PART ONE THOUSAND AND TWELVE
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Sunday
Lucas stretched and yawned in bed, taking a moment to enjoy the complete lack of needing to rise before his hand stretched out in search of Boyd.
And once again, that side of the bed was empty.
Biting back a whine of dismay, Lucas rolled until he was face down on Boyd’s pillow, breathing in the cologne they both now wore. The detective in him quickly deduced that Boyd had been gone a while based on the chill in the sheets. He curled his hands around the pillow and hugged it tight, wishing it was the big mountain of a man himself instead of this weak substitute.
As thrilled as he was about Boyd finding a new career that he was so passionately driven about, he was equally happy that his fiancé took his responsibility to his clients seriously. Still, would it have killed him to sleep in just one morning instead of abandoning their wrecked bed the morning after their engagement party?
After several minutes of wallowing, he finally accepted the inevitable that no amount of wishful thinking was going to make Boyd appear and climbed out of bed. He removed his snore rings and took a quick shower.
Once he was dressed, he felt a little better.
The next thing he had to do was strip down the bed and remake it. They’d been very busy last night, which was why he’d only just woken up at—his gaze fell upon the clock— DAMN! It’s nearly lunchtime!
“I’m gonna kill him for letting me sleep in so long,” he muttered under his breath, carrying the linen through the apartment and into the kitchen, which doubled as a laundry on their end. After nine years of living in this layout, he didn’t need to see over the pile in his arms to know precisely where he was, and with the load balanced on one arm, he turned at the right moment, opened the massive frontloading washing machine and stuffed it all in.
“Hey, Unca Luke!” Maddy’s shrill voice had him leaping into the air, slamming the door shut and swivelling around in front of it to hide the evidence. “Didja pee the bed?”
His brother and his niece were sitting at the island, Maddy with her breakfast of honey-and-cream-covered waffles, which were only half-eaten, and Levi patiently waited for her to finish since the plate in front of him was empty. The latter was grinning at him as only a brother could.
He’d forgotten all about them staying over.
It took a hot second for what Maddy asked to register with him, and when it did, his mouth dropped, and he glanced at his brother, who was twisting himself into a pretzel to avoid laughing out loud. Asshole. “No, Peaches,” he said, glaring daggers at Levi for not even trying to help him out. “Boyd and I like clean sheets every day, and it’s not fair to make somebody else wash them for us, is it?”
Bright red ringlets of hair swayed as the little girl shook her head. “Daddy makes me fix stuff too.”
Lucas moved the three feet between the washing machine to his brother sitting in Mason’s seat at the corner. “That’s because Daddies always know what’s best.” He wrapped an arm around his brother’s neck in a loose chokehold and gave him a noisy morning kiss on the cheek. “Ain’t that right, Daddy?” He said that last word in a sultry purr the way Robbie would, and the reaction from Levi was priceless.
“Fuck off with that shit, you prick!” his brother swore, shoving Lucas away with all his might.
“DADDY!” Maddy squealed in horror, and Lucas clapped his hands together once behind Maddy’s chair and raised his clenched fists in victory. He’d been angling for one swear word, maybe two to distract young Maddy from his not-so-discreet linen run. Three was a veritable home run.
Snickering quietly to himself, he went back to the washing machine, loaded it up with soap and softener and turned it on. Then, he walked over to the wooden box under the window. ‘Just think what you want,’ Charlie had told him at the party. ‘It’s a Nascerdios box that Robbie fills up throughout the night.’
He stared hard at the box while he considered his options, settling on a plate of breakfast tacos with seasoned mince, fried eggs, tomatillos, shredded lettuce, and cheese wrapped in soft tortillas buttered with a thin spread of mashed avocado.
After the last month, it didn’t surprise him in the least when he opened the lid and found that exact meal sitting there, waiting for him. Maybe the quantity, since they were piled three high, but not the meal itself.
The same could not be said for Levi when Lucas turned around with the plate in his hand. “Robbie had that ready for you too?” he asked, as Lucas grabbed a glass from the cupboard and placed it and the plate in his regular sitting place adjacent to his brother before sliding into his seat. He knew Levi wasn’t questioning Viola since the box itself was made and gifted by someone with the last name Nascerdios.
The veil was an ass.
“I told you; he did most of the catering yesterday, too,” Lucas said, reaching for the jug of juice. He was curious what it would be today. Yesterday, it had been orange and mango juice, with apple the day before.
A quick sniff made it most likely grapefruit.
He tightened the roll on the first taco and lifted it to his lips, enjoying the flavours that exploded in his mouth. Because Levi had finished whatever had been on his plate, he was watching him eat as if he’d never seen it before. It finally clicked why. “You want to try one?” Lucas asked, nudging his plate towards his brother. “There’s plenty here if you want one. Too many, if anything.”
Levi didn’t need to be told twice and reached over, using his fingers just as Lucas had. “How did he learn to cook so well?” Levi demanded, almost fitting the whole thing in his mouth.
“He’s always cooked,” Lucas answered, fudging things slightly. “When he was growing up, cooking was his chore while his mom was at work. He only stopped because Mom refused to let him help in the kitchen.”
“I would’ve fought that a lot harder if I’d have known he could produce this.”
“Yeah, you and me both, bro. Even when we were upstairs, he was forever watching the cooking channels for new ideas.” Lucas didn’t want to mention that these days, Robbie only did so to critique the so-called experts. “Have you seen Boyd?”
Levi shook his head. “I was assuming he was still in with you. If I’d known you were in there alone, I’d have sicc’d Maddy onto you.”
“I can wake Daddy and Unca’ Austin good!” Maddy said proudly. “I gets me a dolla’.”
“Ssshhh, Peaches. That’s our secr—wait. Does Uncle Austin pay you, too?”
Maddy was adorable the way she looked at Lucas like he would intervene for her. “Sorry, baby girl,” he laughed, eating another taco. “You’re on your own.”
The two brothers bantered as Lucas ate, with Levi stealing another taco, bringing Lucas’ total number down to five. Maddy told them both about wanting to be a vet, and Lucas knew precisely who to blame for that. Still, it was better than her previous choice of ‘stripping’ the way Robbie and Angelo used to. Levi’s meltdown over that revelation had been priceless, even if he, too, was firmly in the ‘fuck that noise’ camp.
When he polished them and half the juice off, he poured the last into Maddy’s cup and put his things and the jug in the dishwasher. “You can hang out here if you want,” Lucas said. “The guys and I are heading out this afternoon to play some ball over at Angus’ place, but if you call Austin and find out Pepper’s roommate is still with him, the TV over there has…”
“Every cable channel imaginable, I know. Charlotte—”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie told us last night.” Levi sat back in his seat and stared at his brother. “What do you make of Larry, Luke? Does he have kids?”
“Why?”
“He watched Maddy for me last night while I was having a shower, and Maddy loves him. You know how picky she is about people she doesn’t know.”
“I know he’s married to a career soldier and was one too before being assigned to us. I’m not sure about his past, but he’s a good guy and ridiculously protective of those either in his charge or that he happens to care about.”
Levi grunted. “Charl —lie said so too. He certainly knows his Spongebob.”
Lucas squinted. “Why all the questions?”
“Just thinking out loud. If he’s going to be here all the time with Robbie, and Austin and I get called into the house together, it’s always been a struggle figuring out where we can leave Maddy on short notice. We don’t exactly have time to drive all the way over to Queens to drop her off at either Mav’s or Mom and Dad’s. I mean, so far, we haven’t needed to, but it’s a constant concern.”
Lucas frowned at him. “We’ve been here for years. Why didn’t you ask before now?”
Levi seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “You know…” he said, gesturing to the ceiling without finishing that sentence.
And just like that, Lucas did understand.
Six men, all sharing one shoebox-sized apartment with two of them being sex workers, was not where anyone would want to drop off a little girl. Even if Lucas did vouch for all of them and swore they’d all be protective as hell over little Maddy. “Look, I can’t speak for them specifically, but Charlie’s here under house arrest for the next ten months, and Boyd now works out of his studio, so technically, someone will be here all the time. There’s not a chance in hell we’ll turn you away.”
“I’ll ask her and Miss W before we go.”
Lucas looked at what the two of them were wearing. “You know, I could duck out and grab you and Maddy some clothes just as soon as I check in with Boyd, if you like.”
He watched Levi look down at the shirt and boxers that were a little big on him width-wise and across at Maddy, who still wore Charlie’s favourite Giants’ shirt.
“That’d be good, thanks,” he admitted.
“I’ll get extras, and that way, she can have a few changes of clothes here. Actually, do you want me to grab you some spare stuff too?”
Levi stiffened in his seat. “I don’t need you to buy me clothes.”
Lucas wanted to slap him in the back of the head (and would’ve if Maddy wasn’t there). “Stop,” he commanded instead. “I’m already going to a clothes shop. It’s not going to be anything fancy, and if you hate it, you can swap it out with your own stuff later.”
Knowing his brother was still uncomfortable, Lucas waved his hand at the kitchen. “Seriously, Levi, look around. Look at how I’m living, and I’m not paying a dime in rent. Llyr won’t let me since we’ve been looking out for Sam for years. Let me do this for you, so you’ll always know you and Maddy have somewhere safe to go.”
Levi glanced around, his lips tightening before he finally nodded, unwilling to say the words out loud, and Lucas clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re family, dumb-ar—dumb,” he amended, with little ears sitting on the other side of his brother. “Dumb-dumb. I meant Dumb-dumb.”
Levi chuckled and patted his brother’s hand. “I appreciate it, bro. We’ll chill here until you get back. Don’t rush … apparently, you have a gazillion cable channels to choose from, and Maddy doesn’t want to leave until she’s seen them all.”
“I don’t think you’ll live that long,” Lucas laughed and headed back to his room to grab his gear since he was now leaving the apartment. As he clipped and slid everything from sunglasses to his wallet, keys, phone, badge bifold, and ankle-holstered BUG, he almost envied women with carryall handbags that could be grabbed on their way out the door.
Almost.
* * *
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!

Mysterious solder joint illustrations (PNG image file)
I've run into these two images, one showing a good and the other a bad solder joint, in multiple different slide shows, as still images in how-to videos, etc. and am wondering whether anyone here might know anything about their original source.
Forrest Mims's work came to mind but a fast skim through those parts of the Mims canon that I can easily check didn't turn up either drawing.
Thanks in advance!

My aunt has given me the responsibility (or honor?) of her 7 year old this summer about once or twice a week. Not full time or anything, so remove if this isn't allowed, but I have been tasked with teaching the kid some English while school's out for the summer. I don't know any 7 year olds so I can't ask them what they're learning in school. From some online research I've come up with worksheets about adjectives, nouns, sentence structure including action words, present and past tense...
parents: What approaches work best for kids? Do you have book suggestions I can buy online?
I'm not really that close with my aunt, but at this point I don't even know what I'm supposed to ask her to get more information.
Thank you!

This analysis comes from Cults and Nonconventional Religious Groups: A Collection of Outstanding Dissertations and Monographs, "Shakubuku: A Study of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Movement in America, 1960-1975", David A. Snow, 1993, pp. 171-179.
I'll try to shave it down, because it's a long section, but he masterfully dissects the manipulation and artifice involved in the "discussion meetings" of then-NSA (now SGI-USA). You'll recognize the fakery he identifies - this is the nature of the Dead-Ikeda-cult SGI, a completely dishonest and exploitative cult.

It is at these discussion meetings, then, that NSA gets on with the real work of promoting and securing nominal conversion, of attempting to get recruits to take the first major step toward conversion by agreeing to receive a Gohonzon and to give chanting a try.

In those days, the nohonzon was issued up front (for a fee, of course - cash on the barrelhead).

And since gaining converts is, in large part, what this movement is all about, "nothing is more basic to the activities of NSA," as noted in the Winter edition of the 1975 NSA Quarterly, "than the discussion meeting." Or, as one district leader emphasized when discussing the importance of these meetings: "Discussion meetings are indispensable to the spread of the practice and the attainment of Kosen-rufu."

If you've ever felt confused at how sitting around someone's living room with the same bunch of losers month after month is doing anything toward the SGI's supposed goals of "world peace" or anything at all, actually, besides wasting the participants' time, I think what's described here will make it clearer what the original intent and purpose of these "discussion meetings" was, AND how far from that the current SGI "activities" have fallen.

The Character and Organization of These Meetings from a Sociological Standpoint
Given the purpose and importance of these discussion meetings, the question arises as to how they are organized and brought off in a strategic manner. In other words, what is the underlying strategy guiding this work of securing nominal conversion, and what are the kinds of tactical adjustments made at the line of scrimmage when the plan of attack does not appear to be advancing the group toward its goal of getting guests to agree to give chanting a try.

It's not enough that the "guests" say they'll try it; by the end of this ordeal, they'll say absolutely anything to get themselves to the other side of that door! What they really want is enough interest and desire on the part of those "guests" that they'll come back - and ideally become regularly attending members (as described in this indoctrinational creative writing fiction where a career Catholic priest is so entranced with the fictional (non)discussion meetings that he JOINS the SGI!! You'll notice that there is never any room within SGI to even mention one of THEIR SGI leaders who joins a Baptist church, for example, much less to celebrate such a stepping-out-of-line. But it's always FINE for other religions' leaders to see the obvious superiority of the SGI, knowmsayin?

In order to answer these question [sic] in a sociological manner, let us step out of the shoes of a guest and into those of a sociological [sic] with insiders' knowledge.
The Strategy of Theatrical Persuasion. Although members and the movement's literature like to characterize these meetings as being forums for free and open discussion and the spontaneous expression and flow of happiness and excitement, they are a far cry from gatherings characterized by spontaneity and unstructured discussion and interaction. Rather, they are meticulously planned and highly orchestrated meetings that can be best conceptualized, from a dramaturgical perspective, as theatrical-like presentations staged and conducted by a set of individuals (NSA members) who not only work together as a team but whose intimate cooperation is expected and required in order to foster and sustain a convincing impression or definition of the situation in the eyes of the audience (the recruits or guests).
Although the staged character of these meetings is seldom readily discernible to the unsuspecting guest, the appropriateness of conceptualizing these meetings in this way is suggested by the following considerations. First, the purpose of the meeting, as already indicated, is to sell guests on the idea of chanting, to so impress them that they feel compelled to give this practice call [sic] chanting a try.
Secondly, there is a division of labor such that all members have one or more roles to play. These various roles include the leadership role, the role of emcee, a general, overarching supportive role, and several more specific supportive roles, such as the role of giving an explanation of what NSA is all about, the role of a song leader, and the role of giving testimony. And even more significantly, members are provided with fairly detailed instructions, or, in the language of the theater, with scripts indicating what each role involves and how best to perform or play it.

There's a list of these roles. At the discussion meeting planning meeting, the attendees go down the list and simply plug different members' names into the worksheet.

The main leadership role, assumed by the district chief or, in his absence, the assistant district chief, includes, for example, the tasks of leading the chanting in a vigorous manner, conducting the question-and-answer session, meeting with each of the guests, and providing an inspirational role model for the other members. In performing these tasks, the leader is reminded that rather than putting on the air of a great sage, he should make a point of displaying great vitality, warmth, and compassion. Furthermore, he is expected "to be able to give clear explanations of the philosophy and practice," and is instructed to "always tailor his answers and encouragement to the audience."

Answers should always be tailored to the audience. If the guests are young, then the answers should include examples they can relate to. If the questions are too mystical or one-sided, the leader must have the wisdom to change the subject or break off the question-and-answer period diplomatically.

Blanche described how in her first district, the WD District leader instructed everyone that, if someone in the meeting was going on too long or rambling or whatever, that they should just start clapping wildly and shouting, "Congratulations!!" and then the MC would just move on to the next topic on the agenda. Reeeeal "spontaneous" there...

The emcee role is also regarded as particularly important, so much so that "the success of the meeting" is said to be contingent on how well it is performed. In fact, "so much depends on the emcee" that the discussion meeting is described for him as "a battleground in which he must struggle to bring victory to the members."

Barf. How far SGI has fallen! Now the goal is to see if there's some young teen in an SGI member's family who can be press-ganged to show up and read the agenda - their youth in and of itself is supposed to "encourage" everyone! Forget about all that "struggle" nonsense - they aren't gonna. This illustrates the SGI's current "form over function" approach, in which they just identify someone and pressure that person to do it, rather than the ideal candidate volunteering from a spirit of...oh, whatever - see above paragraph 🙄 Ideally, there would be SEVERAL young people positively brimming with passion and youthful energy who would be vying to be chosen: "Me! Let ME do it this time!" "No! ME!" "Choose ME!!" Instead, now it's just some tired old fart who agrees to do it, just to get this over with and there's no one else.

Specific responsibilities include setting "the gears fo the meeting in motion" and keeping the meeting going in a rhythmical and orderly manner.

You have to wonder just how crazy they envision these (non)discussion meetings might go - will a spontaneous rave break out if it isn't carefully controlled? An unpermitted parade? A frenzy of liturgical dance?? WHAT might happen??? Enquiring minds want to know!!

The emcee must develop the ability to keep the rhythm of the meeting going by making sure that there are no pauses or interruptions. If someone is causing a disorder, he should quiet the person in a polite manner. If a baby starts crying, he should see to it that either the mother or one of the young women at the meeting takes the child to another room to calm it down.

Gendered. Misogynist.

The emcee is also charged with being "the eyes and ears of the person leading the meeting."

Before and during the meeting, he should watch guests, be on the lookout for disruptions, and in general, be aware of everything that's happening. He should inform the person leading the meeting how many guests are present and whether they are young or old, so the leader can set the rhythm of the meeting accordingly.

Yeah. NO 😄 WOW but it's been a LONG TIME since any SGI sales pitch-based recruiting session - I mean discussion meeting - had any characteristics that would fit the above instructions. Just no way. Not now. Now, it's the same old handful of longhaulers dragging themselves in to go through the motions - as usual. By rote.

In addition, the emcee is expected to talk, act, and appear in a manner that displays or exudes strength, confidence, vitality and neatness.

The emcee must speak in a vigorous, strong and clear voice, but not screaming. The way he sits, stands up and moves the table must display confidence.

This was when a small table would be moved in in front of the person who led gongyo, who would turn around to face the group. This is of course a Japanese norm, completely foreign to Westerners. How many people outside of Japan even have a low table like that, designed for someone who's sitting on the floor??

In fact, he should stand up smartly whenever he is talking. As for appearance, he should reflect the image of NSA - clean and neat clothes and personal grooming.

It has been a LOOOOOOOONG time since ANY SGI district could insist on these requirements! Now they're just lucky if they can get anyone younger than retirement age to read the agenda off, and the agenda is often handed to them right there at the meeting itself - fuhgeddabout all this "advance preparation" nonsense. Nothing happens at the SGI discussion meetings, so nobody's going to go to this much trouble just because.

And finally, the emcee is instructed to have the details of the meeting worked out and the setting in order before the meeting begins.

...as opposed to showing up and being handed a printed agenda to read off as SGI does it now.

The emcee must have a plan for the meeting. He should write up a schedule showing who will give the explanation, what songs will be sung, who will give experiences and so on, and present it to the leader at least two days prior to the meeting. The emcee must prepare for the meeting. He should check to see if the meeting place is clean and neat, that all lights work and there is an appropriate meeting table. Most of all, he should do Shakubuku for the success of the meeting.

