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thethief1996 · 6 months

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9.000 palestinians were killed in 3 weeks of bombings and the USA has just approved $14bi in additional military aid for Israel, on top of the annual $3.8bi Joe Biden instituted 28 years ago. Israel has targeted an ambulance convoy near Al-Shifa hospital, which was evacuating wounded from hospitals to the Rafah crossing. Al-Shifa is already working at 164% capacity, while 25 of the 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip have shut down due to damage from bombing and lack of fuel (if I hear another zionist talk about how good Israel is for roof knocking hospitals is I'm going to explode). They did everything Israel asked of them and still they were murdered.

Almost half of these deaths are children, and even in death they're not respected and the US president and western media outlets are casting doubt over the reported numbers, even though they cast no such doubt over the numbers reported by Israel even though there's no official list provided by the government. It's ridiculous how blatantly they are copying Holocaust denialism talking points.

Meanwhile, Israel is enjoying the fog of war to proceed with the ethnic cleasing of the West Bank. Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, that have been intimidated by the construction of settlements hounding them for years, received threats by armed civilians saying they would be killed if they didn't leave in 24h and since then settlers have burned down their homes. Bedouin villages in Hebron, whose population was already routinely brutalized by settlers from the outposts nearby, are receiving equal threats and being terrorized by the destruction of their water supplies, roadblocks and physical violence. This is the largest forced displacement in the West Bank since 1972 and it's all being committed by settlers backed by the IDF. Israeli activists said they don't even know if these settlers are acting at the government's request or if they're just terrorizing people into running away from their homes in their free time. Thousands of Gazans who worked within Israel's "green line" were being held hostage since Oct 7th and reported they were tortured and labeled with numbers around their legs. Today, they were pushed back into southern Gaza amid airstrikes.

Palestinian journalists are being targeted for live streaming their genocide. The least we can do is pay attention and take action. Gazans have said our support lifts their spirits. If nothing else, to lift their spirits.

TOMORROW, NOV 4TH, there will be a National March in Washington DC organized by 500+ orgs and expected to be the largest pro-Palestine movement in the history of the USA. If you can, please attend.

Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe).

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices, looking to inform yourself from the sources. Palestinians have asked of us only that we share, tweet and post, over and over. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera

Anadolu Agency

Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Al-Shabaka (twitter / instagram)

Mariam Barghouti (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza.

Take action. You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. You can stop consuming from as many brands as you want, though, and by all means feel free to give a 1 star review to McDonalds, Papa John, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:

Carrefour

Puma

Sabra

Sodastream

Ahava cosmetics

Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate.

Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing direct actions to stop the shipping of wars to Israel. Follow them.

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN GERMANY: Here's a toolkit to contact your representatives by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN POLAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN DENMARK: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN SWEDEN: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN FRANCE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN GREECE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN NORWAY: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN ITALY: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN PORTUGAL: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN SPAIN: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN FINLAND: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRIA: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN BELGIUM: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN ROMANIA: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN UKRAINE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Global calendar

Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)

USA calendar

Australia calendar

Feel free to add more resources.

#free palestine #save gaza #gaza under attack #save hebron

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rustedhearts · 1 year

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Montana Motel (Boxer!Steve x Fem!reader)

summary: lately, steve’s been existing at a distance. but at a motel in montana, you find each other again.

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy.

♡ the steve collection ♡

warnings: angst, Steve being a dick as usual, possessive behavior, toxic behavior/argument, smut, hair pulling, choking (ish?)

author's note: you know the drill, kids. listen to western nights by my girl ethel ♡ can be found in the steve + libby playlist ♡

somewhere in montana, august 1990

The road is empty.

A long, winding stretch of grey asphalt against green land. Wide expanses of looming trees can be seen through every window of the SUV, and just up ahead through the windshield, the pale blue sky awaits. Montana seems to be full of nothing but land, and you can't imagine where Steve's fight could be amidst the miles of wilderness—but they called, and Steve came.

Beside you in the backseat, Steve's head knocks into the glass with every bump and jostle in the road. He seems unaffected, arms crossed, shades on, head lolling around. You came straight from his last fight in Washington, and Big and Mikey decided that a road trip was in order, to "see the sights." You weren't seeing very many confined in the blacked out car, but you supposed it was the thought that counts.

Your luggage fills the trunk—the same bunch of clothing you'd been wearing for weeks, with a few additions from Steve picked up along the way. It's been nonstop. Fight, sleep, travel, repeat. He never stopped. Sometimes, on the few sporadic days that he had off between fights, all Steve did was sleep. He could barely move with the welts on his abdomen and spine. He could only open his jaw a few inches to shove in a spoon or fork, and you had to pretend you didn't see the way he winced with every blink and swallow. Boxing was like having an eternal flu—you were always sore, you were always in pain.

Steve was never himself anymore.

You faced each other when you slept, but he never held you anymore. His lips brushed your cheeks, pecked your lips, but he rarely kissed you. Not a real kiss, not the way you wanted. The last time you made love was four fights ago, in Chicago. A month ago. It wasn't as if you hadn't tried—there were nights you were so restless that you writhed in the tub and pouted in the elevator on the way up to the hotel room. But Steve was always too tired, too sore, too angry. He was always angry.

Comfortability was a foreign feeling these days. You never stayed in one city long enough to get familiar. You often found yourself sitting on white hotel beds, with cold hotel sheets, staring at the plastic hotel telephone. You had your parents' landline memorized, and you repeated the numbers in your head until you were too frazzled to think of much else. You picked up the phone, dialed the number, and slammed it back down. Sometimes, you didn't dial anything at all.

You just listened to the dial tone humming, trying to imagine the sound of your father's voice breaking through. You worried that if you were to call, he'd hear it in your voice—how tired you were. How sad you were. He'd tell you to come home, and you'd listen.

But what about Steve? You looked at your boxer drooling on his arm beside you, just as Big whipped the wheel into the half-empty lot of a truck stop. Wasn't everything about Steve?

The car came to a stop, pulled in front of a rusting gas pump. Big popped the locks and hooked his chin over his shoulder to gaze back at you.

"Hey, wanna get out, stretch your legs? We can stay for a bit and get something to eat."

You flashed a smile, one that ached hollowly in your chest, and nodded your agreement.

"Yeah, that sounds good."

The hulking, bald-headed man tossed a look toward his sleeping protege. "Good luck waking that one up."

You giggled, assuring you'd be fine. Big stepped out of the car, jostling it with a slam of his door after. Mikey excused himself and followed suit, and you watched him sprint toward the bathroom sign bow-leggedly. With their departure, the car fell quiet. You turned to Steve again, clicking your seatbelt off. You rummaged through your purse at your feet and pulled Steve's wallet out of the zipper compartment.

"Steve." You reached over and rattled him by the shoulder gently. "Steve, do you want anything to drink?"

You waited. He continued to snore, glasses knocked askew on his squished face pressed into the window. You snickered, petting his arm.

"Stevie? I can get you a Gatorade if you want," you cooed.

Crouching over him, you waited for his response, but all he did was squirm and turn to cower against the window. You huffed, pulling on his arm a little harder.

"Steve—"

"Jesus, Libby!" He yanked his arm away, knocking into the window and causing you to jump back.

"I don't fuckin' care, I'm tryin' to fuckin' sleep. Christ," he roared.

Heart sinking, stomach twisting, you swallowed hard and popped the door handle. At the gas pump outside of the window, Big peered through the dark tint with scrunched brows.

"Okay...I'll just...be right back," you murmured weakly, slipping out of the car.

The air was warm, warmer than it was a few hours ago. It warmed your air-conditioned fingers and frozen nose, and the wind that billowed through your hair felt gentle and soothing as you headed toward the convenience store. A bell above the door chimed with your arrival, greeted with buzzing white lights, neon beverage storage, and aisles of processed food. You trailed your fingers along the packets of candy on the shelves as you headed toward the refrigerators. Your heart was in your throat as you pulled it open and shivered in the cool air.

A water, a blue Gatorade, and a meekly-asked-for pack of Marlboros reds later, you stood in front of the glass door and stared at the car. Steve was still nowhere to be seen, sulking inside the blackened confines of the SUV. Suddenly, as Big and Mikey chuckled about some shared joke between them, and feverishly lit a cigarette on the curb near the restroom, you didn't want to go back out.

"Need some help with that door?"

Whirling around, you giggled nervously at the sight of a man standing behind you. Tall, dressed in what you could only describe as lumberjack attire, donning a backwards red baseball cap—he had a cigarette tucked behind his ear and smiled beneath a scraggly red beard. He was ruggedly handsome, in an unkempt, wild way. But still, your skin crawled, your hair stood to its end at the back of your neck when he dragged his tongue over his teeth and soaked you in with a slow roam of his eyes.

"N-No," you stuttered, cheeks burning. "I just...I was just—"

"Here, let me help you carry those."

Before you could protest, the tall man gathered your drinks in his hands—eyeing you with vivid surprise at the cigarettes in your other hand—and shoved the door open with his arm. He stood in front of it to prop it open, motioning toward the warm, open air of the lot.

"After you." He grinned.

You wiped your hands on the pleated fabric of your shorts anxiously as you passed through. You could feel his figure behind you, following your slow ascent toward the car. Your gaze flashed to Big and Mikey, blowing puffs of smoke and chatting endlessly. They hadn't noticed you yet. You swallow hard again, turning once you were halfway to the car to smile at the stranger.

"I can take those now, you really didn't have to do that."

He shrugged, smiling another handsome smile.

"It's no problem. I can pump your gas, too. Pretty girls shouldn't have to pump their own gas—this your car right there?"

You stuttered again, face burning and swollen with heat, shirt clinging to your spine with sweat. Big and Mikey were heading toward you, cigarettes stamped out. You suddenly couldn't breathe.

