richardmurray
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Day 21 https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/crystals-21-Witchtember-2022-930362174 Day 22 https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Glasses-22-Witchtember-2022-930487371
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will share -
Thoughts on National Black Voters Day
richardmurray replied to richardmurray's topic in Culture, Race & Economy
@frankster I apologize, my prose confused you. Your opening statement was That is what I found incorrect plus the ending statement Your ending statement was There is no depend, the question was answered by you, but it isn't on a dependable basis. The qualities in any valid answer depend on perspectives? yes. but the answers themselves either fit or don't. your answer did. I didn't say it didn't. Yes, it is true, but the issue of blacks in government isn't merely the federal level. NEwark, a city across the hudson river from NYC , is a black city, based on my definitions. And it has a relatively long history of Black mayors, especially compared to the white city, NYC. But, the black mayors of Newark prove my point about omniracial policy. Family before me who knew the first and sequent black mayors all concur that no newark black mayor has ever had a black agenda. The question is to what benefit has that been to the majority populace in NEwark? I argue, said Black mayors have stymied that city, whose neighbor has made many financial mistakes in the last fifty years. Notice I said financial mistakes. You are 100% correct, it is a given Blacks are not the majority in the USA, but it is not a given that blacks are not the majority in parts of the usa and to the black vote, those black parts ,are not getting what I think is even remotely fair let along adeqaute for their votes. YEs, from my district, Charles Rangel. Black votes placed him in , as a black man that was black voting power in action, and Charles Rangel gave vote to the affordable care act, which is black voting power giving a return to a multiracial group which includes black people. But, it must be said, charles rangel, did far less than Adam Clayton Powell jr in providing pro black legislation, or even, pushing the black elected representatives of HArlem to do so at the local level. Inez Dickens, robert jackson, Keith wright, all black, all from harlem. none with a black policy agenda. And I Am not saying they must have it, but what returns do the black vote get. and what quality are they really? Your welcome:) The goal for me in this forum isn't to argue, or to proselytize or to change anybody's mind. I speak my peace. In the end, I can oppose or disagree with positions or words, but I can also concur or stand with. We stand opposed to what should be. for me, it is more partisan. I think the black community in the USA historically has a problem with accepting its own internal tribes. I repeat, Black people fought to create the united states of america while Black people fought to stop the united states of america from being born while most Black people when the united states of america was being born were unable to have a say in the creation of the usa but wanted betterment for their lives from either or of the two scenarios mentioned before. And I think black people in the usa, become trapped in making one of those three right, or wrong. I have heard black people who want to kill all the whites say the majority of blacks are lazy. I have heard black people who are proud and dedicated and financially fruitful citizens of the usa say the majority of blacks are lazy. but whether you love or hate the usa, it isn't unfair for most blacks to be descended of those enslaved people who want betterment from those who are more opportune in the black community. I hear a majority of blacks say, to the black millionaires, black members of the POAL or POAJ , we want more. but the black majority have to realize those blacks though a minority in the black community in leadership position, believes in the usa as a place where the individual has the right to rise or fall and fight, albeit even through unfairness, to maintain a level of human equality. I hear a majority of blacks say to the black militants, black garveyites, black nationalists, give us somewhere to go, give us something to do. But the black majority have to realize those blacks, though another minority, in the black community in a leadership position, have a huge hurdle to overcome to offer the potential black nation outside the usa or black region in the usa, and it will take time and even more time than in past years. You say it should be, I say it is for some black people, but not for others, and I think all black peoples in the usa have earned what they truly want. I don't see those black elected representatives as ahead of their time, cause the black people who fought for the usa to be created thought likewise. This country always had and has black people who believe in the , as you say, non racial possibilities in the USA. but, those elected representatives betrayed their voting body. they knew fully well, many black people didn't see our community in the usa that way. and to use their position to force how they see the black community on the whole was a betrayal for me. I can accept a black person being nonracial but i can't accept a black person being nonracial using their