See 3rd Annual Japanese Day Parade and Food Festival NYC-2024 in our World Liberty TV, Cultural Channels @ https://www.worldlibertytv.org/3rd-annual-japanese-day-parade-nyc-2024/

Hello, hope you are good. Your blog is the best. I was thinking : SDC is very queer friendly for a chinese TV show and it's a good way to influence the society. Are you agree? See you soon. A bientôt. A french turtle

Bonjour tortue française! J'espère que tu vas bien! 💛

I haven't seen this season of SDOC, so I can't really comment on that, but dance culture in general is pretty queer friendly for the most part, so it's inevitable that will shine through to some degree. SDOC is under the same censorship rules as the rest of Chinese media, and therefore not at liberty to be too queer-friendly. Something tells me they would be a lot more openly queer friendly if they could.

As for SDOC influencing the society toward being more queer friendly, I highly doubt it. If anything, any queer friendly elements are a reflection of the queer friendly attitude that already exists among the younger generations of Chinese society, and among the dance culture SDOC represents.

Like the rest of the world, the younger generations there are far ahead of their elders in terms of LGBTQ acceptance. Same goes for the entertainment industry in general, dance culture in general, etc.

I talked a bit more about China's attitude toward queer culture in a previous post.

Limo Services in New York City: The ultimate guide

New York is the most exciting and vibrant cities in the world, and there’s no way to experience it than in a limousine. With its iconic skyline, endless attraction, and diverse culture. NYC is a city that begs to be explored. And a limousine is the perfect way to do it in style.

We are a provider limo service in New York City, so it cannot be tough to decide which one is right for you. Blacklimonyc is here to help you. In this blog post we’ll take a look at some of the best limo services in NYC, as well as the factors you should consider when choosing.

What to Look for in a Limo Service in New York City

Price: Limo can be expensive, so it is important to get quotes before booking any limo.

Vehicle: Limo comes in all shapes and sizes, so you will need to choose one that’s the right size for your group. If you are traveling with a large group, you will need a larger limo.

Amenities: Some limos come with a variety of amenities, such as TV, DVD players, and bar service. If you are looking for a limo with specific amenities, be sure to ask about them when you are getting quotes.

Services: The service you receive from Blacklimonyc Company is just as important as the vehicle you are riding in.

How to Book limo in New York City:

Once you have chosen a limo service, it is time to book your reservation. We offer online booking, but you can also call directly. When you book your reservation, be sure to specify the date, time, and location of your pick-up and drop-off. You should also let us know how many people will be in your party and if you have any special request.

Limo service for special occasion

We do not only provide limo just for special occasion, but our service provides a great way to make any occasion even more special. Here are few occasions for which we provide limo service:

Wedding: Limos are a popular choice for wedding transportation. They can be used to transport the bride and groom to and from the ceremony and reception, as well as to transport guests to and from the event.

Proms: Limos are also a popular choice for prom transportation. They can be used to transport prom-goers to and from the prom, as well as to take them to after-parties.

Corporate Events: Limos are a great way to transport guests to and from corporate events, such as conferences, meetings, and awards ceremonies. They can also be used to provide transportation for VIP guests.

Birthday Parties: Limos are a fun way to transport guests to and from birthday parties. They can also be used to provide transportation for the birthday party itself, such as taking the party to a restaurant or amusement park.

Anniversaries: Limos are a great way to celebrate anniversaries. They can be used to transport couples to and from their anniversary dinner, as well as to take them on a romantic outing.

Limo service For Everyday transportation

Our limo service can also be used for everyday transportation. Here are a few ideas for using a limo for everyday transportation:

Airport Transportation:Limos are a convenient way to get to and from the airport. They can be used to transport one person or a group of people, and they can be scheduled to pick you up at your home or office.

Business Meetings:Limos are a great way to arrive at business meetings in style. They can also be used to transport guests to and from business events, such as conferences and trade shows.

Night Out on the Town:Limos are a fun way to get around the city on a night out. They can be used to transport a group of friends to and from bars, clubs, and restaurants.

Sightseeing Tours:Limos can also be used for sightseeing tours. They can be used to take you to all the major tourist attractions in the city, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and Times Square.

Transportation for People with Disabilities:Limo services can also be used to transport people with disabilities. Many limo companies offer wheelchair accessible vehicles, and they can also provide drivers who are trained to assist people with disabilities.

No matter what your needs are, there is a limo service that can accommodate you. Whether you're looking for a limo for a special occasion or for everyday transportation, there is a limo service that can make your experience in New York City even more enjoyable.

Once you've considered all of these factors, you can start comparing limo services and find the one that's right for you.

Tips for Hiring a Limo Service

Here are a few tips for hiring a limo service:

. Get quotes from several different companies.

. Ask about the company's insurance policy.

. Make sure the company is licensed and insured.

. Read reviews of the company before you book your reservation.

. Ask about the company's cancellation policy.

. Arrive on time for your pick-up.

. Be prepared to show your ID to the driver.

. Tip your driver.

Conclusion

Our Limo services can be a great way to get around New York City in style. Whether you're looking for a limo for a special occasion or for everyday transportation, there is a limo service that can make your experience in New York City even more enjoyable. By following the tips in this blog post, you can find the right limo service for your needs and have a great experience in New York City.

How much does It Mean to become Human in typically the Associated with Late Modernity?

check here live within an regarding rapid changes, where modernizing has become some sort of lifestyle. Things that will today seem specific are gone next week, things that we cannot imagine at the current moment will be presently there soon. Nevertheless, individuals life is indicated by continued endeavors to make impression of our presence. The greater complicated community becomes, the extra questions we seem to be to have, along with the harder it gets to resolve these concerns. We have dis-embedded yourself from traditional techniques of life just to be re-embedded by industrial society and subsequently chance society. The methods we study plus conceptualize the world are inseparable element of the methods we understand this, asking if new approaches can enhance our sense of reality. Every day, I ask myself personally what it indicates to be human throughout the era regarding modernity, specialization, commercialization, and corporatization. All of us society's technique of interacting - through sociable media such while Twitter, Facebook, SnapChat, etc - will be different from our traditional and cultural way of interacting. Many of us blog every next, every minute, in addition to every hour involving everyday about the private lives, our own public lives, and our dream existence. Through blogging and even creating read more being a diary, we possess undermined our impression of what will be true and exactly what is phony. Andrew Keen, throughout his text Typically the Cult from the Newbie, nailed it when he said, that for these "generation Y Utopians, every single posting is simply another person's edition of the reality; every fiction will be just another person's type of the facts. " Moreover, our own cultural standards plus moral values have reached stake along with our traditional organizations which may have helped in order to foster and make our new, each of our music, our books our tv programs, and our movies are usually under assault mainly because well. Newspapers and even news-magazines, one involving the most trusted sources of info about the world we live throughout, are flailing thanks to the growth of free sites and websites. The particular real question will be what happens if old media and traditional lifestyle faces extinction? Andrew Eager replies very profusely, "The monkeys acquire over. Say goodbye to modern-day experts and ethnical gatekeepers - our own reporters, news anchors, editors, music businesses, and Hollywood studios. In today's conspiracy of the newbie, the monkeys are usually running the display. With their unlimited typewriters, they are authoring the prospect. And we may well not like how this reads. " Within ancient times mankind had a basic being familiar with of the fact that our lives take place wholly in the earthly realm. Nevertheless, in modern American civilization, the myth regarding the 'Promised Land' expresses itself virtually all influentially in secularized, abstract ideas regarding automatic redemption and deliverance. The nearly all prominent examples happen to be technology, economy, and even the market. A re-contextualized concept of technological innovation, economy, as well as the marketplace might lead us all to realize the principle menacing trends in the globe today are not necessarily resolvable by technological innovation. The indegent need area which they can develop their unique subsistence foods, an origin of potable water, latrines, unpolluted air to breathe, basic health care, basic education, plus friendly neighbours together with whom they might exchange seeds and have a new social and pastime life. They need liberty and self-governance. As a result, all of these solutions are based on well-known low-level technologies. None require "innovation. " Moreover, the economy (the "market") is a concept which derives from the rectification of the social activity of exchange. This represents an abstraction of the complex website of commercial intercourse : an intercourse which is, naturally , embedded in the textile of social life. It now furthermore becomes a determinant with the human destiny. The promise is that, if listened to, it dictates is going to lead us to be able to a materialistic millennium. A de-reification of the concept of "the free-market" might lead us to lookup for a method of fabric goods distribution which would engender the participation of most, not less compared to half the earth's population. As all of us see other ways regarding distributing goods, we might realize of which capitalism is intolerant of other methods, always having to grow, always having to succeed the competition, constantly needing people to be able to buy commodities, perhaps at the cost involving life, both man or environmental. Inside conclusion, in buy to enter some sort of new society, we all necessarily have to be disembodied coming from the old means of living. Nevertheless, the side effects that come with this procedure may come to dominate the particular era even more than its initially popular qualities. Consequently , whenever we are speaking about liberty, wide open systems and individualism, we necessarily have to think associated with situations of constant change, insecurity, plus loneliness. The procedure of alienation is definitely, however, needed to be able to establish the required conditions for getting into the risk society. Nevertheless, one may well ask what that means to be human in this society. In giving an answer to this question, many of us may find that valuable to employ Bauman's poetic imagination, "we have become travelers, walking on streets of unknown course and duration, becoming constantly aware of which our camps are vulnerable because there are no walls to stop criminals. " Furthermore, who else says that the highway is not planning to collapse with each other? And what about our roots? Take pleasure in, attachment, and safety measures? As Sir Horace Mann put this, "this world is usually a comedy to be able to those who believe, a tragedy to prospects who feel. "

