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josefavomjaaga · 3 years

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Helfert, Joachim Murat, Chapter 5, Part 4

We’re still not finished with the Bourbon stuff, after their return to Naples.

Otherwise, Naples had nothing but praise for the attitude of the returned royal family. By their very nature, the loyal followers of the royal family who had come with him to the old homeland and those who had remained there, who had been of some value under the foreign rule, who had acquired positions and wealth, constantly had cause for jealousy and friction; "fedeloni" and "murattini" was the name they gave each other, not without a certain ironic flavour. The King and Prince Leopold, however, showed a sincere desire not to make any distinction between the two categories, which became apparent, for example, in the composition of the supreme war college. Both of them behaved condescendingly, even kindly, towards the Murat generals, if there was nothing else to reproach them for, and distinguished some of them. Guglielmo Pepe was very pleasantly surprised at the way in which Leopold, at the first introduction he had with his brother Florestan, behaved towards them, how he spoke of Caroline Murat as "Queen", indulged in eulogies about the Neapolitan army, called on him, Guglielmo, to write a memorandum about the last campaign, which, in order to do justice to the honour of the defeated army, could be printed somewhere in London or Holland. The same was the case with the higher civil officials of the overthrown regiment, who were by no means entirely removed from their posts and replaced by "Fedeloni". However, it was not possible to remain silent about everything that had happened recently, especially in the army. A commission was set up to investigate the conduct and abilities of some 200 officers against whom complaints had been lodged in connection with the last campaign, and also to examine the legality of the most recent promotions and decorations, for which the relevant patents had not yet been issued. But here, too, the sense of justice of Ferdinand and his councillors was revealed, in that he composed this commission under the chairmanship of Guglielmo Pepe from generals and commanders of the disbanded army and gave it instructions that met all the requirements of fairness. Much that was done to promote the internal conditions had an even more favourable effect. A commission headed by Prince Cardito had to place public education from rural schools to universities on a new footing. The charitable institutions, the Monte di Misericordia, the Committee for Public Charity, which were often paralysed as a result of the efforts of the last Murat campaign, were remedied by generous contributions from the King's private coffers. All this had a charitable effect on public traffic. "Our trade", it was said in a Neapolitan correspondence of the "Wiener Zeitung" (No. 267 p. 1059), "receives new life; in our harbour, where it has been quiet for many years, there is a completely different appearance, domestic and foreign ships are constantly leaving and others arriving". A very delicate, even spiteful point was the "donations of goods and revenues granted during the military occupation of Generals Giuseppe Buonaparte and Gioacchino Murat", which, if the royal promises of 1 May and 4 June were interpreted generously, would have been conserved, while the government now claimed that those clauses, on the basis of the Vienna Treaty of 29 April, referred only to the purchase of state estates, not to the gifting of them to mere favourites. Even before the arrival of Prince Jablonovski, Count Saurau, Imperial and Royal Court Commissioner to Bianchi's army, had repeatedly demanded clarifications from the Royal Cabinet on this matter, to which he had not received an answer. Jablonovski followed in Saurau's footsteps, although he did not conceal to himself the fact that it would be hard for the king to accept favours from the two intermediary regents which had been made at the expense of his most loyal supporters. He insisted that at least those donations be respected which Murat had entered in the "great book" and which consequently formed part of the public debt undoubtedly guaranteed by Austria and conceded by Ferdinand, and in this sense a royal resolution of 14 August was indeed passed.

But now came the further question concerning those donations which were not entered in the great book of the public debt and which were consequently subject to royal confiscation. It seems that Ferdinand wanted to have complete freedom of disposal over them, either to give them to the crown or, as Murat had done before him, to give them away to his followers, whereas the Austrian envoy argued before the king that the property confiscated in this way should revert to those from whom it had been taken by the previous government. Ferdinand was somewhat embarrassed, but finally said: "You are right, I will think it over", and soon afterwards the order was given to the Minister Tommasi to set up a commission to examine the principles laid down by the former feudal committee and to work out a plan for offering some compensation to the old families who had suffered most. The two presidents of the Court of Cassation and Accounts, Prince Sirignano and Marchese Vivenzio, Dr. Giacinto Troysi and Marchese di Vigo, were members of this committee, which soon showed itself anxious to give the royal right of confiscation the widest possible extension. In a memorandum, Vigo tried to prove that monastery estates were not to be regarded as state property, from which it should follow without doubt that the king was not bound by the treaty of 29 April and could therefore confiscate them and dispose of them as he pleased. Jablonovski also resisted this view until he received instructions from Prince Metternich that, once the royal decree of 14 August had become a fact and the Neapolitan government was determined to implement it, he should not interfere any further in the whole matter so as not to expose himself to a final refusal or, in the other case, to have to bear joint responsibility for what might happen next. In the midst of these tasks and conflicts of opinion, which touched so many and so profound interests, stirred up such fierce and ugly passions, came the news of a visit of several weeks which Lord and Lady Bentinck intended to pay to Ferdinand's regained capital. The decrepit Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was struck with terror, while the news did not ring at all unpleasantly in the ears of reform-minded Medici. The king was on Circello's side and no longer wanted to have anything to do with His Lordship, with whom he had been on such good terms during his last stay in Sicily. One did not have to look far for the reason for this reluctance. Ferdinand had never been a friend of constitutional institutions; after the experiment he had had to undergo in Sicily, they were anathema to him. Since the recent turn of events, however, the noble lord had become the object of other suspicions: he was presumed to be in secret communication with all the free-thinkers of the peninsula, especially with the Carbonari, and to have a hand in all the machinations which emanated from that quarter. For the same reason, Lucian Buonaparte's stay in Rome was a thorn in the side of the Neapolitan cabinet, because they considered him to be one of the heads of the Carbonari, a comrade-in-arms of Bentinck, and were convinced that he would be encouraged and supported by the latter. Austria had to promise his best services to obtain Lucian's removal from Rome and to arrange another place for him to stay. In Naples, they did not dare to appeal directly to the papal chair, since they were, as it seems, on no better terms with it than they had been under Joachim Murat.

Inserted footnote (pointless, but kinda funny):

But the Viennese Cabinet and its representative in Rome also had their incessant frictions with the Curia, as can be seen from a highly piquant passage in Jablonovski's dispatch of 12 July: "Å Rome je suis descendu chez le Chevalier de Lebzeltern que j'ai trouvé tourmenté par la fièvre et par le Cardinal Consalvi, je ne sais lequel des deux maux lui paraissait plus facile à supporter. J'ai appris à mon arrivée ici qu'il avait été soulagé, et que le Comte de Saurau avait tâché de calmer le courroux et d'assouvir l'insatiabilité du Ministre de Sa Sainteté". It was probably the Cardinal's stubborn insistence that the principalities of Benevento and Pontecorvo of Naples be handed over to the Papal States that is alluded to here.

The French passage in English: »In Rome I stayed with the Chevalier de Lebzeltern, whom I found tormented by fever and by Cardinal Consalvi, I do not know which of the two evils he found easier to bear. I learned on my arrival here that he had been relieved, and that the Count of Saurau had tried to calm the wrath and to satisfy the insatiability of His Holiness' Minister.«

One might argue that if the new government did not get along any better with their neighbours than the old one had, they might have just kept Murat.

Even in the delicate Bentinck question, our envoy was taken into confidence. Jablonovski advised Minister Circello to write a very kind letter to Florence, where Lord William was staying at the time, describing the immense joy the King would feel at seeing him again, i.e. at any other time, but not now "when the evil-minded might take advantage of his presence and use his name for the scattering and spreading of opinions which it would be impossible to tolerate". The letter, however, did not meet Bentinck either at the right time or in the right mood. His lordship, never accustomed to be disturbed in his intentions by foreign objections, gave nothing to Circello's chosen phrases and dropped anchor on the quay at Naples on one of the last days of September. Now danger was imminent and Count Nugent, being half Bentinck's compatriot, took the risk of convincing the noble lord that the air was more favourable for him anywhere than here between the sea and Mount Vesuvius. After two hours of negotiation, an agreement was reached: Lord William would not set foot on land, but his lady would stay in Naples until arrangements had been made for her accommodation in Rome.

Jablonovski hurried to Circello with the good news. The Marchese was about to sit down to dinner without having any sense of its pleasures, for he looked very dejected and thought that the British troublemaker might enter at any moment. Then the Austrian envoy arrived and Circello now knew no end to his joy and expressions of gratitude. An express messenger was immediately dispatched to Caserta, from where Ferdinand wrote back the next morning: "I recognise Prince Jablonovski in this! Thank him in my name and tell him that if he has given you back your appetite for your dinner, he has given me a peaceful night".

It’s somewhat refreshing to see that even Ferdinand couldn’t stand Bentinck. That’s what you get for picking a semi-literate dimwit like Ferdinand over Joachim, your Lordship.

Unfortunately, we’re now approaching the last chapter. And there will not be a happy ending.