Oh, like any of that's gonna happen! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yes, things were VERY different back in the late 1960s-early 1970s, when the SGI organization in the US was still growing. As you can see, all this has been tossed right out the window.
A couple of items:

• "the leader" - this was when the leader of the local district organizational unit (typically the MEN's leader) would assume the leadership role for the "discussion meeting". This was replaced with a "central figure", an invited "SENIOR leader" who would agree to attend and serve this "leader" function. The invited SENIOR leader would typically lead gongyo and preside over the proceedings - that's more how these meetings are arranged now.
  
• that "Shakubuku" in the last sentence? It strikes me wrong somehow. Sure, that'd be great and all for EVERYONE to bring a "guest" (#SGIGOALZ of course) but I think that having the person CHANT for the success of the meeting would be a more reasonable assignment. Also, how could the MC properly shepherd their "guest" and STILL do all that MC stuff single-mindedly??
  

In fact, you can see a newly promoted leader doing exactly that, "chanting for the success of the meeting", here, from this same time period (early 1970s).
It's been a LONG time since any of this was happening, and you can clearly see in today's (non)discussion meetings how far things have deteriorated - and that's JUST the MC part! There's a bit about the demands on the members of the group - I'll skip to just this part:

As one district chief explained during a planning meeting for senior and junior leaders within the district and which I was invited to by one of my key informants:

Make sure to tell your members to chant in rhythm with the leaders. There shouldn't be any more than one rhythm. Everyone should be together so that there is unity. And remember to have them support the leader in whatever he says; the guests won't know whether he is right or wrong. So even if you don't agree with what is being said, act as if you do. this [sic] way there is unity at the meeting and the guests will be more impressed.

Wow, huh? It's completely dishonest and oriented entirely at flimflamming and bamboozling the "guests"!
Next there's a big section on "experiences", but I'm going to give that its own post because it's a WHOLE topic on its own. Hopefully today! But Ima skip ahead a bit, to p. 177:

A fourth indication of the staged character of discussion meetings is provided by the fact that planning meetings are held at both the district and chapter level for the purpose of discussing how to improve discussion meetings and make them more successful. Although rank-and-file members (those who have not attained that status of a junior or senior leader) are not normally invited to these planning meetings, I was able to attend several of them at the invitation of both my district chief and a junior leader who was one of my key informants.

SKULLDUGGERY!! 💀

It was during these planning meetings that I became deeply sensitized to the highly orchestrated and dramaturgical character of not only the discussion meetings but of NSA's overall operation.

At this point it's important to remember that "dramaturgical" means "relating to the art or the theory of writing and putting on plays, especially for the theater" - it's all putting on a show to manipulate the unwitting guests in order to trick them into transforming into new recruits. It's ALL fake - just a façade to fool the uninformed.

A fifth consideration suggesting that staged character of discussion meetings is the fact that much of what members do and say, both verbally and nonverbally, during the course of a meeting is to appear natural and spontaneous rather than artificial and contrived.

They try. Unconvincingly.

In other words, these meetings are not to appear as staged performances or as the product of dramaturgical cooperation. This concern is evidenced by the emphasis placed on exuding sincerity and responding to calls from the emcee and to what the leader says and does with alacrity and enthusiasm. It is also suggested by some of the rituals engaged in by the emcee, as when he scans the gathering after he has called for an experience so as to foster the impression that whom he calls is a spontaneous decision rather than one that has been pre-arranged, as indicated by the fact that those called on are already listed on his meeting agenda and by the fact that members frequently know beforehand whether they will be giving an experience.

This fakery apparently was dropped decades ago; in current SGI (non)discussion meetings, not only is the person acknowledged by name as delivering/"sharing" an "experience", but the person often has it written out on a piece of paper they semi-read off.

But none of this is evident to the guest.

Rather, what transpires - who gives the explanation, who gives testimonies, and so on - is staged in such a way that it all appears as if it is spontaneous and independent of prior planning, negotiation, and decision-making among the members. As a consequence, it seems reasonable to suggest that NSA in general and the district members in particular have something of the character of a secret society.

Only without any special perks or sexiness.

This is not particularly surprising, however, when considering the nature of theatrical-like teamwork. As Erving Goffman noted in his seminal discussion of this kind of work:

... if a performance is to be effective it will be likely that the extent of cooperation that makes this possible will be concealed and kept secret... The audience may appreciate, of course, that all members of the team are held together by a bond that no member of the audience shares ... But (the members of the team) form a secret society ... insofar as a secret is kept as to how they are cooperating together to maintain a particular definition of the situation.

This will all be very familiar to the people trying to recruit new suckers into MLM schemes/scams, too.

The sixth and final consideration suggesting the appropriateness of viewing these meetings from a dramaturgical perspective is the fact that they do not "go on" unless there is an audience, that is unless guests are in attendance.

Before Ikeda was excommunicated by Nichiren Shoshu and transformed the SGI into his own personal worship society, there was a certain "rhythm" to the year. February and August were "Shakubuku Months", and there was an "introductory meeting" scheduled every week. If it came to meeting start time and there was no "guest", the meeting was halted and everybody was sent out to try and find something with a pulse to drag in, at which point the meeting would proceed:

When I first discovered this I was somewhat startled, for I had assumed that these meetings were conducted in their entirety regardless of the presence or absence of a new face. But as I learned one evening, this is not the case. Following the chanting session on this particular evening, the leader emphasized that since these meetings were for guests and none were present, we would have to go out and round up one or two. So the members in attendance were divided into Shakubuku teams and sent out in search of prospects. Although three of the four teams returned empty-handed, one had managed to corral a single guest. But one is all that is needed; and so the formal meeting began as usual.

For "formal meeting" read "sales pitch". By the late-1980s, perhaps earlier, instead of being every discussion meeting, this format was restricted to the "introductory meetings" during the Shakubuku Months. However, he's describing something that happened every single time. No meeting unless a "guest" was present.

During my tenure as a member I saw this particular scenario re-enacted on four different occasions, and on one occasion we were sent back into the streets three times in succession. Around 8:30 p.m., after the third try and with one guest in hand, the show finally got on the road.

The author describes himself as "an active participant observer for nearly a year and a half".

Perhaps even more illustrative of the theatrical character of these meetings and the fact that they are staged for guests is the following course of events that transpired one evening during a meeting I attended:

Although no guests were present when the chanting began, a young couple came in toward the end of the chanting session and situated themselves on the floor at the back of the room. But apparently the emcee didn't notice them; for upon completion of the chanting session he didn't jump up and yell out: 'Welcome to a vigorous and happy meeting of the [name here] District of NSA!' But the district leader, who had apparently seen this couple come in, punched the emcee in the ribs and whispered that some guests were present. And so this member immediately assumed his role of the emcee and proceeded as usual by springing to his feet, putting on a big smile, and blurting out, 'Welcome to a vigorous and happy meeting of the [name here] District of NSA!'

"Vigorous and happy" 🤣

In light of the foregoing considerations and observations, there seems to be little question about the appropriateness of conceptualizing NSA discussion meetings as "shows" or presentations staged by the members, who constitute a performance team, before an audience composed of recruits or "guests".

This was what was going on BEFORE Dickeda swanned into the US in 1990 and "changed our direction" - because of what Sensei did, the bottom fell out of the discussion meetings. Instead of weekly meetings, Dickeata dictated that these meetings would only happen monthly from now on - and of COURSE Die-Sucky Scamsei's word is LAW in his own cult of personality, where the membership follows a PERSON instead of any "law". Post-excommunication, at the (non)discussion meetings I attended, there was at least one guest every single time, but they never came back. The ONLY person I saw join post-excommunication was a formerly homeless woman with two small children who had moved in with an SGI member (who had unethically selected her at the abused-women's shelter she was living at, where he volunteered computer classes for the residents). She was able to see it didn't work; she ended up quitting.
Now what SGI-USA is left with is an ever-shrinking membership of mostly Baby-Boom generation and older individuals who mostly joined during the time period described in this study. SGI has completely lost what vitality it once had; now it's simply waiting around for the grave - and oblivion.

