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traeumenvonbuechern · 3 years

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June Wrap-Up

1. Can't Take That Away (Steven Salvatore)

Carey Parker dreams of being a diva, and bringing the house down with song. But despite their talent, emotional scars from an incident with a homophobic classmate and their grandmother's spiraling dementia make it harder and harder for Carey to find their voice. Then Carey meets Cris, a singer/guitarist who makes Carey feel seen for the first time in their life. With the rush of a promising new romantic relationship, Carey finds the confidence to audition for the role of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, in the school musical, setting off a chain reaction of prejudice by Carey's tormentor and others in the school. It's up to Carey, Cris, and their friends to defend their rights--and they refuse to be silenced.

2. Sanditon (Jane Austen)

Written in the last months of Austen's life, Sanditon features a glorious cast of hypochondriacs and speculators in a newly established seaside resort, and shows the author contemplating a changing society with scepticism and amusement. It tells the story of Charlotte Heywood, who is transported by a chance accident from her rural hometown to Sanditon, where she is exposed to the intrigues and dalliances of a small town determined to reinvent itself - and encounters the intriguingly handsome Sidney Parker.

3. The Witch King (H.E. Edgmon)

Wyatt would give anything to forget where he came from—but a kingdom demands its king. In Asalin, fae rule and witches like Wyatt Croft…don’t. Wyatt’s betrothal to his best friend, fae prince Emyr North, was supposed to change that. But when Wyatt lost control of his magic one devastating night, he fled to the human world. Now a coldly distant Emyr has hunted him down. Despite transgender Wyatt’s newfound identity and troubling past, Emyr has no intention of dissolving their engagement. In fact, he claims they must marry now or risk losing the throne. Jaded, Wyatt strikes a deal with the enemy, hoping to escape Asalin forever. But as he gets to know Emyr, Wyatt realizes the boy he once loved may still exist. And as the witches face worsening conditions, he must decide once and for all what’s more important—his people or his freedom.

4. One Last Stop (Casey McQuiston)

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

5. Between Perfect and Real (Ray Stoeve)

Dean Foster knows he’s a trans guy. He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self?

6. The Cruel Prince (Holly Black)

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

7. Boy Queen (George Lester)

Robin Cooper’s life is falling apart. While his friends prepare to head off to university, Robin is looking at a pile of rejection letters from drama schools up and down the country, and facing a future without the people he loves the most. Everything seems like it’s ending, and Robin is scrabbling to find his feet. Unsure about what to do next and whether he has the talent to follow his dreams, he and his best friends go and drown their sorrows at a local drag show, where Robin realises there might be a different, more sequinned path for him . . . With a mother who won't stop talking, a boyfriend who won't acknowledge him and a best friend who is dying to cover him in glitter make up, there's only one thing for Robin to do: bring it to the runway.

8. Felix Ever After (Kacen Callender)

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle.... But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.

9. Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)

Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: of the intense passion between the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.

10. Ace of Spades (Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé)

Welcome to Niveus Private Academy, where money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because anonymous texter, Aces, is bringing two students' dark secrets to light. Talented musician Devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can't escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. Head girl Chiamaka isn't afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has paid for power. Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they're planning much more than a high-school game...

11. The Queer Principles of Kit Webb (Cat Sebastian)

Kit Webb has left his stand-and-deliver days behind him. But dreary days at his coffee shop have begun to make him pine for the heady rush of thievery. When a handsome yet arrogant aristocrat storms into his shop, Kit quickly realizes he may be unable to deny whatever this highborn man desires. In order to save himself and a beloved friend, Percy, Lord Holland must go against every gentlemanly behavior he holds dear to gain what he needs most: a book that once belonged to his mother, a book his father never lets out of his sight and could be Percy’s savior. More comfortable in silk-filled ballrooms than coffee shops frequented by criminals, his attempts to hire the roughly hewn highwayman, formerly known as Gladhand Jack, proves equal parts frustrating and electrifying. Kit refuses to participate in the robbery but agrees to teach Percy how to do the deed. Percy knows he has little choice but to submit and as the lessons in thievery begin, he discovers thievery isn’t the only crime he’s desperate to commit with Kit. But when their careful plan goes dangerously wrong and shocking revelations threaten to tear them apart, can these stolen hearts withstand the impediments in their path?

12. Weekend Girl (Alex Powell)

Ashley Kingston is a genderfluid university student with a major crush on attractive and charming Nolan. He seems just too perfect to be true. What happens when Ash meets Nolan while dressed as both a man, and a woman? And even more confusing, what happens when Nolan seems enamoured of both versions of Ash? A twisty-turny romance filled with fun and shenanigans.

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zo2paintedlady · 3 years

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LGBTQ+ Novels/Memoirs

Here is the book list from my LIS 618 class. The links will bring you to their Goodreads pages.

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (2017) *based on a true story* "One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter. One moment that changes both of their lives forever. If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight."

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Saenz (2012) "Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be."

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson (2016) "Two boys. Two secrets. David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth – David wants to be a girl. On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal – to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…"

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender (2020) "Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle...."

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (2019) "In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere."

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver (2019) "When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents' rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school. But Ben's attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan's friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life."

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert (2017) "When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself--or worse."

The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg (2019) "IMax: Chill. Sports. Video games. Gay and not a big deal, not to him, not to his mom, not to his buddies. And a secret: An encounter with an older kid that makes it hard to breathe, one that he doesn't want to think about, ever. Jordan: The opposite of chill. Poetry. His "wives" and the Chandler Mall. Never been kissed and searching for Mr. Right, who probably won't like him anyway. And a secret: A spiraling out of control mother, and the knowledge that he's the only one who can keep the family from falling apart. Throw in a rickety, 1980s-era food truck called Coq Au Vinny. Add in prickly pears, cloud eggs, and a murky idea of what's considered locally sourced and organic. Place it all in Mesa, Arizona, in June, where the temp regularly hits 114. And top it off with a touch of undeniable chemistry between utter opposites."

Odd One Out by Nic Stone (2018) "Courtney "Coop" Cooper Dumped. Again. And normally I wouldn't mind. But right now, my best friend and source of solace, Jupiter Sanchez, is ignoring me to text some girl. Rae Evelyn Chin I assumed "new girl" would be synonymous with "pariah," but Jupiter and Courtney make me feel like I'm right where I belong. I also want to kiss him. And her. Which is . . . perplexing. Jupiter Charity-Sanchez The only thing worse than losing the girl you love to a boy is losing her to your boy. That means losing him, too. I have to make a move. . . . One story. Three sides. No easy answers."

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy (2017) "'Ramona was only five years old when Hurricane Katrina changed her life forever. Since then, it’s been Ramona and her family against the world. Standing over six feet tall with unmistakable blue hair, Ramona is sure of three things: she likes girls, she’s fiercely devoted to her family, and she knows she’s destined for something bigger than the trailer she calls home in Eulogy, Mississippi. But juggling multiple jobs, her flaky mom, and her well-meaning but ineffectual dad forces her to be the adult of the family. Now, with her sister, Hattie, pregnant, responsibility weighs more heavily than ever."

Rethinking Normal by Katie Rain Hill (2014) "Have you ever worried that you'd never be able to live up to your parents' expectations? Have you ever imagined that life would be better if you were just invisible? Have you ever thought you would do anything--anything--to make the teasing stop? Katie Hill had and it nearly tore her apart. Katie never felt comfortable in her own skin. She realized very young that a serious mistake had been made; she was a girl who had been born in the body of a boy. Suffocating under her peers' bullying and the mounting pressure to be "normal," Katie tried to take her life at the age of eight years old. After several other failed attempts, she finally understood that "Katie"--the girl trapped within her--was determined to live."

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (2017) "On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day."

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (2013) "New York Times bestselling author David Levithan tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing former couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other."

We are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson (2016) "Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button. Only he isn’t sure he wants to. After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year. Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him. But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever."

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson (2020) "Liz Lighty has always believed she's too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it's okay -- Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor. But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz's plans come crashing down . . . until she's reminded of her school's scholarship for prom king and queen. There's nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington. The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She's smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?"

#lgbtq+ literature #lgbtq+ books for adolescents #lgbtq+#book list #lgbtq+ book list #novels/memoirs #ya books #lgbtq

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

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Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me

http://locusmag.com/2019/01/cory-doctorow-disruption-for-thee-but-not-for-me/

The Silicon Valley gospel of “disruption” has descended into caricature, but, at its core, there are some sound tactics buried beneath the self-serving bullshit. A lot of our systems and institutions are corrupt, bloated, and infested with cream-skimming rentiers who add nothing and take so much.

Take taxis: there is nothing good about the idea that cab drivers and cab passengers meet each other by random chance, with the drivers aimlessly circling traffic-clogged roads while passengers brave the curb lane to frantically wave at them. Add to that the toxic practice of licensing cabs by creating “taxi medallions” that allow businesspeople (like erstwhile Trump bagman Michael Cohen) to corner the market on these licenses and lease them to drivers, creaming off the bulk of the profits in the process, leaving drivers with barely enough to survive.

So enter Uber, an app that allows drivers and passengers to find each other extremely efficiently, that gives drivers realtime intelligence about places where fares are going begging, and which bankrupts the rent-seeking medallion speculators almost overnight.

Of course, Uber also eliminates safety checks for drivers (and allows them to illegally discriminate against people with disabilities, people of color, and other marginalized groups); it used predatory pricing (where each ride is subsidized by deep-pocketed, market-cornering execs) to crush potential competitors, and games the regulatory and tax system.

Uber (and its Peter-Thiel-backed rival Lyft) are not good companies. They’re not forces for good. But the system they killed? Also not good.

In 2016, the City of Austin played a game of high-stakes chicken with Uber and Lyft. Austin cab drivers have to get fingerprinted as part of a criminal records check, and Austin wanted Uber and Lyft drivers to go through the same process.

Uber and Lyft violently objected to this. They said it would add a needless barrier to entry that would depress the supply of drivers, and privately, they confessed their fear that giving in to any regulation, anywhere, would open the door to regulation everywhere. They wanted to establish a reputation for being such dirty fighters that no city would even try to put rules on them.

(Notably, Uber and Lyft did not make any arguments about criminal background checks perpetuating America’s racially unjust “justice system” in which people of color are systematically overpoliced and then railroaded into guilty pleas.)

Austin wasn’t intimidated. They enacted the rule, and Uber and Lyft simply exited the city, leaving Austin without any rideshare at all. All the drivers and passengers who’d come to rely on Lyft and Uber were out of luck.

But the drivers were undaunted. They formed a co-operative and in months, they had cloned the Uber app and launched a new business called Ride Austin, which is exactly like Uber: literally the same drivers, driving the same cars, and charging the same prices. But it’s also completely different from Uber: the drivers own this company through a worker-owned co-op. They take home 25% more per ride than they made when they were driving for Uber. Uber and Lyft drivers commute into Austin from as far away as San Antonio just to drive for Ride. That’s how much better driving for a worker co-op is.

I remember when the term “platform cooperativism” was first bandied about to describe this kind of thing. I was at a small, invitational tech conference where nerds, investors, activists, lawyers, SF writers and other technologically oriented types were gathered. I was on a panel about these platform co-ops and I said that I thought Uber would be really easy to replace with a co-op: the riders and the drivers valued the service, not the logo on the app, and plenty of people were happy about the convenience of Uber but unhappy about the creepy, rapacious nature of the company behind it.

An investor in the audience stood up to tell me how full of shit I was: I had no idea just how complicated Uber’s app and infrastructure were, and there was no way a bunch of grubby drivers would ever be able to match its expert coding and administration.

He was so wrong.

But there’s another, better argument against this kind of platform cooperativism: “discovery costs.” I first hailed a Ride car at South By Southwest, not long after Lyft and Uber had exited the city, and everyone going to the festival had been repeatedly warned that they would have to download the Ride app to get around the city (Austin’s taxi fleet hasn’t been up to the SXSW crowds for more than a decade, and never less so than now, having been crippled by Uber and Lyft).

So I was prepared. When I land in another city, the first app I try when I need to get around is Lyft, then Uber (Uber was a godsend in Shanghai, where we were repeatedly cheated by regular cab drivers, but where the Uber app kept everything aboveboard). Some or all of these cities might have co-op rideshares, but there’s no easy way to know about it, and without passengers, there’s no incentive for the drivers to drive for the co-ops, so even when you do try to hail a co-op, there won’t be any drivers available.

Lyft and Uber have moved back into Austin, and their drivers get fingerprinted. I just got my speaker-info package from SXSW for the 2019 festival, and the advice to download Ride before touching down is no longer the top of the checklist. I imagine that most of the attendees at SXSW will be getting around with Uber and Lyft, and 25% of the money they spend will go to those companies’ shareholders, not to the drivers.

But imagine a disruptive app that disrupted the disrupters.

Imagine if I could install a version of Ride (call it Meta-Uber) that knew about all the driver co-ops in the world. When I landed, I’d page a car with Uber or Lyft, but once a driver accepted the hail, my Meta-Uber app would signal the driver’s phone and ask, “Do you have a driver co-op app on your phone?” If the driver and I both had the co-op app, our apps would cancel the Uber reservation and re-book the trip with Meta-Uber.

That way, we could piggyback on the installed base of Uber and Lyft cars, the billions they’ve poured into getting rideshare services legalized in cities around the world, the marketing billions they’ve spent making us all accustomed to the idea of rideshare services.

This Meta-Uber service would allow for a graceful transition from the shareholder-owned rideshares to worker co-ops. When you needed a car, you’d get one, without having to solve the chicken-and-egg problem of no drivers because there are no passengers because there are no drivers. One fare at a time, we could cannibalize Lyft and Uber into the poorhouse.

The billions they’ve spent to establish “first-mover advantages” wouldn’t be unscalable stone walls around their business: they’d be immovable stone weights around their necks. Lyft and Uber would have multi-billion-dollar capital overhangs that their investors would expect to recoup, while the co-ops that nimbly leapt over Uber and Lyft would not have any such burden.

Could we do this?

Yes. Technically, this isn’t all that challenging. Create a service where drivers and passengers’ devices all register unique, per-ride codes, have the Meta-Uber check to see if the driver’s device has just posted a unique code that matches yours, and then use the built-in ride-cancelation tool that’s already incorporated into Uber and Lyft to tear down the old reservation and re-create it with Meta-Uber.

What about legal impediments, though?

That’s where the trouble starts. Tech law is a minefield of overly broad, superannuated rules that have been systematically distorted by companies that used “disruption” to batter their way into old industries, but now use these laws to shield themselves from any pressure from upstarts to seek to disrupt them.

First is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, passed in 1986 in part to assuage Ronald Reagan’s panic after seeing the movie Wargames (I am not making this up). CFAA is nominally an anti-computer-intrusion statute, which criminalizes “exceeding your authorization” on a computer that doesn’t belong to you. Even when it passed, more than 40 years ago, technologically clued-in scholars and practicioners warned that this was way too broadly defined, and that someday we might see this rule used to felonize normal activities involving computers we owned, because the computers would have to talk to a server to accomplish part of their work, and the server’s owner could use onerous “user agreements” and “terms of service” to define our authorization. If this became widespread, then these licenses could take on the force of criminal law, and violating them could become a jailable offense.

40 years later, those fears are vindicated: CFAA is used to threaten, intimidate, sue, and even jail people engaged in otherwise perfectly lawful activity, merely because they have violated some term of service on the way. The metastasis of terms of service into sprawling novellas of impenetrable legalese has created a world where anything you do to frustrate the commercial ambitions of digital monopolists is a potential criminal offense.

Then there’s Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, a Bill Clinton bill that creates a felony for “bypassing an effective means of access control” (AKA Digital Rights Management or DRM) for copyrighted works. Twenty years ago, the proponents for this bill argued that it would be used to safeguard certain marginal commercial technologies: under DMCA 1201, it would be illegal to bypass the region controls on a DVD player, allowing movie studios to force you to buy your DVDs in the same place where you bought the player – it would also allow Sega to force you to buy your Dreamcast games on CDs that came from official Sega pressing plants, rather than direct from the games’ authors, ensuring that Sega would always get a share of the revenues from the sale of games you played on your console.

Again, experts warned Congress that DMCA 1201 was way too broad and would be ripe for abuse, as software crept into more systems. Again, the experts were right. Today, DRM is used to force people with artificial pancreases to buy proprietary insulin and people with inkjet printers to buy proprietary ink; it’s used by car manufacturers and phone manufacturers to control who can make parts for their products and who can service them; it’s found in voting machines, tractors, thermostats, virtually every device with software, and it has no connection with copyright enforcement. Rather, it is used for “business model enforcement,” to ensure that disruptive, but legal, ways of using a product or service are made illegal – from refilling your printer’s ink cartridge to getting your car or phone serviced by an independent neighborhood repair shop.

Together, the CFAA and DMCA have given digital businesses access to a shadowy legal doctrine that was never written by Congress but is nevertheless routinely enforced by the courts: Felony Contempt of Business-Model.

The CFAA and DMCA 1201 have been carefully distorted into defensive, anti-disruption shields that are only available to digital businesses. Taxi medallion owners can’t use the CFAA and DMCA 1201 to keep Uber and Lyft out of their cities.

But Uber and Lyft could use these legal tools to keep Meta-Uber out of their bottom lines. Uber and Lyft have lengthy terms-of-service that set out the rules under which you are authorized to communicate with Uber and Lyft’s servers. These terms of service prohibit using their servers to locate drivers for any purpose other than booking a ride. They certainly don’t permit you to locate a driver and then cancel the booking and re-book with a co-op app.

And Uber and Lyft’s apps are encrypted on your phone, so to reverse-engineer them, you’d have to decrypt them (probably by capturing an image of their decrypted code while it was running in a virtual phone simulated on a desktop computer). Decrypting an app without permission is “bypassing an effective means of access control” for a copyrighted work (the app is made up of copyrighted code).

Uber and Lyft can use DMCA 1201 to stop you from figuring out how to use them to locate co-op drivers, and they can use the CFAA to stop you from flipping your booking from Uber to Meta-Uber.

There are a hundred other Metas we can imagine: a Meta-Amazon that places your order with the nearest indy bookstore instead; a Meta-OpenTable that redirects your booking to a co-op booking tool.