Behind you, the back door to the SUV opened and slammed closed in one quick succession.

"Hey! The fuck are you doin' man?"

Steve was standing beside you in an instant, voice as gravely and roaring as earlier. You couldn't help but flinch when he grabbed your wrist and yanked you close. Your eyes found a wad of bubblegum flattened to the pavement.

"Oh, I...I was just helpin' her out, man. Didn't mean anything by it—"

"—I'd hope the fuck not," Steve sneered.

Big and Mikey roamed toward the car, and you glanced over Steve's shoulder at their departing backs. The car jostled again as they slid into the front seats.

"Steve," you sighed, lifting your eyes to his chest, clothed in black. "He was just being nice. He didn't—"

"—uh huh. I'll take my shit now, man."

The stranger extended the drinks slowly to Steve, who snatched them rudely with a continuous glare. Your fingers trembled around the Marlboros clutched to your chest as you followed his pulling guidance toward the car. You gazed off over your shoulder at the flanneled man, hoping the sorry in your eyes was evident enough.

Steve gave you a gentle shove into the backseat, but the slam of the door was anything but kind. You jumped, and Big sighed as Steve stomped around the hood of the car toward his side.

"He's just tired," the older man assured you.

All you could do was nod.

Steve was still scowling when he slid into the backseat beside you, and you kept your eyes on your knees as you flipped the pack of cigarettes over in your palm.

"I got you a new pack," you murmured sheepishly, holding them out. "I thought—"

"—why the fuck do you always have to flirt? Huh? Every time I look away, some fuckhead is suddenly all over you."

You frowned at his sharp accusation, but when he reached with a quick hand to take the Marlboros, you snatched them away. It was your knuckles that hit the window this time, and though the collision filled your hand with a dull ache, you couldn't find it in yourself to care. You only glared at Steve, whose eyes were hard and on display without his shades. Steve tipped his chin down and huffed at your behavior.

"Fuck you. How is this suddenly my fault? I was only trying to do something nice, and you find some way to yell at me.” You frowned.

Steve rolled his eyes, rubbing at his temple.

"Yeah, and I'm sure you thought that jackass was 'just being nice,' too. You never see what I see—you never see what fuckin' creeps these guys are!"

Steve smacked his hand on his knee, and your glare deepened. Big and Mikey shared a look in the front seat.

"I don't give a fuck! I was in there buying my boyfriend cigarettes, I don't care about some random guy. I shouldn't even care about you with the way you treat me."

Steve barked out a laugh, eyes rolling toward the window where he swiped a finger under his nose.

"Wow, okay. You were fuckin' shaking me, Libby, while I was trying to fuckin' sleep—"

"—but you don't always have to yell at me. You always yell at me."

Steve shrugged his shoulders, holding his hands up, palms upended.

"Alright, I'm fuckin' sorry I yelled at you!"

"No you're not—"

"—see? It's not good enough. Nothing is ever fuckin' good enough for you."

You growled, squishing the pack of Marlboros in a tight fist and subsequently tossing the crumpled pack at Steve's forehead. His face instantly fell at the gentle impact, and you popped the door handle open again to jump out of the car.

"I'm sick of this shit!" you screeched, just before slamming the door and stomping off toward the restrooms.

The sounds of Big and Mikey shouting at Steve followed you there, and you decided, upon staring at the dirtied steel door, that you'd sit on the curb instead. You plopped down, putting your elbows to your knees and your knees to your chest, and huffed. You wished you could call your father. You wished he would tell you to come home.

"Babyyyy."

Steve's voice came from across the lot, and you scowled into your hands over your face. His shoes scuffled closer, and finally came to a stop in front of you. His looming figure blocked the remnants of sun still shining through the evening.

"Angel," Steve scoffed, and you could picture him reaching out, only to pull back. "Come on, let's just...let's just go."

"Go where," you droned into your hands.

Steve sighed.

"Let's go home—"

"—but we're not going home," you interrupted, lifting your head to tip back and look at him.

Steve's face was blank, empty, like it always was. You stared at him for a moment, waiting for some semblance of softness to shine through and soothe you. But his hands just found his hips, and he shrugged his shoulders.

"Dunno what you want me to do, angel," he muttered, gazing down at his shoes to watch them kick at the curb you were sitting on. "S' my job, it's just...what I gotta do."

You huffed, looking off toward the slow moving road past the lot of the truck stop. Cars chugged by at a comical rate, so slow that you could study the face of every driver and read every license plate. At your silence, Steve sighed, and this time you watched him reach out, only to recoil and run his hands through his hair.

"Baby, I..."

Steve sighed again, and then suddenly it morphed into a growled—his fist connected with his palm, a sharp smack that echoed off the cement wall behind you. He stepped away, putting distance between the two of you.

"I fuckin'—I hate when you do this. I hate when you make me feel guilty for doin' my fuckin' job."

Your cheeks swelled with more heat, and you sank your teeth into your lip to keep the wobbling tears at bay as they kissed your eyes. You rubbed at one of them furiously. Steve came back with a scuffled stride and hovered, palms held out in front of him—out to you.

"I love you. You get that?"

Steve bent, leveling your faces, crowding you. You cowered back, still refusing to meet his gaze. But you could see him in your periphery, dark-eyed and brooding. His voice was tight, sharp, edged with impatience.

"I love you. And you just...you fuck with my head. You fuck with my head, and it makes me go fuckin' crazy." He tapped his temple with two fingers like a pistol.

You shook your head, letting go of your swollen lip.

"You just feel so far away, Steve," you whispered. "It's like you're not even there anymore."

Steve guffawed, making another sweeping motion with his open palms toward himself. "I'm right here."

You crossed your arms over your lap and frowned, looking off toward the car where Big and Mikey waited. Big's finger tapped the wheel in the driver's seat. You wondered how they had the patience to put up with the two of you.

"I’m right here, baby.” Steve kicked at the curb again, hair flouncing across his eyes as he shook his head. “What more do you want from me?" His voice had the faintest whimper of a whine.

You pulled your eyes away from the car and set them on his feet. You reached out and pulled on the laces, adjusting them around the arch of his foot. You twisted the dirtied white lace around your finger, and Steve watched you.

"I just...want you to show me, Stevie."

When you tipped your head back—the prettiest pout on your face, eyes catching the low-setting, golden sunlight, hair glistening and glowing—Steve's breath caught in his throat.

"Show me you love me."

Steve's brows rounded, furrowing together.

"I do. Baby, I thought...I-I do."

You shook your head.

"Not for a long time, Steve."

Steve's shoulders drooped, and you tore away from his shoe. You pushed off on your palms and stood, avoiding his hand reaching out for you. You still wore that pretty pout as you sulked toward the car.

Back inside, they turned on the radio, and Steve fumbled for the crumpled back of Marlboros as the car rolled back onto the road.

♡♡

Half the pack was gone by the time you reached nightfall. Still a few hours from your destination, far from civilization and deep in the mountains, Big pulled into the nearest motel for the night. You lingered in the back as they secured your rooms, and trudged after Steve quietly when he got your key.

The motel was smaller and much cheaper than what you were used to, but it was quiet. Surrounded by trees, insects and birds chittered and chirped as you ascended the metal stairs. The room smelled distinctly of cedar when Steve pushed the door open, and, oddly, you found it soothing. You dropped your bags on the bed, covered in a pale pink quilt. The sheets were green, pulled and folded neatly over the top quarter of the quilt. The pillows were fluffed and neatly stacked, and everything seemed to have gone untouched for decades.

Steve clicked on a small lamp, sitting on a wooden desk across from the bed. The walls, wood-paneled and rough, illuminated with a warm yellow glow. He swung the door closed and tossed the keys on the nightstand, duffel falling from his shoulder to sit beside your bags on the bed. You wandered toward the bathroom, and Steve stood, at the end of the bed, watching after you longingly.

The overhead light in the bathroom was dim, but it bathed you in the reflective, peachy pink of the gleaming tile. Steve watched as you stood in the doorway, hesitating to close the door with your back to him. His breathing grew shallow just watching you contemplate. Finally, you turned, but your eyes merely skimmed the end of the bed as you swung the door shut. The lock clicked, and Steve sank down on the end of the bed with a knot in his stomach.

The bathroom was cold, and you shivered as you peeled your sticky clothes off and toed them into a corner. It was clean, at least, and you turned the knob over to hot and filled up the deep, salmon-colored porcelain tub. You sighed as you sank into the wading warmth of the water, easing back against the cold tile with another shiver. Sporadic droplets plopped into the pool around you from the rusting spout, and you listened with your eyes closed. The other side of the door was silent.

You used the dry, rose-scented soap still in its dusty box on the edge of the tub and scrubbed until you felt clean enough to leave the water. Too eager for solitude, you'd left a change of clothes in your bag on the bed, and you clutched a scratchy towel tight to your chest as you cracked the bathroom door open.

The motel room was empty, but through the open curtains at the head of the room, you could see Steve clearly against the metal railing. Leaning forward on his elbows, the orange ember of a cigarette illuminating his face with a faint orange halo. You pushed the bathroom door open all the way and walked toward the bed.

Your towel had just dropped when Steve turned to peer in. He stopped at the sight of your bare body, cigarette paused before his parted lips. His mouth went dry just at the sight of you—his girl. His angel, his baby, the prettiest woman he'd ever seen. If you knew he was watching, you pretended otherwise. He watched your torso stretch and your arms lift to fit a t-shirt over your body, and when it fell to your thighs, he knew it was his. You bent and shimmied to fit a pair of panties over your hips, and when you spun around to pull your hair away from your face, he exhaled heavily at the sight of your black lace-clothed ass, round and waiting.

