Guide to Watch TGCF Donghua Season 2

With the new season of the Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official's Blessing donghua finally releasing soon, I wanted to make a post explaining the different ways fans can watch and support it! Things have changed since season 1, so my old guide is no longer relevant apart from the infographics on how to subscribe to Bilibili CN (and the YouTube channel)!

And to be upfront: the main sites that are going to be broadcasting the donghua have been very sparse with information. I fully expect that we will have to wait until after the first episode releases to know all the details, so while I am making this guide to help people right now, things might change! Please keep that in mind and stay patient! I will post any important updates in the replies as I can!

Additionally, because of copyright/licensing, different sites are going to work in different regions. I do not know with 100% certainty what is going to work in a particular country. There's gonna be some trial and error!

So the main options we have for season 2 are:

Crunchyroll

Sub price: $9.99 USD per month for basic (local prices may vary)

Regions: Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Oceania.

Pros: Easy to subscribe to if available in your region.

Cons: Unlikely for true simulcast so it'll be a bit delayed.

Link to main site (season 2 listing not up yet)

For app: download via App Store/Google Play Store.

Bilibili. tv (EN site/app)

Sub price: $4.99 USD per month (local prices may vary)

Regions: Southeast Asia only.

Pros: Airs earlier than Crunchyroll. Interface is in English.

Cons: If you want to watch it outside of SEA, you'll need a VPN.

Link to Season 2 on website

For app: download via APK link on website if you are outside of SEA. Otherwise use App Store/Google Play Store.

Bilibili YouTube Channel

Sub price: $4.99/$5.99 USD per month (local prices may vary)

Regions: Many -- EXCEPT Japan, South Korea, the Americas, UK, Australia, New Zealand.

Pros: Easy to subscribe if available in your region.

Cons: If you want to watch it from the regions listed above, you'll need a VPN.

Link to channel

It's the youtube app....

Bilibili. com (CN site/app)

Sub price: $9.99 USD for 3 months

Regions: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pros: If they're gonna air season 2, then they might be the source broadcast if the EN site isn't. Also probably cheapest for those abroad.

Cons: Chinese interface may be intimidating. Not 100% sure if it'll air as normal.

Link to Season 2 on website

For app: download via App Store/Google Play Store.

(NOTE: If you are in Japan, it will be available on WOWOW. If you are in South Korea, it will be available on Laftel.)

F.A.Q.s

🔹What is the release date/time? Bilibili EN has announced it as 20:00 GMT+8 on October 18th. If it releases on Bilibili CN, it'll probably be the same time. Crunchyroll has stated October 18th, but has not yet announced a time as of the posting this guide. I checked. Japan and South Korea have their own release times, so please consult the relevant broadcasters!

🔹Can I watch it on Netflix/Amazon Prime/etc? These streaming services will likely only have it after the whole season concludes, and with a significant delay. For reference, it took several months after finishing for season 1 to be released on Netflix.

🔹Which platform should I choose? Whichever one you can actually access, and feel most comfortable using!

🔹When should I subscribe? Personally, I'll be waiting until the last day before release, just to make sure I have the most information possible. However, I'm sure the idea of doing that makes many people nervous, so... yeah. Whenever is convenient for you!

🔹Which one will have the donghua the quickest/earliest? Probably Bilibili CN & Bilibili EN. I suspect they'll simulcast with each other. I cannot be 100% certain about anything though, because of limited info! For season 1, YouTube and Funimation (now Crunchyroll) were delayed, and it's hard to say if they'll be better this time or not.

🔹Do I need a VPN for Bilibili EN or their YT channel? If you are outside of SEA, yes.

🔹Do I need a VPN for Bilibili CN? Probably not, unless you are in a country that restricts access to CN sites and apps (like India).

🔹Which VPN should I use? This will be up to you! It's best to research what the different options are, and what will work for your needs!

🔹How will I know I'll be able to watch season 2 from my region? The most surefire way is to subscribe to a platform that has officially announced to be serving your region (e.g. Crunchyroll for the Americas). Unofficially, if you can watch the latest trailer and other promo videos on your chosen platform, then there's a good chance you're okay! The exception to this is the YouTube channel, which has some of the trailers public, but has all of season 1 unavailable if you aren't in the right region.... Additionally, be mindful, because even if you're able to see season 1, season 2 might still be region-locked on certain platforms. (E.g. you can watch all of season 1 via Bilibili EN if you're from the USA no problem. But you can't access season 2 without a VPN to a SEA server.)

🔹What languages are going to be available and will there be English subtitles? While dubs for multiple languages have been confirmed, I'm unsure if any of these will be available on release. It'll likely be offered only in Chinese first. For season 1, there were hardcoded CN & EN subtitles for Bilibili on release. Funimation re-subbed the episodes (EN) for their own release, and Crunchyroll will probably do the same.

🔹I watched it on Funimation last time, can I watch it through them this time? No, they were absorbed (in some capacity idk) by Crunchyroll. So they are not distributing season 2 of TGCF, only Crunchyroll is.

🔹Is season 2 actually available in China and thus on Bilibili CN? Yes and no! As long as you are not in mainland China, it seems you will have access to season 2 through Bilibili CN. All promo materials and trailers seem to be available to us, which is a good sign! (They are not available for mainlanders, but mainland fans are able to watch via HK/Macau versions apparently.)

🔹Hopeful that it will be available, I would like to watch it via Bilibili CN, so how do I sign up and subscribe? To make an account, consult this reddit post. To subscribe, please consult the guide below! It's a little old (made it for season 1) but still works pretty much the same.

Cold, early mornings and Ice creams

Pairings: Bakugou Katsuki x Fem!Reader

Genre: fluff, one-shot, imagines,

Warnings: language

A/n: Might have grammatical errors because I made this at 12 am so read at your own risk! Will edit this in the morning :>

The moment Katsuki opened his room door and found you in your gym clothes really early in the morning, he thought you were sick or smthn. You weren't opposed to the idea of working out. What you hated was early mornings. So that's why he was confused why you were the one who woke up extremely early just to come with him to the gym today.

Now you and your boyfriend are on your way to the gym which is just a 5-minute walk from your apartment. It was 6 in the morning so the weather was a bit cold. You planned to wake up extremely early because you knew this month that early mornings are usually cold.

You decided it's time to go back to working out after stopping for weeks. You miss feeling DOMS after working out. Plus you'd also get a chance to watch Katsuki workout so it's a win-win.

You and Katsuki are walking side by side as you made your way to the gym. It's his usual routine to go to the gym every day from Mondays to Saturdays, excluding Sundays cause it's his rest days.

He was wearing his usual gym clothes—sexy black sleeveless top, gym shorts, and his running shoes— underneath those black sweater of his. You were wearing your own gym clothes underneath Katsuki’s favorite sweatshirt that you stole borrowed.

As you guys walked, you turned to the blonde.

It's funny because no matter how many times you've seen Katsuki already, you still can't help but be mesmerized by his good looks.

He gaze was entirely focused on the road in front of you that he didn't notice you were staring. He still had his messy bed hair on. He didn't bother putting on gel to make his hair look spiky because he's going to workout today and it'll still get sweaty. His spiky and thick eyebrows are curved perfectly. Those same eyebrows would always furrow when he's serious, mad, confused or deep in thought so it's cute to see them not furrowed because he has a neutral expression on his face. His lashes were long and thick to the point that you always got jealous of it. His perfectly sculpted nose and plump lips. Don't even get me started with those jawline and—

“Take a picture, would ya?”

You were snapped out from your reverie. Blush rising up to your cheeks from having your boyfriend catch you gawking at him.

Katsuki turned to you with that signature smirk of his. “It'll last longer, princess.” he teased.

You rolled your eyes to hide your embarrassment. “I already have a couple pictures of you, babe.” you snatched your phone from your pocket and wiggled it near his face.

“Yeah, ‘cause we took them togeth—damnit, hey! Watch where you're going dumbass!” he grumbled as he softly tugged the back of your his sweater backwards in one swift motion, the action pulling you back enough to stop you from crossing the road right before you'd get hit by a speeding bike.

“Oops, sorry.” you giggled sheepishly.

“Don't apologize, baby.” his eyes softened momentarily as he looked at you. “I was cursing that damn guy for speeding up when the light’s fucking red.” he grumbled, glaring at the now-far away biking guy. “the damn extra almost ran you over. Tch.”

You both crossed the road using the pedestrian lane, now Katsuki an inch closer to you than before. You also noticed his protective stance with the way he's subtly covering your body.

“nah ah. I meant the ones which I took when you were sleeping peacefully, babe.” you giggled, continuing the conversation you had with him before the biking guy incident happened.

“tch. just don't dare post them online, woman.” he inserted his hands inside his pants pocket, slightly looking away from you. But he was unsuccessful in trying to hide the cute blush that was already spreading onto his cheeks and ear.

“don’t worry, I didn't Katsu.”

“good.”

“but I may or may not have, sent some of your cute sleeping pictures in the Bakusquad's groupchat.” you grinned.

the way his neck immediately snapped to turn at you, shocked and eyebrows furrowed, made you question if your boyfriend's neck is okay or not.

“YOU W-WHAT?”

“Ooo! Ice cream! Yay!” you ran to where the ice cream was, avoiding your boyfriend's question. You were literally saved by the bell—the ice cream vendor's bell in this situation—from your boyfriend's wrath.

“come back here, woman!”

You arrived at the ice cream stall, panting. I really need a workout, you thought. A minute later your boyfriend already caught up, and he didn't even look out of breath.

“let's buy some ice cream, Katsu, pleaseeee.” you pouted.

He raised his eyebrow. “We're going to the gym and you're craving ice cream?” the idea of you sending his cute sleeping pictures to the GC, thrown out the window.

“PLEASE, KATSUKI. I WANT SOME FUCKING ICE CREAM OR I'LL SCREAM.” he shook his head at your childishness, trying to hide the smile on his face at how cute you're acting rn.

“fine, fine. Let's give the girl her ice cream before she screams.” Katsuki orders two ice cream cones, with 3 different flavors each, then takes out a bill from his pocket and pays the vendor.

“Here you go.” the vendor smiles at you both, handing you your ice cream.

“Hey! These two cones are mine. Go buy your own.” you pouted as you immediately took the other cone when the vendor was about to hand it to your boyfriend.

You immediately started eating as Katsuki chuckled, buying another one for himself. You guys continued on your way to the gym and you still occupied in finishing the two cones.

“Slow down. It's already freezing in the morning, dumbass. You'd get sick at this rate.” he grumbled, as he finished hils own cone.

You finally finished your ice cream and so were your boyfriend and both of you finally arrived right across the gym.

To make sure no speeding bike incident would occur, Katsuki grabbed your hand, and held it as you both crossed the road. You weren't gonna lie that you didn't feel extremely giddy when Bakugou Katsuki—your boyfriend who isn't into PDAs—held your hand all of a sudden.

His hands were surprisingly warm even when he's out here in the cold, and even after eating ice cream. Damnit, the way his big warm calloused hands fit into your small ones were enough to break a smile into your face. Plus the fact that he was gently holding your hand, afraid he might break you. His hold is also tight and secure enough to make sure he won't accidentally loosen his grip on you.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MA HEART BAKUGOU.

“damn, your hand's cold as ice.” he finally let go of your hand when you both arrived on the other side of the road. Your hands felt cold with the absence of his. And you resisted the urge to try to grab his hand again so you could intertwine it with his a bit longer.

“put your hand in ya pocket.” he said as he walked his way to the front of the gym.

You pouted. You assumed that he'd let you put your cold hand in his pocket just like the scene that you saw in that kdrama movie last night. :(

You placed your cold hand into your pocket to warm it up and followed right after your boyfriend. When you arrived beside him because he knew you were a few steps behind, he turned to you and then looked down at your hand that was now inside your pocket.

Katsuki's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Didn't you hear me? I said put ya hand inside my pocket, dumbass.” then he grabbed your hand that was inside your pocket, intertwined it with his, and gently shoved it in his pocket.

“that warm enough for ya?” he smirked, as he pulled you with him into the entrance of the gym.

You looked down at the intertwined hands of yours and Katsuki’s. The temperature's just right, Katsu. You thought, grinning.

Looks like someone's gotta renew their gym membership :>

The Danger of Collective Amnesia

At the risk of being the skunk at the picnic, I feel compelled to warn you that if we forget and move on from the tragedies of this past year, we’re setting ourselves on a dangerous path. Of course I understand the desire to forget all the unpleasantness and start a new chapter. But if we do, we’re inviting greater tragedies in the future. 

Let me remind you: Donald Trump lied about the results of the last election. And then – you remember, don’t you? – he tried to overturn the results.

Trump twisted the arms of state election officials. He held a rally to stop Congress from certifying the election, followed by the violent attack on the Capitol. Five people died. Senators and representatives could have been slaughtered.

Several Republican members of Congress encouraged the attempted coup by joining him in the big lie and refusing to certify the election — even after the mob desecrated the halls of our democracy.

This was in January of this year, yet we seem to be doing everything we can to blot it out of our memory. Meanwhile, those responsible for instigating the attack haven’t been held accountable in any respect — including by the media.

The Washington Post hosted a live video chat with Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley, a ringleader in the attempt to overturn the results of the election. Hawley had even made a fist-pump gesture toward the mob at the Capitol before the attack.

But the Post billed the interview as being about Hawley’s new book on big tech. It even posted a biography of Hawley that made no mention of Hawley’s sedition, referring instead to his supposed reputation “for taking on the big and the powerful to protect Missouri workers” and as “a fierce defender of the Constitution.”

CBS This Morning interviewed Florida Republican Rick Scott, another senator who tried to overturn the election by not certifying the results. But there was no mention of his sedition, either. The CBS interviewer confined his questions to Biden’s spending plans, which Scott unsurprisingly opposed.

Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also repeatedly appear on major news programs without being questioned about their attempts to undo the results of the election, or their continued promotion of Trump’s lies.

The media is supposed to serve as a crucial check on those in power. But in its breathless desire to cover the “news” it is failing to remind us of our recent past.  

The consequences of this failure are dire. 

Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and that President Biden is not legitimate, is not disappearing. A majority of Republican voters believe him.

That big lie is being used by Republican state legislatures to justify an all-out assault on the right to vote. 

Hours after Florida enacted new voting restrictions, Texas’s Republican-led legislature pushed ahead with its own bill that would make it one of the hardest states in which to cast a ballot.

The Republican-controlled Arizona Senate launched a private recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County – farming out 2.1 million ballots to GOP partisans with no experience in ballot counting or election monitoring. At least one person involved in the recount participated in the Capitol attack.

The Republican Party even purged one of its leaders, Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, for telling the truth about the election.

Meanwhile, Republican state legislatures are muscling their way into election administration, as they attempt to dislodge or bully local election officials who have always run our voting systems.

Trump’s big lie will continue to flourish unless the lawmakers who went along with it and have failed to renounce it face real consequences. 

That means no book promotions, no cushy interviews, no guest op-eds in the Sunday paper.

What possible excuse is there for booking them if they have not publicly retracted their election lies? If they must appear, they should be asked if they continue to deny the election results and precisely why. 

It also means a thorough independent 9-11 type inquiry into what happened, whether members of Congress were involved, how Donald Trump and others were involved. 

Republican leaders must not duck this. History is watching. 

They must be held accountable to the truth. Otherwise the trauma of 2020 will return — perhaps in even more terrifying form.

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Portland protests see clashes between far-right, far-left groups (Reuters) Protests by rival far-right and left-wing groups in Portland descended into violence on Sunday, as the opposing sides engaged in clashes and at least one man was arrested for firing a gun at demonstrators. Nobody was hurt in an exchange of gunfire—and by Sunday evening there was no word on any injuries in numerous other skirmishes that saw opposing sides brawling, dousing each other in what appeared to be bear spray and breaking car windows of rivals. Police Chief Chuck Lovell said during a briefing on Friday that officers would not necessarily intervene to break up fights between the groups. But he added that “just because arrests are not made at the scene when tensions are high, does not mean that people won’t be charged with crimes.”

Henri hurls rain as system settles atop swamped Northeast (AP) The slow-rolling system named Henri is taking its time drenching the Northeast with rain, lingering early Monday atop a region made swampy by the storm’s relentless downpour. Henri, which made landfall as a tropical storm Sunday afternoon in Rhode Island, has moved northwest through Connecticut. It hurled rain westward far before its arrival, flooding areas as far southwest as New Jersey before pelting northeast Pennsylvania, even as it took on tropical depression status. Over 140,000 homes lost power, and deluges of rain closed bridges, swamped roads and left some people stranded in their vehicles.

