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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year

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By: Wokal Distance

Published: Feb 16, 2023

Recently there was another dust up about what we mean when we talk about “woke.” This was sparked by a Television interview where Bethany Mandel, who I consider a friend, was interviewed about her new book and was asked by the host Briana Joy Gray to define woke. Unfortunately, Bethany had difficulty giving an on the spot definition of the term, and simply responded by saying the Woke was difficult to define.

Predictably, this lead to something of a pile on as a tweet of the moment went viral on twitter. In short, a large number of left leaning accounts proceeded to say words to the effect that when conservatives call things woke, all they are doing is dog-whistling various bigoted sentiments. In other words, “woke” is just a term that conservatives use as a slur. Here are just a couple of examples:

This is all part of a strategy that is being employed by Critical Social Justice (AKA “woke”) activists in order to protect their ideology and worldview from criticism. As we will see, what they are doing is attempting to prevent us from giving their ideology a name or a label in order to protect it from criticism.

So I am going to explain how and why they do this, and what we can do about it. Let’s begin.

1. Sketching the problem

No doubt readers of this substack have heard people who claim to fight for Social Justice say things like: "White privilege is a product of systemically racist social structures which center whiteness and marginalize people of color while reproducing white supremacy. This reinforces dominant power structures and a cultural hegemony that benefits cisgendered heterosexual white males at the expense of BIPOC, Latinx, and LGBTQS2+ folx."

We've all seen that jargon coming from people with similar views, politics, and ideas, all demanding sweeping social change from the left. They might be doing advocacy in different areas of society, and with respect to different topics, but the similarity of the language, the overlap of the concepts, and the fact that the arguments are always concerned with oppression, privilege, systemic power, diversity, equity, inclusion, inequality, ability status, sex, race, and gender indicate that here is clearly a coherent worldview at work here. However, every time we try give that worldview a name they say the name we pick is problematic, wrong, incorrect, bigoted, misleading or otherwise problematic.

Many names have been tried, but every time we try to name this ideology: woke, Critical Race Theory, Socialism, neo-marxism, cultural Marxism, Critical Social Justice, The successor ideology, and we are told none of this is appropriate or correct.

This inability to give the ideology in question a name prevents people from being able to talk about the project of social, cultural, and political change coming from the left. They want to agitate, advocate, and demand social change without acknowledging, much less defending, the worldview at the center of their project.

The result is that there is a large number of ideologically connected but formally unconnected social movements which all proceed from the same worldview while all denying that there is a single distinct worldview, mindset, or ideology at work. We have:

BLM

Defund the Police

Critical Race Theory

Queer theory (aka, gender ideology or radical gender theory)

Drag Queen Story Hour

Diversity Equity, and inclusion

And a host of other social and political movements, all of which use similar language, have similar policies, similar concerns, and which work together in “solidarity” with each other, all while claiming that there is no underlying common worldview which can be given a label.

They will tell you that they want to change society, change the world, and change the culture, but if you ask them to put a name to their ideology it always comes up empty. Sometimes they will say “oh, this is just kindness,” or “we call it fairness.” This is absurd. Most people do not think “society is constructed by systemic power which socializes people to accept the legitimacy of a system which reproduces white privilege at the expense of POC and which needs to be decolonized in order to make space for non-binary folx” when they are trying to talk about fairness.

So what exactly is going on here?

2. The strategy at work.

So I would like to now explain what I think is going on using Zebras as an analogy. This will make sense I promise you.

Many animals have fur, feathers, or skin that blends in to their environment. This acts as camouflage so they can blend in to their environment and hide. This owl is a fine example:

Zebras, however, are different. They use camouflage, but they way they use it is entirely different. Zebra’s are covered in black and white stripes even though the environment they live in is mostly brown and green. If you see a zebra by itself, it's very easy to see.

It's like they have a neon sign over them saying "lions, please eat me." Look at this picture below, this Zebra does not blend into it’s background at all:

So how does Zebra Camouflage work? Well, its simple: Zebra camouflage works by making zebras blend with the herd so that lions can't focus on any one zebra and target it. In order for Lions to kill a zebra they need to be able to pick one Zebra, focus on it, and then go after it. If the lions are unable to pick a target then the Zebras are safe.

What Zebras Camouflage does is to make the Zebras blend into the heard. It makes them all blend in together with each other so that it becomes near impossible for the lions to select any one zebra to attacks. If lions can't pick a target to go after, then the Zebras are safe. And as you can see in the pictures below, when the Zebras are in a single herd it becomes nearly impossible to pick out any one of them:

Scientists discovered this as they studied Zebras and got confused about which individual zebra was which, and that happened because the zebras camouflage causes them to all blend into the herd.

So, they tried to fix this by tagging a zebra with red paint so they could recognize it from the others and keep track of it.

Guess what happened?

The Lions killed the tagged Zebra. A tagged zebra stands out from the herd so lions can tell it apart and focus the hunt on it. The Lions don't catch weak zebras, they catch the *IDENTIFIABLE* Zebras they can focus on. If a Zebra stand out from the herd, or gets separated from the herd it no longer blends in with the rest of the herd and it loses the benefit of it's camouflage, at which point the lions can focus on it, target it, and kill it.

This is a great analogy for the game the woke are playing.

Once a worldview is named and defined, it can then be pointed out, highlighted, and subjected to criticism. Once you can *IDENTIFY* a worldview or set of ideas you can focus on it. Naming an idea lets us separate it from the herd of other ideas and examine it up close. The woke don't want anyone to be able to give a name or label to their ideology because if that happens we can "tag" examples their ideology with a label when we see it. This allows us to highlight it, point it out, and examine it when we see it.

We label and name things to help us "tag" them, so we can point them out and focus on them, the woke are trying desperately to destroy all of our linguistic "tags." Woke activists do not want us to be able to single out their ideas and subject them to criticism. Woke ideas really can't withstand proper rational and logical analysis. The lions of truth: evidence, logic, rationality, etc, will eat the Zebras of Wokeness, Gender Ideology, Critical Race Theory, and Critical Social Justice for lunch. But only if the lions of reason can focus on and identify the Zebras of woke ideology.

This is what the woke want to avoid. The woke think our criticisms are not legitimate and merely an attempt by us to attack them so we can hold on to "power and privilege." For that reason the woke seek to insulate themselves from our "illegitimate" criticism.

So, to avoid getting eaten by the lions of reason the woke want to camouflage their ideology in a way that makes it impossible to it to be seen, pointed out, highlighted, or (in woke parlance) "made visible." They want hide their worldview by making it impossible to focus on and impossible to tag, label, or name. so they can say they are "just doing history" or "just discussing gender," and "blend in" as though wokeness fits right alongside reason, evidence, logic, and rationality.

We need to use labels to be able to point at, highlight, and otherwise tag woke concepts so that they can be seen and then held up and examined for criticism. Using labels like "woke," "CRT," AND "Critical Social Justice," lets us tag woke ideas so we can hold them up to the light and examine them. Labels help us point out wokeness to other people so they can see it too.

This is what the woke want to avoid.

What the woke want is to act like all the bits of woke activism we see are unconnected phenomena spontaneously springing fourth in the name of justice in an organic and decentralized way. They want to act as though things like BLM, Defund the Police, “Diversity, equity, and Inclusion,” and Drag Queen Story Hour are diffuse and unconnected movements when in fact they are all connected by their adherence to an underlying worldview and ideology.

The formal name of this ideology is Critical Social Justice,1 or in common parlance, wokeness.

3. What is the solution

Do not let them do this. Do not let them play games and use linguistic and rhetorical sleight of hand to hide their worldview. You do not need to give an exhaustive definition every time they invent a new term, or every time they present you with some new bit of jargon. All you need is a definition of wokeness that communicates its ideas in a clear way so people can examine it.

I would like to provide what I think is an accurate definition of wokeness that even a person who is “woke” would be willing to accept.

Woke: (sometimes called Critical Social Justice) is a type of social justice politics that claims systemic identity based discrimination such as racism, sexism, homophobia, white privilege, and other sorts of injustice are baked into the fabric of society. In short, society is oppressive. They believe this occurs through “systems of power” which were created for the benefit people who are white, straight, and male, at the expense of everyone else. This power operates through cultural hegemony (cultural dominance) and by socializing people into accepting the legitimacy of this oppressive system, and accepting their place in it. Wokeness claims these systems of power warp every element of western culture in a way that harms people, and for that reason all of society must be radically restructured. Everything, including science, knowledge, truth, beauty, economics, education, sports, music, film, agriculture, justice and everything else on society are full of bigotries, biases and self-interest which are a product of the systems of power which were created by and for straight white males. On this view even such things as math, biology, physics, and chemistry must be radically rebuilt with a focus toward diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, anti-racism, and so fourth.

To give you something that is a little easier to memorize and pull out in conversation, Neil Shenvi has offered a definition of wokeness which fits into a single tweet:

Wilfred Reilly offers and even shorter definition that is excellent for use in everyday conversation:

With a proper definition of wokeness now in view we should now proceed to make sure that we carefully, accurately, and carefully label things as Critical Social Justice or “Woke” when they fit that definition. We should have absolutely no hesitation in doing so.

These woke activists have labelled everyone they disagree with as:

racist

bigot

sexist

white supremacist

nazi

fascist

transphobe

homophobe

ableist

misogynist

anti-black

They absolutely do not get to complain when we label them as “woke.”

Label fairly, use labels from their literature, and label accurately, do not hesitate to label those woke ideas and then subject those woke ideas to the bright light of rigorous criticism and analysis.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Wokal_distance

1 Özlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education, second edition. Teachers College press. 2017. P.19

An alternate approach is to ignore the definitions entirely.

I don't really care what name you want to call it when:

everything is seen through paranoid, invisible power dynamics and emotional abuse and manipulative lies are used to coerce people who have done nothing wrong;

or when the most fragile, most ideologically possessed can, and do, weaponize the worst, most intellectually dishonest reading of a statement or situation and insist you're a bigot if you don't accept it as true;

or when black kids are told that society is structured around "anti-blackness" and white kids are told that they are oppressors;

or when the liberal mainstay of colorblindness (reducing the social signifiance of skin color) is itself regarded as "racist", and the new morality declares the opposite is required;

or when equality and merit are treated as bigotry, and standards must be lowered;

or when racial segregation is rehabilitated as a virtue;

or when objective reality is denied, objectivity itself is bigoted, and truth becomes merely an opinion;

or when gay conversion therapy is being endorsed by supposed LGBT organizations;

or when parents transition their kids because they liked the wrong toys;

or when doctors and hospitals lie about the need for medical experiments on kids, or that they're doing them at all;

or when people keep pretending they don't know how babies are made;

or when organizations are consumed with ideological activism and become incapable of fulfilling their actual mission;

or when our knowledge-producing institutions are tearing themselves apart and dismantling our knowledge-making processes in order to restructure themselves instead for the production of religious piety as ideological convents;

or when words are redefined or eliminated entirely for the purpose of controlling thought and re-engineering society;

or when the most privileged, most entitled people in the world in the freest countries in the world are roleplaying as oppressed victims;

or when people in those countries voluntarily implement defacto blasphemy laws to suppress or punish wrongthink, and even arguing in favor of freedom of speech is recast as a "dogwhistle" for "hate";

or when it's somehow both the case that LiTeRaLLy nO oNe Is DoInG tHiS and you're a bigot for getting in their way.