"Wade! Good to see you back buddy!" Nathan said aloud as he and F approached Wade and Tina, the two breaking their embrace before looking to their friends.
Wade chuckled a bit as he responded to Nathan's greeting, Tina giving a pleasant smile as she stood behind him. "Same to you, man. How're things here?"
"Better than any words I could use for the situation!" Looking behind him, he gazed at a group of the worker drones that were rescued from the factory, having been brought aboard in order to transport them to a safer location. Their faces were of varied gratefulness and smiles as they made conversation with some of the troops onboard. "The rescue-ees are happy to be out of that place, far as I can tell!"
"They sure look like it." Wade said with a pleased smile, admiring the success of his and the Coalition's efforts as Nathan's friend Kurtis came over to the four.
Catching sight of Tina, the veteran drone gave a sly look as he correctly guessed the identity of Wade's accomplice. "Oh, and I see you found your girl you were telling me about."
The drone in question gave a blush of embarrassment as Wade held her hand, chuckling smugly as he introduced Tina. "Ah, yeah. Nathan, Kurtis, F, this is my girlfriend Tina. She's one of the best pilots I've met and known in my life, along with her sister Jasmine."
Tina's blush intensified heavily at Wade's words, a laugh breaching her mouth as she spoke to Wade's colleagues. "Well, I don't like to boast, but my sister and I DID fly for the military a while back."
Nathan and Kurtis gave impressed laughs as F chuckled at the amusing meeting, the former of the duo speaking as he shook Tina's hand. "Heh, well it's a proud pleasure to meet you, Miss Tina! You've got quite the partner with you, I'd say. He helped save F and Gerard from an accident during our time on Ceres."
Tina raised a hand to her mouth in shock as she looked to Wade, surprised by the news of his heroics at his new job before chuckling. "Well, it's not too surprising, I'd probably be dead if he didn't come in to help us." Remembering that F was involved in her rescue too, she glanced to the disassembly drone before quietly adding, "You too, darling."
F gave a thankful smile at the pilot drone as Wade spoke up on Tina's statement on her rescue. "Well, I'd also be done for if you didn't save me back there, with that disassembly drone squad." Tina nodded as Nathan looked to the drone couple in surprise at their stated feat.
"More of them? How many? Three? Fo-" The miner drone asked as Wade answered him mid-sentence.
"Three, and they put up a nasty fight. One almost got me before Tina shot at her with one of those guns these militia guys brought. A trooper must've dropped it during the fighting." Nathan gave an uncomfortable look of shock as Wade added, "One of them looked kinda like you too."
Tina pulled out her gun before holding it at attention, Nathan nodding in admiration of her efforts as she spoke up. "Think I could keep this one? We pilots usually carry sidearms like these, but I lost mine when they kidnapped me aboard the station in orbit."
Nathan and Kurtis looked to each other before nodding in agreement. "Sure, gonna need a holster though. Wouldn't want it to fall out that nice coat there, would we?" While Nathan gave his answer, Kurtis was already heading to the storage bays at the back of the ship, planning on grabbing the sizable holster wrap for Tina's weapon.
"Of course." Tina replied as Kurtis grabbed the desired gear, shutting the cargo door as he returned to the group. Taking the holster in her hand, she handed the pistol to Wade before speaking in between her efforts to attach the holster to her upper leg. "Thanks for the compliment, by the way."
"Don't mention it." Nathan replied back as F stepped up in between the group, wanting to add her own praise as the group looked to her.
"Glad to see so many together in arms here, especially when it's work colleagues like the boys here." Looking to Tina, she continued. "And Nathan's right, Miss Tina. Your partner is quite the guy, I'm a little surprised he didn't join the service. Him and his brother would've made great men if they fought in the ranks."
The positive air was quickly shattered upon the mention of Ron. Nathan, Wade, and the others all looked to F as her eyes became golden rings, the warrior drone realizing her mistake too late as she began to raise a hand to her face.
"...Yeah. Yes, we sure would have." Wade said solemnly, nodding lightly with a slight smile in his attempt to lighten the comment and, in turn, the mood. His smile faltered once again as he saw the others still frowning in sorrow, Wade joining them shortly after before remembering something. "Uh... Nathan? You did bring his body back here, right?"
Nathan nodded hesitantly as he glanced to the cargo bays at the back of the ship. "Yeah, I uh... We put him near the others we managed to recover before we left."
Tina listened with concerned eyes as she held tightly onto Wade's hand, the former worker drone tightening his own grip while speaking further to Nathan. "Good. Maybe, after this is all over, we can... Make preparations for a service. Ron deserves that at the least."
"So... h-he's in one of... those?" Tina asked dreadfully, observing the body bags lying next to each other in front of one of the cargo bay doors before looking back to Nathan, who looked down at the floor before replying.
"...Yep." Initially, Tina started to move, morbidly concerned over Ron's exact fate before stopping herself, still holding Wade's hand as she stood next to him again. Catching a glimpse of her attempt to see Ron, Nathan raised a digital eyebrow at her. "You, uh... want to see him?"
Wade looked down to Tina, who returned the gesture as they pondered over the uncomforting idea. She admittedly didn't want to see Ron, fearful of seeing what was left of him after that battle, but in a twisted way, knowing Wade wouldn't lie to her about a close relative like Ron being dead, she desperately felt the need for even the slightest sense of closure.
Looking to each other, Tina finally built her strength up, giving the faintest nod to Wade as her answer. Accepting her willingness, Wade slowly looked to Nathan, who needed no further gestures or words as he slowly walked over to the body bags, Wade, Tina, and their colleagues in tow. Upon reaching the bags, Nathan knelt down as his friends stopped behind him, Wade and Tina watching as he slowly unzipped the bag open. Despite her effort to be brave, Tina couldn't help but let out a horrified gasp upon seeing Ron's body, immediately noticing the large wound with dark, dried blood at his chest.
Nathan shook his head in dismay as he looked upon the sight of his fallen friend in the flayed bag. "It was when we made our second attempt in raiding the factory back there. We... We managed to pass through most of the halls without much trouble, but... we we're ambushed as we got close to the conversion room."
"G, the disassembly drone that helped the company abduct me, attacked us, along with several other troopers he brought with him." Wade added, him and Tina holding each other tightly as he continued. "We fought them off well enough, but G got an upper hand on me. He almost killed me, but.... Ron got in the way." Tina felt herself beginning to cry as she collapsed into Wade's chest, the former worker drone embracing her ever more tightly as she wept for their friend.
F shook her head in dismay, disappointed in herself as she spoke up. "I could've saved him, if I hadn't let myself get beat down like that. I-"
"F!" Wade said sternly, F ceasing her self-degrading as he tried to ease her guilt. "We did the best we could. If anything, it could've gone a lot worse."
Kurtis patted F on her back as he spoke up on his co-worker. "He was a good man, tried to bring out the best in people. Taught Wade that ideal well, too." He looked to Wade with a smile, the drone taking the compliment with the same gesture as he lightly patted Tina on her back too.
"*sniff* Y-Yes... He d-did try to make life brighter with his actions." Tina croaked as she slowly lifted her head up off of Wade, wiping the digital drops off her face as she added, "He... Him and Wade did well to so many with their farm they had back home, Jasmine and I helped transport their harvests all across the colonies."
The group gave looks and nods of admiration at the labor Tina described, Wade nodding in affirmation as he added, "Yeah, we held that place up for a long while. But if it weren't for the recent storms that ran through this place, we probably would still be farming." He began to chuckle slightly as he noted the events after the storm. "Heh, then again, we probably wouldn't have gone to Ceres if that was the case. So, I'm quite glad life changed our course on that endeavor."
Nathan was about to speak on the matter, but was stopped as Kelly walked out of the cockpit area, speaking to Wade specifically. "Mr. Wade? Our operative and her boss wants to see you and some of your team, says it's about the trouble you and the others went through."
Wade and Tina looked to each other with raised eyebrows before looking to their friends, F raising a hand as she spoke to the couple. "Well, you heard her. Let's get up there." Looking to Nathan, she motioned for him to follow her before glancing to Kurtis, who nodded to her before kneeling down to seal Ron's body bag.
Turning back to Wade and Tina, F smirked at them as they quickly made their way up to the small bridge of the ship, Tina speaking to Wade about the interior and where to go. "I do remember these ships a bit, now that I think about it. There should be a smaller room at the top above us. Come on."
Holding her hand, Wade and Tina made their way into the cockpit, F and Nathan close behind as the four walked up the small steps to the pilot seats. Right next to the ascending steps were another set of such steps, albeit going the other way into another room as Tina mentioned. The lover drones walked up the second set of steps as they entered the room, catching the sound of a conversation in their ears.
"Yeah Tess, they did a number on the security forces from what I've been told by Mr. Kurtis. He seems quite pro-" J stopped as she heard a startled gasp coming from the entrance near the cockpit, spotting her requested visitors as they took notice of her.
Wade, however, was immediately in shock, Tina also spooked by the familiar face as her love drew a sword before holding it out defensively. F and Nathan looked to the two in surprise as the former raised her arms slightly as to calm down Wade, knowing this J wasn't an enemy.
"Whoa there, easy now." The human hologram said with her hands raised as Wade and Tina gave a faint glare at J, who stared unamused with her hands to her hips.
Easy, Mr. Wade. I'm a friend." J stated as Wade kept his blade trained at her.
"Didn't we just kill you out there earlier?" Tina asked as she held onto Wade's arm, J smirking as she took in the amusing detail.
"Oh, yes. I believe you must've taken out one of my clones, not surprised. I killed a few myself back there." The corporate drone replied as Wade lowered his sword, surprised at J's words as she looked to him.
"Clones?" Tina said in bewilderment, confounded by the idea of multiples of the same drone running around.
"So, there's more of you?" Wade asked as he swapped his sword back for a hand.
"Indeed there are, Mr. Wade. Effective disassembly drones get cloned more often." J answered as she cringed slightly, remembering part of the reason she ended up here. "Though, admittedly I wasn't efficient enough recently. I'm a clone of one of the old units dispatched about two decades ago, before the Disassembly Division was officially instated."
Tina raised an eyebrow at J's explanation. "Recently? If you were away all that time, what could've possibly stopped you now?"
The murder drone groaned in slight annoyance as she reluctantly explained her answer. "Well, the colony we were supposedly sent to wipe out was quite persistent. During one of our raids, some brat with a ray gun blasted me in two." Regaining her composure, J flicked her hair with a smirk. "Then again, my clones should be better than they are, the Administrator seems to have a dislike towards me, as far as I can tell."
Wade and Tina glanced at each other as they took in the news, perplexed at the story they were hearing as the former spoke up. "Well, I sure hope so. Your clone didn't put up as much of a fight as I was expecting."
"Right..." J said with a look of disappointment before clearing her throat. "But besides that, we don't have time for THAT kind of backstory. We've got a lot of talk to do, Mr. Wade."
The holographic human raised a finger, drawing Wade and Tina's attention as she spoke. "Say, didn't J tell me about a human friend you had? A 'brother' guy?"
J nodded as she now also became curious over their missing acquaintant. "Ah yes, Ron, I believe. Do you know where he is, Wade?"
The two drones looked down in sorrow as Wade answered in dismay. "He uh... he didn't make it."
J allowed a concerned look to breach her shield of confident pride as her human friend spoke up, sounding sad at the news. "Oh, I uh, I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. W- er... Carter."
"It's alright," Wade replied as he held Tina's hand, looking up to J and the hologram before continuing. "at least he's not hurting anymore."
"My... condolences, Mr. Carter." J said, calling Wade by his last name now as she recovered from the tragic news. "But, it seems you've found someone else important. Who's your friend?"
Wade perked up a bit as he prepared to introduce Tina again. "Ah, yes. This is Tina Fowley, my girlfriend. She was among those captured by the company, I got her out before they could turn her, however."
"She's a pilot too." Nathan chirped from behind Wade, J and her boss stifling laughs as they took in the amusing description of Wade's partner.
"Well, she's quite the cutie, I'll say." The holo-human said in amusement, Tina blushing at the compliment as J spoke as well.
"Indeed she is, good find, Mr. Carter." Chuckling to herself, she remembered that she hadn't even formally met Wade earlier, prompting her to return the effort. "Well, now's as good a time as any to introduce ourselves." Looking to the hologram, J spoke. "Though you probably know who I am, name's J. And this is my boss, Tessa."
Looking to the human girl with a pleasant smile, he spoke to her. "Well, pleased to meet you, Mrs. Tessa."
"Good to meet ya too, Wade!" Tessa replied energetically before bringing herself back to a more serious stance, Wade and Tina feeling a bit surprised by the change of air as she spoke further. "And as much as I hate to cut the pleasantries so short, J and I have some important things to brief you on. So, take a seat and get comfy, everyone."
Noting the pair of chairs in front of the small table J and Tessa were standing on the other side of, the couple took them as Nathan and F stood behind them, simply listening in as J began to explain the matter at hand. "So, you both are probably wondering what this whole mess was all about, correct?"
The two drones nodded as Tina spoke up. "I heard it was having to do something with being recruited for the Disassembly Division, that group you spoke of a second ago. Why did they need to steal me away from my sister up there?"
"Well, the thing is, they didn't." Tessa answered, putting her hands to her hips as her companion explained further.
"Indeed, a simple memory transfer and body scan would've sufficed, but it seems the Administrator was in a bit of a rush." Crossing her arms, J continued in disgruntlement. "From what we gathered, this was done by her as per request by the company CEO, Mr. Jenson. He wanted the Administrator to recruit more drones under a new model of disassembly drone, with slight upgrades that would presumably remove most of the persistent issues each of us have." Shaking her head in disappointment, J finished with, "But, it's clear she cared little for how they were acquired, and way too far overboard with her efforts."
Wade held back his anger as he felt his certainty on the ones responsible grow with J's explanation. "So, it's true? Your people did all this? Got my brother and countless others killed for us?"
The corporate drone seemed to give a sluggish wave of her hand as she replied to Wade. "Well, you see, this whole ordeal is much more complex than it seems." Readying a holo-projector from her hand as it showed the image of a worker drone, dressed in a maid uniform. The hair was silver, two strips of it going down the sides of its head, as well as bearing a bow at the top of it all. Though the hologram made it hard to tell certain details, the drone's eyes appeared faintly as yellow through the blue hue from the hologram light.
Wade, Tina, and their companions eyed the seemingly innocent worker drone in puzzlement as J spoke again. "Now, you should count yourselves lucky, cause what I'm about to tell you is something corporate wouldn't let me spew out to anyone under certain statuses." Looking to Tessa, she continued with a sly smirk. "Then again, it'd probably be forced out of us anyway later on even if we didn't decide to tell you. So, now would be the best time to give you a run-down of the truth we have to share."
"Truth?" Wade asked with a raised hand, J nodding in affirmation before replying.
"Yes." Clearing her throat, J began. "You see, the Administrator was not a creation of JCJenson. At least, not in the way they intended. In fact, she was once a normal worker drone, just like you and I were." Wade raised an eyebrow as J's holo-projector shifted to show a building, a large, very old looking manor that went up a couple of stories high. As Wade and his cohorts observed the structure, J continued her story about her and this Administrator's origins.
"A long time ago, at this place we'll call Elliott Manor, my boss, who was still a child at the time, brought in a few worker drones left outside in a dump near the mansion, mostly composed of scrapped worker drone bodies. Upon bringing us in, Tess would fix us up so we could be her friends. I myself, along with three other drones, were her closest companions. Her family weren't so keen on having us around, but, to keep their daughter happy and to make us useful, Mr. and Mrs. Elliott put us to work keeping the place tidy." The disassembly drone's projector shifted again to show J and her three fellow workers, dressed in the same maid attire J was shown in earlier. Wade and Tina stared at two of them, as they resembled the disassembly drones they fought earlier, most notably N and V.
"Among the four of us here, THIS one would be the biggest problem." The hologram zoomed into the worker drone displayed earlier, postured in a strange, slouched over posture.
"Her name is Cyn, and, unlike J, V and N there, she was more broken than I had surmised back then. Spoke like some old artificial voice generator thing." Tessa stated, pointing at the highlighted drone before Tina decided to speak up on the backstory.
"How broken? Was there something wrong with her coding?" She said as she put a hand to her core.
J nodded lightly as she gave her answer. "Most likely. Do you remember the protocol tape for proper disposal of worker units? Seen it at all?"
Tina and Wade shivered a bit as they thought of the presumed tape J spoke of, dread creeping in from their memories of seeing it as the latter of the duo answered. "I think so, once during a little maintenance time I had years back. I think it was called... 'Zombie Drones'?"
"That's exactly the one." J said with a nod before continuing. "Well, if you saw it all the way through, the pie chart diagram points out the outcomes for OS complications should a worker core be improperly terminated. Out of those outcomes, the smallest, least likely one was 'potentially hazardous mutations'." Pointing to Cyn on the hologram, J continued further. "As for Cyn here, she befell said mutations, and they would come to not only affect her, but all of us at the manor too."
Tina's eyes went wide as she started to click the pieces together, recalling herself reading up on the incident J was hinting at years earlier during a class she took at the college she and Wade attended. "Wait... You, you don't mean SHE was the one who caused the Elliott Gala Massacre?"
J nodded in affirmation as Wade spoke up, confused at the revelation. "Wait, I remember looking into that too. Didn't the news say it was some mass murderer that did it?"
"That they did." Tessa replied as she added to the story. "However, that was a cover-up by the company to hide part of what really happened."
Pulling up what appeared to be a large room full of people inside, J explained the tragedy shown on the projector. "Tessa's parents didn't treat the drones under their service well, and Cyn seemed to despise them for it. On that day during a gala hosted by the Elliotts, Cyn, utilizing the mutations I mentioned, slaughtered the entire attending party there." Glancing to Tessa, J finished with, "Tess and I tried to stop her, but... it was too late."
Holding their hands to their mouths, Wade and Tina looked on in horror, Nathan and F sharing similar dismay as the four looked to Tessa. Knowing their desire to hear how she was spared, Tessa spoke to them. "Despite seeing her kill my parents and everyone in that room with my own eyes, Cyn spared me from the carnage. Took me away to some place so I could be kept quiet."
Raising a hand, F spoke up. "Well, wait a minute, how did Cyn join the company after all that?"
"Good question." J replied, pulling up an image of Cyn and a man, whom Wade recognized as Halloway before the corporate drone explained. "Upon the arrival of law enforcement and agents sent by the company, they found Cyn, who had already turned me and the other worker drones from the manor into the first disassembly drones. After some chatter between the two, Dr. Edgar Halloway, a simple materials recovery officer at the time, struck a deal with her. Talking with the authorities, they managed to convince them to keep the incident on the down low while they took Cyn and her drones in for study. Through said study, addition of protocols and official installation of Cyn into higher company positions, not to mention the creation of the Disassembly Drone Division, the rest is history."
The four drones looked on in stunned shock, taking in Tessa and J's story with unease as Wade spoke up. "So, this new body, the crazy shit that we just went through... it's all cause of this Cyn being? And those who are helping her?"
"That's right." J answered as Tina raised a finger, still concerned over the capabilities of the Administrator as she spoke.
"But, how did she convert you all into what you are now? What were these 'mutations' exactly?"
Tessa sighed a bit as she prepared to explain the origins of this horrible program. "Well, from what information I could gather before I got out of Cyn's clutches a while back, the researchers put to work studying Cyn and her abnormalities came to regard the latter as some kind of program, which grew stronger and more capable quite fast as it was kept under the company's leash. Eventually, they gave it a name: AbsoluteSolver." Pulling out what looked like a smartcomm, Tessa flicked her finger over it as she explained further. "Despite all logic, the AbsoluteSolver program, or, Solver, could generate various things out of thin air, as well as manipulate objects and living beings in many ways. To be blunt, it's like some kind of freaky magic powers for drones.
"Seeing that they could learn a lot from this program, as well as use Cyn's abilities to wring out all kinds of products and items for them to sell and use, the company instated the Solver Project, a research group dedicated to understanding the AS and its potential." Raising a finger, Tessa looked to Wade as she finished her explanation on the Solver. "Said program has been branched out to several other planets over the years, helping to spread this virus as far as possible for purposes we're certain aren't good, given that one of those planets got devastated by an experiment one of the teams did involving the virus."
The news that this infection brought harm to one of the colony worlds didn't sit well with the lover drones, both of them looking on in dismay as J gave more details. "And with that in mind, this recent effort has only cemented our belief that Cyn is up to something sinister. So once we reach the base here in Nevada, we have to make preparations for bringing this Solver Project to a halt... BEFORE it can harm any more people."
Smirking deviously, Tessa raised a finger as she glanced to Wade, who looked to her with concern as she spoke. "By the way Mr. Carter, that Halloway guy you ran into earlier? He leads one of the main teams working on the project."
Wade scoffed in annoyance he was reminded of that man. "Doesn't surprise me, seemed like he was really close to the Administrator from what I saw." Then, thinking on the reason for this briefing he was attending, Wade looked to J and Tessa curiously. "Why are you telling us this?"
J crossed her arms as she explained. "Because, Mr. Carter, YOU are the only disassembly drone we managed to recover from that place. And, given your exceptional performance there, your help would be much appreciated in our mission."
"Mission?" Tina said with a raised eyebrow. "So we're not done yet?"
"For us, not in the slightest. We've got some explaining to do with the government officials stationed at the base we're heading to. As for you all," J answered before looking to the four, all of them returning the glance as she continued. "...that depends on what you all have to say. Can you lend us a hand?"
Glancing to each other, Wade and Tina gazed into one another before nodding in agreement, turning back to J and Tessa before giving their decision. "Well, after what I just went through, and what happened to my brother... I'm sure as hell gonna bring those bastards to justice in one form or another."
"Yes, Wade and I have some talking to do with this 'Dr. Halloway' fellow before this is all over." Tina added, her and Wade holding each others hand as J gave a smirk at their vigorous determination.
"I'm glad to hear you two feel the same on the matter." J said as Tessa put her hands to her hips, slumped slightly as she spoke in a disappointed tone.
"Unfortunately, it may be a minute before we see some action. Once we reach the base, you all will find a place to rest for the time being. Since it's a military base, it should be safe from any major retribution attempts by those blokes at the company." Pulling out her smartcomm again, she continued once more. "As for us, we'll talk to the leaders there and see what their decision will be on the matter."
The quartet seemed to grow concerned over that last part, Nathan raising a hand before speaking his mind. "So, if they say no? Does that mean...?"
J and Tessa glanced to each other before the former answered the veteran drone. "Well, in that case, while it will be harder without official military support, the Coalition will take us wherever we need them to in order to put a stop to the Administrator. Shouldn't be much to worry about."
Taking this somewhat comforting news to heart, Tina and Wade nodded in understanding before the latter spoke to the operatives. "Well, that's good to hear. Whenever you do get an answer, give us a heads up."
"We will, Mr. Carter." J replied to Wade before shifting in her stance, Wade and his friends standing up together as their disassembly drone superior spoke once more. "With all that said, you're all dismissed. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask."
"Thanks for clearing this up, Mrs. J. You too, Tessa." Wade said gratefully before turning to the exit, Tina walking with him as F and Nathan walked over to the operatives.
"Wade? Do you mind coming down to the bay below? I... I have something to show you." Wade nodded to her before they made their way down, the four people behind them continuing the chatter as the couple went to have their long overdue privacy.
Stepping out of the cockpit behind them, Wade and Tina sighed in comfort as they saw the troops busy with their tasks, not giving a glance to the two as they walked close to the sealed door of the transport. Admiring the enormous view the large window in the door gave for a moment, the two drones looked to each other as Tina dug into her pocket. "I was hoping to do this when we got back home, but... I got this from Eridanus while I was visiting." Finding her token of love to Wade, she pulled out the small box she showed off on the call earlier, opening it to reveal her present.
Wade admired the blue gemstone with wide eyes as Tina pulled it out with great care. "Wow... It's beautiful."
Tina chuckled as she extended the gem's necklace band out. "I knew you would, I just happened to stumble upon it while exploring the forest during a tour." Putting the two necklace bands around Wade's neck, she clipped the present together before pulling her arms back, adoring Wade's new add-on as she finished her sentence. "I felt it would be something nice for you to remember me by, while we're away from each other."
Wade smiled at Tina as he expressed his appreciation for the gift. "It certainly will." Stiffling a chuckle, the former worker drone held Tina's hand holding the box as he spoke further. "But, no matter how far apart we are, nothing could fill the space you hold in my heart."
"Same in mine, dear." Tina replied as she gazed into Wade's eyes, noting the faint green in his yellowed visor as she looked on in hopeful amusement. "And yet, even after all they did, I can still see those eyes. Changed from the soft, cool grass to the warmth of a blazing sun." She said while putting the box away, then placing a hand onto Wade's face as he looked off with a blush.
"Tina, I..." Wade began, unsure of how to put his thoughts to words as he tried to find them. "I don't know what they did to me, but I won't let it ruin our relationship." Holding her shoulders, Wade spoke to Tina further. "You're the most beautiful being I've seen in the whole universe, your warmth, your flight prowess... I want to protect that. I want to protect you."
"Oh, Wade." Tina murmured as the two touched their heads to one another, holding each other close in their efforts to provide affection. Such affection intensified as the two joined their metal lips, sharing a long kiss as they enjoyed their moment of awkward romance together.
...
Location: New Nellis Staryards, Nevada
The Chameleon transports zoomed over the large military air base as they arrived at their destination, several A-20 planes flying about over the base as they either carried out flight sorties or, more likely, investigated the arriving craft coming towards the base. After about an hour of flying over the country, the Coalition-USN task force finally arrived at the designated area to begin unloading their rescued drones to an area they could be protected more efficiently.
As the transport began to descend, Wade, Tina, and their friends observed the sight outside the window, spotting several landed aircraft and even a few docked warships. They admired the many ships resting for repair and refurbishment while they prepared to land and disembark for the base outside.
In the small bridge of the dropship, one of the two pilots tapped a button on the control panel, putting a microphone to their mouth before speaking into it. "Base Control, this is Transport Chi-729-B, we've got assets from the recent op lead by Captain Preston aboard. Request permission to land."
"Permission granted, Chi-729. Welcome back." The officer on the other end replied as the transport descended further, two lightningrod jets breaking off as they permitted the craft to land on their grounds below them.

I'm trying to create an excel worksheet for quality purposes. The idea is to ensure that the words are within the standard statement. However, I'm having a trouble with broken lines.
For example: Standard statement is "The greater good"
CountIf formula =CountIf(C3, "the greater good")
Problem encountered: Sometimes there's a broken line. Example
The (entered) Greater good
Since it is not in the same sentence, the countif would appear as 0. However, I'm trying to have it resulted to 1 since all of the words exists.
What can I improve?
edited refer to picture in the comment box
Edited edited** already sorted by the suggestion regarding the break line. Thank you everyone for your suggestions and recommendations! I appreciate you all ❤️

Hi, I've been thinking about this question and would like some outside opinions because I feel like I have to be missing something. I also don't want to ask a bunch of coworkers and come off as dissing the teacher.
I'm a teacher aide in two second grade classrooms in a Choice private school. I did go to school to be a teacher. I completed everything except one 10 week student teaching (but I made up the credits and graduated). I've worked at those school for about 3.5 years. 1.5 were spent with K4. This is my second year in 2nd grade.
Backstory: My one teacher is chronically absent. She is being forced to retire after this school year. Her back and legs are causing hee so much pain she can't come to school and work. I've been the only constant presence for these kids these last 6 months. My teacher has only been a full time teacher her for about 7 years. She subbed for a lot of her life. I end up teaching a lot, although it's been awesome having subs on most days as of late. I take care of most of the stuff in the classroom and come in early and stay late to try to make sure everything is as it should be.
She basically doesn't use the school's science or English curriculum. We have a new math curriculum (we used to use Saxon until we couldn't get any more physical books. Now we have Math Expressions), but she doesn't teach it as intended. She doesn't use a lot of the materials that came with it.
For English, our school uses Shirely which is what I grew up with. The student books are still in storage. The student workbook are in their desks, unused. They have only used the sentence books, but she doesn't teach it the Shirely way. These kids will go on to 3rd grade... behind. She thinks they have to master each part of speech before doing sentences. It never occurred to her that we could go through them... as a class. I never even knew where the TE book was until like a week ago. I'm not even convinced she knows how to do it. She uses tons of superteacher worksheets and random ones she finds online. Sometimes the answer key isn't right. Some of the stuff is confusing. Instead of using the Shirely songs and videos, she picks random stuff from on YouTube.
For science, she doesn't use the book. She prints off all these black and white packets that the kids frequently lose. Lots of repetitive questions. Everything is writing stuff out that frankly feels like wastes of time sometimes because by the time everyone has the answers down, a chunk of the kids are now talking, making noises, and distracting each other. Sometimes I don't even know what the question is asking either. Sometimes the answer isn't actually in the text (and it's not an opinion or inference question).
I've talked a little with one of subs (who taught in the upper grades for many years at the school), and she clearly thinks that not using the English curriculm is wrong. On the days she's there, it's like she makes it her mission to teach how they should be taught.
Math is now being taught by the other 2nd grade teacher. We are units behind with only a couple weeks left and won't be able to finish the book. There were too many days spent not doing lessons or using materials not from the curriculum (which they didn't master. They are still very much struggling).
I just don't understand. How do you not know where you NEED to be if at all possible? If you are picking random topics for science, how do you know you are meeting standards? All of this goes against everything I was taught in college. If the kids were thriving, I wouldn't be worried. They aren't though.
And FWIW, the other teacher doesn't use the curriculum for social studies either, and I can't say I understand. That retired teacher sub doesn't even agree with some of the stuff in these worksheets (like money being an example of scarcity).
I very much try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I naturally believe they know better than me, so I hate saying anything. Am I missing something or is/was my teacher just not great at teaching? She feels like the kind of teachers I grew up with in the 90s and early 00s, although my teachers were better I think. I understand supplementing with materials every once in a while... or if the book is missing a lot of stuff. But never using the curriculum and it's worksheets? Or using it only a quarter of the way so that it appears to confuse the kids so it must not work? To be clear, I've never heard them talk about the curriculum being awful or old or anything.
I'll say this because I feel like someone may ask, we don't have anyone in charge of curriculum or looking over lesson plans. They submit their block plans to the drive I think, but I'm pretty sure they aren't looked at.

I'm creating a lesson plan for a hybrid World History and Language Arts class for high-school level and want to begin the year with excerpts from Poetics to get the students thinking about how they can critique literature with more than just "I liked the characters" or "It was boring."
I'm also interested in bringing in some ideas from other topics as they come up in our core texts, and I found the section below that would be a good springboard to discuss logic/critical thinking. Unfortunately, I'm having my own problems arriving at the same conclusion as Aristotle, so I don't know how I could expect teens to get there.
(I have some ideas of where I'm going wrong, but in the interest of length, I'll just say that perhaps the word "elements" in the last sentences only refers to the elements of the "constituent parts," which must not be referring back to the previous paragraph?)

Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a higher type. They differ in that Epic poetry admits but one kind of metre and is narrative in form. They differ, again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no limits of time. This, then, is a second point of difference; though at first the same freedom was admitted in Tragedy as in Epic poetry.
Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar to Tragedy: whoever, therefore knows what is good or bad Tragedy, knows also about Epic poetry. All the elements of an Epic poem are found in Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found in the Epic poem.