Every single one of these co-ops would disrupt a digital monopolist who came to power preaching the gospel of disruption. Every single one of those digital monopolists would switch to the aggrieved bleats of a bewildered incumbent apex predator snarling and twisted impotently as its flesh was rent by a thousand tiny bites from swarms of fast-moving, highly evolved successors.

But we never get to bring those lumbering relics down, not so long as felony contempt-of-business-model is still in play in America. Until then, disruption will always be for thee and never for me.

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life-observed · 5 years

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To speak is to blunder

Choosing to renounce a mother tongue.

By Yiyun Li

Illustration by Jun Cen

In my dream, I asked for the phone. Two women came out of a front office. I recognized them: in real life, they are both gone. No, they said; the service is no longer offered, because everyone has a cell phone these days. There was nothing extraordinary about the dream—a melancholy visit to the past in this manner is beyond one’s control—but for the fact that the women spoke to me in English.

Years ago, when I started writing in English, my husband asked if I understood the implication of the decision. What he meant was not the practical concerns, though there were plenty: the nebulous hope of getting published; the lack of a career path as had been laid out in science, my first field of postgraduate study in America; the harsher immigration regulation I would face as a fiction writer. Many of my college classmates from China, as scientists, acquired their green cards under a National Interest Waiver. An artist is not of much importance to any nation’s interest.

My husband, who writes computer programs, was asking about language. Did I understand what it meant to renounce my mother tongue?

Nabokov once answered a question he must have been tired of being asked: “My private tragedy, which cannot, indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural language, my natural idiom.” That something is called a tragedy, however, means it is no longer personal. One weeps out of private pain, but only when the audience swarms in and claims understanding and empathy do people call it a tragedy. One’s grief belongs to oneself; one’s tragedy, to others.

VIDEO FROM THE NEW YORKER

How to Write a New Yorker Cartoon Caption: Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly Edition

I often feel a tinge of guilt when I imagine Nabokov’s woe. Like all intimacies, the intimacy between one and one’s mother tongue can be comforting and irreplaceable, yet it can also demand more than what one is willing to give, or more than one is capable of giving. If I allow myself to be honest, my private salvation, which cannot and should not be anybody’s concern, is that I disowned my native language.

In the summer and autumn of 2012, I was hospitalized in California and in New York for suicide attempts, the first time for a few days, and the second time for three weeks. During those months, my dreams often took me back to Beijing. I would be standing on top of a building—one of those gray, Soviet-style apartment complexes—or I would be lost on a bus travelling through an unfamiliar neighborhood. Waking up, I would list in my journal images that did not appear in my dreams: a swallow’s nest underneath a balcony, the barbed wires at the rooftop, the garden where old people sat and exchanged gossip, the mailboxes at street corners—round, green, covered by dust, with handwritten collection times behind a square window of half-opaque plastic.

Yet I have never dreamed of Iowa City, where I first landed in America, in 1996, at the age of twenty-three. When asked about my initial impression of the place, I cannot excavate anything from memory to form a meaningful answer. During a recent trip there from my home in California, I visited a neighborhood that I used to walk through every day. The one-story houses, which were painted in pleasantly muted colors, with gardens in the front enclosed by white picket fences, had not changed. I realized that I had never described them to others or to myself in Chinese, and when English was established as my language they had become everyday mundanities. What happened during my transition from one language to another did not become memory.

People often ask about my decision to write in English. The switch from one language to another feels natural to me, I reply, though that does not say much, just as one can hardly give a convincing explanation as to why someone’s hair turns gray on one day but not on another. But this is an inane analogy, I realize, because I do not want to touch the heart of the matter. Yes, there is something unnatural, which I have refused to accept. Not the fact of writing in a second language—there are always Nabokov and Conrad as references, and many of my contemporaries as well—or that I impulsively gave up a reliable career for writing. It’s the absoluteness of my abandonment of Chinese, undertaken with such determination that it is a kind of suicide.

The tragedy of Nabokov’s loss is that his misfortune was easily explained by public history. His story—of being driven by a revolution into permanent exile—became the possession of other people. My decision to write in English has also been explained as a flight from my country’s history. But unlike Nabokov, who had been a published Russian writer, I never wrote in Chinese. Still, one cannot avoid the fact that a private decision, once seen through a public prism, becomes a metaphor. Once, a poet of Eastern European origin and I—we both have lived in America for years, and we both write in English—were asked to read our work in our native languages at a gala. But I don’t write in Chinese, I explained, and the organizer apologized for her misunderstanding. I offered to read Li Po or Du Fu or any of the ancient poets I had grown up memorizing, but instead it was arranged for me to read poetry by a political prisoner.

A metaphor’s desire to transcend diminishes any human story; its ambition to illuminate blinds those who create metaphors. In my distrust of metaphors I feel a kinship with George Eliot: “We all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.” My abandonment of my first language is personal, so deeply personal that I resist any interpretation—political or historical or ethnographical. This, I know, is what my husband was questioning years ago: was I prepared to be turned into a symbol by well-intentioned or hostile minds?

Chinese immigrants of my generation in America criticize my English for not being native enough. A compatriot, after reading my work, pointed out, in an e-mail, how my language is neither lavish nor lyrical, as a real writer’s language should be: you write only simple things in simple English, you should be ashamed of yourself, he wrote in a fury. A professor—an American writer—in graduate school told me that I should stop writing, as English would remain a foreign language to me. Their concerns about ownership of a language, rather than making me as impatient as Nabokov, allow me secret laughter. English is to me as random a choice as any other language. What one goes toward is less definitive than that from which one turns away.

Before I left China, I destroyed the journal that I had kept for years and most of the letters written to me, those same letters I had once watched out for, lest my mother discover them. What I could not bring myself to destroy I sealed up and brought with me to America, though I will never open them again. My letters to others I would have destroyed, too, had I had them. These records, of the days I had lived time and time over, became intolerable now that my time in China was over. But this violent desire to erase a life in a native language is only wishful thinking. One’s relationship with the native language is similar to that with the past. Rarely does a story start where we wish it had, or end where we wish it would.

One crosses the border to become a new person. One finishes a manuscript and cuts off the characters. One adopts a language. These are false and forced frameworks, providing illusory freedom, as time provides illusory leniency when we, in anguish, let it pass monotonously. “To kill time,” an English phrase that still chills me: time can be killed but only by frivolous matters and purposeless activities. No one thinks of suicide as a courageous endeavor to kill time.

During my second hospital stay, in New York, a group of nursing students came to play bingo one Friday night. A young woman, another patient, asked if I would join her. Bingo, I said, I’ve never in my life played that. She pondered for a moment, and said that she had played bingo only in the hospital. It was her eighth hospitalization when I met her; she had taken middle-school courses for a while in the hospital, when she was younger, and, once, she pointed out a small patch of fenced-in green where she and other children had been let out for exercise. Her father often visited her in the afternoon, and I would watch them sitting together playing a game, not attempting a conversation. By then, all words must have been inadequate, language doing little to help a mind survive time.

Yet language is capable of sinking a mind. One’s thoughts are slavishly bound to language. I used to think that an abyss is a moment of despair becoming interminable; but any moment, even the direst, is bound to end. What’s abysmal is that one’s erratic language closes in on one like quicksand: “You are nothing. You must do anything you can to get rid of this nothingness.” We can kill time, but language kills us.

“Patient reports feeling . . . like she is a burden to her loved ones”—much later, I read the notes from the emergency room. I did not have any recollection of the conversation. A burden to her loved ones: this language must have been provided to me. I would never use the phrase in my thinking or my writing. But my resistance has little to do with avoiding a platitude. To say “a burden” is to grant oneself weight in other people’s lives; to call them “loved ones” is to fake one’s ability to love. One does not always want to be subject to self-interrogation imposed by a cliché.

When Katherine Mansfield was still a teen-ager, she wrote in her journal about a man next door playing “Swanee River” on a cornet, for what seemed like weeks. “I wake up with the ‘Swannee River,’ eat it with every meal I take, and go to bed eventually with ‘all de world am sad and weary’ as a lullaby.” I read Mansfield’s notebooks and Marianne Moore’s letters around the same time, when I returned home from New York. In a letter, Moore described a night of fund-raising at Bryn Mawr. Maidens in bathing suits and green bathing tails on a raft: “It was Really most realistic . . . way down upon the Swanee River.”

January 2, 2017

Illustration by Marco Goran Romano

Shouts & Murmurs

After Watching “Sully” and “Star Trek Beyond”

By Ian Frazier

Photograph by Laura El-Tantawy for The New Yorker

Fiction

“Most Die Young”

By Camille Bordas

Briefly Noted

Books

Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Illustration by Tom Bachtell

Recycling Re

“How do you feel about staying in power?”

I marked the entries because they reminded me of a moment I had forgotten. I was nine, and my sister thirteen. On a Saturday afternoon, I was in our apartment and she was on the balcony. My sister had joined the middle-school choir that year, and in the autumn sunshine she sang in a voice that was beginning to leave girlhood. “Way down upon the Swanee River. Far, far away. That’s where my heart is turning ever; That’s where the old folks stay.”

The lyrics were translated into Chinese. The memory, too, should be in Chinese. But I cannot see our tiny garden with the grapevine, which our father cultivated and which was later uprooted by our wrathful mother, or the bamboo fence dotted with morning glories, or the junk that occupied half the balcony—years of accumulations piled high by our hoarder father—if I do not name these things to myself in English. I cannot see my sister, but I can hear her sing the lyrics in English. I can seek to understand my mother’s vulnerability and cruelty, but language is the barrier I have chosen. “Do you know, the moment I die your father will marry someone else?” my mother used to whisper to me when I was little. “Do you know that I cannot die, because I don’t want you to live under a stepmother?” Or else, taken over by inexplicable rage, she would say that I, the only person she had loved, deserved the ugliest death because I did not display enough gratitude. But I have given these moments—what’s possible to be put into English—to my characters. Memories, left untranslated, can be disowned; memories untranslatable can become someone else’s story.

Over the years, my brain has banished Chinese. I dream in English. I talk to myself in English. And memories—not only those about America but also those about China; not only those carried with me but also those archived with the wish to forget—are sorted in English. To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, like a crucial decision.

When we enter a world—a new country, a new school, a party, a family or a class reunion, an army camp, a hospital—we speak the language it requires. The wisdom to adapt is the wisdom to have two languages: the one spoken to others, and the one spoken to oneself. One learns to master the public language not much differently from the way that one acquires a second language: assess the situations, construct sentences with the right words and the correct syntax, catch a mistake if one can avoid it, or else apologize and learn the lesson after a blunder. Fluency in the public language, like fluency in a second language, can be achieved with enough practice.

Perhaps the line between the two is, and should be, fluid; it is never so for me. I often forget, when I write, that English is also used by others. English is my private language. Every word has to be pondered before it becomes a word. I have no doubt—can this be an illusion?—that the conversation I have with myself, however linguistically flawed, is the conversation that I have always wanted, in the exact way I want it to be.

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goloyieng · 3 years

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Update On Tekedia Mini-MBA Course On Igbo Apprenticeship System

By Ndubuisi Ekekwe

This is an update on the new Tekedia Institute’s course – “Stakeholder Capitalism: Umunneoma Economics & Igbo Apprenticeship System”. Ohaneze Ndi Igbo is providing support on this course. We expect the course to be completed later in the year. But any Tekedia Mini-MBA member, past, present and future, will have access to it.

The Igbo Apprenticeship System (IAS) component of the course has three core parts:

Igbo worldwide view

Commerce and development

Community and responsibility

We’re making a case that African business frameworks, not just IAS, should be part of our school curriculum. After my BBC World Service interview and the Harvard Business Review article, we are more than excited to continue to push African economic philosophies to the world.

A Nigerian Model for Stakeholder Capitalism

Ndubuisi Ekekwe with Harvard Business Review

For centuries, the Southeastern region of Nigeria has practiced what is known today as stakeholder capitalism — a construct that businesses must elevate the interests of communities, workers, consumers, and the environment alongside those of shareholders. The Igbos, the predominant ethnic group in the region, are known for the Igbo apprenticeship system (IAS), a communal enterprising framework where successful businesses develop others, and over time provide capital and give away their customers to the new businesses. The implication is that few businesses grow to become very dominant, since they keep relinquishing market share, and in doing so, they accomplish one thing: a largely equal community where everyone has opportunities, no matter how small.

As the world explores how to institutionalize stakeholder capitalism — to implement more inclusive, just, and equitable economic systems that work for all, not just a few — we should consider the tenet and the spirit of the Igbo apprenticeship system. The IAS has demonstrated that markets could deepen management accountability, competitiveness, and profitability, while at the same time, anchoring shared prosperity. The result is that communities experience inclusive growth with empowered workers and customers helping firms deliver sustainable fiduciary results. In other words, creating value for all stakeholders — investors, workers, customers, communities, and the environment — is not a zero-sum game; empowered stakeholders empower markets of the future.

The IAS has been recognized as the largest business incubator in the world as thousands of ventures are developed and established yearly through it. Innocent Chukwuma, the founder of Innoson Motors, the largest indigenous automobile manufacturing company by sales in Africa, is a product of IAS. So is Ifeanyi Ubah, the owner of one of the largest private fuel depots in Africa, Capital Oil & Gas, which has the biggest private oil jetty in Nigeria, an 18-ARM loading gantry, ocean-going vessels, a storage facility of over 200 million liters, and hundreds of distribution tankers. Cosmas Maduka, who controls Coscharis Group, a conglomerate with diverse interest in manufacturing, automobiles, and petrochemicals, also passed through the system. Unlike Ubah and Chukwuma, who finished primary education but dropped out at the secondary level, Maduka did not finish primary school. Until recently, that was typical; education has instead been the apprenticeship model, where an individual learns the mechanics of markets and business secrets under a master.

At the core of it, the IAS is a business philosophy of shared prosperity where participants co-opetitively participate to attain economic equilibrium. Accumulated market competitive advantages are constantly weighted and calibrated out, via dilution and surrendering of market share, enabling social resilience and the formation of livable communities. These are engineered by major participants funding their competitors, where success is measured based on support offered to others to thrive, and not by absolute market dominance. For centuries in the Igbo nation, they have kept this culture alive by reminding everyone of a popular saying, “onye aghala nwanne ya,” which means, “none should leave his or her brethren behind,” in the communities and in the markets.

The key focus of IAS is to prevent poverty by mass scaling opportunities for everyone. Igbos believe that when a child is born, he or she belongs to the community. (In fact, Igbos name their children “Nwaoha,” which means “a child of the community.”) Parents bring the children into the world; communities ensure the children succeed and thrive. If anything happens to the parents or they are incapable of raising the child, someone else in the community will step in. Typically, through the apprenticeship system, the child goes through a process of living with a new family, and then over time will transition to working in the master’s business. After a few years, he or she is “settled”; the master willingly relinquishes market share by providing customers, funding to an obvious future competitor, and other things necessary for the mentee to have a thriving venture, with no equity in the new business.

In a very practical sense, you have a scenario where a man, trading in a city, returns to his village, picks three children (usually boys), who might have lost their fathers or the families are too poor to train them, and decides to ensure they have meaningful lives. Those children serve him for some years — a period of apprenticeship — and upon completion, he invites his kinsmen, business partners, and others as he “settles” them. If he was holding a 10% market share in that specific market, by the time he is done, he might be holding only 7%, releasing 3% to the boys. For him, the growth of his company is not what matters; it is that the apprentices do well. But he doesn’t stop there. He sends them business opportunities, making sure they can thrive independently. In some cases, the masters may exit the sector entirely, in order to allow the others to thrive. Ubah, for instance, built a spare parts business in Ghana and Congo, but went back to his native town in Nnewi (Nigeria), brought in young people, and trained them in the business. Over time, he eventually left the sector for them. Chukwuma did the same with his prior manufacturing ventures.

As the world discusses inequalities with the push on stakeholder capitalism, the IAS has handled the equality part for centuries, making the Igbo nation a relative stable community in Nigeria. While Nigeria has average literacy rate of 62%, most states within the IAS record excess of 90%. In addition, the IAS is structured to ensure that everyone has opportunity and support, and by doing that, it prevents extreme poverty and inequalities in communities. The implication is that largely equal communities have improved educational attainment and created stable societies.

Looking at the IAS from a pure shareholder-centric capitalistic mindset, the system may seem defective — until one realizes that the shareholder here is the whole community, and through this model, most Igbo communities have built collective wealth. The Igbos came out of the Biafra war, in 1970, with their assets largely frozen and with little to begin post-war lives. Many Igbo communities started community leagues to build schools and clinics, and elders pushed men to share opportunities to help their brethren. Over decades, that spirit has resulted in enduring economic wealth.

That said, many have noted that the Igbo apprenticeship system could be reformed to provide better protection to the young people who become apprentices to mitigate any abuse from their masters. Having a registry for contracts administered by community elders with municipal power to enforce redress will ensure that contracts on settlements are honored once the young person has served as agreed. But most acknowledge that formalizing the process with written contracts and bringing governments onboard will distort the natural equilibrium where people derive pride that they helped to uplift younger people.

There are many lessons for the world from the IAS system that could elicit new changes in the contemporary capitalist system. IAS improves competition by making it possible to bring new players in a sector, benefiting customers. It brings a new mindset on value creation, going beyond financials to include sustaining communities and families. More so, it creates wealth for everyone. Largely, the Igbo apprenticeship system is a practical demonstration of the ubuntu philosophy — “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.” It may not be scored high when benchmarked on some Western business and economic frameworks, but for the Igbos and some Africans, it is a working system which has brought equality and peaceful coexistence in communities, making sure that no one leaves his or her brethren behind. Those are the evidential ideals of stakeholder capitalism.

Here is the source link to the article from the Harvard Business Review:ttps://hbr.org/2021/05/a-nigerian-model-for-stakeholder-capitalism

Did you know that data scientists are some of the hottest careers in fintech today? And that they are in short supply in Africa? Did you know that Ghanaian fintechs are 7x more likely to experience data sciences shortage as compared to the South African fintechs? - Augustine Owusu.

Dr. Thakgalo Thibela is the youngest active doctor in South Africa at 21 years of age. She has a bachelor of surgery and bachelor of medicine from Aliver Tambo University.

Nhial Deng

@NhialGD

Three years ago, my friend and high school teacher, @JoeDudim ; a South Sudanese refugee living in Kakuma got into @Harvard with a full ride. I was happy and inspired. And I knew there is a way out.

