Friday, September 29, 2023

Fox News Crime Segment Ends in Humiliation for Brutally Roasted Reporter

Edith Olmsted
Wed, September 27, 2023 


A Fox News producer had his segment derailed by Seattle residents who challenged the network’s narrative that the city is a “progressive hellscape.”

Johnny Belisario, an associate producer on Jesse Watters Primetime, was openly mocked during a segment about how crime and drugs have become expectations in Democratic cities, and that Seattle had become a dangerous place to live.

“I’ve never seen any crime in Seattle. I’ve never seen any of it. I’ve seen fun and laughter, and laughter and fun,” one interviewee said.

“Crime is a social issue that could be solved by giving people their basic needs,” said another interviewee.

Another woman claimed she had “never heard of anyone getting robbed.”

She went on to question Belisario. “People don’t just come up and try to rob people on the street. Do you walk around everyday just like, ‘Someone’s gonna rob me’ every second?”

“Seattle decriminalized drug use and then they criminalized it again!” Belisario cried in response.

“Who are you getting these facts from?” the interviewee asked incredulously.

Belisario went on to say he’d seen “a lot of people shooting up” on his way to the interview.

“Oh, did you? OK. And were they bothering you?” she responded. When Belisario said he’d actually been in a car, the woman cringed. “Oh no! You were in a car,” she said, feigning distress. “They were hurting you so bad! Oh no!”

Back in the studio, Jeannine Pirro said she was shocked by the “arrogance and ignorance” and called the residents “clueless.” Host Jesse Watters concluded that the residents of Seattle believe that “criminalizing crime is racist.”

Fox News hosts bewildered after residents roast reporter: “Who are you getting your facts from?"

Gabriella Ferrigine
SALON
Thu, September 28, 2023 

Jesse Watters Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Fox News hosts were floored after a recent man-on-the-street interview with Seattle, Washington residents seemed to indicate that they were unconcerned about alleged drug use and crime.

"The arrogance and the ignorance of Seattle residents that Johnny interviewed is shocking," said "The Five" co-host Jeanne Pirro in reaction to a clip of Johnny Belisario, an associate producer on "Jesse Watters Primetime," this week. "I mean, how could they be clueless?"

Belisario interviewed numerous people who seemed to mock the premise of his questions on crime and homelessness in the city.

"Who are you getting these facts from?" one person pushed back on Fox News.

"I've never seen any crime in Seattle. I've never seen any of it. I've seen fun and laughter, and laughter and fun," one interviewee told the network.

"People don't just come up and try to rob people on the street. Do you walk around everyday just like, 'Someone's gonna rob me' every second?" said another.

On "The Five," co-host Jesse Watters was left sputtering trying to explain the segment gone wrong.

"Well, they're in denial," Waters insisted. "And if you look at the demographics of the city, it's understandable. It is a very, highly educated city. Very white, very LGBTQ, very secular. And they all believe in the same thing, which is, criminalizing crime is racist. There is someone, a victims' advocate, who just quit after 25 years because she said crime victims are being pressured by courts to recommend non prison sentences. So if you get assaulted, you're supposed to want that person to go to rehab instead of prison, and they're being bullied into doing this. It's about white guilt and it's about people learning from these professors that in order to make everybody equal, they can't punish criminality. And it's gotten so bad that criminals are now coming into the city. We did it with sex offenders. We used to see these sex offenders go to places like Vermont or California, where they know they can get away with preying on children because they know that there's soft sentences. They're doing the same thing here and it's predatory."

Watch below, via Media Matters:

Seattle residents skeptical over public safety concerns in now-viral Fox News segment
KIRO 7 News Staff
Thu, September 28, 2023 


A now-viral Fox News segment put the debate over public safety in Seattle on full display this week.

In the segment which aired as part of “The Five,” Seattle residents were asked about their level of concern over crime in their city. Most of the responses asserted that narrative may be overblown.

“I saw a lot of people shooting up on my way here,” a Fox News reporter pointed out.

“Oh, you did you? And they were bothering you?” said a Seattle resident, now known across social media as “Green Jacket Lady.”

Others seemed similarly skeptical.

“I’ve never seen any crime in Seattle -- I’ve never seen any of it,” another person said. “I’ve seen fun and laughter.”

“Crime is a social issue that can be solved by giving people their basic needs,” said a third person.

Fox News pundits in the segment argued that the responses they garnered from the three people they spoke to demonstrate how “residents in blue cities are embracing the decay.” They went on to highlight the recent news that two Seattle Targets will be closing, after the company cited concerns over retail crime and safety.
Worker dies after being trapped under 8 feet of dirt in San Francisco
CONFINED SPACES REGULATION VIOLATION 
Ryan Mense
Thu, September 28, 2023 



SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A worker died after he was trapped in a collapsed trench and buried under dirt and concrete in San Francisco, the San Francisco Fire Department said. The victim was working on a sewer line when between 8-10 feet of debris fell on top of him.

The fatal incident happened at a worksite in the Lower Haight neighborhood on the corner of Divisadero and Oak streets. The victim had been working below ground on a sewer upgrade project for the city’s public utilities commission, Rachel Gorden of San Francisco Public Works told KRON4.

Fire crews immediately launched an effort to dig down and rescue him around 10:30 a.m. and 50 rescuers were on scene. The worker was trapped in the trench for two hours before his lifeless body was found, the SFFD said.

According to the San Francisco PUC, the victim was a private contractor working on a city sewer line.

