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inkofamethyst · 5 years

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May 11, 2019

I will say that another positive thing about me going to a school that has ~30k undergrads is that I’ll more than likely be able to find the group where I fit.

I used to look at my university as this big state school with a bunch of kids who only wanted to party, a place that was essentially faceless and without character.

Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m willing to say that I’m most likely going to be very wrong when I show up this fall. It’s so big so there really isn’t just one culture. There’s probably plenty of different groups for me to plop myself into, as opposed to, say, my choice 2 which seemed to be a fairly homogeneous school (I feel like a lot of religiously-linked colleges are like that, but that’s tea for another day) where I might’ve had to have closed myself into a box as opposed to really exploring potential parts of myself that high school didn’t allow me to explore.

College is about exploration and getting out of your comfort zone. What’s a better way to shift out of my comfort zone than to go from a high school of 1500 or so kid to a university of 40k students total?

So I was going to post the second part of me going through the information that my college gave me when I went in for a visit, but when I read it over just now I realized that it was boring as all get out so I deleted it.

But do you know what’s not boring as all get out?

Realizing that I’m going to have a super difficult four-year plan!!!!1! I’ve been trying to figure out a schedule where I don’t take any more than three hard science classes a semester (two a semester is preferred, but I’ll be there to study science so I’m flexible on that) and due to the fact that I’m retaking some things and skipping other things, I’m having quite the time trying to situate this schedule of mine. My first two semesters seem fine, it’s just my sophomore year that’s screwing me up. I decided to get physics over with during my first two semesters (I’ve still got physical chem after that but whatever I guess) and that really skewed my schedule. I’m only getting out of two classes required by my major (four classes in total which is about half of what I was expecting but that’s okay), but managing the difficulty is where it’s getting tricky. I don’t want to make one semester super easy and then get thrown off my groove... unless I use that as a strategy one semester to help me study for graduate school exams? But I don't know what the difficulties of certain classes are like because I don’t have a mentor or current student to talk to currently. And I have to take at least fifteen credits a semester to maintain my scholarship but I also have to keep a 3.2 GPA (preferably higher) each semester with no more than one slip. It’s... a lot. I can do it, but it’ll be a challenge. I think I’m up for the challenge, I’m just a little scared. A lot of people believe in me, so I really need to start believing in myself. Maybe I’ll, uh, have the general biology major in my back pocket just in case. Biochem is known to be a hard major, but it will look fairly impressive when I apply to pharmacy schools, I think. It’ll be a practically perfect foundation.

Besides major requirements, I’ve also been looking at Gen-Eds which will be nice breaks in my schedule. I might discuss some of them here. My honors program takes care of four of them, and my major obviously takes care of the natural science requirements, and two of my AP tests take care of two other requirements, and I think that leaves me with eight requirements for my university, then I have to look at requirements for admission into different pharmacy schools, then I’ll look into the possibility of some sort of minor. If I had gone to my choice 7 (or maybe even 3) I probably could’ve even added theatre as a whole major, but that’s in the past now. I’ve got to deal with my own university now.

Today I’m thankful for the online resources that allow me to get a sneak peek into registering for courses. It’s really nice to have these tools prior to orientation so that I’m not as clueless when I arrive in a little over a month(!). I’ll probably be agonizing over this puzzle until I figure out the optimal schedule. I’m hoping that they’ll open up certain sections of classes at different times of day so that, you know, they’re a bit more convenient for me. I’d just rather now have a class go up until six, seven, eight in the evening. While I’d rather now wake up at eight in the morning either, I’d prefer early morning classes to late evening ones, I think. But that’s just my take. We’ll see what pops up as being available when I go in for orientation. There aren’t to many orientation sessions before mine, so hopefully all the seats in the good classes won’t be taken.

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marcloresto · 3 years

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It was really amazing to be hired right after I completed my UX boot camp. It would be my first time working in the private sector. It would be the first time where the majority of my coworkers were white and the first time I'd be the only non-white person on my project teams. I was just happy to be a UX designer so I went with everything that came at me very passively. As a gay, brown, low-income, son of immigrants, I've experienced blatant discrimination in my everyday and I've experienced discrimination in its more subtle form of microaggressions. But I've never experienced the insane amount of microaggressions as I did at my last job. It was happening almost every other day and it came from all levels. Sometimes mostly from those in senior and leadership positions. I was at my old job for five and a half years. And if I could draw up a graph that could illustrate how my depression was compounded by being at this job, it would be a continuous upward slope until I left in November 2019. "It's just a job," I'd be told by so many people. But it's not just a job if you're constantly surrounded by racists saying racist things. That's a hostile work environment that takes a major toll on mental health. One time someone called me a lone wolf. That made me sad since I really wanted friends at this job. But there was literally zero connections to be made. I couldn't relate to anything anyone would talk about. Looking back, I should have given it a better shot. But looking back, NO, fuck that. There are studies that show how being a minority in the workplace does damage to job performance, communication, and obviously mental health. That was me. Towards the end of my time there, people made complaints about my work, about my lack of communication. But I couldn't help it. I was mad af everyday. I hated being there. One of the reasons I hated being there: leadership couldn't give a good reason about why we only recruited white people. Hint: Because when a majority white company only reaches out to their circles it's going to do absolutely nothing but perpetuate homogeneity. I tried do something. I tried to do many things. But nothing ever stuck because leadership could never find the time for support. A month after George Floyd's death, one of the group leaders texted me saying how he was thinking of me and that he appreciated me. That pissed me off. He never sent a farewell note. If it would have been anyone, I would have expected it to be him because we talked a lot about racism in the workplace. That text made me think maybe they're doing something about how racist they are. Finally! It only took a video of a Black man getting murdered by a white cop for industries across the US to start shaking in their boots because they didn't wanna get called out for doing jack shit about addressing D&I in the workplace. After I got the text, I remember thinking, "I fucking told you so." Do you know how crazy I felt being in that workplace? Every person made me feel like I cared about something that didn't matter. But that's what the dominant culture does to ideas that don't align with their own. They deem it as unimportant. So naturally, I began to feel unimportant. I felt like I didn't matter there. I felt like I didn't have a voice. I hated being there and by the time it was my fourth year, I was downing a six pack of beer every single night. A job isn't just a job. We spend so much time working and there isn't any fucking reason why we shouldn't be able to show up to work as our full, authentic selves. And there isn't a reason why our workplaces shouldn't acknowledge and support that. There are studies that prove more diverse workplaces outperform homogenous ones. And if all these motherfuckers cared about was money, then wouldn't they want to invest in a D&I initiative? Summer of 2019 was a major turning point. We got an internship that I really fought for. I made sure that the people we invited to apply were only City and State University students. No NYU, no Parsons, no Columbia. Just City and State students. I was thrilled to hire three amazing women. Three women of color. Three non-traditional students. One from the Bronx. And two from different parts of Brooklyn - the non-gentrified parts. It's been thee highlight of my career to have managed their internships with us. But towards the end in July 2019, all of us found out how Ogilvy was the PR agency for Customs and Border Protection. This changed a lot for me. With all the bullshit I experienced, and their internship ending in August, I decided I wouldn't step foot into the office again. And I didn't. In July and August 2019, Buzzfeed News and AdWeek talked to me and other staff about our meeting with the worldwide CEO. They wrote about it. Ogilvy was dragged for a hot second. But after the audio of the meeting was leaked and posted online, any type of employee action we wanted to take was effectively DOA. I never used my second monitor again. Instead I propped it up as high as it would go and I printed "No kids in cages" and taped it to the screen. I took what I needed from my desk and never came in again. I decided that enough was enough and this place was too toxic for me. I worked on my portfolio and in November 2019, I put my two weeks in. I didn't have anything lined up. I convinced myself that I would be fine if I just worked at Trader Joe's until I could find a workplace that aligned with my values. Thankfully, I got interviews right away with the ACLU and Teach For America. And a month later, Teach For America made me a really great offer that I couldn't turn down. I haven't been happier in a workplace since. My coworkers are so diverse. I'm no longer the only non-white person in my teams or calls. There are MANY non-white people on all my projects. Everyone's values are pretty much aligned and it's been so refreshing to work with people you know you see to eye-to-eye with. But the reason I decided to share this today is because I haven't let this go yet. And I'm ready to. I'm tired of feeling this PTSD from being in such a racist workplace. I can't believe how much being at Ogilvy made me depressed. I feel like I lost five years of myself. I'm just ready to not let that sadness dictate how I live my life anymore. To any friends that might have wondered about anything or had any concerns, those were all valid. I wanted to kill myself many times over the last several years. Not solely because of work but a combination of things where I pretty much felt like I didn't matter. A feeling that was compounded by work because I knew for a fact that I didn't matter there. I think I've learned that it's not worth it to be at a place that doesn't recognize you or see you or validate your experiences whether that's in the workplace or a relationship or a friendship. I turned 37 a couple months ago. And I'll be real, I didn't think I'd make it past 35. I was so sure I'd have taken my life by then. But I'm in a much better place now. Especially in my head. I'm sort of playing catch-up now because I have to think about a future I never saw for myself. I always think about that opening line in Pretty Hurts where Beyoncé is asked what's her aspiration in life? And she says, "To be happy." And I think I took that first step when I left Ogilvy. After feeling defeated for so long and hitting what I thought was rock bottom several times, there really is nowhere else to go but up. All this to say that our identities are so important because they shape how we navigate and experience the world. And not one part of anyone's identity is bad or wrong or invalid. Every part of our identities is worthy. I'm gay, brown, a son of immigrants that grew up in a low-income household and immigrant neighborhood. I'm not seeing any of those as flaws anymore. I'm not hating myself for being any of those identities anymore. I'm trying to embrace each part because that's what makes me who I am. Shit. This took me long enough but I got here. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk lol.

