#and as someone who lives in the south I guarantee my perception is different than that of someone who lives in the north

[andoutofharm]

the thing about asking “is _____ cold” is that yes you can look at the climate ranges for that area and compare them to others and get your objective answer that way, but when Actually thinking about if somewhere is cold nobody thinks that way. they frame it in terms of their own experiences with temperature ranges and seasons. where they live might never get that cold (or only very occasionally, or they experience such extreme high temperatures that anything is subjectively cold to them), and so YES, it is cold. whereas another place might experience such comparatively colder weather and so subjectively, the place being considered is not cold. but it’s all based on experience, and an experience based perception of if a place is cold or not is all that really matters to an individual person. also mocking people for how their experiences inform their perception of temperature is really annoying and pointless

#yes this is about the stupid Massachusetts poll #look . we all have different temperature experiences and ranges that inform our perception of what cold is #and as someone who lives in the south I guarantee my perception is different than that of someone who lives in the north #and . idk it is annoying when people belittle and mock others who live in a different climate zone and so have a different perception #anyway. this post is both unimportant and badly worded but #i am simply a weather person who hears a lot about this kinda thing #and it is annoying to me when people use their experiences as an excuse to mock others #or especially to call them weak or pathetic #because they live in a different area that experiences a different range of extreme temperatures

[aboveallarescuer]

Dany's empathy, compassion, compromises and sacrifices for other people

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile ALL* the book passages showcasing either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and smart) or aspects of hers that are usually overstated (e.g. that she's ambitious and prophecy-driven).  Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take. (and that's not even considering the double standards and the contradictions with what had been shown from show!Dany up until then, but that's obviously out of the scope of these lists)

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend (or even simply explore different facets of) Dany's character in metas or conversations.

 *Well, at least all the passages that I could find in her chapters, which is of course no guarantee that it is perfect, but I did my best.

Also, people can interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages if they ever attempted to make one, so I'm not saying that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books and use asearchoficeandfire!). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully referenced, sometimes not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To justify the existence of this list, let's see examples of widespread opinions that I feel misrepresent Daenerys Targaryen:

Along her way Daenerys has convinced herself that she wants to rule for the people and created a utopian ideology around herself as a benevolent freedom fighter -- while on a repressed, involuntary emotional level, the Iron Throne is actually a symbol to her of pain and trauma. So even though she doesn’t understand this herself, all this time her inner dragon wasn’t really driven by hope or the promise of change, but by rage and the will to avenge the abuse she endured at the hands of her enemies. (x)

~

Dany makes big, risky offensive plays, while Cersei -- surrounded by treacherous snakes and haunted by a prophecy that’s outlined how much she will lose - plays defensively. In light of all this, it makes sense why Dany views everything as positive opportunity and Cersei sees the negative angle. Daenerys wins hearts along her way not just because she’s a humanitarian, but also because she has to. (x)

~

[Dany] is a great and terrible leader who is spreading bloodshed and pain in their path. Entire civilizations have been burned at their whim. And her all-consuming desire to rule Westeros? She’s not particularly fussed about the rights of the smallfolk or worried about the impending frozen hell creeping its way from the North. She wants that Iron Throne because it’s her birthright. It’s hers, gosh darn it! Woe to the men and women who stand in her path. (x)

~

It’s likely the idea of Dany as queen would feel more applause-worthy if she stopped burning people alive and avoiding tough chats in favor of actually meeting the people of Westeros. Think about the end of season 3 finale “Mhysa,” when the dragon queen allowed herself to be enveloped by the freed slaves of Yunkai. Although the scene had a distinct and uncomfortable white savior feel, at least we saw Daenerys actually interact with the people she claims to care about so much. None of that behavior has been seen since Dany stepped foot on Westeros, only giving credence to some lords’ claim she is a “foreign” royal, despite her birth on Dragonstone. Instead of getting out and meeting her prospective subjects for a minute, Dany has spent season 7 either holed up in her castle with her advisors or riding her favorite dragon into battle. These are not the actions of someone determined to lift up the common folk. (x)

~

Daenerys isn't bothered by the idea of taking lives to achieve her goal[.] (x)

Dany isn't driven by hope or promise of change? Dany wins hearts because she "has to"? Dany isn't "fussed about the rights of the smallfolk"? Dany doesn't get out and meet her people? Dany isn't bothered by the idea of taking lives to achieve her goal?

I would argue these claims certainly cannot be made after reading the books (some can't even after watching the show's first 71 episodes, but it can be all over the place and .... I digress), so take a look at these passages.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

A girl might spend her life at play, but she was a woman grown, a queen, a wife, a mother to thousands. Her children had need of her. Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she. She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband.

Hizdahr, of the tepid kisses.

~

No, Dany told herself. If I look back I am lost. She might live for years amongst the sunbaked rocks of Dragonstone, riding Drogon by day and gnawing at his leavings every evenfall as the great grass sea turned from gold to orange, but that was not the life she had been born to. So once again she turned her back upon the distant hill and closed her ears to the song of flight and freedom that the wind sang as it played amongst the hill’s stony ridges. The stream was trickling south by southeast, as near as she could tell. She followed it. Take me to the river, that is all I ask of you. Take me to the river, and I will do the rest.

The hours passed slowly. The stream bent this way and that, and Dany followed, beating time upon her leg with the whip, trying not to think about how far she had to go, or the pounding in her head, or her empty belly. Take one step. Take the next. Another step. Another. What else could she do?

~

Dragonstone was still visible above the grasslands. It looks so close. I must be leagues away by now, but it looks as if I could be back in an hour. She wanted to lie back down, close her eyes, and give herself up to sleep. No. I must keep going. The stream. Just follow the stream.

Dany took a moment to make certain of her directions. It would not do to walk the wrong way and lose her stream. “My friend,” she said aloud. “If I stay close to my friend I won’t get lost.” 

~

“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was ... her name ...” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. “I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.”

~

I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen.

“I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march.” Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. “I had to take Meereen to feed my people.”

You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. 

“To be a queen.”

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. 

“It is such a long way,” she complained. “I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl.”

ADWD Daenerys IX

She pushed herself to her feet, splashing softly. Water ran down her legs and beaded on her breasts. The sun was climbing up the sky, and her people would soon be gathering. She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door, but a queen belongs to her people, not to herself.

~

“How should Meereen ever come to trust the Brazen Beasts if I do not? There are good brave men beneath those masks. I put my life into their hands.” Dany smiled for him. “You fret too much, ser. I will have you beside me, what other protection do I need?”

~

“He would be willing to wait, the woman Meris suggested. Until we march for Westeros.”

And if I never march for Westeros?

~

“Have you ever seen such an auspicious day, my love?” Hizdahr zo Loraq commented when she rejoined him. [...]

“Auspicious for you, perhaps. Less so for those who must die before the sun goes down.”

~

A palanquin lay overturned athwart their way. One of its bearers had collapsed to the bricks, overcome by heat. “Help that man,” Dany commanded. “Get him off the street before he’s stepped on and give him food and water. He looks as though he has not eaten in a fortnight.”

~

“Those bearers were slaves before I came. I made them free. Yet that palanquin is no lighter.”

“True,” said Hizdahr, “but those men are paid to bear its weight now. Before you came, that man who fell would have an overseer standing over him, stripping the skin off his back with a whip. Instead he is being given aid.”

It was true. A Brazen Beast in a boar mask had offered the litter bearer a skin of water. “I suppose I must be thankful for small victories,” the queen said.

“One step, then the next, and soon we shall be running. Together we shall make a new Meereen.” The street ahead had finally cleared. “Shall we continue on?”

What could she do but nod? One step, then the next, but where is it I’m going?

~

Her lord husband stood and raised his hands. “Great Masters! My queen has come this day, to show her love for you, her people. By her grace and with her leave, I give you now your mortal art. Meereen! Let Queen Daenerys hear your love!”

Ten thousand throats roared out their thanks; then twenty thousand; then all. They did not call her name, which few of them could pronounce. “Mother!” they cried instead; in the old dead tongue of Ghis, the word was Mhysa! They stamped their feet and slapped their bellies and shouted, “Mhysa, Mhysa, Mhysa,” until the whole pit seemed to tremble. Dany let the sound wash over her. I am not your mother, she might have shouted, back, I am the mother of your slaves, of every boy who ever died upon these sands whilst you gorged on honeyed locusts.

~

“A boy,” said Dany. “He was only a boy.”

“Six-and-ten,” Hizdahr insisted. “A man grown, who freely chose to risk his life for gold and glory. No children die today in Daznak’s, as my gentle queen in her wisdom has decreed.”

Another small victory. Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad. Daenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. The queen had also wished to forbid the follies, comic combats where cripples, dwarfs, and crones had at one another with cleavers, torches, and hammers (the more inept the fighters, the funnier the folly, it was thought), but Hizdahr said his people would love her more if she laughed with them, and argued that without such frolics, the cripples, dwarfs, and crones would starve. So Dany had relented.

It had been the custom to sentence criminals to the pits; that practice she agreed might resume, but only for certain crimes. “Murderers and rapers may be forced to fight, and all those who persist in slaving, but not thieves or debtors.”

Beasts were still allowed, though. Dany watched an elephant make short work of a pack of six red wolves. Next a bull was set against a bear in a bloody battle that left both animals torn and dying. “The flesh is not wasted,” said Hizdahr. “The butchers use the carcasses to make a healthful stew for the hungry. Any man who presents himself at the Gates of Fate may have a bowl.”

“A good law,” Dany said. You have so few of them. “We must make certain that this tradition is continued.”

~

The battle was followed by the day’s first folly, a tilt between a pair of jousting dwarfs, presented by one of the Yunkish lords that Hizdahr had invited to the games. One rode a hound, the other a sow. Their wooden armor had been freshly painted, so one bore the stag of the usurper Robert Baratheon, the other the golden lion of House Lannister. That was for her sake, plainly. Their antics soon had Belwas snorting laughter, though Dany’s smile was faint and forced. When the dwarf in red tumbled from the saddle and began to chase his sow across the sands, whilst the dwarf on the dog galloped after him, whapping at his buttocks with a wooden sword, she said, “This is sweet and silly, but …”

“Be patient, my sweet,” said Hizdahr. “They are about to loose the lions.”

Daenerys gave him a quizzical look. “Lions?”

“Three of them. The dwarfs will not expect them.”

She frowned. “The dwarfs have wooden swords. Wooden armor. How do you expect them to fight lions?”

“Badly,” said Hizdahr, “though perhaps they will surprise us. More like they will shriek and run about and try to climb out of the pit. That is what makes this a folly.”

Dany was not pleased. “I forbid it.”

“Gentle queen. You do not want to disappoint your people.”

“You swore to me that the fighters would be grown men who had freely consented to risk their lives for gold and honor. These dwarfs did not consent to battle lions with wooden swords. You will stop it. Now.”

~

The boar buried his snout in Barsena’s belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

“Khaleesi?” Irri asked. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off my floppy ears.” A dozen men with boar spears came trotting out onto the sand to drive the boar away from the corpse and back to his pen. The pitmaster was with them, a long barbed whip in his hand. As he snapped it at the boar, the queen rose. “Ser Barristan, will you see me safely back to my garden?”

Hizdahr looked confused. “There is more to come. A folly, six old women, and three more matches. Belaquo and Goghor!”

“Belaquo will win,” Irri declared. “It is known.”

“It is not known,” Jhiqui said. “Belaquo will die.”

“One will die, or the other will,” said Dany. “And the one who lives will die some other day. This was a mistake.”

~

“Magnificence, the people of Meereen have come to celebrate our union. You heard them cheering you. Do not cast away their love.”

“It was my floppy ears they cheered, not me. Take me from this abbatoir, husband.” She could hear the boar snorting, the shouts of the spearmen, the crack of the pitmaster’s whip.

ADWD Daenerys VIII

“...They can close their fingers around our throat again whenever they wish. They have opened a slave market within sight of my walls!”

“Outside our walls, sweet queen. That was a condition of the peace, that Yunkai would be free to trade in slaves as before, unmolested.”

“In their own city. Not where I have to see it.”

~

So Daenerys sat silent through the meal, wrapped in a vermilion tokar and black thoughts, speaking only when spoken to, brooding on the men and women being bought and sold outside her walls, even as they feasted here within the city. Let her noble husband make the speeches and laugh at the feeble Yunkish japes. That was a king’s right and a king’s duty.

~

No queen has clean hands, Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea. Better a few should die in the pit than thousands at the gates. This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost.

~

When the gluttony was done and all the half-eaten food had been cleared away—to be given to the poor who gathered below, at the queen's insistence—tall glass flutes were filled with a spiced liqueur from Qarth as dark as amber.

~

“If it please you, Yurkhaz will be pleased to give us the singers, I do not doubt,” her noble husband said. “A gift to seal our peace, an ornament to our court.”

He will give us these castrati, Dany thought, and then he will march home and make some more. The world is full of boys.

~

Hard by the bay was the abomination, the slave market at her door. She could not see it now, with the sun set, but she knew that it was there. That just made her angrier.

~

“It would please me if he had turned up with these fifty thousand swords he speaks of. Instead he brings two knights and a parchment. Will a parchment shield my people from the Yunkai’i? If he had come with a fleet ...”

[...] “Dorne is too far away. To please this prince, I would need to abandon all my people. You should send him home.”

~

“Bring him to me. It is time he met my children.”

[...] She smiled. “My prince. It is a long way down. Are you certain that you wish to do this?”

“If it would please Your Grace.”

“Then come.”

~

Broken chains clanked and clattered about his legs. Quentyn Martell jumped back a foot.

A crueler woman might have laughed at him, but Dany squeezed his hand and said, “They frighten me as well. There is no shame in that. My children have grown wild and angry in the dark.”

~

“They are ... they are fearsome creatures.”

“They are dragons, Quentyn.” Dany stood on her toes and kissed him lightly, once on each cheek. “And so am I.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

Her foes were all about her. [...] They would not try to take Meereen by storm. They would wait behind their siege lines, flinging stones at her until famine and disease had brought her people to their knees.

Hizdahr will bring me peace. He must.

~

“Dorne is fifty thousand spears and swords, pledged to our queen’s service.”

“Fifty thousand?” mocked Daario. “I count three.”

“Enough,” Daenerys said. “Prince Quentyn has crossed half the world to offer me his gift, I will not have him treated with discourtesy.”

~

“Your Grace does not love the noble Hizdahr. This one thinks you would sooner have another for your husband.”

I must not think of Daario today. “A queen loves where she must, not where she will.”

~

“The day is too hot to be shut up in a palanquin,” said Dany. “Have my silver saddled. I would not go to my lord husband upon the backs of bearers.”

“Your Grace,” said Missandei, “this one is so sorry, but you cannot ride in a tokar.”

The little scribe was right, as she so often was. The tokar was not a garment meant for horseback. Dany made a face. “As you say. Not the palanquin, though. I would suffocate behind those drapes. Have them ready a sedan chair.” If she must wear her floppy ears, let all the rabbits see her.

~

“...This match will save our city, you will see.”

“So we pray. I want to plant my olive trees and see them fruit.” Does it matter that Hizdahr’s kisses do not please me? Peace will please me. Am I a queen or just a woman?

~

Galazza Galare awaited them outside the temple doors, surrounded by her sisters in white and pink and red, blue and gold and purple. There are fewer than there were. Dany looked for Ezzara and did not see her. Has the bloody flux taken even her?

ADWD Daenerys VI

“...Let us distribute the food, Your Grace.”

“On the morrow. I am here now. I want to see.”

~

The Astapori stumbled after them in a ghastly procession that grew longer with every yard they crossed. Some spoke tongues she did not understand. Others were beyond speaking. Many lifted their hands to Dany, or knelt as her silver went by. “Mother,” they called to her, in the dialects of Astapor, Lys, and Old Volantis, in guttural Dothraki and the liquid syllables of Qarth, even in the Common Tongue of Westeros. “Mother, please … mother, help my sister, she is sick … give me food for my little ones … please, my old father … help him … help her … help me …”

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing.

~

It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.”

~

Their eyes followed her. Those who had the strength called out. “Mother … please, Mother … bless you, Mother …”

Bless me, Dany thought bitterly. Your city is gone to ash and bone, your people are dying all around you. I have no shelter for you, no medicine, no hope. Only stale bread and wormy meat, hard cheese, a little milk. Bless me, bless me.

What kind of mother has no milk to feed her children?

~

“Food should not be wasted on the dying, Your Worship. We do not have enough to feed the living.”

He was not wrong, she knew, but that did not make the words any easier to hear.

~

The queen surveyed the scene around her. “If we were to share our food equally …”

“… the Astapori would eat through their portion in days, and we would have that much less for the siege.”

Dany gazed across the camp, to the many-colored brick walls of Meereen. The air was thick with flies and cries. “The gods have sent this pestilence to humble me. So many dead … I will not have them eating corpses.”

~

“I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares.”

~

There was an old man on the ground a few feet away, moaning and staring up at the grey belly of the clouds. She knelt beside him, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and pushed back his dirty grey hair to feel his brow. “His flesh is on fire. I need water to bathe him. Seawater will serve. Marselen, will you fetch some for me? I need oil as well, for the pyre. Who will help me burn the dead?”

By the time Aggo returned with Grey Worm and fifty of the Unsullied loping behind his horse, Dany had shamed all of them into helping her. Symon Stripeback and his men were pulling the living from the dead and stacking up the corpses, while Jhogo and Rakharo and their Dothraki helped those who could still walk toward the shore to bathe and wash their clothes. Aggo stared at them as if they had all gone mad, but Grey Worm knelt beside the queen and said, “This one would be of help.”

Before midday a dozen fires were burning. Columns of greasy black smoke rose up to stain a merciless blue sky. Dany’s riding clothes were stained and sooty as she stepped back from the pyres. “Worship,” Grey Worm said, “this one and his brothers beg your leave to bathe in the salt sea when our work here is done, that we might be purified according to the laws of our great goddess.”

The queen had not known that the eunuchs had a goddess of their own. “Who is this goddess? One of the gods of Ghis?”

Grey Worm looked troubled. “The goddess is called by many names. She is the Lady of Spears, the Bride of Battle, the Mother of Hosts, but her true name belongs only to these poor ones who have burned their manhoods upon her altar. We may not speak of her to others. This one begs your forgiveness.”

“As you wish. Yes, you may bathe if that is your desire. Thank you for your help.”

“These ones live to serve you.”

~

“No ruler can make a people good,” Selmy had told her. “Baelor the Blessed prayed and fasted and built the Seven as splendid a temple as any gods could wish for, yet he could not put an end to war and want.” A queen must listen to her people, Dany reminded herself. “After the wedding Hizdahr will be king. Let him reopen the fighting pits if he wishes. I want no part of it.” Let the blood be on his hands, not mine.

~

“Daenerys, my queen, I will gladly wash you from head to heel if that is what I must do to be your king and consort.”

“To be my king and consort, you need only bring me peace.[”]

~

Would she never have a friend that she could trust? What good are prophecies if you cannot make sense of them? If I marry Hizdahr before the sun comes up, will all these armies melt away like morning dew and let me rule in peace?

~

“I thought you would be the one to betray me. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love, the warlocks said. I thought … I never thought Brown Ben. Even my dragons seemed to trust him.” She clutched her captain by the shoulders. “Promise me that you will never turn against me. I could not bear that. Promise me.”

ADWD Daenerys V

Daenerys received them in the grandeur of her hall as tall candles burned amongst the marble pillars. When she saw that the Astapori were half-starved, she sent for food at once.

~

“I’m no maester, mind you, but I know you got to keep the bad apples from the good.”

“These are not apples, Ben,” said Dany. “These are men and women, sick and hungry and afraid.” My children. “I should have gone to Astapor.”

~

“You want me to loot Meereen and flee? No, I will not do that.[”]

~

Daenerys looked at the faces of the men around her. The Shavepate, scowling. Ser Barristan, with his lined face and sad blue eyes. Reznak mo Reznak, pale, sweating. Brown Ben, white-haired, grizzled, tough as old leather. Grey Worm, smooth-cheeked, stolid, expressionless. Daario should be here, and my bloodriders, she thought. If there is to be a battle, the blood of my blood should be with me. She missed Ser Jorah Mormont too. He lied to me, informed on me, but he loved me too, and he always gave good counsel.

~

“I cannot fight two enemies, one within and one without. If I am to hold Meereen, I must have the city behind me. The whole city. I need … I need …” She could not say it.

“Your Grace?” Ser Barristan prompted, gently.

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people.

“I need Hizdahr zo Loraq.”

ADWD Daenerys IV

Two of Dany’s favorite hostages served the food and kept the cups filled—a doe-eyed little girl called Qezza and a skinny boy named Grazhar. They were brother and sister, and cousins of the Green Grace, who greeted them with kisses when she swept in, and asked them if they had been good.

“They are very sweet, the both of them,” Dany assured her. “Qezza sings for me sometimes. She has a lovely voice. And Ser Barristan has been instructing Grazhar and the other boys in the ways of western chivalry.”

~

The cowards broke in on some weavers, freedwomen who had done no harm to anyone. All they did was make beautiful things. I have a tapestry they gave me hanging over my bed.[”]

~

“...You have not harmed any of the noble children you hold as hostage.”

“Not as yet, no.” Dany had grown fond of her young charges. Some were shy and some were bold, some sweet and some sullen, but all were innocent. [...]

Dany pushed her food about her plate. She dare not glance over to where Grazhar and Qezza stood, for fear that she might cry. [...] Hazzea was enough. What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children? “These murders are not their doing,” Dany told the Green Grace, feebly. “I am no butcher queen.”

