Ethiopia Casino Law

We need to kick this recap off with a moment of silence for Sumit’s fandom. We tried, friends. We celebrated this May-December romance like it didn’t have a calendar at all. We hoped Sumit would be a sweet insecure guy with mommy and daddy issues and a slight lying habit, instead of a married man turning a trusting older woman his mistress, after she fully abandons her life. I’m pouring out some liquor for my dead douchebag detector. Fuck you, Summit, for real.
And now, for the actual show!
Paul and Karine are admiring their gorgeous little baby, Pierre, and are trading peaceful promises through the intimate medium of a translator app. Paul still hasn’t bothered to learn any language, and Karine accidentally sloughed off her English skills when a human torpedo rocketed out her body. They agree that it was a good idea for Paul to consume the entire glass of shut the fuck up Karine left out for him, but Karine is worried there won’t be any left for their future. Paul’s response is to unleash his Joker laugh on his defenseless little cub.
“Who do you think he likes more?” Paul is curious about the opinions of a recently released blob of flesh with a still developing cerebral cortex. “I mean, you provide the food, so…”
“Please wrap t-shirt over your face now,” responds Karine, having discovered English anew.
Paul’s mom is coming, and Karine is uneasy about entertaining her in-laws while her stitches are still healing, and worries she’ll be forced to explain why he’s rocking back and forth and talking to himself in the doghouse. But this is Paul’s mom, and none of these things faze her. She arrives heavily bathed in her and Paul’s signature scent, DEET, and greets Karine warmly and tells her that she’s pretty, to which Karine responds, “It’s makeup.” Oh honey, take the compliment.
“You seem like a wonderful mom, and you tolerate Paul, who legally isn’t allowed to re-enter the country, or be within 500 feet of the family home,” Paul’s mom says, and Karine delights in knowing they’re on the same page, and that Mother Paul hasn’t asked her to take a paternity or STD test.
On to Laura, who is wearing capris, the official pant of Florida. She wants to talk to Liam, who has apparently been protective of Laura since she divorced his dad thirteen years ago. Liam is avoiding socializing under the guise of jetlag. When Laura presses him about it, Liam confesses that it “isn’t his style.” It’s not about you, Bratty McBratterson. Put on your four-gallon hat and best airport blanket and go see what a three-day wedding in Qatar looks like.
Liam says that Aladin is just like Laura’s other men. “He won’t let you talk and he’s controlling, in a way that’s different from how I’m controlling and won’t let you talk. Then after awhile you’ll come back and proclaim yourself an independent woman, and who has to pick up the pieces?”
Then Liam offers his best explanation for his angst: that it’s odd watching his mother choose romantic relationships over him over and over again. Molly’s daughter, is that you in there? Blink if this is a Get Out scenario, and I’ll get a camera with a flash.
Laura is upset by what Liam said; not because she’s given it any kind of actual thought, but because it’s going to humiliate her and Aladin. She tells Aladin what’s going on, and he says he’s going to talk to Liam man-to-man, which is a great head’s up that extra popcorn will be required next episode. Laura throws her capris in the fire before they can infect the others, and puts on a beautiful blue dress, to share a cute dance with Aladin and his jubilant friends and family. Sorry Liam, that looks way better than HBO in a hotel room, unless you’ve got a whirlpool tub and heated bed and snack fridge that didn’t make it into the scene.
Then we transition over to Corey, who has a full pass until further notice on account of familial death. He’s in Washington watching his mom take down the Christmas tree. She’s a lot more bathed and a lot less babbling than a lot of us would be in similar circumstances. He talks to his mom about a possible marriage proposal, and she suggests that he go back to Evelin and try. A more selfish mother would have seized the opportunity to insist he stay in Washington with her, but she genuinely wants Corey to be happy. Grieving mom score: 10+.
TLC knows we’re going to need some emotional recovery, so they open the idiot incubation chamber and wipe the crust of disbelief from Tiffani and Ronald’s eyes. They’re driving to a hospital, sharing romantic Tourette’s as a substitute for actual conversation.
“I love you.”
“I love YOU.”
“You’re my favorite.”
“You’re MY favorite.”
“No you hang up first.”
“No YOU!”
Ronald is worried that the public hospitals are too awful to consider as a birthing option, and so he’s busy doing nothing about it. They could always import a midwife and plastic swimming pool for the occasion, which seems a more comfortable option than Karine’s screaming agony marathon, or Libby having to bite a leather strap for Andrei.
Anyway, so the producers must have arrived at this hospital early and slipped the administrator a hundred to scare the living shit out of Tiffani. When the duo walk through the doors, she greets them with the peaceful smile of a well-compensated woman.
“This was a stable years ago, before that fire where all the horses died. It’s a birthing room now,” she begins, slow walking them through every empty, gloomy corridor. “Our rooms are divided by clear plastic sheeting, so you can catch the blood splatter and placenta of your neighbor between contractions. You might not have a doctor, or a bed, but we have this floor, which usually isn’t slippery from spilled entrails. We also have these machines. They’re not plugged in and don’t work, but if you give the homeless man in the waiting area five dollars, he’ll stand behind one and go beep beep beep, if it will make you feel more hospitalized. Unless one of the other stables is using the beeper. Then you have to just die, like the horses.” The hospital administrator winks at the producers, who slip her another 50 for her efforts.
“I didn’t think it was like this anywhere,” says Tiffani, who is still spitting out granules from all those years with her head in the sand. “I’ve never been to an emergency room and never saw that sad Sally Struthers commercial about Ethiopia. I’ve also never seen sleeves on my shoulders, and what is this strange object in my hand that scribbles come out of?”
“A pen?” The producers ask.
“Oh! Is that on the internet? If I put it down will it write back? HELLO PEN CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
Ronald insists that he’ll find the money for a private hospital. I’m glad he said this, because we hadn’t heard the words “gambling addict” this episode yet, so when are people supposed to drink? Tiffani explains that needing money is a really big trigger for Ronald, and I wonder what Tiffani’s world would be like if she worried as much about her child being alone in South Africa as she worries about Ronald crashing into a casino to be chased by vengeful money gods.
Finally, we transition to India, where poor Jenny poses alone. The producers have been on deck for every toilet flush and awkward road barber argument, but somehow they manage to miss a swarm of hostile Indian family members descending on their apartment like a swarm of locusts, before disappearing Sumit. Jenny gives a riveting play-by-play: Sumit got a text message and expressed alarm. He went downstairs, and came back with his father-in-law, who introduced himself to Jenny. Said father-in-law then called other family members, who came rushing down to find him. Jenny then learned that Sumit has been married for two years. The whole family showed up and smashed Sumit’s shrine, and Jenny tried to pull Sumit into the bedroom to hide with her (I’m confused). Sumit’s mother snatched him back and braced to give him the shoe beating of his life, so Jenny bolted for the bedroom alone. They demanded to know if Sumit loves Jenny, and he said he does.
I feel sorry for Jenny, and for Sumit’s legal wife, who didn’t ask to be another person’s curse. To add insult to injury, she gets humiliated on television, since her husband chose to announce his affair with everything shy of a marching band. The whole family left with him, threatening to put him in jail.
Back in the 90DF present, Jenny calls this season’s MVPs, Christina and Jen, to let them know she’s going to need a raft to paddle out of this river of shit. She tells them that Sumit is married, but he doesn’t want to be married and the whole thing was arranged. When did she learn this trivia, if she found out he was married when the FIL arrived? This is not usually the sort of thing you shout when your whole family is slated to arrive and kidnap you. Christina points out that Sumit put Jenny in so much danger, and that he knew getting married was never possible, and still he talked her into coming there. THANK YOU. I’m guessing Sumit’s quiet plan was to tell Jenny the truth and then flee to America, but who knows what he was thinking between earnest-eyed takes. Jenny tells them she doesn’t know what she’s going to do, which means that even with this knowledge, there’s still plenty of time left for additional bad decisions.
Next week, Jihoon’s future inmate status is explored, and Corey announces his return to Evelin, who looks like she’s going to cry not-happy tears. Sumit is in trouble, and describes marriage as “worse than jail” because he’s never seen the inside of an American prison, and Aladin and Liam square off in Battle of the Hats.

HKS Earning Your Keep Chapter 2: Harry

Susan smiled. “Survive. Not, for example, to do anything about this end of the world-”
I rested a hand on Susan’s shoulder as several of the gods turned unpleasant looks towards her. My father took a step forward, his shoulders bunching and muscles standing out like cables, between her and the gods. “A kind offer. Do we have accommodations while we’re here?”
“Of course, my son,” said Zeus, and smiled. “Please, settle in. Enjoy yourselves. There is a feast tonight, in your honor.” He stepped up to my father, and I noticed that Zeus was taller. A moment before, he’d been about as tall as me. Now, he was a couple of inches taller than my dad, and that made me feel just a little bit disturbed. I couldn’t tell whether I’d misjudged his height, or if he’d changed it. He embraced my father in a manly hug, and squeezed him once, quite firmly, before slapping him on the shoulder. “Now, please! Settle in.” He paused for a moment, and then turned towards Megara. “Echidna.”
She drew herself up, her back straight, her eyes meeting his without the slightest trace of hesitation. “Zeus, who marshals the thunderheads.” I couldn’t quite tell whether that was an insult, a compliment, or a careful mix of both. “We meet, at last.”
“We do indeed.” He smiled brilliantly, pearly white teeth flashing at her. “All is forgiven. Please, find yourself welcome here.”
This seemed to catch her entirely off surprise, a single eyebrow arching delicately. “I cannot say I ever expected to hear that from you.” After a long moment, she nodded her head. “But we all of us change in the face of adversity, don’t we? Thank you. I shall strive to be as gracious a guest as I can be.”
There was, at this, a lessening of tension, a subtle lowering of shoulders. It couldn’t have been just that; I wasn’t so absurdly perceptive that I could read a room effortlessly. There had been something in the air, crackling like ozone. A tension that was gone, now that mom had shown she wasn’t angry. The gods dispersed in crowds, save for one who strode forth, a grin on his face. I’d been reading some of my father’s novels on Greek mythology, and had grown confident in being able to identify gods, at least when they wanted to be identified.
I certainly wouldn’t have had to do that for this particular god. Hermes was noticeably nude save for a cape and a cap that reminded me of a World War 1 soldier. I tried not to stare, and in doing so, noticed that both Susan and Isabelle seemed entranced. I gave Isabelle a little nudge, and then aslightly harder one. “Wha?” She looked at me, and flushed red. “I was just…”
“It’s alright, it’s alright, it happens all the time,” said Hermes, a grin on his face. “God of Athleticism and all, comes with the territory. I don’t get to run across the world much anymore, it’s good to know I’ve still got it.”
“He actually looks a lot like Dean,” murmured Susan. Isabelle’s flush grew just a little bit worse. I coughed into my hand, and Hermes did the same, looking- for just a moment- genuinely surprised.
“I believe,” said Harry, “that we could use a guide to our quarters.”
“Of course, brother. Come along.” Hermes gestured, and turned, which seemed to break the hypnotic state that Susan was in. I heard Megara grumble something under her breath, but not loud enough for any of us to catch it. “I must say, it’s thrilling to see you. I’ve spent precious little time in the mortal world for- Well, too damn long, obviously. I…” The god began to walk at a brisk pace, up the side of the hill. “I don’t imagine you’ve heard. But. My great-grand son… Neither of you have happened to see Odysseus, have you?”
Megara let out a soft sound of disconcert. “He’s not here? I’d have expected that if any of the heroes were… I never met him. Never waylaid him.” She shook her head. “I hope he is safe. I always liked him. A hero who never slew monsters.” She chuckled. “Only men.”
