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calacuspr · 3 years

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This England team has shown us all what the power of sport really means

There have been a few times in recent years where the entire nation has appeared united and optimistic – and almost all of them have been connected to sport.

The World Cup in Italy in 1990, the EURO 96 in England and the London 2012 Olympic Games all come to mind as moments that will endure as epochs that transcend everything else going on in the world.

England has been particularly divided in recent years as the Leave and Remain factions argue; the challenges facing the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic; and the economic struggles that so many have encountered pretty much since the financial collapse a decade ago.

At Calacus, we work with organisations who see the value of sport to positively transform society and the England team has shown that throughout the build-up to EURO 2020 and beyond, they have brought the nation together in a way little else can.

Granted, it helped that England did so well, reaching the final of the tournament. It is hardly a new phenomenon that the squad is so multi-cultural, with players with family heritage from around the world.

While the aftermath of the defeat to Italy has shown the unpalatable side of society, the way in which the England manager and players have conducted themselves has been a masterclass in authentic communications.

STAY TRUE TO YOUR VALUES

Taking the knee has been part of football tradition in England for more than a year now, highlighting inequality and promoting diversity.

The England team have been criticised by many, with the Conservative MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, announcing that he would not watch “his beloved England team” while the players took the knee; Home Secretary Priti Patel suggesting that it was nothing more than “gesture politics.” and Prime Minister Boris Johnson refusing to criticise those who booed the team.

Given the racism that the likes of Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Raheem Sterling and others have suffered, particularly from online trolls, it’s remarkable that politicians sought to condemn them and accuse the team of Marxist tendencies and BLM affiliation rather than a compassionate plea for solidarity and equality over division.

England defender Tyrone Mings said: “Everyone’s entitled to their opinions. The home secretary is one of many, many people who oppose us taking the knee or refuse to defend it . . . we [have tried] to educate and inform the minority who refuse to acknowledge why we take the knee and want to boo it.”

Notably, the boos faded as the EURO 2020 tournament progressed and the team got to the later stages and it speaks volumes that many of those politicians who criticised the team then tried to associate themselves with them through staged photography that fooled no one.

CELEBRATE INCLUSION

This England team are no strangers to speaking up for those who don’t have a voice.

Marcus Rashford has campaigned for an end to child hunger and has twice forced the government to make u-turns over free school meals.

Raheem Sterling, one of the stars of the tournament for England and who has been vilified himself by media and fans alike, has fought hard to call out bigotry in the fight against racism.

EURO 2020 started during Pride month and saw players wear rainbow laces and captains use rainbow armbands, despite some mixed messaging from UEFA.

When England played Germany in the round of 16, captain Harry Kane joined his counterpart Manuel Neuer in wearing a rainbow armband with England's official Twitter account saying: “@HKane will join @DFB_Team 's Manuel Neuer in wearing a rainbow captain’s armband for tomorrow’s game at @wembleystadium to mark the end of Pride month, as the #ThreeLions stand in allyship with LGBTQ+ communities around the world.”

Kane himself explained: “From our point of view, it is a show of solidarity with the German national team from all of us at the England national team to be united in trying to kick out all inequalities there are. We’re on a huge platform on a big stage so it is obviously a great opportunity to do so.”

Jordan Henderson has shown himself to be a captain on and off the field, supporting local charities during lockdown as well as leading his Liverpool team to success over recent years.

He is thought to be one of the main drivers behind the team planning to donate its EURO 2020 prize money to good causes.

Their donation – which could be in the millions – will be made to NHS charities now that the football tournament has concluded.

The team made a statement last May which said: “Following positive discussions with the FA, the England senior men's squad are pleased to confirm that a significant donation from their international match fees will be made to NHS Charities Together via the #PlayersTogether initiative.

“This contribution will be taken from a fund already set aside to support a variety of worthy causes using all match fees collated since September 2018.”

While England supporters still let themselves down by booing national anthems at times during the tournament, it shows the progress that this England team has prompted that Joe White, an England fan who co-chairs Gay Gooners, Arsenal’s LGBT+ supporters group, attended the England v Germany match at Wembley Stadium “in full makeup.”

They wore red lipstick, shimmery eyeshadow and mascara along with a rainbow flag and England flag painted on their face to complete the look.

They tweeted: “This is a really small and personal point but today was my first game at Wembley in full makeup and overtly queer (as opposed to just camp). Absolutely no issues from fans and some lovely chats.

“Despite being absolutely petrified pre game, really proud of our fans”

Henderson responded: “Hi Joe great to hear you enjoyed the game as you should. No one should be afraid to go and support their club or country because football is for everyone no matter what. Thanks for your support, enjoy the rest of the Euros.”

How refreshing that the LGBTQ+ community can now support the national team with no fear of abuse or intimidation and that the Three Lions Pride can display positive banners – understandably celebrating Henderson’s goal against Ukraine.

ENCOURAGE TEAMWORK

England manager Gareth Southgate arguably had one of the most talented England squads in recent memory.

The team’s headquarters at St George’s Park became a centre of fun with photocalls featuring the likes of Bukayo Saka jumping into a pool on a flying unicorn inflatable and Ed Sheeran playing a special concert for the team not to mention a preview showing of Top Gun Maverick and call with its star Tom Cruise.

While early on, there was uproar among fans over players who had been left out of the starting XI or even the squad, with flair giving way to pragmatism, Southgate showed how much the team ethic mattered to him.

After the 4-0 victory over Ukraine, Southgate paid tribute to the members of his squad who had not featured much during the tournament.

He said: “I am thinking about the players who I had to leave out of the 23 because they have been such a massive part of what we’re doing. It is so difficult to keep a group of this size feeling valued and yet those guys have been phenomenal about how they have sacrificed themselves for the group.

"I feel the responsibility keenly. But it is these challenges that make us."

Not once during the tournament did any stories leak of disgruntled players, while the players reflected the afore-mentioned values by resisting well-trodden paths of nationalism that previous encounters with the likes of Germany may have engendered.

In fact, this England team have shown dignity in the face of criticism and the very definition of what it means to be a team – there are no egos, no vested interests.

Where once supporting England meant violence and xenophobia, this England team has inspired a new identity with a commitment to diversity, inclusion and a more tolerant society, which is a credit to them all.

SHOW REAL LEADERSHIP

It was quite telling when, during the celebrations following England’s win over Denmark, former international Gary Neville said: “The standard of the leaders in the past couple of years in this country has been poor but look at that man there... he’s everything a leader should be: respectful, humble, tells the truth, genuine. He’s fantastic, Gareth Southgate.”

Southgate has been humble, engaging, honest and resolute that he knew what he wanted to do and would not waver, even when senior politicians criticised some of the decisions made by him and his management team.

Ahead of the tournament, in an essay on patriotism, titled Dear England, Southgate linked football and national identity and underlined why the game means so much more than just sporting excellence.

“I have a responsibility to the wider community to use my voice, and so do the players. It’s their duty to continue to interact with the public on matters such as equality, inclusivity and racial injustice, while using the power of their voices to help put debates on the table, raise awareness and educate.

“On this island, we have a desire to protect our values and traditions – as we should – but that shouldn’t come at the expense of introspection and progress.”

Southgate has been calm and assured throughout his tenure, ensuring that he and the team are consistent in their focus, messaging and conduct. There have been no scandals, no drama and every press conference or media opportunity has been assured and engaging.

FACE ADVERSITY HEAD-ON

Losing on penalties is part of football, but it’s also something that England have encountered at a number of major tournaments.

The backlash after England’s defeat was brutal, with the three players who missed penalties, Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka all targets of racist abuse.

Some MPs also used the defeat as an opportunity to tell players to keep out of politics, such as Andrew Rosindell, who tweeted: “We are all proud of our England team, who have had the support of the whole country over recent weeks, but please focus of football, not politics. If you win for England, you win for everyone!”

Home Secretary Priti Patel expressed her outrage at the racism, prompting Mings to again address her double standards.

He said: “You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.”

Soon after the game, the mural in tribute to Rashford was vandalised, prompting hundreds of positive messages and fans voicing their support for the Manchester United forward.

Rashford tweeted: ““I’ve grown into a sport where I expected to read things written about myself. Whether it be the colour of my skin, where I grew up, or, most recently, how I decide to spend my time off the pitch.

“I dreamt of days like this. The messages I’ve received today have been positively overwhelming and seeing the response in Withington had me on the verge of tears. The communities that always wrapped their arms around me continue to hold me up.

“I’m Marcus Rashford, 23-year-old black man from Withington and Wythenshawe, South Manchester. If I have nothing else I have that. For all the kind messages thank you. I’ll be back stronger. We’ll be back stronger.”

CONCLUSION

The England team have shown without doubt the power of sport to unify – and while EURO 2020 is now over, we have the Olympic Games coming up where athletes will come together in the spirit of competition and camaraderie.

As Southgate put it: “The reality is that the result is just a small part of it. When England play, there’s much more at stake than that.

“It’s about how we conduct ourselves on and off the pitch, how we bring people together, how we inspire and unite, how we create memories that last beyond the 90 minutes. That last beyond the summer. That last forever.”

While the positivity has proved to be a brief moment in time, the England squad showed society how to empathise, respect and engage in a way that has been in short supply for so long.

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gdwessel · 3 years

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Rumors About Ospreay + Unrest In The NJPW Locker Room; Government Adds Okinawa to State Of Emergency, Another Extension Possible; Quick Review of DSOTR Collision In Korea; Shota Umino News!; Ren Narita on Dark Elevation; Satoshi Kojima In Impact Next Week

Strap in because this is going to be a long one.

There are rumors and reports coming out now (mostly from one source, the Voices of Wrestling website, from behind a Patreon paywall) that Will Ospreay's injury may not be what it seems, and there is growing discontent to the point of "mutiny" among the non-Japanese wrestlers regarding the state of emergency, the last-minute decision to resume touring when some were already travelling out of Japan, and the constant need for quarantining when coming back into Japan. Unfortunately this is as much as I can say, because this is behind a paywall, so until it gets made for public consumption I’m kinda limited in what I can say.

I can totally buy that all is not well within NJPW, especially after the COVID-19 bubble has burst. I've already discussed the creative malaise happening in the company right now. That there seems to be backstage dissent shows possible signs of trouble ahead for the promotion, and this golden period that we've been accustomed to is well and truly over. (I mean, it already was once lockdown happened, but they did the best they could, in my honest opinion, including a Pretty Good if not great WK15. Right now, creatively, we are below 2nd-half 2018 levels of poor.) But NJPW has weathered these storms before, although not with a global pandemic looming over everything. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that Ospreay is indeed injured, because a) they haven't exactly been shy about wrestlers being injured and needing to vacate titles before b) if Ospreay is legit injured, he is far more likely to receive treatment as a citizen of the UK from the (somehow still alive if not totally hobbled by Brexit) NHS, as opposed to Japan's healthcare system which is far more like the US model. Some wrestlers are swearing up and down he is injured, from the rumors. Ospreay certainly hasn’t said anything in his own words, beyond RTing NJPW’s announcement of his injury and vacating the title, and posting a pic of himself kissing the belt. RevPro kinda sorta said something but were also pretty vague. But for an injury suffered on 5/4/2021, this pic posted on 5/18 does not look like someone who just had such a severe neck injury they need to fly back to the UK (mind you, it COULD have been taken much earlier than that). Indeed, Ospreay’s still-active Twitter is more focused on Hana Kimura at the moment*. All this said, professional wrestling by it’s very nature has a baked-in amount of bullshit as part of it, so that this injury might be phony is always a distinct possibility.

It is utterly believable there is conflict between wrestlers and management, and communication is piss-poor at best. It is also believable that NJPW and Bushiroad are only taking their cues from a government Hell-bent on holding an Olympics an overwhelming majority of those polled are against, and who are treating the extended state of emergency as a vague suggestion rather than as a, you know, state of emergency. Pretending everything is hunky dory hasn't worked so far, so not sure why NJPW, nor the Japanese government, think eventually it will. (And NOAH is on my shit list right now too.) On that note, the government has now officially added Okinawa to the state of emergency. There is also talk that it will be extended further, as a government subcommittee member is quoted in the article as saying “it is difficult to think” that it will be lifted on 5/31/2021. Among that talk is word that Tokyo particularly will be under a stricter lockdown if this goes on. On a piece of actual GOOD news, it has been announced that the government has approved both the Moderna and AstraZeneca versions of the vaccine, so perhaps the vaccination rates will start to go up at last.

* - The anniversary of Hana Kimura’s tragic death is tomorrow (5/23/2021). I still sometimes struggle with the idea she is gone. Tonight at 10:30pm EDT (which is 5/23/2021 12:30pm in JST), FITE TV will be showing a live Hana Kimura tribute show put on by her mother, Kiyoko Kimura. Have a look in if you can

I was able to watch the Vice Dark Side Of The Ring episode on Collision in Korea, the two-night joint NJPW & WCW show from May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, on 4/28 & 4/29/1995, as it aired Thursday. It will hit YouTube here pretty soon. I am working on a podcast project about this documentary, and the (WCW version of the**) show itself, with the good lads at the Days Of Thunder podcast, so I won't talk too much here, but I will say a few things about it:

I did appreciate the detail here, as well as being able to get an interview with Antonio Inoki for this, especially as he was the principal driver of this show happening. I did also like that they took time to detail Inoki's mentor, and the "father of puroresu," Rikidozan, who himself was a North Korean national by birth. I did not appreciate the mythical pathos they added to the death of Rikidozan, which by all accounts was a random street fight with yakuza over a perceived insult (stepping on Rikidozan's shoe). I also felt they could have done a better job explaining the situation between Japan and North Korea at the time. When the event was first proposed to the NJPW roster, Scott Norton recounts Masahiro Chono telling Norton that "they want us dead," but it took until introducing former CNN foreign correspondent Mike Chinoy nearly halfway through the documentary to (briefly) explain the brutal colonialism that Japan wreaked on North Korea in the first part of the 20th century.