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years

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Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 28

Philosophic Issues in Cosmology 2: Relativistic Theories for the Origin of the Universe

There was a young lady named Bright,Whose speed was far faster than light;She started one day In a relative way, And returned on the previous night. A.H.R. Buller, Punch

This is the second of seven posts, that attempts to summarize George Ellis's fine article, Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology.

The usual exposition of Einstein's General Relativity Field Equations is very forbidding, full of Greek subscripts and tensor notation; a clear, simplified version has been given on the web by John Baez, and is appropriate for considering the Big Bang. The standard general relativity model for cosmology is that given by Friedmann-LeMaitre-Robertson-Walker, usually designated by FLRW. The FLRW model proceeds from the following simplifying assumptions: a) the universe is isotropic (looks the same in every direction, from every point in space); b) there is a constant amount of matter in the universe; c) on a large scale (hundreds of times the distance between galaxies) the universe has a homogeneous matter density (matter is spread evenly throughout space); d) the effects of “pressure” (from radiation or the vacuum) can be neglected.

With these simplifying assumptions, the equation for the “size” of the universe, its radius R, becomes simple, and looks just like the equation of motion for a particle traveling under an inverse square law, like that of gravity. (Note: this is not to say the size of the universe is really given by some value R; the universe might possibly be infinite—more about that later—but to show how space is expanding.) The universe might expand and then contract in a “Big Crunch” (like a ball falling back to earth), corresponding to positively curved spacetime (like a sphere); it might expand with a constant velocity of expansion (like a projectile going into orbit), corresponding to flat space-time (like a plane); or it might expand with an accelerating velocity of expansion (like a projectile achieving escape velocity), corresponding to a saddle-shaped curvature of space-time. It should also be emphasized that the FLRW solution to the Einstein General Relativity equations is by no means unique, nor is it the only solution with a singularity. It is a model, however, that is in accord with measured data (red shift, COBE microwave background radiation).

The assumptions stated above do not apply rigorously. Observations have shown a filament or bubble-like structure to the universe with clusters and meta-clusters of galaxies. (A theoretical picture for this filament structure has been proposed.) In the early stages of the universe radiation pressure was very likely significant. More recently, measurements have shown that the expansion rate is increasing, which is presumed due to “dark energy”, possibly a pressure due to vacuum energy. Moreover, at some point in the expansion the scale of the universe gets so small that classical physics does not apply and quantum mechanics has to be used for theory. Unfortunately quantum mechanics and general relativity have not yet been reconciled into one general theory, so there is a fundamental difficulty with this melding of the two theories.

The simple solution above for FLRW models gives an acceleration of R proportional to 1/R^2, which signifies that there is a singularity at R=0, that is to say, if you try to plug in R=0 you'll get infinity. This would be the same as the infinity at the source for other forces proportional to 1/R^2, coulomb attraction or gravity. Ellis has this to say about the significance and existence of the FLRW singularity:

“the universe starts at a space-time singularity ...This is not merely a start to matter — it is a start to space, to time, to physics itself. It is the most dramatic event in the history of the universe: it is the start of existence of everything. The underlying physical feature is the non-linear nature of the EFE (Einstein Field Equation): going back into the past, the more the universe contracts, the higher the active gravitational density, causing it to contract even more....a major conclusion is that a Hot Big Bang must have occurred; densities and temperatures must have risen at least to high enough energies that quantum fields were significant, at something like the GUT (Grand Unified Theory) energy. The universe must have reached those extreme temperatures and energies at which classical theory breaks down.” (emphasis in original).

Ellis is saying that even though we can't observe the universe at that time when it was so small and temperatures were so high that quantum properties would have been significant, we can infer that this was the case theoretically, that is to say that there was a “Hot Big Bang” at the beginning of the universe with extremely high temperatures (energies)and an extremely small volume.

Thus, given the contracting size of the universe as one goes back to the origin, there will be a time such that quantum effects must come into play. However, there are some basic limitations to using quantum mechanics as a theory for the origin of the universe. As Ellis points out:

“The attempt to develop a fully adequate quantum gravity approach to cosmology is of course hampered by the lack of a fully adequate theory of quantum gravity, as well as by the problems at the foundation of quantum theory (the measurement problem, collapse of the wave function, etc.)”

(Added later: The Hawking-Penrose Theorems shows that a class of solutions to the General Relativity equations have a singularity in the solution. Also, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem shows that under conditions of universe average expansion, there is a beginning point. Since all such solutions are non-applicable at the singularity because quantum gravity enters the picture, the relevance of such theorems is perhaps questionable.)

See "Philosophic Issues in Cosmology 3: Mathematical Metaphysics--Quantum Mechanical Theories in Cosmology, for the ways physicists apply quantum mechanics to deal with theories of origin (or non-origin) of the universe.

Ed. Note:

I am sorry that I cannot properly display all the various pictures or tables on the post. They will, however, be displayed on the pamphlet containing this post, and a link will be provided for your convenience.

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist

#catholic physics

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festivalists · 7 years

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Through the olive trees

This is not the first time we turn our gaze to the cinema of Iran, yet it is the first time we actually had our own envoy in Tehran – we give you the 35th edition of Fajr International Film Festival as seen and instagrammed by Irina Trocan!

Starting with Abbas Kiarostami’s 1987 WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOME? / KHANE-YE DOUST KODJAST? (1987) and leading up to Asghar Farhadi’s THE SALESMAN / FORUSHANDE (2016), Iranian cinema has enjoyed great visibility abroad. Since there are strong similarities between many of these films, it even comes across as a unitary style, a national school, with Kiarostami as a mentor and Jafar Panahi as one of the most prominent representatives working today. These films are dramaturgically subtle (and supple), intended to give a sense of the bigger picture of Iranian society, as well as custom, self-reflexive, and with obvious framing devices (observing adult behavior from a child’s perspective, driving through the city with different passengers, summing up a marriage in front of a judge – to refer to just a few high-profile Iranian films from the past decades).

However, as it is the case with many new waves and cinemas, the fragment of yearly production that is visible abroad is a small and misleadingly homogenous one, while the view from within the borders of Iran is radically different. Reza Mirkarimi, Director of Fajr International Film Festival, claims that there were 60 Iranian film submissions for this edition of FIFF, while the total number of films made within a year is even higher – reportedly, 90-100 features every year, with over 130 made between March 2016 and March 2017. The overall production (you guessed it) is trying to do many different things beside emulating Kiarostami and Panahi.

But I would like to properly begin by making a specification about the Fajr festival – the source for a potential confusion that took me the first two days of the festival to clear up completely. A couple of months ahead of the international festival, there is the national event where a larger number of Iranian films is being shown, some of which are only programmed during FIFF as market screenings in order not to affect their chances to have an international-festival premiere somewhere else. What is added with FIFF is, well, the “international” bit of the programming, a line-up of recent festival darlings from around the world. According to the festival regulations, the team is on the lookout for films “that seek justice, defend the oppressed and underline humane and moral values.” Since several of the titles in the selection are by now well-known, I believe it is useful to give an overall impression: Cristian Mungiu’s GRADUATION / BACALAUREAT (2016), Agnieszka Holland's SPOOR / POKOT (2017), Andrzej Wajda's AFTERIMAGE / POWIDOKI (2016), the Dardenne brothers' THE UNKNOWN GIRL / LA FILLE INCONNUE (2016), François Ozon's FRANTZ (2016). The listed films are all tempered social critiques, with most of them taking no sides, although I will say that SPOOR is – due to its ending, which I will not spoil – radically ecologist.

Some of the international films might have worked well as double bills, especially Kim Ki-duk’s THE NET / GEUMUL (2016) and Bulgarian filmmakers Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov’s GLORY / SLAVA (2016). The former – appropriately named for its tightly knit narrative construction – follows a North-Korean fisherman, Nam Chul-woo (Ryoo Seung-bum), whose boat engine malfunctions and, before he knows it, he drifts to the coast of South Korea. Held in awe as the author’s one-off political film, it might after all be about something rather philosophical, like the blight of power and/or the hopelessness of an individual who is unlucky enough to get caught between the wheels of the social machinery. It is hardly more socio-economically precise than, say, Park Chan-wook’s OLDBOY / OLDEUBOI (2003).

In a concrete sense, the fisherman suffers from the strictness of the South Korean intelligence service – he is suspected of being a spy until he is proven innocent and falls into the hands of an agent who does not shy away from using torture to get confessions. Back in North Korea, after having endured a lot, the protagonist is suspected of having been seduced by capitalism with his brief glimpse of a better life, and this time he is a suspect to his own government. Bottom line is: do not get on the wrong side of people who can ruin your life in the name of higher order. Although the protagonist is a larger-than-life honest citizen (and would hardly be believable were it not for the actor’s restrained ferocity in facing his oppressors), several allegorical scenes in the film are pretty effective: Nam Chul-woo is left alone on a Seoul street and desperately tries to keep his eyes closed, to resist taking in images of capitalism and a different way of life than the one he made for himself. The souvenir he takes home from South Korea is so innocent that it only becomes ridiculous when authorities of his homeland classify it as “evidence.” In short, Kim Ki-duk convincingly constructs a negative world view, and there is definitely a lot of craft to how the misery keeps on coming, but it helps to be a pessimist from the start to get on his wavelength.