“Yes, well, I suppose I can see where that would endear him to you,” said Hermes. “He left. A long time ago. Said he had a mission. I’ve never heard of him visiting one of the cities…” Hermes’ lips twisted into a frown. “I suppose it does no good to worry about him, but-”
“We can hardly help but worry about our kin, particularly when they are so eager to get themselves into a mess, can we?” asked Megara, and there was a certain warm kindness in her voice. Hermes tossed a bright, pearly smile at her.
The trees surrounding us were apple trees. I had grown up in upstate New York. I knew apples. These were not the simple, stunted mortal apple trees. Apple trees in an orchard were, at most, about 15 feet tall, and carefully pruned to keep them manageable. These were great, primeval things, towering over us on either side, growing so thick that they created a dense canopy. Despite that, golden light streamed down between leaves, dappling the ground with pools of warmth, and giving the entire place an ethereal feel. And perhaps most striking was the color. Golden apples, normally, have a yellow-ish color; Something between red and green. These apples were had the lustrous shine of metal. Susan stared up at one of the trees. “Are these safe? They’re not going to cause sudden shame about nudity or doom mankind if we eat them, are they?”
“They’re the Golden Apples,” said my father. “They show up a lot in myth. Greek, Norse, Irish…”
“There’s a reason the island is called Avalon,” said Hermes. “It was said that apples grew here better than anyone else. On an island in the far west of the world the Greeks knew… Sound at all familiar?” He smiled. “It’s always the question, isn’t it? Which came first, the stories, or the reality? The apples are safe. They grant an immunity to age, and disease, to any who eat them. Of course, the mortals who stole them would find that small comfort, considering what the gods would do to them for the theft, but that’s so often the way, isn’t it?” He smiled brightly. “You, however, are guests. Immortality, and health, are what you might call… table stakes.”
“Immortality,” said Susan, frowning dubiously. “Seems like kind of a commitment.” She reached up, and gently tugged on one of the golden apples, hanging low on the branch. With a soft snap, the branch lifted up into the air, leaving the apple in her hands. It was close to the size of her head. “So, you bite into one of these things, and you live forever?”
“Barring accident or misfortune. Sadly, a very limited immortality, particularly in our line of work. But it ensures that your last moments will be glorious- or at the very least, hilarious.” Hermes smiled. “Would you like to try it?”
“Hmm.” She stared at the surface for a long moment. “Nah. Hey, Dean, Isabelle, think fast!”
Susan had a good arm. The apple swished through the air, and my hand came up automatically, at the same time as Isabelle’s. It struck my palm, but would have bounced out if Isabelle hadn’t caught it from the other side. The apple wasn’t quite as heavy as I would have expected from its size, but it had a certain weightiness that was thoroughly metaphorical. Harry frowned over at Hermes. “A panacea? A cure to aging?”
“Yes,” said Hermes, nodding. “You’re thinking, what a wonderful thing it’d be for the humans to have, right?”
Dad crossed his arms. “I’d considered it. I’ve known many good men who could have done a great deal more good, had they survived long enough. There are quite a few humans who are worthy of this sort of thing.”
“It wouldn’t work. Believe me, I agree with you, and I want humans to survive. It’d put that smug bastard Apollo in his place, sure enough, curing all disease. But humans don’t work that way. You give them everything they want, and it just destroys who they are. If every human were immortal, there would be wars over resources; If only a select few were immortal, there’d be even worse wars. Humans have to mature into immortality. You can’t go interfering with them, you can’t just give them what they want. They have to earn it. Otherwise, they won’t ever really have it.”
“Is that why this is the first time I’ve seen any of you?” asked Harry, his voice soft. “You know what my life has been like, I presume.”
“Yeah. I watched. You survived.”
“Because of others. I kept thinking…” My dad was quiet for a moment.
He never talked about growing up. I’d learned a little bit more of the story since I had died and come back, but he’d always held his tongue. I knew that he’d been in Africa, which is where he’d met my birth mother. I remember her telling me stories about the two of them robbing a casino, or a club or a bar, or something- the details were never consistent- and then arriving at the States. Hermes finally spoke. “Why didn’t we help.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it,” said Harry.
“I know. I wanted to help. We all wanted to help. But we can’t. We… tried interfering. Tried getting involved. But we’re only… Well, not human, obviously. But we’re limited in the good that we can do, Harry. You think I didn’t want to help your son, to lead him out of Hades? Even Hades could only do that when he was given the right chance.” He turned towards us. “So. You kids want immortality?”
“I think I need to consider it more,” I said, and Isabelle and I set the apple down on the ground with the reverence that it deserved
Hermes was quiet for another moment as he approached a large, Italian-style villa. It reminded me of the ones we’d seen in Fiesole, standing atop a terrace, great grape vines growing up its sides, the walls immaculate white, the terra cotta roof tiles brilliant in the sun. “And if I may offer some advice… While you are here, try not to talk about Silas Nash. The subject is still a very sore one.”
With that, Hermes gave a brief bow at the door of the Villa, and was then off like a shot, sprinting down the hill with a speed that made it clear that he’d been going quietly mad with the pace of our walk. “What do you think he meant by that?” I asked, softly.
“Nash saved your life. Probably saved the lives of everyone in the city. But he was given power by War, he defied Hades and through him Zeus, and worst of all, he’s strong enough to scare them,” murmured Harry. “You’ll notice that if there’s one thing in myth that worries the gods, its mortals who can stand up to them.”
“He saved my life. He saved your life. He saved literally all of our lives. You’re not going to just let them think that he’s some villain, are you?” I stepped a little bit closer, and tried not to let the heat enter my voice. “You know, sooner or later, that he’s going to come here. And you know, if he does, and they treat him like he’s a monster, things are going to get unbelievably messy. We can’t just let them think that.”
“Of course we can’t,” said Megara, firmly. “We shall simply have to be…” She let a smile run over her lips. “Persuasive.”
A golden plaque was inscribed over the entrance to the villa; Villa diEracle. The five of us split up. The villa was large enough for at least a hundred people to avoid ever seeing each other. I found myself a room, and began to lay out my clothes there. The formal suit and tie seemed strangely silly, in light of what we’d seen the gods wearing, but it’d have to do. I set it out on the bed, and stared down at it for a moment. The first hint I had that someone else was there was when cool hands slid around my shoulders.
“Are you mad at me for staring?” asked Isabelle.
“No.” I smiled. “I mean, how often do you get to see gods nude? It’d probably be a shame if you didn’t peek. I know I’m going to be hoping to meet Aphrodite tonight, rowr.”
She slugged me in the shoulder, and chuckled. “Just be careful, you might run into Artemis instead.” She leaned against my back for a moment. “You’re angry.”
“Not at you, or Susan, or any of them.”
“I know. You’re angry at them.”
I sighed, and felt her arms tighten a little more around my shoulders. She was warm, and her head rested against my back, the scent of her perfume filling the air as she squeezed me a couple of times. “He saved me. You know? I still remember how it looked, when he arrived in the Asphodel, when he told me what happened, when he encouraged me to come back. He was an asshole, but in that kind of way that showed he cared. And he was the one who actually helped. He didn’t have to do any of what he did.”
“He’s frightening, Dean.” Isabelle was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure you know how frightening. I’m not saying it’s right, he was the one who saved us, but… I can understand why he’d scare the people here. He scared me. He scared Susan. He’s… something else. You heard about that attack that they said he was responsible for, on the Secretary of the Treasury, last year. He might have gone bad.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said, and rested a hand on hers. “And I know you don’t, either.”
“No, I don’t. You’re right that he saved us.” Her voice dropped a little. “He saved Susan. She…” She shook her head. “Do you know that she tried to kill herself, on the rooftop?”
“I didn’t,”I murmured, and frowned. “She never told me.”
“She told me about it. She thought it was the only way to make things right, and he stopped her.” Isabelle was quiet for a second. I thought about the day before, when I’d found Susan on the rooftop. “She’s still guilty about what she did. I’ve tried to convince her that it wasn’t her, that it wasn’t her fault, that it was a manipulation. That she’s nothing like that. But…” Isabelle sighed, and sank down onto the bed. “It’s hard to get her to see sense sometimes. You know? She acts so cool about everything, but…” She rubbed at her eyes, and I noticed a little moisture on her fingers. I sat down beside her, and squeezed her gently. “I worry about her.”
“Maybe the two of you should spend a little more time together? I want to keep my father company tonight. The two of you could have an evening to yourself. I…” He frowned. “You know how it is. It can feel a little bit like I’m intruding sometimes, with you two. You’ve been friends for a long time. I don’t mind giving you your space for a bit.”
“I-” She was quiet for a moment, and then smiled. “I don’t think that’s what she needs. I don’t think that’s what I need, either, for that matter. But that might be what Harry needs. This sounds like it’s going to be kind of… tense.” She frowned down at the clothes on the bed. “I wonder if it’s more polite to be shaped like a human, or a snake, while I’m there.”
“Personally, I have always favored my true form. But that may mean something different for you than it does for me.”
The two of us turned. Megara stood in the doorway. She was dressed in a bright jade-green tunic, and her skin was a shade of pale blue, contrasting with the green. Her dark hair hung curled around her face, and her tail was the color of rust. It glittered in sunlight. A delicate skirt hung around her waist, concealing her modesty somewhat, the tail coiled behind her. Isabelle smiled, and bowed her head. “You look very lovely, Mrs. Drakos.”
“Echidna might be best here.” Mom smiled warmly. “And I know that you have been feeling some uncertainties about your body.” She paused for a moment. “In honesty, I do not know precisely how that would feel. I was born as I am; I have never been otherwise. But I know that I have seen it happen in my own children, when they were reborn. The clash between human and monster. The strangeness of the mix of sensations. The uncertainty of which side to embrace. I have seen them make every choice on the spectrum between the two. None of them have made a wrong choice, if you catch my meaning. Whatever you want to be, be it with conviction, and you will be fine.”
“That is… good advice, which I may find difficult to follow, Echidna.”
“Good advice always is. If all we needed to do was follow it, the world would be a simpler place.” She smiled. “Now, if I may. Dean, do you mind talking with your father? He’s in a pacing mood.”
“Oh, heck.” I stood up, and grabbed the clothes. “Yeah. I’ll see if I can help” I moved to step past Megara, and then stopped, halfway through the doorframe. I gave her a peck on the cheek, and squeezed her gently around the shoulders. “And you look great, Mom.”
“Go, go, there’s no need to make your girlfriend jealous,” murmured Megara, but she smiled as she did.
True to her words, dad was pacing in the large master bedroom. He looked over half a dozen ties, picking up one, and then another. “Dean. Your mother sent you here?”
“Yeah.” I looked over the ties. “I’m going to be honest, Dad, you could probably wear a lion skin and get away with it.”
“I should be so lucky as to have a lion skin on hand,” he murmured, checking himself in the mirror. Anything my father wore, no matter how well tailored, looked like it was about to tear apart at the seams if he moved too quickly. He tried the tie again, and again it came out like a mess. “Son, help.”
I stepped in front of him, and began to tie the tie. I frowned. “You’re really worried about this?”
“Just a touch.”
“Dad, you’re one of the greatest heroes of western mythology, finally returning home after conquering a literally millenia-old nemesis. I’m sure that they’re going to be thrilled with you.”
He nodded slowly. “Son… How do you call Megara mom?”
I frowned at that. “I’m… not quite sure what you mean.”
“I still remember Acanit. How do you not feel… disloyal? I know you wouldn’t do it if you thought it meant forgetting your mother. But…” He was quiet for a moment. “The only father I ever knew died, burning. Zeus was not there. He wasn’t there when Acanit died. He wasn’t there when I fought Megara. He hasn’t taken an interest in me for a long time. It’s…” He sighed. “It’s odd that I should ask you for advice on this, but the situation feels familiar. How do you acknowledge someone as family when you think of them as anything but? The man was never there for…” He paused, and looked over at me. “God, son. I was never there for you, was I?”
