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crvelsovls · 4 years

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delphine laurent has been seen walking around town. hazelgrove is familiar of the twenty-nine year old demon as she is against restoring the town’s glamour spell. the people of hazelgrove can agree that the dancer can be poised yet still be destructive. let’s just hope something can be settled before the town is turned upside town. + rose gold highlighter shimmering along the height of prominent cheekbones, black satin dresses draped over a svelte frame and blood-red roses in a vase on the window sill.

why, hellooo there !! i’m chrissie and i’m super duper excited to be here !! this here is the first of my gals ; delphine aka my sassy lil demon child fkhfjh she’s kinda a newish muse so pls bear with me while i navigate this chaotic hellcat lmao anywaysss i’m utter plot trash so feel free to slap a lil heart on this and i’ll come pester you for plots n all that good stuff !! : )

FUNDAMENTALS.

full name. delphine athena laurent.

nicknames. del, & della.

physical age. twenty-nine.

actual age. three hundred and fifty seven.

birthday. unknown.

gender. cisgender female.

pronouns. she / her.

species. demon.

nationality. unknown.

religion. agnostic.

birthplace. unknown.

current residence. hazelgrove, me.

sexual orientation. pansexual.

romantic orientation. aromantic.

education. psychology degree.

occupation. dancer at purgatory.

CONNECTIONS.

birth mother. unknown.

birth father. abraxas.

full blood siblings. unknown.

significant other. n/a.

children. n/a.

pets. n/a.

PROFICIENCIES.

spoken languages. english, spanish, french, italian, german, & russian.

negative traits. brusque, obstinate, destructive, deceptive, & promiscuous.

positive traits. elegant, headstrong, observant, independent, & confident.

strengths. etiquette, resourcefulness, knowledgeable, quick-thinker, original, brainstorming, charismatic, & energetic.

weaknesses. argumentative, insensitive, intolerant, finds it difficult to focus, & dislikes practical matters.

skills. skilled with blades and various knives, skilled with firearms, hand-to-hand combat, memory recall, physical stamina, able to use initiative, & excellent problem-solving abilities.

talents. violin, dancing, & photographic memory.

APPEARANCE.

eye colour. green.

hair colour. dark brown.

height. five feet, five inches.

weight. 61 kg.

build. she is considered average height for a female and is both slender and toned.

scars. a rather noticeable one across her clavicle and a few others in less visible places.

tattoos. n/a.

piercings. earlobes.

glasses. n/a.

MISCELLANEOUS.

zodiac. unknown.

element. fire.

house. slytherin.

myers briggs type. entp-a.

alignment. chaotic neutral.

enneagram. type eight.

temperament. choleric

intelligence type. intra-personal.

character label. the vixen.

diseases. n/a.

past mental disorders. post-traumatic stress disorder, & acute stress disorder.

current mental disorders. undiagnosed.

addictions. tobacco, cocaine, & alcohol.

vices. lust, greed, & wrath.

virtues. temperance, diligence, & humility.

allergies. n/a.

diet. carnivore.

dominant hand. ambidextrous.

accent. american.

blood type. o negative.

felonies. petty theft charge when she was fifteen. she also has a history of both kleptomania, & pyromania when she was a teenager.

vehicle. red 1966 shelby 427 cobra.

BACKGROUND.

trigger warning(s). mention of death, mention of imprisonment, & mention of murder.

although the region of her birth remains a mystery to delphine, she knows for certain that her parentage is a complex story. the by-product of a human mother and a demonic father, delphine entered this world destined for a life of chaos and disarray. though she never knew her mother, her father had been thrilled by the sheer idea of having a child he could mould and shape into the pitch-black soul he desired her to be, minus the influence of a mortal. indeed, the demon abraxas had big plans for his little girl, plans she grew to work against despite her father’s best efforts to rein her in.

the instant little delphine began to display her powers, make use of her abilities and disobey daddy dearest, the girl was locked in her room. a room that contained every possible thing that a child could want. for the first few years of her life, delphine was homeschooled by a demon under her father's command. while her father made sure she had wanted for nothing, the older she grew the deeper she desired to explore the world and her capabilities. one fateful night, the girl managed to escape her father's abode; used her enhanced speed and endurance to run far into the dark night. of course, it wasn't long until her father's demonic henchmen were on her tail, dragging her back to her prison. delphine knew her father gave her the best life possible but she also knew that there were ulterior motives behind his kindness.

eventually, delphine proved to defy her father to breaking point resulting in him having her shipped off to an all-girls boarding school. during her schooling years there, her father sparsely visited or, instead, often sent one of his subservient demons to check in with his daughter in his place. then, after a long period of time, the visitations ceased; the last thing delphine heard was that her father had wound up entangled with a couple of hunters.

delphine deemed this both a blessing and a curse. a curse as all she'd known was her father's rule. a blessing as she was finally free to lead her own life; make her own choices and follow her own path. she wasted no time in graduating from the academy before deciding to move to new york city where she found herself enrolled in new york university, undertaking a psychology degree.

still, with no word from her father or his servants, a small element of delphine continued to look over her shoulder in fear that they would creep back into her life. perhaps her father’s involvement with the hunters had ended in disaster. or perhaps he’d simply given up on his daughter fulfilling the prophecy he placed upon her. though the latter seemed unlikely to her, delphine wasn’t entirely sure if she truly cared enough to give any of it a second thought.

after her graduation, she was cornered by a demon who claimed to work for her father. it soon became apparent that her father had vanished, seemingly having fell off the face of the earth altogether, and that this demon had stepped in to fill his shoes. naturally, the demon was trying to recruit delphine into the fold once more but refusing to take no for an answer had deadly consequences for this other demon.

having killed the new ruler of her father’s faction, delphine made her way across various states until she would up in hazelgrove where she laid low for the first year. after a while, she began working in purgatory as a bartender until she decided she wanted to be front and centre stage, ending up becoming a dancer.

while delphine isn’t fond of the idea of serving demons, she isn’t utterly opposed to working alongside them nor using her demonic powers. delphine can be a ruthless, callous creature who most definitely doesn’t exist to serve anybody or bend to the will of anyone.

PERSONALITY.

the semblance of delphine can only be accurately encapsulated by ribbed turtlenecks and skin-tight jeans with red-bottomed heels. the air of her seemingly callous persona epitomised by the ease of narcissism and offhand sardonic quips accompanied by a playful grin. delphine is the perfect balance of an elegant, self-assured woman and an intelligent, artful creature; effortlessly displaying only a rare sum of her persona, the elements of her she wishes others to see while concealing all the other elements of herself she deems less than favourable. one’s initial opinion of delphine might be that she appears cold, the kind of person who wouldn’t blink while grasping any opportunity to cut you down only to build herself up. delphine couldn’t be farther removed from her childhood self. every inch, every last detail of the once bright-eyed young girl has been broken down and reshaped into the icy-glared creature who lives today. life strengthened her, shaped her into a careless adaption of who she once was; a woman who stands her ground and speaks up for herself and what she believes in, never fearing the consequences of her actions.

QUICK FACTS.

owns waaay too many pairs of heels.

her signature look is her blood-red lips.

often wears suits and totally rocks them.

extremely skilled with knives and blades. always carries one on her person at all times.

has never been in love or had her heart broken.

although she wears a lot of red, black is actually her favourite colour. she feels her most powerful in an all-black outfit.

her most prized possession is her brushed chrome zippo. it has her initials engraved on it and where she got it or from who is something she’ll never tell.

always seen with a cigarette in hand. she seriously chain smokes. always says she needs to quit but never does and probably never will either.

is very soft underneath and a lot more sensitive than she lets on but she’d rather die than expose this about herself.

has a history of both kleptomania and pyromania when she was a teenager.

has a felony of petty theft when she was fifteen.

has a psychology degree from nyu but never tells people about this.

drives way too fast but loves the thrill of it.

is aromantic. believes she doesn’t have the capacity to love.

can speak quite a few different languages though she never usually makes use of this.

she can be pretty deadly if you piss her off enough.

thrives on chaos.

a tad theatrical.

is truly an independent woman who don’t need no man.

her drink of choice is vodka tonic.

WANTED PLOTS.

for wanted connections and potential plots, i’m open to anything and everything. seriously, throw any idea at me and if it has angst, i’m a million per cent there !! however, some connections i’d love to see delphine have are :

a confidant / friendship.

a best pal.

an unlikely supernatural creature who turns out to be her friend.

of course, fellow demons.

a potential love interest.

past or present flings / hookups / fwb / one night stands.

frenemies or plain ole enemies.

clashing personalities.

somebody she often spends time with, most likely drinking with.

#mystichq:intro #death /#imprisonment /#murder /#hi hey hello.#this is my first child.#pls come plot w me jfksfh.

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cindylouwho-2 · 5 years

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RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, June 2019

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across from May 31 to June 21, although some may be older than that.

(Unfortunately, a few of this edition’s entries were lost somehow, & I could only remember one of the missing, so if you know of an article/post that should be included, please let me know, & the piece will be added here as well as to the next post.)

My busy few months are now mostly over, so I will have more time to get working on this Tumblr, new blog posts & the new forum I want to start; expect more frequent updates starting in July.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

Shopify is going to run fulfillment centres for its US customers within the next 2 years. “Right now Shopify will offer early access for merchants who ship between 10 and 10,000 items per day, and by the end of the year the company aims to offer two-day shipping to 99 per cent of the United States.” They announced other plans at the same time, including better shop tools.

If you have your own website, conversion rate optimization is something you should be looking at. Why? Because “[a] simple tweak on a landing page can double or even 10x that page’s conversion rate” which can be much easier to do than doubling your traffic. [Note that this is not a short article; it’s a full guide.]

Matching searcher intent is a crucial part of great rankings. This long article tells you pretty much everything you need to know on making that happen with your content, with real examples for their site.

Mary Meeker released her annual internet trends report; shorter summary here. “If you're looking to connect with the next generation, you should be maintaining at least some awareness of gaming culture, which is where attention is increasingly shifting.” “Some 51 percent of the world — 3.8 billion people — were internet users last year, up from 49 percent (3.6 billion) in 2017...E-commerce is now 15 percent of retail sales. Its growth has slowed — up 12.4 percent in Q1 compared with a year earlier — but still towers over growth in regular retail, which was just 2 percent in Q1...Customer acquisition costs — the marketing spending necessary to attract each new customer — is going up.

ETSY NEWS

Etsy retired several of its Support/Help email addresses, including [email protected], all without any official announcement.

You can now link photos to variations - but only with one variation, not both.

Etsy’s annual report for 2018 is out; I didn’t see much new here, but if you catch something, please leave a comment or send me an email so I can add it to this summary. [They actually mentioned “abilities” in their list of things they accept diverse ranges of, but as usual, they only give any details about gender, race/ethnicity and sexual orientation. Disability is invisible for them.]

A new bunch of US states will have state taxes charged for online sales as of July 1.

Ryan Scott will be Etsy’s new Chief Marketing Officer as of June 24.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Google broke with tradition & decided to warn SEOs about the core search algorithm update that started rolling out on Monday June 3 and ended on the 8th. There are multiple reports of some UK news companies taking a hard hit while others picked up visibility. It’s still too early for much comprehensive analysis, but here is a summary and another more recent one.

At the same time, Google also rolled out an update that increases site diversity in search results, often limiting each website to 2 entries in Google’s top pages. Think of it as Google's approach to “clumping”. They insist it is separate from the core algorithm update. Early analysis finds that it didn't change much for most searches.

Websites sometimes rely too much on Google traffic, which is dangerous whenever they change something (i.e., daily). Here are 5 ways to make your site/pages more resistant to algorithm updates.

Most decent SEO tools cost some money to get the full value, but here is a list of 55 free tools including keyword research, stats, linking, and technical tools. (Some have paid versions as well, but just ignore what you don’t need.)

SEO sometimes requires stating the obvious; check out this tweet with a graphic from an SEO conference.

Rand Fishkin did a major review of clicks from Google search, & found that nearly 50% of US google searches result in a click (often questions such as weather, or spelling). Only 45% led to clicks on non-paid links, & non-Google companies. But “for every click on a paid result in Google, there are 11.6 clicks to organic results. SEO is far from dead.” Search Engine Land did a TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) summary here.

Fishkin also has some good insights on making a profit through SEO. [video and full transcript] I think the point about having a strong profit margin is really important - it is going to get more expensive to sell online as time goes on. Etsy is not the only provider trying to squeeze more pennies out of its customers. (Fishkin’s whole push lately is that you must be a known brand to survive; I am reserving judgement on that for the moment.)

Most blogs haven’t done their SEO correctly, but you can fix that. [video & full transcript]

Hate it when your site/business gets mentioned online, but they don’t link to you? There are ways to get other companies to link to you.

The latest Google mobile search redesign has folks pitching fits about how ads now look like organic search results. For your own website & other sites where it is possible, make sure you have a favicon that stands out from paid ads. [If you Google “CindyLouWho2″ on mobile, my blue fossil coral avi shows for my website & this Tumblr blog.]

Voice search isn’t taking off like people thought it would, although around 30% of Americans use virtual assistants regularly.

Is audio SEO going to be a thing? Dr. Pete looks at Google’s decision to post podcasts in search results.