#joachim murat #caroline murat #napoleon #hundred days #naples1815 #1815 #helfert murat

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mautadite · 4 years

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october book round up

19 books this month, which brings me to 125 for the year, and i’ve officially completed the yearly challenge! :) a little later than last year, but still earlier than i expected. i don’t imagine that i’ll read as much as i did last year, but i can still get a good bit done in two months i think. this month was pretty much just different flavours of romance, once again all audiobooks.

poison kiss - ana mardoll ⭐️⭐️⭐️ mixed feelings about this one. urban fantasy/paranormal with a neat setup and world building, but i feel like the author didn’t tell the story in the most effective way? not enough time spent on certain sections, time skips that were not needed, too many flashbacks. the poly romance was really sweet, though i didn’t much care for the love at first sight aspect when the third character was introduced. but this was a good book overall, with a unique plot and cast; might revisit the series.

the best boy ever made - rachel eliason ⭐️⭐️⭐️ very cute coming of age/ya romance. a conservative country girl is at first shocked when her best friend comes out as trans, but she slowly finds herself becoming his biggest champion, and then falling in love with him. took me a while to warm up to it bc i found the protagonist to be kind of obnoxious. and some of the later plot events were kind of ham-fisted. but i definitely liked it, mostly for sam and how good and kind he was.

i wish you all the best - meason deaver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ BRUH I’M CRYING IN THE CLUB. this was a really fucking sweet ya romance. the main character finds themselves homeless after they come out as nb to their parents. they move in with their sister, enroll in a new school, and find themselves making friends with (and slowly falling for!) a literal ray of sunshine. this was great, another one of those books i wish i could have read when i was younger. dealt with coming out, depression, anxiety and first love, had great writing, and i’m still thinking about how great the ending lines were.

the neighbour - gerri hill ⭐️⭐️ eh... a book that COULD have been good (woman with a stunted career as a writer moves back home to take care of her ailing mother, finds herself falling for the rich lesbian player next door) but both main characters were so thoroughly unlikable lmao. judgemental, snooty, made jokes about harmful things, kind of elitist... there was one aspect of this book that i really liked (the main character changed careers later in life and it wasn’t seen as a failure, just moving on) but otherwise this was a disappointment.

the turner series - cat sebastian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ historical romance!!! always a fave. this was a pretty fun series; first three m/m, last one f/f. a bit of mystery and intrigue in all of them, good humour, and a great cast of characters through and through. the second one was probably my favourite; one of the mcs suffered from anxiety attacks in an era where there was a lot of wrong information about mental health, and his love interest (a cheat and a scoundrel) ended up being the best thing that happened to him. although now that i’ve said that i just remembered how very much i love the third book’s protagonist (the rake, to be specific). standout character for sure. the last book has a dear place in my heart bc even though you can tell that the author doesn’t often write f/f, and it was a pretty short novella, it’s still historical lesbians, and i eat up historical lesbians with a spoon. (i could make a pretty bad joke here but lo and behold; i have GREAT self control.)

the secret casebook of simon feximal - k.j. charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ when k.j. charles is good, SHE’S REALLY FUCKING GOOD. this is a paranormal-mystery/romance book styled after the adventures of sherlock holmes (if you must know one thing about me it’s that i’m a slut for acd holmes, don’t fucking @ me), set in the very universe itself. not quite a pastiche but close enough, and it was so well written, with great world building around the magic and paranormal events, great characters, GREAT ROMANCE. told as stories published by robert, simon’s biographer and lover. i adored this and will definitely reread.

puppy love romance - georgia beers ⭐️⭐️⭐️ a trio of f/f novels centred around an animal rescue, and the women who work and volunteer there and fall in love there. each of these novels was really sweet, grounded in a way that i like for contemporary romance, and they all had adorable dogs in them. and i feel like beers really knows her way around plotting and pacing a novel, especially small town romances. but i also had pretty sizeable nitpicks for each of them lol. part of it is that i just got tired of beers’ writing style (as you can see, i took a break between the series). this is such a weird complaint but oh my god she uses too many adverbs lol. also there was always an emphasis on how amazingly stunningly gorgeously beautiful all six women were and it got so tiresome. idk who wants to read about women who are physically perfect all the time, but it’s not me. and one half of the romantic pair in each book (lisa, emily and sydney, in that order) had attitudes that i found obnoxious and were not resolved and i felt bad for their girlfriends having to deal with them. a fun read all in all, but some of those things rubbed me the wrong way, and i’m ready to take a break from this author.

bound series - ava march ⭐️⭐️ a resounding meh. historical m/m romance that wasn’t bad, but there wasn’t anything great about it. i only read these like maybe a week and a half ago but i’m struggling to remember details. there was bdsm, which i didn’t hate, but i also didn’t care. the plot was bleh, the sources of conflict were weak, and one of the dudes was kind of an asshole. /shrug emoji

reverie - eliza andrews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ god... GOD. the ride i took with this book was like... a really sexy butch took me out to dinner, wined and dined me, and in the very last course she leaned over and spit in me food. the premise: a woman on the run from her abusive ex-husband settles into a small town where she find herself drawn to the only out lesbian in town, a sweet butch ex-marine, and her mysterious nurse of a neighbour. this book was soooooooo well written, so well crafted, so moving, so beautiful. a paranormal mystery that actual kept me guessing. i was ready to name it the best f/f book i read this year, if not the best romance period. and then the ending. the FUCKING ENDING. i’ve rarely been so let down in my life. i’m looking at the four stars i gave this and wondering if i should go lower because SERIOUSLY. thinking about it is getting me kind of upset. this book could have been SO good. uuuuuugh.

brothers of the wild north sea - harper fox ⭐️⭐️ this is tricky because like. this book was definitely like, not good lmao, but it was good enough that i almost feel guilty giving it 2 stars. this is a historical romance that takes place more than a thousand years ago between a viking and a monk. it wasn’t badly written, probably wasn’t historically accurate but i mean, i don’t care. but it was too long, i didn’t care about the characters, it was badly plotted, and just really confusing overall. i think harper fox is great at writing romance, but all other aspects of this novel fell flat.

escape velocity - anah crow, dianne fox ⭐️⭐️⭐️ sci-fi m/m romance. a linguistic researcher and a pilot struggling with his religious beliefs fall into a whirlwind romance. pretty cute. i found it too short as i find most novellas, but i think the authors did a lot in relatively few words. definitely wish there was more worldbuilding. kind of hope the authors have plans to make this a series.

nowhere ranch - heidi cullinan ⭐��⭐️⭐️ a sweet romance between a farm hand and his boss. i didn’t think i’d like it much, but it was pretty enjoyable! very simple writing stuff that fit well with the gruff, no-nonsense, trying to shut everyone out protagonist. i really liked him; identified with him a lot, and his journey into opening up, dealign with his anxiety and self-worth issues. and the romance was sweet (though oooof, some of the sex scenes were too much). the book went from being really raunchy to really domestic and i kind of liked that. the resolution came a bit too quick, but i enjoyed it nonetheless.

that’s it for october! still currently unemployed, waiting for the people i signed a contract with to call me. since i don’t want to dip too much into my savings i’ve been doing odd jobs here and there, and might take a more steady part-time job in the meantime? all of that to say: i probably won’t be reading as much in november. i’m currently reading the first book in the spencer cohen series, and not... really loving it, lol, so i might pass on the others.

#book talk #long post

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emeraldtawny · 5 years

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Edgar x OC (Eleanor): Masquerade (Pt.4/5)

Eleagar returns!!! And they have a ship name because people were asking about that so here ya go yaaaaay~!

This one is more fluff than angst because I felt bad torturing them so much last time. I tried I really did to fit what I wanted to say into this chapter...but it’s already 2k words so IT’S A PENTALOGY BABY! Next part will happen...eventually. Gotta write request fics too >:P

What happened afterwards can only be described as organised chaos. In the span of two days, Eleanor packs the few valuable items that she gives sentimental value to and abandons her home, leaving no trace of her existence behind. Through the entire affair, Edgar was always there. He helped in destroying any evidence of her life, running any information networks he could dry. He couldn’t delve too deeply of course, lest his uncle caught wind of what he was doing; he always said never to let his pawns too close, but Eleanor wasn’t a pawn, she was...well, he couldn’t say for certain what she was, only what he wanted for her.

(I want her to be safe. To keep her stained hands concealed so she won’t be subject to judgement.)

All the while, her gaze would always wander unknowingly back to the man keeping his eye out for her. At first, she resisted, saying that his help wasn’t necessary in erasing her name, but he insisted and was very persuasive. She knew she could have resisted him, but she found herself caught in his pull, like a magnetic attraction and one she couldn’t lightly brush off as she had done so many times to others in her life. His eyes shone when he expressed his desire to help, herself doubting the clarity in his irises, unsure if he was telling the truth despite the evidence staring directly at her.

(You really want to help me? Is it because I’m like you? Because I’m pathetic and shroud myself in sin and lies? Or...do I dare say it’s for an entirely different reason?)

She ventures no further into that train of thought, not willing to present her heart to the light just to have it blocked out and denied from her. They both learned young to never hope for anything, to simply exist as what they need to be, to let their strings be pulled accordingly by those who know much better than they do - so they’re both blind to the small flickers of light flaring in their souls, reaching towards each other like a beacon. Neither has ever truly opened their heart...because neither knows how.

Shoes crack softly against cobblestone as the two sinners walk side by side through Red Territory. Edgar had informed the Red Army of a “special friend” who needed accommodating, which King Lancelot gracefully agreed to. With most of her belongings already having been sent ahead by carriage, Eleanor carries a single handbag and she clutches it tightly, the fabric of her thin, white lace gloves constricting tighter to her flesh from the tension. Edgar lets his eyes fall from the top of her head to her feet, admiring her natural makeup and her elegant loose side braid cascading down her right shoulder. Her white blouse is tucked into her lilac skirt flowing down to her ankles, the tips of her boots only emerging when she kicks her feet forward to walk. Despite the welcome distraction of her impeccable presentation, his jade pools always return to her contrasting lavender depths, the tightness in her gaze as she keeps her head forward telling.

“You seem nervous.”

All that earns him is a twitch of her eyebrow, “That’s because I am nervous, you arsehole.”

“You’re using swearing as a defence mechanism again. That’s a horrible habit to have.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Edgar smiles, humming out a chuckle through closed lips, causing Eleanor to huff an annoyed sigh at his apparent enjoyment of her foreign feeling of nervousness. The walk remains devoid of other conversation, both knowing that idle chatter will relieve neither of them from their inner thoughts. Edgar’s eyes skim over the landscape, the scenery the same as usual. Until a small bushel of daisies catches his eye, the small white petals dancing softly, bobbing back and forth with the wind in a joyful dance. After a moment of thought, Edgar’s feet detour towards the flowers, Eleanor stopping in confusion and watching him. He reaches down and plucks a few daisies free from the earth, ensuring their stems remain long and unsnapped when he removes them from the soil. He returns to stand before Eleanor, only needing to crane his head down a little to meet her eyes, the top of her head level with Edgar’s eyes.