Classes starting, but international students failing to get U.S. visas (Reuters) Kofi Owusu occasionally waits outside the U.S. embassy in Accra to ask fellow students what they have done to secure a timely visa appointment. Classes for his master’s program at Villanova University in Pennsylvania are scheduled to start Monday, but his in-person interview appointment for a first-time U.S. student visa is still nine months away. It’s the second time the political science student from Ghana won’t make it to the United States in time for school. Visa processing is delayed as U.S. embassies and consulates operate at reduced capacity around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving some students abroad unable to make it for the start of the academic year. The wait and the hassle threaten both the country’s standing as a preferred choice for international students and their economic contribution of around $40 billion annually to many universities and local economies. New international student enrollment in the United States dropped 43% in fall 2020 from the year prior, months after COVID sent the world into lockdown. The number of new students who actually made it onto campus in person declined by 72%, according to an enrollment survey by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

FDA approves Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (Bloomberg) The pioneering coronavirus vaccine made by pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and Pfizer was granted full approval by U.S. regulators. The government imprimatur is expected to trigger a flood of mandates by municipalities, agencies and private employers that had been waiting for the Food and Drug Administration sign-off. Following the announcement, the Pentagon said it would make vaccinations mandatory for military personnel worldwide and President Joe Biden called for mandates by companies.

Hospitals and Insurers Didn’t Want You to See Their Prices (NYT) This year, the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret: a complete list of the prices they negotiate with private insurers. The insurers’ trade association had called the rule unconstitutional and said it would “undermine competitive negotiations.” Four hospital associations jointly sued the government to block it, and appealed when they lost. They lost again, and seven months later, many hospitals are simply ignoring the requirement and posting nothing. But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden. It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services: procedures as simple as an X-ray or a pregnancy test. And in many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all. This secrecy has allowed hospitals to tell patients that they are getting “steep” discounts, while still charging them many times what a public program like Medicare is willing to pay.

‘A Beautiful Feeling’: Refugee Women In Germany Learn The Joy Of Riding Bikes (NPR) Like most Americans, I learned to ride a bike as a kid. I still remember the glee after learning how to ride a bike on a subdivision road where I grew up in Florida. But girls around the world don’t always get to experience the joy of a first bike ride. In some countries, conservative societies frown upon women and girls who ride bikes—it’s not considered dignified or appropriate—and gives a girl too much independence. Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer and activist, recalls riding a bike as an 11-year-old in the capital city of Damascus. “For the people [watching on the street], and even for the children, it was shocking to them that I was riding a bike. They started to say, ‘Oh, shame on you, you are a girl riding a bike,’” Seif says. “It just wasn’t in our culture.” But it’s never too late to learn. In Germany, a nonprofit group called Bikeygees is teaching refugee women from countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria how to ride. Since the group first started, it has taught 1,100 women how to ride a bike, says founder Annette Krüger. “It is possible to change the life of a woman in two hours. It is really magical,” says Krüger, an avid cyclist. “It’s a beautiful feeling when a person is riding a bike,” one refugee says with a broad grin.

Gunfire at Kabul airport kills 1 amid chaotic evacuations (AP/Foreign Policy) A firefight at one of the gates of Kabul’s international airport killed at least one Afghan soldier early Monday, German officials said, the latest chaos to engulf Western efforts to evacuate those fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country. The shooting at the airport came as the Taliban sent fighters north of the capital to eliminate pockets of armed resistance to their lightning takeover earlier this month. The Taliban said they retook three districts seized by opponents the day before and had surrounded Panjshir, the last province that remains out of their control. The tragic scenes around the airport have transfixed the world. Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, in addition to the seven killed Sunday. Tens of thousands of people—Americans, other foreigners and Afghans who assisted in the war effort—are still waiting to join the airlift, which has been slowed by security issues and U.S. bureaucracy hurdles. Meanwhile, Afghanistan faces a quickly deepening economic crisis, with financial hardships increasingly affecting those in Kabul and other cities. Banks remain closed, food prices are rising, and the value of the local currency has plummeted. The suspension of commercial flights to Kabul’s international airport has in some ways exacerbated the crisis, halting the flow of some medical supplies and aid.

US special operations forces race to save former Afghan comrades in jeopardy (ABC News) Current and former U.S. military special operations and intelligence community operatives are using their own networks of contacts to get elite Afghan soldiers, intelligence assets and interpreters to safety as they’ve become increasingly disillusioned and fed up with the U.S. government-led evacuation effort in Kabul, ABC News has learned. One informal group, dubbed “Task Force Pineapple,” began as a frantic effort last weekend to get one former Afghan commando into Hamid Karzai International Airport as he was being hunted by Taliban who were texting him death threats. They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was therefore at high risk of reprisal. The former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter at the airport, where he shouted the password “pineapple” to American troops at the checkpoint. Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him. Other former members of the military and CIA have consolidated their own efforts with a separate group calling itself “Task Force Dunkirk,” a reference to the massive evacuation of British and other Allied forces from France in 1940 under threat of the Nazi juggernaut. Task Force Dunkirk and the groups it has banded together with have helped get at least 83 at-risk Afghans out of the country.

Lebanese hospitals at breaking point as everything runs out (AP) Drenched in sweat, doctors check patients lying on stretchers in the reception area of Lebanon’s largest public hospital. Air conditioners are turned off, except in operating rooms and storage units, to save on fuel. Medics scramble to find alternatives to saline solutions after the hospital ran out. The shortages are overwhelming, the medical staff exhausted. And with a new surge in coronavirus cases, Lebanon’s hospitals are at a breaking point. The country’s health sector is a casualty of the multiple crises that have plunged Lebanon into a downward spiral—a financial and economic meltdown, compounded by a complete failure of the government, runaway corruption and a pandemic that isn’t going away. The collapse is all the more dramatic since only a few years ago, Lebanon was a leader in medical care in the Arab world. The region’s rich and famous came to this small Mideast nation of 6 million for everything, from major hospital procedures to plastic surgeries.

China changes law to allow married couples to have three kids (NY Post) China will now allow married couples to legally have a third kid amid concerns that its shrinking number of working-age people will threaten the country’s future prosperity and global influence. China has tried for decades to control the population, beginning with a policy imposed in 1979 that strictly limited couples to one child. Couples who didn’t follow the rule faced fines or loss of jobs—and in some cases, mothers were forced to undergo abortions. A preference for sons also led parents to kill baby girls, causing a massive imbalance in the sex ratio. The number of working-age people, meanwhile, has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding more strain to an aging society. With growing fears that the country would grow old before it became wealthy, the family planning rules were changed for the first time in 2015 to allow two children.

Cases up down under (CNN) Australia, like China, New Zealand, and some other countries, has attempted to completely eradicate Covid-19 inside its borders. The strategy had largely worked until recently; Australia has just 44,026 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 981 deaths. But several major cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, and the capital Canberra, are again under lockdown as authorities struggle to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant. On Saturday, thousands took to the streets of Melbourne and Sydney to protest the long lockdowns; hundreds were arrested, and at least seven police officers were injured during violent clashes. In an opinion piece published Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison hinted at an end to the country’s zero Covid-19 infections strategy, but warned Australians to expect a rise in infections as restrictions relax.

GARY RENNELL —

IG info/bio | @/rennellnotreynolds | 300k followers | currently havin a midlife crisis at thee moment so cheers! 🍻🏋🏼‍♂️🤨

23 (24) years old

Born & raised in Chatham, England there’s no other place like it to him. Sure when he went on holiday to the villa, it was quite nice but nothing ever beats home. He genuinely believes that he’s meant to be in this place since it’s all he’s ever known & doesn’t think he’ll live anywhere else

Raised by his nan & is an only child. Was at risk of being placed in foster care until his paternal nan came forth to raise him

His father and nan did not have the best relationship due to the way he chose to live his life and Gary was kept away from his nan until he was about 10 years of age

Does not like to talk about his birth parents due to the trauma, which is why he feels like his nan is his everything. His savior and why she means so much to him

His nan once told him that he favors his mother, Gail. He never had the chance to really know her, but was aware that she was very unhappy with herself &, “chose to be with the stars” just before his 5th birthday

That’s one of the reasons why he finds himself always looking up at the stars, usually when he’s drunk out at the docks by himself, he’ll try to talk to his mom, to know her better

I feel like he’s either a cancer or a Libra?

Update: Cancer sun + libra moon + Taurus rising

Went to uni for a semester and thought about architecture as a profession but ultimately felt like uni was NOT for him and eventually juggled around with jobs until he landed into the crane operator field which he found himself to be great at

For as long as he and his nan can remember, he always loved playing with cars, ships, building Legos, (I’m American idk if this is a thing there too or it’s something different/similar so my apologies lol) and putting things together. He never cared for reading instructions, Gary’s a hands on type of guy/learner and it’s how he best communicates

He likes heights, so this job wasn’t an issue it was just getting through the program for 2-3 years that was a pain in his ass but he was determined + knew this was what he was good at and stuck with it.

It was tiring working 40 sometimes over 40 hrs a week but he’s passionate about his work so he’d never dare change it

Due to this job being a lot physically, he would use muscle cream to help his pain or pay to see a masseuse whenever he could or wasn’t being cheap about it + often buys epsom salt to bathe in 3 or so times a week 

Total penny pincher! I can see him being so, his dad told him all about how to hold onto what he’s got and always look for a bargain but with a gambler for a father, you can only imagine how that worked in his favor

Lives with his nan and doesn’t see an issue with it. His mates definitely tease him about it but know how much the woman means to him but still think it’s a major c*ck block for him but it’s a two for one package deal and anyone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t deserve him

Will probably still live in her house once IF she p*sses

Nan is a big fan of wallpaper and has one room in the flat that has squeaky plastic covering most of her furniture ( she loves furniture shopping) & only takes it off once her lady friends come over with consists of a huge cleaning routine which Gary secretly hates but pushes through it while she plays some old tunes on her jukebox

He finds himself singing those exact songs when he’s getting ready for work and actually enjoys them...but don’t ever tell his mates that!

His nan taught him basic household care & he finds himself scolding his mates for not knowing how to wash their underwear & always taking it to their mum’s or having their girlfriends do it for them

Loves washing clothes on a Sunday in the backyard + hanging them on the clothes line. His nan doesn’t believe in washer machines & makes her own detergent

He’s always down for a rooftop hangout, whether drunk or not. To be up almost as high as the stars is such a feeling or hang out with his mates laughing it up

Occasionally smokes cigarettes when he’s really stressed, he’s not proud of the nasty habit and tries his hardest to hide it from his nan & Lottie but they both know

Is in a on and off again relationship with Lottie. She’s met his nan, they both like each other. And that makes Gary extremely happy

Gary is the laid back one out of the two and Lottie is firey and needs constant reminding from Gary that he wants to be with her whereas Gary feels like that’s something she should already know and he’s told her a couple of times before, he’s sure of it. He doesn’t get why she doesn’t get that

Which results in arguments. Lottie chose to live in England for half of the year and goes back to Australia for the other half. Nan encouraged Lottie to live with the two of them until she decided to get her own place in England, or rather the two of them together. Nan doesn’t believe Gary will leave in fear of her being lonely, which she’s not! By all means, nan keeps busy! But Lottie desperately wants to have her own space with Gary away from nan, even tho she adores the spunky lady.

When they don’t see eye to eye she does what she does best and leaves, which is exhausting to Gary

They’ll go days without speaking until the other cracks. At first it would be Gary but since it’s been a year into their relationship, he’s gotten used to it and let’s her come back to him when she’s ready

He cares for Lottie, he really does. And wants this to work but he just wishes they could be more secure in their relationship.

Was a f*ckboy way back when from 18-20 and rarely there’s his old flings who show up just to cause drama knowing that Gary’s got a new girl in his life that LIVES with him, which Gary dreads that this small town knows his business. He hates confrontation but there’s one thing about Lottie, she’s never going to bite her tongue. So whenever those girls do try it with not only her but Gary she goes off.

Gary is protective too so when those messy girls start shit at the pub, he’s instantly trying to get Lottie away from the issue. Then there’s drinks flying and slap fights happening + hair pulling & they’re getting kicked out of the club/pub or even cops called on them.

“This blows. I thought you said you were trying to be better than this, Lottie.” “Me? What about those slags?! They attack not only me but your character too!” Which adds to a list of the reasons they fight.

Nonetheless they do have their fun moments together, getting drunk by the docks, getting random tattoos, hanging with his friends & their significant others, + going to the theatre

Lottie still thinks this town is very slow-pace, sleepy, cloudy and hardly has sun— which is okay to her some days but other day’s it can be dreadful and much different from her fast-pace life but she finds the little things like spending time with Gary to encourage her to stay

Gary likes playing games when he has his free time, like fortnite, red dead redemption, Final fantasy, & SUPER SMASH BROS & almost always plays with Ibrahim who informs him about new games which makes Lottie want to slam her head against the wall since that can take hours

Keeps in touch with all of the boys in villa and makes sure they have zoom meetings as much as they can because he cares about those boys. Noah tries to schedule them but usually it’s happens at random which annoys him but he gets over it. Gary spent month(s) with them. They’re basically his extended family & that’s saying a lot since he views his home to a high standard and has friends here but they’re nothing like his villa brother’s

Also into woodwork. He didn’t think he’d enjoy it but he likes to do it more when the weather gets crisp and he battles with that over cigarettes to ease his worries in life, then goes and have his daily dose of tea

Finally stopped dying his hair that awful yellow and stuck with it. Marisol was the first to see it, after an accidental FaceTime call which was supposed to be just a regular phone call but whatever? They’d all eventually see it if he EVER decided to post to his IG stories!

She compliments him in Spanish yanking her glasses off leaving him highly confused, “is that good?” “If Lottie doesn’t sit on your— which leaves Gary very wide eyed opposed to his raised brows but Marisol is cut off by Graham clearing his throat

Lottie does indeed like it & shows him how much and later asks his option on what color she should dye her hair next. 3 out of the 13 look the exact same to Gary. But he helps her dye her hair which comes out patchy but there’s no way in hell she’s letting anyone else touch her hair. She’s been doing this all on her own for some time now. Gary’s lucky she even allowed him to help her! So she dyes it back to blonde, all of it, and waits a few weeks to dye it all blue

Gary’s definitely into old boy bands especially LFO & serenades, “girl on tv” to Lottie all the time, likes 98 degrees, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Boys II men, & Dru Hill

As for modern day music, he LOVES to work out to tame impala which never makes sense to his mates but he usually works out the next day after getting shit-faced, he’s also in love with lizzo’s music, laundry day, brockhampton, & rina sawayama

Anthem = mac demarco, “Salad Days”

Celeb crush? Julia Roberts, Salma Hayek, Anne-Marie, Leona Lewis, & Noah Cyrus

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Sherlockians, I want to talk about Mary. Or not about Mary the character, because enough words have been spent on that topic and I’m nowhere near brave enough to wade into that one on a snowy Sunday afternoon, but rather on the way we as readers can (perhaps should) relate to her. At some level what follows is about this Tumblr post, where an anonymous commenter asked for “any fics where Mary’s not the bad guy” and noticed that a lot of the evil-Mary fanworks “gets a bit misogynistic in my opinion”; but I’m also using that as something of a springboard, and don’t mean this as a direct reply to that post. (Which is why I’m not replying in a reblog; please everyone go check out that post and comment on it as well.)

Anyway, let me start with two basic points that I hope are pretty noncontroversial.

Mary is an antagonist, at least some of the time.

Mary has at least some aspects of her character that are bad-making (more on what I mean by “bad-making” in a moment), or at least would be if she were a real person.

The devil’s in the details here, as it is with most things worth talking about, so let’s unpack that a bit.

(Long post is long, and so continued under the cut.)

When I say someone’s an antagonist, I’m not really making a value-judgment. I’m purposefully avoiding that word, “villain,” which calls to mind “villainous” as a description of their personality and character. An antagonist is just someone who plot-wise stands in opposition to the character. They’re wrapped up in the conflict our hero has to overcome.

Let’s take a pretty straightforward (and unrelated to our fandom, so hopefully less emotionally charged for a lot of us) example: the first “Hunger Games” book. Katniss is thrown into a gladiatorial fight to the death with twenty-three other teenagers. With the exception of Rue and (later in the games) Peeta, everyone else is an antagonist in relation to Katniss. She has to hope for their death and be prepared to kill them because their continued existence stands in the way of her surviving the games. Most are reduced to numbers with s knowing precious little about them – certainly not enough to think they deserve death. But they’re still antagonists because they’re obstacles the hero has to work past if she hopes to succeed.

Or take Draco Malfoy, in the early Harry Potter books. He’s a thoroughly unpleasant boy, spoiled and sniveling certainly, but I’d be hard-pressed to call him bad. His biggest defining characteristic is he stands up and tries to fight Harry; but often as not this comes down to inter-house squabbling and the only reason he and Harry are on opposite sides is how they were sorted. As we learn, given the way he was raised and the political situation he was raised in, it’s actually pretty admirable how on the periphery of the Death Eaters he stays. But he’s still the antagonist, he’s the one Harry has to outsmart or outperform or otherwise get around.