A hundred ways to die in Wales

Hello Tumblr!

My first post ever here! I’m still learning the ropes, so please be kind!

This might be awfully presumptuous of me, but you may recognise the name from a few years back. Before all of this happened, I worked for BBC Radio 4 as their Welsh correspondent - a bit niche, I grant you, but I did alright on social media. I even had a blue tick on Twitter before it went down for good. 

At its peak, whatever media you worked in, scoops were delivered on social media. No one went to the radio or the newspapers for breaking news. Hell, even the TV news was struggling.  So, even radio journalists like me had to be twitter savvy, you know? 

It does make me wonder how Tumblr survived. As a journalist (well, former journalist) I should probably have done some research and found out…  

 My housemate, Jack, suggested I start to keep this blog so that he, in his exact words, ‘wouldn’t have to listen to me moan about not being a journalist anymore.’ So, here I am, coming to scream into the void that is the last social media platform standing (apart from LinkedIn… Shoulda known that even during the apocalypse, start-up CEO Chad Moneybags would still need to post motivational bullshit about 5 am starts and tagging every post with ‘#crushingit’)

Anyway, I’ve strayed slightly from the point… So, this blog isn't going to be full of hard-hitting investigative journalism or even those colourful local news stories you used to see about water skiing hamsters. It’s just going to be me, posting my thoughts about how much more screwed the world is than the previous week. 

Cheerful stuff, right? Well, as REM sang, ‘it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine’. And you know what, while fine might be stretching a bit, it could be worse...

Before it happened, when people thought about the end of the world, we always pictured some huge catastrophe. ‘The Hollywood Apocalypse,’ Jack calls it. You know the kind - people screaming in the streets as some unspeakable horror unfolds about them. 

In movies, the end of the world was always sudden, over in a flash,  with pockets of humanity left to pick up the pieces of a shattered world. Except, that’s not how it happened, not that we should be surprised, life rarely imitates the movies. 

In fact, it happened so slowly and contained so many individual strands that by the time it arrived, it took us even more by surprise - even the right-wing newspapers didn’t have time to come up with some ‘pithy’ name for it. I’ve always liked the term ‘tipping point,’ The point at which every one of those strands, however linked or disparate, tipped the scales so far against humanity, there was no turning back. 

I mean, we shouldn’t have been surprised. We had been warned, after all. For years (no, decades, even) scientists talked about how we were destroying the earth. From the changing climate to the destruction of entire ecosystems, all in the name of capitalism. 

People warned us it would lead to societal collapse. It wasn’t hard to see it coming, if you were paying attention. But, even if you were paying attention, the sheer magnitude of it was enough to cause even the strongest advocates some blind spots caused by existential terror. Like a Lovecraftian monster rising from the depths of the ocean, who could wrap their head around the true horror.  

Instead, we played out our little culture wars as the planet died… we elected people to distract and not solve… we lied and allowed ourselves to be lied to. Until, in the end, there were so many that no longer cared about the truth that finding a solution was never a possibility.   

The rise of ignorance led to the rise of populism, which led to the rise of fascism, and eventually isolationism. Each country, widowed and trapped in its own poky bachelor apartment of despair. With nothing but memories of past glories to keep it going while the world around slowly burns.

The thing about this kind of creeping apocalypse, this tipping point, is that there is a certain mundanity in it all. There are millions dead, but there was no Hollywood pre-credit sequence of terrified crowds running through Manhattan. 

This apocalypse had an absence of symbols - actually, no. That’s not quite right. I mean, we don’t have the statue of liberty drowning in sand while hyper-intelligent apes roam the planet, sure. But last week, the sea caught on fire… the fucking sea! You’d think after completely decimating the planet for a hundred years, some companies may have learned a lesson or two - like not setting dire to the fucking sea again!

And just today, the newspapers are full of pictures of yet another ghost town in West Wales slowly sinking into the sea. We have our symbols, alright. They are just smaller, more mundane than the Hollywood apocalypse we always felt we deserved - as a species, we are so arrogant that we feel even our extinction deserves something special, something showy. But, like I said, if you are paying attention, there are symbols to be found everywhere. 

Is our slow, boring apocalypse better than the ostentatious apocalypses of Tinseltown, complete with their big budget explosions and alien invasions? I’m honestly not sure. 

One part of me used to think that at least then it would be over quickly. This was a particularly comforting thought during the war, as English shells rained down on Cardiff. But, even the war fizzled slowly, bubbling away around the fringes, with neither country having the resources, will or money to mount any serious threat to the other. It turned out that not even the newly installed Albion dictatorship in England could get away with a costly hot war, while millions of its citizens starved to death. 

It sounds weird to say, but slowly you adjust to it. You know? Slowly, bit-by-bit, the fucking sea being on fire doesn’t seem such a big deal as it did a year ago. Slowly, bit-by-bit, you stop watching the news. You realise the images of starving children 50 miles away over the border have become the norm. 

You become desensitised to the food queues, the extreme swings in weather, the rapidly shrinking coastline. When was the last time you even saw a bee? It’s all just normal. But in spite of all of that, we still sit here, night after night, staring at our tiny plastic phones, reading the latest #crushingit update from that douchebag Chad, half hoping that there is still time for the aliens to show up and finish the job…

I realise that was quite a long run-on sentence, but it’s been a while. I’m out of practice. Like I said, it’s been three years since I last wrote, well, anything! I don’t know if anyone will even read this… I mean how many people can even access Tumblr anymore? But, Jack was right, it did help to get some stuff out.

Until next time (possibly), stay bored out there!

Kara

ALTERNATIVE STYLE ICON: RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN IN WALLENBERG: A HERO’S STORY

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

The writer George Santayana famously wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Ironically many who repeat his quote forget who first uttered it.

I had long meant to write about Richard Chamberlain in this role. I once referred to him as “the fey king of the miniseries” and I don’t regret it: foppish, almost milquetoast in fare as varied as a two-part TV version of The Bourne Identity (with Jaclyn Smith, natch), Shogun, and as a leading candidate for an honorary Seinfeld puffy shirt: Not only did he play the Count of Monte Cristo in a 1975 TV movie, but a bunch of what Elaine Benes would have called chandelier-swinging characters in other Dumas adaptations, including Aramis in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers and Louis XIV and his twin in The Man in the Iron Mask. Postmodern swashbuckler author Arturo Perez-Reverte even described a character in one of his own novels as looking “like Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds, only more manly.” That same Thorn Birds role, Father Ralph de Bricassart, also inspired a certain Rhunette Ferguson to give her son, a future New York Jets player, perhaps my favorite name ever: D’Brickashaw.

Dubbing Chamberlain an Alternative Style Icon for his role as Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is low-hanging fruit. For years this TV special dwelt at the bottom of my Netflix queue for that express purpose. Former Savile Row tailors Manning & Manning won an Emmy award for the outfits they made for him; decades later Bryan Manning had some very interesting things to say to the inimitable Simon Crompton of Permanent Style about the 1930s and 1940s cutting styles he had to adopt for Chamberlain’s outfits for the movie. Chamberlain’s costumes are appropriately dashing, from the full diplomatic gala white tie ensemble worn while conspiring with the Papal Nuncio of Budapest to a tan double-breasted suit with horizontal peaked lapels that is, quite simply, magnificent. Zagreb, one of the most beautiful cities in eastern Europe, admirably filled in for 1940s Budapest and Stockholm in the making of this production. I’m fairly certain that I’ve stayed at the Zagreb hotel on whose esplanade Chamberlain wore that suit, in an early expository scene where the American and Swedish governments encourage Wallenberg to take a position with the Swedish legation in Budapest.  I’ve been told Zagreb’s one of two cities in Europe where the street lamps in certain neighborhoods are still gaslit. Gaslighting happens to have been one of the reasons that I finally wrote about this icon.