Daniel Ayuen Jok (Don) @daniel_ayuen #Observation In less than a decade ,Mading Aweil will be an economic power house in the republic . 8/10 hawkers on South Sudanese streets today are from Aweil . That's how Yuan Chinese guys starts their hussle.

Adenah Bayoh, a Liberian Refugee-Turned-Entrepreneur Owns 2 IHOP Restaurants, Her Own Soul Food Restaurant, and a $250 Million Real Estate Portfolio - businesswomen.org

Images: The Liberian entrepreneur, Adenah Bayoh; Ghana CEO of the year; how Awiel town boys of South Sudan hustle on the streets across the nation to make ends meet (traditionally, African men did not do the cooking in public and the same thing can be applied to business, it needs creating new worlds until it is generally accepted by the public); Dr. Thakgalo Thibela, the 21 year old South African doctor; a map showing the expansive reach of Swahili language on the continent, and an African fintech data map.

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loadvancouver847 · 3 years

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Sophos Utm Firewall

Many of our loyal SG UTM customers, have become curious since the release of XG Firewall v18 and are asking what it potentially means for them.

Sophos Utm Firewall Windows Update

Sophos Utm 9

Sophos UTM ISO for Software Appliance; Why do I use PCI Passthrough? With PCI Passthrough, all traffic goes directly to the virtual firewall and cannot escape from a virtual switch and has no logical contact with the hypervisor (the Ubuntu server). Firewalls are used as the main defence for an organisation’s network infrastructure, and are used to prevent unauthorised access to or from the private network. The aim of this article is to provide guidance for network administrators on how to harden Sophos UTM firewalls. This knowledge base article provides links to a series of guides which describe how to configure your UTM to allow access through the Web Application Firewall. Applies to the following Sophos product (s) and version (s) Sophos UTM v9.1, Sophos UTM v9.2, Sophos UTM v9.3.

We’ve had a lot of questions about the new features, how this release now compares to SG UTM and if this is perhaps the time to take a look at XG Firewall.

SG UTM features added in XG Firewall v18

Let’s first address the new enhancements in XG Firewall v18 that many of you identified as top priorities:

Flow monitor

One of the most popular features in UTM 9, the flow monitor allows you to view traffic flows and bandwidth consumption in real time. It’s now available in XG Firewall. You can view connections by application, user, or host, and easily filter or sort the results.

Plug-and-play HA

One of the hallmark features of SG UTM has long been plug-and-play HA. A similar experience is now available in XG Firewall with the QuickHA option where you simply specify a port, connect your devices, and go.

Actionable logs

Another welcome addition to XG Firewall is the ability to take actions directly from the log viewer. This is thanks to new context-sensitive options that enable you to refine a search or filter on any content in a log entry, as well as take actions such as block or allow traffic.

Other SG UTM features now in XG Firewall

These include DKIM anti-spam, category-based web quotas, SNMP v3 support, VLANs on bridge interfaces, interface renaming, Kerberos support, route-based VPN, SD-WAN link balancing and routing policies, and so much more.

A few SG UTM features are still making their way to XG Firewall and are planned for future releases.

AWS support will initially have a baseline feature set which will increase over the course of this year, and scheduled firmware updates are also coming soon to Sophos Central.

After that, you’ll see DLP custom pattern support, HA support for three or more nodes, and HA support for XG Series w-models with integrated wireless in upcoming releases.

What do the new innovations in v18 mean for you?

Improved performance: XG Firewall v18 introduced the new Xstream Architecture with an all new high-performance proxy-less DPI engine for efficient stream scanning in a single engine, and the new Network Flow FastPath for accelerating trusted traffic and important applications.

Unmatched TLS inspection and encrypted traffic visibility: The new Xstream TLS Inspection engine now natively supports TLS 1.3 without downgrading and delivers over twice the performance of the previous solution.

Enhanced zero-day threat protection: XG Firewall v18 brings new artificial intelligence and machine learning-based threat protection from file-based threats. Combined with the industry-leading IPS engine in the new Xstream Architecture, and dynamic sandboxing analysis, XG Firewall is now the most formidable defense against the latest advanced threats.

B) Copy the two files (Citrix Workspace Environment Management Agent Host Configura- tion.admlandCitrixBase.adml). C) Gotothe PolicyDefinitionsen-US folderandthenpastethefiles. VMware Workspace ONE UEM Release Notes provide information on the new features and improvements in each release. This page includes a summary of the new features introduced for 1912, a list of our resolved issues and known issues. New Features in this Release Workspace ONE UEM Console. Citrix Workspace app 1912 add-on for ThinLinux 2.2 Restart required This package is intended for customers who want to deploy the Citrix Workspace app add-on to Wyse 3040, Wyse 5070, and Wyse 5470 thin clients running Thin Linux 2.2.1.01. Workspace 1912 cu2.

Reliable SD-WAN app routing with Synchronized Security: Customers deploying both XG Firewall and Sophos Intercept X Endpoint get even more value than ever from their Synchronized Security Solution.

Synchronized SD-WAN leverages the added reliability that Synchronized Application Control delivers to better optimize and accelerate important applications in SD-WAN deployments. This adds to the extensive benefits that Synchronized Security already provides in monitoring endpoint health and using dynamic firewall rules to automatically isolate compromised hosts to prevent lateral threat movement and data loss.

Easy and powerful Central Cloud Management: Sophos Central cloud management not only enables you to manage all your Sophos products from a single-pane-of-glass but also offers rich XG Firewall features for group firewall management, monitoring, reporting, and zero-touch deployment… all at no extra charge!

Getting started

If you’re interested in taking advantage of all the great new enhancements in XG Firewall, you can do so for free. Your license can be transferred over at no extra charge. And, your local partner or Sophos Professional Services team will be happy to help.

Apache tomcat server for windows. Apache Tomcat is used to deploy your Java Servlets and JSPs. So in your Java project you can build your WAR (short for Web ARchive) file, and just drop it in the deploy directory in Tomcat. So basically Apache is an HTTP Server, serving HTTP. Tomcat is a Servlet and JSP Server serving Java technologies. Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat can be primarily classified as 'Web Servers' tools. 'Web server' is the primary reason why developers consider Apache HTTP Server over the competitors, whereas 'Easy' was stated as the key factor in picking Apache Tomcat. Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat are both open source tools. The next step in integrating Apache with Tomcat is to install a web server adapter. This is the piece of software that will relay information between Tomcat and Apache. It doesn't really belong under Apache configuration, and it doesn't really belong under Tomcat configuration, but it's required for both of.

Your existing SG Series hardware is fully supported (except for the SG 105 which lacks the minimum required 4 GB of memory). However, you may want to take this opportunity to consider refreshing your hardware.

This gripping crime drama explores the drug infested city of Baltimore, and follows the game of cat and mouse played between the right side of the law and the criminals who poison the city's streets. This iconic and critically lauded crime drama, which stars Dominic West and Idris Elba, explores the drug infested city of Baltimore. Sky customers will find every episode of The Wire available to watch on-demand on their TV or stream through the Sky Go app, which comes at no extra charge in its standard form. The wire sky go.

Sophos Utm Firewall Windows Update

If you’re not quite ready to take the plunge, you can still take advantage of many of the new capabilities in XG Firewall such as Synchronized Security, by installing an XG Series appliance inline with your existing SG UTM. The built-in bypass ports make this a risk-free solution, and it can be a great way to help with the transition from UTM to XG when you’re ready.

Thank you!

Sophos Utm 9

On behalf of everyone at Sophos, let me take this opportunity to acknowledge your ongoing loyalty and helpful product feedback. Nsg370 rebuild kit.

You’ve not only been tremendous influencers and contributors to the success of SG UTM, but you’re also now helping to build XG Firewall into a world-class next-gen firewall solution. Thank you!

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freyjaiam · 6 years

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Scratch (3/?)

Note: I’m so happy that this has been well received. I’m trying so hard to get writing in on my days off. Thankfully I had the day off today to get this finished and posted! Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing on AO3 as well! The comments help me keep going! A sidenote to those looking for supercorp and westallen. i swear its coming! i promise! we will be meeting iris next chapter! and lena and kara will get their first meeting as well! the end of this chapter is pure smut!

Summary: Laurel is attacked by someone she trusted and is found dying in the woods that belong to the werewolf pack that resides outside of Central City. The succubus is taken in and she soon finds they could be her only ally against the man who wants her whole family dead... And anyone else who will stand in his way to get the power he desires. Pairings: Captain Canary, Canaryfire, Supercorp, Westallen

Mick was hauling ass back to the estate. There was a sense of urgency in the car that had him briefly glancing in the rear view mirror to look at Laurel. The Succubus was pale, her breaths shallow, and the scent of blood was overbearing. It smelled wrong though, which lead Mick to believe that the kid was onto something. Laurel had been poisoned. Sara was in the back with her and Barry, keeping Laurel alert and doing her best to keep her awake.

“Yeah, Maggie, you’re right. It is too crazy to make up. Look, us wolves got a target on our backs now. So watch yours. You got cleanup handled at the bakery? I’ll keep you posted…” At that moment, Leonard also snuck a look in the backseat. “And for now this is inner circle only. Got it? Good.”

Leonard ended the call only to start another. Mick glanced over and saw the name being highlighted on the cell and grunted in approval. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who could smell the poison. The phone rang twice before the person answered. Mick’s keen hearing picked up on the full conversation.

“I never get a call from you unless it’s bad news. So what is it?”

“Straight to the point, Gypsy, its why I like you. I have a case of a poisoning. Not sure what kind. Succubus. Not even feeding heals her.”

“Hm, does the wound heal at all?”

“Yes,” said Leonard. “But comes back better than ever.”

“Where is the wound?”

“She was stabbed in the stomach.” Leonard sighed. “A warlock attack.”

“Well… Fuck. Okay. I can teleport to your place.”

“We’re en-route. Be there in five.”

“I can make it in two.”

Leonard hung up then looked to Mick. Mick knew that look. Leonard was a very private person. Not many outside of those in the inner circle ever went onto the estate. There wasn’t a lot of trust from the wolves because of the past. Now, there were more people coming into their home. More people to add to the equations of what could possibly go wrong. The rising tensions between the warlocks were making it so that they had to open doors that Leonard would rather keep firmly shut, locked, and barred.

Mick kept his focus on the road, pressed his foot a little further down on the gas, and mentally prepared himself for the chaos that would more than likely be erupting in the next twenty-four hours.

As of this moment…

They were at war.

“Get her in a bed!” ordered Gypsy as soon as they entered the main estate doors. She’d seen them coming down the drive, spitting up gravel from their tires with their speed. Her patient was being carried by Mick, her blood staining both of them. Gypsy had her bag in hands and followed behind Mick, her footsteps silent on the marbled floor. They moved up the main staircase and went down the hall only a few doors before entering a room. The guest room was pretty, decorated in light blues and grays. Gypsy had a fleeting thought of it being a pity that the sheets were about to be ruined before Mick placed Laurel down on the bed. Oh, as soon as she saw her face, Gypsy knew who she was. And who her father was as well. “There are too many people in this room right now! I need you all to leave!”

“I’m her sister! I’m not leaving!”

Gypsy turned to see a fiery blonde who looked like she’d just taken a trip to tell. She was right on the edge of wild and was ready to fight. Gypsy nodded because she just didn’t have time to argue.

“You can stay. But don’t get in my way. You sister’s life is now in my hands.” The girl whose name was slipping her mind at the moment nodded and Gypsy got to work. She placed her bag on the bed beside the unconscious woman. “What is your name?”

“Sara,” said Sara. “And she’s Laurel.”

“Sara. Any idea what poison this is?”

“No. I wasn’t there when...” Sara sighed. “Mick found her. From what I heard.”

“And he doesn’t know what poison it is. Neither do I,” said Leonard, who was standing in the doorway observing. “We only know that it doesn’t smell right.”

Gypsy then got to work. Sara watched as she brought out different vials, books, and even some misshapen rocks. There was a talisman she clutched in her hands that started to glow as she chanted. Sara was fighting every instinct to protect her sister from harm. Magic that kept opening the wound made her this way. Would magic save her or make her worse? She watched as Gypsy’s hands emitted a golden light, the light slithering down toward her sister and enveloping her. Sara watched as the wound closed then reopened numerous times. Gypsy would curse with each failed attempt. She dug everything out of her bag and tried using it until she stumbled back, exhausted.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sara, stepping forward.

“The poison is strong but that isn’t the problem. Something else is opening this wound again. I need more time. And resources.” Gypsy pulled a strand of hair that had fallen out into her eyes behind her ear. Sara noticed her hand tremble. “I can make a few calls. But I need you to buy me some time. You said feeding helps her?”

“Temporarily,” said Leonard.

“Right now that is the only thing that can save her. She needs to feed.” Gypsy pulled a phone out of her back pocket. She was too weak to teleport to where she needed to go. “I’ll be down the hall making calls.”

Sara was left alone with Leonard and her sister. She reached down and took her hand. It was unmoving and cold. She fought the urge to cry. She needed to be strong for her sister. A tear still managed to fall and she brushed it away with the back of her free hand. She then turned to Leonard, who looked to be contemplating his next move.

“I can’t feed her,” said Sara. “It doesn’t work like that for us.”

“I know,” he said.

“Please... You need-”

“I don’t need to do anything,” he said coldly, making her stiffen. “You brought this war onto my doorstep and now I have to get my people ready because your family is involved in a pissing contest with the warlocks!”

“Laurel and I left the family!” shouted Sara, releasing her sister’s hand to square off to the wolf. Her eyes glowed a bright blue as she spoke, anger evident in her stance and speech. “We left all of this behind! This isn’t on us! We wanted to be normal!”

“And now you see the price you paid for trying to be something you aren’t,” said Leonard. Sara had heard enough and launched forward, ready to lash out and fight. Leonard growled, his own eyes transitioning to ember, but somehow Barry managed to squeeze in between him. His speed was still something Leonard couldn’t get over.

“Hey! Stop! We shouldn’t be fighting!”

“Tell that to you boss,” spat Sara. “We don’t need your help anymore. We will leave!”

“What?” Barry looked between them and decided to go to Sara. “What do you mean leave?”

“We are obviously not welcomed here,” said Sara. “And you aren’t the only one with contacts Leonard. I can get Laurel help on my own!”

Leonard instantly felt bad. He was just worried. Worried for his people. And now he needed to feed one of them to Laurel to keep her alive. He knew he needed them on his side if he wanted to come out of this alive. However, he was too stubborn to just say he was wrong and apologize. Instead he let out a calming sigh then looked to Sara.

“No. You will stay. You are safer here than out there. Gypsy will help. You still need someone to feed your sister. You won’t get far without that.”

Sara knew he was right. But she was just as stubborn as he was. She kept her back to him because she knew if she looked at him now she would fight him. She wanted to feel his bones break beneath her hands. Which is why she kept them clenched, nails digging into the skin of her palm. She was still young and didn't have the handle on her powers like her sister did. She was still learning. So she closed her eyes and just focused on breathing. Barry, sensing the situation was handled, looked to Laurel.

“I can feed her,” he said, volunteering.

“No,” said Leonard. “You already fed Sara earlier.”

Sara felt guilt hit her hard. She’d been out of control. And had fed without thinking. Had Laurel not been there, she may not have stopped. She was broken out of her thoughts when a portal opened. They all stood at the ready as two individuals popped through. Gypsy rushed back into the room.

“About time!” she shouted.

“Who the hell are they?” asked Leonard.

“Help needed to solve this problem. This is Cisco. He’s one of the good guys.”

“A warlock,” said Leonard with a sneer that Sara matched as she stared the man down. He didn’t look threatening in his Star Wars shirt and holey jeans but Leonard wasn’t one to take chances. “Why shouldn’t I just rip his throat out?”

“B-Because I like it where it is,” said Cisco, hands going to his throat.

“He is with a small faction that broke off from the main Warlock clan. We call them the White Hats,” said Gypsy. “This is Caitlin. She’s human, but she’s adept in all the physiology of the supernatural world.”

“How long has she been unconscious?” asked Caitlin, pulling out a pair of gloves, immediately getting to work.

“About an hour,” said Barry.

“She needs fluids,” said Caitlin, opening a compartment in her bag. She had medical supplies, including a bag of saline. “She’s lost a lot of blood just from what I see here. She needs to feed.”

“We’ve established that,” said Leonard.

“I’ll do it.” All heads turned to the doorway. Standing there, was Mick. He hadn’t changed yet. He still had her blood on his shirt. He looked menacing as hell. Caitlin’s eyes widened and Cisco looked like he was about to pass out. “I’ll feed her.”

“You already fed her once,” said Leonard.

“I can handle it.”

“Mick-”

“I said I can handle it,” he argued. Leonard knew better than to try and change his mind. Mick strolled into the room. Everyone, including Sara, gave him room. He sat beside Laurel and gave her a small shake. She didn’t even flutter an eyelash. “What the hell am I supposed to do if she’s asleep?”

“Mouth to mouth contact seems like the most viable solution,” said Caitlin, matter-of-factly. “Even though she is unconscious I predict her survival instincts will kick in when you offer her-her food source.”

“So, what?” asked Mick, still not quite understanding what he needed to do.

“You gotta kiss her, man!” shouted Cisco.

“That seems... Like something I don’t want to be here for,” said Barry.

“The feeding of a succubus is very personal,” said Caitlin. “Very intimate.”

“We don’t have time for sensibilities!” shouted Gypsy. “Just feed her!”

Mick grumbled before, in front of everyone, leaning down and pressing his lips to hers. At first nothing happened. He thought that maybe he was too late. So he pressed just a little harder. And still, she didn’t move. He let out a growl of frustration before tempting her further by sweeping his tongue inside her mouth. Now that got a reaction. He felt her lips flutter. What he didn’t see was that her eyes snapped open on the bed, the blue glow burning so bright is changed the lighting of the room. Suddenly he was flipped onto his back and he had a very, very hungry succubus on top of him. He didn’t have a chance to say a word before she fed. He held on for as long as he could, perhaps enjoying the exhilarating feel of her on top of him and literally stealing his breath away too much, until the world went black around him.