“And what do you think you’re doing?”

The edge in her words doesn’t match her eyes as she appraises him, her gaze softening at the genuinely caring glint in his eyes. Without a word, his hand reaches up to softly take her braid into his hold, letting his thumb trace over the bumps of her braid.

“Edgar?”

Her confused voice has his smile widening. With gentle hands, he grabs a daisy and begins to expertly weave the delicate stem into her hair following the flow of the braid, only stopping when the flower is all that is seen. Eleanor’s mouth gapes open but she doesn’t protest, silently watching Edgar as he weaves each daisy into her hair like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She can feel the beginnings of blush on her cheeks, completely captivated by his instant expertise and unbearably tender care with each caress.

Once he’s done, he nods with satisfaction at his work, Eleanor’s braid resembling a chestnut brown vine growing small yet beautiful white flowers. She reaches up hesitantly to brush her gloved finger over one daisy, its fragile petals accepting of her touch.

“...Thanks, Edgar.”

“My pleasure.”

Two sets of eyes - both brimming with affection - scream their emotions to each other, but neither has any idea of the weight behind the swirling emotions in their chests, or just how deep these feelings clutch their hearts and course through their veins. With the weight of apprehension within her lifted with Edgar’s help, the two continue towards the Red Army barracks.

Getting Eleanor settled into her own room was easy enough, yet Edgar could still feel the nerves radiating off of her as she mechanically put everything in its proper place. Just as she finished, he slinks up behind her and grabs hold of her shoulders. She doesn’t jump, almost like she was expecting his touch.

“I can still read your emotions, you know.”

Despite the teasing implication behind his words, they’re spoken soothingly, his fingers kneading her shoulders softly, the subtle rustling of her blouse rubbing against her skin distracting her thoughts.

“...I can’t exactly stay calm right now.”

His smile falls at her hopeless words, but he just as quickly brightens back up again, “Not with that attitude. You don’t need to do anything else except relax. You’re safe here. I’m with you.”

She tilts her chin down to hide the smile shaping her face at his words. With a soft couple of pats to her now loosened shoulders, Edgar removes his hands and wraps one hand around to pull gently on her arm.

“Come on. I’ll have to introduce you to the others or I’ll never hear the end of their complaints.”

A short laugh puffs out of her lips, letting herself be pulled by the Jack of Hearts through the door and out into the hallway. Stealing glances at him every chance she can, Eleanor mutters under her breath, unconcerned if Edgar did happen to pick up on what she says,

“Why do I want to believe you so badly? And...why do I feel safe when you’re with me?”

She shrugs the thoughts off quickly as Edgar opens the doors to the dining hall, the Red Army officers waiting at the table. Edgar gently squeezes her arm and Eleanor takes a deep breath before they step fully into the room.

…

“Well, they were nicer than I thought they’d be about a neutral standing commoner staying in their barracks.”

“The situation called for it, so of course they’d agree to it. I was not expecting how quickly you would fit in, however. I’ve never seen Kyle so excited to talk to anyone.”

They had retired from the dining hall after dinner and introductions to Eleanor’s room, Edgar having offered to help unpack her things. They now sit on the bed recounting the evening.

“He asked me how I felt about alcohol. When I told him that my liver has been waving a white flag since I was legal enough to drink but still do it, the questions kept coming, from my favourite drinks to offers to join him at the pub. I think he needs to see someone about that.”

Edgar chuckles, “Ah, so that’s why he whispered “she’s a keeper” to me in the middle of dinner.”

The two share a conserved laugh at that, the sound fading as the words sink in. Eleanor fidgets awkwardly, attempting to get the words she wants to say out into the open.

“Do they, um...think we’re a couple?”

Edgar shrugs non-committedly, but the subtle twitch in his fingertips is not lost to Eleanor’s keen eyes, “I believe they do.”

Silence again. More shuffling of limbs unsure of where to stay put increasing the awkward atmosphere. After an unbearable eternity, Eleanor sighs exasperatedly and turns to face Edgar.

“Okay, seriously. What are we? We’re not a couple, but we certainly spend a lot of time together and I always feel weird when I’m with you, but--argh! I don’t know!”

After blinking in shock, Edgar grins, Eleanor’s eyebrows furrowing as he puts on his emotionless mask.

“You certainly surprise me sometimes with the things going on in that little head of yours, Eleanor. There’s no point--”

“Yes. There is.” She cuts him off swiftly, shuffling across the bed so their legs are touching. Edgar baulks and tries to create space between them, but Eleanor grabs his arm, holding him captive.

“Answer me Edgar, and answer me honestly; do you not feel...different right now?” When he doesn’t respond, she continues, “Like there’s someone strangling your heart, but it feels strangely good yet you want it to stop at the same time? Or that you feel like your blood is about to burst from your veins? Or, or…”

She bites her tongue, gripping Edgar’s arm tighter. Casting her purple eyes to the floor, a shadow falls over her fair face, causing Edgar’s heart to clench like what she just described. Then, as if nothing had happened, she forges a smile, one that would be convincing if it wasn’t directed at Edgar.

“I’m sorry, forget I said anything. It must be my nerves getting the better of me and--”

“I do. All of those things...I feel them all.”

Her breath catches, her gaze shooting up to lock with his. With a trembling hand, he reaches out and brushes a lock of her bangs behind her ear.

“I feel comforted by you, because you understand me and what my life entails. I can never show my face to the light, and neither can you. Maybe we just gravitated towards each other because we know the other understands us.”

With a frown and an equally trembling hand, Eleanor lets the back of her finger trace Edgar’s cheekbone.

“Mm-” He halts, that uneasy yet welcome feeling bubbling inside of him, her finger leaving a streak of fire across his skin.

“You really think it’s just that?” Her finger continues its path, moving to trace along the line of his jaw towards his chin, “We’re just relying on each other because we know darkness better than any other?”

“I--” Edgar pauses, the soft pressure of Eleanor’s finger against his skin drawing complicated emotions he has never felt to his attention, disrupting his thoughts. His hand traces the curve of her ear, eliciting the softest shiver across her skin and pricking her cheeks with heat.

The two remain locked in this cycle, unmoving aside from their touches to the other’s skin, watching with fascination at the responses they yield. Each shiver, each blush, each small noise drawn out of them - what does it mean? Neither is entirely certain, but the rushing of their bloodstreams and the torrent of emotions wringing their hearts like a wet cloth tell them the only thing they need to know: the person before them is one they wish to treasure, black heart and all.

#ikerev #ikerev fanfic #edgar bright #original character #masquerade #ah yes...figuring out feelings #I hope I made it cutesy enough to balance out the pain~!

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southeastasianists · 7 years

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The lights go down and the actors walk on stage, transforming into familiar figures – teachers, administrators, students – with mannerisms, cadence and a liberal use of ‘Singlish’ that offers a reflection of their audience.

The first words that explode out of a teenage actor’s mouth is a string of Hokkien curses. “Work so hard! Rehearse so hard! And you, Jali! Cannot even remember your lines. Damn screw up the show,” he berates his classmates.

A group of high school students in the audience snigger: “Eh, last time my class also got like that, leh!” a boy whispers to his friends in the same accent coming from the cast onstage.

The play, Those Who Can’t, Teach, is being re-staged by the Necessary Stage (TNS) as part of the theatre company’s 30th anniversary line-up. It’s a classic TNS production: a character-driven story that places ‘Singaporean-ness’ front and centre, with all its quirks and complexities.

But there is no easy way to tell Singapore’s story, as TNS has shown since artistic director Alvin Tan started the company.

“TNS tackles difficult issues and keeps demonstrating that theatre is a public space for discourse, and that people can participate in discourse with deep emotion and intellectual rigour,” said Kok Heng Leun, artistic director of the Drama Box theatre company.

The city-state is both impressive in some aspects and repressive in others: it has a world-class urban infrastructure yet remains stubbornly conservative on social issues. High levels of internet and mobile penetration ensure a well-connected populace, yet the government continues to wield broad laws regulating speech and expression while requiring artists to submit their work for vetting. “It’s so complex,” Tan told Southeast Asia Globe. “If you can capture that, it’s Singapore.”

TNS was founded in an era when theatre was viewed with suspicion by the state. Two theatre practitioners from the company Third Stage were detained without trial for over a year in 1987 alongside activists and social workers, accused of participating in a “Marxist Conspiracy” to overthrow the government. In 1994, TNS came under suspicion after it was reported that Tan and resident playwright Haresh Sharma had attended a workshop run by a Brazilian Marxist theatre practitioner. “Their conclusion was that we were not Marxists, we were idealists,” Tan said.

They also ran into problems with their 1993 play, Off Centre. The project was commissioned by the Ministry of Health to examine mental illness. The creative team interviewed patients and social workers and came up with a play that explored schizophrenia and depression in Singapore. The ministry didn’t take kindly to the script, criticising it for not putting “across the message that the ministry had in mind”. When the company refused to make changes, the government withdrew its funding. TNS staged the play anyway.

Things seemed to change in 2006, when Off Centre became the first Singaporean play to be included in the local literature curriculum. Tan and Sharma, too, have gone from subjects of investigation to recognition, each receiving the Cultural Medallion – the highest honour for the arts – in 2014 and 2015.

One might interpret this as evidence of Singapore’s liberalisation, but the reality isn’t such a neat trajectory. The Cultural Medallion might be a show of recognition, but it doesn’t necessarily mean an end to conflict with the state, as winners must continue working around state regulations.

“As the scene develops you have to see that the Cultural Medallion is not just for people who are safe artists who will only exist in a certain kind of silo and never be controversial,” said Sharma.

This back-and-forth comes down to the way the political establishment views the arts as a double-edged sword: while it can be used to boost Singapore’s international image, the authorities continue to be wary of the arts as a space for political critique and dissent.

