#it should be 'and Ruth was all no way! I meant it when I converted! I'm Jewish all the way'

[allsassnoclass]

this is a niche au written specifically for @calumsclifford because she put the idea in my head.  I probably won’t continue it but there’s Potential in this universe so please enjoy the very beginnings of a Raven Cycle au

Luke Hemmings has forgotten how many times he has been told that he will kill his true love.

He grew up with predictions swirling around his household before he could talk.  Most of them are significantly less specific: You will have the opportunity to earn a sum of money, be ready for it.  Something catastrophic will happen tomorrow, possibly to do with the number six.  You have a difficult decision that will not make itself.  Go with your gut.

Liz Hemmings and the other ladies of 300 Fox Way begin each reading with the assurance that “these predictions will be accurate, but not very specific.”  It’s easier that way.  Clients can then believe however much they chose to.  Was the neighbor offering to pay extra to buy their lawnmower a coincidence, or what the psychic foretold?  Was the minivan carrying six passengers that ran into their car bad luck or a fulfilled prophecy?  In this way, it becomes a bit of a game for clients to figure out how exactly each prediction will come true.  Their little house remains a roadside attraction without garnering an inconvenient amount of attention.

Predictions about Luke were never anything but precisely accurate.  His mother knew that he would sprain his wrist on the first day of school.  He could never lie about his grades, because Jimi or Persephone would tell his mom about the content of his report card before he got home.  Calla always predicts what song he’s going to play when he pulls out the guitar even if she’s never heard it before.  Everyone in that house knew he was gay before he ever thought to come out.

The Fox Way psychics do not have a habit of being wrong, whether they’re predicting Liz’s tax returns within ten dollars or humming a song a minute before it plays on the radio.

Luke has had his palm inspected, his tea leaves pondered over, and his tarot cards read an infinite amount of times by every psychic woman to pass through their doors.  Each one of them says the same thing:

If Luke were to ever kiss his true love, his true love would die.

He hates this prediction, because despite it’s accuracy, there’s still so much he doesn’t know.  Does it have to be a kiss on the lips, or would kissing his true love’s forehead do him in?  How long after the kiss would he die?  What type of death would it be?

The thought of him having a true love, someone who is made for him and perfectly compatible like a fairy tale, fills him with warmth.  The thought of being the cause of his death has resulted in various late nights spent crying in the quiet of his tiny room, trying not to be heard by one of the various women he lives with.

By the time Luke turns sixteen, he decides that he’s not going to fall in love in order to avoid the ordeal altogether.  Around the same time, his mother starts having intense whispered conversations with her two best friends, Persephone and Calla.  The conversations always drift off or quickly change when he enters the room, and eventually he asks Persephone about them.

Persephone is the most likely to tell him, because her predictions often leave her mouth without permission and he knows that she doesn’t like secrets in the house.

“Luke Robert Hemmings,” she says, cupping his face with her palms, frizzy blonde hair looking like a halo in the sunset light, “this is the year you will fall in love.”

-/-

It’s cold in the churchyard.

Every year, the 24th of April feels colder than it should to a small town like Henrietta, Virginia.  No one notices, because no one outside of 300 Fox Way thinks of St. Mark’s Eve as a significant day year after year.  There are no decorations to put up, and no gifts to exchange or parties to throw.  No one gets St. Mark’s day off of school, or marks it on the calendar.

No one except the psychics, that is.

Year after year, Luke and his mom drive to the abandoned, crumbling, nameless church positioned on the corpse road.  Year after year, Liz looks at the spirits of those who will die within the year and asks them their names.  Year after year, Luke writes them down for her and tries in vain to catch a glimpse of what she sees.

He never sees any spirits.  He sometimes sees mist, but only if it rained recently, and he always sees the caved-in roof and moss-covered stones that used to make the frame of the church.  He never hears anything, either.  Even crickets and other nighttime creatures tend to stay quiet on St. Mark’s Eve.

Luke spends the time waiting for the future-dead gazing at the stars, clearly visible this far out of town, and fiddling with his lip ring.  They’ve already been there for what feels like hours, but they always come well before midnight and more often than not stay late.  The dead have no need for punctuality.

At least he remembered his beanie this time.  His mom tried to get him to put on gloves, but Luke hates writing while wearing them, and that’s half the reason he’s here.

“Tonight is the night,” Liz says, voice soft and airy like it sometimes gets when she’s making a prediction.  Luke glances at her, ready to start writing names, but she falls silent, looking at the outline of a gate positioned in the wall steadily but without the urgency that accompanies the spirits.  Every year, they open that gate in order to let the dead walk their path to the church.

The cold settles a bit deeper into Luke’s bones.  He’s come with his mother on St. Mark’s Eve since he was too young to properly write, but it does feel different this time.  He’s not sure why, but there’s a heaviness in the air, an anticipation that he hasn’t felt since he was six years old and being brought to this abandoned church for the first time because Liz said she focuses better with him there.  At six years old, he hadn’t always realized exactly what that meant.

While Luke can’t see spirits or predict the future, every psychic in the house says that they can do that better when he’s there, sometimes going so far as to call him in during difficult readings to give them direction.

“You’re like a lighthouse,” Persephone once said.  “You show us where to go.”

“It’s like turning up the volume when you’re in the room,” Calla added.  “We all hear better with you there.”

“It’s something to be proud of,” Liz always tells him.  “It’s extremely rare to be able to enhance a psychic’s gifts.”

Luke has spent a lot of time sulking over being the only person in the house who isn’t privy to the supernatural, on top of being the only boy.  He’s had sixteen years to come to terms with it, but sometimes it still stings.  It stings less when the women thank him for his help with something important and tangible.

During the day of the year when both time and the spirit world collide with their own, Liz always has Luke with her to pull everything into focus.

“Aglionby boys haven’t been giving you any trouble, have they?” Liz suddenly asks, startling him enough that he drops his pencil and has to root around in the freezing grass for it before hopping back onto his spot on the wall.

“No,” he says, frowning at the mention of the private school full of politicians' sons and trust fund babies located just outside of town.  His mom has drilled into his head that they’re more trouble than they’re worth, and should be avoided like the plague.  Every interaction that he’s had has supported that advice.  “Not more than usual, anyway.  They’ve started getting their convertibles out with the warmer weather, but I only ever see them at work when they haggle for more iced tea.  Why?  Are they going to be giving me trouble?”

Liz hums, then stiffens suddenly.

“They’re coming.”

Luke straightens and keeps his pencil poised.  He follows his mom’s gaze, but just like in previous years all that greets him is the darkness of midnight in the country.  He knows by the way her eyes are fixed now that that isn’t all that Liz sees, though.  The spirits of those who will die in the next twelve months are making their march on the corpse road to the church, and they are there to ask their names.

Every year, the believing citizens of Henrietta ask if they or a loved one will die within the next year.  Every year, for a small fee, Liz will tell them who is on their list.

“Who are you? Robert Neuhmann,” Liz begins, and Luke hastens to write down the names phonetically and as quickly as possible.  “Who are you?  Ruth Vert.  Who are you?  Frances Powell.”

Luke can’t hear anything except Liz’s voice, can’t see anything except her shadowed figure a few feet from him, but the names of the future-dead appear in his notebook nonetheless.

It’s a lot of names that would have been popular decades ago, with familiar last names.  Henrietta is full of old families.  Not many people move to town, but almost no one leaves, either.

“What’s your name?” his mom asks.  Then, a bit louder, “Excuse me, what’s your name?”

Luke glances up, then loses his breath.  Where there should be empty air is instead the vague shape of a person, faded and fuzzy but unmistakably there.  He blinks, but the scene doesn’t change.

“Mom, I can see him,” he says, voice shaking.

The spirit wanders forward, almost stumbling.  Luke always thought that the procession of spirits would be orderly in some way, but this one seems lost, scared.  The more Luke looks, the more he can make out other details.  He’s wearing a sweater and slacks, hair soft and rumpled.  His face is fuzzing and faded, like Luke is trying to look at it through a fogged window, features completely indistinct.  Luke wouldn’t recognize him if he passed him on the street tomorrow, but somehow he feels like he would know him anyway.

He’s unmistakably young, not much older than Luke, if at all.

The spirit picks at his sleeve, in such an alive way that Luke feels vaguely sick.  Then he stumbles forward, as if jostled from behind.

“Get his name,” Liz says frantically.  “He won’t answer me and I need to get the others.”

Luke slides off his spot on the wall, heart hammering in his chest.  He approaches on unsteady feet, then asks “What’s your name?”

The spirit doesn’t seem to hear, moving slowly towards the church door in a zig zag, as if he can’t see the path but feels a pull to it anyway.

He doesn’t seem to know that he’s going to his death.

“Who are you?” he asks, stepping closer.  He won’t step on the corpse road, not tonight when spirits are actively using it, but he needs to be sure that the boy can hear him.  Even this close, his face is indiscernible.  Nothing about him suggests that this is a person, but Luke can feel it.  His mind knows what his eyes can’t figure out.

His eyes catch on the raven insignia on his sweater, and his breath stutters.

That’s the Aglionby symbol.  He’s a high schooler, just like Luke, and he’ll be dead within the year.

The boy continues forward, and Luke follows, repeating his questions.  The closer he gets, the colder he feels.  Logically, he knows that it’s the spirits drawing on his energy, but it feels like dread, and it feels like death.

The boy approaches the entrance to the church, and Luke knows that he’ll be gone if he passes through that doorway.  Impulsively, he reaches out a hand and touches the boy’s sweater.  His fingers go numb from the cold immediately, but the boy stops, and for the first time seems like he might notice Luke next to him.

“Please,” Luke says, softer.  “Will you tell me your name?”

“Ashton,” he says.  His voice is quiet, but not because he’s whispering.  It sounds like his voice is coming from far away, tinny like it’s been passed through a radio.  The top of his sweater is wet from a rain that hasn’t happened yet, and Luke can’t stop looking at where his face should be.

Of all the times Luke imagined what it would be like to see the dead, he never anticipated that it would feel like this.  Cold, maybe.  A bit lonely, perhaps.  But not like he’s looking at a grave only to find it staring back and asking why it couldn’t be saved.

“Is that all?” he whispers.

“Ashton Irwin,” the spirit says.  He closes his eyes.  Luke doesn’t know how he knows this, since he can’t see any facial features, but he knows.  “That’s all there is.”

Ashton falls to his knees, hands braced against the dirt.  The black of the church seems to swallow him up, and Luke feels a lump in his throat.

“Mom he’s--he’s dying.”

“Not yet,” Liz says.  Sometime during his talk with the spirit, she finished writing the rest of the names and moved to stand behind him.  She puts an arm around his shoulders, and Luke leans into her, resisting hiding himself because he feels like he has to see Ashton off at least.  He fades into the church, or maybe the church fades into him.  Luke watches until there are no traces of him left.

“Why could I see him?” he asks into the quiet.  It feels loud in the night.  Warmth starts to return to his skin, and in the edge of his hearing he registers the distant sound of an owl and a few crickets.

The spirits have passed on, but Luke feels stuck.  His lungs are unfreezing, but the cold is replaced by an empty feeling.  Grief, or perhaps regret.

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” his mom says carefully.  “Either you’re his true love, or you killed him.”

#trc au #my writing #catch me completely writing neeve out of this because I simply do not vibe with her #anyway! I had to I just had to #half of this is plagiarized directly from the prologue and first chapter #I had the book open in front of me while I wrote #Maggie if you help me figure out how to do the plot I'll consider rewriting this part and continuing it #snippets

[awasikonis]

More Green, Less White

As I entered the sea of handmade posters with catchy phrases like, “Save Mother Earth,” “Our planet is hotter than Timothee Chalamet,” and “Go Vegan,” I observed the complete whiteness of the environmental movement. The Climate Strike this past September 20th was my first experience of a mass protest. I felt rejuvenated to know that our generation is taking action and demanding change, but when I looked around on that sweltering hot day in Pershing Square, LA, I realized the majority was white privileged environmentalists—and I was one of them. I also got involved in my college’s climate strike group to prepare for the next one organized by the Sunrise Movement. At that meeting it was only a couple of white girls trying to make this happen. To promote this group and get more involvement from the college students, our type of reaching out was just through our connections—which are primarily other white girls. Here is the problem with the environmental movement: white people have dominated the dialogue and other minority groups have been left in the dark. With this dynamic, change can’t happen if we aren’t united. Instead we need leaders from different backgrounds– who are more affected by the environment than the white privileged. We need all perspectives to make a comprehensive action plan that will instigate change in order to sustain longer on this planet.

Why do you think white people always feel the need to be in the spotlight no matter the stage, particularly on the environmental movement stage? One answer might be from Ursula K. Le Guin’s text, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” which explores the heroic journey prevalent in fictional stories. You can take any fictional story and point out the basic telling of a heroic journey where the protagonist is the weak underdog and they are prompted to go on a journey to save humanity. They have their ups and downs, meet a mystical mentor, pick up some magical objects on the way, defeat the enemy, and come home as a hero. And because it’s the journey that matters, not the destination, the hero realizes the answer he desired was with him all along located in his heart and loyalty to his friends. I pretty much described the Percy Jackson series, and while we all love our boy Percy Jackson, one thing to point out is while he is part fish, he is a white man—just like all the other heroes in fictional stories.

We rarely see people of color be the hero and that’s because it’s the white man’s “imperial nature and uncontrollable impulse, to take everything over and run it while making stern decrees and laws to control his uncontrollable impulse to kill it” (Guin 152). The idea of white being the supreme race is translated in our stories. Stories our children read and conversations people share with each other which perpetuates this culture. This is why it was a natural occurrence that many are oblivious to the fact that the environmental movement is being dominated by white people. White people need “a stage or a pedestal or a pinnacle. You put him in a bag and he looks like a rabbit, like a potato” (Guin 153). White leaders on these pedestals in the environmental movement get more funding as research shows 95% of the $60 billion in annual foundation funding for all causes goes to organizations led by white leaders and 70 to 80 percent goes to those led by men (Colorlines).