Also, as salacious as DSOTR can get, I am very surprised one of the most famous rumors/stories about this show did not get discussed, the internet wrestling legend that Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto were, erm, Quite Vocal when they were together, which of course did eventually lead to their marriage four months later which continues to this very day. But that was also part of another critique I had, which is, they mainly focused on the WCW part of the events, when this was an NJPW promoted show. The way it was told on DSOTR, the only Japanese wrestlers there were Antonio Inoki, Shinya Hashimoto, Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano. I'd love to hear more from the NJPW side of things, besides how proud Inoki was of this political stunt that did not get him re-elected to the Diet anyway.

Overall, I do recommend watching this when and how you can, because it is absolutely bonkers. I will definitely keep you posted on when the podcast project for this drops. ** - I've tried looking for the NJPW version and have failed so far. NJPWWorld only has two matches from this, Antonio Inoki v. Ric Flair, and Akira Hokuto v. Bull Nakano. The WCW version is not officially released, even on WWE Network, so yeah search the internet to see it.

We finally have an update on Shooter! That is, Shota Umino. Earlier in the week, RevPro's official Twitter had a tweet saying This Summer, showing Umino in not only his white/pink Tanahashi-esque tights, but holding his Death Riders jacket from Jon Moxley, that Shota retweeted, making this his first tweet since September 2019. Two days later, a hype video appeared with footage of Shooter, including performing Death Rider. Now a Sports Illustrated article is claiming that Shooter was supposed to have reunited with Mox on the NJPW Strong episode that had Mox & Chris Dickinson face Yuji Nagata & Ren Narita, but Umino had an unspecified injury preventing that. (They further say that Mox v. Nagata’s IWGP US title match was originally set for Strong but Tony Khan convinced NJPW to hold it on AEW Dynamite.) Umino's last match listed on Cagematch was on 3/14/2020 in ATTACK! Wrestling in Cardiff, Wales, on the winning side of a 6-man tag match with Kyle Fletcher & Kid Lykos II defeating Shigehiro Irie, Chief Deupty Dunne & Los Federales Santos, Jr. It's great to have him back wrestling again, and I hope we get that reunion with Moxley soon enough too.

As an update to an item from an earlier post, it appears that the Ren Narita v. Royce Isaacs match that was teased but then not aired on AEW Dark this past Tuesday will actually be on AEW Dark: Elevation this coming Monday instead. Also part of that will be approximately 35 other matches (I only slightly kid), one of those being Rocky Romero v. JD Drake. This usually drops on YouTube at 7pm EDT / 6pm CDT Mondays.

This past Thursday on Impact, a video package showed that Satoshi Kojima would be appearing on next week's episode. This will be Kojima's first time ever wrestling in Impact under any name, as the last time NJPW and TNA were working together, Kojima was still away in All Japan Pro Wrestling. No word as to what he will be doing or whom he will be wrestling.

Also on Impact, Juice Robinson & David Finlay Jr. successfully defended the Impact World Tag Team titles against Ace Austin & Madman Fulton... before getting blindsided by two members of the Violent By Design unit (in this case, ECW veteran Rhino and former AJPW Triple Crown champion + cancer beater Joe Doering) with whatever Impact's version of a Anytime Anywhere Challenge is, and took the belts from FinJuice. They claimed FinJuice were going back to Japan, but, erm, who knows if that's the case or if it was for a time period when Wrestle Grand Slam was still a thing that was happening.

Also also, it seems Don Callis is no longer in any executive capacity at Impact. This is a little significant as it seems it was Callis who opened the negotiations back up for Impact to work with NJPW. Of course, lately he's spent more time as an on-screen heel manager for Kenny Omega, the Good Brothers and now the Young Bucks on both AEW and Impact programming. We'll see how much longer Kenny Omega's belt collector shtick goes on for with Callis no longer part of creative or management.

And that is actually it for now! Yipes!

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lawrenceop · 4 years

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HOMILY for 5th Sun after Pentecost (Dominican rite)

1 Pt 3:8-15; Matt 5:20-24

How do we treat our brethren, ie: those within the household of Christ, that is, our fellow Christians within the Church? Over the last few Sundays I have been reflecting in these homilies on how we speak to one another, and treat one another. Beware of speaking ill of one another, and maligning fellow Catholics, especially online where there is the risk of scandalising an onlooker in addition to personal sins. Recently, I was dismayed to see a Tradition-minded Catholic characterise a religious sister on Twitter as a “modernist” even though it appeared to me (and others) that he had misread her statement, or read it in an uncharitable way, as though he were on the look out for the worst interpretation of her words. This saddened me deeply, not least because I am sure he had meant to do good, and he had thought that he was doing the just and righteous thing.

However, as today’s Gospel points out, the righteousness of our cause, or the truthfulness of our position, in itself, is not sufficient. I often hear it said that we should be bellicose and fight for the truth, and perhaps this seems the way forward because we feel besieged as Christians. However, the Word of God does not often support this stance, not if we mean to fight with angry words and dirty politics and swords or guns! St Peter, for example, in today’s epistle says: “Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing… Even if you do suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed”. (1 Pt 3:9, 14) Now, the Latin for ‘to bless’ is “benedicere”, which means, literally, to speak well of another, to speak the good upon another. So, Scripture tells us to speak well of others, even of our enemies. As such, we are challenged to seek the good in others, and so, to interpret their words in the best possible light, with charity and with humility. For a Christian, our weapons are charity and prayer, and we fight by bearing witness to the love, humility, and peace of God – a peace which surpasses the world’s understanding and which does not come from worldly ways of acting and behaving: “Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling”...

The Pharisees and scribes, after all, were rightly convinced of the justice of their position, and they were scrupulous in their upholding of the Law. However, they interpreted the Law narrowly, and thought the worst of others, even of the Lord and his apostles. So, just being correct is not sufficient. For Christ calls us Christians to go beyond the justice of the Pharisees. He calls us to live the law of charity, and so to participate in something divine. For God is Love, and he showed us the depths of his love on the sacrifice of Calvary, a sacrifice made present in the Holy Mass.

The law of charity does not mean that we should overlook injustice and sin, nor does it mean we should be indulgent and naive. However, it does require us to interpret others words and behaviour generously, kindly, uncensoriously. It means giving someone the “benefit of the doubt”, that is to say, we shouldn’t slam someone as a modernist, or a “fool” or say “Raca”, especially in a public forum like Twitter or Facebook, because, for starters, we are not in full possession of all the facts. Rather, Scripture and the law of charity calls us to regard our fellow Christians with charity, kindness, patience, showing to others something of the love and patience and magnanimity that God has towards us. So, St Peter says to us in today’s epistle: “have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” (1 Pt 3:8) For as St Paul says, even “if I speak the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor 13:1-2)

Let these words of Holy Scripture sink into our hearts and minds so that, the next time we are tempted to speak up and call out a brother or sister in Christ, let us check ourself, and strive to speak with charity. If not, then be silent, offer a prayer, and seek first to be reconciled through conversation and dialogue with your brother (cf Mt 5:24-25). Because, otherwise, as Jesus says, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” For God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – is charity, and we have been called to love. For “he who abides in love abides in God”, St John says, “and God abides in him.” (1 Jn 4:16)

#charity #justice #Christian #witness #online #blessing

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arihi · 4 years

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NaNoWriMo #15: Othering

I am, if I had to be honest, feeling a bit uncharitable today - which means that I probably shouldn’t be writing this post, but I have a boatload of errands today and I’m taking this break to write this, so it’ll be shorter anyway. Let’s talk about how people, most often in online communities, step over the line that is celebrating one anothers’ differences and land in ‘invalidate others’ experiences because we don’t know how to distinguish pride in our own identities from a sense of superiority over others because we have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old’ territory. And how, at heart, everybody has the potential to be a bully.

We are all individuals and therefore focus more on our lives and what impacts us more than we sometimes do on the people around us, never mind people that we don’t see or know about. This is okay! This is good. You need to focus on yourself. If you avoid your issues by compulsively fixing other peoples’ problems or begin to define your self-worth by how you can serve others, that’s not great! I know somebody who has a lot of problems but avoids it by love-bombing and bending over backwards for acquaintances that they were not nearly as close to as they thought they were, and it was very off-putting to the people around them. Then they would loudly, passively aggressively talk about how all they did was try to help them and how ungrateful others could be and didn’t they know that they had problems too?? And that they were pushing those problems aside to be a GOOD FRIEND? Note: Nobody asked them to make those ‘sacrifices’. Being a good friend is more than trying to lavish others with praise and gifts. They viewed themselves as a martyr and never stopped to think about self-growth because the thought that they were in the wrong was inconceivable. It was extremely unflattering.

But, I digress, and that’s not even what I’m annoyed with today! And I am trying to choose my words carefully, because it can be a sensitive subject, and I’m not very good at thinking thoughts through so I don’t want to give off the wrong impression. Queer spaces, kinky spaces, neurodivergent spaces that are not the neurotypical cisheteronormative culture and society that we know and criticize? Have a problem. The problem is sometimes we come to these spaces online and we are invigorated. Queer folk, kinky folk, neurodivergent folk - we’ve all got something about us that isn’t the “standard” (and I know that’s not a great word, but something has gotta be short for the ‘neurotypical cisheteronormative culture and society that we live in’). it is unfortunately more common for people ‘outside’ the norm to not have experienced great things in life due to their differences. So when we are around communities built around these differences, and we see, maybe for the first time, a variety of others who are similar? Who have gone through these problems? When we see queer folk who have been cast aside by their blood families and made their own found families? When we see kinky nerds who are into the same weird things we are? When we see others who suffer from invisible illnesses and talk about struggles that we’ve also experienced?

God, we are EXCITED.

And this is why I’ll always say that for all the negativity social media brings, it’s still always going to be a net positive for me. It provides these opportunities to bring others together, to empathize with people you wouldn’t have otherwise known about, and on and on, you know the drill. These communities bring life to people. These communities have kept people alive. They’re great. We celebrate our different identities and begin to feel this warmth that maybe we didn’t have previously.

But then that sometimes swings too far to the other side and people who should rightly accept and take pride in themselves start to, how to put it...be giant raging dicks! They take their experiences, their hardships, and yeah - they’ve gone through a lot. But it becomes a sort of ‘I’ve been through a LOT and therefore things that I experience are more RAW, more PURE than you who has experienced NOTHING!’. Does that make sense? Let’s rephrase it. It comes out as “polygamy is inherently more loving and better that monogamy”. It comes out as “my 24/7 D/s relationship is deeper and we are more connected to one another than your vanilla relationship”. It comes out as queer spaces for some reason EATING themselves alive and fighting over ace/aro identities. Sometimes it comes out as people using neurodivergency as an excuse for their actions and blaming others for not understanding them, ignoring the fact that the people who have condemned their actions are ALSO neurodivergent. Your identity truly honestly does not get to justify every single one of your shitty actions, y’all. I’d say ‘be an adult’ here, but people, once again, have the emotional maturity of 12 year olds so apparently you can’t!!

I have this thought in my head that I still don’t think I can quite put into words. But it’s this feeling that you have pride in yourself and it’s okay to be proud of yourself - but that maybe for a long time, you did not have this pride. And maybe previously when you were kicked and pushed down by society, you developed a sense that what happened to you was wrong. And it was wrong. But now that you are proud of yourself, for the first time maybe ever, and you feel good about yourself - you start to conflate feeling good with being right. And you start to weirdly hold yourself as this rubric to which others should adhere to, and if they don’t well...it’s okay, but they’re not really experiencing life as well as you do. At least, that’s what I’m assuming people who do that shit are going through. You see it a lot - I’ll use the example here of nerd gamer boys. They may have been bullied as children, and that wasn’t great. But they start to take pride in their identity and now THEY’RE the ones on top, and now a lot of them whine about girls on streams or queer representation in games because it’s too political, or whatever the new controversy of the week is. What it really boils down to is that once there’s the opportunity to be in the in-group when so long you were not, so many people TAKE it and PLAY INTO it by becoming the bullies. By making more and more in-groups and excluding others because it feels weirdly nice to belong to a small group that judges all the others. Because that power and sense of belonging can be intoxicating.

This has already gotten a lot longer than I meant to. I guess it has really been weighing on my mind. And honestly I could write so much more about this. But this is a NaNoWriMo and I’m not in the habit of making this terribly long about a tiresome topic to talk about. So I’ll try to wrap up.

Just, you know. It’s weird. It’s weird that queer twitter can be SUCH a shithole and that lesbians have to mute the word ‘lesbians’ because there is so much dumb discourse on it, and it’s weird that queer communities get so wrapped up in their online spaces and their warped version of purity culture that they eat themselves alive, somehow oblivious to the fact that ‘standard’ society in real life only BENEFITS from these seeds of discord. It’s weird that kinky spaces talk about consent and how your kink is not my kink and that’s okay, and then turn around and judge other kinks because they have different risk profiles, or because those kinks are ‘too light’. It’s weird that neurodivergent spaces sometimes gatekeep one another with outdated definitions and diagnoses (that are ALSO outdated and are often only accurate to a white male patient!!!!!) and sometimes use their neurodivergency as hotkey excuses for their behaviors and never try to grow as individuals.

I’m someone who often says that I love individuals, but people are EXHAUSTING. And sometimes I feel that most days than others. But that’s also maybe my own version of othering those that I do not know personally and assigning them to the easy definition that is ‘a group that I do not want to get to know any more beyond pleasantries’ because it’s easier to group people into easy categories. And that might be on me.

But, god. People are SO, SO fucking exhausting.