I squeezed his shoulder. “You were there for me when it really counted. And for mom… for Acanit. You were there for her when it really counted. But you couldn’t be there all the time.”
“I should’ve.”
“That’s not who you were. I was angry at you for that, for a long time. But… What’s the point of getting angry about those things? You were doing what you thought was right, and the fact that you cared was part of what she loved about you. I can be angry about that, or I can understand it, and appreciate it about you. That’s what you have to do with Zeus, I think. Understand him. He’s still the father of the gods. And either he’s someone who can be your father, or he’s not.” I paused. “And if he’s not, we should probably still be respectful.”
“Yes. That certainly adds a certain note of terror to the evening, doesn’t it?” Harry smiled warmly. “Well, we’ll just have to see if we can get through the evening without any faux pas.”
—
“I’m just saying! I’m just saying. I think they should wipe them all out.”
“Ah,” said Harry, delicately. “And who is this, again?”
Ares grunted. A tall, bellicose man, he was olive skinned, and energetic, his dark curly hair hanging around his face, dressed in armor. I wasn’t sure specifically what kind, but it was made of overlapping plates that didn’t look like the armor I’d seen in museums of Greek artifacts. “Whoever. I feel as though it’s fairly universal advice, really.”
“Ah,” said Harry, for lack of something better. I coughed into my hand, and Thor frowned. His shaggy red hair had been cut into something smoother and more stylish, framing his handsome, rough features.
“I don’t know. I mean, without a good agricultural group to raid, you wind up having to grow everything yourself. I think we can all live in peace, provided we have the occasional chance to indulge in a little pillage and slaughter.” Ares rolled his eyes visibly. “What, you disagree?!”
“No, no. I can just see how barbarians would think such things. Do all the fun of pillaging and taking, but when it comes to the hard work of holding…” He sighed. “No wonder your people became a bunch of slack-jawed egalitarian pacifists. When was the last time a Scandinavian nation fought a war of aggression?”
“Oh, yes, and the Italians and the Greeks have certainly been the scourge of the continent,” said Thor, smirking. “What was it? The only colonizing nation to ever lose a war to an African nation. That’s one for the history books, isn’t it? Ethiopia certainly gave you what for.”
“Ah,” said Harry, smiling. “My first wife was from Uganda, actually. Not quite neighbors, but close.” He paused as Thor and Ares looked askance at him.
“You seem different, Heracles,” said Ares.
“He IS different. You used to laugh a bit more. And…” Thor cast an eye towards Megara, and frowned. “Well, I understand how it is, attractive women and all, but… You’re much more into snakes than I remembered. Three of them?”
“Only one’s his,” said Ares. “The other two are with the boy. And someone’s got a taste for exoticism!” The war god roared with laughter, and slapped Dean’s arm with a carefully calculated force; Sufficient to sting, just short of dislocation. “Well, good on you, I say! No conquest like the conquest of love. Just because this soft Norseman’s got a phobia about snakes!” He elbowed Thor with a degree of violence that, when used on any mortal, would likely have crippled them for life, if not killed them outright.
“I think both of you,” said Harry, “should shut your goddamn mouths and think carefully about what you say about my wife.”
There was a very notable silence for several seconds. Then Ares laughed belligerently. “That’s more like it!” He prodded dad once very firmly in the chest. “It’s unsettling to see you acting all quiet and thoughtful! That’s more like the half-brother I know! Care for a drink? The ambrosia’s good tonight.”
“Oy, son,” said Thor, pointing, as Harry accepted the drink. “Looks like your girlfriend is looking for you. Don’t worry, your dad’ll keep for a minute. I want to hear about this story. Sounds like some good old-fashioned questing.”
I turned, and saw Isabelle, standing with a young woman. She smiled, and waved, and I approached the two. The hall was one of the Norse longhouses, smoky fires billowing, great racks of meat and bread and cheese and other foods, and an overabundance of something hideous, slightly bitter, and gelatinous that the older Norse gods attempted to force on others. I’d heard one of them refer to it as ‘lutefisk’, and after obligingly choking down one of the cubes, had sworn to myself to never again attempt to eat it, as it had roughly the consistency and flavor of snot. Instead, I grabbed a leg of some unknown but likely hoofed animal, scooping it onto a handy platter, and carried it over to the two.
The girl turned towards me, and nodded her head politely. “You must be Heracles’ son. I’ve been talking with Isabelle.” She held her hand up, almost reaching it out to shake, before suddenly withdrawing it. “Ah- sorry. My name is…” She paused for a moment, and frowned. “Artemis.”
“Artemis? The goddess?” I looked her up and down. The headphones around her shoulders, the rather punky black shirt and shorts. It appeared she was a fan of the Arch-Senators, too. She looked a bit pale to be Greek, and her hair was a messy, mousy brown. There was a distinct nerd vibe I got from her. “It’s an honor. But, uh, if I can say-”
“I wasn’t Artemis. These guys… a couple of hitmen, they murdered the original Artemis. Turns out that I won the qualifying match to be the new one. I was…” She concentrated, taking a deep breath. “Penelope. That’s the name. God, everyone here calls me Artemis, they treat me like Artemis, it gets really weird.” She frowned. “It’s nice to have new people here. People who don’t have this idea of what I should be. And, sorry about not shaking your hand. I get… weird, when I touch guys. It kind of… hurts.”
“That’s…” I searched for the right words. “That sounds like it sucks.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” She sighed, and then smiled. “But, I’m glad to have new people around here, anyway. And someone who’s my age. Actually my age. Like, even the kids here kind of get to be… timeless, you know?” She smiled. “I was like, 17 when this happened. Only a couple of years ago. I haven’t actually been home since then. Athena brought me here, told me that I wouldn’t be safe out in the wild, and, well, considering what happened to the last Artemis…”
“Does that happen often?” Isabelle asked, her voice kind and gentle, resting a hand on the girl’s shoulder. It seemed that she was able to make contact safely.
“No. Apparently I’m only the second god it’s happened to in, like… a century, at least. It had everyone here really worried for a while, but they say it’s going to be taken care of soon, so…” She shrugged. “They don’t really tell me a whole lot. I don’t know whether that’s personal or not. It’s just a pain in the ass.”
“I’ve been talking a bit with Penelope about my issues. It’s been… reassuring, really.”
“For me, too,” said Penelope, and smiled. “I, uh. If you’d like, tomorrow or something, I could show you a bit more of the island. There’s some interesting stuff. It’s actually about the size of like, Wales or something, though it doesn’t look like it. It gets all weirdly folded up.”
“Yeah,” I said, and smiled. “It’s good to meet you.” Then, I heard a voice from behind me. It was Susan’s.
“Fruit of the poisoned tree, hmmm?”
“Oh, shit,” I murmured, and turned. There, standing across from Athena, with one arm crossed over the other, holding a cup of mead in one hand, was Susan. She had her best ingratiating smile on, her expression warm and pleasant. It was the precise expression she always wore when she was being particularly venomous with someone. I began moving through the crowd.
“It is one of the natural logical progressions. Tainted deeds produce tainted ends. Like an illegal search and seizure, an act must be considered for its origin, its method, and its results; if any of those three are suspect, so too is the deed.”
“You don’t say.”
I elbowed past a Vanr who was setting down another rack of meats and cheeses, trying to accelerate without making it completely obvious.
“Well, it’s something you must consider for the rest of your life. The Horsemen are planners. Even without War’s power, you are perpetually tainted. Every action you take in the future, everything that you might accomplish, everything you might do, may simply be advancing the desires, the ideals, of a creature that is trying to destroy humanity. Your family. Who already has used you once to betray-”
I stepped in. “Begging your pardon, Athena Parthenos. I have someone to introduce Susan to. Begging your pardon-”
“And you, for example,” said Athena, her voice cool, devoid of any heat or passion, as though it was the most reasonable thing in the world, “should have died, along with your girlfriend.”
I froze, already turned away from her, my hands on Susan’s shoulders. Her expression had gone very still. “I apologize,” I said, keeping my tone even, respectful.
“I do not say this to be cruel. It would have been a simple solution to the pin that War created. She used the desire for your life, or the White Snake’s, on everyone. I believe that the young lady even proposed the solution. Making things right. If only that man had not tried to have it all, perhaps the world could have continued on.”
“You think he should have died-” began Susan, heat in her voice. I pulled her physically, shifting myself between her and Athena, and turned to face the woman.
“Why do you feel the need to say that?” I asked, my voice level, calm. I found that despite it all, I was very calm. I had died. I had seen the worst that could happen. And while Athena could be prideful, could do some foolish things, she was being very actively provocative. This was about something else. And it struck me that much like Susan, and Isabelle, and mom, and dad, she had something she needed to say, and she did not know how to say it openly. In that light, she was much less frightening. Still a bit frightening, but I didn’t feel any shaking in my stance as I faced her.
“Because there may come a time when you find yourself making the same choice,” said Athena. “Because of that selfishness, that refusal to let you die, we have been set down a course that will end, almost inevitably, with the death of most humans, and no small number of the gods. This place is a sanctuary. A place to wait out the end. And if the day comes when Silas Nash arrives at this place, I want to be sure you realize the consequences of mindless compassion. Because someone always pays a price for those decisions, those small mercies. A few short years of your lives were traded for the lives of countless billions. That is the weight that is on your shoulders.”
I felt the shudder run through Susan. I took a slow breath. I shouldn’t react. Should stay calm.
“It’s funny, that logic,” said Susan, and her voice was very calm and very clear. “You’ve been following it for a very long time. And you’ve wound up here, the whole city thing falling apart, and terrified that humans are going to finally start kicking you in the head. That’s it, isn’t it? The reason you’re so bothered by Nash. Because he can actually stand up to you, and your behavior for thousands of years was based on the idea that you weren’t responsible for your actions.”
A vein began to throb in Athena’s head, and her fingers rattled out a staccato beat on the shield slung by her side.
“Well, good news, because not everyone is as much of a heartless asshole as you.” Susan narrowed her eyes. “And you’re going to be really glad that people have compassion, someday soon.”
Athena took a step forward, and there was a fluttering of wings. A woman’s hand rested on her shoulder, a dark figure behind her clad in crow feathers. A spear hung loosely from one hand. Her hair was dark. Her eyes were dark. And her skin was pale as Isabelle’s, though their features were otherwise quite different. “Athena. You aren’t being provoked, are you?”
“No, Morrigan,” said Athena, her upper lip twitching once, very slightly. “You are alive now, boy. There is little point dwelling on the past. Not when there is the future to consider.” She turned sharply on her heel, and left at some speed, the dark feathered woman following her.
“What the hell was that about?” I murmured softly to Susan, as the party returned to its former vigor around us. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand where you’re coming from, just-” I let my hands stay on her shoulder, and gave her a squeeze. “You don’t have anything to prove, Susan. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I do,” she said, and then looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. Just… She got to me.”
I rested an arm around her shoulder, and she seemed somewhat warmed by that, pulling my hand down against her throat, pulling in a bit tighter against me as the two of us walked to join Penelope, and Isabelle. Penelope’s eyes were wide. “Are you nuts? You know what she does, right?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m already a deformed monster,” said Susan. “What’s she going to do?”
“I don’t really ask that question. There aren’t a lot of mortals around here, but…” Penelope shivered.
“I’d think it wouldn’t be so frightening to you. You’re their equal, aren’t you?” I asked, and then paused. “Right. They’re not exactly discriminate. I remember reading about a lot of sniping between the gods. They tiff, so one of them murders another’s lover.”