~

Only then would her womb quicken once again …

… but Daenerys Targaryen had other children, tens of thousands who had hailed her as their mother when she broke their chains. She thought of Stalwart Shield, of Missandei’s brother, of the woman Rylona Rhee, who had played the harp so beautifully. No marriage would ever bring them back to life, but if a husband could help end the slaughter, then she owed it to her dead to marry.

~

“...Meereen cannot endure another war, Your Radiance.”

That was a good answer, and an honest one. “I have never wanted war. I defeated the Yunkai’i once and spared their city when I might have sacked it. I refused to join King Cleon when he marched against them. Even now, with Astapor besieged, I stay my hand. And Qarth … I have never done the Qartheen any harm …”

~

“...I would sooner perish fighting than return my children to bondage.”

“There may be another choice. The Yunkai’i can be persuaded to allow all your freedmen to remain free, I believe, if Your Worship will agree that the Yellow City may trade and train slaves unmolested from this day forth. No more blood need flow.”

“Save for the blood of those slaves that the Yunkai’i will trade and train,” Dany said, but she recognized the truth in his words even so. It may be that is the best end we can hope for.

~

“So,” she said to him, “it seems that I may wed again. Are you happy for me, ser?”

“If that is your command, Your Grace.”

“Hizdahr is not the husband you would have chosen for me.”

“It is not my place to choose your husband.”

“It is not,” she agreed, “but it is important to me that you should understand. My people are bleeding. Dying. A queen belongs not to herself, but to the realm. Marriage or carnage, those are my choices. A wedding or a war.”

~

“You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them,” Daario went on. “Kill them all and take their treasures, I say. Whisper the command, and your Daario will make you a pile of their heads taller than this pyramid.”

“If I knew who they were—”

“Zhak and Pahl and Merreq. Them, and all the rest. The Great Masters. Who else would it be?”

He is as bold as he is bloody. “We have no proof this is their work. Would you have me slaughter my own subjects?”

“Your own subjects would gladly slaughter you.”

He had been so long away, Dany had almost forgotten what he was. Sellswords were treacherous by nature, she reminded herself. Fickle, faithless, brutal. He will never be more than he is. He will never be the stuff of kings. “The pyramids are strong,” she explained to him. “We could take them only at great cost. The moment we attack one the others will rise against us.”

“Then winkle them out of their pyramids on some pretext. A wedding might serve. Why not? Promise your hand to Hizdahr and all the Great Masters will come to see you married. When they gather in the Temple of the Graces, turn us loose upon them.”

Dany was appalled. He is a monster. A gallant monster, but a monster still. “Do you take me for the Butcher King?”

ADWD Daenerys III

The cedars that had once grown tall along the coast grew no more, felled by the axes of the Old Empire or consumed by dragonfire when Ghis made war against Valyria. Once the trees had gone, the soil baked beneath the hot sun and blew away in thick red clouds. “It was these calamities that transformed my people into slavers,” Galazza Galare had told her, at the Temple of the Graces. And I am the calamity that will change these slavers back into people, Dany had sworn to herself.

~

“I want no slave. I free you.” His jeweled nose made a tempting target. This time Dany threw an apricot at him.

Xaro caught it in the air and took a bite. “Whence came this madness? Should I count myself fortunate that you did not free my own slaves when you were my guest in Qarth?”

I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. “Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened. Do you know how Unsullied are made and trained?”

~

He was too eloquent for her. Dany had no answer for him, only the raw feeling in her belly. “Slavery is not the same as rain,” she insisted. “I have been rained on and I have been sold. It is not the same. No man wants to be owned.”

~

“My dragons have grown, my shoulders have not. They range far afield, hunting.” Hazzea, forgive me.

~

Dany wondered how many men thirteen galleys could hold. It had taken three to carry her and her khalasar from Qarth to Astapor, but that was before she had acquired eight thousand Unsullied, a thousand sellswords, and a vast horde of freedmen. And the dragons, what am I to do with them? “Drogon,” she whispered softly, “where are you?” For a moment she could almost see him sweeping across the sky, his black wings swallowing the stars.

~

"As you say, Your Grace. Still. I will be watchful."

She kissed [Barristan] on the cheek. "I know you will. Come, walk me back down to the feast."

~

One of her young hostages brought her morning meal, a plump shy girl named Mezzara, whose father ruled the pyramid of Merreq, and Dany gave her a happy hug and thanked her with a kiss.

~

“We are all dead, then. You gave us death, not freedom.” Ghael leapt to his feet and spat into her face.

Strong Belwas seized him by the shoulder and slammed him down onto the marble so hard that Dany heard Ghael’s teeth crack. The Shavepate would have done worse, but she stopped him.

“Enough,” she said, dabbing at her cheek with the end of her tokar. “No one has ever died from spittle. Take him away.”

~

Dany would gladly have sent the rest of the petitioners away … but she was still their queen, so she heard them out and did her best to give them justice.

~

Late that afternoon Admiral Groleo and Ser Barristan returned from their inspection of the galleys. Dany assembled her council to hear them. Grey Worm was there for the Unsullied, Skahaz mo Kandaq for the Brazen Beasts. In the absence of her bloodriders, a wizened jaqqa rhan called Rommo, squint-eyed and bowlegged, came to speak for her Dothraki. Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. Reznak mo Reznak hovered at the queen’s elbow, and Strong Belwas stood behind her with his huge arms crossed. Dany would not lack for counsel.

~

Reznak mo Reznak gave a piteous moan. “Then it is true. Your Worship means to abandon us.” He wrung his hands. “The Yunkai’i will restore the Great Masters the instant you are gone, and we who have so faithfully served your cause will be put to the sword, our sweet wives and maiden daughters raped and enslaved.”

“Not mine,” grumbled Skahaz Shavepate. “I will kill them first, with mine own hand.” He slapped his sword hilt.

Dany felt as if he had slapped her face instead. “If you fear what may follow when I leave, come with me to Westeros.”

~

“Those left behind in Meereen would envy them their easy deaths,” moaned Reznak. “They will make slaves of us, or throw us in the pits. All will be as it was, or worse.”

“Where is your courage?” Ser Barristan lashed out. “Her Grace freed you from your chains. It is for you to sharpen your swords and defend your own freedom when she leaves.”

“Brave words, from one who means to sail into the sunset,” Symon Stripeback snarled back. “Will you look back at our dying?”

“Your Grace—”

“Magnificence—”

“Your Worship—”

“Enough.” Dany slapped the table. “No one will be left to die. You are all my people.” Her dreams of home and love had blinded her. “I will not abandon Meereen to the fate of Astapor. It grieves me to say so, but Westeros must wait.”

~

“My lord, I will gladly have those ships, but I cannot give you the promise that you ask.” She took his hand. “Give me the galleys, and I swear that Qarth will have the friendship of Meereen until the stars go out. Let me trade with them, and you will have a good part of the profits.”

Xaro’s glad smile died upon his lips. “What are you saying? Are you telling me you will not go?”

“I cannot go.”

ADWD Daenerys II

“Who is that weeping?”

“Your slave Missandei.” Jhiqui had a taper in her hand.

“My servant. I have no slaves.”

~

“Magnificence,” murmured Reznak mo Reznak, “we cannot know that these great nobles mean to join your enemies. More like they are simply making for their estates in the hills.”

“They will not mind us keeping their gold safe, then. There is nothing to buy in the hills.”

“They are afraid for their children,” Reznak said.

Yes, Daenerys thought, and so am I. “We must keep them safe as well. I will have two children from each of them. From the other pyramids as well. A boy and a girl.”

“Hostages,” said Skahaz, happily.

“Pages and cupbearers. If the Great Masters make objection, explain to them that in Westeros it is a great honor for a child to be chosen to serve at court.”

~

“[...] Will you hear my friends? There are seven of them as well. [...] They have come to add their voices to mine own, and ask Your Grace to let our fighting pits reopen.”

[...] Dany had no answer for that. If this is truly what my people wish, do I have the right to deny it to them? It was their city before it was mine, and it is their own lives they wish to squander. “I will consider all you've said. Thank you for your counsel.” She rose. “We will resume on the morrow.”

~

Safe. The word made Dany’s eyes fill up with tears. “I want to keep you safe.” Missandei was only a child. With her, she felt as if she could be a child too. “No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys … I want to protect you but … it is so hard. To be strong. I don’t always know what I should do. I must know, though. I am all they have. I am the queen … the … the …”

“… mother,” whispered Missandei.

“Mother to dragons.” Dany shivered.

“No. Mother to us all.” Missandei hugged her tighter. “Your Grace should sleep. Dawn will be here soon, and court.”

“We’ll both sleep, and dream of sweeter days. Close your eyes.” When she did, Dany kissed her eyelids and made her giggle.

~

Somewhere beneath those roofs, the Sons of the Harpy were gathered, plotting ways to kill her and all those who loved her and put her children back in chains. Somewhere down there a hungry child was crying for milk. Somewhere an old woman lay dying. Somewhere a man and a maid embraced, and fumbled at each other’s clothes with eager hands. But up here there was only the sheen of moonlight on pyramids and pits, with no hint what lay beneath. Up here there was only her, alone.

She was the blood of the dragon. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. But a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman’s pain. And who would ever dare to love a dragon?

~

“The freedmen work too cheaply, Magnificence,” Reznak said. “Some call themselves journeymen, or even masters, titles that belong by rights only to the craftsmen of the guilds. The masons and the bricklayers do respectfully petition Your Worship to uphold their ancient rights and customs.”

“The freedmen work cheaply because they are hungry,” Dany pointed out. “If I forbid them to carve stone or lay bricks, the chandlers, the weavers, and the goldsmiths will soon be at my gates asking that they be excluded from those trades as well.”

~

“Hizdahr swears that the winners shall share half of all the coin collected at the gates,” said Khrazz. “Half, he swears it, and Hizdahr is an honorable man.”

No, a cunning man. Daenerys felt trapped. “And the losers? What shall they receive?”

~

The guilt …” The word caught in her throat. Hazzea, she thought, and suddenly she heard herself say, “I have to see the pit,” in a voice as small as a child’s whisper. “Take me down, ser, if you would.”

~

What sort of mother lets her children rot in darkness?

~

If I look back, I am doomed, Dany told herself … but how could she not look back? I should have seen it coming. Was I so blind, or did I close my eyes willfully, so I would not have to see the price of power?

[...] On the road to Yunkai, when Daario tossed the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn at her feet, her children made a feast of them. Dragons had no fear of men. And a dragon large enough to gorge on sheep could take a child just as easily.

Her name had been Hazzea. She was four years old. Unless her father lied. He might have lied. No one had seen the dragon but him. His proof was burned bones, but burned bones proved nothing. He might have killed the little girl himself, and burned her afterward. He would not have been the first father to dispose of an unwanted girl child, the Shavepate claimed. The Sons of the Harpy might have done it, and made it look like dragon’s work to make the city hate me. Dany wanted to believe that … but if that was so, why had Hazzea’s father waited until the audience hall was almost empty to come forward? If his purpose had been to inflame the Meereenese against her, he would have told his tale when the hall was full of ears to hear.

 [...] Dany chose to pay the blood price. No one could tell her the worth of a daughter, so she set it at one hundred times the worth of a lamb. “I would give Hazzea back to you if I could,” she told the father, “but some things are beyond the power of even a queen. Her bones shall be laid to rest in the Temple of the Graces, and a hundred candles shall burn day and night in her memory. Come back to me each year upon her nameday, and your other children shall not want … but this tale must never pass your lips again.”

~

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.

ADWD Daenerys I

“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan Selmy, the lord commander of her Queensguard, “there is no need for you to see this.”

“He died for me.”

~

“Grey Worm, why was this man alone? Had he no partner?” By her command, when the Unsullied walked the streets of Meereen by night they always walked in pairs.

“My queen,” replied the captain, “your servant Stalwart Shield had no duty last night. He had gone to a ... a certain place ... to drink, and have companionship.”

“A certain place? What do you mean?”

“A house of pleasure, Your Grace.”

[...] “What could a eunuch hope to find in a brothel?”

“Even those who lack a man’s parts may still have a man’s heart, Your Grace,” said Grey Worm. “This one has been told that your servant Stalwart Shield sometimes gave coin to the women of the brothels to lie with him and hold him.”

The blood of the dragon does not weep. “Stalwart Shield,” she said, dry-eyed. “That was his name?”

“If it please Your Grace.”

“It is a fine name.” The Good Masters of Astapor had not allowed their slave soldiers even names. Some of her Unsullied reclaimed their birth names after she had freed them; others chose new names for themselves. [...]

Dany said a silent prayer that somewhere one of the Harpy’s Sons was dying even now, clutching at his belly and writhing in pain. “Why did they cut open his cheeks like that?”

“Gracious queen,” said Grey Worm, “his killers had forced the genitals of a goat down the throat of your servant Stalwart Shield. This one removed them before bringing him here.”

[...] Shrugging off the lion pelt, she knelt beside the corpse and closed the dead man’s eyes, ignoring Jhiqui’s gasp. “Stalwart Shield shall not be forgotten. Have him washed and dressed for battle and bury him with cap and shield and spears.”

~

To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them.

~

The hall had filled. Unsullied stood with their backs to the pillars, holding shields and spears, the spikes on their caps jutting upward like a row of knives. The Meereenese had gathered beneath the eastern windows. Her freedmen stood well apart from their former masters. Until they stand together, Meereen will know no peace. “Arise.” Dany settled onto her bench. The hall rose. That at least they do as one.

~

“What was the name of the old weaver?”

“The slave?” Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. “She was … Elza, it might have been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace.”

“Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman.”

~

Reznak would have summoned another tokar next, but Dany insisted that he call upon a freedman. Thereafter she alternated between the former masters and the former slaves.

~

“Some men have brought burnt bones.”

“Men make fires. Men cook mutton. Burnt bones prove nothing. Brown Ben says there are red wolves in the hills outside the city, and jackals and wild dogs. Must we pay good silver for every lamb that goes astray between Yunkai and the Skahazadhan?”

“No, Magnificence." Reznak bowed. "Shall I send these rascals away, or will you want them scourged?”

Daenerys shifted on the bench. “No man should ever fear to come to me.” Some claims were false, she did not doubt, but more were genuine. Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs. The more they eat, the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and the larger they grow, the more they'll eat. Drogon especially ranged far afield and could easily devour a sheep a day. “Pay them for the value of their animals,” she told Reznak, “but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis.”

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

“I am going to take you home one day, Missandei,” Dany promised. If I had made the same promise to Jorah, would he still have sold me? “I swear it.”

“This one is content to stay with you, Your Grace. Naath will be there, always. You are good to this—to me.”

“And you to me.”

~

“The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained.”

The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was. She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had once tried to protect, and what had happened to her. It will be the same in Meereen once I march, she thought.

~

“Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.” She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife.”

~

“Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros, but afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I have brought to Slaver’s Bay is death and ruin. I have been more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving on.”

“There is nothing to stay for,” said Brown Ben Plumm.

“Your Grace, the slavers brought their doom on themselves,” said Daario Naharis.

“You have brought freedom as well,” Missandei pointed out.

“Freedom to starve?” asked Dany sharply. “Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?” Am I mad? Do I have the taint?

“A dragon,” Ser Barristan said with certainty. “Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace.”

“But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?” He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from them, to gaze out over the city once again. “My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at their faces. “I will not march.”

“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked Rakharo.

“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a queen.”

ASOS Daenerys V

Her host numbered more than eighty thousand after Yunkai, but fewer than a quarter of them were soldiers. The rest ... well, Ser Jorah called them mouths with feet, and soon they would be starving.

The Great Masters of Meereen had withdrawn before Dany’s advance, harvesting all they could and burning what they could not harvest. Scorched fields and poisoned wells had greeted her at every hand. Worst of all, they had nailed a slave child up on every milepost along the coast road from Yunkai, nailed them up still living with their entrails hanging out and one arm always outstretched to point the way to Meereen. Leading her van, Daario had given orders for the children to be taken down before Dany had to see them, but she had countermanded him as soon as she was told. “I will see them,” she said. “I will see every one, and count them, and look upon their faces. And I will remember.”

By the time they came to Meereen sitting on the salt coast beside her river, the count stood at one hundred and sixty-three. I will have this city, Dany pledged to herself once more.

~

“Strong Belwas needs liver and onions.”

“You shall have it,” said Dany. “Strong Belwas is hurt.” His stomach was red with the blood sheeting down from the meaty gash beneath his breasts.

“It is nothing. I let each man cut me once, before I kill him.” He slapped his bloody belly. “Count the cuts and you will know how many Strong Belwas has slain.”

But Dany had lost Khal Drogo to a similar wound, and she was not willing to let it go untreated. She sent Missandei to find a certain Yunkish freedman renowned for his skill in the healing arts. Belwas howled and complained, but Dany scolded him and called him a big bald baby until he let the healer stanch the wound with vinegar, sew it shut, and bind his chest with strips of linen soaked in fire wine. Only then did she lead her captains and commanders inside her pavilion for their council.

~

Daario Naharis gave Grey Worm a smile. “Perhaps the Unsullied should wield the axes. Boiling oil feels like no more than a warm bath to you, I have heard.”

“This is false.” Grey Worm did not return the smile. “These ones do not feel burns as men do, yet such oil blinds and kills. The Unsullied do not fear to die, though. Give these ones rams, and we will batter down these gates or die in the attempt.”

“You would die,” said Brown Ben. At Yunkai, when he took command of the Second Sons, he claimed to be the veteran of a hundred battles. “Though I will not say I fought bravely in all of them. There are old sellswords and bold sellswords, but no old bold sellswords.” She saw that it was true.

Dany sighed. “I will not throw away Unsullied lives, Grey Worm.”

~

“...You stopped at Astapor to buy an army, not to start a war. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, my queen. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and march west for Pentos.”

“Defeated?” said Dany, bristling.

[...] Dany set great store by Ser Jorah’s counsel, but to leave Meereen untouched was more than she could stomach. She could not forget the children on their posts, the birds tearing at their entrails, their skinny arms pointing up the coast road. “Ser Jorah, you say we have no food left. If I march west, how can I feed my freedmen?”

“You can’t. I am sorry, Khaleesi. They must feed themselves or starve. Many and more will die along the march, yes. That will be hard, but there is no way to save them. We need to put this scorched earth well behind us.”

Dany had left a trail of corpses behind her when she crossed the red waste. It was a sight she never meant to see again. “No,” she said. “I will not march my people off to die.” My children. “There must be some way into this city.”

~

The grove of burnt olive trees in which she’d raised her pavilion stood beside the sea, between the Dothraki camp and that of the Unsullied. When the horses had been saddled, Dany and her companions set out along the shoreline, away from the city. Even so, she could feel Meereen at her back, mocking her. When she looked over one shoulder, there it stood, the afternoon sun blazing off the bronze harpy atop the Great Pyramid. Inside Meereen the slavers would soon be reclining in their fringed tokars to feast on lamb and olives, unborn puppies, honeyed dormice and other such delicacies, whilst outside her children went hungry. A sudden wild anger filled her. I will bring you down, she swore.

ASOS Daenerys IV

Dany considered. The slaver host seemed small compared to her own numbers, but the sellswords were ahorse. She’d ridden too long with Dothraki not to have a healthy respect for what mounted warriors could do to foot. The Unsullied could withstand their charge, but my freedmen will be slaughtered. 

~

One of the first things Dany had done after the fall of Astapor was abolish the custom of giving the Unsullied new slave names every day. Most of those born free had returned to their birth names; those who still remembered them, at least. Others had called themselves after heroes or gods, and sometimes weapons, gems, and even flowers, which resulted in soldiers with some very peculiar names, to Dany’s ears. Grey Worm had remained Grey Worm. When she asked him why, he said, “It is a lucky name. The name this one was born to was accursed. That was the name he had when he was taken for a slave. But Grey Worm is the name this one drew the day Daenerys Stormborn set him free.”

“If battle is joined, let Grey Worm show wisdom as well as valor,” Dany told him. “Spare any slave who runs or throws down his weapon. The fewer slain, the more remain to join us after.”

“This one will remember.”

“I know he will. Be at my tent by midday. I want you there with my other officers when I treat with the sellsword captains.” Dany spurred her silver on to camp.

~

Within the perimeter the Unsullied had established, the tents were going up in orderly rows, with her own tall golden pavilion at the center. A second encampment lay close beyond her own; five times the size, sprawling and chaotic, this second camp had no ditches, no tents, no sentries, no horselines. Those who had horses or mules slept beside them, for fear they might be stolen. Goats, sheep, and half-starved dogs wandered freely amongst hordes of women, children, and old men. Dany had left Astapor in the hands of a council of former slaves led by a healer, a scholar, and a priest. Wise men all, she thought, and just. Yet even so, tens of thousands preferred to follow her to Yunkai, rather than remain behind in Astapor. I gave them the city, and most of them were too frightened to take it.

The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit. Perhaps one in a hundred had a donkey, a camel, or an ox; most carried weapons looted from some slaver’s armory, but only one in ten was strong enough to fight, and none was trained. They ate the land bare as they passed, like locusts in sandals. Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me. She gazed at the smoke rising from their cookfires and swallowed a sigh. She might have the best footsoldiers in the world, but she also had the worst.

~

“I cannot sleep when men are dying for me, Whitebeard,” she said.

~

“Our own losses?”

“A dozen. If that many.”

Only then did she allow herself to smile.

~

“Sellsword or slave, spare all those who will pledge me their faith. If enough of the Second Sons will join us, keep the company intact.”

~

“Mhysa! Mhysa!”

Dany looked at Missandei. “What are they shouting?” “It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘Mother.’”

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned and shouted again, and others took up the cry. “Mhysa!” they called. “Mhysa! MHYSA!” They were all smiling at her, reaching for her, kneeling before her. “Maela,” some called her while others cried “Aelalla” or “Qathei” or “Tato,” but whatever the tongue it all meant the same thing. Mother. They are calling me Mother.