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

Facebook announced its move into cryptocurrency with Libra, which will launch in 2020.

Contrary to some reports, it seems that fewer people are using Facebook regularly. While time spent on FB drops, Instagram in particular is seeing more interaction.

Getting the right image sizes and dimensions is really important for each platform; here is an infographic on all image sizes for Facebook.

“[T]he right time for you to post on Facebook will be different than the right time for someone else to post on Facebook.” A summary of multiple studies on the topic, with tips on using your Facebook Analytics to narrow this down for your business.

After banning mass messaging earlier this year, WhatsApp is prohibiting sending newsletters through the app as of December.

A decent guide on using Twitter for your business. “...tweets with images get 150% more retweets”.

Thinking of running a Twitter chat? Here’s a complete guide, including Hootsuite templates.

You can get new content ideas from Reddit. “Reddit.com saw 542 million visitors in March 2019 alone.”

Pinterest is expanding its shopping program, now called Pinterest Partners, to provide more shopping opportunities on the site.

A study of the 500 top-followed Pinterest accounts shows that home decor is most popular among influencer topics. [infographic with text.]

Short video platform TikTok is still showing rapid growth. “Digital wellbeing is more important than it has ever been. Since tech companies started optimising for user engagement, the user is unable to escape the app. You will always feel dissatisfied when you close the app, because the notifications keep on coming and the content never seems to end. To us it seems, TikTok has taken this idea to another level and built the user experience to deliberately create addiction.“

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Using Google Ads for your website? Make sure you avoid these 7 common mistakes.

Google now allows you to target people who are “regularly in your target locations” - but it doesn’t really define how they calculate that.

Instagram Shopping is most popular with younger people (at least in the UK).

Good tips on improving your Amazon ad effectiveness, especially cost-effectiveness.

Some tips on Microsoft Audience ads, and how to get the most out of them. It includes some good general tips, like looking at your profit margin.

Facebook produced an infographic on how to best create FB ads, especially, for mobile.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Google has purchased analytics company Looker; Etsy uses the platform already.

The Google Search Console is now giving users 90 days of data for some reports.

Here’s a new WordPress plugin that tracks clicks on pdfs on your site through Google Analytics.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Paypal has developed “a customizable e-commerce platform”.

Amazon has extended 1-day Prime delivery. Their ability to do that largely depends on how they are taking control of the shipping methods used, moving away from using other big companies.

Amazon closed Spark, its social media competitor, and it redirects to a page of customer-curated collections.

Some Goodwill stores are now selling thrift items on online platform OfferUp.

Opinion article: is feature-driven retail preventing people from buying?

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

Human brains like stories, which is why you should use them in your marketing. “Stories do another thing: They trigger the release of this neurochemical called oxytocin, which is known in some circles as the love drug. About 10 years ago, all we really knew about oxytocin is that it’s released when, say, a mother is with her baby. But what we’ve discovered since then, through the work of neuroscientists like Dr. Paul Zak, is that stories trigger the release of oxytocin in much the same way.”

Sell luxury goods? The market is changing as younger people make up a larger chunk of the core. Millennials will make up 50% of the market by 2025. The article has some interesting stats on the luxury resale market: “Overall 45% of true-luxury consumers participated in the second-hand luxury market, and more than one-fourth (26%) have bought pre-owned goods” which is a trend some luxury vintage sellers might want to watch.

Generation Z prefers personalized content & isn’t as worried about privacy as older generations.

US adults now spend more time on mobile devices than they do watching tv. Much of that time is spent on mobile apps instead of browsers, & audio (podcasts & music streaming, mostly) accounts for a large chunk of time spent.

US retail sales grew by half a percent in May, less than predicted.

MISCELLANEOUS

As the US looks at starting an antitrust case against Google, articles are reminding the government what other countries found, and what they should be looking at now. Businesses big & small have filed complaints.

The Google Cloud outage on June 2 that took down YouTube, Snapchat and Shopify among other sites points to the need for everyone to have a backup system. [Remember, Etsy is also moving all functions to Google’s cloud.]

Sick of writing product descriptions? Imagine if it was your full-time job, and you didn’t have any hand in making or curating the products.

#seo #search engine optimization #search engine marketing #etsynews #analytics #stats #Social media #contentmarketing #ecommerce #smallbiz #cindylouwho2newsupdates

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a-magpie-witchling · 7 years

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WOOT BROKE W(b)ITCH HAUL

HEY YOU

YES YOU

ARE YOU BROKE BUT STILL WANNA PULL THE THREADS OF THE ETHER AND DEFY THE ESTABLISHED LAWS OF MAN INVOKING THE ANCIENT MAGICK?

GOOD.

You and I are gonna go S H O P P I N G

But, Semiramis! I just told you I’m broke! I can’t get nice things!

*smack*

WRONG.

The world is full of wonders, one of them being

DOLLAR STORES

Remember sweeties, a witch’s best friend is scavenging.

Open your eyes. Look around. Scout your neighborhood.

But what about the things that I can’t get out on the streets!?

That’s what we’re shopping for!

Now before we move on, close your eyes… then open them again because you need to read the rest of the message… and repeat the following mantra:

THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING. THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING. THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING BUT MYSELF.

No fancy ingredients, no pretty crystals, no expensive incenses will work better than your RAW HEART AND SOUL.

Mkay?

Now let’s go get some of that good shit.

How good?

Diz gud.

Now, it’s no mystery that a broke ass witch needs to pay a visit to the local dollar stores to get her materials every once in a while, but if you’re like me and live in a place where there are no dollar stores (and there are no dollars either) WHERE TO GO?

The answer is here:

CHINESE IMPORT STORES ARE YOUR NEW SANCTUARY.

These places are AWESOME for a witch on a budget, because they carry EVERYTHING. From toys to art supplies to kitchenware…

AND SPIRITUALITY SUPPLIES.

(That’s where we come in)

Speaking of budget, by the way. Let’s set one.

Say… $15?

FIFTEEN AMERICAN DOLLARS. I will take you home with some nice and rare goodies that will spice up your spells.

Let’s go in.

Oooh what a promising start. This here, my friends, are 25 grams of the purest coke Palo Santo wood. Don’t like it in its natural state?

They have it in incense too!

But we ain’t getting that shit. I’m allergic so I can’t burn anything scented or else I… die.

But know they’re there, as well as essential oils, and they’re quite accessi-

WHAT!?

28 BUCKS FOR A BOTTLE OF ESSENTIAL OIL!?

AIN’T NOBODY GOT CASH FO DAT

Nah I’m just kidding. This is the price in pesos, meaning that these oils are *math happens* $1.55 each!

What a D E A L

BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT WE’RE HERE FOR BECAUSE I’M SOON TEACHING YOU HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN OILS.

Also, holy shit…

You HAVE to see the candles aisle in this place.

They have them twirly

Large

Larger

The photo is not blury, you’re drunk

Scented

Scentless

Birthdayful

Oh hellooo thereee~

Twelve candles for $1.94 you say?

Meaning SIXTEEN CENTS A CANDLE?

Adopted.

Don’t let anyone tell you cheap candles don’t get the job done, people!

Plus they burn just as good.

NOW at this point the store was 10 minutes away from closing time, so I had to stop taking pictures to get my ass outta there, BUT

Here’s a look at what we got:

That doesn’t look too good, let’s add a F I L T E R

Those little crochet doilies that will serve as my new altar tablecloths? They were $0.55

But Amis! Those don’t look too witchy, more like what my grandma puts under her vases!

First of all, how dare you.

Second of all, how dare you.

Granmotherly stuff is witchy by D E F I N I T I O N. Embrace the grandma aesthetic, y’all!

Also:

If you’re poor you have to be CRAFTY. Look at that! It has a pentacle now. How long did it take? Literally 30 seconds! Imagine what we could do with a whole afternoon!

Ok, I admit it, that was a fiasco, BUT WE’RE ONTO SOMETHING THERE.

Let’s take a closer look at what else we brought, shall we?

This tiny chest is 7.5 cm wide x 5.5 cm tall x 5.5 cm deep (3 in x 2.1 in x 2.1 in) and will hold my pocket altar. It was *drum roll* $1.70!

I was getting tired of using my mom’s big ass scissors to cut my tiny delicate herbs, so I got myself this pair of snips! Price: $0.55 and they’re sharper than Tom Hiddleston’s style. Plus they serve a multitude of purposes, like shanking a bitch.

A quick stop by the crystal shop that was also closing (pfft crystal shop. Sounds like out of a fantasy novel, love it) yields the following goodies:

-Onyx ($0.55)

-Fluorite ($0.27)

-Snowflake obsidian (hard to get where I live. It’s kinda pricey at $2.20. I recommend other kinds of obsidian or maybe just black glass as I’ve been using until today, it still works awesomely. I got the obsidian because I wanted to experiment with it and my Mentor recommended me to get it, same as the fluorite).

-And the CUTEST little quartz formation. This one kinda defeats the purpose because it was a bit pricey. You don’t need it; any clear quartz will work the same. It was $4.50 and it was my guilty pleasure of the month. It also came with a free satchel that’s most certainly going to be used with magickal results in the foreseeable future.

More of it because it’s so gorgeous ♥

Back to the fluorite! That shit is large and cheap! Well, you see, it’s kinda ugly because I was part of a larger stone and broke down the middle when they were trying to perforate it to make it into a pendant.

But check this hot babe out

W O R K I T

Coming back from the imports store, I paid a visit to my pot dealer erh I mean my herbs supplier. Got myself some ginger for $0.27

AND THEN

I SAW IT

Maybe they don’t package it like this in your country, but here this little shitty capsule is worth its weight in GOLD.

Y’all know what this is?

This is SAFFRON.

Now normally I steer fucking clear of things this expensive, but when I asked my dealer I mean the vendor she said it was on sale.

This stuff LITERALLY sold by FRACTIONS OF GRAMS. In this case that’s 0.2 grams of saffron, that’s 0.007 ounces. YES. ZERO POINT ZERO ZERO SEVEN. Insert here Bond reference

Retail price? Normally around $8 per capsule (EIGHT AMERICAN DOLLARS!)

How much on sale?

TWO DOLLARS.

A tip for the broke witch: hunt down for sales. Even if you don’t use the ingredients in your spells, you can still trade them with other witches or with anyone, really.

After this I went home and decided to try out my new candles.

And as I said, if you’re poor, you gotta get crafty!

I cut one of the candles in half. A part went to my pocket altar, and the other half…

I used one of those ceramic saucers with the little erh… lower level circle in the middle?

USE CERAMIC. THIS IS IMPORTANT. IT RESISTS TEMPERATURE WELL AND YOU’RE GONNA NEED IT.

Melt the wax in the microwave or on the flame and then make sure it stays in the center of the saucer. Then take it out and wait until it cools down (or put it in the freezer if you are an impatient little shit). DO NOT LET IT SOLIDIFY COMPLETELY.

Then you take it out and use a round cookie cutter (or if you’re a cheap ass like me, find something else)

I just used the styling nozzle of my hair drying because F U K D A P O L I C E

Put it again in the freezer and once it’s completely solidified use a spatula because you, my dear witch

Just made yourself a moon wax amulet!

Engrave it with your sigils, place it on your altar, carefully soften the bottom with heat and use it as a seal, the possibilities are endless!

BUT WAIT, WHAT ABOUT THE REMNANTS!?

EVIL EYE WARD!

The rest? Melt it again or use it as a poppet in case you wanna cast a spell over an onion ring…

By the end of the day, our haul is:

-Altar cloth $0.55

-Herbs snips $0.55

-Mini-altar wooden box $1.70

-Dozen of blue candles $1.94

-Ginger root $0.27

-Satchel $0

-Snowflake obsidian $2.20

-Fluorite$ 0.27

-Onix $0.55

-Quartz crystal formation $4.50

-Saffron Capsule $2

A grand total of $14.53!

Of our budget of $15 we still have $0.47 that where I live is enough for the bus ride back home!

If we take away the unnecessarily pricey stuff (the quartz and the saffron) we got everything for $8.03!

Now if THAT’S not magick, I don’t know what is!

SOME FINAL TIPS!

1) REUSE as many things as you can.

2) MOVE THOSE FEET. I know it doesn’t sound appealing, but CHECK SEVERAL PLACES. Find the best prices by checking different stores and comparing.

3) BE CREATIVE. If you find yourself in need of something you can’t afford, think and find a way to replace it or get it through other routes. As I said, witch trading is a thing!

4) BARGAIN. There’s no shame in it, people! If you’re dealing with independent merchants and buy regularly/are buying a lot, try to get better prices! Don’t disrespect their business, though!

5) REMEMBER YOUR MANTRA. Witchcraft requires NOTHING. Except you.

Now go out there and work your Magick!

-Semiramis, the Magpie Witchling

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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The 11%-Yielding Industry Nobody Pays Attention To

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/the-11-yielding-industry-nobody-pays-attention-to/

The 11%-Yielding Industry Nobody Pays Attention To

When April 1 rolled around, many mortgage payments were made late. That was no joke—we were in the midst of our first (and most serious) round of lockdowns.

Who knew what bills were going to get paid, if any?

