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We want to believe we have this talent for judging people and their character right away when in fact we probably put too much stock in first impressions.
We all have friends who claim they knew it all along.
You know, the person who isn't afraid to slap down any hint of peace you've made with a previous chapter in your life, large or small.
Your ex-wife? "I could've told you she wasn't for you the first time I met her."
Your ill-fated move to Cincinnati? "Really, Cincinnati? I'm the one who said don't do it."
That bad meal you just spent $150 on? "What was that arepas thing anyway? I knew that place was going to be bad."
But despite the members of our social circles who take pleasure in telling us they were right and we were wrong, there are plenty of times the storyline goes in the opposite direction: The girlfriend everyone thought was obnoxious? You just celebrated your 20th anniversary, thank you very much. The Cincinnati relocation? Well, the Reds are getting better. The overpriced meal? The service was great and you tried a few new things -- well worth the money.
Keep both in mind the next time you're initially either completely appalled or enamored by someone new.
"We put much too much faith on our first impressions, especially at work," says Joseph Able, a career coach based in Philadelphia. "We want to believe we have this talent for judging people and the quality of their character right away but the truth is, we put way too much stock in our first impressions. They're probably wrong more often than right."
Granted, Able says some first impressions should be acted on, especially if a person makes you feel unsafe. "I tell people that thinking a person is cocky or a loudmouth or too quiet is one thing. Thinking they're a creep is another," he says. "You never have to apologize for not advancing a relationship with someone who makes you uncomfortable."
How and where you meet people can have a lot to do with their initial behavior, says Able, so don't be so quick to judge someone for their initial approach. "If you meet someone in the office who is interviewing for a job and they seem quiet and nervous, you might want to remember why they're there -- to get a job. Of course, they're going to be nervous," he says. "If they were super-confident, you might find that to be a deal-breaker as well."
Lisa Del Moral, a recruiter with a focus on pharmaceutical companies, including Gilead Sciences and Eli Lilly, says miscalculated first impressions are just one of the reasons she's not a fan of group interviews. "You bring a candidate in and he or she faces six or seven people, all of whom bring their own biases and values to the table," Del Moral says. "But the problem is that once the interview ends, people are easily swayed. I've seen a manager who really liked someone acquiesce to her director, who didn't like that particular person because she kept adjusting her hair, which the director saw as unnecessary flirting. I've watched candidates get put out of the running because someone in the room had a negative perception than no one else had. But after a quick conversation, everyone tapped into that same negative impression to remove the person from consideration."
First impressions might be more reliable if people admitted that they're sometimes off-base. "Think of shows you didn't like or bands you hated when they first came out," Able says. "My wife never watched 'Game of Thrones' with me when it first started because she said she hated shows about wizards and dragons. When she finally gave it a chance, I had to sit on watching the most recent season until she caught up. Now she's kind of a nerd about it, sending me theories she finds online. It's too much, actually. I think I liked it better the other way."
Able says people can throw out similar vibes. "Talk to a teacher about naming their kids," he says. "They'll say no to any name that reminds them of a student who caused problems. People have a bias against certain schools or companies, and they use that bias to make a quick decision on someone."
At the very least, making judgments on schools and companies -- however misplaced -- may be based on actual or assumed knowledge. Judgment calls on hair color? Not so much. "I once had someone tell me they didn't like me at first because I had jet-black hair, and they didn't trust people with jet-black hair because they usually played the villains in movies," Del Moral says. "Part of me wanted to tell him that my hair wasn't really that color, that I had been coloring it for 10 years because, in reality, it's a mix of gray and dull black, but I didn't bother.
Del Moral says if it wasn't her hair, it would have been her clothes or her voice. "Most people base their first impressions on things that don't matter," she says. "To have an opinion on someone, you have to get to know a little bit about them."


