Annalise is 4'9"! (To compare to Cyrus!)

SEND ME YOUR MUSES HEIGHT AMD I WILL COMPARE IT TO MINE

__________

Oh my god, SHES SO TINY LOOL!!! How the fuck is he gonna even fit in her home hahahaha

Chair Of National Highways Confirms His Departure From The Role By The End Of 2023 - Transport Planning Associates

Dipesh Shah OBE, who has served as Chair of National Highways since September 2020, has announced that he will move on from his role with the UK Government-owned company when his current term of office ends later this year. 

According to the Department for Transport (DfT), a short extension to Mr Shah’s tenure at the organisation – which is responsible for operating and maintaining the 4,500-mile strategic road network in England – has been agreed, as the department seeks his replacement. 

Amid the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic – which was then at its height – Mr Shah took on the role to help oversee the delivery of the second road investment strategy, in addition to supporting a variety of key strategic initiatives for the organisation. 

His time in office saw him work closely with the National Highways executive and board, as well as UK Government ministers and DfT officials, to assist in the transformation of England’s crucial road infrastructure. 

The DfT has said that it will commence a process to find Mr Shah’s successor “soon”. 

“I have been privileged and honoured to serve as Chair” 

Reflecting on the news of his departure, Mr Shah said he had been “privileged and honoured to serve as Chair at National Highways, which plays such a pivotal role in connecting communities across England”. 

“We have achieved much during my tenure, and I am grateful to everyone involved with National Highways for their welcome and support.” 

Mr Shah said that he had told the Secretary of State earlier in 2023 about his intentions to leave the role, and that he would “continue to work with colleagues at National Highways to deliver our goals during the remainder of my time as Chair.” 

Transport Secretary Mark Harper signalled his gratitude to the outgoing Chair for his work over the past three years, adding that ministers and officials had “appreciated his collaborative approach.”

Three years of achievement for National Highways, but also excitement for the future 

The announcement of the end of Mr Shah’s time as Chair gave cause for reflection on the accomplishments of the last three years. However, the organisation is also looking ahead to the prospects for the road network in the years immediately to come. 

National Highways – formerly known as the Highways Agency, and later Highways England – said it expected to have sustained as many as 64,000 construction-industry jobs over the second road period from 2020 to 2025, in addition to giving the economy a £27 billion boost, mainly via a £10.5 billion network improvement programme. 

In the period since 2020, 10 major improvement schemes have been completed. According to National Highways and the DfT, a further 23 schemes are under construction, and 25 are in the development phase, contributing to improvements in safety and journey reliability. 

The company has also set out a new vision to drive down carbon emissions on the network to net zero, alongside progressing towards its target of a 50% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured by the middle of this decade.  

Having enjoyed a highly successful professional life in both the public and private sectors, Mr Shah is set to continue with his other Chair roles outside National Highways, in addition to taking on further responsibilities. 

Are you seeking guidance and assistance in relation to your own organisation’s infrastructure projects, from well-qualified and experienced transport consultants? If so, the Transport Planning Associates (TPA) team can be on hand to help you extract the very greatest potential from your work; please don’t hesitate to contact us now for more information on our unique, end-to-end service. 

Modi and co using Sanatana ploy to divert attention; will face cases legally, says Udhayanidhi

He also launched a strident attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he was "globe-trotting", afraid of facing questions over the Manipur violence.

CHENNAI: Under intense attack from the BJP over his alleged anti-Sanatana Dharma remarks, DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Thursday accused the saffron party leaders of “twisting” his statements and vowed to face all cases in this connection legally.

He also launched a strident attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he was “globe-trotting”, afraid of facing questions over the Manipur violence.

“For the last 9 years, all your (BJP) promises are empty promises. What have you exactly done for our welfare is a question currently being raised in unison by the entire country against an unarmed, fascist BJP government. It is in this background that the BJP leaders have twisted my speech at the TNPWAA conference as ‘inciting genocide’. They consider it a weapon to protect themselves,” he said.

What is surprising is that those like Union Minister Amit Shah and Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states were demanding action against him based on “fake news,” Udhayanidhi said.

“In all fairness, I should be the one filing criminal cases and other court cases against them for spreading slander while holding respectable positions. But I am aware that this is their mode of survival. They don’t know how else to survive, so I decided not to do that,” he said.

He was one of the political heirs of Dravidian stalwart, the late CN Annadurai, the founder of the DMK.

“Everyone knows that we are not enemies of any religion.”

“I would like to quote Anna’s comment on religions which remains relevant even today. If religion leads people towards equality and teaches them fraternity, then I too am a spiritualist. If a religion divides people in the name of castes, if it teaches them untouchability and slavery, I would be the first person to oppose religion,” he said quoting Annadurai.

He said DMK respects all religions that teach all lives are born equal.

“But without an iota of understanding about any of these, Thiru Modi and Co are solely dependent on such slanders to face the Parliamentary elections. On the one hand, I can only feel sorry for them. For the last 9 years, Modi has been doing nothing. Occasionally he demonetises money, builds walls to hide huts, builds new Parliamentary building, erects a Sengol (sceptre) there, plays around by changing the name of the country, standing at the border and making the white flag work,” he lashed out.

Has there been any progressive scheme from the Union government in the last nine years like the DMK’s “Pudhumai Penn” or the Chief Minister’s breakfast scheme or the Kalaignar’s women’s rights scheme, he asked. “Have they built the AIIMS in Madurai? Did they take forward any knowledge movement like the Kalaignar Centenary Library?”

“Afraid of having to face questions about Manipur in India, he is globe-trotting along with his friend Adani. The fact is, the ignorance of the people is the capital of their theatrical politics,” he claimed.

“Thiru Modi and co are using the Sanatana ploy to divert the attention from the facts including the killing of more than 250 people in the riots incited in Manipur and the Rs 7. 5 lakh crore corruption,” he charged.

There was a lot of work for the party workers, including preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he said and asked them to focus on that. “I would like to inform that I will face the cases filed against me legally with the guidance of our party president (TN CM MK Stalin) and on the advice of our party high command,” he added.

Becoming A Stark (14)- Peter Parker x Stark! femReader

Word Count: 1869

Warning: Swearing

Author’s Note: So we’ve hit the half way point I think (I think I did my math right lol). Also I loved doing the field trip chapters! I wanted to do something more fun before we get into the Spider-Man Homecoming Chapters which will start next! Let me know what you think and if you want to be added to the tag list!

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Master List

“So is this what you do every day?” You ask Pepper as you sit in the chair next to her desk. Your hand fidgets with the medical alert bracelet on your right wrist, needing to fiddle with something.

“Goodness no. Every day changes. But it’s a lot of meetings and lunches, paperwork, press conferences, things like that. And about 90% of it is redirecting your dad when he gets on a tangent.” Pepper says with a smile. 

“What…” You let your sentence drift off, not wanting to voice your question.

“What….?” She prods slightly, but doesn’t push like your dad would.

“What if I decide I don’t want to run the company? Like everyone keeps telling me it’s my name on the building and stuff but what if I don’t want to ascend to my birth right or whatever?”

“I’m not a Stark.” Pepper states.

“Yeah but you and my dad are basically going to get married one day and then you will be.” It’s not that much of a secret that your dad wants to marry Pepper, he just hasn’t asked yet.

“Well... yes, but that’s not the point I was trying to make. The point is that you don’t have to be a Stark to run the company. When you turn twenty one, should you decide that running the company is not for you, you would just pick another CEO, or I can keep running the company if that is where we are depending on what happens seven years from now.”

“Would my dad hate it if I didn’t step into it?”

“You know your dad chose to step away from running the company right?” You nod. It was big news when Tony Stark had stepped down from CEO. Nana and Pops had talked about it for like a week when it happened. “He wouldn’t judge you or love you any less for choosing to do the same thing. He wants you to be happy. First and foremost. He’s already looking towards which schools have the best English Lit programs because he knows that his pull at MIT is going to have nothing for you. He doesn’t expect you to be him. He wants you to be better than him.”

“But he’s Tony Stark. He’s Iron Man. How can I be better than that?” You ask.

“Quite easily actually. Tony Stark, Iron Man, psshh. They’ve let a lot of people down.” Tony’s voice enters the room. “Honestly there’s probably even one of those Buzzfeed articles about the top ten ways that Tony Stark has let down people.”

“Tony.” Pepper’s voice alone tells you she disagrees, but Tony ignores it and continues.

“But you, Y/N Stark, you have the chance to do anything in the world. And you will make me a proud dad by doing that. You don’t have to do anything with the company if you don’t want to and I will be completely happy with that you know why? Because you are my daughter. And that’s the only thing I need to make me happy.” He places a kiss on the top of your head. “That and doing whatever it takes to keep Pep here happy.” He smiles at her across the desk.

“What would keep me happy is if you actually met your deadlines.” She teases. 

“I’m right on schedule. Ahead some might even say.”

“Some might, but would I?” She raises an eyebrow as she pushes some papers onto a different pile.

“I’d rather not sleep on the couch tonight so I’m going to go with I’m on schedule today.” Pepper rolls her eyes at that. 

“So then, what made you come all the way up to the office that you despise?”

“Other than the fact that my two favorite people are here?”

“You sound like you’re just trying to distract Pepper, Dad.” You tease him, knowing he had to have some motive, because Pepper was right. Dad hated the CEO office, even if the two of you were in it.

“I was making sure the two of you take a break for lunch. Especially since your class is heading down for lunch and I figured since your friends are there, you might want to join them.”

“And because my friends are there, you want to join them and embarrass me.”

“I’m just making sure you eat lunch.” He throws his hands up, trying to show you he comes in peace.

“You hardly ever eat lunch when you’re supposed to.” Pepper points out, but she knows that keeping you on a schedule is important with keeping your basals on a good schedule. “But Tony does make a good point that we should get some lunch for you. And how often do we get to have lunch as a family?”

“You don’t have like a lunch meeting or something?” You ask, surprised that Pepper isn’t running off to some fancy luncheon.

“Not today. Today I can take an actual lunch with my two favorite Starks.” She smiles standing up and walking to the other side of her desk. Tony’s arm wraps around her waist, pulling her in close. He places a kiss on her cheek.

“Lunch is my treat.” Tony teases. “Let’s go!”

“Lunch is free for any employees or family of the employees.” Pepper explains rolling her eyes as the three of you walk towards the elevator. 

“FRI take us to the cafeteria.”

“Sure thing boss.” The elevator takes you down the twenty floors and as you walk out the doors you see your friends sitting at tables.

“I’ll get you food. Go sit with your friends.” Tony kisses the top of your head as he walks over to get food with Pepper. You make your way over to where Astrid, Betty, Liz, Ned, Peter, and a girl that you think her name is Michelle sit. There’s still a couple open seats at the table so your dad and Pepper will be able to join too.

“Y/N!” Betty and Astrid call your name out as you sit down.

“Are you ok?” Betty’s concern is voiced quickly.

“I’m fine, I came back into range before Peter joined back up with the group.” You explain taking the empty seat next to Peter, who already knew all of this.

“Then why didn’t you come back to the group? Your dad told Mr. Shah there were important Stark matters.”

“I’m spending the rest of the field trip with Pepper. Dad thinks it makes more sense for me to learn about what she does since I’m supposed to take over the company one day then to learn the public tour side of things.” You shrug. “Although I’m not sure how much of Pepper’s job is public knowledge so I’m not sure what my report about what I learned at SI will be about.”

“Just take a page out of your dad’s twitter and write you know who I am. Short, sweet and to the point.” Michelle says not even looking up from her book.

“I think that would be hilarious but I don't think I’d pass with that. And I need a passing grade so I don’t have to take biology over again.” You explain. “I’m Y/N by the way.”

“My friends call me MJ.” The dark haired girl explains.

“I thought you didn’t have any friends?” Ned questions.

“She has at least one.” You defend quickly, sensing something about this girl that you like. MJ and Ned both look up at you, but Peter just shakes his head like he should have seen this coming. What he didn’t see coming, was Tony and Pepper coming to sit with a group of teens. 

Tony sits in the seat next to you, placing a tray of food in front of you, before acknowledging the silence that has fallen over the table. “Yes yes I know it is shocking. Pepper Potts, CEO. She is just as amazing in person and you think she would be.” He flashes a smile at the table and you roll your eyes.

“I think you all probably know my obnoxious dad. And this, as he mentioned is Pepper. She is amazing.” You can’t help but agree with your dad on that one. “Dad, Pepper, you know Betty, Astrid, and Peter of course. Then we have Liz, Ned, and MJ.” You gesture around the table before finally looking at the food in front of you. Pasta with spinach and cheese, some fruit, a brownie, and… “Another green juice?” You look at your dad.

“Chef Louis makes the best green juice.” You dad says taking a sip of his own.

“Good for him. I already had my one for the day.”

“Think of it as balancing out the soda from earlier.”

“It wasn’t like I went out of my way to have a soda. I was dying.”

“And now we’re going to give your body something better.” You roll your eyes. 

“Pepper help me out?” You plead.

“He’s pretty set on this one.” Peppe says as she lifts her own glass from the other side of Tony. “This one tastes different than the ones he makes in the mornings though.”

“You know I thought the paparazzi was the worst part of being a Stark. But it’s the fucking green juice obsession in this family.” There’s a burst of laughter from next to you. “Something funny Parker?” 

“Absolutely nothing funny Y/N.” He says lifting a soda to his own lips.

“You not going to make your intern get on the green juice trend?” You ask your dad.

“He’s not my kid. You are.”

“I’ll trade you.” You offer the glass to Peter.

“If you give her the glass that has as much sugar as a Snicker’s, I’ll ban you from all labs for a week.” Tony’s voice drops an octave.

“You not going to just blast him with your gauntlet?” You tease.

