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Tag: black lives matter
Kemi on healing intergenerational trauma, culture shift work, and how creativity makes them come alive
Photo by Ally Almore
What's your name and how do you identify yourself in the world?
My name is Kemi Alabi. I am a Black, queer, non-binary femme. Child of immigrants — an immigrant father and a mother with lineage in the south. Leo sun, Capricorn rising, Scorpio moon.
I just saw Black Panther twice within the last twelve hours. Engaging with cultural products that have a rigorous imagination around Black communities thriving is incredibly refreshing. As someone with a Nigerian father and Black American mother, it's invigorating to engage with something looking at the continent from outside of the colonial gaze — not that that hasn't had its influence on the film or how it was made. It's radical to imagine that future and to have it so widely distributed. It's been an exciting weekend to engage with other Black folks around this imaginative opportunity for us. I'm buzzing from that. The theater was full of Black people who were just living — all dressed up, and the way we're engaged with these powerful moments felt liberatory. I'm excited for what we can imagine next — healthy, thriving Black communities that exist without centering whiteness or the anti-Black narratives that have been the through line that gets created and distributed in this county.
That's so good. I first met you seeing you perform your poetry in college. Do you still spend time on poetry?
Yeah, that's still a huge part of my life. I value cultural space as a place where communities build narrative power for themselves. Culture and politics are so inextricably linked. I've been writing beyond college and that's been really gratifying. I also work for Forward Together. We hold cultural and movement building strategies, and grassroots power-building strategies. Recently I got to work with poets for our Trans Day of Resilience project where we paired poets with a visual artist and together they imagined a future where trans folks of color could thrive. To cultivate imagination is already a radical act, but to be able to have the resources to be able to distribute it as a cultural process that other people are engaging with is something I'm really grateful to be involved with.
I also manage Echoing Ida, a program for Black women and non-binary writers which engages us in the narrative power of journalism like op-eds, reported features, and interviews. Narrative and culture shift is interwoven in my everyday, whether it's facilitating it through my professional work or doing it myself as a writer.
I'd love to hear you talk more about why that's where you've chosen to put your energy. What is powerful about culture shift work for you and for a broader 'us'?
We live in a world with material consequences and material inequality. When I was coming up, I thought that to engage with that work was purely about building a very particular type of power to move institutional levers. But especially as someone socialized as a Black girl growing up in Wisconsin with an immigrant father, there's also a truth to what it means to unlearn these hegemonic ideals that actually create our political space. There's a clear interplay between our political systems and our cultural ideas. I studied political science and philosophy, and one of the main things I learned is — basically a bunch of white dudes got to write whole worlds into being. They created arguments that justified them and planted seeds of ideas that were taken as truths and built empires. I really believe in the power of ideas. Race, gender, and nation-states are upheld by ideas that are like the air we breathe. So what does it mean to try to re-program what people think is common sense? Where I grew up, trying to untangle what is common sense is not a matter of voter registration and winning an election, it's a matter of changing the cultural products people are engaging with in the day-to-day. What type of narratives are taught in our schools, what type of narratives are in popular culture? That's where we get these formative ideas.
There's this quote at [our alma mater] Boston University's Howard Thurman Center: "Don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." I'm not an organizer. I have always loved words and writing. I come alive when I'm interacting with narratives, stories, and creative space. Culture shift work is where I get the juice. It's perhaps less valued as a site for justice work to happen, and seen as less tangible than our political institutions. But once we name what the dominant narratives are, we can then do the work of changing them.
What do you see as your role and work in this political moment?
I ask this question of myself a lot, because who knows. Sometimes I feel like I don't have the skills I need to make change. I consider myself in the role of student and listener, and trying to figure out what it means to be in community and engage in cultural work. I am in a reflective place with my writing. My role is someone who's trying to imagine freedom, and use my tools and facilitation skills to get other people to think about and answer that question. I find myself in community with other Black queer artists and writers grappling with the question of what it means to heal ourselves and our communities, and thinking about how to engage with that in our work and create space for one another.
People always talk about self-care and healing as if it's a side project from the real work. What's your perspective on how healing fits into movement work?
When I first tried to engage in organizing spaces, I was coming with so much trauma. We're all working through our traumas. Doing so in interdependent community requires that we show up in a different way. The healing work that I've begun I've learned from other Black women and femmes I've been in movement spaces with. As I was trying to engage with this political work that's deeply personal, there was no other option. It was like, engage with the hard-as-fuck work of healing… or collapse, and don't do the work at all.
We as Black queer and trans folks are carrying intergenerational trauma in our bodies and within our families. The work of imagining something else is deeply challenging. I see healing as the gateway. I see it as a facilitative process to be able to engage with our deeply fucked political system in a sustainable way without burning out, giving up, and re-traumatizing one another. To be able to be in right relationship with one another well enough to move forward together requires that we handle our shit.
I'd love to hear about some components of your healing process.
I was raised Baptist christian, in a church that was not affirming, grounding, or engaging in the political world with integrity. I left in righteous anger, but in a way that also estranged me from my own spirit, intuition, and relationship with myself. I've been encountering Black folks who engage with more ancestral practices — practices that are less connected with colonization, white supremacy, capitalism, and the enlightenment rational-thought-over-everything-mindset. They've introduced me to some altar and ancestor practices that have connected me deeply with my intuition. I have a beautiful hella Black, hella queer tarot deck I pull from — Shrine of the Black Medusa by Casey Rocheteau, a Black queer poet out of Detroit. Whether or not I'm practicing the nuts and bolts of Orishas, Yoruba, and other African spiritual practices, these practices reconnect me with my intuition, my body, and the idea that our emotions are information to be valued and listened to. That has been deeply healing. Spiritual practices that allow me to trust and listen to myself again allow me to better be in community with other people. My practice involves my altar setup, with photos of my family, some artwork, crystals that I engage with, candles, and the deck I mentioned. Because I'm a queerdo, I think about chosen ancestors. As opposed to a blood lineage, I think about lineages of purpose. Whose purposes am I continuing here on this earth and how am I in communication with those folks? I'm a depressed and anxious person. It's way easier for me to live in this life if I think I'm not figuring this out from scratch, there are so many people who came before me. I'm a continuation of a lineage and a purpose and that's why I'm here. Every day I ask for an invitation by pulling a card and let it invite a question I can interrogate. Something to guide me through. Meditation has been huge for me. As someone who's really estranged from my body, the practice of meditating and thinking about my chakras has been wild. In Oakland I started going to East Bay Meditation Center which is a deeply politicized spiritual space. I can't explain what that space did for me as far as what it healed between my mind and my body and my spirit to be able to engage in a meditation practice.
I noticed you said 'reconnecting,' instead of just connecting. What is that in reference to?
It's in reference to capitalism. We live within a system that relies on estranging our bodies from our minds. Our labor is divorced from ourself because it belongs to someone else. My mom and brothers are still working themselves to death in jobs that aren't aligned with purpose just to grab some coin and get out of debt. Black folks have no wealth. Blackness was created to exploit the labor of stolen people. The premise of capitalism is estrangement from the self, for the purposes of giving our labor to amass wealth for white people. That estrangement exists in every level of our lives. It exists within the self, within our body, in our minds and spirits. It exists in our relationships with each other and with the earth, because capitalism has informed how we are in relationships of extraction. We're born into systems that rely on and cultivate that estrangement. I find it necessary to transform those relationships into something that's more balanced, harmonious, and connected. When I say reconnect, I mean that I believe we're not creating a brand new future. I think about indigenous peoples and pre-colonized societies. There's knowledge we have lost rather than knowledge that we've never had. These systems are interruptive. The healing we do is a way to return to right relationship as opposed to getting them for the first time. But as someone born into these systems and of my particular background, I cannot exactly know a time when I was connected with my body, intuition, neighbors, or family.
Photo by Hewan Aberra
What is the world you want to live in?
I think it's Movement Generation that says the foundation of society is not the individual but the relationship. I think about right relationship a lot. What it really means to be able to name our needs for one another and to meet those needs in community, to really be interdependent with one another. Not extracting from one another but figuring out what that sustainable relationship is with one another and ourselves, what it means to live and thrive on this earth. People have different answers but I think it's a matter of developing all the resources that we need to manifest these lives of dignity and purpose. What does it mean to reimagine a city, or any community where what is produced is shared with all its community members? The first step is cultivating imagination and trust. You can't just dismantle capitalism and expect everyone to know where to go. We're estranged from what we actually want and need from life and from one another.
I can't name what the world should look like. But I know that it takes building completely different types of relationships with one another and being able to meet each others' needs without these hierarchal goal systems that extract whatever skills and labor we have and move it somewhere else. If we had already imagined a system that vibed with everyone, there'd be a train there by now, but that's part of the problem, right? We're waging these wars where the opposition already has a very clear image of what they want the world to look like, because it's what the world looks like now. One of the huge barriers to victory for any type of movement for justice is not being able to present a shared vision of what another world looks like. Right now, people are in deeply imagining spaces so that folks can invite more people in to movement work by presenting real valuable alternatives. It's in process. I'm excited to see what those are and what they can be.
Our imaginations are battlegrounds. We cede so much imagination to those who keep power from us. If you look at literature of people who have lived under fascism and study how language and certain cultural products are disseminated under particular types of governments, it's always been very much in the interest of power to control ideas of people. That shit really works. If you can't imagine it, you can't fight for it, and you can't build it. Our imaginations have always been under siege in a very particular way.
I'd love to hear what you see in your life as the supports and resources for you being in this work, and what are the things that feel like barriers or limitations for you to be in this work in a sustainable way?
It's hard to say everything I'm saying about radical imagination when folks don't have money. I have a family with debt and histories of incarceration and addiction. I'm in a relative position of access to capital and resources and sometimes think I just gotta hustle to provide for my folks and to be a stabilizing force — you know, participate in capitalism, hoard resources, and be on my Black capitalist tip. There are immediate material needs to be met. The reality, stress, confusion, and deeply depressing parts of that feel like the biggest limiting factor.
Engaging with all of the horrors of this world is really overwhelming. I don't necessarily have the constitution. I just moved to Chicago, where I'm not really in community with folks in the way I imagine as liberatory. It's community that I'm working on building and I'm excited to plug in. But to be without a sense of place and interdependence means the work I want to engage with is largely theoretical at this point. But all of the amazing Black writers and artists who I've connected with here are engaging with invaluable ideas and narrative shifts. Everyone has been bringing up the idea of darkness. I just met up with a new writer friend of mine, R.L. Watson, who does visual art and writes fiction, poetry, and plays. She's thinking about the reframe of darkness — away from the binary opposition to white and to light, which serves a clear purpose within our society. So many people are on a similar wavelength creatively. We're all feeling this juju. Thinking about the visibility of Black poetry and Black art in general over the last few years, I don't want to jinx it by calling it a renaissance, but we're in a cultural moment that feels significant. Connecting with people who are exploring similar ideas of Black liberation in their work feels sustaining to me. To be riding similar wavelengths with other Black artists locally and figuring out ways that we can work together and build work off of one another as opposed to working separately feels really sustaining to me. Then through Forward Together to be able to combine culture shift projects with movement building, and bring this narrative and culture shift work to organizations around the country feels powerful. The barriers are trying to hold on to how much I value culture shift work, and being bombarded with the immediate material needs of myself, my family, and the people around me.
I don't know if you listened to the episode of [adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown's podcast] "How to Survive the End of the World," when one of the sisters describes something as her darkest moment and corrects herself to instead call it her palest moment.
No, I didn't, that's amazing!
It's such a simple reframe, but also very powerful.
The artist I was talking with this morning is R.L. Watson. She's getting her phD in literature and engaging with the history of lynching and the white imagination of Black people. She's engaging with old racist texts for her research, and was struck by how horrifically simple the idea of anti-Black racism is. White identity formation is based on the othering and imagined evil of people with dark skin. Distinct European folks created a shared identity that gave them the numbers to have power, which has persisted and is integrated into all of our culture. She was struck. She was like, this is a stupid text, the prose was awful, but it's a very simple, powerful idea. The systems that are oppressing us are built on these simple but powerful ideas. It can be dumbfounding to figure out how to meaningfully engage in the realm of ideas, but when you get down to it, they're powerful, small, stupid, simple ideas we're waging a battle against. I'm excited that some seeds of it, like this idea of darkness, are being turned over. I'm excited to see what other levers can be simultaneously pushed by writers, artists, and cultural makers as we untangle white supremacy together. White supremacy is such a simple, terrible idea.
It's so interesting to think about something being simultaneously so fragile and simple, and also so insidious and empowered by its proliferation.
Absolutely. I was really empowered by Toni Morrison, who's a great writer and thinker, published an essay called Mourning for Whiteness. It did a very simple thing for me, but it was huge. It took power away from whiteness by not framing our current political moment as a moment of white empowerment, but as the last throes of empire. More specifically, she was mourning the humanity of white people — seeing this political moment as a clear sign of humanity lost and estranged from an entire people. That idea was to relocate power elsewhere and not in necessarily who is owning and exercising power through political systems, but who is in right relationship with their humanity. This lightning-shocked me. Narrative shifts that resonate with people are important for being able to locate power in oneself and one's community. Everyone should read that essay.
That perspective is so true, but it takes so much compassion to acknowledge that what's really under all the violence and oppression of white supremacy is the disconnection and loss of humanity. Of course compassion is not in contradiction to righteous anger, but ultimately it's gonna be more sustainable, right?
Right, and that's what I think about — what is sustainable? What is an empowering narrative? I'm all about some righteous anger. But also it's really important to relocate power in other ways.
Who are the other artists, writers, and works who are inspiring and guiding you right now?
I mentioned my chosen ancestors. I'm also trying to discover who my poetic elders are. I'm in community with so many Black writers and poets; I'm getting so much from so many people. Whether it's the greats like Toni Morrison and James Baldwin or contemporary poets like Danez Smith, whose latest connection was Don't Call Us Dead, which was about the idea that the death of murdered Black boys is not a spiritual death — that there is more freedom in death, a life and joy beyond. So transformative. Black artists have engaged with this idea for a long time, even in popular culture. In Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar's "Never Catch Me" music video directed by Hiro Murai, we see a funeral for two children. As soon as the song kicks up, the children rise from their caskets and start dancing. No one in the pews notices — they still see dead children — but we as the audience see them dance out of the pews with this ridiculous amount of joy. They leave the funeral parlor, jump into the back of a hearse, and drive the hearse down the street with all of these kids running after it.
For Black Futures Month, Black Lives Matter paired artists with writers to imagine liberated Black futures. We're in a cultural moment where we're imagining Black joy and freedom throughout a lot of different disciplines. It's not new. Black artists have always been doing that interrogation and that reaching beyond. I'm only engaging with work by Black artists because I'm trying to be in that particular space of imagination. I'm very excited to then engage with other writers of color and indigenous writers who are doing that work. But I'm finding it really important for me to locate that within Black folks first.
Is anything else coming up for you in the course of this conversation?
I'm just a person who's trying to live with integrity and a sense of freedom in a deeply unfree place. I'm so in process, and I've been in a space of trying to be deeply compassionate with myself as I figure out how to show up in movement and organizing spaces. Especially as someone who's just moved to a new city, I find myself in a point of deep transition. I'm like, what work am I doing, what is actually happening? I am just a person who is asking a lot of questions and figuring out how I can best be in service of people around me and of the communities I come from. That service might look different a few months or a year or decades from now, and hopefully it does. As I keep gaining skills and knowledge, and engaging with different people in different communities, I'll find that I have the skills to fill the different needs that arise. But who knows what I'm doing now. Just trying to figure out how to thrive.
Kemi Alabi is a writer, editor and teaching artist from Wisconsin. Their poetry and essays live in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic, The Guardian, TEDx, Catapult, Apogee Journal, Winter Tangerine, BOAAT, Nat. Brut and elsewhere. As editorial manager of Forward Together, they hold down Echoing Ida, a home for Black women and nonbinary writers. They're also a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine. Kemi lives in Chicago and believes in Black queer futures. This interview is part of a series for The World We Want to Live in.
Photo by Mika Munoz
Author freddiePosted on May 2, 2018 May 1, 2018 Categories interviewTags ally almore, ancestor work, ancestral practices, art, black, black liberation, black lives matter, black panther, capitalism, community, cultural organizing, cultural work, culture, culture shift, facilitation, fascism, femme, forward together, healing, ideas, imagination work, immigrants, intergenerational trauma, kemi alabi, meditation, nonbinary, poetry, politics, queer, self care, spirituality, sustainability, tarot, trans day of resilience, trauma, words, writingLeave a comment on Kemi on healing intergenerational trauma, culture shift work, and how creativity makes them come alive
Iman on de-coupling work from worth & science as the safest place for 21st century witches
photo by Aaron Wojack
How do you identify yourself in the world?
I identify as a queer Black woman. I'm a student and an activist. I'm a witch. I've recently begun to also claim my identity as an artist. I'm doing a phD at UC Berkeley, which takes up a fair amount of my time and emotional space.
I'm in a period of transition. I'm trying to decouple my work from my worth. My job will be ending soon. Now would be the time to start applying for careers because I'm going to have this pretty bomb ass degree. I just don't wanna work! It's both anti-capitalism and just plain exhaustion that make me feel this way. Since I was five years old I have been waking up every weekday to report to an institution. I don't want to show up for these powerful white men anymore, or to allow them to profit off my body and my mind. I'm considering being unemployed for up to a year to figure out what I truly want to do, but that's obviously risky. I have so many blessings I'm grateful for, but I'm also like… what happens next?