A chauffeur opened the door to a shiny, black town car and a heeled foot planted itself onto the concrete of the front sidewalk. The driver offered his hand and she took it, rising out of the car. The door closed behind her as she walked forward. She was dressed in red silk, the small train of her gown almost floating behind her. Her lips, painted the same color of the dress, were set in a firm line as she gave her name to the security at the front. Satisfied after having typed it into the handhelds, they let her in. She accepted their offer to take her shawl and clutch, checking them at the door. She snagged a flute of champagne after having ascended onto the main floor, the stairs not at all a hindrance in her heels. Many looked at her with guarded expressions, the family name still instilling fear and awe. Lena ignored them all, sipping on her drink while taking in who was there. Many warlocks and vampires. An occasional human or two.

All of them very powerful.

Very wealthy.

And very corrupt.

“Lena Luthor. How fortunate we all are to have you in our company this lovely evening.”

Had she been anything but a vampire, she was certain chills would be going up her spine. She forced a smile and turned to the man that was the definition of scum. Vandal Savage was known for his cruelty as well as his disregard for laws. Rumors have spread of him. Many knew his alleged story. Of always finding the reincarnated woman he desired only to kill her again and again due to her rejection. His story was told to keep young girls up at night, fearful that they will be taken away. She was face to face with a walking nightmare, who was taking her free hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. It took everything in her to not wrench her hand away and wipe it on her gown to be rid of the feel of his lips on her skin.

“Vandal Savage,” said Lena, keeping her hand steady. When he released her hand she pulled it back with a smile. “I did not know you would be attending. I must say I am uncertain as to why we are all here.”

“As are many of the other guests. Everyone has been so secretive.”

“Trust me when I say, that the secret we’ve been keeping, will be a pleasant surprise,” said someone new. Lena looked over to see a man dressed in a sharp suit with equally sharp blue eyes and bright, blonde hair.

“Damien, I should have known that with all the cloak and dagger that you were the man in charge,” said Savage.

“Upset that your Seer couldn’t give you more answers?” Damien laughed, as if he’d told a joke he’d found amusing while Vandal glowered. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! I have no interest in that particular bird. I have my own... Ace in the hole, if you will. Don’t worry, old friend, soon everything will come to light. Our time has come to no longer fear those that have wanted to keep us down.”

“Care to elaborate?” asked Lena with a quirked brow.

“As I said. All in good time. Enjoy the party.”

Damien left, leaving Lena alone once again with Savage. She let her eyes scour the room for a quick escape. When she saw her salvation she excused herself and instead walked toward the one person who was only just slightly more bearable than Savage.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Lena, what I surprise. Though I must admit I knew you would be here. My feelings are slightly hurt. I was told by a mutual friend that my invitation was extended through you.”

“I do apologize, Mother. It slipped my mind. Running a company sometimes has one forgetting things. But, you are here now. That is all that matters. Wouldn’t you say?”

Her mother was angry, Lena knew that, however keeping up pretenses meant that she had to reign in that anger. Because whether her mother liked it or not, Lena was the one higher on the food chain due to her status at L-Corp. Her mother opened her mouth to say more but at that moment attention was called for by those in attendance. Everyone turned to see three individuals standing together. A picture of solidarity. One was the warlock Damien Darhk. Another was the vampire Merlyn. There was one other who Lena did not recognize, dressed in all black save for the yellow tie. It was Merlyn who stepped forward to speak with the others at his back.

“You all have been wondering why we invited you here tonight. Well, wonder no longer, for tonight is the first chapter in our reign over this city. For too long we have hidden in the shadows. Taken the scraps given to us by those who deem themselves more worthy. Well, tonight, that is over. Tonight, the hierarchy is falling. As we speak, important members of the council and their families are... Being taken care of...”

Murmurs traveled through the crowd. Some uneasy. Some excited.

“Soon, everything will be ripe for the picking. This city will crumble and fall but out of the ashes we will rise to bring forth the new order. It has come to our attention that ones we thought long lost are actually still among us. Why I invited you all here tonight is because we wish to find them. With their help we will tighten our ranks. When favors need to be done they will come to us. When new business opportunities arrive they will not go to the Queens or the Waynes. They will come to our doorsteps!”

Gone was the uneasiness. People cheered and clapped. Lena, on the other-hand, was worried. Lena knew exactly what they meant by taking care of the families in the cities. The same families who had given her a chance. Who had made deals with her despite her last name.

“Who are the ones that are lost?” shouted someone from the crowd.

“Glad you asked that,” said Damien, now taking over. “Now, are you ready for this? The ones lost are... Fairies!” A sudden hush grew over the crowd. “What? No round of applause?”

“They are a curse upon us all!” shouted a vampire.

“They will destroy us!” added a warlock.

“Not... If we get them on our side. And if they don’t play ball?” Damien smirked. “We kill them! According to my contact, there is one here in this city living among us! Unfortunately he was ambushed and the fairy was taken from him. Which is where all of you and your resources come in handy! Imagine what we could do with just one fairy on our side?”

“Well,” murmured Lillian. “Things just got interesting, haven’t they?”

‘I have to warn them,’ thought Lena as those around her celebrated. ‘I have to warn them all.’

Already, Lena was making preparations in her head, on how she could find this fairy before everyone else did so that she could protect them.

“That was stupid.”

Mick opened his eyes and turned his head to see Laurel. Cisco and Gypsy both had hands over her wound, trying to heal her. The other one, the doc with the nice legs, was looking into a microscope. Laurel was up and alert. She had more color, but still had dark circles under her eyes.

“I’m known to do stupid things,” he said, giving his head a slight shake.

“I’m being serious. I could have killed you. I was past coherency.” Laurel hissed in a breath and shot a look at Cisco. “That stings!”

“Sorry! Sorry! It’s just... Nothing is working!” said a frustrated Cisco. “Whatever they used against you it fights everything we throw at it. Even Zatanna’s spells. And those suckers pack a punch!”

“This is old magic,” murmured Gypsy, giving a sympathetic look to Laurel. A look that Laurel understood. She felt her chin rising as she did her best to be brave. “The best we can gather, Laurel, is that it is a death curse. A curse that cannot be broken.”

“There is nothing biologically wrong,” confirmed Caitlin. “The poison used has been treated. I’m sorry, I wish we had better news.”

“So that’s it? We give up?” asked Mick.

“If we were to destroy the cursed object used in your attack that may be the end of it,” said Gypsy. “But she doesn’t have the time for that.”

“I’m on borrowed time now. If it wasn’t for you, Mick, I’d be dead already.”

“Hold on!” shouted Cisco, who suddenly stood up and started pacing. Gypsy made a sound of protest as she used both her hands to keep Laurel healed. Laurel could see the strain on her though. She was pale and shaky and looked like she needed to sleep for a week to recover. “Think, Cisco, think! I have it... It’s right there. I just... Argh! C’mon... YES! I got it!”

“Mind sharing with the class?” asked Gypsy.

“Bonds,” said Cisco, simply. Caitlin hummed, having gotten it right away. “We get Laurel to bond with someone”

“But that won’t stop the curse,” countered Caitlin.

“No, but it’ll slow it down. With regular feedings, Laurel will be able to hold on until we get that object destroyed. You know who attacked you. So we find him, get the object, and bam! You’re saved!”

“That’s great and all,” said Laurel. “But you’re missing something.”

“What?” asked Cisco.

“I have no one to bond with,” said Laurel. “And even then the curse could carry to them. They, too, could die.”

“She has a point,” said Caitlin. “This being would have to have healing properties like Laurel. And like she said if she were to die, depending on how strong the bond was, they could die with her. Once again this is depending of if the curse actually transfers to them. The best viable bond would be with another succubus, because they could then feed. However...”

“Males are rare,” said Laurel. “And Sara and I broke from the line.”

“I’m certain your father-” started Caitlin.

“No,” finished Laurel. “He wouldn’t. Besides, when a succubus bonds with someone they grow stronger when feeding from them. I can’t feed from another succubus. It isn’t possible.”

“Vampires could be immune to the death curse since they are already technically dead and not a food source,” said Cisco. “A witch or warlock could have some counter spells to keep the curse at bay, but even then-”

“I’ll do it,” said Mick, sitting up straight.

“Wait, what?” asked Laurel, legitimately shocked.

“I’ll do it,” said Mick. “Werewolves who mate can share healing properties. Plus weres heal faster than anyone. I’ve already come this far might as well go all the way in.”

“Mating is a lot more serious than just giving me a snack,” said Laurel.

“It’s what we got,” countered Mick. “Besides. Not like I have anyone. From what I hear you get stronger during sex as well.”

“Mick,” chastised Gypsy.

“What? It’s true. I’ve read about it!”

“He’s right,” said Laurel, slightly embarrassed. “In a way.”

“Wait, wait, wait... Are we seriously thinking about this? Mr. Rory think this through. You could have serious repercussions. We don’t know how this curse could effect you. You could die.”

“I ain’t afraid of dying.” He looked to Laurel. “It’s up to you.”

“You look like you can barely stand... Let alone go through a mating ritual,” said Laurel. “And I’m not going to ask you to risk yourself for me.”

“You don’t have to ask. I said I’d do it. Leonard accepted you and your sister into the pack. You’re one of us now.”

“We could always break the bond, after I mean,” prompted Cisco.

Mick got a somber look on his face. Bonds were serious with weres. When you mated with someone you gave them everything. Breaking it broke you. Hell, he’d heard of weres killing themselves because they couldn’t handle the pain of a broken bond. It was easier if the other half died instead. But he had no one. If Laurel died the bond would be broken naturally and maybe he’d outlive the curse before it took him---if it transferred to him that was.

“I’m all in, Sweetheart,” he said, sitting up. “You wanna live or die because other than Gypsy here there’s no one else in this house who could do it or be strong enough for all the feedings. Including the Boss, who probably would forbid this if he were here.” He pointed to the others. “No one tell him till it’s done!”

“Where is he anyway? And Sara?” asked Laurel.

“He went to go get his sister, Lisa, so that she could show Sara around. Get her cleaned up,” said Cisco.

“We gotta come up with an option soon because I can’t keep this up,” said Gypsy. Her hands were shaking. Cisco rushed to her side and put his hands back. He nodded for her to take a break and she did, falling back with a gasp.

“Okay,” said Laurel.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to keep putting Gypsy and Cisco through pain in healing her. She didn’t know Mick. She didn’t love him at all. However, he did bring her here. He’s been protecting her even without the bond. That meant something to her. There was just something about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe she was being delirious because of all the blood she’d lost. She didn’t know. Didn’t care. She wanted her revenge against those who had wanted to kill her. So she’d take the wolf up on his offer. He was strong. She could share his strength. Heal faster.

“Everyone out,” said Caitlin. “We don’t need to be here for this.”

“Give me one good jolt of healing mojo... We’ll do the rest,” said Laurel. Cisco nodded, hands glowing blue unlike Gypsy’s red. They then filed out of the room, leaving Laurel and Mick alone. She shifted slightly with a wince, going on her side. He followed suit so that they were facing one another.

“Final chance to get out of this,” said Laurel.

“Nah...” Mick brought a hand up, let it rest on her hip. “I’ve always liked playing with fire.” Laurel winced and he looked down. The light of the spell was already fading. “We gotta be quick about this. Sorry, Doll, no romance tonight. Not that I’m much of a romantic.”

“Oh, I dunno, saving the life of a woman who hardly know seems a little romantic,” she said, eyes flashing blue. She touched his arm. He prepared himself of the stillness. Instead, he just got warmth. Confused, he looked at her, and she smirked. “Bonding is different. Remember?”

“Right.”

Mick started to feel lightheaded as her soothing touch warmed him from the top of his head to his toes. When she moved to take off her shirt she let out a gasp and he shook his head, instead just going for her pants. She nodded. Not all skin had to be visible for a bond. There was no romance, it was all business, but he was still gentle. Her shoes, pants, and underwear were tossed to the floor. He stood and tossed off his clothing before rejoining her. When her hands touched his skin he shivered, her warmth traveling even to his scars. She touched them now, inquisitive, and he didn’t want to talk about it so he kissed her. It was then she took her first sip. Enough so that she could shift. He was on his back once more, like before, and she was on top. Her eyes were that same blue and he was transfixed. He felt the wolf beneath his skin wanting out so he let it. With a growl his eyes went gold and his hold on her tightened. She leaned down and kissed him once more before starting her feeding. The more she took the more turned on he got. He was rock hard against her stomach. She kept taking. More and more and more. He didn’t stop her. Didn’t want to stop her.

“Fuck...”

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m good. Horny as hell though.”

“Oh, I know, Baby,” she purred.

“Jesus don’t talk like that or I’ll burst,” he moaned.

She laughed. “Ready to start?”

“You mean it hasn’t started yet?” He tossed his head back and let out a loud moan as she lowered herself onto him. He fought every urge to roll her over and fuck the hell out of her. She was so damn hot and he was craving her heat even more now. “Fuck!”

“Shh...”

Her hands traveled up and down his chest. She was trembling as she started to ride him, her hips undulating against him. Her blue eyes were burning into his amber. She started to feed again. He couldn’t breathe but he didn’t care. He wanted to keep going. Right when he felt he was about to pass out Laurel exhaled. The same blue mist that she fed on went back into him. Confused he couldn’t do anything to stop it. Her movements continued and right when the last bit of the mist entered his mouth she came with the help of her fingers on her clit. Something he hadn’t noticed her doing in his delirium.

“Why’d you give it back?”

“It’s part of the process. We... We are now bonded.” Her eyes fluttered as she sagged against him. “At least... On my end.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “Your turn. Mate with me like a wolf.”

“Jesus, fuck, okay.” They shifted. He pulled out of her. He smelled her blood again. Concerned her looked at her wound. It was trickling blood. He brought his hand there, as if to stop it. “It isn’t working.”

“We’re only halfway done. You need to do your part.”

“But your wound.”

“Don’t let a little blood stop you,” she said with a laugh, a poor attempt at a joke. She was paling. Hell, it was killing his buzz.

“Take from me, then we will keep going,” he insisted. She nodded and did just that, pressing her lips to his in a languid kiss before taking just a sip. He nuzzled her neck after. He wanted to do so much more to her but time was short so he brought her to her hands and knees. Wolves were wild and primitive in the bed when it came to mating. He came in from behind her and thrust back inside. She moaned, head tossing back, her already sensitive pussy sparking with the invasion with a spike of newfound lust.

He leaned forward, mouth latching onto her neck, teeth testing the flesh before pressing down. Vampires and werewolves were similar in some ways with the bonding. Both used bites. Werewolves didn’t need to share blood, just draw enough with their mark to be embedded in the skin. When his teeth pressed Laurel gasped, hips bucking.

‘Mine,’ he thought. Instinct taking over as his fingers dug more firmly into her hips.

‘Yours,’ he heard, a whisper at the back of his head.

She was so open to him that it didn’t take him long to complete the bond. One last snap of the hips had him coming inside her just as he drew the last of her blood. Just like that something snapped and fell into place. They shifted once more to look at one another. Her cheeks were flushed, lips swollen, and he could see his mark on her neck.

“Do you feel it?” she asked.

“Yeah. You?” he asked.

“Yeah...” She looked down at her stomach. It was still bleeding. But not as much. “It’s tingling. Like it is trying to heal itself.”

“Good.”

“Mick...” She cupped his cheeks. Her face was open. Her mask was gone. So was his, in that moment. The mask he’d been wearing since the age of ten had been eviscerated by this woman. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing...”

“It isn’t nothing. It means everything. To me.”

She pressed her lips to his. It was a kiss. An actual kiss. Not something out of necessity. It was soft, almost sweet, and he didn’t want it to stop. What the hell was wrong with him? Did the bond turn him into a softie.

“You should feed,” he said, hand moving up and down her back before his whole arm wrapped around her to pull her flush against him. “Start looking for that dirtbag that hurt you after.”

“Agreed.”

And so, he fell back, her on top of him, to start the feeding process.

Unaware of the chaos that was unfolding downstairs...

TBC...

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muazbutt89 · 3 years

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vivalaskristie · 5 years

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Chapter 5 She’s Gone

Book: The Royal Romance (AU)

Series Premise: Parallel, behind the scenes, Madeleine and Bastien

A/N: This is my first series, my first AU, because Madeleine and Bastien needed to smash. I posted and then pulled it because it wasn’t quite right. It’s still a work in progress.

Warnings for this series: The first sex scenes I’ve ever written, bad language, sneaking around, alcohol, general mischief and the occasional academic symposium.

Permatags: @speedyoperarascalparty @burnsoslow @dcbbw @emceesynonymroll @stopforamoment

Chapter 1 Prelude

Chapter 2 Drinks on a Yacht

Chapter 3 A Dark and Stormy Night

Chapter 4 Meanwhile, Back At The Palace

Bastien stood to the side of the dais, in the shadows where nobody could see him. All eyes were on Crown Prince Leo and Lady Madeleine as they stood in front of the thrones and next to the King and Queen. Leo had just announced his plan to abdicate his position as heir to the throne of Cordonia. He had given a speech about duty and responsibility and being true to one’s own heart and all sorts of other PR bullshit that someone had written for him. Effective at noon tomorrow, his younger brother Prince Liam would be the Crown Prince and heir.

Bastien couldn’t take his eyes off of Madeleine. She was standing next to him as strong and regal as the queen she’d someday hoped to be. Her expression was one of neutral resignation, tinged with just enough disappointment to be sympathetic to the gaggle of reporters and photographers in front of her. He knew she had to be furious. She didn’t need their pity. She was the best thing that could happen to that idiot Leo or to Cordonia. She was better than any of them knew.

He knew how good she was. He had seen how brilliant and dedicated and passionate she was. They didn’t deserve her. He was full of rage for her, for how fearless she was to be standing there as they felt sorry for her. She got dumped by one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. Their cameras were fixed upon her, watching for some slip in her elegant façade. They’d never get one. She was too good.

Bastien lowered his gaze from her only to tamp down the relief he felt. She wasn’t going to marry that clown! Oh sure, he loved Leo like a brother, but god he was so stupid. And she wasn’t going to marry him. Bastien didn’t even consider how this might affect himself. He was just so happy that she wasn’t going to belong to someone else. Not yet, at least. He looked up at her again, and tuned back in to hear what the King was now saying.

“To show our appreciation for her steadfast devotion to our beloved Cordonia, I hereby create Lady Madeleine the Countess of Fydelia. May she serve her people well.”