text:
Dirty Dancing's Johnny and Baby Last Forever (Fight Me!)
Baby and Johnny live happily ever after. Sure, it's easy to write off the events of 1987's beloved Dirty Dancing as a beautiful summer fling set to a kickass 1960s soundtrack — most people do — but I'm here to tell you that they make it. They survive past the credits and the last strains of "The Time of My Life."
The basic plot of the movie involves a privileged, sheltered, college-bound girl, played by Jennifer Grey, falling for Patrick Swayze's blue-collar dance instructor. But like so many romance novels we've devoured and loved, the emotional core is that they connect despite their differences — and they admire each other because of them. I've read summaries that describe Johnny as the worldly one in the relationship — and maybe he is sexually, but in all other ways…? Baby holds the power. Yes, she's wealthy and educated, but she's also fearless and brave and strong in her convictions. She goes after what she wants — and who she wants. That floors Johnny. Ultimately, he's the one seduced, not her.
Johnny: "I've never known anyone like you. You think you can make the world better. Somebody's lost, you find them. Somebody's bleeding—"
Baby: "I go get my daddy. That's really brave, like you said."
Johnny: "That took a lot of guts to go to him! You are not scared of anything."
Baby learns to dance so that Penny can keep her job. She goes to her father for medical help when Penny's back-alley abortion goes wrong. She faces down her family and the Kellermans to exonerate Johnny when he's accused of stealing from guests. Why wouldn't she fight for an HEA with that exact same passion?
Baby: "I hurt my family, you lost your job anyway — I did it for nothing!"
Johnny: "No, not for nothing. Nobody has ever done anything like that for me before."
Baby: "You were right. You can't win no matter what you do."
Johnny: "Listen to me. I don't want to hear that from you. You can."
And I believe she does. Past the summer. Into fall at Mount Holyoke. Baby keeps winning — with Johnny by her side. There is nothing to suggest otherwise. In Baby's opening voiceover, she notes that she met Johnny "before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came." Who's to say they didn't experience those milestones together? That they weren't huddled in front of the TV together, stunned and clutching hands, as Walter Cronkite interrupted As the World Turns? Who's to say they didn't dance to "Something" at their wedding?
Let's face it, we've taken bigger leaps in fiction — and in life. Opposites attracting and then making a marriage work isn't a huge hop. And, of course, there's fanfic that covers all those pesky little skips and jumps that end with Johnny and Baby as a long-term couple. Here are a few that stand out:
A Real Grown-Up Name, by fairy_tale_echo. (Trigger Warning: contains an antisemitic slur.)
Through Every Open Door, by mjules
Waiting Room, by Missy
by any other name, by FreshBrains
Waiting For a Voice to Come, by Arsenic
As far I'm concerned, this is what happens after that fateful, forbidden, fantastic summer at Kellerman's: They make it. They survive. They continue to help people in need. And they keep dancing.
(And, most importantly, they aren't remade into a soulless, money-grab TV movie by ABC.)
Originally published on HeroesandHeartbreakers.com
May 23, 2017 December 6, 2017 MalaUncategorizedH&H posts, movie talk
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
SARStock / Toronto Rocks
Desert Island Songs
"…The Serious Moonlight"
Category: Gay stuff
Posted on August 7, 2019 August 7, 2019 By Marvin Job
"Last Man Dancing"
I've had this article on my hard drive for many years. I can't recall exactly where or when I found the essay but I do know who the author is – it's written by a man named Patrick Runkle. I couldn't find too much about him on the Internet, other than he is a music producer/composer from the U.S. and is a founder of Cohaagen Music. He is also a member of the electropop group Ganymede. Patrick has written this interesting but sad and wistful article about the electronic music scene of the late 70s/early 80s in San Francisco, its effect on gay liberation and culture, and the toll AIDS has taken on many of the performers.
In the dusty back rooms of dance music stores and in cardboard boxes stored in attics all over San Francisco, there are indigenous records in worn sleeves with titles like Menergy, Cruisin' the Streets and Die Hard Lover. These records — like their creators — had short, brilliant, tragic lives.
The names on these records are unknown to most people, even those who follow San Francisco music. To others, the names are fading memories from a dead era. But to a few people, like music lawyer and former nightclub owner Steven Ames Brown, the disco stars who made records in San Francisco during the late '70s and early '80s were friends who died too young.
Brown sits in his Franklin D. Israel-designed modern mansion on Grand View Avenue overlooking the city. "At 49, I'm an elder statesman of San Francisco dance music. It's an eerie feeling," he says.
He pages through Tribal Rites, a book from 1987 by David Diebold containing first-person remembrances of the gay music scene in San Francisco, and finds a picture of himself from 1981 posing with drag queen Sylvester.
"Look, I had brown hair. And I was thin," he says, even though he's currently in incredible shape.
Brown pages through the book some more and then closes it.
"God, all these people are dead."
The cover of Tribal Rites is a collage of faces from the era. The men are buff, young and virile, all with full, perfectly trimmed mustaches and huge smiles. They seem to be frozen forever in the blinding afternoon sun of Castro Street.
"Every night was another party," Brown said. "It was an incredible time to be a jet-setting homo. The music was fun; life was fun. There was someone for everyone to go home with."
"People don't remember why there were thousands of men marching in the gay pride parades. Nobody gave a shit about the political speeches," Brown said. "The music was the glue that brought the community together. It was because people like Sylvester were on the floats that we marched behind them."
Sylvester, San Francisco's first breakout disco star, was a soul singer who enjoyed success in the early '70s as a member of the Bay Area transvestite group the Cockettes. His outrageous performances won him a large local following and a solo contract on the Fantasy label. A series of hit disco tracks followed, including "Dance (Disco Heat)" and "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," both from 1978.
Members of the same nightclub and disco culture from which Sylvester emerged started to see the possibilities for the gay community to produce its own music without the interference of major labels.
"It became possible because of advances in recording technology in the disco era to produce tracks for a lot less money than before," Brown said. "Also, and most important, the music didn't need enormous distribution to be popular."
Brown came to the city in 1974 to study law at Hastings after working as a disc jockey for a Michigan radio station and studying film at USC in Los Angeles.
"I happened to acquire some property in South of Market in one of my first cases here as a lawyer," Brown said. "Because of my experience in the music industry, I decided to open a nightclub. And it did so well that I opened another."
"Disco music had re-invigorated dancing and nightclubs, and the clubs went from being dirty, back-room swill holes to being fun, bright, gay places. After pressing only a few thousand records and playing them in the right clubs, you could have a major hit."
Musicians in San Francisco's gay nightclubs started to make music of their own. Bill Motley was a charismatic but frustrated disc jockey in the Castro who had big dreams.
"Bill was a man whose inside didn't match his outside," Brown said. "On the outside, he was a large, burly guy who looked like the kind of person you wouldn't want to run into in a back alley."
"But on the inside, he was Diana Ross."
Motley's experience was mostly as a lighting consultant for local nightclubs, but his musical intuition was sharp. Although he wanted desperately to be a star, he knew his talent was for production.
His idea was to record a disco version of the Ashford-Simpson soul classics "Remember Me" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." He borrowed money to do it from his friend Victor Swedosh, owner of the Moby Dick bar at 18th & Hartford in the Castro.
Taking inspiration from the Village People, which was essentially a front band for producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, Motley created a fictitious band called The Boys Town Gang to realize his vision.
"Bill found some kids in the city who could sing," Brown said. "He designed a stage show for them, and started recording with them in the studio."
The track that resulted was a 6-minute suite, "Remember Me/Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Motley, Swedosh, and another friend from the Castro, Stan Moriss, formed Moby Dick Records in 1980 to release and distribute the Boys Town Gang recordings.
The first track went out on a 12-inch EP called Cruisin' the Streets, which hit #5 on Billboard's dance music chart and made enough money for the fun to continue.
"Remember Me/Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is a joyous burst of soulful disco that, while not incredibly progressive, shows an incredible ear for production. It was a great answer to all the vapid, soulless corporate disco albums that caused the national 'disco sucks' backlash in 1980.
Elsewhere in the Castro at the same time, Patrick Cowley, a synthesizer player and former nightclub lighting technician, was preparing his first solo release.
Cowley had studied music and synthesizers at City College before landing a spot in Sylvester's band in the late '70s.
"We didn't even know Patrick could play music when we met him," Sylvester recalled before his death in 1988. "He was designing the lighting for some of our shows, and he played us a tape of his music. I asked him to join us."
Patrick Cowley & Sylvester
Indeed, Cowley's unique analog synthesizer flourishes showed up first on Sylvester's Step II album in 1978, and he contributed two songs to Sylvester's Stars album a year later.
But Cowley had personal problems with some members of Sylvester's band, and decided to go solo in 1980. Cowley became friends with the owners of the Automatt studios at 11th & Harrison, and they would let him use the studio during off hours.
"Patrick was a short guy, very passive," Brown recalls. "All he did was make music, get screwed, and do drugs."
Cowley and business partner Marty Blecman, a former disc jockey, put together an album of electronic disco music, heavily influenced by the European synth sounds of Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Giorgio Moroder, which was to feature a title track called "Energy."
"One day, while we were recording," Blecman wrote before his death in 1991, "We got high and I added an 'M' in front of 'Energy,' and we came up with all these completely gay lyrics for it. In the end, that's what we used."
The song "Menergy" was born. The album Menergy, released on the Fusion label, became an international dance smash in early 1981. It went to number one on Billboard's dance charts and set a new high-water mark for electronic music.
The title track owes a great debt to Giorgio Moroder's production of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love." Like Cowley's best work, it makes no apologies for its sexual orientation, but maintains an eye-winking charm, without
being explicitly about sex. "The boys in the back room are lovin' it up / Shootin' off menergy," the joyous female chorus sings. What exactly this menergy is that the boys are shooting off is left to the fertile imagination of the listener.
Moreover, Cowley's electronic arrangements had a fantastic, almost sci-fi quality that tied into the drug-induced club experience of the time.
The success of Menergy allowed Blecman and Cowley to form a company of their own, Megatone Records. In the same way, sales of the Boys Town Gang's first record ensured more recordings from the Moby Dick label.
The two companies were run from Victorian homes in the Castro, and the performing stars that the labels created enjoyed notoriety both in San Francisco and throughout the worldwide cosmopolitan gay community.
"There was a point where you could fly to any city in the world, and the gay bars and nightclubs were playing the same songs." said Brown.
People loved "something which was homegrown. It wasn't marketed to you by faceless corporations. It was the allure of quality music from the community."
"They were producing a cultural commodity, if I can put those two words together," Brown said. "They created a business that was both self-sufficient and gay, an underground economy. This was also around the time that we saw an explosion of gay lawyers serving gay clients, gay doctors serving gay patients, and so on."
In mid-1981, Megatone Records had its first official release, Patrick Cowley's Megatron Man LP, the title track from which was another huge hit for the company.
Meanwhile, Moby Dick put out a Boys Town Gang LP, Disc Charge, as the follow-up to Cruisin' the Streets. That album's disco cover of the Gaudio-Crewe standard "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" was a monstrous worldwide hit.
The parties lit up the city every weekend. Thousands of men converged on dozens of nightclubs to hear the latest tracks and see the stars perform.
But it wasn't to last.
After Megatron Man was released in 1981, Cowley fell ill with a mysterious illness.
The disease, first called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) or the AID Syndrome, would soon put an end to it all. Cowley was among the first victims in San Francisco.
"Patrick was the first person I saw who was really sick," Brown said. "They wheeled him onto the balcony of the Palladium. It was too upsetting to watch."
After fighting the disease for a year, Cowley died on Nov. 12, 1982.
"In the year leading up to his death, Patrick was either in the studio or the hospital," Blecman told the San Francisco Chronicle upon Cowley's death. "He left his legacy on tape."
After Cowley's death, but before panic over AIDS spread throughout the nation, the two Castro-based labels remained profitable.
Megatone released posthumous Cowley-produced material throughout 1983, including vocalist Paul Parker's #1 hit "Right On Target" from his LP Too Much To Dream, and Cowley's reunion with Sylvester, another #1 single, "Do Ya Wanna Funk?"
Moby Dick released another Boys Town Gang album, as well as a huge hit single from vocalist Frank Loverde, "Die Hard Lover," which was a collaboration between Cowley and Motley.
But everyone knew the end was near. "By late '83, HIV had scared everyone out of the nightclubs, especially the straight suburban kids who spent so much money," Brown said. "People thought it might be transmitted through the air."
"After that, they didn't have any hits."
Other problems plagued the fledgling companies. In-fighting among the personalities in the scene over performances, disappearing royalties, and record sales stunted their growth.
"None of these people knew how to run a record company. They created an overhead that they couldn't possibly maintain," Brown said. "They had to pay for marketing, pressing, packaging, administration, everything. When their sales started to slip, it was all over."
"These guys didn't want day jobs, and they were attracted to the allure of show business."
"Their lives were bleak. These guys didn't have any stage presence whatsoever, they couldn't perform," Brown said.
Michael Garrett, a disc jockey from the era and current owner of the CD Record Rack, a Castro district dance music store, remembers a performance from artist Frank Loverde:
"Loverde had a hit record in '82 with 'Die Hard Lover.' There was a show at one of the clubs downtown where he was supposed to perform. He came out on stage and saw all the men in the audience, and he fainted. They had to carry him off, and I don't think his career ever recovered."
The years of the AIDS crisis destroyed the San Francisco disco community. As the artists watched their friends and colleagues die, the music changed.
"The mood was different," Brown said. "It was about mechanical sex."
Moby Dick dissolved soon after Bill Motley left the company in 1984. He retained the rights to the Boys Town Gang, but got sick soon after and died in 1986. Brown was in charge of selling the company's assets.
"The only they had that was worth anything were the Boys Town Gang masters," he said. "I still have those, and I won't part with them."
Megatone sputtered along under Blecman throughout the '80s, releasing regurgitated hits, unremarkable dance music and pathetic aerobics compilations. When Blecman got sick in 1990, Brown brokered the company's sale to a Canadian company, Unidisc.
Patrick Cowley, Marty Blecman and Sylvester share square number 2795 of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Frank Loverde, who died in 1987, is memorialized on square 1791. Bill Motley, who died in 1986, is on square 4152.
"This music was part of a transcendent force of gay liberation," Brown says. "The community has lost the memory of how important this music was. I think these artists won't ever, ever get their due."
Posted on July 25, 2019 December 3, 2019 By Marvin Job
"Dancer From The Dance"
First published in 1978, Dancer From The Dance is Andrew Holleran's highly acclaimed first novel. The title is taken from the last few lines of W.B. Yeats's Among School Children:
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Widely considered a gay classic and must-read, it's been reissued yet again, this time in eBook format. A couple of years ago we did a massive purge of physical books at our house, and this novel was one of the ones that got accidentally tossed. So, with the reissue finally in eBook format, I felt the time was right to re-add it to my collection.
This is the third time in my life I'd read this book. After a re-read, I now remember the mixed feelings I had about it: the novel is extremely intelligent and beautifully written but also depressing and self-loathing (mostly the latter). To over-simplify the plot, the story follows the life of Malone, a physically beautiful man from an upper-class background. Initially Malone does not realize he's gay but has an awakening and eventually comes to terms with his new life. After coming out, he falls in love with a possessive and jealous married Italian man but their relationship sours and they become enemies. Malone then becomes extremely promiscuous, having sex with men of every physical description, and forms a curious friendship with a man called Sutherland (a Queen with a capital Q, if ever there was).
The story is set in New York City and Fire Island in the early-to-mid 1970s, post-Stonewall, long before AIDS became the devastating force that forever changed our world. There is very little plot other than Malone's tortured seeking of love and Sutherland's excessive drug consumption, indulgent lifestyle and solipsism.
It's not an uplifting tale and not a book I'd recommend to a young gay man looking for a positive literary experience. Dancer From The Dance is quite pessimistic and without hope. The lives of the two main characters, especially, lack any spiritual depth; the "dance" of the novel's title becomes a metaphor for the life they lead. The portrayal of gay people is rather stereotypical and for this reason I am lukewarm on this novel; I am very content with being gay and have no remorse or self-pity about it. It may be possible to identify with our hero Malone and his hopes for romance but his gay world differs so massively from mine. The idolatry of youth and beauty leave little option for the novel's characters: they either become the old guy at the club, leave New York City, or go out in a blaze of glory – the characters of this book do all three.
Many of the characters are racist and antisemitic but this is the early 70s after all, well before our current PC status quo. The book is written from the viewpoint of an unnamed narrator.