“That kind of thing, yeah.” Penelope sighed. “The Irish aren’t so bad, the Norse are even kind of friendly, but… It’s hard to let my guard down.” She looked at the crowd. “Athena can be… nice. But she can also be scary as hell. I can’t believe you stood up to her like that.”
“Prior experience,” murmured Susan. “God. Uh, I think I need to go be somewhere… else.” I nodded to Isabelle, who took Susan’s arm. “Oh, come on, guys, I don’t need a chaperone.”
“Actually, I was thinking that I wanted to talk with you a bit, with Penelope’s help. Dean, do you want to come along with us?”
“In a minute,” I said. “I need to check on my parents.” I smiled. “I’ll see you three later tonight, alright? Tomorrow, we can have a nice time together.” I gave a warm smile, and drifted away from them. Susan and Isabelle would do alright together. I wanted to let my parents know about the little encounter with Athena sooner, rather than later. I turned, and spotted them at the far end of the hall, talking with Zeus, and someone else.
“Ah, grandson,” said Zeus, smiling magnanimously. “I’m sorry about Athena. She’s been… Well, the only real word for it is bitchy. You understand how it can weigh on her to be cramped here in Avalon. She always dreamt of ambition and success. She’s worried about all of us, and she can occasionally be slightly callous in expressing that concern. If she should give you any more trouble in the future, you have only to mention it. I am still the sky god around here.”
Megara nodded softly. “Thank you. You can understand, it’s something of a shock.” She looked around the room. “In honesty, Zion was always much… closer to humanity, I suppose would be the way to put it. This feels much closer to the old world. I’m not entirely sure whether I find that comforting or odd, but it is good to know.” She paused for a moment. “Hera, mother-in-law-”
Hera raised an eyebrow. “Am I? I can never remember all the genealogies.”
“Through Typhon. At least in a few of the stories.”
“Oh, yes. I think I remember that. Seems like something you might have done,” said Zeus, a light smile on his face, even as he rubbed at his knee. “Certainly felt like your style.”
“Not at the party, dear,” said Hera, a weary expression on her face. “I can take your word for it, Echidna. What can I help with?”
“It’s… something of a personal matter.” Mom gave Harry a smile. “We’ll be back in a bit. Enjoy talking with your father.”
And then it was just the three of us, in an expanding circle of awkward silence.
“Son.”
“Zeus.”
“It would be too much to ask for a Father?” Zeus asked, a little hint of a plea in his voice. My dad was silent. “No. I understand. There is certainly some things to be answered for.”
“I understand… most things. Most of the things that you would’ve had to do. I’ve led men into battle. I understand that you can’t always hold their hands. But the thing that kept coming back to me was Echidna. Surely you knew about what she was doing. Millenia have passed, and there’s been no Hercules. I suppose… Why didn’t you interfere?”
“I…” Zeus sighed. “This may sound callous of me. But it was… a sacrifice, of sorts. She began her vengeance, sometime after Avalon was built. And I realized that she would keep doing it. She was twisted by hatred, and killing her wouldn’t change that. It would drive her further into the grasp of the Horsemen. By allowing her to go about her hunt, it… focused her. She was a monster, but one that could be overcome that way. In honesty… I hoped this would come about. That you would wind up taming her. It meant the lives of many decent men sacrificed. But that is, unfortunately, a frequent consequence of being a god.” His features hardened momentarily. “I won’t apologize for what I did. But I hope that you can recognize the act for what it was: One of faith in you. In your abilities, your compassion, and your nature. And I am glad that you, Harry Constantinou, became my son.” He crossed his arms. “I hope that you will stay here. I know it is not in your nature, but in these uncertain times, it would be a great comfort.”
There was a long quiet period in the conversation, as dad shifted uncomfortably in his jacket. Finally, he sighed. “Hell. That’s a pretty good reasoning. And I can’t say I was there enough for my own son, so I can’t be one to judge.” He gave me a brief, apologetic smile before turning his gaze back to Zeus. “So you’re not bothered by the fact that I’ve married the mate of your nemesis? The one who tore your tendons out, and all of that?”
“Honestly, son, and don’t tell Hera or your wife about this, but I consider it something of a point of pride.” Zeus smiled. “I know I have a few bad habits in my history. But I’m glad to see you putting them to good use. You two are in love?”
“I think so, yes. I hadn’t really expected it, but…”
“Then I feel at least that I did not do the wrong thing. I’m proud of you, son.”
“Thanks.” Harry frowned. “I don’t know if I can call you father. Not quite yet. But… I’m glad that I could meet you, at least.”
And that, it seemed, was sufficient to end the night on a positive note. The two of us made the trip back to the villa, the sun set, the moon slowly rising. It was full, and I got the distinct impression that it was always full in Avalon, casting a silvery light that somehow managed to illuminate as well as the sun had during the day. The villa was quiet as we arrived, and I made my way to my own room. Neither Susan nor Isabelle was there, which made me feel slightly uneasy, but I trusted them to be well wherever they were, and lay down in the bed. It was lonely, without either of them there. I’d grown surprisingly used to having their company most of the time. I closed my eyes, and despite the hollow loneliness, I was asleep in a handful of minutes.
The sound of scales awoke me, the gentle but unmistakable rustle. I opened my eyes, and yawned, blinking. “You okay?”
“Somewhat,” said Megara, her voice soft. She stood in the room. Beside her, Hera stood, tall, imperious, her expression mixed. “I am sorry to disturb you, son. I needed someone along to see me, and… no one else seemed quite appropriate. Do you mind joining me? We will not be long, but it would help a great deal to have you with me.”
I nodded, and rubbed my eyes. I was still dressed in the shirt and tie. “Do you want me to change, or anything?” I briefly looked to the side, at Hera, who was looking more than a little bit nervous. “Is this dangerous?”
“Not quite,” said mom, and she sighed. “I am afraid that this is dangerous only on the emotional level. There are loose ends that need to be tied up. We’re going to Tartarus.”

02-27 22:20 - 'What the fuck is this title even ? / You don't even understand what FATF does, not to mention that you changed the title completely. / They just examine laws and promote a set of standards and rules to stop money laundering...' by /u/ahwhatever11 removed from /r/europe within 2-12min

America’s 11 Most Interesting Mayors

America’s 11 Most Interesting Mayors
by POLITICO MAGAZINE via POLITICO - TOP Stories
URL: http://ift.tt/2sa0c1J
At a time when one yellow-haired, Twitter-happy personality dominates American discourse, it’s easy to forget how much political energy—and important new thinking—emanates not from the nation’s capital but from city hall. We surveyed dozens of national and local political junkies, and came up with 11 leaders who are compelling for the fights they are waging, their personal backstories and how they are transforming their cities, often without Washington. Plus: Seven more to watch.
Eric Garcetti | Los Angeles, California
The mayor who would be president
By Edward-Isaac Dovere
Back in 1984, when he was mayor of San Antonio and a rising star in the Democratic Party, Henry Cisneros got a final-round interview to be Walter Mondale’s presidential running mate. Mondale decided against it: It was a little too much for a local official to make the leap right onto the national stage.
It’s early still, but many top Democrats have started assuming Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will skip that step entirely and run for president himself in 2020. Garcetti has helped fan that speculation, already talking to strategists and big donors about the prospect. And it helps that, as cities step up their resistance to President Donald Trump, Garcetti has been able to jump into the national debate on issues like immigration, health care and infrastructure.
“My main job, and my overwhelming job, starts with my family, my street, my neighborhood and my city,” Garcetti told Politico’s Off Message podcast in May. “But I’m playing too much defense in my backyard to not get involved in the national discussion.”
If Garcetti runs for president, he wouldn’t just make history as a rare sitting mayor to do so. He also has the potential to be the first Hispanic and the first Jewish president. Garcetti is the 46-year-old grandson of an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, and the son of a former L.A. district attorney—Gil Garcetti, of O.J. Simpson trial fame—and a mother whose parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. The mayor can order his bagel and lox, which he loves, in fluent Spanish. He was also a Rhodes Scholar and a Navy Reserve intelligence officer, and likes to tell stories about the time in high school when he traveled to Ethiopia to deliver medical supplies.
As mayor, Garcetti has successfully pushed for tax increases to fund a mass transit plan and more housing for the homeless, and he won a second term this year with 81 percent of the vote. His big project over the next few months is landing the Olympic Games in 2024 or 2028. The choice is expected in September, and Garcetti is putting off any decision about his political future until after that. There’s an open governor’s race in California next year, but people close to Garcetti don’t think that’s where his heart is, especially if he can go straight to a White House run. There’s also the chance of an open Senate seat if Dianne Feinstein retires, but that job doesn’t seem to fit Garcetti’s personality or his experience being the man in charge.
In the meantime, the mayor is firing back hard at Trump, at appearances all over the country, telling people to channel their rage into action—even if he’s also taking a cue from Trump’s “outsider” playbook. Gone are “the old rules of who can run and who should be president or vice president—and that reflects the American people’s desires,” Garcetti says. “They’re not looking for résumé-builders. They’re not looking for a set pathway or a set demographic or a set caricature. They want to go with their gut about somebody who they think has the guts to shake it up.”
Edward-Isaac Dovere is chief Washington correspondent atPolitico.
Hillary Schieve | Reno, Nevada
The re-inventor
By Megan Messerly
Tucked in the desert just east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Reno is best known for its casinos, lax divorce laws and “Reno 911!” But these days it’s also becoming a hub for tech entrepreneurs and companies, pulling coders and data analysts from far more expensive Silicon Valley four hours to the west.
The woman now at the center of this transformation is Hillary Schieve, a 46-year-old political outsider who has her own remarkable transformation story. As a teenager, she was a figure skater elite enough to train with an Olympic-level coach. But she struggled for years before discovering that the fatigue she experienced was brought on by a serious kidney disease. Two years after a transplant—her sister was the donor—Schieve, then 27, was working in the Bay Area when her mother suffered a massive brain aneurysm and fell into a coma. Schieve put her life on hold again, moving home to Reno to care for her mother and become the family’s breadwinner. She had briefly attended Arizona State University, but never returned to college.
After working a few different jobs, the former figure skater without a college degree reinvented herself in 2007 as a small-business owner, opening a secondhand clothing store serving teenagers in a rundown part of the city. That’s where Schieve’s transformation story meets Reno’s. She shot a low-budget commercial to promote the area and lobbied the city to recognize it as a distinct district, now known as Midtown. Today, Midtown is a bustling center with wine bars, breweries, gastropubs and shops.
Schieve never pictured herself in politics. But her personal setbacks gave her a powerful sense of gratitude—“It makes you connect better with others, and I think it’s important really to honestly have a lot of compassion in your life,” she says now—and her work in Midtown convinced her that small-business interests needed a voice on the City Council. In 2014, after two years as a council member, she entered, and won, Reno’s first competitive mayoral race in more than a decade.
As mayor, Schieve hasn’t been immune to challenges. Even as Reno’s economy has boomed and the city’s population has grown by some 20,000 since 2010, it has struggled to promote affordable housing and mental health services, or to fight homelessness—issues Schieve says she is trying to address. In an age of intense partisanship, however, she stands out not just for her up-by-the-bootstraps MO, but because she’s a registered nonpartisan in a purple state, fiscally conservative and socially liberal. A wall in her office is covered in chalkboard material with a to-do list that ranges from cleaning up the blighted downtown to bringing back a gay rodeo that started in Reno in the 1970s. “Everyone likes the taste of beer, right?” Schieve says. “So don’t tell me we can’t find something in common.”
Megan Messerly is a political reporter at the Nevada Independent.
