For Russia With Love: The Tara Reade Story?

There are three women I know of now whose name is pronounced Tar-uh Reed. Tara Reid is an actress who starred in the Sharknado franchise. Tara Reed is an artist and designer. She designed my favorite coffee mug.  And now I've learned that there is a Tara Reade, who used to work for Joe Biden.

When I heard about the allegation that Tara Reade made against Joe Biden, I was deeply disturbed. Were Biden's hands on shoulders, close-ear talking, hair petting, and hugs something more than just an overly-affectionate guy with boundary issues and a lack of understanding of personal space? It had always looked uncomfortable, but innocent, to me. And, if it's innocent, I find it strangely endearing, despite the fact that I don't personally like to be touched by strangers.

He's not just overly familiar with females. For every picture of Joe Biden petting a little girl's hair, there's another of him with his arms around a man, gazing into his eyes, or practically kissing his ear. I could do a Google image search and come up with some pretty compelling visual evidence that Joe Biden is in love with several men. He's not. At least, I don't believe so. Some people are huggers. And Joe Biden is a hugger extraordinaire.

I think the world no longer tolerates that, but I also think it is both innocent and changeable behavior. Unlike Trump, Biden does have some sense of self-awareness, can listen to criticism, and make changes.

I'll be honest:  I really don't want the allegations to be true. I do have that bias, and I will freely admit it. I always have that bias. No matter who it is. Like any regular person, I don't want sexual assault to happen. I would hope we all have that bias. I hope that none of us would wish a woman had been sexually assaulted so we could have some ammunition against a political opponent. But I know better. There are plenty of people who really hope Biden did exactly what Reade says he did. And we all know it does happen, of course.

Tara Reade's story, when I first heard it, sounded credible. In a public, yet deserted hallway, Biden pinned her to a wall, groped her, kissed on her, and asked if she wanted to go somewhere else. When she reacted negatively, he said, "Come on, Man, I heard you liked me." Shit. That sounds like Joe Biden, I can hear him saying that. So, it sounds bad. I agree that we should listen to women. We should take them seriously. We should look into their allegations and dig until we find the truth. I let other people do the investigative journalism. I found their articles, checked their sources and compiled a pretty decent collection of truths that form a pretty cohesive picture.

Here's the truth that I have found:

In 2009, Reade wrote an article commending Biden's work on the Violence Against Women act. The same year, she wrote another article claiming that she'd left DC because her husband had received a job offer to manage a Congressman's campaign in the Midwest, and she'd moved with him.

From late 2016 to early 2017, she had a Twitter account using her newly married name, Tara McCabe.  She used this platform to praise Biden on multiple occasions.  She retweeted him saying, "My old boss speaks truth. Listen." This Twitter account also featured a lot of anti-Russia, anti-Putin sentiment.

Then, in 2018, she writes in an Op Ed for Medium which praises Russia and Putin, that she left Washington because she "saw the reckless imperialism of America and the pain it caused through out the world," and because she loved Russia with all her heart. In this article she describes Putin as a "compassionate, caring, visionary leader."

She wrote several pro-Russia, pro-Putin articles during this time, gushing over him, saying, "President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. It is evident that he loves his country, his people and his job … President Putin’s obvious reverence for women, children and animals, and his ability with sports is intoxicating to American women … And like most women across the world, I like President Putin… a lot, his shirt on or shirt off.”

Then in 2019, she's all in for Bernie Sanders. She wrote another article, with yet a different reason for leaving, this one with the harassment allegation attached. "Then, I went to Senate personnel for help. No one helped me. I resigned or I would say, I was forced to resign."  The report she says she filed doesn't seem to exist.

When she started attacking Biden publicly, she also resumed denouncing Putin. Putin was bad again. When the media dug up her old articles praising Putin, she deleted them. Too late, of course. They can no longer be found where they were originally published, but copies were made. She now claims they were part of a novel she was writing that was set in Russia. They were clearly op-eds, not notes for a novel. No novelist I know of publishes their novel notes as op-eds while they're working on the book.

There are a whole lot of other inconsistencies, people she says she told about the incident denying any knowledge, her brother pointedly changing his story, an old neighbor of hers coming forward to say she wouldn't trust a word Reade says, and countless other glowing red flags.  But this blog is already so very long, and I haven't even gotten to the meat of what I want to talk about yet. This has all just been background, the evidence I followed to form my theory of what is going on with this. And I want to get it down before I read it somewhere else.

I've got a theory! It could be Russia!

Okay, hear me out. Here's what I think might have happened:

Sometime in late 2017 or early 2018, Reade somehow becomes involved in communications with Russia, a political operative, maybe even someone in the government. Hell, perhaps even Putin himself, a highly unlikely prospect, of course. But not outside the realm of possibility. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Putin maintains a stash of burner phones and carries on flirtatiously with American Women in his spare time. It's the stuff of spy novels, sure. Yeah, it's far-fetched, but allow me my fantastic imaginings. I am a fiction writer, after all.

But a Russian political operative of some kind becomes romantically involved long-distance with Reade. Of course it's not a real relationship, not on the Russian side. They are just using American citizens as sleeper agents they can prompt to stir up shit when it would cause the most damage.

Reade is manipulated to turn against Joe Biden and encouraged to back Bernie Sanders. Now, an aside at this point. I like Bernie. I would vote for Bernie, I'd love to see him as President. I don't believe that Bernie Sanders or his campaign are involved in any collusion with the Russian government in any way, and both he and his campaign openly discourage Russian meddling. None-the-less, there still exists evidence that Russia has interfered in ways favorable to Sanders and his campaign. Russia doesn't want Bernie Sanders as President, but some of Sanders more rabid supporters are very easily influenced by carefully placed fake news stories and are extremely useful at stirring up political infighting on the left. Alright, back to my theory.

At this time, she's also advised to stop praising Russia, so as not to raise any suspicion. And, finally, to drop that allegation bomb on Joe Biden right when it would do the most damage. Hopefully to allow Bernie Sanders to overtake Biden for the nomination, but, failing that, at least send Joe limping into the General.

Yes. In a nutshell, I think the Tara Reade allegation is simply more Russian meddling of the same sort that has been going on all along. I think, in some form or another, she is a Russian agent. Maybe there is no spy novel romance going on. Perhaps she's just being paid. But this whole thing stinks of Russia, and Russia's fingerprints are all over it.

But, hey, what do I know? I'm just a fiction author with a good imagination

Allen’s Rambles about Magical Girl Spec Ops

Well folks, since the second half of MGRP: Limited isn’t going to come out for likely another 4 months I’ll have to talk about different Edgy Magical Girl series for awhile. Thankfully, I’ve been reading for a while that’s finally got enough material for me to talk about, Magical Girl Spec Ops -Asuka-, or MGSO as I’m going to be calling it. I was originally going to talk about this one in another Seinen Adventure, but... I won’t have enough material for that part of my blog for at least another few months, and I want to talk about this manga now before the anime of it comes out in a few weeks.

But moving on, MGSO is about Asuka Otori, a retired magical girl that fought in a war against the Disas Beasts three years before the story the begins. She’s in high school now and wishes to just live a normal life after the horrors of war she saw during the Disas War.

As for why such a war was trauma... well, the the Disas Beasts in question are basically...

This... So I think the horrors of a war with them explains itself. They also explain how Magical Girls and magical items are used as tools of wars, some stuff about global politics, things like that. 

Eventually, Asuka is forced back onto the frontlines as Magical Girls and magical world items start to be traded around by criminal organizations and terrorist groups around the world, with said groups finally coming to Japan. And... 

Well, that’s the main reason I’ve been hesitating on writing about this series for so long folks. There’s only 4 volumes of the manga out as of the time I’m writing this. Through those 4 volumes have so far shown us how the world works now that Magical Girls are essential super soldiers working for their countries with all the political nonsense that goes with it, but that’s all it’s done.There’s an overarching plot of the Disas Beasts being artificially made and sold by a secret organization called the Babel Brigade that’s been drip-fed to us, but there’s not enough concrete stuff about them to say what their main goal is, nor the big players within it. I really wouldn’t expect much in terms of actual plot development until the next volume coming out in late January. So far it’s just been Call of Duty: Black Ops featuring Magical Girls.

That said, this series has gripped me with what it’s shown. I was originally going to have those plus sides in paragraph form, but... again, with no streamlined plot as of yet and not enough information on anyone aside from Asuka to talk about, I’ll just stick it all in list form. There will be some spoilers ahead, but I’ll try and keep them brief and vague.

Asuka is treated less as a traditional magical girl and more as a soldier coming back to service after a big war and I love that. She even has some PTSD flashbacks at times that make her want to back out of most military operations, but trudges on for the sake of her friends and former teammates. Her struggle to keep a normal life while doing secret military operations and the mental toll it takes on her just makes me want her to succeed even more.

As for as much as politics move the plot and the girls we’re thankfully not subjected to seeing a bunch of suits sitting in a room and debating politics. There’s enough of a political aspect is there enough to show that these girls and these soldiers are political tools, but not so much that there’s more talking than shooting. 

The fact that all of Asuka’s original squad was ethnically diverse was a pleasant surprise, with the main group of survivors being her, a former classmate of hers, an American, a Russian, and... a Hong Kong magical girl. Among the original girl there was also a French and Mexican magical too, but going any further is spoiler territory. 

Yes, the American and Russian magical girls are petty as hell with each other and it’s hilarious.

“Yo, Russkie!” 

“Long time no see, Yankee. Are you still hotheaded and stupid as always?”  

“Oh, says you! Your cold-fish robot vibe hasn’t changed one bit.” 

This is my favorite exchange in the manga yet.