It's only natural we cheer when the antagonists fail. We’re primed to identify with the protagonist, after all, and their failure means the protagonist gets to win. Even if objectively know the antagonist doesn’t actually deserve to fail, well. That’s just kind of how stories work.

Getting back to Sherlock, I said it’s pretty noncontroversial that Mary’s an antagonist. So when I say that I don’t mean she’s evil, or even that she’s only an antagonist. But the woman shoots our star character in the chest. It’s her secrets and her very presence that drive Sherlock into exile (and drive Sherlock and John apart) for a second time, undoing whatever victory  Sherlock achieved when he defeated Moriarty’s web. She’s certainly a problem to be addressed and worked past in HLV. In terms of canon and parallels with the Doyle stories, there’s quite a lot about her actions (particular in Leinster Gardens) that all but screams “Sebastian Moran.” Ergo: antagonist.

There’s also a quieter, more ordinary sense that I suspect will be more controversial but is worth talking about anyway. Like a lot of Sherlockians and Johnlockers, I’m a big fan of making space for John/Mary/Sherlock in happy OT3 land. I think Sherlock and John at least want some version of that in canon; maybe not romantically, but they like to imagine their being room in their lives for these different relationships to not be in conflict. But in BBC-canon that hope’s not really borne out. This deserves a full meta on its own, but briefly: when Mary observes that neither she nor Sherlock were “the first” (talking about Sholto), she situates them in competition for the same position in John’s life, rather than in distinct, complementary ones (which an OT3 seems to require); and when Sherlock notes at the end of TSOT episode that “we can’t all three dance,” he seems to come to a similar conclusion. I do love me some good Johnlockary fic, but I don’t think this is where the show was heading

At a more basic level, I’d actually argue it almost has to be this way with these three- at least if we’re to hold on to John and Sherlock being “the two of us against the world.” In the 1800s men and women had such different roles in society, a man would do very different things and relate in very different ways to his close (male) friends than he would to his (female) wife. So Watson could run off with Holmes and have adventure, then return home to Mary for the peaceful, even loving family life, without one really being in tension with the other. But by the twenty-first century those spheres aren’t nearly so different. Even if you don’t imagine them as lovers, it’s hard not to imagine a self-respecting woman today saying as Mary did in TAB, “I don’t mind you going; I mind you leaving me behind.” One of the biggest challenges for a modern Holmes adaptation (or indeed, for a modern consumer of the original Doyle stories) is how to balance Holmes’ and Watson’s private “intimate partnership” – however we understand that term – against (John) Watson’s marriage to Mary with all we moderns expect of that relationship in terms of emotional fidelity, equal partnership, shared future, etc.

Put more simply: Mary should throw a monkey-wrench in the mix; she should be something that must be accounted for and whose presence should affect how Holmes and Watson can interact. Not to mean her presence is incompatible with Holmes and Watson’s close and exclusive relationship, but at a minimum she’s a factor in need of an explanation. She can’t help but be antagonistic, at least to some interpretations of Holmes’s and (John) Watson’s relationship.

As I said, with antagonists, it’s only natural to cheer for the protagonists, which almost inevitably means rooting for the protagonists’ failure. At least we root for them being de-antagonized, converted into some other relationship to the main character. But if you’ve spent any time on AO3, you’ve probably come across fanfic focusing on the antagonists (*cough* Loki *cough**cough* Drary *hacks up a longue* Silm-fandom-this-one’s-for-you *cough*’s). We can be a thirsty bunch when it comes to our antagonists, for characters we by all rights should be primed to hate. And even at the level of primary-canon, one of the biggest ways the primary creator shows their emotional growth is by realizing their antagonists aren’t truly their enemy. Like most readers I had a tear in my eye as Cato suffered through the night, begging for death; and certainly I would have been outraged if Harry hadn’t saved Draco from the Room of Requirements in “Deathly Hallows.” Gollum’s treachery is explained and he is given his own completion; Darth Vader is spared by Luke and allowed to look on his son with his own eyes; and the Klingons, Cardassians, and Borg are given their own sort of redemption in Worf, Garak, and Seven of Nine.

All of which is to say: it’s understandable, even natural, why people would have a hard time rooting for the antagonist, but there’s a long history of fandom peoples steering into the curve on this one. So it’s also understandable, even natural, that people want to hear stories with them at the center, both new stories about them and also versions of the original canon narrative that don’t need them to wear the black hat all the time. Some folks want Mary, Sherlock, and John to all go crime-solving together. I personally think there’s sometimes a danger of turning an antagonist – especially one who is at least morally gray (and I promise we’re getting there) like Mary is – into a protagonist without wrestling with what turned them into an antagonist in the first place; so if you want to bring Mary back to the side of John and Sherlock you need to grapple with what pushed them into opposing roles in the first place, or else risk your plot feeling “cheap” and unearned. (In fairness, this warning could as easily be directed to Mofftiss as anyone in fandom!)

But at an absolute minimum, I think it’s pretty obvious that lots of fans want to imagine the antagonists as at the heart of their own stories, and lots of fan-creators have done a really good job of providing those stories. Just as a lot of fans will almost instinctively be drawn to hate them, well, if you want to go a different path you’re in good company.

Enough about protagonist/antagonist, which as I said is more about the role the character fills in the story than about their morality or character. This, for me at least, is where it really gets interesting.

Before we get started, though, I know a lot of people struggle against this idea of morality when it applies to fictional characters and fictional stories. They’ll point out (rightly) that just because they enjoy a non-con PWP doesn’t mean they approve of rape in real life; that their reading preferences come from a different place entirely than their moral judgments. But at the same time, a lot of people (equally rightly) struggle to enjoy stories that glorify things we don’t consider worth glorifying. It’s one thing to enjoy a story about Draco rejecting the Death Eaters, returning to mainstream wizarding society and joining the Aurors; quite another to imagine him dating Harry while he’s still walking around calling Hermione a mudblood.

Or getting back to the Sherlock fandom, a lot of people are most comfortable with stories with Mary’s the antagonist because she’s got a character history and just personality traits where, if we met someone like her in real-life, we’d consider her morally bad. Or on the flip slide, those fans who want a not-evil!Mary in their stories often like to imagine her as the kind of person we’d describe as good or redeemed or some such thing, if she were an actual person. Mary’s morality, at least the morality of a similar person operating in the real world (because --speaking as a former philosophy Ph.D. student who taught philosophical ethics for years-- let me tell you: talking about the morality of fictional constructs gets very messy, very quickly), seems to matter to a great number of fans. So let’s talk about that.

I said above I thought most people would agree, Mary had parts o her character that were bad-making. What I mean is there are aspects about her that tend to make a person bad, unless they’re explained by some other factor. I’ve got in mind something vaguely similar to W.D. Ross’s theories of prima facie duties (if any of you studied this in your Ethics 101 courses- you would have in mine). Basically, the idea is we have all these duties that apply to us, but they can seem to conflict, and we may decide (rightly) in any given situation that one or the other is the more important one for us to follow. The classic example is the duty to keep our promises and prevent suffering when we can. You can imagine situations where you can’t do both- for instance, if I promised to meet you for lunch and on my way to the restaurant came across a man who fell into a ditch and twisted his ankle along a deserted road, where it’s unlikely someone else would come upon him. If I stop to help him I’ll miss our lunch date and break my promise; and while I still have a duty to keep that promise, I think most people would agree it’s more important to stop and help the person. We’d all be hard-pressed to say if I helped the stranger, I’d failed at my duty to keep a promise; at least not in the same way as if I could have kept that promise and just chose not to. That’s Ross’s idea of prima facie duties: that we have all these general obligations on us, but which actually should govern our choices in any particular instance comes down to the details of that situation.

I think there’s something similar going on with Mary’s character. This is actually a good way to evaluate most of us morally, in my opinion, but it’s doubly useful when it comes to Mary because she’s simultaneously got so many troubling aspects about her that just demand some sort of justification, but at the same time, because Mofftiss really screwed the pooch here, we don’t really have the information we need to give a definitive answer. So it’s useful to say: here’s something about Mary that needs accounting for, even if we don’t have enough information to evaluate her definitively.

Let’s take Magnussen’s biggest accusation against her: “All those wet jobs.” Mary killed people on her own prerogative, and she left behind a lot of grieving relatives who would love their revenge – both a testament to the suffering she caused, and a real risk for John, the baby that will become Rosie, and everyone else in their orbit. But if that’s all there is to it, it’s not wholly dissimilar to John’s decision to shoot the cabbie. It may have been different, but we don’t have the information to know that; it feels different, but most because John was saving Sherlock (who we know), whereas if Mary was saving anyone, it’s not someone we the viewer have an emotional connection to. Still, to borrow a phrase from Ricky Ricardo, Mary, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.

Or to take an even more serious charge, Mary shot Sherlock, was prepared to make John watch him die all over again and force him to go through that grief that so nearly destroyed him the first time around. Unforgiveable, yeah? The best shot at justification here is that Mary had somehow got herself cornered, so that shooting Sherlock was somehow an attempt to escape an even worse sitation. This really demands a full meta to dive in to, but very briefly, I think Mary never intended to kill Magnussen and was instead trying to intimidate him; meaning she couldn’t let Sherlock undercut her power, but equally she couldn’t leave Magnussen with the impression that John and Sherlock were somehow her partners; so shooting Sherlock was the best way to keep him from becoming a full target of Magnussen’s. If that’s the case, the whole showdown in Magnussen’s office becomes markedly similar to Sherlock’s decision to “kill” himself on the roof of St. Bart’s. Mary is willing to cause a lot of pain to avoid even greater destruction, but at the same time, the whole situation that compels this choice was fed by her limiting her options when she decided to intimidate Magnussen. Similar to how Sherlock, once he’s on the roof of St. Bart’s, has no better option than to fake his own death and leave John to grieve; but how he does have some degree of culpability for engaging Moriarty in the first place and egging on Moriarty’s destructive obsession with Sherlock.

My point isn’t that any of these parallels really hold up to scrutiny. Sherlock risked his own life in TRF (and John’s pain) while Mary was prepared to kill another. John was ready to kill “a bad man” to save our hero while whatever murders Mary committed were against unnamed people in undetermined circumstances, and narratively certainly don’t pull at or heart strings in the same way John’s heroic killing of Jefferson Hope does. But the point is, with Mary, so much of what a lot of fans object to involve these vaguely-told stories where whatever factors would excuse her actions just are left untold. What we can say definitively is “all those wet jobs” require justification. Mary’s willingness to shoot Sherlock require justification. These things are prima facie wrong (or bad-making, the kind of things that tend to make something bad in the absence of other explanations) and demand an accounting for.

I’m focusing on Mary’s violence more than what a lot of fans have identified as her abuse toward John. Partly, this is personal: I have my own experience with abusive relationships and don’t entirely trust my ability to parse similar dynamics in fiction; certainly I don’t want to tie that part of my past to public debate, and I’ve not worked out how to talk about Mary and John without over-personalizing it. But I will say, there’s a lot to be considered on that front as well, and people interested in thinking through Mary’s im/morality shouldn’t ignore it. As a starting point, inevity-johnlocked pointed to several of her old posts making the case that Mary was an emotional abuser. silentauroriamthereal’s fic “Rebuilding Rome” looks at a lot of these issues in a really powerful way if you’re looking for an exploration in fic form. I’ll just add, even if I thought Mary was justified and so “good” in some sense (and my internal compass is so screwed up, I’m not really qualified to tell at this point), the way she chose or had to lie about her past to John seems a particularly bad match for a man like him with his trust issues. So even if you think Mary is good, there’s a lot of justification for saying she’s still not good for him.

So what does this mean for reading fics involving a kinder, gentler Mary? First, I’d emphasize there’s no shame or judgment in reading what you want. Much as writers may choose to write about all kinds of things they’d disapprove of in real life, readers have that same freedom to scratch whatever readerly itch they like, with no need to defend that to anyone else. Kinktomato and all that. On the other hand, I know I personally enjoy stories more when I can lose myself in them, and – again, for me personally – it helps me do that if my values are at least compatible with what’s presented as praiseworthy. I don’t have to guard myself as I enter the story. So it’s definitely worth thinking about how comfortable you are with fiction that vilifies Mary or pardons her or something in between, because it may make it easier or harder to really immerse yourself in a fic.

Then again, maybe that’s just me. I am a rather persnickety chickadee with things like this.

I do know that many fandoms have an unfortunate history of coming down hard on the female competition to a popular slash ship. While I’m reluctant to apply “should”s to our consumption of fiction, I think there are genuine feminist concerns here. Not with thinking Mary’s bad/evil or even hating her, but hating her for the wrong. For me, it helps to imagine another character doing something similar, and think about why I would react differently if it was someone other than Mary doing the deed. Also to be aware of the details canon doesn’t answer decisively or answers different ways in different episodes.

(More than most characters, Mary does suffer from a really inconsistent characterization. I’ve often wondered if everything since HLV was Sherlock or whomever trying on different frameworks for her personality/psychology/what-have-you, to see which could account for what she did to him. First she’s a badass villain, then a Mycroftian operative, then a martyr, then a worldclass manipulator, and finally a sanctifier whose own personality was irrelevant, giving her imprimatur from beyond the grave. And that’s without throwing veteran/maths genius and happy homemaker into the bunch. Maybe the showrunners simply weren’t sure what they wanted to do with her. Whatever the situation, I do think we need to be careful about taking any one canon detail at face-value, especially with her.)

I’m also a little discomfited by this trend I’ve seen among Johnlockers, to write Mary as a monster as a way to lessen John’s pain at her… betrayal, I guess? Or just the loss at her death? I remember when a lot of fanfic authors back between S3 & S4 wrote about the baby being fake; or even after S4, as part of John’s “alibi” rather than a true detail. Or even just deciding the baby was David’s or some such. By itself, that could have been really interesting, but what I saw so often happening was people used that as a way to remove the complication of the baby. Or to let John skip the grief he’d feel if the baby wasn’t born healthy- for instance, if it didn’t exist, or died, or if Mary was killed or ran while she was still pregnant. The basic theme was if Mary didn’t deserve John’s pain, John didn’t have to hurt for so long or as deeply.

Complicated grief is a thing, though, and for a lot of people, grieving the loss of someone who hurt them and aren’t “worth” their pain seem to suffer worse and for longer, particularly if they also have to grieve the lost opportunity to make their peace with the person while they were alive. This doesn’t mean fanfic writers or readers have to give us some kind of sanitized Mary; certainly she has the potential to be a true east wind of a character. But I do think there’s a tendency to prefer a more evil Mary because this lets the story move past her or spares John some suffering often won’t feel true. It also runs the risk of disrespecting the suffering of people impacted by these kinds of losses. So while I think this kind of characterization can be really interesting and compelling, it also takes a lot of skill and thoughtfulness to do it well. Here be dragons.

For me, though, the point isn’t to be proscriptive, to say Sherlock fic writers and readers need to limit themselves to a particular read of Mary. Her character has such potential to give birth to such a wide range of fic. As a viewer of the show I wish the writers and other creators had given us more of a sense of who she was because I think it really contributes to my frustration with not understanding the story they were trying to tell. But as a (kinda-sorta-someday-once-again) fic writer, it’s a true embarrassment of riches. The trick, for those of us concerned about Mary’s ethics were she a real person, is to be aware of the dangers of reading her character certain ways and to be cautious around them if we want to play with those interpretations.

A New Possession- Entry #2

Hello folks and here is entry number 2. I was intending on posting this yesterday, but entry 3 took some time due to it being about subject matter that I don’t think enough about. With this we see something with a little more substance and something to set the tone for the structure this journal will take. 

I also want to note that I created my own personal timeline for this novel to take place that is based off of the novels so it does have more of an official feel to it, but a reminder that there is no true official timeline for this franchise, so I have redacted the use of years in the entry dates

Also read on AO3

November 30th

Today I approached Ino as she worked to properly express my gratitude for her gift while explaining my lack of ideas. I even suggested showing her my first entry, to which she immediately declined. “Journals are private!” she quite loudly exclaimed. I don’t quite understand why it has to be private, since my desire to form bonds was never a secret, but I never mentioned this to her. I think she understood my confusion however, because she then sighed and suggested that I start by recording my thoughts on my current relationships. I believe this is a good entry concept, so I now find myself sitting in her family’s flower shop as I log my thoughts:

I guess I should start with Ino, since she’s sitting right in front of me. 

Our first meeting was shortly after my failed reconnaissance mission for Danzo-sama, which also happened to be my first mission with Team 7. I recognized her name as she gave it to me. She was the heiress to the esteemed Yamanaka clan, which meant she was proficient with the clan’s Shintenshin, making her as skilled with intelligence as I am. I figured that she was fated to join T&I like the copious amount of her clansmen that populated the department. Our outing was my first proper public outing since pronouncing to my new team that I had decided to try and regain what I had lost from my brother’s death, so I will admit that my knowledge of social behaviors was very lacking. 