I don't care what you call this.

It just has to end.

#Wokal Distance #woke #wokeness #woke ideology #wokeness as religion #woke activism #wokeism #cult of woke #language manipulation #language games #word games #religion is a mental illness

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strings2book · 7 months

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Vectors in the Void: A Captivating Saga of Life, Love, and Historical Tumult

Title: "Vectors in the Void: A Captivating Saga of Life, Love, and Historical Tumult"

"Vectors in the void" is a rich and sweeping saga that spans decades and continents, entwining the life of Zara with the tumultuous historical events of the 20th century. In this review, we'll explore the layers of this compelling narrative and how it skillfully weaves together personal stories with the backdrop of significant historical events.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭'𝐬 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞

The book begins with the birth of Zara on a day marked by the Indian Freedom Struggle, setting the stage for a life filled with eventful twists and turns. Her childhood in the picturesque hill station of Murree during the pre-Partition era introduces readers to a bygone world filled with colonial charm and intrigue. The author effectively transports the reader to this era, immersing them in the sights, sounds, and sentiments of the time.

𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭

The narrative seamlessly incorporates major historical events such as the Holocaust, the Second World War in Europe, and the births of India, Pakistan, and Israel into Zara's life story. These events shape her worldview, as they do for many during that period. The author's ability to intertwine personal and historical narratives is a testament to their storytelling prowess.

𝐙𝐚𝐫𝐚'𝐬 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲

As Zara grows from a schoolgirl into a mature woman, the book delves into the complexities of her life. Her prudent marriage in post-Independence India, her involvement in business and Swatantra Party politics, and her encounters with external events like the Sino-Indian conflict and the Proclamation of Emergency all contribute to the tapestry of her life. Zara's resilience and adaptability in the face of these challenges make her a compelling protagonist.

𝐅𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐲𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐚

The book also delves into the intricate web of family dynamics. Zara's role as a mother to twin daughters with contrasting needs - one beautiful and brilliant, the other sickly and artistic - presents a relatable exploration of the complexities of parenthood. The unexpected communication that conveys a shocking truth adds a layer of mystery and intrigue to the narrative.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲

The narrative takes an unexpected turn when Zara connects with a celebrity in London. This subplot introduces elements of hope and suspense as readers wonder whether it will revive a precious bond or shatter a fragile family. The author skillfully uses this thread to keep the reader engaged and emotionally invested.

𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲

The storytelling in this book is a masterful display of narrative art. The author effortlessly ties together diverse events, places, and characters into a cohesive and captivating saga. The book's ability to transport readers through time and space, immersing them in various historical and cultural contexts, is truly commendable.

𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬

It is a captivating and thought-provoking narrative that skillfully combines personal stories with the backdrop of significant historical events. Zara's journey is both relatable and inspiring, making her a protagonist readers can root for. The book's ability to seamlessly weave together diverse elements into a cohesive narrative is a testament to the author's storytelling prowess. Whether you're interested in history, family drama, or personal growth, this book offers a compelling and enriching reading experience. It's a captivating saga of life, love, and historical tumult that will stay with readers long after the final page is turned.

#bookstagram #bookcommunity #bookfollowtrain #booklovers #bookloversunite #bookworm #bookreview #bookreviews

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angstmonsterwrites · 2 years

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Had to unfollow yet another blog I've followed for years for going down the dark hole of assuming a few dumbasses *claiming* to be Americans making shitty comments and displaying an extremely myopic worldview is representative of what most Americans are like as a cultural fact.

So. I suppose I'll make this point: As an American, it does not shock or surprise me when someone from any other nation or language can speak fluent English. I can usually tell they're not American by their spelling conventions, however. I was taught both. It does not weird me out or bother me when I see the rest of the world use the metric system--I honestly don't care. Just tell me what side of the ruler, measuring cup, or thermometer will best communicate, and that's the side I'll use for that person and occasion. I was taught both. It does not strike me as fanciful--novel, maybe--but not unrealistic when I learn or hear about foods and other sundry good being sold in a different fashion elsewhere than they are here. Do they accept money for me to acquire those things should I want them? Yes? Okay then, that's not so alien. I think any culture shock would wear off in less than a day.

What does dishearten me is the gross ignorance--or intentional ignoring--of the fact that all social media platforms are well populated by bots and trolls who quite literally draw paychecks for spreading Anti-American views, and that one of their tactics is to pose as Americans and act proudly and flagrantly *stupid* and incurious with regard to the rest of the world.

Do we have some loud, rabid, bigoted assholes over here who are proud of the fact they can scarcely see any facts about the world outside of their own back yards? Sure, but so does everyone else. Ours are just amplified and manipulated by algorithms and bad actors, which have unfortunately allowed them the boldness to crawl out from under their rocks. They think they're more populous than they are...and sadly, it seems a not so negligible chunk of the world has bought into that illusion as well. I suppose it does not help that there is a wealthy contingent of US persons--that is, those most able to travel abroad for any meaningful amount of time--who feel their good fortune has bought them the right to act rude, clueless, and entitled.

(And no, you can't point to the US's current political problems and dangers as a sign of the will of the majority. There's decades of legal and legislative fuckery that has led this country to where it is now, threatened by a looming shadow of authoritarian *minority* rule.)

I'll end this by repeating three things I've said in the past:

1. Xenophobia is wrong no matter where it's pointed. And yes, I am also saying it would be wrong for me to make broad and sweeping character judgements of Russian and Chinese folks, even though the governments of those countries are by and large the sponsors of the aforementioned bot/troll problem.

2. There always seems to be a marked difference in perspective on the US between those from other nations who've been here and those who've merely interacted with people claiming to be Americans online. The former understands that the reality of how most Americans see themselves and the world is far more complex, varied, and nuanced than standard internet stereotypes and hot takes. "American Exceptionalism" is not currently a broadly held attitude. At all. Would we like to be exceptional someday? Sure. But by and large we know we're not, and we can barely even come to any kind of real consensus on what that means or the right way to get there.

3. No matter the nation, it is deeply inappropriate to hold random, non-wealthy, non-influential individuals from that country responsible for that country's gravest past errors as an international political entity, or to develop hard and fast opinions for all people of a given country based only on cringy bouts of internet behavior you've witnessed.

#musings #bitching and complaining

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fearofahumanplanet · 2 years

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random nuckelavee rambling

So I mentioned in one of my other posts that I had spent like over a year trying to throw a nuckelavee into one of my books - it took a while bc I never had anywhere that it fit, but the time finally came!

So for those unaware, the nuckelavee is this fucked up horse demon thing that originates from Celtic (specifically Scottish) mythology. It is pretty much one of the most feared mythological creatures you'll ever encounter. Let's start with its appearance, to which I'll pull out a passage from my own WIP (as it's pretty damn accurate):

As much as she’s learned not to call anything outside her Father’s worldview a demon, this creature defies any other description. It reminds her initially of Pestilence, in that the beast seems to ride a horse-like monstrosity, attached to its back via the waist – but that’s where the similarities end. The horse head, if you could call it that, spits some palpable, pungent vapour from between its slobbering jaws, and it only sports one eye – a single red eye, burning like the fiercest of forges.

The human torso is equally ghastly, its massive head somehow emerging from where it had hid in the trees, big enough to swallow the plague doctor whole and not even notice. Its two long arms sprawl out so long that his chapped fingernails drag across the dirt and fallen bark, barely concealing the horse’s finned, peeling legs. Worst of all, the entire, nightmarish thing seems to possess no skin whatsoever, all exposed maroon muscle and pulsing yellow veins. Its head rolls and lolls like its barely attached to its shoulders, steel jaws emitting that horrid roar as its neck snaps to and fro with every sudden movement.

If the plague doctor hadn’t already gazed into the eyes of an angel this week, she’d be overcome with the utmost terror.

This is all from the myths (except the poor viewing plague doctor). These things are FUCKED UP. It gets even worse when you know what they do - which is to say, their mere presence caused drought, that toxic breath of theirs wilts crops and gives horses "mortasheen" (it's glanders, by modern definition). Long story short, very lethal. It was basically a representation of the oncoming march of inevitable famine, plague and ruin that you could NOT stop.

Well, you couldn't. The thing about this little shite is that it would be held under the sea by this ocean... thing (god, spirit, Vague Entity, not sure) called the Mither of the Sea that would hold him down for the sake of everyone else's sanity. This is why he doesn't come out during the summer, but every autumn, another Vague Entity of winter and probable douchiness tends to take advantage of her being Tired and Irritated from all her chores during the autumn and spends the latter two seasons waging petty war on her - this is how the nuckelavee gets out and terrorizes random Scotsmen.

Pretty much the only thing a random human could do to it was pray it rained, bc the nuckelavee hates rain for some reason (prob why he's so busy causing droughts) or cross a freshwater stream. Specifically freshwater, dude's completely fine with saltwater apparently. I couldn't tell you why he's allergic to fresh water, but it's actually a common theme with sea monsters in Celtic myths ("Celtic myths" is a sweeping generalization that mishmashes several different distinct cultures, but that's a rant for another day)

So anyways, I decided to bring this nasty fella into my WIP. Because the novel is an explicitly political anti-war story, I decided to use him as a metaphor for the ruin and suffering and death that falls amongst innocents after war - sure, a lot of soldiers will kill each other and generally give each other bad days, but the wreckage they leave in their wake cripples the livings of everyone that happened to be there in the first place. It's quite tragic, but the beast made for a really suitable allegory imo

Anyways, that's my mythology rant of the day, this will surely never happen again I'm lying

#mythology #celtic mythology #scottish mythology #nuckelavee #i'll never do this again #that's a lie #vaguely related to a WIP #encourage me if you want more for some reason

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tomorrowusa · 10 months

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Nowadays, if a group has "freedom" or "patriot" in its name, it's more likely than not that it has links to the far right. The "Alliance Defending Freedom" certainly qualifies.