I want the students to make a diagram of the overlap and differences between Tragedy and Epic poetry, but I'm not sure I even know what my diagram would look like. I at first thought a Venn diagram because the first paragraph seems like they each have their own elements and shared elements. But then I get to the last sentences, and I'm confused because that sentence would indicate to me a diagram of concentric circles of Tragedy being inside Epic poetry (kind of like all bananas are fruit, but not all fruits are bananas).
Can anyone help me walk through this?

I hope this isn't a dumb question - I am the parent of a fourth grade girl who was diagnosed with dyslexia recently and this is all pretty new to me. I hope I'm missing something, actually, because I'm confused and pissed and sad.
This ended up being longer than my single question - I guess I am actually really pissed off and sad about the last nine months in general, and I am completely open to any feedback, advice, or ideas about what to do now and how to help my kid. This is the first time I wrote all of this down and the irony of writing a novel on a dyslexia subreddit is not lost on me.
I'm leaving it lol.
Cora has always been brilliant and weird and loud, but over the last few years, it became apparent that she was having a harder time....stopping. Stopping talking, stopping moving, stopping yelling - it was just endless and exhausting for everyone around her. (Except at school. She is and was perfectly behaved at school - she has literally never gotten so much as a note home about goofing off in class.) Cora hit a wall in third grade - the hyperactivity was finally wearing her out, too, and annoying her friends. She finally asked for some help slowing down.
She was tested for ADHD and the general host of common mental health conditions last fall, and to no one's surprise, was diagnosed with ADHD-combined type, as well as anxiety symptoms that the psychologist described as significant enough to warrant a GAD diagnosis…but that she strongly suspected were a perfectly rational reaction to the very real problems Cora’s impulsiveness caused in her life.
This was exactly my experience as someone diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. It turns out that the consequences of constantly losing my car keys, forgetting appointments, and impulsively spending money I didn’t have were making me anxious and stressed, not the other way around. I had expected similar results for Cora and I was glad this was happening now - she could skip the years of totally ineffective treatment and misdiagnoses that I went through before being diagnosed and successfully treated.
What we were not expecting at all was the additional diagnosis of "specific learning disorder with reading impairment" noted in the report. I had no idea what this meant. The psychologist did not use the word "dyslexia" in her written evaluation, a decision which resulted in another 8 months of confusion and (probably unnecessary) testing detailed below. She explained to us that Cora could have dyslexia, but that her testing wasn't granular enough to be sure - that there was a chance it was "something else" and the SLD diagnosis was an umbrella term that covered both dyslexia and conditions unknown. (I have no idea what she was referring to and the general weirdness about using the word dyslexia was something I noticed with the school, too. I am still confused by this and other interactions where I get the distinct feeling people aren’t telling me something important.)
It was almost September, so the psychologist recommended pursuing testing with the school; this seemed to be a reasonable next step. They would test Cora and determine exactly what was going on, if anything. This whole part of the report was very much characterized as an incidental finding - something to follow up on, but nothing alarming given Cora’s history of good grades.
"Maybe she was just tired after a long day of testing,” the doctor explained. “But it also seemed like she wasn't hearing certain letters correctly." Years of speech therapy had helped Cora correct all but a few minor issues - but combined with this potential reading issue, maybe an audiologist should test her again. Get her hearing tested, start medication for ADHD, and see what the school says about her reading - that was the plan, no big deal.
I wasn't worried, but I figured it couldn't hurt to see what other help was available. I learned that we have a branch of a big tutoring nonprofit in our city that offers Orton-Gillingham instruction at no charge - something I soon realized would cost hundreds of dollars per month at other centers. Free is good! I submitted Cora's application and the report from the psychologist (with the ADHD/GAD/SLD all clearly noted)….and we got a rejection letter a week later in the mail. Cora didn't qualify because the tutoring was specific to dyslexia, and the SLD with reading impairment was not the same as a formal dyslexia diagnosis. Fair enough, I thought - I figured we'd get the testing done through her school and could reapply if the result was a dyslexia diagnosis.
That....was naïve, lol. But the psychologist made it sound like a total non-issue, something schools did all the time. I sent the school psychologist and teachers the report before school even started, since surely they would want to schedule all of this right away! I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks – the start of the school year must be such a busy time, after all – but raised it again, report in hand, at a meeting with Cora’s teacher in late September.
“You….really want to try to avoid putting a label on things too quickly,” she told me, in a tone that implied there was much more that she was not saying. “She seems to be doing quite well in class. Let’s see how she does on the standardized tests we’re finishing this week and go from there.” I was definitely aware that I was missing something, but it seemed reasonable to wait for Cora’s test results if they would help inform next steps. Cora scored well above average, as usual; shortly after receiving these scores, the school psychologist emailed me to let me know that no further testing was warranted.
I still felt like I was missing something – spoiler alert, I was – but there didn’t seem to be anything else left to do. They're the experts and were totally unconcerned – only positive news - and Cora’s new ADHD meds seemed to be really helping. After that, everything did seem to be okay at school for a while. Cora liked her teachers and was doing well.
Everything was copacetic…except for the fact that Cora’s anxiety seemed to be getting worse without any tangible explanation. She complained about fourth grade being a lot harder, but again – her grades were fine, she was perfectly behaved, she liked her teachers….it was difficult to identify any problem that needed solving. Soon, Cora started getting home and isolating herself in her room for over an hour every day. She seemed stressed. Worn out. This went on for months.
And then she had her first panic attack on a Sunday night, seemingly out of nowhere. She wanted a mental health day Monday and was back in school Tuesday, seemingly her normal self.
The next Sunday, she had another panic attack, and this one was much, much worse. She lost control of her bladder. I was close to taking her to the ER. It was scary. That's when it all came out. She was DREADING school - her two hours of ELA in the mornings had become “torture.” She was white-knuckling it through the reading, writing, and spelling work, totally clueless as to why it seemed so much harder for her than for other kids, but so determined to get good grades that she had just burned. the. fuck. OUT.
She was home for days after this. The school tried to dismiss my concerns at first - it couldn't have been that bad, I was told. To be fair, my concerns were vague because I still didn’t understand the real issues or how to help Cora, either. Cora was clearly unwell and adamantly refused to return to school. I started putting everything in formal, written letters emailed to all of her teachers, the school psychologist, and everyone else who seemed potentially relevant. I told them I wasn't sending her back until they did something to try to figure out what was going on in ELA.
That was mid-February. We had a meeting before I would agree to send Cora back, where they talked about putting together the "interdisciplinary team" to conduct "extensive classroom observation.” They insisted that this process would take at least 60 days to complete. Cora reports that there have been three days where someone has essentially come to her ELA class and stared at her while she works.
We weren’t just waiting for the school, though. After the psych eval last summer, we had been slowly working through additional evaluations and appointments related to Cora’s hearing, speech, and language abilities. Basically, we were working our way from Cora's ears into different regions of her brain, trying to catch problems along the path that sound waves traveled - entering Cora's head as vibrations in her ear canals, winding into her brain as phenomes, assembling into a stream of recognizable words, converting into meaning in entirely different areas of her brain, and eventually emerging again via her speech. I had no idea so many tiny things could go wrong in that process, but they can - and we can get pretty damn granular in order to figure that shit out when there’s a potential problem. Cora had some weird results here and there - we now know that overlapping speech is basically her Kryptonite, which explains a lot of meltdowns at family gatherings over the years. But on the whole, her ears and her brain are doing fine, and she doesn't have autism, either.
We had been lucky to get hooked up with the best child development team in the area - they were wonderful, and the process of more testing and visits seemed to reassure Cora (and us, honestly) that there was more help on the horizon, more answers soon. She started low-dose Zoloft for the anxiety and seemed a little happier; her anxiety about school was starting to morph into resignation and frustration, which actually seemed healthier in a way. "It takes time," they tell us. Her breakdown was in February. They wanted to see the report from the most recent evaluations. Fair enough; although it is not lost on me that I am paying an outside team to do the school's job, at least it's getting done.
Two weeks ago, we finally got the team's report - and the written words, "developmental dyslexia." The lead psychologist is going to meet with the 504 team at her school - he is wonderful and immediately understood so many of Cora's concerns and needs. I'm not exactly optimistic, but it's at least possible that this may result in accommodations/extra help in school. Cora thinks he walks on water and is so excited that he's going to "stand up for" her.
The report is detailed and confirmed a lot of what we suspected. She's a really bright kid - IQ around 120 with sky high mathematics and nonverbal problem-solving scores. She apparently discussed "conundrums that are complex and abstract in nature" during her sessions, with a "recognition that there is not necessarily a solution" to these mysterious issues. (LMAO....this is my weird and wonderful kid.) The report describes Cora as "delightful" - funny, self aware, and highly motivated to learn.
Her reading comprehension score was in the 90th percentile, essay composition in the 70th - spelling scores came in at the 25th percentile, which was no surprise. Pseudoword decoding was poor - she's in the 14th percentile - and it got worse from there. Cora has an oral reading fluency in the 9th percentile, a basic reading score in the 7th percentile, and a word reading score in the 4th percentile.
In fact, the essay composition score was the only "average" score among dozens of measures of her reading, writing, and language abilities - comprehension was universally excellent and decoding was universally abysmal. It was hard to read. It felt like a gut punch - looking at the single-digit scores, I finally realized the insane degree of effort it must have taken to finish her work and look happy doing it.
The developmental psychologist leading the team told us that it was unusual to see that stark of a difference - that the severity of her impairments are usually associated with average comprehension scores at best. I have tried to wade through research about these instruments, but decided to take his word for it. Typically, the deficits in her basic reading skills would set off a chain reaction of lower scores down the line - but Cora had brought her grades and tests scores up from an already high start at the beginning of the year.
"It's no wonder her anxiety symptoms are increasing - she's completely exhausted," he said. "Imagine what she could achieve with the right kind of help."
I realized then why Cora's high scores and good grades, so impressive to everyone else, were such a source of consternation for her. That chain reaction was still happening, getting in the way of what she was actually capable of achieving. She knew it, even if the rest of us didn't - she could do better with the right kind of help.
I honestly feel sick thinking about it. She never told anyone she was struggling, never asked for help - not from us, not from anyone at school, heck not from her former-literacy-teacher grandma. No one had any idea. My husband and I had actually encouraged her to slow down a little in the weeks before her panic attacks, just out of a general sense that something was brewing despite her repeated insistence she was doing fine. Turn in the worksheet a day late, three sentences is plenty, relax. Unthinkable, Cora insisted, she was fine.
So she's back at school, nothing has changed other than the glacially slow 504 process of "observation" occurring in the background sometimes, but she seems to be a bit less stressed. I can't tell if getting pissed off about the situation is helping her deal with it, if the Zoloft is taking the edge off, or if she's just masking harder now. Maybe all three. 18 more days of school and Cora is counting. them. down. Her teachers and support staff seem generally bewildered by the idea she is or was ever struggling. They were caught totally off guard when I abruptly pulled her out of school until we at least got them to commit to the 504 process – but we had been blindsided too. They saw a happy kid who was thriving academically until her parents pulled her out of school and started a process that no one seems particularly committed to finishing. Sometimes I think they don't believe us at all. Maybe I would feel the same way in their shoes, I don’t know. I think they’ll listen to the doctor.
The entire point of this post, though, was to ask about Cora’s second rejection from the local tutoring program. With summer approaching and the diagnosis of dyslexia (versus maybe-dyslexia, maybe-whatever-else-could-be-included-under-the-SLD-“umbrella”, which I am still unsure is even a thing), I've been looking into all sorts of options for tutoring. Summer is a good opportunity to try to start getting Cora some meaningful help without adding yet another thing to her plate. She's excited. We can build some tools before next year - if we know what works for her, we can be better advocates from Day 1.
So I resubmitted Cora's application - I still had my original email and I just attached the shiny new report to that, explaining where to find the magic D word that I fully expected would finally open a door where Cora could get the right kind of help. This new report was more granular with reading testing, but the dyslexia diagnosis was the one really substantive change. It included Cora's ADHD and anxiety diagnoses, as did the report I submitted with our initial application, but with new information about medication and treatment for these issues - progress!
(I would like to point out at this point that ADHD and anxiety are firmly established as two of the most common comorbid diagnoses for kids with dyslexia, and that anxiety symptoms in particular can occur because of the challenges caused by dyslexia. My daughter had full-blown panic attacks at 10 years old largely because she struggles to FUCKING READ and no one was helping her. I know I am preaching to what little choir is likely left at this point in my novel. But especially as someone who was medicated/treated for depression and anxiety for 20 years before anyone agreed to test for, diagnose, and treat the ADHD symptoms that were causing me to regularly fuck up my life in really depressing and stressful ways…..this chicken and egg shit really hits a nerve.)
Anyhoo, it had taken 8 months and a lot of work, but I had finally done this one cool thing for her - Cora was going to get the right kind of help. The school year is almost over, but at least we had this one success. The obstacle that I’m still not sure was warranted in the first place – the lack of the word dyslexia in the initial evaluation – had been checked off what was now a giant list of obstacles in Cora's path.
And thanks to the generosity of people who had probably heard and experienced a lot of similar, frustrating stories, our family could focus on paying off the bills accumulated in the process of getting to this point instead of adding more to the pile. Free is always good, but sometimes free is a godsend.
Twelve hours later, Cora was denied again, this time via a brief email simply noting the GAD diagnosis in both reports. "Our tutors are not trained to work with children who are diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorders" and they "cannot meet her needs."
That was it. No further explanation. Just…fuck your anxious baby girl who is trying so hard and fuck you for trying. NEXT!
Oh, and P.S., fuck the really significant percentage of kids with dyslexia with comorbid anxiety diagnoses who are incredibly well researched and described in just…all of the fucking literature. Just all of it, honestly, for decades. Fuck those kids too.
People seem to treat the word "dyslexia" like it's the only thing that matters sometimes but also not something that should be ever said in other contexts, AND I'm pretty fucking sure that "SLD with reading impairment" is essentially equivalent to the word dyslexia because no one can explain what else might be under that "umbrella," and apparently it's nigh impossible to get meaningful help for my daughter through the public school systems anywhere in America, and giant nonprofits care about kids with dyslexia so much, but not the anxious ones, better lock the doors before those crybabies get their needs all over our tutoring center!
We will figure out how to pay for help for Cora, that’s a given.
But honest to fucking god, have you guys just been putting up with this shit the whole time? I'm so sorry.