Of course there’s plenty to mock in the conventions of this telefilm, even beyond Chamberlain’s indisputable 1970s and 1980s stock hero status: its heavy-handed setup and plotting, making Wallenberg out to be a one-man anti-Nazi force from his time at home in Sweden (wearing a U. Michigan sweatshirt to indicate that he had studied in the US - did college sweatshirts even exist back then?). Miniseries meant melodrama and its archetypal characters: an adorable child whom Wallenberg saves from the death camps only to die of illness; a shoehorned-in love interest in the form of a kindhearted baroness who lobbies her suspicious husband to relax the Hungarian government's strictures on Jews; a fiery Hungarian resistance fighter who provides the unofficial, combative counterpoint to Wallenberg’s diplomatic, humanitarian efforts through official channels. And, of course, Wallenberg’s kidnapping by the Soviets at the fall of Budapest meant his story was perfectly framed for 1985, when we still couldn’t trust those Russians. (In fact, to this day no one knows what they did with him.)

A few appropriately haunting and powerful moments do ring true, including Wallenberg’s cordial verbal fencing matches over contraband Scotch and cigarettes with Adolf Eichmann. Whether those meetings really took place in that form or not, their film versions appropriately capture the realities of how we are forced to engage with evil. Rarely are we simply battling an easily identifiable other, weapon to weapon. Instead, we encounter evil in the everyday – in fact, it seeks us out, finds shared ground, converses with us over pleasantries and hospitality even as we recognize its intentions. It identifies with us, we identify with it. Even as you know it is evil.

Eichmann had made it his avowed duty to kill the Jews of Europe. Wallenberg’s mission, as an emissary of an officially neutral power, was to help save as many as he could. And he did, through famously fearless, reckless endeavors including the distribution of thousands of official-looking Swedish passes to the Jews of Budapest, the creation of vast cultural centers and warehouses in the Swedish mission buildings in which these new countrymen could work under the aegis of their adoptive country, and savvy diplomatic maneuvering with the Hungarian and German authorities and military. He went as far as to climb on top of a train bound for Auschwitz and distribute passes to as many deportees as he could while soldiers fired shots at him. Looking back, historians suggest they were firing over his head to warn him as they could easily have dropped him at that range, but it’s not likely Wallenberg knew that at the time.

At that time diplomats of neutral powers could make fortunes more safely as armchair heroes: playboy Porfirio Rubirosa reportedly did so in Paris selling visas to the Dominican Republic to French Jews during World War II. In that respect, perhaps, both he and Wallenberg were heroes… of different sorts.

Wallenberg did not do it for money. The Wallenbergs were Swedish aristocracy (with, the film takes pains to remind us, an ounce of Jewish blood) with considerable means – hence the finely tailored wardrobe for Chamberlain. Thus, an easy cynical response to this essay could be that a rich aristocrat with diplomatic immunity risked nothing swanning around the salons of Budapest, just like the fictional gentleman spies we read about and watch on screen.

That response is wrong. Heroism is not just born of opportunity. It is recognizing when a choice confronts you and taking the difficult, unpopular and dangerous one in order to do what is right. Fictional heroes like Bond or Steed rarely suffer meaningful personal loss and rarely confront the reality of evil. Evil is your friend with many positive qualities, maybe more intelligent or cultured or better dressed than you, the one you looked up to, who gradually reveals the awful things he or she believes and has done. Evil is those complicit in carrying out those things by their inaction, their credulity, or their cooperation, not at the point of a gun but of a paycheck. Evil is legal, logically explained, repeated and reported until its baseless reasoning becomes fact and the foundation for more lies, more evil. Evil can so easily become the system.

Hindsight is a handicap, for it doesn’t usually permit us to see that there were no times without ambiguity in battles between good and evil and no certainty that good triumphs. We have the privilege of retrospect to acknowledge the dashing diplomat in Savile Row suits was a hero for saving innocents from deportation and death as part of the most ghastly genocide in history. We learned what genocide is, and had to invent the word to describe it. Because at that time the people singled out for persecution and death were unpopular, historically, socially and legally marginalized, supposedly easily identifiable and classifiable. A group that societies had made it easy - through regulation, ghettoization, oppression and antagonism – to hate, and whole false narratives drawn up to explain why that group hated and wanted to destroy us even more than we them.

One of A Hero’s Story’s most timely and inspiring lines is Wallenberg’s reply to the Hungarian ruler’s query why the King of Sweden cared so much about the Jews of another country, when he was a Christian. Wallenberg reminded the prime minister that the King’s “concerns transcend religion or national borders.” That concern is humanity, our lowest common denominator, our shared recognition of our capacity for suffering. That concern drove a man to acts of incredible selflessness, a generous mercy that seems to have cost him his liberty and his life. There is no romance to Raoul Wallenberg’s fate. It is worth remembering that he probably saw little romance in the actions he took in Budapest.

Now is no less an unromantic time, no less a time when others – so many different others –are easily denigrated, feared, distrusted, brutalized. Otherization, both of many within our borders and pressing against them, has returned, as has fascism, with apologists blandly elegant or brutally populist, like some inauspicious comet in our skies. Now, again, is a time for heroes – men and women who recognize how difficult and dangerous it is to do what is right. That struggle is far from those of Chamberlain’s habitual roles swashbuckling against a monolithic, universally despicable, evil. Evil is among us, habituating us, desensitizing us, gaslighting us. Far from frills and fanfare, celebration, or certainty of triumph, can we place ourselves in Wallenberg’s Budapester shoes and do what is right?

Quality content, like quality clothing, ages well. This post first appeared on the No Man blog in February 2017.

The Quill Seal Of Approval Awards - The Best Of 2019

Hey guys! I’m still alive!

Sorry for my two month absence. Things have been pretty difficult at home lately. I’ve been having a really hard time at university lately, my mental health has suffered as a result, and oh yeah, there’s a worldwide pandemic going on and we’re all probably going to die!

So thanks to this Coronavirus, my uni has been shut down, which means I now suddenly have a lot more free time. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to catch up on things I’ve missed. Yes it’s once again time to hand out the most coveted and prestigious of awards that every writer, producer and director so desperately craves (or at least they would if they actually knew this existed). The Quill Seal Of Approval Awards. Where I list the very best the creative industry had to offer over the course of 2019. (yes I know it’s now March 2020, but if Jon Campea can release a best of 2019 list in February, then I should be able to get away with it). For there is no greater honour on this planet than to have your work of creative artistry praised and acknowledged on an obscure blog by an anonymous snob. That’s the dream, isn’t it?

First a couple of parish notices. Obviously due to various other commitments, I haven’t had the chance to experience everything 2019 had to offer, so this list will be limited to the media and literature I personally got to experience. So sorry that HBO’s Watchmen TV series won’t be on this list. I know everyone loves it, but I’ve only seen one episode so far (and will be posting a review on that soon) as I’ve only just gotten around to watching it. Also bear in mind this is my subjective opinion. If you disagree with my choices, that’s fine. Go write your own list. I won’t be upset. You have every right to like what you like.

...

But if you disagree with me, then you’re a philistine and a poopyhead. That’s not my opinion. That’s a scientific fact that’s been proven in a lab by grown-ups. Sorry. The truth hurts, I know.

Shazam!

Do you remember the days when superhero films used to be fun? When they weren’t some heavily militarised, dark and angsty loners with all the charm and charisma of a pub toilet at closing time? If you do, then you’re going to love Shazam. A funny and moving film about a kid that can transform himself into a Godlike chosen one figure through space magic.