Could you share more about decoupling your work from your worth? How has that been for you logistically and emotionally, and where are you at in that process?
This summer was my Art Summer. Since I'm plan to finish my degree in December, I probably should have been applying for jobs. Most people in my position and field have applied to 50 or 60 positions by now. I applied to three and then I felt done. Considering I have such a strong work ethic, I had to ask myself why I was not trying? Like, "I'm just not giving a fuck, why is that?" A lot of it has to do with the psychic exhaustion of being associated with the university. UC Berkeley is a toxic and violent space right now, with all the white supremacist rallies and neo-nazis on campus. Part of me needs to take space away from Cal — and science — to figure out where my time, energy, love, and labor is best spent.
For years I've experience anti-Black racism at the university in subtle ways — the low demographic representation of Black students and faculty and a myriad of micro-aggressions. Now this sentiment has manifested in physical violence. I'm not surprised it's happening because we've had all this shit just underneath the surface, Trump and Milo just made us really have to look at it. So the idea of applying for a job to be a professor at a university — I'm like, fuck that, why would I wanna stay in this war zone forever? That's a hard realization after spending 12 years trying to attain this degree. Now that I'm finally close to having my dissertation completed I realize I don't really want it. But I'm not going to quit because I'm too deep into it.
What is the degree or field you're in?
I'm doing a phD in microbiology.
It seems intense to be intimately familiar with these systems and working under white-male-dominated institutions for so long. I can imagine why you'd want to be bursting out of that.
I'm skilled and qualified so I'm good at these jobs but I'm not invested in them. At some point it's like, who am I doing this for? I want to take time to find out what I want to do for myself and my community. That's the decoupling I mentioned earlier. I feel like I can do this best through travel, but that's also escapism. I wanted to move to Paris, but then Trump got elected and I felt I had to stay here and fight.
Where are you at with the question of figuring out what you want to do for yourself and for the world?
I'm pretty sure about how I want to contribute; I don't know how to pay my bills while doing that. I know I want to be employed by the resistance, but who funds an insurgent revolution?
My main focus is environmental justice. I study microbial ecology and work in public housing. I compare microbes and toxic mold in market rate housing and federally subsidized housing. My data shows what people have been saying for decades —if you're black, brown, low-income, or an immigrant, you're gonna be exposed to more toxic molds. That's a basic environmental justice issue but now we have the data to prove it. That's the work I want to do for the rest of my life. How do we protect marginalized communities from environmental pollutants, from climate change, from oppression and exploitation of resources? How can we use science to protect our communities, keep us safe and healthy, and use law to hold polluters accountable?
I have a dream of starting a Queer Radical Science Institute (qRSI). I spent my most memorable summers at biological stations, which are basically summer camps for adults. There are these forested plots you can go to to conduct long term ecological research. They are so fun and nerdy, and I acknowledge I've been blessed at spaces like those where I've met other enthusiastic natural historians, but when I look back I realize they are implicitly white spaces. This is largely due of the push-out of People of Color from the community of science. People with any sort of spiritual practice are shunned in these spaces. It selects for a very particular kind of ideology and identity. And It's a goddamn shame.
I want to create more space, and find new ways to do and teach science through a framework of de-colonizing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). In this new paradigm, what are the questions that we ask, what are the methods that we use? Western modern science operates under a framework of white supremacy and capitalism, which means it is merely a tool of those pre-existent powerful and oppressive structures. At qRSI I want to explore what it would mean to uplift traditional ecological knowledge and indigenous views of the world rather than just the scientific method? If we do that, what are our final products? When do we know when the experiment is done? I want to move away from thinking about publishing papers as the final product. How about a campaign or artwork as the final product? What does it mean to do science that doesn't end up in these elitist universities or journals? What does it mean to democratize the knowledge? These are all questions and beautiful dreams I don't yet know how to manifest.
It's cool to hear you bring up spirituality and art in reference to science because the white mainstream view places them in opposition to one another. You also mentioned coming into your artistry and identifying as an artist and a witch. What do those things look like in your life right now?
photo by Brooke Anderson
I always say one of the safest places for a 21st century witch is in science because you get to make magic in the laboratory. In the lab you can tinker; you can make things explode, you can transform, and deconstruct. Science is an incredible way to come to know and love The Mother:Nature. But due to patriarchy and misogyny, of course, witches had to go underground for safety. The history of witchcraft is based in resistance. I've been fascinated by witchy spaces since I was a kid. When I was maybe 13 I went into a store looking for a book and the shopkeeper called me a green witch. I didn't know what that meant but now it all makes sense. The way I interact with the earth and nature is witchcraft. It's voodoo. It's root work. It's also called 'ecology'.
I started to experience activist burnout doing work in the Black Lives Matter movement around 2014. So often I was antagonized by police and felt hopeless. The system is fully inundated with injustice. What is the point of putting one more Black body on the line? It was getting so heavy emotionally. Then one life-changing night, I picked up a textbook from my Alma Mater, Howard University, called Black Magic. The book contains the history of root work and magic in Black America, starting with how slaves conjured against their enslavers. I thought that was so dope that our witchcraft comes from slave rebellion.
I think it's common for Black folx to have fantasies of being slaves who would run away on the underground railroad, bravely heading North to freedom. But the reality is maybe you might have been a slave who couldn't run. So what do you do? You hear about some stories of kitchen/Big House slave women who poisoned their masters. Someone's gonna figure that out and your ass would be whipped or killed. But there other ways to subvert, and conjure and hexing was a part of that tradition.I started to dig into root work and curses against white supremacy to re-activate and reclaim this knowledge in my own activism. It was empowering at the beginning, but over time I started to feel like I was putting too much negative energy into the universe and needed to find a way to balance this with more positive vibes. All the curses we make come back times three, even though I'm responding to a curse that's been put on me by subjugation. I started thinking about community healing work and how to sustain people in the movement. What kind of herbs can we use as adaptogens? How can we think about ways to heal our communities rather than just hex others? That's where I feel more comfortable and where I'm at today. I don't want to put negative out. I want to cultivate positive. I talk a lot about this on the radio show I co-host with a local DJ, Namaste Shawty and MC Queens D. Light on lowergrandradio.com.
Plants help me to find beauty in this fucked up system. They've taken a beating from capitalism with deforestation and exploitation of natural resources. Nonetheless the plants are resilient. I started looking at sage and lavender in urban city settings. How can these incredibly medicinal healing plants survive in Oakland and San Francisco? If they can do it, I can do it. These are my allies. Covered in soot but still so lovely. I take a lesson from them.
Is this research you're doing on your own or in relationship to your school work?
It is in no way related to my school! If I told people at my school they would think I was crazy. I collect medicinal plants on campus sometimes and people always give me the side eye. What I've shared with you are lessons and inspiration that sustain me. Now I'm doing [an activist group called] Queer Magic for the Resistance, touching base with other down witches and brujas and showing up for community with healing herbs.
I don't think I was so cognizant of my body before I started getting into witchcraft. I realized my body is mortal and I'm interacting with forces that intend to take apart my body. The police would gladly kill me, and these racist institutions intend to annihilate me. My material body became more of a focus than my brain, the main thing driving my career up until this point. A lot of work I do with herbs is about healing the body — making bath salts or body butter or teas to soothe the material tissue. Exploring my queer identity has been interesting too, looking at my body and asking what do I like about it? What am I not comfortable with? How does that relate to patriarchy and heteronormativity? That's all part of the magic!
You're doing a lot of different kinds of art right now right?
Music, visual art, the Las Brujas Radio podcast, and a videogame. That has been an exploration in play and anti-capitalist views of time. If you're not working and you're not making money, then is your time valuable? Capitalism thwarts your creativity because you make it about dollars rather than creation. I have decided that I'm gonna make this collage just because I want to make this collage! I'm not gonna market or sell it. I'm gonna make it because it feels good and I'm entitled to my time and to pleasure. If I want to create, I can. I'm trying to not feel guilty about things I 'should' be doing instead.
So first I started playing with collage than I started playing with sound. Now I'm playing with audio collage. I dropped my debut album 'Noncommital' on bandcamp at the end of Virgo Season. I started playing in a band. I'm just reclaiming my time. I realized that the days belong to me — not the institution, and definitely not the market.
It's hard though because like you said earlier, you know what you want to do for yourself and in the world but you don't know how to pay the rent at the same time. Ideally we're all trying to reclaim our time, but we also experience barriers to that.
Reclaiming my time is not without recourse. My advisor is my boss, and he's threatened to stop paying me. I got to a point where I was like, if you're gonna kick me out, then just go on and kick me out, but until then, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm six years into my PhD now and I'm kinda losing steam for science, but also I'm just interested in lots of other things and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Sometimes when I'm kicking ass in other projects I'm able to plug back into science and have an awesome productive day. But it's gonna be a day, it's not gonna be my week.
Right, it's not taking over your life so much.
I gotta find space for me. The institutions erase your individuality. They make you a worker. I came here to be a thinker and to tinker, and to learn about fungi.
Outside of a capitalist framework, can you imagine what would you be doing for yourself and for your community?
By virtue of being human I believe everyone is entitled to food, housing, water, education, healthcare, and a suitable form of labor that makes life sweet. In my dream of the world everyone would have that. There's a cool way to decouple labor from basic needs being met. Instead of working so much just to have a roof to put over your head and keep the lights on, what if we decided everyone's entitled to these things just because you need them — what would you do with your time? The world would be so much more beautiful. People would create. People would care. Some people call it universal basic income, some call it socialism or anarchism, I'm also comfortable calling it welfare. There's so much waste in capitalism. Anyone who qualifies should fucking get their food stamps. This system is providing so much junk we don't need that's having this awful environmental impact. Get your shit from the government. The government should care for you simply because you exist. I dream that.
In terms of my economic political standings, I want a big government that cares for all the people. I hate the laissez-faire market. I don't want free market capitalism to drive any of our policies. I liked the idea of the share economy that tech is creating, minus the tech influence and the fact that the bottom-line is profit. But they're onto something really — we don't all need to have a car, you know? We don't all need to own the land, but we can all utilize it. I love the idea of not exchanging money for services ever again.
What would you do and how would you contribute in this world?
I'd be working in outdoor education, still hanging out with plants and looking at fungi. Biodiversity is so beautiful and I love natural history. I'd probably be a storyteller. I'd tell people about what we're seeing in our environment and how to engage with it and what other people do with these things. I'd wanna tell the stories of the forest and cultivate spaces where those stories could be told. The ways to tell that story would be numerous. You can paint it, you can sing it, you can have the bonfire, you can lead a mushroom hunt through the pristine woods, or abandoned urban lots.
What do you think is important about telling those stories?
They're fascinating. It helps you to find your place if you know that the world is much bigger than you. I'm finding it humbling to realize how complex all of these interactions between soil, microbes, climate, weather, water, micronutrients, plants, and animals are. You could spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how this little ecosystem works. I'm just one little player in this beautiful construction. I love that. It means some of these decisions I make and stress over aren't a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
I also think it's important to just worship the land that you're on and acknowledge the space you occupy as sacred. We'd engage a lot differently if we put ourselves in the context of the place and the space and hold ourselves and that space as not distinct from one another, and to acknowledge land as profound and beautiful.
It's cool to hear you talk about your relationship to nature and science as being humbling. I feel like a lot of what has turned me off from mainstream science is the doctrine, the knowing, the framework that research happens for the purpose of ownership and dominance. It's cool to hear how you are engaged in science and nature from a totally different perspective and seeking to unravel more mystery and wonder.
Yeah. There were anthropologists in the twenties who explored this demarcation between science, religion, and magic. It was in this ideation that "primitive" cultures have magic and religion basically because they are ignorant, and "civilized" cultures have science, because they understand and dominate their environments. Academics were suggesting that cultures who don't have an understanding of their environment just 'leave it up to the elements' and pray to their gods because they don't understand, and once you gain some knowledge of the earth you move towards magic so you can manipulate it, and then once you truly know it and demonstrate mastery then a cultures has science. This is obviously whack, because all of these things exist simultaneously and one person or entire cultures can go these different modes of wonder, ignorance, and knowledge every cycle, and/or every single day.
It's a lot queerer.
Exactly. I want to get to a point where magic is viewed on the same plane as science, and privileged without having to be called "pseudo-science".
Magic and science aren't in opposition to each other. I recently learned that avocados change their sex multiple times a day.
So the flowers change or drop? That's really interesting. That's a lot of development and the genetics must be really intense and what kind environmental cues trigger those changes… How can we not be humbled and get off this dichotomy, you know? You are either male or female — no, there's so many options, really. I love the idea of perfect flowers, which in botany is a term used to describe hermaphroditic flowers.
Maybe future check boxes on forms could have us choose between avocados and perfect flowers. It's wonderful to hear about all the work you're exploring. What do you need to support you in these processes and helping to create this world?
Instinctively I would say money but I want to move away from that. Part of me feels like a land trust is the move. What would it mean to have a spot where we do this Queer Radical Science Institute and just start by occupying? We just get there and start cultivating the world we want to see. We've seen that happen when you think about community gardens in Los Angeles or Detroit. People just took up hoes in urban space and developers come claim it once it's poppin'.
I'm still figuring my shit out. It'd be cool if people were down to dream with me and offer their time and energy. All I really need is love and community. Money sucks. Capitalism is the reason my family, my ancestors were enslaved. I don't want that to be what determines whether or not I'm a valuable contribution to society. Fuck the money. Share the love.
Is your goal to transform the institutions, to tear them down, or work completely outside of them?
I have been battling this question for so long. My second and third year at Cal, the only Black woman faculty member in my entire college, Carolyn Finney, was denied tenure. At the time there were only two Black professors, so all of the women of color flock to this one faculty member for mentorship. Because she was overloaded with doing community care work, she wasn't able to produce as much academic stuff, which is the only thing the university really values. I started wondering, if we get her tenure, if more of us stay, can we shift it? Can we fix it from the inside? Maybe that is possible, but I'm not gonna be the one to do it, because that is not the timescale I wanna work on. Now bricks go through our windows and buildings get set on fire because people are so frustrated with the institution and want to tear it down. I think this absolutely needs to happen, but I don't want to be the one to do that either. I want to work wholly outside of it. I don't want to destroy it, I don't want to sit around inside of it and wait for it to change, I want to do my own thing elsewhere. If folks wanna get down, come holler at me. But I'm not engaging in this shit anymore. I once heard a wise youth say, "everyone is invited to the revolution, but not everyone will come."
You mentioned love and community as two things that can support you in doing that. Can you tell me what it looks like to show up for each other in community?
Sometimes it's the simplest things. Sometimes after going to a protest, having a friend who's cooked you a meal and made you tea and is there to give you a hug is huge. Having a friend go with you to the protest is also amazing. I get a lot of tarot readings from my friends and spend a lot of time in beer gardens debriefing and processing. I spend a lot of time in nature, in the rivers and forests. I go mushroom hunting every weekend. Take a hike and get away. Sometimes you don't have to go very far. I spend a lot of time in the Piedmont Cemetery. That's in Oakland, but I'm getting away from the exchange of money and capitalism. I sit with the realities that time is limited. Your life is precious. You only have a couple of years to do whatever it is you're doing. And then once you're done with that you're gonna give all your atoms back to the universe.
Is this conversation bringing up any other thoughts you have about creating the world you want to live in?
We as activists struggle to feel like we're doing enough. The issues are so vast and so big. It can be disheartening. I've seen many people turn away from the movement because sometimes you feel like you're never gonna win. I've grappled with that, but then I think about all the major victories we've accomplished in the last couple years. Something I'm proud of is that we got the University of California to divest in for-profit prisons. That's a big deal. But it's so easily overshadowed when the same university that divested is giving a "Free Speech Week" platform to white supremacists. You can get so inundated in the everyday struggle, forget how powerful you really are, and question if you're doing enough. I used to feel like if i don't go how can I expect anyone else to? This year I've gotten better about trusting that if I don't show up, someone else will. Since the inauguration I think people are getting it. This shit is urgent.
There's a certain level of privilege that comes from being associated with the university. I've been arrested and had my Cal ID on top of my state ID and the cops let me walk away. There are some things I can do other working class folks cannot. I don't really have to show up at school tomorrow at 8am, I can go to jail tonight. I don't want to go to jail, but it's better me — the single student — to go to jail than somebody else who has to feed a child. If I get a job, which is what I'm trying to avoid for the rest of my life, I won't have this particular freedom. So while I do, it's critical for me to utilize it. I don't feel like there's a whole lot of privileges I have besides maybe my citizenship, my education, and being cisgendered. The few that I have, I'm gonna fucking work 'em and put them to use.
The revolution will be pleasurable! I have been so blessed by the people in my life, especially the activist community. I have started using the phrase 'Lover-Homie-Comrade' just to acknowledge the ways people flow through relationships. Some can be romantic, some can be platonic, sometimes I'll throw down with you in a protest, maybe we'll spend the night together in jail. It's hard work, but these are labors of love. We're out here waging love y'all.
You can find Iman's work all over! Listen to Iman's album, band, and Las Brujas Radio. Check out Iman's visual art and support the conceptual demo of her video game. This interview is part of a series for The World We Want to Live in.
Author freddiePosted on November 15, 2017 November 15, 2017 Categories interviewTags academia, anticapitalism, art, artist activist, black, black lives matter, bruja, burnout, capitalism, community, ecology, environmental justice, herbalism, microbiology, plants, public housing, queer, resistance, science, spirituality, witchLeave a comment on Iman on de-coupling work from worth & science as the safest place for 21st century witches