#AriNo #nanowrimo #vent #rant #okay yeah obviously I'm not excluded from this either #I don't think I'm this magical person who sees the world for how it is and therefore impervious to succumbing to these mortal defects #I feel like I am pretty mindful though and I try to do my best to observe these things #even if I'm not very good with conveying it with words #We as a society have an empathy problem #there's not enough of it #you know and it's weird.#And I'll leave this in the notes because I still have to reflect on this personally and I'm not really sure in this #but this is only ever a problem I see in Western societies #yeah you can make the argument that this isn't in Eastern cultures because nothing ever deviates from the norm lmao #and you wouldn't be entirely wrong #Eastern cultures have a lot of their own fucking problems let me tell you.#but good lord it blows my mind sometimes #I truly think this issue is exacerbated by individualistic cultures like the West #and that collectivism in Eastern cultures instills more sense of empathy and consideration for others around you #so that you see it less there #and again I'm not saying Eastern cultures are BETTER and I personally had to leave behind my culture. And it's a thing.#there was this tweet on Twitter from someone who lived in China about how hard it was to meet queer people there or something like that #and someone said well come to America! We'll take you to a gay bar.#And she says are you kidding me? Yeah China is backwards and has a toxic culture and people judge me in the streets sometimes.#but people in America actively wish you harm and will kill you for being different #and that honestly just encapsulates the issue so well and I wish I had the words to describe why I loved that tweet so much

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medea10 · 5 years

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Medea Rambles - Vic Mignogna

Fuck.

I know I’m going to regret writing this and WILL end up with backlash no matter what side I choose in the matter. So this post is the equivalency of shooting myself in the foot. No matter.

I just feel like saying something. Free speech and all that mess.

If you’re unaware of who this man is with the funny sounding last name, this man is named Vic Mignogna. For years he’s been well-known in the anime community as a very prominent voice actor. Many fans (myself included) was introduced to him when watching the English dub to Full Metal Alchemist where he plays pint-sized alchemist Edward Elric. And from then on, fell in love with his voice.

Well, I mean he was okay. Vic wasn’t really my favorite voice actor, but he was still very good. I always loved his voice in Full Metal Alchemist, Soul Eater, and Ouran High School Host Club. But others are absolute, can’t breathe without him, ride-or-die fans of Vic Mignogna and his work in anime, video games, and the Star Trek videos he does with his buddy Todd Haberkorn. In years past, he would always be seen as one of the best English voice actors of all time.

In the past ten years, I’ve seen Vic get some pretty harsh criticism from all across the board. First of all, he was seen as a homophobic. Then there were those who were SICK of hearing his voice everywhere in the anime world. Then they started attacking his Christianity. And other things like he’s mean to people around him, he’s an arrogant so-and-so, he won’t sign this thing I gave him so he’s a buttbag for life, he’s an Anti-Semite, he’s the devil, and so on and so forth. I truly felt sorry for him in some aspects. While I disagree with much of his stances on certain subjects and the homophobia thing was kind of a big driving point for me to dislike him, I wasn’t going to boycott animes that have his voice in it and call him Fuckface McFuck. But despite all that, his loyal fans would stand by his side.

But I think people started to warm up a little to him again a few years back when he attended an anime convention as a guest and got into a shouting match with some random bible-thumper. No matter what anime convention you go to, 9 times out of 10 there will always be some FuckCock holding a bible telling all of us we are going to Hell. And Vic stood up and said that is bullshit. Yeah, that was one moment where I was happy with Vic and proud that someone was ballsy enough to shutdown random Joe Jesus Jr. on the street.

I really wish I could have had the chance to meet him at a con. There was so much for him to sign for me. But alas, he never did make it to the Bay Area (excluding Sacramento, I refuse to travel all the way up there). Because after this next part, I don’t think we’ll ever be hearing from Vic again.

In January 2019, the anime community learned of several sexual harassment and assault charges filed against Vic Mignogna. Many of these claims go back to 2008 (maybe further). More here. Yeah, the #MeToo movement has nailed a lot of sexual offenders. From Hollywood elites like Harvey Weinstein, to political figures like *too many to fucking count*, to people in the sports world like Larry Nassar. In the wake of this movement, many victims felt it was time to step out of the darkness and tell the world their story.

First of all, everyone is different. Not everyone who’s been assaulted is going to go straight to the police. Some hide this shame for years, decades, so on. When someone is sexually assaulted, a lot of things go through their minds. And the biggest thing is FEAR. Fear of what the assaulter will do if you speak up. Fear of the consequences of speaking out. Fear of what the assaulter will do next. Fear of someone else falling victim to the assaulter. Fear of losing your career. And so on. Many of us choose to stay quiet for fear of no one believing us. Many of us choose to stay quiet for fear of being labeled as a slut or being in the wrong and that we should know better.

But I feel like the wake of the #MeToo movement has encouraged victims to come forward. Especially if their assaulter is someone in a position of power and want to make sure that no one else suffers the way they did. And I’m sure Vic Mignogna’s victims felt the same way. Even though he’s a voice actor and goes to conventions. However with his popularity, it can be VERY intimidating coming out with anything of the sort.

From the looks of many of these accounts, they definitely feel ewwie due to the fact that many of them were underage. And from what I’ve seen so far is about the same level as what Al Franken did. Could there be other victims? Possibly. Could there be worse stories out there that go beyond the too-close-for-comfort kiss/hug? Possibly. And we probably will never know.

Many of Vic’s colleagues have had mixed feelings. Some have come to the defense of Vic and some have taken the side of the victims. And one even came out with her own experience with Vic. More here. As for the fans.

IT. IS. FUCKING. HELL.

I’ve seen it all in the last three weeks all over the internet. And quite frankly, it’s starting to remind me of the stupid crap that happened when R. Kelly was in trouble in the early 2000s (before what we know now). It’s either #KickVic or #IStandWithVic. If you stand with Vic, people see you as a rapist-enabling cunt and if you hate Vic, you’re seen as a lib-tard, SJW, crybaby, snowflake. I’m quite sick of seeing this getting to the magnitude it’s getting to.

The actions of Vic, again, to me they don’t seem that big. However, I’m looking at it through someone who is in her early 30′s. If I was a teenager meeting him for the first time and having him give me unwanted and unprovoked hugs and kisses, I might feel something different. Especially since this is a complete stranger. The story that was shared by Jamie Marchi however makes me think that, yeah Vic did some shady shit. But that’s just what I think.

But the fans are getting out of hand. Voice actors are being harassed for even talking about this. Victims are getting death threats. And that’s another thing I would like to go off on! Why would you do that to someone who’s clearly been through a lot? Why would you send someone who came out after years of suppressing an ugly moment in their lives a fucking death threat? What did they ever do to you personally? NOTHING. They just exposed someone who isn’t even related to you and have no connection to at all after something that felt uncomfortable to them. People like you are the reason Dr. Ford STILL TO THIS DAY can’t even go back home. So knock it off!

When other voice actors in the anime community wound up in extreme trouble, fans were not shy about dumping them like rotten potatoes. The names Scott Freeman and Illich Guardiola come to mind. Then again, both of these guys did stuff far worse than Vic, so I’ll leave it at that.

As of today (February 11th, 2019), FUNimation released a statement via Twitter stating that they have no plans to use Vic in future productions. Yeah, I’m sad on one fact. I’m sad that if any of the shows he was very prominent in, he won’t be there. Which makes me wonder what’s going to happen when Free! returns in 2020. I don’t know, maybe they can get Bryce Papenbrook to play Rin. But I digress. This was a man with a lot of talent and revered as one of the greatest voice actors of all time.

BUT THAT’S STILL NO EXCUSE! People like Vic think they can get away with anything or are invincible because of the status and power they carry. And people like that make me sick. And currently watching that in our political system and real life is just more nauseating. That’s why anime is my one outlet away from shit like this. And then Vic Mignogna reared his head in. While I am skeptical about some of the victim claims, I cannot in good conscience defend Vic.

I’m glad FUNimation isn’t shying away from this and taking the effort to cut ties from Vic. The company does have to consider the safety of the other employees that work there. I will always remember him for roles he’s done in the past (and God help the community if we ever get an Ouran sequel). And that one time fighting that one bible-thumper prick! But that’s it. I can’t support this man’s innocence. Nope. Not gonna happen.

That’s all I feel like saying.

Splash on the Hate-o-rade in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

#Vic Mignogna

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themonsterblogofmonsters · 5 years

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Monsterblog Recommends: Gotham [TV]

Previously - Monsterblog Recommends: My Hero Academia [Anime]

So, Gotham is now on its final season, which is a shame, because Gotham is an utterly underrated delight. It is one of a few live action shows that truly gets its comic origins and understands that there has to be just the right touch of the absurd for events to be truly believable. It may start out as a regular old police procedural, but when shit goes sideways - you’ll know.

It’s Gotham. Its backstory of all of the villains of Gotham (and also Batman).

[ITS A DELIGHT AND I WON’T HEAR A WORD AGAINST IT]

1. What is Gotham?

Gotham is, ostensibly, a TV series showing the growth of Bruce Wayne from orphaned smol to early-days Batman, the friendship and trust between Bruce and Jim Gordon, as well as how the city came to be so completely batshit as to create Batman.

In truth, its a fantastic if somewhat goth-aesthetic’ed show with some of the most brilliant and utterly delightful villains you will ever encounter.

I may be biased because many of the villains are not just queercoded but outright queer and have absolutely amazing aesthetics, and in several cases some pretty understandable reasoning’s for their total chaos but also.... I’m not wrong.

Believe me. When you watch the show you will realise and agree that the villains are the best part.

2. Why I’m recommending it.

.... See above.

I know it seems like I’m making it all about the villains but arguably the show does it too. It knows that yes, the trigger for pulling everyone in is babybat and Jim Gordon, but that sticking to the police procedural isn’t going to work. So it gives us stuff to cling to.

Left to right: Don Carmine Falcone, Selina Kyle, Fish Mooney, Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma.

Early on the big driving delectable villain is Fish. She’s amazing. She’s also Oswald’s boss, early on, and factors in a fair bit to his development. She dies like three times - as one of the showrunners said on twitter, “At some point a character has to die, after like the second or third death”.

... This makes sense in context I promise.

Later on Falcone comes more to the fore, as well as Nygma and Cobblepot’s development as well - which also involves development together. They become murderhusbands and then murderdivorcees and hate each other and I swear to you I am not fucking with you about that. We also get development of Barbara and a variety of other characters. My favourite of them all is probably the development done for Nygma, but of the occasional guest stars... you can’t go wrong with Zsasz.

Zsasz is bonkers and I love him. He’s Falcone’s top enforcer, he has goth as fuck lady minions, he’s always so damn chipper even when he’s killing people and oh my god his ringtone.

HE IS A DELIGHT. WE DO NOT GET ENOUGH OF HIM

Even beyond this the general use of aesthetic in Gotham is amazing. It very effectively captures the idea of a city with a large proportion of wealthy and how that then rots down as you look towards the working class and the criminals and those suffering under the existing system of Gotham. It has a very distinct colour scheme and it just... it works so well.

It is also, as my girlfriend pointed out, one of the only live action shows based on comics to really get the aesthetic of that. Like, for example, this delightful scene:

That is indeed Hugo Strange watching Doctor Freeze fighting Firefly, freezeray to flamethrower, with the two halves reflected in his glasses in the most comics-book of comics-book style shots ever in the history of anything.

It is also worth noting that it was his experiments that helped to create both of these two.

For another reason why this show is a delight....

Look, I’m just gonna directly quote from something my girlfriend said because she has a knack for making Gotham’s batshittery comprehensible.

Listen I’m not saying Gotham is politically beyond reproach, or that its narrative is coherent, or that it has solid consistent characterization or even a reason for things to happen the way they do half the time

But what Gotham does have is a scene in a modern art museum featuring a comically fake looking bomb, labeled “This is a real bomb”, which is, in fact, designed to smoke like a real bomb, even though it is actually, in fact, a fake bomb.

And that shit is worth the price of admission alone.

[Source]

Gotham is a delight. Gotham is bonkers. Gotham starts out like a regular police procedural about Jim Gordon trying to find out who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents and help Alfred keep Bruce from going full Batman ASAP and then somehow develops into the batshit world of the comics in a way which makes perfect goddamn sense.

Somehow.

...

Also this show has probably one of the best and most intriguing versions of the Joker I’ve ever seen in any medium and he’s not even been outright called the Joker yet. It’s more like... a phenomenon. A memetic mind virus. An infectious idea.

It’s something Heath Ledger’s Joker would be proud of, honestly.

3. Less Good Things / Trigger Warnings

Its based on a comics series featuring some of the most enduring villains of Batman’s career and involves said villains. This means body horror, psychological horror, general gore, violence, swearing, I could go on. Things that I think would specifically fuck with people most of all would probably be the woman tasked to spy on Don Carmine Falcone being exposed and then throttled in front of several of his underlings, because with everything that comes before it is... a very specific horror. On a similar note, the torture of the mayor, when he has a box on his head filled with rats.

There’s also then some of the more specific horrors, Fish Mooney and some of the stuff that happens to her later on, Alice Tetch and her brother Jervis - Jervis is a jerk and horrifying on multiple levels and seems to be kind of incestuously into Alice which she really really does not like. Alice can also do something weird and specific and it is its own kind of horrifying as well as what Jervis can do.

What else... Gods, I don’t know. It has a very specific set of themes and aesthetics and after the first season you probably have some idea of what to expect even if it doesn’t show it all.

Suffice to say, it probably helps if you have a tolerance for weird and bullshit. If you can stand Hannibal you can stand Gotham, and you’ll probably get more laughs.

4. Spoilers and Further Points

I don’t really know that I can spoil it because its just... Its Gotham.

What I will say is what my girlfriend suggested on her blog ages ago, which is to watch the first episode and then just skip until you get to the goat murder cult, because that’s where stuff really starts picking up. Then later you can go back and watch those episodes you skipped if you feel you need to.

Lastly... Gotham is on it’s last season. Catch up now, and join us in time for the finale. Make the most of it.

5. Further Reading

My girlfriend’s tag for Gotham is a delight and can show you the full extent of Gotham’s WTF in a way that, even for me, who watches and loves the show, I still see posts and then go oh wait HA oh my god yes that happened. You can find it Here.