Mortgage REIT (mREIT) stocks, which require mortgages to actually be paid, suffered broadly and badly. Some shares, such as industry bellwether Annaly (NLY), dropped as much as 60% in just more than a month. This plunge crushed many income investors, who rely on the fat dividends paid by the sector (11.2%, on average!) to fund their retirements.

Now, mREITs don’t actually own or operate any real estate (unlike their REIT cousins). The similarity is in the tax status—neither pays taxes on their profits provided they dish most of their income as dividends to their investors, Hence, the fat yields for REITs and downright gluttonous payouts for mREITs.

These “paper REITs” can deliver high-single digit and even double-digit dividend yields without breaking a sweat, making mREITs—like the three I’m about to break down for you today—worth a regular look for any serious income investor.

I have mREITs on the brain after my recent post covering stocks that can beat the market almost entirely in dividends. The mREIT I discussed there—the nation’s largest, with an uncommonly flexible business model—left me jazzed about the space, so I decided to put on my research hat to see if I could unearth any other high-income gems.

Good news there: There is indeed some potential (and dividends) we can squeeze out of this space.

And thanks to COVID pressures, mREITs are trading at much better valuations than they have in years. Credit Suisse CS researchers say commercial REITs are trading at an average yield of 10.5% versus a historical average of 9%. That might not sound like much, but an additional 1.5 percentage points in yield is an extra $7,500 in annual dividend income on a modest $500,000 retirement nest egg!

But let’s tread carefully here. The mREIT industry is notoriously difficult for stock pickers, and the absolute highest yielders frequently turn into dividend traps. So let’s explore the following three mREITs with not just an eye toward income, but an eye toward quality so we know these payouts will last.

I think they are all in the same boat—interesting stocks to trade if you can time them right (a big if), but not buy and holds for any length of time.

Great Ajax (AJX)

Dividend Yield: 6.9%

Great Ajax (AJX) is a wide-ranging mREIT that acquires, invests and manages mortgage loans secured by single-family residences and properties, as well as loans secured by multi-family residential and commercial mixed-use properties. On top of all that, it owns some single-family homes and smaller commercial properties.

Diversification is great, though it hardly stopped AJX from hitting the wall during the February-March downturn.

Net income plunged from 31 cents per share to just 2 cents, primarily because of loan-loss provisions based on expectations of fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak. The mREIT was forced to hack away at its payout, too, dropping its May dividend 47% to 17 cents per share, where it has remained since then.

But operations are recovering. The company’s most recent EPS of 23 cents per share were a little better than Wall Street was hoping for. Management said there’s plenty of room for interest expenses to come down, which would further bolster its profits going forward. AJX also has plenty of excess capital it could put to work on cheap assets.

And Ajax is going to need to do exactly that; its still-depressed earnings don’t warrant much more stock movement from here. Investors also need to hope for serious dividend restoration going forward, because otherwise, they’re collecting extremely below-average dividends in an industry that hasn’t produced much growth in years.

Broadmark Realty Capital (BRMK)

Dividend Yield: 7.1%

Broadmark Realty Capital (BRMK) is technically a mortgage REIT, but the classification feels lacking given what the company actually does.

Broadmark, which only started trading in its current form in 2019 after the Broadmark real estate lending companies merged with Trinity Merger Corp., is a “hard money” lender. It provides construction loans, heavy rehab/redevelopment loans, land development loans and more on everything from residential to commercial to industrial buildings, to builders—typically those that need a quick turnaround, allowing it to set fairly high rates.

Thing is, housing has been one of the strongest aspects of the American economy throughout the COVID mess.

It’s funny: Broadmark was one of the rare cases where management sounded something of a “false” COVID alarm. It warned in the first quarter that “Certainly, there will be disruptions resulting from COVID-19, including slowing construction activity.” Fast-forward to Q2, and BRMK is telling investors that “COVID-19 has stimulated demand for housing stock at historic levels which is driving residential construction and, in turn, loan growth.”

The business didn’t go completely untouched. Core earnings declined from 21 cents per share in Q1 to 18 cents in Q2, and that remained level in Q3. It even had to reduce its monthly dividend by 25% to 6 cents per share starting in April. But existing inventory is tight, homebuilders are supremely confident, and there’s still no shortage of homebuyers—all bullish for BRMK.

The only problem here is there’s not much dip to buy. Broadmark’s a resilient and differentiated mREIT with a nice 7% yield, but it has also flatlined while the rest of the mREIT industry has begun to catch up. There just might not be much additional upside opportunity from here, though BRMK will at least be relatively secure as long as the housing market remains aloft.

Anworth Mortgage Asset (ANH)

Dividend Yield: 9.3%

Anworth Mortgage Asset (ANH) is a more focused REIT that primarily invests in agency mortgage-backed securities (MBSs), though it will hold some non-agency MBSs as well as other residential mortgage loans. And the mREIT spells out the seemingly simple investment case for those who don’t get it:

“Income generated for distribution to our shareholders is based primarily on the difference between the yield on our mortgage assets and the cost of our borrowings.”

That case took a hard shot to the jaw earlier this year. In Q1, its total assets plunged sequentially, from about $5.2 billion to $3.7 billion. The hit to core earnings didn’t show up until the second quarter, but it was a nasty spill, from 9 cents per share to just 2 cents. Operations recovered in Q3, but modestly, with core EPS rising to 4 cents.

But it’s not coronavirus’ woes that have me worried about ANH—it’s the difficulty of the business long before COVID. As you can see, over the past decade, dividend decreases were far more the norm than increases, including a number of drops across 2018 and 2019.

What’s worse: mREITs in general have a similar problem.

Brett Owens is chief investment strategist for Contrarian Outlook. For more great income ideas, get your free copy his latest special report: Your Early Retirement Portfolio: 7% Dividends Every Month Forever.

Disclosure: none

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dipulb3 · 4 years

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The $185 million campaign to keep Uber and Lyft drivers as contractors in California

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/the-185-million-campaign-to-keep-uber-and-lyft-drivers-as-contractors-in-california/

The $185 million campaign to keep Uber and Lyft drivers as contractors in California

The companies have built up massive fleets of workers over the years by treating them as independent contractors, who are paid on a gig-by-gig basis. But a new law which went into effect this year in California, threw a wrench into the model.

Richert, who is based in Southern California, said that, while he hasn’t driven since the onset of the pandemic for fear of contracting the coronavirus, he frequently checks the apps when there’s messaging about the importance of passing Proposition 22, or Prop 22 as it’s commonly called. When he flips on the television, he sees ads sponsored by the campaign touting the flexibility of the job, a perk which is popular with workers and the companies claim is contingent on maintaining their independent contractor status.

“This is an all-out battle royale to make sure they are ultimately victorious,” Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Appradab Business. “If it falls by the wayside, there are going to be serious business model changes to the gig economy.”

If the ballot measure fails to pass, the market for ride hail and delivery drivers could drastically change, according to Yes campaign spokesperson Geoff Vetter to Appradab Business by email. It could mean their services would become more expensive for consumers and that the companies would employ just a fraction of the drivers who are on the road today, Vetter said. Those workers would have stricter schedules and wouldn’t be able to just turn on their apps and work whenever they want, according to the Yes campaign.

By comparison, the opposition, backed by labor and union groups, has put over $12 million into fighting the initiative, according to California Secretary of State records. They argue that Prop 22 is an “attempt to strip away drivers’ rights to wages and benefits like unemployment insurance,” said Mike Roth, spokesperson for the No on Prop 22 campaign.

“Do you believe for one second that these companies are spending $180 million on a ballot measure that’s going to benefit drivers more than it benefits Uber-Lyft-DoorDash’s bottom line?” he said.

Veena Dubal, a labor law professor at University of California, Hastings, and a vocal advocate for labor rights, told Appradab Business that the implications for labor could be much broader than the drivers covered by Prop 22. “There is a strong likelihood that if [Prop 22] passes, it would create lower labor standards across the board for the delivery and logistics industry.”

What will Prop 22 do

Prop 22 seeks to side-step Assembly Bill 5, or AB-5, which went into effect on January 1 and codifies an “ABC” test to determine if workers are employees who are entitled to labor protections and benefits. Under the test, employers must meet three requirements to prove their workers are independent contractors, including that the workers are providing a service that is outside the company’s core business.

The law has proven to be a thorn in the side of gig companies.

In May, the California Attorney General and a coalition of city attorneys sued the best-known companies — Uber and Lyft — accusing them of misclassifying drivers as independent contractors and depriving them of protections they would be entitled to as employees.

An Uber spokesperson said in a statement at the time that it plans to “contest this action in court, while at the same time pushing to raise the standard of independent work for drivers in California, including with guaranteed minimum earnings and new benefits.”

A Lyft spokesperson said it is “looking forward to working with the Attorney General and mayors across the state to bring all the benefits of California’s innovation economy to as many workers as possible.”

Other legal battles in California challenge the classification of workers of the on-demand food and grocery delivery companies.

Prop 22 presents alternatives to the protections under AB-5, such as a minimum earnings guarantee of “120 percent of minimum wage,” or $15.60 based on the California minimum wage of $13 for companies of 26 employees or more. But an analysis from UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates that the pay guarantee for Uber and Lyft drivers would actually be equivalent to a wage of $5.64 per hour, because of “multiple loopholes” in the proposition. These loopholes include that Prop 22 only counts “engaged time” as time when a driver is fulfilling a ride or delivery request, but not the time they spend waiting for a gig.

A working paper released this week from UC Berkeley economist Michael Reich, who co-authored the earlier analysis, found that making drivers employees would boost overall compensation by 30%. Under Prop 22, workers would receive $0.30 reimbursement per engaged mile. The UC Berkeley Labor Center also points out that’s lower than the IRS’ estimated 58 cents per mile cost of owning and operating a vehicle.

It also includes a health care contribution from the company for certain qualifying workers, also based on “engaged time.” In lieu of worker’s compensation, it offers capped benefits for medical and disability in cases of on-the-job injuries.

Critics of Prop 22 argue it undermines the spirit of AB-5, which is intended to ensure workers aren’t exploited by gig companies. Notably, for its concessions, Prop 22 does not offer explicit protections such as workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, family leave, or sick leave, or allow workers to unionize.

The importance of these protections has been underscored by the pandemic. As ride-hail requests plummeted with people increasingly staying home, some drivers watched their income dry up. Other parts of the on-demand economy, such as meal and food delivery, have surged, serving as job opportunities for Americans out of work. These workers have had to weigh their own health against their financial needs.

“Here we are in a pandemic and the drivers — who have by definition exposure to the public — are being denied sick pay,” said William Gould IV, a law professor at Stanford University and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. “To me, it is scandalous.”

The gig economy companies set up various financial assistance programs during the pandemic, largely providing some limited funds to who had contracted the coronavirus or were quarantined by a doctor. But these programs aren’t the same as established benefits.

What about flexibility?

Yes on 22 has positioned worker flexibility at the center of its television and social media campaigns, and indeed, for many workers the ability to work whenever they want by just opening an app is very appealing.

But contrary to the Yes campaign’s positioning, there’s nothing in California law that prevents companies from providing such flexibility to workers, regardless of employment status, as some labor experts have pointed out. Terri Gerstein of the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and Economic Policy Institute called it a “faux concern.”

In fact, it’s spelled out in AB-5 that “nothing in this act is intended to diminish the flexibility of employees to work part-time or intermittent schedules or to work for multiple employers.”

What is true is that, if companies are required to classify workers as employees, companies might rein in the flexibility in order to efficiently operate their businesses. As Uber economist Alison Stein put it: “Businesses simply won’t survive if they have zero control over what their hourly employees, whether full- or part-time, actually do.”

“Uber’s incentive as an employer, then, would be to limit the number of employed drivers, hiring fewer drivers to each do more trips, and requiring them to work a certain number of hours (but likely preventing them from working overtime),” Stein wrote.

According to Uber’s analysis, if Prop 22 fails, prices of rides could be driven up as much as 25% to 111% to cover costs associated with making its workers employees. Moreover, Uber estimates that 158,000 of its drivers — or 76% — in the state would be out of work. Making drivers employees across the country would result in nearly 1 million jobs lost, Uber argues in a second analysis.

In a statement, Lyft spokesperson Julie Wood said the company is “fighting to provide drivers independence plus benefits with Prop. 22 in California.”

Instacart and DoorDash referred requests for comment to the Yes on 22 campaign. Uber and Postmates declined to comment for this story.

Expect a fight: ‘It’s a nailbiter’

So far, the impact of the aggressive campaign on both sides remains unclear.

“It’s a nail biter; and that’s why they’re aggressively going after this from a resource perspective,” Wedbush’s Ives said of the Yes campaign.

Roth said that while the No on 22 campaign “always knew it would be outspent,” it has resources to communicate with voters ahead of November 3. Last week, it unveiled its response to the Yes campaign’s commercials: its own statewide television ad.

In a press release, the No campaign said the spot “drives home for voters how the deceptive Prop 22 was written by Uber, Lyft and DoorDash to deny their drivers benefits.”

Tim Rosales, a California-based political strategist, said that “money does not always equal success” when it comes to ballot initiatives.

“David can absolutely beat Goliath,” he said, adding that “passing an initiative is always much more difficult than opposing an initiative.”

According to Rosales, a ‘Yes’ vote typically requires a full buy-in on the issue being raised, whereas highlighting one red flag in a proposition can get someone to oppose an initiative. “A ‘No’ side can do a lot with much less money in order to defeat an initiative.”