The chant grew, spread, swelled. It swelled so loud that it frightened her horse, and the mare backed and shook her head and lashed her silver-grey tail. It swelled until it seemed to shake the yellow walls of Yunkai. More slaves were streaming from the gates every moment, and as they came they took up the call. They were running toward her now, pushing, stumbling, wanting to touch her hand, to stroke her horse’s mane, to kiss her feet. Her poor bloodriders could not keep them all away, and even Strong Belwas grunted and growled in dismay.

Ser Jorah urged her to go, but Dany remembered a dream she had dreamed in the House of the Undying. “They will not hurt me,” she told him. “They are my children, Jorah.” She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. The freed slaves parted before her. “Mother,” they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand. “Mother,” they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. “Mother, Mother, Mother!”

ASOS Daenerys III

“All,” growled Kraznys mo Nakloz, who smelled of peaches today. The slave girl repeated the word in the Common Tongue of Westeros. “Of thousands, there are eight. Is this what she means by all? There are also six centuries, who shall be part of a ninth thousand when complete. Would she have them too?”

“I would,” said Dany when the question was put to her. “The eight thousands, the six centuries ... and the ones still in training as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes.”

~

Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no matter the price, she told herself. The city had a hundred slave traders, but the eight before her were the greatest. When selling bed slaves, fieldhands, scribes, craftsmen, and tutors, these men were rivals, but their ancestors had allied one with the other for the purpose of making and selling the Unsullied. Brick and blood built Astapor, and brick and blood her people.

~

“My need is now. The Unsullied are well trained, but even so, many will fall in battle. I shall need the boys as replacements to take up the swords they drop.” She put her wine aside and leaned toward the slave girl. “Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm.”

The girl told them. The answer was still no.


Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will pay double, so long as I get them all.”


~

Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

~

“When you are ... when you are done with them ... your Grace might command them to fall upon their swords.”

“And even that, they would do?”


“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft. “Your Grace.”

Dany squeezed her hand. “You would sooner I did not ask it of them, though. Why is that? Why do you care?”

“This one does not ... I ... Your Grace ... ”


“Tell me.”


The girl lowered her eyes. “Three of them were my brothers once, Your Grace.”

Then I hope your brothers are as brave and clever as you.

~

“Magister Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about it.”

The anger burned the grief and fear from her, for a few hours at the least.

~

“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him. “The Lhazareen girl?”

“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her fate.”

“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.

“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”
“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.”

~

“Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears! Swords!”

[...] The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire.

ASOS Daenerys II

“Tell her that these have been standing here for a day and a night, with no food nor water. [...] Such is their courage. Tell her that.”

“I call that madness, not courage,” said Arstan Whitebeard, when the solemn little scribe was done. He tapped the end of his hardwood staff against the bricks, tap tap, as if to tell his displeasure. The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe.

~

He stopped before a thickset man who had the look of Lhazar about him and brought his whip up sharply, laying a line of blood across one copper cheek. The eunuch blinked, and stood there, bleeding. “Would you like another?” asked Kraznys.

“If it please your worship.”

It was hard to pretend not to understand. Dany laid a hand on Kraznys’s arm before he could raise the whip again. “Tell the Good Master that I see how strong his Unsullied are, and how bravely they suffer pain.”

~

“There are other ways to tempt men, besides the flesh,” Arstan Whitebeard objected, when she was done.

“Men, yes, but not Unsullied. Plunder interests them no more than rape. They own nothing but their weapons. We do not even permit them names.”

“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what the Good Master said? They have no names?”

~

“More madness,” said Arstan, when he heard. “How can any man possibly remember a new name every day?”

“Those who cannot are culled in training, along with those who cannot run all day in full pack, scale a mountain in the black of night, walk across a bed of coals, or slay an infant.”

Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that. Did he see, or is he blind as well as cruel? She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say, “Whose infants do they slay?”

“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.”

She was feeling faint. The heat, she tried to tell herself. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”

~

Dany climbed into her litter frowning, and beckoned Arstan to climb in beside her. A man as old as him should not be walking in such heat.

~

“Make way!” Jhogo shouted as he rode before her litter. “Make way for the Mother of Dragons!” But when he uncoiled the great silver-handled whip that Dany had given him, and made to crack it in the air, she leaned out and told him nay. “Not in this place, blood of my blood,” she said, in his own tongue. “These bricks have heard too much of the sound of whips.”

~

“Dog,” he said happily when he saw Dany. “Good dog in Astapor, little queen. Eat?” He offered it with a greasy grin.

“That is kind of you, Belwas, but no.” Dany had eaten dog in other places, at other times, but just now all she could think of was the Unsullied and their stupid puppies.

~

“How many men do they have for sale?”

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.”

~

“They have been wild while you were gone, Khaleesi,” Irri told her. “Viserion clawed splinters from the door, do you see? And Drogon made to escape when the slaver men came to see them. When I grabbed his tail to hold him back, he turned and bit me.” She showed Dany the marks of his teeth on her hand.

“Did any of them try to burn their way free?” That was the thing that frightened Dany the most.

“No, Khaleesi. Drogon breathed his fire, but in the empty air. The slaver men feared to come near him.”

She kissed Irri’s hand where Drogon had bitten it. “I’m sorry he hurt you. Dragons are not meant to be locked up in a small ship’s cabin.”

~

Dusk had begun to settle over the waters of Slaver’s Bay before Dany returned to the deck. She stood by the rail and looked out over Astapor. From here it looks almost beautiful, she thought. The stars were coming out above, and the silk lanterns below, just as Kraznys’s translator had promised. The brick pyramids were all glimmery with light. But it is dark below, in the streets and plazas and fighting pits. And it is darkest of all in the barracks, where some little boy is feeding scraps to the puppy they gave him when they took away his manhood.

~

Cheaper than fighting, Dany thought. Yes, it might be. If only it could be that easy for her. How pleasant it would be to sail to King’s Landing with her dragons, and pay the boy Joffrey a chest of gold to make him go away.

~

“Viserys would have bought as many Unsullied as he had the coin for. But you once said I was like Rhaegar ...”

“I remember, Daenerys.”

“Your Grace,” she corrected. “Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”

“There was no higher honor than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone.”

“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” Dany turned to Mormont, crossed her arms, and waited for an answer.

ASOS Daenerys I

The captain appeared at her elbow. “Would that this Balerion could soar as her namesake did, Your Grace,” he said in bastard Valyrian heavily flavored with accents of Pentos. “Then we should not need to row, nor tow, nor pray for wind.”

“Just so, Captain,” she answered with a smile, pleased to have won the man over. Captain Groleo was an old Pentoshi like his master, Illyrio Mopatis, and he had been nervous as a maiden about carrying three dragons on his ship. Half a hundred buckets of seawater still hung from the gunwales, in case of fires. At first Groleo had wanted the dragons caged and Dany had consented to put his fears at ease, but their misery was so palpable that she soon changed her mind and insisted they be freed.


Even Captain Groleo was glad of that, now. There had been one small fire, easily extinguished; against that, Balerion suddenly seemed to have far fewer rats than she’d had before, when she sailed under the name Saduleon. And her crew, once as fearful as they were curious, had begun to take a queer fierce pride in “their” dragons. Every man of them, from captain to cook’s boy, loved to watch the three fly ... though none so much as Dany.

~

“Ser Jorah named Rhaegar the last dragon once. He had to have been a peerless warrior to be called that, surely?”

“Your Grace,” said Whitebeard, “the Prince of Dragonstone was a most puissant warrior, but ...”

“Go on,” she urged. “You may speak freely to me.”

~

“...A change in the wind may bring the gift of victory.” He glanced at Ser Jorah. “Or a lady’s favor knotted round an arm.”

Mormont’s face darkened. “Be careful what you say, old man.”

Arstan had seen Ser Jorah fight at Lannisport, Dany knew, in the tourney Mormont had won with a lady’s favor knotted round his arm. He had won the lady too; Lynesse of House Hightower, his second wife, highborn and beautiful ... but she had ruined him, and abandoned him, and the memory of her was bitter to him now. “Be gentle, my knight.” She put a hand on Jorah’s arm. “Arstan had no wish to give offense, I’m certain.”

~

“A queen must listen to all,” she reminded him. “The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.” She had read that in a book.

~

“It seems to me that a queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a queen who trusts everyone. Every man I take into my service is a risk, I understand that, but how am I to win the Seven Kingdoms without such risks? Am I to conquer Westeros with one exile knight and three Dothraki bloodriders?”

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

“Make way,” Aggo shouted, while Jhogo sniffed at the air suspiciously. “I smell it, Khaleesi,” he called. “The poison water.” The Dothraki distrusted the sea and all that moved upon it. Water that a horse could not drink was water they wanted no part of. They will learn, Dany resolved. I braved their sea with Khal Drogo. Now they can brave mine.

~

The brass merchant was still rolling on the ground. She went to him and helped him to his feet. “Were you stung?”

“No, good lady,” he said, shaking, “or else I would be dead. But it touched me, aieeee, when it fell from the box it landed on my arm.” He had soiled himself, she saw, and no wonder.

She gave him a silver for his trouble and sent him on his way before she turned back to the old man with the white beard.

ACOK Daenerys III

They must weigh twice what they had in Vaes Tolorro. Even so, it would be years before they were large enough to take to war. And they must be trained as well, or they will lay my kingdom waste. For all her Targaryen blood, Dany had not the least idea of how to train a dragon.

~

“The Pureborn refused you?”

“As you said they would. Come, sit, give me your counsel.”

ACOK Daenerys II

The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

But before she could do that she must conquer.

~

Beneath Dany's gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth gleamed like black needles. "When does your ship return to Westeros, Captain?" 

"Not for a year or more, I fear. From here the Cinnamon Wind sails east, to make the trader's circle round the Jade Sea." 

"I see," said Dany, disappointed. "I wish you fair winds and good trading, then. You have brought me a precious gift."

~

Dany laughed. "And will see more of them one day, I hope. Come to me in King's Landing when I am on my father's throne, and you shall have a great reward."

ACOK Daenerys I

They are not strong, she told herself, so I must be their strength. I must show no fear, no weakness, no doubt. However frightened my heart, when they look upon my face they must see only Drogo’s queen. She felt older than her fourteen years. If ever she had truly been a girl, that time was done.

~

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick, yet it was her dragons she feared for.

~

Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on.

A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys X

“You will be my khalasar,” she told them. “I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one shall harm you. If you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.” The black eyes watched her, wary, expressionless. “I see the children, women, the wrinkled faces of the aged. I was a child yesterday. Today I am a woman. Tomorrow I will be old. To each of you I say, give me your hands and your hearts, and there will always be a place for you.”

AGOT Daenerys IX

“Eroeh?” asked Dany, remembering the frightened child she had saved outside the city of the Lamb Men.

“Mago seized her, who is Khal Jhaqo’s bloodrider now,” said Jhogo. “He mounted her high and low and gave her to his khal, and Jhaqo gave her to his other bloodriders. They were six. When they were done with her, they cut her throat.”

“It was her fate, Khaleesi,” said Aggo.


If I look back I am lost. “It was a cruel fate,” Dany said, “yet not so cruel as Mago’s will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear it by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh.”

The Dothraki exchanged uncertain glances. “Khaleesi,” the handmaid Irri explained, as if to a child, “Jhaqo is a khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back.”

She lifted her head. “And I am Daenerys Stormhorn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon’s daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo.”

AGOT Daenerys VIII

“He fell from his horse,” Haggo said, staring down. His broad face was impassive, but his voice was leaden.

“You must not say that,” Dany told him. “We have ridden far enough today. We will camp here.”

~

“We must bathe him,” she said stubbornly. She must not allow herself to despair. “Irri, have the tub brought at once. Doreah, Eroeh, find water, cool water, he’s so hot.” He was a fire in human skin.

[...] While the bath was being prepared, Dany knelt awkwardly beside her lord husband, her belly great with their child within. She undid his braid with anxious fingers, as she had on the night he’d taken her for the first time, beneath the stars. His bells she laid aside carefully, one by one. He would want them again when he was well, she told herself.

~

“Help him,” Dany pleaded. “For the love you say you bear me, help him now.”

[...] “Your khal is good as dead, Princess.”

“No, he can’t die, he mustn’t, it was only a cut.” Dany took his large callused hand in her own small ones, and held it tight between them. “I will not let him die ...”

~

Dany hugged herself. “But why?” she cried plaintively. “Why should they kill a little baby?”

“He is Drogo’s son, and the crones say he will be the stallion who mounts the world. It was prophesied. Better to kill the child than to risk his fury when he grows to manhood.”

The child kicked inside her, as if he had heard. Dany remembered the story Viserys had told her, of what the Usurper’s dogs had done to Rhaegar’s children. His son had been a babe as well, yet they had ripped him from his mother’s breast and dashed his head against a wall. That was the way of men. “They must not hurt my son!” she cried. “I will order my khas to keep him safe, and Drogo’s bloodriders will—”

~

Dany did not want to go back to Vaes Dothrak and live the rest of her life among those terrible old women, yet she knew that the knight spoke the truth. Drogo had been more than her sun-and-stars; he had been the shield that kept her safe. “I will not leave him,” she said stubbornly, miserably. She took his hand again. “I will not.”

~

“This is your work, maegi,” Qotho said. Haggo laid his fist across Mirri’s cheek with a meaty smack that drove her to the ground. Then he kicked her where she lay.

“Stop it!” Dany screamed.

~

“So you have saved me once more.”

“And now you must save him,” Dany said. “Please ...”

[...] “All I can do now is ease the dark road before him, so he might ride painless to the night lands. He will be gone by morning.”

Her words were a knife through Dany’s breast. What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? She had finally found a safe place, had finally tasted love and hope. She was finally going home. And now to lose it all ... “No,” she pleaded. “Save him, and I will free you, I swear it. You must know a way ... some magic, some ...”

~

She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.

~

She caught him by the shoulder, but Qotho shoved her aside. Dany fell to her knees, crossing her arms over her belly to protect the child within.

~

Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody. “No,” she wept, “no, please, stop it, it’s too high, the price is too high.” More stones came flying. She tried to crawl toward the tent, but Cohollo caught her. Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat. “My baby,” she screamed, and perhaps the gods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead. Aggo’s arrow took him under the arm, to pierce his lungs and heart.

AGOT Daenerys VII

The town was afire, black plumes of smoke roiling and tumbling as they rose into a hard blue sky. Beneath broken walls of dried mud, riders galloped back and forth, swinging their long whips as they herded the survivors from the smoking rubble. The women and children of Ogo’s khalasar walked with a sullen pride, even in defeat and bondage; they were slaves now, but they seemed not to fear it. It was different with the townsfolk. Dany pitied them; she remembered what terror felt like. Mothers stumbled along with blank, dead faces, pulling sobbing children by the hand. There were only a few men among them, cripples and cowards and grandfathers.

~

Ogo and his son had shared the high bench with her lord husband at the naming feast where Viserys had been crowned, but that was in Vaes Dothrak, beneath the Mother of Mountains, where every rider was a brother and all quarrels were put aside. It was different out in the grass. Ogo’s khalasar had been attacking the town when Khal Drogo caught him. She wondered what the Lamb Men had thought, when they first saw the dust of their horses from atop those cracked-mud walls. Perhaps a few, the younger and more foolish who still believed that the gods heard the prayers of desperate men, took it for deliverance.

Across the road, a girl no older than Dany was sobbing in a high thin voice as a rider shoved her over a pile of corpses, facedown, and thrust himself inside her. Other riders dismounted to take their turns. That was the sort of deliverance the Dothraki brought the Lamb Men.

I am the blood of the dragon, Daenerys Targaryen reminded herself as she turned her face away. She pressed her lips together and hardened her heart and rode on toward the gate.

“Most of Ogo’s riders fled,” Ser Jorah was saying. “Still, there may be as many as ten thousand captives.”

Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver’s Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne.

“I’ve told the khal he ought to make for Meereen,” Ser Jorah said. “They’ll pay a better price than he’d get from a slaving caravan. Illyrio writes that they had a plague last year, so the brothels are paying double for healthy young girls, and triple for boys under ten. If enough children survive the journey, the gold will buy us all the ships we need, and hire men to sail them.”

Behind them, the girl being raped made a heartrending sound, a long sobbing wail that went on and on and on. Dany’s hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver’s head. “Make them stop,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

“Khaleesi?” The knight sounded perplexed.


“You heard my words,” she said. “Stop them.” She spoke to her khas in the harsh accents of Dothraki. “Jhogo, Quaro, you will aid Ser Jorah. I want no rape.”

The warriors exchanged a baffled look.

Jorah Mormont spurred his horse closer. “Princess,” he said, “you have a gentle heart, but you do not understand. This is how it has always been. Those men have shed blood for the khal. Now they claim their reward.”

Across the road, the girl was still crying, her high singsong tongue strange to Dany’s ears. The first man was done with her now, and a second had taken his place.

“She is a lamb girl,” Quaro said in Dothraki. “She is nothing, Khaleesi. The riders do her honor. The Lamb Men lay with sheep, it is known.”

“It is known,” her handmaid Irri echoed.

“It is known,” agreed Jhogo, astride the tall grey stallion that Drogo had given him. “If her wailing offends your ears, Khaleesi, Jhogo will bring you her tongue.” He drew his arakh.

“I will not have her harmed,” Dany said. “I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.”

“Ai, Khaleesi,” Jhogo replied, kicking his horse. Quaro and the others followed his lead, the bells in their hair chiming.

“Go with them,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

“As you command.” The knight gave her a curious look. “You are your brother’s sister, in truth.”

“Viserys?” She did not understand.

“No,” he answered. “Rhaegar.” He galloped off.

~

Mormont pulled the girl off the pile of corpses and wrapped her in his blood-spattered cloak. He led her across the road to Dany. “What do you want done with her?”

The girl was trembling, her eyes wide and vague. Her hair was matted with blood. “Doreah, see to her hurts. You do not have a rider’s look, perhaps she will not fear you. The rest, with me.” She urged the silver through the broken wooden gate.

It was worse inside the town. Many of the houses were afire, and the jaqqa rhan had been about their grisly work. Headless corpses filled the narrow, twisty lanes. They passed other women being raped. Each time Dany reined up, sent her khas to make an end to it, and claimed the victim as slave. One of them, a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years, blessed Dany haltingly in the Common Tongue, but from the others she got only flat black stares. They were suspicious of her, she realized with sadness; afraid that she had saved them for some worse fate.

“You cannot claim them all, child,” Ser Jorah said, the fourth time they stopped, while the warriors of her khas herded her new slaves behind her.

“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.” Across the city, a building collapsed in a great gout of fire and smoke, and she heard distant screams and the wailing of frightened children.

~

He started to reach out a hand to Daenerys, but as he lifted his arm Drogo grimaced in sudden pain and turned his head.

Dany could almost feel his agony. The wounds were worse than Ser Jorah had led her to believe. “Where are the healers?” she demanded. [...] “Why do they not attend the khal?”

“The khal sent the hairless men away, Khaleesi,” old Cohollo assured her.

[...] “It is not for Khal Drogo to wait,” she proclaimed. “Jhogo, seek out these eunuchs and bring them here at once.”

~

“The khal needs no help from women who lie with sheep,” barked Qotho. “Aggo, cut out her tongue.”

Aggo grabbed her hair and pressed a knife to her throat. Dany lifted a hand. “No. She is mine. Let her speak.”

~

“The Great Shepherd sent me to earth to heal his lambs, wherever I might find them.”

Qotho gave her a stinging slap. “We are no sheep, maegi.”


“Stop it,” Dany said angrily. “She is mine. I will not have her harmed.”

~

“Know this, wife of the Lamb God. Harm the khal and you suffer the same.” He drew his skinning knife and showed her the blade.

“She will do no harm.” Dany felt she could trust this old, plainfaced woman with her flat nose; she had saved her from the hard hands of her rapers, after all.

 AGOT Daenerys VI

She saw a beautiful feathered cloak from the Summer Isles, and took it for a gift. [...] When Doreah looked longingly at a fertility charm at a magician’s booth, Dany took that too and gave it to the handmaid, thinking that now she should find something for Irri and Jhiqui as well.

AGOT Daenerys V

Dany had not known, had not even suspected. “Then ... he should have them. He does not need to steal them. He had only to ask. He is my brother ... and my true king.”

“He is your brother,” Ser Jorah acknowledged.

“You do not understand, ser,” she said. “My mother died giving me birth, and my father and my brother Rhaegar even before that. I would never have known so much as their names if Viserys had not been there to tell me. He was the only one left. The only one. He is all I have.” ~

A sense of dread closed around her heart. “Go to him,” she commanded Ser Jorah. “Stop him. Bring him here. Tell him he can have the dragon’s eggs if that is what he wants.” The knight rose swiftly to his feet.

“Where is my sister?” Viserys shouted, his voice thick with wine. “I’ve come for her feast. How dare you presume to eat without me? No one eats before the king. Where is she? The whore can’t hide from the dragon.”

~

Her voice made Viserys turn his head, and he saw her for the first time. “There she is,” he said, smiling. He stalked toward her, slashing at the air as if to cut a path through a wall of enemies, though no one tried to bar his way.

“The blade ... you must not,” she begged him. “Please, Viserys. It is forbidden. Put down the sword and come share my cushions. There’s drink, food ... is it the dragon’s eggs you want? You can have them, only throw away the sword.”

~

Distantly, as from far away, Dany heard her handmaid Jhiqui sobbing in fear, pleading that she dared not translate, that the khal would bind her and drag her behind his horse all the way up the Mother of Mountains. She put her arm around the girl. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I shall tell him.”