Chest tight and jeans pulsing, Steve hurriedly stamped his cigarette out on the railing and rushed for the door. You whirled around in a fright at the latch opening, and paused as Steve pushed the door closed behind him. The stench of Marlboros overwhelmed your rose soap immediately. Your fingers twisted in the hem of his soft, faded red t-shirt over your thighs as he toed his sneakers off. He instantly became an inch shorter. He snapped the curtains shut, and in the soft glow of the lamplight, he faced you again. You swallowed as he padded toward you.

He stopped at the edge of the bed. You hadn't moved. You were a corner of a mattress apart. He could see every shaky lift and fall of your chest. You could see every flicker of his eyes, bouncing around your form. His hands twitched at his sides. His throat bobbed with a swallow. The wet sound of his tongue gliding over his lips made your hair stand to attention. On his wrist, his leather-banded watch ticked.

He didn't say a word, but you moved closer. Rounding the corner, you came to stand before him at the end of the bed. Your head tipped to accommodate his height, and his hand instantly came to cup your cheek. His palm big, his skin warm and callused, fingertips dry and moving on their own as they slipped into your hair. His thumb slid along your lips and they parted, allowing the digit to slip in and out to spread slick across your mouth. Heart pounding, you pressed a kiss to the pad of his thumb, and he tugged you closer by his hold on your face. Your head cocked, cheek rubbing against his palm with fluttering eyes.

Steve's sigh fanned across your face. His defenses crumbled, and he eagerly sought your company with the other hand against your cheek. Framing your face, he pulled you into him, chest to chest, and connected your mouths. Your eyes fluttered closed, a gasp hiccuped in your chest and caught in your throat, easing out when Steve's hands slid down to your waist.

His touch was warm and firm, but gentle. His hands roamed the shape of your curves, tracing and kneading, but never squeezing. It had been so long since he touched you like that.

Blindly, Steve whirled you toward the bed. The back of your thighs brushed the mattress, and he waved his hands wildly until the contents of your bags were strewn across the floor. With the mattress empty, he guided you back—you crawled backward on your palms until you could ease flat against the center of the bed, splayed out for him.

Steve mounted over you, bracing on his forearms, sinking down to press your pelvises together. For a moment, you just touched noses. Rubbing, grazing, breathing each other in. You scanned the expanse of his face, eager to memorize the sight of it over you as your heart thumped in your throat. Then he dipped his head, hair tickling your neck, and nuzzled his cheek against yours. Your eyes fluttered closed again, fingers finding their way through the thick mop of locks at the back of his head.

"Wanna show you," Steve murmured, sliding his mouth to the warmth of your throat. He left hot, open-mouthed kisses to the side of your neck. "Wanna show you...how much I love you."

His teeth grazed your throat, and like a magnet pull, your spine arched into a crescent up against him. You pressed into him, breasts to his chest, and his hands instantly came to press against the sides of your neck where his mouth had been.

Steve pulled back just far enough to see each other.

"Will you let me, baby?" His thumbs made gentle circles just under the hook of your jaw against your throat.

All you could do was nod, mouth hanging open like a dumb-struck puppy. But Steve didn't smirk, didn't snicker or laugh—he only bent, slow and steady, to kiss your lips. You sighed into his mouth, taking hold of his hair with both hands as he fumbled with one hand for his belt. As he struggled, you tore your hands from his soft locks and slid them down his torso, replacing his own over the cold metal buckle of his belt. His hands found the bed again on either side of your head, and he pulled back to gaze into your eyes as you slid the leather through the loop.

The zipper snicked nosily against the quiet of the room. In the room over, the television mumbled, grey static humming through the wall. The lamp on the desk behind him made Steve glow the prettiest shade of gold. You guided his jeans and boxers over his hips and across his ass in one pull, and he pulled away to finish tearing them off. Hovering on his knees over you, straddling your squished thighs, he took ahold of his t-shirt and whipped it over his head.

You instantly deflated at the sight of his naked body—lean, firm, sculpted with cut muscle. Your fingers instantly found a path to explore when he returned to his mounted position over you. He pawed at the hem of his red t-shirt over your torso, bringing it to rest over your breasts below your chin. His palm skated through the valley of your stomach and breasts, and he bit back a smile at the full-bodied shiver that made you squirm and writhe against the quilt.

Pinching his fingers around the base of his cock, Steve used the slick tip to push aside your panties and breach your pulsing cunt. You both gasped at the same time, an echoing hiccup of breath silenced by your teeth clanking together. His forehead fell into yours, hair curtained over each side of your face, and you watched his eyes crinkle and round with desperation as he sank in to the hilt.

For a while, he just rested there, stretching you out, bringing a burning sting to the apex of your thighs. But when your thighs began to shake, and your heels sought balance at the small of his spine, you whimpered into his mouth squished against yours.

"Steve," you whined.

Steve's thumbs pressed into your throat again, hands bracing either side of your neck.

"Shh," he huffed against your lips, pecking them lazily. "Not goin' anywhere. S' all yours...m' all yours."

Steve's thrusts were slow and deep, brushing the most sensitive parts of your cunt with every lazy hump. Each tilt and push of his hips had you hiccuping and gasping against his mouth, but he never went far. He was always right there, holding you, watching you fall apart—loving you.

His thumbs pressed a little harder into your throat, just enough to have your head fuzzy and your eyes blurry. It felt like you were floating, and the hum of the tv a room over, the flickering glow of the lamp on the desk, the scent of rose soap and Marlboros—it all washed away. It was only Steve. Steve above you, touching you, kissing you, loving you.

One hand left your throat to rake through your hair, a handful of fingers tugging at the strands just hard enough to make your scalp tingle and your cheeks flame. Your hands slipped from his hair to his biceps, nails piercing the firm, bulging muscle.

"St-Steve," you whined again.

"You're so good, angel, you're so good," he mumbled breathily, gazing down where your bodies were connected. "So good t' me. Fuck, you like that?"

More than anything, you liked the lazy slur of his voice when he got lost in you, enraptured by the sight of your body bared to him, the feel of your skin against his, the squeeze of your cunt around his cock. His head snapped back with another twist of his face, nose scrunched and teeth clenched. He groaned, and his thumb slipped along your pulse point to push again. You stuttered, thighs tightening around his hips, and relaxed into a spasm.

Steve's hand left your neck to slam into the mattress, scrunching the fabric of the quilt as warmth flooded between your legs. It took only a moment for his arms to start to shake, and he collapsed into the crook of your neck with a heavy sigh. Your skin sticky and slick, your bodies clung together while you rested. You played with his hair as you caught your breath, turning to press a kiss to the damp spot on his hairline just above his temple.

Tomorrow, you would call your father, and when he would ask you to come home, you'd happily decline.

♡♡

#rolly!#boxer!steve harrington #boxer!steve #steve harrington x female reader smut #steve harrington x y/n smut #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington #steve the babysitter #steve the hair harrington #steve stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #joe keery #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington series

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marzipanandminutiae · 1 year

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Marzi, I need both your knowledge of historical fashion & sewing expertise. You’ve stated before how the not-rich would update their clothes to the new silhouette instead of buying new ones (with images of the very obvious resulting outfits). I’m wondering if a talented (but non-professional) seamstress (ca. 1820) updated a man’s (decade old at least) redingote into her pelisse how obvious would it be? Would there be any stigma about a woman’s garment being a man’s prior (or vis-versa)? Thanx

Would depend on whether any tell-tale seam lines were left that made sense for a man's redingote but not a woman's pelisse. Since she'd be adapting a relatively shapeless garment into one with a defined bodice-section and skirt-section I kind of doubt there'd be much to give it away- under those circumstances, I personally would just cut out the bodice pieces entirely from the top part of the redingote and gather down the remaining "skirt" to fit the waistline of the bodice I'd created, if that makes sense. Take in the sleeves to match the armsceyes of the new bodice, take them up if necessary, and voila- new pelisse with nobody the wiser about how it was created.

There was no stigma about what "gender" a garment started life as, no! And I know this for a fact because I've read a letter from around that time wherein a husband tells his wife to take fabric from his old coat to commission for herself a black velvet jacket of the sort lately fashionable in Washington, D.C.

Which brings me to the point that it was not just poor people who did this! That family in the letter were EXTREMELY wealthy, and- like many westerners of the 19th century -still considered frugality a virtue. Later in the century, you get stories of Gilded Age socialites taking thair own fabrics to the House of Worth to save money on new gowns, or saving excess fabric from Parisian couturiers and having local dressmakers craft extra bodices for the gowns in question.

(I will say, though, that in the early 19th century home dress-sewing was still less common than it would later become, even for working-class people. Commercial patterns weren't widely available yet, and many aspects of "mantua-making," as it was often called, were trade secrets. A large number of even less wealthy women had their clothes professionally made back then.)

#ask #anon #dress history #fashion history #long post

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rebeccathenaturalist · 2 years

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Why Forests Need Salmon

(Originally posted at my blog at https://rebeccalexa.com/why-forests-need-salmon/)

One of my favorite fall activities is to check local streams for salmon runs. Here in the Pacific Northwest, and extending north into Alaska, we have seven species of anadromous Salmonidae: chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii), and steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss). My favorite run is the chum salmon that run up Ellsworth Creek in southwest Washington each fall, but I’m honestly just happy to see any migrating salmon. And as I hike through stands of ancient western red cedar (Thuja plicata), I like to think about the many ways in which these and other forests need salmon for their ongoing health.

Anadromous fish are those that are born in fresh water, spend much of their adult lives in salt water, and then return to fresh water to spawn. Some, like Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and some populations of American shad (Alosa sapidissima) are iteroparous, meaning they can make this journey multiple times in a lifetime. Pacific salmonids, on the other hand, are semelparous, meaning that they spawn once and then die shortly thereafter. (From here on out I am going to use “salmon” as a general, casual term referring to both the Oncorhynchus species, and the steelhead and cutthroat trout.)