Since it was formed in 1994, Alliance Defending Freedom has been at the center of a nationwide effort to limit the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, all in the name of Christianity. The Southern Poverty Law Center has termed it an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” that has extended its tentacles into nearly every area of the culture wars. In the process, it has won the ear of some of the most influential people in the US, and become “a danger to every American who values their freedoms”, according to Glaad, the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. Through “model legislation” and lawsuits filed across the country, ADF aims to overturn same-sex marriage, enact a total ban on abortion, and strip away the already minimal rights that trans people are afforded in the US.

The ADF is a bigtime lobbying and political action group which is a major force in the homophobia-patriarchy industrial complex.

Under the Trump administration, the group found its way into the highest echelons of power, advising Jeff Sessions, the then attorney general, before he announced sweeping guidance to protect “religious liberty” which chipped away at LGBTQ+ protections. The organization counts among its sometime associates Amy Coney Barrett, the supreme court justice who the Washington Post reported spoke five times at an ADF training program established to push a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law”. ADF is engaged in “a very strong campaign to put a certain type of religious view at the center of American life”, said Rabia Muqaddam, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “[The ADF campaign] extends to abortion, it extends to LGBTQ folks, to immigration, to what kind of religion we think is America, what kind of people we think are American,” Muqaddam said. “It’s as dramatic as that. I think we are in a fight to preserve democracy and preserve America as a place where we do tolerate and encourage and empower everyone.”

Their connection to the odious "Focus on the Family" is not unexpected.

ADF was founded in 1994 by a group of “leaders in the Christian community”, according to its website. Among those leaders was James Dobson, the founder of the anti-LGBTQ+ Focus on the Family organization who has said the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed, was a “judgment” from God because of declining church numbers. [ ... ] Over the past two decades, ADF has been a main driver in dozens of pieces of rightwing legislation and lawsuits.

ADF has gobs of money to spend on promoting anti-LGBTQ legislation – especially in state legislatures. And they have been successful because people on the moderate to progressive part of the political spectrum have been badly neglecting state legislatures for decades.

Emerson Hodges, a research analyst at the SPLC, said what ADF is really doing is attempting to “undo LGBTQ social and legislative progress”. “They go under the guise of religious liberty, and religious freedom. What that means, though, is this religious liberty to discriminate and the religious freedom to invalidate LGBTQ individuals,” Hodges said. Worryingly, there are signs that ADF, and other groups like it, are growing in influence. As Republican politicians and rightwing media fan the flames of an extremist culture war, NBC reported that donations to ADF, which is a registered non-profit, more than doubled from 2011 to 2021. As it has grown in influence, ADF’s “model legislation” has found its way into state legislatures across the country, as the group attempts to strip away LGBTQ+ rights, and the rights of trans people in particular.

[ ... ] “They’ve also worked to ban the right to choose, and are in cahoots with other extremist groups to oppress marginalized people. ADF is a danger to every American who values their freedoms – to be ourselves, live freely, and be welcome to contribute and to succeed in every area of society.”

The only way to curb groups like the ADF on a state level is by making sure there are are fewer Republicans in state legislatures who will do the ADF's bidding.

Find out who represents you in your legislature if you don't already know.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

If you have moved since the last election, even just down the block, then register at your new address. Voter registration is done by address.

Be A Voter - Vote Save America

Once registered, never miss an election. There's no such thing as an unimportant election.

#lgbtq+ rights #fundamentalist christians #the far right #anti-lgbtq extremism #adf #alliance defending freedom #religious fanatics #homophobia #the homophobic agenda #republicans #state legislatures #rightwing legislation #register and vote #election 2024

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njenjemedia · 1 year

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By THE WEALTH CREATION FORUM Introduction: The wealth creation forum is a dynamic platform where an assemblage of dedicated professionals converge online from all over the world to brainstorm on and formulate strategies for wealth creation and sustainable development of Africa. Thus the forum can inter alia, provide advisory assistance to those setting up small scale and medium scale enterprises in order to promote job creation and fuel economic growth. The group also uses the knowledge generated to educate government functionaries, technocrats, policy framers and private sector bosses. Modus operandi: The forum considers a given topic and explores how it can lead to prosperity, marshalling points for and against. It can also explore a given small scale enterprise and find plausible ways it can be used to achieve critical mass employment. RECENT brainstorming: The Wealth creation forum brainstormed on how Africa can contribute more to the global GDP thus bettering the lot of the generality of Africans. "Africa is lacking so embarrassingly behind the other continents in the global GDP output. This is very shameful when Africa currently holds most of the world's resources” How can we change the status quo for the better? 1. Utilisation of our area of strength - Agriculture (which comes via the abundance of fertile arable lands). We can do this by encouraging farming and then by raising our game in processing and preserving our raw materials into finished products which can cater to our food system and be exported to international markets 2. We need to encourage healthy exposure to the continent for sharing of human resource and free trade 3. By strengthening trade within Africa, we have more chances to grow our collective wherewithal. We must also create payment mechanisms that can efficiently promote the exchange of goods and services and also excellent logistics to that effect 4. As a starting point, African countries should adopt policies that will attract western companies looking to set up processing plants and make the continent less attractive to those that are only interested in sourcing raw material 5. African companies should also be given the necessary incentives and tax relief to go into agro processing and manufacturing. We need policies that will change our collective mind-set from purveyors of raw material to producers of finished goods 6. Bodies and organisations such as The Wealth Creation Forum can start by acquiring as much fertile land as possible - as a joint venture to kick-start the process of boosting agriculture 7. Sweep our corrupt political leaders out of power and vote in dedicated and motivated patriots to clean up the systemic mess that is inhibiting our progress and thereafter put our society on the right track of sustainable economic growth and wealth generation. 8. Africa as a continent suffers from acute fragmentation to the effect that we connect to outsiders more than we link up with ourselves. No more excuses should be made for this because nothing stops African countries fromnetworking and working together. When we all do things together we get very far with aggregation of resources and operational efficiencies9. ‘People get the governance that they deserve’. We should focus on educating people on the power they have to determine and change their circumstance and how they can use this power in various ways to create a better society 9. Unlike Africans, the Indians and the Chinese retained their cultural distinctiveness and preserved their worldview and thus possessed the foundation to anchor their revival and resurgence. Africans swallowed all line, hook and sinker and lost our purpose in the world. The recovery starts with each one of us at home

to reinstall our values and culture 10. The lesson for Africa is that we can’t grow in isolation as individual countries we must unify and grow together. That’s the lesson that our leaders need to take. Unity will firstly strengthen regional growth and interdependence. It is only then that we can stop the exploitation of our resources and take control of the markets. Regional cooperation will immediately increase manufacturing, trade and finance Key Recommendations for Transforming the Continent ● Transforming the Agricultural Value Chain: ○ Incentives in form of policies, financial resources etc to encourage land ownership, cultivation and agro-manufacturing by Africans ○ Creating systems that will allow for seamless the practising of agriculture. Especially systems that will aid the allocation of farm land as well as market channels to supply agro practitioners the weight of demand that is needed to drive sustainable growth in the continent's agro industry ● Transforming Intercontinental Trade ○ Promotion of healthy exposure for the exchange of intellectual resources and goods ○ Encouraging foreign bodies to come in for the purpose of building manufacturing bases and limiting those only interested in sourcing raw materials ● Transforming Intracontinental commerce ○ Creation of a seamless exchange system that will fuel commerce between the African countries ○ Implementing the necessary innovations so that there is a complimentary logistics system interconnecting the continent ● Transforming Politics ○ Electoral sensitisation of politically marginalised Africans ○ "People Power" education ● Cultural Rejuvenation ○ Recovering pre-colonial history ○ Recovering lost cultural knowledge and worldview ○ Developing an "African Cultural Goal" - i.e. establishing the role and purpose of African in the world ● Fixing Brain Drain ○ Creating systems to link the diaspora and the continent around the central purpose of building the continent ○ Sponsoring continental ambassadors to travel and return with intelligence, technique and resources needed to work with and build the continent ● Power of the youth ○ The youths have to be reoriented and given the mandate of transforming the continent ○ Incentives that will encourage youth productivity. In form of programs, support, communities, hubs, resources While we talk, we must act! AND THAT IS NOW! Signed by Chief Chigbo Uzokwelu ChairmanWealth Creation Forum Enquiries and feedback to the Wealth Creation Forum should be sent to [email protected]

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war-efforts · 2 years

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Repost from How the ‘geopolitical worldview’ among dictators and scholars alike enables the unthinkable in Ukraine

Such reasoning precludes the subjectivity of “regular” nations in relation to “greater powers.” Viewing the world this way treats “powers” like single, uniform entities, as if they were individual people. This kind of thinking cannot accommodate all the life within these countries — all the people with their different beliefs, faiths, disagreements, plans, and dramas. This worldview is blind to that diversity, seeing only an imaginary monolith of economic and cultural activity. This substitution is tangible even at the linguistic level. Look at any geopolitical insight and you’ll read about how countries “decide,” “want,” “suffer,” “are humiliated,” “are outraged,” and “call for.” But a state can’t do any of these things — only living, breathing people can. Any “national decision,” moreover, has many opponents within that very nation.

First, the disappearance of all living things happens in theory, in the process of unpacking or discussing the next grand geostrategic idea. For most people who think in terms of “world orders” and “great power politics,” however, this erasure of life takes hold and shapes future ideas. Those who embrace this worldview only impoverish themselves; they’re stuck talking about rearranging lifeless entities or studying them for academic degrees. The real disaster comes when this “science” is applied — when geopolitics becomes the only language spoken by those who wield power. When this happens, war begins.

The world’s dehumanization is no longer a theoretical exercise but something unfolding in reality. Applied geopolitics sweeps away any concept of living people, their deeds, and views, it destroys their homes, spares no values other than survival, and makes power extreme and regimes and state borders sacred. This breed of politics forces people to die for lines on the map and shed blood for dirt. Applied geopolitics replaces a productive economy with the mobilization of any resources that can be grabbed for war, regardless of people’s rights to life, freedom, and property.

At an official level, Russia ignores the casualties among its own military and civilians because a struggle waged between faceless entities — between national powers — doesn’t have to acknowledge the deaths of “ordinary” people. After all, both the actors and the victims here are powers, not people. This is how the dehumanization of the world works.

While I do not agree with its despise on Geopolitics, namely the theory to understand international relations by geographical proximity, its sound reminder on not to neglect humans in countries as having individual thoughts are very sound.