Kevin Faulconer | San Diego, California
The modern GOP executive
By Ethan Epstein
Of America’s 10 largest cities, only one has a Republican chief executive: San Diego, where Mayor Kevin Faulconer is straddling ideological and partisan lines to surprisingly popular effect.
Faulconer became mayor in this border city of 1.4 million during troubled times, after a sexual harassment scandal ousted Democrat Bob Filner. A pension scheme for city employees was also bleeding the budget dry, leading to cutbacks in basic services like library hours and funding for beaches and parks. A city council member at the time, Faulconer campaigned in English and Spanish, pledging to right the city’s financial ship, and easily won a special election.
He has made good on that pledge as mayor, pushing a high-profile legal case that let the city switch new municipal hires from its costly pension system to a 401(k)-style retirement plan. Library hours have been restored, too.
Faulconer has struggled at times with the Democratic city council, which overrode his veto of a bill to raise the minimum wage and provide private-sector workers with guaranteed paid sick days. But given San Diego’s Democratic majority, it’s not surprising that Faulconer, 50, has bucked his own party on several major issues. He speaks often of the city’s integration with its neighbor to the south, saying he views San Diego-Tijuana as “one megaregion,” and pledging that local police officers will not be used to enforce federal immigration laws. He also backed a 2015 plan to curtail San Diego’s emissions, and he has flown a gay pride flag at City Hall. “He approaches things from a pragmatic point of view and doesn’t publicly project his ideology,” says James R. Riffel, a longtime San Diego journalist.
For the most part, Faulconer’s policies have proved popular—he was reelected easily last year—perhaps because, unlike many national Republicans, he tries to eschew ideological labels. He’s quick to say he’s not a liberal. “Fiscal responsibility is a core Republican value,” he points out. But he has no qualms admitting that his conservatism differs from that of the national GOP—not to mention a certain denizen of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
“San Diego is not Washington, D.C., and I’ve done what I can to keep it that way,” Faulconer says. “My approach has always been to keep partisan politics out of governing and focus on what matters most: protecting taxpayers and getting things done for our residents.”
Ethan Epstein is associate editor at the Weekly Standard.
Greg Fischer | Louisville, Kentucky
The data geek
By Katelyn Fossett
At a 2013 conference in San Francisco, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced a new policy in which all his city’s records would be publicly available by default, and delivered a line that married the folksy simplicity of a political slogan with the message of a numbers geek: “It’s data, man.”
Fast-forward nearly four years, and Fischer has carved out just that reputation, defining his tenure in Louisville with high-tech and open-data initiatives that have cut costs and improved public health, as the city has added tens of thousands of jobs. In 2011, shortly after taking office, he named a city “innovation czar.” One result: a partnership with a company that vacuums up data from individual asthma inhalers so health agencies know what really triggers attacks. Fischer also launched LouieStat, a metrics system that in 2012 helped identify problems across municipal agencies—like the cause of 300 monthly inaccuracies in the fingerprinting process at city jails. It was improper staff training, not anything as tricky as software, and after the training was revamped, the number of inaccuracies came down to just 10 in following years.
Fischer, 59, is a Democrat, but in a deep-red state his track record fulfills the most fashionable of Republican beliefs: that a businessman, even with virtually no political experience, can deliver common-sense reforms. A Louisville native, he invented a beverage and ice dispenser and ran the company that made it; later, he started a private investment firm and Louisville’s first business accelerator. His previous life in politics was a single Senate primary, which he lost.
Fischer, who peppers his speech with corporate-sounding phrases like “de-optimizing potential,” entered politics with the same goal he had in business—to “serve as a platform for human potential to flourish.” Although he recognizes that business skills don’t always translate to politics, at a time of sky-high institutional distrust of government, he believes that cities are the best ticket toward earning back public trust, particularly with the help of data and crowd-sourcing. “It emphasizes to people we’re all interconnected,” Fischer says.
Katelyn Fossett is associate editor atPolitico Magazine.
Marty Walsh | Boston, Massachusetts
The union hall progressive
By Lauren Dezenski
Even his fans would concede that Boston Mayor Marty Walsh isn’t usually the most dynamic speaker. But his anger was on full display at a news conference in January. Flanked by dozens of city officials and aides, Walsh railed against Donald Trump’s new travel ban and anti-immigrant rhetoric as “a direct attack on Boston’s people.” Then, he went a step further, offering to house inside City Hall any undocumented immigrants who felt vulnerable.
The picture was striking: A white, blue-collar former union leader from Dorchester, the image of the Irish old guard in a city with troubled race relations, taking one of the most progressive stances on immigration—and making one of the fiercest critiques of the president—of any mayor in the country.
“It was personal,” Walsh, the child of Irish immigrants, said in a recent interview. “I have the opportunity to speak up, to speak against someone. I’m not afraid, and I don’t like bullies.”
A recovering alcoholic and survivor of childhood cancer, Walsh, 50, has always bridged two worlds: the hard-bitten and socially conservative landscape of Boston’s longtime white residents, and contemporary progressive Massachusetts politics. He got his start as the head of a local labor union—one his uncle had run, and for which Walsh had hauled building materials for two years. As a state representative, he was an early advocate for marriage equality. As mayor, an office he has held since 2014, Walsh recently hoisted the transgender flag over Boston’s City Hall Plaza as an anti-transgender “free speech bus” rolled into town.
Walsh admits that “to see a mayor from a blue-collar neighborhood [supporting] transgender rights, progressive policies—it’s a bit of a disconnect.” When he has spoken to union members about social issues, he says, “Sometimes people would look at me [like] I’m crazy.” And for those who object, he says: “What frustrates me about working-class people is: Why focus on social issues, why not just focus on work-rights issues? Be more concerned about your benefits and your health care and pension.”
Conventional wisdom says Walsh will coast to a second term in November—no incumbent mayor in Boston has lost reelection since 1949. But while he remains tight-lipped about higher aspirations, he rejects the “mayor-for-life” approach of his five-term predecessor, raising questions about his future. Last year, Walsh traveled the country supporting Hillary Clinton, and rumors swirled that he could be tapped for a labor role in Washington. But Walsh now says that he wouldn’t have accepted the job before finishing out his first term as mayor.
As for the current president, Walsh says that day to day, “I really don’t make big decisions based on Trump.” But he takes seriously the chance to stand up for Boston: “I’ll continue to do that as long as I’m mayor of the city, or whatever position I have. I did it as a state rep, I did it as a labor leader, I did it as a Little League coach, before I was into any of this stuff.”
Lauren Dezenski is aPoliticoreporter in Boston and author of Massachusetts Playbook.
Michael Hancock | Denver, Colorado
The cool-headed change agent
By Caleb Hannan
The day after Donald Trump was elected president, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock did something he almost never does: He left work early. He had stumped for Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama before her, and was so shocked by Trump’s win that he left shortly after lunch, only the second time he had done so in more than five years in office.
“I had to breathe a little bit and collect my thoughts,” he recalled recently.
Hancock hasn’t skipped a day since. Coming to grips with the shock of a Trump presidency didn’t take him long, a calm response befitting a low-key leader who has moved beyond his turbulent past and faces daily the growing pains associated with a boom city.
Being mayor has been Hancock’s dream ever since he decided, at age 15, that he wanted to be the first African American to lead Denver, whose population is only about 10 percent black. (Wellington Webb would beat him to that goal in the 1990s.) And Hancock’s path was far from clear. He had the kind of childhood that can be an asset only after it has been overcome: an alcoholic father; a brother who died of AIDS; a sister who was murdered by a domestic abuser. Before getting to the mayor’s office, Hancock spent a season as the Broncos’ then-mascot, “Huddles,” two terms as a City Council member, and then defeated the son of a former governor in his first mayor’s race in 2011. When he ran again four years later, he was virtually unopposed.
Perhaps because Hancock, 47, already has his dream job—he’s begun raising money for a second reelection campaign—he wields his powerful personal story with some subtlety. This spring, he created a new office designed to improve affordable housing options for low-income residents without dwelling on the fact that he and his nine siblings were often homeless.
That deft touch has come in handy as Denver has navigated hot-button issues like marijuana legalization. Hancock opposed the amendment that made weed legal in Colorado but worked hard to smooth the transition once voters overruled him.
Because of its progressive stances on a number of issues, Denver also holds, perhaps even more so than other cities, the potential for conflict with the Trump administration. But Hancock has navigated the new national politics with his signature understatement. A week after the election, he posted a two-minute video on his YouTube page meant to reassure Denver residents, but never mentioned Trump’s name.
Then, when the president issued an executive order threatening to withhold federal funds for so-called sanctuary cities, Hancock once again reacted without being reactionary. His response was to spend months lobbying to change local laws, rather than making confrontational speeches. And this spring, in a move that earned applause from the Denver Post, Hancock signed a series of sentencing reforms that reduce penalties for low-level violations in the city—minor crimes that in the past would have set off alarms at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and possibly resulted in deportation.
“It’s easy to be emotional ... and to do things because it looks good politically,” Hancock says. “But if you’re not doing things that are going to protect and help your residents, then what’s the point?”
Caleb Hannan is a writer in Denver.
Jennifer Roberts | Charlotte, North Carolina
The embattled activist
By Greg Lacour
If there’s an embodiment of a mayor whose political challenges have taken on national import, it’s Jennifer Roberts.
The Charlotte mayor, a Democrat, flashed onto the national radar by facing down the Republican state legislature over House Bill 2, the 2016 state law that overturned a city ordinance protecting gay and transgender people. On September 19, having rejected a proposed deal to repeal the ordinance in exchange for possible repeal of HB2, Roberts walked into a City Council meeting to a powerful round of applause from members of the local LGBTQ community.
One week later, she returned to the chamber for another council meeting and faced a crowd with a very different message.
“Shut your goddamn mouth.”
“You should not be in office at all.”
“Fuck all y’all.”
The speakers were members of Charlotte’s black community, infuriated and terrified after the fatal police shooting of Keith Scott, a black man, on September 20. Roberts seemed at a loss. The night after the Scott shooting, she waited until a riot at the center of the city had left a man dead before signing a state of emergency proclamation that allowed the governor to send in the National Guard. She urged patience with the investigation, then wrote an op-ed criticizing the police department for not immediately releasing footage of the incident.
A former diplomat, Roberts, 57, was elected in 2015 with broad backing among disparate constituencies. But her ironclad support for the nondiscrimination ordinance and missteps after the Scott shooting have turned her, improbably, into a polarizing figure as she seeks reelection this year. She is struggling to manage HB2’s economic damage and a hostile legislature that blames her for it, and a perception among some in the black community that she will work for their votes but not their well-being. Roberts has two challengers in this year’s Democratic mayoral primary, both of whom are African-American, and in May, the local Black Political Caucus endorsed placed her in a distant third in an internal caucus vote—although a poll in late June showed her leading both of her primary challengers.
“Mayor Roberts does not have a consistent application of attentiveness with the African-American community and the Black Political Caucus like she does with the LGBTQ community,” says caucus Chair Colette Forrest. “We as African Americans have not seen that consistency on our issues, such as housing, crime and safety, economic development and transportation.”
Roberts says, with justification, that she has urged city action on all of those issues. But many Charlotteans, she says, fail to grasp how little formal power she has as mayor, since the city council sets policy in Charlotte and the city manager handles day-to-day operations. “I can’t really legislate or govern,” Roberts says—which puts all the more pressure on what she says and how she acts in the face of both local and state-level opposition.
“I don’t really think of myself as a politician. I’m an advocate,” Roberts says. “The civil rights movement needed white people. The LGBT community needs straight people. I want to be there when people are fighting for equality.”
Greg Lacour is a writer in Charlotte and contributing editor at Charlotte Magazine.
