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earthly--truth · 3 years

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What I believe in

These are my beliefs as someone who aligns with democratic socialism and progressivism. Feel free to critique it, challenge it, even just a few sections, whatever, but this is what I believe will make the world a better place, because people (and animals) deserve to live the best possible lives they can live with the only chance at life they got. This is going to be super general and long, and not get into nearly everything, but I hope it sheds a positive light on leftism.

Strong unions so that workers (the majority of people in society) have the ability have better footing to negotiate better wages, work hours, vacation days, benefits, etc. I also believe that in instances where it’s pragmatically viable that there should be a push for more worker co-op’s, in which every employee has a stake in the company they work at, and the ability to give their input (all companies should strive for more democracy). Both of these contribute to healthier, happier, and, and better payed people.

Raising the minimum wage in the U.S to $15 an hour. The current wage of $7.25 is way too low. It’s just not a livable wage. There’s a reason why McDonald’s and Walmart are called corporate welfare queens, and it’s because they’re employees require welfare to survive, despite being the biggest corporations on the planet with multi-billionaire CEO’s. The richest in society should also pay more in taxes.

Stop investing so much in the American military, cut it by a third if you can. (Firstly this frees up a lot of money for other things) Get the military out of the middle east, and create other more peaceful avenues to ensure it doesn’t crumble like every single time the military pulls out and doesn’t try to actually fix the mess they created. The people in the middle east deserve to be able to rebuild and they’ll need help to do that (just not the type of help where america installs their own leaders).

Healthcare should be universal, paid for by taxes. Every developed nation is capable of doing it. Many developing countries are doing it. Americans pay more in taxes for healthcare than so many other countries, yet a trip to the hospital still can put you in debt for the rest of your life. That is inhumane, and people shouldn’t have to choose between crippling debt and their health.

There’s also an argument to be made for free/way cheaper university, since countries like Canada or America force people to get a degree if they want to live a decent life, yet in order to do that you have to pay $15,000 a year for university. A system like that either forces people to skip out on uni, or again go into major debt. If Europe can figure it out, I think the U.S and Canada can figure it out too.

Black Lives Matter. To be more specific, I want police/criminal justice/prison reform. I want police de-militarized and to stop acting so abusive towards to civilians and real justice for the police that do, I want an end on the war on drugs (this helps drug addicts get help and delivers a blow to gangs and the cartel). I want an end to mass incarceration and laws that make it easier to throw people in jail for years for basically nothing. I want an end to for profit prisons. I want an end to the policy of retribution rather than rehabilitation for inmates (countries who rehabilitate are way more successful at non-returning inmates). I want an end to treating prisoners like slaves so corporations can get cheap labour. I also want the government to actually start caring about the poorest communities, many of which are predominantly black and latino (in cities anyways). (Also the indigenous in Canada). Better infrastructure, better public works programs. These all contribute to the proliferation of these communities and helps lessen the potential for criminality by making their lives better.

The dismantling of gender norms and roles, and de-stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people. I want people to be whoever they want to be. For far too long we have expected men and women to act a certain way. Women have come a long way, but there are still remnants of the old way of looking at things. We still have a lot of social stigma about how women should look, and that they are not worth even paying attention to if they aren’t conventionally attractive. We still have social stigma about sexuality and sex work. We hyper sexualize women in the media, yet shame women as sluts if they have a lot of sex. We shame women who choose abortion as murderers, yet don’t offer any support for the mother once the child has arrived. On top of that, the positions of power are still predominantly very old men. I also believe in helping men. Men are lonelier, men are increasingly staying sexless (not by choice), men are getting more suicidal. I want to address this two ways. One, by tackling toxic masculinity (not masculinity itself, just the bad parts). TM is telling men to man up and not to cry, TM is telling men not to act feminine or gay. TM is telling men to bottle up their emotions and resolve their problems through violence. The second way to address this is through my beliefs about workers. Men are the most suicidal in countries where there is a heavy work culture, like Japan and South Korea. Where they can’t have lives, and live to make money for the company they work at. That isn’t good.

When it comes to LGBTQ+ people, we need more positive representation in the media. We need people to see gay, trans, and non-binary people as normal people. When it comes to trans people specifically, we need to end the constant wars against them. Whether you’re talking about bathrooms, or sports, or children/teens receiving trans affirming healthcare. Let trans people be the gender that they say there are in the places they want to be, and allow them to receive the healthcare they need which is just the overwhelming medical consensus. This, combined with more supportive parents. all goes a long way to reducing the suicide rate amonst trans people.

The proliferation of the developing world. I want developing countries to be more autonomous, and to stop being under the boot of western corporations. I want an end to sweatshop labour or borderline sweatshop labour. I want the west to stop treating these actual people like their robots for pennies to produce our ungodly amounts of junk, and to actually pay these people decent wages. I want the world bank to stop giving money in an exploitative way to poor nations so that they cave to western business interests. These are people, human beings, and they deserve to develop and live good lives just like us. I also want them to fight for democracy in their countries.

Environmentalism. To go off the last section, 100 Corporations are contributing 71% of greenhouse gases. That needs to change. Corporations are participating ungodly amounts of devastations to eco-systems and the atmosphere. Ecosystems destroyed, and the exacerbation of the climate crises. I want a green and blue earth, and that can start by a) changing to green energy as much as humanly possible; solar, wind, and even nuclear (and whatever we come up with in the future) are far better than the fossil fuels we use now, which we’ll run out of anyways. And second we need to hold corporations accountable for destroying the planet. If we don’t do this, we risk the climate crises getting really bad. Oceans rising which will flood coastlines, creating millions of refugees, more periods of extreme dry (no water/bush fires) and extreme cold (look at what happened to texas). Something needs to be done about it.

Finally, veganism, for many reasons. One, the switch to veganism will be a big contributor to saving the planet. Whether you’re talking about the devastation we do to places like the Amazon Rain forest and other ecosystems to clear the way for animal farming, or whether you’re talking about reducing emissions. Most emissions and waste from agriculture are from the production phase of animal farming. So much food, water, and energy is wasted by giving it to billions of animals that we purposefully breed into existence, then slaughter, rinse and repeat, every single year, when we could just grow food and give water to people and skip out the middle man (think about how many people are hungry and without water in the world).

Philosophically, it is also wrong to kill a living creature that desires to live, that is able to connect with other living things and it surrounding, to form bonds. A cow, pig, chicken, lamb, sheep, are no different than a dog, cat, or rabbit, and they should not be killed, exploited, and tortured (confinement, abusive conditions in industrial farms) for pleasure. I know it’s pleasure for most people, because vegans are living proof that you can live happy and healthy lives without animal products. Vegans are statistically healthier than non-vegans, and we can get all the nutrients we need, even on an inexpensive diet. There are exceptions of course. A very small portion of people literally cannot eat plants and can only eat meat, and the developing world doesn’t have the same access to vegan products as the developed world does. Those people are valid, but many many people can make the switch and they should, especially in the developed world

All I see from this is making the world better. Hopefully you can too.

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menalez · 3 years

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girl you just refuse to interact in good faith with any points sb raises. a dozen people have told you that yeah white men are bad and yeah shit is not easy for women in the west either. but that doesn't mean women should just shut up about their experiences with muslim men, many of who will treat any non muslim women as whores. that's not even just white women ffs. i don't know what your deal is with white women anyway but you conveniently forget that half of europe has a history of sexual slavery and war rape while under muslim (ottoman) rule. just like women who have been colonized by western powers and have been disproportionately affected by european men's violence have every reason to not trust white men so do many "white" women from countries under muslim rule when it comes to muslim men

this is so stupid,,, yes and also lots of us have a history being colonised by the Ottoman Empire too??? hello??? and on top of that being colonised by various European countries??? and women in our lands being oppressed by European men??? like. what kinda stupid argument is that. “the Ottoman Empire partook in sexual slavery centuries ago which means racism against MENA people is ok 😤” as if almost all of us weren’t also under their rule lmao 😐 as if they didnt also enslave african & north african women, women from the demographics you guys keep talking shit about.

as for the rest, the fact that u wanna claim bad faith when u guys are the ones who think speaking on ur experiences and being racist can’t be mutually exclusive. i somehow managed to talk plenty of what ive faced from men both muslim & non-muslim without making racist white supremacist arguments about white supremacy and crying about how people of certain races are more criminal / more prone to rape / more violent etc. another thing thats “bad faith” is the fact that u freaks literally switch goalposts and lie about what woc have said about the racism u spew and even say we’re getting in the way of class consciousness. it’s not hard to talk about these things and criticise them without being a white nationalist. it really isn’t. a lot of us have done it and have been doing it for years. y’all love using us as ur tokens when u wanna act like ur feminism isn’t white or western but when we speak up against racism suddenly we’re insane and dramatic or whatever. hypocrites & liars tbh.

#anonymous

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olivemac · 3 years

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heartbeat | chapter five | b.b.

Summary | When Steve Rogers asks Kate Stark to find the Winter Soldier, she gets too involved.

Notes | Captain America: Civil War re-write, essentially. Starts just after the events of CA: Winter Soldier.

Pairing | Bucky Barnes x fem!oc, Bucky Barnes x Stark!oc

Genre | romance

Rating | explicit

Story Warnings | mild angst, fluff, romance tropes, so many romance tropes, coarse language, alcohol use, canon-typical violence, smut (m/f), oral sex (f&m receiving), 18+ ONLY

Chapter Warnings | canon-typical violence, cheeeeeeese factor, mentions of alcohol, mild language

Citation | Russo, J., & Russo, A. (2016). Captain America: Civil War. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Translations:

Ich will dich küssen. = I want to kiss you.

Bitte. = Please.

A/N #1 |The only German speaker in my house is my husband, but I didn't have him check the translations because they're so short. So, if they're wrong, blame Google.

A/N #2 | I've been working to update this story daily, but last night I accidentally deleted my work on the last two chapters. I tried everything I could to recover it, but it looks like I'll be rewriting them. So, no update for a couple of days, at least. And send me positive vibes because I'm going insane over it. Haha.

master list | AO3 link

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prev chapter

_____

In Vienna, Steve's just finished a call with Natasha when his phone buzzes with a text from Kate. He hasn't heard from her in months, maybe a year. He frowns.

911. Call me. I found him.

Kate picks up on the first ring. "I'm sending you coordinates. He didn't do this," she says before Steve can get a word in.

"How do you know?" Steve asks.

She pauses, then says, "I've been with him in Bucharest for eight months."

Steve sighs and pushes his sunglasses up a bit so he can massage the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache coming on. "Sit tight. I'll be there soon," he tells Kate.

He hangs up and meets Sam at a coffee shop nearby.

"Kate found him," Steve tells Sam.

"Where?" Sam asks.

"Bucharest. She's there. With Bucky. Has been for some time. Says he didn't do this."

Sam shakes his head, then asks, "Nat tell you to stay out of it? Might have a point."

"He'd do it for me," Steve says.

"1945, maybe," Sam says. "I just want to make sure we consider all our options. The people that shoot at you usually wind-up shooting at me."

Sharon joins them, discreetly. "Tips have been pouring in since that footage went public. Everybody thinks the Winter Solder goes to their gym," she tells Steve.

Steve interrupts her, "I know where he is." Sharon frowns. Steve continues, "I’ve had someone looking for him for the past two years."

"Then you don't need this," Sharon says, indicating the file in her hands.

"Thank you," Steve says.

"You're going to have to hurry. We have orders to shoot on sight."

_____

"Cap," Kate acknowledges when she opens the apartment door for Steve.

"You should have told me," Steve frowns, following her into the space.

Kate sighs, "I didn't want you to get hurt. I wanted to know what he remembered."

"You could have gotten hurt," Steve stresses.

"Bucky wouldn't hurt me."

Steve looks pointedly at the bruises on her neck, and Kate blushes but stays silent.

"So, he's Bucky again?" he asks.

"Yes," Kate replies. "He's not here, by the way. And he wasn't in Vienna."

"Interpol, CIA, MI-6, everyone thinks he was there."

"Well, he wasn't," she says sharply. "He was here. With me."

"Can you prove it?" Steve asks.

Kate bristles. "You don't believe me."

"You went after him without telling me!"

She doesn't respond. "His apartment is next door. He'll be back soon," she says, leading the way.

"Kate," Steve says, looking at her, "They’re coming for him. But I'll do what I can do hold them off."

"I know," she nods.

_____

Bucky scans the street. He left Kate in bed, naked and warm, and he wants to get back to her. But a news vendor is staring at him with recognition, and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. As he meets the man's eyes cautiously, the vendor turns and runs from the kiosk. Fuck, Bucky thinks. He picks up the newspaper and his blood runs cold. Winter Soldier wanted for Vienna bombing. He needs to get back to Kate. Then he needs to get out of the country.

_____

Steve looks around Bucky's apartment. There's a mattress on the floor, the sheets disheveled, but not much else. Steve wonders how much time Bucky spent here versus next door with Kate. He lifts a notebook off the top of the fridge and opens it. His own face looks up at him from a museum brochure.

Sam’s voice comes through on the comms, "Head's up, Cap. German Special Forces approaching from the south."

"Understood," Steve says. When he turns, Bucky is standing behind him. "Do you know me?"

Bucky stares at him. "You're Steve. I read about you in a museum."

Sam is in Steve's ear, "They've set the perimeter."

“I know you’re nervous,” Steve tells Bucky, “and you have plenty of reason to be. But you’re lying."

“I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore," Bucky responds firmly.

"They're entering the building," Sam warns.

"That's what Kate said," Steve says.

"Where is she?" Bucky asks, his jaw clenching.

"She's safe. With my colleague," Steve points to his earpiece. Bucky nods. Steve continues, "The people who think you were in Vienna are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive."

"That's smart. Good strategy," Bucky says. He can hear footsteps above them.

_____

On the roof, Sam looks at Kate as he tells Steve, "They're on the roof. We're compromised."

"You go," she says to Sam. "I'm a civilian; they won't see me as a threat." Sam nods and takes off.

Kate moves in the opposite direction. Two members of the German Special Forces move slowly in front of her, their backs to her.

"Officers," she says and as the one closest to her turns, she clocks him the nose with her fist. He reels backwards, and the soldier behind him charges at her. Kate sweeps his legs out from under him but a third soldier she didn't see has a hold of her before she can react. She grunts and pulls against his hands around her wrists. He says something into his comms and leads her to the stairs.

She doesn't see Sam or Steve again until she's thrown into the back of police van with them. A man she doesn't recognize sits in front of Steve. Steve turns and meets her eyes, and she gives him a reassuring smile. He's stony faced. She wants to ask about Bucky, but she already knows the answer. She stays quiet.

_____

"I thought you were eat-pray-loving your way through Europe!" Tony half-shouts at Kate when they're reunited at the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre in Berlin.

"Romania is Europe," she says. She knows it's not the time to be a smartass, but she can't help it when Tony is involved.

Tony's face is red with anger. "I was picturing day drinking at the Louvre, not shacking up with a cyborg assassin!"

"Tony," Steve warns.

Tony turns to him, "No, you stay out of this. You've done enough."

Beside him, Natasha Romanoff stays silent, studying the bruises on Kate's neck.

"You're lucky they're not charging you with something," he says. "You assaulted an officer. I'm having everything in that apartment of yours packed up and sent to New York. It'll be waiting for you when you arrive. We'll talk about this later."

Kate scoffs, "What? You're sending me to my room?"

"Yes," Tony responds before turning his back to her.

_____

"He could have killed you," Natasha hisses when she finally gets Kate alone in the women's bathroom.

"He wouldn't," Kate replies.

Nat points to Kate's bruised neck, and Kate at least has the decency to look chagrined. “I hid who I was," she says. "He found out. He thought I was HYDRA."

Nat studies Kate's face. "You're in love with him," she says, shock evident in her voice.

"Nat."

"You're in love with him," she repeats. "Katie, this is a bad idea."

Kate bristles at the nickname Nat only uses when she's playing big sister and doling out advice. "Nat, please," Kate says, but she's not sure what exactly she's asking for. She needs someone to understand, but she also doesn't want the sympathy or disappointment she sees in Natasha's eyes.

"Tony isn't going to like this," Nat finally says.

"When has he ever liked a guy I've dated?" Kate asks, smiling.

Nat smirks, then says, "I need to get back in there."

"I'm right behind you," Kate says. "Just give me a minute."

In the bathroom, finally alone, Kate splashes water on her face and takes a few deep breaths. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her hair's a mess and there are dark circles forming under her hazel eyes. She runs her fingers through her curls and sighs.

Then the lights go out.

Kate pauses for a moment, expecting the lights to come back on, but when a siren sounds, she knows something's up. And it probably involves Bucky. When she opens the bathroom door, people are streaming past. Kate uses the chaos to shake the agent that was assigned to watch her and exits the building during the evacuation.

_____

Steve texts Kate the coordinates to an abandoned warehouse, and she makes her way there. She knows everyone will be looking for Captain America, the Falcon, and the Winter Soldier, so it's easy enough for her to move through the city undetected.

When she arrives, Steve is waiting at the door.

"What the hell happened?" she asks him.

"The psychiatrist wasn't with Joint Counter Terrorism. He triggered the Winter Soldier," Steve says.

She pushes past him to find Sam watching over an unconscious Bucky, his titanium arm clamped in an industrial vice. Bucky groans and begins to stir. Kate kneels in front of him.

"Watch it," Sam warns.

“Hi,” she says. She takes Bucky’s face in her hands, looking into his eyes and checking for signs of concussion. “There you are.”

“Hi,” Bucky replies softly. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

"Hey, Cap!" Sam calls.

Kate drops her hands when Steve enters, but stays kneeling in front of Bucky.

Bucky looks up at Steve. "Steve," he says.

"Which Bucky am I talking to?" Steve asks.

Bucky pauses. "Your mom's name was Sarah," he says, and then chuckles, "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

"Can't read that in a museum," Steve says.

Sam raises his eyebrows skeptically. "Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?"

"What did I do?" Bucky asks.

"Enough," Steve answers.

"Oh, God, I knew this would happen," Bucky sighs, "Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words."

Kate squeezes Bucky's right hand in her own.

"Who was he?" Steve questions.

Bucky shakes his head, "I don't know."

"People are dead,” Steve tells him. “The bombing, the setup. The doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than 'I don't know'.”

Bucky pauses. "He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where."

"Why would he need to know that?" Steve asks.

"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."

Kate looks at Steve. "Can we get him out of this thing, please?"

Steve acquiesces and when Bucky is free, he rotates his shoulder to work out the kinks. Kate takes his metal hand in hers and kisses his palm. Steve hates to deny him this, deny Bucky any bit of affection Kate is willing to show him, but they need answers.

"Who were they?" Steve asks.

"Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history. And that was before the serum," Bucky says.

"They all turn out like you?" Sam asks.

"Worse."

"The doctor, could he control them?" Steve questions.

"Enough," Bucky answers, looking down.

Steve looks at Sam. "Said he wanted to see an empire fall."

"With these guys he could do it," Bucky says. "They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night. You'd never see them coming."

Sam steps over to Steve. "This would have been a lot easier a week ago," he says.

"If we call Tony," Steve starts.

"No, he won't believe us," Sam says.

"Even if he did..." Steve trails off.

"Who knows if the Accords would let him help," Sam finishes.

Steve sighs, "We're on our own."

"Maybe not," Sam says. "I know a guy."

While Steve and Sam make plans, Kate watches Bucky closely.

"I'm sorry," she whispers to him.

Bucky shakes his head, "You don't have anything to be sorry for."

She smiles softly. "I'm still sorry."

"Make it up to me," he says, echoing her words from their last night together.

She leans up and kisses him gently, and Bucky drops his hands to her waist and pulls her up onto his knee, deepening the kiss. His hands move up to cup her face and when they pull apart, he leans his forehead against hers.

"Not the time!" Sam says from across the room.

Steve is almost blushing.

