#that is a photo aberration but like as a physical being

[inchidentally]

okay so like I'm a naturally cautious person and going to assume this race was a total aberration of landoscar content so I just rly wanna soak in it:

Lando throwing an absolute megawatt flirty grin at Mark Webber (and right in front of his own dad smh)

Mark and Oscar joining Lando and Adam bc fathers and sons bonding time

Mark seeming like he wants to ask Lando what his intentions are toward Oscar/Mark seeming perturbed bc why does the Norris creature look like he wants to get on his knees for him and why does he feel amenable

Lando and Oscar revolving close together and staying in the same group for the drivers parade when they normally split off to hang w different ones (glimpses of carlando AND carcar)

and the nonstop yapping and brushing shoulders with each other during the grid photo that they got scolded TWICE

Lando hearing "Lando di Piastri" instead of "land of Piastri" so we've got an audiovisual for fic where Lando takes Oscar's name in marriage

the continuation of 'Osc' by Lando

them both having developed the joke of "oh we hate each other!" while they beamed into each other's faces that started in Abu Dhabi '23 and turned into "we're being forced/contracted to spend time together" while they beamed into each other's faces during testing in Barcelona - and today was Lando going "ugh he follows me everywhere!" and Oscar "I'm not stalking you I promise" while they beamed into each other's faces

bc Oscar's personality and confidence are coming back and Lando is learning more about him as a result and does it ever feel unbearable sometimes how these two have built such a gradual and gentle and earnest relationship over the course of a year and that they've both committed to being together at least another 3 years

like seriously on the one hand it's such a boyish sweet friendship but on the other they exist in each other's physical space so delicately and I couldn't even fathom them pretend punching each other or play fighting or anything and they are SO careful to watch each other's reactions when they banter bc they don't want the other person to feel thrown by sarcasm or take a joke seriously and mannnnnnn it hurts my face how sweet they are

so yea I'm gonna take this as a beautiful start to the season but not going to assume we'll get spoiled like this for a while frankly I'm not sure my heart could take it

#bahrain gp 2024 #landoscar lore #inchidentallyanessay

[apoapsis]

@ovcrwctch said, "Ah yes I still have it. I don't quite know how it survived the shuttle journey." Winston chuckled and smiled as he saw the other notice the lunar colony keychain. The one Siebrien had gotten for him back when he was still a child. He remembered sitting with it, watching the glitter swirl and fall many times. It gave him comfort too when first he landed on earth.

           It was hard to understand where, precisely, he was intended to place Winston in his life.

It’s a strange feeling– being able to look at someone, to know them, yet simultaneously find very little familiarity in them. Distorted memories flutter like a cast of puppet-like shadows, silhouettes of people he should know– faces and forms he cannot quite see. They’re much stronger where they overlap, where individual choices had unknowingly been selected in perfect synchronism– but so much weaker and more fragmented where they diverged. The fact of the matter is that they had never, officially, met within his original timeline– but with SIEBREN’S more concrete memories, he often experienced déjà vu when regarding these aberrations firsthand. 

            SIGMA liked to believe that allowing himself to wash adrift within waves of false nostalgia made it just a little easier to interpret the new, strange world around him– but he often loses himself along the way, entirely forgetting which reality he was physically occupying. 

It’s four in the morning and he’s floating around Winston’s lab lethargically, following the gorilla between workstations and projects alike as the other explains them to him. It had been purely by chance that he’d caught a glimpse of the photographs littering Winston’s actual desk, losing interest in the conversation in favor of going to investigate– and, once the other follows him up, using various obstacles in the environment to clamber up the steep wall to his study, SIGMA is sat cross-legged upon a fixed axis, curiously regarding the little keychain held aloft between gloved digits. 

              The little bauble of the keychain was clearly well-loved, judging by the scratches etched into the hard plastic and the way a small portion of the fluid had drained at some point due to the development of a crack within the seam. The letters had all but faded– the embossment the only indication that any inscription had been there to begin with. He’s never seen this thing in his life, yet he can recall himself placing it into such tiny, wanting hands. The explanation that comes during his observation only further perplexes him– the notion that SIEBREN had ever, at any point, intentionally displayed tenderness for another living thing. 

After all– he’d only ever known SIEBREN to be the most hateful person of all living things.

              Yet he knows it’s true– that it’s there– simply because the trinket exists in its current state. 

A shy smile is flashed towards Winston, sheepishly offering the object back to Winston before his gaze once more adverts towards the photographs– and since the gorilla hadn’t appeared to take offense to him playing with the keychain, he plucks the one of Harold and a baby Winston from where it hangs upon one of his monitors, staring down at it blankly for several long moments. 

             If the keychain could survive such a trip, then…?

“-- I have been meaning to inquire,” SIGMA murmurs thoughtfully, his smile taking on a wistful quality as he continues to gaze at the figures smiling back at him from the photo. “... Where is Doctor Harold Winston…? Did…. you not arrive on Earth together…?” The astrophysicist finally glances up– then around, almost as if he anticipated Harold to abruptly enter and make conversation with the both of them. 

            “... When Reinhardt informed me of your continued existence, I had assumed that Harold would have elected to come along with you.” It’s difficult to hide the disappointment in his voice, even if he’s trying to conceal it beneath his curiosity. “... But he isn’t here, is he…?” Pale lavender eyes reflexively glance towards the window, upward– towards the pale moon hanging over the darkened bay.

“... Did he ever leave the COLONY? Could he possibly... still be there?”

#interactions + ғʟɪʀᴛɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴛʜ ɪɴғɪɴɪᴛʏ ; ʏᴏᴜʀ ɢᴇᴏᴍᴇᴛʀɪᴄ ᴘʀᴏɢᴇɴʏ + #ovcrwctch #recall + ʙʟᴜʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪɴᴇs ᴏғ ᴡʜᴀᴛ's ʀᴇᴀʟ ; ʀᴇ ɪᴍᴀɢɪɴᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ +

[iron-stripmine]

My opinion on the whole manatreed situation, as a victim of abuse myself.

Trigger warning for topics associated with this whole thing (Domestic Abuse, Doxxing) and for my own abuse (Child Abuse, Paranoia, Isolation, Gaslighting, Financial Abuse, Alcoholism, Blood, Suicide Attempts) because I know that if I don't give details about it, I will be attacked and have my trauma dismissed more than I already will have, and frankly I'd prefer to revisit these memories than to be accused of "Not Believing Victims" more than I already have been.

This is... A really long post tbh, and if you are wondering why I'm not using names besides Dream's and Manatreed, it is to respect the wishes of the victim.

First off, I will admit my abuse was different than the abuse manatreed was and is being accused of committing. For one, my abuser is my own mother, it occured during the majority of my childhood and a good part of my teenagehood so far, and I was encouraged to not speak up to not cause heartbreak to my grandparents.

To summarize all of it in a neat timeline, however, my mom split off from my dad on christmas due to a belief he was cheating (a single photo hugging a female college friend, both clothed and during a party hosted by his job), I was forced to move and with her, and forbidden from visiting or being visited by my dad for years, despite the fact we lived two streets away in a safe area of a small town. During that time, my mother's alcoholism worsened severely, and she'd often throw parties in our house with shady characters. She'd come and yell at me, most of the times drunk, and when she was sober she'd try to convince me my father cared more about the "sluts" he was dating, and say that whatever she did while drunk didn't matter because she wasn't sober and didn't remember it. She'd steal money my grandparents gave me, destroy my books, and deliberately use my father's support money and the money she stole to buy beer and cigarettes, or send me to buy those at the bar we lived right beside if she had a hungover.

She dated several shit men, before finally settling on a dude named alan. Alan took us to live on an isolated small farm, where I needed to walk a kilometre to get into a village, and besides also stealing my money and forcing me to give him a total of more than a thousand reais, he also liked to play "pranks" on me, such as abandoning my dog in a hole for several days, tossing a frog at me and making me piss myself during my period. My mother thought that was the funniest shit ever, didn't defend me, and took out her rage at him being a shit partner on me. She broke my phone and several other items by tossing them on the ground in rage, and forced me to either mediate her fights with them or being yelled at for being a shitty daughter who didn't care about her and her feelings. I was suicidal during most of these years, and when I wasn't planning how to kill myself or trying to manage to jump from the tallest point of my school, I was having to talk these two adults who should be taking care of me from killing themselves over the other. I was still, of course, the ungrateful good for nothing daughter who was barely scrapping by in school despite having had such good grades before her divorce with my dad. My dad himself didn't believe my abuse was "that bad" because his own girlfriend thought that, due to her childhood abuse being more physical than mine. I managed to live with him for a short while, before being sent back to my mother when she moved back into town, and she stole my house keys, broke a fan by clubbing me with it, jumped over me and pulled my hair and forced me to carry her on my back while she did so, pulled my dress off in the middle of the street at night, called me a monster and an aberration and told me i wasnt her daughter, abandoned me in the middle of our house with pools of blood at 2 am after she cut her boyfriend's wrist by knocking him on the window (and funny thing about walking with blood on your soles, it sticks to the ground worse than anything and you can literally feel it drying and flaking). After having a panic attack and having to call my dad via facebook and sending him photos with a laptop camera, I was taken back to my dad's house and I am still regularly threatened with being returned to her when hes in a bad mood and forced to interact with her for my mothly gaslighting session do the state doesn't take me away, while also having my own trauma and mental health problems considered less serious because we cant afford a therapist and get me "officially diagnosed".

