text:
Extinction 27.3
Back to the beginning.
"Emma's dead," I said.
Sophia nodded. "Her dad told me."
Not a trace of emotion on her face. Not a flicker of a change in expression. Did she not care, or was she wearing an exceptional mask?
Funny, just how easily those masks came to people. Costumes were nothing in the grand scheme of things. Cloth or kevlar, spider silk or steel. It was the false faces we wore, the layers of defenses, the lies we told ourselves, that formed the real barriers between us and the hostile world around us.
Looking at Sophia, I found myself instinctively reaching for that mask. I was using my bugs to channel my feelings, even with my concerns about my passenger and how it might be merging with me. I was wearing that aura of indomitable calm, even though I wasn't sure I liked the Taylor of this past year and a half, who had been doing just that as a matter of both habit and necessity.
The two of us, in this shitty little makeshift prison. Tattletale had had this place built ahead of time, with the idea that we might need secure storage or a prison for anyone who made trouble in Earth Gimel. Too little, even with the measures being taken. Those with less than six years in their sentences were being given a limited release and kept in a more isolated location, with family and friends free to join them. The only exceptions to that early release were the parahumans.
Maybe there was a human rights violation or a lawsuit in there, but the people in charge had other concerns.
My phone buzzed. I picked it up and looked at the screen.
Japan hit. V. little left. Most evacuated. 22m est. dead. Total est. toll 500m.
"PRT issue phone," Sophia commented. "Newer model than the one I had."
"Yeah," I answered. I put the phone down on the little ledge beneath the bulletproof glass.
"Big bad Weaver. That's what you go by now, isn't it?"
"I prefer Taylor."
"Taylor. Made it pretty big, as capes go."
I shrugged. "Wasn't really a priority, in the grand scheme of things. I only wanted the power so I could do what needed doing."
"Never appealed to me, power in the greater sense," she said. "Personal power? I always paid more attention to power on a one-on-one level."
I let myself relax a little. We had something to discuss. It wasn't going to be a fight, a series of attacks.
"I guess," Sophia said, "You took my lessons to heart. Used what you learned from our little… what's the word? Lessons? Made something of yourself after all."
She's taking credit? I was a little stunned, the mental gymnastics she must have managed to do that… what?
A small smile touched her lips. Smug, superior. I'd seen it enough times in my interactions with her.
"Mark on your cheek is gone, where I gouged you."
"I think it disappeared at some point when I got healing or regeneration. Grue or Panacea or Scapegoat. Don't know."
"Mm," she said. Her eyes were studying me, and the look wasn't kind. "Your family make it out okay?"
Just the question was like a slap to the face.
"No," I said. "I don't know. Haven't bothered double checking or asking."
"Me either," she said. "Not that I'm really in a position to go look for answers. But they weren't visiting much anyways. Token visits, you know?"
"I don't, really," I said. "My dad was pretty cool after I joined the Wards. We didn't see each other as much as I maybe wanted to, but it didn't feel like token visits."
"Difference between you and me," she said. She glanced over her shoulder at the guard behind her, then planted a foot against the little ledge beneath the bulletproof glass. Her hands, handcuffed, settled in her lap. "Your daddy cared. You know, that meeting where you tried to get us that in-school suspension? I was more pissed at the fact that your dad was there than the suspension."
"Then the woman was-"
"A PRT twit."
I nodded, but I was distracted from my response by another vibration of my phone. I picked it up to look at it.
Mordovia bubble hit. Sleeper has been roused, last tracked en route to Zayin portal. Casualties unknown.
"World's really ending?" Sophia asked.
"Yeah," I said, putting the phone back down. "Scale, damage, repercussions, all worse than any Endbringer attack. They're predicting that maybe five hundred million are dead already."
The mention of half a billion people being dead didn't affect her more than the mention of Emma's passing. Not visibly.
"Too bad," she said.
"There's no going back," I said. "We're preparing for a counterattack right now. We'll see what works, what doesn't."
"He beat Behemoth," Sophia said.
"I know. I was there," I said.
She looked annoyed at that. Her eyebrows drew closer together, and she shifted position, putting both feet up on the little ledge, one ankle crossed over the other. It was only after she was settled that she responded, "He beat Behemoth, and nobody could manage that. He's stronger."
"We'll try anyways," I said. "I don't think any of us are prepared to roll over and die just yet."
"Dumb," Sophia said. "Throwing your lives away for nothing."
"The alternative isn't any better," I said.
"What? Not fighting? Finding a good spot in another dimension to hide out? It's a thousand times better, Hebert. We're like cockroaches in the face of this asshole. You know what happens if we line up and march off to die single file? The strongest of us die, there's nothing left to protect the others and humanity gets wiped out. No. Fuck that. Cockroaches survive because no matter how hard you try, they're numerous enough, tough enough, and spread out enough that a few of them always survive. They survive the predators, the poison, the fire, the radiation, and a few generations later they're back in full strength."
"Yet you fought Leviathan."
"I fought Behemoth too, few months before. Kind of. Mostly did search and rescue. Difference between that and this is that we're more like rats when going up against a fucking Endbringer. We're vermin in comparison to them, but we're vermin that can take bites out of them. Get enough rats together and they'll take down a human, no matter how well equipped that human is."
"But cockroaches can't?" I asked, with a note of irony.
She gave me a look that people typically reserved for when they'd been spit on. "Don't try to be clever, Hebert. It doesn't suit you."
I rolled my eyes.
"I'm speaking metaphorically. It's a… what's the word? Like a ladder."
"Hierarchy."
"Hierarchy. Yeah. Scion's one step above the Endbringers."
"Couple of steps," I said.
"A couple of steps. Whatever. So you've got to evaluate that shit, understand? Where the fuck do we stand in relation to him? Rock bottom. How do we deal? We scatter. Spread out far enough apart. One guy can't murder all of us if we can find a way to spread out over a million different earths. Stick to villages and shit. Whatever."
I was somewhat caught off guard by that. It wasn't a bad plan. Defeatist, but not bad. Something we'd implicitly settled on in the meeting, though we'd also agreed to keep our mind open for options. I was getting a chance to see how she parsed the world, if maybe she had been influenced by her passenger like I was by mine, and I was seeing a philosophy that she seemed to value.
It was an insight into Sophia, and it wasn't one that matched up with my expectations.
I ventured, "And here I thought you were more focused on being superior to others."
Sophia shook her head, her lip curling up a fraction. "I acted superior because I was superior. Still am superior to most. That comes with perks. Do what you want, get away with shit, get people to look past the stuff you want them to look past. What you've been up to, I bet you've done that. Leveraged power?"
"Leveraged power," I said. "Yes, I have."
"Because you're better. You're a little arrogant, maybe? A little less forgiving of mistakes?"
"I was," I said. "Thing is, when it came down to it, I wasn't stronger or cleverer because of it. It wasn't an advantage in the critical moment. Maybe the opposite."
She dropped her feet to the floor and leaned forward, folding her arms on the ledge, her face not even an inch from the glass. "But it got you that far. Others there, and they couldn't fix it either. Not a reason to change your mind."
"It was a pretty important moment," I told her. "The most important moment. But I wasn't in the right place, wasn't in contact with the right people. More than anything, I wasn't asking the right questions."
She looked profoundly disappointed. "See, now you're just being a whiny bitch again. Negative."
"Retrospective," I said. "Figuring out what I did wrong, changing."
"Your biggest problem, Hebert, is that you never realized your place. I almost had respect for you. Hard not to, when you're pretty much copying me. But you're still waffling on shit you shouldn't be waffling on."
Copying her.
I'd admitted to taking lessons from Bakuda, from Jack. I'd picked up some of Purity's protectiveness, only I'd turned it towards my territory. I'd learned from Coil, from Accord, and yet Sophia saying this nettled me.
I knew why, and it wasn't because I felt like she was eerily on target. No, it was because it was an out for her. An excuse, a justification that let her keep her tidy little worldview.
The best revenge was supposed to be living well, but maybe there was a petty fragment of my psyche that wanted to rub it in her face. Not that I was living well. The situation was catastrophic, my dad was dead, and I wasn't sure where I stood.
I looked down at my gloves. They were dark gray, but they'd been caked in blood, and even a good washing in cold water had failed to get them thoroughly clean.
"Sophia," I said.
"What?" she asked. She leaned back in her chair.
"They're opening the Birdcage. Letting some of the scarier criminals out, in the hopes of getting some assistance against Scion. There's a lot of good firepower in there."
"Doesn't make sense to go that far if we don't extend the same concept to a smaller scale. Not sure what the numbers are, but there's a hell of a lot of possible recruits there."
"And you're here because, what, you're going to recruit me?"
I ignored her. "Problem with this situation is there's no good way to keep track of all of this. In the chaos, it's hard to manage records, and time's tight enough we're not going to be able to pull a review panel together. So how do you decide who gets to go free?"
"What a good question," Sophia said. She met my gaze with a level stare. Not a glare anymore.
"Capes interact most with other capes. Smaller pool of people to find, contact and question, versus trying to hunt down civilians who might know so-and-so. It's not a perfect method. It's flawed, even. But we're asking the victims. Teammates who were inconvenienced, enemies of the capes in question, all of that. Is this cape in prison worth letting free? Knowing what's at stake, are you willing to put the past behind you and give them a second chance?"
