Rainforest consercation slogans
IT’S NOT “WOKE”, MATE, IT’S LATE STAGE CAPITALISM H.G. WELLS INTERVIEW WITH STALIN (1934)
2024.04.17 18:27 genericusername1904 IT’S NOT “WOKE”, MATE, IT’S LATE STAGE CAPITALISM H.G. WELLS INTERVIEW WITH STALIN (1934)
 | NON, II-III. APRILIS.So, ignoring my own rule about “no politics”, I’m going to enlighten you about contemporary politics, as like Emperor Titus when he had a statue made of himself standing next to a sewage drain and holding a legal reform.Of this subject I do not think that “people do not get this” already but there seems to be no manner to articulate the thing within the cultural framework given to us in the West, and honestly unless you’ve happened to read H.G. Wells interview with Stalin in 1934 I don’t think there’s any ‘literary’ reference for this equation that could be cited. I could be wrong about that and there could be other mentions of it (I mean, after the 1940’s) but if there are then they are so obscure as to prove the point on our contemporary cultural inability to have processed the subject, with those authors of the past remaining generally outside of the public forum* and not understood or easily recast as if they were saying something else – with the talking heads of old media and new media pandering to their own perceptions of what their demographics want to hear and so saying nothing at all. Stalin: The Americans want to rid themselves of the crisis on the basis of private capitalist activity, without changing the economic basis. They are trying to reduce to a minimum the ruin, the losses caused by the existing economic system. Here, however, as you know, in place of the old, destroyed economic basis, an entirely different, a new economic basis has been created. Even if the Americans you mention partly achieve their aim, i.e., reduce these losses to a minimum, they will not destroy the roots of the anarchy which is inherent in the existing capitalist system. They are preserving the economic system which must inevitably lead, and cannot but lead, to anarchy in production. Thus, at best, it will be a matter, not of the reorganisation of society, not of abolishing the old social system which gives rise to anarchy and crises, but of restricting certain of its excesses. Subjectively, perhaps, these Americans think they are reorganising society; objectively, however, they are preserving the present basis of society.That is why, objectively, there will be no reorganisation of society.Nor will there be planned economy. What is planned economy? What are some of its attributes? Planned economy tries to abolish unemployment. Let us suppose it is possible, while preserving the capitalist system, to reduce unemployment to a certain minimum.But surely, no capitalist would ever agree to the complete abolition of unemployment, to the abolition of the reserve army of unemployed, the purpose of which is to bring pressure on the labour market, to ensure a supply of cheap labour. Here you have one of the rents in the "planned economy" of bourgeois society. Furthermore, planned economy presupposes increased output in those branches of industry which produce goods that the masses of the people need particularly. But you know that the expansion of production under capitalism takes place for entirely different motives, that capital flows into those branches of economy in which the rate of profit is highest. You will never compel a capitalist to incur loss to himself and agree to a lower rate of profit for the sake of satisfying the needs of the people. Without getting rid of the capitalists, without abolishing the principle of private property in the means of production, it is impossible to create planned economy.Well, simply: the trainwreck of Capitalism which destroyed the workplace and reduced politics away from issues of economic importance and onto trivialities; that quiet pre-fall Pravda culture where “we all know it’s bad but we can’t say anything” is basically just Capitalism as it was predicted by Stalin as being a rudderless form of Anarchism with no control mechanisms to stop itself from hollowing out the host society. What is curious, however, is that when we see and experience these things that we do not recognize it as being caused by ‘capitalism’ but instead we make up ambiguous phraseology by which to redirect our own attention; perhaps the biggest example is that we do not ‘understand’ that the periodic inflation, massive job loss and currency debasement caused by ‘stock’ trading (short selling, speculation, etc.) is the purest and most literal definition of Capitalism: I think this blurring or ignorance toward the subject is the result of Cold War propaganda on our part but at the same time I do not think that Marx did a very good job in highlighting any of this in the manner that Stalin had fathomed it; that is chiefly: that the vital element of ‘Anarchism’ by which we can fathom Capitalism completely was not relayed by Marx so as to give the illusion that Capitalism had some sort of control mechanism to it, the ‘hated boss class’ vs. ‘the world’, which is a good slogan to get a movement off the ground but not a good slogan to do anything with a society once you’ve taken it over and have become that boss class.Actually there’s quite a lot we could explore with Stalin and H.G. Wells and I think I will add ‘that’ as a category or chapter title for a later time so that we can come back to it if this text can serve the function of an introduction. So, less simply: Capitalism has ‘always’ acted in the manner that we witness it today; being virtually unchanged since the 1700’s albeit it has far less regulation today and so far more concurrent means to seize and consume since it has for all real purposes subsumed the state by rendering the state completely powerless to act against it – I am speaking here of the West, dragging the people back to feudal times albeit worse than feudal times because they have less rights, seldom own their own land, exist hand-to-mouth supported by loans with no production to speak of and are choked by excessive taxation to support the shambling ministerial (or administrative) class which impersonates the government – although the actual Law will differ from one place to the next generally speaking the West inherits a legal framework from the Late Roman Empire by which the Late Roman Empire managed barbarian provinces (called: Foederati; Federated) who were deemed “incapable” of practicing and operating a Republic largely because they were savages, hence we had or have Kings who were Ethnarchs (in the manner of Herod) and amongst which, managing the taxation and sending money back to the Roman Empire were the clergy; the greatest land owners who possessed superior authority and the closest thing to the “rights of a Roman Citizen”, at the time of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries the Church owned and taxed near to 80% of the land under the English Crown (read: Henry VIII, Jack Scarisbrick 1968) ; with that money going to Rome for redistribution – in theory to maintain the Legions, the roads, the food supply, the hospitals, and other logistics which no longer existed (enabling a solid case to be made against papal taxation) – with the remainder being under the direct control of the Crown and divided between countless vassals. This measure was designed from the very beginning to weaken the Foederati to prevent them from commanding their own economies and this was not realized or rather nobody was in a position to do anything about it until Henry. Now, from this dissolution came a crisis in management; that is: a crisis by which the English were to manage and operate all of this new land and so from the legal framework of the Corporation of the Church came that legal development of the Private Corporation of which the largest actors were first of all the Cities and Townships themselves, e.g. your City is a Corporation and you, as citizen, are the ‘stock holder’, your elected Mayor (lat. Major) is the most important person in the world. In this context and only in this context can we understand and begin to be able to make sense of a thing which is ‘Corporate’, as: from democratic and effective Private Corporations of large-scale public management there came, eventually, the novel development of a Private Corporation which was not publically accountable or answerable to the Crown or the local Mayor but which nevertheless – through some loophole which I have never been able to identify in its origin (other than that is is literally the legal framework of The Church) – was permitted to hold land; in effect this is to have a foreign state operating within another state in that the land is occupied by a third party entity who has no accountability for or to and neither takes direction from either the public (i.e. the government) or the Crown. Quite literally, then, in this manner the nature of ‘Capitalism’ can be understood somewhat counterintuitively as being a foreign entity of whom owes its legal ability to operate unfettered on the spotty legalism of the 15th Century through having granted it the status of a Church; the ability for such entities to become extremely wealthy, then, stem from the single difference between the Church and themselves in that whilst the one was taking money and sending it overseas to a foreign cleric that the other amasses the money for itself – but the problem with the one is the same as the problem with the other in that both entities seize the majority of the wealth from their host nations. In other words, then, the condition which saw Henry VIII recognize the great command that would be gained over the English economy in his dissolution of the monasteries the same condition and remedy remains true for any nation wherein Corporations operate. The better alternative to Corporation was, the reader is no doubt thinking, The Guilds – and this is completely true, indeed: it was the Guilds moreso than the Corporation which drove commerce whilst the Corporation was merely the late-comer who stepped in with borrowed-money to purchase the enterprises of others and short-sell them, in effect destroying the economies of wheresoever they showed up, and in practice; as best as I have been able to make sense of it, a ‘corporate buy-out’ operates on the legal principle of a state bailout whereupon a City might step in to takeover an enterprise which has become too large to be wielded by a small group and which possesses immense value to the City and is in their interests therefore to take it over; we would recognize this as Nationalization of a Company in contemporary colloquial language. Now, I give the reader this small history lesson in order to establish the correct context by which we can understand Capitalism as being foremost a third party entity of no state loyalty; as to its legal efficacy, and of its entire modus operandi in the practice of the buying-and-selling of enterprises established by others as to ruin economies as its chief habit; in essence being no more complicated than the practice of liquidation of an asset, that is: it buys a thing, it bleeds it of every penny over a period of years; moving labor overseas, mass lay-offs, diminished quality of product, increased cost of purchase due to overseas transport, then it sells whatever is left having played elaborate games to inflate the wealth of the thing to drive the selling price, and then it walks away do the same thing again, leaving whatever remains of the enterprise as a hollowed shell – in essence, as in: in day to day practice, that is what Capitalism is and when we, who grow up subjected to it, look for answers and cannot arrive at the fullest picture of the thing then ‘other’ things fill that void. For instance: the transatlantic slave trade was a product of Capitalism in virtually every aspect of procurement and purchase; that is: the culture to prefer unpaid labour with no rights and the culture of, when having been tolerated, to then be forced to compete with unpaid labour, but as Capitalism could not be admitted as being the cause then other things had to be foisted over the events to cobble together some explanation as to the events and thus the West arrived at racism in the modern colloquial sense of that word; ‘race’ meaning originally ‘generational’ as like a child and their parents are different ‘races’. There is no real economic difference of todays outsourced labour and yesterdays outsourced labour in the so-called ‘colonialism’ as the key commonality remains that the citizens of their host nation are denied the means to participate in the productive labour force, thus impoverishing the nation in obvious manners which Men such as Roosevelt sought to remedy at the time that H.G. Wells and Stalin sat down to discuss the thing – although in our contemporary times, in so far as I have been able to make sense of the thing, it boils down to taxes on imports as to why governments tolerate outsourced production despite the poverty it creates in their nations; that is: the governments cannot heavily tax a locally produced item but they can heavily tax an externally produced item, measures originally designed to solve to this problem by putting taxes on luxury imports became instead the chief source of income for government when local production was eliminated in recent decades and so the ability to obtain locally produced goods simply no longer existed; the matter being no longer a tax on luxury items that could not be produced locally but on items that has previously been produced locally of which the Capitalists had sent their logistics overseas: over one third of the total income of the United States government, for instance, relies upon tariffs (see: below); it being previously the total income of the United State Government until other taxes had been invented: income tax introduced between 1914 and 1918 followed by the invention of payroll tax saw a tripling of tax revenues but yet tariffs would remain the largest source of government income. In other words there is a symbiotic relationship between the so-called Free Trade pseudo-Liberal governments of the West who ‘must’ preach for these things and with the most seemingly antithetical forms of business; demolishing rainforests and abusing workers overseas whilst preaching conversationism and equal rights in the politics at home. To simplify the argument it can be boiled down to being simply the ‘exploitation’ of tariff** regulations in that as a government derives one third of its income from the outsourcing of jobs and production that it gains its income at the expense of the greater wealth and concurrent power or logistics of its nation, that for instance a people would not need social security benefits paid for them by the same government if their government had not permitted their pensions to be lost, either through stock market crimes or from degenerate labour policies so as to impoverish the worker and prevent financial security (i.e. to prevent the workers from becoming powerful land-owners), job security, pension loss, null income (i.e. to point of living hand-to-mouth with income just managing to pay the basic expenses incurred in the society), with the causal and simultaneous inflation of the price of goods and debasement of the currency occurring to multiply the poverty. https://preview.redd.it/6ufxk47rf2vc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cdc7819550a2181980ea9dd1308d251d4c3a2e16 As people fathomed this and spoke of this matter in the 1930’s it was recognized that the outcome of this rapidly multiplying problem would soon become insurmountable; that is: the Great Depression being essentially the way of life for citizens stuck within a Capitalist economy with Roosevelts social security being the only thing preventing total collapse of the rule of Law, and of the problem that social security was coming precisely from government revenues obtained by the very manner of business which was creating the circumstances of poverty in the first place: Stalin simplified this as to realize that Capitalism was little more than banditry; a modus by which bandits sought to weaken a government to permit them to rob and pillage with little worry that the weakened government would be able to implement preventative measures against them – that: 1) if any of the Johnny-come-lately elected officials even understood the extent of the problem that 2) their hands would be tied by the realization that their only means of collecting revenue was tied to overseas production. Pavel Filonov, ‘Portrait of J. V. Stalin’, 1936. I thought to lay all of this out for the reader because, in this context, one can gain a fairly strong grip on what it occurring in the West which is decried, wrongfully so, as being all a product of what is now vaguely called ‘Woke-ism’ when we see companies engaging in ridiculous behaviours; mass lay-offs and the loss of vital jobs and the extremely poor quality of education along with the reliance on streams of temporary workers instead of permanent workers - or the seeming inability to be able to write a new movie script, for example, and things like that. These have always resembled to me the act of slow liquidation whereupon new people have purchased executive powers within an existing company and have begun to engage in the crassest measures to squeeze as much as they can out of a company in the short-term before throwing it into the ditch; that is: not thinking for the long term at all but simply utilizing the company as a vehicle for quick-profit with no care for the consequences. It is bizarre, to my mind, and symptomatic of a people who are utterly witless, in my opinion, that when faced with the rapacity of Capitalism that the people; if they begin to articulate it, actually believe that a predatory corporate entity engaged in massive exploitation is a product of ‘Liberalism’ or ‘Woke policy’ when those claims on the part of government or supranational entities can be easily discerned as being public relations press releases at most; that is: press statements keyed towards diminishing their recent crimes so as to change the subject; the public responds to it like Pavlovs Dogs. In my opinion this is the consequence of a near century of Cold War propaganda and the quite violent anti-workers efforts before it whereupon a false dichotomy has been drilled into the culture that any critique of Capitalism is an advocacy of Communism so that it becomes ‘culture alone’ which takes the form of, or which gave birth to, this species of denialism and seeking of “any other answer” to the thing. As with the earlier example of transatlantic slavery is can be demonstrated, of course, of the utter absurdity as to create a conspiracy culture to avoid the focus on the true cause of a thing; accusations of racism are the single largest politic tar in the West being capable of destroying a persons career or taking down a company – these contentions dominate what little public discourse exists in that they can be demonstrated to ‘matter far more’ to the press and to political actors than anything else; an accusation of ‘racism’ will end a persons career but an accusation of ‘war crimes’ of the same person is completely unpursued; likewise when considering the challenges to Capitalist rapacity overseas it is not the economic argument which is presented but ‘racism’ instead – and all to null effect, as it is not ‘racism’ which is the cause and so when the ‘racism’ is addressed there is no change whatsoever in the practice of the individual or the corporation; making it all a waste of time. I mean here that ‘racism’, to just run with that single example, provides a highly effective cover by which to conceal a full assessment of the myriad causes of any deleterious effects of government policies or economic situations; as a proof: if this ‘were’ the case then one would see such Liberal-sounding proclamations being made all the time by such governments and such corporate entities and of course one does hear such things from such entities all the time to such extent as to consist the entirety of their communications. From a point of view of Rhetoric, in the sense of a conversation or a process of deduction of a thing being as like to verbally or intellectually take a series of steps in a sequence, I have always been at least partly aware (I mean: long before I began to study Rhetoric) that any ‘false revelation’, ‘racism’ in this instance, operates in the spoken word and in the thought process as a “missing the mark” when a person is investigating a particular subject. It is like a balloon is being slowly filled up and then popped with a thumbtack when the ‘-ism’ is arrived at verbally and intellectually, that one can very clearly watch the individual saying such a thing deflate into an impasse of non-action due to the pursuit of their inquiry having been prematurely terminated; their progression in the sequence of steps they were pursuing is suddenly closed, and this I would suggest is the logical outcome when one has walked into a brick wall that has been put in place to cover and conceal a passageway. To be clear I do not mean to suggest that any real conscious effort has gone into such construction but rather that culturally if the cause of a thing a society has been closed off by whatever means that the effect of the cause remains still being suffered all the time so that ‘other explanations’ which avoid dealing with the cause directly are going to operate like valve releases to vent the accumulated pressure which will be far stronger; far worse in other words, for having been accumulated via the denialism toward focus of the actual cause. If a society, as in our case, wishes to avoid really coming to terms with the overarching economic causes of things then other theories will spring to life like phantasms and take on forms of their own; if this can be said to be cultural, as I think it surely must be said to be, then we would arrive at a landscape of a dozen conspiracy theories operating as like alternate realities or competing delusions taking place between the members of a single community which all hinge upon a common focal point which; e.g. to put it somewhat crudely the Left blames White and Male, the Right blames Black and Female but their thought processes in how they both arrive at that superficial reductionism; that impasse which takes on a life of its own, is identical in all terms of 1) how they arrive at it, 2) the nothing-ness that comes of it toward the true effects of the thing they are avoiding, 3) the religiosity of how that conspiracy theory buoys them up and preoccupies all of their intellectual energies, and 4) the great waste of time by which decades or half centuries are spent stewing over such things so that when they do begin to approach true cause the problem has become even greater than it was earlier – their efforts constituting what could at best be called a mere delay of something patently evident to the thinking people of the day. Anyway, reader, I will leave you there at just over 4,000 words in my native English. I must admit it has been quite enjoyable to return to the subject of logistics and economics again and I think we will return to this topic of H.G. Wells and Stalin at some point with this text as an introduction; there is quite a lot there in terms of understanding the condition of the West and by and large being so little known and known only to the wrong people it becomes for us a very valuable record of the lay of the land in those immediate days leading up to WW2. What were the Nazis motivated against if this was Communism as it existed? What did America not like about this that caused them to point their guns at the Russians after WW2 and which led to a massive build-up of nuclear weapons? Can we call this understanding of ‘capitalism as anarchism’ as being Stalinism? These are questions that it seems to me as if ninety years of propaganda have been directed almost solely for the purpose of muddying up and impeding. I fancy that no Laws presently exist by which I might get into trouble as a communist agent as would have been the accusation if this subject had been raised some decades prior, so we arrive a little late to this dinner and so what of it - as we bring the best wine. Valete legionaris, NON, II-III. APRILIS.\I suspect a lot of Soviet era literature does exist on this and it has simply never been translated from Russian yet, as like with Slow Progressive Schizophrenia in Soviet advances into Psychology*\* It must be mentioned also that the concept of a ‘tariff’ as a means to acquire revenue first came into the European mind from being on the receiving end of it through the Ottoman Turks when the Ottomans had become sick of the Italian merchants and imposed crushing taxes upon their people for buying from the Italians and on the Italians for purchasing from their people, a reworking of the existing infidel tax system; however it seems that as all were making so much money anyway that they all simply agreed to pay the new tax and the Ottoman government became the recipient of a vast new source of income. It is worth mentioning also that much of Europe was shaped by the Ottomans in the effort to copy them; the brass band parade battalion of unarmoured and poorly trained civilian gunpowder conscripts, for instance, was an Ottoman innovation.* |
2024.04.14 19:03 Suitable-Lettuce-196 The Revitalization of French-Brazilian Relations: Perspectives and Contradictions
French President Emmanuel Macron paid an important three-day visit to the Federal Republic of Brazil from March 26 to 28. As part of the bilateral visit, the French leader made a somewhat adventurous tour, visiting the Amazon rainforest, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and finally the capital Brasília. During the entire visit, Macron emphasized clearly and loudly the intention of revitalizing Brazilian-French relations. He and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, did not hide their intimacy, which many called a bromance (a very close non-sexual relationship between two men). Some media jokingly mentioned the term wedding to emphasize the unusual closeness of the two statesmen.
In a figurative sense, something like a wedding really happened. More precisely, something like a reconciliation has happened since France and Brazil have good relations that have lasted for two centuries. After several years of stagnation, it seems that a positive trend in the development of relations has begun.
Historical development of cooperation
France was the first European country to recognize the independence of Brazil (proclaimed in 1822) in 1825. In 1959, the Brazilian House was inaugurated at the University of Paris. In 2003, France invited Brazil to the G8 summit in Evian. The year 2005 was the year of Brazil in France, and 2009 was the year of France in Brazil. Paris and Brasília formed a strategic partnership in 2008. The main areas of cooperation are trade exchange, renewable energy sources, nuclear energy, defense, technological innovation, ecology, medicine and joint cooperation in Africa. Paris has been and remains a strong supporter of Brazil's efforts to become an important geopolitical player in the international arena, including permanent membership in the UN Security Council, of which France is a member. The French are helping Brazilians to apply and develop technologies in the military, energy, IT , industrial and space sector. According to a 2013 BBC survey, 54% of French consider Brazilian influence positive, and 50% of Brazilians consider French influence positive. In a significant minority are those who perceive the influence of another state negatively.
Compatible interests
Brazil is France's leading trading partner in Latin America and the fourth most important partner outside the OECD. Over 500 French companies have been established in Brazil and they employ more than 250 thousand workers. Brazil is France's leading partner in Latin America for cultural, scientific and technical cooperation. Three French high schools (Brasília, Rio and São Paulo) have a total of over two thousand students. The international organization that promotes French culture and language, Alliances françaises, in Brazil is the oldest and most extensive in the world: it has 74 institutions in 52 cities. Brazil and France are the largest majority Roman Catholic countries on their continents. Brazil and France share a 730 km long land border on the South American mainland between the Brazilian state of Amapá and the French overseas department, modern colony, French Guiana. Cross-border cooperation between the two countries is mostly good. It enables a better integration of F. Guiana into the surrounding geographical environment, prevents crime and promotes the development of the economy of the Amazon region. At the initiative of Brazil, France was granted observer status in the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO). There are direct flights between the two countries organized by airlines: Air France and LATAM Brasil.
Negative effect of Bolsonaro's mandate
Macron's visit is important because relations between the two countries have deteriorated significantly during the reign of colorful Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022). The fundamental reason for the disagreement was the attitude towards the Amazon rainforest. At the time, President Macron and other European political leaders criticized Bolsonaro's government for not taking concrete measures to prevent deforestation in the Amazon. It was the excessive exploitation of the rainforest that caused terrible fires and the destruction of a large number of plants, animals and soil. Bolsonaro commented in 2019 that he would accept $20 million in G7 firefighting aid if Macron publicly retracted criticism he found offensive. This did not happen and relations remained bad. Escalation of tensions over this environmental issue froze French-Brazilian relations and prevented their development. In late 2019, it was reported that the Brazilian military considered France its biggest potential threat due to disputes over the Amazon rainforest.
The trend changed when Lula came to power in January 2023. In June 2023, he visited the French Republic on the occasion of the summit meeting for the New Global Financial Agreement, and Lula and Macron also met last December during the UN Climate Change Conference, COP 28, held in Dubai. Macron is the first French president to visit Brazil in 11 years. The Brazilian president traveled about 1,600 km to the city of Belem, the capital of the state of Para, to meet his French colleague. The warm welcome showed that Lula holds Macron in high esteem, as well as the relationship between the two countries. On the last day of the visit, March 28, Macron was formally welcomed at the presidential palace Palácio do Planalto, a monumental work by the famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
The presidential palace is located on the square that was ravaged on January 8, 2023 by rebels loyal to President Bolsonaro, who was defeated in the elections. With an honor guard and almost the entire Brazilian government in attendance, Lula paid tribute to the French leader, hugging him several times, before awarding him the highest honor reserved for foreigners, the Order of the Southern Cross. In return, Macron awarded the first lady of Brazil, Rosângela da Silva (Janja) with the French Legion of Honor. Later, a working lunch was organized at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Itamaraty Palace, where former Brazilian soccer player Rai Souza Vieira de Oliveira and active French soccer player Dimitri Payet were guests to emphasize the closeness of the two nations in what they are best at, which is soccer.
At the end of his stay in Brazil, Macron stated: "I would like to sincerely thank President Lula for this state visit, for the invitation and for the wonderful way in which everything is organized... I will always be with you in all the ambitious projects you carry out for the G20, for the COP and everything that awaits us in the coming years. The visit was wonderful and the conversations were excellent."
The French leader paid tribute to Lula's government's "spirit of resistance" for the "restoration of democracy" after an attack by Bolsonaro's supporters in January 2023. Lula retorted: "The dialogue between our countries represents a bridge between the Global South and the developed world, in favor of overcoming structural inequalities and a more sustainable planet . Brazil and France are determined to work together to promote, through democratic debate, a common vision of the world. A vision based on the priority of production over unproductive finance, solidarity over selfishness, democracy over totalitarianism, sustainability over predatory exploitation."
One of Macron's main motives for the visit is the protection of the Amazon rainforest and the fight against climate change. The two countries have agreed to launch an investment program for the protection of the Brazilian and French (Guyana) Amazon rainforest worth one billion euros. It is a public-private partnership program. Brazilian public banks (such as the development bank Bndes) and French development agencies will form "technical and financial partnerships". The two leaders showed their determination to prevent the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 2030, thus contributing to the fight against climate change. Last year, according to government data, Brazil reduced deforestation by 50%. This is a very welcome decision because about 60% of the Amazon area is located in the Brazilian national territory. Additionally, in 2025, Brazil will host the 30th conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 30). The two countries agreed to develop new research projects in sustainable sectors and to create a research center for the exchange of technologies for the development of the bio economy. France could soon become a new member of ACTO because the Amazon rainforest also occupies the territory of F. Guiana.
Great potentials of economic cooperation Economic cooperation was one of the most important topics. France is the third largest investor in Brazil. Merchandise trade in 2023 has reached a whopping 8.4 billion USD. However, Macron openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the large gap in direct investment. While more than a thousand French companies have invested about 44 billion dollars in Brazil, Brazilian companies have invested only 2 billion dollars in France. Therefore, at the 5th Brazil-France Economic Forum, Macron called on powerful Brazilian entrepreneurs to use all the potential of cooperation and initiate greater investments in his country.
Brazil assumed the presidency of the G20 organization from December 1 last year under the slogan: "Building a just world and a sustainable planet." In November, the summit of the organization will be held in Rio de Janeiro. Macron has publicly backed Lula's economic agenda for the G20, including Brazil's idea of working on a global tax for the richest.
Free trade agreement – the main stumbling block
In 2019, after two decades of extremely arduous negotiations, the European Union and Mercosur (the South American trade bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and partners) reached a framework agreement on free trade. Since he came back to power last year, Lula da Silva has tried to put the agreement into practice on several occasions. However, the agreement is still pending and awaiting its ratification.
Meanwhile, France is the most prominent in its opposition to the agreement between the EU and Mercosur, arguing that South American producers do not meet the EU's health and environmental standards (they emphasized beef the most). Macron also confirmed during the visit that the current agreement does not benefit both sides. The French leader called the agreement "very bad" and said that it should be buried in favor of a new one that will be "responsible from the point of view of development, climate and biodiversity". Lula noted that he is "very calm" and diplomatically stressed that Brazil is "not negotiating with France", but with the EU. "We still have time," said Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad. "It is true that we lost an opportunity at the end of last year, but we should not give up on this agreement." Haddad added that Lula invested a lot of time in the agreement and that he will continue to strive for a closer relationship with the EU market. Earlier in March, EU officials emphasized that "decisive progress" could be achieved by July.
Defense cooperation
Lula and Macron discussed the ways in which they could strengthen cooperation in the field of defense. Macron said he wanted to "go beyond" the production of helicopters and submarines and saw "enormous bilateral potential". According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), France is the second largest arms exporter in the world after the US. The French can supply the Brazilian armed forces with the most modern weapons and military equipment.
Submarines are a point of contention. Macron promised to open a "new chapter" in military cooperation as he and Lula launched the fourth submarine built for the Brazilian navy by France's Naval Group under an agreement signed in 2008 by Lula and Nicolas Sarkozy. Brasília wants Paris to share its nuclear know-how to build a fifth submarine, the Alvaro Alberto, the first to be nuclear-powered. It has stuck so far, but there could be progress.
Different views on Ukraine and Russia
The biggest differences between the two presidents are over Ukraine and Russia. Macron and EU officials firmly support Ukraine in its war with Russia, while Lula has taken a neutral stance and has repeatedly said that Ukraine and Russia share responsibility for the war and has refused to isolate Moscow by imposing sanctions. Lula is against sending military or financial support to Kiev. "There is so much inequality that we don't have time to think about another war," Lula said, criticizing "investing in weapons while we have hunger in the world."
The Brazilian president reaffirmed his commitment to peace talks, a stark contrast to Macron, who a little over a month ago talked about the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine to help it resist Russian attacks. "I am so many thousands of kilometers away from Ukraine that I am not forced to have the same nervousness as the French who are closer," said Lula, adding that "the two stubborn leaders" (Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin op. a.) "will have to agree" on ending the war.
Likewise, the two presidents have different views on Putin's possible participation in this year's G20 summit, which will be held in November in Rio. Putin missed last year's G20 summit in New Delhi, avoiding the risk of possible arrest on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant. In September 2023, Lula said there was "no way" Putin would be arrested if he attended the summit. Shortly after, he backtracked and said the justice system would decide Putin's eventual arrest, not his government.
When asked about Putin's participation in the G20 summit at Lula's invitation, Macron said that the topic must meet the consensus of the organization's members. "If it's not a useful meeting and if it's divisive, we shouldn't do it," the French leader suggested to his colleague.
Disagreements about Venezuela
For Lulu, the priority is not Ukraine, but neighboring Venezuela, which Macron agreed with. Both condemned the exclusion of the candidate of the main opposition coalition, Corina Yoris, from the July 28 presidential election. "We very strongly condemn the exclusion of a serious and credible candidate from this process," Macron said. Lula described the situation as "serious" and said that there is no "legal or political explanation for banning an opponent from being a candidate". "I told Maduro that the most important thing for the return of normality to Venezuela is to avoid any problems in the electoral process, to hold the elections in the most democratic way possible."
Conclusion
The commitment to working together to protect the Amazon rainforest and the fight against climate change, as well as the will to strengthen economic and military cooperation, are the most important positive contributions of Macron's visit to Brazil. This visit could mark a new beginning for Franco-Brazilian relations despite differences in world politics.
Differences in relation to Ukraine and Russia and the free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur should not seriously damage bilateral relations. To a good extent, current French-Brazilian relations can be measured by the Lula-Macron personal relationship, which is extremely cordial.
Stronger cooperation should bring tangible benefits to both the French and the Brazilians. Macron will benefit from cooperation with Brazil, which has improved its international standing as Latin America's most populous nation hosts the G20 summit this year and the 30th UN climate change conference next year. Lula welcomes any meeting and agreement that can to some extent satisfy his great country hungry for new knowledge, skills and investments.
submitted by Suitable-Lettuce-196 to geopolitics [link] [comments]
In a figurative sense, something like a wedding really happened. More precisely, something like a reconciliation has happened since France and Brazil have good relations that have lasted for two centuries. After several years of stagnation, it seems that a positive trend in the development of relations has begun.
Historical development of cooperation
France was the first European country to recognize the independence of Brazil (proclaimed in 1822) in 1825. In 1959, the Brazilian House was inaugurated at the University of Paris. In 2003, France invited Brazil to the G8 summit in Evian. The year 2005 was the year of Brazil in France, and 2009 was the year of France in Brazil. Paris and Brasília formed a strategic partnership in 2008. The main areas of cooperation are trade exchange, renewable energy sources, nuclear energy, defense, technological innovation, ecology, medicine and joint cooperation in Africa. Paris has been and remains a strong supporter of Brazil's efforts to become an important geopolitical player in the international arena, including permanent membership in the UN Security Council, of which France is a member. The French are helping Brazilians to apply and develop technologies in the military, energy, IT , industrial and space sector. According to a 2013 BBC survey, 54% of French consider Brazilian influence positive, and 50% of Brazilians consider French influence positive. In a significant minority are those who perceive the influence of another state negatively.
Compatible interests
Brazil is France's leading trading partner in Latin America and the fourth most important partner outside the OECD. Over 500 French companies have been established in Brazil and they employ more than 250 thousand workers. Brazil is France's leading partner in Latin America for cultural, scientific and technical cooperation. Three French high schools (Brasília, Rio and São Paulo) have a total of over two thousand students. The international organization that promotes French culture and language, Alliances françaises, in Brazil is the oldest and most extensive in the world: it has 74 institutions in 52 cities. Brazil and France are the largest majority Roman Catholic countries on their continents. Brazil and France share a 730 km long land border on the South American mainland between the Brazilian state of Amapá and the French overseas department, modern colony, French Guiana. Cross-border cooperation between the two countries is mostly good. It enables a better integration of F. Guiana into the surrounding geographical environment, prevents crime and promotes the development of the economy of the Amazon region. At the initiative of Brazil, France was granted observer status in the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO). There are direct flights between the two countries organized by airlines: Air France and LATAM Brasil.
Negative effect of Bolsonaro's mandate
Macron's visit is important because relations between the two countries have deteriorated significantly during the reign of colorful Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022). The fundamental reason for the disagreement was the attitude towards the Amazon rainforest. At the time, President Macron and other European political leaders criticized Bolsonaro's government for not taking concrete measures to prevent deforestation in the Amazon. It was the excessive exploitation of the rainforest that caused terrible fires and the destruction of a large number of plants, animals and soil. Bolsonaro commented in 2019 that he would accept $20 million in G7 firefighting aid if Macron publicly retracted criticism he found offensive. This did not happen and relations remained bad. Escalation of tensions over this environmental issue froze French-Brazilian relations and prevented their development. In late 2019, it was reported that the Brazilian military considered France its biggest potential threat due to disputes over the Amazon rainforest.
The trend changed when Lula came to power in January 2023. In June 2023, he visited the French Republic on the occasion of the summit meeting for the New Global Financial Agreement, and Lula and Macron also met last December during the UN Climate Change Conference, COP 28, held in Dubai. Macron is the first French president to visit Brazil in 11 years. The Brazilian president traveled about 1,600 km to the city of Belem, the capital of the state of Para, to meet his French colleague. The warm welcome showed that Lula holds Macron in high esteem, as well as the relationship between the two countries. On the last day of the visit, March 28, Macron was formally welcomed at the presidential palace Palácio do Planalto, a monumental work by the famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
The presidential palace is located on the square that was ravaged on January 8, 2023 by rebels loyal to President Bolsonaro, who was defeated in the elections. With an honor guard and almost the entire Brazilian government in attendance, Lula paid tribute to the French leader, hugging him several times, before awarding him the highest honor reserved for foreigners, the Order of the Southern Cross. In return, Macron awarded the first lady of Brazil, Rosângela da Silva (Janja) with the French Legion of Honor. Later, a working lunch was organized at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Itamaraty Palace, where former Brazilian soccer player Rai Souza Vieira de Oliveira and active French soccer player Dimitri Payet were guests to emphasize the closeness of the two nations in what they are best at, which is soccer.
At the end of his stay in Brazil, Macron stated: "I would like to sincerely thank President Lula for this state visit, for the invitation and for the wonderful way in which everything is organized... I will always be with you in all the ambitious projects you carry out for the G20, for the COP and everything that awaits us in the coming years. The visit was wonderful and the conversations were excellent."
The French leader paid tribute to Lula's government's "spirit of resistance" for the "restoration of democracy" after an attack by Bolsonaro's supporters in January 2023. Lula retorted: "The dialogue between our countries represents a bridge between the Global South and the developed world, in favor of overcoming structural inequalities and a more sustainable planet . Brazil and France are determined to work together to promote, through democratic debate, a common vision of the world. A vision based on the priority of production over unproductive finance, solidarity over selfishness, democracy over totalitarianism, sustainability over predatory exploitation."
One of Macron's main motives for the visit is the protection of the Amazon rainforest and the fight against climate change. The two countries have agreed to launch an investment program for the protection of the Brazilian and French (Guyana) Amazon rainforest worth one billion euros. It is a public-private partnership program. Brazilian public banks (such as the development bank Bndes) and French development agencies will form "technical and financial partnerships". The two leaders showed their determination to prevent the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 2030, thus contributing to the fight against climate change. Last year, according to government data, Brazil reduced deforestation by 50%. This is a very welcome decision because about 60% of the Amazon area is located in the Brazilian national territory. Additionally, in 2025, Brazil will host the 30th conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 30). The two countries agreed to develop new research projects in sustainable sectors and to create a research center for the exchange of technologies for the development of the bio economy. France could soon become a new member of ACTO because the Amazon rainforest also occupies the territory of F. Guiana.
Great potentials of economic cooperation Economic cooperation was one of the most important topics. France is the third largest investor in Brazil. Merchandise trade in 2023 has reached a whopping 8.4 billion USD. However, Macron openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the large gap in direct investment. While more than a thousand French companies have invested about 44 billion dollars in Brazil, Brazilian companies have invested only 2 billion dollars in France. Therefore, at the 5th Brazil-France Economic Forum, Macron called on powerful Brazilian entrepreneurs to use all the potential of cooperation and initiate greater investments in his country.
Brazil assumed the presidency of the G20 organization from December 1 last year under the slogan: "Building a just world and a sustainable planet." In November, the summit of the organization will be held in Rio de Janeiro. Macron has publicly backed Lula's economic agenda for the G20, including Brazil's idea of working on a global tax for the richest.
Free trade agreement – the main stumbling block
In 2019, after two decades of extremely arduous negotiations, the European Union and Mercosur (the South American trade bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and partners) reached a framework agreement on free trade. Since he came back to power last year, Lula da Silva has tried to put the agreement into practice on several occasions. However, the agreement is still pending and awaiting its ratification.
Meanwhile, France is the most prominent in its opposition to the agreement between the EU and Mercosur, arguing that South American producers do not meet the EU's health and environmental standards (they emphasized beef the most). Macron also confirmed during the visit that the current agreement does not benefit both sides. The French leader called the agreement "very bad" and said that it should be buried in favor of a new one that will be "responsible from the point of view of development, climate and biodiversity". Lula noted that he is "very calm" and diplomatically stressed that Brazil is "not negotiating with France", but with the EU. "We still have time," said Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad. "It is true that we lost an opportunity at the end of last year, but we should not give up on this agreement." Haddad added that Lula invested a lot of time in the agreement and that he will continue to strive for a closer relationship with the EU market. Earlier in March, EU officials emphasized that "decisive progress" could be achieved by July.
Defense cooperation
Lula and Macron discussed the ways in which they could strengthen cooperation in the field of defense. Macron said he wanted to "go beyond" the production of helicopters and submarines and saw "enormous bilateral potential". According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), France is the second largest arms exporter in the world after the US. The French can supply the Brazilian armed forces with the most modern weapons and military equipment.
Submarines are a point of contention. Macron promised to open a "new chapter" in military cooperation as he and Lula launched the fourth submarine built for the Brazilian navy by France's Naval Group under an agreement signed in 2008 by Lula and Nicolas Sarkozy. Brasília wants Paris to share its nuclear know-how to build a fifth submarine, the Alvaro Alberto, the first to be nuclear-powered. It has stuck so far, but there could be progress.
Different views on Ukraine and Russia
The biggest differences between the two presidents are over Ukraine and Russia. Macron and EU officials firmly support Ukraine in its war with Russia, while Lula has taken a neutral stance and has repeatedly said that Ukraine and Russia share responsibility for the war and has refused to isolate Moscow by imposing sanctions. Lula is against sending military or financial support to Kiev. "There is so much inequality that we don't have time to think about another war," Lula said, criticizing "investing in weapons while we have hunger in the world."
The Brazilian president reaffirmed his commitment to peace talks, a stark contrast to Macron, who a little over a month ago talked about the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine to help it resist Russian attacks. "I am so many thousands of kilometers away from Ukraine that I am not forced to have the same nervousness as the French who are closer," said Lula, adding that "the two stubborn leaders" (Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin op. a.) "will have to agree" on ending the war.
Likewise, the two presidents have different views on Putin's possible participation in this year's G20 summit, which will be held in November in Rio. Putin missed last year's G20 summit in New Delhi, avoiding the risk of possible arrest on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant. In September 2023, Lula said there was "no way" Putin would be arrested if he attended the summit. Shortly after, he backtracked and said the justice system would decide Putin's eventual arrest, not his government.
When asked about Putin's participation in the G20 summit at Lula's invitation, Macron said that the topic must meet the consensus of the organization's members. "If it's not a useful meeting and if it's divisive, we shouldn't do it," the French leader suggested to his colleague.
Disagreements about Venezuela
For Lulu, the priority is not Ukraine, but neighboring Venezuela, which Macron agreed with. Both condemned the exclusion of the candidate of the main opposition coalition, Corina Yoris, from the July 28 presidential election. "We very strongly condemn the exclusion of a serious and credible candidate from this process," Macron said. Lula described the situation as "serious" and said that there is no "legal or political explanation for banning an opponent from being a candidate". "I told Maduro that the most important thing for the return of normality to Venezuela is to avoid any problems in the electoral process, to hold the elections in the most democratic way possible."
Conclusion
The commitment to working together to protect the Amazon rainforest and the fight against climate change, as well as the will to strengthen economic and military cooperation, are the most important positive contributions of Macron's visit to Brazil. This visit could mark a new beginning for Franco-Brazilian relations despite differences in world politics.
Differences in relation to Ukraine and Russia and the free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur should not seriously damage bilateral relations. To a good extent, current French-Brazilian relations can be measured by the Lula-Macron personal relationship, which is extremely cordial.
Stronger cooperation should bring tangible benefits to both the French and the Brazilians. Macron will benefit from cooperation with Brazil, which has improved its international standing as Latin America's most populous nation hosts the G20 summit this year and the 30th UN climate change conference next year. Lula welcomes any meeting and agreement that can to some extent satisfy his great country hungry for new knowledge, skills and investments.
2024.03.24 22:29 Still_Performance_39 An Introduction to Terran Zoology - Chapter 34
Credit to for the NOP universe.
Hello all, I hope life's treating you well.
We return today to a catch up with Bernard and one of his students, who has a question for him some might find funny and others may hate that I brought into this future setting, let's find out!
A thank you to all the authors who I asked to let me reference their stories for this chapter, Troublemakers by u/SepticSauces, Living in Harmony by u/Awesomesauceninja, and Letter of Marque by u/Liberty-Prime76. Also thanks to u/Acceptable_Egg5560 for being generally cool with references to Tarlim from The Nature of a Giant and so much more, he's just ubiquitous with NOP and it's well deserved.
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Memory transcription subject: Dr Bernard MacEwan, Professor of Zoology
Date [standardised human time]: 7th September 2136
"Ahhh, what a gorgeous day."
Wandering through the winding pathways and occasional green spaces that made up the patchwork exchange grounds, I took in the day's air with a contented sigh. As always the ever present Sun of Venlil Prime shone down upon the world below; its rays melding with a light breeze to hit that delightful sweet spot of comfortable springlike warmth.
Pleasant as it was, I did have to be mindful of the sunlight itself unfortunately.
Despite many a joke having been made to the contrary, thanks to my home's overcast and drizzly climate, Scotland's inhabitants were not in fact vampires at risk of bursting into flame at the slightest exposure to sunlight. This particular Scotsman though, as pale as I was, needed to be careful. I had neither the time nor patience to deal with sunburn of any degree; regardless of whether it was a simple irritation of the skin or an actual painful burn. Therefore, along with routinely applying a reasonable amount of sunscreen, I had taken another sensible precaution to protect myself from the light that shone down 24/7.
Or would that be 20/5 for the Venlil? Hmmm.
My musings on a Venlil equivalent for the common idiom were abruptly interrupted as my new sunhat got caught in the branch of a low hanging tree, the wide brim snagging and pulling my head back as the toggles around my neck went with it.
“OH! Damn it!”
Coming to an unceremonious halt at an uncomfortable angle, I quickly freed myself from the clutches of my arbour assailant, straightening myself out and glancing around in the hopes that no passersby had witnessed my fumble.
“Okay. The large brim is good for shade but not so good for visibility. Just like it was in the Amazon.”
Chuckling at the recollection of several similar incidents from the time I spent traipsing around the rainforest in search of Pygmy Marmosets, I went back to absentmindedly observing the world around me. I was eager to see if I could spy another native animal that might frequent the hustle and bustle of city life. Anything would do because, quite frankly, I could do with the distraction.
I guess it was too much to hope for peace in the end.
War was on the horizon, if not already in full swing. After Marcel and Slanek returned, bringing with them the brutal reality of how humans would be treated by anyone other than the Venlil, the whispers of conflict had grown into a full chorus calling out for retribution for the cruelty visited upon the poor man.
Of course I agreed that those responsible for the monstrous acts must be held accountable, but a full fledged interplanetary war? Against a species with centuries of battle experience fighting an enemy as merciless as the Arxur?
I knew full well that we humans loved to paint ourselves as fairly tough, but I feared we may be biting off more than we could chew if it came down to a true all out clash. The amount of suffering such an engagement would ultimately cause scarcely bears thinking about.
So many people are going to suffer because of this. Tragically, it’ll likely be the most vulnerable amongst us that bear the brunt of it all.
I huffed forcefully, trying to shake my thoughts free of the depressing weight of my worries, "Enough of that Bernard, think of brighter things to match the sunny day, hm?"
Indeed I had many options to choose from to help take my mind off such dreary concerns. Most notable among them were recent reports from the team at Sands Edge, composed of Doctor Mei Khan, Atama Oliver, and Lance Cross. Accompanied by a group of Venlil researchers, the trio had been tasked with taking a first look at the aquatic ecosystems of Venlil Prime. From what little I’d seen it was clear they’d already made astounding progress with their initial surveys.
The fact that the Venlil themselves had never made the effort to investigate the watery reaches of their home still boggles my mind. But on the plus side, it meant that there was a veritable wonderland of the unknown beneath the waves just waiting to be explored.
Aside from a brief introduction with Doctor Khan over video call on the second day of the programme, I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting them all in person. Her reputation had preceded her at least. An expert in the field of animal behaviour and psychology, she held a position as a professor at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology. I was greatly looking forward to hearing any insights she may have about discoveries made during her time here.
Mr Oliver and Mr Cross were unfamiliar names but even a brief look at their qualifications, coupled with the handful of snapshots displaying the specimen samples they’d retrieved, had me very impressed, as well as giddy with excitement to see what else they might fish from the depths.
Disappointingly their efforts had been waylaid in the last week thanks to the increasing tension brought on by the Gojid’s aggression. It wasn’t so bad for humans like myself who were stationed in large cities close to UN facilities, but the Sands Edge team were way out in the sticks and had therefore been restricted to their small compound out of fears for their safety, should a Venlil with less sense than lighter fluid get any unsavoury ideas about what humans may get up to when under intense stress.
As my mind slowly began to creep towards yet more unsettling thoughts I was grateful to be distracted by an alert from my phone. Checking it, I saw that Alejandro had messaged me.
While I found it odd that Alejandro was asking for a meeting on a day he knew I had off from my official duties, I certainly wasn’t opposed to his request. On the contrary, having not made any plans for how I was going to spend my day, aside from relaxing, I was more than happy to have an impromptu chat with him.
He’s always come across as such a genuinely kind person. Tolim is lucky to have him.
I smirked at the thought, finding the reminder of my silent promise to secrecy about their relationship rather comical in retrospect. While they hadn’t gone as far as to openly declare their budding romance to the world they hadn’t been particularly sly about it either. It’d swiftly become the worst kept secret on campus, with most people easily clocking the consistently smitten expressions adorning both administrators whenever they were in one another's company.
Still smiling beneath my mask I typed up a brief response, saying I’d be delighted to catch up and confirming that we’d meet in his office at the requested time. With that settled, that still left me with roughly half an hour to continue my stroll before I’d have to head over.
Sadly I didn’t catch sight of any unfamiliar local wildlife during the next 30 minutes. I was momentarily accosted by a small flock of flowerbirds at one point, who spent some time darting around me loudly tweeting demands for seeds I didn’t have. Much as I’d come to understand why the Venlil saw the little feather balls as annoyances, I couldn’t help but find the bird's attitude humorously endearing.
Watching the fearless brightly hued plumes of indignation hop about around the feet of a creature that dwarfed them by an order of magnitude had a way of warming the heart. A David and Goliath comparison may not be the most apt perhaps, but I still appreciated their steely determination against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Or maybe they’re just too birdbrained to recognise the disparity. Either way, they’re cheeky little scamps!
Realising that I wasn’t going to give in to their squawking insistence the flock eventually dispersed, leaving me to wander the last leg of my journey alone.
Or so I thought.
Rounding a corner I noticed the familiar figure of Kailo pacing about a little way ahead of me. Judging by his twisting tail, lopsided ears, and the furrow creasing his brow, he appeared to be struggling with something that was taking up quite a bit of space in his head.
Hmmm, interesting.
Softly so as not to startle him from his thoughts too harshly, I called to him as I approached, “Kailo, how’re you doing this fine day?”
He shook a bit as my greeting hit his ears, blinking back to the world around him from whatever it was he’d been so wrapped up in seconds before.
An eye quickly directed itself to me, a tail flick of acknowledgement following soon after as Kailo hurriedly collected himself, though a semblance of tension still clung to him despite his best efforts to dismiss it, “Doctor uh- hello, good paw. I’m doing well, thank you. How are you?”
Now I wasn’t usually suspicious of cordial greetings but, considering who I was speaking to, I was rather surprised by Kailo’s out of character overly stilted politeness.
Something’s clearly bothering him. Hmmm.
I’m going to take a chance here.
Forcing a bit more cheer into my voice than was already present I answered him, “Oh I’m splendid Kailo, absolutely splendid. But, and I don’t mean to pry, are you sure you’re doing alright? You seemed rather worked up about something?”
A flash of discomfort swept through Kailo’s tail. Whether it was due to the topic that was on his mind or because I’d noticed he’d been grappling with it was unclear. But seeing as how his ears had just pinned against his head in an expression of irritation I’d become all too familiar with, I was certain I was about to be on the receiving end of yet another one of his hallmark outbursts.
Bracing myself for the oncoming flare of Kailo’s anger, I was surprised to instead see it dissipate entirely just as swiftly as it’d arisen, replaced with a look of sheepishness that would feel more at home on Rysel.
“Doctor?”, he began, his apparent embarrassment further solidified as he twisted the ends of his two index claws together whilst looking down at his paws, “This is going to sound really stupid but I have a question… about humans.”
Kailo’s sudden change in tone was unexpected, but any thoughts as to why were thoroughly tossed aside by the immediate joy I felt at the realisation that Kailo was concerned about something and that, out of all the people he could be asking, he was willing to express his worries to me.
I wonder why he hasn’t asked Doctor Gallagher his question? Oh no matter, I’m happy to help whatever the reason!
Trying to keep the happiness out of my voice so that it didn’t seem like I was making light of Kailo’s apprehension, I nodded back at the expectant Venlil, “Absolutely Kailo! I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about humans, provided it’s something I can answer of course.”
Kailo’s features softened at my assurances, the stress twisting along his tail relaxing ever so slightly, “I see, thank you Doctor. Well it’s about something Roisin told me. I think she’s lying to me honestly, she seemed too insistent about it for it to be a joke. But it just sounds too absurd to be real!”
Hm, that’s odd. I wouldn’t think she’d be the type to mislead someone. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.
Kailo carried on with his question, ears flicking outward in outright quizzical exasperation, “Do some humans think their planet is flat?”
Something struck me in that moment. Something that deafened me to everything around me and left me dumbfounded in its wake. The ambient noise of far off traffic, chatter from passersby, and the gentle trickle of a nearby fountain all blended together into a formless blur of sound as the question bludgeoned my consciousness.
Out of all the things he could’ve asked. Out of every facet of human society, culture, or behaviour he could’ve been interested in, this was what he was asking me about.
This.
After trying and failing several times to mount a proper reply, I finally managed to stutter a brief response, my brain barely able to keep itself together through the near overwhelming psychological blow, “Wh- ah… w-what?”
Kailo pressed on, my reaction clearly inciting further eagerness for an answer as he padded closer to me, his tail whipping demandingly, “Do some humans think the Earth is flat like a disc? Roisin says they exist but that’s crazy!”
Damn it Gallagher! What are you telling him about us? Nonsense clearly!
Groaning in equal parts frustration and shame over my species' infinite ability for stupidity I looked down at Kailo, thankful that my mask was hiding my scrunched and reddening cheeks, “Regrettably Kailo, they do indeed exist.”
It was Kailo’s turn to stew in bewildered silence as he stared at me in disbelief, his good ear falling flat while the scarred one twitched as he struggled to comprehend the madness I’d just imparted upon him.
This didn’t last long, for his confusion soon cycled over into a single despairing cry, “Why!?”
All I could do was shake my head and shrug defeatedly, “I wish I knew. Sometimes people choose to believe in the strangest of things and there’s little we can do to change their minds.”
Kailo’s eyes bulged in wide eyed shock, his mouth falling open in slack jawed incredulity at my dispassionate explanation, “But- but- How!? You have spaceflight! Commercially available spaceflight! You went into space almost 200 years ago and you’re the first species since the Kolshians and Farsul to figure out FTL without outside help! And even ignoring that, Roisin told me humans have known the Earth was spherical for thousands of years by using maths. How can anyone think the Earth is flat!?”
Huh, I’m amazed he knows that. Gallagher’s not just filling his head with nonsense it seems.
“All good points Kailo, all good points. Be that as it may for one reason or another the belief has, endured.”, The word rolled bitterly over my tongue, the reminder that such a bullheaded anti-science position had been in the spotlight for far longer than most reputable schools of science tended to instiled a poor taste in my mouth.
Nevertheless, as much as it pained me to continue talking about this obscene topic, I felt I should nip this in the bud before it got out of hand. I could hardly imagine that Kailo was going to be patient zero of a Venlil Prime conspiracy regarding whether or not their own planet was a globe or not, but having gotten a first hand experience of their approach to ecology over the past few weeks, I was completely unwilling to take such risks.
Just before I could pick the conversation back up Kailo got in ahead of me, his bewilderment having fallen back into a tight-knitted scowl of concentration as he mulled something over. He spoke quietly, muttering just under his breath, but a lifetime of listening for even the slightest hint of animal life meant that my hearing was still as sharp as it was when I was twenty.
“So they believe weird things that don’t match reality? That makes the ‘birds aren’t real’ thing make a lot more sense now.”
Yet again, Kailo caught me unawares with another blisteringly stunning statement, “I’m sorry, what? Birds aren’t real?”
Kailo’s snout snapped back up at me, his wool ever so slightly flaring in surprise, confirming my suspicions that he’d not meant for me to hear that, “Ah uh- it’s nothing. Well, not nothing, it's just… There was an incident a while back between a Krakotl exterminator and a human. They got into an argument because the human kept saying the exterminator wasn’t real because they were a bird. Is that another ridiculous human belief?”
Rather than be hit across the head with another searing pang of angst over aggravating conspiracy theories, a jovial bubble of laughter burst from me without warning startling Kailo, who jumped back a step at my sudden inexplicable outburst.