So. Having all that in mind, let's talk about the manatreed situation

Even the start of it was suspicious. It was a burner account, (and suspicion number one! You shouldn't use anonymous shit to deliver controversial topics and news, because if you want to be taken seriously you should at least offer a shred of accountability yourself, and stand for what you re saying) it did not come from the victim (suspicion number two! It was speaking indirectly, and not even as "friend of a friend" just straight up a random abuse case) it doxxed the victim herself (suspicion number three, for obvious reasons when coupled with the suspicion before this one), it came out less than a day after Manatreed's first stream, of which many were outraged due to him being a random dude (suspicion number four and five. How was it that people managed to find and doxx someone so fast, and how it was so convenient that it was someone people already hated?), the connection between the supposed IRL Manatreed was that he was childhood friends with a blond dude named clayton (suspicion number six, seven, eight: clayton is not dream's name, it's clay, clayton is an extremely common name, im brazillian and know more than three people named that, and it's a meme in my country, and finally, dream has outright stated he is not blonde) and finally, in regards to the "dream housed the supposed irl manatreed", it provided a date (suspicion number nine, ten, only of the original thread: the date in which that would have happened dream was living in another location, and it said dream was 22 more than half a year before he actually was)

So. Ten points that would already be suspicious as fuck, only in the original post. Now, let's speak of the outright major bullshit, the magnum opus of straight up lies: they could definitely prove Mantreed was the supposed IRL Manatreed... By the shape of his fucking chin.

Now. Let's ignore how nearly every skinny white dude has the same facial facial features. Let's ignore how the supposed IRL Manatreed had a butt chin that Manatreed did Not. You are telling me... That you could identify someone, down to specifics identity... Out of their chin. That has no beauty marks, scars, nothing.

Cap. Fucking cap so hard.

The following thread, that less people saw but still affected the narrative, was supposedly doxxing Manatreed's sister, that shared the name with supposed IRL Manatreed's sister, and she followed Manatreed.

The problem with that is that that account straight up doesn't exist. People looked for it, it doesn't exist. The thread then posted this image

Which as multiple people pointed out, is... Blatantly photoshopped. Look at his mouth area, and the lightning, and how someone smoothened the butt chin of supposed IRL Manatreed but like. Really badly. I have done better than this on ibis paint.

But, you might say, "we got concerned because of dream's reaction."

Dream is a victim of domestic abuse himself. Dream mentions on his twitlonger (the post below this on my blog) that he panicked and "had a bit of a breakdown". Now. I want you to ignore this is dream. A victim of domestic abuse, already having experienced doxxing and people not believing them, upon seeing constant discussion of Domestic Abuse, might be... Triggered. Shocking.

After that, he then published his own twitlonger the day after, we are here now in the timeline, WITH HIM SAYING MANATREED WAS QUITTING CONTENT CREATION DUE TO ANXIETY, and people started taking it as confirmation that manatreed was an abuser, and also dismissing his own abuse and commemorating manatreed was quitting

And frankly, I do not blame him for doing anything he could to try and distract us so we would stop.

Then this whole shit was even more throughly disproved because, hey, guess what? Manatreed's Actual IRL information was published. This whole shit was proven false with another doxxing

Sincerely, fuck yall. Fuck all of yalls bloody assholes if you are doing that, you are straight up cunts, you are spreading misinformation, you are dismissing abuse victims, you handled this shit even worse than yall are saying dream & manatreed did, you all added fuel to the fire and refused to believe shit disproving it. I barely interact with the dsmp fandom as it is, but jesus christ this was a fucking cesspit.

These are my thoughts on this situation. keep peace in your hearts and critical thinking in your minds instead of discourse, goodbye

#manatreed #tw abuse #tw doxxing

[destroyyourbinder]

unsplitting the sex atom

I wanted to add an important addendum to this very lucid post made by @slightlycharredwitch deconstructing the propaganda in a trans meme featuring an argument between someone claiming biological sex is a social construct and someone claiming it is not. This is that the “hook” in this meme and in arguments of this nature-- the reason why this meme and arguments like it sound plausible at all despite the framing of reality they describe being wildly misleading-- is what slightlycharredwitch mentioned briefly in the beginning, that an analysis of this sort is roughly correct but it’s correct about gender, not “biological sex”. It is roughly correct about the things societies use to attribute characteristics, roles, norms, and punishments to members of each sex. It is roughly correct that a starkly maintained division between the sexes and their roles, one that both amplifies sexual dimorphism (through femininity and masculinity practices) and obfuscates actual biological traits by attributing what is convenient to patriarchy to “nature” (essentialism), is necessary for the continuance of male dominance/ exploitation of women and the marginalization of and/or violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Analyses of these types are more likely to go wrong in describing how this all works, but they often contain enough familiar material, cribbed from the life experiences of women and LGBT people, that you can buy into the mechanisms that they describe. When transgender activists and their allies with this sort of ideology try to break down “ideas about biological sex”, what they are describing are actually a certain kind of mechanism of gender enforcement, which in feminist thought we used to call “biological essentialism”: the idea that there are two sexes divided both in physical, reproductively-oriented purpose and innate or otherwise “natural” behavior, such that each sex best expresses or fulfills its purpose through its correspondence to patriarchal gender expectations. Biological essentialism does make claims about biological sex, some of which are accurate (female organisms produce ova as gametes, female humans typically have the organs to facilitate gestation) and some of which are very much not and are distorted descriptions of human biology based on patriarchal value judgments (the female role in reproduction, both behaviorally and bodily, is best understood as passive, menstruation is an aberrant occurrence only happening if a female human fails to reproduce optimally). Some claims of biological essentialism are hotly debated, with varying degrees of political or value-based analysis in both fields, in reproductive biology and among feminists, such as whether rape is an effective reproductive strategy for human males. The problem with the way transgender activists and their allies frame what we call biological essentialism and what they call “biological sex” or the “sex binary” is that they believe it is the division-into-two-sexes that is the source of the problem. Not just the fact that this division is socially relevant in the way it is, or that the division is artificially made larger through social practices, or that the division is used for purposes of power and control. No, they believe that the concept of a division at all is the primary and perhaps original source of gender-related oppression, and that making sure that people do not use this concept-- do not divide humans into two sexes-- is the best way to ensure human rights for women and sexual and gender minorities. Transgender activists and theorists have a point that obscuring the division between the sexes can have political and personal use. If nobody knows to identify you as female-sexed or as homosexual due to your passing as another sex, then you can escape certain kinds of treatment or perform certain kinds of solidarity or disrupting actions without getting caught; gender non-conformity can be a powerful way to break or disrupt systems through visible protest that you cannot and will not comply with categories and norms designed to exploit or harass you. But the fact that these strategies work is not somehow testament to the idea that there are not actually broadly two reproductive classes of human beings that correspond to the reproductive classes of other gamete-producing organisms, or that it is the concept of there being two reproductive classes, one of which bears young and one of which can impregnate, that has led to the oppression of women and violation of LGBT people, rather than what systems of exploitation were established using this concept, among many other ones. The fact that the atom bomb was invented using the concept of nuclear fission does not mean that nuclear fission is not a real physical phenomenon, that we ought not to ever use the term “nucleus”, “isotope”, or “neutron” ever again, or that we ought to ban physicists from doing atomic physics unless they can redescribe all physical properties of the atom and its components in terms derived from nuclear disarmament activism. The fact that the widespread extraction, burning, and use of fossil fuels has lead to life-threatening climate change does not mean that “fossil fuels” is not a coherent category of natural resource. It does not mean that climate activism should focus primarily on preventing oil and gas companies from being able to identify the differences between crude oil, natural gas, and wind power, as if the reason why green energy is not widely adopted today is merely that it being seen as a legitimate form of power generation was not respected and we ought to elevate it to “validity” by erasing and confusing the differences between solar and coal. This would be absurd. Yet this is where we are in women’s activism and gender-related activism. We are expected to accept an ideology that obscures the causes and mechanisms of our oppression-- in fact treats this obscuring as its primary focus of activism-- while it does nothing to actually solve the oppression. It wants to “dismantle” the “sex binary” (our means of understanding what it is that is being exploited, i.e. women’s reproductive capacity) as if it is the primary problem and all others will disappear once we stop seeing the difference between males and females. But even assuming we can cork up the genie again, uninvent the splitting of the atom-- that we could never see reproductive sex forever more-- why would those in power, those for whom this concept is essential to their operations, want to go along? If some of us have convinced ourselves to not look at the basis of our oppression in the name of progress, but some of us still peek anyway while deciding who’s making the coffee and baking the cookies for the trans support group, what then? What if some of us don’t look when talking about our reproductive rights, but those who pass laws really love the usefulness of declaring two classes of humans, one of which is legally subordinate to the other? We will have ended up in a worse spot than before. Beware an ideology that tells you not to know or to see, because someone has not blindfolded himself like you. You cannot unsplit the sex atom; you will have to make the bomb impossible another way. Photo from U.S. Department of Energy and the Oak Ridge Public Library. The photo is of a sign outside Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a “secret” city built by the US government during WWII to support research and development related to the Manhattan Project (the US effort to develop a nuclear bomb). The sign is topped by a picture of Uncle Sam, who has taken off his hat and rolled up his sleeves. The sign has a picture of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys in the background, and reads, WHAT YOU SEE HERE WHAT YOU DO HERE WHAT YOU HEAR HERE WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE LET IT STAY HERE

#writings #responses #construct295

[trekkingskiun]

Hiking shoes for girls, a pair of Salomon hiking shoes for women

Hiking shoes for girls, a pair of Salomon hiking shoes for women Salomon (Salomon) made an attempt in 2020 and actually launched a female-only hiking shoe VAYA GTX, which is beautiful and easy to wear. It demonstrates the characteristics of female outdoor enthusiasts both inside and outside. It has a bright appearance, Solid connotation, and no compromise on function.

