Garth was not immune to the Narrative just because he "Did Emotions Right"(TM)

I’m sooo glad Garth got to be happy, but his plucky attitude and masculine healthiness did not save him from Michael/the cruelty of the Narrative. Simply not being Chuck’s target is what saved him.

I’m watching 14x09 The Spear and notably, Garth could not fight Michael’s control over his mind. It was heartbreaking how quickly it overtook him: “I’m sorry, Sam!”

And then Jack and Sam are in a fight for their lives. Anyway, sometimes circumstances are beyond “a sense of healthy identity.” It’s not fair. Sometimes the point is that you can’t positive-attitude your way out of a crisis. 💔

To say he uniquely broke out of the war narrative is wrong. Dealing with challenges the Right Way with the Right Attitude and having the Right Kind of "Healthy" Masculinity doesn't always solve them.

Suicidal Misunderstanding XXIII

Part I - - - - - - - - - Part XX - - - - Part XXI - - - - Part XXII

Star Wars Time Travel AU #27

The office was quiet but for the occasional shuffling of flimsi and tapping of datapads.

Bail Organa and Mon Mothma pointedly did not exchange a glance behind Padme’s back.

Senator Mothma set down her pad and broke the silence. “Padme...are you alright?” she asked softly.

“I’m fine Mon, let’s just go over the bill,” Padme responded stiffly.

Mothma hesitated. “That’s not the only reason I asked you here, Padme.”

Padme stood, chair scraping gratingly. “I see; I’ve already had the Chancellor pry me today in an attempt to exploit my ‘connections’ to the Jedi—as though they’re droids and not flesh-and-blood people who any average person could strike a friendship with—but I had thought better of you two; I suppose my faith was—”

“That’s not what I meant—” Mon pleaded.

“We’re concerned about you,” Bail insisted gently. “You don’t have to tell us anything about the Jedi that you don’t feel comfortable doing so.”

Padme paused, then reluctantly sat back down.

“My apologies,” she muttured. “It’s been...a long day. I’ve been asked by the Chancellor for help in breaking some news that...I’d rather not.”

The senators waited patiently for Padme to collect her thoughts. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “General Kenobi has suffered from...force...I really don’t think there’s a way of saying this that doesn’t sound bad.”

“I had heard rumors that he was missing at meetings the last few days...has something serious happened?” Bail asked, concerned.

Padme shuddered. “This office is...”

“It’s clean,” Mothma confirmed quietly. “I have it checked independently anytime I’m gone for more then 15 minutes, with random deep-scans.”

“Would you mind...”

Mon nodded and the three waited in silence until the Chandurllian senator’s pad trilled the all-clear.

“Master Kenobi tried to kill himself earlier this week,” Padme confessed lowly. Mon straightened up in a sudden locking of knees and elbows, face drawn into tight lines. Bail’s hands flew to his mouth, tears forming.

“Knight Skywalker got to him in time, and he was in a coma until this morning when he apparently ‘ranted about ending the one’s responsible for the war’ and then vanished, along with Anakin.”

Mon grew very pale and Bail moved both hands from his mouth to his eyes.

“Fuck,” he said softly. “Just...fuck.”

Padme nodded in agreement and Mon inhaled deeply.

Bail rubbed way tears and straightened up resolutely. “How can we help?” he asked Padme. “How does the Chancellor want to handle releasing the news?”

She smiled weakly. “He’s leaving the exact wording up to me, but wants to make the announcement during the next full Senate gathering.”

“What!” Mon half-shouted, shocked. “There’ll be a riot! Surely a bulletin—even a press conference would be better for encouraging a moderate reaction—people will be shouting before he’s through the first sentence!”

“I know,” Padme agreed with a grimace. “But he wants ‘transparency.’“

“He wants panic,” Bail fumed.

“I’m trying to decide if it would better or worse to include the part about suicide,” Padme said bitterly. “Mental health breakdown and disappearance of the Republic’s highest General doesn’t leave much room for confidence or privacy.”

Mon clutched Padme’s hand in support. “I’ll have a PR team on standby. We can prepare resources for anyone who has questions, avoid conspiracy theories from spinning out. I already had a project on the backburner to put together own set of holoclips of the Jedi working towards peace—a counter to the ‘warmongering’ narrative, so to speak. It should be easy enough to adapt.”

“The Chancellor’s going to turn this into another military spending bill,” Bail predicted grimly. “We’ll make sure there’s a proviso in there to provide actual support for the Jedi in the field; I’ll make sure to get a legal team on viper in the grass duty as soon as the responses start coming out.”

“Thank you,” Padme said, gripping Mon’s hand over-tightly in return. She turned to the Alderannian senator. “I’m sorry Bail, I know you two are close.”

Bail exhaled slowly. “This war...I’ve seen Obi-Wan survive so much, and everytime he pulls off the impossible...”

“He’s rewarded with another burden on his shoulders,” Padme finished sympathetically. “Yes, I’ve been watching the same thing happen to Anakin. It’s—if the separatist movement hadn’t resolved into such a democratic and humanitarian nightmare—”

“You should go home and get some rest, Padme,” Mon urged. “It’s late, and the we’re all going to need to be sharp tomorrow. Who knows, maybe some new information will materialize before the afternoon.”

“Why Mon, that’s almost optimistic of you,” Bail remarked dryly.

Mon flashed him a wry grin, looking at Padme out of the corner of her eye. “Well. She did say Anakin with AWOL—”

“Oh do be quiet,” Padme huffed.

Despite the ever growing desire for sleep, it was another long hour before the Senator from Naboo departed. The pair were just turning to their seats after escorting Padme out when Bail let out a startled yelp; Mon instinctively kicked at the sudden small green blur.

Fortunately, when you’re green and the height of most humanoid’s knees, you become quite experienced at avoiding such reflexive 

“Master Yoda! What are you doing here? How did you even get in?” Senator Mothma staggered backwards, reverting to defensiveness to cover up her embarrassment at attempting to punt the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.

“Has his ways, a Jedi does,” Yoda replied mysteriously. Mon Mothma nodded seriously as Bail restrained himself from rolling his eyes. He had spent far too much time around Obi-Wan for deliberate Jedi vagueness to hold much weight. 

“Can I—May I offer you a seat?” Mon asked, quickly recovering her diplomatic grace. “I’m afraid that you’ve just missed Senator Amidala, but I’m sure she would be eager to return; I understand she’s...concerned for Master Kenobi.”

The wizened Master shook his head, ears flopping as he hopped onto Padme’s recently vacated chair, standing on the cusioned seat as the two senators’ settled down. The sight should, perhaps, have been comical. But the weight of his gaze...Bail held his breath. Perhaps Jedi mystique did still have some affect on him.

“Come to speak with the two of you, I did. Missed Mistress Amidala, I have, I know. Deliberate, this was.”

Mon and Bail frowned, exchanging a slow look of pointed disapproval. Bail spoke hesitantly but with touch of reproach. “I’m certain she would prefer to be here, regardless of the news—Padme has suffered for her public defense of the Jedi, I should hope that that friendship is returned, especially in hard times”

Yoda’s ears drooped. “A great Jedi, she would have made, in another life. Vibrant, she is in the Force. Loud to a Jedi, regardless of sensitivity. But needed now, quiet is.” 

Yoda’s gaze pierced Bail and he warmed inexplicably. “Quiet the two of you are. Brilliant, wide but in the Force...” Yoda broke the gaze, growing contemplative.

“Unique in the force, each soul is. That can be read, rare is the mind. More difficult to discern, currents, intentions, manner, it is with some, it is with you. And now, Quiet we need.”

The two settled back, uneasily flattered. “Master Yoda—it’s an honor of course, to be considered an individual worthy of confidence, but why exactly do you have need of quiet minds? Of us?” Senator Mothma asked finally.

The diminutive Master sagged. “By actions you would do, trust you have earned. But always in motion, the future is. A heavy burden, to carry, I must ask you. Without cause, I would not ask. But once tell you this I do—” 

To the politicians shock Master Yoda’s simmed to glisten with unshed tears. “—Guarantee your safety I cannot.”

The air hung warm and heavy for a timeless moment and a chill ran up both their spines. But neither were individuals particularly given to indesicion in the face of looming danger. 

“How can we help?” Mon asked, the words echoing over far more than an hour. 

“We know something is wrong with Obi-Wan,” Bail added softly. “Whatever we can do to right it—Obi-Wan is a friend, the Jedi are our allies, and the Republic is our duty.”

Mon nodded firmly.

Yoda stared at them each in turn, eyes searching and ancient.

“Working with the Separatists, the Chancellor is,” he said bluntly. “Evidence of this, we have, but not proof. Controlling, the Separatists, the Chancellor is. Evidence of this we have also, but not proof. The truth it is.”

“Evidence?” Bail parroted hoarsely, mentally assembling his own grim circumstantial coronation even as his understanding of the conversation’s direction fell apart.

The Jedi Master drew two small glittering objects from his pocket—a datachip and a microslide. 

“In the brain of a trooper, this we found.” he said gravely. “In the brain of all clones, this lies. Orders, it contains. Evil, is it. Free will, it can control. Decode it we have. To the Chancellor, tied these orders are.”

“Force,” Mon murmured in horror, responding automatically. “He already controls the public, and the courts—”

“And over half the senate,” Bail added bitterly.

“A Sith, he is,” Yoda continued with a sigh. “A Sith he has always been. A return to an Empire, he aims.”

There was a long heady pause as the two grappled with the return of the ancient boogeyman of the Republic and the repeated derailing of their night’s direction. 

“Fuck,” Senator Mothma said delicately, thinking wistfully of two hours ago when she had planned on confronting Padme yet again on her relationship with a young Jedi.

“Said the same, did we.”

The Alderannian Senator rubbed his temples, trying to come to terms with consecutive massive shocks from the already unexpected conversation. “Is Obi-Wan alright?” he asked eventually.

The small Elder hummed thoughtfully in reply. Bail tensed.

“No and yes. Suffer much, he has. Broken he is, but not shattered. A plan he has. His idea to include you, it is. The bravest man in the galaxy, he called you.” Yoda said, offering Senator Organa a sad smile.

Bail leaned back, stunned. “Me? But—why me?” he asked bewildered.

“Know not, I do,” the Jedi said with a shrug. “Seen the future, he has. A future where saved his life, you did. Saved my life. Saved something too precious to name, you did. Matters little, it does. A future that must not come to pass, it is, even as learn from it. we do.”

“...I think you’re going to have to explain that somewhat,” Mon replied sternly as Bail’s head spun.

Yoda nodded and the three settled in for a sleepless night of planning treason.