Not exactly reading, but there are some great fanvids out there for Gotham, of which this is probably my favourite:

youtube

Otherwise... goddamn just watch Gotham already, ok?

You won’t regret it and also you should come and burble at me about it.

#monsterblog recommends #gotham #gotham tv show

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houseofjoduk-blog · 5 years

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Male Mental Health

"Would you miss me if I was gone tomorrow?"

That is a question many men in the United Kingdom are asking themselves this very moment. The biggest killer of adult males aged 50 and below is suicide. That upper age has increased from 40 to 50 over the past 5 years.

The question is simple...Why?

There seems to be...actually, forget that first bit. Let me start again.

THERE IS a long thought and expected way for adult males to act in British society as a whole. It is also a specific section of the adult male population as well. It has long been seen that straight white men are expected to be heads of the household, go out to work and provide for the family, and deal with all problems should they arise. They are also expected not to experience emotions as it is seen as a weakness. Add on to that the image projected on to all straight men of all skin colours and religions that they have to be strong and "man up" to all the bad in society.

This is not a blog making men out to be the vicitms. It is actually how things are in British society and how they have been for some time. Until recently, the only type of domestic violence was when a man beat his wife or girlfriend because society had this stereotype that women were weak and merely servant baby makers to the odious dominating man in the relationship. Think of the images portrayed in the recent TV Series "The Handmaid's Tale" and apparently to many people, that is what most men are like. Bastards. Evil. Violent misogynists.

But, in reality, there are many women out there who regularly beat and control their boyfriends and husbands. But due to the societal image of men having to be strong and domineering, so many men suffer in silence.

Yes, there are many women who have suffered in silence for decades and decades. But there have also been, and continue to be, many men who suffer in silence at the violent hands of women.

There has to be a change or the suicide rate amongst men in the United Kingdom will continue to climb year on year. Moment on moment.

There was a documentary on TV recently called "Stopping Male Suicide" and was presented by the long running BBC Horizon series. From the outside many people were shocked if you took 10 minutes to pop onto Twitter for starters. Eyes were opened. But that is simply one programme and there needs to be more. I see article after article, news piece after news piece, magazine feature after magazine feature and it focuses on either women or the males within the LGBT community.

I singled out the LGBT male community for the reason I know many will bring up about the suicide rate within the community due to hate crimes. These are regularly highlighted in the news and media in general. There is an official community so people can support each other. And rightly so.

I also singled out women for similar reasons. Again, there are many communities within the sisterhood. If we look at the hijacked #MeToo movement where the founder has commented how it has changed beyond recognition from how it started. I recently asked the #MeToo movement directly why they seemingly ignored Men in similar situations to women that they are seeking to highlight. I did not get a reply, but others asked the question and eventually the founder of #MeToo had to put out a statement when one of the female celebrity supporters of #MeToo (I use the word celebrity with tongue in cheek there as all actresses and actors and musicians etc are, are people having a career in the spotlight and being paid a lot of money for it. They are not idols. Not brilliant people. Look to the wonderful NHS Doctors and Nurses, the Police and Fire Brigade who put their lives on the line for us, the military who give their lives to protect us.) was accused of grooming and sexually abusing (technically rape under US law) an under age male actor. The founder said that #MeToo was there for males and females.

But it was a hollow statement.

Someone started a #MenToo hashtag, but Twitter ignored it and never gave it a little icon like the #MeToo hashtag has.

You see, that is the big problem that exists in British society (and American society), the straight man is seen as the big bad wolf. Every one of us. If you are a straight white adult male then it is even worse when you add in the #BlackLivesMatter community cause.

I have zero issues with people standing up for their beliefs. It is what I am doing right now. But what I have a problem with sections of society tarring other entire sections of society with the same brush instead of pointing out that not all men are bastards, not all women use men for their own benefit and then dispose of them when they become bored, that not all straight men see women as sex objects or not all black youths are going to rob you. There are many misconceptions in society that divide us when they should not.

So, where is this blog going?

Mental Health in adult males directly connected to male suicide.

That is where.

I am fast approaching 50 years old and it took me being tortured and raped in 2006 (12 year anniversary at 6.30pm on December 5th 2018 - not that I am counting...honest) to start asking questions of my mental health. The past 12 years have been a rollercoaster as the NHS has consistantly failed the mental health sector ever since it was created in the 1940s. Not one single government. Not one single political party. Not one single politician has taken the mental health sector seriously.

There is an advert backed by Lloyds Bank where people have post it notes on their foreheads which is a great to highlight how people worry how others will see them. And tonight (Friday 30/11/18) I am watching "I'm A Celebrity" with another incident where Anne Hegerty (The Governess on The Chase) backed out of a trial. Now, throughout the show so far there has been a combination of love and hate towards her. Those with compassion recognise that as someone who battles Aspergers she has gone into the jungle to challenge herself and raise awareness of Aspergers/Autism. Yes, she is being pad for it, but if you speak to people who deal with autism/aspergers you will see that Anne is typical of someone dealing with the condition on a daily basis. It is called sensory overload. There is no cure. You manage it. I see many traits of Aspergers in myself. Another one is no filter and that is evident from Anne in some of her responses. I do the same.

But people who choose to not understand it, or even ask questions about it, will always be out there and always sit behind a keyboard and slag off people who battle challenges on a daily basis. They simply cannot fathom how people with mental health challenges face each day. They see life with a clear mind and as soon as they are feeling a bit down or having a bad day at work, they say "I am so depressed"...NO YOU ARE NOT DEPRESSED as you are simply feeling a bit down because maybe your boss at work is making you do some work for once, or you have broken up with your boyfriend/girlfriend. It is not being depressed. Trust me on this one, if you were suffering from depression you would know it in a heart beat.

As you can see, this blog is going on a bit, but it needs to. This is just the start. There is so much to talk about as people need to wake up and see life is not a bed of roses. Most people who genuinely suffer from a mental health condition do not want your symptathy or special treatment. They just want people to recognise that they have some extra hurdles to navigate and not to judge them as inferior or wastes of space.

As the song lyrics from Rag N Bone Man's "Human" goes...

"I'm only human, after all. Don't put your blame on me."

Now, I have covered just a small bit of the topic of mental health challenges for both males and females. But I have also pinpointed that for adult males it is genuinely harder in British society (just for starters). This is in no way meant to belittle young males and all females (of all ages) who battle mental health, but to speak out about a section of British society that is ignored in the main. Why? No one really knows for sure. No one can say it is due to any of the reasons I have said above, but there is so much evidence to say that the things I have mentioned ALL add up to why people like me have either considered or attempted to take their own life. To be pushed to that edge and see no other way out. People call those who go down the suicide route selfish. They put out there that they are leaving people behind who will be impacted by it.

But remember this. People who are considering taking their own lives see no other way to go but suicide. They feel that the world, their family and loved ones would be better off without them.

Consider having that thought even once. Just once. Scared yet? Think how it is for those who have those thoughts on a regular basis.

Life is not kind. It is not meant to be easy. But if you can carry out one act of kindness each day, then life would be so much easier. Whether it is holding open the door for someone, saying thank you to someone who has served you in a shop or using the word please when asking someone for something. The little things add up, and if you think it makes a difference to the people who live life with a clear head then think how much it means to those of us with those extra mental health challenges to deal with.

Be human. Be kind. Be understanding. Do your bit.

And one last thing. If you see a man crying then ask him if he is okay. You may just save a life. Us men are not all big bad wolves. Some of us are fragile and need a little bit of kindness. But we don't tell you because we are scared of rejection.

Thankyou for reading this blog. My first blog. It took months to get to this point.

One final question...

"Would you miss me if I was gone tomorrow?"

Simon x

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attacksoftheclones · 7 years

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Why We Need to Appreciate Padmé Amidala

In spirit of #SWisagirlthingtoo making its way around Twitter, I thought now would be the perfect time to make a post I’ve been wanting to write for a while. Star Wars up until recently has not given much attention to its heroines, perhaps with the exception of the iconic Princess and General Leia Organa. It is incredibly sad that it has taken this long for the franchise to realise that characters such as Leia, Padmé and Rey (as well as the many animated heroines we have met such as Ahsoka and Hera) have been and will forever continue to be definitive factors in the way many girls have and will grow up.

When it comes to Star Wars, I loved Leia and I love Rey, but they are both not the heroine I connected with. I connected with former Queen and then Senator Padmé Amidala from the highly criticised (although increasingly less so) prequels and then again in the animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Any Padmé fan knows that loving her as a character most often means you’ll often be told that in the end she did ‘nothing but cry over Anakin’ or is in no way comparable to her daughter, you’ll find it frustrating that no reference is made to her at all following Episode III and you’ll know that she has little to no presence in merchandising even when you are more than willing to throw coins down Disney’s way for her.

But Padmé deserves to overcome all of the above. Padmé constantly has to battle against both what people expected her to be (arguably a Leia clone) and the often restrictive and limiting definitions of what makes a “strong female character”, especially in pop culture. Regardless, here is why Padmé is such an underappreciated and amazing character.

The Phantom Menace:

Padmé is elected queen at 14 years old, a competent and strong leader wise beyond her years. She was educated in public service from an early age, earning the trust of her people after serving as the Princess of Theed and becoming a junior senatorial adviser upon joining the team of Apprentice Legislators from the age of 8.

She is one of the first people to acknowledge and realise the failures of the Republic (“It is clear to me now that the Republic no longer functions”, “Wake up, Senators, you must wake up!”).

She is brave enough to take part in espionage missions in order to allow herself to take part in both negotiations and the action, as well as to keep herself safe.

When the time comes, she is brave enough to reveal herself as the queen even though it is not asked of her.

It is her idea to form the Gungan Alliance and to try retake Naboo herself. She is able to realise that a diplomatic solution is no longer plausible for her home planet and instead of sitting back and ordering action from the sidelines, she fights alongside her people and risks her life in doing so.

She delivers victory, bringing the two species of Naboo together and liberates her people.

Padmé served the full two terms allowed by Naboo’s laws but was so popular as a leader that her people wanted to amend the constitution in order to allow her to remain queen.

Attack of the Clones:

Padmé continues to serve her people as the representative of Naboo in the Galatic Senate, even as her life continues to be threatened and also after she watches her decoy (and friend) die.

Despite more threats to her safety, Padmé is selfless in going with Anakin to Tatooine to try and save his mother as well as wanting to help and rescue Obi-Wan.

Padmé is prepared to put her career first. She denies her feelings for Anakin right until she believes she is going to die on Geonosis and understandably realises that her career does not have to be the only satisfaction in her life. She accepts that she is entitled and allowed to love, even when Anakin does not share the same luxury.

She decides to become committed to hiding her relationship so that she can continue her duties for the Republic as well as attempting to ensure Anakin is not denied his life as a Jedi.

Her every action is not driven by her love for Anakin. She decides to go rescue Obi-Wan when Anakin argues against it and whilst Anakin and Obi-Wan bickered when chained up on Geonosis, she instead took the time to rescue herself and reach higher ground.

Padmé survived the Battle of Geonosis as a clever politician and as a blaster-weilding fighter whilst many other Jedi and trained clones died. She proves again that she can fight.

The Clone Wars:

Padmé essentially becomes a hero through her politics.

We see more of her in action in the Senate, particularly in the episode The Pursuit of Peace where she gives an unforgettable speech. “Who are we fighting for? My people, your people, all of our people. This war is meant to save them from suffering, not increase it. I support our brave soldiers whether they come from the clone factories or from any of the thousands of systems loyal to the Republic… It is our duty and our responsibility to preserve the lives of those around us.” The full version can be found on Youtube.

Padmé continues to be the target of further assassination attempts but continues to expand her power and influence nonetheless.

Padmé cleverly earns the attention of the galaxy’s most important players and is able to come to adaptable and sufficient compromises with them despite differences in beliefs and alliances.

Missions with Ahsoka!!

She again does not let her decisions be influenced or driven by Anakin. When Anakin does not want her to go on a mission he deems to dangerous in the episode Senate Spy, she replies “You’re not going to let me? It’s not your decision to make, it’s mine”. Padmé puts her duty to the Republic first, even when it bothers Anakin on multiple occasions.

She is brave enough to leave Anakin when he violently attacks Rush Clovis, whom she had been previously romantically linked with.

Revenge of the Sith:

Yes, many of her scenes where she is active in the early formations of the Rebel Alliance are cut and we will never forgive George Lucas 5eva. The original ending where she attempts to assassinate Anakin also would have been awesome. This movie is where Star Wars fails Padmé, but her role in it still can not be ignored.

Padmé is able to question the state of the Republic when many around her are too afraid to in fear of accepting what it may truly mean – “What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists and the Republic has become the very evil we’ve been fighting to destroy?”

She recognises that Palpatine has gained too much power in the Senate upon becoming Emperor and reorganising the Republic into the Empire, famously stating “so this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause”. This leads her to form the early stages of the Rebel Alliance that would ultimately become a deleted scene but should still be considered canon.

Once learning all that Anakin has done, Padmé states that he is “going down a path [she] can not follow”. She is not blinded by love and is able to see his actions for what they are and who he has now become. He ultimately destroyed everything she had worked so hard to preserve.

Whatever way you want to believe Padmé died, she went through unimaginable heartbreak and her emotions should not totally be criticised because her pain will never be understood by most. People also often fail to realise that Padmé’s fate is also that of the Republic. She was fated to die with it as she was symbolic of its spirit. I think it is fair to say that she was never destined to live past the birth of Luke and Leia (despite that one line from Leia in Return of the Jedi which can be argued for) as Vader would never have been fully committed to being Palpatine’s apprentice with Padmé around and her future would have had to have been reduced to one of hiding.

It is Padmé that instills the hope and kindness in Luke that allows him to refuse the dark side and resurface the last bit of humanity left in Anakin/Vader. Luke does not win over his father through combat or power but through embodying the eternal impression of light that his mother left on his father. Like his mother, Luke knows that fighting, or ‘aggressive negotiations’, will not always be the answer. A New Hope is ultimately a product of Padme’s legacy.