She smirked. "And you're my victim?"
"Me and the Brockton Bay Wards," I said. "The Undersiders were asked, too, but they gave their votes to me, with only a few words of suggestion."
She's fucking useless, Imp had said. And she shot my brother. Bitch isn't worth having to worry about being shot in the back with a crossbow.
"Moronic," she said. "Making it a popularity contest."
"Doing what we have to," I responded.
"Moronic," she said, again. I might have missed it, if it weren't for the repetition of the same word. Slightly different. A hint of emotion? Disdain? Disappointment?
Maybe she cared more about being freed than she was letting on.
Maybe, on a level, she grasped that she was reaping the consequences of earlier actions.
Well, I'd been there.
"I suppose this is the point where I'm supposed to beg? I give you some satisfaction, you get some…"
"Closure," I said. "No. I'm not going to make you do that."
"Because I won't," she said.
"I know," I said.
It's not in you, based on what you've said here. That personal pride, the security she'd apparently found in knowing what her niche was in the world and how she fit into it, it was her mask, the barrier she erected against the world.
"You hurt people," I said. "And the way you reacted to me, on that night where the Undersiders kidnapped you, trying to slash my throat… you've killed."
"Yes. So have you. You might have a body count higher than mine."
"I might," I said.
"You hurt people too."
"I did," I agreed.
"A lot more than I did."
"And you weren't even subtle about it. Taking over a city, robbing banks, attacking the fundraiser, attacking the headquarters…"
"Extorting the mayor," I added, "Unlawfully imprisoning people, a lot of other stuff."
"Yet you're out there and I'm in here," she said. Then she smirked. "Funny how that all works out. It all comes down to strength in the end. Power. How useful are you to others? I was useful, strong, even marketable on a niche level, and they pulled strings for me. Pulled your strings, even."
"Yeah," I said.
"But I became more trouble than I was worth. They throw me in jail, say it's because of a probation violation. But why are they really doing it? Because I'm more trouble than I'm worth. I'm not useful, am I, Hebert? Regent got me, I was a liability. Couldn't be used to fight the bad guys. They sacked Piggy for the same reason."
"Even if that was true, they could have moved you to another city. They would have," I said. "But maybe you burned bridges. Maybe the other teams didn't want you."
She shook her head a little, her smirk turning up a little.
"I think your view is a little narrow," I said. "It's about more than usefulness. There are other factors."
"Like what? Likability? Substance? Respect? Trust?"
"Along those lines," I said.
"Bullshit," she said. Her eyes narrowed. "You think you're more likable than I am? Fuck that, and I'm not just joking around like we did back at school. You and I? We're the same. We're tough where we need to be, we hit hard so our enemies aren't in any shape to hit back. We're good at what we do. Difference is you were a little luckier, bet on the right horse."
"No, Sophia," I said.
"No? You run, right? It was on TV."
"I run, yes."
"And you don't think you were trying to emulate me? Subconsciously? I was on the track team, and there you are, a bit of a loser, looking for a way to improve yourself, and you start running?"
"Not even remotely close to the mark," I said, feeling a note of irritation. "Not on that count. The other stuff? Maybe we are similar in respects. Maybe being a cape in this fucked up world means you have to go that route, just a little."
"Being a person," she said. "Dealing with reality."
"Maybe," I said "But if I was like you, I was better at it than you were, went further, tested the limits more."
I could see her eyes narrow further.
"And I think it's a pretty shitty way to exist," I finished.
"Ouch," she said. "You wounded me."
I couldn't hear anything in her voice, nor could I see anything in her expression… but her shoulders were tenser, her hands had stopped fidgeting and were still.
I stood from my chair, collecting the phone. I glanced at it.
NZ gutted. Timeline for counterattack set for 1.5 hr from now. Testing efficacy of some abilities at range. Legend, Pretender, Eidolon on board to help. Weaver has been requested for assistance and field administration.
"You're going, then," Sophia said.
"Yeah. You said you wouldn't help, you'd rather scurry away like a cockroach."
"I'm not saying I'd rather. I'm saying it's what we should all do."
"Either way. You're free to convince me."
"To beg, we're back to that."
"To convince me."
She shook her head a little. "Fuck it. Let the world burn. We'll all be better off. No pretension, no fakery, none of the tradition and 'this is the way things are and always will be'. Hit the reset button, whoever's left will pick things up later."
"That sounds remarkably similar to how Jack sounded."
"Fuck you, Hebert."
"Fine. I'm walking away from this with a clear conscience. Sit there in your cell and worry every minute that Scion's going to come tearing through here and wipe you off the face of the planet."
She smirked, but I could see that tension in her neck and shoulders, still. I felt like Rachel, looking at someone and trying to piece together their natural responses, figure them out.
Or was it the opposite? Was I like Rachel in how she looked at a dog, understanding them on a level most people couldn't?
"You're afraid," I said.
"Fuck you, Hebert," she spat the words.
"You're afraid and you're hiding it behind a very good mask."
"Fuck that. I hate that fakery, that false-faced bullshit."
"You said we're alike. You're right. We're both very good at putting on a front."
She snarled the words. "There's a difference between acting and being. I'm not faking anything."
"Yet you refuse to do anything to deviate from your path. That's why you're so big on sticking to your place. If you never budge, you never have to risk seeing if the mask comes off."
"Oh fuck the hell off, Hebert. You sanctimonious, know-it-all, orphan bitch!"
She'd picked the 'orphan' bit to hurt, to get a rise out of me. Yet I felt okay. Hurt? Yes. I felt something deep and important missing, and I wasn't quite ready to let myself feel that emotion in its entirety. To hear the words in full or see the body and know my dad was gone.
I needed to do that, and maybe to do it soon, if only to pay respect to my dad.
So yeah. I hurt. I felt the sting of her words. I still felt off kilter. But I was calm.
No act. No mask. Me, and I was okay.
"Thank you, Sophia," I said. "I feel a hell of a lot better than I did before this meeting. I don't know if-"
She'd gotten the guard's attention with her outburst. The woman was approaching.
"-if you were right about us being similar or not. But I don't want to be the sort of person you could compare yourself to. I'm going to be Taylor again, so thank you, for helping me come to peace with that."
I can be Taylor without being weak. Keep the best parts of Skitter and Weaver.
I turned to leave.
Her maneuver was a practiced one, no doubt something she'd trained herself with in her cell or in the moments she was cuffed and unobserved. A way to buy herself a fraction of a second to use her power, where her wrists wouldn't come in contact with the cuffs, as she let them drop from a point further up her arms to her hands. I could sense the motion with my bugs.
Her leg hooked under her chair as she made it as shadowy as she was, and she kicked out, sending the chair flying through the bulletproof glass. It rematerialized as it crashed into mine, and the two chairs in turn hit me.
I stumbled. My shin stung where the little folding chairs had hit me.
Sophia, in turn, was being held down by the guard, the handcuffs pulled taut against her wrists.
"Is this the real you, then?" I asked.
"Oh my god, you pre… pre-"
"Pretentious."
"Cunt!" Sophia snarled the words between her grunts of struggle. "I'm going to break you!"
"Take a minute or two to calm down," I said. "Breathe. If you can relax, if you can look me in the eye and promise you won't hurt me or anyone else, I'm going to give the go-ahead for you to leave."
There was a pause, shock stopping both the guard and Sophia.
"You're joking," the guard said.
Sophia just lay there, her head pressed against the little ledge, panting. Her hair covered her face.
"Offer's open just a bit longer, Sophia," I said. "I want to take some time to get ready, and if you're coming, you'll need the same."
She didn't budge. The guard took her weight off Sophia, and only held the chain of the cuffs, twisting so Sophia's arms were held taut above her. It must have been uncomfortable with the way her body was forced to one side, her head forced down.
Afraid.
"I'm not asking you to fight Scion. Just doing search and rescue would be fine. It's not safe, but-"
"Will you shut up?" Sophia's voice was muffled, not in a position to let her voice pass through the perforated space in the glass. "Fuck, I'll do it if you stop prattling at me."
"Look me in the eye and promise you won't fuck with me."
The guard let Sophia straighten.
She met my eyes, glaring as if a look alone could express a hundred different kinds of violence. "I promise."
I shrugged. The guard looked at me, and I nodded.
"Your funeral," she said. "I'll go take her to the back and get her ready."
"No need," I said. I looked towards the ceiling. Let's try this. "Two doors, one for me, one for her, to where the others are on Earth Bet."
The doors opened, rectangular windows. Unlike the portals I'd seen before, these ones were dark, one on each side of the bulletproof glass.
Sophia, still cuffed, shot me an ugly sidelong glance, watching as I made my way through the portal. The door was already closing as I saw her turn and step through the other.
I didn't want to let her loose without any observation. I'd bring her along for just a short while, then find a place to stick her.
I felt okay with this decision. Comfortable. It wasn't a mask I was wearing, so strong it might as well have been real. No. It was something simpler.
I'm not scared of her anymore.
There were other, bigger things to be scared of.
The sky was overcast, but it wasn't wholly clouds. Dust choked everything, thick and heavy. The sun was rising, and it felt like it had been rising for some time. The issues of teleporting across time zones.
Red. The sky was a surprising red color, filtering between clouds that were almost black. It cast the tall mountains in similar shades, with deep shadows and vivid color.
