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chancebird98 · 3 years

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Family Members Arbitration Lawyers.

Making Kid Setups If You Divorce Or Different.

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Address Youngster Arrangements With Focus Mediation

Family Members Regulation Adjudication.

Enjoy Our Arbitration Videos.

Coaching And Support

It can also give a crucial insight into children's wishes as well as sensations when moms and dads remain in arrangement between lawyers or are taking part in the joint law procedure. Adjudication can conserve money in contrast to undergoing the household court process yet it can additionally be a very pricey. There are a variety of prices for using mediation consisting of mediator costs, the price of venue hire and also each event will certainly need to pay their very own lawful prices. Consequently, the preliminary costs for mediation may be more pricey than going to court however it could save cash in the future. The events will generally submit their proposals as well as the arbitrator will establish a timetable for economic disclosure and also for choosing the last outcome.

The moderator will certainly check with the kids specifically what they wish to be fed back to the moms and dads. The conciliator will then have a separate conference with the moms and dads at which the kids's views are reported back to them. In helping parents to get to excellent choices for their kids's plans, we provide an alternative where the youngsters meet individually with a specially experienced conciliator.

Fix Child Setups With Emphasis Mediation

You will certainly require to enter into a contract with your former partner that the mediator will adjudicate the disagreement as well as make a decision on the economic plans at the end of the process. Kids and parents are informed that this can be an opportunity for kids to speak independently with the moderator. Moms and dads will just be told what youngsters wish them to hear to value the private nature of the conference.

What are the 5 steps of mediation?

The Mediation Process and Dispute ResolutionPlanning. Before the mediation process begins, the mediator helps the parties decide where they should meet and who should be present. Mediator's introduction. Opening remarks. Joint discussion. Caucuses. Negotiation.

If the parents take into consideration that their child or kids need to be associated with mediation, Beverley will talk with the process with the moms and dads as well as agree what actions need to be taken. All Family members Mediators have actually had fundamental training to understand and be able to describe to moms and dads the advantages and the relevance of hearing from children over the age of 10years as part of the mediation process. Your only recourse would be to refer the matter back to court for a variation to the order, as a result of the modification in conditions. If you have parental responsibility, your ex need to have requested permission from you to move from the area. One party can not unilaterally decide to scuff or apply extra terms.

Family Legislation Adjudication.

leading mediators Europe inheritance mediators reassures children that their moms and dads value their sights and viewpoints and are taking them into factor to consider when making setups. The sessions permit youngsters to talk openly recognizing that just specifically permitted info will be given to their parents/carers.

The Practical Benefits of Resolving Coverage Disputes through Mediation - Law.com

The Practical Benefits of Resolving Coverage Disputes through Mediation.

Posted: Tue, 17 Nov 2020 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Understand, though, that arbitration does not work for everyone, although it's successful in the substantial bulk of cases. Everything you claim is personal, with the exception of your financial info as well as anything that might come to light regarding the potential of damage to anybody, most particularly your youngsters. Note, too, that you need to at the very least find out about mediation prior to you can get legal aid for any type of court negotiation. We recognize the challenges facing separated or dividing parents and we are right here to assist you to find a way with them together. We provide a confidential and neutral household arbitration solution based in Plymouth and also we offer arbitration across Devon, Cornwall as well as Somerset and Dorset. to see if the arbitration procedure can assist you and also your family members, instead of prolonged and pricey legal action. By mosting likely to a household mediator there is the opportunity that you can lower your expenses and shorten the painful procedure without the need of litigating.

See Our Arbitration Videos.

If they desire to do so, they ought to refer the matter back to the courts. It does not matter that the address was not stated, your ex is not going to depend on court regarding having moved. As in all instances, the court's major concern is the well-being of the kid in question. The court will certainly constantly put your kid's best interests initially and also this primary problem will certainly determine the result of any application for an order. Both events will certainly require to offer honest, authorized details concerning their finances for arbitration to work.

Why Corporate Counsel Should Use Pre-Suit Mediation to Avoid Costly Litigation Daily Business Review - Law.com

Why Corporate Counsel Should Use Pre-Suit Mediation to Avoid Costly Litigation Daily Business Review.

Posted: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Once it seems that a youngster has endured or is most likely to endure substantial injury, a reference to social solutions must be made. The mediator will certainly offer the parent who has made the claims a chance to make the recommendation themselves within that working day or by 10 am the following early morning at the most recent. Mediation is unlikely to continue when guarding issues are under examination.

Coaching And Also Support

At the end of the procedure, the mediator will make a decision on how the monetary properties should be divided. This is not automatically legitimately binding as well as should be made into an approval order and afterwards sent to the court. The order can be disputed by either celebration, however it is most likely that the court would support it unless it decided it was considerably unreasonable to one event. The arbitrator's duty is to consider all the evidence in the case as well as use the legislation to decide on how your finances should be divided. The mediator should be legally certified and also registered to serve as an arbitrator in England as well as Wales.

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In Court procedure the CAFCASS police officer will certainly report back what the children state as well as this may imply the youngsters are reluctant to say anything or provide their true dreams as well as feelings. Adaptability-- In mediation there can be adaptability as to when, where and also on the number of occasions the children talk to the mediator. In the alternative court procedure a CAFCASS police officer will determine when, where and on how many celebrations they will certainly see the youngsters.

When experiencing separation or splitting up, it can be tough to discover ideal plans for your kids. Youngster Inclusive Arbitration can aid parents to collaborate and also take on board their children's sights. The mediator will intend to learn from you much more regarding your kid to help produce a relaxed as well as pleasant environment, this may be your child/ren's likes, hobbies, what they're efficient or take pleasure in etc

How do fathers lose custody?

A father who fails to properly feed, clothe, or groom his child could be at risk of losing custody. Additionally, failure to provide a clean and safe living environment or the basic necessities of life are all considered a form of neglect. If the neglect endangers your child, it's possible to lose custody.

It is a positive to go on with arbitration, however you need to be conscious of the monetary expenses if independently funded. Your mediator can assist you financially intend, to ensure that you can budget plan to manage the solution. Many individuals who go to mediation fix their issues within two or three sessions. All the same, we would certainly suggest that you analyze your finances and also establish what you can as well as can not pay for throughout the procedure. Your moderator, need to you determine to go ahead with mediation, will have the ability to sustain you regarding economic plans and also assist you in devising an effective economic budget plan. It really relies on the variety of concerns that are to be discussed in arbitration, and also exactly how well you and also your ex-partner interact. Nonetheless, usually mediators Europe about us of people manage to fix their issues in two to three sessions.

access mediationeurope mediators Europe why us here! will certainly be provided a confidential session and informed that the mediator does not report every little thing back to the parents unless the youngster accepts this. This enables children to get points off their upper body, ask questions they might not otherwise feel all right concerning asking, as well as generally be reassured that things will improve. The conference with the youngsters is private, and also the moderator will agree with your kids exactly how and also what info will certainly be fed back to you as parents. Sometimes kids more than happy to share with both of their parents what they have gone over and also the conciliator will assist them to make clear the points they want to make. In other cases the conciliator concurs with the children what he/she can state to the moms and dads.

However most mediators, particularly those in the NFM network, strongly concur that the kid. should be included any place possible. If this practice avoids a lot more youngsters tipping into the unsafe world of public legislation and court proceedings it needs to be a good thing. Whilst Family Mediation can take place along with various other solutions, it will certainly be important for the mediator to know even more about the nature of social services participation with your family. The conciliator may request your approval to call your social employee for more information to make sure that they can ensure mediation praises any kind of various other family members work being offered by social solutions.

. A conference will certainly then be set up between the mediator and also the child/ren either face to face or video clip telephone call. The session will certainly discover a selection of strategies and also circumstances such as attracting, talking about how things want to the youngster as well as where they see themselves. The purpose of the arbitration session is to assist youngsters really feel listened to, respected as well as paid attention to and also not to ask the youngster what they want to occur with future arrangements. We have qualified moderators that can see your youngsters as part of the pairs arbitration process or alternatively as a 'one-off' session. Kid Inclusive Mediation provides children of a suitable age the possibility to reveal their sensations and yearn for the future. It additionally assures them that their parents are taking their sights seriously, although it is explained to them that they are not being offered the power to make decisions, simply to state what they think as well as really feel regarding their circumstance.

Dividing moms and dads are confronted with really crucial choices concerning their youngsters. Mediators encourage moms and dads to focus on their children's demands as well as health as well as to co-operate with each various other as parents, in spite of the ending of their pair relationship. In mediation, the youngsters determine what information is passed back to the parents. This provides much higher self-confidence in claiming just how they truly feel and also what they really want.

#mediation service #mediation service UK #mediation service United Kingdom #Best mediation service #best mediator #family mediation service #chile mediation service #divorce mediation service #Best mediation service UK #best mediator UK #family mediation service UK #chile mediation service UK #divorce mediation service UK

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starcunning · 5 years

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Suffer Me to Cherish You: 5 Nov

Not really sure what to say about today’s update. It has some stuff I’ve been looking forward to writing. Tomorrow has more. Also I crossed the 10k word mark today, so that’s exciting.

Previously: Week One Previously: 4 Nov

Chapter Three

The mountains that ringed the Sagolii robbed it of rain, and reaped the meager rewards in a dusting of scrub and ironwood trees. It was not an easy climb, made more perilous by the cactuar population. There was little shade after morning, and X’shasi felt the sweat trickling down her back. Her injury no longer troubled her, and though she had never been soft, she had slowly grown used to the weight of the blade.

That was Fray’s doing, she supposed. He was not a gentle taskmaster, sending her off to drill while he made camp and fed himself. But as comfortable as she had grown with the blade in her hands, adapting to its length and momentum like a pendulum for her aether … in the small hours, when she looked up at the stars and listened to the sound of her heartbeat, she heard nothing but the call of night birds.

“What’s that?” Fray asked, pulling her from her thoughts. “Up ahead.” She looked further along the trail and saw a dark smudge beneath a rocky outcropping. “Seems like a place to rest,” she said. “Do you want to push for that before noon?” “Seems wise,” the dark knight said. Shasi reached up, adjusting her grasp on Anthea’s bridle. She walked at the fore, keeping a lookout for tribal signs. There hadn’t been many during the ascent, but with no real winter to speak of there wasn’t much need to retreat this far down the range. “Are they even still here?” Fray asked. “I don’t know,” Shasi admitted. “It’s not like I write. But this is where they were when I left them as a girl, and this is where they were when I visited fifteen years later, so … the odds are good.” “What if they went back already?” “I’d have heard about that,” Shasi said. “I still have the name—well, the tribe name, at least—so someone would have let me know.” “What were you before you were Kilntreader?” Fray wondered. He still sounded a bit winded. Perhaps it was the thinning of the air, or the full armor on a trail hike too precarious for even the most sure-footed chocobo. “Take a guess,” she laughed, tail swinging playfully behind her. “Why would I know your father’s name?” “It’s Khilo, but I didn’t use it,” she said. “I was X’shasi Silverhair from the moment I came to Ul’dah.” She paused a moment, sweeping a foot over the soil. “Mind the needles,” she said a moment later, and then they were too concerned with the trail to speak.

The outcropping proved to overhang the mouth of a cave, and they retreated into it for shelter from the sun. It was drier than Shasi expected, sandy-bottomed, and the pair paused for a moment to water their chocobos and tend to their feet. A cross-breeze moaned over the throat of the cave, bringing with it the rancid scent of coconut. “Oh no,” Shasi said. “What,” Fray asked. “This is an antling burrow.” “Are you afraid of antlings, now?” Fray wondered. “No,” Shasi protested. “It’ll just spook the birds.” “A bit of homework, then,” Fray said. “Go get your blade and kill me a dozen of the things.” She gave him a flat look, but he only stared back. Then she retrieved her baldric from where she’d strapped it to Anthea’s saddle and settled the sword at her back, advancing into the darkness.

There was no sport in killing antlings. She had faced them often enough as a red mage, and she knew where to strike to drive her blade deepest. All the joints in their chitin. She carved out their crops so they could not spray acid and cut off mandibles. This when she did not kill them with the first thrust. Soon their gore coated her blade and the stench of them was unbearable.

She stalked out of the cave without a word, flicking their guts from the length of her sword and wiping it down before the acid could weaken the steel. Fray appeared at her shoulder a moment later.

“If you think we can commune now, reconsider,” she said. “It didn’t produce that state of mind.” He laughed softly. “What makes you think your resentment unpalatable?” he asked. “You stalk like a lioness in your anger. I’ve been waiting to see that.” His voice was low and whispery, much as it was when they communed, hand-in-hand. “Remember this feeling, Shasi,” he instructed. “Treasure it. Carry it with you. When you think you are ready, come to me and offer it up.” “Fray,” she said, turning about to regard him. She brought a hand to his helmet, fingers curling about the rim, and lifted it a fraction of an inch. “What are you doing?” he demanded to know, the rebuke striking her like a physical blow. “Sorry,” she said, snatching her hand back. “I thought—”

Thought what, exactly? What would she have done after she had taken his helmet off? Kissed him, like as not. The heat in her chest spread to her cheeks instead, and she ducked past him, retreating into the darkness of the cave. For a mercy, he did not follow, leaving X’shasi to ready the birds alone and stew in her shame.

The next hours of the climb passed in tense silence, broken only when X’shasi spotted the chalk indicator that meant camp ahead. “They’re still here,” she informed Fray. “Perhaps we’ll make it by nightfall.” “Why did you leave?” Fray asked after a little while. “I don’t think you care about that,” X’shasi said dismissively. “Besides, I was a child. It wasn’t really my decision.” “Not then,” Fray said. “You told me you came back as an adult. Why did you leave?” “I didn’t really belong here,” X’shasi said. “Since I grew up elsewhere, we had different … values. Let’s put it that way.” “Then why come back at all?” X’shasi shifted her weight in the saddle, looking over at him. The events of the afternoon still laid awkwardly across her shoulders, and for a long moment she considered not answering him. “It was just after the Calamity. With my mother having died, I didn’t know where I belonged. I suppose I thought it could be here.” “Home is a fragile idea,” he said. “I know,” she said, turning her face forward, lifting a hand to point out another chalk mark. “That’s why I couldn’t stay in Ala Mhigo.”

When they came to the camp, it was all at once, coming around the bluff of a mesa to find the settlement cut into the rock. Doorways dotted the stone like pigeonholes, ladders lashed to the rock to move between exterior tiers. No one rode out to meet them, so they picked their way through the scrub as the sun disappeared at their backs, painting the stone in brilliant crimson. As they approached more closely, Shasi could see a few miqo’te emerge onto the terraces, peering down at them, and then a few came out to meet them in the field. X’shasi recognized some of the faces around them from her months there before. One of them—the tribe’s healer, a woman named X’rhinne, was the first to approach.

“It’s you,” she said in surprise. “You were expecting someone else?” X’shasi wondered, tilting her head. “The Immortal Flames, maybe,” X’rhinne told her. “Why,” X’shasi said; “what’s going on?” X’rhinne looked back up at the terraces of stone. “Better if you came inside,” she said.

X’rhinne’s room was redolent with the grassy smell of drying herbs, the dwindling sunlight supplemented with a number of lamps that gave off a golden glow. It had not changed much from X’shasi’s last visits, pleasantly cluttered with journals and the detritus of her trade. “Perhaps it’s a blessing you came when you did,” X’rhinne said. “A few days ago, some of the hunters went to the Well, and on the way back they were ambushed by Amalj’aa.” X’shasi felt her shoulders tense. “How do you know?” she wondered. “A couple of them made it back and were able to tell us what happened. One of the scouts, Kher, went out with them yesterday and is trying to find out where they were taken.” “And then what?” Fray asked. “I don’t rightly know,” X’rhinne admitted, her brow creased with worry above her silvery eyes. “Hasn’t the council said anything?” X’shasi asked. X’rhinne flinched. “They can’t come to quorum,” she admitted. “A few of the council members were in the hunting party, and they haven’t returned. And Khilo ...” “What about Khilo,” X’shasi said curtly. “Maybe he’ll listen to you,” X’rhinne sighed. “He’s trying to make the argument that it’s too dangerous to do anything.” She felt her jaw tighten. “I will speak to my father,” she said.

X’khilo Nunh—for he’d claimed that title again a handful of years prior—was a hard man, his close-cropped hair framing a face peppered with scars. His eyes resembled his daughter’s only in their flinty aspect, cast in a deeper blue than X’shasi’s own. “Shasi,” he greeted her. “Save it,” she said, nettled by the unearned familiarity. “Rhinne told me about the council members. And the other hunters. She said you don’t want to do anything.” “Shasi,” he wheedled, “you know it isn’t up to me. The tribe nunh isn’t allowed that kind of power.” “I know how it’s supposed to work, X’khilo.” “Do you?” he wondered. “Why don’t you sit down and have a drink with me.” “Because I don’t want to,” X’shasi said. “I want to know about this. What have you been saying?” “Only that there’s no sense in throwing good lives after bad,” X’khilo said coolly. “If they’re too weak to save themselves, what does it matter if they die?” X’shasi closed her eyes on her anger, taking a deep breath. She could feel something prickle at the back of her neck, but shook it off, fixing her gaze on the old Nunh. “I was told the Amalj’aa took them.” “So far as I know.” “How many people?” “A dozen or so.” “They should have armed themselves,” Fray said. “That’s exactly what I thought,” X’khilo agreed, flicking a black-tipped ear. “It doesn’t matter what they should have done,” X’shasi protested. “If the Amalj’aa have them, they have them for one purpose only: sacrifice. The Flames have done everything they can to crack down on trade in crystals, and the beast tribes have slowly been losing the trading partners that allowed them to amass the crystals they need in the first place.” “So what?” X’khilo asked. X’shasi made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, halfway to a growl. “So, to Ifrit—to any primal—aether is aether is aether. A man’s soul will sate that need as well as any crystal.” X’khilo blinked at her once. “I’m told that’s your problem.” “Really,” Fray snarled. “You don’t even have the dignity to ask—you just expect that of her? This is ridiculous.” “Fray,” she said, her tone perfectly measured. “Let’s take a walk.” She turned her back on her father, and went out into the night.