There was polite applause, a few cheers. Madeleine wasn’t universally liked by people who didn’t know her, but everyone seemed to be relieved that she was getting something out of this. She walked slowly to stand in front of the King and Queen, and faced them to curtsey. She then turned to face the crowd and bowed her head graciously, accepting their accolades.

At least they didn’t make her speak, not that anyone could make her do anything she didn’t decide to do herself. They posed for one more round of photos, and then the procession left the room. Bastien’s gaze was locked on her as she walked past him; she looked straight ahead, with that polite frozen smile on her beautiful face.

The door closed behind them. Madeleine accepted an affectionate hug from the Queen and a fatherly kiss on the cheek from the King. Leo stayed back just a bit. He was not in anybody’s good graces right now so it was a solid choice for him to just stay quiet and out of the way.

Madeleine said her farewells one last time to the Royal Family, and she walked alone toward the door at the far end of the room. A footman opened the door and closed it quickly behind her, and she was gone.

It took every ounce of strength Bastien possessed not to follow her. He wanted to run howling to her side. To hell with this ridiculous family, he wanted to say. But he loved them. They were his family too. This was more than a job for him. He would forgive them for this, and they’d never even know he’d been even the least bit interested in any of it.

***

Madeleine maintained her icy demeanor until her car had left the palace grounds. Their stares and whispers hadn’t even appeared to register with her, reinforcing their already unkind opinions of her. Once she was truly away, though, she let herself feel what had happened. It had been awful, the worst day of her life. She just wanted to run and hide, but she knew her duty. Fucking duty. Fuck all of them.

She’d also been intensely aware of Bastien the whole time. His quiet presence reassured her. As she stood there, facing the world, her mind flitted back to her time with him, and the things they did together. The things they talked about and laughed about in the darkness, and the hundreds of texts they’d exchanged in the last weeks kept her distracted from the shame that everyone around her hoped she felt.

She relaxed in the back seat of the limousine. The plan was for her to be driven to the royal hangar at the airport, doors closed behind the car. Within 30 minutes, the royal jet would depart with a flight plan set for London. That would get most of the media off of her trail almost immediately. Within the next 30 minutes, this limo would depart from the hangar and get on the A8 toward Aix-de-Provence. The driver was instructed to drive through France for as long as it took for the most diehard paparazzi to give up. They had been assured from Sécurité Civile that anyone following the limo would be “discouraged” from doing so.

Madeleine would be leaving the Cordonia airport about 3 hours later, after changing her clothes and having some time for “private reflection”, as it stated on the eyes-only classified security plan. She would drive herself in a luxury SUV–another request granted from the Crown for the benefit of her new position as Countess–to a location known only to herself. She was thankful for the generous consideration that Constantine and Regina had given. They were embarrassed, and they made every effort to ensure Madeleine’s smooth transition back into the real world. She also suspected that Bastien had a hand in developing the intricate escape plan. The hours alone in the royal suite inside the hangar with guards at every post had his touch all over it. Yes, she was grateful for him.

They arrived at the hangar and everything went according to plan. The jet departed, and so did 90% of the reporters. The limousine slowly pulled out and headed northwest, and those that remained congratulated themselves on their instincts and boldly followed it. By then, Madeleine was showered and wearing her favorite black hoodie and soft black pants, her hair in a ponytail. She was curled up in a corner of the sofa with a book and a bottle of her preferred brand of ginger ale. On the table, her bookmark: a piece of paper with just a few words on it that she’d saved after a stormy night on a yacht.

When it was time for her to depart, she thanked the guards politely, got into the SUV behind the windows that were as dark as those on the limousine, and drove aimlessly around the city, making sure that nobody was tailing her. An hour later, she was in Italy.

***

Bastien was busy for the rest of the day. Leo’s departure was another high-security event, and the transition team for Prince Liam’s ascension was already taking control. Bastien would be Liam’s chief of security once Leo had gone. As the plan he’d put together for Madeleine’s departure was executed, he marked the time. He watched the jet leave Cordonian airspace. He received the text from the limo driver as the car crossed into France. She’s in the hangar. She’s alone. She’s guarded and safe, but alone. He hoped she was comfortable. He’d made sure the suite was stocked with her favorites. He wanted to reach out to her, but he couldn’t while he was working. His first priority was to the Crown. He knew he’d be notified if anything went wrong. Nothing would go wrong, though.

Bastien’s phone buzzed when the guard notified him that Ruby was out of the pocket. She’d kill him if she’d known that was the security code name he gave her for this operation, but nobody questioned it. That text was the end of Madeleine’s royal protection. Sort of. The SUV was equipped with GPS, so he would know where she was at any moment. He’d left instructions inside for what to do if she was followed or threatened in any way. He imagined her driving alone in the dark–did she listen to music or an audiobook or was it quiet? He had no idea.

He continued to do his job. After everybody else’s tasks had been completed, he went through tomorrow’s schedule one more time. The surveillance crew for the overnight shift was on the clock. He’d been up for almost 24 hours. His second-in-command stepped up.

“Take a break, sir. I’ve got this for the night.”

“Very good, Matteo. Thanks.”

Bastien checked his phone as he walked to his quarters. Nothing from her. Give her time, he thought. She doesn’t need me pawing at her right now. He showered and fell into bed.

Late in the night, he awoke to his phone buzzing on his nightstand.

Thank you.

Nothing else. But it was enough.

Chapter 6

#trr #trr bastien #trr madeleine

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altobrandy31-blog · 5 years

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Local Politicians Happy to See Mayor Emanuel Go

Chicago’s centrist-Democrat Mayor Rahm Emanuel had few fans left among Logan Square’s progressive politicians. So the mayor’s shocking announcement last month that he wouldn’t seek re-election prompted some less-surprising responses around here. Reactions ranged from hope for a more-progressive future to a fair share of “Why not me?” musings.

The 35th Ward’s energetically progressive, Democratic Socialist Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa let anyone listening know how much he welcomed Rahm’s retirement.

I will do everything in my role as 35th Ward Alderman, and during my re-election campaign for 35th Ward Alderman, to ensure we are having a constructive and transformational dialogue about the future of our city. Today is a new day for our Chicago.

— Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa🌹 (@CDRosa) September 4, 2018

“Two Cities” and “Murder Mayor”

Alderman Rosa speaks at an event for 4th District State Representative candidate Delia Ramirez. Photo: Michael Dhar

Rosa, who has worked to bring more local control and accountability to budgeting, zoning and other issues, said local leaders should take advantage of Emanuel’s departure. “Chicago must belong to her people, her children, her working families, her neighborhoods,” Rosa wrote in the above tweet.

The alderman has long criticized Emanuel’s centrist policies, and Rosa has not been alone. Pushing corporate tax breaks, privatizing city services like transit cards, and angling hard to attract Amazon to Chicago, Emanuel has always worked for business, critics have said.

This has helped Chicago’s wealthier downtown and Northwest neighborhoods prosper, while poorer, minority neighborhoods on the South and West sides lack resources, creating “a tale of two cities,” critics said.

Logan-area Alderman Scott Waguespack, who serves with Rosa on the city’s Progressive Reform Caucus, said the “two cities” story would define Emanuel’s legacy. “On the South and West sides, you see a different city than downtown, or where I am, on the Northwest,” Waguespack said, speaking on a Sept. 4 episode of wttw’s Chicago Tonight.

Speaking to The Nation in a piece memorializing Emanuel as “the Murder Mayor,” Rosa called the end of the Emanuel era an opportunity to turn back that corporate-focused tide.

“Now is the time for Chicago’s progressives to seize this moment and imagine a city free of corporate Democratic control,” Rosa said.

That “Murder Mayor” moniker, originally coined by former Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis, referenced the city’s shooting violence during Emanuel’s terms, as well as other criticisms of the mayor. “Look at the murder rate in this city,” Lewis said in 2013. “He’s murdering schools, he’s murdering good jobs. He’s murdering housing.”

The term took on new significance in 2015, with Emanuel’s handling of the Laquan McDonald case. This week, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder for shooting McDonald 16 times in 2014. Emanuel, now infamously, fought the release of the shooting footage.

Even as most observers look to what awaits Chicago post-Emanuel, Alderman Waguespack reminded his constituents that the mayor still has nine months to affect the city.

“Many issues that the mayor wants to move ahead with before the election have yet to be opened to discussion in requested public hearings,” Waguespack said on his office’s Facebook page. Those topics include Elon Musk’s proposed train linking downtown and O’Hare and the Chicago Public Schools sexual abuse scandal, Waguespack said.

Who’s Running from Logan Square?

Some Logan Square leaders had some more-personal things to say about Emanuel’s exit than “good riddance,” however—things more along the lines of “take a chance on me, Chicago.”

Waguespack, rumored in the past to be interested in the mayorship, again floated his own name in the wake of Emanuel’s announcement.

“I think, like everyone in the city, we love the city, and we want to see it do better,” he said on Chicago Tonight. “So, there’s openings there for people to really think about progressive openings for the city.”

“Including yourself,” host Phil Ponce asked Waguespack, who responded, “I think so.”

Waguespack was considering a mayorial run as early as last year, John Kass reported in the Tribune. Back before Emanuel announced his first run for mayor, there was a push for a Waguespack candidacy, Kass wrote. But then Emanuel announced he would run in 2010, taking over the race.

Block Club Chicago mentioned both Waguespack and fellow Logan Square-area Alderman Joe Moreno (First Ward) as rumored candidates. Speaking to the Tribune, Moreno didn’t rule out a run, saying that none of the current candidates have “shown they’re a progressive who can get things done” like he has.

Out of the Race

Other rumored candidates included both retiring Congressman Luis Gutierrez, whose 4th District covers part of Logan Square, and his likely replacement, Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. However, Gutierrez quickly threw his own support behind Garcia, who himself decided this week against running. Garcia had forced Emanuel into a surprise run-off vote in the 2015 mayoral race.

As a favorite on the left, at least locally, Alderman Rosa might seem like another potential candidate. But his public statements so far suggest he’s focusing on his current job.

Gabriel Piemonte, a candidate for Fifth Ward Alderman, shared some thoughts on Rosa, too.

Last Boss Mayor?

Chicago’s next mayor, whether she or he comes from the Logan area or elsewhere in the city, could mark a transformation in Windy City politics, wrote Edward McClelland in Chicago magazine. And progressive alderman like Rosa and Waguespack could play a big role in that change, McClelland said.

“Could the Chicago City Council, after six and a half decades under the thumb of boss mayor beginning with Richard J. Daley, finally reclaim the powers granted it by the city’s founders?” he wrote. There’s a chance, he said, because “the body’s Progressive Caucus, a group of independent aldermen which … includes Scott Waguespack and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, is certain to grow.”

Featured Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Source: https://logansquarist.com/2018/10/07/logan-square-leaders-happy-to-see-emanuel-go/

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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astrologywithastory · 7 years

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Pluto Conjunct Venus - The Power of Love

Pluto/Venus is one of my favorite conjunctions, maybe because I know it so well. Pluto/Venus is visiting everyone the last week in January to the second week in February 2014.

I love the story of Venus and Pluto. It is the love story of Persephone and Hades. Persephone had a very over-powering mother so she would run free in the mountains and fields where no one could find her. It was there Hades saw her and fell in love with her at first sight. He loved everything about her: her smile, sweetness, charm, beauty and social grace. She was not afraid of him, as she had been told to be, which crushed him because in order to control her he needed her to fear him. She was intrigued by him instead. So he kidnapped her taking her down with him to the underworld. However, Persephone wanted to be taken away with Hades. Even when Hermes came to rescue her from the underworld, she sat there eating six pomegranates so she would not have to return to the earth. She liked it down there with him and no one could change her mind. Finally, an agreement was made with Zeus in which he allowed her to return to earth in the spring for six months and then go back to be with her husband Hades Lord of the Underworld for the other six months. They were said, to have a happy marriage.

We might wonder what she loved about the darkness of Hades. Well, the story would have us believe it was never anybody’s business, and that it was their private world and theirs alone. One in which she never talked about but obviously brought her great joy. So there you have it Pluto conjunct Venus. A dark, passionate, world of love, that is always behind closed doors.

Their bond is deep and their story somewhat mysterious. However, no matter how dark it was, it was true love. And all consuming, can’t live without you, real love.

I dated a guy and his Pluto sat on my Venus. I remember the minute I met him. He was tall, dark, beautiful and mysterious and his eyes locked with mine and down I went into a heavy spell and I never remember coming up for air again. He was dark and good all at the same time. He had a healing quality about him that seemed to transform me, and indeed that is what he did.

Pluto has no manners and he is sorry about that, but all he wants to do is to take Venus and transform her. He wants to make her a whole new being and does. However, it’s not gentle. It’s painful, obsessive, cruel, and very manipulating at times. Venus learns his wicked ways and becomes enmeshed in this energy and it brings out even in her a mean, manipulative, and jealous side. They go back and forth with this energy trying so hard to break this painful pattern they have together. But around and around they go. They both become addicted to each other and when someone comes in to break their unhealthy bond they grasp on even tighter just like Persephone did. Well, even lovely Venus can turn into the Devil when you try to take her Dark Pluto Knight away from her. And revenge seems to be the only plot to play out; but remember,”before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” (Confucius) There are better ways to transform, and before you start spewing all your dark side everywhere, which you will do when you Venus meets Pluto. Remember this, Pluto cannot live without you. He needs you. Your bond is more powerful than anything he will ever know. Oh yes, Venus conjunct Saturn brings the house and stability and some people live in that world which is another story. But when Pluto finds his Venus princess, he will not let you go. You are trapped and imprisoned in his love. Yes, you are bonded for life.

Just when you think there is only darkness between you two left and the rage and control has broken both of you beyond repair and this intense relationship has damaged your souls, this is not end, it’s just the beginning of transformation. So Venus does what Pluto wants and transforms. He wants you to be a better person in every sense of the way. Pluto is the garbage man and he is cleaning house. When he conjuncts with Venus he takes all he garbage out, and she is left lovelier and deeper than ever before. People will not recognize you anymore because you have just gone through a Venus/Pluto relationship. And aren’t you lucky to have had this, because isn’t the point to life to transform and become a better person.

The modern version is “Beauty and the Beast.” What does Beauty love so much about the beast? He protects her, and would do anything for her. He would die literally without her. As the Disney’s version has it, when she goes back to tell her Beast she loves him, he turns into a prince. And Venus saves Pluto right back and transforms him in ways in which he is so grateful.

Yes, Pluto wants to be your prince, but he has none of your charm or wit, or manners. He is controlling, manipulative, arrogant and somewhat crptic in his ways. He can be mean in the way he is trying to change you, but he simply wants to be loved just like you. However with Venus and Pluto it’s sometimes a black hole and there is never enough love. They both think there will never be enough. They often end up sucking each other dry. But there is more than enough love, and in their darkness and abuse it’s hard to see the light and love, so they get stuck in an abusive pattern that they can’t seem to get out of. “Eventually the soul recognizes the pattern and wants to change it. With Pluto-Venus interaspect, it’s vital to get some space and independence into the relationship. The challenge is to develop trust and independence so when this is achieved the love becomes alchemical or tantric in its ability to transform the old pattern into new energy for the relationship. Such a contract is incredibly powerful and transmute karma and open up the possibility of a totally satisfying relationship on all levels.” (Judy Hal)

Pluto/Venus love is deep beyond measure and goes beyond time and space. You will never feel so wanted, so devoured by your lover. So needed, it will take over you, your souls will belong to each other forever in time.

We will see this transit for the next few weeks so we might see more rapes, domestic violence, killings in the name of love and secret affairs. Perhaps, bad news is always around the corner if we look for it. However, I would like to think of this time as when I met my dark tall Pluto knight and when you will meet yours. Or Pluto will meet his princess. You will feel like the only two people in the room, your eyes will meet and you will be under a very powerful spell and down you will go and you will never come home the same.

It’s a powerful, intense, volcanic love when you are together and the passion is like something you have only read about. Pluto has more power than you know. It could light a city or nation. It’s dark they say, well who is they? Pluto is so misunderstood and complicated we cannot even call it a planet anymore. No its energy is far greater than we will ever grasp. Pluto will transform you so do not be afraid of him in the darkness; he turns you into light and spring. He will heal you and every cell in your being will change. So what is so dark about that? It remakes our souls. Changes our life and makes us a better person from the inside out. Venus is Pluto’s “light” angel and if he could carry it around all day in his pocket he would. Behind closed doors, the passion and the tantric sex is unreal—-God like. You are his Goddess and he is your God. In the highest form your bond and lovemaking is a spiritual union. And remember Persephone and Hades’ private world has never been told because it’s sacred and private. You could sit for eight hours having coffee with the girls or guys and try to explain it. Don’t even try. It’s your and yours alone and other relationships will seem pail in comparison to a Pluto/Venus relationship. No one will understand unless they, too, have gone through this.

Will Pluto marry you? Maybe, after all Hades did marry Persephone as she was the love of his life. If he does not, he is still something great to be tucked away in your heart. He showed you deep earth-shattering love and transformed your soul and that is worth every penny. He will never leave you. This I promise. Somewhere in the wings he is always going to be there. Once he finds his Venus he will never let you go, and he will hold you so close to his heart no one else will ever get in. Hopefully, you are lucky and have some Satan around to stain this love, because it’s heart breaking to let it go. Mr. Biggs and Carrie from the beloved Sex In the City. had a very Pluto/Venus relationship from the very start, and in end they got married and lived happily ever after. No matter how mean and horrible he was, Carrie loved him and he loved her and they changed each other for the better. Mr. Biggs helped Carrie become a beautiful woman with his passion and devotion and she helped him find peace in his world.

Sometimes Pluto/Venus are not lovers. Like Red Reddington and Agent Elizabeth Keen. Reddington is dark, arrogant, and can out smart everyone in the room. Keen is pretty, sweet, and somewhat innocent to the darkness around her. However, Red would do anything to protect her, and he always answers her calls and rescues her at moment’s notice. They too like Hades and Persephone have long talks in private that no one would understand on the outside. These talks are real and sweet and like Persephone— Lizzy is happy and safe somehow in his dark presence, and we don’t question or try to understand their bond. Clearly here we can see whether Red is good or bad, his intentions towards Lizzy are always for her best interest. He wants her to be the best she can be, and he is remaking her to be lighter. Ironic that someone dark can change someone to light. This is Pluto/Venus at its best. In Red’s dark world in which he lives, all he shows for Lizzy is love. This is a good example of the “beast” having this gentle soft side with his Venus princess.