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compare-wp10 · 4 years

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How many people have REALLY died of Covid-19? | Brinkwire

See on Scoop.it - COMPARE RISK COMMUNICATION

At least 130,000 more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic globally than is being officially reported, an investigation has found. A review of ‘excess death’ figures in 27 countries suggested the true toll is closer to 600,000 — significantly higher than the 450,000 fatalities declared by governments around the world. Some of these deaths — the total number of fatalities above the five-year average — will be down to undiagnosed Covid-19, experts say. Others will be the indirect result of the pandemic, including people whose medical treatment was delayed, or who couldn’t get to hospital when they were seriously ill. Excess deaths are considered to be an accurate measure of the number of people killed by the outbreak because they include a broader spectrum of victims. The BBC investigation looked at preliminary mortality data in the 27 countries where figures were available. But the reliability of the data depends on how much testing nations are doing and whether they include Covid-19 deaths outside of hospitals, and in care homes. The worst-hit European countries have contributed hugely to the excess death toll around the world. There were 58,693 excess deaths in England and Wales between March 21 and June 5, while figures from the National Records of Scotland add an additional 4,769 excess deaths in Scotland between March 23 and June 7. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency put the figure for Northern Ireland at 940 excess deaths between March 21 and June 5. Together, this means the total number of excess deaths in the UK across this period now stands at 64,402 – 43 per cent higher than the five-year average in the UK. A total of 51,804 have been attributed to Covid-19 and 12,729 were from other causes. There has been a similar trend in Italy and Spain, which were formerly at the heart of Europe’s epidemic. Italy suffered about 42,900 (40 per cent) more deaths than average between February 24 and April 26. Of these, 26,644 were officially declared by the Government as being Covid-related and 16,278 are not accounted for. In Spain, there were also roughly 42,900 more fatalities than usual (50 per cent). Just 27,709 of these were officially attributed to Covid, leaving 15,158 in excess. By comparison, Germany – which got a grip on widespread testing early in the crisis – has only suffered 4 per cent more deaths than normal, or around 7,100. The review found Ecuador had the highest excess death tally as a percentage, the majority of which were unaccounted for. Deaths in the South American country are 108 per cent higher than normal, with about 19,500 more people dying than usual between March 1 and May 31. But the number of excess deaths for these three months is five times higher than the Government’s official Covid-19 total, largely caused by a lack of testing. Just 3,358 of the excess deaths were diagnosed with the virus. In the US, there had been almost 100,000 more deaths than normal from February 16 to May 2 – the most in any nation in the world. But this is only 16 per cent higher than the yearly average. This is largely due to the fact some states were hit hard with outbreaks, while many got through the crisis relatively unscathed. The state of New York accounts for more than 30,000 of the excess deaths alone, followed by 12,900 in New Jersey. By comparison, South Dakota, West Virginia and Idaho have declared fewer than 100 Covid deaths each. Reacting to the findings, Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline that the high number of excess deaths signalled it was time to get healthcare ‘up and running as soon as possible, providing it can be offered safely without putting patients’ lives at risk.’ He added: ‘I have seen it stated that up to 20 per cent of Covid-19 infections were acquired in hospital. I do not know the validity of this exact number but certainly there are many people who would be alive today if they had not needed to go to hospital and then caught Covid-19. After all mostly it is only potentially vulnerable people, older people and those with pre-existing disease, that need to go to hospital.’ Professor Hunter said calculating excess deaths was the most reliable way to compare countries’ death rates during the pandemic. But it is not without its flaws, he said. ‘In theory excess deaths should give a better understanding of the total mortality associated with the epidemic. But there are a number of issues,’ he said. ‘It is not always easy to know what those excess deaths are from. Covid-19 deaths are not always adequately diagnosed as such so many of these excess deaths will be from the infection whether or not listed on the death certificates. ‘There will be a proportion of those deaths that may be due to other diseases that could have been prevented it health care services were still easily accessible. But is not that easy to put a number on this proportion. ‘If you look at the UK most of the excess deaths that were not diagnosed as COVID19 were early in the epidemic. ‘In the past three weeks there have been more COVID19 than excess deaths which suggests to me that most of the non COVID-19 deaths were actually COVID-19 but at a time when we did not have as effective diagnostic tests readily available.’ The number of excess deaths will likely continue to rise in the coming weeks and months as healthcare systems operate at limited capacity. New infection control measures and social distancing will make it difficult for hospitals to go back to normal until a vaccine is developed. It comes after London became the first region in England to see deaths fall below average this week for the first time since March, as the outbreak continues to fade. A weekly report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that the number of people who died of any cause in London was three per cent lower than average between May 30 and June 5. This includes people who died with the coronavirus as well as anyone else who died from other causes in that time. London’s five-year average number of deaths for that week was 917 but dropped 2.8 per cent to 891 in 2020. Coronavirus was the cause of 113 of those deaths (12.6 per cent), the data showed, giving London one of the lowest Covid-19 death tolls in that week, higher only than the South West (85) and Wales (100) and on par with the North East (113). Meanwhile, deaths remain proportionally higher than average in every other region of England, and Wales, with Wales still seeing 15 per cent more deaths than usual. Other promising data shows the virus’s death toll in England and Wales hit a 10-week low in the seven-day spell ending June 5, marking another significant fall. The falling numbers of deaths and plateau in new cases means that the UK can continue to push out of lockdown, with ‘non-essential’ high street shops reopening to the public for the first time yesterday. The week from May 30 to June 5 marked another significant fall in the number of people dying with the coronavirus in England and Wales as the weekly total hit a 10-week low and the lowest since the end of March. Some 1,588 people died with the virus in that week, down 13 per cent from the 1,822 who died in the week before. England and Wales will not have returned to pre-lockdown levels of mortality until fewer than 539 people die in a week – that was the number recorded in the week ending March 27, when schools and workplaces closed. As the weekly death toll continues to tumble – and some experts are hopeful it could hit zero by the beginning of July – Britain’s total number of victims is still rising. It is third worst in the world behind only the US and Brazil.

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englishchinesetranslations · 4 years

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by Andrew Hamilton

FRANKLIN’S racialism was evident in the demographic pamphlet “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, Etc.” (1751)(see “Benjamin Franklin on Demography & Whiteness”) cited by Thomas Malthus on the first page of the second edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population(1802).

Scattered comments pertaining to race and Jews can be found throughout Franklin’s writings.

In Benjamin Franklin’s day, Jews did not demographically comprise a large enough percentage of the population to exercise the social control they previously had over Spain and Portugal, or were later to wield over Russia, the United States, and the rest of the “West.”

In 1767 Franklin told pioneer German statistician Gottfried Achenwall that there were Jews in Pennsylvania and New York. In Pennsylvania there were some Jewish schools, but New York had a synagogue.

The Jewish population must have increased over the years. Near the end of Franklin’s life, in 1788, the Jews begged for money from well-to-do Christians to help construct their Philadelphia synagogue, Congregation Mikveh Israel. They wrote in their appeal:

They [the Jews] are therefore under the necessity of earnestly soliciting from their worthy fellow citizens of every religious denomination, their worshipping Almighty God in a way & manner different from other religious societies, [will] never deter the enlightened citizens of Philadelphia, from generously subscribing towards the preservation of a [Jewish] religious house of worship.

Franklin donated £5 toward the £800 needed, or 0.6% of the total — a not insignificant sum in my view.

American Jews consisted primarily of Iberian-descended Sephardim rather than German/East European Ashkenazim — two genetically distinct populations.

In light of what has transpired since, it is educational to examine the reactions of whites to the Jewish presence in their societies.

Plenty were out-and-out philo-Semites of the kind ubiquitous today. One such was the Puritan divine Ezra Stiles, a Congregationalist minister and president of Yale University.

Sephardic Jews were readily accepted by both custom and marriage into the top ranks of colonial and early American society, consequently genetically entwining themselves with the native ruling class as they always have — in ancient Rome and Persia, in 20th century Communist dictatorships, and in 19th to 21st century “democratic” Europe and the US.

Early American Jews were wealthy, privileged, and enjoyed high social status. They dominated the lucrative trade in African slaves; the wealthy Aaron Lopez of Newport, Rhode Island was the premiere trafficker in human flesh in the colonies.

Here are some of Benjamin Franklin’s comments about Jews.

In a 1766 letter there is a cryptic reference to a debt: “As the other bankers beside the Jew, have satisfied you that it was fully paid, I am sure I ought to be satisfied, though I do not understand it.”

Writing from London in 1767 to his son William Franklin:

We have had an ugly affair at the Royal Society lately. One Dacosta, a Jew, who, as our clerk, was entrusted with collecting our monies, has been so unfaithful as to embezzle near £1300 in four years. Being one of the council this year as well as the last, I have been employed all the last week in attending the enquiry into and unraveling his accounts, in order to come at a full knowledge of his frauds.

Three months later he wrote to a French correspondent, “a wicked Jew, entrusted as our clerk and collector, has unobserved run away with our money upon earth, to the amount of near 1500 pounds, which makes it necessary for us in this affair to apply for Royal assistance.”

In late 1781 badly needed war goods purchased in the Netherlands from the Jewish banking firm Jean de Neufville & Fils of Amsterdam were being withheld, causing Franklin, then the American diplomat to France, to write angrily to John Adams in Holland:

I think they have no right to stop the goods; and I think also that the keeping us out of possession of £50,000 sterling’s worth of goods for securing the payment of a petty demand for damages, appears to me not only ungenteel & dishonourable treatment, but a monstrous injustice. It seems to me that it is principally with Mr. Neufville we have to do; and though I believe him to be as much a Jew as any in Jerusalem, I did not expect that with so many & such constant professions of friendship for the United States, with which he lards all his letters, he would have attempted to enforce his demands (which I doubt not will be extravagant enough) by a proceeding so abominable. . . . But I would not be compelled to pay whatever he may please to demand, because he has our goods in possession. We have, you observe, our hands in the lion’s mouth; but if Mr. N. is a lion, I am a bear, and I think I can hug & grip him till he lets go our hands. He has bought goods for us, and till he delivers them he has no equitable right to be paid for them . . . let him keep his goods & seek his remedy where he can find it. . . . His proposition when I first saw him, of terms on which he would borrow money for us, stamped his character on my mind with an impression so deep that it is not yet effaced. (Letter to John Adams, November 26, 1781)

Franklin’s irritation becomes more understandable in a second letter to Adams a few weeks later — quoted here at length — when, in response to Adams’s inquiry, he spelled out Neufville’s terms for a proposed Revolutionary War loan. With unbelievable understatement the statesman calls it “an extravagant security for a trifling sum”:

The first proposition is, “That for the security of this loan of two million guilders, Holland currency, we engaged & hypothe-qued (his words) [French law, hypothèque; hypothecation, the pledging of something as security for a debt without delivery of title or possession] to said Mr John de Neufville and Son of Amsterdam, or their representatives, as we do engage and hy-potheque to them in the name of the whole Congress of the thirteen United States of North America, generally all the lands, cities, territories and possessions of the said thirteen States, so which they have and possess at present, as which they may have or possess in the future, with all their income, revenue & produce, until the entire payment of this loan & the interests due thereon. . . .”

The second proposition was (verbatim, as the first) “That out of the produces again through all those thirteen States of America shall be send over and shipped to Europe, and chiefly or as much as possible to the port of Amsterdam during the ten years of this loan the double of one tenth part of this loan, to the value of four hundred thousand guilders, which as far as is possible they’ll come to Amsterdam, shall be sold there by Mr. John de Neufville and Son, and what goes to other ports by their correspondents, and the money kept at their disposal for the use of Congress at least during the first five years; and during the last five years of this loan one-half of this money is to serve to decharge every year one tenth part of the money borrowed, engaging that before the end of the tenth year there will be remitted in such a manner, and left in hands of said Mr John de Neufville & Son of Amsterdam, a sufficient sum of money to decharge this whole loan with the interest due thereon.”

You will observe that this article is obscurely expressed; I was obliged to demand Eclaircissements [clarification] in conversation. The conversation was also difficult to understand; Mr de N’s English not being then of the clearest. But from the whole after much discourse, I gathered, that we were to send over every year for the first five years, in tobacco, rice, indigo, codfish, oil, &c &c. the value of 400,000 guilders, to be sold by Messrs J. de N. & Son, for our use, on a commission, of five per cent.; and that the money was to remain in their hands to enable them to pay off in the last 5 years the principal of the loan, though one-half of it was to remain in their hands till the end of the term. — A subsequent article (the 6th) also provides that 100,000 guilders more should be annually sent over in produce to them, & sold, &c. to discharge the interest. . . .

Besides this, I was led to understand, that it would be very agreeable to these gentlemen, if in acknowledgment of their zeal for our cause & great service in procuring this loan, they could be made by some law of Co[ngress] the general consignee of America, to receive and sell upon commission by themselves and correspondents in the different ports & nations, all the produce of America that should be sent by our merchants to Europe.