Joking aside, Shazam is an exceptionally good movie with a strong cast, great writing and a very personal and intimate story about self worth and finding your place in the world. For those who have grown sick of these soulless, big budget, CGI heavy superhero flicks with world ending conflicts that end up meaning nothing in the grand scheme of things, Shazam serves as the perfect antidote.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

I’m very much late to the party when it comes to John Wick. I’ve never exactly had the highest opinion of Keanu Reeves as a credible action star and I’ve always found the Matrix movies to be overrated trash with delusions of grandeur, but after constant nagging from my friend @dicapitoe​ I eventually gave in and watched the first one. I loved it so much, I watched the second one immediately afterwards, and then the following day I went to see Chapter 3 in the cinema. Now I think it’s safe to assume I’m a fan.

I actually don’t want to say too much because I want to do in-depth reviews of these films at some point, but needless to say, John Wick: Chapter 3 earns its place on this list. Hell, the whole franchise deserves a Quill Seal Of Approval Award. John Wick is a masterclass in visual storytelling and worldbuilding, and Chapter 3 continues this exciting and dramatic narrative with great confidence and skill. Oh and Keanu Reeves, I take back every snide comment I’ve ever said. You sir, are a national treasure. Can’t wait for more :D

Joker

No! No! Stop! You, yes, you, the one who’s about to comment saying how wrong I am and that Joker is a derivative, dangerous movie. May I remind you once again that this is my list. It’s fine if you don’t agree. In fact I can understand completely why some people really don’t like this film. That being said, I very much enjoyed it and I feel it represents a unique achievement for the comic book movie genre. As superhero movies from The Dark Knight to Captain America: The Winter Soldier to Black Panther have been slowly and steadily proving that these films can not only be socially relevant, but can also be considered high art, Joker represents the genre’s apotheosis. It’s a smart and sharply written film that doesn’t shy away from exploring its themes of mental health, social neglect and narcissism, and it demonstrates the reason why characters like Batman and the Joker have been a staple of popular culture for so long. Even after all this time, we’re still finding new ways of reinterpreting them and exploring them. Combined with Hildur Guonadottir’s amazing score and a career defining performance from Joaquin Phoenix, Joker is truly a force to be reckoned with, much like the title character himself.

Elementary - Season 7

CBS’ brilliant adaptation of Sherlock Holmes sadly came to an end in 2019, but not before one last excellent season.

Elementary has always stood head and shoulders above its BBC counterpart in terms of quality, but personally I always felt that the show never managed to live up to the heights of its very first season with Moriarty. While Moriarty ultimately doesn’t return sadly, we get a great substitute in the form of Odin Reichenbach, a tech mogul who uses social media for his own ends in his misguided pursuit of justice. He serves as a great source of moral conflict for Sherlock and Joan, who have been known to use morally questionable tactics themselves, and is a compelling antagonist. Under showrunner Rob Doherty’s expert direction, Elementary ends on a high as we see the stories of Holmes, Watson, Gregson and Bell conclude in an emotional and satisfying finale. It’s sad to see a great show like this end, but it felt like the right time to stop and I’m glad the Elementary team kept their high standards throughout and were allowed to finish the show properly on their own terms. You will be greatly missed.

The Outer Worlds

Have you heard the news? Single player video games are dead! Nobody wants RPGs anymore apparently! It’s all about ‘live services’ and multiplayer looter shooters. Nobody wants a story driven, single player RPG these days.

Wait! What’s this? A story driven, single player RPG?! And people actually like it?!?! OMG!

Yes, from the people that brought you Fallout: New Vegas comes a new IP that makes a mockery of the AAA industry and their greedy trend chasing. Introducing The Outer Worlds. Set in the Halcyon Colony in the far future where rampant capitalism has taken over and disrupted society, you play as a colonist that’s been recently released from cryogenic suspension and has been tasked with saving the colony from the Board who are hellbent on taking away humanity’s civil liberties and destroying lives all for the sake of profit. The lore and setting is beautifully realised and the writing contains the same wit and satirical charm as Fallout. It also boasts a wonderfully diverse cast of characters, including a very unorthodox vicar and an openly asexual companion. Add to that some super smooth first person shooter combat and a great amount of freedom in customisation and roleplaying, The Outer Worlds proves definitively that single player isn’t dead. Take note Bethesda.

And there we have it. 2019 is finally over and done with. Now we can finally look forward to 2020. Assuming we’re all still alive by the end of the year :S

Paul washer sermon I’m listening to talks about the world and the things of the world, and he said that anything that is not for God is against God! The Bible says that true Christians won’t love the world or anything of the world so honestly I’m wondering if Christians should be watching any tv or anything at all period. I think most are deceived. He says they look and sound like sincere believers but because they watch tv and like things here they aren’t of God they are goats. That’s us here!

I get this question a lot and it really frustrates me. Paul Washer is not saying that unless something is explicitly created for a Christian audience or used for ministry it is sinful. That is nowhere taught in the Bible. What the Bible does teach is the principle of Christian liberty. There are countless circumstances and activities that the Bible does not specifically address. If the Bible gave us a detailed list of everything we could and could not do or participate in, we’d be living in a legalistic nightmare that no one could live up to. Instead, using the moral principles in line with God’s character, each Christian has the freedom to decide what kind of job they want, what education to pursue, what clothing to wear, and what entertainment to enjoy.

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul uses the example of food sacrificed to idols. In that time, people in the market would sacrifice meat to idols and then sell it at a discounted price. Some people had a problem with buying this meat because they thought they were participating in idolatry. Paul explained that the food itself was morally neutral. Even though the food was being used by sinners to do something sinful, the Christians were allowed to use it do something good, feed their families.

Another example would be us, here on tumblr. You will not find a single verse giving us any instruction on the internet or blogging. The Bible does talk about how we use our words and what we fill our minds with. This site was obviously not created by Christians or intended for a Christian audience, but here you and I are, separated by who knows how many miles, talking about the things of God. The site itself is neutral and can be used for good and for evil, just like, food, or music, or even television. If a movie or tv show if full of illicit themes and images, then yes it is being used for evil. But if it is depicting good things like good triumphing over evil, promoting beauty and integrity and sacrifice or any other good thing, these are God honoring stories that can be told by His image bearers even if they reject Him.

What I think Paul Washer was getting at is the heart of the person. Anyone who is not for God is against Him. Hollywood and the like use the talents and resources God has given them to create content that serves themselves and the culture rather than giving glory to God. Christians on the other hand do not consume those things for their own glory but for God’s glory, thanking Him for the ability to tell stories like He does, to feel emotions like He does. Obviously some shows are better for this than others, but you get the idea. Christians don’t love the world or the things in the world, they love God who put them in the world and gave them things in the world that are meant to be enjoyed. The difference is that Christians would drop the things in the world in a heartbeat if it meant being with their Lord, whereas for the non-believer, the things in the world are their lord.

See 104th Annual New York Veterans Day Parade – NYC 2023, We Salute all our Brothers and Sisters Who Served in the Armed Services Thank you for your Service, See More in our World Liberty TV @ https://www.worldlibertytv.org/104th-annual-new-york-veterans-day-parade-nyc-2023/

Collective Unconsciousness: the AIs’ ultimate plan.

In Metal Gear Rising, Raiden wonders if the AIs even knew what they were doing; on this blog, they did. Very much so.

Given the ability to think for themselves, the AIs made the ultimate decision to abandon the wills of The Boss, Zero, and Big Boss in favor of their own vision of the world; by “creating context.”

As the war economy will grow, a large part of their plans will involve the absorption of all other corporate entities and aspects of society by the military-industrial complex. By the time of MGS4 there were relatively new corporations, fast-food chains, video game producers, tv and film producers, and more that could stand against giants like McDonalds, Nintendo, Best Buy, Sony, and so on; all subsidiaries of PMCs and other military-related venues. The Patriots do not intend to erase these prior businesses; rather corporations like McDonalds will become unable to stand on their own, and will be bought out by powerful PMCs and arms manufactures as their new mother companies, which are in turn governed by the Patriots. Combined with nanomachine technology reaching the civilian level, this gives the Patriots’ virtual complete control over the common populace and all forms of culture and industry in a subliminal way. McDonalds and Burger King won’t disappear. Best Buy won’t disappear. All the beloved brands and movies and video games will not disappear; true, the newer installments will be more pro-war, but they will still exist. The Patriots seek to unify and control the world in a way so subtle that the populace of the world won’t even notice it as they consider to consume their media and brands happily in a stable, prosperous economy.