“That’s saved for bad guys and boyfriends.” Betty and Astrid look at you with a look that you can read to see that they understand what you meant about trying to get a Homecoming date now.

“See if I tell you when I get a boyfriend then.”

“Remind me to tell FRIDAY to lock you in the brownstone until you're 25 then.” Tony teases back.

“Pepper’ll save me.” You say, sure that Pepper will reign him in before he could even get this far. 

“I got your back.” She responds with a smile. As you put the carbs into Queenie, the conversation picks up around you. Your dad starts talking to Peter about some missing part of a calculation for one of the many projects they were working on. Betty and Astrid are talking to Pepper about what it’s like to be CEO and you’ve fallen into listening to your two worlds falling back into one. You even take a sip of the green juice and shouldn’t be surprised that it’s not that bad. To be honest, it’s even better than the one you get in the mornings. But you won’t let your dad know that. But of course he notices anyway.

“Told you it was good.”

“Never said it was good. It just didn’t kill me.”

“Sure kiddo. Whatever you say.”

Becoming A Stark Tag list: @persephonehemingway  @iamaunicorn4704  @furiouspockettoad  @daughter-of-stark  @eternalharry  @huntective-kyeo @riiis-stuff @sunnyoongles @cosmicqueenieb @sovereignparker @bbarnestan @teenwishes08 @iamthescarlettwitch

Permanent tag list: @wormonastringonastick

Examining Layers of Meaning in Rebellious Silence.

This is my essay on meaning for critical studies. I chose this artist for her photographic images that raised many questions for me when I first came across her work. I love the layering of script on photograph, the staged manner of her compositions. They are so clearly staged that it calls for further interrogation...what is she trying to convey and why? 

Examining Layers of Meaning in Rebellious Silence

Rebellious Silence, 1994, Shirin Neshat.

Ink on LE silver gelatin print, (131.8 x 92.7 x 4.8 cm).

Introduction

In this essay I will examine how meaning is made and translated in an image by Shirin Neshat titled Rebellious Silence, part of the Women of Allah series. I intend to evaluate and analyse the image employing Roland Barthes theories of semiotics and intertextuality.

Theory and Framework

Barthes was one of the leading theorists of semiotics which is the study of signs. In this context, a sign refers to something which conveys meaning – a written or spoken word, a symbol or a myth (Robinson, 2011). Semiotics is concerned with anything that can stand for something else, it is an interpretation of everything around us. According to Barthes’ theory, every ideological sign is either Denotative (literal) or Connotative (Roland Barthes and his semiotic theory, 2018). In the dictionary Connotation is an idea or feeling which a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning. Signs have both a signifier, being the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses and the signified or meaning that is interpreted (Roland Barthes and his semiotic theory, 2018). Neshat’s work is dense with powerful imagery and I will use this to consider the meanings of various signs within the image.

Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's (or image) meaning by another text, in this case I am concerned with the interconnection between the related works of the series of pictures Women of Allah and how the interpretation of the individual image is affected by placing it within the series. I will use this theory to reflect upon how my interpretation of the work developed from a naive first reading, through to a more informed understanding based upon how the work related to Neshat’s wider practice.

Artwork and Author

Rebellious Silence is a staged black and white photograph of a woman dressed in Chador, which is a full body cloak held closed at the neck (A Brief History of the Veil in Islam, 2020). Her hair, head and shoulders are covered but her face is not. The photograph has had Farsi text added to the woman’s face by Neshat post-production. The woman is holding a rifle, her hands are not included in the image’s composition but from the way her arms are held beneath the Chador one would suppose she is holding the butt of the rifle securely in both hands. The barrel of the rifle perfectly bisects her face and the image vertically. It appears as if her chin and nose are touching the barrel and her eyes stare at the viewer from either side. Her eyes are defined using a black, Kohl eyeliner. Behind the figure is a horizontal line and would form a cross with the gun barrel were the figure not obscuring the line.

Neshat, an Iranian, was absent from her homeland during and after the Iranian Islamic Revolution for a period of about 12 years. The Iran she found upon her return was very different to the secular Persian culture she had grown up in and had left behind in 1975, aged just 17. She was able to visit again in the early 1990’s finding a country that was now under theocratic Islamic rule and very changed. She produced this series between 1993 and 1997 because she felt compelled to make art that reflected what she had experienced in Iran and to find a way to frame her own questions regarding the foundation of the Islamic Revolution and especially how it had impacted the lives of Iranian women (Neshat,2019, pg.75).

Evaluation and analysis.

Initial Reading

Personally, I encountered much confusion and nervousness when I first came across this image, but found the image so visually arresting that I was encouraged to investigate rather than move on. On my first reading, I assumed that it had been made as a comment on the terrorist attacks of 9/11. However, I later discovered that it was produced in 1994, seven years before the World Trade Centre attacks. My experience of the image changed as I increased my knowledge of its context and the authors intended meaning, and upon reflection I can see that my initial reaction to her work was the result of cultural ideologies formed from a Westerner’s viewpoint.

Symbolism, Sign and Signified

The woman is centralised, her figure is bisected by a gun barrel, creating an image of two halves. The shape of the gun, held in such a way, seems evocative of praying hands in the Christian tradition. Although it’s unlikely that Neshat intended this reading of the work, given her Muslim background, I can’t escape the way that my own Christian background informs this interpretation. In his essay “The Death of The Author” (1976), Barthes asserts that we need not ask ourselves what the author intended in the creation of his or her work but how the viewer reads or interprets it, he focuses on the interaction of the audience, not the maker, with it. This means that the text is much more open to interpretation, much more fluid in its meaning than previously thought (Short summary: Death of the Author - Roland Barthes, 2017). I don’t adhere entirely to his ideas on this, I believe the intended reading is as valid as my own and that it will be just one of many interpretations.

Dr. Allison Young remarks in her essay that “The woman's eyes stare intensely towards the viewer from both sides of this divide”, (Young, 2015). To me, this visual divide reads as a potent signifier of the opposing cultures Shirin Neshat has experienced and her negotiation of the chasm that separates them. The one she was born to and which has, since her leaving Iran, intensified into a Theocracy (by way of a revolution) and the one she has been adopted into, in the USA. She has found herself an alien in both circumstances although arguably belonging to both, one by birth and the other by residence and choice. In Iran, she is considered as subversive and provocative, her work has offended the caliphate and she is banned from visiting, whereas in the USA, she has had to contend with prejudice and outright hostility, especially during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, during which time American sentiments were distinctly Anti-Iranian (Neshat, 2019, p.16). The ideologies of both cultures are opposed, anti-Muslim stereotypes prevail in The West, marking Muslim women who wear the veil as a symbol of religious fundamentalism and extremism. Neshat is confronting the overriding discourse on the part of the West towards the East. She provocatively employs the Remington rifle to split the face, she sees and experiences both sides.

The gun in the photograph is a particularly powerful image. It has connotations of power, death and destruction. I find it uncomfortable and it raises many questions. Is she hiding behind its power, is she manipulated by the weapon or is she the manipulator? Is the carrying of this weapon her choice? Does she represent the power and aggressor or the defender of her culture or ideology? Or is it a comment on the power of the Theocracy? Women were called to arms during the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980’s and this was hailed by the government as being progressive and liberating for women, whilst paradoxically mandating them to observe religious piety in the wearing of the veil; their freedoms, sexuality, expression and movement are physically restricted.

Intertextuality

This photograph was taken during the second tranche (there were 3) of the Women of Allah series, the Farsi writing we see layered upon the photograph here is by the Iranian female poet, Tahereh Saffarzadeh.  Farsi is the Persian word for the Persian language. Farsi and Arabic are not the same. So are the woman or women in these pictures identified or identifying as Persian, with connotations of the previous more socially permissive rule of the Shahs, rather than Iranian? Persia, as a culture, is rich in symbolism. Conversely the poem deals with the issues of martyrdom which became popular and was encouraged by the new Iranian Government during the revolution. The audience majority in the West will find that the Farsi writing covering the face is unintelligible, incomprehensible. To a Westerm audience, who the work was arguably made for, the meaning is hidden in plain sight. The text that we are unable to comprehend is reduced to decoration under our gaze. The script also serves to complete the veil figuratively, in that her face is further disguised from sight. It is a complex relationship that Iranian women have with issues such as Martyrdom, cultural identity and the wearing of the veil. Each interrogation of the image simply provides me with more questions as the layers are examined. Neshat says in a conversation with Glenn Lowry that she approaches her subjects as a sociologist would, framing the issues but never providing any answers. (Neshat, 2019, pg.75).

One should not overlook the relevance the Women of Allah series has today, post 9/11, even though the series is almost 25 years old. It has most recently been exhibited at the Broad in Los Angeles, as part of a retrospective exhibition of Shirin Neshat’s work. Neshat’s intended reading is changed by the context the work is displayed in, and by the events that happen in the intervening years given the current global events relating to fundamentalist terror attacks this century. An audience’s reading is inevitably different now than it would have been when the work was made adding another set of layers of interpretation. Are we able to make the distinction between Persian, Iranian or ‘Arab’? Can we view these images without reference to suicide bombings carried out by veiled women? I think not, which speaks to its relevance in today’s society.  Recently exhibited alongside her films and more recent of works, the exhibition as a whole adds to your experience of the singular, I imagine the breadth of subject matter, the multi-media nature of her work and the monochrome nature of the offerings speak to an intensely personal experience.

The veil has come to be understood as either a symbol of Muslim women’s oppression or their resistance, constructed as dichotomous perspectives (Ladhani, 2019). In a free, liberal Western society, the veil is often read as the subjugation of women and a mechanism of control. There are many Muslim women who take exception to that perception, finding a freedom beneath the veil, free from the critical and sexual male gaze. Part of the provocation of these images is to question our ideological affinity to this discourse. The veil worn in its various forms (leaving out Christian traditions around the marriage ceremony) ‘by women appears with such constancy that it generally suffices to characterize Arab society’ (A Brief History of the Veil in Islam, 2020). In this picture we see an Arab, Muslim woman, holding a gun and staring at the viewer, it shifts the subjugated female to a politically motivated weapon, there is an undercurrent of violence and politics. The eyes seem to penetrate, and her face is adorned by incomprehensible text. I was initially nervous of this image, she seemed completely ‘other’ to me.  I questioned whether it was a challenge to faith or ideology or was it a propaganda image? The way the gun is positioned is reminiscent of holding a finger to your lips in the internationally recognised sign or command for quiet, silence. Is she silenced by the gun or does the reference to the gun create the silence by fear? By intertextually using other images that speak to one another in a series she is able to more fully explore the symbolic nature of the gun. They inform one another. The weapon is conceivably passive in Rebellious Silence, whereas if you view another in the series, Faceless      

          FACELESS, 1994. (Shirin Neshat, MutualArt, 2020)    

the subject is actively holding the gun with the viewer in its sights, her finger on the trigger and hand covered in Farsi text which is extolling the beauty of Martyrdom. The meaning of the text is still hidden from us, that in itself promotes a degree of fear, we are excluded from understanding it.            

Both the gun and the poem give the woman a voice whilst cloaked in a silencing and constricting Chador.

Unveiling,1993, is one of her earlier photographs but still part of the same series, Neshat is pictured in the photograph and has written the poetry of Farrokhzad over her face. The words of this poem deal with the struggle women find in navigating the strict religious, social codes whilst recognising their sexual desires. It is a love poem, the author’s works are banned in Iran, whilst Tahereh Saffarzadeh writings about Martyrdom are applauded.

Unveiling (Christies.com, Shirin Neshat, 2012)

 Here she appears naked beneath her Chador, it is a seductive and sensual image and the poetry, if we could but understand it gives voice to her desires. These images and the others belonging to the same series give a duality of message. Speaking to the differing circumstances and roles women inhabit in contemporary Iran and prodding the Wests perceptions and judgements. It is no one thing, this issue of Women of Allah, it is varied and complex and difficult to grasp and articulate. Sheliza Ladhani says in her essay Decentering the Veil, that contemporary discourse surrounding Muslim women who veil continues to be about them as opposed to from them (Ladhani, 2019). Within Iran, and amongst Iranian women are women who want to express themselves and their desires as well as those who adhere whole heartedly to the religious dictates. Neshat delivers both these women and others to our notice in her series. She also explores her feelings of separateness and exile from her home, family and culture. Ed Schad says in ‘I will Greet the Sun Again’, the catalogue that was produced for the exhibition at The Broad, that Neshat’s photos are beautiful articulations of empathy and identification, saturated in a visual language learned in New York and applied to an examination of contemporary Iran. These photos echo the voices of women whose freedom balances precariously on the fault line of an Iran caught between modernizing and conservative forces (Neshat, 2019, pg15).

Conclusion

Neshat recalls that her first exhibition of the Women of Allah series was written about by a New York Times critic. He had complained about her work as being too confusing, wondering where she was coming from. He asked was it a case of radical chic or a way to romanticise violence? (Neshat, 2019, pg. 76). He may have a point. The inclusion of the gun in some of her works in this series is provoking and shocking, it is a tool of destruction and violence. When seen in reference to an Islamic veil and in the hands of a woman our minds travel to radicalisation and fundamentalism. But there is an irony and conflict here too, given the US’s much debated and firmly held right to bear arms. Neshat as a naturalised American has the right to bear arms, but as a Muslim, she could be said to be one of the reasons that the US want to bear arms – for protection. The inclusion of the rifle could be speaking to this dichotomy.

