#the Americans? what about the parents who's children have fled? what about the family members who havent seen each other in days and

[girlactionfigure]

She just wanted to make things better for everyone, her brother said.

She was called a “true force of nature”, a “rolling warrior” who never gave up, continuously fighting for what she believed in and inspiring everyone around her.

When she died this past week on March 4 at the age of 75, she was remembered as a major American civil rights hero.

She “was born in 1947 [in Philadelphia] to two parents who had separately fled Nazi Germany as children in the 1930s,” according to Philissa Cramer, writing for JTA. “All of her grandparents and countless other family members were murdered in the Holocaust.”

At the age of 18 months, she contracted polio, an infection so severe, she spent several months in an iron lung and lost her ability to walk, according to her brother.

She said she believed it was her parents’ experience that led them to reject doctors’ advice to have their daughter institutionalized after she lost the use of her legs, according to Cramer.

“They came from a country where families got separated, some children sent away, others taken from their families by the authorities and never returned — all part of a campaign of systematic dehumanization and murder,” she wrote in her memoir.

“The experience of fleeing Nazi Germany left the parents and their children with a passion.,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

“We truly believe,” her brother would say "that discrimination is wrong in any way, shape or form."

Susan Mizner, Director of the Disability Rights Program and Kendall Ciesemier, Host of At Liberty and Senior Executive Producer of Multimedia, American Civil Liberties Union, wrote:

“When [she] was born, the fight for civil rights didn’t include people with disabilities. Disabled people faced rampant discrimination and segregation in American life. Disabled people experienced high rates of unemployment and were taught in separate schools. Changing these institutions wasn’t just a calling for [her], it was a necessity. At a young age, [she] learned that the world did not see her the way she saw herself, and she spent the rest of her life committed to changing that.”

“The first time that I really remember someone making me feel different was when I was about eight years old,” she told April Coughlin in Story Corps. “My friend and I were going to the candy store. She was pushing my wheelchair, and this young boy came over to me and said, ‘Are you sick?’

“I wished the ground would open and swallow me up. It made me realize that people saw me differently than I saw myself.

~~~~~

NPR correspondent Joseph Shapiro wrote:

“When she was 5 and it was time to go to kindergarten, her parents . . . went to register her but were turned away at the nearby public school.

“It would create a fire hazard, the principal said, to let a girl in a wheelchair go to the school.

“Her mother . . . fought to end the isolating and erratic hours — just a few hours a week — of home instruction and eventually [she] was allowed into a school building.”

“Kids with disabilities were considered a hardship, economically and socially," she would later write.

She spent the rest of her life fighting, first to get access for herself and then for others, her brother recalled.

“Years later, [she] graduated from college where she studied to become a teacher. Being a speech therapist was one of the few professions, she was told, open to a young woman in a wheelchair,” continued Shapiro.

“But again, she was deemed a fire hazard. This time, in 1970, New York City's Board of Education ruled that a teacher in a wheelchair would be unable to evacuate children during an emergency and denied her a teaching license.

“Having learned from her mother's advocacy, [she] sued. She got support in the local press. "You Can Be President, Not Teacher, with Polio," ran one newspaper story, noting the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.”

She said she wanted to see “feisty disabled people change the world”.

She did.

She “broke down barriers for disabled children and educators in New York City schools, protested until federal legislation protecting people with disabilities was passed and advised multiple presidential administrations on disability issues,” wrote Cramer.

Her tireless advocacy led to her being widely considered "the mother of the disability rights movement," the American Association of People with Disabilities wrote in a press release.

Her name is Judith Heumann.

This is a new story for the Jon S. Randal Peace Page. The Peace Page focuses on past and present stories seldom told of lives forgotten, ignored, or dismissed. The stories are gathered from writers, journalists, and historians to share awareness and foster understanding, to bring people together. And, as such, the stories this month for Women’s History Month are never relegated to one single month - they are available all year in the Peace Page archives and on this page each week throughout the year. We encourage you to learn more about the individuals and events mentioned here and to support the writers, educators, and historians whose words we present. Thank you for being here and helping us share awareness.

~~~~~

“Women have been making history for centuries; for some, this was the only choice they had. For women with disabilities in particular, it was either live the way others expected them to or fight for the lives they knew they (and all people with disabilities) deserved,” according to Melissa Young.

Judith Heumann “was perhaps most recognized in recent years from her appearance in the documentary ‘Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution’, which chronicled the forgotten history of a freewheeling summer camp called Camp Jened in upstate New York for teenagers with disabilities in the 1970s,” wrote Edwin Rios of The Guardian.

“Her experience at Camp Jened inspired a groundswell of US political activism and sparked a movement of young activists with disabilities who fought for civil rights protections at a time when they were treated like second-class citizens.”

She also wrote “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist” and “Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Rebel Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution.”

Brian P.D. Hannon and Heather Hollingsworth of the Los Angeles Times wrote:

“She lobbied for legislation that eventually led to the federal Americans With Disabilities Act [and the] Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.

“Heumann also was involved in passage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, which was ratified in May 2008.

She helped found the Berkeley Center for Independent Living, the Independent Living Movement and the World Institute on Disability and served on the boards of several related organizations, including the American Assn. of People With Disabilities, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Humanity and Inclusion and the United States International Council on Disability, according to her website.

“Judy pushed the international human rights community to focus on issues facing people with disabilities when confronting the world’s challenges — whether it be war, climate change, pandemics, poverty or anything else. She ensured that disability was included in the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and was the first disabled person to serve on the board of Human Rights Watch,” wrote Rebecca Cokley, program officer for the US Disability Rights program at the Ford Foundation and co-founder and director of the Disability Justice initiative at the Center for American Progress.

“Along with 80 activists, and with a little help from the Black Panthers, Heumann staged a sit-in for 25 days, the longest sit-in at a federal building to date,” according to writer Lester Fabian Brathwaite. “As a result, regulations were passed enforcing the Rehabilitation Act.”

“It also served as a demonstrable show of force by a community previously framed by society and the media as weak, incapable and dependent. They were anything but that,” wrote Cokley.