DISCLAIMER: I'd like to note that I do not consider myself an expert on many of the topics he talks about or even economics in general but a lot of what I'm about to say is pretty easily verifiable and basic, and I'll try to be clear that I'm expressing my opinion and not fact when I'm doing so. Given my lack of expertise, none of what I say here should be considered as the final authority on these topics, it's a reddit post for fucks sake, I encourage everyone to search up the relevant data and information on the topics they are interested in or claims they find dubious. It's really not that hard and all the links and data I'm gonna cite here took me less than five minutes to find for each piece of information. If you're not familiar with where to find this data it might take you longer but I promise that anyone with access to the internet can do the same thing I'm doing. Finally, for those looking for some opinionless, academic argument, that's not what this is, this is gonna sound like a rant because it is, I'm posting this for nothing more than my own satisfaction, take from it what you will.
Ok I'm writing this after I finished the whole thing and I said that I'd try to be clear that I'm expressing my opinion and not fact when I'm doing so and the basically entire second half of this is my opinion and I don't make that very clear so sorry about that.
Honestly I'd love to be wrong because I really do think that younger people are at a disadvantage compared to previous generations at the same age but the arguments he makes and the data he uses throughout his talk just sound like such bullshit to me.
https://www.ted.com/talks/scott\_galloway\_how\_the\_us\_is\_destroying\_young\_people\_s\_future?
https://www.profgalloway.com/war-on-the-young/
Scott Galloway recently did a Ted talk titled "How the US is destroying young people's future", as well as an accompanying blog post. He's made some fair points about how young people have been put at an inherent disadvantage and that they have it harder than previous generations. That's most likely true and I personally support that point of view, but the a lot data and numbers he makes this argument with seem to be cherry picked, misleading, or just straight up wrong. So let's break his talk down. u/JustTaxLandLol made a pretty good post about him comparing median wages to the S&P500 (https://www.reddit.com/badeconomics/comments/1cc3rs8/scott\_galloway\_compares\_median\_wage\_to\_sp500/) but I think that Galloway's mistakes are much more comprehensive than just that particular slide.
The first slide with data makes a claim about how pre-tax income, adjusted for inflation, has decreased across generations from grandparents to parents to kids, and that cost of public colleges and home prices have increased significantly across generations too. First of all, categorising generations by whether they have children or grandchildren is kinda nuts. That's a very wide, overlapping, range of ages. If he has actually fixed age ranges for each generation that don't overlap and just made these categorisations for the sake of understandability to a nonacademic audience, I still think that's the wrong choice but fine. However, his claim that real income has decreased across generations is weak at best. This working paper (https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2024007pap.pdf) from the Fed Reserve was published February 2024, and from the figures that start at page 35, shows that by almost every categorisation they could think of, GenZ earns more at the same age than every previous generation before them. There's some conflict here with Raj Chetty's work but I don't have the time or knowledge to reconcile the two perspectives but at best, the pre-tax income numbers Galloway presents are questionable at best. Furthermore, he doesn't provide anyone a chance at even checking the sources he gets this information from. Not once in his entire talk does he cite a single source. He couldn't even have some tiny text at the bottom of his tables or diagrams saying what organisation he got this data from. Ok so that crossed out bit is wrong, he does have sources they're just very very faint and you can see them if you squint hard enough at the bottom left corner of his graphs. But the source he gives for this slide is a joke. Here's the link https://www.profgalloway.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Table-01.png
His "source" is his own analysis. Ok so by his analysis, the average cost of public college is 56000*0.43 = 24080. I'm gonna use numbers from this US News page (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/paying-for-college-infographic), which might not be the most reliable source in the world, but it's probably somewhere in the ballpark. So according to US News, average tuition for the 2023-2024 school year for out of state students going to a public school is 23,630 and 10,662 for in state students. If these numbers are anywhere near accurate, the only conclusion I can draw is that Galloway has cherry-picked his data by only including the cost for out of state students in his analysis. First of all, public schools in the US are there to provide affordable access to higher education FOR RESIDENTS OF ITS STATE. Using only out of state numbers is absolutely ridiculous. Secondly, even if he used only the in state numbers, 10662/56000 is approximately equal to 19%. So if I use his very very questionable pre-tax income numbers, cost of public college for in state students has still increased across his categorisation of generations. It's not like his point would have been invalidated if he had used the in-state numbers, a trend of tuition increasing as a percentage of real income across multiple generations is still very bad. This is my opinion but I guess that he just wanted to find a nice shocking number. I didn't catch this but in their post, u/JustTaxLandLol notes that later on Galloway says "real median income from labor is up 40% since 1974" so he's also contradicting himself in the same talk.
I couldn't be bothered to look into the house price to income column he has so I don't have any comments on that.
His next slide is a point about how the percentage of 30 year olds earning more than their parents did at 30 has been decreasing very significantly over time. This is from a paper in 2016 by Raj Chetty (link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aal4617). I've seen some counterarguments about the methods used in the paper but there are counterarguments for basically every inequality paper in existence so I'd take them with a grain of salt. Those points are more complex than the scope of this post and I lack the expertise to be making them anyways so I believe this slide. I'll admit that Galloway makes a good argument for this slide.
Right after this slide he says "As a result, people over the age of 55 feel pretty good about America, but less than one in five people under the age of 34 feel very good about America. This creates an incendiary, righteous movement...". He supports this with data on the percentage of US adults who feel "extremely proud" to be American.
Before I talk about the data on this slide, I'd like to be a little anal about things and pick apart his wording and causal claims he makes. When Galloway says "as a result" he's making a causal claim about the relationship between a young person's earning ability and their national pride. Leaving aside the econometric issues of making random causal claims, this is a ridiculous marginalisation of all the other critically important issues in the US. It seems pretty clear to me that reduced national pride amongst younger individuals is a combination of a lack of social mobility (or however you want to word your version of the fading American dream), the continued existence of systematic racism and sexism, US response to ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, bodily autonomy (abortion), and many other issues. Not to say that the economic disadvantages of young people doesn't play a role in causing this lack of national pride but come on. He also says "this creates an incendiary righteous movement...". Ok if the "as a result" from the last sentence could be interpreted as the economic disadvantages of young people play some part in their dissatisfaction with the government, it should be obvious to anyone not living under a rock that many of the political conflicts and movements that have erupted in the US over the past few years have little, if anything, to do with earning ability. In the slide after the poll data he shows three photos, one of a MeToo protest, one of a BLM protest, and another of a pro-Palestine protest. I can only interpret this as him making the claim that the younger generations economic difficulties are causally linked to those movements, which is totally bananas.
Now lets talk about the data. He got this from the Gallup polls (link: https://news.gallup.com/poll/394202/record-low-extremely-proud-american.aspx, there's a link to download the pdf with the poll numbers at the end of this article). There are 5 options for the Gallup poll: "Extremely proud"; "Very proud"; "Moderately proud"; "Only a little proud"; or "Not at all proud". So Galloway is cherry-picking again. To be fair, it's true that even including the rest of the answers, a quick glance at the data suggests (very strongly) that young people are less proud than older people. There are also more young people who choose "Not at all proud" (11% for 18-34 and 1% for 55+). Though there is probably some argument to be made about whether "extreme" pride is a good thing. Furthermore, "pretty good" and "very good" do not reflect the extremity of choosing, well, the most extreme option.
As an introduction to his next slide he says that "a decent proxy for how much we value youth labor is minimum wage". I've never heard of this before and am very very skeptical but I'm willing to attribute this to my own ignorance so I'll leave that sentence alone. So on this slide there's a graph with two lines, one is minimum wage across time adjusted for inflation, the other is whats supposed to be minimum wage if adjusted for productivity (also adjusted to inflation I assume). Galloway got this data form the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) (https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/), which shows that this gap between productivity began around 1979. This was when Carter was president and right before the Reagan administration. Those who know about the economic history of this time probably won't be surprised since a lot of the policies of this time were rather inegalitarian and heavily favoured the wealthy. I agree that many of the policies of the time contributed heavily to the inequality America faces today and though I haven't read any studies about how this affects minimum wage workers, I believe that minimum wage workers or low income workers in general today have significantly lower purchasing power relative to a few decades ago.
What I have a problem with here is the idea that productivity and minimum wage should increase in tandem. According to the EPI, "Productivity measures how much total economywide income is generated (i.e., for workers, business owners, landlords, and everybody else together) in an average hour of work" and "pay is defined as the average compensation (wages and benefits) of production and nonsupervisory workers. The pay for this group is one appropriate benchmark for 'typical worker pay' because production and nonsupervisory workers have made up roughly 80% of the U.S. workforce over the entire period shown in the figure and because the data for production and nonsupervisory workers exclude extremely highly paid managerial workers like CEOs and other corporate executives". Before I try to break down my complaints with the measures used, my immediate reaction when I saw this was that it seems rather stupid to compare the relationship between average productivity and minimum wage in an industrial economy against the same relationship in a service oriented one. There are just more jobs now that let you make an impact on the economy far beyond what you are paid and it is so so difficult to quantify this change. Using a similar argument, I really have no clue how macro people make models or do estimates for things like productivity but I'm quite skeptical about the reliability of using such a measure of productivity because of the increased prevalence of second, third, or n-th order effects that would be present in a measure of something like total gdp but pretty much impossible to identify for any employer. For those who want to read more about this difference between productivity and compensation I think this is the most relevant paper from EPI (https://files.epi.org/2015/understanding-productivity-pay-divergence-final.pdf). There are some points I'm not satisfied with in this paper like them attributing the entirety of the difference between median hourly compensation to average consumer hourly compensation but that would take more time than I want to spend on this.
Now we're still on the same slide. Galloway says "we've kept it [minimum wage] purposely pretty low" twice in three sentences. Now he's suggesting that there's some collective out there that has the political power and desire to keep minimum wage low. By "we" I think he means to suggest that the old-timers have banded together to screw the young people over. Ok buddy. I'm stepping outside the bounds of what's considered strictly economics here a little but pinning the injustices of society on some ethereal enemy whose existence can never be disproven is the same as taking "advantage of the flaws in our species with medieval institutions, Paleolithic instincts, and godlike technology" (Galloway's words, same TED talk) to me. Maybe there really is some cabal of scheming geezers out there who have some twisted desire to keep the minimum wage low, but I'm more inclined to believe that a lot of these "injustices" are a result of our existing political and societal institutions being poor and inefficient aggregators of our desires as a society, rewarding selfishness instead of cooperation. This certainly makes the problem harder to solve than if there were just some evil 'others' we could get rid of and be done with. Having a target to direct our outrage at, believing that I am good and they are bad, is easier than facing the reality that everyone is born with the selfishness that creates the injustices we live with but that's not gonna make people more agreeable. As an economist, I study the theory of incentives to use the same human selfishness that creates all the problems Galloway talks about to create solutions that hopefully improve our quality of life. This is what I believe is the beauty of being human, all the good and bad that happens stem from the same desires, it is our job to create institutions and systems that allow us to channel our desires in a way that benefits everyone, but I digress. The point is, this enemy that Galloway creates is an effective tactic at convincing people of his argument, but I don't believe such a perspective benefits society at all. Mistakes should be corrected, that doesn't mean they're always the result of ill intentions.
His next slide compares the difference between percentage increase in median household income against percentage increase in median home price, as well as a comparison of the median monthly mortgage between 2019 and 2024. I have nothing to say about the graph, I agree that over time, home prices have increased to an unacceptable level. The Fed funds rate went from 2.4 percent in Feb 2019 to 5.33 percent in Feb 2024 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/fedfunds). To his credit, Galloway does attribute this increase in mortgage payments to "an acceleration in interest rates" but what's the alternative? Don't increase interest rates? Then if I was Galloway I'd make the same TED talk and talk about how the continued low interest rates contributed to rampant inflation that made all the poor people even poorer. It seems like he's decided to take whatever bad economic event that seems somewhat relevant and made it to be the result of some group's dogged determination to keep the younger generation down. Why is the increase from pre- to post-covid prices on anything surprising. I'd like to meet the genius who saw covid coming and intentionally created this increase in home prices.
He also says "the most expensive homes in the world, based on this metric, are number three, Vancouver. Why? Because 60 percent of the cost of building a home goes to permits...". I have no idea what point he's making here. Based on what metric, median home price? Monthly mortgage payments? Why do I care about Vancouver, a Canadian city, being number three? Then he talks about how "the incumbents that own assets have weaponized government". Either he's switched to talking about oligopolistic lobbyists in general without saying so or he's still talking about Canada. I dunno. Someone please explain. Then he says "this is the transfer I'm going to be speaking about". Also, everything he just said is talking about how there exists a group of people trying to PREVENT transfers of wealth to new entrants. And there was huge applause after that sentence. Nutsos, all of them.
Ok next slide. Galloway presents two pie charts, comparing the share of household wealth by age in 1989 to 2023. So he's talking directly about inequality in wealth now. Inequality in the US is really really bad, that's a fact. I'm a big fan of the work of Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, and Thomas Piketty. These people have been at the forefront of research on inequality for many years now and though their work is not flawless, I'm convinced by the data they present and the methods by which they have aggregated the data and what they show is that inequality is worse than even what the pie charts Galloway presents suggest. However, this is not to say that Galloway makes a valid argument. Please note the grey bits in the pie chart. If Galloway has shown the numbers for everyone under 40 and above 70, the group that's excluded are those between 40 and 70. So those in the age range of 40-70 owned 100 - 19 - 12 = 69% of household wealth in 1989 and 100 - 30 - 7 = 63% in 2023. I could probably go and find how the age demographics of the population have changed over time and I think that with declining birth rates, the percentage change in age demographics would be pretty close to the percentage change in household wealth but I'm tired of beating every slide to death so I'll leave that to someone else if anyone's motivated enough to do that (if my hypothesis is wrong here just comment and I'll make that change). My first thought when I saw this though was again, this guy has paid no regard to structural change in society. Given the increased accessibility of buying stocks over the past three decades is it really that surprising that older people who have had more time and cash at the start of the digital age to invest in companies that are now massive mega-corporations have experienced a higher return on their capital. This is not to say that none of this change in the share of wealth held by those under 40 is due to some inherent unfairness in our society and I have neither the time nor knowledge to separate these effects out but to say that this was a "purposeful" effort to cut their wealth in half is complete and utter bullshit. Also, this guy makes another causal claim WITH NOTHING BUT A CHANGE IN SHARE OF HOUSEHOLD WEALTH. Congratulations everyone Scott Galloway has just made every econometrician in the world redundant, I always knew my professors were just trying to confuse me with funny symbols and Greek letters, someone get this guy a Nobel Prize.
Then while introducing his next slide Galloway says that his analyst's presence in the audience "brings the average age of the entire conference down in 11 days". So he's saying that TED knows exactly who's showing up to their event before it happens and that they have the exact birthdates of everyone in the audience too and that they've given this information to one of their speakers. A friend of mine has told me he's just making a joke and that I should let this point go because I'm being too anal about things but yeah I become anal about things when someone suggests sweeping institutional changes in a talk viewed by millions of people so thought I'd include it anyways just as another example of the bullshit this guy has been spewing.
When he moves on to the actual content in the slide the first point he makes is about lower acceptance rates in schools. So I don't have data on this because I couldn't be bothered to go find any so again, I'll change my statement if anyone has reliable data indicating otherwise but I think its pretty safe to say that way less people used to apply than before and combined with an increase in international student applications and enrollments the competition is just way higher than before. The most obvious explanation would be that higher education institutions have made the mistake of not increasing enrollments at a rate quick enough to meet demand. However, according to US News (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-many-universities-are-in-the-us-and-why-that-number-is-changing) there were 3982 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the US. and UCLA is ranked 15th in national universities. So why is it surprising now that university education is becoming more popular that higher ranked universities are harder to get into. So instead of expanding enrollment I think that a well thought out plan of affirmative action would be a much better option of giving "unremarkable kids and giving them a shot at being remarkable" (what this well thought out plan may be I don't know, I honestly didn't even search up any statistics about affirmative action this was just the first solution I thought of that didn't involve ignoring the crowning achievement of statistics). To his credit, Galloway does include a point about income-based affirmative action at the end of his talk, though he overwhelmingly emphasises increasing enrollment in schools. I don't have any data about that but I think that class sizes at public universities are large enough as it is.
The rest of the slide gives numbers on college debt of house price compared to first year income. College debt is ridiculously high and many people struggle because of it. I don't have the solution and neither does Galloway because he doesn't really mention it. I think that house price-to-first year income is a poor comparison because it doesn't take into account average rate of income increase and no normal person from any generation is looking to buy a house with first year income but there's probably a more appropriate metric out there that shows a similar change anyways so I'm ok with that.
Then he talks about him and his "colleagues" who "artificially constrain supply to create aspiration and scarcity". I would like to meet the professors who have control over enrollment rates because none of mine did. Then he says "to my colleagues in higher ed: we're public servants, not fucking Chanel bags". The marketing professor from NYU says he's a public servant...ok.
The slide after that compares Harvard's increase in endowment compared to their increase in enrollment and he calls them a "hedge fund offering classes". I see no issue with this point, he made a great argument, can't really criticise anything here.
Don't worry though he makes up for it by immediately making one of the most egregious statements in this whole talk. We're looking at his next slide, the one titled "Grand Bargain" now. He says that the government should take some of the money that's supposed to be used to forgive existing loans to about 500 of the top public universities to reduce tuition by 2% and year, expand enrollments by 6% a year, and increase vocational programs to 20% of the degrees granted. Then the slide after that, claims this will double freshman seats and cut costs in half in just 10 years. Ok so he thinks that most of the money "earmarked to bail out the one third of people that got to go to college on the backs of the two thirds that didn't" should go to future students instead because, I assume from the tone of his words, he doesn't think they need or deserve all that loan forgiveness. So why bring up the increase in college debt previously (the slide I talked about three paragraphs ago)? Anyways that's not the crazy thing. Let's see what happens if you reduce tuition by 2% a year for 10 years. So the calculation goes like this 0.98^{10} is approximately equal to 0.81. So with the number he puts up, tuition decreases by 19% in ten years. If everything before this slide could be attributed to cherry-picking, stupidity, or lack of good data, then fine he's just ignorant even though he shouldn't have been if he went up there to make that talk. But now this is just a FUCKING BAREFACED LIE. I cannot think of a greater insult to the audience's intelligence than the fact that this guy didn't think anyone would pull out a fucking calculator and do the calculation themselves. I won't blame the audience for not saying anything because I'm not sure I would have wanted to do that either but at least from youtube and reddit comments there are a decent number of people who didn't realise this. A similar calculation shows that expanding enrollment by 6% per year increases seats by about 80% total (1.06^{10}). Not sure how that translates in terms of freshman seats but at least this is closer than the tuition claim.
Then his next slide compares wages to the s&p500. This is the point of u/JustTaxLandLol's post and I think his post and the discussion in the comments covers most if not all of my thoughts so you can just read that. https://www.reddit.com/badeconomics/comments/1cc3rs8/scott_galloway_compares_median_wage_to_sp500/
Ok next slide, "The Transfer: Purposeful". Oh yay he's about to make another causal claim with nothing but a graph on the change in top marginal tax rates for corporations and individuals. And if we skip ahead to the next slide we'll realise that this claim is that the gradual decrease in top marginal tax rates for corporations and individuals results in lowered senior poverty and child poverty either remains constant or increases. Yes everybody the newest advancement in economic research has just been released. Lowering top tax rates decreases senior poverty and increases child poverty. And Scott Galloway made that argument in 24 seconds (transcript on TED website has time markers).
Man I really set out with the intention to keep the tone of this post as neutral as I could but I'm just writing out my internal dialogue with less swearing now. I apologise to those who would have preferred a more careful and less emotional knee-jerk response of an analysis but this is a reddit post, its not like there are standards.
Now he moves on to talking about social security. Galloway says "it would cost 11 billion dollars to expand the child tax credit. But that gets stripped out of the infrastructure bill". So zero explanation about why it would cost 11 billion dollars to expand the child tax credit, why not more or less, no comment about how many children it would affect, how much money it would mean for each child or family, just some number that you have to accept. Most of the time there's no why to the amount of funding that the government allocates to policies but at least there's some breakdown to how its going to be used, Galloway doesn't even have that. This is before we even consider the fact that child tax credit was expanded this year (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/child-tax-credit-2024-who-qualifies/). Maybe he's talking about some other issue that I'm not aware of but I don't think so. He says he got the social security spending data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which is a think tank. I don't want to sort through their website to fact check so I'll accept it as the truth but as far as I know the actual social security administration releases their facts and figures for the year August of next year so I'm not sure why he didn't just use the 2022 numbers from a more reliable source.
His next few couple slides are about the increasing age of politicians. I think this is a great point but he probably should have used a better example of a younger politician than Justin Trudeau.
Then at around the 10 minute mark, using his slide titled "Generational Theft", Galloway claims that "we pumped the economy" during covid so that the Nasdaq would gain value, causing "intergenerational theft". I don't know if he thinks it was intentional or not but how is he going to completely ignore the fact that the stimulus checks were primarily for households that were struggling due to the greatest unemployment rate we have seen in our lifetime (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/06/11/unemployment-rose-higher-in-three-months-of-covid-19-than-it-did-in-two-years-of-the-great-recession/). I'm really kind of tired of this so I'll let those at the CBR make my argument for me. "Within the first 10 days, households spent an average of 29 cents from every dollar received. The bulk of this spending was on food, rent, and bills" (https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/how-effective-were-stimulus-checks-us). Damn so turns out struggling families did need these stimulus checks pretty urgently. Shocker. I also think that most people in finance would agree that tech stocks surged over covid because people needed fucking technology... People built PCs to play video games, used online shopping services because they couldn't go to malls, all that.
The next slide is supposed to support his point that the increase in stock prices doesn't allow young people to find "disruption". What. The only thing that matters to any investor is the percentage increase in value of the stock price after you've invested. It doesn't matter if 7 dollars is 1 share of apple or 0.04 of a share of apple. Its stock price going up by 100% means you get 14 dollars either way. I think this guy's arguments are getting dumber as the talk goes on, I actually had to go and find data to refute his points earlier on. Now arithmetic does the work for me, I should have hired a grade schooler to do my analysis.
His next point is about how algorithmic content selection is bad. Yeah its bad. Its bad for everyone, turns everyone into psychos. Though I think there's a very good argument to be made about how such content could affect developing brains. He makes a point about age-gating social media at the end of the talk. This is actually the only drastic measure he proposes that I agree with so I'll leave this alone too.
After a couple slides about Zuckerberg and TikTok (which I agree with, though I think Zuckerberg's damage probably leans more towards older people than young now), he gives a bunch of graphs showing upward trends in all sorts of terrible things happening to young people. Every single one is an issue of critical importance in the US, but importantly, no comparison to older people. For all we know, the trend on every graph could be the same or even worse for older generations. If I had written about this first then I'd go and find the data for it but at this point I just want to be done with this but can't stop without getting to the end so I'm just gonna slap this slide with lack of comparisons and move on.
His next slide shows the difference in 30 to 34 year olds who have at least one child, some of that is probably due to family planning but I still think its a great indicator of people not wanting to have children because its not affordable. Great point, I believe in it.
Next slide, oh god it's a happiness report. I think happiness reports are a fun conversational tidbit but I see no way for it to be reliable enough to be used as an argument in any semi-serious setting. That said, I have no idea how they do these measurements so maybe I'm wrong.
As if the happiness report wasn't bad enough, Galloway is gonna compare the biggest one-day market cap gain (in an unspecified time frame) to the budget of several policies implemented by the government. Oh man. This is too stupid, there's so many things to pick from it'd take too much effort to sort through them. Someone else please make the argument for me.
Then he says universal basic income should have been called negative income tax. Wow the frequency of good points is going up, though I think this is accompanied by an increase in the frequency of absolutely idiotic arguments.
Then he says we should eliminate capital gains tax deduction. The issue of taxing capital gains is a very serious one, but I don't think it actually matters that much how much we tax realised capital gains. Again, not an expert but here's my understanding. If you have a high net worth with a lot of it in stocks and you need cash, you don't have to sell them and get taxed on the realised gains. You go to the bank and say I want to borrow money, I'm going to put these stocks up as collateral so if I can't pay you back you can take these stocks which are somewhere around the value of the principal amount plus total interest over the course of this loan. Because the bank is now convinced they'll get the money back regardless of if you make the payments or not, they say ok here's the money you asked for at a nice low interest rate. Then you take the money, you keep your stocks, which will probably gain value at a rate that exceeds the interest rate by a pretty decent margin, and you can probably make your interest payments pretty easily because hey, you were rich to begin with. If you're really strapped for cash a couple years down the line, you can sell some of the stocks that are now worth more than they were before and cover your payments and not have to pay taxes on the rest that you don't have to sell. Free money. There's plenty more ways to avoid taxes if you're rich but you get my point by now. Now that's a lot of problems without a solution. Luckily we have some economists far more skilled than I am who work very hard to find solutions to these problems. Here's one example of a policy that may help (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/opinion/global-billionaires-tax.html). This is an opinion piece written by Gabriel Zucman (famous economist), for the New York Times. If you don't have an NYT subscription, sorry for giving a link you can't read but if you search Gabriel Zucman billionaire tax, you could probably get a decent idea of what this talks about. Here's Zucman tweeting his proposal for his suggestion (https://twitter.com/gabriel\_zucman/status/1763253132572729623). It probably requires a little more thinking than the NYT article but he did present this at the G20 so that might sound more exciting to you than some news article.
Then Galloway says "we need to remove 230 protection for all algorithmically-elevated content". Zero mention on what 230 protection is so here's an explanation (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230). Basically that was a fancy way of saying that companies should be held accountable of the content on their platform, even if it's posted by an unrelated third party. I'm not sure getting rid of it in its entirety is a great idea (though I have no arguments against that except Orwellian ones) but I certainly agree that most if not all social media platforms have abused this protection and it should be at the very least restricted. To what extent? Again, I have no clue.
Then he goes "break up Big Tech". That's the whole suggestion. This is a terrible idea but the fact that he doesn't elaborate more on how to do this, the ramifications of doing so, or really provide any explanation at all makes me automatically ignore this. Then he makes his point about age-gating social media, like I said before, I agree with it.
His next suggestions are universal pre-K, great idea, then "reinstate the expanded child-tax credit". Not sure what he's going on about here, child tax credit exists and like I said before, was just expanded. Then it's income-based affirmative action. I don't know what kind of affirmative action is best and that sounds like an interesting idea so I won't criticise it. I think the rest of his suggestions are pretty normative arguments so I'll leave those alone too.
Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree with the overall theme of his talk. I believe that young people in the US (and many places worldwide) are at a massive disadvantage when it comes to accumulating wealth, buying homes, inter-generational transfers, etc. But you cannot go up on a popular platform like this, make claims as sweeping as he has, and make suggestions as radical and drastic as he has, with garbage arguments and data like this. Saying the right things for the wrong reasons is arguably worse than just saying the wrong thing because it makes it easy for those who want the status quo to remain to make counterarguments. Given how divisive opinions have become over the past decade or so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how many people are eating this up but it kinda scares me how easily people will eat up this shit as long as its for a cause that sounds like its going for some kind of radical change for the good of all and has some imaginary "them" as the common enemy to everyone.
So that's it, I've finally covered all his points. I'm free, thank fuck. I should really proofread this but this has been my past eight hours and my back is breaking from all this sitting, I'm just gonna post this and read it over tomorrow. Maybe do a tl;dr, fix some formatting.
EDIT: As u/myphriendmike and u/Mordoci have pointed out, my dummy corp example was just tax fraud, that's illegal and so it's a bad example, I've removed it. Zucman has some estimates on the "real" tax rate wealthy people (mostly billionaires) pay, maybe I'll include that at some point.
I also corrected my wording in some places.