Kate looks sheepish as she stands from Bucky's lap. He watches her. He hadn't told them about where the super soldier serum came from, but he would have to eventually. For now, he pushes the thought down and takes Kate's hand in his, following Sam and Steve out of the warehouse.

_____

Sharon meets the four of them under an overpass just outside the city to hand over Captain America's shield and the Falcon's wings. Sam, Kate, and Bucky stay in the car to give Sharon and Steve some privacy.

Bucky stares at Sam in front of him in the passenger seat. "Can you move your seat up?"

"No," Sam says without looking back.

Bucky frowns and slides closer to Kate's side of the car. She rolls her eyes, lifts off the seat of the small Volkswagen, and climbs over Bucky's lap, moving behind Sam. "Play nice, you two," she says.

The three of them watch from the car as Steve and Sharon share a kiss.

"I'm starting to feel like a damn fifth wheel," Sam says, throwing up his hands.

Kate clamps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, and Bucky smiles at her.

____

Later that night, Steve pulls the car into the back lot of a seedy motel.

"I'll go in," Kate says, getting out. "I speak enough German to book us rooms. Plus, no one's looking for me, and I have cash."

When she comes back out, she tosses a room key to Sam through the open car window and says, "Two rooms. Right next to each other."

"Thanks, Kate," Steve says. "Get some sleep, everyone."

"You speak German?" Bucky asks when he and Kate are alone.

"Better than I speak Romanian," she says. "But my French is best."

Bucky stares at her.

"I spent an entire Octoberfest in Munich one year," Kate says. "Picked up a few phrases. Mostly ‘Can I get another beer?’ and ‘No, I won’t go home with you,’ but I get by.”

"Ich will dich küssen," Bucky says, reaching up to cup her cheek.

"Bitte," Kate laughs.

Bucky leans forward and captures her lips with his own. He runs his tongue along her bottom lip until she opens her mouth for him. His hands move to grip her waist tightly, and she slides her own arms around his neck.

They’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

Kate finds Steve standing outside. He pushes the door open wider with one arm and asks, “Do you mind if I talk to Bucky?”

Kate looks at Bucky and says, “I’ll be next door bothering Sam.” Then she ducks under Steve’s arm and out the door.

Steve walks into the room slowly. “How you holding up?” he asks, looking at Bucky.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Bucky says, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I know, pal,” Steve says, sitting beside him. He claps Bucky on the back. “But I told you I’d be here to the end of the line.”

“Steve…” Bucky starts, unable to look at him. He doesn’t finish the thought.

They sit in silence for a minute, until Steve says, “So…Kate….” It’s half question, half statement.

Bucky chuckles, “Yeah. Kate.”

“How did that happen?” Steve asks.

“Apart from when you called me Bucky in D.C., she was the first person to look at me in seventy years. I mean, actually look at me, see me, talkto me.” Bucky’s quiet for a moment. “Plus, she’s a knockout,” he says, and Steve sees the glimmer of his old friend in Bucky’s eyes. “And she can cook,” Bucky adds.

Steve laughs. “Your mom was always a great cook,” he says.

Grief flashes across Bucky’s face before he can stop it.

“I know it’s hard,” Steve says, “coming back and everyone being…gone.”

Bucky nods.

“But you’ve got me,” Steve continues, “and Kate. And Sam, too.”

Bucky snorts. “I don’t think he’s my biggest fan.”

Steve chuckles. “He’ll come around.” He stands up. “Speaking of Sam, I should probably go rescue him from Kate. The last time I left them alone, she hacked into his phone and changed all his contacts to Harry Potter characters because he said he hadn’t read the books.”

“What the hell is Harry Potter?” Bucky says.

“You’ve got a lot to catch up on,” Steve says. “But first, let’s deal with this doctor."

Bucky nods, and Steve leaves him alone. A minute later, Kate returns. She kicks her shoes off at the door and throws herself down on the bed beside Bucky.

"I'm exhausted," she says, closing her eyes.

Bucky stands and flips the lights off before shedding his jeans and shirt and joining Kate on the bed again.

"Come here," he says, reaching for her. His fingers find the button of her jeans, popping it open and pushing them down her hips. She kicks them off her legs, and when Bucky throws them off the side of the bed, he pulls her tightly against his chest. "Sleep," he murmurs against her hair and presses a kiss to the top of her head. And they both fall asleep to the sound of the other’s heartbeat.

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next chapter

#bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #sergeant barnes #bucky barnes x oc #bucky x oc #bucky barnes x ofc #bucky x ofc #bucky fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes romance

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Thursday, July 29, 2021

Drone strike whistleblower (Washington Post) In 2013, Daniel Hale was at a peace conference in D.C. when a Yemeni man recounted through tears how two family members had been killed in a U.S. drone strike. He said they’d been trying to encourage young men to leave al-Qaeda. Hale, 33, a former intelligence analyst, realized he had watched the fatal attack, which he and his Air Force colleagues viewed as a success. Now he was horrified. It was such experiences, Hale told a federal judge on Tuesday, that led him to leak classified information about drone warfare to a reporter. “I believe that it is wrong to kill, but it is especially wrong to kill the defenseless,” he said in court. A U.S. district judge sentenced Hale to 45 months in prison for violating the Espionage Act, saying the documents Hale disclosed went beyond his “courageous and principled” stance on drones. Hale had shared three dozen documents with a journalist. One document revealed that during a five-month stretch of an Afghanistan operation, 90 percent of people killed were not the intended targets.

3 tech giants report combined profits of more than $50B (AP) Three tech companies—Apple, Microsoft and Google owner Alphabet—reported combined profits of more than $50 billion in the April-June quarter, underscoring their unparalleled influence and success at reshaping the way we live. Although these companies make their money in different ways, the results served as another reminder of the clout they wield and why government regulators are growing increasingly concerned about whether they have become too powerful. The massive profits pouring into each company also illustrated why they have a combined market value of $6.4 trillion—more than double their collective value when the COVID-19 pandemic started 16 months ago.

Mexico’s Cuba aid (Foreign Policy) A shipment of food, oxygen, and medical supplies bound for Cuba is expected to set sail from the Mexican port of Veracruz today, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador makes good on his promise to provide humanitarian assistance to the island following protests earlier this month. The vessel follows in the wake of another ship carrying aid that left Mexico on Tuesday, and the delivery of 126,000 barrels of diesel fuel from Mexico’s state-run Pemex earlier this week. On Monday, López Obrador called on U.S. President Joe Biden to “make a decision” about the U.S. embargo given that “almost all countries of the world” are against it.

Europeans increasingly frustrated as White House maintains Trump-era covid travel restrictions (Washington Post) European lawmakers and business groups voiced mounting criticism of the Biden administration on Tuesday, after the White House said its restrictions on international travel would remain in place for the time being. Whereas vaccinated U.S. tourists have been allowed to return to much of Europe for weeks, most Europeans continue to be unable to travel to the United States under a ban that was first imposed by President Donald Trump in March 2020. The White House said Monday that the continuation of existing travel restrictions was attributable to concerns over the highly transmissible delta variant. But the delta variant has long been in the United States, already accounting for the majority of new known cases, and many European nations are now starting to outpace the United States in vaccinations: 49 percent of Americans are fully inoculated, compared with more than 46 percent of European Union residents. As vaccinated American tourists are traveling back and forth for their summer holidays in Paris or Rome again, European allies or partners of the Biden administration are finding it increasingly difficult to defend the U.S. stance, which critics say has divided European families and posed serious challenges to businesses.

“Seditious” sheep: inside Hong Kong's crackdown on children's books (Worldcrunch) The Hong Kong National Security Police was on the move again recently, although this time the surprising target was a series of children's stories. On July 22, authorities arrested five people over conspiring to publish seditious publications. The accused are members of the General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists, as Hong Kong-based media The Initium reports. The operation against them marks the first time the National Security Law has been used to target stories directed at children. The three books in question center around an imaginary village of sheep. Authorities say the books are "creating hatred and instilling anti-government ideas among children." In a press conference, Steve Li, senior superintendent of the Police National Security Department, said that the images of sheep fighting wolves and of sheep being eaten up by wolves are an attempt to incite violence and hatred against the regime. "Sheep are gentle animals, but highlighting that they can attack is publicizing violence," he said. Li urged bookstores to hand in remaining copies to the police, and encouraged owners of the books to destroy their copies. Teachers, he added, are forbidden from using books for educational purposes. "This isn't about criticizing the government," Li explained. "It's that actions, books and so on, should never make people hate the government."

Kuwait bans unvaccinated citizens from travelling abroad (Reuters) Kuwait on Tuesday said only citizens who have been vaccinated for the coronavirus will be allowed to travel abroad starting on Aug. 1. A government statement said the rule excepted children under age of 16, those with a health ministry certificate saying they cannot be vaccinated, and pregnant women who have a pregnancy proof certificate from authorities. All arrivals will have to be home quarantined for seven days unless they take a COVID-19 PCR test inside Kuwait that comes out negative.

As Tigray war intensifies, Ethiopia parades new army recruits (Reuters) Thousands of Ethiopian army recruits paraded in Addis Ababa on Tuesday to bid farewell before leaving for training, potential future participants in a bloody eight-month-old conflict in the north that continues to spread and intensify. The mayor’s office said 3,000 young people would join the ranks of Ethiopia’s National Defence Force (ENDF). Some recruits spoke of pride in describing their motives. Others mentioned economic need. The conflict between the central government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that controls the Tigray region, is spreading to other parts of northern Ethiopia, and youth from other parts of the country are joining federal forces in the fight. Fighting first broke out in Tigray in November when the government accused the TPLF of attacking military bases across the region—an accusation the group denied. The government declared victory three weeks later when it took the regional capital Mekelle, but the TPLF kept fighting and has since taken back most of Tigray.

Turn off, turn on: Simple step can thwart top phone hackers (AP) As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure. Step One: Turn off phone. Step Two: Turn it back on. That’s it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is—turning a device off then back on again—can thwart hackers from stealing information from smartphones. Regularly rebooting phones won’t stop the army of cybercriminals or spy-for-hire firms that have sowed chaos and doubt about the ability to keep any information safe and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most sophisticated hackers work harder to maintain access and steal data from a phone. “This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors,” said Neal Ziring, technical director of the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity directorate.

#headlines #news

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kny111 · 4 years

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Decolonizing Healthcare: Addressing Social Stressors In Medicine

What does it mean to have a healthcare system that serves everybody? And what can physicians do to address the ways in which societal challenges impact our diagnoses?

Image Source: HealthSystemsGlobal

Rupa Marya, M.D., is exploring these concepts through numerous projects aimed at researching our current medical climate and collaborating with marginalized populations to make healthcare more effective and compassionate.

Following is a transcript from Marya’s 2018 Bioneers keynote presentation, in which she discusses her research and vision for the future of medicine. Watch the full keynote video here.View more keynotes, transcripts, and more from the 2018 Bioneers Conference.

Rupa Marya: I am the daughter of Punjabi immigrants who came to this country in 1973, with little money but plenty of caste privilege. We grew up with family vacations driving a VW van around the Western lands. My father would stop at the reservations. He would make us get out and listen and learn and look, and see what had happened to the original people of this land. He would talk to me about colonization, because we are also a people who had been colonized by Europeans.

I am a mother of two beautiful mixed heritage boys, and I am a farmer’s wife. I’m a physician who works in adult medicine, and who witnesses society’s ills manifest in my patients’ bodies, and a doctor who sees racism and state violence as an urgent public health issue. I’m a touring musician who has played in 29 different countries, singing in five different languages with the band Rupa and the April Fishes. To use a phrase taught to me by a Miwok elder, Wounded Knee, I am an Earth person.

What I’m going to describe for you is a system of domination in which we live, and what I believe are the direct health consequences of that system for all of us. I’ll begin with a description of how we have come to understand disease in a modern post-industrial context. In the 1850s, the germ theory was developed, which described how organisms such as bacteria and viruses made us sick. That led to the development of antibiotics and vaccines and systems to limit the spread of infectious disease.

In the 1960s, with the elucidation of DNA, we entered the molecular genetic era, where we are today. Here the gene creates a protein that can cause or protect from disease. How sick or well you were was thought to be preordained somehow by your genetics. This understanding has led to many powerful diagnostic tools and targeted therapies for specific diseases.In 2004, with the discovery of the role of RAS gene mutation in the development of colon cancer, exactly 2,000 years after Roman physician Celsus described the cardinal signs of inflammation, we are entering the era of inflammation. Instead of a reductionist approach to understanding disease, we are seeing how many pathways lead to chronic inflammation, which in turn creates the conditions for illness.

Today we will be talking about the impact of social stressors, which have been shown to cause chronic inflammation. These diseases require more systemic approaches, not simply focusing on the individual, but rather moving our gaze to the structures of society, helping us see how the individual pursuit of health is actually futile in a system that makes health impossible.

To understand the root causes of pathologies we see today, which impact all of us but affect black, brown and poor people more intensely, we have to examine the foundations of this society, which began with colonization. To me, to be colonized means to be disconnected and dis-integrated from our ancestry, from our Earth, from our indigeneity, our Earth-connected selves. We all come from Earth-connected peoples, people who once lived in deep connections with the rhythms of nature. I believe it is not a coincidence that the colonization of this land happened at the same time Europeans were burning hundreds of thousands of witches, those women who carried the traditional indigenous knowledge of the tribes of Europe.

Colonization is the way the extractive economic system of capitalism came to this land, supported by systems of supremacy and domination, which are a necessary part of keeping the wealth and power accumulated in the hands of the colonizers and ultimately their financiers.

In what we now know as the United States, this system of supremacy is expressed in many ways and with many outcomes. Today, we will focus on specific ones. First, white supremacy, which created a framework that legitimized slavery and genocide. Slavery created cheap labor, which is necessary for a functioning capitalist system. Genocide created unlimited access to resources in the form of land, animal parts, minerals, and raw materials, which are also necessary for a fully functioning capitalist economy.

As capitalism functions, it further entrenches these systems of supremacy.We all know that white supremacy is the scary guy with the swastika and the hood. But it can also look like any place where there is an abundance of white people in exclusive contexts, where power and access is not readily ceded to others. Please remember, lest you get caught up in a tsunami of guilty feelings, that as I talk about these things, I’m talking about systems of oppression that we are actually all a part of and that we all recreate, and these systems are what need to be dismantled.

There’s white supremacy and then there’s male supremacy, also known as patriarchy, which leads to the invisibilization of women’s labor, like creating the entire human race out of our bodies. Or in this context, reproducing the entire workforce and suppressing our wages, which further supports capitalism.

Patriarchy also leads to femicide, domestic violence and child abuse, which we see across all groups. We also see human supremacy, where people feel superior to the rest of living entities, thereby subjecting living soils, seeds, animals, plants, and water to horrific treatment in the name of exploiting resources, which in turn feeds the capitalist need for ever-increasing profits.

While this wheel of domination, exploitation, generation, and sequestration of wealth continues, we experience trauma as the byproduct and common pathway. Many studies show us that chronic stress and trauma create chronic inflammation. When we look at the top ten causes of death in occupied Turtle Island, we see diseases that have been described to us as diseases of lifestyle or ones that come about because of poor choices. Maybe we eat too much fried food. Maybe we don’t exercise enough. Maybe we have a genetic predisposition. What these diseases have in common in their pathogenesis is a component of inflammation, and we are just starting to parse out how the social stressors and the very structures of society contribute to and exacerbate this chronic inflammatory state.

It is unfounded to see these diseases as caused by individual poor choices in the context of a genetic predisposition. I see them as diseases that are virtually impossible to avoid because of the system in which we live, which generates a biological milieu of inflammation through trauma, chronic stress, environmental degradation, and damaged food systems. I see these as diseases of colonization.

If you’re a Native person, you’re like... It takes science and medicine a long time to catch up with Native knowledge. This is not news to Native people. When I met Oglala Lakota elder Candace Ducheneaux in Standing Rock, she talked to me about how these diseases that are so common in modern society and more heavily so in Indian Country are diseases that were brought by the colonizers.

We talked about diabetes, which I had been taught in medical school is a disease of insulin resistance. Either your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin or your body’s cells are not sensitive to the insulin. These are both ways of seeing things that are based in a sense of individualism and predetermination.

On the Standing Rock reservation, before the damming of Mni Sose or the Missouri River, diabetes was rare. Actually across Turtle Island, diabetes was virtually nonexistent. Once the river was dammed, it ended up flooding nearby cottonwood forests. By shifting the ecology through a colonizing force, the people became more dependent on the cash economy for their food and medicine, and they lost the essential cultural connection to their traditional ways. This tragic loss of the commons is a hallmark of capitalist society, and the impact is felt in the individual body.

After the damming of the river, rates of diabetes skyrocketed. This story is similar for tribes all over Turtle Island. It is important to recognize this didn’t happen simply because people became more sedentary and consequently more obese. This happened because of colonization, not by changing the indigenous body, but by changing the social structures around that body, which in turn creates disease.

One powerful study from Alberta demonstrated that First Nations tribes that had maintained their cultural continuity specifically through language had lower rates of diabetes. Just imagine that.

This is what is protective. It’s not the low carb, paleo diet. It’s not exercise. It’s not the latest fad or trend. This study also showed that self-determinism has a powerful protective effect from diabetes for Indigenous People. These same factors had a protective effect against suicide for Indigenous People in Canada, who experience rates two to five times the national average. This example, to me, demonstrates how disease is a complex manifestation of social and biological influences on groups of individuals that results in a common expression – here, diabetes.

While we can understand this clearly from a Native American experience, we must be aware that these social structures of domination produce trauma and inflammation for all of us. We are all affected.

So what can we do in the face of this knowledge that can seem so overwhelming? Simple things can have huge effects.

To heal the diseases that are caused by the trauma of colonization, we must decolonize. If colonization represents a dis-integration and a disconnection, we must reconnect. Our work is two-pronged: to reintegrate and to dismantle. We must reintegrate what has been divided and conquered in our societies, between our peoples, between us and the natural world around us, and within ourselves. We can do this in many ways: by promoting acts that increase local autonomy and self-determinism, by exposing the myth of treating the individual as limited in its ability to actually address root causes of diseases, by reconnecting to who we were before our respective colonization – through songs, traditional knowledge, reawakening our food and medicine ways, and reawakening our relationships to each other, to the Earth around us, and to other beings. We must dismantle those systems of domination that create and recreate cycles of trauma and inflammation, those systems that work in service of capitalism.

This is my vision of holistic healthcare.

Integrated, Holistic Healthcare

What does that look like for my work? How do I use my whitecoat privilege to address things systemically? Aside from starting to address diseases with my patients in the hospital as directly related to these phenomena, I’m doing these things:

With regards to integration, I have been invited to help create a clinic and farm to develop the practice of Decolonizing Medicine at Standing Rock, together with tribal members and healers Linda Black Elk and Luke Black Elk, great-grandson of Black Elk medicine man. We have been developing a framework for how to offer care that centralizes Lakota cosmology, an understanding of disease and health, and to create a model that can be replicable to other places and in other specific contexts.

We have incredible partners, including Mass Design Group and National Nurses United, as well as the Do No Harm Coalition at UCSF, who are over 400 healthcare workers committed to ending systems of oppression as a way of insuring health for all. We have raised over a million dollars so far, thanks to generous gifts from the Jena & Michael King Foundation, Colin Kaepernick, and crowdfunding, and seek five million more to break ground on this exciting project.

The Justice Study

With regards to dismantling systems of oppression, I have been working on a national study of the health effects of law enforcement violence or terrorism, called the Justice Study. We were asked by the community fighting for justice for 26-year-old Mario Woods, who was gunned down by SFPD in 2016, to create a study that would answer this question: If the wound is police violence and the medicine is justice, what happens to our health when the medicine is not given?

