#i wrote the worst essay of my life today but i also participated on a bujomoss art session thing for the first time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vettingsanders · 4 years

Text

He Did Nothing For Years

The Bernie Sanders Story

I was going to title this post something that more adequately expresses my rage, like “Bernie Sanders is a Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human,” but then I decided to be classy and paraphrase a quote from Evita instead.�� But I’m also petty so consider the subtitle of this rant to be “A Grifting Fuck and a Garbage Human.”

I was going to wait to post this until the primaries are over because if by some unholy hell miracle Sanders wins the nomination, obviously we all have to unite behind even the shittiest, most doomed to fail candidate, but fuck it. Vote blue no matter who, that goes without being said, but Sanders is the worst possible choice and was even when there were a dozen plus horses in this race, and now y’all are going to hear all the reasons why.

The Early Years: Sanders the Deadbeat

Sanders graduated from the university of Chicago in 1964 with a BA in Political Science and chose not to work until he was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981

I say “chose not to work” because he was fully capable but preferred being a bum. He had no student debt, he had no health conditions that prevented him from working, and the 1960s were characterized by rapid growth of the workforce, with three out of four college graduates holding high level positions by 1970

Sanders occasionally did some freelance writing and carpentry during these years, according to his resume, probably so he could claim he was trying to work in order to collect unemployment. Let’s take a look at some of his writings:

At age 28, he wrote an article for alternative newspaper The Vermont Freeman entitled “Cancer, Disease, and Society.” In the article, he argues that sexual repression can cause cancer, and women who are virgins, have fewer orgasms than their peers, or simply don’t enjoy sex are more likely to develop cancer. The article includes statements such as “the manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether or not she will develop breast cancer, among other things” and “How much guilt, nervousness have you imbued in your daughter with regard to sex? If she is 16, 3 years beyond puberty and the time which nature set forth for child-bearing, and spent a night out with her boyfriend, what is your reaction? Do you take her to a psychiatrist because she is “maladjusted” or a “prostitute,” or are you happy that she has found someone with whom she can share love?” He also argues that the education system contributes to cancer, as does having “an old bitch of a teacher (and there are many of them).” https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

In 1969, in another article for The Vermont Freeman, he wrote, “In Vermont, at a state beach, a mother is reprimanded by Authority for allowing her 6 month old daughter to go about without her diapers on. Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on peoples sexual frustrations.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-freeman-sexual-freedom-fluoride/

His resume, incidentally, also lists him as a freelance youth counselor during his period of unemployment, which is just great. The man who thinks thirteen year olds should be getting pregnant and children should touch each other’s genitals, counseling your kids. Fantastic.

In the 1970s, Sanders stole electricity from his neighbors rather than paying his own bill. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927

He stole food from the refrigerator of The Vermont Freeman’s publishers https://newrepublic.com/article/122005/he-was-presidential-candidate-bernie-sanders-was-radical

He was asked to leave a hippie commune in 1971 due to sitting around engaging in “endless political discussion” rather than working. Let me repeat, he was too lazy for a hippie commune. https://freebeacon.com/politics/bernie-sanders-asked-leave-hippie-commune/

Now, all of this apart from the theft is arguably okay. It’s his own life, and if he wants to squander it publishing poorly written essays and doing jack shit, whatever. Except it wasn’t just his life, because he had a son, Levi. And he was a deadbeat, paying no child support and causing Levi’s mother, Susan Mott, to rely on welfare, which made her face discrimination when trying to find housing. https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1093295853907922946

Bernie Sanders is a deadbeat dad. No respect.

Failing Upwards: Sanders the Politician

In 1971, Sanders joined the Vermont Liberty Union Party, a socialist political group. From 1971 to 1977, Sanders was the party chief and habitually ran for office, failing every time. He left the group in 1977, stating that they did not do enough to fight banks and corporations during non-election years. This is just one example of Sanders decrying everyone else as too impure for him.

In 2016, the Vermont Liberty Union Party voted to brand Sanders as a war criminal. Their general secretary, Peter Diamondstone, said of Sanders, “ He never was a socialist!" https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnjby3/the-vermont-political-party-bernie-sanders-founded-isnt-into-him-anymore This is just one example in the long list of Sanders alienating his allies.

He finally won the mayoral election for Burlington in 1981, by only ten votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Burlington_mayoral_election

Sanders was only elected to the US House of Representatives in 1990 because he had the support of the National Rifle Association. The incumbent Congressman, Republican Peter Smith, advocated for an assault weapons ban, so the NRA flooded Sanders with money. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/stickin-to-his-guns-the-nra-helped-elect-bernie-sanders-to-congress-now-hes-telling-a-different-story/Content?oid=27816693

In 2006, 2012, and 2018, when running for the Senate, Sanders ran as a Democrat in the state primaries, then declined the Democratic nomination, and ran as an independent in the general. This made it basically impossible for any Democrat to run against him. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/21/bernie-sanders-democrat-independent-vermont-601844

After a landslide loss to Secretary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, Sanders demanded changes to the DNC primary structure that would make the process easier for him to win with just a plurality of delegates instead of a majority. These rule changes were the reason the 2020 Iowa caucus was such a clusterfuck. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-iowa-caucus-winner-trump-democrats-a9317761.html

Despite all his talk of getting out the youth vote and inspiring disenfranchised voters, Sanders planned all along to squeak by with only thirty percent of the delegates in the 2020 primary by provoking infighting among other candidates to split the moderate vote. The supposed movement he claimed to lead is a sham. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/bernie-sanders-thinking-he-will-win-it-all-2020/587326/

“I Never Saw Him”: Sanders and Civil Rights

Sanders touts his participation in the March on Washington in 1963 as proof of his devotion to civil rights activism. He loves to remind people that he marched with MLK, as seen during the She the People 2019 forum where he repeated that old chestnut for the millionth time and was booed by the attendees. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-met-with-boos-after-name-dropping-martin-luther-king-at-she-the-people-summit

In actuality, Sanders was one of 250,000 people at the march, along with Mitch McConnell, who is clearly no champion for civil rights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/7-things-know-about-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-part-flna6C10621413

Representative John Lewis, an actual civil rights hero who worked with Dr. King and whose skull was fractured by police on Bloody Sunday, said that he “never saw [Bernie Sanders]. I never met him,” during the movement. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2016/02/11/john-lewis-never-saw-bernie-sanders-during-civil-rights-era/80263450/

Sanders was charged with resisting arrest during a segregation protest in Chicago in 1963, and was charged $25. He later white flighted to Vermont, one of the whitest states in the country. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago/

Sanders never bothered to vote during the Civil Rights movement, only putting forth the effort when he himself was running. https://imgur.com/gallery/mmS40Gq#460q6bS

During his speech in Jacksonville on the 50th anniversary of MLK’s death, Sanders rewrote history and tried to claim that King’s real focus was economic justice and not civil rights. "All of us know where he was when he was assassinated 50 years ago today. He was in Memphis to stand with low-income sanitation workers who were being exploited ruthlessly, whose wages were abysmally low, and who were trying to create a union. That’s where he was. Because as the mayor just indicated, what he believed — and where he was a real threat to the establishment — is that of course we need civil rights in this country, but we also need economic justice.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to civil rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on

Sanders voted for the 1994 crime bill https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

In 1994, he praised the bill and stated that the US needed more jails. https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1221468426855755776

He touted his vote for the crime bill on his website at least until 2006, as proof he was “tough on crime” and “strong on the cops” https://web.archive.org/web/20061018180921/http:/www.bernie.org/truth/crime.html

In 2015, during a meeting with police reform activist group Campaign Zero, Sanders responded to being asked why he thought a disproportionate amount of people of color were incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses with “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African-American?” Those present at the meeting stated, “Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can

In 2018, fifteen racial and social justice leaders in Vermont, including multiple NAACP branch presidents, ACLU organizers, and BLM activists, sent an open letter to Sanders and the Sanders Institute to complain that they were “excluded” from the “national progressive movement that Senator Bernie Sanders is trying to foster.” The letter asks “how could Senator Sanders host what is supposed to be an intersectional, progressive event without inviting the very people whom he serves?” http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/vpr/files/201812/sanders-letter-2018.pdf

Curtiss Reed, Executive Director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, stated that the exclusion of Vermont POC from the Sanders Institute’s event was “a catastrophic failure of his sort of tone deafness to marginalized communities in the state of Vermont” and added “I’m tempted to say this is no longer a question of benign neglect on the part of the senator, but willful ignorance on his part not to include marginalized voices in this national conversation on the progressive movement.” https://www.vpr.org/post/we-find-ourselves-excluded-racial-justice-leaders-ask-bernie-sanders-get-program#stream/0

Vermont Black leaders stated they were “invisible” to Sanders, and that the senator “was just really dismissive of anything that had to do with race and racism, saying that they didn’t have anything to do with the issues of income inequality. He just always kept coming back to income inequality as a response, as if talking about income inequality would somehow make issues of racism go away.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/vermonts-black-leaders-we-were-invisible-to-bernie-sanders

In his 1998 autobiography, Sanders repeatedly and needlessly used the n-word. He chose to keep the word in the text when republishing the book in 2015. https://www.inquisitr.com/5620596/bernie-sanders-under-fire-for-use-of-n-word-in-2015-book-clip-from-audiobook-version-goes-viral-friday/

“I Will Not Make It a Major Priority”: Sanders the Ally

During an interview as mayor of Burlington, Sanders said LGBTQ rights were not a “major priority” for him and he would “probably not” support a bill to protect gays from job discrimination. https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/10/bernie-sanders-on-marriage-equality-hes-no-longtime-champion.html

Also during his time as mayor, Sanders signed a resolution affirming that marriage is between “husband and wife.” https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/02/06/clinton-surrogates-pounce-on-sanders-over-82-marriage-resolution/

Sanders and his wife stated in 1996 that they opposed the Defense of Marriage Act simply because it would weaken states’ rights. Only later did he claim his opposition was due to support for same-sex marriage. https://time.com/4089946/bernie-sanders-gay-marriage/

Sanders argued same-sex marriage was a states’ rights issue in 2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=kej9QAsS3uI&feature=emb_logo

In that same year, after same-sex civil unions had been legal in Vermont since 2000, he responded to a reporter asking if same-sex marriage should be legalized in Vermont with “Not right now,” after the “very divisive debate” preceding the civil union legislation. https://web.archive.org/web/20160407064606/http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/NEWS/606070302/1003/NEWS02

In thirty years in Congress, Sanders has not sponsored any bills pertaining to LGBTQ rights: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=400357#current_status[]=28&enacted_ex=on

Sanders the Warmonger

Sanders loves to tout his opposition to the Iraq War as proof of his moral superiority. But in 1998, he voted for the Iraq Liberation Act, which states that “it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.” He also supported Clinton’s airstrike on Iraq. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1998/h482

In 1999, Sanders had anti-war protesters at his office arrested. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/27/bernie-sanders-savior-or-seducer-of-the-anti-war-left/

The Iraq War Bill that Sanders voted against required Bush to first try diplomatic efforts and abide by UN rules of military conduct. It also required transparency and progress reports. https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/114/text

The Authorization for Use of Military Force Act (AUMF), which Sanders did vote for, required none of that and is the reason the Afghanistan War was so much of a clusterfuck. Bush would have used the AUMF to invade Iraq even if Congress had voted down the Iraq Liberation Act. The only person to vote against the AUMF was Representative Barbara Lee. Sanders voted in favor of it. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/sjres23/text

Sanders claims to oppose the defense industry. But he brought Lockheed Martin and their 1.2 trillion dollar, over budget, outdated stealth fighters to Vermont. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-loves-this-dollar1-trillion-war-machine

During his tenure as mayor of Burlington, he fired the assistant city treasurer when she was jailed for an anti-war protest. https://academic.oup.com/publius/article-abstract/21/2/131/1917641?redirectedFrom=PDF