“She would later serve as an advisor on disability rights to the Clinton administration, the World Bank, and the Obama administration,” added Brathwaite.

~~~~~

In NPR’s article:

Shantha Rau Barriga, disability rights director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Heumman was a “true force of nature”.

“She was a giant in the human rights movement and led with such integrity,” she added. “This loss will be felt far and wide but what a legacy she leaves behind.”

“Beyond all of the policy-making and legal battles that she helped win and fight, she really helped make it possible for disability to not be a bad thing, to make it OK to be disabled in the world and not be regarded as a person who needs to be in a separate, special place,” the president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, Maria Town, told the Hollywood Reporter.

Heumman said, “Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives – job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example . . . It is not a tragedy to me that I’m living in a wheelchair.”

She also said, “I wanna see a feisty group of disabled people around the world…if you don’t respect yourself and if you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not gonna get it.”

“Judy is often referred to as the mother of the disability rights movement, and for good reason. Not only did she usher forward sweeping changes for disabled people around the world, she mentored, befriended, inspired, and empowered countless disabled people who now carry on her legacy,” wrote Mizner and Ciesemier.

“Hers was one of the first voices to tell us that we matter and that we are worth fighting for. Now, we continue the fight. Judy lives on in every disabled kid who gets to join their classmates in school and every disabled adult who lives in the community, not an institution. She lives on in every disabled person who is feisty enough to pursue their dreams.”

~ jsr

May her memory be a blessing.

The Jon S. Randal Peace Page

#Judith Heumann #mother of the disability rights movement #Disability Rights Activist

[latestinbollywood]

Amber Hagerman Parents, Know More About Donna and Richard Hagerman

Amber Hagerman Parents:- Amber Hagerman was a 9 years old Texas girl who was kidnapped and murdered on 15 January 1996 in Arlington, Texas, United States. Her murderer has not been caught. After the kidnapping of Amber, The AMBER Alert system was announced in 1996 which helped to rescue more than 1000 children. A documentary "Amber: The Girl Behind the Alert" was made which is based on her life. This documentary was released on 17 January 2023. 

Amber Hagerman Parents

Amber Hagerman was born on 25 November 1986 to Richard Hagerman (Father) and Donna Norris (Donna Williams) (Mother) in Arlington, Texas, United States. Her nationality was American. She had a brother named Ricky Hagerman.

Amber Hagerman With her Brother As you all know that Amber was murdered in 1996.  At the end of 1995, Amber's parents divorced and their children lived with Donna.

Who is Amber Hagerman's father? Richard Hagerman

Amber's father's name is Richard Hagerman. He passed away in 2007 during seeking answers and closure for his daughter's death. Amber's father suffered from alcohol addiction. Richard saw as a coping technique for his daughter Amber's death.

Who is Amber Hagerman's mother? Donna Williams

Amber's mother's name is Donna Williams (Donna Norris). After divorcing Amber's parents, her mother married again.

Amber Hagerman's mother Her mother said about her daughter, “I miss her every day and she’s just so full of life and I wanna know, why, why her? She was only a little girl.” On Amber's death's 25th anniversary, her mother said, “I beg the media and the public to keep the focus on finding the killer and putting him to justice on this 25th anniversary of Amber’s kidnapping.”

Amber Hagerman Murder Case

Amber Hagerman rode her bicycle around Arlington's abandoned grocery store's parking lot on 13 January 1996. At that time, she was 9 years old. She was kidnapped on the same day.

Amber Hagerman Police were told by a witness that he saw a man with a black pickup truck who grab her off her bicycle and forced her into his truck. She kicked and screamed but the driver took her and fled the scene with Amber. Four days later, A man was walking with his dog then they found Amber's dead body in a creek about four miles from where she was kidnapped. According to the autopsy report, she passed away because of cut wounds to the neck. As of January 2022, police investigated more than 7000 tips related to the case. Police have not solved yet this case and have not found yet her killer. They say that the new DNA technologies can help to catch the killer. Sgt. Ben Lopez with the Arlington Police Department said in 2022, “I would love to be able to give Donna and Ricky and the rest of the members of their family the answer to the question that they would like to know and of course, that is, ‘Who did this to Amber?’ and bring this person to justice.” According to the police investigation, the killer was a white or Hispanic man who was in his 20s and 30s in 1996. He was 6 feet with brown or black hair. Det. Grant Gildon with the Arlington Police Department said, “I want to make clear here today we believe this case will get solved. We believe there’s no way the killer in this case could have committed the crime in the manner that they did without someone seeing, hearing, or having some knowledge of what happened.” FAQs Q.1 Who was Amber Hagerman? Ans. Amber Hagerman was a 9 years old Texas girl who was kidnapped and murdered on 15 January 1996 in Arlington, Texas, United States. Q.2 Who were Amber Hagerman's parents? Ans. Richard Hagerman (Father) and Donna Norris (Donna Williams) (Mother) Q.3 Who is Amber Hagerman's brother? Ans. Ricky Hagerman Q.4 How old was Amber Hagerman when she was kidnapped? Ans. 9 Years Old Q.5 Who was Amber Hagerman's killer? Ans. Not Found Yet Read Also: Who is Jay Briscoe's Wife? Read the full article

#AmberHagermanParents

[mexican-culture]

Blog Post #2

The traditional family structure in the culture I am studying is a Hispanic culture. First I want to start out by talking about the socialization they have in that culture. The way that the families socialize within themselves is much different than the way us Americans socialize in our families. Over time and social cues we have found that Hispanic families are much harder on themselves and their kids than Americans. It is almost as if Americans are pampered. Hispanics tend to work until they cannot walk. By that time in their life when they are older, it isn’t that they don’t need to work, it’s the fact that they don’t want to stop working. As I further my career into agriculture, I find more and more Hispanics working. For example, I work in Homedale, and I pass multiple crop fields at 6:00am. You do not see a single American out there unless it is the farmer. We will never know the reason they do what they do, but point being they may have come over to America for a better life for their kids. With their kids, they seem to be harder on them. According to “PubMed Central” they say “Within ethnic minority families, the maintenance of ethnic pride by individual family members appears to be an important psychological resource in the face of adversity, helping promote healthy academic and psychological adjustment. During the transition to adolescence, individuals experience potentially stressful cognitive, biological, and peer social changes, as well as contextual changes in the family (e.g., increases in parent-child conflict) and school (e.g. elementary vs middle school academic demands. Especially during this challenging transition, a sense of ethnic pride may help minority children successfully cope with these stressful circumstances. Moreover, parents may foster this psychological resource for their children” (National Library of Medicine). This study was put into place to investigate the family factors and ethnic pride when children are transitioning from 5th to 7th grade of the Hispanic heritage. This really brought to light the cultural difference between Hispanics at a young age vs. Americans as a young age.

            If we switch gears and talk about a language acquisition and identity factors, that plays a huge role when the move to the United States. A lot of times there will be parents, or grandparents that come to the United States for a better life. For one reason or another they did not like it over there, and that is their business to keep. If I put my grandparents as an example, they came over when they were in their early 20’s. My great grandpa owned a drug store, and the cartel decided they wanted a piece of it. They got tipped off that some bad stuff was going down so my grandma and grandpa fled to the United States. They eventually became legal immigrants, but coming straight from Mexico was very hard for them to get around. They did not know much English, if any at all. So just making a simple grocery run was very hard for them.

            When we talk about child-rearing practices, this was much different. According to the “College of Education Faculty Research and Publications” they said “In addition to describing research related to the unique cultural influences in Mexico on parenting, research on Mexican families conducted outside of the boundaries of Mexico is also included. Overall, it appears that particularly for families with very young children, there are more similarities than differences in parenting practices between families in Mexico and elsewhere. In order to support Mexican families who are experiencing challenges in child rearing, intervention programs have been developed to offer parent–child training programs with positive results for the parents and their children. Recently, parenting research has explored the possibility of bridging the indigenous psychologies, such as Mexican ethnopsychology, with mainstream psychology. The initial findings appear to support the idea that traditional Mexican values continue to exist while a progressive infusion of counter-cultural values are gradually altering Mexican parenting attitudes and practices. This chapter concludes by providing a brief glimpse into the lives of two families in Mexico, one from a small city and another from the country” (College of Education). The main point that I got from that is their traditions. They raise their kids in the same traditions they grew up on. If you compare it to us, they do not have very many at all, but the traditions that they do have it very special. For example Cinco De Mayo. For the United States it is a reason to “party” or get together. But, for the Hispanic culture it is a big deal. And from the stories I have heard from my Hispanic coworkers, their traditions and cultures do not change. They have stayed the same way for so many years. The migration and globalization has become greater in the last 100 years, but the family structure have stayed the same.

Work Cited

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960310/

Solís-Cámara, P., Fung, M., & Fox, R. (2022). Parenting in Mexico: Relationships Based on Love and Obedience. Retrieved 11 September 2022, from https://epublications.marquette.edu/edu_fac/352/

[unchartedterritoryblog]

The Challenge of Teaching and Talking During Troubled Times

Teachers these days often find themselves caught up in what authors Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay call “impossible conversations,” which they define as “conversations that feel futile because they take place across a seemingly unbridgeable gulf of disagreement in ideas, beliefs, morals, politics, or worldviews” (2019, 3). For many years, teachers have embraced the idea of “entering the conversation” as though such encounters would inevitably take place around a nice round table in a café on a pleasant afternoon, each person engaging “in ongoing conversations about vitally important academic and public issues” as Graff and Birkenstein describe in They Say / I Say (2021, xxi). The problem, however, is that instead of developing their arguments “by looking inward��[and] listening carefully to what others are saying [about] and [how they are] engaging with other views,” students, parents, administrators, even colleagues and community leaders often “enter the conversation” these days as gladiators once did the coliseum or as Teddy Roosevelt urged us to enter the arena, in a state of what Amanda Ripley calls “high conflict”:

[High conflict] is the mysterious force that incites people to lose their minds in ideological disputes, political feuds, [or efforts to prevent certain books from being taught or instructional methods from being used]. The force that causes us to lie awake at night obsessed by a conflict with a coworker or a sibling or a politician we have never met. (2021, 3)

Whether we are classroom teachers, department chairs, or program coordinators tasked with deciding on whether to purchase the new edition of Uncharted Territory, add Toni Morrison’s Beloved to the curriculum, or teach a new unit in an American history course, we often find ourselves challenged not just from those on the conservative end of the political spectrum but from those on the progressive end of that same continuum. They increasingly oppose the texts, topics, or instructional techniques teachers choose with equal passion—but different concerns and rationales.

Over the years, I have witnessed, experienced, or heard of challenges to science, history, and even mathematics textbooks due to their content; to instructional methods or approaches in English, history classes, and most other classes; to topics discussed, topics omitted, topics twisted and transformed in ways that caused confusion or concern among various parties. I know teachers who have been applauded by students and parents for incorporating such elements of Marxist Theory into their curriculum yet simultaneously attacked by others in the same class whose families had fled Russia after being persecuted or having members of their families killed by Communists. These and other conflicts in the classroom, and within the culture at large, are examined with great intelligence and insight by Deborah Appleman in her new book Literature and the New Culture Wars: Triggers, Cancel Culture, and the Teacher's Dilemma (2022).

Within the last several years, exacerbated no doubt by the strains of the pandemic, I have watched such conflagrations of views and values erupt suddenly and with often fearsome intensity on local networks such as Nextdoor, community blogs, comments sections in local newspapers and community bulletin boards, school board meetings, text chats between colleagues, Twitter, Facebook, as well as department and faculty meetings. 

What to do? How do we think about our work and the response of the various stakeholders to that work? How are we to honor our own professional knowledge and priorities while making room to listen to and consider those of students, parents, and anyone else who sees themselves as having a legitimate interest in what children study? Recently, I worked with teachers from all subject areas in Idaho to help them design curriculum units that incorporate, as mandated by the terms of their grant from the state educational agency, “impossible conversations” around “contended issues” that they were facing in their various schools and communities.

Instead of offering specific phrases or templates to help you find the words to navigate such potentially fraught discussions, I have included several tools below that we used in Idaho to help you think about how these various stakeholders would respond to a text, a topic, or an instructional technique in your class. When we apply the elements of design thinking, for example, any such process of choosing or creating content for our classes begins by considering the user, which is to say your students or whoever will be using the intended text or technique. Use the following three diagrams to help you think about how students or others might respond—and why; then consider whether you need to revise or refine the content without feeling compelled to replace it.

The first of the three diagrams asks you to do some thinking about four different ways adults—parents, guardians, administrators, or community members—might respond to your plans. The second one asks you to use a variation of the same diagram to think about how four students with different perspectives, needs, or values will likely respond. Finally, the third one asks you to think about likely points of friction with colleagues on your team, in your department, or in another context where tensions are likely to arise. 

One last idea that might be useful and effective with a range of people who may resist or even reject your intended unit or lesson is empathy interviews. Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan describe these interviews as a way to “help us listen for how a person feels and perceives” whatever we are trying to teach or asking them to do (2021, 177). While they suggest doing these interviews one-on-one, I found this example I created to help me have a discussion with kids about reading worked just fine if all students fill them out and then I follow up as needed if I had questions.

While this sample empathy interview is not necessarily related to topics, texts, or techniques that are likely to devolve into serious tension, it provides a useful model to adapt for your own needs with your students, adult stakeholders, or colleagues about issues that are likely to become a source of trouble.

These controversies and coordinated assaults on teachers, departments, and districts over what they teach and how they teach it are not new. Such crises are often started or magnified by what Ripley calls “conflict entrepreneurs” (i.e., people who start or accelerate conflicts for their own personal aims). Yet they have been with us in this country for a long time. In the 1920s, censors came after D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and James Joyce’s Ulysses, which the judge said could not be obscene for he could not even understand it himself and thus could not imagine it posing any threat to young school-age children (Birmingham 2014, 194). In 1925, you had the Snopes trial over the teaching of evolution, a “conversation” that continues to this day and plays out in science classes and textbooks. 

In his book Storm in the Mountains: A Case Study of Censorship, Conflict, and Consciousness (1988), James Moffett examined in depth a famous conflict in West Virginia in 1974 about issues related to the teaching of American history and the textbooks the school used. In a chapter titled “Race War, Holy War,” Moffett interviewed a staff member of the Kanawha County School District about the conflict, which became very heated. The woman said, “Textbooks weren’t the issue. No one will ever convince me. The major issue was a political one and had to do with the black-and-white issue” (94). The woman’s remark is a fitting example of what Amanda Ripley says is often at the heart of most “high conflicts”: an “understory,” which she defines as “the thing the conflict is really about, underneath the usual talking points” (xii). 

So we might end here by saying that a good place to begin when you are in or think you could face any potentially high conflict situation with students or other stakeholders is to ask just what is the real issue, the understory that can help you as a teacher understand what those involved are actually upset about so you can better understand what is motivating their emotions, thoughts, and actions. In other words, seek first to understand—then to be understood.

Works Cited and Related Resources

Appleman, Deborah. Literature and the New Culture Wars: Triggers, Cancel Culture, and the Teacher's Dilemma. New York: W. W. Norton. (2022).

Birmingham, Kevin. The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses. New York: Penguin. 2014.

Boghossian, Peter and Lindsay, James. How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide. New York: Hachette. 2019.

Graff, Gerald, Birkenstein, Cathy, and Durst, Russel. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (with Readings). High School Edition. Fifth edition. New York: W. W. Norton. 2021.

Moffett, James. Storm in the Mountains: A Case Study of Censorship, Conflict, and Consciousness. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. 1988.

Ripley, Amanda. High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. New York: Simon and Schuster. 2021.

Safir, Shane and Dugan, Jamila. Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 2021.

#research #reading #education #uncharted territory #text #worldviews #instructional techniques

[nordleuchten]

La Fayette in Prison - Part 4.2 - Adrienne in Paris

After six months the dreaded news came. Adrienne was to be transferred to Paris. Virginie wrote:

My mother arrived in Paris on the 19th of Prairial, the eve of the fete de l'Étre supréme, three days before the decree of the 22nd, which organized une terreur dans la Terreur. At that time, no less than sixty people were daily falling victims of the Revolutionary Tribunal. All seemed to forebode approaching death to my mother.

Her children were allowed to visit her one last time and her oldest daughter, Anastasie, argued and pleaded with the guards that she was old enough to be taken with her mother to Paris, that she was an adult and guilty of the same “crimes” as her mother. Anastasie was fifteen at this point in time and the guard refused her, although they were visibly touched by her plea.

Frestel, well aware of the imminent danger, wrote Morris in Paris and informed him about the situation. Morris lost no time and immediately demanded Robespierre himself to release Adrienne - he was ignored. Morris had previously been quite open about this dislike for the revolution and was therefore not really welcomed. He however made it very, very, very clear, that the Americans were quite attached to La Fayette and his whole family and that if, should anything happen to Adrienne or the children, this could quite possible be the final straw for the Americans. He said, and I paraphrase here, Morris himself was a tad more diplomatic, “Our rebellion against England started with a trade boycott. America is one of the last countries that still trades with France. The American government is and will remain neutral, but if something were to happen to Adrienne or her children and the American people start boycotting French goods, well, what is the government supposed to do?” After that, Morris was even more hated by the Jacobins but his initiative proofed to be successful. Adrienne remained in prison but it was made clear that she should not be executed. Americas neutrality was nothing that France could afford to lose.

Frestel had furthermore collected all the jewellery that still reminded in Chavaniac and sold most of it, so that Adrienne would have money while in prison. A number of the servants even gave some of their own money to Adrienne (have I mentioned how great and loyal and amazing the servants were?).

Adriennes mother, the duchess d’Ayen, her sister, the vicomtesse de Noailles and her grandmother, the duchess de Noailles were all executed early in July of 1794. Her mother and sister had fled to safety in Switzerland but decided to return to France to nurse Adrienne’s dying grandfather. After his death, the three women were arrested. Virginie wrote concerning their arrests:

My grand mother and my aunt de Noailles, who had remained along time at Saint - Germain, to take care of the Maréchal de Noailles in his old age, returned to Paris  after his death, anxious to attend once more to their religious duties. They were, soon after their return, put under arrest in their own house, at the Hôtel de Noailles. The danger of their situation filled my mother's mind with terror and absorbed all her thoughts.

They died on the same day. Their local priest was able to get close enough to them to give them the absolution. He later noted that the two duchesses at least were content with their fate because they would both die before their child. On the day of the execution, the duchess de Noailles was the first to be guillotined, followed by her daughter, the duchess d’Ayen who in her turn was followed by her daughter, the vicomtesse de Noailles. A parent should not outlive their child.

I can not imagine what Adrienne must have felt as she received the news. All her live she had been extremely close with her mother and her older sister Louise. She furthermore could never be completely certain that she were not to follow her family members to the guillotine. Her American connections kept her safe for the time being, but that could change quickly.

The downfall of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety was Adrienne’s salvation. More moderate forces took over the reign of government and less and less people were executed. Adrienne however was still in prison - and she did not know why. James Monroe, a close and dear friend of La Fayette had just taken over as ambassador from Morris and getting Adrienne out of prison was one of his top priorities. He could not risk a diplomatic misstep in his affair and he therefor did something very clever - he asked his wife Elizabeth Monroe if she would like to visit Adrienne. Elizabeth naturally agreed and soon the Monroe couple visited Adrienne on a regular basis and brought her all sorts of things she might need in prison. Their visits served two purposes (beside cheering poor Adrienne up). They made it clear that America was still very invested in the wellbeing of Adrienne and her family. They also kept Adrienne in the spotlight because it almost seemed as if the new government had simply forgotten that she was still imprisoned - and still without any reasonable charges. Adrienne wrote Monroe on October 3, 1794:

It is likely that I will be the last to leave this place. I believe that the threat of execution is subsiding and if hope persists, there is no danger for me, as I have not the least reason to be held. But the situation of my children so far away from me adds to the sorrow that will follow me to my grave. These cruel anxieties and this kind of torment not being completely without remedy, I beg you to ease my cares by allowing me a moment of conversation with a man who should have your full confidence. Nothing is easier than what I am asking you, and I cannot believe that you would refuse me. (…)I truly need you to look after the interest of my dear children from whom I have been torn apart. It isn’t too much I think after a two-month confinement in the same place, to ask for the consoling confirmation that I have some right to hope for my liberation at the moment of their arrival. You see, my dear sir, that I assume no pride in this because I sense that you have already enough assurances of my appreciation that I am ready for you to undertake new responsibilities. But, I am accustomed to remaining silent when I am not allowed to express openly what I feel. Pardon the candor with which I express myself to you; and doubt not that not only what the United States and its minister has done for me, but what they have willingly attempted to do for me, has instilled in me a very sincere appreciation.

There are many letters between Monroe and Adrienne, a few letters between Adrienne and Washington and only one letter between Adrienne and La Fayette (that I know of). Monroe did not only aided Adrienne in obtaining her release but he also helped her further with her finances and to take care of several relatives and former employees. Here is just one of the many, many examples. Adrienne wrote to Monroe in an undated letter (in all likelihood November 1794):

I cannot finish without recommending again to the kindnesses of the American minister, Mr Mercier, a servant who has served me for seventeen years with fidelity and zeal, and who has also run risks for me and shared with me a month in prison. He has a position at this moment, but I cannot bear the idea that he would suffer poverty. And I need to hope that he will not be abandoned by the United States. A very poor family whose son is the victim with my husband also has sacred claims to their kindness, the father, the mother and five children will be furnished of what aid that will relieve them.

Adrienne was not in a great position herself, but she constantly thought of others.

After a grand total of sixteen months in prison, Adrienne was finally released. Her immediate aim was to get her son and his tutor Frestel to the safe shores of America. She first re-purchased Chavaniac from the government so that Louise Charlotte and her children had a safe place to stay. She also argued with the government that she was eligible to inherit her mother’s properties - they eventually agreed with her. Monroe in the meantime had “found” an American passport for Georges. (Let me know if you all are interested in a separate post about Georges time and reception in America).

Adrienne and her daughters travelled to Austria, there to argue for La Fayette’s release - and that is exactly where we continue next time, with La Fayette’s stay in the infamous Olmütz prison.

#adrienne de lafayette #adrienne de noailles #marquis de lafayette #general lafayette #historical lafayette #french history #french revolution #virginie de lafayette #anastasie de lafayette #georges washington de lafayette #felix frestel #france #paris #america #james monroe #american history #american revolution #history #letters #lafayette in prison #1794

[vintagecoldcases]

Story of Ted Bundy

TW: execution photos, details of deaths

**a more detailed victim list will be posted later, beware of this post if you are sensitive to blood/gore/other oddities of true crime as it will have crime scene photos**

Theodore Robert Cowell, was born on November 24th, 1946 to Eleanor Louise Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers. Eleanor was known by Louise and Ted’s father’s identity is unconfirmed. His birth certificate states Lloyd Marshall, a salesman and Air Force veteran, as his father. Louise claims his father to be an old war veteran known as Jack Worthington, this is who the King’s County Sheriff’s Office has listed as such. A few family members believe that Louise’s father, Samuel Cowell, could’ve been Ted’s father but no evidence has been found to support this claim. 

Ted was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by his maternal grandparents for the first three years of his life. He, family, and friends, were told that his grandparents were actually his parents and that his mother was his older sister in order to protect them all from the stigma of birthing a child out of wedlock. There are variations of how Bundy found out his true parentage. A past girlfriend was told that Bundy was shown his birth certificate by a cousin, Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth (both biographers) were told by Bundy that he found the certificate himself. Anne Rule (biographer and crime writer, who knew Bundy personally) believes he did not find this information until 1969. In 1950, Louise changed her surname from Cowell to Nelson and left Philadelphia to live with cousins Alan and Jane Scott in Tacoma, Washington. In 1951, Louise met Johnny Culpepper Bundy at an adult singles night at Tacoma’s First Methodist Church. Johnny and Louise later married that year and Johnny formally adopted Ted. Johnny and Louise went on to have four children together, and whilst Johnny tried including Ted on family trips and outings, he remained distant.

Teenage Ted Bundy

In 1965, Ted graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School and enrolled in the University of Puget Sound where he spent a year before transferring to the University of Washington to study Chinese. In 1967, he became involved romantically with a UW classmate, most commonly known as Stephanie Brooks in biographies. In 1968, he dropped out of college and worked at a series of minimum wage jobs; even working as Arthur Fletcher’s bodyguard and driver during his Lieutenant Governor campaign. Brooks then ended their relationship due to Bundy’s lack of ambition. He also took one semester at Temple University after returning back to Arkansas and Philadelphia to visit family. In 1969, Ted moved back to Washington where he met Elizabeth Kloepfer (also known in Bundy literature as Liz Kendall, Beth Archer, or Meg Anders). 

Ted Bundy & Elizabeth Kloepfer

In 1970, Ted re-enrolled at the University of Washington as a psychology major. During this time he became an honor student and was well regarded by his professors. In 1971, he took a job at Seattle’s Suicide Hotline Crisis Center, where he met Anne Rule who noted nothing disturbing or abnormal about Bundy. In early 1973, despite his average law school admission scores, he was granted admittance to UPS and the University of Utah. In 1973, he rekindled his relationship with Stephanie Brooks. He also continued to date Elizabeth Kloepfer. Neither woman knew of the other at this time. During this time period, Brooks had flown in several times to stay with him in Seattle. He had discussed marriage with Stephanie and had also introduced her as his fiancee at a point. In 1974, he abruptly broke off all contact. He did not return phone calls or letters. After a month of trying, Brooks was finally able to contact Bundy by phone, asking why he had so abruptly ended the relationship without an explanation. He responded with, “Stephanie, I have no idea what you mean.” and hung up the phone. She never heard from him again after that. He had just wanted to prove to himself that he could marry her in retaliation of her ending their former relationship before. 

Ted Bundy and Stephanie Brooks

Ted had been skipping classes in law school by this point and had stopped attending all together by april when the first series of murders were reported. Circumstantial evidence points Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl, as one of Bundy’s first victims in 1962.

Ann Marie Burr, age 8

Washington/Oregon Murders

College aged young women started to disappear at a rate of about one a month in Washington and Oregon. On January 4th, 1974, shortly after midnight, Bundy snuck into the basement apartment of 18-year-old Karen Sparks (also known as Joni Lenz, Mary Adams, or Terri Caldwell in Bundy literature). He bludgeoned her with a metal rod from her bed frame and then sexually assaulted her with the same rod. She was unconscious for 10 days but survived. She sustained major permanent physical and mental disabilities. In the early morning of February 1st, 1974, Bundy broke into the basement bedroom of Lynda Anne Healy. He beat her until she was unconscious, dressed her in a white blouse, blue jeans, and boots and carried her away from the scene. On March 12th, 1974, Donna Gail Manson, a 19-year-old student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia went missing as she left her dorm to attend a jazz concert that she would never attend. April 17th, 1974, Susan Elaine Rancourt disappeared from Central Washington State College, on her way back to her dorm after an advisors meeting. Two female students later came forward with encounters with the same man. One was on the night of Susan’s disappearance and the other was three days before that. The man had his arm in a sling and had asked the girls for help loading his books into a brown or tan Volkswagen beetle. In Corvallis at Oregon State University, on May 6th, 1974, Roberta Kathleen Parks, left her dormitory to meet friends for coffee and she never arrived. 

Police precincts were growing more and more concerned with each abduction. As they had no evidence or connection between each of the girls besides they were all young, attractive, college-aged, white women with their brown hair parted down the middle. On June 1st, 1974, Brenda Carol Ball, disappeared from the Flame Tavern in Burien, near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She had last been seen in the parking lot with a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling. Not too long after that, on June 11th, 1974 Georgann Hawkins disappeared walking down a brightly lit alleyway between her boyfriend’s dormitory and her own sorority house. After Georgann’s disappearance was made public in the media, witnesses came forward reporting that they saw a man that night in an alley behind a nearby dormitory. He was on crutches with a leg cast and was struggling to carry a briefcase. Another witness had said that the man actually asked for her help. At this time Ted was working in Olympia as the Assistant Director of the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Commission. He wrote pamphlets for women on rape prevention here. He also later worked at the Department of Emergency Services (DES), which helped look for the missing women. This is where he met Carol Anne Boone, and began dating her (as well as Elizabeth Kloepfer).

Carol Anne Boone

Pressure was immense on law enforcement at this time. This was very frustrating as panic spread through young women of the area, with six disappearances and one brutal beating. Rates of hitchhiking in young women dropped drastically. Police could not provide reporters with what little information they had because they did not want to compromise the investigation. Similarities between the victims were noted by the police in their investigations: The disappearances all took place at night, each disappearance was usually near ongoing construction work, also within a week of midterm or final exams. Every single victim was wearing slacks or blue jeans; and at most crime scenes, there were sightings of a man wearing a cast or a sling, and driving a brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle. On July 14th, 1974, five female witnesses on a beach at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah, Washington, described an attractive man in a white tennis outfit with his arm in a sling. They also described him speaking in a light accent, possibly Canadian or British, and was introducing himself as Ted. He asked for their help in unloading a sailboat from his Volkswagen beetle. Four of the girls refused but one accompanied him to the point of the car in view. When she did not see a sailboat, she fled the area. Three other witnesses saw the man, now known as Ted, saw him approach Janice Ann Ott. He fed her the sailboat story and she was seen leaving the beach with him. Four hours after Janice’s disappearance, Denise Marie Naslund, vanished after leaving a picnic to use the restroom. 

Idaho/Utah Murders and Kidnappings

In August 1974, Ted moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, after receiving a second letter of acceptance from the University of Utah Law School. He continued to call Elizabeth Kloepfer as he lived in Salt Lake, but dated at least a dozen other women at the time. On September 2nd, 1974, Ted abducted, raped, and murdered a still unknown hitchhiker in Idaho. On October 2nd, 1974, Ted kidnapped 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox from Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake City. On October 18th, 1974, The daughter of the police chief of Midvale, Melissa Anne Smith, vanished after leaving a pizza parlor. Her body was found nine days later, nude, in a mountainous area. Postmortem reports say she may have remained alive for up to seven days after her disappearance. On October 17th, 1974, Laura Ann Aime disappeared after leaving a cafe around midnight. Her body was found by hikers, nine miles northeast of American Fork Canyon on Thanksgiving Day. Both, Melissa and Laura had been beaten, raped, sodomized, and were strangled with nylon stockings. November 8th, 1974, Ted approached Carol DaRonch, introduced himself as Officer Roseland and used the story of someone attempting to break into her car and to accompany him to the police station to make a report. When Carol pointed out that he was not going to the police station, he immediately pulled over to the shoulder of the road and tried to handcuff her. In their struggle, he accidentally handcuffed both cuffs to the same wrist. Carol was able to throw the door open and escape because of this. On the same evening, Debra Jean Kent disappeared after leaving a theater production to pick up her brother. The school's drama teacher and a student told police that "a stranger" had asked each of them to come out to the parking lot to identify a car. Another student later saw the same man pacing in the rear of the auditorium, and the drama teacher spotted him again shortly before the end of the play. Outside of the auditorium, investigators were able to recover a key that unlocked the handcuffs on Carol DaRonch’s wrists. 

In November, Elizabeth Kloepfer called King County police for the second time, after reading about the string of disappearances and murders in the towns surrounding Salt Lake. Bundy had risen considerably as a suspect among the King County Police, but the most reliable witness from Lake Sammamish could not identify in a photo lineup. In December, Elizabeth called the Salt Lake City police with her suspicions. Ted was then added to their list of suspects, but there were no credible forensic links to put him at any of the Utah crimes. In January of 1975, Ted returned to Seattle and stayed a week with Elizabeth. She did not tell him she had reported him to the police on three occasions. She also made plans to visit him in August of 1975 in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, Ted’s crimes moved to Colorado at this point. 

Colorado/Utah/Idaho Murders

January 12th, 1975, Caryn Eileen Campbell disappeared walking down a well lit hallway between the elevator and her room at the Wildwood Inn in Snowmass Village, Colorado. Her body was found a month later on a dirt road next to the resort, nude. On March 15th, 1975, Julie Cunningham disappeared while walking to a dinner date with a friend from her apartment. April 6th, 1975, Denise Lynn Oliverson vanished while riding her bicycle to her parents house. Her bike and sandals were found near a railroad bridge in a viaduct. May 6th, 1975, Ted was able to lure 12-year-old Idaho native from Alameda Junior High School, Lynette Dawn Culver, to his hotel room in Salt Lake City, where he drowned and raped her. He disposed of her body in possibly the Snake river north of Pocatello. In Mid-May, three of Ted’s coworkers from DES came to stay with him for a week. This included Carol Anne Boone. They stayed for about a week. Subsequently, Ted visited Elizabeth Kloepfer in early June. They discussed getting married the following Christmas. She again made no comments about her talking to police on several occasions. Ted also did not disclose his ongoing relationship with Carol Anne Boone or his relationship with a Utah law student known as both; Kim Andrews or Sharon Auer. June 28th, 1975, Susan Curtis disappeared from the campus of Brigham Young University, forty-five miles south of Salt Lake City. In August of 1975, Ted was also baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints although he did not follow any of the religious practices and was not an active participant in services. 

On August 16th, 1975, Officer Bob Hayward of the Utah Highway Patrol, arrested Ted in Granger. This was another suburb of Salt Lake City. Hayward had observed him cruising the residential area in the pre-dawn hours. Ted then fled the area at high speeds after seeing Hayward’s patrol car. After noticing the front passengers seat was removed and placed on the back seat, the car was searched. Hayward found a ski mask, another mask fashioned from pantyhose, a crowbar, handcuffs, trash bags, rope, an ice pick, and other burglary tools. Ted had said that the mask was for skiing, he found the handcuffs in the dumpster, and the rest were household items. Detective Jerry Thompson remembered a similar looking suspect and car description from Carol DaRonch’s attempted kidnapping. Police then searched Bundy’s apartment and were able to turn up a guide to Colorado’s ski resorts with a checkmark next to the Wildwood Inn. They were also able to find a brochure for Viewmont High School play in Bountiful where Debra Kent disappeared. They although did not find enough evidence to detain Ted and he was released on his own recognizance. Ted claimed later that investigators missed his collection of polaroid photos of his victims and he destroyed them after his release. Salt Lake police placed Ted under a 24 hour surveillance. 

Detective Thompson flew to Seattle with two other detectives to interview Elizabeth Kloepfer. Elizabeth told them that in the year prior to Ted’s move to Salt Lake, she had discovered things that she "couldn't understand" in her house and also in Ted's apartment. The items she found included crutches, a bag of plaster of Paris that he had admitted stealing from a medical supply house, and a meat cleaver that was never used for cooking. Additional things she found included surgical gloves, an Oriental knife in a wooden case that he just kept in the glove compartment of his car, and a sack full of women's clothing.  Ted was so far into debt, that Elizabeth suspected that he had stolen almost everything of significance that he owned. When she confronted him over a new TV and stereo, he warned her, "If you tell anyone, I'll break your fucking neck.” Elizabeth then mentioned that she would find Ted looking at her body with a flashlight under the covers on more than one occasion, and that he would get very upset if she mentioned cutting her hair. Which was long, brown, and parted in the middle. Detectives interviewing Elizabeth were able to confirm that Ted was not with her on any of the nights where the Pacific Northwest disappearances occurred. This is where Elizabeth learned about Stephanie Brooks and their brief engagement in 1973. In September, Ted sold his beetle to a Midvale teenager, but Utah police impounded it and dismantled it. They were able to find matching hair samples from Caryn Campbell. They also found “microscopically indistinguishable” hair strands from Melissa Smith and Carol DaRonch. On October 2nd, 1975, Police put Ted into a lineup and Carol DaRonch was able to identify him as Officer Roseland. Other witnesses were able to identify him as the stranger from the auditorium at Viewmont High School. He was able to be charged with aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault in Carol DaRonch’s case. He was released on $15,000 bail, which was paid by his parents. He continued to live with Elizabeth Kloepfer during this time. 

In February 1976, Ted stood trial for Carol DaRonch’s kidnapping. He waived his right to trial by jury because of the negative views surrounding the case and opted for a bench trial. After a four day trial, and a weekend of deliberation, Ted was found guilty of kidnapping and assault. In June he was sentenced to one to fifteen years in the Utah State Prison. In October, he was found hiding in bushes in the prison yard carrying an "escape kit". This included road maps, airline schedules, and a social security card. He spent several weeks in solitary confinement for this. Later in October, Colorado authorities charged him with Caryn Campbell's murder. He waived his right to extradition and was transferred to Aspen in January 1977. 

June 7, 1977, Ted was transported from the Garfield County jail in Glenwood Springs to Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen for a preliminary hearing. He waived his right to a court appointed attorney and opted to serve as his own, and as such, was excused by the judge from wearing handcuffs or leg shackles. During a recess of the trial, he asked to visit the courthouse's law library to research his case. While out of view from his guards, behind a bookcase, he opened a window and jumped to the ground from the second story. He managed to injure his right ankle in the process as he landed. He shed the outer layer of his clothing. He walked through Aspen as roadblocks were being set up on its outskirts after noticing his disappearance, then hiked southward onto Aspen Mountain. Near the summit of the mountain, he broke into a hunting cabin. He was able to steal food, clothing, and a rifle. The following day he left the cabin and continued south toward the town of Crested Butte. Although, during this time he had managed to get lost in the forest. For two days he wandered aimlessly in the mountain forest, missing the two trails that led downward to his intended destination. On June 10th, 1977, he broke into a camping trailer on Maroon Lake, taking food and a ski parka; instead of continuing southward, he walked back north toward Aspen, eluding the roadblocks and search parties along the way. Three days later, he stole a car at the edge of an Aspen Golf Course. He drove back into Aspen, where two police officers noticed his car weaving in and out of its lane and pulled him over. He had been a fugitive for six days.

Back in jail at Glenwood Springs, Ted again ignored legal advice to stay put (not to try to escape again). It was said that the case against him, already weak at best, was deteriorating steadily as pre-trial motions consistently resolved in his favor and significant bits of evidence were ruled inadmissible. A quote stating, "A more rational defendant might have realized that he stood a good chance of acquittal, and that beating the murder charge in Colorado would probably have dissuaded other prosecutors... with as little as a year and a half to serve on the DaRonch conviction, had Ted persevered, he could have been a free man.” had shown that. But instead, Ted assembled a new escape plan. He acquired a detailed floor plan of the jail and a hacksaw blade from other inmates, and collected $500 in cash. This was smuggled in over a six-month period, by visitors, Mostly Carol Boone. During the evenings, while other prisoners were showering, he sawed a hole about one square foot, between the steel reinforcing bars in his cell's ceiling and, having lost 35 pounds, he was able to wriggle through it into the crawl space above. In the weeks that followed, he made several “practice runs”, exploring the space. Multiple reports from an informant of movement within the ceiling during the night were not investigated. By late 1977, Bundy's impending trial had become very high flying in the media in the small town of Aspen. Ted then filed a motion for a change of venue to Denver. On December 23rd, 1977, the Aspen trial judge granted the request, but he was sent to Colorado Springs, where juries had historically been hostile to murder suspects. On the night of December 30, with most of the jail staff on Christmas break and nonviolent prisoners on furlough with their families. Bundy piled books and files in his bed, covered them with a blanket to simulate his sleeping body, and climbed into the crawl space. He broke through the ceiling into the apartment of the chief jailer, who had been out for the evening with his wife. He changed into street clothes from the jailer's closet, and literally walked out the front door to his freedom.

Florida Murders and Assaults

Ted arrived in Tallahassee, Florida on January 8th, 1978, and rented a room under the alias of Chris Hagen at the Holiday Inn. Here Bundy tried to find work and leave his criminal past behind, thinking he’d be able to remain free if he didn’t bring police suspicion onto himself. He then was forced to leave his only job application after being asked to provide identification. He reverted to shoplifting and stealing credit cards from women’s wallets out of shopping carts. On January 15th, 1978, he entered Florida State University’s sorority Chi Omega. Starting at 2:45am, he bludgeoned Margaret Bowman and then garoted her with a nylon stocking. He moved on to Lisa Levy’s bedroom, who was beaten unconscious, strangled her, tore one of her nipples, bit deeply into her left buttock, and sexuallly assaulted her with a hair mist bottle. In the bedroom adjoining Lisa's, he attacked Kathy Kliener. He had broken her jaw and had a deep laceration on her shoulder. Karen Chandler was also attacked in her bedroom, she suffered a concussion, loss of teeth, a broken jaw, and a crushed finger. Kathy and Karen both survived and attributed their survival to the attacker being scared off by headlights illuminating through the window. The whole attack happened within fifteen minutes with thirty witnesses in earshot who seemingly heard nothing. Shortly after leaving the sorority, Ted broke into the basement apartment of Cheryl Thomas, eight blocks away. He dislocated her shoulder and fractured her jaw and skull in five different places during this attack. 