The movie, “Secretary” is a perfect movie to watch because explains the Pluto/Venus connections exquisitely. James Spader’s character, Mr. Gray, is dark, controlling and does not have many redeeming qualities. With his secretary, Lee, he wants to transform this odd, scared little girl into a brave, sexy and confident woman. He tells her something at the beginning of their relationship which changes her life. He says, “I’m going to tell you something Lee, you will never ever cut yourself again. Do you understand? Have I made that perfectly clear? You are over that now. It’s in the past.” As mean as Mr. Gray was to most people, to Lee he only wanted her to heal and be stronger. She falls madly in love with him and during that same time she finds herself. Behind closed doors they have connections that many people would not understand. Lee lets him know that even though he’s wounded, she understand him and will always love him.

So my advice is: keep it private. If you don’t you might get very hurt, but I won’t write about that now. Unless you are in a Pluto/Venus relationship no one will ever get it or understand the Pluto -Venus conjunction. I mean do you really understand it? Then how can anyone else.

So these next few weeks what will Venus/Pluto bring you? Well transformation and truth hopefully. You may feel the need to manipulate your lovers into loving you more, and giving you more of what you want. However, just ask because Pluto/Venus wants to transform all the darkness and pain in your life into something beautiful. In the next few weeks we will be forced to face our deepest feelings of self worth and our lovability. Your relationships may feel emotionally intense and an all or nothing attitude will take over you. But Jupiter is in the picture to help this time making you take a deep breath and heal all these love wounds. The truth will come out and real love will win in the next few weeks. And even if it’s behind closed doors, well just like, Persephone and Hades, Reddington and Keen, that is exactly where Pluto/Venus relationships are supposed to be. And if we keep them there, a world in which no one writes about awaits you.

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theseventhhex · 7 years

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Weeping Icon Interview

Weeping Icon

Weeping Icon is an experimental noise punk band based in Brooklyn, NY. All four members are long-time vets to the DIY Brooklyn music scene (former & current bands ADVAETA, Lutkie, Mantismass, Warcries, Water Temples), and they are breaking new ground with their explosive take on the traditional rock configuration. Their live show is immense and energetic; their addictive combination of searing riffs & rhythms, fearless vocals and thrillingly unexpected sounds – delivered through heaps of hair and controlled feedback – is expertly crafted into an enveloping landscape that doesn’t let up from start to finish. Their debut EP ‘Eyeball Under’ exhibits a gifted band with innovative and striking arrangements, showcasing each member excelling with beguiling aptitude… We talk to the band about primal energy, Russell Westbrook and Jane Goodall…

TSH: How would you describe the band camaraderie and level of concentration when new music is coming together?

Weeping Icon: We completely trust each other to develop parts, but if we’re stuck, we take long walks through the hallways. Our practice space is in an old pharmaceutical building that has been repurposed for just about everything imaginable, and it is completely twisted. Somehow we spend a lot of time in the bathroom talking, playing with construction materials, and generally making trouble.

TSH: For your EP entitled ‘Eyeball Under,’ what sort of lyrical expressions and perspectives do you feel primarily came into play?

Weeping Icon: This EP has a lot to do with primal energy. We are channelling a lot of the confusion and anger from current politics and we feed off each other’s intensity. There are a lot of raw expressions of anger, anxiety, and retaliation.

TSH: ‘Jail Billz’ is a stunning track. Talk us through how the band went about layering and structuring such a concise song…

Weeping Icon: Thanks. It was the first song we wrote, and it kind of set the scene for what we were going to make. Guitar and drums were the first parts written before the full band had formed, and the idea was just to make something loud, fast and physical. The other parts came together naturally from just trying to sustain the intensity and enhance it.

TSH: Moreover, what does a track like ‘Warts’ signify overall?

Weeping Icon: It’s about the impetus to lie and be secretive in protection of one’s own self-image/self-interest, and the private reassuring conversations we have with ourselves that tend to place more value on alleviating anxiety than being considerate of potentially impacted parties.

TSH: At what point in the process do you realise what you’re going to do vocally with the sounds that are being formulated?

Weeping Icon: Usually we improvise shouts, screams and nonsensical words to feel out the song. When the structures are a little bit more refined one of us feels possessed to write lyrics, haha! We all like to sing and write.

TSH: Can it at times be beneficial to not search for a specific statement and simply just embrace what comes out of you?

Weeping Icon: Yeah, I think that has been the process for writing this EP. We didn’t have a specific message, but we had a lot to say, haha. I think right now we are just trying to make something as raw and honest as possible, and usually that means figuring it out as it happens.

TSH: What sort factors do you feel are important to manifest with the band’s live offerings?

Weeping Icon: We try to channel unadulterated puppies. That is only partly a joke. We don’t stop between songs because we want to sustain the energy and for the set to be immersive. The transitions are always improvised so we are concentrating on each other and sensitive to the atmosphere the sound is building. We want people to feel very present.

TSH: In what ways does being immersed within your craft allow you to liberate yourself from stress and anxiety hurdles?

Weeping Icon: The importance of having something that belongs to you - that may be shared with other people, but isn’t made for other people - can’t be underestimated. Everyone should have a section of their lives dedicated to unadulterated self-expression: your tastes, your emotions, whatever gets your blood pumping. It’s the only real freedom you get in a world in which your success is contingent on how well you smile and stand up straight through the shit shower.

TSH: What gets played most on your YouTube binges?

Weeping Icon: Barry White, Bambara, Moon Duo, Kevin Drumm, Eleh, Young Thug. Also, the video for ‘Thunder Thighs’ by Miss Eaves - look it up now!

TSH: What brings about most laughter within the band?

Weeping Icon: Oh, we’re cheeky. We can’t tell you most of them but here are a few: the taxi driver who takes us to shows all the time and falls asleep at every red light. Sometimes we yell at him “hey! ya sleepin?!” and he laughs and keeps driving. Also, the guy who was walking around our practice space in socks that were pulled out several inches beyond his toes organizing piles of papers, and his strange Ikea scarf rack that had cables attached to it with twist ties that ended up in our practice room for several months. We hated it. Who uses twist ties for instrument cables?? Arrrgghhhh! Oh, and playing garbage hockey, with pipes and garbage.

TSH: Are certain members of the band passionate about Russell Westbrook?

Weeping Icon: Russell Westbrook is such a pure basketball player. It’s wildly inspiring to see him put everything out there, and for Oklahoma City of all places. He is absolutely one of my favourite players of all time. This question speaks to me, but the other 3 members were very confused. Haha! (SL).

TSH: Also, how much of a legend is Jane Goodall to you?

Weeping Icon: ALL THE LEGEND! She is the personal hero of two members of this band, one of whom is actually a cousin of hers and the other studied anthro and read all her books. SHE IS A MESSIAH!

TSH: Is The Sopranos one of Sarah’s all-time favourite shows? And what do the others like to watch?

Weeping Icon: Is it surprising that the Sarah who is the die-hard Sopranos fan is the Sarah from New Jersey? Just a tad bit shy of being obsessed with the show - have watched the whole series over a dozen times, cried when James Gandolfini died, hated the ending (mostly because it was ending)... Also, can’t tell if you are psychic or making very good guesses about us with these questions - or maybe you stalked our Facebooks??… I don’t knooooow… Other TV shows we also like are (collectively and separately, depending): Game of Thrones, The Handmaid’s Tale, SpongeBob, Rugrats, Rick & Morty, Sherlock, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Twilight Zone, Curb Your Enthusiasm and John Oliver.

TSH: How do you like to stay positive amidst all the beldam in the world?

Weeping Icon: Band, art, shows, comedy, and maybe the only thing you don’t know already, weed. Hehe. (Sunglasses emoji).

TSH: What’s the Weeping Icon ethos as you venture ahead?

Weeping Icon: WE ARE 4 BLONDE BOYS TRYING TO HAVE A GOOD TIME. PLEASE NO UNSOLICITED DICK PICS, THX. HAVE A GOOD NIGHT. BYE.

Eyeball Under

#Interview #Weeping Icon

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ansyr1 · 5 years

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Central Florida 100: Housing, UCF and mourning New Zealand

Thad Seymour should be the interim president of UCF for a year or more, trustees decided Thursday. (Courtesy of UCF)

Chris Carmody, shareholder, GrayRobinson

Last week: On Thursday, for the second straight year, the Florida Senate passed legislation aimed at protecting vegetable gardens on private property. Wheat a second, that’s illegal? Well, not here in central Florida, but some south Florida cities got all artichoked up about front lawn gardens and outlawed them. Senator Rob Bradley thought it was about thyme to change that. His bill would prevent local govern-mint from restricting gardens, and exempts water control, fertilizer and invasive species ordinances. The bill still has a long road to hoe in the House, but perhaps this year the seeds will sprout. After all, it ain’t over lentil it’s over.

Last week: Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to two different organizations, a local LGBT group and the Trump Club of Seminole County. Clearly, these organizations have little in common. However, my presentation at both focused on recent successes and challenges regarding infrastructure, environment and public safety. Ironically, both had similar questions and concerns. It reminded me that perception is not always reality. People are people and at their core, everyone has the same desire for a quality life, safety in their homes and freedom to pursue happiness. If we concentrated on our shared goals, instead of our differences, achieving them would be infinitely easier.

Last week: So here is a great question…why would you leave your pet tied up or abandon them during a natural or manmade disaster? You don’t! If this is the kind of person you are, then you don’t deserve the privilege of having a fur baby as a friend. A bill, which was filed on March 1, would make it a criminal act to leave pets chained up during such events, specifically by making it a first-degree misdemeanor. Under the bill, those who leave their pets unattended or restrained during a disaster would face up to a year in jail or a fine up to $5,000. Perhaps this light sentence will make a person think next time they abandon man’s/woman’s best friend. Probably not.

Last week: In the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack in New Zealand, it was heartwarming to see so many Orlandoans rallying together to support our brothers and sisters on the other side of the world. For those who lived here at the time of the terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub, we know first-hand how important these rallies are in the aftermath to a community simultaneously grieving and healing. While we’re thousands of miles removed from each other, every modicum of support that we demonstrate towards the Muslim community of Christchurch is an affront to the terrorists and serves as a small step forward in the healing process. As those in Christchurch stood with Orlando in 2016, we stand with you now.

Francisco Gonzalez, philanthropy director, National Review Institute

Last week: Congratulations to Andrew Gillum for finding a job! Florida voters rejected him in November, but he still had $3.9 million cash on hand from that campaign and he’s found a way to use it: on a voter registration drive. Andrew seems to be really good at getting out the vote — and finding a way to pay himself for this new job.

Looking ahead: It’s amazing how far to the Left – and how far outside the Constitution – many in the Democratic Party have gone recently. There was a day when the biggest fight between Left and Right was about the size and role of government. Now, it’s about the foundation of the Republic itself. Top candidates for the Democratic ticket want to get rid of the Electoral College and have suggested reinventing the Supreme Court, while also consistently attacking the Bill of Rights. This is scary stuff. For the future of our country and the world, let’s work to keep it fantasy.

Eric Jackson, president/CEO, Total Roof Services Corp.; board member, Children’s Home Society of Florida

Looking ahead: The recent passage of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act sends a clear message: Children belong with their families. I’m encouraged to see the federal government’s commitment to invest in front-end services like parenting education, substance abuse treatment and counseling so more children can remain safely at home. This is a direction Children’s Home Society of Florida has been moving toward for years as it strives to end the need for foster care as we know it by keeping more families safe, strong and together. As Florida prepares to implement this legislation, I look forward to seeing the collaboration among the state and community-based care lead agencies.

Last week: In November, Floridians adopted Amendment 4 by a nearly two-thirds majority, restoring voting rights to convicted felons who had served their time and completed all other requirements. Now the Legislature is considering a bill that can potentially delay or take away those newly-reinstated rights — especially for lower-income people. Voter enfranchisement is supposed to level the playing field.

Looking ahead: Warren Buffett is offering a million dollars a year for life to anyone (or, at least, any of his employees) who picks a perfect Sweet 16 bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament. I took a look at the schedule, and I’m confident I’ve got a winner. I’m picking "TBA" for all sixteen. Now all I need is a job at Berkshire Hathaway.

Ken LaRoe, founder and CEO of First GREEN Bancorp

Last week: Thanks to Gov. DeSantis and Agriculture Commissioner Fried, the will of the people was finally met with the smokable marijuana bill. What this really means is that the whole flower — with its unique set of medicinal properties — can now be purchased and used in its many different methods of administration. What we need next is recreational. I’ve heard repeatedly the horrors of recreational. That is absolutely untrue as cannabis is not a gateway drug, is not addictive and cannot cause overdose. Let’s move the discussion out of the dark ages.

Looking ahead: I live in rural Lake County where I grew up. It used to be peaceful and quiet. Since all gun laws were made illegal by our NRA-pandering Republican legislature, every gun nut has set up a DIY gun range in their backyard. It’s basically like Aleppo all day long with semi-automatic and fully automatic gun fire going off. That is bad enough but now a number of the inconsiderates have starting shooting at night! Our sleep was rudely interrupted the other night at 11 p.m. by gunfire that lasted 15 minutes. When is the gun insanity going to stop?

Last week: The Altamonte Springs autonomous shuttle project has been in the works for over 20 years. Officials could not foresee autonomous vehicles back then, but they certainly could foresee a need for an S.R. 436 parallel corridor for transit. Businesses along the corridor have been giving the City easement and right-of-way access ever since, at no cost to taxpayers. What could cost Florida taxpayers is House Bill 4043 – a $2 million gift to the city to kick start a project between an unnamed private venture and the city. Privately run public shuttles could succeed. However, taxpayers subsidizing private entities are often on the hook for more.

Looking ahead: Police lurking in the shadows to catch speeders is neither safe, nor is it effective in reducing speeding. It’s also a sleazy way to enforce the speed limit. We need our police to be out in the open and visible to drivers. Assuming the police are there in the interest of public safety, what’s better, a cop behind a bush or a police vehicle in the open to remind all drivers to drive safely? Seminole County Sheriff’s vehicles are a good example of where you will almost always see the patrol car out in the open for everyone to see.

Last week: As Orlandoans, we mourn for the victims of the white nationalist inspired anti-Muslim terrorist massacres at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch, New Zealand, which killed 50 people. The cowardly terrorist mass shootings, which were live-streamed, horridly remind us of the deadly Pulse nightclub attack on June 12, 2016. The victims included New Zealanders of all racial backgrounds as well as nationals of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And, while I can’t blame New Zealand for seeking to ban assault weapons after the massacre, I wonder what it will do to combat the root cause of the tragedy, violent white extremist ideology.

Looking ahead: The Mueller Report will soon be complete and will undoubtedly spawn a cannibalistic frenzy among politicians and pundits. Will it be released to the public? Let’s hope so, otherwise media outlets will be consumed in a bottomless sinkhole of Trumpian conspiracy theory and sensationalism for the next two years. Personally, I’d like to watch real news. Is there a smoking gun that will overwhelmingly demonstrate that President Donald Trump is a Manchurian Candidate for the Russians? Probably not. Did Trump fail to disclose business dealings with Russia opening the door for compromise? Probably so. So where does that leave us?

Last week: As our country becomes more divided, we must not forget one of the most critical lessons we teach our young children – the lesson of compassion and kindness regardless of differences. We are now being reminded of this valuable message by a local kindergarten class in Merritt Island in Brevard County. The class designed a symbol for kindness and hope for it to gain worldwide recognition. If enough people sign their online petition, it will be sent to the leaders of Congress, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi. Lately, it seems we could all benefit from this little reminder, so let’s hope the class achieves its goal!

Looking ahead: We are overlooking a group that was strongly affected by our country’s college-admissions scandal. The disastrous impact this systemwide abuse has had on students with learning disabilities is severe. They are already stigmatized and many students with learning differences report experiencing various forms of discriminationby peers and even teachers and staff. Many falsely believe that students with learning challenges get an unfair advantage. Sadly, the only unfair advantage here is the ridiculous sums of money parents are willing to pay college preparatory businesses so their children — whom they apparently believe can only be successful in college through dishonest and unethical scams — can attend an Ivy League school.

Last week: There was a modern-day David vs. Goliath showdown that took place in the Fifth District Court of Appeal. Rural East Orange County residents squared off again against an incestuous giant of developers, lobbyists, lawyers and even their own county government paid for by their own tax dollars. Broken promises, conflicted representation and the powerful trying to crush the little guy describes the fight of these residents to prevent incompatible development east of the urban service boundary in a part of Orange County already neglected for far too long. May the giant fall again this time because the cause is right.

Last week: The opening of EarthFare at the corner of Gore and Orange Avenue on Wednesday morning was a sight to behold. Hundreds of people lined up to enter the long-anticipated urban market with a chance to win big money gift cards. The crowd included enthusiastic health food shoppers, hopeful social media “influencers” live streaming their experience as well as people who just love the freebies from a grand opening. Patrons of EarthFare can count on an easy-to-access parking garage from Gore or Orange Avenue and plenty of seating to enjoy made-fresh breakfast, lunch or dinner options.

Last week: A program exists that provides tax incentives, including temporary deferrals on capital gains taxes when those gains are reinvest into qualified opportunity funds, called Opportunity Zones. The objective is to invest those funds into low-income communities. Often these programs end up benefiting the investor and work against low-income families. These programs should be carefully monitored to make sure they’re benefiting the community and not only the investor. This could easily spin into a situation where government revenue is lost and expenditure goes up for section 8 housing subsidies to accommodate the newly created group of homeless. It takes concerned citizens to hold government accountable and hopefully these communities can invest the time to do so.

Last week: It took the New Zealand government less than a week to pass a ban on semiautomatic assault rifles after last week’s horrific terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. In contrast, the Florida Legislature has refused to act on demands from a majority of Floridians to pass similar legislation nearly 3 years after the mass shooting involving AR-15s at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, and over a year after the mass shooting at the high school in Parkland. A state ban on all semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines is not a 2nd Amendment issue; it’s a public safety issue.