The side characters are pretty good as well. Asuka’s non-magical girl friends provide some levity to the tenser moments, and you really feel worried for their safety when Asuka’s soldier life intertwines and interferes with her student life and puts her friends in danger. That balance between the two feels a lot more serious than most magical girl series.

I’m also excited to see the newest magical girl villian, Chisato. Her rise to villainy makes her pretty sympathetic to me. She chose to work for the bad guys, but let out of spite and more to show appreciation for how they helped her despite their evil deeds.

There are some other points I found interesting as well, but those would really spoiler the series. Overall, I’m excited to read more of this manga in the coming weeks, and for the anime that’ll be coming out soon, but like usual I’ll probably stick with the manga unless some cool fight scenes get animated.

Actually... I think I’ll explain this now since it’s second time I’ve done something like this and for the same reason I didn’t watch the Goblin Slayer anime.

I’ve said this several times before, but for me, between my Ramblings, my digital drawings, my video game habits, I frankly stare at enough screens in my day. I like to use manga and books as a way to give my eyes a break from all the lights. I usually don’t watch anime adaptations of manga I’m actively reading because I already know what happens, and I already have certain expectations of how certain characters sound and deliver lines. Even the Japanese dub tends to irk me at times when something isn’t what I expected, and I don’t want to turn into a venomous fanboy constantly making comparisons between the two sources. I don’t think it’s good to compare an adaptation to the original too heavily, and when I’m so invested in a series both emotionally and financially I tend to get a little... rabid. Besides, as I said before the real plot of the manga with the Babel Brigade hasn’t kicked off yet, and I don’t want to be spoiled on that by the anime, so I’ll wait a few months after the winter season ends to binge it. I know that sounds a bit arrogant, but in this way I won’t start whining about every little difference like a fanboy, so... make of that what you will.

In any case, I think that’s it for this Rambling. Still not up to my preference in terms of quality, but MGSO is still drip-feeding it’s main plot, so maybe my next essay will be better. I’ve got... some plans for these next few essays.

the great, big popnikki contributors post

Greetings from Miraland! Love, the POPNikki Team

That’s all of us. All 30+*. This is the team that’s worked (for a lot of us daily) since May to brainstorm, draft, and bring life to this crazy vision-turned-project. 

Now that we’re literally 30 days from Zine launch (and two weeks away from launching Site + our YouTube channel), I want to introduce you to everyone because POPNikki is not just the simple FanZine Project I started out asking fans to join. It’s since become a collective of like-minded creators, and don’t you think you’d like to meet all of us? 

*NOTE: Our FanArt Team Co-Lead Kira is technically missing from this group shot, but she’s with us in spirit and despite a busy schedule WILL make an appearance in our Summer Zine after all! ^^ Also not pictured is Site Team’s periidote and IRL Team’s Luna-- also with us in spirit!

Team Leads

POPNikki is divided into three divisions and each has its own subdivs requiring, well, WORK. The following group of Contributors help me keep each sector running smoothly (including a Contributor named Lilly who you’ll meet in the next section!).

The Librarian: Editor-in-Chief of POPNikki Zine and the founder of this operation, I have a toe in every division if I really think about it. But my personal skillset lies in brainstorming, cheerleading, and editing, which is why I head up the FanFic Zine Team and Co-Lead FanVid with Sea. ^^ Follow my blog for LN Resources. I archive them neatly so we can find them all again later ^^

Clow: Site Team Co-Lead, Developer, and Zine Editor (read: my partner-in-crime), Clow is a great collaborator who can take a vision, no matter how messy and turn it somehow into exactly what you need + want. Clow’s creative but modern style (and way of thinking) is reflected in the Site she’s helped design (can’t wait for y’all to join and see! ^^). You’ll want to follow Clow’s blog for all sorts of LN related posts, my faves being the lovely Starry Corridor photos found from all over.

Yoko: Unfortunately Yoko is taking a break from Tumblr, but when Site opens, we’ll update with a way to reach her! Yoko is the other Site Team Co-Lead and Developer whose incredible patience and research skills have helped bring Site to fruition. 

Ms. Loki: Ah, Loki... What can I say that you don’t already know? When I can’t find my head or my glasses (which often leads to me consistently uploading the wrong things), Ms. Loki is right there going above and beyond the call of IRL Team Co-Lead. Not only does she manage a group of Contributors (and I swear, most days, me!), but she also finds time to Contribute, herself! Look forward to her art and articles as she’s become a key part of our FanArt and IRL Teams. (And if you’re not already following for ALL OF THE LN THINGS... ^^ Ms. Loki is usually the OP!)

Val: FanArt Team Co-Lead Val has really had to step up this season due to an unexpected scheduling conflict. "Single-handedly” juggling a whole team of artists using a collaborative leadership style, Val has shown not only her skill as an artist but as a leader this term. Follow her art blog for a peek at her versatile art style or her personal blog to reciprocate the support she’s shown to POPNikki this Summer~

Sea: My FanVid Co-Lead and one of our three video editors, Sea is just amazing to work with. Perhaps it’s her eye for beauty (or the fact that she can find the beauty in everything), but every conversation ends in laughter and every problem finds a solution. She’s always ready to cheer our team on, so please do the same for her (and we’ll be sure to link you to her personal YouTube channel after Zine Launch!).

Dayan:  IRL Team Co-Lead and Artist, Dayan’s ideas and participation have both played integral parts in the fruition of this project. Dayan almost bursts with creativity and an energy that really keeps you going. Did you know that in addition to her LN Blog, she also has another blog for her art? I’m such a fan of all our Contributors, but there’s something so lovely about Dayan’s style that I can’t help but share every post. I feel so lucky to have her on board, and y’all are lucky too because you won’t have to wait for Zine before seeing some of her work. She’s also been working on a very fun Site Feature that will meet you guys once we launch! ^^

*Kira: FanArt Team Co-Lead (and supposed to be on break for this issue, Kira did a few of the background illustrations for Zine articles I know you are going to LOVE! If you don’t follow her LN blog, you’re missing out on a wealth of .png and background resources.

Site + Social Media Contributors

Lilly:  Despite a busy schedule offline this season, our Social Media Manager Lilly still managed to pull off a very special project, complete IRL and FanFic write ups, edit, and head the Social Media subdiv by some miracle over the past few months (thank you so much). Lilly’s eye for detail has been extremely valuable and so when you go to follow her LN blog, be sure to note how you’ll only be getting the good stuff over there ;) You may also get to chat with Lilly at some point if you follow us in her domain-- the POPNikki Tumblr (and soon, our other social media).

Red: Our IRL, Site, and Social Media Contributor, Red, has been such a gift to this project. In Fall, we can’t wait to show you the fun project he’s been working on, but in the meantime, look forward to his Game Guides. Are you counting down the minutes with us? Red can be found here and here on his LN specific blogs! 

Royce: Royce recently joined POPNikki but has hit the ground running. Now our go-to for Site graphics, we can’t wait to hear how you like the awesome visuals Royce has whipped up! You may already know to follow his LN blog for only the best Royce RP aesthetics on the block. Blue roses to anyone who does XD (or check out his OCs RP blog)  

Clark: Part of our Social Media subdiv and working on a super fun, super secret FanFic project for a future Zine edition (why yes we are thinking about Fall...), Clark’s been a supporter of this project from the get-go. Follow him for fun from a slew of different fandoms (Monster High meets LN, anyone? I’m just sayin’).

periidote: periidote is a Site Team Contributor who will be helping with Site FanPOP Features starting end of Summer/ early Fall! Follow periidote’s LN blog here and get ready for great content from her~

YouTube Contributors

Legs: My go-to video editor in a pinch (whether it’s for advice or for help or to make sense of this vision I had in a dream...), Legs always returns a product above and beyond expectations. July 18th, y’all. Be ready! And in the meantime, follow Legs, for game-related jargon (including but not limited to Love Nikki)

Haley: FanVid Team Contributor and YouTube Channel manager. Haley is always full of great ideas, but when YouTube opens, feel free to drop us comments with even more! 

Brittany:  FanVid Team + FanFic Team Contributor Brittany is also one who’s always brainstorming. We can’t wait for you to see her tutorials and meet her ideas in Zine when it drops this August! 

LittleAvalonia: I’m very excited for what the future holds with an actress like LittleAvalonia on our team. Funny (and having fun), LittleAvalonia brings a new element to LN FanPOP that we can’t wait to share with you. 

Witchy: IRL + FanVid Team Contributor, Witchy, is a gem in the POPNikki Contributor pool. Look forward to Halloween (feels so far, I know!) when we debut their sketch(es ^^) and articles. In the meantime, follow Witchy to check out their art and more.

Joltik: Our newest video editor thanks to her enthusiasm and helpfulness after our latest Open Call, Joltik is already hitting the ground running in her new role! Full of ideas and ready to work, I feel so grateful she’s joined our team! ^^ Don’t forget to give her a follow for LN related tips, tricks, and info. 

twinklebear: Joining us with awesome content come Fall, twinklebear helps out where needed, particularly in Site Team and of course, here in the FanVid group. ^^ 

Zine Contributors: 

Donsveertje: Donsveertje (known as Beetle to me) is a phenomenal artist who answered a POPNikki Open Call. Happy to help with any project when time allows (and actually working a few zines at the moment!), Beetle has great energy, ideas, and can really bring your vision to the page. The laughs are a blessed bonus. ^^ 

Fishbone: The more I work with Fishbone, the more I fall in love with her work. An artist who’s willing to try different things (no matter how crazy they sound) until they work, Fishbone is such a dedicated and positive team member. With like a million Tumblr accounts XD (follow them all here and here and here as well!).

