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richardmurray

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Status Updates posted by richardmurray

  1. now0.jpg

    The Epps will buy and fix up houses in Indianapolis , the city he was raised in. I get the message to black people with money who are from financially leaner statuses, to go back to the communities they left and become real estate barons ala Generational wealth. I will never forget when berry gordy moved motown to los angeles. He spent so much money to make motown a multimedia entertainment firm based in los angeles... he could had spent all that money in detroit to do the same thing and would had a greater influence on detroit long term...and many musicians left him for that move too. so... I get the epps point. I wonder who will live in the epps homes? If this show is "buying back the block" then the sequent reality show needs to be "living on the block" . Epps couple buying and fixing homes is only one part of the story, the next is who lives in those homes? What is their rent? Reality T.v. is so unreal. 
    https://www.blackenterprise.com/mike-epps-and-his-wife-partner-with-hgtv-for-buying-back-the-block-in-indianapolis/
     

     

  2. We were Hippies from John Amos, did the country road guy hear this once?
     

    Happy Belated birthday, still love his character in the beastmaster film. The beastmaster is a book written by a white man about an indigenous man who is a space traveler who talks to non humans on mars... so the beastmaster in the film is its own creature completely.
    John AMos:) 

    John Amos in his 1958 East Orange High School yearbook photo.
    John Allen Amos Jr. (born December 27, 1939) is an American actor known for his role as James Evans, Sr., on the CBS television series Good Times. Amos's other television work includes The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace on The West Wing, and the role of Washington, D.C., Mayor Ethan Baker in the series The District. Amos has appeared on Broadway and in numerous films in his five-decade career. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and an NAACP Image Award. On film, he has played numerous supporting roles in movies such as The Beastmaster (1982), Coming to America (1988), Die Hard 2 (1990) and Coming 2 America (2021).
    John A. Amos, Jr. Was born in Newark, New Jersey. He grew up in East Orange, New Jersey, and graduated from East Orange High School in 1958. He enrolled at Long Beach City College and graduated from Colorado State University, qualifying as a social worker with a degree in sociology. Amos also played on the Colorado State Rams football team. After college, he was a Golden Gloves boxing champion.
    In 1964, Amos signed a free agent contract with the American Football League's Denver Broncos. Unable to run the 40-yard dash because of a pulled hamstring, he was released on the second day of training camp. He then played with the Canton Bulldogs and Joliet Explorers of the United Football League. In 1965, he played with the Norfolk Neptunes and Wheeling Ironmen of the Continental Football League. In 1966, he played with the Jersey City Jets and Waterbury Orbits of the Atlantic Coast Football League.
    In 1967, Amos signed a free agent contract with the American Football League's Kansas City Chiefs. Coach Hank Stram told him, "You're not a football player, you're a man who is trying to play football." He returned to the Continental League, where he played that year with the Victoria Steelers.
    ➡From a graduation speech by John Amos in 1987 at Drew University:
    "I really didn't decide on an acting career until after I had exhausted just about every other job possibility in the world. I'd been a truck driver, a garbage man, right in the streets of East Orange, a job that I got immediately after graduation that was to be a summer job. And I found I was capable of doing a job society looks on as being demeaning, but to do it with a certain amount of pride.
    It was ``Roots,'' and the character of Kunte Kinte, that gave me the greatest satisfaction as an actor, and as an Afro-American. While attending grade school here in New Jersey, Stockton School, and Columbian Junior High, I was given the unique opportunity of being one of a small group of black students that integrated both those."
    Amos became well known in his first major TV role, playing Gordy Howard, the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, from 1970 until 1973.
    In 1971, he appeared with Anson Williams in a commercial for McDonald's. 
    He is best known for his portrayal of James Evans, Sr., the husband of Florida Evans, first appearing three times on the sitcom Maude before continuing the role in 61 episodes of Good Times from 1974 to 1976. Although cast as a hard-working middle-aged father of three, Amos was 34 when the show began production in 1973, only eight years older than the actor who played his oldest son (Jimmie Walker) and 19 years younger than his screen wife (Esther Rolle).
    He has guest-starred in a number of other television shows, including Police Story, The A-Team, The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In the House, Martin as Sgt. Hamilton Strawn (Tommy's father), Touched by an Angel, Psych, Sanford And Son, My Name Is Earl, Lie to Me, and Murder, She Wrote. He has also appeared as a spokesman for the Cochran Firm (a national personal injury law firm).
    Amos wrote and produced Halley's Comet, a critically acclaimed one-man play that he has performed around the world. Amos performed in August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean on Broadway and later at the McCarther Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey.
    Amos starred in the TV Miniseries Roots, as the adult Kunta Kinte, based on the book and real life family history of author Alex Haley. Amos was featured in Disney's The World's Greatest Athlete (1973) with Tim Conway and Jan-Michael Vincent, and also starred as Kansas City Mack in Let's Do It Again (1975) with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. His other film appearances include Vanishing Point (1971), The President's Plane Is Missing (1973), Touched by Love (1980), The Beastmaster (1982), Dance of the Dwarfs (1983), American Flyers (1985), Coming to America (1988), Coming 2 America (2021), Lock Up (1989), Two Evil Eyes (1989), Die Hard 2 (1990), and Ricochet (1991). He appeared in the 1995 film For Better or Worse and played a police officer in The Players Club (1998). He played Uncle Virgil in My Baby's Daddy (2004), and starred as Jud in Dr. Dolittle 3 (2006). In 2012, Amos had a role in the movie Madea's Witness Protection, as Jake's father. He also appeared in Ice Cube and Dr. Dre's 1994 video for "Natural Born Killaz."
    In 2009, he released We Were Hippies, an album of original country songs by Gene and Eric Cash.
    In 2021, Amos starred in Because of Charley, as the patriarch of an estranged step-family riding out the hurricane that tore through Florida in 2004.
    AWARDS
    In addition to his Emmy nomination for Roots, Amos has also been nominated for a CableACE award, an NAACP Image Award, and a DVD Exclusive Award. Amos has won three TV Land Awards, taking home trophies for his roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times and the TV miniseries Roots.
    In 2020, Amos was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
    **Amos was a member of the 50th Armored Division of the New Jersey National Guard, and he also became an honorary master chief of the U.S. Coast Guard.
    #veterans
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  3. I finished Witchtember , tell me which day you liked the most, an art work a day for the entire month of september
    https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/gallery/84411925/witchtember-2022
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  4.  

    I must admit the tools on Deviantart are good for all artists to monetize in various ways in one space, or e - ecosystem

     

    Your thoughts?

     

    https://www.deviantart.com/team/art/DeviantArt-Presents-I-ChrissaBug-931238577

    1. richardmurray

      richardmurray

      CCayco < https://www.deviantart.com/ccayco > was invited by a comic convention and he was able to take something off his bucket list

       

       

  5. now0.jpg

    Everyone lets congratulate Clarence BAteman , an artist I have been connected too for some time on being a first quater winner for illustrators of the future

    THE ANNOUNCEMENT
    https://www.deviantart.com/clarencebatemanart/art/Illustrators-Of-The-Future-Contest-Semi-Finals-931292323

     

    Here is an example of his lovely work, entitled Elf

     

    now1.jpg

    https://www.deviantart.com/clarencebatemanart/art/Elf-742690053

     

     

  6. now0.jpg

    Source: New York Daily News / Getty

     

    OP-ED: Why Is Rikers Island Still Open And Why Won’t NYC Mayor Eric Adams Accept The Help He Needs?

    Adams continues to oppose bail reform and asks lawmakers to pass more restrictive laws that would increase Rikers' already sky-high population, as well as appoint more “tough on crime” judges. 

    Written By Olayemi Olurin

     

    Rikers Island is out of control and New York City Mayor Eric Adams‘ actions suggest he would like it to remain that way.

    Rikers is New York City’s infamous pre-trial detention center where Black and brown New Yorkers have been terrorized since 1932. A lesser-known fact is that the people held there have not been convicted of a crime, they many times simply do not have the money to purchase their freedom and fight their case from the outside.