Sanders the Healthcare Crusader

Sanders was chairman of the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee during a 2014 scandal when dozens of veterans died while waiting for medical care. During his tenure, Sanders only held seven hearings on VA Oversight, as opposed to the House committee’s forty-two hearings. Veterans argue that Sanders was too invested in the idea of the VA as a shining example of government healthcare to address its failings. Despite the scandal and tragedy, Sanders as recently as 2017 bragged that he was involved with “the most comprehensive VA health care bill in this country.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-veterans-scandal-on-bernie-sanderss-watch

He voted against the Clinton plan for universal healthcare in 1993. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/14/1501210/-Where-Was-Sanders-on-Health-Care-in-93-and-94-Against-the-Clintons

Sanders also voted against CHIP, the children’s health insurance program that AOC relied on to see a doctor in her youth: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1997/h345

Despite campaigning on Medicare for All since 2015, Sanders was unable to explain how much the program would cost during a 2020 60 Minutes interview. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-2020/index.html

When Senator Warren did the math for him and released her detailed M4A plan, Sanders attacked her, calling his plan “more progressive” and saying hers would “have a very negative impact on creating jobs.” https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/03/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-health-care-plan/index.html

Sanders claims that his healthcare plan is standard in other countries. But his M4A plan would ban private insurance, which is not done in any country but Canada. In the Scandinavian countries Sanders loves to hold up as an example of government healthcare, the market for private insurance is growing. https://aapsonline.org/no-bernie-other-countries-do-not-ban-private-care/

“Too Brassy, Too Bitchy”: Sanders the Feminist

In his autobiography, Sanders quoted an article calling his 1996 primary opponent Susan Sweetser “too brassy, too bitchy.” https://books.google.com/books?id=_2YjBm2_JGUC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq=sanders+too+brassy+too+bitchy&source=bl&ots=SWrIR5Xa8m&sig=ACfU3U2-Hj1-UXIOM0Zz274h6_Nu8juoBg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHhtObq6LmAhWvUt8KHc8mDVUQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sanders%20too%20brassy%20too%20bitchy&f=false

In his Vermont Freeman article “Cancer, Disease, and Society,” Sanders called teachers “old bitch[es]” and blamed them for men developing cancer. He also said women developed cancer due to sexual repression. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157403-sanders-cancer.html

Referring to their 1986 governor race, his opponent Madeleine Kuhn stated, “When Sanders was my opponent he focused like a laser beam on “class analysis,” in which “women’s issues” were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a “sexist position,” he declared.” https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/02/04/when-bernie-sanders-ran-against-vermont/kNP6xUupbQ3Qbg9UUelvVM/story.html

Sanders called Planned Parenthood “a part of the establishment” because they endorsed Secretary Clinton for president. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/planned-parenthood-bernie-sanders-218026

Sanders called Hillary Rodham Clinton, former law firm partner, former First Lady, former Senator, and former Secretary of State, unqualified to be president. https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/06/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-qualified/index.html

In January 2020, leaked phone banking scripts from the Sanders campaign called Warren a candidate of the affluent who wouldn’t bring any new voters to the Democratic base. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-quietly-goes-negative-on-warren-097594

In response, members of Warren’s campaign leaked information that, at a dinner in 2018, Sanders had told Warren he did not think a woman could win the presidency. Sanders and his supporters decried this as a lie, even though reporters knew of the dinner and had been asking Warren if Sanders had discussed women’s electability there for over a year. https://twitter.com/mlcalderone/status/1104477933886935040?s=19

Sanders supporters then flooded Elizabeth Warren and her supporters’ Twitter mentions with snake emojis.

Sanders said of Secretary Clinton, “It is not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!” https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/21/13699956/sanders-clinton-democratic-party

Bending the Knee: Sanders the Dictatorship Fanboy

During a 2020 60 Minutes interview, Sanders inexplicably decided it would be a good idea to start praising Fidel Castro’s genocidal regime, stating, “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but, you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. When Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?” https://www.vox.com/2020/2/24/21147388/bernie-sanders-cuba-60-minutes-nicaragua

He doubled down on this praise at the next debate, whining, “Really? Really?” when the crowd booed him. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240627047.html

In 2014, Sanders visited Cuban prisoner Alan Gross, who lost over 100 pounds and five teeth during his captivity. During the meeting, Gross recalls Sanders telling him, “I don't know what's so wrong with this country.” https://www.npr.org/2020/03/04/811729200/former-prisoner-recalls-sanders-saying-i-don-t-know-what-s-so-wrong-with-cuba

In 1985, Sanders praised bread lines and food rationing. “American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. In other countries people don't line up for food. The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death." https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/21/1920767/-Time-to-switch-out-from-Bernie-he-praised-nations-with-bread-lines-that-s-a-good-thing-Danger

Sanders hung a USSR flag in his office as mayor of Burlington. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/24/bernie-sanders-reveals-his-radical-inclinations-ov/

He honeymooned in the USSR, and praised the state of the Soviet Union. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bernie-sanderss-1988-10-day-honeymoon-in-the-soviet-union/2019/05/02/db543e18-6a9c-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

In the 1980s, Sanders attended a Sandinista rally in Nicaragua where the attendees chanted, “Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders recently praised China, saying that it has made "more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization." https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/458976-sanders-china-had-done-more-to-address-extreme-poverty-than-any-country-in-the

“They Can’t Stop Us”: Sanders the Conspiracy Theorist

Despite conceding the 2016 primary and stating that “Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nomination and I congratulate her for that” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders/index.html), he later made the Trump-esque statement “Some people say that if maybe that system was not rigged against me, I would have won the nomination and defeated Donald Trump.” https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-defeat-donald-trump-2016-rigged-primary-dnc-nbc-kasie-hunt-1446116

On February 21, Sanders tweeted, “I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.” https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1231021453270769664

After Super Tuesday, Sanders stated that Buttigieg and Klobuchar were pressed to drop out as part of an establishment plot to defeat him. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/486503-sanders-klobuchar-and-buttigieg-ended-campaigns-under-great-deal

Sanders has repeatedly attacked the press as “paid by the corporations and billionaires who own the media.” He’s promoted the conspiracy theory that Jeff Bezos makes The Washington Post write negative articles about him. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/27/bernie-sanders-attacks-media-press-fair-or-trump-2020-democrats

During the Nicaraguan conflict, Sanders accused American reporters of ignoring the truth and told a CBS reporter, “you are worms.” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/bernie-sanders-pro-sandinista-past-problem.html

Sanders accused The Washington Post of trying to harm him in the Nevada caucus by reporting on Russia’s attempts to boost his campaign. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

“We Support Them”: Sanders the Spoiler

Robert Mueller’s investigation found that Russian interference sought to boost both Sanders and Trump’s 2016 campaigns, stating “we support them.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/17/indictment-russians-also-tried-help-bernie-sanders-jill-stein-presidential-campaigns/348051002/

Sanders was well aware of the Russian efforts, stating “What we knew is–well, of course we knew that. And of course we knew that they were trying to cause divisiveness within the Democratic party. Uh, that’s no great secret.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDYbHult0Do

When The Washington Post reported on Russia’s efforts to boost Sanders in 2020, Sanders had already known for weeks and said nothing. After the report came out, he attacked the Post and accused them of trying to tank his performance in the Nevada caucus, stating “I’ll let you guess, about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out? It was The Washington Post? Good friends.” https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-takes-a-shot-at-washington-post-good-friends-when-asked-about-timing-of-russia-report/

The Fish Rots from the Head: The Sanders Campaign

The 2016 campaign breached the Clinton campaign’s voter data and harvested and stored voter information https://time.com/4155185/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/

The 2016 campaign received a 645 page letter from the FEC detailing the campaign’s finance violations (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/) and had to pay a $14.5 K fine to the FEC after receiving donations from non-citizens. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/376373-sanders-campaign-pays-145k-fine-to-settle-fec-complaint

The 2016 Nevada campaign director sought to rig the state’s caucus by urging staffers to buy double-sided coins for tie-breaking coin tosses http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sanderss-nevada-director-floated-two-sided-coins-for-tiebreaks-report/ar-AAhHiAI?getstaticpage=true&automatedTracking=staticview

The 2016 campaign initially decried superdelegates as “undemocratic” (https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/opinions/superdelegates-democratic-party-kohn/) before attempting to persuade them to go against the primary’s outcome and back Sanders instead of Clinton https://www.npr.org/2016/05/19/478705022/sanders-campaign-now-says-superdelegates-are-key-to-winning-nomination

The 2016 campaign was accused by staffers of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment toward women, and pay disparity by gender https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html

Weeks before the 2016 general election, Jane Sanders retweeted a video from an April town hall of her husband telling an attendee to “make these decisions yourself” regarding whether or not to vote third party if Secretary Clinton won the primary https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/26/retweet-bernie-sanders-wife-jane-raises-questions/91140254/

The 2020 Sanders campaign appointed Russian interference denier and Jill Stein 2016 voter Briahna Joy Gray as the campaign’s National Press Secretary https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/888555665865814017?lang=en

Following promises to run a civil campaign, Sanders hired David Sirota, a man who’d spent months attacking other primary contenders online, as a speech writer. The campaign also confirmed that Sirota had already been serving in an advisory role prior to his official hiring https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray called for the doxing of a Sanders critic on Twitter. If there was any repercussion for this behavior, it has never been made public. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/14/1879124/-Bernie-Sanders-s-Campaign-Doxed-a-Critic-on-Twitter

The 2020 campaign hired and fired YouTuber Matt Orfalea within 24 hours after being alerted of his sexist, racist, homophobic, and ableist content, suggesting he was not vetted before his hiring https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/bernie-sanders-matt-orfalea-mlk-youtube-video/

Despite his firing and the campaign decrying his behavior in October 2019, in January 2020 Jane Sanders was still retweeting and praising Orfalea. https://twitter.com/Rob_Flaherty/status/1236861997398048768

In March 2020, Orfalea posed as a Biden volunteer and made calls to voters claiming that Biden has dementia. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgeanp/a-man-fired-from-sanders-campaign-is-calling-biden-voters-and-saying-he-has-dementia

They hired and fired Darius Khalil Gordon after two days after being alerted of his sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and ableist Tweets https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/12/bernie-sanders-new-head-organizer-called-people-fgs-bhes/

The campaign also hired former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate. The Women’s March cut ties with Sarsour following anti-Semitic statements. https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/womens-march-founder-calls-on-current-leadership-to-step-down/

Sarsour was also condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for the statement that “a state like Israel that is based on supremacy, that is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else.” https://forward.com/news/national/435964/bernie-sanders-linda-sarsour-jewish-voters/

Sanders National Campaign Co-Chair Nina Turner claimed that Biden’s strong support among Black voters is due to the voters’ “short memories” and “not a true understanding of the history” https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/473161-top-sanders-officials-hits-biden-over-riding-on-obamas-coattails

The 2020 campaign paid staffers working 60 hours a week an average of 13 dollars per hour despite Sanders campaigning on a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage https://www.vox.com/2019/7/20/20700841/bernie-sanders-minimum-wage-staff-pay

Bernie Bros attacked Biden’s Detroit rally on 3/9/20, striking senior aide Symone Sanders in the head with an iPad and knocking her down. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/joe-biden-detroit-protests-sanders-124874

“Nobody Likes Him”: Sanders Himself

In 1996, Congressman Barney Frank said of Sanders, “Bernie alienates his natural allies. His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.” https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/04/11/history-barney-frank-bernie-sanders-criticize

In her recent Hulu documentary series, Hillary Rodham Clinton briefly spoke about Sanders, saying “He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.” https://twitter.com/Burkmc/status/1235863901813661697?s=09

A former campaign staffer called Sanders “unbelievably abusive.” Another campaign insider called him an asshole, and a former Senate staffer recounted, "He yelled in meetings all the time.” https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/anger-management-sanders-fights-for-employees-except-his-own/Content?oid=2834657