With those white men leading the dialogue, environmental racism is left out of the conversation and all those people who experience the inequality. The environment impacts everyone, therefore, everyone should be involved in the conversation. A study found that 60% of organizations who are taking action do not have a diversity plan in place (The Hill). This makes me disappointed in these organizations who are fighting for climate justice, because climate justice is not only about climate change, it has become a human rights issue and all these other factors are interconnected and should be addressed.

Our efforts to address these multidimensional issues centered around the inevitable climate change, however, are coming off as very white and exclusive. Humans are the problem, but the white privilege’s impact is greater than minority groups’ impact with resources, accessibility, and the ability to overexploit at alarming rates. Mother Earth can’t keep up! While we do see redemption by white people by getting involved in the environmental movement, how much can actually be done? Audre Lorde answers that quizzically in “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” with, “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow parameters of change are possible and allowable” (Lorde 1). As the title of the article articulates, the tools of the white man can’t dismantle white supremacy. We have to find solutions outside of that control which can be done by listening to minority groups and gaining other perspectives on these multifaceted problems. We need to create a culture within this environmental movement that includes everyone if we want to see a future at all. We need to change our mindset of “divide and conquer” and make it “define and empower” (Lorde 2). And white people can’t do it alone because their egos will get in the way, therefore, we need to facilitate a culture that is open to everyone.

Our culture is not open to everyone right now. Have you ever felt like an outsider—an alien—in any situation? Minority groups feel that everyday living under a white supremacist society. In “The Women Men Don’t See” by James Tiptree Jr. whose male protagonist, Don, tries to understand the oppression women face and eventually gives up in understanding at the end of the story. Ruth, the woman counterpart, has a choice to leave patriarchal earth behind and join the aliens. Ruth states in a letter to Don, “’we survived by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine… I’m used to aliens.’ She’d meant every word. Insane. How could a woman choose to live among unknown monsters, to say good-bye to her home, her world?” (Tiptree 29). Well Don, she lived with monsters on earth like you. Earth wasn’t a home for her because of the alienation of being a woman in a male-dominated society. I would think this is how minority groups feel, especially in the environmental movement as white activists are making it seem like they are the only ones who care about earth. They alienate minority groups by excluding them, which has underlying themes that people of color don’t belong on this earth, therefore, this issue doesn’t concern them. It isn’t their home, therefore “let the adults [white people] deal with it.” This hinders resentment and I can understand if this would make you not want to get involved, but we need to put that aside and work together which can only be done if white people get off their pedestal.

Ruth felt like an alien as a woman on earth, and James Baldwin in “Stranger in the Village” felt like an alien being the only black man in Switzerland. He concludes “white supremacy rests simply on the fact that white men are the creators of civilization” (Baldwin 47). While this is the perceived truth, it doesn’t have to be this way. It will be hard to get through that white wall as white men arrive “to conquer and to convert the natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even to be questioned; whereas I without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me” (Baldwin 44). African Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Asians, women, and many more are victims to the colonization of our minds by white society. We can accept this, or we can try to find another way out without using the master’s tools in order to see change and a sustainable future. However, we have to band together quickly as one, as mother earth can’t hold out much longer.

We’re losing time to be proactive, so my revelation that the environmental movement is white-washed, is timely in checking myself and everyone else’s intent. Environmental justice is a passion of mine and I had doubts that I shouldn’t be involved, but just because I am the majority being a white woman fighting for climate justice, I shouldn’t stop because of how I look. I need to be aware of my privilege and constantly check myself and know that there is racism in the environmental movement. I can be the one to unite all and support people of color leaders like Frances Perez-Rodriguez, Lindsay Harper, and many more, and not perpetuate white culture—and you can too.

#project1

[dfrfhg]

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[sea-lilli]

The story of Ruth

Solomon and I were taking the missionary lessons, and the missionaries signed us up on the caroling list. It was during the holiday season, and a complete surprise to me. Solomon knew it was going to happen, but didn’t tell me.

They knocked on my door, but Solomon had chosen that specific moment to poop. I answered, and was confronted with 20+ Mormons just singing at me. It was super awkward and hilarious, and I wanted to murder him.

Ruth was one of the singers. When I was being awkward and grabbing Solomon, who had finally come out of the bathroom, she shouted out: “HEY! I’m really into tiny houses!” Because the missionaries had told her we were building one. She didn’t just offer to help, she almost pleaded. She said she needed building experience, because she wanted to build one herself one day. Ben agreed. I was skeptical, but willing to give it a shot.

So Ruth helped with building my house. So did the original missionaries, a few rotations of new ones, and a few other stationary ward members. We would schedule days with them and set up different workstations. Solomon would pick the people he felt had more experience, and put me in charge of the ones who had less experience. My group would do easier things, like paint trim and hand up power tools to those doing the more advanced things. It was also my job to keep everybody motivated and happy, so I would make sure everybody stayed hydrated and fed, and as comfortable as possible. I’d also check in with the different groups to make sure everybody was doing well with their tasks.

Ruth always got picked to go with Solomon. She was so dedicated; sometimes it would just be her and Solomon working together with no other people, because everybody else was busy. Solomon liked her: she was a fast learner and knew basics, which wasn’t so common. She also didn’t try to talk to him when he was thinking, something I would do (trying to make him happy, per my abuse experience) and which he hated.

When I would help traditionally with the construction, Solomon would get pretty pissy. He would be so mean to me, because some of the things you need to know to do construction effectively and efficiently are pretty obvious, but I didn’t know those things because I had spent my life avoiding it. It was a trigger for me for Ben to be so mean while building; I grew up with my dad doing construction projects and learned very early that helping him would lead to fighting and being beaten. Teaching was also some sort of trigger for Solomon but I don’t know what for. He hated showing people how to do things, unless they instantly remembered it and applied it perfectly.

Solomon was not patient with me. He was patient with Ruth, though, and with all the other inexperienced Mormons who were helping building the house. He was always like that: able to make exceptions for others and be accepting to them, but not for me. He kind of just took all the aggression out on me that he wanted to take out on everybody. So I avoided actual construction, and stuck to traditional gender roles in my participation: he was appreciative of me catering to him in this way, and he wouldn’t get so angry. Participating in this way made me feel for a very long time that I wasn’t worthy of taking credit for helping with building my house. I genuinely couldn’t help, though. Solomon wouldn’t let me.

I haven’t experienced such belonging in the church since this time in my life. Everybody pitched in to help with my house, when I wasn’t even a member. The missionaries really made an effort to make sure I was included with the activities, and making friends with the other members. They would pick members specifically for me to meet, that they thought I would get along with and like. I wanted to join the church to be like these awesome, selfless, loving people. Their influence on me was strong. They knew exactly where to direct their efforts to convert me, and how to pull my heartstrings, even when I made it clear that I might not join the church. They were helping us for the joy of helping, for serving Heavenly Father.

Ruth in particular really influenced me joining the church, because she would always host the missionaries for dinner, and the missionaries knew that I loved food. They would bring me along to dinners with the people they thought I’d get along with. A lot of the times, that person was her.

Ruth was brusk, though, and blunt. She was a little intimidating for me to be around. In the beginning, I was a little afraid to express any dissent about the church, the way I would constantly with the missionaries. I thought she would snap on me. I appreciated it though, the way I appreciated Solomon’s bluntness. It meant that she was honest and that I didn’t have to guess her emotions. It was clear she was a strong member of the church and really believed what she preached. She commanded respect, even though I knew I thought differently on a lot of topics. She made me try to be better. She was protective from the beginning, a natural mom friend.

She lived with her mom, Ada, who had some health problems. She was a much nicer, softer version of Ruth, but she also didn’t have the boundaries Ruth was so rigid about. I loved her anyway, and tried to help Ruth and her get along, because both parties desperately wanted to. I was Ada’s friend, and helped Ruth by providing that for Ada- one of the problems in their relationship was that Ada was trying to be a friend to Ruth. Ada needed an outlet. I would conspire with Ada with little things, because Ruth could border on controlling with her- out of love, though, always out of love.

Ada and Ruth were both open about mental health. They knew I was taking medication for depression, anxiety and PTSD and they didn’t try to tell me to “pray it away” the way I was used to. Ada told me about times in her life when she had gone to counseling. They both encouraged me attending.

I used to own chickens. One time, my chicken was super sick and required constant around the clock care and food injections. They allowed me to bring her to church, in the lobby, because they didn’t want me to miss. That was such a fun day! I gave her a bath and cleaned off her feathers beforehand, and painted her nails. I also put a chicken apron on her.

She died a few days later. Solomon’s mom immediately said it was because I didn’t pray hard enough. She said that we have dominion over animals and that I should have exercised it, and that it was my fault that my chicken died. The Mormons, by contrast, told me that they knew my chicken was going to heaven, because she was probably one of the only chickens who ever got to go to church. They were kind during a tragedy. They even tried to provide me bible verses to explain to Solomon’s mom why her thought process was wrong, though I didn’t use them.

The day that I decided to join the church, I announced it at dinner at Ruth’s house. The first time that I ever felt “the spirit” was going to spend time at Ruth’s house, and feeling it just coming off of her in waves, questioning her about it, and then finding out she had just had a huge prayer session. They both moved to Salt Lake City though on a prayer, soon after I converted, and we lost touch for a bit.

I picked up the friendship again after my giant healing experience, about a year after I had joined. Solomon was constantly trying to poke holes into it (there’s more issues here at play). He tried to make me think I was crazy for thinking that I could ever just.. be healed, and he would just constantly tell me it wasn’t possible for me to “just pray” and be done with my lifelong trauma impact. I didn’t “just pray,” though. I also went through years and years of counseling, was always researching healing techniques and coping strategies, constantly reading books, doing affirmations, etc. and he would just undermine that.

I reached out to Ruth again, because I needed to talk to a “non-judgemental Mormon person.” It’s what I was told by Spirit– I didn’t realize that’s who it was then, though. I needed someone who had a Christian belief system, who was open-minded enough to just be able to see that my healing COULD have happened.

She completely surpassed my expectations. She was kind, where Solomon had turned on me, and she believed me completely– no edits. I told her about gifts that had started manifesting: seeing the ghost of my ex-boyfriend who had recently died, the intense healing of myself and my animals, all the connections I could see- when I couldn’t see them before due to the depression. She recommended me books to help. We would go back and forth texting over and over. She told me she had just started dating somebody who was into energy healing, and kept talking about how amazing he was, and how I should really talk to him.

I didn’t want to talk to him, because I was married, happily, and I didn’t really have a lot of experience talking to guys who were not Solomon. I thought it was a super weird situation, to talk to a complete stranger, a male, about this super intimate experience that I had had, that my own husband had rejected. Further, I thought it was odd that she would push him so much on me… wasn’t she concerned that some feelings would happen? Or was she just a secure person who was secure with other women talking to her boyfriend? I remember feeling really odd about the whole thing. She gave me his number. It was the start of a life-change.

-Lilli

#process #therapy #writing

[terryowen-blog]

Life is Good – Episode Two with Ruth Dela Rama – Dizon

What Makes A Smart Phone A Genius Phone?

So, what’s the difference between just being smart to being a genius?

There’s an immense variance between being really bright and being intellectually gifted. While geniuses do tend to be extraordinarily intelligent, they also use imagination and creativity to conceive, realize or envisage something unique. They blaze new trails instead of just trudging down the beaten path. For the genius, the ability to imagine new possibilities is as important as intelligence.

Great geniuses in world history are central to our advancements in science, technology and understanding. Without geniuses from Archimedes to Stephen Hawking, our understanding of mathematics, literature and music would be completely different. Concepts that we now take for granted, like gravity, planetary orbits and black holes, might still be undiscovered.

In the same way, the LG Optimus cell phone is a concept – a genius prototype of the way mobile phones will be built and used in the near future.

On The Cellular Level

The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink. (Fran Lebowitz)

It’s a fact that form and function are significant factors when buying a cell phone but performance is the most decisive dynamic to be considered. Never forget that a cell phone is only as good as the calls it makes. Thus, even if your handset has the best attributes but can’t make or take a single decent quality call, it’s virtually useless. Even the snatchers in Quiapo and Arranque won’t spend a New York minute trying to filch your phone.

While it’s true that the strength of a carrier’s network is critical to making good calls, the strength of the phone’s antenna and receiver play a big part in performance as well. The fact is, you are buying a cell phone so it follows that at its very core, your handset should serve its one true purpose – call the guy at the other receiving end.

So, for form, function and performance, who you gonna call?

No — not The GBs – call the Optimus, and you’ll discover that it doesn’t scrimp on the most basic function of any cell phone.

If you know the name and if you know the number, you can spend all your unli time talking until your jaw hurts because the LG Optimus cell phone’s 1500 mAh Li-Ion battery can last for up to 400 hours of stand-by or up to 7 hours and 50 minutes of talk time. You don’t even have to lift a finger to do it – with built-in voice dialing, your command is the phone’s wish.

When the time comes when every one of your friends and family members eventually catch up with you in the 3G trend, you’ll be ready to make true video calls with the phone’s 1.3 MP secondary front-facing camera which you can use for high quality video chats.

Additionally, I like the text messaging service’s threaded view. I do most of my communication via SMS and having this feature in the Optimus lessens the confusion of piecing together an ongoing SMS conversation especially if you’re discussing various issues with several people.

Add a proximity sensor feature (so my phone knows if I’m nearby so it can rest and save energy while I’m away), an accelerometer and a gyroscope, and the LG Optimus becomes one handy BFF (best fone forever).

The Fast and The Nitrous

There’s a way to do it better – find it. Thomas A. Edison

The LG Optimus 2X uses NVIDIA’s Next Generation Tegra, the world’s first processor for the mobile web, specifically designed for the high-resolution needs of tablets.