Video from SFFD showed fire crews near a hole in the ground with ropes nearby and rescuers digging dirt. Department of Public Works crews, the SFFD Medical Director, and tracking K-9s assisted in the recovery. Fire officials said specialized tools such as tripods, shoring equipment and a vacuum truck were utilized.


A worker was buried in a collapsed trench and killed in San Francisco on Sept. 28, 2023. (Image courtesy SF Fire Department)

It’s unclear why the trench suddenly collapsed. There are multiple agencies investigating this death, including Cal OSHA.


As of Thursday afternoon, the victim’s identity had not yet been released by officials.


(Photo: SFFD)

Authorities are asking people to avoid the area and to take alternate routes.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
NAZI CULT OF ARYAN SATANISTS
A 23-year-old was arrested for gun possession. It led the FBI to a global Satanic cult

Ali Winston
Thu, September 28, 2023 



An arrest on gun possession charges in Queens, New York, in November 2021 has led the Federal Bureau of Investigation to a pedophilic, Satanist extortion cult that has victimized dozens if not hundreds of minors, according to law enforcement documents, court records and sources with knowledge of the investigation.

Law enforcement discovered the organization, known as 764 and a range of aliases, while investigating alarming social media posts made by Angel Almeida, a 23-year-old resident of Astoria, Queens.

Related: Third person charged for infant’s death from fentanyl in New York City daycare

On 12 September 2023, the FBI issued a public warning about 764, noting the group is “deliberately targeting minor victims on publicly available messaging platforms to extort them into recording or livestreaming acts of self-harm and producing child sexual abuse material”. The advisory is the first formal mention of 764 by any American law enforcement agency.

The group appears to target children between the ages of eight and 17, the advisory notes, and particularly focuses on young people of color, youth identifying as LGBTQ+ or youth who struggle with mental health issues. Researchers familiar with 764 indicate the group’s members cultivate ties with minors through a wide range of platforms: either in wildly popular games like Roblox or gaming communications platforms like Discord and Twitch, as well as curated playlists on the streaming service SoundCloud. The group’s main form of communication is on Telegram, which has long been the platform of choice for many far-right extremists.

Members “use threats, blackmail and manipulation” to get youth to record videos showing acts of self-harm, animal cruelty, sexual acts and even suicide, the authorities warn. The footage is then circulated among members to extort victims further and exert control over them. In the group’s channels, members share violent “gore” videos depicting torture, lethal violence and other such acts, in an effort to desensitize viewers to acts of ultra violence.

The key motivators for the group, according to authorities, is “to gain notoriety and rise in status within their group”.

Documents and sources familiar with 764 indicate the group is an offshoot of the Order of Nine Angles (O9A), a violent, subversive amalgam of esoteric Hitler worship, Satanism and Wiccan tenets that American authorities recognize as a terrorist ideology and that has been connected with murders and attempted terrorist attacks in countries including the US, Britain, Germany, Canada and Russia.

Sources with knowledge of investigations into 764 indicate the group has a network of a couple thousand participants and hundreds of highly active members who generate and disseminate the bulk of the child pornography and gore videos found in the group’s channels on Telegram, Discord and more obscure platforms like Matrix.

Like many online-based extremist organizations, 764 involves people around the world, including people in the UK and Germany. A German teenager who is accused of murdering his foster family in Romania is suspected of participating in 764, according to reporting from Der Spiegel and Romanian outlet Libertatea.


Prosecutors allege Almeida convinced a girl to cut herself, record the act on camera and send it to him.Prosecutors allege Almeida convinced a girl to cut herself, record the act on camera and send it to him. Photograph: Department of Justice

The FBI was directed to Almeida by an anonymous tipster flagging his social media accounts, which contained images of violence against children and violence against animals. In one of the posts, Almeida expressed support for Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who massacred African American churchgoers in Charleston in 2015. Another showed him toting a shotgun while shirtless, and wearing a skull mask and crossed bandoliers of rifle ammunition across his chest with a flag in the background featuring an Order of Nine Angles symbol.

While searching Almeida’s apartment in New York, investigators recovered a 9mm handgun, bandoliers of rifle ammunition, books pertaining to the Order of Nine Angles, and a flag bearing the insignia of an American O9A offshoot, the Tempel ov Blood, according to a November 2021 detention memorandum filed by federal prosecutors.

The most telling item was an O9A “blood covenant” featuring a blood-smeared drawing of a hooded figure with glowing red eyes surrounded with sigils for four O9A deities and the caption Vindex, Nythra, Satan and Abatu. At the bottom of the page is an oath: “A covenant signed in blood. May the DEVIL walk with you always – SATANAE MANIBUS” (“by Satan’s Hand” in Latin). Similar indicia have been found in possession of O9A-influenced killers in Britain and Canada.

Almeida, who had served an 18-month sentence in Florida for third degree burglary in 2018, was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm and detained in Brooklyn’s metropolitan detention center. In February 2023, federal prosecutors in the eastern district of New York filed a superseding indictment tacking on child pornography and child exploitation charges related to his activities in 764 and the hundreds of thousands of digital files recovered from four separate devices in his apartment. In the new charges, prosecutors allege Almeida coerced a teenage girl into having sexual relations with an older man and convinced another girl to cut herself, record the act on camera and send it to him.

Almeida was deemed fit for trial earlier this month, despite repeated violent behavior in the court room, including attempts to attack a justice department staffer in the audience and his own court-appointed counsel on separate occasions in June and September. His court-appointed counsel – the fourth attorney who has represented Almeida since his arrest in 2021 – did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations against his client.

The trial is currently scheduled for 4 December. If convicted, Almeida faces a potential maximum of life in federal prison.