#War on Ukraine #Politics #Geopolitics

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crustaceanenjoyer · 3 years

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It's eye opening to realise that economic sanctions are a weapon. The US won't remove economic sanctions on places like north Korea, Venezuela, Cuba etc because they want these places to be financially ruined and for people to starve, for the citizen of that nation to rise up against that government and overthrow it, so that US actors can preform economic shock therapy (like in 90s Russia) and become rich personally while leaving an economy in ruin and in that fantasy scenario that new government and the population that has been Liberated from Communism will be Grateful and friendly to the US. Which.. that last part doesn't seem to have borne out in eastern Europe, (what we call) the Middle East, South America, Central America, Africa or Asia... shocking i know...... why are the imperial subjects so ungrateful :/ saved from despotism and savagery and yet they curse their savior.. savages cant be changed i guess (SARCASM)

Basically why are these economic sanctions in place when they dont do what they are even supposed to do, when they harm primarily civilian populations and not the government officials or militaries which the US condemn. It's because sanctions are not a tool for making peace, they are not used because they are less brutal than military conflict, it is a weapon and unlike military conflict there won't be anti-war mobilisation within the US because it's not something that is visible to the average US citizen that the economic sanctions their government kills people on purpose or that they even exist compared to like, when the draft existed. (Not to say that the draft was good just clarifying that the context and our understanding of war is different today than the invasion and war in Vietnam)

#the colonial ideology really is alive and well and i think we sweep that under the rug when in books from just my parents childhood #those narratives of brave explorers and savage native populations were everywhere #and yeah tintin is a major one #but also the western genre and explorer narratives in general are rife with it #and its not like a whole worldview so pervasive just disappeared its just taken more subtle contemporary forms #and the international politics arent so overt anymore by which i mean there are covert wars and economic sanctions and a denial of #us economic and material support of different sides of various conflicts but because its not Technically involved or when its classified #we dont get to know about it #and when i say the US i include NATO because the US is BY FAR the biggest and most expensive military and idk enough abt the #internal politics of NATO except who are its allies and that it has the same interests that we prescribe 2 the us military industrial compl #x . war is great for european weapons manufacturers #war is profitable in a very narrow sense #ignore those other places economies and how you created prepetual war and destabilised your own empire to a point of no return

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dangermousie · 3 years

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Hello !

I was wondering whether you could rate and tell us of your top 5 favourite webnovels/cnovels of all time ?! (Sorry if this has already been answered lol😅)

Thank you, stay safe and have a nice day🖤

Awww, thank you and that is such a lovely ask!!!

From n1 to n5, here they are (they happen to be all danmei.)

1. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha) - my n1 forever and ever.

Taxian Jun, the horrific cultivation emperor of the world who razed cities and destroyed sects, is surrounded on his mountain. The righteous sects are terrified to confront him but tired of living, Taxian Jun consumes poison and dies by suicide at the age of 32. And opens his eyes as 16 year old Mo Ran, Mo Ran long before he became Taxian Jun, Mo Ran who is excited at a chance to save the one person he loved and lost. Oh, and to deal with his loathed shizun, the unapproachable and strict Chu Wanning, his past life’s biggest enemy.

I have no idea if it’s objectively the best on this list but it hits every trope I love, its bleak worldview (the world will change only incrementally but that’s enough, average person will not appreciate the sacrifice but it’s still worthwhile, and love is worth everything) mirrors mine, and the sheer complexity of the plot and cascade of plot twists each of which is insane and yet completely logical, is amazing (this is a rare novel where it’s even more fun to reread than read for the first time because you keep seeing all the hints and trail crumbs laid out that you did not see the first time.)

And the characters!!! I mean, this novel has multiple universes/timelines, a side trip to the Underworld AND the demon realm, a plot more twisted than a store’s worth of pretzels and yet the thing that hits me the most are the characters. Mo Ran is my favorite web novel character of all time and I love Chu Wanning so. All the secondary characters are wonderfully written (and some of them made me bawl) and they are all complex. My opinion of all of them changed many times over; the novel doesn’t make it easy to love some of them but then you do and it’s so worthwhile! That slow change is one of the delights of the novel - I started out disliking the unpleasant, superior Chu Wanning and cruel, callow Mo Ran and then I loved them so so hard and cried for them so so hard and was in awe of their heroism and sacrifice and selflessness and capacity to love.

Oh, and the fact that this novel does something almost impossible - it has its protagonist start out as so clearly irredeemable and then slowly and painfully and thoroughly redeems him (without ever letting the reader forget what it is he needs redemption for.)

Also, for a novel that made me cry so hard I felt ill, this book is just so damn funny with the most sarcastic sense of humor imaginable (the serious angst doesn’t even kick in until 90+ chapters!)

Anyway I should stop or I will write a dissertation. But this is the one web novel that I would put in my top 5 not just web novels but any novels in any shape or form. The plentiful trigger warnings are there for a reason so stay away if they are an issue, but if not, if anyone hasn’t read it yet, what are you doing with your life?!

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - another novel by the author of 2ha. Clearly she just pushes all my buttons every time. This one is much shorter and has a plot that is twisty but less twisty than 2ha. Still, all that means is that intensity and the pain are more concentrated.

Aristocratic Mo Xi and former slave Gu Mang were both legendary generals of the empire and lovers. But Gu Mang betrayed the country and switched to the enemy. Now he is back as a peace offering by that country and Mo Xi has to deal with the fact that his feelings are as strong as ever.

This novel!!! So much pain and intensity!!! So many amazing plot twists and supporting characters. The same bleak world view, the same unjust society, the same protagonists doing right things despite the cost. Mo Xi’s intensity and inability to let go (he’s imprinted on Gu Mang and that’s it) is romantic, bone-shakingly intense, and tragic all at once. And oh Gu Mang! So many times I just wanted to reach into the book physically to protect him. The novel deals with unjust societies, memory versus personality, what it’s like to be good in a bad universe etc. And it both made me sob and giggle, repeatedly, and sold me on literally death-defying (but not honor-defying!) love.

Oh, and special shout out to the fact that like 2ha, you may start out hating some characters and end up a rabid fangirl (cough Murong Lian!)

3. Qiang Jin Jiu - a dense political tome that takes a while to get going but then it’s a runaway train.

In a fictional dynasty, Shen Zechuan, the only remaining son of a disgraced aristocratic family and Xiao Chiye, the younger son of a family of generals guarding the border join forces (and then something else) to get power and pull down the dysfunctional system.

This is so elegant and smart (a rare web novel I’d recommend to anyone who just loves solid period fiction) and you probably need a notebook to keep track of the politics and military strategy. These characters are very very smart not just because the author says so.

As to the characters, there is a large cast and I love many of them, but for me the novel is made by Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye. SZC is gorgeous and delicate and icy and can kill you before you have time to blink. Saddled with the sins of the family he had no pleasant interaction with, he claws his way out of hell (seeing the sinkhole he was trapped in, literally as well) to take down those who wronged him but also to amass power so all the tragedy and corruption won’t happen again and the whole rotten system comes crashing down. XCY is a military genius who is trapped as a hostage in the capital because the court doesn’t trust his family. He longs to return to the plains of home and to take his rightful place. The two men start out as bitter enemies, then reluctant and sniping allies, then as friends and eventually as one of the most gorgeous, tender, swoony OTPs.

Anyway this is one is a bona fide masterpiece, equal parts smart and emotionally intense.

4. Wu Chang Jie - are you an emotional vampire? I am and this novel is a banquet.

In a highly fantastical setting, we meet our protagonists - the sunny Xie Bian and the intense and surly Fan Wushe. Xie Bian is a human who assists his master in conveying souls to the underworld and making sure no mishaps happen. Bian is concentrated sunshine in human form and to meet him is to love him. When the novel opens, his drunk master brings back another human to be his shidi and assist with duties - said human is uncommunicative, intense and surly Wushe. Bian is excited to have a shidi but little does he know that a story dealing with the horrors of past lifetime is about to start.

Anyway, why WCJ? So many reasons. It has such a dark bleak worldview - this world is a horrifying system where powerful cannibalize each other’s cores for an impossible chance to ascend, where gods have sealed off their realm and all that’s left is neverending human misery and hell (the only way you’d see a deity is if they’d been sent down to suffer over and over and over), where even reincarnation doesn’t fix things and bad acts are often unpunished. And the novel then asks - is it worth being a good person in such a world? More, is it worth being a good person in such a world when nothing good has ever happened to you and you have been repeatedly betrayed due to your goodness? And the answer, on Bian’s part, is an uncompromising yes.

Ah yes, the other reason to love this novel - the protagonists and their fucked up fucked up relationship. Bian (who was Prince Ziheng in the past life) is so genuinely good. But he is that rare thing - good but not saintly, noble but not cloying. So much of the novel is his getting taken apart over and over and barely able to put himself back together every time but his soul is still as amazing as ever.

And then there is Wushe (who was Prince Zixiao in past life, Ziheng’s not-bio-related brother.) Wushe is not a good person. He is a monster. And he loves Bian/Ziheng more than his life and his soul and the entire world but he’s also the one who hurt him more than anyone else ever could and did it over and over. His love survived a literal century of torture in the worst kind of hell and refused the usual memory loss of new life. But it also humiliated and broke Ziheng down to his constituent parts.

One of the things that is so fascinating to me about this novel is the question of what can be forgiven/what should be forgiven/what kind of expiation is enough/can you ever love someone who you loved so much and then he hurt you so badly and is now repentant? And it never sweeps trauma under the rug or hand waves it away but deals with it head on.

If you want healthy relationships, you should stay far away from this novel but if intense insane ones with a feral barely human one capable of destroying the world leashed by love and guilt to the sane deeply good one is your bag, come right in.

There is also the world building and the fact that yes, the big fall out between Ziheng x Zixiao is based on not knowing all the facts but it’s not “why can’t you talk?! This is dumb!” But is totally in keeping with both events and their characters. It’s reasonable for Ziheng to do what he does and for Zixiao to misunderstand and decide Ziheng is now his biggest enemy (but still one he’s fixated on) and for Ziheng to never be able to clarify.

Anyway, once again this is trigger warning central so please heed those, but if they are no issue, this one is wonderful.

5. OK, this is hard and switches between Sha Po Lang, Heaven Official’s Blessing and The Golden Stage depending on my mood. So what the hell, I am gonna write about all of them.

Sha Po Lang - so smart and so much clever world building. There is enough politicking to satisfy a Qiang Jin Jiu fan, it’s steampunk, and our two protagonists - Gu Yun, the empire’s most powerful general, who’s loyal to the empire despite being badly wronged by it, and Chang Geng, a cursed prince with barbarian blood and horrifying childhood - are wonderful separately and together. This is a huge slow burn but it’s totally worth it! They fall in love with each other’s hearts and brains and ability as much as anything. (Yes, this is the one with the yifu thing. Gu Yun is made Chang Geng’s foster father when he rescues him and brings him back to the capital as a way to keep CG safe in imperial strife. They are 12 and 19 at the time so clearly it’s never a parental relationship.)