On February 8th, 1978, he approached the daughter of Jacksonville chief of Police, 12-year-old Leslie Parmenter, introducing himself as “Richard Burton, fire department”. He only backed off when challenged by Leslie’s older brother who had shown up to pick her up. That day, he backtracked to Lake City. February 9th, 1978, at Lake City Junior High, 12-year-old Kimberly Dianne Leach was summoned to retrieve a forgotten purse in her homeroom class and was never seen afterwards. Her mummified remains were found seven weeks afterwards in a pig farrowing shed near Suwannee River State Park. It appears she had been raped (her underwear was found near the body with semen in them) and her throat had been slit. On February 12th, 1978, Bundy could not pay his rent and had the growing suspicion that police were closing in on him, he decided to flee Tallahassee. Three days later he was apprehended by Pensacola officer, David Lee, near the Alabama border. In Miami, June of 1979, Ted stood trial for the Chi Omega killings and assaults. The jury deliberated for less than seven hours before convicting him on July 24, 1979, of the Bowman and Levy murders, three counts of attempted first degree murder and two counts of burglary. In January 1980, six months after his first Florida convictions, Ted stood trial in Orlando for the kidnapping of Kimberly Dianne Leach. After less than eight hours of deliberation, Ted was found guilty again. During the penalty phase of his trial, Bundy took advantage of an obscure Florida law; providing that a marriage declaration in court, in the presence of a judge, constituted a legal marriage. As he was questioning former Washington State DES coworker Carole Ann Boone, who had moved to Florida to be near Bundy, had testified on his behalf during both of his trials, and was again testifying on his behalf as a character witness, asked her to marry him. She accepted, and Bundy declared to the court that they were legally married. February 10th, 1980, Ted’s was sentenced to death by electrocution for the third time. In October of 1981, Carol Anne Boone, gave birth to a daughter and named Ted Bundy as the father. 

Ted Bundy died by the Raiford electric chair at 7:16 a.m. EST on January 24, 1989. Hundreds of revelers sang, danced and set off fireworks in a pasture across from the prison as the execution was carried out, then cheered as the white hearse containing Bundy's corpse departed the prison. He was cremated in Gainesville, Florida and his ashes scattered at an undisclosed location in the Cascade Range of Washington State, in accordance with his will. 

#ted bundy #bundy #true crime #crime #serial killer #killer

[politicotalk]

Cultural Identity in Canadian Politics

When I talk to foreign people about Canadian politics, they always come to me and ask me what the hell the issues in Canada can be. That place looks like paradise land. Is the biggest issue how to avoid having your car buried in a pile of snow, or how to teach mooses how to play hockey. All countries have their internal issues, including countries such as Canada, Norway or Sweden which seem to be perfect on the outside. I’m going to try to explain what the major issues Canadian Federal politics face, issues specific to Canada.

Indigenous people Indigenous people of Canada, also refered to as the aboriginal people, have been in the shadows, cast aside, for a very long time in Canadian everyday politics. Actually, since the arrival of European colonisers in the 16th century, they have been sort of cast aside. The first Europeans to come and stay were the French, and they had a lot of issues when they came. First off, they had scurvy; the indigenous helped them with that. Secondly, they didn’t know how to survive harsh Canadian winters, the indigenous people helped them with that. French and First Nations traded with each other and created alliances and systems of relations where both parties benefited from each other’s presence. French population grew in the mean time. The British came and settled, and the tables really started to turn after the American Revolution; a lot of people living in the 13 colonies were faithful to the British Crown and fled North to modern day Canada. This brought a complete shift in demography; all of a sudden, the indigenous (and French) populations were outnumbered by the British. First Nations were pushed out of towns slowly but surely. Come the 19th century, bad boy United States was a major threat. They had something called “manifest destiny”, where they saw the West as a baren wasteland in need of colonisation by white people. The Canadian government freaked out, because this meant they could encapsulate Canada and absorb it into the United States. Well, the Canadian government also looked at the west and thought “well fuck, bud, we gotta claim this land”, so they started building a railroad from modern-day Ontario to British Columbia, all the way on the Pacific Coast. There was a big problem though, you see, this area wasn’t a wasteland; there were a lot of First Nations living there, including aboriginal and Métis people. What did the government do? Adopt the Indian Act in 1876. Yeah, no joke, it’s literally called the “Indian Act”. This land these people lived on was full of natural resources, but these people would not cede to the federal government because fuck you. So the government came up with this stupid law. Indigenous people were forbidden from creating their own governments, hold religious ceremonies, hire lawyers or go against the government over land claims. From the 20th century, when education became an important thing for children, with the help of local religious groups, the government started opening what is called “residential schools” and this is brought on a clusterfuck of problems we are faced with today.

The government gave itself the right to take Indigenous children from their families and force them to go to these schools, where they resided. The parents had no say in whether these children were allowed to go or not. These kids had their heads shaved, were forced to keep short hair, banned from wearing any traditional clothing, speak in their native languages – instead they had to speak English or French –, practice their religion – instead, they were brought into the Catholic Church or any Protestant Churches – and they were banned from contacting their families. I mention hair, some people might thing “so what?”; well, long hair is really important in Native Americans’ cultures. It’s as if you were to tell someone from Bavaria that they were no longer allowed to wear lederhosen. The point of this was to strip these kids of their identities, make them white, and so they would cede their lands more easily to the government, so it could profit off of it.

I can’t tell you how badly that backfired. From the 90’s, these poor kids who were, for the majority, adults started to take the government to court for wrongful abuse made towards them, in claims of abuse done towards them. You probably know that the Catholic Church does not have the best record, especially when it comes to violence done towards children, and Ireland was on the forefront of the international stage years ago for allegations of sexual abuse done by members of the clergy towards children. Well, this wasn’t an exception for Canada. To further prove this, the bodies of thousands of dead children were found buried all around these ex-residential schools in 2020. This was orchestrated by the Canadian government AND the Churches.

Thankfully, the Indian Act, though it still technically exists, is kinda stripped. Aboriginal people have the right to assembly, have the right to practice their religion, speak their languages, practice their cultures, etc. All good right? Right?

Well, not quite, this comes to a second point that was brought up again in the recent elections. What would the candidates do in regards to clean drinking water for the aboriginal? To examine this question, we need to rewind, again (sorry). The aboriginal live, for the majority, on what is called “reserves”. They are lands that are under their local governments’ control, where they all live. If you went to Montreal, Toronto, or even Moose Jaw, you could turn on the tap in the kitchen and drink the water there, no problem. Well, the residences on these reserves, not only are in deplorable states, but they also do not have clean, running water. Canada is not the Sahara. We are not lacking water. Canada has actually the world’s highest amount of natural drinking water. Fly over the country and it’s rivers and lakes everywhere. Yet, these people don’t have running water? So this topic has come back several times in the elections over the last 20 years and no one has done anything.

This is barely scratching the surface of issues surrounding aboriginal people in Canada. These two issues were the ones that came up in the last federal leaders’ debate.

French people Canada is a multicultural country. As mentioned before, the French-speaking population has been in Canada for over four centuries now. They have also been marginalised in some ways, and several attempts to assimilate have been made, but to no avail. Today, the French-speaking population is spread over all of Canada’s provinces, but the majority resides in the province of Quebec, where the official language is only French. Several French speakers live in Acadia (in the East of Canada) in Ontario and in Manitoba. Only New Brunswick is officially bilingual. French people – especially the people of Quebec – have seen themselves as different from the English speakers. They see themselves as an entirely different nation (I should point out that I use the term “nation” in the sense of the term synonymous with “population”). Issues flared up in the late 60’s and lead to a lot of tension in the 70’s, where the culture really started to solidify, and lead to a referendum in 1981 and 1995 in regards to whether Quebec wanted to become an independent country. In short, both times, the answer was no. In 1995, the answer was very slim, with the results being 49% to 51%. The situation in Quebec is very similar as the one in Catalonia and Scotland. 1995 might seem like yesterday to some, but I will remind you that this was 26 years ago. Things change in 26 years. New people are made, old people die. The thought of independence is a far away memory in most people’s imagination, and the young people are pretty cool with not wanting an independent country. This doesn’t mean that all of a sudden, Quebeckers are cool with the federal government and kissing the flag; they still see themselves as different, but have come to accept their place in the country, as the government has accommodated more and more for the French language, and given Quebec flexibility over their governance. But you see, Quebec’s aggressive stance over its language gives the other French speakers the ability to continue existing; media, culture and academic content come largely from Quebec. Without Quebec, these other French speaking cultures fear ceasing to exist.

So what about today? Well, firstly, the health sector is governed by the provinces. This means that Quebec was mostly in control of handling Covid, and they want to deal with all issues surrounding this.

Another thing to mention, is that, most likely because of its catholic culture, Quebec is very left leaning. Most votes for the NDP and a portion for the Liberals come from Quebec, and barely any go to the Conservative. They are in favour of public health services, public education with low fees for higher education, help to families and issues talking the environment. Canada currently heavily relies on industries in the primary sector, especially the West. So if Quebec is so in favour of not allowing pipelines to be built, or not excavating for oil, this wouldn’t affect them so much.

In conclusion, this is what Canada has to deal with, long tensions amongst its three main cultural groups. Let me know what your thoughts are and what your country is tackling in terms of internal conflicts.

#canadian politics

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Leave No One Behind: Meet the Characters

Leave No One Behind- An Ari Levinson fanfic by @what-is-your-plan-today​ and @icanfeelastormbrewing​.

Character Profiles.

A/N- There isn’t much character development really over RSDR, and very little is known about our Characters’ back ground...so we have used a combination of fiction and facts either delivered by the film or what we have found via research on Mossad, the history of the Jewish people in the 40s through 80s and our imagination to bring this to you. It is, historically, as factually correct as we can make it, but if anything is wrong, we mean no offence. Take it as slight creative license...

"For wise guidance, you can wage your war."

All ages correct as of 1979

Name: Ari David Levinson 

Alias: Guy Thomas. 

Age 36-Born in 1943.

Background:  Ari's mother, Amira Levinson was as Holocaust survivor, part of the 4,500 Jewish Immigrants who were carried from France to Palestine in 1947 on the SS Exodus, where they were refused entry. A British Soldier, Steven Thomas, took pity on Ari's mother and she surrendered her son to him for fear he would otherwise die. A year or so later, Steven Thomas met and fell in love with an American Woman, Edith Johnson and they married and moved to America. Ari returned to Israel age 18 to find his roots and embark on his University studies of Anthropology.

Ari has been a Mossad agent since he was 24. He joined in 1967 alongside best friend Sammy who he met aged 23 through Mutual Friends. Ari quickly became one of the most experienced Field Operatives around, specialising in extraction missions and intelligence gathering.

After a will they/won’t they/ they did fling of sorts with Hannah, which lasted 3 months or so, Ari met his wife Sarah in August 1971 and after a whirlwind relationship that left her pregnant, married in early 1972. Their daughter, Maya was born August that year.

Personality Traits: Ari is kind hearted with the desire to help people, but this drive and need to make a difference has made him selfish in some ways and neglectful of his family life, often putting his anthropology and vocation first. He is also stubborn and rarely known to back down when he feels he is right and is most certainly NOT a man with a plan, preferring to fly by the seat of his pants which at times means putting himself and his team in danger at times, although this is never done on purpose.

Simply put he doesn't know when to stop, but will genuinely move heaven and Earth to help anyone in need.

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Name: Hannah Maria Horowitz (nee Navon Garcia) (OFC)

Alias: Rosa-Maria Gomez 

Age 29-Born in 1950

Face Claim- Lyndsy Fonseca

Background:   Hannah was born in Tel-Aviv to an American Jewish Father and a Spanish Catholic Mother, Hannah and Sammy's Mother fled the growing unrest in Spain to New York in 1935 aged 17. There she trained as a nurse and met their father. The two married in 1940 before Ethan was posted to Europe during the 2nd WW. After seeing first-hand the horror his people suffered in the Holocaust, upon his return Ethan became a Conscientious Objector and moved his wife and son to Tel Aviv in 1949, where he took up a post in the Israeli Government looking at how to help fellow persecuted Jews who were scattered across the globe. In 1949 he was one of the founding members of the Central Institute for Coordination which was a central body designed to coordinate and improve cooperation between the existing security services. This later became Mossad.

Following a short battle polio, Hannah’s father died when she was just 5 years old. Both her parents work and desire to help others inspired her to follow in her brother's footsteps and train as a Doctor. Hannah joined Mossad in 1973 aged 23 through as part of her Father’s Legacy and was one of the first Females ever to be deployed into the field. As a Field Doctor she was called to go wherever the need took her, and this includes running a number of operations as part of teams headed up by Ari. Through her links with Mossad she met Andy Horowitz, one of her brother and Ari's protégées and the two married in 1975. Andy was killed on a mission 8 months later in 1976. This spurred Hannah to leave Mossad behind and work at the Surgery her Mother set up in her Father's Memory.

Personality Traits: Hannah is a free spirit, very bohemian with an extremely fierce temper at times and a stubborn streak to rival Ari's. Being somewhat 7 years her brother's junior has led to her being mature beyond her years but also sometimes naive in the way she always tries to see the best in people, even if they possess few redeeming qualities. Hannah wears her heart on her sleeve, and does nothing by halves... including falling in love. The death of her husband left her reeling and for the first time ever questioning her life decisions. 

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Name: Samuel Ethan Navon Garcia (Sam or Sammy)

Alias: Liam Anderson 

Age 36 Born in 1943

Background: Older brother to Hannah, 7 years her senior, Sammy was born in New York and moved to Tel-Aviv aged 6 following his father’s decision to join the Israeli Government. Following the death of his father when he was 12, seeing the care he was given inspired Sammy to become a Doctor and later a surgeon. He met Ari aged 23 in 1966 through mutual friends and the two bonded instantly over a shared desire, vision and passion to help fellow Jews who remained scattered across the globe and still suffering persecution.

Sammy joined Mossad 1967 as a Field Doctor, working alongside Ari on many an extraction mission whilst maintaining his regular role as a surgeon when not away active service. Sammy suffered a severe injury on one mission in 1973 after his right hand was damage by a knife in combat and this left him unable to perform surgery any longer.

Personality Traits: Sammy is extremely similar to his sister in a lot of ways, yet different in many too. Stubborn and opinionated, but more logical, able to let his brain rule his heart. This leads him to clash with Ari on many occasions over missions where he feels Ari is being reckless where he doesn’t need to be. Where Hannah is concerned, he is well aware she can fight her own battles, and for the most leaves well alone. However, when the chips are down the protective big brother rears his head and Hannah can find this overbearing at times, but frankly he doesn't care! 

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Name: Maxwell James Rose (Max)

Alias: Irving Wilmington

Age 34 Born in 1946

Background: Max was born to Jewish Immigrants in Queens, New York. Best friends with Andy Horowitz (Hannah's husband) since childhood, the 2 joined the army once old enough and were later head hunted for a number of  one-off specialist missions by Ari after they came to his attention when the US army provided back up on a few of his operations. They joined Mossad full time in 1972 and were as inseparable then as they had been all their lives. When Andy died in 1976, Max continued to run a number of missions before leaving the service in 1978 and becoming a Mercenary, working for whichever intelligence agency wished to hire him. He considers Hannah one of his best friends, and she does him.

Personality Traits:  Max is quite similar to Hannah in that they both live life to the full and take no prisoners. He is, however, a lot more placid but that means when he does lose it, it is done in spectacular fashion. His good humour and overall placid nature mean he is often able to diffuse many a situation and therefore is often the peace-keeper of the group, even if this role is unintentional. His one weakness, however, is food…and if you want him to do anything for you, he will in exchanged for a decent burger or sandwich.

**************

Name: Rachel Reiter 

Alias: Angela Bluchel

Age 31 Born in 1948

Background:  Born in Munich, Germany, Rachel is the only child of 2 German Jews. After hearing her parents stories of the Holocaust, Rachel desired to also make a difference. As part of the recruitment drive in the early 70s, Rachel joined the Israeli Government and moved into Mossad in the same training intake as Hannah, the two of whom were the first ever women agents to be deployed. She married Brandon Cole, an American, in 1974 an had two children, divorcing in 1979. She remained part of Mossad, however opting to run low- key missions to minimise time away from her family.

Personality Traits:  Rachel is your typical matriarch and being a mother has fallen into that natural role within the group. Old before her years she is logical, kind but also possesses a wickedly fast and logical brain. Alongside Max she often finds herself keeping the peace, specifically between Hannah, Ari and Sammy the three of whom seem to cause her a constant tension headache. 

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Name: Jacob Thomas Wolf (Jake) 

Alias: Luca Morano

Age 32 Born in 1947

Background:  Jake is the only one of the group with no specialist Mossad Intelligence service training. Jake was born in Jerusalem to native parents and joined the Navy aged 20. A specialist Diver, he was hand-picked to run a few missions with Ari when required before leaving the Navy in 1976  to become a diving instructor in Central America.  

Personality Traits: Jake embodies what everyone thinks of as they typical 60s spirit. He is laid back, willing to go with the flow, but possesses a very analytical eye which can enable him to see the bigger picture where often others can't. Often found topping up his tan in-between diving sessions, Jake has a dirty sense of humour, and absolutely no sense of when it is appropriate or not to use it. 

*********

Name: Ethan Levin 

Alias: N/A

Age 54 Born in 1925

Background: Ethan joined Mossad aged 26 in 1951 after being spotted by Ethan Navon, who became his Personal and Professional Mentor until his death. Ethan fast rose through the ranks and is now the Head Intelligence Officer within Mossad, and the long suffering boss of Ari Levinson. Reporting directly into the Mossad Chief, Ethan is responsible for the coordination of the Key Undercover Operative Team, of which Ari is a member.

Personality Traits: Ethan is clever, logical and attempts to keep the rabble in check by obtaining a level of control of Ari, and commanding their respect. Having known Hannah and Sammy's dad, he is naturally a little protective over the two of them, well as much as he can be without showing direct favouritism. Despite his crisp exterior, Ethan cares and believes intently in the job his team are doing, and will back them as far as he is able. He sees Ari as a potential replacement to take his mantle when the time is right.

And there we have it!! Keep your eyes peeled for our first Chapter which is coming in the next few days!! As always, any asks/tag requests gratefully received...

#leave no one behind #ari levinson x ofc #ari levinson #red sea diving resort #red sea diving resort fan fic

[go-redgirl]

Eli Steele: De Blasio's shameful racial profiling of Asian students

I was setting up my camera to film a rally on the steps of Tweed Courthouse in lower Manhattan when a disheveled middle-aged man clutching an odd assortment of papers to his chest stopped and stared at the gathering of parents and community leaders. 

They were there to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ongoing attack on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), the sole gateway to one of New York’s nine specialized high schools. Their hand-drawn signs read, "Stop picking on Asian kids!" "Fix failing schools!" and "Keep the test!" The disheveled man began to yell aggressively and I turned, to lipread him: "You Asians take all the spots at these schools! Only eight blacks got into Stuyvesant High, only eight! You gotta give us blacks a chance, that’s all we’re asking for, man!" I turned my camera to capture him but he saw me and fled.

Later, as I reflected on this incident, I thought of that frosty November morning in 2013 when I waited outside a Brooklyn voting center for the de Blasio family to arrive and cast the votes that helped elect the father mayor of New York City. I was filming my documentary on multiracial Americans, "How Jack Became Black."  There was an excitement in the air as people around me praised de Blasio’s multiracial family. 

They believed such a man was a harbinger of better racial relations and they loved his campaign stance against racial profiling. They could not have predicted that de Blasio would leave office eight years later as one of America’s most egregious racial profilers.

Why had de Blasio and his education administration racially profiled Asian children? Was it because these youths took the American dream seriously and burned the midnight oil? Was it because their parents — many of them immigrants and impoverished — squeezed every penny to see that their children were prepared to take the test? Or was it simply that they were different, Asian and an unpreferred minority?

If 54 percent of the 4,262 eighth graders that passed the SHSAT had been black instead of Asian, there is very little doubt that de Blasio would not have charged the test as "structurally racist." In fact, he likely would have praised the test.

Wai Wah, the charter president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York, and her friend, George Lee, showed me the tweet sent by de Blasio’s education chancellor, Meisha Potter, after the students received their test results. Potter found it "unacceptable" that so few blacks were admitted to specialized high schools and said that it was "past time for our students to be fairly represented." The implication was the test was racist. FLORIDA WILL REQUIRE SCHOOLS TO TEACH CIVICS AND ‘EVILS OF COMMUNISM’