“It’s about how art has been instrumentalised,” said TNS general manager Melissa Lim. “It serves the state purpose to celebrate certain aspects of the kind of things we do… because you can then allow a semblance of discourse and freedom.”

There’s also more to Singaporean theatre than politics. As a society marked by diversity, portraying Singapore with any degree of authenticity requires diving into issues such as race, culture, language and class.

In TNS’ early years, theatre – still influenced by British colonial history – was seen as a form that required the Queen’s English. “If we used Singlish, people laughed,” Tan recalled. “They said: ‘This is not acting. This is how we speak.’”

But that attitude is largely history. “We’re all Singaporeans, we all come from different backgrounds, but we might have issues that are similar – only language is stopping us,” said actor Siti Khalijah Zainal, who has appeared in many TNS productions. “For TNS to allow all these colourful languages to be onstage makes everyone feel very included.”

TNS’ preoccupation with language and culture also allows them to not only cast a critical eye on top-down policies, but stage plays that touch on embedded social norms and practices. In Best Of, a critically-acclaimed monologue that has been restaged multiple times, a young Malay woman talks candidly to the audience about her day, from visiting her cousin in prison to the difficulties of dealing with her divorce as a Muslim woman. This year’s Actor, Forty, examined gender politics through an actress reflecting upon her career.

“We’re not only state-obsessed, because we’re also looking at how to disturb what has been normalised in the citizens,” said Tan. “The works always try to implicate the audience, so it’s not just always ‘the state is at fault’.”

This dynamic has meant that efforts to police their plays don’t always originate with the state, but instead a conflict with their audience, Singaporeans. Two shows were withdrawn from the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival late last year after complaints about nudity and explicit content sprung up on ‘Singaporeans Defending Family and Marriage’, a conservative Christian Facebook page. The authorities ruled that the productions had “excessive nudity” and would have to be altered. As organisers, TNS decided to remove them from the line-up instead.

“Sometimes you feel like, if their intention is to eat at you and to bring you down, then it’s working. It’s like there’s a constant reminder; we’re watching you, we’re coming for you, anyone who’s different,” said Sharma.

Support for artistic freedom is, for now, lacking from those in positions of power. “The allies [should] also be people in positions of power in the government,” Sharma added. “At some point they should just say: ‘I’m going to go with the artist. I know you have a problem with that vulgarity, but I’m going to go with the artist.’ It never happens. Never.”

#Southeast Asia #Singapore #Theater #The Necessary Stage #Art

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Thursday, June 17, 2021

Some stolen US military guns used in violent crimes (AP) Pulling a pistol from his waistband, the young man spun his human shield toward police. “Don’t do it!” a pursuing officer pleaded. The young man complied, releasing the bystander and tossing the gun, which skittered across the city street and then into the hands of police. They soon learned that the 9mm Beretta had a rap sheet. Bullet casings linked it to four shootings, all of them in Albany, New York. And there was something else. The pistol was U.S. Army property, a weapon intended for use against America’s enemies, not on its streets. The Army couldn’t say how its Beretta M9 got to New York’s capital. Until the June 2018 police foot chase, the Army didn’t even realize someone had stolen the gun. Inventory records checked by investigators said the M9 was 600 miles away—safe inside Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In the first public accounting of its kind in decades, an Associated Press investigation has found that at least 1,900 U.S. military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s, with some resurfacing in violent crimes. Because some armed services have suppressed the release of basic information, AP’s total is a certain undercount. Government records covering the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force show pistols, machine guns, shotguns and automatic assault rifles have vanished from armories, supply warehouses, Navy warships, firing ranges and other places where they were used, stored or transported. These weapons of war disappeared because of unlocked doors, sleeping troops, a surveillance system that didn’t record, break-ins and other security lapses that, until now, have not been publicly reported. While AP’s focus was firearms, military explosives also were lost or stolen, including armor-piercing grenades that ended up in an Atlanta backyard.

U.S. workers are among the most stressed in the world, new Gallup report finds (CNBC) U.S. workers are some of the most stressed employees in the world, according to Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report, which captures how people are feeling about work and life in the past year. U.S. and Canadian workers, whose survey data are combined in Gallup’s research, ranked highest for daily stress levels of all groups surveyed. Some 57% of U.S. and Canadian workers reported feeling stress on a daily basis, up by eight percentage points from the year prior and compared with 43% of people who feel that way globally, according to Gallup’s 2021 report. This spike isn’t surprising to Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief workplace scientist, who tells CNBC Make It that rates of daily stress, worry, sadness and anger have been trending upward for American workers since 2009. Concerns over the virus, sickness, financial insecurity and racial trauma all contributed to added stress during the pandemic.

Jobs crisis? (WZTV Nashville) Right now, Tennessee’s Jobs4TN portal lists 257,000 jobs available in every part of the state. Still, in the week of June 5, there remained 50,054 claiming unemployment in the state, multiple times the pre-pandemic levels. Sure seems like a jobs crisis, yeah? Not so fast: as it happens, just 3 percent of the jobs posted, or around 8,500 jobs, pay more than $20,000, which is below the $22,000 poverty line for a family of three.

After enrollment dips, public schools hope for fall rebound (AP) Ashley Pearce’s daughter was set to start kindergarten last year in Maryland’s Montgomery County school system. But when it became clear that the year would begin online, Pearce found a nearby Catholic school offering in-person instruction and made the switch. Now Pearce is grappling with a big question: Should her child return to the local public school? She’s hesitant to uproot her daughter after she’s made friends, and Pearce worries that the district might go fully virtual again if there’s an uptick in coronavirus cases. “It’s going to be fine if we stay where we are, and that stability for my family is probably the way we’re going to go.” As many parents across the U.S. weigh the same concerns, school districts that lost enrollment during the pandemic are looking anxiously to the fall to see how many families stick with the education choices they made over the last year. In hopes of attracting students, many districts have launched new efforts to connect with families with young children, including blanketing communities with yard signs and enlisting bus drivers to call parents. There are early signs that enrollment may not fully rebound, and the stakes are high. If enrollment does not recover, public schools that lose students eventually could see funding cuts, though pandemic relief money is boosting budgets for now.

Biden, E.U. end 17-year Airbus-Boeing trade dispute (Washington Post) President Biden and European Union leaders reached a deal Tuesday to put to rest a 17-year-old trade dispute about subsidies for aircraft manufacturers, officials said, a significant step in calming trade relations after the fury of the Trump years. A five-year truce, which was announced at a meeting Tuesday in Brussels between Biden and the top leaders of E.U. institutions, was the latest effort in a transatlantic reconciliation tour that the new president started last week at the Group of Seven summit in Britain. Tuesday’s deal will quell fears that the E.U. and the United States could hit each other with tariffs on goods as varied as French wine and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, as they did in recent years as part of the airplane subsidy dispute, which involves Boeing and Airbus.

Vaccine passports: Why Europe loves them and the US loathes them (Christian Science Monitor) Back in 1992, Yiannis Klouvas converted an old cinema into the Blue Lagoon restaurant, which garnered a strong reputation for live music. There is no music now. The business, like so many others on the Greek island of Rhodes, is struggling due to the pandemic’s restrictions on travel. “If we see a tourist on the street these days,” he says, “we take a photo to remember them.” Mr. Klouvas is now banking on the EU Digital COVID Certificate, also known as the “green passport,” to save the summer. Starting July 1, all EU member states will accept the certificates as proof of COVID-19 vaccination, a recent negative test, or recovery from the disease. The plan got a resounding yes at the European Parliament on June 9. All EU member states, Liechtenstein, and Norway will implement the passport. But across the Atlantic, the idea faces strong head winds, whether for travel or domestic use. The Biden administration has ruled out introducing vaccination passports, and some states even ban them. Prioritizing freedom and fears of government overreach underpin the rejection of vaccine certificates in the U.S., while European societies have grappled more with issues of privacy and fairness. And so as Western countries savor a return to the old, this phase of post-pandemic mobility is being shaped by cultural attitudes. According to Anders Herlitz, a researcher at Sweden’s Institute for Futures Studies, “Here in the EU, the vaccine passports are seen as a necessary evil to get rid of other, much more extensive, limitations to people’s freedom, whereas in the U.S., they would not help getting rid of other limitations, but only cause new limitations.”

Biden, Putin aired differences at a high-stakes summit but agree on little (Washington Post) President Biden said he pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin over alleged hacking, human rights abuses and other troubling issues in a historic first summit in Geneva on Wednesday. The meetings, spanning only a few hours in the Swiss lakeside city known as the "capital of peace," were too short to allow for much more than an accounting of both sides' complaints. Biden and Putin declared the event a success, mostly for having met at all at a time when relations between the world's two greatest nuclear powers are at a post-Cold War low. Putin called the talks productive. At his post-summit news conference, he said he and Biden agreed to return their ambassadors to their respective posts in Washington and Moscow. Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov and U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan have been away from their missions for months.

Car bomb explosion at Colombia military base injures 36 (Reuters) In the Colombian border city of Cucuta, two men drove a white Toyota truck into the military base after passing themselves off as officials. According to the Defence Minister Diego Molano, the hypothesis is that the National Liberation Army guerrillas are to blame but the attack is still being investigated. Despite a 2016 peace deal with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, Colombia’s military continues to battle National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, crime gangs and former FARC members who reject the accord.

Peru’s election (Foreign Policy) Pedro Castillo finally claimed victory in Peru’s presidential election on Tuesday, over a week after Peruvians casted their votes. Although electoral authorities have yet to officially announce the results, final ballot totals saw Castillo earn just over 44,000 votes more than his conservative challenger Keiko Fujimori—who has alleged fraud in the face of likely defeat. If the election is officially called in Castillo’s favor, this will be the third presidential race Fujimori has lost. As legal challenges to the vote accumulate, it could be days or possibly weeks before an official winner is announced.