“What? What is it? Oh Inatala don’t tell me this is something you believe in!?”
Still chortling away I waved a hand and shook my head in the negative, taking a breath to settle the abrupt chuckle fit Kailo had inadvertently ignited within me, “No- Ha! No, certainly not. Birds very much exist. But, interestingly enough, that is not a conspiracy theory like the flat Earth nonsense. It’s actually a counter protest group from quite a long time ago that has long since gained meme and joke status even to this day.”
Kailo’s head tilted inquisitively, my explanation seemingly not making a whole lot of sense to him.
“Ok, so. A little over a century ago the group was founded as a way to protest political positions they felt were, in a word, absurd. They’d go to rallies that supported these positions and hold up signs and chant slogans that said birds weren’t real in an effort to ridicule the people they were against because of course such a belief would be ridiculous.”
A flap of understanding passed through Kailo’s ears before they quickly switched back to twitching in curiosity once again, “Ok that’s weird, but not as weird as not believing birds are real altogether. How’d you learn about it?”
“I have a friend who’s an ornithologist, it’s a specialty of my own field of study that specifically researches birds. She found out about it and thought it was hilarious so bought herself several shirts, badges, and even coffee mugs all emblazoned with the phrase ‘Birds aren’t real’.”, I chuckled merrily at the fond memory of walking into her office one day to find that, among the many diagrams, pictures, and models of various extremely real avians, there hung a banner right above her desk that boldly declared ‘BIRDS AREN’T REAL’.
Conscious that I was still in company, and as such I couldn’t get too wrapped up in my own memories for the time being, I turned my attention back to Kailo with my own questioning stare. He’d mentioned an argument between a human and an exterminator after all, and since the news hadn’t yet worked its way to me through the grapevine of gossip, I was interested to hear more about it.
“So Kailo, what was that you were saying about a squabble? I hope no one got into any serious trouble?”
“Hm?”, Kailo absentmindedly replied, apparently having been caught up in his own thoughts while I’d been spending a moment reminiscing, “Oh yeah! I mean no, no one got hurt. From what I heard the exterminator eventually got fed up and stormed off which ended the whole thing. Still, it helped that Tova was there keeping the rest of her squad in check. Who knows how it could’ve escalated without her there to keep a handle on things.”
Now that’s a name I’ve not heard before. Clearly an exterminator like Kailo. Maybe a well known one in their circles?
Curious to see if my suspicions were correct, and more than a little interested to see if I could get Kailo to offer up some information on the personality types of famous exterminators, I asked, “Who’s Tova?”
The reaction was as immediate as it was astonishing. Kailo’s demeanour did an instantaneous 180 from indifference to ecstatic, excitement gleaming in his eyes. Tail whipping behind him and ears twirling giddily he opened his mouth to answer, but just as suddenly as it’d come on his enthusiasm drooped into nervous fidgeting and he looked off a little ways down the street.
Eventually he settled down, looking back at me with what I could’ve sworn was a disappointed head tilt, “I uh… I actually have to go meet Blim soon over at the admin buildings. I don’t think I have any more time to talk without being late.”
Ah! He’s got a meeting too? How fortuitous!
I was pleased to hear I had a chance to walk and talk with Kailo about something he was passionate about; even if it was exterminators of all things. But, just before I could ask to accompany him to our shared destination, he spoke up again, a familiar fire blazing through every word that left his snout.
“This isn’t me trying to avoid the topic by the way. If I had the time I’d love the chance to properly teach you about all the good exterminators can do, especially the best of the batch! I know how you feel about what we do, but officers like Tova are prime examples of why we’re so respectable and important to the continued safety of the herd!”
In times not long past, such a speech from Kailo about his chosen profession would’ve been laced with a venom so potent it’d put a Black Widow to shame. To my astonishment however, the goading boastfulness I’d come to expect was nowhere to be heard. Instead, Kailo struck a pose of determined professionalism. Straight backed and proud, he puffed out his chest and flicked his ears up in a show of sincerity that I’d rarely seen from him.
Scratch that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that from him. Disparaging, sulky, and apprehensive perhaps, but never this.
In contrast to my internal monologue and to Kailo’s own credit, I did recognise the recent efforts he’d made towards making a positive change to his attitude with regards to the classes. He’d started to actively participate in the lectures now, rather than interrupt them just so he could stand atop his soap box and decry the dangers of predators at every opportunity.
He still had the bad habit of glaring at people like he wanted to bore a hole through their heads from time to time, but he was making progress in the right direction, and I for one was intent on encouraging this shift in behaviour.
Smiling warmly at the still proudly posing Venlil, I replied to his declaration, “Well Kailo, today might just be your lucky day! As it happens I’m also heading that way to a meeting of my own. Why don’t we walk together and you can tell me all about the officers you hold in high regard, hm? It’ll be our own mini lecture with you as the teacher!”
Kailo’s eyes went wide and his tail spun frantically, “Really!”, he excitedly blurted out, a little louder than he probably intended.
“I uh- achem. I mean, is that so? Then sure, I’ll tell you all about some of our best. It’s about time you saw my side of things! Come on then.”
With that he turned towards the offices and walked off at a steady pace, flicking his tail at me in what I assumed was a ‘follow along’ kind of gesture. And follow I did, doing my best to stifle the chuckle brought on by Kailo’s abrupt burst of enthusiasm.
Just like Rysel is with animals. Though I doubt either would appreciate the comparison.
“So then, we’re starting with Tova?.”, Kailo rhetorically asked, his ears standing stalk straight as he strode forth in deliberate almost marching like fashion, “Her story, like far too many, is tragic. As a pup she was on a ship that was attacked and boarded by the Arxur. However, despite being young, she was determined to fight back and protect the people onboard. In all the chaos she managed to create a trap and lead the Arxur into it, killing them in an explosion and saving everyone who was still alive! She became an exterminator not long after, and ever since then she’s protected the people with just as much fortitude!”
Uuuuhhhh…
Whether Kailo was expecting a response was unclear, but it wouldn't have mattered either way. As his short recounting of Tova’s origin story came to an end, I found my mind swamped by a fog of stunned horror.
A child, a literal child, had rigged up an IED trap and then managed to lure the raiders into it. Short of looking up the incident myself to check the veracity of Kailo’s tale, the only source to hand was the young man himself. He didn’t appear to be lying, he seemed too enamoured with the story himself for him to be making it up on the spot. But even so, regardless of whether the account was completely factually or even slightly embellished, it was a tough pill to swallow.
“Hey doctor, are you listening?”, Kailo’s verbal prod pulled me from the worst of the roaming intrusive thoughts flashing across my mind in reaction to what he’d told me, though a few disquieting ones still lingered on the edges of my awareness.
“Oh! I am indeed Kailo. I was uh… just considering your story. Tova sounds rather… formidable.”
Right now was another moment in which I found myself grateful that I still had to wear my mask when outside. It was impossible for me to know whether or not Kailo could pick up on my discomfort through my voice alone, but if my face had been visible I was sure he’d catch on pretty quickly.
Thankfully Kailo either couldn’t tell or was too caught up in my perceived complement to notice anything was off, because his tail flourished in satisfaction, “Formidable is right! Not only is she highly regarded for her work and her commitment to her duties, she’s also easily one of the largest Venlil you’ll ever see! Not as big as a human probably, but still pretty large for one of us!”
“But she’s not the biggest fullstop is she? I know that there's a Venlil called Tarlim who’s easily two feet taller than most humans. Didn’t he have a lot of trouble with the exterminators?”
WHY!?
The statement and follow up question was out my mouth before I could stamp it out, my decades honed instinct to counter a point of discussion rearing its head at the worst of times. In spite of the very real questions I believed needed to be tackled at some point, this was not the moment I would’ve chosen, especially not when I was finally building a rapport with my most difficult student.
Glancing at him it was plain as day to see that Kailo’s spirit had fallen considerably, my untimely criticism laying low any of his previous giddiness.
He suddenly came to a halt, his short wool frizzing out as he rounded on me with an oranging snout brimming with ire. In the split-second of silence that followed I prepared myself for the oncoming storm of rage I’d faced time and again. But in a moment of astonishing serendipity, what erupted from Kailo wasn’t a slew of vitriol levelled at me.
Instead, a grumbling bray of tired aggravation flowed from him, tail and ears deflating to match this new mood, “Ugggghhhhh… Please doctor, I’m begging you. Please don’t bring them up.”
Intrigued by his reaction, and again failing to quiet the goading murmurs telling me to push the point a little bit further, I replied, “And why’s that? Not a fan of those exterminators like you are of To-”
I didn’t even get to finish my question.
Kailo angrily stamped his foot and his tail lashed off the ground, interrupting me with a vicious tinge lacing his words, “By Inatala no! They’re a disgrace to the badge in my books. They botched their scans for PD, hid the fact from everyone until it was brought out in court, and then still clung to their story that he could be dangerous. And you know why they thought he was dangerous? Because he’s big!!!”
Once again Kailo stunned me, though for a different and far preferable reason. Tarlim and his case had come up in passing conversation with other humans who’d in turn heard the tale from their exchange partners. It was a ghastly story, one fraught with horrifying implications for all manner of reasons. From what little I’d learned about the controversy, many exterminators who’d been outspoken on the topic backed the actions of the Dawn Creek office; if not standing behind the officers themselves, who were fired from what I'd seen, then at least acknowledging that the poor man could still be a threat simply for his size.
Usually this would be the part where I’d try to give my own two-cents to the conversation, but despite having earlier asked not to talk about the issue, Kailo was far from done voicing his indignation, “It’s insane! Big! BIG!? Mazic are big. Takkan are big. Are we rounding all of them up for PD scans or putting up signs saying ‘Beware, Large Species Around’? Iftali are big as well! They dwarf the other species that live on Jild, but the Suleans aren’t scared of them are they!? Speaking of, the Suleans have antlers that could easily gore someone if they’re not careful. Should all Suleans wear foam on the ends of them for the herds' safety? NO!”
A part of me was tempted to let Kailo continue his rant for as long as it took to peter out, fascinated to see just how far he might go in diverging from what appeared to be a norm for the exterminators. I was not that nefarious however, and I was conscious that our meetings were getting steadily closer with the two of us still having a ways left to travel before we arrived at the offices.
I need to get him moving again, maybe get him back onto talking about the exterminators he likes. But how? Oh!
The idea struck me like lighting, a grin quickly spreading across my face as I looked down at the still seething Venlil.
This should work.
Taking the opportunity to slip into the conversation once Kailo eventually stopped to take a breath, I stated quite plainly, “It’s good to know there’s someone like yourself wearing that badge then. Someone who recognises that we can’t go around demonising people because of their differences. It’s an excellent mindset to have, both in general and most certainly in a job that requires you to care and protect your community. You should be proud of yourself for it.”
Whatever gripes Kailo may have been about to further shout out into the world fell silent as he processed my statement, my hunch that appealing to his ego might stymie his frustrations striking true. Honestly, I meant every word of it. Even if the things he did believe in still stung to hear about, it was a relief to know that Kailo didn’t toe the line completely when it came to exterminator doctrine.
My interruption appeared to jolt Kailo out of the tunnel vision his rants often drew him into, reminding him of where exactly he was.
After a brief scan of the surroundings he hastily composed himself, clearing his throat and returning his focus to me, “Achem. Well, I um… thank you doctor. I think so too. It’s not right to judge people like that just because they look different. How can exterminators properly fulfil their duties if all they’re doing is profiling people on physical differences after all.”
I did my best not to let it show in my posture, but the irony of what was coming out of Kailo’s mouth was battering my psyche like nothing else. Not only because of how he’d treated humans since he’d met us, which I could somewhat overlook and forgive due to cultural trauma at the claws of the Arxur, but because I knew full well that exterminators didn’t just profile people due to explicitly physical differences.
Following my first exposure to the guilds existence, I’d made a point of learning about them at any spare opportunity. I’d been horrified by the way they treated innocent creatures for their appearance and diet. But what I found behind that? That was infinitely worse.
Predator Disease. A sickening repression of the concept and understanding of the neurotypical in any sense festered throughout the Federation. People who skewed anywhere from the pseudo scientific ‘baseline’ the supposed professionals had cooked up were hauled away to facilities that bore a monstrous resemblance to the old asylums that once existed aplenty across the Earth.
Conflict raged within me as I stared at Kailo, one side screaming at me to lay the sordid nature of so-called predator disease bare while the other begged me to stay silent and maintain this fragile rare instance of peace that’d sprung up between the two of us.
Only seconds passed in the real world as I wrestled with the cacophony swirling around my head, but I eventually made my choice, as selfish as it might’ve been.
“You’re quite right Kailo.”, sighing as quietly as I could I took a step forward, pushing myself onwards and forcing a little bit of cheer back into my voice, “Now then, we really should be off if we’re going to get to the office in time. Why don’t you tell me about another exterminator, hm? Any others aside from Tova you think are particularly commendable?”
Far easier than I’d done Kailo bounced back into a jovial mood almost instantly, ears perking and tail swishing happily as he bounced along beside me, “Of course there are! I could spend all paw talking if you let me! There’s Rensa from Heartwood. She’s retired now sadly, a work accident, but she was one of the best in her time along with another officer from the same town called Shenod who’s still active.”
Beeping away merrily, Kailo gushed over every exterminator he admired that he could think of while we walked, his pace never slowing and his enjoyment never waning. Aside from a few verbal acknowledgements and the occasional ‘Oh is that so?’ I remained largely quiet, choosing to appreciate this unanticipated but refreshing change of pace to our usual back and forth.
The glee with which he talked about people who’d gladly burn animals alive was something I’d never get used to, especially seeing as how many might be inclined to do the same to a human if given the opportunity.
Nevertheless, right now, I could look past that discomfort and accept that finally, after weeks of trying and failing to find an inroad with him, Kailo and I were actually spending time together and having a pleasa- pleasentish conversation. That alone was enough to lift my heart high from the morose haze that’d been clinging to me as of late, the ever expanding list of bad news continually adding to the depressive atmosphere.
I will have to properly thank Doctor Gallagher at some point, she really seems to have helped Kailo loosen up. Maybe all he really needed was one good friend in the end. Hm, isn’t that always the way?
Dismissing my musings so I could pay proper attention to Kailo, whose font of knowledge for famous exterminators was apparently endless, I beamed beneath my mask, glancing up at the bright blue sky and allowing the tension I’d been feeling to relax from my shoulders as a cool breeze swept over me.
Ahhh, what a gorgeous day indeed.
submitted by Still_Performance_39 to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]
Hello all, I hope life's treating you well.
We return today to a catch up with Bernard and one of his students, who has a question for him some might find funny and others may hate that I brought into this future setting, let's find out!
A thank you to all the authors who I asked to let me reference their stories for this chapter, Troublemakers by u/SepticSauces, Living in Harmony by u/Awesomesauceninja, and Letter of Marque by u/Liberty-Prime76. Also thanks to u/Acceptable_Egg5560 for being generally cool with references to Tarlim from The Nature of a Giant and so much more, he's just ubiquitous with NOP and it's well deserved.
[First] [Previous] [Next] April Fools Chapter
Memory transcription subject: Dr Bernard MacEwan, Professor of Zoology
Date [standardised human time]: 7th September 2136
"Ahhh, what a gorgeous day."
Wandering through the winding pathways and occasional green spaces that made up the patchwork exchange grounds, I took in the day's air with a contented sigh. As always the ever present Sun of Venlil Prime shone down upon the world below; its rays melding with a light breeze to hit that delightful sweet spot of comfortable springlike warmth.
Pleasant as it was, I did have to be mindful of the sunlight itself unfortunately.
Despite many a joke having been made to the contrary, thanks to my home's overcast and drizzly climate, Scotland's inhabitants were not in fact vampires at risk of bursting into flame at the slightest exposure to sunlight. This particular Scotsman though, as pale as I was, needed to be careful. I had neither the time nor patience to deal with sunburn of any degree; regardless of whether it was a simple irritation of the skin or an actual painful burn. Therefore, along with routinely applying a reasonable amount of sunscreen, I had taken another sensible precaution to protect myself from the light that shone down 24/7.
Or would that be 20/5 for the Venlil? Hmmm.
My musings on a Venlil equivalent for the common idiom were abruptly interrupted as my new sunhat got caught in the branch of a low hanging tree, the wide brim snagging and pulling my head back as the toggles around my neck went with it.
“OH! Damn it!”
Coming to an unceremonious halt at an uncomfortable angle, I quickly freed myself from the clutches of my arbour assailant, straightening myself out and glancing around in the hopes that no passersby had witnessed my fumble.
“Okay. The large brim is good for shade but not so good for visibility. Just like it was in the Amazon.”
Chuckling at the recollection of several similar incidents from the time I spent traipsing around the rainforest in search of Pygmy Marmosets, I went back to absentmindedly observing the world around me. I was eager to see if I could spy another native animal that might frequent the hustle and bustle of city life. Anything would do because, quite frankly, I could do with the distraction.
I guess it was too much to hope for peace in the end.
War was on the horizon, if not already in full swing. After Marcel and Slanek returned, bringing with them the brutal reality of how humans would be treated by anyone other than the Venlil, the whispers of conflict had grown into a full chorus calling out for retribution for the cruelty visited upon the poor man.
Of course I agreed that those responsible for the monstrous acts must be held accountable, but a full fledged interplanetary war? Against a species with centuries of battle experience fighting an enemy as merciless as the Arxur?
I knew full well that we humans loved to paint ourselves as fairly tough, but I feared we may be biting off more than we could chew if it came down to a true all out clash. The amount of suffering such an engagement would ultimately cause scarcely bears thinking about.
So many people are going to suffer because of this. Tragically, it’ll likely be the most vulnerable amongst us that bear the brunt of it all.
I huffed forcefully, trying to shake my thoughts free of the depressing weight of my worries, "Enough of that Bernard, think of brighter things to match the sunny day, hm?"
Indeed I had many options to choose from to help take my mind off such dreary concerns. Most notable among them were recent reports from the team at Sands Edge, composed of Doctor Mei Khan, Atama Oliver, and Lance Cross. Accompanied by a group of Venlil researchers, the trio had been tasked with taking a first look at the aquatic ecosystems of Venlil Prime. From what little I’d seen it was clear they’d already made astounding progress with their initial surveys.
The fact that the Venlil themselves had never made the effort to investigate the watery reaches of their home still boggles my mind. But on the plus side, it meant that there was a veritable wonderland of the unknown beneath the waves just waiting to be explored.
Aside from a brief introduction with Doctor Khan over video call on the second day of the programme, I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting them all in person. Her reputation had preceded her at least. An expert in the field of animal behaviour and psychology, she held a position as a professor at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology. I was greatly looking forward to hearing any insights she may have about discoveries made during her time here.
Mr Oliver and Mr Cross were unfamiliar names but even a brief look at their qualifications, coupled with the handful of snapshots displaying the specimen samples they’d retrieved, had me very impressed, as well as giddy with excitement to see what else they might fish from the depths.
Disappointingly their efforts had been waylaid in the last week thanks to the increasing tension brought on by the Gojid’s aggression. It wasn’t so bad for humans like myself who were stationed in large cities close to UN facilities, but the Sands Edge team were way out in the sticks and had therefore been restricted to their small compound out of fears for their safety, should a Venlil with less sense than lighter fluid get any unsavoury ideas about what humans may get up to when under intense stress.
As my mind slowly began to creep towards yet more unsettling thoughts I was grateful to be distracted by an alert from my phone. Checking it, I saw that Alejandro had messaged me.
While I found it odd that Alejandro was asking for a meeting on a day he knew I had off from my official duties, I certainly wasn’t opposed to his request. On the contrary, having not made any plans for how I was going to spend my day, aside from relaxing, I was more than happy to have an impromptu chat with him.
He’s always come across as such a genuinely kind person. Tolim is lucky to have him.
I smirked at the thought, finding the reminder of my silent promise to secrecy about their relationship rather comical in retrospect. While they hadn’t gone as far as to openly declare their budding romance to the world they hadn’t been particularly sly about it either. It’d swiftly become the worst kept secret on campus, with most people easily clocking the consistently smitten expressions adorning both administrators whenever they were in one another's company.
Still smiling beneath my mask I typed up a brief response, saying I’d be delighted to catch up and confirming that we’d meet in his office at the requested time. With that settled, that still left me with roughly half an hour to continue my stroll before I’d have to head over.
Sadly I didn’t catch sight of any unfamiliar local wildlife during the next 30 minutes. I was momentarily accosted by a small flock of flowerbirds at one point, who spent some time darting around me loudly tweeting demands for seeds I didn’t have. Much as I’d come to understand why the Venlil saw the little feather balls as annoyances, I couldn’t help but find the bird's attitude humorously endearing.
Watching the fearless brightly hued plumes of indignation hop about around the feet of a creature that dwarfed them by an order of magnitude had a way of warming the heart. A David and Goliath comparison may not be the most apt perhaps, but I still appreciated their steely determination against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Or maybe they’re just too birdbrained to recognise the disparity. Either way, they’re cheeky little scamps!
Realising that I wasn’t going to give in to their squawking insistence the flock eventually dispersed, leaving me to wander the last leg of my journey alone.
Or so I thought.
Rounding a corner I noticed the familiar figure of Kailo pacing about a little way ahead of me. Judging by his twisting tail, lopsided ears, and the furrow creasing his brow, he appeared to be struggling with something that was taking up quite a bit of space in his head.
Hmmm, interesting.
Softly so as not to startle him from his thoughts too harshly, I called to him as I approached, “Kailo, how’re you doing this fine day?”
He shook a bit as my greeting hit his ears, blinking back to the world around him from whatever it was he’d been so wrapped up in seconds before.
An eye quickly directed itself to me, a tail flick of acknowledgement following soon after as Kailo hurriedly collected himself, though a semblance of tension still clung to him despite his best efforts to dismiss it, “Doctor uh- hello, good paw. I’m doing well, thank you. How are you?”
Now I wasn’t usually suspicious of cordial greetings but, considering who I was speaking to, I was rather surprised by Kailo’s out of character overly stilted politeness.
Something’s clearly bothering him. Hmmm.
I’m going to take a chance here.
Forcing a bit more cheer into my voice than was already present I answered him, “Oh I’m splendid Kailo, absolutely splendid. But, and I don’t mean to pry, are you sure you’re doing alright? You seemed rather worked up about something?”
A flash of discomfort swept through Kailo’s tail. Whether it was due to the topic that was on his mind or because I’d noticed he’d been grappling with it was unclear. But seeing as how his ears had just pinned against his head in an expression of irritation I’d become all too familiar with, I was certain I was about to be on the receiving end of yet another one of his hallmark outbursts.
Bracing myself for the oncoming flare of Kailo’s anger, I was surprised to instead see it dissipate entirely just as swiftly as it’d arisen, replaced with a look of sheepishness that would feel more at home on Rysel.
“Doctor?”, he began, his apparent embarrassment further solidified as he twisted the ends of his two index claws together whilst looking down at his paws, “This is going to sound really stupid but I have a question… about humans.”
Kailo’s sudden change in tone was unexpected, but any thoughts as to why were thoroughly tossed aside by the immediate joy I felt at the realisation that Kailo was concerned about something and that, out of all the people he could be asking, he was willing to express his worries to me.
I wonder why he hasn’t asked Doctor Gallagher his question? Oh no matter, I’m happy to help whatever the reason!
Trying to keep the happiness out of my voice so that it didn’t seem like I was making light of Kailo’s apprehension, I nodded back at the expectant Venlil, “Absolutely Kailo! I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about humans, provided it’s something I can answer of course.”
Kailo’s features softened at my assurances, the stress twisting along his tail relaxing ever so slightly, “I see, thank you Doctor. Well it’s about something Roisin told me. I think she’s lying to me honestly, she seemed too insistent about it for it to be a joke. But it just sounds too absurd to be real!”
Hm, that’s odd. I wouldn’t think she’d be the type to mislead someone. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.
Kailo carried on with his question, ears flicking outward in outright quizzical exasperation, “Do some humans think their planet is flat?”
Something struck me in that moment. Something that deafened me to everything around me and left me dumbfounded in its wake. The ambient noise of far off traffic, chatter from passersby, and the gentle trickle of a nearby fountain all blended together into a formless blur of sound as the question bludgeoned my consciousness.
Out of all the things he could’ve asked. Out of every facet of human society, culture, or behaviour he could’ve been interested in, this was what he was asking me about.
This.
After trying and failing several times to mount a proper reply, I finally managed to stutter a brief response, my brain barely able to keep itself together through the near overwhelming psychological blow, “Wh- ah… w-what?”
Kailo pressed on, my reaction clearly inciting further eagerness for an answer as he padded closer to me, his tail whipping demandingly, “Do some humans think the Earth is flat like a disc? Roisin says they exist but that’s crazy!”
Damn it Gallagher! What are you telling him about us? Nonsense clearly!
Groaning in equal parts frustration and shame over my species' infinite ability for stupidity I looked down at Kailo, thankful that my mask was hiding my scrunched and reddening cheeks, “Regrettably Kailo, they do indeed exist.”
It was Kailo’s turn to stew in bewildered silence as he stared at me in disbelief, his good ear falling flat while the scarred one twitched as he struggled to comprehend the madness I’d just imparted upon him.
This didn’t last long, for his confusion soon cycled over into a single despairing cry, “Why!?”
All I could do was shake my head and shrug defeatedly, “I wish I knew. Sometimes people choose to believe in the strangest of things and there’s little we can do to change their minds.”
Kailo’s eyes bulged in wide eyed shock, his mouth falling open in slack jawed incredulity at my dispassionate explanation, “But- but- How!? You have spaceflight! Commercially available spaceflight! You went into space almost 200 years ago and you’re the first species since the Kolshians and Farsul to figure out FTL without outside help! And even ignoring that, Roisin told me humans have known the Earth was spherical for thousands of years by using maths. How can anyone think the Earth is flat!?”
Huh, I’m amazed he knows that. Gallagher’s not just filling his head with nonsense it seems.
“All good points Kailo, all good points. Be that as it may for one reason or another the belief has, endured.”, The word rolled bitterly over my tongue, the reminder that such a bullheaded anti-science position had been in the spotlight for far longer than most reputable schools of science tended to instiled a poor taste in my mouth.
Nevertheless, as much as it pained me to continue talking about this obscene topic, I felt I should nip this in the bud before it got out of hand. I could hardly imagine that Kailo was going to be patient zero of a Venlil Prime conspiracy regarding whether or not their own planet was a globe or not, but having gotten a first hand experience of their approach to ecology over the past few weeks, I was completely unwilling to take such risks.
Just before I could pick the conversation back up Kailo got in ahead of me, his bewilderment having fallen back into a tight-knitted scowl of concentration as he mulled something over. He spoke quietly, muttering just under his breath, but a lifetime of listening for even the slightest hint of animal life meant that my hearing was still as sharp as it was when I was twenty.
“So they believe weird things that don’t match reality? That makes the ‘birds aren’t real’ thing make a lot more sense now.”
Yet again, Kailo caught me unawares with another blisteringly stunning statement, “I’m sorry, what? Birds aren’t real?”
Kailo’s snout snapped back up at me, his wool ever so slightly flaring in surprise, confirming my suspicions that he’d not meant for me to hear that, “Ah uh- it’s nothing. Well, not nothing, it's just… There was an incident a while back between a Krakotl exterminator and a human. They got into an argument because the human kept saying the exterminator wasn’t real because they were a bird. Is that another ridiculous human belief?”
Rather than be hit across the head with another searing pang of angst over aggravating conspiracy theories, a jovial bubble of laughter burst from me without warning startling Kailo, who jumped back a step at my sudden inexplicable outburst.
“What? What is it? Oh Inatala don’t tell me this is something you believe in!?”
Still chortling away I waved a hand and shook my head in the negative, taking a breath to settle the abrupt chuckle fit Kailo had inadvertently ignited within me, “No- Ha! No, certainly not. Birds very much exist. But, interestingly enough, that is not a conspiracy theory like the flat Earth nonsense. It’s actually a counter protest group from quite a long time ago that has long since gained meme and joke status even to this day.”
Kailo’s head tilted inquisitively, my explanation seemingly not making a whole lot of sense to him.
“Ok, so. A little over a century ago the group was founded as a way to protest political positions they felt were, in a word, absurd. They’d go to rallies that supported these positions and hold up signs and chant slogans that said birds weren’t real in an effort to ridicule the people they were against because of course such a belief would be ridiculous.”
A flap of understanding passed through Kailo’s ears before they quickly switched back to twitching in curiosity once again, “Ok that’s weird, but not as weird as not believing birds are real altogether. How’d you learn about it?”
“I have a friend who’s an ornithologist, it’s a specialty of my own field of study that specifically researches birds. She found out about it and thought it was hilarious so bought herself several shirts, badges, and even coffee mugs all emblazoned with the phrase ‘Birds aren’t real’.”, I chuckled merrily at the fond memory of walking into her office one day to find that, among the many diagrams, pictures, and models of various extremely real avians, there hung a banner right above her desk that boldly declared ‘BIRDS AREN’T REAL’.
Conscious that I was still in company, and as such I couldn’t get too wrapped up in my own memories for the time being, I turned my attention back to Kailo with my own questioning stare. He’d mentioned an argument between a human and an exterminator after all, and since the news hadn’t yet worked its way to me through the grapevine of gossip, I was interested to hear more about it.
“So Kailo, what was that you were saying about a squabble? I hope no one got into any serious trouble?”
“Hm?”, Kailo absentmindedly replied, apparently having been caught up in his own thoughts while I’d been spending a moment reminiscing, “Oh yeah! I mean no, no one got hurt. From what I heard the exterminator eventually got fed up and stormed off which ended the whole thing. Still, it helped that Tova was there keeping the rest of her squad in check. Who knows how it could’ve escalated without her there to keep a handle on things.”
Now that’s a name I’ve not heard before. Clearly an exterminator like Kailo. Maybe a well known one in their circles?
Curious to see if my suspicions were correct, and more than a little interested to see if I could get Kailo to offer up some information on the personality types of famous exterminators, I asked, “Who’s Tova?”
The reaction was as immediate as it was astonishing. Kailo’s demeanour did an instantaneous 180 from indifference to ecstatic, excitement gleaming in his eyes. Tail whipping behind him and ears twirling giddily he opened his mouth to answer, but just as suddenly as it’d come on his enthusiasm drooped into nervous fidgeting and he looked off a little ways down the street.
Eventually he settled down, looking back at me with what I could’ve sworn was a disappointed head tilt, “I uh… I actually have to go meet Blim soon over at the admin buildings. I don’t think I have any more time to talk without being late.”
Ah! He’s got a meeting too? How fortuitous!
I was pleased to hear I had a chance to walk and talk with Kailo about something he was passionate about; even if it was exterminators of all things. But, just before I could ask to accompany him to our shared destination, he spoke up again, a familiar fire blazing through every word that left his snout.
“This isn’t me trying to avoid the topic by the way. If I had the time I’d love the chance to properly teach you about all the good exterminators can do, especially the best of the batch! I know how you feel about what we do, but officers like Tova are prime examples of why we’re so respectable and important to the continued safety of the herd!”
In times not long past, such a speech from Kailo about his chosen profession would’ve been laced with a venom so potent it’d put a Black Widow to shame. To my astonishment however, the goading boastfulness I’d come to expect was nowhere to be heard. Instead, Kailo struck a pose of determined professionalism. Straight backed and proud, he puffed out his chest and flicked his ears up in a show of sincerity that I’d rarely seen from him.
Scratch that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that from him. Disparaging, sulky, and apprehensive perhaps, but never this.
In contrast to my internal monologue and to Kailo’s own credit, I did recognise the recent efforts he’d made towards making a positive change to his attitude with regards to the classes. He’d started to actively participate in the lectures now, rather than interrupt them just so he could stand atop his soap box and decry the dangers of predators at every opportunity.
He still had the bad habit of glaring at people like he wanted to bore a hole through their heads from time to time, but he was making progress in the right direction, and I for one was intent on encouraging this shift in behaviour.
Smiling warmly at the still proudly posing Venlil, I replied to his declaration, “Well Kailo, today might just be your lucky day! As it happens I’m also heading that way to a meeting of my own. Why don’t we walk together and you can tell me all about the officers you hold in high regard, hm? It’ll be our own mini lecture with you as the teacher!”
Kailo’s eyes went wide and his tail spun frantically, “Really!”, he excitedly blurted out, a little louder than he probably intended.
“I uh- achem. I mean, is that so? Then sure, I’ll tell you all about some of our best. It’s about time you saw my side of things! Come on then.”
With that he turned towards the offices and walked off at a steady pace, flicking his tail at me in what I assumed was a ‘follow along’ kind of gesture. And follow I did, doing my best to stifle the chuckle brought on by Kailo’s abrupt burst of enthusiasm.
Just like Rysel is with animals. Though I doubt either would appreciate the comparison.
“So then, we’re starting with Tova?.”, Kailo rhetorically asked, his ears standing stalk straight as he strode forth in deliberate almost marching like fashion, “Her story, like far too many, is tragic. As a pup she was on a ship that was attacked and boarded by the Arxur. However, despite being young, she was determined to fight back and protect the people onboard. In all the chaos she managed to create a trap and lead the Arxur into it, killing them in an explosion and saving everyone who was still alive! She became an exterminator not long after, and ever since then she’s protected the people with just as much fortitude!”
Uuuuhhhh…
Whether Kailo was expecting a response was unclear, but it wouldn't have mattered either way. As his short recounting of Tova’s origin story came to an end, I found my mind swamped by a fog of stunned horror.
A child, a literal child, had rigged up an IED trap and then managed to lure the raiders into it. Short of looking up the incident myself to check the veracity of Kailo’s tale, the only source to hand was the young man himself. He didn’t appear to be lying, he seemed too enamoured with the story himself for him to be making it up on the spot. But even so, regardless of whether the account was completely factually or even slightly embellished, it was a tough pill to swallow.
“Hey doctor, are you listening?”, Kailo’s verbal prod pulled me from the worst of the roaming intrusive thoughts flashing across my mind in reaction to what he’d told me, though a few disquieting ones still lingered on the edges of my awareness.
“Oh! I am indeed Kailo. I was uh… just considering your story. Tova sounds rather… formidable.”
Right now was another moment in which I found myself grateful that I still had to wear my mask when outside. It was impossible for me to know whether or not Kailo could pick up on my discomfort through my voice alone, but if my face had been visible I was sure he’d catch on pretty quickly.
Thankfully Kailo either couldn’t tell or was too caught up in my perceived complement to notice anything was off, because his tail flourished in satisfaction, “Formidable is right! Not only is she highly regarded for her work and her commitment to her duties, she’s also easily one of the largest Venlil you’ll ever see! Not as big as a human probably, but still pretty large for one of us!”
“But she’s not the biggest fullstop is she? I know that there's a Venlil called Tarlim who’s easily two feet taller than most humans. Didn’t he have a lot of trouble with the exterminators?”
WHY!?
The statement and follow up question was out my mouth before I could stamp it out, my decades honed instinct to counter a point of discussion rearing its head at the worst of times. In spite of the very real questions I believed needed to be tackled at some point, this was not the moment I would’ve chosen, especially not when I was finally building a rapport with my most difficult student.
Glancing at him it was plain as day to see that Kailo’s spirit had fallen considerably, my untimely criticism laying low any of his previous giddiness.
He suddenly came to a halt, his short wool frizzing out as he rounded on me with an oranging snout brimming with ire. In the split-second of silence that followed I prepared myself for the oncoming storm of rage I’d faced time and again. But in a moment of astonishing serendipity, what erupted from Kailo wasn’t a slew of vitriol levelled at me.
Instead, a grumbling bray of tired aggravation flowed from him, tail and ears deflating to match this new mood, “Ugggghhhhh… Please doctor, I’m begging you. Please don’t bring them up.”
Intrigued by his reaction, and again failing to quiet the goading murmurs telling me to push the point a little bit further, I replied, “And why’s that? Not a fan of those exterminators like you are of To-”
I didn’t even get to finish my question.
Kailo angrily stamped his foot and his tail lashed off the ground, interrupting me with a vicious tinge lacing his words, “By Inatala no! They’re a disgrace to the badge in my books. They botched their scans for PD, hid the fact from everyone until it was brought out in court, and then still clung to their story that he could be dangerous. And you know why they thought he was dangerous? Because he’s big!!!”
Once again Kailo stunned me, though for a different and far preferable reason. Tarlim and his case had come up in passing conversation with other humans who’d in turn heard the tale from their exchange partners. It was a ghastly story, one fraught with horrifying implications for all manner of reasons. From what little I’d learned about the controversy, many exterminators who’d been outspoken on the topic backed the actions of the Dawn Creek office; if not standing behind the officers themselves, who were fired from what I'd seen, then at least acknowledging that the poor man could still be a threat simply for his size.
Usually this would be the part where I’d try to give my own two-cents to the conversation, but despite having earlier asked not to talk about the issue, Kailo was far from done voicing his indignation, “It’s insane! Big! BIG!? Mazic are big. Takkan are big. Are we rounding all of them up for PD scans or putting up signs saying ‘Beware, Large Species Around’? Iftali are big as well! They dwarf the other species that live on Jild, but the Suleans aren’t scared of them are they!? Speaking of, the Suleans have antlers that could easily gore someone if they’re not careful. Should all Suleans wear foam on the ends of them for the herds' safety? NO!”
A part of me was tempted to let Kailo continue his rant for as long as it took to peter out, fascinated to see just how far he might go in diverging from what appeared to be a norm for the exterminators. I was not that nefarious however, and I was conscious that our meetings were getting steadily closer with the two of us still having a ways left to travel before we arrived at the offices.
I need to get him moving again, maybe get him back onto talking about the exterminators he likes. But how? Oh!
The idea struck me like lighting, a grin quickly spreading across my face as I looked down at the still seething Venlil.
This should work.
Taking the opportunity to slip into the conversation once Kailo eventually stopped to take a breath, I stated quite plainly, “It’s good to know there’s someone like yourself wearing that badge then. Someone who recognises that we can’t go around demonising people because of their differences. It’s an excellent mindset to have, both in general and most certainly in a job that requires you to care and protect your community. You should be proud of yourself for it.”
Whatever gripes Kailo may have been about to further shout out into the world fell silent as he processed my statement, my hunch that appealing to his ego might stymie his frustrations striking true. Honestly, I meant every word of it. Even if the things he did believe in still stung to hear about, it was a relief to know that Kailo didn’t toe the line completely when it came to exterminator doctrine.
My interruption appeared to jolt Kailo out of the tunnel vision his rants often drew him into, reminding him of where exactly he was.
After a brief scan of the surroundings he hastily composed himself, clearing his throat and returning his focus to me, “Achem. Well, I um… thank you doctor. I think so too. It’s not right to judge people like that just because they look different. How can exterminators properly fulfil their duties if all they’re doing is profiling people on physical differences after all.”
I did my best not to let it show in my posture, but the irony of what was coming out of Kailo’s mouth was battering my psyche like nothing else. Not only because of how he’d treated humans since he’d met us, which I could somewhat overlook and forgive due to cultural trauma at the claws of the Arxur, but because I knew full well that exterminators didn’t just profile people due to explicitly physical differences.
Following my first exposure to the guilds existence, I’d made a point of learning about them at any spare opportunity. I’d been horrified by the way they treated innocent creatures for their appearance and diet. But what I found behind that? That was infinitely worse.
Predator Disease. A sickening repression of the concept and understanding of the neurotypical in any sense festered throughout the Federation. People who skewed anywhere from the pseudo scientific ‘baseline’ the supposed professionals had cooked up were hauled away to facilities that bore a monstrous resemblance to the old asylums that once existed aplenty across the Earth.
Conflict raged within me as I stared at Kailo, one side screaming at me to lay the sordid nature of so-called predator disease bare while the other begged me to stay silent and maintain this fragile rare instance of peace that’d sprung up between the two of us.
Only seconds passed in the real world as I wrestled with the cacophony swirling around my head, but I eventually made my choice, as selfish as it might’ve been.
“You’re quite right Kailo.”, sighing as quietly as I could I took a step forward, pushing myself onwards and forcing a little bit of cheer back into my voice, “Now then, we really should be off if we’re going to get to the office in time. Why don’t you tell me about another exterminator, hm? Any others aside from Tova you think are particularly commendable?”
Far easier than I’d done Kailo bounced back into a jovial mood almost instantly, ears perking and tail swishing happily as he bounced along beside me, “Of course there are! I could spend all paw talking if you let me! There’s Rensa from Heartwood. She’s retired now sadly, a work accident, but she was one of the best in her time along with another officer from the same town called Shenod who’s still active.”
Beeping away merrily, Kailo gushed over every exterminator he admired that he could think of while we walked, his pace never slowing and his enjoyment never waning. Aside from a few verbal acknowledgements and the occasional ‘Oh is that so?’ I remained largely quiet, choosing to appreciate this unanticipated but refreshing change of pace to our usual back and forth.
The glee with which he talked about people who’d gladly burn animals alive was something I’d never get used to, especially seeing as how many might be inclined to do the same to a human if given the opportunity.
Nevertheless, right now, I could look past that discomfort and accept that finally, after weeks of trying and failing to find an inroad with him, Kailo and I were actually spending time together and having a pleasa- pleasentish conversation. That alone was enough to lift my heart high from the morose haze that’d been clinging to me as of late, the ever expanding list of bad news continually adding to the depressive atmosphere.
I will have to properly thank Doctor Gallagher at some point, she really seems to have helped Kailo loosen up. Maybe all he really needed was one good friend in the end. Hm, isn’t that always the way?
Dismissing my musings so I could pay proper attention to Kailo, whose font of knowledge for famous exterminators was apparently endless, I beamed beneath my mask, glancing up at the bright blue sky and allowing the tension I’d been feeling to relax from my shoulders as a cool breeze swept over me.
Ahhh, what a gorgeous day indeed.
2023.12.21 14:11 G-N-R History of Clifton Hill Part 6: "Canada's Midway"
Thank you to everyone in this subreddit and abroad who has followed this series. This marks the post where this series has officially had more parts uploaded than my original 5 part series years ago which I felt needed to be revised due to new information coming to light. I cannot thank everyone enough for sticking it out this long and continuing to read these lengthy posts. To view part 5 in case you missed it, click here. I originally wanted to get this whole series out before Christmas since I imagine many of you will be busy, but it wasn't in the cards. The next and final post in this series will be around this time next week between Christmas and the New Year. This installment will probably feature the most dense period of updates the area ever saw as business owners constantly tried to outdo each other, so let's get into it and see if this post can hopefully dig up a long-forgotten memory of yours.
In 1994, the Maple Leaf Village amusement park would close and become a parking lot. The Haunted Mansion attraction in the mall building facing the former park is all that remained, becoming a second Screamers location. In 1996, the mall portion closed as well, and what few attractions were still hanging on in the mall either shuttered or moved. The Screamers locations and Nightmares (now a combination of Nightmares and Nightmares II) found new homes on Victoria Ave., and the Elvis Museum moved to Pyramid Place. MLV was actually built with the intention of it one day needing to transition into a casino if the mall started losing business, with the heavy duty wiring necessary for the mall's several arcades, shows, museums and restaurants being designed to handle the power capacity of slot machines one day.
The entire front facade of the Maple Leaf Village mall was saved, and the garden out front enclosed to be an indoor lobby. On each side of this courtyard, in sections of the former MLV facade that stuck outwards more, would be a snack bar on the right and Hard Rock Cafe on the left. Hard Rock connects through to the Sheraton Foxhead, which by now had expanded and built a new parking garage where the parking lot (former site of the Antique Auto Museum and Royal London Wax Museum building) had been. The Maple Leaf Village Inn behind the Sheraton Brock was renamed the Skyline Hotel, and it's courtyards enclosed.
The mix of arcades, haunted attractions, fast food, nightlife and stores selling t-shirts and posters had started a well-known rock culture in Niagara Falls among Southern Ontario youth. The epicenter of this was "Rock World", a rock-themed gift shop that had opened in 1983 on Centre St. (the street Clifton Hill becomes just above Victoria Ave.) They would later add a second story and build Rock Legends Wax Museum above it in 1997, with all the figures sculpted by the store's owner Pasquale Ramunno. Costello Productions was apparently tied to the attraction in some way, likely the mechanics for the museum's sole animated figure, a figure of Industrial Metal musician Marilyn Manson.
It's on Victoria Ave. where Nightmares would get it's fame. Moving to the long abandoned building formerly home to the original Castle Dracula (and possibly later the Playmate Exhibits), it incorporated elements of both Nightmares and Nightmares II into one larger attraction. It would occupy the second and third floors, with the restaurant on the first floor still there from the Castle Dracula days (although by this point it was called The Wild Mushroom, now Weinkeller.) Nightmares does not currently use any first floor space behind the restaurant where Castle Dracula's impressive "Swamp" fishtank room would have been, but it's more likely that the area has become expanded restaurant space rather than any abandoned elements still remaining down there. Nightmares would install a scare where a photo of your group was taken right as you were startled, perhaps the most genius marketing move they ever made. From the dawn of social media the photos went viral, and gained international fame.
Screamers prospered on Victoria Ave. as well, with the second attraction now housed in the same building as Screamers and being dubbed "The Torture Chamber." Two "sequel attractions" were also built in the early 2000s: Creatures of the Night on Victoria Ave. and Horror Manor (also featuring the Zombie Zoo Nightclub upstairs) on Centre St. The same owners would also open a 4D ride theater called "Dino Rampage 4D" next to Screamers. The gift shop of the attraction would eventually expand and take over The Torture Chamber space. Another attraction, Alien Encounter, would open at the corner of Victoria Ave. and Clifton Hill beside the Criminals Hall of Fame in a former bank. The lobby was on Victoria Ave., with the attraction upstairs above both it and the cigar store which was located in the same building. Guests would first walk through a section with scenes of aliens from various film franchises before entering a lab area. This slightly thematically darker "North of the Hill" area with the Screamers chain, the Criminals Hall of Fame, Rock Legends, Nightmares and Alien Encounter became a "main strip" all in it's own.
The area at the top of the Hill also received one of Niagara's most unique attractions in 1997, on Ellen Ave. a block above Victoria Ave. Despite being on the outskirts of the Clifton Hill area surrounded by nothing but a few budget motels, it would be an extremely ambitious attraction dubbed "Cyberport Niagara." This is another attraction that was "discovered" through the help of Redditor's memories. It was an interactive science exhibit that was a cross between an arcade, theme park, and museum. It was the first in a planned chain of attractions across North America developed by virtual reality studio Tellurain Inc. of New Jersey, and animation firm Eye Wonder Studios of Ontario. It featured several permanent attractions including an arcade and several P-51 simulators, and also featured rotating exhibits such as real props on loan from Universal Studios that were used in films such as Back to the Future, exhibits on loan from the Ontario Science Centre, a children's area sponsored by Mega Blocks, and a recreation of King Tut's tomb. There were also costumed actors dressed up like astronauts and various other characters.
The attraction would be troubled early on however, as the various tradesmen involved in preparing the building for the high-tech attraction were initially never fully reimbursed due to a dispute between the landlord and Cyberport on who should front the costs, with a combined outstanding balance of almost 2 Million dollars between the various tradesmen. The tradesmen argued that 1 Million were costs that should be fronted by the landlord for bringing the building up to the required standard, with the outstanding $865,599 being for additional work that should be the responsibility of Cyberport. This was resolved in court and the tradesmen were paid, but it seems to have left a sour taste in each other's mouths between the landlord and Cyberport, and the attraction closed the next year in 1998 as soon as the lease was up. It then became the Greg Frewin Theatre, which features magic and tiger performances to this day.
However in a tragic historical loss for the magic world, The Houdini Hall of Fame, containing hundreds of real Houdini artifacts amongst the wax displays, burnt to ash in 1996 and took the 1800's railway station it was located in with it. Some of Houdini's last words were claiming that if the afterlife did infact exist, anything revealing his secrets would perish in flame. Even though the fire completely leveled the museum, the plywood and fiberglass paneled House of Frankenstein only separated from it by a 2-foot wide alley was completely untouched, leading a lot of Houdini's fans to believe he was conducting some kind of post-mortem practical joke. The metal objects like handcuffs and the water tank could be saved, and were bought by David Copperfield. Ripley's Moving Theatre, a ride theatre attraction, was built in it's place.
In 2001, Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum, Clifton Hill's original amusement attraction, would close on Clifton Hill after 42 years. It would rise from the ashes with some, but not all of the same figures on Victoria Ave. in 2005, replacing a restaurant (in the building Wonderful World of Fantasy had once resided.) The removal of the original Tussaud's was part of a massive plan by the Falls Ave. Company who owned the two Sheraton hotels; the Sheraton Foxhead and the Sheraton Brock. This plan kicked off with Casino Niagara in 1996, but would soon expand to include several family offerings. Further along Falls Ave. from Clifton Hill, between the Sheraton Brock and Bender St., a Planet Hollywood restaurant franchise would open in 1997. It ironically sat on land that decades before had been home to a small motel called the "Hollywood Motel." The Sheraton Brock became the Crowne Plaza, and the Sheraton Foxhead became the Sheraton Fallsview. The ground floor of the Crowne Plaza received a Coca Cola store and ice cream counter with a 50s diner theme, and a Hershey Store complete with an animatronic diorama of the Hershey's Kisses character crossing the falls on a tightrope. The rest of the inside of the store was themed as a factory, with spinning gears on the ceilings and bubbling pipes between the shelves.
Bigger plans were in store for the Sheraton Fallsview however, which was connected to the former Tussaud's building, little of which was saved and remodeled into a new structure. In 2002, the basement of this new building became a 4D motion theatre, as work continued on the three floors above, as well as on the former restaurants, gift shops, stores, convention space, games room and lobby space that filled the second floor of the neighbouring Sheraton Fallsview. Two other editions however would initially open with the motion theatre in 2002.
The first was Rainforest Cafe, complete with smoking, fire-shooting volcano facing Clifton Hill, and a large fountain outfront featuring the chain's iconic statue of a human figure holding the globe on his shoulders with the slogan "Protect the Rainforest" (this statue was later replaced with an animatronic alligator, then a fiberglass elephant.) Meanwhile, the Ride Niagara building (originally built as the Spacearium in the 60s) was also mostly demolished and re-structured, and the three level WWE store opened in it's place with the Piledriver drop tower ride on it's roof. The attraction would be designed by amusement design company Forrec (folks behind elements of Canada's Wonderland and Ontario Place to name a few), and featured a lavish grand opening ceremony with several wrestlers appearing in person and pressing their hands into concrete stones that would be displayed outside the attraction. Several stars would come back to sign autographs at the store regularly. There would be an indoor lightshow as well, in addition to an hour long video loop about the store and the WWE playing on TV screens. The same video feed was available as a closed circuit TV channel in the hotels owned by the Falls Avenue Co.
In 2003 the three levels above the 4D Theatre were completed, and opened as the MGM Complex, featuring the MGM Store on the first floor, the Pink Panther Balloon ride on the roof, and a two level walkthrough interactive museum called the MGM Great Movie Journey on floors 2 and 3. The museum held many real movie props, and was designed by Blacklight Attractions. The structure work for the expansion would be done by architecture firm Raimondo + Associates.
The 2002 additions to the Falls Ave. complex were part of a bit of an arms race going on against HOCO, who had come up with big plans themselves. A simple realization was made in terms of Dazzleland, more games = more money and higher guest enjoyment. The outdoor courtyard style with it's room for walkways between the buildings was re-designed, and HOCO again called upon WHLLG. WHLLG designed not only a remodel of Dazzleland, but an incredible 5-step plan that would have changed Clifton Hill, however only steps 1 to 3 would come to fruition... Step 1 was remodeling Dazzleland into the Great Canadian Midway, which opened in 2002. The level, concrete foundation Dazzleland was built on was kept as the foundation of the Midway, hence why it has a similar footprint. Dinosaur Park Mini Golf was moved to a former parking lot in front of the Comfort Inn. Rather than have several different buildings, the Midway would all be one indoor space, allowing for more games and year round operation, a genius business move.
The Midway, like Dazzleland before it however, was divided into different themed areas and attractions, and the interior was themed to an old-school amusement park at nighttime, to make it feel outdoors. The central area of the Midway housed the Games Zone, with miscellaneous redemption and arcade games, with strings of carnival-style lights between poles above the arcade. Surrounding this area was a variety of fake facades utilizing forced perspectives to resemble buildings and stalls.
Wendy's remained, and in the place of the former video game/pinball building in the back corner of Dazzleland, was the Ride Theater. It was originally themed to a funhouse, as it showed the Simex ride film "Funhouse Express." It would later show "Robots of Mars", and be themed to that film, with a large space mural and Mars rocks surrounding it, being renamed the "FX Ride Theater". A company from Edmonton called Art Attack FX provided the theming for the updated theatre. Robots of Mars would be replaced by the "Cosmic Coaster" film in 2007, but the thematic elements would remain as they matched the space theme of the new film. The Cosmic Coaster film would later outlive the thematic elements outside the theatre (more on that later.) Clockwise to that was a funnel cake stand (later removed for more ticket-eater machines), and next to that the prize counter. Along the wall adjacent to that one, was a large neon design resembling the marquee of a carnival game stand. Underneath it was all the carnival-esque redemption games, including Skee-Ball, Boom Ball, Roll-a-Ball and a Hi-Striker hammer game. Continuing clockwise around the Midway's walls would bring you to the Game Factory.
When Dinosaur Park was moved, the Boston Pizza and Sports Zone was built in it's place. These were also accessible from the Midway via a staircase up immediately to the right when you walked in the doors. The Sports Zone used the same tokens as the Midway, housing all the sports games for the arcade (including a pitching game, pool tables, and a bowling alley), and you could walk through the restaurant to get to the area from the Midway. It was under this area that the Game Factory existed in the Midway below, with all the water, gas and power hookups necessary for the restaurant and arcade above being cleverly incorporated into the factory theme of the lower-ceilinged area. This is where several pinball machines and other miscellaneous games resided, including an old western themed shooting gallery that may have come out of Circus World, and Blasteroids, a custom shooting gallery game by Lazer-Tron.
Underneath the rest of Boston Pizza and the Sports Zone was Ghostblasters, a backlight, interactive lazer shooting dark ride by the Sally Corporation of Florida. The ride was a package offered by Sally Corp., and was already installed in four other locations. The Midway's however would be the grandest. Rather than being themed to a regular mansion as was the pre-packaged story of the ride, the Midway's version was themed to a haunted hotel to match the history of the local area. In addition to all the props that came with the ride, several custom ones were made by Sally Corp. for HOCO to match the custom theme. Despite being one story underneath Boston Pizza, it had an impressive two story facade with crooked roof peaks, also provided by Art Attack FX. The ending of the ride would be changed a few years after it opened, with the final battle against "Boocifer" (the attraction's antagonist) in the scene after the "Boo Bomb" is detonated, being removed in favour of a much more elaborate graveyard scene. The elements of the original ending were relocated elsewhere in the ride. The new figures for the scene (as well as additions to the lobby) were produced by an Ohio company called Scarefactory at this time, and the lobby was given new, more hotel-theme-fitting wallpaper featuring a ghost pattern instead of the gothic brick design it opened with.