Part XXIV

Women of Bullworth: Part 4 Lola Lombardi

The woman who through her infidelity drives the plot of chapter 3, she didn’t do that intentionally, Rockstar didn’t give her enough agency or character to do so. So once again she was just another Helen of Troy plotline, but hey at least she’s aware of it this time. I have a lot of complex feelings about Lola and they’re incredibly difficult for me to unpack because of the sheer amount of sexist oversight with her.

Jimmy, the player character, canonically also dates around, and no one really cares that he broke up established relationships or was seemingly dating all of these people without the other’s knowledge, consent, or ending the prior relationship. Yet, Lola does much of the same and suddenly she gets slut-shamed by the story in a way Jimmy is not. Hell, even many in the fandom give her hate for doing the same shit Jimmy does with no criticism. That’s a double standard if I ever saw one.

“But Cas,” I can hear you say, “Lola was in a committed relationship with Johnny”

Yeah, and Jimmy was in a committed relationship with Pinky (I assume at some point their relationship dissolved but Rockstar didn’t show or tell us it happened) before suddenly going around dating other girls. I also have to question Johnny here, this isn’t to blame Johnny. I definitely feel bad and have been in his shoes before, but after several times of being cheated on and lashing out at the wrong people, you would think he’d get sick enough to leave. Oh wait I know exactly why he didn’t, Johnny’s actions have the most sway over the plot in this chapter and the writers couldn’t be fucked to make their actual antagonist whip up any drama. So they once again used their free conflict device, a woman, to make some slapped together bargain bin Outsiders Prep vs. Greaser's plotline. Although the Greasers and the Preps hated each other already and literally anything could have caused a clique war between the two factions, but okay I guess.

Despite her being the catalyst for a lot of Chapter 3, she doesn’t really move the plot forward. We also have no idea as to why she cheats on Johnny other than “it’s exciting”. Take a shot every time she says “excited” or “exciting” in a double entendre and yet never explains why the things she is talking about are exciting to her. What does she even get out of dating around? Rockstar sure won’t tell you. What pisses me off here is that they could have tied her actions into the main plot easily by just saying she was doing it purposely to help Gary in the plan of taking over the school. They could have explained that she wanted to be the queen of the school and given her good motivation for wanting to be better than all the other girls in the school. But that involves seeing your female characters as people with their own goals, thoughts, and feelings. Rockstar, a company mostly made up of men during 2006, clearly didn’t view their character that way and that is deeply saddening.

What makes me the saddest is the fact that a lot of the fandom has a unique hatred of Lola despite her not being unique at all in the story. She’s just a “maneater” stereotype with no character beyond that. The hatred and narratives spun about her in the fandom very much feel misogynistic, I understand not liking people who cheat, but many folks have a unique disdain for her that makes no sense considering how flimsy the writing is. I hear the argument that what Lola was doing was somehow worse than all the other characters and frankly I have to laugh. She’s nothing more than a free conflict device, walking health pack, collectible item, and minor quest giver. Johnny has more of an effect on the plot and character development and that is why we care more about him and justify his actions more than Lola’s despite Lola not being as overly possessive, and getting as irrationally violent to others as Johnny.

Rockstar could have very easily tied Lola into the plot, given her some sort of motivation, and given her agency within her own story. But to do that, you have to view women as just as valid and valuable characters and men. That would have meant introducing nuance and they didn’t want that. They just wanted Lola to be a plot device, decoration, a reward for the player, and a glorified health pack. The fandom’s hatred of her clearly comes from a lot of misogyny and a bunch of double standards.

And what makes this worse is that I really like her and I could see the potential for a story. Little kernels of good ideas and concepts, going to waste because Rockstar can’t write a woman beyond a cliche stereotype. She’s honestly a favorite girl character of mine despite her lack of development because I see all the ways she could have been more interesting and developed. I see all the ways she could have made a commentary on sexism, poverty, and cis-hetero relationships in high school. I see a morally gray character that could have challenged many stereotypes and notions about what teenage girls go through and do, but will never fully be realized because the writers couldn’t be bothered to care about their own characters. So instead we got a weird amalgamation of several other teen girl fantasy characters and man-eater stereotypes to get this cardboard character with no agency or motivations outside of wanting to be “excited”. Queue me giving the biggest eye roll known to man.

Anyway, I think I’ve ranted long enough. In the next post, I will be talking about Mandy, and that will also be a pretty long post so strap yourself in this will be a long one.

3. Kalopsia

Prompt: “I love you.” “I know.”

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: Language, depression, anxiety

A/N: Okay, so this is one of my first times writing and I did this for #roz’schallenge; being in quarantine is not as productive as i had hoped. this is the final chapter! unless i decide to do an epilogue. 

3. Kalopsia 

(n.) the delusion of things being more beautiful than they really are

When Bucky had not shown up at her spot that night after the fight, she felt so broken. He had been there for her. But not this time. But it was her fault, she drove him away, pushed him away. She walked back home, and unlike what she had told Bucky during their fight, this is where she was actually going to be alone. Pick up the broken pieces of her heart and mend them herself. It wouldn’t- and shouldn’t- be Bucky’s job to do so anyway. She loved the man so much, but wasn’t in the right headspace to continue the relationship. 

She got home, showered and changed into some comfortable clothes. It was pretty late, but she decided to email her boss and ask for a transfer to the Los Angeles’ offices of the company. She needed to get away. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to avoid Bucky, but she did need to leave so she could heal from everything she had been through, before Bucky. So much internalized trauma and pain, so much sadness, she decided she was done. She hated feeling that way and was going to do something about it. A week later, her request was approved. She set about making arrangements to move out west. 

“You can’t just leave your whole life here in New York,” one of her coworkers exclaimed when she found her coworker was going to move away. 

“Yes, I can.”

“What about Bucky? Have you talked to him? Have you told him?”

She sighed. “I love the man, which is why I’m doing this.”

“That literally, makes no sense. If you love him, you’d stay and work it out with him.”

“I appreciate your input, but I can’t be with him if I’m not happy with myself. I’m leaving because I want and need to work on myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fucking hurting and will miss him. But I need to do something for myself for once. I’ve been avoiding everything I’ve been through. Ignoring my mental health. Ignoring my pain. I’m tired. I’m done. If I can get somewhat of a fresh start, I will. But I will not force him into my narrative when I don’t even know how I fit into it.”

“Damn girl, go off. Well, I’m glad you’ve had enough and want to get better. I will miss you though.”

“Thanks girl, I’ll miss you too.”

That evening, she packed the last of her belongings. Bucky had not called or texted. She felt shitty about how things went down. Should she just leave or should she try and get closure with Bucky? Should this be the end? At this point, she was thinking about Bucky. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore than she already had. She decided that she couldn’t face him. It would hurt too much and she wanted to give Bucky space. So she decided to write a letter and drop it off at the compound. 

—

She stayed up all night trying to come up with the perfect words to say to Bucky. Draft after draft, she kept deleting her words. She had enough and decided to just write from her heart. She closed her laptop, got a sheet of paper and pen and wrote her heart out. 

—

In the morning, the last of her things were picked up by the moving company she hired. She stood at the door entrance and looked at her apartment. She looked at the living room, where she recalled an evening of dancing and goofing around with the super soldier. Her eyes shifted to the kitchen, where she recalled the day Bucky sneaked up on her as she was cutting up fruit and she almost stabbed him. And looking towards her bedroom where she spilled all her secrets and sadness to Bucky. He never once judged her, he just listened and loved her. Even that one time when she revealed faint scars on her left wrist. He didn’t pry about why they were there. He just grabbed her hand and kissed the scars. She gave the place one last look and then headed out. 

—

She arrived at the compound, but Bucky was out. Steve was there; she was sure he knew what might have happened because he was cautious and quiet when talking to her. 

“I’m sure you know that we broke up, and I’m not here to cause any problems, I just wanted to drop this off to Bucky.” She handed him the envelope. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait and give it to him yourself?” Steve responded. 

“No, it’s okay. Plus, I have a flight to catch.” 

“He misses you, you know.”

She gave Steve a sad smile and replied, “I do too. A lot.”

“I don’t want to pry but, how are you feeling?”

“Honestly, I’ve been better. But I’ll get over it. I always do.” He smiled at her and offered her a hug. She hugged him and then kissed his cheek goodbye. 

—

Bucky arrived later in the day. Steve was in the kitchen when Bucky walked in. 

“What’s up,” Bucky greeted Steve sulkily. 

“Hey, I’m good. While you were gone, uhm, she dropped by.” Bucky stiffened. 

“Yeah? What did she want?”

“She dropped this off,” Steve said as he took the envelope out from his back pocket and handed it to Bucky. 

“Did she say anything else?”

“That she misses you a lot, she feels shitty, and she had a flight to catch.”

“Hmm,” was all Bucky could say. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Steve said as he patted Bucky’s shoulder and left. Bucky opened the letter and read: 

Bucky,

In the time that I have known you, I have never felt like I have been worthy of your love. At this point, I am gone and seek to find and love myself before I can love someone else. But I wanted to take a moment to tell you some things: I hate myself, but I never hated you. I am sorry I ever let you into my life; it was- and still is- a mess. I should have never let you in if I was not going to let you in completely. 

I am a fraud because I told you I would try for you, try and be happy with you. So I opened myself in the only way I knew how: by letting you meet my sadness. Part of you is right. I do crave sadness. But that is because I feel like I don’t deserve to be happy, and every time something is going my way, I can't help but expect a storm. I want to let people in, but with caution. I don’t want people to know I struggle because I don’t want their pity. If I let people know, then it would be giving away too much about myself. But like the fraud that I am, I also crave attention. For someone to listen to me. To hold me. To see me. 

I left because I need to heal. I have suppressed any and all feelings for a long time, I conditioned myself to think, “the less I let it, the less I have to let go.” Which in part, is true, but only when applied appropriately. I had prohibited myself from feeling that I created a great chasm filled with water and found myself unable to swim. Eventually, I drowned. 

I am healing from years of pain. Both traumatic, and small incidents. You saw the scars on my wrists, and I appreciate that you respect my boundaries. I had been in pain for so long that I had to externalize it- it was the physicality of my pain. I had so much internalized pain, I eventually externalized it on my body.

I am a work in progress. I like me, but I do not love me. Not completely. But I am trying to work on it. My mind is always at war with itself and my heart. I can’t help but think that I am just another sob story- I don’t want that anymore. All my life, I’ve been praised for my work and accomplishments; told that I would amount to great things. That I am special and unique when really, I am the biggest piece of shit you’ll ever meet and still, nobody at the exact same time. 