influence to reject the idea that another black person has to be nonracial too. That is unfair. All black people know our relationship to whites , during the thirteen colonies or the usa itself, has alot of negativity. Is usually negative. And, to have policy that ignores the other two choices that the black community had when the usa was founded is consistent with black elected representatives in the future, but equally dysfunctional for Black people. At the end of the day, it is cheap hindsight , but I argue that that Black south carolina legislature is the primary cause of the deaths of so many black people in south carolina. People can say whites acted illegally in south carolina, but the black elected representatives had one chance to get this right and history proves for the black people in south carolina, who voted for them above ninety percent, they got it wrong. It is that simple. And maybe, maybe, the legacy of the black south carolina senate is black elected representatives have gotten it wrong for black people ever since. Defending their philosophy and applying it on the whole when the black community needed another type of governance. your 100% correct, any racial elements in any legal code lead to positive or negative biases that harm or hurt but go against the operation of any applied collective as a whole. That is true. The problem though is, in governing absent respect to race, the inequalities inherent in human communities based on race mutate or fester , and don't go away. IF anything, the USA in modernity is the proof. HEre is a collection of humans where many racial groups abused by another had leadership that led abused peoples absent racial consideration and it has helped some of the abused but clearly not the majority. And if a governor isn't aiding a majority then they can't be called effective can they? Ohhhhh more martin less malcolm... Your talking to a member of House MAlcolm. but... that is the philosophical debate, it goes back to the blacks who fought against the usa being created versus the blacks who fought for the usa to be created. ... It is . a long battle:) I personally don't think there is a right or wrong. I don't know how you feel to the philosophical history of blacks in the usa, but I find the malcolm /martin philosophical battle less potent than the booker t washington/web dubois/garvey philosophical battle. And I find those battles less potent, than the crispus attucks versus colonel tiye when the usa was born. For me, MAlcolm side MArtin were two religious clerics who both died not in the position they warranted. the other black pastors wouldn't let martin lead the southern black christian leadership conference <I think I got that title slightly wrong:)> cause they feared he would clean up their act. Which he would had and needed to happen. MLK walked the walk. not just talk the talk. In the same token, the other ministers in the nation of islam wouldn't allow Malcolm his rightful place as leader while elijah muhammed was alive cause he was going to clean up their act. Which he would had and was needed and to his credit trying to do so while not the leader was a legendary act of leadership for me. Both Malcolm side MLKjr walked the walk, that is why they were both murdered. And the preachers or ministers around them, were not. I find the only true variance is tone. But I am fair to both men. I had a fortunate upbringing. I got to know my male forebears, or clan in general, in peace like MArtin Luther King jr. My family wasn't under assassination like Malcolm's. I comprehend why it took the trip to mecca for malcolm to change his tone. For me, MAlcolm's message never changed, cause it didn't need to change, but his tone did. Malcolm told black people to defend themselves, not be naive to what you see commonly, be willing to struggle through hurdles, as did Martin. Martin told black people to educate themselves, know the law, be kind to fellow blacks, live positively while wisely in the usa or elsewhere, as did Malcolm. I think the HBCU, Talented tenth Black employed, Back to Africa are more interesting philosophical frictions in the black community and have more relevance in the black community today. For me, the only true variance in Martin side Malcolm is Martin was always willing to embrace the USA while Malcolm was always willing to let the USA fall. And while that is a major point, I think it yields as potent a discussion. YEs, I should had emphasized. My reply in that sector was to the purpose of aiding blacks. I am flying through the internet. @ProfD fair enough, we agree to the goals of the law, our disagreement on intent is for scholarly study or philosophical review only. -
Why the DOJ v PRH Antitrust Trial Doesn’t Change the Game for Authors, Regardless of Outcome
September 22, 2022 by Jane Friedman
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/
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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-37440125-1663769703-1-72157721637473044Enjoy
a story
The Last Homily On Liturgoid
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-last-homily-on-liturgoida poem, click the image
An art gallery
Witchtember 2022
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/gallery/84411925/witchtember-2022A 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=0030547425: 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 conjunctions26: 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 ecliptic29: 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-8His 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
