#but sadly only natural born citizens (such as i) can run for the office of god-king

[wisteriasymphony]

from now on everyone who boops me is a citizen of claudrien nation. unfortunately as a small country our security division is underfunded so each boops counts as an individual citizen. i hope to grow the nation to 2 billion by the end of the night.

#claudrien nation W!!!!! #yes lovesquarers are allowed under dual citizenship. #but sadly only natural born citizens (such as i) can run for the office of god-king

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Review: The First Adventure! or Baby Donald Says Eat the Rich

Welcome back. I’d been looking forward to this one for some time in the hopes of getting one thing i’ve been waiting for.. sadly that thing didn’t come, we’ll get to that, but this was still a fun episode so let’s hop right in. Spoilers in a second but my tag is spoiler tagged soooo.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We open in the 1960′s. Austin Powers just went into Cryo Freeze to prepare for Dr. Evil’s eventual return, The Marvel Universe was in full swing, a teenager in baltimore was battling racisim via a dance show, and Black Heron had just been caught by Agent 22, aka Beakly when she was young and just as gorgeous then as she is now. Heron once again engaged in her usual cartoonish supervillian, and now SHUSH has her.  Meanwhile in a nearbye room a young accountant by the name of Bradford Buzzard is outlining his plan for Director Von Drake: The way he sees it every time a villian costs chaos Shush “Wastes” billions causing MORE chaos to stop it without controlling things. He proposes taking over the world, weeding out the chaos and ruling from the shadows. Naturally, Ludvig isn’t on board with any of this and points out they aren’t super villains. It’s here this episode fully defines something about Bradford’s character. Back in “Let’s Get Dangerous!” when Huey called him a villain, he said he’s not one... at least from his point of view. It’s here, in his youth we get a clear understanding why he dosen’t think so: So far most people we’ve seen in the world of Ducktales take the chaos and insanity of the world in stride: Either just numb to it like most of the citizens, Rolling with it like Daisy and Violet, or diving straight into it like.. pretty much the majority of the cast, either for the love of adventure and treasure like the McDuck/Duck family, or for their own ludcrious ends like Glomgold, Mark Beaks or Magica. To them the world’s fine the way it is and there’s to explore, take or whatever.  To Bradford.. this is madness... he feels all these people are just a bunch of overgrown children, and in some cases actual children, are just making the world worse and worse until one day their going to break it. One day skill, intuition, wit, and knowledge just wont’ be enough. Someday Scrooge, SHUSH or whoever’s standing in the way of evil will fail and the world will fall. This simply can’t go on, and SOMEONE has to control this, someone has to take this world, shake the chaos out of it and MAKE it sane. Make it work the way it’s SUPPOSED to. And to Bradford that’s him. Someone has to, no one else will, so he will. To him SHUSH doing this is just the logical thing: They want peace right? Their fighting for good right? Then what’s better than making the world a utopia? Ending these conflicts and remaking it.  The thing is.. that’s not what Heroes do. As we’ve seen in various stories where the superheroes, the Good Guys take over they do improve things.. but at the cost of free will. At the cost of free thought. At the cost of their morals. They become what they were fighting all those years and have to bloody their hands and keep them bloody just to make THEIR world right. And that’s not Utopia, that’s a dictatorship. The example I always come to, even though there were ones before and after this including Marvel’s incredible Squadron Supreme maxi-series, is Justice League the animated series’ two parter, like most of their episodes really but that’s not the point, a Better World, about an alternate reality where Superman kills Lex Luthor after Luthor kills the flash and hte League take over the world. The thing is.. the world isn’t BETTER. It’s just crime free. You can sweep the chaos and the crime under the rug.. but your not making a better world, your just making YOUR version of it. No one person is a god even if they have a power of one and no one person can or SHOULD be able to decide what’s best for everyone. It’s up to each of us to MAKE the world better, to fight for a better world. That’s what Ludvig knows full well and what Bradford just can’t see. You can’t control the world, you just have to accept the things you can’t change like it being chaotic and change the things you can like injustice. 

Bradford however, who was hired as a favor to his grandmother, can’t though Von Drake lets him off with a warning.. and a laugh about an accountant being able to be a super villian. Bradford however realizes ther’es some truth to that.. he needs someone to teach him out to operate outside the law, and if SHUSH won’t take the world and remake it.. maybe it’s time someone else did.  So in the prison cells of SHUSH, which are conveniently empty outsdide of Heron, Bradford outlines his plan to her. To create a massive orgnization to steal the world and give it the order it needs. To combine their skills: Heron’s for grandeur and crime, and Bradfords for strategy and focus, to take the world. The Orginzation for World Larceny, or OWL, fitting bradford’s hatred for theatrics. Heron objects, adding an F for fiendish, and Bradford relucntantly agrees to get her on board, lets her loose and fakes like he just saw her escape. FOWL is born. And the world would never be the same. Cue credits and cue the rest of the review under the cut. 

After the opening we cut to 1994-5.. sometime around then as it’s hard to get an exact year, and that’s how the crew likes it. Point is it’s the 90′s, and Scrooge is.. busy running his company. We’ll get into the weeds of that in a bit, but this is a different Scrooge, one who while no less capable, has no thirst for adventure or drive. He’s not nearly as miserable as the Scrooge we saw back in Woo-Ooo but he’s still a much less complete man. Anyways alongside him for his planning is Duckworth, whose very much alive at this time, and who tells his boss his sister Hortense left something in his office for him.  To no one suprise, that thing is the twins, at the tender age of i’m guessing 10. Since your probably curious, Della is still voiced by Paget Brewster, just using a slightly different voice like the Triplets and Webby’s voice actors do. It’s just a bit more jarring here since unlike those characters, we’ve seen adult della and thus are used to this voice coming out of a grown woman. It’s not bad and I got used to it eventually but it was jarring at first especially since once again Donald has a completely diffrent voice ACTRESS doing his voice.  This time around it’s cristina valenzuela, of Miraculous Ladybug fame, who I know more for her song work and twitter than her actual work ,but am delighted to see her here and she does a terrific job. I genuneily did not realize it was her, and while not exactly like the late great russi taylor, it is just similar enough to work. 

So we get to see what the Twins were like when they were the Triplets age: Della is about the same, but with more of Dewey’s impulsiveness, and Donald, much like he’d be a few years and some dead parents later, is a bitter, grungey musician whose constantly on his guitar and railing against the man.. which is Scrooge in this case which is fair. Hortense left a note.. which bothered me as I genuinely expected her to show up and was majorly disappointed she did not. We are in year 4 of this series, season 3 and STILL no appearance of Hortense or mention how she died, as she and Quackmore are still alive by the end of this. Given she’s easily my faviorite part of Life and Times, this bothered me, and the only reason i’m not more upset.. is the clever way they wrote around actually using her. The letter she leaves for Scrooge explaining things is the same one Della herself used in the comic strip, and using a bit of the postcard she left in the cartoons, when leaving Huey, Dewey and Louie with Donald, down to the Twins having left a firecracker in their fathers seat, thus leaving him in the hosptial. As disappointed as I am my favorite Ginger is completely absent once again, this is a brilliant reference, and I have to give them credit for it, so it’s a fair enough trade off.  As for his “Angel Nephew and Niece”, Della wants to dive into adventure while Donald struggles to write a song, singing throughout the episode. It varies in tolerablity, though mostly due to the writing, Cristina is doing fine. Della however is disappointed to find her legendary uncle views his past exploits as merley a means to an end to get his fortune and now he has it he can just focus on building it in the boardroom. This is an intresting take.. and one I could easily have seen happening to the Don Rosa version seen in Life and Times. The Scrooge there himself saw building his wealth as the most important thing until his encounter with Teddy Rosevelt, who taught him experince was what mattered and the having isn’t as fun as the getting. It works for me: This is a scrooge who never got that lesson so once he got to be richest duck in the world, having achieved his life’s goal nothing was left. He’s not miserable like the Scrooge we saw at the start of the series, having lost his love for adventure after loosing his niece/daughter, and having lost his fight. This one has retired.. but because he likely just sees no point in going on. He’s the richest duck in the world, has a vast empire.. no amount of treasure is really going to add to that like it used to, and as he points out in a second Shush has tons of agents at this point to clean up what’s left of FOWL. He’s the man who has everything, so why keep going. It’s weird to see a scrooge without the hunger to keep going, but it makes sense when his belly is full. Without someone to get him to see there’s always another rainbow, he just stopped chasing them. Also a fun nod to the comics I almost forgot to mention is when hearing about the “Gift”, i.e. the twins, Scrooge dreads it’s another surprise party, a nod to life and times where Hortense threw Scrooge one that went.. badly and lead to their entire relationship collapsing. Though Donald did get back at Scrooge for screaming at his parents and Auntie Matilda