“How do you feel about this, Shasi?” Fray asked her, looking out over the mountains. “How do you really feel about it?” “Does it really matter?” she wondered. “Yes,” he insisted. “People have lives, Fray. They’re allowed to have them. That’s why we do this.” “If that’s really what you want.” “I shouldn’t presume to speak for you,” X’shasi said a moment later. “I do this so that other people can live their lives. Isn’t that the call of the dark knight, to defend the weak?” He sighed. “Yes,” he said. “In the end, that’s true. But there’s a difference between saving one person and saving everyone. You’re going to have to learn that sooner or later, or it’s going to kill you.” “Maybe,” X’shasi said. “But I don’t think so. Something else will probably do it before that gets the chance.”

#smtcy #x'shasi #fray myste #DRK job quest spoilers #original content #starcunning writes #ff14 #nanowrimo #x'khilo nunh #english fray is probably most prominent here lmao

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magzoso-tech · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/more-than-150000-u-s-small-business-websites-could-be-infected-with-malware-at-any-given-moment-heres-how-to-protect-yours/

More Than 150,000 U.S. Small-Business Websites Could Be Infected With Malware at Any Given Moment. Here's How to Protect Yours.

Small-business victims were involved in 43 percent of data breaches over the course of a year, according to a recent report.

December 27, 2019 9 min read

It was March 2, 2016, and Melissa Marchand’s day on Cape Cod started out like any other. She drove to her job at Hyannis Whale Watcher Cruises in her mid-size sedan, picked up a latte with 1 percent milk at her local coffee shop and sat down at her desk to check her email. Then, Marchand got the call no website manager ever wants to receive: The site was down, and no one knew how to fix it.

After she dialed up the web hosting provider, the news went from bad to worse: Whales.net had been hacked and, to her horror, all visitors were being redirected to porn sites. Google had even flagged the company’s search results, warning potential customers that the site may be hacked.

“It was a total nightmare — I had no idea that something like this could happen,” Marchand said in an interview with Entrepreneur. “I’d say 75 to 80 percent of our bookings are done online, so when our site is down, we’re just dead in the water.”

At the provider’s suggestion, Marchand called SiteLock, a website security company, and granted its representatives site access. SiteLock discovered the hackers had exploited a security hole in a WordPress plugin, which gave them the access they needed to redirect visitors to racy websites.

By the end of the work day, Marchand sat in her car in her gym’s parking lot, speaking on the phone with a SiteLock representative to review the plan of action. She finally felt like things were going to be OK.

Within three days, Whales.net was back up and running, though it took another three weeks for Google to remove the blacklist warning from the company’s search results.

The hack hit about a month before the whale-watching season began in mid-April, and though it wasn’t peak season, the company still missed out on pre-booking tour groups from schools and camps. Marchand estimated the attack lost the company about 10 percent of its March and April business.

A risk for small businesses everywhere

Small-business owners were victims in 43 percent of data breaches tracked between Nov. 1, 2017, and Oct. 31, 2018, according to a 2019 Verizon report. The report tracked security incidents across all industries, but the most vulnerable sectors this year were retail, accommodation and healthcare.

What does the issue look like on a national scale? If we take the sample size of infected sites SiteLock said they found in 2018 — approximately 47,244 out of 6,056,969 checked — and apply that percentage to the country’s estimated 30.2 million small-businesses websites, minus the estimated 36 percent that don’t have one, then we can loosely estimate the amount of infected small-business websites to be around 150,757.

As a small-business owner, you may not believe anyone would target your website, but that’s just it — bad actors are likely not seeking out your site specifically, said Mark Risher, head of account security at Google.

“Sometimes, we talk about the distinction between targets of choice and targets of chance,” Risher said. “Targets of chance is when the attacker is just trying anything — they’re walking through the parking lot seeing if any of the car doors unlocked. Target of choice is when they’ve zeroed in on that one shiny, flashy car, and that’s the one they want to break into — and they’ll try the windows, the doors … the moon roof. I think for small businesses, there’s this temptation to assume, ‘No one would ever choose me; therefore I’ll just kind of skate by anonymously.’ But the problem is they’re not factoring in the degree of automation that attackers are using.”

Even the least-trafficked websites still average 62 attacks per day, according to SiteLock research. “These cybercriminals are really running businesses now,” said Neill Feather, president of the company. “With the increasing ease of automation of attacks, it’s just as lucrative to compromise a 1,000 small websites as it is to invest your time and try to compromise one large one.”

John Loveland, a cybersecurity head at Verizon and one of the data breach report’s authors, said that since the report was first published 12 years ago, he’s seen a definite uptick in attacks at small and medium-sized businesses. As malware, phishing and other attacks have become “more commoditized and more readily accessible to lesser-skilled hackers,” he said, “you see the aperture open … for types of targets that could be valuable.”

So what are the hackers getting out of the deal? It’s not just about potentially lucrative customer information and transaction histories. There’s also the opportunity to weaponize your website’s reputation. By hosting malware on a formerly trustworthy website, a hacker can increase an attack’s spread — and amplify the consequences — by boosting the malware’s search engine optimization (SEO). They can infect site visitors who search for the site organically or who access it via links from newsletters, articles or other businesses, Risher said.

Even if you outsource aspects of your business — say, time and expense reporting, human resources, customer data storage or financial transactions — there’s still no guarantee that that information is safe when your own website is compromised. Loveland said he saw an uptick in email phishing specifically designed to capture user credentials for web-based email accounts, online CRM tools and other platforms — and reports of credential compromise have increased 280 percent since 2016, according to an annual survey from software company Proofpoint.

How to protect yourself and your customers

How can small-business owners protect themselves — and their customers? Since a great deal of cyberattacks can be attributed to automation, putting basic protections in place against phishing, malware and more can help your site stay off the path of least resistance.

Here are five ways to boost your small-business’s cybersecurity.

1. Use a password manager.

There’s an exhaustive amount of password advice floating around in the ether, but the most important is this, Risher said: Don’t reuse the same password on multiple sites. It’s a difficult rule to stick to for convenience’s sake — especially since 86 percent of internet users report keeping track of their passwords via memorization — but cybersecurity experts recommend password managers as efficient and secure workarounds. Free password manager options include LastPass, Myki and LogMeOnce.

2. Set up email account recovery methods to protect against phishing attacks.

Phishing attacks are an enduring cybersecurity problem for large and small businesses alike: 83 percent of respondents to Proofpoint’s annual phishing survey reported experiencing phishing attacks in 2018, an increase from 76 percent the year before. Embracing a more cyber-aware culture — including staying vigilant about identifying potential phishing attacks, suspicious links and bogus senders — is key to email safety.

If you’re a Gmail user, recent company research suggests that adding a recovery phone number to your account could block up to 100 percent of cyberattacks from automated bots, 99 percent of bulk phishing attacks and 66 percent of targeted attacks. It’s helpful because in the event of an unknown or suspicious sign-in, your phone will receive either an SMS code or an on-device prompt for verification. Without a recovery phone number, Google will rely on weaker challenges such as recalling last sign-in location — and while that still stops most automated attacks, effectiveness against phishing drops to 10 percent.

3. Back up your data to protect against ransomware.

Ransomware — a cyberattack in which a hacker holds your computer access and/or data for ransom — has kicked off a “frenzy of cybercrime-related activities focused on small and medium businesses,” Loveland said. In fact, it’s the second leading malware action variety in 2019, according to the Verizon report, and accounted for 24 percent of security incidents. Hackers generally view it as a potentially low-risk, high-reward option, so it’s important to have protections in place for such an attack — namely, have your data backed up in its entirety so that you aren’t at the hacker’s mercy. Tools such as Google Drive and Dropbox can help, as well as automatic backup programs such as Code42 (all charge a monthly fee). You can also purchase a high-storage external hard drive to back everything up yourself.

4. Enlist a dedicated DNS security tool to block suspicious sites.

Since computers can only communicate using numbers, the Domain Name System (DNS) is part of the internet’s foundation in that it acts as a “translator” between a domain name you enter and a resulting IP address. DNS wasn’t originally designed with top-level security in mind, so using a DNSSEC (DNS Security Extension) can help protect against suspicious websites and redirects resulting from malware, phishing attacks and more. The tools verify the validity of a site multiple times during your domain lookup process. And though internet service providers generally provide some level of DNS security, experts say using a dedicated DNSSEC tool is more effective — and free options include OpenDNS and Quad9 DNS. “[It’s] a low-cost, no-brainer move that can prevent folks from going to bad IP addresses,” Loveland said.

5. Consider signing up with a website security company.

Paying a monthly subscription to a website security company may not be ideal, but it could end up paying for itself in terms of lost business due to a site hack. Decreasing attack vulnerability means installing security patches and updates for all of your online tools as promptly as possible, which can be tough for a small-business owner’s schedule.

“It’s tempting for a small-business owner to say, ‘I’m pretty handy — I can do this myself,’” Risher said. “But the reality is that even if you’re very technical, you might not be working around the clock, and … you’re taking on 24/7 maintenance and monitoring. It’s certainly money well spent to have a large organization doing this for you.”

#Miscellaneous

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!! For all those who said Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate so you didn't vote, this is what happens.

Supreme Court Appears Ready to Let Trump End DACA Program

The justices are considering whether the Trump administration can shut down a program that shields about 700,000 young immigrants from deportation.

By Adam Liptak | Published Nov. 12, 2019 Updated 1:26 PM ET | New York Times | Posted November 12, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Tuesday appeared ready to side with the Trump administration in its efforts to shut down a program protecting about 700,000 young immigrants known as “Dreamers.”

The court’s liberal justices probed the administration’s justifications for ending the program, expressing skepticism about its rationales for doing so. But other justices indicated that they would not second-guess the administration’s reasoning and, in any event, considered its explanations sufficient.

Still, there was agreement among the justices that the young people who signed up for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, were sympathetic and that they and their families, schools and employers had relied on it in good faith.

The arguments in the case, one of the most important of the term, addressed presidential power over immigration, a signature issue for President Trump and a divisive one, especially as it has played out in the debate over DACA, a program that has broad, bipartisan support.

The program, announced by President Barack Obama in 2012, allows young people brought to the United States as children to apply for a temporary status that shields them from deportation and allows them to work. The status lasts for two years and is renewable, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.

In the past, Mr. Trump has praised the program’s goals and suggested he wanted to preserve it. “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?” he asked in a 2017 Twitter post.

But as the court took up its future on Tuesday, Mr. Trump struck a different tone. “Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from ‘angels,’” he wrote on Twitter. “Some are very tough, hardened criminals.”

In fact, the program has strict requirements. To be eligible for DACA status, applicants had to show that they had committed no serious crimes, had arrived in the United States before they turned 16 and were no older than 30, had lived in the United States for at least the previous five years, and were a high school graduate or a veteran.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the DACA recipients were justified in relying on Mr. Trump’s earlier statements, which she paraphrased. “They were safe under him,” she said, “and he would find a way to keep them here.”

The roots of the decision to shut down the program figured in the argument, as the justices parsed two sets of rationales from successive heads of the Department of Homeland Security.

After contentious debates among his aides, Mr. Trump announced in September 2017 that he would wind down the program. He gave only a single reason for doing so, saying that creating or maintaining the program was beyond the legal power of any president.

“I do not favor punishing children,” Mr. Trump said in his formal announcement of the termination. But, he added, “the program is unlawful and unconstitutional and cannot be successfully defended in court.”

That decision was reflected in bare-bones memo from Elaine C. Duke, then the acting secretary of homeland security. She offered no policy reasons for the move.

Theodore B. Olson, a lawyer for the DACA recipients, said the memo allowed the administration to avoid taking political heat on the issue. “The administration did not want to own the decision,” he said.

Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco, arguing for the administration, disagreed. “We own it,” he said.

Mr. Francisco pointed to a second memo, issued last year by Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary at the time. It mostly relied on the earlier rationales in Ms. Duke’s memo, but added one more, about the importance of projecting a message “that leaves no doubt regarding the clear, consistent and transparent enforcement of the immigration laws against all classes and categories of aliens.”

That policy justification, Mr. Francisco said, was sufficient even if the administration was mistaken in its legal rationale.

Mr. Olson disagreed. “You have to have a rational explanation,” he said. “It must make sense. It must be contemporaneous.”

Michael J. Mongan, California’s solicitor general, who argued in favor of the program, called Ms. Nielsen’s new rationale “boilerplate.”

The Trump administration’s argument that the program was unlawful was based on a 2015 ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans. But that decision concerned a different, much larger program. Lower courts have ruled that the two programs differed in important ways, undermining the administration’s legal analysis.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said on Tuesday that it was impossible to disentangle the administration’s legal rationale from its later policy justification. “We don’t know how she would respond,” Justice Ginsburg said of Ms. Nielsen, “if there were a clear recognition that there is nothing illegal about DACA.”

The justices have examined the Trump administration’s justifications for its initiatives on immigration in other cases.

In 2018, the court upheld Mr. Trump’s order limiting travel from several predominantly Muslim nations, relying on the justifications set out in a presidential proclamation and refusing to consider statements from Mr. Trump concerning his desire to impose a “Muslim ban.”

In June, however, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s rationale for adding a citizenship question to the census. “The sole stated reason” for adding the question, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority, “seems to have been contrived.”

In a Supreme Court brief, the administration said the DACA cases, including the Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, No. 18-587, were different.

“The courts below erred,” the brief said, “in second-guessing D.H.S.’s entirely rational judgment to stop facilitating ongoing violations of federal law on a massive scale.”

On Tuesday, the justices frequently referred to the DACA recipients themselves. “I hear a lot of facts, sympathetic facts, that you’ve put out there, and they speak to all of us,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch told Mr. Olson.

But Justice Gorsuch said he had doubts about whether it was the role of the Supreme Court to review the administration’s decision to terminate the program.

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Supreme Court leans toward Trump on ending 'Dreamers' immigrant program

By Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung | Published November 12, 2019, 1:07 PM ET | Reuters | Posted Nov. 12, 2019 |

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled support on Tuesday for President Donald Trump’s bid to kill a program that protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants - dubbed “Dreamers” - who entered the United States illegally as children, even as liberal justices complained that the move would destroy lives.

The court’s ideological divisions were on full display as it heard the administration’s appeal of lower court rulings that blocked the Republican president’s 2017 plan to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, created in 2012 by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.

DACA currently shields about 660,000 immigrants - mostly Hispanic young adults - from deportation and provides them work permits, though not a path to citizenship. Trump’s bid to end it is part of his hardline immigration polices.

Conservative justices questioned whether courts even have the power to review Trump’s action and also seemed to reject the views of lower courts that his administration had failed to properly justify ending DACA, a program Obama implemented after Congress failed to pass bipartisan immigration reform.

The court’s 5-4 conservative majority includes two Trump appointees - Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh - who both indicated support for the president’s action.

Liberal justices emphasized the large number of individuals, businesses and others who have relied on the program and indicated that the administration did not sufficiently weigh those concerns. Justice Sonia Sotomayor referred to Trump’s decision as a “choice to destroy lives” and indicated that his administration had failed to supply the required policy rationale to make the move lawful.

Kavanaugh said he assumed that the administration’s analysis of the impact rescinding DACA would have on individuals was a “very considered decision.”

“I mean, this is a serious decision. We all agree on that,” Kavanaugh added.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

Trump’s administration has argued that Obama exceeded his constitutional powers when he created DACA by executive action, bypassing Congress. Trump has made his hardline immigration policies - cracking down on legal and illegal immigration and pursuing construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border - a centerpiece of his presidency and 2020 re-election campaign.

The challengers who sued to stop Trump’s action included a collection of states such as California and New York, people currently protected by the program and civil rights groups.

Even if Trump were to lose this time, his administration would be free to come up with new reasons to end the program in the future, a point picked up by Gorsuch.

“What good would another five years of litigation over the adequacy of that explanation serve?” Gorsuch asked.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who could be the pivotal vote in deciding the case, likewise indicated he was satisfied with the administration’s rationale.

Roberts, however, had appeared sympathetic to Trump in a case this year on the administration’s attempt to add a contentious citizenship question to the 2020 census - a move critics said was intended to deter immigrants from being included in the nation’s official population count. Roberts cast the decisive vote against the president in a 5-4 ruling.

TRAVEL BAN

The Supreme Court previously handed Trump a major victory on immigration policy last year when it upheld as lawful his travel ban blocking people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, finding that the president has broad discretion to set such policy.

Lower court rulings in California, New York and the District of Columbia left DACA in place, finding that Trump’s move to rescind it was likely “arbitrary and capricious” and violated a U.S. law called the Administrative Procedure Act.

The young people protected under DACA, Obama said, were raised and educated in the United States, grew up as Americans and often know little about their countries of origin.

Sotomayor, the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, wondered if the court should take into account the fact that Trump has said he would look after “Dreamers.”