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Thoughts on National Black Voters Day
richardmurray replied to richardmurray's topic in Culture, Race & Economy
@frankster only two issue I call incorrect with your reply , the first is the opening statement, the second is the closing statement. I will speak to the first and end my prose reply speaking to the second. You are wrong to say it depends on what you are looking for. My question asked for physical evidence of a return to something of value to the vote of the black community, throughout usa history. The black elected officials are members of the black community. They are physical evidence on a return to black votes, as the elected officials themselves are black, and are present because of Black voters. From a pure historical perspective, none or extremely few Black elected officials ever won a seat without a Black voting populace supporting them. In Black government districts in the USA , < I define Black as a person regardless of ancestry/immigration status/gender/religion/language whose phenotype is in the range of appearance I define as Black > I define as a: city district/city/town/county/state/federal district in the USA that has a Black populace over seventy percent, the Black vote has control over who gets elected. In all other districts in the USA or the USA itself, Black elected officials, like former president Barack Obama, still can use or need the Black vote to win a seat; but only the white vote as a block can guarantee a win in non Black districts or the USA itself. What you said wasn't incorrect but the way you said it gives a false allusion. A Black Elected official like Barrack Obama or David Dinkins or Eric Adams , a former or the current mayor of NEw York City, required black votes to win, but the seat they obtained can only be won by the white vote as a black. The black vote as a block alone can not win the mayoral seat of New York City or the presidency of the United States of America. Sequentially, relating their success as equal to the same to a Ray Nagin, former mayor of New Orleans or Kwame Brown, former mayor of DEtroit, at the time, two cities that are Black districts, is untrue. Similar but not equal scenarios and in voting, the variance between a Black voting block guaranteeing a seat and the Black voting block only empowering the path to a seat is huge. And your prose suggest a much smaller variance than the truth displays. The Affordable Care act is mostly from Nancy Pelosi. Barack Obama is on the public record as giving up on the bill, it was Pelosi who convinced him she will get the house and senate to get it done. Yes, Obama signed it, but in truth, the Affordable Care act came through the federal legislative branch in the United States, commonly called the Congress. So much so, Pelosi lost the House and cost her Senate peers the senate getting the Affordable care act. As the president of the USA is still needed to sign anything from the Congress, all president's have a role in each law, but the way you side other's call it Obama care is a lie. He merely signed it. It is Pelosi-care, Pelosi is the real generator of that law. my query side your reply is key to the problem when it comes to black people in the usa and the usa government, historically. You make two perfectly good answers to the question of what physical returns of the Black vote to empower the Black community : Black elected officials, laws that come from Black elected official policy, whether to the Black communities sole need or to a general need which includes black people but also non blacks, like the crown act of California or the affordable care act. The problem is, a Black elected official isn't bound by either of the White parties of governance of the legal code in the USA to produce policy or make effect law that serves their phenotypical race exclusively. The USA legal code doesn't make racial exclusive policy or law illegal, if it doesn't inhibit or harm other races, may they be phenotypical or gender or age or religious or other. Sequentially, all Black elected officials to my knowledge have never created a Black policy agenda solely, even if they were elected in a Black district. Ala like the South Carolina Senate post War between the States who had in majority Black elected officials , where each Black elected official was elected by a Black district. But the policy from the majority Black South Carolina Senate post war between the states was unquestioningly omniracial in purpose: public schools/taxes/financial initiatives. But, omniracial policy didn't serve the Black community in South Carolina well at all. It can be argued, with the aid of the Federal Army, the era of Majority Black Senators in the South Carolina senate wasted an opportunity, one that no State had since, to provide for the Black community in a state, without harming whites, but for the purpose of empowering Blacks in said state first or foremost, not merely in the short term but the long term. And this goes to Black voters day. The heritage of Black descended of enslaved elected officials in the USA is omniracial policy. I don't say that is wrong or right, but it has positives or negatives. The positives is that it