I never really connected with any of the characters and I think the book's unusual narrative style is one of the reasons. Dancer From The Dance is quite similar in tone, content and era to Larry Kramer's Faggots, and I sometimes get the plot lines of these two novels slightly mixed up because of this.
Dancer From The Dance has been released numerous times over the last 40 years, each reissue having a different cover:
A few years ago it was announced that gay Hollywood directer Alan Poul would direct the film version of the novel. As far as I can tell this film project never came to pass; I can find very little about it on the Internet except that production was slated for the summer of 2016.
I'll close with a few quotes from the novel:
Now of all the bonds between homosexual friends, none was greater than that between friends who danced together. The friend you danced with, when you had no lover, was the most important person in your life; and for people who went without lovers for years, that was all they had.
Try not to be self-conscious or so critical. Don't mope around looking for someone else to make you happy, and remember that the vast majority of homosexuals are looking for a superman to love and find it very difficult to love anyone merely human, which we unfortunately happen to be.
You are doomed to a life that will repeat itself again and again, as do all lives—for lives are static things, readings of already written papers—but whereas some men are fortunate to repeat a good pattern, others have the opposite luck—and you can surely see by now that your life is doomed to this same humiliation, endlessly repeated.
Dancer From The Dance (1978)
Andrew Holleran's other novels are: Nights in Aruba (1983), Ground Zero (essays) (1988), The Beauty of Men (1996), In September, The Light Changes (stories) (1999), Grief: a Novel (2006), Chronicles of a Plague, Revisited: AIDS and Its Aftermath (2008)
Posted on July 17, 2019 July 17, 2019 By Marvin Job
One of the most moving moments in Armistead Maupin's brilliant Tales of the City, is when one of the main characters, Michael, comes out to his mother in a letter. His coming out at this point in the narrative is prompted by the news that his mother has joined Anita Bryant's hateful and anti-gay "Save The Children" campaign, which was launched in the late 1970s.
This is an incredibly moving and inspirational piece which has been recited countless times by gay choruses, actors and those just coming out. Here, then, is the full text of the letter:
Dear Mama:
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write you and Papa I realize I'm not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be OK, if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child.
I have friends who think I'm foolish to write this letter. I hope they're wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who love and trust them less than mine do. I hope especially that you'll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you. I wouldn't have written, I guess, if you hadn't told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant.
I'm sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief — rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes.
No, Mama, I wasn't "recruited." No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, "You're all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You're not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends — all kinds of friends — who don't give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it."
But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don't consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being.
These aren't radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it's all right for you to like me, too.
I know what you must be thinking now. You're asking yourself: What did we do wrong? How did we let this happen? Which one of us made him that way?
I can't answer that, Mama. In the long run, I guess I really don't care. All I know is this: If you and Papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it's the light and the joy of my life.
I know I can't tell you what it is to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not.
It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity. It's not fearing your body, or the pleasures that God made for it. It's not judging your neighbor, except when he's crass or unkind.
Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me the limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength.
It has brought me into the family of man, Mama, and I like it here. I like it.
There's not much else I can say, except that I'm the same Michael you've always known. You just know me better now. I have never consciously done anything to hurt you. I never will.
Please don't feel you have to answer this right away. It's enough for me to know that I no longer have to lie to the people who taught me to value truth.
Mary Ann sends her love.
Everything is fine at 28 Barbary Lane.
Your loving son,
If you'd like to hear this letter being read, I've embedded a couple of outstanding clips below. Ian McKellan and several of the cast from Netflix's Tales of the City are moved to tears by the reading:
TOTC | Letter to Mama Reading | Netflix
More than 30 years after it was published, Armistead Maupin's Letter To Mama is still so powerful that Laura Linney, Ellen Page, and their Tales Of The City co-stars can barely get through reading it without crying
Posted by Netflix on Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Posted on December 19, 2018 July 15, 2019 By Marvin Job
On PrEP
For much of this year I'd been seeing posters in the subway platforms and cars depicting a healthy-looking, hot guy (or guys) staring dreamily into the camera with captions reading I'm on PrEP, or Ask your doctor about PrEP or some such verbiage involving something called "PrEP".
I had no idea exactly what PrEP is, other than it obviously being a product strategically aimed at a gay male audience, so a little Googling was in order.
I found out that PrEP stands for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. Using the brand name Truvada, it is a drug to prevent the contraction of HIV in people who have not yet been exposed to the virus. Taken daily, it is a medication which reportedly reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 92% (ideally, for total prevention against HIV transmission, PrEP should be accompanied with the use of condoms). So, basically, the miracle of modern medicine has given us protection from something as horrific as HIV/AIDS in pill form – at last.
Please don't misunderstand the intentions of this post – I am neither for or against PrEP; to be honest, I'm not sure where I stand on the issue. On the one hand, I marvel how the advances of modern science can at last give us protection against the dreaded disease that has wreaked such devastation on the world. On the other hand, I'm a little shocked at how the advertising/media world imply that if we take PrEP we should throw all caution to the wind and go at it like mad bunnies.
I confess the whole thing makes me slightly uneasy because I remember the past very well. I can't help thinking of those early, awful, fearful, devastating years of AIDS my generation witnessed and lived through. We were the next generation of potential AIDS patients after the initial onslaught claimed men from the fallout of late 70s and early 80s sexual hedonism. My age group became very used to seeing the miles of obituaries – in our bi-weekly Toronto gay rag, Xtra! – of the beautiful, young men we'd see in the Village, taken from us far too early in life. We'd wonder who's next? as we checked ourselves, yet again, for swollen lymph nodes, weight loss or any fresh and mysterious spots on our skin. I remember very well the Act Up! demonstrations and "die-ins" during the Toronto Pride Parades of the 80s and early 90s, the AIDS candlelight vigils and memorials in Cawthra Park (now Barbara Hall Park) just off Church Street, the protest marches and gatherings at Queen's Park where everyone shouted for more AIDS research funding. Over the years I've seen acquaintances and work colleagues succumb to this horrible disease and have felt the fear and loss.
I guess I'm simply old school and still have contagion issues and fears, remembering how history unfolded over the past 30 or so years. I don't know – I guess time will tell how effective these new meds are. If proven effective over the long term, they truly are a marvel of modern science and will change our lives.
By way of Matt Baume's fascinating YouTube channel, where he takes a light-hearted look at issues affecting and involving the LGBT community, we recently discovered the British TV comedy series Vicious.
The primary stars of Vicious are Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi. With a core cast like that, how can you lose? There's not a lot of characters throughout the episodes; the regular cast never goes beyond six members. There are the two central characters Freddie Thornhill (Ian McKellen) and Stuart Bixby (Derek Jacobi), their friend Violet Crosby (brilliantly played by Frances de la Tour) and younger upstairs friend/neighbour Ash Weston (Iwan Rheon). Occasionally we see the mostly-senile but lovable, long-time family friend Penelope (Marcia Warren), and Mason (Philip Voss) as Freddie's acid-tongued brother who is also gay but disapproves of Freddie and Stuart's relationship.
Vicious is very British with its sly insult-humour, a genre the English do especially well. The plot centres around the love-hate relationship of gay male couple Freddie and Stuart (played by our two aforementioned knighted actors) who have been together just shy of fifty years. Each episode's plot also includes their circle of friends – Violet, Ash, Penelope and Mason – each generating their own form of lunacy. The two seasons weave the characters in and out of various hilarious predicaments, ending in Freddie and Stuart's wedding (after fifty years of being together) in the final episode of the second season. This wedding episode is not to be missed.
Only two seasons of Vicious plus a Finale were shot and each season has only six or seven episodes, which is very typical of a British television series. The series premiered in April 2013 but was cancelled by ITV in the U.K. in 2016, with the Finale special airing in December of that year. The series was panned by British critics but, nevertheless, did well during its run. PBS in North America carried the show in 2014 but I'm not sure what the success rate was on this side of the Atlantic. The humour in Vicious does not appeal to everyone, and you have to approach the series with an appreciation of camp, gay humour, comedic put-downs, dark humour and a general love/appreciation of British comedy (which is interpreted somewhat differently by our North American sensibilities).
The series was twice nominated for the GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, while the finale was nominated for Outstanding TV Movie or Limited Series.
If you do find the series somewhere online (i.e. streaming services, YouTube, etc.) and begin watching, my advice is to stick with it through the first season. I found the first two episodes of the first season, especially, just plain mean-spirited and cruel, and I felt quite uncomfortable watching them; I just about gave up on the series at that point but I'm so glad I stayed with it. The script, characters and tone does soften, however, and the series becomes much more enjoyable and hilarious with each episode. By the end of Season One I was howling with laughter! I read somewhere that Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi had a hand in rewriting some of the script and making the dialog a little "softer" and the characters more empathic.
The opening and closing theme is an abridged version of The Communards version of Never Can Say Goodbye (which is on my list of Desert Island Songs by the way); this scored big points with me.
You may love Vicious or you may hate it – everyone's mileage will vary. I'll leave you with a clip of Season One's "Best Of":
Posted on December 1, 2018 July 13, 2019 By Marvin Job
Today Is World AIDS Day
Created in 1988, World AIDS Day takes place on December 1st of each year. The Day is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness.
World AIDS Day is important because it reminds the public and government that HIV has not gone away – there is still a vital need to raise money, increase awareness, fight prejudice and improve education.
Posted on November 27, 2018 July 13, 2019 By Marvin Job
A Guide to the Finer Points of Every Gay Man's Life
I recently found this 90s essay on my hard drive while browsing for inspiration and ideas for new blog posts. I'm not sure where the piece came from and it dates quite badly, but what the heck… here it is anyway.
By a certain age, you should:
Know the three meanings of the word "chicken".
Know something about Anita Bryant, Pierre Trudeau, Harvey Milk, and Svend Robinson.
Have danced all night and shared a sunrise with someone you never want to see again.
Have had a one night stand you really regret, and haven't confessed it to your therapist.
Have tried on some women's clothing and hummed a drag number.
Have tried a designer drug and had a really bad trip.
Have been to fifteen pride days in four different cities.
Know what Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Judy Garland, and Mae West have in common.
Be gracious enough to offer a trick breakfast in the morning.
Know the significance of Stonewall, Bill 167, bathhouse raids and Bill 7.
Know when to hold him, when to walk away, and when to run.
Have stopped giving attitude and being self-absorbed.
Own a piece of original art (not including something given to you by a boyfriend).
Know who Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde and Armistead Maupin are.
Be able to name twelve famous gay people, and fantasize about sleeping with two of them.
Have been to the Gay Games, or the March on Washington, or ten circuit parties.
Have stopped dressing like some sort of clone.
Have tried makeup to cover a skin blemish.
Be able to go out on the town with a skin blemish.
Be able to fix an unplugged drain or be able to afford someone who can.
Have worn pearls or a "pearl necklace".
Know the difference between a "Prince Albert", a cock ring and a guichet.
Know the difference between a Warhol, a Haring and a Lichtenstein.
Have spent a night in one of the following places: police station, park, bus station, casino or hotel lobby.
Know a trick which always gets a laugh from a nephew or friend's kid.
Have become proficient in something other than in your field, excluding card games.
Have participated in a political demonstration and have been roughed up by the police, or lost a shoe.
Have had sex 2,345 times.
And 23 different partners.
Know a short verse or prayer to say in a moment of sadness.
Be able to visit your parents without cutting up the place by pointing out all the tacky things.
Be able to spend a day alone with a parent or sibling and actually enjoy it.
Have stopped pursuing unrequited love.
Have tasted some exotic meat and not commented "it tastes like chicken".
Have made up a toast that rhymes and used it at various parties.
Have experienced a supernatural phenomenon, not including deja vu or losing a sock in the dryer.
Be able to turn on a man without touching him.
Be able to cook one dish you are proud of.
Have stopped saying you spent the night in a bathhouse because you needed a place to sleep.
Have said things to both a partner and a boss that you'll regret for the rest of your life.
Know what the words "shrimping," "spooning" and "rimming" mean.
Have gone home with someone who has a fetish that you sort of enjoyed but are ashamed of.
Be able to catch a mouse and get rid of it.
Have stayed with a friend at a critical moment in life or death.
Have been a good Samaritan without expecting anything in return.
Have been in the newspaper or on the TV or radio.
Have gotten rid of all clothing you owned before you were twenty.
Collect something that you enjoy (other than boyfriends).
Have given up getting drunk and stumbling around, but have four nights in which you can't remember what happened.
Know what the words "bump," "buffed" and "bear" mean.
Be able to admit you enjoy being a bottom without giggling.
Have stopped saying you're versatile when you're not.
Be comfortable about arriving at events or parties alone.
Have lied about your age to pick up.
Have stopped lying about your age to pick up.
Know everything there is to know about safer sex and have told it to a younger friend.
Have stopped voguing on the dance floor.
Know what the words "trade," "troll" and "trick" mean.
Have shaved off all your body hair for fun.
Have had crabs.
Have a straight friend whom you spend time with on a regular basis, whose company you actually enjoy.
Have said at least once: "I understand, but I'm just not ready for a relationship".
Have said at least once: "I can't understand, why are you not ready for a relationship?"
Have deep regrets that that you don't play an instrument.
Have no furniture made of pressboard, crates or bricks.
Have been to Provincetown, Saugatuck, or Fire Island.
Have gone to a movie not intending to pick someone up.
Have picked someone up at a movie.
Have traveled in Europe (not with a tour group).
Have had your heart broken.
Have moved from the city where you were born.
And most importantly,
Come out, come out wherever you are.
Gay Wedding Etiquette
This is soooooo early 90s and it dates badly but it's still kinda amusing:
1) On the day of a gay wedding, it's bad luck for the two grooms to see each other at the gym.
2) Superstition suggests that for good luck the couple should have: Something bold, something flirty, something trashy, something dirty.
3) It's customary at gay and lesbian nuptials for the parents to have an open bar during the entire ceremony.
4) Gay wedding tradition dictates that both grooms refrain from eating any of the wedding cake because it's all carbs and sugar.
5) It's considered bad luck for either of the grooms to have dated the priest.
6) During the first dance, it's considered unlucky to use glowsticks, flags, whistles or hand held lasers.
7) For good luck at the union of a drag queen, the bouquet is always thrown in the face of a hated rival.
8) The reception hall must have a disco ball and at least 1 go-go dancer.
9) The wedding singer is not allowed to play/sing "Let's Hear It For The Boy", "It's Raining Men" or "I Will Survive".
10) The father of the Bottom pays for everything!
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When I was training for the Squamish 50K two years ago, I started listening to podcasts to pass the time on my long training runs. Since I was running trails for 3-plus hours at a fairly slow pace, I wanted something I could focus on instead of how tired I was feeling and how much my feet hurt. Not only did those long runs feel like they went by much faster while listening to podcasts, but also I learned a ton of stuff; everything from what the latest research and trends are in strength and conditioning world to how to start a fitness business to what it's like to go vegan and complete an ultraman.
Unlike last year's annual non-New Year's resolutions post, this year I can actually say I accomplished the three goals I set for myself at the end of last year: get my CSCS designation, get published in a print magazine, and qualify for the Boston Marathon. This is one of the reasons why I love having this blog — I can publicly announce things I want to accomplish and hold myself accountable to them, no matter how lofty they may be.
Want to form healthy habits? Start small. Really small.
I need to work on being present.
Did you know it takes 66 days to form a habit? According to this article from Fast Company, a new habit becomes automatic after performing it every day for 66 days in a row. After that, it becomes part of your routine. Like brushing your teeth or folding your laundry.
The key to making a successful shift, however, is to start small. Really small.