Wai Wah and George pointed out that Potter failed to congratulate the students who had studied for years and passed the exam. They also noted that Potter had neglected to pay respect to the other 19,266 students who similarly sacrificed but did not pass the test. The only thing that mattered to Potter was "our students," a label that included only Blacks and Hispanics.

Potter was only following the path forged by de Blasio, who spoke of the need to "redistribute wealth." Like previous educators, she ignored the reality of favoring equity over merit, a reality that cost many black and Hispanic neighborhoods its gifted and talented programs over the past several decades. When blacks and Hispanics had access to these programs, they took the same test that de Blasio disparaged as racist and dominated Brooklyn Tech from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Not one of these bureaucrats from de Blasio and Potter to the previous education chancellor, Richard Carranza, asked the obvious question: why had "too many" Asians passed the test?

Asking such a question would have forced de Blasio to examine what influences and behaviors made certain students successful. He would have quickly discovered that there was nothing "Asian" about their successes — after all, far more Asians failed the test than those who passed. He would have also discovered that it was their steadfast belief in the American Dream that drove them to take chances on their talents, a path followed by countless successful Americans.

Also, to look at the humanity of these Asians would have forced de Blasio to look at the root causes driving the terrible inequities that plague the nation’s largest public school system. Instead, it was easier for him to racially profile and scapegoat Asians for these inequities.

The racial biases of de Blasio and the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) establishment, rarely got much attention in the press. These folks promoted equity to the level of a top societal moral virtue where representation by race trumped merit. Having lowered themselves down to the inhuman level of race, they see race in everything and therein lies their bias, a bias that extended beyond Asians to blacks and Hispanics.

Rather than empower these demographics with the tools of equality by strengthening the schools, de Blasio believed he could racially engineer blacks and Hispanics to parity at the expense of Asians. That is how little faith he had in these demographics to agent their own fates. At the same time, de Blasio derived enormous political capital for appearing to champion the downtrodden while conveniently ignoring the long history of horrific oppression suffered by many Asian communities in America. It was this bias that allowed de Blasio to racially profile an entire class of people for the way they looked.

I thought about how this ugliness was taking place in 2021 as I traveled to the far end of the Brooklyn borough to visit the Ni family. Sam, an immigrant shop owner, welcomed me into a home that married the American Dream with cultural memories of the China that Sam and his wife left behind. I asked their children, Zoe, a seventh-grader studying for the SHSAT, and Leo, a ninth-grader at Hunter College High School, what they thought of all this anti-Asian discrimination — a Brooklyn educator had recently called the people like them "yellow folks."

After several shy answers, Zoe answered with the truth ignored by many educators: "People aren’t numbers. There are real people in these statistics. There are real people who are losing out on opportunities. And it is upsetting to me to know the reason is merely race."

Sam, a reflective and thoughtful man, revealed later that he had heard of Martin Luther King’s dream in China and that is part of why he came to America. Through a translator, he said, "In China’s cultural revolution, students were classified as ‘being of red five category’ or ‘being of Black five category.’ Why? It’s not anything to do with the individual student, but with his family background, with other external factors. In New York, even the entire United States, education, concerning race matters, it’s actually like China’s Cultural Revolution, not looking at the student himself, on who studies well and who doesn’t, but throwing up a mess of race and family background identity, to judge what kind of person you are. I think this is going backward in history."

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Sam also had words for leaders like de Blasio: "What they want is to use their views to remake and control the world as they want, and not let us free people, competing freely, under a system of equal opportunity, create a brilliantly multi-colored world. So what they are doing, to take their ideas to control the world, that's, in a certain sense, actually very much like communism, totalitarian communism."

Sam revealed to me that he had recently thought of immigrating to another country. He left the paralyzing class divisions of China only to find his children on the wrong side of racial divisions in America. But then he seemed to let that thought die down — at least in America he has the unbridled right to fight the injustices affecting his kids and he has fought.

As I rode back into Manhattan, I thought of what George Lee told me on the issue of representation. He blamed the ongoing racial divisions on critical race theory that, for him, was a "political ideology of race war, racial hatred." He wondered out loud how one Asian could represent another Asian, or a black another black, for that matter. He explained that nobody looks like him or thinks like him so how can he represent another Asian? He then continued, "If an Asian gets into Harvard, does that Asian take courses on behalf of an Asian who did not get in?" He looked at me with the twinkle in the eye that one often has when revealing a racial absurdity: "There is no such thing as representation by race. This whole language of representation is basically saying that Asians or whites or blacks are mutually substitutable."

That was the very thing that de Blasio fought against when he campaigned for Mayor of New York. He knew the evil of racial profiling was that people were not seen as individuals but as members of a race. He had heard blacks complain that they should not fall under suspicion because they were black and lived in high crime neighborhoods. They protested that it was unfair and that they were more than their race. Yet de Blasio betrayed this lesson in humanity when he racially profiled the Asians his entire time in office, leaving many black and Hispanic students worse off than when he took office.

In many ways, the disheveled man who yelled at the Asians at the rally was a sad symbol of de Blasio’s education legacy. That man had been poisoned in the mind to believe that Asians somehow had monopolized all the power and that is why he demanded that they give blacks a chance. But there is nothing the Asians can give him. There is nothing a race can give. Only the individual can give or take. That man will sadly never rise above his current station as long as he thinks that way. And that is why de Blasio failed so miserably on his campaign promise to uplift the schools. Eli Steele is a documentary filmmaker and writer. His latest film is "What Killed Michael Brown?" Twitter: @Hebro_Steele

[thekillerssluts]

Arcade Fire's Régine Chassagne and Preservation Hall's Ben Jaffe on Krewe du Kanaval

Much of the connection between Haitian and New Orleans culture has been lost to history, but for Haitian-Canadian Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire and Ben Jaffe of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, they’ve provided fertile ground for their Krewe du Kanaval Mardis Gras parade and ball. The idea for Krewe started when Chassagne and her husband/bandmate Win Butler took the members of Perservation Hall on a trip to Haiti back in 2015. Chassagne’s family had fled Haiti during the brutal reign of Françcois Duvalier and have been returning to Haiti regularly since the band first played there in 2004, raising money for a local hospital. In 2005, they began working with Partners in Health and Kampe, continuing their efforts after the earthquake which devastated the country in 2010.

Both Arcade Fire and Preservation Hall will play again for the festival’s third and biggest year on Feb. 14 at the Mahalia Jackson Theater in New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Park, along with guests Michael Brun, Jillionaire, Lakou Mizik, Pierre Kwenders and more. I spoke with both Chassagne and Jaffe about why they created Krewe du Kanaval and what we can expect from this year’s festivities.

Paste: To start out, can you talk a little bit about why a Haitian-themed festival in New Orleans? Can you talk a little bit about the connection between Haiti and the city and what made you want to launch the Krewe du Karnival?

Ben Jaffe: So I’m going to let Régine tackle that because she’s, she’s the one responsible for introducing me to Haiti and sort of beginning my, my discovery journey.

Régine Chassagne: So first of all, I just want to say it’s not just Haitian-themed; it’s a reality. I grew up in Montreal, and my family is from Haiti—all of it. So I grew up speaking French, and I also grew up around Haitian Creole and more of a Caribbean culture. And when I visited New Orleans, every time we would stop by playing, something was just like, ‘What is this place?’ This place has something different that completely felt really familiar to me. Even though it was this different, it was kind of like similar cultural components—but with a different combo of the French and a little bit of Spanish and the Creole. I recognize it, and it really attracted me to the city. It’s kind of like a cousin universe—it’s kind of an oldest connection that come from this.

Jaffe: I didn’t grow up in the typical community in New Orleans. We were very blessed to have so much music, and we really value community here. After I visited Cuba and visited Haiti, I’ve really begun to understand more deeply the source of the things that I appreciate so much about New Orleans. Community isn’t just something you talk about or try to define. It’s actually a thing, you know? It’s actually a neighborhood and actually people that you grew up with. It’s the great grandmother, the great grandfather. It’s the priest and the minister of the church. It’s the person who runs the little grocery store, the member of the social aid and pleasure club, the musician, the Mardi Gras Indian. It’s the Neville Brothers. It’s all of these people that make up this incredible city. And then within the city, there are these little micro-communities of people. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to have a deeper appreciation for that and understand how precious and sacred and rare that is. And it’s something that I was able to experience, and the whole Preservation Hall band was able to go there and actually feel sort of like this big, big family coming together—like a reunion of families.

Chassagne: That’s true. It feels like that.

Jaffe: At one time there was more of a fluid back-and-forth between Haiti and New Orleans and other communities in the Caribbean just because of our trade and because of New Orleans’ very important geographic location. We are the first city at the mouth of the Mississippi. We were the gateway to the Americas from the Caribbean. Everything coming into the country had to come through New Orleans. Coffee, sugar, even—and it’s sad to even talk about it—but humans, as well, coming into this country and leaving the country. All of our exports and cotton, coffee and sugar, were coming out of the country. It’s just interesting that the connection was in some ways more realized 200 years ago. And over the centuries we’ve, we’ve sort of lost a little bit of that. But its fingerprint and DNA is still here.

Paste: Yeah. We’ve seen a huge influx of Haitians into New Orleans over the course of the last couple of hundred years. Both places have also suffered two of the most devastating natural disasters of this century. Haiti just marked 10 years since the earthquake and the country is still suffering from its efforts. What do you see of the differences in the way those two places have bounced back and what do you see as the biggest needs that still remain in Haiti?

Chassagne: Those are gigantic questions. I will speak for what I know—the work that’s being done by organizations like Partners in Health and Kanpe, who are working in the Central Plateau. So I think the earthquake revealed the fragility of the system, the non-system. It’s really hard to build on a foundation when there’s no system like the government, because it was very weak or fragile. When NGOs perpetuate this fragility by bypassing the official infrastructure even as weak as it is, it’s really a short-term solution because you can’t just run a country on NGOs. People need their own infrastructure. So I think we’ll get there. The people on the ground I know are so extremely dedicated but don’t often get the highlights. It’s mostly the outsiders that get all the talk. Anyway, I could go on and on. I don’t want to dwell on that, but I really believe NGOs need to look at themselves. And I’m always talking to myself because to me it’s really important to make sure that we do a good job. And if it’s not working, we have to ask ourselves, ‘Why?”

Paste: I want to get into the Karnival itself, but I wanted to ask one about your family’s immigration from Haiti. It was out of necessity due to the [François] Duvalier’s violent reign. I don’t want to compare, but there have been extra-judicial killings recently that had been linked to the government. How has your history affected your relationship with Haiti and your experiences going back there and your heart for the country? I know you guys have done a lot to try to raise awareness just do good in the country.

Chassagne: Well for me it’s two things. It’s the livelihood. I care about the livelihood of people in Haiti and the opportunities for amazing people to get great things done because there’s so much talent in Haiti, that it’s unbelievable. So that, and also the cultural aspect, which is really important for me because, even as a daughter of immigrants, I think it does stipulate a lot of different people who are sons and daughters of immigrants. It is a thing where when you’ve arrived in a new country, parents feel like they have to negate or deny their whole culture. That they have to like dissolve it so they can blend in. And so they put that on their children as well.

I think it’s still really cool to be adaptable to a new place where you arrived, of course, but that shouldn’t be accompanied by a shame of what you were like, you know? And that the culture that you have—it’s not one culture or the other. It’s like one on top of the other. So you can speak French and English and Spanish and Creole and you’re not one or the other. You’re one. And the other. So it’s a plus to me that you have access to all the universes. It’s a real value because I want to fight that sense of having to be or feel “less than” by these layers that you have. But on the contrary, you shouldn’t feel “less than” but feel even richer for having all these layers for yourself. Haitian culture has been often just completely discarded, and it’s so sophisticated and it’s a diamond in the rough. And it’s given so much to American culture, and people don’t even know about it. So yeah, I’m always trying to put it forward everywhere I go.

Paste: That’s great. And Ben, can you talk about that first Preservation Hall trip to Haiti and what that was like?

Jaffe: Yeah, I went down with Win [Butler] and Régine and a member of our foundation on sort of a research visit to understand more about the work that Kampe does and just to understand the whole landscape. When we were down there, Régine introduced me to the gentleman who had the band called RAM, Richard Morse. And immediately there was a brotherhood there. He’s doing very similar things in his community that are also being done in New Orleans, like what Preservation Hall does, just on a different scale and with different obstacles. That just grew into me thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is part of the Preservation Hall journey—part of the journey of the members of the band. And part of what I do is to create this dialogue—the moment where the band, the members of my band can go learn something about themselves and continue to grow as musicians. And that’s really impactful when you’re going into a community, like you’re going into Cuba or you’re going to Brazil or Colombia or Mexico. And this trip it was to Haiti, and I don’t even know when the last time a band from New Orleans has been to Haiti. The Preservation Hall band had never been. It may have been hundreds of years since a New Orleans band has been there. I’ve never heard anybody in New Orleans, in my community of musicians, ever speak about Haiti. They speak about it, but we think about it in terms of our connection to voodoo or the Mardi Gras Indian tradition or the jazz tradition and the jazz processions that take place at funerals.

The experience was incredible for the band members. I remember just preparing the guys for the trip and some of the obstacles that we were going to face just in terms of just the the physical challenges of being there and things being outside of our normal comfort zone as a band. But you know, in New Orleans, that’s something you’re kind of prepared for because of the way that we grow up playing in parades and things being played without electricity and you know, like, “Hey, when does the parade start?” “I don’t know, when everybody gets there.” That kind of attitude lends itself to the way we grew up in new Orleans.

And I remember one of the experiences that I loved was just watching from the porch of this old Colonial hotel that we were staying in that was built into the side of a mountain that was a couple hundred years old and watching two of the members of my band watching these the young dancers work on a piece based on sort of traditional voodoo rhythms and dances, and then just being almost like as if they were in watching this happen. They were that moved by just the experience of being in the community of the artists. And that was, that was really how we all felt.

I remember also our trombone player—his family had told him, “Look, you’re probably gonna run into some family members when you’re down there. Cause our families have Haitian roots.” And sure enough, here we are just kind of hanging out at this event that we helped produce at this incredible hotel, and nothing like this had ever really been done before. Bands from all over the country had come to those to perform. And he was backstage and he saw there’s a woman who looks just like his aunt, and he’s texting pictures to his mom. And she was like, “Oh yeah, that’s your aunt so-and-so.” “No mom, I’m in Haiti. This is not my aunt.” She’s like, “Oh that’s your aunt. That’s definitely your aunt.” And they come to find out that they’re all cousins. They’re all back in touch again. And it was that moment that you realize that we’re not even like one degree of separation musically or culturally from Haiti. It’s just something that was cut off for economic reason and political reasons—the same way we were cut off from a lot of our African roots in New Orleans. And this is probably a step in that direction to learn more about that piece of us as well.

Paste: That’s fantastic. It sounds like this was a long overdue connection that needed to happen. So can you talk a little bit about the Krewe du Karnival and the ongoing way that’s kind of reviving that connection between New Orleans and Haiti?

Jaffe: I guess it’s important to understand a little bit about like what a krewe is in New Orleans. It goes back to the beginning of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. And it was these organizations that still today are organizations—whether it’s a neighborhood organization or a political organization or a group of friends or business people who get together and form a club. Some krewes have their own clubhouse, and they have events throughout the year. So we wanted to create something that reflected our Orleans experience, something that’s brought together people from the entire city, not just one particular area. And also open up our membership to like-minded people worldwide. We have members from all over the world who come in for Kanaval. So that was really the idea. And we wanted to create something that reflected all of the things that we love about New Orleans and Haiti. The idea of dancing down the street. That’s something that I thought was very particular to New Orleans, but then I went to Haiti and I’m like, “Oh wow, they have that here too.” In Haiti, they call it Rara. In New Orleans, it’s the second line. In both places, those are sacred traditions. In New Orleans that’s a sacred African-American tradition. But it’s where a band marches down the street, accompanied by a social aid and pleasure club, which are primarily African-American neighborhood organizations followed by dancers. And it’s a community, and it’s amazing. It’s the most punk rock thing you can imagine. And then when I went to Haiti to experience a Rara, it was like being in a mosh pit—not in terms of like running around pushing and punching people, but in terms of like of just that release of energy being instant, just calm music and the vibration of the moment. To actually be on the street dancing with a band moving down the street is incredible.

Paste: Let’s talk about this year’s Kanaval. What are each of you most looking forward to for this this third version here?

Jaffe: Well, the two things that stick out this year for me—and I’m going to let Régine talk about like all the choreography and the music of the dance—but the few things that really mean something to me this year is we are going to be holding our ball. So each Mardi Gras parade and each crew has a ball to celebrate their crew. And this year our ball is going to be in the Mahalia Jackson Theater in Armstrong Park, which is adjacent to Congo square, just outside the French Quarter, sort of nestled between the French Quarter and Treme, which is the oldest African-American neighborhood in the country. So that’s really beautiful to me that we’re putting life back into this underutilized and amazing theater in this underutilized park and bringing life back into it. And I’m really proud that we’re doing that this year. And I’m also really excited that this year we’re going to be parading along a major parade route, which in New Orleans is straight down St. Charles Avenue. And that’s an amazing achievement. A lot of organizations don’t get to that point where they actually get permitted to march down St. Charles Avenue. And that’s really a badge of honor. Getting to down St. Charles Avenue and to represent the colors that we represent and the principles that we represent is really beautiful. And I mean Régine could talk about the music and the dance because Arcade Fire is going to be performing and Lakou Mizik from Haiti is going to be performing, Jillionaire, Michael Brun, Pierre Kwenders, Windows 98, Preservation Hall Jazz Band. This year our queen is Mia X, who is a legendary figure in New Orleans bounce, part of the No Limit family. And especially since we just lost a 5th Ward Weebie, there’s like a spotlight on New Orleans bounce. And the bounce community in New Orleans is as important as our jazz community.

Paste: Régine, how about you? What are you looking forward to this year?

Chassagne: Well, Sunday was the actual anniversary of the earthquake. And we had a first big proper dance rehearsal. And there’s a dancer friend who taught us some moves. And it was really moving. We had a moment and she spoke about the earthquake. That plus the fact that we lost one of our master drummers—Francois San Damas Louis, who used to lead the Rara of the previous years. And I don’t know, for me, it really moves me to see these Haitian dance being able to infiltrate the mainstream and Haitian culture pushing through and actually bringing it to mainstream is a big deal. We’re not in Haiti, so it’s not super traditional. But just to be able to recognize that and just add that the spotlight is on this really special community—I’m really, really, really excited about that.

Paste: Oh, well, it sounds like an amazing event and I wish you both the best this year. One of these years I’ve got to get down for one of these. It sounds amazing.

Chassagne: Yeah. Yeah. It’s good for the soul.

#Arcade Fire #regine chassagne #interview

[lynelovespopculture]

A CAOS CHARACTER PROFILE: AMBROSE SPELLMAN

The only male Spellman family member is quickly becoming a fan favorite and given Ambrose’s quick wit, charm and love for his family, it’s not hard to see why. Yet in a show where there are so many rich characters and so much going on in 2 short seasons, is it fair to said that Ambrose is the most underdeveloped Spellman of all?

BEGINNING