One aide stated that Sanders “never makes you feel like you’re good enough to be in the room with him.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/us/politics/bernie-sanders-image.html

Sanders voted in favor of dumping nuclear waste on the poor and predominantly Latinx community of Sierra Blanca, Texas https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/28/Sanders-Nuclear-Waste-Votes-Divide-Texas-Activists/

When asked if he would visit the site in Sierra Blanca, Sanders answered “Absolutely not.” https://archives.texasobserver.org/issue/1998/09/11#page=11

Sanders voted five times against the Brady Act which required universal background checks and a waiting period to buy firearms. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-voted-against-brady/o

He also voted against the AMBER Alert System. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/09/21/sanders_vote_on_amber_alert_emerges_as_key_campaign_issue/

He wanted to primary Obama in the 2012 election cycle. https://www.thenation.com/article/yes-bernie-sanders-wanted-obama-primaried-in-2012-heres-why/

After saying millionaire senators are immoral (https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/bernie-millionaire-senators-immoral/index.html) and railing against millionaires and billionaires in his 2016 campaign, Sanders responded to criticism of his millionaire senator status by saying “if you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” His stump speech now only rants about billionaires. https://theweek.com/speedreads/834228/bernie-sanders-says-millionaire-like-write-bestselling-book

Upheld a ban on rock concerts as mayor of Burlington like a Footloose villain https://i.redd.it/atpybo1rcwa31.jpg

Despite running on forgiving student loan debt since 2015, when pressed for specifics during an interview with Dana Bash, Sanders responded, “I don't have the plan in my pocket right now,” because, you know, why on Earth should he know the details of his key campaign promises? https://mobile.twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/1137779734467792897

Two days before the 2016 general election, Sanders tweeted “I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist.” https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/794941635931099136?lang=en

Sanders had a heart attack at age 78, making his continued life expectancy 3.1 years. https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/acute-coronary-syndrome/study-65-older-mi-patients-die-within-8-years

He could have dropped out of the race after his heart attack and endorsed Warren, and she could have spent the primary building coalitions with the demographics where she was the weakest, and could well have been the front runner by now. Instead, he selfishly stayed in the race, screwing her over and knowing full well the odds are against him living through a single term. He continued to do the only thing he’s good at: fucking everyone over.

Say whatever you want about Biden, it’s not like there aren’t things to say. But I’ve seen so many posts about how “Sure, Biden’s the worst EVER, but he is EVER SO SLIGHTLY less worse than Trump,” and excuse me, fuck off. Biden horribly lost his wife and daughter before his 1972 Senate term even started, and instead of dropping out, he continued to serve his constituents while commuting home two hours every night to raise his sons. Meanwhile, in 1972, Sanders was a deadbeat bum stealing electricity. There’s no comparison.

#long post #Bernie Sanders #politics #2020 election #election 2020 #primary 2020 #2020 primary

86 notes · View notes

notesofarichlycolorednight · 5 years

Text

Get to Know the Writer Tag Thing

idk if that’s the actual name lol, i just copied and pasted the questions and came up with my own title ^_^;

was tagged by @queen-of-ice101, thanks babe. these are always fun to do

1. Pen or Pencil

i don’t think i’ve written fanfic on paper in forever wow, but when i did (or occasionally will do), i always used pen. i hate making mistakes and having to clumsily cross it out, but pens are smoother and don’t make noise. honestly writing with a good pen on a thick pad of paper is a stim for me

2. Have you ever drawn your OC’s?

twice. and of only one of my ocs. both for inktober 2018. other than that, not really. i’d like to get into drawing more, but i’m just really more of a writer at this point in my life. also drawing ppl??? is so hard???

3. Does your writing ever make you cry?

not that i can remember. chapter 49 in i need another story almost made me cry, but mostly when i’m thinking abt painful scenes, my heart aches. even then, once i’ve envisioned it a lot, the ache eventually disappears. unless i forget abt it, then come back to it, or if it’s just a really painful scene, then the ache never really goes away when i’m thinking abt the scene

but no, bc i guess they’re my ideas. i’m expecting them, i’m writing them, and eventually become desensitized to them

4: If your Muse was a person, what would they look like?

okay so i’m confused by the wording of the question. bc at first i thought muses could be anything. then it occurred to me that they might only be ppl??? or at least take human-like shape bc they’re, i’m assuming, based on the nine muses of greek mythology, who take human shape/form.

maybe i’m reading too much into the question. anyway, my muse has never been a person/taken human shape if i’m honest. it’s been more of an amorphous blob that i haven’t really felt the need to give shape/form to. so to tell you what it would look like as a person...don’t know if i can do that lol

my muse is way more abstract, and i’ve never felt the need to make it concrete in any way

5: Which of your pieces would you choose to be remembered for?

like most writers, i’d like to be remembered for a published book of my own work. read riordan gave me an idea to base a book around chinese mythology, and which takes place in china. who knows, i may even write it in chinese first bc i’d like to become that fluent. the trick to this answer is that right now, this idea is also just an amorphous blob rn lol. i don’t have the time to do the research or flesh out the plot/characters (i don’t even really have those two things lmao). much too busy for that i’m afraid ;_; there is a one-act play i wrote for my creative writing class i’m particularly proud of currently

if i were to pick my fanfic i’d prob have to say itps--the oc pjo story. but only bc i’ve worked so long and so hard on it, and on my oc. if you asked me again in five years, i’d probably tell you smth different.

and i mean that’s the thing to this question. i’m still super young, and i have so much time to write more and continue to grow as a writer, so to choose smth to be remembered for so young almost seems unfair, tbh

6: How much have you written or worked on your WIP so far today?

LMAO ZIP, ZLICH, ZERO

my amorphous muse has gone dormant. i wouldn’t say fled if only bc i think i’ve unconsciously made it dormant so i can focus on finishing my master’s thesis

like would i love to write??? YES OF COURSE, I WOULD BE DOWN TO WRITE ANYTHING AT THIS POINT

but when i go to write, i find i physically cannot (bc smth psychologically is going on up there; could be stress, could be writer’s block, it’s probably those two and a multitude of other things). bc part of me knows that i can’t involve myself in such a big project (even small one-shots) bc i need to be completely focused on my thesis. the other part of me feels unable to control this ability to start writing. which is the worst part

schrödinger’s amorphous muse: when will my muse return from war? my muse has already returned from war.

woe is me

7: Have you ever based a piece (or a portion of a piece) on a dream?

don’t think i have. my dreams tend to be too weird to base a piece or portion of a piece on. if i was writing a fantasy story, it may fit in better. but currently, i write stuff that is based in more realistic-fiction worlds so

like i have very weird dreams. also many of them are stress dreams related to bathrooms (ugh) and school (ugh x2). as if i want to base smth that brings me joy on smth that stresses me out

8: Do you prefer silence, a little noise (music, ambient noise, fan etc) or a lot of noise when you’re writing?

it really depends on the mood i’m in

sometimes i’ll want to listen to talking, but it has to be smth i’ve watched a million times or don’t care abt at all if i am to concentrate on writing. they could be tv shows or video essays, etc. but that’s mostly if i’m not writing like fun/fictional stuff with plot and storyline, bc the talking then just interrupts my train of thought. unless i’ve seriously watched it so much/couldn’t care less abt what i’ve put on

mostly i’ll listen to music. i don’t have playlists, as much as i wish i did. my music library just isn’t that big. i’m such a picky person when it comes to music. and also i have so many other things i want to do than make playlists honestly. like i’m envious of ppl who make playlists, and i’m not saying that those who do make playlists have nothing else to do like at all. not my intention at all. however, at the same time, making them isn’t one of my top priorities

anyway, depending on my mood i’ll listen to the same song(s) on repeat again while i write. sometimes the song matches the mood of the scene i write, but it doesn’t always have to

sometimes i’ll start a song but get so into the scene that when the song ends, i don’t turn it back on anymore bc i don’t need it. sometimes some scenes require a lot of concentration that i can’t listen to anything. i actually need/prefer silence

i’ll only listen to ambient noise if i’m trying to drown out other noises, and only when i’m writing academic papers lol

9: Do you have any routines before you sit down to write?

nope lol. some scenes i’ll imagine for weeks before sitting down to write them bc thinking abt how the scene will play out helps me fall asleep, but also helps me figure out exactly how the scene will play out so when i do sit down to write, it flows so easily onto the page

unfortunately this doesn’t happen with everything i write--only the big, emotional scenes. and even then, i imagine these scenes as movies scenes, so when i go to write, there’s a lot more detail i have to think abt and add in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

other than that, i don’t really have any routines i absolutely need to do before i sit down to write...i mean does opening all the folders i need, including the folders on my flashdrive so i can easily save and then transfer the saved document to my flashdrive count?

10: Have you ever participated in NaNoWrimo or a Camp?

i wish! but no. never had the time. like WHY NOVEMBER DO YOU KNOW HOW BUSY STUDENTS GET DURING NOVEMBER THAT’S LIKE THE ABSOLUTE WORST TIME TO HOLD IT FOR WRITERS WHO ARE STUDENTS

and like i get that the whole point of it is to get ppl who say things like “never had the time” to write. but that’s the thing, it’s not like inktober, where it encourages a very armature artist (i.e., me) to draw at least one thing everyday. i already love to write and i already write when i can if i don’t have writer’s block and my amorphous muse wants to cooperate

so when i say “i don’t have time” it’s bc it’s in the middle of the fucking semester and i’m swamped with midterms and papers and my ga-ship which requires me to help everyone else who are also scrambling on midterm papers like jeezums i’m not bitter or anything

i know that camp tho has other sessions that aren’t in novemeber, so we’ll see if i decide to participate in those. i can really only focus on one story at a time, esp if it’s a big story i’m really invested in. so participating while i’m researching and writing fanfic would be difficult for me. also the pressure to do the research i want to do in such a short amt of time would probably not be conducive for me, just personally. esp on top of another story where i’m researching and writing (even if i do put it aside to focus on camp) but since i’ve never participated, i wouldn’t know if any of that is necessarily true

thanks again for tagging me! i’ll tag two ppl i know who are writers lol; and as always with these things, feel free to fill this out or not: @talking0fmichelangel0 @lucifers-favorite-child

if you follow me or we’re mutuals and i have failed to realize you’re a writer, feel free to fill these out but tag me so i can read your answers

#about me #dat writing life got me like #fun stuff

1 note · View note

nanowrimo · 6 years

Text

“In My End is My Beginning”: the Post-Camp Novel Effort

Now that the frenzy of Camp NaNoWriMo has passed, it’s time to figure out what’s next! That could be anything from taking a break from your manuscript to diving right into edits or revisions. Today, participant Susan Tait shares her plan for post-Camp noveling:

I feel stunned. In the afterglow of “I really did write 52,000 words in a month!” the post-Camp effort of organizing my writing feels like trying to unload hastily-packed boxes after moving to a new house. There’s all this stuff that got crammed in during the fury to finish.

Advice was never-ending and contradictory, so I stopped reading it. It mostly amounted to this:

“Don’t edit while you write! Just get it out!”

“Edit while you write, or you’ll just have a big mess at the end.”

I think they’re both right. The novel’s gotten “out,” but what’s gotten out has more obvious problems than strengths: outline fragments, broken dialogue, zeroes filled in for o’s the week I switched keyboards (how did I forget to review my spelling and grammar more often?), a fantastic idea I remember having but can’t find, paragraphs that “seemed like a good idea at the time.” Acknowledgement for source quotes and research notes is so far behind that it feels like another book. Plus the dawning realization that some of my cardboard characters spitefully defied their assigned roles and did what they wanted to.

Now, in the aftermath, I could:

Put the whole binder in the drawer as evidence of effort, and write a short story that I resist titling, “And Now For Something Completely Different.”