“He hasn’t” taken care of them, she said. “And that, I think, is something to be considered before you rescind a policy.”

Much of the administration’s reasoning was based on then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ conclusion in 2017 that the program was unlawful. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pressed U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who argued the case for the administration, on the government’s reliance on the assertion that DACA was unlawful.

The administration could have just said “we don’t like DACA and we’re taking responsibility for that instead of trying to put the blame on the law,” Ginsburg said.

Francisco, who also argued the travel ban case, said the administration was not trying to shirk responsibility for ending a popular program.

“We own this,” Francisco said, referring to Trump’s decision to kill DACA.

Trump has given mixed messages about the “Dreamers,” saying in 2017 that he has “a great love” for them even as he sought to kill the program that protected them from deportation.

Trump on Tuesday took to Twitter to attack “many” DACA recipients as “tough, hardened criminals,” without offering evidence, and again dangled the possibility of a deal with congressional Democrats to allow people protected under the program to remain in the United States. Trump has never proposed a detailed replacement for DACA.

Several hundred DACA supporters gathered outside the court on a gray and chilly Tuesday morning, chanting, banging drums and carrying signs that read “home is here” and “defend DACA.”

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Trump administration tells Supreme Court it owns termination of DACA program

By Robert Barnes | Published November 12 at 12:42 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 12, 2019 |

The Trump administration told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it has decided that the program that shields from deportation young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children should end regardless of its legality, and that there would be no point in asking it again to come up with additional justifications.

“We own this,” Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the court during a more than 80-minute oral argument over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which President Barack Obama authorized through executive action in 2012 to protect law-abiding immigrants brought to the United States as children.

His arguments seemed to resonate with the court’s dominant conservatives.

Nearly 700,000 people are enrolled in the program, which provides a renewable grant of protection from deportation and carries with it work authorization. But Francisco said the Department of Homeland Security disagrees with providing such a large classification of people with immunity from laws that usually would demand their removal.

Lower courts have said that President Trump’s decision in 2017 to terminate the program was based on a faulty belief that the program was legally and constitutionally defective and that the administration has failed to provide reasons for ending it that courts and the public can judge.

Francisco disputed that. While the first memo outlining termination of the program relied exclusively on the view that the program was illegal, he said, a subsequent agenda memo invited by a judge during the litigation supplied other reasons. There would be no point in requiring the administration to repeat that step, he said.

Trump has said it is necessary for the Supreme Court to agree with the administration’s view to get congressional Democrats back to the negotiating table to come up with a more permanent solution.

In general, the court’s liberals seemed highly skeptical of the administration’s actions, while the conservatives seemed open to the idea that it had the power to terminate the program. The court’s decision is likely to take months.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor mentioned Trump directly and highlighted the president’s conflicting statements about DACA recipients.

At one point, she said, Trump told the “dreamers” that “they were safe under him,” she told Francisco. Then, abruptly, the administration said it would be ending the program in a short time, giving them “six months to destroy your lives.”

Other liberal justices also wondered whether the government has more of a responsibility to say why it was ending a program that, according to dozens of briefs in the case, universities, cities, employers and the recipients themselves have come to rely on.

But Francisco said even Obama described the program as a temporary, “stopgap” measure. Recipients must reapply every two years, he said, or the benefits expire on their own.

Washington lawyer Theodore B. Olson, arguing on behalf of a coalition of businesses, civil rights groups, universities and individuals, said DACA was different from most programs because the government “invited them into the program.” Olson, a former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, said the recipients have identified themselves and made their deportation easier.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said deportation was unlikely — the government wouldn’t have the resources to undertake such a mass action. The real issue, he said, was work authorization.

The Trump administration moved to scuttle the DACA program in 2017 after Texas and other states threatened to sue to force its end. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions advised the Department of Homeland Security that the program was probably unlawful and that it could not be defended.

Sessions based that decision on a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which said that another Obama program protecting immigrants was beyond the president’s constitutional powers. The Supreme Court deadlocked 4 to 4 in 2016 when considering the issue.

Olson said that advice from Sessions gave the department no other option but to end the program. The court should require the administration to start over and give reasoned arguments for why it is in the country’s best interests to end the program.

But Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who said the “sympathetic facts” about DACA recipients “speak to all of us,” wondered what would be the point. “What more would you have the government say?” he asked Olson.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh also said a subsequent memo from then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen seemed to list reasons other than Sessions’s view that the program was illegal.

But Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said a presumption about the program’s illegality provides the backdrop for all of the administration’s actions.

Lower courts have rejected Sessions’s view. They have kept the program in place, restricting new applicants but allowing those already enrolled to renew their participation. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D), who is among those fighting the administration’s decision, said that about 400,000 two-year renewals have been approved since January 2018.

The program is open to those who were brought to the United States before they were 16, have lived here at least five years, paid for and received a background check and have a clean legal record. The program does not provide a path to citizenship, but it does allow recipients to work legally and to renew their two-year protection from deportation.

A government study found more than 90 percent of recipients, who now are in the 20s and 30s, are employed, and about half are students.

The Trump administration, which usually argues for broad executive power, in this case is arguing that the program is flawed and could not be defended against challenges from states that want to end it.

The Supreme Court’s somewhat reluctant review of the DACA program — it waited for months before accepting the case — meant that, for the third consecutive year, the high court will pass judgment on a Trump priority that has been stifled by federal judges, this time in a presidential election year and in a case with passionate advocates and huge consequences.

The Supreme Court ended its term in June by putting on hold the Trump administration’s plan to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. In 2018, it narrowly approved the president’s travel ban on arrivals from a handful of mostly Muslim countries.

The consolidated cases the court heard Tuesday are Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, Trump v. NAACP and McAleenan v. Vidal.

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sciencespies · 4 years

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Boeing and SpaceX preparing for commercial crew abort tests

https://sciencespies.com/space/boeing-and-spacex-preparing-for-commercial-crew-abort-tests/

Boeing and SpaceX preparing for commercial crew abort tests

WASHINGTON — Boeing and SpaceX are on schedule to perform two critical tests of their commercial crew vehicles in the next week with hopes that both vehicles will be ready to carry astronauts by early next year.

In an Oct. 30 presentation to the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations committee, Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said that Boeing was still working towards a Nov. 4 pad abort test of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft that the company announced three weeks earlier.

In that test, at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico, the Starliner will fire the abort engines in its service module to simulate escaping a launch vehicle on the pad. The Starliner will fly about 1.5 kilometers high, landing 1.5 kilometers downrange 90 seconds later.

“The vehicle is stacked up on the stand, getting ready to go,” Lueders said. “We, right now, are on the range at WSMR for next Monday morning to do this check-out. It’s a huge, huge test for us.”

Besides testing the abort motors themselves, she said key areas of interest for the test will be the separation of the Starliner’s crew module from its service module after the motors shut down, as well as the deployment of parachutes for the crew module.

The Starliner that will fly an uncrewed orbital test flight, called the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) by Boeing, doesn’t have an abort system, but Lueders said the pad abort test was critical for it nonetheless. “The way the system separates will reflect on our OFT progress,” she said. “It’s critical for us to get this test going, and that we understand it prior to us doing rollout of the spacecraft” for the orbital test flight.

That OFT mission is scheduled for launch Dec. 17 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral. That rollout of the Starliner from a Boeing facility at the Kennedy Space Center to a ULA processing center for integration onto the Atlas 5 will take place about a week after the pad abort test, she said.

The Boeing pad abort test will take place just days before SpaceX performs a static-fire test of the SuperDraco abort engines on its Crew Dragon spacecraft. Lueders said that test, in Florida, is expected to occur in the middle of next week.

An explosion took place during preparations for a similar static-fire abort test in April, destroying the Crew Dragon spacecraft that flew the Demo-1 uncrewed mission to the International Space Station in March and was being readied for an in-flight abort test planned for the summer. An investigation, still being wrapped up, implicated a leaky valve that allowed nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) oxidizer into part of the propulsion system, which, when pressurized, was hurled into a titanium check valve, igniting it.

“Having something like that happen is a big wakeup call for the team, that they have to be diligent and careful about this,” Lueders said, noting that even NASA wasn’t aware of the “compatibility issue” between NTO and titanium components at those conditions.

She added both NASA and SpaceX were fortunate the accident took place on the ground during a test with no one on board, and with access to video and other telemetry to aid the investigation. “It would have been a bad thing for us to have found out on orbit.”

If the static-fire test is successful, SpaceX will be ready to perform an in-flight abort test using that Crew Dragon spacecraft in early December. That test will involve the spacecraft, which was originally built for the Demo-2 crew test, escaping a Falcon 9 nearly 90 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.

Both Boeing and SpaceX, Lueders said, could be ready for crewed test flights to the ISS in early 2020. The Starliner for Boeing’s Crew Test Flight is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2020, while the new Crew Dragon spacecraft for Demo-2 should be completed and ready to ship to Florida by late December of this year.

Setting a launch date for those crewed test flights, though, will depend on the completion of the upcoming tests as well as other work to qualify the vehicles for carrying astronauts. That includes completion of parachute testing, a milestone neither company has achieved according to a chart Lueders showed in her briefing.

Boeing officials have previously said that they have completed testing of their parachutes, but that final certification of them is pending the outcomes of the pad abort test and Orbital Flight Test. SpaceX recently announced it was testing a new version of the Crew Dragon parachutes, called Mark 3, that have higher safety margins than earlier versions, which suffered at least one failure in a test earlier this year.

Lueders said little about either company’s parachute work in her presentation, beyond a passing reference to SpaceX work. “SpaceX guys did 12 chute tests in week as we’re working to perfecting the Mark 3 design,” she said. “We’re continuing to work with them on what that schedule is and finalizing that.”

Both SpaceX and NASA have provided few details about that Mark 3 parachute work, which SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine emphasized when they met Oct. 10 at SpaceX’s headquarters in California. “The highest priority has been the parachutes,” Bridenstine said then. “Elon has told me, and he’s showed me, that that’s where their priority is. They’re putting as much resources and manpower as they can to getting those parachutes ready.”

A SpaceX official, speaking on background several days after that event, confirmed that testing of the Mark 3 parachute was underway, but didn’t respond to questions about the number of tests completed to date and whether all the tests were successful. A NASA spokesperson, asked about SpaceX parachute testing Oct. 25, referred questions to SpaceX.

The lack of information about the status of parachute testing stands in contrast to comments by Musk at the media appearance with Bridenstine, where he said the company would be more transparent about Crew Dragon testing. “We’ll be doing a lot of tests of the Mark 3 parachutes,” he said. “We’ll keep the public informed, so you’ll know what goes wrong and what goes right, and what we’re doing about it.”

#Space

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goarticletec-blog · 5 years

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Avengers 4 trailer hype has you just where Marvel wants you

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/avengers-4-trailer-hype-has-you-just-where-marvel-wants-you/

Avengers 4 trailer hype has you just where Marvel wants you

Rumor has it the long-awaited Avengers 4 trailer will hit this week, and Marvel fans are ready. They’ve been awaiting this trailer for months — possibly since credits rolled on Avengers: Infinity War back in April.

How ready are they?

Several dozen people on Twitter have changed their handles to some version of “GIVE TRAILER UNTITLED AVENGERS.” Fans using the Twitter hashtag #MARVELVSTHEFANS have made multiple videos begging the Avengers 4 directors for the trailer. Fans on Reddit have shared, then deleted, moment-by-moment descriptions of what supposedly happens in the trailer, based on unofficial leaks. They’ve pored over the social media accounts of the film’s directors and stars, looking for clues to a trailer release date and a title.

Complicated theories about a trailer release date for the film have arisen based on past practices, planned events and possibly the waxing and waning of the moon. Expectations were high for the trailer to drop on Wednesday, Dec. 5. But on Tuesday, rumors began to spread that Marvel would wait until Friday to respect Wednesday’s solemn event, the state funeral of former US president George H.W. Bush. Marvel did not respond to a request for comment on whether this supposed schedule was accurate.

Trailer watchers have been burned before. Fans hoped Wednesday, Nov. 28 would be the big day. It was almost a year after the Avengers: Infinity War trailer came out, and the film’s directors, brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, were speaking that night in Hollywood at a screening of Infinity War sponsored by Collider.

But that date, and the Q&A, came and went with no trailer reveal.

Footage on demand

The first ever trailer was shown in a New York Loews cinema in way back in 1913, and it wasn’t even for a movie. Instead, it was a short film made to advertise the Broadway musical The Pleasure Seekers. But it was a brilliant hook: Tease entertainment seekers with a preview of another piece of entertainment they might enjoy. Naturally, the promotional films took off.

Star Wars and superhero films create the most intense demand for trailers.

Disney

Trailer hysteria isn’t new, but it’s certainly reached new heights, thanks to YouTube and social media, as well as the continued boom of sci-fi and superhero flicks. Studios have even managed to squeeze a little more publicity out of their trailers by offering super-short versions, often called teaser trailers.

Anton Volkov saw trailer love growing back in 2016, when he started a movie-news Twitter account and website he called Trailer Track. A wry quote from writer-director James Mangold that’s pinned to the top of the site’s Twitter account sums up the current trailer infatuation: “[Trailers] tend to debut a few weeks after you’ve reached a peak of frustration,” it reads. “Marketing’s like foreplay.”

“This sort of level of anticipation for marketing materials, be it trailers or posters, was always there,” Volkov says. “It’s just becoming … more mainstream.”

Constant intrigue

William Bibbiani is a film critic and co-host of Canceled Too Soon, a podcast about short-lived TV shows, and the movie podcast Critically Acclaimed. He agrees trailer madness goes back — at least decades.

“Audiences were so excited for Tim Burton’s original Batman [in 1989] that many people bought tickets to another movie, just to see the trailer in a theater, and then left before the actual film began,” he said.

The trailer for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace created similar buzz 20 years ago. CNET film critic Richard Trenholm calls that era, with no Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, a “veritable Stone Age” as far as viewing trailers. He notes that Steve Jobs described the second Phantom Menace trailer as “the biggest internet download event in history.”

Three major developments in the 2000s ratcheted up the hype, Bibbiani says.

High-speed internet connections allow fans to consume trailers and marketing materials instantly and share their reactions just as quickly. The surge of successful superhero movies made “geeky blockbusters” the norm — who better than a self-proclaimed geek to dissect even the smallest movie detail? And the 24-hour online entertainment-news cycle has created a beast that’s always hungry.

“Fans of these properties are being kept in a state of constant intrigue, so that new trailers — or even the conspicuous absence of new trailers — become big events, even though they are, at their core, just commercials,” Bibbiani said.

Building the buzz

Marvel’s extreme level of secrecy about an Avengers 4 trailer is getting all the attention lately, but it’s not the norm.

In 2017, extended footage from Avengers: Infinity War was shown in summer at both San Diego Comic-Con and Disney fan gathering D23. Though that footage wasn’t shared on YouTube at the time, some of those fans revealed what they saw, and word spread.

But we’ve seen nothing for Avengers 4 besides a release date and basic plot synopsis.

“I think it’s quite clear that (Marvel executives) have spotted how much buzz and conversation the very lack of content and the secrecy generates,” Volkov said.

Even dedicated fans understand it’s all a part of Marvel’s business. Alex Rodriguez, 19, started a Twitter account this year called MCU Speculation to share news and theories about the studio.

“The hype and the tension builds up more and more for each day that the trailer doesn’t get released online,” Rodriguez said. “This makes for a huge launch for the trailer.”

Now playing: Watch this: Watch the ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ official trailer

2:17

Trailers still serve a purpose. Hard-core fans, the kind who wear costumes to midnight showings and buy day-one tickets well in advance, are going to see Avengers 4, preview or no preview. But a trailer can help sell a film to more general audiences.

“When a film like Avengers 4 comes in, there’s always at least one writer for a site making the argument that maybe that film can get away with not releasing a single trailer,” Volkov said. But he notes Marvel isn’t about to leave millions on the table by not marketing the film to pull in an even larger audience.

And studio dollar-signs aside, trailers create a social experience that can be just pure fun.

“The urge to share certain experiences simultaneously is often irresistible,” Bibbiani said. “And why wouldn’t it be? Who doesn’t love a good trailer, and who wouldn’t want to talk about it with their friends? Especially if it’s trending on Twitter?”

Spoilers!

There are ways to deliver the goods without driving fans to Thanos-size levels of insanity. Some studios and distributors make pretrailer announcements. Fox and Warner Brothers have even used a Facebook and YouTube feature that counts down to the arrival of an uploaded trailer. Volkov thinks this is a smart way to build anticipation for the movie while easing fan frustration.

Movies with dramatic events that are easily spoiled have to play trailers carefully, so plot twists aren’t ruined. Isn’t that right, Thanos?

Marvel

When a trailer finally does drop, its actual content sometimes has little to do with the film’s quality.

“We’ve all seen good films that weren’t well served by their promotional campaigns, and we’ve all seen disappointing films that looked pretty good in trailer form,” Bibbiani noted.

An extreme example of this was 2016’s Suicide Squad, whose trailer was such a hit Warner Bros. actually brought in the company that cut the trailer to help edit the entire film. (It didn’t help: Suicide Squad ended up with mixed to negative critical reviews.)

But recent films at the center of the trailer storm have unanswered questions that make their trailers even more coveted — even though the previews themselves will have to walk a fine line or risk too many spoilers.

Drawing out the wait for a trailer only makes the desire for footage more intense.