Tomás Regalado | Miami, Florida
The Republican resister
By Marc Caputo
The Argentinian real estate investor had a question that Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado hated hearing. “I’m investing in Miami. But I want to ask you if I should be concerned that I would never be able to go. … All these Trump laws could impede me and my family.”
This was one of the mayor’s fears during the 2016 election—that Donald Trump’s rhetoric could spook the foreign investors who are essential to Miami’s booming economy. Miami is both a big U.S. city and Latin America’s northernmost metropolis, and keeping its status as the latter requires Regalado to calm the nerves of jittery investors up and down the hemisphere.
Few major U.S. cities have as many reasons to fret about a Trump presidency. It’s not just that Miami has one of the country’s highest proportions of foreign-born residents and relies heavily on foreign investment. It is also among the cities most threatened by rising sea levels, at a time when Trump has labeled climate change a hoax and is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.
That means that, at age 70, Regalado has fashioned himself as one of the most caustic voices of the so-called anti-Trump “resistance,” and from within the president’s own party—both men are Republicans.
For Regalado, opposition to Trump is almost personal. He was born overseas, in Cuba, one of the last of the old-school anti-Castro exiles who helped turn Miami into a Spanish-language mecca more culturally attuned to Havana than Fort Lauderdale. And he empathizes with the flood of immigrants and refugees, particularly from Latin America and the Caribbean, who populate Miami’s metropolitan area. At 14, Regalado was one of 14,000 Cuban children spirited off the island and settled in the United States without their parents. His father, a lawyer and journalist, was jailed by Fidel Castro for two decades.
Regalado went into journalism too, starting out in radio and local TV, before covering the White House. He traveled the world and says he was among the last foreign reporters to interview Egyptian strongman Anwar Sadat. In 1996, he parlayed his name ID into his first political bid, on the city commission, and won the first of his two mayoral terms in 2009. (His daughter is now a congressional candidate in Florida; one of his sons is running for city commission.)
Despite his calm demeanor, Regalado grows animated when discussing Trump. The administration, for instance, recently extended temporary protective status to more than 58,000 Haitians who fled the country’s 2010 earthquake—but only for six more months. “These are good people, hard-working people,” Regalado says. “Now we have this guy saying, ‘Get your things in order. You might go back.’ What the hell? What ‘things’?”
In the end, he says, it’s hard not to see racial overtones in Trump’s immigration rhetoric and policies. “It reminded me of when I was a kid, and the others would tell me, ‘Spic, go home,’” he said during the campaign. “I never responded to that. But I was like, ‘Fuck this. This is my country.’”
Marc Caputo is aPoliticosenior reporter in Miami and author of Florida Playbook.
Jackie Biskupski | Salt Lake City, Utah
The pioneer in Mormon country
By Erick Trickey
Her parents in Minnesota named her after Jacqueline Kennedy. But Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski didn’t turn to politics until she witnessed Utah’s 1990s anti-gay backlash.
“When I first moved here, I was a ski bum and a bartender,” Biskupski recalled in an interview earlier this year. Then the Utah legislature tried to stamp out a local high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. That convinced Biskupski to run for office as an out lesbian. “By hiding, you were legitimizing the discrimination,” she says. In 1998, Biskupski was elected as Utah’s first openly gay state legislator.
If it shocks people outside Utah that Salt Lake City would have a lesbian mayor, given the state’s streak of Mormon-influenced social conservatism, it’s a source of pride to residents of the capital city, who favored Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump 4-to-1 and haven’t elected a Republican mayor since the 1970s. Today, Biskupski, 51, governs from Salt Lake City’s towering Romanesque City Hall, built in the 1890s as a secular counterpoint to the Mormon Church’s Salt Lake Temple.
During her statehouse years, Biskupski waged a near-constant battle against anti-gay legislation. She was sworn in as mayor in 2016 with her fiancée, now wife, by her side. But while her identity helped her get elected as a progressive, it hasn’t been much help with governing: Biskupski is struggling to deliver on difficult goals such as better homeless services and affordable housing.
Salt Lake City’s growing homeless problem, fueled by the opioid epidemic and a housing shortage, has roiled local politics. A thriving drug trade has grown around The Road Home, the city’s main downtown homeless shelter, near a revitalizing neighborhood and the Rio Grande train station. In her first year as mayor, Biskupski joined with the county sheriff to launch a crackdown on drug crime near the shelter that offered the addicted a choice: jail or treatment. About half of the defendants who chose treatment have stayed with it, early results show.
But a controversy over where to move the city’s homeless services has hurt Biskupski. She came to office as the community agreed to replace The Road Home with smaller homeless centers. Under Utah law, the job of finding the sites fell to the mayor. After a year of study, Biskupski chose four sites, and not-in-my-backyard opposition broke out, especially in the middle-class Sugar House neighborhood. Forced to back down in February, Biskupski, the City Council and the county government cut the number of centers from four to three, moved one of the remaining ones outside the city and set 2019 as the deadline to close The Road Home. Critics say the mayor’s decisions weren’t transparent and were sprung on the public. Biskupski says she tried to avoid a divisive debate and find a fair way to distribute the homeless centers around the city. “We did not want to pit neighborhoods against neighborhoods,” is how she often puts it.
In February, Biskupski delivered her long-awaited affordable housing plan, “Growing SLC.” She proposed requiring developments to include affordable units, changing city zoning to allow denser development in neighborhoods full of single-family homes, and buying hotels and apartment buildings to remake them as affordable housing complexes. Her ideas got a positive reception from the City Council and local advocates, though some are pushing for quicker progress. Biskupski calls her plan “bold but equitable.” That’s a good summary of how she would like to be seen herself.
Erick Trickey is a writer in Boston.
Bill Peduto | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Rust Belt rebrander
By Blake Hounshell
When a Nashville Predators fan was arrested for throwing a dead catfish on the ice during Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals in May, a home game for the Penguins, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto responded with a barrage of fish puns. “This has turned into a whale of a story,” he wrote in a news release. “We shouldn’t be baited into interfering with this fish tale, but if the charges eventually make their way to a judge I hope the predatory catfish hurler who got the hook last night is simply sentenced to community service, perhaps cleaning fish at Wholey’s.”
It was vintage Peduto, and not just because of the goofy humor: The affable Democratic mayor has a knack for inserting himself into every story about Pittsburgh, a prideful city that has aggressively rebranded itself as a metropolis of the future during his three-year tenure. A self-described “student of cities” who rose to local prominence by championing a bohemian mix of indie art galleries and urban tech centers, Peduto, 52, represents the global aspirations of a city shaking off its smoky past.
There’s no better example of his media savvy than when Peduto seized on President Donald Trump’s speech announcing his decision to withdraw from a 2015 global climate agreement. No sooner had the president said the words, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” than the mayor was pointing out on his lively Twitter feed that in fact, 80 percent of Pittsburghers had voted for Hillary Clinton. He followed it up with a media blitz positioning Pittsburgh as a leader in green technology, and co-bylined a New York Timesop-ed with the mayor of Paris calling on cities to fight climate change.
The flurry of positive press was good for Pittsburgh—and also good for Peduto, who has told friends he has wider ambitions. But he has kept them mostly to himself, just as he did in high school, when for months he hid from his strict, academic-minded parents that he had been elected student council president. “They loved the fact,” he later explained, “but didn’t understand why I wanted to do things like that.”
Blake Hounshell is editor-in-chief ofPolitico Magazine.
Dan Gilbert* | Detroit, Michigan
The shadow mayor
By Nancy Kaffer
Walk the streets of downtown Detroit, and Dan Gilbert is everywhere. The headquarters of his online mortgage firm, Quicken Loans, looms over the park at downtown Detroit’s center—thronged with Gilbert’s employees, eating at restaurants in Gilbert-owned buildings, traveling to Midtown on the QLine, a light rail line championed and partially funded by Gilbert, all under the watchful eye of a network of security guards and cameras installed and paid for by Gilbert.
Gilbert, 55, is not actually the mayor of Detroit, and in most of the city’s sprawling 140-odd square miles, his influence is negligible. But in the city’s now-thriving downtown—Gilbertville, some call it—this billionaire businessman wields the kind of power and boasts a résumé of civic accomplishment that most politicians could only dream of.
At a time of dire need for Detroit, what he has done is remarkable. But for some Detroiters, that doesn’t sit well: Because Gilbert isn’t an elected official, he has no public accountability.
In many ways, Detroit was ripe for Gilbert’s intervention. It had lost nearly two-thirds of its population since 1950; during the recession, it watched the implosion of the administration of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, now serving time on federal corruption charges. The city declared bankruptcy in 2013.
Gilbert grew up just outside Detroit and originally built his mortgage empire in the suburbs. He announced the move downtown in 2007, hoping it would be “transformational,” and city and state officials applauded him. Quicken moved downtown in 2010. Today Gilbert owns more than 95 buildings there, and 4,000 of his workers have flooded the area. Many have also bought homes in Detroit with down-payment assistance offered by Quicken and other businesses. (Separately, the Justice Department is suing Quicken for improper underwriting of hundreds of Federal Housing Authority-insured mortgages during and after the recession. Gilbert vigorously denies those claims; he was not available for an interview for this article.) Dozens of businesses have opened to serve the influx of workers.
But not everyone is convinced what’s best for Gilbert is what’s best for the city. His security force, for example, isn’t required to release the same data as public police departments. And while Gilbert has brought thousands of workers downtown, they’re mostly suburban white transplants. The majority-black neighborhoods where most Detroiters live still languish. “It’s the feeling of, ‘Is it still our city? Are we still included?’” says Keith Owens of the Michigan Chronicle, a newspaper that serves Detroit’s African-American community.
Detroit has a real mayor, of course—Mike Duggan, elected in 2013 as the city’s first white executive since 1974—who has partnered with Gilbert on some projects. Duggan is perhaps more attuned to the contours of the city. The mayor—who has demolished thousands of blighted houses, among other initiatives—has ensured that razed land gets community input as it is redeveloped. (His press secretary did not respond to a request for comment about Gilbert’s work downtown.) Unlike Duggan’s, Gilbert’s job isn’t intrinsically tied to the city of Detroit, since Quicken is an online business. And that has prompted questions about what would happen if the billionaire—who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers and has other investments in the Ohio city—ever left Detroit.
“That’s been my biggest worry about Detroit’s momentum,” says Tom Walsh, a retired Detroit Free Press business columnist who covered Gilbert for more than a decade, “that it has relied on a small group of people.”
Nancy Kaffer is a political columnist and member of the editorial board at the Detroit Free Press.

Life in 2030

Warning, rampant speculation ahead:
By 2030, there are places that have collapsed. Syria, Libya and Iraq no longer exist, but are now ruled by regional strongmen and stuck in low intensity tribal conflicts that don't come to an end. The problem these countries have is that they are synthetic states, formerly kept together only through force. The European Union as we know it today exists only in name still. To deal with refugee streams from Africa and the Middle East, internal border controls have been reinstated. Italy, Greece and Spain are forced to deal with the mess, the UK has further isolated itself from the European mainland. Large parts of France are no-go areas for non-muslims.
Other places that have undergone balkanization? The United States. Shale oil production peaked somewhere between 2015 and 2020, after which oil production rapidly plunged, leading to mass unemployment and a very rapid decline in GDP. State governments no longer enforce many federal laws. It started with cannabis and gay marriage laws, it eventually moved over to other aspects as well. With every democrat elected as president, red states began to defy the federal government more. There is still a president, but he functions a lot like the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, officially ruling over a patchwork of nations he has no genuine control over. What remains of the poorly maintained infrastructure has by now been turned into a number of toll roads in many places. For outsiders, costs of travelling through the toll boots is very high. Internally, many people have started migrating to Alaska, as it still has potential for economic development.