However his busy day is disrupted with a call from Beakly. They’ve found the last known cordinates of Captain Yellowbeak, but FOWL is on them and Scrooge is the only one Beakly trusts for this since they have a leak. Beakly is also director of SHUSH at this point, with Von Drake having retired or died or both at this point. Scrooge reluctantly accepts, while Della is excited at the prospect of a real adventure and Donald ends up sharing her enthusasim as it’d make a good song. Scrooge, naturally, has no intention of bringing them with him to their disapointment and leads Donald to sing another “Suck it the man song” which totally isn’t about Scrooge.... spoilers: It entirely is, he’s just a little dumbass grunge baby and I love him.  We then get a cute sequence of Della popping up in Scrooge’s Luggage and Trunk to try and convince him to let them tag along, before we cut to the Limo, driven by Duckworth at this point, which solves that mystery. Scrooge is firm in having his butler take them back and have them work with him and Duckworth’s fine with that.. but wants overtime, which is fair. Scrooge, being Scrooge, grumbles about not being made of money, proven wrong by gold spilling out of him. Though I do like the update of Scrooge’s classic cheapness when it comes to pay: INstead of barely paying his employees like a monster, he’s simply reluctant to pay extra if he dosen’t have to, and would rather drag two 10 year olds with him on a dangerous adventure than pay overtime, which tracks. It’s also clear if he had to he WOULD actually pay it, either due to legal reasons or his moral standards, he just isn’t happy about it. So he agrees, though he wants Donald to leave the guitar behind which.. given the most Donald’s been able to come up with is “Suck it THE MAN” and “This guy’s a greedy asshole”.. he’s extremely correct and when Donald tries to pull a “YOU CAN’T CENSOR ME MANNNN”, Scrooge just chucks it out of the car.  At the airfield while Della is excited like an rabid chipmunk, and genuinely thinks she can fly a plane because she’s played Outrunner 2.. which I have only vaguely heard of before now. And is apparently just a pc game where you run a lot so I genuinely do not get where Della gets piloting from that.. but she IS Dewey’s mother. So with that in mind the family take off and Scrooge explains what their after: The Papyrus of Binding. It’s a dangerously powerful magical artifact from Ancient Egypt that will make whatever’s written on it happen. The dangerous part is that it’s incredibly literal: As Bradford puts later in the episode, ask for unlimited power, it might zap you dead with a million volts, ask for infinite wealth, prepare to be crushed underneath it. It’s a nice twist on a Monkey’s Paw or Jackass Genie situation. Instead of either the source of the wish granting magic just being inherently evil, or some dickhead screwing with the hero.. it’s just an object that has no ability to interpret nuance, just like your phone with the goddamn autocorrect. It can’t judge intent or tone or meaning, it just gives exactly what it’s asked. It’s a thoroughly interesting concept. 

Something I really like about this episode is the fact it answers some little questions. While none were Hortense related, and I am still grumpy about that even with this coming out a good 17 hours after I watched it due to getting caught up with other stuff, it does have little touches that explain small parts of the lore: Who drove Scrooge? As just mentioned, Duckworth. Who flew scrooge? Paid pilots. Did he have a plane before the sunchaser? Yup. It fills in some small gaps in the world. Stuff we weren’t dying to know but’s stil lintresting. Said pilots in this case however are Heron and Bradford. This episode also fills in Heron’s character, as while we’ve already seen bits and pieces this season she LOVES being a classic, take over the world james bond type villian, like she stepped out of a duck version of kim possible.. and i’m just now realizing there probably IS a duck kim possible somewhere in this world as while far after disney afternoon, it fits too neatly to not be wedged in there with your tailspins and goof troops. I wouldn’t be suprised if there were brid versions of every human based disney afternoon and one saturday morning show. My.. my head’s swimming from this. I could be, and probably am wrong but the sheer idea of this... it’s amazing.  Back to Heron, she just LOVES being evil and destructive, letting the world know she exists and operating on a grand scale. Now we’ve seen more of her while she’s Beakly’s nemisis.. she’s really an evil scrooge.. yes another one. Like Scrooge, at least how he normally is,  she simply gets how the world of Ducktales operates and can take advantage of that to the best of her ablility. Just like adventuering, cartoonish supervilliany is about risk and reward.. sometimes you faceplamnt hard, that’s the risk, but the rewards and rush is worth it. She’s as addicted to grandoise villiany as Scrooge is to adventure by this point. And like Scrooge, and unlike her partner Bradford, she sees the world as it is: Chaotic and one big sandbox to play in. She contrasts Scrooge by the fact that while Scrooge is willing to bust down doors, he still has morals, as well as the wisdom to not go overboard Heron often lacks. It also makes her a good contrast ot the equally skilled Beakly: While Beakly is taciturn, controlled in all things especially her emotions, Heron is bombastic, gloating and borderline insane, and while deadly in a fight, dosen’t exercise any control in her plans, preferring it big and loud despite her partner usually being right about reiging it in.  So Heron evacuates dramatically, taking a grumpy Bradford with them, and sending the plane into a tailspin. 

I can’t wait for Next Year’s Tailspin episode. I swear to god. I’m hoping for Shere Kahn but this episode has taught me to be okay with disapointment, if a grumpus. Della however shows her natural talent and despite having no real experince with planes, lands it gracefully. While that’s going on, Bradford berates Heron for her plan, pointing out that they COULD have simply landed the plane, then captured the McDuck family and executed them quitely, versus leaving a chance they’ll survive which they do. They AREN’T supervillains.. or at least he thinks he isn’t. Heron does show off her competence though, pointing out that this way they can simply stay low, and FOLLOW the Ducks to the treasure. Bradford is impressed for a second.. till Heron’s evil shows as she plans to use the Papyrus. Bradford loudly objects to this, listing the possible risks shown before. If not used CAREFULLY, it could kill them, and she balks and wants him to just embrace being the Villian already. It’s what I love about their dynamic set up here: While they are equals, Bradford is a better strategist, able to think and plan way in advance, and prefers subterfuge, and if present day is any indicatoin probably used Heron’s flash to distract from the real mission or goal often or to do something on the down low while she kept SHUSH busy. His last two plans, while again requiring some pizzaz, relied on misdrection: having the ducks take care of an immidate threat like their used to.. while he gets exactly what he wants while their busy and whatever they get out of it is either nothing (Impossibin) or something he couldn’t use just yet and thus if he didn’t get it, no loss, but if he did it just moves up the timetable. Not only that but he’s outlasted all three other big bads, lying in the shadows till it was too risky to leave scrooge and play and even THEN, only coming out into the open when forced out. IT’s why he’s Scrooge’s most dangerous opponent: He knows how Scrooge’s other enmities operates as well as Scrooge himself. And since he knows everything he can maneuver Scrooge exactly where he needs him to do exactly what he wants. It’s unknown how the family will beat him, but he’s easily the biggest challenge they’ve had. 