I know myself that I would not be the person I am today without my favourite female characters. Through female characters, as girls we can feel as though we have defeated great evils, overcome inner conflicts and sometimes even get to save the boys for a change. We might not be able to pick up a blaster or lightsaber in real life, but we learn it’s okay to take charge and that there is absolutely no reason we should feel ashamed for doing so. We learn that we can aim for and strive for any goal whilst also feeling confident and every bit capable to get the guy on the side if we wish to and that having such feelings should not be seen to diminish our strength in any way.

Padmé carried the weight of her gender throughout the entirety of the prequel trilogy and for that reason alone she was never going to please everyone. She was the new female lead and many hoped she would be a character who was along the lines of being Force sensitive or perhaps even a pilot like Rey. But Padmé’s strength was in being kind when she had every reason not to be and was a force to be reckoned with through her intelligence and diplomacy that helped preserve the security and stability of the Republic for as long as it was able to stand under Palpatine’s manipulative rule. She was the humanitarian the galaxy needed when it began to lose all humanity.

Many people who grew up watching the prequels first probably connect with Padmé more because they never tried to fit her into a mould or an already established idea. But I do hope that fans of any age can come to recognise that Padmé is as worthy of being centre stage in the Star Wars arena as any other female character and I truly hope Forces of Destiny can help bring that about. Of course we need more representation in the Star Wars universe and I will never deny that, but I am lucky enough that I did gain a character from Star Wars that I adore so much. I also appreciate that these female characters can be every bit important to male fans as they are to female fans and any male fan that is able to appreciate our heroines as equal to our heroes is helping fandom and pop culture take a step in a better direction than it has in the past.

#padme amidala #star wars #women of star wars #prequels #padme naberrie #queen amidala #the phantom menace #attack of the clones #revenge of the sith #TPM #AOTC #ROTS #the clone wars #TCW #forces #forces of destiny #FOD

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fightingforfreedomblr · 5 years

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The secrets of America governments (5)!

One picture is more than one thousand words. Supposed I do not want to put those disturbing pictures on the web. However, I must because I do not have choice to prevent further demonization by America governments. Otherwise America governments can defend “I have no proof”. True. It is hard to prove those “mysterious” medical problems, such as, headache, dizzy, chest pain, skin burnt on thighs, hands, top areas and feet and more. However, rashes were the concrete proof. Well, those busted dermatologists, such as, Yen An from “The Capital” said “Do not know” asked by his masters, and another dermatologist named Dr. Arden Edwards from “Direct Derm” had political diagnosis as “too fat”. “Am I too fat (I am 5’8 and 137 pounds only)?” Next why? Because Kevin Johnson, Darrell Steinberg and Jerry Brown protect perpetrators not victims otherwise I can put my video from SAC-PD with report #18-281126 on youtube because video does not lie (especially from Police). However, truth is truth, the only truth and never dies. Next next why? Because California State government and City of Sacramento is corrupted by Singapore government, China government and Canada government insidiously with 99% possibility.

Well, America has best doctor and pharmacist on earth and a huge pool of local goons to make diseases fabricated on me “mysterious”. Are crack heels on both sides (left and right, especially deep on right side) “mysterious”?

I have been a homeless caused directly by America governments and indirectly by Singapore government, China government and Canada government in America for more than 4 years. Still not enough, Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg want to extend for another 4 years. Why? Because it is fun to watch me suffer and struggle.

-Word-of-God: America is a so-called Christian country. And based on Bible, all brothers and sisters should love each other and care each other because “One suffers, all suffer.” However, I have a hard time in every church of Sacramento at any time. Supposed I go to church to worship God I should have peaceful and joyful time. However, those busted churches and busted pastors seize every opportunity to force me to watch lousy shows and accept abject coercion, even annoyance and harassment at church, attack me hidden, even had a serious sermon “Hope in dying.”

I never label myself as a saint, prophet or Nobel but admit that I am a small man. However, I do forgive because human is imperfect and can make mistake. The difference is how you handle the mistake? People may still remember the incident of United Airlines happened in year 2017 with disturbing video by “Dragging passenger off the flight by force”. However, United Airlines settled it quickly and peacefully with its passenger David Dao with “Confidence settlement” and regains its reputation back. However, the so-called most powerful government on earth-U.S government, plus, 5th largest economy-California State government and City of Sacramento do not have courage to admit their bloody wrongs against me. I understand that. To save their faces, I have given them a chance to negotiate the terms and conditions by secret. However, America governments have chosen to cover up. Why? Because I am vulnerable, defenseless and voiceless.

From commons sense, cover up backfires. America governments can continue to find excuses that my ordeals are not from America governments but other three governments. I do not buy that anymore because three governments have resources and evil networks but they do not have authorities in America. Today is my 2293 days ordeals. Here I give iron facts: It is OBAMA administration put me in jail unlawfully for more than 279 days; it is U.S Judicial Branch dismissed my lawsuit against OBAMA with prejudice; it is OBAMA administration denied my immigration status; it is California judicial branch dismissed my lawsuit against AT&T with prejudice; it is SAC-PD and FBI thwart to investigate my harms, mistreatments and sufferings for more than 2293 days; it is Donald Trump administration denied my right of employment; it is Jerry Brown administration denied my ID; it is America governments caused me more than 4 years homeless in America directly.

Most importantly, from Bible point of view, the people forgives if another people repents. Since America governments have been used and played by Singapore government, China government and Canada government to do so many bloody wrongs to me, why not repent and get forgiveness?

-Donald Trump:

1) Abusing God: See, how dare he is? He declares himself as “A second coming God.”

2) Division: As I mentioned before, the most important for a leader is good vision and leadership. Well, one of qualities of good leadership in unity. Does Donald Trump have such quality? Let’s check the iron fact in America. The Blue states become bluer and the Red states become redder. Now I quote Mark 3:24-26: If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.

3) Word: From Matthew 5:37: All you need to say is simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. He is the president of U.S-The so-called most powerful government on earth. One word means one word. However, his word today means “yes” but tomorrow means “No” frequently. Well, people can check another source CNN (Last time I mentioned “The Washington Post”) to see how often he lies.

4) Media: All people knows he attacks all media is fake, even conservative media FOX. The irony fact is: Fox anchor Neil Cavuto said, “We do not work for you.”

5) Climate change: Honoring Earth means honoring God because the earth is created by God. He claims himself as an environmentalist but pull out “Paris agreement” because that’s hoax. See, all countries leaders, even Syria leader join that agreement except him. The ridiculous thing is; he claims “Climate change is a Chinese hoax” in G7 submit of 2019.

6) Economy: He is a business man and economy seems his strength. Let’s see another inconvenient truth-government shutdown. He wants 5 billion “Wall money”. But 35 days government shutdown caused more than 6 billion losses, plus non-economic losses. He blamed “The Democrat”. Of course “The Democrat” counter blamed him. Who is the loser? Neither “The Republican” nor “The Democrat” but American taxpayers.

-Local governments: California State government, especially City of Sacramento have played the key roles for my ordeals (about 95% done by Americans) in Sacramento, except my jail in Tacoma of Washington State (about 95% done by Latinos). Again, America governments can find excuses again. However, just ask one simple question: Without America governments, especially City of Sacramento support behind, can those local goons run so wild, so rampant and so long to persecute me?

-Hate: Donald Trump, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg have not only discriminated me deeply but also hated me deeply. That’s why I have been hated nationwide? Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg can’t deny that because flags lowering is the iron fact. Next why? Because I slam their dark sides as a first reason. I do not want to accept their abject coercion (oppression) to cover up for their bloody wrongs as a second reason.

However, I want to tell Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg another inconvenient truth. Even many homeless (1%) despise you, needless to say normal people (99%). But there are still two kinds of people want to harm me. One is their broken puppets who want future political gain; another is local goons want petty cash. Upright and thoughtful people do not do that because I have done nothing wrong, promote America value and stand what America stands for.

-Hypocrisy: Donald Trump, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg think I do not have fundamental unalienable rights of legal proceeding and personal autonomy. However, America is a so-called the global champion of human right. Moreover, people can check from all America media, their FB pages and Twitter pages, every day talk about freedom or liberty and democracy. If America governments do not do something for their bloody wrongs, it seems unfair to International Community. Therefore, they provide so-called alternative-love. May I ask Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg? Is food poison love? Is sleep disturbing love? Are annoyance, harassment and assault love? Is abject coercion love? Then they have another alternative-sex. Not ridiculous? My ordeals are nothing to do with sex. All those do not work. Finally they do it by force-forced unwanted sex or unsafe sex because U.S government is the most powerful government on earth and I do not have choice.

See, they have hired those people to force me to watch lousy shows and accept abject coercion every day but America governments strongly deny it. What a hypocrisy?

-Coward: Supposed America is a land of braveness but now it is a land of coward. See, OBAMA did not have courage to admit mistake but apologized in unofficial way in jail, “Sorry, it is a mistake”; Donald Trump forces me to make decision through ad in LR, “Decision made across town not across country.” Here, I ask Donald Trump, I have zero dollars on my wallet, no valid ID and passport is seized by U.S government and expired, how to make decision? The same as Gavin Newsom, he does ad in LR too, “Fly nonstop to Santa Barbara”; The same as Darrell Steinberg, he does ad in LR too, “Sactozero has never been so EV”; Donald Trump, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg do the ad in LR, “Mendocino-USA county, find your happy”. Why? Because I do not want to sex with homeless on the street. Then they have such idea-in the wood; finally, all treat me as a terrorist because America governments never negotiate with any terrorist. However, they hired one homeless to say to me in despicable way. Wow, that’s America!

I ask OBAMA, Donald Trump, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom do the simple math: how many innocent people died in mass killings? How many hurricanes, storms, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and wildfires happening in recent years? Well, OBAMA, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom can distract to “Climate change” for natural disasters, but why Donald Trump pull out “Paris agreement?” Moreover, OBAMA, Donald Trump, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom: do mass killings link to “Climate change”? Final question for Gavin Newsom, does “Boat fire” link to “Climate change”?

America governments have fabricated so many “mysterious” diseases on me, therefore, those mass killings and Boat fire are “mysterious” too.

Since America does not welcome me, why not let me go? Since America governments can’t protect me, why not let me go? Since America governments can’t deal with 3 evil governments, why not let me go?

It is not only a matter of money but most important a matter of justice, reputation and government accountability.

Note: 1) Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg: Thank you for your “generosity” because I have zero dollars on my wallet for more than 19 months.

2) Why I posted it on FB on 9/16/2019 first time? Because 916 is the area code of Sacramento.

3) This article is about “The secrets of America governments (5)”. However, why America governments have those secrets? They are forced by three evil governments. Next why? Because three evil governments drag down America governments successfully to persecute me in America. Now Lee Hsien Loong, Xi Jinping and Justin Trudeau pull Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom and Darrell Steinberg’s noses to do whatever they want against me.

-Singapore: a. Lee Hsien long is divided with his own brother and sister; b. Singapore has worst smog in three years as forest fires rage recently;

-China: a. There is more than 3 months protest (longest) in Hong Kong. Will Xi Jinping crack down the protest by military? Well, the God is watching and the world is watching; b. China has experienced trade war woe with U.S government;

-Canada: a. The latest Hurricane Dorian tore through Canada's Atlantic coast-Nova Scotia. Why Nova Scotia of Canada not other place? Because my ex alcoholic roommate named Glenn Gordon who set me up for Singapore government, China government and Canada government is from there; b. Justin Trudeau faces ethics scandal challenge during election;

-America: a. The latest Hurricane Dorian hit Puerto Rico as cat 1 first and then Outer Banks of North Carolina as cat 2 later. b. “Boat fire” in Santa Barbara County caused 34 innocent people died.

Again, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life!

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independentartistbuzz · 7 years

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Indie 5-0: 5 Questions with John Dylan

Multi-instrumentalist and producer extraordinaire, John Dylan, has had music running through his veins before he was even born, his parents playing the likes of Elvis Costello, Bob Marley and Stevie Ray Vaughn whilst he was still in the womb. After previously having exhibited his work through the genre-defying band Terrene, (Produced by Phil Ek: The Shins, Fleet Foxes, Built to Spill). John has now gone solo, to focus on his talents as a songwriter. His upcoming album Peripheral Drift Illusion is set for a fall release.

1. Tell us about "Get Beyond." What was the inspiration behind your sound and the video’s imagery?

Well I was at a very low point in my life during the writing of this song. I had been laid off, my house was broken into and I was robbed, my car was stolen, my girlfriend’s car was broken into, I was filing for bankruptcy and the house was ultimately foreclosed on. I had recently gotten a diagnosis of chronic anxiety. The layoff was precipitated by the big financial crash, and it was 2009 and there was this feeling of darkness in my head about my life and the world… But 2009 was also a year the Beatles got a little press. The remastered discography came out that year and also their video game, which was really fun.

I was already a huge fan and have been since I was in grade school. Ever since I heard the jaunty bassline in “All My Loving.” And even though I am most into their experimental stuff, their political stuff, and their more mature work generally, there is just something about Paul’s bass playing that I just loved as a kid and still love now; it’s like he is expressing pure happiness and acceptance through just very intentional bass playing. It just connects.

And that was sort of the beginning of the idea. I was so low, I was just reaching for anything that made me feel better, something that had that real, “from when I was a kid,” true comfort and joy in it. And it just started with that... “bounce.”

I didn’t take anything else from it, just that feeling like, what if there was a bassline that just made people feel better?