This story was originally written July 2023.
You might have heard of me. I was a social media influencer for two years.
I know kids have “influencer” as one of their top professions these days, but for me it was all an accident, really. I uploaded a few YouTube videos back in 2019, in the summer I finished school. All I did was rant about movies. I had a few notes, not a full script, and just spouted off to my laptop camera about inaccurate science, bad casting choices, real nitpicky stuff. In about six months I’d got 200 subscribers.
I was at university then, and I mentioned my videos to some of my uni friends. They subbed and told their friends, and I got up to 1,000 sub by January 2020. My videos were only about ten minutes long, and I had nowhere near the views to monetise. I was making one a week, but not on any sort of schedule. It was just something I did when I was bored.
Then the pandemic hit. A lot of students here in England basically got locked into their halls of residence (that’s dorms for any Americans reading), but I was lucky enough to get back to my parents’ before then. So I was doing what my uni laughably called “remote learning”, which basically meant a couple of video lectures a week, some worksheets, and lots and lots of my own research. I won’t bore you with the topic of my course; it’s not relevant.
I’m not exactly stereotypically pretty. I’ve come to accept that. My hair is stringy, my nose is too big, my face is profoundly asymmetrical, my complexion is strange and acned, my teeth are crooked … You get the idea. You can only do so much with makeup and hair that covers your face. I probably have fewer friends than I would if I looked like other people, and it actually took a lot of courage to make that first video - and even more courage to upload it.
I can only assume that’s the reason I went viral. It certainly wasn’t the high production values, or the tightly-written scripts, or the quality of my research. On the 9th of April I had 1,322 subscribers. On the 10th it was over 8,000. By the end of April it was up to 300,000, and I had actually monetised my channel.
The comments were … well, they were varied. Lots of hate because of my looks, but lots of love from people who just appreciated what I put out there, calling out others for their negative comments. I know many social media stars struggle with unkind comments, but I’d got used to it. Let’s be honest, they weren’t nice, but neither were they untrue. And comments under your video are easier to ignore than comments in the street. I was making decent money after all. If you were one of those commenters, you know which side you were on, and I love you either way. Thanks for the engagement - it’s not easy to gain financially from your unusual appearance!
The trouble with going viral is that it doesn’t last. Competing in the fast-paced world of internet stardom takes a lot of effort. I started experimenting with other things - YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram, pretty much anything going. The format that turned out to work best was actually TikTok. I’d bought some skimpy outfits and did ridiculous little dances. I quickly reached over a thousand views per video, and while I wasn’t up to their creator tier, it still worked. A well-known cosmetics company asked to sponsor my videos.
Cosmetics! Me! I guess they were going for woke points or something. I didn’t care, they offered me more money than I knew what to do with, as long as my views stayed high. So I started making 2-minute videos. A dance without make-up, then I applied the make-up - being sure to show the brand name clear and up-close - and then the same dance with make-up. If this is ringing any bells with you, then yes - that was me. And no, stupid - that’s not my real name.
I’d got used to undesired attention of course. Along with the unpleasant comments, I got my fair share of unwelcome male approaches. For a few hours after any upload, about half of my DMs were from men, and some women (or men with female account names), asking to see more of me. I wasn’t a camgirl, though I suppose I wasn’t a million miles away from one; but I could have been. I did seriously consider it a few times, but never actually followed through.
And half of the rest of my DMs, and a good portion of the public comments, were from angry women. What made me think I had the right to show off like that? How could I bring their favourite cosmetics brand into disrepute? But I’ve got pretty thick skin (hey, I can make that joke, you can’t), and mostly laughed the comments off and ignored them.
That was, in hindsight, a mistake.
By September my uni was reopening for in-person teaching. I was working six or seven hours a day just to keep up with everything, and had a couple more brands sponsoring me. Being an influencer isn’t just about filming for ten minutes a day and watching the money come in!
So I was going to tutorials an hour a day, watching video lectures at 2x speed, and ignoring my assignments in favour of making videos and replying to messages. It’s not like my pointless degree was helping with my real job.
Okay fine. It was geology. Rocks and stuff. You happy now? I bet you can’t tell the difference between sylvite and carnallite just by licking it, can you?
Anyway, the point is I came close to being chucked out. Actually I had to repeat the second year. At least I could afford it.
So anyway, I somehow got through to the end of my second year, the end of my second year again, and part way through my third year. I was passing my exams - just - and through several reinventions I had managed to maintain my social influencer role. Last Autumn I was getting some good views, and cash, back on YouTube. I was getting pretty good at make-up (I had an exclusive deal with one company on TikTok, and another deal with a different cosmetics company on YouTube). The videos that did well then were me with experimental hairstyles and not much in the way of clothes, putting on makeup for a few minutes, then reading out-of-copyright fiction in my patented “YouTube voice”. If you can imagine a cross between Shania Twain and Marge Simpson then… well, then you’re weird, but you’ve pretty much got it.
Then, last December, a week or so before the Christmas holidays, I went out with my friends. I had made a decent number, both girls and guys, by then. I could never quite tell whether it was my personality (which I assure you is fantastic), my influencer status, or the cash I was liberal with (it always seemed to be my round, and I didn’t mind). There were even a couple of boys who were keen on me, though I hadn’t done anything about it yet. Eight of us went out together to celebrate a birthday. It wasn’t actually anybody’s birthday that day, but Shireen had a Christmas Day birthday, and she wanted a proper party.
Now I look quite different in real life than I do online. I think the technical term is “frumpy” - jeans, trainers, fluffy jumper and a hat, or maybe a hoodie. The birthday girl had somehow convinced me to put a bit more effort in, and had helped me pick out some heels and a knee-length silver dress. Make-up was easy for me of course, and so I got dressed up and off we went to the Black Swan.
The Black Swan has several great qualities about it. One: it’s cheap. Two: it does good food. Three: it’s a couple of hundred metres from The Bar. We had a decent meal, a few drinks, and around 9 we walked to The Bar.
To be more precise, they walked. I wobbled. If you’ve watched my videos you might have seen me in heels, but did you ever see me walk in them? Didn’t think so.
The Bar is open til 3 in the morning. It looks respectable enough from the outside, especially in the afternoon; but after about 11, when most pubs close, it fills up with students drinking expensive-looking drinks. And almost every night, somebody jumps up onto a table, and then everybody’s up there dancing. In The Bar, either you hold your drink tightly, or you lose it.
I’d done this before, and I can handle my alcohol. I’ve stayed at The Bar till chuckout more than a few times, and I’ve been wobbly on the way home, but I’ve never thrown up or passed out. And so I was surprised when I woke up. The last thing I remembered was Stu saying he was tired, and Shireen replying that it wasn’t even midnight yet. Now I was lying on the hard wooden floor of my living room.
My head pounded. Daylight streamed through the window, and I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes. My hands were wet and sticky.
I looked at them. They were covered in blood.
I looked down. My heels were across the room, but I was still wearing my dress. It, also, was covered in blood, a huge stain across the chest.
Panic set in. What happened to me last night? I checked myself out and could find no injuries. Where did the blood come from?
Standing up, I realised it was worse than that. Red pools stained the wooden floor. I don’t know much medicine, but if somebody had lost this much blood, I couldn’t see how they could have survived.
I stood up, unsure whether my shaking was from the shock or the alcohol. This was when I saw a shirt on the floor behind me. White, with a subtle pattern. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it wasn’t my shirt. I lived alone, and rarely invited people back to my flat. I looked around some more. A pair of men’s black leather shoes by the door. And then I saw it.
I suppose, rather, I should say him. He was naked except for a pair of dark blue jeans, slumped in the open doorway to the kitchen, covered in blood, and very, very, dead.
I panicked then. I’m calmer now, so let’s take a moment to describe my conclusions that morning. I had got very drunk. I had met a guy. We’d come back to my flat. We’d been getting naked (the shoes and shirt weren’t bloodied). Then, for some reason, we’d had an argument or a fight. The body had stab wounds in the chest, and a pool of blood had congealed onto the wooden floor of the living room and the linoleum of the kitchen where the man collapsed. How did those stab wounds get there? I didn’t know for sure, but a quick glance at my kitchen counter showed that my sharp carving knife was missing. It was all coming together. I didn’t know if he had picked up the knife, or if I had; I didn’t know why either of us would do that. I didn’t even know his name, and later when I checked his pockets, I couldn’t find any ID.
There was a lot I didn’t know. But I’m smart. So once I was done crying on the floor (I think it was about two hours), I came up with a plan. This man was dead, and I couldn’t do anything about that. But what would the consequences be? There’s no need for my life to be ruined as well. I decided not to call the police. People go missing mysteriously all the time, he can just be another statistic and I’ll get on with my life.
The blood on Dave was mostly dry by now. (Sure, I didn’t know his name, but every bloke’s called Dave, right?) So I put a badly-fitting vest on him to soak up the remaining blood, and his shirt over the top, along with his shoes. His jeans were bloody, but they were dark, so hopefully it wouldn’t show up in low light. I couldn’t find his coat, which was odd given how cold it was, but this would have to do. I put my dress and heels in a plastic bag, and grabbed a spade that I never used. Had I missed anything?
The knife. The fucking knife. I searched all over for it, but by the time it got dark I still hadn’t found it. I knew I couldn’t delay for long, so I figured it was best to deal with Dave now, and find the knife later.
Eight o’clock in the evening came. I’m lucky I have parking right outside my house, no street cameras, and a ground-floor flat. I put the bag in the boot of my car and came back for the body.
Have you ever tried to move a dead person? It’s not easy, and I’m not exactly strong. I put my arm around his waist and eventually managed to heave him almost upright. “Come on Dave, that’s it. We’re gonna get you home. Maybe calm down on the tequila next time right? Try to keep it in, and don’t you dare vomit in my car, you sexy bastard.”
Oh come on, what do you want from me? I’m an influencer, not a stand-up comedian. And anyway, I don’t think anybody saw me during the several minutes it took to drag Dave to the passenger seat. I really wish I’d got round to buying a bigger car than the Fiat Punto I’d had since I was 18, but it was too late for that now.
There’s a place about an hour’s drive from me called Epping Forest. The Heritage Trust reckon it’s most famous for its huge tracts of unspoiled wildlife, thousands of trees, and Iron Age settlements. But around here it’s best known as the place where murderers and gang members bury bodies. So off I trundled in my 1.2 litre pensioner-mobile. I arrived around 9:30, checked Google Maps, and drove offroad into the woods.
Do you know how long it takes to dig a grave? The answer is: a long time! By dawn I’d only managed a hole about two feet. Oh, and it was my third try, because the first two times I found too much rock. Well, it would have to do. In went Dave, and I shovelled the ground back over him. I thought I could put my clothes in with him, but it was a shallow grave, and when the inevitable dog-walker finds it I didn’t want them linked back to me. I mean, there’s my DNA in there for sure, but let’s not make it too easy for them, right? So I chucked the spade in a river, and the clothes went back home with me, including the vest I’d lent him.
Now in England we have a thing called ANPR everywhere. The police can just type in a car registration and see exactly where it’s been from traffic cameras. I needed an alibi. Why had I gone to Epping Forest? For a hike of course! So I walked around for a few hours, got breakfast at a pub, and told the staff about all the wacky adventures I’d had that night. And while I was there, for the first time in a good long time, I checked my phone.
Hundreds of messages, of course. But only one sent a shiver down my spine.
Jolly_Gal_56234
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
My heart thumped. My ears started ringing. I felt dizzy, nearly passed out. How could anybody know?
Of course nobody knew. I actually got messages like this fairly often. Just some idiot trying to wind people up. They’d probably sent a dozen messages just like it, to random people, and I just blocked her. Still it rattled me. I finished my breakfast, paid up, walked back to my car, and drove home.
My flat was just as I left it. Dave was gone, but his blood was still there. I scrubbed the floor for hours, and it helped a bit, but you could still see the stains. Exhausted, I showered and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up. I hadn’t posted anything for a day and a half, so I needed to do something about that. Scrolling through my messages, one stood out like a police light.
Jolly_Gal_28473
YOU’VE BEEN A BAD GIRL 🔪
Shit. SHIT! What the fuck is going on? I stared at my phone, paralysed with indecision. When I finally snapped out of it I made sure the door was locked, and tried to come up with a plan.
I had no idea who was sending these. Maybe they didn’t really know anything. You send stupid messages like that to hundreds of people, you’re gonna come across one who’s actually done something bad, right? I poured myself a big glass of gin, decided that nobody could know anything, and made a video.
Remember that one where I didn’t speak at all, just danced for three minutes dressed like 90s Britney to 70s disco music, titled “HANGOVER DANCE”? Yeah, that’s the one. I didn’t trust myself to speak without breaking, but I could dance about as well as I ever could.
The rest of the day I answered messages, emailed my sponsors, and considered getting an agent. It’s still just me doing everything, and that Sunday afternoon, I really didn’t want to. I also spent a few hours scrubbing the wooden floor with baking soda and vinegar, and looking for the knife.
I kept getting messages from Jolly_Gal. It didn’t matter how much I blocked her, she just popped up again the next day with different numbers at the end of her username. Always all-caps, just a single sentence.
YOU DON’T DESERVE IT
YOU’LL GET WHAT’S COMING TO YOU
OWN UP
DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT
Exactly one message a day, but always at different times. I decided it was a bot, and it was just coincidence that it started when it did. Until Christmas Day.
I’d been back at my parents’ for a few days, and endured the usual conversations about what I was going to do for a “proper job” after uni. They’re great, and really supportive. They’ve just never understood what an “influencer” really is, and that “playing on my phone” for six hours a day counts as work. My brother Rich gets it, but the rest of my family is honestly baffled.
Anyway, Christmas morning comes. All four of us were in the house together (my brother’s 17 so he still lives there), and we gathered together in the living room opening presents. It was a couple of weeks since the incident, and I still had nightmares every night, and those sudden panic attacks - you know, when you’re sure you’re going to be found out - but I was getting used to it. It had happened, I couldn’t change it, and I’d have to keep it secret for the rest of my life; but it was becoming a sort of background hum. I don’t know if that’s too quick, but I suppose I’ve learned to handle difficulty in my life.
Until we finished opening presents and I checked my phone.
Jolly_Gal_814385
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
And underneath, a photo of my kitchen knife, stained with blood.
I ran out of the house in tears.
Rich found me, sitting on the wooden bridge down the road from the house, my legs dangling over the river. I came here a lot when I was a teenager, so it was the first place he looked. I’d left my phone on the living room floor, and the three of them had seen the message, so he knew what triggered me. He just didn’t know the full story.
Well, I told him. I mean, not everything, obviously. But I told him how this person had been harassing me for weeks. He listened sympathetically, like he’s always done, and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I didn’t say anything; I just turned around, hugged him, and cried into his Christmas sweater.
After about half an hour we went back to the house. Rich explained things to my parents, thank goodness. I don’t think I could have handled it.
The rest of the holiday was … okay, I guess. More messages from Jolly_Gal, but only text. I made videos most days, and met all two of my old schoolfriends for drinks, movies and shopping. They’re big fans of my channels. I even took Rich out for drinks one evening, though it took us four pubs to find somewhere that wouldn’t ID him. He’s a bit of a babyface.
I did all I could not to think about Dave. I put him to the back of my mind, letting him live in the shed at the bottom of the garden of my psyche where he couldn’t disturb me. I guess that’s why it came as a shock to me, when I packed my stuff into the boot of my car to head back to uni.
There was one suitcase I’d packed but hadn’t got round to taking into the house. And peeking around the edge was that plastic bag. I’d forgotten to get rid of it!
Dad was helping me load the car, so I couldn’t do anything about it. I tucked it out of sight, finished loading up, said goodbye, and drove back to uni. It was dark when I got back, so I unpacked everything else, triple-bagged my bloody clothes, left my phone at home (no tracking me!), and walked two miles to drop them into somebody else’s wheelie bin.
The next morning I checked my messages.
Jolly_Gal_12592
WELCOME HOME
And a photo of me dumping the bag the night before.
You know what? This didn’t bother me. I mean, it did bother me, but not as much as I guess Jolly_Gal hoped. I’ve been bullied and harassed most of my life, and I’ve got pretty good at ignoring it. Sure, it was an escalation - she was actually following me - but it was just one of almost thirty messages. Jolly_Gal was hoping to destroy me. Instead, she hardened my resolve.
Clearly she had enough evidence to go to the police, but she hadn’t. And obviously she lived nearby. Now I’m no hacker, but you don’t do a job like mine without learning your way around technology. So I started sleuthing. I hadn’t bothered blocking her after the third or fourth message, so I made a list of all the messages, including timecodes. I’ve got a geology degree (almost), and we have techniques to analyse rock strata. Finally I had a genuine use for all that studying I sort of did!
Jolly_Gal was not as clever as she thought. She’d got sloppy. About half of her messages were sent at strange hours, on the hour. These were presumably posted by her bot. But the other messages were all sent between 7 and 8 am, or between 6 and 10 pm. So I guessed that she has a normal 9-5 day job, or maybe she’s a student.
Next I searched all the social media sites I could think of for Jolly_Gal or JollyGal usernames. There are a few, so please don’t go harassing people with that username! I don’t want innocent people to get hurt. After a few hours I had profiles of all Jolly_Gals. Pictures, locations, partial travel history, even birthdays for some of them. I discounted those who clearly weren’t in England, but I still had too many to narrow it down. The photos had no EXIF data so I couldn’t tell the type of phone or camera they used.
So my days became something like this: Five hours doing uni stuff, five hours working on my socials, and an hour or two learning digital sleuthing. I still went out with my friends sometimes, but made sure not to drink too much. I know how to have a good time without being drunk!
The breakthrough came by total chance. I rarely read the local papers, and just got lucky one afternoon in March. I was waiting for a friend in the pub after lectures, and there was a copy of the Post somebody had left on a table. So I flicked through it. The local council was rubbish at doing traffic. Some group of OAPS was organising a May Day celebration. And a woman had been convicted of body-snatching.
I recognised her! There was a photo of a woman in her early twenties. She’d been arrested when a corpse went missing back in December, and they’d seen her take it on the morgue’s CCTV. She’d been released on bail. “Prevention of the lawful and decent burial of a dead body” is a rare crime these days, so she hadn’t been sentenced yet; instead she was released until her sentencing, expected to be in August. Her name was Jenny Smith, which is so common as to be almost useless - that is, if you don’t have a profile of her on your laptop at home!
The report also gave her address. So I started hatching a plan. I texted my friend that I wouldn’t make it, and went home.
Jolly_Gal, or rather, Jenny, lived near me, and actually went to the same university. She had accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and a few others. Of course you can’t get Jolly_Gal by itself these days, but my profile gave all her precise usernames. I spent my evening watching her videos and reading her tweets. And then I found the smoking gun.
Jenny had posted a video on TikTok last June bitching about me. She’s way prettier than me, and yet I’d got all the subs and follows. She deserved all those sponsorship deals. It wasn’t fair that I had hundreds of thousands of subs and she only had a few thousand. She even said I was ugly and deserved to die.
Well, she got one out of two right, I guess. You can decide which one.
It all started to slot into place. Jenny was absurdly jealous of me, so she’d hatched a plan to destroy me. She must have roofied me in The Bar, got me and Dave back to my place, stabbed him, poured blood everywhere, and taken the knife home. I mean, I don’t know anything about forensic science, and I was drugged and panicked when I woke up that morning. I’d have no way of knowing that Dave had died days before he ended up in my flat!
I’d never managed to get all the blood out of the wooden flooring, and ended up putting a really misplaced rug over it. I chiselled off a sample and gave it to one of my friends who was doing a PhD in biology. It took a bit of persuading, but he ran an analysis on it.
It was pig’s blood.
Fuck Jenny. She’s not Jenny, or Jolly_Gal, she’s fucking Carrie!
She planned to destroy me. She ruined my mental health, she framed me for murder. All because I was more popular on TikTok than she was. Well, two can play at that game. I didn’t deserve what Jenny did to me. She did.
I thought about this all night, coming up with plan after plan, weighing them in my head. I wanted two things: to destroy Jenny, and to feel good about it for myself. Finally I had a course of action I’m actually rather proud of.
I decided to start slow. I did something anybody could have done - I mocked up a poster. At the top was “Jenny Smith - body snatcher!”. Underneath were two pictures, her Insta profile pic and the courthouse photo from the paper, and between them: “From This … To This!” And all her various social media handles to top it off. I printed hundreds of these, and pinned them all around the university and her street.
I’ve never thought of myself as an unkind person - God knows I’ve suffered enough myself to be sympathetic to others. But I’m willing to admit I felt a lot of satisfaction seeing her comments fill up with accusations and links to the online article. Jenny carried on making videos, but I could tell she was suffering. Good!
That was stage one. I had to up the ante for stage two. Jenny had covered me and my flat with pig’s blood, so I think we all know what’s coming next.
I pondered for a long time whether I should do it in the day or the night. But you know what they say - go big or go home. I scoped out her house for a while, and found out that she leaves her kitchen window, at the back of the house, open. Now I’m not the most athletic girl in the world, but I can be pretty determined when I want to be. So one night around 2 am I walked to her house - it’s only about half a mile - and climbed through the window.
I almost gave myself a heart attack when I knocked a glass over on the kitchen sink! Luckily it didn’t smash. I hid in a corner and waited for a full half hour before I decided Jenny hadn’t heard me. Then I snuck upstairs, slow as anything, and crept into her room.
Actually, the first room wasn’t hers. She shared with a couple of other students. Thank fuck I checked first! The second room was the right one. She was asleep, alone, in a double bed. I was so quiet that the only thing I could hear was my heart pounding in my chest as I opened my canvas bag, gently deposited its contents onto the pillow next to her, and took a photo. It didn’t come out that well - I couldn’t use the flash - but hey, I have a souvenir!
I really wish I’d seen her face when she woke up the next morning, staring at a pig’s head. She didn’t post on her socials for a week after that, and for two days she even forgot to send me a threatening message.
I’m sorry? You think I’m done? Oh, my sweet summer child. I’ve barely begun.
Jenny had a boyfriend, Abdul. I made sure he wasn’t around when I broke in, but stage three involved him in a big way.
Abdul was also at our university, a year younger than me, a year older than Jenny. He wasn’t very active on social media, but he did tend to broadcast his activity on Twitter. And what do you know? He’s also a fan of The Bar. So I spent the next month planning my move. I bought a new clubbing dress and heels - hey, I kinda missed that outfit! - and asked around for the other thing I needed. Some things you can’t just buy in Next, or a local butcher’s, but eventually I managed it.
I got my chance one Friday in May. Abdul had loudly announced on Twitter that he was excited for his boys’ night out in The Bar, and Jenny had been gushing about a girls’ night on the whole other side of town. Perfect. I spent hours on my makeup, and got to The Bar around ten. Abdul and his mates were having a drinking contest, and leching up at the girls dancing on the tables.
I figured I had a good long while before he would be ready, so I had a couple of drinks - not too much, but like I said I can handle myself, and I knew Jenny wasn’t around - and got up on the tables myself for a bit. Then about midnight Abdul’s friend got another round in, while Abdul was in the loo. This was my chance. I walked up to their table - which had no dancing feet on it, but a heck of a lot of spilled beer - and started talking to them, saying I thought their friend was hot.
“Uh, what the fuck?” “Not a chance in hell.” “Get lost, freak!”
Lovely chaps. But they were too far gone to notice me dropping something into Abdul’s double-whiskey-and-coke. For all I know, it’s the exact same thing Jenny used on me all those months ago.
Abdul came back and downed his whiskey in one gulp. I was worried he was going to vomit it up, but he held it in and blamed his difficulty on the coke fizz. Yeah mate, sure, sure.
Not too long after, he started to fade. His friends were really taking the piss out of him for being such a lightweight. Well, when I came over, the pisstaking just got worse. I introduced myself (with a fake name, duh) and told him he was hot. Believe it or not, it was only about twenty seconds before he put his tongue down my throat. Wow, I’m not sure I even needed to bother with the roofie!
His friends, who had been so intent on being mean to me, now turned their attention to him. I suggested we ditch them and go back to his place (I’d checked, it was only five minutes’ walk sober) - and off we went.
That was the first time I had sex. I’m sure I don’t need to go into details, but we did a lot of stuff, and I enjoyed it. I’m not sure if that’s because it was good, or because he was good, or because I knew what it was all for. I was impressed that he managed to keep going as long as he did in his state, but I do feel a bit sorry for him; from his Twitter he seems like a decent guy.
When he finally fell asleep I left. I’d got what I came for - pictures. And the next day I made a new account and sent a DM to Jenny.
At first I blurred my face, or chose shots that didn’t include it. A bit of editing and I could have been anybody. I watched their messy breakup on Twitter, Jenny hurling accusations, Abdul protesting his innocence. I know this is the age of social media, but I never understood why people play these things out in public.
And then, after posting a picture a day for a few weeks (I’d taken a lot of pictures), I sent one that showed my face clearly.
Jenny had managed to restrain herself from replying before, but now she knew who I was. She was furious! The very idea that her boyfriend had cheated on her with ME, of all people, was unbelievable. And this was exactly the outcome I’d been going for.
Jolly_Gal was broken. She’d ruined her reputation. She’d lost her boyfriend. She had nightmares about pigs (okay, so I don’t know that for certain, but in my imagination she woke up screaming every night). She was possibly going to prison. And now she knew that not only was I more successful than her as an influencer, but I was the one to steal her lover. She still sent messages, at first angry, but they soon degenerated into pleading. “Please stop.” “I’m sorry.” “We can work this out.” Jolly_Gal without CAPS LOCK, it was glorious to see.
In fact it was almost perfect. Three stages of my plan were complete, and only one remained. Jenny’s sentencing was in three weeks, so I had to move quickly.
She had two flatmates, so I needed to work around them. They weren’t particularly active on Twitter, but Jenny was. I knew from her tweets that while her flatmates had gone home, she was staying on a couple of weeks after the end of term. She didn’t say why publicly, but it was for her trial. No flatmates, no boyfriend. Now was the time.
And that brings us up to date. I’ve typed this up over the last few days, and saved as a draft. The final chapter, hopefully, comes tonight.
*******
I’m at Jenny’s house, and I’ve just called the police.
I turned up at Jenny’s door just after seven. Luck was with me - she’d tweeted that she was expecting a Deliveroo takeout. And I got there first.
The idiot actually kept the knife. I’d seen it when I was in her room. When she answered the doorbell, expecting food, and saw me - ah, the look on her face was priceless.
“I’m so sorry! Please, let’s just talk. I didn’t mean it to get this -”
I stalked towards her, anger in my face. Jenny fled upstairs. Perfect! She went into her room and shut the door, but I was like the furies of Greek legend. I smashed the door in, and looked on as Jenny cowered on her bed.
In full daylight, I saw the knife took pride of place in what looked like a shrine. She had photos of me printed out, and she’d written on them “BITCH”, “WHORE”, “FREAK” and all sorts of other hateful words.
Jenny had tried to make me into a murderer, so I gave her what she wanted. I grabbed the knife and stood over her. The coward shrank into the bed, begging for forgiveness, pleading for her life. Unfortunately for her I was not inclined to oblige. I plunged the knife into her chest, just as she had done to Dave all those many months ago. Jenny whimpered like a whipped dog, and after the ninth stab (yes, I counted), she stopped.
The police are on their way. I’m definitely going to jail after this. But Jenny got what was coming to her. We could both have lived happily, but Jenny chose otherwise.
And me? I passed my degree. I have friends. And jail or not, I have a life.
Burn in hell, Jolly_Gal.