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Salween dams threaten river communities | Bangkok Post
Pianporn Deetes
This article originally appeared in the Bangkok Post.
The Thai government's recent push to speed up its energy investment in Myanmar's Salween River contradicts its own efforts to warn Thai investors from operating overseas projects that violate human rights.
A number of hydropower dams proposed for the Salween River, and co-invested in by the state-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) and companies in China and Myanmar, would force tens of thousands of ethnic minorities to leave their homes and undermine the current peace process in Myanmar.
In May this year, the Thai government issued a cabinet resolution proposing measures that would require Thai investors to adhere to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights wherever they operate overseas. The UN framework specifically highlights the threats to human rights posed by investment in conflict zones.
But early this week, Thailand's permanent secretary for energy Areepong Bhoocha-oom, said the Ministry of Energy planned to meet its Myanmar counterpart to discuss the country's investment in proposed hydropower projects on the Salween River, along with a coal-fired power plant in the southern town of Myeik.
Thailand and Burma Campaigns Director, International Rivers
The Salween River, known as Thanlwin in Myanmar, is one of Asia's last largely free-flowing rivers, running from China, through to Myanmar and Thailand. It is also the site of a planned cascade of six massive dams, including the Mong Ton Dam in Shan State and Hat Gyi Dam in Karen State. The majority of the electricity will be sold to Thailand.
In an interview with a Thai newspaper,Thansettakit, this week, Mr Areepong insisted that planning for the two hydropower dams would move forward.
"The 6,000-MW Mong Ton Dam has been in negotiation for a long time. The initial agreement is that the dam will be smaller [than previously planned], and divided into two phases. The plan is to start construction in 2019. There will also be discussion to advance the Hat Gyi Dam. We expect the meeting will result in the rapid materialisation of our plans," said the permanent secretary.
At the same time, this week in Yangon, Taungyyi and Chiang Mai, Shan State Rivers, a local community network of affected people, launched the film Drowning a Thousand Islands to echo their concerns over the proposed Salween dams. The film documents the beauty and tragedy of war-torn central Shan State along the Salween and the Nam Pang River, a major tributary. It reveals the spectacular landscape of the Thousand Islands, known as Kun Heng, on the Nam Pang River. Here, the bright jade-coloured water flows into braided channels, forming a myriad of islands, islets and waterfalls.
The area's ecosystem and biodiversity are pristine. It remains largely unknown and if the Mong Ton Dam moves forward, it may soon be inundated.
This hidden gem is also home to hundreds of thousands of villagers uprooted by the Myanmar army during forced relocations between 1996-1998, when large numbers of refugees fled from Shan State to northern Thailand. Many of these people have been unable to return due to decades of armed conflict.
Egat has stated that 20,000 people will be relocated to make way for the Mong Ton Dam. This figure does not take into account thousands of refugees forced to abandon their homes in the area. Constructing the dam will destroy any hope for them of returning home; yet they are absent from Egat's estimates and unaccounted for among the project's "affected people".
Early this month, clashes broke out in Karen State between the government Border Guard Force and a splinter group of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, close to the site of the proposed Hat Gyi Dam. More than 5,000 villagers in Mae Tha Waw were forced to leave their homes. The conflict was seen by many as a move by the military to secure the area in preparation for construction of the dam.
The Salween River holds a unique place in the identity of the diverse ethnic peoples around it. The history and significance of the river runs deeply through these communities. Due to decades of armed conflict, it is also a highly sensitive and contentious area. Salween communities have long been affected by violence and displacement: the dams represent yet another instalment in this long pattern of devastation.
International scrutiny of Thailand's outbound investment has been intensifying. Thailand's major role in the development of the Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong River in Laos has resulted in an ongoing lawsuit against Egat and other stakeholders. The lawsuit has been filed by Thais living along the river, challenging the approval of the project's Power Purchase Agreement made between Egat and the Lao government in the absence of adequate studies and consultations. The outcome of the lawsuit, accepted by the Thai Supreme Administrative Court, may have implications for Thailand's plans to purchase electricity from dams on the Salween, where the scale of the projects and their proximity to Thailand also threaten trans-boundary harm.
Egat and the Thai government have demonstrated disregard for the significance of the Salween and livelihoods of communities living along the river. It is critical that Thai investors and developers recognise the far-reaching consequences of the proposed dams on the rights of ethnic populations to determine the future of their lands and environmental heritage.
Salween Dams
Mekong and Salween Communities Rally: "Save Our Rivers"
Salween Dams Threaten to Drown Refugees Hopes of Returning Home | The Bangkok Post
Salween River Biodiversity Study Reveals Endangered Species Threatened by Dams