My breath fogged in the air. I'd been dressed for summer. This… it was cold. The landscape around us looked like coals resting in a fire, cast in ash white, charcoal blacks and reds, but it was cold. The cold leeched warmth from my feet, even. We were on a mountainside, a broad, flat ledge that could have held three helicopters. Instead, it held one Azazel suit and a crowd of perhaps sixty.
The cold wasn't just the altitude. The levels of dust in the atmosphere would be having an effect as well.
My bugs were having a tough time here. I clustered them against my body, more so they could benefit from my warmth than the opposite.
With the bugs so close to me, crawling on my skin, in the cradle of my folded arms, and beneath my clothes, my sense of others was limited. Even so, I could sense Rachel's approach. I didn't react as she set her coat over my shoulders, except to glance at her and nod my thanks.
A crowd had gathered. Everyone from the meeting, minus Saint, was present. There were also innumerable others who hadn't been at the meeting. Some I recognized, many I didn't. Here and there, portals opened and people stepped through, joining the crowd.
"Long time," I heard someone say. Boston accent.
I turned around. It was Weld, with his partner, the tendril-girl that wound around his body. He hadn't been talking to me.
No, his focus was on Sophia.
"Hey chief," she said.
He gripped the two loops of her cuffs, and absorbed them into his hands. She rolled her shoulders, then rubbed at her wrists.
"Don't cause trouble," Weld said. "Too many people on edge here."
"Yeah," Sophia said.
Then Weld left, returning to his group.
Sophia was left standing there alone, cold in her prison sweats.
Time passed. I'd hardly arrived in the nick of time, for the main event. I walked around the edge of the ridge, navigating around clusters of people, then approached the Azazel.
Tattletale was within, her attention on the computer screens. Defiant was leaning over her, giving instructions.
I left them alone, joining Rachel and Imp, where they sat with their backs to Bastard's side, feet inches from a precipitous drop. Grue was keeping more of a distance, simultaneously watching and keeping as far away from Bonesaw as he could manage.
"No more malls," Imp was saying. "No more going shopping, no more reality TV, no more stupid boy bands to make fun of…"
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Talking about everything I'm going to miss," Imp said. "I'm trying to start from the outer edges and work my way in towards the biggest stuff. Work up my courage to say, you know…"
"You'll miss us?" I asked.
"Aw, you're so full of yourself!" Imp said. "It's so sweet! I was going to say, um, those creepy little kids who look way too much like their big brother? I'll miss them way more than I should. I'd miss them more than I'd miss you."
I reached over and pushed her head a little, trying to mess up her hair and failing to do so before she'd pulled away. I found a seat beside Rachel.
Bastard's chest rose and fell. It was one element of an uncomfortable seat. Warm, but not quite cozy enough for me to nod off. It was too cold, for one thing, and I felt my rear end going numb from the cold before I'd been sitting for a minute. Even more alarming was the general sensation that someone was gently pushing me towards the ledge, then easing up, pushing me, easing up.
If he lurched to his feet for any reason, I wasn't entirely sure I would be able to stop myself from being shoved over the precipice. I should have worn my flight pack.
"I don't have a lot," Rachel said, breaking the silence. "Haven't ever had much more than I could take with me if I left home. Had money, but it was just a number I couldn't really follow on a computer I didn't have."
"You have something now," I said.
She bobbed her head in a motion that was almost too slow to be a nod. "Yep."
I didn't elaborate. We watched the crimson sunrise.
"Don't want to lose it," Rachel said. "Any of it."
I-
I couldn't even complete a thought, hearing that. Damn it, Rachel, don't say that, don't remind me.
I thought of my dad.
Of my mom, though that was a wound I'd thought I'd healed.
I thought of my hometown, which wasn't quite home anymore.
I thought of my pride, my mission, neither of which I quite had anymore.
I lowered my head, bringing my knees up to support my arm as I nestled my face into the crook of my elbow, burying it into the fabric of Rachel's jacket. This was too public. The wolf's overlong body provided a barrier between us and everyone else, but… too public.
"Sorry," I mumbled. My tears were hot against my face.
"Why the fuck are you sorry?" Imp asked.
I raised my head up just a little, trying to pull myself together. "Feeling kind of- my feelings are all over the place. A little unhinged."
Imp didn't look my way, instead turning the narrow black lenses of her mask skyward. "It's been a bad day, in case you haven't noticed. You're allowed to feel bad. It's kind of normal."
I'd been thinking of my feelings as being off-kilter, out of control, unreasonable and irrational.
Were they just regular feelings? Emotions that weren't being reined in by my discipline and bottling everything up, by distraction and disconnection?
Somewhere along the line, I'd stopped thinking about my feelings as being mixed up or fucked up and stopped concerning myself with them altogether. On a level, I'd blamed my passenger.
But I wasn't sure I could justify that with what I was experiencing now. Why would the passenger take away, gain ground in subsuming my identity and then give it back, all like this?
Was it just me?
Fuck. I wasn't sure I wanted this to be me and me alone.
I lowered my face into my elbow again.
What was it all for?
I drew in a breath, trying to keep my breathing level so I wouldn't give any audible clues as to what was going on, and it backfired. My breath hitched and I released a little hiccup of a sob. It was all downhill from there.
I didn't care anymore. I wasn't about to mentally berate people for caring about secret identities when we were so far past that, and then care about my reputation or how I looked.
Screw it. If I was going to be Taylor again, I wouldn't give a fuck.
Rachel put her arms around my shoulders in a clumsy hug that squished my shoulder. Then, with the hand of that same arm, she reached up and put her hand on my head, rubbing left to right and back again. My head rocked with the motion.
Soothing, but… ridiculous enough that I let out a little half-sob, half-laugh.
Which was probably even better than anything else.
I let my head settle against her shoulder, and she left her hand on my head, no longer rubbing.
We watched as the sunrise continued, the red of the atmosphere leaking through the gaps in the clouds.
I felt the tears stop at one point, and rubbed them away. I had to try twice before I could voice a question. "How's Grue doing?"
"Ask him," Imp said.
"He's okay. Cozen made it out okay, but Rook didn't. So Cozen's getting a promotion."
"To leader?"
Imp nodded.
Is there even anything to lead? How do you manage a group of thieves when everything that's worth stealing is slowly being erased from the planet's surface?
I wouldn't push it.
"I'm-" Imp started.
"Ready," someone in the crowd called out, interrupting her.
Every single person on the broad, flat ledge of the mountainside turned.
I wiped at my face again with my hands, then stood, a little alarmed at how the stiffness of the cold hampered my movements, and the nearby ledge that yawned before us.
But no, no disasters. We made our way around Bastard's sleeping form and joined the group.
The first of the portals opened.
A broad-shouldered man with facial hair like that of a homeless man's stepped through. He wore prison sweats with the words 'Baumann Parahuman Containment Center' across the shoulders.
"Is this safe?" Someone asked. A girl, in her early teens.
"They sent everyone to their cells. Maybe a speedster could slip through, if they knew what was happening, but we have a lot of people here," a man next to her said.
"You didn't answer the question," Imp said. "No, it's not safe. These guys are assholes."
The man with the beard turned to glare our way, inexplicably, looked momentarily confused, and then walked forward. The crowd parted to let him through as he approached the edge.
I'd done my reading on these guys while making my way to Sophia, waiting for her to arrive. If this went balls-up, we'd be stuck between these guys and Scion. I'd wanted to know.
The man with the beard was Gavel. Cell block leader. A vigilante who had gone after families, particularly spouses and children, all so he could break his enemies before his namesake weapon could. He'd been notorious in the days before the three strike rule or even the code. Even with that, people had lost patience with his 'mission' when a villain had threatened to detonate a small bomb, and Gavel had called a bluff that wasn't a bluff. Gavel had walked away. Many, many others hadn't.
A woman ventured forth. Her hair was long, her features matronly. She wore a prison uniform that had been cut apart and pieced together into heavier cargo pants and a jacket. Lustrum. Part-celebrity, part-antihero, she'd gathered a following of college-aged feminists, building up an almost religious fervor, before giving the fateful orders that turned things violent, pushing her thousands of followers to humiliate men, often violently. Things soon escalated to the point that more fanatical followers were emasculating and murdering men, even carving up followers who weren't playing along.
My mom had, in her graduate school days, been a part of one of Lustrum's groups. She'd backed out around the time things turned violent. I'd heard her wonder out loud, to Lacey, my dad's coworker, whether Lustrum had intended for things to get as bad as they had.
But they had. A lot of people had suffered.
Weird to think about, that my mom had been in the midst of this, and here we were, the loop closing.
A woman, thin, with her hair cut short, with swooping, platinum-blond 'feathering' at the sides, to the point that I couldn't tell if it was just messy or styled that way. Her eyes were the sort that looked like they were usually half closed, her features pointed. She moved with a strange kind of fluidity, as if she had twice the usual number of joints, limbs like spaghetti noodles. They weren't. It was Crane The Harmonious. Crane for short.
The records of her arrest were spotty, suggesting things had been redacted or hidden, no doubt to protect her 'children' that had gone on to careers in the Wards or Protectorate. She'd collected children with powers and raised them to be her soldiers.
She walked into the crowd, and came face to face with a hero, twenty or so years old, wearing a robe.