China set to send first crew to new space station Thursday (AP) The three members of the first crew to be sent to China’s space station say they’re eager to get to work making their home for the next three months habitable, setting up testing and experiments and preparing for a series of spacewalks. The three met with reporters Wednesday from inside a germ-free glassed-in room, hours before they were to blast off on Thursday morning. Thursday’s launch begins the first crewed space mission in five years for an increasingly ambitious space program. China has sent 11 astronauts into space since becoming the third country to so so on its own in 2003, and has sent orbiters and rovers to the moon and Mars.

North Korea’s Kim says food situation ‘tense’ due to pandemic, typhoons (Reuters) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said the country’s economy improved this year but called for measures to tackle the “tense” food situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic and last year’s typhoons, state media said on Wednesday. In January, Kim said his previous five-year economic plan had failed in almost every sector, amid chronic power and food shortages exacerbated by sanctions, the pandemic and floods. North Korea has not officially confirmed any COVID-19 cases, a claim questioned by Seoul officials. But the reclusive country has imposed strict anti-virus measures including border closures and domestic travel restrictions.

Lebanon’s crisis threatens one of its few unifiers, the army (AP) Since the civil war, through wars with Israel, militant bombings and domestic turmoil, Lebanese have considered their military as an anchor for stability, one of the only institutions standing above the country’s divisions. But the military is now threatened by Lebanon’s devastating financial collapse, which the World Bank has said is likely to rank as one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years. The economic meltdown is putting unprecedented pressure on the U.S.-backed army’s operational abilities, wiping out soldiers’ salaries and wrecking morale. The deterioration puts at risk one of the few forces unifying Lebanon at a time when sectarian tensions and crime are on the rise amid the population’s deepening poverty. The military itself has raised the alarm, unusual for a force that is perhaps unique in the Middle East in that it largely remains outside politics. Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun warned in a speech to officers in March that soldiers were “suffering and hungry like the rest of the people.” A senior army official confirmed to The Associated Press that the economic situation has greatly affected morale. “There is no doubt that there is great resentment among the ranks of the military,” the official said.

Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza (Washington Post) On Tuesday, hundreds of ultranationalist demonstrators bearing Israeli flags marched into Jerusalem’s Old City, with some youths chanting, “Death to Arabs!” and “May your village burn,” according to the Associated Press. Hamas responded by launching incendiary balloons that crossed into the country from Hamas-controlled territory, and Israel responded with airstrikes on Gaza. Hamas “is responsible for all events transpiring in the Gaza Strip, and will bear the consequences for its actions,” the IDF said. It said Israel was “prepared for any scenario, including a resumption of hostilities.” There were no immediate reports of casualties from the airstrike. Israeli authorities reported that the incendiary balloons had sparked 20 fires near the Gaza border. (Foreign Policy) The renewed Israeli bombings come as support for Hamas has undergone a “dramatic” shift, according to a recent poll. 53 percent of Palestinians now see Hamas as the “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14 percent of those surveyed held Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party in the same esteem.

Saudi Embassy has helped its citizens facing criminal charges flee the United States (Washington Post) On the night of Oct. 13, 2018, Raekwon Moore was stabbed during a street fight with two strangers in the popular Uptown district of Greenville, N.C. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died. Police quickly apprehended and questioned Abdullah Hariri and Sultan Alsuhaymi, both citizens of Saudi Arabia, whom eyewitnesses and surveillance camera footage placed at the scene of the Saturday night brawl. Initially, police thought the men may have acted in self-defense and released them from custody. After further investigation, prosecutors charged both with first-degree murder. But Hariri and Alsuhaymi will probably never stand trial, because days after their alleged crime and before they were charged, they left the country and returned to Saudi Arabia, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. The murder charges against Hariri and Alsuhaymi are the most serious known against dozens of Saudi citizens, many of them students, who are wanted in the United States; their alleged offenses include first-degree manslaughter, vehicular hit-and-run, rape and possession of child pornography. Many fled to their homeland with the assistance of Saudi officials. The FBI has concluded that Saudi government officials “almost certainly assist US-based Saudi citizens in fleeing the United States to avoid legal issues, undermining the US judicial process,” according to an intelligence bulletin issued in August 2019. At the Saudi Embassy in Washington, that assistance has been overseen by a mid-level official who has managed a network of American criminal defense lawyers and self-described “fixers” paid to keep Saudis charged with crimes out of prison, an investigation by The Post has found.

#headlines #news

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chfaiq5k-blog · 4 years

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How Social Marketing Gets One to Do What they need You To Do

“Social” Says Who?

The term “Social Marketing” was probably coined by someone who wanted it to appear distinctive from just what it is.

It’s really just plain old marketing.? But rather than helping you get to obtain a bar of soap, or maybe a certain label of beer, or maybe a particular service, social marketing attempts to get you to do just what the marketer thinks is “good for society.”

So they inform you.

Social marketing seeks to promote ideas, attitudes, and behaviors.? Issues that were targeted by social marketing campaigns include:

PollutionDrunk DrivingAIDS AwarenessSubstance AbuseEarly Cancer DetectionFire PreventionDisaster ReadinessEnergy ConservationBlood DrivesMedical Research FundraisingWater Quality and Conservation

And it could be difficult to acquire one who would believe these complaints are not important.

Social marketing provides a mechanism for tackling such problems by encouraging people to voluntarily adopt a specific behavior.

Don’t smokeDon’t over-water your lawnDon’t polluteRecycle glass and plastic bottlesGet out and vote

When planning social marketing campaigns, marketers understand it is essential that the emphasis is scheduled to the audience’s perceived needs.? That’s because the final objective of social marketing would be to influence action.? Achieving that goal is actually a considerably more ambitious — and a lot more blurred — bottom line.

After all, how are “they” to find out in case you are really turning away from the water after you brush?

I’m Your Friend, and that i Have Your own interest as the primary goal.? Really, I.? Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain.

Social marketers feel “I’m my brother’s keeper.”

“Do a few things i i would love you to undertake; it is great in your case.”? And they’re often very sincere about it.? And they may also be right.

Social marketing differs from other aspects of marketing simply with respect towards the objectives on the marketer’s organization.?

The objective?? Altering your behavior and helping you save?– and society — from yourself.?

The planning process needs a “consumer-approach” into mind by addressing the next wind storm on the marketing mix.

Like commercial marketing, social marketing uses “The Four Ps” to define the complete marketing picture:

Product

The specific alter in awareness, attitude, and behavior.

Price

The psychological barriers very often prevent behavior change.? Inertia is a really powerful competitor.

Place

The distribution plan and media channels helpful to tell others.

Promotion

Tactics and strategies used to persuade the listeners.

However, marketers must often add the following which can be unique to social marketing:

Publics

The a variety of audiences – bodily and mental – a part of the approval or implementation in the program.? Who’s got their turn in it?

Partnership

Like-minded organizations solicited for involvement in order that this system being truly effective.? Who benefits if you undertake what they want?

Policy

The political environment was required to support change in the future.? Who’s in power?? Who aspires what?

Purse Strings

The resources from foundations, government budgets, or donations had to fund this course.? Who’s got the cash?

Changing public behavior is actually a long-term process.? As with any social marketing, it will take increased education and also the repeating messages.

Successful Campaign Examples

Social marketing has targeted a variety of issues:

In Seattle, the “Get-in-the-Loop” campaign used retail partnerships, on-shelf signage, advertising and media relations to boost ordering recycled content products by 27 percent.More than 52 percent of your U.S. population recognizes the force Star label because of public service advertising, media relations and retail, manufacturer and utility partnerships. The regular seat-belt usage rate in North Carolina jumped from 65 percent to a number exceeding Eighty percent in the first 6 months of your “Click It or Ticket” campaign.? In addition, the campaign is credited with providing a 14% reducing of traffic fatalitiesThe percent of Florida middle schoolers who used to smoke fell from 18.5 to 8.6 percent whilst the percentage for top schoolers went from 27.4 to 20.9 as a result of the Florida “Truth” anti-smoking campaign.PeachCare for children, developed by the Georgia legislature in spring 1998, is designed to provide children’s medical health insurance for working-class families.? This method has helped 57,000 children and accepts applications for the rate of 500-1,000 every day.Recent results for Switzerland’s “Stop AIDS” campaign indicated that between 1986 and 1990, condom sales had increased by Eighty percent (from 7.6 million to 15 million units).? Condom use among 17-30 year-olds increased from 8% to just about 50%. Condom use among 31-45 year-olds also increased in that time (from 22% to 35%).The “Florida’s Water:? It’s Worth Saving” campaign (which I helped create) achieved all objectives to the St. Johns River Water Management District, and post-campaign research revealed 89% resident compliance with local water restrictions.

Human nature never changes.? But human thinking does.? There was a time that a lot of people think it is cool to smoke.? Now, smoking is?something you might try to “quit.”

Social marketing helped to make that happen . . . for better or worse.?

Conclusion

Successful social marketing uses carefully crafted — and sometimes crafty — messages that can make a difficult connection.? It might fundamentally change behavior to save lives, sustain the surroundings, and earn communities more livable.

It can also trick you into after a social agenda.

The average consumer is confronted with 3,000 messages a day. To effectively contest with this message overload, social marketing must reach its target repeatedly through different mediums before an impact should be expected.

A good messaging platform is easy and offers both knowledge and motivation needed for the viewers some thing.?

And the very best diet plan . . . and tell it well.

Following these steps will become a option to a social marketing strategy that gives measurable results.

The question for you is . . . do you wish to do what “they” would like you to accomplish?? Are you experiencing the information you must make a thought out decision?

Regardless of the “they” want . . . it is always your choice.

This content was originally published here.

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wordcreatr · 5 years

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Here’s another chapter from my book about my brother. I’m not breaking the text up with subheadings like a regular post. This is not a final draft, so there may be some overwriting and rough spots. Let me know your thoughts, particularly if something is unclear or doesn’t work. All feedback, both positive and negative, is appreciated.