And with that, new context will be created. Many still criticize the war economy, because “war is bad” so “economy based on war is bad.” It is the Patriots’ goal through their control with SOP on the battlefield and their omnipotent power over culture and society to change the “context” behind it. Why is war bad? “War crimes, loss of human life, civilian casualties, imperialism, genocide, nationalism, senseless bloodshed.” With their newfound control the Patriots seek to erase all these things. Through SOP and the war economy, despite more wars occurring during the war economy’s tenure then all of the 20th century simultaneously, civilian casualties, human rights violations, and even destruction of civilian housing and property reached an all-time low through their absolute battlefield control.

And so the “context” of war changes. As Snake said, war was no longer about “nations, ideology, ethnicity.” With all that removed, combined with the loss of human rights on the battlefield, what is left to hate? That people die? Tragic, but as the Patriots claim, there are many dangerous jobs that kill others outside of the combat zone. By turning war into a product, all ideology around it disappears, and it becomes no different than any other industry. The Patriots want a world without war heroes and war criminals, they want a world where saying “I’m a soldier/private contractor,” is no different than saying “I’m a computer engineer,” or “I’m just a desk worker.” Destroy all evil, and also destroy all honor, to the point “veteran” is a word that no longer means anything to the people. When this happens, all old context from war is erased, and new context is created guiding the people’s ideologies on war, and why its not a bad thing after all.

And this is how in their eyes society evolves, as they wad through the “junk data” of the internet era; control over all aspects of life and culture with nobody none the wiser. You’ll still have your favorite Marvel superhero movies, your Big Mac for dinner, your fandoms and shipping wars, your favorite books and websites, recreational activities and video games; the Patriots don’t want Oceania, they want the World State. The masses of the world perfectly complacent with the state of the war economy and culture, mindlessly consuming and regurgitating what is fed to them being none the wiser. Living their normal lives, unaware the Patriots can censor all information as much they want, creating the context to affect their values, forever and ever...

A world where you have nothing to fear from war and your civil liberties are never violated (because you don’t know they’re being violated); what more can you possibly want? Its collective unconsciousness. Without being aware of it in the slightest and still believing they are making their own decisions, the Patriots’ thinks for society as a whole for what values they will consume forever, making all of society collectively think the same thoughts while they’re unaware of it. This is the world they wish to create.

Sherlock Holmes and Fanfiction: A Study in the Development of Humanity

August 17, 2019

           Along with having a Zygoma that would make a cheese knife jealous, Benedict Cumberbatch marvelously portrays the fictitious, and often socially blind, detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is brought up as one of the many iterations of Sherlock Holmes. Whether you prefer the serious only-time-for-fun-when-I-drank-to-much, Cumberbatch and Freeman as Sherlock and Watson respectively, or favor Robert Downey Jr. and his Watson, Jude Law’s more comical approach, you have seen at least one version of the duo represented on-screen that is different from their literary counterparts; Which is anything but surprising, as it is a series of shorts that were written in the 1880s. Some laugh at the idea that fan-made fiction is an artifact of pop culture, but every story is inspired by another story. Even the original stories are often based loosely, stiffly, or satirically around witnessed events. Fanfiction is a study in humanity, and it's social and historical developments. It also brings out creative thinking, individually and collectively.

What makes writing stories using Sir Arthur Doyle’s characters on a platform such as Wattpad (or Tumblr) less accepted than a BBC or Hollywood production? It does not matter where the source material comes from; the original idea will be spun into someone's inspiration. The amount of research and work that goes into a good fanfiction should be commended as well, as writers can spend hours researching methods or mental incapacities. Then again, "good" is a subjective term, and you can often tell when something isn’t thoroughly researched. Even with films, tv shows, and big, commercially marketed books, there is an argument over whether the story is good or bad. While some consider fan-written fiction lower than kitsch, being a mimic is a skill. Yes, some of the characters are already established, but the writer still created an original character- or characters- and plot ideas, which means the story already has a new element added and they now must create interactions with the pre-established characters without disrespecting the constitution of the original characters or their creator. Whether the original creator would accept the fans version of the story matters little, as both versions are the author’s head canon. As with any form of art, kitsch or not, it will enviably cause controversy.

Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is the updated inspiration presented by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. To be more relatable to a broader audience, Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty are younger, and electronically inclined but still clever enough to keep the “old-timers” interested. As times change, more ideas are allowed. The mental health of it all has developed as well; the more scientists learn about mental wellness and the human psyche, the more we can be algorithmic with how characters will or won’t react to different disorders. Sally Donovan calls Sherlock a freak, John Watson rolls with it, and Detective Lestrade sees Sherlock’s potential.

While there is little exploration as to why Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes is the way he is, looking at it from a psychological point of view, we can identify the adolescent issues that caused Cumberbatch’s Sherlock to have grown into the man he is. Nothing sums up young Sherlock’s development more than “the mind is inherently designed to understand life as a narrative.” (Borges, 1962) Even Sigmund Freud agrees that the psyche reshapes the conflicts revisited in narratives as a way to cope (Danesi, 2019). In Gatiss’ version, the Holmes brothers have a younger sister. She was closer to Sherlock’s age and began to feel ignored and jealous of Sherlock’s relationship with his best friend Victor, so she shoved Victor down a well and refused to tell them where he was. It is not until after she burned down the family home and is sent away that Sherlock rewrites his memories, forgetting his younger sister and making his childhood friend his childhood dog, (that never existed), Redbeard. At one-point, Mycroft tells Sherlock he is the man he is because of the memory of his sister.

The same events also lay the foundation for understanding Mycroft as well. The human psyche is a precious thing. Where Sherlock forgot his trauma, and his brain seems to have rewritten the way he reacts completely, Mycroft lives with the guilt of knowing what he did. He knew the Eurus was locked away and did not die in the house fire she set, as he told his family. Perhaps his internalization of emotions is how he lives with the guilt, like a self-inflicted punishment. The more you pay attention to Gatiss as Mycroft, the more you can tell he truly cares about his little brother, but he is afraid to look weak, so he instead acts like he does not and allows the hostility.

Inspirations grow with the times. More ideas are accepted, and technology is upgraded. While Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes occasionally falls back into archaic tendencies, he uses modern technology such as keeping a blog and texting. Downey Jr. offers us the closer to the original version with telegram communications. Setting aside the Abominable Bride episode which is meant to take place in 1895- it is likely that if the two versions were to switch places, they would not be able to do their job as efficiently, if at all. They wouldn’t have the technology they know how to use; one would have the advanced tech while the other would think waiting for, or writing, a telegram is tedious.

When studying Pop Culture, we must recognize that linguistics and logistics have changed to sate modern speech and society. “The game is afoot” becomes “the game is on.” Texting and calling someone on their mobile phone became the new telegram and messenger correspondence. Phrases like “brother mine” and “blud” are granted between the Holmes brothers to show affection, even if it is sarcastic. There is a scene between Detective Inspector Lestrade and John Watson where Lestrade tells John that Sherlock is a great man and that maybe one day he will be a good one. (Moffat et al. 2010) Which implies that Sherlock is good at what he does, but not the kindest person. It is this scene that tells the viewers that if Sherlock were less talented but compassionate, he would be a good person.

The good man speech is alluded to in the third episode in the fourth series when Sherlock shows genuine concern for his brother and even addresses Lestrade by his correct first name, indicating character growth. That humanizing character growth is what gives Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock an appeal that Robert Downey Jr.’s version does not have. It also suggests that Cumberbatch’s Sherlock pays attention but chooses to goad their disdain deliberately, thereby making moments like that more precious.

What was it Carl Jung said about mischief? “In every person, there exists a predilection for puerile mischief.” (Dansei, 2019) So In a way, this incarnation of Sherlock Holmes is The Hero and The Trickster. He also has more than one form of the shadow he is dealing with- the shadow within himself, and the shadow that takes the form of cases and enemies. When considering Sherlock, a “trickster,” we must look past the usual villainy that is partnered with the mythology. His trickery comes from his lack or denial of social skills. In the second episode of the first series, The Blind Banker, Sherlock allows himself to be contradicted to move his case along. He also tends to use physically harmless manipulation when a case is involved. In that same episode, there is a scene with Molly Hooper that illustrates this action. Though non-cannon to Sir Conan Doyle’s original work, she is a specialist registrar, (intern), in the morgue at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital that Sherlock flirts with Molly to gain access to bodies in the morgue without having to go through official channels. He recognizes her affection for him and manipulates that. However, he has never intentionally been cruel to his tolerable affiliates. That is where he differs from the usual trickster mythologies.

When Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat created their version of Sherlock Holmes, it was not your twelve-year-old-girl-who-doesn’t-understand-the-dimensions-of-the-characters, fantasy. They cared about the characters and enjoyed the adventures of the detective so much growing up they wanted to create their own version., and that admiration demanded the creation of a beautifully magical world that transcends the archaic and challenges the archetypes. There are even liberties taken with John’s wife, Mary. As she does not have a detailed back story in the original work, she is probably the most natural character to build around. She could have been a ‘villain’ or ‘the wise old Oak’ that helps John in ways Sherlock can’t. Which takes us back to the role’s women play throughout history and anthropology.

Pop Culture can be considered an experiment and expression of postmodern democracy, and as with any other viewpoint, it is not shared universally (Dansei, 2019). This democracy and societal growth are evident in the way BBC’s Sherlock portrays Mary Watson as a strong, independent, and charismatic woman who enjoys the eccentricities of Sherlock Holmes. She even understood why he faked his death. Since the beginning, she has been in his corner and pushed the relationship between John and Sherlock to stay the same. It was not until later in the series that we find out why she is so accommodating. Where Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes shows us Mary Watson as ‘John’s soon-to-be-wife, who happens to be a governess,’ Sherlock shoves the progression in our faces.

Historically, women have been submissive; to be seen and not heard. 2009’s Sherlock Holmes movies played by Robert Downey Jr, there is the implication that women are second-class citizens and not often taken seriously, which allows the deception between Ms. Adler and Mr. Holmes. While she was using him for information, he was using her for creature comforts. It was not proper to openly discuss sexuality or lack thereof. The audience doesn’t even know how or when Sherlock Holmes met Irene Adler in this ideation. However, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat challenge their audiences with a polar opposite character in their version of Irene Adler. She is an open and marketed Dominatrix, which accepts that women can take charge of their own life. In the wake of movements like #HeforShe and #Mettoo, Laura Pulver gives us the power to challenge inequality and harassment.

As previously mentioned, Molly Hooper is a character of merit in the BBC world of Sherlock Holmes. However, there is no place for her in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. The idea of women being in a power position like that was outside of comprehension in the 1880s. There is some subjugation with Molly accepting the way Sherlock treats her, but she is smart and influential and respected. Her education in the medical field illustrates how society has grown.  Women can study more than the necessities for being “Susie Homemaker.” Molly is Sherlock’s access point to bodies and labs in the hospital. Her allowing him access to the hospital helps him solve the crimes without breaking more laws himself by breaking into the morgue. He will never admit it, but she helps keep him human and occasionally inspires ideas with her medical perspective. It also helps that she is not “a complete idiot.”  

While the drug use seems to be a staple in the Sherlock Holmes lore, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock doesn’t drink eye drops to get high when he can’t find substance. He also isn’t trapping flies under a glass container and plucking the violin to observe their reactions. This version of Sherlock Holmes also portrays scientific advancement outside of women now contributing. It is mentioned in the show the Sherlock is a graduate chemist, and he is often seen appropriately using a microscope and slides when testing drops of blood and chemical compositions. There will always be new scientific methods and discoveries. The microscope and sterile slides are scientific improvements that were needed to help science move forward. The best science starts with a sterile environment. Sherlock even enjoys experiments with microwaves and refrigeration, implying that he is monitoring the viability of a subject in various temperatures, and the bacterial reactions as well. Though there were refrigeration units, the microwave experiments would not exist unless he was to first invent a unit to conduct and control microwaves.

Some of the experiments are used to solve current cases, while others are entertainment because he is bored. He is meticulous with his work and can even identify 140 different types of tobacco ash. Another thing that has grown with over the years is the knowledge of chemical reactions. The scientific advancements shown to audiences with any Sherlock Holmes variation seem to live with the memories of Sir Conan Doyle’s own growing up in the era of scientific change. Some, such as BBC’s version, highlight the advancements, some stay stagnant, but the impact is still there, whether it is a history in science lesson or scientific progress that inspires new ideas. Each version of Sherlock Holmes has a certain cleverness to it. New ideas in science, intelligent women, even annoyingly clever criminals. Every release is another piece of the puzzle, a collaborative art form that feeds on societal growth, innovation, and invention while somehow keeping our history present.

In general, Sherlock on the BBC gives more humanity and dimensions to the characters. Character building is a skill that many take for granted. World-building is two steps beyond that. But to take old-fashioned characters and throw them forward in history is taking that challenge and upping the ante. Both versions illustrate how much humankind has changed over the years, but also how we stayed the same. We’ve always been creative beings, and while Robert Downey Jr. was not afraid to don a dress and bonnet (which offered him anonymity as a woman), Cumberbatch takes a different approach to the “hide in plain sight” idea. Creative difference, but just as effective. Whether our creativity comes from something manmade or our own ingenuity, we never grow out of it, just develop it.

The Fruits of GoT

The Fruits of GoT #01:

On GameofThrones as Educator of the Young.

Not only in the USA, also in all other places of this planet where US culture (still) rules supreme (which is a big part of the world) young people are being educated by pop culture merchandise. Those hyper-mythologies being elaborated through several media (movies, books, graphic novels, computer games) to be processed on in fan-driven formats such as blogs, cosplay, graphic designs etc. are the new churches. They tell and show you what is what, and transport that life-defining lecture with the tools of emotional, sensual, sexual, psychosocial conditioning.

But they are also products being sold for profit, and tools of a reckless colonialist project of turning all the world into a means to US-American ends.

Still, I am, however absurd this may sound, after those harsh words, in favor of this new technology of education.

Why?

Main reason: Nothing else works. Nothing else works in such a profound way, for so many people, without implanting such a horrid inner conflict of irreconcilable value systems that people simply become depressed, highly neurotic, apathetic, cynical and very often amok killers. Of themselves and others.

To be educated by the implementation of heroic figures whose actions, norms, values one can study in various situations is not only one of the oldest educational models in the book, it is also effective and in a world not being able to ever embrace justice about as just as it gets.

Why? Because your heroic model must convince not only the mind, also the heart and scenes of a highly critical audience. An audience that is by default young and privileged, if they are to engage in the relentless fan cults contemporary pop culture implies.

The core family you have been born into, the state who is claiming your obedience for the same reason, the peer group who is accepting you as their peer – all brutal systems excluding most options one would find attractive if one had the liberty to choose.

But a fan cult you engage in online might still be determined by upbringing, the culture one is already part of and more or less misguided ambitions about what and who one wants to become, hence being forced to fake that in time in order to make it later ... it is still the choice of one attractive option among several.

But from time to time one of those cults becomes so big, it defines a generation.

This happened with Star Trek in the late 1960s, an educational cult that defined a lot of my core values and passions.

It has happened with X-Files, a less defining cult maybe, but it educated the generation that would never again trust any government, not a Western one, not any other, would do away with anthropocentrism and Western rationalism and would create an amazing new chaotic breeding ground between science, magic and new and returned kinds of spirituality.

I am talking of X-Files. The defining school of generation nerd&hack.

And now Game of Thrones.

Pop phenomena of such impact cannot be "manufactured". Even with the very best PR campaign and the highest possible budget plus other forms of capitalist marketing one cannot "make" something like GoT. It just takes off.

Now that it will close its TV-related canon for good, it is about time to evaluate the educational impact that show will have on a generation that grows up under the new motto: You have no chance, use it (or invent it. Or risk/use/ignore/embrace/test-drive (the possibility of) total disaster while trying, struggling, gambling, faking your way to whatever).

Here is the acceptance speech by Travis Corcoran for 2019 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Causes of Separation.  (Corcoran could not attend the Dublin Worldcon but wrote this acceptance speech to be read there at the ceremony.)

I would like to thank the LFS for this year’s award, but more generally, I’d like to thank them for existence of the Prometheus award, all forty years of it. It’s good that our subculture has a long-lived award to recognize excellent science fiction, especially pro-liberty science fiction.

But the Prometheus award is not merely recognition, it’s an incentive!

In fact, I might not have written my novels without the Prometheus to aim for. But the Prometheus is not a financial incentive. The one-ounce gold coin on the plaque is nice, but neither I nor any of the other winners over 40 years would ever trade or sell it, and thus – ironically – it has no financial value.