ArtisticArmoury: Another Open Call gem, ArtisticArmoury has been so great to work with. Every part of the process is not only well done but also fun as we’ve been having a blast adding even more expression and visual color to the FanFic Feature he’s now a part of. Check out ArtisticArmoury’s art or personal blogs to get a sense of his work. 

Inky: Also finding the time between a tight schedule, Inky has jumped into this project as an artist from an Open Call. You may recognize Inky as the artist of that awesome piece re: the doctor. But Inky has another, strictly LN blog that I hope you’re following because it is full of fun LN stuff (like important update infos but also MEMES y’all). 

Zemiki: Zemiki is a Feature Artist in the POPNikki Zine Summer Issue. Already known for her great work, Zemiki’s providing several original pieces for fans to enjoy to accompany our second FanFic Feature! Get a feel for her style by following her art or personal blogs. 

Astie:  IRL Team Contributor Astie has an unstoppable energy that brings life and joy to the POPNikki Team. Look forward to the article Astie has prepared for y’all in Zine this Summer (while we work on finding the link to the Tumblr-- we’ll update you on Site after the launch! ^^).

Roulette:  Roulette is such a hardworker for Zine I cannot. Contributing content to both IRL and FanFic Teams, Roulette writes articles and provides Spanish translations for our guides. Give her a follow! (EDITED TO UPDATE: her blog link! Here’s the best account to reach her at~)

Sophie: My writing buddy, I could honestly send all of the virtual hugs to Sophie. Working together on her FanFic Feature story has shown me both her dedication to the game and being a writer-- two of my favorite things in the whole wide world! XD We also share a love of tea (which is besides the point, but still). While you await Zine launch to get a taste of her words, check out her Tumblr and say hi to my hardworking team member (whose mind and articles are split between FanFic and IRL)~

Yasjupe: Another FanFic Team Contributor (and Feature writer), Yas is a writer whose gorgeous ideas flow into gorgeous thoughts and words on paper. I think you’ll truly enjoy the story she’s been working on. Check out her Tumblr while waiting for Zine to drop! 

Megaera: After reading a fic by Meg re: Prehistory Lord, I knew she HAD to be a part of POPNikki’s FanFic Team this first issue. Megaera’s Summer Feature does not disappoint, and I count my blessings that I get to work with so many talented writers-- and read their work early, of course ;) Be sure to follow Megaera’s LN blog in the event she posts more fiction! She also has a personal blog you’re welcome to follow.

Rev: For this summer’s issue, IRL Team Rev teamed up with FanVid Team to create a sweet tutorial for you all. Honestly, you’ll be amazed, I think when Zine drops! In future, we might also see articles by this Contributor as Rev is known for helpful guides and great Starry Corridor pics! You can also check out Rev’s personal blog. 

Iri:  Many of you might recognize Iri for her helpful event guides and suit breakdowns on YouTube. We know her as apart of the team (and seriously, what a joy ^^)! Despite a hectic schedule, Iri has Contributed an article and exclusive interview for you guys this summer. Can you imagine what Fall will bring? If you’re already hype, subscribe to her YouTube channel to hold ya over to Aug. 1st ^^

Contributors Debuting this Fall 

Jace-Darkheart: Officially part of FanFic Team as a comic writer and artist, we hope you’ll get to see Darkheart’s work come Fall!

Ile: Though scheduling conflicts mean you won’t be seeing our Artist, Ile’s work this Summer, we hope you can find some in Zine this Fall! 

Luna: Though scheduling conflicts mean you won’t be seeing IRL Team Contributor Luna’s work in Zine this Summer, we hope you’ll be able to see her fun article on Site or in Zine by Fall!

Our Team is huge so following everyone might seem like A LOT. But don’t forget that you can follow @popnikkiofficial​ on Tumblr now to ask questions about the project and officially become part of the POPNikki Community here on Tumblr. In all honesty, y’all already are part of that Community, and I mean, so are we! So if you can’t follow all, here’s the best one! We’ll see your lovely comments and someone will be checking the POPNikki Ask box later this week to answer questions. (And, I mean, I’m always down to fangirl about this project lol!)

To all of the Contributors on this list (and to come), thank you all so much for making this thing happen. ^^

Wide Open Country: The Truth About Midland

By Jeremy Burchard | September 29, 2017

Editor’s note: Jeremy Burchard is a Senior Music Writer for Wide Open Country and Associate Editor of Texas Music. The following op-ed is a response to articles by the blog Saving Country Music that question the legitimacy and authenticity of rising country trio Midland.

Kyle Coroneos, the author and founder of Saving Country Music, is wrong about Midland. Also known as “Trigger,” he is a talented writer with strong convictions and a passionate readership.

But he’s wrong about that band. He’s wrong when he calls them “bullshitters.” He’s wrong when he calls two-thirds of them “Hollywood elite,” and he’s very wrong when he claims they didn’t write their music, but are instead the product of Shane McAnally and Music Row machinations.

And it matters that he’s wrong. Because over the past week, Coroneos’ articles have been making their way across important spheres of influence. People within the music industry, whom I know and respect, are reading these articles and sharing them, taking them at face value. People who work in radio, other artists, venue owners, publicists and writers see this narrative. And because those articles seem compelling (if not dramatic), a lot of them believe it, which is both unfair and potentially damaging to a band that, despite their recent success, is still new to a lot of people.

The “Authenticity” Argument

I authored a spotlight article on Midland for the new issue of Texas Music magazine, spending hours researching the band and listening to both their new and old music. I interviewed them, songwriter/producer Shane McAnally and producer Dan Huff. And I watched them perform at the Springwater Supper Club & Lounge in Nashville. They served mini hamburgers and mini hot dogs. I was tempted, but refrained.

“Authenticity” is a slippery slope and a pointless argument. About 95% of George Strait’s music came from other writers. Brad Paisley doesn’t drink alcohol but one of his most popular songs ever is called “Alcohol.” Robert Johnson never sold his soul to the devil, and the Beatles intentionally fed false stories to New Musical Express. It goes on and on.

But Coroneos seems to create his own benchmarks of authenticity and then peddles accusations to meet them. He never spoke to the band or anybody associated with them. He intentionally does this, he tells me, because he believes interviews can “erode objectivity.”

“I’m not against others interviewing artists,” Coroneos explained to me over email. “But since I specialize in criticism and commentary, it generally behooves me to stay once removed from interacting with artists beyond cordial, brief exchanges that may happen in the course of business.” I get the sentiment there.

But interviews are the cornerstone of journalism. Combined with independent fact-checking and cross-referencing, they form the very basis of what we do. As uncomfortable as it may be, our job is to do what we can to get facts first-hand, even if they point towards a warranted lambasting of people we know personally.

As a writer who specializes in criticism — and Coroneos is a very gifted writer — he relies heavily on other journalists to lay the groundwork for him. In his case, he hasn’t seen Midland perform live (though he wants to when the opportunity presents itself). Which, to his point, he doesn’t need to see them live to critique their record. But it’s the least you could do if you’re going to call a band bullshitting elitists who don’t even write their own music.

“Hollywood Elite”

So let’s correct a few talking points used to de-legitimize the band. Like Mark Wystrach’s modeling and acting roles and Cameron Duddy directing music videos. Coroneos says this makes the pair “part of the power elite of the entertainment world.” Who knew underwear models held so much power?

In reality, Wystrach lived in a trailer by the beach. He tended bar way more than he modeled or acted. Those gigs are low paying, hard to come by and hardly “elite.” Directing music videos is just as volatile. And a great way to go gray in the hair before you’re thirty.

All of Duddy’s videography gigs supported his music habit, including his early band with Jess Carson Major Gray. Anybody who really believes that being the son of the second camera operator on 1999’s Mystery Men lands you a job with Bruno Mars is either a great comedian or woefully uninformed.

Duddy explained in an earlier interview, “I couldn’t get any job through my parents. I had rock, folk, Americana bands. I just started doing videos for my friends.” And eventually it grew, Duddy made friends, one gig led to another. Just like every person hustling.

Coroneos’ “Hollywood elite” jab backs artists into a corner and makes them defensive, so they talk about living hand to mouth and borrowing money from their manager to stay afloat. Both of those applied to Duddy, and it’s *embarrassing* the band feels they have to defend themselves so much that they’re revealing personal financial details instead of talking about music. Because it shouldn’t matter.

Yes, Duddy used connections to get a foot in the door. His friend, who manages pop acts and has no experience in country, liked their 2014 Sonic Ranch demos (helmed by Austin mainstay David Garza) so much that he took it upon himself to manage them and find out how to get them in front of people. They met manager Jason Owen and told him, “We’re going to do this one way or another.” Owen liked them, their music and their hustle, so called up Shane McAnally and got them in a room together.

But once you get in front of people, it’s your job as an artist to blow them away. Which they did, because they have years of performing, including in those talked-about tiny bars, where they played the much-loathed three and four-hour sets, testing out original songs and covers.

“Four Shows At Poodies”

Coroneos also references the band’s performances in Texas frequently. He makes it seem as if they only played four shows at Poodie’s before signing a deal with Big Machine.

Even just a cursory search of Midland’s Facebook page reveals an incomplete list of past dates full of Texas mainstays. Mercer Street, The Broken Spoke (the dinner happy hour two or three times before they got the main stage), Scholz, Shiner’s Saloon, The Saxon Pub, Threadgills, The White Horse, Easy Tiger, The Continental Club.

Which makes sense, because Midland had a small booking arrangement with Lisa at boutique agency Moxie Booking, who got them a lot of those weekend warrior shows. They secured that by booking their own shows and promoting themselves. Hell, they’re still listed on the Moxie website alongside acts like Tessy Lou and The Warhorses.