Chapter: The Big Reveal

When I was around twenty-three, I picked up the ringing phone in my townhouse one Saturday afternoon; my sister Bridget dispensed with the normal pleasantries and said she had something to tell me. The tone of her voice oscillated between gossipy excitement and shock. An alarmist by nature, I sat up on my bed, where I had been lounging.

“Oh my God, I think Kevie is gay,” she blurted out.

Of all the possible scenarios racing through my head such as salacious affairs, unexpected divorces, or heinous crimes — that wasn’t one of them. My stunted big-brother instinct to protect a sibling kicked in. No way our little brother was gay. Even though I was jealous of Kevin’s good looks, I took a certain brotherly pride in seeing him with beautiful young women who stared doe-eyed at him.

“Don’t be stupid,” I snorted dismissively. “He’s not gay; he’s shy.”

But Bridget stood by her reporting.

Kevin and his fabulous friend Kelly

Now don’t misunderstand my reaction; it wasn’t homophobic (okay — it was a little homophobic but not as bad as it would have been years before). By that time in the early 90s, gay rights had definitely made inroads into the culture as attitudes slowly changed, and I had jettisoned a lot of erroneous nonsense about homosexuality. I felt pretty certain that homosexuals were born, not made, though I still thought of it as a genetic error that might be medically fixable at some point. Obviously, my enlightenment still had a ways to go.

So when my sister revealed her suspicion, did I rise to the occasion like a champion of tolerance and acceptance? Fuck no. I took on the role of a seasoned defense attorney attacking a hostile witness as I asked her if Kevin had told her he was gay. She said no and I pounced.

“Okay, how do you know he’s gay then?”

“Because I was helping mom flip his mattress today and we found a magazine under it. And it was full of naked guys!”

There is a reason I’m not a lawyer because my sister had just counter-punched me into near silence. My weak follow up was their discovery didn’t prove anything.

“Sean! It was called Inches!”

Arrrrgghhhhhh!!

I banged the heel of my clenched left fist painfully against my eye socket in a vain attempt to poke myself in my mind’s eye and prevent any more unwanted images from popping into my head. A disconcerting whirlpool of emotional instability spun me around. Our humdrum family now had something novel in it, but I didn’t feel ready. I felt a twinge of hypocritical guilt. As far as my views on sexual orientation, I considered myself to be a fairly enlightened and accepting person, but at that moment, my sister’s revelation put my beliefs to the test, and I was failing it. Other people had gay brothers, and that was great. But not me. Kevin couldn’t be gay. Could he?

I briefly wondered if all those times punching him the balls as a kid had had any effect.

When you consider my reaction, you have to keep in mind the era when I grew up. In the 70s and 80s, being gay — or even being suspected of being gay — really sucked if you were under the spotlight. In most areas of the country, being gay brought a lot of unwanted attention along with varying degrees of revulsion and hostility. Some states still criminalized certain aspects of homosexuality. Plenty of people openly cracked jokes about gays or mocked them. Some openly harassed them. Some physically attacked them. Popular culture typically depicted gay men as either a lisping, limp-wristed effeminate or a muscular leather boy in chaps and a vest sporting a handlebar mustache, a guy who’d have his way with you, whether you were into it or not, if you walked into the wrong bar. Basically, in the parlance of the day, you were a twinkle-toed fairy or in the Village People. Gays weren’t real people, they were caricatures, and it seemed to be okay to make fun of them and tell fag jokes — hell, as a teen, I laughed at those jokes and retold them. My only defense lies in my immaturity and the culture at the time. But I didn’t personally know any gay people (well, I did, I just didn’t realize it then) and they were just jokes, though I did feel bad if people directed their sharp barbs against an actual person. Of course, I didn’t saying anything in their defense because then people might start thinking I was gay, and I’d had enough of that as a young teen.

Kevin 1st grade 1978

Sean 6th grade 1978

In junior high, my bashful nature made me a natural candidate for teens looking to hassle someone for being gay. Filled with raging hormones, I obsessed over girls but could not act directly on it due to my crippling shyness, intense sensitivity to embarrassment, and an acute awareness of my gawkiness. (Age 12 to 16 was not kind to me). I perfected what I thought was a stealth approach to girls. By being in their proximity, I and assumed the girls would detect my natural animal magnetism (which of course I assumed I had, hidden beneath my ill-fitting clothes, bad haircut, and prominent Adam’s apple). The Universe quickly disabused me of that notion with a soul-destroying experience where one of my 7th-grade crushes, Alicia, preemptively gave me my first ever ‘We can be friends’ talk in front of other students when I got the courage to sit behind her during free time. She shut that shit down before I even got started. Crushed, from then on, I went to extremes to feign disinterest in girls to avoid further humiliation, which ironically got me targeted for even more humiliation as a potential homo.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Have questions or need help? PFLAG is an international support group of LGBTQ, families, friends, and allies committed to advancing equality through support, education, and advocacy.[/perfectpullquote]

Because the major job requirement for being a boy in junior high is being an asshole, some of my classmates enjoyed exposing my shyness and making me uncomfortable with prying questions about my nonexistent romantic life. For added hilarity, in front of our female classmates, they would press me to declare which girl I liked. Dying of embarrassment, I would try to play it off, which invariably led to someone asking me accusingly if I was a faggot. To get them to leave me alone, I felt compelled to tell them how much I hated gay people. It’s not something I’m proud of, but at the time, I would have disowned my own family to get those bastards to leave me alone. And while I didn’t hate gay people as a teen, I did somewhat fear the unknown. I worried about the myth that being around a homosexual could make you gay, as if they had the vampiric power to turn an unwilling person into one of their own kind.

Anyway, by my early twenties, I’d come a long way in my evolution as a human being. Just not quite far enough. Now, my sister’s revelation had me stuck in a groove, as my brain skipped and repeated like a scratched record.

“I don’t know, man,” I muttered to her. “Do you really think he’s gay?”

Bridge let a sliver of doubt into her voice.

“I think so. I don’t know. The only thing I know is I saw naked men with big willies!”

At that, I cringed as an unwanted image of my brother cavorting with naked guys flitted through my head. I quickly hustled everyone offstage.

Okay, I had to admit to myself, maybe he was gay.

“What did Mom say?”

Over the phone, I could practically sense my sister rolling her eyes.

“What do you think? We put the magazine back and flipped the mattress. She didn’t say a word.”

Yep, that was a quintessential Mom response for something out of her comfort zone, that she needed to think about and process. Pretend nothing happened or if it was too serious to overlook, then hand it off to my dad to do the dirty work. A classic example occurred during the summer of my thirteenth year when her snooping uncovered my share of the porn mags that my brother and his friend, James Zeier, had found in an abandoned suitcase while dumpster diving. Being a newspaper boy, I had brashly hidden a few of the magazines in the delivery bags on my bike so I had easy access to reading material, figuring my mother would be none the wiser. I never found out how she uncovered my scheme — probably some slight change in behavior that set off her mom detector — but she never said a word to me. Instead, she quietly summoned dad home from work to ambush me while she retreated across the street to Mrs. Zeier’s, presumably for a cup of tea to soothe her nerves while dad dealt with his degenerate eldest child.

But this new discovery, this was way beyond a simple dirty magazine. This had universe-altering implications; I had no idea how my dad would react when he found out, but I feared not well. So far, the lack of a sonic boom from his head going supernova confirmed that my mom had not yet mentioned anything about it to him. Personally, I doubted she ever would. Not only was my dad retired military with twenty-eight years of service under his belt, but he came from hillbilly country in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia — not exactly a liberal hotbed. And while he was not an inflexible conservative, he was not exactly on the cutting edge of social evolution either. I didn’t know where he stood on the whole gay thing, but I suspected it would not be at the front of a Gay Pride Parade.

Christmas UK 1975

July 1984

When we were growing up, neither of my parents had ever mentioned homosexuality in any context at all. I’d once heard my mom’s friend make an off-handed complaint about “queers” during a holiday dinner, but my mother, unfailingly polite, had neither condoned her friend’s comment nor rebuked her and simply went about as if she hadn’t heard it. The possible fireworks when my dad found out about Kevin — I didn’t even want to think about. And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.

I didn’t find out until years later, but my mom did ask my sister to inquire about the magazine. With the chance to come out of the closet and confide in his closest sibling, Kevin ducked back in and denied ownership of Inches. A senior in high school, he wasn’t ready to deal with his homosexuality. Taking a page out of my playbook, he blamed someone else for the magazine, telling Bridget that our childhood friend Dean Seyfferle had asked him to stash it for him — Kevin claimed to have obliged and then forgotten about it. Now, Dean had stayed over our house a million times since first grade and old man Seyfferle was a church-going Catholic known to apply the belt if his boys didn’t toe the line, so the explanation seemed somewhat plausible, and my sister readily accepted it. The only person not happy with the “Dean is gay” storyline was Dean, who, 30 years later, still occasionally bitches about being framed.

The Layton Kids and Bridget’s friend Susie Rhodes.

Bridget had easily embraced Kevin’s denial, but her friend Tess, always a straight shooter with a 24/7 bullshit detector, kept telling her that Kevin had to be gay. Eventually, my sister pressed him on it and he confessed, though he promised her to silence. And she kept that promise because she sure as hell never bothered following up and letting me in on it. No, I had to confirm it myself.

In hindsight, Kevin’s response to Bridget made total sense. Being Irish Catholics (Dad was a convert, so he didn’t really count), our culture had hardcoded shame into our core, so anything potentially immoral or uncomfortable, we avoided discussing or acknowledging due to the inevitable embarrassment (or fear of being implicated). Our mom, a very loving person, wanted us to be able to confide in her, but unfortunately, we just couldn’t. She would sometimes talk about delicate things like sex in a very general way, such as “Sex between married people is a very beautiful thing.” She couldn’t even tell us about where babies came from but made Bridget and I watch an ABC AfterSchool Special: My Mom’s Having a Baby, while she disappeared over to Mrs. Zeirer’s for a cup of tea. (Actually, by the time my dad passed away, I was 45 and still waiting for my official sex talk). Whenever one of these conversations threatened to break out, I made sure to not to respond in any fashion to deprive it of fuel. Standard protocol involving anything verboten was to keep your head down and your mouth closed and hope it went away quickly. And if someone accused you of anything you denied it — even in the face of overwhelming evidence. In fact, the more evidence the accuser had, the harder you denied it and the more indignant you became as you tried to deflect blame. We would have made excellent politicians when it came to handling scandals.