Heaven Official’s Blessing (TCGF) - I love it’s sprawling narrative and cast, I love its inventive setting and picaresque story. It’s hilarious and can make me cry. But the novel’s place on this list is due to Xie Lian who is part Kenshin part drama WWX part pure goodness wrapped in heartbreak and trauma wrapped in sunshine.

The Golden Stage - two smart and principled (yes, they both have principles different though they may be) men navigate their arranged marriage, their past friendship and their past break up, become a super couple (one of the healthiest danmei couples I’ve ever read and proves healthy doesn’t have to be boring), save the country and bring down the emperor or two and just generally this is my rainy day book.

I guess I didn’t write as much for the three n5 candidates as I did for 1-4 but my brain is beginning to curdle so...

#cnovel #heaven official's blessing #2ha #yuwu #sha po lang #qiang jin jiu #wu chang jie #the golden stage #tcgf #asks

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antoine-roquentin · 3 years

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“The federal budget assumes the government will recover 96 cents of every dollar borrowers default on,” Mitchell wrote. This banker, Jeff Courtney, put that figure closer to just 51 to 63 cents.

Now, for a private lender, like a bank, this projected shortfall would indeed be a ticking time bomb. The bank might be in danger of insolvency (unless, of course, it was rescued by a federal government that could give the bank an emergency cash infusion and take those bad loans off its hands). But there’s no real danger of a federal Cabinet-level department becoming insolvent. The Treasury Department is already in the habit of making up the Education Department’s budgetary shortfalls.

So what is the problem again? Typically for a news outlet like the Journal, the story describes this potential shortfall as what “taxpayers” would be “on the hook for,” but obviously, we all know that that is not how federal budgeting works. Taxes could rise for certain people for certain reasons, but no one will receive an itemized bill for this uncollected debt. And as for that large, catastrophic number ($500 billion!) that might never be paid back, it amounts to less than one year of a national defense budget that “taxpayers” are similarly “on the hook for.” (The Journal’s editorial board recently complained that the Biden administration’s proposed 2022 $715 billion Pentagon budget, while an increase in real terms, nonetheless represents an unconscionable decline in the defense budget as share of gross domestic product. “Taxpayers” are not mentioned in the editorial.)

Democrats helped sacrifice a generation of students to the deficit god, in exchange for meaningless numbers in a report.

The story, then, is that the government might not collect some debt, even if it currently pretends, for budgetary reasons, that it definitely will, and, as a result, the deficit may rise to levels higher than the current estimates predict. For a committed conservative, such as DeVos, that situation is inherently scandalous. For everyone else, that could only ever become a problem in the future, and only if that future deficit has some negative effect on the overall economy, which is not very likely considering the entire recent history of federal deficits and economic growth.

That state of affairs may explain why articles like the one in the Journal so often invoke “taxpayers,” as if everyone would have to write personal checks to cover the Department of Education’s shortfall: because without imagining taxpayers as victims of government deficits, it’s hard to point to anyone actually harmed by a government department giving unrealistic estimates of future revenues.

Except in this story, there are actual victims: the people who hold debt that the government doesn’t realistically expect to collect in full but who are bled for payment regardless. As Courtney’s report found, because of the importance of these loans to the department’s balance sheet, the government keeps borrowers on the hook for the loans even if they will never be able to repay all of the money they owe, often by placing borrowers on a repayment plan tied to their income. (As the economist Marshall Steinbaum has explained, the “income driven repayment,” or IDR, program is framed as a means of helping borrowers, but in reality, it “exerts a significant drag on their financial health, to no apparent purpose” by forcing them to “make less-than-adequate payments for many years before their debt is finally cancelled.”) The victim of such a scheme isn’t taxpayers, it’s debtors.

There’s one particular portion of The Wall Street Journal’s story that the public should treat as a moral and political scandal (the emphasis here is mine):

One instance of how accounting drove policy came in 2005 with Grad Plus, a program that removed limits on how much graduate students could borrow. It was included in a sweeping law designed to reduce the federal budget deficit, which had become a concern in both parties as the nation spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and as baby-boomer retirement was set to raise Social Security and healthcare outlays.

A key motive for letting graduate students borrow unlimited amounts was to use the projected profits from such lending to reduce federal deficits, said two congressional aides who helped draft the legislation.

Each change was publicly justified as a way to help families pay for college or to save the taxpayer money, said Robert Shireman, who helped draft some of the laws in the 1990s as an aide to Sen. Paul Simon (D., Ill.) and later was deputy under secretary of education in the Obama administration.

But how agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office “score” such changes—determine their deficit impact—“is a key factor in deciding whether a policy is adopted or not,” Mr. Shireman said. “The fact that it saved money helps enact it.”

To explain this more plainly, Democrats helped sacrifice a generation of students to the deficit god, in exchange for meaningless numbers in a report, because CBO scores are more real to senators than flesh-and-blood people.

This is the sort of depravity that deficit obsessions produce. The Iraq War needed to be “paid for” with the future earnings of students who, lawmakers imagined, would eventually be rich, even as many of the same lawmakers voted to cut taxes on already-rich people. Now the debt of the still-not-rich students can’t be forgiven because of its importance to the federal government’s predicted future earnings. And politicians and commentators in thrall to deficit politics still paint the situation as a morality tale, in which the borrowers are irresponsible for having the debt and the government would be irresponsible to forgive it. After all, think of the poor taxpayers.

The early days of the Biden administration led some to believe we were finally free of this incoherent political mode, where dubious predictions in CBO reports dictate the limits of the politically possible and determine who will be arbitrarily punished for the sake of limiting the size of a program in a speculative 10-year budget projection. The proof that Democrats had learned their lesson was one major piece of legislation, the American Rescue Plan, designed to respond to a unique emergency.

More recently, the administration, and some of its allies in Congress, have signaled strongly that they’re returning to the old ways. The American Prospect’s David Dayen has reported that the White House is determined to “pay for” its infrastructure plans, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is apparently leading the charge to ensure the infrastructure spending is “offset.” This will have the likely effect of limiting the scope of the plan, once again sacrificing material benefits for the sake of estimates and predictions from the CBO.

The Biden administration seems to be determined to go about this without violating its pledge not to raise taxes on any American making less than $400,000 (a threshold meant to define the upper limit of “middle class” despite being comically higher than the Obama administration’s similar $250,000 limit for tax hikes). It has floated increasing IRS enforcement and raising the capital gains tax for the wealthiest Americans. Both are fine ideas. But the best thing about taxing the rich is not that you can use their money for infrastructure, it’s that doing so reduces their political and economic power. That’s also the reason why it’s so difficult for Washington to do it.

The complete incoherence of the current Democratic position on spending and deficits is summed up well in another Wall Street Journal story, where Montana Senator Jon Tester was quoted saying, “I don’t want to raise any taxes, but I don’t want to put stuff on the debt, either.… If we’re going to build infrastructure, we have to pay for it somehow. I’m open to all ideas.”

“Open” to “all ideas” but unwilling to tax the rich, and unwilling to allow a CBO report to show a larger deficit as a result of needed spending: This is more or less precisely the dynamic that led student loan debt to explode in the United States, and it’s the zombie worldview that threatens any chance of this government averting a multitude of political, economic, and ecological disasters.

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morfinwen · 3 years

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OC Name: Ian, Lauren, Q, Niner, and Ash.

Wow, this one's old! But answered at last.

Ian

Something really awesome he can do: His coworkers are certainly amazed by his ability to remain in Lauren’s presence when she’s in a temper, let alone how he can talk to her without getting murdered, or even -- sometimes -- calm her down.

A person, creature, or thing he adores: Squirrels. Growing up, he named all the ones he saw in his backyard, and would watch them for hours. He’d love to do the same now, but as an adult with bills he doesn’t have the time. He does have a bird feeder out in his yard specifically for the squirrels.

A secret he’s hiding: No secrets -- Ian wouldn’t be able to keep one if he had it.

Something he truly fears: Something bad happening to his parents.

A fond memory of his: The first time his parents drove to visit his mom’s parents on the Tennessee/Kentucky border. It’s a cozy memory of scenery passing in a blur, what seemed like a continuous stream of snacks and juice boxes, switching between CDs of his and his parents’ favorite music, and listening to his mom and dad tease and flirt with each other (subtle enough to fly over the head of a seven-year-old who still thought kissing was icky).

A place or item which gives him strong feelings: The sanctuary of the church where he grew up. It’s where he was baptized, and where he played guitar during some very moving services.

A dream or ambition for the future: Perform on live TV.

An angsty fact about him: He and Lauren had a falling out in their second year of college. I hesitate to say it was over Protestantism and Catholicism; it was, at least to some degree, but it was also about worldview, the nature of God, the role of tradition and conscience, and perhaps most of all it was about what we owe to people we disagree with. They’d argued about religion before, but it wasn’t until then that they actually understood enough to do more than rebut “Pastor Andrews says” with “Father Vernon says”, and for it to matter enough to them to blow up as much as it did. It took months for them to reconcile, partially because of stubbornness and uncertainty of how to fix things, but also because schoolwork and practice meant they didn’t have the time to figure it all out.

A domestic fact about him: Ian almost always keeps most, if not all, of his windows open. Even when it’s cold (for Tennessee) or raining. It can make things cold, and the smell isn’t always great, but he insists it’s too stuffy otherwise. Lauren is pretty sure it’s a psychosomatic thing.

A random other fact: He once had a dream where he was a dog, Lauren was a cat, and they escaped from their owners to travel the world together. It would’ve made a good movie.

Lauren

Something really awesome she can do: Play Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op. 66) completely from memory.

A person, creature, or thing she adores: Not sure if “adore” is quite the right word, but one of the most important people to Lauren, outside of Ian and her immediate family, is Father Vernon from her family’s parish. He’s known her family since before she was born, listened to their confessions, counseled her parents, baptized her and her siblings. Every weekend she drives the couple hours it takes to her hometown so she can attend Mass at Father Vernon’s church.

A secret she’s hiding: She’s written songs … about fictional characters. She even composed a suite of music for a pair of fictional characters’ wedding.

Something she truly fears: Permanent damage to her hands. Her music teacher once mentioned a friend of hers who couldn’t play the piano anymore after something heavy fell on his hands. If Lauren was the type of person to have nightmares based on things she heard, that certainly would have given her nightmares.

A fond memory of hers: Her grandparents would have a picnic sometime in June, every year. It wasn’t always enjoyable, between the long car drive there with all of her siblings jammed into a cramped place, and the potential for bugs, sunburn, and bad weather, but the park was beautiful, there were so many other kids around that there was always someone to play with even if everyone else had annoyed you, and when it got to be evening they would all gather around, play music, and sing.