But back to the show and the past, Scrooge bonds with his niece and nephew, retelling stories of his past as they get closer, with Donald ending up high at one point and thus seeing the ship stranded on a mountain. As he recounts a fight with El Capitan, the villian from the ducktales 87 pilot, he counts the story as as a loss: He didn’t get anything from it, no treasure no new contracts. But Della shows him the point he’s been missing; He got a story. Sure he lost.. but he got experince, a tale to tell and a legend grown.Just because you don’t get everything dosen’t mean it wasn’t worth the experince and you can’t hold it in your heart. And this episode shows why this scrooge needed his family: Without Teddy to mentor him, he simply never got that adventure wasn’t about gains or what you get.. it’s about the thrill of it, the enjoyment of discovery and the memories you make.. it’s about the Journey not the destination. 

As Scrooge starts to warm up to that, he finds a gap, with Della volunteering Donald to jump but Scrooge just having the kids hop on his back and pogo caneing across. The family find the Papyrus, and find out why the ship is all the way up here: Captain Yellowbeak, who’s a character from one of barks stories and the one who had the scroll last, wished to escape.. but that just stranded them. He asked for water.. and it drowned his crew.. and finally with the document hteir reading he asked for release... and thus is now a skelington. The kid are happy to have reached the goal.. while Scrooge is back on his Zack Morris phone trying to reschedule things and schedule a SHUSH evac, to the kids annoyance. However Scrooge raining on their parade gets interupted by Heron and Bradford, as Heron can’t resist popping out dramatically and Bradford is UTTERLY furious since she blew his cover, and Scrooge recognizes him from his christmas party, a nice callback. Scroog being scrooge figures out he’s the mole and Bradford runs , furious at Heron. Their conflict is an intresting one: Both have a point but both will not back down. Bradford is right this showboating nonsense has only hindered Heron’s plans.. and Heron is right that Bradford needs to accept he’s the bad guy. Even if he has well meaning motives, he’s the villian, he works with them, he leads them.. he is one.  He just can’t accept he’s wrong or dosen’t have the answers... huh.. I wonder who that reminds you of. And that’s 100% intentional as Frank has outright compared Huey and Bradford and like last season it’s neat to have the main vilian contrast our chosen Duck for the season. 

Heron outfoxes the kids and gets the papyrus and being just an enitrely black hearted bitch, plans to kill them just to spite scrooge.. writing that “his sidekicks will perish on this mission.”.... but Scrooge’s character development, and her choice of words, means nothing happens. As Scrooge outlines, “Their not my sidekicks their my FAMILY, and this isn’t a mission, it’s an ADVENTURE”. Scrooge has finally accepted his life for what it really is.. and the thrill of the chase over what lies at the end. There’s always anothe rainbow.. and he’s finally become the man who will chase every last one. 

OF course this is interupted, and Heron escapes with the papyrus, when a skeletal pirate attacks.. why is Yellow Beak alive, why’d the scroll do this?

But we get a neat fight as Scrooge fights the skeleton while he sends the kids after Heron. Scrooge gets a cool looking swordfight, while Bradford gets the papyrus, and Yellowbeak even terrifies me what with his bestial roll and fucking centepede crawling out of him.. jesus those things freak me out.  Meanwhile the kids battle Heron, who throws della overboard... and thus for the first time, Donald taps into his beserker rage, snikty snoink, and easily incapaciates the more experinced and fully grown adul, though Della since we’eve been following her kids for the past three seasons, is fine, if suprised by her brother being the goddamn wolverine. 

While heron is out for a second, Scrooge heads after Bradford, and vows to tell Beakly and chase him all across the world. However Bradford gets an utterly awesome moment.. he admits scrooge may be right and probably would.. but since he has the papayrus and is careful in everything he writes his request carefully and perfectly “As far as the ducks are concerned, I was never here.” Grante dit COULD have left scrooge out.. but since he didn’t sday duck family or specificy, and likely knew it’d do that, it instead just means the three bilogical ducks. Bradford dissappears, turning invisble and leaving the papyrus for scrooge, who foils heron by simply writing that this scroll will be lost until one day found by his heirs.

So Heron takes a fall and looses an arm, again.. or for the first time.. the family is triumphant and despite loosing his goal, Scrooge is convinced he and the kids will find it again. See above. Scrooge then pulls out his phone and tells Duckworth to rework his schedule.. but it’s so he can find someone to run his comapny so he can spend more time with the kids. As for why Hortense would allow this before her still mysterious passing.. i’m guessing A) she notices her brother is happier and more alive than he’s been for a while and B) they just blew up their dad’s ass with a firecracker, and she won’t be able to use it for a while, so she’s double mad, so if it means she gets a moment’s peace and is with someone she trusts.. why not?

So we end on Scrooge packing up, preparing for further adventures.. i’d love a spinoff of this one day. I mean Disney plus needs it, and since Frank is probably going over to Darkwing.. maybe matt could take a crack at this. Just saying. You have the cast ready, a giant world to explore, and 15 years worth adventures. Run that baby damn you! But yeah the inevitble happens and Bradford further proves his magificent bastardry.. by appling for the position of running the company as head of Scrooge’s board, and setting up said board. So now FOWL has unlimited resources, he has a direct eye on what he now realizes is his greatest threat, and the complete trust and faith of both Scrooge and Beakly. It also puts Beakly’s breakdown in context: We now see WHY she went as far as she did: While the revelation was bad for Scrooge, finding out one of his most trusted allies was a traitor the whole time and knew everything about him, for Beakly.. it had to be worse. Finding out one of your best employees, one of the FEW people you ever trusted, and someone you DIRECTLY RECOMMENDED TO SCROOGE, was not only the man who set up your greatest enemies, but had compromised your organization for most of your career. IT’s no wonder she broke down so hard.. while I already gave several reason adding “This level of betrayal and self doubt to the list” only makes it that much harder on her. But for now a partnership is started.. one that very well may end scrooge. 

Final Thoughts: A pretty good episode overall. It’s well paced, to the point I probably forgot a LOT, has some good jokes, and fills in a lot of the gaps in the lore, while giving us a nice insight into bradford and heron. Even without hortense this was a pretty good episode. 

Upcoming Reviews: LIfe and Times; Master of the Mississippi Ride of the Three Cabbleros: The Three Cablleros (House of Mouse) Tomtrospective: Lava Lake Beach

#ducktales #ducktales spoilers #scrooge mcduck #bradford buzzard #della duck #donald duck #black heron #bentina beakley #the first adventure! #the first adventure #cristina vee

[rutabagaemp]

The Galactic Writers’ Guild (Unfinished) - 2018

The galaxy is a strange place, full of strange people. Did you know that there was a man from Earth who dated at least one of every known sapient species, whose funeral was so widely attended that three ceasefires had to be negotiated just so that his lovers could mourn him without bloodshed? Or that, from 2340 to 2344, the president of the United American Nations was a self-aware bacteria named Eunice? Have you heard of tales of Planet X, where a secret cabal of monks is rumoured to keep their star burning through telekinesis? All of these legends and myths are told throughout the known galaxy, igniting the imaginations of trillions of receptive lifeforms across millions of star systems. The folks who share these stories come from all walks of life, from every corner of the galaxy. Some are writers, some are poets, some are simply storytellers, all bonded by the unifying goal of telling tales to as many people as possible. And every so often they all descend on a dingy bar in the ass-end of nowhere to tell stories to each other.