    New York City is one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world. There are almost 9 million people crammed into this little city, over 41% of whom are white. Yet over 90% of the people held at Rikers are Black or brown.

     

    In 2019, the Campaign to Close Rikers emerged and advocates introduced a plan to shut it by reducing the jail’s population to 3,300 and closing the additional run-down city jails committing the same abuses against the people within it. A third measure would divert the $1.8 billion that would be saved annually by lowering the population to 3,300 into housing, healthcare, education, economic development and youth services in poor communities.

    Adams promised that if elected, he would support former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to close the jail altogether and to create “systemic change.” Adams has now expressed skepticism about the plan to close Rikers by 2027.

    His argument is that too many people are incarcerated at Rikers for them to close the jail by then … because where would we put all these people who haven’t been convicted of a crime while they await their trial. I imagine we could put them in the same place we put rich people accused of crimes—their homes—but let’s explore his argument.

     

    Built to only hold 3,000 people, Rikers contains approximately 5,500 people. The packed cells and worsening deaths, abuse, violence and illness are also evidence of how cash bail has been weaponized against the poor to deprive them of their rights.

    New York City’s landmark bail reform addressed this issue by eliminating cash bail for most misdemeanors, low-level offenses and nonviolent crimes. In turn, Rikers’ population was drastically reduced, a necessary step to closing the jail.

     

    According to the New York City Comptroller’s office < https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/nyc-comptrollers-office-analysis-finds-bail-continues-to-drive-pretrial-detention-despite-reforms/  > , there was been essentially no change in the monthly percentage of people rearrested while released pending trial after bail reform. And yet, unfounded fearmongering by people like Adams brought about rollbacks that rose the population about 7 to 11%.

    Adams continues to oppose bail reform and asks lawmakers to pass more restrictive laws that would increase Rikers’ already sky-high population, as well as appoint more “tough on crime” judges.

    That is not the conduct of someone who has any interest in lowering the jail’s population to facilitate its closing, despite acknowledging it is already thousands of people too high and has caused deaths, violence, suicide and rampant abuse. He’s also fighting off calls for a receivership.

    For the last six years, federal judge Laura T. Swain has tried and repeatedly failed to muscle New York City into getting Rikers under control. She even appointed a monitor for the prisons. Still, the city has demonstrably failed to comply with every mandate and deaths continue to mount. Advocates have asked the court to place Rikers under receivership.

    A receivership would allow the court to appoint a non-partisan expert who is given wide latitude to address the crisis and be answerable only to the court, and not state and local laws and bureaucratic agencies, allowing them to make progress in ways the city personnel could not. Once brought up to constitutional standards, the control of Rikers would then return to the state and locality.

    Under Eric Adams’ leadership, Rikers already has 15 deaths — just one death shy of 2021’s 16-person death toll, which was the highest death toll since 2013. People continue to be held in solitary confinement conditions despite a law outlawing it, which Adams dismisses as “restrictive housing,” and the level of depraved indifference on the part of the Department of Corrections has reached unprecedented heights.

     

    Most recently, video footage emerged of three corrections officers standing and watching Michael Nieves, a man incarcerated in Rikers’ mental health unit, bleed to death for 10 minutes after slitting his throat with a razor blade he’d been given. Last week, a corrections officer placed Kevin Bryan inside of a staff bathroom where he hanged himself from a pipe.

    In March, Herman Diaz choked to death on an orange while other incarcerated people unsuccessfully begged officers to intervene. Three months later, Antonio Bradley hanged himself inside a holding cell, But Adams chose not to inform the U.S. Department of Justice of the in-custody death, preventing the federal government from sending someone down to launch an investigation until much later.

    “I don’t see that as a coverup or a violation of any rule,” Adams said, responding to allegations of a cover-up. “If it is, we will definitely correct it. But my understanding is that a place of death is where they died.”

    You cannot simultaneously recognize that a jail is so out of control that it needs to be closed entirely and still insist that you’re capable of managing it. Yet, that’s the exact message Adams continues to push to New Yorkers.

    The systemic change Adams promised must’ve been radical with depraved indifference to human life because not only have conditions at Rikers persisted, they’ve worsened. It’s time for Rikers to be placed under receivership.

    Olayemi Olurin is a public defender, movement lawyer and political commentator in New York City.  

     

    ARTICLE

    https://newsone.com/4417432/why-is-rikers-island-still-open/

     

    MY THOUGHTS

    I want to first quote Olayemi

    Over 30 people have died in Rikers since last year. Rikers was only built to hold 3000 ppl so why are are over 5000 people who haven’t been convicted of a crime being held there despite Rikers being declared a human rights crisis?

    I said in reply to her

    I read the article on @newsone  from @msolurin the statistical support she uses is verified beyond her and beyond satisfactory to her position on Eric Adams and Rikers relationship to NYC 

    ...

    When Eric Adams campaigned for mayor he had one platform, one issue that gave way to no other. NYC is unsafe. The problem with that platform in a global city is the size of the city will always provide instances or moments, regardless of their statistic uncommonality(1/5) , that can be used to suggest a lack of safety regardless of the truth. Sequentially, once mayor, Eric Adams has in NYC's media a constant highlighter of instances. He has in NYC's population, a constant source of instances. He has in each of NYC's (2/5)various communities: black/white/christian/muslim/young/old or other constant support by some people who always view NYC as at the precipice of being swallowed by crime. Thus, even though you prove your position (3/5)through statistics others gathered honestly and your position shows a truth that is not contestable with common sense, the support for Adams position in NYC is too large for him to ever be swayed to change. (4/5)The only way Rikers or the legal system en large in NYC will be influenced more positively from the mayors office at this point will be a new mayor.(5/5)

    In conclusion

     Olayemi's position is correct. But the problem is undoing it is more than merely policy. The populace in NYC has two group of people in NYC, both multiracial in composition, that give any elected official on a "keep nyc safe" platform solid support. The first is people who have a heritage of positioning NYC's biggest issue as crime. Various religious groups, community groups, primary purpose is the lessening of crime in NYC, even if the statistics show crime is lessening or crime is not as potent, said organization's goal is zero crime, which in a fiscal capitalistic city with more than one million is impossible, let alone ten million. The second is the financial profiteers to the industry of prisons in NYC. The NYPD profits with bigger salaries, which helps their larger union coiffeurs, or better facilities, let alone the various money the nypd gets in concert with illegal activity that is fueled with a large prison populace. The Real Estate industry profits cause their goal is a city of wealthy people, that is the goal for the real estate industry in NYC. But to achieve that, the city also needs poor people for various small labors that machines can't do. But, to be fair to the poor you have to lower the rent. If you keep the rent high, the poor in desperation will commit crimes. The legal system of the city acquires millions in bail money side other fees for the processing of the penal system. The various charity organizations that benefit from money sent to them with the size of the prison populace as a convincer to fiscally wealthy people who want to prove their goodness. Many profit off of the prison system in New York City. White/Black/Young/Old many and many other people have no desire to get rid of rikers cause the profit from it. And regardless of how they feel about Eric Adams, whether they like him or not, they will support their fiscal benefit. Eric Adams comprehended this when he initially campaigned for mayor and he knows the fiscal have's in the city are in majority supportive and the fiscal have not's , even if in majority opposed, can be ignored for the lack of a candidate who will have a platform based on what people like Olayemi suggest. 

     

    To read more of my prose to socio-politics consider my pulpit, click the highlighted links below.

    The Right To Bear Arms Link

    The series: Link

     

    Support article

    NYC Comptroller’s Office Analysis Finds Bail Continues to Drive Pretrial Detention, Despite Reforms

     

    March 22, 2022

    Data Shows No Change in Share of People Rearrested While Awaiting Trial in the Community, Even As Reforms Reduced the Number of People Subject to Bail.

    Comptroller Lander Calls for Albany to Reject Rollbacks and Instead Strengthen Implementation.

