Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Hard times - A runaway's adventures in the Americas by Everyday Runaway's Adventures. On a never ending mission to escape the boring routine of everyday life…. About. Hi my name is Amber. I’m just your average girl trying to live an anything but ordinary life. The mundane routines of everyday life are so boring that I might as well take a nap for the rest of my life. Sure I think it’s important to learn to appreciate every moment, but there’s a whole big wide world out there and I don’t think I was meant to just do the same thing in the same place every day until I die. So I’m on a mission to explore every inch of the earth and experience everything I can before I die. I live for outdoor adventures and I love introducing people to new experiences. My only hope is that a few of you will be inspired enough to do the same, or at least take a trip or two. ✌ About.

Join me on my journey to explore every inch of this earth and experience all this life has to offer! ✌ America's New Wave Of Runaways. SOME NIGHTS, KHAMHOM KEODARA is so worried about her son, Khampheth, that she wanders the streets of south Seattle looking for him. Her 11-year-old boy disappears for days at a time-he has skipped classes so often that his school doesn't want him back. And though he always returns home, Khampheth refuses to say where he's been. His parents, Laotian refugees who arrived in the United States six years ago, are at a loss to understand the American culture that seduces him. They've urged him to give up his mod haircut, his baggy pants, his plump down jacket. And they've changed their phone number time and again, desperate to cut Khampheth off from the crowd he hangs with. Nothing works. "Unless you've got good control, you cannot bring your child up," says his father, Khamseaen, 68. "It seems like I have lost control." They're lumped in with all the whiz kids, the "miracle" immigrants with unlimited futures and unassailable family ties. But for many Southeast Asian teenagers, American life has not been the snap experts predicted. The first cracks appeared in the 1980s, in the stunning rise of Asian youth gangs. Now, in a widening rift between generations and cultures, a growing number of Southeast Asian children are running away, vanishing for days or months into a loose, nationwide network of "safe houses." No one knows how many Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong youths are on the run. But counselors in Seattle estimate that one third of all refugee families in the area have had at least one child run away from home. "It is a big, big problem in the community," says Winslow Khamkeo, a Laotian counselor for the Refugee Federation Service Center. Just last month Milwaukee police discovered a hangout on the city's south side that was sheltering Asian runaways, including three Hmong teens from California and two from Minnesota, all missing for months. In other cities, Asian runaways as young as 11 or 12 are commonplace. "If you look at who become National Merit scholars, valedictorians and winners of national music contests, a lot of them are Southeast Asians," says Northwestern University professor Paul Friesema. "But clearly that masks the problem." Why do so many who don't succeed run? The stress of assimilation often divides children eager to be embraced by their new world and parents terrified by it. Khampheth has perfected the adolescent leave-me-alone shrug. But even his monosyllabic answers hint at his alienation. Asked if kids would make fun of him if he wore the clothes his father wants him to, he nods, "Yes." Asked how they tease him, the young Laotian says: "They call you Chinese." Many parents find it difficult to understand the new pressures their kids feel. The adults are an isolated, "highly traumatized" group, especially those who lived through the 1970s regime of Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, says San Francisco social worker Evelyn Lee, who works with Asian immigrants. "These families spend a lot of time just coping with the past," she says. Many are doomed to menial jobs or welfare. Unlike the wealthy, educated elite who fled Vietnam in the mid-1970s, the second and third waves rarely have the resources to make it in urban America. Families reach the breaking point as children hit adolescence and rebel against Old World mores, and adults are powerless to stop them. "The only thing the parents offered them was food and a roof over their heads. But if a friend can offer those things, the kids don't need them any more," says Tom Nakao, a Seattle youth outreach worker, which has one of the largest concentrations of Asian refugees in the country. Noc, a 15-year-old Cambodian refugee, fled his Seattle home last summer after a fight with his mother, who didn't want him to get an earring. In defiance, he got two. "The reason my mom and I don't get along is because, like, she won't let me