As we have seen Rebellious Silence is a deeply layered and challenging work, but its impact lies in its ambiguity, complexity and difficulty. By confronting the viewer with a dense set of signs and symbols, Neshat forces us to think more deeply and to question her intentions. Nothing can be taken for granted and nothing is made easy. It’s through this challenge that the photograph and wider series Women of Allah prompts debate and discussion, which is ultimately how change and awareness come about. The photographs openly wear paradoxes and what seem like contradictory points of view, says Ed Schad (Neshat, 2019, pg. 15). In agreeing or disagreeing with the artists intended meaning and debating its efficacy, we bring ourselves into the experience and thus have a unique reaction and viewpoint from which to decipher the work. Perhaps it is because of these many layers of meaning that the work is still so relevant today.

@cosmicnexus​ said:

// i don't even know the whole story but i know based on the red x's on the picture those kids ain't alright and i am S A D but holy fuck jay this picture is amazing!!! the shading and the rendering!!!!

// AaaaaAAAA thank you Kato ;w; You’re always far too good to me and I love you <3<3<3

The basic story is this is Braig’s little ‘inner circle’ group of best friends. He met Hano (the Cathar) when he was three, and they’ve been best friends ever since; he met Naweh (the Tarasin) not long after, and she fit in with them perfectly; He met Booda (the Gungan) when he was four, Lohata (the Rodian) when he was five, and he sort of knew the Affgor twins, Garak and Shah-Ki (the Weequay) in passing, but he didn’t actually know them until their Gathering, when the seven of them - at age seven - went to find their kyber crystals. Ever since the Gathering, they’ve sort of been their own little clique, so they refer to their collective selves as ‘the Gathering group’. Not very creative, but it suits their purposes. 

(Little fun fact: Braig’s the oldest of all of them! Technically they’re all born in the same year, but he was born first. The actual age order is Braig -> Lohata -> Hano -> Naweh -> Booda -> the Twins. The Twins don’t know which one of them was born first, and change their answer depending on their moods.) 

(more details under a cut because I rambled)

Tarasins, such as Naweh, have skin that changes colour based on their emotions. They can learn to control the changes, and even use them to communicate when they get older. Normally, Naweh keeps herself a calm, neutral blue-purple-green, but she knows her friends don’t care, so right now, she’s a happy/excited pink-yellow-orange. Anyone who knows Tarasin skin colours would take one look at her and go ‘wow, she’s stoked to be there’. 

One of Naweh’s favourite places to be was the nurseries. She always said if she hadn’t been chosen to pursue knighthood, she would’ve been happy working with the younglings (to the point where if she ever had the Group’s braincell and advised against something, they’d usually chorus a light-hearted ‘Yes, Crechemaster’). She loved kids. That’s why, aside from encouraging Hano to embrace his bastard status, she’s braiding Braig’s hair. She doesn’t have hair of her own, but some of the little ones do, and having it braided makes it easier for them to do their training. She’s practicing braids so she can help the kids better on her next shift. (That’s also why she has a bunch of hair ties around her wrist, in part. She also just wore them because most of her close friends - Braig, Hano, the twins - have long hair, so she comes prepared in case they lose one of their own ties.) 

She gets a red X because she was in her beloved nurseries when Order 66 was declared. She died shielding the younglings, helping the staff smuggle them out. One of the last things she ever did was use the Force to shove some of the smaller ones into a ventilation duct in the hopes they might escape. She knew she wouldn’t. If you were to  find her body after the Purge, you’d find her still covering some little ones who weren’t so lucky, a guardian to the last. 

Of course we all know and love Braig. I don’t have too much to say about him here, since, again, we know him already. He’s napping because he’s warm and safe, the Force in the gardens and with his friends feels amazing, and he’s been getting his hair played with for the past five minutes. He’s also, as the group’s healer, on standby in case Booda’s prosthetics hurt her, but they all trust the Twins’ work enough that he feels safe dozing.

He survives Order 66, so no X - but his connection to the Living Force, combined with so many deaths all at once, leaves him with near-permanent metaphysical chronic pain. Sometimes, the literal air around him just feels painful to him. It sucks.

Hano is the tallest and strongest of the group. He evens out at 7′5, over 300 lbs. The Force gave him a bronze crystal when he was young and he did not disappoint. The necklace he wears is actually a trophy from the first hunt he went on, a rite of passage among Cathar. The trophy just lets other Cathar know he completed the hunt and can be welcomed as an adult into their society. Given that he was training as a tracker (Braig always called him ‘the greatest/most skilled tracker I’ve ever met’), his success was inevitable. As intimidating as he can be, he’s a gentle giant and a goofball at heart. He’ll tear it up on the battlefield, sure, but he’ll also use the fact he’s strong enough to lift a clone trooper in one arm to carry wounded men back to safety, to carry his friends around for fun, or to help the men, other Jedi, and the Temple staff with more strenuous physical labor. He also enjoys play-fighting, especially with Braig and Naweh, and the control he learned through the rigorous training of a Jedi means he can easily do so without hurting them. He’s always had a penchant for mischief, which is why he’s been telling dumb jokes and awful puns for the past little while. 

(Bonus fun fact: I joked, years ago, that he’s large enough that when he goes out with his friends - especially Small Friend Braig - he gets mistaken as their master. When I posted a WIP of this in my discord server, my friend Reece assumed he was their dad, so. It looks like that’s not a joke and actually happens, and Braig was quietly sulking that he’s three months older for a while after. Hano continues to think it’s funny.) 

He survived Order 66, barely. He was blinded and lost a leg in an explosion (hence the red scribbles). His master, Yokar Eedai, hid him among rubble, commed some of his non-Jedi friends to find the location, and then lead the clones away at the cost of his own life. Hano spent many years hiding in the Outer Rim in self-imposed exile. (He does eventually reunite with Braig, though. If you swing by Braig’s weapons shop, you can usually see him there, bandages tied over his eyes and metallic claws peeking out from under his left pantleg.) 

Garak and Shah-Ki aren’t very talkative or physically affectionate. They show their love for their friends through inclusion and acts of service. When they were young, still forming their group, Braig always thought that they were ‘each others’ best friend, and could live without the rest of us’. While that may have once been true, they’ve bonded with the rest of the Group quite thoroughly. So Garak is brushing Hano’s hair for him (Hano usually wears it in braids) and Shah-Ki is fixing Booda’s prosthetics, though they’re both debating the best way to enhance the water-proofing without sacrificing mobility. The twins were training as Shadows, a rare variant of Jedi that specializes in stealth missions. They were also brilliant slicers and engineers, making them incredible secret agents. By the time they were senior padawans, they could make not only themselves invisible through the Force, but one or two others, as well. They would often use this talent to bring one of the others of their group to see what they had most recently found or made. The rest of the Group always joked that you never knew what it was going to be. It could be a store room in the Temple that had fallen out of use, it could be a Battle Droid they repurposed, or it could be the complete dossier of someone who wasn’t legally supposed to exist. Just whatever they thought was cool. 

Their penchant for going unnoticed also meant that they heard, intentionally or otherwise, all sorts of gossip throughout the Temple. They’d usually share interesting tidbits at mealtimes with their friends, a practice Naweh had affectionately dubbed ‘Holocast T’. 

While Weequay can grow hair, braids are significant to them culturally, representing how many times they’ve visited their home planet of Sriluur. Because of this, the twins opted to have silka bead padawan ‘braids’ instead. 

They were finishing up a mission when Order 66 hit. While they were never as outwardly friendly as some others, they did trust their men, and as such didn’t think to hide themselves from those that became their executioners until it was too late. They died only moments apart, still reaching out to each other, but weren’t quite able to touch. 

Lohata and Booda are dating! They like to pretend nobody knows. The entire Group knows, of course, but they pretend they don’t, for their sake. 

Lohata is as close to a ‘mom friend’ as you can get when you don’t have a mom and haven’t been raised to know what having a mom is like. She usually has the braincell, and does her best to make sure the others can get out of any trouble they get into. That’s not to say that she doesn’t get into trouble a lot, too, she’s just usually the one who can bail them out when ‘blame it on Braig’ isn’t feasible. She’s also a bookworm, and usually has a datapad in her hand (she always appreciated that her friends would just let her read when they all hang out, jumping into and out of the conversation whenever she wanted without judgement. It was nice). She and Braig often exchange ‘pads from the archives (with Mistress Jocasta’s permission) if they found one they thought the other would like. She has a fairly dry sense of humor, which is why she’s in the middle of telling Hano that if he tells the one about the Womprat and the Quacta again, she’s defecting to the Separatists so she can hit him with a tree branch without getting in trouble. (Hano, being Assigned Disaster At Birth, is now figuring out how to reroute the conversation into a good segue for the one about the Womprat and the Quacta.) 

Aside from reading, she loved flying and singing, and was quite good at both - though she wouldn’t admit to the second. When Booda was recovering from getting her prosthetics for the first time, Lohata used to sing to her to help her relax. She wasn’t quite as good at dancing ad Booda was, but, if they had a moment alone, she’d make the effort for her girlfriend. 

Booda is much sunnier and more open than Lohata, but not as outgoing as Braig (hence why he’s usually their mastermind). She has a joy and genuine love for life, and, in the moment, is just happy to be home with all her friends, all safe and together and able to relax for once. 

As a Gungan, she knows all too well how her species is regarded by the rest of the Galaxy. She’s trained herself to not speak Gungan Basic in an effort to appear more ‘civilized’ and ‘respectable’ as a Jedi, and to hopefully avoid the negative stereotypes. (She only ever speaks it to other Gungans, now, and tries to avoid doing so in public.) Like Naweh, she figured if she ever got tired of field work, she’d be happy in the Temple - though she wanted to work in the Archives, not the nursery. She was a cultures nerd, like Braig, and the two of them often edited each others’ cultural papers and assignments before handing them in. 

Booda got her prosthetics after a mission went wrong, damaging both her arms beyond repair for the current Jedi on the scene. Her master, a Nautolan named Nid Arto, blamed himself for it, and had to speak to his own (former) master at length and meditate for a while to come to terms with it. He visited her for hours on end every day in the Temple’s medbay until she was cleared. She hadn’t yet turned 16, so she was still growing - this, as well as the frequent wear and tear of missions, meant that she had to get them replaced quite often. Oddly enough, this helped her come to terms with it more. At Nid’s suggestion, she started getting coloured casings for them, and that made it a bit more fun.  The Group would often visit her after these procedures with washable markers and draw or write little notes and designs on, which made it even better. By the time of this little meeting of theirs, she’s grown used to them, and is quite pleased with these new pink casings (they’re her favourite colour). 

She’s also the best dancer of the group, and usually teaches the others different dancing styles to help with diplomatic missions. Naweh, Braig, and Lohata are her usual students, as they’re the ones who do diplomacy more often (and she likes being able to dance with her girlfriend). Hano doesn’t do high society - it’s hard enough to get him to put on a shirt, he hates how it feels with fur - and the twins are shadows, not consulars or guardians. The three of them still show up for support and shenanigans, though. The twins are quite good at a Corellian waltz. Booda and Braig had a long-running joke about how he insisted dancing was just like sparring without hitting each other, dips were take-downs you stopped half way, et cetera, and she, through increasing giggles, would try to convince him to stop trying to punch foreign dignitaries to music. 

When Order 66 happened, Booda, Nid, and Lohata had just finished up a mission to Naboo (Lohata’s master had been sick, so Nid invited her along for the ride). They’d finished up early, so Nid, who knows Lohata likes to fly and Booda likes being on Naboo, decided to let the girls get a bit of flight practice in (with Queen Jamilla’s permission) in friendly skies. The men turned on them, and Lohata’s ship crashed, knocking her out. It was the fire and injuries that eventually took her life. Booda tried to pull her out, but only succeeded in damaging her prosthetics before Nid pulled her away to get her running. The two of them hid in a lake. When the men dropped depth charges, Nid shielded Booda and died in the process. She hid under water and in under-water caverns with air pockets for days, peeking out to still see her master’s corpse floating there before someone eventually removed it. She would never really be able to leave the lakeshore again, barely being able to venture into town for food weeks later, and to get her arms fixed over a year after the Purge. She, too, eventually reconnects with Hano and Braig - while she never feels safe leaving her lake, they make sure to comm her fairly regularly, and visit in person when they can, and it’s the closest to feeling truly safe she’s been in decades. 

The Problems with Aladdin: Orientalism, Casting, and Ramadan

Originally posted on Medium.

Edward Said and Jack G. Shaheen did not do the work they did so that movies like Aladdin would still get made.

I say this as someone who has had a complicated relationship with the 1992 Aladdin animated feature. I loved it when I was a kid. For a long time, it was my favorite Disney cartoon. I remember proudly telling white friends and classmates in third grade that Aladdin was “about my people.” Although nothing is said in the movie about Aladdin’s religion, I read him as Muslim.

When I grew older, I read Jack G. Shaheen’s book, Reel Bad Arabs, which analyzes about 1,000 American films that vilify and stereotype Arabs and Muslims. Among these films is Aladdin, which Shaheen reportedly walked out of. Shaheen spoke out against lyrics in the film’s opening song: “I come from a land from a far-away place/Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face/It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” Although he convinced Disney to remove the lyrics for the home video release, the final verse was still there: “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” As a 1993 op-ed in The New York Timeswrote, “It’s Racist, But Hey, It’s Disney.”

In Edward Said’s seminal book, Orientalism (1978), he described orientalism as a process in which the West constructs Eastern societies as exotic, backwards, and inferior. According to Said, orientalism’s otherization of Arabs, Muslims, and Islam provided justification for European colonialism and Western intervention in the Middle East and Muslim-majority countries, often under the pretext of rescuing the people — especially Muslim women — from themselves. In addition to orientalism’s practices of constructing the “Orient” as the West’s “Other,” Said asserted that another major facet of orientalism involves a “western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the ‘Orient.’” In other words, it is not the Arab or Muslim who gets to define themselves, but rather the West does.