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Telemarketers should understand that there are certain kinds of telemarketing calls that are exempt from the National DNCL Rules.
Newspapers of general circulation for the purpose of soliciting subscriptions.
Has made an inquiry or has submitted an application to a telemarketer about a product or service within the last six (6) months.
An audio recording of the consumer's verbal permission, or a record of it verified by an independent third party.
The National DNCL Rules do not apply to telemarketing calls made to businesses.
Even if a telemarketer is making an exempted call, a consumer can ask the telemarketer to have their name and number put on the telemarketer's own internal do not call list. Every Canadian telemarketer and client of a telemarketer – even those making exempt calls – is required to maintain such a list and respect the consumer's wishes not to be called.
A telemarketer is required to place the consumer's name and telephone number on their own do not call list within 14 days of the consumer's request. If the telemarketer is calling on behalf of another organization or a client, the telemarketer is required to ensure the consumer's name and number are added to that organization's or client's own do not call list within 14 days. The consumer's name and telephone number must stay on the internal do not call list for three (3) years.
Individuals and organizations placing calls for the sole purpose of market research, surveys, or public opinion polls are not considered to be telemarketing and are not required to keep internal do not call lists in respect of those types of calls.
At the beginning of an exempt telemarketing call, a telemarketer is required to identify the person or organization on whose behalf the call is being made.
Calls from organizations conducting market research, surveys, or public opinion polls are exempt from the National Do Not Call List Rules. Also, under s. 41.7(5) of the Telecommunications Act, market research and polling firms are not required to keep internal do not call lists.
The list of all exemptions to the National DNCL, except the exemption for telemarketing calls to business, can be found in section 41.7 of the Telecommunications Act. The definitions are also included in the Telecommunications Act. You can find more information concerning the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules, the National DNCL and telemarketing regulations on the Telemarketing information page in the Consumers section of the CRTC website.