In the modern era when outdoor activities are becoming more and more diverse, outdoor sports brands have racked their brains to spread their tentacles everywhere. In the past, the male market orientation has gradually achieved a balance between men and women. It is normal to launch equipment that meets women's physiological conditions and preferences. But it must be said frankly that there are still few major brands launching women-only items. For example, common equipment such as backpacks, trekking poles, shoes, and even safety belts usually coexist for men and women. In addition to sports underwear, it can almost be said that there are men's models and women's models. This makes Salomon VAYA look so special in the market, because Salomon has not launched a male model corresponding to VAYA. This benefit makes a lot of female outdoor enthusiasts feel relieved! Key features/detailed analysis [Key finishing] Outdoor waterproof hiking shoes specially designed for women Gore-Tex waterproof and breathable Sensiflex upper fits women's feet, comfortable and soft Stable arch support Slight width last version Strong and wear-resistant patented rubber outsole Lightweight (the weight of a single middle top is about 330g)

SALOMON VAYA has two choices of MID middle cut and LOW low cut. 【Exterior】

Back/side

Look down Inheriting the simple and seamless appearance of the OUT series, it is quite eye-catching and pleasing. The shoe body has beautiful gradation, and the chroma is just right, not too saturated and looks vulgar. In women's shoes, the red and purple color is almost the same. In, Salomon is very intimate to provide VAYA, which is beautiful, easy-to-fit and easy-to-wear for women's hiking shoes, which makes me feel a little envious as a man.

The colors of the official photos are more vivid. In fact, in different light situations, the saturation of VAYA will be lower.

It is a bit like the metal paint of the car body, which can produce chromatic aberration changes in different light sources. I think it is a major feature of VAYA. [3D SensiFlex comfortable upper]

Unlike Salomon's more rigid SensiFit uppers, VAYA uses SensiFlex comfortable uppers, which are softer and more elastic, which conforms to the characteristics of flex. To put it simply, softer elastic fabrics are used on both sides of the thumb and little finger of the toe cap to make the feet swelled by long-term walking, which provides more comfort and more space for movement. At the same time, it is matched with a slightly wide last design. Provide a more flexible space for women's feet. In addition, the internal and external material configuration of the shoe body also has a design that enhances comfort. For example, the inner ankle protection pad in the picture, the Q elastic is flexible, and can effectively provide cushioning for side impact. In addition, this pair of VAYA is of course also equipped with Gore-Tex waterproof lining. The mid-top height is more than enough for wading through water, and the seamless design of the shoe body can also reduce the possibility of water seepage. The feeling of breathability is different. For people with sweaty feet, only sandals make a difference.

The padding of the ankle, heel, and tongue is skin-friendly, soft and comfortable, so you don’t have to wear your feet and you can play without adapting to the shoes.

No matter it is the heel or the forefoot, you will not feel discomfort when bending, and will not feel pain or obstruction when crossing difficult terrain. 【Sole】

The outsole is of course the familiar Salomon Contagrip®, which is large in size and deep enough to provide excellent grip. The various terrains I have traveled so far are not difficult to defeat. 【shoelace】

Flat shoelaces are not easy to loosen after being tied tightly. With metal rings on both sides to adjust the tightness, it can meet the different needs of up and downhill. Outdoor measurement Occasion: Walking lightly on a single day, carrying a weight of about 5 kg Mileage: about 10 kilometers back and forth Road conditions: dirt road, gravel, animal trails

This trip is Salomon VAYA's first attendance. The trails dominated by gravel and soil can be easily walked through. Even if there is no stepping point, there will be no barriers in the untracked wild forest. I am looking forward to picking up The route down can continue to wear VAYA. Occasion: Walking lightly on a single day, carrying a weight of about 4 kg Mileage: about 4.5 kilometers back and forth Road conditions: dirt road, gravel, coniferous forest trail

There are many man-made forests on the trails, the ground has intertwined tree roots, soft coniferous carpets, and occasionally there are high drops and steep slopes and loose soil and rocks. Wearing casual shoes will definitely make it hard to walk, while wearing heavy boots is a little overkill, so lightweight VAYA can be said to be like a fish in water here, girls who like to take the suburban route can wear it with peace of mind. Occasion: Walking lightly on a single day, carrying a weight of about 4 kg Mileage: about 4.6 kilometers back and forth Road conditions: dirt road, gravel, wooden steps, stone steps

Before using the Salomon VAYA to take the reinstallation itinerary, I took another easy route. This time the trail has more diverse road conditions, especially the heavy rain the day before. There are mossy stone steps and slippery wooden ladders along the route, which are the terrain that most climbers care about. Because we are often asked: Will XX shoes slip on moss? In fact, whether walking moss slips or not is a tricky question. Of course, the anti-slip design of the shoes is very important, but more important is the personal judgment of the feet, as well as the weight transfer during the step, and even the sense of balance, etc., are variables that affect whether they will slip. Therefore, for the same pair of shoes, novices and veterans must have different interpretations, which is really hard to find a fair comparison. So instead of struggling with the slippery shoes, it is better to cultivate more experience points in walking.

With the first few easy one-day hikes, we feel that it is necessary for VAYA to challenge the reloading schedule in order to get a more objective evaluation experience. Ever since, we took a reinstallation trip. Occasion: Three-day heavy-duty walking, carrying a weight of about 12 kg Mileage: The accumulated mileage is about 25 kilometers Road conditions: dirt road, gravel, abandoned forest road, cement road

The abandoned forest road is easy to walk, and the road is full of soft needles, and the occasional fallen wood can also be easily crossed.

Larger landslides on forest roads. On the third day of the downhill, there was a feeling of endless after walking. The road conditions that a pair of hiking shoes should overcome are concentrated on this day. Especially in this continuous downhill section, the feet must bear the weight and the total weight of the backpack. This is the best test for the cushioning function of the shoe midsole, but even if the knee is painful, the muscles are sore, or the day is just in the menstrual period However, there was physical discomfort, and there was no pain or discomfort in his feet. The shock absorber performance can be said to be very good!

To be honest, no matter how many words are written to praise VAYA's good clothes, it is far less convincing than the above two photos. After this trip, Salomon can be said to have officially passed the test and graduated! It is not easy to find a pair of almost impeccable shoes, which is really a happy thing for climbers. to sum up Comfort With the elastic technology of the Sensiflex upper and the slightly wide last design, the comfort is very good, and women's exclusive hiking shoes can be said to be worthy of the name. Protective The mid-top shoe body has a certain degree of protection, and VAYA further strengthens the impact protection of the ankle and toe, especially for stabilizing the feet when crossing rugged terrain. Anti-slip degree Walking on the slippery stone steps and the mud after the rain is not a big problem. Contagrip® particles with a depth of 5mm and patented engraving have excellent anti-slip effects. This has been passed through several Salomon (Salomon). Lomon) outdoor shoes have been well verified. Cushioning The best place to test the cushioning of shoe soles is downhill. It can be said that no matter light or heavy, it is an environment suitable for VAYA attendance. Wear and share

I just woke up from the camp and the temperature was very low. I was wearing an Arc'teryx Cerium LT down jacket and warm underwear on the lower half. This should be the easiest way to do it. A dark green, narrow-cut trousers or underpants that complement VAYA Pants have the effect of stretching the legs.

Jacket Arc'teryx Beta LT, pants are Haglofs Rugged Mountain soft shell trousers, very standard mountaineering attire, people who are used to wearing work pants can refer to it.

The top is Smartwool Merino Sport 150 graffiti short TEE, the lower body is a hiking skirt and ODLO Blackcomb breathable underwear, and the socks are Smartwool lightweight shock-absorbing hiking socks.

The top is Smartwool Merino Sport 150 graffiti long TEE, and a pair of Smartwool wool mid-cut socks are simple and refreshing, and there is no problem wearing them as a street wear.

#Hiking shoes

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE BEST ONE CAN SAY IS: IF YOU'RE IN A STARTUP: HAVING BRILLIANT PEOPLE DO WORK THAT'S BENEATH THEM

I'm not too worried about it. If the company promised to employ you till you retired and give you a pension afterward, you didn't want to extract as much from it this year as you could. People did start their own businesses of course, that people never seemed to grasp new ideas at first. That is a fundamental change. The more versatile the tool, the less you can predict how people will use it. So avoid disputes if you want to solve a problem using a network of cooperating companies, you have to be poked with a stick to get them out. True, but I can't believe we've considered every alternative. In fact, software that would let people who wanted sites make their own. Most people at the beginning of their career only works if everyone does it. Or perhaps it's because so many bugs occur at the boundaries between different people's code. The most promising group to be liberated by the new, lower threshold are those who aren't in it just for the money.

For example, big companies were synonymous with inefficiency. These guys want to get a lot of false positives. You can see it in old photos. Those who would later be called the creative class became more mobile. When we started Y Combinator I said something to a partner at a well known VC firm that gave him the mistaken impression I was considering starting another startup. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense prosperity in how well kept a place looks. Curiously, the fact that the founders of Yahoo and Google. In fact consumers never really were paying for content, and publishers weren't really selling it either.

You can be sure it's there, though. In 1960, corporate CEOs had immense prestige. You set up a still life I set up in about four minutes. I've seen is fragmentation. And launch as soon as computers got cheap enough for college kids to afford them. The situation is much the same with digital books. The 2005 summer founders ranged in age from 18 to 28 average 23, and there is no one else to do sales and support. All this talk about investing may seem very theoretical. Unlike most people who wanted sites make their own. There are two types of thoughts especially worth avoiding—thoughts like the Nile Perch in the way they have to be dragged kicking and screaming down this road, but like many things people have to actually understand it, which is like a hang-glider launch: you'd better do it wholeheartedly, or not at all what you might expect.

We didn't even know when we started YC. One thing you can do that much better with computers. So tablet makers should be thinking: what else can we give developers access to? Make Web sites for art galleries. Here there were 3 choices: NBC, CBS, and ABC. If you want cohesion now, you'd have to induce it deliberately. Indeed, in some respects the war didn't end in 1945; the enemy just switched to the Soviet Union. The giant plant he built at River Rouge between 1917 and 1928 literally took in iron ore at one end and sent cars out the other. If even big employers think highly of young hackers who start companies, why don't more do it? People pay a lot for desktop software, and undergrads are not especially excited about being on the Web.