According to the NVIDIA website, Tim Bajarin, President of Creative Strategies, Inc. said, “The new NVIDIA Tegra processor has a unique feature set critical for tablets — fast web browsing with fully rendered pages, uncompromised graphics, snappy user interface and HD video — all with the battery life we’ve only seen with cell phones.”

The key to the Tegra’s capabilities are eight independent processors, including the world’s first dual core CPU for mobile applications. These processors are used together or independently to optimize power usage at all times. With its ultra low-power design, Tegra delivers over 16 hours of HD video or 140 hours of music — on a single charge.

The Next Generation Tegra is a leap in mobile computing performance for the following reasons:

The world’s first Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, ULP GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 chipset.

Eight independent processors that make short work of web browsing, HD video encode and decode and mobile 3D gaming.

10x faster than the processors used in smart phones today, and up to 4x the performance of the previous generation Tegra processor.

Advanced TSMC 40nm process with active power management.

The series emphasizes low power consumption and high performance for playing audio and video.

At a maximum CPU clock rate 1.2 GHz (dual-core), it’s just .6 GHz short of the dual core PC I’m using now, and my computer plays Crysis, Call of Duty – Modern Warfare, Red Alert 3, Starcraft 2, Oblivion, The SIMS 3 and Medieval 2 Total War. It’s not a new PC but it’s still quite fast pa rin, debba?

NVIDIA believes that the future of GPUs on smart phones is no different than the future of PC GPUs. As a result, the GeForce ULV GPU in NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 looks very similar to a desktop GPU — just a lot smaller, and a lot lower power. Or, in the other words, the only thing stopping NVIDIA from putting an Intel 7-like or an AMD Hexacore-similar processor in a cell phone like the LG Optimus is that a processor that powerful needs large amounts of power more than any mobile battery can provide.

Basically, the Tegra 2 processor was designed for a tablet PC. But the guys at LG wanted to give the Optimus more computing nitrous (The Fast and The Furious speak right there) so they basically put an F22 Raptor jet engine in a Mazda RX7. The result is a cell phone that runs in machs not in miles, if you get my drift — my Tokyo Drift.

Now, imagine that Tegra powering your cell phone. Like a mobile phone on nitrous, the LG Optimus excels at multi-tasking between applications and boosts superior web browsing performance. Start-up times of programs /apps and games are suddenly in turbo speed. Your phone will always be sober (alive, alert and enthusiastic) unlike other phones which are as hard to wake up as “pess droonk” English hooligans who’ve had too much Vino Kulafu after watching a Manchester United match.

A dual-core powered cell phone augmented with a 512 MB RAM means you can run multiple applications simultaneously without reducing everything to a grinding crawl. You can switch between applications while maintaining your MS Office Word document or your Excel spreadsheets. You can listen to Bruno Mars and still download files while playing X Men for Android OS – and still receive calls from your boss who asks about the progress of your report. Gaya nga ng sabi ni pareng Bruno, “It’s simply amazing.”

Sa medaling salita, my dream (and every workaholic’s dream for that matter) of having a a mobile phone that works hard (and plays hard) as you has finally been realized with the LG Optimus.

Mobile Life is Like A Bowl of Frozen Yogurt

Like most tablet PCs in the market today, the LG Optimus is driven by the Android 2.2 Froyo.

The Android OS is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. Google Inc. purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005. Android’s mobile operating system is based on the Linux kernel. Google and other members of the Open Handset Alliance collaborated on Android’s development and release.

The Android Open Source Project is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android. The Android operating system is the world’s best-selling Smartphone platform. Android has a large community of developers writing applications or apps that extend the functionality of the devices. There are currently over 200,000 apps available for Android.

The Android Market is the online app store run by Google, though apps can also be downloaded from third-party sites. Developers write primarily in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.

While I was in Divisoria to buy some Naruto and Gundam action figures, I visited Jeney Tan, my favorite tablet PC vendor at 168 Mall. She is all out for the Froyo. She explained to me every conceivable feature and advantage of the OS including the accelerometer which tilts everything you see when you hold the gadget in landscape or portrait mode.

Jeney even made bida about the Android 2.3 Gingerbread that should be in the market by now. Pre-loaded with Froyo, the LG Optimus is upgradable to Gingerbread. Adding my own flawed logic, I informed her that Gingerbread is a big leap from Froyo that when the cell phone’s display is held in portrait or landscape mode, it actually tilts the user in that orientation. She then looked me straight in the eye and said the words that I will never forget, “Ser, bebele ba kayo?”

Like a bowl of frozen yogurt during hot summer nights, Froyo (short for frozen yogurt) is a refreshing approach to using tablet PCs and high-end, high performance phones like the LG Optimus.

The Way It’s Meant To Be Played

Movies are a complicated collision of literature, theatre, music and all the visual arts. (Yahoo Serious)

Before I got the LG Optimus, I had one of those popular media players made by a US company named after a red or green fruit (and no, it’s not a berry). The video playback and quality was okay but among my long list of peeves was that it played a limited number of video formats if not just one which is MP4.

The video format is okay for my cell phone and my computer. But my other portable player has trouble playing MP4s and only plays Windows Media Video formats. So, I had to convert videos to MP4 for my portable media player and into WMV format for my family’s other video player and for movie / video archiving.

It’s in playing various video formats that the LG Optimus shows its true awesomeness. Because it plays and supports multiple video codecs (plus DivX / XviD video support), I don’t have to convert / encode my movies or videos over and over again for viewing and archiving. That saves me time. Precious time that I can waste playing Tekken.

Beyond video support, the Optimus wows us with its display.

I remember the first time I saw the Optimus at an LG outlet glass shelf, I was really amazed at the proportions — 34-22-32. Uh, okay, that was the vital statistics of the salesgirl who look liked Megan Fox. What struck me was that the screen seemed bigger than my touch phone. Asking Megan, I mean the salesgirl, I discovered that my other phone only had a 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display while the Optimus had a 4.0 inch display (all the better to see Megan Fox with).

The Optimus is equipped with a 16M-color capacitive IPS LCD touch-screen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels). It has a HDMI port which you can use for HDMI mirroring. Just connect it to a wider screen or an HD TV and experience the most vivid and life-like videos this side of Cybertron.

Because the phone is able to play in full HD through any monitor, you see every detail of Jennifer’s Body in astonishing clarity and sexiness.

I usually watch videos and movies over large monitors when I’m with my family. Most of the time though, I’m using the LG Optimus to catch up on the latest movies while waiting for the FX or the van at the terminal. The viewing experience is just as good as the big screen which can sometimes make you feel that your head is going to be eaten by a giant 3D piranha.

But the best place to watch is in bed – relaxed and alone. And with the Optimus phone’s superior theater-like sound and HD video, I feel like I will have to save Bella again in the upcoming Twilight XXV: Vampire Sequels Without End.

Take Your Best Shot

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. (Eudora Welty)

The LG Optimus possesses an 8 MP autofocus camera with an LED flash for insufficiently lighted areas like bars, discotheques, concerts and internet cafes / Counterstrike fragging rooms. It prioritizes people over things and stuff with that Photoshop-friendly face detection feature.

I could stop ranting about the phone’s super astig camera right here and you’d be convinced by its performance. But since I like listening to myself talk, let me continue.

Just for the camera phone, I’d sell my other touch screen phone made by a company named after a pomaceous fruit of the species Malus domestica. Compared with LG Optimus phone’s 8 MP camera, my other phone has a measly 5-megapixel still camera (boy, is it cool — NOT!).

Hands down, pants down – the LG Optimus takes the matrix of leadership in still camera shooting.

Size Does Matter

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. (William Shakespeare)

When the folks at LG designed the Optimus, they had the young Spielbergs and fledgling George Lucases in their mind. Empowering the YouTube generation, they imbued the phone with the ability to do 1080p video recording at 24fps and 720p at 30fps. I have a JVC Everio HD camcorder that does the same – and it’s a full-fledged video recorder! How the LG people managed to cram a lufet video recorder inside the Optimus phone’s sleek frame is beyond my comprehension. But that’s why they’re geniuses, you see.

And if you’re in a Miley Cyrus or Katy Perry concert and want to record the whole thing, there’s plenty of internal storage (8 GB) and a micro SD slot for 32 GB cards.

Even with just a video recorder match-up, the LG Optimus slaughters the leading, popular competitor which can only record VGA-quality videos at 30 frames per second with the front camera.

LG Optimus trashes the rival with HD quality video recording.

No contest. Match over. Anyone for pizza?

Got My Blueprint, It’s Symphonic

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. (Ludwig van Beethoven)

You’ll go gaga over the LG Optimus phone’s high definition virtual surround sound. It’s the first mobile device with 7.1 multi-channel virtual surround sound which encloses you in a lush acoustic experience. The Optimus allows you to chill out or just dance via earphones, speaker, Bluetooth headset or any device with HDMI connectivity to take pleasure in listening to the Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancement.

The decision to make the cell phone a virtual stereo component that fits in your pocket is the kind of genius thinking that the LG folks enjoy doing for all of us cell phone users. In the astute words of the modern day oracle we call Lady Gaga, they were born that way.

How The Web Was Won

To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me. (Isaac Newton)

For me, dinner time at the mall is always a constant battle. Whether I’m having meals at Gumbo, Tokyo Café, Banana Leaf, Bacolod Chicken Inasal, Koryo or Gerry’s Grill (all located at SM City The Block), I’m always wishing that my cell phone would successfully find and connect to the free WiFi available at the mall. Most of the time, I’m victorious as the Azkals and in rare occasions it’s like The Battle of Bull Run, Masada, Pearl Harbor and the Fall of Bataan all rolled into one.

But these days, with the LG Optimus, my WiFi struggles are like a walk in the park – the Sandara Park. Its WiFi is at 802.11 b/g/n which means it decently performs whenever you need to update your Twitter account while feasting on that plate of spicy Jambalaya or Garlic Potato.

A phone that can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots enables you to surf the Web or transfer data at much higher speeds. Even if your phone supports 3G networks, you may want Wi-Fi support, too, as it tends to be faster and more reliable than cellular networks. It can be cheaper, too, since surfing on a Wi-Fi network doesn’t require using your carrier’s service.

With the LG Optimus, enjoy high-speed access to your favorite sites with full web browsing faster than any other smart phone in the market. With the dual core processors sharing the load of stacking up graphics, pages and videos, you will notice a faster response time especially those sites with a lot of multimedia and flash components like IGN, FilePlanet or GameSpot. You’ll immediately notice faster access to your favorite websites like Facebook, E-mail, Flickr, YouTube and Angry Birds.

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night

Intellectuals solve problems. Geniuses prevent them. (Albert Einstein)

One of the best innovations of the LG Optimus Black is the enhancement and the durability of its LCD display. The LCD screen’s contrast and backlight strengths are indispensable for any cell phone. Ironically, it isn’t the darkness of the night that makes images or text unreadable – it’s the bright glare of sunlight which makes thing harder to peruse.

I usually ride shotgun in the FX or van which makes sunlight shine directly on my lap – the exact area where I would be reading an e-book (currently it’s Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic — Deceived). The brightness of the morning sun defeats the LCD screen making the e-book unreadable. It’s the same problem when I watch episodes of Gunny’s Lock and Load – the video is too bomalabs.

That’s the reason why I scored a cell phone capable of counter-acting the brightness factor. The Black’s 4” NOVA display has 700 nits of brightness, 16M-color WVGA capacitive IPS LCD unit. It’s the brightest cell phone screen in the world making outdoor viewing in broad daylight friendlier to the eyes.

The LG Optimus Black also supports multi-touch, which means you can register more than one touch point at a time. This technology allows you to pinch and grab the screen to zoom in and out on a Web page, for example. Other phones support single touch only, and can register only one tap at a time.

Thus, in brightest day, in blackest night, no video or e-book shall escape my sight. Let all who watcheth Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night, I swear, they’ll enjoy it with Optimus Black’s LCD light!

Is It Safe?

In the movie, The Marathon Man, the Nazi operative Szell (Laurence Olivier) repeatedly asked Babe (Dustin Hoffman) “Is it safe?” He was referring to the bag of diamonds Szell had procured at the height of the Third Reich. Of course Babe had no idea what it was all about and he got tortured severely for it.

I mentioned that movie for two reasons. First, one of my favorite actors is Dustin Hoffman. Second, most cell phone users are like that Szell character in the movie – they’re always asking the manufacturers “Is it safe?” referring to their handsets.

One of the most sensitive and most exposed parts of the cell phone is its screen or LCD display. Which is the reason why the kinfolks at LG made sure their units were ready for the vicious bump and grind of everyday buhay. No wonder the LG Optimus is equipped with a 4.0 inch, 480 × 800 pixel Gorilla Glass display.

The unique composition of Gorilla Glass allows for a deep layer of high compressive stress. This is created through an ion-exchange process. This compression acts as a sort of “armor,” making the glass exceptionally tough and damage resistant.

The Ion exchange process that makes Gorilla glass tougher than the other glasses used in other displays is a chemical strengthening process where large ions are “stuffed” into the glass surface, creating a state of compression. Gorilla Glass is specially designed to maximize this behavior. Thus, Gorilla glass is better able to survive the real-world events that most commonly cause glass to scratch, chip, or break. The result is a tough and damage-resistant glass that is ideal for today’s sleekest electronic devices and most sophisticated touch technology.

And for the environment-conscious cell phone user, Gorilla Glass is environmentally friendly and can be recycled. Corning Incorporated, which makes the glass, recycles it at various points in the manufacturing process, and consumers can recycle their devices as part of various recycling programs available in the Philippines.

Far and Away

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. (Leonardo Da Vinci)

Isn’t it obvious? I’m a Nicole Kidman fan!

When you’re in the city, being lost is not as perilous as being disoriented in the forest or jungle. In such situations, you’ll need workable tools that will get you home even though you’re far and away in some Oklahoma prairie.

Among the many practical uses of the LG Optimus is its capability to direct you to the nearest geo-tagged landmark. The phone is fitted with a gyroscope, magnetometer, GPS w/ aGPS support, a digital compass and a geo-tagging feature for images and videos.