We gathered a team of public health workers and researchers, and we are currently actively compiling data. It’s already illuminating, showing how many areas of people’s lives are affected by police violence. We know that Native Americans, Black and Latinx people experience disproportionate rates of police violence, and we can see that they are most impacted by the long-standing effects of violence. How does this reality contribute to the health disparities that we see?

Across all races, we are being traumatized, with black, brown, and Indigenous people being affected more intensely. We are continuing to collect data, and we’ll be offering it to policy makers who wish to shape community safety away from models that uphold white supremacist frameworks into ones that create safety and mitigate harm for all of us.

What I want you to remember is this:

Health is impossible when living in systems of oppression.

We cannot effectively treat diseases like diabetes with a drug without addressing the systems that make diabetes so prevalent.

We must redefine the scope of healthcare workers and the work of healthcare to include not only care at the bedside of the individual, but dismantling the systems of oppression that create the conditions for illness.

And finally, we must reintegrate with the Earth, with each other, and within ourselves. We must decolonize.

#medicine #health #science #decolonizing #decolonization #sustainability #sustainable #healthcare #medical science #colonialism #capitalism #white supremacy #resources #resource #info #information #decolonizing healthcare #wellness

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napoleoninrags · 4 years

Text

Anthony Bourdain wrote:

"Americans love Mexican food. We consume nachos, tacos, burritos, tortas, enchiladas, tamales and anything resembling Mexican in enormous quantities. We love Mexican beverages, happily knocking back huge amounts of tequila, mezcal, and Mexican beer every year. We love Mexican people—we sure employ a lot of them. Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, and look after our children. As any chef will tell you, our entire service economy—the restaurant business as we know it—in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers. Some, of course, like to claim that Mexicans are “stealing American jobs.” But in two decades as a chef and employer, I never had ONE American kid walk in my door and apply for a dishwashing job, a porter’s position—or even a job as a prep cook. Mexicans do much of the work in this country that Americans, probably, simply won’t do.

We love Mexican drugs. Maybe not you personally, but “we”, as a nation, certainly consume titanic amounts of them—and go to extraordinary lengths and expense to acquire them. We love Mexican music, Mexican beaches, Mexican architecture, interior design, Mexican films.

So, why don’t we love Mexico?

We throw up our hands and shrug at what happens and what is happening just across the border. Maybe we are embarrassed. Mexico, after all, has always been there for us, to service our darkest needs and desires. Whether it’s dress up like fools and get passed-out drunk and sunburned on spring break in Cancun, throw pesos at strippers in Tijuana, or get toasted on Mexican drugs, we are seldom on our best behavior in Mexico. They have seen many of us at our worst. They know our darkest desires.

In the service of our appetites, we spend billions and billions of dollars each year on Mexican drugs—while at the same time spending billions and billions more trying to prevent those drugs from reaching us. The effect on our society is everywhere to be seen. Whether it’s kids nodding off and overdosing in small town Vermont, gang violence in L.A., burned out neighborhoods in Detroit—it’s there to see. What we don’t see, however, haven’t really noticed, and don’t seem to much care about, is the 80,000 dead in Mexico, just in the past few years—mostly innocent victims. Eighty thousand families who’ve been touched directly by the so-called “War On Drugs”.

Mexico. Our brother from another mother. A country, with whom, like it or not, we are inexorably, deeply involved, in a close but often uncomfortable embrace. Look at it. It’s beautiful. It has some of the most ravishingly beautiful beaches on earth. Mountains, desert, jungle. Beautiful colonial architecture, a tragic, elegant, violent, ludicrous, heroic, lamentable, heartbreaking history. Mexican wine country rivals Tuscany for gorgeousness. Its archeological sites—the remnants of great empires, unrivaled anywhere. And as much as we think we know and love it, we have barely scratched the surface of what Mexican food really is. It is NOT melted cheese over tortilla chips. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply “bro food” at halftime. It is in fact, old—older even than the great cuisines of Europe, and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated. A true mole sauce, for instance, can take DAYS to make, a balance of freshly (always fresh) ingredients painstakingly prepared by hand. It could be, should be, one of the most exciting cuisines on the planet, if we paid attention. The old school cooks of Oaxaca make some of the more difficult and nuanced sauces in gastronomy. And some of the new generation—many of whom have trained in the kitchens of America and Europe—have returned home to take Mexican food to new and thrilling heights.

It’s a country I feel particularly attached to and grateful for. In nearly 30 years of cooking professionally, just about every time I walked into a new kitchen, it was a Mexican guy who looked after me, had my back, showed me what was what, and was there—and on the case—when the cooks like me, with backgrounds like mine, ran away to go skiing or surfing or simply flaked. I have been fortunate to track where some of those cooks come from, to go back home with them. To small towns populated mostly by women—where in the evening, families gather at the town’s phone kiosk, waiting for calls from their husbands, sons and brothers who have left to work in our kitchens in the cities of the North. I have been fortunate enough to see where that affinity for cooking comes from, to experience moms and grandmothers preparing many delicious things, with pride and real love, passing that food made by hand from their hands to mine.

In years of making television in Mexico, it’s one of the places we, as a crew, are happiest when the day’s work is over. We’ll gather around a street stall and order soft tacos with fresh, bright, delicious salsas, drink cold Mexican beer, sip smoky mezcals, and listen with moist eyes to sentimental songs from street musicians. We will look around and remark, for the hundredth time, what an extraordinary place this is.

The received wisdom is that Mexico will never change. That is hopelessly corrupt, from top to bottom. That it is useless to resist—to care, to hope for a happier future. But there are heroes out there who refuse to go along. On this episode of “Parts Unknown,” we meet a few of them. People who are standing up against overwhelming odds, demanding accountability, demanding change—at great, even horrifying personal cost."

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lesbianaglaya · 4 years

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Please elaborate on that The Idiot essay

Okay anon, ask and ye shall receive. Here is my manifesto on why I love The Idiot (1868-1869). Homoeroticism and me crying over Bakhtin under the cut.

Okay from here on out let me just warn you that there will be discussion of epilepsy, sexual abuse, violence against women, murder, and suicide. I never claimed it wasn’t a messed up story.

Let me start off by saying, this is not a good novel. It was written as a desperate cash grab by Dostoevsky after he and his wife Anna had had to move to Switzerland for financial reasons (they were rather continually in debt due to Dostoevsky’s gambling problem. In fact, they’d met when Fyodor hired Anna as a stenographer to help him write down The Gambler, the completion of which he’d bet all his rights to his published works on). The four separate parts are only loosely linked by narrative threads, things don’t follow the course you would expect from a work of literature, and the protagonist of the novel’s literal schtick is that he was supposed to be “a perfectly beautiful man”. Which, yeah, great in theory but in reality people don’t want perfect protagonists. The morals of the novel tend towards Dostoevsky’s own often troubling views of religion and morality, and it is a distinctly 19th century work.

And yet, it’s still one of my favourite things I’ve ever read. Not only are there some truly insane homoerotic moments in here, but there are some brilliant moments of play with narrative voice, society novel-esque shenanigans, questions about the nature of goodness and what that really means, and, of course, one really hot moment where a woman slaps a guy who’s being a dick in the face with a riding crop.

The loose plot of the novel is that Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin, the eponymous idiot (and a holy fool, or as Dostoevsky once described him, “Prince Christ”), is returning to Russia from a period of many years in Switzerland being treated for epilepsy. On the train into Petersburg he meets Rogozhin, a young man who has just inherited an enormous fortune after the death of his father. They begin talking, and Rogozhin confides in Myshkin about his love for (read: obsession with) a girl known as Nastasya Filipovna. (This seems weird doesn’t it? Just confessing your major life problems to this weird guy sitting next to you on the train? Yea that’s just what people do around Myshkin). Upon arriving in Petersburg, Myshkin goes to meet with his distant relations, the Epanchins, to get to know them and form a family connection. The rest of the novel is these characters cycling through various love (?) plots, more random inheritances, people dying of consumption, going to stay in the country for a while Just Because, and other stereotypical 19th century novel things.

What makes it unique is that each character is their own person with their own thoughts, experiences and world views and the novel is these views interacting and clashing, or as Bakhtin puts it “a plurality of consciousness, with equal rights and each with its own world”. The characters are not there to help prove any thesis or idea; instead the thesis of the novel is how these characters differing views interact with each other. Myshkin is the lens of this, making it a picture of how each different character (or world view) reacts to his inherent goodness.

Of course, that’s all very... meta. Fun to discuss, but it doesn’t necessarily make the book fun to read. That’s where Nastasya Filipovna comes in.

Nastasya Filipovna, the girl that Rogoshin is “in love with” is a young woman who was born to nobility but orphaned and then sexually abused and turned into a concubine by her guardian Totsky. At the beginning of the novel she has escaped the control of Totsky and is in the incredibly tenuous situation of being provided an income from him for not completely destroying his reputation. A marriage has been arranged by Totsky (so that he won't have to worry about her any more) between her and this one asshole Ganya, but she has not agreed to it yet and has said she will announce her decision at her name day party.

At said name day party is where things get Crazy. She goes ham, mocking Ganya (who she knows hates her) for selling himself for the money promised in marrying her, verbally torturing Totsky, and generally saying fuck you to everyone while also tossing in a good amount of self hatred. Myshkin (whom she invited after meeting him once earlier that day for like five seconds seriously just role with it) declares quite earnestly that he thinks she is a good person and if she likes he’ll marry her amd also that he just inherited a fuck ton of money. Nastya is taken aback, and agrees to marry Myshkin. Then Rogozhin shows up (drunk, with the lads) and we find out Nastya has been planning all this. She tells Myshkin that she can’t actually marry him because he’s too innocent and she believes herself to be awful, and then asks Rogozhin for the money he promised her. Rogozhin hands over 100,000 rubles and Nastasya proceeds to toss them in the fire, tell Ganya that they’re his if he’ll reach in to get them out, and then leaves her own party with Rogozhin!!! I said this novel was batshit!!!!

Nastya through out the novel continues to be The Best Character, writing homoerotic letters to Aglaya Epanchina, who I FIRMLY choose to see as a lesbian, smoking cigars, and of course, upon hearing a man say of her “Here you simply need a whip, there’s no other way with this creature”, in return “she rushed to a young man completely unknown to her who was standing two steps away and holding a thin, braided riding crop, tore it out of his hand, and struck the offender accross the face as hard as she could”. Iconique. Of course, her story ends tragically but we’ll get into that later.

To quickly touch on Aglaya Epanchina, because I love her, she is one of the daughters of the Epanchin family, she and Myshkin almost get married, and she ends the novel by running off with a foreigner and becoming (horrified whisper) Catholic. Anyway she and Nastya have a brief but horribly gay dicourse where Nastya confesses her love (platonic of course. That is definitely how I, a lesbian, read this) for Aglaya and Aglaya refuses to believe her. Aglaya says she wants to marry Myshkin specifically because then she wouldn’t have to be a wife and a mother and could pursue what she wants and continue to learn. Also at one point Aglaya adopts a hedgehog. That’s Lesbianism Baybee. Her ending is supposed to be tragic but I choose to believe that her marriage is a lavender marriage and she and her gay husband are having wild fun around Europe. Let me have this.

Now for what you’ve all been waiting for — more homoeroticism.

Myshkin and Rogoshin’s dynamic is, like, fully insane. After their first meeting on the train, Rogozhin says to Myshkin “Prince, I don’t know why I’ve come to love you. . . . Come and see me, Prince. We’ll take those wretched gaiters off you; I’ll dress you in a top-notch marten coat; I’ll have the best of tailcoats made for you, a white waistcoat, or whatever you like; I’ll stuff your pockets with money”. Slow down lover boy you met this man five minutes ago and you’re already trying to sugar daddy him?? It only gets worse from here.

Part II of the novel picks up six months after the name day party. Rogozhin and Myshkin have in the intervening time “often happened to spend long hours together, and there had even been several moments during their meetings that had left an all too memorable imprint upon their hearts”. Yeah. It’s also said that Rogozhin is jealous of Myshkin maybe holding some of Nastya’s affection but like. It just reads a lot like Rogozhin is torn between Nastya and Myshkin, which he is in a way because being in love with friends with Myshkin and Nastya (lavender) marrying Myshkin (that’s not an exaggeration it’s basically out right stated that if Myshkin and Nastya married they would not have sex), would mean giving up the weird destructive obsession he and Nastya have with each other. This is supposed to imply coming to Jesus. I take it as accepting your homosexuality because Dostoevsky is dead and I can do what I want.

So Myshkin shows up at Rogozhin’s house and things are a bit awkward (Rogozhin has maybe been stalking Myshkin??) His “affectionate” smile is described “as if something had been broken, and try as he might, he was unable to glue it back together.” Anyway.

They begin actually talking and oh boy. I’ll just present these without comment.

“I’ve come to bring you peace, because you, too, are dear to me. I love you very much Parfyon. And now I’ll go and never come again. Farewell.” “‘Stay with me a little’ Parfyon said quietly, without getting up from his place and leaning his head on his right hand, ‘I haven’t seen you in a very long time.’”

“When you’re not in front of me, I feel spite for you Lev Nikolaevich. . . . Now you haven’t sat with me a quarter of an hour and all my spite is gone, and I love you like before. Stay with me a little . . .’”

“Nobody’s asking our opinion. It got decided without us. And we love differently too.”

“I didn’t want to come here! I wanted to forget everything here, tear it out of my heart!”

Not to mention the jealousy Rogozhin has for the perceived relationship between Myshkin and Nastya. Hmmmm. Anyway after all That, Rogozhin insists that he and Myshkin trade crosses, his golden one for Myshkin’s tin one.

And THEN Rogozhin proceeds to stop Myshkin from leaving again, and takes him to get his mother’s blessing, which is the same thing he did with Nastasya!!!!!! I feel insane.

After this Myshkin returns to his hotel but then Rogozhin follows him and um. Tries to stab him. With the knife that’s been built up as a phallic symbol through the whole novel. But then Myshkin falls into an epileptic fit and Rogozhin flees. Like this is deeply fucked up but What The Hell am I supposed to be thinking rn??

Anyway the next time they meet it’s in the countryside and Myshkin has fully forgiven him for the murder attempt. Indeed “struck by Rogozhin’s sudden appearance, the prince was unable to collect his thoughts for sometime, and a painful sensation rose again in his heart.”

Rogoshin has apparently not forgiven himself for trying to kill Myshkin, to which Myshkin responds “all that you went through that day I now know as well as I know my own self. What you were imagining did not and could not exist.” *jenny slate scream*

Myshkin proceeds to invite Rogozhin home with him, saying “I have some wine, we’ll drink wine, you must wish me something I myself don’t know how to wish for now, and it’s precisely you who must wish it, and I’ll wish you your fullest happiness. Or else give me back my cross! You didn’t even send it back to me the next day! You’re wearing it? Wearing it even now?” and THEN he says “I don’t want to meet my new life without you because my new life has begun! Don’t you know that my new life begins today?” and then they head home together.

Okay skipping over a bunch of stuff because 1) I havent read the novel in a year and while i know there’s more stuff in there I don’t know exactly where and I don’t want to be flipping pages for another hour and 2) this is already insanely long so. For context in the intervening time Rogozhin and Nastya do end up getting married (which everyone including the two of them kind of agree that it’s just a way for them both to kill each other/basically comit suicide. Fun!). So that’s exactly what happens, and Myshkin runs to their house, arriving too late and finding that Rogozhin has stabbed Nastya and she is dead. Thus ensues a scene that makes me so insane I cant... look here just take this:

“‘So let her lie here now, next to us, next to me and you...’

‘Yes, yes!’ the prince agreed warmly.”

And

“‘I’ll make up the bed and you can lie down... and I’ll lie down with you... and we’ll listen... because I don’t know yet man... I don’t know everything yet, man, so I’m telling you about it ahead of time, so you’ll know all about it ahead of time...’”

And

“But two people could not lie on the sofa, and he absolutely wanted to make up beds now side by side, and that way why, with great effort, he now dragged pillows of various sizesfrom both sofas all the way across the room, right up to the opening in the curtain. The bed got made up anyhow; he went over to the prince, took him tenderly and rapturously by the arm, got him to his feet, and led him to the bed”

And

“[Rogozhin was] laying the prince down on the left, better, pillows, himself on the right”

And

“‘What did you use? A knife? That same one?’

‘That same one’”

And

“The prince would reach out his trembling hand to him and quietly touch his head, his hair, stroke it and stroke his cheeks... there was nothing more he could do! . . . and pressed his face to the pale and motionless face of Rogozhin; tears flowed from his eyes onto Rogozhin’s cheeks”

And

“He quietly hastened to pass his trembling hand over his hair and cheeks, as if caressing and soothing him”

And then the cops show up and there’s a brief epilogue talking about how everything is terrible now and Myshkin goes back to Switzerland because he’s incoherent with grief. Insane.

So there’s also a lot in this novel about what is actually good, and how people react when confronted with goodness, etc. etc. but this is five pages in google docs and I need to. Stop. Anyway if you made it to the end cheers this novel is awful and insane and I love it. Dostoevsky do not interact I hate your crusty ass even if your prose makes me feel things.

#gabby.txt #mail #anon #the idiot #anyway sorry this took so long but ah. yeah.#i have a lot of Thoughts #literature #Anonymous

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militant-holy-knight · 4 years

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Tom Kratman’s Caliphate Review: Disturbingly Prophetic

Its easy to forget that outright right-winged/conservative literature actually exists though admittedly it’s hard to find those with actual merit nor enjoy the same popularity as other types of works. I’ve came across one example written by retired US Army soldier Tom Kratman whom you may or may have not heard about if you are familiar with the Sad Puppies incident from 2015, where the Hugo Awards were biased against writers with conservative leanings. Kratman is someone who delights in offending left-wing sensibilities by his own admission and it’s reflected in his works that often deal with themes like fighting Muslim terrorists in sci-fi settings. One such of these works is Caliphate, written in 2008 and it struck me how... prescient this book was about the contemporary times and may well still be for the future.

The premise is as follows: Islamic terrorists seize nuclear weapons and use it to nuke three American cities during September 11 (as well as London and Israel). The American outrage against Muslims spirals into the election of a third-party populist candidate who promises vengeance against this attack, which he does by simultaneously nuking all Islamic countries in the world (and North Korea for good measure). This disaster leads to an massive exodus of Muslims into Europe who migrate there and thanks to their massive birthrates, they are able to hijack countries by voting for hardcore Islamist parties (as democracy must abide by the majority). They transform Europe - or at least Western Europe or the countries associated with the EU - into a Islamic empire, the titular Caliphate which functions like a hybrid of the modern day Islamist regime like the Taliban, ISIS and Boko Haram (public executions, lashings, women can’t be seen outside without being covered), and the Ottoman Empire (conscription and brainwashing of dhimmis into military service).

The story follows two parallel narratives: one in the distant future over a century after the terrorist attack where America has transformed into a totalitarian empire know as ISA (Imperial States of America) which is in cold war against the Caliphate in Europe and a second one set in “present days” when things are relatively normal but then we witness the events quickly fall apart. The first one follows John Hamilton, an disillusioned American soldier who is recruited by the CIA to infiltrate the Caliphate and investigate a trio of Canadian scientists who are working in a virus to destroy America. The second one follows Gabrielle, a liberal German woman that sees the collapse of Europe up close and tying them together is that she is the ancestor of one of the main characters. These narratives are told simultaneously and are always accompanied by critical quotes of Islam in their opening.

You’d think a work like this would be simply “AMERICA FUCK YEAH” and “FUCK ISLAM” over and over, but Kratman actually does a surprising amount of nuance. For one, it’s made clear that this America is really a dystopia and not an ideal place to live, reflected by its actions and Hamilton’s thoughts about it - at one point, US soldiers carry out ethnic cleansing against Moros in the Philippines and Hamilton is disturbed even after someone close to him died because of them. And while the book doesn’t hold back in bashing Islam, not all of them are portrayed as intolerant religious fanatics - there are genuinely good characters and even some grey ones with complexity added to them. For that matter, even non-Muslims can be villains too so it isn’t a black and white kind of work.