In GLORY, a stuttered railway worker finds a pile of money on the train tracks and decides to hand it over to the authorities, and his honesty similarly does him in. Before he knows it, he is stuck between, on one side, the Ministry of Transport (they hold a public ceremony in his praise but otherwise neglect to pay him the previous months’ salaries and “award” him by giving him a watch while losing the better one he had already) and, on the other side, the press. The protagonist finds sympathy with a journalist for the way he has been mistreated by the Ministry, but is soon abandoned again and further abused by the Ministry for being a snitch. Again, the story, inspired by actual events and co-authored with screenwriter Decho Taralezhkov, strikes a chord for viewers who are cynical about social order in Eastern Europe – a temptation that is truly hard to resist, especially with the majority of us who work for neither the government, nor the press, and are forced to passively observe as everything goes awry. There are several fine touches in GLORY – for example, Stefan Denolyubov handles his character’s speech impediment as just one element of his life-long aloofness. He never thought to claim his rights before, and when he finally dared to do it, he discovered he does not have the necessary skills. The ceremony in his honor makes for a well-scripted scene: it is mostly a PR show of Ministry insiders, directing an extra to make the Minister look good on stage.

Since I had heard of what Iranian films are not allowed to show (kisses, nudity, women’s uncovered heads, physical contact between male and female performers who are not married in real life) I must admit I was curious as to how these restrictions applied to foreign films, since they did not need to respect them from script development onwards. By themselves, THE NET and GLORY, which I had not seen before FIFF, gave me an introduction to what censorship looked like. A woman wearing (what seemed to be) a sexy red dress in THE NET had her silhouette completely blurred out. Another woman, this time in GLORY, quietly sitting in the background and showing somewhat of a cleavage, had an extra patch of blurred pixels added on top of her blouse. Naked women’s legs (but not men’s legs!) were also hidden. To me, paradoxically, these edits rather had the effect of drawing attention to details that would not have seemed erotic in an unmodified shot. Festival films are less regulated to conform with morality than those aimed at a larger audience, and earnestness could not have been unflinchingly observed as the programmers selected Werner Herzog’s SALT AND FIRE (2016), but it seems to still be hard to find films that do not need edits.

The most moving film I have seen was Rithy Panh’s EXILE / EXIL (2016), which continues the endeavor of his THE MISSING PICTURE / L'IMAGE MANQUANTE (2013) of retelling recent history, for which no official image archive exists. A poetic reenactment of human suffering in late 1970s Cambodia (then known as Democratic Kampuchea), it takes place entirely inside a hut (or, more precisely, a theatrical set resembling it) and has a sole character – a nameless, quiet young male, whom one might suspect of being the filmmaker’s alter ego. The space is versatile enough to gain cosmic dimensions – a cardboard cut-out of the moon and a flock of menacing seagulls appear on occasion, hovering over the protagonist’s head, the floor magically morphs into a field or a patch of grass.

One scene is a leveled-surface reenactment of a Sisyphean task: as the man rolls a boulder from one wall of the room to the other, another boulder appears (through a cross-fade) where the first one had been. There are biographical allusions in the film, including a picture of a woman we assume to be Rithy Panh’s mother – but it all builds up to an essay film of life in poverty and isolation rather than anything more narratively precise. Close-ups of the protagonist eating an insect, or a chicken that does not come in ready-made crispy nuggets, remind viewers that basic survival is historically not a timeless, universal human right. The soundtrack is made up on meditations on exile that are no less devastating for being abstract – from thinkers and artists (Karl Marx, René Clair) to political leaders (Ho Chi Minh) – and their rapport to the image is always loose, engaging spectators in a poetic guessing-game.

Turning to even more recent history, Fajr IFF had a section of (mostly Iranian) films and documentaries, grouped in the section Broken Olive Trees. Among them was THE DARK WIND / REŞEBA (2016), an Iraqi-German-Qatari coproduction, directed by Hussein Hassan, about a Yazidi woman who escapes after being captured by the Islamic State but upon returning to Kurdistan is rejected by the family of her fiancé for losing her honor. Majed Neisi’s THE BLACK FLAG / PARCHAM E SIAAH (2015) documents the frontline of an Iraqi offensive against ISIS. I have unfortunately missed them due to conflicting scheduling, but I am still hoping to catch up with them somewhere else – they have been previously screened in the Stockholm International Film Festival and Busan, and Visions du Réel, respectively.

Going back full-circle to the Iranian films, let me state again that I was surprised by the diversity of their influences, though I would not necessarily say that all of them bring the influences to a cohesive whole. Fereydoun Jayrani's ASPHYXIA / KHAFEGI (2017) is a bleak film about a nun which might have gotten tricks on how to light somber interiors from Paweł Pawlikowski's IDA (2013). The nun, also facing dilemmas about her future, takes care of a sick woman gone mute who seems to be repressing something about her marriage, so there is a hint of Bergman's PERSONA (1966) in it, too, or is it George Cukor's GASLIGHT (1944)? Sadly, the narrative seems to switch to something else every time a certain element becomes interesting. Rambod Javan’s NEGAR (2017) entangles an investigation, fast-paced chases, the main female character’s rich-girl fascination, and several where-did-this-come-from dream sequences is frustrating in a similar way.

The purest genre film I saw (admittedly missing many, including the top-prize winner, Asghar Yousefinejad's 2017 directorial debut THE HOME / EV) is Alireza Davoodnejad’s FERRARI (2017) – it is mostly a city-traffic road movie featuring a girl whose interests are definitely less than spiritual (jewelry and expensive things in general, plus the eponymous rarity on wheels) and a driver who sees her defencelessly wandering around and has the chivalry to help. Moralizing overtones are hard to miss, but both characters are lively and their obstacle course is sufficiently engaging, although the end goal is by anyone’s perspective rather frivolous (the girl wants to find the Ferrari and take a photo with it to spite a friend), there is enough going on to maintain the suspense.

Certainly, there is a lot more to discover than I could have possibly absorbed in a week – especially since, being in Tehran, it was hard to resist the temptation to wander away from the cinema. Despite the Abbas Kiarostami poster exhibition, commissioned by the festival in his memory and lining the hallway of the Charsou cinema, a large part of recent Iranian production was less familiar than I had expected. I left the festival with the commitment to watch out for films that might otherwise fly under my radar – aside from the promise to fly back to Iran to visit Shiraz, and the Instagram handles of several of the Iranians I have met.

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ebenvt · 4 years

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Poultry MDM: Notes on Composition and Functionality by Eben van Tonder 5 July 2020

Background

The mechanical deboning of meat has its origins from the late 1940s in Japan when it was applied to the bones of filleted fish. In the late 1950s, the mechanical recovery of poultry meat from necks, backs and other bones with attached flesh started. (EFSA, 2013) A newspaper report from the Ithaca Journal, Wed, 30 Dec 1964 is the earliest reference I can find on Mechanically Deboned Meat (MDM) in America. It reports on research done at Cornell State College of Agriculture in an article entitled, “New Egg Package, Chicken Products Are Among 1964 Research Results.” It reports that “mechanically deboned chicken meat was put to use for the first time, and improvements were in new types of harvesting machines.”

It claims that MDM based products would be available from 1964. “Late in 1964 Cornwell researchers began preparing experimental chicken products from this meat, which resembles finely ground hamburger.” It said that the new chunky type chicken bologna, was introduced in three forms: Chicken Chunk Roll, which is half chunk meat, and Chicken Chunkalona, which is 25 per cent chunks and 75 per cent emulsion.”

By 1969, several American universities were working on these products, including the University of Wisconsin.

The Oshkosh Northwestern, Thu, 21 Aug 1969

By the early 19870s, the removal of beef and pork from irregularly shaped bones was introduced. Originally, the aim of MDM was to reduce the rate of repetitive strain injury (RSI) of workers caused by short cyclic boning work in cutting rooms of meat operations. A press was developed to accommodate this. The success of the approach resulted in a rapid acceptance of the principles and an incorporation of the technology across Europe and the USA.

As is the case with meat processing technology in general, despite recent developments of the process, the basic approach is still the same as the first machines that was built. Initially primitive presses derived from other types of industries were used to separate the meat from the bones, using pressures of up to 200 bar. A fine textured meat paste was the end-product, suitable for use in cooked sausages. Gradual technological improvements and pre-selection of the different types of flesh bearing bones pressed at much lower pressure (up to 20 bar) produced a coarse texture of higher quality meat that could no longer be distinguished from traditional minced meat (so called 3 mm or Baader meat).

Today, a wide variety of different products are available on the market from many different suppliers of every imaginable animal protein source. Legislation differs widely between different countries on the definition of MDM. Different countries name and classify it differently and the astute entrepreneur will find opportunities in studying every aspect of this fascinating industry closely, especially in the maize of ever evolving legislation related to it around the world. As one country restricts its use on one front, other countries will be able to buy a particular grade or type at better rates and this will in turn open up opportunities in the buying-country’s market for new ways to use raw material which becomes available for it due to a drop in the price. My own foray into this world took place during a year when Woody’s gave me the opportunity to spend almost a year working with companies in England. The project I worked on was high injection pork. During this time there were changes to legislation related to ground pork. I witnessed UK prices plummet on a commodity which, in retrospect, we should have pounced on, but I knew far too little about the sausage market to exploit the opportunity. In retrospect, I knew far too little about anything related to meat, but that is a story for a different time and many of my friends who gave me a chance to work with them and to learn will smile at this! My business partner in the company we founded and where neither of us are involved in any longer will certainly have a good chuckle!