has created a framework of policy creation from various types in races, from women in gender, to latino or sino in language, to asian or arab or african in descendency, to young or old in age, that even if they are elected by a particular group in majority, their policy even if it doesn't aid most that led to them being elected is sufficient to retain their seats, and be deemed by majority of their voting base adequate, even if they lose voters for lack of effective law to their majority. The negatives is that over time, the voters who represent the subraces <phenotype/age/language/or similar> of the official, yes all humans are human, become correctly disenfranchised to their policy and sequentially to the system itself. Trump to be historically blunt, utilized this truth in the party of Abraham Lincoln to great effect. Correctly, because omniracial policy by default is centrist and centrist policy by default requires groups , regardless of their voting power in a district to accept lesser opportunity or potency from policy , as the policy is meant to serve all. Monoracial policy by default aids the one race it is purposed for at a higher rate than the same race can be aided by any omniracial policy. And this is the environment the Black voting populace, aside others, finds itself in modern USA. All groups want more from policy, but when policy can't provide, they disconnect. Some elected officials and those who have still benefited suggest people need to have patience side resilience, but other elected officials correctly use the impotency of omniracial policy to gain seats and criticize to their voting base the ineffectiveness of the omniracial policy. The second incorrect < and @ProfD I offer you read this as well > is your allusion that the crown act is solely to the benefit of the Black community. The crown act came from Holly Mitchell, a black elected representive, who served California's 30th state senate district. Said district is not majority Black, it is majority Yella. Yella folk I define as a phenotypical range between Black and White. They include people who are of African/Indigenous/Asian descent as well as anglo/latino/sino speakers or mestizos/mullatoes of mixed geographic descendency. And the Crown Act serves all humans whose hair styles are not common into the White european mold which includes not only Blacks but Yella folk as well. So, the Crown Act is insufficient as a Black only law for it correctly, doesn't apply to Black people alone as the hair of many who are not Black does not suit the white european heritage of labor etiquette. -
Breath of the wild playhouse
richardmurray commented on richardmurray's blog entry in BlackGamesElite's BGE Journal
Impractical but beautiful custom gaming system https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/this-impractical-yet-beautiful-gaming-system-has-a-walnut-case-and-two-displays/ San diego comic con cosplay pictures https://makezine.com/article/craft/makeup-costumes/a-taste-of-san-diego-comic-con-cosplay/ -
Name Donovan Ewing Where are you located? Broken Arrow, OK What is your day job? YouTuber/Video Editor, Content producer for Sketchup Do you attend a makerspace/fablab/hackerspace? Yes How did you get started making stuff? I am an artist and I’ve always wanted to make things with and for my kids. I used to have a blog where I documented projects I made for my kids, such as sewing superhero capes or redesigning a toy chest to look like it’s from the movie Frozen. In 2017 I decided to combine my love of making things for my kids with storytelling, filmmaking, video games, movies, and all things geeky, and start a YouTube channel. What is something that you’ve made that you’re really proud of? The projects I end up being most proud of are the ones that get used far past their time in the videos we make Link’s Playhouse, the Mjolnir mallet, the treasure chest for lost teeth, the Spiderman headphone stand, the Legend of Zelda shop aprons, have all been used almost daily. I love it when projects get used, and not just sitting on a shelf looking good. READ MORE IN THE ARTICLE LINKED BELOW Building the ULTIMATE Zelda Breath of the Wild Playhouse, enjoy Maker Spotlight: Donovan Ewing of Once Upon A Workbench By Caleb Kraft August 17th, 2022 ARticle https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/maker-spotlight-donovan-ewing-of-once-upon-a-workbench/ IN AMENDMENT How To Build Dream’s Helmet From Sandman For Cosplay Video Article https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/how-to-buld-dreams-helmet-from-sandman-for-cosplay/
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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
Referral
http://www.coffeeandteanewsletter.com/aug22.html#1
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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 TalksWith generous support from
Craig Newmark Philanthropies logoVIEW THE COMPLETE DISCUSSION BELOW
LINK
https://www.92ny.org/state-of-america-summit
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It is not something Black people in the past created , it is something from pure modernity. By the national urban league, which has produced no results for the black urban league. I asked in the post below what I will ask here. Can any one black show me anything that came from black voting? Show me something? The 13th amendment to end enslavement was the result of war. Show me something that Black votes earned the Black community in the USA. I Can't think of anything. Can you? And some of you will say, that is not the point of voting and I oppose that view. In NYC, the vote of various white groups led to things in their community for them. More information or my thoughts https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2079&type=status