Choose Your Weapon

You know you’re a serious World of Warcraft player when the game starts interfering with your life. You know you’re an addict when your life starts interfering with the game. (Anonymous)

Playing games over cell phones isn’t something new for most of us. But with an ultra angas dual core like the Tegra in the hood of your handset, the gaming opportunities for your Optimus suddenly enlarge exponentially.

That’s good news for gamers like me. Better processor performance translates to plenty of power to manage advanced graphics and demanding visuals. Say goodbye to bursting bubbles or clicking multi-colored jewels as your staple cell phone game fare. Superior dual core processors allow you to play console-quality mobile games like Assassin’s Creed or Call of Duty – Modern Warfare with exceptionally responsive motion controls powered by a gyro sensor. Playing either as Kratos, Rayden or Max Payne, your choice of weapons are now almost limitless.

When you’re at home and have a monster LCD monitor, connect via the phone’s HDMI port and play X Men for Android. Nothing like seeing Logan in full HD unleashing a world of hurt and making shawarma out of those henchmen with his Adamantium claws.

With Adobe Flash 10.2 support and an Android app community churning out new games almost every day, the Optimus makes leisurely gaming while waiting for your turn at the dentist’s chair a virtual paragon of asskickery.

FM First Class

It’s not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on. (Marilyn Monroe)

If you’ve listened to FM radio lately, you’ll notice that it sounds more like the AM band than what we’ve always known what FM sounds like. Besides the proliferation of talk shows, there are advice and counseling programs, jokes, skits and the proverbial balahura and balasubas DJs who dish out salitang kalye or palingkera style observations on politics, showbiz, romance, work and the intricacies of life.

The rise of the balahura and the balasubas DJs may have something to do with the surge of portable media players that can load up more music MP3s than one can possibly play in one whole day or work week. Thus, if it’s just listening to music that you’re after, you don’t need FM radio. You just need a media player and be your own DJ and choose your music line-up day after day.

But for us who also like to listen to intelligent banter and witty discussions like Monster Radio’s Morning Rush or Nicole Hyala and Cris Tsuper’s Tambalang Balasubas at Balahura, we turn to FM radio.

The FM radio experience with the LG Optimus is really top notch. For starters, the audio is first rate — stereo FM radio with RDS. There’s a micro USB port for charging and stereo Bluetooth v2.1.

But what makes the FM encounter first class is the social networking integration. Superior processor performance means you can listen to Chico and Delamar and then connect to Facebook or Twitter and send in your Daily Top Ten shout outs. The dynamic duo in turn may like or comment on your entry, and basically the whole feedback circle is complete.

In my opinion, that’s the way FM radio should be enjoyed – trulalu at walang halong eklavuh.

Your Future Awaits You

Choosing the right cell phone requires some handwork and clickworks with the mouse and a fair amount of legwork.

Hopefully, with this review on the features of LG Optimus, your mobile life will be lived out at the optimal level. With the complexities and opportunities of today’s high-tech life, a smart phone simply isn’t enough. You need a genius phone. And the LG Optimus is more than just smart. It’s a genius.

As Albus Dumblebee (the Grand Yellow Autobot Wizard of The Planet Hogwartstron) declares, “Step inside the world of the LG Optimus. Your future awaits you.”

Optimus is more than just smart. It’s genius. Visit lgoptimus.ph for more information! Likes: 25 Viewed:

The post Life is Good – Episode Two with Ruth Dela Rama – Dizon appeared first on Good Info.

[xxsparksxx]

If Caroline had the choice, do you think she would want children? (Thank you for all your work by the way, you do great! And take all the time you need, always)

This is...difficult to answer, anon, without knowing whether you’re a show-only person or somebody who’s also read the books. It’s a very interesting question, but I think I’m going to struggle to answer this without referencing future events that will be seen in s4. Because what Caroline feels about children is quite a complicated thing, and the answer isn’t a straight forward ‘if she had the choice, no/yes’.

I’ll answer under a read-more, anyhow, so you can avoid spoilers if you wish.

The thing with Caroline is that, frequently, she is so flippant about things that it can be hard to perceive her real feelings.

This is what she says when she tells Ross and Demelza that she’s pregnant, near the end of The Four Swans:

‘Of course I don’t want the brat.’‘Caroline!’ said Demelza.‘No, in truth, are they not revolting little specimens when they come? Really I can’t bear babies! Wrinkled, red-faced little tyrants, greedy, selfish, demanding, incontinent, full of crudities and wind, claiming the whole attention of an adult person night and day and never saying thank you for it. They’re warm and moist and clinging, and they smell of urine and sour milk, and there are far too many of ’em in the world already!’Everyone laughed at her but she grimaced and said: ‘No, I mean it! Dwight knows. I have warned him.’‘You have warned us all,’ said Demelza, ‘and we don’t believe it.’‘You have to think of succession,’ Ross said ironically. ‘After all, the world is not a bad place, and it would be a crying pity to leave it altogether to other people’s children.’‘Succession?’ said Caroline. ‘I would not mind so much if I could breed a little Dwight – or even, God help me, a little Caroline. But one’s own child, it always seems to me, turns out to be the living image of one’s least favourite cousin!’

Reading between the lines, I think she both wants and doesn’t want children. I think, given the choice, she would probably be disinclined to have children. If she lived in a modern world of contraceptives, Caroline might well end up choosing not to have children. However, once she has children, that’s a different matter. Although we never hear much about how she feels about birthing and raising her later two children, what we do know is how badly she is affected by losing her first child:

‘Demelza told me Sarah was – ill.’‘She has a cold.’‘That is all?’Dwight made a grimace. ‘It will be enough.’‘Oh, God. Does Caroline know?’‘Yes . . . I felt now I had to tell her.’Ross hit his crop against his boot. ‘I’m no use to you. But I had to come.’‘It’s good of you.’‘No . . . How is she taking it?’‘Very well,’ said a voice from the door. Caroline, as always, the tall stalk of a flower, red-haired, green-eyed, freckled across the nose. The only difference was that her lips were without colour.‘Caroline . . .’‘Yes, Ross, it is all a trifle distressing, is it not. Had Dwight already told you?’‘He’d warned me it might happen.’‘Confidences between men from which wives and mothers are excluded . . . Yes, it has been rather a shock, but Caroline is taking it well, with all the dignity and stoicism of a lady of breeding.’‘Let me get you something, Ross,’ Dwight muttered.‘. . . Caroline, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why I’ve come; but I felt . . .’ A glass of brandy was in his hand.Caroline looked at the glass Dwight had given her. ‘My husband clearly wishes me to become a toper. Or is it that he thinks drink softens the edges of tragedy and converts it into some lighter form of grief? Or are we proposing a toast to something or someone?’‘Caroline,’ said Dwight. ‘You are deceiving no one. Sit down. Perhaps just sitting quiet for a while . . .’She sipped her drink. ‘D’you know, Ross, I said I didn’t want the wretched little creature – and that was true. I find animals vastly more grateful and rewarding. But, over the months, I have to confess she has wormed her way into my affections. Poor Horace has been quite put out that I have neglected him so. Well, well, Sarah Penvenen. Ave atque vale. How my uncle would have been annoyed that his grandniece was to have so short a stay.’Nothing was said for a while. Some light branch, torn away by the wind, was tapping at the window, like a bird trying to get in.Ross said: ‘Is she? . . . How long?’Dwight said: ‘Hours, I would suppose.’Ross said: ‘I should have brought Demelza.’‘No, no,’ said Caroline, ‘that would have been the greatest of a mistake. You are two strong men and can support me. I am a hard woman and can fend for myself. But Demelza – Demelza would not be so – formal; she would not be so – controlled; she would not be so – dignified. Demelza does not understand dignity and – and all that it stands for . . .’ Caroline sipped her drink again. ‘I believe Demelza would cry – and that, and that, I rather think – would – ruin us all . . .’

Once the child was in existence, once Sarah was a living, breathing thing, Caroline loved her and wanted her and is bitterly, grievously hurt when Sarah dies. So much so that she and Dwight have a period of separation, instigated by Caroline:

Caroline pursed her lips. ‘But you know, Dwight, I was never meant to be a mother.’‘What nonsense! You have been one – and a good one – and I trust you’ll be one again.’‘No . . . Or not yet.’ She took two paces to come behind him and to put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Dwight, I want to leave you.’In the silence some gas blew in the coal, burning brilliant and blue until it was exhausted.Dwight said: ‘What do you mean?’‘Oh, not permanent. Don’t rejoice: you can’t rid yourself of me as easy as that . . . But I want to get away. I want to get away from Killewarren – and Sawle – and the people here. I feel I have failed you, have failed myself, everything – there’s such a weight on me. I’ve never been able to cry about this – you know that – and I carry about in my breast such a weight of unshed tears that it seems it will burst me open. This is a terrible and humiliating confession that I would make to no one but you. But I feel – so long as I stay here, in this house, with its . . . furnishings, and Uncle Ray’s silver, and the medicine bottles and all the servants trying to be kind, and my – my horses, and Ruth Treneglos for company on a day’s hunting, and – and your kind, hurt indulgence – I feel I shall not take any steps to mend.’Dwight got up, closed his book without seeing it, stared at his cuff on which there was some sort of an ink stain, and looked up to meet the brilliance of his wife’s eyes.‘What do you wish to do?’‘I don’t know. Perhaps go to London, stay with my aunt for a month or two. I don’t know.’‘Do you wish me to come with you or do you want to go alone?’‘How can you go? There are fifty – a hundred – two hundred sick people who depend on you. How could I take you away from them? I am already – I already feel sufficiently selfish in saying that I want to get away. There is no such escape for you.’

So yes, it’s a complicated question, for Caroline. There is no straightforward answer. Because she dearly loved Sarah, and in the later two books we see that she clearly loves Sophie and Meliora, her other two daughters (though she is never as openly affectionate a mother as Demelza).

I think what I would say is that Caroline loves her children when they’ve arrived, and particularly once they’re through the very earliest of baby stages. She prefers young children to babies. Once she has them, she loves them and would not be without them, but if she had the choice to have them or not in the first place, before they become a reality in her mind and in her life, she would probably choose not to have them - because she doesn’t know how much she could value and love them. Put Caroline in the 21st century and she would probably choose not to have children. But leave her where she is, with the social mores and medical science of the time, she would not choose abstinence or dangerous medications to prevent or abort pregnancy - not least because she has too high a regard for the value of her own life, but also because Dwight does want children, and at any rate wouldn’t sanction her doing anything to put herself at risk.

I hope that all makes some sense :D

#sparks talks poldark #book spoilers #Anonymous

[gyrlversion]

Billionaire Chris Dawson switches his The Range store fortune to wife

Entrepreneur Chris Dawson has made no secret of his admiration for Sir Philip Green.

And now the founder of The Range seems to have taken a leaf out of the Topshop tycoon’s book.

For Mr Dawson is said to have saved millions of pounds in tax by reportedly handing over ownership of his main business to his wife Sarah – who lives in Jersey.

Mr Dawson founded The Range in 1989. He now has around 160 stores in Britain and Ireland, with customers including the Duchess of Cambridge.

Chris Dawson, 67, has given ownership of the company behind discount store The Range to his wife, 56

The businessman is believed to have transferred shares in the firm’s parent company to Mrs Dawson after she moved to the Channel Islands tax haven in 2016.

This meant she did not have to pay the Treasury anything when Norton Group Holdings, which owns The Range, paid out a £39.5million dividend last year, according to The Times. It reported that this denied the UK as much as £15million in tax.

Mr Dawson has previously told how he ‘likes to read what businessmen I admire are up to, like Sir Philip Green’.

Sir Philip himself does not own any shares in his Arcadia retail empire, which owns Burton and Dorothy Perkins, as well as Topshop; his wife Tina owns them instead. The Greens set up new companies after they moved to Monaco – another tax haven.

The businessman had previously been known to visit up to 10 of his stores a day via private helicopter (pictured)

Mr Dawson, 67, a former market trader, likens himself to Only Fools and Horses character Del Boy and even drives a Rolls-Royce with the registration DE11 BOY.

He describes his company as ‘a poor man’s John Lewis’ – but that hasn’t stopped it attracting well-heeled customers.

The Duchess of Cambridge was seen doing last-minute Christmas shopping at the Kings Lynn branch near her and Prince William’s home in Norfolk in December.

Mr Dawson and his wife, 56, are worth almost £2billion, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

As a boy, Dawson struggled academically and was so severely dyslexic that he left school without a single qualification, unable to read and write. He is now one of the most successful businessmen in the country 

The man at the top of the list – Jim Ratcliffe, founder of chemicals giant Ineos – drew widespread criticism when he announced his move to Monaco this year to save money in tax. He had been knighted less than a year earlier. Company filings for Norton Group Holdings show the Dawsons lived in England until May 2016, when Mrs Dawson moved to Jersey, The Times said.

At that time Mrs Dawson owned 40 per cent of the company and Mr Dawson owned 60 per cent. The Times said his shares were transferred to her in March 2017.

He follows the same idea that Philip Green had to given his wife Tina ownership of Arcadia to keep millions form the taxpayer

Wealthy mainland UK taxpayers who own shares pay a 38.1 per cent tax on any dividend – but because the shares are now owned on the Channel Islands this does not apply to any dividends.

This means the UK Treasury will have been deprived of £15million worth of tax from dividends of £39.5million that were paid in January 2018.

A spokesman for the Dawsons told The Times: ‘Their decisions and actions were not at all inspired by Sir Philip and Lady Green.’ They added: ‘Mr Dawson remains in the UK for tax purposes and all UK taxes are complied with.

‘Mr and Mrs Dawson and their companies comply with HMRC legislation. Mrs Dawson’s move to Jersey has no impact on the group’s tax status.’

The Range did not respond to requests for comment.

‘I still am a market trader, it’s just got more noughts on it’: Meet the real life Del Boy worth £1.75 billion who couldn’t read until he was 27

Like all good businessmen, Chris Dawson comes equipped with his own roll-off-the-tongue catchphrase.