A place or item which gives her strong feelings: Mrs. G’s music classroom at the elementary school. In addition to band during school weeks, it was also where Lauren had her piano lessons with Mrs. G on the weekends.

A dream or ambition for the future: She doesn’t think winning a Grammy award is out of the question someday.

An angsty fact about her: From first grade until she graduated college, she believed herself to be her parents’ least favorite child. Even now, it’s not so much that she doesn’t believe it as she doesn’t think it’s worth it to spend time and energy thinking about it.

A domestic fact about her: In order to have room for a keyboard in her apartment, she gave up on having a dining table, so she eats all over the place. She’s good about taking bowls and plates back to the kitchen, but there’s constantly cups and silverware lying around the living areas.

A random other fact: She hates her middle name. “Eleanor” sounds like an old lady name, not least because she’s named after one of her mother’s great-aunts, who is quite old, and has the kind of personality that suggests she was born gray-haired, wrinkled, and talking about “in the old days”.

Something really awesome he can do: He is trained in the use of multiple types of swords. It was a quid pro quo with his aunt and uncle: Q spoke to his politically-connected buddy from boarding school and got the ball rolling on an exemption from some nasty tariffs, they arranged for sword fighting lessons for a year. He never participated in any tournaments or anything (too much publicity), but he can say without undue pride that he got to be pretty good.

A person, creature, or thing he adores: “Adore” doesn’t really describe how Q feels about anything.

A secret he’s hiding: He’s not exactly hiding it, but he isn’t open about precisely how rich and powerful his aunt and uncle are, or how many famous (or in the case of some of his cousin’s criminal friends, infamous) people he knows through them.

Something he truly fears: Just the idea of being buried alive freaks him out.

A fond memory of his: He’s got some good memories of some summer holidays during his time at boarding school. Occasionally Q got invited to tag along with someone, a friend of his cousin or a fellow classmate, on their vacation to some super rich resort in some beautiful, exotic location. He’d still hear from his aunt and uncle regularly, and he always had to be well-behaved, but it was less than when he was at school -- at his age, just hanging out with rich and influential people counted as “networking” to his aunt and uncle, so they’d call in to check on him regularly but otherwise left him alone, and in a less formal setting than school “well-behaved” was an easier standard to meet. While parts of those summers were genuinely enjoyable for him, years of living hand to mouth a hairsbreadth away from sleeping on a street corner has added a much rosier shine to those days sleeping in five-star hotels and eating haute cuisine.

A place or item which gives him strong feelings: The family pile. It was where his dad spent his summers, so spending his own summers there growing up was one of the few times he felt connected to his parents. He’s also spent a significant number of holidays and family parties there, so it’s also associated with the exacting standards of his aunt and uncle and the strain of Keeping Up Appearances.

A dream or ambition for the future: He likes to imagine his aunt and uncle getting taken down a peg (or two, if he's particularly angry with them; sometimes he dares indulge the thought of three), though he struggles to imagine a scenario where that happens without notable repercussions.

An angsty fact about him: Virtually all of his t-shirts are band t-shirts, including bands he doesn’t listen to, bands he’s never heard of, foreign bands, fictional bands, and bands with potentially offensive names or symbols (though he usually only wears those at home or when he can be pretty sure he can keep his jacket closed all day). During his time in LA, one of his roommates asked if he wore them because, as an orphan who grew up in boarding schools, it was the closest he got to feeling like he belonged to something. The precise wording was kinder than that, but it still kickstarted a realization that rocked Q’s world for a couple days.

A domestic fact about him: He’s kind of weird about household chores in general. Despite his best efforts not to be as dismissive as his aunt and uncle, he still grew up in an atmosphere of "The Help does that," and it led to a steep learning curve when he moved out after graduation. He’s on top of dishes now and has a good handle on laundry, but sweeping and vacuuming require active thought, he barely registers that mopping is an actual thing, and unless "swipe hand over surface then brush hand off on pants" counts, he has never dusted.

A random other fact: Thanks to growing up outside the occult community, Q is unaware of the various taboos and 'bad words' within the community, and more than once says something offensive. Fortunately, this never creates any real issues for him, as everyone he does it to or in front of is aware he's not doing it maliciously. In fact, to most of them it's more like a small child 'swearing' because they misunderstood or mispronounced something, or saying something offensive out of innocent ignorance. Q is not best pleased when he finds out: being unintentionally offensive is one thing, being unintentionally adorable is worse.

Niner

Something really awesome she can do: She’s very good at mental math -- basic arithmetic, conversion from metric to imperial or types of currency, multiplying large numbers. Most people are more impressed with this ability than Niner herself is: she’s never had to work at it, and for most of her life it hasn’t been terribly relevant.

A person, creature, or thing she adores: Niner has a lot of younger siblings. She adores them all. Around them, she will drop the pretense of caring about nothing, and show full enthusiasm for anything they like.

A secret she’s hiding: She hasn't told anyone about the abusive relationship in her past.

Something she truly fears: For werecats, the threat of getting caught by animal control and getting euthanized or ending up as somebody’s housecat is about as probable as your average person getting struck by lightning, but few werecats are completely immune to fearing it. Niner in particular finds it horrifying.

A fond memory of hers: Her last year hanging with her parents and immediate siblings was a pretty good one. Since their kids were all on the verge of striking out on their own, her parents allowed them more independence than they ever had before, but there was still the safety net and companionship of family. They also made a point of visiting some places that they’d talked about visiting for years but hadn’t gotten to. It was basically a year-long vacation, and made Niner more aware of her independent spirit.

A place or item which gives her strong feelings: An alley behind a bar in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s where her relationship with Marrow ended. It’s also where one of her recurring nightmares, on the rare occasions she has one, takes place.

A dream or ambition for the future: Werecats travel a lot, but they tend to remain in the same country, and after their roaming days as young adults, they tend to remain in the same geographic area. Niner’s roaming days might be over, but she wants to visit another country. It won’t be easy, considering that she lacks money, a birth certificate, and a general idea of what other countries there are out there, but Niner can be dedicated when she really wants something.

An angsty fact about her: Tied in with her desire for independence is a belief that she needs to rely solely on herself, that other people can’t be trusted or that asking them to bear even part of one of her problems is infringing on them.

A domestic fact about her: Niner’s favorite place to sleep is Q’s windowsill. It gets a good amount of sunlight, and the size is just perfect.

A random other fact: She once worked as a cashier. It was just for a single shift, she got paid under the table, and frankly she was terrible at it, but the hot dog stand guy was desperate, and Niner really needed the money.

Ash

Something really awesome he can do: Ash can make a vegetarian version of just about anything. He considers it a gift. To others in the household (particularly Connie) … it’s amazing, but not in a good way.

A person, creature, or thing he adores: A crocheted frog that ‘lives’ on a shelf in the kitchen. It was a gift to his great-aunt who owned the house before him. It’s not what most people would consider cute, it’s probably older than he is so it’s got some noticeable wear and tear to it, but to little bitty Ash it was a benevolent spirit watching over the kitchen, smiling kindly to everyone who entered, and never telling on the small boy sneaking cookies before dinner.

A secret he’s hiding: It’s not quite a secret, more a deeply personal family matter that Ash is aware of but doesn’t share with anyone. His aunt Lily isn’t technically his aunt. She’s a half-dryad who, because of complications tied to her conception and birth, is bound to a tree on his grandmother’s property and traveling too far from it is painful for her. Obviously this isn’t something they can share with normal people, but it’s a sensitive enough situation that no one outside of Ash, his mother, grandmother, and aunts knows the details.

Something they truly fear: Ash is a naturally patient person, but he is not inherently non-confrontational or easy-going. And he is not the kind of person to just stand by when something makes him angry. He’s not exactly scared of losing his temper and doing something he regrets, but he is concerned about someday ending up on a slippery slope and reaching a point where he wouldn’t regret it.

A fond memory of his: He and Danae took a lot of walks in the country when they were in high school, usually by themselves, but sometimes with one of his aunts or one of her siblings. One especially beautiful summer evening, they sat by a lake for a couple hours and talked about their dreams for the future -- not just what they were likely to do, but what they really wanted to do with their lives.

A place or item which gives him strong feelings: The abovementioned lake. He spent a lot of time there growing up, and there’s good and bad memories tied to it. Mostly good.

A dream or ambition for the future: He has a lot of plans for the house. He’s not sure yet whether he wants to try to turn it into a school for enchanting, or turn it back into a bed-and-breakfast type place for occult people. The former is more appealing to him personally, but the latter works better considering that there’s already a bunch of different occult types staying there.

An angsty fact about him: Ash is the least angsty person in the household, honestly. He’s very grateful for that.

A domestic fact about him: He hates dust. Dishes can stack up for a meal or two, laundry gets done mainly because otherwise he’d have no clothes, mopping only happens if the floor is sticky, the fridge is cleaned out on a schedule, but dusting happens every day.

A random other fact: He’s watched several YouTube videos trying to learn how to yodel. It’s gotten put on the back burner, now that there’s people in the house who could hear him no matter how tightly he shuts the door or how quietly he tries to do it, but he still hopes to learn how someday.

Thanks for asking!

#ask #answer #ian grayson #lauren winston #q free #niner #ash jackson #OCs

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hosts-of-valyria · 3 years

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Cruel and unpredictable worlds: When worlds collide on a broad front

It's unpredictable there. There is nothing nice in these worlds! That's dog shit there.

Robin Arryn OR Arya and Gendry, a possible love for Ciri. Cahir the Nilfgaardian, who can die from Gendry Baratheon, Lyanna Stark, Jon Arryn, Arya Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Yennefer or Sandor Clegane IF Cahir tries to kidnap Ciri.

"It's just as ugly as in Westeros or Essos", thought Tyrion and Sandor, "shitty worlds. Nice shit."

The north in Westeros is roughly the size of the Empire to Nilfgaard. The Kingdom of Aedirn, where Yennefer comes from, corresponds to the Crownlands in Westeros. The Westerlands in Westeros correspond to the Kingdom of Cintra, where Ciri comes from. The kingdom of Temeria roughly corresponds to the Vale of Arryn.

"These worlds are very similar, not on the surface but when you look in the characters, kingdoms and worldviews", thought Tyrion and Ciri. Tyrion and Geralt looked at each other, "Robert Baratheon would die in your world, Geralt."

Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer nodded, "Yes Robert Baratheon would die instantly in our world Tyrion because our world has no interest in a Monster or Warmonger either. Even your father Tywin would survive in our world. Robert would die. Even Eddard would survive."