The Midway's logo has genius design, with the individual letter fonts making up the word "Midway" referencing all the areas and attractions originally in the complex, which flies right over most people's heads now that many of said elements have been changed or removed. The "M" is patterned with a design similar to that of the arcade's original carpet, the bowling pin "I" is a reference to the Sports Zone, the old-school lightbulbs on the "D" reference the lights around the sign for the funnel cake stand, the art-deco font of the "W" is similar to the font of the original Ride Theater's logo, the spooky and slime-covered "A" is a reference to Ghostblasters, and the industrial typeface of the "Y" is a reference to the Game Factory area.
Back on the other side of the Hill, Blacklight Attractions, who designed the MGM Great Movie Journey, also designed and completed the last phase of the Falls Ave. Company plan in 2004: Marvel Superheros Adventure City. It was a sprawling arcade and amusement centre that encompassed the entire second floor of the hotel, from Clifton Hill all the way to the Hard Rock Cafe, to which it connected. It also connected to the MGM Store and Rainforest Cafe. It contained the Captain America Games Zone (a massive arcade), Spiderman: The Ultimate Ride (an interactive lazer shooting dark ride), Mr. Fantastic's Candy Laboratory (a fill-your-own-cup candy counter), X-Men Combat Cars (bumper cars), The Incredible Hulk Mini Golf (blacklight mini golf course with interactive and animatronic elements), Daredevil's Obstacle Challenge (a timed obstacle course), The Incredible Hulk Encounter (a Hulk-themed walkthrough haunted attraction) and the Spidey and Friends Funhouse (a small children's funhouse themed to the Avengers characters.) An animatronic Spider Man and Green Goblin bantered outfront, beckoning customers in. The complex was full of neon and bright signage, themed in the colourful, cartoonish, comic book style that the Marvel brand had at the time, before the more serious turn the franchise would take later in the 2000s. As you will later see, that same distinct style that made it so appealing ended up leading to the downfall of this amazing attraction.
The Falls Avenue complex would be rounded out by the Fallsview Indoor Waterpark in 2006, which was built atop a new parking garage for the Falls Ave. hotels which was constructed where their old parking lot (mostly used for parking for the former Maple Leaf Village and now Casino Niagara) had been located. It has a tropical nautical theme and features 16 slides, a wave pool, hot tubs, a children's play area, an outdoor pool with basketball hoops, a massive water play structure, an in-park snack bar (to this day themed to Planet Hollywood despite the nearby restaurant's eventual closure, but more on that later), and an indoor patio mezzanine with a dry playground. The 125,000 sq. ft. facility takes 200,000 gallons of water to operate. It was connected to the Crowne Plaza (which itself was connected to the Sheraton) at the front via the lobby, and the Skyline Hotel (where the pool was removed at this time) at the back via a walkway.
Niagara Clifton Group would also build their own updates around this time, replacing a former currency exchange booth between the Dairy Queen and Clifton Hill Family Restaurant with an off-the-shelf shooting gallery called "The Hillbillies", although this version's name would be "The Clifton Hillbillies". They would also replace the ice cream stand and patio between The Haunted House and the driveway into the Travelodge with a children's soft play structure/obstacle course called Bronto's Adventure Playland in 2005. "Bronto" is the large dinosaur located at the top of the structure, which children can climb up into to peer out his mouth. For some strange reason the attraction has branding of the religious children's animated show Veggie Tales, with the name "Veggie Tales" as well as images of two of the show's characters being present on the sign, but seemingly nowhere else in the attraction (Bronto is not from the series according to Google.) That being said, some are present where the attraction lets out, which is the former gift shop space underneath the Travelodge which The Haunted House and The Funhouse also let out into.
The gift shop was further decreased in size at this time, with the only section remaining of what was once the world's largest gift shop being the section between The Funhouse and the Arby's (the Arby's was later removed however to re-expand the gift shop.) In the former gift shop space under the Travelodge, another children's soft play structure was built, with the part connecting it to Bronto's containing cutouts of some of the Veggie Tales characters. While I'm not sure what religious talking vegetables has to do with the exit area of a dinosaur-themed play structure which doesn't reference them at all, Bronto's is still a neat attraction for younger guests, including ball-shooting cannons, air cannons, and various other interactive elements.
Meanwhile, with the Midway making serious buck, HOCO went ahead with phase 2 of WHLLG's plan. Movieland was moved to Circus World's former location in 2005, and Circus World's owners moved a smaller version of the attraction to what was then the popular Victoria Ave. area. Movieland retained all the figures and sets they had at the time of the move, moving them all into the new space and also adding several new scenes. All the scariest elements were put in the new "House of Horrors", a small optional haunted house section at the end of the attraction after the regular horror section. The museum now emptied into the Fun Factory, that had moved down the Hill with Movieland into the former Canada Trading Co. space, although the popular Fantasy Fudge Factory counter from the space's Canada Trading Co. days was retained.
In Movieland's old home, Cosmic Golf, a blacklight mini golf with theming by Art Attack FX was temporarily set up. 2 years later in 2007, the golf moved to it's permanent home in the basement becoming Galaxy Golf, and the Niagara Marketplace gift shop that had formerly occupied the basement was moved upstairs. The new store would be a hybrid of the Niagara Marketplace and the old Canada Trading Co. gift shop. While there were now no private vendors and it was all one store like the old Canada Trading Co., a focus was still put on handmade/cultural goods like the market sold. This new store would be named the Upper Canada Trading Co., which contained a Tim Horton's beside it.
Phases 3 and 4 involved beginning to demolish the only thing that WHLLG's 5 phase plan would have torn down: Quality Inn. In it's place an amusement park would have been built, anchored by Canada's largest ferris wheel. The wheel would be phase 3 and the amusement park phase 4. The demolition of the historic Quality Inn Fallsway, though unfortunate, also made sense for two reasons. One: Comfort Inn, which was slightly newer (and also on smaller land not big enough for an amusement park), would be saved, and remain a budget option for families staying with HOCO. The other reason justifying the demolition would be phase 5: a skyscraper hotel and indoooutdoor waterpark in the field between Clifton Hill and the Skylon Tower. This would have made the aging motel somewhat redundant considering what the land it was on could be used for. The dragon figures from Quality Inn's outdoor pool were kept in HOCO's storage for a time for future use in the waterpark. The final vision for the completed plan can be seen here.
Phase 3 would go ahead in 2006, with the lobby, Golden Griddle and Q-Balls Billiards Pub of Quality Inn being torn down and the Niagara Skywheel built in their place. For the last year Quality Inn was open, you would need to register at Comfort Inn's lobby. The same year, the Space Spiral was torn down, as 2 observation attractions wouldn't be needed on the Hill. However, a new tower ride would have been constructed during phase 4 in the amusement park. The main reason the tower would be demolished rather than moved was because a tower manufactured by the same company in Wildwood, NJ, had begun to sway a few years earlier, resulting in the Niagara Tower needing to be removed entirely out of precaution. The Fantasy Fudge Factory counter and the Fun Factory it was located in became seperate stores, and the popular Fudge Factory finally earned its own store and moved into the former tower's base. The former counter in the Fun Factory became a souvenir wax hand casting place called the Wax Hands Factory, matching the wax museum that emptied into the store.
Clifton Hill had reached a level of development that made the entirety of the area a massive amusement park in it's self, and was at a stage many would consider was it's peak in terms of business, visitors, and attractions. This wouldn't last long however, and the world was changing fast. While by this point the area was much too strong to ever die, it definitely would go through a string of closures and overhauls that would change the landscape drastically. Stay tuned for the final part of this series that will bring us to present day, as well as a glimmer into a hopeful future. Thank you to everyone who has read up until now, if you've enjoyed the series so far, the final installment will not disappoint.
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In 1994, the Maple Leaf Village amusement park would close and become a parking lot. The Haunted Mansion attraction in the mall building facing the former park is all that remained, becoming a second Screamers location. In 1996, the mall portion closed as well, and what few attractions were still hanging on in the mall either shuttered or moved. The Screamers locations and Nightmares (now a combination of Nightmares and Nightmares II) found new homes on Victoria Ave., and the Elvis Museum moved to Pyramid Place. MLV was actually built with the intention of it one day needing to transition into a casino if the mall started losing business, with the heavy duty wiring necessary for the mall's several arcades, shows, museums and restaurants being designed to handle the power capacity of slot machines one day.
The entire front facade of the Maple Leaf Village mall was saved, and the garden out front enclosed to be an indoor lobby. On each side of this courtyard, in sections of the former MLV facade that stuck outwards more, would be a snack bar on the right and Hard Rock Cafe on the left. Hard Rock connects through to the Sheraton Foxhead, which by now had expanded and built a new parking garage where the parking lot (former site of the Antique Auto Museum and Royal London Wax Museum building) had been. The Maple Leaf Village Inn behind the Sheraton Brock was renamed the Skyline Hotel, and it's courtyards enclosed.
The mix of arcades, haunted attractions, fast food, nightlife and stores selling t-shirts and posters had started a well-known rock culture in Niagara Falls among Southern Ontario youth. The epicenter of this was "Rock World", a rock-themed gift shop that had opened in 1983 on Centre St. (the street Clifton Hill becomes just above Victoria Ave.) They would later add a second story and build Rock Legends Wax Museum above it in 1997, with all the figures sculpted by the store's owner Pasquale Ramunno. Costello Productions was apparently tied to the attraction in some way, likely the mechanics for the museum's sole animated figure, a figure of Industrial Metal musician Marilyn Manson.
It's on Victoria Ave. where Nightmares would get it's fame. Moving to the long abandoned building formerly home to the original Castle Dracula (and possibly later the Playmate Exhibits), it incorporated elements of both Nightmares and Nightmares II into one larger attraction. It would occupy the second and third floors, with the restaurant on the first floor still there from the Castle Dracula days (although by this point it was called The Wild Mushroom, now Weinkeller.) Nightmares does not currently use any first floor space behind the restaurant where Castle Dracula's impressive "Swamp" fishtank room would have been, but it's more likely that the area has become expanded restaurant space rather than any abandoned elements still remaining down there. Nightmares would install a scare where a photo of your group was taken right as you were startled, perhaps the most genius marketing move they ever made. From the dawn of social media the photos went viral, and gained international fame.
Screamers prospered on Victoria Ave. as well, with the second attraction now housed in the same building as Screamers and being dubbed "The Torture Chamber." Two "sequel attractions" were also built in the early 2000s: Creatures of the Night on Victoria Ave. and Horror Manor (also featuring the Zombie Zoo Nightclub upstairs) on Centre St. The same owners would also open a 4D ride theater called "Dino Rampage 4D" next to Screamers. The gift shop of the attraction would eventually expand and take over The Torture Chamber space. Another attraction, Alien Encounter, would open at the corner of Victoria Ave. and Clifton Hill beside the Criminals Hall of Fame in a former bank. The lobby was on Victoria Ave., with the attraction upstairs above both it and the cigar store which was located in the same building. Guests would first walk through a section with scenes of aliens from various film franchises before entering a lab area. This slightly thematically darker "North of the Hill" area with the Screamers chain, the Criminals Hall of Fame, Rock Legends, Nightmares and Alien Encounter became a "main strip" all in it's own.
The area at the top of the Hill also received one of Niagara's most unique attractions in 1997, on Ellen Ave. a block above Victoria Ave. Despite being on the outskirts of the Clifton Hill area surrounded by nothing but a few budget motels, it would be an extremely ambitious attraction dubbed "Cyberport Niagara." This is another attraction that was "discovered" through the help of Redditor's memories. It was an interactive science exhibit that was a cross between an arcade, theme park, and museum. It was the first in a planned chain of attractions across North America developed by virtual reality studio Tellurain Inc. of New Jersey, and animation firm Eye Wonder Studios of Ontario. It featured several permanent attractions including an arcade and several P-51 simulators, and also featured rotating exhibits such as real props on loan from Universal Studios that were used in films such as Back to the Future, exhibits on loan from the Ontario Science Centre, a children's area sponsored by Mega Blocks, and a recreation of King Tut's tomb. There were also costumed actors dressed up like astronauts and various other characters.
The attraction would be troubled early on however, as the various tradesmen involved in preparing the building for the high-tech attraction were initially never fully reimbursed due to a dispute between the landlord and Cyberport on who should front the costs, with a combined outstanding balance of almost 2 Million dollars between the various tradesmen. The tradesmen argued that 1 Million were costs that should be fronted by the landlord for bringing the building up to the required standard, with the outstanding $865,599 being for additional work that should be the responsibility of Cyberport. This was resolved in court and the tradesmen were paid, but it seems to have left a sour taste in each other's mouths between the landlord and Cyberport, and the attraction closed the next year in 1998 as soon as the lease was up. It then became the Greg Frewin Theatre, which features magic and tiger performances to this day.
However in a tragic historical loss for the magic world, The Houdini Hall of Fame, containing hundreds of real Houdini artifacts amongst the wax displays, burnt to ash in 1996 and took the 1800's railway station it was located in with it. Some of Houdini's last words were claiming that if the afterlife did infact exist, anything revealing his secrets would perish in flame. Even though the fire completely leveled the museum, the plywood and fiberglass paneled House of Frankenstein only separated from it by a 2-foot wide alley was completely untouched, leading a lot of Houdini's fans to believe he was conducting some kind of post-mortem practical joke. The metal objects like handcuffs and the water tank could be saved, and were bought by David Copperfield. Ripley's Moving Theatre, a ride theatre attraction, was built in it's place.
In 2001, Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum, Clifton Hill's original amusement attraction, would close on Clifton Hill after 42 years. It would rise from the ashes with some, but not all of the same figures on Victoria Ave. in 2005, replacing a restaurant (in the building Wonderful World of Fantasy had once resided.) The removal of the original Tussaud's was part of a massive plan by the Falls Ave. Company who owned the two Sheraton hotels; the Sheraton Foxhead and the Sheraton Brock. This plan kicked off with Casino Niagara in 1996, but would soon expand to include several family offerings. Further along Falls Ave. from Clifton Hill, between the Sheraton Brock and Bender St., a Planet Hollywood restaurant franchise would open in 1997. It ironically sat on land that decades before had been home to a small motel called the "Hollywood Motel." The Sheraton Brock became the Crowne Plaza, and the Sheraton Foxhead became the Sheraton Fallsview. The ground floor of the Crowne Plaza received a Coca Cola store and ice cream counter with a 50s diner theme, and a Hershey Store complete with an animatronic diorama of the Hershey's Kisses character crossing the falls on a tightrope. The rest of the inside of the store was themed as a factory, with spinning gears on the ceilings and bubbling pipes between the shelves.
Bigger plans were in store for the Sheraton Fallsview however, which was connected to the former Tussaud's building, little of which was saved and remodeled into a new structure. In 2002, the basement of this new building became a 4D motion theatre, as work continued on the three floors above, as well as on the former restaurants, gift shops, stores, convention space, games room and lobby space that filled the second floor of the neighbouring Sheraton Fallsview. Two other editions however would initially open with the motion theatre in 2002.
The first was Rainforest Cafe, complete with smoking, fire-shooting volcano facing Clifton Hill, and a large fountain outfront featuring the chain's iconic statue of a human figure holding the globe on his shoulders with the slogan "Protect the Rainforest" (this statue was later replaced with an animatronic alligator, then a fiberglass elephant.) Meanwhile, the Ride Niagara building (originally built as the Spacearium in the 60s) was also mostly demolished and re-structured, and the three level WWE store opened in it's place with the Piledriver drop tower ride on it's roof. The attraction would be designed by amusement design company Forrec (folks behind elements of Canada's Wonderland and Ontario Place to name a few), and featured a lavish grand opening ceremony with several wrestlers appearing in person and pressing their hands into concrete stones that would be displayed outside the attraction. Several stars would come back to sign autographs at the store regularly. There would be an indoor lightshow as well, in addition to an hour long video loop about the store and the WWE playing on TV screens. The same video feed was available as a closed circuit TV channel in the hotels owned by the Falls Avenue Co.
In 2003 the three levels above the 4D Theatre were completed, and opened as the MGM Complex, featuring the MGM Store on the first floor, the Pink Panther Balloon ride on the roof, and a two level walkthrough interactive museum called the MGM Great Movie Journey on floors 2 and 3. The museum held many real movie props, and was designed by Blacklight Attractions. The structure work for the expansion would be done by architecture firm Raimondo + Associates.
The 2002 additions to the Falls Ave. complex were part of a bit of an arms race going on against HOCO, who had come up with big plans themselves. A simple realization was made in terms of Dazzleland, more games = more money and higher guest enjoyment. The outdoor courtyard style with it's room for walkways between the buildings was re-designed, and HOCO again called upon WHLLG. WHLLG designed not only a remodel of Dazzleland, but an incredible 5-step plan that would have changed Clifton Hill, however only steps 1 to 3 would come to fruition... Step 1 was remodeling Dazzleland into the Great Canadian Midway, which opened in 2002. The level, concrete foundation Dazzleland was built on was kept as the foundation of the Midway, hence why it has a similar footprint. Dinosaur Park Mini Golf was moved to a former parking lot in front of the Comfort Inn. Rather than have several different buildings, the Midway would all be one indoor space, allowing for more games and year round operation, a genius business move.
The Midway, like Dazzleland before it however, was divided into different themed areas and attractions, and the interior was themed to an old-school amusement park at nighttime, to make it feel outdoors. The central area of the Midway housed the Games Zone, with miscellaneous redemption and arcade games, with strings of carnival-style lights between poles above the arcade. Surrounding this area was a variety of fake facades utilizing forced perspectives to resemble buildings and stalls.
Wendy's remained, and in the place of the former video game/pinball building in the back corner of Dazzleland, was the Ride Theater. It was originally themed to a funhouse, as it showed the Simex ride film "Funhouse Express." It would later show "Robots of Mars", and be themed to that film, with a large space mural and Mars rocks surrounding it, being renamed the "FX Ride Theater". A company from Edmonton called Art Attack FX provided the theming for the updated theatre. Robots of Mars would be replaced by the "Cosmic Coaster" film in 2007, but the thematic elements would remain as they matched the space theme of the new film. The Cosmic Coaster film would later outlive the thematic elements outside the theatre (more on that later.) Clockwise to that was a funnel cake stand (later removed for more ticket-eater machines), and next to that the prize counter. Along the wall adjacent to that one, was a large neon design resembling the marquee of a carnival game stand. Underneath it was all the carnival-esque redemption games, including Skee-Ball, Boom Ball, Roll-a-Ball and a Hi-Striker hammer game. Continuing clockwise around the Midway's walls would bring you to the Game Factory.
When Dinosaur Park was moved, the Boston Pizza and Sports Zone was built in it's place. These were also accessible from the Midway via a staircase up immediately to the right when you walked in the doors. The Sports Zone used the same tokens as the Midway, housing all the sports games for the arcade (including a pitching game, pool tables, and a bowling alley), and you could walk through the restaurant to get to the area from the Midway. It was under this area that the Game Factory existed in the Midway below, with all the water, gas and power hookups necessary for the restaurant and arcade above being cleverly incorporated into the factory theme of the lower-ceilinged area. This is where several pinball machines and other miscellaneous games resided, including an old western themed shooting gallery that may have come out of Circus World, and Blasteroids, a custom shooting gallery game by Lazer-Tron.
Underneath the rest of Boston Pizza and the Sports Zone was Ghostblasters, a backlight, interactive lazer shooting dark ride by the Sally Corporation of Florida. The ride was a package offered by Sally Corp., and was already installed in four other locations. The Midway's however would be the grandest. Rather than being themed to a regular mansion as was the pre-packaged story of the ride, the Midway's version was themed to a haunted hotel to match the history of the local area. In addition to all the props that came with the ride, several custom ones were made by Sally Corp. for HOCO to match the custom theme. Despite being one story underneath Boston Pizza, it had an impressive two story facade with crooked roof peaks, also provided by Art Attack FX. The ending of the ride would be changed a few years after it opened, with the final battle against "Boocifer" (the attraction's antagonist) in the scene after the "Boo Bomb" is detonated, being removed in favour of a much more elaborate graveyard scene. The elements of the original ending were relocated elsewhere in the ride. The new figures for the scene (as well as additions to the lobby) were produced by an Ohio company called Scarefactory at this time, and the lobby was given new, more hotel-theme-fitting wallpaper featuring a ghost pattern instead of the gothic brick design it opened with.
The Midway's logo has genius design, with the individual letter fonts making up the word "Midway" referencing all the areas and attractions originally in the complex, which flies right over most people's heads now that many of said elements have been changed or removed. The "M" is patterned with a design similar to that of the arcade's original carpet, the bowling pin "I" is a reference to the Sports Zone, the old-school lightbulbs on the "D" reference the lights around the sign for the funnel cake stand, the art-deco font of the "W" is similar to the font of the original Ride Theater's logo, the spooky and slime-covered "A" is a reference to Ghostblasters, and the industrial typeface of the "Y" is a reference to the Game Factory area.
Back on the other side of the Hill, Blacklight Attractions, who designed the MGM Great Movie Journey, also designed and completed the last phase of the Falls Ave. Company plan in 2004: Marvel Superheros Adventure City. It was a sprawling arcade and amusement centre that encompassed the entire second floor of the hotel, from Clifton Hill all the way to the Hard Rock Cafe, to which it connected. It also connected to the MGM Store and Rainforest Cafe. It contained the Captain America Games Zone (a massive arcade), Spiderman: The Ultimate Ride (an interactive lazer shooting dark ride), Mr. Fantastic's Candy Laboratory (a fill-your-own-cup candy counter), X-Men Combat Cars (bumper cars), The Incredible Hulk Mini Golf (blacklight mini golf course with interactive and animatronic elements), Daredevil's Obstacle Challenge (a timed obstacle course), The Incredible Hulk Encounter (a Hulk-themed walkthrough haunted attraction) and the Spidey and Friends Funhouse (a small children's funhouse themed to the Avengers characters.) An animatronic Spider Man and Green Goblin bantered outfront, beckoning customers in. The complex was full of neon and bright signage, themed in the colourful, cartoonish, comic book style that the Marvel brand had at the time, before the more serious turn the franchise would take later in the 2000s. As you will later see, that same distinct style that made it so appealing ended up leading to the downfall of this amazing attraction.
The Falls Avenue complex would be rounded out by the Fallsview Indoor Waterpark in 2006, which was built atop a new parking garage for the Falls Ave. hotels which was constructed where their old parking lot (mostly used for parking for the former Maple Leaf Village and now Casino Niagara) had been located. It has a tropical nautical theme and features 16 slides, a wave pool, hot tubs, a children's play area, an outdoor pool with basketball hoops, a massive water play structure, an in-park snack bar (to this day themed to Planet Hollywood despite the nearby restaurant's eventual closure, but more on that later), and an indoor patio mezzanine with a dry playground. The 125,000 sq. ft. facility takes 200,000 gallons of water to operate. It was connected to the Crowne Plaza (which itself was connected to the Sheraton) at the front via the lobby, and the Skyline Hotel (where the pool was removed at this time) at the back via a walkway.
Niagara Clifton Group would also build their own updates around this time, replacing a former currency exchange booth between the Dairy Queen and Clifton Hill Family Restaurant with an off-the-shelf shooting gallery called "The Hillbillies", although this version's name would be "The Clifton Hillbillies". They would also replace the ice cream stand and patio between The Haunted House and the driveway into the Travelodge with a children's soft play structure/obstacle course called Bronto's Adventure Playland in 2005. "Bronto" is the large dinosaur located at the top of the structure, which children can climb up into to peer out his mouth. For some strange reason the attraction has branding of the religious children's animated show Veggie Tales, with the name "Veggie Tales" as well as images of two of the show's characters being present on the sign, but seemingly nowhere else in the attraction (Bronto is not from the series according to Google.) That being said, some are present where the attraction lets out, which is the former gift shop space underneath the Travelodge which The Haunted House and The Funhouse also let out into.
The gift shop was further decreased in size at this time, with the only section remaining of what was once the world's largest gift shop being the section between The Funhouse and the Arby's (the Arby's was later removed however to re-expand the gift shop.) In the former gift shop space under the Travelodge, another children's soft play structure was built, with the part connecting it to Bronto's containing cutouts of some of the Veggie Tales characters. While I'm not sure what religious talking vegetables has to do with the exit area of a dinosaur-themed play structure which doesn't reference them at all, Bronto's is still a neat attraction for younger guests, including ball-shooting cannons, air cannons, and various other interactive elements.
Meanwhile, with the Midway making serious buck, HOCO went ahead with phase 2 of WHLLG's plan. Movieland was moved to Circus World's former location in 2005, and Circus World's owners moved a smaller version of the attraction to what was then the popular Victoria Ave. area. Movieland retained all the figures and sets they had at the time of the move, moving them all into the new space and also adding several new scenes. All the scariest elements were put in the new "House of Horrors", a small optional haunted house section at the end of the attraction after the regular horror section. The museum now emptied into the Fun Factory, that had moved down the Hill with Movieland into the former Canada Trading Co. space, although the popular Fantasy Fudge Factory counter from the space's Canada Trading Co. days was retained.
In Movieland's old home, Cosmic Golf, a blacklight mini golf with theming by Art Attack FX was temporarily set up. 2 years later in 2007, the golf moved to it's permanent home in the basement becoming Galaxy Golf, and the Niagara Marketplace gift shop that had formerly occupied the basement was moved upstairs. The new store would be a hybrid of the Niagara Marketplace and the old Canada Trading Co. gift shop. While there were now no private vendors and it was all one store like the old Canada Trading Co., a focus was still put on handmade/cultural goods like the market sold. This new store would be named the Upper Canada Trading Co., which contained a Tim Horton's beside it.
Phases 3 and 4 involved beginning to demolish the only thing that WHLLG's 5 phase plan would have torn down: Quality Inn. In it's place an amusement park would have been built, anchored by Canada's largest ferris wheel. The wheel would be phase 3 and the amusement park phase 4. The demolition of the historic Quality Inn Fallsway, though unfortunate, also made sense for two reasons. One: Comfort Inn, which was slightly newer (and also on smaller land not big enough for an amusement park), would be saved, and remain a budget option for families staying with HOCO. The other reason justifying the demolition would be phase 5: a skyscraper hotel and indoooutdoor waterpark in the field between Clifton Hill and the Skylon Tower. This would have made the aging motel somewhat redundant considering what the land it was on could be used for. The dragon figures from Quality Inn's outdoor pool were kept in HOCO's storage for a time for future use in the waterpark. The final vision for the completed plan can be seen here.
Phase 3 would go ahead in 2006, with the lobby, Golden Griddle and Q-Balls Billiards Pub of Quality Inn being torn down and the Niagara Skywheel built in their place. For the last year Quality Inn was open, you would need to register at Comfort Inn's lobby. The same year, the Space Spiral was torn down, as 2 observation attractions wouldn't be needed on the Hill. However, a new tower ride would have been constructed during phase 4 in the amusement park. The main reason the tower would be demolished rather than moved was because a tower manufactured by the same company in Wildwood, NJ, had begun to sway a few years earlier, resulting in the Niagara Tower needing to be removed entirely out of precaution. The Fantasy Fudge Factory counter and the Fun Factory it was located in became seperate stores, and the popular Fudge Factory finally earned its own store and moved into the former tower's base. The former counter in the Fun Factory became a souvenir wax hand casting place called the Wax Hands Factory, matching the wax museum that emptied into the store.
Clifton Hill had reached a level of development that made the entirety of the area a massive amusement park in it's self, and was at a stage many would consider was it's peak in terms of business, visitors, and attractions. This wouldn't last long however, and the world was changing fast. While by this point the area was much too strong to ever die, it definitely would go through a string of closures and overhauls that would change the landscape drastically. Stay tuned for the final part of this series that will bring us to present day, as well as a glimmer into a hopeful future. Thank you to everyone who has read up until now, if you've enjoyed the series so far, the final installment will not disappoint.
2023.12.15 20:31 Reptani Man vs. the Terran Revolution - 3
Catalogue Description:
Diary of Perellanth fe Sumur, Vice-Governor of the Union of Terran Republics - English Translation
By the Gods, the human territory of China was absolutely crawling with those Lamfu lagomorphs now. It was all good for the humans, I supposed. Perhaps they'd find the little creatures to be decent emergency food when times got hard.
Upon the foothold of liberty, reason, and mantid rights, us colonists of what was once known as Parimthian Earth have declared our independence. Mantid rights, because the entire lot of us are Senghavi mantids, except for me. I am a plant, not a mantid, who has been demoted to the office of Vice-Governor.
I'd once been the governor, but the primate natives of this planet had captured me for a brief time. A special operations squadron had covertly rescued me; by the time I returned to my office, what had once been Parimthian Earth was suddenly the Union of Terran Republics. An independent planet. A free planet. It had then been decided that I was not to be its chief executive any longer.
That I'd allowed myself to be captured by humans was an unspoken sign that I simply wasn't as intelligent as a Senghavi would be. Us colonists of Earth prided ourselves on equality, and yet I could not hold my former office due to my species. War was no time to be socially progressive, I supposed. And we are fighting a war for our independence from the tyranny of our motherland.
The forces of liberty and reason would prevail against those of tyranny and tutelage; I just knew it.
Still, as Vice-Governor, I bore important responsibilities. I was fairly certain the humans and their lagomorphs, clueless and technologically inferior as they were, were poking around a wormhole network whose true scope was beyond their comprehension. When Governor Benghoviu fe Prim brought that fact to my attention, I did my best to dissuade him from obsessing over it.
We spoke in-person. Governor Benghoviu fe Prim met me in my new office in Vennec One: the administrative hub of us colonists of Earth. It is built upon the ashes of what the primates had, a couple decades ago, called New York City. Most colonists rejected the humans' historical revisionism; the idea that they'd possessed long, complex history. But I didn't.
"The humans are feisty enough that it's simply not worth going after them," I said, changing the colour of the anti-grav chandelier in my office space to a soothing, pale blue. "Governor Prim---I was their prisoner for a month, so you can trust me on this. We've been pushing them quite far, quite fast. But it is like trying to squeeze water out of a balloon. This is what happens when we invade the last of their native territory; they'll just go searching out for more. Because they're human. And you don't want a multi-planetary humanity, do you? We ought to leave them alone. There are far more pressing concerns. The Crown will paralyse us with an electromagnetic pulse if it means stopping our independence!"
Benghoviu fe Prim clacked one of his raptorial forelimbs on my desk, his antennae twitching with stress. "Perhaps that is reasonable. If the Parimthian Crown unleashed an electromagnetic attack on Earth, billions of us colonists would starve. That cannot happen. We need allies."
"Would the Imperium of Orion be a suitable choice? As I recall, they'd considered allying with the native Terrans. Perhaps they will find Senghavi Terrans to be worthier friends."
After all, we'd come to Earth as citizens of the Parimthian Empire, and it was Parimth with whom we now clashed. The natural choice of ally was Parimth's most bitter rival---their most ancient arch-nemesis---the Imperium of Orion.
Whereas Parimth was built on the idea that Senghavi were the superior species---that everyone else was inferior or savage---Orion did not really discriminate.
Whereas Parimth was interested in displacing or assimilating indigenous species (like mankind) to make everyone more Parimthian, the laissez-faire Orion only wished to turn others into tributes and satellites for itself, leaving the people to do as they wished.
Whereas the Senghavi mantids of Parimth exploited the people and the resources of native land for their own designs, the carnivores of Orion offered economic and infrastructural aid to natives themselves.
And whereas Parimth had outlawed slavery across its empire, Orion's economy relied heavily on that wretched institution.
The most imperialistic thing the Imperium of Orion had ever done was colonise the Lamfu homeworld, Denfall... but that was only because the Lamfu had rebelled against them, anyway. It wasn't all very surprising.
It seemed to me that they could be trustworthy allies, inasmuch as I trusted them not to try to conquer us if we asked for help.
"The carnivorans... I see," said Benghoviu. "Can we trust them?"
"We can trust that they despise Parimth as much as we do. And they're not crawling with loyalists," I replied.
By the Gods, I hated loyalists.
There was a quote by a delegate from the mantid colonists on Novabog (which the natives knew as Europe) that resonated with me: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
What miniscule fragments remained of humanity's United Nations claimed a human, not a mantid, had invented such a quote. Most would not believe them, though I was inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Either way, we all quite strongly agreed with its message.
All of us, except for the damned loyalists.
Governor Benghoviu did not stop our invasions of Zvorriu-Sai, or Russia, and Zhoryaz, or the UK. Even so, I was working behind his back, consulting virtually with our legislative and adjudicatory offices, trying frantically to undo all this toxic insistence on land-theft.
Because it wasn't fair that we forced human civilization to cede more and more land to our people. It had never been fair.
Still, I had a diplomatic duty. And so there I was, walking with the mechatronic legs of that life support system containing the soil out of which I grew, so I could meet with our motherland's great rival face-to-face. At least, inasmuch as the photoreceptors and mechanoreceptors of my brain capsule was an analogue of an animal's face.
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Benghoviu fe Prim and I travelled through a wormhole route to Orion itself. The planet orbits the bright middle star of that three-star row which characterises its namesake constellation. We left Delegate Essinstya fe Baryn, who presided over our free and democratic law-making body, in charge of things while we were away from Earth.
Our private spacecraft had managed to avoid several Parimthian patrols during our trip. It wasn't overly difficult, given that the average distance between any two spacecraft in the Milky Way usually spans several tens of light-years. When we eventually came upon Orion, Governor Benghoviu was fast asleep in his bunk, his forewings and antennae twitching as he dreamed.
Whereas Parimth was a marble of pinks and reds, so hued from its stunning plant life, Orion was gold with wheat and sulphur. The blue supergiant it orbited smeared a pale arc over its curvature, glinting off the planet's artificial ring. For a moment, I stood transfixed at the window.
After we'd touched down at Orion's largest spaceport, surrounded by tall and golden grasses, the two of us were greeted by a team of canid Orionian soldiers, along with one of the empire's three High Delegates. He belonged to the serpentine Kursef species, and his name was Sata.
"We wondered when you would come to us," the serpent hissed, his head high in the air, looking down on me. "We have a gift for you."
"P-pardon me?" I asked, my speech synthesis device sputtering with my momentary confusion. Benghoviu cocked his head capsule in curiosity. "A gift?"
Sata's long and massive body slithered towards the spaceport's largest building, his canid security detail following in a tactical formation. When we were indoors, I found myself at a loss for words.
For some unspeakable, inexplicable reason---there was a human being there, standing in the alien corridor. Stern and old, wispy white hair clinging to his scalp, his face wrinkled and discoloured like a spoiled fruit.
I shuffled my vines with confusion.
We were colonists of Earth, trampling atop everything its natives had built, reaching out to our motherland's greatest rival for help in our war of political independence. There were no real ties between our motherland's rival and said natives. But... Here was one of those natives, standing in a hallway on Orion of all places.
"Who is he?" I sputtered. "What is a native Terran doing all the way out here? Why isn't he on, well... Earth?"
"I am Dr. Hawthorne," said the elderly primate. "As I understand it, you are Governor Perellanth fe Sumur."
"Vice-Governor," I corrected. Then I beckoned to Benghoviu. "He's the Governor, now. But why am I talking to you? Why are you here?"
"This is our gift," Sata purred. "Humans."
Benghoviu scratched his exoskeletal plates with nervousness, his compound eyes looking at the floor. He was probably the only Senghavi on the entire planet. "We're... We're colonists of Earth, Sata? You don't suppose we have quite enough of those primates already? In fact---far more than we'd like to deal with? And where did you even get this particular specimen? Surely your people weren't just sneaking about the continents of Earth just to steal a human, then to offer him back to us as some sort of gift?"
"You don't understand," Dr. Hawthorne, the human, said. "There is a department in Orion responsible for overseeing ten thousand human researchers and fifty thousand human soldiers. We've created the Milky Way's first successful antimatter weapon, and we've already helped conquer two more worlds for the glory of Orion's reach. I am the head of that entire programme."
Sata's glass-cold eyes, placed unnervingly on the sides of his head, pierced my own photoreceptors as he looked at me head-on. "You look confused."
"I am confused," I said. "Why are there sixty thousand native Terrans living outside of Earth?! Was there some massive human diaspora of which us colonists were completely unaware? And---did he just say that you created a working antimatter bomb? We've been stuck on the verge of that technology for ages!"
With his many, many ribs popping, Sata's body unfurled, slithering down the spaceport corridor. "Let us move and talk."
"I would appreciate a thorough explanation for why tens of thousands of Earth natives are outside of their planet," Benghoviu asserted, the clack of his exopodites upon the floor echoing about the hallway. "Furthermore, whatever has that to do with an alliance between us colonists and your empire?"
"The answers are all humans," said Sata. "For a century, you colonists of Earth conquered its natives' lands. You either displaced the native Terrans or assimilated them into your culture, erasing the pittance they called their own. Even after they began killing your people with asymmetric and terroristic tactics, you never stopped pushing."
I bristled. "Actually, their culture is more than a mere pittance---"
"You pushed, and you pushed, and you pushed, until the only way left for the natives to go was out. And out they went. Out into space, with twenty-thousand frozen embryos of theirs, searching desperately for any world that hadn't already been consumed by this greedy maw called 'empire.' Those poor, wayfaring humans, strangers in strange space, waltzed right into our jaws.
"We managed to appropriate half of those embryos---ten thousand humans---and we cloned fifty thousand more of them. It was but a few moon-cycles ago; yet, we nurtured them across twenty-five Earth years via time dilation, employing a wormhole network node under a great deal of gravity to bring them back here."
My roots stiffened in their soil. Wormhole-assisted time dilation, while certainly not a new technique, is an absurdly expensive feat. Because moving a wormhole about the galaxy, as if it is some sports ball to be kicked and rolled around, is hard. I shuddered to imagine the strain on Orion's finances and economy; even the financial ministers of Parimth would have "chickened out," as the native Terrans say. "All that expense, just to age-up sixty thousand primates and bring them...?"
...Bring them back through time? But of course not. Wormhole-assisted time dilation isn't time travel as much as it is simply going to a destination whose age is the same one's origin---no different than our diplomatic posse walking from the spaceport's main building to its parking garage. Because a clock within a wormhole doesn't speed up or slow down, regardless of where in the tunnel it lies.
The difference is that the two ends of the wormhole in question move at different rates through time. Once a person has aged twenty-five years, a wormhole node in higher gravity might only have aged a few months. Accordingly, it had only been a few months ago that Orion had gotten its grubby hands upon ten thousand frozen human embryos.
"After meeting those last remnants of man, in his dark and desolate search for a new home and new allies, we'd considered letting him be one of us," Sata went on. The warm Orionian sunrays were now gone as we entered a parking garage that hummed with autonomous vehicles. "But man is so stubborn, distrustful, impulsive, and quite plainly mad that we did not think we could rely on his kind.
"Still, while we have abandoned the affront to prudence that is human civilization, we are not done with their species. If you raise sixty thousand humans from birth and condition them to obey your will... The possssibilities are endless, you see. Using them, we've already created the galaxy's first antimatter weapon, a technology your people have been attempting to unravel for many years. We can conquer worlds for which we have been biding our time across decades.
"Human learning and ingenuity has been living beneath the boot of you colonists for a century. It is one of the finest gifts in the universe. And you have done nothing with it. Your people, swept into the fervour of your own enlightened society, have pushed humanity to the edge of its cultural extinction. You have had hardly any regard for the risk for its physical extinction. And you have been blind in every respect to the brilliance atop which you have been trampling without a sssecond thought."
Benghoviu swept back his forewings with indignation. "And you are certain that a savage primate could compete with the intellect of us civilised Senghavi?"
My exasperation came out as a sigh through my speech synthesiser. "My fellow Governor... Is not reason and empiricism the bedrock of those liberal principles by which our society has declared its political independence? It wouldn't do to so blind ourselves with pride that we cannot acknowledge hard, replicable results."
"Let it not be forgotten that I am a slave to Orion, not to you Senghavi colonists," croaked the old Dr. Hawthorne, staring Earth's mantid governor square in his compound eyes. Benghoviu looked away, at the wall. "Orion presents my programme and I as a gift to you, but that gift is not unconditional. My terms are very simple. I will not help your people if you continue to displace and erase humanity and its culture."
"Why would we want your help?" Benghoviu spat. "I appreciate Orion's friendly gesture, but we will not capitulate to savages, nor will we welcome them in our midst as if there is no difference between a mantid and a primate. We are Senghavi Terrans, not native Terrans."
I needed to do... something. Sata was right. Humans did learn quickly, far more quickly than any other species I'd known. And they were fiercely intelligent. If Benghoviu had his way, then mankind's cultural and historical extinction would be complete---and we would be missing out on an opportunity of the millennium.
For the sake of Earth, we needed Governor Benghoviu fe Prim out of the picture, somehow. By the Gods of Siedi, I missed having his job!
"Of course, we'll have to discuss matters further to arrive at a more certain conclusion," I interjected quickly.
We separated from the security detail of canid soldiers to board one of the autonomous state cars. As the vehicle sped along a highway through Orion's most populous city, I was surprised to find an anti-slavery brochure in the cup holder.
"The economy of your Imperium is reliant upon forced labour and interstellar conquest," Benghoviu said. "The economy of the Union us colonists have constructed on Earth is reliant upon the free market and the inalienable rights of individuals. That discrepancy may muddy the relations between our peoples, won't it?"
"Look at the paper that the good Vice-Governor is holding in her vines right now," Sata purred. "It condemns slavery, yes? This alliance with such a society as yours, if we can form it, will mean the death of slavery across our Imperium. A few moon-cycles ago, the Lamfu lagomorphs of Denfall rebelled against our slave-tribute system. One of our High Delegates was killed. Thus, our navy was forced to crush and colonise that particular protectorate.
"The perceived brutality of that incident served only as more ammunition for those among us who espouse the 'natural rights of sapients.' Your colonies on Earth have built themselves upon those rights---and further upon land you stole from its natives. But you are correct that the labour of the enslaved is Orion's economic backbone. I am concerned that it will all fall to pieces should the entire system be made suddenly unlawful."
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As the autonomous groundcar trundled us into a traffic-crowded avenue, lined with vegetation coloured gold and bronze, my mantid superior fidgeted with his secondary arms. He was looking out the window.
On the plaza ahead of us, a crowd was gathered. It consisted of the three "civilised" species in the Imperium of Orion---the canid Warcs, the serpentine Kursef, and the vulpine Pondwir---and a variety of "barbarian" species, the herbivorous ones---such as the lagomorph Lamfu, the cervid Timvians, and the rodent Jurachu. And despite the social divide between the civilised and the barbarian, none of them seemed enslaved.
They were all collarless. Free. Some of them were holding posters with slogans and photos. Some of those photos were of Lamfu royals.
Before the crowd, one of the lagomorph Lamfu was speaking with a microphone-equipped headset, standing on his (or her?) hind legs. I lowered the window to hear the creature.
"...the condition is that we stray not beyond our appropriate class! It is a class into which you cram our families and our companions. And only then do carnivorans profess, as you so often do, to feel amicably towards us barbarian herbivores. Our own agency in the matter is disregarded, as is our opinions or our input. I have begun to question if carnivorans in general really believe we possess a brain wherewith to wonder, or a soul wherewith to ache, or a destiny wherewith to dream.
"You exclaim 'come, animal!' and expect us to hop about and serve you. It is that condition by which you feel amicably about us; your laws operate as though we are livestock rather than ensouled persons. You strip away our dignity, and proceed to inquire as to why we have none---you seal shut our mouths, and proceed to inquire as to why we never speak---you cripple our universities, our businesses, and our temples, and proceed to inquire as to we are not as learned as you 'civilised' carnivorans.
"And yet, whenever I contemplate the sheer iniquity of the very system that is their source, the aforestated injustices tend to fade into the recesses of my brain. For it is that system which forced my seven brothers and sisters as slave-tributes into bondage and devourment. That system which commands priests and clergy to defend it via even the faith of Krucuv Mishan!"
The speech faded into the background hums, whizzes, and footfalls of the city as our diplomatic posse continued our trip.
Perhaps slavery would not be as great a divider between our two civilizations as Earth's new governor thought. The role that forced labour played across Orion's Imperium could be... complicated and confusing, from what I knew.
For one thing, only the Warcs devour people. It was a freak accident of natural selection that the evolutionary ancestors of the Warcs and their prey had, alongside one another, co-evolved the capacity for reason, a process spanning millions of years in the wilderness. That wasn't the case for the other two civilised carnivorans of Orion.
And for another, the cities at the core of the Imperium, such as this one, hosted a social fabric of the more liberal flavour. They were wealthier; slave labour could be cheaper than robotics, but the denizens of Orion's wealthiest cities could oppose it on moral grounds. As was plain among the crowd gathered in that plaza, there were plenty of "barbarian" species who were full citizens, not slaves. Freedmen. On the other hand, settlements at the far-flung fringes of the Imperium, suffering from scarcity, cut off from the plenty and the automation at the Imperium's core, were more traditional in these respects.
Lastly, there was an obvious movement to abolish slavery across the whole body of the Imperium. And atop all of this was the Imperium of Orion's common religious faith, Krucuv Mishan, where the perfect mathematics of astronomy and ecology demanded that people act in accordance with "the order of nature." And was it the order of nature for civilised carnivorans to inhabit a higher social class than barbarian herbivores? To enslave or devour them? I wasn't overly curious about that one. I am just a photosynthetic.
The chaos and confusion surrounding slavery in Orion was itself natural, I supposed. That is what happens when you take a civilization dependent on slavery and stretch it into a sprawling interstellar Imperium. It spans hundreds of thousands of cubic light-years, settles thousands of worlds, uses up [~billions of cubic kilometres] worth of resources, and generates [hundreds of billions of terawatts] of energy. Across the vastness of space, the question of slavery spirals into an impossibly diverse conundrum.
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Herbivore servants (I wasn't sure if they were enslaved or indentured) brought us drinks as we met with other diplomats in the city's state guesthouse. I accepted mine with gratitude, though with no mouth to speak of and no wish to contaminate my soil, I just let it sit on the elegant table before me.
We were discussing economic and security agreements between the Imperium of Orion and the Senghavi colonies on Earth. This, I'd been anticipating all week.
What I hadn't been anticipating were the humans among us. Humans who had never known Earth or its indigenous cultures---who had only known Orion, overseen by Dr. Hawthorne---but who were brilliant in matters of science and strategy.
I wasn't sure what to call them. Orionian humans? They spoke only Circpi and Parimthian, and wore the sorts of clothes in which the vulpines of Orion might dress to indicate aristocratic status, all dark fabrics and geometric shapes.
"We recently ended our siege against the Viceroyalty of New Parimth," said Maivu au Prei. The ambassador of the vulpine Pondwir---those civilised carnivorans which handled Orion's intelligence and internal security---flicked his ears with satisfaction. He sipped from a goblet of wine. "Thanks to the strategists and operators from our force of Orion-born humans, the planet is ours. There was an entire Parimthian supercarrier in orbit around it. We shattered the whole vessel as if it were glass with [~0.5 kilograms] of antimatter."
My vines went limp with astonishment. We needed those Orion-born humans, too! Desperately! But as long as my mantid superior was blinded by pride in his species, and his deep-set prejudice against the native Terrans, their skills would be out of our reach.
Dammit, Benghoviu!
There were two scenarios here.
The first was that Benghoviu, as the new governor of Earth's newly-declared Union of Terran Republics, would reject this most brilliant gift from our motherland's most powerful arch-nemesis. Dr. Hawthorne would continue to serve Orion, not us. We would continue to encroach upon humanity's last territories on Earth until every last iota of human culture was turned to ash beneath sprawling Senghavi industries and Senghavi settlements.
The second was that we accepted Orion's gift. Dr. Hawthorne and the Orion-born humans he oversaw would serve us, though Orion would continue to benefit from their own human force. With human aptitude and intellect---and the antimatter that such skills had been employed to produce---we might just win our revolutionary war against the most powerful, most pretentious hegemony in the [Milky Way].
And, most importantly... we'd finally leave the rest of Earth's native primates alone.
We'd not be their friends for a long while; there was too much blood and bitterness for that. But I could convince the UN to take a hard stance on terrorism, so that they'd leave us alone. I'd been their hostage for a brief time; the head of the UN Secretariat knew me.
The only way to achieve that second scenario, however, was to take Governor Benghoviu out of the equation.
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Our hotel was in the guesthouse's overall complex. At the entryway to our hotel room, Governor Benghoviu and I were greeted by an enslaved Timvian.
The cervid was rather like a baby Earth deer, but bipedal. She had no eyes; Timvians simply hadn't evolved them. Her arms were shaped like those of Earth's prehistoric tyrannosaurids, perhaps for grasping fruit, and the indentations of her alien bone structure were pressed tightly against her patterned fur.
I hadn't met a Timvian in-person before. I was fairly certain that her species' homeworld was under the jurisdiction of Orion's vulpines, not its canid Warcs, so there was no devouring of Timvians going on there; just forced labour.
"I've taken the liberty of making tea and confections," she said, the geometry of her two jaw segments forcing a slurred-sounding accent on her Parimthian speech. There was a winding, prehensile tongue in her mouth that slipped in and out with her words. I assumed the cervids sounded more natural in their own world's languages, rather than those of the Parimthian Empire or the Imperium of Orion. "They are on the dining table."
The new governor pressed his raptorial forelimbs together with gratitude, dipping his head capsule. My photoreceptors caught the gaze of his own compound eyes. Even with abolitionism tearing through Orion's massive Imperium, even in the wealthiest capital where traditions were bent and questioned, you couldn't escape the presence of slavery.
"Our sincerest thanks," said Governor Benghoviu. "Have you any Parimthian-style charging adaptors? My dear vice-governor, as you can see, is a photosynthetic. Many features of her life support require electric power."
"I'll retrieve one right away, sir."
"Ah, and---may we also have virtual reality headsets? Orion is a beautiful world, but I feel most relaxed in Earth's [Amazon Rainforest]. Fetch me a few ounces of synthspice, too, for I have a most ghastly headache."
"Of course, sir."
"And"---I piped up, my stomachs flip-flopping in my stems---"could you bring a cut of weeping-tail meat and a kitchen knife?"
"Yes, sir. Of course."
I am not a sir, per se---I am a gynomonoecious photosynthetic, so less of a sir and more of a madam---but I did not correct the Timvian. "Thank you. That will be all."
The barbarian slave walked down the hallway with a gait I'd never seen from any bipedal species. My mantid superior shuddered and entered the living space.
It was quite the luxurious interior, decorated with moving inks embedded within the glass walls, painting stories of love and war. Governor Benghoviu plopped lethargically onto the couch, using one of his secondary arms to rub the exposed joint of his leg. "What a day. The first antimatter weapons? Wormhole-assisted time dilation to raise humans away from Earth? What is next? Some artificial intelligence rises up and takes over the galaxy?"
"You're stubborn and proud, Governor," I said tiredly. "Accept Dr. Hawthorne, for the Gods' sake! Accept his terms!"
The frazzled Senghavi sighed and laid on his back, sinking into his own crinkly wing membranes. "D-don't you know why that can't happen? Humans are a terrorist threat, Perellanth! They'll, ah, flood our cities and undo every form of enlightenment and social progress we've achieved thus far. That 'United Nations' will get stronger and sponsor terrorism against innocent Senghavi. Were you---Were you radicalised as a hostage or something of the like?"
My roots tight in their soil again, I went to the kitchen to retrieve the goblet of tea and the tray of confections that our slave had prepared. It wasn't as though I could consume them, but Benghoviu could.
I disagreed with him overall, but the points he'd made were right. Native Terrans and Senghavi Terrans were not culturally compatible. To pretend the two parties were was beyond reckless.
There was a great deal of history behind our commitment to free and empirical thought and to the social enlightenment of civilization. Even if humanity had gone through a similar stage (perhaps our colonist forefathers had even derived some of our enlightened philosophical spirit from the primates themselves?), it would be irresponsible to the history of both species to attempt a multicultural human-mantid society.
Benghoviu was also correct about the terrorist threat humanity posed to us. There was a terrorist threat to the colonists of Earth. I wasn't sure how to tackle it.
However, none of this justified our continued colonialism. I had to do something. And I knew just what to do. I'd been planning it for a while.
The soft voice of the cervid slave flowed crisply through the sound system into our hotel room. "Governor Benghoviu and Vice-Governor Perellanth? I have some charging adaptors, virtual reality headsets, synthspice, and a cut of weeping-tail meat with a knife."
"Come right in!" I said merrily.
As the Timvian unlocked the door, standing next to an anti-grav tray full of what we'd requested, I beckoned her inside. My stomachs seized up with reluctance. With the tray passing silently by Governor Benghoviu, whose fatigued body lay half-awake on the couch, I lashed one of my vines to ensnare the knife for the weeping-tail meat.
Then I turned to face Benghoviu's sprawled mantid form. Before my mind could hesitate, I thrust the blade forward with all my might. It broke the pale blue skin exposed beneath his head capsule as if through a liquid surface, pressing into the meat within.
The governor yelped, clawing first at his neck, then pulling at my vine and scampering away from the couch. Cerulean blood cascaded like oil down the ridges and teeth of his exoskeleton.
"P-Perellanth!" he sputtered. "What---W-what is this?"
Via my life support's network connection, I was already sending an emergency notification to hotel security. And even then I was twisting the knife, burrowing it deeper into Bengoviu's throat.
He pushed one of his raptorial forelimbs against my face analogue. Those limbs are not just for show---it was by those spiny structures that prey animals were rapt from the ground and devoured by the Senghavi's prehistoric evolutionary ancestors. I flinched as my own milky blood dripped from a stinging crescent above my photoreceptors.
Then I pushed him back with another vine. He lost balance and collapsed onto the tiled floor. The Timvian slave was watching in shock, though I'd coiled another one of my vines over one of her tyrannosaurid-like arms.
"I can't have you leaving so soon," I said, placing the blue-stained knife onto the Timvian's anti-grav tray. "I'm sorry, dear."
My requested security arrived in the form of two Warcs. In a manner befitting their class as the canid soldiers and generals of Orion's civilised carnivorans, they marched to the entryway and snarled at the scene.
"Don't move!" one of them barked in that voiceless growl which Warcs had. Those beady yellow eyes of hers were locked onto my own photoreceptors. The predatory canids were followed by drone-cams and drone-guns, hovering just over their shoulders. "What the hell is going on?"