A surprising amount of world-building was put in place to make this world interesting: it’s established that the USA has occupied Canada and the Philippines, England has turned into an absolute monarchy, China has become some kind of transhuman empire, only a portion of Europe is actually under the Caliphate control with most of Eastern Europe under Russia control (because of course) and it’s heavily implied Israel has carried out a final solution against Palestinians. This can however can be a detriment because all these interesting paths are presented but never truly explored. We never see how the UK is under the absolute monarchy, nor this Russian tsardom and we only hear whispers about how bad China is in the distant future (which is implied to be worse than the Caliphate). The one that truly does get any exposure is the Neo-Boer State which was established in the southern half of the African continent by European refugees fleeing from Muslims in their own country and has a section of the story taking place there.

Besides Hamilton, there are other viewpoints in the story with the ones after his following German brothers Hans and Petra, two Christian siblings that live in the Caliphate and are taken apart by the devishrme-like system. He becomes a janissary soldier, while she becomes a servant in a Muslim household. Their stories are actually far more compelling than Hamilton since their struggles are more personal while Hamilton wouldn’t be out of place in a video game where he starred as it’s generic Space Marine protagonist. Hans remains a Christian despite his outward conversion to Islam and actively rebels against Caliphate culture which leads to him adopting a crusader identity, while Petra’s storyline explores the woes faced by women under a fundamentalist Islamic regime i.e. not unlike what those who endured Taliban or ISIS regime.

And make no mistake: the story never holds back on the graphic content. There is plenty of violence including impalement, crucifixions, sexual attacks and etc, which may be a turn off for many readers, and it doesn’t help they have to drive home how dystopian this setting is. It may come across as over-the-top as it made me wonder how plausible this Caliphate could even function (it’s established that the Caliphate can only function in a slave-based economy or taxing the dhimmis, which they can’t afford to abuse or exile since they’d collapse). The Arab Peninsula was once unified under Muhammad and his four successors who drove out all Christians, Jews and polytheists from their lands, but then fell into tribalism and stayed that way for centuries with only Mecca and Medina (the only relevant sites of Islam) being controlled by outsider Muslims.

I know I make the story sound unrealistic and fantastical, but the main takeway from this book I had was how prophetic the story was in regards to the current and political atmosphere. Keep in mind that what I am about to write was published in April 2008, in a completely different scenario than the one we live:

The insane American president who nukes the Islamic world is very Trumpesque and shares similar slogans (”WE WILL MAKE THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS PAY”). He is basically what leftists believed Trump would actually do if he was elected like put Muslims in internment camps like the Japanese-Americans in WW2.

Great Britain actually breaks out from the European Union, except under much different circumstances: rather than voting themselves out like Brexit, they turn into an absolute monarchy once again and become completely isolationist.

The rise of an brutal, terrorist regime mirrors the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that rose to prominence during the Arab Spring in 2011.

A large-scale migration of Middle-Easterns into the West triggered by some kind of disaster, only it was an genocidal attack in the book rather than the consequences of a regional movement that led to the collapse of MENA states with the Arab Spring.

The “present day” narrative also presents scenarios no different than the current reality of Europe with no-go zones where migrants of Muslim background are involved in criminal activity and target the native population as seen in France, Germany and Sweden.

Islamists infiltrating democratic institutions in order to impose their values as seen with many neighbors in Belgium and the Netherlands where Muslims are the majority to the native population.

Russia expanding their control over Eastern Europe mirroring their foreign policy to consolidate their regional superpower status.

China being up to no good with technology.

And of course a deadly virus engineered to destroy political rivals, though this time by rogue scientists working for Muslim terrorists rather than China.

It’s possible that some of Kratman wrote was already true of his time which served as basis for the present day narrative. But reality was much different back then: Obama was yet to become President and Bush was still in office (and nobody had an idea how the former would turn out), China was less despotic then than it’s now under Xi Jinping, the Russo-Georgian War was still to take place and migration to the West was relatively low compared to after the 2015′s refugee crisis, the UKIP was considered a fringe party and the UK leaving the European Union was a distant dream. Nobody was talking about no-go zones, but then again the Internet wasn’t as big back then as it’s now. Rather than writing about the modern political atmosphere of his time, Kratman envisioned a possible future which he predicted fairly closely and at the same time, it spoke about issues that are relevant to anyone who isn’t afraid to speak about the problems regarding Islamic ideology or integration of migrants into their host countries.

What depressed me the most about the book is that it’s dystopian reality may be our own future. It’s an common concern for conservatives and right-wingers that Muslims become a majority in the West - a boast that they never cease making - soon which might lead to an eventual clash of civilizations. A quarter of Belgium might be Islamic and this is possible because of enabling from leftist politicians that flirt with radicals for convenience and consider the values they promote like women and LGBT rights to be an acceptable sacrifice to overthrow conservative capitalism. This kind of behavior is actually acknowledged and mocked by Kratman, as Gabrielle is an radical SJW that hates Western conservatives more than Islamists to the point this leads to the breakdown with her relationship with an Egyptian migrant that converts to Christianity and ends up moving to the USA before becoming a authoritarian regime.

The book presents Islam’s conquest of Europe as a complete surrender without a fight - the migrants just breed like rats and vote for Islamist parties to hijack the government through legitimate means and one American ambassador chides Gabrielle and her people for abandoning their own values and allowing this to happen. This probably speaks a lot to the more cynical among us who see our governments bending over to outsiders over their own people and see where it might be headed. Personally I don’t believe a caliphate is where the future is headed, as it provides no real attractive alternative that the West has presented, but it certainly won’t stop some people from trying and there will be certainly a fight.

Are we really going have to look forward for an revived Ottoman Empire in the heartland of Europe where Christian boys are whipped into slave-soldiers, girls are sold to harems like cheap prostitutes and non-Muslims live like second class citizens being forced to pay outrageous, humiliating taxes like the jizya? Hopefully not, but the possibility of terrorists acquiring nukes is an always constant one, and with the Iranian nuclear program will push it’s neighbors to do the same as form of deterrence if they feel threatened. Knowing how fragile Muslims states are and that if those nukes fell into the wrong hands, the events of the book could be precipitated but luckily for us, nuclear armament is expensive and takes a lot of work which not even the wealthiest countries like Saudi Arabia can afford to develop it themselves, let alone the poorest ones like Syria and Iraq so that might not be a reality just now.

Do I recommend this book? The world is very interesting, it’s actually a bit more complex and nuanced as both sides don’t come off as “bright” (albeit the Caliphate is presented as worse). If you want to see a book that talks about issues you find relevant like immigration and terrorism from a conservative perspective, this is a must-read. The main protagonist can be very dull whereas the secondary protagonists are more compelling - it depends on how much you like military heroes written by an American veteran I guess. While the ending to the main story was satisfying on itself (the present day ends on a sad foregone conclusion), it sets up a sequel with many plot threads going unresolved. It’s disappointing to me since this is a standalone book and Kratman hasn’t indicated any plans on writing a follow-up, though if he did it now I am sure he would have done so without a completely different perspective than the one he has in 2008 and he would have certainly got more material to work with.

P.S. This book has a Skanderbeg reference, so it’s an instant win for me.

#reviews

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wearejapanese · 5 years

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By Yuka Nakao, KYODO NEWS

After several high-profile incidents in recent years highlighted Japan's problems with sexism, a Japanese women's studies pioneer has been presented a special recognition from Finland, a leading country in promoting gender equality.

Chizuko Ueno, a sociologist and a prominent feminist figure in Japan, was one of the first 16 recipients from around the world to receive the Han Honours. She was acknowledged for her "tirelessly and fearlessly" work toward gender equality, according to the Finland Promotion Board.

Through her research, books and activities, Ueno has continuously provoked debates in issues including gender discrimination and sexual violence.

In April, Ueno gave an impassioned and unfiltered speech at the University of Tokyo matriculation ceremony, in which she said the nation's top university is not immune from gender problems and, like any major institution, reflects society's tendency to discriminate against women.

The 70-year-old scholar, who is also a chief director of NPO Women's Action Network, pointed out that less than 20 percent of students entering the University of Tokyo are female. This is despite there being plentiful evidence that female applicants have higher standard scores than their male competitors.

Ueno said one reason for the discrepancy is the gender discrimination that is inherent in the education investment decisions made by Japanese parents. Traditionally, sons are expected to attend university while daughters will often be enrolled in junior colleges.

Even Todai female students feel compelled to conform to Japanese social norms. Ueno gave the example of such students hiding the fact that they were able to enter the prestigious institution in order not to show up male students from other universities, but when the roles are reversed, male students are happy to boast.

She also referred to a criminal case in which five male students sexually abused a female student that attended a private university. One of the accused said during his court hearing that he had looked down on women because they are "stupid."

Ueno reminded newly enrolled students who prevailed against their peers in the fierce entrance exams that they can thank their good circumstances as much as their hard work for them getting to where they are. She said they were lucky to have people around them who encouraged them, supported them, lent a helping hand, and recognized their accomplishments.

"There are people whose drive is dampened even before they try because of negative comments or thoughts like 'You won't succeed no matter what' or 'After all, nobody believes in me,'" she said. "I hope you won't focus your efforts only to win the game for yourself."

"I hope you will use your gifted talents and favorable environment to help those who are less fortunate, and do not denigrate them. And I hope you live your life by accepting who you are even with your weaknesses and by helping and supporting each other," she continued.

The scholar told Kyodo News that, at first, she thought of declining the offer to give the speech.

After considering the social situation in Japan and learning that there were people in the university who worked hard to nominate her, she decided to go ahead.

Ueno said no one tried to intervene in or censor her speech, in which, when explaining women's studies, she covered topics like what women used before tampons and sanitary napkins were ubiquitous, as well as the plight of sexual minorities in Japan.

"I appreciate the trust the university administration placed in me," she said.

The scholar said discrimination against women in Japan is the consequence of political mistakes in the past decades, and thus "a human disaster."

As globalization changed the world, all societies looked to bring women into the labor market, requiring the domestic burden they traditionally carried to be transferred.

While Northern Europe and North America relied on care service in the public sector or cheap labor in the market, countries such as Italy, Spain, Greece, South Korea and Japan looked to a strong male breadwinner model.

The model, in which men earn a living and women tended to domestic and care duties, "privatized" unpaid work in which grandmothers were called upon to care for younger family members, Ueno said.

"But now, none of these options work in Japan," she said, adding that "what has happened is that gender has become something functionally equivalent to race or class in other societies."

The aftermath of a political decision manifested in the fertility rate, Ueno said.

Countries with a male breadwinner model have the lowest fertility rate, with Japan at 1.42 as of 2018 -- well below the 2.07 necessary to sustain the population. The rate figure represents the average number of children a woman will bear in her lifetime.

Although Japan's equal employment opportunity law came into force in 1986, women's double burden of work and family care has not changed. Combined with the easing of a series of labor regulations, the number of irregular workers increased dramatically.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 56.8 percent of female workers were in irregular employment as of January 2019, more than twice the percentage as male workers.

But with neo-liberalism pushing "self-determinism and self- responsibility" as a principle, the most socially vulnerable were made to believe that they are at fault for efforts that fail to pay off, while the people with the most advantages believe they owe their success solely to their own abilities, Ueno explained.

"This is what I've been saying is wrong," she said.

Although it is hard to change this trajectory immediately, Ueno says there are changes afoot.

"It's not true that the #MeToo movement did not spread in Japan," Ueno said, pointing to women who took to the streets to denounce Finance Minister Taro Aso after his comments that seemed to make light of an alleged case of sexual harassment by then-Vice Finance Minister Junichi Fukuda.

A man alleged to be Fukuda can be heard asking in an audio clip released by the Shukan Shincho magazine, "Can I give you a hug?" and "Can I touch your breasts?" Fukuda stepped down after the accusations but has continued to deny them.

Aso, a 78-year-old former prime minister, came under fire after saying that there is "no such thing as a sexual harassment charge."

"It's not the same as charges of murder or sexual assault," he told reporters. But in Japan, perpetrators of sexual harassment can be charged with crimes, including sexual assault, rape, or libel.

The protesters included women lining the sidewalk in front of the Finance Ministry building in Tokyo holding signs reading "We won't condone sexual harassment" and "#WithYou" in a show of solidarity with victims of sexual abuse.

Similar protests, organized via social media by women's rights activists, were held in Kyoto and Sapporo.

Another significant shift is coming from older Japanese women apologizing to younger women for failing to raise their voices against sexual abuse in the past.

In an online edition of magazine Hon no Mado, Kyoko Nakajima, a writer in her 50s, lamented that she had not been more vocal when journalist Shiori Ito, born in 1989, shocked the country by alleging a high-profile journalist had raped her, only to suffer an intense public backlash.

"If our generation had raised our voices, society might have changed, even a little," Nakajima reportedly told Ito. "I am really sorry for (leaving) the situation where you had to persevere on your own."

"There are no young women now who think men are better than them," Ueno said. "The problem lies in society, whether it is ready for them or not."

After the matriculation ceremony, the University of Tokyo newspaper conducted an online questionnaire and received answers from 4,921 people, including 603 students.

According to the reports, 61.7 percent of the University of Tokyo students were in favor of the speech, while 87.5 percent of people outside the university valued it. Among the students, 82.2 percent of women appreciated the speech, while 53.1 percent of men responded positively.

"As a graduate of a public high school in a rural region, I feel that one's environment hugely impacts their further education," a male fourth-year law student wrote when explaining why he appreciated Ueno's speech.

"I think those of us who successfully entered the University of Tokyo for some reason, have to bear a responsibility to make society better in any way."

Many respondents reserved judgment, and those who disapproved of the speech argued that Ueno's interpretation was arbitrary or unsuitable for a celebratory occasion, the report said.

But one third-year female arts and sciences student said the speech had a massive impact.

"I think the speech described well the situation of female students in the university as well as women and minorities in society," she wrote.

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/06/5fbad0a24182-feature-feminist-scholar-calls-japans-gender-problem-human-disaster.html

#Kyodo News #Yuka Nakao #Nakao Yuka #Chizuko Ueno #上野千鶴子 #Feminist #Feminism #Japan #上野千鶴子 #Gender Inequality #Sexism #Japanese #Japanese Culture #University of Tokyo

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latter-day-saint-nick · 4 years

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Here‘s a list of all the books with queer protagonists I’ve read this year. While I do actively seek those out, there are several books on here that I didn’t know had queer themes when I picked them up from the library and then I was pleasantly surprised by lesbians. I‘ll avoid spoilers except when discussing trigger warnings.

Kaleidoscope Song by Fox Benwell

Neo, a South African teenager, is obsessed with music of any kind. Her love of music brings her together with the singer of a local band and they have a passionate relationship that they must keep secret. The descriptions of Neo‘s life and her tendency to hear music in everything are beautiful and dynamic. The author included a list of the songs Neo is listening to throughout the book, so I was introduced to a lot of cool music from South Africa and other places. TW: Corrective rape and Bury Your Gays. This is a book by a queer (albeit white British, rather than black South African) author writing about a very real problem that exists within our communities, so it feels different to when a cishet author kills off a queer character just for shock value. I still can‘t help feeling that he could have made the same point without having the character die – just have her be injured. Still, I loved pretty much everything else about the book, so it gets a tentative recommendation from me.

The Mermaid’s Daughter by Ann Claycomb

25-year-old opera student Kathleen tries to cope with the constant pain in her feet, nightmares about having her tongue cut out, and desperate yearning for the sea. With the help of her girlfriend Harry she delves into her family history to uncover the secret of a curse spanning generations of women. What’s nice about this book is that Kathleen and Harry’s relationship is accepted by all their family and friends without question, so if you want to read a nice wlw fantasy story with no homophobia, this one’s for you. TW: Some discussion of suicide, but nothing too graphic.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

A teenage lesbian is sent to conversion therapy by her religious aunt. This is basically a coming-of-age story as the title character comes to terms with her identity and the death of her parents. It’s considered an important work of LGBT YA literature, so I really wanted to like it more than I did. Most of the first half of the novel deals with Cameron’s everyday life in her small town in Montana, which was, to be honest, rather boring to me. The pace of the story picks up a bit once she gets sent to conversion therapy, but even then it’s slower and less eventful than I would have liked. But since it is a popular book, that’s probably just me. I did like that the two best friends she makes at the therapy camp are a disabled girl and an indigenous boy, two types of people that are not often represented in queer fiction, so that’s something. TW: Conversion therapy and self-harm.

Proud by Juno Dawson

This is a collection of poems and stories about queerness aimed at a YA audience, and each one is a pure delight! These stories detail moments of joy and pride that make you feel happy and hopeful about being queer. They include a high school retelling of Pride and Prejudice with lesbians, a nonbinary kid and his D&D group on a quest to disrupt the gender binary at their school, a magical phoenix leading a Chinese girl to find love, and gay penguins. All stories, poems and illustrations are by queer writers and artists. Seriously, I cannot recommend this collection enough!

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

An Irish magical realist story about three girls who perform a spell to find things that they have lost. The spell appears to have wider consequences than they expected, bringing to light things that should have stayed lost. This book has three narrators, two of whom are wlw. It treads a nice line between fantasy and reality, and has some pretty good plot twists. Also, there’s a crossword at the end, which is awesome. More books should come with crosswords.

Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

A space opera trilogy set in the distant future about the embodiment of a ship’s AI who seeks revenge against the ruler of a colonialist empire who destroyed her ship and killed her beloved captain. This is not beginner’s sci-fi, as it is very complex and intricate, but if you’re fine with a bit of a heavier read, you’ll be rewarded with some very interesting concepts. What makes this series queer is that the Raadch empire has no concept of gender and uses female pronouns for everyone. This makes every romantic relationship queer by default, whether we are aware of the characters’ sexes or not. I found it particularly enjoyable when Breq, the protagonist, tried to communicate in different languages that have gendered pronouns, which she had to navigate carefully in order not to offend people. She tries to look for outward clues of gender, such as hairstyles, chest size, facial hair or Adam’s apples, but even then often gets it wrong, because these things are not always consistent. That is just a great depiction of how arbitrary ideas of binary sexual characteristics tend to be. Also, I guess technically Breq is aroace, but since she’s not human, I’m not sure if she can be considered the best representation, though she is a very likeable character that I enjoyed following.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

These books are a lot of fun! They’re historical adventure stories with a bit of fantasy thrown in, featuring disaster bisexual Henry Montague, his snarky aroace sister Felicity and his best friend Percy whom he is secretly in love with. In the first book, the three teenagers are sent on a tour of Europe for various reasons, but they quickly abandon the planned route when they get embroiled in a plot involving theft and alchemy. The second book details Felicity’s further attempts to become a doctor, which leads her to reunite with an old friend and chase a tale of fantastical creatures.

The Spy with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Technically I read this one late last year, but whatever. I just wanted to put it on the list to have an excuse to talk about it. It’s about two Jewish siblings with magic powers who are recruited during World War II to take part in a secret project to fight the Nazis. Both siblings turn out to be queer: the brother is gay and demisexual, while the sister is bisexual, and they each have a love interest. This book is an independent prequel to The Girl with the Red Balloon, which takes place in East Berlin during the time of the Wall, and is just as good, albeit not as gay.

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

This book tends to be classified as fantasy, because it takes place in an alternate, Latin-American-inspired world, with a distinct history, culture and religion, but there’s no magic at all, so I’m not sure it counts. But I digress. The country of Medio is built on classism and acute xenophobia. But by hiding her status as an illegal immigrant, Daniela, a girl from a poor background, manages to rise to the top of her class at her elite finishing school and become the first wife of one of the most powerful young men in the country. But her new comfortable status is threatened when she is pressured to join a group of rebels who fight for equality. At the same time, she also finds herself falling for her husband’s second wife. Obviously, this book’s political message is very topical, but beyond that, it’s just a very good story, with a well fleshed-out fictional world and great characters. This is the first in a series, with the sequel, We Unleash the Merciless Storm, coming out in February.