Last week: Last week’s news about an innovative economic project in Lake County is exciting! In what looks to be the start of bigger things to come, U.S. and British grocers are partnering to bring tech and jobs to a new warehouse in Groveland by 2021. Described as an “advanced robotics customer fulfillment center,” the tech comes from England, and allows for the creation of about 400 “higher wage” jobs that blend robotic efficiencies with human intuition and interaction. The best economic development initiatives create or compliment jobs, not replace them, so this project looks to be a win/win for Central Florida.

Looking ahead: Junior Achievement of Central Florida and Chepenik Financial are partnering for the fifth year to hold the original 4.01K Race for Financial Fitness in Orlando Cultural Park on Saturday, March 30 at 8 a.m. The annual walk/run event brings people and families together for healthy fun as well as to showcase the importance of financial planning. Proceeds benefit Junior Achievement, which supports 50,000 students across Orange, Osceola, Seminole, and Volusia counties each year through programs like work-readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills, in addition to experiential learning. Come on out to run, learn and/or volunteer!

Last week: Orlando has a strong jazz community. Much of that strength is thanks to Jeff Rupert. Rupert runs the jazz department at UCF and works tirelessly to cultivate a strong jazz community throughout Central Florida. He hosts a monthly show at the Bamboo Center for the Arts, which is always a strong musical experience. Last week, he facilitated the UCF Orlando Jazz Festival. Each year, the festival hosts some of the best jazz musicians from around the world. The festival has passed, but it’s not too late to experience Orlando’s jazz scene. Check out the Timucua House Blue Bamboo for regular jazz programming.

Looking ahead: Mark Baratelli is known for his innovative and interesting cultural events. For years, he has curated and run the Daily City Food Truck Bazaar. Now he has devoted time and energy to building “Orlando Flea.” This market features the best makers and craftspeople from around Central Florida. It’s well worth attending. And the next Bazaar is Sunday, March 31 at Celine Orlando. The multi-level venue is in Downtown Orlando and easily accessible from the nearby parking at The Plaza at Pine and Orange. It runs from noon to 4 p.m. Don’t miss it!

Brendan O’Connor, editor in chief, Bungalower.com

Last week: Bikes are taking over Orlando and I’m not mad about it. But I am a little anxious. Bike share systems are here to stay, scooters are on the horizon too. The newly opened Colonial Pedestrian Bridge just opened up over the weekend along with a new segment of Gertrude’s Walk and it’s tough not to be swept up in some sort of pedal-powered ecstasy but I’ve managed to maintain a portion of cynicism and worry if Orlando drivers are ready for more cyclists on the road and if those cyclists in turn are aware that while fun, they should still pay attention.

Looking ahead: A number of lawsuits that preceded an internal "civil rights audit" by Facebook has resulted in a $5 million settlement to groups that include ACLU, CWA, and NFHA. The lawsuits claimed that Facebook was enabling discrimination in housing, employment, and credit advertising by allowing users to hyper-target their advertisements based on characteristics like race, gender, and age. As a result over 5,000 categories that include targeting ethnicity and religion will be removed from the platform.

Beverly Paulk, founding member, Central Florida Foundation and The Orlando Philharmonic

Last week: Thad Seymour is well qualified to lead the University of Central Florida as interim president for as long as needed. His leadership style is based on a calm, thoughtful, collaborative approach. He has long demonstrated his commitment to service in our community. Thad has led the team for UCF’s new downtown campus, reported so far to be on time and on budget. Thad and Katie, his wife, have provided key leadership to dozens of nonprofits and important community projects as individuals and as a couple. Central Florida is fortunate to include Thad and Katie as they continue to serve.

Last week: GOAA’s legal assault on Orlando Melbourne International Airport and Orlando Sanford International Airport for trademark infringement is rather perplexing since trademark infringement requires “likelihood of confusion to the public." Both cities conspicuously identify their names and any traveler can clearly locate Melbourne or Sanford on Google Maps. Nothing confusing about that! A traveler flying to Midway in Chicago or Love Field in Dallas knows they are not the primary airports for those particular cities, but selects them based on travel needs anyway. Not only is GOAA’s action legally misguided, but it flies in the face of the regionalism Central Florida has fostered for over 20 years.

Looking ahead: The acquisition of Fox’s entertainment assets by Disney adds super fuel to a jet powerhouse capable of explosively metabolizing and leveraging content simultaneously through movies, television, theme parks, merchandise, and so much more. Disney’s prior acquisitions of Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar paid off handsomely for investors over the past five years. Its current acquisition of Fox, albeit on the high side for $71 billion, is likely to do the same. While Wall Street continues to undervalue Disney with a forward P/E Ratio of 14.96, investors with a long-term view would be best served to consider Disney’s $163.2 billion market cap a bargain.

Last week: Florida is in an affordable housing crisis of its own making. For years lawmakers balanced budgets at the expense of low income people by stealing nearly $2 billion from the Sadowski Affordable Housing Trust Fund. They can do the right thing now by passing a renter’s bill of rights and paying back every dime they stole. A report from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition exposes the consequences of Florida’s misdeeds. The state, and especially Central Florida, are the least affordable places in the country for cost-burdened renters. A bill of rights would protect renters from predatory landlords and unlawful evictions. More should be done. But this is a first step to right a terrible wrong.

Ed Schons, president, Florida High Tech Corridor Council

Last week: For those who worry about technology eliminating jobs, news that supermarket giant Kroger will partner with British online grocer Ocado to build a 350,000-square-foot warehouse north of Groveland suggests otherwise. Kroger and Ocado said the “advanced robotics” customer fulfillment center will employ about 400 people in “high-paying” jobs when it opens in 2021 to ship Kroger grocery items in Central Florida. Twenty such facilities are planned nationwide.

Rick Singh, property appraiser, Orange County

Last week: The new bridge across Colonial Drive for bikers and pedestrians opened this week just east of I-4. As downtown Orlando continues to morph into an urban center, the focus on safe transportation without the introduction of more cars will be critical to attract residents and workers. The diagonally-placed bridge also crosses train tracks and will allow bikers and pedestrians safe access to the Lynx and SunRail stations, while avoiding about 40,000 cars per day. In addition, the central location facilitates bike travel to local parks and neighborhoods through the use of existing bike lanes. This is a welcome amenity to downtown living.

Looking ahead: Dead last. That’s where the Orlando Metro area ranks for housing affordability in the entire country. According to the newest Affordable Housing Gap Analysis by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the area offers only 13 affordable and available rentals for every 100 families who need them. Our region will lose its attraction for business and industry if the labor market cannot afford to house itself. Affordable housing is Central Florida’s highest priority, and should be at the center of every conversation about growth and development.

Michael Slaymaker, professional fundraising executive

Last week: As I scroll through photos of the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, I can’t help but see the eerie comparison to the Pulse shooting in Orlando. The candles, flowers, the number of lives taken. People from all walks of life crying, praying and hugging. I so respect Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the way she is handling this atrocity. She reminds me how proud I am of Mayor Jacobs, Mayor Dyer and Commissioner Sheehan. In New Zealand, semi-automatic, "assault-style" weapons are due to be banned. Gun reforms will be announced within 10 days. Wish our local politicians had that power.

Anthony Suarez, president, Puerto Rican Bar Association of Florida

Last week: THousands of Venezuelan immigrants are in Florida and Central Florida currently. The largest growth group of students in our schools is Venezuelans. it is obvious that the nation is in crisis, but will our nation and Central Florida be accommodating to this humanitarian crisis, or will our law and order neighbors let these legal immigrants who overstay their visas, be treated like criminals? I have been attending meetings, church gatherings and listening to so many horror stories of violence, starvation from this community and I wonder, will the Legislature continue its quest to shut down our communities?

Looking ahead: UCF has made great strides nationally with its football program. Now the basketball program is looking to make its stamp on the nation. Its first appearance in the NCAA men’s tournament in 14 years, followed by the performance in football. will ensure UCF is known around the nation. With all the controversy surrounding the school, this will be welcomed news.

Last week: On the heels of being named the worst region in America for affordable housing, the Florida House thought it would be a good idea to once again take all the money out of the affordable housing fund and spend those dollars elsewhere. Estimated at $352 million, the Sadowski Fund was stripped to $123.6 million for affordable housing. That money will then go to panhandle hurricane relief, meaning the state will spend zero dollars in addressing the most pressing need we have. It makes no sense to continue complaining about the lack of housing and then take the money that was intended to solve that problem.

Last week: The playing field for students attempting to qualify for top-rated colleges and universities just became more uneven with the recent college admissions scandal. And with the continuing erosion of our public school system, the education opportunities for the general student population remains increasingly challenging and often unattainable. More unfortunate perhaps is the lesson we are teaching our students that it is okay to bribe, cheat and lie to gain access to their preferred college or to request false accommodations when taking the SAT and ACT tests in order to gain an advantage over less affluent students. Time to turn those negative lessons into a positive for ALL students.

Looking ahead: Tragically, rates of death by suicide in the U.S. have increased by more than 25 percent in the past 20 years, according to the CDC. AdventHealth is collaborating with the University of Central Florida to address this alarming epidemic. Our goal is to track patients who come into our ER with suicidal thoughts or behaviors, and provide intensive support services after they’re discharged. I’d like to thank UCF’s team for working with us to assess the effectiveness of this approach, as we work to learn how best to support distressed patients and bring them back to health — and most importantly, apply our learnings far and wide.

Jen Vargas, Jen Vargas, producer/host, FilmSlam at Enzian Theater

Last week: The 180+ films of this year’s Florida Film Festival were announced this week. Great news! Todd Thompson, a Florida filmmaker, will debut his feature-length documentary, "Woman in Motion," and on opening night no less! This is big news because, historically, Florida made films are rarely seen during this 10-day event. Being an Oscar qualifying festival in three film categories (Documentary, Animated and Live Action shorts), Florida Film Fest is a very popular Oscar stop among filmmakers. Thompson is a longtime alum and past winner of FilmSlam and no stranger to Florida Film Fest, which begins April 12.

Looking ahead: Studio Movie Grill at Sunset Walk opens to the public on March 28! Located at Margaritaville Resort Orlando, this 12-screen, luxury dine-in theater has over 1,000 leather recliners, a full bar, chef inspired menu, and hand-crafted cocktails, all of which may be delivered right to your seat. Residents of Tampa and Seminole are already familiar with this brand which will be a first for us here in Central Florida and a slick addition to the unique dining, shopping, and resort options at Margaritaville’s outdoor Sunset Walk complex. Welcome to Orlando, Studio Movie Grill!

Carol Wick, principal, Convergent Nonprofit Solutions

Last week: The Kesse family won the right to have a private investigator examine all the files from the Orlando Police department regarding the disappearance of their daughter Jennifer. She has been missing since 2006 but her family has not given up hope that she may one day be found or at least, that they would have closure. While this is controversial on many sides, this long-standing mystery haunts us all here in Central Florida and we hope the Kesse’s can at least find some answers to what happened to their daughter all those years ago.

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learningrendezvous · 5 years

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Economic Sociology

SYSTEM ERROR

By Florian Opitz

Politicians, economists and the media are obsessed with economic growth. But why do we still cling to this concept? Clearly it is impossible to have infinite growth on a finite planet.

This investigative documentary seeks to educate audiences about the term "growth", particularly in the world of economics. It seems today's society and financial markets are dictated by an ever-present need to grow. This film uncovers what this means and how it has developed through history. It looks at how and why it stopped during the Great Depression and the growing importance it took on in the '70s and '80s. We also see how growth looks in various industries, such as in the world of agriculture, manufacturing and on Wall Street. Capitalism is explored, as well as the ways in which financial markets determine - perhaps more than governments - the functioning of societies and countries. Finally, SYSTEM ERROR looks at the economic crash of 2008, its origins and its effects on the way we view growth. Is there a limit to this growth, especially now that technology is developing?

In SYSTEM ERROR award-winning director Florian Opitz ("Speed, In Search of Lost Time" and "The Big Sellout") examines the fundamentals of capitalism. He reveals unexpected correlations and lays bare the pathological nature of the current system. He also examines the continuing impact of Karl Marx as an analyst of capitalism.

Filmed in Brazil, China, Germany, the U.K and the U.S.A, System Error gives a fresh perspective on the capitalist system and where it is leading us.

DVD (English, German, Portuguese, With English Subtitles, Color) / 2017 / 96 minutes

TIME THIEVES

By Cosima Dannoritzer

Forget water, oil and rare minerals - there is a new resource everyone wants: our time. TIME THIEVES reveals how companies monetize our time without our knowledge and how the social networks have, in their own words, become 'the new clockmakers'.

TIME THIEVES is an eye-opening investigation into how our time became a currency; why 'time poverty' is on the rise and how the more we try to save time, the less we have. Who hasn't come across the situation where an airline has us printing our own boarding passes and checking in our own luggage, saving the company a fortune in working hours? Who hasn't spent hours assembling a piece of furniture, or struggled with an automatic cashier? Haven't we all asked ourselves who should be paying whom for doing all the work? Award-winning director Cosima Dannoritzer blends remarkable archival footage and heart-breaking stories with testimonies from leading experts in a documentary that was filmed on location in Japan, USA, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany.

TIME THIEVES investigates how time has become money, how the clock has taken over both our working and personal lives, and how we can take back control over this precious, but finite resource.

DVD (English, French, German, With English Subtitles, Color) / 2018 / 85 minutes

FREE LUNCH SOCIETY

By Christian Tod

What would you do if your income was taken care of?

Just a few years ago, an unconditional basic income was considered a pipe dream. Today, this utopia is more imaginable than ever before - intense discussions are taking place in all political and scientific camps.

FREE LUNCH SOCIETY provides background information about this idea and searches for explanations, possibilities and experiences regarding its implementation.

Globalization, automation, Donald Trump. The middle class is falling apart. One hears talk about the causes, rather than about solutions. Time for a complete rethinking:

An unconditional basic income means money for everyone - as a human right without service in return! Visionary reform project, neoliberal axe to the roots of the social state or socially romantic left-wing utopia? Depending on the type and scope, a basic income demonstrates very different ideological visions. Which side of the coin one sees depends on one's own idea of humankind: inactivity as sweet poison that seduces people into laziness, or freedom from material pressures as a chance for oneself and for the community. Do we actually need the whip of existential fear to avoid a lazy, depraved life in front of the TV set? Or does gainful employment give our lives meaning and social footing simply because we haven't known anything else for centuries? And because we've never all had the freedom to self-actualise in other ways?

That basic income is a powerful idea is indisputable: land, water and air are gifts of nature. They are different from private property that humans create by their individual effort. However, when we receive wealth from nature, from the commons, then that wealth belongs to all of us equally.

From Alaska's oil fields to the Canadian prairie, from Washington's think tanks to the Namibian steppes, the film takes us on a grand journey and shows us what the driverless car has to do with the ideas of a German billionaire and a Swiss referendum. FREE LUNCH SOCIETY, the first international film in cinemas about basic income, is dedicated to one of the most crucial questions of our times.

DVD (English, German, Color, Closed Captioned, With English Subtitles) / 2017 / 92 minutes

BITTER MONEY

By Wang Bing

BITTER MONEY documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou, one of the busiest cities of eastern China (with the highest number of part-time workers), to labor in its textile factories. But what they find are few opportunities and poor living conditions that push people, even couples, into violent and oppressive relations. The camera follows Xiao Min, Ling Ling, and Lao Yeh closely, capturing the emotions of their daily hard work and disappointments upon receiving their wages. The film deals directly with the effects of 21st-century capitalism, as filmmaker Wang Bing acts as witness to the lives of people forced to adapt to a new economic landscape.

DVD (Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2016 / 152 minutes

COMPANY TOWN: THE DARK SIDE OF THE SHARING ECONOMY

Directed by Deborah Kaufman, Alan Snitow

A grassroots movement challenges Citizens United, corporate power, and moguls of the "sharing economy" to stop gentrification and wrest back control of San Francisco's future.

The once free-spirited city of San Francisco is now a "Company Town," a playground for tech moguls of the "sharing economy." Airbnb is the biggest hotel, Uber privatizes transit. And now these companies want political power as well.

Meanwhile, middle class and ethnic communities are driven out by gentrification, skyrocketing rents and evictions, sparking a grassroots backlash. Can an insurgent electoral campaign overcome corporate power and billionaires' megabucks to change a city's course?

COMPANY TOWN shows how a grassroots coalition of unions, tenants, neighborhoods of color, activists and artists can come together to win.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 77 minutes

FOOD FOR CHANGE: THE STORY OF COOPERATION IN AMERICA

Directed by Steve Alves

The deep history of cooperatives in America -- the country's longest-surviving alternative economic system.

FOOD FOR CHANGE looks at the current resurgence of food cooperatives in America and their unique historic place in the economic and political landscape. Born in the heartland, cooperatives are seen as the middle path between Wall Street and Socialism.

The film profiles several food co-ops that have revived neighborhoods and communities - right in the shadows of corporate agribusinesses and supermarket chains. It's an inspiring example of community-centered economies thriving in an age of globalization.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 82 minutes

SINGULAR STORY OF UNLUCKY JUAN, THE

By Ricardo Figueredo Oliva

Seven pounds of rice, five pounds sugar, four ounces coffee, half a pound cooking oil, five eggs, 10 ounces beans, a small bread roll and a pound a half of meat - that's the monthly allotment for Cubans under the country's rationing system.

An independent film financed through crowd-funding and without the financial support of traditional Cuban film institutions, THE SINGULAR STORY OF UNLUCKY JUAN is a comprehensive, accessible examination of the particularities of the Cuban economy. Using a fictional worker called Juan as an example, the film shows how the economy affects the daily lives of ordinary citizens - and how badly it squeezes those who don't have access to hard currency.

Cuba has two currencies: the Cuban Peso and the CUC - a far more valuable currency pegged to international exchange rates. Tourists pay in CUCs and shop at CUC stores, which stock higher quality goods at a huge premium.

Divided into chapters covering rations, the marketplace, CUC stores, private business, corruption, economic migration, and future Cuba, the documentary walks us through how each of these affects Juan and those like him. The film interviews a cross-section of Cuban workers and an economist who favours a more free-market approach, and offers sometimes hypnotic shots evoking economic activity: butchers cutting meat, fruit vendors at markets, shops lined with luxury goods inaccessible to most.

Juan starts the month with 250 Cuban pesos. But once he's paid for his food rations, extra food to meet his needs for the month, transit, utilities, and the new energy-efficient fridge he was obliged to buy (and use 20% of his monthly salary to pay off over a 10-year term), there is little left. No wonder so many Cubans rely on living with relatives, overseas remittances, or getting involved in corruption and the black market.