SEE 

BACKGROUNDER ON ORDER OF NINE ANGLES

Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity 


LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for SATANISM 

YAR PIRATES MATEY
Seabound bandits terrorize San Francisco Bay; some residents blame surge of nearby homeless camps

Chris Eberhart
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Burglars have been raiding yachts and houseboats in the Oakland-Alameda Estuary in a surge one resident compared to the pirate movie "Captain Phillips."

They steal anything of value, then either sink the ships or dump the remnants of plundered boats miles away in the Oakland Harbor or along its shorelines, said Dan Hill, who lives on his boat like many other families in the 800-foot waterway.

Each "attack" can cost the owner thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, Hill said.

Some in the tight-knit boating community have talked of arming themselves as jurisdiction question marks and eroding law enforcement staffing levels complicate the issue.


Thieves have been stealing boats or using old, abandoned dinghies to board large ships and yachts in the Oakland-Alameda Estuary, Dan Hill said.

"It's probably the most popular boating area in San Francisco Bay," Hill told Fox News Digital of the Alameda side of the estuary. "The weather's great. It's a lovely little place that the people love going to. It's protected. It's beautiful."

But since the summer, he and many other residents believe the homeless encampments in and around Oakland overtook the estuary and wreaked havoc on their daily lives.

"We're in this little, lagoon area, where the water comes in. There's a condo complex, beautiful parks," Hill said. "We started to see homeless people camping out there. That's never happened before.

"That being said, these guys are finding old abandoned boats, stealing them and anchoring out illegal boats. And they're taking dinghies (small recreational boats) and riding around and stealing s--- off people's boats."


Examples of stolen items from one of the "hits" on a boat in the Oakland-Alameda Estuary.

Hill described his personal run-in with some of the harbor bandits after he chased them across the harbor.

"Our friend confronted this guy because he looked super suspicious, and he called me and said they are coming your way," Hill said. "We saw him come by, and I jumped in my dinghy with my wife, and we chased him.

"He was much faster than us. We lost him. Turns out it was the boat stolen from the Alameda Community Sailing Center, which had four boats stolen from them."

WATCH HILL CHASE THE BANDITS

Alameda Community Sailing Center didn't return Fox News Digital's call.

Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi said his department is taking a "regional approach" by partnering with Oakland PD and the Coast Guard, which has a base in the Oakland-Alameda Estuary, to increase patrols and crack down on these crimes.

"In the waterways, it's very difficult to draw a line," Joshi told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday. "There are no roadways or fence lines, so we all have a shared interest, much like crime as a whole, to deal with this as a regional approach."

The partnerships are vital, the police chief said, because Alameda doesn't have its own marine unit and lost about 30% of its police department from years of attrition.

While they replenish their ranks, Alameda Police are working with Oakland PD, which has a marine unit, to make sure there are eyes on the area around the clock.

"We have officers that are trained to handle marine patrols, and we stepped up a standing additional patrol in our marinas," Joshi said.


Before and after photos from an alleged thief attack in the Oakland Estuary.


Powerboats were allegedly stolen by thieves after they were docked in the Oakland Harbor area

The city of Alameda is an island with a population of just under 80,000 and is rated as one of the best suburbs to live, according to niche.com.

"Living in Alameda offers residents an urban suburban mix feel, and most residents rent their homes," niche.com says. "In Alameda, there are a lot of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and parks … The public schools in Alameda are highly rated."

It's a stark contrast to its neighboring city of Oakland, which is where many residents believe the thieves are coming from.

The city has been crippled by an "exploding" homeless crisis that a neighborhood advocate told Fox News Digital in a previous interview had made it "unlivable."

Hill said going from Alameda to Oakland is "like stepping into a third-world country."

Joshi said he didn't know for sure if that's the case, but he's heard that theory from many residents.

"We've not done a deep dive into identifying what particular group in society is committing these crimes," Joshi said.

"But I do think that certainly that anyone who is in a challenged position will turn to crime when they're desperate."

There isn't enough information to statistically show what effects the increased patrols and crackdown have had.

Joshi said he believes there was a recent arrest on the Oakland side but none on the Alameda side.

The Oakland PD didn't return Fox News Digital's calls and emails for more information and interview requests.

Hill said he hasn't personally seen the increased patrols, but the theft "seems like it’s calmed down a bit."

But it took months of table pounding at municipal meetings, letters and calls to officials and amplifying their voices through social media and news outlets to get to this point.

Hill, who moved to Alameda with his family a few years ago, said it was a hassle to get law enforcement involved at first. It was a "frustrating" situation for months.
In a divided Ethiopia, the Orthodox mark Meskel celebration

Aymeric VINCENOT
Wed, September 27, 2023 

A high priest holds a cross while standing in front of a bonfire during the Meskel celebrations in Addis Ababa (Amanuel Sileshi)

Orthodox Ethiopians on Wednesday marked the beginning of Meskel, one of the holiest celebrations in the Christian tradition followed in this devout nation riven by ethnic and political violence.

Among Orthodox believers in Ethiopia and its neighbour Eritrea, Meskel commemorates the discovery by Saint Helena in Palestine in the fourth century of the "true cross" upon which Jesus Christ was crucified.

According to legend, Helena, the mother of Roman Emperor Constantine I, was led to the cross -- a fragment of which was believed to have been brought back to Ethiopia -- by the smoke from a ceremonial bonfire.

On the eve of Meskel, worshippers construct large pyres in streets and church courtyards for a ceremony known as "demera" that signals the start of the festivities.