All Out: The No Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by Saundra Mitchell

A very nice collection of short stories about various queer teenagers in different historical settings, from a medieval monastery to an American suburb on New Year’s Eve in 1999. Most of the stories are realist, but there are a few ghosts and witches to be found in-between. What I found particularly notable about this book is that it featured several asexual characters, which you don’t often see in collections like this. I definitely recommend it.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

This is a thoughtful, heart-warming life story about a woman growing up during the civil war in Nigeria. After Ijeoma, a Christian Igbo girl, is sent away from home, she finds her first love in Amina, a Muslim Hausa. Even after they are found out and separated, Ijeoma doesn’t quite understand what’s so shameful about their love. Still, as she grows older, she attempts to fit into a heteronormative society while also connecting with the things and people that make her happy. TW: Homophobic violence, including an attack on a gay nightclub. The novel makes up for this by having a remarkably happy ending.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

A young man in Victorian London finds a mysterious watch on his pillow, with no idea how it got there. This sets into motion a strange series of events, which leads him to a lonely Japanese watchmaker, to whom he finds himself increasingly drawn. This is an unusual novel that treads the line between historical fiction, fantasy and sci-fi. Most of the characters are morally grey and have complex motivations, but are still likable. I just really enjoy stories that take place in this time period, particularly when they are this thoughtfully written and don’t just take the prejudices of the past for granted.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

A YA book about a transgender teenager, written by a transgender author. After her mother decides that she is not safe in her hometown anymore, high school senior Amanda moves in with her dad in a town where nobody knows her and she can try to go stealth. But even as she is making friends and experiencing romance for the first time, she constantly worries about what will happen if her secret comes out. It’s a fairly standard story about being transgender, really, but as it comes from a trans author, it feels a lot more personal and less voyeuristic than these stories tend to be when coming from a cisgender perspective. Amanda is a sympathetic and compelling character. TW: This book deals with a number of upsetting themes, including transphobic violence, being forcibly outed and suicide. There is a flashback to Amanda’s pre-transition suicide attempt, which I found particularly triggering. I also wish she could have come out on her own terms, instead of being outed in front of the whole school by someone she thought she could trust. It is still a pretty good book, but it can be very upsetting at times.

As I Descended by Robin Talley

A loose retelling of Macbeth that takes place in a boarding school in Virginia and involves two queer couples. The supernatural elements of the play are amplified in a wonderfully creepy way, and the characters are complex and realistic, so you understand their motivations, even when they do bad things. TW: Out of the five queer characters in the novel, three die, two of them by suicide.

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss and EG Keller

A charming picture book about the Vice President’s pet bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny and wants to hop around at his side for the rest of his life. This book was written as a screw you to Mike Pence, but even so it is a genuinely nice kid’s book that deals with homosexuality and marriage equality in a way that is appropriate for young children. The illustrations are incredibly cute as well.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

A very strange, surreal tale about four people (most of whom are queer in some way) exploring a magical city that you can enter in your dreams by sleeping with someone who has been there before. I wanted to like this one more than I did, because I really love Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books for children. But while some of the dreamlike imagery is cool and pretty, I found a lot of it weirdly uncomfortable, along with the frequent sex scenes.

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

15-year-old Julia is home for the summer at her parents’ ancestral mansion in Scotland and gets involved with a plot about theft, disappearance and possibly murder. She also has her first crushes – on a man working at her parents’ estate and a young Traveller girl, respectively. This is a prequel to Code Name Verity, which has the same protagonist, though her bisexuality isn’t really alluded to in that, which is why I’ve kept it off the list, even though it is an excellent book. The Pearl Thief is pretty good as well, though it is a bit strange to read after you’ve already read Verity and know that this carefree teenage character is going to grow up to be a spy in World War II and be tortured in a Nazi prison. Do read both books, though. They are great.

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson

A young scientist falls in love with the wife of the man she’s having an affair with. There’s speculation about quantum mechanics and interconnectedness, all wrapped in very poetic language. To be perfectly honest, I really didn’t get it, so I have no idea what any of it means. But at least the main character is bisexual and polyamorous (and possibly genderfluid – I’m not sure).

Queer Africa by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin

A collection of short stories by queer African writers, discussing themes like love, sex, marriage, family and homophobia. The attitudes towards queerness in these different countries varies. In many of them, homosexuality is illegal, even though same-sex relationships used to be respected before the interference of Western colonialism. In any case, these stories are an interesting and oftentimes beautiful examination of queerness from a non-Western point of view, some joyous and some tragic. TW: The second to last story is about incest.

#books #LGBTQIA

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sooghostwriter · 5 years

Text

Iliada

Pairings: Do Kyung Soo x OC

Genre: Mature, Romance, AU, mention of violence, action, bad language, Smut in future chapters

Warnings: Kyung Soo is not a good guy. Mentions of violence.

Summary: After a long and hard assignment, Yoon Suji is sent to a new mission that involves less violence but needs a lot of acting. Do Kyung Soo has one of the biggest drugs rings in South Korea, but police haven’t been able to get him. They need proof that he is the one in charge and Suji is the one sent to get them.

She has the freedom to decide how is she going to get his trust.

Notes: I wrote this story a while ago, I published somewhere else (LJ I think) then I read it again and I didn’t like it, so I changed some things and some characters. Since this story is already written, there will be a new chapter every week. Also, here Kyung Soo is a bit older. This is not child’s game. Also if you are Russian, this is nothing against your country. I grew up in the ’90s when every bad guy in action movies was Russian.

Chapter 1

There are many stories about the fearsome female warriors from ancient Greece: stories about women that, since they were little girls, were trained in the art of war and the handling of weapons, as well as trained to support all kinds of physical sufferings. These stories contain passages that give us hints about how they defeated regiments of man on the battlefield.

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From December 16th to December 20th

December 16th to December 17th

Inside the room, Suji was accompanied by three more girls. None of them looked older than 16 years old. Probably outside there was 3°C, but inside and sitting on the floor it felt like minus 3°C. It was her third day in Russia, and as soon as the airplane landed, everything felt like hell.

And she was ready for hell.

Sadly, the three girls in front of her weren’t. It was obvious that their young bodies went through a lot. Their ankles and wrists were bruised, and their mouths had traces of blood in the corners. “Did you guys eat something?” She asked them. Just one of them answered. No. Suji got up and rummaged inside one of her boots and found what she was looking for. Two protein bars.

“They taste bad, but they have a bunch of protein, minerals, and all that crap, they will make you feel better” She cut the bars in half and gave one half to each girl. They bowed at her with gratitude.

She came back to her position and rested her head against the wall. She had to wait until midnight to make a move. At that time, Zala, the big blond guy that received her when she arrived, was supposed to “check the products”.

She felt bad for the girls in front of her, they would be taken soon. She had a plan, but she wouldn’t be able to help them sooner than that.

This was the last day of a one-year mission. Svavelsjo was the biggest human trafficking group in Eastern Europe. And they spread around the world like the plague. What started as a denouncement of a missing person in the suburbs of Busan, ended up as a secret mission of 50 people from the Switzerland and Korean governments to dismantle the Svavelsjo group. Suji was the undercover agent of the circus. She got into the group as a product, as one of the young girls brought from Korea to be sold in the black market as ‘Tender Meat’ as they call girls under eighteen. She was already past eighteen, but her body constitution made her look younger. Illegally younger.

It was probably around 10 when they came to take one of the girls. She struggled a bit but was quickly calmed down with a slap. The guy grabbed her by the hair and pulled her outside the room. Immediately the other two girls began shaking and crying, scared, but already surrendered. Suji rearranged her position and waited for her turn.

“It's 11:30, if you can hear me, cough twice” Suji did as told. Minseok’s voice sounded low but clear. Apparently, the small communicating device hidden in her ear was working.

“We are already located in our positions, the map you gave us was pretty close to the actual deal, at 12 o’clock we will knock down the glass in the ceiling and come in, try to be safe until that happens, I’ll cut communications for now…and Miss Yoon, good luck” Suji smiled at no one and wished for the same.

She kept looking at the two remaining girls in front of her. She wanted to calm them down, but she knew no words were good enough. In one year as an undercover agent, she saw hell in the eyes of all those young girls and boys. She went through hell too, but she was ready for it, she knew how to deal with it. They didn’t. They were just kids. Scared kids.

She was rather grateful when Zala appeared at the door. Looking at her with dark eyes, licking his lips. At least those two girls will be free soon. “How’s my china girl?” Suji kept quiet, hiding her face with her hair. The man grabbed her by the arm, pulling her up, and grabbed one of her hands looking at her long pink nails. He licked one of her fingers, sucking it and biting the tip. She felt like hitting the guy down his throat, but she had to stay calm “People say you did a good job at Japan and then at Russia, so let’s see how you do here” He sucked at her fingers for the last time and then grabbed a stronghold on her hair “Come with me slut!” She followed him, faking some resistance, and heard the door was shut behind her.

Zala walked along a dark alley, she couldn’t see a thing and felt insecure about the future of the operation. But they reached the room he was looking for and felt relieved when a strong beam of light passed through the open door. He pushed her inside the room and took his time to close the door. Suji looked around her and the content of the room made her feel sick. A gurney, old hospital equipment, oxygen tanks, dirty scrubs, and a wall covered with refrigerating units “You are useless to us now, we will take the last thing we need from you” He grabbed her by the neck and tossed her on top of the bed. She hit her head on the landing and the squeal she made, made Zala laugh. She was getting more and more grossed out. “Yoon, 10 seconds” She sat on top of the bed, holding herself in her hands “9…8…7…6…5…4” Zala was preparing a needle with a dark liquid inside, and approached her slowly “ 3…2…1”

Chaos reigned.

The two short-range bombs in the two main doors exploded and quickly the SWAT team invaded the hall of the abandoned factory that worked as an operation center. Zala looked at the door, not knowing what was going on. Screams and shooting noises started to fill the air. He looked at Suji and fear got into his bones when he saw her break into a smile, appearing under the hair that was covering her face “I thought I will have to fight barehanded, but since mister Zala is an amateur doctor, now I have a weapon” It was faster than his ability to react. One of the scalpels that were inside a small trash can went inside his left eye. Suji knew that the hit wasn’t enough to knock down a man like him, but it was very painful, and it will give her time to move from there. “You fucking bitch!” He dashed in her direction, with his fist high up, gaining some momentum. The fist landed in the wall and he saw how Suji moved under his legs, grabbing one of the steel chairs and swagging it towards him, hitting him in the back of his head. “Suji?!, We are in, where are you?”

“Last room to the left! Hurry up” Zala couldn’t understand what she was saying or to who she was talking to, and the pain on his back didn’t let him think. Suji had to move. She grabbed a cord from the floor and went behind Zala, passing the cord around his neck. She was able to grab a stronghold. He kept cursing in Russian, she could understand only half of it. He kept struggling, making it hard for Suji to hold on. He was too big and too strong for her small frame.

Suddenly things looked dark for Suji.

Zala had a gun in his hand. Inside his boots, she thought, feeling stupid. He threw an accurate blow to her head, hitting her with the barrel of the gun. She landed on the floor, feeling dizzy. She could only see his blurry figure move close to her. He mumbled something, but she couldn’t get what he said.

She didn’t feel the bullet sink in her thigh, but the smell of gunpowder stung her nose. “Suji, was that you?”

“Hurry up Minseok!, I got shot!” She heard Minseok cursing and a second later someone was trying to open the door.

“Minseok! It’s closed, use the bomb!” Zala looked at the door and then at her, then back to the door

“Suji, move away!”

“Doesn’t fucking matter, just blow the door!” Minseok obeyed, she was the one in charge anyway. Zala couldn’t understand what they were talking about.

“You better lay down Zala” Suji told him with malice in her voice. But it was too late. She was fast enough to turn herself into a ball, covering her ears and hiding her head from the fragments of the explosion. Maybe a minute passed when the dust started to dissipate and Minseok came to her rescue.

Suji looked like a different person, he hadn't seen her in maybe six months, and she already looked this bad. He suddenly felt enraged towards those pigs “Pick me up, we have to clean this mess” Minseok helped her get on her feet. She looked around and found Zala on the floor, with a big bleeding wound on the side of his head, not very conscious.

“I got you pig, you and your friends can begin to think about fucking each other in jail” He didn’t need to speak Korean to know that she was cursing at him. He cursed the day he decided to bring her from Korea.

December 17 Th

Baekhyun had gathered all of Kyung Soo’s potential business partners at the big dining room at Kyung Soo’s favorite restaurant. It wasn’t that hard. To the call of easy money all the easy people come.

It was a top-secret reunion. All the attendees agreed with it. If someone knew where they were now, it would be a tragedy, to say the least. Twelve people gathered, nine old collaborators and three new ones. Kyung Soo was excited. With a bit of luck, this could help his business. Make it grow.

“My dear friends, welcome '' There was a collective greeting, and Kyung Soo sat with his guests, adopting a solemn aptitude. Everyone went silent so Kyung Soo could start talking.

“We are all very busy, so I’ll give a brief but clear explanation of what I need and what you people can win. Last month, a new bill was sent by the prime minister to congress. Legalization of Marihuana. And not just that. The bill says that the state will sell it, ergo, all the money will go to the government. Now that is very bad for us, the president is taking away a big part of our job!...So this is what I need. That law can not pass. Period. I don’t think I need to explain myself”

“But there’s 26 more of us in congress, of course, we are going to say no to that bill, but what can we do with the rest?”

“Use your best words, your best smile and convince the people from your party. Of course, I’ll do my part, I have people in a lot of places, but I need help” The reunion finished fast. All of them promised to do whatever was in their hands. Kyung Soo gave them a week.

December 17 to December 18

The effect of the painkillers started to fade out. Suji’s eyes opened slowly, getting used to the sunlight that came from outside. It took her a couple of seconds to realize where she was.

She hated hospitals. The smell was unbearable, too clean, too warm. She looked at her left arm, growling at the intravenous going inside her skin. Her head felt heavy, she tried to move, but it hurt too much.

“I see you’re up?” Suji looked at the door, where a tall blond guy got in.

“I’m your doctor, tell me, how do you feel?”

”Good enough to leave this place”

“I don’t think so, the wound in your thigh is still healing, thank god it didn’t reach your bones, it did quite a damage, you will need rehab, but your people told us that they will do that in their hospital, you got a rib splintered, and some burns in your arms due to the explosion…now, we found some other wounds…and…we took care of some of them…are they related with your undercover work?”

“Yes” She didn’t give him the explanation he was looking for.

“Well, you took good care of some of them”

“It’s not my first time”

“For me, it was the first time I saw those kinds of wounds in a female agent” Suji looked straight at his eyes. She hated to give explanations when she didn’t have to, but it was easier this way. One fast answer was better than being asked ten times the same question.

“I had to fuck some of those guys, it was that or lose months of undercover work, it’s not as bad as what happened to all the girls there, so don’t think too much about it, did you give me a blood test?”

“Yes”

“Did you find anything? HIV, Gonorrhea, Hepatitis?”

“Nothing” She was relieved. But she had some questions now.

“What happened to the rest?”

”Well, most of the guys…” She interrupted him right there.

“I don’t give a damn about those bastards, I should have killed those sons of bitches, I’m asking about the kids”

“Oh, sure, well…they brought 15 women and 5 kids, 10 of them are now out of danger, we gave them vitamins, food, and today they came to take their confessions, the other kids are under intensive care now, due to critical wounds and neurological damage” Although it looked bad, those were good news for Suji. They were safe.

Eventually, the doctor left, leaving her with a bad taste in the mouth. His questions remind her of what happened that year. She wouldn’t say this was the hardest mission – her first mission as an agent in North Korea won by far – but the physical abuse was like nothing she had experienced before. But she still considered herself lucky. She wasn’t selfish enough to feel bad about her situation, she saw some girls drop dead in front of her due to extenuation.

She shook those thoughts away. She was alright right now. And all that hell was in the past. For her and for the victims.

After a really bad hospital lunch, Suji got the first visit from someone from the team. With a box of pizza and a bottle of Sprite, Minseok and Junmyeon, her boss, arrived at her room.

“Suji!, I brought someone” Suji bowed instinctively at the sight of her boss. “Miss Yoon, you look great”

“Thanks boss, Minseok? Thank you for saving me”

“Na, it’s nothing, I’m glad we could make it” Minseok arranged the sliding table in front of Suji and put the box of pizza and a glass in front of her.

“Doctor says you can eat normal right now… the first time I saw you I couldn’t recognize you, you are so skinny!! Well, you have always been skinny, but muscular, you know? Now you are just bones, you need to gain those muscles back, I’ll help you” Suji patted Minseok’s head and accepted his proposal.

Kim Minseok was one of her closest friends at the agency. Six years ago he recruited her. Minseok was one of those hidden gems. Her first impression of him was negative. He was small and his appearance was too soft. But when needed, he transformed. And it always surprised her how serious he was towards his work.

Junmyeon walked to the window and looked outside with a brooding face, the angle of his eyebrows kept getting deeper. “Minseok, I need to talk with Yoon Suji, will you give us a minute?”

“No…sorry boss, but she was my partner in this mission, and I’m worried as you are, she got the worst part of it” Junmyeon didn’t answer. He could understand that much.

Kim Junmyeon was known for his fatherly behavior towards his subordinates. It was a double-edged sword, good for the agency, bad for his nerves. Sending Suji to this mission was something that kept bugging him. He never liked the idea, but she was the only option. And her stupid superwoman complex made her beg him to give her that mission. Now, after reading her medical record, he felt as if someone had done that to her little sister. He kept looking outside the window, with his hands inside his pockets.

”I hate this country…is so damn cold, and I feel like in every corner someone is been killed in cold blood…or maybe I have watched way too many spy movies”

“No sir, it is like that, at least that’s the only Russia I have seen”

“I’m sorry you have to see it, I’m sorry I send you to this goddamn mission” Suji rearranged her position in her bed, grabbing a second slice of pizza.

“If you’re apologizing for giving me this job, you can stop right there, we planned this attack with Minseok from the beginning, and it worked out just as we imagined, so I was ready for the beatings, the cold, and the lack of sleep and food, although I will probably need some help getting it over, I have been having dreams…” Minseok patted her arm and sat next to her.

“Boss, the only thing we could do for Suji now is to give her the good news and then take her with us back to Korea'' Junmyeon finally looked away from the window, meeting Suji’s eyes, smiling, for once.

“The trial that will be held next week with Zala and all the people from Svavelsjo, is a mere formality, they infringed too many human rights this time, no lawyer will save them…and since it was such a wide group, each member will be judged under the laws of their respective countries, so some of them will be sentenced to death” Those were the words she wanted to hear. Not only they saved everybody, but also those sadist bastards were getting what they deserved.

She felt better now.

From January 10th to March 23th

January 10th – January 11th

She was abruptly awakened by the sound of her cellphone. It was 8 o’clock, and she had to be at the airport in 3 hours. She got up, turned on the television, and opened the curtains of her hotel room. Although more than a hotel, it was like a palace. The island of Koh-Kood, in Thailand, was by far the best retreat place she has found in several years. Set amidst a tropical rainforest, Suji found a place where she could be far away from home, with no communication whatsoever, but still with the facilities she needed right now. As an expertise masseur, a fully equipped gym, good food and a beautiful waitress who could cover her natural necessities, like breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sex. Because after so many bad experiences with guys, her body only could react to the touch of a woman, and Jayne was that woman. A British 20 something girl, who decided to change the cloudy Manchester for a sunny island. And that girl was knocking on her door, her breakfast was ready. Suji put on some clothes and went to open the door.

“Good morning!” She pushed the food cart inside her room, with her characteristic smile and her beautiful British accent.

“Good morning, how was the night shift?”