Pacific salmon were originally freshwater fish that inhabited lakes and slow-moving rivers. Somewhere around 25 million years ago, the climate cooled significantly, with average temperatures dropping almost twenty degrees F. We’re not sure at what point after this the salmon began expanding into brackish estuaries and then the Pacific Ocean itself, but when they did they found rich sources of food unlike what they had access to in fresh water. Over time, they evolved a life cycle that let them be born in the relatively safe shelter of freshwater streams, and then go out to the ocean to feast on the banquet found there when they were large enough to have a better chance of survival.

Eventually salmon runs could be found in streams as far inland as eastern Idaho, eastern British Columbia, and the southern two-thirds of Alaska (with some Alaskan runs even crossing over into Canada!) And until the arrival of European colonizers, these streams consistently provided indigenous people all along the Pacific coastline an incredibly important source of food, cultural and economic trade, mythos, and more. Unfortunately, the newcomers overharvested the salmon, dammed and destroyed streams and other habitat, and of course spearheaded the causes of anthropogenic climate change.

Indigenous people fish for salmon at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River. As the single longest continuously inhabited community in North America (over 15,000 years!), this location was a home and hub of cultural activity for many indigenous tribes and communities across the region before it was flooded by the completion of the Dalles Dam in 1957.

All these factors have led to a precipitous decline in the size of both salmon runs, and the salmon themselves. This isn’t just detrimental to indigenous communities, though. It also threatens the health of forests all throughout the salmons’ range.

A forest isn’t just made of trees. It’s composed of entire plant communities, fungi (including mycorrhizal species), and the animals, bacteria, and other living beings that share space with them. When salmon travel up and down the waterways as fry, and then later to spawn as adults, they have a direct impact on that ecosystem.

Salmon fry are an important source of food for larger fish, amphibians, birds, and other beings that seek food in the water. In fact, part of why salmon lay so many eggs (over 5,000 in the case of chinook!) is because most of the fry that hatch will never make it to adulthood. But adult salmon aren’t safe from predation on their return trip to their birthplaces. In fact, they are caught and eaten by a wide variety of animals from bears to eagles, wolves to osprey, sea lions to bobcats.

Bears are of particular interest here. Brown bears (Ursus arctos) are well-known for gorging on summer and fall salmon runs to build up massive amounts of fat in preparation for winter hibernation. (Katmai National Park even celebrates their bears during Fat Bear Week every October!) You can watch video feeds of several bears hanging out in their favorite fishing spots by waterfalls and in the flow of the river.

Imagine that you are a young bear, perhaps recently forced to independence by your mother who is now focused on your younger siblings. You have to not only start catching fish without her protection from bigger bears, but you also need to make sure those stronger bears don’t steal your catch. What’s the best thing to do? Run far away into the woods to eat your salmon in peace, then leave the remains among the trees and head back for more.

If the fishing is good, bears will often eat only the fattiest parts of the salmon like the brains and skin, and then leave the rest behind for scavengers. The nutrients in the salmon then disseminate throughout the forest, whether carried in the digestive systems of animals, or broken down in place by decomposers. This helps make the nutrients available to the plants, particularly trees which may store massive amounts of nutrients in their trunks; when the trees die, they essentially become a food pantry for younger beings like new seedlings, fungi, and so forth.

Now–what’s so special about the nutrients in salmon? Well, remember that these fish spend years out in the ocean. And the ocean has an entirely different balance of nutrients floating around in it compared to what’s found in fresh water or on land. The salmon are essentially the only way these ocean-borne nutrients can make their way into the forest in any meaningful amount, and they do so on a regular basis each year. The trees near salmon runs fished by bears may be 300% larger than usual, and salmon also provide nearly three quarters of the nitrogen in the forest. That’s a pretty impressive contribution!

This isn’t just about how forests need salmon; it’s a reciprocal relationship. While the salmon’s immediate habitats are aquatic, these streams, rivers, and other waterways are directly affected by what happens on the land around them.

Every waterway has a watershed–an area of land from which precipitation drains into that waterway. These watersheds nest within each other; the watersheds of small streams are nested within the watersheds of the rivers the streams feed into. That water carries things with it, from soil to pollutants. So the health of the land has a direct impact on what is found in the water.

But it goes beyond what’s washed downstream, and into how it’s washed down. In a healthy forest, for example, the soil is able to absorb a significant amount of precipitation that falls throughout the year, keeping it from simply cascading down hillsides to create flooding and landslides. Water is also stored in the various living beings in the forest; again trees are often the champions with their great size, but smaller plants help with water retention quite a bit as well, both through internal storage and preventing evaporation from soil. A forest that is badly damaged, such as through a clearcut or wildfire, won’t hold water as well. This can lead to floods, landslides and other erosion, and increase the impact of summer droughts as the land simply can’t store as much water, or for as long.

All of this affects the salmon directly. If the watershed is no longer holding and releasing snowmelt, rain, and other water in a controlled manner, this can lead to flooding in waterways which can wash away salmon eggs and fry. Increased erosion buries the gravel that salmon lay eggs in with silt, smothering the eggs so they never hatch. When a riparian zone–the land along a waterway–is stripped of vegetation, the water loses crucial shaded areas that keep temperatures cool. Salmon easily overheat when temperatures rise even a few degrees. And drought can dry up smaller streams, stranding and even killing young salmon while preventing adults from reaching their spawning grounds.

While not every single salmon run exclusively travels through forests, many of them do. And many spawning grounds are found in forests, or at least areas with significant tree cover in riparian zones. Salmon must have healthy forests in order to continue to survive, and the loss of these forests is just one of many factors contributing to their severe decline.

Thankfully, I am far from the only person concerned about the safety of our wild Pacific salmon. There are numerous organizations working to protect and restore salmon habitat through dam removal, preservation and restoration of aquatic habitat and surrounding land, regulations on salmon fishing, and educating people about sustainable seafood options (or just not eating seafood at all.) And even habitat restoration efforts that aren’t directly in salmon-inhabited waterways still have a positive impact on the forest ecosystem as a whole.

We know that forests need salmon, and salmon need forests. To protect one is to protect the other, and long may they both thrive.

Did you enjoy this post? Consider taking one of my online foraging and natural history classes, checking out my other articles, or picking up a paperback or ebook I’ve written! You can even buy me a coffee here!

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handeaux · 29 days

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Memories From Half A Century Ago; The Cincinnati Tornadoes of April 1974

On the evening of April 3, 1974, your narrator interviewed a woman who found a perfectly new, pristinely crisp, twenty-dollar bill in her front yard. This random occurrence of good luck became newsworthy because her miraculous benefit had floated down into her yard from a passing cloud that had recently spawned an F5 tornado.

At the time, I was not a reporter exactly but everyone that evening became either a reporter or a source. The memory of that day remains so fresh and clear it seems impossible that it transpired exactly fifty years ago.

In the fading afternoon, a heavy storm blew in as I drove a clunky Ford Econoline van from the Hopple Street Viaduct onto Westwood-Northern Boulevard. I was, at that time, a senior at the University of Cincinnati desperately yearning to graduate and move on to the next chapter in my life. To cover tuition, I worked as a printer for the Western Hills Publishing Company. Our offices were on Davis Avenue in Cheviot and our printing presses occupied a floor in the historic Crosley Building on Arlington Street in Camp Washington. My duties as the junior member of the printing crew involved shuttling copy and page flats from the editorial offices to the typesetting and composing staff.

As I climbed out of the valley toward the English Woods housing development, hail scattered across the road. Hailstones rattled on the van’s roof, then pounded, then stomped. It sounded like some gremlin with a baseball bat hammering on the roof as ice balls the size of oranges smashed into the asphalt all around. Tree branches cracked and split and thatched the roadway.

Somehow, I made it to Cheviot and pulled into the Press parking lot. It was full of people, just standing around. I got out and looked at the van. The roof looked like a moonscape, there were so many dents in it.

“Hey! Look at this,” I shouted. No one turned or said a word. And then I saw why.

Stretching from the horizon halfway to zenith was the tornado. It was impossible to comprehend the scale. More than two miles away, we heard no sound except endless sirens calling to one another from every direction. Where we stood transfixed it did not rain. There was no wind. There was only the tornado.

“Look at all that paper swirling around,” someone said.

“Those are garage doors,” another answered.

We watched as the horrendous vision scraped its way northward, the finger of God plowing a furrow along South Road out in Mack. We watched as it withered and lifted and twisted into nothingness against a pallid sky, waving it seemed in farewell at last as it vanished. We stared at each other, silent, unable to find any words.

Gradually, we realized that all the lights were out. There was no power in the offices. The publisher sent me around the corner to a hardware store to buy all the candles they had in stock. It was going to be a long night.

At this point, for the benefit of readers younger than I, it is necessary to explain a few details. The cash register at the hardware store was mechanical. It did not require electricity, much less Wi-Fi, to operate. The editorial offices were stocked with manual typewriters. The telephones were landlines, on a separate network, and functioned even when the power was out. Everyone had a battery-powered radio.

Anyone with the ability to write a coherent sentence became a reporter. I was sent out, still wearing my printshop uniform, in the divotted Econoline, to gather eye-witness reports. I found a small crowd at the Western Hills Country Club who had been herded into a downstairs bar while the sirens howled. They queued up for every available telephone to check in with their families. I found people in shock, wandering through piles of rubble that had been their homes, clutching any random possessions they recovered. I saw ambulances backed up in a line, waiting for utility poles and power lines to be moved. I saw people wrapped in blankets, standing in the middle of nothing left, sobbing on each other’s shoulders.

There were people who swore they saw two funnel clouds and people who claimed there were four, twisting like snakes in the sky. There were people who confessed to being so transfixed by the surreal wonder of the twister that they stood paralyzed as it swooped down on their houses.

And, in the curious way the universe laughs at we mere humans, I found humor.