The Crashdown Bar, located on the damp, rocky surface of the asteroid (16069) Wang, was old, and dingy, and smelled of mildew. Next to no one visited it, because next to one visited the detestable little asteroid that it was built on. To call (16069) Wang a rotting, mold-encrusted pile of excrement wouldn’t be too far off the mark, but it hardly does the environment justice. The scant few locals refer to the asteroid by many names, none of them particularly nice. The prevailing one, Lil Wang, is a fairly harsh jab at an inanimate assembly of space dust and rocky materials, but if it brings comfort to those poor souls on the asteroid’s surface, no one’s going to stop them. Underneath an environmental dome that seems to constantly need maintenance and repairs, there’s a small collection of structures, built by and initially inhabited by settlers seeking to colonize the nearby planet of Tau Ceti e. There are several houses, a workshop, a small science centre and the Crashdown itself, all surrounded by abandoned, ruined and forgotten buildings. Lil Wang never boasted an impressive number of occupants, but its population fell drastically after Tau Ceti e, now officially known as Petram to the galaxy at large, and Big Wang to the inhabitants of Lil Wang, was fully colonized. This is because Lil Wang sucks, and no one wants to live there. You don’t move to Lil Wang, you end up at Lil Wang. Every month or so a small transport brings a meagre collection of ex-convicts, transients and other lost souls to the colony. They move into one of the abandoned, crumbling buildings, try to make the most of their fresh start, and usually end up dead within a year or two, either from alcoholism, industrial incidents or suicide. Lil Wang, despite its comedic name and designation, is sadly a very bleak place.

Fortunately, the Crashdown was there to try and lift the spirits of the locals. A handful of patrons would call the Crashdown a “quaint spot for a quick drink”, only to close friends and family, since describing it like that to any of the locals would earn a swift rebuttal and weird looks for several weeks after. Everyone who lived on Lil Wang agreed that the Crashdown was a shithole, but it was the only shithole for miles that actually sold a decent drink. You see, Big Wang was a resort planet, occupied by wealthy tourists and upper class citizens. Ships from Lil Wang and other nearby offworld colonies were typically turned away, leading to limited options for alcohol consumption. The Crashdown, as run-down and awful as it was, boasted a frankly miraculous variety of drinks, all for relatively affordable prices. As such, the bar saw a large clientele, with both locals and offworld visitors passing through its airtight doors.

This success was largely a result of the owner himself, Ernie. Bartending was easy for him, since his species, the Bexa, were natural bartenders. A goat-like species from a planet that no longer exists, the skills of drink mixing and bartending were once taught in Bexan schools, when such schools still existed. This was due to the fact that the Bexa can produce alcohol from their horns, with older and larger-horned Bexa functioning as their own micro-breweries. Once in a generation, a Bexa was born with four horns. This four-horned Bexa, known as the Qufu’, was regarded as highly lucky, and typically became the leader of the species, once they were old enough. The great irony of the Bexa is that they can’t feel the effects of alcohol themselves, due to their body’s extremely high tolerance. Alcohol was instead used for medical and cleaning purposes, and the homeworld of the Bexa was said to be the cleanest of all sentient life. Unfortunately, a short time before humanity first encountered them, the Bexa homeworld was destroyed by forces unknown and the species was scattered across the known galaxy. But that’s enough of the Bexa. Back to the Crashdown.

A long time ago, long enough that no one could remember the exact date, Ernie had purchased a bunker in the side of a hill, a short distance away from the main residential area on Lil Wang. Over the following five years, he had worked with outdated resources, equipment and technology to turn the bunker into what would become the Crashdown Bar. A flickering red and yellow neon sign, depicting a stylized transport pod crashed into the ground, was the only indication that there was a structure inside the hill, aside from the worn-out steel door set into the hillside. After descending a staircase, visitors were greeted by another door, this one made of higher quality wood. “Crashdown Bar” was engraved below a carving of the same crashed ship on the sign outside. Past these doors, patrons found themselves in a decently sized room. Iron mined from the asteroid had been used to coat the walls, and polished stone was used on the floor. In recent times, these coatings had worn down, and in the case of the walls, had begun to rust. The room had been well-lit, once upon a time, but now many of the ceiling’s lights had broken, leaving parts of the room darker than others. If not for the tables and chairs, as well as the bar itself, to the right of the door, it would be easy to mistake the interior of the establishment for that of a warehouse, and a dingy one, at that. The seating and tables weren’t of high quality either; they had matched when Ernie first opened the place, but after a couple decades they were a mix-and-match of various styles, materials, and levels of disrepair. One table next to the entrance was infamous for being made out of the side door of a cargo vessel that was supposed to bring a shipment of tables, but which brought children’s activity tables instead.

The room was more or less just a large rectangle. The bar was backed against a wall that split the room down the middle, separating it into two sides. It was designed to have two bartenders working at once, with dusty shelves of drinks and mixes on both sides, but as time progressed and the population declined, Ernie usually just manned the bar himself. A double-barrel shotgun, with the word “Chekhov” engraved into the stock, was mounted above the side of the bar facing the entrance, though to the locals’ knowledge, it had never been used. There were two old-style television sets mounted on the walls on either side of the bar. One displayed news, the other showed galactic sports. Next to the entrance was a corkboard with a number of notes affixed to it, some more outdated than others. A motley smattering of scavenged posters and art filled out the rest of the walls, strategically placed to minimize the feeling of stepping into an abandoned industrial facility. Along the back wall, a set of stairs led to a second floor, which was apparently where Ernie lived and kept his office. No one went up there except for him, so no one was really sure what it looked like. Guesses ranged from traditional study and bedroom all the way to perverse sex dungeon, though no one was quite sure of the specifics of Bexan mating, and no one wanted to ask the elderly man for information about it.

[There was sure to be a big turnout, since this is the second meeting after the GLA]

That’s enough tangents for now. Surely you came here to meet the authors, yeah? Tonight, it’s about five o’clock, at the end of a work week, so it’ll be a bit more crowded in here than usual. Let’s see…Ernie’s at the bar, as always, and there’s a small handful of regulars slouched over the stools in front of him. One lone Human, looking as if he was dragged through hell and back again, is watching the perky news anchor with disinterest. The only noise, aside from the soft industrial ambience, is the gentle tune that’s playing from a radio Ernie keeps behind the bar. The doors swing open, and it looks like this month, the first two members through the door are the Human writing duo, Mabel Merryweather and Alice Oakley. In case you haven’t heard of them, they’ve co-written dozens of highly-acclaimed novels, many of them set in quaint villages around the galaxy. On this particular evening, they’re dressed in pastel frock coats, one pink and one white, paired with tall, formal boots. Alice has her hair in a bun, while Mabel wears hers loose. Their engagement rings gleam from their intertwined fingers, and they exchange pleasant greetings with Ernie as they pass him. They move to the back corner of the left side of the bar and sit across from each other in their usual spot, the faded blue leather booth that’s seen dozens of club meetings through the years. After settling in, they continue their conversation.

“I’m just not sure Luytea is the best setting for this story.” Alice folds her hands in her lap and thinks for a moment. “I was thinking that a fishing village would be better for it.”

“Babe, Luytea has fishing villages.” Mabel’s voice, sweet and southern English, has a tinge of bemusement. “Fishing is one of their main businesses.”

“It’s just…not exactly what I was hoping for.” Alice absentmindedly rubs her hands together. “It feels too alien.”

“Too alien? Alice, you love Luytea more than anywhere else in the galaxy. What do you mean, too alien?”

Mabel gives Alice a concerned look. She hadn’t been sure why Alice had been so fascinated with Luytea until she went there herself. It wasn’t that the planet was beautiful. In fact, the planet was classified as having relatively subpar aesthetics, due to the naturally occurring sugar dunes that covered almost everything on the planet in a thin layer of gritty material. Alice seemed to love the planet because it reminded her of her childhood home in north England. The weather, the foliage, even the architecture in the main city was nostalgic for her, and it just kept her coming back again and again. Early on, Mabel had a feeling that Alice would want to get married there given how enamoured she was with the planet. Fortunately, the two had agreed that would get married on Mabel’s parents’ farm in rural London.