“Boring, I’m sorry that I couldn’t be here on your last night”

“It’s alright, we had a nice time the night before”

“True, true, so…are you ready?” She looked around, finding Suji’s only suitcase next to her nightstand.

“I’m ready, I will eat this amazing breakfast, take a quick shower and then go downstairs” Jayne looked at her, a bit gloomy “Jayne, beautiful, don’t be sad”

“I’m not sad, is just…I will miss you, single women don’t come often to this place, you know how hard it is for a lesbian?”

“I can imagine, sorry” She shrugged, and patted Suji’s shoulder, walking outside the room, closing the door behind her. Suji did as she said, and in less than an hour, she was returning her key at the reception.

It took her two days to be back in Korea. In between a plane from Koh-Kodd to Bangkok, scales here and there, and the long ride from Incheon to her apartment, she was finally at home. Or at least what she called home.

The refrigerator was empty, and the place smelled like humidity. With resignation, she took off her clothes, changed into clean sweats, and dropped dead on the couch. It was already midnight, the convenience store in front of her apartment was open, but before anything, she needed some sleep.

≠

Kyung Soo got up that morning feeling like a kid that didn’t want to go to school. Baekhyun went to his room two times to wake him up. The third time, he didn’t give Kyung Soo an option, he pulled his friend outside the bed.

“Kyung Soo, come on, in an hour the guys will be here” Kyung Soo only released a grunt and walked to the shower.

“Boss!” Four guys receive him in his office. Kyung Soo bowed at them and sat on his chair in front of them. He turned on a cigarette, drank from the cup of coffee that was waiting for him, and gave a signal to the guy in front of him to talk.

“Boss, we followed Nam Jangmin, and he indeed has been meeting with that freelance journalist that showed up the other day here asking to talk with you about your business, we took some pictures, Mister Byun has them” Kyung Soo looked at Baekhyun and he gave him a nod. The pictures were clear.

Nam Jangmin was the new governor of Daegu, and also one of Kyung Soo’s oldest business associates. Kyung Soo saw him as an investor. The man looked like a promise in politics, not because he was a good politician, in fact, he was quite bad at it, but he was good with words. With all that cynicism he could run that country. Just when Jangmin was in need of money, Kyung Soo appeared, with a good deal. He would give him the money he needed. In exchange, Nam Jangmin had to do him some favors. Favors that he would ask in the future. With time, Nam Jangmin got hooked on the easy money and Kyung Soo’s hypnotizing voice. But now Jangmin had his first child. Now he wanted to make things right. Kyung Soo could understand that. But Nam Jangmin was an idiot. It would have been easy, Kyung Soo thought, to ask him for a meeting, and explain to him why he wanted to leave Kyung Soo’s side. Kyung Soo would have wished him luck, and let him run free.

But he didn’t.

Nam Jangmin decided to inculpate him. And as soon as someone asked him something about Kyung Soo and his business, someone like that freelance journalist, Jangmin opened his mouth.

“Ok, it’s quite clear now. What can we do?” Kyung Soo only asked out of politeness. He already knew what he had to do, and he didn’t like it too much.

“We could give him a visit”

“Visit him and his family”

“Sure, but we have to be sure, sure that he will not speak, guys…you know how to shut up someone, just do it beautifully, ok?” The four men gave one single nod at the same time, got up and left the house.

“He has a son”

“I know Baekhyun, but he should have known better, now if you excuse me, I need to go out”

“Where?” Kyung Soo didn’t answer and left the room. Baekhyun didn’t bother to follow him.

Kyung Soo climbed the stairs to the temple feeling as if the air was going thin. After two weeks of being locked in his house, it felt nice to feel the cold air in his face, slipping through his scarf. The stairs were still wet due to the heavy rain that fell the night before and some old ladies were carrying an umbrella just in case. He will buy one later, he didn’t know when he would be back at home. There was no line in front of the altar, and as always, he felt a bit anxious in front of it. He looked at the few people going in and out and slowly walked inside. Kyung Soo tossed the coin, put his hands together and prayed, screaming loudly inside his head.

“Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me”. He made a deep bow and walked away. As he stepped into the stairway, a single drop landed in his head. He looked above, frowning at the sky. From one time to the other it went dark. He hated it, each time his people were commanded to do the job, it rained.

After a quick lunch at some ramen shop, he stopped a taxi.

“To Gangnam please” The driver nodded once and took the main street to the left. Kyung Soo didn’t look outside the window, his stare fixed on his hands. After 15 minutes, the driver spoke to him.

“Sir, we are in Gangnam, where exactly do you want me to drop you?”

“In the next corner please” The driver nodded again and stopped once they reached his destination. Kyung Soo paid him, telling him that he could keep the change. The streets were already packed with office workers getting ready for a long night of drinking. Kyung Soo felt sick. He walked faster.

He knocked at the door twice. “Who is it?”

“Customer” The door was quickly opened by a middle-aged woman with a bright smile. Kyung Soo smiled back at her.

“Mister Do, you are here! So long no see! What? Are we stressed?”

“Yes”

“Don’t worry, one of my girls will take care of it, who do you want?” Kyung Soo hated when she talked about her ‘girls’ as if they were flavors of ice cream that you could pick, covered in chocolate and cream. Although he liked that idea.

“Is Sara available?”

“She is, you know where you can find her” Kyung Soo nodded and walked inside the flat. The place didn’t have a name, it didn’t need it either. It was well known between the people that required those kinds of services. Kyung Soo found out about it through Baekhyun. Apparently, one of his classmates at university used to work there. The place itself looked like a normal flat from outside, but the neighborhood said everything. Still, it was a secret place. And Kyung Soo liked that.

He reached Sara’s room and knocked at her door. She was a psychology student at Seoul University. Smart, funny, and sexy. Kyung Soo always asked for her services.

“I thought I heard your voice Kyung Soo”

“Hi” She grabbed his hand and guided him to the bed. He sat, closing his eyes and feeling how Sara arranged behind him, caressing his shoulders.

“Something happened”

“Yeah…I want the same as always”

“Understood” Sara kissed his temple and took off her t-shirt.

The next day Kyung Soo woke up feeling sore and still sleepy. Sara was already awake reading a book “What are you reading?”

“Sartre’s, La Nausée” He joined her, resting his chin on her naked shoulder. “Why are you reading something so despairing?”

“You mean realistic?” Kyung Soo looked at her frowning, pouting in a rather cute way, at least for Sara.

“Is it for your classes?”

“Yeah, I’m preparing for a clinical case that I have to defend, so I’m trying to understand my patient” Kyung Soo started to doze off again when Sara interrupted him.

“Kyung Soo, I like you” Before Kyung Soo could freak out, Sara explained herself.

“No, not that kind of like, I admire you”

“And why is that?” Kyung Soo couldn’t understand why she would admire him. As far as she knew, Kyung Soo was a drug dealer with a lot of money and status.

“Well, first, you don’t stick to the routine that is killing us, you don’t try to demonstrate your existence by appearances, looking for superiority or heroic acts. On the other hand, you allow existence to invade you sharply, it weighs in your heart like a beast…without that…there’s nothing left inside us” Sara’s words sounded like nonsense. He was nothing like that. Sara was saying that he was the kind of man that Sartre approved of, that he was the contradiction of the nausea, and that was just nonsense. He felt like the nausea itself. Kyung Soo tossed the book on the floor and got on top of Sara, looking for that beast that she said he had inside his heart.

January 12th to January 14th

Her plan after arriving home was to sleep. Sleep until her body couldn’t stand the pain in her back due to the horizontal position. But a knock at her door interrupted her. She tried to ignore it, it was probably her landlord. She covered her head with a pillow, going back to sleep, but the knocking continued.

“Suji, let’s go play!” Suji’s eyes were wide open.

“Chanyeol?” She asked to herself. Chanyeol knocking at her door could mean only one thing.

Work was calling.

“Suji, let’s go play!” Her legs worked without her consent. She walked with short, lazy steps to the door, picking up her underwear from the floor and an oversized t-shirt that could cover her body.

“Yoon Suji, let’s go…” She opened her door before he could finish.

“I got it, I got it, let’s go play, just please allow me to take a shower”

“That would be nice because you stink” She kicked him in the leg, making him yelp.

“Minseok said you looked bad, but you don’t”

“Well Chanyeol, I spent some weeks getting back in shape, remind me to hit Minseok for saying that” Chanyeol set his suitcase on top of Suji’s kitchen counter, under the curious stare of his colleague. From inside his suitcase, Chanyeol took a bottle of Coke, a package of chocolate cookies, and a bar of white chocolate.

“I thought you would be hungry, now go take that shower, we have to be at the agency at 10”.

Park Chanyeol was Suji’s coworker. He got into the agency three years earlier than her. How he got hired was kind of special. After spending five years in America studying Computer engineering he came back to Korea after they found him hacking the computer of the dean. He wanted to change his English notes in order to save his scholarship. Suji always wondered how he could survive 5 years in America with that crappy English of his. Once he was back in Korea, with an unfinished career, he began working as an IT in an important high school. Doing his work, which was only maintenance, he found some very suspicious folders in the computer of the headmaster. Curious as he is, he opened them. The folders contained huge amounts of child pornography and some naked pictures of some students. Without telling the police, Chanyeol did a perfectly held investigation that led him to one of the biggest groups of child pornography in South Korea. He found himself with a big scoop that was out of his reach, so he contacted the police. By the time Junmyeon received the case, the only thing left to do was put those bastards behind the bars. Chanyeol, in less than a month, put together names, institutions, bank accounts, addresses, telephone numbers, and emails, all of them related to the culprits. When asked how he did it, he explained how, with a program created by him, he could get a replica of the computer’s hard disc of each affiliate. That gave him full access to their transactions, their meetings, and the names of those who were selling them the images. But despite all the great work, what Chanyeol did was illegal. Junmyeon offered him a deal. He would keep him out of jail, but in exchange, he had to work for him.

Chanyeol was everything Junmyeon needed in his team. Compromised, smart, thorough, and hard-working. And Suji was grateful for that. She has been working with Chanyeol since her first mission, and he had never failed her. More than once, his ability to get into people’s data systems has saved her life.

≠

Kyung Soo looked outside the window and the sun was up already, people down there walking from one side to the other. Sara had already left, not without giving Kyung Soo a last service. He made sure to pay her more than the normal fee. After a short shower, he turned on his phone, finding what he thought he would find.

-Boss, work done. No more worries-

Kyung Soo closed his phone and smiled to himself. It was time to come back to reality.

≠

Suji walked next to Chanyeol as they got inside the agency. The few people there welcomed her with wide smiles. Apparently, for what Chanyeol told her on their way there, everyone read the report from her last mission and now she was a heroine. Some memories from those days threatened to come back. Maybe she would ask for that psychologist that the agency offered her.

When Chanyeol opened the door of the meeting room she met with some old faces. Junmyeon and Minseok.

“We arrived early?” She asked, sitting next to Minseok, hitting him in the ribs.

“No, in fact, you’re late, but let’s start” Junmyeon got up from his seat, walking toward the digital board, opening some files.

“Oh, just the four of us?”

“Yeah, just the four of us” Suji looked at Minseok, asking for an explanation. He gave her a signal to wait. The meetings were held in front of 10 or 15 people. From the boss to the director of the SWAT team. Now it was just those three guys and her. Suddenly she felt unsure about being there.

“I know you are wondering what is going on with this meeting, Why so few people, and the answer is simple. This mission doesn’t need big weapons or teams, Chanyeol please” Suji was a bit lost. Junmyeon was acting somehow vague. Chanyeol got up, excited with the idea of showing his short but fruitful investigation.

“For over 3 years, the police have been behind this man” A passport picture appeared on the screen. Damn fine, was the first thought that came to Suji’s after seeing the picture, and she was surprised by her own reaction.

“Do Kyung Soo, 30 years old, single, no studies. The police have caught him twice, but they haven’t been able to put him behind the bars for the simple reason that they have zero evidence, Not a single picture or fingerprint. Nothing”

“So how do they know is him?” Minseok asked the obvious.

“It’s like a well-known secret. As soon as the name Do Kyung Soo comes up, everyone goes silent, You know what I mean?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question.

“I think so, they know he does it because the guy is a big gangster or something, and probably they have seen him, but nothing more than that?”

“Exactly, and the two times he was arrested, this guy over here took him out” A new picture appeared on the screen. This time a man that looked like a high schooler with a nice suit.

“This guy is Byun Baekhyun, 31 years old, single, lawyer. There are no records about him being involved in Do’s business, but there isn’t evidence that states the opposite. He only acts as his lawyer. Nothing else. But they hang out together a lot” Chanyeol touched the screen, closing Do’s and Byun’s pictures.

“Do’s business is pretty simple. Importation and exportation of drugs, money-laundering, and blackmailing” Chanyeol saw how Suji s’s face broke in surprise. Junmyeon got up from his seat again and stood next to Chanyeol.

“It’s a hard case, and it was sent to us because detectives can’t do more. We need to get inside and get some evidence” He said, signaling at Suji. She looked at Junmyeon and adopted her negotiation aptitude.

“Then convince me, boss” Junmyeon smiled at her, he knew he would get that answer.

TBC

#Kyungsoo #kyung soo #do kyungsoo #d.o #kyungsoo fanfic #exo fanfiction #exo fanfic #d.o fanfic

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cypher2 · 5 years

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DAVIE, Fla. — Jamaica’s consul general in South Florida held a party at his home on Wednesday night to celebrate the Reggae Girlz, the first national soccer team from the Caribbean to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.

The tables were set up around the pool and the players and their coaches were there, but every guest was asked to bring a little something extra: a donation of at least $100 to help Jamaica complete its preparations to compete at the World Cup in France next month. The tournament begins in less than two weeks, and so time, just like money, was short.

If the story of women’s soccer in recent years has been the ongoing fight for equal pay, there always has been a different inequality just below the surface. While women’s international soccer has made significant progress in some countries, support for it, especially financially, from individual federations and corporate sponsors continues to vary widely.

France, the host country for this year’s championship, has a thriving professional league, and its players have spent the last few weeks preparing for the World Cup at their federation’s national training center. The United States, the defending champion and a three-time winner of the tournament, is completing an opulent send-off tour across the country this weekend, replete with nationally-televised games on ESPN and giant billboards on big-city buildings.

Jamaica’s run-up to the World Cup, by contrast, has been much less visible, and its program’s mere existence far less financially secure. Historically, the Reggae Girlz have received tenuous support from their national federation. As recently as 2015, the federation cut off financing for the team entirely.

As a side trip on their road to France then, Jamaica’s women first detoured to South Florida, trying to raise money one contributor at a time to cover a shortfall — as much as $400,000 by one estimate — created by training camps, travel and warm-up matches, and to begin to establish a reserve that the team can draw on for current and future tournament costs. There was a fund-raiser and an auction of sports apparel at the consul general’s home; a pep rally at a chiropractic center; and an exhibition match on Thursday night preceded by a celebrity game featuring entertainers from Jamaica and Haiti.

But signs of the team’s struggles weren’t hard to find. At Wednesday’s party, the coaching staff wore shirts meant for the men’s national team, and used markers to scratch out that team’s nickname — “Reggae Boyz” — on the sleeves. Some Jamaican players still must buy their own cleats. And when the women’s team qualified for the World Cup last October outside of Dallas, several coaches went to Costco and paid out of their pockets for jackets so their players could train in the chilly, rainy weather.

No high-ranking official from the Jamaican federation was present to celebrate that momentous qualification in a penalty shootout against Panama, the team’s coaches said.

“Their attitude has been pretty poor,” goalkeeper Nicole McClure, 29, said of the Jamaican soccer federation. “We’ve always been an afterthought, and we’re still fighting for equality. We want a seat at the table. It’s been quite frustrating.”

In March, McClure, who grew up in Queens, held her own fund-raiser. She plays without compensation on a club team in Northern Ireland, and she needed money to pay for food, toiletries, a bus ticket, checked baggage for a flight and some soccer gear. Her needs were not uncommon for her team.

Yet she and her teammates — and Jamaica’s coaches — acknowledged this week that things are improving, at least for the moment. Jamaica’s World Cup players have signed a contract with the federation that will pay them $800 to $1,200 a month, retroactive to January, Coach Hue Menzies said. And Menzies, who has been working free since 2015, is to receive $40,000, he said. According to team officials, this is the first time a Caribbean women’s team has signed contracts with its national federation.

“We haven’t been paid,” Menzies said with a laugh. “But we signed a contract.”

Michael Ricketts, the president of Jamaica’s soccer federation, said that criticism of the organization had been “grossly unfair.” The federation has spent about $4 million on the women’s team since it began qualifying for the World Cup, he said. Costs to hold a weeklong training camp can run to $100,000, Ricketts said, and it has been a struggle to get spectators and corporate sponsors to embrace the team. Even so, he said, a women’s league in Jamaica has been restarted on a limited basis, as well as a youth program for players under 15.

Under the circumstances, Ricketts said, “We’ve done exceedingly well.”

The Reggae Girlz coaching staff disputed the $4 million figure. “No way,” said Lorne Donaldson, an assistant coach. “I don’t buy that.”

Instead, coaches and players widely credit a different benefactor, Cedella Marley, for resurrecting the women’s team with help from the Bob Marley Foundation, which is named after her musician father. Cedella Marley, angered by the sorry state of the program, was the one who spearheaded an international fund-raising effort to revive it several years ago, and she was the one who persuaded Menzies, who runs a prominent youth soccer club near Orlando, Fla., to become its coach.

Without Marley, McClure said, “There would be no Reggae Girlz.”

The Alacran Foundation, a philanthropic organization, also has become a benefactor of the team. And the Reggae Girlz Foundation, a nonprofit, is raising money for such things as medical equipment to help Jamaica prepare and compete at the World Cup, but also to support the team in coming Olympic qualifying and youth national team campaigns.

Money remained tight, though, as the team departed Friday for Europe, where it will play a warm-up match in Scotland before continuing on to France. Even after an initial payment of $480,000 from FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, for qualifying for the World Cup, and another payment of at least $750,000 to follow, Jamaica’s buildup to the tournament has faced about a $400,000 shortfall to cover costs of training camps, travel and practice matches, according to Lisa Quarrie, the vice president of the Reggae Girlz Foundation.

Long-term, the foundation is seeking to sustain women’s soccer in Jamaica by creating an academy, building an extensive youth development system and persuading men’s teams in the National Premier League, the country’s top division, to also sponsor women’s teams.

But first things first. The World Cup starts in two weeks, and no donation is considered too small, be it a $10 ticket to Thursday night’s celebrity match or a $25 contribution on the website of the Reggae Girlz Foundation.

“They need money all the way around,” Quarrie said. “We’re going to the World Cup on the fly.”

Women’s international soccer has long faced a Sisyphean battle to gain respect and support. The American women’s team continues to find it necessary to sue U.S. Soccer for gender discrimination. Players in Australia and elsewhere have refused to play matches, and stars in other countries went public with complaints on everything from training pay to a lack of games.

It has been a particularly tough slog in the Caribbean, where soccer has been blighted by corruption, and the women’s game especially has been widely dismissed. When Trinidad and Tobago arrived in Dallas for the final qualifying round of the 2015 Women’s World Cup, its coach, Randy Waldrum, sent out a financial S.O.S. via Twitter.

“I need HELP!” Waldrum wrote at the time. “T&T sent a team here last night with $500 total. No equipment such as balls, no transportation from airport to hotel, nothing.”

Haiti’s women’s team also attempted, just as futilely, to qualify for the 2015 World Cup, relying on benefactors at an extended training camp in South Bend, Ind. Its players and coach received no salary, and the team tried to make ends meet by selling rotisserie chickens and T-shirts, and holding clinics for churches and schools.

In Jamaica, soccer has been considered by many to be too rough of a sport for women and not sufficiently feminine. Players and officials hope that this summer’s World Cup appearance will help overcome the cultural stereotype, and that women’s soccer will be elevated at home in the way track and field became appreciated with the success of the sprinter Merlene Ottey, who won nine Olympic medals between 1980 and 2000.