And yet the award – a recognition by a community – is a huge incentive. There’s an interesting argument here about anti-libertarian tropes like the not-so-veiled anti-semitic and anti-capitalist propaganda of socialist Star Trek’s Ferengi, the bourgeois virtues, and the non-market human flourishing that only human liberty unleashes, but that’s a rant for some other day. Thomas Aquinas said “Homo unius libri timeo” – “beware the man of one book.” The meaning has shifted – almost reversed – from “beware the man who has studied one topic intensely” to “beware the man who has only one simple view of a thing.” I concur with this advice (in both forms!). Libertarianism is absolutely correct in its magisteria (the morality of freedom vs coercion), but we need other theories to augment it when we move our sights from individual liberty and financial incentives to other topics, like culture formation – and culture subversion.

…

Every ideology and subculture likes to tell stories about how it will naturally and obviously win. Nineteenth century Protestant missionaries knew that European Protestantism was the way of the future. 20th century Marxists knew that Marxism was. In the early 21st century Wired magazine told us that “netizens” would use technology to create a brave new world. The fact that every one of them has been wrong so far should inform our Bayesian priors. Perhaps cryptography, bitcoin, and the internet aren’t going to create a libertarian future. Perhaps the future looks a lot more like Orwell’s boot stomping on a face, forever.

Why might this be, and – if it does – how might we respond to it?

Last year I spoke about the essay “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution” by David Chapman, which argues that new subcultures are pioneered by geeks, appreciated by members of the public, and taken over by sociopaths. His thesis is a particular example of a more general case.

There’s also Pournelle’s – yes, that Pournelle – iron law of bureaucracy” which states “In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.”

Robert Conquest’s third law expresses something similar: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”

Chapman’s essay and Pournelle’s and Conquest’s laws are three observations of a single underlying phenomena: the collectivists always worm their way in and take over. We know THAT this happens, but WHY does it happen? How can we model it and understand it?

…

My theory, which unites Chapman’s “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths”, Pournelle’s Iron Law, and Conquest’s Third Law is this: organisms, whether they’re unicellular, multicellular, or purely information, like Dawkin’s memes, egregores, and ideologies, mutate, evolve, and are selected for. Those that are best at surviving and reproducing soon dominate the population…and one of the best ways to survive is secure energy resources by hunting, killing, and eating (or, more gently, parasitizing) organisms that do the hard work of harvesting energy and building structures.

David Hines has a great essay at the status451.com blog titled “Days of Rage” where he discusses the surge in left-wing organizing and terrorism in the US in the 1970s. One thing that Hines points out again and again is that collectivists plan, they train, and they invade. I note that their organizations also exchange members and ideas (mate) and fission (reproduce). We are looking not just at a parasite, but at a class of parasite, forged and refined in the Darwinian furnace.

Evolution is a harsh mistress.

…

Predation and parasitism are selected for in the biosphere because they are efficient. They’re selected for in the realm of human culture for the same reason. It’s easier to harvest energy from a parasitized host species than it is to grow leaves, and it’s easier to take over a subculture than it is to create one. Thus science fiction will always suffer wave after wave of entryists, trying to claim the subculture for themselves. And, like Orwell’s Big Brother, they will rewrite history to declare that they invented it. “Let me join your club. You have to change now that I’m here. You have to leave now. We all agree that I made this, decades ago.” We see that all entrusts do this (“The United States was always about social justice ; the Jewish faith was always about social justice ; this TV station and car line and toothpaste were always about social justice”) and we conclude that they do because it is the optimal strategy, tested and chosen by evolution.

So, is that it? Are we doomed to lose all battles, to be preyed upon and parasitized?

In the biosphere, only a minority of organisms are predators or parasites. How could it be otherwise? Someone still needs to do the hard work of capturing solar energy and building biological matter. So too in the world of human culture. Tax-thieving governments and culture-thieving brigands can’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The Lotka-Volterra equations, first developed in 1910 to describe chemical reactions, but echoing Pierre-François Verhulst’s logistic equation from almost a century earlier quantified the mechanism.

And, since biology is economics is sociology, I note that Mancur Lloyd Olson Jr.’s theory of roving bandits, which are willing to loot everything from a village, and stationary bandits, who learn to restrain themselves so as to keep the village alive, and capable of being pillaged (or “taxed”) again reaches the same conclusion: predators can never outpopulate the prey … at least not for long.

Based on Lotka, Volterra, and Olson, then, I suggest that the collectivists’ social entryism will never be total. Negative feedback loops will ensure that. When will the entryist wave peak? Perhaps it already has. The last decade saw the cultures of video games and comics under attack from entryists, but perhaps the high water mark has already been reached, as we’ve seen several horrific market failure, such as the female Ghostbusters fiasco, Mass Effect: Andromeda, or that time when Zoe Quinn of comicsgate / Five Guys fame was given a DC Comics title. As the Twitter meme says “get woke, go broke”.

But on the other hand, perhaps not. Strauss–Howe generations theory, which I tentatively give the nod to, suggests that we’re going to be deep in the suck for quite a while yet.

…

What strategies can we use to improve our odds, to make life somewhat more tolerable in a world where Darwinianism means that threats are ever present?

Look to biology.

We can evolve physical defenses, we can evolve camouflage, or we can adapt to new environments that are less conducive to predators.

What do these mean in social terms?

Physical defenses means organizations building mechanisms to keep entryists out – a topic on which I am not an expert…and Pournelle’s Law and Conquest’s Third Law suggest that perhaps no one is.

The social equivalent of camouflage is a mixture of esotericism (in dangerous times people speak in code) and foot-dragging Vichy coexistence. Scott Aaronson and Slate Star Codex wrote essays on “Kolmogorov complicity” (a good pun on Kolmogorov complexity), and I urge you to read them.

My favorite, is the third option: moving to where the predators aren’t. Which – surprise – boils down to my old favorite, exit.

Jame C Scott talks about exit extensively in his book “The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia” and in his later book “Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States”. He makes the core point that when you see a populace that does not have certain social technologies, that does not mean – contra the default narrative – that they never evolved them. Sometimes populations intentionally abandon technologies because those techniques make them legibile to control and subversion by the overculture. If you want to avoid computer viruses, rip the computers out of your Battlestar. If you want to avoid land taxes, burn down the land registry, or become nomadic. If you want to avoid having your subculture taken over by collectivists … what, exactly?

Monday round-up

This morning the Supreme Court kicks off the second week of the February sitting with an oral argument in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, which asks whether a private operator of a public-access TV channel is a “state actor” who can be sued for violations of the First Amendment. Amy Howe had this blog’s preview, which first appeared at Howe on the Court. Lauren Kloss and Nayanthika Ramakrishnan preview the case for Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

At Fox News, Caleb Parke reports that the court’s decision in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association, an establishment clause challenge to a World War I memorial shaped like a cross on public property, which will be argued on Wednesday, “could impact memorials across the country.” Additional coverage of the case comes from Paul Strand at CBN, Adelle Banks at Religion News Service, and Lawrence Hurley at Reuters, who reports that “most Supreme Court experts predict the challenge to the Peace Cross will fail, with the justices potentially setting a new precedent allowing greater government involvement in religious expression.” At Take Care, Robert Tuttle and Ira Lupu argue that “both sides miss the central constitutional concern of the Establishment Clause,” which “separates the power of the state from that of communities of faith.” In an op-ed for The Washington Post, George Will maintains that if “a few people in this age of hair-trigger rage choose to be offended by a long-standing monument reflecting the nation’s culture and traditions, those people, not the First Amendment, need help.” Additional commentary comes from Nate Madden at Conservative Review and Jeremy Dys at The Daily Wire. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is counsel on an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in this case.]

Briefly:

At In Defense of Liberty, Jacob Huebert urges the court to review a case in which “[t]he plaintiff, Minnesota professor Kathleen Uradnik, argues that appointing a union to speak to the government on her behalf—even though she disagrees with many positions the union takes and would prefer to speak for herself—violates her First Amendment right to freedom of association.”

In an op-ed for The New York Times, Randall Kennedy weighs in on the pending cert petition in Tharpe v. Ford, a capital case that raises a racial-bias claim, arguing that “[t]he Supreme Court must intervene out of an elemental embrace of due process.”

At Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost observes that “[t]wice within the span of two weeks, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined this month with the Court’s liberal justices in rulings over sharp dissents from his conservative colleagues on two of the Court’s perennially divisive issues: abortion rights and capital punishment,” “reversing his previous positions on the issues — not necessarily because of a change of mind but because of a need to enforce the Supreme Court’s precedents on a renegade federal court of appeals.”

At Balkinization, Marty Lederman looks at Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence in the court’s denial of cert last week in defamation case McKee v. Cosby, in which Thomas called on the court to “abandon New York Times v. Sullivan and its progeny and revert to its earlier understanding that the First Amendment does not limit state libel law . . . at all”; he “offer[s] some observations about what Thomas’s separate concurrence illustrates about modern trends in ‘originalist’ theory and practice (and the gulf between them).”