“The upcoming trailers for Avengers 4 and Star Wars: Episode IX are bound to be huge pop culture events, because both previews will … answer questions that fans have been speculating about for months,” Bibbiani said. “What really happened after The Snap? And will (Episode IX director) J.J. Abrams continue down Rian Johnson’s controversial path from The Last Jedi, or will he make the next Star Wars movie more like his relatively safer Episode VII?”

The trailers are unlikely to tell us, but fans will watch them intently regardless. In 2018, anything released before a much anticipated movie, from a poster to an Instagram image, will be picked apart by viewers and entertainment sites hungry for clues. Apparently the cat in the recent poster for 2019’s Captain Marvel isn’t just a cat. And in September, the Russo brothers tossed out a Where’s Waldo?-style challenge, inviting fans to “look hard” at what appears to be a boring black-and-white image of an almost-empty Avengers 4 set.

Drawing out the wait for a trailer only makes the desire for footage more intense. The trailer for Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t released until four months after footage was shared at Comic-Con and D23, which gave fans more than 100 days to moan and complain online. Even Marvel Studios co-president Louis D’Esposito tried to soothe trailer-hungry fans by tweeting that he loved the IW trailer, but wasn’t ready to share it yet. When the trailer finally came out, however, fans made up for lost time. The original Infinity War trailer has been viewed more than 214 million times.

Start the countdown

Volkov says the anticipation for Avengers 4 is the biggest he’s seen for any film since starting his site in 2016. After that, he ranks Avengers: Infinity War, Justice League, and war movie Dunkirk as the most anticipated.

“It does just come down to superhero and Star Wars films being the biggest game in town in terms of general interest and box office today,” he said.

Once the Avengers 4 trailer finally drops, look for fans to start demanding the second trailer, Volkov says. And naturally, interest in Star Wars: Episode IX, due out in December 2019, will be galactically high.

Now playing: Watch this: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ trailer debuts

2:01

But while the final film in the main Star Wars saga holds many mysteries, a trailer date might not be one of them.

“At least in the case of Episode 9, it’s fairly clear and obvious that (the trailer debut) has to be at Star Wars Celebration in April,” Volkov says.

You heard him, fans. Start the countdown. Only four months to go.

First published Dec. 4, 9 a.m. PT. Update, 9:29 p.m. PT: Adds likelihood that trailer won’t be released Wednesday, as rumored, due to the funeral of George H.W. Bush.

CNET’s Holiday Gift Guide: The place to find the best tech gifts for 2018.

Everything we think we know about the Avengers sequel: Think Avengers: Infinity War was intense? Stay tuned for part two.

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maeisabelle · 6 years

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My 2017

It’s almost the end of the year again. Soon, it will be 2018! I can’t believe it. Times flies so fast! I’m hoping and I’m positive it will be a good year. It’s 2018 and 18 is the day of my birthday so maybe something great will happen to me next year. Of course, 2017 is also a good one. And as a habit, I gathered all the important events that happened this year. This is my way to remember my life as I browse through my blog whenever I feel sentimental in a quiet day. :)

Here is the list:

1. Rings ‘n Dips

This is the year, my friends Joy and Mimay, and I registered our business. It is challenging but fun! We learned a lot from it starting from cooking, making our menu, marketing and advertising our products, business registration, selling, applying for malls, food hubs, bazaars, etc, creating our packaging, giveaways, promos, logos and a lot more. We had our successful bazaars in Greenfield, Mercato and Claret. We also did deliveries to our families, friends and officemates. Overall it’s a good start. Next year will be a big step as we are already aiming to rent a place in Antipolo and we really need to design the place, renew our business permit, and find people to sell for us. I’m crossing fingers it will be successful. Please continue supporting us. We will still do deliveries and meetups for your orders.

2. Turnover of my condo units, renovations and Airbnb clients

This is also the year where I had my 2 condo units turned-over. Yey! Of course, it was not easy as I had to pay a large amount of money for the 1 bedroom and had to loan the studio unit. It was tough and I really had to do some sidelines earlier this year. Thank God, He sustained me. He also helped me forgive those who didn’t pay their debts from me even if I badly needed money. I really do hope someday they will find the courage to talk to me, pay and say sorry. But enough of that. I’m glad everything turned out well. I managed to have my studio renovated and now I’m doing it for the 1 bedroom with the help of my bestfriend, my Papa and Tita. Hopefully, I can finally find tenants for the 2 units next year before I leave for work in Amsterdam temporarily again. Before I forgot, I also has 2 separate Airbnb bookings in Nov and Dec, though I had to really ask permission and beg from the admin so they will allow my tenants to stay in my unit. I learned the homeowners doesn’t agree with lease less than 6 mos. Too bad as I was really hoping it’s possible but I really have to comply. Once I had my 1 bedroom furnished and renovated, I’ll have the two units rented so I can also earn from my investments. Don’t worry. I’m positive in spite of everything.

3. Jobstart Life Skills Training (LST) and other sidelines

Earlier I mentioned about having sidelines and teaching and being a facilitator for the Jobstart Life Skills Training (LST) is one of them. I was assigned to QC and I worked part time for 2 weeks to teach out-of-school and promising Filipinos (18-21 years of age I believe). I did it to earn a little but more than that, I really want to start the year helping in the best way I can. I really have a heart with children and teens, especially when I can see from them that they really want to improve, to work hard for themselves and their families and to make a difference. I was given the opportunity when my friends from WYD were reunited for my friend’s wedding. They opened to us the idea, invited us for the training and eventually signed up and conduct the training on our respective areas. It was both challenging and fun. I really hope those kids will reach for their dreams. I really love them that I even cooked adobo and caldereta for all of them even if I don’t have to. Haha! I can still remember those days. It was difficult. I learned that cooking for many people is tough especially when you don’t have enough space in your refrigerator to fit a cooking pot filled with food and you don’t have a car to bring those food to your students – I had to commute bringing heavy containers filled with food. It’s worth it though especially when I can see the smiles from the students while they eat those home-cooked food instead from fast-food. I will forever remember those experience. Aside from Jobstart Life Skills Training, I also had some sidelines from my friends. Those are web applications, mobile applications and trainings on how to use MarkLogic. Those stretched me given my full-time jobs but I’m glad I am really able to finish them and help my friends. I’m still finishing one more before the year ends and I really do hope our client will benefit well from that. I better test a lot scenarios to make sure there will be less, if not zero, bugs in web and mobile application.

4. Visa Applications and Work in Amsterdam

I also mentioned earlier about my work in Amsterdam. Yes, I was given the opportunity to work onsite in Amsterdam. It was a very big project for MarkLogic Netherlands and they really need people to help as there are a lot of projects in Europe but there are only a few consultants working there. Our big project in the Philippine government is almost done when I heard the invitation so I signed up. I thought I only have to work onsite for 1 month when I said yes to the idea but they really need people to work onsite for a longer time. A work permit in Netherlands can only last for 90 days so I had to go back in the Philippines this month to apply for another Visa and permit. My recent Visa application is ongoing right now and I may leave again on the last week of January.

My experience in Amsterdam is something I will never forget. It was my first time to travel alone in a foreign country. It was also my first time to meet my colleagues and teammates in Amsterdam. I don’t know how to speak Dutch. Good thing everyone knows how to speak English. Yes, I still need to use Google Translate especially when commuting from another place to another, to buy groceries and dine in in some restaurants. Haha! I can still remember how long it took me to buy the ingredients for adobo and menudo as I was having a hard time finding the vinegar etc. I’m glad I survived. It was a similar experience when I tried to find the ticket booth. I tried to buy a train ticket from a machine but to no avail. I tried to find a ticket booth instead and was successful to buy a reloadable prepaid card that I can use for all public vehicles. Another similar experience was when I went to Muiden castle, trying to ride a bus and a van for the first time. I missed the schedule once, had to wait for another in 20 mins and almost missed the van because I thought I should ride another bus. But the trip was worth it, being inside a real castle and seeing all those wonders. I also enjoyed going to one of the Ikea in Netherlads, the musuems, parks and more, by Intercity, metro, walk, etc. I also met the Gary Bloom, the MarkLogic CEO, other consultants working in Amsterdam and even Geert who was our remote mentor in the Philippines when I was still training during my first months in MarkLogic.

I really enjoyed being in Amsterdam (except for adjusting to the very cold weather and being homesick for a while because I miss my family and friends). I love the environment as it is so clean, full of birds, flowers, parks, beautiful buildings, arts, vehicles and more. I also enjoyed working even though there were very stressful days in the end because of the change of priorities and lots of challenges on making other people to execute what the project needs given the constraints on their schedule, the protocols they have to follow, difficulties in understanding what needs to be done on the last minute, etc. I’m glad it was successful and the client is very impressed with the short turnaround times and output we delivered. We had successful deployments to TEST and UAT and hopefully this week the deployment to PROD will be successful. I am already on leave this week so I just told them to email me if there are emergencies. I’m crossing fingers the deployment will be calm and successful. I learned a lot from the project. I lead the UI from the MarkLogic side and authentication/authorization for Single-Sign-On (SSO) and also able to successfully ingested and harmonized the voice data for our Trade Hub. I met a lot of good and amazing people. I learned how they work and some, I got to know in a deeper level, with their personal stories. We had lunch, dinners, tours. I will definitely cherish those memories with me.

5. Completion of Philippine government projects

I also want to highlight the completion of our biggest government projects this year. I’m really glad we were able to close it this year. My involvement finished before I left for Amsterdam and I also had a knowledge transfer demo before I left but my teammates were asked to do more improvements like MarkLogic 9 upgrade, Encryption at rest, performance improvements, etc. before it finally closes. We are anticipating more Philippines projects after that. There are a lot of big companies who contacted us too when we had our MarkLogic Philippines Tech Summit. I hope it will push through, as well as with other clients we had our POCs with.

6. Montero and beach house for my family

I can say that this year is the most expensive year. :P Why? Aside from what I mentioned earlier (business, condo renovations), my family bought a Montero before the excise tax on cars next year. Our beach house in our province is also ongoing construction – there are still things needed for it to complete though. But God is good because I am able to provide in some way to help my family. I am doing a lot this year. Sometimes, I just want to stop and relax without worrying anything. But I know it will be better next year. I’m also glad I am able to help. I’m really grateful that God continually blesses me even if there are hiccups along the way. Someday, all my hard works will pay off.

7. Gym, spa, highlights and short hair

Of course, I am not working all day without thinking about my health and looks. They say, when you grow old, you don’t have to look old at the same time and I agree. Yes, I gained some weight when I went to Amsterdam. I blame it to the cold weather but yes I ate a lot of chocolates last month, as presents from colleagues, and also my laziness to go to the gym in Amsterdam. I was only able to go to the gym twice – mainly because after walking in a cold, I just want to sleep longer inside my warm blanket. I managed to lose some weight though in my early months in the Philippines. I signed up to a gym early this year but I had to stop when I went to Amsterdam. Aside from exercising, I also had my highlights and short hair this year. I was not able to maintain my highlights and hair color when I went to Amsterdam because the fee there for those things are so expensive. Before the year ends or early next year, I will go back to the parlor, just in time before I leave for Amsterdam.

8. Cooking, Adventure Trips and Out of Towns and country (Singapore, etc.)

They say, work hard but play harder. Even if I’m working for longer days, I always find time to have adventure trips, out of towns and out of the country for myself. I went to Singapore, Puerto Princesa, Tagaytay, Pansol, Tomas Morato, La Mesa Ecopark, Pasig Rainforest, Breakout Mandaluyong, Nuvali, etc. I went to the new malls like Century Mall, 30th, Uptown mall, and Vertis North Mall. I played with my friends in Timezone, went for different movies in cinema and at home. I also had my staycations and workations in Seda BGC, Millenia Suites, etc. with my family, my friends and alone to concentrate on my trainings. I also cooked some dishes with my friends this year and experimented on sauces, menus etc. I was hooked to Master Chef Australia during my stay in Amsterdam and other cooking shows, as my favorite past time, aside from watching home interior decorating shows like House Rules.

9. Artworks

I also found time to squeeze art to my schedule. I joined a contest in Freeway where a draw a concept on Philippine traditions. My artwork is entitled “Uso Pa Ba Ang Harana”. I didn’t win but I was really thrilled to get a lot of votes and comments saying my artwork is beautiful. I also attended a Decoupage workshop a few months after that. I also had trial book covers and illustration for children’s books but I had to let it go given my schedule. It was a good experience though.

Most of my time for artworks were dedicate to our business and my condo, I can say. I did some murals (panda and dolphin) for my studio. For our business, I did our logo (new and old), business card, T-shirt (front and back), Timmy the turtle stuff toy and keychains, kiosk, menu boards, ads, newsletter, etc.

10. Love and Support for my friends

Of course, my year will not be complete if I will not be part of the highlights of the lives of my friends. My housemate and close friend Jai had their booth for Technotonic in SMX with their company Numbytes. I went there with my other housemate/close friend Roan. I’m really happy and proud for her. I also supported Patch, my churchmate/close friend in The Feast with their Spark Project Festival and events. I also supported my best friend on his talks, and other ventures. I also sang "Your Love" and "Kahit Maputi na Ang Buhok Ko" during the 90 day book writing workshop of Sha, my churchmate and close friend from WYD. I also attended my friends’ weddings (Chicka/Macky and Paul G/Esalyn), my cousin Francis’ wedding with May, me as veil and my goddaughter/his younger as bridesmaid), the christening of Rafa, Kyle and Ram and lot more.

11. Lovelife

Last but not the least, let’s have a glimpse of my lovelife. The people always wonder how come I am still not married even with my age. What I can say is, I’m not worried. I know it will come. What is important is I am happy, I’m loved and I love the people around me. Let’s see in 2-3 years. :)

#deardiary

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friend-clarity · 6 years

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Supporters of Jihad at Stanford

Robert Spencer on the 'Islamophobia' Lie

Freedom fighter discusses the dangerous smear attacks on the foes of jihadi terror at Restoration Weekend.

Editor's note: Below is the transcript of remarks given by Robert Spencer at the David Horowitz Freedom Center's 2017 Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 16th-19th at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.

December 22, 2017

I'll tell you something else. A few months before I arrived at Stanford they had a speaker there named Aarab Barghouti, who is the son of Marwan Barghouti, who is in prison for engineering the murder of five Israeli civilians. He spoke on campus, no problem. No attack articles leading up to his appearance. No protests. Everything was fine. They also had Mads Gilbert, who is very aptly named Mads, and he is a Swedish spokesman for something or other, who has actually said that 9/11, well the Americans had it coming, and they deserved it. He spoke at Stanford, no problem, but when I spoke at Stanford, there were actual Stanford administrators, Nanci Howe, who is the Dean of Student Affairs or something or other, and her assistant whose name is Snehal Naik, and they were both at the event. They engineered it so that the room was packed about an 80 to 90 percent with people who had no intention of listening, and they actually kept out members of the College Republicans, the sponsoring group. About 5 minutes in, those 80 to 90 percent all stood up and walked out, and then Howe and Naik, the Stanford deans, prevented anybody else from coming in, even though there was a large group of people who wanted to be in, and a whole hall full of empty seats, they wouldn't let them in.

ROBERT SPENCER: Thank you very much. A funny thing, I was in the supermarket the other day, and I saw this little boy. He'd gotten separated from his mother, and the manager came by and said, "What's your name little boy?" "Muhammad." "And, you lost your mother?" "Yes." "Can you tell us what she looks like?" "I don't have any idea," and that sums up the clash of civilizations that we are embroiled in today. It is two markedly different views of the world. Two markedly different views of society, and they are actively clashing now as some of my recent experiences illustrate.

As some of you may know, I spoke at Stanford University in Palo Alto on Tuesday night, and I'll you, before I spoke it was as if Adolf Hitler were coming to campus, and the Stanford Daily Paper, the student paper, was in an absolute uproar. They were absolutely shocked, flabbergasted, that the College Republicans and the Young America's Foundation would have the gall, the temerity to bring someone in who demonizes and dehumanizes an entire community of people, and that's what they said. Now, dehumanizing an entire community of people, if you step back and thing, well what exactly do I do? I have written about how Jihad terrorists use the Quran to justify violence and to make recruits among Muslims who are peaceful. If the Muslim community at Stanford was actually threatened by that, then they are actually saying, or implying, that they're on the side of the terrorists, because if they're not, then why would they oppose anybody who is exposing the motivating ideology of the terrorists?

Now, why was that? Because I'm this terrible villain. I am an Islamophobe. Now what is an Islamophobe? As a matter of fact, I was speaking at YAF, Young America's Foundation, one of their conferences not long ago, and I asked that question, and it was this high school girl in the front row. She said, "Someone who knows too much about Islam," and I thought, you know you've got a point, really. That sums it up, but I've actually written this new book, and yes this is an advertisement, Confessions of an Islamophobe that is really about this very strange phenomenon. That if actual supporters of Jihad terrorism go to a campus they're celebrated as heroes, but if a foe of Jihad terrorism goes to a campus, then he's a terrible villain, and the actual administration of the college itself makes sure that as few people as possible hear what is being said. Now, this is an extraordinary situation, and the contrast between what sanity or reality would dictate, and the situation that we have prevailing on the college campuses, is extraordinary, and that, actually, can best be illustrated by a story that I tell in this book about my own background. How it is that I became such a hated and notorious Islamophobe, and I can tell you it all started back in the Ottoman Empire. I wasn't actually there.