At sunset, after hours of dancing and singing, these bonfires -- topped with a cross and covered in indigenous flowers -- are set ablaze across the country.

The largest, several metres high, is lit in Meskel Square, a vast esplanade in the centre of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, in the presence of tens of thousands of congregants and Orthodox priests and bishops in rich fabrics.

"The power of Christianity is bringing back our original unity. It helps us to forget those differences that have shaped us for so many years, and brought us to these conflicts, wars, hate and... atrocities," said one Orthodox priest in attendance, who did not give his name.

- 'How can we celebrate?' -

A mosaic of 80 different peoples, Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian countries in the world.

The Aksumite Empire, ancestor of present-day Ethiopia, made Christianity a state religion from the 4th century, at the same time as Rome.

Short of an official census, it is estimated that roughly two-thirds of Ethiopia's 120 million people are Christian and another third are Muslim, with a small animist minority.

Most Christians are Orthodox, although the share of Protestants has grown significantly recently.

In Tigray, the cradle of the Axumite kingdom, this Meskel was the first in peacetime since 2020 when the federal government went to war with rebellious leaders in the northern region.

A peace deal in November last year drew a line under the two-year conflict.

"I am celebrating Meskel in a better way than in previous years. At least this time there are no gunshots and we are in a more peaceful atmosphere," said Kalayu Kiros from Mekele, the capital of Tigray.

But, he said, there were "so many traumas of war that I cannot fully celebrate this festival".

Meaza Teklemariam, also from Mekele, said Meskel was "not like it was before the war" and that cost of living pressures had made it harder to celebrate.

Despite the conflict ending in Tigray, armed violence rages elsewhere in Africa's second-most populous country, which is divided into states along ethno-linguistic lines.

In Amhara, where militias have been clashing with Ethiopia's army since April, a state of emergency has been declared in the region where accusations of summary executions and arbitrary arrests have been made.

"How can we celebrate Meskel when the fear and the curfew make you have to stay home?" said a resident in Debre Markos, a town in Amhara, who asked to remain anonymous.

ayv/np/cw

 

 



ROFLMAO😂
Turkish opposition hopeful touts plan to finally defeat Erdogan

Nevzat Devranoglu
Thu, September 28, 2023

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and Ozgur Ozel



By Nevzat Devranoglu

ANKARA (Reuters) - Ozgur Ozel aims to become leader of Turkey's main opposition party this year and break through its historic ceiling of 25% support nationwide to finally defeat President Tayyip Erdogan, who has enjoyed two decades of election victories.

But Ozel, 49, said in an interview that his Republican People's Party (CHP) must first rebuild the trust of its own voters, disillusioned after its latest painful defeat to Erdogan in May presidential and parliamentary elections.

Setting out his plans to challenge veteran CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Ozel said he would also reach out and address the problems of voters who have hitherto rejected the centre-left, secularist party.

"We aim to rebuild the shattered hopes, faith and sense of trust among the 25 million people who voted for us," Ozel told Reuters, two weeks after announcing his bid to challenge Kilicdaroglu for the CHP leadership.

The CHP, established by modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has always struggled to reach beyond its secularist grassroots towards conservatives.

"We aim to shatter this 25% invisible glass ceiling. We want to do this by being ourselves and determining our own position," he said, saying he aimed to restore the party's left-wing, social democratic identity.

Berk Esen, associate professor at Sabanci University, said there could be some change in the CHP if Ozel were elected leader, repairing recent damage done to the party, but he was sceptical about the prospects for fundamental transformation.

"The main opposition party is heading towards a very serious breaking point," Esen said. "It is rotting from the inside, and I don't think the staff that has watched that rot for a long time can change it."

The CHP has long been hit by internal disagreements over its leadership and policy direction and the latest election showings have deepened the disputes.

The CHP won 25% of the vote in May's parliamentary election while Erdogan, who has maintained power through his broad appeal to conservative and nationalist voters, comfortably beat Kilicdaroglu in the second round of the presidential vote.

Ozel said the CHP failed to analyse those defeats or set out a road map for March local elections, where it is hoping to retain control of the key Istanbul and Ankara municipalities that it won in 2019 after nearly two decades of AKP control.

A leadership vote will be held at the CHP congress on Nov. 4-5, with Kilicdaroglu and Ozel among five candidates. Kilicdaroglu, 74, has led the party since 2010.

Ozel said electing a new leader was the only way forward.

"If the emotional rupture experienced by the voter is not repaired, the voter may move to the point of staying away from the ballot box or even breaking away from politics."

(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu and Birsen Altayli; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Family searching for lost earring finds Viking-era burial instead, Norway photos show

Aspen Pflughoeft
Wed, September 27, 2023 

A family in Norway was searching for a lost earring in their garden but stumbled on a much older find instead: a first-of-its-kind Viking grave, photos show.

The Aasvik family got out a metal detector to look for a lost gold earring, the Cultural Heritage of Vestfold and Telemark County Municipality said in a Sept. 25 Facebook post. As they searched their yard, they uncovered something else entirely.

Buried under a big tree near the center of their garden, they unearthed two metal artifacts, officials said.

Photos show the artifacts. The smaller, broken one has an intricate X-shaped design with a central raised point. The larger turtle-shell-shaped one has a simpler X-shaped design.



Archaeologists identified the artifacts as a Viking-era clasp and buckle from the eighth century. The objects came from the grave of a woman buried over 1,100 years ago, the post said.


Photos show the relatively shallow burial and the surrounding garden.