There are plenty of excellent and detailed critiques out there about how the original Aladdin is filled with racist, sexist, and orientalist tropes, so there’s very little, if anything, to say that already hasn’t been said. In her extensive report, “Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 Years of Muslim Tropes And How to Transform Them,” Dr. Maytha Alhassen argues that Hollywood’s legacy of depicting Arabs and Muslims as offensive caricatures is continued in Aladdin, where the main characters like Aladdin and Jasmine are “whitewashed, with anglicized versions of Arabic names and Western European (though brown-skinned) facial features” and speak with white American accents. Alhassen notes the contrast with the “villains, Jafar, and the palace guards” who are depicted as “darker, swarthy, with undereye circles, hooked noses, black beards, and pronounced Arabic and British accents.” In another article, “The Problem with ‘Aladdin,’” Aditi Natasha Kini asserts that Aladdin is “a misogynist, xenophobic white fantasy,” in which Jasmine is sexualized and subjected to tropes of “white feminism as written by white dudes.” Not only does Jasmine have limited agency in the film, Kini writes, but her role in the film is “entirely dependent on the men around her.”

When Disney announced plans to produce a live-action remake of Aladdin, I learned through conversations that the Aladdin story is not even in the original text for Alf Layla wa Layla, or One Thousand and One Nights. It was later added by an 18th century French translator, Antoine Galland, who heard the story from a Syrian Maronite storyteller, Hanna Diyab. Galland did not even give credit to Diyab in his translation. Beyond the counter-argument that “the original Aladdin took place in China,” I am left wondering, how much of the original tale do we really know? How much did Galland change? It’s possible that Galland changed the story so significantly that everything we know about Aladdin is mostly a western, orientalist fabrication. For a more detailed account about the origins of the Aladdin tale, I recommend reading Arafat A. Razzaque’s article, “Who ‘wrote’ Aladdin? The Forgotten Syrian Storyteller.”

Disney has been boasting about how the live-action Aladdin is one of the “most diverse” movies in Hollywood, but this is an attempt to hide the fact that the casting of this film relied on racist logic: “All brown people are the same.” It’s great that an Egyptian-Canadian actor, Mena Massoud, was cast in the lead role, but there’s inconsistency elsewhere: Jasmine is played by British actress Naomi Scott, who is half Indian and half white; Jafar is played by Dutch-Tunisian actor Marwan Kenzari; and Jasmine’s father and a new character, Dalia, are played by Iranian-American actors Navid Negahban and Nasim Pedrad, respectively. The casting demonstrates that the filmmakers don’t know the differences between Arabs, Iranians, and South Asians. We are all conflated as “one and the same,” as usual.

Then there’s the casting of Will Smith as the genie. Whether deliberate or not, reinforced here is the Magical Negro trope. According to blogger Modern Hermeneut, this term was popularized by Spike Lee in 2011 and refers to “a spiritually attuned black character who is eager to help fulfill the destiny of a white protagonist.” Moreover, the author writes that Lee saw the Magical Negro as “a cleaned up version of the ‘happy slave’ stereotype, with black actors cast as simpleminded angels and saints.” Examples of the Magical Negro can be found in films like What Dreams May Come, City of Angels, Kazaam (which also features a Black genie), The Green Mile, The Adjustment Bureau, and The Legend of Bagger Vance. In the case of Aladdin, the genie’s purpose is to serve the protagonist’s dreams and ambitions. While Aladdin is Arab, not white, the racial dynamic is still problematic as the Magical Negro trope can be perpetuated by non-Black people of color as well.

I need to pause for a moment to explain that I don’t believe an Aladdin movie should only consist of Arab actors. Yes, Agrabah is a fictional Arab country, but it would be perfectly fine to have non-Arabs like Iranians, South Asians, and Africans in the movie as well. That’s not the issue I have with the casting, and this is not about identity politics. My problem is that the filmmakers saw Middle Eastern and South Asian people as interchangeable rather than setting out to explore complex racial, ethnic, and power dynamics that would arise from having ethnically diverse characters existing within an Arab-majority society. Evelyn Alsultany, an Associate Professor who was consulted for the film, states in her post that one of the ways Disney tried to justify casting a non-Arab actress for Jasmine was by mentioning that her mother was born “in another land.” However, this seems to have been Disney doing damage control after they received some backlash about Jasmine’s casting. The result is convenient erasure of an Arab woman character. Moreover, the change in Jasmine’s ethnicity does little, if anything, to reduce the film’s problematic amalgamation of Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. Alsultany writes that “audiences today will be as hard pressed as those in 1992 — or 1922, for that matter — to identify any distinct Middle Eastern cultures beyond that of an overgeneralized ‘East,’” where “belly dancing and Bollywood dancing, turbans and keffiyehs, Iranian and Arab accents all appear in the film interchangeably.”

Other examples of how the film conflates various Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures is highlighted in Roxana Hadadi’s review: “Terms like ‘Sultan’ and ‘Vizier’ can be traced to the Ottoman Empire, but the movie also uses the term ‘Shah,’ which is Iranian monarchy.” Referring to the dance scenes and clothing, she writes they are “mostly influenced by Indian designs and Bollywood styles” while “the military armor looks like leftovers from Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven.” An intersectional approach to the diverse ethnic communities represented in the film would have made for a more nuanced narrative, but this would have required a better director.

Speaking of the director, it is amazing that, of all people, Disney hired Guy Ritchie. Because if there is any director out there who understands the importance of representation and knows how to author a nuanced narrative about Middle Eastern characters living in a fictitious Arab country, it’s… Guy Ritchie? Despite all of the issues regarding the origin of the Aladdin story, I still believed the narrative could have been reclaimed in a really empowering way, but that could not happen with someone like Guy Ritchie. It’s textbook orientalism to have a white man control the narrative. I would have preferred socially and politically conscious Middle Eastern and Muslim writers/directors to make this narrative their own. Instead, we are left with an orientalist fantasy that looks like an exoticized fusion of how a white man perceives South Asia and the Middle East.

Lastly, I have to comment on how this movie was released during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. In fact, the film’s release date, May 24th, was just one day before the last ten days of Ramadan, which are considered to be the most important in the month. During Ramadan, Muslims around the world fast — if they are able to — from dawn to sunset every day for 30 days. The time when we break our fast, iftar, typically involves dinner and prayer with family, friends, and/or the community. But Ramadan is more than just about fasting, it’s a time of self-reflection, compassion, and strengthening our connection with Allah, our loved ones, and community. I don’t believe Disney released Aladdin during Ramadan intentionally. If anything, I think the film’s release date is reflective of how clueless and ignorant Disney is. It’s so ridiculous that it’s laughable.

I don’t want to give the impression that Muslims don’t go out to the movies during Ramadan. Of course there are Muslims who do. I just know a lot who don’t— some for religious reasons and some, like myself, for no other reason than simply not having enough time between iftar and the pre-dawn meal, sehri (I mean, I could go during the day, but who wants to watch a movie hungry, right?). Even Islamophobic Bollywood knows to release blockbuster movies on Eid, not towards the end of Ramadan.

But this isn’t about judging Muslim religiosity during the holy month. No one is “less” of a Muslim if they are going to the movie theater or anywhere else on Ramadan. My point is that Disney has not shown any consideration for the Muslim community with this movie. They did not even consider how releasing the film during Ramadan would isolate some of the Muslim audience. It’s clear that Disney did not make efforts to engage the Muslim community. Of course, there is nothing surprising about this. But you cannot brag about diversity when you’re not even engaging a group of people that represents the majority of the population you claim to be celebrating! In response to Shaheen’s critiques of the original Aladdin cartoon, a Disney distribution president at the time said Aladdin is “not just for Arabs, but for everybody.” But this is a typical dismissive tactic used to gloss over the real issues. No doubt Disney will follow the same script when people criticize the latest film.

I don’t have any interest in this movie because it failed to learn anything from the criticism it received back in 1992. The fact that a 1993 op-ed piece titled, “It’s Racist, But Hey, It’s Disney” is still relevant to the live-action version of a film that came out 27 years ago is both upsetting and sad at the same time. As I said earlier, Edward Said and Jack Shaheen did not exhaustively speak out against orientalism, exoticism, and vilification to only see them reproduced over and over again. Of course Disney refused to educate themselves and listen to people like Shaheen— their Aladdin story was never meant for us.

Iran’s Jewish community is the largest in the Mideast outside Israel—and feels safe and respected

Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY, Aug. 29, 2018

TEHRAN, Iran--In a large room off a courtyard decorated in places with Islamic calligraphy and patterned tiles featuring intricate geometric shapes and patterns, men wearing tunics, cloaks and sandals recite morning prayers.

At the back of the room, three women sit together on a bench, hunched over ancient texts. Scarves cover their hair, as required by Iran’s religious law. Birdsong floats into the cavernous space as the incantations grow louder and more insistent.

This is a synagogue. In Iran.

In a nation that has called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth, the Iranian government allows thousands of Jews to worship in peace and continue their association with the country founded more than 2,500 years ago.

“We have all the facilities we need for our rituals, and we can say our prayers very freely. We never have any problems. I can even tell you that, in many cases, we are more respected than Muslims,” said Nejat Golshirazi, 60, rabbi of the synagogue USA TODAY visited one morning last month. “You saw for yourself we don’t even have any security guards here.”

At its peak in the decades before Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, 100,000 to 150,000 Jews lived here, according to the Tehran Jewish Committee, a group that lobbies for the interests of Iranian Jews. In the months following the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran’s second and last monarch, many fled for Israel and the United States.

It was a dispersion precipitated in part by the execution of Habib Elghanian, who was then one of Iran’s leading Jewish businessmen and philanthropists. Elghanian also headed the Tehran Jewish Committee and had ties to the deposed shah. He was killed by firing squad after being accused by Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries of spying and fundraising for Israel.

Today, 12,000 to 15,000 Jews remain in Iran, according to the committee.

It’s a small minority in a nation of 80 million people. But consider: Iran is home to the Middle East’s largest Jewish population outside Israel.

And, according to Golshirazi and other senior members of Iran’s Jewish community, they mostly enjoy good relations with Iran’s hard-line, theocratic government despite perceptions abroad that Iran’s Islamic rulers might subject them to harsh treatment.

“The Muslim majority in Iran has accepted us,” said Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi, 53, who holds the role once held by Elghanian, chairman of the Tehran Jewish Committee.

“We are respected and trusted for our expertise and fair dealings in business, and we never feel threatened,” he said. “Many years ago, before the royal regime of Pahlavi, by contrast, if it was raining in Iran, Jews were not allowed to go outside of their houses because it was believed that if a non-Muslim got wet and touched a Muslim it would make them dirty.”

Najafabadi said it may be difficult for Jews and others outside the country suspicious of Iran’s treatment of religious minorities or its views on Israel to accept, but after the execution of Elghanian, Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s first supreme leader, deliberately sought to improve relations between Jews and Muslims in the country for the nation’s long-term stability.

He added that Jews, who have been in Iran since about the eighth century B.C., used to be scattered all over the country but are now largely concentrated in Tehran and other big cities such as Isfahan and Shiraz. In all, he said, Iran is home to about 35 synagogues.

Najafabadi said most Jews in Iran are shopkeepers, although he said others work as doctors, engineers and in other highly skilled professions.

There are no Jews, however, in senior government positions. There’s only one Jewish representative in the country’s 290-member Parliament. His name is Siamak Moreh Sedgh.

Sedgh, 53, said one of the reasons Jews in Iran are able to live peacefully is that they consider themselves Iranians first--and Jews second.

“We’re not an entity outside of the Iranian nation. We are part of it. Our past and our future. I may pray in Hebrew, but I can only think in Persian (Farsi, Iran’s language),” said Sedgh, who is also a surgeon at a hospital in central Tehran, where USA TODAY spoke with him.

Crucially, that affinity extends to the question of Israel.

“I don’t think Israel is a Jewish state because not everyone in Israel lives according to the teachings of the Torah. This is what Jews in Iran believe,” Sedgh insisted.

He acknowledged that it was somewhat ironic that Iran, arguably the biggest foe of Israel, was also the “biggest friend of the Jewish people.”

Sounding more Iranian than Jewish, Sedgh said he disagreed with President Donald Trump’s decision this year to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv because “Trump can’t just change a capital city that according to international law and the United Nations is an occupied city.”

“Trump is a coward who has lost his humanity and forgotten about spirituality. He wants to destroy large parts of the world only for the benefit of a small group of capitalists,” Sedgh said.

On Tehran’s bustling streets, Jews are not very visible, partly because there are so few of them. USA TODAY did, however, spot a few men wearing kippahs as they hurried off to work in the morning. They did not appear to attract any second glances from Iranian men in business suits, others in traditional Muslim dress or women sporting hijabs and chadors.

Other minority groups in Iran include Arabs, Armenians, Baloch people (who live near Pakistan, in Iran’s southeast), Christians and Kurds. Open Doors USA, an organization that tracks persecuted Christians worldwide, estimates there could be as many as 800,000 Christians secretly living in Iran. It says Christians in Iran are routinely subject to imprisonment, harassment and physical abuse for seeking to convert Muslims. USA TODAY did not encounter any Christians in Iran.

Outside the Yousef Abad Synagogue, the entrance via the courtyard was unprotected, and it was easy to walk straight in. That’s unheard-of for Jews in Europe, where Jewish schools, institutions and places of worship receive extra security amid a spate of attacks.

“What you see there (for Iran’s Jews) is a very vibrant community,” said Lior Sternfeld, a Middle East historian who in November will publish a book on modern Jewish life in Iran. “A community that faces problems--but it’s Iran, so problems are a given.”

Still, rights groups and experts believe Jews in Iran do face discrimination. Najafabadi, the committee chief, conceded that in some instances, Iranian Jews have had trouble getting access to the best schools with their Muslim peers.