My grandparents, Stamatios Zompakos and Maria Chrissafakis were born in Tsesmes near Smyrna in what is now the Republic of Turkey, and was then the Ottoman Empire, and they grew up there. When I knew them they were very old and sweet, and I would ask them, they were exotic with their house full of strange pictures and strange odors and strange things, all sorts of exotica. It was foreign, it was unlike what I was used to, or at least the way I was growing up. When I would visit them I would ask them, "Where are you from?" "We're from Turkey." "Why are you here?" "We were exiled." "Why were you exiled?" and they would clam up. Whether they didn't want to tell me, or they weren't really clear on it themselves, in any case I was fascinated. My grandmother, actually, was like Barack Obama. One of the two people in the world who say that the sound of the Musim calling the Muslims to prayer is the most beautiful sound in the world, and she said it was wonderful when we were growing up. It was beautiful to hear that, and we were friends with the Muslims, and everything was great. "Well then why were you exiled?" I started to research. I started to try to find out, and what I found out ultimately was that they were exiled because they were offered the choice, as the Ottoman Empire was declining, the subject people in it were offered the choice to convert to Islam or be exiled, and this is because they were considered kuffar harbi, infidels at war with Islam, because you would have the Empire that is based on Islamic law, just like ISIS today, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Somalia, or Sudan, or Pakistan, or Afghanistan, it's based on Islamic law. In Islamic law, if you're not a Muslim, you have to submit to the rule of Islam. You cannot insult Islam. You cannot say anything critical of Islam. You have to pay the tax, the jizya, you have to submit to various kinds of discrimination. Can't hold authority over Muslims, and all this, and if you do that they will leave you alone within the bounds of all that discrimination and harassment that is built into the system, but if you rebel, then you are likely to be killed, and you can lawfully be killed.

In those days, you remember if you have read any history, the Ottoman Empire was known as the "sick man of Europe." It was collapsing, and the non-Muslim people in Turkey, particularly the Armenians and the Greeks, wanted independent states. The Greeks wanted to unite with Greece in Europe that had won independence from the Ottomans in 1821, and the Armenians wanted their own independent state, so they were infidels at war with Islam, and they could be killed or exiled. As a matter of fact, when the Armenians were exiled, that the conditions were so poor as they were on their way out of Turkey, that a million and a half of them were killed, and this is the Armenian genocide. A similar thing happened with the Greeks in the west which is much less known, and the casualty count was not as high.

Now, anyway, this is the thing. My grandparents got here, and they were very happy to be here, and they knew what they had come through. My grandfather, when he moved to New York City and he started the Greek diner, that I think is a requirement, he was very proud to become an American citizen, and he was always careful to vote. He knew the value of a free society in ways that, I think, a lot of people who grow up in a free society don't necessarily know, because they don't have anything to compare it to. You see, my grandfather's experience was steeped in his own reality, in the nature of the real world.

Now you contrast that to the Stanford students who stood up and walked out the other day. These are all people who were born in the United States, probably mostly, born around what, now, 1995 or 1998 or something? So they've missed everything, and they grew up in this affluent society, and they're told that the West is a terrible oppressor, that the United States is based on racism and hatred and oppression, and that they have to stand with the marginalized people of the world, and that the Muslims are among the marginalized people of the world, and so to speak critically about Islamic terrorism is a terrible thing that further marginalizes the Muslims of the world, and therefore, they have to stand against it. Now, this is not reality. This is just plain fantasy.

People talk about Islamophobia and, actually, in reality, if you look at FBI hate crimes statistics, the hate crimes that are committed against Muslims are far less common than hate crimes against Jews, hate crimes against Blacks. Not only that, but the idea that to analyze the motivating ideology of Jihad terrorism is the same thing as some MAGA hat-wearing vigilante tearing off some poor Muslima's hijab, that in itself is a propagandistic conflation of two things that are actually quite distinct. Nobody is in favor of vigilante attacks on innocent Muslims, insofar as they genuinely occur, but the idea that to analyze these things properly is the same thing, is just more fantasy.

Now, when you have people who are more attached to fantasy than to reality, then they will act the way that they did in Stanford the other night, because they really have no clue about what the real world is like, and so I did try to bring them a dose of reality, and one of the things I said, actually in the very few minutes before they all left, was, "I want to thank the most marginalized community at Stanford University, the College Republicans." That's absolutely true, because, if you think about it, if you followed the story, or if you followed the story like what Ann was just talking about, or any story of any conservative who tries to speak on a college campus, it's the same thing, that not only is the speaker defamed and vilified, but also the sponsoring students. The dinner that night before the event, I said to all of them, "I really have to commend your courage, because I get to leave tomorrow and you have to stay here," and they have to stay in that environment where they are hectored and bullied and mocked and ridiculed, not just by their fellow students, but by the administration, and where they are told that they are transgressing the bounds of what is polite discourse and decent society, by bringing in speakers who are hateful, racist, bigoted Islamophobes, and so you have the administration saying we have to stand up for the marginalized students, and they are marginalizing the Republicans far more than the Muslims on any campus, or any other group on campus has ever been marginalized.

What we are talking about really is the larger war that is the war that we face today, and that is a war between fantasy and reality. The left is clinging to various fantasies and demonizing and vilifying anybody who refuses to hold to these fantasies. The whole idea of so many things that are staples of the leftist discourse, that the war on poverty that if we tax people very highly and put a lot of people on welfare, they won't be poor anymore, and they will join the society and become productive members thereof, even while we are incentivizing them not to work. It's ridiculous. It's fantasy-based and it's the same thing as in this case, that when we have 30,000 jihad terror attacks around the world since 9/11, and we have an international organization that is still very much alive, although it must be noted that President Trump has rolled it up and deprived it of its base in Iraq and Syria, that is, ISIS.

We have ISIS coming to the United States vowing to kill American civilians, and saying that especially since they've been deprived of their base, that they'll be returning home. I don't think they should be allowed in, but European governments and all too many American officials believe well, they're American citizens. They have to be allowed back in. Can you imagine the thought experiment about that just for a moment? Imagine if there were a bunch of British Nazis in 1940 and they left Britain and went to Germany to fight against the British, and then in 1944 when things are going bad they went back to Britain, and they said "We're British citizens. Let us back in." Do you think the British would have let them back in? They might have let them back in to prison, but they wouldn't let them back in to walk the streets, but, yet, the latest estimates are that there are at least 400 returning jihadis from ISIS who are walking on the streets in Britain because they're citizens. So you have them coming back and they're going to kill Europeans. They're going to kill Americans. They have vowed to do so. They have done so, and they will continue to do so, and you have an international organization of other groups that have the same motives and the same goals. You also have very powerful states that are dedicated to the same goals.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the two chief sponsors of terrorism in the world today. They have Hizballah working with drug cartels right across the Mexican border, and why are they there? They're not there just for that. They're there ultimately to cross the border and to wreak havoc here. In the face of all this and so much more, Stanford is upset about an Islamophobe. Somebody who is speaking out against all that. It's a topsy-turvy world. You remember the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland who could believe five impossible things before breakfast? They got nothing on the students at Stanford University.

The idea of Islamophobia is actually a propaganda construct that was developed in the 1990s by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, which is a Muslim brotherhood Saudi-funded organization, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought had a meeting where they were specifically discussing ways that they could attach a stigma to resisting jihad terror, and they came up with this term: Islamophobia. It's based on the idea of homophobia. The idea is that if you oppose jihad terror, there's something wrong with you, and it is some sort of an irrational hatred, probably racist, based on simply disliking Muslims and wanting to cause them harm. This we know because actually somebody who was there at the meeting, a member of the IIIT, International Institute of Islamic Thought, Abdurahman Mahmohammed, he actually spilled the beans later. He had a change of heart, and he said that the whole construct of Islamophobia is a thought-crushing device designed to intimidate people. Now, how well does it work? Well, look at what happened at Stanford, and that's no isolated incident.

Remember at San Bernardino on December 2, 2015. Two Muslims, Said Rizwan Farouk, and Tashfeen Malik, married couple. They went to a Christmas party and they murdered 15 people while screaming "Allahu akbar." They were affiliated with ISIS. They did it in response to the Islamic State's call for the murders of American civilians. After that their neighbors were interviewed, and the neighbors said, "Yeah, you know, we saw a lot of suspicious things. We did. We saw strange looking people, unsavory looking types going in and out of their house at all hours, and trucks pulling up and going out at all hours. Strange goings-on." "Well, did you report them?" "Oh no, we didn't want to be racist." That's how Islamophobia works. It's something that goes back years.

Remember Nidal Malik Hasan? The Fort Hood shooter. An American Army major. He, on November 4, 2009, started screaming "Allahu akbar" and murdered 13 Americans at Fort Hood. Now, he had been known. He was on the radar for a long time. As a matter of fact, he had given ground rounds. He was an Army psychiatrist, and grand rounds is when one of the experts in a field gives a talk to the other experts in the field about the latest developments in the field. So all the Army psychiatrists are gathered around and Nidal Malik Hassan has his turn to give grand rounds, and instead of speaking about the latest developments in psychiatry, he speaks about jihad. He explains to the audience all about how Muslims must not fight against other Muslims, and so if there are Muslims in the military and they are sent to Muslim countries, it is perfectly reasonable for them to strike out and kill American soldiers. He said many other things in this vein, such that he was reported by a lot of the other psychiatrists. They went to the superiors, and they said this guy is scaring the daylights out of us. We're afraid he's going to go jihad one day. The Army psychiatrists, whoever their superiors were, they did nothing. It was even worse. Nidal Malik Hasan was in touch with Anwar Awlaki.

You know Anwar Awlaki? He was the imam who was celebrated right after 9/11 as a beacon of moderation and what Islam can be in the future by the New York Times, and there's a wonderful documentary about Muhammad on PBS. You can find this on YouTube. It's not a wonderful documentary in that it says anything that's true, but you can't expect that from PBS. In it, at one point, they're profiling this congressional staffer who is a Muslim, and so they're following him around during his day, and, at one point, he goes to Capitol Hill to the Muslim prayers at Capitol Hill, and the camera goes around the room and if you follow these guys, you know: you see Nihad Awad and Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations and Randall Royer, who was also with CAIR at that time and then served 15 years in prison for terror plotting, and you see other prominent Muslims in the room, and then the camera pans back and who's the imam? Anwar Awlaki. Right on Capitol Hill. Anwar Awlaki, of course, was a jihad terror mastermind. He was not only in touch with Hasan. He was in touch with the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day, 2009, over Detroit, with the bomb set off in his underwear. Jerry Lee Lewis has a song about that. In any case, he was also in touch with 9/11 hijackers and with other jihad plotters. Here is Nidal Hassan and he's in touch with Anwar Awlaki, and the Army knows about it. An FBI agent who's tracking this correspondence calls his superiors. He was in San Diego. He calls his superiors in Washington and he says, "This guy's in touch with this jihad terror mastermind and he's an Army major," and the FBI said, "We're not interested." The correspondence kept up. He wrote again. The FBI said, "Not interested." This happened a few times. Finally, the agent in San Diego was so disturbed, he went to Washington himself. He went to the offices of the higher-ups in the FBI, and he set out the evidence about Hassan, and you know what they said to him? They said, "If we kept track of every Muslim in the military who was in touch with terror leaders, we would do nothing else." Okay, well then, never mind. And, that it would look bad for them to take action against Hassan because there would be bad consequences in the media.

Now that's where it gets to it. Can you imagine, if when they people who were hearing Hassan and were disturbed, if when they went to their superiors, if Hassan had been disciplined, or fired, or court-martialed or whatever, what would have happened? Can you see it? CNN: “Islamophobia in the Military. Army major shares his faith, speaks about Islam and is demoted,” or whatever. They would be ruined. Careers flashing before their eyes. I'm sure that's what kept them from saying anything. That's the power of the Islamophobia idea.

So, in a certain sense, the people at Stanford are right. Islamophobia is a much bigger problem than jihad terrorism, but they're not right in the way that they think. They think that poor innocent Muslims are being harassed and persecuted and victimized on some large scale in the United States. That's a lot of hogwash. They think that to analyze the motivating ideology behind jihad terror is some sort of Islamophobic offense that threatens Muslims who are peaceful. That, too, is hogwash, but they are right in one sense. Islamophobia is a bigger problem than jihad terror because it's the chief enabler of jihad terror. What did Stanford University do when it got me shut down? It was enabling the people who I am opposing. It's not hard. If it is a terrible, heinous thing that makes you on par with Hitler, walking onto campus to oppose jihad terror, then nobody's going to oppose jihad terror. They can say, oh it's all about racism or dehumanizing or all that nonsense, but, in reality, all I do is oppose jihad terror, and oppose the oppression of women and gays and non-Muslims that is under Sharia, oppose Islamic anti-Semitism and so on.

So if all that is wrong, if all that is hateful, if all that is out of bounds, then all those things can go on unchecked because nobody will have the guts to stop them, to stand up and say yes, I'm going to be racist and bigoted and Islamophobic and oppose you. So Stanford is enabling jihad terror, and of course Stanford is just one school. This is happening in universities all over the country, but they are, in fostering this Islamophobia narrative that is intrinsically fantasy-based, they are aiding and abetting the forces that are vowing to destroy us, and destroy our freedoms. Now, the only problem that they have is that they are at war with reality, and reality always wins. The reason why propaganda is propaganda, why it has to be dinned at us all the time, why we always have to hear that Islam is a religion of peace, why it's constantly repeated, after every jihad attack then there's 10 articles in the New York Times and CNN and the Washington Post and MSNBC all telling us how Islam is peace. Why do they have to keep doing that? Because it's false. And a lie can only be gotten over by constant repetition. Otherwise you're going to believe your lying eyes instead of what they keep telling you. They have to keep repeating it so that reality doesn't break through, but reality always does break through.

This is why, ultimately in the final analysis, things are in a deep state of crisis in the United States, and we do have a shot to win this, but the biggest weapon that we have on our side is not Trump, and it is certainly not the Republican Party, and it is not anything but the fact that we are the real reality-based community. Every morning when the news headlines come in, they confirm that what we are saying about the world is true. They show, insofar as they are at all telling the truth themselves, which is, of course, by no means assured, then we know that our world view will be confirmed. If the Stanford students were to pay attention they would see jihad attacks regularly in the United States and around the world and people being killed. If they were to pay attention, they would see there aren't any people being killed by rightwing Islamophobes, and Muslims are not being demonized and marginalized in the United States. The thing is, some of them are going to pay attention because you can't keep reality out forever. It's just not possible.

I want to conclude with exactly that. That we have a tremendous reason to hope. We have to stand firm and we have to keep going no matter what names they throw at us and no matter what they come up with next to try to stop us and to block us. Ultimately, as long as we hew to the truth and have reality on our side, we cannot lose. Thank you very much.

MIKE FINCH: We have 5 minutes left for a couple of questions and then we're going to take a quick break, so a couple questions here.

QUESTIONER: Yes, thank you for your presentation.

ROBERT SPENCER: Thank you.

QUESTIONER: A few months ago at one of our organizations we had Dr. Zuhdi Jasser and I asked him these questions, because several of us in this audience have taken courses in the Quran at FAU several years ago, and I asked him, how do you get around the 124, we had to notate this in the course, anti-Christian and Jewish statements in today's Quran? And how, Dr. Jasser, do you get around the 3 surahs that say if you don't convert in 30 days you die or you become a so-called dhimmi? Allowed to live as you espouse. So, my question is, how does a modern American Muslim go to a mosque and read this, when he then brought his answer he said, well, if you're a thief it said you should cut off your arm. We don't think of that anymore. We're more Americanized and said we will sever a friendship. Do you believe that's how they think in a mosque today?

ROBERT SPENCER: No, I can assure you that they don't. As a matter of fact, you know I started with a joke. I'll end with one. You know what they call a first-time offender in Saudi Arabia? “Lefty.” The amputation for theft is in the Quran, chapter 5 verse 38. It has not been abrogated. It has not been reinterpreted, and it is in force wherever Islamic law is enforced. Islamic law is not enforced in the United States. So of course they don't cut off the hands for theft because they'd get arrested, but if you have Sharia in the United States, you will have amputation for theft. The fact is, Zuhdi Jasser may be a beautiful guy, but his Islam has no basis in Islamic tradition or theology. There has never been an Islam like his, there has never been any basis of, in the Quran, for what he's saying. There has never been an Islamic sect that teaches Zuhdism. If some of you are Christians, okay, if I were to come to you and say, "Yeah, I'm a Christian, and I believe in the Trinity, the Father, the Son and Mickey Mouse, and I'm the real Christian and those people who say the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they're out to lunch and I repudiate what they say. I'm the genuine Christian." Imagine a world in which the people who were saying Father, Son and Holy Spirit were committing acts of violence in the name of Christianity. Nobody wanted to condemn the whole thing as a whole, so I became a media star, and every TV show would feature me, and I would say, "The Trinity is the Father and the Son and Mickey Mouse, and that's the true Christianity." And people who had not read the New Testament and had no idea of Christianity, they would buy it, because they don't know. They would think, oh good, most Christians are like him, so we don't have to worry about those violent ones. Well, actually, that's a made-up Christianity, and Zuhdism is a made-up private Islam that he has. I'm glad that he's going around denouncing CAIR and all that, that's great, but to pretend that he represents any kind of broad mainstream in Islam simply has no basis in fact. It's also misleading when people see him and they say, oh, most Muslims must be like this guy. We got nothing to worry about.

MIKE FINCH: One more question, anybody? This will be our last question. Thank you.

QUESTIONER: I'm just wondering if you have any insight into the way the Las Vegas massacre is being handled.