Anyway, as my phone conversation with Bridget began to wind down, I thoughtlessly blurted out how unfair life was: “You know if God was going to make Kevin gay, why couldn’t he at least swap our looks instead of wasting them on him?”

“Don’t be silly,” said my sister giving me a reality check, “Kevie needs to get dates too.”

Kev looks like he should be in Duran Duran and me Metallica

Huh, well, I had never thought about it that way. Chalk me up for selfish and ignorant. But her comment brought up uncomfortable thoughts about my brother and his possible relationships. That would be weird around the holidays. But I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

After Bridge and I hung up, I kept thinking about it. My brother was gay. My brother was fucking gay! I couldn’t get over it. When I told my coworker and occasional lover (a complicated relationship that I naturally kept hidden from my family), who’d been around a lot of gay men in her former career as a makeup artist, she confessed she hadn’t picked up on Kevin’s sexuality.

Nothing happened right away after our conversation. On my next visit to my parents, I waited till no one was around and cautiously looked under Kevin’s mattress and sure enough, the boner mag was still there.

I spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out how to get Kevin to fess up that he was gay. The thought of just walking up and asking him never occurred to me. Maybe they did that in other families, but not in the Layton household. We weren’t wired that way. As much as I hated myself for it, I always had to subtly crab-walk my way into a delicate conversation. No, instead I would need to set a trap and lure Kevin into it. So, I fell back on a ruse I’d recently used on my friend Gary Eberhard to get him to admit to me that his older brother Larry was gay, something I’d suspected since junior high. Basically, I told Gary about a fake science fiction story I was supposedly writing where the protagonist was a gay teen whose parents forced him against his will to undergo a gene therapy procedure that made him straight. My fake story had worked then, so I figured I’d give it another shot.

That shot took a while in coming. Kevin had graduated high school and never seemed to be around. By then, I’d moved into another townhouse with my co-worker/occasional paramour and finally, my brother decided to stop by to hang out, which was unusual. I figured I’d never have a better chance, so I waited for the perfect moment to tell him about my story, but I ended up having to awkwardly shoehorn it into the conversation. My brother listened and I could tell he was thinking and then the magic happened: He admitted to me he was gay. It was a huge step forward — even though I’d basically had to trick him into it.

His relief that I didn’t attack him or even say anything snarky was almost tangible. I told him it was cool and that I’d support him and he thanked me.

“Okay, but you’re sure you’re gay then?” (I just had to be sure.)

“Well, as sure as wanting to have sex with other guys makes me,” he answered dryly, and I felt my face redden. Touché.

As we talked, I reminded him about the porn stash he’d found as a kid and how the neighborhood boys would gather in the park with Hustlers and Penthouses for an obscene reading session. He’d appeared to be ogling the naked ladies with the rest of us.

“I was looking at Captain Beaver,” he replied, referring to a faux porno superhero in one of the photospreads who’d used his giant, capitalist dong to defeat two female Communist soldiers from North Korean and force them into orgasmic surrender.

The fact that we were having our first, real adult conversation — albeit a kind of a weird one — felt liberating. I felt we’d made a breakthrough in our relationship as brothers and as human beings. With the floodgates now open, I asked him when he knew he was gay or if he’d always known.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I didn’t know I was gay as a kid because I didn’t even know what being gay was, but I knew I was different. I was never interested in girls.”

“And you don’t like sports.”

“Ha, Very funny.”

“But you do like musicals — but I like musicals too.”

“You are such an idiot.”

In high school, he said he’d tried to fake liking girls and gone on a couple of dates, but felt no attraction and never slept with one. He’d felt fraudulent and uncomfortable trying to avoid intimate situations without blowing his cover and making some poor girl miserable.

Then I asked him if it was a choice.

His tone became agitated as bitterness crept into his voice.

“Do you really think I would choose to be gay? Would you? Why would I choose this lifestyle just so people can hate me? I fucking hate being gay,” he said. “I just want to be like everyone else. You know, have a family. But I’m just not attracted to women.”

I mentioned that I’d worked with a gay guy at America West Airlines who told me that being gay was a choice. He claimed he’d consciously decided on homosexuality after he got out of the Navy and had divorced his wife. But the guy was a sociopath and done some evil shit, like wooing a nineteen-year-old who was freshly out of the closet while neglecting to mention he’d just found out he was HIV. So I didn’t trust anything he said.

“That pisses me off,” Kevin said his eyes flashing in annoyance. “He’s not gay; he’s bisexual. He can make a choice. I can’t unless I want to live a lie.”

Kev talked about the torture of keeping his secret, of being afraid to tell others he was gay because of how they might react. How some people ostracized him when they found out.

The amount of self-loathing touched a chord in me and I wished I could make things right for my little brother, so he’d be happy. But there was nothing I could do except tell him he had to learn to be happy with who he was.

Years later he would tell me how lonely and confused he’d been at that time because he had no one to talk to. He didn’t know how to be gay. He had no mentors, no gay friends. Afraid and hating himself, he had started relying on drugs more. His friends, the kids we’d grown up with, drifted away because he’d taken his partying to the next level and began using meth; some simply couldn’t accept his sexuality or didn’t know how to deal with it. His isolation became pronounced. By the time he was old enough, terrified, he got up the courage and went to a gay bar, alone. And that’s really kicked his drinking and meth use into high gear.

“Everyone I met was partying. I thought that’s just what gay culture was about. Having fun and using meth. I didn’t know any gay people who were successful and led regular lives. I fell in with the wrong crowd.”

But that lay in the future. While we chatted in my townhouse, Kevin became wistful about the family he would never have and an imaginary daughter he would have doted over.

“She’d be adorable, and I’d name her Violet,” he sighed.

At the time, the name sounded old-fashioned to me.

“Violet? Lucky for her you won’t be having kids.”

He punched me hard in the shoulder.

“Ooo, why do you make me hate you?”

Actually, what I’d almost said out of reflex before I caught myself was “Violet? That is so gay!” Which might have elevated the punch into a headlock.

Suddenly, it dawned on me I was going to have to start policing my vocabulary. I used the words fag and gay a lot. Not in reference to homosexuals — but just as general insults or in reference to someone being dumb or a douche bag. Now there would be no more utterances of “Quit being gay” or walking into a room and saying “So what are you fags up to?” Obviously, things were going to have to change.

Then it was time to get down to brass tacks.

“What are you going to do — are you going to tell mom and dad?”

Kevin got animated.

“Fuck no! Mom would want me to talk to a priest. And I don’t know what Dad would do. Probably disown me.”

And that was the great unanswered question. What would Dad do?

“I think mom already knows,” I warned him, though obviously, I knew she’d found the magazine. (Bridget would tell me years later that she had already sat down and told Mom, who’d quietly accepted it without really saying much.)

“She probably does. Just promise me you won’t open your big fucking mouth around Dad.”

The implication that I was the weak link mildly offended me, but I had to admit there was a precedence of weasely behavior in my past. So I agreed not to say anything — not that there was any danger of that happening in this particular case. I began telling him what I would do if I were him, which always got under his skin, and he told me to shut up, he’d figure it out.

“I’m not joking. Do NOT say anything to Dad! I’m going to do it when I’m ready.”

Apparently, doing it on his own time meant never because a couple of years later, the fact that Kevin was gay was still the elephant hiding in the closet when it came to my father.

But by that time, the family had bigger things to worry about because Kevin had developed a full-blown drug problem.

Check out these other sample chapters!

Late Night Offerings to Mammon

Car Swimming

Sample Chapter: The Big Reveal Here's another chapter from my book about my brother. I'm not breaking the text up with subheadings like a regular post.

#Catholicism #coming out #family #gay brother #homosexuality #parents

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infiniteinjury · 7 years

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Free Speech Slip and Slide

In the past I’ve written at length about my concern that the newly invigorated attitude that we must outlaw, or at least severely socially punish the speakers, racist/sexist/etc.. speech is a mistake. I have doubts about the efficacy of such punishments and believe that pushing racism adjacent views into a hidden underground where they fester and mutate1 creates more hate. However, the primary thrust of my concern was the usual slippery slope argument (importantly serious harms arise as soon as well-intentioned people start to fear that an epistemic mistake could land them in trouble). Unfortunately, evidence for a steep slippery plastic slope with extra soap arrived all too quickly.

Superiority of Western Culture

First we had this really stupid opinion piece that I would have guessed was written by a machine learning algorithm trained on 1980s era conservative values pieces if it had only mentioned crack (still managed a shout out to the pill for destroying our perfect 1950s society). Personally, I thought it was just as stupid this time around as I did in the late 80s and early 90s except these authors should have seen how that went and known better. However, as far as offensiveness goes it rates as a “kids these days…have no … always on their..” but somehow it has become the subject of accusations of racism and the subject of serious controversy (yes, that last article is written by a friend of the original author so take its slant with a grain of salt).

True, there is no credible effort to have the author fired from her position in the law school but it has generated enough outrage for students to get up in time to picket Wax’s class as racist and its not just some hasty people with signs. At least a non-trivial segment of the Penn campus left is willing to call this piece racist, sexist or otherwise suggest it isn’t just dumb and wrong but deserving of open moral scorn.