"I got fed up with this shit all the time feeling like I'm talking to a wall when I try to bring politics into the game someone never listens, because I can also give orders to mass murder, I am already a murderer I can cope with the increase, I would say: Slaughter them all. What would you say Tyrion", said Ciri.

Tyrion looked at her, "are you a murderer too, me too. Do we want to commit mass murder together? I would say: Kill them like cattle. What would you say Sandor?"

Sandor frowned, "I am a murderer too. I would say: Eviscerate everyone", Jon, Aerys, Geralt, Robb, Aegon, Daenerys, Ciri, Arya, Gendry, Sansa, Tyrion and Rhaenys nodded, "interesting", Arya nodded, "I'm in, I'm a murderer too. I would have Nymeria kill anyone", Ciri, Sansa, Daenerys, Jon, Yennefer, Geralt, Lyanna, Elia, Rhaegar, Tyrion, Sandor nodded, "interesting approach."

"I would take snakes to kill everyone", said Elia. Cersei, Sansa, Yennefer, Rhaegar, Rhaenys and Lyanna nodded, "Exciting."

"I would throw everyone in the furnaces in my forge", said Gendry. Arya, Ciri, Jon, Sansa, Tywin, Rhaegar, Lyanna, Yennefer, Geralt, Cersei, and Elia nodded, "aha interesting construct."

Rhaenys, Lyanna, Elia, Cersei, Sansa and Daenerys looked at each other, "we're killers too. A group should be formed to discuss problems and concerns", Yennefer nodded, "you have my Support. Like Jon I just need my hands to bring firestorms. Jon also only needs his hands to bring firestorms and ice. Freezer burn", Jon, Geralt, Robb and Aegon nodded, "we need a group to talk about Problems."

Four sisters and four brothers: These eight and it is a force of nature

You always try to be a voice. For the Realm? The realm is not sacred. What is the realm when children play in dirty streets and babies lie in dirt. What is the realm when a husband beats and abuses the woman. What is the realm when a woman rapes a man. The Realm is nothing! The realm is the biggest dog shit.

Geralt Rivia-Targaryen and Daenerys, Dany, Rivia-Targaryen: The Witcher and the Mother of Dragons

Always remember, you cannot bend a heaven, before that you would unleash hell like a bomb. When someone doesn't want you, that's no reason for war!

Here is nothing beautiful, our worlds are unpredictable. In the end it is a question of politics. Who cares when evil people die, right it doesn't bother. The longer you call someone cruel or insane, the more likely you will drive them there, always sweep your own front door first before you point your finger at others.

Sansa Targaryen and Aegon, Egg', Targaryen: The two political Geniuses, the King and Queen of King's Landing, Dragonstone and the Independent Crownlands

You cannot foresee all things, everything is there. No Targaryen will ever be alone again, Robert Baratheon will be alone in the end or he will die, he is surrounded by enemies. Luckily Rhaegar had the Iron Throne destroyed.

Power can be found everywhere, Cultures, A Game of Thrones, A Crown, A Throne, A sharp sword, Money, Gold, Politics, Races, Monsters, Magic, Armies, Religions; and

Rhaenys, Rhae', Stark-Martell and Robb Stark-Martell: The King and Queen in the North, the young Wolf and and the most poisonous snake

bringing all of this under one roof is difficult. Romance is elusive in cruel worlds.

At a point a line must be drawn; that everyone can have a quieter life when enough work has been done and stop wars for the time being and

Jon Stark-Vengerberg and Yennefer, Yen', Stark-Vengerberg: The most powerful Sorceress in all Worlds and the Son of Fire and Ice, Targaryen-Wolf and General

until then, we'll change big, shitty, unpredictable worlds: that's our legacy. Neither of the eight of us will ever be alone or walk a path alone. We fight together and if that means our death, so be it, but before that we live. We want the shit to go the right way and wars to stop for the time being. Ciri, Arya, Gendry, Cersei, Tywin, Aerys, Rhaella, Lyanna, Elia, Rhaegar, Myrcella and the eight of us have long made our peace with cruel worlds.

#yennefer and jon #kit harington #anya chalotra #robb and rhaenys #richard madden #bruna marquezine #aegon and sansa #sophie turner #jamie campbell bower #geralt and daenerys #henry cavill #emilia clarke

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jadelotusflower · 3 years

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July 2021 Roundup

Discussed this month: The Once and Future King, The Good People, The Secret of Kells/Wolfwalkers/Song of the Sea (aka "Irish Folklore" Trilogy), The Matrix Trilogy, the John Wick Trilogy, Space Jam: A New Legacy

Reading

The Once and Future King (T.H. White) - I've actually read this before, but it was a long time ago and I remembered very little of it so it seemed time for a revisit. Written between 1936 and 1942, this is a surprisingly meta retelling of Arthur and Camelot, very obviously and heavily influenced by WWII, with much academic pondering on the concept of humanity and war and ongoing conflict against Might=Right - looking to the past to try and understand the present. Some familiarity with the legends is assumed, White occasionally making reference to Malory, and there is a strange anachronistic feel - Merlin lives time backwards and talks of Hitler and other 20th Century references, White frequently refers to Old England and the way things were "back then", but also calls Arthur's country Gramarye, the narrative taking place an a kind of alternate history/mythology where Uther was the Norman conqueror of 1066, and yet reference is also made to the Plantagenet kings.

Comprising five volumes (the first four published separately at the time, and the final posthumously), it struck me on this read how each of the first four are structured around the childhood of a major player -Arthur (The Sword in the Stone), Gawain and his brothers (The Witch in the Wood), Lancelot (The Ill-Made Knight), and Mordred (The Candle in the Wind), and how their upbringing played a part in the inevitable tragedy of Camelot. In the final volume, The Book of Merlyn, it comes full circle as Arthur on the eve of his death is taken to revisit the animals of his childhood for much philosophising (at one point Merlyn argues at length with a badger about Karl Marx and communism.)

The Sword in the Stone is the most engaging, with young Arthur (known as "the Wart") and his tutelage under Merlin, being turned into various animals like an ant, a goose, and a hawk to learn about each of their societies (political allegories), and meeting with Robin Wood (Hood) and Maid Marian to battle Morgan le Fay, and the climactic pulling of the sword from the stone. This was of course the source material for the Disney film, although missing the wizards duel with Madam Mim (appearing in the original publication, but removed for the revised version).

The Ill-Made Knight is the longest volume and was honestly a slog to get through, because honestly Lancelot is pretty dull/terrible, and the Lancelot/Guenever love affair less than compelling. Ultimately it's Lancelot's hubris that dooms them - he is warned that Mordred intends to catch him out in Guenever's room, but he goes anyway, and doesn't leave when he tells her to, because he is stupid.

It’s no surprise that the female characters are given the short shrift, but there’s an uncomfortable vein of misogyny running through the book. To wit:

Elaine had done the ungraceful thing as usual. Guenever, in similar circumstances, would have been sure to grow pale and interesting - but Elaine had only grown plump.

And then later:

Guenever had overdressed for the occasion. She had put on makeup which she did not need, and put it on badly. She was forty-two.

Morgause (the eponymous witch in the wood/queen of air and darkness) is a negligent mother whose sole motivation is revenge, Elaine rapes Lancelot by deception, Guenever is hypocritical and shrill (but achieves a sliver of nuance in Candle), Nimueh is a nonentity, and Morgan le Fey is a monstrous fairy. If only White had turned his academic pondering inward and in order to examine the role of women in his worldview other than as damsels or instigators.

But Arthur also gets the short shrift - after all the focus in his childhood, he becomes almost a peripheral figure in the rest of the story until the very end, and we're not actually given much to show why he is the once and future king, other than that he tries to institute a slightly less brutal system.

Ultimately, White is more interested in philosophy than character, and so Camelot's inevitable tragedy feels more clinical than visceral.

The Good People (Hannah Kent) - If the Irish Folklore Trilogy (discussed below) is the beauty and wonder of Irish myths and legends interacting with the human world, this book is the cold danger of superstition and the devastating affect of folklore used as an explanation for life's ills. Set in 1820's rural Ireland, Nora is widowed and left with the care of her young disabled grandson Michael, believed to be a changeling. The local wise woman Nance, who feels the touch of "the good people" sets about to drive out the fairy from the child, believing that the "real" Michael will return, much to the growing dread of Mary, the teenage girl Nora has hired to care for him.

Here fairies are seen as a malevolent force, "sweeping" away women and children, causing bad harvests, and bringing death to the village - to be respected and feared. And then there's Nance, bartering traditional cures for ailments and troubles - some work, some do not, and some pose great danger. On the other hand, this is a remote village where a doctor must be fetched from Killarney, and only one priest who is less than charitable. Neither provide any help or support to Nora.

SPOILERS It's an upsetting read dealing with dark subject matter - grief trauma, child abuse and accidental infanticide, a kind of slow burn horror. If it takes a village to to raise a child, it also takes one to kill a child, as mounting fear and superstition moves through the population like a contagion, heightening Nora's desperation for the "return" of her grandson, and Nance's to prove her knowledge. It's an impeccably researched novel (based in part on a true event) but very unsettling - poor Michael is never really given humanity, and I feel this book would be hugely triggering in its depiction of disability and neurodivergence.

Watching

The Secret of Kells/Song of the Sea/Wolfwalkers (dir. Tom Moore) - I've been meaning to watch these films for absolutely ages, and I finally got to them this month. I’m pleased to say that the many people who recommended them to me were absolutely correct, because they appear to have been made to specifically cater to my interests. Some mild spoilers ahead.

I watched these in internal chronological order as suggested by @ravenya003, starting with The Secret of Kells, set in 9th Century Ireland where the young monk Brendan helps illuminate the to-be famous manuscript and befriends a forest sprite Aisling, under the threat of a Viking raid. Next was Wolfwalkers, jumping forward to 1650 Kilkenny where the English girl Robyn, daughter of a hunter, is drawn into the world of the forest and Mebh, who turns into a wolf when she sleeps. And finally we go all the way to 1980's in Song of the Sea for the story of Ben, who must help his younger sister Saoirse (a selkie) find her voice and bring back the faeries who have been turned to stone by the owl witch Macha.

Although the stories are completely separate, they've been described as Moore's "Irish Folklore" trilogy, and it’s easy to read a through line from Kells to Wolfwalkers in particular - both deal with fae of the forest, and Aisling appears as a white wolf at the end of the film (having lost her ability to appear in human form). I like to think that Aisling is in some way the progenitor of the wolfwalkers - after all, Kells and Kilkenny are less than 200 kms apart.