ROBERT SPENCER: The Las Vegas massacre is extraordinarily curious. For one thing, the official story has changed so often, I can't keep track. First we heard the guy committed suicide, then we hear he didn't. First we hear that there was the security guard coming down the hall and he shot him, then he shot himself. Now it turns out he shot the security guard a completely different time, and so on and so on. So in the first place, the authorities themselves have deliberately sown confusion about this, whether by their own incompetence, or whether by some active plan, but they have made it so that nobody can figure out what's really going on. That's one thing. The other thing is, of course, the Islamic State, ISIS, has claimed credit for it. Many people made fun of them and said ISIS, they claim credit for the weather. They claim credit for everything. Not actually true. There is actually no record of them ever claiming credit for something that didn't turn out to be theirs. There were two main incidents. One was the shooting down of the Russian airliner in Egypt, and they said that was theirs, and all the authorities in the world said no, no, no they're lying, they had nothing to do with it. They could not have had anything to do with it, and then a few weeks later ISIS produced proof that they had done it. Another one was a shooting, incidentally, in a Filipino casino. Here again, they said that was our guy, and this was an ISIS operation, and that this was immediately dismissed. A few months later the terror experts in the Philippines start saying, yep, it looks like it was an ISIS operation. Now, in this case they said it was an ISIS operation, universally dismissed. Maybe this is the first time they've lied about being responsible for an attack, but you notice there were recent shootings by non-Muslims in various areas and they didn't claim credit for those. They don't go around claiming credit for everything. Now, I'm not saying maybe this is the first time that they are claiming credit for something they're not responsible for, but if they did that, consider that they have a following. Their following has to believe in them. They've taken a lot of hits lately because of all their losses in Iraq and Syria, and so if they are shown up to be lying about this, they're going to lose among their own followers. I think the jury is still out about that. I don't think that the ISIS claim can be discounted immediately, but what is even of greater concern is that whether it's ISIS or not, something is being covered up here in a very large way by the authorities, and that this is yet another sign of how much the swamp needs to be drained.

Thank you very much.

0 notes

amtushinfosolutionspage · 6 years

Text

Chris Jericho Will Never Stop Reinventing Himself

On the morning of Nov. 5, Chris Jericho awoke in Newcastle, England, waiting for his phone to blow up. Around 9 AM, in the middle of the night across North America, it happened.

Following a successful defense of his IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Power Struggle event, Kenny Omega had the lights go out on him. Omega was seeking a challenger for his title at Wrestle Kingdom 12 on Jan. 4, New Japan’s biggest event of the year, laughing between English and Japanese that there was nobody left who had the guts to take him on.

A screen lit up with a countdown clock, and in an instant, internet speculation and tongue-in-cheek, this-could-never-happen fantasy booking was revealed to be a reality. Through smoke and heavy guitar, Jericho appeared on screen. Smirk breaking through his goateed face, leather collar popped behind him, Jericho tore a photo of the champion lengthwise and laid the challenge down: Jericho vs. Kenny, wrestling’s ultimate Alpha against the man they call Omega.

“Dude,” Jericho says with excitement, feigning keyboard noises to mimic the online reaction that followed, “it was great. Most people woke up to it, and they were like, ‘What?’ And then they’re like, ‘We knew this was gonna be something.’

“You didn’t fucking know shit. You didn’t know a thing. Nobody knew.”

There were hints along the way, seeds that were being planted. Jericho and Omega had been going at each other on social media since June, stoking the flames of a potential rivalry that, to most, seemed possible only if contained within the online world. Jericho is a WWE lifer, after all, a Vince McMahon loyalist who hasn’t wrestled in Japan since 1997 or outside of WWE since 1999.

McMahon, it turns out, was one of only a very small handful of people who knew what was coming, a professional courtesy Jericho extended out of respect. The plan had been in the works for months, though, and it was kept entirely under wraps, to the point that New Japan’s ace, top champion, and Wrestle Kingdom main-eventer, Kazuchika Okada, found out at the same time as the rest of the world. Outside of Jericho and Omega, who didn’t even meet during the planning process, the only people on the inside were Gedo (New Japan’s booker and, way back when, a partner of Jericho’s), and three other New Japan execs who met with Jericho in shrouded New York secrecy in August to finalize the story.

“I’ve been following his career. I heard how good he was and I heard all of these great reports, and I was like, that’s great,” Jericho, who had never seen an Omega match to this point, says. “So when it was pitched to me just as a joke, ‘Hey, how about Jericho and Kenny Omega, that’s pretty funny?’ I was like, I don’t know if funny’s the word. I think it’s kind of interesting. Why don’t you kind of see what the reaction was?”

Omega liked it, Jericho liked it, and so started one of the first main-event level feuds borne entirely of a (fake) social media spat, a dream match few would ever actually dare dream about. (Just don’t tell Tetsuya Naito it’s a main-event feud.) It comes at a time when Omega is one of the largest foreign stars in the company’s history, as NJPW continues to expand its North American footprint, and as the tide of the entire wrestling industry shifts more and more toward viability of non-WWE entities as sustainable major players.

Tweets via Kenny Omega’s Twitter

“There are people that can rise above and stand out from kind of what they are, and Jericho has always, no matter where he’s gone, no matter where he’s been, has been one of those guys,” Omega says. “Which is why he has a legit argument for being the best of all time. And that’s why this match means so much.”

For Jericho, this is just the latest arc in a storied career that has always seen him stay one step ahead of where the industry is going. He was a part of ECW’s peak, the breakthrough WCW cruiserweight, and jumped to WWE right as the Monday Night Wars swung for good. In WWE, he teased his first debut with a countdown clock to build speculation and anticipation, returned later with a cryptic code that was early-era message board catnip, and has since entered and exited without warning and, almost always, with great surprise.

It’s an incredible rarity in the wrestling world to keep a match as big as Jericho-Omega a secret (his surprise entry in the 2013 Royal Rumble remains one of the best-kept surprises in the event’s history). It’s even more rare for wrestlers to continuously reinvent themselves, eschewing nostalgia pops to push the envelope with new and fresh ideas.

If there’s a defining characteristic of Jericho’s sure-fire Hall of Fame career, it’s that he’s made more returns than any modern wrestler without it once feeling stale. His absences have been just long and just frequent enough, the tweaks to his character just pronounced enough, for the same Jericho to bring a wholly new experience. His toughest reinvention may have been his “silent return,” when he turned crowds thirsty to hear him once again, but declined to speak and did so in as over-the-top a manner imaginable. It was as subtle and effective a heel turn as they come.

Even in his most recent WWE run, at an age when most wrestlers are working part-time schedules as the character people best know them as, Jericho was reinventing. The plan called for him to eventually turn heel, but the schedule was pushed back, leaving Jericho to try to hint at the change to come, which some took as him finally growing stale. The seeking of immediate storytelling gratification can be frustrating when there’s a longer-term plan in place.

“I started planting seeds that people were getting sick of. Like, the scarf. The scarf, Jericho wearing a scarf, it looks stupid. Now it’s the biggest thing in the world,” he says. “Or I started this chant one time for New Day, “rootie tootie bootie.” I knew it sucked. I knew it was bad. But I was out there giving it my all, trying to get people to say it, and they really weren’t. So [they said] ‘Jericho’s at the end of his rope, he’s got no new ideas, he looks like a fool.’ Exactly. That’s what you’re supposed to think, so that when it finally happens, [you think] oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.

“And it’s hard because you have to sit there and read the online comments, ‘He’s over the hill, he’s past his shelf life, he needs to retire, rootie tootie bootie is embarrassing.’ Like, I know, I know, just hold on and see what happens.”

What happened led to one of Jericho’s greatest accomplishments as a wrestler and a performer in general. After an extended run as Kevin Owens’ supposed best friend, the pairing was set to split. Jericho had a grand idea for WWE’s Festival of Friendship segment on Raw, an elaborate celebration on Jericho’s part that would end with Owens turning on him, to everyone’s surprise. Jericho got push-back from some within the company who thought the idea sounded too comedic, and he was adamant that if done correctly, it would be heartbreaking instead.

It ended up as maybe the most heartbreaking moment in wrestling this year, right up there historically with Seth Rollins as Plan B and Marty Jannetty flying through a barbershop window.

It’s this type of ingenuity that’s kept Jericho at the top of his game and the wrestling world at large for decades, making him one of the most unassailable successes of the modern era. It’s also extended outside of the wrestling world, where Jericho has dabbled in just about everything. He’s written multiple books, hosts a terrific and well-listened to podcast (Talk is Jericho), and is the front man for a successful rock band (Fozzy).

And last week, season two of his (very good) webseries But I’m Chris Jericho premiered on CBC. Since the time he first left WWE in 2005, Jericho has studied acting—improv, most notably—and for eight years tried to sell this fictionalized version of his foray into acting. Several of season one’s storylines come directly from his experience, with Jericho borrowing from Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Fawlty Towers to turn this version of him into an unlikable asshole lacking entirely in self-awareness and heavy on Lead Singer’s Disease.

The first season aired in 2013, winning one Canadian Comedy Award and being nominated for four others. It’s little surprise that Jericho was at the forefront of an industry he was new to, a little early to the game before Netflix and Amazon and others were buying up any original content for streaming purposes. Even with its success, he said it “didn’t count” if it didn’t get a second season. He eventually got that chance, and has the full weight of CBC’s promotional arm behind the series.

In one of Jericho’s books, he lays out 20 principles for success, his favorite of which is the David Bowie Principle: Always reinvent yourself. The gist of it is that it would be silly for people to have asked the late Bowie to go back to his Aladdin Sane days, for example, because Bowie had already moved on to the next thing. There’s an emptiness to the inherent reward of creativity with rehashing the old, and Jericho applies that outlook to all arms of his career.

“I love constantly thinking of new things and new ideas and new ways to present myself to keep people excited,” he says. “That’s what I do: I’m an entertainer. I’m not saying I’m a ray of sunshine in people’s lives, but if I can do stuff that I think is cool that other people happen to think is cool as well, then it becomes exciting.

“That is part of what charges me and helps me continue to stay at the top of my game, is staying ahead of things rather than behind. Because when you’re behind, you’re done. If you don’t move, you die. To me, I constantly have to be moving creatively.”

That means continuing to tour with Fozzy (through Wrestlemania season, no less), growing as an actor in his webseries, and trying something entirely new in wrestling, when it was hard to figure there was anything new left for him to do. He’s earned the cache at this point to do what’s worked in the past, and to do whatever he wants to do. Those things don’t line up, and so he’s opting to try something that really didn’t seem possible until it came about half-jokingly: An all-Winnipeg, Manitoba, showdown worthy of top billing anywhere in the world more than 27 years after he debuted, with the type of build that has kept the wrestling community buzzing with each passing promo or attack.

“That’s why I did it. I knew it was something that nobody expected would ever happen,” he says. “It came completely out of the blue. It’s a story that you tell. And I’m always about the story. I don’t give a shit about good matches, I care about the storyline that gets you to that match. That’s the most important thing. It’s the old-school way of thinking where it’s like this match isn’t very good, I got your money kid. You get those people’s money to get in there. And then you wanna put on a good match, but that’s not as important as the storyline leading to it, for me.

“Those little things, there are enough of those little signposts throughout my career in all these things, season two of this show, that really keep me alive and keep me growing. I don’t ever wanna go backwards, ever. Forwards. I never wanna look back, I just wanna continue to look forward and what cool things can I do to keep people guessing and keep people entertained.”

What’s next for Jericho after the biggest night of Japan’s wrestling calendar is anyone’s guess, but it’s a safe bet it won’t be anything you’ve seen him do before.

Chris Jericho Will Never Stop Reinventing Himself syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

0 notes

flauntpage · 6 years

Text

Chris Jericho Will Never Stop Reinventing Himself

On the morning of Nov. 5, Chris Jericho awoke in Newcastle, England, waiting for his phone to blow up. Around 9 AM, in the middle of the night across North America, it happened.

Following a successful defense of his IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship at New Japan Pro Wrestling's Power Struggle event, Kenny Omega had the lights go out on him. Omega was seeking a challenger for his title at Wrestle Kingdom 12 on Jan. 4, New Japan's biggest event of the year, laughing between English and Japanese that there was nobody left who had the guts to take him on.

"Dude," Jericho says with excitement, feigning keyboard noises to mimic the online reaction that followed, "it was great. Most people woke up to it, and they were like, 'What?' And then they're like, 'We knew this was gonna be something.'

"You didn't fucking know shit. You didn't know a thing. Nobody knew."

There were hints along the way, seeds that were being planted. Jericho and Omega had been going at each other on social media since June, stoking the flames of a potential rivalry that, to most, seemed possible only if contained within the online world. Jericho is a WWE lifer, after all, a Vince McMahon loyalist who hasn't wrestled in Japan since 1997 or outside of WWE since 1999.

McMahon, it turns out, was one of only a very small handful of people who knew what was coming, a professional courtesy Jericho extended out of respect. The plan had been in the works for months, though, and it was kept entirely under wraps, to the point that New Japan's ace, top champion, and Wrestle Kingdom main-eventer, Kazuchika Okada, found out at the same time as the rest of the world. Outside of Jericho and Omega, who didn't even meet during the planning process, the only people on the inside were Gedo (New Japan's booker and, way back when, a partner of Jericho's), and three other New Japan execs who met with Jericho in shrouded New York secrecy in August to finalize the story.

"I've been following his career. I heard how good he was and I heard all of these great reports, and I was like, that's great," Jericho, who had never seen an Omega match to this point, says. "So when it was pitched to me just as a joke, 'Hey, how about Jericho and Kenny Omega, that's pretty funny?' I was like, I don't know if funny's the word. I think it's kind of interesting. Why don't you kind of see what the reaction was?"

Omega liked it, Jericho liked it, and so started one of the first main-event level feuds borne entirely of a (fake) social media spat, a dream match few would ever actually dare dream about. (Just don’t tell Tetsuya Naito it's a main-event feud.) It comes at a time when Omega is one of the largest foreign stars in the company's history, as NJPW continues to expand its North American footprint, and as the tide of the entire wrestling industry shifts more and more toward viability of non-WWE entities as sustainable major players.

Tweets via Kenny Omega's Twitter

"There are people that can rise above and stand out from kind of what they are, and Jericho has always, no matter where he's gone, no matter where he's been, has been one of those guys," Omega says. "Which is why he has a legit argument for being the best of all time. And that's why this match means so much."

For Jericho, this is just the latest arc in a storied career that has always seen him stay one step ahead of where the industry is going. He was a part of ECW's peak, the breakthrough WCW cruiserweight, and jumped to WWE right as the Monday Night Wars swung for good. In WWE, he teased his first debut with a countdown clock to build speculation and anticipation, returned later with a cryptic code that was early-era message board catnip, and has since entered and exited without warning and, almost always, with great surprise.

It's an incredible rarity in the wrestling world to keep a match as big as Jericho-Omega a secret (his surprise entry in the 2013 Royal Rumble remains one of the best-kept surprises in the event's history). It's even more rare for wrestlers to continuously reinvent themselves, eschewing nostalgia pops to push the envelope with new and fresh ideas.

If there's a defining characteristic of Jericho's sure-fire Hall of Fame career, it's that he's made more returns than any modern wrestler without it once feeling stale. His absences have been just long and just frequent enough, the tweaks to his character just pronounced enough, for the same Jericho to bring a wholly new experience. His toughest reinvention may have been his "silent return," when he turned crowds thirsty to hear him once again, but declined to speak and did so in as over-the-top a manner imaginable. It was as subtle and effective a heel turn as they come.

"I started planting seeds that people were getting sick of. Like, the scarf. The scarf, Jericho wearing a scarf, it looks stupid. Now it's the biggest thing in the world," he says. "Or I started this chant one time for New Day, "rootie tootie bootie." I knew it sucked. I knew it was bad. But I was out there giving it my all, trying to get people to say it, and they really weren't. So [they said] 'Jericho's at the end of his rope, he's got no new ideas, he looks like a fool.' Exactly. That's what you're supposed to think, so that when it finally happens, [you think] oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen.

"And it's hard because you have to sit there and read the online comments, 'He's over the hill, he's past his shelf life, he needs to retire, rootie tootie bootie is embarrassing.' Like, I know, I know, just hold on and see what happens."

What happened led to one of Jericho's greatest accomplishments as a wrestler and a performer in general. After an extended run as Kevin Owens' supposed best friend, the pairing was set to split. Jericho had a grand idea for WWE's Festival of Friendship segment on Raw, an elaborate celebration on Jericho's part that would end with Owens turning on him, to everyone’s surprise. Jericho got push-back from some within the company who thought the idea sounded too comedic, and he was adamant that if done correctly, it would be heartbreaking instead.

It ended up as maybe the most heartbreaking moment in wrestling this year, right up there historically with Seth Rollins as Plan B and Marty Jannetty flying through a barbershop window.

It's this type of ingenuity that's kept Jericho at the top of his game and the wrestling world at large for decades, making him one of the most unassailable successes of the modern era. It's also extended outside of the wrestling world, where Jericho has dabbled in just about everything. He's written multiple books, hosts a terrific and well-listened to podcast (Talk is Jericho), and is the front man for a successful rock band (Fozzy).

And last week, season two of his (very good) webseries But I’m Chris Jericho premiered on CBC. Since the time he first left WWE in 2005, Jericho has studied acting—improv, most notably—and for eight years tried to sell this fictionalized version of his foray into acting. Several of season one's storylines come directly from his experience, with Jericho borrowing from Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Fawlty Towers to turn this version of him into an unlikable asshole lacking entirely in self-awareness and heavy on Lead Singer’s Disease.