There was the guy who, in a dispute with his insurance company, was photographing damage to his roof when the warning sirens erupted. He saw the funnel approaching and dove into his basement. When he emerged, his roof was gone, and so was the rest of his house, but he bragged that he had the photos to press his prior claim.

I talked to one of the rescue workers who told me about a kid, maybe 15 or 16 years old, who approached him and begged him to hide a bottle of vodka. The kid didn’t want his mother to know he had the bottle hidden in his bedroom – the bedroom that was now nothing more than a debris field.

Meanwhile, at the University of Chicago, Dr. Theodore Fujita drafted a questionnaire to be sent to almost every newspaper, every radio station, every television station in the country. Dr. Fujita asked a lot of questions about the duration and intensity of the 148 confirmed tornadoes reported that day. He and Allen Pearson of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center hoped to refine the tornado classification system they had created just three years previously. Someone at the Press filled out the questionnaire and sent it back.

A year later, having graduated from the university and transferred to the newsroom, I found a largish cardboard tube lying amid the usual pile of news releases and complaint letters that constituted our daily mail. On opening the tube – it was addressed to no one in particular – I found a map of the eastern United States titled “Superoutbreak Tornadoes of April 3-4, 1974.” Dr. Fujita, compiling all those questionnaires, had mapped and labeled every one of those 148 tornadoes.

In the center of the map, there was my tornado, the only tornado I have seen with my own eyes, officially designated as an F5 monster.

#1974 tornadoes #cincinnati tornadoes #1974 superoutbreak

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theculturedmarxist · 11 months

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A former editor for the German main daily newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Dr. Udo Ulfkotte became nationally renowned in dissident circles for his 2014 book Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News, originally published in German, which went through multiple translations.

The book relays Ulfkotte’s experience with how the CIA and German Intelligence (BND) bribe journalists to write articles free of truth and facts, and with a decidedly pro-Western, pro-NATO bent or, in other words, propaganda.

One of Ulfkotte’s formative professional experiences was as a war correspondent during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), where the Iraqis were considered to be “the good guys”—because they were serving Western interests in confronting Iran, whose Islamic regime had toppled a long-standing U.S. client, the Shah, in a 1979 revolution.

Iraqi war crimes under Saddam Hussein were covered up along with Washington’s interests in trying to weaken and divide two aspiring Middle Eastern powers so the U.S. could dominate the region and exploit its oil resources.

When he first arrived in Baghdad, Ulfkotte was a little scared. He did not have any experience as a war correspondent. The Iraqi Army quickly sent him off to the front line; the bus was full of loud, experienced war correspondents from prestigious media such as BBC, and Udo was just a miserable rookie.

The first thing that struck him as odd was that everybody was carrying canisters with them. He got upset that very moment and he thought to himself: “Ooops, if the bus gets stuck far from the petrol station, all of them chip in by filling in some petrol into the engine so Udo decided that in the future he would have to carry a canister as well.”

They were on a bus for hours on end riding through the desert. At 20 to 30 kilometers from the border, there was literally nothing there. There was no war whatsoever. There were armed vehicles and tanks long since burned to ash. The reporters got off the bus and sprayed the contents of the canisters all over the vehicles. The Iraqi soldiers were there with them with the machine guns: “Imagine that, tanks in the desert, burned to ash a long time ago, set on fire only now. The clouds of smoke all around. And the reporters positioning their cameras.”

What he witnessed was flame and clouds of smoke behind them, and the Iraqis running around in front of the cameras all the time with machine guns in their arms and scowling military looks in their eyes. Udo mustered up courage and asked one reporter: “I understand. The photos are brilliant, but why do they keep stooping and ducking down?”

The man replied: “Simple. In the audio played in the background one could hear machine guns, and it will sound very good back home.”

Udo kept thinking all the way home. “Young man, you did not see a war at all. You were by the campfire. What are you going to write about?”

Yes, that is a problem for a rookie working for a news agency. Performances are mainly adapted to suit the media needs. It is necessary that one “fits in” with the other seasoned professionals and concoct stories out of thin air that those in positions of authority want the people to hear—not ones that actually exist.

When Udo got back to Baghdad, there were no mobile phones; they were waiting in the Rashid Hotel for hours at times for the international line. He first phoned his mother, not his employer. He was desperate. He did not know what to do. At that point his mother started crying over the phone: “My boy! You are alive!” Udo thought to himself: “What do you mean? Is everything all right? My dear boy! We thought….What is happening, Mother? We saw on TV what happened around you.”

The TV channel had already sent back the fake stories and he tried to calm his mother down, trying to explain that it did not happen the way she believed it did. She thought Udo lost his mind. Udo said in his book that he would finish there, because he was not there to tell us a satire. He only wanted to say that this was his first experience with the truth in journalism and war correspondence. Basically, he was utterly shocked with the first contact he made. But, unfortunately, that was not an isolated case.[1]

In Udo’s naïve mind, war was a place where a reporter could report on horrifying events and help the public to empathize with the victims of war and expose the hidden political machinations behind it.

Instead, he found himself forced to write fake stories from far away from the front lines and to manufacture propaganda to induce consent among the public.

The ones manufacturing the stories were associated with the intelligence agencies whose job it is to deceive the public.

By serving as a correspondent in the Middle East, Ulfkotte was able to meet agents from the CIA, British M16, the Israeli MOSSAD and the German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtungendienst (BND).

His editors used to readily cooperate in such operations of collating intelligence information, which the reporters would dutifully transcribe for the public back home.

The skill of unofficial reporting is when a reporter essentially works for the CIA and he or she is not employed in an official role, Ulfkotte explains.

Both sides hugely benefit from their partnership and at the same time both sides can deny their relationship. The CIA would have found young reporters and they would then be their mentors. All of a sudden many doors would open for them, they would be granted awards and before they knew it, their mentors (read: paymasters) would have owned their whole careers.[2]

This is basically the name of the game. This is how it all works. Ulfkotte admitted with regret that he published articles in his own name that were actually written by CIA agents and other intelligence services, particularly the German secret services.

Ulfkotte went on to say that he had close contact with the German intelligence service, BND. Two persons from BND were regularly coming to the newspaper office where he worked. On occasion, he says, he was not only given the report but that the BND wrote the articles, which were published in the newspapers under Udo’s name.

Udo was asked by an interviewer if he could document what he was saying and he responded yes, that he could.

“I can say that this and that article with my text in the papers was written by the intelligence services because I couldn’t have possibly known what was written in it. I couldn’t have possibly known what was there in a cave in Libya, what secret thing in one particular place, what is being built there. That is what BND wanted to publish (using my name),” writes Udo.[3]

It was not like this only in FAZ. This was in other media as well.

“If we had rule of law, there would be an investigative committee to investigate dubious claims. Political parties would be outraged and rise [against the injustice of the fake news], regardless of whether they were the political left, the political right or the center and they would say: ‘What is this guy Ulfkotte saying? And he claims that he can document everything? This needs to be investigated.’”[4]

Udo continued: “This is still a common thing. I know some colleagues of mine who still maintain a close contact with the intelligence services. I would feel very good if there was an investigative committee but this obviously is not going to happen, because it is in nobody’s interest to do so. Because in that case the general public would understand to what extent politics, media and secret services are closely connected in this country.”[5] And in this world!

When Ulfkotte had a close encounter with his own conscience—and if one reads Dostoyevsky, they know that there is no person in the world who does not wrestle with their own moral dilemmas—he decided to elaborate on his experiences. In doing so, he provided significant insight into contemporary media and of the society that we live in.

Almost everybody knows but only a few dare speak about what Udo said.

He wrote: “I was in close contact with some European media or big private media companies—you cannot write or say what you feel like and what your views are necessarily. I can tell you that what I am saying here is what I have experienced everywhere. There are clear directives and everybody knows that one cannot publish what they want in the newspapers owned by Springer such as Bild or Welt—for instance the articles critical of Israel. There is no way you can do that there! You have signed an agreement that you will not challenge the question of the existence of a country of Israel or the Israeli point of view. These directives exist in all big media companies.”[6]

Ulfkotte continued: “If you do not wish to remain stuck in the lower corporate levels but you would rather travel with the chancellor, ministers, president or with the politicians, in the airplanes which belong to the government, in that case you have to adhere to certain rules. I have learnt that rather quickly.

What we consider as free journalism is a rather orderly and orchestrated thing to its every detail. But for your superiors, it is vitally important that that is not viewed as censorship and limiting of free reporting or whichever (bland and vague) terms and phrases they tend to use.

I soon realized that when I was tasked to accompany Helmut Kohl, the then German Chancellor, in my capacity of a journalist, you are not invited to do this job because your name is Udo Ulfkotte but because you work for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.”[7]

Udo went on to write:

“In such a case, one is expected to deliver a certain kind of reporting. Which one? Forget about my news agency. This is to do with all of them in general. At the outset of the journey, a reporter is given a set of directions as to what to ask, how to communicate. Normally, you are not told what to say and ask, to write something in this way or that way but you are painfully aware that if you do not do that in such and such a way, you will not be invited next time. Your media company will be called to tell them that you are not wanted. And then you are out!

Those in charge of the cooperation with the media are the non-government ‘think tanks,’ those foundations and organizations which arguably are ‘independent’ in the same way that independent journalists supposedly are.

I am often asked where are those people who ‘pull all the strings,’ so that everything is told in a similar way? Look at those people who sit in the huge transoceanic think-tanks and foundations, for instance, look at the foundation Atlantic Bridge, and in all such organizations. And how is one supposed to influence others there?

I know from personal experience. Let us not speak only theoretically. The German Marshall Fund invited me as their colleague to visit the USA for six weeks earlier on. All expenses paid. This think-tank had close contact with the CIA, and I gained easy access to all the U.S. politicians, to all of them I was eager to be in contact with.