Wax philosophical about what I learned, writing a personal development essay that will make it clear to me what I know now that I didn’t then.

Rewrite, revise, review. I can do the other two things any time. Perhaps a character with the worst character arc needs a short story to clear things up. Maybe a decision diagram on tracing paper superimposed on a generously sized timeline would show me where things went wrong—or if I’ve actually written some alternative history.

To my surprise, I like what I have enough to pursue polishing the messy draft that I started last month. To pick the advice that’s going to work for me, I need only remember one thing:

Maintain my engagement with my characters while re-engaging with my readers.

Some of my characters are based on real people, others completely invented. They all have a real relationship with me, something like the relationship of befriending people online that you never meet in real life. My characters make me look at how I engage with people and what I project onto them.

It doesn’t matter in what order I fix all the problems with my draft. What matters is that I start a process that will create a community larger than the sum of my novel’s parts: that place where characters and readers meet. The only way to build that is to start where I am, regarding my dirty draft as clean compost.

I adopted my writing motto (and the title of this post) from Mary, Queen of Scots: the end of the dirty draft is the beginning of a new chapter.

Recommended Links:

Looking at a fresh start for content that will integrate easily? Try L.E. DeLano’s suggestion in her recent Swoon post on why you should know what changed for you and your character last month.

I don’t write what I know; I write to find out what I don’t. Sounds like you? This Atlantic column on the value of fiction shores up exploratory writers.

This FAQ with award-winning novelist John Scalzi goes much wider than science fiction—terse, kind, and some of the comments are also pretty funny and helpful.

Susan’s first novel collapsed into a short story that she round-filed. It taught her enough to succeed at her second novel, which she wrote during NaNoWriMo 2017, and finished during the Now What? Months in February 2018. Fountain pen fiend, amateur painter, past winner of two Writer’s Digest competitions, and a certified scrum master, she lives in Oregon with her husband, son, and three cats. See more about her on LinkedIn.

Top image licensed under Creative Commons from Sandy/Chuck Harris on Flickr.

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #camp nanowrimo #now what #by nano guest #susan tait

80 notes · View notes

fearofyoongi-blog · 6 years

Text

I Bloom For You | Minjoon

pt. 4

tags: college au, clique au, minjoon angst, mentions of taejin, sugakookie, fuck boy!jin

main character: kim namjoon

word count: 4210

read series here!

ALSO! If you’re following this series, please inbox me (anon or not!) and tell me which part you would like for me to work on next!

Taejin (Taehyung’s perspective)

Minjoon (Jimin’s perspective)

Sugakookie (Yoongi’s perspective/JK’s perspective)

The morning casts through Namjoon’s window without apology. It was the worst way to wake up, he would say. Blindly the upperclassman stretched his palm towards the sun as he releases the loudest yawn of his life. His vision is the second sense to arrive to him. Sleep deprived and exhausted from the night before, he peeks one eye after the other. Luckily, he’s in his own room. His friends didn’t prank him, and he wasn’t waking up to a stranger in his bed.

Despite his exhaustion, it wasn’t because of stupidity. For once. Namjoon spent the entire night on the phone with Jimin, an underclassman he’s been pursuing for a couple of weeks now, pretending he didn’t know how to complete his Discrete Math assignment. They were on the phone for nearly three hours when Hoseok knocked on Namjoon’s door and told him to quiet down. Joon would’ve did it, but Jimin insisted it was late and he should go to bed.

He would’ve fought him, but Jimin cares about his schooling. Well, Namjoon does too, but certainly not as much as the other.

Namjoon scraped by on charms and natural intelligence. The guy picked up on more than he let on. Exchanging a good attendance record for free time, late or partial credit over the A’s he could be receiving. Freedom was important to him. Well, he had a lot of free time, and he wished he could spend it getting to know Jimin, but that was proven harder than expected. Namjoon had a feeling that Jimin liked being chased. For the last week in particular, the two have been non-stop texting and calling. At first, this was not intentional. Jimin is genuinely a busy student. With five classes this semester, Student Government Association, Namjoon respected that Jimin barely has time to squeeze in an episode of his favorite anime let alone a relationship.

And perhaps Jimin could sense the effect it was having on Joon. Each event for SGA that Jimin participates in, Namjoon lurked the crowd. Waving, smiling, pointing at his phone to get Jimin to check his own. It was endearing. A little odd, but endearing.

Today was no different than any other day. Namjoon woke and flooded Jimin’s phone with text messages. Nothing too obnoxious, or clingy. Joon simply determined today would be the day they would get to hang out face-to-face. They really haven’t since they had sex in the library’s bathroom.

NAMJOON: You have a free hour today, don’t you?

JIMIN: Maybe

NAMJOON: Can I see you today then?

Additionally, Jimin somehow learns not to answer quickly. Namjoon is surprised by how fast he was learning the whole process of cat-and-mouse. He doesn’t take the space between messages to heart anymore. Assuming the underclassman is working on his morning routine, Namjoon finishes up that last-minute homework assignment for Discrete Math before he ever hears back from Jimin.

He’s walking to the bathroom that is shared in the apartment. Scratching his stomach under his shirt and stretching once more as he reaches the toilet. Just before he goes to pee, he shoots Jimin another text.

NAMJOON: I could grab you coffee? I’m skipping my classes today.

JIMIN: Skipping class again? Seriously?

He knows how it sounds. He knows that Jimin thinks it’s ridiculous to skip as much as he does, but this was Joon’s second-to-last semester at this college. Perfect attendance was the last thing on his mind.

NAMJOON: I’ll come to school and go to my classes if you agree to let me buy you coffee. And see you.

Joon smirks to himself. This was thin ice he enjoyed skating on. There was something thrilling about coming up with various excuses for absences. Most of his professors are understanding, and others don’t seem to mind since he is a friendly guy with a lovable personality.

He is smart enough to get him out of any failing situation anyway.

It’s a trait he picked up early on during his sophomore year. Most instructors had these five-free-absences rule and Namjoon did one helluva job planning his academic career around those free passes. By no means was he dumb. Not one bit. There were some instances where the instructors didn’t help him which resulted in failing grades, but there were always other semesters. Namjoon became an expert at combining an understanding the material, never sitting in an unnecessary lecture, and schmoozing the instructor. It was the perfect recipe to a successful college life.

NAMJOON: Your buddy Jungkook provided some useful information about your likes and hobbies.

Namjoon saw Yoongi and Jungkook yesterday when he was at Yoongi’s apartment. They ate sushi and played Spades and talked about Jimin. To be honest, most of the reason that Joon was there had to do with gaining intel on Jimin.

A soft chuckle escapes him. He can see the typing bubble disappear and reappear multiple times within the chat. Well, at least this got under Jimin’s skin. He wants to press him about what Jungkook said, but decides against it. Instead his attention is grabbed by other messages pouring in.

JIMIN: I’ll see how I feel later. I just woke up.

NAMJOON: I won’t take no for an answer today.

He sends the message off before going back to his main conversation page of his phone and sees his group chat with Hoseok, Jin, and Yoongi.

YOOGNI: Hyung… Where are you right now?

JIN: With a friend ;)

Namjoon tilts his head.

After that response, Joon resorts to not getting involved. His phone chimes and it’s Jimin again.

JIMIN: I didn’t give you an answer.

Namjoon laughs quietly to himself. Again, Jimin has to find this fun. Namjoon himself finds this to be a challenge he quite enjoys. Namjoon merely assumes that no one has ever paid Jimin this much attention in awhile. Sue him for embracing it.

Shoving his phone in his pocket, he continues with his morning routine. Coffee, bagel sandwich, study packet review for his Economics class, and he stuffs his pockets with a wallet, headphones, and his cellphone.

As he walks to the park, his phone is non-stop buzzing. Literally. Non-stop. Jimin isn’t usually this pushy, so he brushes it off as the guy being cute and reaches into his pocket to silence the phone. He doesn’t have the energy or time to think about anything other than what he should do for the day.

And Namjoon’s day went as followed:

He visited his favorite park and studied Economics notes from his phone.

He reviewed an essay due in Positive Psychology Honors, which Joon is certain he wrote well.

He walked the downtown area until he noticed an anime festival happening in the center of a park. Jimin would like this. He needs to see this. So he caves. Despite never having checked his phone, he heads back to his part of the grid city.

Then he has a lunch break… without his group of friends? That surprised him. He was sure they would all meet at their favorite cafe, but when no one showed up he took his sandwich and ate it on the way back to school. Maybe they were all waiting for him there.

For the first time since this morning, Joon checks his phone and realizes that he made a grave mistake in not checking it sooner.

The messages that caused his phone to buzz were not from Jimin at all. If anything, Jimin never responded to him again.

He stops walking to scroll through the twenty messages Yoongi and Jin exchanged, but only took out the small pieces of information necessary to understand what was going on.

YOONGI: You’re with Taehyung, aren’t you?

YOONGI: Hyung… Are you out of your mind?

YOONGI: Joonie, say something!

JIN: Is that why you sent this here? So Joon will intervene? What’s he gonna say?

JIN: Tae is fun ;) I need that. He’s a big boy.

YOONGI: Why him? That’s Hoseok’s friend!

JIN: Not anymore.

“Oh shit…” Namjoon hisses to himself, glancing around before sprinting across the large courtyard of the college. He runs up to the library and up the stairs.

The library was the largest building on campus. It contained two levels, the bottom one being the quietest place in the entire school. Joon rarely uses that floor. The back end of the first floor was lined with study rooms, and oftentimes he would rent one for the sake of spending more time with a classmate than necessary. These days, he’ll go in to the room the Student Government Association uses just to wave at Jimin. Again, Namjoon believes the boy likes this attention.

Moreover, the top floor of the library is much more casual. Anyone could go to use the computers, grab books, and hang out between classes.

Faulty bean bags lined the outside where the windows were, as well as round tables with plastic chairs. The walls are painted burgundy red, similar to the school’s logo. And every piece of furniture is either painted gold or some sort of faux gold that turned green over the years. The center contained hip level bookshelves that were, truthfully, falling apart. The twenty computers in the library were old and dated. If an IT degree-seeking student needed a computer for their courses, these would be the last they could ever use.

Hence why Jimin and SGA are trying to make this part of the library more appealing and updated.

As Namjoon enters, his pace slows to a halt and he searches the entire vicinity. Thankful for the short bookshelves and open space only in this moment. When his eyes finally land on a familiar faces, his brows knit together and he approaches with loud stomps.

The first thing he notices straight away are the people missing. Hoseok and Yoongi.

Namjoon spots Jimin and Taehyung off in a corner, talking aggressively to each other.

When Taehyung first started talking to Hoseok, he would hang around the group casually and use Jungkook’s relationship with Yoongi as a reason to hang around. It was fun to have Tae around, and Jin never bothered him before. Why the sudden interest? It confused Joon.

Yoongi has his eyes in his phone, Joon assumes he is texting, while Jin has lovey dovey eyes over something Tae is saying behind him.

“Hyung,” Joon clears his throat to get their attention, specifically Jin. “What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting at the cafe?”

Jin shrugs nonchalantly. “After that whole mess with Jungkook this morning, I didn’t feel like it. Plus, I got brunch with Taehyung after my second class. I’m stuffed.” He’s almost condescending about it, and he grins at Yoongi for assurance.

Yoongi doesn’t give it to him though. Namjoon notices that Yoongi is barely making eye contact.

As Joon is about to speak, Yoongi interjects. “Where were you this morning, Joon? I needed you. A lot of shit went down!” Namjoon takes his lip between his teeth and shrugs at the older male. Without replying, Yoongi bounces out of his seat and collects his things and leaves. No one seems affected, but Joon worries about why Yoongi is so concerned.

“He got into an argument this morning with Jungkook,” Jin answers, obviously reading the look on Jimin’s face. Namjoon observes how Jimin is listening in, but also listening to Taehyung. “I think Jungkook’s having a bad day.”