Now that I look back to our meeting 4 years ago, she came across as quite friendly and approachable. She seems like that with most people, as I observe her working with the customers of her business with the utmost respect. 

Back then I felt overwhelmed with the pressures of meeting new people and interacting with them, nearly offending her comrade with my use of nicknames. I had read that women were more conscious about their appearance, which rang true with Sakura, who made a habit of hitting me everytime I used her given nickname “ugly.” I decided to use a different approach with Ino, mostly to avoid being hit once more and ruin a potential bond. 

I called her “beautiful.”

Although it was a lie to save myself at first, the name stuck, and I’ve come to learn that compared to others, she isn’t too bad to look at. Even now as she works with her flowers. Since we met, she had since decided to wear her long hair loose as opposed to her high ponytail. I will admit that I prefer her hair this way, as I like to think her hair reflects her personality. She covers the right side of her face with a long bang, similarly to how she appears as loud and temperamental as Sakura can be, but what’s hidden is a deeper reservation and kindness that I’ve experienced first hand. It’s only been a few weeks since that mission to the Land of Silence. 

A few weeks since she saved my life.

My mission to recover missing shinobi who defected after the war had been obstructed by the tyrannical Gengo’s Genjutsu that left me trapped within his service. It was almost as if I was once more in the service of Danzo-sama’s will. I have no memories of my actions whilst under his control, but I am told that my brutality nearly killed Suna’s Princess, Temari. 

As remorseful as I am for my weakness, the only thing I can think of is my salvation from my mental prison. Sakura had once told me of her friendship with Ino and how her kindness had made her stronger, but I had never fully experienced such compassion before she risked her life to save me. I am truly grateful for her large gesture and I don’t know if I will ever be truly able to repay her. Given how she likes to compare her looks to Sakura, she must be vain too, so perhaps a portrait will suffice for now. 

And that is all for now. I do have to work today, so the chances of having entry 4 out by Sunday is pretty slim. I think I’m gonna just stick to focusing on trying to post 1 a day to better suit me. I’m gonna need to invest in some eye drops because my eyes are getting dry from looking at my computer for so long.

As always, I hope you enjoy, and see you in the next one

-Saikage

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 5, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

It appears that the closing argument from the Trump campaign for his reelection was supposed to be that the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, was overreacting to coronavirus, making fun, for example, of his insistence on wearing a mask and staying distant from others.

Trump was supposed to project strength in the face of the pandemic, suggesting that it has been way overblown by Democrats who oppose his administration and who are thus responsible for the faltering economy.

Then, of course, coronavirus began to spread like wildfire through Trump’s own inner circle after last Sunday’s Rose Garden celebration of Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court seat formerly held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As Trump and increasing numbers of people in his inner circle began to test positive for the infection, the campaign first floundered, and now appears to be trying to brazen out the idea that the disease is not a big deal, and that Trump has conquered it.

This is insane. Covid-19 has currently infected more than 7 million Americans, and killed more than 210,000 of us, close to the number of Union soldiers—224,097-- who died in our bloody four-year Civil War.

Apparently, it is frustrating Trump that he cannot campaign. Last night, he traveled in a motorcade around Walter Reed Hospital, waving to supporters. The trip horrified medical personnel, who noted that the presidential vehicle is sealed against chemical attack, meaning that the secret service professionals traveling with the president were exposed to a deadly disease for no apparent reason. One of the agents assigned to the First Family told CNN “That never should have happened… The frustration with how we’re treated when it comes to decisions on this illness goes back before this though. We’re not disposable.”

Dr. James P. Phillips, from the Walter Reed Hospital, took to Twitter: “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential “drive-by” just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”

Even staffers were complaining about the disorganization in the West Wing after Trump’s drive. But things did not get more anchored this morning.

Early on, the president began to tweet at a great pace, in all caps, campaign slogans followed by the word “VOTE!” His promises were random and unanchored in reality, with words like “BIGGEST TAX CUT EVER, AND ANOTHER ONE COMING. VOTE!” According to Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair, the Trump family is divided over Trump’s performance. According to two Republicans close to the family, Don Jr. was worried by the drive around the hospital. “Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,” said one of the sources. But Ivanka, Eric, and Jared Kushner “keep telling Trump how great he’s doing.” All of them, though, worried about the morning’s tweet storm.

The infection continues to spread through the White House. This morning, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced that she, too, has tested positive for coronavirus, a day after she briefed reporters without a mask. Two sources told CNN that two of McEnany’s deputies, Chad Gilmartin and Karoline Leavitt, have also tested positive, along with two members of the White House staff. McEnany said at first the White House was planning to put out the number of staffers infected, but then said it could not, out of “privacy concerns.” But of course there’s no privacy at stake in the raw numbers.

Today we learned that another person who attended the Rose Garden event, Pastor Greg Laurie of the Harvest Christian Fellowship megachurches in California and Hawaii, has tested positive for coronavirus. In addition, thirteen workers who helped to cater a private Trump fundraiser last Thursday in Minnesota are all quarantining.

Although doctors expressed surprise and concern at the idea Trump might leave Walter Reed Hospital today, the president tweeted: “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

Doctors noted that he is in a dangerous period for the progression of Covid-19, and that anyone who had required the sorts of treatments Trump has had is too sick to leave the hospital. “I will bet dollars to doughnuts it’s the president and his political aides who are talking about discharge, not his doctors,” William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University’s medical school, told the Washington Post.

A briefing by Trump’s doctors obscured more than it revealed. The White House physician, Sean Conley, has refused to tell reporters when Trump last tested negative for coronavirus, a piece of information that would tell us when he knew he was infected. He also refused to explain why the president is being treated with a steroid usually reserved for seriously ill patients, or to discuss the state of Trump’s lungs. He did say that the president is “not out of the woods yet.”

Nonetheless, Trump left Walter Reed Hospital tonight, after lights had been installed to enable him to make a triumphant exit. Still infectious, he went back to the White House and climbed a flight of stairs to a balcony, where he dramatically removed his face mask and saluted well-wishers from a balcony. Although the moment was clearly designed to make Trump look strong, it was obvious he was struggling to breathe.

Vox’s Aaron Rupar noted that “Trump has no choice but to continue to downplay coronavirus (despite 210,000 dead and record new case numbers) because if he changed course, it would be an admission that he was wrong about the defining issue of his presidency -- at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.”

This evening, Trump released a video telling people not to let the coronavirus “dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it…. Don’t let it take over your lives.” CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta dubbed him “Coronavirus in Chief.”

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden held a town hall tonight in Miami, Florida, where he gave detailed answers to questions about police reform (more money, ban chokeholds and no knock warrants); socialism (“I’ve taken on the Castros of the world. I didn’t cozy up to them”); a mask mandate (the president can only mandate masks on federal property, but he would call on governors and mayors to do the same); and reopening schools (PPE, small classes, ventilation). Watchers noted that it was a treat both to see a normal conversation and to hear detailed, informed answers.

To stay in touch with voters, Biden today began “Notes from Joe,” a daily newsletter.

Bloomberg is reporting that the contrast between the recent craziness of the White House and Biden’s calm detail has led the stock market to stabilize. Strategists are coming to think there will not be a contested election after all. Biden’s lead over Trump increased again after Trump’s debate performance, which apparently was designed to try to bully Biden by hitting triggers until he began to stutter, thus enabling the Trump campaign to portray him as mentally incapacitated. That strategy failed as Biden parried the triggers, and Americans were repelled by Trump’s behavior. Peter Rosenstreich, head of market strategy at Swissquote Bank SA, told Bloomberg, “Polls are shifting from a close election and prolonged uncertainty to more a dominant Biden and clean succession…. That is reducing uncertainty and increasing risk appetite.”

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Heather Cox Richardson

Sunday, March 21, 2021

Happiness Report: World shows resilience in face of COVID-19 (AP) The coronavirus brought a year of fear and anxiety, loneliness and lockdown, and illness and death, but an annual report on happiness around the world released Friday suggests the pandemic has not crushed people’s spirits. The editors of the 2021 World Happiness Report found that while emotions changed as the pandemic set in, longer-term satisfaction with life was less affected. “What we have found is that when people take the long view, they’ve shown a lot of resilience in this past year,” Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, one of the report’s co-author, said from New York.

The Pandemic Stalls Growth in the Global Middle Class, Pushes Poverty Up Sharply (Pew Research Center) The COVID-19 pandemic is having a deep effect on the global economy. In January 2020, as reports of the novel coronavirus were emerging, the World Bank forecasted that the global economy would expand by 2.5% that year. In January 2021, with the pandemic still holding much of the world in its grip, the World Bank estimated that the global economy contracted by 4.3% in 2020, a turnabout of 6.8 percentage points. The economic downturn is likely to have diminished living standards around the world, pushing millions out of the global middle class and swelling the ranks of the poor. A new Pew Research Center analysis finds that the global middle class encompassed 54 million fewer people in 2020 than the number projected prior to the onset of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of poor is estimated to have been 131 million higher because of the recession.

Fallout from riot, virus leaves toxic mood on Capitol Hill (AP) The mood is so bad at the U.S. Capitol that a Democratic congressman recently let an elevator pass him by rather than ride with Republican colleagues who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election. Republicans say it’s Democrats who just need to get over it—move on from the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, end the COVID-19 restrictions and make an effort to reach across the aisle toward bipartisanship. Not yet 100 days into the new Congress, the legislative branch has become an increasingly toxic and unsettled place, with lawmakers frustrated by the work-from-home limits imposed by the virus and suspicious of each other after the horrific riot over Trump’s presidency. Particularly in the House, which remains partly shuttered by the pandemic and where lawmakers heard gunshots ring out during the siege, trust is low, settled facts about the Jan. 6 riot are apparently up for debate and wary, exhausted lawmakers are unsure how or when the “People’s House” will return to normal.

US schools prepare summer of learning to help kids catch up (AP) After a dreary year spent largely at home in front of the computer, many U.S. children could be looking at summer school—and that’s just what many parents want. Although the last place most kids want to spend summer is in a classroom, experts say that after a year of interrupted study, it’s crucial to do at least some sort of learning over the break, even if it’s not in school and is incorporated into traditional camp offerings. Several governors, including in California, Kansas and Virginia, are pushing for more summer learning. And some states are considering extending their 2021-22 academic year or starting the fall semester early. Many cities, meanwhile, are talking about beefing up their summer school programs, including Los Angeles, Hartford, Connecticut and Atlanta—the latter of which considered making summer school compulsory before settling for strongly recommending that kids who are struggling take part.

Forecast for spring: Nasty drought worsens for much of US (AP) With nearly two-thirds of the United States abnormally dry or worse, the government’s spring forecast offers little hope for relief, especially in the West where a devastating megadrought has taken root and worsened. Weather service and agriculture officials warned of possible water use cutbacks in California and the Southwest, increased wildfires, low levels in key reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell and damage to wheat crops. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s official spring outlook Thursday sees an expanding drought with a drier than normal April, May and June for a large swath of the country from Louisiana to Oregon. including some areas hardest hit by the most severe drought. And nearly all of the continental United States is looking at warmer than normal spring, except for tiny parts of the Pacific Northwest and southeast Alaska, which makes drought worse.

‘Tough’ U.S.-China talks signal rocky start to relations under Biden (Reuters) U.S. and Chinese officials concluded on Friday what Washington called “tough and direct” talks in Alaska, which laid bare the depth of tensions between the world’s two largest economies at the outset of the Biden administration. The two days of meetings, the first high-level in-person talks since President Joe Biden took office, wrapped up after a rare and fiery kickoff on Thursday when the two sides publicly skewered each others’ policies in front of TV cameras. The talks appeared to yield no diplomatic breakthroughs—as expected—but the bitter rivalry on display suggested the two countries had little common ground to reset relations that have sunk to the lowest level in decades. The run-up to the discussions in Anchorage, which followed visits by U.S. officials to allies Japan and South Korea, was marked by a flurry of moves by Washington that showed it was taking a firm stance, as well as by blunt talk from Beijing warning the United States to discard illusions that it would compromise.

Volcano Erupts In Southwestern Iceland After Thousands Of Earthquakes (NPR) A volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwest Iceland erupted Friday evening, producing a river of lava that could be seen from the capital, Reykjavik, 20 miles away. The eruption took place about three miles inland from the coast and poses little threat to residents. They were advised to stay indoors with windows closed against any gases that are released. This is the first eruption in the Reykjanes Peninsula in nearly 800 years, the Associated Press reported. Thousands of earthquakes took place in the weeks leading up to the eruption, the meteorological office reported. Earlier this week, swarms of earthquakes rattled the peninsula, with over 3,000 quakes on Sunday alone. Scientists attributed the earthquakes to magma intrusions, molten rock movement about a kilometer below the earth’s crust.

A New Year in Iran, but the country’s crises remain the same (AP) The Persian New Year, Nowruz, begins on the first day of spring and celebrates all things new. But as families across Iran hurried to greet the fresh start—eating copious crisp herbs, scrubbing their homes and buying new clothes—it was clear just how little the country had changed. A year into the coronavirus pandemic that has devastated Iran, killing over 61,500 people—the highest death toll in the Middle East—the nation is far from out of the woods. And although Iranians had welcomed the election of President Joe Biden with a profound sigh of relief after the Trump administration’s economic pressure campaign, the sanctions that have throttled the country for three years remain in place. “I was counting down the seconds to see the end of this year,” said Hashem Sanjar, a 33-year-old food delivery worker with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. “But I worry about next year.”

2 journalists detained as Myanmar junta clamps down on press (AP) Two more journalists were detained in Myanmar on Friday, part of the junta’s intensifying efforts to choke off information about resistance to last month’s coup. Mizzima News reported that one of its former reporters, Than Htike Aung, and Aung Thura, a journalist from the BBC’s Burmese-language service, were detained by men who appeared to be plainclothes security agents outside a court in the capital of Naypyitaw. The journalists were covering legal proceedings against Win Htein, a detained senior official from the National League for Democracy, the party that ran the country before the takeover. The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the junta has responded with an increasingly violent crackdown and efforts to severely limit the information reaching the outside world. Security forces have fired on crowds, killing hundreds, internet access has been severely restricted, private newspapers have been barred from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.

Spectators from abroad to be barred from Tokyo Olympics (AP) At last it’s official after countless unsourced news reports and rumors: spectators from abroad will be barred from the postponed Tokyo Olympics when they open in four months. Officials said the risk was too great to admit ticket holders from overseas during a pandemic. The Japanese public has also opposed fans from abroad. Several surveys have shown that up to 80% oppose holding the Olympics, and a similar percentage opposed fans from overseas attending.

‘You can’t escape the smell’: mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia (The Guardian) Drought, fire, the Covid-19 pestilence and an all-consuming plague of mice. Rural New South Wales has faced just about every biblical challenge nature has to offer in the last few years, but now it is praying for another—an almighty flood to drown the mice in their burrows and cleanse the blighted land of the rodents. Or some very heavy rain, at least. It seems everyone in the rural towns of north-west NSW and southern Queensland has their own mouse war story. In posts online, they detail waking up to mouse droppings on their pillows or watching the ground move at night as hundreds of thousands of rodents flee from torchlight beams. After years of drought, rural NSW and parts of Queensland enjoyed a bumper crop due to the recent wet season. But this influx of new produce and grains has led to an explosion in the mouse population. Locals say they started noticing the swarms up north in October and the wave of rodents has been spreading south ever since, growing to biblical proportions.

“They Asked Him to Deny Christ” - Muslim Persecution of Christians, August 2019

by Raymond Ibrahim

Hate for and Violence against Christians

Cameroon: Militant Muslims reportedly connected with the Nigerian based Islamic terror group, Boko Haram, “reached new heights” of depravity, according to a report: after devastating the Christian village of Kalagari in a raid, they kidnapped and fled with eight women.  Some of the women were later released—but only after having their ears cut off (image here).  The report adds that  Boko Haram “has terrorised Christian communities in Nigeria for the last decade and has now splintered and spread its violent ideology into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.”

Nigeria: On August 29, Chuck Holton, a CBN News reporter, aired a segment on his visit with Christian refugees who had fled Boko Haram’s incursions into their villages.  Among the stories of death and devastation, the following, spoken by a young man, stood out: “On 29 September 2014 was the day that they attacked my village. Around ten I had a call that they have killed my dad. They asked him to deny Christ and when he refused they cut off his right hand. Then he refused [again], they cut to the elbow. In which he refused, before they shot him in the forehead, the neck, and chest.” “Many of the 1,500 Christians living in this camp have similar stories,” adds Holton.