    New York, NY – Despite reforms that have meaningfully reduced the number of people subject to bail, bail-setting continues to drive pretrial detention and syphons money from low-income communities of color, according to a new analysis from the NYC Comptroller’s office. The share of people released pretrial who are rearrested for a new offense has not changed following the implementation of bail reforms.
      
    While judges set bail in 14,545 cases in calendar year 2021, down from 24,657 in 2019, defendants and their friends and family still posted $268 million in bail, up from $186 million in 2020. The data on the impacts of the 2019 bail reforms shows that, despite new requirements to consider the ability of defendants to pay in those cases where bail still applies, a full two years into implementation, the 2019 reforms have neither made bail more affordable nor prevented incarceration for those still subject to bail setting. 

    Even as the number of people subject to bail has declined, there has been no increase in the number or percentage of people who are rearrested for a new offense while awaiting trial in the community. In January 2019, 95% of people awaiting trial in the community were not rearrested that month, while that proportion rose slightly to 96% in December 2021. Both before and after bail reform, fewer than 1% of people released pretrial, either through bail or otherwise, were rearrested on a violent felony charge each month. 

    Rather than roll back critical reforms, the Comptroller’s office urged Albany legislators to strengthen implementation and invest in programs that prevent crime and promote community safety. 

    “In a moment of real anxiety about public safety, the conversation on bail reform has become divorced from the data, which shows essentially no change in the share of people rearrested while released pretrial before and after the implementation of the 2019 bail reforms,” said Comptroller Brad Lander. “Instead, what we see is a rise in average bail amounts and a continuation of bail-setting practices that extract money from families and deny freedom to people who are presumed innocent before trial. We should follow the facts rather than fear, and reject reactive efforts to roll back reforms that threaten the progress we have made towards more equal justice. Our system has put a high price on freedom and made bail a barrier to justice for those who cannot afford to pay.” 

    The Office of the New York City Comptroller analyzed data provided by the New York State Office of Court Administration on bail setting and bail made, as well as data on pretrial release outcomes from the New York City Criminal Justice Agency during calendar years 2019, 2020 and 2021 to assess the actual impacts of the 2019 bail reforms and the 2020 rollbacks.

    Key findings included:

    • Since state bail reforms took effect, the number of people subject to bail has significantly declined but bail-setting still drives pretrial incarceration. In calendar year 2021, judges set bail in 14,545 cases, down significantly from 24,657 in 2019. Over 2020 and 2021, roughly half of defendants who had bail set were able to eventually make bail, although most defendants are incarcerated for at least some amount of time before doing so.
    • The cost of bail increased. Bail reforms that took effect January 1, 2020 included new requirements for judges to consider a person’s ability to pay when setting bail. Yet average bail amounts rose, rather than fell in 2021, and people continue to be unable to afford the price of their freedom. In 2021, the average cash bail amount set at arraignment was $38,866, double the $19,162 average in 2019. While increases in average bail amounts likely stem from broad restrictions on setting bail for lower-level charges, bail law explicitly requires judges to consider the defendant’s financial circumstances.
    • Commercial bonds that require high, non-refundable fees to private companies continue to be widely used. Of bonds posted in 2020 in New York City Supreme Court – the City’s trial court for felony cases – 57% of cases used commercial bonds. In 2021, defendants and their friends and family posted a total of $226 million in bonds, including commercial bail and partially secured bonds, up from $159 million in 2020 but down 3% from $233 million in 2019.
    • Less onerous and punitive bail options, such as partially secured or unsecured bonds, were used less often than commercial bonds. Partially secured bonds accounted for 20% of bail postings in Supreme Court during 2020, and judges used the least onerous mechanism, unsecured bonds that require no money upfront, only seven times in 2020, down from 24 times in 2019. The average dollar amount of partially secured bonds posted in Supreme Court jumped substantially, rising from an average of roughly $11,900 from January through November 2019 to an average of more than $40,000 in 2020.
    • There has been essentially no change in the monthly percentage of people rearrested while released pending trial after bail reform. In January 2019, 95 percent of the roughly 57,000 people awaiting trial were not rearrested that month. In January 2020, 96 percent of the roughly 45,000 people with a pending case were not rearrested. In December 2021, 96 percent were not rearrested — and 99 percent of people, regardless of bail or other pretrial conditions, were not rearrested on a violent felony charge.

    The Comptroller’s Office recommends that the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA) provide guidance and clear instructions to judges on how to assess a defendant’s ability to pay and mandate trainings on this provision of the law. OCA should direct judges to first consider an unsecured bond and justify on the record their reasons for not using that option before setting a partially secured bond.  

    To significantly curtail the use of pretrial detention, New York should also advance strategies that address root causes of criminal legal system involvement, redirecting resources from the law enforcement and correctional systems to social supports that promote stability and safety and create economic opportunity, such as mental health care, substance use prevention and treatment, affordable housing, youth programming, and quality education. 

    The full analysis report can be viewed here. <  https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/nyc-bail-trends-since-2019/ > 

    1. richardmurray

      richardmurray

      Rikers and continuing the theme of Black elected officials. 

      The tragedy of Rikers and Black elected officials in NYC is how clearly dysfunctional to the needs of the Black community Black elected officials in NYC are.
      And to be blunt, it relates to Kamala Harris who was the Attorney General of California and... 
      In this forum, I read so many replies to my post concerning black elected officials in the usa that did one of two things. 
      1) Supported the lack of acting to the black communities specific betterment in the usa  by black elected officials in stating a philosophical goal for the usa, that being an aracial human community, that the usa has never been and doesn't seem to be heading to. 
      2) Placing upon the Black community in the USA, regardless of other  groups in the USA, the goal of having no illegality or crime from members of the Black community in the USA. 

      Why do I say this? not because I have a problem with it. But it explains a huge problem in the Black community in the USA. 

      The following is of Eric Adams, the article is from Olayemi Olurin
      The ARTICLE
      https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2091&type=status

      The issue of Black elected officials needing another quality comes up a trillion times...

      The need for an Black party, which again, in USA history never happened. The why I comprehend, but the lack of Black people realizing the problem in it not occuring is what angers me.
      https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/9211-the-black-community-in-the-usa-need-an-alternative-to-black-officials-from-the-party-of-andrew-jackson-or-abraham-lincoln/

       


      Black organizations making plans that are disconnected to the Black community in the USA's makeup or internal variances.
      https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/9769-thoughts-on-national-black-voters-day/My thoughts on the right to bear arms, the first in my pulpit series

       

      https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/richard-murray-s-pulpit-episode-1

    2. richardmurray
  7. now0.jpg

    Quoted from the author Milton j Davis @Milton  not me

    My novel Woman of the Woods was inspired by my research on the Mino of Dahomey, the same source of inspiration of The Woman King.  It tells the story of Sadatina, a girl on the brink of becoming a woman living with her family in Adamusola, the land beyond the Old Men Mountains. But tragic events transpire that change her life forever, revealing a hidden past that leads her into the midst of a war between her people and those that would see them destroyed, the Mosele. Armed with a spiritual weapon and her feline 'sisters,' Sadatina becomes a Shosa, a warrior trained to fight the terrible nyokas, demon-like creatures that aid the Mosele in their war against her people.

    https://www.mvmediaatl.com/product-page/woman-of-the-woods

     

  8. LUKE CAGE ON DEEP SPACE NINE chapter 1

    https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13028411/1/LUKE-CAGE-ON-DEEP-SPACE-NINE

     

    MY THOUGHTS AS I READ... 

    I think Doctor bashir will say instead of "he seems to be made of...sterner stuff than most" 

    the following: "His cellular regeneration or cell wall permeability is similar to what is in starfleet records for genetically modified humans though the tricorder is revealing something curious... he was born long before similar processes were standardized in medical records " 

    Doctor bashir is lighthearted , likes jokes, but remember, he is a scientist in the federation and they are usually, when it comes to the scientific method, straight forward, near mechanical.

    ... your luke cage is quite comfortable in his initial shock. 

    Your Odo 🙂 I love when he said "a what" that is well done:) Your Odo is on point man. I like the quadlog between captain sisqo/odo/bashir/cage:) well done . 

