#controversial thoughts on the treatment of Katherine

[i-didnt-do-1t]

Katherine Plumber my beloved

#I have some #controversial thoughts on the treatment of Katherine #newsies #Katherine plumber #maybe one day I shall say them #but at any rate #she deserves better

[naughtygirl286]

So we went to see the all new Exorcist movie this week called The Exorcist: Believer This past Tuesday. Now I can say I'm not a huge fan of the Exorcist movies/franchise I seen all the movies and I think they are ok and I know this will be a controversial opinion but I don't believe the original movie is "the scariest movie of all time" I mean it probably was when it came out in the 70s when it first came out I do feel I have seen things that have been in my opinion more scary but I think also it depends on the person I guess. I did however enjoy the Exorcist TV series tho I thought that was good and really well done.

Anyway as for this we went to see it purely on pretty much the name sake alone and it is linked to the to the original first movie being this take place many years later This one is pretty much given the Halloween treatment and is suppose to be the first chapter in a brand new exorcist trilogy and you do get the feeling while watching this one that it is building to something bigger.

Your basically story is it focuses on the character of Angela (played by Lidya Jewett) who's mother dies while on a trip to haiti with her father (played by Leslie Odom Jr.) and her father is a very I would say cynical and skeptical man about all this type of supernatural stuff and that is where I believe the "believer" in the title comes from becasue after the events of the movie it makes him a believer. but anyway he has a good relationship with his daughter and one day blank and her friend Katherine (played by Olivia O'Neill) decided to try and contact Angela's mom's spirit and end up disappearing for 3 day and when they return they are not alone.. The Evil from the original movie has returned and has possessed the girls

Through the discovery process of figuring out what what is going on and how to help the girls Chris MacNeil (played by Ellen Burstyn) is reintroduced being she has experience with this returning evil force and she tries to help them out. And so a battle of good verses evil takes place for the girls souls.

Now I thought this movie was pretty good and it does have that kind of slow burn type of feeling were it starts off slow and then begins to escalate as the possession of the girls gets worse, Now personally I didn't find this scary at all not really one bit and that's just me. there was a girl sitting in the row in front of us to my left and she was jumping at every lil thing it was apparently terrifying her but it didn't faze me at all. I felt that this one was extremely tame compared to the original movie the original movie was intense, and shocking and graphic but I felt this one had none of that like I said it was very tame compared to the original movie and what made it so memorable and infamous.

I did feel that acting was good and the make-up effects were very well done as well as the visuals. It was a really well done movie I just feel that I guess I expected a bit more from it being it is an Exorcist movie. I did pretty much enjoy it more the most but but just as I said I did expect a bit more and I hope the second part delivers on that

Now if you like the Exorcist series and are a fan of it then I think you might like it more more then I did or if you are just curious about it it then I would recommend going to see it it

#The Exorcist #The Exorcist: Believer #The Exorcist Believer #The Exorcist: Believer 2023 #Exorcist #The Exorcist films #The Exorcist series #NaughtyGirl286 #ShannonJ286 #Horror #Horror Movies #Horror Movies 2023 #Horror2023

[thisbluespirit]

I feel like I have to give you the Chalet School back for blorboing *grin*

ahaha, I suppose that is only fair, @elennare!

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

Like you, probably Nell and Hilda, and maybe Nell the most.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

I'm not sure I have one. Let's just say the Robin. Canon says she is the cutest and gives the best hugs, so let's go with it, why not? She does seem pretty sweet, and having to go be a nun because of TB is unfair. (Which, yes, when Elinor was young was believed to be hereditary & was still often thought of as such right up until the Tirol period, but isn't. So she doesn't need to be a nun! Still,at least she doesn't have to marry a doctor...)

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

Hilary Burn, maybe? I'm always annoyed that we missed her terms as head girl!

Plus, Rosalie Way, who was going to be another author and be in a ship with Tom Gay, who just gets sort of... forgotten. Or Elinor can't remember what her surname is after about 2 books.

A lot of love for Gisela, too, who doesn't reappear later, unlike most of the other main originals.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

I feel I must have plenty of these, given the nature of the series, but at the moment, I'm the furthest from a re-read I've ever been in my life. Katherine Gordon, maybe? I read The Wrong Chalet School as one of the first few I owned, and so she seemed like a major character and then... really isn't.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

Grizel! I love her so much, and she does genuinely do some bad stuff, if for understandable reasons. (I understand the meow meow should actually have at least tried to commit murder, but this is the CS. I think the only person who did that for real was Deira, of Grizel, in a fit of rage. Probably.)

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

Do you mean, throw off the side of a mountain for their personal betterment, meme? Because clearly all of them get this in canon. XD

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

I wouldn't do that to anyone, or certainly not in the CS, but as I said to @elennare Juliet's father has to be one of the worst characters in the series - he not only abandons Juliet at the Chalet School with her fees unpaid, but he's tried to do the same thing several times before. Luckily, Madge is the right person to leave a teenager with, but yeah, it's terrible, and we see the effect on her of that treatment for years.

#replies #elennare

[ezatluba]

A Much-Hyped COVID-19 Drug Is Almost Identical to a Black-Market Cat Cure

Cat owners are resorting to China’s underground marketplace to buy antivirals for a feline coronavirus.

SARAH ZHANG

MAY 8, 2020

When Robin Kintz’s two kittens, Fiona and Henry, contracted a fatal cat disease last year, she began hearing of a black-market drug from China. The use of the drug, known as GS-441524, is based on legitimate research from UC Davis, but the ways to get it seemed much less so. “It was, ‘If you want to save your cat, send me thousands of dollars, and I’ll DHL you some unmarked vials,’” she says. And she did. Kintz transferred the thousands of dollars, got the unmarked vials from China, and then injected the clear liquid into her dying cats every day for months.

The first remarkable thing, given the nature of the transaction, is that Kintz says the vials actually worked. Henry lived for almost another year, and Fiona made a full recovery. She’s still scampering around today, fluffy and alive—a miracle considering that vets had long thought her disease, feline infectious peritonitis, to be incurable and 100 percent fatal. Kintz now runs a 22,000-member Facebook group that helps cat owners using GS-441524. Thousands of cats have reportedly been cured of FIP.

The second remarkable thing is that GS-441524 is almost identical to a much buzzed-about human drug: remdesivir, the antiviral currently our best hope for treating COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Although early data suggest that the drug shortens recovery time at best, Anthony Fauci has touted remdesivir from the White House. The Food and Drug Administration has authorized it for emergency use. And Gilead Sciences, the company that makes remdesivir, is donating 1.5 million doses of the drug amidst the pandemic.

Gilead invented and patented GS-441524, too. Its scientists co-authored the UC Davis studies showing effectiveness against FIP. But the company has refused to license GS-441524 for animal use, out of fear that its similarity to remdesivir could interfere with the human drug’s FDA-approval process—originally for Ebola. When that failed, and a global pandemic of a novel coronavirus later arose, the company began testing it against COVID-19. Remdesivir has a small but clever modification that makes it better at entering cells, but it and GS-441524 work in exactly the same way to inhibit viruses.