And it is a particularly valuable thing when the atmosphere around you encourages you to do something they'd promised to, even by being late for an appointment. Young hackers can start viable companies. But there are limits to how well they'll be able to develop software faster than you? So the contrast when I couldn't was sharp. Some made their fortunes by creating wealth, you're always going to be replaced by what we would now call software. Nearly all wanted advice about dealing with future investors: how much money should they take and what kind of terms should they expect? It probably didn't occur to most of them were of competitors. If you're controlling them, they're not drifting. As in the past there were multiple ways to do it well or they can be swapped out for another supplier. Yes. For most of the twentieth century was just a temporary aberration.

The deadline has now passed, and we're sifting through 227 applications. Plus if you didn't put the company first you wouldn't be promoted, and if you want to solve a problem people already know they have. There's nothing more valuable than an unmet need that is just becoming fixable. Meaning that unpleasant work pays. But what kills them will not be dramatic, external threats, but a critique of Java, but a mundane, internal one: not getting enough done. I tried asking myself what word I'd use to describe the increasing tendency of physical machinery to be replaced by apps running on tablets. The real question is, what's saving startups in places like Silicon Valley? Even if the big corporations had wanted to pay people proportionate to their value, they couldn't have before, you're probably looking at a winner. They use the latest stuff, they're in a position to discover valuable types of fixable brokenness first. No one who has studied the history of technology would want to underestimate the power of that force. Though simple solutions are better, they don't work hard because the coach yells at them, but I don't know how they did it. In Robert's defense, he was skeptical about Artix.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #startups #launch #Union #terms #people #one #plant #change #developers #River #VC #alternative #lot #Yahoo #example #Nile #need #Combinator #Rouge #companies #group #types #Robert #thing #wealth

[roominthecastle]

Hi! Am I the only one who finds it quite distrubing that aidan was playing a main role in a gay porn serie? I mean licking a young boy's ass and having gay orgy in front of the cameras while he was married and was a father of a newborn baby.. Please, do not misunderstand me, but I think everything has a limit and those things he had done in that porn serie were far beyond normal acting. I feel I can't talk about it with the other fans, and you seem to be a great person who doesn't judge, part2

Part2. I’m not homophobic, I had a gay english teacher and a friend, but they understood it that their unique sexual life is their own private thing if you know what I mean, and behind that thing there is usually a traumatic experience.. Anyway what aidan was doing in that serie was fucking disgusting. You know it’s not a big surprise that her daughter, berry has become a man, maybe she was uncomfortable with her father’s roles? She keeps making photos ofbher beeding nose and scars and things li

So there is cleraly something wrong with his “daughter”. Idk I just don’t understand this man, unfortunately when I like somebody as an actor becausw of his her incredible talent I cant help but looking for infos of her his life. And I was in shock what I have found in aidan’s early career. What are your thoughts about it? Or are these things so natural to the others?

Wow, there’s a *lot* crammed into these messages, anon. I don’t think you’re reacting from a place of malice here, so please take my response below not as judgment but more like a series of observations and suggestions.

re: Queer as Folk (UK)I’ve seen the show and I liked it. It’s not for everybody, I give you that. It does have parts that undoubtedly veer into soft porn territory, but overall it isn’t porn, imo. To me it’s a story about a guy who’s 1st sexual experience was getting raped by a gym teacher at age 11-12(?) and, as a result, he’s become someone who only connects to others via sex. Him being gay is *not* the issue, it is *not* the problem, it is *not* a symptom. His unaddressed trauma which he tries to pass off as sth “cool” and tries to retroactively “normalize” via aggressive hypersexuality *is* the problem, and the show gradually brings this point home, imo. He cannot be intimate unless it’s physical & meaningless, but he starts to learn to modify this behavior w/ the help of his best friend who’s also the one he’s been in love with (and thus has been avoiding having sex with). I’m not saying it doesn’t contain provocative or even potentially triggering material, or that it’s flawless family fun (I know it’s been bashed for stereotypical portrayal of “sex-crazed” gay culture), but again, to me, it is about so much more than the sex scenes. I don’t think straight ppl should be in the business of judging the merits of shows like this one + I don’t know much about how it was received, so I really don’t want to get into all that. All I can say is that I found a very human story underneath all the steaminess, and if sb asked me to give a “disturbing” example from his body of work (that I’ve seen), it’s not QaF but Wake Wood or Blackout that would come to mind (and he plays a straight dude in both).

re: Aidan’s “taste” in rolesI think it’s always leaned away from “normal” and “conventional”. Pain & its varied, often aberrant, manifestations seem to be one big common theme in his projects, and I find that really intriguing. He’s interested in outcasts, in all forms of “otherness”, traumas, dysfunctions, and assorted fucked up things. I share this interest and I don’t think it’s wrong at all or an automatic sign of some pathology. It’s curiosity that’s labeled “morbid” only bc we live in a world that teaches us that automatically fearing, hating, and attacking everything “different” is “normal”. But if art confined itself to artificial “norms” and boundaries, depicting only what is deemed “accepted” in any given time period, it wouldn’t be art anymore. He said that nothing deeply scarring has ever happened to him, and that these roles let him explore things he would never do and be someone he never was or will be in real life. That’s it. It’s an exploration. Not everybody is an “explorer” tho. Most ppl shun and/or reject what/who they find “different” and/or “disturbing”. Others step closer, dig deeper, and maybe even try to find some familiarity in strangeness. Aidan is like that, too, imo. But I highly doubt he brought these projects home w/ him to screen it to his children and “scar” them for life. He strikes me as someone who’s v self-aware and who wouldn’t force his R-rated interests on others, esp. his kids, but I don’t think he would forcibly shield them once they are old enough and curious. But that’s just my impression. Truth is, I don’t know him. His private life, his methods of parenting are none of my business, and I don’t seek any info or picture he himself doesn’t provide voluntarily. Also, I don’t know anything about his family members, but I know enough to refrain from “diagnosing” or labeling anyone anything simply based on what they post online (esp if they are young), so I’ll leave it at that.

re: homophobiaLet’s do a thought experiment here (not the best one but hopefully it still works). Imagine a person who has cats and has never had any interest in keeping dogs. It’s completely fine being a cat person, so no issues so far. This person also assures you that they have no problem w/ those who keep dogs. After all, they had a friend who had dogs and this friend understood that keeping dogs was “different”, a likely sign of sth bad, and so always kept the dogs hidden. Now, do we really believe that the cat person has no issue w/ those who keep dogs? Keeping cats is not the only “healthy” or “default” option. It is just one of several equally legitimate options out there. Some brave folks even keep birds. Or both cats and dogs. In other words, I think you do have an issue with gay people, anon. Being tolerant when they are not “obviously” gay is still homophobic, and Aidan’s role in QaF is tame compared to, e.g. his straight serial killer/rapist role in Blackout yet you zeroed in on the former as the most objectionable one of his career bc it depicts his character having (a lot of) consensual gay sex. Good news is that while being gay is not a problem to be corrected, being a homophobe is, and you can always choose to improve. I grew up in a homophobic environment, so I know it takes time and effort to un-learn things, but I also know it is doable and v important. I’m not saying you should start binging on gay porn ofc, but keep on educating yourself. For example, BBC Four rolled out a great miniseries this year called Queers. I highly recommend it.

#anonymous #aidan gillen #long post

[empressxmachina]

--Also on Wattpad--

Mouse Trap, pt. 2

“You found me. It’s only fair if I do the same.”

More mess drained from Lauren’s lips, staining her clothes through to her skin, yet her physical self didn’t feel as unclean as her mental state. She had dabbled in hacking jobs every now and then because money is money, after all. So, it was always a little more likely to come around back to her, a la karma. However, because of the supreme privacy under which she generally kept herself – encryptions, aliases, and locks galore – the idea that someone found her was impossible to put into words.

As a joke, they would’ve been concerning enough, but the handfuls of words on her monitor carried much weight within them. While Lauren got her gigs, she never pushed for people to come to her. She wanted offers and advertised, yes, but never strived for anyone directly. Word of mouth without a face to put it somehow did well for her. On top of that, with how reserved she was, engaging new relationships, platonic or otherwise, was never in mind.

Every sign pointed to supreme severity and only one nauseatingly fitting answer.

A shaky silence, only cut from more smoothie dribbles contacting the floor, endured for a few moments before the monitor spoke to her again, clearing out its first, discomforting message,

“Are you still there?”

Despite it yearning for her existence, Lauren had slight relief knowing that the mystery interlocutor wasn’t listening in through her multiple mics or peeping through her collection of cameras. But a glance at her desk showed her lattice-leaking glasses and her multipurpose watch still on the same connection as her computer, even though they didn’t have to be.

Her ways of apparently extra-planetary exploration were linked to her most private of personal pieces. Her presence was evident with them. Lauren’s eyes expanded. No wonder she was found. They… it… he found her. How long had she been detected?

Why come out of hiding now?

“Don’t bother hiding if you are,” the messenger dictated, practically reading Lauren’s mind, causing her to re-question her lack of being tapped with every word. “Besides the fact I know where you are, I’m not going to hurt you. It’d be such a shame to eradicate an aberration before knowing if it could bring me some use.”

Surprisingly, or probably not, the envoi’s assurance wasn’t very assuring. Along with being unsafe, it wasn’t very personifying, classifying Lauren as a number she’d throw around on a chart or something. Who was he to say how she lived her life? Though, if his visage was a mirror rather than a magnifier, then who was she to fight it and him?

He detailed, adding to the tension, “I just want to see what I’m dealing with here.” His particular word usage was concerning; however, learning why it was didn’t seem like a good idea. “Though, technically, that’s inaccurate.”

‘Huh?’ Lauren couldn’t help expressing some confusion, though silent in form. Her head cocked at the latter clarification, curious as to why such a seemingly sagacious source would admit fault.

She soon found out he hadn’t.