The artifacts are a first-of-its-kind find for the Jomfruland area, officials said. The area was long believed to have been inhabited during Viking times, but the Aasvik family’s find is the first evidence of this history.



Jomfruland is an island in the Vestfold og Telemark county municipality off the southeastern coast of Norway. Jomfruland is about 130 miles southwest of Oslo.



Facebook Translate and Google Translate were used to translate the Facebook post from the Cultural Heritage of Vestfold and Telemark County Municipality.
As ancient Rome dominates TikTok, investors spot worrying parallels to the American empire — but here’s why one expert argues that doesn’t mean the US is destined to go bust

Sabina Wex
Thu, September 28, 2023 



TikTok’s latest trend has seen women ask the men in their lives one simple question: how often do you think about the Roman empire? And to their shock and amusement, it turns out, for many men, the answer is “often.”

From roads to politics to philosophy, these guys have Rome on their minds.

And Carl Ichan and Ray Dalio aren’t immune to it either. Both investors have recently referenced the Roman Empire’s demise when raising concerns about the nation’s seemingly never-ending inflation woes.

Some even worry history may be repeating itself. But Roman history expert Jack Mitchell says he'd compare the current American climate to the first century b.c. — a full 400 years before the fall of the Roman Empire. But with civil wars and riots, steep inflation and peasant unrest at the time, just because the empire wasn’t crumbling, that doesn’t mean Romans were living la dolce vita, adds the professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

The first century b.c. created inflation, wage stagnation and economic and political destabilization for ancient Roman citizens, which all eventually led to the fall of the empire. So is there a Dark Ages ahead for the American Empire? There are certainly some worrying signs, but experts say it’s not too late to change course.

The similarities


First, the bad news. The current U.S. economy does share some similarities to Rome’s situation prior to the empire’s fall.

Mitchell says the major economic problem Rome faced was its precious metal-based currency. Over time, these coins contained less and less of these valuable materials, so they essentially became worthless. This economic crisis created record-high inflation and a deficit for the state.

Although the U.S. dollar is a fiat currency rather than precious metal currency (like the ancient Roman one), which means its value isn’t as dependent on its resources, Americans who follow the news no doubt have noticed much discussion of the “dedollarization” trend as some countries hope to move away from relying on the USD as a reserve currency. Although government officials say they’re not worried yet, a dethroned dollar could threaten America’s economic stability and lead to hyperinflation — as the Romans experienced.

Inflation aside, an empire’s economic stability often rests on the shoulders of the working class — if they pull out of the workforce, the whole system could easily tumble. For Roman soldiers, Mitchell says, work simply stopped being worth their time. Not only was the pay awful, they were often sent to the army as a way for landowners to avoid taxes by paying with human capital instead.

While no one is sending Gen Z workers to the front lines, today’s high cost of living, coupled with wage stagnation, is an oft-cited reason as to why young workers say they’d rather “clock out eternally” than sit at a desk all day, barely making enough to cover groceries.

Adding to the financial troubles, mistrust in institutions saw deep effects on the economy in ancient Rome. Mitchell says the third century a.d. saw 35 emperors in 50 years, something that didn’t give citizens huge trust in their institutions. Similarly, with political polarization and “fake news,” Americans have also hit a “new low” of distrust in their own institutions, according to a 2022 Gallup poll.

“Once people stop believing in a currency or in political institutions, then it can come tumbling down much faster than you would think,” Mitchell says. “Power and wealth is based on trust.”

The good news is that while they share some similarities, there are enough differences between the U.S. and the Roman Empire to reassure Mitchell.

One major distinction between the two is currency. Again, because the greenback is a fiat currency, the supremacy of the U.S. dollar isn’t as easy to dethrone as it was in ancient Rome. And it doesn’t hurt that due to global trade’s dependence on it, even the Fed’s own Janet Yellen feels safe about its status going forward.

Though it’s been a tough time for young workers, the “summer of strikes” has seen workers actively creating better wages and security for themselves. Plus, with the Federal Reserve pause in interest rate hikes (at least for now), light may be at the end of the tunnel for struggling Americans as the central bank continues its fight against record-high inflation.

Institutional trust is a problem that's much harder to fix. But compared to the ancient Romans, Americans have a lot more control over their lives. If unsatisfied workers don’t like the 9-to-5 corporate life, they simply pick up a side hustle. When they dislike their elected officials, they vote for someone else the next time around.

Rome may have set the stage for America, but that doesn’t mean the country has to follow in its footsteps.

“Even if the American Empire looked like it were starting to falter with inflation and prices and authority,” Mitchell says, “one lesson is that it's possible to breathe new life into these old structures, economically and politically.”

The Most Famous Historian of Rome on Why Men Are Obsessed

Olivia B. Waxman
TIME
Thu, September 28, 2023 

Historian Mary Beard poses during an interview at the Prado Museum in Madrid on Oct. 29, 2021. 
Credit - Ricardo Rubio—Europa Press/AP

To a historian of ancient Rome like Mary Beard, it’s always timely to talk about the empire. But her new book about the daily lives of Roman Emperors, Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, is due to come out in the U.S. when the Roman Empire has been trending on TikTok.

Women have been posting videos of themselves asking the men in their lives how often they think about the Roman Empire and expressing shock as these boyfriends and husbands say they think about the Roman world all of the time. Beard, meanwhile, does not need to ask her husband how often he thinks about the Roman Empire—he is an art historian who studies Roman art.

Whether these men on TikTok are serious or joking, the reasons why they say they think about the ancient Roman world offer Beard a starting point for discussing what modern conveniences we can attribute to the ancient Romans and what’s the stuff of myth.