FIP is also caused by a coronavirus—not the same one that causes COVID-19, but one that specializes in infecting cats. (Although humans may be able to pass COVID-19 to cats in rare cases, humans cannot get FIP from cats.) In most cats, this feline coronavirus, or FCoV, causes mild diarrhea or no symptoms at all. But in a small minority of cases, the virus infects white blood cells, and the immune system goes haywire into full-blown FIP. The disease comes in two forms, both fatal: wet, in which the cat’s chest or belly swells with fluid, or dry, in which there is no fluid but the cat is still feverish and sick. Eventually, it dies. For decades, vets have had little to offer but euthanasia.

Then GS-441524 came along. Small trials at UC Davis published in 2018 and 2019suggested that cats were not just having their life prolonged by days or weeks, but were seemingly cured. “It really was a game changer,” says Drew Weigner, a veterinarian and the president of the Winn Feline Foundation, which funded some of the UC Davis research. “Three years ago, we told patients, ‘Your cat is going to die.’ Now we can tell them something else. It’s quite a story.”

The story of a drug first tested against Ebola (that failed), whose close cousin became a groundbreaking treatment for a cat disease (but only illegally), and that has been resurrected in the pandemic of an entirely new virus underscores the vagaries of drug development. To be clear, while remdesivir is in clinical trials, GS-441524 has not been tested in humans for safety or efficacy against COVID-19. The black-market formulations of GS-441524 are also incredibly expensive. A 12-week regimen for cats can cost upwards of $10,000, depending on the brand, type of FIP, and weight of the cat. Plus, there is no legal way to buy GS-441524 as medicine—not for cats, not for humans.

The drug probably would have never been tested in cats, if not for the fact that Niels Pedersen, a longtime FIP researcher at UC Davis, personally knew the former chief scientific officer of Gilead. The two met 30 years ago, when Gilead was testing antiviral HIV drugs in monkeys and Pedersen was working at a primate research center. But Pedersen’s true love has always been cats. He grew up surrounded by them on a poultry farm. A colleague of his warned me, lovingly, that Pedersen was “irascible,” and he was difficult to get on the phone. But his voice softened when he talked about taming those barn cats and finding homes for their kittens.

Pedersen became fascinated with FIP in vet school in the 1960s, when it was still a mysterious disease with a mysterious cause. Over the decades, scientists would discover the feline coronavirus behind FIP and then spend years trying but failing to develop a working vaccine. Pedersen ended up devoting his career to the disease. And when the vaccines failed, he began thinking about antivirals, and he began thinking, again, of Gilead. The California-based company specializes in developing antivirals, including Tamiflu, Truvada, and a host of HIV and hepatitis C drugs.

Around five years ago, Pedersen got in touch with his Gilead contact, and the company sent him 25 or 30 molecules, drawn from the large library of drug candidates that pharmaceutical companies typically maintain. Two of the molecules worked marvelously in cat cells infected with the FIP virus: GS-441524 and GS-5734, the latter of which is now better known as remdesivir.

Both GS-441524 and remdesivir work by blocking viral replication. They are nucleoside analogues, meaning they mimic the nucleoside building blocks—A, U, C, or G—that make up the virus’s genetic material. Specifically, they mimic “A,” and when the virus is tricked into incorporating a GS-441524 or remdesivir molecule instead of “A”, the replication process gets jammed up. Eventually, no more letters can be added, and the virus cannot replicate. Where the two drugs differ is that remdesivir has an extra phosphate group, a small change that helps it enter a cell and get used in replication. This modification is commonly used to enhance the effectiveness of similar antivirals. “It’s just one of those really clever things that worked perfectly,” says Katherine Seley-Radtke, an antiviral researcher at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

For whatever reason, though, this modification did not make much difference in cat cells infected with the FIP virus. Both molecules were effective, so Pedersen decided to pursue the simpler one, GS-441524. He then infected 10 cats with FIP and dosed them with GS-441524. All 10 cats recovered.

“We almost fell out of our chairs,” says Weigner.This is ridiculous, he remembers thinking. This can’t work this well. Wait, wait, stop, go back? It did what? The initial study was small and under artificial conditions, but in a follow-up field trial of 31 petswith naturally acquired FIP, 25 ultimately made it—an unheard-of recovery rate. Pedersen had previously tested another antiviral out of Kansas State University, but only seven out of 20 cats had gone into remission. Those results seemed impressive at the time, but GS-441524 appeared to be even better.

Pedersen is 76 now, and he has devoted 50 years of his career to FIP research. Finally, it seemed, a cure was at hand. “I felt really good,” he told me, “and I thought this was a good capstone for my career.” But the capstone never materialized, at least not in the way that he expected. Despite the success, Gilead refused to license GS-441524 for use in cats.

While Pedersen was testing GS-441524 in cats, a different virus—a human virus—was raging halfway around the world in West Africa: Ebola. The virus that causes Ebola is not a coronavirus, but remdesivir is unusually broad-acting for an antiviral, and early results against Ebola were promising. So promising, in fact, that the company was eyeing FDA approval of remdesivir in humans.

According to Pedersen, Gilead worried that the cat research could impede the approval process for remdesivir. Because GS-441524 and remdesivir are so similar, any adverse effects uncovered in cats might have to be reported and investigated to guarantee remdesivir’s safety in humans. Gilead’s caution about generating unnecessary cat data is standard industry practice. “One of the rules in drug development is never perform a test you don’t have to, if the results could be problematic,” says Richard Sachleben, a retired pharma-industry researcher. (Gilead declined to comment for this story.)

For Pedersen, the explanation was hard to accept. “It was a blow,” he said. “It hits you very hard, especially when you didn’t see any reason for it.” He still published the studies, as academic researchers do, and results became public in 2018 and 2019.  

Not long after, Pedersen began hearing from people in China. One company wanted to license the drug from Gilead, he told me, and it asked Pedersen to be the intermediary. The company failed to get a license but started selling an FIP drug anyway, and its exact formula is unclear. Other companies explicitly advertise their formulations as GS-441524. China has a large base of pharmaceutical manufacturing, and raw GS-441524 is not particularly difficult to synthesize. FIP is also a growing problem in the country as cats—especially purebred cats, which are more prone to the disease—become more popular in China. A black market has sprung up to fill the vacuum left by Gilead.

The use of drugs from China was at first controversial in the FIP community. “I got a lot of hate mail for it. I lost a lot of supporters,” says Peter Cohen, an early supporter of the drugs. Cohen runs ZenByCat, a nonprofit that raises money for two groups funding FIP research, SOCK FIP and the Winn Feline Foundation’s Bria Fund for FIP Research. Earlier iterations of Facebook support groups, such as FIP Fighters, initially banned any discussion of the black-market drugs too.

Susan Gingrich, a former administrator of that Facebook group, has focused on pressuring Gilead. Gingrich, whose brother is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is also the founder of the Bria Fund. Her cat Bria died of FIP in 2005, and she established the fund with donations from her brother and herself and her husband that same year. “It would be so much easier if Gilead would have either marketed it or let another entity market it,” she says. Gingrich bought stock in Gilead after early research into GS-441524 seemed promising. In June 2019, she wrote a letter to Gilead, as well as to President Donald Trump and her congressman and senators in Tennessee, imploring the company to allow animal use of the drug. She says she’s received no response.