Indonesia: A Muslim preacher in a Christian majority region referred to the Christian cross as “an element of the devil,” prompting outrage among Christians and some moderates.   Sheikh Abdul Somad made the comment during a videotaped sermon when he was asked why Muslims “felt a chill whenever they saw a crucifix.”   “Because of Satan! Was his response: “There’s an evil jinn in every crucifix that wants to convert people into Christianity.”  Christians and moderates condemned his words.  Even so, “I can’t imagine the reaction if it had been another preacher of a different religion insulting an Islamic symbol,” observed one moderate. “There would have been a tsunami of protests, with the perpetrator severely punished.”  Sheikh Somad responded by releasing another video; his excuse was that he was unaware that non-Muslims might hear his words: “The Quran reciting session was held in a closed mosque, not at a stadium, a football field, nor aired on television,” he explained. “It was for Muslims internally. I was answering a question about statues and the position of the Prophet Isa (Jesus) relative to Muslims.”

Burkina Faso: Although most mainstream media downplay the religious element in Muslim on Christian violence in Africa, attacks on the Christians of Burkina Faso have become so flagrantly based on religion that the Washington Post published a report on August 21 titled,  “Islamist militants are targeting Christians in Burkina Faso.”  Its author, Danielle Paquette, explained that “A spreading Islamist insurgency has transformed Burkina Faso from a peaceful country known for farming, a celebrated film festival and religious tolerance into a hotbed of extremism.”  She noted that the jihadis have been checking people’s necks for Christian symbols, killing anyone wearing a crucifix or carrying any other Christian image.   In a separate report discussing several deadly attacks on Christians and their churches, Bishop Dabiré said, “If this continues without anyone intervening, the result will be the elimination of the Christian presence in this area and — perhaps in the future —in the entire country.

Egypt: Authorities reinstated Sheikh Yasser Burhami, a notoriously “radical” cleric and hate preacher, to the pulpit (minbar) despite strong opposition.  Burhami had previously issued numerous fatwas—edicts based on Islamic scriptures—that demand hate and hostility for non-Muslims, most specifically the nation’s largest and most visible minority, the Christian Copts, whom Burhami has referred to as “a criminal and infidel minority,” and has invoked “Allah’s curse” on them.  He once went so far as to say that, although a Muslim man is permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women (ahl al-kitab), he must make sure he still hates them in his heart—and show them this hate—because they are infidels; otherwise he risks compromising his Islam.  Burhami has also stated that churches—which he refers to as “places of polytheism (shirk) and houses of infidelity (kufr)”—must never be built in Egypt.  He issued a separate fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi and bus drivers from transporting Christian clergymen to their churches, an act he depicted as being “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar.”  Burhami’s fatwas also include calling for the persecution of apostates, permitting Muslim husbands to abandon their wives to rape, permitting “marriage” to 12-year-old girls,  and banning Mother’s Day.  In a video, Dr. Naguib Ghobrial, a Coptic activist, politician, and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights Organization—which over the years has lodged 22 separate complaints against Burhami—repeatedly questioned Egypt’s leading religious authorities’ decision to reinstate the hate preaching sheikh:

Is what Burhami teaches truly what Islam teaches—is that why no one has done anything to him [in regards to the 22 complaints lodged against him]?  Truly I’m shocked!  Please answer Sheikh of Al Azhar; please answer Grand Mufti: are the things Burhami teaches what Islam teaches?  Is this why none of you oppose him or joined us when we lodged complaints against him?… Why are you so silent? Amazing!

The Slaughter of Christians

Pakistan: “A ten year old Christian child who chose to work in a dangerous scrap factory so he could support his mother who had to fend for a family of two boys and a drug-addict husband, was raped and tortured before being killed by his Muslim employers,” according to a report (with photos).  Badil, 10, worked at the men’s factory in order to support his impoverished mother, Sharifa Bibi:

I worked hard for many hours just for the sake of my two sons so that they would not have to suffer as I have suffered without education.  My son Badil couldn’t bear to see the struggle of his mother and insisted on working to help the family—despite my insistence that he avoid work till he was older.  Badil was such a responsible son.  Daily before leaving for work he asked me what should bring in the evening from his wages.  I insisted that he kept his money for himself, but he brought groceries like sugar, rice, flour, ghee daily.

Badil had to walk long distances and work for many hours a day to earn the equivalent of one dollar a day.  Soon his employer began to cheat him on his wages.  His mother insisted that he quit, but the boy persevered; at one point he took his younger brother, 9, with him to help.  When the employers refused to pay his brother anything for his contribution, Badil finally decided to quit—which angered his Muslim employer.  His younger brother recalls:

As Mr Akram heard this he ran to hit Badil but Badil ran from the shop and Akram gave chase.  However, A friend of Akram was standing nearby on his motorcycle and told Akram to sit behind him, then both men chased Badil till they caught up with him. Akram then got off the motorcycle and dragged Badil back to the store.  They took Badil inside the store which is full of scrap.  For half an hour I was completely unaware of what was happening with Badil inside.  Eventually both men came outside and pretended as if nothing had happened inside.  I thought my brother had also left the store from another exit so I went to look for him.  I searched vigorously for 15 minutes and then saw my mother [approaching to walk the boys home], so I rushed to her to tell her what had happened.

Sharifa and her younger son searched frantically for Badil and finally found him collapsed on the ground near their home.  They rushed to him, thinking he was exhausted from the day’s work and subsequent thrashing, but quickly realized that he was barely breathing: “At this point the whole situation was too much to bear for Sharifa who began to scream and wail hysterically,” the report notes.  Badil was taken to a hospital where, seven hours later, the boy was pronounced dead. His brother “has been traumatised following his brother’s death and hasn’t left his house since and often screams in terror thinking the men responsible will take him too.”

Cameroon: A Bible translator “was butchered to death on Sunday morning [August 25] during an overnight attack while his wife’s arm was cut off,” according to a report:  “Bible translator Angus Abraham Fung was among seven people said to have been killed during an attack carried out by suspected Fulani herdsmen sometime during the early hours of Sunday morning in the town of Wum, according to Efi Tembon, who leads a ministry called Oasis Network for Community Transformation.”  Fulani herdsmen are Muslim and the chief persecutors of Christian farmers in Nigeria.  “They went into houses and pulled out the people,” Tembon explained: “They attacked in the night and nobody was expecting. They just went into the home, pulled them out and slaughtered them.”  Fung’s wife, Eveline Fung, who had her arm hacked off was last reported as receiving a blood transfusion at a local hospital.

Attacks against Apostates and Evangelists

Iran: Authorities sentenced a 65-year-old woman, a Muslim convert to Christianity, to one year in prison, on the charge that she was “acting against national security” and engaging in “propaganda against the system.”  According to the report, “The hearing was owing to her arrest shortly before Christmas when three agents from Iranian intelligence raided her home and took Mahrokh to intelligence offices where she endured ten days of intensive interrogation before she was released after submitting bail of 30 million Toman (US$2,500).”  Friends of the woman said that “the judge was very rude and tried to humiliate Mahrokh after she disagreed with him.”

Separately, a Kurdish bookseller in Bokan, Western Azarbaijan province, was arrested for selling Bibles.  According to the August 27 report, “Mostafa Rahimi was arrested on 11 June on charge of selling bible[s] in his bookstore, and he was released later on bail until the court issued his sentence. Hengaw Organization for Human Rights has learned that Rahimi is sentenced to 3 months and 1 day imprisonment.  Later in mid-August he was arrested again, and he is currently at the central prison of Bokan.”  Another report elaborates: “Iran’s government is officially Islamic, and authorities actively restrict access to Bibles and other Christian literature. Sharing one’s faith is categorized as a criminal offense, usually of the national security nature. The authorities often pressure Christians so extensively, routinely violating their human rights, that they are given no choice but to escape their country.”

Somaliland: An August 16 report shares the experiences a married Muslim woman, 32, underwent after her husband discovered a Bible in her possession.

“I told my husband that I found the Bible in Nairobi and wanted to read it,” the woman responded. “He just pronounced the word talaq [Arabic for divorce] to me. I knew that our marriage had just been rendered null and void because I joined Christianity, so without wasting time I left the homestead….  There and then he took our two daughters [ages 4 and 7] away from me and divorced me.  He gave me a stern warning that I should not come close to the children, and that if I do, he will take the Bible to the Islamic court and I will be killed by stoning for becoming an apostate.”

Her former husband proceeded to expose the clandestine Christian to her Muslim family. “My brothers beat me mercilessly with sticks as well as denying me food,” she said. “I feared to report the case to the police or the local administration, because they will charge me with a criminal offense of apostasy in accordance with the sharia.”  She has since relocated to an undisclosed location: “God has spared my life, and my fellow underground Christians in other regions of Somalia have received me and shared the little they have, but I am very traumatized.”  According to the report,

Somalia’s constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims.  Somalia is ranked 3rd on Christian support group Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

Pakistan: After opening a summer education program for the youth, a Christian family was “terrorized” and forced to shut down on the accusation that they were clandestinely trying to convert Muslim children to Christianity.  According to a family member: “We started a project for interfaith harmony and education teaching marginalized children from different faiths about a year ago. In June, we started a summer camp that provided a free program for children that have dropped out of school. The design of this program was to provide guidance for these children to become civilized and tolerant.”  Two weeks into the summer program, a group of men, two of whom were armed, stormed into the academy, did violence to the property and harassed the children, and beat one of the instructors: “They threatened us with consequences if the academy was not shut down.  They alleged that we were promoting Christianity and were doing Christian evangelism.  For safety and security, we had no other choice but to obey the extremists and shutdown the academy….  I don’t want to lose my son or any family member. This terrorizing incident has already put us into trauma.”

In a separate incident in Pakistan, around 4 a.m. of August 2, seven Muslim men stormed into a parish house, where they tied up and savagely beat two young priests, Fr. Anthony Abraz and Fr. Shahid Boota, all while they “humiliated and abused them for preaching the Gospel in a Muslim-majority neighborhood.”  The invaders also vandalized the building—including by breaking windows, bookshelves, and cupboards—and desecrated Christian objects, including Bibles, Christian literature, and icons. Afterwards, “We were told we will have to face consequences if this house is not vacated,” Fr. Abraz reported. “They said, ‘We don’t want a Christian center near the mosque.’”

Finally, increasing numbers of Christian girls continue to be targeted for kidnapping, rape, and/or forced conversion in Pakistan.  According to one report,

In August, Yasmeen Ashraf, age 15, and Muqadas Tufail, age 14, were kidnapped and raped by three men in Kasur. The pair of Christian girls were taken when they were on their way to work as domestic workers.  Also in August, another young Christian girl, named Kanwal, was kidnapped, raped, and forcefully converted to Islam by a group of Muslim men and a cleric in Lala Musa, located in the Gujart District. After reuniting her family, Kanwal shared that she had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and threatened with the deaths of her brothers if she refused to convert to Islam.

In the previous month of July, at least three similar cases occurred.  “Oppression exists in different layers for Christian girls in Pakistan. They are suffering on the bases of gender, religion, and class. It has been documented that young Christian girls face higher levels of sexual harassment and are persecuted for their Christian faith,” Nabila Feroz Bhatti, a human rights defender in Lahore, said in response to the aforementioned incidents.  Similarly, the Pontifical charity, Aid to the Church in Need, announced in August that it “is sounding the alarm on the plight of young Christian women, and even teenagers, in Pakistan who are forced to convert to Islam.”  “Every year at least a thousand girls are kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert to Islam, even forced to marry their tormentors,” elaborated Tabassum Yousaf, a local Catholic lawyer.

Meanwhile, those who try to protect Christian girls are punished.  On August 16, Maskeen Khan and two other Muslim men attacked the home of Bahadur Masih, a Christian.  While holding a knife, Khan and his partners tried to rape Masih’s daughter, Rachel, but were prevented by the rudely awoken family that immediately and desperately responded.  “Since the Christian family was defending themselves, Khan also got some injuries,” Ahsan Masih Sindhu, a local Christian political leader, reported. “The family handed Khan over to police and he got medical treatment. However, he later died in police custody.”  Police arrested and charged four members of the family with murder, even though they were in their own home protecting their daughter from violent intruders.  Other members of the family have gone into hiding due to threats from the dead would-be rapist’s relatives.  “We are sad about the death of Khan, however, the Christian family did have the right to defend,” Sindhu explained. “The police must conduct a fair investigation into this incident.”  Instead, police are denying the family the “right to defend” itself.

Attacks on Churches

Algeria: On August 6, police barged into a church during worship service, evacuated reluctant worshippers, and sealed the church building off.  “I am deeply saddened by so much injustice – it breaks my heart,” Messaoud Takilt, the pastor said.  “This is not surprising since other Christian places of worship have been closed and sealed as was the case today. But anyway, we will continue to celebrate our services outside while the Lord gives us grace for a final solution.”  When police denied, with a veiled threat, his request to at least let the worship service conclude,  “The assembly finally yielded and agreed to leave the premises, but with much pain.  Some went out with eyes full of tears. ”  Police proceeded to empty the premises of all furniture and sealed off every door before the distressed pastor (picture here).  Responding to this latest church closure the World Evangelical Alliance issued a statement on August 12 calling on Algeria to cease closing and instead reopen churches. A portion follows:

We deeply regret that two additional churches were forcibly closed by administrative decisions, in May and in August 2019 in the city of Boudjima, northeast of Tizi-Ouzou in Kabylie Region.  This brings the number of forcibly closed churches to 6, including one house church…. Many more churches are threatened with closure, amid denial of formal registration and recognition by authorities.

Indonesia: Muslim protestors compelled local authorities to revoke a permit for and cease construction of a Baptist church in Central Java.  On August 1, residents went to the partially constructed church and padlocked its fence.  A meeting was later held between the church, local residents, authorities, and others.  Although the pastor displayed the governmentally issued permit to build a church, Muslim residents insisted that it was wrongly given, leading to a standstill in negotiations.  In the previous month, July, two other churches were shut down in Indonesia following local protests.

Turkey: St. Theodoros Trion, an abandoned, historic church—the original Greek congregation of which was purged by the Ottoman Empire—was vandalized, including with genocidal slogans.  According to the report,

The vandals sprayed hate speech across the church’s walls. The vandalism was largely a reference to the secularism that Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder, had forced into the governmental structure….  Just a few years ago, the same church was targeted by Islamist vandals who wrote slogans such as “the priest is gone, he went to the mosque” — a reference to the country’s genocide and the forced conversions which occurred during this time. There are no Christians attending this church. All of the congregants were victims of the genocide. They faced death, deportation, and forced conversions. Those few who survived have since fled the country. The church currently stands as a historic monument to the Christianity that once was commonplace in the region.