In Africa, climate change has taken its toll. Large parts of the continent suffer from drastic soil erosion. The population of many African nations saw a peak before 2030 as a result of large civil wars and massacres, often between Christians and Muslims, in other places because of conflicts between pastoral people and agriculturalists. Harvests fail because of fungal plant pathogens that ruin the crop, a problem that was poorly anticipated. In the developed world, this problem is solved by spraying large amounts of pesticide, leading to a rise in prices and health problems. People believe themselves to be "allergic" to a wide variety of food products, in the same way many Americans think they're "gluten sensitive" because they happen to face health issues from the glyphosate in their food.
No mainstream policymakers and politicians ever acknowledge that peak oil was a problem. Instead it is thought that oil demand simply peaked because of some other factor, such as people choosing to work more from home or car ownership becoming less popular. Most regular people blame government incompetence, racism or greedy bankers for the poverty they face. Renewable energy is seen as a buzz from the past. Governments can't afford to maintain the large subsidies for electric cars and other fancy inventions they implemented. Tax revenue is too low for governments to be able to make the infrastructure investments they need to make to increase renewable energy production.
After many years of increasingly dubious statistics, a number of European countries elected new parties, only for the newly formed government coalitions to announce that the people's gut sentiment was right and the economy continued to shrink during the previous administration. Outside of the mainstream media, people stopped paying attention to official statistics and instead started using a variety of alternative metrics, like the number of cars sold in the previous month. Some governments have moved away from the goal of "full employment" towards the goal of providing everyone with "basic necessities". Some have moved away from economic growth towards "controlled degrowth".
What does controlled degrowth look like? Libertarian types have moved to calling it "techno-totalitarianism". They can't be blamed, as it does look dystopian. If your cell phone detects that you're out of the house, it automatically turns off your TV and your computer. You can turn these options off, but it's not easy for the typical consumer. You pay flexible energy prices, which means that young people living by themselves typically can't afford to use a lot of electricity in the evening.
Your employer receives a subsidy for the fact that you work from home and don't have to be on the road. Not working from home, but actually having to go somewhere for your white collar job is now considered somewhat prestigious. Many people secretly have multiple jobs, others make a living combining their welfare with consumer surveys on the internet, often filled in with the help of smart bots. Most colleges don't expect people to actually show up for any activities other than doing exams and most young people don't bother attending classes.
Of course not everyone likes "controlled degrowth". A number of industry lobby groups push their own perspective, which they label "alternative growth". They argue that new technologies will allow us to focus on economic growth by selling "experiences", that don't take a lot of additional energy. Examples they suggest are 200 dollar celebrity fragrances and designer clothing. In libertarian/conservative circles, alternative growth is popular, because it's thought that it will "create jobs" and "put America back on track".
These same lobby groups were engaged in other activities too. The car industry, as it saw sales drop every year, decided to start a media campaign that tried to turn the car into a sex symbol. Pop artists were paid to sing about a particular car brand and how their boyfriend is sexy because she can drive around town with him in said particular type of car. None of this worked, because the car industry refused to face the obvious fact that young people were unable to afford a car, instead of being merely disinterested in one. Because the car turned into a symbol of wealth, it turned into a cash crop for governments faced with tax evasion by the middle class and tax avoidance by the rich.
There is a lot of poverty of the type people formerly knew only from third world countries. Many families are homeless and live on the streets. They tend to do "microwork" through their smartphones, which earns them cryptocurrency. They may report pirated DVD's or videogames found on the internet, they fill in captcha's for spammers, or perhaps get paid to promote an online casino on their social media account. Offically hardly anyone dies of the swollen-bellies type of poverty we know from Ethiopia, instead, people die the way they did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They commit suicide, die of a drug overdose, die in an accident while drunk. Some die of cold in winter in their tent.
Being rich has become genuinely dangerous and not very enjoyable. Many of the rich have moved to places where they believe themselves to be safe: Luxemburg, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Singapore and some island groups. It's increasingly common for people to be kidnapped, with demands made to transfer cryptocurrency to a particular address. Historically, most hostage schemes failed because people are personally identified when they receive the payment. Cryptocurrency has solved this problem, the result being a rise in crime. The hostage taker himself is typically caught and thrown in jail or commits suicide, but the cryptocurrency has already been received by then at an anonymous address, that's used by friends, family members and/or gang members. Most people own not one type of cryptocurrency, but multiple types. Many are unaware of what types of cryptocurrency they own, as the total amount is automatically translated into dollars for them. New cryptocurrencies are typically created by popular websites and gradually decentralized.
Mixed in with the bad, some good things have happened too. Most people now grow food in their garden. Even rooftops and community parks are used to grow food. Neighbors secretly grow food in gardens in the abandoned homes next to them as well, homes that are owned by banks after the people were unable to pay their mortgage and evicted. The other side of the coin of distrust and animosity is that students move back home to their families. People generally try to know their neighbors again and share food and electrical appliances. As food has become expensive, animal based protein has turned into a luxury good. Chicken hatcheries are continously faced with infectious germs that spread and the process of producing protein by feeding animals edible grains and soybeans is seen as wasteful. Wild overpopulated animals like geese are killed, their meat is typically sold or given to the poor.
The singularity types like Ray Kurzweil are by now seen as a naieve subculture, in the same way Cyberpunk or the Y2K bug hysteria is seen today. There exists such a thing as virtual reality, it's a merger of our TV, music and video games. People put a device on their head and immerse themselves in their digital hallucinations. In contrast to what we feared, even virtual reality in practice ends up boring people. Back in the 80's and 90's we had 3D glasses, digital pistols you could shoot at your screen with, gas pedals and steering wheels for your racing games etcetera, but this was fun for a few months. Virtual reality similarly, is typically fun for a few months. People don't spend their days playing computer games because of their addictive potential, they play these games to hide away from the real world. If the best virtual reality we had was a book, they'd spend their time reading their book.
There are still climate skeptics, but their rhetoric has moved more towards the political mainstream and they now also hold significant influence over politicians. They argue that "the worst is behind us" when it comes to warming. With the poverty people face, concern over warming in the distant future is seen as a decadent worry that most regular people can't be bothered with. Concern over global warming dropped, because somewhere between 2015 and 2030, yearly global CO2 emissions peaked. Methane emissions dropped too, because people could no longer afford to eat large amounts of meat, as did emissions of a number of other greenhouse gasses and climate forcing agents.
Climate change has drastically affected the world, but generally through different mechanisms than we anticipated today. For example, higher CO2 concentrations have had a catastrophic impact upon agriculture, by favoring the spread of fungal plant pathogens. In addition to the positive feedback loops we're familiar with, there also existed a number of negative feedbacks that are rarely heard today. Molecular chlorine released from melting sea ice removes ozone from the troposphere as well as methane, moreso than hydroxyl radicals do.
Do we stay beneath two degrees? I can't claim to know, but I do know that many of the doom scenarios we read today cancel each other out. If oil production is about to peak, we can't raise temperatures by five degree celsius by 2100. If sea levels rise rapidly, the methane clathrates should be stabilized due to the higher pressure. If the ozone layer is depleted in a nuclear war, more ultraviolet radiation enters the troposphere, which means that more hydroxyl radicals are generated, which break down methane and hydroxyl radicals, which are gasses that would otherwise deplete the ozone in the ozone layer.
The result is that the ozone layer, like all of nature, is a self-stabilizing phenomenon. Like a swing, we can exert great energy to push it away from its stable point in the center. Eventually however, our stomach will be empty, we'll go home and the swing will return to its center, as gravity continues to pull. As the late great Lynn Margulis noted, Gaia is a tough bitch. If we start shoving her around, she'll start pushing back, and she has some mean techniques.
I like McPherson's title, "Nature bats last", but as the serotonin concentration in his brain dropped further, it seems his image of Gaia evolved from a tough matriarch who grabs you by the testicles into a fragile maiden whose last act of revenge is inflicting humanity with HIV as she is sodomized to death by a pencil-shaped phallus normally inserted into an anime sexbot. Gaia doesn't die a tragic death, she grabs you by your Google glass, drags you outside of the bar, drowns your cities in tsunamis, turns your crops into a wasteland then laughs as you stumble home and blame "anti-science Facebook moms" who refused to eat your GMO crops or have a Thorium reactor in their backyard for the fact that you got your ass kicked.