When Kintz was trying to save Fiona and Henry, she asked about GS-441524 in one of those Facebook groups that had banned discussion of the drug. Her post in the group went nowhere, but two women privately messaged her with advice. Kintz ended up starting a new group, now called FIP Warriors, so they could exchange tips and feedback on different brands. The group grown to 22,000 members on Facebook—as well as 25 admins and 26 moderators. It has satellite groups in different countries and languages around the world. “It feels like a global corporation sometimes,” says Kintz, who is a design consultant in upstate New York when she’s not running the Facebook group. If she is going to be offline for, say, six hours, she notifies her fellow admins and moderators. The Facebook group has morphed into a 24/7 international organization.

FIP Warriors also has a network of emergency group chats for every state. Because shipping from China can take a long time and because the earlier that GS-441524 treatment is started, the better, the emergency chats connect new members with those who have vials of extra GS-441524.

Zina Lemesh, a lawyer and cat breeder in New York, joined the group in February, when her cat Nora grew jaundiced and stopped eating, and her belly swelled up like a bowling ball. Lemesh recognized the signs of wet FIP, and she knew it as a hopeless disease. She was preparing to call her vet about euthansia when she came across the group in a frantic online search for a treatment. She posted an emergency plea for GS-441524. “Within 10 minutes, I was in contact with someone,” she told me. “Within the next two hours, my cat already had shots.” And within a couple days, Nora started eating again. She is almost done with her 84-day regimen. Her swollen belly is completely gone.

“This is a cat mom and an attorney speaking at the same time and I try to balance the two in my brain, which it’s hard,” Lemesh said. On one side is the cat mom who would go to great lengths to save her cat; on the other is the rules-minded lawyer who can’t believe she injected her cat with unlabeled drugs from a stranger. But if it’s between letting Nora die and a small chance at saving her, the choice was clear. Of course, Lemesh told me, she would rather go the legitimate route—if that were an option. “Do you think people would like to send $7,000 to $12,000 to some weird source?” she said. “Or would they prefer to pay their vet?”

The black-market availability of GS-441524 puts veterinarians in a bind. They can’t prescribe the drug or legally buy it for cat owners. Some do agree to help owners with the injections, which can be difficult and painful for the cat. But others want nothing to do with the unapproved drug. Linda Pendergrass-Nethery, who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, told me she ended up switching vets. Her first vet refused to help, she said. The second prescribed the sedative gabapentin to mellow out her cat, Sundance, for injections. So every afternoon, a couple hours before Sundance’s daily injection, Pendergrass-Nethery and her husband give him a dose of gabapentin. When the time comes, they burrito him up into a white towel—“like a mummy,” she said—and inject him with GS-441524. It’s definitely a two-person job.

In the meantime, FIP Warriors has grown prominent enough that Chinese sellers are now approaching the group to market their GS-441524. They seem to pop up and then disappear. “It’s hard to say if they’re companies or sort of backdoor dealers,” Kintz says. But the group has tried to institute a small measure of accountability. It had, at one point, tested a few popular brands to verify the concentration and content of their GS-441524 vials. When new sellers approach, the group asks for samples to send to cat rescues, which might not be able to afford GS-441524 for kittens that would otherwise certainly die of FIP. “That’s generally how we determine if it works and if it’s going to be okay,” Kintz says. But the group is also rife with disclaimers about not being able to verify any particular drug.

Case in point: This January, a popular brand of GS-441524 appeared to kill cats that had been given the drug. When the group started noticing a pattern, admins began collecting data and warning against the brand’s most recent batch. The man who had been selling it online disappeared, with several members of the group posting that he still owes them money. Rumor was that he and his wife had divorced acrimoniously; she had been the brains behind the operation and he had tried and failed to continue the business. Then a new brand of GS-441524 popped up—reportedly made by his wife. It’s all impossible to verify half a globe away. “It’s truly like the Wild West,” Kintz says.

The recent surge of interest in remdesivir could change some of this dynamic. After Ebola trials found little benefit, remdesivir became a drug in search of a (human) disease. Should remdesivir ever be granted proper FDA approval beyond emergency use for COVID-19, and if it becomes common enough to prescribe through pharmacies, then vets could legally use it extra-label in cats. “It may be five years down the road, and COVID is a distant memory, and then it is used for FIP,” Weigner says. For now, at least, the cat-specific data on remdesivir is still lacking.

Kintz hopes that GS-441524 can, one day, be legally available for cats. Then, she says, “no one would need me anymore, but that’s okay.”

[christopherhudsonjr]

Left-Libertarian Weekly Podcast Roundup (3/30/18)

Against the Grain - Cowboys, Class Struggle, and the West

Anews - Episode 56: anarchist activity, ideas, and conversations from the previous week

Animal Law - The Case of the Legal Eagles

Around the Empire - Trump’s War Cabinet feat Tom Luongo

Building the Second Realm - Lessons From Organized Crime

Burning Cop Car - #13 goes out to all the women and gender non-conforming peeps peeps out there fighting patriarchy

Cato Daily - It’s Bolton Time

Cato Events - Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech

The Chauncey DeVega Show - Daina Berry Explains How Black Slaves were the Human Gold That Built American Empire

Declarations - Is Human Rights a Fable? (with Professor Samuel Moyn)

Deconstructed - Will John Bolton Get Us All Killed?

Democracy Now! - Freed Whistleblower Chelsea Manning on Iraq, Prison & Running for Senate

The Dig - No Human Being Is Illegal with Mae Ngai

Discourse Collective - Your Job Is Killing You

Double Down - Crypto Utopia in Puerto Rico?

Economics Detective - Universities, Adjuncts, and Public Choice with Phil Magness

EconTalk - Edward Glaeser on Joblessness and the War on Work

Exploration -  The Legacy of Stephen Hawking

Felony Friday - A Mother Spent a Decade in Prison for an Introduction

The Final Straw - “This Armed Occupation Needs to Stop Before It’s Too Late”: Yousef Natsha on his new documentary ‘Hebron’

Foreign Policy Focus - The Syrian War Goes On

Free Man Beyond the Wall - Scott Horton on the True Story of the Oklahoma City Bombing

Free Thoughts - Understanding Common Law (with John Hasnas)

The Guillotine - Brazil, Austin Bombings, John Bolton, and US Imperialism

Hayek Program - "The Value of Rationally Reconstructing James Buchanan's Work" with Richard Wagner and Jayme Lemke

Historical Controversies - Harpers Ferry, Part 3: The Defeat

The Hotwire - #24: Sacramento against killer cops—#DefendAfrin actions—Anti-G7 mobilizing in Quebec

IGDCAST - Charlottesville Organizing 7 Months After Unite the Right

Intercepted - Donald Trump’s ’Stache Infection

Kudzu Commune - The Worst President Ever

Last Born In The Wilderness - Designing Regenerative Cultures: An Incomplete Conversation w/ Daniel Christian Wahl

Letters and Politics - America’s Political Tribalism

The Libertarian Angle - Free Banking and Bitcoin feat. Larry White

Liberty Chronicles - The People’s Governor

Loud & Clear - No Laughing Matter: Russiagate Hysteria Deepens Grave Diplomatic Crisis

The Magnificast - Gettin Friendly w/ Katherine and Hye Sung from the Friendly Fire Collective

Mises Weekends - Jim Bovard on Why Washington Never Learns

Neighbor Science - Capital as Power 1: Why CasP/What is Capital?