If you've done all of this and you still have not received your refund yet, please contact us at orders@greengrillers.com.
We only replace items if they are defective or damaged. If you need to exchange it for the same item, send us an email at orders@greengrillers.com and send your item to: 2703 Bowhunter Drive Wilmington North Carolina United States 28411.
To return your product, you should mail your product to: 2703 Bowhunter Drive Wilmington North Carolina United States 28411.


Two rails that are both 4-5 meters long. Not that high. The run-up is really crappy – which is why it is called the "Bæ-rails". You can skate it at night time though, since there is a light pole right beside the rail (nothing that is innoying though).
Go down Lersøpark Allé from the fælledpark (First go down the road called "universitetsparken", and you'll find it on your right side.
It is called Bærails because the surrounding grass area was always full of dogshit.


text:
Country Users
Mandate, Vision & Objectives
Structure of the NDC Hub
Strategic Priority Outcomes
Pacific NDCs
Human Mobility In The Context Of Climate Change
Every monthly newsletter, we would like to introduce one of the projects in each featured partner organisation of the Pacific NDC Hub. This month, we would like to talk to one GIZ's Project: The Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change (HMCCC) Project.
GIZ through its previous BMZ-funded programme 'Coping with Climate Change in the Pacific Island Region (CCCPIR)' supported participatory and inclusive processes for the planning and implementation of relocation of communities, particularly for the Narikoso Relocation Project.
Following the passing of the Climate Change Act in Fiji's Parliament on September 27 this year, the National Relocation Taskforce has been mandated to be operational under the Fiji Planned Relocation Guidelines (PRG) through the development of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
This Act not only supports the Relocation of at-risk communities by developing guidelines, but it ensures that a collaborative approach ensures consistency with climate objectives & governance.
As it is a government led process, the National Relocation Taskforce members comprises of 30 government agencies who are responsible for each stage of the relocation process (PRE, IN & POST STAGE).
Planned relocation is part of a comprehensive climate change programme, which further seeks to enhance the skills and capabilities of the local population, civil society partners, national authorities and regional organisations to manage the risk of climate change.
One of the key outputs of CCCPIR's work in Fiji, was the strengthening of institutional structures to support implementation of climate change adaptation, which included the establishment of the national relocation taskforce and various national climate change thematic working groups who worked on the development of the planned relocation guidelines.
Building up from this work, the Global Programme on Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change (GP HMCCC) implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in collaboration with the Climate Change and International Cooperation Division (CCICD)of the Ministry of Economy and with financial support from New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade started the drafting process of the SOPs in 2020 to operationalise the PRG.
The programme has continued to support the Government of Fiji (GoF) and the National Relocation Taskforce members in providing technical assistance and Secretariat support to enable pro-active processes for addressing the risk of climate and disaster driven displacement.
NDC Administrator
Regional Pacific NDC Hub
3 Luke Street, Suva-Nabua
Copyright © 2020 Regional Pacific Nationally Determined Contribution Hub. All rights reserved.


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Nicki Minaj releases a photo on Instagram with the following caption: "Don't bother zooming in. We blurred them out ?u263a?ufe0f?ud83d?udc45 ? ?nCOAT: GIVENCHY?nSHOE: FENDI?nTOP: H?u0026M?nLEGGINGS: VANS". Photo Credit: Instagram *** No USA Distribution *** For Editorial Use Only *** Not to be Published in Books or Photo Books *** Please note: Fees charged by the agency are for the agency's services only, and do not, nor are they intended to, convey to the user any ownership of Copyright or License in the material. The agency does not claim any ownership including but not limited to Copyright or License in the attached material. By publishing this material you expressly agree to indemnify and to hold the agency and its directors, shareholders and employees harmless from any loss, claims, damages, demands, expenses (including legal fees), or any causes of action or allegation against the agency arising out of or connected in any way with publication of the material.