    When cage said "if I was him~"  well done. that is luke cage:)  

    Black unity , love it, timeless. 

    Ahh.. fair enough explaining his ease with all this... it makes sense. 

    "your quarters" not "some quarters" no big deal at all. 

    I think instead of "In our time, discrimination between humans, based on ethnicity or gender, or any other factor is non-existant"

    Sisko will say :"In our time, discrimination between humans, based on ethnicity or gender, or any other factor is significantly negligible"

    I say this cause the augments, which can be considered a genetic gender, in the star trek timeline whether khan or bashir himself who is only lightly manipulated were treated unfairly for being what they are in various ways. 
    And the maquis, can be considered a cultural ethnicity, they are born from starfleet and people in the federation who felt the federation betrayed its principles by not protecting to the fullest people of the federation who still lived in the border between the cardasians and the federation. 
    It is like Anarchist in the usa or black militants in the usa. They are not visually different but they are culturally different in key ways. the culture of the federation is heavily set in the rule of law and by default the culture of the maquis is acting when the rule of law is not enough.
    And I think sisko will say that. He isn't as defensive for the federation as pakard nor is he as short worded as kirk, like janeway, sisko is more of a public teacher to those about him.

    Before sisko nods sisko would have to talk about his cooking. Sisko gets the chance to test his new orleans cuisine on the mouth of someone black from the olden times.

    Instead of "sisko nodded and smiled and left" something like the following.

    <Sisko nodded and smiled and turned to leave but then snaps his fingers and turns around and says: "I rarely get anyone who knows what soul food supposed to taste like, so I am lucky, I will be able to prepare dinner for you tonight" . Cage smiles, and Sisko leaves smiling. >
     

     

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    Why Plots Fail

    September 26, 2022 by Tiffany Yates Martin

    Many authors embark on a new manuscript with one of two common inspirations: a great idea for a plot, or a fascinating character and situation.

    Both can be good springboards for story, yet without more development, each may result in stories that peter out, dead end, or get lost in rabbit holes (especially during the breakneck pace of NaNo).

    Plots most commonly fail when:

    • they’re approached as an isolated element of story, a series of interesting events for authors to plug their characters into, or
    • when interesting characters are randomly loosed into an intriguing situation with no specific destination or purpose.

    Characters must take action, but action is not plot, and plot is not story.

    The role of plot in story

    The basic definition of story is a character pursues something he desperately wants, and he is changed by that pursuit and his success or failure in achieving his goal. Plot is simply the road the character travels on that journey.

    I often reduce it to a simple formula:

    Point A + Plot = Point B

    In other words, story equals character arc plus plot.

    Creating an elaborately structured plot and calling it story is like mapping a trip and calling it a vacation. What makes it complete is the character’s experience of it. Character drives plot, not the other way around.

    Don’t panic, plotters. That doesn’t mean you can’t map out your plot ahead of time. And fear not, pantsers—it doesn’t mean you have to painstakingly develop or outline the whole story before you begin.

    But creating compelling, cohesive stories does mean considering how these two crucial story elements work together.

    Know what your character wants

    Before you can put a character in motion, you have to know where she is headed and why. What drives your characters is the engine and the fuel for the actions they take and fail to take in the course of the story, the reason they—and we—take this journey.

    Your character’s goal(s) and motivations determine those actions, as well as her reactions, inaction, and interaction; they dictate every choice she makes that pushes her along the plot. It’s essential to understand at least these basics about your characters before trying to put them in motion.

    In director Baz Luhrmann’s recent movie Elvis, the titular character’s main motivation is evident from almost the first scene: Elvis loves music, especially blues and gospel. It literally moves him—in an early scene he wanders into a tent revival and his body starts shaking and swaying seemingly without his volition.

    That dictates his main goal—to make his own music—which is the propulsive force for every subsequent action he takes (or doesn’t take) in the course of the story, starting with recording his own version of the one of the songs by a local blues musician that fascinated him, accepting Colonel Tom Parker’s offer to tour him on the carnival circuit, and every subsequent choice he makes.

    But characters may have other goals and motivations as well, and will also continue to evolve as the story develops and as the author’s understanding of them deepens and grows—which will also affect the choices they make and the paths they take.

    Elvis’s desire to pursue his music begins to morph early in the story as he is seduced into a new goal—fame and fortune—which evolves from his deeper motivation: a desperate need for love.

    These are powerful and universal desires, the kind many readers can relate to. But they’re vague—another reason plots can falter or lose focus.

    Create tangible as well as intangible goals

    Pinning your character’s intangible longings to a concrete goal gives readers something to root for—or against—and tells us when the character has “won” (or lost).

    Without that, momentum may stall, like a footrace with no definitive finish line for runners to orient themselves toward or to tell them when they’ve reached it.

    Or the story may lose cohesion and feel episodic: “This happens…and then this happens…and then this happens…” but because the plot has become disconnected from the character arc, the actions lack meaning or impact.

    Tie your character’s more generalized motivations to some specific, tangible “brass ring” that represents them.

    For Luhrmann’s movie version of Elvis, each element of what drives him is pinned to a definitive representation of that longing:

    • His love of music—his kind of music—is tangibly represented by a Christmas special where Colonel Parker demands he sing sanitized traditional carols and not swivel those hips, as well as the broader concrete representation of Parker’s pushing him to shift his career to inoffensive, bland music, against a new manager who wants to encourage Elvis to play his own kind of music and swivel at will. This sets up a clear story conflict that serves as a powerful propulsive force.
    • His desire for fame and fortune is represented by specific, tangible goals that Elvis associates with money—wanting to buy his mother a pink Cadillac, Graceland, his own plane, etc.—and popularity and acclaim, like bigger venues, Hollywood movies, and eventually a European tour.
    • His longing for love is represented by his profound devotion to his mother, Gladys (and to a smaller degree his father); the Colonel; Priscilla and Lisa Marie; and, as the Colonel himself reminds viewers throughout, the fans. Elvis thrives on attention and confuses it with love—and that motivates every decision he makes in the story.

    Defining what your character wants and why allows you to grow a cohesive, integrated plot as you throw obstacles in the path between your characters and what they want, and let their “why”—what drives them toward that goal—dictate the choices they make. Each choice sends them on the next step of the path as your plot develops organically, always driven by the characters.

    Know how your character changes

    One final reason plots may fail is that the character’s point B—how they change by the end of the story, externally, internally, or both—is not directly related to or a result of what happened to them in the course of it.

    But if you let their goal and motivation dictate their actions and behavior at every decision point, then readers will see on the page, step by step, how your character moves along her arc: how each challenge she faces, every choice she makes, affects her, shifts her perspective, and causes her growth or change.

    This direct, intrinsic relationship between plot and character—the character’s struggles, choices, longings, and goals that drive the actions they take in the course of the plot—is what makes for dynamic stories that feel organic, cohesive, and satisfying to readers.

     

    Article
    https://www.janefriedman.com/why-plots-fail/

     

    My Thoughts

    the following is a little aside. but, what do you think about short stories that contain key tenets or rules in a world that can prepare an author in making a longer story in the same world ?  I use as an example. ursula leguin's earthsea. she wrote three short stories that like any good short story stand on their own but also displayed key principles of the world in the later books. I have a larger work I am working on, the plot is not finished, but that is based on what I want a few major characters to do at or near the end and it is an important choice.  But a smaller story, in the same world , is near complete, The characters , The plot, the story is done. The ending resolution even relates to where I want the larger story to go.  And some key rules are displayed. Maybe some plots fail because authors are unwilling to give glimpses, ala short stories, into the world first?  I will be blunt, I never wrote a short story at the same time working on a larger one in the same world.  Maybe if plotters:) or pantsters step back from the big book and make an intentional short story in the same world, it can help them with the cohesiveness between the plot side characters lives in the longer story. 