I created a custom Find and Replace macro where a user configures a list of words and keywords. When running the macro an userform pops up granting the user the option to. (many more options but this is the gist of it)

• Replace all found keywords with their replacement values
• Remove all found keywords
• Highlight all found keywords

The macro works fine except it is a bit slow on bigger selections and I was wondering if there are some improvements I can make.

Private Function PerformFindAndReplace(cleanRange As Range, findValues() As Variant, replaceValues() As Variant, partialMatch As Boolean, selected_find_option As String) Dim SelectedArray As Variant SelectedArray = cleanRange cleanRange.ClearComments 'If selection is only one cell, make it an array with a temp value so the for loop works If Not IsArray(SelectedArray) Then Dim TempArray As Variant ReDim TempArray(1 To 1, 1 To 1) TempArray(1, 1) = SelectedArray SelectedArray = TempArray End If Dim i As Long, j As Long, k As Long For i = 1 To UBound(SelectedArray, 1) For j = 1 To UBound(SelectedArray, 2) For k = 1 To UBound(findValues, 1) ' loop keywords to find in string Select Case selected_find_option Case "Replace" SelectedArray(i, j) = ReplaceWordInString(CStr(SelectedArray(i, j)), CStr(findValues(k, 1)), CStr(replaceValues(k, 1)), partialMatch) Case "Remove" SelectedArray(i, j) = RemoveWordInString(CStr(SelectedArray(i, j)), CStr(findValues(k, 1)), partialMatch) End Select Next k SelectedArray(i, j) = Trim(SelectedArray(i, j)) ' trim the array to remove access spacing SelectedArray(i, j) = Application.WorksheetFunction.Trim(Replace(SelectedArray(i, j), " ", " ")) 'remove double or more spaces in text Next j Next i 'Paste the array back on the user selection cleanRange.value = SelectedArray End Function 

The ReplaceWordInString function:

Public Function ReplaceWordInString(sentence As String, keyword As String, replacement As String, Partial As Boolean) As String If Partial Then If InStr(1, sentence, keyword, vbTextCompare) > 0 Then ReplaceWordInString = Replace(sentence, keyword, replacement) Else ReplaceWordInString = sentence End If Else Dim word As Variant, result As String For Each word In Split(sentence, " ") If LCase(word) = LCase(keyword) Then result = result & replacement & " " ' If the word matches, replace it Else result = result & word & " " ' If the word doesn't match, add it to the result End If Next word ReplaceWordInString = result End If End Function 

Hello!
I love words. Like… i fall in love with sentences and words.
because of my love for words i really want a sleeve done with words and a few diagrams here and there on my right arm.
anyone seen anything similar? does it looks stupid? one of the biggest fears i have is getting a sentence tattooed and then finding out it’s rather cringe…
i started collecting words/phrases/poems for about 5 years now, and i still love all of them as much as when i felt the need to write them down.
just want a reality check.. and some pictures if you guys have anything!
cheers

English proficiency is increasingly important in India for various purposes, and Google searches for English grammar and vocabulary terms are common. However, these searches are insufficient, and understanding and remembering these terms is crucial for proper communication.
The Digital Teacher English Language Lab provides a comprehensive glossary of common terminology, aiding in vocabulary enhancement and improving fluency in the language. Its use can enhance communication, even in simple conversations, making it a valuable tool for language learning.
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How Can You Become a Better English Speaker?

The six tips provided can enhance your English language learning experience, making it faster, more efficient, and cost-effective. This platform is the ideal resource for enhancing your English grammar and vocabulary skills.

1. Work on these exercises pertaining to grammar.
   • The regular practice of grammar exercises can significantly enhance the quality of writing.
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   • Observing language patterns is a beneficial method for enhancing grammar.
   • This exercise can be performed frequently.
   • This aids in comprehending the diverse meanings and structures of language.
2. Acquire Vocabulary Through These ExercisesThe speaker emphasizes the importance of expanding vocabulary and familiarity with English terms, stating that understanding how words are used and expressed is more crucial than just memorizing them. They suggest proper use of basic language and communication to expand vocabulary.English Language Lab's software offers experienced teachers practice in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, enhancing their English language learning experience.Listening Skills, English language lab – Digital Teacher
   1. Regular reading with vocabulary-building tasks
   2. Making a note
   3. Make reading aloud a habit.
   4. Taking in audiobooks
   5. These methods might significantly improve your English language learning by:
   6. Focusing on new terms
   7. Improving learning and remembering
   8. When everything is looked at, they greatly help students in their learning of the English language.
3. Regularly Work on Your Basic English Listening SkillsActive listening is crucial for effective communication, especially when learning a new language. Focus on speaking English, asking for details, and providing comments.
   • Enhance your English listening skills by listening to short dialogues and answering questions.
   • Daily study and regular listening to English-language knowledge enhance one's speaking abilities.
   • The goal is to enhance awareness by mastering English vocabulary and taking notes throughout the course.
   • Worksheets and lyric-rich music are effective tools for enhancing listening skills.
   • Utilizing diverse resources such as movies, infographics, and Quora can significantly aid in learning English.
   • These activities aim to enhance your overall English language learning process.
4. Read and Practice (Reading Comprehension in English)Reading proficiency is crucial for language learners to enhance communication skills, and can be achieved through various methods such as audiobooks, note-taking, learning new words, ear-reading, and continuous training.
   1. Engage in vocabulary-building exercises to enhance your comprehension of words.
   2. Choose novels that you enjoy reading, not just those that are popular.
   3. The act of mouthing words or reading aloud can enhance concentration and recall.
   4. Taking notes while reading improves memory and comprehension of the content by highlighting new words.
   5. Reading clubs are an excellent method to enhance language skills through participation in reading groups.
   6. The study plans should incorporate these techniques for effective English language learning development to significantly enhance skills.
5. Begin to Speak English as a First LanguageEngaging with native English speakers can enhance your vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and conversational skills, providing insight into the language's daily usage.Digital English activities provide teachers with a focus on speaking practice and individual instruction, enabling them to plan exercises that naturally improve English skills.
   • Practice speaking, conversing with native speakers, and receiving immediate feedback can make it easier.
   • The skill of effective English communication necessitates continuous practice.
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6. Develop Your Writing Ability in EnglishDaily writing practice is crucial for comprehending language strengths and weaknesses, enhancing sentence structure, and cultivating a distinctive writing style.
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   5. To enhance your writing skills, it is essential to practice regularly and enjoy the process.

Frequent Reading Has a Number of Advantages:

• It enhances the vocabulary we utilize.
• This aids in identifying errors.
• It enhances our proficiency in grammar.
• We can practice writing in English using it.
• Utilizing Google to enhance our writing style by providing us with new terminology and their definitions.

Consistent Writing Encourages:

• Consistent writing offers numerous benefits, including the creation of a unique style.
• The phrasing has been strengthened.
• The text discusses the positive and negative aspects of our language use.

English Language Lab Software Digital Teacher
English Language Lab is an offline language learning platform that helps students improve their skills in areas like grammar, speaking, reading, writing, listening, phonetics, vocabulary, soft skills, and life skills, offering lessons from school, home, or anywhere.

I am working on my first large project and the genre is historical fiction/true crime. It is a weird combination. It is an account of a man from my town who killed his family in the late 1800s. I have personal familial ties to this crime and have done extensive research in order to find the "true" story. My question is on citing sources. I have tons of newspaper articles, court transcripts and personal photographs in which I am building this story from. I read Killers of the Flower Moon and took note of how those sources are cited. Is that basically what I am looking at or do I need to do the citation in the text body of the book. Its been a long time since Mr. Baker in 9th grade English diagrammed sentences and quoted citations on the chalkboard.