Our Hen House - Rachel McCrystal and Charles Camosy on  why sanctuaries matter and the moral status and treatment of non-human animals

Part of the Problem - Stephan Kinsella on how the court systems could work without government and why intellectual property isn't real

Pivot To Asia - Yemeni History 101

Political Gingervitis - David Roediger and John Holmwood on racism and the welfare state

Political Research Digest - Are Red and Blue States Making Red and Blue Policies?

Radical Underground - Anti-Patriarchal Black Metal with Margaret Killjoy

Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Iraq: Fifteen-Year Criminal War of Aggression

The Rebel Beat - LAL – From the Underground to the Frontlines

Rising Up With Sonali - How Racial Discrimination In Home Loans Persists

School Sucks - #ENOUGH – With Thaddeus Russell

The Scott Horton Show - Jonathan Schwarz on the history and lies of the Iraq War

Seasons of the Bitch - Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Capitalism

So to Speak - Is there a campus free speech crisis?

Srsly Wrong - Wrongtown

Tech Policy - FDA, Free Speech and E-Cigarettes

This Is Hell! - Wage of Consent: Detention, deportation and the new state extremism. / The death of Marielle Franco and the life of Afro-diasporic radicalism. / Advancing Native American food sovereignty. / Global struggle, global action / How Amazon swallowed the economy. / Putting the Dalai Lama on mute for a lil bit.

The Tom Woods Show - Death by Regulation: The Truth About the FDA w/ Dr. Mary Ruwart

Unregistered - Marvin Mutch spent 41 years in San Quentin State Prison for the murder of 13-year-old Cassie Riley, a crime he maintains he did not commit

UpFront - Political Prisoners, the Shooting of Stephon Clark, and Urban Shield

The Vegan Vanguard - Factory Farms and Environmental Racism

Vegan Warrior Princess Attack! - How to Practice Anti-Consumerist Veganism, with Andy Tabar

Who Shaves the Barber? - Timothy Williamson: Vagueness

Words & Numbers - Is Moderation the Next Big Thing in American Politics?

Young Voices - Alexander McCobin and “conscious capitalism”

Zero Squared - Capitalism and Call Out

#libertarian left #left libertarian #left libertarianism #libertarianism #libertarian #socialism #anarchism #market anarchism #individualist anarchism #radical liberalism #podcasting #politics #left libertarian weekly podcast roundup #vegan

[quatrepourtoiglencoco]

A semi-old fart and her fandom pet peeves...

1) Over-tagging. Say, for example, your post concerns one character and/or the actor who plays him/her/them. It makes sense to tag the character (if the post is about the character). It makes sense to tag the actor (if the post is about another project that the actor is involved in that is not the character they are most known for). It makes sense to tag the project associated with the post. If the post is about one specific character and/or one specific actor from a show, there is no need to tag every single actor and character from the show.

For example, if you are making a post about Chris Colfer meeting your little nephew who comes to one of his book signings dressed up as Kurt Hummel, it makes sense to tag Chris's name, the title of Chris's book, and Kurt Hummel (because the little kid is dressed like Kurt). You don't need to tag Lea Michele, Darren Criss, Naya Rivera, etc. unless they are in the picture as well. It's not going to get you more notes on tumblr, it's going to get your post blocked because people are sick of seeing unrelated posts in the tags for their favorites. People who have certain characters/actors blacklisted through Tumblr Savior or XKit might also miss out on your perfectly innocent post because you tagged that actor even though they aren’t in the picture. For example, say there is someone who is a big fan of Chris and Kurt, but they have Naya’s name blacklisted because she’s most famous for playing Santana, and the fan found Santana’s treatment of Kurt objectionable and gets sad whenever they see her face. If you tag the whole cast, that person is not going to see your precious nephew meeting Chris because your post got lost in their blacklist. The same thing goes for characters who are played by multiple people. Davey Jacobs is my favorite character in Newsies. If you're making a gifset of all the actors who played him, it makes sense to tag "Davey Jacobs" and the names of all the actors who played him in the various iterations of the movie/show. If your gifset or post exclusively features/discusses Ben Fankhauser and/or his particular portrayal of Davey, you do not need to tag Jeremy (Greenbaum), Jacob or Stephen in the post.

2) Tagging multiple characters/actors/ships in a controversial post just to get a rise out of people. There is a bit of an overlap with the overtagging here as the offenders tend to be the same. My examples here are the "Marvin discourse" in Falsettos and the identity discourse in Newsies. Marvin is written as gay and is referred to by other characters in the show as "homosexual." He divorces his wife because he wants to be with a man (who, technically, he was already with if Trina's account in "I'm Breaking Down" is correct). However, the character description on a few different character breakdown sites claims he is bisexual. These sites are not "gospel" and are generally not written by the creators of the projects themselves. While sexuality can certainly be fluid, Marvin's marriage to a woman and successful conception of a child seems to be a result of closeted behavior rather than bisexuality. The majority of the Falsettos fandom seems to accept that Marvin is gay, but occasionally there will be someone who INSISTS he's bi (not that there's anything wrong with being bisexual) and fills EVERY SINGLE FALSETTOS-RELATED TAG with it for attention.

With Newsies, there's a strong contingent of people who headcanon the less-developed background newsies (and sometimes the lead newsies and their friends and siblings) as LGBT. I haven't seen the movie in probably 20 years (I thought it was boring which is why I had no intention of seeing it live until one of my dearest friends booked the tour) so the characters in the movie-verse might have done something that was very clearly gay that I missed when I was in sixth grade, but I didn't catch anything particularly "gay" in the stage version although if the writers had gone the Jack/Crutchie route I could sort of understand it based on their interactions. That being said, unless someone is blatantly making stuff up or ripping Katherine or Sarah apart for the tiniest little flaw to blow a hole in Jack/Katherine or Jack/Sarah to justify why they ship Jack/Davey or Jack/Crutchie or Jack/Race or whatever, headcanoning characters as gay really isn't hurting anyone. If some gay kid in the middle of nowhere sees a lot of himself in Crutchie and wants to imagine a world where Crutchie is EXACTLY like him (well, apart from being born in a different century), it's not a bad thing.

I'm younger than most film-Newsies fans but I'm a lot older than most stage-Newsies fans. I was well into my twenties before I joined ANY fandom, and while there are characters I share some similarities with, I can enjoy them and identify with them without needing them to be exactly like me and filling holes in their descriptions with my personal identity traits or with traits I know the actor behind them has but that haven't been specified for their character. That being said, I know that there are other people who do feel more connected to a character they like if they see the character's canon struggles through the lens of a not-necessarily-canon identity (in the case of gender/sexuality/ethnicity) or diagnosis (in terms of a mental illness or developmental disorder). Like, OK, yeah, MOST of the newsboys in 1899 New York were probably cishet neurotypical males and a lot of them were white-passing if not outright white. The thing is, people KNOW that. Posting that and then tagging every single character and actor in the show, even if it's historically accurate, is just going to make you look like a dick (because these are literally just FICTIONAL CHARACTERS and you're screaming "MINE, NOT YOURS!" in people's faces), whereas the people who have headcanons of Jack as mixed race or Davey as autistic or Spot as transgender aren't posting their headcanons to be dicks. That being said, I don't know how many people (I'd wager most, but not all) of the people who headcanon characters with not-explicitly-canon identities actually belong to the identity communities themselves. I don't think it's wrong for a gay autistic trans kid to see Spot Conlon and go "ooh, what if he was gay and autistic and trans like me?" but if it's a straight neurotypical person (and by a straight person, I mean, an actual straight person, not someone who is questioning or closeted gay/lesbian/bi/pan) going "ALL YOUR FAVES ARE GAY! AND TRANS! AND AUTISTIC!" and tagging every single fandom they are in, it reads as a little fetishistic but that's just me.

