BC CULTURE
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Happy Monday readers, it's Dark Phoenix week! Over the next ten issues, we'll explore what is perhaps Claremont's most celebrated story that depicts the ascension of Jean Grey to the role of Dark Phoenix.

It's UXM #129-130, in which we are introduced to multiple X-mainstays!

 I warned late last week that these threads will include heavy topics, because I find it difficult to adequately discuss the D.P.S. without acknowledging its commentary on agency, sexual violence, & how privilege corrupts.

Please stay safe & mute me until Sunday if you need to!
Our first issue starts off where we left off on the shores of Muir Island following the team's defeat of Proteus!

It's incredible to think that just last issue, the team met their most dangerous opponent yet, but Proteus was only but a primer for what the team will face next.
Our team officially drops from 7 to 6, with Banshee, after many issues depowered following an injury, officially leaving the team to remain with Moira on Muir Island.

Scott's attempts to make up his membership losses are rebuffed not once- but 3 times by Jamie, Alex, & Lorna!
It's almost like Claremont was clearing the decks to make room for some new members on the team...
What feels like a throwaway bubble about Piotr's anguish over killing Proteus, actually sets an important thematic point ahead of the DPS in full.

The X-Men don't kill. Even when faced with a violence, death is not cause for celebration. What would happen if innocents died?
...and speaking of corruption, here's Wyngarde, still pulling Jean's strings and manipulating her already further into darkness.

Many of Wyngarde's manipulations center on reverse-sublimating Jean's dark desires in exchange of her adherence to social norms...
...signaling the inverse of what Freud would have called a mature defense mechanism.

After discovering that widespread sexual abuse of women was behind the trauma response then known as "hysteria", Freud quickly buried his findings and rejected its implications for society...
...all of which is pretty appropriately manifested in the ethos of the Hellfire Club, an group built on patriarchy, privilege, and the depiction of women as tools rather than individuals of agency.

Even Emma (hey queen!) is depicted as subservient, despite the power she wields.
Back on the Blackbird, we're given a moment addressing Scott's recent "just friends" dalliance with Colleen, where a sympathetic and compassionate Jean understands the extent of his trauma and the role it's played in the repression of his emotion.

Sorry, lots of Freud today...
Hey, Chuck is back from space and we're still only on #129!

I think more than any creative team at the time, the X-Office was really interested in the psychology of its characters... which as a social worker has been pretty hard to ignore.
Keeping with today's theme, it's clear here that after spending several months uncomfortably playing second fiddle and consort to his royal lover, Charles is acting, as Kitty might describe, like a jerk.

It's obvious he's projecting his own sense of inadequacy onto Scott...
...making Scott the avatar of his weakness, allowing him to say everything he wants to say to himself to another.

There's also reaction formation. I feel useless, thus I must loudly demonstrate my use to everyone.

You'd hope a psychic might have a better handle on psychology.
And now, the moment anyone familiar with #129 has been waiting for: the introduction of one Ms. Katherine Pryde, already finding ways to be iconic:

1. KISS poster
2. Kermit poster
3. Adolescent existential dread

We love to see it. Welcome Kitty, hope you survive the experience.
Over the next several years, Kitty will become *the* POV character for the book and there will be lots to unpack as we get to know her.

Rereading this reminded me of @GerryDuggan's current Marauders run- and the relationships Kitty will share with these two for years to come.
Two important facets of her identity that will play a major role in her characterization are quickly established:

Kitty is distinctly Jewish- something the team wants us to know as it places visual focus on her Star of David.

And she is a courageous, fierce hero in the making.
Ah yes, safety pins as piercings, what a way to clearly interpret this disco as ~one of those bad places~. Stop being such a square, Scott. Gosh.

(Safety pins are to Manhattan night clubs as smut shops are to Calgary neighborhoods, or something, I guess.)
Hey, it's an overtly Freudian concept again!

Thanks to Wyngarde's psychic interference, the walls of Jean's sublimation are beginning to crumble... forcing her to confront a reality, which frowned upon at the time, is true nonetheless...

...women are also... horny.
Jeez this thread is getting really long.

I mentioned earlier that the Hellfire Club is thematically built on the power of men and the objectification of women, and this exchange between Wyngarde & Shaw really captured that for me...
...Shaw is so privileged that he hasn't even considered others might be more powerful than him.

It's a level of arrogance- and an expectation subverted masterfully by Claremont & co.- that will become his undoing.

Also, this, unrelated to the above point, for your pleasure:
This is the 1st of many disgusting moments where Wyngarde psychically and literally assaults Jean.

The creation of the Black Queen is a really profound moment in looking at dissociation as a trauma response. Victimized, she builds a personality whose sexuality belongs to no man.
Which compared to these panel... is something a vulnerable Jean has done to protect herself as others have failed to do so.