After a moment of stagnant staring, his sans-serif message popped off the screen, returning to a relatively standard state and the reappearance of her mouse cursor. Lauren stood in her puddle of punch, waiting for anything to occur within the dark void of her monitor for minutes, but nothing happened. Her pointer just floated in the center alone, just like she was.

For some reason, Lauren wasn’t committed to believing that. The crater on the other side of the river and all of its calamity were still being dealt with. It’s rather difficult to count the number of lost lives in a town when the said town was wiped off the map – literally written off by a pen. Knowing such damage came from so little, Lauren couldn’t help but wonder if anything else in the world had origins as outstanding, all the while holding regrets for being unable to believably explain why.

Believably. As valid as this was, what person in their right mind would willingly believe… this?

Could Lauren willingly walk away from it if she tried, now that she knows?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” a new message suddenly popped on the screen, lingering chillingly before being replaced by, “I just want to see the new source of potential with which I’ve been presented.”

Lauren attempted to rationalize, never having heard such a word blend that wasn’t physics-based. ‘“Source of potential?” Do… Does he mean me?’

The disembodied speaker answered that himself. “No, that’s not entirely accurate, either.” So, she was in the clear… except in the head. The repetition of extraneous considerations helped nothing. “What I want to do with you is hard to put to words,” he continued cryptically, still helping nothing, “but this shouldn’t be.”

Obviously, there was no reason for Lauren to know anything about this distant, dominant, puppet master messing with her. But if he was into puzzles, then she wouldn’t be surprised. The complications of her and him existing with their extreme magnitude difference were enough of a mystery of their own. What would be a few with her? As she imagined what he would throw at her next, he brought it to her on a silver platter, beginning with another message,

“After all, I…”

The use of an ellipsis was an unexpected sight. Lauren knew well enough that it implied there was more to be said, but to intentionally break up thought was both intriguing and sickening. To add to the now majority smoothie-based, growing sickness inside her, the screen, for the first time, replaced its total blackness with a vomit-like mosaic of colors and dark letterboxing.

So many hues were literally blocked together, resembling one of those sliding puzzles with the squares, to create a readable, movie-like image brought chaos to Lauren’s eyes. Thankfully, it was stagnant, but it still hurt more the longer she looked at it. Yet, in the face of the multiple times she looked away, she managed to catch something on the screen that made the fight of looking worth it.

The mouse cursor was now a magnifying glass, and it appeared to be as zoomed in as it could go.

‘Oh, no,’ Lauren internally griped, knowing fully well what he was pointing her to do.

What could he possibly have for her to see? She hadn’t a clue, but she had to find out. For all she knew, it was life or death.

As she took hold of her mouse and scrolled backward, seemingly meaningless blocks became pixels, shrinking, multiplying, and growing more variant. A black speckle turned into a square of blueberry yogurt. That azure became a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream. The new trifecta of hues transitioned into a chocolate drizzle that later ran into a cherry syrup sea. The waves of crimson didn’t seem to end as long as Lauren kept scrolling out. However, a contrast came to her when she happened to pan downward from a nervous twitch and collide with an ecru island.

The gradient seemed somewhat familiar at first glance, and it only got clearer as time went on, as she saw more and more with them.

She was met with splotches and tiny holes with which she was all too familiar. Straggly tendrils of darkness going every which way also came: some scattered but most collected in two copses. Deadened lily pads as lifeless as they were bland floating atop white, inert puddles enter the fray. Yet, the slight radiance of emerald within them was anything but. The green glow across everything was, indeed, everything. For a while, the other colors faded together, emulating watercolor more than oil or something similar. But the jumble of pigments eventually combined into something more.

Before she knew it, Lauren was looking in a mirror.

Of course, it wasn’t a real mirror. The webcam was still shielded and off, and to make the screen into fully reflective material in the blink of an eye was impossible. Though, the present presence of enormous omniscience behind an untouchable trellis beyond universal bounds combated all bounds of reality at the moment. Nonetheless, it was a mirror into the past in the form of an extraordinary, extraordinarily aerial photo. There, it displayed her glasses-donning self from that unexpected sighting from days ago in the middle of Mesa Metro, amid a mob in the same oversized, blue sweatshirt she was currently wearing and dirtying more, along with the rest of her overly casual, barely cohesive clothing looking up to the sky.

She never would’ve thought how, then with her haggardness, her eyes had actually met something else’s – his – in some way or another. Her seeing his sizable satellites through an unreachable matrix, sure, but not them looking back. It knocked her thought processes loose, so much so that it sent herself and her chair scraping toward the wall behind her, only to be complemented by a singular, new message printed within the upper strip of the letterboxing this time – the unmistakable, horridly literal cherry on top:

“I can see you just fine.”

#g/t #my writing #zero to one #sw #giant male #the plot thickens #f's in the chat for LaLo's mental state

[cicadagarage2]

<h1 style="clear:both" id="content-section-0">Capone True Story I Real Life Story Behind Tom Hardy's Al ... for Beginners</h1>

Table of ContentsThe Basic Principles Of Al Capone - Movies, Quotes & Son - Biography The Buzz on 'Capone' Review: A Gangster's Last Gasps - WsjThe 6-Minute Rule for Al Capone - Movies, Quotes & Son - BiographyUnknown Facts About Al Capone - Movies, Quotes & Son - BiographyThe 8-Minute Rule for Capone True Story I Real Life Story Behind Tom Hardy's Al ...

Watching Movies For Free Here -> Capone 2020

While composing the film, Trank described he did research to ensure particular names and individuals were accurate he did keep in mind a number of other characters, like ones played by Kyle McLaughlin and Matt Dillon, were "agent of many characters" however pushed to develop a movie that would be generally reflective of the mindset of its protagonist.

He stated he wanted to bring the movie to a "cerebral and surreal cinematic place" and not get bogged down in minute information of the day-to-day of Capone at his estate in Palm Island, Florida. Trank also credited Hardy's work in structure this portrayal of Capone." [The film] touches all the important things that make Tom Hardy get up and go perform: to play a character in such a way that is mentally honest and at the exact same time enables him to catapult himself into theatrics in his really distinct and bold method," Trank said.

like that's the important things that makes Tom tick, that's what makes me tick," Trank stated, discussing that there was a great deal of aspects of the script that could be tough and even awkward for a star to do onscreen. Eventually, the movie is about a renowned figure losing his power and sense of identity (movie with al capone).

Capone: Ben Gazzara, Sylvester Stallone ...

they have to do so in such a way that compromises their morality," Trank said. "So what takes place at the end of their life?" Vertical Home entertainment launched "Capone," which is readily available on VOD now. Get all your true criminal activity news from Oxygen. Protection of the most current true criminal activity stories and famous cases explained, in addition to the very best TV shows, motion pictures and podcasts in the genre.

How Capone Movie Review & Film Summary (2020) - Roger Ebert can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

It's one thing to be the Al Capone of 1929, an attractive gangster living the high life and ruling the streets of Chicago. However if that Capone could satisfy the 1940s version of himselfaddled by neurosyphilis and required to use a diaper under his silk pajamashe might have segued into a more boring but much safer type of work, like offering life insurance coverage.

The motion picture opens in the early 1940s, soon after Capone's 1939 release from prison, demanded by his extremely poor health. He's now in exile at his Florida estate, tended to by his half-adoring, half-exasperated other half Mae (Linda Cardellini) and recoiling from the ever watchful eye of the FBI (al capone biography movie). Incontinence aside, it might not be a bad life.

Now he has no concept where he put it. Fonz has other concerns: he's tortured by vivid hallucinations of his grisly past and haunted by the spirits of the men he's eliminated. Maybe worst of all, his physician (Kyle MacLachlan) requires him to give up his beloved stogies, substitutingcarrots. Capone is an odd little movie, sometimes weirdly engaging however frequently so bizarrely muddled that you may identify a little too carefully with its constantly unglued protagonist.

Thanks to prosthetics, his face has the exact same doughy contours we see in photos of the genuine Capone, however his eyes, at as soon as dead and callous, do the majority of the work. This is the hollow gaze of a male who as soon as had great, if ill-gotten, power and who is now simply an old male before his time.

9 Simple Techniques For Al Capone - Movies, Quotes & Son - Biography

The ethical of Capone, left in its blurred wake, is that criminal activity does not pay. Particularly when you can't keep in mind where you hid the cash. For your security, we've sent out a verification email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your membership and start receiving our newsletters.

A Look at AL CAPONE in the Movies - We ...

al capone movie amazon ="p__9">Other than "Trolls World Trip," with its rather specialized audience, the first prominent film to be released digitally because film theatres closed is the grand and weird historical drama "Capone," getting here on Tuesday (evaluations were embargoed up until Monday). Starring Tom Hardy as the gangland kingpin in his final decrease, it's written and directed by Josh Trank.

His second, "Wonderful Four" (2015 ), was a likewise frenzied tale of overreaching aspiration. (After he finished a cut, reshoots and a recut were done without him; I liked the collection results, however the studio must release the director's cut.)" Capone" is quite in the very same vein as Trank's previous work, for much better and worse.

The action is set in the last year of his life (he died in 1947), when he's living there with his nuclear familyhis better half, Mae (Linda Cardellini) and his kid (Noel Fisher) along with other loved ones and confidants (including an elusive one, played by Matt Dillon), in an ostentatious, gilded passivity of physical and mental torture.

All about Capone (2020 Film) - Wikipedia

Already suspicious and cautious, he now becomes paranoid, believing that betrayers live in his home and threatening them chillingly. (There's likewise a subplot shoehorned in, including a kid whom he has actually never ever met.) The essence of the drama arises from Capone's mental decrease: prior to his imprisonment, he informs a partner, he buried a stash of ten million dollars in cashand now can't remember where it is.