"She went on and on about things like abolishing slavery and taking revenge on you carnivores," I sputtered, pointing a vine at the poor Timvian slave, doing my best to feign shock and horror. Perhaps I was an effective administrator; indeed, there'd once been a time when I'd been desperate to prove it to everyone. I was not, however, an actress. "About... About the inalienable rights of sapients, a-and her brothers and sisters being slave-tributes, and the brutality of Orion. These b-barbarian herbivores---always so emotional, like children, aren't they?! Nothing like you civilised carnivorans, I tell you! She must have been trying to sabotage the alliance between our two civilizations."
The female Warc guard looked at the blue-stained kitchen knife on the Timvian slave's tray, then stared daggers at the young cervid.
"W-wait," the Timvian managed. She turned her eyeless head to me. "That's not... She's the one who did it!"
The male guard seized her skull with just one hand, dragging the petrified, whimpering slave out into the hallway. I shuddered.
"This is a historical, political, and moral wound that no amount of apology can heal," said the female Warc. "But for whatever it may be worth... We're sorry, Vice-Governor Perellanth. A state medical team is already on its way."
"By the Gods," I lamented, "I expect some form of diplomatic compensation for this egregious lapse in security! Governor Benghoviu was my dearest friend. Always so anxious and soft-spoken... His passing will leave the black hole of grief within all Senghavi mantids who knew him. Nonetheless, as per the chain of command... I will accept his office with utmost humility."
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"I'm back to Governor Perellanth, now!" I exclaimed.
My autonomous anti-grav transport glided over the outskirts of Vuivzi Vieda, built into land where Mexico City had once stood. It was here that I would soon say my ceremonial oath as the inheritor of the late Governor Benghoviu's office. We'd already declared our independence from Parimth under Benghoviu's administration. Now it was my job to protect the unity, values, and supreme law of this democracy us colonists had enkindled upon the Earth.
The weary face of UN Secretary-General Yosef Peretz frowned on the screen of my data tablet. He hadn't shaved in a while, white hairs crawling over his cheeks and chin. His eyes were red and baggy.
"But... Who took the fall for Governor Benghoviu's death?"
"Some... Timvian," I said dismissively---Yosef Peretz wouldn't know what a Timvian was, and I didn't let him pry further. "The important thing is that, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces of our Union of Terran Republics, I've withdrawn our troops and aerocraft from United Nations territory."
"Technically, all of Earth is our territory," Yosef muttered darkly.
"You know what I mean! I've halted all efforts to settle France and Germany. We're deporting all the French and German primates who have since sought refuge in Senghavi territory---you can take care of them. I... I am sorry about the loss of your infrastructure and history. Except for in Russia and in the United Kingdom, everything the human race has built in Europe has been destroyed."
"Thank you, Perellanth."
I winced. "I know. 'Sorry' doesn't... I am sorry, though. I would have halted it all sooner if I could. I never thought I would say anything like this, but I'd like to thank the UN for... well, taking me hostage?"
And what else could I say?
Humans were silver-tongued devils; and as much as they hated me, they'd enraptured me with their histories and their cultures. Benghoviu had dismissed the idea, but deep down, I really had been radicalised as a hostage.
I was done trying to prove myself to the rest of the civilised galaxy. All that was left to do was to prove myself to Earth's native primates; to show them I could be a strong, fair leader of my own people---to the humans' benefit.
"President Petrova of Russia sends her regards to you," said Yosef. "Their military is on its last legs, but the Russian Federation remains intact."
Most Russian cities still stood---for any human nation, the plan had been to glass its cities only after their human citizens had been evacuated. It was a gift from the Gods that Benghoviu had never gotten that far.
"It is remarkable how you primates have managed to pull yourselves out of the dust," I said. "We... We pushed you. We pushed you to madness. You lashed back at us. You clawed blindly at the stars, screaming for help into the silence of space.
"It was with that survival instinct that you took in all those broken Lamfu ships. That, even now, you still press for more friends, for more resources. That you turned those Lamfu lagomorphs against Orion's slave-tribute system. And it was human intellect that Orion wielded to research antimatter; to seize entire viceroyalties from the Parimthian Crown.
"You managed to capture me. You stole our wormhole maps so you could voyage to other stars, something of which only the greatest civilizations ought to be capable! Your history clings still onto you, even when we denied it, even whenever we assimilate you. You held out just long enough to save yourselves, and you'll be making your own antimatter soon... even without my help. "
Yosef took a deep breath, his eyebrows furrowing. "Without your help?"
"Man still poses a terrorist threat to my people," I said softly. "It is true that the carnivorans have gifted us with half of those humans born, raised, and conditioned in Orion's Imperium... along with the old biologist, Dr. Hawthorne. They'll manage our antimatter weaponry for us. But... that's not something I can share with you. It would be... irresponsible."
"That's okay. We'll make our own antimatter. There's a young human physicist who used to work for your people. He works for us now."
If I were a human, I would've raised an eyebrow. "Casimir Szymański? The doctoral student?"
"The Milky Way will see what a humanity armed with wormhole maps, lagomorph ships, and antimatter bombs can do," Yosef said. I thought he'd be smiling when he said those words, but his face was cold as if hewn from marble, like those old "Greek" and "Roman" statues humans had in their museums. The ones whose histories so many of us denied, clouded with pride in our cultural superiority. "We're just a few poor countries on Earth. The wormhole-faring empires have thousands of worlds. Perhaps our species truly is fated to the darkness of extinction. But we'll never go gentle into that good night."
They'll rage and rage against the dying of the light, I thought. Yosef was drawing from a centuries-old human poem.
"Of course, Mr. Peretz," I replied. Then I switched to English, because the poem didn't rhyme or flow in Parimthian. "'Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.''"
submitted by Reptani to HFY [link] [comments]
Diary of Perellanth fe Sumur, Vice-Governor of the Union of Terran Republics - English Translation
By the Gods, the human territory of China was absolutely crawling with those Lamfu lagomorphs now. It was all good for the humans, I supposed. Perhaps they'd find the little creatures to be decent emergency food when times got hard.
Upon the foothold of liberty, reason, and mantid rights, us colonists of what was once known as Parimthian Earth have declared our independence. Mantid rights, because the entire lot of us are Senghavi mantids, except for me. I am a plant, not a mantid, who has been demoted to the office of Vice-Governor.
I'd once been the governor, but the primate natives of this planet had captured me for a brief time. A special operations squadron had covertly rescued me; by the time I returned to my office, what had once been Parimthian Earth was suddenly the Union of Terran Republics. An independent planet. A free planet. It had then been decided that I was not to be its chief executive any longer.
That I'd allowed myself to be captured by humans was an unspoken sign that I simply wasn't as intelligent as a Senghavi would be. Us colonists of Earth prided ourselves on equality, and yet I could not hold my former office due to my species. War was no time to be socially progressive, I supposed. And we are fighting a war for our independence from the tyranny of our motherland.
The forces of liberty and reason would prevail against those of tyranny and tutelage; I just knew it.
Still, as Vice-Governor, I bore important responsibilities. I was fairly certain the humans and their lagomorphs, clueless and technologically inferior as they were, were poking around a wormhole network whose true scope was beyond their comprehension. When Governor Benghoviu fe Prim brought that fact to my attention, I did my best to dissuade him from obsessing over it.
We spoke in-person. Governor Benghoviu fe Prim met me in my new office in Vennec One: the administrative hub of us colonists of Earth. It is built upon the ashes of what the primates had, a couple decades ago, called New York City. Most colonists rejected the humans' historical revisionism; the idea that they'd possessed long, complex history. But I didn't.
"The humans are feisty enough that it's simply not worth going after them," I said, changing the colour of the anti-grav chandelier in my office space to a soothing, pale blue. "Governor Prim---I was their prisoner for a month, so you can trust me on this. We've been pushing them quite far, quite fast. But it is like trying to squeeze water out of a balloon. This is what happens when we invade the last of their native territory; they'll just go searching out for more. Because they're human. And you don't want a multi-planetary humanity, do you? We ought to leave them alone. There are far more pressing concerns. The Crown will paralyse us with an electromagnetic pulse if it means stopping our independence!"
Benghoviu fe Prim clacked one of his raptorial forelimbs on my desk, his antennae twitching with stress. "Perhaps that is reasonable. If the Parimthian Crown unleashed an electromagnetic attack on Earth, billions of us colonists would starve. That cannot happen. We need allies."
"Would the Imperium of Orion be a suitable choice? As I recall, they'd considered allying with the native Terrans. Perhaps they will find Senghavi Terrans to be worthier friends."
After all, we'd come to Earth as citizens of the Parimthian Empire, and it was Parimth with whom we now clashed. The natural choice of ally was Parimth's most bitter rival---their most ancient arch-nemesis---the Imperium of Orion.
Whereas Parimth was built on the idea that Senghavi were the superior species---that everyone else was inferior or savage---Orion did not really discriminate.
Whereas Parimth was interested in displacing or assimilating indigenous species (like mankind) to make everyone more Parimthian, the laissez-faire Orion only wished to turn others into tributes and satellites for itself, leaving the people to do as they wished.
Whereas the Senghavi mantids of Parimth exploited the people and the resources of native land for their own designs, the carnivores of Orion offered economic and infrastructural aid to natives themselves.
And whereas Parimth had outlawed slavery across its empire, Orion's economy relied heavily on that wretched institution.
The most imperialistic thing the Imperium of Orion had ever done was colonise the Lamfu homeworld, Denfall... but that was only because the Lamfu had rebelled against them, anyway. It wasn't all very surprising.
It seemed to me that they could be trustworthy allies, inasmuch as I trusted them not to try to conquer us if we asked for help.
"The carnivorans... I see," said Benghoviu. "Can we trust them?"
"We can trust that they despise Parimth as much as we do. And they're not crawling with loyalists," I replied.
By the Gods, I hated loyalists.
There was a quote by a delegate from the mantid colonists on Novabog (which the natives knew as Europe) that resonated with me: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
What miniscule fragments remained of humanity's United Nations claimed a human, not a mantid, had invented such a quote. Most would not believe them, though I was inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Either way, we all quite strongly agreed with its message.
All of us, except for the damned loyalists.
Governor Benghoviu did not stop our invasions of Zvorriu-Sai, or Russia, and Zhoryaz, or the UK. Even so, I was working behind his back, consulting virtually with our legislative and adjudicatory offices, trying frantically to undo all this toxic insistence on land-theft.
Because it wasn't fair that we forced human civilization to cede more and more land to our people. It had never been fair.
Still, I had a diplomatic duty. And so there I was, walking with the mechatronic legs of that life support system containing the soil out of which I grew, so I could meet with our motherland's great rival face-to-face. At least, inasmuch as the photoreceptors and mechanoreceptors of my brain capsule was an analogue of an animal's face.
___________________________* * *___________________________
Benghoviu fe Prim and I travelled through a wormhole route to Orion itself. The planet orbits the bright middle star of that three-star row which characterises its namesake constellation. We left Delegate Essinstya fe Baryn, who presided over our free and democratic law-making body, in charge of things while we were away from Earth.
Our private spacecraft had managed to avoid several Parimthian patrols during our trip. It wasn't overly difficult, given that the average distance between any two spacecraft in the Milky Way usually spans several tens of light-years. When we eventually came upon Orion, Governor Benghoviu was fast asleep in his bunk, his forewings and antennae twitching as he dreamed.
Whereas Parimth was a marble of pinks and reds, so hued from its stunning plant life, Orion was gold with wheat and sulphur. The blue supergiant it orbited smeared a pale arc over its curvature, glinting off the planet's artificial ring. For a moment, I stood transfixed at the window.
After we'd touched down at Orion's largest spaceport, surrounded by tall and golden grasses, the two of us were greeted by a team of canid Orionian soldiers, along with one of the empire's three High Delegates. He belonged to the serpentine Kursef species, and his name was Sata.
"We wondered when you would come to us," the serpent hissed, his head high in the air, looking down on me. "We have a gift for you."
"P-pardon me?" I asked, my speech synthesis device sputtering with my momentary confusion. Benghoviu cocked his head capsule in curiosity. "A gift?"
Sata's long and massive body slithered towards the spaceport's largest building, his canid security detail following in a tactical formation. When we were indoors, I found myself at a loss for words.
For some unspeakable, inexplicable reason---there was a human being there, standing in the alien corridor. Stern and old, wispy white hair clinging to his scalp, his face wrinkled and discoloured like a spoiled fruit.
I shuffled my vines with confusion.
We were colonists of Earth, trampling atop everything its natives had built, reaching out to our motherland's greatest rival for help in our war of political independence. There were no real ties between our motherland's rival and said natives. But... Here was one of those natives, standing in a hallway on Orion of all places.
"Who is he?" I sputtered. "What is a native Terran doing all the way out here? Why isn't he on, well... Earth?"
"I am Dr. Hawthorne," said the elderly primate. "As I understand it, you are Governor Perellanth fe Sumur."
"Vice-Governor," I corrected. Then I beckoned to Benghoviu. "He's the Governor, now. But why am I talking to you? Why are you here?"
"This is our gift," Sata purred. "Humans."
Benghoviu scratched his exoskeletal plates with nervousness, his compound eyes looking at the floor. He was probably the only Senghavi on the entire planet. "We're... We're colonists of Earth, Sata? You don't suppose we have quite enough of those primates already? In fact---far more than we'd like to deal with? And where did you even get this particular specimen? Surely your people weren't just sneaking about the continents of Earth just to steal a human, then to offer him back to us as some sort of gift?"
"You don't understand," Dr. Hawthorne, the human, said. "There is a department in Orion responsible for overseeing ten thousand human researchers and fifty thousand human soldiers. We've created the Milky Way's first successful antimatter weapon, and we've already helped conquer two more worlds for the glory of Orion's reach. I am the head of that entire programme."
Sata's glass-cold eyes, placed unnervingly on the sides of his head, pierced my own photoreceptors as he looked at me head-on. "You look confused."
"I am confused," I said. "Why are there sixty thousand native Terrans living outside of Earth?! Was there some massive human diaspora of which us colonists were completely unaware? And---did he just say that you created a working antimatter bomb? We've been stuck on the verge of that technology for ages!"
With his many, many ribs popping, Sata's body unfurled, slithering down the spaceport corridor. "Let us move and talk."
"I would appreciate a thorough explanation for why tens of thousands of Earth natives are outside of their planet," Benghoviu asserted, the clack of his exopodites upon the floor echoing about the hallway. "Furthermore, whatever has that to do with an alliance between us colonists and your empire?"
"The answers are all humans," said Sata. "For a century, you colonists of Earth conquered its natives' lands. You either displaced the native Terrans or assimilated them into your culture, erasing the pittance they called their own. Even after they began killing your people with asymmetric and terroristic tactics, you never stopped pushing."
I bristled. "Actually, their culture is more than a mere pittance---"
"You pushed, and you pushed, and you pushed, until the only way left for the natives to go was out. And out they went. Out into space, with twenty-thousand frozen embryos of theirs, searching desperately for any world that hadn't already been consumed by this greedy maw called 'empire.' Those poor, wayfaring humans, strangers in strange space, waltzed right into our jaws.
"We managed to appropriate half of those embryos---ten thousand humans---and we cloned fifty thousand more of them. It was but a few moon-cycles ago; yet, we nurtured them across twenty-five Earth years via time dilation, employing a wormhole network node under a great deal of gravity to bring them back here."
My roots stiffened in their soil. Wormhole-assisted time dilation, while certainly not a new technique, is an absurdly expensive feat. Because moving a wormhole about the galaxy, as if it is some sports ball to be kicked and rolled around, is hard. I shuddered to imagine the strain on Orion's finances and economy; even the financial ministers of Parimth would have "chickened out," as the native Terrans say. "All that expense, just to age-up sixty thousand primates and bring them...?"
...Bring them back through time? But of course not. Wormhole-assisted time dilation isn't time travel as much as it is simply going to a destination whose age is the same one's origin---no different than our diplomatic posse walking from the spaceport's main building to its parking garage. Because a clock within a wormhole doesn't speed up or slow down, regardless of where in the tunnel it lies.
The difference is that the two ends of the wormhole in question move at different rates through time. Once a person has aged twenty-five years, a wormhole node in higher gravity might only have aged a few months. Accordingly, it had only been a few months ago that Orion had gotten its grubby hands upon ten thousand frozen human embryos.
"After meeting those last remnants of man, in his dark and desolate search for a new home and new allies, we'd considered letting him be one of us," Sata went on. The warm Orionian sunrays were now gone as we entered a parking garage that hummed with autonomous vehicles. "But man is so stubborn, distrustful, impulsive, and quite plainly mad that we did not think we could rely on his kind.
"Still, while we have abandoned the affront to prudence that is human civilization, we are not done with their species. If you raise sixty thousand humans from birth and condition them to obey your will... The possssibilities are endless, you see. Using them, we've already created the galaxy's first antimatter weapon, a technology your people have been attempting to unravel for many years. We can conquer worlds for which we have been biding our time across decades.
"Human learning and ingenuity has been living beneath the boot of you colonists for a century. It is one of the finest gifts in the universe. And you have done nothing with it. Your people, swept into the fervour of your own enlightened society, have pushed humanity to the edge of its cultural extinction. You have had hardly any regard for the risk for its physical extinction. And you have been blind in every respect to the brilliance atop which you have been trampling without a sssecond thought."
Benghoviu swept back his forewings with indignation. "And you are certain that a savage primate could compete with the intellect of us civilised Senghavi?"
My exasperation came out as a sigh through my speech synthesiser. "My fellow Governor... Is not reason and empiricism the bedrock of those liberal principles by which our society has declared its political independence? It wouldn't do to so blind ourselves with pride that we cannot acknowledge hard, replicable results."
"Let it not be forgotten that I am a slave to Orion, not to you Senghavi colonists," croaked the old Dr. Hawthorne, staring Earth's mantid governor square in his compound eyes. Benghoviu looked away, at the wall. "Orion presents my programme and I as a gift to you, but that gift is not unconditional. My terms are very simple. I will not help your people if you continue to displace and erase humanity and its culture."
"Why would we want your help?" Benghoviu spat. "I appreciate Orion's friendly gesture, but we will not capitulate to savages, nor will we welcome them in our midst as if there is no difference between a mantid and a primate. We are Senghavi Terrans, not native Terrans."
I needed to do... something. Sata was right. Humans did learn quickly, far more quickly than any other species I'd known. And they were fiercely intelligent. If Benghoviu had his way, then mankind's cultural and historical extinction would be complete---and we would be missing out on an opportunity of the millennium.
For the sake of Earth, we needed Governor Benghoviu fe Prim out of the picture, somehow. By the Gods of Siedi, I missed having his job!
"Of course, we'll have to discuss matters further to arrive at a more certain conclusion," I interjected quickly.
We separated from the security detail of canid soldiers to board one of the autonomous state cars. As the vehicle sped along a highway through Orion's most populous city, I was surprised to find an anti-slavery brochure in the cup holder.
"The economy of your Imperium is reliant upon forced labour and interstellar conquest," Benghoviu said. "The economy of the Union us colonists have constructed on Earth is reliant upon the free market and the inalienable rights of individuals. That discrepancy may muddy the relations between our peoples, won't it?"
"Look at the paper that the good Vice-Governor is holding in her vines right now," Sata purred. "It condemns slavery, yes? This alliance with such a society as yours, if we can form it, will mean the death of slavery across our Imperium. A few moon-cycles ago, the Lamfu lagomorphs of Denfall rebelled against our slave-tribute system. One of our High Delegates was killed. Thus, our navy was forced to crush and colonise that particular protectorate.
"The perceived brutality of that incident served only as more ammunition for those among us who espouse the 'natural rights of sapients.' Your colonies on Earth have built themselves upon those rights---and further upon land you stole from its natives. But you are correct that the labour of the enslaved is Orion's economic backbone. I am concerned that it will all fall to pieces should the entire system be made suddenly unlawful."
___________________________* * *___________________________
As the autonomous groundcar trundled us into a traffic-crowded avenue, lined with vegetation coloured gold and bronze, my mantid superior fidgeted with his secondary arms. He was looking out the window.
On the plaza ahead of us, a crowd was gathered. It consisted of the three "civilised" species in the Imperium of Orion---the canid Warcs, the serpentine Kursef, and the vulpine Pondwir---and a variety of "barbarian" species, the herbivorous ones---such as the lagomorph Lamfu, the cervid Timvians, and the rodent Jurachu. And despite the social divide between the civilised and the barbarian, none of them seemed enslaved.
They were all collarless. Free. Some of them were holding posters with slogans and photos. Some of those photos were of Lamfu royals.
Before the crowd, one of the lagomorph Lamfu was speaking with a microphone-equipped headset, standing on his (or her?) hind legs. I lowered the window to hear the creature.
"...the condition is that we stray not beyond our appropriate class! It is a class into which you cram our families and our companions. And only then do carnivorans profess, as you so often do, to feel amicably towards us barbarian herbivores. Our own agency in the matter is disregarded, as is our opinions or our input. I have begun to question if carnivorans in general really believe we possess a brain wherewith to wonder, or a soul wherewith to ache, or a destiny wherewith to dream.
"You exclaim 'come, animal!' and expect us to hop about and serve you. It is that condition by which you feel amicably about us; your laws operate as though we are livestock rather than ensouled persons. You strip away our dignity, and proceed to inquire as to why we have none---you seal shut our mouths, and proceed to inquire as to why we never speak---you cripple our universities, our businesses, and our temples, and proceed to inquire as to we are not as learned as you 'civilised' carnivorans.
"And yet, whenever I contemplate the sheer iniquity of the very system that is their source, the aforestated injustices tend to fade into the recesses of my brain. For it is that system which forced my seven brothers and sisters as slave-tributes into bondage and devourment. That system which commands priests and clergy to defend it via even the faith of Krucuv Mishan!"
The speech faded into the background hums, whizzes, and footfalls of the city as our diplomatic posse continued our trip.
Perhaps slavery would not be as great a divider between our two civilizations as Earth's new governor thought. The role that forced labour played across Orion's Imperium could be... complicated and confusing, from what I knew.
For one thing, only the Warcs devour people. It was a freak accident of natural selection that the evolutionary ancestors of the Warcs and their prey had, alongside one another, co-evolved the capacity for reason, a process spanning millions of years in the wilderness. That wasn't the case for the other two civilised carnivorans of Orion.
And for another, the cities at the core of the Imperium, such as this one, hosted a social fabric of the more liberal flavour. They were wealthier; slave labour could be cheaper than robotics, but the denizens of Orion's wealthiest cities could oppose it on moral grounds. As was plain among the crowd gathered in that plaza, there were plenty of "barbarian" species who were full citizens, not slaves. Freedmen. On the other hand, settlements at the far-flung fringes of the Imperium, suffering from scarcity, cut off from the plenty and the automation at the Imperium's core, were more traditional in these respects.
Lastly, there was an obvious movement to abolish slavery across the whole body of the Imperium. And atop all of this was the Imperium of Orion's common religious faith, Krucuv Mishan, where the perfect mathematics of astronomy and ecology demanded that people act in accordance with "the order of nature." And was it the order of nature for civilised carnivorans to inhabit a higher social class than barbarian herbivores? To enslave or devour them? I wasn't overly curious about that one. I am just a photosynthetic.
The chaos and confusion surrounding slavery in Orion was itself natural, I supposed. That is what happens when you take a civilization dependent on slavery and stretch it into a sprawling interstellar Imperium. It spans hundreds of thousands of cubic light-years, settles thousands of worlds, uses up [~billions of cubic kilometres] worth of resources, and generates [hundreds of billions of terawatts] of energy. Across the vastness of space, the question of slavery spirals into an impossibly diverse conundrum.
___________________________* * *___________________________
Herbivore servants (I wasn't sure if they were enslaved or indentured) brought us drinks as we met with other diplomats in the city's state guesthouse. I accepted mine with gratitude, though with no mouth to speak of and no wish to contaminate my soil, I just let it sit on the elegant table before me.
We were discussing economic and security agreements between the Imperium of Orion and the Senghavi colonies on Earth. This, I'd been anticipating all week.
What I hadn't been anticipating were the humans among us. Humans who had never known Earth or its indigenous cultures---who had only known Orion, overseen by Dr. Hawthorne---but who were brilliant in matters of science and strategy.
I wasn't sure what to call them. Orionian humans? They spoke only Circpi and Parimthian, and wore the sorts of clothes in which the vulpines of Orion might dress to indicate aristocratic status, all dark fabrics and geometric shapes.
"We recently ended our siege against the Viceroyalty of New Parimth," said Maivu au Prei. The ambassador of the vulpine Pondwir---those civilised carnivorans which handled Orion's intelligence and internal security---flicked his ears with satisfaction. He sipped from a goblet of wine. "Thanks to the strategists and operators from our force of Orion-born humans, the planet is ours. There was an entire Parimthian supercarrier in orbit around it. We shattered the whole vessel as if it were glass with [~0.5 kilograms] of antimatter."
My vines went limp with astonishment. We needed those Orion-born humans, too! Desperately! But as long as my mantid superior was blinded by pride in his species, and his deep-set prejudice against the native Terrans, their skills would be out of our reach.
Dammit, Benghoviu!
There were two scenarios here.
The first was that Benghoviu, as the new governor of Earth's newly-declared Union of Terran Republics, would reject this most brilliant gift from our motherland's most powerful arch-nemesis. Dr. Hawthorne would continue to serve Orion, not us. We would continue to encroach upon humanity's last territories on Earth until every last iota of human culture was turned to ash beneath sprawling Senghavi industries and Senghavi settlements.
The second was that we accepted Orion's gift. Dr. Hawthorne and the Orion-born humans he oversaw would serve us, though Orion would continue to benefit from their own human force. With human aptitude and intellect---and the antimatter that such skills had been employed to produce---we might just win our revolutionary war against the most powerful, most pretentious hegemony in the [Milky Way].
And, most importantly... we'd finally leave the rest of Earth's native primates alone.
We'd not be their friends for a long while; there was too much blood and bitterness for that. But I could convince the UN to take a hard stance on terrorism, so that they'd leave us alone. I'd been their hostage for a brief time; the head of the UN Secretariat knew me.
The only way to achieve that second scenario, however, was to take Governor Benghoviu out of the equation.
___________________________* * *___________________________
Our hotel was in the guesthouse's overall complex. At the entryway to our hotel room, Governor Benghoviu and I were greeted by an enslaved Timvian.
The cervid was rather like a baby Earth deer, but bipedal. She had no eyes; Timvians simply hadn't evolved them. Her arms were shaped like those of Earth's prehistoric tyrannosaurids, perhaps for grasping fruit, and the indentations of her alien bone structure were pressed tightly against her patterned fur.
I hadn't met a Timvian in-person before. I was fairly certain that her species' homeworld was under the jurisdiction of Orion's vulpines, not its canid Warcs, so there was no devouring of Timvians going on there; just forced labour.
"I've taken the liberty of making tea and confections," she said, the geometry of her two jaw segments forcing a slurred-sounding accent on her Parimthian speech. There was a winding, prehensile tongue in her mouth that slipped in and out with her words. I assumed the cervids sounded more natural in their own world's languages, rather than those of the Parimthian Empire or the Imperium of Orion. "They are on the dining table."
The new governor pressed his raptorial forelimbs together with gratitude, dipping his head capsule. My photoreceptors caught the gaze of his own compound eyes. Even with abolitionism tearing through Orion's massive Imperium, even in the wealthiest capital where traditions were bent and questioned, you couldn't escape the presence of slavery.
"Our sincerest thanks," said Governor Benghoviu. "Have you any Parimthian-style charging adaptors? My dear vice-governor, as you can see, is a photosynthetic. Many features of her life support require electric power."
"I'll retrieve one right away, sir."
"Ah, and---may we also have virtual reality headsets? Orion is a beautiful world, but I feel most relaxed in Earth's [Amazon Rainforest]. Fetch me a few ounces of synthspice, too, for I have a most ghastly headache."
"Of course, sir."
"And"---I piped up, my stomachs flip-flopping in my stems---"could you bring a cut of weeping-tail meat and a kitchen knife?"
"Yes, sir. Of course."
I am not a sir, per se---I am a gynomonoecious photosynthetic, so less of a sir and more of a madam---but I did not correct the Timvian. "Thank you. That will be all."
The barbarian slave walked down the hallway with a gait I'd never seen from any bipedal species. My mantid superior shuddered and entered the living space.
It was quite the luxurious interior, decorated with moving inks embedded within the glass walls, painting stories of love and war. Governor Benghoviu plopped lethargically onto the couch, using one of his secondary arms to rub the exposed joint of his leg. "What a day. The first antimatter weapons? Wormhole-assisted time dilation to raise humans away from Earth? What is next? Some artificial intelligence rises up and takes over the galaxy?"
"You're stubborn and proud, Governor," I said tiredly. "Accept Dr. Hawthorne, for the Gods' sake! Accept his terms!"
The frazzled Senghavi sighed and laid on his back, sinking into his own crinkly wing membranes. "D-don't you know why that can't happen? Humans are a terrorist threat, Perellanth! They'll, ah, flood our cities and undo every form of enlightenment and social progress we've achieved thus far. That 'United Nations' will get stronger and sponsor terrorism against innocent Senghavi. Were you---Were you radicalised as a hostage or something of the like?"
My roots tight in their soil again, I went to the kitchen to retrieve the goblet of tea and the tray of confections that our slave had prepared. It wasn't as though I could consume them, but Benghoviu could.
I disagreed with him overall, but the points he'd made were right. Native Terrans and Senghavi Terrans were not culturally compatible. To pretend the two parties were was beyond reckless.
There was a great deal of history behind our commitment to free and empirical thought and to the social enlightenment of civilization. Even if humanity had gone through a similar stage (perhaps our colonist forefathers had even derived some of our enlightened philosophical spirit from the primates themselves?), it would be irresponsible to the history of both species to attempt a multicultural human-mantid society.
Benghoviu was also correct about the terrorist threat humanity posed to us. There was a terrorist threat to the colonists of Earth. I wasn't sure how to tackle it.
However, none of this justified our continued colonialism. I had to do something. And I knew just what to do. I'd been planning it for a while.
The soft voice of the cervid slave flowed crisply through the sound system into our hotel room. "Governor Benghoviu and Vice-Governor Perellanth? I have some charging adaptors, virtual reality headsets, synthspice, and a cut of weeping-tail meat with a knife."
"Come right in!" I said merrily.
As the Timvian unlocked the door, standing next to an anti-grav tray full of what we'd requested, I beckoned her inside. My stomachs seized up with reluctance. With the tray passing silently by Governor Benghoviu, whose fatigued body lay half-awake on the couch, I lashed one of my vines to ensnare the knife for the weeping-tail meat.
Then I turned to face Benghoviu's sprawled mantid form. Before my mind could hesitate, I thrust the blade forward with all my might. It broke the pale blue skin exposed beneath his head capsule as if through a liquid surface, pressing into the meat within.
The governor yelped, clawing first at his neck, then pulling at my vine and scampering away from the couch. Cerulean blood cascaded like oil down the ridges and teeth of his exoskeleton.
"P-Perellanth!" he sputtered. "What---W-what is this?"
Via my life support's network connection, I was already sending an emergency notification to hotel security. And even then I was twisting the knife, burrowing it deeper into Bengoviu's throat.
He pushed one of his raptorial forelimbs against my face analogue. Those limbs are not just for show---it was by those spiny structures that prey animals were rapt from the ground and devoured by the Senghavi's prehistoric evolutionary ancestors. I flinched as my own milky blood dripped from a stinging crescent above my photoreceptors.
Then I pushed him back with another vine. He lost balance and collapsed onto the tiled floor. The Timvian slave was watching in shock, though I'd coiled another one of my vines over one of her tyrannosaurid-like arms.
"I can't have you leaving so soon," I said, placing the blue-stained knife onto the Timvian's anti-grav tray. "I'm sorry, dear."
My requested security arrived in the form of two Warcs. In a manner befitting their class as the canid soldiers and generals of Orion's civilised carnivorans, they marched to the entryway and snarled at the scene.
"Don't move!" one of them barked in that voiceless growl which Warcs had. Those beady yellow eyes of hers were locked onto my own photoreceptors. The predatory canids were followed by drone-cams and drone-guns, hovering just over their shoulders. "What the hell is going on?"
"She went on and on about things like abolishing slavery and taking revenge on you carnivores," I sputtered, pointing a vine at the poor Timvian slave, doing my best to feign shock and horror. Perhaps I was an effective administrator; indeed, there'd once been a time when I'd been desperate to prove it to everyone. I was not, however, an actress. "About... About the inalienable rights of sapients, a-and her brothers and sisters being slave-tributes, and the brutality of Orion. These b-barbarian herbivores---always so emotional, like children, aren't they?! Nothing like you civilised carnivorans, I tell you! She must have been trying to sabotage the alliance between our two civilizations."
The female Warc guard looked at the blue-stained kitchen knife on the Timvian slave's tray, then stared daggers at the young cervid.
"W-wait," the Timvian managed. She turned her eyeless head to me. "That's not... She's the one who did it!"
The male guard seized her skull with just one hand, dragging the petrified, whimpering slave out into the hallway. I shuddered.
"This is a historical, political, and moral wound that no amount of apology can heal," said the female Warc. "But for whatever it may be worth... We're sorry, Vice-Governor Perellanth. A state medical team is already on its way."
"By the Gods," I lamented, "I expect some form of diplomatic compensation for this egregious lapse in security! Governor Benghoviu was my dearest friend. Always so anxious and soft-spoken... His passing will leave the black hole of grief within all Senghavi mantids who knew him. Nonetheless, as per the chain of command... I will accept his office with utmost humility."
___________________________* * *___________________________
"I'm back to Governor Perellanth, now!" I exclaimed.
My autonomous anti-grav transport glided over the outskirts of Vuivzi Vieda, built into land where Mexico City had once stood. It was here that I would soon say my ceremonial oath as the inheritor of the late Governor Benghoviu's office. We'd already declared our independence from Parimth under Benghoviu's administration. Now it was my job to protect the unity, values, and supreme law of this democracy us colonists had enkindled upon the Earth.
The weary face of UN Secretary-General Yosef Peretz frowned on the screen of my data tablet. He hadn't shaved in a while, white hairs crawling over his cheeks and chin. His eyes were red and baggy.
"But... Who took the fall for Governor Benghoviu's death?"
"Some... Timvian," I said dismissively---Yosef Peretz wouldn't know what a Timvian was, and I didn't let him pry further. "The important thing is that, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces of our Union of Terran Republics, I've withdrawn our troops and aerocraft from United Nations territory."
"Technically, all of Earth is our territory," Yosef muttered darkly.
"You know what I mean! I've halted all efforts to settle France and Germany. We're deporting all the French and German primates who have since sought refuge in Senghavi territory---you can take care of them. I... I am sorry about the loss of your infrastructure and history. Except for in Russia and in the United Kingdom, everything the human race has built in Europe has been destroyed."
"Thank you, Perellanth."
I winced. "I know. 'Sorry' doesn't... I am sorry, though. I would have halted it all sooner if I could. I never thought I would say anything like this, but I'd like to thank the UN for... well, taking me hostage?"
And what else could I say?
Humans were silver-tongued devils; and as much as they hated me, they'd enraptured me with their histories and their cultures. Benghoviu had dismissed the idea, but deep down, I really had been radicalised as a hostage.
I was done trying to prove myself to the rest of the civilised galaxy. All that was left to do was to prove myself to Earth's native primates; to show them I could be a strong, fair leader of my own people---to the humans' benefit.
"President Petrova of Russia sends her regards to you," said Yosef. "Their military is on its last legs, but the Russian Federation remains intact."
Most Russian cities still stood---for any human nation, the plan had been to glass its cities only after their human citizens had been evacuated. It was a gift from the Gods that Benghoviu had never gotten that far.
"It is remarkable how you primates have managed to pull yourselves out of the dust," I said. "We... We pushed you. We pushed you to madness. You lashed back at us. You clawed blindly at the stars, screaming for help into the silence of space.
"It was with that survival instinct that you took in all those broken Lamfu ships. That, even now, you still press for more friends, for more resources. That you turned those Lamfu lagomorphs against Orion's slave-tribute system. And it was human intellect that Orion wielded to research antimatter; to seize entire viceroyalties from the Parimthian Crown.
"You managed to capture me. You stole our wormhole maps so you could voyage to other stars, something of which only the greatest civilizations ought to be capable! Your history clings still onto you, even when we denied it, even whenever we assimilate you. You held out just long enough to save yourselves, and you'll be making your own antimatter soon... even without my help. "
Yosef took a deep breath, his eyebrows furrowing. "Without your help?"
"Man still poses a terrorist threat to my people," I said softly. "It is true that the carnivorans have gifted us with half of those humans born, raised, and conditioned in Orion's Imperium... along with the old biologist, Dr. Hawthorne. They'll manage our antimatter weaponry for us. But... that's not something I can share with you. It would be... irresponsible."
"That's okay. We'll make our own antimatter. There's a young human physicist who used to work for your people. He works for us now."
If I were a human, I would've raised an eyebrow. "Casimir Szymański? The doctoral student?"
"The Milky Way will see what a humanity armed with wormhole maps, lagomorph ships, and antimatter bombs can do," Yosef said. I thought he'd be smiling when he said those words, but his face was cold as if hewn from marble, like those old "Greek" and "Roman" statues humans had in their museums. The ones whose histories so many of us denied, clouded with pride in our cultural superiority. "We're just a few poor countries on Earth. The wormhole-faring empires have thousands of worlds. Perhaps our species truly is fated to the darkness of extinction. But we'll never go gentle into that good night."
They'll rage and rage against the dying of the light, I thought. Yosef was drawing from a centuries-old human poem.
"Of course, Mr. Peretz," I replied. Then I switched to English, because the poem didn't rhyme or flow in Parimthian. "'Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.''"
2023.09.22 13:55 fixtheblue [Discussion] RtW - Beijing Coma: From ".... trying to gauge where you are." up to "Perhaps the rain has stopped....."
Welcome back Read the World followers to the 2nd discussion for Beijing Coma by Ma Jian and translated by Flora Drew. Find out more about Ma Jian here).
● SECTION SUMMARY Students begin to protest the slow rate of reform all over the country. The plan is to gather in Tiananmen Square on New Year’s Eve to demand more freedom and democracy. The students discuss the merits of attending the protest. The majority decide to take part. Mou Sen will rouse people from Beijing Normal. He compares himself to Chairman Mao when "whipping up the minors strike"
Dai Wei is making money on hair regeneration solution that Sun Chunlin sends him from Shenzhen.
Dai Ru went to study computing at the Sichuan University of Science and Technology. Dai Wei and his mother argue about politics. Their arguing becomes worse after Dai Ru leaves home for university. He decides not to work on his protest banner whilst in her flat. Dai Wei's family in America offer to sponsor him, but he wants to wait until he is finished his phD. He thinks it is Huizhen thay actually wants to go to America.
Tiananmen Square has been closed off by the police to prevent the protest. The turn out, less than 1000 students, is disappointing. However, three foreign journalists do show up. The police sent telegrams to all the ringleaders of the protest in an attempt to trick them into leaving Beijing. Co-founder Yang Tao had been deceived and left Beijing. People loiter, and some none students ask to join. Eventually the protest starts with chants of "Down with corruption! Long live freedom". A horde of armed police then emerged from a bus, and start beating students with batons. Dai Wei recieves a blow to the head. Wang Fei had run away at the first sign of violence. Police round up many protesters into the Workers' Palace saying anyone who opposes the government is an enemy of the people, a counter-revolutionary! The none student civilians were dragged outside and shoved onto a bus. They will be punished (one Shandong peasant got 10 years in prison) even though the 1978 constitution reform got rid of the crime “counterrevolutionary activities". The students will likely only get a terrible posting once they finish their degrees. Dai Wei's arrest had lost his mother a pay rise, and any chance of being granted Party membership.
Dai Wei is the 34th student to be interrogated. Upon returning to campus he and Old Fu were treated like heroes. They had both been forced to write self-criticisms. However, three spirituals leaders of those protesting the political system were soon punished. Hu Yaobang, the reformist General Secretary, was forced to retire, and Party leader Deng Xiaoping announced a tougher stance on protests. The Party Comittee tightened up on campus, and suddenly the heroes became pariahs overnight. China's brief period of tolerance was over.
Dai Wei met Tian Yi September 1988 on a packed bus. He was instantly mesmorised by her. She invites him to a party. At the party they talk about The Book of Mountains and Seas. Though Tian Yi (meaning cloth of heaven) is a Psychology student she plans to do a Master’s in Chinese literature after graduating.
27th November and it is Dai Wei's 22nd birthday. He and Tian Yi make birthday noodles together until the hot plate trips the power. They fool around in the dark. Tian Yi has bought him an illustrated copy of The Book of Mountains and Seas.
Dai Wei is waiting for Tian Yi in the cold. Gao Hua approaches asking to buy some hair tonic. She tells him the new leader of the Democracy Salon, Han Dan, is organising a debate. The Pantheon Society has been quiet since the last attempt at protest (on behalf of a student killed by hooligans) was crushed.
January 1989 Dai Wei and Tian Yi are at the Land of Black Teeth described in The Book of Mountains and Seas on vacation. It took them 6 days to get to Xishuangbanna on the border with Laos and Myanmar. They are hiking up a mountain through the rainforest. Dai Wei is enjoying it but Tian Yi is struggling with the physical exertion. They make love on the side of the mountain. Dai Wei has a feeling of complete privacy for the 1st time ever. They descend at dusk fleeing the mosquitos.
One day after supper with Tian Yi and her friends Dai Wei returns to his dorm where the drifter (a noisy peasant from Sichuan, who lives in the dormitory corridor) and his dorm mates are playing drinking games, gambling, and talking about protesting again.
Dai Wei has applied to some American schools.
Dai Wei and Tian Yi found a wild patch of peach trees near the university fence. They made love but were interrupted by 3 'officers'. They had tresspassed and would be arrested. The men demand 300 yuan. Dai Wei had only 120. Later Dai Wei discovers that the "policemen" were actually a gang of thugs extorting money from the manh couples they catch having sex. He dares not tell Tian Yi.
23 April, 1990 a few months after returning to his mother's flat from the hospital Dai Wei comes around briefly. He has a memory of the day it happened. He was shot in the head. He thinks A-Mei was there with him along with Mou Sen and Weng Fei.
Hu Yaobang's death is a terrible loss for Chinese democracy. He was the saviour of millions after he 'rehabilitated rightists'. Students talk about how it is time to remobilise.
Dai Wei has expressive aphasia and cannot talk.
A memorial march for Hu Yaobang has already occurred through Beijing. On campus people suspect the quiet, reserved Zhang Jie, of being an informer. Spies were guarenteed jobs after graduation. Zhao Ziyang has taken over and he wants the Party more open and democratic. Protests could force him to step down. The students discuss the pros and cons of attending the memorial. Getting blacklisted could prevent them from finding jobs after graduation. Tian Yi also begs Dai Wei not to get involved in the protests this time.
His mother was reluctant for Dai Wei's friends to visit as it upset her. She sees he is waking and must prepare
The resistence escalates, and the students in Dai Wei's dorm argue. Students begin shouting out the window at a guitar player. Emotions are running high. A bonfire is started and among other things the doors to the girls dorm (that are locked at 11pm) are ripped off and thrown on the flames. Shouting slogans the students tour the various dorms collecting more and more people. Two hours later the crowd marches toward the Square, but campus security has locked the gates. Security is eventually convinced to open them. Tall students act as marshals to protect the others, slogans are decided and the orderly column continues. Professors come to beg the students not to go and jeopardise Zhao Ziyang's position as General Secretary.
The students march toward Tianenmen Square calling on students from the People's University to join them. Without waiting they continue onward arriving at a blockade of about 100 policmen and 10 police vans. The face off lasts an hour and civilians begin to pour into the street to watch. Eventually the students pass between the police officers unmolested. Dai Wei is concerned it is a trick. Old Fu and Mou Sen cycle back to the dorm to prepare a speech and a petition.
Dai Wei's sense of smell has returned. He can hear things. He know Tian Yi has visited twice but he was unconscious at the time
The students arrive at the Square just before dawn. Mourners linger but rain has driven many away. They hang their banners and read their eulogy. They agree on seven demands, including; - an affirmation of Hu Yaobang’s liberal views on democracy and freedom, - a renunciation of past campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalism, - pay rises for teachers and professors, - an increase in press freedom and freedom of speech - the end of restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing. Han Dan and Hai Feng went to the reception office of the Great Hall of the People to discuss submitting the petition to Premier Li Peng. It will be received by the deputy head of the State Bureau of Letters and Visits. Not everyone was happy with that result.
At the Triangle Dai Wei and Tian Yi look at the posters that have been put up. The night before Dai Wei and Weng Fei had spent the night keeping watch. Some guys had torn down the posters and smashed the only light. When caught the guy said it was done on the orders of the university’s Youth League committee. Buying candles and paper is now forbidden on campus.
Early August and Tian Yi visits Dai Wei after her exams, even though leaving the guarded campus was difficult. He feels a rush of love. Tian Yi reads from his notes - admitted to hospital on 4 June 1989, with a bullet injury to the brain, suffering from numbness and paralysis. 6 June 1989 the bullet was removed from his head under general anaesthetic. His electrogram shows brain activity. Tian Yi is still under investigation. Dai Wei is forbidden treatment so Huizhen has to pay private doctors. Police still visit regularly and neighbours now avoid her. Xiao Li - the poor peasant student - has committed suicide after being forced to write a self-criticism for singing the national anthem in public. Jiang Zemin has taken over as General Secretary. Dai Wei can't be sure his memory of Mao Da's visit telling of Wend Fei's discharge from hospital is real or not. Beijing University has become like a military camp/or a Communist Party Academy. Dai Wei's grand-uncle has died. Huizhen was eventually able to collect the money from his will. His son Kenneth asks if Tian Yi still wants to study abroad.
Alone with Dai Wei Tian Yi talks about The Book of Mountains and Seas. Dai Wei tries to answer her question in his mind, but he cannot remember the name of the jingwei bird. Her presence makes him fear death again. The students have become prisoners after the protests. She will be interrogated if anyone knows she has visited him. She had to write a self-criticism in order to be kept on at university. Her touch makes him remember making love to her.
Weng Fei calls Ke Xi a general without an army as he gives a speech on the lawn. The students meet to organise a new wave of protests. Dai Wei is unsuccessful at speaking to the crowd. They ask for volunteers from the crowd of 4000, but joining an unofficial organisation was held by the government to be a counter-revolutionary crime and the students are scared. Mao Da, the chancellor of the student union, hadn’t been seen for two days. Ke Xi calls for the leaders of the student union to come and lead. When no one comes they call to disband the official unions. Leaderless students from Qinghua University also want to join the movement. Beijing University’s democracy movement becomes founded by the speakers of the day, Old Fu, Ke Xi, Liu Gang, Wang Fei, Zhuzi, Yang Tao, Shu Tong, Shao Jian and Dai Wei. There is a peaceful sit-in outside Xinhua Gate, the southern entrance to the Zhongnanhai compound in which the government leaders live and work. However, the media tells another story, showing armed officers injured by students' projectiles. The Organising Committee of Beijing University Independent Student Union get to work printing armbands and leaflets or going to the sit in. Dai Wei goes to bed after not sleeping for 2 days....
●ADDITIONAL REFERENCES - The Democracy Wall.) of 1978-1979 was a wall of posters put up in Beijing to protest about Political and Social issues. Initially it was encouraged by Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern China, until human rights activist and dissident, Wei Jingsheng, said something he didn't like and the wall was torn down. - Shenzhen is mentioned a few times as being a place of opportunity. The Chinese government turned Shenzhen into a model city for other cities in China to follow. On the border, it links mainland China with Hong Kong. - At the party Dai Wei mentions the Ming Dynasty geographer Xu Xiake. Check out the map and how extensively he travelled around China. - Tian Yi says she thinks she has Cherophobia, which TiL is a legit aversion to happiness. - Tian Yu mentions the Bulang tribe while vacationing in Xishuangbanna. - The radio mentions martial law being imposed in Lhasa which was probably on March 8th after the 5-7 March 1989 demonstrations for Tibetan Independance. During which unarmed civilian protestors were shot by PAP soliders. Martial law was imposed, and remained, for the next 13 months. - Haizi helped stir up the students after he committed suicide in despair about China's future. - He Yong) 's music is playing in the dorm. This is from his album that came some years after the events of the book, but I think it gives a good indication of the atmosphere around the time of the protest. - When Tian Yi comes to read to Dai Wei she talks about travelling 110 li. Li).) is a Chinese unit of measurement equivalent to 500m, 1640ft or 0.311mi. - I ended up going off on a Chinese mythology tangent while reading (hence why I am a little later posting than last week). I fully recommend diving down that rabbit hole if you have time and the will. It is fascinating. I started here.
Thank you all for joining me for the first 2 discussions. u/bluebelle236 will take over for the next 2 discussion check-ins.
Happy reading 📚
submitted by fixtheblue to bookclub [link] [comments]
- Note: this book has no chapters, parts or sections so the section starts and ends at the quotes given in italics. Page numbers are noted in the schedule here, but be aware they may vary depending on which edition you are reading.
● SECTION SUMMARY Students begin to protest the slow rate of reform all over the country. The plan is to gather in Tiananmen Square on New Year’s Eve to demand more freedom and democracy. The students discuss the merits of attending the protest. The majority decide to take part. Mou Sen will rouse people from Beijing Normal. He compares himself to Chairman Mao when "whipping up the minors strike"
Dai Wei is making money on hair regeneration solution that Sun Chunlin sends him from Shenzhen.
Dai Ru went to study computing at the Sichuan University of Science and Technology. Dai Wei and his mother argue about politics. Their arguing becomes worse after Dai Ru leaves home for university. He decides not to work on his protest banner whilst in her flat. Dai Wei's family in America offer to sponsor him, but he wants to wait until he is finished his phD. He thinks it is Huizhen thay actually wants to go to America.
Tiananmen Square has been closed off by the police to prevent the protest. The turn out, less than 1000 students, is disappointing. However, three foreign journalists do show up. The police sent telegrams to all the ringleaders of the protest in an attempt to trick them into leaving Beijing. Co-founder Yang Tao had been deceived and left Beijing. People loiter, and some none students ask to join. Eventually the protest starts with chants of "Down with corruption! Long live freedom". A horde of armed police then emerged from a bus, and start beating students with batons. Dai Wei recieves a blow to the head. Wang Fei had run away at the first sign of violence. Police round up many protesters into the Workers' Palace saying anyone who opposes the government is an enemy of the people, a counter-revolutionary! The none student civilians were dragged outside and shoved onto a bus. They will be punished (one Shandong peasant got 10 years in prison) even though the 1978 constitution reform got rid of the crime “counterrevolutionary activities". The students will likely only get a terrible posting once they finish their degrees. Dai Wei's arrest had lost his mother a pay rise, and any chance of being granted Party membership.
Dai Wei is the 34th student to be interrogated. Upon returning to campus he and Old Fu were treated like heroes. They had both been forced to write self-criticisms. However, three spirituals leaders of those protesting the political system were soon punished. Hu Yaobang, the reformist General Secretary, was forced to retire, and Party leader Deng Xiaoping announced a tougher stance on protests. The Party Comittee tightened up on campus, and suddenly the heroes became pariahs overnight. China's brief period of tolerance was over.
Dai Wei met Tian Yi September 1988 on a packed bus. He was instantly mesmorised by her. She invites him to a party. At the party they talk about The Book of Mountains and Seas. Though Tian Yi (meaning cloth of heaven) is a Psychology student she plans to do a Master’s in Chinese literature after graduating.
27th November and it is Dai Wei's 22nd birthday. He and Tian Yi make birthday noodles together until the hot plate trips the power. They fool around in the dark. Tian Yi has bought him an illustrated copy of The Book of Mountains and Seas.
Dai Wei is waiting for Tian Yi in the cold. Gao Hua approaches asking to buy some hair tonic. She tells him the new leader of the Democracy Salon, Han Dan, is organising a debate. The Pantheon Society has been quiet since the last attempt at protest (on behalf of a student killed by hooligans) was crushed.
January 1989 Dai Wei and Tian Yi are at the Land of Black Teeth described in The Book of Mountains and Seas on vacation. It took them 6 days to get to Xishuangbanna on the border with Laos and Myanmar. They are hiking up a mountain through the rainforest. Dai Wei is enjoying it but Tian Yi is struggling with the physical exertion. They make love on the side of the mountain. Dai Wei has a feeling of complete privacy for the 1st time ever. They descend at dusk fleeing the mosquitos.
One day after supper with Tian Yi and her friends Dai Wei returns to his dorm where the drifter (a noisy peasant from Sichuan, who lives in the dormitory corridor) and his dorm mates are playing drinking games, gambling, and talking about protesting again.
Dai Wei has applied to some American schools.
Dai Wei and Tian Yi found a wild patch of peach trees near the university fence. They made love but were interrupted by 3 'officers'. They had tresspassed and would be arrested. The men demand 300 yuan. Dai Wei had only 120. Later Dai Wei discovers that the "policemen" were actually a gang of thugs extorting money from the manh couples they catch having sex. He dares not tell Tian Yi.
23 April, 1990 a few months after returning to his mother's flat from the hospital Dai Wei comes around briefly. He has a memory of the day it happened. He was shot in the head. He thinks A-Mei was there with him along with Mou Sen and Weng Fei.
Hu Yaobang's death is a terrible loss for Chinese democracy. He was the saviour of millions after he 'rehabilitated rightists'. Students talk about how it is time to remobilise.
Dai Wei has expressive aphasia and cannot talk.
A memorial march for Hu Yaobang has already occurred through Beijing. On campus people suspect the quiet, reserved Zhang Jie, of being an informer. Spies were guarenteed jobs after graduation. Zhao Ziyang has taken over and he wants the Party more open and democratic. Protests could force him to step down. The students discuss the pros and cons of attending the memorial. Getting blacklisted could prevent them from finding jobs after graduation. Tian Yi also begs Dai Wei not to get involved in the protests this time.
His mother was reluctant for Dai Wei's friends to visit as it upset her. She sees he is waking and must prepare
The resistence escalates, and the students in Dai Wei's dorm argue. Students begin shouting out the window at a guitar player. Emotions are running high. A bonfire is started and among other things the doors to the girls dorm (that are locked at 11pm) are ripped off and thrown on the flames. Shouting slogans the students tour the various dorms collecting more and more people. Two hours later the crowd marches toward the Square, but campus security has locked the gates. Security is eventually convinced to open them. Tall students act as marshals to protect the others, slogans are decided and the orderly column continues. Professors come to beg the students not to go and jeopardise Zhao Ziyang's position as General Secretary.