“The men have always received far more support,” said Oliver Mair, Jamaica’s consul general for the Southern United States. “So when the women qualified for the World Cup, it caught us all by surprise.”

He added: “When you start on the road, you are on your own. They had a dream, a vision. They started to do well and more people have come on board.”

For now, Menzies and his staff have countered the lack of resources inside Jamaica by helping to place top women’s players at American universities and high schools, and in leagues in the United States and Europe.

Jamaica’s star forward, Khadija Shaw, known as Bunny, attended Tennessee, where she was the Southeastern Conference’s offensive player of the year in 2018. She, perhaps more than any other player, represents the indomitable perseverance of the Reggae Girlz, having maintained her career despite the deaths of three brothers in gang-related violence in Jamaica.

Kayla McCoy, a forward and midfielder who plays for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Houston Dash, said, “I think everybody carries self-pride about how far we’ve come but also a sense of humility just because of what people have had to overcome and what people have seen and what people have had to go through.”

She added: “Nothing was handed to anybody here.”

The goal for the Reggae Girlz at the World Cup is to advance out of a forbidding group that includes Brazil, Australia and Italy. Lingering is the question of whether the Jamaican federation will provide the necessary support to keep women’s soccer growing as an international power after the tournament ends.

Asked how confident he was in the federation’s long-term commitment, Menzies, the coach, said, “Not very.”

“But,” he added, “when they tell us no, that just fuels our fire.”

Jeré Longman | New York Times

#wwc 2019 #jamaica wnt #reggae girlz #cedella marley #women in sport #woso

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Headlines: Monday, September 28, 2020

The Forgotten Front Porch Is Making a Comeback (WSJ) Thanks to the pandemic, the front porch is enjoying a new golden age. Like their near cousins, stoops, steps, even fire escapes, porches offer a semipublic setting where we can meet friends and neighbors face-to-face—even if those faces are masked. In the words of Claude Stephens, founder of a tongue-in-cheek group called Professional Porch Sitters Union Local 1339, a porch is “the only place where you can feel like you are outside and inside at the same time; out with all of the neighbors and alone reading a book.” In Europe there are town squares and sidewalk cafes for fostering casual encounters, but there is something distinctly American about the front porch. Starting in the 19th century, every respectable house in the U.S. was built with a confident front porch. In an era when the backyard was devoted to drudgery—vegetable gardens, trash pits, outhouses, perhaps a chicken or goat—the porch offered an oasis of calm. “The front porch was an escape from the heat of the wood-burning kitchen stove,” explains historian Donald Empson, the author of “The Street Where You Live,” an architectural guide to St. Paul, Minn. “On the porch, in the cool of the evening, the family could gather to discuss the day’s events and exchange the latest news with neighbors strolling by.” Porches offered neighbors a place to exchange gossip, to spin sagas and sing songs, to flirt and court and air political views. The front porch at the turn of the century was Starbucks, flash mob, church social and Facebook rolled into one.

Already facing its worst crisis since 9/11, airline industry set to cut more than 35,000 jobs this week (Washington Post) Some 16,300 United employees—and more than 35,000 across the airline industry—set to be out of a job come Thursday. It’s another devastating blow for an industry facing a crisis analysts say is already far worse than it experienced after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and one that has already seen employment in air transportation decline by 100,000 jobs according to one measure. The employees facing furlough will be victims of the ongoing devastation the pandemic has inflicted on airlines, which have seen demand for travel drop precipitously since March, but also of a Congress that says it wants to protect their jobs with billions of dollars in aid and yet has been unable to reach agreement on a bill to do so. Lawmakers say they didn’t intend to create a precipice when they gave airlines an initial $25 billion in aid on the condition that they not lay off workers until October. Like many Americans, they expected the virus to be under control by now. Instead, it continues to spread and air travel is stuck at about 700,000 passengers a day, a third of its normal rate.

Mexico issues arrest warrants on sixth anniversary of disappearance of 43 college students (Reuters) Mexican authorities have issued dozens of arrest warrants for police and soldiers whom they believe may have participated in the 2014 disappearance of 43 Mexican college students, head of the investigation said on Saturday. The announcement came during a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City on the sixth anniversary of the students’ kidnapping. During the event, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Mexico’s Undersecretary of Human Rights Alejandro Encinas held fabrics embroidered by relatives of the victims, many of whom attended the ceremony holding large pictures of the disappeared students. Saturday marks the first time in the case Mexican authorities have announced arrest warrants for military personnel. The students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College disappeared on September 26, 2014, in the state of Guerrero. The remains of only two of the students have been positively identified so far. The unsolved kidnapping of the young men who were training to be teachers convulsed the country, sparking massive protests in 2014 and garnering international condemnation as one of the darkest examples of the government’s longstanding difficulty preventing violence or convicting those responsible.

Europe remains committed to in-person classes as school outbreaks remain rare (Washington Post) How much does in-person schooling contribute to the spread of the pandemic? The answer, experts are saying in Europe after several weeks back in classrooms, is that it’s rare for children to spread the disease within the walls of a school, but not unheard of. Not every country can point to a school where the coronavirus seems to have spread. And even where there are such schools, including in Belgium, Norway and Germany, such outbreaks typically remain countable on a single hand—affecting a fraction of a percentage point of the millions of students and teachers in session across the continent. So despite rising coronavirus cases, and although universities have emerged as sites of concern, European countries remain wholeheartedly committed to in-person learning for primary and secondary schools. According to Steven van Gucht, the head of viral diseases at Sciensano, Belgium’s national public health institute, “The school environment, in our perception, is still quite a controlled environment. We think it’s better to have schools open than to send kids home, have them meet on the street and give them more opportunities to spread the virus.”

Swiss voters reject limiting jobs for EU citizens (AP) Voters in Switzerland cast ballots Sunday on a nationalist party’s proposal to limit the number of European Union citizens allowed to live and work in their country. Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported after polls closed at noon that projections based on partial counts indicated most voters had rejected the measure, which was championed by the populist Swiss People’s Party. It had proposed giving preferential access to jobs, social protection and benefits to people from Switzerland over those from the 27-nation bloc that surrounds it. If passed, the proposal would have further strained the rich Alpine’s country’s deep and lucrative ties to the EU, of which it isn’t a member. It could also lead to reciprocal disadvantages for millions of Swiss citizens if they want to live or work in the EU. Roughly 1.4 million EU citizens live in the country of about 8.2 million, while around 500,000 Swiss live in EU countries.

How Amazon Conquered Italy in the Pandemic (NYT) Ludovica Tomaciello had never shopped on Amazon before being trapped at her parents’ house in March during Italy’s coronavirus lockdown. Bored one afternoon scrolling TikTok, she spotted hair scrunchies that she then tracked down and ordered on Amazon. When the package arrived, she was hooked. She soon signed up for Amazon Prime and turned to the site to buy a tapestry and neon lights to decorate her bedroom; halter tops, jeans and magenta Air Jordan sneakers; and a remote to wirelessly take selfies for Instagram. When stores reopened in May, Amazon remained her preferred way to shop because of the convenience, selection and prices, she said. Amazon has been one of the biggest winners in the pandemic as people in its most established markets—the United States, Germany and Britain—have flocked to it to buy everything from toilet paper to board games. What has been less noticed is that people in countries that had traditionally resisted the e-commerce giant are now also falling into its grasp after retail stores shut down for months because of the coronavirus. The shift has been particularly pronounced in Italy, which was one of the first countries hard hit by the virus. Italians have traditionally preferred to shop in stores and pay cash. But after the government imposed Europe’s first nationwide virus lockdown, Italians began buying items online in record numbers. Even now, as Italy has done better than most places to turn the tide on the virus and people return to stores, the behavioral shift toward e-commerce has not halted.

Scores arrested in protest against Belarus’ president (AP) Hundreds of women calling for the authoritarian president to step down protested in Belarus’ capital on Saturday, continuing the large demonstrations that have rocked the country since early August. Police blocked off the center of Minsk and arrested more than 80 demonstrators, according to the Viasna human rights organization. Protests, by far the largest and most persistent in Belarus since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, began Aug. 9 after an election that officials said gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Opponents and some poll workers say the results, in which Lukashenko was tallied with 80% support, were manipulated. Despite wide-scale detentions of demonstrators and the arrest of many prominent opposition figures, the protests haven’t shown signs of abating.

Fighting erupts between Armenia, Azerbaijan in disputed area (AP) Fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out Sunday around the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian Defense Ministry said two Azerbaijani helicopters were shot down. Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan also said Armenian forces hit three Azerbaijani tanks. There was no immediate word on casualties. Nagorno-Karabakh is an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan that has been out of Azerbaijan’s control since the end of a war in 1994. Both sides have heavy military presence along a demilitarized zone separating the region from the rest of Azerbaijan. International efforts to settle the conflict have stalled and fighting sporadically breaks out. In July, one of the most severe outbreaks of fighting in years left 16 people from both sides dead.

China Gives Unproven Covid-19 Vaccines to Thousands, With Risks Unknown (NYT) First, workers at state-owned companies got dosed. Then government officials and vaccine company staff. Up next: teachers, supermarket employees and people traveling to risky areas abroad. The world still lacks a proven coronavirus vaccine, but that has not stopped Chinese officials from trying to inoculate tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people outside the traditional testing process. Officials are laying out plans to give shots to even more people, citing emergency use, amounting to a big wager that the vaccines will eventually prove to be safe and effective. China’s rush has bewildered global experts. No other country has injected people with unproven vaccines outside the usual drug trial process to such a huge scale. The unproven vaccines could have harmful side effects. Ineffective vaccines could lead to a false sense of security and encourage behavior that could lead to even more infections.

Melbourne eases lockdown, schools, work resume (AP) Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne, has further eased lockdown restrictions imposed after a surge in coronavirus cases, allowing most children to return to school from next month and sending more than 125,000 people back to work. Melbourne and surrounding parts of rural Victoria state were placed under strict “Level 4” lockdowns on Aug. 2, shuttering schools and non-essential businesses, imposing a nighttime curfew and prohibiting public gatherings.

U.S. tells Iraq it’s planning to pull out of Baghdad embassy (Washington Post) The United States has told the Iraqi government and its diplomatic partners that it’s planning a full withdrawal from its sprawling embassy in Baghdad unless Iraq reins in attacks on personnel linked to the American presence there, U.S. and other Western officials said Sunday. The process of shutting it down is expected to take 90 days, a window that would give the Trump administration the opportunity to reassess the decision, said a diplomat familiar with the situation. President Trump’s decision to order the killing of senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani outside Baghdad airport in January sparked a firestorm in Iraq. Iraqi lawmakers urged the expulsion of U.S. troops. Iran-backed militia groups ramped up a campaign of rocket and small-scale bomb attacks on the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi military bases that host U.S.-led coalition troops. Seventeen years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Baghdad embassy remains one of America’s largest diplomatic outposts in the world. It was unclear Sunday whether the decision to pull out might still be reversed if Kadhimi’s government is able to better protect Western diplomatic and military personnel.

Israelis mark Yom Kippur under ‘painful’ virus lockdown (AP) The solemn Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, which annually sees Israeli life grind to a halt, begins on Sunday in a nation already under a sweeping coronavirus lockdown. Every year, businesses shut down, roads empty out and even radio and TV stations go silent as the faithful fast for 25 hours and hold intensive prayers of atonement on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. The more secular-minded can be seen riding bikes or even picnicking on deserted highways. The holiday begins at sundown on Sunday. But this year all non-essential businesses have already been forced to close, and Israelis have been ordered to stay within 1,000 meters (yards) of their homes throughout the High Holidays, which began last week with the Jewish New Year and continue to mid-October. It’s the second nationwide lockdown since the pandemic began, an attempt to contain one of the most severe outbreaks in the world. Israel, with a population of just 9 million, is reporting more than 7,000 new cases a day, raising fears its hospitals could be overwhelmed.

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loretranscripts · 5 years

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Lore Episode 129: Digging Deep (Transcript) - 11th November, 2019

tw: ghosts, human remains

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

The construction was called to a stop the moment they found the bones. The work crew was preparing a building site along one of London’s many ancients streets when they uncovered what appeared to be a body – or, at least, the remains of one. It was clearly old, given that nothing but bones could be seen beneath the dirt, so a team of archaeologists was brought in to preserve and study the remains. In the end, they determined that the bones belonged to a teenage girl who had lived in London over 1600 years ago – a Roman girl. It’s not the last time something like that has happened in this city. During some development work near Spitalfields Market in the 1990s, a work crew uncovered what turned out to be an entire Roman cemetery. Among the finds was a perfectly preserved lead coffin, its lid covered in beautiful artwork that had been hammered right into the surface, still visible, all these centuries later.

And that’s the way history tends to work – time will bury it under new and current events. But if we dig deep enough, and brush away the soil, we can come face to face with it all over again. The past never truly goes away, after all. It’s there, waiting to be discovered, so that we can study it and relearn the stories it contains. Oftentimes, though, the things that leave the deepest marks tend to be the most tragic and painful, events that rattled people to their core and left a shadow on the history of a place that no amount of sunlight could ever chase away, and the older the city, the more common those shadows tend to be. Which is why I want to take you on a tour of one of the oldest, because while the past is always nearby in our modern world, few places allow it to dwell so close to the present as the city of London. Its past is both a treasury of historic significance and crypt full of the darkest tragedies we could ever imagine. Because in a city filled with so much light, there’s bound to be some shadows. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

London is ancient, there’s really no other way to say it. Most Americans live in a community that’s less than 200 years old. If you’re in New England or one of the other places with roots in pre-colonial America, perhaps those locations go back a bit further, but London’s history makes all of those seem brand new by comparison. Archaeological work in London can place humans in the area as far back as 4500BC, but if we’re looking for a major settlement where it stands today, that didn’t happen until 47AD, when the Romans arrived and set up a community there that they called “Londinium”. Although from what we can tell, it didn’t last long, all thanks to a woman named Boudicca. As far as historians know, Boudicca was the wife of King Prasutagus, who ruled over an eastern British tribe known as the Iceni. When the Romans arrived in their territory in 43AD, they came to an arrangement with Prasutagus, allowing him to maintain control of his kingdom. When he died 17 years later, though, the Romans refused to acknowledge his widow as the new ruler, and instead invaded them to take the land for themselves. But they misjudged Boudica, assuming she was a quiet woman, incapable of ruling anything. Instead, she rallied a massive army of close to 100,000 warriors and then led them on a campaign against the Romans all over Britain. In 61AD, her army rolled over Londinium like a Sherman tank, burning the entire settlement to the ground. In fact, her campaign against them was so fierce and unstoppable that the Romans nearly left Britain altogether. But those who survived managed to rebuild, and within a handful of decades it had grown large enough to become capital of the entire province.

Over the years, the city continued to expand and mature, and even though the Romans left towards the beginning of the fifth century, the community there refused to die. By the 7th century, London had earned a reputation as a major trade centre, which brought in a steady flow of wealth and goods, and also turned the city into a political powerhouse. Of course, power and wealth has a way of making a community a target for others, and London was no exception. In 1066, William the Conqueror sailed across the English Channel and earned his nickname by taking control of the entire kingdom and making it his own – and, of course, special attention was paid to London. Within two decades, the population of the city had reached nearly 15,000, and by the 1300s that had multiplied to over 80,000.

But something unexpected was heading their way that would ravage that growing community, something mysterious and dangerous and seemingly unstoppable – the Black Death. What started as a plague in western Asia quickly spread to Europe, bringing death and destruction to every community it touched. By the time the Black Death had burned itself out, some historians estimate that upwards of two hundred million people were dead. The people of London lost at least 10,000 lives, most of whom were buried outside the city walls. It wouldn’t be the last time the city would face tragedy. In 1664, a fresh outbreak of the plague killed another 100,000 people, and then two years later, in September of 1666, a fire broke out in the house of a baker on Pudding Lane. It eventually spread west, destroying much of the city as it went, and while there were only six verified casualties, historians now think the fire burned hot enough to completely cremate those who were caught in it, making the true death toll anyone’s guess.

So much of London’s history was tragic and outside human control, but there have also been moments along the way that could only be blamed on the people who lived there. Jack the Ripper and the murders that took place in 1888 in the Whitechapel district of the city are always front and centre in most people’s minds. But there has been a lot more bloodshed than just those five innocent women. In fact, a lot of the city’s murder and violence could be found higher up the ladder, in the very chambers and homes of the people who held the power and wealth. It seemed that rather than being immune to the shadows that lingered in the city, even the powerful could fall under their spell. Because if there’s one thing the nobility of England’s past seem to attract more than anything else, it was pain and suffering and death.

We don’t need to look far to find bloody nobles. It sometimes feels as though all we have to do is open a history book and flip it to a random page. Life at the top was often a cutthroat game, both figuratively and literally, and anyone who found themselves in the orbit of a king or queen certainly understood that risk. A great example of how blood-thirsty the English kings could be was Henry VIII. Henry is known for a lot of things, not all of which are so great in retrospect. He expanded the power of the crown during his lifetime and based a lot of that on his belief in the divine right of kings, something that threatened the freedom of his people. He was greedy and vindictive and had an ego that was only surpassed in size by the codpiece on his armour. But if there is one thing that most people remember today about Henry VIII, it’s his many wives. Henry had six of them, half of whom were named Catherine, which must have made it a lot easier for him, I’m sure. Five of those six wives came and went within a single 10-year period in his life, but not all of those breakups were friendly. After having his first marriage annulled in 1533 and sparking the English Reformation and the country’s separation from the Catholic church, Henry married the sister of a former lover, a women named Anne Boleyn. Three years later, he had her executed for treason and adultery, but also possibly for failing to deliver a male heir.

The day after Anne’s beheading, Henry proposed to one of her ladies in waiting, Jane Seymour. They had apparently fallen in love months before, but Jane had managed to hold off Henry’s advances in the name of honour. Once the queen was dead, though, she was much more agreeable. They were married 10 days later. From everything I can tell, Henry believed that Jane Seymour was “the one” – he viewed her as his perfect queen, and when she gave birth to his first male heir a year later, he probably sighed with relief. The complications from the birth put her life at risk, and over the two weeks that followed she slowly declined. In October of 1537, Jane Seymour passed away. That had taken place at Hampton Court Palace, Henry’s favourite London residence. It was a mixture of a pleasure palace, a theatre and a royal home, so when Henry brought his next two wives through those doors over the next few years, they were probably bittersweet moments. A lot of joy would be possible there, but it would also sit in the shadows of a painful past. His fifth wife, Catherine Howard, made a fool of the king by conducting at least one less-than-secret affair. After learning about what she had done, Henry had Catherine arrested and thrown in a prison cell there, at the house. She was only 18 at the time, and I can’t imagine the fear and desperation she must have felt, being a prisoner of the most powerful man in the kingdom.

According to the stories, though, Catherine managed to slip away from her guards one day, while being walked through the palace. She bolted away and ran down one of the long galleries that led to the king’s chapel, where she knew Henry could be found. Her goal was probably to beg for forgiveness, to ask for mercy and to plead for her life. But the guards caught up to her before that could happen, and her screams of terror were the only thing to reach him. Catherine Howard was beheaded a short while later, and Henry moved onto a new wife, also named Catherine. But just because those former wives were gone, doesn’t mean they were forgotten. In fact, if the stories are true, they might have stuck around to serve as a cruel reminder. It’s said that even today, visitors to that long gallery in the palace have heard echoes of a woman screaming, a desperate, panicked cry that chills them to the bones. Others have heard the quick rhythm of footsteps, as if someone were running down the hallway. And in 1999, according to one source, two different tourists fainted in the gallery at different times on the very same day.