I called them back…. They're out of formation and I'm not sure why anymore than I know why they left to begin with… but that'll get fixed soon too.
This entry was posted in Just For Fun, Updates. Bookmark the permalink.
That's because you're awesome! LOVE your stories!
No….THANK YOU for sharing that marvelous, witty, brilliant writing talent of yours with us….we are not worthy!
*smooches* Can't wait for more chapters!
It's because you are awesomesauce!! We love reading your talented, funny, lemony-good self. I always do a little squee when I see your name pop up in my Google window 🙂 I am sorry you have to go through all the work, but we will be hear waiting!
Oops! I meant here waiting for reorganization. I'll just have to make sure I don't read on a DFF or I'd REALLY be confused trying to find a chapter, LOL!


text:
(504) 581-9065 Free Consultation
Mesothelioma & Asbestos
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Arrested on Vacation in Louisiana
Drug Charges Overview
DUI in Louisiana
Professionals Charged With Crimes
Scott R. Bickford
Lawrence J. Centola
Spencer R. Doody
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Principal At Martzell, Bickford & Centola, we are not just lawyers. We pride ourselves in being three things: A friend, an advocate, and a fighter.
(504) 581-9065 info@mbfirm.com application@mbfirm.com
Scott R. Bickford, one of the principals of Martzell, Bickford & Centola, is a civil and criminal trial attorney whose practice is focused in representing the rights of injured workers and families in complex maritime cases, environmental contaminations, toxic exposures and criminal proceedings. He has been trial counsel in cases involving nationwide class actions relating to asbestos exposure and mesothelioma cases, benzene exposure, massive oil spills and major rig explosions, including the DEEPWATER HORIZON, where he sat on several discovery committees concerning the investigation of the matter as well as being a participant in the Joint Investigation Committee of the United States Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Review and Enforcement. He has tried or settled multiple cases to verdicts in the Millions of Dollars. Additionally, Mr. Bickford has represented various governmental and private landowners in environmental land damage cases and has litigated oil and gas royalty disputes and commercial oil and gas disputes. In addition to his civil practice Mr. Scott Bickford maintains a criminal practice involving matters such as mail fraud, money laundering, sexual misconduct cases and a variety of other criminal matters. Scott has represented multiple clients in election matters and in 1996 represented U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu in her election contest before the United States Senate. Recently he has represented the interest of New Orleans Mayor Mitchell Landrieu and several other Louisiana elected officials in their election races. In 2008 he represented the Louisiana Democratic Party in the "Protect the Vote" project. Professional and civic activities: Board of Governors Louisiana Association of Justice; Louisiana Bar Association Committee on Profession; Member Greater Orleans Community Partnership Panel (Louisiana Bar Foundation); Assistant Bar Examiner, Louisiana Bar Association (1990 to Present); Associate Professor, Co-Director of Trial Advocacy, Tulane School of Law; Former Chair Project Lazarus; Master, St Thomas More Inn of Court; Former alumnus advisor Kappa Sigma Fraternity. As mentioned above, Mr. Bickford is also a frequent lecturer to law students, other lawyers and judges… He is also on the Board of Governors of the American Association of Justice a national organization of attorneys devoted to promoting a fair, accountable and balanced justice system where the court house doors are open to all. As a AAJ Board of Governor he has coordinated nationwide moot court trial competitions among the country's law schools and lobbied for laws which treat all litigants equally. Mr. Bickford graduated from Tulane University and Tulane Law School. He was admitted to practice in 1983 in Louisiana and is also admitted to practice in Texas and Colorado.
Admiralty and Maritime Litigation
Oil and Gas Litigation
Toxic Tort
Litigation Percentage
90% of Practice Devoted to Litigation
U.S. District Court Eastern District of Louisiana, 1983
U.S. District Court Western District of Louisiana, 1983
U.S. District Court Middle District of Louisiana, 1983
U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit, 1984
Colorado, 1992
Tulane Law School, New Orleans, LA J.D.
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA B.A.
Martzell, Bickford & Centola
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Facing criminal charges can be confusing, anxiety-inducing, and even scary. In some cases, individuals may have committed the crime for which they have been charged, recognizing that they have made a serious mistake. In other situations, people are accused of crimes that they did not commit.
A Michigan embezzlement defense lawyer can get started on your case today.
What is Embezzlement Under Michigan Law?
Took or intended to take, without the consent of the other person or entity, the money, property, or other assets with which the individual was entrusted.
To put it another way, embezzlement occurs when a person who is entrusted with another party's money or property steals (or attempts to steal) that money or property. Embezzlement is a lot like theft, but a key element to an embezzlement offense is that the defendant had access to another person's property or money through a relationship of trust, but did not have ownership of that property or money. Then, when the defendant steals (or tries to steal) the money, the fact that there was a relationship of trust with the money or property can lead to am embezzlement charge instead of a theft offense.
Money or property embezzled has a value of $100,000 or more: felony punishable by a term of imprisonment of up to 20 years and/or a fine of $50,000 or three times the value of the property embezzled (whichever is greater).
In some cases, penalties can increase for previous embezzlement convictions and when embezzlement affects a nonprofit corporation or a charitable organization.
Are you facing embezzlement charges? A criminal defense lawyer in Michigan can help. Contact the Michigan Defense Law to learn more about how we can assist with your defense.


From 1962 to 1986, The Merv Griffin Show flourished as one of television's most popular variety/talk shows, offering thousands of celebrated personalities from all walks of life. The Merv Griffin Show: The Inside Story takes you behind the scenes of this iconic program through exclusive interviews with the producers, writers, talent coordinators, and publicists who helped sustain Merv as a durable presence in millions of American homes. It's all here: the backstage tensions, booking challenges, conversational triumphs and disasters, and the race for ratings that are so much a part of the TV talk show realm. The book includes vivid recaps of several "lost" episodes culled from the show's remarkable history. And there's the story of Mr. Griffin himself, spanning his days as America's Romantic Singing star in the 1940s, to his amazing success as a powerful media mogul and real estate entrepreneur in the 1980s and beyond. Most of the book's nostalgic photographs are published here for the first time.