It's subtle, but I noticed this parallel about the idea of using Jean as a tool. Despite his love, Scott still sees Jean as a weapon to be wielded in war.
For a final set of stray thoughts, I wanted to welcome Dazzler to the book and view her as a symbol for the privilege of passing in the mutant metaphor, which stands out against this moment with Kurt, where he describes the professor's anger about his decision to live "out".
It's one of the earliest indicators of the flaws in Xavier's dream. Assimilation requires the abandonment of identity, which for any oppressed people, is a form of erasure and genocide.

Kurt's panel is an argument for the existence of Krakoa, in case you still can't get it.
Did you know there's a max limit to the number of tweets you can post in a thread at once? Evidently it's this many.

In any case, here's another hint toward the true identity of Jason Wyngarde, and a terrible omen of what's to come for the team.

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Piers Robinson
Piers Robinson
@PiersRobinson1
@bellingcat's attempt in their new book, published by
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission. @BloomsburyPub @Tim_Hayward_


1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:

2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660


3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….

4) @bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report:
CULTURE
Kevin Murphy
Kevin Murphy
@kwmurphy
Okay look - I didn’t grow up with comic books. But I read stacks of science fiction digests and I kit-bashed model cars into fantasy rods, and just tried to maintain a low profile until I could get out of the house. So you could say I’m a distant cousin of the comic book fan. /1

And sometimes one’s childhood passion follows them into adulthood, sometimes not, sometimes as an adult one finds a passion they never had as a child and embraces it. For me, that must include getting involved with a puppet show at the age of thirty. /2

So who’s to say whose passion’s legitimate and whose is bogus? Nobody. Someone might indict your passion but they have no ground to stand on and should be dismissed out of hand. /3

Maybe they’re envious that you have a passion, maybe they think that their passion is cooler than yours, or maybe they’re just insecure, who knows. Doesn’t matter. /4

What matters is that if something gives you joy, and in the process doesn’t hurt others, then by all means follow it. It’s how we explore our secret hopes, our shadow sides, our inner character. /5
CULTURE
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christmas cheer liz bruenig
christmas cheer liz br...
@ebruenig
one of the things i like about Batman is that it's fundamentally about being orphaned, and being an orphan — how this guy stays tethered to the world in his own weird, abstract, extrajudicial way when he feels that his link to it has been violently severed

Batman does this by permanently recapitulating his own trauma: solving crimes for other people, protecting them. But that's actually just the beginning; he also recapitulates his own experience of orphanness by essentially raising several orphans

Dick is an orphan in the traditional sense: dead parents. Batman sees it happen. Jason, less so: missing dad, known mom who eventually dies. Tim, even less so: parents are around a while, and involved, before both dying. Carrie, even less than that: negligent parents.

Steph: evil father, who openly works against her. And then there's Damian, whose parents are both alive and yet both have identities that totally obliterate their role as his parents. He doesn't relate to them as a mother and father; he can't, and neither can they.

In all these different cases, Batman tries all these different ways of making orphanness for them not what it was for him: Either by trying to teach them the (arguably poor) coping skills early that he learned over a very long time, or by literally legally adopting them, etc.
CULTURE
Country Universe
Country Universe
@CountryUniverse
A quick primer on the #MorganWallen fallout for country radio:

To those stations that have pulled Wallen's music: You've done more than I expected the country industry to do at all. That matters.

But you have taken only the *first* step here. You do not get to now act as though you've washed your hands of a problem that is bone-deep.

This is, as our friend @AndreaWillWrite has noted, a moment for action. Not for hashtags or vague social media posts about how "this" is "not who we are."

Because you, country radio, know damn good and well that it is who "we" are. And it always has been.

So now you have giant racist sized holes to fill in your playlists.

What you do *not* do right now is fill those holes with other white dudes. Particularly not other white dudes you know are exactly like Chucklefuck McMullet but just haven't been caught on video.

You do *not* fill those holes in your playlist with callow calls for "unity" or bridging a "great divide" that come from white dudes who benefit most from the status quo because you, country radio, protect them at the expense of literally everyone else.
CULTURE
Jerry Daykin
Jerry Daykin
@jdaykin
Time to lift the lid? Can you ‘live tweet’ reading a 6 year old playbook you co-wrote and it not be the be the most boring thing ever? How could something written about social media 6 years ago possibly even be relevant eh?! #StorytellingAtScale


From a creative perspective we could almost stop right here... the biggest challenge in churning out content is that you don’t give yourself the time to make exceptional content that you’d actually want millions of people to see... like your TV ads. #StorytellingAtScale


This doesn’t seem... controversial? But we gave it a whole page because frankly all too often it still is 🤷‍♂️ #StorytellingAtScale


An integrated campaign that brings the same campaign idea (and distinctive assets ideally) to life but in a way that makes sense on social...? Sounds pretty obvious. This was the output of the first ever UK ‘Publishing Garage’ workshop with Facebook & Elvis. #StorytellingAtScale


Ahh yes, perhaps not award winning creativity but let’s acknowledge FB isn’t always the biggest/broadest brand building canvas... practical occasion based (category entry point even?) content and simple reminders or prompts play a big role. #StorytellingAtScale
CULTURE

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Tej Dosa \U0001f602\U0001f9e0
Tej Dosa 😂🧠...
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(A THREAD)

18 Things I Would Do At 18:

I was a dumb 18-year-old. I thought I had the world figured out. I didn't.