     

    Writers of the future talk

     

  10. now0.jpg

    No Proof Of Racism By School Bus Driver Who Assaulted Black Children On Video, Cops Say
    The adultification of Black children was demonstrably what happened on that school bus.
    Written By Zack Linly
    Posted September 21, 2022

    Source: SOPA Images / Getty

    Here’s the thing: There’s a difference between blind speculation and experience-based speculation. But our legal system isn’t equipped to differentiate between the two. In any incident involving white people causing harm to Black people, there will be speculation that the incident was racially motivated. In many cases, there won’t be any racial slurs or verbal indications that race played a part in an attack. But Black people will see the racism based on our experience with racism. In other words: We know it was racist because we’ve seen this before. 

    But that will never match up with the burden of proof our legal system requires before it will call something racist, regardless of how obvious the racism is. And that’s why the Morgan County school bus driver who was caught on camera pushing a 6-year-old Black child and his 10-year-old Black sister will not be called a racist when he stands trial—at least not by the court.

    According to the Morgan Citizen, James O’Neil, the now-former bus driver in question (he was fired after the video went viral), has been arrested and charged with two counts of simple battery after the recorded incident that took place earlier this month. He was booked in the Morgan County Detention Center, where he spent a day before being bonded out.

    “The investigation resulted in the arrest of James O’Neil on two counts of simple battery,” Morgan County Chief Deputy Keith Howard said in a statement. “While this was not a complex investigation, it was complicated by the allegation that the incident was perceived as being racially motivated.”

    “Investigators took additional time to investigate all the facts to include consulting with prosecutors in the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit,” he went on to say. “Investigators could not establish a nexus that the incident was racially motivated.”

    So, how do we know it was racist? Well we don’t—not for sure—but we’ve seen the adultification of Black children at the hands of white authority figures before. We see it in the statistical evidence that Black students are disproportionately and more harshly disciplined than their white counterparts. We saw it when a 9-year-old Black girl was forced into the back of a police car and pepper sprayed while she was severely distraught and begging for help. We saw it when Aurora, Colorado, police pulled over a Black family in an SUV (despite the vehicle description they were given being a motorcycle) and had young Black girls—the youngest of whom was also 6 years old—lying face-down on the ground while handcuffed and frantically crying. 


    The adultification of Black children was demonstrably what happened on that school bus.

    From the Citizen:

    According to Nene Carter, the mother of the children who were pushed, O’Neil allegedly told her six-year-old son to sit in the back of the bus, despite the fact that primary school students usually sit in the front of the bus away from the older high school students riding the bus in the back.

    The 12-second video that went viral on social media shows the bus driver standing over the small child while pushing the boy back into his seat near the front of the bus. The 10-year-old sister is standing next to the bus driver trying to reach out for her brother. The girl shouts, “Stop pushing my brother,” as the bus driver is seen repeatedly pushing the crying boy back into the seat.

    “Shut your mouth,” the bus driver says to the girl as he continues pushing the little boy.

    The girl asks again for him to stop pushing her brother when the bus driver appears to put his hands on the girl. The girl tells the bus driver to “get your hands off” when the bus driver suddenly pushes her, causing the girl to stumble backwards. The bus driver then says to her, “What a pain in the neck you guys are. Get back there.”

    A 6-year-old child isn’t a “pain in the neck” because he’s fearful and anxious about being moved to the back of a bus to sit with older teenagers. He’s just a small child being a small child. A 10-year-old child isn’t a “pain in the neck” because she’s trying to protect her younger sibling from the grown man who is aggressively putting his hands on him. She’s just a child doing what she knows she’s supposed to do as a big sister.

    But white America often views Black children through a lens that doesn’t detect innocence and underdevelopment as readily and naturally as it does when viewing white children. It’s just really hard to imagine a white 6-year-old child being sent to the back of a bus among much older kids and then being pushed because he didn’t want to go. (I’m going to go ahead and skip over the part where I talk about the racist implications of a white bus driver sending a Black child to the back of the bus in the first place, BTW.)


    It’s also worth mentioning that Carter believes O’Neill was only fired because he was caught on viral video manhandling her children.

    “We feel like he was terminated because the story got more coverage than the Morgan County Charter School System would have liked,” said Carter. “It was rumored that they were just going to send him to be retrained.”

    And if that’s true, it would have been racist AF. But we could never prove it.

    ARTICLE
    https://newsone.com/4413554/morgan-county-bus-driver-video-update/
    Referral
    https://twitter.com/msolurin/status/1573716117956304896

     

     

    My thoughts
    The problem is Black people seem not to realize the usa is a collection of states. Each state is free to have its own culture as long as it is republican, meaning no kings or generals or oligarchs running a state. But that doesn't mean a community can not be empowered in a state and abuse other communities in it. 
    Yes, the legal system in the usa allows for cases to be taken to the federal level, but that is a task.
    The state in question is georgia. A confederate state. A state where jim crow was at its most firm when other compatriots like new york city were allowing more, albeit trickles, for black folk. Has Georgia ever been anything but the enemy to blacks in its history?
    Do you think this case needs to go to the federal level?

     

  11. now0.jpg

    Why couldn't Disney make a movie titled the Little Mermaid using Halley Bailey as Gabriella? 

    Gabriella is the name of the deaf black latino mermaid that enjoys adventures with ariel in the little mermaid t.v series.  why couldn't Disney make the little mermaid movie with Halley Bailey as Gabriella? 
    The two questions are simple, can a thespian act beyond their physical definition, and are roles for thespians absent? Halley Bailey can play Ariel,as any thespian can attempt to play any role,  but Halley Bailey didn't need to. 

    Gabriella was in the following episodes of the little mermaid show
    "Wish Upon a Starfish"
    "Ariel's Treasures"

    Gabriella Angelina Bommino - a child whose spirit flew at a very young age, was an inspiration to the character.
    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-22-ca-48649-story.html

     

    P.S. I will be blunt, honoring the Bommino by making the character inspired by her titular role in the new Little Mermaid film I think would had been a far greater gesture on many levels, than changing the appearance of Ariel, for no reason... and Black women need to watch more television who said they never saw a black mermaid before, cause disney made a black mermaid already. Why didn't black women know about Gabriella already?
     

     

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    Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Fratelli d'Italia, at a meeting in Palermo for the 2022 Italian elections. (Francesco Militello Mirto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

     

    MY THOUGHTS BEFORE YOU READ THE ARTICLE

    I apologize, recently, I have been courteous and not manipulated or coerced a reader's mind with my thoughts, before. But I am compelled this time from my own energies.... you see , as a Black person from the USA whose bloodline has been in the USA too long. I am used to hearing from blacks or whites of the multiracial acceptance of Europe. The old black lindyhop teacher who teaches all age groups in finland. that kind of thing. I have sad it a billion times, most humans despise immigration when it next door. Many countries in Europe never dealt with immigration. This goes back to European empires, where people from Indochine rarely traveled to france. People from the gold coast rarely traveled to england. People from Nova spain rarely traveled to Spain. But, quietly, the European Union, and the poverty in humanity has pushed into europe enough immigrants for the european local farmer or small town resident to notice and as usual, all hell broke lose. 

    Europeans love coming to New York City, they spend money, see the rainbow, but they go home to a white village usually, and they can make a diary of their journey. But, dealing with immigration next door is another cultural being and it is clear most Europeans in Europe are not ready. 

    I do think of angela merkel who once said, germans must teach people how to be german. I said she was right then and she is clearly right in hindsight. 

    But what does this have to relate to Black people in the USA. well... the Black community in the USA has historically had a tribe in itself that is related to other black tribes in the usa , financially rich. Said black rich have always pushed or supported immigratory activities in the usa. 

    They were the ones always pushing the black kids de segregate the schools, not get more money for black schools. Desegregate the white communities, not get more money for black communities. 

    Meaning, a large percentage of black people support the immigration of non blacks into the black community and the act of blacks immigrating into non black communities. 

    I find it funny how europe, often touted by financially wealthy black people as accepting to immigration, is showing the truth we all know to immigration. No one wants the immigrants near them. Russia/China are closing up shop. Texas is sending immigrants to New York. European countries are proving putin is not a european outlier. If Putin holds out, Russia will have destabilized the european union and exposed the countries that stood quietly against russia while changing many countries in Europe into their honest selves. 