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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-andhttps://whenweallvote.tumblr.com/post/695572659154681856/did-you-know-that-more-black-americans-wereARTICLE LINK
https://whenweallvote.tumblr.com/post/695572659154681856/did-you-know-that-more-black-americans-were -
Here is one Queston and answer
To see all the answers, click the following link
https://entertainment.tumblr.com/tagged/andortime
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To see more art from Gdbee, click the link https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2074&type=status
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GDBEE complete the weapons fairy series, click to see them all https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=gdbee fairy&type=core_statuses_status&quick=1&search_and_or=and&sortby=newest
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Title: Elegance mantis, angelica, twin flintlocks - weapons fairy
Artist: GDBee < https://gdbee.store/ >
Prior post
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2076&type=status
WEapons Fairy Series
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=gdbee fairy&type=core_statuses_status&quick=1&search_and_or=and&sortby=newest
GDBee Post
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=gdbee&type=core_statuses_status&quick=1&author=richardmurray&search_and_or=or&sortby=newest -
Title: monarch, lavender, chainsaw- weapons fairy
Artist: GDBee < https://gdbee.store/ >
Prior post
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2075&type=status
GDBee Post
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=gdbee&type=core_statuses_status&quick=1&author=richardmurray&search_and_or=or&sortby=newest -
Title: Lady beetle , aloe vera, scythe - weapons fairy
Artist: GDBee < https://gdbee.store/ >
Prior post
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2074&type=status
GDBee Post
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=gdbee&type=core_statuses_status&quick=1&author=richardmurray&search_and_or=or&sortby=newest -
Title: Ariel Appreciation
Artist: GDBee < https://gdbee.store/ >
Prior post
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2051&type=status
GDBee Post
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q=gdbee&type=core_statuses_status&quick=1&author=richardmurray&search_and_or=or&sortby=newest -
Title: Old Piece
Artist: shawn alleyne < Pyroglyphics Studio > OR < https://www.deviantart.com/pyroglyphics1 >
Prior post
https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2053&type=status
Shawn Alleyne post
https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?q=shawn&quick=1&type=core_statuses_status&updated_after=any&sortby=newest -
Any writer ask a question service By JAne Friedman https://tally.so/r/mD4PPj
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Day 20 https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Necklace-20-Witchtember-2022-930260353
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Two challenges, first, I challenge anybody black to come up with a financial plan that is better than Aimee Bock side her crew. second, I challenge anybody black to provide a black person deemed a criminal or illegal actor whose activities is even remotely higher than Aimee Bock and her crew. https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2072&type=status
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Feds: Minnesota food scheme stole $250M; 47 people charged
AMY FORLITI
Tue, September 20, 2022 at 12:11 PM·5 min read
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal authorities charged 47 people in Minnesota with conspiracy and other counts in what they said Tuesday was the largest fraud scheme yet to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic by stealing $250 million from a federal program that provides meals to low-income children.
Prosecutors say the defendants created companies that claimed to be offering food to tens of thousands of children across Minnesota, then sought reimbursement for those meals through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food nutrition programs. Prosecutors say few meals were actually served, and the defendants used the money to buy luxury cars, property and jewelry.
“This $250 million is the floor," Andy Luger, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, said at a news conference. “Our investigation continues.”
Many of the companies that claimed to be serving food were sponsored by a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, which submitted the companies' claims for reimbursement. Feeding Our Future’s founder and executive director, Aimee Bock, was among those indicted, and authorities say she and others in her organization submitted the fraudulent claims for reimbursement and received kickbacks.
Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, said the indictment “doesn’t indicate guilt or innocence.” He said he wouldn't comment further until seeing the indictment.