AGOT Daenerys IV

Dany followed on her silver, escorted by Ser Jorah Mormont and her brother Viserys, mounted once more. After the day in the grass when she had left him to walk back to the khalasar, the Dothraki had laughingly called him Khal Rhae Mhar, the Sorefoot King. Khal Drogo had offered him a place in a cart the next day, and Viserys had accepted. In his stubborn ignorance, he had not even known he was being mocked; the carts were for eunuchs, cripples, women giving birth, the very young and the very old. That won him yet another name: Khal Rhaggat, the Cart King. Her brother had thought it was the khal’s way of apologizing for the wrong Dany had done him. She had begged Ser Jorah not to tell him the truth, lest he be shamed. The knight had replied that the king could well do with a bit of shame ... yet he had done as she bid. It had taken much pleading, and all the pillow tricks Doreah had taught her, before Dany had been able to make Drogo relent and allow Viserys to rejoin them at the head of the column.

~

“So many,” she said as her silver stepped slowly onward, “and from so many lands.”

Viserys was less impressed. “The trash of dead cities,” he sneered. [...] “All these savages know how to do is steal the things better men have built ... and kill.” He laughed. “They do know how to kill. Otherwise I’d have no use for them at all.”

“They are my people now,” Dany said. “You should not call them savages, brother.”

“The dragon speaks as he likes,” Viserys said ... in the Common Tongue.

~

“I will give my brother his gifts tonight,” she decided as Jhiqui was washing her hair. “He should look a king in the sacred city. Doreah, run and find him and invite him to sup with me.” Viserys was nicer to the Lysene girl than to her Dothraki handmaids, perhaps because Magister Illyrio had let him bed her back in Pentos. “Irri, go to the bazaar and buy fruit and meat. Anything but horseflesh.”

“Horse is best,” Irri said. “Horse makes a man strong.”

“Viserys hates horsemeat.”

[...] While her handmaids prepared the meal, Dany laid out the clothing she’d had made to her brother’s measure: a tunic and leggings of crisp white linen, leather sandals that laced up to the knee, a bronze medallion belt, a leather vest painted with fire-breathing dragons. The Dothraki would respect him more if he looked less a beggar, she hoped, and perhaps he would forgive her for shaming him that day in the grass. He was still her king, after all, and her brother. They were both blood of the dragon.

She was arranging the last of his gifts—a sandsilk cloak, green as grass, with a pale grey border that would bring out the silver in his hair—when Viserys arrived, dragging Doreah by the arm. Her eye was red where he’d hit her. “How dare you send this whore to give me commands,” he said. He shoved the handmaid roughly to the carpet.

The anger took Dany utterly by surprise. “I only wanted ... Doreah, what did you say?”

“Khaleesi, pardons, forgive me. I went to him, as you bid, and told him you commanded him to join you for supper.”

“No one commands the dragon,” Viserys snarled. “I am your king! I should have sent you back her head!”

The Lysene girl quailed, but Dany calmed her with a touch. “Don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you. Sweet brother, please, forgive her, the girl misspoke herself, I told her to ask you to sup with me, if it pleases Your Grace.” She took him by the hand and drew him across the room. “Look. These are for you.”

Viserys frowned suspiciously. “What is all this?”

“New raiment. I had it made for you.” Dany smiled shyly.

He looked at her and sneered. “Dothraki rags. Do you presume to dress me now?”

“Please ... you’ll be cooler and more comfortable, and I thought ... maybe if you dressed like them, the Dothraki ... ” Dany did not know how to say it without waking his dragon.

“Next you’ll want to braid my hair.”

“I’d never ... ” Why was he always so cruel? She had only wanted to help. “You have no right to a braid, you have won no victories yet.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Fury shone from his lilac eyes, yet he dared not strike her, not with her handmaids watching and the warriors of her khas outside. Viserys picked up the cloak and sniffed at it. “This stinks of manure. Perhaps I shall use it as a horse blanket.”

“I had Doreah sew it specially for you,” she told him, wounded. “These are garments fit for a khal.” “I am the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, not some grass-stained savage with bells in his hair,” Viserys spat back at her. He grabbed her arm. “You forget yourself, slut. Do you think that big belly will protect you if you wake the dragon?”

His fingers dug into her arm painfully and for an instant Dany felt like a child again, quailing in the face of his rage. She reached out with her other hand and grabbed the first thing she touched, the belt she’d hoped to give him, a heavy chain of ornate bronze medallions. She swung it with all her strength.

It caught him full in the face. Viserys let go of her. Blood ran down his cheek where the edge of one of the medallions had sliced it open. “You are the one who forgets himself,” Dany said to him. “Didn’t you learn anything that day in the grass? Leave me now, before I summon my khas to drag you out. And pray that Khal Drogo does not hear of this, or he will cut open your belly and feed you your own entrails.”

Viserys scrambled back to his feet. “When I come into my kingdom, you will rue this day, slut.” He walked off, holding his torn face, leaving her gifts behind him.

Drops of his blood had spattered the beautiful sandsilk cloak. Dany clutched the soft cloth to her cheek and sat cross-legged on her sleeping mats.

“Your supper is ready, Khaleesi,” Jhiqui announced.

“I’m not hungry,” Dany said sadly. She was suddenly very tired.

#daenerys targaryen #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords #a clash of kings #a game of thrones #dany passages

[kashif1550]

Post 1 - Multicultural America

 1.What is the subject of your film, program, or internet/social media selection? Provide a brief summary, describing your selection and how it relates to our course topics, readings, and screenings.

For the first post, I picked the movie District 9. District 9 is 2009 Sci-Fic action movie that is set in South Africa. The story starts off with a UFO, filled with aliens inside, touching base in a major city in South Africa.

Naturally, the entire world does not react well to the new arrivals. However, as the movie progresses, it becomes obvious that the aliens are a metaphor for a marginalized race. The location for the film couldn’t have been perfect enough, given the history of South Africa. Apartheid ended in 1994, a mere fifteen years before the start of this movie. It was not that long ago where segregation was a reality for South Africans. 

The reality for the aliens in the movie is not a far cry from the discrimination the South African government expelled on to their own citizens. Aliens aren’t allowed to enter certain areas, aren’t allowed to have intercourse with humans, aren’t allowed to eat in the same locations, and many other inhuman restrictions as well.

  The movie tries to end on a positive note, showing us there is a way for oppressors to understand the oppressed. Unfortunately, it was only because a human was mutating into an alien and subjected to the same discrimination. 

In a dark, pessimistic way, it is saying that perhaps we cannot see the true harm in the unfair power dynamic unless we’re no longer benefiting from it. It shows how things won’t change until those with the privilege step up and decide to dismantle the system they gain from.  

Comparing this movie to something from my reading, I would have to connect it to the Jim Crow laws in the United States. African Americans were faced with harsh treatment at every front. Obtaining a job was difficult, dating a white person could lead to being lynched and legal troubles, and the creation of a mixed-race child was a crime. 

Both the movie and the harsh factors of segregation show that the reason for their hatred, for their inhuman actions, and unjustifiable behavior came from ignorance. False narratives and stereotypes were used to justify the nature of the oppressive system they created, thinking that would bring order in their world. In the end, it only caused disorder until justice was served.  

2. Referring to related and appropriate readings and screenings from the course, describe how your selection represents racial and ethnic identities (and if applicable, intersectionality). In what ways does your selection for each of the journal entries generate a conversation regarding race, ethnicity, and cultural diversity?

For the movie I picked, you can see how it relates to racial and ethnic identities through the science fiction element of aliens. In their world, the grievances usually associated to immigrants and minorities is pigeonholed into one singular group: the new extraterrestrial life form. They are written off as violent, lazy, rampant in childbirth, and destructive in nature. The humans question their intelligence often, though ironically want the high-tech guns the aliens have brought along with them.

The way newcomers, arriving to the United States, have been treated throughout history has shown that it isn’t always pleasant. For Chinese immigrants, many faced push backs from gold miners, essentially forcing them into the laundry market because of the over taxation placed on the mines. A more comparable experience would be with indigenous people consider, for most of the plot of the movie, the South African government is trying to relocate the aliens to a new reservation. Similar to that outcome, Native Americans were also uprooted from their land and told to move to another plot of land. In the movie, the South Africans do not believe they can live in the same area as the aliens. And for President Andrew Jackson, he felt the exact same way about Native Americans.

“In Jackson’s view, Indians could not survive living within white society […] Drive by ‘feeling of justice,’ Jackson declared that he wanted ‘to preserve this much-injured race.’ He proposed a solution—the setting aside of a strict west of the Mississippi ‘to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it.” (Pg 81, Takaki) 

Andrew Jackson saw the relocation as essential for Native Americans for them to intergrade into American culture. He offered land for the Natives to farm on, believing that somehow that would encourage them to opt to a farming lifestyle like white settlers. What Andrew Jackson and the South Africans in this movie both struggle to grasp is this: consent.

No one asked Native Americans if they wanted to be uprooted from their homes and forced on to reservations. And same for those aliens, they were not given any say on their relocation. When it comes to the opinions of minorities and other marginalized groups, it’s common to see the trend of dehumanization and removing the ability of choice. 

When you strip a human from the ability to make choices on their own and use their voice, then do you even see them as an equal at all? No, of course not. People you make choices for are children, meaning that was what they saw in these individuals. They saw them as incapable, but not because they actually were, but because of ignorance and racism. For the movie, specism. 

3.How does your selection relate to the course readings, screenings and discussions?  Reflect upon the representation and circulation of racial and ethnic identities in popular visual culture. Your reflections should be attentive to the intersectionalities of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic class and gender.

As I have stated above, the movie District 9 connects to Jim Crow laws, segregation, and Native American removal. Aliens were limited from participating in activities humans were allowed to and prevented from prospering. They were negatively depicted in the media and rarely shown in a positive light. Media, as history has shown us, plays a vital role in perception.

In the earlier stages of Hollywood, the depiction of minorities was played by white actors, making a mockery of the ethnic group they were portraying. Due to years of boxing people of color into outrageous caricatures, it has left a lasting impression in media—even to this day. Some may brush off media as a fleeting set of pictures, unable to capture and captivate our lives, but one should not be so dismissive of the images that come their way. 

“People who have never interacted with a black family in their communities more easily embrace what the media tells them. […] In worst case scenarios, black boys and men actually internalize biases and stereotypes and, through their behavior, reinforce and even perpetuate the misrepresentations. They become victims of perception.” (Donaldson, The Guardian)

Naturally, since we were children, we internalize the images we see. There’s a great deal of impact on the content we consume. Because of redlining, it has made communities just as closed off to diversity as they were before. To this day, someone could live their life not truly being friends with someone from a particular ethnic or racial background. What exactly will that person think of said individual if all they have to learn about them are bad depictions from movies? The result is detrimental. That is why representation of all groups, races, religions should be embraced. When you show a narrow view on something, you are only hurting the viewers in the long run. 

For me, speaking as a Muslim, it’s surprises me how often people misrepresent my faith. It’s even more upsetting at how closely connected my own religion is to those who try to dismantle its existence. I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve heard my friends get shocked that I believe in Jesus, Abraham, and the same biblical stories they heard of growing up. The thing is, if they would only open their eyes and not accept the first negative thing they heard about us, then maybe they could see more similarities than differences. In the end, that is what everyone in a marginalized group hope for—acceptance and inclusion. 

Sources:

Page 81, Takaki

    A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

   Takaki, Ronald

The Guardian

    Donaldson, Leigh

    Title: When the media misrepresents black men, the effects are felt in the real world (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/media-misrepresents-black-men-effects-felt-real-world)

[graduationemmasep]

'I like the way MDMA gives you a deep sense of connection to your friends'

I'm no fiend. Most nights I'd rather share a bottle of wine with some friends than stay up till 6am getting sweaty and boggle-eyed on a bender. But while I associate alcohol with talking about past experiences, I associate drugs with making new ones. Party drugs can often make a stranger feel like a confidant; a simple trip to a town centre feel like an Enid Blyton escapade.

I probably take class-A party drugs such as MDMA or cocaine once a fortnight, and have done since I was 16 (I'm 27 now). I like the way cocaine gives you a new lease of life, like a mushroom in Super Mario, to carry on with a night out. I like the way MDMA softens the edges of reality and gives you a deep sense of connection to your friends that you can never get when you meet them for dinner and they moan about their jobs. I like how when you're coming down from a pill another person's touch has a comforting, almost electric capacity. If you're suffering from exhaustion, anxiety or stress, recreational drugs can give you a bit of a leg-up.

Drugs can also be a total pain. Ecstasy can make you feel like you're floating in a cloud, but just as often it's an admin nightmare: you come up at different times from your friends; only half the people in a group remembered to get sorted and there's endless hassle at a party trying to get more. Even when you're having a great time, there's a self-doubting internal monologue running through the whole process: Have I done enough? Am I coming up? Do I look like a prick?

I would just like to have that conversation about drugs being sometimes brilliant and occasionally annoying. Yet I feel like there is no one who is willing to talk about drugs in those terms.

When children ask their parents where babies come from, they get a white lie – a stork delivers them, you find them in a cabbage patch, you order them from Ocado. That's the closest thing I can think of to explain the difference between the perception and the reality of drug use by young people in the UK. There is a societal stork myth that is propagated by the media and popular culture to hide a basic reality. Even users themselves are entirely unwilling to talk about drug-taking honestly. Everything in the drugs world tries to stifle this conversation. Take nightclubs. It doesn't take a genius to work out that staying up till 6am listening to dance music at an ear-splitting volume would not only be unenjoyable without some kind of mind-altering stimulant, but a painful test of endurance. Most people in big nightclubs are on drugs. The clubs know that: that's why they charge so much for entry and, often, for bottles of water. They know that not many people will be buying drinks. Most of them have in-house dealers too, so they can sort out their DJs. Bigger DJs put requests for drugs on their rider. "We just put it on expenses as 'fruit and flowers'," a promoter at a major nightclub told me this year. But there's still a stork charade, with the venue covered in posters promising to eject drug users and bouncers searching punters – but not too thoroughly. The pretence is that this could all be above board.

I suppose the reason for this false picture of drug-taking is that most people don't take drugs. The statistics show that only a small fraction of the UK population are regular drugs users, and a smaller fraction still do anything harder than weed. But drug use is not spread evenly across the country, nor across age groups. In my demographic – under 30, living in London, job in the creative industries, disposable income – almost everyone is a recreational drugs user.

Where I grew up in south London, it was pretty uncommon to find someone who didn't at least smoke weed. The children of more middle-class parents were taking cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and mephedrone almost every weekend. These were not reprobates ruining their lives: they were intelligent, bright people who got three As at A-level and went to good universities.

We would go to raves in places such as Camberwell and Hackney Wick, to warehouse venues where almost no one was over 18. White powders flowed as freely as the Fanta Fruit Twist and Malibu we were drinking. Festivals played a big part, too. Parents, even quite strict ones who wouldn't dream of letting their kids out past midnight, were happy to send their kids to music festivals, perhaps because of the reverent music-focused coverage in the media.

If you go to somewhere like Reading or Benicàssim, almost everyone is under 20. Half of them barely leave the campsite. Festivals are drugs playgrounds where teenagers experiment with copious amounts of uppers in presumably quite dangerous combinations. Some of the best moments of my life took place going to festivals as a teenager. I remember one muddy year at Glastonbury, racing down the hill arm-in-arm with a bunch of people, all off our faces on MDMA, feeling happier than I had ever felt. Another year, I remember taking mephedrone with a girl I fancied during Blur's headline set, both weeping with joy at a band we'd grown up with our whole lives.

Again, everyone knows this; no one thinks the thousands who watch the sunrise at the stone circle in Glastonbury every year are just on a high from seeing Mumford and Sons. But the festivals keep up the pretence that they are drug-free zones. Even a recent BBC3 show, Festivals, Sex and Suspicious Parents, which was supposed to show parents what their kids really got up to at festivals, ignored the fact that as the cameras panned around the festival, many revellers were plainly as high as a kite, their jaws swinging back and forth like pendulums, a side-effect of taking ecstasy. The voiceover just kept talking about people being "drunk".

I am also part of the first generation of people whose parents are likely to have been drug users. Of course, some adults would be outraged, like the parents on BBC3, to see what their kids got up to. But many more knew only too well – plenty of people I know would smoke weed or share dealers with their parents. In some families drug use had less stigma than smoking.

I thought all this was normal, but at university I met, for the first time, young people who totally abstained from drugs. They mostly came from outside major cities, or outside the UK, and many shivered in horror when they saw the rest of us dabbing our gums with mysterious white powders. I thought there would be a rift in social lives, an us-and-them situation, but it was around that time that mephedrone happened. Known by literally no young person ever as "meow meow", mephedrone was a legal high that changed attitudes towards drug-taking. Polite do-right kids who would never dream of taking illegal drugs were happy to chow down on bombs (self-made wontons of mephedrone powder wrapped in Rizla) like they were no more risqué than chocolate liqueurs.

Mephedrone was incredibly cheap – about a tenner a gram – and incredibly available. You could order it with next-day delivery to your university PO box. Mephedrone was a drugs phenomenon of which I have never seen the likes before or since. Everyone started doing it. I remember visiting a friend at Leeds University during this period. We went to a club and the queue for the men's bogs was at least 70 people long. When I finally got inside the place stunk of mephedrone, you could hear everyone loudly sniffing.

On nights out during this time, everyone would be raging – making out with one another, dancing with total abandon. But the comedowns were immediate and severe, far worse than ecstasy. By 4am people would be lying on the floor sharing the most intimate and personal shames and secrets, as if the drug was somehow compelling them to be honest. Some people called it a truth serum. Friendships were forged in the hot irons of that emotional exposition, as were the most horrendous hangovers.

Mephedrone was banned within two years of it taking off. People talk a lot about one legal high being banned only for another to take its place, but the real legacy of mephedrone was to numb the stigma of harder drugs. By the time I left university, many of the drug abstainers who had tried mephedrone became relaxed about most illegal drugs, too.

Ecstasy and mephedrone make it pretty hard to get much done in the days after taking them. You can't regularly use them and be a successful, functioning adult, so they become a rarer treat once you leave student life. In their 20s most people are overworked: they have second jobs and work incredibly long hours. If they're going to go out on a Friday night they need a pick-me-up. And that is why cocaine remains the young professional's drug of choice.

I see cocaine usage almost every weekend wherever I go: clubs, pubs, people's houses, dinner parties. At fancy celebrity parties, the sort you see on Mail Online, cocaine is so prevalent that it's almost boring. Everyone does it – butter-wouldn't-melt TV presenters, wholesome pop stars adored by your mum, people who would immediately lose their job if anyone found out. Those tabloid stings where they catch someone doing cocaine are kind of hilarious in that respect. If you followed any celebrity around with a secret camera on a Friday night you'd be almost guaranteed to find them doing coke. But cocaine users are like hipsters in the way they will vehemently deny they are one, and cast aspersions on others. "It was just full of self-aggrandising wankers doing coke and talking about themselves," someone will say about a party where they did cocaine and talked about themselves. Most of my friends are cocaine users, but I've never heard them say one nice thing about cocaine.

No doubt some people will have read this piece and think that I am just a monstrous twat, that this has all been little more than infantile boasting in a vain attempt to try to sound cool. But that, too, is part of the cover-up, that any open discussion of using drugs or enjoying them is necessarily a boast. We can talk about great food, great films, great sex, but if we talk about great drugs we immediately sound like we're engaging in some teenage bravado. That's why the biggest taboo surrounding drugs today isn't taking drugs, but saying that they're fun.

I'm not saying that people are lying about the negative effects. I have, of course, seen lives ruined by drugs. Rarely has this been because of an overdose or because someone has ruined themselves financially because of addiction (although I am only 27 – that may yet come). Far more often I have just seen people become dulled through regular drug use: their youthful spark extinguished by a never-ceasing quest to get on it; brains frazzled by overheated synapses. There are friends I want to slap every time I see them doing another line, but I can't because that would be hypocritical.

I also appreciate that's it's easy to be blasé about drug use when you're a well-adjusted middle-class white guy who has never been stopped by the police and has a distant non-social relationship with their drug dealer. For many people, drugs aren't something they can dip in and out of and separate from their lives. People entangled in the economic and legal realities of drugs – dealers, those convicted of possession, addicts – don't have the luxury of my relaxed attitude.

But until we stop pretending that getting high is inherently bad – that drugs can never be brilliant, can never enhance human experience for the better – how can we properly deal with people whose lives have been made worse by drugs? At some point, kids grow up and learn the facts of life. I think it's time we all had the talk.