The students march toward Tianenmen Square calling on students from the People's University to join them. Without waiting they continue onward arriving at a blockade of about 100 policmen and 10 police vans. The face off lasts an hour and civilians begin to pour into the street to watch. Eventually the students pass between the police officers unmolested. Dai Wei is concerned it is a trick. Old Fu and Mou Sen cycle back to the dorm to prepare a speech and a petition.
Dai Wei's sense of smell has returned. He can hear things. He know Tian Yi has visited twice but he was unconscious at the time
The students arrive at the Square just before dawn. Mourners linger but rain has driven many away. They hang their banners and read their eulogy. They agree on seven demands, including; - an affirmation of Hu Yaobang’s liberal views on democracy and freedom, - a renunciation of past campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalism, - pay rises for teachers and professors, - an increase in press freedom and freedom of speech - the end of restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing. Han Dan and Hai Feng went to the reception office of the Great Hall of the People to discuss submitting the petition to Premier Li Peng. It will be received by the deputy head of the State Bureau of Letters and Visits. Not everyone was happy with that result.
At the Triangle Dai Wei and Tian Yi look at the posters that have been put up. The night before Dai Wei and Weng Fei had spent the night keeping watch. Some guys had torn down the posters and smashed the only light. When caught the guy said it was done on the orders of the university’s Youth League committee. Buying candles and paper is now forbidden on campus.
Early August and Tian Yi visits Dai Wei after her exams, even though leaving the guarded campus was difficult. He feels a rush of love. Tian Yi reads from his notes - admitted to hospital on 4 June 1989, with a bullet injury to the brain, suffering from numbness and paralysis. 6 June 1989 the bullet was removed from his head under general anaesthetic. His electrogram shows brain activity. Tian Yi is still under investigation. Dai Wei is forbidden treatment so Huizhen has to pay private doctors. Police still visit regularly and neighbours now avoid her. Xiao Li - the poor peasant student - has committed suicide after being forced to write a self-criticism for singing the national anthem in public. Jiang Zemin has taken over as General Secretary. Dai Wei can't be sure his memory of Mao Da's visit telling of Wend Fei's discharge from hospital is real or not. Beijing University has become like a military camp/or a Communist Party Academy. Dai Wei's grand-uncle has died. Huizhen was eventually able to collect the money from his will. His son Kenneth asks if Tian Yi still wants to study abroad.
Alone with Dai Wei Tian Yi talks about The Book of Mountains and Seas. Dai Wei tries to answer her question in his mind, but he cannot remember the name of the jingwei bird. Her presence makes him fear death again. The students have become prisoners after the protests. She will be interrogated if anyone knows she has visited him. She had to write a self-criticism in order to be kept on at university. Her touch makes him remember making love to her.
Weng Fei calls Ke Xi a general without an army as he gives a speech on the lawn. The students meet to organise a new wave of protests. Dai Wei is unsuccessful at speaking to the crowd. They ask for volunteers from the crowd of 4000, but joining an unofficial organisation was held by the government to be a counter-revolutionary crime and the students are scared. Mao Da, the chancellor of the student union, hadn’t been seen for two days. Ke Xi calls for the leaders of the student union to come and lead. When no one comes they call to disband the official unions. Leaderless students from Qinghua University also want to join the movement. Beijing University’s democracy movement becomes founded by the speakers of the day, Old Fu, Ke Xi, Liu Gang, Wang Fei, Zhuzi, Yang Tao, Shu Tong, Shao Jian and Dai Wei. There is a peaceful sit-in outside Xinhua Gate, the southern entrance to the Zhongnanhai compound in which the government leaders live and work. However, the media tells another story, showing armed officers injured by students' projectiles. The Organising Committee of Beijing University Independent Student Union get to work printing armbands and leaflets or going to the sit in. Dai Wei goes to bed after not sleeping for 2 days....
●ADDITIONAL REFERENCES - The Democracy Wall.) of 1978-1979 was a wall of posters put up in Beijing to protest about Political and Social issues. Initially it was encouraged by Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern China, until human rights activist and dissident, Wei Jingsheng, said something he didn't like and the wall was torn down. - Shenzhen is mentioned a few times as being a place of opportunity. The Chinese government turned Shenzhen into a model city for other cities in China to follow. On the border, it links mainland China with Hong Kong. - At the party Dai Wei mentions the Ming Dynasty geographer Xu Xiake. Check out the map and how extensively he travelled around China. - Tian Yi says she thinks she has Cherophobia, which TiL is a legit aversion to happiness. - Tian Yu mentions the Bulang tribe while vacationing in Xishuangbanna. - The radio mentions martial law being imposed in Lhasa which was probably on March 8th after the 5-7 March 1989 demonstrations for Tibetan Independance. During which unarmed civilian protestors were shot by PAP soliders. Martial law was imposed, and remained, for the next 13 months. - Haizi helped stir up the students after he committed suicide in despair about China's future. - He Yong) 's music is playing in the dorm. This is from his album that came some years after the events of the book, but I think it gives a good indication of the atmosphere around the time of the protest. - When Tian Yi comes to read to Dai Wei she talks about travelling 110 li. Li).) is a Chinese unit of measurement equivalent to 500m, 1640ft or 0.311mi. - I ended up going off on a Chinese mythology tangent while reading (hence why I am a little later posting than last week). I fully recommend diving down that rabbit hole if you have time and the will. It is fascinating. I started here.
Thank you all for joining me for the first 2 discussions. u/bluebelle236 will take over for the next 2 discussion check-ins.
Happy reading 📚
2023.03.18 04:45 rdk67 Winter Day 86: The Desert of the Real
A thought knocks on the windowpanes of the candy-coated chewing-gum packaging that is my place of residence.
I open the door onto the vast green horizon of row crops that constitute some staggering portion of all the farmed land throughout the state where I hail.
Three-quarters of the state is agriculture, and most of that is corn and soybeans, which are grown for their sugars and oils, which supplements a million other foods, or is fed to farmed animals – social, sentient, intelligent mammals that care for and name their young and typically make it to a smidge past adolescence before the slaughter occurs and the corpse is professionally dissected by trained technicians, the parts rendered as a variety of weighed and labeled lumps of predigest protein.
Less work! should be the carnivore slogan, formally stated as a shout – and who then accounts for all that surplus labor that comes so easily to hand and tooth?
Predigested protein – for that you need a slaughter.
I’m glad the industry picked the word slaughter to describe what it does and where it does it – slaughter house sounds exactly like what you would expect to be taking place inside one.
Compare this to processing plant – the chicken processing plant – and you can feel how out of touch your average wholesale lighting industry is from the stone-faced coal-train engineers, hurtling through the night.
Row crops in Illinois are like massively parallel train tracks running straight through to the horizon from end to end, every day all day long.
The soil is a factory for the production of vegetable fat and fructose calories, come rain or come shine, especially with these genetic modifications in favor of drought resistance that make the current corn the civilized progenitor of the hit-or-miss caveman corn of yore, 40 years before.
Forty years ago, the risk of crop failure was manifestly higher than it is now and due not only to genetically engineered drought resistance and densified planting patterns today, both of which have changed the kind of farming that can be done commercially in my state – where titans of industry mow their own lawns – but because all row-crop seeds are now roundup ready, which sounds like one of the most optimistic formulations in the history of herbicides – a kind of divine manifestation in response to a problem – roundup ready – namely the eradication of every hint of life but the row crop.
The ecology of crop production was changed by herbicides, as was the genetic makeup of the crops themselves, and as you drove by them, the fields of row crops suddenly came to look the same as the illustrations on postcards and in books about the nobility of farming – roundup-ready reset the state’s landscape to look more like a certain human fantasy.
Gone were rich ecologies beneath the row crops but not exclusive to them, and with those weeds and fungi came a plethora of insects and spiders, the birds that feed on them, and so on and so forth, so that at certain times of year, life fills the air with the odor of nature in a state of contemplation, and you can smell the way a theme is played out over the course of days or weeks, and you begin to get some idea how dogs must interact with the world – when they are at rest, their eyes defer to their noses.
When something they see doesn’t make sense, they are apt to sniff the air.
If the dogs of my state could somehow speak to the dogs of yesteryear, did those prior populations – the roundup-unready, call’em – live in a wealthier world?
The dogs of the present sniff the air dominated by a single fruiting stalk, begin to howl about the poverty – you mean we didn’t always live in a desert?
We lived in a kind of rainforest, says a dog of yesteryear, who would sometimes – this was true of my grandpa’s dog, for instance – just run around the ground sniffing it, and we imagined he was trying to track whatever made the scent, but really he ran because the air was so intoxicating, it caused his body to lunge forward and race across the grass – not from bloodlust or any other fever of predation but to hear the voice of nature in your head, urging you to listen to a scent.
When I follow the scent of biochemical terraforming around the state, I wonder if economies that optimize calorie production at the expense of life as a variegated phenomenon aren’t imitating the logic of laboratories in their epic distillations.
After all, how many citizens of my state – did I mention that three-quarters of the land is agriculture? – knew the previously mentioned desertification took place in our lifetimes?
I mean, stop the car sometime, and have a look at the rows of soybeans or corn – wherever the crop is not, the ground is utterly bare.
Perhaps the point was to create that desert under our noses, and that extraordinary caloric load that goes streaming around the world is more of a byproduct.
Did the urge to colonize sink into the crumbs of soil?
Dive headlong into the crust of our becoming?
Forbid indigenous green chemistry from sprouting wings and learning to fly unless the proper genetic code could be presented upon request to local magistrates with the power to arrest?
However we might feel at this point – the land is a reputable specialist with a bunch of weekend hobbies, the land is a quilt covering an ailing patient who’s hoping for the best – the terrain will keep changing for the better.
The caloric shape of the land, the way traffic is routed through cities, how beauty is depicted in men’s magazines – a visible species appears in each of those phenomena, bounding forward to bask in the daylight that is human attention.
Everywhere we place it, that daylight begins to grow the world, and so we set the railways of our mind in motion, all of us at once, green leaves opening before us like we’re listening to time itself go by.
We have disappeared into the desert on these green self-organizing rails, rolling through a landscape so casually emptied of its natural features, the region is like a dream forgetting it’s a dream. We are its rational assumptions, still real.
submitted by rdk67 to MetaphysicalWeather [link] [comments]
I open the door onto the vast green horizon of row crops that constitute some staggering portion of all the farmed land throughout the state where I hail.
Three-quarters of the state is agriculture, and most of that is corn and soybeans, which are grown for their sugars and oils, which supplements a million other foods, or is fed to farmed animals – social, sentient, intelligent mammals that care for and name their young and typically make it to a smidge past adolescence before the slaughter occurs and the corpse is professionally dissected by trained technicians, the parts rendered as a variety of weighed and labeled lumps of predigest protein.
Less work! should be the carnivore slogan, formally stated as a shout – and who then accounts for all that surplus labor that comes so easily to hand and tooth?
Predigested protein – for that you need a slaughter.
I’m glad the industry picked the word slaughter to describe what it does and where it does it – slaughter house sounds exactly like what you would expect to be taking place inside one.
Compare this to processing plant – the chicken processing plant – and you can feel how out of touch your average wholesale lighting industry is from the stone-faced coal-train engineers, hurtling through the night.
Row crops in Illinois are like massively parallel train tracks running straight through to the horizon from end to end, every day all day long.
The soil is a factory for the production of vegetable fat and fructose calories, come rain or come shine, especially with these genetic modifications in favor of drought resistance that make the current corn the civilized progenitor of the hit-or-miss caveman corn of yore, 40 years before.
Forty years ago, the risk of crop failure was manifestly higher than it is now and due not only to genetically engineered drought resistance and densified planting patterns today, both of which have changed the kind of farming that can be done commercially in my state – where titans of industry mow their own lawns – but because all row-crop seeds are now roundup ready, which sounds like one of the most optimistic formulations in the history of herbicides – a kind of divine manifestation in response to a problem – roundup ready – namely the eradication of every hint of life but the row crop.
The ecology of crop production was changed by herbicides, as was the genetic makeup of the crops themselves, and as you drove by them, the fields of row crops suddenly came to look the same as the illustrations on postcards and in books about the nobility of farming – roundup-ready reset the state’s landscape to look more like a certain human fantasy.
Gone were rich ecologies beneath the row crops but not exclusive to them, and with those weeds and fungi came a plethora of insects and spiders, the birds that feed on them, and so on and so forth, so that at certain times of year, life fills the air with the odor of nature in a state of contemplation, and you can smell the way a theme is played out over the course of days or weeks, and you begin to get some idea how dogs must interact with the world – when they are at rest, their eyes defer to their noses.
When something they see doesn’t make sense, they are apt to sniff the air.
If the dogs of my state could somehow speak to the dogs of yesteryear, did those prior populations – the roundup-unready, call’em – live in a wealthier world?
The dogs of the present sniff the air dominated by a single fruiting stalk, begin to howl about the poverty – you mean we didn’t always live in a desert?
We lived in a kind of rainforest, says a dog of yesteryear, who would sometimes – this was true of my grandpa’s dog, for instance – just run around the ground sniffing it, and we imagined he was trying to track whatever made the scent, but really he ran because the air was so intoxicating, it caused his body to lunge forward and race across the grass – not from bloodlust or any other fever of predation but to hear the voice of nature in your head, urging you to listen to a scent.
When I follow the scent of biochemical terraforming around the state, I wonder if economies that optimize calorie production at the expense of life as a variegated phenomenon aren’t imitating the logic of laboratories in their epic distillations.
After all, how many citizens of my state – did I mention that three-quarters of the land is agriculture? – knew the previously mentioned desertification took place in our lifetimes?
I mean, stop the car sometime, and have a look at the rows of soybeans or corn – wherever the crop is not, the ground is utterly bare.
Perhaps the point was to create that desert under our noses, and that extraordinary caloric load that goes streaming around the world is more of a byproduct.
Did the urge to colonize sink into the crumbs of soil?
Dive headlong into the crust of our becoming?
Forbid indigenous green chemistry from sprouting wings and learning to fly unless the proper genetic code could be presented upon request to local magistrates with the power to arrest?
However we might feel at this point – the land is a reputable specialist with a bunch of weekend hobbies, the land is a quilt covering an ailing patient who’s hoping for the best – the terrain will keep changing for the better.
The caloric shape of the land, the way traffic is routed through cities, how beauty is depicted in men’s magazines – a visible species appears in each of those phenomena, bounding forward to bask in the daylight that is human attention.
Everywhere we place it, that daylight begins to grow the world, and so we set the railways of our mind in motion, all of us at once, green leaves opening before us like we’re listening to time itself go by.
We have disappeared into the desert on these green self-organizing rails, rolling through a landscape so casually emptied of its natural features, the region is like a dream forgetting it’s a dream. We are its rational assumptions, still real.
2022.10.13 15:15 kittehgoesmeow What A Day: Grinding To A Laxalt by Julia Claire & Crooked Media (10/12/22)
"I'm Italian. That's Latin, thank you." - Los Angeles Mayoral candidate and Republican-until-three-minutes-ago Rick Caruso, insisting he is not white. Good luck with that, Rick!
Tune into the Wind Of Change bonus episode, “Scorpions Live from New York,” now wherever you get your podcasts and join us in raising funds for medical supplies in Ukraine by donating to United24.
Disgraced former president Trump will have to sit for a deposition in the defamation lawsuit lodged by longtime New York columnist E. Jean Carroll, whom Trump called a liar while he was in office after she accused him of sexual assault in the mid-1990’s.
In a follow-up from a story we covered the other day, the White House has officially gotten involved in the Los Angeles City Council scandal, calling for all officials caught on tape making racist remarks to resign. City Council President Nury Martinez, who is at the center of the scandal, announced her resignation from the body today.
Tomorrow’s series finale January 6 Committee televised hearing is expected to highlight newly-obtained records showing that President Trump was repeatedly alerted to the violence brewing that day, yet he still chose to stoke the flames.
A Missouri federal judge is hearing arguments today on whether to halt the Biden administration from moving forward with student debt cancellation for more than 40 million Americans.
A Michigan MAGA “activist”, Genevieve Peters, who promoted the Big Lie has resurfaced, and was hired in an office that helps administer local elections in Macomb County, MI. Sounds bad!
The United States and its NATO allies reaffirmed their commitment to long-term support for Ukraine today amid escalating violence from Russia.
At the United Nations General Assembly today, 143 member nations voted to condemn Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian territories.
Elon Musk launched a perfume called, I shit you not, “Burnt Hair.” Someone for the love of God please tax this man so he can’t hurt us anymore.
A limited-edition collab with our favorite shoe brand is here.
You know we’re all about voting: doing it, registering people to do it, and of course giving a portion of the proceeds from the Crooked Store to VoteRiders to help inform citizens of their state’s voter ID requirements and secure them the documents they may need to vote.
Why not add wearing shoes that support voting to that list?
Just in time for canvassing season, we’re excited to announce that Crooked and Cariuma have collaborated to launch our own co-branded OCA low-tops, in two designs that we think you’ll really love.
Choose from a clean white sneaker with the words “No Steps Back,” or our patented “I voted” sticker print. They’re both perfect for peaceful protests, voter registration drives, and/or grabbing bagels (heroes have to eat, too).
These shoes don’t just support VoteRiders (and your arches). Like all Cariuma shoes, they’re ethically and sustainably made from organic cotton canvas, natural rubber, cork, and recycled plastics, and your pair plants two trees in the Brazilian rainforest through Cariuma’s in-house Ecological Restoration program.
Be sure to snag your pair now before they sell out!
A Minneapolis Trump supporter pleaded guilty to wire fraud after officials say he staged a fire and spray-painted antifa graffiti (and the sayings “Biden 2020” and “BLM”) on his own garage, then blamed it all on “left-wing radicals.” Bad things happening to bad people? We love to see it.
Former Nevada Attorney General and GOP Senate nominee Adam Laxalt comes from a Nevada political dynasty. Fourteen members of his family have endorsed his Democratic opponent, incumbent. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV). Man, that’s gotta hurt.
submitted by kittehgoesmeow to FriendsofthePod [link] [comments]
In This Economy???
The state of the economy is complicated to depict, but you wouldn’t know that from most major news coverage, which fixates on simplistic, misleading binaries: “good” or “bad,” “bull” or “bear.”- First, the labor market remains strong. The economy added 263,000 in September, fewer than in recent months but still higher than the pre-pandemic normal. Unemployment is at 3.5 percent, the lowest level in 50 years. Consequently, employers are holding on to their workers for dear life, and that trend is expected to continue even after the economy cools.
- The average interest rate on the most popular U.S. home loan rose to its highest level since 2006 according to the Mortgage Bankers Association today. Mortgage rates have more than doubled since the beginning of the year as the Federal Reserve increases interest rates aggressively to combat inflation. Consequently, loan applications have fallen precipitously as have homebuilding and sales. However, home prices remain high even as house price growth slows, eroding affordability for buyers still competing rabidly due to massive housing shortage. The Federal Reserve’s sole crude tool of interest-rate adjustments will likely do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis, and may even exacerbate it by making it more expensive to finance new construction.
- Ever-rising rents and housing costs likely played a considerable role in the September jump in consumer prices. The consumer price index will be released tomorrow, and will be closely watched to assess whether the Federal Reserve’s dramatic and repeated rate increases are having their intended outcomes. But as with the housing market, many factors contributing to inflation, such as supply chain issues and corporate greed, are unrelated to interest rates and unaffected by increases to them. But if the Fed doesn’t see the numbers it wants to see reflected in the CPI, interest-rate increases may continue, which could actually have a counterproductive effect.
- Here’s what else they’re working with: The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that consumers in the United States are expected to pay up to 28 percent more to heat their homes this winter than last year due to surging fuel costs and slightly colder weather. This will add considerable strain to the nearly half of American households that rely on natural gas for heating. The majority of Americans see prices as beyond Biden’s control, but still continue to disapprove of his handling of the economy.
- Here’s what they’re ignoring/lying about: Beyond the strong labor market and low unemployment rate, markets have crept up despite new worries about increased interest rates. Also, supply chain problems are showing signs of easing. Not for nothing, 55 percent of Americans say they approve of Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 63 percent approve of his handling of natural-disaster relief following Hurricane Ian.
Look No Further Than Crooked Media
Your favorite podcast, Wind Of Change, is back for a special bonus episode! When Patrick Radden Keefe heard that the Scorpions were coming to town last month, he knew he had to go to the show. So he called his friend Michael, his source for the original CIA conspiracy theory, and they headed to UBS Arena on Long Island, microphones in hand. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, the song Wind of Change has taken on new meaning -- and new lyrics, courtesy of lead-singer Klaus Meine. Patrick wanted to feel first hand how the powerful ballad of hope sounded in this new context of Russian aggression.Tune into the Wind Of Change bonus episode, “Scorpions Live from New York,” now wherever you get your podcasts and join us in raising funds for medical supplies in Ukraine by donating to United24.
Under The Radar
A handful of Republicans in New England have a chance of winning in a region where congressional Republicans have long been on the endangered-species list. Republican candidates in Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut have the advantages challengers enjoy, but these New England Republicans have additional wind at their backs thanks to a “perfect storm” of high energy and food costs and the rise of fentanyl in New England communities, which GOP candidates are exploiting and blaming on a lack of southern border security. No House Republican has represented New England since Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME) back in 2018, but Republicans have long had a strong, covert presence in the region. Still, it may be an uphill battle for New England Republicans (thank God) because voters may know that even candidates who portray themselves as “moderate” can’t really be moderate in the climate of extremism that dominates today’s Republican Party.What Else?
Professional conspiracy theorist and all-around vile ghoul Alex Jones was ordered to pay a total of $965 million to the families of eight Sandy Hook families who lost children in the 2012 massacre, as well as an FBI agent who responded to the attack, for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.Disgraced former president Trump will have to sit for a deposition in the defamation lawsuit lodged by longtime New York columnist E. Jean Carroll, whom Trump called a liar while he was in office after she accused him of sexual assault in the mid-1990’s.
In a follow-up from a story we covered the other day, the White House has officially gotten involved in the Los Angeles City Council scandal, calling for all officials caught on tape making racist remarks to resign. City Council President Nury Martinez, who is at the center of the scandal, announced her resignation from the body today.
Tomorrow’s series finale January 6 Committee televised hearing is expected to highlight newly-obtained records showing that President Trump was repeatedly alerted to the violence brewing that day, yet he still chose to stoke the flames.
A Missouri federal judge is hearing arguments today on whether to halt the Biden administration from moving forward with student debt cancellation for more than 40 million Americans.
A Michigan MAGA “activist”, Genevieve Peters, who promoted the Big Lie has resurfaced, and was hired in an office that helps administer local elections in Macomb County, MI. Sounds bad!
The United States and its NATO allies reaffirmed their commitment to long-term support for Ukraine today amid escalating violence from Russia.
At the United Nations General Assembly today, 143 member nations voted to condemn Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian territories.
Elon Musk launched a perfume called, I shit you not, “Burnt Hair.” Someone for the love of God please tax this man so he can’t hurt us anymore.
Be Smarter
A Trump employee has told federal agents that the disgraced former president himself directed aides to moving boxes of stolen documents at Mar-a-Lago after the government had subpoenaed them. The witness account, corroborated by security camera footage, offers key evidence of Trump’s behavior as investigators sought to obtain the classified materials he would not return. This is the most direct account (and most unimpeachable evidence) to date of Trump’s criminal actions and instructions leading up to the FBI’s August 8 search of his Florida residence. Naturally, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich declined to answer any questions about this new evidence, instead only saying, “The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power.” Perfect Trump response. Thank you Taylor, no notes.What A Sponsor
Crooked x Cariuma: Double the brands, double the impact.A limited-edition collab with our favorite shoe brand is here.
You know we’re all about voting: doing it, registering people to do it, and of course giving a portion of the proceeds from the Crooked Store to VoteRiders to help inform citizens of their state’s voter ID requirements and secure them the documents they may need to vote.
Why not add wearing shoes that support voting to that list?
Just in time for canvassing season, we’re excited to announce that Crooked and Cariuma have collaborated to launch our own co-branded OCA low-tops, in two designs that we think you’ll really love.
Choose from a clean white sneaker with the words “No Steps Back,” or our patented “I voted” sticker print. They’re both perfect for peaceful protests, voter registration drives, and/or grabbing bagels (heroes have to eat, too).
These shoes don’t just support VoteRiders (and your arches). Like all Cariuma shoes, they’re ethically and sustainably made from organic cotton canvas, natural rubber, cork, and recycled plastics, and your pair plants two trees in the Brazilian rainforest through Cariuma’s in-house Ecological Restoration program.
Be sure to snag your pair now before they sell out!
Light At The End Of The Email
Scientists have successfully transplanted and grown human brain cells into the brains of baby rats, a breakthrough in studying diseases that affect human brain development like autism and schizophrenia. Weird! But okay cool!A Minneapolis Trump supporter pleaded guilty to wire fraud after officials say he staged a fire and spray-painted antifa graffiti (and the sayings “Biden 2020” and “BLM”) on his own garage, then blamed it all on “left-wing radicals.” Bad things happening to bad people? We love to see it.
Former Nevada Attorney General and GOP Senate nominee Adam Laxalt comes from a Nevada political dynasty. Fourteen members of his family have endorsed his Democratic opponent, incumbent. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV). Man, that’s gotta hurt.
Enjoy
lisa on Twitter: "they r watching a scary movie"
2022.06.12 03:30 Maharaj-Ka-Mor The Federal Republican Convention of 1920 Peacock-Shah Alternate Elections
 | Federal Republicans have lost but a single presidential election in the last 28 years. Moving to the center as a big tent party ranging from the conservative followers of Horacio Vasquez's "Santo Domingo Model" to the progressive latter-day Houstonians of the President, the party has stood as a united front against what it views as radicalism. Yet, the tides of war have placed Federal Republicans in a precarious position anew, as Houstonian reforms have further strengthened the primary system in the process of choosing a party nominee. submitted by Maharaj-Ka-Mor to Presidentialpoll [link] [comments] Aaron Burr Houston: The son of President Sam Houston, who led the nation through the Civil War, Aaron Burr Houston would enter the presidency in 1892 at the age of 38 as a political whirlwind, catapulting progressives to control of the Federal Republican Party and passing laws prohibiting segregation and child labor alongside the direct election of senators, yet his most notable challenge would emerge in 1896, as the United States and Japan entered into the First Pacific War, where Houston would preside over a victory for the nation despite the rejection of his attempts to annex the Philippines. Defeated in a third party bid in 1900 as a Progressive, Houston would retreat to his Texas ranch, where he would see the repeal of his signature policy of prohibition and the death of his wife, yet it would be the Great War that would finally spark the former President's return to politics. Calling for an ultimatum to Japan and a reinvigoration of progressive Federal Republicanism, Houston would become the first President to win a third term in 1916, returning to the White House and quickly fulfilling the promise at the center of his campaign, eventually engulfing the United States in a second war with Japan, a war that has spread across the world, from the tundra of Siberia, where 250,000 soldiers would die or surrender in the greatest defeat of the army in American history, to the Beagle Channel near the Antarctic, where the devastation of the American Pacific Fleet has led it to be labelled the greatest naval defeat in American history. Nonetheless, Houston maintains that the war is winnable, arguing that the Japanese and British Empires have been worn down from years of conflict and China's Rebellion Army stands on the precipice of a grand victory, further noting that American troops have been successful in aiding our Ecuadorian allies in the Amazon against Peruvian and Brazilian forces. Now 66 years of age, "ABH" has campaigned over the waves of radio with the aid of speechwriter W. Lee O' Daniel, promoting the administration's passage of Social Security and environmental protection expansions, hailing a new age of progressivism and societal rejuvenation in the war's aftermath and promoting the feminist Equal Rights Amendment. Accusing Schall of betraying progressivism, Houston has stressed continued commitment to the war effort and questioned the Lejeune campaign, noting that Lejeune has no official platform and that his supporters range from socialists to laissez-faire conservatives. Houston has stated that he would "rather take the lowest vote in a Federal Republican convention than the highest vote in a Farmer-Labor convention", arguing that, as Lejeune has been pushed for the nomination of all parties, he can be expected to be loyal to none, let alone the Federal Republicans, and imploring Americans not to set their fate in the hands of a man with no definite beliefs. John A. Lejeune: In the face of the loss of 250,000 troops in Siberia and the destruction of most of the American fleet in the Beagle Channel, public faith in the war has been deeply shaken; yet, even as former supporters as high ranking as Vice President Herbert Hoover turn on the war, a myriad of politicians from across the partisan aisle, among them Federal Republicans LeBaron Colt and Lawrence Y. Sherman, Farmer-Labor's Marion Butler and Charles E. Russell, Liberal Woodrow Wilson, Commonwealth Land's Newton D. Baker, and Unionist Henry Ford, have allied with the Hearst media empire to launch a national movement to elect 53 year old Lieutenant General John A. Lejeune of Louisiana, the highest ranking active member of the Marine Corps, to the presidency. Dubbed "the Greatest of All Leathernecks," Lejeune has fought in both Pacific Wars, the Moroland War, the invasion of Mexico, and the annexation of Haiti, gaining a reputation as a modernizer that has led him to his current position in command of American forces in the Galapagos Islands, coordinating the landings of tens of thousands of American soldiers to aid in Ecuador and Colombia's territorial conflict with Peru in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Knowledge of Lejeune's views remains sparse, he is assumed vaguely to be somewhat progressive on domestic issues and likely opposed to protectionism, but therein lies his appeal: Lejeune stands undefeated on the battlefield, with views vague enough to unite all factions in support of the war yet critical of President Houston's management, hailed by his supporters as a beacon of hope in the darkness of war, an independent to carry the nation to victory in uncertain times. Thomas D. Schall: Having risen from poverty to note as a lawyer, people mourned when an electrical accident borne of an experimental cigar lighter left Thomas D. Schall blind, yet the Minnesotan would refuse to be fazed. Declaring that “I have been in total darkness, but the heart’s the source of power. Men are as great as their hearts are great," Thomas D. Schall would ride the Federal Republican wave from the election of Theodore Roosevelt to Congress in 1908 as one of the nation's new cadre of progressive Federal Republican legislators. Schall would become a fiery voice for the party's progressive wing, throwing his lot in with Aaron Burr Houston and aiding in management of his 1916 campaign. Endorsed by the local rail workers' union and a progressive stalwart, Schall would be the first man to rise to speak on President Houston's nationalization of railroads for the war effort, expected to stand as a voice for the Administration. Schall would shock all as he would launch into fierce vituperations against the President, accusing him of being "acclaimed in Communist Russia" and declaring that "private industry, properly controlled, is most efficient; the solution is public ownership of our government against monopolistic trusts," from there, Schall has risen to be a force within the party's anti-war wing. Turning against the war as costs and casualties mounted, Schall would be elected to the Senate in 1918 as one of only two anti-war Federal Republicans, and has built his presidential bid on the support of Vice President Herbert Hoover, who has come to repudiate the President and the war as hopeless, Senator Hiram Johnson, Admiral William Sims, and former Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Schall has made wide policy recommendations including promises to negotiate an end to the war, opposition to any proposed international organization, limit immigration and imports, abolish "bureaus constantly bearing down on taxpayers," expand railroad regulation while denouncing government ownership, expand farm subsidies, oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, cut middle tax classes while raising them on the rich, expand local control of the economy and lessen reliance on federal money, and allow Congress to regulate political conventions and "pass legislation renominating candidates for the presidency," yet Schall has gained recognition for the personal nature of his campaigning, putting his famously eloquent oratorical skills to use. Stating of President Houston that “the only men I have heard applaud him are his puppets. Misinformation, hypocrisy and pretense are his guns. He used the country’s blood and agony to promote his own political ends", Schall has focused heavily on the alleged affair between Houston and 1892 Farmer-Labor presidential nominee turned Houston cabinet member Mary Elizabeth Lease, portraying himself as a respectable family man in comparison; meanwhile, he declared that "Lejeune's masters believe that he is ripe to enter the race," accusing the Marine General of building a "propaganda machine eliminating any soldier who showed the dangerous ability to think for himself to create a mawkish, un-American sycophancy fostered by mediocre men." https://preview.redd.it/92h5aeyxc3591.png?width=466&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c3da5cd6ff4aebd42e1cfb4d71d6b7d1874747f The Primaries Pro-Houston banker Rudolph Spreckels would remark that it was nearly a scene from a dime novel. Impeached Illinois Governor William Lorimer, Tammany Hall boss Charlie Murphy, deposed Kentucky Senator William S. Taylor, Virginia's up and coming Harry F. Byrd, Missouri boss Tom Pendergast, Pennsylvania Senator and machine boss Boies Penrose, nearly imprisoned Ohio boss Rudolph K. Hynicka, and ex-convict California machine boss Abraham Reuf would gather in Louisville, Kentucky in March of 1920. On politics, on strategy, and on the brazenness of their corruption they had many differences, but they sat around one table, united around one enemy: Aaron Burr Houston. Each and every one of them had seen the President's supporters, political organization, and financial backers target their machines, had seen Houston himself endorse any man against them, had seen him in 1896 and 1916 as he swept the primaries and strong armed his away to the Federal Republican nomination for the presidency on public support. The organizers of the Lejeune campaign were and are men and women committed to victory, viewing Lejeune as the sole hope for a republic on the ropes against global empires, yet a candidate with no platform and no definite politics was an attractive prospect for the bosses. The bosses smelled blood in the water, and, with vengeance on their minds, they would emerge committed to the Lejeune campaign. The first round of primaries, Wisconsin and Kentucky, would be dominated by the departed. Progressives stood strong in Wisconsin even with the departure of Robert La Follette, anti-war progressives soon leaving with him, but failed gubernatorial candidate Francis E. McGovern remained the nominal leader of state Federal Republicans and held ground for Houston. Kentucky, however, would captivate the nation; in January, John D. White would die at the age of 71. In a lifetime that had seen him virtually create the progressive faction of the Federal Republican Party, serve a decade as Speaker of the House, revolutionize national politics with prohibition and primaries, provide a key vote to end segregation as a Supreme Court Justice, preside over a progressive economic shift as Secretary of the Treasury, and finally cap his career in the Vice Presidency, White stood as a larger than life figure in Kentucky politics. His death would bring President Houston to the small town of Manchester, Kentucky for his funeral, while White's ousted, deposed, and prosecuted intraparty rival, the notoriously corrupt William S. Taylor who had allegedly attempted to organization the assassination of White in 1891, would be rumored to have celebrated the death of his nemesis. Taylor's role in the Lejeune campaign would become campaign fodder for Houston, making the Kentucky race a national spectacle, and one from which Houston would emerge strongly. Despite Taylor's denials, his once overwhelming margins for Lejeune would collapse, with Houston losing with a respectable 45.3% of the vote to 46.1% for Lejeune, Thomas Schall failing to find a base of support. The Texas primary would host the straddling of John Nance Garner, as he refused to commit to either campaign, even suggesting support for Schall briefly, with a slate of pro-Houston delegates eventually elected in a landslide. However, a Lejeune victory in Massachusetts would lead the two candidates to tie with 35 delegates each. With the support of Jud Harmon and the rest of the state's former Liberals, as well as Charles Dick and Atlee Pomerene, Lejeune would carry the Ohio primary in a narrow victory, with former Governor Warren G. Harding leading the local Houston campaign alongside progressive stalwarts such as Arthur L. Garford and James Garfield. ABH, however, would carry Colorado on the same day. Ohio's party bosses held a deep resentment for the President, who had tacitly tolerated communist C.E. Ruthenberg's campaign to end corruption in Cincinnati. WIth the support of former Governor William Allen White and unsuccessful 1918 Senate candidate Victor Murdock, Houston would hold Nebraska despite support for Lejeune from former pro-Bryan Liberal leader Gilbert Hitchcock and national Lejeune co-chairman Jouett Shouse. Montana and Wyoming however, would yield surprise victories for Lejeune, as Wyoming's Francis D. Warren and Clarence Clark pushed Lejeune over the expected local preference of the President. The next week's Iowa and North Carolina primaries would see victories for Houston, with Iowa's Albert B. Cummins leading the state into the column of his old benefactor alongside Secretary of War William S. Kenyon; meanwhile, Jeter Pritchard of North Carolina would hold his state in Houston's column. The New York primary would soon become infamous, however. Alice Roosevelt, daughter of the so-called Bull Moose, and Representative Frederick M. Davenport had managed the Houston campaign in the competitive Northeastern state, one traditionally in the progressive column in Federal Republican elections, but would face a motley coalition of opponents, Both Farmer-Labor Governor Charles E. Russell and his erstwhile archnemesis, the Federal Republican Tammany Hall machine, worked as national leaders of the Lejeune campaign. Tammany Hall boss Charles "Silent Charlie" Murphy had been a target of ABH in the elections of 1916 and 1918 midterms, and Murphy was ready for payback. Several Tammany dominated New York precincts would record voter turnout over 100% and go solidly for Lejeune, in a spectacle denounced by many Lejeune supporters fearful of being associated with Tammany, nonetheless, in a razor thin primary, Houston would lose by 1.3% of the vote, and Tammany Hall would claim credit, to the chagrin of other Lejeune supporters. Houston had found a close ally in Georgia's Hoke Smith in the 1890s, allowing the President to expand his influence in the Deep South, but the war had driven a wedge between ABH and Smith, the Georgian endorsing Schall as his state went for Lejeune. Schall, however, would see victories the next day in the Minnesota and California primaries, the former a home state triumph and the latter the product of Hiram Johnson's influence on the state party. The next week would see Jonathan Bourne Jr., a leading advocate of a Houstonian bolt in the case of a Lejeune victory, carry Oregon for Houston, while Vancouver, Missouri, and Washington voted Lejeune, giving the General a 38 delegate lead. Shoshone, Michigan, Tennessee, Maryland, Indiana, and Maine would all vote Lejeune over the next two weeks. Tennessee's Kenneth McKellar would be chosen for the party's national committee in return for his work for Lejeune, while Indiana boss Thomas Taggart would engage in another round of questionably legal tactics to defeat ABH in a state expected to be solidly Houstonian. Despite the pro-ABH attempts of Governor Robert P. Bass, New Hampshire would vote Lejeune, alongside Nevada, Dakota, and New Jersey, However, two key primaries would gather the nation's attention: Illinois and Pennsylvania. Illinois would see the revenge of William Lorimer, as the deposed, nearly imprisoned Governor would buck the tide of political revolution in his state to deal a final defeat to a man he blamed for his travails: Aaron Burr Houston. However, anti-boss politicians Charles G. Dawes and Reformist Senator Medill McCormick would lead the Houston campaign to defeat, with Representative Ida B. Wells reluctantly leading the Schall effort. William Flinn was a man of many faces. The nation's premier "progiressive boss", he had, since the 1880s, merged the progressive politics of John D. White and Aaron Burr Houston with the bossism endemic to Pennsylvania. Flinn had played a crucial role in the 1892 nomination of Houston and had brought Houston to victory in 1896 and 1916, with decisive wins in Pennsylvania setting the tone for ABH's claim to popular support and allowing Houston to force his way to domination of the party. Alongside his longtime ally Gifford Pinchot, Flinn would be tasked with a final, hail Mary campaign to block Lejeune. On the other side of the ring sat Boies Penrose, boss of Pennsylvania's conservative Federal Republicans, his erstwhile rival William H. Berry, and Governor Martin Brumbaugh. Flinn and Penrose were both aged men, their primes behind them, 1920 was to be their final grand contest, a political duel with ramifications extending to the nation itself. William Randolph Hearst's media empire would throw itself into full gear in Pennsylvania, Flinn would parry with local papers accusing Hearst of attempting to interfere in a statewide race. Radio would broadcast the call of Houston over the airwaves, while door to door campaigners would preach the gospel of Lejeune to countless families. And so, Lejeune would win the winner-take-all primary by the skin of his teeth, with 49.4% of the vote to 49.1% for Houston, Schall's votes being write-ins. With that, Houston's defeat would be ensured, his claim to public support dashed in Pennsylvania, and General John A. Lejeune would be confirmed as Federal Republican nominee for President of the United States.
General John A. Lejeune, Federal Republican nominee for President of the United States. Forest Service Head Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania, Federal Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States. |
2022.06.07 15:49 Maharaj-Ka-Mor The Farmer-Labor Presidential Nomination of 1920 Peacock-Shah Alternate Elections
 | For the last 30 years, the Federal Republican Party has dominated the American electoral system. Journalist H.L. Mencken, an old-line Liberal, has described the approach of the Federal Republicans as "a history of compromises with the new forces, of gradual yielding, for strategic purposes, to ideas that are intrinsically at odds with its congenital prejudices," a view held by many in Farmer-Labor. Yet, the American-Pacific War has entered the United States into the global farrago, with six parties dividing Congress. Some have argued that the electoral upheavals shall spell the death of Farmer-Labor, yet many in the party itself have seen the war as an opportunity to blaze a trail to power. submitted by Maharaj-Ka-Mor to Presidentialpoll [link] [comments] Robert La Follette: 65 year old Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette stands as a relative newcomer to the Farmer-Labor Party, having entered Congress during the Trumbull years as a Federal Republican and persisting on the party's left through a career as Governor and two years in the senate. It would the Senate that would propel La Follette into the sights of every political observer in America, as the Wisconsin senator cast the decisive vote to reject the Treaty of Hong Kong ending the First Pacific War, foiling the Administration's proposed annexation of many of Japan's Pacific colonies. As his party embraced Admiral George Dewey in 1900, La Follette would accept the Vice Presidency, serving through Dewey's term before re-entering the Senate, from where he would unsuccessfully seek the Federal Republican nomination in 1908 and finally switch parties in 1914. Gaining notoriety for his fierce campaigning against the American-Pacific War, which he has labelled "King Houston's War," La Follette has not avoided his former Federal Republican membership, instead campaigning upon it, arguing that he possesses the cross partisan appeal necessary to win the White House after years of Farmer-Labor defeats. La Follette has introduced an extensive platform in line with party principles, calling for the election of judges and abolition of judicial review, farm loans, government ownership of railroads and power, a decrease in tariffs, nationalization of the cigarette and munitions industries, extending the referendum system to federal law, as well as a tax plan consisting of vast cuts the middle class income tax, while increasing high income and inheritance taxes. La Follette favors an immediate end to the war and diplomatic work to outlaw war itself, while he has stood as among the most firm anti-communists in Farmer-Labor, opposing the Sedition Act while remaining skeptical of unity with the Workers' Party of America, that stating "The Communists have admittedly entered into this political movement not for the purpose of curing, by means of the ballot, the evils which afflict the American people, but only to divide and confuse the Progressive movement and create a condition of chaos favorable to their ultimate aims. Their real purpose is to establish by revolutionary action a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is absolutely repugnant to democratic ideals and to all American aspirations." Eugene V. Debs: As with Robert La Follette, William Jennings Bryan, William Goebel, and, even today, so many of the nation's leading statesmen within Farmer-Labor and beyond, the career of 65 year old Indiana Senator and inmate at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary Eugene V. Debs began with Lyman Trumbull, as a 25 year old railway worker became the center of a Supreme Court case on the legality of union action via strikes, with a former Vice President by the name of Lyman Trumbull defending Debs, placing Trumbull into the national eye once more and setting the stage for the formation of Farmer-Labor. Debs' would transform from conservative labor activist to a man on the vanguard of the labor movement, a man who would, as a member of Congress from his native Indiana, rise to become Farmer-Labor's candidate for Speaker through the Pacific War, where his anti-war behavior would cement the label so often applied to him, "radical", one that has persisted as Debs has straddled the fence between the Workers' Party of America and Farmer-Labor. Debs' most famed hours, however, have been his contests with the Sedition Act, arrested and imprisoned under the Sedition Act of 1913 for praising the concept of revolution, to be freed after a Supreme Court decision overruling the act's most expansive clauses. Yet, Debs has found himself in prison anew for anti-war activism, a new court having upheld the Sedition Act of 1919. Thus, Debs has sought the presidency while still, technically, an incumbent Senator, and still a convict, focusing his campaign upon one grand plank: the re-unification of the nation's labor forces, a united campaign between Farmer-Labor and the remnants of the Workers' Party of America, with Richard F. Pettigrew and other WPA leaders confirming their willingness to support Debs. On policy, the Debs campaign argues for an immediate end to the war; endorses ownership by government or collectives of railroads, telegraphs, powers, stock yards, grain elevators, the banking and currency system, all natural resources, and of most land, with the few exceptions being covered with a 100% land value tax; supports shortening the work day; abolishing the profit system in government work and reforming government hiring into a co-operative; and reforms to government such as a national referendum system including constitutional amendments, abolishing the senate, and abolishing judicial review. John A. Lejeune: In the face of the loss of 250,000 troops in Siberia and the destruction of most of the American fleet in the Beagle Channel, public faith in the war has been deeply shaken; yet, even as former supporters as high ranking as Vice President Herbert Hoover turn on the war, a myriad of politicians from across the partisan aisle including among them Federal Republicans LeBaron Colt and Lawrence Y. Sherman, Farmer-Labor's Marion Butler and Charles E. Russell, Liberal Woodrow Wilson, Commonwealth Land's Newton D. Baker, and Unionist Henry Ford, have allied with the Hearst media empire launch a national movement to elect 53 year old Lieutenant General John A. Lejeune of Louisiana, the highest ranking active member of the Marine Corps, to the presidency. Lejeune has fought in both Pacific Wars, the Moroland War, the invasion of Mexico, and the annexation of Haiti, gaining a reputation as a modernizer that has led him to his current position in command of American forces in the Galapagos Island, coordinating the landings of tens of thousands of American soldiers to aid in Ecuador and Colombia's territorial conflict with Peru in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Knowledge of Lejeune views remains sparse, he is assumed vaguely to be somewhat progressive on domestic issues and likely opposed to protectionism, but therein lies his appeal: Lejeune stands undefeated on the battlefield, with views vague enough to unite all factions in support of the war yet critical of President Houston's management, hailed by his supporters as a beacon of hope in the darkness of war, an independent to carry the nation to victory in uncertain times. William Goebel: 64 year old Kentucky Governor William Goebel stands as the "Bryan candidate," with much of his campaign tied to an endorsement received from the Great Commoner, who has declined to seek the Farmer-Labor nomination for a fifth time following another series of two consecutive defeats. As with two of his major competitors, Goebel's career may be traced to the presidency of Lyman Trumbull, where the persuasive thirty year old State Representative would talk his way into the position of Kentucky Farmer-Labor Chairman in the midst of an intra-party divide, overseeing years of defeats at the hands of Federal Republicans and eventually, the rise of the Liberal Party. However, after enough failed attempts to make William Jennings Bryan proud, Goebel would win the governorship in 1915, focusing his tenure since on harsh railroad reform and a gradual movement towards government ownership of railroads, a position that, along with support for the Sedition Act, has placed Goebel solidly within the party's moderate wing. While opposing the war along with Bryan, Goebel has stood with his patron in the camp in favor of negotiations and gradual downturn rather than a focus on immediate peace. Dogging Goebel is his victory in his 1895 duel that would lead to the death of toll road owner John Sanford, who had challenged Goebel to a duel following a statewide campaign to make all roads public. Lena Morrow Lewis: Arguing that Richard F. Pettigrew would make Farmer-Labor "become a party of dictators and lose its democratic soul", Illinois Representative Lena Morrow Lewis and Charles Edward Russell would lead the self-styled "social democrats" out of Pettigrew's radical wing of Farmer-Labor in 1912, having since come to reject the Workers' Party of America further and argue that any coalition of the parties ought to be on Farmer-Labor's terms. While Russell has come to hold high the banner of a war for democracy, Lewis, now Chairwoman of the Alaska Farmer-Labor Party, has rejected the idea, quoting Karl Kautsky's declaration that "He who thinks that lasting peace can be brought about by means of war, 'the last war,' is wrong," campaigning on firm opposition to the war alongside the social democratic platform of free college education, public housing expansion, union rights, and the nationalization of the munitions industry as well as public utilities and railroads, but opposing many of Debs' more expansive proposal such as the nationalization of land and reforming government hiring into a co-operative. The sole female candidate currently in the race, Lewis has campaigned proudly upon her womanhood, arguing that she is as capable as any man to be President, and more capable than most, with some critics accusing her of being unfit due to a past divorce. Milford W. Howard: The flow of federal enforcers into Alabama in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1894 would open the door for a new force in politics to rise from the funeral pyre of white supremacy, a man untouched by the racist demagoguery that had by then become embraced by the majority of the Alabama Farmer-Labor Party, and a man who, upon a trip to Italy, would christen himself with a self-made ideological labor, a "fascist": Milford W. Howard. 57 years of age and railing against the evils of "plutocracy, communism, and materialism," Howard stands as a constant enigma in American politics even after four terms as Governor of his state, his open disavowal of democracy as a system shocking those across the political spectrum, even as some accuse the Governor of rigging Workers' Party candidate Helen Keller's way into office in the Senate to justify heavy handed anti-communist regulation. Those who hold his "Alabama model" up nationally seem in equal number to those who denounce him as a petty tyrant; using funds from a local wealth tax, one Howard has argued ought to be raised to 100% on the ultra-rich, Howard would nationalize Alabama's railroads, expand and modernize Alabama roads, and construct the largest hydroelectric power system in the United States-those living or holding property in the way of his infrastructure projects be damned, with entire swaths of land cleared to make way for the spacious trappings of a hydroelectric power system; others hold up the decrease in wealth inequality amidst land redistribution or the increase in state literacy rates from 24% to 85% amidst a vast education program for the poor regardless of race; those anti-black terrorists and anti-semites who might appreciate Howard's authoritarian style have come to largely loath the man for his quickly earned reputation of bringing the gavel of the law upon racial violence, bringing lynchings of Alabama's black population to a near standstill, yet rumors abound of Howard looking the other way amidst violence targeting political opponents, communists in particular. Howard has stood a supporter of the war effort yet holds no qualms on its motives, scoffing at descriptions by others of the conflict as a battle for democracy, while focusing upon domestic issues and a call to bring the Alabama Model to fruition nationally. https://preview.redd.it/nehq9e0r85491.png?width=470&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca49465b4983d3f841ee7093c9064e170029ae95 The Primaries: Primaries of Farmer-Labor past had seen the first electoral contests of Kentucky and Wisconsin set the theme for the race itself, yet, with Goebel hailing from the Bluegrass State and La Follette's draw in the Great Northwest unmatched in his home state, each would yield a landslide for their favorite sons and a badge of uncertainty for the nation. However, the following week's primaries in Massachusetts and Texas would see twin victories for Robert La Follette, with Texas's Cyclone Davis reluctantly endorsing La Follette and despite Massachusetts' Workers' Party leader William Z. Foster endorsing a crossover of voters into the Farmer-Labor primary to vote Debs. Ohio, however, would prove the setting of the first indications of a different trend. The Ohio Farmer-Labor Party has been the subject of national scrutiny; long divided into Georgist and Bryanite factions, it would see the meteoric rise of C.E. Ruthenberg and his eventual departure to the WPA, with Newton D. Baker leading party Georgists into the Commonwealth Land Party and factions of the regular Farmer-Labor organization allying with both. With Baker considered a likely nominee for the Vice Presidency on the Commonwealth Land ticket under Lejeune, his rival, Bryanite Jacob Coxey, would spring to action with his own endorsement of Lejeune, coming to lead the Farmer-Labor campaign for the Marine General. Coxey's network of supporters would ally with their Georgist rivals over the issue of the war to propel Lejeune to a narrow victory, with Debs winning a surprising second. Having gained national recognition for her anti-war and feminist activism, Jeannette Rankin of Montana would lead Lena Morrow Lewis to a victory in the Wyoming and Montana primaries, even as George Norris of Nebraska, an old ally of La Follette and the national chairman of his campaign for the presidency, held Nebraska solid for the former Vice President. Those who had dismissed the Lejeune movement would be dismayed as the results of the next wave of primaries trickled in; Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Santo Domingo would vote as a near bloc for Lejeune, while Milford W. Howard would emerge with his first victory in Tennessee and Debs with his largest in Illinois, with memories of six impeached governors and statewide popularity of Clarence Darrow widening the appeal of radical change to the state. La Follette, nonetheless, would not emerge disappointed with victories in South Carolina, Florida, and Houston, with Florida's Sidney J. Catts standing out of the race and Houston's Asle Gronna campaigning alongside "Fighting Bob." The bastion of pro-war socialism, even as the Workers' Party of America continues to win an increasing amount of elections, New York's winner take all primary would yield to Lejeune a victory unmatched elsewhere, joined with Marion Butler's work to bring Lejeune to victory in North Carolina, it would eclipse Robert La Follette's victory in Iowa with the support of Smith W. Brookhart. Nonetheless, Lejeune's campaign would fail to make a dent in the following primaries, as Milford W. Howard unsurprisingly swept Alabama, Robert La Follette carried Arkansas, and the agrarian radicalism of Thomas E. Watson carried Debs to victory in Georgia. However, his clear oratory ringing through the Southwest, La Follette would find victory in Tijuana, even as William Gibbs McAdoo organized California for Lejeune. Milford W. Howard would win a surprise victory in Nevada, while Vancouver and Missouri would surprise the nation by giving themselves to Lena Morrow Lewis, and the imprisoned martyr of socialism would carry New Mexico; nonetheless, Oregon and Washington would vote La Follette, followed by Shoshone and Michigan days later, while Lejeune's advantage of locality would carry the day in Louisiana and the efforts of social democrat John T. Lester would place Mississippi in the Lewis column. Virginia's irascible social democratic Governor, John C. Chase, had vacillated for a time between La Follette and Lewis, but, aiming to block Lejeune, and, god forbid, Howard at any cost, would throw his lot in with Fighting Bob, helping the Wisconsin Senator win Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Maine in the third to last round of primaries, losing only Debs' native Indiana. Though fond memories of Richard F. Pettigrew would carry Dakota for Debs, the same day's Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Jersey primaries would be won by Lejeune, the momentum carrying him to win the winner-take-all New Hampshire and Pennsylvania primaries the next week. Thus, the primary season would end with no clear winner, John A. Lejeune carrying a plurality yet falling far short of a lion's share as the leaders of Farmer-Labor converged upon Indianapolis for their tenth national convention. The Convention: William Jennings Bryan would express the opinion of most anti-war members in the party when he remarked that any man could be nominated but Lejeune, arguing that the anti-war section of the party must unite around one man before the fascists and Lejeuners could. James Oneal, a moderate socialist of Indiana, would rise early in consideration, alongside Virginia's own John C. Chase, yet both would find factions unsatisfied, with Bryan aiming to prevent the nomination of an out-and-out socialist, while Debs' supporters would make their support for a compromise conditionary on the candidate's willingness to rebuild bridges with the Workers' Party of America. With their candidate entirely uninvolved in the campaign, the Lejeune leadership would enter with the advantage of being able to suggest political promise after promise, to imply platform plank after plank, in the hollow name of a man with neither platform nor political spoils. As the convention would meet, the anti-war forces would stand with no candidate, while it seemed ever likely that Milford W. Howard would accept Lejuene and cause a stampede to the General. Fears of such a stampede would only increase as rumors of a plea to Lena Morrow Lewis from her erstwhile ally Charles Edward Russell percolated through the tense air. By the second ballot, delegates would begin to slowly move to Lejeune, considering that he might be open to negotiations on the war, as claimed by Upton Sinclair, and the proverbial alarm bells would begin to ring in the anti-war camp. They needed a man acceptable to William Jennings Bryan and the moderates, endorsable by the Workers' Party of America and the communists, and on good terms with Robert La Follette and the progressives; such a man seemed as realistic to come across as a unicorn or Christ himself as the third ballot yielded further gains for Lejeune, but something had to be done, someone must be found. Pennsylvania Socialist James H. Maurer would join those considered, only to be rejected by the Bryanites. Thus, his visage marked by wrinkles in stark contrast to the youth exuded when he had first sought the presidency three decades before, one man would be approached by the anti-war forces, seemingly the only man in the world acceptable to all factions. Shaking his head, his tired eyes would stare back at the delegates who approached him as he issued his reply: "I will accept this call, which seems to me to be the call to duty. As fearless John Adams said in the brave days of old, "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this cause." A short laugh followed, and the delegates who had met with him took to the floor to inform Bryan, Workers' emissary William Bross Lloyd, Theodore Debs, and Milford W. Howard that the man had accepted. A believer in the war, Howard had nonetheless cut his political teeth in managing this man's campaign and he would sit idle, accepting reluctantly the departure of some of his own delegates. Seeing Lejeune as unfit, Lena Morrow Lewis would take a similar approach, watching passively as John T. Lester's Mississippi led the movement of her own delegates to the man who, on the fourth ballot of the convention, was to be selected as the tenth Farmer-Labor nominee for the presidency. Memories of past campaigns, of a bolt that had put his own party in fourth place, of Trumbull, George, and all he had seen come and go danced in the mind of Thomas E. Watson as he took to the podium, the Georgia Senator pursing his lips and beginning to speak. "I accepted the nomination from a sense of duty. To every American citizen a question of supreme importance is this: Does the Government still represent the ideals of those who framed it? Is it the Government which the statesman planned, for which the orator pleaded, and to establish which the soldier shed his blood? Is it still a government of the people? Does it respond to the will of the people? Is its chief aim the welfare of the people? Is it run in the interest of the great mass of its citizens? In other words, is it truly a democratic republic? From the depths of my heart I believe that such a government is what the American people want and mean to have. I believe that seventy-five per cent of our citizens are firmly wedded to the old doctrines of popular self-government as they were in the days of Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. Since human society was organized there has been a constant struggle between two principles of government; one of which seeks to concentrate power, wealth and privilege in the hands of a class; the other of which strives to have the benefit of the state shared by all alike. At the very beginning of our history the two antagonistic principles clashed. The one was represented by Alexander Hamilton, who had no confidence in the people, no sympathy with the people, but who believed that wealth should be taken into co-partnership with the Government, given control of its laws, given command of its policies, and thus the favored few becoming identified with the Government, would give it that kind of strength, which, according to his theory, it needed. Devoted as he was to the English model, utterly scouting the idea that the people were capable of self government, he brought all the powers of his magnificent intellect, and of his indomitable energy, to the introduction of measures to evolve the money aristocracy, which according to his ideal, had the right to govern. On the other hand came Thomas Jefferson proclaiming the principles of Democracy. With the idea of human brotherhood, with a perfect faith in the great body of the people, and with a constitutional love of right and justice which made class legislation abhorrent to him, he challenged the doctrines of Hamilton, and struggled to hold the Government' true to the principles of "equal and exact justice to all men. Tonight, fellow-citizens, I ask you to take this simple question home to your hearts and your consciences: Which is the party and who is the candidate, that proclaims the principles of Thomas Jefferson, and goes forth to fight for the masses of the American people? Is it the Federal Republican party? How can any sane man answer yes? In form and in spirit it is Hamiltonian. In purpose and in practice it is Hamiltonian. Every corporate interest on the continent knows that it has a champion in the Federal Republican party. Every beneficiary of special privilege knows that he has a welcome in the Republican party. Every trust, levying its tribute upon the millions of homes of the people, feels secure in the organized power of the Federal Republican party. Suppose Eugene Debs had not made his splendid fight, does anyone believe that Congress would now be so eagerly interested in reform? I believe the evils of our present system can be remedied. How? 1. By co-operation among the laborers. You must organize, agitate and educate. Organize yourselves to get the strength of unity; agitate the evils and the causes thereof to arrest public opinion; educate yourselves and the public upon the principles underlying the issue in order that there be a proper understanding of the abuses complained of and the remedies proposed. 2. By a radical change in our laws. I firmly believe that before co-operation among laborers can secure complete success, we must have legislation which either takes from the tyrannical power of capital or adds to the defensive strength of labor. We must make capital lay down its pistol, or we must give labor a pistol, too. When each man knows that the other has a "gun" and will use it, they get exceedingly careful about fingering the trigger. That Federal Republican Party, or that set of leaders, which never knows what it' believes in, or stands for, until its national convention has adjourned, deserves no toleration from gods or men. The only party and the only set' of leaders which deserve respect, or can hope to make the world better by its labors, is that which adopts its creed with conscientious intelligence, fights for it' with fearless devotion, and clings to it, throughout the night and the storm, with a fidelity which no discouragement can shake. Great is the original thinker; great the emotional orator; but thought, however wise, speech however sublime, avail nothing until the worker comes into the field, Rousseau's thought was profound, but it was the worker of the French Revolution who shaped radical ideas into laws and institutions. - For many generations, England had her democratic thinkers and democratic orators, but the people had no civil liberties until the workers and the fighters had made the creed of the student the chart by which they moved, the plan by which they worked and fought. And, let me say, in spite of the slander and lies from the Federal Republican Party, I believe that when we fight for the freedom of Jews, or anyone encouraging resistance, that we fight for the liberty of us all. We began our war on autocracy by creating one here at home with the Sedition Act! Men who are ordinarily cool and level-headed are acting like inebriates in war, a strange intoxication exalts them, sweeps them off their feet, fastens them and leads, them on, and on, and on, until they are mere echoes of slogans which are sounded in Washington. Do you want your boy dragged from the fireside, hurriedly transformed into a cog in a vast war machine, hurled across the ocean and landed in a foreign country, to meet the fate of death by gallows by orders of the brutal officers put over them? Morality in China! Aaron Burr Houston preaching morality! He, the man who personally made war on the Russian Bolsheviki, and starved their wives and children with a most cruel and unlawful blockade. President Houston has tried to fight the Japs and sent an army to death instead to crush Russian democracy, to prevent Russia from showing the world how a democracy may be established — thus setting a bad example that may 'infect' other submerged masses. How will the great American public feel when they realize that Aaron Burr Houston was right alongside the Japs trying to restore in Russia a system in which a few grand dukes and vast landed estate owners were ruling the peasants and grinding the faces of the poor? And Lejeune is supported by a gilded brigade of rich young officers who want to tell you whom to elect to office, and what laws to make in building up, in this country, the brutal militarism which they practice on your sons in the War. I say to you, gentlemen of the Farmer-Labor Party, that this war is the result of the most ravenous commercialism and capitalist dreams that ever cursed a nation." The convention would erupt. Anti-war delegates would cheer, a contingent of Industrial Workers of the World aligned delegates would begin to chant "workers of the world, unite!", as the pro-war among the delegates looked on in dismay. The keynote speaker of the convention, Montana candidate Jeannette Rankin, would take to the podium next with a pacifist speech, declaring that “There can be no compromise with war; it cannot be reformed or controlled; cannot be disciplined into decency or codified into common sense; for war is the slaughter of human beings, temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale as possible.” As her words were carried by microphones across the hall, the first delegates would begin to walk out. Charles Edward Russell would ask to take the podium next, a request reluctantly granted by Convention Chairman Jacob Panken after Russell told his fellow New Yorker that "the war must not stop the forward movement," with Panken assuming Russell would make a speech for party unity and accept the victory of the anti-war forces. Panken's dreams would be dashed, as Russell would declare "there is nothing in the fundamental Farmer-Labor creed or the socialist creed that forbids a socialist or a Farmer-Laborite to take part in a righteous and just war." With that, the walkout would begin in earnest, the majority of the Lejeune delegates leaving the convention hall. As the pro-war delegates sauntered out, Thomas E. Watson, newly minted Farmer-Labor nominee for President of the United States, would look on with scorn, remarking "How fast comrades turn traitors!" Jeannette Rankin and Washington's Clarence Dill would lead Vice Presidential considerations, yet the rump status of the convention would shift power to the party's left, with an increasing number of delegates skeptical of the loyalty of moderate factions. Thus, Dill and Rankin would find themselves eclipsed after several ballots by former Governor James H. Maurer of Pennsylvania. Though almost all labor aligned delegates, bar those aligned with the IWW had left the convention, party leaders were acutely aware of the need to win midwestern laborers to the anti-war cause to carry the presidency, and thus, a GTU radical seemed the man for the hour. A socialist who had joined Russell's social democratic faction against Pettigrew, Maurer would accept the nomination, declaring "The desire for the accumulation of great wealth seems like a disease, and disease has never been cured by increasing its virulence. The one lasting solution is the end of the profit system." Maurer, who had begun his career as a leading party Georgist in sharp contrast to the anti-land value tax Watson, would launch an attack upon the war, blaming it on tycoons, yet he would shock many pro-WPA delegates with a virulent opposition to Pettigrew's party: "let me say to my socialist friends and my anarchist friends that you cannot be too revolutionary for me, for I am as revolutionary as the next one, but I am not preaching that bomb and torch stuff. We cannot make the party acceptable to Communists and unacceptable to the American people. There can be no excuse for what the “leftists” have done to the movement for which true Socialists sacrificed time, money, and life itself. I enjoy a good laugh at the much-heralded revolution." Tom Watson would deliver a strong rebuke to Maurer, declaring to the convention: "Forget your past differences. Forget old feuds. Let the dead past bury its dead. For the sake of liberty, prosperity, and country, unite." Nonetheless, though party moderates would ally with the social democrats of John C. Chase to attempt to prevent Maurer's removal from the ticket, Watson would endorse Rankin for the spot, as, despite her own anti-communism, even once threatening to sue a newspaper that accused her of being in league with Lenin, Rankin would agree to remain silent on the issue of the Workers' Party, with those convinced by Watson's wishes and the reluctant support of Lena Morrow Lewis bringing Rankin to victory as the first women to be nominated for the Vice Presidency. Nonetheless, many Workers' aligned delegates remain dissatisfied, floating the possibility of a breakaway ticket for the vice presidency alone. The eyes of the Workers' Party of America, meanwhile, would turn to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where Richard F. Pettigrew would be able to follow the news from a newspaper delivered three days late. Poring late at night in his cell over the words by the moonlight, Pettigrew would author a note affirming the candidacy of Watson, though not that of Rankin, and endorsing a "united front against capitalist imperialism", and, with that, opposition from the Workers' Party of America would virtually evaporate, the two once opposed parties of the American left standing shoulder to shoulder against the war. Senator Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, Farmer-Labor and Workers' Party of America nominee for President of the United States. Former Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, Farmer-Labor and Workers' Party of America nominee for Vice President of the United States. The Bolters Yet, the bolters' fate remained to be decided. They would decline to hold their convention in the city of Indianapolis, instead voting to convene in two weeks in Cincinnati, with 407 delegates eventually attending. A quick glance around the motley assembly would reveal that the vast majority of those who had walked out of the convention fit squarely into the labor faction of their erstwhile Farmer-Labor Party, with every major leader in the General Trades Union, excepting James H. Maurer, affiliated with the breakaway. The only prominent agrarian amongst them, Marion Butler would argue for naming the pro-Lejeune ticket the "Labor-Farmer" ticket, but his efforts would prove too little, too late, with the convention passing a resolution calling for "Americanism" and adopting the name of the "American Labor Party." Yet, California Governor Upton Sinclair would plead to the convention to form a federation of erstwhile Farmer-Laborites in favor of Lejeune rather than forming a new party entirely, a position carried by a majority vote, thus reducing the American Labor Party to a Lejeune organization. The conflict over the platform and the Vice Presidency would be split between two factions: the "left" led by editor Max S. Hayes and former United Mine Workers President Frank J. Hayes, arguing for a socialist platform endorsing government ownership of mines, quarries, oil wells, water power, railroads, telegraphs, and stockyards, while General Trades Union Treasurer William B. Green, former United Mine Workers President John Philip White, and carpenters union leader William Hutcheson would argue for a more conservative platform simply pledging support to labor and the war. With the support of Charles Edward Russell and Marion Butler, aiming to prevent the American Labor Party from losing its ideological ties to Farmer-Labor aside from the war, the so-called "left" would win, affirming a socialist platform for the American Labor wing of the Lejeune campaign. Nonetheless, possessing the strongest ties to the GTU, 47 year old William Green would be nominated for the vice presidency, telling the convention in a short speech that "radicals must go!" from Farmer-Labor. General John A. Lejeune, American Labor nominee for President of the United States. General Trades Union Treasurer William Green, American Labor nominee for Vice President of the United States. |
2022.05.23 16:30 LongJohnBitcoin Why Lululemon will tank on earnings (june 2nd) and how you can profit (puts)
This is not financial advice, but do exactly as I say and you will get very rich, I pinky-promise.