In interviews after law enforcement searched multiple sites in January, including Bock's home and offices, Bock denied stealing money and said she never saw evidence of fraud.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice made prosecuting pandemic-related fraud a priority. The department has already taken enforcement actions related to more than $8 billion in suspected pandemic fraud, including bringing charges in more than 1,000 criminal cases involving losses in excess of $1.1 billion.
Federal officials repeatedly described the alleged fraud as “brazen,” and decried that it involved a program intended to feed children who needed help during the pandemic. Michael Paul, special agent in charge of the Minneapolis FBI office, called it “an astonishing display of deceit."
Luger said the government was billed for more than 125 million fake meals, with some defendants making up names for children by using an online random name generator. He displayed one form for reimbursement that claimed a site served exactly 2,500 meals each day Monday through Friday — with no children ever getting sick or otherwise missing from the program.
“These children were simply invented,” Luger said.
He said the government has so far recovered $50 million in money and property and expects to recover more.
The defendants in Minnesota face multiple counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery. Luger said some of them were arrested Tuesday morning.
According to court documents, the alleged scheme targeted the USDA's federal child nutrition programs, which provide food to low-income children and adults. In Minnesota, the funds are administered by the state Department of Education, and meals have historically been provided to kids through educational programs, such as schools or day care centers.
The sites that serve the food are sponsored by public or nonprofit groups, such as Feeding Our Future. The sponsoring agency keeps 10% to 15% of the reimbursement funds as an administrative fee in exchange for submitting claims, sponsoring the sites and disbursing the funds.
But during the pandemic, some of the standard requirements for sites to participate in the federal food nutrition programs were waived. The USDA allowed for-profit restaurants to participate, and allowed food to be distributed outside educational programs. The charging documents say the defendants exploited such changes “to enrich themselves."
The documents say Bock oversaw the scheme and that she and Feeding Our Future sponsored the opening of nearly 200 federal child nutrition program sites throughout the state, knowing that the sites intended to submit fraudulent claims.
“The sites fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day within just days or weeks of being formed and despite having few, if any staff and little to no experience serving this volume of meals,” according to the indictments.
One example described a small storefront restaurant in Willmar, in west-central Minnesota, that typically served only a few dozen people a day. Two defendants offered the owner $40,000 a month to use his restaurant, then billed the government for some 1.6 million meals through 11 months of 2021, according to one indictment. They listed the names of around 2,000 children — nearly half of the local school district's total enrollment — and only 33 names matched actual students, the indictment said.
Feeding Our Future received nearly $18 million in federal child nutrition program funds as administrative fees in 2021 alone, and Bock and other employees received additional kickbacks, which were often disguised as “consulting fees” paid to shell companies, the charging documents said.
According to an FBI affidavit unsealed earlier this year, Feeding Our Future received $307,000 in reimbursements from the USDA in 2018, $3.45 million in 2019 and $42.7 million in 2020. The amount of reimbursements jumped to $197.9 million in 2021.
Court documents say the Minnesota Department of Education was growing concerned about the rapid increase in the number of sites sponsored by Feeding Our Future, as well as the increase in reimbursements.
The department began scrutinizing Feeding Our Future’s site applications more carefully, and denied dozens of them. In response, Bock sued the department in November 2020, alleging discrimination, saying the majority of her sites were based in immigrant communities. That case has since been dismissed.
Article
Feds: Minnesota food scheme stole $250M; 47 people charged (yahoo.com)
My thoughts
47 people for 250 million dollars. circa 4 million and seven hundred thousand per head.
The two hundred and fifty million dollars is the floor in this one case, while the united states department of justice has grabbed a floor of eight billion already in sars-cov-2 era related stolen money.
Eight billion is the floor.
I share this so whenever I read a black person talk about financial planning, I will advise them to read this article. PRovide the black people you want to hire with these kind of schemes and then succeed and then talk about your grand plans. otherwise be quiet.
Oh, and we all need to see AImee Bock whose face somehow wasn't in every article about this.
A black man hustles in the street some marijuana and fights law enforcement and his face is face of crime. A white woman is part of a two hundred and fifty million dollar theft and she is just an unlucky entrepreneur.