Sometimes, I feel like I’m not supposed to get better because I do not feel at home in myself. Albeit slow, I am trying to heal. I wanted to thank you for a wonderful year filled with many memories that I will cherish forever. You were right- I do crave sadness. It is a part of me. And because of how I feel about you, I must let you go. You deserve better, and you have every right to be mad at me. But I hope that you can see that this is growth for me. As much as it pains me to let you go, I cannot keep on living this life in which I feel like I’m holding you back. You also need help. You have also been through a lot. And I feel like two broken people cannot make a whole. I hope that if we ever encounter each other, we are both in a better place. 

Until then, I love you.

Bucky smiled with tears in his eyes. I know he whispered.

The Best Albums of 2019

After listening to more than 2000 new albums in 2019, I’ve narrowed my picks down to The 20 Best Records of 2019.

I’ve included 3 essential songs from each pick, as well as a choice lyrical clip and a brief description of the album.

Noting beats actually LISTENING TO MUSIC! So don’t just read my thoughts: follow and listen to the Spotify playlist containing 60 songs from the top 20 albums:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5TWlfWoo54MQ5cYTMmB0RI?si=M_23L6DDRieVuA845A90Pg

01: Yung Gravy - Sensational

Aptly titled Sensational, this debut full-length is a thirty minute party that dances between the hottest trap beats, well-placed samples, and the young Minnesota rapper’s braggadocious persona and ridiculous raps

Hey Alexa, how many bitches can we fit in the Tesla?...Pull up in that Model X with your model ex!

“Whip a Tesla” • “1 Thot 2 Thot Red Thot Blue Thot” • “The Boys Are Back in Town”

02: TWICE - &TWICE • Feel Special EP • FANCY YOU EP

Nine young South Korean women radiate endless energy, bountiful bliss, and some of the catchiest songs to come out not only in 2019 but recent memory 

Even when things go wrong, feelings out of control: lessons, to be sure. Be okay, all right! Even a crying face is glittering, filter and laugh! You can return to invincibility, right? Blow off, and we havin’ fun! [Translated from original Japanese]

“Fake and True” • “Breakthrough” • “Stronger”

03: Sublime with Rome - Blessings

Frontman, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Rome Ramirez delivers his finest record to date: eleven heartfelt reggae-driven songs that are as well-written as they are masterfully recorded and produced

Watching you feel good tonight: it's your song up on the station, and we don't even know no words. I wanna hear you roll your R’s, singing Spanish in the car, “Dime algo hermosa tonight”.

“Wicked Heart” • “Light On” • “For the Night”

04: Bring Me the Horizon - amo 

Cohesive yet genre-spanning (metalcore, hip-hop, electronic, and pop, to name just a few), the sixth album from the English quintet is an emotional yet insightful rollercoaster masterpiece

Before the truth will set you free, it'll piss you off. Before you find a place to be, you're gonna lose the plot. Too late to tell you now, one ear and right out the other one ‘cause all you ever do is chant the same old mantra.

“MANTRA” • “wonderful life” • “i apologise if you feel something”

05: Weezer - Weezer (Black Album)

Expertly produced and instantly memorable, the long-running Rivers Cuomo-driven California quartet is once again in top form, adding yet another fresh and unique — but distinctly Weezer — record to their extensive discography 

Don't get mad at me, I'm just being honest. I should have lied, now you're mad at me? I'm just being honest. How 'bout from now on you'll write the script, I'll read the lines?

“Can’t Knock the Hustle” • “Zombie Bastards” • “Living in L.A.”

06: Big Data - 3.0

Like this sophomore album’s lyrical content — exploration of the impact artificial intelligence will have on humans and on the Earth — the latest project from producer, multi-instrumentalist, and mastermind Alan Wilkis is paradoxically dark yet bright; like AI, this album’s execution is equally flawless and Dangerous

I created a monster, it's out of control, it's going to take me...I didn't know what I was making...But now it's coming, coming for all of us!

“Monster” • “See Through” • “Evolution Once Again”

07: blackbear - ANONYMOUS

Vibrant yet dark, personal yet accessible, the fifth album from Mat Musto is a collection of 18 vulnerable, confessional songs told over slick electronic and hip-hop sounds

You drop the bag and ask me how my weekend was. I love that, though. You laugh when I make stupid jokes, and when I went to rehab, you didn't judge me that bad. I struggle with addiction probs, you always got my back. What am I gonna do the day that my drug dealer moves away? Whatever am I gonna say to my new plug? It just ain't the same.

“DOWN” • “HATE MY GUTS” • “DRUG DEALER”

08: Denzel Curry - ZUU

Hit-after-hit of hip-hop bangers pack this album’s half-hour runtime, with a plethora of guests joining the fray but never quite knocking it out like the young Miami native, Denzel Curry 

First they mockin', now they hoppin', all on the wave, 'cause they see me poppin'. Big-big-big large pockets, they start flockin'. Here's what I say when they ass keep knockin'...

“RICKY” • “BIRDZ” • “ZUU”

09: DaBaby - KIRK / Baby on Baby

On his two 2019 albums, his first proper efforts after countless mixtapes and singles, DaBaby unleashes his signature, incessant vocals over relentless trap and modern hip-hop beats

Prolly heard I was broke from a broke nigga, prolly heard I'm a ho from a ho! I don't know what you know, I ain't runnin' from no nigga, let’s go!

“BOP” • “OFF THE RIP” • “Suge”

10: Bayside - Interrobang

On their eighth album, the Anthony Raneri-fronted New York natives sound refreshed, focused, and tighter than ever telling their trademark tales of heartbreak and healing

I love that music saved you, and Lord knows it’s saved me too, but songs never love you back, and you never know the person preaching to you...

“Interrobang” • “Prayers” • “Bury Me”

11: The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru The Passion

Few frontmen can weave an album’s worth of compelling narratives, yet the Brooklyn band’s Craig Finn finds himself on the seventh The Hold Steady album once again delivering ten more engaging, interlocked tales over his band’s fierce guitar riffs and all-too-catchy choruses

Thanks for listening, thanks for understanding: tequila takeoff, Tecate landing.

“Entitlement Crew” • “Denver Haircut” • “You Did Good Kid”

12: Electric Guest - KIN

Sugary sweet, the third record from the California duo promptly polishes any rough few rough edges they once had to deliver a perfectly slick yet quirkily heartwarming collection of eleven easy-listening songs

I'm like, “this mothafucka might sue me, and that mothafucka might boo me”. I'ma keep on goin' to a better day, all this other bitterness can fade away.

“Dollar” • “I Got the Money” • “More”

13: Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

Part punk energy without sounding even slightly punk, part emo diary without being a dashboard confessional, the debut record from American teenager Billie Eilish craftily bounces between genres, haunting sounds, and strange stories

If you think I’m pretty, you should see me in a crown. I'm gonna run this nothing town. Watch me make 'em bow one by one by one.

“bad guy” • “my strange addiction” • “you should see me in a crown”

14: The Cat Empire - Stolen Diamonds

The eighth album from Australia’s The Cat Empire is a full-blown dance party packed with catchy, clever songwriting and a room full of drums, horns, strings, keyboards, turntables, and bass

Operator, please, I can’t get out my head. Tell me where I’m going or where I’m being led. Tell me like an order, and order I’ll obey. Maybe I just thought you said, or did I did I hear you say, “We’re going to ([kill a man]) Kilaman-jaro, jaro…”

“KIla” • “Stolen Diamonds” • “Ready Now”

15: Dirty Heads - Super Moon

Co-frontmen Dirty J and Duddy B return to the beach for the seventh Dirty Heads album, borrowing sounds from across their entire discography of acoustic guitars and witty hip-hop to craft a surprisingly delicate record

I'm a flame, I'm a beacon that won't go out. In the dark, in the rain, I'm your lighthouse. When you can't stand the pain, hope you know now, I'll keep you safe, I'm your lighthouse.

“Super Moon” • “Lift Me Up” • “Tender Boy”

16: TENDER - Fear of Falling Asleep

Dark and uninviting, the second album from this London duo is an intimidating but rewarding listen delicately spiced with just enough hooks to keep you trapped in its atmospheric dreams 

I’ll be looking for the scent when it goes cold. I’ve been trying to beat the maze with a blindfold on. I’ve been foraging through mud and sticks searching for that power that don’t exist.

“Closer Still” • “Bottled Up” • “Handmade Ego”

17: Logic - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind / Supermarket Soundtrack

Logic returns once again with countless rhymes delivered over his trademark breathless bars, frequently painting an all-too-vivid picture of a famous rapper struggling to comprehend the world around him

All these comments got me lost in my mind; all these thoughts that I'm having are not mine. I always post that I'm having a good time so my life looks perfect online...

“Homicide” • “Don’t Be Afraid to Be Different” • “Lemon Drop”

18: Tyga - Legendary

More than just a collection of hits, the seventh album from the Compton rapper is well-sequenced and effortlessly laced with hook-after-hook for Tyga to deliver his signature obscene lines about things he self-admittedly has too many [sic] of: money, cash, hoes, cars, clothes, flows

Hey, shut the fuck up, bitch, you know who I are. Point blank range, and I'm shootin' for the stars. You niggas subpar and I just raised the bar. You got Rollies on your wrist, this is Chopard. Slide on your block like a fuckin' go-kart, my nigga A&R, still got an AR.

“Haute” • “Lightskin Little Wayne” • “On Me”

19: The Chainsmokers - World War Joy

The third album in three years from Alex Pall and Drew Taggart (and no shortage of guests) is an easy, light collection of ten slick relationship-focused pop songs that find the duo largely eschewing their dance-centric history 

You said, "Hey, whatcha doing for the rest of your life?" and I said, "I don't even know what I'm doing tonight". Went from one conversation to your lips on mine.

“The Reaper” • “Family” • “P.S. I Hope You’re Happy”

20: Bear Hands - Fake Tunes

Brooklyn’s Bear Hands returns with another collection of bright, bouncy songs that ever-so-slightly conceal the trio’s underlying sadness and struggles  

I don't see how you think you can come to me, and bitch to me, lay out your problems, like ancient history, like I ain't got no other shit to do. I love you, baby, but my lips are turnin' blue.