One cannot think of Ambrose’s early days, his birth, his childhood, without pondering about the question that people had been asking since day one; who are Ambrose’s parents? Now, normally in a show of this big a cast, it wouldn’t be such a big deal except that Ambrose is a Spellman and the Spellmans are the main family of the series. (SIDE NOTE: I know the CAOS tv show is based loosely on the comic book of the same name but I’m not much of a comic person so I haven’t read it but it keeps coming up in my research but I don’t think Ambrose’s parents are in the comics but since I didn’t read it, I could be wrong.) So, yeah, Ambrose being a Spellman is a big pothole made even bigger when you consider that the other 3 Spellmans are quickly explained how they are related to each other. For example, even though Hilda is played by British actress Lucy Davis with a thick accent and Miranda Otto, an Australian actress which what I think is to my Canadian ear is an American accent, portrays Zelda, we are told very clearly that Zelda and Hilda are two grown unmarried sisters who share the maiden name of Spellman. They have a late brother, Edward, who was the father of Sabrina. Ambrose is not so interconnected within the family. Almost, if not every, viewer of the show have noticed this and with 20 episodes made and not 1 word of explanation, viewers have drawn their own conclusions.  There are 2 theories about Ambrose’s parents, one of each is that in addition to Zelda, Hilda, and Edward, there was an 4th sibling. While this would make Sabrina’s his 1st cousin and Hilda and Zelda, Ambrose’s aunts, this theory has its own line of questioning. Why is this 4th sibling never mentioned? I feel like a strong family unit like the Spellmans would talk about all its members. Would it be another brother or another sister? Personally, I think it would be a brother because in this world orphans and illegitimate children are given the surname of Night like Prudence had before her father gave her his name. Also, if Ambrose’s mother was a born Spellman but married, Ambrose would have his father’s last name. The 2nd theory is Ambrose is a distant cousin to the Greendale Spellmans. It’s in the Christmas special that Zelda tells the others that she plans to tell people that Leticia is a Spellman from another country, perhaps like Ambrose? We might not know who Ambrose’s parents are, but we do know what happened to them. Both were killed by witch hunters when their son was very young. There are clues in this show that Ambrose is originally from England. Chase Perdomo, his actor, is British, there’s a union jack on the wall of his attic bedroom and he refers to places in London. After his parents’ death, little Ambrose was claimed by his relative, Hilda Spellman. I believe that Hilda, at least for the first few years, was the little boy’s sole guardian. When Ambrose is in the witches’ cell, Hilda demands to see him, claiming to be ‘the only mother he has ever known’, a claim she cannot make with Sabrina. This would also explain Ambrose and Hilda's very close and special bond. I’m not saying that Zelda and Ambrose hate each other, far from it but he always seemed closer to Hilda. Either Hilda made a special trip to England and decided to stay, or Hilda was already living in England, training to be a midwife when Ambrose came to live with her. A few years later, Zelda came into the household and Ambrose got used to life with 2 aunties. Like all Spellmans before him, at 16 Ambrose signed the book of the beast and was enrolled in Greendale’s Academy of Unseen Arts. His aunts also decide to return to their home in Greendale. After completing school at the Academy, Ambrose was free to roam the world. Ambrose published a collection of poetry at 17, went to several different universities, painted with the Surrealists and even taught stage magic to the world-famous Harry Houdini.  During his wild adventures, Ambrose might have discovered he was sexually attracted to both men and women. As much as he enjoyed his life and as dearly as he loved his aunts, Ambrose had always longed for a father figure. This might have been why Ambrose became a follower of real-life occultist Aleister Crowley. It is while following this cult that Ambrose got involved in a plot to blow up the Vatican.  He was not the only one involved but somehow Ambrose was the other one who got caught.  The witches council offered him a plea deal, Ambrose could go free if only he would name his partners in crime. Ambrose refuses, speaking to Ambrose’s loyal and kind heart. I doubt that blowing up the center of the Catholic faith would be a great concern for the council. I think the real crime is the exposure to the coven.

HOUSEBOUND

After Ambrose refuses to name names, the warlocks of the witches council used binding spells to make sure that Ambrose is unable to leave the grounds of the Spellman house.  I suppose that house arrest is not the worst punishment in the world but for a social butterfly like Ambrose, it’s bad. Still, Ambrose doesn’t bow to the pressure. Instead, he makes the most of it. Ambrose collects rare books from all over the world as information to the outside world, keeps himself busy working in the family funeral home. Still, being unable to leave the home, I’m pretty sure that Ambrose must have missed out on a lot. The wedding of his Uncle Edward and the mortal Diana. (Which, I’ve noticed Ambrose never mentions them, it probably means nothing   but I like to  give you guys all my thoughts) Anyway, some time later,  Edward and Diana both died in a plane crash and an infant Sabrina comes to live with her aunts and Ambrose. When the show opens, Ambrose’s house arrest has been in effect for 75 years. Ambrose, not surprisingly, has a hell of a case of cabin fever. Ambrose loves his family but the aunts and Sabrina who is now nearly 16, can come and go as they please. Sadly, poor Ambrose cannot. He’s lonely, the only people he can talk to is his family, the people who come over for a funeral and service people, like delivery and mail people. For most of the first season, Ambrose can mostly be seen dressed in PJs and housecoats. When people dress like that for a long time, it’s a classic sign of depression. However, Ambrose masks his depression well by his humor and his desire to help his beloved cousin with her doubts about her upcoming dark baptism. Meanwhile, on the job front, Ambrose is tending to the body of a young man named Connor. His parents are mortal, so Ambrose is confused to discover a witch’s mark on Connor’s body. It is confirmed by both aunts and Father Blackwood. Connor must be a warlock adopted by mortal parents. While Ambrose is pondering this, Sabrina is running for the house. Having fled her baptism, the entire coven is after her. Ambrose loves his cousin like a little sister, so he gets rid of the coven with a rather impressive bluff about protection spell, then he leaves to do the spell. A few days later, Ambrose finds a lizard on top of Connor’s coffin. He knows that this is Connor’s familiar. Zelda says it’s better just to kill it, but Ambrose rather tries to coax it with food and keeps it in his room. At Connor’s funeral, Ambrose meets Connor’s old boyfriend, a guy named Luke and there’s a spark between the two.   Later, they hook up and the next morning, Ambrose discovered 2 things, Luke left his number and sometimes during the night, the lizard dropped dead. Apparently, this means…nothing! I’m serious, the whole Connor storyline is dropped never to be spoken of again! Anyway, Ambrose wants to go on a real date with Luke but he’s still housebound so he talks Hilda into watching over him as he astral projects to Dr. C’s. However, he breaks his promise, he knows he should go but he stays. He is brought back by an angry Zelda who reminds her dear felon that his sentence includes his spirit. Next, the Spellmans are haunted by a dream demon, exposing their worst fears. Not surprisingly, Ambrose’s is that he’ll never, ever leave the house. His dream begins well, Ambrose is given a full pardon, tons of cash and a car to take him to the airport. Yet, just as Ambrose goes to leave, the demon murders him and he is forced to work on his own body. This plays on a loop until the demon is defeated. Even with the day saved, our boy is still depressed. The dream has rammed into him that he is still basically in a prison and worse still, Luke has stopped calling him.  As fate would have it, Hilda runs into Luke in the bookstore and decides to help the young lovers by spiking Luke’s drink?! (Seriously? Hilda, WTF??) It works, (I guess) because we soon learn that Luke has an in with Father Blackwood and will speak to him about Ambrose. Indeed, Faustus comes to the house and offers him the original deal; his freedom for the other names. Blackwood says to think about it and Blackwood will return tomorrow for Ambrose’s answer. Before he can consider the high priest’s offer, Ambrose catches Sabrina using the Cain pit, leading to Sabrina getting yet another lecture about how she cannot misuse magic. The next day, Ambrose tells Father Blackwood he’s sorry, but he can’t give up the names of the other warlocks, even now.  To his complete surprise, Blackwood says he respects Ambrose’s loyalty and offers to lift his sentence if he would go to work at the academy. Ambrose accepted the deal and because it was Faustus was the one to set him free him, Ambrose sees Father Blackwood as his new father figure.

BACK IN ACTION

Ambrose was, of course, is super excited about his new freedom and job. He walks around the house in his new clothes. On his 1st day, Blackwood gives Ambrose a basic warlock right, a new mouse familiar. Ambrose discovered that the Greendale 13 and the red rider of death are coming to destroy the town. He and Luke rushed to warn the coven. The coven decided to stay at the academy. The Spellmans decided to stay in town and help the mortals. As they gathered in Baxter High, Ambrose didn’t stay long, Luke teleports him to safety because he loves him. Season 2 starts at the beginning of a new school term. Luke doesn’t support Sabrina’s bid for top boy and Ambrose avoids the subject even after he and Sabrina have a big fight. Ambrose is questioning Luke where he was, Luke says he was on an errand for Father Blackwood and this is the last we ever see Luke. At the start of the very next episode, Ambrose can be seen making out with Prudence.  This is so odd that even Sabrina questions it. Her cousin only says that Luke is away on business and not to worry. But by the very next show, Ambrose himself is so worried about Luke, he’s asking the fortune teller about him. Instead, Ambrose is told how Father Blackwood will order him to kill Sabrina and their aunts and he does it. Upset, he steals a card and runs off to ask Faustus if he’ll hurt the Spellmans. Blackwood seems confused. So far, he’s been good to the Spellmans, he freed Ambrose and he’s engaged to marry Zelda. He does have some sad news; Luke has died on a mission for the church. Ambrose looks down at the card he stole, it marked for death. As the wedding approaches, Ambrose is depressed for Luke and can’t find his mouse. Sabrina has found her father’s manifesto and because Ambrose is on guard duty the night before the wedding, she can present it to the anti-pope. This turns out to be a massive mistake on the cousins’ part because this enrages Blackwood so much and he fears that the anti-pope will prefer Edward’s work to his that he decides to kill him using Ambrose and the other guards. Ambrose is found over the bloody corpse, knife in hand. Blackwood kills the other guards but Ambrose teleports away just in time. Only in the safety of Sabrina’s room, Ambrose begins to panic but Sabrina assures him that he would never do such a thing. Nick hides him at Grey’s, where Ambrose’s vomits up his mouse and puts together how Blackwood used him. It only takes a suggestion from Grey to wrongly convince Ambrose that Blackwood killed Luke. Ambrose decided to kill Blackwood for Luke, not for the anti-pope. Next, Ambrose makes his dumbest move in the series (well, so far.) Instead, of waiting until Blackwood is alone to kill him, Ambrose chose to attack Blackwood at his own wedding, yelling DIE, BLACKWOOD, DIE! Ambrose is caught and thrown into the witch’s cell. Prudence, drunk on the power that her new last name has given her, tries to get a confession by tricking both Ambrose and Hilda. It doesn’t work and Ambrose even gets a chicken bone key. He frees himself and opens the front door to come face to face with witch hunters! (The same witch hunters that killed Luke, but they never get to know this.) Blackwood returns and it seems Ambrose’s fate is sealed but the other Spellmans are ready. It’s the hangman who loses his head and the dark lord himself excuses Ambrose. Now free, he helps Sabrina with her mandrake problems and learns of the dark lord’s plan to make Sabrina his queen. Ambrose is last seen bonding with a redeemed Prudence and together they leave to track down a fleeing Blackwood.

LIKE THIS? DID I MISS OR FORGET ANYTHING? WHAT CHARACTER SHALL I DO NEXT? LIKE, REBLOG AND COMMENT!!!!!!!!

#chilling adventures of sabrina #caos #fan theory #fanfic #character profile #ambrose spellman #chance perdomo #hilda spellman #lucy davis #zelda spellman #miranda otto #sabrina spellman #luke #prudence blackwood #faustus blackwood

[exceptionalism]

fate stay night heaven's feel spring song sub español

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The final chapter in the Heaven's feel trilogy. Angra Mainyu has successfully possessed his vessel Sakura Matou . It's up to Rin, Shiro, and Rider to cleanse the grail or it will be the end of the world and magecraft as we all know it.

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Title : Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel III. Spring Song Original Title : 劇場版「Fate/stay night [Heaven’s Feel]」Ⅲ.spring song Alternative Titles : Fate/stay night Heaven's Feel III.spring song Directed by : Yuki Kajiura Cast : Noriaki Sugiyama, Noriko Shitaya, Ayako Kawasumi, Kana Ueda, Mai Kadowaki, Miki Itō Genre : Animation Countries : Japan

Our relationship is strained. It feels like it has been for a while. For the last four years, there has been an elephant in the room — I’d joke and call it an orange elephant, but I’m nervous that might end this earnest conversation before it even begins. Have I changed? I mean, yes, of course I have. I’ve gotten older. I’ve had two children. I’ve tried to read and learn as much as possible, just as you taught me. In fact, that’s sort of the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still believe, deep in my bones, all the fundamental things you not only talked to me about, but showed me when I was little. I believe in character. I believe in competence. I believe in treating people decently. I believe in moderation. I believe in a better future and I believe in American exceptionalism, the idea that the system we were given by the Founding Fathers, although imperfect, has been an incredible vehicle for progress, moral improvement, and greatness, unlike any other system of government or country yet conceived. I believe this exceptionalism comes with responsibilities. Politically, I’m pretty much the same, too. Government is best when limited, but it’s nonetheless necessary. Fair but low taxes grow the economy. Rights must be protected, privacy respected. Partisanship stops at the water’s edge. No law can make people virtuous — that obligation rests on every individual. So how is it even possible that we’re here? Unable to travel, banned from entry by countless nations. The laughingstock of the developed world for our woeful response to a pandemic. 200,000 dead. It hasn’t been safe to see you guys or grandma for months, despite being just a plane ride away. My children — your grandchildren — are deprived of their friends and school. Meanwhile, the U.S., which was built on immigration — grandma being one who fled the ravages of war in Europe for a better life here — is now a bastion of anti-immigrant hysteria. Our relatives on your side fought for the Union in the Civil War. Great-grandpa fought against the Russians in WWI, and granddad landed at Normandy to stop the rise of fascism. And now people are marching with tiki-torches shouting, “the Jews will not replace us.” What is happening?! Black men are shot down in the streets? Foreign nations are offering bounties on American soldiers?

fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song release date fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song full movie fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song watch fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song stream fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song blu ray fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song reddit fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song dub fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song blu ray release date fate/stay night heaven's feel iii. spring song australia And the President of the United States defends, rationalizes, or does nothing to stop this? I’d say that’s insane, but I’m too heartbroken. Because every step of the way, I’ve heard you defend, rationalize, or enable him and the politicians around him. Not since I was a kid have I craved to hear your strong voice more, to hear you say anything reassuring, inspiring, morally cogent. If not for me, then for the world that will be left to your grandchildren. This does not feel like a good road we are going down… Look, I know you’re not to blame for this. You hold no position of power besides the one we all have as voters, but I guess I just always thought you believed in the lessons you taught me, and the things we used to listen to on talk radio on our drives home from the lake. All those conversations about American dignity, the power of private enterprise, the sacredness of the Oval Office, the primacy of the rule of law. Now Donald Trump gushes over foreign strongmen. He cheats on his wife with porn stars (and bribes them with illegal campaign funds). He attacks whistleblowers (career army officers, that is). He lies blatantly and habitually, about both the smallest and largest of things. He enriches himself, his family members, and his business with expenditures straight from the public treasury. And that’s just the stuff we know about. God knows what else has happened these last four years that executive privilege has allowed him to obscure from public view. I still think about the joke you made when we walked past Trump Tower in New York when I was kid. Tacky, you said. A reality show fool. Now that fool has his finger on the nuclear button — which I think he thinks is an actual button — and I can’t understand why you’re OK with this. I mean, the guy can’t even spell! You demanded better of me in the papers I turned in when I was in middle school. I know you don’t like any of it. If you’d have had your choice, any other Republican would have been elected but Trump. You’re not an extremist, and you’ve never once said anything as repulsive as what people now seem comfortable saying on TV and social media (and in emails to your son, I might add). Four years ago, I wrote to you to ask you not to vote for Donald Trump. But this time around, that’s no longer enough. At some point, just finding it all unpleasant and shaking your head at the tweets, while saying or doing nothing more about it, is moral complicity. You told me that as a kid! That the bad prevail when good people do nothing. A while back I emailed a friend of mine who is an advisor to the administration. I said to him, why do you think my dad’s support of Trump bothers me so much more than yours? Because it does. This is someone who helped put Trump in office and wants to keep him there, but we’re still friends. Talking to him doesn’t hurt my heart the way it does when politics come up over family meals. The man’s answer was telling, and I am quoting. He said, “Because I am irredeemable, but your dad ought to know better.” Does that register with you at all? One of the things you taught me well was how to spot a scam. Double check everything, you said. Do your research. Look at what the people around them say. Look at their history. Remember when you used to quote Reagan’s line to me, “Trust, but verify”? I’ve been lucky enough to make a few trips to Washington the last few years. I’ve sat across from Senators and Congressmen. I’ve talked to generals who have briefed the president, and business leaders who worked with him before the election. This is a guy who doesn’t read, they said, a guy with the attention span of a child. Everybody avoided doing business with him. Because he didn’t listen, because he stiffed people on bills, because he was clueless. He treated women horribly. He’s awful, they said. I thought this was a particularly damning line: If Donald Trump were even half-competent, one elected official told me, he could probably rule this country for 20 years. I have trouble figuring what’s worse — that he wants to, or that he wants to but isn’t competent enough to pull it off. Instead, Washington is so broken and so filled with cowards that Trump just spent the last four years breaking stuff and embarrassing himself. I learned from you how to recognize a dangerous or unreliable person. If you don’t trust the news, could you trust what I’m bringing you, right from the source? Let’s trust our gut, not our political sensibility. Based on what I’ve told you, and what you’ve seen: Would you let him manage your money? Would you want your wife or daughter to work for him without supervision? I’m not even sure I would stay in one of his hotels, after what I’ve read. Watching the RNC a few weeks ago, I wondered what planet I was on. What’s with all the yelling? How is this happening on the White House lawn? Why are his loser kids on the bill? His kid’s girlfriend??? And what is this picture of America they are painting? They are the ones in charge! Yet they choose to campaign against the dystopian nightmare that is 2020… which is to say, they are campaigning against themselves. Look, I agree there is crazy stuff happening in the world. The civil unrest is palpable, violence is on the rise, and Americans have never been so openly divided. Sure, rioting and looting are bad. But who is to blame for all the chaos? The President. Remember what you told me about the sign on Truman’s desk? The buck stops here. (May we contrast that with: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”) In any case, what some crazy people in Portland are doing is not ours to repeatedly disavow. What the president does? The citizens are complicit in that. Especially if we endorse it at the ballot box come November 3rd. Besides, what credibility do we have to insist on the ‘rule of law’ when eight of the president’s associates have faced criminal charges? His former lawyer went to jail, too! And then the president commutes their sentences, dangles pardons to keep them quiet, or tries to prevent them from cooperating with authorities? When he’s fined millions of dollars for illegally using his charity as a slush fund? When he cheats on his taxes? When he helped his parents avoid taxes, too? I remember you once told me the story of a police officer in your department who was caught filling up his personal car with gas paid for by the city. The problem, you said, wasn’t just the mistake. It was that when he was confronted by it, he lied. But the cameras showed the proof and so he was fired, for being untrustworthy most of all. Would you fire Trump if he worked for you? What kind of culture do you think your work would have had if the boss acted like Trump? As for the lying, that’s the craziest part, because we can, as the kids say, check the receipts: Was it bad enough to call John McCain a loser? Yes, but then, of course, Trump lied and claimed he didn’t. Bad enough to cheat on his wife? Yes, but of course, he lied about it, and committed crimes covering it up (which he also lied about). Was it bad enough to solicit help from Russia and Wikileaks in the election? Yes, but then he, his son, and his campaign have lied about it so many times, in so many forums, that some of them went to jail over it. Was it stupid that, in February, Trump was tweeting about how Covid-29 was like the flu and that we didn’t need to worry? Yes, but it takes on a different color when you listen to him tell Bob Woodward that in January he knew how bad it was, how much worse it was than even the worst flu, and that he was deliberately going to downplay the virus for political purposes. I’m sure we could quibble over some, but The Fact Checker database currently tallys over 20,000 lies since he took office. Even if we cut it in half, that’s insane! It’s impossible to deny: Trump lied, and Americans have died because of it. A friend of mine had a one-on-one dinner with Trump at the White House a while back. It was actually amazing, he said. Half the evening was spent telling lies about the size of his inaugural address. This was in private — not even for public relations purposes, and years after the controversy had died down. That’s when he realized: The lying is pathological. It can’t be helped. Which is to say, it makes a person unfit to lead. Politics should not come before family. I don’t want you to think this affects how I feel about you. But it does make it harder for us to spend time together — not just literally so, since Trump’s bumbling response to the pandemic has crippled America and made travel difficult. It’s that I feel grief. I feel real grief — were the lessons you taught me as a kid not true? Did you not mean them? Was it self-serving stuff to make sure I behaved? Was I a fool for listening? Or is it worse, that my own father cares more about his retirement accounts — and I’ll grant, the runup of the market has been nice for me, too — than the future he is leaving for his children? Are you so afraid of change, of that liberal boogeyman Limbaugh and Hannity and these other folks have concocted, that you’d rather entrust the country to a degenerate carnival barker than anyone else? I see all this anger, what is it that you’re so angry about? You’ve won. Society has worked for you. My own success is proof. So what is it? Because it can’t possibly be that you think this guy is trustworthy, decent, or kind. It’s definitely not about his policies… because almost every single one is anathema to what Republicans — and you — have talked about my entire life. The one thing I hold onto is hope. I believe in America. I believe in the goodness of hardworking people like you and Mom. I know that this is not what you wanted to happen, that this is not the America you grew up in nor the one you would like for me and my kids to grow up in. I hold onto hope that you’re tired enough to draw the line. That you are not irredeemable as that Trump advisor allowed himself to become. The right thing is always the right thing, you’ve said. Even when it’s hard. Even when it goes against what your friends think, or what you’ve done in the past. The right thing is obviously to end this. To cancel this horrendous experiment with its cavalcade of daily horrors and vulgarities and stupidities and historical humiliations. America is a great nation. …