Poodie’s is a part of their narrative because that was their first show together in Texas. A 5:30 p.m. slot on a Tuesday afternoon to a handful of barflies. They eventually worked their way up to an opening gig with Gary P. Nunn and, yes, that residency. Between decades before Texas and a few years after, “They put their time in just like the rest of us,” McAnally says.

“Midland Was Manifested”

Coroneos claims Midland didn’t write their own music, which is a huge accusation. Despite some or all of the band being writers on every track, he uses a quote from McAnally to justify this claim. In the quote, McAnally says it felt like he and co-writer Josh Osborne “manifested” the band as a vehicle for the 1970s-era country tunes they love to write. Coroneos calls McAnally a “puppet master” insinuating that he was responsible for creating Sam Hunt, Old Dominion and now Midland.

“He’s giving me far too much credit,” McAnally laughs. “But you can’t just call it his opinion. That’s not an opinion. That’s just lying.”

When McAnally says they “manifested” their relationship, he means that he and Osborne kept wishing a band would come along that shared their vision. And on the other side, Midland wished somebody wanted to take their sound to new commercial highs. “It’s like both sides dreamed each other up,” he says. “We were inviting our paths to cross.” And he uses the Weird Science reference because Midland seemed like their version of the “perfect girl” that walked into the room, songs, talent and style in hand.

To suggest that every writer on those songs willingly have up more than 50% of their writer’s share to perpetuate a narrative is beyond far-fetched.

Why Does It Matter?

When it comes to being called second in line for the “Country Music Antichrist” (as well as the biggest producer in the world), McAnally laughs. “It hasn’t hurt my feelings,” McAnally says. “And I’m not just saying that. I’m very sensitive and I want people to like what I do. But when I read [these articles] I literally laugh and I know the way I feel about it. I can gauge myself and ask, ‘Is this hurting me?’ It’s not. But this Midland thing could hurt them. Because it’s taken off.”

He’s right. Coroneos’ false narrative is more responsible for never-ending quotes about their origin than anybody. And if you read something he writes without knowing the truth, you should question Midland. And then it becomes all anybody talks about.

Because people are looking to poke holes, especially if they’re already jaded by the industry. They don’t want to believe those three guys write the music they write and dress the way they dress because they want to, and got successful doing it.

“Midland are the same people who walked into the studio two and a half years ago when I met them,” McAnally says. “They had an aspiration to take the songs they were playing in bars and take them to the next level without compromising their music.”

And judging by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to their record, they did just that. And Coroneos, to his credit, wants the band to succeed. “Of all the negative things I’ve said about Midland, I want them to succeed because I want traditional country music in the mainstream to succeed,” he says.

The good news is the negative things he says just aren’t based in reality. So don’t do yourself a disservice and let the misinformed musings of an otherwise passionate writer convince you Midland is anything less than what they are.

Yo, Mainstream Media! Bret Easton Ellis has Aitch Ay Dee Had It With You!

It’s true! Mr. Three Names is never, no, never! going to forgive you guys for the way you lied about the Mueller Report! Reason gal Elizabeth Nolan Ryan summarizes Bret's cri de cœur/podcast thusly:

"I want to state that I am not a Republican, I am not a conservative, I am not part of the right wing, I did not vote for Trump, I am not part of the alt-right, I am not interested in politics." ... Ellis said he doesn't "care enough about" Trump to defend him against allegations of Russian collusion, but his beef is with "the crazy dishonest press" and "being lied to" by members of it. "There is no way to get around the fact that the mainstream media misled the country for the last two years. Period," Ellis added. "I'm not saying that as a conservative, or as a liberal. I'm saying it simply as a witness." These outlets "should be humiliated by what they were perpetrating."

Well, as George F. Will was wont to say, “well”. I confess I’m not up on the details of the ravings of talking heads like Rachel Maddow, and that I thought the “speculations” by supposedly more responsible folk like James Clapper that Donald Trump was a “witting agent” of Vladimir Putin were pretty ridiculous, and that Jonathan Chait’s now notorious “plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion”, which he recently tried to explain away in the manner of Rush “Just Putting It Out There” Limbaugh, was so mind-bogglingly boring that I stopped reading it after the first few paragraphs, but (if you’re still with me), I’d like to point you in the direction of a handy-dandy interactive graphic supplied by, yes, the New York Times, with the snappy title “Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration”, a great many of which were frequently lied about by Trump and his minions.

I’m still amazed that it was considered “okay” for a retired three-star general (Michael Flynn) to accept a gratuity from Russian sources to sit at a banquet table with Vladimir Putin, even if he didn’t repeatedly yell “Lock her up!” in public with regard to a former secretary of state, and also “okay” for him to work secretly as an agent of the Turkish government, writing, for example, an op-ed supporting Turkish policies without disclosing that arrangement, and also okay for such a man to be appointed as the president’s national security advisor.

I’m also still amazed that it was considered “okay” for the president to fire the head of the FBI, and to arrange for and publish a cover story to disguise the fact that the firing was meant to discourage the FBI’s investigation into Flynn. I’m also still amazed that it was considered “okay” for the president’s son, working in the president’s election campaign, to have a meeting, in the company of two other principal campaign officials, with Russian nationals for the express purpose of obtaining information from Russian intelligence that could be used against Hillary Clinton in the campaign, a meeting about which both he and the president lied in public.

I repeat the old—old and accurate—comment that if President Obama or Hillary Clinton had fired the head of the FBI for any reason, a Republican House of Representatives would have impeached them for obstruction of justice. Since Donald Trump in fact fired Mr. Comey in order to obstruct justice, then he damn well did obstruct justice.

I think impeachment is a terrible idea, and I don’t think that President Trump, on the record before us, should be impeached. But the notion that his nauseating record of corruption and deceit can and should be swept under the rug on the grounds of “Oh, golly, I’m just so sick and tired of hearing about all this stuff!” is simply a matter of what a not very PC mayor of New York1 once called “rape by acquiescence”.

Afterwords I If Mr. Ellis doesn't trust the Times, perhaps he could consider a column written six months ago by David French in the National Review, Republicans Must Reject ‘Russia Hoax’ Conspiracies and Examine the Evidence. Opined former U.S. attorney French:

The more we learn about Trump World’s contacts with Russians or Russian operatives, the more astounding it becomes. Consider this partial summary:

Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, lied to Congress about his contacts with a Russian government official as he tried to negotiate a Trump Tower Moscow deal deep into the 2016 presidential campaign.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has lied about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, an alleged asset of Russian intelligence.

Longtime Trump friend and adviser Roger Stone (and Stone’s sidekick, conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi) allegedly tried to communicate with WikiLeaks, a “hostile intelligence service,” to obtain advance information about Julian Assange’s planned document dumps.

Donald Trump’s son, campaign chairman, and son-in-law met with a purported Russian representative with the intention of receiving “official documents” as part of a “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos lied to the FBI about his own contacts with a professor who “claimed to have substantial connections with Russian government officials” and who claimed to have access to “dirt” on Hillary in the form of “thousands of emails.”

Mr. French thoughtfully provides links for each of these items in case Mr. Ellis still retains some doubts.

Afterwords II I've never liked Mr. Ellis very much. Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a review for the Bright Lights Film Journal of the film American Psycho, based on Bret’s novel of the same name. I looked at the novel, intending to quote a chunk of it so that readers could have a taste, but Mr. Ellis’ prose was so vicious and repulsive that I just didn’t have the stomach for it. So I summarized his effort instead:

When Ellis wrote American Psycho back in 1991, he probably had no higher motive than to write the most disgusting, and thus the most profitable, book he could imagine. Unfortunately for Ellis, he overshot the mark. It turned out that filling a book with appalling depictions of misogynistic torture wasn’t the shortest road to fame and riches.

At the time I wrote my review, Ellis had a new book out, described by his publisher as follows: “Glamorama, Ellis’s latest vehicle, ventures deep inside the world of celebrity, a world that jet-sets from coast-to-coast, from champagne flute to vial of cocaine, all the while sacrificing humanity for image.”

Write about what you know, eh, dude? Write about what you know.

Fiorello La Guardia, the “Little Flower”. ↩︎

Isn’t it said that getting your feelings out is cathartic? Let me try to put into words the roller coaster of emotions that the past 2 days have been. Even if it is largely into the void. First of all, to the 13 people that currently follow me: HI! I’ve spent my time in the OUAT/CS fandom 100% passively scrolling through content and enjoying every minute of it immensely. I’ve amassed a following list of 346 blogs that have increased my enjoyment of OUAT and kept me more invested in the show than I otherwise would have been.

Highlights of the rest of this post when it gets long (I know me) in case you want to skip the long version

1. Jen’s announcement rocked me hard, harder than I thought it would. I kept thinking I’d have more time to jump into this fandom actively when the show was still on. Guess that’s not happening now, at least not the when the show is still on part. I’m taking it as a sign to just randomly start engaging with those that I follow over the summer and see where that takes me.

2. The news also spurred me to yell “CARPE DIEM” very loudly at nobody in particular and buy a Gold Pass to the OUAT Con in NJ in October, where Jen and Colin are currently both set to appear. Also bought a duo photo op with them. The thought that I would miss a chance to see these two actors who I enjoy so much when nothing is really stopping me from going proved to be too much yesterday. So, if you happen to see this post and either are going yourself or know somebody that is, send me their way! Special thanks to @alexandralyman for being a dear and answering my questions on her post about the con she’d just been at.

So, it’s no understatement that going to work yesterday morning after seeing Jen’s post was rough. I don’t think I’ve ever reacted this badly to what is essentially to me a cancellation. We’ll see what ABC actually does soon enough, but to me it’s simple: no Emma/JMo=no more OUAT. She was why I gave it a shot right away in the first place, flouncing my usual rule to wait a season before giving a show a shot in case it gets cancelled (I’ve been burned too many times). The only time I was active in a fandom was One Tree Hill back on good old Fan Forum. And there I gave up on the show and fandom before the show itself ended, so this is the only time I’ve been in a fandom when a show ends.