The 64-year-old billionaire, who made his fortune through bargain homeware chain The Range, believes there are three ways to get rich. ‘To have a lot of money, you’ve got to either win it, steal it or inherit it,’ he claims.

And if that oft-used phrase sounds like something more likely to come from the Del Boy school of business spiel, that’s because he probably wants it to.

Chris Dawson, billionaire owner of The Range stores in front of two of his homes near to his hometown LYMOUTH

The self-made tycoon – now worth £1.75billion – identifies so strongly with the character that he has a DE11 BOY number plate on his £350,000 Rolls-Royce Wraith coupe.

Chris Dawson, who has made his billions through the bargain homeware chain The Range, models himself on the Only Fools and Horses character Del Boy – and has the number plate to prove it

He is now at the helm of nearly 110 chains nationwide and visits ten per day in his personalised helicopter

He also jokes that he taught Derek Trotter ‘all his best lines’, while there is even rumoured to be a photo of the cast of the long-running comedy in the reception of his HQ.

Speaking about the programme, he says: ‘I actually had that life. You think, b***** me, I’ve said that, done that.’

He also insists he has the same businessman swagger and eye for a deal that made the Only Fools and Horses character so loveable.

‘I still am a market trader. It’s just got more noughts on it,’ he said. ‘Even now, I’ll stop the Roller and pick up a battery from the side of the road. I still love it.’

Like Del Boy, Dawson makes no secret of his unabashed desire to be filthy rich (‘As each person comes in, I think, kerching, kerching, kerching!’). But, having now taken the 58th spot on the 2016 Sunday Times Rich List, Dawson has proved there is more substance to his patter than that of his television counterpart.

His incredible story epitomises the rags to riches tale that seems to dominate the world of British business.

Dawson epitomises the rags to riches tale that seems to dominate the world of British business. He started life on the market stall in Plymouth (pictured) and used to sell upcycled furniture and scrap metal to punters

Despite his new-found wealth, Dawson has not shunned his roots, admitting that he regularly chooses to fly with budget airline Flybe

As a boy, Dawson struggled academically and was so severely dyslexic that he left school without a single qualification, unable to read and write. He is now one of the most successful businessmen in the country

His humble beginnings saw him and his two brothers raised on a council estate in Hooe, Plymouth, with their labourer father Thomas and his cleaner mother, Elsie.

Prospects were bleak – his younger brother still lives in the same house – and money was so sparse that he did not own his first pair of pants until he was 12.

Now, his billionaire lifestyle includes a sprawling 30-acre riverfront estate near Plymouth, which has his own motocross track converted from a golf course.

Despite his new-found wealth, Dawson has not shunned his roots, admitting that he regularly chooses to fly with budget airline Flybe

His numerous garages are home to a Ferrari, a Range Rover and a Porsche and, when he visits London, he stays in the penthouse at the Corinthia hotel, splashing out £14,000 for the two-floor room, complete with a private butler.

Despite his new-found wealth, Dawson appears reluctant to shun his roots, regularly choosing to fly with budget airline Flybe.

While many in his position might use a good business deal as an excuse to splurge on a luxury car or holiday, Dawson – who barely manages to take two weeks off per year -rewards himself with a greasy fry-up, complete with all the trimmings.

The father-of-two is also insistent that people should not credit his success to a desire to escape his destitute lifestyle.

‘People want to say, “Ah, he was poor, his father knocked him from here to there’ — he did a bit, as it happens,’ he told The Sunday Times.

‘But what if we were good at what we done? It’s called ability, I believe.’

Despite wanting to talk about his talent, Dawson admits that those who know him from school would be shocked to see him now.

As a boy, he struggled academically and was so severely dyslexic that he left school without a single qualification, unable to read and write.

‘Dyslexic is a polite way of putting it, I just didn’t have a bloody clue,’ he told the Telegraph.

It wasn’t until he was 27 that Dawson learned how to read. However, even at the age of 64, he still cannot write.

He struggles to understand the Sat Nav on his fleet of luxury cars and admits sometimes pretending to forget his glasses when checking into a hotel so he doesn’t have to fill out his form.

But, it is clear that Dawson’s business brain was switched on from a young age.

The budding entrepreneur started selling ice-creams at the age of seven, before taking on three paper rounds – two of which he subcontracted to friends.

He also earned money by doing early-morning wake-up calls for military officers in his garrison home town of Plymouth and began selling teas to builders on construction sites at the age of 14.

Last year, he told Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford on their Channel 5 show How The Other Half Lives that he doesn’t intend to sell the company or stop expanding

They filmed the interview at the Corinthia hotel, where he stays when he visits London. He pays for a £14,000 for a two-floor room (pictured) complete with a private butler

He later embarked on a career as a scrap metal dealer, ‘borrowing’ leftover scraps from his school technology class. When he was caught, a teacher apparently told him: ‘You’ll end up in prison or very rich.’

Dawson then began branching out in all sorts of trades. He was once asked to join the showbiz circuit as a warm-up act for Little and Large but, when he was told he would earn £500, he replied: ‘I can earn that in an hour.’

He then continued to feed his money-making drive by selling watches from a briefcase on a market stall, later selling everything he could get his hands on from the back of a lorry.

It was with those wheeler-dealing profits that he was able to open his first The Range superstore at Sugar Mill business park in Plymouth in 1989.

It wasn’t long before he had turned the company into a booming chain of retail park shops, which is dubbed as working man’s John Lewis and sells everything from lawn-mowers to scented candles.

There are now more than 100 chains across the UK, complete with a workforce of more than 9.000. Dawson also plans to open a store in Limerick and is mooting an expansion to Germany.

Dawson jokes that he taught Derek Trotter (pictured in Only Fools and Horses) ‘all his best lines’, while there is even rumoured to be a photo of the cast of the long-running comedy in the reception of his HQ

Despite the overwhelming expansion of his business, Dawson insists that he is involved in as many of the chains as possible. Using his private helicopter, he visits up to ten stores per day, ensuring he sees each individual shop six times per year.

Mr Dawson founded The Range in 1989. He now has around 160 stores in Britain and Ireland, with customers including the Duchess of Cambridge

He is a self-confessed workaholic, sleeping only six hours per day and admitting he does nothing to relax, except work. He reportedly does not have a work email and instead communicates with employees in a regular early-morning conference calls, ensuring he is physically and metaphorically everywhere in the business at all times.

‘I’m like Anneka bloody Rice,’ he says.

It was through his wheeling and dealing that he met his wife of 35 years, Sarah, when he sold her a knock-off watch and then chased her for top-up payments.

She works as a buyer for the company, alongside their daughter Lisa, who is in her 30s. Their son Christopher – also in his 30s – works on store refits.

Last year, he told Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford on their Channel 5 show How The Other Half Lives that he doesn’t intend to sell the company or stop expanding.

Asked if he would prefer to be relaxing on a beach or yacht somewhere exotic, he replied: ‘No to all of those. I don’t know how to relax is unless I have had a gin. I will have a go at being a trillionaire.’

  The post Billionaire Chris Dawson switches his The Range store fortune to wife appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[jeroldlockettus]

What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (Earth 2.0 Series)

Around 7,000 languages are spoken on Earth 1.0. (Photo: Quinn Dombrowski/Flickr)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (Earth 2.0 Series).” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

We explore votes for English, Indonesian, and … Esperanto! The search for a common language goes back millennia, but so much still gets lost in translation. Will technology finally solve that?

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

In our previous episode, we talked about living under the ancient curse of the Tower of Babel.

Esther SCHOR: The curse of Babel is an existential condition in which we live every day. We use language to communicate, but we cannot rely on it to make ourselves understood.

We can’t always rely on it because …

John McWHORTER: Well, we have 7,000 languages.

Seven thousand languages? We learned about the many costs associated with this linguistic diversity — financial costs, psychic costs, even war:

Shlomo WEBER: Many people died in the war, which, in fact, easily could have been avoided.

And we learned that linguistic diversity has plenty of benefits too:

Lera BORODITSKY: There are certainly claims about types of thinking that become very hard without language — or become unlikely without language.

Those are some of the things we know about language here on Earth 1.0. But today’s episode is part of our Earth 2.0 series, in which we imagine we could reboot the planet and do some optimizing — or at least some tidying up. So, if we were starting over …

Maria Luisa MACIEIRA [French]: Si on devait tout recommencer à zéro…

Kew PARK [Korean]: … t시 시작한다면…

Isabela CABRAL [Brazilian Portuguese]: Se fossemos começar de novo …

Dhari ALJUTAILI [Arabic]:… أحسن طريقة لكل الناس على الأرض انهم…

CABRAL [Brazilian Portuguese]: para todos na Terra se comunicarem uns com os outros?

PARK [Korean]: 가장 좋은 방법은 무엇일까요?

… what would be the best way for everyone on Earth to be able to communicate with one another?

*      *      *

In the future, human-to-human communication may be so different that it’ll render our mission today moot. Between auto-translation and artificial intelligence and maybe even mind-melding, will anything ever get lost in translation? Maybe; maybe not. But — that’s the future. Let’s talk about language on Earth 2.0 using the tools and knowledge at our disposal today. If we could start from scratch, what would that look like?

Michael GORDIN: If we did this from scratch it would be a very surprising outcome.

That’s Michael Gordin, a historian of science at Princeton.

GORDIN: And who knows how it would work without the path dependency of previous empires, current economic structures, our current modes of transportation and media and communication? It would be very interesting to see how that would shake out.

Okay, let’s start with a couple basic questions. Number one: should we consider — please don’t throw things at me — should we consider having one common language?

BORODITSKY: I would be wary of thinking of common language as the solution to perfect communication …

Lera Boroditsky is a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

BORODITSKY: … because we already have [a] common language and that doesn’t lead to perfect communication.

McWHORTER: You would need oddly a language that had a lot less in it than many people would expect.

John McWhorter is a linguist at Columbia; he’s also an author and host of the Lexicon Valley podcast.

McWHORTER: You want it to be something that’s maximally easy for all of the world’s language speakers to use. You could have a universal language where tense was largely left to context, as it is in a great many of the world’s normal languages. You certainly wouldn’t have anything like grammatical gender. The vocabulary could be quite rich. That would be fun, but the grammar would be something where you could pick it up in a week.

Stephen J. DUBNER: I’m curious to know the degree to which language generally is utilitarian, like, “I want to pick up that thing,” or transactional, “I want that thing from you.” or romantic, or relationship, or gossip, or lying, and so on. And I’m just curious how a linguist might think about that.

McWHORTER: Language is more than questions, commands, and certainly more than just naked statements. Real language is about communication and charting feelings, telling people new things and that means that a language is a whole lot more than just nouns, verbs, and adjectives. If somebody says, “Oh, she’s totally going to call you,” that “totally” means, “you and I both know that other people think she isn’t going to call, but we have reason to think that she is.” We are full of things like that.

Okay, this leads to question number two: if there were a universal language, should it be a pre-existing one, or an invented one? English, while hardly universal, has of course become a very powerful language.

McWHORTER: What makes this regrettable to many, and quite understandably, is that English was the vehicle of a rapaciously imperial power and now America is the main driver.

So any pre-existing language will come with baggage, with lots of votes for and against. Does this mean we’d be better off inventing a new one? Apparently, some Facebook bots recently gave it a try.

CBS NEWS: According to several reports, Facebook’s artificial intelligence researchers had to shut down two chatbots after they developed a strange English shorthand.

A shorthand that its human creators couldn’t understand. As it happens, the dream of inventing a universal language has long been pursued by scholars, priests, even — as you’ll hear — by an ophthalmologist.

SCHOR: The history of language invention, which goes back millennia, has to do with reversing the curse of Babel.

Esther Schor is a professor of English at Princeton.

SCHOR: In other words, to return the world to a single language of perfect understanding. For some language inventors, this was imagined to be God’s own language and the language of divine truth.

In the 13th century, for instance, Ramon Llull, a Majorcan philosopher with Franciscan ties, sought to create the perfect language for channeling “the Truth,” and converting people to Christianity.

SCHOR: He created a formula for generating propositions from letters and words. He felt that some of them would be propositions to which an infidel would, of necessity, have to consent. But Llull’s truth was not the Truth, or at least it didn’t seem like the truth to the Saracens who eventually murdered him.  

A few centuries later, the German philosopher Leibniz— an admirer of Llull’s, by the way — tried to build a language based on logic.

SCHOR: Leibniz’s idea was to represent propositions by numbers and he would reason by getting the ratio of one proposition to another and calculate an answer. Again, we have the idea of a language of logic without words.

And in the 19th century, a Jewish ophthalmologist named Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof created a language both idealistic and pragmatic.

L. L. Zamenhof, or Doktoro Esperanto, invented Esperanto in 1887. (Photo: Wikimedia)

SCHOR: It’s called Esperanto because that was his pseudonym, Doktoro Esperanto, which means the hopeful one. He brags in this initial pamphlet that you can learn it in an afternoon and that it’s fun. So it was supposed to be easy to learn and easy to pronounce.

Esperanto was derived from various European roots. Zamenhof’s idea was not to have Esperanto displace other languages.

SCHOR: He called it a helping language or an auxiliary language. It would stand next to national languages and be a helping language to make bonds among people who were not like one another.

Zamenhof was a universalist …

SCHOR: But he was also a universalist who understood what it meant to have warm feelings for one’s people. Esperanto was to somehow reconcile those two things — to try to breed in us these feelings of attachment for other people who were really quite unlike us.

The larger goal of Esperanto was nothing less than world peace.

SCHOR: He knew that language could be a wall between ethnicities, but that it could also be a bridge. That was his motivation — to build a language that would be a bridge among ethnicities. He modeled it on the teaching of Hillel. “Do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you.” Hillel was a 1st-century rabbi, so it had a very Jewish cast to it.