The video tries to go from where the song starts (“in haven bed I stay”) to where it finishes (“you must prepare to let your real self show; get beyond!”) visually. It starts with 2-tone xeroxed-looking black and white. Then progresses to vector-traced slow-motion. Then it progresses to psychedelic vector-traced slow-motion. Then you have “gotten beyond” and are floating in space and are free of your pain. I have always wanted to get into vector tracing ever since A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life came out. It turns out it requires more manual work than you might realize for it to look like that. Little variations in the color averaging from frame to frame creates flicker and I couldn’t figure out a way to solve that, programmatically. Still, if you watch it in fullscreen in very high quality you get a sense of the effect pretty well. Not so much if it’s zoomed out or low-bitrate or non-HD; then it basically just looks posterized.

2. How did the collaboration with legendary Beatles artist Klaus Voormann come about?

I was trying to do some collage work for the album art. I have this super cheap laser printer/scanner that basically functions like a xerox machine and I was trying to do black and white surreal collages, maybe a bit inspired by punk flyers. I have a compendium of Cometbus’s work, the book about 924 Gilman by Brian Edge, and even a book called Punk: An Aesthetic that compiles all kinds of brilliant work.

But, I found my efforts to be a bit clumsy, and realized that, speaking of the Beatles, what I really was imagining was something more surrealist, like the cover for The Beatles’ Revolver, that I have always loved. I have it as a magnet. I also have a t-shirt that has the Revolver artwork except it’s a Simpsons shirt and The Beatles are replaced by The B-Sharps and the collage is full of Simpsons references.

So I emailed Klaus and I told him about me, and what I was doing, and work of his that I really like. I told him about the themes of the album, and what I was thinking about, and of course shared the music with him. And he said “yes.” He has been very kind.

As for the punk collage work, my favorite artist in that area was, and is, Jesse Michaels, the lead singer for Operation Ivy, among other bands. So I also wrote him about doing a piece for an upcoming single, and he said yes, too.

I like working with musicians who make art because I feel like they get it in this really cool way and there’s this homemade, earnest feeling to what they make. They’re multi-talented, working from their home. Coincidentally, since I recorded and performed this album at home by myself, that suits the project very well.

3. You’ve played in some notable bands and we were curious how it feels do everything solo on your forthcoming album.

With no offense meant to the members of Terrene I feel like individual musicians who specialize in an instrument can often see a song in a very “this is my part” kind of way. We would go into the studio, and people are just like “alright, my guitar part: done.” “Bass: finished.” But I was always the stickler trying to get all the pieces to add up. So I would stay behind and be like “WE’RE NOT DONE.” And do overdubs. Too many overdubs.

Then, I went too far the other way; the final product of Terrene’s album, through no fault of Phil Ek, who is a wonderful producer, was very sonically crowded with ideas. Way too many layers of stuff on songs that are far too simple to be carrying them. When you read the criticism of “overproduced,” that’s a tough one.

So, I gave myself a rule: Don’t do any recordings that a 5-piece band couldn’t pull off. And, though you would need a very talented band to do it, I stuck to it on this record!

Mars Accelerator was more circumspect, we would sit for hours talking about arrangements and trying to make it work. At the best of times, that’s how it’s supposed to work, at least for the kind of music I’m interested in making; everybody thinking like a songwriter and arranger. Something that gets better if you listen to it a second time and try to find the little things. You can feel the difference in something where all the pieces were thought through. Unfortunately, Mars suffered from the other problem with working with bands: it was hard to get everyone together and commit time. People moved away and… That’s where we’re at. Maybe we’ll resume soon. I would love to. I think playing with them made my music a lot more complex and hard-edged. I am not averse to distortion and more angular, difficult ideas, the way I was during Terrene.

Doing it yourself is empowering. But you have to strike this balance where you discipline yourself and not fall in love with every idea you have, yet you also love yourself enough to call something “done” when it’s done.

4. What artists are you listening to currently?

I actually keep an excellent bunch of playlists up on my YouTube page that I strongly suggest people check out.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAgntbIlnXuy4FfX1u6FRBA

I always love to use my megaphone to highlight good music, and I share thousands of songs on there of stuff I’m listening to right now. Yearly best-ofs going back to 2008. Plus my “writer’s block cure” playlist of stuff that you can put in the background and write to, without it infecting your internal wordstream. My day job is as a writer, you see.

Every once in awhile I get an idea for a themed playlist. A recent one was my favorite female-fronted music. I need to add a lot more to that, actually.

5. What's your favorite instrument to play in the studio and favorite to play live (if different) and why?

In the studio I really like playing drums. Drums were my first instrument, I started playing when I was about 4 or so. I was sitting in my car seat and my parents realized I was hitting the safety bar in time with the music and getting into it. The viscerality of the drum performance sets the tone for the entire track. I am often humming very loudly when I play, which gets picked up on microphones sometimes, because I have the music in my head playing so loud and I want to make a noise over the sound of the drums -- with the drums, mixed into the drums. It’s just a pure state of creation.

Live, I really enjoy playing bass. I feel like the audience starts to “get” the song once the bass player drives the song home. It’s not too hard for me to play, so I can just groove out. Live drums would be too much pressure to be as fun. It’s very different keeping time so other musicians can play to you vs. laying down an idea on tape.

So of course live, I play guitar. Hah!

Find John Dylan Online:

Homepage

Facebook

Instagram

BandCamp / Fan Club

SoundCloud

Twitter

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#john dylan

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nothingman · 7 years

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I have one question: Miley, what’s good?

I n a bizarre, straight-from-Hannah-Montana twist, Miley Cyrus resurfaced last week with a new, squeaky clean image. Gracing the cover of Billboard to promote her forthcoming record Malibu, she appeared almost barefaced. The picture reveals a more subdued Cyrus dressed in a delicate vintage pink Gunne Sax dress, posing in the middle of a country meadow. Gone are those raggedy dreadlocks she insisted on wearing for the past few years, along with her signature crusted glittery-party-monster-makeup aesthetic.

With this new cover story and accompanying photo spread, Miley has softened her gaze for the camera and morphed back into the basic white innocence that made her a household name in the first place. But the interview she gave to Billboard left a lot of people asking what happened to the girl who twerked her way into appropriating black culture not too long ago. Before turning over this new leaf, Cyrus was more than happy to wear her hair in cornrows, pop a gold grill into her mouth as she promoted the beat-heavy album Bangerz, and objectify black women as props in her first video, “We Can’t Stop.”

So it’s curious that Cyrus has seemingly completely changed her tune, distancing herself entirely from the culture she once appropriated. When asked about her musical influences, Cyrus told the Billboard interviewer:

“I also love that Kendrick [Lamar] song [‘Humble’]: ‘Show me somethin’ natural like ass with some stretch marks,’ . . . I love that because it’s not, ‘Come sit on my dick, suck on my cock.’ I can’t listen to that anymore. That’s what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much ‘Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock’ — I am so not that.”

This kind of thinking is exactly why Nicki Minaj almost snatched Cyrus’ ass off the MTV stage in 2015. Back then, she asked the infamous question, “Miley, what’s good?” Now I want to know the same thing.

In 2013, also in Billboard, Cyrus appeared to have reinvented herself with a hip-hop persona almost overnight. Earlier that year, she uploaded a video of herself twerking to a dirty south rapper J.Dash’s song, “Wop.” This was our first official introduction to the new “ratchet” Miley, and with this transformation, she was convinced that she had abandoned her pop-star image, enough so that she started being referred to in mainstream media as as “The White Nicki Minaj.”

Cyrus’ Billboard interview has people asking what happened to the girl who twerked her way into appropriating black culture not too long ago.

But any slight chance of that comparison being valid disintegrated when Miley explained to the New York Times, “If you know Nicki Minaj is not too kind.” Cyrus even admitted to understanding why people, including Minaj, were possibly upset with her, because she’s a “white pop star,” but still she doubled down on the misunderstanding. When Minaj called out MTV for rewarding Cyrus for appropriating black culture and mocking the bodies of black women everywhere, rather than nominating Minaj, a black woman, Cyrus took an #allbodiesmatter stance. “There’s girls everywhere with this body type,” Cyrus told the New York Times, right before calling Nicki’s grievance just another “catfight.” It was Cyrus’s frightened response to the “angry black girl” trope, which included Minaj’s now-infamous question that some believe put an end to Miley’s “thug life.”

In the most recent Billboard interview, Cyrus is really trying to put that image to bed — but she comes off as the typical colorblind white woman who still doesn’t seem to get how she’s been appropriating black culture over the last several years. She calls the fact that she was called out for using black women’s bodies as props “mind-boggling” and denies any wrongdoing in “taking advantage of black culture.”

White People: I Want You To Understand Yourselves Better

But her comments about Kendrick Lamar highlight the real issue with Cyrus wearing blackness like a costume. She has reduced rap culture to nothing more than Lambos, dicks, and Lamar. Her comments reek of respectability politics and seem heavily coded in racism, with her cherry-picking negative stereotypes from the genre she poached the first time she felt it was time to re-create herself.

Throughout the entire article, she goes to great lengths to disassociate herself from behaviors that can be coded as “urban,” and her repeated usage of the word “roots” seems synonymous with “white.” She even boasts about how she was inspired to reach beyond what she calls “outspoken liberals” to “cultivate country fans and red staters” (a phrase that could also be read to mean Trump supporters).

http://ift.tt/2mxfrE6

I know I shouldn’t be as mad as I am. But seeing Miley categorize all of her “hoodrat” shenanigans of the past few years as a “phase” is exactly why people of color constantly fight to protect their culture. Cyrus has been waiting for the perfect moment to retreat back to her country facade and the white privilege that comes with it. And it is black women who will suffer from this, who will be ridiculed for the aspects of their identity Cyrus borrowed for a profit, long after she’s shed the faux-extensions and taken out the gold grills to get back into the good graces of her white fan base.

On Saturday, after being dragged up and down on social media and Black Twitter, Cyrus released an additional statement on Instagram: “I have always and will continue to love and celebrate hip hop as I’ve collaborated with some of the very best!” She continued:

“At this point in my life I am expanding personally/musically and gravitating more towards uplifting, conscious rap! As I get older I understand the effect music has on the world & Seeing where we are today I feel the younger generation needs to hear positive powerful lyrics! I am proud to be an artist with out [sic] borders and thankful for the opportunity to explore so many different styles/sounds! I hope my words (sung or spoken) always encourage others to LOVE…. Laugh…. Live fully…. to be there for one another… to unify, and to fight for what’s right (human, animal, or environmental) Sending peace to all! Look forward to sharing my new tunes with you soon!”

Though this statement may seem innocuous, asserting herself as more “evolved” for listening to “conscious” rap still alludes to parts of hip-hop culture being inferior if they do not follow respectability politics. It also doesn’t address her complete overhaul from cultural appropriation to country girl.

Miley’s temporary gentrification of hip-hop music is nothing new.

Miley’s temporary gentrification of hip-hop music is, of course, nothing new. She is not the first talent to toss their “urban” persona as soon as they reached new heights of popularity. I still remember when P!nk actually had fuchsia pink hair and spoke with a “blaccent” before she successfully transitioned into a more mainstream aesthetic. And not long after P!nk came Justin Timberlake, who transformed from a B-Boy grabbing on Janet Jackson’s titty to singing jingles for the Troll movie. Today we have Justin Bieber going through his rap renaissance, before likely abandoning that as well.

Some — including Cyrus — may argue that this is all a part of artistic growth, but I wish these pop stars would skip the part of their career when they decide to exploit the genres that are already hard for aspiring black artists to break into. We know the only remedy is to keep on creating.

To quote Miley Cyrus, in a time where authenticity matters, black artists know this: “We Can’t Stop.”

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Miley Cyrus’ Image Makeover Shows Why Black People Fight For Their Culture was originally published in The Establishment on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

via The Establishment - Medium

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blschaos3000-blog · 4 years

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Its 1:26 pm warm/Memorial Day/never forget

Welcome to 8 Questions with…….

Today’s interview is a little different in a couple of ways. Today’s guest,Blaine Kelley,is my first politicallt active guest. Now I usually find the folks I talk with via Facebook or a third party. But Blaine is also my first Twitter guest,he and I have been friends on that platform for around three years now. And yes,Blaine is one of the most active voices against Donald Trump and his fascist regime. He posts different news articles,gets out in the street and encourages everyone to excercise their right to vote no matter how hard the Republicans are trying to deny and suppress that right. I have found Blaine to be a warm and generous man who loves his family and his country. He is willing to discuss just about anything as well….in fact he and I have had some really nice chats about life in general. What I respect most about Blaine is that he will be friends with just anyone based on face value,he doesn’t judge anyone and lets their actions speak for themselves. In today’s world,that is rapidly becoming a rare trait. I know by posting this interview that I am showing where I stand in today’s world and while I plan to interview other activists,my blog is not a political one nor will it become one. Simply because I think politics are dead and good people like Blaine Kelley are fighting for the life and the future of this country. So I hope you will really read the answers to the 8 Questions (plus a couple more) that I asked Blaine Kelley……

Please introduce yourself and share a little bit of your background with us.

Hello- My name is Blaine Kelley. I am from central California. I have always lived here and have no desire to live elsewhere. I went to school at Pepperdine University where I studied Economics and Literature. I Attended Law School at Southern Cal. I worked as a civil attorney for over a decade until I burned out on the grind. My mother was suffering from cancer and I spent several years attending to her while she battled it. I began to feel the need to go back to work so I invested in a construction corporation and became a board member and the VP of operations. I continued this for a decade finally selling my shares and entering the corporate consulting world.

How are you and your family coping with the Covid-19 lockdown?

During this time I met my spouse and we relocated from San Diego to The Bay Area. When Covid-19 struck I had been following the science for several months. I was not surprised at the lightening speed of the spread in the US. I was prepared. We have been sheltering In place longer than most of the country and it shows on the infection growth curve for California. I feel very lucky for this. We have two children, 10 and 14, whom I have taken the responsibility of educating during the pandemic. Many of you know this is quite a challenge. Beyond this the “lockdown’ has presented many obstacles: Being isolated from friends and family is a challenge the video calling only partially overcomes. Further it is a daily challenge to stay physically mentally and physically fit without access to the “normal” outlets that keep me and my family on an even keel.