“Blue Lips” • “Back Seat Driver (Spirit Guide)” • “Mr. Radioactive”

THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2019

Yung Gravy - Sensational

TWICE - &TWICE • Feel Special EP • FANCY YOU EP

Sublime with Rome - Blessings

Bring Me the Horizon - amo 

Weezer - Weezer (Black Album)

Big Data - 3.0

blackbear - ANONYMOUS

Denzel Curry - ZUU

DaBaby - KIRK / Baby on Baby

Bayside - Interrobang

The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru The Passion

Electric Guest - KIN

Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

The Cat Empire - Stolen Diamonds

Dirty Heads - Super Moon

TENDER - Fear of Falling Asleep

Logic - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind / Supermarket Soundtrack

Tyga - Legendary

The Chainsmokers - World War Joy

Bear Hands - Fake Tunes

Benioff and Weiss Were Always Hacks: You Only Noticed Now

Or why you should be worried for the future Star Wars movies made by them

(Disclaimer: this blogpost contains spoilers for Game of Thrones)

With only two episodes left for the series to reach it’s conclusion and the announcement for future Star Wars movies in the horizon made by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (henceforth referred to as D&D for simplicity sake), not many fans seem to be excited about it as they should due to the creative choices taken in regards to the final season of Game of Thrones. Speaking as a GoT fan, I used to enjoy the show a lot and I believe it reached it’s peak on Season 4 and started to go went downhill on Season 5. If D&D were in charge from the beginning what happened?

D&D’s job was always to adapt the book series by George R. R. Martin, which means any merit to the show’s writing can be attributed largely to Martin while D&D were only fit for it to make it work into a tv show - which is still laudable in it’s own right because there are things in the books that still wouldn’t translate too well into the show. In any case, they did their job well from Season 1 to Season 4 which adapted the first trilogy in the series. Even though there are still five books in total released at the time, Season 5 is where they started to run out of material to adapt because some storylines didn’t find their proper conclusion and they needed to come up with their own unique deviations.

Season 5 is considered by many fans to be the low point in the series because of it’s extremely low pacing and controversial liberties taken: the biggest ones have to be the Dorne subplot because that meant axing popular book character Arianne Martell, Stannis Baratheon turning irredeemable evil and paying with his life and Sansa’s marriage to Ramsay Snow leading to her rape, which is still a very hot button among the fandom to this day (and understandably so). Season 5 did have some moments like Hardhome which showed the strength of the true villain of the series, the Night King, the leader of the White Walker invasion who brings winter with him. He is the Thanos-like menace who is teased since the very start of the show with the very first scene opening with a White Walker killing some Night Watch’s rangers and warning us about the danger he represents.

Season 6 fixed some of these problems by giving a more dynamic pacing and build it up with the Battle of the Bastards as the climatic encounter instead of something completely anti-climatic like Season 5′s finale where Stannis Baratheon’s forces were liquidated by the Boltons offscreen. But still, it was an entire season wasted to fix another one’s problems and it still had some individual problems. 

And then Season 7 came along and it all went to waste. I wouldn’t say it was as bad as Season 5 because at least shit happened and it wasn’t boring, but it was still full of groan-worthy moments like trying to force some romance between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen which doesn’t work because they have no chemistry and they are related by blood, curing Jorah Mormont who has been infected with a dangerous disease that will turn him into a snow zombie by simply cutting out the infected area, and of course lest we forget the Wight Hunt in Episode 6 “Beyond the Wall” which broke all suspension of disbelief. Lemme sum it up for you what happens in that episode so you can get the idea and let me put up a map so you can get it from reference.

The heroes come up with the idea to capture an Wight and bring it South to convince Cersei to from a truce.

The travel by boat to the Wall from their base on Dragonstone.

After reaching the Wall, they walk into the land beyond it to find a wight.

They find one and send one of their members back to ask reinforcements having to sprint a indeterminate distance.

The team gets surrounded by the Night King’s army in a frozen lake for a indeterminate amount of time.

The allies at the Wall send a raven back to Dragonstone requesting help.

Daenerys summons her dragons to fly to the land beyond the Wall to rescue the heroes.

They are fighting to the last against the advancing horde of the Night King just before Daenerys arrives in a triumphant moment to save them.

And all of this happens like... Within a hour apparently. Several days should have taken place between this exchange but time moves at the speed of the plot, but D&D seem to be relying on emotional torque to get viewers to ignore all internal logic and be mindblown by the crowning moments of awesome. And this is the core issue with their writing.

D&D write their scenes the same way they film sex scenes apparently, hoping that the emotional moments will make the audience be carried over. Thing is... I realized this after thinking up about many moments in the past. Hardhome was one such example in Season 5 to make up for its abhorrent dullness and even Season 6 wasn’t safe from this. For example, remember how Rickon Stark died just so he could provoke Jon Snow to act irrationally and spur him into conflict? Why didn’t Rickon run in zig-zag when Ramsay began firing arrows at him? Why did he run into a straight line? Did these writers not watch Prometheus to learn their lessons from it’s mistakes? This problem was carried over in Season 8 and amplified a lot in the Long Night. Many people pointed out the several military blunders made by the protagonists when fighting against the Night King’s army.

I could talk about the moronic choice to film everything in absolute darkness and make it impossible to see shit.

I could talk about how idiotic it was to waste your cavalry against the enemy bulwark.

I could talk about how they didn’t create trenches with tar or use fire for more effective manner against the undead.

But I’d rather talk about that moment.

Arya killing the Night King.

You know at first I was okay with that because:

I wasn’t being a fan of Jon Snow in a long time.

Arya wasn’t a Mary Sue, had skills that justified her, so I could buy it better.

But the more I thought about it, more I came to the realization that it was a wrong choice all along.

Arya never had any investment in killing the Night King. She was a character defined by a list of people she wanted to kill including the Freys, Cersei, Joffrey and others.

Arya was trained as an assassin yes... But her training in Season 5 and 6 was very lackluster. She spent some time doing menial works, impersonating some people and trying to spill some poison on someone’s drink. She never learned invisibility, teleportation or any other cool shit.

And most importantly... Melisandre predicting that Arya would shut down “blue eyes” way back when they met in Season 3. If she sensed she was always destined to kill the Night King why did she ever support Stannis? Why did she even support Jon Snow? She even referred to him as the Prince that was Promised. Some fans can try to spin this as much as they want, but it breaks the plot retroactively very hard.

The actress herself didn’t think she deserved it

Of course all of these things were ignored by a large part of the fanbase, more specifically the “woke” crowd because YAS QUEEN SLAY. Little did they know that the very next episode would force them to eat a real shit sandwich when “The Last of the Starks” seemed to turn the narrative against Daenerys Targaryen by turning her into the Mad Queen, killing her handmaiden Missandei and setting up Jon to be the next King of Westeros. Not helping matters is that a series of leaks not yet confirmed as of the time of writing were released prior to the episode (but I personally feel they were legitimate due to some specific things but that is not the point) which sent many Daenerys fans into panic mode.

Speaking as someone who really doesn’t like Daenerys Targaryen, I can actually sympathize with them at some level because this shift appears to be very sudden specially now that the authors favored her more until this very moment. Some viewers can argue that there were always signs like her burning the Tarlys for refusing to bend the knee, which I personally took issue with before but it never really came across as the sign of an insane ruler since she offered very valid rebuttals. It all seemed like the plot was tailored to take her side no matter what and I considered Dany a Mary Sue. But just because they seem to be turning her into a villain now, it doesn’t make me hate the story any less.

Now... I spent an inordinate amount of time bitching about Game of Thrones and if you are an Star Wars fan that doesn’t know anything about it, you might be lost to anything I am writing. Well I needed to give an proper context to both GoT and SW fans since those seem to overlap now and give you a warning because Star Wars seems to be more lost now than ever. D&D were never particularly good writers, they were incoherent about continuity, care more about spectacle over substance and seem to share a thing about subverting the audience’s expectations like a certain Ruin Johnson who succeeded in completely ruining a franchise like there was no tomorrow. The key difference between D&D and Ruin is that the duo doesn’t share the same flippant attitude or picking up fights with fans on Twitter - on the contrary, D&D understand the power of fanservice even if it means daggling the metaphorical shining keys in front of the audience. 

As we come close to Game of Thrones conclusion, I have a feeling that nobody will truly come out satisfied with it should the story take the direction that we are really dreading. I’ve seen interviews about how Emilia Clarke sounds really sad and deflated, seemed like she was really disappointed with how the show ended. Whatever happens, the blame can be laid on the feet of Benioff and Weiss for their frankly baffling creative decisions. This season has been disappointing through and through with two or three episodes being needlessly long and filler to booth and to make matters worse, it was supposed to end earlier than 10 episodes. Why did they need to rush it and yet fill the series with so much dead air?

Now can you imagine a Star Wars movie made by them? With all these things I listed? The next trilogy is already dated, we don't know if it's D&D or Ruin Johnson yet. We are talking about a couple of writers that have no sense of realistic scale, continuity or logic, but rely on cheap emotional tricks to have the audience invested until they begin thinking about it. I would laugh until I was sick if this season turns everyone against those two fuckwads that Disney changes their mind about putting them in charge. If the world was a just place, this is what would happen at least.

NEON Lieben: Preface

NEON Lieben originated from a deep love for three fundamentals.  

One. Star Trek: The Next Generation, which my grandmother turned on, because the TV Guide mentioned a story about a boy named Wesley (Will Wheaton), whose mother was a doctor on a ship. In her innocence, Grandma thought it would be a nice story for my wild-child brother to see a well behaved boy, with a mother in the same trade. It didn’t matter our Mum was a nurse, a single parent in the medical field was enough. We became firm sci-fi tv absorbers, much to Grandma’s future chagrin. I fell in love with Data (Brent Spiner), in the way a seven year old who couldn’t remember her father’s face looked up to a distant influence. Star Trek: TNG became the bedrock of sci-fi. Followed avidly by DS9, with its grit (Sisco punches Q) and the Federation at war. 

Two. In the summer before grade 12, I and a gaggle of other keen English students at our academy decided sacrificing a few weeks of summer was worth being in Mr. Rauser’s last English 12 class, before he moved away. We spent hours in a deep dive of sci-fi. Studied Amadeus, Blade Runner and AI: Artificial Intelligence on the large tube television wheeled into class on a matte black cart. The day we read Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson and discussed Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick, my eyes opened. Those short stories were the apple on my Edenic tree, and with a firm crunch between my teeth, I knew science fiction was the blood in my veins. Prior to this, my education included the usual children’s classics. The Chronicles of Narnia, Where the Red Ferns Grow, a healthy dose of Shakespeare and Zone en Français. At the end, he handed me a dogeared copy of Count Zero by William Gibson, with a word about how much he thought I’d dig it.  

William Gibson is my favourite author to this day.  