3) "Rares" blogs posting pictures that aren't rares. If an actor posts an in-costume selfie with his castmates to his instagram during the process of creating a show or after the show is finished, it's not a "rare," even if the first time YOU'VE particularly seen it is two years after the show goes off the air and five years after he posted it. The same goes for someone who is involved in the project from a production aspect (like, for example, Joaquin or Kalen from Glee). A rare would be something that a friend-of-a-celebrity or a fan posted on a public social media account (like Twitter or Instagram) of the celebrity at a party or involved in something they did before their "big break." For example, I think if someone were to be like "hey, oh crap, I just remembered I went to see NLT years ago and I have a selfie with Kevin McHale when he was a teenager that I've never posted," THAT would be a rare. If someone posted a picture of Darren from his study abroad in Italy, that would be a rare. Posting a picture from the Glee set that's been tweeted or Instagrammed (sometimes multiple times) by the actors themselves is not "posting a rare."

4) This sort of could be combined with number 1, but it's more about Instagram/Twitter than Tumblr. It's one thing to make a cool edit of a character or an actor and tag them in it. Like, for example, Stephanie Styles and Drew Gehling were just in a stage production of Roman Holiday. Photoshopping their faces onto the film actors' bodies on the movie poster is a cool edit and I'm sure they would love to be tagged in something like that. Maybe you drew a picture of Brittana from Glee having a picnic and giving each other flowers; there's nothing wrong with tagging Heather and Naya in that. Maybe you identify a lot with Evan Hansen and make an "Evan Hansen aesthetic post" and want Ben Platt to see. Whatever, that's fine. What is overkill is when people literally just post screenshots from a TV show/movie/Broadway bootleg or steal pictures from actors' Instagrams or OTHER PEOPLE'S EDITS and have a completely unrelated caption like "uggggggggh I have so much math homework" or "my stepdad is being a dick and says I can't go see (insert movie here)" and tag the actors just because they happen to be in the picture. Sometimes people look in the actor tags on Instagram for news on their fave that might not be announced yet (for example, someone else from a project an actor is working on tagging them in a BTS picture) but it gets swamped under the same screenshot of the Newsies seizing the day or Klaine kissing or Andrew Rannells standing over Christian Borle with what appears to be a boner or Ben Cook doing the splits while Josh Burrage makes a goofy face in the background OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Sometimes a fan is having a hard time and all they want is to be noticed by their favorite cast member of a show, but their friends' post petitioning the actor to wish them a happy birthday is swamped under 900 notifications of the same unedited screenshot. I have a friend who will sometimes post an old Newsies photo and go on an unrelated rant underneath, but she doesn't tag the actors or the show, so it's fine. If you didn't make the edit, don't post the edit (like, even if you credit whoever made it, someone else might steal it from you and they won't). If you HAVE to post a picture from a show with an unrelated caption, don't tag the actors. It's annoying as hell, and I suspect it contributes a lot to why a lot of them pull away from Instagram.

5) Roleplay blogs clogging up the tags, and then people creating blogs specifically to ADVERTISE their roleplay blogs when they know the actual blogs themselves are getting blocked. Also, FACEBOOK ROLEPLAYS. Facebook won't even let a lot of trans people change their name without a shit load of documentation, but it seems fine with people pretending to be fictional characters and celebrities and changing their FB handles to (insert first name) (insert embarrassing RPF ship portmanteau). Facebook is for real people and businesses, and I can SORT of see making a FB profile for a baby or a pet to have a place where only certain people can access photos and information (since most people have FB but not everyone has Instagram). Also, some of the roleplay scenarios people have are seriously fucked up and racist/ableist/both. YIKES.

[tabloidtoc]

National Enquirer, March 4

Cover: Scientology Leader David Miscavige’s Missing Wife Shelly Found After 13 Years

Page 2: Heidi Klum pregnant at 45 

Page 3: Former stoner Brad Pitt has relapsed on the set of space flick Ad Astra to help him get into character 

Page 4: Golf nut Will Ferrell driving his wife crazy after he spends all his days on the golf course after Holmes & Watson flop 

Page 5: Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton to secretly say I Do in a private backyard wedding, former reality TV star Jack Osbourne is now trained and working as a reserve police officer near the Mexican border 

Page 6: Ricki Lake’s new guy has a dark past 

Page 7: Skin cancer destroys Priscilla Presley’s beauty 

Page 8: Julia Roberts and Danny Moder run away to Rome and Alaska to save marriage 

Page 9: Damaged Demi Lovato unseen since backlash over online joke about 21 Savage, former child star Chloe Grace Moretz has turned into a party monster at age 22 

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott, Jennifer Lopez, Prince William 

Page 11: Crumbling con Bill Cosby fears there’s a target on his back 

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Julie Chen thought her return to Big Brother would be fine even after her husband Les Moonves was fired over sexual misconduct allegations but she was wrong as staff that Julie once considered friends are no longer nice to her, Adam Levine won’t be going shirtless after his appearance at the Super Bowl halftime show because he’s worried the criticism he received might affect his job on The Voice, Josh Duhamel bowling, Taylor Swift is being wooed to perform at next year’s Super Bowl halftime show because they need a superstar after this year’s Maroon 5 disaster, Jimmy Fallon got VIP treatment at BFF Justin Timberlake’s Madison Square Garden concert 

Page 14: True Crime 

Page 16: Jayme Closs kidnapper Jake Patterson reveals sick love for teen

Page 18: Real Life 

Page 20: El Chapo Joaquin Guzman has been found guilty and will spend the rest of his days in a prison that’s a living hell 

Page 22: Cover Story -- Shelly Miscavige, unseen in 13 years, spotted on a church ship 

Page 24: Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham is not doing well since emergency open heart surgery in early February and pals hope he’ll end his bitter feud with former love Stevie Nicks before it’s too late

Page 26: John Cusack mistakenly invited all the women in his little black book to the same group chat and earned their fury, Jon Bon Jovi is quitting the charity spaghetti sauce business 

Page 30: New gal Sara Dinkin in Kristen Stewart’s revolving door of romance that includes Robert Pattinson, Chris Pratt visited a seedy London strip club days after giving bride-to-be Katherine Schwarzenegger a five-carat engagement ring 

Page 31: Hollywood Hookups -- Blac Chyna and Soulja Boy make a controversial couple, Melissa Benoist engaged to co-star Chris Wood, Jennie Garth and Dave Abrams call off divorce 

Page 32: Cruel Kris Jenner shuns crippled sister, career-obsessed Christian Bale is killing himself with his yo-yo dieting for roles in his chase for Hollywood glory 

Page 34: How to create healthy habits 

Page 36: Red Carpet Stars & Stumbles -- Grammy Awards -- Kacey Musgraves, Alicia Keys, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith 

Page 38: Health Watch -- Yoga works magic on arthritis, Ask the Vet 

Page 45: Spot the Differences -- Chris Pratt and Tiffany Haddish 

#tabloids #scientology #david miscavige #shelly miscavige #robert pattinson #rob pattinson #kristen stewart #sara dinkin #rupert sanders #soko #st. vincent #stella maxwell

[bluewatsons]

Cristina Vilaplana, Review: A literary approach to tuberculosis: lessons learned from Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, and Katherine Mansfield, 56 Int J Infection Diseases 283 (2017)

Highlights

Valuable information can be extracted from personal documents of writers suffering TB.