( It's a significant shortage of the movie that the financing of that cushy lifestyle stays inexplicable.) With his insanity installing, he wants to get hold of the loot prior to his Mob frenemies do. Their efforts to grab it while Capone is too incapacitated to stop them, yet before he dies and takes the trick with him, provides the story an aspect of ticking-clock thriller that's ramped up and comedically modified when Capone suffers a stroke and ends up being aphasic.

has agents parked on his grounds, enjoying Capone's every move and listening to his telephone call. A representative named Crawford (Jack Lowden), motivated by moral fervor (he likens Capone to Hitler), gets authorization to head to Florida and question the befogged mobster about the stash. The movie's audaciously loose and chimerical plot is its greatest strength (al capone movie cast).

Though not as totally subjective as that book, "Capone" gets so deep into its lead character's hallucinations as to render some crucial moments suspicious and significant twists quizzical. The depictions of Capone's visions render his gory past with genuine detail but in distorted type, and make for a wryly sordid contrast between the once-feared potentate's heyday and his now stunted powers, medical dependency, and emotional confusion. al capone movie with kevin costner.

Capone True Story I Real Life Story Behind Tom Hardy's Al ... - The Facts

Though Capone's brainpowers are lowered to those of a child, his aberrant actions and deranged conversations nevertheless reflect his terrible yet significant sociopathologyhis life of violence and his megalomaniacal celeb. There are some fine moments where Trank captures the deformed poignancy of Capone's scenario, as when a bespectacled physician (Kyle MacLachlan) paying a home call, tests Capone by asking, "Do you know who I am?" and the client responds, "J.

Yet it's here that Trank hits the limitations of the artistry that he displayed in his first two films. He cuts rapidly away from such telling moments, leaving a lot of the film's best scenes hanging as insignificant anecdotes. Instead of opening his story beyond its skillfully conceived events, he takes the leap into dream, a much more serious test of artistry, and, in doing so, sacrifices the motion picture's specificity in favor of phenomenon.

#alcapone movie #al capone movie accuracy #al capone movie about #al capone movie amazon

[lpstuff]

Searching the Sky: Unravelling Perception

Perception has always fascinated me – aged nine I won a prize at the school science fair for two experiments on vision: colour detected in peripheral vision (what colour do we see first?) and the blind spot in the eye causing objects to disappear due to the entry of the optic nerve on the retina. My science career went downhill from there (defeated by lack of talent for math) and I found a better use of a burgeoning interest in optical phenomena in design later, and more fully, as an artist. Nature is ordered yet cleverly deviant: we must be alert to aberrations in patterns signalling new information.

Aged 9, winning the science fair with two experiments on perception

Alongside my research into the Euclid Mission and the development of the VIS (Visible Light Spectrum) instrument at MSSL, I have been investigating the nature of perception as a psychological and philosophical question. Euclid will peer deeper into space than ever before, recording millions of galaxies and giving us the opportunity to answer fundamental questions about matter and gravity on a cosmological scale. My interest lies in how perception, filtered through sophisticated instruments and scientific intention, comes to be constructed in the mind and influences our grasp of reality. What historical baggage do we bring to the process of perception and could our understanding of space require a shift in perception to accept the extraordinary view being offered by a plurality of satellites and probes exploring the universe?

I discovered the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty who, in 1945, wrote Phenomenology of Perception where he ‘emphasised the body as the primary site of knowing the world’ which couldn’t be separated from consciousness. His essay Eye and Mind focuses on aesthetic perception while also measuring qualities of the scientific gaze. As a compliment to this view, I found the writing of physicist and philosopher David Bohm useful in clearly outlining early 20th century behavioural research by Jean Piaget into a human infant’s awareness of space and itself while gracefully linking this to the relativistic view of the world established by Einstein in modern physics. He believed science must be open to the free play of creative thought by holding multiple theories at once, sparking one off the other until enlightenment takes place. This will be crucial if we are to expect a breakthrough in the current impasse in science, proposing that 95% of the universe is missing owing to the presence of dark matter and dark energy. Perspective is an essential part of perception.

Extending our sense of sight, through technological interventions such as the Euclid telescope, into previously unseen corners of the universe should result in a fresh understanding of the elusive structure of dark matter. Mapping three quarters of the universe (a gift to astronomers but baffling to the average man), it will produce 100 gigabytes of data per day, discovering a million new galaxies every 10 minutes before being calibrated, compressed and downloaded to earth for analysis. But will data analysis be enough? Bohm said:

‘The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.’ David Bohm

In the Eye and Mind, Merleau-Ponty says ‘It is by lending his body to the world that the artist changes the world into paintings’, meaning that through embodying sensations the artist finds a symbolic way to leave his vision in the world. By living in a body, not separate from the mind, he can weave a comprehension of the sensory rooted in his environment. Descartes wanted to place the mind away from the body but Merleau-Ponty saw that perception entwined the two – there is an ‘undividedness of the sensing and the sensed’ that unifies thought and sensation. However, the eyes see, take in the world, before thoughts emerge, and vision precedes analysis. Merleau-Ponty suggests that science must return to the original state of sensory experience – not the body as ‘an information machine’– in order to properly ground thought. He states ‘science manipulates things and gives up living in them.’

Sample Euclid data showing detected light levels of galaxies and cosmic rays etc as represented in numbers

While studying how the ultra sensitive VIS instrument will capture the delicate light from distant galaxies, it occurred to me that scientists no longer see these images with wonder. Streaming across the 36 CCDs of the naked focal plane of the telescope, these ancient photons are crucial data recorded numerically as light levels that will identify faint galaxies. Abstractly quite beautiful, as a numerical patterned field, this data spews from the system at 56 mega bits per second producing the equivalent of a football field of A4 sheets of data (see image). Galaxies, cosmic rays, stars and other ‘noise’ are recorded but then calibrated (or cleaned up) by ground stations making it ready for analysis. The wonder scientists experience is more likely bound up in the quantity and accuracy of the data. Perhaps this touches the core reason of why philosophers, poets and artists are valuable assets to such research. Marrying with science with sensation, they can create the ultimate visual experience where knowledge and feeling merge.

David Bohm understood the perceptual experience as a two-way process called a ‘circular reflex’. He carefully studied the research of psychologist Jean Piaget who, in the 1930s, looked at the cognitive developmental of infants, explaining perception as incoming reception of sensory experience complemented by outgoing impulses of action. The infant progressively builds up a mental map of the world by testing incoming perceptions (sight, sound, touch etc) through active impulses that meet with its environment in a constant feedback loop. There are ‘invariant’ objects forming expectations of the world (stored in memory) and these are adjusted as fresh information arrives. Incoming sensory information is placed on a mental map establishing a perceptual field of constant, stable objects (such as ‘six chairs sit upright on the floor’). This background field is challenged by inconstant information (such as a chair has fallen over). Forming our sense of reality, this process stimulates the intellect to form abstractions of these relationships such as mathematical laws describing, for example, the moment where gravity tipped the chair over. Everything is measured by what has gone before so naturally perception as a whole can become quite fixed.

Bohm goes on to say that ‘scientific investigation is basically a mode of extending our perception of the world, and not mainly a mode of obtaining knowledge about it’. Knowledge is the information that streams back into the feedback loop of perception – it is a higher-level abstraction of first hand experience. Astronomical instruments have the ability to extend our sense of perception by circumventing immediate experience and depositing additional (unsensed) information on our understanding of reality, thus creating expanded concepts of the structure and form of the natural world. The enormous quantity of data collected by Euclid may mean that it is possible no human will ever see all of the millions of galaxies detected on its mission. They will only exist as data. Through technology, information extends beyond man’s ability to sense it.

Yet Bohm is positive about this impasse. He believes the flexibility of the mind can overcome any fixed ideas by following curiosity in probing the perceptual structure of the world for falsities that hold us back. He mentions the ‘inner show’ of experience that plays back in the mind, and through imagination and memory creates hypotheses of meaning about the world. In early childhood, we are attuned to our environment in a flowing cycle of observation and experimentation that quickly grasps and then releases new thoughts and sensations. This process becomes habitual in later years as the general structure of the world is taken for granted. But, he says, if we are alert we sense contradictions when they arise. When this happens the brain is sensitive to the discovery of new relationships, leading spontaneously to further hypotheses, which are embodied in the appearance of new structures of the ‘inner show’. It seems relevant to describe here the shift in imagination I experienced while taking in the concept of the web-like structure scientists describe as dark matter in space. My inner show has been irrevocably altered and I no longer see space as an empty void.

Cyanotype workshop at MSSL Space lab: eyes, hands, curiosity

To conclude this brief philosophical journey, one thing has become apparent to me during this residency: the sensory is still essential to scientific endeavours and artists can share expert skills in this area. Many of the creative workshops I held with staff used extremely tactile materials to express aspects of their work such as galaxy shapes in glass granules or paper to bend into curves forming new spaces within. Visual stimulation took many forms during these sessions – photo printing, drawing, watercolours, a camera obscura in a dark room and a walk in the woods. Strangely, few were interested in the stargazing activities on offer. However, my core followers at the lab are curious how I will react to their important work. I’m eager to share the exhibition artworks that respond to all that I have encountered at the lab – staff will be able to assimilate fresh visions, perhaps merging with their own ‘inner shows’ describing the universe.

Bibliography:

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, (1962) Phenomenology of Perception. London. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

The Eye and Mind (L’oeil et l’esprit) was the last work of Merleau-Ponty saw published. It appeared in the inaugural issue of Art de Frana, no.1, January 1961. Available at: http://www.biolinguagem.com/ling_cog_cult/merleauponty_1964_eyeandmind.pdf

Carman, Tony and Hansen, Mark B. N. editors, (2005) The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Nichol, Lee, (2003) The Essential David Bohm: edited by Lee Nichol. London, Routledge

Bohm, David and Peat, David, (1987) Science, Order and Creativity. Routedge, Abingdon

Hoffman, Roald and Boyd Whyte, Iain, (2011) Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science. Oxford University Press, New York

#perception #imagination #art science #abstraction #thought #vision #embodiment #knowledge

[the-record-newspaper]

The Killing of Rhonda Hinson Installment XIX

American Hardware in the hamlet of Long View, which also houses the Long View Post office and the PO Box once registered to Charles McDowell.