#research

[northernrainforest]

Beach Day

If you want to see what it means to make someone flinch, ask me if I want to join you for a “beach day.” The thought of it makes my skin crawl – crawl, that is, like it’s covered in gritty sand, caked with sunscreen, and under attack from small insects. I’ve never really enjoyed the beach, even as a small child, which I recognize makes me unusual. But consider the facts: I can’t spend more than a few minutes in the sun without getting burned. (I know… cry me a river. But with white privilege comes white responsibility.) I like my food cold if it’s supposed to be cold and hot if it’s supposed to be hot, as well as sand-free in either case. And these days I travel with two small children at different stages, who require very different kinds of attention. It would be entirely possible for Ladybug to disappear into the depths of the ocean while I was changing a dirty diaper. All this to say: a day at the beach has never been my idea of a day at the beach, and I simply assumed that would always be true. As with so many things here in Alaska, though, my perception has shifted. For one thing a “hot day” in Ketchikan is about 77°. To situate the reader, a hot day in New York is 95 and humid; a hot day in Los Angeles is 112 and dry like a cookie left in a backpack for several weeks (speaking from recent experience.) So when friends organized a beach day over Memorial Day weekend, I made an exception. Flo is teaching summer classes and working diligently on his dissertation which makes me, I suppose you’d say, a PhD widow. So Ladybug, Bronson, and I were on our own. Naturally, since we had plans, Bronson slept all morning (a dream, of course), and Ladybug, overly excited, woke him up. (Again: of course.) So I was mad from the the time we left the house and then arrived, arms overloaded with beach stuff, to discover that our two sets of friends had accidentally set up camp on either end of the quarter mile long stretch of beach. I set our blanket down halfway between them, because it was the only shady spot I could find, and set about changing said dirty diaper – after all, what self-respecting baby doesn’t enjoy a nice alfresco poop? I’ve noticed that the average number of children in a family here in Ketchikan is somewhere between three and 87. So while I’m not too proud to ask for help, oftentimes the people whose help I could ask for have way more little ones to keep track of than I do. That’s how I ended up spending a good portion of the afternoon toting gear from one end of the beach to the other, baby in carrier, while Ladybug proceeded to change in and out of every article of clothing we’d brought with us. At one point I found myself, in a moment of true parental defeat, scolding her for getting her clothes wet and sandy. At the beach. Needless to say, not my finest moment. But it was at that very moment, or perhaps a moment later, that I caught myself looking up at the horizon. Here I was, mountains in the distance and Pacific beyond, the glistening water of the Inside Passage directly in front of me, children laughing and squealing as they jumped in and out of rafts and floats and giant blowup flamingos. What, exactly, was there to be upset about? I smiled. I didn’t want to smile. I wanted to be self-righteously annoyed. But as so often happens it’s those moments of weakness and frustration that bring the most clarity, and even joy. The month of May marked two years since we lost our baby girl and one year since we loaded everything we own onto a barge and sent it north. So May of this year has been, relatively speaking, quiet as a mouse. But that doesn’t make it any less significant of a month. It’s the days, weeks, and months of inconsequence that make up so much of our lives. Who would want it any other way? It can’t all be suffering, or transformation, all peaks and valleys. The plateaus are important too – the long stretches of smooth road surrounded on either side by endless cornfields. Call it South Dakota on the road trip of life. It’s entirely possible, and often easy, to forget how important these quiet times are; spending so much time with a baby who spends so much of his time in quiet wonder is a good reminder of the power of awe. Until Bronson showed up, I was the one who dropped Ladybug at school every day. And most sunny days I would say the same thing as we drove over the Third Avenue Bypass, with its incredible views of the mountains and the water: Aren’t we lucky, I’d say, to have a commute like this one? She always agreed with me. It was only after a few months that she finally piped up from her booster seat. “Mommy,” she said. “What’s a commute?”

Attempting to define the word for a five-year-old reminded me of my own childhood commutes. I walked to elementary school in Brooklyn, a walk that felt like the big city version of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood: up to the corner, past the bodega and the dry cleaner, past the “popcorn tree” (flowering pear maybe?), to the old brick schoolhouse across from the library.

Starting in seventh grade my commute got significantly longer: I took three trains to get to upper Manhattan. On a good day the ride itself was about forty minutes; with the walk to and from the subway stations (and I walked very fast) the whole thing rang in at just under an hour. An hour in the morning. An hour in the afternoon. Two hours a day, five days a week, for six years: I spent a lot of my teenage years in transit. I don’t remember minding it, especially because there were plenty of times when I didn’t just hop on the train and go home. When the weather was nice, particularly when I was older, I would walk south from 94th and Park, heading in the general direction of Brooklyn, and go as far as I felt like before getting on a train. On those days, the island of Manhattan felt like it went on and on and on, every little side street an opportunity to explore something, whether something I’d seen a thousand times or something I’d somehow never seen before. Manhattan, of course, has that effect on everyone: no matter how many times you walk down the same street, there’s always something new to see. Experiencing it at 12, and 15, and 18, on my own, made me streetwise and wary but also bold and eager; I knew that life would never be without its surprises, and that if I felt like stretching myself, I’d always be guaranteed a discovery.

Revilla Island boasts fewer Michelin-starred restaurants and Broadway theaters than Manhattan does. One could argue that it makes up for that in hiking trails and totem poles, in gravelly beaches and humpback whales. There is so much to discover, wherever you are, if you’re willing to get your clothes a little sandy and wet, if you’re willing to look up to the horizon and smile.

[ninawritesastory]

What do you think a south park episode on autism would be like?

Well, we already kind of got one with Ass Burgers. Although that one was more of a commentary on the absolute morons who think vaccines cause autism, which in my opinion is probably the more pressing subject. But that’s mostly because herd immunity is vital to the survival of several people I care about and the general abuse of important medicines like penicillin and antibiotics is leading to the evolution of super bugs/viruses that could potentially render a good chunk of modern medicine inert and send us back into the pre-penicillin era which means the mortality rate is going to skyrocket not just in the first word but also in regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

I’ve never considered going to med school, but I read like crazy and it’s very alarming to me that people who also have never been to med school but apparently do not read are convinced that certain choices, such as whether or not to vaccinate, are somehow completely individual choices with no consequences on anyone but the individual making them. In short, anti-vaxxers are most likely the manifestation of the Horseman of Pestilence and the fact that their entire argument is based on one thoroughly discredited, incredibly skewed study (that doesn’t even qualify as a study) performed by someone whose medical license was immediately revoked upon peer review, yet still gains followers is horrifying to me.

But I’m getting waaaaay off topic. You’re asking about an autism specific episode. There are two ways of going about this that don’t rely on the ‘vaccines cause autism’ bullshit.

Option 1: They create a new character with autism. It would probably be most effective if Matt and Trey were to create a character with a more…obvious case of autism. Maybe obvious isn’t the right word, but neither is severe and there’s not really a good synonym in either case to accurately convey what I’m trying to get across. Think about Thomas in La Petite Tourette’s: it was very obvious that he deviates from the ‘norm’ mentally, but he was still presented as a relatively normal kid trying to lead as normal a life as possible. The same would need to be true of a character created specifically to address autism. Symptoms would need to be present that can’t be easily explained away as something else.

True, people who know enough about autism, who have worked with autistic kids or adults, or who are autistic would likely be able to pick autistic characters out with some degree of ease—this is why autistic headcanons are prevalent. However, for people who have no real or lasting experience with autistic persons, it’s a lot harder for them to recognize the signs. So any episode focusing on this would have to make it obvious, both in how the character acts and in the wording used. It couldn’t be implied; any tics would have to be noticeable or specifically mentioned in dialogue, the differences in thought processes might need to be discussed (possibly between said character’s parents and PC Principal/Mr. Mackey), and so on.

Now, I was never diagnosed with autism. I suspect that I have Asperger’s, but I’ve never been officially diagnosed. However, I’m also female. It’s pretty rare for girls to be diagnosed with autism in childhood unless it’s an incredibly severe case. A lot of the signs tend to fall in line with how society expects girls to act, which means parents who aren’t informed will likely never suspect their daughters of being autistic in any capacity. It’s steadily changing, but it’s still far more common for boys to be diagnosed early than it is for girls. Most autistic girls usually end up self-diagnosed or seeking an official diagnosis in their twenties, after reading about it and finding the signs/symptoms list pretty spot on to their personalities/perceptions. Therefore, I can’t really speak to the experiences of a diagnosed autistic kid.

Option 2: Matt and Trey can have one of the existing characters canonically diagnosed. This would be the trickier route to take, since this would likely be a piece of character development that was never considered prior to the conception of such an episode. My own preference would be Craig, since he already hits a few of the signs/symptoms of autism and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to canonically give him that diagnosis. But considering how much screentime he’s gotten in the past two seasons as a foil to the Heiman relationship (alongside Tweek), I’m not sure if they’d go that route.

And I can guarantee you that they’d throw in either a Randy or Cartman subplot. Because why wouldn’t they. If they go with Cartman for a subplot, I could probably see him interfering with Tweek and Craig’s relationship. He’d likely exhibit the misconception that autistic people are incapable of love and would probably try to convince Tweek that the relationship was doomed, framing it as concern for Tweek. Kyle would argue, do a bunch of research, and would probably have a personal crisis about whether or not he’s autistic. Meanwhile Tweek is focusing on trying to understand what the diagnosis means for Craig and how he can help. Tweek beating the shit out of Cartman would be a welcome addition.

A Randy subplot…I can’t really think of one, but that’s probably because I absolutely loathe Randy as a character and would be happy if we could a season without seeing him more than once or twice. (Give Kenny his screentime!)

But either way, Matt and Trey would likely do their research. They’ve tackled similar touchy subjects and gotten praise from those communities for the sensitivity they employed. I’m not sure if they’d ever do an autism based episode though; unless Autism Speaks or a celebrity does or says something particularly heinous (but literally everything Autism Speaks says and believes is absolutely heinous, so…), South Park probably won’t touch on it.

They’re probably more focused on Trump and having to carry out the unfinished plotline they boxed themselves into than they are on anything else. And that’s the sort of season they’ve already set themselves up for.

I’m not sure what sort of plotline it would follow, but knowing Matt and Trey, it would be well-handled and present autism not as an illness or a disease, but as something some people are just living with. Just a regular piece of who they are that makes them thick and act a bit differently from the perceived ‘norm’.

#nina answers asks #anon #i kind of don't really know how else to answer this #because i don't really have the sort of experience that would allow for a better answer #i can make educated guesses #but i don't feel like i can accurately depict what an autism episode would look like #i hope this works though

[jackbern1]

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[ebenvt]

Introduction to Bacon & the Art of Living

The quest to understand how great bacon is made takes me around the world and through epic adventures. I tell the story by changing the setting from the 2000s to late 1800 when much of the technology behind bacon curing was unraveled. I weave into the mix beautiful stories of Cape Town and use mostly my family as the other characters besides me and Oscar and Uncle Jeppe from Denmark, a good friend and someone to whom I owe much gratitude! A man who knows bacon! Most other characters have a real basis in history and I describe actual events and personal experiences set in a different historical context.

The cast I use to mould the story into is letters I wrote home during my travels.

The Danish Cooperatives and Saltpeter

Copenhagen, March 1891

My dear Minette,

It is Sunday afternoon.  I slept most of the morning.  I am excited and refreshed.  I know you are here in spirit. Life has turned out much more insanely exciting than I could ever have hoped for. The entire thing is a grand adventure of discovery.  I could never dream that trying to unlock the secrets of bacon would be as insanely exciting as it all turned out to be.  Hopefully, you will receive the letter I wrote yesterday before you get this one.  I will hold on to it and post it next Friday.

I have been wondering about meat curing for as long as I can remember.  Even as a child I tried to imagine how people discovered that dry meat lasts longer.  Initially, I believe that people ate meat raw or fermented.  Animal carcasses that are left outside will start to ferment.  Fermentation breaks the tough muscles down and the first priority of humans must have been to find ways to get tough game meat soft.  Leaving the carcass then outside or in water to protect it from preditors would have been a natural way of softening the meat.  Later, boiling the meat and roasting it over fire became other ways to soften meat or pulverizing it with a stick or a rock.

I imagine that as people soon discovered that dry meat lasts long and the wonderful benefits of salt.  Food was initially only seen as something to consume in order to fuel our bodies.  As humans developed, we started changing food into an art form.  The king or leader and people with means could now demand the best meat.  We learned that meat, like any other food, can be prepared in many different ways to improve the taste and food changed into art.  These different techniques of “softening” meat were becoming art in themselves and Sharma, medicine men and women and housewives became the custodians of this new technology.

When we make bacon, we use a technique called curing.  Cured meat is identified by three things.  The salt and saltpeter change the colour of the meat.  When an animal is killed, the meat blooms a beautiful red colour.  If you do not rub it with saltpeter, it changes to a dull brown colour.  If you, however, rub it with a mixture of salt and saltpeter, it changes the colour to a pinkish-reddish colour.  Related to the science of making good bacon, colour is the first key.

The second thing that saltpeter does is to impart a unique cured flavour to the meat.  The third characteristic of cured meat is taste.  The last one is longevity.  Cured meat lasts long outside a refrigerator and in Europe is the staple food in many countries as far as meat is concerned.

I know saltpeter is important because it imparts all three characteristics to bacon.  Let me rather say it like this.  Using Saltpeter is not the only guarantee for good bacon, but leaving it out of the salt-rub, you will never get the right colour, taste or longevity.  You have the option of drying the meat without saltpeter in which case it will also last longer, but the meat will be dry and it will not have the characteristic taste of cured meat.

In South Africa, the old Dutch farmers fused their knowledge of drying meat in the chimnies in Holland and the North European practice of using vinegar in their hams with the indigenous practice of hanging meat out in the sun and wind to dry.  I have found this to be an ancient practice among all the peoples of southern Africa that I met in my travels.

The Dutch farmers add coriander and black pepper with salt to the vinegar to create what they call biltong.  The coriander and black pepper were initially added to mask any off-flavours in case the meat did not dry quick enough and some spoiling of meat has set in. This is a good example where drying works well to preserve meat with or without saltpeter.  Saltpeter can only be left out of the recipe if vinegar is used and lots of salt.

I have always known that the secret of bacon is in saltpeter, but saltpeter is not everything that goes into the making of the best bacon on earth.  So, my quest to understand bacon starts with saltpeter.  What is it and why does it have the power to give longevity to meat, change the colour back to the colour of freshly slaughtered meat why does it give this unique taste?  These are the questions I knew I had to answer first.

Besides understanding saltpeter, our goal in Cape Town is to set up a factory and not merely making bacon for home use.  Scale changes everything.  This is a lesson I learned from very early on.  On my grandfathers’ farm, I have seen how easy it is to make the best bacon on earth if we make it for our family only.  When my dad’s bacon became famous and Dawid de Villiers Graaff placed an order with us, we made five-time more we normally do.  It was a disaster!  Everything went wrong.  We had more workers to help, but they were not trained.  We could not keep the meat cool and in the end, we had to feed most of the meat to our dogs.  Scale is difficult and the importance of the right structure of a bacon factory is something that we can not under-estimate.  Right from the word go, I came face to face with lessons pertaining to structure and ingredients and the first ingredient to look at was saltpeter!

The Spirit of the Danes

The morning was crisp and interesting.  Andreas’ dad is an impressive man.  He is very intelligent with an amazing knowledge of many things.  He gave me a lot of perspective on what Jeppe told me on Friday.  For example, how did it come about that a man of Jeppes age was exposed to learning new butchering and curing techniques?  Why was there in Denmark such a focus on continued education that people showed up for lessons by the Irish, in sufficient numbers to make a proper transfer of skills possible.  How did the most current thing about the structure of a bacon plant fit so nicely into the Danish culture?  How were the Danish people inspired to take up a new way of doing things?

It often takes a prophet to change long-held perceptions; a visionary to change entrenched positions!  An inspirational man who draws his own strength from the Divine to lift peoples gaze from their own depressed positions and onto better things.  To instill hope.  These are however not all that is needed because these are often also the qualities of an imposter and someone who destroys.  What is needed are all these qualities with a simple and effective plan to improve things.  A person who can lead people to a better and more profitable future.

Andreas’ dad told me about just such a man.  In many ways, he is the father of the agricultural miracle of Denmark.  It may sound like a boring report on men and women who lived very long ago, but the truth is that it is an inspirational story about men and women with their backs against the wall.  Who triumphed against the odds.  The man at the center of the story is N. F. S. Grundtvig.

Denmark was an impoverished nation.  They lost Schleswig-Holstein to Germany.  The soil of their lands was depleted and yielding fewer crops with every harvest.  In all of Europe, the Danish soil seemed to be the poorest.   The conditions in 1864 were dire and farmers had little hope competing with Russia and America with their crops.  They were not making money.  Apart from little diversified agriculture, there was very little money in the country.  Farmers identified dairy farming as a lucrative diversification of their economy, but they lacked the money to make their plans a reality.  The depleted soil on the farms offered little collateral for lenders to advance money against.

I wish so much that I would get every South African to hear their message.  We are a nation of faith and still, we complain as if we have no hope.  What we need in South Africa is a prophet, a visionary and a very good plan!  The plan will in all likelihood have to be built on very practical education!  It is exactly for this reason that I am here!  I need to be very clear on the plan!  To my great amazement, the bedrock of the structure of the Danish bacon factory is in the first place not on the mechanics of doing it one way as opposed to another way.  The basis of their entire system rests on an almost religious belief in the power of cooperation and education!

Grundtvig was a churchman who lived between 1783 and 1872 and was described by some as the Apostle to Denmark.  He taught that Danish people must love their own country above all, more than any other real estate on earth.  He believed that Danes must love God and trust each other; their own skill and ability to solve problems; that success will come through cooperation.  The principal way to achieve this was through education and what he called the “cultivation of the people.”  This was distilled through his concept of high school which is completely different from high school in the rest of the world.

N. F. S. Grundtvig’s high schools were initially attended by people from the age of 18 to 60 or even older and everyone in between.  Every farmer’s adult son and daughter, every farmer himself or his wife, considered it a loss not to attend High School for at least one term.  The poor and the rich paid the same small fees and lectures covered an array of interesting subjects.  Religion and nationalism were part of the course, but it never dominated the other subjects.  Men and women looked forward to high school in the same way as Americans looked forward to a trip to Europe.  What he achieved is that even more than the information that was imparted, a general method of teamwork was created which would become the basis for cooperative farming and production.  Later, men and women aged between 16 and 35 mostly attended these high schools.  Young men attended in the winter and young ladies, in the summer.  Experimental agricultural farms were set up around the schools.  The teaching was not done from textbooks, but from practice.

Cooperation

His teachings against individualism slowly but surely sowed the seeds which germinated into mutual trust and a belief that by doing things together, more can be achieved.  Directly as a result of this, in 1881/ 1882 the first cooperative dairy farm was established in Jutland.  The Danes realised that to be successful, they must find ways for their fields to yield better crops and they must develop better ways to use their crops, once harvested.  Better than selling it at depressed margins on the open market in competition with the Russians and the Americans would be to utilise it to produce commodities.  On par with a relentless focus on scientific farming practices was unprecedented cooperation.  The middle man had to eliminate.  The farmer and the salesman joined forces and discovered that by cooperating they always had “something to go on,” a phrase which became an example of the new approach.

The cooperatives were set up where every member had equal rights.  Each member of the dairy cooperative had one vote and his milk was collected every morning and the cooperative agents returned the skimmed milk.  The cows, therefore, produced butter and feed for the pigs.  Money is loaned from the bank. Each member made himself responsible for repaying the loan in accordance with the number of cows he had.  Every seven days, the members received 25% of the value of the milk they delivered to the cooperative.  Apart from selling the milk to the cooperative, the member was entitled to his shares of the profit on the sale of the produce.  The cooperative kept 25% from which running expenses were paid and the loan was repaid.

There is another reason, Andreas’ dad tells me, why the Danish system works so well.  Not only did they manage themselves, but they also elected farmers to positions of power in government.  It was not only, like the Americans, for the people, by the people, but the Danes took it one step further.  The need and most pressing priority was their agriculture and so the cooperatives elected representatives for the farmers, by the farmers to the government.  These men and women abhor profiteering so that the priority is the benefit of the many.  This hatred for large trusts and monopolies goes back to the old feudal system which was prevalent in Europe.  Peasants did not own land, but in Denmark, this changed and the peasants were allowed to own their own farms.  This gave them every stimulus and motivation to improve the small farms.  It is said that 90% of all farmland in Denmark is owned by small scale farmers.  The first revolution in Danish agriculture was ownership.

The new farm owners started protesting against rulership and land aristocracy.  They sought more political power and proper representation.  They worked out a constructive plan to break up the remaining large feudal farms and to distribute it among sons and daughters of the workers.  Farm ownership, a systematic and thorough education system and the cooperative model for farming and production all work together.  The one feeding the other and strengthening the overall agricultural experiment.  In large part, the middle man was eliminated and the few matters run by the state are done for the benefit of the farmers and not for the government to make a profit.  A good example is the railways.  Still, the Danish farmer is not a socialist.  They simply believe in cooperation who thinks in terms of self-help and are not reliant on the state for help.

As Andreas’ dad spoke, I again wished I could get him to South Africa to come and tell them how it was done in Denmark.  I know that cooperation runs much deeper than simply pooling resources.  The role of education and private ownership was the basis of the Danish miracle and I see no reason why the exact same model cant work in South Africa.  The one reason I see is how deeply distrust runs between the different peoples who call South Africa their home.

Skimmed Milk to Pork to Bacon

In Denmark, it was probably the need to find a use for the skimmed milk that gave the farmers the idea of raising pigs in the same way that the need to feed cows indoor for nine months of the year forced them into intensive farming in fodder.   Pig farming therefore directly grew out of dairy farming.  It was going well with the establishment of cooperative pig farming and the live pigs were sold to Germany.

Before 1888, Danish farmers relied on selling all their live pigs in Germany.  The Germans, in turn, produced the finest Hamburg bacon and Hams from it and it was mainly sold to England.   A disaster struck the Danish pork industry when swine fever broke out in the country in the autumn of 1887.  This halted all export of live pigs.  Exports to Germany fell from 230 000 in 1886 to only 16 000 in 1888.  One of the most insane industrial transformations followed.  In a staggering display, the Danes identified the problem,  worked out the solution and dedicated every available nation resource to solving it. The creation of large bacon curing cooperatives was born out of the need to switch from exporting live pigs to processed pork in the form of bacon and to sell it directly to the country where the Germans were selling the processed Danish pork namely England.  The project was a stunning success.  In 1887 the Danish bacon industry accounted for 230 000 live pigs and in 1895, converted from bacon production, 1 250 000 pigs.