She stood on the very tips of her toes to raise herself up enough to kiss him on the forehead. The kiss was prolonged to a point that it went past weird. The next portal was already opening by the time she lowered herself and stood with her back to her old subject's chest.
Acidbath. Copkiller and capekiller, he'd used his power to horrifically scar innumerable opponents and girlfriends. His blond hair wasn't the grass-green of his mugshots anymore, and he had circles under his eyes. He took one step away from the portal, then sat on the ledge in front of the crowd, searching for something, then settling into a stare when he found it.
I looked, and I saw a man, not in costume but in a suit, standing and staring at Acidbath, with an expression as though he was going to cry at any moment. But he didn't avert his eyes.
String Theory and Lab Rat stepped out of the same portal. String Theory was short, shorter with her slouch, and petite, her dark hair tied back into a braid, her lips pulled back into a wide expression halfway between a grin and a smile. With her glasses, it made me think of a frog, or a small lizard. Lab Rat was the opposite, the last person one might expect to be a tinker. He had a mouth full of teeth that were screaming for braces, all crammed towards the very front of his mouth, overlapping and sticking out of lower gums. He had a mop of hair and heavy brows, was tall and broad shouldered, and had a bit of a belly.
String Theory had made her tinker devices and then auctioned away 'safeties'. Not uses of the weapon or offering targets, but only guarantees that the owner of a 'safety' wouldn't be one of her randomly selected targets. The targets had ranged from gas stations in Indonesia to a filled football stadium in Cardiff.
As one could imagine, there had been a high demand for her arrest.
Lab Rat, conversely, had worked in secret, developing formulas that could transform people into monsters. He had used formulas on the homeless, then when the local homeless ran out, started picking off individuals that were isolated, out for jogs in the early morning or new visitors to his town. It wasn't clear just what he was searching for, in developing the formulas. What I found myself wondering was whether he'd been testing his work on his test subjects before using them on himself, or if it was the other way around.
Both ideas were weird, almost inexplicable.
Galvanate appeared. He'd been one of a number of players that had supplanted the local organized crime in the early-to-mid-nineties. A mafia enforcer with powers who had decided he had what it took to be a boss. He'd done well, rendering entire squads of his soldiers effectively invincible, simultaneously capable of electrocuting someone to death with a touch.
Nothing short of Alexandria or an Endbringer would stand up to Scion's sustained laser beam for even a heartbeat, but there was hope that Galvanate would render some people capable of surviving a glancing blow.
Black Kaze. A Japanese urban legend that had turned out to be too real. Word was she'd snapped after Kyushu was destroyed. Except she'd remained lucid throughout trials, calm, patient. Nobody knew her real body count, but conservative estimates put it in the tens of thousands. She'd roamed the remains of the landscape, killing survivors, killing rescuers, boarding the ships that approached too close to the ruined area and killing the crews, and rendering a widespread area devoid of life.
And with that reputation, she was only an exceedingly ordinary looking Japanese woman in prison sweats, her hair tied back into a ponytail. The fingers of her right hand clutched and grasped as if she expected to find something there, missed, and then reached again.
They'd apparently talked to her and considered her okay to go out and interact with the world at large.
I watched as Masamune stepped away from Defiant and the Guild members to approach Black Kaze.
They stood there for a moment, inside each other's personal space, still but for the reflexive opening and closing of Black Kaze's hand.
Masamune returned to the cluster of Guild, and Black Kaze followed, directly behind him, head bowed a little.
Ingenue, not quite the pixie I'd seen in her mug shot, eight years later. She'd been wide-eyed and cute before. Now she was an attractive woman, but not quite someone who could have starred as the girl next door in a teen movie.
Hopefully she had changed in her habits, as well. She'd partnered herself with three male capes, heroes. They had gone to the Birdcage, and records suggested they hadn't survived more than a day after her return. When the fourth partner had used his power to poison a town's water supply, killing nearly a thousand people, people started wondering about the common denominator – the girlfriend. The fourth had gone to therapy, and Ingenue had made her way to the Birdcage.
She extended a hand, pointing a painted nail, and swept her hand over the crowd. She settled on her target.
Her walk was a practiced one, with a swaying of the hips, an unhurried pace. She approached Chevalier, then wrapped her arms around him, raising one leg off the ground. Chevalier, for his part, didn't move a muscle.
Marquis was next to arrive. His brown hair and beard were just now starting to get strands of gray in them, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
He'd been one of the scary bastards of Brockton Bay well before the Undersiders were even on the map. A guy who could go toe to toe with a full squad of Empire Eighty-Eight and walk away. He'd been successful enough to pay for hirelings and ruthless enough to execute them for failures. His path to the Birdcage had been very similar to the path that had almost taken me there; so many violations of the law that the three strikes rule had been left well behind him by the time the good guys finally won.
He didn't look quite so intense as his mug shot. He seemed calmer.
Even sorrowful.
He approached the crowd, and he stopped in front of a woman I recognized but couldn't place.
In the moment she slapped him, I drew the connection.
Lady Photon. Sarah Pelham.
Flashbang and Brandish were with her, looking just as grim.
All around them, people were tensed for a fight.
That stopped when Marquis nodded solemnly. He murmured a few words, then walked away, standing on the same ledge that Acidbath had perched on, a little to the right of Lab Rat and String Theory.
Teacher emerged, and I searched the crowd for Saint.
Absent.
Teacher was a mundane looking man. If one were to put a argyle sweater and khakis on him and put him in a classroom, he would have looked well at home. He had a receding hairline, with curly hair that had been cut short-ish.
Crimes: conspiracy to assassinate the Vice President of the United States. Successful. Conspiracy to assassinate the Prime Minister of England. Successful. He picked big targets, took his time and was successful. Setting up his pawns and giving them the low level thinker powers they needed for observation and information gathering, for getting glimpses of the future or intuitively knowing how to hack or decrypt, or for knowing the weaknesses of their enemies and how best to hurt them.
Followers that remained absolutely loyal as long as they had the granted powers.
Saint had wanted him more than he had wanted to retain his control over Dragon's power. Why?
Because having Teacher free would give Saint the capacity to regain control of that power and to use it at its full capacity?
It didn't matter. We'd win this first and then we'd deal with that. Whatever Teacher was capable of, it couldn't be worse than Scion.
In a manner typical for royalty, Glaistig Uaine was fashionably late. The Faerie Queen.
Just like String Theory's terror campaign had driven people to desperation in their attempts to stop her from her scheduled sprees of destruction, Glaistig Uaine had drawn entire flocks of capes down on her head, by virtue of her habit of finding, killing and claiming the 'spirits' of capes.
Thing was, they'd sent multiple teams after her, and they'd failed. Thirty two capes killed and claimed.
So they sent more after her. Again, they failed. Of the fifty who were forced into a retreat, thirteen were killed and claimed.
When that wasn't enough, they hit her with everything, only for her to surrender.
She walked into the Birdcage of her own will.
Now they'd let her out.
The cell block leaders. They'd held their own, maintained their territories, and had been okayed to stick around by the thinkers. That double-check didn't have as much weight as it should have, given how this one group alone had no less than three ways to screw with thinkers.
But they were firepower.
We had roughly forty-five minutes to half an hour before we'd take our first shot at Scion. Try as much as we could while risking as little as possible. These guys would be assets at best. Cannon fodder at worst.
Other prisoners were arriving. Dozens. Some seemed to be subordinate to the cell block leaders. Others, they didn't look like they had a place to go. I watched Lustrum beckon to a girl with yellow feathers in her hair, and the girl didn't budge.
I saw Lung step forth, in the company of several capes. He stopped, taking in a deep breath, then exhaled with a volume I could hear. He was shirtless, and didn't move to cover himself up, even with the cold. His eyes roved over the crowd, and settled momentarily on me, on Rachel, and Grue.
Then Panacea stepped out.
She was different, her wild brown curls tied back into a plait, her face thinner, with more pronounced cheekbones. She wore a camisole, with her prison jacket tied around her waist. Tattoos marked the length of her arms. A sun held a position of prominence on her right arm, a heart with a sword on the left.
The simple tattoos, symbols and ideas got denser as they got closer to her hands, and a vibrant red ink marked the space between the individual black and white images.
Blood on her hands.
I was very aware of how the common prisoners around her stepped away when she stepped forward.
Very aware of how Lung spoke to her, casually, his voice a low bass rumble as she scanned the crowd. Her eyes locked onto the members of New Wave. Her mom and dad.
Brandish advanced, wrapping her arms around Panacea.
Panacea received the hug in a stiff way. Her eyes were downcast.
As if to distract herself, she raised her eyes, scanning the crowd. Her eyes fixed on me, on Rachel, Grue and Imp.
I saw a momentary look of puzzlement cross her face as she looked at Sophia standing off to one side, then back to me.
She mouthed a word. I didn't hear it over the murmurs of the crowd, the discussions.
Then her eyes fell on someone else. On Bonesaw.
Bonesaw raised her hand in a short wave.
This time I heard Panacea.
"Fuck me."
Posted in 27.03 | Tagged Pretty much everyone that's still alive. | 457 Replies