When did you become politically active and what was the issue that peaked your interest?

I am 50 and became interested in politics during high school. The Iran Contra Affair was interesting because my best friends neighbor was arrested for weapons trafficking. We lived in a small beach community so this was A BIG DEAL. My family was always involved in political activities. My grandfather was a contemporary of Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta. He marched with the farmworkers from Delano to Sacramento. It wasn’t uncommon to visit them and dine with famous social and political figures. The strong pro-union sentiment is something I still support and am proud of to this day. Political corruption has always been one of my main areas of interest when thinking about the political perspective. Weather local or national, corruption has been and will be, the single biggest danger to the democratic ideal most Americans cherish.

What is “the Resistance”?

The Resistance to me is merely a group of citizens who are fed up with the corruption that is choking our Democracy right now. We see the questionable validity of our election process, and more importantly, the disastrous results that political apathy and general ignorance have delivered upon us all. Within my circle of allies you will find individuals from across the political spectrum. What we have in common is a passionate love of our Country and a steadfast belief in the Rule Of Law. Without fair and balanced laws society will not function as envisioned by the founders, the citizenry, and the our allies across the world who, by necessity, need the United States to be the Beacon of Justice for the World.

Do you feel only having two political parties have led us down this path in which we have a fascist president? What three things would you reform if you could do so?

I have little experience with anything other than the two party system. Accordingly, my thoughts on a parliamentary system are not favorable. I think 90-95 percent of Americans all want the same thing but want to take a different route across town to reach the destination. Accordingly, more parties won’t solve this issue but more imput and cooperation will.

Do you feel a corporate owned press does more damage then good and why/why not?

The so called free press is partially at fault for the current fiasco we have in Washington. We have ZERO requirements that “the press” report Facts, Truth, or anything advising the consumer that opinion is being presented as NEWS. This is an epic failure of Congress and the Courts. It is difficult to determine if the big three (MSNBC.CNN.FOX) are mostly responsible for the authoritarian crisis we currently face. What is clear, Ratings (income) are the primary goal of all media in the United States. This is problematic as the echo chamber effect is fully our current reality. Obviously this is not the way to unite all citizens for any common good. Divide and conquer is a successful strategy that has been effective for thousands of years.

How can we recover our country or have we gone past that point?

I definitely think we can save our county and political system. We have not yet lost all respect and understanding for and of the Rule Of Law. We are close as normalization of authoritian actions is “normalized” by Fox news and to a lessor extent by the other two daily. We also see most Members of the GOP doing the same in furtherance of personal and professional necessity. The margin is razor thin for the upcoming election. If America is to be saved some wholesale changes must be made if the Authoritian corporate machine is defeated in November. Among these are Citizens United, wholesale voter repression/suppression ,and term limits to nave a few.

How do you explain what is happening to your kids?

10 and 14 have a basic understanding of the problems we face. I explain how (corny but deal) Truth and Justice are integral to the American Way. I define Justice as; those who fail to follow the laws of man, as passed by our court or, made by our lawmakers, are punished according to those same laws. That clearly is not happening!

Do you feel the revisionist policies in our schools have played a part of the rise in fascism here?

I don’t consider revisionist content in schools the major problem but rather the wholesale elimination of content the culprit. Ignorance of the designed mechanisms of the political and legal worlds is the biggest educational failure I see. This has led to a loss of respect for both The Law And The Political Process. Loss of respect has led to apathy.

How do you encourage people and which people encourage you?

I try to encourage others to do one simple thing….VOTE. By explaining that the ability to vote is a privilege I hope to inspire others to become more aware of their ability to affect other lives in a positive way. I tend to barrage people with facts……sometime too many. Lately I have just pushed the idea that if you vote you rightfully have a say in the outcome. People that inspire me are those who understand that wisdom is important yet easy to acquire. It isn’t all about IQ but about paying attention and digesting what you see in a meaningful way.

Do you feel we as a society have become much to reactionary because we feel powerless to do anything?

No on the contrary we are way too fucking apathetic. Many will passively sit by and watch while tragedy occurs RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. Two examples: Last year my Spouse and I were at the store and witnessed a man hitting his wife! I ran up and, along with another, grabbed the man separating him from the woman. There were at least 15 other bystanders doing NOTHING. Four months ago I was driving and a woman was running in traffic. She was screaming….. She was being chased by a man. I pulled over and inserted myself between her and the man allowing her to get in her car and escape. Taking personal responsibility to make my city a better place for all is what everyone needs to do. We have to get out of our personal bubble and take some responsibility to make life better for everyone. Liberty and freedom are not going to last for any of us unless all of us work together.

What do you like to to do for fun when you’re able to do so?

I enjoy a wide variety of things. Books, live music, and the outdoors are my favorites. Somehow eating delicious things seems to be involved in most of those activities. My family is the center of most of these a interests. Traveling to a concert, sporting event, or a National Park we find a way to experience new foods along the way.

The cheetah and I are flying over to watch to attend a political rally but we are a day early and now you are playing tour guide,what are we doing?

Accordingly I would encourage you and the Cheetah to check out the bay and the museums here. Mainly because great food is always near. A trip to the Capital is a short hop as well. The Cheetah would love a romp through the many estuaries in search of things to smell and chase………

I like to thank Blaine for talking the time to chat with us and being candid about his views on the state of America. As November gets closer,this next vote is the most important in our nation’s history. If we don’t retake back our country then,we never will.

You can follow Blaine on his Twitter by clicking here.

Feel free to drop us a comment below.

8 Questions with………political activist Blaine Kelley Its 1:26 pm warm/Memorial Day/never forget Welcome to 8 Questions with....... Today's interview is a little different in a couple of ways.

#8 Questions With #America #Blaine Kelley #California #citizen #Democrat #family #father #husband #patriot #political activist #politics #The Resistance

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cryptodictation · 4 years

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The LGTBI Persecuted | Future Planet

“We do not exist before the laws but we are. We do not exist for society but nevertheless society uses us: we are in the industrial estates, in the middle of Calle Montera in Madrid or in Casa de Campo but we are invisible. I am a transsexual, a woman and a migrant and I suffer that triple discrimination ”, this is how Fabiana denounces her daily life, invisible to a society that prefers to look the other way. She was part of the project Pride of the Brave, an exhibition organized by La Merced Migraciones, which can now be seen in this photo gallery. The images make visible the situation of those who are forced to flee their country due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and ask for refuge in Spain.

Fabiana is Mexican and for more than a decade she has been fighting for the defense of the rights of LGTBI + people so that in their country of origin equal marriages are recognized in other states beyond Mexico City and denounce the constant harassment suffered by their trans comrades arrested and forced to remain in the cells without having committed any crime.

“When I was in Spain on vacation, they entered my house twice, searched and destroyed everything. At that time my family told me not to come back because they were afraid they might do something to me. Because this is how we work in Mexico, the leaders of the movements are eliminated to instill fear and prevent others from manifesting, ”he says. That happened in 2016, and since then he has been unable to return to his country due to the constant threats he receives. Mexico is the second most violent country against the LGTBI + community, second only to Brazil. “I am from a state in northern Mexico where people are very conservative. When you leave the capital, it is when they begin to assassinate leaders like my colleague Agnes Torres and the threats to those who defend the rights of the collective, ”Fabiana acknowledges.

see photo gallery

Manuel with antacid liquid with which he defends himself from the gases that the police use to quell the protests in Venezuela. Cheché Díaz

In the world, 72 countries continue to criminalize the LGTBI + collective and in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, homosexuality is punishable by death. For feeling and loving differently, they face arbitrary detention and violence, they are denied the rights to assembly, expression and information, they suffer discrimination in employment, health and education. According to the Organization for Refugee, Asylum & Migration (ORAM) More than 175 million LGBTQ + people live in dangerous or violent conditions worldwide, but it is estimated that less than 3,000 receive international protection each year.

One of the assumptions under which asylum and protection can be requested in Spain is to have a well-founded fear of being persecuted for belonging to a certain group, as defined by sexual orientation or gender identity. Many of these people come to Spain seeking to live their sexual condition in freedom, but there are many barriers to overcome, such as problems finding a job or renting a home, which increase for transsexual people.

Three years ago, a La Merced Migraciones project was born with the aim of supporting people from the LGTBI + collective seeking asylum and refuge. “Many of these people when they arrive lack support either because pulling the supports they have from their own community in Spain means going back to the closet or because many times they arrive alone and don't know anyone. When you have suffered rejection by your community in your country and you get to another place and you have to take refuge again, it means to suffer rejection again ”, says Josué González, social worker of the project. For these reasons, they decided to create a specific project that supports this group.

“Many suffer blockages because it is not easy for them to respond to asylum interviews by recounting their lives because they are afraid. Many of them do not know that in our country homosexuality is not only not criminalized but that there are a number of rights and freedoms constitutionally guaranteed, ”says Josué, denouncing how in many cases professionals working in the field of asylum and refuge are largely unaware the particularities of the LGTBI + collective.

When you have been rejected by your community in your country and you get to another place and you have to take refuge again, it means to suffer a rejection again

Manuel had to flee Venezuela due to the political persecution he suffered for being a member of an opposition party. He lived in Madrid for a few years and returned to Venezuela to work, but was forced to return to Spain and request asylum because the situation was unsustainable. “If in addition to being an opposition you are gay, there is a very important viciousness on the part of the security forces. More than half of the attacks against LGTBI + people in Venezuela are committed by agents of the security forces, ”declares Manuel. Although he acknowledges that on a social level the situation in Venezuela had improved compared to a few years ago, he missed not being able to hold hands with his partner or publicly express affection. “After living in Spain, when I returned to Venezuela I had to go back to the door closet outside my house.” Between June 2015 and May 2016, there were a total of 18 murders and 75 attacks on people from the LGTBI + community in the South American country. Although there are no official government data, since hate crimes against people from this group are not recognized in the country.

Manuel and Fabiana are just some of the people who are part of the exhibition directed by the photographer Cheché Díaz who, after a participatory process, was photographing what each participant wanted to transmit. “They have been very brave to face stigma, to go out on camera, feel free and show themselves as they are. There were many fears and uncertainties but the result is that they took a step and wanted to tell their stories and make them visible. And they want to fight from out there and not locked up feeling like they are not part of anything, “explains Díaz.

For Fabiana, participating in this exhibition meant having the opportunity to fight xenophobic discourses and to be able to tell her story. “What I have experienced as a migrant transsexual living in Madrid I do not want for another partner. That is what motivates me to continue working. My dream would be that there was no discrimination and that everyone was as they wanted to be. ” A dream that will be possible someday thanks to brave people like them.

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The post The LGTBI Persecuted | Future Planet appeared first on Cryptodictation.

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politicaltheatre · 5 years

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The Competition

Donald Trump just made history. On the face of it, it would appear to be the good kind for a change. Of course, in politics taking things at face value is never a good idea.

Time will tell whether Trump's footsteps into North Korea prove to be the first in a journey to end decades of war, hot then cold, and suffering in the Korean peninsula or just a momentary distraction from the Democratic debates a few days ago.

Odds are, Trump got played, again, by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. With that first step Trump legitimized the totalitarian North Korean regime without getting a single concession beyond the flattering of his ego.

Yes, the Kim family has ruled North Korea for over 70 years and needs no actually international recognition to make that a fact, but their treatment of their own people, of their South Korean cousins, and their increasing nuclear threats to the rest of the world have attained legitimacy.

That's some kind of achievement, one that no United States president since the 1953 cease fire has been willing to offer. Some have called Trump's succession of tactics "bold", but the only way anyone but Kim Jong-Un gets something out of this is if Kim Jong-Un stops acting like a self-important, authoritarian dictator and makes a legitimate concession of his own.

That won't be the only concession Trump made that won't last the flight home as good news. The deal he made with China to ease tariffs in general and limits on the technology company Huawei in particular generated a speculative bump on the stock market, but don't be shocked if the profit-taking begins as early as this week as the reality of what he gave away and to whom sets in.

Huawei, as we all know, has been accused of aiding China in its data gathering and espionage. Even if that were not to be true, it's exceedingly hard to prove a negative where espionage is concerned, and heading into another election cycle Trump has just hung that risk around the neck of every congressional Republican. Even normally submissive members of his own party have criticized it.

Well, it least it was a good day for the Trump fam-…What's that? Junior retweeted a racist, birther-ist attack on California Senator Kamala Harris? Apples, trees, we all saw this one coming.

The immediate why is just as obvious. Harris scored some serious points in the Democratic debate Thursday night, including but not limited to her demolition of front runner Joe Biden. In the politics as bloodsport coverage so attractive to our short attention span world, Harris excelled, and in doing so has opened the floodgates for her competitors to take Biden down for good before the first ballots are even cast.

Her takedown was made easier by fellow senator Cory Booker's earlier attacks on Biden's compliments of openly racist former senators (and, of course, Biden himself for saying it), and it all certainly made the later line of attack on Biden's 2002 Iraq War vote easier to land and more successful. In doing so, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and others helped themselves but also reinforced her attack, giving her the greatest momentum coming out of the debates.

Which is why Donald Trump Jr. and other right wing attack dogs took it upon themselves to launch attacks on Harris, using what can't even be described as a dog whistle anymore. Suggesting that someone of a darker complexion wasn't born in the United States is nothing but racist, plain and simple, as is the naked appeal to other racists. We can thank Donald Trump Sr. for that. He brought that particular brand of racism mainstream.

That all of Harris’ Democratic competition, including Joe Biden, quickly condemned Trump Jr.’s racism for what it was speaks very well of them. That we are so cynical in our politics that we are capable of seeing that condemnation as a necessary political tactic speaks ill of us, however much it speaks well of a party that believes that outrage over racism is necessary.

That cynicism isn’t anything new, not to politics. We rightly doubt a dictator’s sincerity when he promises to compromise. We rightly doubt apologies that include an excuse. And we rightly doubt anyone running for office who offers easy answers to difficult problems.

Or, we should.