    I wonder can the black community in the usa be honest?

     

    Immigration, crime propel Europe's move to right, analysts say

    Melissa Rossi

    ·Contributor

    Thu, September 22, 2022 at 4:27 PM·10 min read

    In Europe, political analysts are pointing to Sweden and Italy as possible harbingers of a political mood shift across the continent driven by a growing wariness of immigrants as well as anger over rising crime rates.

    The startlingly strong performance of the far-right Sweden Democrats in this month’s Swedish parliamentary elections and polls showing that the nationalist Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia) party is poised for victory in this weekend’s contests in that country have both been spurred by those two issues, analysts told Yahoo News.

    “Gang violence in Sweden was the issue in the election,” said Gunilla Herolf, a researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs who specializes in European integration. It’s a problem, she added, that is weighing on every Swede. “Some are furious. Some are just terribly upset.”

    In Italy, “security issues are being exploited by right-wing forces,” sociologist Giovanna Campani told Yahoo News.

    At a glance, the two countries share relatively few commonalities. Sweden is a wealthy, cohesive welfare state, which over the past 90 years has typically been led by leftist coalition governments. By comparison, Italy’s economy, which is burdened by massive debt, is reeling. Costs of living are soaring, and over the past decade, its government has changed nearly every 18 months. But in both places, rising crime and misgivings about immigrants are prompting a political realignment.

    The Sweden Democrats, originally formed as a neo-Nazi party in 1988, were one of four right-leaning parties that won a combined 176 of 349 seats in Sweden’s Parliament in last week’s election, besting the center-left coalition by six seats. Now, details of which parties will partake in the new coalition government, and how much influence the Sweden Democrats will actually have, are being hammered out. Despite being ostracized by mainstream Swedes, the party won 20.5% of the vote, elevating it from the fringes to Sweden’s second-most popular party. Its campaign in Sweden — where 20% of the population is now foreign-born, and the country has become known as “the gun violence capital of Europe” — was built on promises to control crime perpetrated by young migrants and to deport some foreign-born Swedes.

    Jimmie Akesson, the new leader of the Sweden Democrats, insists his party has shed its fascist leanings, though the party remains staunchly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim and keeps pounding home its messaging linking foreign-born Swedes and crime. The party points to recent crime trends showing that drug-peddling armed gangs have emerged in some migrant communities during the past five years. In 2021, Sweden experienced some 360 gang-related shootings and 47 deaths; by September of this year, 47 had already died in shootings.

    “Sweden used to be a completely peaceful country — and safe,” Brussels-based Roland Freudenstein, vice president of the independent think tank GLOBSEC, told Yahoo News. “Now it’s become one of the most unsafe places in Europe” — not only because of its gang shootings but also because of high number of incidents of rape. “So that’s brought an end to the political correctness,” he said. “Even the [liberal] Social Democrats are talking about immigration, law and order, and getting tough on crime.”

    The rate of armed violence is growing faster than anywhere else on the continent, according to a 2021 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. “The increase in gun homicide in Sweden is closely linked to criminal milieux in socially disadvantaged areas,” according to the report.

    Until recently, it was all but taboo in Sweden for mainstream politicians to acknowledge the problem.

    “That's why the Sweden Democrats are gaining in popularity,” said Eric Adamson, a Stockholm-based project manager at the Atlantic Council’s Northern Europe office. “They were the only ones talking about this” in recent years. Both socially and politically, he said, the topic had previously been off limits for Swedes to discuss.

    In Italy, a Sept. 25 snap election necessitated by the July collapse of the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi seems likely to result in the most conservative leadership there since Benito Mussolini seized power in 1922. The likely new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has also run on an anti-immigrant platform, vowing to mobilize the Italian navy to prevent African refugees from reaching her country.

    Like Sweden, Italy has also been dealing with rising violent crime, though much of it doesn’t involve the immigrants who have sought safe haven there in recent years. Youth gangs of Italians, which some 6% of Italian teens are believed to belong to, are becoming a nightmare for the country, especially around Naples and the south, though some African migrants appear to be starting to form them as well.

    This June, however, an estimated 1,500 African youths went on a rampage in the northern town of Peschiera, breaking windows, roughing up tourists and allegedly sexually assaulting young women on a train. Matteo Salvini of the League, a right-wing political alliance he formed with Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia for the upcoming election, lambasted the attack. Meloni, the Brothers of Italy leader, who has promised to protect Italy from “Islamization,” seized on the uproar, posting a video on her Twitter account of an African man allegedly raping a woman in broad daylight.

    The bigger issue for Meloni, however, may be the changing face and complexion of Italian citizens. The woman who promotes “God, homeland and family” frequently laments Italy’s low birth rate and fears the extinction of Italians and their replacement by immigrants from Africa, a conspiracy she has accused the government of the European Union of orchestrating. “The EU is complicit in uncontrolled immigration, the invasion of Europe and the project of ethnic replacement of European citizens,” she wrote on her website in February.

    Campani thinks there are a number of factors at work in Italy that end up working in the right’s favor — including anger over the bureaucracy of the European Union, which imposes rules on many aspects of Italy’s government, such as the treatment of migrants, how to utilize COVID funds, what sorts of energy to invest in and how to handle its debt crisis.

    Meloni has promised to challenge Brussels’ authority, vowing that if she’s elected to lead Italy’s government, “the fun is over.”

    If she does become prime minister, Freudenstein said, European policymakers will find “a more pugnacious and feistier Italy.”

    “She’s a fresh face — and I think Italians want to try out something new,” he added.

    According to a December 2021 YouGov poll of residents in 10 European nations, both Italy and Sweden were among the top three European countries saying that the number of foreigners allowed to immigrate to European countries has been excessive — a statement with which 77% percent of Italians and 73% of Swedes agreed.

    In April, young migrant men, protesting the planned burning of the Quran by a Swedish provocateur in towns across the country, kicked off riots in three cities that injured more than 100 Swedish police — just one disturbing event that forced then-Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, a Social Democrat, into admitting a problem with violence among some migrant communities, and the existence of “parallel societies” of many foreign-born in Sweden. “Segregation has been allowed to go so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden,” she told reporters. “We live in the same country but in completely different realities. We will have to reassess our previous truths and make tough decisions.”

    The issue in Sweden, said Herolf of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, isn’t immigration itself. It’s the mafia-like Eastern European clans and gangs that made it into the country along with legitimate asylum seekers and refugees.

    “There are people coming into Sweden who bring criminality with them,” she said, including some from the former Yugoslavia. “But there were also loads of decent hardworking people from there too. So [previously] we didn’t want to talk about that and risk hurting the good people.”

    What’s more, she said, it’s now widely recognized that Sweden has taken in far too many refugees since 2015, when the civil war in Syria broke out creating a refugee crisis, and that the government in Stockholm has been reticent to force them to integrate into Swedish society. “We have a responsibility to make demands on them to learn Swedish, to join in Swedish society," and not just live in foreign bubbles.

    “Sweden has been an extremely tolerant and antiracist country,” Johan Martinsson, a political science professor and research director of the Laboratory of Opinion Research and the Citizen Panel at the University of Gothenburg, told Yahoo News. He pointed to an incident in 2002 when a politician suggested that foreigners should be given a basic language test before being given citizenship. “It was considered an outrage,” Martinsson said. “He was called a racist for even suggesting it.”

    The increasing popularity of nationalist, anti-immigrant parties in Europe, such as Marine LePen’s rise in France, underscores the need for mainstream politicians to openly admit to issues as they emerge, and to stop worrying that acknowledging them simply reinforces the radical right, said Freudenstein. “Integration policies for migrants have to become much tougher,” he added, and governments need “to be tougher about language, about [banning the wearing of] burqas, and about prohibiting afternoon [Islamist] schools where children unlearn what they learned in the morning about women’s rights and the separation of church and state.”