This did not help Esperanto’s cause. As Esther Schor told us: “[A]nti-Semitism changed the fortunes of Esperanto when the French demanded that Zamenhof shear away its religious ideology.” Hitler and Stalin would also reject Esperanto. Regardless: if you remove its religious and utopian components, what’s left, Esther Schor says, is a language with some substantial benefits over many other languages, whether existing or invented.

SCHOR: What he wanted was maximal flexibility and simplicity. For one thing, the verbs are all regular in Esperanto. He wanted a language that was egalitarian and neutral. He didn’t want people to be disadvantaged because they weren’t a native speaker. He speaks very movingly about what it’s like to try to speak a language that’s not your own. He talks about his pulse racing and his palms sweating. It’s an experience I’ve had. Perhaps you have had it also.

Ruth KEVESS-COHEN: Esperanto is a lot easier to learn than other languages because it has very regular rules and very regular grammar.

That’s Ruth Kevess-Cohen. She helped develop an online Esperanto course for the language site Duolingo.

KEVESS-COHEN: You find that it’s taking you a lot less time than you thought to learn the language. Here’s a sentence in Esperanto. “Mi estas knabo” — “I am a boy.” There is no “a” in Esperanto. “Knabo” you can see is a noun because it has an ‘o’ at the end. Every noun ends in the letter ‘o,’ every adjective ends in the letter ‘a.’ Every verb in the present ends in ‘as,’ So you already know that “estas” is “am,” “are.” It’s the same. There’s no conjugation of that.

We spoke with Kevess-Cohen at this year’s Esperanto-USA National Congress — or Landa Kongreso, as you say it in Esperanto. Our producer Stephanie Tam spent a couple days there. You’ll hear about that in an upcoming special episode. You may be surprised to learn that Esperanto is still spoken. Esther Schor again:

SCHOR: These days, the most informed estimates I hear are several hundred thousand people speak Esperanto. The strength of Esperanto is not in numbers. The strength of Esperanto is in its continuity over 130 years in 62 countries, from generation to generation, without being passed down from generation to generation.

Still, for all its thoughtfulness and pragmatism, Esperanto never got anywhere close to its intended universal status — what Esperantists refer to as “La Fina Venko,” the “Final Victory.” Why not?

SCHOR: I can answer that by looking at what does look like a universal language in our world, which is English. What looked like a universal language in Zamenhof’s day was French. Both French and English were propelled into the world by commerce and armies, and Esperanto had neither of those.  

GORDIN: In order to keep a language constant enough so that it can function as a global, universal language, the way English is functioning now, you need to have a global communications infrastructure that standardizes dialects and pronunciations.

Michael Gordin again.

GORDIN: You need to have a global entertainment industry that produces books with standard spelling, and a pattern of accents that are considered acceptable, or that mark different classes or regional identities, and that constant reinforcement requires an infrastructure.

It’s something we don’t think about — at least I’d never thought about it — but there’s a lot of upkeep associated with language.

GORDIN: When classical Chinese was being used as a lingua franca for a very broad region — it was used in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam as the language of written communication — a very strict civil-service exam system privileged learning the language to precision. That stabilized that language.  To a certain extent the Anglophone entertainment publication and media industry, as well as the scientific institutions, stabilize a certain kind of global English now.

Gordin points to another factor that would make it hard to install a universal language: the nature of language itself.

GORDIN: The reason why I think you can’t just blanket install and say, “OK, everybody is going to learn Esperanto,” is because people will experiment and mess with the language. They’ll change it.

Which, by the way, is how we got to where we are today.

McWHORTER: Well, we have 7,000 languages.

John McWhorter, from Columbia.

McWHORTER: And language is inherently changeable not because change is swell but because as you use a language over time and you pass it on to new generations, brains tend to start hearing things slightly differently than they were produced and after a while, you start producing them that way. That is as inherent to language as it is inherent for clouds to change their shapes. It isn’t that that happens to some languages and not others. That’s how human speech goes.

DUBNER: All right, so imagine in our thought experiment now that we’ve got Earth 2.0. You’ve got seven, eight billion people. Let’s say we want to give everybody the most prosperity and opportunity and equity that’s possible. We make you the Chief, let’s say, Communications Adviser of Earth 2.0. We give you the task of writing the plan, the blueprint for creating from scratch our new language systems and institutions. What would that blueprint look like?

McWHORTER: I would say that an ideal, in the future, is that everybody in the world can communicate in one language, that people have another language that they use with their ingroup, and that we have as many of those languages as possible. I don’t think that it’s going to be another six thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine, ever. But there does need to be one language that everybody uses so that as many people in the world as possible can take advantage of economic benefits, such as they are.

WEBER: I would go with a global language on some higher level …

That’s Shlomo Weber, an economist who studies language.

WEBER: … but still keeping the local language for everybody, because sensibilities of the people [are] a very important thing.

DUBNER: Let’s say this Earth 2.0 experiment, just to be a little more realistic, that we’re still working with the resources we’ve got. In other words, the languages that exist now would still exist. English obviously has a big head start, but it obviously also comes with a lot of baggage, right? People learn English because it’s useful, but English has a history of colonialism and domination and so on. Would picking a language like English just doom it to failure?

WEBER: I don’t know. Most of the languages, maybe except Chinese, have the history of domination too.

DUBNER: Does that mean you’re nominating Chinese because they took the Middle Kingdom route and they never really tried?

WEBER: Definitely would be one of the leading languages. Absolutely. But we could have chosen six or seven. To choose one, it’s a very difficult thing. Of course, the colonial legacy of English is questionable. But it’s true for so many others — the history of Russian language, of Japanese, of French, of German, Turkish empire had also its ups and downs. But given our circumstances … English. A reluctant vote for English.

McWHORTER: I almost wish that there was some reason that everybody had to learn colloquial Indonesian. It’s the only language I’ve ever encountered where you can learn a whole bunch of words and, even though you’re going to sound like an idiot, you can get an awful lot done. You don’t sound nearly as much like an idiot stringing together your Lonely Planet words in many parts of Indonesia. There’s no such thing as the moon being a girl and a boat being a boy. None of those things that make languages hard to learn. Really — almost none! I thought this should be the world’s universal language. Indonesian is one of those languages, like English, which has been learned by so many different people speaking so many different languages that it’s relatively user-friendly as languages go.

DUBNER: You’ve argued that isolation in a language breeds complexity. Considering that English is the least isolated language there is these days — it’s everywhere — does that necessarily mean that it will or is becoming less complex, to make it accessible to newer users all over the world?

McWHORTER: It doesn’t mean that but only because this business of languages being more complex when they’re isolated, and becoming simpler when they’re spoken by a lot of adults, is largely something that happens before widespread literacy. English didn’t become relatively user-friendly because of the Bosnian cabdriver in New York. It happened when Scandinavian Vikings flooded Britain and learned bad old English but were dominant enough that generations started speaking the way they did. That became the language. You and I, right now, are speaking really crappy old English. And we feel fine about it.

DUBNER: Speak for yourself. I feel I’ve been pretty literate today. See, I didn’t use the right word for literate. Literate is written, right? I can’t even think of the right word for what I’m trying to say. What do you call it when I’m being …

McWHORTER: Articulate, I suppose.

DUBNER: Articulate. I couldn’t even come up with that. That’s how bad … I know you’re right. I just proved your point. You know what that was? That was Muphry’s Law. Do you know Muphry’s Law?

McWHORTER: No, what’s that?

DUBNER: Muphry’s law is whenever you try to correct someone’s mistake, you make an additional mistake.

McWHORTER: I didn’t know there was a name for that.

DUBNER: There is because our language is so rich, of course …

MCWHORTER: It is exactly that.

As rich as our language may be, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Coming up after the break: let’s say we bit the bullet and went with English as our universal language. How could it be made more accessible and equitable?

McWHORTER: Easy, magic wand: something that we must get rid of is linguistic prescriptivism.

And: let’s not overlook how much technology is already changing our communication.

GORDIN: It’s not going to be a Babel fish that you stick in your ear and will translate everything immediately. But it does improve the possibilities of translating roughly between language groups.

  *      *      *

On Earth 2.0, it might be nice if all seven-plus billion of us spoke one shared language — and then, as John McWhorter suggested …

McWHORTER: …  and then people have another language that they use with their ingroup and that we have as many of those languages as possible.

This, McWhorter says, is pretty close to the way a lot of people already communicate.

McWHORTER: If you think about the typical person who speaks Arabic, for example. They almost certainly speak two different languages. There is the Arabic that we would learn in a book, and then there’s Moroccan Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Sudanese Arabic, Libyan Arabic. Those are completely different languages from Standard Arabic — different basic words, different grammatical constructions. You grow up speaking your Libyan Arabic — that’s mommy’s language. Then, when you go to school, you learn something that often I’ve heard people from these countries also call Arabic and that’s this other language. That happened because of history, because of cultural history in the case of Arabic, the Quran. The religious unity of the nations has a lot to do with it, but ideally nobody would have to go to school to “learn Arabic.” That is going on in many South Asian countries. It’s what a typical African often has to go through. Or if you’re Sicilian, you speak Sicilian. You go to school and you learn Italian.

Okay, fine but then there’s the task of selecting the universal language. Michael Gordin of Princeton:

GORDIN: Even if we picked a universal language that was neutral, politics being what it is — and I doubt this could be engineered away — we’d find ways to particularize the previously general.

McWHORTER: It’d be interesting if there was some sort of academy that were designed to keep people from making it more complicated …

DUBNER: I love that the linguist is coming up with The Academy to Keep Language from Becoming More Complicated. You guys are the ones that have contributed, obviously, to the way we think about language as so complicated.

McWHORTER: See, we contain multitudes.

It might be helpful to look at some of the countries that already use formulas calling for two or three languages.

WEBER: The Indians, actually. In some other countries, in Nigeria, Kazakhstan. They tried to implement this formula.

The economist Shlomo Weber.

WEBER: They tried to combine all these things. Every child has to study his own language, English, and the language of the other part of the country. Everything beautiful. You bring national cohesiveness, you bring efficiency through English, and you still sustain your individual languages, your individual attachments, your identification. But it didn’t work, because the people didn’t accept this formula. Why didn’t [they] accept it? Because their attachment to home language was much stronger than doing anything else.

DUBNER: I thought that Kazakhstan worked better than, let’s say, India or Nigeria. What did Kazakhstan do, or what happened there that made it work better?

WEBER: They have a strong government there. But in the case of Kazakhstan, I think the people were convinced that this is right way to go. In Kazakhstan, with its oil and gas resources, English is very important to be a part of the international community. Of course, [the] Kazakh language is important, it’s their own language, but they also recognize that for [the] cohesiveness of the country, Russian is an important language.

DUBNER: But you’re also suggesting that authoritarianism is handy if you want to get everybody to speak the three languages, yeah? Because democracy is a little sloppier.

WEBER: A little sloppy in this regard, right. Some other advantages, but not that.

To be fair, there are a lot of differences between Kazakhstan and India. India is much larger, much more diverse. Even so, says Michael Gordin …

GORDIN: You have to give people a reason to want to engage with the language. The energy required to learn a language is high enough that you really have to work on the motivation. The constructed languages and the natural languages provide lots of examples of the importance of that.

OK, so how do you get people to engage with a language? As we’ve seen on Earth 1.0, most of the big, legacy languages come with a lot of baggage — cultural baggage at least; more likely, colonialist baggage. So what would happen if we chose English as the new universal language? I mean, with 1.5 billion speakers, it’s already 20 percent of the way there. What would you do to make English truly accessible to everyone, especially non-native speakers?

McWHORTER: Something that we must get rid of is linguistic prescriptivism, and by that, I mean that we live with an idea that some ways of speaking a language are bad, broken, and some ways aren’t. It’s all based on myths. That’s not to say that in a formal situation you can get up and say, “Billy and me went to the store.”

GORDIN: In the 19th century, the standard by which people had to know a language, a foreign language that wasn’t their own — so let’s for the moment pretend like everybody in the world speaks French, English, or German. You had to be really fluent in one of those three but only pretty competent in the others. A much weaker level of fluency. The French person didn’t have to know a lot of English but they had to be able, with a dictionary, to puzzle their way through a scientific article. You could relax the assumption that everything has to be perfect grammar-book English and just allow the publication of rougher English in a variety of forms, without this obsessive copyediting. That would be fairer.

McWHORTER: There are some kinds of English that would be so difficult for anybody else to understand that maybe there would have to be some adjustment. But schematically, the idea that most people in most nations have to learn a form of what they speak that requires effort to master — that’s crummy.

GORDIN: You could imagine subsidizing global English education. Another fair option is to say, “No, we actually really like the highly-readable, clean English.” You could charge slightly higher page fees for native speakers of English that would subsidize copy-editing for non-native speakers of English.

SCHOR: The most important thing would be to provide incentives for linguistic innovation, or for bringing language and the arts together, for bringing language and engineering together. This would have to come from some organization or donors, of course. But that’s as much of an institution as I would like to imagine negotiating language in Earth 2.0.

WEBER: I would like to have peace on this planet and then to approach those things.

DUBNER: What do you think would be a better way for everyone in the world to learn English? I’m especially curious to know, as an economist, what you think is the R.O.I. on an education dollar versus an entertainment dollar. In other words, would it be better just to have all Hollywood movies distributed globally for free? Would that be the best way for people to learn English?

WEBER: It could be the case. Once again, [the] example of India, Bollywood movies have contributed to [the] tremendous development of Hind[i] …The language was not spoken very widely in India, before the development of Bollywood.

DUBNER: Maybe even five years from now a technology like movies will seem very old-fashioned because there may be technology that’s essentially instant and perfect translation from any language to any language, right?

WEBER: Of course, technology will play a part.

GORDIN: Machine translation, I think, will never be perfect. It’s not going to be a Babel fish that you stick in your ear and will translate everything immediately. But it does improve the possibilities of translating roughly between language groups.