Top off your wine glass... with cosy light!
Are you looking for an original way to illuminate your dining table?
Are you hosting a dinner party? By watching television programmes, you must have learned that it's not only important what you set on the table, but also how your table is decorated. Forget boring candles and use the Wine Glass Lampshades to bathe your table in cosy light.
Every set of Lampshades you order contains 6 different hipster designs. Which will enliven your table tonight, the Zebra, Giraffe, Retro Copacabana, Retro Paulista or the Polkadots? Simply take a wineglass, put a burning tea light in it and place one of these beautiful lampshades over it.


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Baudouin de Forde ou Ford, également connu sous le nom de Baudouin d'Exeter, né vers 1125 et décédé le , est un moine cistercien anglais de l'abbaye de Forde, abbé de son abbaye puis évêque de Worcester et archevêque de Canterbury de 1185 à sa mort.

Biographie
Il est probablement le fils d'Hugues d'Eu, archidiacre de Totnes, et d'une femme inconnue qui devient nonne. Sa parenté avec cet Hugues est plausible, puisqu'il lui succède comme archidiacre de Totnes, et qu'il est désigné dans une charte sous le nom de Baldwin fitz Hugh (en français : Baudouin fils d'Hugues).

Baudouin naît et commence ses études à Exeter. Il étudie probablement la théologie en France, puis suit des cours de droit à Bologne, sous la direction du futur pape Urbain III. En 1150-51, le pape Eugène III le choisit pour être le précepteur de son neveu. Il doit alors avoir aux alentours de 25 ans. En 1155, il revient à Exeter où il est clerc auprès de Robert de Chichester, l'évêque d'Exeter.

Après la mort de son probable père le 23 mai 1162, Bartholomew, le nouvel évêque d'Exeter, le nomme archidiacre de Totnes. Il occupe cette fonction jusque vers 1169.  Il entre alors au monastère cistercien de Forde. Six ans plus tard il en est élu l'abbé.