text:
NORD CE 5G to update with Android 12 for OnePlus 10R exposed
Expert RAW app for Galaxy S21 Ultra updated features are out
Samsung Galaxy A23 may come with 50MP SK Hynix lens
Google smartwatch may arrive in May
Microsoft aborted Andromeda OS for dual-screen devices
Microsoft discovers an undisclosed bug in SolarWinds server
SEBI chief says IPOs like Zomato show maturity of Indian market
Zomato Text | Image credit: @zomato/Twitter
Amid several concerns raised over the successful IPO of Zomato which has been running in losses, SEBI Chairman Ajay Tyagi on Thursday said that recent public offerings show the maturity of the Indian market that is accepting the business model of new-age tech companies, which may not be valued through the conventional parameters of profitability.
Addressing NISM's Second Annual Capital Markets Conference, he said that successful IPOs of such companies are likely to attract more funds in domestic markets, creating a new ecosystem of entrepreneurs and investors.
Noting that along with robust growth, it is heartening to note that Indian markets are entering a new era with several new-age tech companies preferring to list domestically, he said: "Recent filings and public offerings reflect the maturity of our market to accept the business model of new-age tech companies, which aren't amenable to valuation through conventional metrics of profitability."
Tyagi was of the view that markets in the country offer as attractive a fundraising proposition as any overseas market.
His statement comes at a time when several concerns have been raised over the public offerings brought about by the new-age companies which have not attained profitability, but are accorded high valuations.
Last week RPG Enterprises Chairman Harsh Goenka took to Twitter to take a swipe at Zomato's mega IPO despite the platform running into losses. His tweet led to an online debate over the issue of loss-making entities garnering such huge interest and investments while going public.
"My newest corporate venture: I am starting a Swiggy/Zomato like the app. I will provide food at a 40% discount with a loss of only Rs 3000 cr. If you think the loss is less, I will give a 60% discount. I will then list it at Rs 1 lakh cr. Looking for suckers to invest," Goenka had said in a tweet on July 17.
The much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) of Zomato was subscribed over 38 times by the end of the final day of the issue on Friday.
Other tech-based new-age companies are also in the fray to go public with PayTM having applied for an IPO with an aim to raise up to Rs 16,600 crore.
Tyagi also said that the maturity of the Indian IPO market and its resilience to the Covid-19 pandemic is reflected in the quantum of funds raised during FY 21 – companies raised Rs 4,600 crore through IPOs as compared to Rs 2,140 crore in FY20.
In FY 22, until June end, companies have already raised Rs 1,200 crore and from the number of new filings with the SEBI, it is expected that the figures will increase significantly going forward, he added.
On high interest among retail investors, the capital market regulator chief said that prevailing low-interest rates and ample liquidity availability are not the only reasons for this increased investors interest in the securities market in India, though one cannot deny that they are major factors and any tightening of liquidity or increase in interest rates would impact the market.
"However, it also needs to be acknowledged that by their very nature, the markets are forward-looking and the present investments take into account future growth prospects. Add to this, the regulator's effort in terms of continuous dialogue with stakeholders to bring in required regulatory changes, rationalizing procedures, and maintaining trust in the market."
Business Plan News Zomato
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Short video app Chingari raises $15 mn to launch new features