Egypt: A Christian toddler was the latest, if inadvertent, victim of Egypt’s draconian restrictions on churches.    According to an August 21 report, Youssed Ebid, a 4-year-old Christian boy (photo), was struck by a tractor while waiting outdoors for a bus to take him to church in another village.  His own village is currently denied one, forcing its Christian residents to travel long distances to attend church.  Many Christians in Egypt are in the same situation, and accidents during their long treks are not uncommon.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1)          To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2)          To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

Fuck You Facebook

So, in case anyone’s seeing this without coming here from my Facebook: Facebook removed this post because it was flagged as spam.  I’m preserving it here because this information should be shared and Facebook’s attempts to obscure the sharing of health information should be condemned, widely and publicly.  Enjoy. This is a long post addressing two underlying issues with the current response to the pandemic that leave me concerned.   It’s the longest post I’ve ever written.  The Medium version of this post (link below) has been viewed 1.2M in less than the last 24 hours as of 3/17/20. For those of you not taking action, or believing the pandemic to be “over hyped”, you can make fun of me as much as you want now or when this is over.  You can make me the subject of memes and post it everywhere.  I will pose for the picture.  I am not trying to convince you, but I do feel compelled to share information that I deem critical to all of us, which is why I am posting this at all. WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE 5 MINUTES TO READ AND CONSIDER THE INFORMATION I AM SHARING: As of 3/15/20 at 9 am PST this post has been shared over 50k times since it was posted 2 days ago.  So a lot of people find value in the post and although it's a long read, I believe you will find this information valuable too. For those of you who don’t know me well, I am analytical and metered.  I don’t freak out nor do I respond emotionally.  I also don’t post a bunch of bullshit or political or controversial stuff on Facebook.  I founded and am CEO of a successful software company that provides SaaS based data, analytics, and dashboards to recruiting departments at companies we all know.  As you would expect, I am data driven and fact based.  Before founding my company I held executive roles leading very large recruiting teams at some of the world's fastest growing companies such as Starbucks and Google.  At Google I was fortunate enough to report to Sheryl Sandberg before she took the Facebook COO role.  I was a Chemical Engineering major in college and have a business degree from a top undergraduate business school.  I am not one for hyperbole or histrionics.  My bullshit factor is close to zero. I share all this personal information only to help solidify that this post may be worth reading and sharing with others. I would encourage you to forward or share this post at your discretion.  Many people do not understand what is happening with the pandemic to the degree required which is why I took the time to write this and share this on Facebook. Now that I've gotten the introduction out of the way, here are two issues I want to bring to everyone’s attention.   ISSUE ONE:  SOCIAL NORMS ARE POWERFUL MOTIVATORS AND GETTING IN THE WAY OF PEOPLE TAKING THE RIGHT STEPS IN RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC:   One of the current problems with addressing the pandemic is the social pressures of taking action today. It's awkward, and feels like an over-reaction. The reason it feels like an overreaction is that most people OVERWEIGHT the currently reported cases and inherently UNDERWEIGHT the mathematics of how the virus is spreading and what will happen in about 30 days time. This is because our brains tend to think linearly as opposed to logarithmically.  It’s the same reason many people don’t save for retirement or understand compound interest.   To create a new social norm, human beings like to see behavior modeled. This serves as a signal that says, “oh, someone else is doing it so I should do it also.”   SO HERE IS A SOCIAL BENCHMARK FOR REFERENCE - THIS IS WHAT I’VE DONE FOR MY FAMILY TO DATE: I have already isolated my family. We have canceled EVERYTHING. We have canceled previously scheduled doctor visits.  Social get togethers.  No play dates.  Normal routine meetings.  Everything has been canceled.   It's difficult and socially awkward. Some of you think I’m crazy, but I’m doing it not because I am afraid, but because I am good at math (more on that in part 2).  I had to have my 16 year old daughter quit her job coaching junior gymnasts at the local gym, with one day’s notice and also tell my kids they can't attend youth group at church. Both of those were tough discussions.  I told a very close friend he shouldn’t stay at my house this weekend even though he was planning to and had booked his flight from the Bay Area.  I canceled another dear friend’s visit for later this month to go snowboarding on Mt Bachelor. We are not eating out.  Our kids are already doing online school so we don’t have to make changes there.  I would not send my kids to school even if they were in public or private school.  We have eliminated all non-essential contact with other people.  We will only venture out to grocery shop when required.  We will still go outside to parks, go mountain biking, hiking, and recreate to keep ourselves sane and do other things as a family, just not with other people.  We have stocked up on food and have a supply for ~2 months.  We have stocked up on other goods that if depleted would create hardship, like medicines and feminine hygiene products.  We have planned for shortages of essential items. THE REASON I HAVE CHOSEN THIS ROUTE FOR MY FAMILY IS MULTI FACETED: 1.    Although my family is considered low risk (I’m 49 in good health, Angi is 46 and in good health, and our kids are 14 and 16), we must assume that the healthcare system cannot help us, because the hospitals will become overwhelmed very quickly.  Most American hospitals will become overwhelmed in approximately 30 days unless something changes.   More on this in part 2 below.  So although we are in great health and unlikely to become gravely ill, the risk is greater if you do not have access to the medical care that you need.  This is something for everyone to consider.  As a society we are accustomed to having access to the best medical care available.  Our medical system will be overwhelmed unless we practice social distancing at scale.  That said, the medical teams in Italy are seeing an alarming number of cases from people in their 40s and 50s.  Triage tents are already going up in the parking lots at many hospitals close to the epicenters in the United States. 2.    It’s not a matter of if social distancing will take place, it’s a matter of when.  This is because social distancing is the only way to stop the virus today.   As I will explain in part 2 below, starting now is FAR more effective than starting even 2 days from now or tomorrow. This has been proven by Italy and China (and soon to be France and other European countries who have been slow to respond.) [updated as of 3/14 France is now on lockdown mandated by the government].  Wuhan went on lockdown after roughly 400 cases were identified (and they had access to testing that America has systematically failed to do well to date).  The US already has more than 4 times this number of known infected cases as Wuhan did when it was shut down, and our citizens are far more mobile and therefore spreading the virus more broadly when compared to Wuhan.  Yet our response is tepid at best.   If hand washing and “being smart” were sufficient Italy would not be in crisis.  So I pray the draconian measures are coming from our government, because they are required to stop the spread of the virus.   It’s better to start sooner than later as the cost is actually far greater if we wait.  I pray they close all schools and non-essential services the way that Italy and China have done. 3.    Spreading the virus puts those in the high-risk category at much greater risk.  This is the moral argument.  It’s a strong argument because there are only two ways, as of today, that the virus can be stopped:   let it run its course and infect 100s of millions of people, or social distancing.  There is no other way today.  If you don’t practice social distancing, people downstream from you that you transmit the virus to will die, and many will suffer. 4.    The risk of infection is increasing exponentially, because the quantity of infected people, most who will not show symptoms, is doubling every three days.  So the longer you wait to self-isolate, the greater the chance of you or someone you love becoming infected and then you infecting others because more of the population is becoming infected.  There are twice as many infected people today as there was on Tuesday. 5.    The virus is already in your town.  It’s everywhere.  Cases are typically only discovered when someone gets sick enough to seek medical attention.  This is important as it typically takes ~5 days to START showing ANY symptoms.  Here’s the math:  For every known case there are approximately 50 unknown cases.  This is because if I become sick, I infect several people today, and they infect a few people each tomorrow (as do I), and the total count of infected people doubles every 3 days until I get so sick I get hospitalized or get tested and become a “known case”.  But in the time it takes me to figure out I am sick 50 others downline from me now have the virus.  So every third day the infection rate doubles until I get so sick that I realize I have the virus an am hospitalized or otherwise tested.  Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital estimate that there are 50x more infections than known infections as reported (citation below).  The implication of this is that the virus is already “everywhere” and spreading regardless if your city has zero, few or many reported cases.  So instead of the 1573 reported known cases today there are likely 78,650 cases, at least, in the United States.  Which will double to 157,300 by this Sunday.  And this will double to 314,600 cases by this coming Wednesday.  So in less than 1 week the number of total infected in the United States will quadruple.  This is the nature of exponential math.  It’s actually unfortunate that we are publishing the figures for known cases as it diverts attention away from more important numbers (like the range of estimated actual cases).  [Update as of 3/15/20 - I've been sent more research that may add clarity to the ACTUAL cases vs CONFIRMED cases and will update this post with any conclusions] 6.  Some people cannot, or will not, practice social distancing for a variety of reasons and will continue to spread the virus to many people.  So everyone else must start today.   The reasons above are why I have begun to practice social distancing.   It’s not easy.  But you should do it too. The hospitals will be at capacity and there are not enough ventilators. You will hear a lot about this issue in the coming few weeks... the shortage of ventilators. ISSUE TWO:  MANY PEOPLE ARE FOCUSED ON THE WRONG NUMBERS: Yes, the virus only kills a small percentage of those afflicted.  Yes, the flu kills 10s of thousands of people annually.  Yes, 80% of people will experience lightweight symptoms with COVID19.  Yes the mortality rate of COVID19 is relatively low (1-2%).  All of this true, but is immaterial.  They are the wrong numbers to focus on...   The nature of exponential math is that the infection rates start slowly, and then goes off like a bomb and overwhelms the hospitals. You will understand this math clearly in the next section if you do the short math exercise.  Evergreen hospital in Seattle is already in triage. I have heard credible reports from people on the ground that they are already becoming overwhelmed.  And the bomb won't really go off for a few more days.  Probably by Wednesday, March 18th (next week).  In just a few days from now we will hear grave reports from Seattle hospitals.   [update as of 3/15/20 - see the comments section below for an update from a staff member at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, WA] You should assume the virus is everywhere at this point, even if you have no confirmed cases in your area. YOU SHOULD DO THIS SIMPLE 2 MINUTE MATH EXERCISE (NO REALLY TAKE TWO MINUTES AND DO IT): To further understand exponential growth, take the number of confirmed cases in your area and multiply by 10 (or 50 if you believe Harvard and Massachusetts General estimations) to account for the cases that are not yet confirmed. If you have no confirmed cases choose a small number.   I’d suggest 10 cases in your city, if no cases are yet reported.  But you can use whatever number you like.  This number of infected people doubles every ~3 days as the infection spreads. So literally take your number, and multiply by 2. Then do it again. Then do it again. Then do it again. Do this multiplication exercise 10 times in total. 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x (the number of estimated infections in your city today (not just the reported cases)).   This result is the estimate for the actual cases in your area 30 days from now.  The math will take 30 seconds to complete with a calculator and it’s worth doing the math to see how it grows.  This end number is the number of cases in your city 30 days from today if a large percentage of the population do not practice social distancing.   2 to the 10th power is 1024.  When something doubles 10 times, it's the same as multiplying by 1024.  The infection rate of the virus doubles every 3 days.  In thirty days there will be 1,024 times the number of infected people in your area as there is today if your community does not immediately put social distancing into practice.  One thousand and twenty four times as many infected people as there is today, in just 30 days.   Next, divide the final number (the scary big one) you just calculated by the current population of your city and you will be able to get the percentage of people THAT YOU KNOW PERSONALLY who will be infected 30 days from now.   Next take 15% (multiply by 0.15) of that final 30 day number of total infected people (the number you calculated by multiplying by 2 ten times). This will provide an estimate of the serious cases which will require hospitalization, and compare it to the number of beds and ventilators available at your local hospital.  Google the "number of beds" and the name of your local hospital now.  It takes 2 seconds and the number of beds is easy to find.  65% of beds are already occupied by patients unrelated to the coronavirus.  St Charles in Bend, Oregon where I live, has 226 beds and the town is roughly 100,000 people.  Most hospitals have on average, 40 or fewer ventilators.  5% of patients require ICU treatment.  There are very few ICU beds compared to regular beds in hospitals.  There are very few negative pressure areas in any hospital to deal with the containment of airborne diseases.   These numbers you just calculated are the Big Problem:  Too many patients, not enough beds, and a serious shortage of ventilators (the biggest problem) if we don't immediately begin social distancing.  More on this biggest problem related to the insufficient quantity of ventilators is below. COUNTRIES THAT GET OVERWHELMED WILL HAVE A MUCH GREATER MORTALITY RATE BECAUSE THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO ADEQUATELY CARE FOR THE SICK.   And by sick I mean not just coronavirus patients.  Your son or daughter that needs acute care surgery this May for his badly broken leg will be attended to by an orthopedic doctor that has been working at maximum capacity and working 18 hour shifts for 7 days every week for 6 weeks because it was required to care for all the coronavirus patients at her hospital.  Or the orthopedic surgeon will be sick with the virus and your son or daughter will be operated on in a tent in the hospital parking lot by a non-expert or a member of the National Guard.  Your elderly Mom that has diabetes and goes into acute distress next month may not receive ANY medical care because the doctors are consumed and have to prioritize patients based on triage guidelines based on success rate probabilities.  Your sibling’s family that are all injured in a terrible car crash in June will have diminished care.  If one of them needs a ventilator there will be none available because all of them will be in use by critical coronavirus patients.  Your young friend with cancer and a compromised immune system from treatment will succumb even though the cancer was curable and the treatment was working, because their body was too fragile to combat the coronavirus due to the chemotherapy and they couldn't receive the customized, acute care required due to the hospital being overwhelmed.  All of the above is currently happening in Italy, who had the same number of infections we have today just 2 weeks ago.  You must start social distancing today. The count of actual virus infections doubles every ~3 days. The news and government agencies are lagging in their response. So we hear that the US only has 1573 cases today (3/12/20) [update as of 3/15/20:  3115 confirmed cases), ( see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) and it doesn't seem like a lot.  It would be better to report the estimated actual cases, since reported cases don’t tell us much.  However, we know from China that the actual number of cases are at least an order of magnitude greater than the reported cases, because people get infected and do not display symptoms.  In math, an "order of magnitude" means ten times difference, or put another way, a factor of 10.  100 is 10 times greater than 10, so it's an order of magnitude greater.   Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital just released their estimate (recording is here:   https://externalmediasite.partners.org/Mediasite/Play/53a4003de5ab4b4da5902f078744435a1d) that the actual cases are 50x greater than the reported cases.  So we likely have 75,000 cases in the United States already.  The number of reported cases is not that important. But let’s assume the current number of cases is only 10,000 ACTUAL cases in the United States just to be conservative and model out what will happen: If we don’t stop the virus from spreading, in 30 days we will have 2 to the 10th power more cases of infected people because the infection count doubles every 3 days (the virus doubles every 3 days and there are 10, 3 day periods in 30 days).   The math: 2 to the 10th power means 1,024 times as many cases as we have today (2 times 2 repeated 10 times).   This number is a catastrophically big problem for all of us:  We will have 10 million+ actual cases (10,000 actual cases today x 1,024) in the United States in just 30 days’ time if we continue without extreme social distancing.  10 million people with the virus.  And it will keep doubling every 3 days unless we practice social distancing. 15% of cases require significant medical attention, which means that 1.5 million people will require significant medical attention if 10 million people get infected (15% of 10 Million total infections = 1.5 million people requiring hospitalization).   1.5 million hospitalizations is way more than we have beds for at hospitals in the United States.  And 65% of all beds are already occupied in our hospitals.  But many patients (5%) with the virus need ICU beds, not just any old hospital bed.  Only about 10% of hospital beds are considered intensive care beds.  So we will have a huge bed shortage, but that is not the biggest problem, as we can erect temporary ICU shelters and bring in more temporary beds, as Italy has already done, and California and Washington hospitals have already done.   Evergreen Hospital in Seattle has already erected temporary triage tents in the parking lot as of 3/13/20.  All regular beds are full at Evergreen Hospital as of yesterday. Once the government of China, Norway, and Italy came to understand this math, they reacted accordingly and shut EVERYTHING down.  [update as of 3/15/20 now France has done the same lockdown]. Extreme social distancing is the only response available to stop the virus today.  The United States is not responding well nor are other countries like  the UK.  Countries that do not respond well will pay a much larger, catastrophic price. But hospital beds are not the big problem.  The lack of ventilators is the big problem.  Most estimates peg the ventilators in the United States at roughly 100,000 to 150,000 units.  See the study from last month: http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/resources/COVID-19/200214-VentilatorAvailability-factsheet.pdf The primary and most serious comorbid (comorbid is a medical term that means co-existing or happening at the same time) condition brought on by the Coronavirus is something called bilateral interstitial pneumonia which requires ventilators for treatment of seriously ill patients.  So if 1.5M people of the 10 million infected 30 days from now require hospital care (15% of the 10M estimated total infections), 1.3M may not get the care that they need because we don’t have enough ventilators, beds, and ICU beds in the United States.  And remember, this is only if ALL OF US EFFECTIVELY start social distancing by April 11th (30 days from today).  This increases the mortality rate significantly. BUT IF WE START EXTREME SOCIAL DISTANCING BY MARCH 23 (12 days from original writing), WE AVOID OVER 1.4 MILLION PEOPLE GETTING CRITICALLY ILL AND OVERWHELMING THE HOSPITALS: If everyone takes extreme measures to social distance, and the United States can dramatically reduce the spread of the virus 12 days from now, the math is very different, as the exponential growth will only be 2 to the 4th power (12 days divided by the doubling rate of every 3 days equals the exponent of 4): 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 So instead of 10 Million cases in the United States if we wait 30 days, if we act 18 days sooner, we will have only 160,000 cases (16 times the estimated 10,000 actual cases as of today), of which 15% are likely to require hospitalization.  This is 24,000 critical patients (a huge difference compared to 1.5 million acute patients).   The difference between taking extreme measures now, versus waiting even a few days, is very large due to how exponents work in math. THE OUTCOME IS EVEN BETTER IF WE TAKE ACTION IN THE NEXT 6 DAYS:  If the vast majority of the population self isolates and implements social distancing in only 6 days from now the exponential math is 2 to the 2nd power (6 days divided by the 3 days it takes the virus to double means the exponent is only 2).  In math this is "two squared". 2 x 2 = 4   Multiplied by the estimated 10,000 ACTUAL cases as of today (3/12/20) that means only 40,000 total cases will develop, 15% of which may be critical which is 6,000 critical patients. This is why you should share this post broadly.  If people begin social distancing in the next 6 days it will greatly reduce the impact on all of us.  It's why they say a "post goes viral". SOCIAL DISTANCING WILL REDUCE THE FINANCIAL IMPACT TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY: Finally, the longer everyone waits to practice significant social distancing the greater the economic hardship will be on all of us.  Lost jobs.  Mortgage defaults.  Closed businesses.  Bankruptcies.   All will be minimized if you start social distancing today. Some of the reasons the economic impacts will be reduced are worth mentioning:  If we stop the virus now the overall duration of the outbreak will be far shorter.  The stock market will normalize more quickly and recover more quickly.  Businesses and people will be able to survive a shorter duration outbreak vs a longer duration outbreak.   More companies will avoid bankruptcy if we begin to practice social distancing now. This is a big financial reason to begin social distancing if you are employed by any company:  if companies see that the virus is being slowed, they will be less likely to conduct layoffs.  You will be more likely to be laid off or experience a job-related event if we don’t practice social distancing immediately.  As an HR executive, I’ve been involved in many, many layoffs.  It’s the last thing companies want to do.  But if they see that the pandemic will be shorter lived vs long and drawn out, they are less likely to make the permanent decision of laying off staff. The overall economic impact that hits your bank account will be greater if you wait or you don’t practice social distancing.   This is why Norway acted now, because it’s less economic impact to take drastic measures early than to do them later, and it saves a lot of lives and suffering by doing so.  And Norway has only one confirmed death as of this writing.   Many people have suggested they want to support local restaurants and other businesses, who have seen sales drop by 50-90%.  Stopping by and visiting them won't save them.  What will save them is social distancing and what you do after the pandemic is over.  If you are concerned, call them and buy a gift certificate over the phone. START TODAY.  I CAN’T STRESS THIS ENOUGH.  YOU MUST START TODAY.   Finally, the article that I posted yesterday written by Tomas Pueyo has been read 30M times in the last few days and has been updated with new information.  It’s worth reading again. Here’s that link.   https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca Other up to date data I frequently consult regarding the pandemic is here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ I hope this is helpful and useful.  My brain focuses on the math and I try and be fact based in my analysis and interpretation of how I should respond. THERE IS MORE INFORMATION IN THE COMMENTS BELOW WORTH READING AND I WILL BE UPDATING THIS POST, AND THE COMMENTS, WITH MORE INFORMATION, (AS OPPOSED TO CREATING NEW POSTS). MY FINAL PARTING THOUGHT:  Please share or forward this post at your discretion.   If everyone shares this post and two of your friends share this post and so on, we use the power of exponential math to work in our favor, which seems appropriate given the virus is using that same exponential math against us.   HOW YOU CAN REALLY HELP:  If you know people who have large numbers of followers, or people in the media, please leverage your personal relationship with them and ask them to amplify this post by sharing it or the Medium Post (link below)   For people not on Facebook you can email or text the link.   It would be useful to get the post on Twitter and LinkedIn by sharing the Medium post.  If you know people in government this fact-based post may help inform them to make the best decisions.   It's time for us humans to go on the offensive against the virus.  We must fight back.   There is only one way to do so:  Social Distancing.   Do it today. NOTE:  Anyone, including the media, is free to use this post, any related content, in all or in part, for any purpose, in any format, with no attribution required. Please direct message me if you have other ideas for how to raise awareness. Finally, I can no longer keep up with friend requests given how much this post has been shared.  To receive updates or follow me, please use the "Follow" button on Facebook.   3/16/20:  I am preparing a second post, now that 4 days have gone by since the first post. To receive it please follow me on FB.  I can not keep up with the friend requests. https://medium.com/@Jason_Scott_Warner/the-sober-math-everyone-must-understand-about-the-pandemic-2b0145881993 https://www.facebook.com/jason.scott.warner/posts/10163742243430144