    Freudenstein, for one, is concerned about what the rise of far-right parties will mean for the cohesion of the European Union — all the more with soaring energy prices and potential shortages, even the possibility of natural gas rationing — as the continent heads into the colder months. “We know a crisis winter is coming,” he said. “And it’s going to reinforce this feeling of ‘Let’s try something new,’ and the feeling that the structures and powers in place have failed.” He points to the growing possibility of “a severe recession that will dramatically increase social tensions.” The next six months will be crucial, he believes, and will “decide the future of politics in Europe.”

     

    ARTICLE

    https://news.yahoo.com/immigration-crime-propel-europes-move-to-right-analysts-say-202748280.html

     

  13. Why the DOJ v PRH Antitrust Trial Doesn’t Change the Game for Authors, Regardless of Outcome

    September 22, 2022 by Jane Friedman  

    now1.png

    This article draws from my commentary and reporting that first appeared in The Hot Sheet.

    In 2021, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) sued to block Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster on antitrust grounds. Penguin Random House (PRH) is the biggest US publisher by a large margin and publishes about 15,000 titles per year. Acquiring another one of the Big Five publishers, Simon & Schuster, would create an even bigger giant in the US market.

     

    In its first filing related to the case, the government granted authors something of a fairytale wish: it centered the role of authors in the publishing ecosystem. The complaint states, “Authors are the lifeblood of book publishing. Without authors, there would be no stories; no poetry; no biographies; no written discourse on history, arts, culture, society, or politics. … Penguin Random House’s proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster would result in substantial harm to authors.”

     

    But which authors? This is where the plot thickens. The DOJ’s case focuses on the “anticipated top selling books” that garner advances of $250,000 and up. For the purposes of this case, that included roughly 1,200 books, or about 2% of all books released by commercial publishers. The government focused on proving how advances for top-selling authors would decline should PRH be allowed to acquire Simon & Schuster. The DOJ wrote in its initial filing that “hundreds” of authors would have “fewer alternatives and less leverage.” Hundreds. Canadian publisher Ken Whyte offered his clear take on this with the headline Justice for the .001%, and that’s a good summary of how I see it, too.

     

    During trial, the DOJ argued advances for anticipated bestsellers could decline by as much as 20 percent should the merger happen. So, some quick math: if Hillary Clinton was paid $14 million for her memoir, maybe she’d only get $11 million for her next one. Or, consider Amy Schumer, who received $9 million for an essay collection. She might get a couple million less. Would they still write their books anyway? Would they suffer if they received a lower advance? (Would anyone care?)

     

    I admit I’m being glib. Some have rightly pointed out that a $250,000 advance isn’t all that much for a Big Five publisher—or for an author either. After it’s broken into four installments and an agent takes 15 percent, that’s little more than $50,000 per installment for the author, spread out over a few years, before taxes. During trial, big publishers admitted that the large majority of advances do not earn out, which isn’t necessarily considered a failure for the author, just part of publishing’s business model. That effectively results in a higher royalty rate, and I have to wonder if the entire industry would be better off with higher royalty rates in the contract (especially for ebooks, where rates are widely considered too low by agents), and advances that quickly earn out. I’ll come back to that later. Here’s the bigger and more important point that I think gets missed repeatedly in trial coverage.

     

    Most author advances would not be affected by the merger.

     

    When you read op-eds about this case, most assume or imply there will be trickle-down effects that reduce all authors’ earnings, not just those receiving $250k or more. Yet the government’s modeling and its key economic expert project only that harm will come to authors of anticipated top-selling books. In fact, testimony indicated that authors receiving lower advances could benefit. The defense argued that the government didn’t want to use a lower advance figure of $50,000 as a cutoff for their antitrust case because it would have undermined their argument for market harm: There are no negative effects at that advance level, at least based on the economic modeling presented at trial. It was shown that, as a result of the merger between Penguin and Random House in 2013, advances for anticipated top-selling books decreased by about $100,000, while for all other books, advances stayed flat or moved up a bit.

     

    Furthermore: as a collective group, authors and publishers outside the Big Five have been gaining in market share for years.

     

    At the trial, PRH’s CEO testified the company had lost market share over the last decade, so one way for PRH to regain market share is through mergers and acquisitions. NPD Bookscan, which tracks print sales, has reported that the largest share of book sales belongs to publishers outside of the top 15 in the US, and that effect is likely even more pronounced on the digital side. More titles are released each year than ever before, and there is no evidence that mergers have led to decreased diversity in publishing and less opportunity for authors. In fact, history demonstrates the opposite.

     

    Professor Dan Sinykin, who has studied the conglomerization of publishing, recently offered the following insight:

     

    If the merger does end up happening, it will be an incremental continuation of the same trajectory we’ve seen in publishing for decades. It’s a mistake to think that the ongoing conglomeration will lead directly to the destruction of literature. A lot of interesting things are generated in resistance to conglomeration. The nonprofit presses exist as a direct result of it. There’s a dialectical relationship to what kind of literature is made possible because of conglomeration; it’s not simply a one-sided foreclosing of the possibilities for literature. And even within the conglomerates, authors always bring creativity to structural limits.

     

    In order to see what’s truly limiting the possibilities for what kind of literature is published, you actually have to look much more broadly, at the class structure in the US, like who gets to go to MFA programs, who actually gets opportunities, and the deep nepotism involved in mentor–mentee relationships that all happen before you even get to an agent submitting a query to a publishing house. The merger between PRH and S&S draws our attention to this much larger set of networked problems, but in and of itself, this case is a drop in a 50-year bucket.

     

    When the acquisition was first announced in 2020 (before the DOJ filed suit), Peter Osnos of the independent publishing house PublicAffairs said, “It’s natural, understandable, predictable that people will want to look at the downside. And it turns out there may not be quite the downside they think. That’s my slightly contrarian view.” He thought it might be a good thing, in fact, for Simon & Schuster to be run by a corporate parent that’s primarily focused on book publishing (that’s Bertelsmann), rather than a media company focused on streaming video. And you don’t even have to be contrarian to believe that as the Big Five or Big Four become narrowly focused on producing hits, that leaves more room for small publishers and innovators.

     

    Ultimately, the DOJ may be entirely wrong about what happens to author earnings as a result of the Simon & Schuster purchase. But let’s say advances did decline. Is it possible an acquisition could lead to other outcomes that offer a net positive, like better marketing and promotion? What if lowered advances made it possible for small presses to compete for great authors? Or what if the acquisition led publishers to pay better royalties?

     

    I know, it’s crazy to think authors might have more leverage or options in a Big Four situation. But consider the pace of technological progress and changing socioeconomic conditions. Maybe some authors would boycott a Big Four. Maybe authors would look for different kinds of deals from smaller publishers who pay higher royalties and offer more control. Maybe there are new types of publishers and media companies (see: Webtoon, Radish, Wattpad) and a future creator economy that gives writers more power and freedom to step away from average or poor deals. There are all kinds of potential outcomes, and the consolidation of legacy publishers represents the late stage of a possibly declining business model. In the long history of the written word, authors have found ways to adapt to new conditions and continue in their work. The greatest are forever remembered. In comparison, publishers are ephemeral and largely forgotten.

     

    In a 2011 article about the Penguin merger with Random House, Planet Money’s Adam Davidson wrote, “It’s difficult to imagine how, in the digital world, publishers could ever monopolize the sale of written material. Even if there were only one house left, it would compete with every blogger and self-published ebook author. Eventually, it’s likely that book publishing will embody both conflicting visions of digital-age commerce—lots of small businesses and a few massive ones that handle big-ticket items.”

     

    Little is likely to change in commercial publishing no matter the outcome.

     

    The big dogs remain the big dogs. Mega advances will still be paid, and it will remain challenging to make a living if you’re the average author (as it has been throughout history if you depend on book sales alone). This is about protecting the status quo, not making progress—although I would argue that, even if the deal moves ahead, you still get the status quo. Either way, Simon & Schuster gets sold to another of the Big Five or maybe a financial buyer.