Between 10 May and 8 June 2012, at the Tulip plant in Bristol, England, we extended ground pork with 60% brine which was designed by Andreas Østergaard. Brine was tumbled into the meat, heat set, chilled, frozen and sliced. Evaluating the texture of the final product now, almost 8 years later to the day, I realise that we should have used it to create a fine emulsion for a sausage or loaves. Looking at the result of the 60% extension below, we could easily have targeted 100% or even higher. What could we have landed the raw material at in SA if we created a fine emulsion base, extended 100% or 150% with rind emulsion added and used it as the basis for a number of fine emulsion based products at our factory in Kraaifontein, Cape Town? Evaluating what we did in Bristol, the heat setting, even in our course loaf-like product, was inadequate for proper gelation, which is clearly seen in the photos below.

All the photos related to these trails can be seen at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LX6uZheqeBeUa1mWA

The lesson for me is that in order to exploit these realities, one must grasp the functional value of the raw material, which in our consideration here is MDM, but must most certainly include other similar products not necessarily classified as MDM, MRM or MSM such as ground meat or something similar. This will lead to an appreciation of the differences between various grades of MDM and related products, which will allow processors to develop new products and increase its bottom line / reduce selling prices of others as new MDM products become available and countries adjust its legislation to regulate its use. It all begins by understanding the basic principles at work in this immense and fascinating world. We begin by looking at the basics of poultry MDM.

MDM Stability

Poultry MDM has been shown to have more constant composition compared with pork, veal and beef MDM. Considerable variations in fat and protein content occur in poultry MDM. The amount of back, wing, neck, rack, skin (or no skin) or the ratio of starting material used and type of deboning machine and settings play a major part in final product composition. Deboner head pressure was increased x 3 to increase the yield from 45 to 82%; fat content significantly reduced and moisture content increased. This is an interesting observation. (Hudson, 1994)

Rancidity problems stem from the method of production. Air with increased iron because of bone marrow are the major reasons. Additional fat stems from bone marrow and skin. Phospholipid fraction, as a percentage of total lipid content, is only at about 1 – 2% in poultry MRM. Over 60% of this may be unsaturated, oleic, linoleic, arachidonic acid. These acids decrease in concentration during freezing or frozen storage of turkey meats or nuggets made from chicken MDM. This (the decrease in polyunsaturated fatty acids) may be explained by reports that chicken muscle homogenates to contain enzymes capable of oxidizing both linoleic and arachidonic acids and one was found to be stable during frozen storage, being 15-lipoxygenase. (Hudson, 1994)

Iron in MDM acts as a catalyst in lipid oxidation is well known, but -> is it haem or non heam iron that plays the dominant role in poultry? Lee et al. say that haem protein, (50% of total iron) is the dominant catalyst for lipid oxidation in poultry MDM. Igene et al. claim that “warmed over flavour” of cooked chicken meat (whole muscle) is due to non-haem iron release during heating, which is the catalyst for oxidation. Kanner et al. say that one reason why haem protein effects lipid oxidation only after heating was that catalase activity was inhibited and this allowed H2O2-activated mayoglobin to initiate peroxidation. Related to uncooked meat, these authors report an iron-redox cycle initiated peroxidation and the soluble fraction of turkey muscle contained reducing substances which stimulated the reaction. Free iron in white and red meats of chicken and turkey increases in concentration with storage time and is capable of catalyzing lipid oxidation. (Hudson, 1994)

Decker and Schanus used gel formation to separate an extract of chicken leg muscle into three protein fractions. One catalysed over 92% of the observed total linoleate oxidation. Iron-exchange chromatography of this active fraction revealed three proteins capable of oxidising linoleate. Haemoglobin was responsible for 30% of total oxidation while two components (according to Soret absorbance) were non-heam proteins and responsible for 60%. (Hudson, 1994)

Much work in this area remains.

Modification of Poultry MDM

-> Texturing

The paste-like nature of poultry MDM limits its use. Early investigations focused on ways to “texturise” it. This can be done by adding plant protein or by various heat treatments. Sensory properties are not always what is desired.

One method of producing MDM products is to use a twin-screw extrusion cooker. (Extrusion Cooking) has shown – treatment of poultry MDM alone gives unsatisfactory results. The fat content of the material is too high. Satisfactory products similar to meat loaf or luncheon meat were achieved if, as binding or gelling agents, cereal flours, corn starch, egg white concentrate or soy protein isolate were combined with the MDM. This begs the question as to the gelling temperature of these products.

Alvarez et al. found that chicken extruded with 10 or 15% corn starch, lipid oxidation decreased as extrusion temperature rose from 71 to 115.5 deg C. They suggest that antioxidants were produced with increasing temperature. Hsieh et al. reported that a mixture of turkey MDM (40 parts) and corn flour (60 parts) increased in susceptibility to lipid oxidation above 110°C. The antioxidant BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) was added to the raw materials before extrusion.

-> Haem Removal

Haem pigments in the product impacts on product stability and in poultry MDM it has a tendency to create a dark colour in the final products. Much effort is expended to remove these pigments and so extend the range of products in which the MDM may be used.

Froning and Johnson showed that centrifuging poultry MRM would remove haem pigments. Washing procedures was first developed in Japan to remove haem proteins, enzymes and fats from fish during the production of the myofibrillar protein concentrate, surimi. A lot of work has been done to extend the same procedure to washing MDM. However, there are several reasons why surimi technology might not be applied directly to poultry MRM, viz:

1. Surimi is prepared from whole muscle while poultry MDM is isolated from bones after most muscle tissue is removed. 2. Poultry MDM can have considerable quantities of connective tissue in the final product, e.g. histochemical investigations have shown the connective tissue: muscle ratio of chicken MRM to be 1 : 1.2. 3. Fish mince is frequently washed during preparation, but water washing is not an efficient means of removing haem pigments from MRM. 4. Lee suggested the size of perforations in the deboner drum of fish deboners ranges from 1 to 5 mm, with orifices of 3 to 4 mm giving the best quality and yield of surimi. Poultry deboners seem to have a pore size below 1 mm and thus the particle size of the products will differ. Since the term ‘surimi’ has long been associated with the product isolated from fish muscle, it is perhaps debatable as to whether the term should be applied to the material prepared from poultry MRM.

Other terms used are:

‘washed mechanically deboned chicken meat’ , ‘myofibrillar protein isolate’, (MPI), ‘isolate of myofibrillar protein, (IMP). The acronym IMP is problematic since it is widely accepted as an abbreviation for inosine monophosphate. Clearly some rationalization of nomenclature is required and perhaps a term such as ‘poultry myofibrillar protein extract’ would be more appropriate.

One of the earliest studies of poultry, turkey neck MDM, considered to be the darkest poultry MDM, was washed either three times in water or once in 0.04 M phosphate at various pH values, followed by two water washes. Then, the mixtures were pressed through cheesecloth to remove as much moisture as possible. The yield of paste from water-washed MRM was higher than that which had been treated with phosphate, but it had a darker colour. The researchers concluded that washing with 0.04 M phosphate at pH 8.0 provided the most efficient means of removing red pigment from turkey MRM. Froning and Niemann reported that extraction of chicken MRM with 0.1 M NaCI significantly reduced fat concentration and colour, and increased protein concentration. Others, using different washing techniques, particularly the use of bicarbonate as the washing medium, have found that either the protein content of the washed material was similar to that of the starting material, or was up to 7% lower. However, all agreed that washing drastically reduced the fat level of the recovered material.

Washing with bicarbonate appears to be the most efficient way of removing pigment from poultry MDM, probably due to the fact that the pH value of the slurry makes the blood proteins more soluble, there may be other factors at work to influence the final colour of the washed product. For example, Trziszka et al. found that if, following bicarbonate extraction, water washing was carried out at pH 5.5, the product was lighter than at pH 6.0, while the variable amounts of connective tissue present in the washed residue can influence the appearance of the material, as shown by Kijowski et al., who found that removal of connective tissue by sieving increased both the darkness and redness of water-washed chicken MRM.

The yield after washing range was 13.5 to over 62% of the starting material. Reasons for this variety may be the result of a number of factors such as source material for MRM, grinding of MRM before washing, nature of washing medium, washing time, adjustment of pH, number of washes, ratio of MDM to extractant and centrifugal force applied during separation of ‘meat’ and extractant.

Cryoprotectants, such as mixtures of sugars and/or phosphates, must be added for the washed material to retain its gelling and water-holding abilities during frozen storage. Washing improved the functional properties of the material – after cooking the washed MDM was more chewy, less cohesive and had increased stress values but the cooking losses from washed material were higher, probably due to the fact that ‘free’ water was absorbed during washing. The best indication of the success of the washing procedure is probably in practical terms measured by the performance of the myofibrillar complex in products. There have been a few studies who looked at this. Frozen-thawed, bicarbonate washed turkey MDM at a level of 10% reduced the fat level of frankfurters, while increasing the expressible moisture content and resistance to shear compared with control frankfurters. Scanning electron microscopy did not reveal any obvious structural differences between controls and frankfurters containing 10% washed MDM. Hernandez et al. reported – the protein paste from washed turkey MDM could be incorporated into patties at levels up to 20% without adversely affecting sensory quality. Trziszka et al. reported that up to 50% of the ground chicken meat in hamburgers could be replaced by carbonate-washed turkey MRM without reducing the acceptability of the product. A sensory panel gave slightly lower flavour scores to hamburgers containing the protein extract, although whether this was due to the ‘soapy’ taste reported by Dawson et al. is not clear.