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What is Exxon Mobil's stock symbol?
Exxon Mobil trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol "XOM."
How often does Exxon Mobil pay dividends? What is the dividend yield for Exxon Mobil?
Exxon Mobil declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 30th. Investors of record on Monday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.82 per share on Monday, March 11th. This represents a $3.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 8th. View Exxon Mobil's Dividend History.
How were Exxon Mobil's earnings last quarter?
Exxon Mobil Co. (NYSE:XOM) posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February, 1st. The oil and gas company reported $1.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.08 by $0.43. The oil and gas company had revenue of $71.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $78.87 billion. Exxon Mobil had a return on equity of 10.84% and a net margin of 7.18%. The company's quarterly revenue was up 8.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.88 EPS. View Exxon Mobil's Earnings History.
When is Exxon Mobil's next earnings date?
Exxon Mobil is scheduled to release their next quarterly earnings announcement on Friday, April 26th 2019. View Earnings Estimates for Exxon Mobil.
How can I listen to Exxon Mobil's earnings call?
Exxon Mobil will be holding an earnings conference call on Friday, April 26th at 9:30 AM Eastern. Interested parties can register for or listen to the call using this link or dial in at 8882718604.
What price target have analysts set for XOM?
23 brokerages have issued 1 year price objectives for Exxon Mobil's shares. Their predictions range from $75.00 to $105.00. On average, they expect Exxon Mobil's share price to reach $84.5995 in the next year. This suggests a possible upside of 1.5% from the stock's current price. View Analyst Price Targets for Exxon Mobil.
What is the consensus analysts' recommendation for Exxon Mobil?
23 Wall Street analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Exxon Mobil in the last year. There are currently 3 sell ratings, 12 hold ratings and 8 buy ratings for the stock, resulting in a consensus recommendation of "Hold." View Analyst Ratings for Exxon Mobil.
Has Exxon Mobil been receiving favorable news coverage?
Headlines about XOM stock have been trending positive this week, according to InfoTrie. InfoTrie identifies negative and positive press coverage by analyzing more than six thousand news and blog sources in real-time. The firm ranks coverage of companies on a scale of -5 to 5, with scores closest to five being the most favorable. Exxon Mobil earned a news impact score of 2.7 on InfoTrie's scale. They also assigned headlines about the oil and gas company a news buzz of 1.0 out of 10, meaning that recent press coverage is extremely unlikely to have an impact on the stock's share price in the immediate future.
Are investors shorting Exxon Mobil?
Exxon Mobil saw a decline in short interest in March. As of March 29th, there was short interest totalling 39,522,692 shares, a decline of 8.7% from the March 15th total of 43,300,315 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 10,587,925 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.7 days. Approximately 0.9% of the shares of the stock are sold short. View Exxon Mobil's Current Options Chain.
Who are some of Exxon Mobil's key competitors?
Some companies that are related to Exxon Mobil include Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.B), Chevron (CVX), BP (BP), China Petroleum & Chemical (SNP), Equinor ASA (EQNR), ConocoPhillips (COP), Suncor Energy (SU), Phillips 66 (PSX), Marathon Petroleum (MPC), Valero Energy (VLO), Repsol (REPYY), Hess (HES), HollyFrontier (HFC), YPF (YPF) and CVR Energy (CVI).
What other stocks do shareholders of Exxon Mobil own?
Based on aggregate information from My MarketBeat watchlists, some companies that other Exxon Mobil investors own include AT&T (T), Chevron (CVX), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), General Electric (GE), Verizon Communications (VZ), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Intel (INTC), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Bank of America (BAC) and The Coca-Cola (KO).
Who are Exxon Mobil's key executives?
Mr. Neil A. Hansen, VP of Investor Relations & Sec.
Who are Exxon Mobil's major shareholders?
Exxon Mobil's stock is owned by many different of retail and institutional investors. Top institutional investors include Strs Ohio (0.07%), Retirement Systems of Alabama (0.06%), Gateway Investment Advisers LLC (0.05%), Hexavest Inc. (0.05%), Calamos Advisors LLC (0.05%) and Nisa Investment Advisors LLC (0.04%). Company insiders that own Exxon Mobil stock include Bradley W Corson, David S Rosenthal, James M Spellings Jr, John R Verity, Neil A Chapman, Neil A Hansen, Robert N Schleckser, Robert Stuart Franklin and Steven Reinemund. View Institutional Ownership Trends for Exxon Mobil.
Which major investors are selling Exxon Mobil stock?
XOM stock was sold by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including Pennsylvania Trust Co, Conning Inc., Retirement Systems of Alabama, Town & Country Bank & Trust CO dba First Bankers Trust CO, Factory Mutual Insurance Co., Nisa Investment Advisors LLC, Palisade Asset Management LLC and First Manhattan Co.. Company insiders that have sold Exxon Mobil company stock in the last year include Bradley W Corson, David S Rosenthal, James M Spellings Jr, John R Verity, Neil A Hansen and Robert N Schleckser. View Insider Buying and Selling for Exxon Mobil.
Which major investors are buying Exxon Mobil stock?
XOM stock was purchased by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including Hexavest Inc., Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV, Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV, Ronna Sue Cohen, Calamos Advisors LLC, Pacer Advisors Inc., Chicago Capital LLC and CWM LLC. View Insider Buying and Selling for Exxon Mobil.
How do I buy shares of Exxon Mobil?
Shares of XOM can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include Vanguard Brokerage Services, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Scottrade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.
What is Exxon Mobil's stock price today?
One share of XOM stock can currently be purchased for approximately $83.38.
How big of a company is Exxon Mobil?
Exxon Mobil has a market capitalization of $353.32 billion and generates $290.21 billion in revenue each year. The oil and gas company earns $20.84 billion in net income (profit) each year or $4.93 on an earnings per share basis. Exxon Mobil employs 71,000 workers across the globe.
What is Exxon Mobil's official website?
The official website for Exxon Mobil is http://corporate.exxonmobil.com.
How can I contact Exxon Mobil?
Exxon Mobil's mailing address is 5959 LAS COLINAS BOULEVARD, IRVING TX, 75039. The oil and gas company can be reached via phone at 972-940-6000.
MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Exxon Mobil and other stocks. Vote "Outperform" if you believe XOM will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote "Underperform" if you believe XOM will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.


"As a sensitive and competent artistic administrator, Dennis understands how to balance artistic concerns with financial realities. He has the ability to get the most out of his people, and is an excellent writer and director."
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"Thanks Dennis! Just wanted to say 'Job well done!' The production of 85 spots in one hour makes a Guiness Record!"
"Your contributions to the Guild Event were the highlights of the evening. The staff certainly appreciates the effort it takes to travel, arrive on site shortly before a performance, pull the performance together in minimum time and play to an audience with great energy. We applaud your group for doing all of this with such finesse."
"Many thanks for another terrific interactive performance by your acting company. The workshops were inspirational, the backbone that made the Convocation such a memorable experience!"
"Thanks to pros like you, nobody at SMG would ever consider going back to "the old way."
"This was one of the few occasions in my life where everything went according to plans and we had a wonderful evening. You did a superb job, and we are still receiving thank you notes commenting on the excellence of the performances."
"We have received tremendous positive feedback and praise for featuring these special shows. Your staff has been professional, courteous, and a pleasure to work with."
"I just wanted to say thank you for all you did for us at the Park City Grand Reopening Celebration. All of the acts and entertainment were excellent and we heard many good comments."


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What's on Exhibitions Made in North Korea: Everyday Graphics from the DPRK
Made in North Korea: Everyday Graphics from the DPRK
This exhibition has now closed, find out what else is going on at House of Illustration
Collection of Nicholas Bonner, Candy assortment box showing the Red Flag train on the east coast of Korea, photograph courtesy of Phaidon
An unmissable opportunity to see graphic design from the secluded country of North Korea, exhibited in the UK for the first time ever.
Made in North Korea features one hundred objects, collected over time by Nicholas Bonner, an expert on North Korean graphic culture who has led tours to the country for over twenty years. These include food packaging, ticket stubs and stamps together with hand-painted posters and comics, everyday objects which give a rare and remarkable insight into the lives of North Koreans.
2 Granary Square, King's Cross, London, Greater London, N1C 4BH
Tue – Sat, 10am – 5:30pm
Open late the first Friday of every month 10am - 9pm
Exhibitions at House of Illustration
Marie Neurath: Picturing Science
House of Illustration, London
British Library, London
Hogarth & The Art of Noise
The Foundling Museum, London
Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic
Wellcome Collection, London


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11 things you didn't know about Corey Taylor ahead of the WA state championships
Western Australia's Corey Taylor has enjoyed a strong year on the bike, he won the 15-years-boy's national series, was second at nationals, won the Oceania Championship and walked away from the UCI BMX World Championships…
Western Australia's Corey Taylor has enjoyed a strong year on the bike, he won the 15-years-boy's national series, was second at nationals, won the Oceania Championship and walked away from the UCI BMX World Championships in sixth. Nice resume.
This weekend the lanky youngster was set to race the WA State Titles, with an aim to add the WA #1 plate to his long list of achievements in 2017. However poor fortune found its way to Taylor's doorstep, and following a crash a few weeks back, he has been given medical advice not to ride.
Smart move, because this Woorree Park BMX Club member has bigger fish to fry in 2018, and you can't do that with a niggling injury.
While his contemporaries prepare to duke it out, here are 11 things you didn't know about Corey Taylor!
His first pet was…
A dog named Keisha. As a young kid, he used to hate her and the way she would always lick him.
He has strong feelings towards school…
He doesn't like it at all. Time is money, and time in the classroom is time off his bike – that's a big no deal for Taylor. If he had to pick a favourite subject, history gets the ticket.
Right now, his future is BMX or bust…
Unsurprising really that a rider of his potential wants to be a pro BMX racer. If that falls through, he's not sure what he will do when he gets older – see above, school isn't his jam.
He's easy going when it comes to music taste…
But if he had to listen to one genre for the rest of his life, he'd opt for rock.
Is it a superstition or a habit?…
Adamant he doesn't have any superstitions, Taylor then told us he likes to have his shoe buckle's nice and tight before racing, so his foot isn't floating. Sounds like a superstition to us, bro.
Don't dis the pre-race dish…
Carbs and protein are what's on the pre-event menu. Spaghetti Bolognese is Taylor's preferred meal, and there isn't a lot of room for negotiation on that.
Winning the 2017 national series is old news now…
He missed out on winning this year's national title by 0.033 of a second to Ollie Moran from Manning Valley BMX Club, NSW and in 2018 he wants payback on home soil. In addition to the national title, he also wants a podium at worlds. Go get 'em.
Check out this year's 15 boy' race for the national title. Neither Taylor nor Moran knew who had won straight after.
When he gets the holeshot in a race, his focus is better than at school…
Bring it all back, focus on riding and finishing the race. Be smooth and choose the right lines in corners, cover the inside. Just a few things Taylor thinks about when he's in prime position.
This weekend he wants to see a mate win it…
He might not be racing, but he'll be there and Taylor's pick for victory in his age group is mate Dylan Callan. Can Callan do it?
All the same, Taylor is gutted not to be racing. Rightly so, it will be a mega weekend.
The national series? Yeh he likes a few tracks on the 2018 calendar…
Nerang is the track he loves racing on the most, and he's eager to give it a red hot go at Satellite City BMX Club in the NT. But his full race schedule is still TBC.
But most of all, he can't wait for nationals because…
Duh, it's in WA.
Last time the Aussie titles went west was in 2009, when Taylor was just a wee sprocket. He doesn't remember much, but he does remember racing Ollie Moran…some things never change.
The WA state titles begin TODAY, Friday October 6, with min wheelers, sprockets and cruisers. Saturday October 7 will see 8yrs riders to 15+yrs riders, as well as elite men and women plus junior elite men race. Follow BMX Sports WA for more, including video footage.