Life is a Game of Risks, Chapter 60

Chapter Summary - Alexianna begins to get morning sickness and not long after; the first hospital visit, leading to the reality of everything hitting home for Tom who is not prepared for the experience, while Alexianna is forced to deal with an issue within her own mind that she has had to fight since this began.

WARNING - CONTAINS REFERENCES TO PAST POST-NATAL DEPRESSION

TRIGGERS - Past domestic abuse, Past emotional abuse, Past sexual abuse.

NOTES - 

a few things; - Morning sickness tends to begin circa 6-8 weeks into gestation. - a pregnancy is usually dated from the beginning of your last period/menstrual cycle pre-conception, so though conception usually occurs halfway through a cycle (*usually* but not exclusively day 14 of a 28-day cycle) so where alexianna can date the conception to a particular event, it is still calculated to 2 weeks previous. - Portland Hospital is the fancy hospital of London, Ben and Sophie's boys were born there, royal babies are born there, the Beckham's kids were born there, translation, it is *the* place to have a baby, and Tom would only want the best for his prince/princess. - In Ireland, and I'm fairly sure Britain, vaginal ultrasounds are *NOT* the norm, I know in some countries they are, but not in this neck of the woods. I have not had a baby in Britain, but from the women I have compared public health services with from here, they are only done, like in Ireland, for particular reasons as it is seen as unnecessarily invasive. - I know I keep dragging Alexianna back to certain things, but like all abuse victims, she is forced to bear scars of her trauma, but she is fighting valiantly to move on.

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Alexianna did not have to wait long for the morning sickness to start, and like with Lily, she did not think the title for such illness to be accurate. The first bout of it started on a Sunday afternoon at just over seven weeks. Tom had just returned from Ace Comicon in Arizona. She thought nothing of it as she prepared dinner for them, herself and Tom planning to decide what date to plan for the initial hospital visit, as they were due to have her first check-up, once Lily went to bed. She was innocently seasoning the salmon Tom had brought for their dinner when the smell of the raw fish turned her stomach completely, forcing her to hold her hand over her mouth and pray she did not vomit as she felt herself gag. Tom quickly removed her from salmon duty. He cooked the fish, but every attempt to get into the kitchen for Alexianna resulted in her gagging again, she settled to hide until the smell was gone, then eat some vegetables.

It was at its worst in the afternoon, though six PM seemed to be when the vomiting liked to begin as opposed to just nausea. Tom commented she seemed best when she woke up and very much suggested she work around that, leading to Alexianna eating the most of her day's intake of food between six in the morning and midday. It left her with a very complex situation at work, she was eating throughout her office hours, much to the notice of her manager, who was less than impressed but could say nothing as she still did her work. She also changed all of her afternoon shifts for morning ones when possible and rarely stayed in work past five, opting instead for coming in an hour earlier to ensure she was not there for the evening time, her most ill times. College was more difficult, but she forced her way through it.

The hospital agreed that her best options were to continue as she was doing as she and Tom explained her situation to her Obstetrician on the first visit. Tom had insisted that for privacy and level of care, there was going to be no discussion on the matter, Alexianna would have the baby in Portland Hospital, the private exclusive hospital in London that Ben and Sophie had their sons in, where anyone of note in London had their child in. Though Alexianna stated that the care she received with Lily was quite good, she agreed that the non-existent queueing times, having the same staff throughout the pregnancy was a settling situation and with Tom being who he was, knowing that it would not be slapped on the front page of the paper by midwife before she even had a chance to tell Daniel or even Emma gave her incredible ease of mind.

The midwife spent over an hour documenting every last detail of Alexianna’s medical history, discussing the notes that had been sent from the hospital she had given birth to Lily in and discussing the issue that had forced her to get a C-section. Tom also was subject to questioning on his own health, hereditary diseases in his family and other such details. It took an age to go through it all, as well as getting blood samples from Alexianna to ensure everything was as it needed to be. Tom was every bit the concerned and supportive partner through it all, asking her if she wanted or needed anything, ensuring she was happy with her surrounds, everything. When the time came to get a scan to see if the heart was beating, Tom was practically vibrating with excitement. He seemed transfixed with the gel going onto Alexianna’s stomach, which, he realised the week before, was already getting an ever so slight rounding at the bottom when she stood before the screen began to show an odd grainy image. The doctor moved the wand of the machine around for a moment before clicking on the image.

“There it is, a little camera shy, but in there, all the same.” She smiled. “I will just make sure we only have one before we can focus a little more on measurements. I know this is uncomfortable on a full bladder, and I am very sorry, but we need to be sure.” She moved the wand around Alexianna’s lower abdomen, pressing slightly as she did. “Okay, we do seem to have just one in there. Give me a moment to do my measurements and we can have a better look then.” She pressed on the orb like dial on the machine a few times, taking the length a few times before bringing the screen around so they could see properly. “This is the baby. It is about nine weeks, four days, as your dates would suggest, so your prediction of the first of September is very much accurate. It is no longer an embryo but a foetus now, as no doubt you have read, and that,” she pointed to the centre of the bean-shaped object on the screen, where there was a peculiar movement every second or so. “Is it’s heart. It’s got a good strong rhythm, so that is great. I will print you a couple of photos for you to take away, I dare say your daughter is excited?” She smiled, having read about Lily in the file.

“She doesn’t know yet, but she will be.” Alexianna knew that when they did tell Lily, she would be lucky if she would be allowed to keep even one of the scan pictures for herself. She looked at Tom, wondering why he had gone so silent only to see him staring at the screen. “Tom?” He did not respond. She leant over and touched his hand, causing him to look at her. “Are you okay?”

“It’s actually a baby.” There was a notable amount of shock to his voice.

Alexianna could only give a small laugh as a response. “What were you expecting?”

“It’s just, it’s so real.”

Alexianna squeezed his hand a little. “Is this only hitting you now?”

Tom half nodded, half shook his head. “How am I...Fuck.”

“It can be like that for father’s sometimes.” The doctor nodded sympathetically. “It is so much more real to a mother, since she is the one ill and feeling the changes happening. The fathers tend to only realise when they see the baby on the screen, or in some cases when they are physically holding them.” She rose from the chair. “I need to get some roll to wipe this gel off you, I won’t be a moment.”

Alexianna nodded slightly and watched the other woman leave before looking worriedly to Tom. “Tom? Are you having doubts?”

Tom had gone back to looking at the image on the screen. On hearing her question, his head immediately turned to her again. “What, no. I...are you?”

“No, I am perfectly okay with this now, but you seem to not be. Is everything okay?”

“We made a baby.” He pointed to the screen. “We made a little human being. It’s alive, we made it.”

“I know, I was there.” She joked, she amazed smile on his face told her it was nothing bad that was causing his stunned demeanour. “What else did you think was in there?”

“I just….This is amazing.” His smile grew. "And we get to tell our family and friends soon."

She could only smile in response, elated that Tom was so thrilled with the situation, forcing herself to not allow Jonathan’s reaction into her head. His smile at the news was never as reassuring as Tom’s and she had not felt so sure of how everything would go from one day to the next. With Jonathan, she was always waiting for the man she had married to return, the belittling and horrible man that made her feel worthless, but Tom, he gave no such feeling, and she made sure to remind herself of that. That was something she had been so adamant of doing; reminding herself she had not repeated her past mistakes, Tom was Tom, he was the man she had loved for so long, the boy she trusted so deeply since she was just a child, he was not Jonathan, he never would be. The loving smile on his face, the way he kissed her hand with a loving look in her eyes made her see that, even if her mind sometimes for a brief moment tried to lie to her and say it would be the same, she knew it was wrong. It could be, from time to time. Mr Barrows had told her, our thoughts, as much as they try to convince us otherwise are not always right.

COVID 19, Exposing the Very Worst of America On the evening of March 10, 2020, US President Donald Trump made a speech few would forget. His demeanor was bizarre, his speech halting, confused and his words often hesitant and contradictory. Few knew that many that Trump and his daughter Ivanka had met with at their Mar-a-Lago retreat, including the president of Brazil, would come down with COVID 19. From the UK Independent: “Mr. Trump announced he was shutting down “all travel from Europe’, except the UK, in a speech as notable for the underlying tones of nationalism in the president’s reference to a ‘foreign virus’ as it was for his apparent unease. The 73-year-old sniffed heavily, suppressed several coughs and appeared to be struggling with the teleprompter throughout his short but laboured speech, which immediately saw members of his administration scramble to correct his errors. First, the president risked sending markets tumbling even further when he announced, seemingly by accident, that ‘these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval’.” When the stock markets crashed the next morning, it wasn’t over economic issues but rather a total lack of trust and confidence in Donald Trump the person. You see, two of the nations, Ireland and Great Britain, that were left off the travel ban have very high rates of infection and everyone knows it. They also have Trump owned golf courses. This story spread like wildfire, one of dozens of such stories, more each day, a total lack of confidence by not only America’s financial sector but the American people as well, in Trump and his family cabal that has been sorely tested and has failed so miserably. His callous remarks, poor spelling, lack of knowledge and endless stream of childish lies, making him the hero of both barroom and bowling alley, has, predictably, done more damage to the US than over 200 years of wars. The real “killer” was Trump’s closure of the Office of Global Health Security and Biodefense, part of the National Security Council. Trump has lied about this fact over and over. From Beth Cameron, former Senior Director of that now defunct agency, published in the Washington Post, March 13, 2020: “When President Trump took office in 2017, the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense survived the transition intact. Its mission was the same as when I was asked to lead the office, established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014: to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic. One year later, I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like covid-19. The U.S. government’s slow and inadequate response to the new coronavirus underscores the need for organized, accountable leadership to prepare for and respond to pandemic threats. It’s impossible to assess the full impact of the 2018 decision to disband the White House office responsible for this work. Biological experts do remain in the White House and in our government. But it is clear that eliminating the office has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response. What’s especially concerning about the absence of this office today is that it was originally set up because a previous epidemic made the need for it quite clear. In 2016, after the formidable U.S.-led Ebola response, the Obama White House established the global health security office at the National Security Council and asked me to lead the team. We were to prepare for and, if possible, prevent the next outbreak from becoming an epidemic or pandemic. Our team reported to a senior-level response coordinator on the National Security staff who could rally the government at the highest levels, as well as to the national security adviser and the homeland security adviser. This high-level domestic and global reporting structure wasn’t an accident. It was a recognition that epidemics know no borders and that a serious, fast response is crucial. Our job was to be the smoke alarm — keeping watch to get ahead of emergencies, sounding a warning at the earliest sign of fire — all with the goal of avoiding a six-alarm blaze.” Trump closed the pandemic response capability for one reason, it was set up by President Obama. Trump claimed, however, that he saved $150,000,000 in doing so. Thus far, the cost of Trump’s blunder has been $35,000,000,000,000. The ratio expressing negative ROI (return on investment) can only be expressed in scientific notation, to the sixth power. This is a guy who went bankrupt six times, who has now lost more money than, corrected to today’s currency, it would cost to fight World War II eight times. When we heard that Donald Trump, who refuses to be tested after serial exposure to COVID 19, has asked his son in law to take over the effort against the current pandemic, we were flabbergasted. Jared Kushner, a New Jersey slumlord and embarrassment, barely got into college, requiring a massive bribe from his family’s mob backed enterprises. Now he is responsible for America, and to an extent, the world’s survival. Kushner immediately called a doctor he knows who works in an emergency room, someone with no experience in epidemiology but at least a medical license of some kind. That doctor turned to Facebook and posted: “The person who is advising the president asked me to come up with ideas, can anyone tell me what to do?” The last time Trump turned to Facebook, he launched missiles at Syria over a fake gas attack. China, it seems, has beat the disease and is now aiding Italy in its efforts. They did so with leadership and will. In the US, the head of the CDC (Center for Disease Control), Dr. Robert Redfield, who has a heavily edited Wikipedia page hiding his history of religion based treatment for AIDS which may have led to the deaths of many thousands, is partially responsible for the total failure to address the current threat. He replaced Brenda Fitzgerald, another Trump appointee, who resigned in 2018 when her ties to drug and tobacco companies were exposed. Then it gets worse, with the initial appointment by Trump of Vice President Mike Pence to head the US initiative in response to COVID 19. Pence, who as governor of Indiana, advocated prayer to cure “gayness,” also, as governor advocated the same as a cure for HIV, opposing all programs, enacted at the advice of medical professionals, that other states implemented. Thus, Indiana ended up a “hot zone” of HIV under his leadership. But then we haven’t heard anything from Pence though 28-year-old Katie Waldman, now married to Trump’s advisor and primary contact to neo-Nazi political groups, Stephen Miller, has made a few nasty comments to reporters who mistakenly have asked pointed questions that Pence is unable to answer. Pence, in fact, hasn’t been seen since a Sunday, March 8, 2020 television interview during which he was unable to answer rudimentary questions on COVID 19 testing. Now we have something much more insidious than simply an incompetent government. China now accuses the US of bringing the virus to China. As reported in Veterans Today by this author: “In October 2019, the US brought 172 (really 369) military athletes to Wuhan for the World Military Games. Despite having the largest military in the world, tenfold, the US came in 35th behind nations like Iran, Finland and Slovenia. No video or photos exist of the US team, no records were kept, a huge team but a pitiful performance for the best military in the world. The US team did so badly that they were called “Soy Sauce Soldiers” by the Chinese. In fact, many never participated in any event and were housed near the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the disease is said to have originated only days after the US left the area. The US team went home on October 28, 2019 and within 2 weeks, the first human contact cases of COVID 19 were seen in Wuhan. The Chinese have not been able to find “patient zero” and believe he or she was a member of the US team. They also have sources that say the US had misrepresented influenza that Trump claims has killed thousands, an influenza carried to China by the US team, an influenza that was really COVID 19, a disease developed in a military bio-warfare facility in the state of Washington, now “ground zero” in the US for COVID 19. Evidence of this aspect of China’s claim is scant. The Chinese claim, something censored in the US, that the inattentive attitude and disproportionately below average results of American athletes in the game indicate they might have been in for other purposes and they might actually be bio-warfare operatives, and that their place of residence during their stay in Wuhan was also close to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the first known cluster of cases occurred.” Past this is another observation, also potentially coincidental, that the major outbreaks in China, Iran and Italy, the primary hubs in the Silk Road that threatens traditional Western controlled world trade, are proof of COVID 19 as a bio-warfare agent. Under other circumstances and in other times, such conspiratorial claims could be easily denied, but no longer. From New Eastern Outlook: “We can make some blanket statements about COVID 19 and will do so now: The capability to create COVID 19 exists The will to create COVID 19 exists The intelligence and humanity required to not create COVID 19 does not exist The will to experiment through infecting the general public with a pathogen such as COVID 19 exists and has extensive historical precedent “Black funded” laboratories operating under cover of animal diseases research or biological warfare defense facilities, run by the US, British, Israeli and other governments, are not only capable of creating COVID 19 but are evidenced as being funded for exactly this type of program Simply put, there are actors out there that can and would unleash a global pandemic as a component in a long term “chaos theory” operation.” Conclusion It is clear that Donald Trump in the US and Boris Johnson in the UK represent a “perfect storm” of bumbling incompetence and paralytic policymaking in the face of the current global pandemic threat. It is also clear that both Trump and Johnson are Deep State puppets, an assertion supportable through examination of their personal history, their paths to power and their unique attributes for theatricality and prevarication. The questions that remain relate to solutions. Can there be solutions in the US, Britain as well, when government incompetence and inaction arrives served as a toxic soup of leadership malaise and conspiratorial complicity?