-> Improving Emulsification and Gelation

Although the protein complex isolated from washed MRM could be of use in altering textural properties of poultry products, further possibilities of effecting such changes exist. For instance, Smith and Brekke found that limited acid proteolysis improved the emulsifying capacity of actomyosin isolated from fowl MDM, as well as improving the quality of heat-set gels. Kurth used a model system to demonstrate the crosslinking of myosin and casein by a Ca-dependent acyltransfer reaction catalysed by transglutaminase (EC 2.3.2.13; R-glutaminyl peptide amine gamma-glutamyl transferase). Application of the technique to actomyosin prepared from turkey MDM showed that actin did not polymerize, but that the disappearance of myosin monomer was accompanied by a concomitant increase in polymer content and that the gel strength of enzyme-treated protein was greater. The polymerization could occur at temperatures as low as 4°C, thus opening up possibilities for the manufacture of new products.

Summary

This is a work-in progress. As I expand the functional value of different MDM or related products, I will add it to this document. It is an adventure in discovery!

Reference

Hudson, B. J. F. (Editor). 1994. New and Developing Sources of Food Proteins. Springer – Science + Business Media. (Poultry – the versatile food by JM Jones)

EFSA Panel on Biological Hazards (BIOHAZ). 2013. Scientific Opinion on the public health risks related to mechanically separated meat (MSM) derived from poultry and swine; European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Parma, Italy; EFSA Journal 2013;11(3) : 3137.

Poultry MDM: Notes on Composition and Functionality Poultry MDM: Notes on Composition and Functionality by Eben van Tonder 5 July 2020 Background The mechanical deboning of meat has its origins from the late 1940s in Japan when it was applied to the bones of filleted fish.

#Compoposition #Functionality #MDM #MRM

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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Unexplained Phenomena Keep Suggesting the Universe Isn’t What We Thought

Here on Earth, we are used to laws that shift according to the unique customs and demands of various regions. You can turn right on a red light while driving in most places, for instance, but not in New York City, where traffic rules are stricter to accommodate busy roads.

The physical laws of the universe, in contrast, do not tolerate any localized deviations of this sort—or so our best theory goes. Scientists operate under the assumption that there are universal laws of physics that affect matter the same way everywhere, from our own solar neighborhood to galaxies billions of light years away. In other words, while there are obviously variations in the density and distributions of matter across space, scientists assume that the universe is statistically homogenous at large scales of hundreds of millions of light years, because the actual hard wiring of the universe is equally applied everywhere.

This notion of universal laws, known as the cosmological principle, has produced centuries of theory and has so far been borne out by astronomical observations. The model of an isotropic universe helps explain crucial phenomena such as the homogeneity of the cosmic microwave background, the oldest light in the universe, as well as the apparent expansion of the universe at a uniform rate.

“The cosmological principle is, in more tangible terms: Is the universe playing fair with us?” explained Robert Caldwell, a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, in a call. “Are the laws of physics the same everywhere? Or is there a preferred location in the universe?”

While most evidence suggests the universe is playing fair, there are also many cosmic wildcards that seem to clash with the cosmological principle. Just within the past few months, for instance, two teams of physicists published completely different observations of anomalies in the universe that hint at potential variations in fundamental laws and forces.

Even weirder, this new research bolsters past studies sketching out a “directionality” to these variations. In other words, they conjure up a possible model of the universe where physical laws shift in certain directions as if they are on a mysterious cosmic gradient. These findings don’t match other tests of isotropy, or the homogeneity of the universe, that suggest that the universe has no preferred direction.

Conflicting results don’t mean we have to throw out the cosmological principle, as it requires an enormous amount of evidence to oust established physics. But the new studies document phenomena, at both “local” and extremely distant scales, that are currently unexplained and that challenge our fundamental expectations about the behavior of the universe.

The inconstant constant

There are four known fundamental forces of nature: Gravitation, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear interactions. The cosmological principle suggests that these forces affect matter equally across the universe, which is why visible objects, like stars and galaxies, typically look and behave the same way wherever you gaze in the sky.

But if you look a little closer, oddities can emerge in physical constants. For instance, the strength of the electromagnetic force is calculated with a value known as the fine-structure constant. This constant is mathematically scaffolded to unchangeable values such as the Planck constant and the speed of light. If the universe is truly isotropic, the fine-structure constant (like all constants) should never change within it.

But over the past decade, scientists have measured this constant in distant pockets of the universe and found evidence that it may fluctuate. This puzzling trend reached a new milestone with “the most distant direct measurements of [the fine-structure constant] to date,” from an ancient “quasar” galaxy 13 billion light years away, which are reported in a Science Advances study published in April.

Though scientists have been using light from cosmic objects to spot-test the fine-structure constant for years, the new paper extends the scope of the experiment into the infant universe, just one billion years after the Big Bang.

“We’ve gone further than ever before,” said co-author John Webb, a cosmologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, in a call. “In terms of lookback time, we’ve gone closer to the Big Bang than before. If you prefer in terms of distance, we’ve gone to greater distance than has been done before with any direct measurement of the electromagnetic force in the early universe.”

The team was able to accomplish this feat with a specialized spectrograph called X-SHOOTER on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The instrument’s acuity in the near-infrared part of the spectrum enabled Webb and his colleagues to peer at objects at higher “redshifts,” meaning they are farther away in distance and also further back in time, causing their light to redden.

“Perhaps there is some kind of relationship between these things that we don’t yet fully understand, and it’s interesting to note this alignment"

Using X-SHOOTER, the team studied light from a 13-billion-year-old quasar—a type of super-luminous galactic core—called J1120+0641. On its way to Earth, this ancient light was filtered through four gas clouds at lower redshifts along the line of sight to J1120+0641. Webb and his colleagues used the spectral patterns of the light, as it passed through the clouds, to calculate the value of the fine-structure constant.

Those observations did not reveal variations in the constant over time. But when the researchers compared their study to the larger web of data points collected in past research, they found it matched previous signs of possible variation along a spatial axis: Stronger measurements came from the direction facing toward the Milky Way’s galactic center, and weaker measurements were found in the opposite direction. This conjures up a model of a “dipole” universe, which might have something resembling a North and South pole.

“The fascinating scientific situation is that there are all these strange effects, hints of anisotropy and directionality in the universe, and many of them do line up on the sky,” said Webb. “Perhaps there is some kind of relationship between these things that we don’t yet fully understand, and it’s interesting to note this alignment.”

While the observations are certainly tantalizing, it will take more research to constrain what is causing these apparent fluctuations. They may turn out to be the result of more mundane issues, such as instrumentation that is not yet precise enough to avoid large error margins when making measurements.

“Whether this is just a set of cosmic coincidences or whether it’s telling us something meaningful about fundamental physics and the origin and evolution of the universe really remains to be seen,” Webb said. “At the moment, we just chip away the best we can, making the best measurements that we can, and in particular understanding the uncertainties in the measurements as best we can.”

“That’s where the main effort goes—to try and make sure we’re not fooling ourselves with something here, and just keep publishing the results and see what eventually emerges,” he noted.

X-ray anomalies

The fine-structure constant is far from the only cosmic bread crumb that could lead to a model where laws and constants vary across the universe. Another study published in April, this time in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, also reported eerie anomalies in the X-ray light emitted by galaxy clusters.

Physicists led by Konstantinos Migkas, a PhD researcher at the University of Bonn in Germany, developed a new technique to “investigate the directional behavior” of X-rays emitted by the hot gas surrounding galaxy clusters, according to the study. Their findings line up with some of the results from other teams, pointing to more possible kinks in the cosmological principle.

“Galaxy clusters have not been used before for such a study,” Migkas said in a call, making them “a nice new tool to study the cosmological principle."

“We came up with this idea, an independent method, to test what other people have been testing for a while now,” he continued. “It turned out that it gave us very surprising results with very strong evidence because of these observations.”

Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe, and contain hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies. As light from these clusters makes its way to Earth, it is stretched out by the expansion of the universe, so that more distant clusters appear redshifted.

Migkas and his colleagues calculated the X-ray brightness of gas in these clusters using two methods: One derived from the estimated temperature of the gas, a value that is not affected by the universe’s expansion, and another method that does account for the universe’s expansion rate. Tantalizingly, the results from these two tests didn’t always match: Clusters in one specific direction were systematically fainter than expected, and clusters in another direction were systematically brighter than expected.

Even weirder, the directions of these X-ray luminosities roughly match patterns identified by another team that has been hunting for potential cosmic anisotropies, which were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics in 2019. However, the clusters do not appear brighter or fainter along the same 180-degree dipolar axis that was described by Webb’s team: Instead, the angle appears to be closer to 120 degrees.

In this way, various models of potential directionality or anisotropies to the universe, based on observational data, both overlap and conflict with each other—in addition to clashing with other studies that support the model of cosmic isotropy at large scales. The universe is an extremely complicated entity, after all, and humans are constantly developing emerging technologies that reveal new layers of its bizarre intricacies.

To that point, Migkas and his colleagues presented several other explanations for their odd results. They suggested that gravitational forces near the galaxy clusters might be warping light, or that light could get distorted by gas clouds within our own Milky Way (or a combination of these factors).

“The brighter direction is suspiciously close to the galactic center,” Migkas said. “If I had to bet, I would say that the bright region is a result of some unknown X-ray issues that we haven’t yet discovered in our galaxy.”

“The other direction, the faint one, actually corresponds to the direction that other people found in the past, using totally independent methods,” he noted.

Dark matter and new physics

Of course, it’s also possible that these observations really do represent “new physics” that overturns the cosmological principle. One speculative explanation along those lines is that dark energy, the mysterious force propelling the expansion of the universe, might be unevenly applying its powers throughout space.