Though my fandom experience this time has been 100% passive, I’m not joking when I say it was still involved. For at least the last two seasons, if not all 3 that I’ve been living in my current apartment, I’ve plopped down on the couch on Sundays when the show is on with my tablet in hand, refreshing and reading people’s liveblogs, flailing over everything in my own space. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve reserved the hour after the show exclusively to sit and look at reactions, gifsets etc. Over the summers I’ve earmarked the day the show’s SDCC panel has been on to do the same over any bit of news/video etc coming out of there. To think I’ll be doing this for the last time next Sunday breaks my heart. It’s become a comfortable routine.

I was straight up sad all day yesterday at work. It’s a miracle I got anything done. I never, and I mean NEVER go on Tumblr while at work, but I broke that rule yesterday, I had to keep checking in to read other people’s reactions, to IDK, feel less alone in how devastated I was feeling? I also got a bit introspective, realizing what an amazing time in my life this show has been with me though. I was sort of rudderless when the show started, had just finished my undergrad, but had a very vague idea of what I wanted to do after that. Other than I wanted to go to grad school in the US. But I still had the task of finding a program I liked and actually get in. I was in a grad program at home that I’d signed up for but my heart wasn’t into. In hindsight I never should have persisted with it for as long as I did, it just made me feel down. So latching onto Emma’s story in that first season was great. Then by February I was accepted into a grad program, and Operation Move to Massachusetts was on!

I find it hilarious now to think that I only got around to buying a TV in my apartment around the time OUAT came back for Season 2. Enter Killian “Captain Hook” Jones, and I knew I was dunzo. CS owned my heart from that moment on. But more than that, he and Jen also. This was also new for me, shipping a ship that, say what you will about what others thought originally, I KNEW they were destined for each other. Endgame. My OTH OTP had been very much not that canonically, and other ships on that show had been less intense for me, though fun at the time.

It was really through the fact I was busy with grad school and stuff that I defaulted to being a passive observer of the fandom. But I’d like to think I chose the right people to follow. I only even started on Tumblr right after Season 2 ended. I don’t even remember what brought me into the light. And following grad school came work, which has been just as busy if not more (I’m finding that the 9-5 lifestyle does not always agree with me). I’m loving it, don’t get me wrong, but there are moments and quirks I could do without. I’ll continue to adore Jen and Colin and follow everything they do. While Jen’s decision still stings, I also understand her on a deep level. In her announcement she talks about wanting to be closer to people that she cares about, it seems having been “owned” for 13 years has taken its toll on her. I’ve been away from my family for almost 5 years now minus that one summer in between semesters (which I spent mostly working) and a recent three months recovering from an accident, and I know I feel like I’ve missed out, and miss them all dearly. So to imagine that for 13 years (yes, she’s gone home every so often for short stints, but so have I, know the feeling) I completely see where she is coming from. She had a fork in the road career wise, and chose to go right in stead of left.

Another feeling that was kicking around in my heart all day yesterday was regret. More specifically, regret that I haven’t had the chance to see these people in person at cons. I never had even the faintest option of doing that back when OTH was on, but to now have the means and opportunity to do so, and to have wasted it? Inconceivable. I thought back to why in the world I hadn’t even tried to get NYCC passes last year. Thought I’d have another shot. Missing out on SDCC passes two years ago had a new hurtful ring to it, knowing I wouldn’t ever get to experience it (if I ever do) with my favourite show attending. Why couldn’t they have come closer to me? Whippany felt so out of the way, impossible to swing even for a weekend. Then I looked and saw one Gold Pass seat just sitting there, in a relatively good spot, just waiting for me. Decisions, decisions. I ended up buying the pass and flight and reserving the hotel when I got home from work.

Ultimately I thought back to last November, when I made another long standing dream come true and saw my favourite band of all time Evanescence in concert in Atlantic City. That was their small tour’s only weekend stop anywhere near me. I got a VIP ticket, was front row center and loved every minute of it. Not even 10 days later I get hit by a truck walking to work. My injuries could have been so much worse than they were, I even avoided surgery, but it necessitated the 3 month recovery at home I mentioned. Thinking that I could have died without ever seeing my favourite band when they were that close to me and I had the means to make the trip down...eye opening. So it is in that same spirit that I thought to myself “CARPE DIEM” and pulled the trip together. If either of them break my heart by cancelling their appearance there at a later date I’ll just have to deal with it then. For now I have something to look forward to and that’s a good thing. I didn’t start feeling better about the news of Jen leaving until I’d done that. Also, I’m about to buy the Killian Jones and Dark Hook Funko Pops on Ebay to compliment the Emma and Hook I already own. Always meant to buy them too, eventually. No more waiting.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. If you know anyone going to NJ in October, or are yourself, hit me up with a message! I’ll be flailing about it on here plenty I’m sure.

Monday, April 17, 2017

On Easter Monday - 9:45 a.m.  - not a holiday - yet part holiday - my eye op scheduled for this afternoon - I am to be there at 1:30 - equipped my grandson with phone numbers - very grateful that he is coming. - Once again my mother - she often talked about how when in the 1930's things were getting worse and worse in Europe it was the blood families who were drawing together - her best friend Marianne for whom I was named - she and her daughter later perished in Auschwitz - but close as she had been to my mother - after we had come to Prague and Marianne and my mother lived in the same town again - my mother lamented, the friendship was never the same again.

The Catholic Worker prides itself on being a family - often I was assured of being a member of that family - yet in this instance - how fortunate my grandson now lives in Brooklyn. How fortunate I am to have a grandson.

When I came here at 9:15 the computer room was still closed - security told me of the three maintenance men only one on duty - a holiday? - once again my bells were going off, learn to use the ipad - she promised it would be open by 9:30 - I waited a bit beyond that - glad to find it open. Cannot deny being nervous about the operation - it was nice two weeks ago to have Pim and his friend take me - having time for me later, Pim helping with the drops, taking me next next morning for a 7:30 appointment to the doctor - but I will manage - somebody there to walk out with me from the clinic is a law. The laws. Our president will do away with all of them - also may do away with us, altogether. Things do look scary.

People all say - nothing to it with these cataracts - and of course compared to most other operations it is "nothing" - still I think it was late February I went to the original doctor - now out of the picture but the two doctors still seem to collaborate after some fashion - and it will be the middle of May that my last eye drop is scheduled for. Besides - when did I begin fretting over this operation - the optometrist who had been my student whom I so much liked had, so I was told by his nasty successor written something about cataracts in my file but kindly not told me - this was 10 years ago. It was seven years ago his successor nastily told I had cataracts - it's written here he said - I never went to see him again - and have found out how many people are trying doctor after doctor. You are never sure do you really need a procedure or are they trying to make money. That is what modern medicine has come to. Harder and harder to find a doctor who went into it because he/she loves people and not "it is a good business". 

Luckily until now I have been able to live with a real minimum of medical care - my European doctor friends always willing to share their knowledge with me over the telephone. Never an American doctor - the law forbids it - and the law has made so many people happy to sue - which has made things worse and not better. Insurance rates for doctors are astronomical - also years and years to pay off debts for their education -  urgent reforms are needed. Once I found a wonderful nurse practitioner - she was sitting next to an anatomical chart - had time - was happy to give me anatomical instruction that I badly need - it was an instance where an expensive Park Avenue wanted to operate immediately - this must have been 1975 - the nurse practitioner suggested exercises. The doctor had been recommended by Christine F.

I guess a topic to dwell on this morning - though there is something I had met to mention. Among the familiar faces I met at the funeral on Saturday was a man who long has been called Jerry the Peddler, a Vietnam veteran, in his 60's now he already came to my attention around 1985 when a woman who had changed her name to Cassandra mentioned him. She died a few years ago, she came into my life in 1968 - still Thelma then - a student at the New School about to take PhD qualifying exams in anthropology that she passed. She was the mother of four sons, she also was a student of communes. I met her at a meeting where urban communes were planned - and again in my memoirs you could read about my involvements with urban communes, other communes - always an observer. Cassandra wanted to do a dissertation as a participant observer - filled reams and reams with her observations - got three of her four sons involved - never could get any funding. Under Carter - the president - she got some job in some program she liked - teaching computer skills - funds were cut - she was disgusted - and got into peddling - yes, she did love marihuana. On East 9th street she met a squatter, Jerry - and this was actually how I learned about the squatters - also would have loved to write a book - no connections, no funding, no guidance - did not know how to go about it. Peddling, any kind of business, alien to me, I made do on shoe strings.

I see Jerry practically throwing himself under garbage trucks hauling away pocessions of homeless people who had set up a tent city in Tompkins Square Park - they with help from the squatters and also other people fought City Hall for three years, almost unprecedented. I was there at every raid - bringing cookies, hoit coffee and helpoing people robbed of the little they owned in small ways. One woman asked me to safe keep her journal - Cassandra asked me to safe keep beautiful poems she wrote - all burned in 2000 -  including my 6th Street Log - typed forerunner to this here blog. Hundreds of pages.