do whatever I want to," says Noc, who's assumed the homeboy cadence of the projects. "I told her, 'Hey, it's my ear, you know?"' To some degree, Noc's struggle parallels the battles played out by every generation of immigrants. But there are differences. The Southeast Asians face a greater cultural gap than most European immigrants did. Worse, being tossed into the "miracle generation" upped the pressure on them to succeed. Unlike many runaways, though, these teens rarely hide under bridges and down alleys. They sack out instead in "crash pads," small apartments or houses rented by large numbers of teens, that become hangouts for runaways. These "couch surfers" drift from house to house until they run out of places to stay. When they're caught or bored-they go home, for a while. On a recent night in a ramshackle section of Seattle's Rainier Valley neighborhood, a small, sparsely furnished apartment is crowded with a dozen young Asians speaking Vietnamese to each other and halting English to a visitor. At the center is Tony, a 27-year-old Vietnamese-American. Though he opens his home to many young drifters, Tony is reluctant to talk about it, except to say he's been on his own since he was 11. The young crashers offer a torrent of complaints about the police, echoing the familiar concerns of young African-Americans. "They think all Asians are gangsters," says one. A friend adds: "They want you to tell them who did things. They try to scare us, tell us they'll send us to prison or back to Vietnam." Police say they are increasingly suspicious of the Southeast Asian street kids because many of them have turned from hiding out to committing crimes. Lee, a 13-year-old Laotian from Milwaukee, ran away last summer to stay with older friends in the Twin Cities. For two weeks, they hopped from dance clubs to bars. "It was really fun being in the fast lane," brags Lee. But the $80 Lee left home with quickly disappeared, so he and his friends turned to petty theft. Lee believes many runaways are involved in bigger things: "What's really going on is violence and gangs and stealing and robbing and guns." Police and counselors agree. In Seattle, police say crack is appearing among runaways; so are guns. And gangs once con tent with looting cars are turning to drive-by shootings. At least one expert believes that the phenomenon is actually rooted in some aspects of Southeast Asian culture. Northwestern University ethnographer Dwight Conquergood says that in Hmong communities in Asia, villagers commonly take off for a few days during times of trouble: "It's a natural conflict-resolution mechanism in Hmong society to go off to the next village or town for a period of time when there's tension at home." Whatever the cause, parents seem unable to stop their children from running. Few call police or even have the language skills to communicate. Of the six runaways found on Milwaukee's South side last month, only one had been reported missing. "I don't think they [Asian parents] trust the authorities. I don't think they feel we can help," says Milwaukee Police Officer Kay Hanna, who investigates reports of missing children. "I think they are confused about what they should be doing." So are their communities. Although shelters and drop-in centers for teenage runaways abound, many agencies aren't equipped to handle Asian kids who don't speak much English. Similarly, many Asian-American institutions-Buddhist temples, the Vietnamese Catholic Church-are set up for traditional families, not runaway kids. In Minnesota, state Rep. Dave Bishop has submitted a bill that would make it a felony to transport minors across state lines, arguing that many runaways are lured by older teens. It's a start, but counselors say the real solution is getting parents to bend their Old World rules. That won't be easy. Speaking through a translator, Kham, the father of the young Milwaukee runaway named Lee, explains that Southeast Asians come to the United States for the same reasons all immigrants do: to find a better future for their children. And they're heartbroken when it doesn't work out. Kham mourns for his young son, who has become a stranger. "They learn the new lifestyle and they don't really believe in or respect the old traditions," he says. "It is very difficult for us to understand each other." The pain only deepens when a child runs away. "The hope we had is lost, and we feel like it was not worth coming," he says. What be doesn't know is whether he can reclaim the spark, or his son. Marvel's Runaways bosses explain what that series finale cliffhanger ending means. Showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage reveal their plan behind that moment that left fans hanging. Marvel's Runaways (TV Series) TV Show. Hulu. Warning: This post contains spoilers for the third and final season of Marvel’s Runaways . As Marvel’s Runaways season 3 came to a close, it seemed like all the teen runaways were getting