“Dark energy might form, for example, clumps, like normal matter or dark matter,” Migkas said. “Up until now, we have it in our minds like this is a constant uniform energy field, but it might very well be a material that forms clusters or structures.”

“An uneven distribution of this material to one side of the universe or the other side would cause such an anisotropy,” he added.

Whereas Webb’s team captured potential anomalies at huge distances and lookback times, the observations logged by Migkas and his colleagues come from galaxy clusters within about four billion light years of Earth. That’s still an enormous distance, to be sure, but it represents a more modern era in cosmic history—one in which dark energy has had more of an impact than the universe’s early years.

“If this is mostly happening at low distances, it could have something to do with dark energy because dark energy doesn’t play a very strong role at higher distances,” Migkas said. “And we don’t know anything about dark energy, right? We don’t know it’s nature, we don't know its behavior, so it’s just assumptions that we make about dark energy. Nobody forces dark energy to be isotropic, so it might have something to do with that, if it is cosmological.”

As with the other findings, this new report of weird anisotropies and a potential direction in the universe will have to be evaluated as more data is collected.

“People will try to focus on the alternative explanations before changing the cosmological model, and that’s the healthy thing to do"

“People try to preserve the standard model of whatever they have,” Migkas said. “As more and more evidence starts flowing, we’ll try to find extensions to our current model. Only if the need becomes an absolute necessity will we change our model.”

“People will try to focus on the alternative explanations before changing the cosmological model,” he concluded, “and that’s the healthy thing to do.”

These two new studies are only the latest in a long tradition of testing cosmic isotropy. For instance, scientists have spent years collecting cosmic clues about directionality and anisotropy in the universe by studying distant supernovae, or the explosion of stars.

As our observational tools become ever more sophisticated, a complex array of evidence is likely to emerge from diverse sources that will support models of cosmic isotropy, cosmic anisotropy, or perhaps even weirder permutations of the universe.

“We have this standard model and we’re looking for little cracks in it that might, if we pick at them, might reveal a richer structure or a more reliable theory,” said Caldwell, who was not involved in either study.

“It’s too easy to accept things like the cosmological principle and the validity of the laws of physics, because really those are things that you need to experimentally determine,” he added. “Given that there are huge mysteries that we are trying to figure out, it behooves us to check these fundamental assumptions—especially the cosmological principle.”

Unexplained Phenomena Keep Suggesting the Universe Isn’t What We Thought syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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republicstandard · 6 years

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Art Kultur: On Being & Meaninglessness

Ash Sharp Editor

Despite living in what we are told is a post-modern, culturally enriched world, one needs only to tilt the head to hear Nero fiddling as Rome burns.

Idealists among us harkened for the hippy ideals. Generation X saw a facade for what it was. The hippies sold out and transmuted genuine optimism into a marketing scheme; ironically the same fate befell Gen X- the market will commodify. There's a great line in 1990's Pump Up The Volume (featuring a very young Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.) Slater plays Happy Harry Hard-on, an-already-burned-out teenage pirate radio station host languishing in a literal cultural desert Arizona, kicking back at not just the system he hates but his own generation's inability to work out anything better.

You see, there's nothing to do anymore. Everything decent's been done. All the great themes have been used up. Turned into theme parks. So I don't really find it exactly cheerful to be living in the middle of a totally, like, exhausted decade where there's nothing to look forward to and no one to look up to. - Happy Harry Hard-On

While being beautifully meta -a commercial movie about a GenX identity that was already in the process of being turned into a fashion chain in every department store- the message rings true. The movie ends with a victory of sorts, Harry is arrested but only after disseminating the truth- that the airwaves belong to everyone.. That communication of ideas, free speech and putting your blood, tears and sexual fluids into your art actually matters. His unwilling and anonymous leadership of the youth of Arizona in a search for meaning led to the truth of leadership- that the power resides in the individual to create. Through creation we become free. Through freedom of creation in art, we liberate culture. Through freeing culture we become leaders, and thereby the populace at large is also freed. This is the role of art, and why artless societies die on their knees.

In the intervening three decades since Pump Up The Volume, the influence of Neo-Marxism in art has only grown the stronger. Perhaps we can give thanks to the internet-era for that. The Critical Theory disseminated by Neo-Marxists in universities and the 'Cathedral' is spread through criticism of art, which thus enslaves culture. We have become a self-conscious and critical culture, defining transgression against Political Correctness as imperfection. We experience all reality as imperfect, though unlike in past eras where imperfection is the window through which beauty can enter -a warp in the stained glass which refracts sunlight just so- we now see imperfection as a bloody stain on our society. Homogeny is the new beauty, not difference or uniqueness of character or thought. Even difference is homogeneity.

The demand from Neo-Marxist culture warriors is to recognize the spectrum of genders, biological sexes, the kaleidoscope of races in the claim that this is the freedom we were searching for all along. It is a lie. Applying critical theory to our societies has had the effect of stripping meaning from our culture, reducing identity to arbitrary characteristics and elevating these aspects over which we have limited control to the exalted zenith of art, culture- and even science.

The cultural experience can thus only be viewed through this heinous lens of identity. The art is not art without knowing who made it. Identical art produced by different people is now either an authentic expression of identity or disgusting appropriation. The canvas- our society at large- is a sprawlig collaborative performance. It is the attempt at the art which is important, that which speaks of our shared identity. The stains of a million paintings, musical endeavors, sculptures. Taken as a whole experience, this is the essence of our cultural reality- messy, not to everyone's taste and all the richer for it.

To the Neo-Marxists the stain is now our culture, that we fuss at and scrub at, blurring the edges with the obsession of Lady Macbeth. Out! Out damn spot of culture! The featureless canvas on which the stain exists is the only desired result, though it may be finely crafted and look impressive from a distance when examined close is only so many identical interwoven threads. Homogenous, uninteresting. The canvas is not the artwork itself. One must stain the canvas with paint to create art. When we step back from the painting, the art is revealed to us, and through our reaction to it- ourselves.

When stains on the fabric become evident, the lens of Cultural Marxism focusses solely on them with reductive glee. The art is lost as we magnify only the fact that the canvas has been marked. The pop culture television of just twenty years ago is now as abhorrent as a black and white minstrel show. We are accelerating through the years, revising history and speeding headlong into the imperfect and meaningless present. By categorizing history as problematic, the fabric of culture is resewn into a Teflon coated straight-jacket. Nothing is able to exist for the sake of art alone. Not even mass-market light comedy-dramas are safe. Controversial or thought-provoking art must now be accompanied by the 'Haha, fellow progressives, I am making this art to mess with the staid old establishment. I'm woke. I'm on your side.' Never mind that the establishment that is bucked against is little more than a meme. The imagined conservative monolith of religious leaders burning art to the applause of government lies far in the rearview mirror. Imagine, that post-modernism sneers at a paper tiger, imagining that the historical war for civil liberties never ended and the opponents of equality are in control today. This in itself is a hall of mirrors perversion of reality. This narrative, woven by hundreds of thousands of words in progressive blogs, billions of dollar worth of Hollywood movies, hours of cable news and thousands of left-wing academics in schools and universities reflects a distorted image. In this mirror, held up to show you how evil you are because of the art you once consumed, we are all monsters.

Authenticity is the worst crime in this mirror-culture. Authenticity falls foul of social justice orthodoxy because it is the essence of freedom from ideological control. To authentically create art, one must examine oneself and the surroundings and use the self -the spark of consciousness that is the soul of all men- as the lens through which art is made. It should be obvious to you that the Neo-Marxist framework cannot allow you to make your own lens. Your lens must match theirs, you must see things their way- or you are a heretic. This is how I say that the kaleidoscope of diversity is just a lens, a singularly focussed lens which demands culture is only observed in the way this lens allows. Many so-called artists comply with this lens, pandering to the new hierarchy. Fake directors, fake actors, fake news, faking it for the never-resting lens of critical theorists, forcing the smile onto a waxwork effigy of true art in the hope that they will not be denounced as problematic. If you dance to the tune well enough, it is possible an occasional misstep will be ignored. When you stand on the dancefloor giving the finger to the DJ, the bouncers respond immediately.

Shoving our own culture into the incinerator because ideology dictates that the unintended subtexts are more important that the intended message is the method by which control is exerted by hyper-sensitive wingnuts and moonbats. Ideology outweighs comedy, suffocates satire and leaves artistic license bleeding on the street on Kristallnacht.

They say I'm disturbed. Well, of course, I'm disturbed. I mean, we're all disturbed. And if we're not, why not? Doesn't this blend of blindness and blandness want to make you do something crazy? Then why not do something crazy? It makes a helluva lot more sense than blowing your fucking brains out... -Happy Harry Hard-on

Innocuous mass-market television shows from 1995 are being pulled apart for making jokes at the expense of contemporary is a cough, the visible symptom of the disease that is consuming our culture. This tuberculosis runs far deeper than the critique of Friends. The fabric itself is being re-sewn so that such transgressive art as a light comedy about 6 white people in America is now impossible to make. Diversity -the polite way of framing anti-white racism- is a tool for remanufacturing culture.

No wonder that we in the West have become a nihilistic people. With no faith and a dwindling supply of art that reaches the mass market all that remains is what the Hare Krishna call 'sense-addiction.' Self-gratification. Stripping life of context and meaning leaves us with an artless world. Another Star Wars movie, Iron Man, a remake, a tawdry fanfiction of a terrible vampire novel. Movies that challenge the mind must ensure to avoid any topics of cultural importance. Cultural critique is not for the artist. It is for the activist.