Back to Jerry last Saturday -  I had spent not too long ago a little time with him and he had told me about the program he had found - it involved gardening - and when I saw him Saturday he was fitter than ever - I asked had marijuana kept him young - no, he said - gardening. I think the garden he works is not too far away and in days not very long ago I walked, and walked watched what was happening in this here neighborhood and well might have come across his garden - yes - gardening - my mother loved it, my younger son loves it - I - when we lived in post war Germany my mother did wonders with a little stony soill at her disposal - no tools, no water hoses - we worked practically with bare hands, carried water out in pots - yes, she supplemented our rather poor nutrition in signficant ways - but scolded and scolded and scolded my father and me for not helping enough - in any event, I never wanted to garden again. It seems - my mother's father when they had almost no money turned a little bit of land practically into subsistence farming - my grandmother did not garden much, she raised geese and chickens, was a wonderful baker, cook - house, laundry spotlessly clean - and as my mother describes in her memoirs - a most wonderful volunteer social worker - many people seeking her council.

The green thumb, it has passed me by - the Central Park Conservancy has a long list of applicants who love to garden - and have turned the park into a great garden. I do enjoy their efforts, much is in bloom now, I love to gp there - don't have a desire to put my hands into the soil. Might keep me a lot fitter than sitting at this here computer. Jerry does also show that marijuana consumption has not hurt him. A truly kind, alwasys smiling man - he gave me a friendly hug.

Well, it 11 a.m. - quickly about yesterday - a lovely long lunch at the Ukrainians with Haralld - we met when he was 20 and I was 22 - for years were very little in touch - alas he lives in Los Angeles - by now we both have lost many friends who died - and enjoy each other and have much to tell each other about our lives. He gives me excellent advice - he is a lot more practical than I am. We then came to my roof - it was a bit windy - and we both preferred the sun vehind clouds where it stayed most of the time. We enjoyed the green furniture. Then on to the Catholic Worker - where he wisely suggested I should keep my long time bonds - was greeted in the usual very friendly way - Edgar insisted on playing on the piano for us in the auditorium - took Hrald over to 1st Avenue for the #15 that only comes on ther rarest of occasions, specially on a Sunday - but there it was and Hrald got on.

At the CW I had seen the lovingly set tables for Easter dinner - tablecloths, cloth napkins - the best service in the world - I returned for the dinner - was served by M.H. - lovely dinner, devilled eggs, slices of kielbasa with - now the German comes: Kren - cubes of cheese, endless refills of apple juice - mashed potatoes , carrots, string besns with a cheese sauce, roast beef that I forwent - they really were outdoing themselves - I watched - just don't have much to say to the topics broached.

Kept waking up - but here I am - ready to leavetoo early - I am everywhere too early - peasant background?  Have caught charter flightd that left two hours early - Zurich - too expensive for them to sit on the tarmac - they had arrived early - the flight was a shaky affsir, very old plane, no idea who flew it, but it got me to New York - to a difficult scenario - all described in my memoirs. I know,I am writing them over - since I don't find ways for publishing, that is what I have been doing. And yes, I do repet myself. Also Harald told me horror story of a man publishing on face book - I think he nearly landed in jail - also said tumbler is often used for pornography - who knows into what hot waters I still my get - with a little bit of luck, a little bit of luck - hopefully I'll be back here tomorrow, and tomorrow - some more tomorrows   adios Marianne

New Year’s Mini-Review Pack 2019

Another year is over and I want to make the mini-review pack from last year a yearly tradition to announce it.

Sometimes I watch shows that I have something to say about, but I don't feel like writing a real review of them.  Here are the five I want to highlight this year.

Happy New Year, nerds!

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1. Food Wars (2015)

Episodes watched: 7

Platform: Hulu

Souma is in the family diner business, trained by his father on expert renditions of “low-class” foods.  He expects to continue in the family business, and even rescues the diner (via cooking, naturally) from sabotage by a developer trying to pressure his father into selling the building so it can be replaced with high-rise apartments.  But despite that, his father shuts down the restaurant “for a few years” to go abroad and sends Souma to a fancy boarding school for aspiring chefs.  The school is sprawling and eclectic in a way only anime boarding schools can be.  And, like any self-respecting anime boarding school, it naturally has three things: an absolutely nonsensical student government, an extraordinary level of old-school elitism, and most importantly, duels.  Disputes can be settled through challenges of head-to-head Iron Chef-style cooking, with wagers riding on them ranging from "you have to join this club if you lose" to "you're expelled if you lose".  As far as I’ve watched so far, there are a few episodes focused on setting up the premise and main characters and a few focused on these competitions between students.  Although the latter concept can be tedious because I’m not much of a tournament show person, it is nevertheless fun because this show commits to its absurdity.

Classic W/A/S: 6 / 7 / 3

Weeb: Ludicrous school setups!  The main character progressing through a series of duels!  Tentacles!  In-depth descriptions of Japanese food!  It's not the kind of weeb that makes it incomprehensible to those not familiar with the tropes, but it's certainly very Japanese.

Ass: This show has been described to me by several people as "literal food porn", and... yeah.  The cold open scene to the first episode contains... uh... basically tentacle porn.  I'm sorry.  The feelings of characters' pleasure (or revulsion) in food is depicted metaphorically and absolutely over-the-top, often with the pleasure of delicious food being heavily sexualized.  And there's plenty of sexualization of both male and female characters even outside of these scenes, although it never crosses the line into full nudity.

Shit: Very well-drawn!  The food is particularly gorgeous, as you'd expect, but the other imagery is creative, and the melodramatic writing and music are not bad, even fitting for so outlandish and cheesy a concept.

PS: I haven’t actually tried making it... yet... but the gag dish introduced in ep. 1, grilled squid with peanut butter, sounds good to me, despite the negative results you can easily find... and others seem to agree, since the concept predates the show.  Just make a peanut-butter-based-sauce rather than just using peanut butter and it should be fine.

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2. Hinamatsuri (2018)

Episodes watched: 12

Platform: Crunchyroll

Hina, a time-traveling middle-school-aged psychic, arrives in our time, in the apartment of a very confused yakuza operative, Nitta Yoshifumi, who takes her in.  Shenanigans ensue, mostly centering around hilarious misunderstandings and the dubious life lessons Yoshifumi and other mobsters impart.  Mostly, the comedy and story are propelled by Hina and two other girls we meet early on: another time-traveler, Anzu, who is sent to retrieve her, fails, and gets stuck in our time, and Hitomi, whom Hina meets as a classmate when Yoshifumi enrolls Hina in school under the name Nitta Hina (claiming she is his daughter), and who gets intimidated into taking an after-school job as a bartender that she struggles to keep secret. The show's format is two segments per episode focusing on different slice of life-ish stories (though with solid continuity and more ongoing plot than you might expect for that characterization), and is usually comedic but also veers into drama and incredible sweetness.  Hina is deadpan, bad at conversation, and unable to unable to understand the context or motives of what others are saying, in a way that honestly almost makes me think autism(?), but I'm guessing is probably supposed to just be "she was raised in the creepy time travel organization and they didn't train her to socialize".  Anzu is a different outcome of the same deprivation: after not returning Hina to their own time, she moves into a homeless camp and quickly takes in the life lessons of the residents, becoming earnest, helpful, and incredibly resistant to spending money, but completely baffled and amazed at how our world works.  Hitomi, the only "normal" one, is just... the best.  The episode about her first becoming a bartender felt like a backdoor pilot, and if it were I would absolutely watch that spinoff.  The first segment of ep. 10, also starring Hitomi, is the funniest "compounding misunderstandings"-style comedy I've seen in a while... and I'm a big Arrested Development fan, so that means something.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 2 / 3

Weeb: There are some distinctly Japanese traditions depicted, but most elements of the show could be moved to a different setting and "reskinned" for different cultures' organized crime, foods, shopping options, homeless camps, etc., without sacrificing any of the plot or comedy.  Mostly, its distinctly Japanese features are that it relies on imagery and exaggerations that absolutely scream "comedy anime".

Ass: Sexual humor and references, occasionally, but not going to far. Recurring nudity, but not full and not for fanservice.  Actually, it seems as if they've taken a cue from Terminator and assumed that, for whatever reason, you have to time-travel naked.

Shit: This show is practically made of reaction images.  Although it's not the best animated, it's very consistent, clean, and expressive.  They do well with how they did it.  The show practically demands a second season in its last episode, and I think it could make it all the way down to a score of 2 or even 1 on here if they do so and upgrade the animation a bit.  The characters are distinctly and pleasantly designed and rarely does a scene go by that isn't hilarious not because of some kind of rapid-fire jokes thing but because each segment is set up so well and characters play off each other.  Hina's lack of affect gets a little tiresome, but the other characters are great, and usually get a large chunk of an episode's screentime.

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3. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?  Arrow of the Orion (2019)

Episodes watched: n.a. — movie

Platform: in theater

Picking up sometime between the first and second seasons of the main series of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon (or Danmachi for short, derived from the Japanese title), this follows the main cast of Bell Cranel and his ragtag dungeon-crawling party on a new quest. Artemis, Greek goddess of chastity and hunting, is in search, via Hermes, of an adventurer who can wield "the Orion" (a drastically OP spear with the power to kill gods themselves) to destroy Antares, a monster who keeps wiping out adventuring parties and has become a threat to the entire world because [spoiler].  A love... square... ensues between Bell, Hestia, Lili, and Artemis, and other various shenanigans happen that will make much more sense if you've seen the main show and its companion/spinoff, Sword Oratoria. I personally didn't find the affection between Bell and Artemis particularly believable, and I didn't expect the ending to go quite the way it did, but I try not to complain about a story not being the story I wanted it to be.  Watch it if you're already a Danmachi fan or really really like weird takes on classical mythology.  Skip if not.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 4 / 4

Weeb: Prior knowledge of Danmachi helps immensely, but is not strictly required as there is a and although the show is another "what if we just mix a bunch of mythologies together?" and "what if a real world functioned on RPG logic?" premise, it does occasionally have an idea thrown in that will be foreign to much of the American audience (even if not distinctly Japanese), such as the Buddhist idea of gods themselves being reincarnated (something that also came up in Noragami).