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The image kept replaying in attorney W. Warren Binford’s mind after she left a migrant detention facility last week in Clint, Tex., where hundreds of children were held: The 15-year-old mother, her baby covered in mucus.

It seemed no matter how many times she washed the sick baby’s clothes in the sink she couldn’t get them clean. There was no soap. And when she tried to find baby food, there was none of that, either. All they had was instant oatmeal for breakfast, instant soup for lunch and a frozen burrito for dinner, “every single day,” Binford said.

Child care was not the forte of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Binford could see. Here, in a warehouse filled with filthy kids who had not bathed in days, some with lice and influenza, it was kids taking care of kids.

“We were just horrified,” Binford, director of the clinical law program at Willamette University, told The Washington Post, adding: “It was just horrendous, the stories that we were hearing.”

On Sunday, faced with mounting reports of grave conditions at border detention centers overwhelmed by an influx of families and children crossing the border, President Trump and Vice President Pence responded by blaming congressional Democrats. News anchors asked what they planned to do if they were impatient with Congress, but Trump and Pence remained focused on demanding action on a $4.6 billion emergency spending bill intended for the border crisis, with $2.88 billion reserved for unaccompanied minors.

“We’re doing a fantastic job under the circumstances,” Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press,” soon after agreeing that conditions were “terrible.” “The Democrats aren’t even approving giving us money. Where is the money? You know what? The Democrats are holding up the humanitarian aid.”

'Where is the money?': Trump, Pence blame poor migrant detention center conditions on Congress

President Trump and Vice President Pence blamed Congress on June 23 for the poor conditions faced by children in migrant detention centers. (Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post)

On CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Pence complained that Congress “refused to increase bed space in the appropriations bill” earlier this year. “They continue to delay efforts on additional humanitarian support.”

“So we just have to accept the conditions being described here?” host Margaret Brennan asked.

Pence said no, before noting Trump’s negotiations with Mexico to stop the flow of migrants, and quickly returning to Congress: “The president and I are going to stand strong, call on Congress to do their job,” he said.

The emergency bill passed through the Senate Appropriations Committee last week with bipartisan support, although House Democrats had been drafting their own version of the legislation. Earlier this year, Democrats opposed increasing the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds (which is different from the bed space in CBP detention facilities) because they believed that would force ICE to prioritize enforcement efforts on criminals.

Democrats expressed outrage about reports of poor conditions in migrant detention centers. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif)., called the conditions “child abuse happening at the hands of the United States government." Some House Democrats threatened to refuse more money for immigration authorities.

“These radicalized criminal agencies are destroying families and killing children,” Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said in a joint statement. “It is absolutely unconscionable to even consider giving one more dollar to support this President’s deportation force that openly commits human rights abuses and refuses to be held accountable to the American people.”

President Trump said immigration agents are planning to make mass arrests and deportations days after striking a deal with Mexico to curb the flow of migrants. (Luis Velarde/The Washington Post)

Concerns about CBP facilities reached a fever pitch this weekend after Binford and a team of several other attorneys traveled to the Clint facility to interview dozens of detained children.

The attorneys were investigating Clint as part of ongoing litigation monitoring whether the Trump administration is complying with a 1997 consent decree. Known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, it requires that the federal government keep immigrant children in “safe and sanitary” conditions while they are in custody and that they are transferred out of detention quickly.

The attorneys typically do not speak to the media about what they find inside these facilities because of the pending litigation — but after visiting Clint, they felt they could not remain silent, Binford said.

Some children had been detained for as many as three weeks, she said, although by law, child migrants are supposed to be transferred to the custody of Health and Human Services within three days. They should then be placed with a parent, relative or guardian already living in the United States. The failure by the federal government to do so — rather than Congress’s failure to send aid, Binford argued — has left children languishing in overcrowded facilities meant for adults, with some sleeping on cold concrete because there are not enough beds and mats, she said.

“By the end of the second day, we were on the phone with the legal counsel on the case saying, ‘These kids are at risk. There’s gonna be another kid who dies if we don’t do something.’ This is not just about complying with the Flores agreement,” she said. “This is inhumane.”

Binford saw a 4-year-old with hair so matted and dirty she thought it would have to be cut off. The child had not bathed in more than a week, she said. She witnessed a 14-year-old caring for a 2-year-old without a diaper, shrugging as the baby urinated as they sat at a table because she did not know what to do.

Some of the kids had showered or brushed their teeth only once or twice in three weeks, Binford said. Some did not have toothbrushes at all. The warehouse had portable toilets; the main building had toilets in plain view, which humiliated the kids, who tried to cover themselves with blankets as they sat on the toilet, she said.

Some had been separated from their parents and siblings for undisclosed reasons, she said, and some were inconsolable.

“One of the terrible ironies is one of the little girls we interviewed was separated from her mother, her father, her younger siblings,” Binford said. “Her father told her not to worry, that they were going to take her to a place that was better for children.

“And then they brought her to this facility.”

In a statement to The Washington Post early Monday, CBP said the agency “leverages limited resources to provide the best care possible to those in our custody, especially children.”

“As DHS and CBP leadership have noted numerous times, our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis,” the agency said. “CBP works closely with our partners at the Department of Health and Human Services to transfer unaccompanied children to their custody as soon as placement is identified, and as quickly and expeditiously as possible to ensure proper care.

“All allegations of civil rights abuses or mistreatment in CBP detention are taken seriously and investigated to the fullest extent possible,” the statement added.

The attorneys involved in the Flores case have been demanding in court that the government provide children with basic necessities such as toothbrushes, soap and adequate sleeping conditions since the Obama administration.

Last week, a Justice Department lawyer argued that the government shouldn’t be required to provide those basic hygiene products because none of them explicitly appear in the Flores agreement — a position that astonished all three judges on a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

[Detained migrant children got no toothbrush, no soap, no sleep. It’s no problem, government argues.]

Pence appeared to dismiss the attorney’s argument against providing toiletries during his Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” saying, “I can’t speak to what that lawyer was saying.” He agreed with Tapper that “of course” hygiene items such as toothbrushes and soap are necessary for being “safe and sanitary” but again blamed Congress.

“It’s one of the reasons we asked for more bed space. . . . It’s one of the reasons we continue to call on Congress to give DHS Customs and Border Protection additional resources at the border,” Pence said.

“This is the wealthiest nation in the world,” Tapper said. “We have money to give toothpaste and soap and blankets to these kids in this facility in El Paso County — right now we do."

“Of course we do,” Pence said.

“So why aren’t we?” Tapper said.

Again, Pence pointed to Congress as the problem.

Phroyd

Hi! I'm a jonerys shipper but I find your theories very interesting. I wonder though, how will you feel about the show/Asoiaf if Political!Jon is debunked with season 8? Do you think it will change your opinion on Jon? And will you still ship Jonsa if he truly bent the knee because he is in love with Dany? I suppose I'm wondering how a post S8 Jonsa faction will look.

Hello! I really appreciate the question because it’s not a bad one: what if political!Jon isn’t a thing? First, I guess I’ll explain what I think has to be true for political!Jon to not be true.

Jon has to have total faith in Dany’s ruling ability; not just her capacity as a conqueror. Jon has to have thought it was acceptable to give away the Stark ancestral home without consulting anyone about it. Jon has to have actually been unable to lie to Cersei at the Dragonpit. Jon has to actually believe that the stuff he warned Dany about earlier in the season (about northerners not wanting to follow a southern ruler) is either not true anymore - or - at least not as important as the urgency to give away his crown before he could even talk to them about it.

All of these have terrible, terrible implications on Jon’s character.

Because it will mean a number of things…

1) It would mean that Jon really didn’t learn anything from Robb and Ned and their respective downfalls. That’s tragic in itself. When it comes to Robb, sure he made mistakes that cost him his life - but he was also way too young and thrust into a position he should never have been forced to undertake. The same is somewhat true for Jon, except he’s now been in leadership and he knows his family’s mistakes. 

I don’t want “aww shucks” stupid heroes. I don’t enjoy that type of storytelling. I don’t think it’s something I can suspend my disbelief while I’m watching if I actively think “he is a complete and total idiot” and he’s supposed to be un-ironically a hero of the story. Beyond that, I think that’s the opposite of the point of Jon’s arc, most especially in the books but also on the show. 

Robb and Ned are there to be cautionary tales for good people who are struggling with the intricacies of dangerous political games. Jon being as dopey as not learning anything from their decisions cheapens Robb’s story, it cheapens Ned’s story, and it makes Jon simply a lucky idiot if he somehow survives.

Jon is also taking a gigantic risk throwing all his eggs in Dany’s basket even if he thinks she’s the most wonderful person. He has no idea what she’s like as a ruler. He didn’t know anything about her other than she’s come to Westeros and has three dragons. He doesn’t know anything about her tenure in Essos - or that it concluded with her very responsibly have Daario Naharis overlooking the biggest political transition in thousands of years over there. No big deal.

In the best case scenario, Jon would have been detained on the island, been “asked” to bend the knee to Dany on multiple occasions, and agreed to go on a mission that he otherwise wouldn’t have gone on (since he asked Dany multiple times to come North without regard to Cersei’s intentions) and almost died on that mission only to have seen Dany take another big risk by flying her dragons up North to try to save him.

That’s not even close to enough information for Jon to know whether Dany is in any way a good ruler. Flying dragons and ruling are two different things. He took a huge gamble whether it’s political!Jon or not; but at least with political!Jon it was because he felt he HAD to do it to ensure her commitment. The alternative is Jon handing that over without any clue as to whether she can do the mundane things like administer land dispute decisions or responsibly manage the treasuries of Westeros. 

2)  It would mean that Jon governs and makes decisions based solely on his own emotional impulses which would really suck. It’s practically inexcusable for Jon to behave this way. It’s irresponsible as a ruler for him to just hand Dany power like he did at face value without talking to anyone from the North about it first. You could have made an argument to me that Jon could legitimately think Dany should rule the North and it might be a plausible explanation without making Jon a terrible rule IF Jon had actually waited until he returned North to tell the lords in person that he planned to give away the crown for her.

By not doing so, it tells me that either Jon is inconsiderate and impulsive enough to give away something as sacred as an entire country (on the macro) and his childhood home (on the micro level) - OR - there’s something else in play for why he felt it absolutely necessary to “bend the knee” with the timing as it occurred. If there’s some 3rd explanation that I haven’t thought of - I’d actually be willing to read it first before I decided whether it’s an idea willing to entertain.

I don’t talk politics thaaaat much on here, but the analogy really would be that, after being elected, Donald Trump literally believed he had the authority and moral high ground to hand his presidency over to Putin. Not only would everyone hate him, but he literally does not have the authority to act like that and would be removed from his position before it happened.

[to be clear Jon =/= Trump and Dany =/= Putin. It’s an analogy on political leaders behaving in another context. If you want, you can imagine the PM of Canada and the the King of Wakanda as substitutes behaving the same way.]

By going solo in that process - Jon almost guaranteed at the very least a gigantic amount of political turmoil in the North…but it’s something I think he’s aware of and has anticipated. If he hasn’t - he has no business ruling anything ever. 

There is no reasonable explanation for the timing of Jon bending the knee (before consulting with anyone in the North let alone his very own travel companion Davos) other than political!Jon and realizing the exact moment was right because Dany had just promised to help fight the Night King and Jon wanted to cement her commitment as much as he could.

3) It would mean that Jon genuinely valued everyone knowing openly that he planned to fight Cersei in the war after the Night King over actually getting the truce to allow them to fight the NK. If Jon did what he did at the Dragonpit - then he proved himself a liar when he said just before that “there is only one war that matters” because he immediately (again, in the absence of political!Jon) affirmed his position in the war for the Iron Throne at the expense of the war to save the Realm. 

Beyond the silliness of the idea that Jon Snow is incapable of lying to Cersei - it really is highlighted perfectly in Jon’s scene with Theon:

“You risked everything just to tell an enemy the truth.”

I mean…is telling the truth generally good? Yes.

Is telling the truth still good if….

SCENARIO: Bad Guy has their finger on the button to launch a nuclear weapon on a Sunday and they say, “oh wait, these nuclear codes were only good until Sunday and now it’s after midnight so it’s Monday!” 

Bad Guy is momentarily confused. “Or is it still Sunday? Say! You, Honest Fellow! If it’s really after 12:00 AM, I’ll have to leave here and try to grab more launch codes, is it really after midnight? I don’t have my watch.”

Honest Fellow: “I’d like to tell you it’s 12:04….but alas, I cannot. It is 11:58-…”

*KABOOM*

Well…you’d rightfully be displeased with Honest Fellow. But, then again, I think Jon Snow would hate this honest fellow as well. How stupid is that if it’s the same story we heard at face value? 

“I just can’t lie!” 

That’s irredeemably stupid. It KNOWINGLY put everyone at risk and actually is LUCKY that Cersei planned all along to accept a truce so she could have time to replenish her forces with the Golden Company. 

I’d recommend that the Honest Fellow version of Jon Snow climb up that 700 foot Wall he’s supposedly been working so hard to protect and fling himself off. They could call it Lord Commander’s Landing.

4) It would completely upend the part of Jon’s story where he has yearned to truly be a part of House Stark, his residual guilt about not being there to help Robb when the fighting began, and his close relationship with Sansa after their reunion. 

I could say plenty of shippy things about how the absence of political!Jon would completely ruin the relationship with Sansa that Jon’s built since they reunited but I don’t even have to go there. Simply as a close companion and trusted adviser and family member, Jon would have spat right in her face.

People seem to misinterpret Jon feeling like an outsider with the rest of the Starks with Jon never feeling welcome and never wanting to be a member of House Stark. The exact opposite is true. Jon’s detachment was due specifically to his wanting very much to be Jon Stark but feeling like it was an impossibility because of his birth. Jon loved the Starks. He wanted to be known as Ned’s son. He craved acceptance from Catelyn but never received it. It’s caused him to feel unworthy of that. 

When they found the direwolf pups, Jon wanted each Stark to have a wolf first. It was essentially a gift of the gods that Jon “heard” Ghost (who is famously silent) after his noble self-denial in favor of the trueborn Starks. 

Immediately after winning the BotB, Jon makes sure Sansa takes up residence in the Lord’s chambers. He didn’t do that because he doesn’t care. He cares very deeply. He wanted Sansa to know that she is House Stark’s true representative. He doesn’t feel like he deserves that, hence the sadness in his voice as he says “I’m not a Stark.” He reiterates that Sansa is the Lady of Winterfell. Being the Lord or Lady (as opposed to “acting” Lord or Lady) means that Sansa has hereditary rights over Winterfell - something they both fought like hell to re-take.

Now I’m supposed to believe that the guy who didn’t even want a simple puppy before the other Starks, who fought like hell to re-take Winterfell, who tried to desert the Night’s Watch once and arguably did a second time to fight for the Starks, who very intentionally placed Sansa as the head of House Stark rather than himself, who then passed to her specifically ruling authority over the North while he was away - THAT GUY - is now supposed to think it’s fine and necessary and RIGHT to give ruling authority and his crown over to a woman before she ever even stepped foot in the North.  (The Gift, which is the territory along the Wall is owned by the Night’s Watch independent of the North. Even if you count the top of Eastwatch as Dany stepping foot up there, she’s still not in the political North)

All of this, too, without ever talking to a single person about the decision beforehand. 

That’s a Jon Snow I cannot root for or reconcile with the rest of his story. In my mind, it’s character assassination.

It would make me wonder what the point was of Jon Snow even coming back from the dead.

Thank you for the ask. Hope this answers your question sufficiently. You’re welcome to ask more anytime.