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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AC Milan Women
Stealing life from the jaws of death: The Milan Women tie Juventus 2-2
Ma che partita! An absolutely thrilling match that ends in a 2-2 tie for our wonderful ladies! We should all build a shrine to Saint Francesca Vitale, and then supplicate ourselves in front of it, as a way of expressing gratitude for allowing us to secure this important and vital point. Aside from this, like, some other stuff went on. An attempt will be made to try to recap this game (while doing my best not to turn this into a puff piece about Francesca).
By steph_@amicus_arcane Nov 22, 2019, 1:00am CET
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The Joy of Saint Francesca, oil on canvas, 1690
I have to admit, it took me a few days to come down from the emotional high of everything that happened, in order to become lucid enough to be able to write this.
As much as I just want to write 'Francescaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Francescaaaaaaaaaaaa! FRANCESCA VITALE! FRANCESCA TI AMO!' over and over again, I must, for all intents and purposes, compose myself long enough to type something coherent, and to actually write a review of this game.
And it was during those dying, last gasp sequences of the game, that I suddenly felt myself feeling a lot like Carlo Zampa, and Francesca turned into my very own Francesco (Totti) with that incredible last minute goal. It was at that moment that I suddenly felt kin with my Roma brethren, as I too, was screaming because I had been fortunate enough to be blessed by someone who was named after St. Francis.
This was one, absolutely, thrilling game, and a spectacle to marvel at. And even though it was a tie, it felt like a victory, mainly because it allowed us to hold onto the one thing that will keep us alive through the midst of these trying times. And that is? Hope.
The Masterplan:
Maurizio Ganz must be commended for the way he prepared for this game, and the tactics he employed as well.
Ganz deployed the usual 4-3-3 formation, with the intent of having the Rossonere use the width of the pitch to their advantage, while also deploying the speed of both Valentina Bergamaschi and Lady Andrade to not only create goal scoring opportunities, but to stretch the defense as well. The system would also allow their third trident in attack, Valentina Giacinti, to make her marauding runs into the inbox as she also made frequent runs behind the opposing defense.
Unfortunately, the adverse weather scuppered Milan's initial plans, as Bergamaschi wasn't able to run down the left flank at her discretion, and use it to her advantage. Instead, Milan had to resort to a Plan B and attack centrally.
Prior to the game, Ganz will have no doubt, watched past games of the Juventus women and built a game plan that was built upon exploiting their one true weakness: set pieces.
Juventus, like their male counterparts, have trouble dealing with dead balls that are lobbed into the box, as their insistence on defending as a collective group and not marking players individually, has cost them dearly on several occasions. They paid the price for this in their UWCL matches against Barcelona (4-1), and Ganz was also looking to make sure they suffered the same fate here. Milan's main threat would mainly come through set pieces, and that strategy did in fact, pay off in the end.
Che Partita!
The match started off with Milan on the front foot right from the get go. Less than one minute into the game, our capitano, Valentina Giacinti, had her first shot on goal saved by none other than Juve's resident shot stopper, Laura Giuliani. As I wrote in the lead-up to this game, Giuliani was statistically, the most effective keeper in front of goal during the Women's World Cup, and the way she prevented our Valentina from scoring just confirmed why she's one of the best in the world.
Valentina was in disbelief over what happened (as were the rest of us), and she let her feelings over it be known.
Parole Sante
Juventus TV
And, although the chances between both teams initially came fast and in a flurry, the game unfortunately, eventually became hampered by severely bad weather. That left the pitch in a very bad state, and it was painful to not only see the ground in such a bad condition, but to see the way it impeded the game as well.
The bad weather in Italy made it hard for both teams to gain any traction, and to zip passes along the surface the way they normally would had said surface been dry. Under circumstances like this, it's inevitable that mistakes would eventually be made.
The first mistake unfortunately, came from Milan, as starting centre-back Laura Fusetti, whose performance was affected by the heavy rain, couldn't deal with a cross into the box properly while trying to stave off the threat that is Cristiana Girelli, and ended up accidentally turning the ball into her own net. No need to berate her over this, as she most certainly must have felt awful over what happened. Though the only lamentation that will be added here, is that this unfortunate mistake came after Laura performed rather admirably for the national side (where she filled in for none other than Sara Gama, Juve's captain, who had to leave the Italy camp due to picking up an injury in the qualifying match against Georgia).
Fortunately Milan would end up pulling one back later on, as our Super Slovenian Dominika Čonč, managed to score via (you guessed it!) a set piece in the 51st minute. We should all point to the sky above and give our thanks to whoever might be up there, if only for gracing us with this most graceful goal scorer.
Half-time would come, and the players would get a temporary reprieve from the rain.
Once the match resumed, the game would play out much in the same way as it did during the first half, except Andrea Stašková would take advantage of a momentary lapse in concentration by the defense in order to slot home Juve's second goal of the game. Juve would then take the lead on the strength of that goal, and the previous one that was accidentally made by Laura Fusetti as well.
And it looked like that ― for all intents and purposes ― that goal would be the one that decided the game.
That was until the Francesca Vitale Nation attacked.
Sei bella come un gol di Vitale al 93'
Francesca, Francesca, our wonderful Francesca. I mean, what more can I say about our Francesca?!
I honestly can't find the proper words to convey how much I feel about her, because every time I do, my brain gets flooded with an overdose of serotonin, and that chemical rush overloads all of the appropriate channels and thus prevents me from thinking properly.
So instead, I'll express how I feel via a bunch of gifs.
Our Secret Weapon
That one movie with Tom Hiddleston in it
The lead-up to her absolutely magnificent goal was started with a cross, and oh, what a magnificent cross it was. That wonderful, beautiful assist that bounded through the air and was hit with a perfect equilibrium of force, was made by none other than our very own Linda Tucceri Cimini, who is absolutely wonderful in her own right.
Then it happened. That shot heard round the world. That closing salvo. The most banging of all headers. Il gol più bello della stagione, e il gol più bello della storia del calcio.*
Ecco il gol di Francesca Vitale.
Ti voglio bene Francesca!
And her celebration too!
And to think, she was actually a self-admitted Juventina growing up. Well, she is 100% a Rossonera now, and she's most definitely one of us.
*(Why are you booing me! You know I'm right!)
Santa Francesca, la nostra salvatrice
That monumental goal also happens to be Francesca's first goal for the season, and what a way to score your first!
It was a goal that sent us all into delirious state of euphoria, as we ascended to the vertiginous heights of glory. In the dying moments of the game, Francesca became our savior who infused her vitality into our veins, and resurrected us all back to life.
I screamed, you screamed, and we all screamed for Francesca.
As I've noted before, Francesca is a fan favorite, and this game will just further cement her status as a folk hero among the Milan faithful. She will live long in the annals of not only our hallowed history, but in our collective memories as well, as she will be permanently enshrined there in the midst of all of our affection.
This is her version of being the high school football hero who won the homecoming game with a last minute touchdown in the final seconds of the fourth quarter, during her senior year. And like Johnny Football Hero, she's entitled to brag about it, and revel in all of that glory too.
The praise that peppered Francesca's mentions was no doubt, well deserved. Francesca herself has said that she'll constantly 'relive' this goal in her mind, and will do so for several years to come. And given how sweetly struck it was, we're inclined to believe that she deserves to relive those warm and vivid memories over and over again, for the rest of her life.
Well done Francesca! You've merited all of those plaudits that have been bestowed upon you. (Along with all of those marriage proposals as well!)
And after the way Francesca has played in this wonderful game, I am personally lobbying the Vatican to get started on the process of canonization for her. (Now, who's with me?!)
Other things of note:
- The game actually trended in Italy. It's further proof that, once again, the peninsula is really starting to care about women's football.
- Maurizio Ganz was also, for some odd reason, criticized for the way he celebrated after Vitale's goal. Personally, I think that once you've achieved a monumental result like this, then you have every right to celebrate the way you want to, and should celebrate like this more often.
- Unfortunately, there was also a lot of (melo)drama and unnecessary hand wringing over this game. It was based upon, not only an incredible amount of sodium secreted by a small amount of fans, but it was unintentionally, also brought about by the players themselves.
While the women of Juventus were legitimately aggrieved over the rude chants coming from a certain subset of Milan fans (who it should be noted, were the minority), they also missed the fact that it was not just the Milanisti who were behaving this way, as the Juventini were also engaging in boorish behavior, and that they also peppered the Rossonere with abuse (as was confirmed by a few people who actually went to the game). (Also lost in the midst of all of this, is the fact that the Milan women had also been insulted during previous games by the opposition's fans, yet they did not complain about it.)
This lead to a lot of verbal volleys that were being lobbed back and forth between both sets of fans, with both sides claiming to be 'less culpable' in this than the other, along with engaging in a simultaneous shirking of responsibility. The sad fact is, quite a few people missed this point and refused to admit that their side were just as culpable in this as the other, and generalizations were made in haste, in the midst of all the finger pointing.
Fortunately, not every single Juve or Milan fan (or player) was feuding over this. Most are handling it with maturity, chief among them being the previously mentioned Laura Giuliani, and Valentina Cernoia, with the former admitting the draw was completely merited (despite the bitterness of not winning), while Valentina acknowledged that this tie can be seen as an incentive for the Juventus women to improve.
Well done to these two wonderful ladies for maintaining their class in the midst of the needless drama, and also to Juve's coach, Rita Guarino, for stating that the draw was a fair result.
Rientro amaro.. Una settimana per lavorare ancora più determinate in vista del prossimo scontro! #finoallafine #liveahead #juventuswomen @juventus
A post shared by Valentina Cernoia (@valentinacernoia) on Nov 17, 2019 at 9:19am PST
It's also worth noting that both Maurizio Ganz and Rita Guarino have mutual respect for each other, and most of the players of Juventus and Milan are actually good friends, thanks to the fact that they play on Italy's national team together. It's just a small subset of the fans that have run with it, and have created this tempest in a teacup.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that the Milan fans actually applauded the Juventus women for a job well done at the end of the game. Because hey, game recognizes game, and people can appreciate when the opposing team has played well. And conversely, goal scoring hero Francesca Vitale, also encouraged her fans not to use insulting hashtags. This led to her scoring yet another important point that night, and to be the MVP both on and off the pitch, as she won the hearts and minds of both sets of fans.
This is all the more reason to keep this type of ugliness away from the women's game, or better yet, just to keep it away from the game in general. This pointless controversy has been a dark cloud that has obscured the beauty of this match, and this is not fair to the players, nor to everyone else who enjoyed the game, and who want nothing to do with this.
I ain't mad at cha
FIGC Femminile
We were all blessed by St. Francesca, as she bestowed benedictions upon us on that most holy and sacrosanct Sunday, and we are all very fortunate to be under her patronage as well. For it was mainly through her actions and strong volition, that we were able to secure this important and vital point, which is one that will allow us to remain in second place and most importantly, keep us in the running for a place in next season's Champions League.
Let's just hope that she and the rest of the Rossonere will continue to bless us during the upcoming weeks. The next match will be against Sassuolo and while that on paper, might seem like it's going to be 'easy', Sunday's game proved that nothing in Serie A is in fact, ever easy (or even goes according to plan).
The game against Sassuolo will also be a bittersweet affair too, given that Sassoulo's current captain is Daniela Sabatino, who was once the captain of Milan. More importantly, the match will also be the first time the Rossonere will meet their former captain after the death of her father this past July. Here's to hoping they'll treat their ex-team-mate and friend with the appropriate respect she deserves.
The holiday season will soon be upon us, and if you're the sentimental type, then this would be the time to count your blessings.
The Rossoneri will have much to lament about and every reason to feel like a Scrooge during this holiday season, but fortunately, the Rossonere will not be among those reasons. Instead, they are giving us a temporary reprieve from all of our woes, and something to actually be thankful for.
And let's also hope that they'll grace us with the gift of a victory during the next game, so that we'll have even more of a reason to be merry.
Best Gol 6⃣° giornata di #SerieAFemminile @tim.vision. ⚽ Francesca Vitale #CalcioFemminile
A post shared by FIGC Calcio Femminile (@figcfemminile) on Nov 21, 2019 at 8:43am PST
A Look At AC Milan's Three Players At AFCON After Match Day Three Two through, one out.
AC Milan Boosted In Pursuit Of Manchester United Centre Back As Loan Is Possible The defender could be a great value addition similar to Smalling at Roma or Young at Inter.
AC Milan Will Make Another Attempt For LOSC Lille Defender Before Deadline Day Milan are working to make a key investment in the defence for the future given the uncertainty around Romagnoli and the advanced age of Kjaer.