Then there’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s former president, who drew international attention when he repeatedly denied the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were murdered.

Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian Jew, says life has improved for Jews under Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Javedanfar left the country for Israel in 1987 as a teenager and now teaches classes on Iranian politics at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.

Javedanfar said, for example, that Jewish children in Iran are no longer required to attend school on the Sabbath, the traditional day of rest and religious observance among Jews that falls on a Saturday but is a regular workday in Iran.

“At the same time, the regime continues to hold Holocaust cartoon contests that are pretty anti-Semitic,” he noted, referring to a provocative annual exhibition in Iran that mocks Jewish suffering while claiming to challenge Western ideas about free speech and Holocaust taboos.

He quickly pointed out: “The regime is not too concerned about its Jews as long as they don’t become involved in politics and don’t say anything positive about Israel.”

Golshirazi the rabbi, Najafabadi of the committee and Sedgh the parliamentarian all stressed they were speaking truthfully and not trying to distort their views of life in Iran for Jews out of fear of government persecution. They also said Jews in Iran often enjoy extra social freedoms that Muslims do not, such as the ability to consume alcohol in a private setting.

The few Jews in Iran are unlikely to leave.

In 2007, the Tehran Jewish Committee rejected an offer by Israel’s government to pay each family of remaining Jews in Iran up to $60,000 to help them leave the country.

“I can tell, you are thinking I am afraid,” Golshirazi said when USA TODAY pressed him on that point. “But I have been many places visiting Jewish communities. Iran is the best for us.”

Modi gov't directly responsible for world's worst COVID surge: Ex-Indian FM Since 15 April, India has been grappling with an exponential rise in COVID cases, deaths and shortage of basic facilities. In the wake of the unprecedented crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been facing blistering criticism for the government’s handling of the pandemic, both, internationally and within the country. India’s former foreign minister and ex-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha told Sputnik that despite warnings from various international agencies, the Narendra Modi government has failed miserably in handling the current COVID-19 situation. He also explained how the BJP used the Election Commission of India (ECI) as “its puppet” in the recently held state assembly elections. Sinha left the BJP after he reached ideological dissent within his party in 2018 and recently joined Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). Sputnik: How do you assess the work of the Narendra Modi government in handling the current COVID-19 situation? Yashwant Sinha: The problem with the Narendra Modi government is that it starts celebrating and taking credit too early. In January, while addressing the World Economic Forum, Narendra Modi declared that India saved the world by controlling COVID in the country, and the party office bearers gathered on February 21 to congratulate PM Modi for the victory over the deadly virus. All this time, experts were warning that the second wave of COVID-19 is expected to hit the nation soon. All the warnings fell on deaf ears of the BJP government. This is the major reason why we are grappling with the worst worldwide COVID-19 surge and today, we are breaking all the records of daily infections and deaths. The entire health infrastructure has collapsed. A country like India cannot put together enough oxygen for the patients, and the whole situation is in a mess. Now, who will take the blame for this? The federal government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who failed to anticipate the danger despite regular warnings and failed to manage the situation, is directly responsible for this. Sputnik: How did the government handle the country’s economy during the pandemic? Yashwant Sinha: I really don’t think that the economy of the country is in a good shape. The Narendra Modi-led government is extremely good at manipulating the data; therefore, I don’t trust the statistics shown by the government anymore. A lot of people, holding important portfolios, had to resign because they didn’t agree with the government or its reports. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced relief packages of $278 billion (INR 20 lakh crore rupees) for the aftermath of the COVID crisis. Where is the money? Various reports said that the announcements by the government were eyewash and it had hardly spent 1-2 percent of the said amount. This money was specially allocated for the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector and the MSME figures are released with three years lag — therefore, we don’t have a bigger picture. Despite the allocation of relief package for the MSME sector, it is in very bad shape. So, I don’t think that the economic situation has been handled in the desired way. Sputnik: How did the government tackle the crisis of migrant labourers and the unorganized sector? Yashwant Sinha: If things were managed in a better way, then migrants would have never walked back to their respective states during the second wave of the COVID-19. The small business units are shutting down and unemployment has become one of the major issues. The government failed to serve the interest of the country, particularly the unorganized sector and the worst part is that still, it is not thinking about it. Sputnik: Most of the states are complaining about non-availability of vaccine doses. How do you see the entire vaccination process in the country? Yashwant Sinha: Vaccination should be made free and compulsory, like primary education, as it is the only protection we have against the deadly virus. We have to vaccinate all our countrymen as soon as possible. Secondly, online registration should not be the only way to get registered for the vaccination. On the spot, registrations should also be started. Currently, I’m in my village in Jharkhand (It is one of the tribal states of India) and here people are not much aware about online registration. So, for such a populace, the government should mobilise the healthcare and frontline workers, who can go village to village and vaccinate the people on the spot. Apart from this, we must not laud ourselves as a world leader in the pharmacy sector and export the vaccine to other countries. First, we should ensure vaccination for our population and then we can look forward to supporting other countries.     Also, it is important that the cost of the vaccination should be taken care of by the government. I think there won’t be much of a problem with it as the Finance Minister had announced a $1.7 billion health package to fight against COVID-19 and a huge amount of money had been collected in the PM-CARES fund. However, I will still say that the government, so far, has performed miserably in managing this crisis. Sputnik: How was your experience of the West Bengal elections as this was the first time that the BJP had a magnanimous campaign in the state? Yashwant Sinha: I am really disappointed with the way the elections were conducted in West Bengal. The Election Commission of India didn’t act as an independent agency. It was working on the directions of the federal government. Knowing about the pandemic spread, the poll body shouldn’t have extended the polls in the state. A supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wearing a face cutout of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends a public rally being addressed by him during the ongoing fourth phase of the West Bengal’s state legislative assembly elections, at Kawakhali on the outskirts of Siliguri on April 10, 2021. Breaking all the COVID protocols, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah organized huge rallies where people from various parts of the country were brought adding to the COVID-19 surge. Additionally, Narendra Modi behaved like a street urchin during the poll campaigns. He taunted Mamta Banerjee as ‘Didi, O Didi’ (Sister, Hey Sister) or Do May, Didi Gayi (2 May, Banerjee gone). Such language is not expected from the Prime Minister of a country. Modi-Shah duo has always tried to sideline their rivals, whether within the party or outside, similarly they realised that Mamata Banerjee would be a threat for them in 2024 so they only made plans for defeating her, though they couldn’t succeed, and didn’t focus on Pinarayi Vijayan (of Kerala), MK Stalin (of Tamil Nadu). Sputnik: You’ve been reiterating that the West Bengal election will shape up the 2024 Parliamentarian Election in India. How? Mr Sinha: At present, there is no opposition against the federal government, and nature doesn’t tolerate the vacuum for long. Similarly, the political vacuum has to be filled. By 2024, more ably and small leaders will emerge and challenge Narendra Modi. I don’t know who will be these leaders, but Mamata Banerjee is undoubtedly one of those faces. https://timespakistan.com/modi-govt-directly-responsible-for-worlds-worst-covid-surge-ex-indian-fm/19087/

India's second Covid wave hits like a 'tsunami' as hospitals buckle under weight Graveyards are running out of space, hospitals are turning away patients, and desperate families are pleading for help on social media for beds and medicine. India reported 295,041 cases of coronavirus and 2,023 deaths Wednesday, its highest rise in cases and highest death increase recorded in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health. “The volume is humongous,” said Jalil Parkar, a senior pulmonary consultant at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, which had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid ward. “It’s just like a tsunami.” “Things are out of control,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi. “There’s no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It’s impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down,” he said. To prove his point, at least 22 Covid-19 patients who were on ventilator support died Wednesday waiting for oxygen supplies that were lost in an accident, a senior official from the Nashik district in the Indian state of Maharashtra said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Tuesday, acknowledging the country’s “very big battle” against Covid-19. He appealed to states to “use a lockdown as their last option,” even as the capital New Delhi entered its first full day of a week-long lockdown. On Monday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal warned that failing to halt movement in the city could lead to “tragedy.” “We don’t want to take Delhi to a place where patients are lying in hospital corridors and people are dying on roads,” Kejriwal said. On Tuesday, he warned that some Delhi hospitals were “left with just a few hours of oxygen,” as authorities scrambled to convert sports complexes, banquet halls, hotels and schools into much-needed treatment centers, with the goal to add 6,000 additional beds within days. “Our healthcare system has reached its limit. It is now in a state of distress. It has not collapsed yet but it is in distress,” Kejriwal said. “Every healthcare system has its limits. No system can accommodate unlimited patients.” With shortages being reported across the country, local and state leaders appealed to the federal government for more oxygen and medicine. Modi appeared to answer those calls on Tuesday, announcing plans for the delivery of 100,000 cylinders of oxygen nationwide, new oxygen production plants, and hospitals dedicated to Covid patients. But experts fear it’s too little, too late, as positive patients compete for limited resources and mass gatherings threaten to spread the virus even further. In Wednesday’s incident in which the 22 people died in the Indian state of Maharashtra, senior official Suraj Mandhare told reporters the oxygen was lost due to a leakage from a tanker at the Zakir Hussain hospital. “There was a valves leakage in tankers in Nashik, it was a large scale leakage, definitely this would impact the hospital where the tankers were headed,” Maharashtra’s health minister Rajesh Tope told reporters Wednesday. The district administration is coordinating with hospital officials to make oxygen available to patients who need it at the earliest, Mandhare said. The patients who died required oxygen as their “pressure” was low and the leakage from this shipment meant that they did not receive the supply in time, Mandhare added. India’s Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah tweeted about the event saying: “I am distressed to hear the news of the accident of oxygen leak in a hospital in Nashik. I express my deepest condolences on this irreparable loss of those who have lost their loved ones in this accident. I pray to God for the health of all the other patients.” In Maharashtra there is currently a daily demand for 1,550 metric tons of oxygen for Covid-19 patients but the state manufactures 1,250 metric tons of oxygen which is being used entirely for medical purposes. The remaining 300 metric tons are being supplied by other states, Tope told reporters Wednesday. Maharashtra has 3,343,359 cases of coronavirus including 685,552 active cases and 61,343 deaths according to the Indian Ministry of Health on Wednesday. Pleading for help online With few official options available, families are turning to social media for help. Mumbai resident Anil Tiwari, 34, lost his father to Covid-19 in November last year. Last week, his 58-year-old mother tested positive. She was admitted to hospital but needed an intensive care unit (ICU) bed, Tiwari said. “I’m crying, running to get ICU bed for my mother,” Tiwari tweeted on Monday. “Kindly help to save my mother I love her more than anything.” After days of effort, including calling the municipal authorities to get on a waitlist, Tiwari’s mother was finally given an ICU bed, Tiwari said on Tuesday. But now, she needs oxygen, which the hospital is in short supply of. She is still able to walk, but is having difficulty breathing, Tiwari said. Demand for the drug Remdesivir and its active pharmaceutical ingredients has spiked during the second wave, prompting the government to temporarily ban the export of the medication to increase its supply in the domestic market. The Indian government has approved the drug for emergency use within hospitals, though the World Health Organization (WHO) says evidence does not suggest the drug lessens the risk of dying from Covid-19 or needing mechanical ventilation. Abhijeet Kumar, a 20-year-old college student, took to Twitter to raise money to pay for Remdesivir injections for his 51-year-old uncle. Kumar said his uncle had been in hospital in Raipur, in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, since April 9 after testing positive for Covid. “The injections are very expensive,” Kumar said. “They are saying it costs between 12,000 to 15,000 rupees (about $160-200). He has gotten two doses of the injection but he needs a third and we can’t afford it … my uncle works as a plumber.” Seven major manufacturers of Remdesivir have slashed prices to between 899 rupees and 3,490 rupees (about $12-47) due to “the intervention of the government,” according to a government memorandum on April 17. But several states have acknowledged that high demand and low supply has created a black market for Remdesivir and similar medications. Even many doctors and nurses, too, are frantically searching for open beds and treatment options for their own loved ones, said Parkar, the pulmonary specialist in Mumbai. “Everybody is sick,” he said. “A time has come that we don’t have beds for our own colleagues, for our own parents, for our own extended family.” Complacency and public gatherings The second wave, which has long surpassed the first wave in both new cases and infection rate, was “a situation that was created by complacency,” said Laxminarayan, from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy. After the first wave ended in the winter, the government and public relaxed too much, due to a mix of Covid fatigue and a false sense of security, experts say. In early March, weeks before cases began climbing again, the federal health minister declared that India was “in the endgame” of the pandemic. This kind of triumphant rhetoric meant residents relaxed their Covid-safe behavior, such as social distancing or wearing face masks, experts say. And, despite warnings of Covid risks, large gatherings continued to take place — sports matches resumed, elaborate weddings went ahead, and movie cinemas reopened. The biggest gathering by far is the Kumbh Mela, an important Hindu festival and one of the biggest pilgrimages on Earth. Millions of Indians are traveling from across the country to Haridwar, an ancient city in Uttarakhand state, to attend ceremonies and prayers and take holy dips in the Ganges River. The festival officially began on April 1 and ends later this month. There are Covid-safe guidelines in place — visitors must register online and provide a negative Covid-19 test to participate in the holy baths, and thousands of officers are conducting surveillance — but experts worry it won’t be enough to contain the risk, given the sheer number of attendees. Several million are expected to visit on “auspicious” days. “The Kumbh Mela could go down as one of the largest mass super spreading events ever, simply because of the size of the number of people who show up there for the ritual bathing in the Ganges,” said Laxminarayan. For weeks, Modi, who has a significant Hindu base, refrained from commenting on the Kumbh Mela and its Covid risks. But earlier this week, he finally appealed to pilgrims to avoid congregating in Haridwar. “Now Kumbh should be carried out symbolically amid the ongoing corona crisis,” Modi tweeted on Saturday. But for some, Modi’s message rang hollow, as the prime minister continued to hold massive political rallies ahead of parliamentary and local council elections in four states and one union territory. Videos from Modi’s rallies, including one in Tamulpur in Assam state on April 3, show him speaking before massive crowds, packed tightly together and cheering. In West Bengal state, a significant election ground, tens of thousands attended rallies by Modi’s Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and the ruling Trinamool Congress Party. Modi’s rallies have attracted sharp criticism from several other political figures, including a former finance minister who called the mass rallies “completely insensitive” given the Covid crisis. In the face of surging cases, the Indian National Congress, India’s main opposition party, has suspended all public rallies in West Bengal. And on Monday, the BJP said it would only hold “small public gatherings” with a cap of 500 people in the state due to “the difficult phase of the pandemic.” Meanwhile, the Kumbh Mela hasn’t been ordered to stop, nor have any new rules been imposed. Uttarakhand state has issued a series of new restrictions including a night curfew and cap on public gatherings — but the festival is exempt. Haridwar has seen a spike in infections, with more than 6,500 new cases reported since the Kumbh Mela began. Several religious sub-groups, including Juna Akhara and Niranjani Akhara, have since asked their followers from out of state to return home and follow guidelines. Some states and cities are requiring festival returnees to be tested and quarantined. But medical workers fear it’s too late. “It’s already gone on for a couple of weeks. Now, of course, they are dispersing, but they may be carrying the virus back to their homes at this point,” said Laxminarayan.”It’s truly a terrible situation at this point.” CNN’s Esha Mitra contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #buckle #Covid #hits #hospitals #Indias #tsunami #wave #weight