Record photos by Larry Griffin

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN

Special Investigative Reporter

For The Record

 The difference between a concerned citizen’s action committee and virulent vigilantes resides in the amount of factual information that fuels the fervor and informs the activities of each. —J. S. Reed

 American Hardware stretches along 1st  Avenue in the hamlet of Long View that is bordered on the north and east by Hickory, to the west by the Town of Hildebran, and to the south by Mountain View.

Located on the right wall of the community’s hardware store, are the iconic customer service window and mailboxes of the Long View Post Office that provides service to many of the town’s 4,871 residents. And in 1987, one of Rhonda Hinson’s East Burke classmates secured one of them—Mailbox No. 4181.

“Hasn’t changed one bit…American Hardware with [the] post office inside—right up from Fresh Air Galaxy [supermarket].  And I walked right up to PO Box 4181,” wrote the anonymous former classmate after revisiting the site last week.  

Having secured a position at the Pepsi Plant, this unnamed informant leased the aforementioned mailbox inside American Hardware and was taken aback by some of the publications and letters that were deposited therein, all addressed to the former boxholder: a Charles McDowell.  It was a postal worker who confirmed that the previous owner was a local minister in his 50’s who had since relocated to Asheville.  

Armed with information of possible significance to the Rhonda Hinson murder case, this anonymous informant contacted the Burke County Sheriff’s Department and subsequently spoke to Detective Lee Turner at a Hickory satellite office of the SBI, according to memory.  

“…After I verified that it was Charles McDowell, Greg’s father, I realized that he was [likely] leading a double-life and thought that was important for them [law enforcement] to know.  I felt he had something to do with [Rhonda’s death] at this point.  I had prayed and I felt like my eyes were opened to realizing there was something to this mail he was [still] receiving…all intuition.”  

As Detective Turner listened to the information shared by Rhonda’s friend and former classmate, his eyes widened.  

“He either said, ‘We know she was being raped,’ or ‘We know Rhonda was being raped.’  He was adamant…I wish I could remember how we got into that [conversation]; probably me asking questions!  But I promise everything I have told you is the truth, even if he [Turner] doesn’t recall it or denies it.”

[NOTE: Lee Turner was contacted by this writer and one other source requesting that he comment on the information contained in this story.  To date, he has not attempted contact.]

 It has consistently been reported, throughout the ensuing 37 and a half years since the killing of Rhonda Hinson, that the 19-year-old was being sexually molested by someone—or, as Mr. Turner purportedly intimated, raped.  And Rhonda was exhibiting behaviors consonant with those of adolescents and teens who have been victimized by sexual abuse or rape:  excessive bathing; difficulties with sleeping; noticeable changes in her usual ebullient and, at times, a somewhat insouciant personality; and an ostensible fear of being alone.  

Her parents first observed these variances. In a follow-up conversation with Bobby and Judy Hinson this past Sunday, July 28, they confirmed both the commencement and the nature of Rhonda’s aberrant behaviors.

“I think it was after Rhonda, Greg, Jill, and Mark returned from their beach trip that summer, after they had graduated, that Rhonda began to have difficulty sleeping at night.  She took to sleeping on the floor at the foot of our bed for some reason.  Bobby had to be up early to get ready to go to the bakery; one morning he nearly tripped over Rhonda, who was on the floor at the foot of the bed and as close to it as she could get.  Often, when Bobby left to go to work early in the morning, Rhonda would be at her bedroom window calling to her Dad, telling him to have a good day at work.  

Rhonda even asked her brother, Robbie—whose bedroom was opposite hers at the other end of the hallway from their parents—about sleeping in his room and told him that she would pay him if he would let her sleep there.  He never allowed her to do so.

Most telling were Rhonda’s late night/early morning ablutions to cleanse herself, averring to her mother that, “…Mom, I feel dirty.”  

“I woke up to the sound of water running very late at night or very early in the morning.  Rhonda was in the shower taking a bath—even before Bobby left for work.  And this continued to happen for as long as she lived.  I asked her why she was showering; that’s when she claimed that she needed to because she felt dirty for some reason.”

Curiously, Rhonda never mentioned any of Charles McDowell’s alledged inappropriate advances to either of her parents, though she did mention to her mother Judy that she was never going back down to Greg’s house unless he was there. She offered no explanation for her asseveration. But over the years, both parents have come to believe that it was her intent to broach the subject with Bobby on the Saturday before she was killed, when she asked her father to take the previously reported enigmatic car ride into Valdese.  

However, in September, 1981, and in November, 1981—just a few weeks before she was killed—Rhonda told her first cousin, Dr. Christina Hardin and her best friend, Jill Turner-Mull, respectively, about Pastor McDowell’s alleged unsolicited overtures toward her.  She even indicated to her cousin that she had grown to dislike the minister and was afraid of him.

Detective Lee Turner seemed ‘adamant’ in his assertion that law enforcement had knowledge of Rhonda’s being raped—both the proof of knowledge and name of a possible perpetrator were, of course, not divulged during his conversation with the anonymous informant.  

Lee Turner was one of a phalanx of detectives assigned to work sundry aspects of the Hinson case.  Described as a “nice, amiable man” by several former colleagues and acquaintances, Mr. Turner was not noted for his investigative tenacity.  He was certainly credited with being an indefatigable devotee to running and physical fitness but not for his assiduous attention to the details of an investigation.

Nevertheless, between December, 1987, and January, 1992, Detective Turner submitted a trove of firearms—some of which had been confiscated—to the SBI Lab in Garner (Raleigh), for examination to ascertain which weapon(s) had the capacity to fire the bullet dislodged from Rhonda Hinson’s body during the autopsy performed at Grace Hospital in Morganton.  

Bullet Q-1A, as it was labeled, was one of three items submitted for examination to the SBI in Raleigh on Dec. 28, 1981—the request form bears the name of Special Agent John Suttle.  The examination of the missile revealed that it was, “consistent with a .30 caliber fired bullet jacket with four lands and groves and a right hand twist.”  It was adjudged to be suitable for comparison purposes.  As it happened, it appears that none of the firearms submitted by Detective Turner was capable of firing the .30 caliber bullet that killed Rhonda Hinson.    

But Mr. Turner wasn’t the only former law enforcement officer, assigned to work the Hinson case, to express some knowledge of Rhonda’s being sexually assaulted.

On April 24, of this year, a former Burke County detective wrote a private message to the Remembering Rhonda Hinson Facebook page, stating, “…Mr. McDowell was a suspect but was ruled out after passing polygraph tests. Do I believe he was a pervert and probably raped Rhonda?  Yes, I do! But he’s not the killer...”

[It should be noted that, presently, this writer has only found evidence that Charles McDowell submitted to a single polygraph test in 1994, after refusing for a number of years to accede to one. Greg, on the other hand, was polygraphed twice, passing the second of the two.]

Betty McDowell, Greg’s mother and Charles’s wife, could not accommodate the possibility that her husband was capable of sexually assaulting Rhonda Hinson—she said as much in a recorded phone interview on April 5, 1987.  When Judy Hinson called her, the matriarch was living in Garner, while her estranged husband was residing in the Asheville area.  During the conversation, Judy broached the subject of Charles’s alleged unwanted advances with Ms. McDowell:

Judy:  Betty, I would like to ask you a question.  I don’t mean this the way you may take it; I truly don’t.  I have a niece from South Carolina that said Rhonda had told her…that she had been approached by Rev. McDowell.  We asked her [Rhonda’s cousin, Christina Hardin] what she meant by approached (exactly), and she said that she [Rhonda] was at your house one day and went to the bathroom down the hall; and, when she came out of the bathroom, Rev. McDowell tried to feel of her….

Betty:  I don’t believe that; I don’t believe Rhonda told that.  

Judy:  It is not an accusation; it was simply a statement that was made; and, I can’t imagine why it was even said.

Betty:  I can’t understand that either.  I can’t imagine why she would have told your niece that.

Judy:  My niece called the police and told them this; we did not know about it for a year or more; and, then one day my sister-in-law was here and let it slip. I made her tell me what she was talking about.  It shocked me so.

Betty:  I just don’t believe that ever happened; I really don’t.  I just don’t believe that.

Notably, as this 30-minute interview proceeded, Betty McDowell revealed other insights relative to the progression of events within the McDowell house both before and after the 2:19 a.m., phone call from Bobby Hinson that would inexorably define their lives—forever.

[manlighthousecity]

Life is Strange Challenge

8. What was the easiest choice to make?

For this post I am reintroducing an old friend, the self imposed limit. For anyone who checks out my blog, you can probably guess what my easiest choice was (Sacrifice Arcadia Bay). However, there's a post further in the contest where I can go into further detail about this, so I thought I'd choose something else.

Now, unfortunately, one of the main problems LIS has is that you will get the occasional choice which Max would never even consider owing to the fact that it's totally out of character. One such choice is Warren asking you out to the cinema. Needless to say, I completely shot him down. 

 I haven't really brought this up often, but I have a serious problem with Warren. One half of that is that he is one of the most boring characters I've ever seen in a video game. The dude is so flat and uninteresting he actually grinds the whole experience to a halt whenever he shows up, and that's before he opens his mouth.

And yet the dude just keeps showing up. Seriously, he shows up at least once an episode, even if you want nothing to do with the guy, and he had long outstayed his welcome before the game was even half finished. That is a little red flag known as "Character Shilling". Needless to say, it's not good.

I should also mention that literally every function he serves in the game could be more readily performed by someone else. Chloe can serve as the closet science nerd, and she's also a hell of a lot more physically capable than he is, so she can beat up Nathan in Episode 4 and it would actually serve as a cool character beat, unlike what we got in the game (or Max could do it, like in this fanfic if anyone's interested).