En 1180 l'abbé Baudouin est nommé évêque de Worcester, puis bientôt (1185), archevêque de Canterbury. Il accompagne le roi Richard Cœur de Lion à la croisade et meurt à Tyr en 1192.

Écrits
Homme de vaste culture Baudouin a laissé seize petits 'traités' - dont un sur le 'Sacrement de l'autel' - sur les sujets qui lui tiennent à cœur. Le plus connu est son traité sur la 'Vie commune' (monastique) qui, d'après sa théologie a sa source dans la communauté de vie des trois personnes de la Trinité.

Article connexe
 Liste des archevêques de Canterbury

Notes et références

Naissance à Exeter
Décès en 1190
Anglo-Normands
Cistercien
Évêque de Worcester
Archevêque de Cantorbéry avant la Réforme
Évêque catholique du XIIe siècle
Personnalité de la troisième croisade

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


About CMC Rescue Web Gear CMC Rescue sewn web products reflect many years of manufacturing experience and designs based on field use, rescues and testing. Lightweight yet durable, our tubular web delivers a high strength-to-weight ratio. Each product is sewn in our own California manufacturing facility with contrasting color thread for ease of inspection. We build CMC Rescue Web Gear as if we were going to use it ourselves – and we do.


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Murkowski, Begich in town to talk healthcare reform
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Both of Alaska's senators want to talk about healthcare with Alaskans about national plans to overhaul the system at a cost that could reach $1 trillion.
It's caused a lot of friction on Capitol Hill and Sens. Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski want to hear what their constituents have to say.
One idea President Barack Obama has proposed would require you to buy into either a private healthcare plan or one from the government.
Preliminary estimates of the plan start at $1 trillion, a figure many Republicans say is way too much.
But Begich says not so fast.
"I don't want to say that it's a trillion or not because there's a lot of opportunity in the future how we're going to pay for this healthcare," he said Friday at a celebration for the completion of a salmon rehabilitation project at Westchester Lagoon.
Begich is holding a town hall at the Loussac Library Saturday at 10:30 a.m. to talk to Alaskans about the future of healthcare and the ideas proposed in Washington.
"There's a lot of ideas," Begich said. "I wouldn't want to say there's a certain plan out there, but there's a lot of ideas out there, no solid plan at this point."
Murkowski held a similar forum Friday with doctors and other providers.
"If it's going to be a trillion-dollar cost I think the American public wants to know they're getting good, quality care, and I think the concern is that we're not convinced we're getting quality care with the proposal that is out there," she said.
Because despite what might sound good in Washington, D.C., Begich and Murkowski say they want to hear what Alaskans think.
By: Jason Lamb


text:
Developmental Psychopathology
a concept tp describe the sequence and timing of particular behaviors and to highlight the known and suspected relationships of behaviors over time
A theoretical position for explaining development that proposes that normal and abnormal developmental changes are abrupt and qualitative. Discontinuity theorists, such as Piaget and Erikson, argue that children pass through developmental stages that are qualitatively different from each other.
Emotional Reactivity
a dimension of emotional processes associated with individual differences in the threshold and intensity of emotional experience
the process by which emotional arousal is redirected, controlled, or modified to facilitate adaptive functioning
The underlying biological changes to genetic structure resulting from environmental factors, such as toxins, diet, stress, and many others.
the study of the causes of disorders. with respect to childhood disorders, this considers how biological, psychological, and environmental processes interact
theory that the behavior of an individual can be most accurately understood in the context of the dynamics of his or her family
area of the brain located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere; responsible for the functions underlying much of our thinking and reasoning abilities, including memory
Gene Environment Interaction (GxE)
complex interplay of nature and nurture to account for genetic and environmental influences and their timing
an approach to the prevention of disease that involves education, public policy, and similar actions to promote health
Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) Axis
A regulatory system of the brain made up of the hypothalamus control center and the pituitary and adrenal glands; it influences a person's response to stress and his or her ability to regulate emotions.
Interdependent
applies to the assumption that abnormal child behavior is determined by both the child and his or her environment and that these two factors are interconnected
The methods of genetics that directly assess the association between variations in DNA sequences and variations in particular traits. More than an association, variations in genetic sequences are thought to cause the variations in the trait(s). These methods offer more direct support for genetic influences on child psychopathology.
The malleable nature of the brain, evidenced throughout the course of development (use-dependent). Although infants are born with basic brain processes, experience leads to anatomical differentiation. That is, certain synapses of the brain are strengthened and stabilized, while others regress and disappear.
Nonshared Environment
A subtype of environmental influences that refers to the environmental factors that produce behavioral differences among siblings living in the same household. this environmental influence can be estimated and is calculated by subtracting the MZ twin correlation from 1.0.
Organization of Development
The assumption that early patterns of adaptation evolve over time and transform into higher-order functions in a structured manner. For instance, infant eye contact and speech sounds evolve and transform into speech and language.
an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates noticeably from the expectations of the individual culture, resulting in clinically significant distress or impairment of functioning
Sensitive Periods
Windows of time during which environmental influences on development (both good and bad) are heightened, thus providing enhanced opportunities to learn.
Shared Environment
A subtype of environmental influences that refers to the environmental factors that produce similarities in developmental outcomes among siblings living in the same household. If siblings are more similar than expected from only their shared genetics, this implies an effect of the environment both siblings share, such as being exposed to marital conflict or poverty, or being parented in a similar manner.
a construct to describe how people think about themselves in relation to others, and how they interpret ambiguous events and solve problems
a theoretical approach to the study of behavior that is interested in both overt behaviors and the role of possible cognitive mediators that may influence such behaviors directly or indirectly
a child's innate reactivity and self regulation with respect to the domains of emotions, activity level, and attention; the childs organized style of behavior that appears early in development, such as fussiness r fearfulness, that shapes the childs approach to his of her environment, and visa versa.
the process by which the subject and environment interact in a dynamic fashion to contribute to the expression of a disorder
MCAT | Mometrix Comprehensive Guide
Mometrix
Child Psychopathology Ch. 2
madgan09
Developmental Psychopathology (Exam 1)
JennaGrace11
Cresendo15
Exam 1: Chapter 1-4 Summaries
Sarrah_Holliday9
Chapter 4-Assessment, Diagnosis, and Treatment
Chapter 3-Research
Chapter 1-Introduction to Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Children and Adolescents


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Q: Perl script is running fine in interactive shell but not as a cron job I have installed dirvish for some backups. I have initialized one vault (host). And now I am using the following script to run it:
#!/bin/sh
/sbin/dirvish-expire --quiet && /sbin/dirvish-runall --quiet
rc=$?
exit $rc

The problem is that I cannot find a way to troubleshoot it more. For some reason the second command dirvish-runall --quiet exits with status 1 when it is run as a cron job. When it is in interactive mode it works fine without any issue.
Can you please help?

A: @TomHunt pointed out the problem in his comment, and deserves credit for the answer. I just wanted to expand on his point so that future cron job issues can be resolved more easily.
My suggestion would be to capture your current (functional) environment and also the cron job script's environment, then compare the two to see what's missing. Remember that cron is started at boot-time and never reads any of your personal shell environment files (~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, or anything else loaded from there).

*

*set | sort > /tmp/set.out

*Temporarily add set | sort > /tmp/cron-set.out to
your cron job's shell script

*diff /tmp/cron-set.out /tmp/set.out

*Find the environment variable(s) that are missing and add them to your cron job's shell script (while removing the temporary set addition from above).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
What's happening in Lake Havasu City, AZ?
Now Playing: The Real Housewives of Atlanta star, Mariah Carey, says she will never forgive her former co-star, Teresa Giudice for their rift Now Playing.
Now Playing New Orleans Saints QB Cam Newton says he never felt comfortable wearing a white turtleneck Now Playing 'Avengers: Infinity War' director Joss Whedon on how he plans to deal with the backlash Now Playing Donald Trump: 'I've done some bad things' Now Playing Trump says he won't release tax returns Now Playing What to know about the Trump administration's health care bill Now Playing Is a 'new beginning' in Syria?
Now Playing President Donald Trump is expected to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak on Thursday Now Playing The Latest on the shooting at the Pulse nightclub Now Playing A new study reveals the most effective way to prevent car crashes is using a blind spot Now Playing US President Donald Trumps tweet is making headlines Now Playing Who was the first African American president?
Now Adding to the growing list of celebrities who have called for Trump's impeachment, The Associated Press is reporting that one woman who accused the president of sexual assault has filed a lawsuit against him.
We're bringing you the details of the allegations.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
In the lawsuit, Jessica Drake alleges that in 2005, Trump groped her in the Oval Office, kissed her on the lips and forcibly performed oral sex on her.
The woman claims she went public with the accusations against Trump after seeing a video in which Trump allegedly groped an older woman in 2003.
Trump has denied the allegations, which were first reported by The Washington Post.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted: "These are lies.
These are fabrications.
These false accusations of sexual misconduct have no merit whatsoever.
The women are liars.
This is a witch hunt."
The AP reported that Drake has filed two other lawsuits against Trump over the same incidents, one of which is pending.
The Associated States attorney in the Southern District of Florida said in a statement Thursday that the complaint filed against Drake is "without merit" and will not be pursued.
A spokesperson for Drake did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The AP report said the lawsuit claims that when Drake complained to her employer, she was told by the person who handled her complaints that she should "just go away and be quiet" and not report the allegations to the office.
The statement added that Drake "felt like she was being told to shut up by a colleague who did not believe her and was trying to get rid of her," according to the AP.
"When she said no, she felt as though her colleague had lost her trust and respect for her," the spokesperson said.
Drake told The Associated News in an interview that she feels "disrespected, attacked and mistreated" by Trump.
"I feel like I'm a pawn in this whole thing, and this is the only way I can get some justice," she said.
The lawsuit also alleges that Drake alleges she was not given her day in court for a deposition in the lawsuit.
Drake has previously said that she was the victim of a hostile work environment at the Trump Organization.
"My case is about retaliation for reporting the misconduct," Drake said in an October interview.
"This is a workplace in which we are not treated with the respect we deserve.
I'm not going to go away quietly and put this behind me.
I will not stop."