Franklin concluded the second letter with one of the bitterest statements I’ve ever seen by such an equable gentleman:

I was wrong in supposing J de Neufville as much a Jew as any in Jerusalem, since Jacob was not content with his per cents, but took the whole of his brother Esau’s birthright; & his posterity did the same by the Canaanites, & cut their throats into the bargain, which in my conscience I do not think Mr. J. de Neufville has the least inclination to do by us — while he can get anything by our being alive. (Letter to John Adams, December 14, 1781)

It is difficult to discover background information about this affair because virtually all major biographies of Franklin omit any mention of it.

The company in question was an Amsterdam merchant banking firm that unsuccessfully attempted to raise funds for John Adams and Franklin in the Netherlands.

A document on the Massachusetts Historical Society website suggests that John Adams, then ambassador to the Netherlands, was responsible for initiating contact with Neufville. His action came back to haunt him years later, and, in 1809, after his presidency and during his retirement, he felt compelled to publicly justify his negotiations with the banking house. (See footnote 4 of the MHS document.)

Mind-boggling as they are, Franklin’s Neufville letters are not mentioned by liberal biographers Carl Van Doren (Benjamin Franklin, 1938; Pulitzer Prize for Biography) or Yale University’s Edmund S. Morgan (Benjamin Franklin, 2002).

But both authors must have known about them.

Morgan’s book was based upon precisely the Benjamin Franklin Papers I’m quoting — and he says in his preface that he read them all.

Van Doren’s book, which is very thorough, is also based upon Franklin’s writings — Van Doren extensively quotes Franklin’s own words from scattered journals, letters, and miscellaneous writings with the stated aim of “completing” Franklin’s unfinished Autobiography. And the de Neufville letters had been published by Albert H. Smyth, editor of the multi-volume The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1905–1907).

Mention of Neufville is also missing from the major biographies by H. W. Brands (2000), Walter Isaacson (2003), and others.

The only secondary source referring to the affair that I have found is the much older Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by William Cabell Bruce:

Nor, when an extortioner attempted to perpetrate an outrage upon the United States, did [Franklin] fail to oppose him with a wit quite as keen and with a spirit far more resolute. Such a skinflint seems to have been De Neufville, of Amsterdam, who offered on one occasion to borrow money for the United States, provided that their representatives hypothecated to his firm, in the name of the whole Congress of the Thirteen United States, as security for the loan, all the lands, cities, territories and possessions of the said Thirteen States, present or prospective. After mercilessly analyzing in a letter to John Adams the unconscionable covenants by which this tremendous hypothecation was to be accompanied, Franklin ended with these observations [about Jacob and Esau, quoted above].

The immediate occasion for this letter was the refusal of De Neufville to allow the goods which had bred trouble between Franklin and William Jackson to be delivered to the agents of the United States until a claim for damages that he had preferred against the United States was satisfied. . . .

And [Franklin] was as good as his word, and let De Neufville know that, if he did not deliver the goods, the bills drawn by him on Franklin for the price, though accepted, would not be paid. A few days later, in another letter to Adams with respect to the same matter, Franklin said in regard to a proposal of settlement made by De Neufville, “I think that the less we have to do with that Shark the better; his jaws are too strong, his teeth too many and his appetite immensely voracious.” Before the episode was ended, De Neufville was only too glad to dispatch his son to Paris to beseech the bear to relax his hug. (Benjamin Franklin Self-Revealed: A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on His Own Writings, 2 vols. [New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917]).

When Franklin was dying, in December 1789, so emaciated from weight loss caused by opium treatment that, he said, “little remains of me but a skeleton covered with a skin,” he received a request for money from a Jewish woman. He explained in a letter to a friend that she was

the widow of a Jew who, happening to be one of a number of passengers, that were about 46? years ago in a stage-boat going to New York, and which, by the unskillful management of the boatman, overset the canoe from whence I was endeavouring to get on board her, near Staten Island, has ever since worried me with demands of a gratuity for having as he pretended been instrumental in saving my life; though that was in no danger, as we were near the shore, and you know what an expert swimmer I am, and he was no more of any service to me in stopping the boat to take me in, than every other passenger; to all of whom I gave a liberal entertainment at the tavern when we arrived at New York, to their general satisfaction at the time. But this Hayes never saw me afterwards, at New York, or Brunswick or Philadelphia that he did not dun me for money on the pretense of his being poor and having been so happy as to be instrumental in saving my life, which was really in no danger. In this way he got of me sometimes a double Joannes, sometimes a Spanish doubloon, and never less, how much in the whole I do not know having kept no account of it, but it must have been a very considerable sum; and as he neither incurred any risk, nor was at any trouble in my behalf, I have long since thought him well paid for any little expense of humanity he might have felt on the occasion. He seems, however, to have left me to his widow as part of her dowry.

It is fascinating to observe that the pushy, grasping, self-centered Hayes got what he wanted from the eternally busy and socially well-connected Dr. Franklin, despite the latter’s awareness, even resentment, over the slimy con man’s brazen impositions.

Why? Franklin was no doormat. Yet the Jew shamelessly pressed himself upon him and — voilà! — got what he wanted.

Conclusion

In Franklin’s allusions to Jews we see a definite differentiation, separation, setting apart — a perception of otherness.

Jewishness is also frequently associated with negative traits. The harsh-sounding term “Jew,” rather than “Hebrew,” “Israelite,” or some other euphemism of the time, sounds somewhat like an epithet.

This negative connotation is significant because, although philo-Semites must acknowledge — if only sneakily and dishonestly — that Jews are radically different from whites — including themselves — all criticism is forbidden.

We (rightly, in the eyes of philo-Semites) are second- or third-class citizens.

Jews, by contrast, are our moral, intellectual, and social superiors. Unlike us, they must not be evaluated objectively or by the same standards as other people. Nothing they say or do is ever wrong. It is acceptable to single them out positively as a group, but never negatively. Even the most godless philo-Semites are convinced that Jews incarnate some ineffable divine holiness, elevating the Chosen far above the ranks of ordinary mortals, whose rights and interests do not matter by comparison.

But Franklin, seemingly, did not think that way.

A Note on Sources

The definitive edition of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (Yale University Press, 1959–2011), 40 volumes long and counting, has now reached the year 1783 — when he was still a diplomat in France.

A digital version of the papers in CD ROM format, including many not yet published in book form, was created in 1988 by the Packard Humanities Institute headed by David W. Packard, son of Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard.

Yale Revolutionary War historian Edmund S. Morgan based his book Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) on reading “everything on the disk and the volumes [The Papers of Benjamin Franklin published to that time] but not much else.” (Morgan preface to Benjamin Franklin, p. ix.)

In 2006, Yale finally made the contents of the Packard CD available to a much wider audience via this website. (See Digital Ben Franklin: History of the Project.)

Edmund S. Morgan wrote a special Introduction to Ben Franklin for the website (left-hand frame).

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waynekelton · 5 years

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A Frugal Gamer's Guide to Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius

E3 2019 may be quickly retreating into the distant past, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still on our minds. Specifically for me, I can’t stop thinking about Square Enix’s conference. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo was good, of course. But for me, I can’t get over that Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (iOS | Android) had such a significant chunk of time dedicated to it (and its eventual spin off) on a main stage presentation at the biggest American games conference.

Sure, it was maybe five minutes, but five minutes is a lot for a gacha game. The move was a winner for Square. Exvius was a trending search shortly after the presentation. 39 million people worldwide have downloaded it, and there was still room to attract new players. That’s saying something.

If you’ve come to this guide, I can only assume that you are one of those new players. Welcome to the wild world of Brave Exvius, full of pretty sprites and number crunching. It can be incredibly overwhelming to step into it (as any gacha game, really) and try to get your bearings.

There is plenty to learn about BE, but I want to focus on what I consider to be the most important thing in the game: money. More specifically, how to avoid spending any of it on this game.

Earning Lapis

Lapis is the premier currency of Brave Exvius. With it, you can buy attempts at drawing the characters, slots in your various inventories, extra tries if you fail certain missions. Really, it’s the lifeblood of your progress in this game.

You’ll notice that it’s pretty expensive to buy outright. For one US dollar, you can get 120 lapis, which is about enough to buy 5 slots inventory for equipment and materials. For $4, you’ll get 500 lapis, which is enough for one character summon attempt. Lapis is a pretty expensive currency as far as gacha games go. You’ll pay out the nose for any significant amount of it. Good thing there are A LOT of ways to earn it for free.

The easiest way to do this is through world quests. Besides having tons of references to main line Final Fantasy games, FFBE has its own original narrative that's currently in its second season. If you’re just starting, that means that there is tons of latent lapis just waiting for you to scoop up. All you have to do is hit each location and battle through the scenarios. Make extra sure that you are completing the missions each stage has. These can require you to kill a specific enemy in a certain time frame or cast a certain type of spell. These rewards seem small, but they add up quickly!

Another task you should add to your routine is completing daily quests. Dailies are 5 (8 on weekends) macro objectives that reward you with Gil, energy, and, of course, lapis. When you complete all of the dailies, which could include tasks like doing a particular vortex quest a number of times for example, you are rewarded with 50 lapis. That’s 350 lapis a week. Not too shabby.

Another pretty simple way to gain some lapis is in the Arena. The Arena pits a team of your making against other people’s AI controlled teams. You battle up the rankings in order to win rewards at the end of each weekly arena period.

You don’t need to rank high to earn lapis, though. All you have to do is participate at least 5 times, and you will 40 lapis. You can do this once a day.

There’s a couple other ways to earn lapis that can sometimes be more difficult to do for new players. Firstly, there are plenty of Vortex quests that provide Lapis as a reward for some of the missions. These can be the limited time event quests or the more static special boss challenges that will also reward you with rare items. These can be tough for an unseasoned party, though.

You can gain lapis less reliably through Trophy Rewards which are meta objectives that can be achieved through just playing the game. These include casting a certain number of spells, or winning a certain amount of battles in the arena. This “certain amount” can sometimes be in the thousands, so take your time with it. You’ll be pretty well rewarded though - 500 lapis awaits you at the “gold” level trophy.

Spending Lapis

So you have this pile of beautiful blue money and need to know the best ways to spend it. We can help you there.

Step-Up Summons are widely considered the best overall bang for your buck when it comes to spending lapis on summoning characters. Step-ups are a gradually scaling banner that allows you to pull for specific high rank characters in waves. The first step up usually costs a lower amount of lapis, then it gets higher each step, with more opportunity for success as you go up. The bonuses you have to draw specific characters gives this a significant edge against just drawing on 10+1’s. This usually requires a pretty big lapis investment to go through all of the steps, though. So make sure there's something you really want in them before committing.

A good way to get a lot of value out of your lapis, especially for new players, is drawing from the ½ off Featured Summon pool. There’s a bonus to the chances of pulling whatever the featured units are that week, and it costs only 250 lapis instead of 500. The only time spending lapis on a single pull is worth it is for this daily draw.

You shouldn’t spend lapis to retry a battle. It costs 100 to do so, and even though you will return at full life, and full limit burst gauges, you could simply retry the battle for free. Energy is easy to wait for, and you’ll procure energy replenishing items in your day to day grind.

Speaking of energy, if you don’t want to wait it out, you can actually spend lapis to refill your energy bar. How you should go about doing this depends on your rank (which determines your maximum energy). A bundle of items exists that grants you a set of energy replenishment items. One is just 100 flat energy that is used immediately. You also get a pair of NRG Restore 10 potions, which restore 10 energy each. If you have less than 120 total energy, this is the right package for you, because if you can't actually use the NRG potions right now, you can store them until you can. Once you get over 120 total energy, you’re better off spending that 100 lapis to fully replenish your current energy straight up.

Buying other bundles with lapis can be a tricky proposition. Generally speaking, the ones even worth looking at are the bundles that feature Rare Summon Tickets. These provide one draw per ticket and are common rewards in Vortex quests. It’s difficult to place a hard value on a summon ticket, but seeing as a daily single draw from the ½ off Featured Summon Pool is 250 lapis, we can assume that each ticket is probably worth that too. Spending too much more than that on a ticket is practically being ripped off.

Follow these simple rules, internalize the habits, and you will be sitting on a hoard of Lapis in no time, without spending a single cent.

Anything else you want to know about Brave Exvius? Got any other tips you want to share with the community? Let us know in the comments!

A Frugal Gamer's Guide to Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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jeanbaltsubsta-blog · 5 years

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ferdinandloughli-blog · 5 years

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neva23f7289520-blog · 5 years

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Software Contents

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manuelaqxd4297-blog · 5 years

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10 Great Australian Cities For A Wonderful Holiday.

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lockcolor79 · 6 years

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I'll always respect your writing style, your overall tone, and your unique writing voice. This is why I make my changes using the Tracking feature in Microsoft Word (or Google Docs). Tracking rocks.

If you'd rather receive a clean "I don't want to edit my editor" copy, we can do that too. You're the boss. I'm just the gadfly.

I start by turning on Tracking and running Word's imperfect spellchecking and grammar checking tool. I know when to agree and when to disagree. This "pre-edit" also allows me to use Search & Replace and maybe Copy & Paste to improve your document's internal consistency before I start reading it.

Next, I read your document on my computer and suggest every change that I think needs suggesting. I'm looking at spelling, punctuation, grammar, and the silly "oops" stuff that it's so much fun to mock on Twitter. But I'm also looking for clarity, repetition, organization, and just anything at all that could be done better. Many editors will make several passes, each focusing on a specific type of error. Many others are wired to do it all at the same time. I'm in the second group.