faaya shah BOT 12/10/2020 despite saying faaya wasn’t planning on reopening the club anytime soon, they’d only been words of exhaustion and she was back at it. the only thing that really need any fixing was her doorknob, so she was still working on getting that replaced. but she wasn’t working now. for once faaya was a regular, depressed patron, just as anyone else. maybe not as much as ellis, who faaya had begun seeing more frequently, though it was the first time she’d decided to approach him, considering he appeared worse for wear lately. “a moscow mule and a whiskey sour, please.” her bartender was about to talk politely, but seeing faaya, merely saluted and carried one. “what are we fucked about tonight, ellis?” @Ellis Merchant

1 December 12, 2020

ellis merchant BOT 12/12/2020 ( tw alcohol, injury mention )

he’d been told repeatedly to rest. and he had honestly tried—but letting cain take care of chores and things around the cabin for most of the day had left ellis drenched in guilt, and he’d eventually begged to go for a walk, with promises that he’d be careful, leave his phone on, and come back soon.

he just needed a break from being injured, but unfortunately that wasn’t really how the human body worked. you didn't get breaks—unless you maybe turned to self-medication. not wise, sure, but what was the worst that could happen if he had a drink or two? there probably wouldn't be another monster attack so soon, he convinced himself. it'd be fine.

he dragged himself into the grapevine shortly after midnight, and was surprised to see faaya approach, drinks in hand. “no tea tonight? what’s the occasion?” he inquired, gingerly sliding onto a bar stool. he winced, but hoped she didn’t notice. “what aren’t we fucked about,” he returned with a slight grin. “i feel like that’d be a shorter list.”

@Faaya Shah

faaya shah BOT 12/12/2020 “it might be shorter, but i don’t really care to hear anything positive, frankly.” maybe another time faaya could have been in better spirits, but despite the carefree fun being had all around, there was a certain bleakness to the club during the late hour. at least in faaya’s opinion. she placed the whiskey sour in front of him, taking a seat beside him. with a clink of their glasses, she took a refreshing gulp of her own. “the occasion is i’m not working. we can drink to our heart’s content. if you even wanna drink with me. i’m fine either way.” she placed her cup down, idly looking at the colors reflecting on the cup. “i’m only bothering you because you don’t look very celebratory.” @Ellis Merchant December 18, 2020

ellis merchant BOT 12/18/2020 ( tw alcohol/injury )

“i’ll gladly accept a drink with you,” ellis said honestly. faaya never seemed particularly upbeat, but tonight was evidently something different. he chuckled softly. “do you expect me to be celebratory? i would’ve thought you knew me better by now, but if you need cheering up i can show you my injuries and you can appreciate in the fact that you weren’t stepped on by a chimera—” he narrowed his eyes at her. “unless you were, and you’re just much faster at healing than i am.” he couldn’t recall where she’d been, during the snowstorm, but she didn’t appear to be physically worse for wear, at first glance.

@Faaya Shah December 20, 2020

faaya shah BOT 12/20/2020 wincing at the sound of the injury, faaya lifted her shoulders. “stepped or not stepped on, word around town was you were a hero. i thought your head might be bigger by now.” it took her a moment to figure out what she wanted to say about her own experience. faaya had tried saying it before, but it never came out or was received well. the drink in her hand made her somber enough to feel distant from the moment. “i don’t think i’d be any faster at healing than an apollo child. so no, i got off unscathed. i was outside too though. we fought a drakon. the group i was in all had a hand in taking it down, i even got to use my scythe, which i haven’t go to touch very much recently. but.” she lifted the cup back to her lips, speaking into it before she downed it. “i was very much going to die.” @Ellis Merchant December 21, 2020

ellis merchant BOT 12/21/2020 ( tw alcohol & death/trauma/monster mention )

he felt a strange emptiness at hearing the word hero, and kept his eyes on his drink as he processed that. a few days ago, he would’ve been unaccountably proud of his actions, of hearing that people were tossing the title around when it came to him. now, though, he didn’t know what to feel about it.

he rubbed the back of his neck and half-laughed. “yeah, me too, this should really be my time to be truly insufferable… but i feel more or less the same as i did before, i dunno...” he listened to her summary of that night, his brows raising at the mention of a drakon. “yeah, you were with lida and rune, weren’t you?”

then she took a sip, and added the kicker. he let out a soft snort. “i would say i’d drink to that, but we’re already on our way.” he let the silence drift, momentarily, the memory of the chimera's claws back on his chest, the phantom weight. “but we didn’t die,” he said slowly. it was a casual observation of a fact, but he felt like it was worth stating. "kinda crazy, when you think about it. that could've just been... it."

@Faaya Shah

faaya shah BOT 12/21/2020 ( tw suicide mention )

there was a melancholic tone to ellis’ voice that made faaya pick up on the fact the experience he was was different than one other people saw. it was strange how whenever she was with him, she felt in good company. their moods and experiences felt oddly paralleled. “and hadley. they were all very competent people to be with.”

faaya nodded her head to ellis’ joke, staring at her own empty cup now. certainly she was going to order another, but she just wanted to sit with it for a moment. “sometimes i’m not sure how to feel about that.” scared wasn't the right word. fear and death was something she'd long grown used to. but this wasn’t something she’d ever talked out before. it felt okay to share because ellis knew the feeling too and he had no preconceptions about her.

“do you ever wish it was? in some ways, death is freedom, isn’t it? the gods can’t do anything else to us. maybe its the only real choice we have.” there had been merit in bentley's choice. she saw the appeal. she knew the mindset familiarly well. that was why it was too realistic.

shaking herself from too morbid thoughts that did tread the line of 'oversharing' even for them, faaya tilted her head towards ellis, giving him a coy smile. “don’t worry. i get more angry than i do sad. i’d be concerned for everyone else.” still, it didn’t mean she didn’t think about it. @Ellis Merchant December 27, 2020

ellis merchant BOT 12/27/2020 ( death talk, alcohol tw )

“i don’t know if i’ve ever seen hadley fight... but i dated his sister.” he tilted his glass one way then the other, watching the dwindling liquid flow back and forth idly. “even with her powers taken, she still managed to throw lightning at me and jamie once. i wouldn’t bet against a child of zeus, ever...” seeing faaya had already finished hers, he did the same, then signaled the bartender. “my round,” he added, in case she was going to accuse him of taking advantage of her apparent generosity.

the way she talked of death reminded him a bit of cass. it was familiar, in a horribly morbid way. “i’ve been accused of having a death wish, more than a few times,” he confessed, then frowned and shook his head. “i never really thought that much about it, but i don’t think i do, actually.” certainly he was reckless, and he considered it inevitable that he’d probably go down fighting, one day. but he didn’t seek out dangers. they just kind of happened—which he thought was probably typical of demigods, wasn’t it?

“i don’t think it’d feel like freedom to me, though. i think it’d be boring, predictable—assuming i didn’t end up in the fields of punishment… but having nothing to accomplish? nothing to work towards?" he shook his head. "i’d be screaming to get out by my second day.” having come to this conclusion in the last thirty seconds or so, he nodded to himself. “life’s got more to offer. i'm glad i'm still here.”

@Faaya Shah December 28, 2020

faaya shah BOT 12/28/2020 “i heard,” faaya replied with light amusement. she couldn’t help but think of collins then. with him gone to think about if he really did want to pursue her, faaya had unintentionally done some reflecting herself. at first she’d been ambivalent, but she was quite certain now that it just probably wasn’t going to work out. “do you have any advice about taking a lighting strike?” it seemed in her future.

the new drink was a generous surprise and she raised her glass in thanks to him. the drink came at precisely the right time; she needed it to ease the critical thoughts she had of ellis’ perspective of life. regardless, she let her opinion be known. maybe the alcohol hadn’t helped and all it did was loosen her tongue. “life’s rarely offered me anything good, so i really don’t have any impulse to give good back.” the thin straw sat between her teeth for a moment in solemn thought, pressing against the cushion of her lip before faaya released it. “i don’t want anything i do to be pretty.”

faaya gave a light mercurial laugh. “does that make us antitheses?” @Ellis Merchant

Harri’s Travel Blog - India 2018

Over the past decade, I’ve been quite fortunate to travel a decent chunk of this globe. But like anything so special, no matter how satisfying an experience, I am always hungry for more. I developed a fixation for culture. For every item I’ve crossed off the bucket list, I seem to add six others. But I will admit, India wasn’t on that list before.

India was my Mom’s dream. It was the top of her list and she wanted to experience it before she was “too old.” Meet my Mom for five minutes and you’ll see it’ll be a long time before she’s too old for anything. I knew she wanted to have this experience with me, her spoiled only child, before he was tied down with too many commitments. So I said, “let’s do it!” My Mom and I travel very well together. We have similar get-up-and-go styles and a do-it-all-while-you’re-here mentality. My Mom won’t shy away from long drives, elephant rides, local participation, live music, and exotic foods. As our guide would put it, “The heart of the mother becomes the soul of the child.” As I started doing research prior to our trip I began to see why India was such a priority for my Mom.

The Itinerary

As a quick outline of our plan, we set out to tackle The Golden Triangle – New Delhi, Agra & Jaipur – with a stop in Ranthambore National Park in the middle and a few extra days heading west to Jodhpur and Udaipur. Fun India fact, cities ending in ‘Pur’ were ruled by Hindu kings, while cities ending in ‘Bahd’ were ruled by Muslim kings.

On out first day in India we met with our guide, Raj, and our driver, Mr. Singh. We’d all be paired together for the next two weeks. Lucky for us, we made an excellent team. Mr. Singh was a quiet man and a traditional Sikh. He is a professional. He was never late and always available for us when we needed. He was shy so didn’t say much, but as he came to realize the easy going people my Mom and I are, he loosened up and became very honest with us.

Raj on the other hand, had the gift of the gab. He loved to share his wisdom and stories from his life and experiences. He enjoys his life’s work and looks at being a tour guide as his responsibility to show off his country and provide his guests with the best experience possible. We told Raj from the start we were excited for the sites, but we also wanted a real India experience and this thrilled him. He treated us as travelers and not as tourists and made special added arrangements to give us the India trip we wanted. More on this later.

Culture

Sightseeing is always special and an important part of travel. However, as I’ve become a more experienced traveler my trips have become less defined by these sights as it has about meeting the people and experiencing the life and culture. Not only is this the best way to expand your worldly knowledge, but I truly believe it is one of the best ways to get to know yourself and expel your own ignorance. Most of what I learned on this trip didn’t come from palaces or safaris but rather walking through local bazaars, attending religious rituals or just witnessing the local life that surrounded us as we passed through town to town.

Making our way through India was very humbling. I don’t need to explain how little many of the people own and the cleanliness of their conditions. But this is the life they know and they seem just as happy with it as I am with my own. Who are we to say this is a worse quality of life? The people of these small villages have a strong work ethic, sense of community, family pride and undying faith. Are these not life’s core values? One may not have this same outlook in the large cities as your experiences can certainly be clouded by the tip chasers and pushy salesmen. Often when we’d stop in one of these small towns or villages, the locals would crowd around us out of curiosity. We’d be the talk of the town and the young people would request a photo with us.  

Of course, a trip to India would not be complete without its culture shocks. Sharing the roads with cows, donkeys, camels and elephants, straight men holding hands, curry for breakfast, recreational mathematics (including upwards of 15 channels on television dedicated to it), and the importance of cricket (I still don’t understand how this overcomplicated, slower and longer version of baseball works) are some of the traditions that would take me some time to adapt to. One of the most shocking sights to a Westerner or European is the number of swastikas painted or carved into important religious structures. This one requires explaining as this symbol does not mean the same thing as we are accustomed to. The swastika is a religious mark the Nazis adopted from Indian culture, alternating the direction in which it points.

Taj Mahal

Unlike the rest of the trip, I had an expectation for the Taj Mahal. It’s impossible not to. It was at the centre of our itinerary requirements and has been declared one of the manmade wonders of the world. So, in fact, expectations were pretty high. But I’m happy to report it did not disappoint.