Now, though, Alice just sighs and rubs the back of her head. “I don’t know, it’s…it just doesn’t feel right, you know? Last time, Oxford Falls just felt right, from the moment we stepped off the train.” Her eyes light up. “Those beautiful, ancient houses surrounded on all sides by wild grass, glowing rose gold in the setting sun.” She seems wistful and lost in thought, but quickly snaps back to reality. “It was the perfect place for our book.”

Their last book was Annie, a novel about a time-travelling American pioneer girl who had wound up in present-day Oxford Falls, located on Akea in the Proxima Centauri system. Critics and audiences had both loved it, and Mabel had chosen the stage of the 131st Galactic Literary Awards to propose to Alice. That was already a month ago, and they still haven’t come up with a solid concept for their next book. Mabel can tell that something’s bothering Alice, but she still hasn’t said anything to her. She reaches out and takes Alice’s hand, but before she can say anything Ernie arrives with their drinks. His eyes glitter behind his wire-frame glasses as he sets down a pint of old fashioned ale for Mabel and a Luytean Shirley Temple; that is to say, a standard Shirley Temple but with Luytean sugar brine instead of ginger ale, for Alice, before bowing slightly and backing away from the table. Alice immediately takes a deep swig of her drink, and Mabel can tell the moment has passed.

The fact that Alice isn’t more excited about going to Luytea is enough to concern Mabel further, but she doesn’t want to press the issue yet. She trusts that Alice will tell her in due time, if she’s comfortable enough to, and now certainly wouldn’t be the best time. As close as they had grown to the other members of the club, and even some of the local population, she still didn’t really want to have this conversation in such a public venue. A few more patrons had filed in since she and Alice had arrived, and the gentle buzz of conversation grows in the background. She sighs, takes a swig of her ale and begins talking to Alice about other possible towns.

Old Castor? Too gloomy.

Xoke? Too far away.

New Old Newford? Too cold.

After several minutes of this back and forth, Mabel gives up, and the two drink in silence for a while. Alice, seated facing towards the TV, watches passively as the anchor explains a recent galaxy-wide shortage of raw wood. Mabel finishes her first pint just before she hears the door open. She turns around to see a very tall man entering the bar. He’s dressed in all black; a trench coat with a hood and bandana, gloves and thick boots, seemingly to disguise his appearance. His gait is lumbering as he makes his way over to the table, and as he draws closer it becomes obvious that he has some kind of tail following him.

“Oh, hello Ver! You’re early too, I see.” Mabel calls out to him as soon as he draws closer. The man nods and makes his way around the table to sit at the booth. He pulls down his hood and the bandana to reveal a reptilian face, similar to that of a crocodile on Earth, but with a shorter snout and blueish-grey scales. One of his eyes is a piercing green with a slit pupil, the other is milky and grey. A scar runs down the right side of his face, starting at the tip of his eye and running down to his mouth. As he sits down, his tail slaps against the table leg and the couple’s drinks shake. Ver gives a toothy, sheepish smile.

“Sorry about that. I always forget how small this place is.” His voice is deep and has a hint of a strange accent to it. If Mabel had to describe it, she’d probably say it was very similar to a traditional German accent from Earth. In fact, Ver is a member of the Dirik, a reptilian species from Planet Kanan in the TRAPPIST system, known for their militaristic nature and intense breeding sessions. The fact that they so closely resemble Earth reptiles was a sore spot for several years after first contact.

Ah, but that’s another tangent. If Mabel cares about Ver hitting the table with his tail, she doesn’t show it; waving her hand and saying “Don’t worry about it.” She finishes her drink and sets the empty tankard back on the table. “Congrats on the win at the GLA, by the way. I’d toast you, but…” She tilts her head towards the mug.

“Allow me.” Ernie’s soft voice appears behind her as if out of nowhere, and she turns to see that the bartender has reappeared with a tray of drinks. The empty tankard is whisked away and is replaced with a full one, while Ver receives several elongated flasks of traditional Dirikan mead, specially designed to accommodate his snout. The two thank the bartender. Ernie just winks and returns to the bar.

“Bless that man.” Says Mabel, before she raises her mug.

“To you, Ver, for being the best poet in the galaxy.”

Ver hesitates. “And to you two, for enriching the lives of readers across the galaxy.”

The three of them clink their glasses together and drink deeply. Alice has almost finished her drink but makes no move to get it replaced. She looks a bit queasy. Mabel and Ver both down their drinks in one go. At some point in the past, when they were both relatively new to the club, Ver had challenged Mabel to a drinking contest. The two were fairly evenly-matched, and in the end the winner was unclear, as the only person who remembers that night is Ernie, and he refuses to reveal the result. Whatever happened in the end, they had collectively consumed more alcohol than everyone else in the club combined. This has led to numerous jabs at their expense in the years since.

“So Ver, did you have any trouble getting here?” Mabel’s words are clear, if a bit slower than they had been a few minutes ago. “I heard you’ve found yourself in another war.”

Ver snorts, or at least, makes a sound that Mabel assumes is a snort. She doesn’t know if the Dirik can snort, or even laugh, for that matter. Maybe that’s why they’re always at war with someone.

“Yeah. Our wise and powerful leader decided to pick a fight with the Vichniel  and now our fleets are at each other’s throats.” He looks more annoyed than anything else. “Time to wait six months for him to back down and sign another crippling peace treaty with another hostile alien empire.”

“Huh.” Mabel doesn’t really know how to react. After all, the Sol Empire doesn’t really get into too many wars. “You seem pretty wound up about this.”

“Obviously. If this keeps up, the Dirik Empire won’t exist within a couple years.”

Alice seems to be struggling just as much as Mabel. “Hmm. Just how strong are the Vichniel, anyway?”

“Strong enough that we shouldn’t be messing with them.” Ver slammed back another drink. “But of course, if you’re the great leader of the Dirik Empire, you can’t let one solitary Vichniel carrier cross through your space without launching an assault on it.” He gives an exasperated sigh and looks at the two women sitting with him. “Sorry, I must be boring you with politics. I get easily distracted when my Emperor is making stupid decisions. How are you two doing lately?”

“Oh, not too shabby. Alice and I were trying to think of a good setting for our next book.”

“Mhm.” Alice nods. “We thought a fishing village would be a good location for it, but we couldn’t settle on the right one.”

Ver thinks for a moment. “Isn’t New Old Newford a decent fishing town?”

“No, we decided it was too cold.” Mabel receives another drink from Ernie, who smiles at her and walks away.

“Hmm. I’m afraid I can’t think of any other fishing villages offhand.” Ver downs another drink. “I’d recommend Nerva on Plazos, but I think the Vichniel just vaporized it earlier this week.”

“Holy shit!” Mabel leans in closer. “How many were lost?”

“We don’t know. The Dirik media’s not saying anything. Too busy covering the Emperor’s decisions and not the war itself.” He sighs. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Plazos was a newer colony, so there couldn’t have been more than a million casualties.”

“A million casualties? Are you referring to the Gamrada?” A voice unfamiliar to any at the table rings out from a figure standing behind the group. To call the voice icy would be to do it a great disservice. This voice is devoid of warmth, a deeply chilling and disturbing sound that seems to drop the temperature of the room by several degrees. The three writers turn, with varying degrees of dread, to see who had made the awful sound.

The stranger is quite tall, standing almost as high as the main entrance door itself. The alien has a humanoid form and features, if slightly elongated in places. Its skin is silvery, metallic and perfectly smooth, glittering gently as the alien moves closer to the table. All four of its eyes are piercing red, and none of the authors notice them blink. A shimmering, dark blue poncho is draped around its shoulders. Tight-fitting pants, of a similar material, and a black leather belt are the only other clothes to speak of. It extends a four-fingered hand to scratch one of its pointed ears, and even this small movement causes the alien to sparkle in the cheap pub lighting. It then seems to strike a casual pose, gripping its belt with one hand, its poncho with the other, and tilting its head down, as if it’s an extra in an old Western. The three writers are momentarily flabbergasted.