“Yeah well, gathering what I’m looking at, no one is happy right now…” Namjoon peers up. Jimin and Taehyung are still talking. So, he looks back to Jin. “What’s going on, hyung?”

Taehyung looks at Jin then back at Jimin, then at Jin again.

Namjoon shakes his head. “Okay… Did I miss something?” He sits down in front of Jin with his arms on the table. “What happened to Hobi? Why did Yoongi leave? Why is Taehyung looking at you like a puppy waiting for his master to give him a treat?”

Jin shrugs again, and Joon is about to hit him. Really, hit him. “Hoseok lied to everyone. He has a girlfriend, you know. Never even told me. I found out because Taehyung told me.”

“And? So what? That still doesn’t explain why you’re here with Tae!” Namjoon scowls with flailing arms.

“We just… connected. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. The other day I saw the poor kid sitting in the courtyard and approached him. He told me about Hobi and his girlfriend, and when I told him that we can hang out, he was excited. He isn’t talking to Hoseok because he’s a liar. So… We bonded.”

Namjoon cocks his head. “Bonded? Bonded over what, hyung?”

“A lot of things!” But Jin only wiggles his brows.

Joon grits his teeth, shaking his head. “How did Jungkook find out about you guys then? Why was Yoongi asking about you this morning?”

Jin falls silent for a moment, but his smile grows uncomfortably. But Joon only gives him an epic death glare until he caves. “He slept over our apartment. I didn’t know. Taehyung was there too. So they woke up and saw each other and Taehyung kinda ran.”

“Ran where?”

“Back to my room.” Jin’s toothy and smiling way too wide. Namjoon really wants to knock his teeth in. “You should see him in the morning, Joon-ie. The boy is beautiful.”

Then, it hits him. It hits him why Yoongi asks about him, why Jin said he was with a friend, and why Jimin has Taehyung cornered right now. His eyes flicker between Jimin, Tae, and back to Jin. He releases a sigh. “You’re… Hyung… You’re not…”

But his friend goes quiet again. His smile, his facial expression, the condescending glance he shoots at Jimin speaks volumes though.

“You slept with Taehyung!?” He says it too loudly and captures Jimin’s attention. His eyes land on the blonde boy, but glance back at Jin as he starts laughing again. “This isn’t funny, Jin! You slept with him? Seriously? What the hell is wrong with you!? Who are you?”

In all their years of knowing each other, Namjoon never thought he would ask that question. To Jin, of all people. This was truly shocking. Once upon a time, they sat together in their dorms and talked about… everything. He remembers the night they all came out to one another. When Yoongi finished talking about how hard he fell in love with Jungkook, Jin confessed to being pansexual, and Namjoon said he was gay.

It was a meaningful moment for the boys to share this. Namjoon and Jin agreed that they wanted what Yoongi had. Even if only a taste. What Yoongi had with Jungkook seemed real, it was solid, stable. Something neither truly had in friendships or relationships. Jin is so picky, so conservative, the idea of sleeping with someone he didn’t know well terrified him.

But something in Jin changed. Sometime between Sophomore and Junior year, he changed. He was no longer a shoe-gazing college student with an interest in education or love. No, something happened that caused Jin to become reckless and unattainable.

His parents divorced, his dad moves to the United States, and his mom becomes a drunk.

Namjoon tries to imagine Jin as someone he doesn’t know well. He tries to imagine Jin as a guy with a soft spot, with weaknesses, with some kind of Achilles’ heel that could make Taehyung believe he was different. But he can’t.

These days, Kim Seokjin has a reputation that most people do not choose to associate with. Not voluntarily. Yes, he has loyal, stable friendships with Yoongi, Namjoon and Hoseok, even they had their frustrations. Yoongi has shared one too many stories about Jin manipulating him into writing essays, Hoseok mentions discounts at his store, and Joon and Jin stopped seeing eye-to-eye a long time ago.

Kim Seokjin does not treat people nicely. Not unless he needs something from them. Not unless he can take something from them.

What could he possibly gain from being with Taehyung though? As far as Joon knows, they have nothing in common.

As Namjoon watches Jimin and Taehyung, he huffs. Tae is storming away, and Jimin is starting to shout behind him. “Don’t you remember the things he told me last week? How I was bet to them? All of that was untrue and he said those things to get under my skin!” Jimin pleas for his friend to see the truth. “He’ll hurt you-- You’ll regret this!”

As Taehyung walks out, Jimin attempts to follow, but Joon stands up and grabs the younger by his forearm. “Stop. Jimin. Stop. Let him go…” He just wants to cut in, to alleviate the tension.

In the short weeks that they’ve built a bond, Namjoon wants to believe that Jimin could trust him. He’s done nothing to prove otherwise. When Jimin needed help with a conflict in SGA, he texted Joon the entire afternoon about it. When Taehyung found out about Hoseok’s girlfriend, Jimin was there, but Namjoon texted Jimin the whole night as a means to stay awake. Yes, their friendship is short-lived, but Namjoon trusts this bond enough and hopes that Jimin would listen to him right now.

He wants Jimin to understand, to calm down, but it backfires as Jimin shoves him away and shakes his head.

“You! You lied to me! You lied straight to my face!” Jimin takes his frustrations out on Joon without thinking twice. “I asked you if he was safe from Hobi and you said yes! You said he would be alright and now look! Look where he’s gone,” He glares back at Jin, who is still ironically grinning from ear-to-ear. Namjoon could kill him. “He’s sunken so low he actually cares about that monster.”

It was enough to cause Jin’s grin to fade. It softens to a frown but Jimin doesn’t look long enough to notice. However, Namjoon mirrors the reaction. He is saddened by his friend’s disappointment, but he doesn’t address it. Not right now. “Jimin, listen-- I’m sorry this happened-- I’m sorry but--”

“But what? You think stopping me from running after Tae is gonna-- is gonna what? Get you laid? You’re not hero in this scenario, Joon. You’re not as high and mighty as you believe. You’re just as bad, if not worse, than the rest of them. You let them believe Hoseok is a bad guy for keeping his relationship from you. You stand by Jin even after Yoongi leaves. Even after you know Jin upset him! There is nothing but toxicity surrounding your friend group. Honestly, Yoongi is your redeeming quality. Isn’t that pathetic? One man, that isn’t even you, he’s your saving grace.” Jimin shoves Joon again. “Do me a favor…” He glares at Jin quickly and then back to Joon. “Both of you… Leave me, and my friends, alone.” He says through his teeth, looking between the upperclassmen once more before storming off.

Namjoon’s eyes follow Jimin as the boy darts out of the library, but his ears catch the cackle that escapes Jin without falter. He turns slowly to face the older guy, feeling disbelief at his reaction. “What’s funny, hyung? What’s so funny right now?” He turns fully to Jin and places his palms on the table. Jin doesn’t answer. Not right away. The guy shakes his head and peers up at Joon, but he doesn’t answer fast enough.

“This is hilarious to you, isn’t it? Watching everyone fall apart under your thumb? This is pure entertainment, huh?” Namjoon asks rhetorically through gritted teeth.

“Relax…” Jin sighs. “Your boyfriend is fine, his friends are fine. They’ll live. You’ll all get over it—“

“Over what, hyung? Hm? You? Your chaotic ways?”

“Ah fuck, not you too, Joon--”

“--Yoongi is pissed at me because of you! Jimin is arguing with his best friend, because of you! And you pitted everyone against Hoseok! You are a puppet master, so you think it’s all going to be fine?”

“I didn’t pit anyone against Hobi!” Jin stands impatiently, leaning on the table and challenging Namjoon’s glare. “He lied to me! He lied to all of us, but that’s fine by you, isn’t it? He told you the truth so everything should just keep going the way it was?” For once, Namjoon doesn’t look away. He doesn’t let Jin win. It’s surprising him. “Yeah, you thought Yoongi wouldn’t tell me. Of course he’s pissed at you. You lied to him too, you know. And Jimin and his friends are not my problem.” Jin glances away as if the conversation is over, as if he won.

Namjoon doesn’t let him win that easily. “—Yoongi cares about Jungkook—“

“Oh, spare me, Joon!”

“—I care about Jimin!”

“That’s not my problem!”

“Hoseok cares about Taehyung!”

“So do I!”

Just like that. There’s silence in the library again. The two friends stand up straight, refusing to look away from each other. But they know that other eyes are on them.

The only thing on Namjoon’s mind is Jin’s confessions. He scoffs in disgust, in disbelief of his friend’s selfishness. “You don’t care about Taehyung. You don’t care about him, your friends, anyone. You only care about what’s convenient for you, what piques your interest. You don’t—“

“Excuse me? Fellas?” Namjoon is interrupted by a short black-haired woman. It’s the librarian’s assistant. She’s mousy but assertive, standing between Jin and Namjoon at the front of the table. “Everything okay over here? Because if this continues, I’ll have to call campus security.”

“Don’t bother,” Jin smiles and shoots her a charming wink. “My friend was just leaving.”

When Jin turns back to look at Namjoon, Joon is already scoffs and shakes his head. “Yeah. Right.” He says, fixing his jaw. As he turns to walk away, he thinks for a moment and chuckles lightly. When he thinks some more, he returns to Jin swiftly. “You know what, you better listen to Jimin. Leave him and his friends alone. And while you’re at it, leave me alone too. Don’t come to me for anything. We’re done. I’m not going to keep letting you ruin my friendships. Stay away from me.”

“Or what?” Jin asks with a whimsical expression.

Joon peeks at the short distance between them and smiles. “Come around this table and find out for yourself.”

“Alright, alright!” The assistant interjects again, holding her hand on Jin’s chest. The guy is close to lunging forward, but she’s snappy and dominant, and they don’t want to mess with her. She’s innocent in all of this. “That’s enough. Leave.”

But he is already doing that. He was halfway out the door before he was grabbing his phone from his pocket and texting Hobi and Yoongi to see if they’re okay.

YOONGI: At the record store with BF. Going back to his apartment later.

HOBI: Yeah I’m good. I was in a lecture and I have work in an hour. I’ll talk to you guys later.

NAMJOON: Jin and I aren’t on speaking terms anymore. We’ll talk later.

He sees a message bubble pop up but he doesn’t stick around for a reply. Instead he is going through his phone contacts and searching for Jimin’s name. When he finds it, Namjoon dials it immediately. He prays the other will answer. And when he does, he can already sense the tension in his tone.

Jimin lets out a loud sigh before asking, “What do you want Joon? I told you—”

“I know what you said, but that’s not good enough for me. I can’t not talk to you.”

There’s a pause. Joon can hear Tae in the background of Jimin’s end.

“I’m a little busy right now. I’m trying to salvage a friendship here.”

“Later then. Can we talk later?”

“I don’t know, Joon…”

“Please. Seriously. Salvage this one too. We should talk.”

“I’ll text you.”

“Jimin, please.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this…”

Before he can say anything else, Jimin ends the call. Low growls and curses escape Namjoon. He feels hopeless, angsty, peeved. But he isn’t ready to give up so easily. He can’t. Not on Jimin.

So he orders himself a Lyft and spends the $12 needed to get from the school to Jimin’s apartment. Namjoon needs to see him again. Jimin needs to know how badly Joon wants to cut Jin out of his life. Jimin needs to see how important he is to him.