Mahal which means palace, was built by the king, Shah Jahar, to monument his love for his wife, Mumzel Mahal. This work of perfect symmetry took 26 years to build and was originally supposed to have an identical twin in black marble. Meanwhile, I complain about spending $100 on an overpriced meal for two in Toronto. But if I had the means of a king, maybe I’d build a monument for Margot Robbie in hopes that she’d be my queen. But I digress.

Much like Margot, it’s impossible to take a bad photo of the Taj. We arrived at sunrise as the golden rays reflected off the dome and towers - A photographer’s fantasy. Additionally, Raj had called upon a friend, a young boy named Raja who knew all the best spots to get photos around the premises. I could have stayed there all day snapping Nat Geo worthy (please see contact page to all Nat Geo editors reading this) and potential profile pics with this mega babe, but I guess an extra hour would have to do. Within hours the photo I posted with the Taj became one of my most liked photos on my personal Instagram.

Inside the Taj is basically a large marble room with the tomb of Mumzel Mahal. Although beautiful, it was maybe the only underwhelming part of the Taj. What did I expect? An exotic bazaar, curry buffet, and a Bollywood production of Rocky Horror starring India’s best and most beautiful maybe?

The Taj is located in the city of Agra. A fascinating but poor place with rundown buildings, street vendors and roaming cows. How can a city which brings in so much tourism be so poor you ask? Most of the money earned by the Taj goes back into restoration of the masterpiece. As well as the landmarks, I enjoy experiencing and photographing local culture. I found Agra fascinating but after consulting with Raj, it wasn’t a safe place for me to explore on my own. So instead I found myself taking video clips with my iPhone from the vehicle window.

Driving

If you think driving downtown is stressful. Try driving anywherein India. Stop signs, traffic lights and speed limits only exist in major cities like New Delhi. “Rules are suggestions in India,” Raj explained to us and then joked, “This is a sign that we live in a democracy.” Seatbelts are optional. Signaling is optional. Braking is optional. Driving on the correct side of the road... optional. However, using your horn continuously is mandatory.

It’s not uncommon in India to see vehicles getting bumped, families of five with infants riding a single motorbike without helmets, a bus so crowded some passengers are riding on the roof, and cows casually strolling across the highway. On our second day, we saw a van making a right-hand turn, crash into two women on a motorbike, knocking them over. Something I have never seen in my life before. Luckily no one was hurt. The van did stop to check if they were alive. The two women stood up, dusted themselves off and were on their way again. No exchange of insurance necessary.

Horns aren’t so much used as a way to let someone know how pissed off you are but rather as a tool to let the person in front of you know they’re approaching or passing quickly. For you see it is quite possible the road is being held up by a camel tow, tractor with an overweight load of chaff, or a herd of goats.

Tipping

Ugh.

Call me a cheap bastard. But I dislike the custom of tipping. I’m used to tipping service people - waiters, drivers, barbers, etc. But in India you tip everyonefor everything, and they expect it. On our daily adventures and discoveries, we found the people of India to be very friendly and considerate. But when it comes to service it can become difficult to distinguish genuine kindness from wallet plunging. Some days I felt like a sultan in a strip club, leaving a trail of dollar bills behind me.

After an exchange of pleasantries with someone, I’d often find them awkwardly lingering until I realized they were waiting for a payout. As we’d come out of our hotel room, a cleaner would be standing in front of you already or appear out of nowhere like something out of a horror movie and repeatedly ask if everything is satisfactory with the room. To the point where I felt like I was paying to get rid of them.

Activities that we’d consider common courtesy (like holding the door open for someone) we’d be expected to tip for. I used the gym at one of the hotels and asked the receptionist if someone could turn on the music. A man came ten minutes later while I was on the treadmill and did so. He then stood behind the treadmill and asked more than once if the music was to my liking. Unfortunately for him, this effort would not be a profitable one. For one, I very much don’t like being interrupted in the middle of a workout. And secondly, who carries cash in their sweaty workout gear?

See, my issue isn’t to do with the money (mostly). The tented camp we stayed at in Ranthambore adjusted this tradition in the right way, in my opinion. Instead of tipping the service people individually, you left something in a tip box upon checkout which was equally distributed upon the service people. This removed the sense of false friendliness.

Maybe I should just move to Australia or Japan.

Safari

Going on safari in Kenya and Tanzania was one of the best experiences of my Mom and I’s lives. So, we decided we wanted to slightly detour to include a few game drives in Ranthambore in an attempt to spot some wild tigers. The state of Rajasthan is one of few territories remaining that is home to the tiger. We were well warned by booking agents, guides, and naturalists that due to the dwindling number of wild tigers (only 64 remaining in Ranthambore) there is no guarantee you will see one. Tigers are also solitary animals that don’t travel in packs, making them even more difficult to track and spot. But I won’t lie, our hopes were quite high to see one. Twenty minutes into our first game drive, “Hey, there’s three tigers!” A mama and two young.

Our second and third game drive weren’t quite as lucky. Ranthambore National Park is split into ten zones, but because we booked late we only had access to zones 6-10. Our afternoon drive was in zone 10 and was pretty much baron and completely dried up. I kept picturing a collection of wildlife having a disco in a lush jungle paradise in zone 1. Our naturalist received a call saying one of the male tigers was hanging out back at the entrance to the zone, with our permission the 4x4 driver hit the gas and drove like an Indian version of Schumacher, who drifted corners and cliffs like human Mario Kart. We rattled around the vehicle, jumping close to a foot off our seat at times. Imagine riding the ricketiest coaster at Canada’s Wonderland (definitely The Wild Beast) without a seatbelt... for 30 minutes! Of course, by the time we reached the entrance, buddy had peaced. But it was one helluva ride to remember and we had some enjoyable back pain as a souvenir. Poor Mom!

Highlights

Other than Adam’s quam with tipping, it sounds like our trip was all sunshine and rainbows (well it was a lotof sunshine, complete with 41-degree heat). But no trip is complete without a few bumps. A group of young over-privileged women who felt entitled to party in the hotel hallway at the expense of everyone else on the same floor cost us a night’s sleep in Jaipur. I also had a 24-hour battle with food poisoning, complete with six accounts of projectile vomiting. But no amount of curry spewing from my nose (spicy!) was going to hinder my experience!

As mentioned above, Raj went that extra mile to create great memories for us to take home. Two of these trip extras became highlights of our travels. On our second day in Delhi he took us to the biggest Sikh temple in the city at the time of ceremony. Not only was the white & gold temple breathtaking but it allowed us to spend some time with a group of people we knew very little about. To honor tradition, we entered without shoes and our heads covered with a bandana. We spent a few moments meditating in the temple over song before Raj took us to the “kitchen.” The Sikh people of this particular temple prepare food and feed 60,000 locals every day voluntarily. I used the word kitchen in quotes, because someone from Canadian Health and Safety would have an aneurism after one look at this room. Everything was prepared in giant vats and no one wore gloves or even socks. Mom and I helped make Chapatti, and weren’t even asked to wash out hands. But alas, the Indian iron stomach can withstand just about anything. We were so grateful for this experience as it broke so many barriers of ignorance and replaced them with a foundation of respect and appreciation. Fun India fact, all Sikhs change their name to Singh. So what happens at a Sikh gathering when there is a phone call asking for Mr. Singh?

After being so intrigued by many of the villages we drove through on our commutes, I said to Raj that I would like to stop in a local village. He was pleased I asked as he had a friend who ran a village between our drive from Jodhpur to Udaipur. Upon arrival, we were greeted with great pleasure by Raj’s friend and shown around. We got to meet the elders of the village, who offered us tea (and opium). But the most rewarding part, maybe of the entire trip, was visiting the local school. We went into two tiny classrooms to meet the children, about age 6-10. They were so ecstatic to see us. Their little faces glowing with excitement as they bounced around on their chair or floor and each one of them wanted to shake our hands. More than any heart could handle without melting on the spot. Even as we had to leave, the boys were poking their heads out the window and door to wave at us.

I can’t thank Raj & Mr. Singh enough for their enthusiasm, patience and hospitality. To say I enjoyed my time in India would be a vast understatement. Most important to me was that Mom got the experience she was hoping for. I was happy to come along for the ride (and family time). That mission was a success and I think Mom came back more satisfied than she even expected. I hadn’t set expectation for myself and was therefore overwhelmingly surprised with the experience and the richness of the culture. So much so that some of the (many) other parts of India that we weren’t able to reach on this trip have now made “the list.”

Note: More photos from my professional camera to be shared on the blog as I get around to editing them. All photos above are from my iPhone 8 Plus.

No roadblocks to free and fair assembly polls: J&K LG

JAMMU: Following the successful completion of District Development Council (DDC) polls in J&K, Lt Governor Manoj Sinha has said any attempt to interpret the results “for political reasons” is a mistake. He added that he saw no roadblocks to holding assembly elections. Speaking exclusively to Bharti Jain in his first interview after the polls, Sinha dismissed speculation by some parties that the DDC outcome would delay assembly polls. “Delimitation process in J&K is under way and once delimitation is done, EC is the competent authority to decide on the conduct of assembly polls,” he said. The LG, who assumed office in August and has initiated several measures to connect with the people, said he has been talking to political leaders across party lines. “My priority remains the people of J&K, ensuring prosperity and peace, and boosting industry and agriculture here,” he said. On the long detention of leaders like Mehbooba Mufti and the Abdullahs, he said this was due to “special circumstances” and based on the assessment of security agencies at the time. He said while the leaders are now free to engage in political activity, anyone involved in anti-national activities shall be dealt with as per the law. Saying the UT is heading towards full normalcy, he assured that 4G services, which are currently functional in two districts, would gradually be restored everywhere. The DDC poll results have been received well across party lines. What is the message of the polls? It is after long that there have been violence-free, free and fair polls in J&K. This is also the general assessment. The enthusiasm with which youth and women participated in the poll exhibits their deep faith in democratic processes. I thank the State Election Commission, poll officials, J&K police and central armed forces for discharging their duties well despite the biting cold. The turnout was better than in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in some difficult areas it saw a two-fold and even threefold increase. Those offering own political interpretations are making a mistake and messing with the people’s mandate. I think this is a victory for democracy. For long, the people of J&K were deprived of a three-tier democratic setup…Now the district development boards will look after development work in villages through directly elected representatives. How will the DDC boards contribute to grassroot development? In the last 3-4 months, Panchayati Raj institutions and urban local bodies have been given more financial and administrative powers in line with the 73rd and 74th amendments. We have made a provision in our budget for extending adequate funds to the boards for development work. Do you think the successful conduct of DDC poll will ease the path to assembly polls? I don’t foresee any roadblock to assembly polls. The PM had spoken of holding the polls in his Independence Day address. We all know that delimitation process is under way in J&K and a few northeastern states. Once delimitation is over, the Election Commission, which is the competent constitutional body, will decide on the conduct of polls. I can tell you that assembly polls will be held in a free and fair manner. NC leader Omar Abdullah suggested that DDC poll results may further delay assembly polls… Such misgivings have no basis. Home minister Amit Shah has spoken of holding assembly polls on the floor of Parliament. The PM’s Red Fort address is the last word. I have been meeting all leaders. Recently, Farooq Abdullah was with me in a programme to lay the foundation stone for a 100-bed ESIC hospital. I have been meeting MPs, ex-MPs and ex-MLAs across party-lines. My priority remains the people of J&K. I am here to address their problems. My focus is to ensure prosperity and peace, boost industry and promote agriculture and horticulture. Do you think DDCs will lead to diminution of J&K assembly and MLAs? In almost all states of the country, this system is functioning. I don’t think the powers of MPs and MLAs have been curtailed in those states. Nobody should have any objection to grassroot democracy and Panchayati Raj institutions. I think it will strengthen democracy. J&K administration is seen as chief patron of Apni Party? I can assure that there is no patronising from our side of any political party, whether NC, PDP, BJP, Congress or Apni Party. Your take on DDC results pointing to communal polarisation? I don’t see it as such. I feel the mainstream parties of the Valley have got more seats in Kashmir region as they were stronger there even earlier; similarly, parties which were traditionally stronger in Jammu have got more seats there. How do you assess the current security scenario? Security forces have an upper hand. Recent statistics show a steep decline in terror-related incidents, recruitment and infiltration. Coordination between J&K police, central forces and the Army is excellent. This helped foil a major terror bid with neutralisation of terrorists in Nagrota. In Poonch, an attempt by the forces in the neighbouring nation to disrupt DDC polls was nipped. Thanks to the alert forces, the situation is heading towards full normalcy. People are fed up of militancy. Do you think the long detention of political leaders like Mehbooba Mufti and the Abdullahs was necessary? The detentions were ordered under special circumstances. At the time, those handling security matters may have had some apprehensions. But now people are taking part in normal political activity, holding rallies and travelling freely. I would like to make it clear here that while there is complete freedom to indulge in political activity, anybody found engaging in anti-national activities will face strict action under the law. How long before 4G services are restored across J&K? 4G services are already functional in two districts. The matter is in the Supreme Court and the government has assured that it will gradually restore 4G in other districts as well. How do you react to the charge of witch-hunting against political leaders through law enforcement agencies? NIA is mandated to probe terror-related cases and anybody allegedly involved in a terror act should face the agency. ED is competent to investigate anybody who has amassed assets disproportionate to his income. All these agencies have their ‘maryada’; I will not allow any probe driven by political motives. I would also like to assure common people of J&K that they need not fear anything, action will only be directed against the wrong-doers. In view of J&K government seeking review of Roshni Act verdict by the high court, do you think ‘naming and shaming’ of beneficiaries could have waited? We went to the court before the list of Roshni beneficiaries was made public. It had taken some time after the court’s decision to compile the list. There is no discrimination and the entire list is being made public as per the court’s direction. We went to the high court for two reasons: I feel the names being made public are just “a tip of the iceberg”. So we have requested the court for permission to set up an SIT. Secondly, we have requested for directions on a possible law to save the poor people who got land for genuine reasons. A CBI probe is on and after the probe, the government will be taking back land as directed by the HC. Common people may be asked to deposit the market value of the land. How do you intend to boost jobs in J&K? The number of government servants in J&K and Bihar are almost equal, despite the latter having a much bigger population. Employment in J&K has largely been driven by government jobs. We are working on many fronts. Vacancies in government are being filled up and we hope to offer 25,000 government jobs. A new industrial policy is aimed at boosting investment. DIPP has cleared it and cabinet approval may come soon. I foresee an investment of Rs 25,000-30,000 crore in times to come. Big business houses, including global players like Lulu Group, have shown interest. Industry needs a peaceful environment and land. We have made necessary changes in land laws to ensure that land rights of locals are protected.

source https://bbcbreakingnews.com/2020/12/27/no-roadblocks-to-free-and-fair-assembly-polls-jk-lg/

10 Ways To Leave Voicemails That Get Callbacks - B2b Lead Era

B2B trade leads are again sort of directories of businesses interested in trade of any type. However, for a guide, I like lengthier copy that consists of detailed descriptions, reviews, and sample chapters.