When I think it's perfect, I go away for a while. Or catch up on the email. Or torture a song on the guitar in my office. Then with a clear mind, I read your document again and see all the stuff I missed.

When I think it's a perfect manuscript, I print it. Then I read it again and see what I missed, marking up the printout with a pen. I make those corrections on the computer, print it again, repeat until it really is perfect.

My music doesn't improve, but your manuscript always does.

Editing, Proofreading, and Other Resources

7 Proven Strategies for Editing and Proofreading Your Own Writing

How To Write A Scientific Paper Worth Reading - A PDF based on the lectures I gave at Chiang Mai University.

Interview with Sharon Hill of WCHL radio in Chapel Hill

The Life of Mr. Chabuduo by Hu Shih - You do not want Mr. Chabuduo to edit your writing.

The Michael Edits Star Wars feed

Proofs and Three Parables by George Steiner - A novella in which one of the characters is a proofreader.

Where Are the Offices of Michael Edits? I created the company in Hong Kong in December 1999, but have since moved to mainland China, then Thailand, then Vietnam, then North Carolina.

Some of my Editing and Proofreading clients

Carl Dickson, PropLIBRARY and Capture Planning: "Michael LaRocca has been our editor [since 2006], reviewing dozens of documents, as well as our weekly newsletter. He has kept us from looking stupid countless times. Working with Michael is easy and friction-free. He has been extremely flexible and helped us meet even our most unreasonable deadlines. He has spoiled us."

Nicolás Antonio Jiménez, Senior Editor at Cigar Snob Magazine, Founding Editor at DADE: "Michael has been editing the copy we publish in Cigar Snob Magazine [since 2008]. We keep stupid hours when we're up against a tight deadline; that, combined with a fully stocked bar just a few steps from our desks (research supplies) means we're making little mistakes often, but seldom catching them all. We've been able to count on Michael, who's a pleasure to work with, to keep our magazine's copy coherent when we are anything but."

Brenda Robinson, First African American female Navy pilot; President of Aviation Camps of the Carolinas Inc.: "Michael continues to save me and my reputation, by making sure what I meant to say is what people actually read. I am so very impressed with his work and his turnaround time is amazing. I don't send out important documents, emails, or a whole book without going through him first. I am 100% assured that all grammar, punctuation, and spelling is perfect before I send it on as complete. He's got my business for life."

Michelle Hill, Legacy Builder for Sports Professionals: "I have read books about ghostwriting by professional ghostwriters that were so riddled with typos, it was painful to get through. Once you think your manuscript is perfect, let a proofreader do their magic to it. You'd be surprised what they catch, and you'll find yourself saying, "How the heck did I miss that?" Professional proofreaders are worth their weight in gold! Mine is Michael LaRocca and he is a gold medalist when it comes to finding the errors that everyone else missed."

Natalia Marshalkina, Lead CRA at Worldwide Clinical Trials, Inc.: "I've had the pleasure of working with Michael on several of my academic projects [since 2011] and I've always been impressed with the efficiency and the highest quality of his work. My task was (and is) to follow the flow, to express ideas, whereas Michael goes through my sometimes over-complicated "final draft" and makes it just perfect - not only by correcting those inevitable spelling and grammar errors, but also by bringing the meaning to the surface. "Yes, this is exactly what I was trying to say!" - but the language magically became more straightforward and easily understandable for the reader. For anybody trying to create a masterpiece in writing - regardless of the topic or level of complexity - Michael's editing is a great asset."

Derek Lewis, Business Book Ghostwriter: "Impressively quick, impressively accurate, and impressively savvy. Michael is my secret weapon. He has saved me from countless embarrassments and faux pas. Nothing I write is fit to show until Michael says so."

Joelle Klein, Health & Lifestyle Writer / Blogger / Storyteller: "Michael is the perfect pair of second eyes for my articles. I find it impossible to edit my own work. When I need something to be perfect, I make sure Michael reads it before I send it out. He's reliable, fast and accurate."

Daniel Schuller, Software Developer, Unity Technologies: "Michael helped me with the technical editing for my book How To Make An RPG. He made the whole experience painless and was a great help. The text quality improved massively. He was very responsive throughout the entire process and it took far less time than I'd expected."

Jens Graff, Associate Professor, Censor Secretariat, Ministry of Education, Denmark: "To find Michael LaRocca as a professional editor was a scoop for me when I needed my English cleaned in a more than 300 page English language scientific dissertation in 2008. He did his work within a few days and related to me for best result. Michael was able to perceive the whole manuscript as it was intended and choose a language that was professional, simple, and fresh. I was extremely satisfied with his work and will use him in the future, when I have serious text to publish." [We've worked together several times since then, most recently in 2017.]

Trish Saemann, Digital Marketing Professional, GoBeyond SEO: "Michael is a very detail-oriented professional who produces exemplary work consistently. We have been using Michael's services since July of 2013 and we plan to continue as long as he'll have us! The nature of our industry requires well-written content for blogs, ebooks and website copy. Nothing can tarnish a document with strong content like spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Michael is the filter we use before publishing content. He is a vital part of our workflow. It is with great pleasure that I recommend Michael LaRocca."

Erik Calvino, Owner, Cigar Snob Magazine: "Michael has been an asset to our publication since his first assignment with us [in 2008]. His response times, accuracy, and adaptability to our industry vernacular have been his strengths. I highly recommend him."

Andrew Freiburghouse, Founder/CEO, Pronto Tax School: "One of the best in the business! Efficient. Great value. Pride of craftsmanship. Highly recommended."

Iris Benrubi, Simply Success Coaching: "Working with Michael was great! He took great care when editing my work and always had it ready for me on time! I would highly recommend him!"

Kellie Hedrick, P.E., Environmental Process Solutions PLLC: "Michael has been instrumental in reviewing proposals and reports that we issue to our clients ensuring that the information we are communicating makes sense. It is always good to have another set of eyes reviewing information. We appreciate the great work that Michael has done for us."

William Saemann, Managing Partner, GoBeyond SEO: "Michael is a detail-oriented editor and exactly what we need at GoBeyond. We send him everything from blog posts to page copy for editing and his services are invaluable."

Darrell Bain, Fictionwise Author of the Year: "Michael LaRocca has edited my books. His command of the English language is better than mine and I have a B.S. degree."

Building Maintenance Optimization Consultants: Facilities management (FM) consulting firm supporting FM organizations that manage portfolios of buildings for their full life cycles.

Flynn IP Law: Located In North Carolina’s Research Triangle, but obtaining US patents for the planet. Legal services, patent searching, trade secrets, due diligence, licensing.

Eastern Instruments: I was their sole Technical Editor from 1991-1999. If I hadn't left to create Michael Edits, there's a 93.14159% chance I'd still be their in-house editing department. Approximately.

Tethered Aerostat Crane: I edited this request for a Federal research grant. It won.

Festo: Multinational industrial control and automation company based in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany. Festo is an engineering-driven company, producing and selling pneumatic and electrical control and drive technology for factory or process automation.

Lime Energy: Overcoming the challenges to small business energy efficiency.

CIMTEC Automation: PLC and HMI repair services through the only factory-authorized GE 90-70 repair center in the world.

Qualitrol: Sales and service of new and remanufactured GE Fanuc PLC parts.

Intelligent Systems & Engineering Services: Facilities management consulting - facilities condition assessment, O&M planning and programming, utilities infrastructure condition assessment, organizational analysis.

Raquel Eatmon: Public speaker, author, CEO of Rising Media LLC, founder of Women of Power Leadership Conference, TV broadcaster, Huffington Post contributor, founder of Project Heard.

Adonal David Foyle: Author, speaker, consultant, NBA center (Golden State Warriors, Orlando Magic, Memphis Grizzlies).

TreeceCo Senior Financial Services: Fixed annuities, life insurance, estate planning, Medicare supplement insurance. I've edited their weekly newsletter and all their other correspondence since 2013.

Health Tips From The Professor: I edited both of his books, "Slaying The Food Myths" and "Slaying The Supplement Myths." Then, as a fringe benefit, I followed his advice and got myself healthy.

Matthew Pollard: Business coach (the "Rapid Growth Guy"). Find thesis help and create a sales system to get more customers and close more sales.

About Michael Edits and Michael LaRocca

I gave the long bio its own page. Here's the timeline.

0 notes

kavetchnik-blog · 6 years

Text

Invasive Species

Found in a shed, curled and content, the mini-van-length reticulated python did not have a microchip, the news reported.

But he did have several household pets in his digestive track, perhaps the cause of his docile drowse. Like most constrictors

headed for the Everglades, he likely had been released by an owner. The authorities intend to use him now to train the men who hunt

that which does not belong, or implant in him transmitters and release him to engage a broody female. Serial impregnator, unwitting

traitor, this is where he will just follow his instincts. He doesn’t mean to trap her. Oh, how familiar all this sounds.

2 Nov 2015

Thanks to Sivan Butler-Rotholz for the feature of my poems, forthcoming in American Sentencing (Winter Goose Publishing)! (via SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: JEN KARETNICK)

(Source: asitoughttobe.com)

4 Oct 2015

The Effective Digestive

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/09/the-effective-digestive.html

A humble cookie with healing powers.

Jen Karetnick

| September 17, 2015 | 12:00pm

FOOD | FEATURES

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Like many women, I have a delicate digestive tract. I have no difficulties shoveling in the food. It’s the elimination that’s problematic. And disruptions to my regular schedule, such as plane travel, or discomfort, like staying in an unpalatable setting, can cause delays in my system that would put American Airlines to shame.

Of course, this is all kinds of ironic for a food-and-travel writer. But then, life is a series of poignant incongruities, isn’t it? I vividly recall a whitewater rafting trip on the Salmon River in Idaho. It was supposed to be “glamping,” that portmanteau of glamorous camping. But when the guides introduced us to the toilet tent – literally a box with a teepee draped over it – the women on the trip exchanged knowing looks that said yup, we’d be constipated for a week (the other option being a shovel). When the lodge where we were staying on the last night came into view, we collectively broke into a grateful run.

I expected a similar situation when I traveled to Canterbury in Kent, England, this past July. I’d been warned that the accommodations in this ancient, walled city were on the negative side of lacking; after all, there’s only so much you can do with fifteenth-century buildings. It’s true that my room at The Victoria House was about the size of my walk-in closet at home, and about as ventilated. The shower door had been derailed by someone who was perhaps marginally larger than me, and I’m five-foot-two. Add in that I’d be touring for the first seven days with my parents, who had come overseas to meet me, and then presenting four workshops at an academic conference for the last three, and I expected a colon filled with the equivalent of cement.

Oddly, it didn’t happen that way. I hit the ground running. Well, not running, as the euphemism implies, but after the first day or so, I was as regular as if I’d been starting the day with café Cubano. At first, I put it down to the welcoming atmosphere at the hotel. Though hardly a five-star establishment, the staff was bend-backwards pleasant; there’s a pub with outlets on the ground floor where no one cared if I worked all evening on a laptop over a couple of pints; and the room, as teensy as it was, was meticulously cleaned daily. Housekeeping also always left a package of coarsely textured cookies on the desk next to the electric kettle and tea bags every evening. I felt it was my duty as a polite, paying guest to consume them.

It occurred to me about four days into my stay that perhaps the digestives, what the British call these semi-sweet, whole-wheat (or whole-meal in the UK) biscuits, had some beneficial properties. I’d always enjoyed a digestive now and then, especially those coated on one side with milk chocolate, ever since my sister had spent a semester in London when she was in college several decades ago and I visited her. But it had never occurred to me to question why they were called that in particular.

After a little research, I discovered that the digestive was indeed developed to aid people with poorly functioning metabolisms like me. In 1839, two Scottish scientists developed them using a goodly dose of sodium bicarbonate to prevent indigestion. Bakers subsequently added diastatic malt extract, which they assumed “digested” the starch in the dough, a process called saccharification. The baking powder idea was a failed experiment; once the cookies change chemically in the oven, the properties are lost. But the fibrous content of the biscuits turned out to be an aid.

Depending on the brand, however, some digestives may actually be more effective than others – a fact I discovered when I returned to England for a second time, accompanying my son so he could play soccer for a week. I stayed in a Travelodge next to an Aldi, and the only digestives I could acquire were the store’s Belmont brand, similar in look, flavor and structure to the popular McVitie’s brand. Sadly, while they’re tasty indeed – and I managed to find three varieties, including those with dark and milk chocolate – they didn’t alleviate the angst of navigating Miami and Heathrow airports with twenty teenagers, then staying in a room that smelled like cat urine and had neither phone nor hairdryer. Nevertheless, I diligently ate my cookies, hoping for an appetizing cure.

As it turns out, the original commercial digestives, starting with Huntley & Palmers in 1876, included more of the whole grain, given that millers were less sophisticated then at separating the grain into parts. Today, finely milled flour is the rule of thumb. So if you’re actually eating them for a singular purpose, read the label to see if whole-meal flour is the first ingredient and if oats, bran or wheat germ – all good signs that the fiber will be helpful – are added. Sainsbury’s is one brand that roughs up the texture with oats. Tesco’s Everyday Value also includes oatmeal, and as a bonus, deletes the artificial elements and hydrogenated fats (but keep in mind that the brand’s regular digestives are free of oats and full of preservatives). Hovis includes wheat germ in its recipe, which is also accommodating for those of us with a sensitive nature.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get any brand but McVitie’s in the States for a reasonable price. On the other hand, in the comfort of my own home, I don’t need digestives for any reason other than enjoyment. Which is why I went to the Aldi the night before I left England for the second time and bought as many tubes of digestives as would fit in my suitcase, brought over half-empty for just that tasty purpose.