text:
ADA Compliance Property Owners
December 8, 2021 Tony (Anthony) Guichard
ADA Compliance – We're grandfathered in or are you
Hi. Welcome to ACR ADA Design and Build where we specialize in ADA construction. Today, we're going to be debunking another myth. This one is critically important because I hear this on a daily basis. My name is Tony Guichard, I'm the founder and principal with ACR. Today with us we have our team member, Jason, who is our CASp inspector. Jason's CASp number again is down in the four hundreds, so that means that he's been doing this for quite a while. In addition to that, Jason is the TSA inspector who inspects concrete ramps and railings, things of that nature for public schools as a TSA inspector which gives him an additional credential. So he's at the top of the list as your CASp inspector which is why he works well for us. We surround ourselves with the highest quality principals that are out there. So today's topic is going to be about the myth of grandfathering.
Clients come to us all the time where they've heard from their CASp inspector and they've heard from their attorneys, "Oh, we're grandfathered in." We don't have to worry about, our building was built in 1940. Well, what I'm finding is that if you read the ADA, ADA says that there is no such thing as grandfathering. And they come in to say, "Well, you know since 1990, the wall was put into place. I think the code took a year to write it or whatever, so it was kind of enforced around '91 and then the lawsuits have erupted." And then, so there really isn't any grandfathering if you pay attention to the intent of the law. The intent is to bring these properties that are open to the public, bring them compliant, get rid of the barriers so that disabled people can navigate in for goods and services that you provide. You know a lot of people think that these lawsuits are frivolous, but a lot of them aren't just… There is a certain percentage that needs to be ADA compliance so that it is accessible for the disabled persons.
Now, that's the ADA side. What I'm finding is that some people, or the CASp inspector, or the attorney always wants to do the best job for their client. So they'll find information, and they'll state this, "Well, the property was built in 1950 and the property was compliant in 1950." And you haven't touched it, no alterations. Then you don't have to do a thing. And then the attorney or the CASp inspector will say, "Well, you could always argue that." But there's the key, how much does it cost to argue? Right? So arguing that particular position could cost you $15,000, and you may not win. You are going to be paying for your attorney fees or you're going to be paying for the other side's attorney fees. So they're more happy that you just keep defending this position and get this thing up to $25,000 to $30,000.
So then you settle, and then all of a sudden you haven't made any corrections. The next law firm that comes to sue you, they don't know what your position is. They filed the lawsuit. Once the lawsuit has been filed, then the negotiation starts again. So very rarely are you going to get out of that second lawsuit without paying something. It could be $5,000 to $10,000 defending that position again when you could have made the corrections. But when the CASp inspector or the attorney happens to say you are compliant in 1950, as long as you haven't touched it, then you don't need to make this. Well, in my opinion, that's still a gray area because here's something to throw at it. Since 1950, have you ever seal coated the parking lot or restrict it? I can guarantee you in 50 or 60 years, that has been done. That triggers an alteration.
So if the property has been altered, you put up a sign, or you've done anything on the interior, that triggers current compliance. So the attorneys that are on the plaintiff side filing these lawsuits can very easily go down to building and safety and check the permit process and say, "Oh, gosh. 1995, you put in new glazing for a front storage." Alteration. I'm not a big fan of claiming that. Again, my opinion, if you're caught up in a lawsuit, become compliant, we'll help you with it all the way through and keep you out of these future losses. But you know, this is kind of a gray area between grandfathering and… You know, some of the positions in California that says, "Well, you were locked in and so-and-so date and no alterations." Where you seeing this realistic out there and feel?
Well, like you said before 1991, there were no accessibility codes. The ADA states in the federal code, a code of regulations, that all businesses, all properties, all title three accommodations, public accommodations must be brought into compliance with the current standards with the… And this was in 1991. So it was brought into compliance with the 1991 standards. Now, you must be brought into compliance with, at minimum, the 2010 ADA standards. But once you trigger an alteration, like you said, now California building code comes into play. So you're dealing with that. There is no grandfather clause with ADA. If there was, none of these lawsuits would ever happen.
Every building. I can't say every building, but 90% of the buildings I've inspected were built to code. When they were built, they were inspected. They were signed off by a civil engineer, by a city inspector, by everybody that needed to sign them off. It doesn't mean that they comply with the current accessibility standards and that's where these lawsuits happen. The lawsuits you'll face are based on current codes, always. And all of this is more than providing accessibility, it's become about avoiding lawsuits. That's what it's become. And so now you've got the serial filers. They know the standards, they know the codes as well as you and I do. And they're going out there and filing based on the current standards and a grandfather clause argument, it just doesn't hold up anymore.
I would agree a hundred percent on that. One of the things that I'm seeing with the serial plaintiffs that are filing these lawsuits, is that it used to be back in the old day that the main allegation would be, you don't have a van accessible parking stall. So now the owners come out and they put in a van accessible parking stall, but the guys who are filing these lawsuits are sharp. I mean, they're current with the code. So once you fix the exterior, then they're hitting you up for "Oh, detectable warning dome." Or they're hitting you up for a curb ramp or a railing, once you fix those, and you're signed off, in my opinion. With a CASp re-inspection that says everything is correct, they're going on the interior. So now these guys are coming up and they're checking the door pressure on your entry doors.
So now you've got the door pressure, you go inside. Do they have an ADA table? Do you have your service counter at the right height? Is your restroom compliant? Now, a lot of clients are being told by some that "Just get rid of your restroom. Put a sign on it that says, "Hey, it's not accessible."" The problem with that is when that restroom or that restaurant was originally built, it went through planning department. Planning department states that in order for you to receive your approved set of plans, you have a restroom. So it's very difficult just to eliminate that restroom when planning department made that a requirement in 1980 or 1970. So you really should go back to planning. And I don't think you'll be successful that they're going to require that that restroom remain. But be very careful where you're getting your guidance because you may satisfy ADA compliance, but you may be treading on building and safety, California Code, and you may be treading on planning department in your specific area.
I recently had a client that attempted to do that in a gas station. And he was told by his attorney just to put a sign up, employees only. Problem with that in his particular area, there was something new to me is that if a gas station is within a quarter of a mile of a freeway, it has to have a restroom. So he came back with that language after he put that sign on there and found that information. So he went through the effort of remodeling his restroom, it was required by planning department. So make sure that when you're traveling down, just ADA compliance, that you're also not treading on planning department, and building and safety because that can throw a whole another red flag. So again, if you're looking for further clarification on this, feel free to call us, send us an email, and see how quickly we get back to you. Thanks for joining.
Tony (Anthony) Guichard
As the CEO & Founder of ACR Concrete & Asphalt Construction, Inc., Anthony personally holds A, B, C-12, C-8 & C-32 licenses with over 35 years experience in the design and construction industry.
ADA Lawsuits – Importance of a quality CASp inspection and report
ADA Compliance – CASp inspectors and conflicts
Accessible Route
ADA Lawsuit Allegations
ADA Myths
ADA Parking Space
ADA Wheelchair Ramp
Bathroom Accessibility
CASp Inspections
CASp inspectors


The thundering rifle of a Trencher Express team means death to even well-protected foes of Cygnar. Each team consists of a human spotter working alongside a burly trollkin soldier wielding the largest hunting rifle ever manufactured, the Raevhan Express. Originally designed to bring down the towering Raevhan buffalo, these powerful weapons punch through heavy armor with ease.


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Сосно́вая у́лица — улица в городе Сестрорецке Курортного района Санкт-Петербурга. Проходит от улицы Андреева до набережной реки Сестры.

Название появилось в начале XX века и связано с тем, что улица проходит среди сосен.