India has population of much more than one billion individuals and it is rated among the biggest web users nation of the globe. Right here I am providing crucial information by telling you most popular web sites of India. Show, don't tell. Print copies of everything you discover. Don't just tell a dealer that you received a better price quote on-line. Display them. Don't just say that you thought your credit was good enough to qualify for a much better rate. Display them. However, for a guide, I like lengthier duplicate that consists of comprehensive descriptions, critiques, and sample chapters. I need to consider the time to study up on the advantages of the guide to see if it's worth it to make investments my time. And let's be honest, if somebody gives a nicely written negative evaluation, it doesn't turn me off of the item unless of course they point out some thing I care about. But that's https://marketplacebusiness6.webs.com/apps/blog/show/49519763-3-common-errors-to-steer-clear-of-when-starting-an-on-line-company .

Negotiation abilities. This is one vital capability to have particularly in the revenue process because it is crucial in producing win-win company deals. B2b sales individuals require to be savvy in searching for methods how to get previous their customers' constraints. These individuals are educated when it comes to negotiating within their personal organisation and of program, to negotiate with their clients in purchase to arrive up with value-stuffed, and get-win company deals. They have to appear for methods and means wherein the greatest deal is the one that's most mutually beneficial to all parties. Consumer entrepreneurs know that perceptions take a long time to build. They produce advertisements and promote their concept consistently. As B2B entrepreneurs, we have to do the exact same. If your product supports it, consider offering free trials to produce leads. Software program is frequently very suited to this, but it can work with services industries and numerous smaller sized scale goods. Business to Business searching B2b India for a solution is most likely to want the chance to try prior to they dedicate. Businesses get to verify you out in a way that is completely risk totally free to them and you learn of potential clients who already display some need for what you are offering. You gain a list of businesses that are exploring your products and can use this to marketplace further offerings. If the offering is great there's every opportunity they'll flip into customers when the demo time period ends. This is absolutely nothing new. It's an previous and reliable way to promote. In 1947, Lyman Wooden utilized this procedure to consider away the sticker shock of selling rotatillers via the mail. Rather of inviting people to get in touch with him for the sale, he provided a free booklet in his small area ads that assisted them comprehend the worth of the device he was promoting. India has a tradition for higher education, trading abilities and becoming industrious individuals, and can of program advantage additional from this by providing a bigger part of the population the opportunity to consider part. This will no question signify a challenge for the institution as it inflicts with conventional knowledge but would greatly advantage the country if applied. Business to Business - Taj Mahal symbolizes everlasting love and is the most famous structure in India. The Taj Mahal was built by Emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his 3rd spouse Mumtaz Mahal. Because Emperor Jahan was a Mughal, the architecture of the Taj Mahal is Mughal architecture. It is now outlined as a UNESCO Globe Heritage Website. The lodging is India is really cheap; you can get a hotel room for as low as Rupee one hundred fifty - 200 in some of cities in India. Check out time from the hotel is not set but most of the resorts offer check out in the noon at twelve:00 pm. It is usually much better to inquire for it as some resort might give you flexibility of 24 hrs that indicates the room is yours for 24 hours. In some metropolitan areas in India check out time is 10:00 am in the morning.

TGIWednesday and joining tonight's global prayer gathering

TGIWednesday News

My 6 year old grand daughter Charlie was visiting this past Sunday and was petting our new shiny kitten Lily. Charlie, looked up at me and said, “Grampa, Lily is almost 100 percent cute.”  Wow, as I thought for a minute; is a kitten lacking in cuteness? Truly this was a meeting of the minds and quite the conundrum.  But as funny as it was to hear, I took it from spirit that there is always room for improvements and we’re all striving to improve - so just know that.  You must stay out of perfection or I’m not doing this, that, or the other thing until the timing is 100 percent.  The Wright brothers would have never flown if they continued to work until it was all perfect.  I’d have never written and published 9 books if I held tight to 100% perfection.  For today... strive towards your goals, stretch, dream and accomplish.

Only 1 WEEK LEFT to take advantage of this month's DISCOUNT AND FREE BONUS!  Receive 20% OFF ALL DIGITAL EBOOKS through Wed. Sept 30th USE THIS LINK and go through to Checkout page OR type in code FISHSCHOOL   For those that are looking to become better healers, empathic without the pain and more intuitive, Click here for our online Mastery course in My Liquid Fish® Change made simple®?  And also through Wed. Sept 30th, our special MyBeliefWorks™ for Clearing Educational Blocks MP3 will be 20% OFF OR you can GET IT FREE when you sign up for either the Mastery or Practitioner Certification Course this month.   

TGIWednesday Download

~ COMFORT IN MEETINGS ~ (Zoom or in-person) Today I will know when to speak and when to remain silent.  I believe, think, know and feel that I can be comfortable in meetings.  I am ready, willing and able to partake in meetings without nervousness, or any misspoken words. I know, when, where, how and why to stay centered, grounded, focused and I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is.  

Go deep sea "fishing" with Jimmy!

Level 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime! Click here to watch the Mastery video playlist

The Certificate of Mastery Program includes 2 best-selling ebooks and 2 clearing audios plus written & video instructions, AND one-on-one time with Jimmy ALL for about the cost of a single 1-hr session! This online course is for anyone who is familiar with OR new to "fishing" and is ready to dive into the deep end & get results that are beyond the ordinary! It includes The Tackle Box & The Dowser's Handbook ebooks PLUS 2 MP3s "Clearing Dark Energies" & "Increasing Your Intuition" to help clear, strengthen and prepare your energy field for optimal “fishing” results. This is a work-at-your-own-pace curriculum that will TEACH & CLEAR you at the same time! In under 2wks you will be finished with the program and ready to fish on your own with greater results! Level II offers Practitioner Certification for those who qualify.  

 LAST CALL!! When you sign up for either the Mastery or Practitioner Certification Course by Sept 30th you'll GET THIS FREE! MyBeliefWorks™ for Clearing Educational Blocks and Traumas MP3/PDF   

LEARN ABOUT CERTIFICATION HERE

For those who aren't familiar, here's the list of the MyBeliefWorks™ audio library. 

Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better. Don't forget... you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

Abundance Abuse Addiction Body Scan: Head to Toe COVID-19 Clearings Creative Spark Daily GPS Reset Dark Energies/Fears Decision Making Diet & Exercise Education & Learning Family & Relatives The Gold Coin Healing Physical Body Healing Mental Stress Holiday Stress

Increasing Intuition IRS & Tax Time Love & Romance Money Mindset Moving Forward Pain Relief Pet Healing Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Traveling w/Ease Work & Career Weight Loss Windfall Youth & Vitality *MySwitchWorks Videos

Monthly LIVE Zoom Event

WED. SEPTEMBER 23rd LIVE CALL 7:30pm-8pm Register to attend live & get replay - $22 https://calendly.com/jmh-calls/sept-switches-event

===================

Theme for September: Teaching, learning, meetings, speaking, studying...

Do you need help in un-learning the following?: laziness, overwhelm, judgment, fear, distrust, overeating, under exercising...

Do you need help learning?: Patience, tolerance, perseverance, stick to it attitude, courage, fearlessness, endurance, resilience, how to give and accept love...

Submit your Top 3 to [email protected]

Sign Up Now - $22

LIVE Appearances - Free Healing

JOIN ME TONIGHT FOR THIS SPECIAL HEALING EVENT 7:30pm Eastern The Global Gathering

 with host Dipal Shah. The Gathering is an online spiritual event in which multiple healers, lightworkers, catalysts and spiritual teachers come together as ONE to support humanity by anchoring love, light, joy, wellness and optimism.  Free to Register & Watch Online TONIGHT at 7:30pm ET

For nearly a decade, more than 6 million people have been attending the You Wealth Revolution and the ALL NEW Global Awakening Project™ online event, starting this month, is going to impact millions more!  Join nearly 1 million people who will experience a ‘high vibration’ energy field as 40+ top teachers, healers, and scientists (including myself in November) will reveal their #1 quantum energy activations to instantly help YOU and  Get Your '639 Hz Abundance & Harmony Kit™' Gift + The Global Awakening Project™ LIVE Event Access — FREE Register here & Get Your Free Gift!

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack SEPTEMBER 23rd "Today when I least expect it, a miracle will occur. I will experience deja vu, time traveling, mystical, magical experiences that I will count on beyond all knowing that for this rare moment in time, I have been given a clear sign."

From the Fish Box

Q&A WITH JIMMY:  

Q) "Dear Jimmy, I listened to a recording of a recent show and you offered for us to write in regarding layoffs due to Covid. It is time to reinvent myself!  I am giving you a little background because this is the first time I don't have another new great thing I am excited about. Usually I have an idea and run with it. I have been waiting for direction on my new path. I have considered some receptionist type positions but not with great enthusiasm I must say.  Is it too broad of a question to ask for guidance here? Do I need to write back with specific job options? Thanks for all you do and for your help." - Nancy A)  "Correct, specific options work best……………too open ended in this email lol If someone asks, engineering, law or medicine? We can tell them with strong certainty what could be best." - Jimmy UPDATE: "Thank you so much Jimmy for your quick response! Just after sending my email to you, I was asked to submit my resume for a leasing agent position for a local apartment complex. (a close relative is the exec there, she is the one who offered it up.) Any feedback for this?." - Nancy

The Jimmy Mack Healing Show

NEW VIDEO FORMAT! WATCH IT LIVE  TUESDAY'S at 4pm EDT / 1pm PDT Watch and Participate (via Comments) during the Live TV Show streamed on Goldylocks Productions YouTube Channel, Facebook Page and Periscope.   NOTE: You will need to log into your YouTube (Google) or Facebook accounts to comment. If you watch the Live show from any other location other than the 3 listed below, your comments will not be seen by the Show Host or Producer. https://www.facebook.com/GoldylocksProductions https://www.pscp.tv/Goldylocks168/follow Or watch all live and replays in the archives here: https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Instructions for the VIEWERS: 1.    One reading/message per person. The first question posted will be answered, so please think about your question carefully before posting it.  2.    If you want a longer and more detailed message, please book an appointment with the Show Host.  3.    Spirit does come through and gives messages that can apply to many, not just the person asking the question. 4.    It is not required nor should be expected that every question or comment will be addressed by the Show Host. 5.    If you have any issues with the show host or show format, please contact the Show Producer... not the Show Host. 6.    Contact the Show Producer, Rev. Tiffany White Sage Woman via email: [email protected] Yesterday's Show - Watch the replay here! Special Guest Ayla Murray | Tarot/Angel Cards and intuitive readings https://www.facebook.com/harmonicperspective/   September 29th  Rev Debbie | Our resident trans medium communications with your loved ones in spirit. Visit her Facebook page

October 6th  Psychic Joanne Leo | Numerology/astrology/angel cards reading from the heart www.psychicjoanneleo.com

October 13th Jeremy Riden | Cards and intuitive readings https://divinesparkministries.com/about-jeremy-riden

October 20th  Gosia Lorenz | www.gosialorenz.com

October 27th Rev Debbie | Our resident trans medium communications with your loved ones in spirit. Visit her Facebook page

  **Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Nightly prayers include COVID-19. Each night we work on scrambling the frequency for everyone on the prayer list. Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.  

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively  and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

Upon written email request, for each new order we offer a one-time email analysis via the intelligent healing software that Jimmy uses on your behalf.  Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers. *NOTE if the MDP Service was purchased via a special telesummit or radio show offer, prayers will be limited to BUYER ONLY - and will not include family members or pets.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day! 

Sign Up for 30-Days - $99

 Tampa Office Sessions

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS  

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s NEW office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions Friday October 16th from 10am-4pm  403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at  ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

FRIDAY KODAWARI YOGA STUDIOS 

Friday sessions are back to being phone-only for folks that I usually see at Kodawari until further notice. You can book time with me in the shop and schedule online.   3965 Henderson Blvd Suite C Tampa ☎️ (813) 999-1874 http://www.kodawariyoga.com/

TGIFunny

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Jimmy Mack | Appointments Skype: Jimmy.Mack55 Clearwater Florida USA Book a 15 minute session Book a 30 minute session Book a 60 minute session ​​​ Transformational Healing of Body, Mind​ & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!​ ​ Download the My Liquid Fish® Starter Kit (*Updated May 2019) Audio MP3 Downloads​ and books​ to improve your life! Get Certified in ​My Liquid Fish® Change Made Simple® Watch Free Videos on YouTube Weekly Radio Show Archives Shop for ​Supplements ​ http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2020 All Rights Reserved  

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