TB is a chronic illness, which could last a long time without antibiotics.

At the beginning of the XX century, half of Western Europe had faulty lungs.

Patients often have trust issues, and may suffer from spiritual crises.

Psychological support should be provided to patients during TB management.

Summary

Letters by notable writers from the past century can provide valuable information on the times in which they lived. In this article, attention is drawn to the lessons learned from three famous writers who died of tuberculosis: Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, and Katherine Mansfield. The characteristics of the course of the disease in the pre-antibiotic era and the importance of addressing mental health in the management of tuberculosis are discussed.

1. Introduction

It is commonly known that Anton Chekhov died from tuberculosis (TB), as did Franz Kafka and Katherine Mansfield. However, most people know nothing of the disease except for some of the symptoms, most notably haemoptysis. When anyone not working in the fields of medicine or TB science is asked about the disease, they often recall a languid and pallid woman from the mid 20th century coughing blood into a handkerchief. However, TB is not a disease of the past. Approximately nine million people become ill with TB every year, in spite of the availability of effective treatment, and 1.5 million die from it.1 The existence of comorbidities such as HIV infection and diabetes, along with the emerging threat of strains that are resistant to multiple drugs, has complicated the fight against TB, which should be a public health priority.1 In this context, the pre-antibiotic era can provide valuable information on the course of the disease – and letters by notable writers from the past century provide a good example of such information. In this article, attention is drawn to the lessons learned from three such writers: Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, and Katherine Mansfield.

2. TB is a chronic illness

Chekhov was born in 1860, Kafka in 1883, and Mansfield in 1888. Chekhov was a Russian physician who wrote plays and stories. Kafka was a Czech Jew who studied law and worked in an insurance company, but he also dedicated much of his time to writing stories. Mansfield was a writer from New Zealand who moved to Europe, where she worked. Chekhov was bright and hard-working, and had a ready sense of humour. Kafka suffered from anxiety, insomnia, and emotional breakdowns, which had a great impact on his life. Mansfield had a turbulent life – she was an adventurer – before becoming encumbered by disease, first gonorrhoea and then TB. Both Chekhov and Kafka presented haemoptysis at the start of their illnesses, while Mansfield suffered from pleurisy.2, 3, 4 Many years passed between the onset of disease and their deaths: 7 years for Kafka, 12 years for Mansfield, and up to 20 years for Chekhov. Considering that no effective treatment was available at that time, except thoracic surgery, and that antibiotics only appeared much later on, it is easy to infer that TB is a chronic illness, whose course depends on host factors(such as genetic background), environmental conditions, and the subject's immunological status.

3. Europe was sick and people had frightening haemoptysis in all sorts of public places

At that time, and according to Kafka, half of Western Europe had more or less faulty lungs.2 Mansfield was living in Paris in 1922 and had many meals in filthy restaurants due to her lack of money. In a letter to her husband John Murry, she explained that she was sitting in front of a French poet who was coughing and spitting all the time, and who finally, after a glance at his handkerchief, commented: “Still blood. I need 24 handkerchiefs every day, my wife is desperated!”5 However, this poet was not the only one suffering.

Chekhov's first serious episode of haemoptysis, which led to the diagnosis of TB, also occurred in a restaurant – the Hermitage in Moscow – where he had gone to have dinner with his friend Alexei Suvorin. In a letter to his friend Lydia Avilova, dated March 1897, he explains: “Hardly we had sat down to the table when a vigorous flow of blood started streaming from my throat. Suvorin took me to the Slavyansky Bazaar and summoned doctors”.3 For Kafka, it did not occur in a restaurant, but the apartment he had at the Schönborn Palace in Prague. Worried for his friend and lover Milena Jesenská, who had revealed that she was coughing blood and had recently been diagnosed with TB, he describes to her in a letter his first episode of haemoptysis, which had happened in the middle of the night. Kafka, who had always thought that the physical disease was a manifestation of his mental disease, spitted so much blood that the maid, when she visited him the morning after, said to him “Her Doktor, you won’t last much longer”.2

4. If you have TB, do not go to Paris

In the mid 20th century, in a Europe eager for a cultural revolution, Paris was the place to go. However, the humid and cold climate of Paris, which was well known, did not help TB patients. In September 1922, Mansfield wrote to her friend Sylvia Land, complaining: “The bad weather here these last few days has brought my cough back again”.5 This situation was not limited to Paris. TB patients often moved to dryer and warmer places, following doctors’ orders. Even today, when talking to long-term TB patients, they often comment that their cough returns every winter season (and hospitalizations peak6). Furthermore, TB is often diagnosed in the spring and summer seasons. The seasonality of TB has been explored, and a decrease in Th1 responses and in vitamin D, as well as seasonal variations in habits, have been suggested among other causes.7 Although this a controversial issue (whether seasonal host susceptibility or seasonality in pathogen survival is involved),8, 9 the fact remains that the published literature suggests a link.6, 10

5. Patients often do not trust in doctors and suffer spiritual crises

Mansfield did not have any faith in doctors or treatment. In February 1919, she wrote in her diary “Saw the doctor – a fool”, and the day after “Saw two of the doctors – an ass and an ass”.4 Three years later and many doctors after, she still had no hope and no belief in any kind of medical treatment: “It's all sham. It amounts to nothing”.5 Chekhov, who was a physician himself, wrote a letter to his friend Suvorin in 1891 confessing his decision not to undergo any treatment: “The idea of having to undergo treatment and fuss over my physical condition produces in me something akin to revulsion. I’m not going to be treated”.3 It is true that the therapeutic options available at that time and the poor outcomes obtained did not offer much hope. Moreover, some of the doctors even tried to convince patients to undergo new treatments that sometimes turned out very badly. In 1922, a white émigré from Russia, Ivan Manoukhin, submitted the very ill Mansfield to X-ray irradiation of the spleenas treatment for 15 weeks, for which she paid £300 at the time (approximately £13 230, or €14 900 in 2016).5 Without any improvement in her TB and now very sick as a result of the adverse effects caused by the radiation, Mansfield turned to a mystic philosopher and director of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man (George Ivanovich Gurdjieff); she lived at this institute during the last months of her life, before dramatically dying of a massive haemoptysis.4, 5

Such a spiritual crisis, as witnessed in the case of Mansfield, is common not only in TB patients, but also in those with other severe chronic illnesses. Facing isolation, a fear of death, or lack of support, patients turn to the gods or other spiritual forces they believe in.11 Distrust is common in TB, especially in non-adherent groups.12 However, with the arrival of chemotherapy, which is effective, patients are now most often grateful for the treatment they receive, as they experience a positive effect.11, 13, 14 In the case of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB patients, the attending physicians and other health personnel are sometimes scared of becoming infected, and this might also contribute to a distrustful relationship.15