Finally, Ver manages to sputter out a question. “G-Gamrada? What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you heard?” The alien stops their power pose and crosses their arms, staring at Ver with all four of its eyes. “The Nebuloids launched some colony ships through a system near Meudron space. The Meudrons took offense and destroyed one of the ships, the Gamrada.” The alien pauses for a second, then points towards the TV on the wall with one of its arms. “The news is just starting to report on it now. They’re estimating that there were around one million Nebuloid casualties.”

Mabel swivels around in her seat and, sure enough, a breaking news report has replaced the galactic poker championships. NEBULOID SETTLERS MASSACRED BY MEUDRONS: MILLIONS DEAD reads the headline. A calm-looking Human is speaking, while images of starship wreckage are shown in the background. The volume isn’t loud enough for anyone at the table to make out what she’s saying.

“Hey Ernie!” Ver calls across the room. Ernie looks up from his chat with a bar regular, sees Ver’s gesture towards the TV, and wordlessly presses a button on a nearby remote. The news anchor’s voice gradually fades in.

“…act of aggression is unknown, as the Meudrons have maintained peaceful relations with the Nebuloids for several years now.” With the volume increased, several other patrons notice the news. There are sporadic gasps of shock from some of the tables.

“The Nebuloid Collective has released a ship’s manifest, revealing the ship’s complement to be around one point two million settlers, including children and spawnlings.” A group of Dirik in the far corner of the bar give a bored glance at the TV and continue drinking. A couple of Meudrons, gelatinous aliens with robotic legs, get up and leave the tavern, looking extremely uncomfortable, or at least, as uncomfortable as a shapeless gelatinous blob mounted on mechanical legs can look.

“No survivors have been confirmed yet. The Nebuloid Collective is treating this as an act of war and is mobilizing their troops. Calls for de-escalation by intergalactic observers have gone unheeded.” Mabel looks back to her companions. Alice looks unnerved, and Mabel takes her hand for support, knowing that the expression on her own face can’t be too different. Ver looks uncomfortable, but doesn’t say anything. The alien standing near them stares at the TV for a moment, its eyes continuously unblinking. Then, it offers a hand to Ver.

“How rude of me not to introduce myself. I am Xiven. This is my first time attending this club.”

Ver hesitantly shook the alien’s hand. It was cold, like grasping a metal rod, yet surprisingly soft at the same time. Mabel let go of Alice’s hand and followed suit.

“Hey, welcome. Always good to see new faces around here. Pull up a chair and relax for a while. We’re a bit early.” She looks towards the bar, where Ernie is watching the news with a look of sadness in his eyes. “You may want to tell Ernie what you want to drink. We have a tab that we pay off at the end of the night. Galactic marks are the standard currency but I think he’ll accept others…”

The alien opens its mouth and laughs, or at least, Mabel thinks it was a laugh. It sounds like a combination of leaves rustling and chains rattling. Mabel’s arms break out in goosebumps. It sounds more like a machine than an actual flesh and blood being.

“I think I’ll pass, thanks.” Now that the alien is sitting next to her, she can see that the alien possesses very sharp, very metal teeth. “I cannot process fluids. My species subsides off of a special gel indigenous to our homeworld.”

“Do you eat food? You look like you have the teeth for it.”

Another laugh. “Of course! We Caxxom enjoy a hearty diet of silicon-rich rocks and minerals.”

“Oh, are you silicon-based then?” Alice leans into the conversation. “I think you’re the first silicon based lifeform we’ve met. Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Nah, I don’t mind. We’re from the - what did Humans name it? The Kepler-443 system, I believe.”

“Ah, so you’re way out there.” Alice vaguely recalls that Kepler-443 is at least a couple thousand light years from Earth. “I don’t recall any empires out that far…”

“Well, we’re fairly new. We only encountered other sentient life forms around ten of your years ago. We’re just stepping out onto the galactic stage.”

“That’s not too long.” Mabel knows a fair bit more about galactic history than Alice does, having completed her degree in the subject. “Our first contact was a little over a hundred a fifty years ago, so we’re pretty recent too, I guess.”

“Yes, but once you Humans starting exploring, everyone came to know each other.” Ver has just finished another drink and he was starting to feel the effects. If you’ve never seen a drunk crocodile before, you’re very fortunate; if you’ve never seen a drunk Dirik before, you’re missing out on a good time. “I don’t think your species has met another sentient race which you didn’t immediately want to bang.”

Alice sputters indignantly, but Mabel smirks. “Yeah? As if there aren’t entire subspecies of Dirik caused by you guys sticking your dicks in everything.”

Now Ver is sputtering. “That’s…whatever! It’s irrelevant!” He takes another swig and looks to Xiven. “I don’t know if you’ve heard this story before…”

“I know a couple stories…” Xiven starts to speak, but Ver continues anyway.

“Very first human on Kanan? Diplomatic ambassador. One of very few aliens to set foot on our planet. First thing they do? Wind up in bed with one of our diplomats.” Ver points to Mabel. “Humans? Absolutely determined to fuck everything and anyone possible. It’s how they know so many other species, how they spread so fast.” He turns to Xiven. “You want to get in contact with any unknown races? Tell your government to talk to Humans.”

Whether it was a joke or not, Xiven seems to take it seriously. “Thanks. I’ll tell my superiors about this.” Xiven’s eyes fixate on Ver. “You never introduced yourself.”

“Ah, my name is Ver.”

“Nice name. You’re a…Dirik, I’d wager.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Right on.” Xiven leans back. “How intriguing. You’re the first…Dirik?” Xiven fumbles with the pronunciation again, but Ver nods and Xiven continues. “The first Dirik that we have encountered.”

“For a new alien race, you seem to have a pretty good grasp of our languages.”

“Are we the first humans you’ve met?” Alice interjects. Xiven shakes their head.

“No, we know about you. A small amount of you wind up in our space from time to time, either by accident or for exploration. I believe the first time we encountered your kind was…five of your years ago. A small vessel with a skeleton crew. After we repaired their ship, they told us where your empire was, and they mentioned the club that gathers in this tavern.”

Alice frowns. Not too many people were aware about their gatherings here. The club isn’t exactly a secret, but it’s not common knowledge either. A glance at Mabel tells Alice that she was thinking the same thing. “Who was the captain of the ship?”

“He called himself Malcolm.”

“Oh! Malcolm Kayode?” Mabel snaps her fingers in realization. “Black, tall, buff dude, eye patch over the right eye?”

“That sounds about right, although he didn’t have an…eye patch at the time of our encounter. Both of his eyes were unobstructed.”

“Huh.” Mabel strokes her chin. “He had that eyepatch when I first met him, two years ago. I know he didn’t have it seven years ago, when he and Ver first met…”

“Still had both his eyes at that point, and I still had both of mine.” Ver’s blind eye seems to flash in the low light of the room.

“What exactly happened to your eye, if you don’t mind me asking?” Xiven turns their four, perfectly functional eyes towards Ver.

Ver waves a hand dismissively and leaned back. “That’s a story for another time.”

Mabel continues. “Now we know that he still didn’t have it when Xiven met him five years ago. That leaves a three year period for him to have been grievously wounded.”

“I’m pretty sure someone else had mentioned meeting him without the eyepatch, but I’m not sure who that was.” Alice thinks for a moment. “It could have been Velvet, or even Razza…”

Ver clears his throat. “I’m sure our new friend finds this all very interesting-“

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Xiven cuts in without a hint of sarcasm. Ver’s good eye twitches and he continues.