After breeding and pig farming, the next step in great bacon production is slaughtering.  On 14 July 1887, 500 farmers from the Horsens region created the first shared abattoir.  On 22 December 1887, the first co-operative abattoir in the world, Horsens Andelssvineslagteri (Horsens’s Share Abattoir), received their first live pigs for slaughter.  In 1887 and over the next few years eight such cooperative abattoirs were set up and there is still no end in sight where it will end.  Each is in excellent running condition.  As in the case with the dairy farmers, each member of the cooperative has only one vote.  The profit of the middleman and the volumes exported for butter and bacon are determined by the cooperative.  The market price is fixed in Copenhagen on a daily basis by an impartial committee.

Every farmer in Denmark or manager of a bacon curing plant cant be a scientific person, and yet, it is important that farmers and factory managers alike know something of the science underpinning their trade.  It is here where the high school lessons play an important role because it provides a solid foundation and the government is doing the rest.  They have a system of inspectors who look after farms and factories where they do the exact calculations, for example, to show how much butter must be produced from the milk of each cow.  The reason for the inspections was that the Danish Government were required to guarantee the quality of the bacon and the butter it delivered to England, but it had the double benefit of on the one hand guarantees the quality and satisfy the English requirements and on the other hand, improved the quality by assisting the farmers and producers.

The logic of cooperation was extended into England, the largest market for Danish bacon.  Some years ago the English bacon market was being serviced for the Danes by middlemen.  The farmers organised a selling agency in England to represent them known as the Danish Bacon Company of London.  The concept was applied to many areas of the Danish economy.  Banking and buying in Denmark are likewise done cooperatively.  Every village has a cooperative store.

The farmer in Denmark also uses the state in another interesting way.  Commissions are sent abroad to study foreign methods.  It was most probably on one of these trips that the Danes came across the striking workers in Ireland whom they brought back to Denmark to teach them mild curing.  Mild curing technology that came from Ireland years earlier became the cornerstone of Danish bacon.  It was this industrialised model that allowed the Danes to become the undisputed leaders in the world bacon trade.  The Danes did exactly what we intend doing namely learning not only how the cooperative factory is set up, but also the inner workings of such a factory.  They learned this from the Irish and I intend learning it from them!  That will satisfy one of the cornerstone reasons why I am in Denmark.

Neat, Prepared, Ready

Many years ago, on one of my visits to Johannesburg, I met another chemicals traders with the name of Willie Oosthuizen.  Willie told me that wherever I am in the world, before I leave home, every morning I must ask myself, “am I ready, prepared and neat?  These are according to him, the three essentials without which nobody will be in a position to use opportunities that come our way every day.

Thinking about the Danish Bacon trade, I realise that the government ensured that when the right time came, the industry was ready, prepared and in a general position of neatness.  It is a strange thing that as we walked through this small Danish town and I saw the small but neat Danish houses, that I could see this Danish approach to life in everything.  I do not see class differences between people.  I see people from all walks of life getting together in small coffee shops at the end of the day, celebrating life and sharing stories.

I can see how my quest to unravel good bacon curing is teaching me as much about life than it is teaching me about meat.  Andreas told me something this afternoon before I retired to my room which is very curious.  He told me that I am too quick to claim that this is the end of my quest.  That simply knowing the steps of bacon curing without understanding it is not to know the steps at all.  Brief exposure to the Danish attitude towards work and cooperation and the internal mechanics of a bacon curing operation is only the beginning of my education.

We were sitting in a small coffee shop one afternoon when Andreas and I were talking about all these matters.  Nothing about the pork trade is easy!  It is one of the most wonderfully complex trades on earth!  He asked me how long I think I will have to stay before I know enough to set up our Woodys bacon plant in Cape Town.  I knew enough by now not to simply venture a guess.  “As long as it takes”, I said.  He smiled.  “There is so much to learn!”  “Stay for at least a year!”.  He then produced a pouch with salt in.  He placed it in the middle of our table.  I dipped a finger in the salt and tasted it.    I recognised it as saltpeter.  “This, he said, is the next subject.  I discussed it with Jeppe and he agrees that after the structure of the factory, understanding Saltpeter is your next priority!”

That was where our business talk ended.  The rest of the afternoon we talked about life.  What it was like growing up in Cape Town and the many different cultures that co-exist in this great city.  I shared many of my experiences with him from my transport business.  I told him the story of Joshua Penny and how, after his ordeal on table Mountain, a Danish captain gave him a job on his ship sailing for Europe.  I invited Andreas to visit us when we set the Cape Town factory up.  The evening was pleasant and I became very fond of my Danish instructor.  A great friendship was struck that would last the rest of my life.

Please give the kids all my love and to our dear parents.  Please give them both my letters to read before you sent it on to Oscar, James, and Will.  I will write Dawie Hyman, David de Villiers Graaff, and Uncle Jakobus separately.

I miss you dearly!

Eben

——————

Photos from Chris Speedy and my visit to Denmark in 2011 when Andreas Østergaard introduced us to the science of bacon production.  Chris was a master, but as for me, I knew nothing! 🙂

      (c) eben van tonder

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Bacon Curing, a Historical Review

Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) 7 October 1906, p 60.  From The Little Kingdom at the Mouth of the baltic Great Nations May Learn How to Build Up a Trade in Dairy and Meat Products.

Ellsworth County Leader (Elsworth, Kansas) 18 December 1919, p 2.

The Mother Brine

Tank Curing came from Ireland

The Yazoo Herald (Yazoo City, Mississippi), 7 November 1914, p 2, from the article, Agriculture in Denmark.

Chapter 08.02 – The Danish Cooperative and Saltpeter Introduction to Bacon & the Art of Living The quest to understand how great bacon is made takes me around the world and through epic adventures.

#bacon and the art of living #Bacon History #bacon processing #best bacon on earth

[thecoroutfitters]

Last week’s altercation in Charlottesville, Virginia has dominated the news all week long. Democrats, the media and even some Republicans have attacked the president mercilessly over his comments about the attack, faulting him over not condemning white supremacists in particular.

There’s absolutely no question at all, based upon the video evidence, that both sides went there spoiling for a fight.

While they still attack Trump for his statement, they have also publiclly stated that both sides were at fault, mentioning that the Antifa people showed up with body armor, helmets and clubs. If that isn’t being ready for violence, what is?

Nevertheless, both sides drew blood, gained a lot of media attention and made themselves to look much bigger than they really are.

One could easily think that these two groups represent the majority of the people on both the left and the right, when in reality they are both fringe groups. Sadly, a woman paid with her life for that perception to be made. If you ask me, it was a poor bargain.

What Was Behind This?

As more and more information comes out about last week’s riot, it’s looking more and more like a setup. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising, considering that so many of the violent protests that have happened since Donald Trump won the election have been staged. But the difference in this case, is that it appears that it was staged by both side, not just the progressive-liberal left.

My guess is that the Antifa thugs were there at the behest of the liberals, as they are funded by George Soros. Soros, Obama and the Clintons are all in bed together, working to destroy the country and prepare it for the socialist takeover of a one-world government. This is not the first time they’ve sent agitators into an area to stir up trouble, even if it is the first time they’ve had an open clash of this magnitude with the alt-right white supremacists.

But I wonder who paid the alt-right to attend? Was this actually a grass-roots event, sponsored by Neo-Nazis and the KKK? Or could it be that there is someone in the shadows, who is funding these groups as well? The fact that they were imported for the event, like the Antifa group was, is highly suspicious.

But what’s even more suspicious is the actions of the police, or maybe I should say their lack of action. There was very little police intervention at all, even though the event had been planned months in advance and there were police on-site. Yet the police didn’t even follow the car of the killer as he fled the scene.

This is because the police had received an order to stand down from the mayor, over their objections. Michael Singer, the mayor, is a Democrat.

According to a whistleblower on the police force, the reason why the police were told to stand down was for the purpose of igniting a race war. Such a war, if it were to occur, would be disastrous for our nation. Not only would it cause even more racial division than the race-baiters have already caused, but countless innocent lives would be lost.

Civil wars, tend to have more civilian casualties, not only because the fighters are civilians themselves, but because more innocent bystanders end up being hurt, due to the fighters’ overall lack of military training.

Do You Make These Mistakes That Kill Your Survival Defense?

Even so, it looks like Obama and others have been trying to push the country to such a war for several years now. The fiery rhetoric during Obama’s presidency, coupled with his outspoken support of groups like Black Lives Matter, has only emboldened such groups to take more and more action, including the killing of police officers.

What Caused the Demonstration?

The original demonstration by the alt-right was over the planned removal of a statue dedicated to General Robert E. Lee, a Confederate Civil War hero.

This is only the latest in a string of situations, where the left has demanded the removal of similar statues, much like they have demanded the elimination of the supposed Confederate Flag.

According to those on the political left, these statues are symbols of hate and slavery, because they symbolize the Confederacy.

Since the Confederate states separated from the Union over slavery causing the Civil War, anything having to do with the Confederacy is about hatred and slavery to them.

But to the people of the South, the Civil War wasn’t about slavery; it was about freedom and self-determination. They call it “The War of Northern Aggression.”

As states, they had decided to separate from the Union over differences, high amongst which was slavery.

To them, General Lee isn’t a hero because of slavery, but because he stood up to what they saw as a tyrannical government, much like George Washington stood up to the tyrannical government of King George the Third.

Nevertheless, seems like progressive liberals want to erase the Civil War from American history. Rather than look at it as a victory over slavery, they prefer to just look at the slavery. Apparently the fact that our ancestors took on this difficult issue and fought to bring it to an end doesn’t matter. All that matters is that slavery existed in the early days of the USA.

Actually, according to those on the left, the only slavery that has existed is the American slavery of Black Africans. Slavery of whites doesn’t matter. Slavery of women as sex slaves by ISIS doesn’t matter. Even the slavery of the entire people of Israel by the Egyptians, a well-documented historic fact, doesn’t matter. Only our own history of slavery, even though we defeated it.

Actually, the United States was the second country in the world to make slavery illegal, with only England preceding us. As with many civil rights issues, we have been a people to combat bigotry, hatred, prejudice and discrimination. It hasn’t been an easy battle, but it has been a battle we have fought.

Yet those on the left would rather forget the victory and concentrate on the reason it was necessary. For this reason, they want to erase slavery and the Civil War from history.

The efforts to remove statues of General Lee and other leaders in the south are part of this effort. Apparently in the left’s collective mind, if those symbols of the Confederacy can be removed, all remembrance of that slavery can go away.

But Lee wasn’t even a slave owner. He fought as part of the Confederate Army because he was a Virginian. As such, he was fighting for his state, in defense of state rights. He didn’t agree with slavery any more than we do today; but Virginia was his home, so he fought on their behalf.

Taking down his statue, because others in the south owned slaves, is declaring him guilty of their sins; something that our laws do not allow. But then, since when have Democrats ever cared about obeying the law? The only time they pay attention to the law is when they can use it to their benefit.

So What if We Remove all the Statues?

The alt-right protesters were there protesting the removal of Lee’s statue. While I personally think that their torch-lit march was not the best way of doing this, reminiscing back to the KKK, the First Amendment guarantees them the right to peaceful demonstration. As long as it remained peaceful, they were well within their rights. But then Antifa showed up and showed up read for war.

Ultimately, neither side accomplished anything constructive. All they did was garner a lot of media attention and make things worse. Both sides are to blame, just as President Trump said.

But what if they hadn’t protested? What if we allow the left to have their way and remove any statue they deem offensive? What then?

First of all, the more we allowed this, the more the left would demand. Their appetite for getting their way is insatiable. Removing every offensive statue in the country wouldn’t solve anything. All it would do is eliminate reminders of our nation’s history.

On the larger issue, that of rewriting history; that should never be allowed. The saying, “Those who forget the lessons of history are destined to repeat them” is true. We must remember our past and the grave error of slavery. If we don’t, we are setting our country up for failure. It may take a generation or more, but our descendants will end up making the same mistakes that our ancestors made.

Is that what we want? Is that what anyone wants? Can anything good actually come out of erasing our country’s history? No it can’t. We can’t afford the risk of what would happen, if we do.

I’m not a fan of our national guilt complex, but I will say this for it: as long as we recognize the errors of our past, they will help keep us from making those errors again. We need to remember our history of slavery; not to honor it, but to be reminded of how wrong it was.

Should we forget, I fear what we might do to our fellow man.

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

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Rotimi Abiodun Afelumo, is originally from Igbara-odo Ekiti, in Ekiti state. He is a holder of a Bsc in Physics from Ado Bayero University. He’s been married to his lovely wife Rachel for 5 years and they have two lovely children – Theo, 3 year old and Chloe, 4 months. They currently live in the Iskandar Puteri district of Johor Bharu, Malaysia. He moved from Nigeria to Malaysia in January 2017 when an opportunity came knocking at his door as Technology Intergrationist and head of IT in Raffles American School.

WORK IN MALAYSIA

What’s it like in the day of a technology Integrationist in Raffles?

My daily routine includes providing direction for the IT team to support all staff and student technology needs, oversea the day to day running of the IT office. I oversee and administer the Student Information system, Learning management System and all other online learning platforms that is used by the school. My team and I also manages the entire school network, computers, printers, IPads and Chromebook. As a technology driven school, all students and staff have access to one device or the other and It is the responsibility of the IT office to setup, install apps and support all of these device when necessary.

As a technology Integrationist, I work with teachers to help them integrate technology in their various classes, provide training to staff, curate relevant applications to be used for teaching and provide training when necessary. I teach Robotics during camps and also as extracurricular activity. I also co-teach the high school technology class and the middle school coding class.

Why did you move to Malaysia and how were you able to find a job with this American school considering how hard it is for Africans in Malaysia to find work?

I moved to Malaysia in January 2017 and my family joined my in March. I moved here because the offer was better than what I had in Nigeria, in terms of the opportunity, exposure and off course benefits. Back home I worked with the American International School of Abuja first as a Network Manager, then as Assistant IT Director and finally as the Administrative Technology Coordinator. But here, I get to venture into new terrains that I had always wanted to try out.

I can’t really say that I did anything to “find a job” in Malaysia, but that the “job found me”, as I didn’t go online or any job platform to look for and apply for this position. Looking back I can clearly say God did it for me. When the Job offer came, I wasn’t planning on leaving or working outside the country.

So how did you get the job?

Around May – June 2016, My my IT Director (then I was Assistant IT Director) asked for my resume and said someone that he won’t mention likes what I do and is trying to replicate the same thing in his school. He collected my resume and asked for my permission to edit and to submit it. October 2016, I got an email from a former principal who left my former office and is now in Malaysia as the Head of School at Raffles American School asking if I don’t mind coming to work for him. They processed all the documents and paid me and my family’s relocation to Malaysia.

Is Raffles American School only for Americans or expats?

No, off course not. Raffles American School is open to everyone who can afford it. It is a member of Raffles Education Corporation which operates 24 colleges/universities in 22 cities across 13 countries in Asia-Pacific and Europe: Australia, Cambodia, The people’s Republic off China, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and Thailand.

Why should parents consider Raffles over any other international schools?

Parents should consider bringing their kids to Raffles because of the standards of our programs, caliber of teachers and the facilities. As a premier and one of the biggest education provider in south-East Asia, enrolling at Raffles gives your child access to top notch education and guaranteed enrollment into any of her over 20 colleges/universities across the world.

How does the working atmosphere in Malaysia differ from Nigeria?

The major difference I see is the fact systems work here more than it does in Nigeria. It may be different for me as most of my colleagues are expats from other countries and my organisation is privately owned. I do have a better working terms and conditions here because I am a foreign hire(expatriate). Though working in an American school back home, I was considered as a local hire and hence cannot enjoy the benefits of an expat like I am here.

LIFE IN MALAYSIA

What are the successes you have registered since moving here?

My wife and I have been able to start our masters almost at the same time. That is a big success as it was almost impossible to do back home. We also conceived and had our second child here. These two are the most outstanding successes apart from promotions and other career opportunities here and there.

What is your favorite part of living and working in Malaysia?

Johor Bahru is especially quiet and serene, easy to find your way around. I love Johor also because of its proximity to Singapore. The fact that systems and infrastructures work to a great extent is one of my most favorite part of living and working here.

SEE ALSO: Transmitting smell over the Internet

Did you move here immediately with your family and how did they manage settling in after relocation?

My family joined me less than two months after I arrived. That made settling in more easier for me as I didn’t have to continuously worry about their welfare. Also, the weather here is not so different from the weather in the northern part of Nigeria where we lived as a family. All of these factors made settling in easier for my family and I.

In your opinion what are the things to lookout for by Africans while in Johor?

In terms of tourist attraction, Johor isn’t really big in tourism except for some beach sites, shopping malls and hiking locations.

Do you think Malaysia is a family friendly country and accommodating to foreigners?

Every country has its laws, cultures and traditions and so long as you do not go against these, you will be accommodated. I can say Malaysia is relatively friendly and accommodating. Language can be a barrier sometimes but that is common everywhere.

What are some of the challenges African expats in Malaysia face and can you suggest any solutions?

The biggest challenge is see is the perception that is prevalent among the locals about Africans. There is this stereotype about Africans and especially Nigerians. Justifiably so, some Africans/Nigerian have acted and are still acting in ways that continues to encourage such stereotypes. The only solution to this is to be a good ambassador of your country, live right, be here legally and carry out your endeavors -whether work or studies- in the right manners while avoiding any kind of trouble.

What is your best advice you can give to any expat considering moving to Malaysia?

Ensure that you are here legally and that your papers are complete. There is nothing good as having peace of mind in a foreign country.

Be good and exceptional in whatever you do. That is what will guarantee your continuous relevance.

Recognize that you are a foreigner and behave yourself.

Stay focused on the reason you are here.

I know as an Expat, you go where work calls or sends you. However, do you see yourself here in the distant future?

Yes, I do. Malaysia; Johor especially, is peaceful and serene. The weather here isn’t so much different from the weather in Nigeria. I can see myself staying at least 5 years here before looking at opportunities elsewhere. My family is well settled and there hasn’t been any issues since our arrival.

Are you an expat living in Malaysia? We’d love to hear your story. Open the Expat interview questionnaire, copy into an email and send it back to [email protected]

  Expat Interview with Rotimi Abiodun Afelumo – Nigerian Expat in Malaysia Rotimi Abiodun Afelumo, is originally from Igbara-odo Ekiti, in Ekiti state. He is a holder of a Bsc in Physics from Ado Bayero University.

[youdecode]

7 INSANELY EASY tips for Career Change at 25 [starting new career at 25]

You are clearly unsatisfied. I was too.

The great news is that you want to get rid of this dissatisfaction.

Why is it great?

Because the spoiler is we all die in the end.

The best tip which I have for you right now is :

Begin with the end in mind and you will always be satisfied with a new/old career choice.

If confusion is floating across your head then just do a quick mental exercise.

Visualize the moment right after you depart from this world.

For meaningful self-discovery you need to imagine that your time has come and now one phrase is written on your tombstone.

It is the essence of your life. “A person who . . .”

What did you imagine getting written?

It was the core value of your life which you stood by.

If the value gets aligned with your career option then you are sure to achieve career fulfillment.

Career change Confusion

You need a career change because right now your core value does not align with your current career.

(you will also find how to find your values in the post below)

Right now, you surely are in that phase of life where your heart is battling against your brain.

My organs also fought at some point!

After this blog post, you will be able to decide for yourself about a career switch.

Be ready to erase any doubts which are about a midlife career change.

Let’s relate and dig into my career change story

Hopefully you would like to know?

I can picture you nodding your head, and if not then please do!

Anyways, I used to own a perception that I was never the one who says I have no idea what I’m doing with my life.

Honestly, medicine as a career option wasn’t my cup of tea.

Want to guess why?

Simply, because the sight of hospitals used to scare the crap out of me.

My dad used to say that you will faint before treating the patients!

Well, he was right.

I refuse to choose a business career path because I had more of a scientific mind.

So what’s my point?

I filtered my career choice through the elimination method.

I’m sure you are with me on this one that the majority of the people choose their career through trial and error method.

It all boils down to this that I was so sure that complications would never seep into my life as I HAD a clear vision.

You must be wondering had I compromised on computer science purely?

Well, no.

I treasured an interest in solving problems, innovating new stuff, and accepting challenges.

All in one packed in computer science!

After having done my A-levels in computer science and a freshmen year, my brain came back to senses.

It finally decided to spill new confusing career ideas.

It suggested starting over.

Here is the interesting part, I questioned myself what do you think you are doing?

The next scene was landing up in the registrar’s office with a major change form.

How did I get into a new career?

Felt neglected by my other skills.

Tough routine (8 am till 7 pm) of computer science kept me stagnant.

Realized not being 9 to 5 people.

I can’t sit in front of the screen and code for hours . . . boring for ME.

Interested in motion graphics, documentaries, designing, and town planning, etc.

These all areas of my interest were offered in Communication and design.

Worked great in computer science but not gifted.

My personal perception:

I need to be above average to compete in the race.

I wanted to become a master of one, surely not computer science.

7 simple steps to decide a revolutionary new career overnight:

How many times do people change their careers?

According to research, people do try to find out other fields or job roles after five years.

As they believe it increases their demand in the market.

Let’s dig into the steps they take and the ones which you have to pursue.

STEP 1: Identity what are the Signs of career change anxiety?

You feel redundant. You say I feel incompetent in my career.

Fear of getting no job/firing

You remain ill, under stress.

Your Mondays are like . . . not again!

Frustration together will uneasiness will flow inside you leading towards depression

Not meeting deadlines or prevailing procrastinate.

Seeing disturbing dreams about your career and future

Experiencing physical fatigue like neck/back pain and irritated eyes.

Your physical appearance ditches you and makes you look as if someone has stolen your car keys.

Meet any of it? Fortunately, there is a solution.

Time for a career change.

STEP 2: Identity what are your fears of career transition?