Jen Karetnick is a Miami-based lifestyle writer, poet and author of 14 books, including the cookbook Mango (University Press of Florida, 2014).

24 Sep 2015

The Heat is On

https://www.fsrmagazine.com/growth/heat

GROWTH

JEN KARETNICK

SEPTEMBER 2015

Miami’s resurgence hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down.

When Miami Beach was incorporated first as a town and then two years later as a city, wealthy entrepreneurs such as John S. Collins, Carl Graham Fisher, the Lummus brothers, and the Pancoast family had high hopes for the tropical paradise. Exactly 100 years later, the collective vision these intrepid pioneers had of drinking tropical cocktails, dining on sumptuous treats, and cavorting in Eden-like circumstances has paid off, not only for Miami Beach but for the entire Miami-Dade County region.

For 2015, the National Restaurant Association has predicted that Florida will be the No. 2 market in the country in terms of growth, with sales projected to reach $34.6 billion. Miami is largely responsible for that position, and CREW-Miami, an association of commercial real estate professionals, confirms the Magic City is “fueling the growth of the entire state’s industry.”

Such a forecast is noteworthy for any market that isn’t New York City, Chicago, or San Francisco. But it’s even more remarkable for one that has been devastated by Category 5 hurricanes twice. A city that has absorbed wave after wave of political refugees from Cuba, Haiti, and other countries. And, one that was allowed to fall, during the ’70s and ’80s, into an economic slump that could have spelled the end of what is today considered one of America’s most significant architectural districts. As it turned out, the inclusion of that Art Deco District (otherwise known as South Beach) on the National Register of Historic Places, and its subsequent rescue-by-renovation, was one of the most instrumental elements in Miami’s extraordinary comeback and the city’s current food-and-beverage market growth.

Landmarks Then and Now

Some restaurants have not only survived since those early days, they’ve also thrived. Joe’s Stone Crab, located at the southern point of South Beach, is a case in point. Open since 1913, it began as a simple lunch counter, serving fish sandwiches; morphed into a seafood restaurant with clients including Al Capone; and, in 1921, began experimenting with stone crabs. Boiled and served cold with mustard sauce at 75 cents per order, stone crabs were an immediate sensation. Joe’s began to draw an even larger crowd that included celebrities and socialites and—even when Fort Lauderdale, in the throes of spring break fame, was as far south as visitors would stay—Joe’s was considered a mandatory epicurean experience for residents and tourists alike. Today, run by Jo Ann Bass, Joe’s granddaughter, with her son Stephen and daughter Jodi, Joe’s Stone Crab is a multi-generation enterprise that grossed $35.3 million in 2014—and it doesn’t even stay open year-round, closing after stone crab season ends on May 15 and reopening when it begins on October 15.

The Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel, located about 40 blocks north of Joe’s, has a slightly rockier history that reflects the ups and downs that have plagued the city. Once the site of Firestone Mansion, it debuted in 1954 as the largest property in the entire South Florida region and was an instantaneous hit with the reigning luminaries of the time, including Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, and Lucille Ball.

After 25 years, the Fontainebleau, like every other property in the Magic City, lost allure. And when South Beach began to re-emerge from its slump in the mid-1990s, the historic resort was miles north of the excitement.

Enter perhaps the smartest business decision made in the new Millennium: A $1 billion investment to renovate and expand the structure. In 2008, after three years of construction, the Fontainebleau Miami Beach unveiled more than 1,500 luxurious guestrooms, the high-energy LIV Nightclub, and 12 restaurants and lounges. These include Michelin-starred Hakkasan, Scarpetta, and StripSteak and Michael Mina 74, both from award-winning chef Michael Mina.

Bringing in Chef Mina, who also operates Bourbon Steak Miami, one of the two signature restaurants in Turnberry Isle Miami (the other is Corsair by Scott Conant, also of Scarpetta), was a distinct coup.

“The Fontainebleau is an iconic destination that draws visitors from all corners of the globe who have a distinct expectation for great experiences,” says Joshua Summers, vice president of operations, food, and beverage. “Michael Mina is one of the best out there and … brings an elevated, freshness-focused culinary experience that is a hit for our market.” Nor is the Fontainebleau management content to stay stagnant for a moment, Summers notes. “In the past 18 months alone, we’ve really pushed the envelope. We developed BleauFish, an ocean-to-table program complete with our own commercial fishing boat and six massive saltwater tanks in our basement, and we opened Chez Bon Bon, a coffee and patisserie shop [in the hotel lobby].”

Not to be left behind, the neighboring Eden Roc Miami Beach partnered with Nobu Hotels to become the Nobu Hotel at Eden Roc Miami Beach, which after a multi-million-dollar renovation, will house the largest Nobu Restaurant and Bar Lounge on the planet.In Coral Gables, the celebrated Biltmore Hotel, a national historic landmark, is also keeping up with its contemporaries, albeit with a smaller food-and-beverage program that stays true to its roots. Its signature French restaurant, Palme d’Or, has undergone several revisions throughout the years, from offering nouvelle cuisine to molecular gastronomically influenced fare with James Beard–nominated chef Philippe Ruiz. Now the restaurant offers a prix fixe tasting extravaganza under Michelin-starred executive chef Gregory Pugin, who imports ingredients daily from his native France.

From a caretaker’s standpoint, careful and intelligent investment in viable concepts—not wholesale change—is the key to keeping a property compelling. Shareef Malnick, who took over the beloved Rat Pack–era restaurant The Forge from father Al in 1990, has installed, among other improvements, an Enomatic wine system to complement the establishment’s famed cellar. The wine collection took a multi-million-dollar hit when Miami Beach lost electricity for weeks after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but the restaurant has added “Winebar” to its moniker and now serves 80 vintages by the glass.

“I reinvested in the restaurant in part because the city has been consistently improving as a tourist destination and as a bastion for international and national migration,” Malnick says.

Magic City On the Move

Miami has a reputation for being a place for transients, and that’s not completely incorrect. Part of what creates the city’s compelling culinary energy is the immigration that continually sweeps through, adding layer after layer of flavor. But just as the restaurateurs and chefs of Miami’s iconic properties have been shepherding them into the future, the stalwarts of the city’s initial revitalization have also remained true to the region.The original James Beard Award–winning outliers of New World Cuisine, once dubbed the “Mango Gang”—Mark Militello, Douglas Rodriguez, Allen Susser, and Norman Van Aken—have all moved on from the restaurants that made their reputations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But they’ve stayed local for the most part, working on various projects throughout the decades.

Allen Susser, for instance, now owns and operates the Daily Melt, a chain of grilled cheese sandwich shops that on the surface is 180 degrees from his special occasion Chef Allen’s, but includes all the little touches that turn it into something special—like homemade mango ketchup and house-cured pickles.

As for Van Aken, he is readying a cooking school in the freshly remodeled Vagabond Hotel in the Miami Modern Historic District, where the restaurant, innovative cocktail bar, and pool lounge are hip hangouts—quite an accomplishment for a derelict property that recently housed a rundown, if architecturally worthy, motel. Vagabond Restaurant & Bar partner Christopher Wang says the opportunities to re-evaluate such properties and install high-energy establishments in them are the culmination of Miami experiencing “an economic boom unrivaled by most cities in this country.”

Now is perhaps the golden era for the Magic City, as Wang adds there is “a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of different people and ideas in Miami. For restaurateurs, Miami affords so many conceptual options because the demand just keeps building both in numbers as well as cultural representation. … It is one of the epicenters for entrepreneurship in the world at the moment.”

Graziano Sbroggio, founder of the Graspa Group, is one such entrepreneur and (at press time) was preparing to re-open TiramesU. The groundbreaking restaurant launched on a largely untouched Ocean Drive in 1988 and moved to Lincoln Road in 1997. In April 2014, Sbroggio decided to move the restaurant back to its origins—or at least as close as possible. Now on Washington Avenue, TiramesU retains Chef Fabrizio Pintus, who has been executive chef since 2010.

Meanwhile, Sbroggio and Graspa Group have introduced revolutionary projects all over town, from Spris and Segafredo L’Originale to Salumeria 104 and Midtown Oyster Bar. The latter, an “ocean-inspired” departure for Graspa Group that serves dishes such as crab cakes, Maine lobster rolls, and “Oyster Rockafella,” became a resoundingly popular destination in less than a year.

Sbroggio hints that even with two restaurants debuting this summer, he’s neither finished nor forcing the issue of expansion. “It’s important to mention that, in our growth process, every step is carefully considered to ensure we provide our patrons with the highest quality ingredients, with a knowledgeable team, and with a welcoming laid-back environment. And although Miami is going through a growth spurt in the restaurant industry, we want to nurture the fundamental values of it in our concepts.”

Other small, Miami-based groups similarly see multiple opportunities. As one of three partners of The Pubbelly Restaurant Group—which owns Pubbelly Gastropub, Pubbelly Sushi, Barceloneta, and PB Station and Pawn Broker (coming this fall)—Andreas Schreiner says, “The city was still starting its growth in the gastronomic scene back in 2010 when we started. We saw more opportunity here versus a city like Chicago that was already at the forefront of all the major culinary trends.”

Chef Cindy Hutson and business-life partner Delius Shirley are also devoted to growing the local epicurean scene, and opened Norma’s on the Beach in 1994. When the location in an outdoor pedestrian mall became too, well, pedestrian for their tastes, they moved their business to Coral Gables’ Miracle Mile and renamed it Ortanique on the Mile. Currently, the pair, who also run restaurants in the Caribbean, are working on Zest and Zest MRKT, Asian-Latin-Caribbean fusion restaurants scheduled to open this fall in the Southeast Financial Center.

Shirley, who sees a thriving market for growth, offers this advice: “Get in now while you can because the city is being snatched up à la minute.”

FENNEL CARPACCIO FROM KLIMA // KLIMA MIAMI

The Sixth Borough and Beyond

New York City and Miami have always enjoyed a reciprocal relationship, so much so that many visitors fondly refer to Miami as “the sixth borough.” While Miami enjoys the tourism trade from the Northeast in the winter, it has also benefited from chefs and restaurateurs who see the Magic City as an easy way to expand outside Manhattan without changing time zones.

Samba Brands Management is just one of the restaurant groups that has been investing in the area for more than a decade. Shimon Bokovza, concept developer and partner of Samba Brands Management, recalls how warmly the locals received SushiSamba Miami Beach. “We opened right after September 11th [2001], and that was very tough. However, it was amazing to see how the community came together and embraced us.” Today, with four restaurants in the city, including the James Beard–nominated Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill in Midtown Miami, Bokovza says, “We are solidifying Miami as our No. 1 market in the United States.”

Another New Yorker come South is internationally acclaimed chef Daniel Boulud, who first opened in South Florida in 2003 in Palm Beach. Chef Boulud acknowledges that in opening db Bistro Moderne Miami in the JW Marriott Marquis Miami, “We were early to the scene and it just keeps getting better. We like that we appeal to local residents and travelers, and that people seek us out for the quality of our cuisine.” Partnering with Ricardo Glas, whom he calls “a transformational developer,” Boulud continues, “We were and are excited about the future of downtown Miami and the buildings and the people the area is attracting. The economies of the Caribbean and South America keep growing, and we want to be part of that.”

He’s certainly not alone, and the chefs willing to speculate on opening Miami restaurants are no longer mainly from New York or Chicago. A list of chefs and restaurateurs who recently came to town or are in the process of opening reads like an international Who’s Who of gastronomy: Tom Colicchio, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Stephen Starr, Danny Elmaleh, Juan Manuel Barrientos, Itay Sacish, Paul Qui, Francis Mallmann, Gaston Acurio, Masaharu Morimoto, and Jonathan Lane.

New Developments

Unfortunately, growth doesn’t always arrive without the pain of change. New construction in areas like Downtown/Brickell, Wynwood and the Design District, South Beach, and Doral promise more space for culinary ventures, but can impinge on restaurants that already exist. Chef and restaurateur David Bracha has seen an 18 percent drop in business at his River Oyster Bar on South Miami Avenue thanks to construction. Still, Bracha expects he will remain in the location at least three more years. He’s taking this opportunity to update the River’s interior and rework the menu.

Likewise, James Beard Award–winning chef Michelle Bernstein and husband David Martinez closed the eponymous Michy’s on the Upper East Side in June 2014. After debuting Seagrape at the Thompson Miami Beach in November, Bernstein and Martinez unveiled CENA by Michy in May, a completely reworked concept in the same Upper East Side space.