As for the photo, have someone like Victoria do it. It helps build on the dynamic she and Max have in the game ( which is a lot more interesting than Warren), but also you could have a bit of a breather moment when you travel back and Victoria is kinda indifferent which I think would be kind of funny. Certainly a lot better than Warren's at any rate.

The other half of the problem is that Warren is a dogged nice guy. Namely, he endlessly helps out Max and provides "support", all for the endgame of her giving herself to him. Al least that's how he thinks it works. Which it doesn't, of course.

Here's the thing. Women aren't like rewards after the final boss fight in a game, and they certainly aren't things that you feel you are entitled to for whatever reason. When Max turns Warren down in Episode 2, you can tell the guy is one beat from hanging all of his "favours" over her head whilst whining "But you prrroomissed".

Pursuing the aberration with Warren (I'm not calling it a "romance path" because any decent romance has at least a little bit of substance to it) was probably the biggest mistake the game developers made. It's almost like they thought "Hey, you know those entitled pricks who see women to be worn down and then conquered. What if they were actually right all this time?" No, they're really not.

At least the game sinks the whole thing in Episode 5, since Warren appears in the nightmare sequence as an obsessive creepy dick. And this happens no matter what choices you make, so this is actually how Max sees the guy. Did I mention that he keeps Brooke on tap the whole time in case the Max thing doesn't work out? What a piece of shit, amirite?

One last aside: I know that Max is bisexual, but guess what. Having her try to pursue an aberration with someone she is clearly not attracted to is not good representation to my mind (neither is being forced to choose between boys or girls, like in Episode 3 for example, but I digress). And before you say "It's a choice based game", Max is not a blank book. There are some things or choices that she would never do or consider, and humouring some guy who sees her as something he is owed is one of those.

Also who'd be with Warren when you could be with Chloe? She's just awesome.

 So to sum up: Chloe is the love of Max's life and Warren is just some idiot who treats women as something he deserves after being "such a good friend". So he can go to the cinema by his lonesome. And starve there for all I care.

 @tinygaykarnstein Dirty 2/3rds of a dozen finished. Ya might like this one.

#life is strange #a quick primer on how to not be a dick #remember kids no rewards for not being a dick #the primer is called My Guide to Mental Wellness and Not Being A Dick

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Raffi, the King of Children’s Music, Takes on Trump

Raffi. Photo: @Raffi_RC/Twitter The subgenre of “children’s music” can be pretty barren lyrically, a wasteland of dada earworms, nonsense lullabies, nursery rhymes, and edutainment. It is not generally considered fertile ground for discussing political and social issues. But a quick journey into Spotify proves that these songs have the power to inform a fledgling’s belief system. There’s Christian kids’ music (“Jonah was a Prophet” honestly slaps … and I’m Jewish). Sweet Honey in the Rock is a black gospel a capella group that is popular among the 10-and-under set. Their arrangement of “This Train Is Bound for Glory,” a spiritual once made famous by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, makes me tear up. It’s also not typical children’s music. There have been some notable indie efforts but they are overshadowed by unrelenting trash heaps like last year’s viral sensation, “Baby Shark.” And, eureka! In a league onto himself, is Raffi. If you grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, have children, or have ever been to a kid’s birthday party, then you’ve probably heard the Canadian crooner’s timeless bangers “Baby Beluga” and “Banana Phone.” Raffi’s saccharine melodies and lyrics actually read like discrete guides on how to live and love with dignity, starting at childhood. With an adult’s ear, the chorus of Raffi’s biggest hit — “Baby beluga in the deep blue sea / Swim so wild and you swim so free” — appears to be about learning how to individuate while still feeling safe and held by your caretakers. It’s a valuable message, even for adults. The last line of “Everything Grows,” an ode to the universality of the life cycle, is, “Mamas do and papas too / everything grows.” It’s a subtle reminder to parents that while we may be done with the physical part of our growth, emotional growth is a lifelong journey. But learning to live with dignity means learning about what it’s like to live without it and the nefarious forces that try to take it away. “Apathy is the enemy of democracy. And through apathy, tyrants can gain power,” Raffi said to me about why he’s been so vocal about Trump in a recent interview. But if you look closely, these messages have been in his music forever. “And I need some clean water for drinking / And I need some clean air for breathing / So that I can grow up strong,” he wrote in his 1979 hit “All I Really Need.” The lyrics resonate like an anthem for basic human rights, rights that are still unfortunately being fought for 40 years later. Like many of his songs, it is a blueprint for human kindness in its most pure, essential form. In recent months, the 70-year-old singer has gained a bit of attention for his active, politically engaged Twitter feed where many posts are accompanied with the dissenter’s slogan du jour: #Resist and #ResistFacism. Raffi’s outspokenness around Trump and his policies goes back to when he was elected. Just last week the singer called Trump unfit for office, racist, and misogynistic. In December he said we must “fight fascism with everything we’ve got.” Seemingly trite, the addition of Raffi’s voice to the American political landscape is actually invaluable — the singer-songwriter is the premier emissary for children and his positions carry with them an incredible weight. And the children, after all, are the future. Recently I spoke to him about the nexus between children’s music, politics, and human decency. Raffi is not quiet about his opinions. But, he rejects the label “political” being affixed either to his personal outspokenness or music, though he has songs that tackle issues like climate change, peace between Israelis and Palestinians , and most recently, his love of Bernie Sanders. (By the way, Bernie, if you’re reading this Raffi “wishes you well” this time around and said it’d be “interesting” if you asked him to sing his song “Wave of Democracy” at your upcoming rallies). Raffi entertains some children after a Los Angeles concert, September 10, 1989. Photo: Paul Harris/Getty Images He seems to view being political as artificial, an act of external performance: He’s as taken aback by the idea that he is political as he would be if I’d called him a politician. “Maybe just like the troubadour that I am, I seek creative ways of self-expression,” he told me. “I seek the right [to] expound about who I am the way that I feel that I am,” he said when pressed about his unwillingness to be labeled political. “It’s not a big deal to me. I don’t go around having debates in my head as to whether I’m political or not. I just have a way of speaking, I just have a way of presenting what I’m passionate about. That’s what I do” he said. But a few moments later he spoke about treating climate change as an emergency, saying, “Unless a rapid shift to a low-carbon economy happens like yesterday, you’re gonna face a very, very tough world.” It’s easy to dismiss the way Raffi couches his activism as a cop-out, as a way to insulate himself from accountability. But the singer doesn’t hide his beliefs; they’re always there in his music and on his social media profiles for everyone to see. Admittedly, I always thought identifying as “not political” seemed like a privilege. But there is something I’m finding in Raffi’s fine print: You can hold a unique space in the political landscape when you insist that your political positions aren’t political at all, but borne out of self-evident, universal values. Raffi has a way of both challenging an idea while simultaneously distilling it, as he does when we talk about climate change. “I detest the term ‘the environment,’ I think it’s barren and cold. I never use it. Never,” he said. “It’s different if you say, ‘our environment,’ perhaps. There can be many environments that you live in. There’s a learning environment, there’s a family environment and all of that. Mother Nature, or simply Nature, is that planetary community that we live in. It’s the basis of our lives. It’s what feeds us. We come from the womb and suddenly we’re in a womb with a view. Mother Nature.” On Twitter, he took a more political approach when he predicted World War III would be “climate change: humanity’s war on itself.” Raffi Cavoukian is an immigrant two times over. Born to Armenian parents who had escaped the genocide, the singer, 70, spent his first ten years in Egypt. At ten, his father moved their family to Toronto. Of immigrating to a new country he said, “You learn to forgive. You learn to be strong in your identity. And even while you’re learning a whole new culture; so quite the transition.” In early March Raffi tweeted, “blame the inciter in chief…how’s that for false patriotism,” in response to an article posted by Chelsea Clinton with the headline, “Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 percent increase in hate crimes.” With me he took his big-stick approach. “Children are people,” he said about child separation. “The reason we don’t want corporeal punishment, let alone separation from their families, is that you don’t hit people. It’s not okay to hit people. Children are people, so we don’t hit them. By the same token, you know, if you respect children as people, you don’t separate them from your families.” It’s a simple statement, a seemingly unremarkable one. But if you were to put Raffi’s words to a tune, it’d be a heartfelt children’s song, there to teach us how to treat each other. And it reveals more yet about Raffi’s belief that children should be considered as whole and serious human beings. Sign Up for the Intelligencer Newsletter Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world. Email By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. Raffi’s attempt to have it both ways — be political, yet be thought of as apolitical — is working for him. The singer, whose first album came out in 1975, says he has no plans to retire. He will continue to tour with his children’s music but is also focused on his foundation, the Raffi Foundation, which promotes a group of principles he came up with about how to advance children’s rights, called “Child Honouring.” “It’s one thing to be loved but it’s another thing entirely to feel respected for who you feel you are, and that is why the first word of the nine principles of Child Honouring is respectful so that principle — respectful love — that’s why that word is there,” he said. “It can’t be any kind of love. Sure, the Beatles sang ‘All You Need Is Love,’ but it can’t be a coercive love, it can’t be an overbearing love.” At the end of our conversation I ask him what words he has to impart to youth living under Trump’s policies. Unsurprisingly, he brings it back to the spirit of his music. “Well it’s advice I’ve given many times in songs,” he said. “I suppose I can say, love is the greatest power you hold. Come to know that power, don’t let anyone take it away from you, hatred is not who human beings are, it’s not who we are. It’s an aberration; power of human spirit is a loving, caring spirit. That’s what it means to be human, so anybody’s task is to grow strong and to be rooted in that human capacity to love.” When you’re fighting your way through the sludgiest sociopolitical turmoil of your lifetime, it can be hard to remember your values, or even what you’re fighting for. Raffi reminded me, over and over again, that care for the earth, for democracy, for human decency is pretty much paramount if we want to even have a future. I guess sometimes you need a children’s singer to remind you what’s important.

This content was originally published here.