The first season aired in 2013, winning one Canadian Comedy Award and being nominated for four others. It's little surprise that Jericho was at the forefront of an industry he was new to, a little early to the game before Netflix and Amazon and others were buying up any original content for streaming purposes. Even with its success, he said it "didn’t count" if it didn't get a second season. He eventually got that chance, and has the full weight of CBC's promotional arm behind the series.

In one of Jericho’s books, he lays out 20 principles for success, his favorite of which is the David Bowie Principle: Always reinvent yourself. The gist of it is that it would be silly for people to have asked the late Bowie to go back to his Aladdin Sane days, for example, because Bowie had already moved on to the next thing. There's an emptiness to the inherent reward of creativity with rehashing the old, and Jericho applies that outlook to all arms of his career.

"I love constantly thinking of new things and new ideas and new ways to present myself to keep people excited," he says. "That's what I do: I'm an entertainer. I'm not saying I'm a ray of sunshine in people's lives, but if I can do stuff that I think is cool that other people happen to think is cool as well, then it becomes exciting.

"That is part of what charges me and helps me continue to stay at the top of my game, is staying ahead of things rather than behind. Because when you're behind, you're done. If you don't move, you die. To me, I constantly have to be moving creatively."

That means continuing to tour with Fozzy (through Wrestlemania season, no less), growing as an actor in his webseries, and trying something entirely new in wrestling, when it was hard to figure there was anything new left for him to do. He's earned the cache at this point to do what's worked in the past, and to do whatever he wants to do. Those things don't line up, and so he's opting to try something that really didn't seem possible until it came about half-jokingly: An all-Winnipeg, Manitoba, showdown worthy of top billing anywhere in the world more than 27 years after he debuted, with the type of build that has kept the wrestling community buzzing with each passing promo or attack.

"That's why I did it. I knew it was something that nobody expected would ever happen," he says. "It came completely out of the blue. It's a story that you tell. And I'm always about the story. I don't give a shit about good matches, I care about the storyline that gets you to that match. That's the most important thing. It's the old-school way of thinking where it's like this match isn't very good, I got your money kid. You get those people's money to get in there. And then you wanna put on a good match, but that's not as important as the storyline leading to it, for me.

"Those little things, there are enough of those little signposts throughout my career in all these things, season two of this show, that really keep me alive and keep me growing. I don't ever wanna go backwards, ever. Forwards. I never wanna look back, I just wanna continue to look forward and what cool things can I do to keep people guessing and keep people entertained."

What's next for Jericho after the biggest night of Japan's wrestling calendar is anyone's guess, but it's a safe bet it won't be anything you've seen him do before.

Chris Jericho Will Never Stop Reinventing Himself published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

0 notes

sunnyvelazquez-blog · 6 years

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romancatholicreflections · 6 years

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5th Nov >> Sunday Homilies and Reflections for Roman Catholics on the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

Gospel text: Matthew 23:1-12

vs.1 Addressing the people and his disciples, Jesus said, vs.2 “The scribes and the Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses. vs.3 You must therefore do what they tell you and listen to what they say; but do not be guided by what they do, since they do not practice what they preach. vs.4 They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they! vs.5 Everything they do is done to attract attention, like wearing broader phylacteries and longer tassels, vs.6 like wanting to take the place of honour at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues, vs.7 being greeted obsequiously in the market squares and having people call them Rabbi. vs.8 You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers. vs.9 You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven. vs.10 Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ. vs.11 The greatest among you must be your servant. vs.12 Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.”

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We have three commentators available this week from whom you may wish to choose . Scroll down to the required author.

Michel DeVerteuil: Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels – Year A

Donal Neary S.J. Editor of the Messenger

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Michel DeVerteuil Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels- Year A www.columba.ie

General Comments

Today’s gospel passage contains several different teachings, each of them very deep and relevant to us today, and each expressed in its own imaginative language. Since they are all so special it might be better to focus on each one individually although we may come to see a common thread running through them all.

Another point to note is that the teachings are addressed to two different groups:

– the “scribes and Pharisees” on the one hand,

– the “people and his disciples” on the other.

In fact the focus shifts so that it is now one group that is being addressed and now the other. In our meditation we need to be conscious of the group being addressed and of how we identify with each.

The Pharisees are those in authority who adopt false values. A good meditation on them will avoid two errors – self-righteousness on the one hand, playing down the evil of what they do, on the other. We avoid self-righteousness by recognising something of ourselves in them (even if in a reduced way); we feel the evil of their ways by entering into Jesus’ indignation.

The “people” are us when we let ourselves be oppressed by others and some Jesus helps us to discover our freedom and dignity.

In either case we celebrate Jesus, the great teacher and leader:

– he is fearless in confronting the scribes and Pharisees, reminding us of times when we have been challenged by people, events or institutions – perhaps a Biblical word;

– he believes in the common people and is deeply respectful of them – a wonderful model for community leaders, catechists and spiritual guides. A model too for the Church community in our time.

Textual Comments

Verses 1 to 3 are addressed to the common people. Jesus reassures them – they must not let themselves be awed by those in authority who do not practice the noble things they proclaim.

We remember times when we allowed ourselves to be overawed by others because:

– they were better educated,

– they belonged to a higher social class, to an ethnic group, culture or religion with a higher status,

– they were more “respectable” in the eyes of our Church community, neighbourhood, society.

Then some Jesus came into our lives (as individuals, Church community or culture) and freed us from this dependency. We saw that those we had placed on a pedestal were flawed like all human beings and we felt liberated.

Verses 4 to 7 are addressed to those in authority.

Verse 4 speaks of their tendency to hand down laws without compassion. We think of

– church leaders unwilling to spend time counselling pregnant girls but condemning them when they have an abortion,

– education (including religious education) as handing down information rather than consciousness raising.

Verses 5 to 7 speak of the Pharisees’ desire for external signs of honour. “External signs” for us will include the different ways (including subconscious ones) in which we look for approval from our peers or from the wider community. This is a defect we can observe in the Church as well.

We read these verses from two points of view:

– remembering moments of grace when we or our community became conscious of these faults in ourselves,

– celebrating Jesus people who brought us to this consciousness. We think of the great men and women, in

our time and in history, who have challenged the structures of our organisation – including the church.

Verses 8 to 10 return to the common folk, reminding them of their right to be guided by conscience. This passage has been crucially important for the development of our church’s wonderful teaching on the primacy of the individual conscience.

We celebrate the great theologians who have courageously upheld this teaching in the face of authoritarian tendencies in the Church, e.g. Cardinal Newman, Bernard Haering, Hans Kung. They have been Jesus for our time.

Verses 11 and 12 (returning to those in authority) can stand on their own but we can also read them in the light of the previous teachings;

– vs. 11 is a commandment, but we must avoid all moralising and read it as a story of grace – Jesus bringing good news. In Jesus we celebrate “great people” – teachers, leaders, spiritual guides – who taught us by word and example to reject the arrogance of authority figures (the “Scribes and Pharisees” of our community) and who put themselves at the service of all;

– vs. 12 is a factual observation which we are invited to recognise from our experience. It raises two possibilities:

* very gifted people “exalted themselves” and ended up “humbled” – looked down on by those who formerly admired them. Here again we must be careful to avoid self-righteousness. A sign that we have done so is that we feel very great sadness at the memory. What a pity!

* truly great people “humbled themselves” and were “exalted”, they gave themselves in humble service and are now widely admired. Some have made the passage on the world stage, e.g. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day; others in the context of our daily lives, e.g. parents, grandparents, teachers, neighbours.

We must not move too quickly to the second stage but spend time remembering (celebrating) the years of frustration. Our overall response must be from the heart – what a privilege to have known people like that!

The saying is a powerful reminder of how life brings surprises; it invites us to celebrate the Jesus who prepared us for this. It is also a call to the Church to speak its prophetic word, warning our culture of how false its values are.

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Prayer reflection

“A seemingly powerless person who dares to cry out the word of truth and to stand behind it with all his person and his life has surprisingly greater power, though formally disenfranchised, than do thousands of anonymous voters.” …President Havel of Czechoslovakia, speaking when he was living under the communist regime.

Lord, we thank you for those who live under tyrannical regimes

and keep up the spirits of fellow citizens, telling them, like Jesus,

that they have to obey those who occupy the chair of authority,

and do what they say,

but they must be guided by their own values,

and not the values of those who preach lofty principles and do not practice them.

Lord, we who hold positions of authority in the Church

wear garments that attract attention;

we are always given places of honour at banquets

and front seats in places of worship;

people often greet us obsequiously in market places

and give us titles of honour.

Preserve us, Lord, from setting store on all these things;

remind us that the greatest thing in our lives

is to be at the service of your people.

“I shall not fear anyone on earth. I shall fear only God. I shall bear ill will towards no one. I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.” …Gandhi

Lord, there are times when people in authority hold us in bondage.

We are terrified of displeasing them, whatever they say is Bible truth to us.

Then you send a Jesus person into our lives who teaches us about our own dignity

– that we have only one Master and all men and women are brothers and sisters to us;

– that we have only one Father, and he is in Heaven; only one teacher, the Christ.

Thank you, Lord.

“The important thing for a woman soldier to remember is not to show weakness. We wouldn’t give men that satisfaction.” …A woman officer in the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force

Lord, in our culture no one wants to appear weak.

We pray that in our Church communities there may be no great honour

for those who pretend to be strong when they are not,

and that those who admit to being vulnerable may be respected.

Lord, we thank you for the various Centres that have been set up in our Church

to care for unwed mothers.

They are a sign that we do not merely call for obedience to your laws

but help people to bear their burdens.

“Power comes from the people, but no sooner is that power acquired than those who got the power begin to isolate themselves from people.” …Cesar Chavez

Lord, have mercy on us who are in authority in the Church, in the State, in families.

How easy it is for us to hand down commandments,

tying up heavy burdens and laying them on the shoulders of those in our charge,

but never lifting a finger to move those burdens.

“It is when I am weak that I am strong.” …2 Corinthians 12:10

Lord, we can always recognize a moment of grace.

It is one when we realise how we had been exalting ourselves

and now feel ennobled in our lowliness.

“Our fear is that a reinforced Europe may choose for its conscience the law of the strongest, the law of militarism, the old law of colonialism and of discrimination because of class, race and sex.” …Ecumenical Forum of European Christian Women, July 1990

Lord, we pray for the followers of Jesus who are building the new Europe,

that they may consider it the highest honour in life to be servants of the oppressed;

that among them self exaltation will be held in low esteem

while those who humble themselves will be exalted.

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Donal Neary SJ Gospel Reflections For Sundays Year A www.messenger.ie

Love thy neighbour

We are often asking what the essence of our religion might be. Some people think of the different rules or what religion gives importance to. Jesus is quite clear when he is asked about the essence of religion: it is ‘to love God and love your neighbour’. Anything else about our religion flows from this.

We hear it so often that we may get tired of it. When Jesus quoted it for the people he spoke to, they recited it a few times every day. It’s like humming a favourite song; these are words to bring us life.

We wonder how we can grow in fulfilling this, or in appreciating it. Our memory is an important source of inspiration. Can you remember times when you loved your neighbour – people near and far, occasions when you know you were doing something out of love? We think of family examples with our children and the elderly where we gave time when they were in need. Times when we volunteered to improve the standard of life in our area, or gave time as a volunteer abroad. Memory is a way of finding energy horn this command.

Another inspiration is the life of Jesus: he was one whose whole life was loving God his Father and the neighbour. Read the gospel of Mark and just watch how his love goes out to so many people, especially the ones like the leprosy patients and the foreigner that others would ignore.

This is the way of life of these commandments! The love and care of the neighbour is a sign of our love for God. Repeat for a few minutes in prayer the mantra ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. Lord, may your will be done on earth; may we love our Father and our neighbour.

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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The Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago. Its shadow looms large.

By Stefan Kornelius, Christian Caryl, Emily Tamkin and Brian Klaas | Published November 06 at 6:13 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 7, 2019 |

Thirty years ago, the citizens of Soviet-dominated Central Europe achieved something extraordinary: a wave of peaceful revolution that swept away the system that had exerted near-seamless control over their lives for the previous four decades.

The enormous impact of those events was obvious to everyone who witnessed them. Since then, a generation has passed. The Berlin Wall — and everything it symbolized — is just a memory, and it is tempting to view the events of 1989 as mere history.

That would be a mistake. In fact, that remarkable year has left an enduring imprint on Europe — and the rest of the world. The upheaval of that moment still shapes politics, economies and biographies in ways we don’t normally consider.

We may think we have put 1989 behind us — but its shadow still looms large.

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MERKEL, THE ONE WHO WENT WEST

By Stefan Kornelius

Stefan Kornelius is the foreign editor of the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the author of “Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her World.”

The night the Berlin Wall came down, Angela Merkel went to a sauna. Just as she did on every other Thursday, the young academic indulged in a typical East German pastime: spending a few quiet moments with friends in boiling heat. Merkel finally heard the historic news when she returned home — but she decided to go to bed rather than enjoy the newly won freedom to cross the once-sealed border. It was only on the next day that she set foot in West Berlin, where she met a cousin and carefully tested the mood of the crowds.

Merkel is not known for being overly emotional. But that night she immediately knew that her career as a physicist had come to a sudden end. East German scientists lagged far behind the West, and there was almost no way for someone in her position to catch up. So Merkel made a bold decision and went shopping for political parties. She chose to align herself with a new group that called itself Democratic Awakening, which seemed to offer the right mix of seriousness and liberalism. It became her first political home.

In East Germany’s first free election a few weeks later, her party fared poorly. It soon entered into a coalition with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union, and she never looked back. From then on, the life story of the first female chancellor — and arguably the most powerful female politician in the world — is well-documented.

And yet one mystery remains. Merkel embodies the ultimate East German success story. She has governed united Germany for an astonishing 14 years. Her biography conveys several powerful messages: Anyone can make it; our democracy rewards ambition and talent; East and West can come together. You’d think that Merkel is the one politician east Germans could be proud of.

But they are not. Merkel is anything but the poster girl of unification. Her approval ratings in east Germany are worse than in the west. Whenever she campaigns in the east, her former compatriots greet her with whistles and catcalls. During recent regional elections in Saxony and Brandenburg, Merkel’s party strategists decided to ask her to stay away, fearing a negative effect on the vote if she showed up.

Merkel is probably the most prominent example of a deep East-West divide that separates not only Germany but also Central Europe. Even though the former satellites of the Soviet empire have caught up with the West economically and in many measures of modern life, their citizens can’t shake the nagging feeling that they don’t quite belong. Citizens of Hungary, Poland and other countries of the old Eastern Bloc often claim that they feel like they’re the losers of the historic events that took place 30 years ago — even when the men and women expressing the sentiment hadn’t been born when the wall came down.

Sociologists and psychologists have had a field day with this phenomenon. Dozens of studies and polls have analyzed the gap. Most end up recommending a strategy of patience. On Oct. 3, Germany’s official day of national unity, the chancellor mused that the passage of a generation just isn’t enough time to get over the shock of a collapsing world order.

East Germany now enjoys modern infrastructure. Cities and villages glow with fresh paint, and huge malls stretch along highways. But that’s only the surface. Rural areas are running out of inhabitants. Those who want jobs tend to head west or south, while those who stay behind are either old or tarred as losers. Since 1990, some 2 million east Germans, overwhelmingly young people, have left their homes.

East Germans believe that the rest of the country looks down on them. It’s a vicious circle: The more the story of second-class citizens is told, the deeper the gap between east and west becomes. Half of those living on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic see themselves as east Germans, not as Germans.

Not surprisingly, the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany is strongest in the east, where it claims that only it can complete unification. The remedy it proposes is a mix of isolation and nationalism, with a strong appeal to notions of identity. It’s copying the recipes of similar Eastern European movements in Poland or Hungary: Use discontent with the economy and demographic change, mix it with xenophobia and historic trauma, and add a bit of strongman.

Angela Merkel never became that strong figure. Her political style is far too nuanced, her speaking skills too underdeveloped. She has a deep conviction that democracy means above all compromise, achieved in detailed negotiations without fanfare. Ever since she set out on her new path on that November night 30 years ago, she was fated to become not the first east German chancellor, but the third chancellor of unified Germany. As easterners see it, she westernized – and therefore betrayed her identity. She’s the one who went west.

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PUTIN AND THE GHOSTS OF 1989

By Christian Caryl

Thirty years later, it’s hard to fully appreciate just how revolutionary the revolutions of 1989 were. To us now, it’s obvious that the Stalinist regimes of east-central Europe were ripe for collapse. But this is the wisdom of hindsight.

It was certainly clear that the Soviet Union and the countries in its orbit were economically backward; Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985, had basically admitted as much. But that didn’t mean that Marxist-Leninist regimes were destined to end up on the ash heap of history.

Communist dictatorships kept their populations under tighter control than any other political systems before them. They exercised obsessive control over links with the outside world; every foreigner who entered was carefully tracked. Even today, communist regimes survive in China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea. (Interestingly, we know that Kim Jong Il, the father of the current ruler in Pyongyang, forced his subordinates to watch videos of the December 1989 execution of Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu as a reminder of what might happen to them if the Kim regime were to lose its grip on power.)

In East Germany, a vast network of millions of citizens happily informed on their neighbors. The Stasi, the East German security service, was notorious for its obsessiveness and fanaticism. (It even archived the smells emitted by dissidents.) Surely, many assumed, it was impossible for a government that enjoyed the power of the all-knowing Stasi to be vulnerable to overthrow. And it was — until it happened.