As bad as things are, Cubans worry about what the future will look like once relations with the United States eventually become normalized. Speaking about the US, they worry the Americans "will swallow us whole" and use words like "crushed" and "assimilated" to describe what may lie ahead. The door has already been slightly opened - with a new foreign economic development zone and relaxed rules allowing some Cubans to own private businesses. But these are no panacea either. Small-business owners report frequent harassment, ticketing for endless infractions, and bureaucratic roadblocks. "I don't own this business," says a tired-looking woman, "I am its slave."

DVD (Spanish, With English Subtitles, Color) / 2016 / 52 minutes

WECONOMICS: ITALY

Directed by Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin

Weconomics: Italy reports on the extensive and innovative cooperative economy in the region around Bologna.

The Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy has one of the highest concentrations of cooperative businesses in the developed world. The capital, Bologna is an industrial powerhouse, where prosperity is widely shared, and cooperatives of teachers and social workers play a key role in the provision of government services.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 19 minutes

CHICAGO BOYS

By Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano

After the 1973 coup which brought Augusto Pinochet to power, a group of Chilean economists were given the power to turn Chile into a laboratory for the world's most radical neo-liberal experiments.

These men, including Sergio de Castro and Rolf Luders, both of whom would serve as ministers of finance during the Pinochet years, met in the 1950s at the University of Chicago, where they studied under the famed economist Milton Friedman, and the man who would become their mentor, Arnold Harberger.

CHICAGO BOYS is their story from their student days through the dictatorship, told by the Chicago Boys themselves. Could their program for 'economic freedom,' such a drastic restructuring of the Chilean economy, only have been implemented by an authoritarian regime? What were they willing to do to achieve their goals? And how do they see the long-term results today?

Even though they do eventually acknowledge some of the darker sides of their work, Luders "couldn't care less about inequality," de Castro feels bad for the torturers, and they all seem completely baffled by those Chileans who have filled the streets, for five years now, in protest against their legacy.

DVD (Color) / 2015 / 85 minutes

CAPITALISM

Capitalism has been the engine of unprecedented economic growth and social transformation. With the fall of the communist states and the triumph of "neo- liberalism," capitalism is by far the world's dominant ideology. But how much do we understand about how it originated, and what makes it work?

CAPITALISM is an ambitious and accessible six-part documentary series that looks at both the history of ideas and the social forces that have shaped the capitalist world.

Blending interviews with some of the world's great historians, economists, anthropologists, and social critics, with on-the-ground footage shot in twenty-two countries, CAPITALISM questions the myth of the unfettered free market, explores the nature of debt and commodities, and retraces some of the great economic debates of the last 200 years.

Each fifty-two minute episode is designed to stand alone, making these ideal for classroom use or as an additional resource for students:

Episode 1: Adam Smith, The Birth of the Free Market Capitalism is much more complex than the vision Adam Smith laid out in The Wealth of Nations. Indeed, it predates Smith by centuries and took root in the practices of colonialism and the slave trade.

Episode 2: The Wealth of Nations: A New Gospel? Adam Smith was both economist and moral philosopher. But his work on morality is largely forgotten, leading to tragic distortions that have shaped our global economic system.

Episode 3: Ricardo and Malthus: Did You Say Freedom? The roots of today's global trade agreements lie in the work of stockbroker David Ricardo and demographer Thomas Malthus. Together, they would restructure society in the image of the market.

Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right? Have we gotten Marx wrong by focusing on the Communist Manifesto instead of on his critique of how capitalism works - a critique that is relevant and as penetrating as ever?

Episode 5: Keynes vs Hayek: A Fake Debate? The ideological divide between the philosophies of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek has dominated economics for nearly a century. Is it time for the pendulum to swing back to Keynes? Or do we need a whole new approach that goes beyond this dualism?

Episode 6: Karl Polanyi, The Human Factor An exploration of the life and work of Karl Polanyi, who sought to reintegrate society and economy. Could the commodification of labour and money ultimately be as disastrous as floods, drought and earthquakes?

CAPITALISM is an impressive series that makes economics accessible through an interdisciplinary approach that explores the work of great thinkers, while embedding economics in specific social, political, and historical contexts. The series can be watched as a whole, but each episode also stands alone.

The series features some of the world's top economists, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists, including Thomas Piketty, Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Nicholas Phillipson, Kari Polanyi Levitt, David Graeber, and Abraham Rotstein.

3 DVDs (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2014 / 320 minutes

DETROPIA

Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

A vivid portrait of Detroit, America's first major post-industrial city, as it struggles to deal with the consequences of a broken economic system.

Detroit's story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century...the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. Their grit and pluck embody the spirit of the Motor City as it struggles to survive postindustrial America and begins to envision a radically different future.

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 86 minutes

SHIFT CHANGE

Directed by Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin

Investigates employee-owned businesses that provide secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces even in today's economic crisis.

Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work tells the little known stories of employee-owned businesses that compete successfully in today's economy while providing secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces.

With the long decline in US manufacturing and today's economic crisis, millions have been thrown out of work, and many are losing their homes. The usual economic solutions are not working, so some citizens and public officials are ready to think outside of the box, to reinvent our failing economy in order to restore long term community stability and a more egalitarian way of life.

There is growing interest in firms that are owned and managed by their workers. Such firms tend to be more profitable and innovative, and more committed to the communities where they are based. Yet the public has little knowledge of their success, and the promise they offer for a better life.

Amongst the organizations featured in SHIFT CHANGE are:

Mondragon Cooperative Corporation - Begun in the 1950s, the Mondragon co-ops have transformed a depressed area of Spain into one of the most productive in Europe with a high standard of living and an egalitarian way of life. They are owned and managed by their workers. Seeing the achievements of the MCC helps to overcome the idea-widespread in North America-that worker run cooperatives can only exist on the economic fringe.

The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, OH - This is an ambitious urban redevelopment model, directly inspired by Mondragon, where local institutions and public officials are supporting green cooperatives of previously marginalized, predominantly African American workers, who provide commercial laundry services, install solar energy systems, and grow vegetables in vast urban greenhouses.

Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives, San Francisco, California - Started 30 years ago, there are now six of these independent worker owned and managed cooperative bakeries that work together to provide the financial and legal services they need, and to incubate new coop bakeries.

Equal Exchange, Boston MA: Founded in 1986, Equal Exchange is one of the largest roasters of fair trade coffee in the world.

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 69 minutes

WHAT'S THE ECONOMY FOR, ANYWAY?

Directed by John de Graaf

Ecological economist Dave Batker questions whether GDP is an adequate measure of society's well-being and suggests workable alternatives.

Fame, ecological economist Dave Batker presents a humorous, edgy, factual, timely and highly-visual monologue about the American economy today, challenging the ways we measure economic success--especially the Gross Domestic Product--and offering an answer to the question: What's the Economy for, Anyway?

Using Gifford Pinchot's idea that the economy's purpose is "the greatest good for the greatest number over the longest run," Batker compares the performance of the U.S. economy with that of other industrial countries in terms of providing a high quality of life, fairness and ecological sustainability, concluding that when you do the numbers, we come out near the bottom in nearly every category.

Batker shines a humorous light on such economic buzzwords as "productivity," and "consumer sovereignty," while offering ideas for "capitalism with a human face," a new economic paradigm that meets the real needs of people and the planet.

DVD / 2009 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 40 minutes

LET'S MAKE MONEY

Directed by Erwin Wagenhofer

Erwin Wagenhofer's incredible odyssey tracking our money through the worldwide finance system.

LET'S MAKE MONEY follows the trail of our money through the worldwide finance system.

What does our retirement savings have to do with the property blow-up in Spain? We don't have to buy a home there in order to be involved. As soon as we open an account, we're part of the worldwide finance market--whether we want to be or not. We customers have no idea where our debtors live and what they do to pay our interest fees. Most of us aren't even interested, because we like to follow the call of the banks to "Let your money work.'' But money can't work. Only people, animals or machines can work.

The film starts at the Ahafo mine in Ghana, West Africa, where vast areas are being blasted open. Gold is extracted from the rock in a tedious process, then smelted and flown directly to Switzerland. The spoils are divided up proportionally: 3% for Africa, 97% for the West. The mine was opened with the assistance of the World Bank.

"I don't think the investor should be responsible for the ethics, the pollution or anything the company in which he has invested produces. That's not his job. His job is to invest and earn money for his clients." - Mark Mobius, president of Templeton Emerging Markets

"In the end it's always the so-called man or woman on the street who's left paying the bills." - Hermann Scheer, winner of the alternative Nobel Prize and a member of German Parliament

DVD / 2008 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 107 minutes

MALLS R US

By Helene Klodawsky

Combining nostalgia, dazzling architecture, pop culture, economics and politics, MALLS R US examines North America's most popular and profitable suburban destination-the enclosed shopping center-and how for consumers they function as a communal, even ceremonial experience and, for retailers, sites where their idealism, passion and greed merge.

The film blends archival footage tracing the history of the shopping mall in America, visits to some of the world's largest and most spectacular malls-in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Poland, France, and Dubai-and interviews with architects, mall developers, sales managers, environmentalists, labor activists and social critics, as well as commentary from mall shoppers themselves.

MALLS R US discusses the psychological appeal of malls to consumers, how architects design their environments to combine consumerism with nature and spectacle, how suburban shopping centers impart social values, how malls are transforming the traditional notions of community, social space and human interaction, and shows nostalgic mall fans who commemorate the closing of older malls on their DeadMalls.com Web site.

Visiting the construction sites of several of the world's largest shopping centers of the future, in Dubai and India, MALLS R US reveals how their gargantuan growth, both in size and geographical expansion, as virtual cities devoted to tourism, leisure and luxury shopping, threaten small shop owners and the environment.

As entertaining as it is informative, MALLS R US offers a trip to the mall like no other, reveling in their architectural splendor as consumerist paradises but also showing how the social dynamism they represent can be a destructive force, one that confuses the good life with the world of goods.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2008 / 78 minutes

OBLIVION

By Heddy Honigmann

The latest documentary from Heddy Honigmann (Forever, Metal and Melancholy, O Amor Natural) focuses on Peru's capital city of Lima, revealing its startling contrasts of wealth and poverty, and how many of its poorest citizens have survived decades of economic crisis, terrorism and government violence, denial of workers' rights, and political corruption.

Demonstrating anew Honigmann's extraordinary talent as one of the most empathetic documentary filmmakers at work today, OBLIVION provides intimate and moving portraits of street musicians, singers, vendors, shoeshine boys, and the gymnasts (some mere children) and jugglers who perform at traffic stops. The film also visits with small business owners, from a leather-goods repairman and a presidential sash manufacturer to a frog-juice vendor, and contrasts the work and home environments of bartenders, waiters and waitresses employed at Lima's finest restaurants and hotels but who live in slums in the city's surrounding hillsides.

The moving interviews and reminiscences of these resilient and resourceful Peruvians are interwoven with scenes of contemporary political protests and archival footage of the rogues' gallery of the nation's presidents-Fernando Belaunde (1980-1985), Alan Garcia (1985-1990), Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000)-whose mismanaged or corrupt regimes have turned the majority of Peru's citizens into perennial victims of economic impoverishment and political abuse.

For most viewers, who are reminded of Peru only by news reports of a major earthquake, a presidential election or the discovery of a decades-old mass grave of army massacre victims, OBLIVION introduces us to the everyday reality of Lima, celebrating a people who, albeit politically powerless, have resisted being consigned to oblivion.

DVD (Color) / 2008 / 93 minutes

http://www.learningemall.com/News/Economic_Sociology_1902.html

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textangel · 6 years

Text

Very scattered notes on the world, technology, where we're going. Written quickly.

What kind of world do I want me / my kids to live in?

Peace, no war [assumes stable world population]

Everyone has a voice which is heard and can make reasonable contribution to their community. ie. distributed governance at local level.

Meaningful work for everyone. Rewards are internalized for work (i.e. ideally no work whose value is inflated primarily due to rent or inefficiencies)

Meaningful communities. Communities may not be 'local' geographically, but it will be possible for everyone to feel 'plugged in'.

All of the above includes the 4 million globally who do not yet have access to the developed words's goods and services. It may not necessarily mean expanding all the developed world's goods and services to them.

I don't necessarily believe with my below formulations. I just want to formulate them first!

On power and externalities in networks

Observations - the world (of people) is a network with two valuations roughly. One can be thought of as 'internal value'/'inherent value' and is endowed by our community. The other is economic value roughly related to Shapley value (how important we are in production). Issues arise when those two values are not synced up. Power somewhat distorts this but power is necessary because of inefficiencies (bounded rationality, limited information, impossibility of syncing groups with different interests via Arrow impossibility etc etc). Most optimal use of power is in maintenance of a system that is roughly incentive-compatible.

Externalities are a big issue in networks. One simple example: We have to think about how social networks create dissatisfaction (like media showing me what all my friends are doing / norms forcing me to compare - gets worse in big cities). These externalities should be trimmed as possible. In the long term, most humans in societies adjust. But probably short-term incentive compatibility is necessary for peace. Markets smooth incentive compatibility, but only among market-exchangeable things. Interesting approaches to these issues: Blockchain expands the space of market-exchangeable things, great. For other things, we need other things to do compatibility. AI tries to do a top-town approach to this, predict your incentives, design compatibility.

On the transition to AI

Humans can't think as a whole yet so we think in terms of national/sub-national/super-national societies. Very important in these changing times for these societies to think about the world they're creating. New technologies create (usually) large benefits but also huge externalities. Old assumptions- especially the market assumption - that societies are a closed system that adjusts on its own to new externalities, and that markets can help can adjust society to any shock in an effective and desirable way - may not hold up. When AI drops into society, will markets take care of the mess and inequality that follows? [I think prob no, because AI is something that is at the same time so desirable - makes everyone who it serves richer basically - but at the same time inaugurates a new system of power and order in the world. Everyone wants the services, the consequences are just accepted as a matter of course. The consequences play out in the long run though, far after everyone has already gotten used to the comfortable benefits that AI brought.]

Our lifetimes are without a doubt to be lived in the 'transition period'. There will be parts of the world that do not see the changes from robots and algorithms 50, maybe even 100 years down the line. Many people in our generation will find it hard to transition to a 'robot-native' way of life. The point is to build societies and intersociety mechanisms to ensure that these people also get a secure place in the world, possibly at the cost of a loss of efficiency still within acceptable bounds.

On the difference between humans and machines

Theres a fear that AI will cause us to lose our sense of humanity. I think there's little to fear in that in the short term.

Much of human activity is the setting of ends/goals and performing them. Much of 'human' thinking is the ability break a big system/goal down modularly, which is why human beings are so successful. The 'big picture' is where something more 'essentially human' (weakly defined) is, the bottom layer "modules" can all be automated. Because of limited bandwidth (constrained rationality) this is usually the only way we operate. As an example of an automatable module - for example, running a financial trading system (have the system statistically learn the logic/intuition that traders use when executing a trade). There is a caveat that the module is replicable - that is, enough people are engaged in it, or it is engaged in enough repetitive times to produce sufficient data to train a model - to be automated. This wave of AI (lasting until ~2035? ~2040?) is about being able to automate all the replicable modules.

Certainly many believe those things I called 'essentially human' are also automatable (strong AI), and many of them will be automated with further discovery. I use the word 'essentially' here not in a metaphysical sense but just meaning not automatable yet. Given these changes in society we need to employing more people to be working on the 'essentially human' aspect. (See [1]) I also mean this: humanity is a network bound to human beings. A robot cannot, unless acting as a delegate, produce human goals/ends. Maybe one day the system will be good enough to produce its own (open-ended) goals, but those will essentially be robotic goals and not human goals. Whether one is more powerful or better than the other is not the issue, the issue is that, standing by itself, they do not constitute "goals" that make sense to humans. AI cannot replace humans in goal-setting yet. Goal setting isn't just about crunching the optimal way to do X. Maybe one day we'll talk about bringing robots into the wider network of "sentient beings" but that day (strong AI) hasn't come yet and is at least tens of years down the line. With so many changes in society so rapidly, it makes sense to plan one step at a time.

An interesting corollary: Human goals are not ‘human goals’. All goals are someone’s goals, some particular human’s goals. Importantly for this discussion, when we design AI for example, many suppose we’re designing for humanity as a whole. But maybe not everyone can benefit from this AI. Maybe you have to be really intelligent or something.

Some ideas about what can be done in the world system:

A view of capital as applied to bots:

The capital-ownership system is not prepared for this change in society. It seems to me that the current system of capital-ownership grew up in an age that was still rather diffuse - i.e. expansion was possible for each person, your actions didn't produce so many negative externalities on the rest of society. Big capital-owners obviously did, and they were periodically cracked down on, however, they were still tolerated as they also led the society's possibility for expansion (they are a society's main arm of expansion to other lands and other societies or other economic frontiers). The theme here is expansion. Everyone's happy as long as they have a chance to expand.

Capital-ownership is basically capital dictatorship. Whoever owns X piece of capital gets monopolistic say (dictatorship) over how it is used. If technology represents the future (shares in future production etc), whoever owns technology owns the future. A controlling stake in future production (and society's future) is way too large a compensation for the development of a new technology on the scale of AI systems. Robots are basically self-reinforcing super returns on capital. Their owners will be our new kings and kingmakers.

A view of data:

Central to these issues are data ownership and right to process data. Tech firms who created these technologies should get adequate economic rewards but should not gain political power. However we have many cases in history where entities have grabbed power by promising benefits to the masses. We need enlightened leadership that stays in touch with the (technological) times, while being not beholden to their creators.

If it's just not possible to do mass-scale AI development without heavy-scale intrusions in privacy, deep and specific rules for acceptable data use should be delimited and enforced.

A society needs to decide on a data security tolerance, a place on the line between absolute privacy and absolute data collection free-for-all. The issue is that this is directly related to a society's competitiveness through mechanisms such as 1) the ease of training neural network models 2) the ease of bringing data services to market, so societies have incentives to keep privacy low.

Possibilities amongst others:

Data as a public resource whose use is taxed.

Data as intrinsic to the private individual so its use is limited without explicit consent.

Data belongs to the data collector

[1] Aoun, Joseph E. Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

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