“But,” he emphasizes the word, glaring at the metallic alien, who doesn’t seem to notice, “we were in the middle of learning more about Xiven’s planet.”

Mabel waves her hand. “Of course. Where were we?”

“I think we were learning about the former interactions between the Caxxom and Humanity.”

“Sounds about right.” Xiven crosses their arms and leans back in their chair. “I was a member of the scientific team that communicated with Malcolm, the one who found his ship in the first place. Your friend’s vessel was quite badly damaged.” They turn their attention to Mabel. “He didn’t answer my questions, so I’ll ask you instead. What exactly does Malcolm do?”

Mabel shrugs. So does Alice. Xiven turns to Ver, and gets a similar response.

“We have no idea.” Mabel drains what’s left in her mug. “All we know is that he has enough free time to write those mystery novels he does.”

“Yes, he did offer me one of those…mystery novels upon his departure. It became quite a sensation on our homeworld. There aren’t that many Caxxom fiction writers, so that book was really something.”

“Not many fiction writers?” Alice addresses Xiven. “What sort of writing do you do, exactly?”

Xiven gives another one of their metallic laughs. “Mostly scientific reports. Mineralogical reports are of particular interest. Don’t give me that look,” they say, noticing the looks of perplexion on their companion’s faces, “aren’t you the species who came up with the adage ‘truth is stranger than fiction?’”

“So you’re a scientific writer then?”

“Yeah, that’s where my training is.” Their four eyes dart around the table. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, no, of course not, it’s just…” Alice sputters out a protest, but Ver cuts in.

“We don’t really get a lot of scientific writers here. The people here typically write fictional stories.”

“Oh? What do you write then?”

“I’m a poet.” He leans back in his chair and grins. “I try to draw attention to the atrocities of my government through my works.”

[...]

#creative writing #sci fi writing #sci fi #spec fi writing #spec fi #alien creative writing #writing #unfinished

[wesleyhill]

The Coronation of the Crucified

A homily on Philippians 2:1-13, preached at Trinity School for Ministry, October 4, 2017

Coronations are often terrifying. The enthronement of a new king or leader can make you queasy with dread. If you’ve never had to fear when a new prime minister or president or monarch comes into power, then you have lived a life of rare privilege. For many, many people in the world, throughout history and also presently, including in our own “land of the free and home of the brave,” the passing of power to a new ruler is a matter of gnawing anxiety.

One of the most haunting pieces of cinema I’ve ever seen captures this fear very well. At the end of The Godfather, the protagonist, Michael Corleone, stands near the baptismal font in an ornate Catholic church for his nephew’s christening. And as the camera lingers on his stoic facial expression and his elegant suit, the scene cuts to a series of assassinations that Michael has orchestrated that are happening at the very same time as the service of baptism. It turns out that Michael has arranged to become the kingpin of the New York mob, and he is ascending to his throne by means of a bloodbath. The cost of his rule is the death of anyone who stands in his way. And the agonizing, devastating final scene of the film shows him being crowned, as it were, as “Don Corleone”—the new monarch of terror.

This fictional story is haunting enough, but it happens in real life all the time. Dictators who trample on human dignity get to ascend their thrones. Terrorists get to seize the reins of power. Evil overlords who care nothing for the poor or the sick get to take control of governments and kingdoms, and the citizens consequently have to fear for their lives. Coronations, for much of the world, are occasions of uncertainty and worry and alarm.

St. Paul’s church in Philippi would have immediately recognized our epistle reading for today as a coronation scene. God the Father is laying the crown of empire on Jesus’ brow, and the citizens are expected to pay him homage: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Paul’s hearers would have recognized this scene, and perhaps it would have conjured up for them all the churning emotions that coronations usually conjure up: the trembling uncertainty about how severe the new king’s reign would be, the nagging apprehension that the king might demand of them what they aren’t able to give, the dread of what wars the king might lead them into. This is the way things go with kings in our world. Perhaps Paul’s hearers, the Jewish ones anyway, would have remembered the words of their prophet Samuel:

These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king. (1 Samuel 8:11-18)

The world of the first-century Philippians was sadly familiar with this sort of kingly script. The Philippians were used to ambitious would-be rulers rising through the ranks by means of betrayal and intrigue and backstabbing and nighttime assassinations. They were familiar with the story of Julius Caesar’s stabbing. They knew the way this plot always unfolds. And we do too.

But Paul’s coronation scene doesn’t follow the usual pattern. For Paul, the One who is exalted, the One who receives the title of “Lord” and accepts the bending of all knees, the One who is installed as the One True Emperor, is the same One who has endured the utmost humiliation and defeat: “Christ Jesus… though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” The One who is crowned King of the world, the One who now receives all power and authority, is the One who has already identified himself with the uttermost extremities of the human condition. The One whom Paul says God has now exalted is one of us.

But not only that. If that were all Paul wanted to say, we may still have cause to fear—because we all know people who may have started out from humble beginnings but became insufferable tyrants once they made it out of their poverty and humiliation. Perhaps that is one of our fears as we hear this epistle this morning: Perhaps, along with the original readers of Paul’s letter, we fear that Jesus the Lord may have begun his career with mercy and kindness and generosity, but now, on this side of his resurrection, he is switching tactics and is now going to rule with an iron fist and show no mercy. Perhaps we are afraid that the Jesus who touched lepers and forgave sinners has now become the stern Judge who will no longer touch outcasts and whose patience with sinners has reached its end.

Paul’s point, I think, is exactly the opposite of that. The resurrection and enthronement and coronation of Jesus as the Lord of the whole world does not mean the abandonment of who he was before. No, his resurrection and exaltation means that he is now always and forever the Crucified One. His exaltation and installation as the Lord of all means that who he was is now who he is for all eternity. He will always be the one who took our nature to himself. He will always be the one who subjected himself to humiliation for us, the one went all the way to the most undignified death of being strung up on an instrument of Roman imperial torture. His coronation as king is, if you like, the freeze-framing of his identity as the Self-Giving One. Karl Barth says it this way:

[H]e who became Man and was crucified, whose abasement and humiliation is not by any means washed out or canceled—it is he who is exalted, it is to him the great name is given, it is of him, as the Equal of God that he never ceased to be, but as the Equal of God who abased and humbled himself, that all that follows is said…. [P]recisely he who was abased and humbled even to the obedience of death on the cross is also the Exalted Lord.

Or, as the author of the epistle to the Hebrews puts it, far from being raised as a terrifying dictator, Jesus now “always lives to make intercession” for us (7:25).

Throughout his teaching and writing career, the theologian Robert Jenson often made the point that Jesus’ resurrection and enthronement, taken by itself, is not straightforwardly good news. After all, there are many people one would not want to see rise from the dead and take the throne as Ruler of the Universe. Any honest look at world history should make that clear. Coronation is often anything but good news in our world. “[T]he proposition ‘Stalin is risen’ would not be good news for many,” says Jenson. “‘[T]he chief keeper of the gulag is risen’ would be good news to very few….. [But] ‘[t]he unconditional friend of publicans and sinners is risen’ is good news to anyone willing to try those shoes on.”

And that is what Paul proclaims in our epistle. The One now seated on the throne, the One to whom we all bend the knee and pay homage, the One to whom we swear allegiance, is the One who has first bowed to us. “We are at the feet of the God who washed our feet,” said E. Stanley Jones. The One we worship is the One who bears the scars of the death he died for us. The One now crowned with glory and honor is the One who has shown us definitively that he intends to use that glory and honor for our good for all eternity. The One who was crucified for us is now crowned as our King. And unlike the earthly coronations we rightly fear, this coronation guarantees that our salvation—our forgiveness and our healing and joy—will last forever.

Amen.