#minjoon angst #minjoon fanfic #bts fanfic #series: i bloom for you

11 notes · View notes

hollywoodjuliorivas · 7 years

Link

Cover Photo Credit Brooke Smart The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Sheryl Sandberg: How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss After my husband’s death, I set out to learn everything I could about how kids persevere through adversity. By SHERYL SANDBERGAPRIL 24, 2017 Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Email More Save Two years ago, in an instant, everything changed for my family and me. While my husband, Dave, and I were on vacation, he died suddenly from a cardiac arrhythmia. Flying home to tell my 7-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son that their father had died was the worst experience of my life. During that unimaginable trip, I turned for advice to a friend who counsels grieving children. She said that the most important thing was to tell my kids over and over how much I loved them and that they were not alone. In the fog of those early and brutal weeks and months, I tried to use the guidance she had given me. My biggest fear was that my children’s happiness would be destroyed by our devastating loss. I needed to know what, if anything, I could do to get them through this. I also started talking with my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist and professor who studies how people find motivation and meaning. Together, we set out to learn everything we could about how kids persevere through adversity. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story As parents, teachers and caregivers, we all want to raise resilient kids — to develop their strength so they can overcome obstacles big and small. Resilience leads to better health, greater happiness and more success. The good news is that resilience isn’t a fixed personality trait; we’re not born with a set amount of it. Resilience is a muscle we can help kids build. And every kid faces challenges. Some stumbles are part of growing up. Forgetting lines in a school play. Failing a test. Losing a big game. Seeing a friendship unravel. Other hardships are far more severe. Two out of 10 children in the United States live in poverty. More than 2.5 million kids have a parent in jail, and many endure serious illness, neglect, abuse or homelessness. We know that the trauma from experiences like these can last a lifetime; extreme harm and deprivation can impede a child’s intellectual, social, emotional and academic progress. As a society, we owe all our children safety, support, opportunity and help finding a way forward. We can start by showing children that they matter. Sociologists define “mattering” as the belief that other people notice you, care about you and rely on you. It’s the answer to a vital question that all children ask about their place in the world starting as toddlers, and continuing into and beyond adolescence: Do I make a difference to others? When the answer is no, kids feel rejected and alone. They become more prone to self-destructive (“Hurting myself isn’t a big deal, since I don’t count anyway”) and antisocial behaviors (“I might be doing something bad, but at least I’ve got your attention”). Others withdraw. Not long ago, a friend picked up her son from a summer day camp and found him beaming with pride that he’d finished the robot he’d spent two days building. The next morning, he returned to find his robot had been destroyed: Bullies had taken only his apart — and then told him that he was worthless. After that day, his mother watched him sink into a spiral of anxiety and depression. Even when he went back to school in the fall, she recalled, “he’d put on his hoodie and sit in the back, in his own world.” Adolescents who feel that they matter are less likely to suffer from depression, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. They’re less likely to lash out at their families and engage in rebellious, illegal and harmful behaviors. Once they reach college, they have better mental health. Opinion Today Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world. Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY As parents, we sometimes feel helpless because it’s impossible to solve our children’s problems. In those situations, we can still provide support by “companioning” — walking alongside them and listening. Adam told me about evidence-based programs at Arizona State University that help families cope with parental loss and divorce. These programs teach parents to create and maintain warm and strong relationships, communicate openly with children, use effective discipline, avoid depression and help their children develop coping skills and strategies. When families participate in these programs for 10 to 12 sessions, over the next six years children have fewer mental-health and substance-abuse problems, higher grades and better biological stress responses. One afternoon, I sat down with my kids to write out “family rules” to remind us of the coping mechanisms we would need. We wrote together that it’s O.K. to be sad and to take a break from any activity to cry. It’s O.K. to be happy and laugh. It’s O.K. to be angry and jealous of friends and cousins who still have fathers. It’s O.K. to say to anyone that we do not want to talk about it now. And it’s always O.K. to ask for help. The poster we made that day — with the rules written by my kids in colored markers — still hangs in our hall so we can look at it every day. It reminds us that our feelings matter and that we are not alone. Dave and I had a tradition at the dinner table with our kids in which each of us would share the best and worst moments of our day. Giving children undivided attention — something we all know is important but often fail to do — is another of the key steps toward building their resilience. My children and I have continued this tradition, and now we also share something that makes us feel grateful to remind ourselves that even after loss, there is still so much to appreciate in life. For my friend’s son whose robot was destroyed, a turning point came when one of his former teachers got in touch to see how he was doing and started spending time with him every week. She encouraged him to reach out to other kids and make friends, then followed up, reinforcing each step he took. She cared. He mattered. When a new kid started at the school, the teacher encouraged them to get together, and the friendship took. “It made such a difference for a teacher to take an interest in him and a friend to bond with him,” his mom said. “It was like the sun came out in our house.” ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Since my children were so young when they lost their father, I am afraid that their memories of him will fade, and this breaks my heart all over again. Adam and I also learned that talking about the past can build resilience. When children grow up with a strong understanding of their family’s history — where their grandparents grew up, what their parents’ childhoods were like — they have better coping skills and a stronger sense of mattering and belonging. Jamie Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas, has found that expressing painful memories can be uncomfortable in the moment, but improves mental and even physical health over time. To keep Dave’s memory alive, I asked dozens of his closest family members, friends and colleagues to capture their stories about him on video. I also taped my children sharing their own memories, so that as they grow up, they will know which are truly theirs. This past Thanksgiving my daughter was distraught, and when I got her to open up, she told me, “I’m forgetting Daddy because I haven’t seen him for so long.” We watched the video of her talking about him, and it gave her some comfort. Talking openly about memories — not just positive ones, but difficult ones, too — can help kids make sense of their past and rise to future challenges. It’s especially powerful to share stories about how the family sticks together through good times and bad, which allows kids to feel that they are connected to something larger than themselves. Studies show that giving all members of the family a chance to tell their version builds self-esteem, particularly for girls. And making sure to integrate different perspectives into a coherent story builds a sense of control, particularly for boys. 117 COMMENTS A friend of mine who lost his mother when he was young told me that over time, she no longer seemed real. People were either afraid to mention her or spoke of her in idealized terms. My hope is to hold on to Dave as he really was: loving, generous, brilliant, funny and also pretty clumsy. He would spill things constantly yet was always somehow shocked when he did. Now, when emotions are running high in our house, but my son stays calm, I tell him, “You are just like your daddy.” When my daughter stands up for a classmate who is getting picked on, I say, “Just like your daddy.” And when either of them knocks a glass over, I say it, too. Sheryl Sandberg is the author, with Adam Grant, of “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy,” from which this essay is adapted. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 24, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss. Today's Paper|Subscribe Continue reading the main story

1 note · View note

medicinemane · 7 years

Text

I’ve been looking for my copy of one of Asimov’s autobiography for ages (I think he says in there it’s his 3rd), specifically for this one chapter on anti-semitisim. I think it’s brilliant, and I think it has real words of wisdom for any time, but right now in particular. Which is why I’m going to transcribe it below the cut. I’d really recommend give in a read

Anti-Semitisim

This leads me to a more general discussion of anti-Semitisim.

My father told me rather proudly that there was never any pogrom in this little town, that Jews and Gentiles got along. In fact, he told me that he was good friends with a Gentile boy, whom he helped with his schoolwork. After the Revolution, that boy turned up as a local functionary of the Communist Party and helped my father with the paperwork required for emigration to the United States.

This is important. I have frequently had hotheaded romantics assume that our family fled Russia to escape persecution. They seem to think that the only way we got out was by jumping from ice flow to ice flow the Dnieper River, with bloodhounds and the entire Red Army in hot pursuit.

No such thing. We were not persecuted and we left in a quite legal manner with no more trouble than one would expect from any bureaucracy, including our own. If that’s disappointing, so be it.

Nor do I have horror tales to tell about my life here in the United States. I was never made to suffer for my Jewishness in the crass sense of being beaten up or physically harmed. I was taunted often enough, sometimes openly by young yahoos and more often subtly by the more educated. It was something I accepted as an inevitable part of the Universe that I could not change.

I also knew that vast areas of American society were closed to me because I was Jewish, but that was true in every Christian society in the world for two thousand years, and I accepted that too was a fact of life.

What was really difficult to endure was the feeling of insecurity and even terror, because of what was happening in the world. I am talking about the 1930s now, when Hitler was becoming more and more dominant and his anti-Semitic madness was becoming ever more vicious and murderous.

No American Jew could fail to be aware that the Jews, first in Germany, then in Austria, were being endlessly humiliated, mistreated, imprisoned, tortured, and killed, merely for being Jewish. We could not fail to realize that Nazi-like parties were arising in other parts of Europe, which also made anti-Semitism their central watchword. Even France and Great Britain were not immune; both had their Fascist-type parties and both had long histories of anti-Semitism.

We were not safe even in the United States. The undercurrent of genteel anti-Semitism. was already there.The occasional violence of the more ignorant street gangs always existed. But there was also the pull of Nazism. We can discount the German-American Bund, which was an open arm of the Nazis. However, people such as Catholic priest Father Charles Coughlin and the aviation hero Charles Lindbergh openly expressed anti-Semitic views. There were also homegrown Fascist movements that rallied round the anti-Semitic banner.

How could American Jews live under this strain? Why did they not break down? I suppose that most simply practiced “denial.” They tried hard not to think about it and went about their normal way of life as best they could. To a large extent, I did this too. One simply had to. (The Jews in Germany did the same thing till the storm broke.)

I also had a more positive attitude. I had enough faith in the United States of America to believe it would never follow the German example.

And, as a matter of fact, Hitler’s excesses, not only in his racism but in his nationalistic saber rattling, his increasingly obvious paranoia, were rousing disgust and anger among important sections of the American population. Even if the United States was, on the whole, rather cool to the plight of Europe’s Jews, it was becoming increasingly anti-Hitler. Or so I felt, and I found comfort in that.

I also tried to avoid becoming uncomfortably hooked on anti-Semitism as the main problem in the world. Many Jews I knew divided the world into Jews and anti-Semites, nothing else. Many Jews I knew recognized no problem anywhere, at any time, but that of anti-Semitism.

It struck me, however, that prejudice was universal and that all groups who were not dominant, who were not actually at the top of the status chain, were potential victims. In Europe, in the 1930s, it was the Jews who were being spectacularly victimized, but in the United States it was not the Jews who were worst treated. Here, as anyone could see who did not deliberately keep his eyes shut, it was the African-Americans.

For two centuries they had been enslaved. Since that slavery had come to a formal end, the African-Americans remained in a position of near-slavery in most segments of American society. They were deprived of ordinary rights, treated with contempt, and kept out of any participation in what is called the American dream.

I, though Jewish, and poor besides, eventually received a first-class American education at a top American university, and I wondered how many African-Americans would have the chance. It constantly bothered me to have to denounce anti-Semitism unless I denounced the cruelty of man to man in general.

Such is the blindness of people that I have know Jews who, having deplored anti-Semitism in unmeasured tones,would, with scarcely a breath in between,got on the subject of African-Americans and promptly begin to sound like a group of petty Hitlers. And when I pointed this out and objected to it strenuously, they turned on me in anger. They simply could not see what they were doing.

I once listened t a woman grow eloquent over the terrible ways in which Gentiles did nothing to save the Jews of Europe. “You can’t trust Gentiles,” she said. I let some time elapse and the asked suddenly, “What are you doing to help the blacks in their fight for civil rights?” “Listen,” she said, “I have my own troubles.” And I said, “So did the Gentiles.” but she only stared at me blankly. She didn’t get the point at all.

What can be done about it? The who world seems to live under the banner: “Freedom is wonderful - but only for me.”

I broke out, under different conditions, once in May od 1977. On that occasion I shared a platform with others, among them Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust (the slaying of six million European Jews) and now will talk of nothing else. Wiesel irritated me when he said that he did not trust scientists and engineers because scientists and engineers had been involved in conduction the Holocaust.

What a generalization! It was precisely the sort of thing an anti-Semite says. “I don’t trust Jews because once certain Jews crucified my Savior.”

I brooded about that on the platform and finally, unable to keep quiet, I said, “Mr. Wiesel, it is a mistake to think that because a group has suffered extreme persecution that it is a sign that they are virtuous and innocent. They might be, of course, but the persecution process is no proof of that. The persecution merely shows that the persecuted group is weak. Had they been strong, then, for all we know, they might have been the persecutors.”

Whereupon Wiesel, very excited, said, “Give me one example of the Jews ever persecuting anyone.”