SALPICON DE MARISCOS FROM BULLA GASTROPUB // JUAN CARLOS MARCHAN

Michael Sullivan, who like Chef Bernstein is a Miami native, is also experiencing growing pains. In June, he closed his well-liked business, Over the Counter—the first high-end, over-the-counter eatery in the city—to focus on the launch of Golden Fig, a sustainable farmhouse restaurant with regional and seasonal ingredients informing the menu. He’s ready to take a chance on something new, he says, precisely because there’s change all around him. “It’s an interesting time for us because there has been an incredible amount of momentum over the past few years. Each day that goes by, more big-name chefs are making their way to Miami,” he says. “With that in mind, I believe it makes Miami a safer bet for future growth. There are multiple opportunities to be the first restaurant doing certain things, whether it’s the food, décor, or location, which can make it easier to have a more successful restaurant.”

Others, however, are experiencing such rapid growth they almost have no choice but to expand. Juan Carlos Marchan, vice president of Centurion Restaurant Group, which operates Bulla Gastrobar in Coral Gables and soon-to-be Bulla Gastrobar in Downtown Doral, as well as Pisco y Nazca forthcoming in Downtown Doral and Town & Country, says his company has seen phenomenal success. “Our goal [was] to return our investment in a period of at least five years,” he says. “With our Bulla brand, we have achieved that in three years.”

Certainly no one can question that the Spanish and Latin American interest in Miami is intense, perhaps at an all-time high. That attention is creating a spiral of additional interest. Pablo Fernandez-Valdes, Barcelona native and co-founder of KLIMA Restaurant and Bar on South Beach, says, “Some world-class names from the culinary world—including from South America and Europe—are viewing the region as a serious investment opportunity. … It is undeniably the right time to invest in Miami and capitalize on its growing economy.”

Whether it’s investment or concept, the concentration on all things Spanish and Latino isn’t likely to suddenly dissolve. MR Hospitality has hired eminent executive chef Jean Paul Lourdes to head the forthcoming Marion Mediterranean restaurant and El Tucán Cuban cabaret. And the Pacha Group is working several Miami-based managing partners on an exclusive Ibizan nightlife concept called Lío—a fusion of club, restaurant, and cabaret—that will open its first international location in Miami Beach in November.

DRAWING ROOM BAR & LOUNGE // DRAWING ROOM BAR & LOUNGE

Spirited Sales

As it is elsewhere, Miami’s craft beer industry is exploding, with several breweries, including J. Wakefield, Wynwood Brewing Company, and Concrete Beach all recently debuting.

Also impressive is the amount of promotion that imports such as Estrella Damm are willing to undertake. Brewed in Barcelona, Estrella Dammfinds a unique way to market its product by pairing the beer with prix fixe menus in local Spanish- and Latin-influenced restaurants includingDolores But You Can Call Me Lolita, Fooq’s, Jimmy’z Kitchen Wynwood, multiple Novecento locations, Perfecto Gastrobar,Piripi, Tapas y Tintos, The Embassy, Tongue & Cheek, Wynwood Kitchen and Bar and Xixón.

Additionally, the Miami region is home to two national wine and spirits distributing companies: Southern Wine & Spirits and Premier Beverage Company. No doubt, the quality wine, beer, and liquors that flood this market as a result enhance restaurant numbers and inspire the city’s reputation as a culinary destination. Festivals, including the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, are numerous. And launches of specialty liquors are commonplace—like Whistle Pig’s Old World 12 Year Whiskey at barbecue joint Pride & Joy in Wynwood.

Bacardi is also based in Miami and debuted its Bacardi Tangerine in July. While Afrohead Rum, crafted in small lots, was launched in Miami in January. Other luxury, independent spirits companies, such asWilliam Grant & Sons, hold their national sales meetings in the city, precisely because the tourism, dining, and mixology scene enables sales associates to be tutored in a “show, don’t tell” way.

Largely, then, the mixology scene is driving sales. Sparked by well-traveled barmen including Gabriel Orta and Elad Zvi of The Broken Shaker, who helped design many restaurant and lounge cocktail lists including W South Beach’s Living Room. The booze boom has been beneficial to drinkers and distillers alike.

For the aficionado, there’s now a host of bars and lounges where inventive cocktails are the norm not the revelation: The Drawing Room Bar & Lounge at the Shelborne Wyndham Grand South Beach, for example, where mixologist Albert Trummer labels his menu “A Selection of House Medicines;” The Rum Line, an al fresco Caribbean-inspired bar on the terrace of the St. Moritz Tower at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel; theRegent Cocktail Club in the Gale South Beach, where master bartender and managing partner Julio Cabrera mixes classics; and Radio Bar South Beach and Bodega Taqueria y Tequila, both from Menin Hospitality.

23 Sep 2015

(via 4 Healthy Reasons to Sleep on Your Side | Mental Floss)

(Source: mentalfloss.com)

22 Sep 2015

Competitive Writing

The Atlantic article on teen writing competition is hitting some nerves … in a good way….

(Source: therumpus.net)

14 Jul 2015

HAPPY NATIONAL MANGO MONTH!

1 Jun 2015

GOOD TASTE IS ALL IN YOUR GENES

Jen Karetnick

| May 12, 2015 |

Your personal tastes might not dictate your hatred of saffron, cilantro or other foods you can’t stand — it very well might be your genetic makeup.

In recent years, a controversy over cilantro — the leafy part of the coriander plant — has developed. It’s used widely, both fresh and cooked, in cuisines ranging from Vietnamese to Mexican.

Some factions love it; culinary proponents can’t imagine their pho or guacamole without it. Others find it unbearable, however, claiming it tastes like shampoo or soap. In fact, they go practically purple prose on what many cooks find a bright, citrusy herb. There’s even an IHateCilantro.com page, where commenters have compared it to “crushed stink bugs,” “burned brake fluid” and “mule urine.” The word coriander, it also should be noted, stems from the ancient Greekkoriannon, which is a hybrid of koris — a stinky bug — and annon, a fragrant anise. Coriander literally means, then, “a plant that smells like a bug.”

Such coriander leaf partisans include the late chef and cookbook author Julia Child, so you know it’s not nearly a whim; the woman had an impeccable palate, yet she claimed that, along with arugula, she’d pick cilantro out of whatever was served to her and throw it on the floor.

So what’s the reasoning behind such rabid dislike?

Cilantro.

In 2010, The New York Times published a column on why cilantro haters couldn’t be held responsible for their personal taste. The fault, the author surmised, lay in the aldehydes, which are modified fat molecules similar to ones also found in soaps and lotions. In the piece, chemists and neuroscientists reasoned that some people’s brains retained a hunting-gathering mentality. They couldn’t distinguish between the olfactory threat that the aldehydes presented, hinting that an item was poisonous and not to be eaten, and the pleasing aroma of the aldehydes, signaling that a food was consumable.

Two years later, a new study confirmed that while “delayed evolution” was a valid theory, there was a little more to it. Nature reported that about 25,000 people tested in a survey led by the genetics firm 23andme had linked cilantro aversion to the gene OR6A2. This particular olfactory gene is one variant linked to cilantro’s perception, and there are two copies of it, which makes it even more complicated to trace definitively. Suffice to say, though, that if you think cilantro tastes like soap (or burned rubber or some kind of animal urine or a simile too unappealing to repeat here), there’s a good chance genetic mutation has been at play.

CILANTRO VS. SAFFRON: WHAT’S HATED MORE?

To date, these two tropes — paleo intuition and genetic variation — have been replayed everywhere from The Huffington Post to blogs on NPR.org whenever the subject of cilantro comes up.

Oddly, there’s a faction of people who feel just as strongly about saffron, but they’ve been flying under the epicurean radar. If you search online, you’ll find a couple of questions posed on food sites, such as on Chowhound (“Does saffron taste like plastic to anyone else?”) or Serious Eats (“Is it just me, or does saffron taste terrible?”). But there are no organized saffron splinter groups like there are cilantro cliques, posting hate messages about saffron or threatening to commit spicy crimes of passion. You won’t find much in the way of correct answers, either.

Indeed, many people who despise saffron have been left wondering why. My husband, Jon, is one of them. He has always disliked paella, which is cooked with this spice that is harvested from the flower of the Crocus sativus plant. True saffron looks like red threads — these are the dried stigmas of the flower — and cooks up into a yellow-reddish color. Given that it takes 75,000 saffron blossoms to create one pound of saffron, and it all has to be done by hand, saffron is considered an extravagance.

Not by Jon, of course, but we could never define why he was so unenthusiastic about it until we were dining at a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant called the Matador Room in Miami recently. “I know what it is,” Jon exclaimed. “Saffron tastes like iodine.”

I blew on the steaming, light-yellow rice and sampled it again. “No, it doesn’t,” I said. I should know, after all; I’ve been a dining critic for 23 years. He’s a physician. He’d probably been smelling iodine in the hospital all day, and it had remained in his soft palate. Who knows? Maybe all of his food smells and tastes like iodine.

But he was insistent that the paella had a medicinal quality, and because we long ago figured out that Jon is a “supertaster” — he can discern flavors above and beyond what most people can, including metallic elements in spring water — I decided to indulge him. “Fine. Let’s Google it.”

Saffron.

He teases me for my tendency to do research for whenever I want to know something, especially when it’s at the dinner table, but in this case it hit pay dirt. I entered the key words “iodine” and “saffron” on a medical application, figuring that it would at least distract him from continuing to find fault with the finest paella I’d had in years. But to our mutual surprise, the answer that came up is that being able to detect the flavor of iodine in saffron is actually keyed into your genetic code.

THE BITTER TRUTH ABOUT TRAITS

Like detecting aldehydes, tasting bitterness in general is an inherited trait. Identifying it is linked to the naturally occurring chemical phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), which was discovered in 1931 by DuPont chemist Arthur Fox. He perceived, after an accident with the substance, that some people in the lab could detect its presence in the air and others couldn’t. After he did trials among family and friends, scientists replicated his results and determined that tasting PTC was such a strong indication of genetics that it could be used to rule out paternity. This, of course, was before DNA testing became a thing.

Today, the Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine notes that “Bitter-taste perception for PTC is a classically variable trait both within and between human populations. Many studies have reported that in world population, approximately 30% of them are PTC non-tasters and 70% are tasters.” A Smithsonian Magazine article called “The Genetics of Taste” adds that while this trait is coded onto a single gene, it further differentiates itself into two common and five rare forms. Thus the gene creates multiple variations of itself that are subsequently passed on. And one of these variants is responsible for whose palate interprets saffron as a medicinal menace rather than a luxury flavoring.

The good news is that once you figure out that that these both of these interpretations are genetic perceptions, you can change them. For cilantro, start by reducing the herb’s potency. Cook it thoroughly instead of eating it fresh or barely heated to limit aromatic exposure. Combine it with other ingredients or make a pesto or a salsa or a marinade.

For saffron, it’s a little trickier. While frequently employed as a flavoring agent, the Crocus sativus stigmas are also made into supplements to treat everything from menstrual cramps to alopecia. In fact, saffron has such a range of medicinal properties that humans have used it for asthma, whooping cough, hardening of the arteries, heartburn, infertility and premature ejaculation.

Coriander, too, has benefits that help reduce inflammation and blood sugar. It’s used to treat a host of digestive and urinary tract symptoms. With its leaves often distilled into an oil, it can be a blood-thinning agent and an analgesic.

So if you prefer to treat yourself holistically, it may be worth acclimating yourself to both saffron and cilantro.

Still, even if you’re completely devoted to Western medicine and have no interest in pho, guacamole or paella, you may want to consider learning to tame your taste buds and appreciate both the herb and the spice — because they are both, supposedly, powerful aphrodisiacs. And it’s pretty darn hard to seduce someone with a dish made with either one of them while your genetic code is insisting that you spit it out.

Jen Karetnick is a contributing journalist for TheBlot Magazine.

14 May 2015

The Milo Review

VOL. 3 ISSUE 1 | Spring 2015 Poetry by Jen Karetnick Whatever a Sun —for my sister Twice has its choice of idioms – you can be shy twice, you can fool someone more than once, you don’t have to fret about lightning doing what it does best. But there is also this larger honesty: He gives twice who gives quickly; that’s double the nice. Love me two times. Twice is a couplet. It is “the root of the root and the bud of the bud.” It is the pollen that feeds the bees and forces the fruit to flower wherever they land, however they get there. It is the hand that picks the flower, that holds another hand, open-handed, a bouquet of fingers wrapped in gold and set in a hand-blown vase marked with a pattern of hob-stars and strawberry diamonds, twice is the sustenance in the vase, twice are the tears from whatever a sun that provides for the most generous and faithful of gardeners. ♦

10 May 2015

THANK YOU, JUDGE JUDY

by Jen Karetnick

I’m a poet and fiction writer by vocation and a journalist by trade. The first two I learned in school, ultimately ending with two MFA degrees, one in each genre. Journalism I was taught on the job, trained by several editors. But seven years ago, when the economy crashed and the future of print journalism was a serious concern, I took a job in a charter school for the arts, charged with creating and teaching a program for grades 6-12 that included poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction.

For poetry and fiction, I had few worries, but for personal essays and memoir, I had to expand my repertoire. That’s when I began to watch the television show Judge Judy, and found that everything I needed to know about writing and teaching creative non-fiction was an oft-repeated truism that came directly from the Honorable Judith Sheindlin’s lips.

I didn’t come to this conclusion right away. At first, I started to watch the show because it was on when I got home from school. I was so exhausted from my unexpected new career path that I immediately took to my bed, unable to do anything else but gaze in stupefaction at the television.

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