Song of the Sea is distant from the other two in both time and subject matter, dealing with selkies, creatures of the water. In many ways, Kells and Wolfwalkers feels like a duology, with Song more its own thing. On the other hand, an argument could be made for common fae spirit/s in different forms across all three films - Aisling is a white sprite, Robyn takes the form of a white/grey wolf, and Saoirse a white seal.

The strength of these films other than the folklore is the visual style - I really love 2D animation, and while I appreciate the beauty of cg animation, I often find in the latter’s focus on hyper-realism the artistry can be left by the wayside. These films not just aesthetically beautiful, but the art is used to tell the story - from the sharp angles that represent the darker or harmful elements (Crom, Vikings, the Town), to the circles and rings that represent safety and harmony (the Abbey, the forest, Mebh and her mother/the wolves healing circle, the holy well). The exception is probably the home of Macha, the owl witch, where circles are also prominent and represent magic, and this is often the case in folklore (fairy rings, fairy forts, etc).

Kells is the most stylised, resembling tapestries or pages and triptychs from medieval manuscripts, playing with perspective. I actually saw pages from the real Book of Kells years ago in Dublin, and remember them being very beautiful. We only get glimpses of the Book and the stunning Chi Rho page at the very end of the film, but the style of art is present throughout the film and particularly in the forest where Brendan finds inspiration for his illumination, and on the flipside his encounter in the dark with Crom Cruach, represented as a chalk-drawn primordial serpent.

This style is also present in Wolfwalkers, particularly stark in the way the birds-eye grid of the town often looms over Robyn in the background and in her work at the castle. The depiction of the forest has more of a storybook quality however, as does Song, where almost every frame resembles a painting, particularly the sequences of Saoirse's selkie trip through the sea and Ben's fall through the holy well.

Rav points out in her review that there is the ebbing away of myth and magic in each successive film, contrasted with the rise of Christianity/modernity. But there's circles and rings again, because while the ultimate power of the faerie world is fading away, the interaction between our human protagonists and faerie actually increases with each film. In Kells, we have only Aisling and Crom, in Wolkwalkers, we have Mebh and her mother whose ranks grow to include Robyn and her father, and finally in Song we have Saoirse, Bronagh, Macha, the Na Daoine Sídhe, and the Great Seanachaí.

Watching in the order I did, it does give the impression of the mythological world opening up to the viewer, gaining a deeper understanding and exposure as time progressed. On the other hand, that is also because the human world is gradually encroaching on the world of Faerie, from isolated settlements like the Abbey of Kells, to growing town of Kilkenny and the logging of the surrounding forest, to a modern Ireland of motorways and power lines, and industrialised Dublin where the remaining fairies have moved underground. It makes the climax of Song, with the fairies restored but returning to the land of Tír na nÓg, rather bittersweet.

I also credit the strength of the voice acting - the adult roles are minor but with greats including the dulcet tones of Brendan Gleeson and Sean Bean, and the ethereal Maria Doyle Kennedy (who I wish had gotten to do more). But the child roles are all performed so well, particularly Honor Kneafsey as Robyn, whose growing desperation and distress is just heartbreakingly palpable.

The Matrix Trilogy (dir. The Wachowskis) - I usually don't post rewatches in the Roundup, but I really, really love these movies. I will never forget seeing The Matrix at the cinema as a young teen, knowing nothing other than the tease of the enigmatic trailers, and just being completely blown away by it, and then becoming completely obsessed a few years later in the leadup to Reloaded.

It wasn’t my first fandom, but it was probably the first time I took fandom seriously. I was very invested in Neo/Trinity in particular as well as all the mythological/literary references that fed directly into my interests. I haven’t however gone back and read the fic I wrote, for fear that it is very, very cringe. I know where is is though, so maybe one day before the ff.net is purged.

This is Keanu Reeves at his most handsome, and while he doesn't have the greatest range (as many actors don't, although they don't get as much grief for it), when he's in the zone there's no one else who could do it better. He just has a Presence, you know? A vibe, and it compels me.

This is particularly present in Neo, a character whose conflict is almost entirely internal, burdened by the weight of his responsibility and destiny, both before and after he learns it is a false prophesy. He’s not your typical quippy macho action hero, but much like my other fave Luke Skywalker, is a character who is ultimately driven by love and self-sacrifice. I definitely have a Type of male hero I adore, and Neo fits right in there.

I also really love the sequels, flaws and all, because you know what, the Wachowskis had Ideas and they weren't going to deliver Matrix 2: Electric Boogaloo. Each film goes in an unexpected direction, and not in a subverted expectations ha ha silly rabbits way, but one that does have an internal logic and pulls together a cohesive trilogy as a whole, and how often does that happen these days?

The sequels are so…earnest, with none of the cynical cool detachment perhaps some would have preferred - at its core a trilogy exploring philosophy and the nature of prophesy vs choice, determinism vs free will, and the power of love. Maybe it can be hokey, and some of the dialogue a bit overwritten, but I don't care, there's so much I still enjoy even having seen the trilogy many times over the years.

Not to mention the great female characters - while I'm not sure any of the three strictly passes the Bechdel Test, we have Trinity and Niobe in particular who I love with all my heart. It does kind of annoy me that the Trinity Syndrome is so named, because it only applies in the most reductive reading possible, and Trinity expresses agency (and badassery) every step of the way, saving Neo just as much as he saves her. I mean..."dodge this"/"in five minutes I'll tear that whole goddamn building down"/"believe it"? Niobe piloting the Hammer through the mechanical line in Revolutions? Iconic. There are criticisms that can be made, sure, but the trilogy ultimately loves, respects, and appreciates its female characters (and important to note that the avatars of The System, the Architect and the Agents, are all white men).

Then we have the Oracle, who ultimately holds the most power and is the victor of the human/machine war. There's so much going on with the Oracle I could talk about it all day. It's that fate vs free will question again (“if you already know, how can I make a choice?”), but with the wrinkle of manipulation (“would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?”). Choice is the foundation the Matrix is built on, the unconscious choice for humans to accept the system or reject it - the Architect can't control that, he can only manage it, and the Oracle can't force Neo onto the path she has set out for him, only predict the choices he will make based on her study of the human psyche ("did you always know?"/"No...but I believed"). But she plays with the concept of fate in a complicated web of prophesies for outcome she wants and trusting the nature of Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo to bring it about.

And then there's the visual storytelling - there is so much meaning in almost every frame and line of dialogue. The mirroring and ring cycles not only in the constant presence of reflective surfaces and central metaphor of the Matrix as a simulacrum, but the androgyny of Neo and Trinity, bringing each other back from the dead in successive films (and ultimately both ultimately dying in the third), Neo and Morpheus’ first and last meetings, Smith who is ultimately Neo’s dark mirror, the Oracle/the Architect, just to name a few. I just…really really love these movies? Maybe I’ll do a full post rewatch sometime.

I am however reserving judgement on the Matrix 4 - already there are a few things making me uneasy. Lana is the sole director for this one (Lilly is not involved), and Laurence Fishburne apparently wasn't even asked back, even though Morpheus actually survives the trilogy (as opposed to Neo and Trinity). But I’m interested, and don’t want to go in with any expectations, but rather ready to be surprised again like I was when I watched the first film (and hope I can stay away from spoilers).

John Wick Trilogy (dir. Chad Stahelski) - It was a trilogy kind of month! This genre is generally not my thing, as I don’t have a high tolerance for graphic violence and pure action bores me after a while, but I was in a Keanu kind of mood and I'm always hearing people go on about John Wick so I wanted to know what (if anything) I was missing. While still a bit too violent for my tastes, if nothing else I could appreciate the dance-like fight choreography, even if the worldbuulding is absolutely ridiculous - I mean, literally thousands of assassins across the world chilling in sanctuary hotels, supported by a vast network of weapon suppliers, tailors, surgeons, spy networks, etc? It’s silly, but hey, I was happy to go along with it.

What I do appreciate about Keanu Reeves, and this seems to be a common thread, is that even when in action hero mode (Matrix, Point Break, John Wick, and to a lesser extent Speed), he consistently plays a man who is completely in love with his partner/wife - like, completely, unapologetically devoted to them, and I think that is a big part of the appeal - it's that Keanu energy that is often the antithesis of toxic masculinity, even when in roles that would ordinarily rely on those tropes.

Wick is in many ways the spiritual successor to Neo - insular, taciturn, and even as he's dispatching death with clinical precision. Much like Neo, Wick is a character who is somehow Soft (tm) despite all the violence. I once listened to a podcast where they amusingly discussed the Reeves oeuvre as simulations of Neo still trapped in the Matrix, and it’s very easy to make the case here and imagine John Wick as Neo plugged back in after Revolutions, mourning Trinity and set on mission after mission to keep his mind active (and it would certainly explain why the guy hasn’t dropped dead after being stabbed, beaten up, strangled, hit by a car, shot, and falling off a building). It’s a fun little theory.

Stahelski was Reeves' stunt double and a stunt coordinator on The Matrix and there's plenty of homages in the visual style and reuniting Reeves with costars Laurence Fishburne and Randall Duk Kim (who played the Keymaker).

I did also find it amusing that Wick is also often referred to as babayaga (equated in the film to the bogeyman). Well, Wick is in many ways a witch who lives in the woods, just wanting to be left alone with his dog, and there is a supernatural energy to the character, so...I guess?

Space Jam: A New Legacy (dir. Malcolm D Lee) - I took my niece to see this at the cinema and it was…pretty much what you would expect. I thought it was fine for what it was, even if a bit slow in parts (it takes a looong time for the looneys to show up) and I wonder if they have the same cultural pull they had in the nineties (the age of Tweety Bird supremacy). But the kids seemed into it (my niece liked porky pig) and that's what counts I guess.

This time, the toon battle royale takes place on the WB servers, where evil A.I. Don Cheadle (having the time of his life chewing the cg scenery) wants to capture Lebron James for...reasons, idk. James and Bugs have to find the rest of the looneys scattered across the server-verse, a chance for WB to desperately remind people that they too, have media properties and a multiverse including DC comics world, Harry Potter world, Matrix world, Mad Max world, Casablanca world etc. Some of it feels very dated - there is I kid you not an Austin Powers reference, although it did make me smile that Trinity was on James’ list of most wanted players (skill: agility).

Unfortunately, nothing it really done with this multiverse concept except “hey, remember this movie? Now with looneys” six times, and the crowd for the game populated by WB denizens including the Iron Giant, Pennywise, the monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, Scooby Doo and the gang, etc. But still, it's fun, and hardly the tarnishing of a legacy or whatever nonsense is driving youtube clicks these days.

Writing

The Lady of the Lake - 2335 words.

Against the Dying of the Light - 2927 words, Chapter 13 posted.

Total: 5272 this month, 38,488 this year.

#roundup #reading watching writing #long post

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