The heart signals us for considering a career change.

But my mind intervenes!

It populates the idea that after achieving financial stability nothing will go wrong.

Moreover, how frustrating is it when many people intervene in finding a new career for you?

Different people mean different minds owning different perceptions.

They will pour their career change ideas onto your brain.

Cooking a mixed vegetable inside your head!

At this point you start to hate your life.

You must consult only a couple of trustworthy people when truly wanting to start a new career.

But there are more important things to know first.

Career change ideas of people will force several questions to burn through your head.

Like a blazing fire!

Popping questions when starting over:

How will I finance a new career, this is way too costly?

Research shows for people new career means, again years of education with those sleepless nights.

I don’t want to be a student again as the earlier experience had given me blood tears.

No to starting over.

How will finding a second career guarantee me success?

It will burden me with a greater sense of responsibility so I should stay where I am what if I lose even what is in my hands?

What if people I am surrounded with are right about the blunt statement that I will never be able to make it?

Do I see the positive attributes?

Like unlimited motivation of career transition in me which can break all these walls of fear?

I want a new career but what if it is too late?

I have really chosen the wrong career.

As of now I have gained enough bad experience but I will not let my children repeat the same mistakes.

What the ***

What if I compromised?

Though I hate my job and I want to quit it. But what if I switch careers next year? What new career shall I pursue?

I wish for a sudden inspiration badly. As I need a career change but don’t know what to do.

After answering these questions, wait, there’s more

. . .

How I kicked my fears?

I shifted from CS to CND (communication and design) and I heard several whispers. Some loud enough!

It all boils down to ignoring those whispers.

Being on scholarship at the university, I could read several eyes pleading.

Asking to embrace the suck of my new decision!

Those eyes suggesting you deserve better than communication and design.

My ear allowed statements like science students shifting to humanities?

Want to guess what the other ear did? Yeah thrown such statements about my midlife career change out!

Taking a risk is the best favor which you can do to your life, to yourself

Why do some people not choose a new career and remain satisfied?

Unsatisfactory shitty jobs or careers will make your life a living hell.

A surge of regrets will follow ahead.

So avoid that . . . be ready for a quick career change. A journey of setting yourself free.

Want to know why?

At least their bills are getting attention.

But guess what you should realize in a nick of time?

A protest should waver on your lips if your job != passion.

This is a symbol not equal to the python language!

If you have gained enough experience in your field then you are not forced to serve that career your whole life.

You see my point, right?

Life is short thus add some spices to it rather than exhausting your field to an extent that you began to hate it.

Stick with me now.

Step 3: Identity what are the best second careers?

I do want to change my career but to what? I need career change ideas.

But where can I find them?

Guess what? No response.

This is a result of listening to your heart as your mind will betray you at this point.

Want to know why ideas are not populating in your head?

Your mind has left you all alone.

It is harassing your decision and asking to choose for yourself.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution . . .

Refer back to your values: You do not need any counselor to tell you the idea, your values will do that for you.

Values for career change at 25

This was the major mistake that I made when I was diving into computer science.

I did not reflect on my values.

If you are looking for a career change then it is vital for you to tap into your value system.

What is the value?

The thing which keeps you moving – the pivotal force.

Every goal which you have stems from your value

Value → goal [accomplishments & milestones] → purpose [your true calling & the passion which ends when you die]

The values are meaningful directions.

Next time when you weigh any career, weigh the meaning (value) the career has for you.

What most people do is take the opposite route.

They will dig into the career first and then attach a value with it.

The reality is the value is a compass. The first element in the career selection chain.

There are so many values that a person can get lost.

This blogpost not only lists the basic fundamental values but also details 3 strategies on picking up yours.

What next in career change at 35?

Now you need to make a list of other career options that align with your top chosen value.

At this point, think of these two options:

A new career that is somewhat related to your current field. Or something in the south – completed distance.

This tip will make your selection easier.

Additionally, you can make a list from the recommendations mentioned above or consider these sources:

Use career key website’ as it sorts the career choices by our interest or you can you queendom test. Whichever site helps you.

Use the Lifeline of a close friend for new career exploration!

Visit list courses from your favorites universities online. See which course interests you the most.

Meet with people of your dream occupation along with people who they offer service. You have no idea how helpful that can be.

I know that’s a lot to take in, but bear with me . . . It is time to jump over to the next step.

Step 4: Identify how you transition into a new career by answering questions?

After jotting down your interest areas from the list or other sources, immediately answer these.

What is the motivational drive attracting you for starting a new career?

Which skill set do you own for excelling in this new career path?

What is your awareness level about the practical job in the new field from day to day basis?

Why changing career options sound exciting?

Can you scale the difficulty level which you will face when seeking a job or in a career shift?

Are there several retraining aspects of this job?

What are your sources for funding your new certifications?

Step 5: DECISION -Shall I switch careers?

Change your career if all your thoughts, behaviors, and actions are under your control.

You will truly deserve the benefits of switching to a new career . . .

Just be true to yourself and ready to show utmost willingness.

Your decision will demand your persistence, willingness, and hard work.

Studies show a person must be ready for the challenges which you may face during a career transition. 

After which you will feel that pleasure of success swirling soon within you.

Invest your time and energy researching.

Step 6: When shall I not go for a career transition?

If you are not willing to sacrifice anything then career change will not help you.

The sacrifice can be in the form of a cut-shot in your finances to fund your new certifications . . .

The sacrifice can be of those sleepless nights gifting you eye-bags.

Sacrifice ANYTHING, I also made a sacrifice for my second career.

To switch a major, I had to get my semester frozen.

I had to sit at home for quite a time as I got late in my decision.

Do something different.

I salute those who make a career transition out of dissatisfaction, as that is the true act of heroism.

Every career change means you will not achieve triumph until you face the risk.

You should not transition to new career options unless you are sure of one thing . . .

that your happiness lies with the change of career.

Question: Is it time for a career switch? After all, research says:

Tenure plays a vital role when considering a career transition.

The years served to vary from field to field.

The time interval for which you have been committed to your field helps you in decision making.

Step 7: Practical steps of how to make a career change?

Let me break this down for you . . .

Career transition can stretch from 3 months to a year. A new career could be your own start-up.

If you are questioning that How I can change my life with no money?

Then here’s how . . .

You can take a loan for your business or support your education. Remember time is money. Only if you are not financially stable then get a loan. But take action with a proper strategic approach.

Dig into the courses which provide you certifications today.

Research shows that in this era reconsideration of career is deemed as a positive sign.

With the rise of different complex careers, the transition becomes a form of evolution for many individuals.

Final words for career changes at 25

Take the decision before watching your last breath divorcing your soul.

How awesome is that?

What should I do before starting a new career?

Just start it!

Get rid of that shitty career if the pen’s edge is resting into your mouth . . . and you are wondering what the hell am I doing with my life?

You need to ignore people’s suggestions.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Stand strikingly proud at your decision of career change.

Just give your new career a time without letting your patience wear away.

The most important thing is never to complain to people.

Honestly, no one likes the moaner but those who own the courage to accept the voice of their heart.

Excuse me for being brutally honest.

Not a single person whom I met, including myself, ever regretted the bold decision.

If you truly plan to explore yourself then I can hear echoes of one thing right now . . .

Of your success.

Comment down what do you think.

Ready for it or still confused?

The post 7 INSANELY EASY tips for Career Change at 25 [starting new career at 25] appeared first on You Decode.

[componentplanet]

Report: China Sells Minorities Into ‘Forced Labor’ to Benefit Apple, Foxconn, Others

Ongoing human rights violations in China were a significant topic of discussion at the end of 2019. The country has sought to block criticism of its policies towards Tibet, the still-ongoing Hong Kong protests, and its imprisonment of a million or more Uighurs and other ethnic minority groups in forced re-education camps. A new bombshell report from Australia indicates that the Uighurs and other minorities aren’t just being subjected to forced re-education — they’re being used as slave labor after completing their terms of “study.”

The paper, by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, doesn’t use the term “slavery,” preferring to rely instead on the euphemism of “forced labor.” Here’s how the situation is described (Uighur and Uyghur are two different ways of spelling the same word):

It is extremely difficult for Uyghurs to refuse or escape these work assignments, which are enmeshed with the apparatus of detention and political indoctrination both inside and outside of Xinjiang. In addition to constant surveillance, the threat of arbitrary detention hangs over minority citizens who refuse their government-sponsored work assignments. Most strikingly, local governments and private brokers are paid a price per head by the Xinjiang provincial government to organise the labour assignments…

The Uyghur workers, unlike their Han counterparts, are reportedly unable to go home for holidays… Uyghur workers are often transported across China in special segregated trains… Multiple sources suggest that in factories across China, many Uyghur workers lead a harsh, segregated life under so-called ‘military-style management’. Outside work hours, they attend factory-organised Mandarin language classes, participate in ‘patriotic education’, and are prevented from practising their religion. Every 50 Uyghur workers are assigned one government minder and are monitored by dedicated security personnel. They have little freedom of movement and live in carefully guarded dormitories, isolated from their families and children back in Xinjiang. There is also evidence that, at least in some factories, they are paid less than their Han counterparts.

There’s a common perception that the difference between slaves and free individuals is that the latter is paid for their work, but the truth is more complex. This article from the Organization of American Historians is a deep dive into the history of slaves earning wages in the South. In some cases, slaveowners found it advantageous to allow slaves to earn a certain amount of money and to spend it on improving their own lives or the lives of their families. The same is undoubtedly true in China today.

If you can’t refuse a work assignment, can’t go home to see your family, can’t practice your religion, are forced to live by a schedule in which virtually every minute of your life is regimented for you, are kept under constant or near-constant surveillance and subject to the whims of headhunters who earn a bounty for delivering you to a job, and didn’t get any choice in the matter, I’d argue you’re effectively a slave. In some cases, workers’ families are also under simultaneous surveillance back at home, which provides an extra incentive for the slaves “prisoners with jobs” to behave themselves.

Image by Disney, from Thor: Ragnarok. This is one of those “I needed a bit of a joke, because the next few images are really nauseating” moments.

The ASPI estimates that up to 80,000 Uighurs have been forced into labor camps this way, some of them directly after finishing their indoctrination at Chinese re-education centers. The report includes three case studies focused on factories producing goods for Nike, Adidas/Fila, and Apple. A total of 83 companies have been identified as benefiting from these practices:

Abercrombie & Fitch, Acer, Adidas, Alstom, Amazon, Apple, ASUS, BAIC Motor, BMW, Bombardier, Bosch, BYD, Calvin Klein, Candy, Carter’s, Cerruti 1881, Changan Automobile, Cisco, CRRC, Dell, Electrolux, Fila, Founder Group, GAC Group (automobiles), Gap, Geely Auto, General Electric, General Motors, Google, H&M, Haier, Hart Schaffner Marx, Hisense, Hitachi, HP, HTC, Huawei, iFlyTek, Jack & Jones, Jaguar, Japan Display Inc., L.L.Bean, Lacoste, Land Rover, Lenovo, LG, Li-Ning, Mayor, Meizu, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Mitsumi, Nike, Nintendo, Nokia, The North Face, Oculus, Oppo, Panasonic, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, Roewe, SAIC Motor, Samsung, SGMW, Sharp, Siemens, Skechers, Sony, TDK, Tommy Hilfiger, Toshiba, Tsinghua Tongfang, Uniqlo, Victoria’s Secret, Vivo, Volkswagen, Xiaomi, Zara, Zegna, and ZTE.

How many vocational schools do you know of that don’t have completely fenced-off areas and a dozen or more security checkpoints?

The report details how this massive system of relocation and forced labor has been built up under the guise of an aid program known as “Xinjiang Aid.” What appears superficially as a targeted aid program for the poor and undereducated people in the province is a relocation and reeducation program meant to destroy their culture and religious practices. Companies all over China have been encouraged to provide “industrial Xianjing aid” by building factories in the province to absorb what China terms “surplus labor capacity” or to hire Uighurs for other tasks in factories across the rest of China.

Factories are well-compensated for taking these workers and advertisements for their services have reportedly begun popping up in Chinese publications, as shown above and below:

Compare that with some vintage advertisements for American pre-owned human property.

The report details how, days before Tim Cook visited an O-Film Technology factory in 2017, the company transferred 700 Uighurs to a separate factory. In a now-deleted press release, Cook praised the company for its “humane approach towards employees.” The company reportedly continued to hire more Uighur prisoners throughout the year.

The ASPI doesn’t make any damning accusations that any specific Western company knew that its products were being built by slave labor. There are multiple diagrams attached to each case report that make it clear how intricate some of these supply chains are. When you look at the supply chains for companies like O-Film, you immediately see just how many major firms could be buying products tainted by the use of slave labor:

The ASPI does not argue that Apple or any other company has been aware of what has been going on within their supply chains. But the web of connections between these firms implies many companies have benefited from this practice and need to take immediate action to address it. Past that immediate problem, this is another area where we as a society have to choose whether we want to stay quite so cozy with a nation with an increasingly awful human rights record.

If you’ve paid attention to the clashes over issues like freedom of speech between the United States and China over the past six months, it’s become very clear that China isn’t just attempting to control what is said within its borders. In multiple instances, the Chinese have targeted low-level employees or minor embarrassments with hostility beyond all proportion to the alleged offense. This overreaction is not an accident. It’s part and parcel of how the nation is demonstrating its willingness to enforce its own cultural and social norms on others.

While it is absolutely possible for nations to have positive effects on each other, it is past time to let go of the fiction that engaging with China in economic terms will intrinsically lead the company to democratize its policies or protect the rights of its citizenry. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has moved to curtail freedom of the press and freedom of speech. It has imprisoned 1-2 million citizens in political re-education camps and is forcing some of those citizens into what is effectively slavery to manufacture cheap goods for Western markets.

I’m Not Just a Consumer

Businesses make a lot of assumptions about what their customers will or won’t want. One of the most offensive, I’d argue, is the idea that customers are sensitive to nothing but price. Suggest that we might benefit from moving production to a country where minority workers and their families aren’t literally enslaved to provide cheap labor, and someone will instantly bring up the fact that prices would go up if anything changed. In some cases, that’s probably true. A more meaningful question that few people seem to have the guts to ask these days is, “So what?”

Over the past few years, we’ve watched smartphone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung jack up the price of smartphones to the point that $1,000 isn’t even guaranteed to buy you a top-end product any longer. The iPhone XR starts at $600 while the iPhone 11 Pro Max starts at $1,100, but everybody knows that it doesn’t cost Apple an extra $500 to build an iPhone 11 Pro Max. For the past few years, both Samsung and Apple have increased prices simply because they could increase prices.

Somehow, however, the same MBAs who confidently predict to the Tim Cooks of the world that the market will cheerfully absorb a price increase engineered for the sole purpose of installing more gold-plated bathtubs in the C-suites would quail at the idea of refusing to do business with a reprehensible dictatorship that inflicts catastrophic human rights abuses on its own citizenry. The idea that I might be willing to pay more for an iPhone because Apple wants to spend more money propping up its own stock is treated as a given. The idea that I might be willing to pay more for an iPhone because I don’t believe the Chinese government should be rewarded for literally enslaving people? Well, that’s letting morality get in the way of business.

And yet, the fact remains: I would vastly rather pay an extra $50-$100 to know my phone wasn’t made with slave labor than I would to pay an extra $50-$100 so that some rich schmuck on Wall Street can make an extra million bucks in bonuses this quarter. I know I am not the only person who feels that way.

The clash of values between China and the United States isn’t going to go away. Writing in 1945, philosopher Karl Popper described what is now known as the paradox of tolerance, stating: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

I am aware of all of the reasons — literally billions of reasons — why United States’ companies seek access to Chinese markets. I am aware of the hyper-optimized supply chains and the decades of investment US companies have made in them. Any effort to shift even a small amount of manufacturing out of China would be difficult and time-consuming, and in many cases, alternatives would have to be developed from scratch. Furthermore, because the Earth’s resources are unevenly distributed, some nations have a much larger supply of valuable resources than others. The United States has most of the world’s helium. China has a huge percentage of rare earths. Bolivia has a huge chunk of the world’s lithium reserves. Even in the best of cases, we live in a global, interconnected economy. There is no way to simply wave a wand and roll the clock back to the early 20th century.

There is, however, still time for Americans to push back on the idea that access to Chinese markets is the highest value to which we, as a people, can aspire to. And since every conversation starts with someone choosing to start it, I’ll go first. I am not willing to pay higher drug prices so that the pharmaceutical industry can continue ripping off Americans with exorbitant drug prices. I am not willing to pay higher prices for goods and services so that “disruptive” companies can pocket their employees’ tips. I am not willing, generally speaking, to watch my own costs rise so that people who already make more money in a day than I’ll make in a year can get just a little richer.

But I would be willing to pay more for my electronics and devices if it meant knowing that the countries and companies where these devices were manufactured weren’t enslaving their employees, driving them to suicide, exposing them to poisonous toxins, or otherwise destroying their lives, particularly when one of the benefits of doing so is knowing that my fellow citizens will not be subject to being fired for the crime of accidentally liking the wrong tweet.

If Tim Cook wanted to demonstrate the courage Phil Schiller claims Apple possesses, he could declare that Apple would take a leadership position in certifying that the workers employed at every company in every part of its supply chain were ethically treated and that none of the profit from its raw material purchases would be used to finance wars or conflict around the world. It would be an enormous challenge — one befitting a trillion-dollar company with enough yearly revenue to qualify as the 42nd-largest economy in the world. If the other companies named in this report joined him, they would collectively represent enough purchasing power to force even China to the bargaining table, if backed up by the US government.

The very concept of the “marketplace of ideas” is that people are allowed to bring their thoughts and ideas to the metaphorical table for everyone to peruse them. The connection between China deploying slave labor in factories and, say, the protests in Hong Kong, is that China doesn’t want anybody talking about any of this, and it’s already proven its own willingness to use extraordinary measures to clamp down on dissent, even when that dissent comes from other countries. We ignore these trends at our own peril.

Now Read:

Report: China’s New Comac C919 Jetliner Is Built With Stolen Technology

Leaked: How Chinese Use AI, Apps for Mass Incarceration, Internment

Blizzard Lowers Penalty on Hong Kong Streamer, Says China Uninvolved in Censorship

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306909-report-china-sells-minorities-into-forced-labor-to-benefit-apple-foxconn-others from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/report-china-sells-minorities-into.html

#Report: China Sells Minorities Into ‘Forced Labor’ to Benefit Apple #Foxconn #Others

[arjay6311]

I come acrosed this, I see we here aren't the only ones to see through the mess she has caused, it was on my list of questions from Quara.

 I What impact is Prince Harry and Meghan's baby son Sussex arrival going to make on royal siblings and families? On society in Britain?

Sandra Sylvester, former Former Toyota CRM (1999-2004)Answered 11h ago The thing that people aren’t considering I think about the scandal MM has created, and caused the family tensions isn’t as easy as 1 2 3…patching things up isn’t a matter of a simple compromise. Why?Harry isn’t a prominent nor major royal. However, his wife insists differently. Harry’s affiliation with the royals has a direct effect on the entire family.Harry doesn’t respect the royal family in general. He’s caused humiliation time after time, it was all said he’d outgrow it. Gosh, how much difference it would’ve been has he realized consequences? He feels entitled and free to act childish and yet his actions do have an impact on the major royals. Who are dedicated to their duties and public image.Until MM weaseled her way in Harry’s life there was never this much or this degree of deceit and mockery.William isn’t someone who treats is role as insignificant and irresponsibly portray himself. He doesn’t like MM and it’s not about a simple dislike of something that can be compromised over: it’s her narcissistic characteristics which is WHO she is. She has and always will be the same.William and Kate aren’t going to allow her to ruin their image that is impeccable. Kate is so graceful and genuine. William doesn’t step out of line, he knows what is expected. They aren’t without prejudice. Their existence isn’t guaranteed without proven merit and trust from the British citizens. Reputation is everything. PERIOD!I don’t dislike MM for no reason. She has proven how reckless and immature not to mention devious abc that’s on her. That’s what will always be from her. That’s single handedly has led to respect and trust being lost.I am quite certain the royals realize that there is no PR team that can maintain MM scandals and schemes. It is hard work to keep up with the mess she’s created. They can’t get their ducks in a row. Harry’s not a liar and it shows. He’s terrible at it. MM is a pro. Because of Harry’s naivety he is constantly misspoken and instead of MM fake details, he accidentally tells the truth.People are not that dumb. When things don’t add up and things are seen as deceitful especially when it’s so badly played out, without apology or even attempts to look natural it’s seen as insulting and condescending. Seriously, they are implying they are above all others and really do think us “commoners” will fall for anything as they preclude we lack common sense and proper interpretation of what is perceived, with our own eyes.The constant betrayal and mishaps only fuels the fire and there is so much that Harry and MM have done that is outright lies and proven so. Now add the ridiculous pregnancy concoction. That is by far the oddest and longest pregnancy I’ve EVER seen. Gracious the why factor is inconceivably outrageous. There was no doubt she had fake bumps but WHO DOES THAT? Due to the constant issues that are known to be deceitful makes people pay attention to everything much closer.Her background is telling as was her social media. She will stop at nothing and has zero shame and humility. That’s just her. I’m not being judgmental in a vicious manner I’m just pointing out her personality is what it is. This has created hiccups for everyone who’s has contact with her.William isn’t someone you want as an enemy. He’s going to be King one day, however, not if MM continues as there won’t be a monarchy to be King for.There is no way William and Kate, the Queen, Charles or Phillip will tolerate this continued disgrace bestowed them because of Harry’s mistake. They now know just how bad it really is.There’s little that can be done by way of interacting and associating with Harry and his 2 spares. Interacting with her is a reputation ender. She cannot accept not being the only one getting attention. She creates her personality own attention and intentionally and proudly breaks protocol and thinks looking sloppy and disheveled, on top of unprofessional in her appearance and attire, is directly targeted at the credibility and overall perception of the palace. It’s a down right shame. It’s bringing them to their knees.Hopefully now that she’s not pregnant and putting her in her place isn’t a health issue, she will be quickly banished. Harry won’t be her pawn for long. Not that she cares because her meal ticket is…well…, perhaps REAL. That’s up for debate..,she’s so untrustworthy and YES I do realize how these theories seem bizarre, however, she puts the phrase “Just when I thought I’d heard it all” to a shame. She’s a whole new level of outrageous lies. Really I’m dumbfounded and ashamed for her.She should’ve done everything to make William accept her. She failed. Then insulted his wife. Only her in thinking , and William isn’t someone I would want to “pee off” and he doesn’t like her. He’s got his future to worry about and live up to. He’s not going to allow a simple nobody to destroy that. He will have much say now and it’s unbelievable that I’ve seen so many people criticize the Queen for doing nothing about her. I’m not British. I’m not up to par on how the monarchy is managed but I do know they have to be voted in by the UK voters. Because there is known deceit and it’s continuous means everything is doubted. That equals getting BOO’D while being publicly acknowledged. By a huge majority of the audience. How bad is that? That’s embarrassing. They had to stay after this happened realizing they are not wanted.I’m just trying to point out there is much much more to putting aside their differences. No amount of compromise will change MM. Some things are not resolvable. I truly believe that until the actual separation and divorce happens there cannot be a resolution. I think Harry has realized how unhappy he really is after spending time with Kate. It’s the first tone he’s looked genuinely happy and giddy. It was definitely noticed by all too. I truly think he’s very very fond of his SIL, lol. Beyond adoration . Thankfully he had plenty of time away from MM command to actually recall how she’s ruined him and made him a skeleton of his former self.This is my opinion and personal observations. Based upon facts I’ve seen and know are true, as well as presumptions based upon these factors. I’ve been a victim of a narcissist and I’ll never not be able to spot one again, as I’d certainly NEVER survive another round. The characteristics of a narcissist are present in MM and that’s seen in her everyday actions and disposition. I don’t expect everybody to agree and I respect that. I respectfully agree to disagree. I don’t feel any more entitled to my opinion than I do others. I am not going to change my mind about her and I’ll defend the facts I know, I will not engage in a dispute as I know when things are going south and I see no point in that. Nothing can be gained and I remove myself from the conversation.I’m hoping that this can be respected and I’m not attacked in spite of disliking my perspectives. I do appreciate corrective criticism however.’m seeing we here arn’t the only ones that see through this whole mess.