“It’s not going to be a Babel fish” — the Babel fish is from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by the way — “that you stick in your ear and will translate everything immediately.” Maybe not — but maybe. A New York startup called Waverly Labs has been working on a Babel fish-like earbud that’ll do live translation. They say they’ve already taken in $5 million in pre-orders. There’s also the rapidly developing Google Translate and Skype Translator. And it’s not just major languages that benefit from the digital revolution.

SCHOR: I don’t think there’s any doubt that technology has been a great boon to Esperanto …

Esther Schor again.

SCHOR … and I know many Esperantists, especially in the United States, who essentially live their Esperantic lives online. Some of them Skype, some of them do it on Facebook. LERNU.net has several hundred thousand registered users and there’s also Duolingo, which in the past two years since its inception, it has signed on about a million people into the Esperanto course, which is really amazing and marvelous.

But overall, the internet is dominated by what John McWhorter calls the big-dude languages, especially English. Google searches in English return roughly four times more results than Arabic searches; 95% of Wikipedia concepts are represented in fewer than six languages. There is of course no guarantee that this march toward English hegemony continues. History shows us that language is inherently mutable. So what can we assume about the future of language?

GORDON: Since we’re not changing the biology of humans, we can assume a couple of things …

Michael Gordin, the historian of science from Princeton.

GORDIN: … that people will learn languages; that they’ll learn them pretty well when they’re kids; and that languages won’t stay stable. If you want a more broadly-communicative, more inclusive infrastructure, you should focus on training children while they’re young and still able to learn multiple different languages and keeping them straight. In the 19th century, in Bohemia, the Czech region of the Habsburg Empire, it was quite common for neighboring peasant villages, one of which was predominantly German-speaking and one of which was predominantly Czech-speaking, to send kids to be educated in the other town. That way the kid would know both languages. Leveraging the way children can soak up languages almost effortlessly, to create a more dense web of people who understand each other’s languages, would improve some aspects of the system.

But here’s the thing. However judiciously we might draw up the best course of language for Earth 2.0, the original blueprint is unlikely to hold. Language evolves, it diverges; it constantly sparks its own offshoots. Consider a recent group of languages that were created from scratch.

Brian KERNIGHAN: Computer languages are very definitely created. And so somebody sits down and says, “this is the way we want to have our language work.”

Brian Kernighan is a computer-science professor at Princeton. He used to work at Bell Labs, the famous incubator of various operating systems and coding languages. Kernighan himself worked on the UNIX o.s. and the languages AWK and AMPL. The first major programming languages were invented in the late 1950s.

KERNIGHAN: The first high-level languages, I would say, would fundamentally be Fortran, COBOL, BASIC, and a language called ALGOL — which was in some sense more an academic exercise.

These languages were built for different tasks:

KERNIGHAN: Like scientific and engineering computation, which was FORTRAN; or business computation, which was COBOL; or even educational computation, if you like, which was BASIC. They’re definitely created for a purpose as opposed to being a natural process. On the other hand, once they’re created, then there’s a pressure for them to evolve.

Just a few years later, in 1961 …

KERNIGHAN: In 1961, a professional journal called Communications of the ACM in their January issue had a cover piece of art, which showed a schematic version of the Tower of Babel. It listed on that probably 200 programming languages. The message was, “Boy, there’s a lot of programming languages.”

Today, there are at least 1,500 programming languages.

KERNIGHAN: Do we need that many languages? Of course not. Do we use that many languages? Actually, no. The repertoire of most journeymen programmers is probably half a dozen to a dozen or something like that.

The parallel between programming languages and natural languages is not perfect, but still striking. A new language costs time, effort, and money to create, to learn, to maintain. Why, then, has there been so much growth?

KERNIGHAN: People are trying to write bigger programs, and they’re trying, often, to address programming problems. That is, taking on tasks that were not part of the original. Therefore the language evolves because the environment in which it lives is changing, the resources that are available for programmers — that is, hardware resources — are changing, and the desires of the people who write programs change as well.

GORDIN: Or an optimist would say developing into varieties of pronunciations and accents display the diversity of who we are.

Michael Gordin, speaking now about natural languages.

GORDIN: That process we’ve seen over world history many times: things fragment, then they coalesce, and then they fragment, and they coalesce again. Part of that has to do with tribal tendencies. Part of it has to do with a love of experimentation, regional loyalty, something that sounds aesthetically interesting. You could end up with something like a guy writing a poem in the late medieval period in the Tuscan dialect, Dante, producing a standard for a language by the act of his particularity.

This kind of change can create chaos. But: it’s also a hallmark of being human — a dissatisfaction with the status quo; a desire to experiment, to build, to adapt to changing circumstances.

BORODITSKY: We’re champions in the animal world at creating our own niches, taking the environment that we’re given, and then radically transforming it to suit our needs.

That’s the cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky.

BORODITSKY: And we do this with language as well.

And what is Boroditsky’s vision for language on Earth 2.0?

BORODITSKY: My emphasis would be on preserving diversity and preserving flexibility — making things really easy to learn and really adaptable to environment — rather than focusing on making something that is exactly the same and common across everyone. I don’t know that we can judge that we now have the best solution, and we should just build it right in. I’d still want people to learn lots of things through cultural transmission and adjust to their environment, the way that we do so well as humans. In some ways, becoming more aware of the relationship that we have with language is the thing that helps communication — more than simply trying to build one system.

It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that just about everyone we’ve heard from in this series on language has been … an academic. They, like all tribes, have their own dialects and sublanguages. Which is often not all that decipherable to the rest of us. I asked Shlomo Weber about this. He’s an economist.

WEBER: At the moment, I’m the director of the New Economic School in Moscow.

DUBNER: I have to tell you. I love academia. I love academics. I love the research you do. But my one big complaint is this: the way that you academics communicate to the rest of us, to the non-academics, is terrible. I understand these are areas of technical expertise but this strikes me as its own little Tower of Babel, where there are academic researchers all over the world doing this amazing and valuable research — which by the way is often funded by us, the taxpayers. And yet, we can’t really participate in it because of the way that you all communicate. I’m curious to know if we can’t solve the language or communication problem globally, if we could at least address this problem.

WEBER: Believe me, Stephen, I agree with you. I am doing my small part. I tried to write in newspapers, I go on television to talk about general things and not using the language. But it comes back to economics. There are incentives, and the incentives are not to go to tell you about this research. There is nothing in my incentive mechanism, what [my] university or community offers me, to go to talk to people who are interested in some simplified version of this research. For this, you really need to grow as an individual and to understand that, indeed, the research is supported by your dollars.

DUBNER: I will say this: honestly, as much as I complain about the gap, I’m grateful for it because I wouldn’t have a job if you guys communicated directly to people. Basically, I am the translator. So keep doing what you’re doing, Shlomo.

WEBER: Thank you. And you, Stephen, keep doing what you’re doing.

Coming up next time …

MACIEIRA [Brazilian Portuguese]: Isso vem no próximo episódio.

IVANOV [Russian]: Это будет в следующем выпуске.

Anisa SILVIANA [Bahasa Indonesia]: Yang akan datang selanjutnya.

Justin CHOW [Mandarin]: 在下一集.

Rendell de KORT [Papiamento]: … sigi proximo.

Larry Summers is a Harvard economics professor but he’s also a former president of Harvard, a former Secretary of the Treasury, and he was the chief White House economist under Obama when the Great Recession hit. What was that like?

SUMMERS: It was a very tense time. We would meet with the President each morning and talk about what was happening.

Summers gives himself and his team a crisis grade:

SUMMERS: While battlefield medicine’s never perfect, I think you’d have to say that the approach we chose was effective.

Summers also sort-of admits a past policy mistake.

SUMMERS: Perhaps, given what happened, you can say it was a mistake.

Summers also reveals — big surprise — that he is not a fan of the current White House.

SUMMERS: It’s the disregard for ascertainable fact and disregard for analysis of the consequences of policy actions.

That’s next time …

MACIEIRA [French]: Ca, ça viendra dans le prochain épisode …

MUSTAK [Bahasa Malaysia]: Episod seterusnya dalam Radio Freakonomics.

SCHOR [Esperanto]: Tiu venas venontfoje ĉe Freakonomics Radio.

Also: look for our upcoming special episode, with producer Stephanie Tam, about modern-day Esperanto. Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Stephanie Tam. Our staff also includes Alison Hockenberry, Merritt Jacob, Greg Rosalsky, Eliza Lambert, Emma Morgenstern, Harry Huggins, and Brian Gutierrez; we had help this week from Sam Bair. Special thanks to our intern Kent McDonald — and to the many listeners who contributed their voices, and their languages, to this episode. The music you hear throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, or via e-mail at [email protected].

Kim LE [Vietnamese]: Xin cảm ơn rất nhiều.

Hagit SALTZBERG [Hebrew]: תודה רבה

SILVIANA [Bahasa Indonesia]: Terima kasih.

ALJUTAILI [Arabic]: شكراً جزيلاً

MACIEIRA [Brazilian Portuguese]: Muito obrigada.

Mara DAJVSKIS [Latvian]: Liels paldies.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Lera Boroditsky, associate professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego.

Michael Gordin, professor of science history at Princeton University.

Brian Kernighan, computer science professor at Princeton University.

Ruth Kevess-Cohen, doctor at Cameron Medical Group.

John McWhorter, associate professor of slavic languages and linguistics at Columbia University, and host of Lexicon Valley at Slate.

Esther Schor, professor of english at Princeton University.

Shlomo Weber, director of the New Economic School.

RESOURCES

Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language by Esther Schor (Metropolitan Books, 2016).

Does Science Need a Global Language?: English and the Future of Research by Scott Montgomery and David Crystal (University of Chicago Press, 2013).

The Evolution of Language by W. Tecumseh Fitch (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Finding Our Tongues: Mothers, Infants, and the Origins of Language by Dean Falk (Basic Books, 2009).

How Many Languages Do We Need?: The Economics of Linguistic Diversity by Victor Ginsburgh and Shlomo Weber (Princeton University Press, 2011).

“How Language Shapes Thought,” by Lera Boroditsky, Scientific American (2011).

“Linguistic Distance: A Quantitative Measure of the Distance Between English and Other Languages,” Barry Chiswick and Paul Miller (2004).

Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English by Michael Gordin (University of Chicago Press, 2015).

The Story of Human Language, Part 1 by  John McWhorter (Teaching Company, 2004).

“What is Universal in Event Perception? Comparing English and Indonesian Speakers,” Lera Boroditsky, Wendy Ham, and Michael Ramscar (2002).

“Why Academics Stink at Writing,” Steven Pinker, The Chronicle Review (September 26, 2014).

EXTRA

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Del Rey, 1995).

The post What Would Be the Best Universal Language? (Earth 2.0 Series) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/best-universal-language/

[minervacasterly]

Feminists. Really? Are we going to call every female figure from our favorite eras, feminists because they stepped over people, were loud, and destroyed their rivals via a smear campaign or launched a religious inquisition against them?

Do third wave feminists or those who follow pop cultural trends have ANY idea what feminism means? Feminism in its broadest terms means EQUALITY between both sexes. (There is a YouTuber who does a brilliant exposition of this in three videos. I've posted links to her videos at the end of this post.)

That is a key word right there: EQUALITY. It doesn’t mean, some women get to be more equal than others simply because they were born into the right family, or what they believe in, or whom they marry, or (as in the case of many Queen Regnants like Isabella I of Castile, Mary I and Elizabeth I of England) because they believe they were meant to rule a great nation because that is what God wants of them. There is no middle ground here. Either you believe in equality or you do not.

ANYBODY who’s read anything on these women knows they didn’t believe in equality. They believed some women should be educated, not all. Education should not be exclusive to men and princesses as princes (in the case of Isabella I of Castile) should get the same type of education so they could be better prepared when they take on the role of hostess or regent in their husband’s absence.

Isabella empathized with many of the Christian women who were kidnapped by Muslim raiders and forced to convert to Islam and became concubines. But in the back of her mind, she still saw herself as superior. From her point of view, she was their mother, a benevolent and strict figure who’d do anything to defend them from foreign and domestic threats.

Elizabeth I often mocked her female body. Most famously in her Tilbury speech where she said that while she had the weak and feeble body of a woman, she had the heart of a King, and of a King of England at that! Everyone cheered at her comment because there she proved that while God gave her a weak body, he had made her strong by giving her a male spirit. To keep all sides happy, who wanted a monarch who was strong, but someone who would not break the established gender roles, she took on a conciliatory role: That of a heavenly matriarch. Someone who was often compared to Ruth, Deborah and Esther. A woman who would be tough as nails but who would not stray away from the natural order. When it came to her women, Elizabeth was strict. By the end of her reign, she ordered her ladies to wear conservative attire. Her mother, Anne Boleyn, did the same during her time as Henry VIII’s Queen. She encouraged people to read the bible and the reason why she fought with Thomas Cromwell was because he had given all of the funds from the dissolution of the monasteries to her husband, to make him into the richest King in Europe. Anne Boleyn would have preferred to use that money to build more hospitals and centers of education where commoners could be converted. Like all royal women of the age, she didn’t see herself as equal to other women -or men for that matter. According to one anecdote, when she asked her musician, Mark Smeaton what was the matter and he refused, she became angry. Anne Boleyn reminded him that she was his Queen and if it weren’t for her liking his music, she would have gotten him reprimanded for being too familiar with her.

Then there are the Woodvilles. In what world do these people live in that they think that Elizabeth Woodville and her eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, thought of themselves as equal to men?

Elizabeth Woodville surrounded herself with far less women than her predecessor, spending less money as well. She was also humbler. When Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick took England in Henry VI’s name, Elizabeth refused to ask the people to stand up in fight for her. Instead, she lived off their charity and delivered her son while she was in sanctuary at Westminster, in the Abbot’s House. When Richard, Duke of Gloucester executed her brother, stalled her son’s coronation and then convinced her to give up her youngest son, she abstained herself from asking the people to rise up in her favor. As time progressed and it became clear that something had happened to her royal sons, she began to conspire with Margaret Beaufort. Using Margaret’s Welsh Doctor, the two women were in secret communication. They plotted to dethrone Richard, put Henry Tudor in his place and have her eldest daughter marry him.