I stayed up till the wee hours. Drank every liquor invented.

Partied non-stop. Woke up after noon.

Surfed the web aimlessly.

Read BS self-help.

Repeat.

If I could do it all over again, here's 18 things I would do...

PHASE ONE: GET MY MIND RIGHT

ACTION #1: Break the chains - I wish I made the decision earlier. I didn't. I was scared. Anxious. Nervous. I knew once I made the decision, there was no going back.

Don't be like me.

Make the decision at 18. The decision to pave your own path in life. To go against the herd. To choose your own adventure. To commit to whatever sets your heart on fire.

ACTION #2: Cut off every negative person in your life.

Scroll through the contacts in your phone...

Notice how the names make you feel.

Delete any and all names that fill you with doubt and negativity.

ACTION #3: Condition your mind to embrace the producer mindset instead of the consumer mindset.

Consume 20% of the time. Produce 80% of the time.

Case closed.

ACTION #4: Set an intention to make $10k a month and write it out every MORNING and NIGHT as if you already achieved it (in the past tense).

Visualize yourself already having the money as you write.

Cheesy?

Yes.

Does it work?

Yes.

PHASE TWO: EDUCATION
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Invest Like the Best
Invest Like the Best
@InvestLikeBest
In 1937, a trucker got frustrated waiting for his cargo to be unloaded. He later sold his company for $1.1 billion.

Here’s the story of how Malcom McLean made a billion dollars and which startup could be following in his footsteps. (Inspired by our episode with @laurabehrenswu)


In the early 1950s, the shipping industry was a dying business.

New York’s docks were handling half as much domestic cargo in the early 1950s as they had been in the depressed 1930s.

In thirty years, no one had invested significant money in coastal shipping.

Why?

As McLean found out, loading ships was difficult and slow.

A truck or train would deliver items to the port. Each item was unloaded separately, recorded, and carried to storage.

When a ship was ready, each item was taken from storage, counted again, and hauled on-board.


The cost of this labor was significant. As one expert at the time explained:

“A four-thousand-mile voyage for a shipment might consume 50 percent of its costs in covering just the two ten-mile movements through two ports.”


Yet, despite the industry’s issues, it felt little pressure to change.

Foreigners were barred from operating domestically. Cartels ran international routes. And gov. subsidies eased the pain of labor costs.

Reshaping the industry needed an outsider.

Enter Malcolm McLean.
HISTORY
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Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio García Martíne...
@antoniogm
Observing the public conversation around FB, and the private ones happening among techies and ex-FBers, I think the mutual misunderstanding is worse than when I set out two years (and 500 pages) ago to (in a small way) bridge that gulf.

We're basically fucked.

The tech world has gotten so huge, self-reinforcing, and insulated from reality they can no longer even vaguely look at themselves (and their actions) as others do. They just live on a different planet than most people.

Conversely, the average tech consumer doesn't understand the technology that has slowly taken over their lives, and their designated emissaries to figure it out--politicians, pundits, regulators, journalists--understand it barely better than they do, and have their own agendas.

To say more than generalities for a moment, here's what I think is likely the core problem.

Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.

Most people work inside a legacy industry that's evolved that way over time (usually for good reasons), and they think about the future via some analogy with their present (which is a function of a long-ago past). The interruption that tech will introduce is often hard to grasp.
TECH
Brian Cates
Brian Cates
@drawandstrike
Trump is gonna let the Mueller investigation end all on it's own. It's obvious. All the hysteria of the past 2 weeks about his supposed impending firing of Mueller was a distraction. He was never going to fire Mueller and he's not going to


Mueller's officially end his investigation all on his own and he's gonna say he found no evidence of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election.

Democrats & DNC Media are going to LITERALLY have nothing coherent to say in response to that.

Mueller's team was 100% partisan.

That's why it's brilliant. NOBODY will be able to claim this team of partisan Democrats didn't go the EXTRA 20 MILES looking for ANY evidence they could find of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election

They looked high.

They looked low.

They looked underneath every rock, behind every tree, into every bush.

And they found...NOTHING.

Those saying Mueller will file obstruction charges against Trump: laughable.

What documents did Trump tell the Mueller team it couldn't have? What witnesses were withheld and never interviewed?

THERE WEREN'T ANY.

Mueller got full 100% cooperation as the record will show.
POLITICS
Zena Hitz
Zena Hitz
@zenahitz
I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
CULTURE