Position: 10 puts with 270 strike price and june 3 expiry.
‘Athleisure’ is not a moat
Lululemon sells yoga pants. Fashion media widely credits Lululemon with inventing, and then commendably exploiting, ‘athleisure’: combining yoga pants and other workout apparel with a vest or jacket so you can look as hot as you think you do in the gym while doing non-sports related activities. You might recognize this trend as something you have furiously masturbated to. Athleisure might be the single biggest fashion trend of the last five years and it got an extra boom with pandemic lockdowns, because who wants to wear tight jeans while binging on Ozark and mayonnaise.
However, inventing the idea that Hailey Baldwin can combine expensive yoga pants with a Balenciaga jacket for a fresh look is not a moat. Over the last few years countless brands have jumped on this trend. Each with their own little subcategory that they’re catering to, for instance, really fat people who should probably refrain from wearing sportswear altogether.
Unless you work behind the dumpster at Wendy’s, you’re not wearing yoga pants to work
Also, athleisure is probably a thing of the past anyway. In fashion blogs, return to the office is the single most discussed topic these days. Because what will we wear? Not the same stuff as pre-covid, because we have gotten fat, even fatter than before. Also, we have grown accustomed to the idea that track pants, joggers and slippers are things that are perfectly suited for pretty much any activity. Most fashion blogs recognize this and are anticipating that work clothes will be a lot more relaxed from now on, dress will be a little less formal and conservative and more relaxed and creative. Retailers say demand backs this up.
However, that is not the same thing as wearing yoga pants while walking the dog, which is what made Lululemon great.
Lululemon seems to recognize the days of overpriced yoga pants selling like hotcakes are over, so now they’re trying to do something else: fit into this new trend by trying to get us to wear sportswear to the office. Their site now is full of pants that look formal but are actually jogging pants, or button down shirts made from a breathable fabric with tiny holes in them.
I don’t think it will take off. What I think will happen is a continuation of the trend that brands will create a lot more casual blazers and pants with elastic bands and what not. What I don’t think will happen is people wearing jogging pants and golf shirts to work.
Men want to fuck, not wear, Lululemon
That brings me to the bigger problem. One of the big pillars of LLL’s growth strategy is that they want to quadruple sales in the men’s category. The problem with that is the LLL logo is either a woman doing down dog, or a vagina, depending on how you look at it. Furthermore this brand is and will forever be associated with tight asses in yoga pants. Just go to their website right now and tell me the first thing you see. This is a brand that heterosexual men want to fuck, not wear. I don’t think they can pull it off and I think we will see the first signs of that this quarter.
Mirror is the dumbest thing since Peloton. Remember Peloton?
Lululemon forked over a half billion in cold hard cash to acquire mirror, a magic mirror that screams at you to do another round of pushups. It’s the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen, it is literally a giant mirror that displays fitness video’s. It is also 1400 dollars with a 40 dollar monthly subscription attached to it. The proposition was preposterous to begin with but with lockdowns being a thing of the past not to mention the recent sweltering heat or, I don’t know, a recession on the way, this is just ridiculousnesses all around. Already sales forecasts are being adjusted, meaning, shredded. It’s not even that this mistake will hurt the company that bad, it’s more of a sign that the people running the company have no idea how to sustain this incredible growth that they have been promising at every earnings call.
Their running shoes will almost certainly flop
Which brings me to another new product, running shoes. Lululemon made a big stink about their new running shoe, the ‘blissfeel’, a name that will certainly appeal to the coveted male demographic haha not. Some analyst recently claimed the shoes received ‘generally good reviews’ and ‘key colors and sizes were sold out, which is a good sign’.
However, those claims do not hold up to scrutiny. For one, the shoes being sold out probably just means they’re having supply chain issues, which they already told us about. Also, it’s 2022. Everything receives good reviews, because whoever is doing the reviewing is most likely trying to sell you the stuff as well. With that being said, Blissfeel reviews were middling at best. For instance, Runners World wrote: ‘The shoe’s lack of a ‘pop’ is a bit of a bugbear: they don’t feel ‘dead’ when your foot hits the ground – far from it – but with just a little more bounciness from the midsole foam, you’d have a shoe that would potentially make your long runs feel easier – and your speed sessions faster. To be realistic though – no one gets it perfect first time and, as Lululemon’s first foray into the running shoe market, we’re genuinely impressed.’
But that’s the thing – the consumer does not care at all that this is your first foray into this market. Au contraire mon frère, people want something tried and true from a running shoe. Like Asics. Tom’s guide wrote:
‘In today’s world of carbon fiber plates and technical midsole foams, the Lululemon Blissfeel is a pretty basic running shoe, but it’s not pretending to be anything more than this. It’s a solid workhorse, designed for Lululemon fans who want to head out for a run a few times a week, while repping their favorite brand.’
That doesn’t sound like a roaring endorsement to me.
So who is this shoe for? Women –certainly not men- who don’t really care about an optimal fit (interestingly, Lululemon actually tries to sell this lack of options as ‘diversity’, as in, this shoe is for everyone), running technology (see reviews above), a trustworthy brand, or looks, as they look incredibly basic. I am guessing that’s a small market. Then there’s the fact that there’s a lot of shoes out there, especially in the $150 range. Nike Pegasus, Adidas Ultraboost, Hoka’s, Asics.
Also, who’s running anymore, we did that during the pandemic, now we’re back doing crossfit or whatever. This Q will give us a first glimpse at how these shoes have sold and I’m guessing it won’t be very good.
Breaking into other continents is hard when you’re not a virus
Another part of the LLL strategy is incredible growth in other continents. Which is harder than it sounds. See you can go to Brazil, go into the woods, walk for 50 miles through the rainforest and arrive at a hidden village of 20 people, and you might spot someone wearing a Nike swoosh, or at the very least, they will know what Nike is. I’m not sure that is the case with Lululemon. It is not easy to break into new markets. In my not to be named European country, there is only a single store. Besides a few die hard yogis, the brand awareness is virtually non-existent. LLL’s plan so far just seems to be ‘expand into Europe? Let’s just do it’ which is a Nike slogan by the way but for a sports brand that’s just not as easy as it is for let’s say a virus from China or Nigeria.
Nike and Adidas will run them out of their hood
Lululemon is planning to branch out to a bunch of different sports, like tennis and golf. But those sports already have brands. Nike is paying Naomi Osaka $10 million a year, just so you might be persuaded to think that your tennis shorts should have a swoosh on them. These markets are kind of like certain neighborhoods in that you can’t just show up there one day and say hey you know what I like what you guys got going on here let me get a piece of this action, because you might get, you know, yourself killed.
Freight costs and other supply chain issues
Last quarter, Lululemon was complaining a bit about how freight costs and supply chain issues were hurting their bottom line. All of their stuff is made in countries like Vietnam and China. This quarter, they will likely complain a lot more.
American budgets are tighter than yoga pants
Did you know that a recent Gallup poll has shown that, during an economic downturn, 86% of American families say $120 yoga pants are among the first expenses they might cut back on?
China lockdowns
Lululemon’s biggest market besides the US is China, where they operate 86 stores (of 500 total) with of course a whole bunch of them in the Shanghai area. China did not have a great quarter this quarter. After more or less inventing covid, they are now the last country on earth to figure out how to deal with it. There were a bunch of lockdowns and consumer confidence isn’t doing so well. I doubt they bought very many overpriced yoga pants this quarter. Maybe some people got a mirror though. I hope the classes are available in Chinese. Also, from what I heard the Chinese attitude towards work is decidedly un-relaxed, so wearing joggers to work is probably out of the question as well.
Retail will get 'punched in the face'
“A lot of CEOs have come on TV and said ‘oh I have lots of pricing power and I can do whatever I want and make a lot of money’,” Bullard said Friday, in an interview on the Fox Business Network.
“But I think some of them are going to get punched in the face here with the fact that consumers have to react” to higher inflation, he said.
Earlier on yahoo, analyst ADRIENNE YIH: "Yeah, they have extreme pricing power. The pants run anywhere between $118 up to $128. And so that is, that is an extraordinarily high price for arguably a legging."
P/E ratio 36
Jefferies analyst Randal Konik wrote in a note to clients that Lululemon’s plans ‘will require an added level of execution prowess, as well as stability in the broader macroeconomic environment, that may be difficult to attain’. As your portfolio might have noticed, that stability has indeed proven rather difficult. Even though Lulu has already fallen a lot, it is still priced for enormous growth. Expectations are incredibly high. If the numbers are good, not great, the market will rightfully judge it as ‘terrible’ and it will tank. Which is why you might consider getting puts.
TLDR
Lululemon apparel is too expensive at a time where people are cutting back on consumer discretionary and are shifting expenses from ‘at home’ to ‘at the office’. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives, their shoes are terrible, Mirror is preposterous, men don’t want to wear vagina’s, joggers will not be worn to the office, supply chain issues and freight costs will weigh heavily on the bottom line, and China is not buying anything, all while the stock is (still) priced for enormous growth. Like a girl with a big ass in yoga pants in one of the many BangBros videos about yoga class, Lululemon earnings will get their back blown out.
Position: 10 puts with 270 strike price and june 3rd expiry, 5 puts 270 expiry june 17th
submitted by LongJohnBitcoin to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]
Position: 10 puts with 270 strike price and june 3 expiry.
‘Athleisure’ is not a moat
Lululemon sells yoga pants. Fashion media widely credits Lululemon with inventing, and then commendably exploiting, ‘athleisure’: combining yoga pants and other workout apparel with a vest or jacket so you can look as hot as you think you do in the gym while doing non-sports related activities. You might recognize this trend as something you have furiously masturbated to. Athleisure might be the single biggest fashion trend of the last five years and it got an extra boom with pandemic lockdowns, because who wants to wear tight jeans while binging on Ozark and mayonnaise.
However, inventing the idea that Hailey Baldwin can combine expensive yoga pants with a Balenciaga jacket for a fresh look is not a moat. Over the last few years countless brands have jumped on this trend. Each with their own little subcategory that they’re catering to, for instance, really fat people who should probably refrain from wearing sportswear altogether.
Unless you work behind the dumpster at Wendy’s, you’re not wearing yoga pants to work
Also, athleisure is probably a thing of the past anyway. In fashion blogs, return to the office is the single most discussed topic these days. Because what will we wear? Not the same stuff as pre-covid, because we have gotten fat, even fatter than before. Also, we have grown accustomed to the idea that track pants, joggers and slippers are things that are perfectly suited for pretty much any activity. Most fashion blogs recognize this and are anticipating that work clothes will be a lot more relaxed from now on, dress will be a little less formal and conservative and more relaxed and creative. Retailers say demand backs this up.
However, that is not the same thing as wearing yoga pants while walking the dog, which is what made Lululemon great.
Lululemon seems to recognize the days of overpriced yoga pants selling like hotcakes are over, so now they’re trying to do something else: fit into this new trend by trying to get us to wear sportswear to the office. Their site now is full of pants that look formal but are actually jogging pants, or button down shirts made from a breathable fabric with tiny holes in them.
I don’t think it will take off. What I think will happen is a continuation of the trend that brands will create a lot more casual blazers and pants with elastic bands and what not. What I don’t think will happen is people wearing jogging pants and golf shirts to work.
Men want to fuck, not wear, Lululemon
That brings me to the bigger problem. One of the big pillars of LLL’s growth strategy is that they want to quadruple sales in the men’s category. The problem with that is the LLL logo is either a woman doing down dog, or a vagina, depending on how you look at it. Furthermore this brand is and will forever be associated with tight asses in yoga pants. Just go to their website right now and tell me the first thing you see. This is a brand that heterosexual men want to fuck, not wear. I don’t think they can pull it off and I think we will see the first signs of that this quarter.
Mirror is the dumbest thing since Peloton. Remember Peloton?
Lululemon forked over a half billion in cold hard cash to acquire mirror, a magic mirror that screams at you to do another round of pushups. It’s the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen, it is literally a giant mirror that displays fitness video’s. It is also 1400 dollars with a 40 dollar monthly subscription attached to it. The proposition was preposterous to begin with but with lockdowns being a thing of the past not to mention the recent sweltering heat or, I don’t know, a recession on the way, this is just ridiculousnesses all around. Already sales forecasts are being adjusted, meaning, shredded. It’s not even that this mistake will hurt the company that bad, it’s more of a sign that the people running the company have no idea how to sustain this incredible growth that they have been promising at every earnings call.
Their running shoes will almost certainly flop
Which brings me to another new product, running shoes. Lululemon made a big stink about their new running shoe, the ‘blissfeel’, a name that will certainly appeal to the coveted male demographic haha not. Some analyst recently claimed the shoes received ‘generally good reviews’ and ‘key colors and sizes were sold out, which is a good sign’.
However, those claims do not hold up to scrutiny. For one, the shoes being sold out probably just means they’re having supply chain issues, which they already told us about. Also, it’s 2022. Everything receives good reviews, because whoever is doing the reviewing is most likely trying to sell you the stuff as well. With that being said, Blissfeel reviews were middling at best. For instance, Runners World wrote: ‘The shoe’s lack of a ‘pop’ is a bit of a bugbear: they don’t feel ‘dead’ when your foot hits the ground – far from it – but with just a little more bounciness from the midsole foam, you’d have a shoe that would potentially make your long runs feel easier – and your speed sessions faster. To be realistic though – no one gets it perfect first time and, as Lululemon’s first foray into the running shoe market, we’re genuinely impressed.’
But that’s the thing – the consumer does not care at all that this is your first foray into this market. Au contraire mon frère, people want something tried and true from a running shoe. Like Asics. Tom’s guide wrote:
‘In today’s world of carbon fiber plates and technical midsole foams, the Lululemon Blissfeel is a pretty basic running shoe, but it’s not pretending to be anything more than this. It’s a solid workhorse, designed for Lululemon fans who want to head out for a run a few times a week, while repping their favorite brand.’
That doesn’t sound like a roaring endorsement to me.
So who is this shoe for? Women –certainly not men- who don’t really care about an optimal fit (interestingly, Lululemon actually tries to sell this lack of options as ‘diversity’, as in, this shoe is for everyone), running technology (see reviews above), a trustworthy brand, or looks, as they look incredibly basic. I am guessing that’s a small market. Then there’s the fact that there’s a lot of shoes out there, especially in the $150 range. Nike Pegasus, Adidas Ultraboost, Hoka’s, Asics.
Also, who’s running anymore, we did that during the pandemic, now we’re back doing crossfit or whatever. This Q will give us a first glimpse at how these shoes have sold and I’m guessing it won’t be very good.
Breaking into other continents is hard when you’re not a virus
Another part of the LLL strategy is incredible growth in other continents. Which is harder than it sounds. See you can go to Brazil, go into the woods, walk for 50 miles through the rainforest and arrive at a hidden village of 20 people, and you might spot someone wearing a Nike swoosh, or at the very least, they will know what Nike is. I’m not sure that is the case with Lululemon. It is not easy to break into new markets. In my not to be named European country, there is only a single store. Besides a few die hard yogis, the brand awareness is virtually non-existent. LLL’s plan so far just seems to be ‘expand into Europe? Let’s just do it’ which is a Nike slogan by the way but for a sports brand that’s just not as easy as it is for let’s say a virus from China or Nigeria.
Nike and Adidas will run them out of their hood
Lululemon is planning to branch out to a bunch of different sports, like tennis and golf. But those sports already have brands. Nike is paying Naomi Osaka $10 million a year, just so you might be persuaded to think that your tennis shorts should have a swoosh on them. These markets are kind of like certain neighborhoods in that you can’t just show up there one day and say hey you know what I like what you guys got going on here let me get a piece of this action, because you might get, you know, yourself killed.
Freight costs and other supply chain issues
Last quarter, Lululemon was complaining a bit about how freight costs and supply chain issues were hurting their bottom line. All of their stuff is made in countries like Vietnam and China. This quarter, they will likely complain a lot more.
American budgets are tighter than yoga pants
Did you know that a recent Gallup poll has shown that, during an economic downturn, 86% of American families say $120 yoga pants are among the first expenses they might cut back on?
China lockdowns
Lululemon’s biggest market besides the US is China, where they operate 86 stores (of 500 total) with of course a whole bunch of them in the Shanghai area. China did not have a great quarter this quarter. After more or less inventing covid, they are now the last country on earth to figure out how to deal with it. There were a bunch of lockdowns and consumer confidence isn’t doing so well. I doubt they bought very many overpriced yoga pants this quarter. Maybe some people got a mirror though. I hope the classes are available in Chinese. Also, from what I heard the Chinese attitude towards work is decidedly un-relaxed, so wearing joggers to work is probably out of the question as well.
Retail will get 'punched in the face'
“A lot of CEOs have come on TV and said ‘oh I have lots of pricing power and I can do whatever I want and make a lot of money’,” Bullard said Friday, in an interview on the Fox Business Network.
“But I think some of them are going to get punched in the face here with the fact that consumers have to react” to higher inflation, he said.
Earlier on yahoo, analyst ADRIENNE YIH: "Yeah, they have extreme pricing power. The pants run anywhere between $118 up to $128. And so that is, that is an extraordinarily high price for arguably a legging."
P/E ratio 36
Jefferies analyst Randal Konik wrote in a note to clients that Lululemon’s plans ‘will require an added level of execution prowess, as well as stability in the broader macroeconomic environment, that may be difficult to attain’. As your portfolio might have noticed, that stability has indeed proven rather difficult. Even though Lulu has already fallen a lot, it is still priced for enormous growth. Expectations are incredibly high. If the numbers are good, not great, the market will rightfully judge it as ‘terrible’ and it will tank. Which is why you might consider getting puts.
TLDR
Lululemon apparel is too expensive at a time where people are cutting back on consumer discretionary and are shifting expenses from ‘at home’ to ‘at the office’. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives, their shoes are terrible, Mirror is preposterous, men don’t want to wear vagina’s, joggers will not be worn to the office, supply chain issues and freight costs will weigh heavily on the bottom line, and China is not buying anything, all while the stock is (still) priced for enormous growth. Like a girl with a big ass in yoga pants in one of the many BangBros videos about yoga class, Lululemon earnings will get their back blown out.
Position: 10 puts with 270 strike price and june 3rd expiry, 5 puts 270 expiry june 17th
2021.11.17 19:16 Jungle_Love87 How monocultures and pastures degrade tropical forests--and why agroforestry works HERE
It might come as a shocker, in our culture of wanting to figure out the "best" way of doing everything--but there is no best method of regenerative farming. Whether you are an advocate of holistic managed grazing, broad scale mixed cropping, or agroforestry farming, all have a place where that system is most suitable and will thrive.
In general, everything is specific. If you really want to help restore land while cultivating it, a good starting point is to examine what type of ecosystem had existed historically (prior to desertification or deforestation) and go from there.
Regenerative grazing advocates have a catchy slogan: It's not the cow, it's the how! There's truth in that. An agroforestry grower myself--with "skin in the game"-- have learned a great deal over the past year about holistic grazing practices and I'm genuinely impressed. I'm writing this pos (with video) in an effort to foster more understanding and cooperation. By and large, I agree with "It's not the cow, it's the how."
But it's also the Where.
When the starting point is a degraded grassland, it makes sense that the finish line is a healthy grassland.
In a temperate climate, a prairie of mixed grasses, wildflowers, clover, vetch and so forth grazed by ruminants is a carbon-sinking optimally-functioning ecosystem.
But in the wet tropical forests? In contrast to the prairies of temperate climes, a pasture in the humid tropics is so sparse with life many refer to it as "the green desert."
Expanding monocultures of soybean and oil palm are most certainly wreaking their own brand of havoc. Yet conversion to pasture remains the key driver of environmental degradation in both Central and South America.
What happens when the same cows, so valuable to the grassland ecosystem, are transplanted to a logged patch of land seeded with non-native grass in the wet tropics? I've seen (and worked) it firsthand: weathered soil that cracks in the sun, collapse of aggregates and microbe populations. Hundreds of thousands of other plant and animal species are also decimated.
The forest canopy in a tropical wet climate is indispensable to the entire system. The canopy intercepts the pounding rains and lessens their impact on the ground. The lattice of tree roots hold soil and leaf fall is a constantly cycling source of carbon and nutrients. Unlike prairie soils, tropical soils are shallow. But an intact forest, where all of the life has evolved according to these conditions, is robust despite the lack of deep soils. Carbon is stored not so much in the soil, but in the woody mass and leaves of the trees.
When the forest canopy is cut, massive amounts of carbon are lost to the atmosphere. Rain hits the ground like a blitzkrieg, causing erosion. Unsuited to the tropics, the cows themselves suffer from parasites, heat stress, and belly bloat from eating wet grass. The farmers struggle financially and work double time to keep the forest from growing back.
For every form of life involved, from microbe to animal to man, the situation is lose, lose, lose.
Context is everything.
Pastoralism on the open grasslands of the earth has a long history and the people who practice it from a place of deserve more respect. There is no tradition of pastoralism in tropical forests, appropriately enough. The "grazing" animals of the jungle, like howler monkeys, also depend on trees.
But people have lived and thrived in the dense tropical forests for millenia. They modified their environment to feed themselves, but they did it without massive deforestation.
They did it with Agroforestry.
Agroforestry is a way to raise abundant food, including complete protein and nutrient-dense superfoods high in fiber, minerals and antioxidants. Agroforestry also provides cash crops like cacao, spices and medicinals.
Do you like good dark chocolate, shade grown coffee, vanilla ice cream, or cinnamon sprinkled on your oatmeal? Or do you drink ginger tea for a cold or take turmeric for joint pain? These are all products of tropical agroforestry.
Agroforestry systems mimic the natural forest in terms of complexity and diversity, but with a focus on perennial tree species producing food, fodder, building material, and/or large amounts of biomass.
For people, the rainforest ecosystem, and the planet, it's a win, win, win.
Tropical and subtropical rainforests account for only 6 percent of the planet's non-frozen land mass. Yet fifty percent of the living plants, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians on the planet call this small slice of earth home.
In comparison, grasslands cover forty percent of the non-ice earth. There's no need to clearcut rainforests to put ruminants where they clearly don't belong in rainforests.
Soil regenerators, let's work together to encourage and implement the best practices of regenerative farming IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. In general, everything is specific. Not excluding and especially ecosystem appropriate farming practices.
submitted by Jungle_Love87 to Permaculture [link] [comments]
In general, everything is specific. If you really want to help restore land while cultivating it, a good starting point is to examine what type of ecosystem had existed historically (prior to desertification or deforestation) and go from there.
Regenerative grazing advocates have a catchy slogan: It's not the cow, it's the how! There's truth in that. An agroforestry grower myself--with "skin in the game"-- have learned a great deal over the past year about holistic grazing practices and I'm genuinely impressed. I'm writing this pos (with video) in an effort to foster more understanding and cooperation. By and large, I agree with "It's not the cow, it's the how."
But it's also the Where.
When the starting point is a degraded grassland, it makes sense that the finish line is a healthy grassland.
In a temperate climate, a prairie of mixed grasses, wildflowers, clover, vetch and so forth grazed by ruminants is a carbon-sinking optimally-functioning ecosystem.
But in the wet tropical forests? In contrast to the prairies of temperate climes, a pasture in the humid tropics is so sparse with life many refer to it as "the green desert."
Expanding monocultures of soybean and oil palm are most certainly wreaking their own brand of havoc. Yet conversion to pasture remains the key driver of environmental degradation in both Central and South America.
What happens when the same cows, so valuable to the grassland ecosystem, are transplanted to a logged patch of land seeded with non-native grass in the wet tropics? I've seen (and worked) it firsthand: weathered soil that cracks in the sun, collapse of aggregates and microbe populations. Hundreds of thousands of other plant and animal species are also decimated.
The forest canopy in a tropical wet climate is indispensable to the entire system. The canopy intercepts the pounding rains and lessens their impact on the ground. The lattice of tree roots hold soil and leaf fall is a constantly cycling source of carbon and nutrients. Unlike prairie soils, tropical soils are shallow. But an intact forest, where all of the life has evolved according to these conditions, is robust despite the lack of deep soils. Carbon is stored not so much in the soil, but in the woody mass and leaves of the trees.
When the forest canopy is cut, massive amounts of carbon are lost to the atmosphere. Rain hits the ground like a blitzkrieg, causing erosion. Unsuited to the tropics, the cows themselves suffer from parasites, heat stress, and belly bloat from eating wet grass. The farmers struggle financially and work double time to keep the forest from growing back.
For every form of life involved, from microbe to animal to man, the situation is lose, lose, lose.
Context is everything.
Pastoralism on the open grasslands of the earth has a long history and the people who practice it from a place of deserve more respect. There is no tradition of pastoralism in tropical forests, appropriately enough. The "grazing" animals of the jungle, like howler monkeys, also depend on trees.
But people have lived and thrived in the dense tropical forests for millenia. They modified their environment to feed themselves, but they did it without massive deforestation.
They did it with Agroforestry.
Agroforestry is a way to raise abundant food, including complete protein and nutrient-dense superfoods high in fiber, minerals and antioxidants. Agroforestry also provides cash crops like cacao, spices and medicinals.
Do you like good dark chocolate, shade grown coffee, vanilla ice cream, or cinnamon sprinkled on your oatmeal? Or do you drink ginger tea for a cold or take turmeric for joint pain? These are all products of tropical agroforestry.
Agroforestry systems mimic the natural forest in terms of complexity and diversity, but with a focus on perennial tree species producing food, fodder, building material, and/or large amounts of biomass.
For people, the rainforest ecosystem, and the planet, it's a win, win, win.
Tropical and subtropical rainforests account for only 6 percent of the planet's non-frozen land mass. Yet fifty percent of the living plants, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians on the planet call this small slice of earth home.
In comparison, grasslands cover forty percent of the non-ice earth. There's no need to clearcut rainforests to put ruminants where they clearly don't belong in rainforests.
Soil regenerators, let's work together to encourage and implement the best practices of regenerative farming IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. In general, everything is specific. Not excluding and especially ecosystem appropriate farming practices.
2021.11.17 19:01 Jungle_Love87 How monocultures and pastures degrade tropical forests--and why agroforestry works HERE
It might come as a shocker, in our culture of wanting to figure out the "best" way of doing everything--but there is no best method of regenerative farming. Whether you are an advocate of holistic managed grazing, broad scale mixed cropping, or agroforestry farming, all have a place where that system is most suitable and will thrive.
In general, everything is specific. If you really want to help restore land while cultivating it, a good starting point is to examine what type of ecosystem had existed historically (prior to desertification or deforestation) and go from there.
Regenerative grazing advocates have a catchy slogan: It's not the cow, it's the how! There's truth in that. An agroforestry grower myself--with "skin in the game"-- have learned a great deal over the past year about holistic grazing practices and I'm genuinely impressed. I'm writing this pos (with video) in an effort to foster more understanding and cooperation. By and large, I agree with "It's not the cow, it's the how."
But it's also the Where.
When the starting point is a degraded grassland, it makes sense that the finish line is a healthy grassland.
In a temperate climate, a prairie of mixed grasses, wildflowers, clover, vetch and so forth grazed by ruminants is a carbon-sinking optimally-functioning ecosystem.
But in the wet tropical forests? In contrast to the prairies of temperate climes, a pasture in the humid tropics is so sparse with life many refer to it as "the green desert."
Expanding monocultures of soybean and oil palm are most certainly wreaking their own brand of havoc. Yet conversion to pasture remains the key driver of environmental degradation in both Central and South America.
What happens when the same cows, so valuable to the grassland ecosystem, are transplanted to a logged patch of land seeded with non-native grass in the wet tropics? I've seen (and worked) it firsthand: weathered soil that cracks in the sun, collapse of aggregates and microbe populations. Hundreds of thousands of other plant and animal species are also decimated.
The forest canopy in a tropical wet climate is indispensable to the entire system. The canopy intercepts the pounding rains and lessens their impact on the ground. The lattice of tree roots hold soil and leaf fall is a constantly cycling source of carbon and nutrients. Unlike prairie soils, tropical soils are shallow. But an intact forest, where all of the life has evolved according to these conditions, is robust despite the lack of deep soils. Carbon is stored not so much in the soil, but in the woody mass and leaves of the trees.
When the forest canopy is cut, massive amounts of carbon are lost to the atmosphere. Rain hits the ground like a blitzkrieg, causing erosion. Unsuited to the tropics, the cows themselves suffer from parasites, heat stress, and belly bloat from eating wet grass. The farmers struggle financially and work double time to keep the forest from growing back.
For every form of life involved, from microbe to animal to man, the situation is lose, lose, lose.
Context is everything.
Pastoralism on the open grasslands of the earth has a long history and the people who practice it from a place of deserve more respect. There is no tradition of pastoralism in tropical forests, appropriately enough. The "grazing" animals of the jungle, like howler monkeys, also depend on trees.
But people have lived and thrived in the dense tropical forests for millenia. They modified their environment to feed themselves, but they did it without massive deforestation.
They did it with Agroforestry.
Agroforestry is a way to raise abundant food, including complete protein and nutrient-dense superfoods high in fiber, minerals and antioxidants. Agroforestry also provides cash crops like cacao, spices and medicinals.
Do you like good dark chocolate, shade grown coffee, vanilla ice cream, or cinnamon sprinkled on your oatmeal? Or do you drink ginger tea for a cold or take turmeric for joint pain? These are all products of tropical agroforestry.
Agroforestry systems mimic the natural forest in terms of complexity and diversity, but with a focus on perennial tree species producing food, fodder, building material, and/or large amounts of biomass.
For people, the rainforest ecosystem, and the planet, it's a win, win, win.
Tropical and subtropical rainforests account for only 6 percent of the planet's non-frozen land mass. Yet fifty percent of the living plants, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians on the planet call this small slice of earth home.
In comparison, grasslands cover forty percent of the non-ice earth. There's no need to clearcut rainforests to put ruminants where they clearly don't belong in rainforests.
Soil regenerators, let's work together to encourage and implement the best practices of regenerative farming IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. In general, everything is specific. Not excluding and especially ecosystem appropriate farming practices.
submitted by Jungle_Love87 to agroecology [link] [comments]
In general, everything is specific. If you really want to help restore land while cultivating it, a good starting point is to examine what type of ecosystem had existed historically (prior to desertification or deforestation) and go from there.
Regenerative grazing advocates have a catchy slogan: It's not the cow, it's the how! There's truth in that. An agroforestry grower myself--with "skin in the game"-- have learned a great deal over the past year about holistic grazing practices and I'm genuinely impressed. I'm writing this pos (with video) in an effort to foster more understanding and cooperation. By and large, I agree with "It's not the cow, it's the how."
But it's also the Where.
When the starting point is a degraded grassland, it makes sense that the finish line is a healthy grassland.
In a temperate climate, a prairie of mixed grasses, wildflowers, clover, vetch and so forth grazed by ruminants is a carbon-sinking optimally-functioning ecosystem.
But in the wet tropical forests? In contrast to the prairies of temperate climes, a pasture in the humid tropics is so sparse with life many refer to it as "the green desert."
Expanding monocultures of soybean and oil palm are most certainly wreaking their own brand of havoc. Yet conversion to pasture remains the key driver of environmental degradation in both Central and South America.
What happens when the same cows, so valuable to the grassland ecosystem, are transplanted to a logged patch of land seeded with non-native grass in the wet tropics? I've seen (and worked) it firsthand: weathered soil that cracks in the sun, collapse of aggregates and microbe populations. Hundreds of thousands of other plant and animal species are also decimated.
The forest canopy in a tropical wet climate is indispensable to the entire system. The canopy intercepts the pounding rains and lessens their impact on the ground. The lattice of tree roots hold soil and leaf fall is a constantly cycling source of carbon and nutrients. Unlike prairie soils, tropical soils are shallow. But an intact forest, where all of the life has evolved according to these conditions, is robust despite the lack of deep soils. Carbon is stored not so much in the soil, but in the woody mass and leaves of the trees.
When the forest canopy is cut, massive amounts of carbon are lost to the atmosphere. Rain hits the ground like a blitzkrieg, causing erosion. Unsuited to the tropics, the cows themselves suffer from parasites, heat stress, and belly bloat from eating wet grass. The farmers struggle financially and work double time to keep the forest from growing back.
For every form of life involved, from microbe to animal to man, the situation is lose, lose, lose.
Context is everything.
Pastoralism on the open grasslands of the earth has a long history and the people who practice it from a place of deserve more respect. There is no tradition of pastoralism in tropical forests, appropriately enough. The "grazing" animals of the jungle, like howler monkeys, also depend on trees.
But people have lived and thrived in the dense tropical forests for millenia. They modified their environment to feed themselves, but they did it without massive deforestation.
They did it with Agroforestry.
Agroforestry is a way to raise abundant food, including complete protein and nutrient-dense superfoods high in fiber, minerals and antioxidants. Agroforestry also provides cash crops like cacao, spices and medicinals.
Do you like good dark chocolate, shade grown coffee, vanilla ice cream, or cinnamon sprinkled on your oatmeal? Or do you drink ginger tea for a cold or take turmeric for joint pain? These are all products of tropical agroforestry.
Agroforestry systems mimic the natural forest in terms of complexity and diversity, but with a focus on perennial tree species producing food, fodder, building material, and/or large amounts of biomass.
For people, the rainforest ecosystem, and the planet, it's a win, win, win.
Tropical and subtropical rainforests account for only 6 percent of the planet's non-frozen land mass. Yet fifty percent of the living plants, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians on the planet call this small slice of earth home.
In comparison, grasslands cover forty percent of the non-ice earth. There's no need to clearcut rainforests to put ruminants where they clearly don't belong in rainforests.
Soil regenerators, let's work together to encourage and implement the best practices of regenerative farming IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. In general, everything is specific. Not excluding and especially ecosystem appropriate farming practices.
2021.11.17 18:39 Jungle_Love87 How monocultures and pastures degrade tropical forests--and why agroforestry works HERE
It might come as a shocker, in our culture of wanting to figure out the "best" way of doing everything--but there is no best method of regenerative farming. Whether you are an advocate of holistic managed grazing, broad scale mixed cropping, or agroforestry farming, all have a place where that system is most suitable and will thrive.
In general, everything is specific. If you really want to help restore land while cultivating it, a good starting point is to examine what type of ecosystem had existed historically (prior to desertification or deforestation) and go from there.
Regenerative grazing advocates have a catchy slogan: It's not the cow, it's the how! There's truth in that. An agroforestry grower myself--with "skin in the game"-- have learned a great deal over the past year about holistic grazing practices and I'm genuinely impressed. I'm writing this pos (with video) in an effort to foster more understanding and cooperation. By and large, I agree with "It's not the cow, it's the how."
But it's also the Where.
When the starting point is a degraded grassland, it makes sense that the finish line is a healthy grassland.
In a temperate climate, a prairie of mixed grasses, wildflowers, clover, vetch and so forth grazed by ruminants is a carbon-sinking optimally-functioning ecosystem.
But in the wet tropical forests? In contrast to the prairies of temperate climes, a pasture in the humid tropics is so sparse with life many refer to it as "the green desert."
Expanding monocultures of soybean and oil palm are most certainly wreaking their own brand of havoc. Yet conversion to pasture remains the key driver of environmental degradation in both Central and South America.
What happens when the same cows, so valuable to the grassland ecosystem, are transplanted to a logged patch of land seeded with non-native grass in the wet tropics? I've seen (and worked) it firsthand: weathered soil that cracks in the sun, collapse of aggregates and microbe populations. Hundreds of thousands of other plant and animal species are also decimated.
The forest canopy in a tropical wet climate is indispensable to the entire system. The canopy intercepts the pounding rains and lessens their impact on the ground. The lattice of tree roots hold soil and leaf fall is a constantly cycling source of carbon and nutrients. Unlike prairie soils, tropical soils are shallow. But an intact forest, where all of the life has evolved according to these conditions, is robust despite the lack of deep soils. Carbon is stored not so much in the soil, but in the woody mass and leaves of the trees.
When the forest canopy is cut, massive amounts of carbon are lost to the atmosphere. Rain hits the ground like a blitzkrieg, causing erosion. Unsuited to the tropics, the cows themselves suffer from parasites, heat stress, and belly bloat from eating wet grass. The farmers struggle financially and work double time to keep the forest from growing back.
For every form of life involved, from microbe to animal to man, the situation is lose, lose, lose.
Context is everything.
Pastoralism on the open grasslands of the earth has a long history and the people who practice it from a place of deserve more respect. There is no tradition of pastoralism in tropical forests, appropriately enough. The "grazing" animals of the jungle, like howler monkeys, also depend on trees.
But people have lived and thrived in the dense tropical forests for millenia. They modified their environment to feed themselves, but they did it without massive deforestation.
They did it with Agroforestry.
Agroforestry is a way to raise abundant food, including complete protein and nutrient-dense superfoods high in fiber, minerals and antioxidants. Agroforestry also provides cash crops like cacao, spices and medicinals.
Do you like good dark chocolate, shade grown coffee, vanilla ice cream, or cinnamon sprinkled on your oatmeal? Or do you drink ginger tea for a cold or take turmeric for joint pain? These are all products of tropical agroforestry.
Agroforestry systems mimic the natural forest in terms of complexity and diversity, but with a focus on perennial tree species producing food, fodder, building material, and/or large amounts of biomass.
For people, the rainforest ecosystem, and the planet, it's a win, win, win.
Tropical and subtropical rainforests account for only 6 percent of the planet's non-frozen land mass. Yet fifty percent of the living plants, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians on the planet call this small slice of earth home.
In comparison, grasslands cover forty percent of the non-ice earth. There's no need to clearcut rainforests to put ruminants where they clearly don't belong in rainforests.
Soil regenerators, let's work together to encourage and implement the best practices of regenerative farming IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. In general, everything is specific. Not excluding and especially ecosystem appropriate farming practices.
submitted by Jungle_Love87 to AgroForestry [link] [comments]
In general, everything is specific. If you really want to help restore land while cultivating it, a good starting point is to examine what type of ecosystem had existed historically (prior to desertification or deforestation) and go from there.
Regenerative grazing advocates have a catchy slogan: It's not the cow, it's the how! There's truth in that. An agroforestry grower myself--with "skin in the game"-- have learned a great deal over the past year about holistic grazing practices and I'm genuinely impressed. I'm writing this pos (with video) in an effort to foster more understanding and cooperation. By and large, I agree with "It's not the cow, it's the how."
But it's also the Where.
When the starting point is a degraded grassland, it makes sense that the finish line is a healthy grassland.
In a temperate climate, a prairie of mixed grasses, wildflowers, clover, vetch and so forth grazed by ruminants is a carbon-sinking optimally-functioning ecosystem.
But in the wet tropical forests? In contrast to the prairies of temperate climes, a pasture in the humid tropics is so sparse with life many refer to it as "the green desert."
Expanding monocultures of soybean and oil palm are most certainly wreaking their own brand of havoc. Yet conversion to pasture remains the key driver of environmental degradation in both Central and South America.
What happens when the same cows, so valuable to the grassland ecosystem, are transplanted to a logged patch of land seeded with non-native grass in the wet tropics? I've seen (and worked) it firsthand: weathered soil that cracks in the sun, collapse of aggregates and microbe populations. Hundreds of thousands of other plant and animal species are also decimated.
The forest canopy in a tropical wet climate is indispensable to the entire system. The canopy intercepts the pounding rains and lessens their impact on the ground. The lattice of tree roots hold soil and leaf fall is a constantly cycling source of carbon and nutrients. Unlike prairie soils, tropical soils are shallow. But an intact forest, where all of the life has evolved according to these conditions, is robust despite the lack of deep soils. Carbon is stored not so much in the soil, but in the woody mass and leaves of the trees.
When the forest canopy is cut, massive amounts of carbon are lost to the atmosphere. Rain hits the ground like a blitzkrieg, causing erosion. Unsuited to the tropics, the cows themselves suffer from parasites, heat stress, and belly bloat from eating wet grass. The farmers struggle financially and work double time to keep the forest from growing back.
For every form of life involved, from microbe to animal to man, the situation is lose, lose, lose.
Context is everything.
Pastoralism on the open grasslands of the earth has a long history and the people who practice it from a place of deserve more respect. There is no tradition of pastoralism in tropical forests, appropriately enough. The "grazing" animals of the jungle, like howler monkeys, also depend on trees.
But people have lived and thrived in the dense tropical forests for millenia. They modified their environment to feed themselves, but they did it without massive deforestation.
They did it with Agroforestry.
Agroforestry is a way to raise abundant food, including complete protein and nutrient-dense superfoods high in fiber, minerals and antioxidants. Agroforestry also provides cash crops like cacao, spices and medicinals.
Do you like good dark chocolate, shade grown coffee, vanilla ice cream, or cinnamon sprinkled on your oatmeal? Or do you drink ginger tea for a cold or take turmeric for joint pain? These are all products of tropical agroforestry.
Agroforestry systems mimic the natural forest in terms of complexity and diversity, but with a focus on perennial tree species producing food, fodder, building material, and/or large amounts of biomass.
For people, the rainforest ecosystem, and the planet, it's a win, win, win.
Tropical and subtropical rainforests account for only 6 percent of the planet's non-frozen land mass. Yet fifty percent of the living plants, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians on the planet call this small slice of earth home.