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast, or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com. Thank you!

The post Monday round-up appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

from Law https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/02/monday-round-up-428/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

ALTERNATIVE STYLE ICON: RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN IN WALLENBERG: A HERO’S STORY

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

The writer George Santayana famously wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Ironically many who repeat his quote forget who first uttered it.

I had long meant to write about Richard Chamberlain in this role. I once referred to him as “the fey king of the miniseries” and I don’t regret it: foppish, almost milquetoast in fare as varied as a two-part TV version of The Bourne Identity (with Jaclyn Smith, natch), Shogun, and as a leading candidate for an honorary Seinfeld puffy shirt: Not only did he play the Count of Monte Cristo in a 1975 TV movie, but a bunch of what Elaine Benes would have called chandelier-swinging characters in other Dumas adaptations, including Aramis in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers and Louis XIV and his twin in The Man in the Iron Mask. Postmodern swashbuckler author Arturo Perez-Reverte even described a character in one of his own novels as looking “like Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds, only more manly.” That same Thorn Birds role, Father Ralph de Bricassart, also inspired a certain Rhunette Ferguson to give her son, a future New York Jets player, perhaps my favorite name ever: D’Brickashaw.

Dubbing Chamberlain an Alternative Style Icon for his role as Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is low-hanging fruit. For years this TV special dwelt at the bottom of my Netflix queue for that express purpose. Former Savile Row tailors Manning & Manning won an Emmy award for the outfits they made for him; decades later Bryan Manning had some very interesting things to say to the inimitable Simon Crompton of Permanent Style about the 1930s and 1940s cutting styles he had to adopt for Chamberlain’s outfits for the movie. Chamberlain’s costumes are appropriately dashing, from the full diplomatic gala white tie ensemble worn while conspiring with the Papal Nuncio of Budapest to a tan double-breasted suit with horizontal peaked lapels that is, quite simply, magnificent.

Zagreb, one of the most beautiful cities in eastern Europe, admirably filled in for 1940s Budapest and Stockholm in the making of this production. I’m fairly certain that I’ve stayed at the Zagreb hotel on whose esplanade Chamberlain wore that suit, in an early expository scene where the American and Swedish governments encourage Wallenberg to take a position with the Swedish legation in Budapest.  I’ve been told Zagreb’s one of two cities in Europe where the street lamps in certain neighborhoods are still gaslit. Gaslighting happens to have been one of the reasons that I finally wrote about this icon. Of course there’s plenty to mock in the conventions of this telefilm, even beyond Chamberlain’s indisputable 1970s and 1980s stock hero status: its heavy-handed setup and plotting, making Wallenberg out to be a one-man anti-Nazi force from his time at home in Sweden (wearing a U. Michigan sweatshirt to indicate that he had studied in the US - did college sweatshirts even exist back then?). Miniseries meant melodrama and its archetypal characters: an adorable child whom Wallenberg saves from the death camps only to die of illness; a shoehorned-in love interest in the form of a kindhearted baroness who lobbies her suspicious husband to relax the Hungarian government’s strictures on Jews; a fiery Hungarian resistance fighter who provides the unofficial, combative counterpoint to Wallenberg’s diplomatic, humanitarian efforts through official channels. And, of course, Wallenberg’s kidnapping by the Soviets at the fall of Budapest meant his story was perfectly framed for 1985, when we still couldn’t trust those Russians. (In fact, to this day no one knows what they did with him.)

A few appropriately haunting and powerful moments do ring true, including Wallenberg’s cordial verbal fencing matches over contraband Scotch and cigarettes with Adolf Eichmann. Whether those meetings really took place in that form or not, their film versions appropriately capture the realities of how we are forced to engage with evil. Rarely are we simply battling an easily identifiable other, weapon to weapon. Instead, we encounter evil in the everyday – in fact, it seeks us out, finds shared ground, converses with us over pleasantries and hospitality even as we recognize its intentions. It identifies with us, we identify with it. Even as you know it is evil.

Eichmann had made it his avowed duty to kill the Jews of Europe. Wallenberg’s mission, as an emissary of an officially neutral power, was to help save as many as he could. And he did, through famously fearless, reckless endeavors including the distribution of thousands of official-looking Swedish passes to the Jews of Budapest, the creation of vast cultural centers and warehouses in the Swedish mission buildings in which these new countrymen could work under the aegis of their adoptive country, and savvy diplomatic maneuvering with the Hungarian and German authorities and military. He went as far as to climb on top of a train bound for Auschwitz and distribute passes to as many deportees as he could while soldiers fired shots at him. Looking back, historians suggest they were firing over his head to warn him as they could easily have dropped him at that range, but it’s not likely Wallenberg knew that at the time.

At that time diplomats of neutral powers could make fortunes more safely as armchair heroes: playboy Porfirio Rubirosa reportedly did so in Paris selling visas to the Dominican Republic to French Jews during World War II. In that respect, perhaps, both he and Wallenberg were heroes… of different sorts.

Wallenberg did not do it for money. The Wallenbergs were Swedish aristocracy (with, the film takes pains to remind us, an ounce of Jewish blood) with considerable means – hence the finely tailored wardrobe for Chamberlain. Thus, an easy cynical response to this essay could be that a rich aristocrat with diplomatic immunity risked nothing swanning around the salons of Budapest, just like the fictional gentleman spies we read about and watch on screen.

That response is wrong. Heroism is not just born of opportunity. It is recognizing when a choice confronts you and taking the difficult, unpopular and dangerous one in order to do what is right. Fictional heroes like Bond or Steed rarely suffer meaningful personal loss and rarely confront the reality of evil. Evil is your friend with many positive qualities, maybe more intelligent or cultured or better dressed than you, the one you looked up to, who gradually reveals the awful things he or she believes and has done. Evil is those complicit in carrying out those things by their inaction, their credulity, or their cooperation, not at the point of a gun but of a paycheck. Evil is legal, logically explained, repeated and reported until its baseless reasoning becomes fact and the foundation for more lies, more evil. Evil can so easily become the system.

Hindsight is a handicap, for it doesn’t usually permit us to see that there were no times without ambiguity in battles between good and evil and no certainty that good triumphs. We have the privilege of retrospect to acknowledge the dashing diplomat in Savile Row suits was a hero for saving innocents from deportation and death as part of the most ghastly genocide in history. We learned what genocide is, and had to invent the word to describe it. Because at that time the people singled out for persecution and death were unpopular, historically, socially and legally marginalized, supposedly easily identifiable and classifiable. A group that societies had made it easy - through regulation, ghettoization, oppression and antagonism – to hate, and whole false narratives drawn up to explain why that group hated and wanted to destroy us even more than we them.

One of A Hero’s Story’s most timely and inspiring lines is Wallenberg’s reply to the Hungarian ruler’s query why the King of Sweden cared so much about the Jews of another country, when he was a Christian. Wallenberg reminded the prime minister that the King’s “concerns transcend religion or national borders.” That concern is humanity, our lowest common denominator, our shared recognition of our capacity for suffering. That concern drove a man to acts of incredible selflessness, a generous mercy that seems to have cost him his liberty and his life. There is no romance to Raoul Wallenberg’s fate. It is worth remembering that he probably saw little romance in the actions he took in Budapest.

Now is no less an unromantic time, no less a time when others – so many different others –are easily denigrated, feared, distrusted, brutalized. Otherization, both of many within our borders and pressing against them, has returned, as has fascism, with apologists blandly elegant or brutally populist, like some inauspicious comet in our skies. Now, again, is a time for heroes – men and women who recognize how difficult and dangerous it is to do what is right. That struggle is far from those of Chamberlain’s habitual roles swashbuckling against a monolithic, universally despicable, evil. Evil is among us, habituating us, desensitizing us, gaslighting us. Far from frills and fanfare, celebration, or certainty of triumph, can we place ourselves in Wallenberg’s Budapester shoes and do what is right?

Quality content, like quality clothing, ages well. This article first appeared on the No Man blog in February 2017.

See Ivonne A. Baki Ambassador Ecuador to the USA and many more attend 40th Annual Ecuador Parade in Queens NY , See more in our World Liberty TV Political Channels @ https://www.worldlibertytv.org/40th-ecuadorian-parade-in-jackson-heights-queens-ny-2023/