As the political and religious climate shifted, people no longer saw reason why they should praise Henry Tudor and his mother, Margaret Beaufort. And doing what Henry VII, his chroniclers and Shakespeare (writing for his descendants) did to Richard III, they did to Margaret and her son. And now it is third wave feminists who are doing this, unaware that they are falling in the same trap.

Elizabeth of York was raised with one objective in mind: MARRIAGE.

She knew her value and a woman of her stature would have never settled for less. If she could not be Queen of France, then she would be Queen of something and if that meant Queen of her country, then even better because that way, she would get to say in her native country and she’d see that her maternal family’s fortunes were restored. And guess what? They were! Henry VII valued loyalty above all else. So much so, that he let one of Elizabeth of York’s uncles go to Spain to aid the Catholic Kings in the Reconquista.

I was going to make this shorter but I couldn't resist. I am tired of these trends. It was reading about these women, the women behind the Hollywood flamboyant portrayals and these posthumous portraits that got me to appreciate them, empathize with their struggles and also realize how far we've (women in the West) have come, and why it is important that we do not take the things we have for granted. It was facts that encouraged me to speak my mind and not be afraid of who I upset for the sake of keeping everyone happy. It also got me to see them as strong women. Strength is manifested in different ways. Some women find it through their words, others through acts of kindness. These women showed different kinds of strengths but one thing they had in common was their unwavering faith and love for their children.

But hey, who am I to have an opinion? I only got this information from books, primary sources while also going through my college notes for additional info.

As promised, here are the links I promised in the beginning: https://youtu.be/TzZ4oMDtP7Q https://youtu.be/-V3glBcWsqo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBZXlUMXgyU

[workreveal-blog]

How The Internet is Changing the Music Industry

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How The Internet is Changing the Music Industry

Believe if a crazy virus abruptly hit the world and wiped out the Internet indefinitely. It might essentially be the begin of some great apocalypse. We would not be capable of leaving our homes without Google Maps, we would not be capable of exit to consume without Yelp, and we would not understand who to go out with without Tinder. Complete chaos! The Internet has grown to be part of the way we live now, and it’s quite comical to think of the struggles we went thru for the tune, handiest a pair many years in the past. I keep in mind the instances of laying on my bedroom floor, using a cassette tape and a boombox to try and document a complete music off the radio. But the evolution of the Internet has modified the sport for musicians and has kickstarted careers for a lot of our favourite artists.

Internet media consumption

Earlier than the Net took off, aspiring musicians needed to get observed the manner – with the aid of chasing after company bigwigs with demo cassette tapes and playing at any cafe or dive bar they could locate – with the hopes that any person with a connection to the music global might be in the room. But now, the creation of the Internet has positioned the some of the strength again inside the artist’s fingers.

Social networking has introduced a modern day detail to the song enterprise, imparting a platform for impartial musicians to put up their work and build a strong fanbase. MySpace performed a significant element inside the Arctic Monkeys’ upward thrust to fame inside months in their very first gig. Lovers of the Sheffield rock band created a fan page and posted their profile and tune, which ultimately cause them to a document address Domino. Calvin Harris and Lily Allen extensively utilised Myspace to their gain on the begin of their careers. And now, on Fb, it’s even less difficult for users to find out new bands, share track and connect to artists all around the world. Viral movies have grown to be the jackpot for unbiased artists to get found through the Internet. Some Vine customers took benefit of the platform to exhibit their song, only having 6-seconds in step with video to departing a mark on fans. Artists like Ruth B. And Shawn Mendes were both discovered on the app. Ruth B. Uploaded a video of herself making a song and went from 50 to at least one,000 followers overnight – which soon after becoming over 2 million fans. For hopeful musicians, YouTube has been one of the finest merchandising tools, ever. With some clicks, artists can add movies – whether they be authentic songs or covers – and it is going to be without problems accessed to over 1000000000 YouTube customers. And the choice to embed films to put up to other websites has made it even easier to get located. Prominent artists like Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, and Carly Rae Jepsen have been found through posting YT videos. For years, Uk singer-songwriter, Sarah Near, has been uploading covers of songs using Massive names like Drake, Lana Del Rey, and Rihanna and earlier this month, she released her debut song, “Call Me Out.” And all of it began on YouTube. If she just dropped this music first, Earlier than continuously including a new cover to her YouTube library every week, might her originals garner nearly as lots attention right off the bat? Now not handiest has the Internet made it less difficult for musicians to share their track, But generating tune has emerged as extra convenient and low-cost as nicely. Artists can create makeshift studios in their homes or hire out a studio for a few days and add it to the Net inside minutes. The liberty to submit, percentage to social media, reTweet, re-publish and find out has ended up some distance too smooth. The Net is an incredibly useful medium and will hold to keep advancing. And who is aware of – quickly, the Net may be the handiest manner to get found.

The tune is an altogether modern shape of artwork that involves sounds and silence in an organised manner. It’s far very well expressed in phrases of pitch, rhythm, and fine of sound. Pitch, rhythm and sound nice are the three essential a part of any music that together includes melody, harmony, tempo, meter, articulation, timbre, dynamics, and texture.

The first-rate part of any music is that it keeps on converting with the converting generation with more than one changes within the sample and stimulus. These days, most of the restaurants, resorts and Big inns have musical clippings of the official soundtracks that play a crucial position in altering moods of the listeners.

Before exploring the improvements of technology, the track was constrained to audio cassettes, CDs, and radios. Regularly, with the appearance of the era, modern way of song assets got here into lifestyles. Song enterprise started adapting itself to the converting desires of the converting generations.

In advance nearly every person had radios, But unluckily that was Not sufficient to have fun all the pleasant musical notes that an individual wants to hear. Then the evolution shifted to audio cassettes that were exact enough to revel in the musical notes of any song But here too human beings were No longer capable of getting all the favoured notes. If they bought one cassette, it can have one track in their desire But Now not the relaxation. Eventually, the ones humans ended up taking increasingly more numbers of recordings. Later, when the CDs came into existence people were extremely satisfied with the sort of sound great and wider preference it used to supply. But, a person is in no way happy be it cash, call or even music.

Sooner or later, a Huge revolution was added inside the track enterprise with the introduction of net and Net. The largest development that Internet-delivered in the record industry is that every expertise can quickly attain its target audience without any filter out. In the olden days, wealthy capabilities used to warfare to make their voice reach their target audience. Now, those issues had been resolved.

Nowadays, Net has significantly influenced the music international each in India in addition to in the worldwide market. Some of the internet resources had been introduced to serve song lovers with a huge variety of their favourite choices and are capable of social their track aspirations. Now, people can download any quantity of songs from these internet assets. They have an opportunity to seek from an extended list this is classified underneath individual sections like singers, tune composers, films, Bollywood songs, devotional songs, old songs, new songs, pop songs and various denominations.

Furthermore, Internet has crossed all of the limitations and geographical limitations that earlier used to restrict the song resources. These days, sitting anywhere in the world, track fanatics can revel in their preferred melodies and dance to the beats. The Net changed the face of the track world, storming in like a typhoon and leaving devastation in its wake. A few argue that the music industry should have visible it coming and tailored faster, at the same time as others say it was a slight contact of arrogance, believing that their enterprise model couldn’t be affected.

Internet music industry

Below is a examine how two of the leading games in the company were affected, positively or negatively, with the creation of the sector-wide net, and how the Internet changed their once so lucrative enterprise model.

(1) record Organization

The Internet modified and immensely altered the way wherein track is advertised, sold, disbursed, and shared. It’s miles a very different surroundings to the only that existed two decades in the past.

Technological advancements have meant the dying knell for the liked “CD” with income of this layout diminishing regularly. Which means that track downloads (the general public of which are unlawful) are here to live.

Music piracy is the unrelenting undertaking facing the internet music industry These days, a hassle which they ought to meet head-on to be able to live on.

Technology which includes CD-R’s and peer-to-peer file sharing have made lifestyles indeed not possible for the record labels. The Internet modified the velocity at which song documents may be moved and transferred between human beings, making it a hopeless case on the subject of policing for the music enterprise at massive.

(2) song Shop

The track retailing landscape has completely been converted with the arrival of the Internet. The neighbourhood impartial record stores were indeed worn out, leaving at the back of the Big retail chains and supermarkets, to fight it out among themselves for the bodily marketplace.

The Internet modified the business of the favourite song retailer, and become instrumental inside the extreme popularity of a brand new participant in the market, specifically iTunes.

Nowadays this new entrant has a complete for a monopoly on the virtual music market, accounting for 70% of global online virtual track sales, and thus making it the most famous prison record store ordinary.

Internet music streaming

The “brick ‘n’ mortar” operations have needed to appearance to other merchandise to atone for the losses being incurred from the decline of the CD, that’s a direct result of ways the Internet changed the music business.

Products like video games, DVDs, technological accessories, products (t-shirts, books) are all to be found inside the music shop, a shop which once simplest consisted of racks upon racks stocked full of CDs – every other clear instance of ways the Internet changed the song retailing business.

Don’t wait until it’s too late – get to grips NOW with how the Net can fine be placed to work for you and your business. Take it step with the aid of step from the very beginning, and develop yours online enterprise strategy from there.

Don’t discover yourself in a few years from now in a defunct industry, claiming the creation of the Net modified your business.

[sensitivefern]

It was also depressing in Talcottville to find that the John Birch Society... had made their inroads there. One of the good-for-nothing Sullivans had put up a poster on the gas station in front of Elmer’s store: ‘Save the Republic. Impeach Earl Warren’. This had been torn down, and he then put it up in front of the wretched house which he has bought across the street from Aunt Addie’s. Old Krieger is also an ardent convert. He came to see Carrie Trenham and demanded, What do you think of that! – the poster, then on the gas station in front of the house. I don’t like it! Then I won’t work for you any more! She had been dependent on him to do certain things for her. He has announced that he won’t work for anybody who doesn’t go along with the John Birchers, but he mowed my back field as usual, not knowing undoubtedly what my opinions are. It all emanates from somebody in Port Leyden who sends them John Birch literature and has tried to persuade the principal of the regional school to give each of the seniors a copy of some Birch propaganda book. The Catholic priests in Constableville are strong John Birchers. The movement appeals to the Catholics on account of the Supreme Court’s decision about eliminating prayer from the schools... The John Birchers have created in T’ville a certain amount of bad feeling.

[Edmund Wilson]

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Memoirs of Hecate County came out in 1946; I read a copy borrowed from the Reading (Pa) public library, where it sat placidly on the open shelves while the book was being banned in New York State. Mere reading must have seemed a mild sin the the Reading of those years; it was a notoriously permissive town, famous for its rackets, its whores, and its acquittal-minded juries. The head librarian was a sweet Miss Ruth, who had been in Wallace Stevens’s high-school class, she told me years later. In 1946, I was fourteen. What the slightly sinister volume, a milky green in the original Doubleday edition, with the epigraph in Russian and a three-faced Hecate opposite the title page, meant to me, I can reconstruct imperfectly. Certainly I skipped the pages of French that the curious Mr. Blackburn spouts toward the end... But the long, central story, ‘The Princess with the Golden Hair’, the heart and scandal of this collection of six ‘memoirs’, I read, as they say, avidly, my first and to this day most vivid glimpse of sex through the window of fiction.

[John Updike]

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[The 9/11 Report]

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The most widely distributed element in nature, oxygen makes up nearly half of all terrestrial matter. It forms approximately 21 per cent by volume of the atmosphere; 87 per cent by weight of all the water on the earth; and over 40 per cent of the human body.

Plants and soil organisms cannot live without oxygen. Plants get this vital element from the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, from water drawn from the soil, and from numerous other substances.

OYSTER PLANT: (Tragopogon porrifolius) [It] is a biennial, growing three to four feet high, with a white-skinned, deep taproot... The Spanish oyster plant, Scolymus hispanicus, is often called golden thistle and is similar to salsify. Even better in flavor, some people say, is black salsify, Scorzonera hispanica, which has a black-skinned root. Its leaves are often used in salads.

[Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening]

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butter daisy, annual marguerite | Leucanthemum ‘If you haven’t grown butter daisy, start doing so ASAP’... they stay dense and compact, it is asserted, and pests stay away, it is also asserted... container friendly... must have full sun...

Liriope ‘Repeat after me: leer-eye-oh-pee’... a decent-sized clump will fit comfortably in a 6-inch pot... Liriope muscari and Liriope exiliflora and all their cultivars work splendidly in containers... cut back foliage in spring... Liriope spicata is the hardiest of the gang, and ‘spreads like crazy wherever it grows’...

edging lobelia Obviously, when July this-way-comes, little lobie is sent to ‘the big compost pile in the sky’; the Regatta series and the Moon series are said to have a fair amount of heat resistance, however...

[Encyclopedia of Container Plants]

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Feb 20 [1854]. PM – Skating to Fair Haven Pond. Made a fire on the south side of the pond, using canoe birch bark and oak leaves for kindlings... How much dry wood ready for the hunter... is to be found in every forest, – dry bark fibres and small dead twigs of the white pine and other trees, held up high and dry as if for this very purpose! The occasional loud snapping of the fire was exhilarating. I put on some hemlock boughs, and the rich salt crackling of its leaves was like mustard to the ears... Dead trees love the fire.

We skated home in the dusk, with an odor of smoke in our clothes. It was pleasant to dash over the ice, feeling the inequalities which we could not see...

[Thoreau, Journal]

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Pigeon NURP 40 TW 194 In 2012, the skeleton of a carrier pigeon was found inside a home chimney in Bletchingley, Surrey, in the southeast United Kingdom. Inside a red canister attached to one of its legs was an encrypted message handwritten on a Pigeon Service form. The message was addressed to "XO2," which is thought to be RAF Bomber Command, and is signed "W Stot Sjt." It is believed to have been sent from France on June 6, 1944 during the World War II D-day invasion.

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