The last lifelong influence is the Spiritual Machines album by Our Lady Peace. As young teens, my older brother and I kept our musical tastes hidden from well-meaning but strict Christian grandparents & our Mum. No rock, but a ‘be careful little ears what you hear’ whenever the music got too far away from Southern Gospel or ‘but Mum it’s Christian I promise, see? They’re singing about God’. When my brother got his driver’s license, our world opened drastically. On the drive to school, there was Metallica, Live, Matthew Good Band. And Our Lady Peace. Clumsy was the first song I heard, or maybe it was Naveed, but Clumsy and Superman’s Dead were the ones I remember prior to Spiritual Machines. Our greatest fear was forgetting to take the CD out of the player in Mum’s car, lest we get a firm tongue lashing and another whispered ‘be careful little ears what you hear’. What I heard was the transcendence of artificial intelligence, the ability to turn ‘pulp’ into literature. A sci-fi image into high art.  In university, I’d sit in my car listening to the entire album, usually with a theatre major in the passenger seat or sprawled out in the back. We’d watch the massive old growth trees beside the arts building sway as Raine Maida sang. Can artifice become sapient? Is everything going to be alright?  

In Repair remains one of my favourite songs in the history of music. It lives beside Henry Purcell, David Bowie, JS Bach, Matthew Good, Soen & Fleshgod Apocalypse.  

Without these influences over my formative years, I would be a proponent of ‘literary fiction’. Realism-drowned narratives. Poetry based on the sorts of poets you learn about if you get off the ‘regular path’ and dive into academics as a life’s pursuit. Science Fiction ruined me. Taught me to dive not into the allusions of an 18th Century poet with myriad well-read connections, but to square up and take a punch into quantum computing, artificial intelligence, epigenetics versus genetics (what happens when you mix lupine DNA with a velociraptor) wrapped in neon signs and purple hair.  

I became the wild one. The untamed child of a straight-laced family, too much like that father I heard about but never saw growing up. The one who holds a PS4 controller and talks the birth of sci-fi, while pondering the last scene. The one with the guns in white plastic tunnels. I did not take a tumble down the perfectly respectable Shakespearean rabbit hole to an academic wonderland filled with Aphra Behn and discussions on James Joyce. I could have, the foundations were built for that house, too. I quite loved performing Shakespeare, Beatrice was my favourite role.  There is nothing wrong with academia. I learned I was too wild for it, too much like the Fastidious Horses in Vysotsky’s rumbling soviet song. I could dive into the academic side of sci-fi, argue the value of artifice and imagination to teach readers to view their current world in a different light. 

Instead I dove frenetic and untamed into the Sprawl, swinging a mean left hook. Broke above the console cowboys of the Matrix. Watched electric dreams and learned what faster-than-light travel meant when you captained the Starship Enterprise. All in, NEON Lieben is an expression of these myriad influences. Of Jungian archetypes and a vivid imagination strong enough in physics to dip my toe into the realm of quantum computing (with help from my intelligent friend, who has degrees in the stuff). It’s an inspection to the spiritual foundation of my younger days, of practices and meditations on the Sefirot, I and my spouse steep into our home.  

Two stories intertwine. GMO soldier Aderastos discovers humanity and little harmless Max Allard has to bring AD-001 back before the ubiquitous ‘all’ is lost. The grieving scientist 70 years prior, who built an android to combat the death gnawing at his heartstrings. The path to artificial sapience lies not in a fleet of work-saving robots, but a group of anarchists who refuse labels with religious aplomb.  

I finished what I thought was the first novel of this series 8 years ago. Handed it to my editor (who was working on Son of Abel) and she nodded, paused, hummed, and came back in a couple of weeks to smack me upside the head and say ‘write the first one first’. Hedonism Wholesale Inc remains in the vault, and Teagan was right.  

Any good science fiction piece requires an origin point. A Genesis Machine to ground the future stories within a world uniquely of our own designs.  Welcome to my origin story. The birthplace of Aderastos, Max Allard and the Android Queen who called herself Mother sometime between creation and the day Aderastos washed up on the shore of Ucluelet’s Carolina Sound.

Here’s the promised rant! It goes on for thirty years! The season 6 as i can’t unsee it because i rewatched it at a weird point in life!

Step one: if you have shipping goggles on, take them off. If you have a big sentiment towards Cas's perspective in 6.20, for now, leave it at the door. It belongs in the trashcan, I hope you know that.

Welcome to season 6 and the gender-coded horror aka all the things that were done to Dean because he just wouldn’t stay in the kitchen.

Season 6 in its entirety stronger than any other season placed Dean into the role of a woman. It’s a thing since day one in spn, but s6 was all about it. Dean's horror in that season strongly resembles stories about women being abused and belittled because they are believed to be less than men; simply because they aren’t men [and know jack shit]. Their feelings don’t matter, neither does their consent, not really, which the season’s vaguely threatening “can’t or won’t?” encompasses very well [women don’t get to say “no” or “can’t” and keep it. It will get dissected and disrespected. Which is also Dean’s story].

Re-watching season 6 I felt like I was watching Rosemary's Baby but simply without the baby??? Everyone there is either lying to Dean or gaslighting him or both, all the while he's being repeatedly told everything that has been done to him, everything that hurt him, everything that took his choice away, was done to him for his own good or for the greater good vaguely including his own (or not) . And maybe he should shut the fuck up and drink a cocktail [or, according to Cas, some more whiskey].

This pattern stars in the very beginning of the season where Dean is being told that an important truth regarding Sam was hidden from him on purpose because Bobby Sam and Cas knew better what's best for Dean and they treated Dean's arguments as emotional and unreasonable. Dean fucking spent an entire year suffering from grief after losing his brother whom due to abuse and brainwashing Dean couldn't help but see as his own child (which is something that season 12 canonically confirmed). Like with Ro’s baby being declared dead at first but hey I digress, scratch that.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of his choice being taken away from him, since right away he gets guilt-tripped back into the hunting life and all the things that were supposed to be so good for him he got endlessly ridiculed for. Soulless Sam even drags Dean’s entire life when Dean chooses to stay with Lisa. Dean doesn’t know Sam doesn’t have a soul. He’s just supposed to take the abuse from the guy who pushed him into the domestic life in the first place and consider it normal.

Dean is also being called soft and too feminine, too weak to be treated as an equal decision making party in the hunting arrangement. He’s ranked below Gwen, only woman in the group, the lowest ranking member before Dean came.

Also very interesting that throughout the season Dean is heavily connected with taking care of children, bonding with them, and feeling for them deeply [Ben, 6.02, 6.03, 6.19], which again is something he gets criticized for every single time.

The criticism however doesn't end there and an extremely important example is where Dean begins voicing his concern regarding Sam and his behavior. Even though Dean knows Sam best, Bobby insists that Dean is being paranoid. Even after Sam literally served Dean to the vampire, he gets ordered to stop being so weak and get dressed into a more reason-based professional approach to the problem and he's supposed to put his trauma aside, basically he's being told to man up. Because he’s being emotional. And probably wrong and hysterical.

Of course it's no surprise that the game-changing moment for Dean too puts him in a woman's position within the narrative. While sexual assault isn’t a problem only women experience, statistically and, especially in the media, this is the sort of violence that women are in a larger threat of facing than men. What's more to it, what happens on screen in the episode only shows the girls being lured into a trap and forcefully changed. And all of this has extremely sexual connotations. Being unwillingly turned into a vampire and the forced feeding with a vampire's blood is a blatant metaphor of rape. In Dean's case the sexual undertone of the assault was heavily accentuated even in dialogue.

But not just there. In the episode Dean takes the vampire book and refers to its cover [the vampire watching the girl sleep] as “rapey”. He’s uncomfortable with the whole thing. The act of staring at an unaware sleeping woman is presented as a monster vs woman thing to do, as an assault. When Dean gets turned, he watches Lisa sleep before she startles awake [6.05]. Lucky, the dog-skinwalker, watches his “love”/unaware owner sleep, then crawls into her bed [6.08]. Castiel, despite of knowing the sigils were literally meant to be a restraining order, enters Dean’s room, watches him sleep. Tries to convert him [620]. The same episode also brings  up all the times Dean, completely unaware, was being watched by him. Just like the girl from the book cover was, just like Maddie was.

No surprise Cas takes the creepy cake because he resonates with the disturbing theme perhaps the most, showing through how in season 6 Dean's relationship with Cas played out. Or, to be more specific, how Castiel's relationship with Dean played out (and there is a difference).

The thing of the biggest import here, before I begin, is that power imbalance, the difference of species. The angelic mindset in the Angels versus Humans dynamics, which is rooted in the same arguments men use to establish their dominance over women and to later excuse it: according to Angels (and technically supernatural beings in general), humans are weaker, too emotional, definitely dumber, less experienced, less competent.

And what they deserve, at best, is patronizing treatment showing them where is their place, because they’re too fragile and too stupid to make decisions for themselves. Not worthy taking a meaningful position in a war, but at the same time they're extremely valuable due to their souls, which to an extent kind of reminds me of how women are often seen as valuable only because they are capable of childbirth, which is an ability unique to them in the same way having a soul is something that angels just lack, so they use humans for that.

Castiel might say he values humans as his equals, but even if he believes that, his actions don’t reflect it [5.18 for example, pick ANY episode from s6]. The thinking is so ingrained into him like patriarchal perspective is in men’s heads by default. Castiel's and Dean's relationship in season 6 is solely gender coded in this regard. Castiel simply isn't capable of seeing Dean as his equal because he’s, according to Cas, weaker, less experienced, too biased by his flawed - or castiel's actual words - “crippling” - human perspective, therefore he should be put away from the fighting for his own good. No matter the cost, no matter Dean’s judgment on the matter, no matter his choice. Safety is priority, right? Early in s6 Dean, desperate, tries to protect Lisa and Ben like that too, but he understands, he backs off. They reach balance.

But when the narrative puts Dean in Lisa’s place? The only thing he's allowed to do is to perform some basic tasks that are completely unrelated to what's happening on the Big Front and only when Cas sees it fit, and only how he sees it fit. Dean, as long as  it is for Castiel to decide, doesn't even have to know what he's doing. In fact, in the original plan it was supposed to go along the lines of: Manly Men (angels) Fight Wars To Protect Women (Dean) because they're capable and strong and cunning and rational, while Women (Dean) Stay At Home And Rake The God Damn Leaves. What they do is keep the fire going for the Victorious Soldier when He returns from War and if they don't get that, they're just dumb because their human little brains are too small to comprehend the stakes. So they don’t get a vote. They’re supposed to trust blindly. Men (angels) know better. And all of it of course is because Men (Castiel) love Them (Dean) so much and They’re willing to do everything and anything to protect those poor, brittle things (favorite pets?).