text:
package com.android.documentsui;

import android.test.suitebuilder.annotation.LargeTest;
import android.test.suitebuilder.annotation.Suppress;

@LargeTest
public class RenameDocumentUiTest extends ActivityTest<FilesActivity> {

    private final String newName = "kitties.log";

    public RenameDocumentUiTest() {
        super(FilesActivity.class);
    }

    @Override
    public void setUp() throws Exception {
        super.setUp();
        initTestFiles();
    }

    public void testRenameEnabled_SingleSelection() throws Exception {
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName1);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.assertMenuEnabled(R.string.menu_rename, true);

        // Dismiss more options window
        device.pressBack();
    }

    public void testNoRenameSupport_SingleSelection() throws Exception {
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileNameNoRename);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.assertMenuEnabled(R.string.menu_rename, false);

        // Dismiss more options window
        device.pressBack();
    }

    public void testOneHasRenameSupport_MultipleSelection() throws Exception {
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName1);
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileNameNoRename);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.assertMenuEnabled(R.string.menu_rename, false);

        // Dismiss more options window
        device.pressBack();
    }

    public void testRenameDisabled_MultipleSelection() throws Exception {
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName1);
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName2);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.assertMenuEnabled(R.string.menu_rename, false);

        // Dismiss more options window
        device.pressBack();
    }

    @Suppress
    public void testRenameFile_OkButton() throws Exception {
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName1);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.menuRename().click();
        bots.main.setDialogText(newName);

        device.waitForIdle(TIMEOUT);
        bots.main.findDialogOkButton().click();
        device.waitForIdle(TIMEOUT);

        bots.directory.assertDocumentsAbsent(fileName1);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsPresent(newName);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsCount(4);
    }

    public void testRenameFile_Enter() throws Exception {
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName1);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.menuRename().click();
        bots.main.setDialogText(newName);

        bots.keyboard.pressEnter();

        bots.directory.assertDocumentsAbsent(fileName1);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsPresent(newName);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsCount(4);
    }

    @Suppress
    public void testRenameFile_Cancel() throws Exception {
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName1);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.menuRename().click();
        bots.main.setDialogText(newName);

        device.waitForIdle(TIMEOUT);
        bots.main.findDialogCancelButton().click();
        device.waitForIdle(TIMEOUT);

        bots.directory.assertDocumentsPresent(fileName1);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsAbsent(newName);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsCount(4);
    }

    public void testRenameDir() throws Exception {
        String oldName = "Dir1";
        String newName = "Dir123";

        bots.directory.selectDocument(oldName);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.menuRename().click();
        bots.main.setDialogText(newName);

        bots.keyboard.pressEnter();

        bots.directory.assertDocumentsAbsent(oldName);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsPresent(newName);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsCount(4);
    }

    public void testRename_NameExists() throws Exception {
        // Check that document with the new name exists
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsPresent(fileName2);
        bots.directory.selectDocument(fileName1);
        bots.main.openOverflowMenu();
        bots.main.menuRename().click();
        bots.main.setDialogText(fileName2);

        bots.keyboard.pressEnter();

        bots.directory.assertSnackbar(R.string.rename_error);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsPresent(fileName1);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsPresent(fileName2);
        bots.directory.assertDocumentsCount(4);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Portuguese Retailer Sonae MC Surpasses €2bn In Turnover In H1
Published on Aug 22 2019 8:37 AM in Retail tagged: Featured Post / Sonae / Portugal / Continente / Sonae MC
Portuguese retailer Sonae MC, which operates the Continente banner, has posted turnover of €2.18 billion for the first half of its financial year, a 10% increase year-on-year.
The retailer said that this growth was underpinned by a strong like-for-like performance, of 3.9% in the first half overall and 6.7% in the second quarter, as well as increased volumes and continued expansion.
The group opened 30 new stores in the half-year period, including five Continente Bom Dia stores and one Continente Modelo outlet.
Performance was also boosted by the acquisition of Arenal Perfumerias, which was announced last September.
Underlying EBITDA at Sonae MC was €207 million, an increase of €26.4 million compared to the same period last year. Underlying EBITDA margin at the division was 9.5%, up from 9.1% in the previous year.
Group-Wide Growth
Sonae Group, which also includes electronics and fashion retail arms, as well as property and communications, saw turnover rise by 11% to €2.985 billion, while in the second quarter, turnover was up 13.1%, surpassing €1.5 billion.
The growing sales at the business reflect its underlying profitability, the group said, with underlying EBITDA rising by 24.4% to €243 million in the first half.
The level of investment increased by 25% to €189 million in the period, while the company's net debt was reduced by €131 million on a comparable basis.
The business also said that it created 1,200 new jobs over the past 12 months.
"Sonae had a very positive first half of the year, with strong growth, profitability improvements and important milestones in terms of portfolio management," commented Cláudia Azevedo, chief executive of Sonae.
"Consolidated turnover grew 11.0% y.o.y. to €2.985 billion with a particularly strong contribution from Sonae MC, solid growth at Sonae IM, and a better performance of Worten and Sonae Fashion in the second quarter. Non-consolidating businesses also posted very positive top line evolutions, especially MDS and ISRG, both with strong
double-digit growth. These results give us great comfort that the value propositions of our businesses are being truly appreciated by our customers."
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
Coming Up In ESM Issue 1 2021
Grocery Spend Up 3.7% In France In December, Lidl Outperforms The Market
Tesco Seeing Limited Impact On Availability In Days Following Brexit, Says CEO
Unilever Says Global Consumption Will Remain Depressed In First Half Of Year
Portugal's Jerónimo Martins Sees Biedronka Sales Up By Double Digits In 2020
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text:
Green Card Expired: Everything You Need to Know
Many states ask to see a credible green card before issuing real estate, insurance, and nursing professional licenses.4 min read
1. Green Card Expired: Everything You Need to Know
2. What Happens When You Are Reentering the United States with a Green Card That Has Expired?
3. What Happens if You Are Inside The U.S. and Your Green Card Expires?
4. What Happens if You Are Outside the U.S. and Your Green Card Expires?
5. How Do You Renew a Driver's License with an Expired Green Card?
6. What if My Green Card Has No Expiration Date?
7. What Are the Penalties if My Green Card Expires?
8. How Do I Renew or Replace My Green Card?
9. What Are the Benefits of a New Card?
If your green card expired, you will need to get a new one. Generally, when beginning a job, everyone must fill out a Form I-9 for their new employer. The purpose of this is to check identity and give the green card holder the ability to work in the U.S.
A majority of law-abiding permanent residents must use a non-expired green card as a "List A" document (used to identify and authorize employment of an individual within the country). However, you can use a temporary I-551 stamp on your foreign passport as a "List A" document if necessary.
Many states ask to see a credible green card before issuing real estate, insurance, and nursing professional licenses.
What Happens When You Are Reentering the United States with a Green Card That Has Expired?
It is taking a risk when one travels outside of the United States with an expired green card. In a worst-case scenario it could mean denied entry, but most often it involves a long wait and a re-entry charge of $585.
It is the duty of Customs and Border Protection officers to decide if the holder of an expired green card should be permitted to enter the United States.
What Happens if You Are Inside The U.S. and Your Green Card Expires?
An appointment with United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) must be made, and because it can take a few weeks, it is best to schedule the appointment as early as possible.
A Notice of Action is commonly received within two or three weeks of filing Form I-90, showing that the USCIS approved the application.
What Happens if You Are Outside the U.S. and Your Green Card Expires?
The holder of a green card must fill out Form I-131A if it expires outside of the United States. It must be personally submitted at the closest U.S. consular office to ask for a boarding foil, which lets a person return to the United States if they have been out of the country for less than one year.
How Do You Renew a Driver's License with an Expired Green Card?
An expired green card could also affect an individual's driving rights for as long as four to five months. In most of these cases, a person was not permitted to use an expired green card to renew a driver's license. A passport with the I-551 stamp may be used according to a state's requirements.
What if My Green Card Has No Expiration Date?
No-expiration date green cards are accepted and can be used with Form I-9 when starting a new job. If a Customs & Border Protection officer can't recognize the card holder from an outdated photo as the owner of the green card, he or she will wait until verification of your identity is confirmed.
What Are the Penalties if My Green Card Expires?
Expired green cards do not result in penalties or fines. However, being in possession of an expired green card or having no card at all will likely become an issue at some point. This would be in such instances such as when one tries to get a new profession, travel, renew a driver's license, or do similar activities where proof of permanent residence is required.
How Do I Renew or Replace My Green Card?
It is recommended to file a Green Card Renewal Form 1-90 within six months of the expiration date to avoid any trouble. The expiration date of a green card can be found on the front of the card.
If your information needs to be updated or your green card has been stolen, lost, damaged or destroyed, the Green Card Replacement Application Form I-90 should be used.
Upon turning 14 years old, a person must replace their existing green card. The current filing fee for submitting Form I-90 is $365 plus $85 in fingerprinting fees, making it a total cost of $450. If someone is unable to cover the fee, they can ask the USCIS to waive it.
A green card that was issued between 1977 and 1989 with no expiration date is still effective. However, USCIS suggests that everyone with an older version of a green card should get the latest one.
Alien Registration Receipt Cards issued between 1946 and 1964 are equivalent to green cards. Although no longer used, these cards are still recognized.
What Are the Benefits of a New Card?
The new green cards are useful in avoiding immigration fraud because of laser-engraved fingerprints, high-resolution micro-images, and holographic image technology.
It is easier for law officials and employers to verify a person's status as a lawful permanent resident with the new features on the card.
It is fast and simple to return a lost card due to the pre-printed return address on the card.
If you need help with a green card, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top five percent of lawyers. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.
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Were India and Pakistan to form a regional trade agreement, Article XXIV:11 of GATT would exempt them from their GATT obligations. This "merciful" rule has, unfortunately, not been utilised by India and Pakistan, and has largely been forgotten by international trade scholars. Professor Bhala discusses the drafting history of Article XXIV:11, and, by analysing the rules from which the Article would provide an exemption, examines the scope of the mercy that it provides. He concludes by reviewing the poor efforts thus far to build intra-regional trade in South Asia, highlighting the tragedy of the non-use of Article XXIV:11.
This paper focuses on the theme of equality and human rights with specific regard to the right of the child not to be subjected to corporal punishment. It draws upon provisions contained in a number of general human rights instruments, in addition to those provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that prohibit a practice that has been sanctioned by New Zealand domestic law. On a broader level it assesses what impact New Zealand's international human rights obligations have had upon its domestic law, both in terms of legislation and case law. The paper draws upon the New Zealand experience, with particular reference to the defence of "reasonable chastisement" in cases regarding the corporal punishment of children. It also considers the European Court of Human Rights' approach to the defence of reasonable chastisement. The paper concludes with an assessment of the steps that have to be taken to ensure that New Zealand conforms with its international human rights obligations.