Above all, they literally showered me with gifts.”[8]

The journalists and the news agencies which are supposed to be, if one follows the logic of their role in a democratic society and its laws and constitutions, and then code of ethics and professional conduct, to take care of general interests, find themselves facing a challenging situation—take something for yourself or give something from within yourself for something distant and uncertain. A human being cannot resist small things that the powers that be are able to provide for them profusely.

“Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.” – Graham Greene

All that is the name of the game. When The German Marshall Fund took Ulfkotte to the U.S., they told him that they knew he took a diving course in Oman. The CIA knew with utmost precision. They even gave him diving equipment through his contact in Oman.

During these six weeks he got an invitation from the governor of Oklahoma. He went there. There was a small ceremony and he received honorary U.S. citizenship. He became an honorable citizen of the USA. It was written in his certificate that from then on he would only write nice things in his reports.

The English version of the book by Udo Ulfkotte, The Bought Journalists, i.e., Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News, appeared on May 15, 2017, but by it having been published, the whole story surrounding it was not over.

According to the research by Off Guardian, Tayen Lane Publishing has since removed all references for this book from its website. Amazon UK indicates that the title is currently unavailable, with the possibility of the purchase from independent distributors, which offer used copies for an exorbitant amount of a thousand U.S. dollars per copy.

At least a 2019 version of the book, Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA: A Confession from the Profession is available for a reasonable price on amazon and goodreads.com at least in the U.S. Though you won’t find the book on display in Barnes & Noble or other big book shops as the powerful people who rule the world don’t want its content being widely read.

Regrettably, Udo Ulfkotte died of a heart attack at the age of 57 (Tracy, 2018).

After reading his books and writings, one wonders: “Is there anybody in the mainstream media who has not worked for the CIA?”

“In America, the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.” – Oscar Wilde.

Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are both world famous, with the former having much more luck by moving to Russia. Udo Ulfkotte, however, is almost completely out of the public gaze, although he was a journalist and whistleblower in the media industry, possibly as important as both.

One might think that this comes across as paradoxical. Yet it only means that the public does not recognize profound relations in the media industry.

Ulfkotte was a renowned European journalist with a Ph.D. in the social sciences and an immigration reform activist, among other things. When he wrote Gekaufte Journalisten: Wie Politiker, Geheimdienste und Hochfinanz Deutschlands Massenmedien lenken (the translation of its original title is Bought Journalists [alternatively, a translation of the title more to the point is Journalists for Hire]: How Politicians, Secret Services and High Finance Steer German’s Mass Media), he became one of the most significant whistleblowers in recent history.

James Tracy pointed out in Off Guardian that Ulfkotte showed how the Western secret services took over the central place in the Western journalism.” According to Tracey, Ulfkotte was able to witness all that with credibility and his personal and professional integrity because he was working in top echelons of the mainstream media profession for years.

Tracy added that the presence of the secret (intelligence) services is neither a chance encounter nor is it random. Their recruitment techniques are always similar in every corner of the globe.

#udo ulfkotte #cia #bnd #imperialism #propaganda #MI6 #mossad #iran iraq war #journalism #media corporations #mainstream media

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astraystayyh · 5 months

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I am unsure how to speak about Palestine. People keep telling me they fired first and my google searches are very bad

Hey, glad you sent in this ask! People who claim that Palestine initiated the firing view October 7th as an isolated event, when we cannot treat it as such. Oct 7 comes as a response to a 75 year colonization. Just like Hamas was founded in 1987 during the First Intifada- a series of civilian protests, where Palestinians threw stones at soldiers, and were met by a disproportionate and liberal use of force as described by a Humans Rights Watch report.

How could Palestine fire first when Hamas was created in direct response to the displacement and colonization that Palestinians faced? Hamas wouldn't have existed if Israel didn't murder, unlawfully imprison, torture and displace Palestinians. Oct 7 wasn't an isolate incident, every action implicates a reaction and every occupation leads to a resistance.

The west claims that Israel has a right to defend itself, leading in two months alone to the mass and brutal murder of 16.000+ civilians. But Palestine cannot defend itself against its colonizers (Just like Ukraine has done for example against Russia, a resistance backed by the American and European powers alike?)

I urge you to read about all the massacres Israel committed against Palestinians prior to Oct 7, so you'd understand better that Palestine did not fire first. Israel did not even exist prior to 1948 for Palestine to attack it.

And, let's be honest for a second. If someone comes into your home, forces you out of it, destroys it, murders everyone you know, denies you of your most basic rights, unlawfully imprisons you, tortures you physically and psychologically, destroys your land and hinders your agriculture and destroys your libraries and erases your culture, would you not resist? Would you stay silent? Of course not, and Palestinians shouldn't be dehumanized and killed for it.

Now for your second point, I'm glad you brought that up because western media is very very biased. To give you some examples, here is a Washington Post headline about four premature babies that died, decomposing on their hospital beds in Al-Nasr Hospital, in northern Gaza. They were left in the prenatal care after Israel threatened doctors to bomb the hospital if they didn't evacuate it.

"Four fragiles lives found ended"

Who ended them? Why were they in that situation to begin with? Who was behind their tragic murder? The journalist behind this post deliberately chose this title to avoid pointing the blame to Israel. In fact, the entire article doesn't directly nor clearly state the reason behind this slow and torturous death. When those four babies would not have died IF Israel didn't threaten to bomb their hospital, forcing everyone to evacuate.

We as journalists learn that the 5Ws are the essential key elements that form the basis of any article : who? where? when? what? how/why? Israel should be clearly denounced as the one responsible of those deaths, especially considering that it's a war crime underneath the Geneva convention.

Let's take another example. Pay attention to elusive langage and the way media skirts around words, using euphemisms to redirect the blame. Palestinians "die"- as if passing away due to natural causes, as if there wasn't a clear intent to murder them. Whereas Israelis are "killed"- deliberately targeted. This double standard already shows you that the media you're reading from is heavily biased.

We journalists also learn that headlines are very very important, especially on social media where most people get their information strictly by reading the headlines and sharing it, without bothering to check the entirety of the article. Now, here's an example of a misleading headline by BBC.

At first read this looks like confirmed accounts of rape. Anyone who reads it would think that it has been proven irrevocably, but let's look more into the article :

None of the rape accusations were verified, neither by the police or the journalists of BBC. All of these are alleged claims that have no tangible backing, and yet they were presented as factual in the headline, the most important part of any article that catches the attention of readers. By formulating the headline as such, BBC pre-establishes the premise that Hamas did rape women and that it has been proven. This is the information that most people would retain as they wouldn't bother reading the article. This is how propaganda starts and how false news are shared widely (remember the story of the 40 beheaded babies debunked by the IDF itself?)

Always look out for the langage and terminology the media uses. It is not coincidental, it is deliberate and it serves the interests/editorial line of the media. And you can speak up about Palestine by denouncing the genocide they're facing. If you can read about 16.000+ deaths, most of which are children, if you can see images of hospitals, refugee camps, schools, ambulances, houses, "safe routes" bombed by Israel and still be unsure of your stance, then i don't know what to tell you.

#free palestine #free gaza

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reality-detective · 8 months

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⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ HURRICANE UPDATE ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️

I've been doing a little research and trying to connect some dots with some information about hurricane Idalia. First off I will start with this article 👇

There are a few things that jumped out at me in this article.

#1 - Hurricane Hunters made their first flights into Tropical Storm Idalia on Sunday, launching what will be one of the largest sequences of flights and weather-balloon launches carried out in years to monitor a potential Atlantic hurricane.

#2 - The reconnaissance plan issued on Saturday included a flurry of NOAA and Air Force flights that began on Sunday to monitor Idalia as well as potent Hurricane Franklin, which will remain well east of the United States (see below). The biggest question marks on Sunday were how large and strong Idalia will be at landfall and where exactly on the Florida Gulf Coast it will arrive.

These 👆 alone should be making you ask questions, but let's continue. 👇

Contaminated gasoline? 🤔

Citgo has released the following list of affected Florida gas stations:👇

Most of these are along the western side of Florida. Where is Idalia tracking? The West side of Florida. 👇

Widespread Gasoline Contamination & Diesel

The stations affected by the contamination have been asked to stop selling gasoline until the fuel is replaced and the tanks are cleaned.

MY THOUGHTS: 👇

I'm getting Maui vibes... Right before a major tropical storm/hurricane? Thousands, if not possibly hundreds of thousands of vehicles affected, as well as home generators...

This is beginning to smell like sabotage. 🤔

I saw a list of states where possible DEW attacks may take place.

Here's that list: 👇

There were 15 states on a list that showed possible planned DEW Attacks in the future...

Texas, Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Florida, California, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma.

I don't want to create any fear with this, I'm just pointing some things out, I'm trying to connect some dots so people can be aware and prepare for the worst.

Am I right? >>> Is it Florida's turn?

We're about to find out... 🤔

Last comment: 👇

I have been in hurricanes multiple times and I have listened to the local news many times and this one started out as being a cat 1 at landfall, then it was said to be a cat 2 now less than 24 hours later they are saying it will be a powerful cat 3 and it will continue to intensify up until landfall so could it be a cat 4 at landfall? Possibly because I keep hearing the term "Rapid Intensification" more than any other hurricane I have been in.

Pay Attention and implement the 6 P Rule - Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. 🤔

EVERYONE STAY SAFE OUT THERE‼️ 🙏

#pay attention #educate yourselves #educate yourself #knowledge is power #reeducate yourself #reeducate yourselves #think for yourselves #think about it #think for yourself #do your homework #do some research #do your own research #ask yourself questions #question everything #connecting dots #my thoughts

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morbidology · 11 months

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On the morning of the 6th of December, 2009, Susan Powell, from West Valley City, Utah, took her two sons, four-year-old Charles and two-year-old Braden, to a church service. Afterwards, a neighbour visited before leaving at around 5PM. This was the last time Susan was ever seen.