There is one modern-day leader who is uniquely qualified to appreciate just how extraordinary the 1989 revolutions were: Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 1989, he was a young Soviet intelligence officer stationed in the East German city of Dresden, where the KGB maintained a branch office. Throughout the fall, he and his Soviet colleagues had watched with growing trepidation as ordinary East Germans took to the streets to protest their own government. Their numbers, initially modest, soon skyrocketed. When I attended my first mass demonstration, in the city of Leipzig on Oct. 23, I found myself in a crowd of 250,000 people — and that was just one protest in a country of 16 million. Just a few weeks later, on Nov. 9, the Berlin Wall finally fell, setting communist East Germany on a path to its eventual dissolution.

On Dec. 5, the revolution arrived at Putin’s front door. A group of demonstrators turned up outside the villa housing the KGB branch office and threatened to storm the premises. Putin, in what has now become an oft-recounted moment in his official biography, told them politely but firmly to leave what the Soviets considered to be a military base — or he and his comrades would open fire. The East Germans dispersed.

It’s hard to know precisely what happened; the historical record has been strongly colored by the official version of events propagated by Putin and his government. Yet I see little reason to doubt that the young intelligence officer who would one day become his country’s ruler experienced East Germany’s revolution as up close and personal. While I can’t look into the Russian president’s soul, I believe the moment left a lasting imprint on the mind of the future dictator.

If Putin needed any reminder of the potential fragility of authoritarian regimes, he got it in 2011. Brazen fraud in local elections triggered a wave of popular protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other big cities; Putin’s 2012 announcement that he planned to run for a third term as president (after an interlude in which his protege Dmitry Medvedev held the office) acted as an accelerant. He had already seen several other rulers toppled by uprisings in his post-Soviet neighborhood — the so-called color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

The sense of threat was compounded by the chain of events that would come to be known, in the West, as the Arab Spring. Beginning in Tunisia in late 2010, it soon claimed such ruthless dictators as Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh. If they could fall, anyone could fall.

Putin succeeded in defusing the challenge to his authority with a combination of suasion and threats. But the realization that his own country might be susceptible to a people-power uprising prompted him to reconsider how to deal with the possibility of mass discontent.

And in 2016, he created an entirely new institution — the 380,000-strong Russian National Guard, which combines the missions of suppressing mass uprisings and the monitoring of domestic dissent. While Russia’s existing security agencies mostly remained intact, there was one feature of this new one that set it apart: It answers directly to Putin, not to the bureaucracy. The old East German Stasi — like its Soviet counterpart, the KGB — was designed to defend the Communist Party, not individual leaders.

It’s a change that demonstrates just how palpably the ghosts of 1989 continue to haunt Putin’s imagination three decades later. That he’s managed to stay in power as long as he has shows just how carefully he has absorbed the lessons of that miraculous year.

______

THE STRANGE ODYSSEY OF ORBAN

By Emily Tamkin

Emily Tamkin is a writer and reporter based in Washington. She is the author of the upcoming book, “The Influence of Soros.”

In the late 1980s, when a somewhat lax form of Marxism/Leninism still reigned in Budapest, Bibo Istvan Special College for law students was “an island of autonomy and self-determination,” as author Paul Lendvai wrote in a recent book. Starting in 1986, the college received funding from Hungarian American billionaire George Soros, who subsidized its intellectually and politically curious students. In 1988, a group of those students founded Fidesz, a politically active youth group.

One of their members rocketed to fame in June 1989, when he gave a rousing speech at a Budapest ceremony commemorating Imre Nagy, a communist-era leader fondly remembered for pushing back against Soviet rule. The 26-year-old Fidesz member assailed Moscow and demanded the removal of Russian troops — striking a chord at precisely the moment when long-rising discontent with the U.S.S.R. was about to translate into revolutionary change around the region.

The young man’s name was Viktor Orban. Not long after his speech, he set off for Oxford, where he studied on a Soros scholarship. He returned to Hungary in 1990 as a young star, a future liberal leader. Or so everyone thought — and continued to think for years, as he rose to become Hungary’s prime minister.

But in 2014, during his second stint in office, Orban famously said, “The new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state.” Even more famously, he has relentlessly attacked his one-time benefactor. In 2018, parliament pushed through a “Stop Soros” law, making it illegal for individuals or organizations to provide help to undocumented immigrants. Central European University, which Soros founded in Budapest in the early 1990s, has been largely pushed out. Somewhat less famously, Orban’s government rewrote the Hungarian constitution in 2012 and passed a law under which the government oversees the courts. Orban himself has been accused of using his power to enrich his family and allies.

“Once in office, Orban changed his spots,” Soros writes in his latest book, “In Defense of Open Society.” “He sensed a political opportunity on the right and became increasingly nationalistic.”

And this, generally, is the thinking: Orban changed. He was a democrat, a liberal, and then he got power and stopped being one.

But look more closely at the young man back in 1989, the one giving speeches as hope for democracy and liberalism swept across Europe. A different picture starts to show, one in which Orban has always been Orban.

In the spring, I spoke with Tom Melia, now the head of the Washington office of PEN America. Back in the days when Bibo Istvan Special College was an autonomous island, Melia was at the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit NGO that tries to bolster democratic institutions around the world, working on Hungary, “the most open of the Warsaw Pact countries in that period.” At the time, he said, people thought Fidesz was made up of smart, young people who were going to save the world.

I asked if he’d been surprised by the evolution of Orban and Fidesz.

Being an opponent of a dictatorship, he said, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good democrat: “You may just be a competitor for power.” During the 1990s, he says, some of those who knew Orban began to warn Melia about him. “They said that it was his domineering personality, his intolerance of dissent and discussion that grew in that period of the first parliament. So they saw something there that I didn’t necessarily see.”

Melia told me about Balint Magyar, a sociologist who was education minister both in the period before Orban’s first government and in the period between Orban’s first and second government. Back in 1990, Magyar had surprised some observers of Hungarian politics by publishing a diagram in which he plotted Fidesz as somewhere between the European liberals and the conservative populists. In June, in Budapest, I met with Magyar himself. I’d asked him how he’d known.

He told me that it had to do with language. When Orban first came on the scene, people thought that the language of liberal democracy was what people wanted to hear. When Orban figured out that it wasn’t, he changed what he was saying.

With a change in language came political machinations. In the 1990 election, Melia recalled, the members of Fidesz were so young that they displayed pictures of themselves and their babies to show they were grounded family men. Fidesz changed the rules after the first elections so that, despite its youth organization origins, older individuals could run for office for Fidesz. They got their parents and family members to run back home in the countryside, building a rural presence — and a more conservative voter base. By the time they came to power in 1998, they were part of a center-right coalition, having beaten the socialist and liberal coalition that ruled from 1994 to 1998. Orban, who served as prime minister in the new government, was ousted in 2002 — and came back in 2010 determined to hold onto power. He used the language, the tools and the anti-Soros campaigns available to him to do that.

There are, of course, a variety of theories about what happened to Orban. I have heard people say he resents Soros because he doesn’t like to owe people anything; that he was a genuine liberal democrat; that he wants to show big city people that he’s just as good and smart as they are.

And all of that may be true. But I think it was also true that, back in 1989, Orban was already Orban, already the man who wanted power and would say what he thought necessary to say and do what he thought necessary to do to keep it. Thirty years later, it looks as if the changing means achieved that steady end.

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THE END OF HISTORY? NOT QUITE.

By Brian Klaas

In the summer of 1989, just a few months before protesters streamed through Checkpoint Charlie of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama published an article in the National Interest called “The End of History?,” which later became the foundation of his book “The End of History and the Last Man.” He argued that the great ideological struggles of the 20th century — first between liberal democracy and fascism and then between liberal democracy and communism — were over. History, defined by Fukuyama as the struggle between grand ideologies, had reached its endpoint. Liberal democracy had won.

“What we may be witnessing,” Fukuyama wrote, “is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

When the Berlin Wall fell only a few months later, Fukuyama looked more like a prophet than a political scientist. But does he still look right today?

Thirty years later, history itself appears to have refuted “the end of history.” China, Russia and Vietnam have revived and prolonged authoritarianism precisely by adapting capitalism to their own designs. Turkey and Egypt have created new forms of sultanism. And in east-central Europe, Hungary and Poland — once bright spots of the 1989 revolutions — are once again embracing one-party rule in all but name. Germany, once the standard-bearer for Eastern Europe, now also finds itself bedeviled by right-wing populism. Even in the United States — a country that Ronald Reagan called a “shining city upon a hill” in January 1989 — a weak but dangerous would-be strongman now rules.

These examples, and others, are driving a dangerous trend. Young people in the West are losing faith in democratic institutions. Roughly 75 percent of Americans born in the 1930s say it is “essential” to live in a democracy — but only about 30 percent of Americans born in the 1980s share that view. Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden show a similar dynamic.

More are also willing to consider alternatives that were once unthinkable fringe views. In 1995, 1 in 16 Americans said army rule would be “good” or “very good.” By 2014, that figure had grown to 1 in 6.

Yet this is not the entire story. For one thing, the current democratic recession doesn’t negate the astounding growth of liberal democracy since World War II.

In 1945, the world was home to 137 autocratic states — and just 12 democratic ones. By 1989, the number of autocracies had fallen to 105 compared with 51 democracies. In 2018, democracies were in the lead, by a count of 99 to 80. (This is a broad category that encompasses many different kinds of states, ranging from robust parliamentary democracies to relatively illiberal ones.) Oxford economist Max Roser calculates that the number of people who live in democracies nearly doubled between 1989 and 2015, from about 2 billion to about 4 billion.

Even more striking, perhaps, is the persistence with which post-1989 despots strive to present themselves as democrats. Many make a point of holding regular and seemingly competitive elections (while rigging them). They allow a semi-free press (which they muzzle when it suits them). They make a pretense of maintaining the rule of law on paper (though not in practice). As Nic Cheeseman and I have argued, this is why there are more elections than ever before as the world becomes less democratic.

This would seem to undercut Fukuyama’s argument but actually reinforces it. The world’s dictators are trying to create the illusion of liberal democracy to justify their rule. Most of those leading the democratic recession still say democracy is the ideological ideal.

Fukuyama noted that “it is not necessary that all societies become successful liberal societies, merely that they end their ideological pretensions of representing different and higher forms of human society.” This may have been his most astute observation of all; modern politics appears to be bearing it out.

Authoritarianism and illiberalism have not died. Yet as I write this, people are taking to the streets once again across the world — from Hong Kong to Chile, Ecuador to Algeria, Lebanon to Sudan. The reasons for their protests differ widely — but what they all have in common is the demand for a voice over decisions affecting their everyday lives. None of the participants in these mass uprisings is demanding that despots tell them what to do.

All of them are marching in the footsteps of those who, 30 years ago, pushed against the walls and curtains of dictatorship until they finally fell. The defenders of the open society continue to fight, and they still have much to fight against. Even so, the promise of democracy beckons just as persistently as it did in 1989. Otherwise the strongmen would not have so much reason to fear it. But fear it they do.

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30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, children of a united Germany remain divided

By Loveday Morris and Luisa BECK | Published November 07 at 11:10 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 7, 2019

BERLIN — Michael Weber had just turned 3 when the Berlin Wall fell and doesn’t remember life before communist East Germany reunited with the capitalist West.

Weber’s generation, raised in the rubble of the wall, was expected to grow up without division. They were the children of “die Wende,” as the reunification is known in Germany and which loosely translates as “turning point.”

And yet that’s not quite how things turned out.

“In my head, the wall is still there,” Weber said. “There’s disappointment here. What was hoped for in the last 30 years hasn’t really happened.”

Events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s demise this week are tempered by soul-searching about continued rifts in society.

Although economic divisions between East and West have narrowed, the East still lags behind. And political and psychological divisions, which until recent years had been written off by some politicians as issues of the past, have become increasingly obvious. That’s especially the case within the generation raised after reunification and without memory of the communist state that preceded it.

Only 38 percent of East Germans think reunification succeeded, according to a government report released in September. That drops to 20 percent among those younger than 40, who experienced East Germany only as children or not at all.

Weber and his friends fall into that group. They took a recent day off from the metal factory where they work to attend a “family day” organized by the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party in the eastern town of Zeulenroda. Residents lined up for sausages and beer as they waited for an appearance by regional AfD leader Bjorn Höcke, who has survived calls within his own party to ban him for anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Weber and his friends brushed off reports of Höcke’s neo-Nazi ties and said the AfD speaks to issues they care about.

The traditional parties, Weber said, “had 30 years to make changes, 30 years to make everything equal, and they haven’t.”

A TURNING POINT THAT LEFT SOME DISAPPOINTED

It was on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989 that an East German government official announced — somewhat prematurely, it would turn out — that the state’s citizens would be free to travel to the West.

East Germans swarmed to the Berlin Wall, where they were welcomed by citizens from West Germany. There were euphoric scenes of celebration as the most potent symbol of the Iron Curtain that divided Europe was overrun.

But it was also the beginning of a painful readjustment for many in East Germany.

Reunification gave the 17 million Germans in the East a chance to own property, but many emerging from the communist state lacked the capital to do so. During privatization, factories in the East were shut down or bought up by new owners from the West. Qualifications from the East were rendered invalid.

Two years after reunification, industrial production in the East had slumped by more than three quarters, and more than 3 million people were out of work.

Many people left, resulting in dispiriting depopulation.

Three decades later, the picture is far better, as Germany’s powerhouse economy has lifted both East and West. But disparities remain. Salaries and disposable income in the East now reach about 85 percent of those in the West, according to government figures. East Germans are underrepresented as leaders in business, academia and politics, despite Chancellor Angela Merkel being from the East.

There’s also an enduring gap in unemployment rates: 6.9 percent in the East, compared to 4.8 percent in the West.

The split between East and West is even more pronounced in the realm of politics.

The far-right AfD has found support across Germany in the past five years, winning enough seats in the German parliament to make it the largest opposition party. But its message has particularly resonated in the East, and especially among young people. Whereas the Greens have won the under-30 vote elsewhere in Germany, in the Eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia the AfD has come out on top.

The party has benefited from opposition to Merkel’s decision to welcome more than 1 million refugees. But it has also tapped into resentment about how reunification was handled 30 years ago and into a feeling that Germans in the East remain second-class citizens.

During recent local elections in the East, the AfD promised a “Wende 2.0” to right the wrongs of the process.

“Senior politicians always said that unification is not a topic that is relevant in the young generation anymore,” said Rainer Faus, one of the authors of a study for the Otto Brenner Foundation this year that researched unity among Germans born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “We didn’t really believe that.”

The study found that only 33 percent of young Germans in former eastern states agreed that it makes no difference whether someone comes from eastern or western Germany, compared to 57 percent in the West who say the same.

“People in the East perceive Germany as less fair,” Faus said. “They believe that people in the East were not always treated in a fair manner after the fall of the wall.”

And those who agree that the East has been disadvantaged are more likely to vote for the AfD, he said.

Another notable finding: One in five people surveyed in the former East Germany said they feel more “East German” than “German.” There’s no equivalent regional identity in the West, Faus said.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE EAST GERMAN?

Some say they’ve had little choice but to embrace their East German identity, to fight stereotypes that have become more pervasive in recent years.

Valerie Schönian was born on Sept. 25, 1990, a little shy of a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and eight days before Germany was formally unified. She said she’d never really considered her regional identity growing up.

“For me and a lot of other people my age, I never thought about East and West Germany — that was history for me,” she said. “But then something changed.”

Schönian points to the 2015 refugee influx, which gave rise to the anti-immigrant Pegida party, and later the AfD. Suddenly East Germans were in the spotlight: for being racist and far-right.

The news media and Twitter commentators began to look at the East and say, “My God, what’s going on there?” she said. The emphasis on negative aspects of the region made her want to present a fuller picture.

“Young people like me — who don’t go on the streets for Pegida, or go on the streets for the AfD — also want to talk about East Germany and what’s going on there and what’s cool about East Germany,” said Schönian, who is writing a book on the topic.

On a rainy day in Leipzig, Friederike Feiler, 21, points out the church where her parents took part in political protests against communist East Germany. Her father still runs tours there.

Feiler — who is part of an activist group called Aufbruch Ost, or “Departure East” — argues that issues surrounding reunification need to be revisited and discussed. Among the most controversial is the work of Treuhandanstalt, an East German agency created to privatize state companies before reunification in 1990. It closed down many of them.

“It’s about getting more people to know about the inequality between East and West, and getting more people talk about it,” Feiler said.

But she worries that the focus on political differences is cementing new walls.

“After the elections now, there is a lot of blame on the East Germans,” she said. “The problem is when you point the finger and say, ‘How can you vote for the AfD? You are bad people.’ ”

Daniel Kubiak, a sociologist at the Humboldt University in Berlin, said it’s important to move on from explaining everything about eastern Germany with East German history. The classic example is when people suggest that Germans in eastern states have an affinity for the far right because they lived under authoritarian rule.

People shouldn’t overlook events in the 1990s, he said, such as the emergence of anti-immigrant groups and cases of domestic terrorism.

“Eastern Germany has become a construct in its own right, which has a 30-year history after reunification that you first have to look at,” he said.

Despite concerns about enduring divisions, for Schönian, the discussion about reunification’s unfulfilled promises and about what it means to be east German can be seen, in itself, as a sign of German unity.

“It just means that young East German people are so integrated, that it’s not possible to ignore our voice,” she said. For a long time, the East German perspective was ignored in history and the media, she said. “That gets harder and harder. Because of us.”

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