The right wing sees everything as competition, a contest in which there can ever be only one winner. This underscores their view of accountability: I am accountable to no one, but everyone must be accountable to me. In that context, racism is simply a means to an end, an exploitation of a weakness - in this case, skin color that renders the opponent different - to undermine the opponent.

This is no different than gerrymandering election districts to maintain disproportionate representation or attacking US soccer star Megan Rapinoe for being lesbian. In the pursuit of acquiring and maintaining power, the right wing sees these as acceptable tactics. To see the world this way, all is fair - in love, war, politics, economics - because all is war.

The pity of it is that this is exactly why debates are a good thing. A debate tests candidates in ways they aren't tested the rest of a campaign. They're literally under the lights, exposed, vulnerable. They are at the mercy of competitors and moderators who will throw even the best prepared off balance, intentionally or unintentionally.

Only a true sociopath actually thrives in those conditions, so trusting authenticity in this situation isn't going to lead to any truth, it's just going to tell you who's good at appearing authentic. The trick is that someone who does not want to lie will appear inauthentic, which is not the same as "canned". Not wanting to lie, they feel shame, which is an ability you actually want in a leader. This, again, is why taking things at face value is a mistake.

Most answers, like the questions from the moderators and interjections from candidates supposed to be waiting their turn, are largely canned. Understanding that is a little useful. If the canned answers are coherent, we know that the candidate knows how to prepare; if not, we should reasonably doubt whether or not that person can handle the rigors of heading a government armed with nuclear weapons.

If the candidate chooses not to answer the question, that's even more useful. It's there that we should be asking questions: Did they have an answer? If so, was it going to be a bad one? Did they pivot to give another canned answer for an entirely different question? If so, was it because they didn't get a chance to answer it when it was first asked or because they just didn't have an answer?

Maybe they just thought it was a stupid question. Bernie Sanders, in what may have been his most Bernie Sanders moment of the entire debate, actually called out NBC's Chuck Todd for asking a stupid question. It was one of Todd's "one word answer" questions, in this case on the greatest existential threat to the United States. Sanders lives in a complicated world, one in which threats are many and often connected, such as income inequality and healthcare, which are also connected to pollution and through it climate change.

Sanders rightly called out the stupidity of "one word answer" questions. They help the audience in the sense of gauging the preparedness and focus of the candidates, but they do nothing for understanding what those candidates would do once in office, let alone the complexities of the threats, how they relate to each other, and what the average voter might do to help end that threat.

Debates, like photo ops at the G20 summit and the Korean DMZ, end up being about short term gains. That's as true for the networks hosting them as anything. We can criticize Chuck Todd for asking stupid questions or talking too much, but he wasn't alone.

All four of his co-moderators we just as guilty, each of them asking shallow questions looking for shallow answers, and at least one of them, Lester Holt, attempting to shut candidates up when they tried to give the answers they wanted (basically, Marianne Williamson every time she tried to speak).

Did it feel like the candidates with higher polling numbers coming in were asked more questions and given more time to answer? Well, yes, you're right. Every time one of the moderators warned that not everyone would get to answer every question, they meant not everyone not standing center stage.

Critics may have complained about New Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand hijacking speaking opportunities as rude and off-putting, but they understood that meekly waiting to be called upon (Washington Governor Jay Inslee) or whining about not being called upon (Maryland Representative John Delaney).

Their tactic of interruption and interjection meant that both de Blasio and Gillibrand got press and gave voters an idea of what their positions are, likely extending their campaigns into the autumn. Neither the Inslee nor Delaney campaigns will likely last long enough to see the leaves turn.

We shouldn't give NBC or their moderators too much credit for what their choices in questioning revealed about these low-polling candidates. Their choices had far more to do with their own competition, the one for ratings that drives all of their decision making.

Their competitors - CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox News, Twitter - mean a lot more to them than edifying potential voters about all of the candidates. They believe their audience wants to see and hear from the front runners - note the placement of the candidates on the stage - and have placed their thumb on the scales to make that happen. It's not exactly democratic, is it?

So, debates reveal even more than we might think. They reveal all of the flaws in our democracy, all of the flaws we should notice and could if only we would look past the spectacle and the bloodletting.

Look past shallow, self-serving questions and answers and you may just end up with a president ashamed of telling lies, capable of not dictating foreign policy by ego, and then reaping in the long term rewards of what such a president can and will do, such as appointing Supreme Court justices who will recognize gerrymandering as a violation of at least two constitutional amendments.

To achieve this, we must fight and defeat our own worst, competing impulses. We must ask questions and keep asking questions. We must not be satisfied with canned answers, ones that are just good enough to allow us to stop asking questions. We must ask why a moderator would ever shut up a candidate giving an honest answer. And, most importantly, we must ask what qualities and abilities we actually want in a president.

Ask more questions, get more answers. Politics really isn't so complicated.

- Daniel Ward

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years

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9 celebrities that have mastered the art of trolling

It's Troll Week on Mashable. Join us as we explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of internet trolling.

Here's something you might not realize: Celebrities are some of the best trolls on the internet.

Just think about it. They're online constantly, they have millions of people praising and criticizing them daily, and most of them won't suffer fools. Whether they're clapping back at insults, or slinging their own, they're A-list trolls.

SEE ALSO: Ken M and the lost art of 'do no harm' trolling

You don't even have to be a fan of most mega-famous celebrities in order to appreciate their sharp responses and quick-witted lampoons online. For example, I've never listened to a full Cher album — I know, I'm sorry — but her Twitter game has turned me into one of her biggest fans.

If you can appreciate a good troll, here are nine expert celebrity experts you need to follow:

1. Rihanna

Rihanna doesn't have time for anyone's bullshit. Not now, not ever. And that's precisely what her online presence conveys.

Earlier this month, she jokingly shared an Instagram meme to lightly roast her fans who keep asking for new music.

View this post on Instagram

i feel attacked. ***valley girl who’s never been attacked voice*** R9 chronicles.

A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Oct 4, 2018 at 6:00am PDT

But Rihanna has been coming for her haters for a long time — like Piers Morgan, her exes, and just about everyone else. Not to worry though, Riri can handle herself just fine.

“@piersmorgan: ps I think @Rihanna needs to grow her hair back. Fast.” grow a dick..... FAST!!!!

— Rihanna (@rihanna) September 9, 2012

View this post on Instagram

#🏆

A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Oct 8, 2016 at 7:29pm PDT

2. Chris Evans

Leave it to Captain America to take an active stance against President Donald Trump.

If you follow Chris Evans, then you know he can't resist taking a shot at Trump whenever he does something particularly despicable, like when he insulted Dr. Christine Blasey Ford after her powerful testimony, discussed Russia's involvement in the American election, or after his press conference following the deadly Charlottesville protest in 2017.

Evans' ongoing political trolls definitely make him one of the best Chrises. Or, the worst. I honestly can't tell at this point.

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me with this? What is the purpose of this? Was there no other vitriol you could spew to rile up your base and deepen this country’s divide? You used THIS?? Do you even understand the message you’re sending? Where is your sense of human decency? https://t.co/SdEh7fFLtL

— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) October 3, 2018

It’s ‘counsel’, Biff. The word is ‘counsel’. I was trying to comprehend how in the world a man, even as moronic as you, can misspell a word he probably reads fifty times a day. But then it dawned on me, you probably only HEAR the word. You don’t read shit. And we all know it. https://t.co/7zZGZRZtkF

— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) August 20, 2018

Is anyone else watching this?!? Wow...it's like watching a train wreck!! 'Before I make a statement I need the facts'?! Since when??

— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) August 15, 2017

3. Billy Eichner

He began as a major troll on the streets of New York City, but comedian Billy Eichner now takes to Twitter to air his grievances, most of which happen to be political these days.

Maybe you remember when he tweeted this message to help distract many of us from reality?

Choosing to believe that the fireworks over the Capitol today were for the Will & Grace reboot.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) January 20, 2017

Or, perhaps you're more familiar with one of his more recent tweets slamming Senator Susan Collins.

Susan Collins about to bring out Louis CK for a quick set

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 5, 2018

Regardless, Eichner's roasts and digs will always be hilarious.

Can I play Lindsay Graham in the movie? I’m very good at shouting random nonsense.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) September 27, 2018

4. Ryan Reynolds

I probably don't need to tell you that Ryan Reynolds is amazing when it comes to trolling people online, so let's just take this moment to appreciate his greatest online hits.

Including that time he wished his wife Blake Lively a very happy birthday.

View this post on Instagram

Happy Birthday to my amazing wife.

A post shared by Ryan Reynolds (@vancityreynolds) on Aug 25, 2017 at 8:20pm PDT

Or, when he wished someone else's wife a happy anniversary.

Angela. 11 years went by like a lemonade daydream. Words are too clumsy to express what your love means to Jason—which is probably why he had me say it for him. https://t.co/85OuBIC6Zy

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 18, 2018

But his best trolling work is done when he comes for the thing he loves the most: his children.

I'd walk through fire for my daughter. Well not FIRE, because it's dangerous. But a super humid room. But not too humid, because my hair.

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) September 11, 2015

5. Lili Reinhart

Lili Reinhart, has made herself extremely vulnerable online, opening up about issues with break outs, anxiety, and relationships. Naturally, she's become a target for harsh online criticisms, but she has taken to responding to even the rudest comments with brilliant humor.

When people questioned what happens in Reinhart's relationship in September, she kindly cleared a few things up.

No no... I tell him to touch me ~everywhere~ and then we eat Chinese food. Get your facts straight, Emily. https://t.co/DNd8oBegMA

— Lili Reinhart (@lilireinhart) September 19, 2018

The actress also wasn't afraid to clap back at a now-deleted tweet criticizing her weight a year ago. Time goes on, but Reinhart's wit prevails.

Thank you so much for being concerned about my weight, I'll respond later after I finish my double cheeseburger 😘 https://t.co/5FVhso3VOl

— Lili Reinhart (@lilireinhart) May 3, 2017

6. Chrissy Teigen

Pretty much everything model, cookbook writer, and social media maven Chrissy Teigen says online is funny. But Teigen is by far her most hilarious self when she's clapping back at her haters.

Like, that time she criticized Trump, and was told she doesn't live in the "real world."

Yeah I am watching from a fucking throne in space. https://t.co/FVUlhHijFf

— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) January 28, 2017

Or, when she pretended she didn't know where her baby was.

i dunno i can't find her https://t.co/fEj8rFHEMI

— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) April 24, 2016

And, when she pointed out the hypocrisy of a person following her if they're not really a fan.

You have three (3) followers and follow me. https://t.co/N9n3UO2GhI

— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) March 27, 2017

7. Zendaya

If there's one person unwilling to sit back and take criticism, it's Zendaya. The actress has been calling out people on Twitter for years now, and has become known for her smart responses online.

She eloquently called out former E! News host Giuliana Rancic for making a racist comment about her hair in 2015.

pic.twitter.com/q0fOYrv3gc

— Zendaya (@Zendaya) February 24, 2015

Now, the actress mainly serves sarcastic comments to her followers, and has directed most of her energy online into urging people to vote. A more than worthy use of her massive platform.

I’m hilarious. Fact. https://t.co/rhh3eCfiXu

— Zendaya (@Zendaya) September 4, 2018

Mind your business lol https://t.co/4DvzROZvrl

— Zendaya (@Zendaya) October 2, 2018

Have you registered to vote? If not, do that shit!

— Zendaya (@Zendaya) October 7, 2018

8. Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell

There are tons of celebrity couples that love to troll each other online, but none do so as expertly as Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell.

Bell complains about Shepard's...unique home decorating ideas.

View this post on Instagram

This is not a bit. @daxshepard has sincerely suggested the new home for the lazy boy from his office be in the center of my living room. He made an adorable argument about how epic his TV viewing experience will be if I let him keep it there. The man has lost his mind. #chiphappens

A post shared by kristen bell (@kristenanniebell) on Feb 22, 2017 at 3:24pm PST

Shepard jokingly tweets about leaving Bell for a booze guzzling motorcycle-queen.

So sorry @IMKristenBell, never thought this would happen, but I've met someone else. pic.twitter.com/rtujobtUs6

— dax shepard (@daxshepard) June 14, 2016

But, even better than when they're trolling each other is when they're coming after people who criticize their relationship. For instance, when Shepard blasted Star for attempting to write a story about the possible decline of their marriage.

View this post on Instagram

The only offensive thing about this bullshit story is that @kristenanniebell isn't doing all this kinkiness out of horniness, but rather a desperate attempt to save her marriage. I think we all know Bell is a lot more gangster than that. I'll now give you until 4PM to comment, Star.

A post shared by Dax Shepard (@daxshepard) on Oct 10, 2018 at 3:01pm PDT

Bell later took to Instagram to comment, saying that she'd love to comment, but "its hard to talk with this ball gag in!" Classic.

9. Cher

Cher is the absolute master when it comes to singing and acting, but perhaps her greatest gift is her ability roast and toast everyone with the greatest of ease.

The singer and actress routinely criticizes Trump, but beyond political outrage Cher is willing and waiting to take on anyone who dares question her.

Please just take a look at the cornucopia of delicious trolls that Cher has given us:

little Bo Peep She Lost Her Sheep, & Doesnt Know Where 2 Find Them. Little Bro Trump Has Doubled his Rump,& Doesn’t know where 2 Hide it

— Cher (@cher) April 20, 2017

I got a colonic.RT @lolyabitch @cher how did you celebrate Madonna's birthday?

— Cher (@cher) August 21, 2012

IM NOT YELLING… IM CHER👻

— Cher (@cher) June 22, 2016

ipad freezing up! Maybe it’s overwhelmed,because it Just realized A Fabulous DIVA Was touching it ! Can’t really Blame it, “SNAP OUT OF IT”

— Cher (@cher) March 7, 2013

Truly a delightful thing to behold.

WATCH: Actually, Banksy meant to shred the whole painting. Now it's likely worth much more.

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