In a phone conversation with TIME on Sept. 26, Beard, also the author of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, explained the proper way to wear a toga and set the record straight on other misconceptions about the Roman Empire running rampant on TikTok.
More From TIME

The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.


Does the Roman Empire have a special appeal among men? Why or why not?

In some ways, ancient Rome is a kind of safe place for macho fantasies. It's where men can pretend to be macho men. That must be part of the appeal, I suppose. And people say to me, 'Well, you must think that's awful, don't you?' Anything that brings people to be interested in the ancient world is fine by me. But I'm very keen that they should see that there's more to the ancient world than macho fantasies. I think my job is to say, 'Okay, you've gotten interested in Rome. Now, I'm going to tell you it's more interesting than you thought.'

What should people be thinking about when they think about the Roman Empire?

It was not all generals and posh white men. This was a culture built on slavery. Last week, I went to Rome and I went to the Palatine palace—the kind of mission control of the Roman Empire. There's one little area there, which must have been an area for the staff, the slaves, the service quarters. The [servants] have written all over the walls of this area in graffiti scrawls. There is a parody of the crucifixion of Jesus. It was probably done in the late second century CE. It might be the earliest representation of the crucifixion of Jesus that we have. There's a man being crucified on the cross, but he has a donkey's head. There is a figure in a tunic next to him clearly praying to him. We can also see that the slaves are into Christianity before the Emperors—it was another 100 years before any emperor became a Christian. So there are other stories to tell, not just stories about the big guys.

One guy on TikTok says he thinks about the Roman Empire because men at their core are warriors and have to be ready for battle and the Roman Empire is all about battle.

The Roman Empire is partly about battle. We've got to remember that those emperors didn't conquer the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had been brutally acquired when Rome was still a democracy. And actually not many Roman emperors do much conquering at all, and they make a kind of show of the image of the brand. They have loads of statues of themselves dressed up as warriors. But in some ways, that's a substitute for conquering. They're not actually doing very much.

Other guys on TikTok have said they associate Romans with togas and think about Rome when they use the bathroom because of their role developing sewage systems. How accurate is that?

Roman people did not wear the toga every day. They wore the toga on special occasions. If you went to the Colosseum, that's a bit like going to the opera in London, so you wear your toga just like you’d wear a tuxedo. But most Romans wore tunics and they wore all white and probably wore trousers, actually. This idea that Rome was a nation in which everybody wore togas—that's simply untrue. I also think that we overestimate the sophistication of Roman sewage work and Roman drainage. In the middle of a flood, things like octopuses came up in people's lavatories.

Now let’s talk about your new book Emperor of Rome. You talk about the cross-dressing ruler Elagabalus. What do you want readers to take away from his story?

Some of our questions about gender fluidity —what counts as male and what counts as female—they're not new. I don't think the Romans give us an answer to that. But I do think it's helpful for us to realize that our issues weren't invented 20 years ago. It's really important to see that these questions go back millennia. I don't think there has been a human culture that hasn't wondered about the nature of what it is to be male or what it is to be female.

I was disappointed to learn in your book that Caligula did not really appoint his horse consul. How did that myth become so widespread?

There are sources which say Caligula threatened the Senate that he would appoint his horse consul, and that always gets quoted as, “Caligula made his horse consul.” He’s one of a whole series of emperors who treat their horses almost like people.
Why does Julius Caesar get so much attention?

The answer is probably because he was assassinated. Shakespeare writes up that moment as an absolutely crucial moment in thinking about political justice and political fairness. But Julius Caesar wasn't around very long as dictator. He was mostly not in Rome. He mostly didn't finish things.

Who was the most overrated Roman emperor?

I would say that Claudius has been very lucky, partly because of Robert Graves, between I, Claudius and Claudius the God and the TV series. They turned Claudius into a slightly charming, old academic emperor, a kind of Uncle Claudius, a sort of nice guy. That was fiction. If you go back and you read what Romans were saying about Claudius, he was a murderous bastard.

Who was the most important Roman Emperor?

Augustus, the first proper Roman Emperor after Caesar, because he sets the whole system up. He rules for 40 years. And he actually ensures that there is a system that will last. The emperors don't last, but the autocratic system lasts, and Augustus is very largely responsible for that.

What would Romans have thought of TikTok and social media?

They would have loved it. Romans like graffiti. They would have loved sharing the equivalent of graffiti. Rome was a master of image creation and image replication You see these idealizing—in our terms, Photoshopped—images of the Emperor Augustus all over the place. In that sense, they're very modern. They certainly want to leave them on any wall they post. They want to say, 'Marcus was here.'

Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com.

Mary Beard weighs in on macho men’s TikTok fixation on Roman Empire

Patrick Sawer
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Mary Beard says a lot of men prefer to think about the Roman Empire as a 'safe space for being macho' - Caterina Turroni/Lion TV

The classicist Mary Beard has weighed in on the TikTok trend of women asking their partners how often they think of the Roman Empire by claiming that men consider the era a “safe space to be macho”.

The author and broadcaster has said a new generation of men look fondly on the Roman Empire as a place to behave in a macho way without fear of any resistance by women.

Dame Mary, who launches her new book, Emperor Of Rome: Ruling The Ancient Roman World, on Thursday, was commenting on the surprising social media trend in which women post short videos asking their husbands or boyfriends how often they think about the Roman Empire – with many of them claiming to do so several times a week and even daily.

She said: “It’s extraordinary ... one thing I think about that is [that the] Roman Empire is a sort of safe space for being macho in, you imagine that it’s so long ago, you can indulge your macho fantasies without it really mattering, I think is what’s going on there.”