6. Mental health is important, and we should be evaluating this systematically

Because of the stigma, both Chekhov and Kafka tried to hide their TB from their families. Kafka wrote to Oskar Baum in October 1917: “By the way, my parents know nothing about the TB, so you will be careful, won’t you, if you should by chance run into them”.16 Chekhov had the same request for his brother in March 1897: “I was diagnosed with pulmonary apical TB and accordingly awarded the right to describe myself as an invalid. Nobody knows anything about my illness at home, so rein in your customary malice and don’t blab about it in your letters”.3 In high-incidence countries, the stigma and shame associated with TB are still important problems for affected patients.17, 18

Facing a severe life-threatening illness dominated everything. As Chekhov said to Lydia Avilova in 1901: “You ask if I am happy? The first thing I have to tell you is that I am ill. And I now know that I am very ill”.3 The invalid Mansfield often felt miserable and wrote about it in her diaries. In records from 1922, she noted: “The world as I know it is no joy to me and I am useless in it”, and “This isolation is death to me”.4 Patients become desperate. “I feel as though I’m in prison and full of rage, terrible rage”, says Chekhov to his wife in 1899.3 And Kafka to Max Brod: “Above all the fatigue increased. I lie for hours in the reclining chair in a twilight state. I am not doing well, even though the doctor maintains that the trouble in the lung has remitted by half. But I would say that is far more than twice as bad. I never had such coughing, such shortness of breath, never such weakness”.16

The great impact of TB on mental health has been described. Patients display a wide spectrum of emotions, from anxiety, shame, loneliness, worry, and despair to anger.19 Depression is often mentioned as a consequence of TB, due to the isolation, the stigma, or from being chronically ill. Furthermore, it has been reported that support from family and friends may be essential for improving mental health and self-perception, and for maintaining good social functioning.11, 18, 20, 21 These articles appear to indicate that the systematic evaluation of health-related quality of life, including the impact of the disease on mental health, should be performed in all clinical studies, and that active psychological support should be provided to TB patients within the management of their disease.

7. Conclusions

Much information on TB disease from the pre-antibiotic era is available and this could be useful in gaining a better understanding of TB and improving its management. Patients need information on their disease to gain trust in their doctors and other health personnel, as well as the tools to deal with the feelings associated with it. A systematic evaluation of mental health associated with the disease and psychological support should be included as routine in the management of TB patients.

References

World Health Organization. Global tuberculosis report 2015. WHO, Geneva (2015)

F. Kafka. W. Haas (Ed.), Letters to Milena, Vintage Books, London (1999), p. 192

A. Chekhov. R. Bartlett (Ed.), A life in letters (4th ed), Penguin Classics, London (2004), p. 224

K. Mansfield. M. Scott (Ed.), The Katherine Mansfield notebooks, University of Minnesota Pr, Minneapolis, MN (2002), p. 355

K. Mansfield. J.M. Murry (Ed.), The letters of Katherine Mansfield, vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, New York (1929), p. 232

R.A. Atun, Y.A. Samyshkin, F. Drobniewski, S.I. Kuznetsov, I.M. Fedorin, R.J. Coker. Seasonal variation and hospital utilization for tuberculosis in Russia: hospitals as social care institutions. Eur J Public Health, 15 (2005), pp. 350-354

A. Fares. Seasonality of tuberculosisJ Glob Infect Dis, 3 (2011), pp. 46-55

E.N. Naumova. Mystery of seasonality: getting the rhythm of nature. J Public Health Policy, 27 (2006), pp. 2-12

F. Boulay, F. Berthier, O. Sisteron, Y. Gendreike, B. Blaive. Seasonal variation in cryptogenic and noncryptogenic hemoptysis hospitalizations in France. Chest, 118 (2) (2000), pp. 440-444

A. Khaliq, S.A. Batool, M.N. Chaudhry. Seasonality and trend analysis of tuberculosis in Lahore, Pakistan from 2006 to 2013. Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia. J Epidemiol Glob Health, 5 (2015), pp. 397-403

N.N. Hansel, A.W. Wu, B. Chang, G.B. Diette. Quality of life in tuberculosis: patient and provider perspectives. Qual Life Res, 13 (2004), pp. 639-652

W.M. Jakubowiak, E.M. Bogorodskaya, S.E. Borisov, I.D. Danilova, O.B. Lomakina, E.V. Kourbatova. Impact of socio-psychological factors on treatment adherence of TB patients in Russia. Tuberculosis (Edinb), 88 (2008), pp. 495-502

M. Boudioni, S. McLaren, R. Belling, L. Woods. Listening to those on the frontline: service users’ experiences of London tuberculosis servicesPatient Prefer Adherence, 5 (2011), pp. 267-277

M. Dhuria, N. Sharma, N.P. Singh, R.C. Jiloha, R. Saha, G.K. Ingle. A study of the impact of tuberculosis on the quality of life and the effect after treatment with DOTS. Asia Pac J Public Health, 21 (2009), pp. 312-320

N. Padayatchi, A. Daftary, T. Moodley, R. Madansein, A. Ramjee. Case series of the long-term psychosocial impact of drug-resistant tuberculosis in HIV-negative medical doctors. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis, 14 (2010), pp. 960-966

F. Kafka. Letters to friends, family and editors. Alma Classics Ltd, Richmond (2014), p. 528

R.X. Armijos, M.M. Weigel, M. Qincha, B. Ulloa. The meaning and consequences of tuberculosis for an at-risk urban group in Ecuador. Rev Panam Salud Publica, 23 (2008), pp. 188-197

F. Karim, E. Johansson, V.K. Diwan, A. Kulane. Community perceptions of tuberculosis: a qualitative exploration from a gender perspectivePublic Health, 125 (2011), pp. 84-89.

S.R. Zhang, H. Yan, J.J. Zhang, T.H. Zhang, X.H. Li, Y.P. Zhang. The experience of college students with pulmonary tuberculosis in Shaanxi, China: a qualitative study BMC Infect Dis, 10 (2010), p. 174

R. Sharma, R. Sharma, R. Yadav, M. Sharma, V. Saini, V. Koushal. Quality of life of multi drug resistant tuberculosis patients: a study of North India. Acta Med Iran, 52 (2014), pp. 448-453

A. Deribew, M. Tesfaye, Y. Hailmichael, N. Negussu, S. Daba, A. Wogi, et al. Tuberculosis and HIV co-infection: its impact on quality of life. Health Qual Life Outcomes, 7 (2009), p. 105

#tuberculosis #medicine and society #disease and culture #disease #literature #culture #franz kafka #katherine mansfield #anton chekhov #mental health #The Past

[i-didnt-do-1t]

Okay, approximately 2 people asked for the controversial Katherine post so here it is

(Prefacing this by saying obviously ship whatever you want, pls, I could not care less about the romance it’s more so the pattern of the treatment of female characters)

But just in how, historically in the newsies fandom, the female characters have been so pushed aside, a lot of the time specifically to make room for the gay ships (I shouldn’t have to clarify this, but I’m bi, and also enjoy javey as much as the next person, that’s not the issue)

With Sarah it was with very obvious misogyny, which has now (thankfully) been swiftly moved on from, but historically making her petty and bitchy so she could be pushed aside was not a rare occurrence.

I find what happens with Katherine not all that dissimilar.