Of course, I was ready for him. I said, Under the Maccabean kingdom in the second century B.C., John Hyrcanus of Judea conquered Edom and gave the Edomites a choice - convert to Judaism or the sword. The Edomites, being sensible, converted, but, thereafter, they were in any case treated as an inferior group, for though they were Jews, they were also Edomites.”

And Wiesel, even more excited, said, “That was only one time.”

I said, “That was the only time the Jews had the power. One for one isn’t bad.”

That ended the discussion, but I might add that the audience was heart and soul with Wiesel.

I might have gone further. I might have referred to the treatment of the Canaanites by the Israelites under David and Solomon. And if I could have foreseen the future, I would have mentioned what is going on in Israel today. American Jews might appreciate the situation more clearly if they imagined a reversal of roles, or Palestinians ruling the land and of the Jews despairingly throwing rocks.

I once had a similar argument with Avram Davidson, a brilliant science fiction writer, who is (of course) Jewish and was, for a time at least, ostentatiously orthodox. I had written an essay on the Book of Ruth, treating it as a plea for tolerance as against the cruelty of the scribe Ezra, who forced the Jews to “put away” their foreign wives. Ruth was a Moabite, a people hated by the Jews, yet she was pictured as a model woman, and she was the ancestress of David.

Avram Davidson took umbrage at my implication that the Jews were intolerant and he wrote me a letter in which he waxed sarcastic indeed. He too asked when the Jews had ever persecuted anyone.

In my answer, I said, “Avram, you and I are Jews who live in a county that is ninety-five percent non-Jewish and we are doing very well. I wonder how we would make out, Avram, if we were Gentiles and lived in a county that was ninety-five percent Orthodox Jewish.”

He never answered.

Right now there is an influx of Soviet Jews into Israel. They are fleeing because they expect religious persecution. Yet the instant their feet touched Israeli soil, they became extreme Israeli nationalists with no pity for the Palestinians. From persecuted to persecutors in the blinking of an eye.

The Jews are not remarkable for this. It;s just that because I’m a Jew I am sensitive to this particular situation - but it’s a general phenomenon. When pagan Rome persecuted the early Christians, the Christians pleaded for tolerance. When Christianity took over, was their tolerance? Not on your life. The persecution began at one in the other direction.

The Bulgarians demanded freedom for themselves from an oppressive regime and made use of that freedom by attacking ethnic Turks in their midst. The Azerbaijani demanded freedom from the centralized control of the Soviet Union, but they seemed to want to make use of that freedom to kill all the Armenians in their midst.

The Bible says that those who have experienced persecution should not in their turn persecute: “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21). Yet who follows that text? When I try to preach it, I merely make myself seem odd and become unpopular.

-Isaak Asimov

I.Asimov

#Isaak Asimov

2 notes · View notes

politicandwine · 5 years

Video

youtube

The definition of “democracy” following the fall of the Soviet Union has grown and evolved within the United States and abroad. This is especially true as much of the world would be categorized as a form of Republic like the United States, so simply applying the popular term “democracy" and assuming the same ideals and practices upheld in “democratic regimes.". The use of indexes such as the Democracy Index which is compiled by the U.K. firm, the Economist can provide an understanding in the variation between these governments. As with all indexes they are not necessarily a perfect reading of every governmental system, but they provide a general reading of the trends within each nation. Countries like the United States (2010 - 8.18, 2018 - 7.96) that were down graded from full democracies (countries with a rating of 8.1 and above) are becoming more common. In the 2010 report, the researchers saw that, "there has been a decline in democracy across the world since 2008. The decades-long global trend in democratisation had previously come to a halt in what Larry Diamond (2008) called a “democratic recession”. Now democracy is in retreat. The dominant pattern in all regions over the past two years has been backsliding on previously attained progress in democratisation.” (EIU 2010). The affects of this period can be scene as compared to 2010 where there were, "26 full democracies, 53 flawed democracies, 33 hybrid regimes, and 55 authoritarian regimes [total 167 governments],” (EIU 2010) in 2018 There were, “20 full democracies, 55 flawed democracies, 39 hybrid regimes, and 53 authoritarian regimes [total 167 governments]” (EIU 2018). With this data it is possible to see that there as a difference of -6 states for full democracies, +2 states for flawed democracies, +6 states for hybrid regimes, and -2 states for authoritarian regimes. This provides a general reading of a larger proportional decline in full democracies, a slight decline in authoritarian regimes, with the real growth has been seen in the "hybrid regime category.” I hope that this information can help bring a more contemporary view of democracy from after the Cold War where the world isn’t divided between a sea of Red and Blue and a grey area of non participants, but by one giant Ocean of grey.

After the decline of People’s liberation movements in the 1980s and 1990s, the world for better or for worst became capitalist. This shift is especially evident with structural adjustment which was largely orchestrated by the Neoliberal regimes in the Global North. This change no longer allowed us the view the world in the same way. Ruling classes emerged and their leaders now had similar roles, and systems to those nations that has originally aligned with the capitalist hegemon(-y/-ies) following the second world war. Although these programs had unfortunate consequences, such as the evaporation of wealth, instability, and hunger in many countries like Zambia (Makan 81), or total economic collapse as with the case of Mexico (Heredia), the represented a new dawn of government in the 21st century. It is the consequences of the Reagan and Thatcher regimes that were experienced 1990s and today and are now on a large scale in the Global North re-examining today in our new digital age.

Please keep this information in mind when viewing the video that I am sharing today

This video has been published by Al jazeera and speaks to the manner in which radical heads of state, like President Rodrigo Duterte behave on online spaces. The rise of populist right-wing leaders across the globe like Durante, Bolsonaro, Janos and organizations like the FPO in Austria have been a phenomena of the 21st century and is a reality that has not been seen on this scale since the 1930s. Below is a transliteration and of course please feel free to watch the video I’ve linked with this post, it was broadcast live on the 17th of February 2019 at around 11:00.

6:30 :

Peter Palmerantsev: Social media has fueled a new term of what I might call pop-up popularism, it’s much more emotional and with an enemy, very abstract one who is blocking your very private grievances, the establishment, the elite, foreigners it doesn’t matter

Maria Ressa: You actually wrote a lot about Russian disinformation, how would you define that?

Peter Palmerantsev: Think about it in the point of view of a leader with totalitarian tendencies, back in the 20th century you could shut off your population with censorship. You could just block off TV channels, you cannot do that anymore. So instead of shutting off things you spread as much cynicism as possible, you undermine the idea of trust as much as possible. You say yeah…maybe our media isn’t perfect, but the BBC, CNN, Rappler they are all bought. Once you undermine the idea that there is any truth out there, then all that is left is emotion, and only the most emotional and viscerally emotional leader wins.

***

Maria Ressa: In 2016 the campaign machine of President Rodrigo Duterte used Facebook and social media to win an election, but they didn’t stop there. We began to see vicious attacks on Facebook by anyone who questioned the killings in the drug war As we move into the election season I am excited and horrified to see if Palmerantsev’s conclusions hold value. It will be interesting to see how the American electorate’s relationship with fact and if we’ve been washed of the comfort of truth. If so then it will be interesting to see the consequences of “False News” as we move in the 2020s.

In putting together this post I also wanted to thank Al Jazeera for inspiring this and hopefully other people like around the globe, as well as touch upon an article and a book I came across. One article I’ve linked below by the BBC entitled, "Fascism, the 1930 and the 21st Century” by Mardell attempts to analyze rhetoric from these leaders in 2016 after European and American elections that year. Also If you are interested in reading a Novel some say foresaw this period, El País, which is a Spanish Paper, "Eso No Puede Pasar Aquí” originally published in English in the 1930s as “It Can't Happen Here,” it could act as a nice way to reflect on this phenomena (El País).

Conclusion//Rationale:

I have created this short essay like any short essay to help demonstrate my perspective to you my reader. I wrote this a few weeks prior to address the conservatives in my life, and to have this act as a call to arms of sort. I would like to extend the same goal that I created in my original post to my readers on tumblr:

The one one thing I hope from this is that a dialogue might be created, so if there is engagement, I want it to be unveiled. In doing so other’s can understand my own rationale, and the rationale of those in the American-Centrist, Liberal, Progressive, Socialist, or Communist end of the spectrum that also feel free to comment. Through the participation of those that are part of the American Center-Right to Right, Far-Right, Libertarian, and Fascist side of our political spectrum we one the left can understand the conservative rational that in my own mind feels more and more abstract each day.

Citations:

EIU. "Democracy Index 2010: Democracy in Retreat: A Report From the Economist Intelligence Unit.” Economist Intelligence Unit. 2010. https://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf

EIU. "Democracy Index 2018.” Wikipedia. Retrieved 13 Jan 2019 from original source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Democracy_Index_by_country_2018

Mardell, Mark. "Fascism, the 1930s and the 21st century” The BBC. 20 Dec 2016. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38317787

Heredia, Carlos. "Structural Adjustment in Mexico: The Root of Crisis.” University of Waterloo. Oct 1995. https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/politics/structural.html

Makan, Anita. "The Impact of Structural Adjustment Programs Upon the Political Economy of Zambia: A critical Analysis.” April 1993. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11985187.pdf

Melhem, Yaara. “Maria Ressa: War on Truth | Testimony.” Al Jazeera English. 18 Feb 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOkIFSdX7og Pron, Patricio. "El Libro que ‘decribió’ a Trup en 1935." El País. 20 Mar 2017. https://elpais.com/cultura/2017/03/18/actualidad/1489841065_936941.html

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 5 years

Link

Justin Kosslyn leads product management at Jigsaw, the Google (erm, Alphabet) subsidiary working on technological solutions to problems like online censorship and radicalization. Before that, he worked at Google News, Google+, and Google AdSense.

The experience must have radicalized him a bit, because in an essay published at Motherboard, he takes direct aim at not just one of Silicon Valley’s founding assumptions, but one of his parent company’s core business strategies.

“The philosophy of the Internet has assumed that friction is always part of the problem,” writes Kosslyn. But look around. The problem now isn’t too much friction; it’s too little. “It’s time,” he says, “to bring friction back.”

Our digital lives dispense with friction. We get the answers we seek instantly, we keep up with friends without speaking to them, we get the news as it happens, we watch loops of videos an algorithm chose for us, we click once and get any product in the world delivered to our doorsteps in less than two days.

Less friction means more time spent, more ads seen, more sales made. Tech companies lose customers during login screens and security verification, and as a result of slow load times. The country’s top computer science talent is paid billions of dollars to further reduce the milliseconds of delay separating our desires and their fulfillment.

But these technological wonders do not seem to have made our lives or societies more wonderful. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, drug overdoses, and suicide are rising. Productivity growth has slowed. Income inequality has skyrocketed. Politics is more bitter and more tribal. Donald Trump is president of the United States. Something is wrong.

Kosslyn is focused on digital threats: malware, phishing, disinformation. All of these, he says, “exploit high-velocity networks of computers and people.” But I wonder about the whole damn thing. Whether it’s all gotten so fast and so easy and so frictionless that we’re on an endless Slip ’n’ Slide down the chute of our own worst impulses.

I’ll start with media because that’s the space I know best. I’ve been digital since day one. I was a blogger before I was a journalist, and I’ve always preferred publishing online to publishing in print. It was, well, frictionless. You wrote something, you pressed publish, and there it was.

But as I look around today, I find myself yearning for a bit more of the friction of yesteryear. Twitter is almost perfectly frictionless — no editors, no formatting, built for instant reaction and in-group applause — and Trump is the result. YouTube, with its recommendation algorithm automatically directing us to more extreme content, is a powerful force for radicalization. Cable news is fast, reactive, competitive, and thus sensationalistic, tribal, and conflictual.