[grandwizardcreation]

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The final chapter in the Heaven's feel trilogy. Angra Mainyu has successfully possessed his vessel Sakura Matou . It's up to Rin, Shiro, and Rider to cleanse the grail or it will be the end of the world and magecraft as we all know it.

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Title : Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel III. Spring Song Original Title : 劇場版「Fate/stay night [Heaven’s Feel]」Ⅲ.spring song Alternative Titles : Fate/stay night Heaven's Feel III.spring song Directed by : Yuki Kajiura Cast : Noriaki Sugiyama, Noriko Shitaya, Ayako Kawasumi, Kana Ueda, Mai Kadowaki, Miki Itō Genre : Animation Countries : Japan

Our relationship is strained. It feels like it has been for a while. For the last four years, there has been an elephant in the room — I’d joke and call it an orange elephant, but I’m nervous that might end this earnest conversation before it even begins. Have I changed? I mean, yes, of course I have. I’ve gotten older. I’ve had two children. I’ve tried to read and learn as much as possible, just as you taught me. In fact, that’s sort of the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still believe, deep in my bones, all the fundamental things you not only talked to me about, but showed me when I was little. I believe in character. I believe in competence. I believe in treating people decently. I believe in moderation. I believe in a better future and I believe in American exceptionalism, the idea that the system we were given by the Founding Fathers, although imperfect, has been an incredible vehicle for progress, moral improvement, and greatness, unlike any other system of government or country yet conceived. I believe this exceptionalism comes with responsibilities. Politically, I’m pretty much the same, too. Government is best when limited, but it’s nonetheless necessary. Fair but low taxes grow the economy. Rights must be protected, privacy respected. Partisanship stops at the water’s edge. No law can make people virtuous — that obligation rests on every individual. So how is it even possible that we’re here? Unable to travel, banned from entry by countless nations. The laughingstock of the developed world for our woeful response to a pandemic. 200,000 dead. It hasn’t been safe to see you guys or grandma for months, despite being just a plane ride away. My children — your grandchildren — are deprived of their friends and school. Meanwhile, the U.S., which was built on immigration — grandma being one who fled the ravages of war in Europe for a better life here — is now a bastion of anti-immigrant hysteria. Our relatives on your side fought for the Union in the Civil War. Great-grandpa fought against the Russians in WWI, and granddad landed at Normandy to stop the rise of fascism. And now people are marching with tiki-torches shouting, “the Jews will not replace us.” What is happening?! Black men are shot down in the streets? Foreign nations are offering bounties on American soldiers?

fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song release date fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song full movie fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song watch fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song stream fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song blu ray fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song reddit fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song dub fate/stay night heaven's feel - iii. spring song blu ray release date fate/stay night heaven's feel iii. spring song australia And the President of the United States defends, rationalizes, or does nothing to stop this? I’d say that’s insane, but I’m too heartbroken. Because every step of the way, I’ve heard you defend, rationalize, or enable him and the politicians around him. Not since I was a kid have I craved to hear your strong voice more, to hear you say anything reassuring, inspiring, morally cogent. If not for me, then for the world that will be left to your grandchildren. This does not feel like a good road we are going down… Look, I know you’re not to blame for this. You hold no position of power besides the one we all have as voters, but I guess I just always thought you believed in the lessons you taught me, and the things we used to listen to on talk radio on our drives home from the lake. All those conversations about American dignity, the power of private enterprise, the sacredness of the Oval Office, the primacy of the rule of law. Now Donald Trump gushes over foreign strongmen. He cheats on his wife with porn stars (and bribes them with illegal campaign funds). He attacks whistleblowers (career army officers, that is). He lies blatantly and habitually, about both the smallest and largest of things. He enriches himself, his family members, and his business with expenditures straight from the public treasury. And that’s just the stuff we know about. God knows what else has happened these last four years that executive privilege has allowed him to obscure from public view. I still think about the joke you made when we walked past Trump Tower in New York when I was kid. Tacky, you said. A reality show fool. Now that fool has his finger on the nuclear button — which I think he thinks is an actual button — and I can’t understand why you’re OK with this. I mean, the guy can’t even spell! You demanded better of me in the papers I turned in when I was in middle school. I know you don’t like any of it. If you’d have had your choice, any other Republican would have been elected but Trump. You’re not an extremist, and you’ve never once said anything as repulsive as what people now seem comfortable saying on TV and social media (and in emails to your son, I might add). Four years ago, I wrote to you to ask you not to vote for Donald Trump. But this time around, that’s no longer enough. At some point, just finding it all unpleasant and shaking your head at the tweets, while saying or doing nothing more about it, is moral complicity. You told me that as a kid! That the bad prevail when good people do nothing. A while back I emailed a friend of mine who is an advisor to the administration. I said to him, why do you think my dad’s support of Trump bothers me so much more than yours? Because it does. This is someone who helped put Trump in office and wants to keep him there, but we’re still friends. Talking to him doesn’t hurt my heart the way it does when politics come up over family meals. The man’s answer was telling, and I am quoting. He said, “Because I am irredeemable, but your dad ought to know better.” Does that register with you at all? One of the things you taught me well was how to spot a scam. Double check everything, you said. Do your research. Look at what the people around them say. Look at their history. Remember when you used to quote Reagan’s line to me, “Trust, but verify”? I’ve been lucky enough to make a few trips to Washington the last few years. I’ve sat across from Senators and Congressmen. I’ve talked to generals who have briefed the president, and business leaders who worked with him before the election. This is a guy who doesn’t read, they said, a guy with the attention span of a child. Everybody avoided doing business with him. Because he didn’t listen, because he stiffed people on bills, because he was clueless. He treated women horribly. He’s awful, they said. I thought this was a particularly damning line: If Donald Trump were even half-competent, one elected official told me, he could probably rule this country for 20 years. I have trouble figuring what’s worse — that he wants to, or that he wants to but isn’t competent enough to pull it off. Instead, Washington is so broken and so filled with cowards that Trump just spent the last four years breaking stuff and embarrassing himself. I learned from you how to recognize a dangerous or unreliable person. If you don’t trust the news, could you trust what I’m bringing you, right from the source? Let’s trust our gut, not our political sensibility. Based on what I’ve told you, and what you’ve seen: Would you let him manage your money? Would you want your wife or daughter to work for him without supervision? I’m not even sure I would stay in one of his hotels, after what I’ve read. Watching the RNC a few weeks ago, I wondered what planet I was on. What’s with all the yelling? How is this happening on the White House lawn? Why are his loser kids on the bill? His kid’s girlfriend??? And what is this picture of America they are painting? They are the ones in charge! Yet they choose to campaign against the dystopian nightmare that is 2020… which is to say, they are campaigning against themselves. Look, I agree there is crazy stuff happening in the world. The civil unrest is palpable, violence is on the rise, and Americans have never been so openly divided. Sure, rioting and looting are bad. But who is to blame for all the chaos? The President. Remember what you told me about the sign on Truman’s desk? The buck stops here. (May we contrast that with: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”) In any case, what some crazy people in Portland are doing is not ours to repeatedly disavow. What the president does? The citizens are complicit in that. Especially if we endorse it at the ballot box come November 3rd. Besides, what credibility do we have to insist on the ‘rule of law’ when eight of the president’s associates have faced criminal charges? His former lawyer went to jail, too! And then the president commutes their sentences, dangles pardons to keep them quiet, or tries to prevent them from cooperating with authorities? When he’s fined millions of dollars for illegally using his charity as a slush fund? When he cheats on his taxes? When he helped his parents avoid taxes, too? I remember you once told me the story of a police officer in your department who was caught filling up his personal car with gas paid for by the city. The problem, you said, wasn’t just the mistake. It was that when he was confronted by it, he lied. But the cameras showed the proof and so he was fired, for being untrustworthy most of all. Would you fire Trump if he worked for you? What kind of culture do you think your work would have had if the boss acted like Trump? As for the lying, that’s the craziest part, because we can, as the kids say, check the receipts: Was it bad enough to call John McCain a loser? Yes, but then, of course, Trump lied and claimed he didn’t. Bad enough to cheat on his wife? Yes, but of course, he lied about it, and committed crimes covering it up (which he also lied about). Was it bad enough to solicit help from Russia and Wikileaks in the election? Yes, but then he, his son, and his campaign have lied about it so many times, in so many forums, that some of them went to jail over it. Was it stupid that, in February, Trump was tweeting about how Covid-29 was like the flu and that we didn’t need to worry? Yes, but it takes on a different color when you listen to him tell Bob Woodward that in January he knew how bad it was, how much worse it was than even the worst flu, and that he was deliberately going to downplay the virus for political purposes. I’m sure we could quibble over some, but The Fact Checker database currently tallys over 20,000 lies since he took office. Even if we cut it in half, that’s insane! It’s impossible to deny: Trump lied, and Americans have died because of it. A friend of mine had a one-on-one dinner with Trump at the White House a while back. It was actually amazing, he said. Half the evening was spent telling lies about the size of his inaugural address. This was in private — not even for public relations purposes, and years after the controversy had died down. That’s when he realized: The lying is pathological. It can’t be helped. Which is to say, it makes a person unfit to lead. Politics should not come before family. I don’t want you to think this affects how I feel about you. But it does make it harder for us to spend time together — not just literally so, since Trump’s bumbling response to the pandemic has crippled America and made travel difficult. It’s that I feel grief. I feel real grief — were the lessons you taught me as a kid not true? Did you not mean them? Was it self-serving stuff to make sure I behaved? Was I a fool for listening? Or is it worse, that my own father cares more about his retirement accounts — and I’ll grant, the runup of the market has been nice for me, too — than the future he is leaving for his children? Are you so afraid of change, of that liberal boogeyman Limbaugh and Hannity and these other folks have concocted, that you’d rather entrust the country to a degenerate carnival barker than anyone else? I see all this anger, what is it that you’re so angry about? You’ve won. Society has worked for you. My own success is proof. So what is it? Because it can’t possibly be that you think this guy is trustworthy, decent, or kind. It’s definitely not about his policies… because almost every single one is anathema to what Republicans — and you — have talked about my entire life. The one thing I hold onto is hope. I believe in America. I believe in the goodness of hardworking people like you and Mom. I know that this is not what you wanted to happen, that this is not the America you grew up in nor the one you would like for me and my kids to grow up in. I hold onto hope that you’re tired enough to draw the line. That you are not irredeemable as that Trump advisor allowed himself to become. The right thing is always the right thing, you’ve said. Even when it’s hard. Even when it goes against what your friends think, or what you’ve done in the past. The right thing is obviously to end this. To cancel this horrendous experiment with its cavalcade of daily horrors and vulgarities and stupidities and historical humiliations. America is a great nation. …

[socialjusticeartshare]

The Trump administration is rushing deportations of migrant children during coronavirus

Their father was missing. Their mother was miles away in Houston. Two sisters, ages 8 and 11, were survivors of sexual assault and at risk of deportation. With the nation focused on COVID-19, the U.S. government is rushing the deportations of migrant children.

BY LOMI KRIEL, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA MAY 18, 2020

This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

The girls, 8 and 11, were alone in a rented room in a dangerous Mexican city bordering Texas. Their father had been attacked and abandoned on the side of a road and they didn’t know where he was.

For seven months the children had waited with their dad in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, to ask U.S. authorities for asylum. They had fled their home after death threats from local gang members and no help from police. They had also been victims of sexual assault.

But in March, after their father suddenly didn’t return from his construction job, a neighbor took the children to the international bridge. He said they should present themselves to U.S. immigration authorities, who would reunite the girls with their mother in Houston.

“Mami,” the eldest panicked in a brief call immigration agents made to the mother. “Daddy didn’t come home.”

The mother, at work in Houston, said she nearly fainted.

Before the coronavirus pandemic upended everything, the children likely would have spent a few weeks in the care of a U.S. shelter until they were released to their mother to pursue their asylum cases.

Instead, government officials placed the children in foster care through a federal shelter for two months. In mid-May, they suddenly notified their caseworkers that they intended to deport the sisters in a few days to El Salvador, where they have no place to go and fear the gang members who vowed to kill the family. At the last minute, the girls were released to their mother Thursday, pending an emergency federal appeal of their deportation.

As the nation remains focused on COVID-19, the U.S. government has aggressively begun to rush the deportations of some of the most vulnerable migrant children in its care to countries where they have been raped, beaten or had a parent killed, according to attorneys, court filings and congressional staff.

While the deportation of children to dangerous situations is not a new phenomenon for U.S. authorities, what has shocked even veteran immigration attorneys is that the government is trying to so quickly remove, arguably against federal law, those most imperiled — all during a global pandemic.

At least two children deported in recent weeks have been tracked down by international refugee agencies after U.S. counterparts asked them for help because the minors face such danger, including a 16-year-old Honduran girl who had been raped back home.

One boy is locked down in a relative’s home in Honduras, and said in an interview that he fears going outside because of abuse related to his sexual orientation. His mother is stuck in Mexico after her asylum case at the Texas border was denied and the pandemic halted travel across the Americas.

Another teen was deported without his attorneys being notified and despite an immigration judge agreeing to reopen his case. At least seven more children are fighting deportation with last-minute federal court filings after their attorneys said the U.S. moved abruptly to put them on planes home.

“These cases are probably the tip of the iceberg,” said Stephen Kang, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is monitoring the increasing reports.

The sudden spike of deporting children comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has cited the global health crisis to largely shutter the border, including to almost all unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan told reporters last month that during the contagion even migrant children “pose an absolute, concrete public health risk to this country and everybody they come in contact with.”

These deported children come on top of an additional 900 unaccompanied minors who under the emergency declaration have been turned back at the U.S. border in March and April, federal statistics show, often to danger.

Federal authorities have stalled the release of migrant children in the U.S. to relatives in some cases and in late-night moves are attempting to deport them with scant notice to their attorneys. In particular, the government seems to be focused on children who have crossed the border alone after U.S. authorities forced them and their parents to wait for months in Mexico in their bid for asylum.

Since March, the Department of Homeland Security has tried to quickly deport at least 15 such children, according to their lawyers, and removed at least six, including a 10-year-old. Another Guatemalan girl was set to be deported Monday, her attorney said.

All had been required to stay in Mexico under a controversial 2019 Trump administration program named the Migrant Protection Protocols, in which most had no access to lawyers. Roughly one in two such returned migrants were ordered deported without being able to attend their immigration court hearings in the U.S. As violence surged in Mexican border towns, and some parents were assaulted, kidnapped or even killed, children streamed into the U.S. alone.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, in charge of unaccompanied migrant children, began tracking those whose parents remained in Mexico in October, and since then it has identified 571, including more than 300 who are 12 or younger. Of those, a spokeswoman said, the vast majority, 476, had been reunified with their relatives or a sponsor in the U.S. as of early May. Four had been deported by that date.

The agency had about 1,450 migrant children in its care as of May 15, which includes the minors previously stuck with their parents in Mexico and others who came to the border alone or with relatives who are not their parents. That historically low number is partly because only 58 children were referred to the agency’s care after being allowed to cross the border in April. By comparison, more than 1,850 such children were permitted into the country in March.

The White House has long been trying to undo federal protections for immigrant families and children, who the administration contends are wrongly allowed to stay in the U.S. for years because of “loopholes” in federal law. The government, which tried separating immigrant parents from their children at the border before federal litigation halted the practice, is seeking changes to a settlement decree governing the care of migrant children, and expediting their cases in immigration courts.

“We are seeing a wholesale attack,” said Jennifer Podkul, director of policy for Kids in Need of Defense, a national nonprofit advocating for migrant children. “They are using the pandemic as an excuse why they are expelling children.”

April Grant, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement that children who enter the U.S. and have pending cases with their family under the Migrant Protection Protocols program will be given new cases as unaccompanied minors.

But if children already had been ordered removed under their family’s case in that program they are subject to deportation when they cross the border again — even if they do so alone and under completely different circumstances.

“If the minor was ordered removed from the U.S. by an immigration judge as part of the family unit, prior to being encountered as an (unaccompanied child) then the minor is subject to the final order of removal,” Grant said.

Attorneys in lawsuits across the country argue that is a violation of both a 2008 law intended to protect migrant children from trafficking and a 1997 federal settlement forcing the government to hold such minors in “safe” conditions and make “prompt” efforts to release them. The attorneys contend the government is breaking the law by not granting children entering the U.S. alone a new bid at asylum.

“The law is very clear that the children are unaccompanied, they entered unaccompanied, the government itself designated them as unaccompanied, so they are entitled to all these protections” of the 2008 law and 1997 settlement, said Asra Syed, a New York lawyer helping litigate the case of the Salvadoran sisters in Houston. “The only thing that makes it gray is not a question of the law, it is a question of how ICE is behaving.”

“We’re going to kill you and your family”

The ordeal of the Salvadoran girls in Houston began last year when their father, a 33-year-old aviation mechanic in that nation’s capital city, used his savings to buy a handful of cars and rent them as taxis. Gang members forced him to pay a monthly extortion fee, which they steadily raised. The father, Mauricio, began struggling to meet the payments, said his wife, Maria, who asked that neither she nor her husband be fully identified because they fear retaliation from both the gang and the government.

In March 2019, Maria said gang members pointed a gun at her husband’s head. He ran away, calling police, who arrested two of his assailants. That April, Mauricio and his wife briefly left the girls at home when the oldest phoned: “One of the cars is burning,” Maria recalled her saying.

Mauricio alerted the police. Then the phone calls began: “We know where your wife works. We know where the girls are. If you don’t work with us, we’re going to kill you and your family.”

In August 2019, armed men showed up at their house, threatening them again, so they filed another police complaint.

That September, Mauricio’s wife flew to Houston on a tourist visa she already had and planned to stay with her brother. But she said Mauricio and the girls didn’t have months to wait for a tourist visa application, so they left the next day on a bus to the Texas border. When Border Patrol agents apprehended them crossing illegally near Brownsville that month, they were placed in the Migrant Protection Protocols program and forced to wait in Matamoros for their U.S. immigration court dates.

Maria waitressed at a Colombian restaurant in Houston and sent them money so they could rent a room in the border town, to which the U.S. State Department has long warned against travel because of crime and kidnapping, classifying the state of Tamaulipas at the same danger level as war zones like Syria. Maria said she hired a Houston immigration lawyer to argue her family’s case, paying him $6,000 and sending copies of police complaints they filed.

The family was far more fortunate than most of the 60,000 migrants forced to wait in Mexico under the program in the past year. Unable to afford rent, many stay in sprawling tent camps such as the one in Matamoros where children younger than 5 made up a quarter of its 2,500 residents, according to a tally by Human Rights First, an advocacy group.

Unlike the Salvadoran family, only about 4% of migrants waiting for their U.S. hearings in Mexico have been able to secure an attorney to represent them, according to Human Rights Watch, an international nonprofit. By comparison, those in the U.S. are seven times more likely to find a lawyer — crucial in winning asylum.

During Mauricio and his daughters’ final hearing in January in the Brownsville immigration court, he told his wife that the lawyer poorly handled their asylum claim. The judge denied their case. That attorney declined to be interviewed.

Mauricio began working construction in Matamoros because Maria was trying to afford another lawyer to appeal their case.

In March, the father didn’t return from work. The girls waited all night and the next evening they said their neighbor dropped them at the international bridge. Knowing that migrants in Matamoros are often targeted by cartels, the neighbor feared the worst for their father.

U.S. authorities took in the girls, designated them as unaccompanied minors and placed them in the care of a shelter in downtown Houston. Caseworkers with the Office of Refugee Resettlement processed Maria’s application to receive her daughters, doing a home study of the apartment she shared with her brother to see if it met the government’s requirements, she said, and taking her fingerprints.