Ass: As the after-credits interview feature says, they wondered whether or not they should keep -sigh- the panty shot.  And they went with "yes".  Also, peeping on women bathing has, unfortunately, become a running joke whenever Hermes appears in Danmachi, so be prepared for that.  Without giving spoilers, though, let me just say I hope not all of the nudity comes off as sexual.

Shit: The monsters are hit-or-miss CGI, sometimes blending with the 2D animation of the rest, sometimes looking so jarring it's actually funny. The 2D art is usually beautiful, though, and as much as I love the show, this is definitely an art upgrade overall.  The plot has a few dumb elements, honestly, or at least not well-enough-developed ones, that make me wonder if it could have worked better as a story arc in the show itself (actually developing a relationship between Artemis and Bell).  The score is a mix of reused tracks from the show plus some new stuff that sounds pretty Jurassic Park-era John Williams to me.  A few subtitle choices are noticeably different from the show, but not consequential to understanding things.  There were a lot of ugly audio glitches, especially early on, but I hope that's a problem with the equipment at the theater I went to and not the editing of the movie.

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4. Supernatural the Animation (2011)

Episodes watched: 1.

Platform: Hulu.

This show follows Sam and Dean Winchester, who -- yup, you're on the right blog, and yup, that's "Supernatural" as in the long-running American live action series.  For those not familiar, the original is a sprawling drama set in basically "our world except all mythologies and folklores are true", and follows the aforementioned Winchester brothers, who hunt monsters in situations that range from their straightforward monster-of-the-week investigations to meta-humor to multi-season story arcs involving multiple trips to Hell itself.  My wife is a huge fan, so I've seen a lot of episodes just incidentally, and enjoyed some of them, but haven't really followed the show.  She assures me, though, that this anime adaptation is loosely based on the first two seasons.  So loosely that at first she thought it was some sort of interquel or sidestory.  The first episode comes off feeling like you're supposed to already be familiar with the main characters -- that they're brothers, that they're monster hunters, why they're looking for their missing father -- because not much actually gets explained.  It’s unremarkable and badly-executed and ugh.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 1? / 7

Weeb: Although the source material is American (and further back, European and Middle Eastern, given the influence of European folklore traditions and the Abrahamic religions on the choice and depiction of monsters), it's presented in a very Japanese style. This is especially true in reworking the original's horror tendencies -- the blood splatter from offscreen and the writhing, lurching body horror that is the shapeshifter seem much more like what little I've seen of Japanese horror than American.

Ass: I forgot to write anything for this immediately after I watched it and I don't care enough to go back and check but I don't remember anything that would fall under the headings of fanservice or general nudity.

Shit: Variable.  There are occasional moments of bad CG, occasional low-frame-rate weirdness, and disjointed storytelling compared to what I've seen of the original.  The art style is pretty interesting, though, because it's not something you see animated much -- its angular faces and stark shadows remind me of the darker end of American superhero comics.  Although it's certainly not the technically worst show I've reviewed in either story or art, I find it extremely unpleasant and do not want to continue past one episode.  If you feel like doing so, feel free to tell me if it gets any better.

Content: Violence and horror imagery is somehow both less extreme and more successfully unsettling (at least to me) than those in the original live-action show.

THE PRICE OF GRACE by Diana Munoz Stewart: Excerpt

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 24TH 2019 / SOURCEBOOKS CASABLANCA

Who can you trust when family, truth, and love are all on the line?

Gracie Parish knows the true cost of trust. Rescued as a child by the infamous Parish family, she became a member of their covert sisterhood of vigilantes. Gracie saw her most precious relationships destroyed by secrecy. She learned long ago to protect her heart as well as her family’s secrets.

Special Agent Leif “Dusty” McAllister will do anything to uncover the truth about the Parish family’s covert operations. Dusty knows Gracie is his ticket in. He’ll use everything he’s got—fair, unfair, and just plain wrong—to break through her defenses. But the more he gets to know Gracie and her family’s mission, the harder he starts to fall. Neither one is sure they’ll get out of this with their lives—or their hearts—intact.

  Buy Online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Apple Books

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  Excerpt

Having changed into a blue-print summer dress under a light-blue blazer, Gracie made her way through her bar to the corner table.

Dusty sat there wearing cargo shorts and a hunter-green T-shirt. He was eating a burger topped with plantains—the chef’s special. Looking so hot. That hotness, also a problem. His cute disabled her intellect. She moved a chair and sat next to him at the table. Not because he smelled so darn good.

It was the best place to observe the entire club.

The corner of his mouth tipped up when she sat, but he said nothing. Swallowing another bite, he sipped the drink she’d made him and coughed. He eyed the swirly blue mixture with surprise and took another swig. He put the drink on the table and grinned in approval. “Blood and Guts. That’s a game changer. And the burger…unexpected but tastes great.”

Her heart fluttered, as light and breezy as a butterfly’s wings. “I’m glad you like the drink. And the burger.”

He lifted the burger to take another bite, stopped. “Thought it’d be less busy during the day, less of an eatery.”

She looked around the club. Not the same teeming masses as the night but fairly full. “I accidentally hired a great chef. People started coming in for lunch. Knew a good thing when I saw it, so I expanded the kitchen. Hired another chef.”

He put the burger down, swallowed his bite. “Guess that feels like a problem when your life has recently been threatened.” He nodded toward the front entranceway. “Noticed the new security measures. Metal detector on. Got a guy working security during the day. What else is new?”

Oh, just that her father was a senator with a huge family who might want to kill her, so he could run for president. And her ex John and his new wife El had transferred money to an offshore account right before she was shot at. Those two hated the idea of her having any relationship with her son. So, finding who had put the hit out on her was complicated. “Security is a little personal. Don’t you think?”

He stared at her. And heat pushed through her body so fast and hard she was surprised her shoes didn’t blow off. “I wish you weren’t hot enough to melt my panties.”

And there she went.

He barked unexpected laughter. “And that’s, what? Impersonal?”

His eyes gleamed with amusement and more than a little lust—and that heat called to her sense of daring. Her brain felt giddy, drunk on hormones. “I just meant couldn’t you have some gross ear hair or a less perfect rear end or a less masculine nose or a horrible Philly accent instead of that killer Southern one?”

He wiped his hands on his napkin. “The accent. It always gets them.”

“Yeah.” She played along, running her eyes up and down his muscular chest. “The accent is what gets them.”

He leaned toward her, licked his lips, and in a voice that dripped sex, said, “Smart move with the entrance. Get any info from the security camera footage out back?”

Sheesh. That accent was the devil. She leaned back. “Before you leave, I’m going to insist you come to my office and let me pay you for working last night.”

He lifted his eyebrows. They exchanged a long look. His said he understood she was dismissing him. Hers asked what he was going to do about it. The red in her face said something entirely different.

He nodded, crumpled up his napkin, and stood. “Man should never turn down an honest day’s pay. Lead the way.”

*

Following Grace through the back corridor of Club When? Dusty tried to, once again, reassure her, that she could trust him, his motivations. Part of him sorely regretted not being able to explain the truth. That he was working undercover. But that meant telling her he was after her mother and her secret society of vigilantes. That was out of the question. He’d go with guilt. “Apparently, you’ve forgotten I saved your life in Mexico.”

She stopped, hands pressed against her office door. “I haven’t forgotten. Not that first moment I saw you. Not how you helped save my life. Not how you helped us all get safely away, bundled me into the SUV, and went back and buried my brother.” She turned and pushed through the door with a whispered, “I’ll never forget.”

Damn, she’d done it again. Her honesty. It blew him away. Somehow drew him close and kept him apart from her all at the same time.

He followed her into her office small, pristine, poorly lit office. No windows. A few photos of family and the like, some official-looking framed licenses. A large wooden desk with a single chair behind and one in front of it. Not even a file cabinet.

She shut the door behind him, and he heard her inhaling deeply. Was she sniffing him?

He pivoted toward her, raised an eyebrow. As the skin on her cheeks blossomed with red, she ducked her head and tried to move past him. “I’ll get your money.”

Naw, he wasn’t letting that go. He stepped in front of her. “How do I smell?”

She shrugged. “Not awful or anything.”

The heat in her face grew three shades darker, a take-me-against-the-desk red. Or that might just be his warped interpretation. “Hot in here?”

“It’s an office adjacent to a kitchen, what did you expect?”

He leaned toward her. “That’s not the heat I was referring to.”

Wide, angry eyes snapped up at him. “Yes. I get it. I’m desperately attracted to you. You’re hot—scorching. I can feel you when I’m alone at night, naked, in my bed. And that makes me afraid, because I’m pretty sure you’re using me to get to my mother.”

Her honesty was as sudden and disarming as a tsunami. He swallowed. He wanted to tell her something that would make her less suspicious, less afraid. But right now, that felt wrong.

And since the invite was there, he bent down, slow enough to let her know his intention.

She closed her eyes and lifted her lips. He brushed his own slowly across hers, and she made a sound that called to every primal response in his body. His hands snatched out and pulled her against him, fisting a handful of her sundress, dragging it up high enough to get his other hand on that fine ass.

The kiss deepened. And…the woman was wearing a thong. He squeezed a round globe. Best day ever.

  About Diana Munoz Stewart

Armed with a razor-sharp wit and a rolled-up MFA in Creative Writing, Diana Muñoz Stewart cartwheel-kicked her way into publishing with her fiery Black Ops Confidential series.