This month we have already won these Accumulators, while 41 accumulators have lost, so we have earned ₤58 in June already (if you put ₤10 on each of our tip)!
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£10 bet on this Accumulator returns £52 exactly with Bwin.


text:
Honor Roll 2012: Matthew McConaughey Wants a Viagra Study, Has an 18 Handicap and Thinks You've Got to "Enjoy the Architecture"
Honor Roll 2012: Matthew McConaughey Wants a Viagra Study, Has an 18 Handicap and Thinks You've Got to "Enjoy the Architecture"
Jay A. Fernandez
For a while there, it looked as if Matthew McConaughey would never shake his on-screen image as the stoned, shirtless, good ol' boy who mugged through Southern-fried thrillers and C-grade rom coms. But 2012 finally stuck a pin in all that as the 43-year-old Texas-born star stretched in every way he could across five films that showed his range and, for the first time, sparked discussion of awards consideration.
This year, McConaughey starred in Lee Daniels' Southern potboiler "The Paperboy," William Friedkin's pitch-black crime thriller "Killer Joe," Jeff Nichols' indie drama "Mud," Steven Soderbergh's stripper comedy "Magic Mike" and the crime comedy "Bernie," which reunited him with the filmmaker who gave him his brig break 20 years ago in "Dazed and Confused," Richard Linklater. It's a potent mix that led to his New York Film Critics' Circle honor for best supporting actor in "Bernie" and "Magic Mike" earlier this week, and likely will lead to more rewards from the Golden Globes, the Oscars — or both.
READ MORE: Honor Roll 2012: The Team Behind 'How To Survive a Plague'
The new plan apparently remains in place. McConaughey is working with Martin Scorsese on the real-life drama "The Wolf of Wall Street," and he is in the process of shooting the indie period AIDS drama "Dallas Buyers Club." Indiewire recently spoke to the actor on the phone from the set of the latter — where he was prepping for an on-location rodeo scene at Louisiana State — about his career resurgence, how golf relates to the Oscars and just how Wooderson would feel about the recently passed laws legalizing marijuana.
Honor Roll is a daily series for December that will feature new or previously published interviews, profiles and first-person stories of some of the year's most notable cinematic voices. Today, we're running a new interview with Matthew McConaughey.
READ MORE: Honor Roll 2012: Marion Cotillard Dances With the Fishes in 'Rust and Bone' and Explains How a Sex Scene Can Make You Happy for a Character
A lot of people think of this past year as a resurgence for you. Does this past year feel different to you, or is it all one fluid continuum?
A little bit of both. I looked around, at my life and career, and said, "I'm in a good spot." I was reading some of the same action and romantic comedy stuff. Nothing was that exciting. I had done those for a while. They were fun. They treated me well, I treated them well. They paid my rent. I said, "I want to do something else – I don't know what it is, but I want something to scare me." That was a word I remember telling myself. And I wanted it to scare me in a good way. There's two sorts of fear: one you embrace and one you should listen to and turn the other way. Good fear is when you're scared because you don't know the answer, and looking at a role, "Whoa. I don't know exactly what I'll be able to do with that; this is really courageous and daring material, I'm not sure about it. But I'm excited, because I know I'll come out the other side, I just gotta go through the blind spots, dive in, and say, 'I'm going to take it on.'" It's very different than a fear when you're trying to make it work because you think it would be eccentric for eccentricity's sake — that's not the good fear. That's the one you should probably turn away from and go, "No, the reason my gut isn't into this is because it's wrong."
READ MORE: Honor Roll 2012: 'The Sessions' Star John Hawkes on the Negative Side of Fame
It's quite a mix, and it's an impressive thing to push into all those territories.
I had worked with Linklater before, so I know how he works, I know how I work with him. He and I can create a wonderful character together. The other directors — from Friedkin to Soderbergh, Lee Daniels to Jeff Nichols — they're very singular-vision guys. The advantage of independent filmmaking, which all these are independent, is maintaining artistic integrity. Meaning, if you and your director are on the same page, and you find you have a similar gauge of what value is, or what good work is, or what the story is, you're going to be able to do your damnedest, to do your best, and go in and tell it that way. That doesn't mean you're going to make a good movie. But when you get into a large, studio film, because there's more money on the line, because there's more marketability on the line, there are more outside influences besides the director and the actors that come in with opinions. A lot of those opinions are good opinions, but there are more opinions.
You've done your share of studio movies and tiny independents. Has your approach to choosing why you would choose a role in an independent film changed over the last twenty years?
Somewhat. Number one, when you start shooting, when you're in production, independent filming is, by far, my choice. Because you don't have a big budget, so you don't have time to be precious with so many things that you have time to be precious with on larger-budget films. What I mean by that is, independent film, you're already up against the 8-ball before you start. The hardest part about independent film and getting the damn thing made is getting it financed and actually shooting on the first day. Then, you're off to the races. You show up to work in the morning, you show up to set, 7:30 am, and you don't leave the set until you wrap that day. Now, I personally like that. I like being tired at the end of the day because we shot five pages. I like that much more than I like shooting a page and a half, and you shot a scene and went back to your trailer for an hour and a half.
I honestly don't know how you guys do that. Obviously there are a lot of great perks to your job, but how do you stay sharp when you spend half of your day sitting around and waiting?
It's a real challenge, the constant entry and reentry and exit and reentry. The art you gotta learn when you've been doing it for a while is the anticipation, the getting-ready, for: "Okay, we're calling you back to set." Let me give you an example. "Okay, we're setting up the shot, 45-minute break." If I've got 45 minutes, I'm going to go to my trailer. I'm not going to stay in character for 45 minutes. I'm going to go back, I'm going to look at the newspaper, I might take a phone call. About fifteen minutes before those 45 minutes are up, I start getting back into my man. As we're just about ready — I know when I've peaked, I know when I've touched the point where I'm relaxed — there's a knock on the door that says, "Um, sorry, we need another 30 minutes."
I don't know how you do it. Nobody could do his best work in that format.
I love the game of golf. It's a little bit like the game of golf. If you look at the game of golf, say a round takes five hours, all right? But how much of those five hours are you actually taking a club back, swinging through and hitting a shot? Maybe 3%.
Speaking of which, what's your handicap?
Oh, I'm like an 18 now. I haven't picked up a golf club… I used to be a 4 in high school. I'm an 18 now. It's way, way under the surface. I get it for, like, six-hole spurts, and then I just start tripling and quad-ing and everything else. And you wonder where it went.
That's what happens when you have kids, too — you can't get out on the course as much.
The other thing that happens when you have a family is you've really got to pick your hobbies — or hobby. If you used to watch football on Saturday and Sunday, guess what? That's not happening anymore. You end up going, "I'm going to pick my one game." [laughs]
And what's terrible about that is that when the game sucks, you feel like, "Aw, I put everything, all my attention into this." I do that with film screenings. Because I want to come home, I want to be with my wife and my kids, I'll go, "I'm going to see a screening once a week." And if I don't enjoy the movie, I'm infuriated. It's like, "Man, that was my one shot!"
Man, I'm telling you, I like watching films, but I have had two bad film theater experiences, where I actually say, "I'm heading out, getting in the car, I'm driving to the theater, I'm gonna go in and watch the movie and then I'm going to come home." It's basically a little over three hours door-to-door. If I have a bad experience, I am truly pissed off. If you get screwed out of three hours, and you got took? You're like: "Oh, you son of a bitch." It's true.
It's entirely likely that some of these films and some of your performances are part of the awards discussion. What's your sense of awards campaigning? How do you approach that, when you start getting asked to do events and things that you know are geared toward an awards-campaign context?
I've got some thoughts. I got flown to L.A. to do some campaigning for being a contender for the role of Dallas in "Magic Mike." I flew to L.A. last week for one day; I've never done that before. I've never been asked to do that before. So this is really my first foray into it. They're telling me I'm a contender now. I suppose after that, if someone gets to the next stage and you actually get to be one of the nominated actors for best actor or supporting actor, whatever, then I think it becomes a real, full-on: OK, this could take the next few months, this is what you do.
Right, this becomes your job.
The good thing about it is, the work that I did, the roles that we've talked about, the year that I had, is the reason for the conversation we're having right now. That is actually very relaxing, because most of the press — even with the junket for a movie — 60% of it is, "So how's your wife?" And you either answer it, or you're like, "None of your business." But you're not having to deflect personal questions or gossipy things. You're actually in because the work you did is front and center, and I get to respond to that work and keep to what I do as a career. That's kind of relaxing. I could talk to you about the films I did last year for five hours and not get exhausted.
Hey, so how is your wife?
Is this a promising time for the legalization of marijuana? Seems like Election Day was pretty good.
Oh, in Washington and Colorado?
Yeah! I know you're paying attention to that.
I paid attention more to politics this year than I have in any other year. That particular law passing doesn't really affect me one way or the other. I'm more interested in what the actual outcome, socially, will be. I'm interested to look at it as an example. I'm interested to look at crime rates in those states in ten years. I'm interested to see what the economy is like, and how small moments like this can affect in a positive or a negative way, because I don't know the answer. What does it do? Does it make any difference to the cartel dealer on the street? I don't know. From what I'm reading now, it will not — but I'd like to see. It's probably not going to be near as big of a change. But, for example: I'm interested in a study saying, "Well, since Viagra came out, did divorce rates go down or did they go up?"
Would a Spirit or a Gotham Award, a Golden Globe, mean something to you?
Sure it would, absolutely. For one thing, any time you're recognized for some work you did, you'd be foolish not to embrace that, appreciate that, and also look into the reality of why. In whatever adulation you get, there's truth and there's not truth. And wherever they dog you, and they say it was horrible — there's truth and there's not truth. It's human nature to like to read the adulation more. So to decipher through that, I really like to, in my own life and in my work daily, dissect what is consistent that I was doing that translated, that it felt right to me and it obviously translated. Sometimes the answer is: You just got lucky. Sometimes the answer is: Hey, no, it wasn't luck because I did this better or different, or I had this attitude. Something in my work, the preparation I did different, I need to learn that and carry that over.
Now, the arts and awards: it's not near as objective as sports. A 100-yard dash, a basketball game, golf: all of those have very clear finish lines for who gets first. The fastest score wins the race, the lowest score wins the golf game, the highest score wins the basketball game. So if you're going to sit there and judge and have a competition, and give awards for art, it's not as objective, it's not as clear. But I do wholly believe that it is true that, yes, there is a gauge of what qualifies or not, what is better art than something else. Now, I think the job is to whittle it down to, what's the group that all of this stuff is excellent one way or another? And the stuff that's not in here, we don't deem as excellent as what is in here that we're judging. And then, when you pick out of those what you deem a winner, then you could argue, "Oh, but I thought that other one was better!" But yes, there is a gauge, and there should be. And they get picked because they're better quality, or captured a piece of humanity better, or had a more original take on a subject that has been told before and was told in a different way. If you can't sit there and judge and have an opinion on that, well, then, what are we doing? Why do you do what you do instead of something else? Because you're trying to be great at it.
It's been 20 years since you showed up as Wooderson in "Dazed and Confused"—
Now, Wooderson is happy about Washington and Colorado. [laughs]
Exactly. Do you have any words of wisdom, 20 years on, for anyone just starting out his career as an actor?
Yeah. "The guards at the gate are not there to keep you in, they're there to keep you out." That was told to me by Joel Schumacher, which is a very good take on what to expect from Hollywood. Another thing would be — and this is the most simple one — someone wants to be an actor, you want to be a writer, don't act like one.
What do you mean by that?
What I mean by that is, you come in and go, like, "I'm trying to be…" No, no, no, you're already on the outskirts. You're already receding. Unh-uh. It's not a business that you get invited into, and someone goes, "I don't know if you can do this or not, but maybe you should try it." No. You've got to start being one — right then. There's no Help Wanted sign. Don't act like one, be one. You want to be a writer? Start writing. You want to be a filmmaker? Start shooting stuff on your phone right now. The other thing is this: It doesn't come quick, so you have to stick to the process. If you can love it and be good at it, work on the process. Fuck the result. I didn't know that all the time. I've learned that here in the later years. You have to love the process. You go bust your butt, and you worked for two years on a film and you give it all your blood, sweat and tears, and it comes out and goes straight to DVD and it's gone. And you're crushed. That's legitimate pain, legitimate disgust, but — enjoy that daily process: the architecture of the creation. Enjoy the architecture.
This Article is related to: Features and tagged Awards, Bernie, Honor Roll 2012, Interviews, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, Matthew McConaughey, Mud, The Paperboy


text:
Singing Three-Part Harmony
by Susan Carr • December 22, 2022 • 0 Comments
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Editor's note: I recently interviewed Dr. Kirsten Meisinger for Patient Safety Beat, the digital newsletter of the Betsy Lehman Center. In that conversation, she talks about the "National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being" that was released in October, how teamwork has transformed her practice and the effect that financial pressure has on healthcare.
Danny van Leeuwen, whose "Health Hats" blog and podcast are often featured here, embodies engagement. In the intro to his latest podcast, he emphasizes the richness of patient engagement; done right, it pervades an organization at all levels:
Patients engaged in governance, design, operations, and learning about medical care delivery, policy, research, technology, and business. People at the center of care (patients, direct care clinicians, and the people that support them) sit at decision and learning tables like boards, advisory councils, departmental meetings, product design sessions, insurance company business meetings.
He goes on to say that he is currently most interested in community engagement in health, clarifying that he's thinking broadly about "Neighborhoods, towns, virtual, diagnosis-based – any kind of community. Communities engaged in best health for their residents and members."
That's a segue to his conversation with Kirsten Meisinger, MD, director of provider engagement, regional medical director, medical director of sexual and reproductive health, and operations lead for telehealth at the Cambridge Health Alliance. She is also a family practice physician for CHA in the neighboring town of Somerville and incoming medical staff president at CHA.
Kirsten Meisinger, M.D.
It's a rollicking conversation that conveys the delight of two people discovering what they have in common. To give a flavor of the conversation, I'll list some of the highlights I especially enjoyed and recommend tuning in by audio or text to enjoy it in full.
The Cambridge Health Alliance is a community-minded health organization. Based in the vibrant, diverse city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, CHA defines its purpose as "providing expert caring, developing innovative new care models, partnering with the community and advocating for a more just society." Dr. Meisinger sees CHA's commitment to and responsibility for its community as its "superpower." She says public health and primary care work in similar ways to quietly support and enable health:
Because the whole job of public health is to look at the greater good and say, what do we do for the people who live in this place to make sure that they are happier, healthier, and more empowered. It's that kind of invisible work, a little like primary care, right?
Dr. Meisinger's commitment to her patients, many of whom came to Massachusetts from Brazil, led her to learn Portuguese. She reports that she now spends most of her work day speaking Portuguese.
As director of provider engagement, Dr. Meisinger helps CHA understand "What makes us [providers] tick" and how to help people perform at their highest level. She believes that has a lot to do with joy—for providers and patients—and describes a circular system in which engaged, joyful clinicians create conditions that help patients experience joy and empowerment. Prompted by van Leeuwen, she describes patient, provider and community engagement as a three-part collaboration, much like singing a tune in three-part harmony. Deep in conversation, she states the obvious when she says, "I'm quite a happy person, as it turns out."
Referring to her primary care office, Dr. Meisinger is aware that employees working at all levels in the organization contribute to community and individual engagement. Everyone should be valued for their individual qualities and the value of the connections they forge, sometimes in surprising ways. As a leader, Dr. Meisinger figures it's part of her job to remove barriers that prevent people from sharing their passions and connecting with others:
I think where we started…, is a deep love and respect for the patients in patient care. Without that, it's not something worth having. And everyone in the office has an important part in that. I often say, "We don't know who patients are going to fall in love with. So let them fall in love just to get it right." This is where I would say, "Get out of the way."
Tags: Cambridge Health Alliance Danny van Leuween health hats
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