The list of anything and everything includes: lying about everything all the time directly into Dean’s face despite of the crushing emotional pain Dean was in. And I don’t even mean burning Crowley's bones-lying, but every single time Dean has voiced his worry that something is wrong with Sam. What Castiel does is to placate Dean, reassure him that he doesn't know what happens but he's so sorry and he'll try to find out! Aids and encourages Dean’s alcoholism just to make him docile, while lying to him actively, by the way [6.06]. And when that stops being an option and Dean is determined to return the soul to Sam, Castiel suddenly stops being so understanding and sweet. Like a flip of a switch. He guilt trips and indirectly threatens Dean before he follows through [6.10] and after placing Sam's soul back in its place [6.12]. And of course it has nothing to do with actual worry over Sam's wellbeing.

Cas pulled Sam out of the cage and didn't bother to check on him for over a year, even though soulless!sam prayed to him repeatedly. Not to mention that he later broke Sam's wall without blinking, so he did the exact thing he “warned” Dean about and by “warned” I mean that he made sure Dean would know the blame, if anything happens to Sam, is going to be his. The point of the whole show of concern was to keep Dean busy and technically powerless because together, alive and kicking, the Winchesters, while extremely dysfunctional and codependent, make a much bigger threat for the supernatural because it's so much harder to keep the game going when suddenly both of the brothers are asking questions and Dean is no longer being pulled down, preoccupied and controlled by T-1000. Dean is much more compliant when he has no support and when he has no moves to make, which Castiel knows.

So yes, maybe Castiel didn't pull out Sam soulless on purpose but it is no accident that he was so determined to keep him that way regardless of how much it cost Dean, whom, of course, he loves so fucking much.

And when you are an angel loving a man/mother figure so much you are also going to hurt the child just to force him to accept his position and stand down. And later tell him that he had it coming because he didn't listen and didn't do what he's told (if the babysitter is slapped, she’s clearly done something wrong). All of it in the name of freedom, of course.

While attempting to emotionally manipulate Dean into supporting his cause and agreeing that what Castiel is doing is right, Cas invokes values like caring, protecting, being a family -  which are in our society values mostly associated with women. Even the Superman metaphor presents Dean as Lois Lane (which Dean knows, so he throws that hot ball away as fast as he can). Throughout the entire 6.20 Dean is shown as and approached to as the delicate hurt wife that can't believe she's being cheated on, so everyone’s just being soft and protectional on her, poor thing, which starts in 6.19.

And fuck lemme tell you a thing about 6.19, buckle the fuck up. The episode very telling in the context of this gender-based abuse reading. It’s because both Bobby and Sam immediately understood that something is wrong about Cas while Dean couldn't. And, the way see it, it’s not the problem of Dean trusting Cas more and blindly because he's in love with him and stuff, no. At least not mostly. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that technically in the presence of both (especially soulless) Sam and Bobby Cas didn't put that much effort into playing soft concern and caring thing  as he did during the brief encounters he had with Dean alone. Sure Cas determined when he made it clear to Dean that driving the boys to their uncle is not something they have the time for, but there is a difference between the way he spoke about it in Dean's presence, to Dean directly, and the comments he made when only Bobby was there to hear them. Here, compare for yourself:

CAS: Dean, can I have a word? We need to find Eve now.

DEAN: Yeah. Go. Me and Sam just gotta make a milk run.

CAS: We need your help here.

DEAN: Hold your water. We’ll be back in a few.

CAS: Dean, Dean. Millions of lives are at stake here, not just two. Stay focused.

DEAN: Are you kidding?

CAS: there’s a greater purpose here.

DEAN: you know what, I-I’m getting a little sick and tired of the greater purposes, okay? I think what I’d like to do now is save a couple of kids. If you don’t mind. We’ll catch up.

Now, same problem, but with no Dean to hear it. I heavily advise you to dig 6.19 out and watch if not both scenes at least this one because the way Misha delivers his lines here is vital. I know just the words to describe that for you, but hear that for yourselves:

BOBBY: They won’t take long.

CAS: They might find more orphans along the way.  

BOBBY: Oh, don’t get cute.

CAS: Right. Pardon me for highlighting their crippling and dangerous empathetic response with “sarcasm”. It was a bad idea, letting them go.

Now, a bit on both [I still insist you should go watch that scene i’m begging you]:

First scene? Castiel approaches Dean gently, asks for a permission to talk in private, gives him space. He speaks to him super softly. I threw up softly. Dean doesn’t notice the demand in the demand at all, so he just goes ok, you do you, I do me i don’t get it??? So Cas goes into  the emotional territory [always works, don’t it], still soft.

Now dean gets it, but doesn’t budge. So bigger ammo goes off. And don’t even get me started on “Dean, Dean,” and how throughout the show only the villains do the variations of repeating Dean’s name to address him. The delivery slightly differed here but

It was followed by an order that was all the way patronizing. Only Castiel’s eyes reflect the irritation, his voice doesn’t - even though as scene with bobby makes clear - he’s pissed as shit. On dean specifically. He does say “they” but note that sam hasn’t spoken once on the whole issue? It’s dean who he was talking to.

He thinks Dean is crippled for being empathetic and bound to children and he isn’t rational enough to understand the stakes. Let it sink in. now think about it in the context of being a gender [species] issue. Let it sink deeper.

Something in Dean’s words, that thrown in “if you don’t mind” - that’s totally subjective but it kind of makes me think of this women-specific way of speaking from many decades before. Like 40s-50s wife thing? That implied asking for permission woven into their lexicons? Dean is, of course, bitter here, but still, you ever hear a man use that construction? I haven’t. Feel free to discard this point it’s just me trying to work with leftovers of my linguistic training and it’s subjective and i’m in no way saying that line went like that on purpose, ok? It just Bothers  me on some crawling under my skin level.

“Letting” someone do something is Bad Idea - says dude who slaughters in the name of Choice and Freedom. Oops.

And a bonus: Eve lured Dean into her trap, relying on his maternal side. Then, she tried to reach him using Mary. The whole thing being a mother to a mother talk because as a “mother” you should get my feelings.

Another bonus because you probably didn’t dig 6.19 out. That wasn’t an impersonal, rationalish vaguely grumpy sarcasm. That was soft, belittling, ridiculing contempt, the exact one you will meet again in 7.01! I wonder why!!

say bye bye to 6.19, we’re going elsewhere now. Still within the realm of season 6 fucking with Dean’s agency, gendering his problems, and somewhat within the realm of Castiel’s soon to be kingdom.

All that talk about making sacrifices for Dean’s good [because of dean/for dean, mind you] and preserving free will? Oh man, that was to not even convince God [who was blogging about cats at the time], but to make himself feel good and justified in what he’s doing.

And if he really meant what he said by “i’m doing this for you, i’m doing this because of you”, that’s because Dean is his prized possession. Spoils of war from apocalypse no. 1 [5.18 anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Entitlement?]. His trophy wife.

And no one can lay a hand on Dean and hurt him [michael, raphael, balthazar, atropos, crowley, demons] or even insult him [rachel]. Except of him, of course [ignoring him for a year, not even to say sam isn’t dead, grabbing and slicing Dean’s arm without asking and warning, guilt tripping him as hard as it gets re: Sam, agreeing to put him in harm’s way during crowley-related errands, keeping the lisa blackmail going due to convenience, re-making Dean’s reality and life without his consent BUT when that didn’t pan out, making him keep the knowledge just because he wanted to? Um, yikes? And of course hurting sam to get specifically to dean?]

Because

CAS: I’ve earned that, Dean. [6.21]

*mic drop*

Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Gallier Hall address, 19 May 2017

Immediately before New Orleans removed a statue of Robert E Lee -- the fourth Confederate monument to be removed in recent weeks -- Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a remarkable speech, one that will have, I hope, a major impact on the US going forward. And, presages what I expect will be a national presence for Mayor Landrieu in the future.

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way – for both good and for ill.

It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more.

You see: New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures.

There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one.

But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy.

It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

He said in his now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it.

President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone – one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored.

As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought.

So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.

Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?

Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?

We all know the answer to these very simple questions.

When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong.

Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence.

To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.

Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place.

Here is the essential truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world?

We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures.

Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity.

We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it!

And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.”

But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.”

We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain.

While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side.

Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.”

Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue.

Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces … would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations.

And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.

In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals.

We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America.

Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way.

It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes.

Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed.

So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved  Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it  is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.”

So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.

As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.

Thank you for coming. The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way – for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more. You see: New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures. There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one. But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture. America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth. And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth. As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let’s start with the facts. The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for. After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union. Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it. President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.” A piece of stone – one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored. As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought. So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth. And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once. This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence. To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong. And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures. Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity. We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it! And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.” But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.” We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain. While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver. Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side. Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity. He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.” Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps. A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place. We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces … would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story? We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations. And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people. In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals. We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America. Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way. It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes. Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years. After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed. So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become. Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved  Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it  is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.” So before we part let us again state the truth clearly. The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered. As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause. Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Thank you.

NOLA Mayor Landrieu via http://pulsegulfcoast.com/2017/05/transcript-of-new-orleans-mayor-landrieus-address-on-confederate-monuments

20 Tiny and Mind-Blowing Documents for Learning

I recently sent a few documents to a 13-year-old girl that is intelligent, but is annoyed by reading long texts that take too long to get to the point. I've read thousands of books, and the more I read the more I value writing that can change your perspective on the world in just a few pages.

My book list is always changing. I update it every few days, but right now I have 388 things listed in 10 sections. Some of them are large book series. But, some of them are small. Some, very small.

So I looked through my list and pulled out a few small things that I thought might surprise her as to how valuable a small work can be. My selection was excellent. But, there were too many things. And, even though they were smaller than you would think, some of them could still be considered a book. I wanted to make the list smaller, and I wanted the works to be smaller. I went through it again.

This time I guessed at how long each work was and included the length. I got it down to 20 items. And I was pretty close on my guesses too.

I didn't send her the list in any order, but here I've listed them in a very approximate order of length.

4 words - "l(a" by E. E. Cummings

"l(a" is a poem that cannot be read, it can only be looked at. The symbology used in the spacing, the breaks, the shape, the letters and numbers, and the words, is immense. It's constructed vertically, and inside of the word "loneliness" it says "a leaf falls". Sometimes people pass over something so small thinking that it can't hold much meaning, but they are wrong. This small poem is an inexhaustible work of art.