He who controls the present controls the past. Control the past to control the present and shape the future. The tainted past is racist, anti-gay, transphobic. To enjoy things made in the past is problematic, there is only the ever-present and culturally bereft now. The historical mistakes of thought, transgressive art that speaks to the human experience can never come again.

Neo-Marxists are born from the recognition that Marxism cannot control society through top-down authoritarian rule. In the year preceding the release of Pump Up The Volume, the fall of the Berlin Wall heralded the death blow of economic Marxism. Culture is the replacement for the means of production.

The aim today is to gestate an authoritarianism that begins from the bottom-up. This makes perfect sense from a Marxist perspective, after all, there is the school of thought that demands a permanent revolution. The workers seize the means, the workers become the political class, the political class is overthrown. While the USSR simply murdered people who did not think in the authorized manner, the Neo-Marxist revolution will produce people who are incapable of wrongthink. The art will burn. The transgressive past is so abhorrent that to enjoy it will be impossible. This might sound an outlandish claim today, but I say- wait another decade and see. Legislation is already shaped to fit the demands of these revolutionaries in most leading Western countries. At the governmental level, Western nations are incapable of seeing the wider game in which they are played as pawns.

When a society is both meaningless and incapable of producing art to challenge the concept of being -to provide a framework with which to define ourselves on an individual level- the society is on borrowed time. History teaches us so. The revolutionary, transcendental nature of art provides both a critique of society and a release valve for the destructive nature of mankind. Living together is hard. Identity is a quandary. All men feel the urge to destroy. Our art and culture allow for this revolution of the self without leading to the destruction of the society at large, as the free soul of mankind looks for meaning. Art allows us to understand the bonds between us, the differences between people. By showing the worst parts of ourselves, we become tolerant of others. What happens when we are not allowed to show the goodness within ourselves because in the process we are revealed to be ideologically imperfect? Only art which ignores human nature itself will be permittable. So long as you have a rainbow nation of humans in the cast and an authentic subplot about whether your black stormtrooper and your Latino star pilot are homosexuals, you're an artist. What was the plot again? Whose story is this, anyway?

It's a sideshow, a carnival game of near-infinite, ever-changing and diminishing hoops through which art must pass, ending with the eye of the needle- the arbitrary characteristics of the identity of the artist himself. Here we stand, with the subversion of morality and art in a dying civilization perpetuated by a self-loathing people seeking self-aggrandizement and virtue. No less Catholic for their payment of indulgences and the perverse, atheistic exultation of Islam.

You can buy your way into a Heaven that is Godless, pay alms to undeserving beggars or wash away your sins against social justice. The worthless self-indulgence of a society stood on four pillars that are now worm-eaten and teetering. Instead of repairing the foundations, it is better to replace them. The Neo-Marxist exhibits doublethink in his denouncement of Western culture in that he will claim that it is worthless while reassuring us that unlimited migration will change it not a jot. If that were true, then why advocate for the end of borders? The pillars of Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christian theology, and modern science will be replaced by the Pillars of Islam, and to the Neo-Marxist this is a fine thing indeed.

The Neo-Marxists believe that Islam will be a more compatible system than capitalism. Whether they believe that a power share is possible or that the incoming theocracy will treat them as special pets, I am unsure. What I can see is that our need for brave and challenging art is greater now more than ever before in history.

Everybody knows, but nobody does anything about it.

youtube

Being part of this civilization means to be curators of it. As Edmund Burke knew in the 18th Century, we are not a singular moment in time. We are part of a lineage of life itself and more specifically a lineage of culture. Whenever this lineage is overthrown, chaos follows. The conservation of culture, society, and land is the philosophical heart of conservatism- though there are few conservatives left these days that are worthy of the name.

...when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -E. Burke

If our civilization means anything at all it begins with the reaffirmation of our culture. Make more art. Start today.

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lordboar-blog · 7 years

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M: I felt "called" by The Goddess when I was a child. When I was around eleven or twelve I found my first books on witchcraft/Wicca. When I did it felt like I finally came home. Here in my hands were books that described ideas that I already knew deep down in my heart but that I had been afraid to share because I was living with a devout Catholic family.

I always dreamed of being initiated into a coven and being an "authentic" Celtic witch like I imagined all the "cool kids" to be. But The Goddess had other plans. She led me through various traditions: Jewish Kabbalah, Hindu Tantra, Lakota Sioux pipe tradition, Mahayana Buddhism... by the time I was thirty I had never found my dream coven but I had been exposed to a wide variety of spiritual and magical traditions that enriched my worldview.

It's only within the past couple years that I've reconnected with the "pagan" community. I know most people feel that the pagan community is very diverse... and in its way it is... but from where I have come it looks pretty homogenized. The names of the holidays and of the deities change from person to person and from group to group but the formula is identical to the Wiccan tradition I discovered in childhood: the wheel of the year, The Goddess of the feminine elements and her partner, The God of the masculine elements, and a system of spell craft that revolves around casting circles and burning colored candles.

These are beautiful traditions and ones I feel strongly we should pass on to our children but they are not the only earth-based traditions.

As much as I always wanted to be a "cool Celtic witch swathed in black" I wouldn't change what I've learned from my Lakota friends or from Santeria for anything. They are just two examples of traditions that opened my eyes to so much, especially to the REALITY of the spirits who love and guide us.

You may not agree with me, but from where I stand I perceive a "wiccan bias" in the pagan community. On one hand it's useful that there is a common set of symbols and ideas that we all agree on but on the other hand I'm think there is much misunderstanding and even fear on the part of some folks about other traditions that don't fit the familiar mold.

Does anyone else feel this way? Does anyone else feel uncomfortable about sharing their traditions because they don't fit "mainstream" paganism? And I ask these questions not to criticize Wicca. I LOVE Wicca. It saved my life and I honestly believe it is the healthiest belief system to raise our children in but are we doing enough to welcome diversity into our community?

C: Maybe it's just me; but I always get bothered when people treat Witchcraft and Wicca as synonymous. When it's not. Wicca is a religion promoting worship of a generic all mother and a system of white magic; while Witchcraft is a practice that can be used by a variety of faiths and is not bound by a rede or a grossly misinterpreted version of Karma. Sigh...

M: Was it in the Farrar books that they started really using the words interchangeably or before then? I love the Farrars so much. I think their books really shaped my early understandings. I still treasure their books. If I ever have kids, that's what they're going to be raised with.

L: Alright, @Wish Maker Christophercalling the 'Law of Three' Karma is a misinterpretation. They're two different things. I understand that often Wiccans will call the Law of Three 'Karma', in my experience it's generally to relate the concept more easily to people with no background knowledge. So I can certainly see how you might confuse that.

Regardless, you're flat wrong to call a belief system a misinterpretation. That makes no sense. People may misinterpret the writing, but beliefs are beliefs. If you believe it there's nothing to argue about, it's your beliefs.

Still not done. At least by my interpretation the Wiccan Rede is a guideline. Any book I've opened on Wicca tells you this upfront. As in: "Here's what you OUGHT to do, interpret it as you will and do your best to stick to it." It's a warning, "Yo my man if you mess with that darker stuff you're gonna have a bad time". There's nothing "binding" in that.

There's a reason for this. It's a basic principal in magick that like attracts like. It doesn't even have to be a matter of who is in the right, it's a matter of when working with energy you're pulling into your life what you put out.

Are Wiccans attacking you based on the magick you do or your beliefs? As far as I'm concerned you can do all of the dark stuff you want, that's on your head and none of my business.

Generic all-mother? Come on man... Just your statement shows I'd be wasting my breath to break it down, so I won't bother. The point is you're shitting on Wicca... Why? It's not constructive in this conversation.

All that addressed, yeah I otherwise agree with the both of you. It seems the Pagan community tends to put things into terms more relateable for Wiccans. Which seems unnecessary, obviously there's plenty more out there. Which is funny because Wiccans tend to borrow from many Pagan walks.

I have my Coven to work with and be Wiccan with but what I love about PBP is I get to be a Pagan, with the other Pagans lol. I get to learn about everyone else's beliefs and traditions which is wonderful. I think they're all beautiful. I think all of you, are beautiful.

There does seem to be a bit of bias and I definitely agree, in a Pagan community that's not healthy. I come to learn about what you all believe, not more of the same.

So... How do we fix that, though? Maybe it stems from that Wicca tends to be as it was for you, @Mathew, a starting path that leads into others for many Pagans.

A point of interest in this discussion for me is this bias @Mathew brought up tends to bring negative attention to Wiccans, too. From Pagans. As seen above.

Which I don't understand. So I'm perfectly fine with us being generally unreferenced. *shrugs*

M: think the wiccan rede, the rule of three, karma and the ethics of bindings, hexes and curses is a GREAT topic. Hopefully someone will start a thread on that in the Forums soon.

The more I think about it, maybe what I'm calling "Wiccan bias" is really something else. Wiccan initiatory traditions are deep, venerable and probably bear only a superficial resemblance to what we see marketed as "Wicca" in bookstores. After all, these books have a vested interest in appealing to a broad audience, are wise to withhold information on certain practices that aren't for everyone.

When Raymond Buckland published 'Saex Wicca,' it started looking to me like he started a trend. He took the template of Gardnerian religion and started dropping in deities and symbols appropriated from other cultures. Needless to say, Saex Wicca probably looks absolutely nothing like the pagan faith actually practiced by the Saxons before their conversion to Christianity. You guys are probably all familiar with this... Insert you favorite mother goddess [here], insert your favorite fertility god [here]. To be honest, one of my side projects is 'Catholic Wicca.' COMING TO A BOOKSTORE NEAR YOU!