Diana lives in an often chaotic and always welcoming home that—depending on the day—can hold husband, kids, extended family, friends, and a canine or two. A believer in the power of words to heal, connect, and distract from chores, Diana blogs regularly on topics near and dear to her heart, including spotlight pieces on strong women from around the world. When not writing, Diana can be found kayaking, doing sprints up her long driveway—harder than it sounds–attempting yoga on her deck, or hiking with the man who’s had her heart since they were teens.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

  THE PRICE OF GRACE by Diana Munoz Stewart: Excerpt was originally published on The Sassy Bookster

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST Three Legs Good, No Legs Bad Paul Krugman JULY 10, 2017 Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Email More Save 475 Photo Protestors against the Republican health care bill in Kentucky last month. Credit Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press Will 50 Republican senators be willing to inflict grievous harm on their constituents in the name of party loyalty? I have no idea. But this seems like a good moment to review why Republicans can’t come up with a non-disastrous alternative to Obamacare. It’s not because they’re stupid (although they have become stunningly anti-intellectual). It’s because you can’t change any major element of the Affordable Care Act without destroying the whole thing. Suppose you want to make health coverage available to everyone, including people with pre-existing conditions. Most of the health economists I know would love to see single-payer — Medicare for all. Realistically, however, that’s too heavy a lift for the time being. For one thing, the insurance industry would not take kindly to being eliminated, and has a lot of clout. Also, a switch to single-payer would require a large tax increase. Most people would gain more from the elimination of insurance premiums than they would lose from the tax hike, but that would be a hard case to make in an election campaign. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Beyond that, most Americans under 65 are covered by their employers, and are reasonably happy with that coverage. They would understandably be nervous about any proposal to replace that coverage with something else, no matter how truthfully you assured them that the replacement would be better. So the Affordable Care Act went for incrementalism — the so-called three-legged stool. It starts by requiring that insurers offer the same plans, at the same prices, to everyone, regardless of medical history. This deals with the problem of pre-existing conditions. On its own, however, this would lead to a “death spiral”: healthy people would wait until they got sick to sign up, so those who did sign up would be relatively unhealthy, driving up premiums, which would in turn drive out more healthy people, and so on. So insurance regulation has to be accompanied by the individual mandate, a requirement that people sign up for insurance, even if they’re currently healthy. And the insurance must meet minimum standards: Buying a cheap policy that barely covers anything is functionally the same as not buying insurance at all. But what if people can’t afford insurance? The third leg of the stool is subsidies that limit the cost for those with lower incomes. For those with the lowest incomes, the subsidy is 100 percent, and takes the form of an expansion of Medicaid. Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME The key point is that all three legs of this stool are necessary. Take away any one of them, and the program can’t work. But does it work even with all three legs? Yes. To understand what’s happened with the A.C.A. so far, you need to realize that as written (and interpreted by the Supreme Court), the law’s functioning depends a lot on cooperation from state governments. And where states have in fact cooperated, expanding Medicaid, operating their own insurance exchanges, and promoting both enrollment and competition among insurers, it has worked pretty darn well. Compare, for example, the experience of Kentucky and its neighbor Tennessee. In 2013, before full implementation of the A.C.A., Tennessee had slightly fewer uninsured, 13 percent versus 14 percent. But by 2015 Kentucky, which implemented the law in full, had cut its uninsured rate to just 6 percent, while Tennessee was at 11. Or consider the problem of counties with only one (or no) insurer, meaning no competition. As one recent study points out, this is almost entirely a red-state problem. In states with G.O.P. governors, 21 percent of the population lives in such counties; in Democratic-governor states, less than 2 percent. So Obamacare is, though nobody will believe it, a well-thought-out law that works where states want it to work. It could and should be made to work better, but Republicans show no interest in making that happen. Instead, all their ideas involve sawing off one or more legs of that three-legged stool. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story First, they’re dead set on repealing the individual mandate, which is unpopular with healthy people but essential to making the system work for those who need it. Second, they’re determined to slash subsidies — including making savage cuts to Medicaid — in order to free up money that they can use to cut taxes on the wealthy. The result would be a drastic rise in net premiums for most families. Finally, we’re now hearing a lot about the Cruz amendment, which would let insurers offer bare-bones plans with minimal coverage and high deductibles. These would be useless to people with pre-existing conditions, who would find themselves segregated into a high-cost market — effectively sawing off the third leg of the stool. 475 COMMENTS So which parts of their plan would Republicans have to abandon to avoid a huge rise in the number of uninsured? The answer is, all of them. After all these years of denouncing Obamacare, then, Republicans have no idea how to do better. Or, actually, they have no ideas at all. Read my blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, and follow me on Twitter, @PaulKrugman. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 10, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: 3 Legs Good, No Legs Bad. Today's Paper|Subscribe Continue reading the main story

emergency means move fast, right?

One of the Ugandan interns (unspecialized, first year out of med school doctors) I work with asked me what I have found most shocking during my time working at Mulago. It has not been the lack of resources, the overcrowded wards, or the poor hospital conditions. I expected those things, and while they are certainly challenging to deal with, it’s the reality of the situation here, and you have to learn how to adapt. More than anything else, the most shocking part of working here has been the general lack of attention toward urgent or emergent medical situations.

Early on in our medical training, we learn how to triage patients. During our time working in the emergency department (ED), we are taught to gauge if a patient is “sick” or “not sick” within the first few seconds of our interaction (by “sick,” I mean patients who have the potential to decline rapidly and who need much more attention). For trauma patients, there is a very specific algorithm we follow, and there are certain findings on exam that mean an immediate trip to the operating room.  Outside of the ED, we also learn how to triage pages (yes, we still use pagers) coming in from the nurses about patients on the floor. Which things are emergencies that require our immediate presence in that patient’s room? What changes in a patient’s condition necessitate a call to our senior resident or a call to the ICU?

Here at Mulago, the interns and residents I work with are able to recognize which patients are “sick,” and they will agree when you suggest said patient needs more attention or urgent care. However, what frustrates me is it seems to stop there. The recognition of an urgent or emergent situation often does not trigger the same fast moving, get things going mentality that I mention above. Everyone seems to move just as slowly as usual, and in some cases all of the resources are available and the only thing keeping a patient from getting the care they need are available staff. Two (of many) examples come to mind that I hope illustrate my point:

Every three days our surgery team is “on call,” which means for 24 hours we are in charge of all general surgery cases that come into casualty (the emergency department). Although our call starts at 8am, we don’t usually make it down there until noon or later. On one of our call days last week we made our way down just after noon to find a patient who had been waiting for us for about four hours. It was a young woman who was 30-weeks pregnant with multiple stab wounds. No one had called us about this patient. We make our way over to see a woman clearly in shock (high heart rate, high breathing rate, but no available machine to measure blood pressure), rolling around in pain. You notice her abdomen is wrapped with a sheet, and on closer look you realize she has two stab wounds to the abdomen through which her small intestine had eviscerated. My immediate thought is call the resident, call anesthesia, we need to get her to the OR. But if you were to look over at the two interns with me, there was no sense of urgency on either of their faces. And when the other American student and I suggested we call the senior to get her to the OR, they responded they couldn’t call our senior because he had exams that day. Not only had she been waiting for us for a good four hours, but she had to wait another two hours before we started the operation. Mom survived, but baby did not.

On another call day we saw a middle-aged male patient with a gastric perforation. He was in shock (fever, high heart rate, high breathing rate), with a massively distended abdomen, and an XRay demonstrating lots of free air under the diaphragm. Clearly “sick.” Again, my response within a minute was “we need to call the senior and get this guy to the OR.” However, the intern I was with continued to take a history filled with details that would not change the fact that we needed to get to the OR. Eventually our senior resident was called, and about an hour later he showed up. I breathed a slight sigh of relief, thinking maybe we will get this one to surgery more quickly than usual. Consent was signed, and we wheeled back to the pre-op holding area. Good sign, right? Unfortunately the senior decided there were a few things he wanted to get done before scrubbing in, so he changed back into street clothes and said “be back in 30 minutes.” At least three hours went by before he got back. During that time I was sitting in the pre-op area with this man, watching as his respiratory rate increased into the 40s, his breathing became more and more labored, and belly more and more distended. There is no easy way to monitor vitals in the pre-op area, so I made sure to keep him in my sight and walk over to check the strength of his pulse frequently. I went through the scenario “what if he codes” while I sat there, and became more and more angry at the resident for taking so long. How could he leave a patient like this when he was right here and in scrubs?? We had a theater, we had anesthesia, just no resident. My intern called him twice, and both times he responded, “I am coming.” After about three hours the resident showed up, and the operation started a good 5-6 hours after the man arrived at casualty. He survived, but his post-op course has been complicated, so we will see how it turns out. 

The intern who initially asked the question thinks this lack of attention toward urgent/emergent situations is a result of constantly being faced with lack of resources and the difficulties of working in a public hospital. That there is an assumption that even if we move fast, we will run into some other roadblock that will delay us. I suppose that makes sense. But as someone interested in trauma and critical care surgery, I wonder how you go about establishing an effective trauma and emergency surgery system in a place like this? Trauma protocols are all about quickly identifying conditions that can kill a patient, yet it seems you would need a total culture shift in how things are done in casualty for a trauma protocol to work. 

I want to end this post by saying I cannot claim to understand how this system works after only three weeks. Dr. Tarpley (surgeon from Vandy who has worked internationally for years, predominantly in Nigeria) once said that you should work somewhere like Mulago for about a year before making suggestions on how to “improve” how things are done. I can absolutely see the truth in that; to fully understand the cultural, political, and healthcare nuances takes time, and if you are committed to a location you should make efforts to learn the language too. So I write this blog not as a “I’m an expert, let’s work to change this” plea, but more because I want to keep this in mind as I continue work in the development of trauma care systems in places like this. I will continue to process what I have experienced here for some time, and I know my perspective will continue to change as I begin my surgery residency in July.