In comparison, grasslands cover forty percent of the non-ice earth. There's no need to clearcut rainforests to put ruminants where they clearly don't belong in rainforests.
Soil regenerators, let's work together to encourage and implement the best practices of regenerative farming IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT. In general, everything is specific. Not excluding and especially ecosystem appropriate farming practices.
2021.11.10 23:37 OccamsLies TL;DR Amazon we need to talk about the massive box you sent my HDMI cables in. Did these HDMI cables have some delicate 32K Ming Dynasty limited edition porcelain connectors—? No. This is my open letter to Amazon about their empire—built on consumption and spewing trash since 1994.
Amazon, enough is enough.
You sent me another ginormous box, sealed with your “environmentally friendly” black and blue recyclable tape. To no surprise, I found mostly bubble wrap and a much smaller Amazon box.
This tiny box contained only HDMI cables, pens, and socks. Perhaps, if I had ordered transcripts of your empty environmental promises, the larger box would have been a perfect fit. Every Amazon Prime Member is familiar with this exact W-T-Amazon experience. So, that begs the question…
Amazon, why do you still ship tiny boxes within even bigger boxes?
From a self-described “green” company, your reliance on cardboard boxes might be the most environmentally tone-deaf practice you could choose for your customers. In 2019 the director of the Solid Waste Association of North America called your cardboard waste, “the Amazon effect.” Yes, you read that right. Your dirty environmental footprint is so widely recognized that it’s now “a thing.” I mean, jeez Amazon—how much inspiration do you need to change? As Greta Thunberg might say, we don’t want to hear any more of your green “blah, blah, blah.” We don’t need promises, we need you to stop killing trees and creating trash.
Moreover, isn’t it time for you to ditch the boxes and plastic bags altogether? Give us reusable tubs instead. It’s a simple solution we could all easily agree on. Ship your packages in a few standard sizes and instruct your customers, us, to leave the empty tubs on our doorsteps. The driver picks them up on his next delivery. No more boxes or bags, problem solved.
Additionally, the cables you sent me were already sheathed within apocalypse-proof packaging. Did these HDMI cables have some delicate 32K Ming Dynasty limited edition porcelain connectors—? No. They were just regular HDMI cables, but longer. Were you afraid someone might drop the box and damage my socks? If so, excuse my frustrations, because everyone understands how delicate socks can be—
Otherwise, would you please wake up. For every 151.6 boxes you ship, a tree dies. This wouldn’t be alarming if you hadn’t delivered 4.2 billion packages last year.
Unfortunately, the exact number of packages that were cardboard boxes vs. the other types of Amazon created garbage isn’t publicly available. Otherwise, I would have loved to demonstrate exactly how many trees were razed in 2021 just to support your business alone. Either way, if we only consider half of the 4.2 billion Amazon packages delivered in 2020, I calculated that you shipped roughly 13,852,243 dead trees.
Regardless, let’s not get lost in the weeds. It’s obvious you’re consuming an enormous number of trees, and seriously, you’re solely responsible for creating a monumental amount of trash. Yes, we know people recycle, but many don’t or can’t. The most recent EPA data states that in 2018 17.2 million tons of paper and paperboard went into landfills, while another 4.2 million tons were burned. That’s 11.8% of 2018’s MSW (municipal solid waste), and 12.2% of burned MSW. Now consider what the data for 2019, 2020, and 2021 will show. That’s only in America. Are you feeling gross yet? Because ewww.
Amazon, you’ve only gotten bigger. After growing 38% last year alone, and 20-30% almost every year prior, you now make up roughly fifty percent of all e-commerce.
So as a loyal Prime customer, given your current growth rate, I’d just like to know how long it will be until you change your slogan to…
Amazon, we ship the rainforests to you.
submitted by OccamsLies to offmychest [link] [comments]
You sent me another ginormous box, sealed with your “environmentally friendly” black and blue recyclable tape. To no surprise, I found mostly bubble wrap and a much smaller Amazon box.
This tiny box contained only HDMI cables, pens, and socks. Perhaps, if I had ordered transcripts of your empty environmental promises, the larger box would have been a perfect fit. Every Amazon Prime Member is familiar with this exact W-T-Amazon experience. So, that begs the question…
Amazon, why do you still ship tiny boxes within even bigger boxes?
From a self-described “green” company, your reliance on cardboard boxes might be the most environmentally tone-deaf practice you could choose for your customers. In 2019 the director of the Solid Waste Association of North America called your cardboard waste, “the Amazon effect.” Yes, you read that right. Your dirty environmental footprint is so widely recognized that it’s now “a thing.” I mean, jeez Amazon—how much inspiration do you need to change? As Greta Thunberg might say, we don’t want to hear any more of your green “blah, blah, blah.” We don’t need promises, we need you to stop killing trees and creating trash.
Moreover, isn’t it time for you to ditch the boxes and plastic bags altogether? Give us reusable tubs instead. It’s a simple solution we could all easily agree on. Ship your packages in a few standard sizes and instruct your customers, us, to leave the empty tubs on our doorsteps. The driver picks them up on his next delivery. No more boxes or bags, problem solved.
Additionally, the cables you sent me were already sheathed within apocalypse-proof packaging. Did these HDMI cables have some delicate 32K Ming Dynasty limited edition porcelain connectors—? No. They were just regular HDMI cables, but longer. Were you afraid someone might drop the box and damage my socks? If so, excuse my frustrations, because everyone understands how delicate socks can be—
Otherwise, would you please wake up. For every 151.6 boxes you ship, a tree dies. This wouldn’t be alarming if you hadn’t delivered 4.2 billion packages last year.
Unfortunately, the exact number of packages that were cardboard boxes vs. the other types of Amazon created garbage isn’t publicly available. Otherwise, I would have loved to demonstrate exactly how many trees were razed in 2021 just to support your business alone. Either way, if we only consider half of the 4.2 billion Amazon packages delivered in 2020, I calculated that you shipped roughly 13,852,243 dead trees.
Regardless, let’s not get lost in the weeds. It’s obvious you’re consuming an enormous number of trees, and seriously, you’re solely responsible for creating a monumental amount of trash. Yes, we know people recycle, but many don’t or can’t. The most recent EPA data states that in 2018 17.2 million tons of paper and paperboard went into landfills, while another 4.2 million tons were burned. That’s 11.8% of 2018’s MSW (municipal solid waste), and 12.2% of burned MSW. Now consider what the data for 2019, 2020, and 2021 will show. That’s only in America. Are you feeling gross yet? Because ewww.
Amazon, you’ve only gotten bigger. After growing 38% last year alone, and 20-30% almost every year prior, you now make up roughly fifty percent of all e-commerce.
So as a loyal Prime customer, given your current growth rate, I’d just like to know how long it will be until you change your slogan to…
Amazon, we ship the rainforests to you.
2021.10.01 00:56 aproyal Jimmy and the Flower Bug's pincers
I read something today that reminded me of Jimmy.
I’ll admit, it had been years since he crossed my mind.
I sat at the kitchen table, staring out at the tangerine sky. It was early- the smell of poached eggs and brewed coffee filled the air. The house was still, the family quietly lying in bed. Everything was calm- almost peaceful. So why did it feel like my heart was on fire and my stomach twisted in knots?
Jimmy was a chubby child, the byproduct of a house that served sugar as a ‘well balanced diet’. He waddled around the playground, unflattering rolls popping out of unexpected places. He wasn't the nicest or the brightest kid, and he definitely wasn't the prettiest. But what he was, was a force. He knew how to command respect, how to throw his weight around. He stood a foot taller than his classmates, kids cowered in his presence. That was the power of Big Jimmy Burke.
I won't pretend our friendship was perfect. It had its fair share of ups and downs. Early on, I got too close. I opened myself up and he wasn't ready. Played too close to the fire and suffered the consequences. As an adult, I walk around the world concealing those scars, those third degree burns that never seemed to heal or go away.
I remember the one time he pantsed me in gym class - shorts, underwear, pride - all on the floor.
Another time he dunked my head in the toilet for not laughing hard enough at one of his jokes. One of those chicken-crossing-the-road variations you’ve heard a million times.
It was hard to get close to Jimmy. He tried his best to test you, to push you away. And like a little whimpering dog, I always came back. Loyal for some reason, to Jimmy. Maybe because of the power he wielded. Maybe because he gave me just enough attention. Petted me a couple times. Threw me a couple scraps every now and then.
Mainly, I think it was because I was afraid. Of being alone. School was a cruel place for someone without friends.
Those were the bad memories of Jimmy. The ones I buried away, deep.
The memory I'm thinking of was a good one, his 9th birthday party. I was waiting at his front door, dressed in a Spiderman outfit. I remember the feeling of the tight spandex and the excitement as he opened the door. I remember the welcoming stench of cigarettes, his mom and dad waving goodbye to mine.
Jimmy was the Hulk, shirtless with every inch of his body painted green. His fat jiggled as he grabbed his gift bag from me, “LANDON’S HERE, EVERYBODY! LANDON’S HERE! LET’S START THE PARTY!”
Our whole crew buzzed around the linoleum floor, pushing around toy cars and throwing cake down our gullets (and occasionally at others). Jimmy’s mom was preoccupied on the phone, smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table. His dad was nowhere to be found, likely hiding from the chaos.
In the middle of a nerf gun shootout, Jimmy put a finger to his mouth.
“Shhh”
Everyone shut up.
You could hear the rumble of a motor. The garage door closing.
“He’s gone,” Jimmy announced, raising his eyebrow.“ You guys wanna see something cool?”
We all nodded.
“Then be quiet and come with me.”
We tiptoed up the staircase, five miniature superheroes. We followed with bated breath as he led us to a locked door. Stuck to the door was a poster of a rock band I’d never seen before. The words “DO NOT F***ING ENTER” printed in bloody text. Thinking for a moment, he disappeared into his parents bedroom and used a hair pin to fiddle with the lock.
*click*
The door gave way to a messy, dark room. The walls were painted black and plastered with posters of monsters and gothic rock bands. But everyone's jaw dropped when they saw the glass tanks, all stacked along the walls. We were in a trance, stepping over the clothing on the floor, towards the humming red heat lamps and buzzing motors. It was a collection of creatures that I had never seen before.
I pressed my hand against the cold glass, marveling at the bright colors. “What is that, Jimmy?”
He smiled. “That's a serpent starfish,” he pointed at the thing with tentacles, draped across a rock. “And those are Angelfish and Blenny’s,” pointing to a vibrant, colorful school of fish, swimming in unison.
A resounding “woah” came from the room . We slowly went from one tank to the next, wide eyed in wonder.
Jimmy continued the tour, “Fire Belly Newt, Boa Constrictor, Red eyed Tree Frog….” One by one, he pointed and we oo’ed and awed.
I stopped while Jimmy continued. A small tank near the corner caught my eye. The inside looked like a rainforest, but with stunning pink flowers growing around a stump. Only one of the flowers….it was moving. In a slow, hypnotic way.
“Jimmy! What's this one?”
The group stopped and followed Jimmy back to me, crouching to get a better look.
“Oh that's a good one, Landy. That right there is a flower bug.”
“A flower bug?”
“Yup. Ain't it pretty?”
I couldn't keep my eyes off of it - the beautiful mix of white and fuchsia, the powerful pincers, the alien eyes.
The rest of the kids eventually lost interest and bolted out of the room. Not me. I lingered, marveling at the amazing insect. I only stopped when I heard the door creak shut. The room got dark.
“You wanna see something really cool?” Jimmy whispered in the dark.
My heart galloped in my chest, “ sure! What is it?”
He turned on a flashlight and inched closer, “Then you gotta do something for me, first. And don't tell anyone about what I’m about to do. Or they’ll kill me.”
***
In my teens, I worked at a pizza shop called Giovanni’s Pies. The greasiest, cheesiest pizzas in the city. It was my first job as a lazy, skill-less youth. So, you can imagine what Giovanni had me do -wipe the counters, prep the pizzas.
“Just make sure you ain't step outta line or burn the damn place down, ”he’d warn, “or it's your ass or your paycheck. Y’a hear me?”
The pay wasn't great, but you could do the job with your eyes closed. The only real problem was the hours, some nights we’d be on the clock till 2am. The cravings of the degenerate party crowd seemed to really matter to Giovanni. But when you're young, you bounce back from sleep loss like a trampoline. Now, I can't imagine how I survived with so little all those years.
One night after a week of graveyard shifts, my coworker Pete and I were closing up shop. It was a nasty winter night with a wind that cut through bone and whistled through the cracks in the window casing. I waved goodnight to Pete, locked the door and made sure the security cameras were running. He ran to the warmth of his mothers mini-van and drove away.
I walked across the empty parking lot towards my lonely station wagon. The wind was colder than usual that night, piercing and brutal as it shocked my system. I picked up the pace, walking through the light dusting of snow swirling around the lot. I hopped into the front seat and started the ignition.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. A person, in the passenger seat. An old, pudgy, Eastern European looking lady, staring at me across the vehicle.
I screamed, “What the hell are you doing!? Get out of my car!”
She recoiled, “Oh! I’m so sorry Dear!” She cried, her voice shaking. “ I’ll leave. I just didn't know what else to do. My son Michael was supposed to come get me from the Pharmacy hours ago.” She opened the passenger door, the window howling. “Everything is closed. This door was open. It was just so cold….and I was….desperate.”
I took a moment to calm the nerves, inhaling and exhaling slowly.
The story seemed plausible. I did have a bad habit of forgetting to manually lock the doors in the old wagon . It was creepy, but the frigid temperature would have forced anyone to shelter. It was either have an awkward conversation or freeze to death out there.
Just before she walked away, I yelled, “Hold on.”
She stared back, shivering.
“Can you give Michael a call?”
She shook her head. “I wish I could. I don't have one of those cell phone thingamajigs”
I pulled out my phone, “Okay….come back in. Shut the door. What is his number?”
She rattled off a series of numbers . The call rang a few times then went to voicemail. The recording said, “Hi this is Erin, leave me a message at the beep.”
I hung up. “I don't think that's the right one.”
She paused, “oh, darn. It’s 3354 , not 3534.”
I rang the new number with no luck. This time the number wasn't registered to anyone.
“Mam, this one didn't work either.”
She let out a deep sigh, “I’m sorry, Dear. My memory just isn't what it used to be.”
My patience was wearing thin. I was always taught to respect my elders, but this lady was seriously cutting into my precious bedtime. “Listen, I don't know what else to do here.”
“If it's not too much trouble….could I possibly get a ride home?” I couldn't tell if it was the cold or if it was tremors, but her broad shoulders were shaking, back and forth, like a leaf in the wind. She continued, “I know it's asking a lot...But I would be so grateful. I’m very close, no more than 5 minutes from here.“
It was my turn to sigh. I cursed Michael under my breath as I tapped my head against the wheel. “ What is the address?”
Her eyes perked up, “ Oh , bless you, darling! #112 Nottingham Road”.
I put the address into Google Maps. Four minute drive.
“Okay, let's go.”
She smiled warmly and patted me on the shoulder, “Thank you, dear. You are such an angel.”
My stomach growled.
I started the engine and pulled away. I almost turned out of the parking lot before I remembered.
The pizza.
The triple cheese that I had cooked, after hours, off the books. The one sitting on the counter. The one I planned to gorge while watching a movie before bed.
Giovanni's menacing snarl formed in my mind, the vein pulsating in his neck.
Your ass or your paycheck.
I knew if I left the pizza, Giovanni would have questions. That was a problem because I valued both my ass and my paycheck.
Shit.
I circled back and parked the car in front of Giovanni’s. “Sorry,” I said, “I have to run in for a moment. It will only take a sec.”
The lady looked confused as I sprinted into the building. The box was still sitting on the counter. I opened it up and felt the layer of cheese - cold. Ice cold. Normally, I would have just grabbed it and headed home. Pizza was great in any condition. But tonight, for some reason, I was craving it piping hot. So I decided to quickly throw it back in the oven.
10 minutes to bake, its free if its late, the stupid slogan that was burned into my brain .
Once the cheese was sizzling, I took it out and ran back to the vehicle.
The car was empty. And she was gone.
***
Jimmy went into the closet and grabbed a plastic container of something.
“What is that, Jimmy?”
“It’s feeding time,” he said, an evil grin spreading across his face.
The flies were buzzing around in a manic state, bouncing off the walls of the container.
“Just open the top, slowly,” he instructed, as he proceeded to twist the top of the container and give it a shake. They flew in like bats out of hell.
A lot of them landed on the flowers. The pretty fuchsia pedals. A lightning swipe of the pincers crumpled their unsuspecting bodies. The stem of the flower shook from side to side as bit by bit was consumed. We watched for a while, in awe, as the flies began to slowly disappear.
“This is the coolest thing ever, Jimmy,” I declared.
“I know, ain't it?” he said, pausing to take it all in. “Please don't tell anyone I did this. My Mom said I have to wait. The animals are my brothers, but they will be my responsibility when he leaves for college.” He smiled, “ just one more year and they’ll be mine.”
We watched as the bug ate another and another.
“You think it will get them all?” I asked.
“No,” he said, pointing to the corner of the tank. “These flies only live for 24 hrs. Most get eaten up. But some just whiz around the corner of the tank all day and die.”
“Smart, I guess.”
“Or dumb. Or lucky, I guess. Just depends on how you look at it.” He moved closer to the tank, “look at the flower petals. The fuchsia is a lot deeper than the color of the bug's back. The texture is different too. Come, look closely.”
I pressed my face against the glass as another head was ripped from its thorax. “Wow. You're right! They are different!”
He smiled, getting to his feet. “Yeah, it's subtle. Most people don't notice it. But maybe they can tell.” He opened the door, “maybe it's subconscious or something.”
“Hey, earlier you said you needed me to do something?”
He nodded, closing the door and locking it tight.
“Oh yeah. I just wanted you to promise to be my friend.”
We jogged down the stairs, back towards the chaos,“ of course, Jimmy. I promise.”
***
I put the newspaper down in quiet reflection, still thinking about Jimmy. All of the good times, some of the bad.
I drained the last sip of coffee, the sunshine filling up the room. Enjoying the last moments of peace before the family wakes.
No matter how hard you try to forget, the brain has a funny way of storing memories. All it needs is a trigger and that dusty moment resurfaces. Whether you like it or not, it's out of your control.
Jimmy did get his chance to care for the animals. For a couple of months, we handled them with care, cleaning the tanks, feeding the creatures, making sure the salt levels were adequate. I got to see the “Flower Bug” up close, who we eventually named Richie. I even got to handle him a few times, later learning that he was an Orchid Mantis.
It was an amazing time.
Until his brother came home from school for Thanksgiving, unannounced. His brother found out that Jimmy had made a discovery. Jimmy found his brother's panty stash in the closet, snooped around where he shouldn't have. White and purple lacy undies, hidden and covered in blood.
They found Jimmy’s face bashed in, floating in the ravine. His brother was always friendly to me, he never looked the type. Apparently he had been pounding Jimmy’s head in for years, only this time he made it count.
That was the worst memory of Jimmy. Not one I cared to recall.
But this wasn't the memory that clawed at me, that wouldn't go away.
The headline read: Daring escape for Good Samaritan. A teenager had offered a ride to someone she thought was in need and claimed to escape a near abduction.
I read it again… my stomach clenched.
The teen said she sensed something from the beginning. Something off, that she couldn't explain. The encounter felt awkward. The passenger seemed really nervous. Shaking. And it was the glimpse of duct tape in the bag that finally forced her hand.
By some smart (or dumb) stroke of luck, she had decided to leave.
Out of nowhere, my daughter and son barreled down the hall. They surprised me, hanging off my back, as I smiled and ruffled their hair. My wife groggily trudged in, heading straight to the coffee maker.
The start of another beautiful, hectic day.
***
After breakfast, I decided to take a drive - down O’Harra, south on Upton road, left on 52nd street. The old Metropolitan Plaza was the same, all the businesses were just as I remembered. There was Giovanni’s Pie’s, Carlton's Electronics, Cece’s Coffee, Coin & Go Laundry...
Only this time, I looked closer. I drove slowly through the lot.
I was looking for an answer to the question that had been gnawing at me all those years.
My hands quivered on the wheel, as I made three laps around the place. I had confirmed my biggest fear.
There was no pharmacy in the plaza.
I sat in my car, a sweaty mess. Thinking about Jimmy.
That night he had looked out for me. And I’ve been looking closely, ever since.
aproyal
submitted by aproyal to nosleep [link] [comments]
I’ll admit, it had been years since he crossed my mind.
I sat at the kitchen table, staring out at the tangerine sky. It was early- the smell of poached eggs and brewed coffee filled the air. The house was still, the family quietly lying in bed. Everything was calm- almost peaceful. So why did it feel like my heart was on fire and my stomach twisted in knots?
Jimmy was a chubby child, the byproduct of a house that served sugar as a ‘well balanced diet’. He waddled around the playground, unflattering rolls popping out of unexpected places. He wasn't the nicest or the brightest kid, and he definitely wasn't the prettiest. But what he was, was a force. He knew how to command respect, how to throw his weight around. He stood a foot taller than his classmates, kids cowered in his presence. That was the power of Big Jimmy Burke.
I won't pretend our friendship was perfect. It had its fair share of ups and downs. Early on, I got too close. I opened myself up and he wasn't ready. Played too close to the fire and suffered the consequences. As an adult, I walk around the world concealing those scars, those third degree burns that never seemed to heal or go away.
I remember the one time he pantsed me in gym class - shorts, underwear, pride - all on the floor.
Another time he dunked my head in the toilet for not laughing hard enough at one of his jokes. One of those chicken-crossing-the-road variations you’ve heard a million times.
It was hard to get close to Jimmy. He tried his best to test you, to push you away. And like a little whimpering dog, I always came back. Loyal for some reason, to Jimmy. Maybe because of the power he wielded. Maybe because he gave me just enough attention. Petted me a couple times. Threw me a couple scraps every now and then.
Mainly, I think it was because I was afraid. Of being alone. School was a cruel place for someone without friends.
Those were the bad memories of Jimmy. The ones I buried away, deep.
The memory I'm thinking of was a good one, his 9th birthday party. I was waiting at his front door, dressed in a Spiderman outfit. I remember the feeling of the tight spandex and the excitement as he opened the door. I remember the welcoming stench of cigarettes, his mom and dad waving goodbye to mine.
Jimmy was the Hulk, shirtless with every inch of his body painted green. His fat jiggled as he grabbed his gift bag from me, “LANDON’S HERE, EVERYBODY! LANDON’S HERE! LET’S START THE PARTY!”
Our whole crew buzzed around the linoleum floor, pushing around toy cars and throwing cake down our gullets (and occasionally at others). Jimmy’s mom was preoccupied on the phone, smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table. His dad was nowhere to be found, likely hiding from the chaos.
In the middle of a nerf gun shootout, Jimmy put a finger to his mouth.
“Shhh”
Everyone shut up.
You could hear the rumble of a motor. The garage door closing.
“He’s gone,” Jimmy announced, raising his eyebrow.“ You guys wanna see something cool?”
We all nodded.
“Then be quiet and come with me.”
We tiptoed up the staircase, five miniature superheroes. We followed with bated breath as he led us to a locked door. Stuck to the door was a poster of a rock band I’d never seen before. The words “DO NOT F***ING ENTER” printed in bloody text. Thinking for a moment, he disappeared into his parents bedroom and used a hair pin to fiddle with the lock.
*click*
The door gave way to a messy, dark room. The walls were painted black and plastered with posters of monsters and gothic rock bands. But everyone's jaw dropped when they saw the glass tanks, all stacked along the walls. We were in a trance, stepping over the clothing on the floor, towards the humming red heat lamps and buzzing motors. It was a collection of creatures that I had never seen before.
I pressed my hand against the cold glass, marveling at the bright colors. “What is that, Jimmy?”
He smiled. “That's a serpent starfish,” he pointed at the thing with tentacles, draped across a rock. “And those are Angelfish and Blenny’s,” pointing to a vibrant, colorful school of fish, swimming in unison.
A resounding “woah” came from the room . We slowly went from one tank to the next, wide eyed in wonder.
Jimmy continued the tour, “Fire Belly Newt, Boa Constrictor, Red eyed Tree Frog….” One by one, he pointed and we oo’ed and awed.
I stopped while Jimmy continued. A small tank near the corner caught my eye. The inside looked like a rainforest, but with stunning pink flowers growing around a stump. Only one of the flowers….it was moving. In a slow, hypnotic way.
“Jimmy! What's this one?”
The group stopped and followed Jimmy back to me, crouching to get a better look.
“Oh that's a good one, Landy. That right there is a flower bug.”
“A flower bug?”
“Yup. Ain't it pretty?”
I couldn't keep my eyes off of it - the beautiful mix of white and fuchsia, the powerful pincers, the alien eyes.
The rest of the kids eventually lost interest and bolted out of the room. Not me. I lingered, marveling at the amazing insect. I only stopped when I heard the door creak shut. The room got dark.
“You wanna see something really cool?” Jimmy whispered in the dark.
My heart galloped in my chest, “ sure! What is it?”
He turned on a flashlight and inched closer, “Then you gotta do something for me, first. And don't tell anyone about what I’m about to do. Or they’ll kill me.”
***
In my teens, I worked at a pizza shop called Giovanni’s Pies. The greasiest, cheesiest pizzas in the city. It was my first job as a lazy, skill-less youth. So, you can imagine what Giovanni had me do -wipe the counters, prep the pizzas.
“Just make sure you ain't step outta line or burn the damn place down, ”he’d warn, “or it's your ass or your paycheck. Y’a hear me?”
The pay wasn't great, but you could do the job with your eyes closed. The only real problem was the hours, some nights we’d be on the clock till 2am. The cravings of the degenerate party crowd seemed to really matter to Giovanni. But when you're young, you bounce back from sleep loss like a trampoline. Now, I can't imagine how I survived with so little all those years.
One night after a week of graveyard shifts, my coworker Pete and I were closing up shop. It was a nasty winter night with a wind that cut through bone and whistled through the cracks in the window casing. I waved goodnight to Pete, locked the door and made sure the security cameras were running. He ran to the warmth of his mothers mini-van and drove away.
I walked across the empty parking lot towards my lonely station wagon. The wind was colder than usual that night, piercing and brutal as it shocked my system. I picked up the pace, walking through the light dusting of snow swirling around the lot. I hopped into the front seat and started the ignition.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. A person, in the passenger seat. An old, pudgy, Eastern European looking lady, staring at me across the vehicle.
I screamed, “What the hell are you doing!? Get out of my car!”
She recoiled, “Oh! I’m so sorry Dear!” She cried, her voice shaking. “ I’ll leave. I just didn't know what else to do. My son Michael was supposed to come get me from the Pharmacy hours ago.” She opened the passenger door, the window howling. “Everything is closed. This door was open. It was just so cold….and I was….desperate.”
I took a moment to calm the nerves, inhaling and exhaling slowly.
The story seemed plausible. I did have a bad habit of forgetting to manually lock the doors in the old wagon . It was creepy, but the frigid temperature would have forced anyone to shelter. It was either have an awkward conversation or freeze to death out there.
Just before she walked away, I yelled, “Hold on.”
She stared back, shivering.
“Can you give Michael a call?”
She shook her head. “I wish I could. I don't have one of those cell phone thingamajigs”
I pulled out my phone, “Okay….come back in. Shut the door. What is his number?”
She rattled off a series of numbers . The call rang a few times then went to voicemail. The recording said, “Hi this is Erin, leave me a message at the beep.”
I hung up. “I don't think that's the right one.”
She paused, “oh, darn. It’s 3354 , not 3534.”
I rang the new number with no luck. This time the number wasn't registered to anyone.
“Mam, this one didn't work either.”
She let out a deep sigh, “I’m sorry, Dear. My memory just isn't what it used to be.”
My patience was wearing thin. I was always taught to respect my elders, but this lady was seriously cutting into my precious bedtime. “Listen, I don't know what else to do here.”
“If it's not too much trouble….could I possibly get a ride home?” I couldn't tell if it was the cold or if it was tremors, but her broad shoulders were shaking, back and forth, like a leaf in the wind. She continued, “I know it's asking a lot...But I would be so grateful. I’m very close, no more than 5 minutes from here.“
It was my turn to sigh. I cursed Michael under my breath as I tapped my head against the wheel. “ What is the address?”
Her eyes perked up, “ Oh , bless you, darling! #112 Nottingham Road”.
I put the address into Google Maps. Four minute drive.
“Okay, let's go.”
She smiled warmly and patted me on the shoulder, “Thank you, dear. You are such an angel.”
My stomach growled.
I started the engine and pulled away. I almost turned out of the parking lot before I remembered.
The pizza.
The triple cheese that I had cooked, after hours, off the books. The one sitting on the counter. The one I planned to gorge while watching a movie before bed.
Giovanni's menacing snarl formed in my mind, the vein pulsating in his neck.
Your ass or your paycheck.
I knew if I left the pizza, Giovanni would have questions. That was a problem because I valued both my ass and my paycheck.
Shit.
I circled back and parked the car in front of Giovanni’s. “Sorry,” I said, “I have to run in for a moment. It will only take a sec.”
The lady looked confused as I sprinted into the building. The box was still sitting on the counter. I opened it up and felt the layer of cheese - cold. Ice cold. Normally, I would have just grabbed it and headed home. Pizza was great in any condition. But tonight, for some reason, I was craving it piping hot. So I decided to quickly throw it back in the oven.
10 minutes to bake, its free if its late, the stupid slogan that was burned into my brain .
Once the cheese was sizzling, I took it out and ran back to the vehicle.
The car was empty. And she was gone.
***
Jimmy went into the closet and grabbed a plastic container of something.
“What is that, Jimmy?”
“It’s feeding time,” he said, an evil grin spreading across his face.
The flies were buzzing around in a manic state, bouncing off the walls of the container.
“Just open the top, slowly,” he instructed, as he proceeded to twist the top of the container and give it a shake. They flew in like bats out of hell.
A lot of them landed on the flowers. The pretty fuchsia pedals. A lightning swipe of the pincers crumpled their unsuspecting bodies. The stem of the flower shook from side to side as bit by bit was consumed. We watched for a while, in awe, as the flies began to slowly disappear.
“This is the coolest thing ever, Jimmy,” I declared.
“I know, ain't it?” he said, pausing to take it all in. “Please don't tell anyone I did this. My Mom said I have to wait. The animals are my brothers, but they will be my responsibility when he leaves for college.” He smiled, “ just one more year and they’ll be mine.”
We watched as the bug ate another and another.
“You think it will get them all?” I asked.
“No,” he said, pointing to the corner of the tank. “These flies only live for 24 hrs. Most get eaten up. But some just whiz around the corner of the tank all day and die.”
“Smart, I guess.”
“Or dumb. Or lucky, I guess. Just depends on how you look at it.” He moved closer to the tank, “look at the flower petals. The fuchsia is a lot deeper than the color of the bug's back. The texture is different too. Come, look closely.”
I pressed my face against the glass as another head was ripped from its thorax. “Wow. You're right! They are different!”
He smiled, getting to his feet. “Yeah, it's subtle. Most people don't notice it. But maybe they can tell.” He opened the door, “maybe it's subconscious or something.”
“Hey, earlier you said you needed me to do something?”
He nodded, closing the door and locking it tight.
“Oh yeah. I just wanted you to promise to be my friend.”
We jogged down the stairs, back towards the chaos,“ of course, Jimmy. I promise.”
***
I put the newspaper down in quiet reflection, still thinking about Jimmy. All of the good times, some of the bad.
I drained the last sip of coffee, the sunshine filling up the room. Enjoying the last moments of peace before the family wakes.
No matter how hard you try to forget, the brain has a funny way of storing memories. All it needs is a trigger and that dusty moment resurfaces. Whether you like it or not, it's out of your control.
Jimmy did get his chance to care for the animals. For a couple of months, we handled them with care, cleaning the tanks, feeding the creatures, making sure the salt levels were adequate. I got to see the “Flower Bug” up close, who we eventually named Richie. I even got to handle him a few times, later learning that he was an Orchid Mantis.
It was an amazing time.
Until his brother came home from school for Thanksgiving, unannounced. His brother found out that Jimmy had made a discovery. Jimmy found his brother's panty stash in the closet, snooped around where he shouldn't have. White and purple lacy undies, hidden and covered in blood.
They found Jimmy’s face bashed in, floating in the ravine. His brother was always friendly to me, he never looked the type. Apparently he had been pounding Jimmy’s head in for years, only this time he made it count.
That was the worst memory of Jimmy. Not one I cared to recall.
But this wasn't the memory that clawed at me, that wouldn't go away.
The headline read: Daring escape for Good Samaritan. A teenager had offered a ride to someone she thought was in need and claimed to escape a near abduction.
I read it again… my stomach clenched.
The teen said she sensed something from the beginning. Something off, that she couldn't explain. The encounter felt awkward. The passenger seemed really nervous. Shaking. And it was the glimpse of duct tape in the bag that finally forced her hand.
By some smart (or dumb) stroke of luck, she had decided to leave.
Out of nowhere, my daughter and son barreled down the hall. They surprised me, hanging off my back, as I smiled and ruffled their hair. My wife groggily trudged in, heading straight to the coffee maker.
The start of another beautiful, hectic day.
***
After breakfast, I decided to take a drive - down O’Harra, south on Upton road, left on 52nd street. The old Metropolitan Plaza was the same, all the businesses were just as I remembered. There was Giovanni’s Pie’s, Carlton's Electronics, Cece’s Coffee, Coin & Go Laundry...
Only this time, I looked closer. I drove slowly through the lot.
I was looking for an answer to the question that had been gnawing at me all those years.
My hands quivered on the wheel, as I made three laps around the place. I had confirmed my biggest fear.
There was no pharmacy in the plaza.
I sat in my car, a sweaty mess. Thinking about Jimmy.
That night he had looked out for me. And I’ve been looking closely, ever since.
aproyal
2021.08.03 07:34 Kitty_Burglar Space Travel is WHAT!? Fundamental! Chapter Fifteen: Dealing Drugz
- Chapter One: A Joyous Wedding
- Chapter Two: Eleven Rodarte Children?
- Chapter Three: Space Heathens to Starboard!
- Chapter Four: The Awakening
- Chapter Five: Sith! Sith he is!
- Chapter Six: “Those Mysterious Other Force-Wielders”
- Chapter Seven: Congratulations, you are now a Jedi
- Chapter Eight: Welcome to the Dark Side
- Chapter Nine: Drink in the Pink
- Chapter Ten: Those Pet Rocks, Though
- Chapter Eleven: I Thought You Knew How to Fly This Thing!
- Chapter Twelve: This Is What Happens When You Forget to be Sneaky and Do Something Hugely Noticeable
- Chapter Thirteen: Seriously?
- Chapter Fourteen: Something Fishy
When the spaceship landed, Tessanilla felt incredibly relieved. That thing was an even bigger bucket of bolts than the Blessed Banjo! She had been convinced of her imminent death several times on the trip.
“Thank the Lord Daniel,” Obi-Wan groaned beside her. He was looking a particularly sickly shade of green. “I never want to ride on that thing again.”
She nodded carefully, taking deep breaths from between clenched teeth in an effort to alleviate the nausea.
The door slid back, revealing a Digger. “Hey there!” she said cheerfully, “we’re here! So you and Jesus can get out now.”
Tessanilla quickly got to her feet, but the Digger casually held her back in order for her fake Jesus to pass through first. Once on the street, it was easy to forget her nausea. Spaceships flew through the air, crowds of people and animals bustled back and forth, and the cries of hawkers came from all directions.
It was overwhelming, so naturally she was nearly hit by a spaceship that screeched to a halt beside them. A man jumped down from it. By his looks, he was obviously a Digger. “Well now, who are you?” he chortled, lighting a blunt and taking a massive drag.
“Pestilence!” One of the boys cheered. “These are our guests, Jesus and, um…”
“Tessanilla,” Tessanilla said.
Pestilence threw back his head and laughed hugely. “Tessanilla! What a name, what a name! Next thing you know, you’ll tell me that you’re a Jedi, right?”
She flushed, but thankfully none of the Diggers noticed due to the sound of approaching sirens.
“It’s the po-po!” Pestilence growled. His eyes darkened as he reached for the lightsaber on his belt. It was a menacing matte black, with a marijuana leaf and “Sith Lords Rule” engraved on the side.
“Is there going to be trouble?” Obi-Wan asked casually.
Pestilence cursed loudly. “Shit! I forgot you were here! Well, guess we can’t slaughter these cops in front of Jesus, right guys?” he said, winking to his brothers and sisters. There was a fanatical murmur of assent.
Instead, Pestilence acted natural in the most unnatural way possible. He leaned against the spaceship as if he had no care in the world, taking a swig out of a thermos (“ugh, cold?! Disgusting!”) and continuing to smoke his massive blunt.
Soon enough, a copship zoomed up. “Howdy, there!” A cop shouted from the window, waving an improbably large assault rifle. “We’re looking for a delinquent who’s stolen several tons of coffee beans! Have y’all seen him!?”
“I sure did!” Pestilence said, waving his blunt for emphasis. “A black man piloting a black spaceship went that way!” He pointed his blunt into the crowd.
“That’ll be him, boys!” The cop shouted. “Get ‘em!” The copship zoomed off, guns akimbo and cannons blazing. There was a whistling noise from above, and Tessanilla looked up to see that they had called in an airstrike onto a local firehall.
Obi-Wan knocked her to the ground. The heat of the explosion rolled over them, leaving Tessanilla feeling as though she’d been sunbathing for two hours too long. When he let her up again, she scrambled to her feet to find that the nearby firehall had been totally and completely destroyed.
“One small step for mankind!” A lone voice from the copship shouted.
“One large step for hmmrfle-mrfle-mrlfe,” a discordant cacophony of voices responded.
“What!? No!” The first cop shouted, aggrieved. “How many times are you numbskulls going to get this wrong!? Repeat after me: One small step for mankind! One large step for JUSTICE!”
As the rest of the cops repeated the slogan slowly, an eagle’s cry coincidentally pierced the air, only for the eagle to get shot by an overzealous cop.
“Ferrier!” The first cop shouted faintly, “now look what you’ve done! Did you mistake the bird for a terrorist!? Maybe if you could shoot that drug dealer we’re looking for, you’d actually be effective!”
Pestilence whooped in joy, pumping his fist in the air. “Alright boys and girls, now we have our cake and are eating it too!” The Diggers cheered for another plot foiled. “Now,” he continued, “help me get this loot onto the ship so we can get the hell out of here!”
“But we thought we were bringing a delivery to you?” Said a Digger in confusion.
Pestilence took another drag from his blunt. His eyes were getting rather red, Tessanilla noticed. “Aw sheeeit, are you kidding me!? We’d better get selling this product then!” He turned to Obi-Wan contritely. “Look man, I know you’re Jesus and all, but would you mind helping us push this product? We got the po-po off our backs for now, and you owe us one for getting you here!”
Obi-Wan grimaced in a way that was totally unlike him. “Well, I suppose. You’re in luck, I have a cousin who went to Juvie when he was a kid, so I know way too much about drugs. What do you have? Coke? E? Meth?”
Pestilence shook his head, grinning. “Nah, man. We got even better.” He took another pull of his blunt and tapped the ash off the end dramatically. “It’s coffee,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially.
Tessanilla gasped in horror. Coffee was the one of many things that had been banned aboard the Blessed Banjo. Obi-Wan looked aghast. “Coffee? My goodness.”
“It’s the good stuff. Completely pure, from the rainforests of Barzeel. So, what do you say? Are you two gonna give a follower of the Lord Daniel a hand? Or throw me to the heathens?” Pestilence growled, looming over them.
“No, no…” Obi-Wan replied heavily. “We’ll help.”
And so saying, Pestilence clapped Obi-Wan so hard on the back that he nearly fell into the dirt.
2020.12.04 05:27 Alex-Cour-de-Lion The Unspoken Ones. (A cold-war era story.) Part One.
I don't have any military experience, so this ain't a hard-mil story, I'm just writing shit based on a very unpleasant dream I had last night. If you enjoy, this is only about 1/8th of what I have written so far. I wrote this in about 2 hours and not on my usual dose of painkillers, so if I have fucked up anywhere, please let me know.
Cheers y'all.
...................................
Born of a mixed-marriage. Father was a middle ranking officer in World War Two and stationed in Japan. Mother was Japanese. I was still a teen through the formative months of the Korean war, but my father was committed to it and something changed him there. His marriage to my mother broke down a few years later and she had relocated to somewhere in the American Mid-South West, as her citizenship rights allowed.
Rough upbringing and constantly getting into fights due to my mixed heritage, saw me excel in some kind of specialist training after basic training. 3 months in Florida doing field exercises. A further 6 months in Langley, Virginia. Someone, most likely my father, had earmarked me for something beyond just getting sent as a field specialist to the already expansive Vietnam war. He saw the real body count, and probably thought I was safer in specialist fields of the CIA. Don't get me wrong, life wasn't quiet, we operated throughout Laos and Cambodia for a couple of years before the China mission. Mayhem and Mischief was the company's operating slogan. I was 27 years old for what came next. Right in the midpoint of both age and experience for the next mission's requirements.
Called aside during routine briefing by an aide to one of the CIA's many operational directors. Two hour private flight to Washington. Big wigs, big goals, no margin for error. This was a do or die mission, unsanctioned. A career maker. Or breaker. I signed the dotted line and 48 hours later was back to Florida for 6 weeks preparation for an ocean insertion to retrieve an HVA working in one of the Biowarfare facilities, somewhere between Xiamen and Shantou. The brief, at first glance, seemed relatively simple, compared to some of the more action focused missions we'd had operating on the fringes of the Vietnam war.
To avoid alerting higher levels of government, our covers were just two Cantonese/Mandarin speaking mixed race Americans on business, trying to drum up a few manufacturing deals to provide the US MIC with a quicker route for resupply to the nearby Vietnam War theatre. The asset had been turned, through questionable means, and was needed back in the Contiguous US, most likely to continue the work she was already doing. No surprise there. My father had some choice words about the military's use of Nazi scientists convicted of war crimes, so it wasn't an ethical quandary I was unfamiliar with.
We were to meet up with a carrier group operating off the coast of Taiwan. From there, we would be waiting a few days for a sub to provide us the requisite stealth to get close enough to China's shores for an ocean insertion, without setting off alarms. During those days, we drilled and drilled. There was no overwatch, which concerned me, but at the time it was said that groupings of 2 were far less suspicious than 3, so with it I went.
We already had a standard asset in play in the area, a somewhat suspicious character that was providing us with a fleshed out cover story and paying off the odd official here and there. Went by the name of Jack. No last name.
The sub we were on had orders to run quiet until 200 miles out from shore, run silent until 20 miles out and lazily submerge, equipment prepped, silenced rubber ducky ready in a few minutes, for the last segment of the trip. We were to make landfall in a relatively quiet rural area a few clicks to the West of the asset's residential city, under cover of darkness. Our wet bags contained falsified passports, two sets of clothes, an M1911 and silencer as our only backup beyond a k-bar. Were shit to go sideways, exfil was via the same route, if that route was compromised we would have a long and extremely dangerous trip. Possible alternatives included hiring on a fisherman to get to Taiwan, or risking an overland trip up into Europe. If it got to that, we were most likely dead men walking. Heavy USSR operating presence. Our covers would not stand up to extensive scrutiny, least of all from the KGB. Whatever info this asset had, it was worth risking two extensively trained soldiers and a metric fuckton of political backlash.
Insertion went off without a hitch, other than a few tense minutes making our way up a river to the designated point. From there we were to go overland and set up camp at a spot that Jack had already supplied with provisions, more weaponry and further ammunition. Not a terrible spot actually. A plateau overlooking an extensive sub-tropical rainforest. We spent the next 24 hours getting acquainted with the area, setting up a tactical retreat and getting to know each other a bit more. My partner in this, code named Mark, real name unknown, had spent less than 3 months with me, but we were steadfast friends and knew, from operational experience, that we could count on each other if shit went south, but this was our first time in the field alone together. Operational groups always have a certain dynamic, but due to the flexibility required, neither of us had operational command. We were both to trust each other's decisions fully and act upon orders quicksmart, no hesitation. That kind of dynamic is rare, but not unique, so we fell into step without issue.
Our initial appearance was to be at a weapons manufacturing facility 8 miles to the north of the overflowing metropolis that the asset lived in. We were at the rendezvous at the designated time, two black Mercedes pulled up and we each got in one. The tour of the facility was brief, but in the end, unimportant. We played up our desire for an exclusive contract to the facility's owners and threw around the expected sums of money for 'businessmen' of our stature.
As per custom, no deal was to be signed until it had gone through the requisite bureaucracy. Suited our goals just fine. We were to head to a night market for 'fun and relaxation', at which point we were under no delusion that we had to shake Jack's men and reunite at a designated safe spot, an apartment in the building opposite the assett's.
Mark arrived there a few hours before me, obviously more sure of his ability to throw off any observation. This was mildly concerning, but nothing more at the time. We had a standard surveillance suite setup and knew that come three days time, the apartment would be stripped of any evidence that we were there.
The asset was to give us a signal by her tiny apartment balcony. Green watering jug on the plants was a no-go. Red was the signal that today was the day. The first two days were green, and to say we were on edge day three is a severe understatement. The longer our persona's were missing the more likely it was to make it up the food chain. There are only so many officials that are worth bribing in an op like this, each further one just increases the risk of betrayal for an added sum.
0704 on the third morning, we saw the asset, codenamed Lea, pull out a red jug and water her few rows of kitchen herbs. Game on. We had already stolen a nondescript delivery van and were to pick her up just outside of her apartment complex, there was a narrow laneway that we had backed up in, myself communicating to Mark her location, him in the van. He was to ask her a specific question and get a specific return, anything else and orders dictated he put a bullet to her head and heart and our exfil. All going well, she was to join him in the front of the van, pull around to the entrance of the complex I was in, and I was to jump in the back. From there, it was a 45 minute drive to the nearest pathway to our exfil route.
I watched with gritted teeth as Mark made his approach, arm slightly bent to conceal the silenced pistol underneath the shirt at his back. She was younger than I expected. Mid 30's, tops. He asked, she answered and got in the van. Hell yeah baby, at this rate I'll be back at Rob's Diner off-base by the end of next week. It was thinking like that which I always wondered could have been what kicked off next.
Mark had picked me up, and I had left most of our gear behind in that apartment. No use for it in what the next stages entailed. We motored on out and made a heading North out of the bustling city. All was good and well, until the siren. The low drawling tone of what sounded like an out of use air raid siren. Given it had been seven minutes since we picked up the asset, we were pretty god damned concerned, but also had a fair bit of hope that it wasn't anything to do with us.
We had a few turns to get us onto the main road out of town, on the second last one, we saw a hastily erected police checkpoint. Shit. Two options. Try and bluster our way through or reverse up and get ready for evasion tactics. I looked at Mark as he turned back towards me, one nod and we communicated which option had the best chance for success. Two Americans with a Biowarfare scientist in a nondescript van was gonna get us held, no matter how much charisma we had to bullshit them with. They would be asking ID and our asset had none other than her government issued.
We were past the threshold here, we were already in line with about 8 cars ahead, but it was a clear line of sight for the police checkpoint. Fortunately, no one was behind us, so we tried, as calmly looking as we could, to reverse out and find another onramp to the major road the fuck outta there.
Almost immediately, the atmosphere at the checkpoint changed, we heard yelling and saw one man run to his car, most likely to call in what they had seen. They couldn't give chase due to the heavy traffic between us and them, but they had our rough description. I prayed that due to the nature of our vehicle, there had to be at least a few thousand fitting our description in the city. After a brief conversation, we decided to double back, find a road West, get to the outskirts of the city and begin moving North again. Our asset was panicking and, to be frank, we were close to it too. We knew what was at stake here, far more than her. Our handler had given us a run-down on what to expect if captured, which was basically, a bullet to the brain was the more preferable option.
We passed the signs of another few checkpoints. It seemed the entire police department of the city was on alert, with military backing in a few areas. Fuck. We had to re-assess. Making your way out of a city at this alertness was a stiff gamble. Mark, after smacking the asset out of her panic, confirmed that the least suspicious area for our group of our makeup to be would be the tourist district in the South of the city. This didn't set well with me, we were going to lose a lot of ground and the risk of being stopped was still high. I voiced this to Mark. We argued back and forth, until we decided to flip a coin on it. Heads and we go South, tails and we stick to the West and try to hide in the more impoverished areas. I was for Tails, Mark for Heads. The coin tumbled into Lea's side of the van, she picked it up and proclaimed it as Heads. Fuck. Alright, no time to bitch, rock n roll.
We made our way South for twenty five minutes, the heavy post-work traffic impeding us. Fortunately, we weren't stopped by either of the two police vehicles we drove by. We were guessing the description given was rough, at best. With this knowledge onboard, we made our way to the underground parking lot of a mid-range tourist hotel. A few blocks back from the beach, but with easy access to three major roads. Not a terrible choice. It was nearing 2100 local time, and none of us had eaten breakfast. We pulled in, paid for two rooms and the parking, then headed to a beachside bar and restaurant. We didn't know what tomorrow could hold, so getting a meal in was drilled in, must do.
We had the assett walk in alone, pull up a chair at a table for two and pretend to be waiting on another. Meanwhile, Mark and I mustered up our bullshit and got into the mindset of two mildly inebriated tourists. We made sure our tables were far enough apart that we would not be immediately grouped as together with the asset, but close enough that, between the two of us, we could keep an eye on the two entrances, as well as the sprawling beach the bar was located on.
We ordered our food and the assett did the same when she saw us eating. Good. A smart mind is a fed mind. Some kind of rainbow shit cocktails as well, gotta play into the look, but we were only sipping when we felt watched, and pouring them out on the sand at our feet when we felt we weren't, so that, like two American tourists, we could keep on 'drinking'.
Our first indication that shit was going down came from loud voices and demands from a neighbouring restaurant. The business owner was putting up a token defense for his patrons sake, but had no real intention of stopping the military patrol from doing their duty. Mark and I kicked into high-gear.
First I got up, walked over to Lea, had a short conversation and made out, loudly, that she should come for a walk on the beach with me. Mark was to follow a minute behind. We decided on keeping our distance from the military patrol, so we started out walking North-East along the sandy beach. It terminated a few miles ahead, with a rocky outcrop and some less than desirable looking seas.
At this point, Mark was about 400 yards behind me, I could make him out due to his damned ugly blue shirt. Lea and I were moving briskly, but trying to make our speed out to be due to joy and excitement, rather than the heavy fear we felt in our hearts.
submitted by Alex-Cour-de-Lion to HFY [link] [comments]
Cheers y'all.
...................................
Born of a mixed-marriage. Father was a middle ranking officer in World War Two and stationed in Japan. Mother was Japanese. I was still a teen through the formative months of the Korean war, but my father was committed to it and something changed him there. His marriage to my mother broke down a few years later and she had relocated to somewhere in the American Mid-South West, as her citizenship rights allowed.
Rough upbringing and constantly getting into fights due to my mixed heritage, saw me excel in some kind of specialist training after basic training. 3 months in Florida doing field exercises. A further 6 months in Langley, Virginia. Someone, most likely my father, had earmarked me for something beyond just getting sent as a field specialist to the already expansive Vietnam war. He saw the real body count, and probably thought I was safer in specialist fields of the CIA. Don't get me wrong, life wasn't quiet, we operated throughout Laos and Cambodia for a couple of years before the China mission. Mayhem and Mischief was the company's operating slogan. I was 27 years old for what came next. Right in the midpoint of both age and experience for the next mission's requirements.
Called aside during routine briefing by an aide to one of the CIA's many operational directors. Two hour private flight to Washington. Big wigs, big goals, no margin for error. This was a do or die mission, unsanctioned. A career maker. Or breaker. I signed the dotted line and 48 hours later was back to Florida for 6 weeks preparation for an ocean insertion to retrieve an HVA working in one of the Biowarfare facilities, somewhere between Xiamen and Shantou. The brief, at first glance, seemed relatively simple, compared to some of the more action focused missions we'd had operating on the fringes of the Vietnam war.
To avoid alerting higher levels of government, our covers were just two Cantonese/Mandarin speaking mixed race Americans on business, trying to drum up a few manufacturing deals to provide the US MIC with a quicker route for resupply to the nearby Vietnam War theatre. The asset had been turned, through questionable means, and was needed back in the Contiguous US, most likely to continue the work she was already doing. No surprise there. My father had some choice words about the military's use of Nazi scientists convicted of war crimes, so it wasn't an ethical quandary I was unfamiliar with.
We were to meet up with a carrier group operating off the coast of Taiwan. From there, we would be waiting a few days for a sub to provide us the requisite stealth to get close enough to China's shores for an ocean insertion, without setting off alarms. During those days, we drilled and drilled. There was no overwatch, which concerned me, but at the time it was said that groupings of 2 were far less suspicious than 3, so with it I went.
We already had a standard asset in play in the area, a somewhat suspicious character that was providing us with a fleshed out cover story and paying off the odd official here and there. Went by the name of Jack. No last name.
The sub we were on had orders to run quiet until 200 miles out from shore, run silent until 20 miles out and lazily submerge, equipment prepped, silenced rubber ducky ready in a few minutes, for the last segment of the trip. We were to make landfall in a relatively quiet rural area a few clicks to the West of the asset's residential city, under cover of darkness. Our wet bags contained falsified passports, two sets of clothes, an M1911 and silencer as our only backup beyond a k-bar. Were shit to go sideways, exfil was via the same route, if that route was compromised we would have a long and extremely dangerous trip. Possible alternatives included hiring on a fisherman to get to Taiwan, or risking an overland trip up into Europe. If it got to that, we were most likely dead men walking. Heavy USSR operating presence. Our covers would not stand up to extensive scrutiny, least of all from the KGB. Whatever info this asset had, it was worth risking two extensively trained soldiers and a metric fuckton of political backlash.
Insertion went off without a hitch, other than a few tense minutes making our way up a river to the designated point. From there we were to go overland and set up camp at a spot that Jack had already supplied with provisions, more weaponry and further ammunition. Not a terrible spot actually. A plateau overlooking an extensive sub-tropical rainforest. We spent the next 24 hours getting acquainted with the area, setting up a tactical retreat and getting to know each other a bit more. My partner in this, code named Mark, real name unknown, had spent less than 3 months with me, but we were steadfast friends and knew, from operational experience, that we could count on each other if shit went south, but this was our first time in the field alone together. Operational groups always have a certain dynamic, but due to the flexibility required, neither of us had operational command. We were both to trust each other's decisions fully and act upon orders quicksmart, no hesitation. That kind of dynamic is rare, but not unique, so we fell into step without issue.