She hit’s it dead on!! 

[frowncod73-blog]

The Linc - ESPN predicts Nick Foles will end up on the Jaguars

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Ten bold NFL predictions for 2019 season: Landing spots for Le’Veon, Foles - ESPN 1. The Jaguars will acquire Nick Foles, somehow, but still miss the playoffs. This is not to diminish the talents of Mr. Foles, and woe unto the rest of the AFC South if those teams let him hang in contention until mid-December. But the Jaguars team we predict Foles to be joining is not of the same caliber as the Eagles teams for which he performed his late-season and postseason magic the past two years. I believe the Eagles will work with Foles and allow him to have some say in where he ends up. I also believe they’re wary of him ending up in the NFC East with Washington or the Giants, and directing him to a faraway AFC destination like Jacksonville will be more appealing to Howie Roseman & Co. Jacksonville’s hiring of former Eagles QBs coach John DeFilippo as offensive coordinator could make the Jags appealing to Foles as well.

What the Eagles should do at linebacker - BGN If the Eagles don’t retain Hicks, they’ll need a new starting linebacker alongside Bradham. One free agent with a connection to the Eagles is Bradham’s former teammate, Preston Brown. Jim Schwartz trusted Brown enough to have the rookie start 14 games at linebacker for the Bills in 2014. He remained as a full-time in Buffalo before joining the Bengals as a free agent on a one-year, $5 million deal worth $2 million guaranteed in 2018. Cincinnati placed Brown on injured reserve in late November due to a knee injury. With the Bengals bringing in a new coaching staff, the 26-year-old Brown could be looking for a new home that offers familiarity. The Eagles might be able to get him on a one-year, “prove it” deal.

The Kist & Solak Show #76: The Sort of Super Bowl Recap - BGN Radio Michael Kist and Benjamin Solak kind of recap the Super Bowl, touching on the play of Jared Goff and the defensive gameplan from the Patriots, plus a bunch of draft talk because it’s officially the offseason! Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Previewing the Eagles’ next calendar year, in stick figure form - PhillyVoice Let’s see if we can get back in the win column this year.

Carson Confirms He’s Human - Iggles Blitz I think Carson handled this situation wisely. He addressed this in a timely fashion. He wasn’t defensive. He didn’t come off as holier than thou. The next year is going to be really interesting for Carson Wentz. He’s going to have a lot of pressure on him to play well and carry the team. He needs to show he can stay healthy and actually make it to the postseason. Carson also will be under a microscope when it comes to incidents. If he is seen looking frustrated at a teammate, that will lead to speculation. If he gives a coach a funny look, some will question that. If Carson and the Eagles have a terrific season in 2019, all of this nonsense will go away.

Carson Wentz opens up about controversial article, relationship with Eagles teammates - The Athletic As for his on-field performance, Wentz was the 12th-ranked quarterback in the league in the all-encompassing metrics like QBR, DVOA and ANY/A. As we’ve pointed out previously, his numbers were strikingly similar to Foles’. Wentz’s accuracy was actually better than it was in 2017, but the improvisational plays he’s accustomed to making outside of the structure of the offense were not available to him. During the interview, Wentz acknowledged that he never felt quite like himself in 2018. “It’s a process,” Wentz said. “As far as injury prevention, I felt great. I didn’t feel – I felt confident, all those things – but as far as being explosive and all those things, I never quite, and I’m not going to use it as an excuse by any means, but I watched the tape from two years ago, you watch last year, you can say I wasn’t quite there as far as mobility stuff. And that’s something I’ll keep working through. And everyone says it’s an 18-month, two-year thing to get really feeling strong again and back to normal. It’s getting better. It’s going to keep getting better. And I don’t think we’ll worry about hopefully either of these injuries going forward.”

Complete transcript of Carson Wentz’s conversation with select media - NBCSP “I heard it that morning. John (Gonoude from Eagles PR) actually sent it over to me and I was, like, I just read it and I was a little confused, I guess. It’s never obviously fun to read your name being thrown around like that, but at the end of the day, try not to stress about it too much and let the media or the perception of others dictate who I am. I know who I am, first of all. I know how I carry myself, I know I’m not perfect, I know I have flaws. So I’m not going to sit here and say it was inaccurate and completely made up, I’m not going to do that. But at the end of the day, I will say our locker room is really close. If there were guys that had issues, in hindsight, I wish we could have just talked about them. But, again, I don’t know how that all happened and everything with that. Again, it’s never fun to read, but to extent, you look at it and be like, ‘well, if someone did have this perception of me, why? What have I done wrong? What can I get better at? I realize I have my shortcomings. Yes, I can be selfish. I think we all have selfishness inside of us. There’s human elements to that, that I really look at and say, ‘well, I can get better.’ I always say I can be better on the field, off the field, how I carry myself. But I didn’t want to make it bigger than … I think everyone probably ran with it different ways and I just kind of said, ‘look, I’m just going to live my life out here and I’m going to let that kind of shape out how it may.’ Honestly, I haven’t really read what’s been happening since. Again, it’s not fun to read, but you try to take what you can from it and be better, I guess.”

Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz says his personality ‘ain’t going to change,’ and it shouldn’t - Inquirer The QB has already proven he has what it takes to thrive. Are there minor modifications he can make? Absolutely. But authenticity matters most in an NFL locker room.

Fans Encouraged To Support Second Annual Carson Wentz Softball Game - PE.com The 2nd Annual AO1 Charity Softball Game benefiting The Carson Wentz AO1 Foundation takes place on May 31 at Citizens Bank Park. Tickets go on sale through the website AO1Foundation.org on February 7. The family-friendly event begins with a home run derby at 6:30 p.m. followed by a game between members of the Eagles playing on opposing teams at 7:30 p.m.

Jay Ajayi updates progress on ACL rehab - CBS Sports Jay Ajayi is just four months removed from ACL surgery, which ended his season with the Philadelphia Eagles and hindered his opportunity for a big payday on the free agent market. Ajayi will be forced to sign a “prove it” deal in order to restore his value in 2019, a year which he likely won’t be 100 percent until October (but still should be ready for the start of the season). Spotrac has started to project market values for all the free agents out there, which Ajayi comes in at $3.6 million per season. Needless to say, Ajayi is working towards getting that contract. The Eagles running back updated his progress in his ACL rehab, jumping up on a step...three days shy of four months to the day he tore his ACL.

February All-Sleeper Team - The Draft Network RB: Elijah Holyfield, Georgia: I just got eyes on Holyfield a couple of days ago — boy, am I glad I did! Holyfield has gotten sparse attention in Draft circles that see him as the blip on the radar between Georgia’s two stud backs of the 2018 cycle — Nick Chubb and Super Bowl champion Sony Michel — and their rising junior star in D’Andre Swift. But Holyfield is a strong runner in his own right — and in this class, that’s enough to vault him to my RB2 slot, which ruffled more than a few feathers when I publicized the ranking. He carries a mid/late second-round grade off of his film, and is a fringe Top-50 player, but he offers the only bellcow profile I’ve seen in this class besides Alabama’s Josh Jacobs. He just never saw that opportunity in the Bulldog backfield. Holyfield wins with sweet feet, as he remains tethered to the ground through sharp and explosive cuts. He can string together moves, load his lower half to deliver a powerful shot, or pick up steam in a hurry when attacking the outside. His meager pass-catching usage is harrowing, but there’s no reason to believe he can’t handle more targets and catches — and for teams that don’t heavily feature their backs in the passing game, or already have a strong pass-catching back — Holyfield makes sense as the “thunder” in a 2-part backfield.

Choiceology: Season 2 Episode 7 - Schwab Seeing as it’s Super Bowl season, it seemed like a good time to revisit last year’s contest as a case study in decision making. The 2018 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles played incredibly well against the formidable New England Patriots. The game could have gone either way, but the Eagles had a secret weapon that gave them an advantage. We speak with Michael Kist from Bleeding Green Nation on the Eagles’ integration of computer models for decision making both on and off the field. You’ll hear the story of how those models were temporarily abandoned and the team struggled before re-embracing them.

Bengals hiring James Casey and Ben Martin, per report - Cincy Jungle Zac Taylor is wasting no time in finding who will be on his staff with the Bengals. Not long after Taylor was hired as the team’s next coach, Field Yates of ESPN reported that Houston Cougars tight ends coach James Casey was joining Taylor’s staff. The team is also hiring Ben Martin, an offensive line coach from Bryant University. Casey is someone you may be familiar with, as he enjoyed a productive career with the Houston Texans from 2009-12, then with the Philadelphia Eagles from 2013-14. He ended his career following a one-year stint with the Denver Broncos in 2015.

Connor Barwin release made official by Giants - Big Blue View The Giants made the release of Connor Barwin official on Monday. Barwin had said last week via social media that he would not be a Giant in 2019. Releasing the 32-year-old saves the Giants $1.5 million against the 2019 salary cap. The 10-year veteran had a career-low one sack in 2018.

The Rams Went All In to Beat the Patriots—and It Still Wasn’t Enough - The Ringer Sean McVay’s team exemplified the tenets of modern team building in their run to Super Bowl LIII. They just learned the lesson that’s defined this decade in the NFL.

It’s okay to admit that the Super Bowl wasn’t a good game - SB Nation There are those who want you to believe that Super Bowl LIII was a good game. But... was it? Or are we putting lipstick on a pig for a game that had all the drama of a Week 4 Jets-Dolphins game on a Thursday night? The praise is coming from everywhere, sources both credible in their knowledge of the game of football and not.

...

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Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2019/2/5/18211776/eagles-news-espn-predicts-nick-foles-jaguars-jacksonville-trade-free-agency-quarterback-rumors-wentz

[theconservativebrief]

For the latest episode of my podcast, I Think You’re Interesting, I wanted to commemorate the end of another TV season (the 2017-’18 TV season ended May 31, though several shows launched during it will continue into the summer) by having some of my favorite showrunners on to talk about the state of the industry.

It was one of those great conversations where I could just sit back and listen as smart people whose work I love bounced ideas around and asked each other questions and built on each other’s thoughts. The whole conversation is worth listening to, but I especially wanted to highlight what happened when I asked the group why they thought TV had gotten slightly better at telling stories about groups traditionally underrepresented in fiction, while movies had gotten so much worse.

It was a good group to ask that question.

Aline Brosh McKenna is a showrunner on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a musical comedy that deconstructs romantic comedy tropes and shows how they don’t paint women as full people, while also destigmatizing mental illness, something TV has never been comfortable talking about. (She’s also the writer of several movies, including the fantastic Devil Wears Prada.)

Tanya Saracho is the showrunner of Starz’s Vida, a heartfelt, soulful half-hour drama about two Mexican-American sisters reconnecting after their mother’s death. The series also tackles themes of queerness and gentrification.

And Salim Akil, as the showrunner of The CW’s Black Lightning, has turned a superhero show into an examination of black masculinity and issues affecting black communities, while not skimping on the cool superhero fights.

So I didn’t have to say much. Indeed, the three talked for much longer on this topic after the segment I’ve excerpted here, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Aline Brosh McKenna. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for March of Dimes

Aline Brosh McKenna

You don’t have to make money in the more traditional manner. Television used to be really, really run by bean counters, and it was incredibly dictated by numbers. It’s really because of cable and streaming have redefined what a successful show is financially. We were the lowest-rated show on network television for a couple years. Now I think we’re maybe third from the bottom? [Laughs.] But we offer other things to the network. Strictly ratings, we wouldn’t have made it 10 years ago.

And networks really treat shows that have a more niche appeal completely differently. That’s why they’re making stuff that is across the board speaking to different types of audiences. And movies have gone the other way. They’ve gotten bigger, bigger, wider, wider.

We’re lucky that you can address different kinds of audiences and take certain artistic risks and that has paid off for networks. Other networks have seen that work. It’s still in progress, but I think you can see a lot more voices represented at the moment.

Tanya Saracho

There are a lot more. I’m myopic about how I look at this — just Latinx, you know?

We consume, if you look at the numbers, more especially movies than almost any demographic, especially young Latinas. There has not been a movie about a young, millennial Latina ever in the past decades. I still don’t understand, and I’m trying to figure out why we’ve been so invisible and why we continue to be.

In TV, it’s better because we’ve popped up, especially in front of the screen but behind the screen; out of 520 shows, we have now five, with mine, of a Latinx perspective, a Latinx gaze. But we make up almost 20 percent of this country. I don’t understand why we haven’t caught up or why they haven’t seen our value.

Aline Brosh McKenna

It’s the same reason that things are male-centered. They believe that women will go see things with a male protagonist.

Tanya Saracho

And we do, yeah.

Aline Brosh McKenna

They think the protagonist bias only goes that direction.

Tanya Saracho

But it becomes an erasure of a people in a way. We’re not counted. Our narratives are not up there. We still have these old ’90s immigrant narratives that are so different and complicated now. We’re still going back by Mi Familia and by Selena and by La Bamba. It’s crazy that those were the last big [movies].

I know in TV it’s better, but I think we still have a long way to go. If you look at those numbers, it’s like, why? Why are we not valued, our narratives? I’m still in that space.

Of course, Starz has been amazing to us. I do think because my executive is Marta Fernandez, and she’s Hispanic, and that matters, because you have to have someone in the castle to keep the door open. But if I look at the landscape, it’s really bleak.

Salim Akil. Paras Griffin/Getty Images for SCAD aTVfest 2018

Salim Akil

Honestly, I think it’s getting better because you’re hearing more authentic voices. Black folk are writing and running shows about black folk. Before, I would look at television and I would say, “Oh, yeah, a white man wrote that. It doesn’t seem like anything a black person would do or say.” It was always some guy with tennis shoes on running from the police in a short jacket, and his name was Willie Earl.

When you have other people writing and [turns to Tanya] you said gaze — gazing for you, then they gaze from their point of view. It’s the gaze that usually makes them feel comfortable. I think what is happening now is that women and so-called minorities are writing things for themselves and their people, and so it gets better and better, and people become more and more interested.

I’m not really interested in the concept of what percentage of black folk are watching television in the United States, because we’re in a global economy now. So these images and these stories aren’t just being shown in America. They’re being shown on phones and TVs around the world. I was in South Africa, and Girlfriends and Being Mary Jane were on television, and people were watching them on their phones. And I guarantee you Starz isn’t just making your show to show in the United States.

I think that when you look at how we are disseminating these images and these stories, it becomes less about what’s going on in the ratings and less about what’s going on in the United States. We’re in a global economy now.

I think the reason you’re still having that conversation about an erasing of people is because there’s still the majority white men running these companies, and until there’s more inclusion in the higher ranks, where you don’t just have that one “blackspert,” the woman or the man who’s really working for corporate America and has no interest in fighting for you.

Once we start to replace those type of people with people who really do have an interest in not only making money but in telling stories about human beings, I think it will get better and better and better. But as long as we have the majority white men running companies, it’ll be a struggle.

But it’s a struggle I think worth having. When you look at African Americans, I always say we’re basically one generation up out of Jim Crow, and the things that we’ve managed to accomplish as a people on television and in politics speaks to the idea of struggle.

Tanya Saracho. Earl Gibson III/Getty Images

Tanya Saracho

So if perception is filtered through American television because we’re selling it around the world, we haven’t gotten that many shots to do it.

Aline Brosh McKenna

Well, also, they’re weirdly immune to actual data, because if you look at Wonder Woman or you look at Girls Trip, or you look at whatever, it’s still seen as an outlier. People still don’t identify, and it’s because we need to wick people into the system more from a creator’s standpoint but also from an executive’s standpoint. After a certain level, it really becomes a homogeneous group of people. So people can rise to a certain level, but in order to get kicked those four or five levels upstairs that you need to be to be a real decision-maker, there is no diversity there.

One of the things that I’m very concerned about is getting the best and the brightest to come here [to Hollywood] and stay, because the entry-level jobs don’t pay anything, and if you’re a smart kid and you’re from a different kind of community and you graduated from a good college and you can go get a consulting job and make a good living, why would you come here? So the only people who are coming here are the people who can get checks from their parents to help them survive.

We’re creating a lot of barriers to entry for creators, which is why you have to go grab people and pull them in and help them. You can’t wait for people to apply and show up. So there needs to be way more people as writers assistants and staff writers who are going to have that idea. We still have a lot of invisible barriers to entry just to get people to get into those jobs.

For so much more with all three, including a look at how they define success in an era when ratings mean less and less, listen to the full episode. And you can watch Vida on the Starz streaming app, and both Black Lightning and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Netflix.

To hear more interviews with fascinating people from the world of arts and culture — from powerful showrunners to web series creators to documentary filmmakers — check out the I Think You’re Interesting archives.

Original Source -> Why making Hollywood more diverse requires far more than shaking up who’s onscreen

via The Conservative Brief

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[humanoid-lovers]

A Treasure I am generally a pretty critical reader, and it's almost embarrassing to write such a glowing review, but I can say without reservation that this book is a treasure. (And no, I am not a friend of the family. I haven't even watched him on The Daily Show, although I'll probably start to watch now.) Trevor Noah is a superb storyteller, and this memoir is his eloquent and touching account of growing up as the mixed race child of a single mother, living in poverty in deeply racist and sexist South Africa. He provides an inside look at a life very different from what almost anyone has experienced (due to his unusual ethnicity and upbringing), yet it is easy to relate to him and fascinating to read his stories. The book reads like a novel, but it is so much more affecting because it is true. Reminiscent of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, it is a superbly written story of a perceptive and resilient child thriving in very difficult circumstances, and it beautifully captures these circumstances seen through the eyes of a child. Go to Amazon

Comedy out of Tragedy My decision to request Born a Crime has nothing to do with star power or fandom. I have to admit I have never seen Trevor Noah on the Daily Show. I requested this book when I learned it was about Trevor Noah's childhood in Apartheid South Africa. Go to Amazon

Wonderful & Captivating...you should read this Wow...I started this book yesterday and could not put it down. As a new mom myself, I read most of it on my Kindle while either nursing or holding my son, which was fitting as this is such a tribute to his mom. As a long time viewer of the Daily Show, I started watching as Trevor took over from Jon Stewart and while I've always thought he does a good job, I had no idea the depth of character and experiences that were below the surface of those cute dimples! As is fitting to the Daily Show atmosphere, Trevor discusses difficult topics like race often, but I don't think I will ever watch a segment the same way again after reading his descriptions of what it was like to grow up under and during the fall of apartheid. And I keep thinking back to some of his impassioned pieces prior to the election with a whole new appreciation. Go to Amazon

Must Read! Trevor Noah is wonderful and funny and I was so excited to read his book. After reading it I can say I have SO MUCH respect for this young man to have come so far from such scary beginnings. Mr Noah also educated me so much about apartheid - something we skimmed through in school but I never really understood well. What better teacher than someone who lived through it and its repercussions? I highly recommend this book to every Trevor Noah fan out there, or read it and first and I guarantee you'll become a fan! Go to Amazon

Excellent and fascinating autobiography Great book. I highly recommend it Fun and charming Worth it Wonderfully Rich Formatting not proper for kindle Fantastic Moving and fast-moving Stumbled in, then couldn't stop reading. Fantastic!