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 № 18 — загородный дом В. П. Олофа (1911—1913; выявленный объект культурного наследия)

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 Улица Андреева
 Уральский переулок
 Набережная реки Сестры

Примечания


Returning to the office after the holidays can be tough, especially if you were traveling to distant locations during the break. To help ease you back into the work week, we're featuring our Nomadic Picnic collection of dishes. We like to think the variety of flavors from around the world will help satisfy your wanderlust—as well as your appetites.
Our Nomadic Picnic dishes are inspired by some of our favorite, and perhaps less celebrated, food destinations around the world. Each lunch comes with a variety of small dishes inspired by the foods you find in each region. They're not exactly the same as what you'd have on vacation in one of these locales, but we hope they transport your tastebuds to a happy place during lunch.
The Levant is generally considered to be an area of the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel. Areas of Northeastern Egypt, Western Iraq and Southern Turkey are sometimes included in this area. It's been the crossroads of the world for millennia, a melting pot of cultures, religions and food.
Saint George Maronite Greek Orthodox Cathedral and the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque in Beirut, Lebanon.
If you're looking for historical architecture and design, the mosques, churches and temples of the region offer amazing stonework, tilework, mosaics and frescoes. It's visual evidence of the continuous migration of peoples in and out of the region. Along with these people came their food. Spices from India and the East were brought here along with olive oil and seafood from the Mediterranean. They've been woven together in a rich tapestry of food unique to the Levant.
Spices for sale at a bazaar in Jerusalem.
The Levant and Mesopotamia are widely considered to be the birthplace of agriculture. Stories of farming and herding in this region go back thousands of years. A visit to the farmlands of the Levant is like stepping back in time. Technology has not changed much about the way the people raise animals and grow food. The warm and semi-arid climate allow for wonderful local produce that make its way to city centers. The term farmer's market here is quite redundant, as the open-air markets in cities like Beirut, Tel-Aviv and Amman overflow with produce from the countryside.
Terraced gardens in the Zarga River Valley near King Talal Dam in Jordan.
In addition to bountiful fruits and vegetables, the Levant is known to be the birthplace of all modern forms of wheat. Because it has such a long history with wheat, bread is a very important part of Levantine cuisine. We typically think of pita when we think of the bread of this region, but Markouk is another popular bread which is unleavened and thinner.
Markouk, a traditional unleavened flatbread, being cooked on a Saj, a type of convex frying pan used to cook pita as well.
If your tastebuds are left wanting to explore the Eastern Mediterranean, order our Picnic in the Levant for lunch! It features marinated lentils, hummus, dairy-free cheese spread, and all-you-can-dip accompaniments of cucumber rounds, carrot sticks, grape tomatoes, and gluten-free crackers.
Like the other larger, metropolitan Japanese cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, Osaka has its own collection of high-end, Michelin-starred restaurants. But in Osaka, what really makes the city an amazing food destination is its street food and fresh seafood.
Osaka is situated on the Osaka Bay, adjacent to the Harima-nada Sea, the Philippine Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Needless to say, the city has access to perhaps the largest variety of seafood on the planet. The seafood is fresh and here its prepared thousands of ways. From simple grilled skewers found in izakayas, to the famous battered octopus balls called takoyaki, to the most pristine and elegant sashimi, it's hard to find a better place for seafood.
Seafood stall at the famous, 170-year old Kuromon Ichiba Market in the Chuo ward.
Dōtonbori—known for it's Blade Runner-esque feel—is the main neighborhood to find great food and nightlife. With its bright neon lights and hoards of people, the energy of this neighborhood makes it a must-see, and the numerous street food stalls make it a must-eat destination.
Dōtonbori in the Namba district of Osaka, at night.
Street foods you must try while in Osaka include the takoyaki, or battered octopus balls, fried and served with brown sauce and Kewpie mayo. Okinomiyaki is a type of savory pancake that can include seafood, pork or mochi, and topped with whatever you desire.
Ramen is another must-have, although it is much more of a fast-food experience than the sit-down style often found in the U.S. For a break from the hustle of the street stalls, check out an izakaya. These pub-like establishments serve yakiniku, which are small pieces of meat or seafood skewered and grilled over wood or coal. You can also find yakiniku and kushikatsu (panko-coated skewers) at street stalls too.
Takoyaki and yakiniku being prepared at a stall in Dotonburi.
Of course, there are other things to do in Osaka, other than eat. You can go to Koshien stadium where the Hanshin Tigers, the pride of Osaka, play for the city's die hard baseball fans. Osaka Castle is another must-see attraction, especially in Autumn or Cherry Blossom season.
Osaka castle in the beginning of Autumn.
If you're feeling inspired by the fresh seafood and convenient street food that make Osaka an amazing food destination, a Picnic in Osaka is a bento box lunch that lets you sample the flavors of the city. This box features a classic Asian noodle salad, shrimp tossed in a miso dressing, edamame pods, sesame-seasoned broccoli, and a square of green tea and yuzu pound cake.
For many who have not traveled in the American Southwest, Tex-Mex may conjure up the idea of heavy, saucy and cheesy mountains of food. If you're anything like us, this is not a bad type of food. We love the saucy cheesy stuff. But this is not the only food to be had in this diverse landscape of New Mexico. Like many great cuisines, the heart of real Tex-Mex is its regional ingredients and the people who use them every day.
The Taos pueblo in northern New Mexico.
Tex-Mex is a relatively young cuisine compared to the well-established culinary cultures of Europe and Asia. The food of the American Southwest combines Native American and European—mainly Spanish—traditions, and continues to be reshaped as new generations help the cuisine evolve.
Native American Zuni tribe playing drums during ceremony in New Mexico.
Tex-Mex started taking shape as a standalone cuisine once Texas became part of the United States in 1845. The food was based on the homecooking of Mexicans living in Texas at the time. Known as Tejano people, they blended their Native American ancestors' mastery of local ingredients, like corn, beans, and chiles, with Spanish cooking techniques and imported items like rice, wheat, and cumin.
San Miguel de Socorro Spanish mission.
As the new Americans of the Southwest started breaking from Mexican traditions, the standard favorites we know today began their rise to popularity. Chile con carne was introduced in the 1880s, the rice and beans combo platter debuted in 1900 and Nacho's Especial (later shortened to Nachos) was invented in Northern Mexico and brought to the U.S. around 1943.
Chile ristras at a market in New Mexico.
As the appreciation for traditional Mexican cuisine grew in the U.S., in the Southwest itself, it's hard to say whether Tex-Mex and Mexican can be separated from one another. For example, Mole Poblano shows up on the same menu as Nachos. It seems that food knows no boundaries, and culinary osmosis will happen regardless of country borders. As long as local ingredients are honored with great recipes and people who care, authenticity will always come through.
Get a dose of the American southwest for lunch today with a Tex-Mex inspired Picnic in Santa Fe. This build-it-yourself lunch box comes with shredded chicken, southwestern bean & corn salad, black bean hummus, and flour tortillas. Oh, and the best part—a spiced Mexican chocolate cake.
The nickname "land of the midnight sun" doesn't conjure up thoughts of scrumptious food right away. But like many places in the world with extreme climates and challenging landscapes, the people of Norway get creative and make amazing food from seemingly very little.
For many years the food of Scandinavia was not well known. We knew of Swedish meatballs thanks to Ikea, the concept of a smorgasbord and various types of cured and smoked fish. The overall impression was of a bland foodscape due to a limiting climate. But over the last couple decades, the cuisine has enjoyed increased notoriety after a 2004 meeting of Scandinavian chefs in Copenhagen rebranded the region's food as New Nordic cuisine. They set out on a mission to elevate the perception of Scandinavian food, celebrating traditional dishes with hyper-local ingredients and modern techniques.
Since then, chefs like Magnus Nilsson of Sweden and Rene Redzepi of Denmark, have been creating uncompromising, modern Nordic food in their Michelin-starred restaurants. For some time, Norway was missing its top chef, but in 2012 Esben Holmboe Bang, and his restaurant Maaemo in Oslo, became the first 3 Michelin-starred restaurant in Norway.
Although New Nordic cuisine has helped to galvanize the pride that Scandanavians have in their food traditions, distinctions between the countries remain. In Norway, a young chef named Christopher Haatuft is breaking away from the pack to work on a new style of "Neo-Fjordic" cuisine that's Norway-centric. He's elevating the traditional staples of Norwegian food, fish and potatoes, with new techniques and borrowed ingredients. Yet even with all the critically-acclaimed haute cuisine, simple, rustic cooking using local ingredients remain most important to Norwegians.
The sidewalk cafe scene in Oslo.
Norway's climate and extremely long winter shape the agriculture dramatically. Seafood is a staple of Norwegian cuisine due to its proximity to the North Sea, Norwegian Sea and the Atlantic.
Smoked fish—a staple of Norwegian cuisine.
During the short summer growing season, the sun is out for 18 hours per day, producing extremely flavorful fruits, vegetables and grains. Rye, potatoes and berries are prized ingredients for Norwegian cuisine. Rye bread and potato salad are close to the hearts of many Norwegians, which is why you can still find these simple dishes in cafes around Oslo.
Indulge in the delicious Norwegian noms of the Picnic in Oslo box for lunch. This bento box features sunflower seed rye bread, smoked salmon, sliced cucumbers, capers, diced red onion, and dill creme fraiche sauce for you to build your perfect bite.
With so many culturally rich cities in Italy, it's hard to make the case that you should go anywhere else besides the epic cities of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan.
But you'd be surprised how some of the most memorable trips happen when you visit those off-the-beaten-path towns. Nothing can be more true in the case of Treviso.
Piazza dei Signori, the main square in the older section of Treviso.
With its picturesque landscape and medieval historic sites, Treviso is the capital city of the province that bears the same name, located Northwest of Venice in the region of Veneto. What it lacks in metropolitan cityscapes, it makes up for in gorgeous, provincial scenery and a romantic vibe. The city is not as popular as its neighbor Venice, but it does have small canals, excellent cafes and a quieter, more relaxed atmosphere.
A small neighborhood canal in Treviso, Veneto, Italy.
Being in the North of Italy, the city enjoys the seafood from the Adriatic Sea, the cheeses of Parma, the balsamic of Modena, the cured meats of Bologna, and the wines and pasta of Tuscany. It even has a type of radicchio that bears its name.
A variety of desserts and Aperol spritz at a cafe in Veneto.
Then there's the Tiramisu, which has recently become a hotly debated dessert. For years, Treviso was known to be the birthplace of Tiramisu, as it was storied that the dessert was created in a restaurant there in the 1970s. In 2017 however, the neighboring region Friuli Venezia Giulia to the Northeast petitioned the Italian government to grant it ownership over Tiramisu. What does that mean, you ask? It's just like how sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France is the only one that can legally be called champagne. Balsamic vinegar is another example that can only be called "authentic" if the grapes were grown, and the balsamic produced, in Modena, Italy. Naples made the same case for pizza and many regions in Europe have been petitioning the EU to grant exclusivity to their indigenous food and drink. It's seen as a way for consumers to easily identify what is truly authentic versus an inspired replica.
Tiramisu is a layered combination of mascarpone, espresso-soaked savoiardi (lady fingers) and cocoa powder.
Regardless of who made it first, Tiramisu is one of those desserts that's typically always tasty, wherever you are. But sitting in a piazza in Treviso, savoring the espresso-soaked pastry and mascarpone, it's hard to say there's any place better for Tiramisu.
Tiramisu, in any piazza in Italy, is awesome.
If your tastebuds want to mangia in Northern Italy for lunch, our Picnic in Treviso box is an assortment of rustic Italian favorites including roasted red onions, peppers, and butternut squash, a pasta salad with roasted tomatoes, garden herbs and parmesan, and a piece of Tiramisu for dessert.