a happy ending against all odds. That is, until the final moment left fans hanging on a massive cliffhanger. Since Marvel and Hulu announced a month before the launch that the third season would be the last, that means the season 3 finale also served as the series finale. Episode 10 saw a future version of Chase (Gregg Sulkin) harness the science of time travel to go back to the episode 9 ending moment where, while the runaways defeated evil sorceress Morgan le Fay (Elizabeth Hurley), Gert (Ariela Barer) ended up dead from wounds sustained during the battle. By using time travel to redo that major moment, all the teens successfully defeated Morgan again, this time with no fatalities. Gert was alive, everyone was together, and all seemed well by the end of the finale. But then, before the credits could roll, Alex (Rhenzy Feliz) found a note left by an evil future version of himself that said to hide “Mancha” and kill Nico (Lyrica Okano). Clearly, all is not well. Talk about a cruel cliffhanger to leave fans on knowing that there won’t be any more seasons coming in the future! When EW asked showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage about ending the series on a major cliffhanger, they revealed they didn’t know at the time that season 3 would be the last they’d get to create. “We’re treating this like a series finale,” Schwartz says. “But we always want to have the potential for another story out there whether it’s something that we get to see onscreen or something that lives on in the imagination of the audience.” Savage agrees, adding, “I think the most important thing was we just wanted the audience to feel like this group was very much together, solidified as a family, and that if they were hoping their last runaway adventure was in the rearview mirror they were probably wrong about that and there would be more to come.” But Schwartz and Savage always knew that there was a high possibility that Runaways would get canceled after the third season. “We had planned a finale that could go either way, for the reason that we felt like that would not be clear to us by the time we had finished breaking this season,” Savage says. “It was clear to us that the future of the show was going to be a bit out of our hands,” Schwartz adds. “And so we wanted to ensure that the finale was as satisfying as possible.” That cliffhanger then served two purposes: To remind fans that the teen superhero runaways would continue to have adventures together regardless if it’s onscreen or offscreen, as well as set up the future of a potential fourth season… if they were lucky enough to get one. “We definitely had some ideas about where this story could go,” Schwartz says of planning for a fourth season. “But we’re extremely satisfied with how the series wraps up.” Those who have read the Runaways comic books upon which this series is based have enough clues presented in the final season to figure out where the Hulu series would have gone in a fourth season. That “Mancha” that Alex’s note refers to is actually a person well-known in the comics: Victor Mancha, aka the son of Ultron, connecting the Hulu series to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe in an exciting way. Victor was fated to become the supervillain Victorious when he grew older but to prevent that, he joined the runaways and becomes a hero instead. Alex, meanwhile, eventually betrays the runaways. And the seeds for that villain turn were planted in the Cloak and Dagger crossover, season 3 episode 8, when Tandy (Olivia Holt) saw that Alex’s hope was to take all the other runaways’ powers for himself, as well as his note telling him to kill Nico. While the Hulu series won’t get to explore that further, at least Schwartz and Savage were finally able to include a major time travel storyline before the series ended for good. “There’s time travel in the DNA of the comics so it was something that we wanted to honor,” Savage says. “We had teased and flirted with it throughout the first two seasons so we wanted to bring that to a more dramatic conclusion and really embrace it.” Hard times - A runaway's adventures in the Americas by Jack Mercer. Welcome to the final instalment of our latest Tale for Our Time - George Orwell's ever more timely tale of the day after utopia, Animal Farm. Thank you for all your kind comments about this serialization. Last night's episode, of the hard-working Boxer's reward for a lifetime of service, prompted Robert Bridges, a First Month Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club from Alaska, to write: Translated into modern times. would the farm animals feel so badly about Boxer's leaving if they gotten a piece of the action? Just asking for a friend about the money being paid out by CCP to refocus issues about Wuhan and a few stray bats. Gov. Cuomo retired many older people with less fuss. Indeed. For sending Boxer to the knacker's yard, Napoleon got . The Mark Steyn Show. Samoa