581 words - "What We Mean by Civilization", Chancellor's Address, Bristol University, 2 July 1938 by Winston Churchill

Maybe I should have included something else by Churchill. He wrote so many papers and gave so many speeches that it's an overwhelming amount of material. I have a few things from him on my personal list. His 1950 unpublished article "This Is Freedom" is amazing, and that could be here. Alas, in the speech that I did send he is talking about authority and peace, and these are important concepts to contend with. Here's one line, "The central principle of Civilisation is the subordination of the ruling authority to the settled customs of the people and to their will as expressed through the Constitution." Churchill is an excellent place to dive into such a daunting subject.

5 paragraphs - "Cain and Abel" by Unknown Genius

How to interpret the world and how to act in the world are subjects that are too large for humans to comprehend. And yet, we must interpret the world, and we must act in the world. One of the ways that we cope with this problem is by using the tools of narrative, metaphor, and art. We are able to condense an enormous amount of information in a very small space. The ideas of good and evil, resentment, revenge, initiation of force, betrayal, rejection, aggression, economics, justice, truth, etc. are all contained in the story of "Cain and Abel". The great narratives contain more truths than the author can fathom. A well of insight that never runs dry, that we can return to over and over again. And "Cain and Abel" is one of the greatest, and tiniest, narratives in human history.

98 sentences - "The 95 Theses" by Martin Luther

It's rare for people to read actual documents from history, even though some of the most important documents are rather small. Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in 1517 with this document. He was a professor that was debating moral theology, and started a religious revolution that resulted in a whole bunch of wars. But, as far as I can tell, almost no one reads this little document that transformed all of the Christian world and broke the Catholic Church apart. It's probably different than you would expect. The whole document is about repentance. The word "indulgence" is used 45 times. An indulgence was where you could pay to absolve yourself of sin. Luther was against that. If you think about the context while you're reading it, it's an intense document, and well worth the reading of 98 sentences.

1 page - "Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities" by Gian Vittorio Caprara and Philip Zimbardo

We don't think of politicians like we do normal people, or famous people, or athletes, or celebrities. We think of them in a special way. Normally people can rate people across five major personality traits. But with politicians it's reduced to a simplified two. What these researchers call energy/innovation and honesty/trustworthiness. If you combine this idea with some insights on elections from the economist Joseph Schumpeter it paints a unique picture of how the process really works.

2 pages - From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 September 1808

Letters offer amazing insights into history. One of the great things about the Founding Fathers of the United States is that so many of them kept their letters. These were some of the best educated men in the world in political theory, working to apply those principles in unique practical circumstances. And we can read what they were saying to each other at the time, we can read what they were thinking. In this letter John Adams is talking to Benjamin Rush about how hard it is to maintain a republican form of government. How corruption and a lack of virtue can tear a nation apart. Lessons for us all.

2 pages - "Constitution of Medina; Or, Charter of Medina" by Muhammad

In this little document you can see the problems Muhammad was working on in trying to form his new religion. He was converting pagan Arab tribes. He was trying to get them to stop killing each other. He was trying to reconcile them with the Jews that would join him. But, he was also trying to make sure that they were definitely separate from outsiders, and thus rules didn't apply when dealing with outsiders. Dividing people into in-groups and out-groups is a universal difficulty. One of the things that I find the most interesting is how much trouble Muhammad was having with blood-feuds, and he was working hard at stopping them. From Muhammad, to the Vikings, to the Hatfields and McCoys, blood-feuds have been a major problem for human societies throughout time.

2 pages - "“Multicultural” Education" speech by Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is the greatest living economist. In this little speech he defends the idea of teaching the history of Western culture. Something that has been strongly attacked over the last few decades by people that oppose freedom. Here's one line, "Much of the advancement of the human race has occurred because people made the judgment that some things were not simply different from others, but better." It's an excellent idea to keep in mind.

2 pages - "Objections to the Constitution of Government Formed by the Convention" by George Mason

Many of the most important Founding Fathers didn't sign the Constitution. Some had logistical difficulties, but others opposed it so much that they would not sign it. One of the major objections was the lack of a declaration of rights. That should have gone first. Luckily it was added a couple of years later. But, his insights about the division between the North and the South were ignored. His paragraph about the problems in the legal system is applicable to this day. And here's how he ends it, "This Government will commence in a moderate Aristocracy; it is at prese[nt] impossible to foresee whether it will, in it's operation, produce a Monarchy, or a corrupt oppressive Aristocracy; it will most probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in the one or the other." It's an interesting look into the mind of the godfather of the American Bill of Rights.

3 pages - "Erro, Ergo Sum: An Evolutionary Map for Consciousness, Cognition and Free Will" by Andrew W. Notier

This ingenious little paper is almost completely unknown. I only know about it because we both belong to The International Society for Philosophers. As soon as I read this paper I emailed Andrew and thanked him for his insights. He's emailed me about some of my original ideas as well. It was a nice exchange. Here's the basic idea of the paper from one sentence, "Life appears to be unique in the universe in its ability to produce erroneous information, and human beings have the ability to generate these errors on a staggering scale." To adjust for perceptual errors you need four things: separateness, data access, evaluative facility, and authority to act. That is, thinking and free will. He makes a strong case that at the deepest level we humans are mistake-makers and truth-seekers.

3 pages - "Original Rough Draught of the Declaration of Independence" by Thomas Jefferson

Five important Founding Fathers were on the committee to write the "Declaration of Independence": Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Benjamin Franklin turned down writing it because he didn't want to write something that other people would edit. And it did get edited. I like both versions, but there are a few pieces in the original that I wish made it into the final version.

4 pages - "The Address of Gen. Washington to the People of America on His Declining the Presidency of the United States" by George Washington

Washington tried to leave the office of President after his first term. He had James Madison prepare a farewell address for him. But, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson both convinced him to stay for one more term. Then, after 8 years as the first President of the United States, Washington finally had enough and retired to his farm. He had Hamilton redo the address and issued it. He talks about what's needed to support the continued integrity of the nation, and about the dangers to it, like party politics.

6 pages - "Of Society" by Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy

This is a chapter from "A Treatise on Political Economy" by de Tracy. It was translated from the French by Thomas Jefferson. There are a ton of great insights in these few pages. For instance, before the subjective theory of value became popular in the 1870s, de Tracy had already clearly explained it, "It is equally true that an exchange is a transaction in which the two contracting parties both gain." The man was a genius that is now largely forgotten.

7 pages - "Of the Market for Products" by Jean Baptiste Say

This is a chapter from "A Treatise on Political Economy; or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth" from 1819. And it contains one of the most important ideas in the history of economics, often called Say's Law, or Say's Law of Markets, or supply-side economics. It's the basic idea that to exchange things, you first have to have things to exchange. As Say notes, "It is worth while to remark, that a product is no sooner created, than it, from that instant, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value." It's an idea that's commonly forgotten, often by economists, to the great detriment of everyone.

8 pages - "The State" by Frederic Bastiat

Bastiat directly confronts many of the contradictions in politics and economics. And they are the same in September of 1848 in France as they are in any other place, at any other time. For instance, "The state is not and cannot be one-handed. It has two hands, one to receive and the other to give; in other words, the rough hand and the gentle hand. The activity of the second is of necessity subordinate to the activity of the first." At some point these things always come to balance, then as now.

8 pages - Edmund Burke’s Letter To Charles-Jean-François Depont, November 1789

Burke was a Brit that saw the justice in the American Revolution, and the danger in the French Revolution, at the time they were happening. That's a unique record. Several of the Founding Fathers of the United States were involved in the French Revolution: Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. But, there was a major difference. I would say it's an emphasis on individual rights. Burke said this, "Believe me, sir, in all changes in the state, moderation is a virtue, not only amiable but powerful." So true.

10 pages - The "Jacques Bonhomme" articles by Frederic Bastiat

Bastiat published four issues of the journal "Jacques Bonhomme" during the French Revolution of 1848. Yes, there were a lot of French Revolutions. In the selection I have there are 8 of his articles. It's extraordinary to see him trying to explain economics to people, to convince them to do good during a time of tumult. It's an attempt at reconciling practical politics and economics with ideals. Even when being translated from the French to the English Bastiat still has a way with words, "Do you seriously have such faith in human wisdom that you want universal suffrage and government of all by all and then you proclaim these very men whom you consider fit to govern others unfit to govern themselves?" That's a contradiction that we have never resolved.

12 pages - "I, Pencil: My Family Tree As Told To Leonard E. Read" by Leonard Read

Read uses the complexity of what it actually takes to make an simple pencil to demonstrate some important concepts. And here's the moral of the story, "The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited." To the extent that society can do that, it thrives.

16 pages - "There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon" by Jack Kent

The psychological depth of this children's book cannot be overstated. I'll give you the first two pages, so you're already a ways into the book. "Billy Bixbee was rather surprised when he woke up one morning and found a dragon in his room. It was a small dragon, about the size of a kitten." And, I'll give the whole idea away, so you can jump right into gathering insights from the metaphor. The dragon is a problem, on multiple levels of analysis.

61 pages - "A Contract with God" by Will Eisner

When I sent this as a recommendation I had forgotten how long it is. But, it's a comic book. Many people count it as the first true graphic novel, ever. And, it's not your average comic. Let me read page 5 to you. "Not so unusual, a father brings up a child with care and love only to lose her... plucked, as it were, from his arms by an unseen hand - the hand of God. It happens to lots of people every day." Oh yes, this is a comic with an immense amount of depth, and not for the faint of heart. I highly recommend it.

Anyone can read these works. They're small, but they're powerful. Often the most powerful insights are communicated in such a condensed way that it doesn't seem possible for them to hold so much meaning in such a tiny package. But they do. From art to economics, politics to religion, philosophy to psychology, and history to humanity. It's all contained in these 20 little documents, just waiting for their riches of knowledge to be explored, and their depths of wisdom to be plumbed.

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To read more from Jeff go to JeffThinks.com or JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

27 - and I say this as someone who loves the Pearl/Rose ship lol

I feel like I've seen a decent amount of opinion expressed that Rose Wasn't That Good For Pearl. Sometimes it coincides with Rose Was Bad In General and/or I Must Justify Pearl Being In A Different Ship. But regardless of the reason what I've seen is usually based on premises worth looking into, like the inherent power imbalance Rose and Pearl carried into their relationship, or how perhaps Rose might have taken Pearl for granted, or the way Rose seemed to view their relationship as an open thing while Pearl felt it ought to be exclusive, and how it doesn't seem like they ever actually broke up before Rose made her relationship with Greg serious and then she made that baby and she died.

But I don't think I've ever really seen the complementary opinion put forth, that Pearl Wasn't That Good For Rose Either. Which I think is actually equally valid??