Russell Crowe in Gladiator - the misogynist's fantasy man 
- c.Dreamwrks/Everett / Rex Features

But the 68-year-old historian suggested that Ancient Rome was not as one-dimensional as many men might imagine.

“I suppose I think that for people like me, women who work on the Roman Empire, this is our moment also to tell these blokes that the Roman Empire is a bit more interesting than perhaps they think it is,” she said.

Dame Mary, whose new book examines Roman rulers and what powers they wielded, also said that Carrie Johnson had frequently been portrayed as the real power behind Boris’s rule during the couple’s time in Downing Street, in the manner of a Roman Emperor’s wife.

Her comments coincide with a new Sky TV drama series about Livia Drusilla, the wife of Caesar Augustus, who became one of the most powerful women in the world in her own right.

‘Streak of misogyny’

Dame Mary said there was a “good streak of misogyny” in the way Drusilla was blamed for the intrigue within the palace walls and in particular the deaths of the Emperor’s many rivals.

She said: “Look for what is going wrong in the Roman Empire, right, in the palace, we can’t see inside, but look at how we imagine all this happened? Well I’ll tell you, it’s by a scheming, manipulative woman.

“Carrie Johnson was subjected to the same sort of gossip, wasn’t she? Why did Boris do that? Well, it’s because Carrie wanted it. And why did Augustus do that? Because Livia wanted it. What did Livia do? She poisons people. What’s poisoning? Well, poisoning is a kind of perverted form of cookery. The woman who should be the nurturer actually kills you.”


Kirk Douglas grapples in Spartacus - a particular fantasy of many men, according to Mary Beard - Silver Screen Collection

Dame Mary, who debated with Mr Johnson on the subject of Greece vs Rome at an Intelligence Squared session in November 2015, said: “In the end, I think Boris Johnson is someone who’s put the ancient world very much front in his image and I think we need to think about that, whether he’s getting it right, and whether it was all a pose.

“I think that there are more interesting things to think about in the ancient world than how Boris Johnson sees it, that’s for sure.”

Dame Mary said her new book examined the way the emperors were able to exercise power through more subtle means than fear alone and that lots of the empire’s citizens “probably disapproved” of the autocratic regime.

“Rome didn’t just survive because of violence or because they’re a police state, they survive because most people actually go along with them,” she said.

TikTok Roman Empire Trend Shows How Pervasive Misogyny Informs Historical Record

Casey Haughin-Scasny
Wed, September 27, 2023 




In this op-ed, writer Casey Haughin-Scasny explores the virality of the recent “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?” TikTok trend in the context of how history is constructed.

I am a woman who thinks about the Roman Empire every single day. Not just the innovations of its legal system, or its monumental architecture, or even the staggering scale of its bureaucracy, but about the way its historical legacy has been written and rewritten, and how we understand the realities of life in its past.

The recent TikTok trend hinges on a simple question, with women asking their male partners, family members, or friends about the frequency of their ruminations on Rome. The recorded responses range from confusion over the very term “Roman Empire” to opinions about the legitimacy of different emperors. While there is a fair share of men who don’t think about the Roman Empire at all, the absurdist comedy of the question hinges on the prevalence of men who do think about the Roman Empire, almost reverently or obsessively, unbeknownst to their female loved ones.

The revelations, shared on TikTok, have generated a deluge of content that involves (predominately white) men justifying their interest, often appealing to the “lessons” to be learned from the Empire’s rise and fall, or the importance of Rome in the modern world. Women, in response, have asked each other what the female “Roman Empire” is—that is, to say, what women regularly think about in history that men are not aware of. Responses have varied, but they primarily include the Titanic, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Romanovs, and Greek mythology.

It could be another harmless internet fad, except for what it implies about the way history is passed down and constructed. The trend demonstrates how popular perceptions of Rome rely on an interpretation of history that many scholars now recognize to be actively harmful, both to our ability to understand the ancient past and to our society at large.

My work as a PhD candidate in public history examines how Americans have used, abused, and misconstrued the ancient past in order to make meaning in their present from the 18th century to today. I am also an archaeologist who has participated in the excavation of a Roman villa since I was 19. I teach classes on Roman art and archeology. Since my first introduction to Latin at the age of eleven I have been fascinated with Rome. I would say between now and then there is likely not a day that has gone by that I have not thought about the Roman Empire. My gender does not prevent me from joining in on the fun. Women are interested in the ancient past! Who knew?

Many folks don’t. And there’s a reason for that.

The commentaries on TikTok reveal the prevalence of the “great man” narratives that progressive scholars have worked so hard in recent years to supplement, challenge, and contextualize. The Roman Empire that exists within the minds of TikTok users is one that is inherently of interest to men — and, given the way it’s being talked about, why wouldn’t it be? It’s something of a Kendom, really. Maybe the Domus Aurea is the original Mojo Dojo Casa House.

Much of the image that we have constructed around Rome in popular culture — its place as the basis of “Western” civilization, the brilliance of its expansion under various male emperors and generals, the superiority of its rulership, the inevitability of its demise — relies on outdated imaginations of the ancient world. A significant part of this narrative involves androcentric interpretations of the past that emphasize “great man” history over the lives of the vast majority of the Empire’s citizens.