Let's Decode What Depression Is And More

Today I will be going in depth about depression and decoding the word and reasoning with Numerology. We can already see that depression has a lot of repeated letters which shows there is too much of a focus on one thing and too much of something can usually hinder it or cause imbalance.
Let's break down the word DEPRESSION:
The word has E 2 times, S 2 times
D=4
E=5
P=7(16)
R=9(18)
E=5
S=1(19)
S=1(19)
I=9
O=6(15)
N=5(14)
Let's first focus on the obvious! This word has karmic debt numbers for the letters N, P, and S. Let's grab some context from a site that I will link below that explain what these karmic debt numbers mean in detail.
"The 14 Karmic Debt arises from previous actions where human freedom has been abused. Those with a 14 Karmic Debt are forced to adapt to ever-changing circumstances and unexpected occurrences. There is an acute danger of falling victim to drug abuse, alcohol, or overindulgence in sensual pleasures, such as food and sex. Moderation in all affairs is crucial to overcome this Karmic Debt." - credit goes to Karmic Debt Numbers in Numerology World Numerology
"The 16 Karmic Debt – in any area it appears in a chart - means destruction of the old and birth of the new. It is about the fall of the ego and all it has built for itself. It is a watershed, a cleansing. Things the ego has constructed to separate a person from the source of life, are destroyed.
Through the 16, reunion with higher consciousness may be achieved. This can be a painful process because it usually comes after much ego inflation, resulting in a struggle between the ego and higher ideals. Life will present challenges to your grand plans which you may resent and struggle against. It is a losing battle… and you will likely feel humbled in the face of the collapse that follows. However, humility is the key to later success, as you learn to follow the intimations of a deeper reality."
"A person with the 19 Karmic Debt will learn independence and the proper use of power. You will be placed in situations where you are forced to stand up for yourself (and often be left standing alone). One of the central lessons for people with the 19 Karmic Debt revolves around stubbornly resisting help from others. Much of your independence is self-imposed - you simply want to do it your own way.The 19 Karmic Debt can become a self-imposed prison if you don’t recognize the need for interdependence and the mutual need for love.Although you seek to stand on your own feet, you are inextricably connected to others and in need of the support and understanding that all people need - this is the most important lesson for the 19 Karmic Debt." And being personally connected to a lot of 19 energy, this is very true! There is one 19 person I watch on Youtube and he is using this energy pretty well.

DECODING DEPRESSION

Let's take a look at the word. You see it starts with the letter D which is ruled by the number 4 as the 4th letter in the alphabet. 4 energy is connected to privacy, home, family, discontent, restriction, and nonchalant energy. There is many more terms, but you can see where this is going. If you call certain companies toll free, listen to what they say you need to press number 4 for.
What just hit me as I looked at the word is the rest of the word after DE...PRESSION. Maybe there is something needing to be expressed(expression!) that isn't being expressed. All depression is, is suppression of something. D/4 can be suppression and withholding. That's why some jobs want you to fill out the W4 which is a withholding form! Depression comes when someone is choosing to withhold expression of emotions and genuine communication that can help. Taking caution to a whole new level and it ends up being destructive. 4 can point to dissipation which makes sense for destruction to mean what it means.
The word starts with the energy of 4 which is about withholding and suppression and end with the energy of 5 which can be conflicting.
All those letters and we only get to the number 5?!. This word is embedded with the energy of 1 and 9 which means that people who claim or feel depression CAN utilize their personal power to get themselves out of said depression. You have the right to process your emotions and once you do, you can start using your strength and power to overcome. Sometimes it starts with the mind.
Now, based on the letters and numbers with the word, let's see what numbers are missing!
We are missing 2,3,and 8! 2 gives a person a natural comfort within self. It can also make them loveable or easily cooperative with others. The energy of 3 gives a person natural optimism and majestic mental capacity. 8 gives a person a steadfast embedded powerful strength. This 8 energy gives a person unstoppable capability.
Getting over depression is about rising above a situation and having the capability of strengthening your perspective. Your confidence levels are something you have to personally master. Notice how depression ends with O and N which is 6 and 5. That's a backtrack. We're counting forwards, not backwards. 6 is about overcoming problems while 5 is the problems or insecurities. Depression ending with the energy of 5 is a thinkpiece. 5 deals with the uniqueness of a situation or action. You will have to do something different or new to wake up out of whatever this depression was about and understand that everyone's depression won't be the same!
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Edit. I put the main summary in front, with some rough sketch of the high level idea after! Thanks for all feedback.
Overall, to understand the concept, I think the main thing to consider is that as Einstein said, everything is relative to something else.
If you have two objects like Sun and Earth, they have their definite locations, but both warp each other, and their center of mass is in between them. Concept of "you" living forward in time is not Earth or Sun, it's the mathematical center of mass. You can take that center of mass, and decide, that it's infinite future is it's end.
How far that is? Both the observable universe, as well as past it, if there's a causal connection to any part inside your own observable universe. The jist of it, if you would be Sun or Earth, you would be definite, and your observable universe is full. But since you swim between them, the horizon of the universe swims with your decisions.
To understand the decisions you make, imagine two squishy balls connected with a string that has metal ring around the string. If the ring ever hits either ball, it's game over. The balls constantly hit each other, to make the string vibrate, and make the ring move into equilibrium.
What is very important is that each ball can either embrace the hit, and make the string vibrate more, or hold against the hit, and make the string vibrate less. Neither is good or bad decision per se, because what you need to do depends where the metal ring is now. Thankfully, you knew where it is since two balls started hitting each other, and you learned along the way, how to avoid the metal ring.
So in the end it might not matter if universe is deterministic or random, but how well you prepare yourself for both across all of time.
~-~-~
Lets say that nervous system is a two sided (left and right side) 'intelligent' next token prediction model on self-correcting and self-modifying tissue, where each strong enough prediction has causal effects on the tissue itself. See the two sides as roughly positively and negatively charged with certain mass. Charge is a feature of structure, i.e. its a result of structural saturation of a given particle.
Imagining it as a wave that's entangled and smooth at the same time to either the inputs (sensors, like eyes or skin) or itself, as well as information helps to visualize the scope, which is Schwarzschild radius of the causality across time in Reissner-Nordström geometry for a charged rotating black hole.
Imagine Penrose diagram of a Kerr black hole as an some sort of representation of wave-function traveling across the model.
Your last prediction is death, as next prediction in frequency is infinitely away, at your birth. It might be best to imagine it as wave-function ending at ring singularity of rotating black hole, that will eventually radiate away for a infinitely far away observer (You).
See concept of free will as your degrees of freedom in super-extremal Reissner-Nordström black hole. Quote - "The mathematical solutions for super-extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes, those with charge exceeding mass, have no horizons at all, which is an even more drastic change in topology."
You 'weight' your predictions against inputs, raising your charge enough to not hit the ring singularity.
Imagine memory as a sound wave. How strong memory influences you is basically how 'loud' it is, and how often it happens. See "it" and "happens" in previous sentence as ones and zeros of your nervous system receptor, that is entangled with 'your model'. As it reaches "1 or 0", you might imagine the information as entering singularity, and 'echoing' it's influence across the model to change it's momentum.
The wave function of the model as well as it's possibilities are limited by it's entangled sensors, as well as by model, and how it decrypts the information, using it's tools. See information in this case as free-floating 'rationales', that can be decrypted in finite time. When a dog and a human look at the moving train, both entangle the same information, but humans have the more efficient tools (language etc.). Dog might decrypt it fast enough to move away, humans can understand it's usefulness in a more broad way. This is of course biased example, as we ourselves created partially the free-floating rationale of train top-down, and give encryption codes via language.
See "From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds" by Daniel C. Dennett for better description of free-floating rationales.
You could also imagine wave functions of bigger structures, as well as each human you interact, in similar fashion that you can imagine your left and right side of nervous system interacting. Society, cities, or what not just work on different frequency, much sloooooooooower.
The wave function of "You" could be infinite in principle, as long as it doesn't hit the singularity and radiate away.
Good luck.
~-~-~
One can imagine more situations where this idea might explain different things, but, I'm predicting going to sleep.
All of it is probably a silly idea, please take it with a grain of salt.

I've been trying to make math worksheets for students I tutor in 3.5. But all I get are descriptions of images.
I want to create math worksheets where students can calculate perimeter, area of composite shapes (pictured).
Or even trigonometry calculations of pictured triangles.
Is this possible on GPT4? I would like to know before diving into subscribing for it? TIA

PART ONE THOUSAND AND SEVEN
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Sunday
I was expecting a church when we arrived … like last time. You know … four walls … lots of seats … staging area …
Yet somehow, my second step down from the celestial realm had my shoes crunching on a sandy beach with a warm ocean breeze wafting in from the east. I turned to face the open water, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath to drink it all in …
… only to have them fly open again.
“Where are we?” I demanded, for whatever this was, it wasn’t any ocean on our world. I’d sailed every one of them and knew them all by scent. This was not like any open water mass we had. I spun away from that … whatever it was behind me, brushing the angel’s hand from my shoulder in the process. “UNCLE YHWH!” I bellowed.
“There’s no need to shout, lad,” an older voice mused.
I zoomed in on a sixty-or-seventy-year-old man with Dad’s build, sitting on a beach chair facing both me and the ocean. To his right was a round white beach table with an empty white beach chair on the other side. He wore dark brown sunglasses that contrasted against his pale skin, white hair and matching long beard. The white linen button-up shirt he wore had a blue edging that matched the dark blue board shorts that fell to the knee, and his ‘beachy’ look was completed with a pair of rubber flip-flops that were half covered in sand.
Robbie had called him a buff-looking Santa, and although that wasn’t the guy I’d met in the church that time, I was almost certain this was the version Robbie had met. Especially when he pulled down his glasses and winked at me, then cocked his head for me to take the empty seat. “Come and take a load off, nephew.”
“Where are we?” I asked instead, pointing my finger upwards and spinning it like a propeller. “This isn’t on Earth.”
His smile fell away, turning into a frown. “I thought your father was the one who had water as his innate.”
“You don’t need an innate to know this isn’t right. I’ve spent over half my life sailing every ocean we have.” I threw an arm back at the water, almost smacking the angel in the process. "And none of them smell like that.” I knew that for a fact because this one smelt so clear and so pollution-free that I would’ve killed to have our waters smelling that good again (and I wasn’t necessarily joking on that score).
“Ahh, I see.” He stood up and, of course, towered over me, even though there were twenty feet between us. “You may go now, Michael. Thank you.”
“Your will, Father,” Michael bowed and realm-stepped away, leaving us alone.
“I’m not alone,” I warned him, hunching my shoulders warily.
If anything, that seemed to amuse him. “I know. It’s alright, Sam. I know about your guard, and you still wear my Ophanim on your ankle. Please believe me when I say I would never hurt you. However, I am somewhat limited when it comes to knowledge of your world, and as such, I didn’t create this as convincingly as I’d hoped.”
That had me straightening up. “I thought you could do and be anything you wanted to be.”
“Don’t be flippant, young man. You know how establishment fields work. I am limited to any ground that is consecrated to my realm.”
“That’s why I was expecting a church. Why would you put on this dog and pony show when you had to know I wasn’t expecting it? Are you trying to impress me?”
“Hardly. This was me attempting to make you comfortable, and unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to find a sailor in church this morning for me to replicate the oceans of your world to your satisfaction.” His smile was rueful.
I squinted at him. “So you know … what everyone who crosses the threshold of a church knows?”
“If I am in residence at the time, yes. But there are many, many churches in the world, and trying to find the right person in the right one when the only way I can get there is to have an angel precede my arrival makes that accomplishment a difficult one at best.”
That took a hot minute to process. “Wait…” I stammered, staring at the sand beneath his feet for something neutral to help gather my thoughts. “So you aren’t in all the churches all the time?”
“I told you before, I need the ophanim to move from one church to the next. The land in between them is not under my control.”
I knew my face screamed my scepticism because I had a horrible poker face. “So, if there are two churches across the road from each other, you’re telling me you’re stuck in one unless you create another set of ophanim to teleport you over there?” At his nod, my cynicism grew. “Thirty feet. As in twenty steps tops. You can’t walk twenty steps in a straight line and get yourself across that road? You do know, everyone else manages to put one foot in front of the other to get where they’re going—and aren’t you the one that came up with the saying ‘walk a mile in another person’s shoes’?”
“It’s not the same, Sam. It’s not!” He repeated the last sentence more sternly when I opened my mouth to call him on his crap. “I’m unable to set foot outside the realm of Heaven. It’s a hard limit on my establishment field.”
That didn’t make sense. “Why?”
If anything, his face fell, and he looked sad. “It’s a really long story that happened an even longer time ago. Knowing that tale won’t change anything and will only give you nightmares for the rest of eternity. All you need to know is that although I am all-powerful within Heaven, I am also limited to the realm of Heaven.”
That was really sad. Not to mention … very ‘genie’ like, out of Aladdin. “So, where are we really?”
“A small church in the southern parts of Chile. The priest has taken all the villagers out to the graveyard to bury a young parishioner who died in a landslide recently. We have time.”
“Would you mind putting us back to the real world? This feels really fake to me, and I don’t want it to overshadow our time together.”
“Of course.” He made no movement, and I was sure being who he was, he could’ve made the transition jarringly fast; but like the breeze drifting across the sand, one reality softly blew away to reveal the other.
Now, we were in a semi-dilapidated building made of stone and weather-worn boards. The staging area was barely a platform, and the seating fit maybe twenty people. He also changed his clothing, now wearing a khaki long-sleeved shirt, a two-toned grey poncho, long leggings, and sandals. “Is this better?”
I was determined not to sound ungrateful, despite thinking it was really freaking cold! “How did you not know what I’d want if I was right in front of you and we were on Heavenly soil?” I asked instead.
From out of nowhere, an old-school leather bomber jacket from the Second World War appeared done up around me, complete with the sheepskin collar raised to act as a windbreak. The fit was perfect, and I stuffed my bare hands in the sheepskin pockets, loving the immediate warmth that was generated. It really was stupid to think he wouldn’t notice I was shivering.
“You’re also ringed, Sam, and when the family is ringed, they fall under a different set of rules again.”
“So…”
“You are very drawn to that word, aren’t you?”
The question threw me. “What?”
“‘So’. You’ve used it almost every time you’ve spoken to me.”
I had? I internalised and ran through the last few minutes. “Wow, I’m sorry,” I said when I returned because, of course, he was right: I had. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“It was merely an observation. Please ask your question. I won’t interrupt again.”
I couldn’t even remember, so I decided to get things back to why I was there in the first place. “You wanted to talk to me.”
“Yes. I did.” He gestured for me to sit in the front row and took a seat beside me when I did. “And you know what it’s about.”
“I was just asking…”
“Sssshhh…” Uncle YHWH gently shushed, probably because I was starting to amp up, like a child determined to stay out of trouble. “It’s okay, Sam. No one’s blaming you for being curious about the realms.”
I immediately deflated. “Then … why am I here?”
“Because you figured part of it out at the table. My worshippers do believe in me, and in doing so, I have become what they believe. It is a self-perpetuating cycle of power, and it’s exactly how an establishment field works.”
“Oh, okay,” I said cautiously, still not seeing the point of this get-together then.
“All I ask is if you have any questions pertaining to my worshippers’ beliefs in the future, could you direct them to me instead? I know who you are and where you fit in in my life. My worshippers are clueless to that connection, and asking harmless questions like that can cause them to start doubting me. Once that tower begins to crumble, it’s a lot of work to restabilise it.” He paused, probably to let that sink in.
“So just—dang it, sorry,” I said, realising I’d said the word ‘so’ again. “By asking questions … innocent questions … you’re telling me in time I could rewrite your establishment field?”
“While I’m here, yes. It would all revert as soon as I went back to Heaven, but every time I visited here, I would change.”
I rubbed the back of my head. “Yeah, let’s not do that.” Something else then occurred to me. “Is that why Earlafaol is so special? I mean, not just because Lady Col’s here, but because she keeps the balance of so many religions on a single world.”
Uncle YHWH’s smile was both indulgent and informative, even before he nodded his answer. “Nowhere else in the Known or Unknown Realms has multiple pockets of established power in a whole realm, let alone a single world. The dominant has always crushed the subservient to rule supreme, and even here, it has been … challenging to limit ourselves to what we’ve been allocated.”
My grin grew with every second that passed. “The Crusades,” I said, for even I had heard of that war. I stared at him, willing him to confirm what I knew was true. “How much trouble did you get into for that?”
Uncle YHWH licked his lips and faux-grimaced, tensing his throat. “Let’s just say if I hadn’t known Columbine growing up, Earlafaol wouldn’t be believing in me anymore.”
That surprised me. “She’d have booted you out?”
“Oh, yes. Most assuredly. I was on what you would call thin ice for several centuries after that.”
I chuckled evilly. I couldn’t help it. My uncle, a god worshipped all over the world, was nearly kicked out of the universe by my cousin, who outranked him.
He hmphed with a grin, and before I could dodge it, he flattened his hand against the side of my head and gave me a harmless shove away from him, much the way Dad would.
I came back up, laughing all the more. “That has got to be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Perhaps, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”
I laughed for maybe a minute or so longer, then cleared my throat. “Dad says I should be frightened of you,” I said, just to see his reaction.
“Your father is frightened of everyone more powerful than him at the moment. They all are.”
“You didn’t attack them though, did you?”
“All of them … all together … all at once … in Mystal? I’m good, Sam, but I’m not that good.”
The way he said that—the confidence—I suddenly stiffened and swung sharply to face him fully, no longer joking in the least. “You know who attacked them, don’t you?”
Uncle YHWH stared back at me. “It’s more a case of knowing who didn’t … and once you take them out of the equation, there’s not a lot of people that leaves.”
I frowned, knowing there was a clue in that explanation somewhere, but damned if I could see it. “So, are we good?”
“We’ve always been good, Sam. If you ever need me, all you need to do is walk into any church, and I’ll be there waiting for you. I love you with all my heart.”
I smiled at the cheesy line even as I turned away, still awkward around such open displays of emotion outside the apartment. “Love you too, Uncle Y—” When I turned back, he was gone.
I stood up and looked around. “Uncle YHWH?”
Nothing.
Well, not nothing.
I heard the foreign voices of people approaching from outside.
“Shoot!” I hissed and realm-stepped away, appearing out of habit in my dressing room. I hid in the farthest corner behind countless wardrobes in the hopes of avoiding Robbie and immediately stripped out of the bomber jacket that was now trying to cook me. Once I was free, I held it up by the shoulders to take a good look at it. The leather was soft and supple, and I lost my fingers in the depth of the fleece collar. It was plain but utterly gorgeous.
I decided right then that I’d found my new favourite jacket. After I fed it onto a coat hanger and hung it up to one end of a rack where I would easily find it, I turned on my heel and almost killed myself on five island chairs that looked identical to the ones in the kitchen outside.
By pure fluke and too many years of living on unstable ground had me swooping in and catching them before they fell over, but just.
Where the hell did these things come from? And why are they in my dressing room?
Questions for another time. I had more important questions to ask now. Pulling out my phone, I brought up Geraldine’s name in my contacts and texted: I’m back. I’m in my dressing room. Where are you?
“Walk,” Rubin ordered, and I jumped about two feet in the air, having forgotten he was with me.
Then I remembered he was in constant telepathic communication with his brother and would know exactly where Kulon and my girl were.
Without waiting for confirmation, I cleared my thoughts and started walking…
…and disappeared into the celestial realm a step later.
[Next Chapter]
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((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

I am a first year TEFL (Teaching English as Foreign Language) teacher in Thailand, working with 11-14 year olds. I'd like to incorporate film clips for listening and speaking practice, having them fill out a worksheet while listening, and then re-enacting the scenes including producing their own dialogue based on what they can remember from the scene when acting it out.
What scenes can you suggestion from any age-appropriate films that will have a good amount of basic English for listening (some more advanced vocab/sentence structure is fine as long as the meat and potatoes is pretty basic) that may have some fun acting opportunities for these kids? Scenes were 2-4 people are doing the talking.
The first one I am doing next week is Toy Story- the scene where Buzz first arrives into Andy's room and meets the gang. Some good physical comedy for the acting, and it's an introduction scene which works well since our first lesson together focuses on introductions, describing yourself/answering/asking questions about people.
Any other good ideas? Thanks!