(Perhaps I've just been reading all the wrong fics though.)

I think there came to be a time when Pearl put an enormous amount of pressure on Rose to be Perfect.

Let me begin by jumping back.

We've just seen, in the Season 5 Finale, that all of the stuff the show is dealing with sorting out has more or less stemmed from White Diamond making a bunch of increasingly terrible decisions under her self-imposed pressure to be Perfect. She had to set a Perfect Example, she had to be intolerant of anyone else being less than Perfect and weed out imperfection everywhere she could find it, she had to expand Radch space her Perfect Empire to the ends of the universe, etc.

Pink Diamond lived under that terrible pressure to be Perfect, to set a Perfect Example, unable to be herself because she's supposed to be someone else's ideal and anything that strays from that ideal is not Perfect, and told she was morally obligated to make everyone else as miserable as she herself was for the sake of what White Diamond believed was Perfection.

And Pink Diamond hated it.

This is a huge theme of the show: the idea that you don't have to be perfect to be valid--especially someone else's idea of perfect. Everyone has their own unique experience and it's amazing and wonderful and something to be celebrated. Having to live up to what someone else expects you to be ruins that.

It gets touched on in the very first episode, but it's put more succinctly in the second episode where we get Greg's catchphrase: if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hotdogs. Remember how Steven used to be eating a hotdog at the end of the original opening? That's a definite motif.

The second episode is also the first time we learn of Rose. And in our first impression of her, we learn that she loved that catchphrase enough to make it the passcode to activate her laser light cannon.

Because Rose Quartz fought for the hotdogs. She fought for the "useless" life on Earth, for Pearls who had their own interests, for the unique experiences of previously-unheard-of Fusions, for every off-color and imperfect Gem who wanted to be herself instead of what White Diamond said she was made to be.

She fought for freedom.

(And she almost found it.)

And then the war was no longer being actively fought--because it never really was over, was it?--and Rose Quartz found herself once again in that Diamond leadership position, once again under pressure to present her best possible (Perfect) self. We see Garnet struggle with that same issue when she becomes the leader of the Crystal Gems--hiding her moments of weakness under a strong and perfect facade because she knows the effect her composure has on the team.

And I think, over the years, Pearl unintentionally did a lot of the pushing to keep Rose on top of that Perfect pedestal.

It begins right at the start, actually--because Rose Quartz is actually someone Pearl created. Pink fell in love with that person and became her, but originally Rose Quartz was someone Pearl imagined. I think that the story Garnet tells in Your Mother And Mine of Rose Quartz's origins is actually a story straight from Pearl. It's something Rose herself wholeheartedly agrees with, I expect--reframing Pink Diamond's struggles to negotiate with the other Diamonds as those of Rose Quartz (just an ordinary Quartz soldier, made right here on Earth, who met this Pearl who doesn't belong to her but who makes her so happy anyway) versus the villainous Pink Diamond. But I think it's still Pearl's initiative.

So Pink Diamond escaped the narrow image of someone else's expectations...by becoming a new someone else's entirely different fantasy.

That's bound to end well, inevitably.

And then Rose set the precedent of "I never want to look back and we're never going to speak of Pink Diamond ever again." And I think that, in addition to Pearl's own guilt, is where Pearl takes her cues for the way she handles, say, the Kindergarten. That bad place where bad people came to do bad things, which she never wants to acknowledge or think about again and she'd rather just pretend that all of this never happened. If she could just erase her past mistakes like they'd never even happened, that would be great.

What that leads to, I expect, is Pearl's narrative of Rose Quartz emphasizing that Rose Quartz is Perfect. Rose Quartz definitely didn't make any mistakes. Rose Quartz is good and kind and benevolent and beautiful and wise and never messed up at all and certainly never made anything like the Kindergartens or was the reason the Diamonds retaliated with the Corruption or anything like that haha.

As if being good and making mistakes are incompatible.

So here is Rose Quartz on Earth, trying in vain to fix her mistakes while not acknowledging to anyone that they're her mistakes in the first place. Here is Rose Quartz, trying to live up to Pearl's adoring expectations of who Rose Quartz should be. Here is Rose Quartz, never really able to grow, never truly able to change, still having to Be Perfect and Set An Example and Lead Her Court.

"Rose Quartz" was once her escapism, and now it's the one thing she can't escape.

And then here is Greg, with a whole new narrative of Rose Quartz.

Rose Quartz Is Flawed.

Greg looks at Rose and immediately assumes, as a matter of course, as a living being, that her past is full of mistakes and mess-ups and regrets and hurting other people. And that that's okay. Your past isn't the most important thing (your past is the most important thing, according to Pearl's version of Rose Quartz probably, and that's why we've always got to keep running from it). What's most important is your present, is who you are now, is that you've grown and learned from the crap in your past. And Greg can tell that she has, because he thinks she's pretty great right now.

Besides, if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hotdogs.

And this is probably earth-shattering for Rose. This is as novel and compelling and attractive and refreshing and freeing as when Pearl originally told Pink Diamond of the rebel Rose Quartz all those thousands of years ago. This is a Rose Quartz that Rose can fall in love with all over again, a Rose Quartz that she wants to be instead of who she currently is.

Finally, someone who doesn't have to be Perfect.

(Because she certainly wasn't.)

full text of the remarks delivered in May 2017 by the mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, upon his removal of the last of the city’s several Confederate monuments.

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way — for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans — the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando De Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Colorix, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of France and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more.

You see — New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling caldron of many cultures. There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one. But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were bought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture. America was the place where nearly 4000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame… all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.

For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth. As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear, the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous ‘cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears… I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us. And make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago — we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and a more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it. President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history… on a stone where day after day for years, men and women… bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone — one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored. As clear as it is for me today… for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights… I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought. So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race.

I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is however about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division and yes with violence.

To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth. We are better together than we are apart.

Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz, the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures. Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think.

All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity. We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it! And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say ‘wait’/not so fast, but like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.” We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now.

No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain. While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts; not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side. Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride… it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.” Yes, Terence, it is and it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history — after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces… would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations. And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people. In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals. We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America. Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all… not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in… all of the way. It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes. Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed. So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.” So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered. As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history.

Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause. Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…to do all which may achieve and cherish — a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Address on Removal of Four Confederate Statues

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way – for both good and for ill.

It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more.

You see: New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures.

There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one.

But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy.

It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

He said in his now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it.

President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone – one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored.

As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought.

So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.

Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?

Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?

We all know the answer to these very simple questions.

When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong.

Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence.

To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.

Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place.

Here is the essential truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world?

We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures.

Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity.

We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it!

And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.”

But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.”

We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain.

While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side.

Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.”

Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue.

Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces … would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations.

And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.

In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals.

We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America.

Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way.

It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes.

Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed.

So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved  Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it  is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.”

So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.

As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/alan-greenspan-he-broke-down-barriers-after-tough-childhood/

Alan Greenspan: He broke down barriers after tough childhood

“They had to work or they’d starve,” recalled former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, describing how the families in his childhood neighborhood struggled through the Great Depression.

The man who would eventually help shape U.S. monetary policy under four different presidents grew up a child of divorced parents in Washington Heights in New York City. The community at the northern tip of Manhattan was home to a large population of Jewish immigrants who had fled Europe following Hitler’s rise in Germany.

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Greenspan, who didn’t see much of his father, remembers being alone as his mother worked around the clock.

“I was by myself a great deal of the time,” said Greenspan, in an interview for CNNMoney’s special The American Dream: New York, which profiles five New Yorkers who overcame adversity to rise to the top. Their careers, talents and individual narratives are all different, but what unites them are a common origin and a passion for preserving the ability of future generations to rise like they did.

In addition to Greenspan, the project features J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler, former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, hip-hop legend Russell Simmons and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Each overcame adversity to achieve success beyond their highest hopes.

Today, the American Dream is in question. Many Americans believe it is too elusive to ever achieve, and President Donald Trump effectively campaigned on the idea that it was dead and only he could revive it. It remains to be seen how big of a difference Washington politics and policies can make. For now, the lives of these five business leaders show the American Dream’s enduring power.

Check out the full The American Dream: New York series here

Greenspan, interviewed before the election, said he remains very bullish on the American Dream.

“Before we fret, let’s remember that this is precisely the way that the economy looked in 1940. Ten years later, the United States economy was running on all cylinders,” said Greenspan. “When you deal with as many presidents as I have, they’re people. They’re not special. They all make judgments, good and bad, but what’s remarkable about our system is that it works. It broke down once in 1860 and we solved that with the Civil War. We’ve gotten through it.”

Alan Greenspan served five terms as Federal Reserve chairman.

Greenspan, who will turn 91 in March, was a good student who didn’t like doing homework. As a teenager, he “pushed his academic interests aside” to pursue a passion for music. After high school Greenspan put off college for a year to play in a jazz swing band. But instead of smoking marijuana with the other musicians between sets, he’d go off and read.

“I was the band intellectual who did their income taxes,” said Greenspan.

After a year, Greenspan realized he belonged in the library, not in a nightclub. He enrolled at New York University, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics. Eventually, he would receive a doctorate as well.

Greenspan credits a lot of his success to his lower-middle-class upbringing.

“Down deep, there was always that competitive sense. ‘You’re on your own buddy.’ If I had too much help, I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I’ve gotten,” said Greenspan. “I always was acutely aware of the fact that people who are born into some very high status in society have no place to go.”

Greenspan started an economic consulting business in 1954 when he was 26 years old.

“I recognized that going up the corporate ladder [was] very laborious,” he said. “I chose to do something different — I chose to go into business myself … and move up that way.”

When Greenspan was 48, President Richard Nixon selected him as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, a post he continued under Gerald Ford. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to chair the Federal Reserve.

His lengthy experience as the nation’s top central banker gives him a unique perspective on the Oval Office.

Greenspan says his favorite president was Ford, but he believes Bill Clinton was the most competent.

For more on the American Dream, go to our American Opportunity section

At various points along his rise to the top of economic policymaking, Greenspan feared he might be judged because of his background. But he was wrong.

“I thought I wouldn’t be let into the upper echelons of American society, but it wasn’t true. I ended up in all of the best clubs in my 20s,” said Greenspan as he recalled walking into the Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh. “There was a sense the barriers were breaking down.”

Upward mobility is at the heart of the American Dream, which Greenspan believes is still achievable today because of the resilience of the U.S. economy.

“Do I fret about the immediate future?” Greenspan said. “Yeah. The longer term? No.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 3, 2017: 5:20 PM ET

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