Our initial appearance was to be at a weapons manufacturing facility 8 miles to the north of the overflowing metropolis that the asset lived in. We were at the rendezvous at the designated time, two black Mercedes pulled up and we each got in one. The tour of the facility was brief, but in the end, unimportant. We played up our desire for an exclusive contract to the facility's owners and threw around the expected sums of money for 'businessmen' of our stature.
As per custom, no deal was to be signed until it had gone through the requisite bureaucracy. Suited our goals just fine. We were to head to a night market for 'fun and relaxation', at which point we were under no delusion that we had to shake Jack's men and reunite at a designated safe spot, an apartment in the building opposite the assett's.
Mark arrived there a few hours before me, obviously more sure of his ability to throw off any observation. This was mildly concerning, but nothing more at the time. We had a standard surveillance suite setup and knew that come three days time, the apartment would be stripped of any evidence that we were there.
The asset was to give us a signal by her tiny apartment balcony. Green watering jug on the plants was a no-go. Red was the signal that today was the day. The first two days were green, and to say we were on edge day three is a severe understatement. The longer our persona's were missing the more likely it was to make it up the food chain. There are only so many officials that are worth bribing in an op like this, each further one just increases the risk of betrayal for an added sum.
0704 on the third morning, we saw the asset, codenamed Lea, pull out a red jug and water her few rows of kitchen herbs. Game on. We had already stolen a nondescript delivery van and were to pick her up just outside of her apartment complex, there was a narrow laneway that we had backed up in, myself communicating to Mark her location, him in the van. He was to ask her a specific question and get a specific return, anything else and orders dictated he put a bullet to her head and heart and our exfil. All going well, she was to join him in the front of the van, pull around to the entrance of the complex I was in, and I was to jump in the back. From there, it was a 45 minute drive to the nearest pathway to our exfil route.
I watched with gritted teeth as Mark made his approach, arm slightly bent to conceal the silenced pistol underneath the shirt at his back. She was younger than I expected. Mid 30's, tops. He asked, she answered and got in the van. Hell yeah baby, at this rate I'll be back at Rob's Diner off-base by the end of next week. It was thinking like that which I always wondered could have been what kicked off next.
Mark had picked me up, and I had left most of our gear behind in that apartment. No use for it in what the next stages entailed. We motored on out and made a heading North out of the bustling city. All was good and well, until the siren. The low drawling tone of what sounded like an out of use air raid siren. Given it had been seven minutes since we picked up the asset, we were pretty god damned concerned, but also had a fair bit of hope that it wasn't anything to do with us.
We had a few turns to get us onto the main road out of town, on the second last one, we saw a hastily erected police checkpoint. Shit. Two options. Try and bluster our way through or reverse up and get ready for evasion tactics. I looked at Mark as he turned back towards me, one nod and we communicated which option had the best chance for success. Two Americans with a Biowarfare scientist in a nondescript van was gonna get us held, no matter how much charisma we had to bullshit them with. They would be asking ID and our asset had none other than her government issued.
We were past the threshold here, we were already in line with about 8 cars ahead, but it was a clear line of sight for the police checkpoint. Fortunately, no one was behind us, so we tried, as calmly looking as we could, to reverse out and find another onramp to the major road the fuck outta there.
Almost immediately, the atmosphere at the checkpoint changed, we heard yelling and saw one man run to his car, most likely to call in what they had seen. They couldn't give chase due to the heavy traffic between us and them, but they had our rough description. I prayed that due to the nature of our vehicle, there had to be at least a few thousand fitting our description in the city. After a brief conversation, we decided to double back, find a road West, get to the outskirts of the city and begin moving North again. Our asset was panicking and, to be frank, we were close to it too. We knew what was at stake here, far more than her. Our handler had given us a run-down on what to expect if captured, which was basically, a bullet to the brain was the more preferable option.
We passed the signs of another few checkpoints. It seemed the entire police department of the city was on alert, with military backing in a few areas. Fuck. We had to re-assess. Making your way out of a city at this alertness was a stiff gamble. Mark, after smacking the asset out of her panic, confirmed that the least suspicious area for our group of our makeup to be would be the tourist district in the South of the city. This didn't set well with me, we were going to lose a lot of ground and the risk of being stopped was still high. I voiced this to Mark. We argued back and forth, until we decided to flip a coin on it. Heads and we go South, tails and we stick to the West and try to hide in the more impoverished areas. I was for Tails, Mark for Heads. The coin tumbled into Lea's side of the van, she picked it up and proclaimed it as Heads. Fuck. Alright, no time to bitch, rock n roll.
We made our way South for twenty five minutes, the heavy post-work traffic impeding us. Fortunately, we weren't stopped by either of the two police vehicles we drove by. We were guessing the description given was rough, at best. With this knowledge onboard, we made our way to the underground parking lot of a mid-range tourist hotel. A few blocks back from the beach, but with easy access to three major roads. Not a terrible choice. It was nearing 2100 local time, and none of us had eaten breakfast. We pulled in, paid for two rooms and the parking, then headed to a beachside bar and restaurant. We didn't know what tomorrow could hold, so getting a meal in was drilled in, must do.
We had the assett walk in alone, pull up a chair at a table for two and pretend to be waiting on another. Meanwhile, Mark and I mustered up our bullshit and got into the mindset of two mildly inebriated tourists. We made sure our tables were far enough apart that we would not be immediately grouped as together with the asset, but close enough that, between the two of us, we could keep an eye on the two entrances, as well as the sprawling beach the bar was located on.
We ordered our food and the assett did the same when she saw us eating. Good. A smart mind is a fed mind. Some kind of rainbow shit cocktails as well, gotta play into the look, but we were only sipping when we felt watched, and pouring them out on the sand at our feet when we felt we weren't, so that, like two American tourists, we could keep on 'drinking'.
Our first indication that shit was going down came from loud voices and demands from a neighbouring restaurant. The business owner was putting up a token defense for his patrons sake, but had no real intention of stopping the military patrol from doing their duty. Mark and I kicked into high-gear.
First I got up, walked over to Lea, had a short conversation and made out, loudly, that she should come for a walk on the beach with me. Mark was to follow a minute behind. We decided on keeping our distance from the military patrol, so we started out walking North-East along the sandy beach. It terminated a few miles ahead, with a rocky outcrop and some less than desirable looking seas.
At this point, Mark was about 400 yards behind me, I could make him out due to his damned ugly blue shirt. Lea and I were moving briskly, but trying to make our speed out to be due to joy and excitement, rather than the heavy fear we felt in our hearts.
2020.11.24 01:45 ToweringIsle13 Idiot Heart
(The title of which comes from a lovely album by the talented Carsie Blanton)
True's latest post inspired me to do a little old-fashioned Q+A based on this article so here we go!
"Q: Dear World Tribune, How can I feel hopeful toward 2021? —Bodhisattva Seeking"
Hey, I know that seeking spirit! How've you been, Watson? Has this year been of interest to you? Of course it has, what with how current events have left us with a bevy of questions and nothing but time to sit around and ask them. It's a great time to be Q!
But wait a minute... When did this Q+A affair become an anonymous advice column? It wasn't enough for Q to be a rhetorical device? Now the gimmick is to pretend that someone actually submitted this question, to this periodocal, under this pseudonym, not unlike how you would have us believe that the great man himself is the one responding to our facsimile transmissions?
Why, Q, why must you continue to edge forward the boundaries of your dishonesty? Were you afraid the people wouldn't take your question seriously -- about conditions that literally affect us all -- unless you dressed it up to be an anonymous submission from a real person? (Does the SGI even accept reader questions? To which online portal was this one "submitted"?)
It's not like you've never addressed a broad, philosophical topic before; Remember that time you asked, point blank, about the meaning of life? Or that one May column which was all about the true significance of money for some reason? You don't need to be gimmicky for us to pay attention.
But okay, we'll play along. So your name for the moment is "Bodhisattva Seeking" (B.S.), and you are a real person with whom I can vaguely identify. What are we asking about? Hope?
"A: Dear Bodhisattva Seeking, What an important question. I’m sure many others share the same concern."
Yes, we do! How could you have possibly known?? 🤗
"We no doubt face unprecedented times..."
Okay, STOP!
What do you meeeeean by thaaaaat....
Would you be referring to the idea of a pandemic as "unprecedented"? Because it isn't.
Are you referring to racial, political and religious tension as "unprecedented"?
Are you referring to natural disasters, dissatisfaction with government, and fear of invasion as "unprecedented"? Why? All of those things are in your favorite Gosho -- the one you take every opportunity to tell us about -- in which Nichiren explains how all the problems of his day (which sound an awful lot like ours), are the just desserts of sin and degeneracy.
Are you referring to the internet itself as being new? Well maybe, but it's not like people haven't printing-pressed or renaissanced themselves into a new age of thought before. Besides, what with all of these Zoom meetings holding together your very organization like a wad of bubblegum, A, I would imagine that you would feel thankful for the internet, and see it as a mitigating factor -- as in, something which demonstrates one of the ways in which people these days have it easier and better than those from bygone eras.
Do you actually mean to remind us that we live in unprecedentedly good times, in which the standard of basic living has never been higher?
Or were you merely saying something generic, that you didn't think anyone would have the desire to question or unpack, as a cheesy way to manufacture agreement? Trying to relate to people by telling them that "times are hard"... Well sure, times may be "hard", but are they "unprecedented"? It would seem that the more we consider human history up to this point, the more "precedents" for our current situation we are likely to find.
But I don't suppose you want people reflecting too much on the broader strokes of history, outside of the narrow slivers of it presented in your little fiction novels, do you, A? No, you generally favor the opposite approach: you'd prefer your listeners to have the attention spans of goldfish, with a disposition towards "staying in the now" and making "fresh departures" into the future. You want an audience to which you could say just about anything, and the conditioned response will be "yes, yes, I believe you!".
So what is it that you need me to believe this time? That current events are "unprecedented", despite your organization's own Gosho-related arguments that the course of history is cyclical?
Yeah, okay...
"...and as we reflect on the past year and approach a new one, we may wonder how to be hopeful in spite of it all."
I'd rather remain spiteful in the face of hope.
Ha ha. Yeah. I'm not really kidding.
Hope, as packaged for the masses, is a sucker's game. You want to know what else never changes in society? Empty political promises. Is America "Great Again"? Did we get "Change We Could Believe In"? Have elected officials ever kept their campaign promises, or is it more that they take advantage of perpetual unhappiness and the mercurial nature of the news cycle as a means for always selling false hope?
For that matter, when have religious doomsday predictions ever been known to come come true? We are still here, right?
Anyway, A, you were selling?
"Recently, the SGI announced its 2021 theme as the Year of Hope and Victory."
No SHIT! You don't say! Is this the year we make society mystic again? Is this the year when all of the promises come true?
Or are they actually being truthful with us, in a backhanded sort of way, letting us know that this year, just like all the others, we are free to gorge ourselves upon false hope -- an "infinite" amount of it, no less -- so long as we can be counted on to channel that hope into enthusiasm and support into some preordained cause?
Yeah. The more things change...
"In tandem, a calligraphy that Ikeda Sensei had inscribed 35 years ago was unveiled. It reads, “Vast Heart.”"
So basically a 35-year-old campaign slogan? Was Sensei intending to save it for this exact year, or did they just pick one from the pile?
"With your question in mind, we took a look at what having a “vast heart” actually means from the Buddhist viewpoint, because cultivating our hearts is key to calling forth unending hope at all times and under any circumstances. Here are five points to consider."
Ahh yes, strengthening the ol' 'hope muscle'. What you got?
"1. The purpose of our Buddhist practice is to develop a strong heart.
In his study lecture on “The Strategy of the Lotus Sutra,” Ikeda Sensei writes: “The purpose of faith is to make our hearts strong and steadfast, to develop inner strength and conviction. Everything depends on our minds and our hearts. The ultimate conclusion of Nichiren Buddhism is summed up in the words ‘It is the heart that is important.’"
I like this one. Nice little reversal there. "Everything depends on our minds and our hearts", but ultimately "it is the heart that is important". Use your mind...and your heart...but mostly just your heart.
Use faith, and reason...but mostly just faith.
Buddhism is reason! You know, that thing you threw out the window the moment you started praying to a scroll?Yeah, that.
“Buddhism is primarily concerned with victory and defeat."
A victory for blind faith, and the utter defeat of common sense?
"It is a struggle between enlightenment and ignorance."
Are you implying that a person could not be simultaneously very faithful and very ignorant, because those two aren't exactly exclusive...
"Kosen-rufu is a battle between the Buddha and devilish functions."
So why does he need our help? I thought he was all powerful?
"The heart is what decides our victory or defeat in all things."
Yeah, that's not agita you're feeling, it's excitement from all this victory.
"Spiritual victors can lead lives undefeated by anything."
I like this one too. A little doublespeak. As long as you have faith, you will never be defeated. You may lose. You may fail. You might go utterly broke and not achieve anything you're after, and you might end up perpetually worse off in life for spending so much time on cult activity...but you won't be defeated, goddamnit, because defeat only happens when you give up, and you have too much invested in this identity to give up, retreat, retool or reconsider. You know that the secret to "victory" -- even when losing so, so badly -- is to keep going with the system that got you there.
You see how much this religion stuff really does have in common with politics?
"2. Nothing guarantees our victory more than the heart of faith.
“When [Nichiren] Daishonin speaks of the importance of the heart, he is referring, at the most fundamental level, to this heart of faith."
Well, if we are defining "victory" as above, wherein reason completely subordinates to belief, then I guess you could say this.
“In a letter addressed to a follower worried about a sick family member, the Daishonin writes, ‘If you believe in this [Lotus] sutra, all your desires will be fulfilled in both the present and the future.’"
I'm sensing a theme here: this world is not much for accountability. Politicians make promises, and then break them once they get elected. Cult leaders could predict a date for the end of the world, and then continue like nothing happened after that date passes. Sports commentators make vehement predictions that turn out to be dead wrong, and the very next day they're on to the next one. And self-help gurus can make all sorts of promises about how their system will benefit you...only to insist that the fault is yours alone when results do not come. Lying is the way to consolidate power in this world.
And here we are being told, by Ikeda via the Daishonin, that all of our desires "will be fulfilled in both the present and the future". If our pattern holds, not only is such a claim potentially baseless and false, but the people lying to us have something to gain and nothing to lose from making it.
As proof of such indemnity, this article goes on to reproduce such claims as the following:
"If a person who has an illness is able to hear this sutra, then] his illness will be wiped out and he will know neither aging nor death."
...which not only make no fucking sense at all, but would be absolutely illegal to put forth if not for how the law already considers religion and faith healing to be outside the realm of reality.
Fantastic. What year is it again, the year of the thumb up the ass? Great. Let's keep going.
"3. Difficult times are an opportunity to accumulate “treasures of the heart.”"
Got it. Yes. Bad is good, up is down, poor is rich, and difficulties present us with the opportunity to challenge that "Never say derp" attitude. But again, why do we need the SG-I-Don't-Know to help us overcome our difficulties, when all they are offering are platitudes that are unaccountable, untestable, and largely inscrutable??
Like this one:
"...when we possess strong faith, we are rich beyond compare; we are ‘spiritual billionaires.’"
I'm sorry, but the thing about numbers is that they are a way to compare things. A billion dollars could be exchanged for one billion cans of soda, hypothetically. What does it mean to be a "spiritual billionaire", and moreover, can we see the problem inherent in describing matters of character in terms of money? Only a few people can be billionaires, for the same reason only a relative few can become famous or influential: because fame, wealth and influence are things we gain at the expense of the other people. Every rich person stands directly on the lives of the countless others who work miserable jobs just to survive. Every famous person can only be so because everyone else in the crowd is content to watch.
So what is it being promised here? That one day you and I can be spiritually rich, and become spiritual celebrities like certain Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, if we only continue slaving away and putting our trust and effort into the current system?
“[Second Soka Gakkai President Josei] Toda declared: ‘To rise up from despair, challenge our own problems and work to help others as well—could there be any more admirable life than this?"
Fair enough, but you also promised me the cures to my diseases, triumph over every personal problem, and a shortcut to omnipotence, and the more faithful I am -- just as you want me to be -- the more literal I would take those promises to be, which can hurt only me, and not the those making the claims.
"4. Possessing a “vast heart” means to never be defeated.
...This ‘vast heart’ is the great, invincible spirit to keep striving together with the Mystic Law through even the bitterest adversity to transform all poison into medicine and freely create value with confidence, strength, wisdom and optimism."
I'd like to call into question this concept of "value creation". I know what it means in a colloquial sense, to seek a productive course of action in any personal conflict or situation, but as I was suggesting before, these economic terms are fraught with deeper meaning. You can create "value" out of something, in our money-driven world, by exploiting it. By ruining it. By stealing it. By mining it as a resource with no regard for the natural order. As long as trees and animals and the environment at large are worth more to the economy dead than alive, people will continue to destroy them. You could "create value" out of the rainforest by cutting it all down for short-term gain. And why not? The only thing stopping you would be a genuine appreciation of the much greater potential value to all of humanity that already exists in a functioning ecosystem.
This is analogous, I would say, to the idea of chanting as a means of solving problems. Yes, you could form the habit of reflexively chanting in response to every minor annoyance, and you could tell yourself that you are "creating value" by doing so. But what of the value of not doing so? Of having a quiet mind? A mind unfettered by superstition or religion? A mind that does not immediately jump to associations, opinions and answers?
The value of quiet meditation is and always has been the ability to cultivate states of nothingness, no? To return your mind to something more of a blank slate?
Chanting is not a form of quiet meditation.
Perhaps to create value of one sort in faith is to destroy something of greater value in terms of spiritual free agency.
How could you ever come to appreciate the value of your own native, untouched internal rainforest -- scary bugs and all -- if you are fixated on contracting someone to come along and clear it all out for you? Just a thought.
"5. Our heart is expressed in our actions to advance kosen-rufu with our mentor."
Fuck you, no it isn't. He's not my mentor, and this whole thing is an obvious cult.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Hai.
submitted by ToweringIsle13 to sgiwhistleblowers [link] [comments]
True's latest post inspired me to do a little old-fashioned Q+A based on this article so here we go!
"Q: Dear World Tribune, How can I feel hopeful toward 2021? —Bodhisattva Seeking"
Hey, I know that seeking spirit! How've you been, Watson? Has this year been of interest to you? Of course it has, what with how current events have left us with a bevy of questions and nothing but time to sit around and ask them. It's a great time to be Q!
But wait a minute... When did this Q+A affair become an anonymous advice column? It wasn't enough for Q to be a rhetorical device? Now the gimmick is to pretend that someone actually submitted this question, to this periodocal, under this pseudonym, not unlike how you would have us believe that the great man himself is the one responding to our facsimile transmissions?
Why, Q, why must you continue to edge forward the boundaries of your dishonesty? Were you afraid the people wouldn't take your question seriously -- about conditions that literally affect us all -- unless you dressed it up to be an anonymous submission from a real person? (Does the SGI even accept reader questions? To which online portal was this one "submitted"?)
It's not like you've never addressed a broad, philosophical topic before; Remember that time you asked, point blank, about the meaning of life? Or that one May column which was all about the true significance of money for some reason? You don't need to be gimmicky for us to pay attention.
But okay, we'll play along. So your name for the moment is "Bodhisattva Seeking" (B.S.), and you are a real person with whom I can vaguely identify. What are we asking about? Hope?
"A: Dear Bodhisattva Seeking, What an important question. I’m sure many others share the same concern."
Yes, we do! How could you have possibly known?? 🤗
"We no doubt face unprecedented times..."
Okay, STOP!
What do you meeeeean by thaaaaat....
Would you be referring to the idea of a pandemic as "unprecedented"? Because it isn't.
Are you referring to racial, political and religious tension as "unprecedented"?
Are you referring to natural disasters, dissatisfaction with government, and fear of invasion as "unprecedented"? Why? All of those things are in your favorite Gosho -- the one you take every opportunity to tell us about -- in which Nichiren explains how all the problems of his day (which sound an awful lot like ours), are the just desserts of sin and degeneracy.
Are you referring to the internet itself as being new? Well maybe, but it's not like people haven't printing-pressed or renaissanced themselves into a new age of thought before. Besides, what with all of these Zoom meetings holding together your very organization like a wad of bubblegum, A, I would imagine that you would feel thankful for the internet, and see it as a mitigating factor -- as in, something which demonstrates one of the ways in which people these days have it easier and better than those from bygone eras.
Do you actually mean to remind us that we live in unprecedentedly good times, in which the standard of basic living has never been higher?
Or were you merely saying something generic, that you didn't think anyone would have the desire to question or unpack, as a cheesy way to manufacture agreement? Trying to relate to people by telling them that "times are hard"... Well sure, times may be "hard", but are they "unprecedented"? It would seem that the more we consider human history up to this point, the more "precedents" for our current situation we are likely to find.
But I don't suppose you want people reflecting too much on the broader strokes of history, outside of the narrow slivers of it presented in your little fiction novels, do you, A? No, you generally favor the opposite approach: you'd prefer your listeners to have the attention spans of goldfish, with a disposition towards "staying in the now" and making "fresh departures" into the future. You want an audience to which you could say just about anything, and the conditioned response will be "yes, yes, I believe you!".
So what is it that you need me to believe this time? That current events are "unprecedented", despite your organization's own Gosho-related arguments that the course of history is cyclical?
Yeah, okay...
"...and as we reflect on the past year and approach a new one, we may wonder how to be hopeful in spite of it all."
I'd rather remain spiteful in the face of hope.
Ha ha. Yeah. I'm not really kidding.
Hope, as packaged for the masses, is a sucker's game. You want to know what else never changes in society? Empty political promises. Is America "Great Again"? Did we get "Change We Could Believe In"? Have elected officials ever kept their campaign promises, or is it more that they take advantage of perpetual unhappiness and the mercurial nature of the news cycle as a means for always selling false hope?
For that matter, when have religious doomsday predictions ever been known to come come true? We are still here, right?
Anyway, A, you were selling?
"Recently, the SGI announced its 2021 theme as the Year of Hope and Victory."
No SHIT! You don't say! Is this the year we make society mystic again? Is this the year when all of the promises come true?
Or are they actually being truthful with us, in a backhanded sort of way, letting us know that this year, just like all the others, we are free to gorge ourselves upon false hope -- an "infinite" amount of it, no less -- so long as we can be counted on to channel that hope into enthusiasm and support into some preordained cause?
Yeah. The more things change...
"In tandem, a calligraphy that Ikeda Sensei had inscribed 35 years ago was unveiled. It reads, “Vast Heart.”"
So basically a 35-year-old campaign slogan? Was Sensei intending to save it for this exact year, or did they just pick one from the pile?
"With your question in mind, we took a look at what having a “vast heart” actually means from the Buddhist viewpoint, because cultivating our hearts is key to calling forth unending hope at all times and under any circumstances. Here are five points to consider."
Ahh yes, strengthening the ol' 'hope muscle'. What you got?
"1. The purpose of our Buddhist practice is to develop a strong heart.
In his study lecture on “The Strategy of the Lotus Sutra,” Ikeda Sensei writes: “The purpose of faith is to make our hearts strong and steadfast, to develop inner strength and conviction. Everything depends on our minds and our hearts. The ultimate conclusion of Nichiren Buddhism is summed up in the words ‘It is the heart that is important.’"
I like this one. Nice little reversal there. "Everything depends on our minds and our hearts", but ultimately "it is the heart that is important". Use your mind...and your heart...but mostly just your heart.
Use faith, and reason...but mostly just faith.
Buddhism is reason! You know, that thing you threw out the window the moment you started praying to a scroll?Yeah, that.
“Buddhism is primarily concerned with victory and defeat."
A victory for blind faith, and the utter defeat of common sense?
"It is a struggle between enlightenment and ignorance."
Are you implying that a person could not be simultaneously very faithful and very ignorant, because those two aren't exactly exclusive...
"Kosen-rufu is a battle between the Buddha and devilish functions."
So why does he need our help? I thought he was all powerful?
"The heart is what decides our victory or defeat in all things."
Yeah, that's not agita you're feeling, it's excitement from all this victory.
"Spiritual victors can lead lives undefeated by anything."
I like this one too. A little doublespeak. As long as you have faith, you will never be defeated. You may lose. You may fail. You might go utterly broke and not achieve anything you're after, and you might end up perpetually worse off in life for spending so much time on cult activity...but you won't be defeated, goddamnit, because defeat only happens when you give up, and you have too much invested in this identity to give up, retreat, retool or reconsider. You know that the secret to "victory" -- even when losing so, so badly -- is to keep going with the system that got you there.
You see how much this religion stuff really does have in common with politics?
"2. Nothing guarantees our victory more than the heart of faith.
“When [Nichiren] Daishonin speaks of the importance of the heart, he is referring, at the most fundamental level, to this heart of faith."
Well, if we are defining "victory" as above, wherein reason completely subordinates to belief, then I guess you could say this.
“In a letter addressed to a follower worried about a sick family member, the Daishonin writes, ‘If you believe in this [Lotus] sutra, all your desires will be fulfilled in both the present and the future.’"
I'm sensing a theme here: this world is not much for accountability. Politicians make promises, and then break them once they get elected. Cult leaders could predict a date for the end of the world, and then continue like nothing happened after that date passes. Sports commentators make vehement predictions that turn out to be dead wrong, and the very next day they're on to the next one. And self-help gurus can make all sorts of promises about how their system will benefit you...only to insist that the fault is yours alone when results do not come. Lying is the way to consolidate power in this world.
And here we are being told, by Ikeda via the Daishonin, that all of our desires "will be fulfilled in both the present and the future". If our pattern holds, not only is such a claim potentially baseless and false, but the people lying to us have something to gain and nothing to lose from making it.
As proof of such indemnity, this article goes on to reproduce such claims as the following:
"If a person who has an illness is able to hear this sutra, then] his illness will be wiped out and he will know neither aging nor death."
...which not only make no fucking sense at all, but would be absolutely illegal to put forth if not for how the law already considers religion and faith healing to be outside the realm of reality.
Fantastic. What year is it again, the year of the thumb up the ass? Great. Let's keep going.
"3. Difficult times are an opportunity to accumulate “treasures of the heart.”"
Got it. Yes. Bad is good, up is down, poor is rich, and difficulties present us with the opportunity to challenge that "Never say derp" attitude. But again, why do we need the SG-I-Don't-Know to help us overcome our difficulties, when all they are offering are platitudes that are unaccountable, untestable, and largely inscrutable??
Like this one:
"...when we possess strong faith, we are rich beyond compare; we are ‘spiritual billionaires.’"
I'm sorry, but the thing about numbers is that they are a way to compare things. A billion dollars could be exchanged for one billion cans of soda, hypothetically. What does it mean to be a "spiritual billionaire", and moreover, can we see the problem inherent in describing matters of character in terms of money? Only a few people can be billionaires, for the same reason only a relative few can become famous or influential: because fame, wealth and influence are things we gain at the expense of the other people. Every rich person stands directly on the lives of the countless others who work miserable jobs just to survive. Every famous person can only be so because everyone else in the crowd is content to watch.
So what is it being promised here? That one day you and I can be spiritually rich, and become spiritual celebrities like certain Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, if we only continue slaving away and putting our trust and effort into the current system?
“[Second Soka Gakkai President Josei] Toda declared: ‘To rise up from despair, challenge our own problems and work to help others as well—could there be any more admirable life than this?"
Fair enough, but you also promised me the cures to my diseases, triumph over every personal problem, and a shortcut to omnipotence, and the more faithful I am -- just as you want me to be -- the more literal I would take those promises to be, which can hurt only me, and not the those making the claims.
"4. Possessing a “vast heart” means to never be defeated.
...This ‘vast heart’ is the great, invincible spirit to keep striving together with the Mystic Law through even the bitterest adversity to transform all poison into medicine and freely create value with confidence, strength, wisdom and optimism."
I'd like to call into question this concept of "value creation". I know what it means in a colloquial sense, to seek a productive course of action in any personal conflict or situation, but as I was suggesting before, these economic terms are fraught with deeper meaning. You can create "value" out of something, in our money-driven world, by exploiting it. By ruining it. By stealing it. By mining it as a resource with no regard for the natural order. As long as trees and animals and the environment at large are worth more to the economy dead than alive, people will continue to destroy them. You could "create value" out of the rainforest by cutting it all down for short-term gain. And why not? The only thing stopping you would be a genuine appreciation of the much greater potential value to all of humanity that already exists in a functioning ecosystem.
This is analogous, I would say, to the idea of chanting as a means of solving problems. Yes, you could form the habit of reflexively chanting in response to every minor annoyance, and you could tell yourself that you are "creating value" by doing so. But what of the value of not doing so? Of having a quiet mind? A mind unfettered by superstition or religion? A mind that does not immediately jump to associations, opinions and answers?
The value of quiet meditation is and always has been the ability to cultivate states of nothingness, no? To return your mind to something more of a blank slate?
Chanting is not a form of quiet meditation.
Perhaps to create value of one sort in faith is to destroy something of greater value in terms of spiritual free agency.
How could you ever come to appreciate the value of your own native, untouched internal rainforest -- scary bugs and all -- if you are fixated on contracting someone to come along and clear it all out for you? Just a thought.
"5. Our heart is expressed in our actions to advance kosen-rufu with our mentor."
Fuck you, no it isn't. He's not my mentor, and this whole thing is an obvious cult.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Hai.
2020.11.16 17:53 planetpike75 [Event] Strike One
February 16th, 2026
Brasília, Brazil
As climate protests throughout Brazil intensify going into the election year, President Jair Bolsonaro has found himself on a back foot that continues to slide farther and farther toward failure. The Social Liberal Party has suffered a string of repeated losses in local elections due to the irreparable damage the President has dealt to the party's reputation; opposition to Bolsonaro grows in both the political sphere and the public sphere. However, a new dynamic is emerging that is set to deal a devastating blow to Bolsonaro and his friends in the logging industry.
Since 2020, the Brazilian logging industry has done quite well for itself as an already environmentally-devastating process has taken on an even larger role in the national economy. The privatization of a number of related industries and further deregulation that made near-nonexistent environmental protections essentially nonexistent has accelerated the destruction and burning of the Amazon to an unprecedented rate. However, in recent years, it appears that this has crossed a line for many Brazilians, including those working in the logging industry itself. Much of this increased awareness has come about in the middling levels of the corporate structure; most of the ground workers are ultimately too poor to enact any kind of change -- with no marketable skills and few other real employment options, the moral damage associated with their work is largely accepted by the workers as a necessary evil -- while executives and upper-level management enjoy the fruits of their labor, and those of the laborers below them, too much to give it up easily. The low-level manager, however, sits in a rut of frustration that is the perfect breeding ground for consciousness regarding the treatment of their workers and the destruction of the environment. They spend their time at the logging camps, witnessing with their own eyes the havoc they release upon the rainforest and the poverty in which their subordinates live. They are essential to the industry, and while they are replaceable individually, they are not replaceable in large numbers. It seems their work was cut out for them.
It began with Araupel, the second-largest producer of sawn wood in Brazil. A small group of low-to-mid-level managers decreed in early February that they would be going on strike; they arrived at their workplace the next day with signs in hand and recited slogans at the ready. They were all fired the next day, and Araupel's board of executives thought little of the event. But the next day, they returned, and with more people, each of them an Araupel worker. Seeking to make an example of them, these workers were also fired, and the company's Chief Executive Officer, Gian Carlo Almeida Marodin, released a statement detailing that any workers who did strike would be immediately terminated, and that any workers who reported rumors of potential strikes or corporate sabotage would be "handsomely rewarded." His employees did not take the bait. Outraged at Marodin's lack of respect or pity for his employees, Araupel workers organized a nationwide strike on February 16th. Thousands were to gather outside of the corporate headquarters in Brasília before marching toward the Palácio da Alvorada to take the fight to the big man himself -- the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.
When the day of the strike arrived, Brazilians were shocked by what they saw -- workers from not only Araupel, but from Berneck and LPM had joined forces to present a massive united front. Thousands of workers from all tiers of the industry had gathered to protest against working conditions and the destruction of the Amazon; they were joined by thousands of everyday Brazilians from all walks of life. The march made its way through the capital, growing as it went, until it arrived at the doorstep of President Bolsonaro himself, who at no point in the day was reached for comment by the media. The protesters hailed him with insults, labeling him a liar and a coward for refusing to face them directly. His silence, they claimed, was his admittance of wrongdoing -- he could not defend his actions in front of his country, so he chose to hide away in his office and wait for the problem to disappear. However, as one protester put it:
submitted by planetpike75 to Geosim [link] [comments]
Brasília, Brazil
As climate protests throughout Brazil intensify going into the election year, President Jair Bolsonaro has found himself on a back foot that continues to slide farther and farther toward failure. The Social Liberal Party has suffered a string of repeated losses in local elections due to the irreparable damage the President has dealt to the party's reputation; opposition to Bolsonaro grows in both the political sphere and the public sphere. However, a new dynamic is emerging that is set to deal a devastating blow to Bolsonaro and his friends in the logging industry.
Since 2020, the Brazilian logging industry has done quite well for itself as an already environmentally-devastating process has taken on an even larger role in the national economy. The privatization of a number of related industries and further deregulation that made near-nonexistent environmental protections essentially nonexistent has accelerated the destruction and burning of the Amazon to an unprecedented rate. However, in recent years, it appears that this has crossed a line for many Brazilians, including those working in the logging industry itself. Much of this increased awareness has come about in the middling levels of the corporate structure; most of the ground workers are ultimately too poor to enact any kind of change -- with no marketable skills and few other real employment options, the moral damage associated with their work is largely accepted by the workers as a necessary evil -- while executives and upper-level management enjoy the fruits of their labor, and those of the laborers below them, too much to give it up easily. The low-level manager, however, sits in a rut of frustration that is the perfect breeding ground for consciousness regarding the treatment of their workers and the destruction of the environment. They spend their time at the logging camps, witnessing with their own eyes the havoc they release upon the rainforest and the poverty in which their subordinates live. They are essential to the industry, and while they are replaceable individually, they are not replaceable in large numbers. It seems their work was cut out for them.
It began with Araupel, the second-largest producer of sawn wood in Brazil. A small group of low-to-mid-level managers decreed in early February that they would be going on strike; they arrived at their workplace the next day with signs in hand and recited slogans at the ready. They were all fired the next day, and Araupel's board of executives thought little of the event. But the next day, they returned, and with more people, each of them an Araupel worker. Seeking to make an example of them, these workers were also fired, and the company's Chief Executive Officer, Gian Carlo Almeida Marodin, released a statement detailing that any workers who did strike would be immediately terminated, and that any workers who reported rumors of potential strikes or corporate sabotage would be "handsomely rewarded." His employees did not take the bait. Outraged at Marodin's lack of respect or pity for his employees, Araupel workers organized a nationwide strike on February 16th. Thousands were to gather outside of the corporate headquarters in Brasília before marching toward the Palácio da Alvorada to take the fight to the big man himself -- the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.
When the day of the strike arrived, Brazilians were shocked by what they saw -- workers from not only Araupel, but from Berneck and LPM had joined forces to present a massive united front. Thousands of workers from all tiers of the industry had gathered to protest against working conditions and the destruction of the Amazon; they were joined by thousands of everyday Brazilians from all walks of life. The march made its way through the capital, growing as it went, until it arrived at the doorstep of President Bolsonaro himself, who at no point in the day was reached for comment by the media. The protesters hailed him with insults, labeling him a liar and a coward for refusing to face them directly. His silence, they claimed, was his admittance of wrongdoing -- he could not defend his actions in front of his country, so he chose to hide away in his office and wait for the problem to disappear. However, as one protester put it:
"Our fight is just beginning, and it will not end until Jair Bolsonaro is no longer the President of Brazil and the Amazon is no longer aflame. We will not leave this place until he does."While the coming months will test this commitment, and very few expect that these protests will last until the general election in November, the gathering has yet to fully dissipate. As of the first of March, protestors and strikers come in and out of the crowd, which ranges in size from a few hundred in the early hours of weekday mornings to multiple thousands at midday and on weekends. The Amazon was burning, but so were the hearts of countless Brazilians who had decided that enough was enough and stepped forth to fight for the country they believed in, one that their government did not represent.
2020.10.21 16:43 alexiaroger Planting a Tree, Sowing a Future
 | submitted by alexiaroger to PlantTreesEco [link] [comments] The current climate crisis can be viewed as a simplified budget imbalance: what is removed from the system (carbon sink) is being overrun by the amount that has been introduced or recirculated (carbon source). A resource or reservoir can serve as both a sink and a source: oil, gas and coal are extensive carbon sinks when buried and inert, but are introduced as sources of carbon once extracted and burned. The same holds for trees that store carbon as biomass or in the organic matter of soil, but release that carbon following decay, erosion, burning or deforestation. Photo by Johann Siemens on Unsplash The world’s land-based ecosystems, including forests, grasslands and tundra, are a net-carbon sink, with an estimated 3 trillion trees standing tall around the world, in addition to plants and plant-like microorganisms. As you may remember from your old textbooks, green plants convert CO₂ into carbohydrates, with oxygen given off as a byproduct of photosynthesis. The Amazon rainforests have been described as the “lungs of the planet” providing 20% of the world’s oxygen. Green algae and cyanobacteria are the types of organisms that initially filled our atmosphere with their waste product (oxygen) nearly 3 billion years ago. The smallest organisms have altered the planet drastically, so now have humans — a grand green planting mobilization could have the same effect. But the work of algae and cyanobacteria took millions of years; humans do not have millions of years to make a change. Deforestation: Moving backwardsOne of the most common dismissals of climate change is the misused assurance that “CO₂ is plant food-the Earth is getting greener!” If only that were true, yet we are witnessing the continuing upward creep of atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and the acidification of oceans. A recent headline from Global Forest Watch paints a more realistic picture: The World Lost a Belgium-sized Area of Primary Rainforests Last Year. Researchers from the World Resources Institute (WRI), using satellite imagery and remote sensing to monitor tree cover losses from Brazil to Ghana, noted a tropical tree loss of over 30 million acres in 2018, the fourth-highest annual decline since records began in 2001, including nearly 9 million acres of primary rainforests. “Primary” rainforests include more mature trees, i.e., “old growth”; these are the forests that harbor greater diversity of life and absorb more carbon. According to the Arbor Day Foundation, an estimated 18 million acres of forests is lost every year.https://preview.redd.it/549ej83kmgu51.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=d6c7b20fb5d0f7b3abfda9442728b04c7db3a610 The drivers of deforestation are many: small and large-scale agriculture and pasture, development (mining, logging, drilling), fuel, natural disasters and climate effects. Glenn Hurowitz, chief executive of Mighty Earth, a global environmental campaign organization, noted that “Deforestation causes more climate pollution than all the world’s cars, trucks, ships and planes combined.” Loss of tree cover peaked in 2016 when over 42 million acres of tropical forest were lost, partly due to rampant forest fires. Also at issue is palm oil production in Indonesia, and mining and farming in Africa. The highest deforestation rates have been shifting from Brazil and Indonesia to include Columbia, Ghana, Papua New Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Primary forest loss in Indonesia has dropped, some good news, indicating the power of advocacy and good government policies regarding protection of forests. Trees as SolutionWhen it comes to climate action, the simplest solutions are often the best. The recent observance of Arbor Day stirred up many discussions on the role of trees in addressing climate change. The annual nod to trees follows quickly in the footsteps of Earth Day; similarly, one day a year coupled with a scattered landscape of events and slogans does little to address the growing importance of the underlying issues. This is not to say that the mission and efforts of environmental organizations such as the Arbor Day Foundation are without merit — on the contrary. The Arbor Day Foundation recently announced a new goal to plant 100 million trees by 2022. This goal isn’t (just) a tree-hugging feel-good endeavor: it is a legitimate action to stave off the worst of global warming, admirable even if the Foundation consciously chose not to use the term “climate change”.Most of the benefits of forests and woodlands are obvious: as a fuel and commodity, as a home to biodiverse ecosystems and indigenous communities … but also to combat erosion, to serve as a resilient barrier to natural disasters, to support ecotourism and pollination, and to combat climate change. According to the Climate and Land Use Alliance, the world’s forests contain more carbon than all exploitable deposits of oil, gas and coal; forests are estimated to remove a quarter to a third of all CO₂ emissions added by humans annually. The Paris Agreement established a goal to limit the average global temperature increase to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. However, the Agreement and the consensus view of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) advises no more than a 1.5°C increase, which requires a decrease of 45% in greenhouse gas emissions below 2010 levels by 2030 and a goal of zero emissions by 2050. As part of the Agreement, countries can receive compensation from the United Nations Green Climate Fund for forest conservation. Putting an end to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases is a necessity, and will be largely accomplished through a transition off fossil fuel usage. However, even when our goal of zero emissions is achieved, it will leave the world in a place of unnatural warmth, a new status quo. It is unlikely that humans can turn back the clock on climate change; some things cannot be fully restored or completed in the lifetime of those reading this sentence. However, to achieve a sustainable global system that provides the viability to which we had been accustomed, we need to endeavor for NEGATIVE carbon emissions. This requires removal of the carbon (CO₂, CH₄) that was added to the atmosphere by humans in the past couple hundred years, during which time levels of CO₂ rose from approximately 280 to over 410 parts per million. The book Drawdown presents “100 solution to reverse global warming”; each solution is measured and modeled to determine its carbon impact through the year 2050, the total and net cost to society, and the total lifetime savings (or cost). Forests figure prominently, listed at Number 5 (Tropical Forests) and Number 12 (Temperate Forests), with CO₂ reductions estimated at 61 and 22 gigatons, respectively, by 2050. The authors of Drawdown envision these reductions through restoration of 435 and 235 million acres of tropical and temperate forests, respectively. Tom Crowther, a climate change ecologist from Switzerland with an upcoming publication in Science, has determined that a potential 1.2 trillion trees could be planted in addition to the existing 3 trillion trees, with the appropriate planning, to garner a CO₂ reduction that would surpass Drawdown’s Number 1 solution: management of greenhouse gas emissions from refrigerators and air conditioners, which is estimated to reduce atmospheric CO₂ by 90 billion tons. To put that number in perspective, current annual CO₂ emissions amount to approximately 37 billion tons per year. Crowther has a simple message, “I’d like to try and champion this as a solution that everyone can get involved in. If all the millions of people who went on climate marches in recent weeks got involved in tree planting the impact would be huge.” The Arbor Day Foundation’s Time for Trees initiative to plant 100 million trees is estimated to absorb 8 million tons of carbon, which is the equivalent of removing 6.2 million cars from the road for a year. The Foundation is only one of many organizations that have created tree-planting goals:
“Bold action is needed to tackle this global crisis including restoring lost forests. But unless we stop them being destroyed in the first place, we’re just chasing our tail,” Greenpeace UK Executive Director, John Sauven. Will it be enough?Reforestation is a promising solution — effective, relatively cheap and fast to implement. However, as long as the current rates of deforestation continue, we are truly doing little more than chasing our tail. Reforestation and restoration also require planning, land, money, and leadership. Ironically, there are intertwined effects of climate change that contribute to deforestation and would partially thwart any globalized replanting efforts: outbreaks of disease and infestation (e.g., bark beetles destroying Europe’s forests), drought, flooding, decimation by wildfires, and lack of political will as noted by the recent decision of Ontario’s Premier to cancel the planting of 50 million trees (to cut costs). Existing and restored woodlands and other carbon-sink ecosystems such as grasslands and mangrove forests would require protection through public policy and enforcement, and market-driven mechanisms. Programs similar to UN-REDD+ can provide incentives for poorer countries and communities to protect their wooded resources.Fast-paced reforestation is a great solution and obviously beneficial beyond greenhouse gas reductions. But what we don’t have much of is time, the time to wait for trees to mature in 30 to 40 years. We need to bolster the carbon sequestration found through natural means with other techniques. Man-made technologies with a goal of carbon sequestration are often referred to as carbon capture or negative emission technology (NET). A study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine estimated that the world will need to remove as much as 10 gigatons of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year by mid-century — nearly twice the current annual emissions in the US from burning fossil fuels. Once considered an alternative or optional step, it is increasingly apparent that these technologies need to be part of a larger arsenal of action. WRI has a publication series, CarbonShot, detailing the present and future scenarios for carbon removal from several carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. This includes direct air capture with storage (DACS), which are machines that literally pull carbon out of the air, usually from point sources such as power plants, using chemical scrubbing. Another emerging CCS option is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which converts feedstock (such as plant matter) into usable form for power and heat. Captured carbon can be incorporated into a variety of products such as concrete, carbon fibers and biochar — or carbon can be placed into deep storage via injection into underground geological formations. Currently, there is no existing BECCS facility and less than a handful of independent DACS projects to date. Carbon capture has been used previously in submarines and inhabited space vessels, as well as in some industrial ventures: Norway’s state-owned petroleum company, Statoil, began sequestering the CO₂ content of extracted natural gas from a gas field off the coast of Norway into an aquifer about 1000 meters below the seabed. According to reports on the company’s website, approximately 11 million tons of CO₂ had been safely stored as of 2008. The National Academies report recommends as much as $1 billion annually in US government funding for research on NETs. You can’t get someone to do something (remove carbon from the air) for nothing (little to no economic incentive). As long as belching out greenhouse gases into the air is free, mobilizing CCS technologies would require market incentives such as a carbon tax that puts a price on anthropogenic emissions, as well as research and development, and planning for deployment and synergy. |
2020.06.22 01:00 TopOfTheBot Top Posts and Comments of the Day
Top of the Day for 22/06/2020
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Most Upvoted Posts of the Day
First PlaceHmmmmmmmmmmSecond Place
posted by Zlecklamar on /memes
Click here to view the post. ● 157,862 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 13:07:29 UTC
The \"sold out\" 18,000 person arena for Trump in Tulsa, OK right nowThird Place
posted by jcepiano on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 131,485 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 00:50:10 UTC
Just believe in ScienceFourth Place
posted by Shiroyaksha19 on /memes
Click here to view the post. ● 123,218 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 04:52:40 UTC
My daughter roasted me for fathers day. I couldn't be more proudFifth Place
posted by magnus_ubergasm on /funny
Click here to view the post. ● 114,236 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 13:46:10 UTC
The power of a green screen
posted by ExperimentalFun7 on /Damnthatsinteresting
Click here to view the post. ● 108,401 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 04:04:30 UTC
Most Downvoted Posts of the Day
This section is currently being worked on.Most Upvoted Comments of the Day
IMPORTANT NOTE: This section may be not be accurate as it is under development. Currently this only gets the most upvoted top-level comments from the most upvoted posts today.First Place
““Here’s the bad part: When you do testing to that extent you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,'' he said. “So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please. They test and they test.'' `Wtf` Edit: from WaPo updates, can’t get the link on mobile, apparently.Second Place
posted by jigga19 on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 19,055 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 01:51:32 UTC
Good guy camera guy, wearing a maskThird Place
posted by bananarandom on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 17,804 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 00:55:51 UTC
I don't get it. `He just rambles about nothing. ` No ideas, no proposals, no policy ideas. `Just a stream-of-conscious ramble.` It's like a D-list Seinfeld knockoff who's had too much to drink.Fourth Place
posted by DeadliftsNRiffs on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 9,571 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 02:50:49 UTC
I'm just waiting for the \"Trump tests positive for COVID-19\" headlines.Fifth Place
posted by SnooStories8004 on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 8,763 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 03:57:25 UTC
lol, everyone see the \"make America great again\" slogans? ` ... someone should tell Trump he is the current President. Probably not a good idea to reuse that slogan... you know, since you've been leading our country for almost 4 years...`
posted by Flagella567 on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 8,405 Upvotes ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 01:49:58 UTC
Most Downvoted Comments of the Day
This section is currently being worked on.Most Gilded Posts of the Day
IMPORTANT NOTE: This section may be not be accurate as it is under development.First Place
When the neighbors are arguing outsideSecond Place
posted by Master1718 on /youseeingthisshit
Click here to view the post. ● 87,650 Upvotes ● 3 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 1 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 15:06:30 UTC
Donald TrumpThird Place
posted by crisdealer on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 36,762 Upvotes ● 3 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 1 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 12:16:59 UTC
Trump leaving his half-empty rallyFourth Place
posted by Reals26 on /pics
Click here to view the post. ● 93,218 Upvotes ● 3 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 1 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 15:56:00 UTC
Finally finished my oil painting of the plague! Featuring my garden 😂Fifth Place
posted by bluerainni on /deadbydaylight
Click here to view the post. ● 7,326 Upvotes ● 3 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 1 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 14:04:48 UTC
After falling victim to the looped version AGAIN I found the actual video of the truck getting smashed. I hope this brings you satisfaction.
posted by Slaying-mantis on /oddlysatisfying
Click here to view the post. ● 61,796 Upvotes ● 3 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 1 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 14:40:17 UTC
Most Gilded Comments of the Day
IMPORTANT NOTE: This section may be not be accurate as it is under development.First Place
The main problem with trump ` Trump has had no prior political experience, went bankrupt 6 times and has many failed businesses, paid off a porn star to keep quiet, has over 24 harassment allegations, has had 2 articles of impeachment drafted against him, illegally contacted Ukraine to help him win re-election, has the most hours of golfing over any president, has done nothing to help our dying climate, botched the coronavirus response because he called it a hoax by the democrats instead of acting quicker, has never had an approval rating of over 45 percent, the whole Central Park 5 incident, thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax, told POC to go back to where they came from, throws meltdowns on Twitter, constantly retweets himself agreeing with himself, has had tweets flagged for misinformation, signed an executive bill regarding Twitter after his feelings got hurt, has increased our debt, hasn’t pulled out of any wars, adbandoned the Kurds, is really fat with a spray tan, has US pride at an all time low, has 10 cases of obstruction of justice per the mueller report, used George Floyd as an excuse to brag about job numbers, wanted to use violence against peaceful protestors, has done nothing to solve the wealth gap or poverty rate, has increased our debt, is fat and has an ugly spray tan, said he would date his own daughter, talked about fake treatments during a corona press conference, used to be an anti vaxxer, violated an official weather map with a fucking sharpie, all the shit in john Bolton’s book, said that cases would disappear if testing stopped, has a Vice President that can’t say “black lives matter” only “all lives matter”, falsely claimed there’s an AIDS vaccine, loves himself but has little empathy for others, is a complete asshole to reporters, made fun of someone disabled, the “grab by the pussy” thing, wanted to nuke a hurricane, thinks windmills cause cancer, has told over 19,000 false claims, talked more about him on a ramp than George Floyd, wants burning the flag to be a crime, called the coronavirus the kung flu, and has done nothing to help the average American`Second Place
posted by supreme_kream on /politics
Click here to view the post. ● 15,956 Upvotes ● 3 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 1 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 13:32:29 UTC
\"Are ya winning, son?\"Third Place
posted by Nickbam200 on /teenagers
Click here to view the post. ● 5,731 Upvotes ● 2 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 0 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 18:04:09 UTC
This is why I don’t understand the people who say we can’t tear down racist statues because of ThE HiStOrY. ` They already whitewashed most of history that we know and edited us out of it anyway, but nobody seemed to care about that history when they were putting up them statues in the first place. Tear them ALL down.`Fourth Place
posted by breakingthebig on /BlackPeopleTwitter
Click here to view the post. ● 1,536 Upvotes ● 2 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 0 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 20:19:20 UTC
Someone send them a dictionary to look up autonomous. ` This is this fucking protest in a nutshell.`Fifth Place
posted by TAVAGAHB on /ActualPublicFreakouts
Click here to view the post. ● 352 Upvotes ● 2 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 0 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 14:44:01 UTC
You are right to be worried. Time is running out. Brazil's democracy is under attack. Apply pressure to the organizations profiting from the destruction of the Amazon listed below. [Message](https://technologyandus.com/the-message-from-xingu-river-tribes-of-amazon-rainforest-for-the-world/) from the Xingu Nations resisting this invasion: There are 1 million sovereign people who live *in* the Amazon. They are the ones who [need support](https://xingumais.org.b), if you can. `Indigenous peoples around the world protect 80% of earth's remaining biodiversity ([National Geographic](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/can-indigenous-land-stewardship-protect-biodiversity-/)). To destroy them is to destroy our future.` [Democracy Now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qr-b8wxWTc) tells us [deforestation is up](https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/19/headlines/deforestation_of_brazilian_amazon_skyrocketed_since_bolsanaros_election) [after the election](https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/29/headlines/deforestation_of_amazon_up_by_20_over_9_months) of [supporter of ethnic cleansing](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/07/brazil-bolsonaro-tribes-genocide-expert-warning), Jair Bolsanaro. [Boycott](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qr-b8wxWTc) Brazilian soy, beef/leather, sugarcane, and timber. Oil, ideally. `>Global commodity traders like Cargill, JBS and Mafrig are the key drivers of deforestation in the Amazon. Their products are then sold by retailers like Leclerc, Stop Shop, Walmart and Costco. And behind the commodity traders stand the banks and institutional investors providing the credit and equity financing that enables their expansion into the Amazon: firms like BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, Santander, BNP Paribas, HSBC and others. These financiers not only enable the destruction of our forests – they profit from it. ([source](https://amazonwatch.org/news/2019/0830-dirty-dozen-companies-driving-deforestation-must-act-now-to-stop-the-burning))` The [WWF](https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/forests/deforestation_fronts2/deforestation_in_the_amazon/) on why this is a disaster. `[National Geographic](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131222-amazon-kayapo-indigenous-tribes-deforestation-environment-climate-rain-forest/)overviews both the indigenous people's protection of the forest and organizations that help protect their sovereignty and the rainforest listed below the article, pasted here for your convenience.` *NGOs that are dedicated to protecting the Amazon and indigenous rights in Brazil:* `* [The Kayapo Project](http://kayapo.org/index-1.html)` `* [Instituto Socioambiental](http://www.socioambiental.org/)` `* [Comissão Pró-Índio de São Paulo](http://www.cpisp.org.b)` `* [Centro de Trabalho Indigenista](http://www.trabalhoindigenista.org.b)` `* [Operação Amazônia Nativa](http://www.amazonianativa.org.b)` `* [Planéte Amazone](http://raoni.com/amazon-planet.php)` `* [Conselho Indigenista Missionário](http://www.cimi.org.bsite/pt-b)` *International NGOs that are working to save Amazon rain forest in various countries:* ` * Amazon Conservation Team * Amazon Watch * Conservation International * Environmental Defense Fund * Greenpeace * International Conservation Fund of Canada * Survival International * The Nature Conservancy * World Wildlife Fund`
posted by inviernum on /worldnews
Click here to view the post. ● 8,614 Upvotes ● 2 reward(s). ● 1 silver reward(s), 1 gold reward(s) and 0 platinum reward(s) ● Posted: 21/06/2020 at 12:58:03 UTC