But I think there is merit in exploring deities and symbols within their original cultural context. Instead of adapting Artemis, Aphrodite and Hekate into a virgin, Mother, Crone mold, we can actually explore the writings of the Hellenic philosophers and learn how THEY understood these deities. Instead of inserting Ochun and Chango as deity names in the Great Rite, actually go to a Tambor and actually meet them face-to-face.

I'm not giving up on 'Catholic Wicca,' though, that's my special baby :-)

C: @Lot That diatribe about how I am "so wrong" was disrespectful and completely detracted from my message.

But to make my points clear; besides Hecate and a few other goddesses, the concept of a Great Goddess that rules over all things in creation is indeed a relatively new concept that has little roots in classical paganism.

Also, I attack the Rede not for it's language but by the way it is pushed on me and others that do not specifically follow a Wiccan orientation; which has become so obnoxious (look at message boards on Facebook relating to articles on slightly more negative magic if you don't believe me) that I personally feel (and you are by no means bound to agree with me) it would be better without it.

As to the threefold law; it simply doesn't make sense. If you go by Hermetic laws of balance, having a triple result for a single deed come back to you ends up throwing off the entire energy spectrum if it is indeed applied to all people. Giving back threefold for a onefold deed is a waste of energy and the universe runs on efficiency. Also keep in mind the aforementioned obnoxiousness found in people pushing that theology on others.

Also of note; just because you believe something doesn't make it true. Christians believe the earth is 6000 years old but that doesn't make them right. And some beliefs are expressly harmful to others and should not be given a free pass just because they are held with conviction.

So please don't attack me. I am with this group due to the amicable nature of this fellowship and I don't need Wiccan zealotry being pushed on me from triggered neopagans. Thank you.

Make no mistake. To those who practice Wicca sincerely, are uplifted by it, and are all around pleasant people; I have nothing but respect.

My problem with Wicca is the followers of that faith who proselytize to other witching folk, pushing their ideals with a mind to disrepute other magic workers. That is what I cannot stand. And it bothers me that those kind of insincere individuals make themselves the face of our community.

As the old saying goes: I like your Christ, I just don't like your Christians.

M: @Wish Maker Christopher, I think I know what you're talking about. I wouldn't characterize it as proselytizing though. A lot of us (myself included) were taught that witchcraft and Wicca is this one very specific path. We were taught that "real witches" don't do this or that. Bias is a touchy subject because we usually don't see it in ourselves when we're being biased. We were also led to believe that Wicca is incredibly diverse because some people swap the name of Diana out for Hekate or because some folks call fire in the east instead of the south. It's about exposure. It's about awareness. Until I was actually exposed to other forms of witchcraft and other forms of paganism I had no idea how biased I was.

D: I understand the Wiccan bias. Minority subcultures try to maintain their boundaries by holding on to exclusive details that set the apart. Thus, paganism gets "pegged" for a handful of concepts that spread like wildfire. Why? Because we must maintain our separate identity. Those things are almost always ethics related, because they're easily applicable to our everyday lives--again, more uniqueness per moment.

That said, I do sometimes roll my eyes at things like the Law of Attraction and the Law of Three. At least the Law of Attraction has been widely observed to be part many indigenous faiths through sympathetic magic, but I still feel it is way overused. To me, the Law of Three is just another version of sin and taboo. Experience alone is enough to refute it.

The Rede is still interesting, but only insofar as it is a philosophical puzzle. What is harm? Kinda like a Buddhist koan. I puzzle it out but I do what needs doing. The gods and the universe are big and powerful enough to take care of my puny human emanations. I allow them judge me directly/

M: @Dayan M., you have me thinking about the rede, "...harm none..." Practicing harmlessness is also a tenet in many varieties of Buddhism. In my life I certainly try to do as little harm as possible...

That being said, I am struck be something that was said by one of the folks on 'The Last Alaskans.' She said, 'we all have to kill to survive, it's just that many of us choose to let others do the killing for us. I choose to do my own killing. Maybe, at the end of the day, that's a better way.'

I know it's a stretch. Hunting for food is completely different from morally and ethically from, let's say, putting a hex on that person at work who might get the promotion that you're gunning for. But when we use these aphorisms ('an it harm non, do as ye will') as codes of conduct we have to be mindful of what these words actually mean. What are we saying to ourselves subconsciously when we repeat them? Might they sometimes actually hold us back from achieving our full potential or attaining our highest good?

There are 5 million caribou left in the world but there are 7 billion Homo sapiens. Is a human life really worth more than that of a caribou? In the eyes of Mother Nature, which life is more precious and valuable? Which species can afford a reduction in numbers? When I say 'harm none' and I qualify that by saying I don't harm other Homo sapiens, but it's ok for me to hunt caribou to survive... does that really make sense? If our gods are gods of all nature, how might they really look at it? I can imagine Artemis saying, 'You knew this species was endangered, nobody forced you to go live in the wilderness. You chose to predate on a dwindling species. Because you possess science and technology and reason you KNEW better but you CHOSE to do further harm to beings that are at greater risk than your own kind.'

I'm not making a judgment here either way, I just think there are a lot of grey areas and recognizing these grey areas helps me to be more open minded and curious about how other people shape their ethics. When it comes to 'right' and 'wrong,' maybe 'right' comes in many different flavors?

L: Hi guys. A lot has been said so far I'd like to jump in.

wicca bias, there is, I think.

Let's stroll back a few decades to the US society where Any version of paganism or witchcraft was "bad" so much so that it sparked fear and retaliation and to be out of the broom closet was as much a worry in successful life as any other difference. Mainstream America was white, patriarchal, and Christian. My how we have changed.

And "kids it's been a wild scary amazing ride!" Who is with me on that feeling? I'm about to point out some of it.

we have strong women and men who have made it so, they paid with their freedom their reputation their finance their families and often their very lives.

as with everything in America our views are shaped by the media. Many say we have no culture but we do, it is pop culture.

in the 60s we experienced an uprising which gave birth to free love, free beings, and equal rights for women and some minorities. And.... the emergence of Wicca. It was the first of the pagan paths to actually be declared a recognized religion. We also had cults, harikrishna, transcendental meditation, nudists(now called naturalists) and EST training.

here defining religion is a political issue and certain criteria must be met, many rules and organizational structure. That group pioneered this in the pagan world, so it gets more press, is more socially accepted, is more palatable to a society of people who are leaving other religions.

Pop culture has given us a veritable ton of media on witchcraft. Let's remember Sabrina the teenage witch, Samantha from bewitched, and charmed. Now Harry Potter, twilight, true blood, vampire diaries and the list goes on and on. Oh an ozzy !

more than one person came to paganism for the Hollywood and more for the ability to use magic to get RICH ala the secret, affirmation etc.

so, ok, your not Wicca, neither am I. But good learning points exist within it. Im not Christian but both old and new testaments have some great advice. As do the Torah, Quoran (sp?), zen, Tibetan Buddhism Hinduism and the list just goes on and on. The Seminole chief, my ancestors my friends. Heck even my "frenemies" have valuable information.

how lucky you are Christopher that the TWO generations that preceded you have gifted you this amazing opportunity to be whatever you want!

The three fold law. As above and so below, let us remember that a spell is never just a spell that gets you what you want. There is cause and effect, move something here creates a shift elsewhere and so on and so on. The more energy you put into that spell the more that is shifted.

Good and bad are not "real" it is only thinking which makes it so. What is good for one may be bad for another, what seems just or right again is a perception. Again Wicca to be declared a religion in the US must have rules. So how do you make a rule if everything in the universe is actually defined by perception and the first thing you have to do is allay societal fears?

After my decades of research and study I have come to only one truth for life in the body, free will, and only one thing you should not do, only one thing that amounts to harming another.

the interference with another persons free will should be a no go zone. Call it the rede or law of three or purple polkadot rule, lol.

I teach this, even as it relates to self defense under threat. Like my friend wanting to carry a gun in case he gets robbed for the cash in his pocket. Remember first, the main reason you want to fight (many times but not always) is because you perceive the assailant had taken control over you and you want it back and to teach them a lesson about it. False. You still have the control, you decide what happens next. Do you really want to shoot the assailant to keep you 5 dollars? Or because he tried to take your control?

this is also a great law of three moment. Guy pulls gun to steal money gets back ? Probably not the money but something worse or gets the money and gets arrested goes to jail his child is fatherless and becomes a criminal and so on. It's the chain of events that result from the first act that are threefold.

as for pressure from Wicca practicing people? Again they simply have the numbers of people right now. And human nature is that when we think we are right about something we try to convince everyone else too. My answer, either don't discuss your path and then you won't be subject to the opinions of others or develop sound level headed retort as to why you believe what you do and why their beliefs don't fit.

Female deity new? Oh my, worship of the female gods dates back to the beginning of recorded history. You can spend the time looking it up if you disbelieve. Native Americans (not sure if all) have lineage traced through the mother.

Christopher I'm curious

...Dark magic, hmm. So you feel the need to cause harm? You desire to harm others? Why?

But here is a funny....

i practice medicine, traditional board certified USA variety and a whole lot more because I am more than just my US education. I was first ostracized and vilified as a pagan, but now, the world and our society changing as it has, I am actually having to see people in the ER who are cursed by voodoo and actually am expected to cure them.

so I say to those who hex and curse, come on now , am I really expected to lift the curse under you Medicaid and Obamacare plan? Sorry I just literally cracked myself up.

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