Friction creates space in the system where judgment can intercede, where second thoughts can be had, where decisions can be made. Look at organizations with longer time lags and more editors and you get better, calmer, more considered coverage. I believe that one reason podcasts have exploded is that they carry so much friction: They’re long and messy, they often take weeks or months to produce, they’re hard to clip and share and skim — and as a result, they’re calmer, more human, more judicious, less crazy-making.

Too much friction can be annoying — there are plenty of days I feel like posting something without waiting for an edit, and much news needs to be known quickly — but too little friction can be dangerous. It leads to reporting and commentary that’s reactive, ill-considered, wrong. I wouldn’t want to go back to the media of the ’50s. But I don’t want to double down on the trends of the present, either.

Let’s put politics and media, with its unique dynamics, aside. Socializing is frictionless online. It’s far easier to click around on Facebook than to plan a hike with a friend, a movie with a cousin, a day out of the house. It’s easier, but is it making us more connected?

The answer, empirically, is no. A new study paid people to limit their use of major social media platforms to 10 minutes a day, and compared them to a control group that didn’t make any changes. The result? “Participants who reduced their time on social sites saw a statistically significant decrease in depression and loneliness,” reports The Verge’s Casey Newton. “The control group did not report an improvement.”

Then there’s distraction. I feel it myself, right now, writing this piece. It is frictionless to click over to Reddit, to my email, to any of a million sites that will take my mind off the work of writing a column and refocus it on the easy sugar water of social media and viral content and Slack conversation.

Writing, by contrast, is full of friction. It’s hard and slow, and the words on the page fall short of the music and clarity I imagined they’d have. But it is, in the end, rewarding. It’s where I have at least a chance to create something worth creating. The work is worth it.

This isn’t a new problem, of course. It’s always easier to play a video game than to craft a presentation. But the ease and availability of distractions has skyrocketed with smartphones and broadband connections, while doing hard, productive work remains as maddening as ever.

Dan Nixon, an economist at the Bank of England, has suggested that the slow productivity growth across economies reflects the growing ease of distraction, which is overwhelming the gains of new technologies. “Distractions can directly reduce the quality of our work,” he writes. “An influx of emails and phone calls, for example, is estimated to reduce workers’ IQ by 10 points — equivalent to losing a night’s sleep.”

Worse, there’s evidence that all this is changing our brains, making them resist long periods of focus and crave more distraction. “If every moment of potential boredom in your life — say, having to wait five minutes in line or sit alone in a restaurant until a friend arrives — is relieved with a quick glance at your smartphone, then your brain has likely been rewired,” writes computer scientist Cal Newport in Deep Work.

When Facebook sends you a notification saying someone has tagged you in a picture, or when Twitter pings to say someone has mentioned you in a comment, they’re giving you a spike of anxiety and anticipation that raises the friction of not checking the platform. Cutting-edge behavioral science is being applied to the problem of how to make you pay less attention to your surroundings and more attention to your phone.

So too is cutting-edge lobbying. The blockbuster New York Times story on Facebook’s political tactics reveals a company paying off high-priced opposition researchers to make sure regulators don’t try to add the friction individual users don’t have the power to apply themselves.

And yet the world is full of friction that we recognize as valuable, much of it enforced by laws and regulations. Seatbelts in cars, restrictions on opioid prescriptions, banisters on stairwells. Silicon Valley, however, has developed a culture that prizes our instant impulses and erases the space we use to question them. And the result is, well, the world we live in. Trump isn’t just the president, he’s also the perfect symbol of our age — a frictionless id; a Twitter account in human form; a man devoid of the shame, social caution, and second thoughts that curb most people’s worst impulses.

“The internet is facing real challenges on many fronts,” Google’s Kosslyn concludes. “If we truly want to solve them, engineers, designers, and product architects could all benefit from the thoughtful application of friction.”

Change needs to come, but I’m skeptical it will come from the employees of companies that get richer by greasing the path between our impulses and their profits. Rather, it’s going to have to come from us rediscovering the value of things being a little slower and a little less efficient.

Original Source -> The case for slowing everything down a bit

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes

mysteryshelf · 6 years

Text

BLOG TOUR - Killer Tied

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Great Escapes Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Killer Tied (Eve Appel Mystery) by Lesley A. Diehl

About the Book

Killer Tied (Eve Appel Mystery) Cozy Mystery 6th in Series Camel Press (March 15, 2018) Paperback: 264 pages ISBN-13: 978-1603813198 Digital ASIN: B0789824WQ

Eve Appel Egret is adjusting to married life with Sammy and their three adopted sons in Sabal Bay, Florida. While still running her consignment stores, she is going pro with her sleuthing by becoming an apprentice to a private detective.

Until her marriage, Eve’s only “family” was her grandmother Grandy, who raised her after her parents died in a boating accident. Now, in addition to her husband and sons, she has a father-in-law who clearly dislikes her. Sammy’s father, a full-blooded Miccosukee Indian long presumed dead, has emerged from the swamps where he’s been living like a hermit, and he isn’t happy about Eve’s marriage to his half-Miccosukee, half-white son.

As for Eve’s family, are her parents really dead? A woman named Eleanor claims to be Eve’s half-sister, born after her mother faked a boating accident to escape her abusive husband, Eve’s father. Then Eleanor’s father turns up dead in the swamps, stabbed by a Bowie knife belonging to Sammy’s father, Lionel. Strange as Lionel Egret is, Eve knows he had no motive to kill this stranger. In order to clear him, Eve must investigate Eleanor’s claims, and she might not like what digging around in her family’s past uncovers.

About the Author

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

What initially got you interested in writing?

I’ve always written, stories and essays when I was a teen as well as poetry. I had a piece published in a college literary journal, and I always wrote for academic journals and texts in graduate school and when I taught and did administrative work in college and university. The fiction bug bit when I retired. I’ve always loved mysteries—I read Nancy Drew as a girl—then graduated to Agatha Christie. Having relocated in retirement to the Southwest, I had no idea what to do with my time, so I began dabbling in constructing a mystery, set, as you would guess, on a college campus. It was long, boring and really terrible. I had to learn to write mysteries. I took online classes and went to writing conferences to learn the art of creating tension on the page.

What genres do you write in?

Having no background in law or police work, I write cozy mysteries with snoopy women sleuths. I make them women I admire for their spunk and pair them with gal pals who help them in their snooping. I also make certain there is a hunky guy who finds them both annoying and interesting. A lot of action, murder and some romance.

What drew you to writing these specific genres?

It would be impossible for me to write about a cop or a lawyer with no background in those fields, but nosy women? Well, that’s no stretch!

How did you break into the field?

I was first published by a small regional press, won a prestigious short story contest, and armed with this newly minted confidence, began writing several cozy mysteries that found their way to small and medium publishers.

What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

I always have my protagonists deal with social, environmental and criminal issues that confront our society. I’ve intertwined issues such as hydraulic fracturing, floods, fires, hurricanes and tornados, human trafficking, and sexual assault as well as murder into my work. Family issues are the most important conflicts that my protagonists face every day. Cozy mysteries are all about living in today’s world—both the good and the bad aspects of our lives.

What do you find most rewarding about writing?

I instill humor into my work, so I try to make myself smile and laugh as I write. I do not consider writing drudgery. I love it and enjoy creating characters that are unusual and situations that are funny. Away from my computer, the best part about writing is the people I meet who have read my novels and enjoyed them. I find that more rewarding than the money I make from selling my books. Heavens knows I am not a best-selling author, so it’s thrilling when someone writes to me or tells me at a book event that she or he is a fan!

What do you find most challenging about writing?

The nitty-gritty of writing, I mean the actual transferring of ideas onto my computer screen is difficult for me because I am the world’s worst typist. I never learned how to type properly. I still look at the keys! I wish here were some way to hook a cable into my brain and transmit the thoughts to the screen.

What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

Learn how to construct and write a mystery. That way you will know what the guidelines or rules are, and you will understand what you are doing when you decide to break them. Go to writers’ conferences and hang with others who are writing and learn from the workshops offered at these meetings. Join writers’ organizations such as Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America and local groups. Don’t act like the Lone Ranger and think you can easily break into publishing by ignoring advice from experts who can help you accomplish that.

What type of books do you enjoy reading?

Mysteries, of course. My favorite authors are Robert Parker, Agatha Christie, Kerry Greenwood, to name a few. I find mysteries a good intellectual workout to keep my brain in shape. I couldn’t write them without having read many.

Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

I love to go to yard sales, consignment shops, and thrift stores. My protagonist in the Eve Appel mysteries is a consignment shop owner. Because of my passion for the used, Eve is the genuine article, a woman impassioned about secondhand designer fashions. I research the field almost weekly as I dash off to yard sales on Saturdays and explore consignment shops whenever I run across one. Finding bargains at yard sales is a lot like solving a mystery. So satisfying.

What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

The very best way is to go to www.lesleyadiehl.com and click on the link to my blog or publications. I publish the blog every Sunday with giveaways, contests, guest authors and my own take on the writing life.

Lesley is a country gal through and through, from her childhood on a dairy farm in Illinois to college in a cornfield in Iowa, Lesley creates sassy, snoopy protagonists who embrace chasing killers in country settings. Lesley writes several series: the Big Lake Murder mysteries and the Eve Appel mysteries both set in rural Florida; the Laura Murphy mysteries located on a lake in upstate New York; and short stories, some featuring a few of Lesley’s unique relatives from back on the farm (Aunt Nozzie and the Grandmothers). She is inspired by an odd set of literary muses: a ghost named Fred and a coyote as yet unnamed. Killer Tied is the sixth mystery in the Eve Appel Mysteries. To read more about Lesley’s unusual and humorous cozy mysteries, go to www.lesleyadiehl.com.

Author Links

Visit her on her website: www.lesleyadiehl.com

Blog: www.lesleyadiehl.com/blog

Twitter: @lesleydiehl

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesley.diehl.1

Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lesley-A-Diehl/522270901254754?fref=ts

Purchase Link

Amazon

TOUR PARTICIPANTS

March 15 – Books Direct – GUEST POST, GIVEAWAY

March 15 – Laura’s Interests – SPOTLIGHT

March 16 – Teresa Trent Author Blog – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

March 17 – StoreyBook Reviews – SPOTLIGHT

March 17 – Mysteries with Character – CHARACTER GUEST POST

March 18 – Island Confidential – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

March 19 – The Pulp and Mystery Shelf – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

March 20 – Community Bookstop – REVIEW

March 21 – My Reading Journeys – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST

March 22 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT

March 23 – Cassidy’s Bookshelves – REVIEW

March 24 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – GUEST POST

March 25 – 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too! – SPOTLIGHT

March 26 – Back Porchervations – REVIEW

March 27 – Babs Book Bistro – SPOTLIGHT

March 28 – Ms. Cat’s Honest World – REVIEW, GIVEAWAY

Have you signed up to be a Tour Host?

Click Here Find Details and Sign Up Today!

Additional Banners

FRIDAY SF & FANTASY – Omega

FRIDAY SF & FANTASY – Forgotten

BEYOND THE SHELF – Get Ready For #mondaysfor...

BLOG TOUR – I Broke Into His Office

.yuzo_related_post img{width:120px !important; height:110px !important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{line-height:15px;background: !important;color:!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover{background:#fcfcf4 !important; -webkit-transition: background 0.2s linear; -moz-transition: background 0.2s linear; -o-transition: background 0.2s linear; transition: background 0.2s linear;;color:!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a{color:!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb a:hover{ color:}!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover a{ color:!important;} .yuzo_related_post .yuzo_text {color:!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb:hover .yuzo_text {color:!important;} .yuzo_related_post .relatedthumb{ margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; } jQuery(document).ready(function( $ ){ //jQuery('.yuzo_related_post').equalizer({ overflow : 'relatedthumb' }); jQuery('.yuzo_related_post .yuzo_wraps').equalizer({ columns : '> div' }); })

BLOG TOUR – Killer Tied was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir

#shannon muir #pulp and mystery shelf

0 notes