In my book, summer kicks off when roadside corn trucks dot the rolling country roads and flat bed trucks, stacked high with corn, back into stalls of the farmers market. Caught up in the corn frenzy, wispy silks fly through the air and float gently to the ground as people tear back husks to inspect the hidden jewels. Tender, sweet, and fresh enough to eat raw, few things top the arrival of locally grown corn.
By Labor Day, we've tried it all. Boiled, steamed, grilled, creamed, or fried, fresh summer corn kindles memories of cookouts and summer picnics.
Back in the day, my grandmother fried her garden corn.
She'd heap spoonfuls of leftover salty bacon fat in a large cast iron skillet and fry the cut-off kernels until they caramelized and crunched like popcorn. While she creamed a few batches from time to time, boiled whole cobs rarely hit the table. She was the fry queen.
As summer moved along, my grandmother instinctively morphed into her 'depression era' saving mode, canning the remaining bounty of corn for the leaner times. While her straight up canned corn lost its luster after overwintering in the dusty grim cellar, her preserved corn relishes survived bright and piquant.
When my family settled into our own home on the far side of the family farm, my parents took a more modern approach with our garden corn. Bacon fat wasn't invited to the party. Picked fresh from the garden, it was either meticulously shucked and de-silked before a quick steam or cut from the cob, milked, and briefly sauteed. Salt. Pepper. Butter. Corn. Heaven.
During peak season, the endless extra hauls of corn got shucked, cut off, milked, blanched, and frozen. A family history of fresh garden corn. Different generations. Different takes. All fabulous.
Nowadays, I'm all over the place when the corn starts rolling in. I love it bacon-wrapped, chargrilled, boiled, steamed, creamed, pureed, pan fried, sauteed, or souffled, Few things can beat corn pudding, spoonbread, or corn bread made with fresh peak season corn.
I take it one step further and toss whole ears of corn into a deep fryer. The intense heat of the fryer quickly caramelizes the corn while simultaneously steaming the inside of the kernels. Slathered in butter, it takes me back to my grandmother's table, sans the extreme crunch and leftover bacon fat.
I brought 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter to room temperature before adding 1/2 teaspoon white pepper, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice, and 3 tablespoons snipped garden chives.
I set the butter aside and cranked a deep fryer to 350 degrees.
Typically, I fry whole ears of corn. For more manageable smaller corn bites, I cut them down a notch. After shucking and cleaning six ears of Wayne County bi-colored corn, I trimmed the ends before slicing the ears into 1 1/2" discs.
Working in batches, to not overcrowd the deep fryer, I carefully lowered the corn into the hot oil for about 3-4 minutes. When they started to crisp around the edges and caramelize, I tumbled them onto a parchment paper-lined sheet pan, slathered them with the chive-flecked lime butter, and stabbed them with toothpicks before finishing with flaky sea salt, a splash of lime, and additional chives.
Kissed by the hot corn, the lime-infused butter slowly melted through the crevices of the crispy caramelized kernels, puddling underneath for easy dipping and swiping. While the lime countered the rich buttery fat with subtle bright acidity, the snipped chives and salt provided fresh grassy crunch. Dip. Swipe. Repeat.


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You are currently browsing the daily archive for July 6, 2019.
Afghanistan: Where Low Tech Continues to Conquer The Most Advanced Military in the World
July 6, 2019 in International Affairs, Politics | Tags: Afghanistan, Drugs, Heroin Trade, Technology Fail, War | by The Arbourist | Leave a comment
In a uncanny sort of way the slow motion failure of the US war effort in Afghanistan is a testament to the fiercely stubborn nature of our species. The US has total control of the air, real-time satellite imagery, and soldiers equipped with the best (and most expensive) military equipment known to our species. And yet, they continue to fail. The war in Afghanistan is almost two decades old now, and an favourable end for the West is unlikely.
The US, despite its world leadership, seems to learn little from it mistakes. Vietnam remains a powerful lesson and reminder that 'big guns, best tech' military option is not a guarantee of victory. The cost of resisting the US war machine is appalling, some two million(plus) dead, but Vietnam illustrated it is possible to resist. Afghanistan is on a similar course.
This is what happens when a country decides to wage an unpopular war. A disconnect grows between the citizens of the country and the political class that is waging the war. A professional military bears the causalities with little coverage at home, so the war in question can fade out of the public consciousness. Coupled with a lapdog media that should be exposing the tragedy of errors that is the Afghan war, little is said, and the boondoggle can continue.
Alfred McCoy reviews a small slice of the American failure in Afghanistan, focusing on the drug trade, that happens to fuel the Taliban and provide roughly 85% of the world's heroin. You'd think the biggest guns and the brightest minds could plot victory over a dirt poor nation and peasant farmers…
"Not only did this problematic drug war fail to curtail the traffic, but it also alienated the rural residents the government so desperately needed to win over. Worse yet, in the end it actually encouraged illicit opium production — a frequent outcome in Washington's worldwide drug war that I once called "the stimulus of prohibition."
Using sophisticated satellite imagery, Sopko's team, for example, found a troubling disconnect between areas that received development aid from Washington or its allies and those that were subjected to opium eradication programs. In strategic Helmand and Nangarhar provinces, for instance, satellite photographs clearly reveal that the various drug eradication projects ripped through remote areas where "the population was highly dependent on opium poppy for its livelihoods," rendering poor farmers destitute. The development aid was, however, lavished on more accessible, largely drug-free districts near major cities elsewhere in Afghanistan, leaving countless thousands of farmers in critical rural areas angry at the government and susceptible to Taliban recruitment.
Even liberal development alternatives to those rip-up-the-poppies programs, claims Sopko, only served to stimulate opium production in surprising ways. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), for instance, spent $36 million on irrigation for a showcase Food Zone project, meant to promote the growing of legal crops in southern Kandahar Province. As it happened, though, this important infrastructure program actually turned out to contribute "to rising levels of opium poppy cultivation" — an unintended outcome that could be seen in similar "irrigation projects in provinces like Nangarhar, Badakhshan, and Kunar."
Next door to Kandahar in central Helmand Province, another Food Zone program initially helped reduce the opium crop by 60%. But as British agronomist David Mansfield reports, by the spring of 2017 an "unprecedented" proliferation of poppies covered up to 40% of the farmland targeted by that project; guerrillas were back in force; and farmers felt, as one put it, that "the Taliban is better than the government; they don't ban poppy, they just ask for tax." By now, of course, given all the years of bungled anti-drug programs, Mansfield concludes that the Kabul government has little hope of wresting "back control of central Helmand."
USAID programs that emphasized increased wheat production proved similarly counterproductive. "With higher-yielding varieties and improved agricultural technologies," writes Sopko, "households in the well-irrigated central valleys of rural Afghanistan would be able to meet their family wheat requirements with a smaller part of their land," allowing "a larger area… to be allocated to [the] high-value… opium poppy."
An Uncertain Future
Corroborating Sopko's pessimism, a recent report by Mujib Mashal of the New York Times depicted the worsening Afghan drug situation as the product, in part, of Washington's failed policies. Fueled by a booming opium harvest, the Taliban has recently expanded from poppy growing into large-scale heroin production with an estimated 500 labs refining the drug inside Afghanistan — part of a strategy aimed at capturing a greater share of the $60 billion generated globally by the country's drug exports.
Out of the whole opium eradication project, the National Interdiction Unit, an Afghan outfit trained by U.S. Special Forces, is more or less what's left when it comes to hopes for reducing the traffic in drugs. Yet their nighttime helicopter interdiction raids on mobile, readily reconstructed heroin labs are proving futile and their chief, reports Mashal, was recently sacked for "probably leaking information to hostile forces." U.S. military commanders now realize that local Taliban bosses, enriched by the heroin boom, have nothing to gain from further peace negotiations, which remain the only way of ending this endless war.
Meanwhile, the whole question of opium eradication has, according to Mashal, gotten surprisingly "little attention in the Trump administration's new strategy for the Afghan war." It seems that U.S. counter-narcotics officials have come to accept a new reality "with a sense of helplessness" — that the country now supplies 85% of the world's heroin and there's no end to this in sight.
So why has America's ambitious $9 billion counter-narcotics program fallen into failure again and again? When such illegality corrupts a society as thoroughly as opium has Afghanistan, then drug trafficking comes to distort everything — giving even good programs bad outcomes and undoubtedly twisting Trump's headstrong plans for victory into certain defeat.
Think of the never-ending war in Afghanistan as Washington's drug of choice of these last 16 years."