the Same Old Same Old. If you missed Wednesday's live edition of The Mark Steyn Show, here's the action replay. Today's show was a Covid-double-mutation hybrid of the Steyn Show and our Clubland Q&A in which Mark answered questions live around the planet, punctuated by various regular features such as The Hundred Years Ago Show. So, on the one hand, some mo' o' the usual and, on the other, Samoa the unusual. You don't have to be a Mark Steyn Club member to listen to the show, so please click away and enjoy it. But we do thank Steyn Clubbers for, as always, some excellent questions, and we'll pick up a few of the ones we didn't get to in the days ahead. That new audio edition of Steyn's Song of the Week, by the way, can be heard on Serenade Radio this Sunday at 5 . The Sailor: The 1940s Volume 1. Popeye The Sailor: The 1940s Volume 1 Blu ray Warner Archive 1943 – 45 / 1.33:1 / Street Date – December 11, 2018 Starring Jack Mercer, Harry Foster Welch (Popeye), Margie Hines , (), William Pennell, Jackson Beck (Bluto) Directed by Dan Gordon, I. Sparber, Seymour Kneitel. The most animated of the great philosophers, Popeye relied on his fists to express his unapologetic mantra – “I am what I am.” Created by newspaper cartoonist E.C. Segar in 1929, the cantankerous but big-hearted sailor was brought to the screen by and his brother Dave in a series of blissfully rowdy cartoons running from 1933 till 1942 – which is when everything went south. 1942 was the year that Max’s relationships with both Dave and Paramount fell apart – leading to the brothers’ exit and the beginning of , an in-house animation factory at Paramount staffed by Fleischer’s former creative team. But it may have been the sailor at the center of the storm who suffered most from the break-up. Segar’s Popeye was an unlikely hero – a deadpan comedian with a plug ugly kisser and a balloon animal physique – a crude portrait that was inevitably softened by the Fleischers even as they enhanced his character – thanks to a parade of gravelly-voiced actors the irascible swab’s way with words added a comic dimension not found in the Sunday papers. The celluloid Popeye was a laid back gag man whose best quips were audible only to those paying attention – the W.C. Fields of the ink and paint club. That all changed after the Fleischers were banished and Famous Studios switched to Technicolor. Gone were Segar’s melting pot eccentrics, the flea-bit flophouses and bursting fire hydrants – in their place was a homogenized suburbia painted in the plummy colors of a Mentos roll. Warner Archives takes full advantage of those radiant Technicolor hues with their brilliant new Blu ray release, Popeye The Sailor: The 1940s Volume 1 . Beautiful to behold but short on laughs, the set exposes the choppy waters the weathered sailor was navigating on his way to middle age. Popeye’s Famous Studios adventures were further unmoored by the near total omission of his Thimble Theater cohorts – the heart and soul of Segar’s universe – Swee’Pea, Poopdeck Pappy and Eugene the Jeep. But the exile of Wimpy – hamburger connoisseur and perennial freeloader par excellence – was the unkindest cut of all. The plots focused instead on the never ending love-hate triangle of Popeye, Olive Oyl and Bluto peppered with recycled gags from pioneers like Tex Avery and Buster Keaton. Most of the shorts are pleasurable merely for their vibrant palettes – We’re On Our Way to Rio borrows its frivolous nature from Carmen Miranda musicals (Olive commands The Brazilian Bombshell’s skyscraping chapeau without tipping over) while the weirdly sinister Puppet Love , in which Bluto manufactures a unnervingly lifeless Popeye marionette to attack Olive, feels like the logline for a Robert Bloch story. The fly in the ointment – what earned this set a warning label from WB (“… intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children.”) – is that these cartoons were produced in the 40’s – and during wartime at that – which means there’s plenty of racist propaganda to contend with. Oddly, the one cartoon on the set that qualifies in that regard has little to do with the war itself. Pop-Pie Ala Mode finds our hero washing up on a remote isle teeming with drooling cannibals ready for dinner (you know where this is going). The racial caricatures are as gruesome as you might imagine and to seal the deal, the film ends with Popeye perched on a throne as the natives worship at the feet of their conquering god. It’s not pretty. Of interest to hungry pop culture mavens, Ala Mode’s cookbook gag predates The Twilight Zone ’s To Serve Man by 17 years. The Popeye cartoons of the 30’s and 40’s spanned two worlds – the economic crash of 1929 and a World War begun ten years later. In 1933 anxious ticket buyers reveled in the hard scrabble humor of Fleischer’s universe – but it seems the war demanded a kinder, gentler form of escapism – Famous Studios was happy to provide the rose-colored glasses.