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movies	The Scene where Clark Kent returns to the Diner to show the bully who is really The Boss. I just love this entire scene " Terribly sorry about all the Damage, Sir." Ah, so good.	Kent
Showerthoughts	I still haven't forgiven Jurassic World for the Jeep scene. I don't think I ever will.	Jeep
Showerthoughts	How entertaining would a vlog series of couples building IKEA furniture be?	IKEA
Music	How to listen to Youtube Videos without the video	Youtube
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: What is the argument behind not imposing term limits on United States congress members?	United
personalfinance	What are some credit cards I could get, as a 19 year old working at McDonald's part time with zero credit history?	McDonald's
Showerthoughts	I drink Coca-Cola like drug addicts snort cocaine. What a fix!	Coca-Cola
funny	The Michelin Boy	Michelin
funny	Hilarious BBC interview parody	BBC
aww	When you get tired after crashing your daddy's BBC interview	BBC
videos	Sculpting a full-size animatronic T-Rex. Stan Winston Studios footage of the making of the original T-Rex from the first Jurassic Park.	Winston
Jokes	I just found out Microsoft bought Skype for 8.5 billion dollars.	Microsoft
funny	When your friend thinks their BMW can do it all.	BMW
AskReddit	What gun laws do you think would be the best for the United States?	United
videos	Today I Blew Up A Toyota Corolla	Toyota
mildlyinteresting	This Taco Bell order screen has an error message.	Bell
AskReddit	Serious What do you think is a fair compromise on one or more tough political, religious, or social issues in the United States?	United
Jokes	Why did Adobe reader get arrested?	Adobe
Music	Mandolin Orange - Wildfire Folk	Orange
worldnews	Preet Bharara, high profile US prosecutor, says he was fired - BBC News	BBC
Music	Following recent events, here's a great blog post on what kind of visa musicians should get to enter the United States.	United
Showerthoughts	If a broker is someone who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for commission when the deal is executed. Then is Uber a brokerage firm for transportation? We are the buyers looking for a ride and the drivers are the sellers willing to give rides. And the app facilitates the deal.	Uber
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: Why is IKEA so controversial? Some people appreciate the furniture, some make fun of it.	IKEA
worldnews	Turkey referendum: Dutch expel Erdogan's minister amid protests - BBC News	BBC
funny	Children interrupt BBC News interview but it's a meme	BBC
videos	Robert Kelly’s BBC interview Parody With New Audio	BBC
Showerthoughts	I wonder if we are moving very fast in technology, or Apple is just releasing iPhones too often	Apple
Showerthoughts	I can't even find a Zombie on Google Earth!	Google
funny	Cleverbot's response to the same CIA questions asked to Alexa and Google Home	Google
Showerthoughts	Do Apple employers also have jailbreaks or something, that "roots" their device?	Apple
television	How does YouTube's new $35-a-month TV service compare with mixing and matching SlingTV, DirecTV Now, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and even Apple Music?	Apple
television	How does YouTube's new $35-a-month TV service compare with mixing and matching SlingTV, DirecTV Now, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and even Apple Music?	DirecTV
worldnews	Rash drivers in India are giving BMW a bad name, with 10 incidents of injuries and and deaths in past 11 months	BMW
funny	Without a Starbucks in sight, this herd of 'Basics' has turned to a life on the rails in search of a new home.	Starbucks
funny	I lost it! The best BBC News interview of all times!	BBC
Music	Oasis - Interview at Loch Lomond 1996 MTV / Liam, Noel, Guigsy, Alan	MTV
worldnews	Turkey referendum: Clashes as Dutch expel minister - BBC News	BBC
worldnews	SXSW 2017: Disney 'not in the business of scaring kids!' - BBC News	BBC
AskReddit	Customer support people working for the likes of Google and Microsoft, what have been your worst and best experiences while providing support?	Google
videos	Kids Interrupt BBC Interview Live	BBC
aww	You guys asked for more of Zara - here she is playing with her favourite toy... and, no more collar bell!	Zara
aww	Little miss Zara - strutting her stuff	Zara
EarthPorn	Ireland. But no, not Cliffs of Moher. This is Mizen Head, the most Southwest point in Ireland OC 4585x3257	Southwest
videos	Amazon Alexa and Google Home compare Man Flu symptoms!	Google
worldnews	Turkey referendum: Clashes as Dutch expel minister - BBC News	BBC
worldnews	Ethiopia's rubbish landslide kills 15 in Addis Ababa - BBC News	BBC
WritingPrompts	WP After the latest update moving dots appear on Google Maps. You realize they're cars on the road with you. You click on one and a picture with a name pops up. Underneath the picture are links: online activity, user names/passwords, travel log, purchase history.	Google
AskReddit	What popular Youtube channel do you think is dying out?	Youtube
gaming	Does No Man's Sky deserve a second chance?	Sky
news	Cancer has touched the lives of most American families, according to a recent CBS News Poll.	CBS
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: Why do Americans pronounce Nissan "nee-sahn" but Brits pronounce it "niss-en"?	Nissan
pics	I suspect an additional word was or will be involved in this Target display soon.	Target
gaming	My experience with steep during the Xbox free to play weekend	Xbox
movies	‘Baby Driver’ Review: Edgar Wright’s Brilliant Car Chase Musical Casts Ansel Elgort As an Outlaw Fred Astaire — SXSW 2017	Chase
AskReddit	Serious Is typing "hiddenwiki" in Google Chrome and opening the site that pops up dangerous? If yes, why is that possible to do in the first place?	Google
AskReddit	AskRedditors, why do you waste our time with questions that can easily be answered with a simple Google search?	Google
videos	Neil dEgrasse Tyson Statements & Interview 3/10/2017.	Tyson
Showerthoughts	Twice a year, I only trust Google to tell me what time it is.	Google
mildlyinteresting	My girlfriend snapped a picture with me and one of my science heroes, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on Friday.	Tyson
videos	Can ANYBODY decipher what the narrator says in the first 5 seconds of this Youtube review? I'm laughing my ass off trying to make sense of his garbled talk. Thanks!	Youtube
pics	Chizza from KFC in Paris	KFC
LifeProTips	LPT: if you can't afford/manage to get your Girl Scout cookies this season, Walmart sells a perfect copycat under their own brand.	Walmart
mildlyinteresting	My mom works for Colgate and got me a year of shower supplies so cheap.	Colgate
history	How did Europe and the rest of the world react to the United States civil war?	United
OldSchoolCool	Harrison Ford driving on set of the Empire Strikes back, 1980	Ford
Music	Kenny Rogers - You can't make old friends country	Rogers
funny	When he realizes the BMW can't do everything.	BMW
pics	A photoshop project popped up in my Facebook memories..	Facebook
AskReddit	What are ways of checking the credibility of a source from what someone posts, Facebook news feed, Donald Trump, etc.? serious	Facebook
personalfinance	My brother wants access to my Paypal because of convoluted reasons. If I take off my bank and bank card but leave address, phone number, and SS#, can anything come back to bite me?	Paypal
todayilearned	TIL that Bell X-1 piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first manned airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight.	Bell
pics	The Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar - do NOT step on this thing	Caterpillar
aww	My first dog and greatest companion! We took Winston home at 4 weeks as the little ball of fluff and rolls he was. He just celebrated his 10th birthday and is still as cuddly and clumsy as the day he came into our life! sorry for the poor quality pics!	Winston
aww	My Uber driver had his family's photos taped on his steering. Now they literally drive him.	Uber
news	America's First Solar Roadway Is A Total Disaster	Total
todayilearned	TIL that the incarceration rate of the United States of America has the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population	United
funny	I asked for Sadness in my Hot Chocolate. Starbucks really delivers.	Starbucks
Futurology	In self-driving race, Hyundai rides alone	Hyundai
mildlyinteresting	Marion Maréchal-Le Pen's two Google images complete each other perfectly	Google
personalfinance	Chase Freedom vs Capital One Quicksilver	Capital One
AskReddit	If you Google yourself, what is the most awkward thing you can find?	Google
television	Popular Blackjack Professional Card Counter Banned From ANOTHER Casino '	Casino
AskReddit	How can we get Google Maps to stop showing our community's private road as accessible to everyone?	Google
aww	"We love the UPS guy!"	UPS
AskReddit	What Twitter accounts do you know that are absolute gold mines?	Twitter
AskReddit	How does a girl about 15 is able to wear a huge cleavage showing almost everything at Walmart but her parents were right there?	Walmart
Documentaries	Farewell Arabia 1968 The Oil Industry's Dramatic Effect on Life in Arabian Society in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates	United
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: Why are the most popular non-music videos on Youtube all about princess or superhero toys and really poorly made?	Youtube
food	Homemade Orange cake!	Orange
todayilearned	TIL: The McDonald's in Roswell, New Mexico is built in the shape of a UFO	McDonald's
news	Immigration tensions seep into South by Southwest music fest	Southwest
personalfinance	Student Cards Discover IT or Citi ThankYou	Citi
personalfinance	Student Cards Discover IT or Citi ThankYou	Discover
AskReddit	What Youtube channels do you suggest I watch?	Youtube
TwoXChromosomes	How do you deal with Facebook messages from strangers?	Facebook
Jokes	What would Mike Tyson say to someone using methamphetamines?	Tyson
news	Turkey referendum: Clashes as Dutch expel minister - BBC News	BBC
pics	Let's all take a moment to appreciate the 45th president of the United States of America	United
worldnews	No evidence yet of crime in Ben Keita's death, FBI says - CBS News	CBS
Showerthoughts	If the Google Maps lady was real, she'd probably be super sexually frustrated because I rarely ever let her finish	Google
gaming	I think Nintendo and Microsoft really should come to some sort of agreement here	Microsoft
AskReddit	People who have been banned on Twitter by a Celebrity what did you do ?	Twitter
Music	Immigration tensions seep into South by Southwest music fest	Southwest
Showerthoughts	Taco Bell crunchy tacos are like a side of fries at burger joint	Bell
pics	Cadillac Mountain, ME & Cape Alava, WA - claimed to be the first and last places, respectfully, to see the sunrise/sunset in the Continental USA.	Continental
Music	Fanfarlo - Life in the Sky Indie Rock/Indie Folk	Sky
funny	My little cousin was using Xbox live to search for some important answers	Xbox
AskReddit	Other than the President of the United States, who should we bring the aliens to if they ask for Earth's leader?	United
todayilearned	TIL Joseph Hazelwood, Captain of the Exxon Valdez which, in 1989, discharged around 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound never had his masters' license revoked and it remains valid to this date. He is referred to as "Saint Joe" in the movie Waterworld.	Exxon
todayilearned	TIL that Ford created advertisements for the Ford Fusion using DBZ character's and an unlisted Youtube video.	Ford
todayilearned	TIL that Ford created advertisements for the Ford Fusion using DBZ character's and an unlisted Youtube video.	Youtube
movies	Ill Stan Lee pulls out of Big Apple Comic Con	Apple
mildlyinteresting	The Publix I shop at censors all publications with Trumps image on it at the checkout line.	Publix
Music	Voss FM playing music in Southwest UK having a taster sesh. Check it out. Chill vibes.	Southwest
todayilearned	TIL in 1998 Sony released a videocam that could see through clothes while in an infrared recording mode; 600,000 units were recalled.	Sony
mildlyinteresting	Apparently Porsche made tractors at some point	Porsche
mildlyinteresting	This Subway coffee cup lid closes the mouth-hole by twisting the top.	Subway
Music	Explosions in the Sky - The Birth and Death of the Day Post-Rock	Sky
Showerthoughts	I wish I could ask Google where I put something in my house that I can't find.	Google
videos	Very Casual Saxophone Battle On NYC Subway Train	Subway
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: How does one make money off of a website that doesn't sell anything, such as Facebook or Twitter?	Facebook
AskReddit	What are your views on Google changing its logo font from Times New Roman to the abomination we see today?	Google
todayilearned	TIL That the United States is very Corrupt The Human Experiment Documentary	United
AskReddit	You are strapped in Costco and have to defend against a murderer for one week. You have 48 hours prep, what do you do?	Costco
explainlikeimfive	ELI5 Facebook Ads?	Facebook
funny	I'm pretty sure Yahoo got trolled by a graphic designer... #TrustYourDickButt	Yahoo
todayilearned	TIL 21.7% of United States Prison Inmates Are Not U.S. Citizens	United
mildlyinteresting	Taco Bell hot sauce packet doesn't have the usual funny phrase printed on the front.	Bell
mildlyinteresting	Found this in my nearest Walmart and I thought you guys might like to see this gem	Walmart
AskReddit	What do you think of the way that man handled the situation when his 2 children walked into the room during the BBC interview?	BBC
food	Homemade Berry Rose Apple Pie	Apple
mildlyinteresting	A man in front of me at Costco bought 88 gallons of milk.	Costco
AskReddit	You have been invited to address a Joint Meeting of the United States Congress at the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. All 100 US Senators and 435 US Representatives will be in attendance. What is your speech?	United
listentothis	Mars Red Sky -- The Mindreader doom / prog 2016	Sky
worldnews	A Russian government spokesman expressed impatience Sunday that bilateral relations with the United States have not improved more quickly since US President Donald Trump took office.	United
aww	My dog Pepsi is 16 today! I think she has earned a nice nap!	Pepsi
Showerthoughts	What if Google is actually evil company, but nobody would know because they filter Google search?	Google
mildlyinteresting	This truck I saw at Walmart today.	Walmart
OldSchoolCool	Me and my 1966 Model 88 Land Rover in 1987 - It had M1 Garand rifle racks front & back, made to be dropped from 10K feet, all hydraulic, aluminum body, etc.	Land Rover
videos	That BBC interview that gets interrupted...by ME!	BBC
videos	My friend created the amazing music box animation that went viral a year ago. McDonald's stole it to use as a commercial in Korea. Original and comparison in comments.	McDonald's
funny	VAGINAS Sony receiver	Sony
Art	My take on Lichtenstein's Girl in Window. Done on my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil :-	Apple
todayilearned	TIL that most photocopiers and scanners can detect and refuse to scan currency, as well as Adobe Photoshop	Adobe
food	homemade KFC copy cat coleslaw	KFC
gaming	No Man's Sky cool base I've been working on	Sky
mildlyinteresting	This Ghost In The Shell -like sewage logo	Shell
space	Ultra Deep Field Sky Walker	Sky
AskReddit	If fictional supervillains from the Marvel / DC universe came to life, how would they REALLY be handled by the United States government?	United
mildlyinteresting	The 'globe' Facebook notifications icon rotated after I traveled from the US to Japan.	Facebook
videos	The secret to making KFC Popcorn Chicken	KFC
AskReddit	You, Simon Cowell, Finn Balor, and Michael Fassbender are all chilling at a Casino in St. Louis. What do you do next?	Casino
WritingPrompts	WP You are an agent for a private militia, your aim is to eradicate all nuclear weaponry on earth, But when you reach command HQ- you find that the nuclear weapons have nothing to do with human wars, but are a global, United defence system for a much larger threat...	United

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