language : Pages : 336
To Download or Read this book, click link below:
http://read.ebookcollection.space/?book=0525539565
*EPUB$
Synopsis : [PDF EPUB KINDLE] American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI [EBOOK]
A gripping historical true crime narrative that 'reads like the best of Conan Doyle himself' (Karen Abbott, author of The Ghosts of Eden Park), American Sherlock recounts the riveting true story of the birth of modern criminal investigation.Berkeley, California, 1933. In a lab filled with curiosities--beakers, microscopes, Bunsen burners, and hundreds upon hundreds of books--sat an investigator who would go on to crack at least two thousand cases in his forty-year career. Known as the 'American Sherlock Holmes,' Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of America's greatest--and first--forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence, and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural.Heinrich was one of the nation's first expert witnesses, working in a time when the turmoil of Prohibition led to sensationalized crime reporting and only a small, systematic study of evidence. However with his brilliance, and commanding presence in both the courtroom and at crime scenes, Heinrich spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools that police still use today, including blood spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests, and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence. His work, though not without its serious--some would say fatal--flaws, changed the course of American criminal investigation.Based on years of research and thousands of never-before-published primary source materials, American Sherlock captures the life of the man who pioneered the science our legal system now relies upon--as well as the limits of those techniques and the very human experts who wield them.
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readingfilepdf · 3 years
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[ PDF ] Ebook The Last Castle The Epic Story of Love  Loss  and American Royalty in the Nation's Lar
[ PDF ] Ebook The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home FREE~DOWNLOAD
The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home
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[PDF] Download The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home Ebook | READ ONLINEhttp://read.ebookcollection.space/?book=1476794057
Author : Denise Kiernan Publisher : Atria Books ISBN : 1476794057 Publication Date : 2018-5-1 Language : Pages : 416
To Download or Read this book, click link below:
http://read.ebookcollection.space/?book=1476794057
{Kindle}
Synopsis : [ PDF ] Ebook The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home FREE~DOWNLOAD
A New York Times bestseller with an 'engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold, true story behind the Biltmore Estate—the largest, grandest private residence in North America, which has seen more than 120 years of history pass by its front door.The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House. Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates. Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore—and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy. This is the fascinating, “soaring and gorgeous” (Karen Abbott) story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day.
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lisavalentini · 3 years
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≉Why You Need A ? The Smuggler’s Daughter
Now you Read Sensational: The Hidden History of America's ?Girl Stunt Reporters?
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"A gripping, flawlessly researched, and overdue portrait of America?s trailblazing female journalists. Kim Todd has restored these long-forgotten mavericks to their rightful place in American history."?? Abbott Kahler, author (as Karen Abbott) of?The Ghosts of Eden Park and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy?A vivid social history that brings to light the ?girl stunt reporters? of the Gilded Age who went undercover to expose corruption and abuse in America, and redefined what it meant to be a woman and a journalist?pioneers whose influence continues to be felt today.In the waning years of the nineteenth century, women journalists across the United States risked reputation and their own safety to expose the hazardous conditions under which many Americans lived and worked. In various disguises, they stole into sewing factories to report on child labor, fainted in the streets to test public hospital treatment, posed as lobbyists to reveal corrupt politicians. Inventive writers whose in-depth
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sciencespies · 3 years
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New management approach can help avoid species vulnerability or extinction
https://sciencespies.com/nature/new-management-approach-can-help-avoid-species-vulnerability-or-extinction/
New management approach can help avoid species vulnerability or extinction
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More than 3,000 animal species in the world today are considered endangered, with hundreds more categorized as vulnerable. Currently, ecologists don’t have reliable tools to predict when a species may become at risk.
A new paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, “Management implications of long transients in ecological systems,” focuses on the transient nature of species’ and ecosystem stability and illustrates how management practices can be adjusted to better prepare for possible system flips. Some helpful modeling approaches are also offered, including one tool that may help identify potentially endangered populations.
One of the challenges of predicting species at risk is presented when a shift from relative security to vulnerability is that transient risk factors may not be known.
“A species or an ecosystem may seem perfectly stable when it unpredictably becomes vulnerable, even in the absence of an obvious stressor,” said Tessa Francis, lead ecosystem ecologist at the Puget Sound Institute, University of Washington Tacoma, managing director of the Ocean Modeling Forum, University of Washington, and lead author of the paper. “In some cases, modeling interactions between species or ecosystem dynamics can help managers identify potential corrective actions to take before the species or system collapses.”
Ying-Cheng Lai, a professor of electrical engineering and physics at Arizona State University, focused on the mathematical modeling process of the research.
“The Mexican gray wolf is an example of an endangered species that is experiencing a population resurgence in some areas, yet remains vulnerable in others,” said Lai. “The predator-prey relationship between the Mexican gray wolf and elk, mule, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, javelina, rabbits, and other small mammals is an example of how interspecies relationships can affect endangerment. In a general predator-prey relationship, a significant reduction in the prey population can make the predator endangered.
“These kinds of interactions, plus other factors such as the species decay rate, migration, the capacity of the habitat, and random disturbances, are included in the mathematical prediction model,” Lai continued, “and it turns out that, more common than usually thought, the system evolution dynamics can just be transient. Transients in ecosystems can be good or bad, and we want to develop control strategies to sustain the good ones and eliminate the bad ones,” said Lai.
Alan Hastings, a theoretical ecologist at UC Davis and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute, notes that “As we apply these mathematical models to understanding systems on realistic, ecologic time scales, we unveil new approaches and ideas for adaptive management.
“The goal is to develop management strategies to both extend a positive ecosystems as long as possible and to design recovery systems to support resurgence from vulnerable states,” said Hastings. “Over time, as successful predictions are incorporated into the mathematical model, the tool will become more accurate.”
But mathematical models are not a panacea, cautions Dr. Francis. “While models can be useful in playing out ‘what ifs’ and understanding hypothetical consequences of management interventions, just as important is changing the way we view ecosystems and admitting that things are often less stable than they appear.”
Additional contributors to the research include: Karen C. Abbott, Case Western Reserve University; Kim Cuddington, University of Waterloo; Gabriel Gellner, University of Guelph; Andrew Morozov, University of Leicester, Russian Academy of Sciences; Sergei Petrovskii: University of Leicester, and Mary Lou Zeeman: Bowdoin College.
The team, with sponsorship from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) through the University of Tennessee, has been working together as a study group named “NIMBioS Working Group: Long Transients and Ecological Forecasting.” The group has produced a number of papers focused on developing mathematical models to understand long transients in ecosystems.
#Nature
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