While one might try and charitably reconstruct some argument based on the text of the oped2 what is going on is what is always going on with accusations of racism/sexism/islamophobia etc.. Rather than parsing the literal content of a piece and asserting those claims amount to racism (or providing evidence that the author was being disingenuous) people decide to call something racist if it feels like the things racists would say. In this case there is no doubt this oped has that feel. Indeed, it hits many of the points that one would expect from a racist dog-whistle: glorification of European/western culture, suggestion that something associated with whites is superior, a nostalgic comparison to the 1950s, reference to some aspect of black culture the author disapproves of (“anti-“acting white” rap culture of inner-city blacks”) and even the obligatory focus on whites that have the traits you are criticizing.

The problem with taking this as grounds for accusations of racism is that it confuses being the sort of person whose strong affinity for traditionalism and reverence for long lived institutions and practices may make needed reform more difficult with actual racism. However, we are generally quite willing to let the earnest man who is such a strong believer in feminism that he frequently gives a piece of his mind to men who he views as pushing an aggressive male-centric approach on women and thereby does more to perpetuate the stereotype of women as unable to handle these situations than anyone he criticizes. This case is only different in that it is harder to imagine genuinely feeling that these old school conservative values are the secret to a better life and wanting to help minorities by sharing. Also in that often people who feel this way about morals and newfangled social innovations also feel this way about minorities but that’s just a stereotype.

Most importantly, it renders the standard for racism uselessly subjective. If it is no longer necessary to have overt animus or believe in some particular stereotype then it is insanely easy to apply the term to virtually anyone you want. Especially given that as the sphere of things that have been labeled racist expands fewer and fewer non-racists say anything in that sphere so just imagine the same dialog in 20 years about pieces supporting free speech. It would be something mostly racists talk about as a cover, anyone like me writing about it would explain that we believed in it for everyone (while detractors would point out that we kept focusing on the free speech of the racists as they don’t see it from the context in which that is the right place to make one’s stand), one could raise analogies to the contract rights arguments offered in the civil rights movement (yes its bad but the constitution…we just can’t do anything). The only thing this lacks is the subjective feel that comes from hearing lots of racists say something that sounds similar but we can’t cede to racists the power to decide what is and isn’t considered.

Also, as a practical matter this kind of use of the accusation of racism isn’t productive. The reason to use the term at all is to invoke our shared disapprobation of certain behaviors to change people’s behavior. Telling someone ‘suggesting that blacks only eat fried Chicken or look like Gorillas’ is racist usually results in an immediate change and the world is a better place but when you say that some vague thing about the gestalt I get from your article is racist doesn’t. If I were the author and was willing to sell out my views so I wouldn’t be racist how would I even know where to start?

Call these ideas out as stupid or even the kind of progress phobic thinking that perpetuates racism that’s great but its just not racism.

University of Tampa’s Impolitic Twitter Firing

Also, we have the University of Tampa firing a visiting professor for the following poorly considered and bumblinging inappropriate tweet

I dont believe in instant karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas. Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesnt care about them.

This is obviously just a case of someone not realizing how what he said would be taken in context. When he did he apologized. That should have been the end of it.

While at first glance one might feel that this isn’t really relevant to the broader picture at the moment. However, while it wasn’t exactly an academic paper this tweet is fundamentally nothing but an expression of a political sentiment. Indeed, suppose the author really believed this was some kind of divine vengeance on Texas for voting GOP. Surely that is core political-religious speech if anything is so its hard to see how this is anything but a direct attack on the idea that Professors get to comment on current events and broader social issues without fear of being fired for controversial views (assuming they don’t bear on their academic qualifications…mathematicians probably shouldn’t say $\omega$ and $2^\omega$ have the same cardinality).

Mistakes

We need room for people to make mistakes! Even mistakes about what to believe on controversial issues because only when people feel they won’t lose their jobs or be shunned if they get it wrong can they allow themselves to explore the issue and reach the right conclusions.

I know its really hard in these discussions to imagine any other perspective than your own but rarely is it the case that someone just wakes up out of the blue filled with hate and the desire to see another race suffer. Sure, sometimes the reasons are just visceral (your gang is white they are black) but in most cases there is some chain of thought and emotion that made every step they took seem reasonable so if you suspect the target of your criticism of simply reasonless hate you should probably reevaluate that view.

However, that is what makes the situation so dangerous as well. Given that even racists think they have good and sound justifications for their beliefs an atmosphere which imposes severe penalties for even minor infractions allows only one safe response: parrot back the official dogma.

But, if we are going to fix the remaining barriers and harms inflicted by problematic stereotypes and structural racism/sexism we need to find them in non-obvious places and that takes open speculation. We’ve picked all the low hanging fruit so more looking for white or male ‘perpetrators’ (if it could have been fixed easily that way we would have) we instead need to look at the less examined reservoirs of stereotypes such as members of the group themselves or the well-intentioned helper3. That means we need to walk on the edge and consider possibly offensive or unpleasant possibilities if we are going to figure out what is really going on so we can do something to fix things.

I’ve seen any number of scenarios in which the perception that certain topics can’t even be discussed doesn’t erase those ideas from people’s minds. Rather, it pushes them to form groups (the ones that go silent when a woman or minority comes by and we work so hard to eliminate) in which they feel they can comfortably express views they are sympathetic to but are too controversial for general consumption. Unfortunately, when people gather together for the purpose of feeling safe sharing controversial views creates a strong social pressure not to call anyone else’s views in that group out for sexism/racism/etc.. even in a polite friendly way. I’m constantly amazed at how quickly both such groups form and how quickly they descend to the lowest common denominator and serve as a breeding ground where hateful ideas can infect good people because there is no opportunity to apply the corrective of a good counterargument and criticism. ↩

Taking their complaints at face value would seem to suggest the problem is that suggesting WASP culture (not so named) is superior is racist or at least unacceptable and bad. While those of us immersed in liberal sensibilities naturally flinch a bit when the suggestion is made that one culture is superior to another that doesn’t make the claim wrong or racist. Indeed, we all believe that, at least in the modern context, modern western culture is superior to the violent revenge culture in some New Guinean tribes all things considered (of course cultures have so many traits surely we could cherry pick a few improvements but the original piece doesn’t deny this). Hell, the very idea of tolerance and equality that those on the left are fighting for is a rare value for a culture to have and we are right to identify it as something good and important. But I think this “can’t say one culture is better than another” line isn’t a very charitable interpretation. ↩

Everyone knows that a great deal of slut-shaming and outfit policing is done to women by women and we’ve learned recently that it is other women who do the majority of interrupting women and may very well be the ones preventing more competitive female involvement. This matches both my experience at caltech (women who had few if any female friends their whole lives were way more likely to just blunder in and shot their load on the conversation or dismiss someone else’s contribution as stupid) and what evolutionary psychology would suggest (men have little interest in policing women but each gender needs to police rivals). Of course, men aren’t on the hook they are just on the hook for something else perpetuating harmful male stereotypes which can harm women as much as they do men (say by men not being willing to become primary caregivers). ↩

Free Speech Slip and Slide was originally published on Rejecting Rationality

#academia #academic freedom #free speech #racial justice #racism

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chfaiq5k-blog · 4 years

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How Social Marketing Gets One to Do What they need You To Do

“Social” Says Who?

The term “Social Marketing” was probably coined by someone who wanted it to appear distinctive from just what it is.

So they inform you.

Social marketing seeks to promote ideas, attitudes, and behaviors.? Issues that were targeted by social marketing campaigns include:

PollutionDrunk DrivingAIDS AwarenessSubstance AbuseEarly Cancer DetectionFire PreventionDisaster ReadinessEnergy ConservationBlood DrivesMedical Research FundraisingWater Quality and Conservation

And it could be difficult to acquire one who would believe these complaints are not important.

Social marketing provides a mechanism for tackling such problems by encouraging people to voluntarily adopt a specific behavior.

Don’t smokeDon’t over-water your lawnDon’t polluteRecycle glass and plastic bottlesGet out and vote

After all, how are “they” to find out in case you are really turning away from the water after you brush?

I’m Your Friend, and that i Have Your own interest as the primary goal.? Really, I.? Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain.

Social marketers feel “I’m my brother’s keeper.”

“Do a few things i i would love you to undertake; it is great in your case.”? And they’re often very sincere about it.? And they may also be right.

Social marketing differs from other aspects of marketing simply with respect towards the objectives on the marketer’s organization.?

The objective?? Altering your behavior and helping you save?– and society — from yourself.?

The planning process needs a “consumer-approach” into mind by addressing the next wind storm on the marketing mix.

Like commercial marketing, social marketing uses “The Four Ps” to define the complete marketing picture:

Product

The specific alter in awareness, attitude, and behavior.

Price

The psychological barriers very often prevent behavior change.? Inertia is a really powerful competitor.

Place

The distribution plan and media channels helpful to tell others.

Promotion

Tactics and strategies used to persuade the listeners.

However, marketers must often add the following which can be unique to social marketing:

Publics

The a variety of audiences – bodily and mental – a part of the approval or implementation in the program.? Who’s got their turn in it?

Partnership

Like-minded organizations solicited for involvement in order that this system being truly effective.? Who benefits if you undertake what they want?

Policy

The political environment was required to support change in the future.? Who’s in power?? Who aspires what?

Purse Strings

The resources from foundations, government budgets, or donations had to fund this course.? Who’s got the cash?

Changing public behavior is actually a long-term process.? As with any social marketing, it will take increased education and also the repeating messages.

Successful Campaign Examples

Social marketing has targeted a variety of issues:

Human nature never changes.? But human thinking does.? There was a time that a lot of people think it is cool to smoke.? Now, smoking is?something you might try to “quit.”

Social marketing helped to make that happen . . . for better or worse.?

Conclusion

It can also trick you into after a social agenda.

A good messaging platform is easy and offers both knowledge and motivation needed for the viewers some thing.?

And the very best diet plan . . . and tell it well.

Following these steps will become a option to a social marketing strategy that gives measurable results.

The question for you is . . . do you wish to do what “they” would like you to accomplish?? Are you experiencing the information you must make a thought out decision?

Regardless of the “they” want . . . it is always your choice.

This content was originally published here.

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