The following day, Susan, her husband, Josh, and their two children were reported missing. The boys hadn’t shown up at daycare and Susan hadn’t appeared at work. When authorities searched the home, they found two fans pointing at a damp spot on the floor but there was no sign of the family.

At approximately 5PM, Josh, Charles, and Braden appeared back at home. Josh claimed he had left Susan at midnight to take the boys camping at Simpson Springs Campground in western Utah despite the freezing cold temperatures. Susan was still missing, however, and a search of the marital home turned up some suspicions.

Investigators found traces of Susan’s blood on the floor as well as a life insurance policy on her life for $1.5 million. Also found was a handwritten letter from Susan in which she expressed fear for her husband and her potential death. Nevertheless, Josh was still not arrested. Years later, a prosecutor in Washington state said that he should have been arrested then and there, stating: “There is direct evidence. There is circumstantial evidence. There is motive. There is everything but the body.”

By 2009, Josh was named a suspect in the disappearance of his wife but was never arrested. Following her disappearance, he had refused to aid in the investigation and had even quickly filed paperwork to withdraw Susan’s retirement account money. He and their two sons moved in with his father, Steven Powell.

However, Steven too fell under a cloud of suspicion. He had a history of bizarre and inappropriate behaviour, including voyeurism. In fact, he was shortly arrested and charged with voyeurism after being caught taking photographs of his neighbours’ children through the bathroom window. In January of 2012, Josh was denied custody of Charles and Braden; custody was awarded to Susan’s parents, Charles and Judy Cox.

Just the following week, a social worker dropped the two boys over at Josh’s home for what was supposed to be a supervised visit. Josh opened the door and grabbed Charles and Braden before slamming the door in the social worker’s face. Just moments later, the house exploded and burst into flames. Josh, Charles and Braden all died in a double murder-suicide.

It appeared as though Josh had planned the fire for some time, dropping off their toys at local charities and sending final emails to friends and acquaintances. He sent emails explaining where to find his money and how to shut off his utilities. Inside the home, investigators found two five-gallon gasoline cans; the home had been saturated with gasoline to use as an accelerant.

It was theorised that Josh had killed his sons to prevent them from talking about what happened to Susan. The lawyer for Susan’s parents said that they had recently started to recall things they remembered from that fateful night. “They were beginning to verbalize more. The oldest boy talked about that they went camping and that mommy was in the trunk. Mom and dad got out of the car and mom disappeared.”

#Susan Powell #true crime

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female-malice · 2 years

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Opinion | Women are leading a revolution in Iran. When will Western feminists help?

By Masih Alinejad

A new popular uprising is taking place in Iran, and this time women are in the lead. It’s incredibly inspiring to see — for the first time I can remember — unveiled women marching at the front. They have overcome fear and are challenging one of the main pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran: compulsory hijab.

These women are marching shoulder to shoulder with men, chanting against the whole regime. They are facing guns and bullets and demanding an end to a system of gender apartheid.

Mahsa Amini was only 22 years old. She wasn’t uncovered; only a few strands of her hair showed. And yet she was arrested by the so-called “morality police” and packed off to jail. Three days later she was dead. Many Iranians are convinced she was killed —a belief reinforced by countless individual experiences with the brutality of the security services.

The news of her death has triggered outrage throughout Iran. Tens of thousands of demonstrators are defying security forces to ask why an innocent young woman lost her life to religious radicals who merely wanted to show off their militant male power. The compulsory hijab is not just a small piece of cloth for Iranian women; it is the most visible symbol of how we are oppressed by a tyrannical theocracy. Now, by drawing attention to that injustice, Mahsa’s death has the potential to serve as a new turning point for Iranian women.

They deserve the support of their Western counterparts. Yet so far we see little evidence that women in Europe or North America are willing to take to the streets to show their solidarity for a women’s revolution in Iran.

Recent experience has been discouraging. Over the past decade, we’ve seen female politicians from democratic countries — including Ségolène Royal from France, Catherine Ashton from the United Kingdom, and Federica Mogherini from Italy — don hijab on their visits to Iran. All these female politicians are quick to assert their feminist credentials in their own societies — but when it comes to Iran they go out of their way to show deference to the men who have elevated misogyny to a state principle. A regime that abuses and harasses millions of women each year does not deserve our respect. To do so makes a mockery of all our talk of universal human rights.

When the Women’s March took place in Washington, D.C., in 2017, I was happy to join. Along with the rest I chanted: “My body, my choice.” Some women might well choose to veil their faces and bodies in accordance with their religious or cultural beliefs — but that should be a matter of their own choice, not a rule imposed by the whips and clubs of men. Yet Western women seem only too happy to succumb to the standards dictated by the male tyrants in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran.

I don’t consider such feminists to be true advocates of women’s rights. The true feminists and women’s rights activists are those in Afghanistan and Iran who are stepping forward, at great cost, to resist the Taliban and Islamic republic. They are the true feminist leaders of the 21st century, risking their lives by facing guns and bullets. They will go on fighting against the regimes, and we who have the privilege to live in free countries should actively amplify their voices. This is the moment for women in the West to stand with Iran’s mothers, daughters and sisters.

I will not remain silent. I will continue to speak out until compulsory hijab laws are abolished. Like the women now taking to the streets in my home country, I, too, have been targeted by the regime. I have chosen to speak up despite that regime’s attacks on my family, and its attempts to have me abducted or killed. In this, I feel deep solitary with the thousands of women protesting in Iran. I will continue to do what I can to support their struggle, to help them achieve their rights.

My wish is for all of us to be louder than the tyrants. I call on the free world to join the protesters in calling for an end to the murderous regime of the ayatollahs. Iranian women are fighting to recover our dignity and exercise our personal freedoms — so that, one day, all Iranians can finally choose our government in free and fair elections. We shouldn’t be afraid of the religious fanatics and the jihadists. They are the ones who are frightened. It is why they seek to keep women down. Women in the streets are paying with their lives for change. But too many in the outside world are shaking hands with our murderers.

I am asking all Western feminists to speak up. Join us. Make a video. Cut your hair. Burn a headscarf. Share it on social media and boost Iranian voices. Use your freedom to say her name. Her name was Mahsa Amini.

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todaysdocument · 5 months

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Telegram from the Executive Board of the San Francisco District of the California Federation of Women's Clubs Supporting the Raker Bill

Record Group 46: Records of the U.S. SenateSeries: Petitions and Related Documents That Were Presented, Read, or Tabled

The Raker Bill allowed San Francisco to build a dam on the Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park.

[preprinted Telegraph form reads "WESTERN UNION NIGHT LETTER THEO N. VAIL, PRESIDENT Form 2289 B RECEIVED AT"] B5A LY 477 NL 124 EXTRA SAN FRANCISCO CALIF DEC 2 1913 [purple ink stamp "1913 Dec 3 AM 1 49"] [blue ink stamp "1340"] THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON DC WE THE UNDERSIGNED MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT OF THE CALIF FEDERATION OF WOMENS CLUBS REPRESENTING A MEMBERSHIP OF SIX THOUSAND WOMEN VOTERS OF SAN FRANCISCO AND VICINITY RESPECTFULLY CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO A RESOLUTION PASSED BY OUR ORGANIZATION IN RECENT CONVENTION AT SANTA ROSA CALIF BEGGING YOUR FAVORABLE ACTION UPON THE RAKER HETCH HETCHY BILL WHICH YOU ARE NOW CONSIDERING WE BELIEVE THAT THIS RESOLUTION SHOULD BE GIVEN THE UTMOST WEIGHT AMONG ALL OF THE MASS OF ENDORSEMENTS OF AND PROTESTS AGAINST THE HETCH HETCHY BILL FOR THE REASON THAT THE WOMEN OF THIS DISTRICT HAVE BEEN FACE TO FACE WITH THE WATER PROBLEM OF SAN FRANCISCO FOR MANY YEARS AND KNOW IT AS NO OTHER WOMEN CAN POSSIBLY KNOW IT BECAUSE[stamp in purple ink "1913 DEC 3 AM 1 50"] (SHEET 2) IT HAS BEEN BEFORE US IN OUR HOMES AND IN THE MEETINGS OF OUR VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AND WE HAVE GIVEN IT CONSCIENTIOUS STUDY WE HAVE PASSED THESE RESOLUTIONS WITH ACKNOWLEDGE OF THE FACTS AMONG OUR MEMBERS ARE MANY WHOSE HOMES IN SAN FRANCISCO ARE WITHOUT SEMBLANCE OF FIRE PROTECTION AND WHOSE HEALTH IS ENDANGERED THROUGH THE NECESSITY OF MAKING DOMESTIC USE OF WATER COMING FROM QUESTIONABLE SOURCES WE KNOW THE THOROUGHNESS WITH WHICH SAN FRANCISCO HAS STUDIES THIS QUESTION WE STAND UPON THE FINDINGS OF THE FEDERAL COMMISSION OF ARMY ENGINEERS APPOINTED BY OUR GOVERNMENT TO STUDY OUR PROBLEM WE HAVE GIVEN CONSIDERATION TO THE POSSIBLE INJURY OF CITIZENS OF OTHER SECTIONS AND BELIEVE THAT THE RAKER BILL IS A JUST AND HONORABLE BILL PROTECTING PERSONS WHO HAVE ANY INTERESTS IN THE WATERS FLOWING THROUGH THE HETCH HETCHY WE DO NOT AGREE WITH THOSE PERSONS WHO IN OUR OPINION ARE MISGUIDED IN ADVANCING FINE DRAWN DISTINCTIONS AS TO WHETHER THE HETCH HETCHY IS MORE PICTURESQUE AS IT IS THAN IT WILL BE WHEN ITS FLOOR IS COVERED BY A BEAUTIFUL LAKE[stamp in purple ink "1913 DEC 3 AM 1 50"] (SHEET 3) WE CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL ALLOW THIS QUIBBLE TO ENTER INTO A QUESTION OF THIS KIND WHILE SAN FRANCISCO IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF WATER WE WANT WATER WITH JUSTICE TO ALL AND WE BEG TO AGAIN RESPECTFULLY CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO OUR FINDINGS AS EXPRESSED IN ON OUR RESOLUTIONS MRS PERCY S SHUMAN, PRESIDENT MRS PERCY KING VICE PRESIDENT MRS LEWIS E AUBURY COR SECRETARY MRS NATHAN FRANK REC SECRETARY MRS HENRY HANSEN TREASURER MRS H FINKLER AUDITOR MRS LILLIAN H COFFIN CHAIRMAN LEGISLATION MRS R V S BERRY CHAIRMAN ART MISS JENNIE PARTRIDGE CHAIRMAN CIVICS MRS J VICKERSON CHAIRMAN RECIPROCITY MRS C E CUMBERSON CHAIRMAN PEACE OR MARIANA BERTOLA CHAIRMAN HEALTH MRS NORMAN MARTIN CHAIRMAN PRESS MRS ELLA M S-EXTON CHAIRMAN EDUCATION MRS JOHN JURY CHAIRMAN MUSIC MRS C BURLINGAME CHAIRMAN HISTORY AND LANDMARKS MISS NELL H COLE CHAIRMAN FORESTRY MRS F F BOSTWICK CHAIRMAN PHILANTHROPY MRS W V GRIMES CHAIRMAN CIVIL SERVICE REFORM MRS NELLIE DENANN CHAIRMAN COUNTRY LIFE MISS M B VAIL CHAIRMAN HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS MRS LOUIS HERTZ CHAIRMAN INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 113AM