Elsewhere in Hampton Court Palace, other shadows have stuck around as well. In a room at the top of the staircase known as Silver Stick Stairs, multiple visitors have claimed to have seen the figure of a pale women. She stands silently, hovering slightly above the floor, with a mournful expression and vacant eyes. For those who have witnessed it, the spectre has been both calming and terrifying. Whether or not the visions are real, though, it’s fascinating to look at the true history of that room, because while it has been used for countless purposes over the last few centuries, one specific resident stands out above all the others. It was in this room, you see, that Henry VIII’s only male heir was born to his true love, Jane Seymour, and it was there, just two weeks later, that she passed away.

The old home, located on Berkeley Square, is a townhouse, just one of many in a long row of similar facades, but as far back as the mid-19th century, it was different enough to stand out from all the others. But before I continue with the legends, let me be clear that not a lot is known about the house’s origins, and a lot of stories have yet to be completely verified. Still, we know enough to make this a journey worth taking – so let’s get started. The majority of the tales begin with the man who owned the house back in the 1860s. Thomas Myers wasn’t the first to live there, but he was certainly the most infamous. It’s said that he had once been engaged to be married, but his fiancée eventually changed her mind and ended their relationship. Broken and distraught, he retreated into his house and was rarely ever seen again. Neighbours claim that the house would be dead during the day, only to come alive at night. It was as if Thomas had traded in the sunlight for the shadows, living the rest of his life during those moments when most of the world was asleep, and it might very well be whispers of the house all lit up at night that first gave birth to the rumour that it was haunted – but it could also have been what happened next.

Sometime around 1872, the house sold to a new family, and they moved in to clean up the home and make it their own. The couple had two daughters, both in their late teens, and there were precious few years left for the parents to enjoy life as a family in this new setting before they became empty-nesters. In the weeks that followed, though, the future crept in. The oldest of the two daughters became engaged to a young officer named Captain Kentfield, and conversation became filled with talk of wedding plans and guests lists. And at some point in their engagement, Captain Kentfield planned a visit, so the family set about preparing the attic bedroom for his arrival. According to the story, what happened next is still shrouded in mystery. The family maid was sent up to put the final touches on the fiancé’s room, and while she was up there, the family heard her scream. At once, everyone in the house rushed upstairs to see what had happened, only to find her lying on the floor, an expression of complete horror painted across her face. More mysterious yet was that she couldn’t seem to put a complete sentence together and was unable to answer any of the questions the family asked her. All the maid was able to do was mutter a low, cryptic refrain. “Don’t let it touch me. Don’t let it touch me”.

The maid was immediately taken to the hospital to recover, where I imagine someone observed her, and did their best to treat her rattled nerves, but other than that, there was little they could do. Sleep, they assumed, would be the best medicine. The following morning, though, she was found dead in her room. The fiancé arrived the next day, and after hearing the stories of the maid’s unexpected death, he decided to check the room out for himself. Maybe he was playing the brave soldier in front of his future in-laws in an effort to impress them, or perhaps his fiancée needed some reassurance and he wanted to calm her nerves. Whatever the reason, he climbed the stairs to the attic bedroom and declared that he would keep watch throughout the night. In the darkest hours of the morning, though, a gunshot pulled everyone from sleep, their hearts racing at the sound of it. Everyone climbed out of bed, threw on their night coats, and then rushed up to see what had happened. What they found, according to the legend, was the young captain, dead on the floor of his room, a victim of his own pistol.

In 1907, author Charles Harper wrote about the house in a book, and it was there that he declared it to be “the very picture of misery”. After the events that were said to have taken place there, it’s easy to wonder if the misery was in the structure or the lives who lived there. Either way, the stories we’ve heard so far shed a bright light on one more tale that Harper added to the legend. According to him, the next family to own the house moved in fully aware of the tragedies of the past. The owner was an older gentleman, who was said to be practical and not prone to stories of the supernatural. Still, he understood the power of suggestion a creepy old house with a dark past might have over him, so he set some rules for everyone to follow. After settling in with his family, he told them all that he would ring his bell to tell them if he ever truly needed help. If it was a moment of fright, he would only ring it once, which they were all instructed to ignore, but if matters were more pressing and he truly needed help, he would ring it twice, a signal that they were to immediately come to his room.

Everyone went to bed at the end of the evening, and while the night began peacefully, the quiet was broken around midnight by the loud chime of the old man’s bell, not once, but twice, which sent everyone rushing to see what might be the matter. What they found, though, weren’t answers. The old man was writhing in his bed, his face twisted by panic and fear. Just like the housemaid all those years before, he too couldn’t answer the questions that the others around him asked. He could only mutter and shake with horror at something no one else could see. After doing their best to help him, they calmed him enough to let him sleep, and everyone wandered back to their own rooms. They left his bell on the table beside his bed, hoping that he would remember how to use it if he needed them, but the remainder of the night was one, long stretch of unbroken silence. In the morning, they discovered why. After visiting the old man’s bedroom to check on him, one of his family members gently pushed the door open and peered inside. The shape in the bed was unmoving, and so they approached to wake him and see how he felt. But like those in the house before him, he too had passed away. A random coincidence of natural causes, or a demonstration of the power of fear?

There’s a lot about London that seems to echo the atmosphere of the house at 50 Berkeley Square. It’s a city painted in shadows, but it’s unclear if that darkness was always there, or if we imported it over the centuries. What’s clear is that almost from the start, tragedy and suffering has been a resident of this ancient city. Right back to the invasion of Boudica, nearly 2000 years ago, and up to its most modern challenges, the city of London has had to suffer through quite a bit, and that has a way of leaving a mark. Over the centuries, though, the city has always found ways to move on. New layers are added all the time, building the present on top of the past and slowly burying one dark moment beneath another – which is probably why London is one of those places where new construction always seems to bump into ancient things. If you dig deep enough, you’re guaranteed to find something. And look – London is a massive city, and while I did my best to cover some of its larger and more powerful stories, there are hundreds more that I had to leave untouched. Honestly, if you want to visit a haunted location in the city, just visit a local pub, like the Ten Bells, or the Flask, or the Spaniard Inn. If the stories are true, you’ll find a lot more than a pint of ale waiting for you inside.

But if there’s one mark on the pages of London’s history that is bigger than most, it’s hard to deny the power of the plague. If you remember, when the wave of disease washed over the city in 1665, it took two years to run its course, and in the process, it claimed the lives of nearly 100,000 people, and that was a lot of tragedy to deal with – on the personal and the public level. The biggest problem seemed to be what to do with all those corpses. We’ve all seen films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and can all remember lines like “bring out your dead”, and from what we can tell, that’s pretty close to how it actually would have been, a steady, daily flow of bodies out of the city, away from the places where people lived in the hope that it would stop the spread of the disease. And most of the bodies were carried outside the city limits. One such burial location was started by the Earl of Craven, who purchased a parcel of land west of the city for disposal of plague victims, and every night, for months on end, carts filled with rotting corpses were wheeled out onto his land and then dumped into the pits there. Over time, the place became known as the “Pest House Field,” and later it was named Gelding Close, but to be honest, few people actually went there. They were too afraid of what might happen if they got too close to the body of a plague victim or, heaven forbid, accidentally touch one. So, the burial plot, like so many others around the city, became a sort of no man’s land.

After years of waiting, the owners of the land eventually made the decision to use the property for development. London was growing, and there would always be a need for a new neighbourhood to settle in, so it was sold in pieces and developed into homes for the wealthy and elite to move away from the centre of the city. Gelding Close eventually became known as Golden Square, and today it’s a prominent feature in the SoHo area of London. But even though the name has changed and the landscape around it has been transformed, the past is still there, lingering in the shadows of modern life. In fact, more than a few visitors to the park and buildings that surround it have bumped into the past in a very real way. A few have seen the figures of people dressed in old-fashioned clothing slipping through the square at night, while most have caught the sound of wailing, as if someone were enduring horrible pain and suffering. But it’s not the specific things people have heard over the years that are the most terrifying aspect to these stories. No, it’s where they all claim the voices have come from. The sounds, they say, seem to emanate from right beneath their feet.

A city as old and historic as London is guaranteed to have a library of mysterious shadows and otherworldly experiences and I hope today’s tour has been a satisfying dip into that enormous pond, but I’m not done just yet. There’s one more legend from the city that I absolutely love, and if you stick around through the sponsor break, I plan to tell you all about it.

[Sponsor break from the Great Courses Plus, Squarespace and Fracture]

When you think of London, it’s easy to think of money. As far back as the Roman period of the city, there has been an overt focus on the financial industry. In about 240AD, for example, the Romans constructed a mithraeum, a temple devoted to the god Mithras. Some of the most common members of the cult of Mithras were merchants, traders, customs officials and politicians, all professions that revolved around the flow of money. But it didn’t end with the Romans. As the centuries ticked by, the people of London found new and better ways to manage money and build the economy. In the year 1100, King Henry I instituted a new system of currency that even the most illiterate and uneducated citizens of his kingdom could understand: the tally stick. It was essentially a polished wooden rod that had nicks carved into it to denote its value, and it was then split down the middle. The king kept one half, while the other was put into circulation in places like the city markets, and that’s where the system really shined. If anyone tried to change the value of the public half by adding another nick, they just needed to be compared to the other half kept safe by the crown.

But at the end of the 17th century, one of the biggest changes to the financial world of London was born: The Bank of England. It was created in 1694 to solve a tricky financial problem the government of England faced. They needed to build a massive navy to defend themselves but lacked the funds to do it. So, an elaborate system of lending and currency came to the rescue. A century later, The Bank of England was simply a way of life for the people of London. It had all the prestige and power that you might expect from a government-backed bank and had established a reputation for itself that has carried into the 21st century.

But I don’t want to give you a tour of the bank’s full history, I just want to tell you about one of their employees, a man named Philip Whitehead. Whitehead worked in the cashier’s office of The Bank of England in 1811. Everyone around him viewed him as a pillar of the establishment, a hard-working, respectable man who was charming and delightful with staff and customers alike. Except that’s not all he was. Philip was also a criminal. It turns out he had been forging bank documents for months, cheating the bank out of a slow trickle of money, and at some point in 1911, his misdeeds were discovered, and he was quickly arrested and sent off to prison. A few months later, in early 1812, Philip Whitehead hanged for his crimes, and the bank moved on.

Several weeks after Philip’s hanging, though, a woman came into the bank asking for him. She said her name was Sarah, but when she asked to speak with Philip Whitehead, she was simply told that he was out of the office on a business errand. The woman left disappointed but promised to be back at another time. The next time that she returned, he not only told them that her name was Sarah, but that she was Philip’s sister. She told them of how she had lost touch with her brother many months earlier, and that she had been desperate to find a way to reach him, and at some point, her story must have plucked at the heartstrings of just the right bank employee, because one of the men took her aside and told her the truth. Her brother was dead. It wouldn’t be Sarah’s last visit to the bank, though. The next time she returned, she was dressed all in black, with a black veil that covered her face.

She stepped into the lobby of the bank and asked to see her brother. Taking pity on the poor woman, and official at the bank pulled her aside, apologised for keeping his imprisonment and execution a secret, and offered a small settlement. It was a pay-off, of course, designed to keep her from disturbing the other customers, but I’m sure he sold it to her more as a salve for her aching heart. Either way, she accepted the money and then left. But she returned a few days later. Over and over again, Sarah Whitehead visited the bank, each time dressed in that black gown and veil. At first, her voice was nothing more than a whisper, but with each new visit her question became louder and more aggressive – “Where is my brother?” she continued to ask. Each of those visits ended with another small payment from the bank, but they weren’t a charity house, and eventually decided that enough was enough.

Pulling her aside one day, they handed her a massive settlement and told her never to return, and to her credit, Sarah Whitehead listened. She never again set foot inside the bank, although it’s said that she also never wore anything else but that black gown and dark veil. We don’t know how long Sarah lived after that – sometimes grief has a way of speeding up a person’s decline, while other times it seems to give them a reason to go on. But decades later, Sarah passed away, having spent the remainder of her life in a constant state of mourning for her dead brother. Legend says that the churchyard she chose for her burial was the one right next door to the bank. Maybe she wanted to keep an eye on them from the other world, or perhaps it just happened to be where she attended church. I like to think that it was the former, and that those that still worked at the bank and knew her story were aware of where she was buried. It’s very poetic, whether or not it was actually true.

But her story doesn’t end there, of course. In the years following Sarah Whitehead’s death, employees inside the bank began to report seeing strange things. Oftentimes it was nothing more than a movement, just out of their field of vision, caught in the corner of their eye but never there when they turned their head. Other times, it was the fleeting vision of something black and shadowy. Many who have worked in the bank claim that certain areas give them a feeling of hopelessness and despair, and on rare occasions some claim that a mysterious shape has even materialised right before their eyes. All of them have described it in the same way, too, giving the old stories new life as the decades have passed by. They say the shape is that of a woman. Each time she appears, her pale skin is framed by a dress as black as coal, the veil that had once covered her face pulled back to revealed twisted lips, red cheeks and eyes that seem to glow like fire. But it’s the words she speaks that frighten people the most. After locking eyes with them and washing them in a wave of terror, the women in black repeats the same words she had grown so accustomed to in life. “Where,” she asks them, “is my brother?”

[Closing Statements]

#lore podcast #aaron mahnke #podcast transcripts #london #50 berkeley square #henry viii #uk #hauntings #transcripts #129

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comingoutinukraine-blog · 5 years

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On November 16, Ukraine’s Minister for Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Tymofiy Mylovanov gave an exclusive interview to the Kyiv-based Pryamiy TV channel.

Within the first ten minutes of the hour-long discourse, the 44-year old top Ukrainian bureaucrat established his bona fides: he is a divorced Salsa dancer with Ivy League school credentials.

Then things got weird. Mylovanov inexplicably blurted out the first and last name of his American estranged spouse, a Goth, and the city where she currently resides. He added that he has a lover in Kyiv, whose identity he has decided to keep secret. The minister next confessed to smoking pot in grad school and bragged that he is a millionaire with investments in about a dozen American pension funds.

The stigma in Ukraine of non-traditional sexual orientation and recreational drug use provide clues to some of Mylovanov’s unsolicited admissions. The others are best explained by a psychiatrist.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, gay men and women in many republics of the former USSR had to keep their sexual preferences hidden for fear of ruining their careers. To give the appearance of being straight — and often at the insistence of their parents or mentors — homosexuals would sometimes marry a person of the opposite sex in what was known as a ‘lavender marriage.’ Around the turn of the century, the color lavender was often associated with homosexuality, so the term was adopted to mean cover-up marriages arranged to keep up the façade of heterosexuality.

With the possible exception of Mylovanov, it’s okay today for Ukrainian public officials to be gay. At least two of his colleagues in government are helping their country increase public awareness and acceptance of non-traditional sexual orientation. Neither are opposed to smoking dope. Both Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and State Customs Service head Maksym Nefyodov are openly pro-choice, while 70% of Ukraine’s adult population still aggressively condemns this choice.

This revolutionary development was not lost on Ukraine’s stodgy ex-Transportation Minister Yevheny Chervonenko, who recently observed that Honcharuk and Nefyodov for years had not did skipped a single gay parade in Europe.

“Over the past three years, Mr. Honcharuk and Mr. Nefyodov have not missed a single Pride Parade in Europe. They always flew together,” Chernonenko said.

Already burdened with the colossal task of improving Ukraine’s economy by sacking thousands of corrupt officials, changing laws and providing businesses with new opportunities, Ukraine’s new cabinet have so far not spoken openly about their sexuality and feelings because of peer pressure and social stereotypes. That might change, though.

When Mylovanov was born, gays in Ukraine were prosecuted. They could be sent to prison for proven facts of homosexuality or sent to a psychiatric clinic for treatment. Many thousands of people suffered during this time suffered as a result.

Since then, Ukraine’s laws have been amended. Gay rights activists annually record thousands of cases of employees with nontraditional sexual orientations being harassed or dismissed by company executives, even though these actions violate the country’s new laws.

But the community of people in Ukraine claiming their rights is growing. Every year in on the capital’s main thoroughfare a gay pride march is held. There are also hundreds of smaller events, at which gay pride activists can meet one another and build solidarity. The events help others to share their experiences and mitigate prejudice and discrimination.

But Ukraine is full with active enemies of freedom. Marches under rainbow banners are often disrupted by members of right-wing radical groups and neo-Nazi groups. Public reaction to accusations of support of Ukraine’s gay community and recreational drug abuse remains negative.

Recently, several individuals took a bold step that shamed Ukraine’s homophobes for their closed mindedness and lack of cultural sophistication. Several army veterans of the war with Russia in eastern Ukraine openly declared their sexual orientation. Those who took up arms in Ukraine to defend their country enjoy great respect in society. The step forced many Ukrainians to re-think their attitudes and change their aggressive point of view about alternate lifestyles.

Ukraine’s neo-Nazi groups, however, were not impressed. They are currently attempting to influence Ukrainian society against the freedom of sexual orientation and Ukraine’s top three new officials. In October 2019, Ihor Mosyichuk, a former member of parliament, ultra-radical leader and commander of a neo-Nazi battalion that insulted civilians during fighting in Donbas, accused the prime minister of sexual harassment.

The scandalous post did not have much public resonance because the accusation was unconfirmed. Nevertheless served as a formidable warning that some people are ready at any moment to fight against those who are not afraid to express their sexual proclivities openly.

“It’s very hard for him now, because work is taking all his strength. His convictions enrage radical elements, who constantly threaten violence. We have not been going anywhere together for a long time. We are constantly forced to hide. I just can’t continue to live like that. We are no longer happy together. After his appointment our life has changed a lot,” Honcharuk’s close friend said recently on social media.

“For a long time we did not communicate properly. He used to be such a fun guy. He could always be found in several of our clubs in Kyiv. But then, all these events began to happen. Recently I saw him for a short time. It’s terrible. I can imagine how hard it is for him to endure all this, to hide, realizing that any false step can set people off,” a second companion commented. The remarks were subsequently deleted, perhaps out of fear of retribution.

There is no need to wait for new attacks. The example of Ukrainian war veterans, who declared their preferences openly, forcing society to respect them as they are, should be repeated by others, including Mylovanov.

Honcharuk and Nefyodov, meanwhile, have six months of successful reforms behind them and have earned national notoriety and respect. Their decision to “come out” could trigger a completely new level of tolerance, discourse understanding and openness in Ukrainian society.

In addition to enacting successful reforms, which will rescue the country from poverty, these three public officials can help millions of their compatriots change their views of the world and human sexuality.

Whatever comes from Mylovanov’s public service in Ukraine, one thing is clear: He has already decimated his reputation among American Goths. He’s transformed himself in Ukraine from an unknown economist-cum-minister, jetting between Pittsburg and Kyiv, into little more than a perceived lackey and yes-man for the new government. And it’s not as if he doesn’t recognize what’s happened; as he said in another interview, “I fall in love with people, however it is hard for me to maintain a relationship, because of my difficult temper.”

History of Ukraine’s Gay Pride movement

The Kyiv Pride March organization was founded in 2012. An attempt to hold a Pride March that year was blocked by the authorities. In 2013, Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr Popov called the attempt to hold the event “a mockery of Kyivans.” Gay Pride activists were still able to hold the March away from the city center. Some 500 people took part.

In 2014, city officials also obstructed the LGBTQI community. However, in 2015, the Kyiv Pride march was held nevertheless. Some 250 people took part, including members of parliament and ambassadors from some European countries.

In 2016, 1,000 people took part in the march, and in 2017 — 4,000. In 2018, 6,000 people took part, and in 2019 — 8,000, including 30 Ukrainian soldiers who decided to use the occasion to “come out” publicly. All events were relatively successful, although some radical leaders, including ex-MP Mosyichuk, attempted through the courts to block the marches.

Coming Out in Ukraine has served Ukraine’s gay community since 1999. Paid memberships are available on Kimba and Tinder (passcode: LGBTQI-Kyiv132)

#mylovanov nefyodov honcharuk ukraine homosexuality lgbtqi

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