     

    Notably, in its first response to the news of the DOJ’s filing, the Authors Guild said, “Unless the Biden Administration and Congress address antitrust reform in relation to am*zon’s practices, preventing the PRH/S&S merger will do little to reduce harm to authors and the publishing industry as a whole and may injure mid-list authors short term.” And also: “We look forward to working with the Biden Administration on antitrust reform that gets to the root of the problems in the industry, whereas the proposed merger was just a symptom.” Indeed.

     

    Michael Cader, writing in Publishers Lunch, has perhaps the best summary of where we are now (subscription required): “Antitrust trials are technical and complicated and have little to do with the nuances of the businesses involved. They are about market definition, market concentration, and market constraints, and about pricing power and econometric models. … The government brought a very focused case about the small set of authors and deals that win contracts of $250,000 or more every year (or about 1,200 projects a year, as we learned). It was the DOJ, not anyone in publishing, that had no regard—in an antitrust case—for the other tens of thousands of authors and books brought to market every year.”

     

    ARTICLE

    https://www.janefriedman.com/doj-v-prh-antitrust-trial/

     

  14. Happy September Equinox- 9:04 pm eastern standard time - the beginning of Autumn in the northern hemisphere and Spring in the southern hemisphere
    the following is an image of Neptune, from the James Webb, it is a composite image, that is not one image from James Webb.
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/52373132207/in/feed-37440125-1663769703-1-72157721637473044

     

     

    Enjoy

    a story
    The Last Homily On Liturgoid 
    https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-last-homily-on-liturgoid

     

    a poem, click the image

    now0.png

     

    An art gallery
    Witchtember 2022
    https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/gallery/84411925/witchtember-2022

     

    A fun post 
    from the Black Games Elite public group
    Breath of the wild playhouse
    https://aalbc.com/tc/blogs/entry/323-breath-of-the-wild-playhouse/

     

    some other dates after in the month of september
    23: Mercury between sun and earth, inferior
    Judy Reed, Black woman, in 1884 made a patent for... wait for it... Dough kneeder and roller
    Here is the proof of the patent claim, I read it was signed with an X and it seems true. so for Black kids, or yourself, when someone says what you need to know to have a great imagination, tell them they are wrong
    https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=00305474

     

    25: Rosh Hashanah- The Ethiopian jews, some call Beta Israelites, originally spoke Agaw. Genetic studies say that they are genetically related to east africans not jews from across the Red Sea, like from israel/palestine/yemen
    Mercury<->Moon; Venus <->Moon conjunctions

    26: Jupiter will be 180 degrees in the sky, opposite the sun, Jupiter will be no brighter or bigger this year than on this day
    1872 first shrine temple in New York City
    https://www.meccashriners.org/history

     


    27: St. Vincent de Paul saint day, Charity
    Samuel Adams born 1722- he used his influence to get boston to give education to boys plus girls. 
    He opposed the still in existence Society of the Cincinnati, a hereditary fraternity. Some might call that the patriarchy today:)
    He opposed the constitution, as he felt it didn't make a federation but made a nation. It can be argued in cheap hindsight, samuel adams was 100% correct. if you consider usa history, the constitution has become a legal document that has been used effectively to destroy the concept of a union of states who can be dissimilar to each other while having a unity of purpose. 
    He pushed for the Bill of Rights to be entered into the Constitution and supported it. 
    Lastly, Samuel Adams was a poor fiscal operator and didn't brew a damn thing:)


    28: Woodchuck's hibernate
    Moon goes north to south of the ecliptic

    29: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra born 1547 - he wrote a book in two parts, which you may know. He only worked for three years. Odd for me as a writer, that I have a similar quantity of work in similar short spans in multiples.  

    His first work is LA Galatea
    https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/la-galatea-8

     

    His first short story collection and only surviving Novelas Ejemplares
    https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/novelas-ejemplares-english
    In Audio book form
    https://librivox.org/the-exemplary-novels-of-miguel-de-cervantes-saavedra-by-miguel-de-cervantes-saavedra/

     

    His last work is Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda
    The 400th anniversary edition in spanish made by the Real Academia Española, Royal Academy of Spain
    https://www.rae.es/sites/default/files/Hojear_Persiles_y_Sigismunda.pdf
    Persiles in english translation
    http://www.ems.kcl.ac.uk/content/etext/e006.html
     

     

  15. now1.jpg

    An exclusive interview with Philotée Mukiza, the winner Best of the Best Eiica

    Philotee Muzica’s story

    “I’m from Rwanda. I worked for Rwalf Export LTD as a production manager. Today I’m we won the Ernesto illy International Coffee Award. “

    Why did you choose to make a living with coffee? Was it for passion or for something else?

    “At the beginning I didn’t know much about coffee. I was just fresh graduated and I was just looking for a job. But then, I was more and more interested in what I was learning. I think that now I’m more passionate in what I’m doing on daily bases. That’s because I saw the important meaning of our work for our farmers and their families. And that we are helping them in an international level. So now I feel more confortable with my job. “

    According to you, why are you the first woman to win these two important Awards?

    “Sincerely I don’t’ know. Maybe it was only a coincidence. Actually I don’t think that the reason of this winning it’s related to the fact that I’m a woman. But it’s only thanks to the quality of the coffee that we took to the cupping. “

    What is so special about your coffee? Rwanda isn’t really known until now, for his role as coffee producer. What has changed?

    “First of all it exists a natural factor, the altitude and the climate. But, what we do from farm to dry living farm? This year we tried a new strategy of processing as Rwalf coffee team. So the tecniques that farmers do daily is some soaking. This was something which wasn’t’ really used years ago. Now we are doing that and that really change the finala result in cup. “

    What about the women that usually has a specific role in the coffee chain, because they work in the farm?

    “In Rwanda there are several cooperatives of women in most of Rwanda coffee stations. We’re working with them not only regarding the coffee processes, but also in activities that involves their daily lives. We support them to improve in other sectors. We also give them trainings about to develop different skills.”

    Has it been difficult to gain the top of the coffee chain, becoming manager as a woman?

    “I started with a job that requires a hard work. It was more difficult for a woman, because some activities in coffee especially fields activities are located in a very rural areas. And moving on the motorcicles and walking, isn’t something very easy for me. Sometimes I acted as a man. I walked with men and now we felt like a team. “

    The future programs?

    “We need to continue sustaining what we’re doing now, especially regarding the quality. It’s important for us to go towards people needs in cupping. Also we want to continue with the local farmers, in helping them to get more activies to improve their incomings. “

    You coffee is a product that can be appreciated by an Italian customer?

    “I think the taste is not familiar for an italian customer, because it’s unic in his genre. In fact, coffee in Rwanda has a different taste in cupping. It’s something new, that can be appreciated even if it doesn’t mirror exactly the traditional italian taste. “

     

    Article

    https://www.comunicaffe.com/an-exclusive-interview-with-philotee-mukiza-the-winner-best-of-the-best-eiica/

    Referral

    http://www.coffeeandteanewsletter.com/aug22.html#1
     

     

     

     

  16. now0.png

    New Ideas in Civic Life
    September 21, 2022 at 12 pm ET
    A virtual summit proudly presented as a part of the Newmark Civic Life Series of Recanati-Kaplan Talks

    With generous support from
    Craig Newmark Philanthropies logo

     

    VIEW THE COMPLETE DISCUSSION BELOW


    LINK
    https://www.92ny.org/state-of-america-summit


     

  17. Inspiration from Elaine Thompson-Herah

     

     

  18. I didn't know a Black NAtional Voters Day existed and I don't see why it exist?  I found the explanation and it is misplaced. What I want to know is the Black Voters Value Day , when Black people can look at what our voting has earned us over the years... ahh that is nothing. 

    The explanation why
    https://nul.org/news/national-black-voter-day-national-urban-leagues-answer-voter-suppression-misinformation-and

     

     

    https://whenweallvote.tumblr.com/post/695572659154681856/did-you-know-that-more-black-americans-were

     

     

    ARTICLE LINK
    https://whenweallvote.tumblr.com/post/695572659154681856/did-you-know-that-more-black-americans-were

     

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