#archivesgov #December 3 #1913 #1910s #san francisco #yosemite national park #women's clubs

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lantur · 2 months

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updates from day two of Kyoto,

Waking up super early in the morning (~5:50 AM) came in clutch. Kyoto in the early morning with rain and very few people around is very atmospheric. I explored Kiyomizu-dera temple and the historic streets of Ninnenzaka and Sannenzaka before 8 AM, and had breakfast at a cute little cafe. It was comforting to be somewhere bright and warm after a dark, grey early morning exploration.

I normally don't eat breakfast at home. I wake up, have tea, and rush right off to the gym before work starts. It's been really nice to treat myself to breakfasts on several of these vacation days.

I spent most of yesterday exploring Arashiyama, a region in western Kyoto. Something that took me by surprise was how much the landscape resembled Washington state. It was mountainous, forested, and mossy. The resemblance stood out even more in the rain.

Good things:

Intense green moss at Gio-ji temple, and having the small temple completely to myself.

Birds singing and calling to each other everywhere in the forest, and the sound of rain pattering on my umbrella and flowing down spouts and dripping off statues and leaves. I never realized how few birds I hear in my everyday life until I traveled to Peru and here.

The eeriness and fascination of the Otagi Nenbutsu-ji temple, with its 1200 stone Buddhas peering at me as rain dripped off them.

The completely empty walk in the rain through a side street to Adashino Nenbutsu-ji temple, the rain soaking the 8,000 statues there dedicated to deceased souls.

Another empty bamboo forest at Daikaku-ji temple, and seeing the grove of cherry blossoms there just starting to bloom. It was so beautiful and special to be there alone.

I loved that so much of Arashiyama felt intensely isolated. There were hours where I felt like the only person wandering around the area. It was only in the late afternoon that I started to see other tourists again.

Challenges:

Walking around in the rain for ~seven hours was uncomfortable, because I got cold and wet even with my umbrella and was walking around in wet socks and shoes for almost the entire time :(( which was a very gross sensation. The silver lining was that the rainy vibes were impeccable.

Successes:

I went to a public bathhouse yesterday evening! It was delightful to be able to warm up in the hot baths and the sauna after being out in the cold. I'm also very proud of myself for getting out of my comfort zone and trying something new. Past me would never have been able to do this. I think all the swimming I've done over the past couple years and changing in and out of my swimsuit in the locker room with other people around has helped a lot. :) Dinner out after the bathhouse was giant grilled shrimp and scallops, and it was so good.

#lanturing

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mariacallous · 2 months

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As Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine enters its third year, the West remains in need of a clearer strategy for achieving victory and stopping Russian President Vladimir Putin from overturning the rules-based international order. Western leaders’ hesitation and incrementalism in providing Ukraine with the military capabilities that it needs to defeat Russia are the main reasons for the disappointing results of last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Victory means securing Ukraine’s survival as a sovereign, democratic state that is fully integrated in the European Union and NATO, as well as bolstering its economic and military capacity to deter future Russian aggression. Given Putin’s denial of Ukraine’s right to exist, Russia must be defeated first and foremost on the battlefield.

Putin hasn’t scaled back his war aims despite the heavy Russian losses. He continues to believe that time is on his side and that his military can outlast Ukraine and its Western backers. The erosion of Republican Party support for Ukraine in the U.S. Congress has buoyed his hopes, along with the possibility that former U.S. President Donald Trump will return to power and either sever or downgrade the U.S. commitment to NATO. With Ukraine running out of ammunition, Russia has gone on the offensive and captured strategic towns in the eastern Donbas region, including Avdiivka, breaking the stalemate.

At home, the Russian elite and much of the public continue to at least passively support Putin’s so-called special military operation, which has been conducted in a way that limits the impact on their daily lives. Russian propaganda distorts history and in part blames the war on Western Russophobia, while the West struggles to counter disinformation. Putin has made clear that he does not feel any pressure to negotiate and seek a diplomatic solution unless the terms involve Ukraine’s total capitulation.

It is vital to U.S. interests to help Ukraine defeat Russia and to prevent the normalization of wars of aggression and changing borders by force. The United States must also deny impunity for war crimes against civilians, as well as the disruption of global energy and food supplies. Even partial success for Putin could embolden other actors, such as China or Iran, to achieve their own goals by force—such as attacking Taiwan or increasing support for extremist groups in the Middle East. And in the long term, a Russian victory in Ukraine would make Moscow’s return to the path of reform and peaceful coexistence less likely.

To mount an effective strategy for victory in Ukraine, the U.S. Congress must promptly pass a bill to fund Ukraine’s defense through the end of 2024 and beyond, if possible. A lack of U.S. funding—and by extension, of U.S. arms supplies—will jeopardize Ukraine’s ability to hold off new Russian offensives and undermine U.S. credibility and NATO solidarity. Washington’s allies understand that they will need to help fill the gap if the congressional impasse continues. The European Union’s $54 billion aid package will help, but there is only so much that European countries can do on the military side: Their stockpiles are dwindling, and efforts to build up their defense industries will take years to deliver results.

Assuming that Congress restores U.S. funding, there are two critical areas for ramping up support to Ukraine. The first is pulling out all the stops on military assistance—that is to say, playing to win, not just doing enough to ensure that Ukraine doesn’t lose. Last year’s decisions to provide a short-range version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), F-16 fighter jets, and Abrams tanks were encouraging, but they could have been provided earlier and in larger quantities.

Most urgently, the United States needs to lift its self-imposed ban on the longer-range version of the ATACMS, which would enable Ukraine to strike targets deeper in Crimea and hit the systems launching missiles from inside Russia. Despite leaks suggesting an impending change in U.S. policy on this long-range missile system, the Biden administration continues to hesitate. Breaking Russia’s grip on Crimea is the key to Ukrainian victory and to the long-term viability of the Ukrainian state.

Second, the West should put Ukraine on a path to NATO membership during the alliance’s summit in Washington in July. Although it is good news that allies are extending bilateral security commitments to Ukraine, as the G-7 countries agreed last year, that cannot be the final answer. Until Ukraine joins NATO and is covered by Article 5, the alliance’s collective defense clause, there can be no certainty that Russia will not attack Ukraine again.

The communiqué from NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, last year used the right words—that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO”—and simplified the process for Kyiv’s accession. But it was vague on when and under what conditions Ukraine can expect to receive an invitation and begin accession talks. It’s not too late to adopt a more ambitious approach at the summit in Washington, which will mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary.

The decision is not a simple one for NATO. Although the alliance admitted West Germany in 1955, when Soviet troops occupied East Germany, Ukraine’s accession would be the first time a country was invited to join NATO while engaged in active combat with a hostile neighbor. Some allies have suggested that NATO can only take a decision on Ukrainian accession once the war is over. That might be the simplest approach, but it would give Russia an incentive to drag out the war—effectively giving Moscow a veto.

Beginning accession talks at the Washington summit would be a better approach. Allies could engage Ukraine in the practical work required to meet NATO membership criteria on an expedited basis: defense capabilities, reforms, interoperability, and adherence to democratic principles, among others. This would enable Ukraine to demonstrate its ability to meet the political, legal and military obligations of membership. It would also echo the EU’s approach to Ukraine’s EU accession while deferring a full invitation to join the alliance to a later decision.

Setting Ukraine on this path would give Kyiv and its allies time to work out solutions to problems related to bringing in a member still engaged in a war with Moscow. For example, if there were stability along most of the line of contact separating Ukrainian and Russian forces, NATO might proceed with accession but initially apply Article 5 only to territory fully under Ukrainian control to ensure the credibility of the collective defense guarantee.

Even after Ukraine becomes a NATO member, allies will need to continue to arm and train Ukrainian forces for the long term, including by helping them develop their own defense industry. Providing Ukraine with all the weapons that it needs to defeat Russia on the battlefield is the best way to end the war; setting Ukraine on the path to NATO membership is the best way to secure the peace.

Taken together, these steps can form the basis for a strategy for victory that is worthy of the name.

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