She is still very much pushed aside,

but the method through which she is being pushed aside is done with a ‘feminist’ lens so you can still claim to love her while giving her less relevance. A way to get her out of the way without it seeming overtly sexist. And no I don’t think people are sexist for having favourite characters, do whatever you want forever, but I think awareness to a degree is important, considering why you’re writing something, or interpreting something a certain way is important.

Unlike with Sarah, instead of the obvious misogyny, it’s done using the ‘girlboss, mean, she’s too smart for Jack and should punch him (for some reason?)’ lens.

Her role in many way, still becomes so disregarded, and her impact on Jack, on all of the characters, and theirs on her, is pushed aside.

How far is it that people genuinely ship her and Sarah Or how far is it that it’s an easy way to pair them off and get them out of the way.

Katherine can also be a ‘girlboss’ and fall in love. She is a complex character, these things are not mutually exclusive. Even with Jack, even with being a romantic interest, she is still a strong complex character.

Her being a romantic lead doesn’t detract from her other qualities.

May have more thoughts to add later but in conclusion,

Live laugh love Katherine Plumber

#newsies #Katherine plumber #Sarah jacobs #this is not an attempt to start controversy #just my thoughts #you can do whatever you want forever I promise #to those that say the relationship was rushed #yes #but also #it is a musical #all the relationships are #and it’s Disney #of course they were going to do a romance #but romance doesn’t detract from other characteristics!

[thesinglesjukebox]

DIRTY PROJECTORS - UP IN HUDSON [4.29] No, we didn't plan for this to be Controversy Wednesday...

Katherine St Asaph: A couple days ago, the perpetual airbag suffocation device known as music-critic Twitter paused its bemoaning of the death of the American experiment to bemoan the near-completed death, or maybe just those objecting to the death, of indie rock. The half-backpedaled eulogy, delivered by Dave Longstreth and Robin Pecknold, was insufferable in every way you'd expect: breading a Migos concept in irony and detachment then frying until soggy ("the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience" is some real Chip's Challenge manual hot-sorrow-bath-in-despair-room shit); those particular flinchy blog-writing mannerisms ("just a thought thought thought") that always read to me like someone bottled the concept of ghosting; the sense that no one involved had ever liked or acknowledged artistry in, a song by a woman. A trinity of last known good music ("progressive w/o devolving into Yes-ish largesse") is presented, it's Merriweather Post Pavilion, Veckatimest and Bitte Orca again, the canon remains untroubled and the idea of progressiveness remains frozen in 2009. "Up in Hudson" is of this school, and its innovations are: backmasking, YouTube high schoolers' multitrack videos, a jury-rigged recreation of playback singing or Kate Bush, a Peter Gabriel beat, 2017's requisite snaps and cadences from better R&B songs, an outro of oompah farting. Self-indictment is everywhere: the Vernonesque trilling of "move to Brooklyn on your own" like a savage-but-obvious indie parody, the underlining of the one line about sex with gag-barbershop vocals out of a Lonely Island sketch, the recruitment of Kanye and Tupac and Roberta Flack and Molly Bloom as the unvolunteered Greek chorus of a mundane twentysomething relationship. (Press release: "a piece of epic storytelling." Actual story: basically the Chainsmokers.) A specific relationship, too; this is the second consecutive Dirty Projectors single that is an explicit, all-but-named plaint about Longstreth's breakup with Amber Coffman. Unlike "Keep Your Name," "Up in Hudson" says nothing so contemptuous as "I don't think I ever loved you, that was some stupid shit" or self-righteous as "your heart is saying clothing line / my body said Naomi Klein, No Logo." The 808sisms of the outro exist to embody the anger and bitterness Longstreth leaves as abstractions, as if to sprinkle the perimeter of the lyric with anti-feminist-blogger garlic. And sure, it's a double standard to find this sort of thing searing honesty from women and disingenuous wallowing (at best) from men. So it's not that I object, per se. I just don't care. [0]

Alfred Soto: Irritating, but I'm not about to parse the depths of its ability to irritate me. Channeling electronic manipulations through a Lindsey Buckingham-indebted sensibility that delights in whimsy, David Longstreth has a good ear but not much sense; Dirty Projector tracks are often too thin to support the clutter he heaps on them. "Up in Hudson" is strongest when the vocals disappear in its final third. [6]

Maxwell Cavaseno: The awkward use of weird Eastern samples, esoteric horns and early James Blake cyborg-twisted vocals ensure that we're supposed to hear arty reverence, but Dave Longstreth is more fascinated with making things that feel ornate than things that feel good. Nobody else can make listening to Kanye sound more pretentious than even Kanye himself would insist it is. [3]

David Sheffieck: The only time Dirty Projectors were even slightly tolerable -- at least as background music in "hip" stores in 2009 -- was when they managed an occasional woman-fronted track. Even then, their inability to manage any sort of coherent songwriting turned it into a crapshoot. This rickety assortment of sounds lacks that slightly redeeming grace and stumbles around for a grating, unnecessary 7:48. If we ever needed indie-prog, we definitely don't need David Longstreth to be the one to make it. [2]

Juana Giaimo: My patience for experimental music has decreased, but I still consider myself a fan of Dirty Projectors. Since Bitte Orca, Dave Longstreth has acquired a new sensibility, one that favors his emotions over the aim of making a unique sound. He begins "Up in Hudson" with warm and quiet vocal melodies, joined by his usual playful backing vocals and some strident horns to create different textures, then duplicates his voice in a bittersweet crescendo. The lyrics don't aim to portray an epic love but the simple rise and fall of a relationship like any other -- and it's exactly for being like any other relationship, for putting together two people, that it was unique. [8]

Tim de Reuse: The level of detail in the production (the scattered electronics, the growly brass harmonies, the Bon Iver-worshiping vocal treatment) is impressive even where all the gloss and flash and showoff is overbearing. Worse, though, is how Longstreth only occasionally sounds humbled by the raw, personal subject matter, more interested in dramatic flourishes than emotional gravity. I don't like to dismiss stuff as "faux-arty" or "too indulgent" because responding like that denies the artist a good-faith assumption of sincerity -- but for fuck's sake, how am I supposed to parse the overlong meandering outro or the awkwardly specific clichés or the insufferably trendy sound design, if not as signs that something in the foundation has gone rotten? It's all the more frustrating for the glimpses of the love-is-over gutpunch that could have been: the chorus, wailing over a relationship's ugly death, briefly makes tonal sense! As raw as the underlying emotions might have been, and as much as I want to engage with them, most of the finished tune feels infected with Dunning-Kruger levels of unwarranted confidence, announcing its arrival at every turn with smothering fanfare and pomp; something that should be heartfelt instead turned alienating. [3]

Claire Biddles: I imagine it as a video, with close-cropped images of bits of the body: a finger snapping, lips tensing up and blowing into a mouthpiece, a tongue forming words right in front of the camera lens. Like everything's percussive. It all comes from the body. Or maybe it's a performance, a one-to-one performance, with all the human elements laid out in front of me. And then it's the way these elements are processed and artificially shaken-up -- blatant about the way real life is remodelled into stories. This has some of both the real life and the story -- awkward made-up-on-the-spot phrasing falling into a reflective chorus when it needs to. Like the way we convince ourselves to be rational in heartbreak. And it takes its time. I guess all music comes from the body, maybe it's obvious to say that. I don't know, it just feels real. [8]

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