in agriculture, horticulture, winery and equine fields.
Single and between the ages of 18-30 (up to 35 for winery).
Speak fair to good English.
Have at least one year's practical experience within the industry that you wish to be placed.
Have a valid international driver's licence.
Be covered by medical insurance, either from the home country partner or with RENZ insurance.
Be in good health and not in possession of, or using any drugs other than those recommended by a doctor.
There are some special requirements for certain countries. However, generally the requirement is for applicants to be single, between 18 and 28 years old, and have at least one year's practical experience in the field of the placement.
Click here to go to our applications page.
The Outbound Equine program is something special. RENZ can provide an experience of a lifetime for young people working with horses. The three main destinations are the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.
Trainees must be aged between 19 and 34 years, and have worked with horses for at least two years.
English - Hunter/Jumper, Dressage, Eventing, Riding School.
Western - Reining, Pleasure/Halter, Cutting.
Breeding - Mares/foals, Stallion, Yearling Preparation.
Placements vary betwen three months and one year. Hosts are required to provide a good learning opportunity for the trainee, and to pay fair compensation for the hours worked. They must pay a minimum of $US600 per month plus room and board.
The English riding disciplines feature in placements available in the U.K. We work in conjunction with IEPUK, a company with a good reputation for providing an enjoyable exchange experience for trainees.
As there is no visa requirement for New Zealanders travelling to Australia, we work with Stablemate Australia on more of a staff agency basis than an exchange programme. Job lists are available on a monthly basis.


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[Best of 2018] Pokemon Let's Go Eevee Made Me Ugly Cry in a Good Way
Hope CorriganSunday, December 16, 2018
Pokemon Let's Go Eevee
pokemon let's go pikachu and eevee
Pokemon Let's GO!
Despite some slight apprehension around the new changes, I was pretty excited for Pokemon Let's Go Eevee. Eevee had been my favorite Pokemon of all time for as long as I could remember. I knew that no matter what this adventure had to offer, the small joy of finally having an Eevee as my special partner Pokemon would help me get past any other obstacles. Although I didn't expect the rushing wave of nostalgia that caused me to openly weep like my eight-year-old self was trying to bust out of my chest. And whether or not I like to admit to it, Pokemon Let's Go Eevee made me ugly cry in the best way possible.
I set the Switch up on my television since I knew I wanted to experience this for the first time on the big screen. I'm glad I did because the crisp graphics gave me my first glimpse at a high-definition Eevee. I've never seen it look this good on such a big screen and my heart began to melt at the overload of cuteness.
Everything was immediately familiar. As a long-time multi-playthrough veteran of Pokemon Yellow, I am intimately knowledgeable about this world. This is partly because I wasn't allowed to play many games as a kid so even owning Pokemon Yellow was a huge deal. I remember getting it and a Game Boy Color for Christmas from Santa. Despite being a bit too old for it, all of my friends and I immediately believed in jolly old Saint Nick again because we knew that could be the only reasonable explanation I would be allowed a video game. My parents even acted as though they were annoyed with Santa for getting it for me. It was all a fairly high-level troll from my mum and dad who probably just wanted some peace on longer drives.
This also meant it was one of the few games I had access to. I replayed Yellow an uncountable amount of times, often getting up early to sneak in some games or hiding under the blankets at night. But there was always just something missing.
I truly loved my Pikachu. But I was always a little upset that Gary got an Eevee. I'd try to get to Celadon City as quickly as possible so I could claim one of my own and then agonize over whether or not to evolve it and what into. I remember once saving and reloading to try out all the evolutions for hours and still not being able to make a clean choice. Part of me didn't want Eevee to change; I loved it as it was and the potential that it symbolized. Eevee is like the world's cutest blank canvas. Needless to say, these years of repressed Eevee love have caused a bit of a buildup in my heart.
Best of 2018 – Love at First Sight
I ventured out of Pallet Town in Pokemon Let's Go Eevee to find my old friend Professor Oak out in the long grass and that's when she appeared, complete with the new adorable heart-shaped tail wagging with excitement. But she bolted away in her Pokeball after I caught her and ended up back at Oak's lab hiding among two other Pokeballs.
I still can't help but wonder what's in the third one but one is eagerly jumping, awaiting my choice. After teasing Eevee by pretending to pick another starter, my avatar reached out for the Pokeball. Eevee couldn't contain herself any longer and burst free so instead of grabbing the Pokeball, you wind up surprisingly patting her on the head. She leaned into it and something inside me just broke under the nostalgic pressure.
My real-life partner was sitting next to me on the couch and noticed that I'd stopped playing the game. He glanced over to witness me in full ugly crying glory. Tears streamed down my cheeks, my nose was running, and my face had already become blotchy and red. I've never been someone who can cry and not look like they've had a severe allergic reaction so all I could do was look back at him and unattractively mutter the words, "My Eevee," between sniffles.
"Yeah, that's your Eevee," he said, laughing as he pulled me in for a hug.
After a few minutes, I pulled away and wiped my face off. I was confused because I knew I loved Eevee and Pokemon in general but I hadn't prepared for this. People generally describe me as emotionally robotic or icy. I was not ready to bawl over something so small. A few minutes later, I had finally recovered somewhat and turned back to truly begin my Pokemon adventure. But my partner saw right through me.
"I'd been waiting for you to cry since Eevee first appeared on the screen," he said, looking at me as if I were the biggest fool in the world. As it turned out I'd been making weird little noises unbeknownst to me since the game first booted up.
Best of 2018 – Getting Our Diploma
I've since finished this Kanto adventure. I've conquered the Elite Four, completed my Pokedex, defeated Blue, Green, and Red, and raised my Eevee to level 100 and even gave her a fresh hairdo with white flowers. At this point, I'm not sure if it's worth trying to beat the remaining Master Trainers, hunting for shiny Pokemon, or even going through this adventure again. And if I did, I'm not convinced I'd want to do it with Eevee as a battle partner.
Despite my deep and undying love for the furball, my Eevee was one of the worst parts of the game in some ways. She was so overpowered that I never felt desperate or in danger. My Eevee is also a bit of a show-off, learning cool abilities that were meant to be mine, making me look like a bit of a useless idiot. But there were plenty of adorable moments throughout the game, like the tail high fives or random gifts, but none hit me quite like those early moments.
Starting a new game would erase everything we've been through and would mean I'd have to meet a brand-new Eevee. I know the animations would play out the same with that same moment of bursting excitement but I don't think I'm up to that yet. For all her overpowered attitude, this Eevee is mine and she loved me right from the beginning. I know she's just a few pixels in a virtual world but she is my Eevee and after all these years, I'm not ready to give that up.
Tags: Game Freak, nintendo, Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu, Pokemon Let's GO!, Pokemon Let's Go! Pikachu and Eevee


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Dems Respond To Trump Speech: GOP Will 'Rip' Health Care From Americans
(Screenshot/whitehouse.gov)
Sarah Hurtubise Reporter
March 01, 2017 8:10 AM ET
In the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's address to Congress Tuesday night, former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear gave a dire warning that Republicans will "rip" health care away from Americans.
Picked to champion the health care law during the GOP effort for repeal, Beshear said that Trump and congressional Republicans "seem determined to rip affordable health insurance away from millions of Americans who most need it." The GOP plan to repeal Obamacare, Beshear said, "would charge families more for fewer benefits and put insurance companies back in control."
"Who are these 22 million Americans, including 500,000 people here in Kentucky, who now have health care that didn't have it before? They aren't aliens from a distant planet," he said. "They're our friends and neighbors."
As governor of Kentucky during Obamacare's implementation, Beshear led the state in creating its own Obamacare exchange and expanded Medicaid. Kentucky's uninsured rate dropped from 20.4 percent in 2013 to 7.8 percent last year, according to a recent Gallup-Healthways survey.
But even Kentucky's experience with Obamacare hasn't been all positive. Current Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has fiercely criticized the health care law, and his opposition was noted by Trump in his address. Bevin won election in 2015 after repeatedly promising to repeal Obamacare.
While the uninsured rate in the state has sharply decreased, the private Obamacare market in Kentucky is struggling more than ever. Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and WellCare exited Kentucky's exchange market at the beginning of this year, leaving Kentuckians in almost half the state's counties with just one option for health coverage.
Humana, based in Louisville, will pull out of all Obamacare exchanges at the end of 2017, ceasing to offer coverage in the nine Kentucky counties where it's currently active.
The state created a health insurance co-op with Obamacare funding, the Kentucky Health Cooperative, but it was unable to stay afloat and shut down in 2016.
In his address Tuesday night, Trump preemptively countered Beshear's speech by citing Bevin's longstanding opposition to Obamacare.
"Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky just said Obamacare is failing in his State — it is unsustainable and collapsing," Trump said. "Obamacare is collapsing — and we must act decisively to protect all Americans. Action is not a choice –- it is a necessity."
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Tags : donald trump matt bevin steve beshear
Sarah Hurtubise


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