Then the girls made a shocking disclosure to their caseworker, who relayed it to the mother: For years, they said, a relative had sexually assaulted them while Maria and Mauricio were at work. The man died in 2018, but the girls never revealed anything to their parents.

The mother’s heart shattered.

“That was the worst day of my life,” she said.

She also feared for her husband.

After he was left nearly for dead when leaving work that March evening, he eventually made it back to the room he had shared with his daughters. By then, they were already in the U.S.

He has since escaped Matamoros for a different Mexican city because it was unsafe, Maria said. She has not had steady contact with her husband because he no longer has a phone or reliable place to live, but they talk when they can through Facebook.

The mother doesn’t know what they are going to do, but has focused on getting the girls back.

Maria underwent a mandatory course through the shelter triggered by her daughters’ sexual assault allegations, and in May, said their case worker told her everything had been approved. She even asked the mother to set up medical appointments for the girls.

A few days before they were to be reunified, ICE officials suddenly announced that they planned to deport the sisters to El Salvador, said one of their pro bono lawyers, Elizabeth Sanchez Kennedy of YMCA International Services in Houston.

The ICE official told shelter staff that the girls have final removal orders from the hearing with their father in Brownsville.

The attorney submitted an appeal to reopen that case and start a new one for them as unaccompanied children. In a separate application for a temporary restraining order in a Houston federal court, she argued this was required under the law.

El Salvador’s consulate general in Houston asked Maria where the girls could go if they were deported. The mother said the only family member left was related to the girls’ sexual assault allegations, and that they would not be safe. The consulate told her that ICE officials said if needed the girls could be sent to foster care in El Salvador.

“We are seeing a pattern emerge”

Lawyers across the country said it seems to be a coordinated new effort to target children who can easily and quickly be deported, particularly those in the Migrant Protection Protocols program, even though they contend the minors qualify for special safeguards.

“We are seeing a pattern emerge where ICE is insisting on deporting unaccompanied immigrant children,” Syed, another lawyer in the Houston case, wrote in an email. “But we haven’t seen it happen to two such young children — our clients are only 8 and 11 — who have a parent in the U.S. ready to receive them, and no one in their home country to care for them. ”

Children have been deported to serious harm, including the 16-year-old girl who fled Honduras with her mother after her testimony landed her father in prison for rape and now faces retaliation from her uncle, a convicted killer.

The girl and her mother waited in Matamoros for months, but in January their asylum cases were denied through a tent court hearing in Brownsville, her lawyers said. The migrant camp was dangerous, and she said cartel members tried to kidnap another girl.

She crossed into Texas alone and was sent to a federal shelter. Attorneys with the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, or ProBar, filed a motion to reopen her old deportation order and argued that denial to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is pending.

In April, the teen was abruptly taken to an appointment with ICE agents, who requested she sign her deportation documents, her attorneys said. They filed a temporary restraining order in a Washington, D.C., federal court to halt her removal, arguing the government had wrongly denied her protections for migrant children required under the 2008 anti-trafficking law. She was owed an independent chance at asylum, they said, apart from her mother’s case.

Government attorneys contended the law only required them to place such children in removal proceedings — not necessarily grant them new cases as unaccompanied minors. They noted the girl still had time to fight her deportation order from her mother’s case.

The judge decided he didn’t have the jurisdiction to block the girl’s removal, and she was sent to Honduras last month. San Francisco attorney Stephen Blake, who argued the federal case, said he was communicating with senior lawyers at the Justice Department and that he felt a “very conscious decision was made by ICE” to deport the girl.

On her flight to Honduras was another child represented by the same attorneys from ProBAR. The boy told them he had fled an abusive father and gang members forcing him to join their ranks.

When he arrived in Ciudad Juárez across from El Paso last year, he and his mother were forced to await their case in Mexico. His mother returned to Honduras, but the boy feared the gang would target him. Juárez was dangerous, so the teen followed acquaintances to Monterrey, and was not able to return for his U.S. court date. A judge ordered him deported in absentia.

In January, he returned to Juárez, crossing alone and landing in a shelter where the ProBar attorneys began representing him. His lawyer, Julio Feliz, filed a motion to reopen his deportation case. On April 1, that was denied, but Feliz said he never received that notice. A few weeks later, the attorney filed supplementary evidence supporting that motion, and the immigration judge agreed to reopen the boy’s case.

But ICE deported him that same day, Feliz said.

He did not find out the boy had been removed until he was in flight. The teen is now in hiding with a relative in Honduras.

“We’re extremely concerned about both of these children’s safety, and we wish we could have had the opportunity to have their cases heard properly,” said Carly Salazar, ProBAR’s legal director.

Claudia Cubas, a lawyer with the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, a legal advocacy group in Washington, D.C., was one of the first attorneys to make these arguments in federal court after ICE tried to remove three Salvadoran children — ages 9, 14 and 16 — in March.

They had fled to Matamoros with their mother in 2019 after members of the MS-13 gang slashed their father to death with machetes, according to court documents, and terrorized their stepfather. A relative connected to the gang beat the mother so viciously her “bone was visible through her skin,” according to a legal filing. Three relatives were killed by MS-13 in an attempt to discover the family’s whereabouts.

The children’s stepfather came to the U.S. last year and was allowed to pursue asylum from Maryland, Cubas said. But when the children arrived at the Texas border with their mother, the family was placed in the Migrant Protection Protocols program and made to wait in Matamoros.

One child was sexually assaulted in the camp, according to court documents. When their case was denied in January, the mother sent her children across the border alone to join their stepfather.

“I have lived my life,” she told her lawyer.

The children were placed in foster care through a federal shelter and were set to be reunified with their stepfather. At the last minute, Cubas said the government halted their release to him when ICE suddenly in March tried to deport them. Federal litigation has paused their removal and allowed them to be freed to their father, but only while their legal case is argued.

“The government is removing very young children to no one,” Cubas said. “But our courts are in a state of emergency. Our media is COVID-19 all the time. We don’t even have congressional hearings right now in full force. There is less scrutiny.”

“Uncanny” timing

Some lawyers fear the recent surge of such deportations is related to an April order in the landmark 1997 settlement agreement governing migrant children in detention. In response to concerns that they would be exposed to COVID-19, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in California found children should be quickly released from government facilities, which she called “hotbeds of contagion,” unless their removal was “imminent.”

The government around that time seemed to escalate its enforcement of prior deportation orders for children, said Holly Cooper, an immigration attorney with the University of California at Davis, who is involved in litigating the federal consent decree. She called the timing “uncanny.”

Parents in the Matamoros migrant camp worry what will happen to the children they sent across alone, said Maria Corrales, a Honduran asylum-seeker. Her 12-year-old daughter is in a New York shelter after the family lost its immigration case at the border and the girl entered the U.S. by herself.

In the camp, Corrales said few parents still have their children with them because, by now, having lost their Migrant Protection Protocols cases or simply given up on the process, most have dispatched them across the border in desperation.

“We’re all single parents here,” Corrales sighed. “We have almost no children left.”

Federal litigation has forced the temporary reunification of some migrant children with their relatives and halted their deportations -- for now.

“These are only band-aids,” said Sanchez Kennedy, who represents the Salvadoran girls in Houston.

Late Thursday, the government granted her a provisional stay to argue their immigration appeal. A federal judge simultaneously blocked ICE from deporting the girls until this Friday, when attorneys will argue for a longer halt on their removal.

While the litigation unfolds, the government late last week released the girls to their mother.

They gushed when they saw her, hugging desperately.

But the government could still deport them alone.

Do you have access to information about migrant children or immigrant families separated for whatever reason that should be public? Email [email protected]. Here’s how to send tips and documents to ProPublica securely.

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#families separate #migrant kids separated at the border #deportation #coronavirus

[torturedwarrior]

Albert Fish:

Who exactly is Albert Fish? What made him famous? How many victims did he murder? How did Albert Fish die? Albert Hamilton Fish (May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936) was an American sado-masochistic serial killer and cannibal. He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria and possibly the Brooklyn Vampire. AKA Albert Fish, Laura Fish, Nepe Fish, Birthday May 19, 1870, Birthplace Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States, Death January 16, 1936, Manner of Death Capital Punishment, Nationality United States Of America, Occupations Prostitute, Serial Killer, Great Person, Male Prostitution, Religion Rejecting The Blood. “Misery leads to crime. I saw so many boys whipped it ruined my mind.”— Albert Fish.

He was delighted that he had "kids in all nations," which places his number near 100, although the question of violence or cannibalization is not obvious, much less as to whether it was real or not. In at least five killings for his career he was a witness. Fisch agreed to three killings and confessed to at least two other individuals attacking investigators might track a suspected crime. He was tried and convicted and hanged by electric chair for abduction and the death of Grace Budd.

Albert Fish’s Early Life:

He was born to Randall Fish (1795-1875) as Hamilton Fish in Washington, D.C. He said he was named after a distant relative, Hamilton Fish. His grandfather was 43 years older than his brother. It had three live siblings: Walter, Joyce, and Edwin Fish. Fish was the youngest child and he was three. After a deceased brother he wanted to be called "Albert," and to avoid the moniker of "Ham and Eggs," provided him in an orphanage where he spent many years in the beginning. Mental illness was suffered by many of his family members and theological mania was felt. His father was a sailor on the river boat, but he was a producer of fertilizers by 1870. The first Fish died in the 1875 Washington, DC, of a heart attack at the Sixth Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was hit and kicked regularly, and finally discovered that he was suffering from physical pain. Often the beatings brought him houses that the other children told him about.

His mother was able to look after him and have a government job by 1879. He had however been influenced by his different experiences before this. He began a gay relationship with a telegraph-boy in 1882, when he was 12. Fish also heard about drinking urine and coprophagies in young people. Fish liked to frequent public baths and watch kids get ready and he spent much of his weekends watching them. In 1890, Fish had come to New York City and said he had become a male harlot. He claimed he began raping young boys, even after his mother had negotiated a marriage, a crime that he proceeded to commit. He married his wife in 1898 with a junior aged nine years. The dad: Albert, Mary, Gertrude, Eugene, Charles, and Henry Fish. They had six babies. He was charged on the basis of misappropriation and sentenced to 1903 in Sing jail. He had sex with men frequently during his incarceration. “I have no particular desire to live. I have no particular desire to be killed. It is a matter of indifference to me. I do not think I am altogether right.”— Albert Fish

He served as a house painter in 1898 and said that he kept angry babies, boys mostly under the age of six. Further on, he recalled an instance where a male friend took him to a waxworks museum where Fish became intrigued by a penis bisection, and shortly afterwards he was paranoid regarding castration. Fish tried to castrate him after linking him during a friendship with a mentally disabled man. The guy became terrified and ran. Fish then increased his trips to brothels to taunt and abuse him more often. His wife left him in January 1917 for a handyman, John Straube, who rented the Fish home. Despite this rejection, Fish started hearing voices; for instance, once he was wrapped up in a tapestry and clarified why he followed John the Apostle's orders.

Early attacks and attempted abductions:

It was Fish which perpetrated his first assault in Wilmington, Delaware in 1910 on a child named Thomas Bedden. He eventually murdered a child mentally disabled in Arlington, Washington, D.C., in 1919. Many of his perpetrators would frequently be either mentally impaired or American as they would not be overlooked, he claimed. On 11 July 1924 Fish discovered Beatrice Kiel, eight years of age, playing alone on the Staten Island estate of her father. He gave her money in the neighboring fields to help him hunt the rhubarb. As her mother scared Fish away, she was about to leave the farm. Fish fled but then returned back to the barn of Kiels, where, before Hans Kiel found him, he wanted to sleep and told him to leave.

Previous incarceration:

Fish met "Estella Wilcox," and lived a week in Waterloo, New York, on February 6, 1930. He was held at Bellevue psychiatric hospital between 1930 and 1931 for evaluation, and he was released in May 1930 "because he sent an indecent letter to an African American woman who replied a maid's advertising."

Fish Targets the Handicapped:

Around 1919, Albert Fish started attacking young men who, because he thought that these individuals would be ignored, were intellectually or African American. Fish liked to bribe kids to help him trap other kids so that he could torture and kill them. The proof has been confirmed in any of these murders. Upon his final conviction, Albert Fish made a number of statements. Even if there was no proof, he listed Albert Fish's victims in hundreds. In 1924, Albert Fish developed total insanity. He actually believed, although he has been tested several times by psychologists, that God was ordering him to torture and kill them. In July of that year, Fish met teenage Beatrice Kiel on the estate of her father alone. Her mother heard Fish chuckle and scare him from protecting the 8-year-old girl's life. Fish went back to the farm in Kiel later that night and slept in the stable. Hans Kiel, young Beatrice's parent, spotted him and quickly pursued him. The next move of Albert Fish was targeted at a young boy Cyril Quinn he had annoyed. To draw them into his den, Fish gave the boys lunch. The boys wrested on Fish's pillow, while waiting for sandwiches. Fish's "death weapons" and hammer, handsaw and cleaver were overthrown by the mattress. The boys have run from the house in panic. Again, Fish missed his job of killing and eating a boy. It took Fish up a bit of his playing.

 Albert Fish’s Victims:

Francis McDonnel- Francis, age 8, was murdered on July 14, 1924. He had been raped and strangled to death, Emma Richardson- Emma, age 5, was murdered on October 3, 1926, Billy Gaffney- Billy, age 4, was murdered on February 12, 1927. Fish confessed to torturing Billy by whipping him, cutting off his ears and nose and then gouging out his eyes. After Billy was murdered, Fish took home pieces of his body and ate them over the course of 4 days, Grace Budd- Grace, age 10, was murdered on June 3, 1928. Fish confessed to murdering her and then eating her whole body over the course of 9 days, Emil Aalling - Emil, age 4, was murdered on July 13, 1930, Robin Jane Liu- Robin, age 6, was murdered on may 2, 1931, Yetta Abramowitz- Yetta, age 12, was murdered in 1927. Fish was suspected to have murdered Yetta, Mary Ellen O’Connor- Mary, age 16, was murdered on February 15, 1932. Fish was suspected to have murdered Mary, Benjamin Collings- Benjamin, age 17, was murdered on December 15, 1932. Fish was suspected to have murdered Benjamin. “I always had a desire to inflict pain on others and to have others inflict pain on me. I always seemed to enjoy everything that hurt.”- Albert Fish, "What a thrill that will be if I have to die in the electric chair. It will be the supreme thrill. The only one I haven't tried."- Albert Fish.

 Trial and Execution:

It is not shocking that Fish is regarded as "the worst child killer in criminal history." The Grace Budd assassination court lasted eleven days. Cod has been found guilty and finally electrically disabled. Fish was said to have helped the boy place electrodes on his leg. There have been reports that the needles implanted by Fish into its body have created a short electric circuit, so it requires twice the normal electricity strikes to complete the job. Since then, these arguments have been dismissed. His lawyer claimed after Fish was killed that he had no words from Fish, just handwritten documents. "Information will never be shown to anyone. The prosecutor refused to read them. It was I have ever seen the filthiest list of obscenities. Until the end of his life, Fish had been a vile human being.

Albert Fish will tend to be one of the greatest abusers of girls in America. Few serial killers, particularly against children, have accomplished the cruelty he is renowned for. It needs to be seen whether Albert Fish was a serial killer at the orphanage. One has to ask if someone so evil as Fish was raised as an assassin or could his conditions transform him into a bad person. Like most serial killers, it's become a little bit of nature and nourishment. While he claims to also have killed thousands of children,' one in every state,' he was only ever found to have killed three. The three killings were so horrific that they solidified Fish's place in history as the worst child killer in all of American history.

Work Cited:

"Best Albert Fish Quotes | Quote Catalog." Quote Catalog. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://quotecatalog.com/communicator/albert-fish/>.

Blanco, Juan Ignacio. "Albert Fish | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers." Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/fish-albert.htm>.

Phan, Daniel. " Everything You Need To Know About Albert Fish | Serial Killer Shop ." Limited Edition Horror & Serial Killer Shirts – Serial Killer Shop . 18 Mar 2019. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://serialkillershop.com/blogs/true-crime/albert-fish>.

Whitney , Heather. "Victims of Albert Fish | The Serial Killers Podcast." The Serial Killers Podcast - A Weekly Podcast on Serial Murder. 1 Jan 2010. Web. 11 Feb 2020. <http://serialkillers.briancombs.net/2962/victims-of-albert-fish/>.

#albert fish #serial killer #blogging #blog #writing #writeaway

[arcticdementor]

I’ve been thinking that the US is in a May 1968 moment, but that’s probably too optimistic. A reader who is a prominent Washingtonian (he identified himself, and I verified it; I’m not using his name to protect him) wrote this morning to say that he and a number of people he know are leaving the city for good in the wake of this past week’s violence.

…

This reader, who is white, lives in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city. Thinking of that girl in his neighborhood, I thought of this from Live Not By Lies, about how the Russian Revolution advanced years before actual fighting broke out, when the parents of the privileged refused to stand up to their children:

Most of the revolutionaries came from the privileged classes. Their parents ought to have known that this new political faith their children preached would, if realized, mean the collapse of the social order. Still, they did not reject their children. Writes Slezkine, “The ‘students’ were almost always abetted at home while still in school and almost never damned when they became revolutionaries.” Perhaps the mothers and fathers didn’t want to alienate their sons and daughters. Perhaps they too, after the experience of the terrible famine and the incompetent state’s inability to care for the starving, had lost faith in the system.

It’s happening here now. Trump is our Nicholas II: too weak and indecisive and lacking in credibility to do a damn thing about it.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing that there are conservative Americans in the DC area who are talking about attempting to emigrate to one of the Visegrad countries (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland). They see no hope anymore here. I am reminded of this piece from Mark Bollobas that I published in 2018. He is the UK-born son of two Hungarians who fled communism in the 1960s and took refuge in Britain. Now, as an adult who lived for a time in America, he has returned to his parents’ home city, Budapest, to raise his own family.

…

Read it all. Bollobas has ancestral roots there, though, and can speak the language. He didn’t grow up in Hungary, but culturally, he can relate to the place. If I were in government in one of the Visegrad countries, I would start working on a program to entice emigration from dissatisfied Americans who have something to contribute, in terms of human capital and financial capital, to my country. When I was in Budapest last fall in a group meeting with Viktor Orban, he told us that conservatives should always consider Budapest their home. I expect there will be no small number of Americans who can afford it, and who can work from anywhere online, who will want to know more.

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, a white city council member is challenging the people of the city to put up with home invasions and break-ins for the sake of racial change

…

If you are a Minneapolis home or business owner, the handwriting is on the wall.

Meanwhile, the scandal at The New York Times is turning into a watershed for American journalism

…

I expect a number of disgusted conservatives to follow suit. Everybody knows that the Times is a liberal paper, but this newsroom coup is turning it into an illiberal left-wing paper. This has been coming for a long time, in both journalism and academia. Some years ago, I published a comment by a conservative academic who said that he is the lone conservative in his department, but he feels safe under the leadership of the old-fashioned liberal who is department head. But when that Boomer generation retires, it’s over. The Millennials and Gen Zers behind them are Jacobins, he said.

The Jacobin generation is taking over the Times now. They will also be consolidating power within other media institutions, under the guise of racial justice. Anyone who is not willing to swear allegiance to the Social Justice left has no future. Do you want to spend your career propagandizing? Similarly with academia: how many ideological re-education programs can you tolerate? How much ideological poisoning of scholarship and teaching are you prepared to submit to? It’s coming.

How many lies are you willing to tell, or assent to, to participate in this rotten system?

What sacrifices are you prepared to make to live in truth, and not by lies?

A lawyer reader told me this morning that the Benedict Option may soon be the Benedict Imperative. I asked him to explain. He responded:

There is a plausible (though not inevitable) scenario where we get a legal and cultural regime that fully adopts critical race theory, the obliteration of any stable definition of the family (this is already happening in the courts everywhere), and that does what it already says it believes to dissenters from the ascendant sexual ethic. All of these things operating at even 30% of capacity (and backed up by a privately imposed social credit like system), would make life increasingly difficult for those who won’t give a pinch of incense to Caesar on these things. Under this scenarios, the small-o orthodox Church and its members would get much smaller and poorer, and BenOp would lose the “option” part, as it would be the only plausible path forward.

…

The imperium is crumbling. What replaces it will be worse, no doubt, but the conditions that made the imperium sustainable no longer obtain.

What does it look like to you, from where you sit this afternoon? What is the future for you and your family?

#rod dreher #the american conservative #orbán viktor