In the fascination over emperors and their proclivities for conquest, we lose sight of the complex tapestry that influenced daily life in the Roman empire. Not only that, we often risk reaffirming the very active schools of thought within white supremacist circles that these Roman “white” men were naturally positioned to conquer the known world due to their innate superiority. This might sound dramatic, but it’s not — there’s an entire country as proof. All we have to do is look to the very foundation of America, from its governance to its laws to its architecture and so many things in between, to see how ideas about ancient Rome’s success and values have been purposefully taken on, manipulated, and baked into power structures that continue to marginalize communities to this day (Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro’s phenomenal article “Power Structures: White Columns, White Marble, White Supremacy” is a great introduction to the issues at hand). Uncritical praise of Rome for all the seemingly positive things it’s given us does little to unpack how this heritage has been leveraged historically.

I’m not out here trying to say that Rome was some kind of egalitarian paradise where women were seen as equals in the eyes of the law or in social situations. In fact, I’m saying the opposite — Rome was an inherently unequal society, and the Pax Romana that so many admire was built on the oppression of various demographics, women among them. When we simply focus on great men in these histories and romanticize imperialism, we lose the opportunity to understand how marginalized groups navigated these circumstances in ways ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary. We also lose the opportunity to consider why people from historically marginalized backgrounds would want to learn about Rome now.

The trend’s relegation of women’s interests in antiquity to mythology, and specifically Greek mythology, further reveals the divides that are so prevalent in the popular and academic studies of ancient history. Rome stands as the powerful, militaristic foil to Greece’s more refined, softer lifestyle, and mythology as a more appropriate option for women’s interests than the intricacies of rule and bloodshed. This divide is, of course, artificial. That hasn’t stopped generations of people from relegating women to limited, “appropriate” areas of study, if they’re permitted to engage with antiquity at all, or assuming that women are incapable of or uninterested in engaging with traditionally “masculine” aspects of the ancient past like epics or tactical histories. This isn’t to say that women can’t be interested in mythology — it’s awesome! But there’s nearly a millennium of baggage to consider before we accept these divisions wholesale.

The men who are featured on TikTok are almost certainly not considering the legacies above when they’re thinking about the Roman Empire. And that’s exactly the issue — as long as these assumptions about the past are commonplace, the harm that is done by their invocation will persist. The trend reveals just how pervasive longstanding assumptions about Rome are, and when these assumptions remain unchecked, we’re able to see the consequences.

The presumption that women aren’t interested in these histories comes from these biases, but it’s not an innocent one. Even if we put aside all of the other issues I’ve outlined here, the impact these biases have on the study of antiquity is alive and well. I regularly watch male colleagues as their eyes glaze over while female colleagues talk about their work on social histories of the Roman Empire or the pitfalls of ancient reception, while men I meet in my life outside academia assume their cursory knowledge based on this imagined past is equivalent or superior to my knowledge after a decade of training. I’ve sat through too many disrespectful Q&As to not understand the consequences of the possessiveness men hold over Rome in how it affects women’s abilities to engage with ancient history. This article doesn’t even scratch the surface of how these issues are amplified for scholars who occupy intersecting identities as people of color, or members of the LGBTQIA+ community, or are disabled (like myself), topics that responses on TikTok have also grappled with as the trend gains popularity. The imagination of ancient Rome affects people in far more ways than gender.

And I’m sick of it.

I’m not accusing the men featured in TikTok videos of harboring these feelings about gender, race, or imperialism. However, to ignore the subtext of this trend would be to pass up an opportunity to discuss the presence of the ancient world in our modern lives, and all the baggage that comes with it. So, I have to ask: how often do you think about why we think about the Roman Empire?


Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue


'Very rare' Bronze Age arrow with quartzite tip uncovered from melting ice after 3,000 years

Laura Geggel
Thu, September 28, 2023 



Archaeologists in Norway's mountains have discovered a "very rare" ancient arrow that still has its quartzite arrowhead and feather fletching in place.

It's likely that reindeer hunters used the weapon up to 3,000 years ago, according to archaeologist Lars Pilø, who heads the Secrets of the Ice project in the Jotunheimen Mountains of central Norway's Oppland region.

While archaeologists with the project have previously found human-made hunting blinds where hunters hid while targeting reindeer, the newfound arrow wasn't unearthed near one.

"There are no hunting blinds in the immediate vicinity, but this arrow was found along the upper edge of the ice, so the hunters may simply have been hiding behind the upper ridge," Pilø told Live Science in an email.

Related: 25 things found frozen in Europe's mountain ice

Secrets of the Ice glacial archaeologist Espen Finstad discovered the arrow on Sept. 13. Due to human-caused climate change, the snow and ice in the Jotunheimen Mountains is melting, exposing artifacts from hundreds to thousands of years ago. If archaeologists don't find these human-made items quickly after being exposed, the artifacts can deteriorate in the elements.

Finstad found the arrow during a targeted survey, when he and colleagues "checked newly exposed areas along the edge of the ice," Pilø said.

An analysis revealed that the arrow's shaft was made of birch and that it still had an aerodynamic fletching with three preserved feathers. Hunters use fletching to help guide the arrow in flight, but these typically decay over time.


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The quartzite arrowhead at the front of the shaft "is barely visible because pitch covers most of the arrowhead," Pilø said. "The pitch was used for securing the arrowhead to the shaft and to smooth the front of the arrow, allowing for better penetration. Arrows with preserved arrowheads still attached are not uncommon during the Iron Age on our ice sites, but this early they are very rare."

The pitch likely came from birch charcoal, he added.

Despite its well-preserved arrowhead and feathers, the rest of the arrow fared slightly worse. The roughly 2.9-foot-long (90 centimeters) arrow broke into three pieces along its shaft, "probably due to snow pressure," Pilø said.