[lyralikesdonuts]

Essay written on Central Americans coming to US

English 100

Essay 3

           There are a number of migrants that come to America from Central America that face extreme marginalization as they arrive. Many immigrants come to another country for several reasons. They could be coming into the country in order to pursue financial change, joining family, starting anew, jobs to support family back home, or escaping violence and hardships as refugees. Central America and the United States have a long history of migration between the two countries. Over the decade, immigrants from the Northern Triangle comprise of 86 percent of the Central Americans in the United States (O’Connor, Batalova, and Bolter, 2019).  Out of Central America, there are three main groups of migrants that will come out of the Northern Triangle. The Northern Triangle is comprised of migrants that are coming from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras (Gonzalez, 2019). One of the largest of these groups of migrants from the Northern Triangle are from Honduras. Despite the increase of border control within America, there is a continuation of Honduran migrants that attempt to enter the country and brave the dangers of travel, potential abuse, and the possibility of deportation and entering America illegally. In the eyes of migrants traveling from Honduras, the opportunity to better their lives greatly outweigh what perils they may face.

           Out of the reasons to escape Honduras, rampant rape and violence plays a large role in their emigration. Numerous migrants of Honduras, especially women, face violence at the hands of men in their country in regard to high homicide rates, gang activity and other violence at home (Cohn, 2017). Women of all ages are afraid for their lives. Furthermore, the Honduran government does not provide much protection for their suffering. Many females end up in unwanted pregnancies due to lack of punishment and protection from the government.  One in ten females in Honduras report that she was abused physically or sexually at least once in the year, but a countless number of these events go unreported (Cohn, 2017). Protection from abusers is almost absent due to religion in the government. Extreme influence of the Catholic church in government, deemed abortion as illegal and there are no exemptions, including: pregnancy resulting from rape, incest, severe fetal abnormality or the life of the pregnant woman (Cohn, 2017). A woman’s life and well-being are nowhere near recognized in this country. A stillbirth or miscarriage can be a means for a woman to be imprisoned and charged with terminating her pregnancy (Flipovic, 2019). There are no options for a woman dealing with an unwanted pregnancy in Honduras. If a woman experiences rape, some would consider it part of her inevitable fate that was decided by God. In Catholicism, a women’s role is to bear children and abortion would be a murderous sin.  In reality, many of those affected by this traumatic experience would consider suicide or escaping to neighboring countries (Flipovic, 2019). The trauma that one experiences from sexual violence runs deep. It would be a lifelong memory that haunts victims forever. Leaving their home country is simply a way for them to flee a horrible situation in hopes of a better life (Gonzalez, 2019). It may be the only thing they can do to escape punishment from government.

           Many of the people traveling from Central America face corruption in leadership. In Honduras, it is common for women to see their attackers go to jail for a short amount of time and are not offered protection from threat (Flipovic, 2019). A few women will deal with policemen who end up raping them. In POLITICO, a woman retold her story of her accounts of rape and violence stating that, “after fleeing torture from her drug dealer boyfriend, a police officer offered to take her to a bus stop only to rape her in a field; afterward she was sexually harassed by a group of men on her way home” (Flipovic, 2019). Many actual accounts of violence and rape may be unreported due to safety reasons. Those that experience rape or violence will have to be wary of their safety, as well as their loved one’s safety, from vengeful enemies (Flipovic, 2019). Rape victims that seek justice are often fearful for their families as abusers will find others to get revenge for them. These happenings make it unsafe for men, women, and children alike.

           Numerous dangers lie in the travel from Central America to the United States. Traveling via caravan, attempting to cross the border, and escaping their homes is a great feat. Groups of migrants will travel in caravans by walking or taking buses, if they can afford it toward Mexico to get to America (Flipovic, 2019). The safety in walking in a group can allow singular persons and families to travel. There is great risk in traveling such long distances without precautionary preparation and may travel extremely famished. Migrants in caravan also risk possibility of being detained by Mexican security forces that detain undocumented migrants (Semple, 2020) This long-distance travel may be difficult, but for some, it can be a matter of life or death. Many of these travelers may be escaping violence and poverty. This travel will provide a means to improve their lives, perhaps financially.

           In comparison to their homeland, migrants view the United States as a beacon of hope. A land of opportunity to change the life they’ve been handed. Immigrants will leave their homes due to poverty, desperation, suppression, and lack of hope and are looking for a chance to improve their lives (Gonzalez, 2019). Many are driven to America since many will also have the option to move in with family and seek employment at the same time. According to surveys, there is a correlation with Northern Triangle migrants and flow of money from the U.S. back to the Northern Triangle is substantial (Cohn, 2017). This provides clear evidence that many come to America to help their families in their home country. Pursuing a job in the United States is a path for immigrants to improve both theirs and their children’s. lives They may have no other choice to financially improve compared to staying in their home country.

           Many of those that arrive successfully in the USA will find jobs in service and manual labor. According to the Migration Policy Institute, they found that immigrants from Central American were 32% were working in service occupations, while 23% were in natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations; 18% were in production, transportation, and material moving occupations (O’Connor, Batalova, and Bolter, 2019). Immigrants will typically find jobs that they can do at a lower rate than American citizens. In 2017, the median income for Central American immigrant households was approximately $46,000, compared to American-born households at $60,800 (O’Connor, Batalova, and Bolter, 2019). Many immigrants will find themselves living in poverty. However, the drive to pursue financial stability is a means to maintain a immigrant’s new way of life.

           Immigrants that arrive to pursue employment or reunify with family in the United States are widely discriminated against despite coming from unhappy backgrounds. Fiery rhetoric and discrimination against immigrants in media play a large part in their defamation. Today’s administration spreads information to media that will portray Latin American immigrants as people from violent gangs and unlawful organizations as a whole.  Vice President Mike Pence stated that immigrants from Central America drive illegal immigration and carry illegal drugs northward into America (Cohn, 2017). News of immigrants arriving illegally to bring drugs to American-born citizens are spread by right-wing activists. This depiction of a large group of people is irresponsible and must be stopped. Violence incited by inflammatory language toward innocents will only cause harm. Reckless leadership is ultimately a loss for the American people. The American people are often misled by politicians and may not research evidence behind their claims. Blind followers are created by fueling of emotions with this type of leadership.    

           The United States and Central America have a long history of migration. As both countries have changed over time, the increase in travel to America has become a dangerous necessity for some. Many of those that travel to America face violence from gangs or in their homes with little protection from government. Catholic influence on Honduran government puts many women at risk from unwanted pregnancies, while also empowering abusers to allow them to rape with little consequence. Women are basically unarmed in terms of fighting back if they are raped, while also facing injustices from police corruption. Despite pushback from U.S. government, these reasons force migrants to arrive.  America can provide Hondurans and others of the Northern Triangle the opportunity to change their lives financially. Statistical studies prove this. Immigrants will use their opportunities available to change their lives. Sadly, their relocation is made unsafe by right wing media stereotypes who criminalize Central Americans as a whole. Many immigrants that are refugees are arriving in the United States. It is difficult for all countries involved when determining how to improve this situation. Religion in government may play a huge factor in altering how a country is run.

    Annotated Bibliography

1.     Cohn, D’Vera, Jeffrey S. passel, and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera. “Rise in U.S. Immigrants From El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras Outpaces Growth From Elsewhere.” Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends, 7 Dec. 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2017/12/07/rise-in-u-s-immigrants-from-el-salvador-guatemala-and-honduras-outpaces-growth-from-elsewhere/

2.     Flipovic, Jill. “‘I Can No Longer Continue to Live Here.’” POLITICO Magazine, POLITICO, 7 June 2019, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/07/domestic-violence-immigration-asylum-caravan-honduras-central-america-227086.

3.     Gonzalez, Daniel. “The 2019 Migrant Surge is Unlike Any We’ve Seen Before. This is Why” USA Today, 25 Sep. 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2019/09/23/immigration-issues-migrants-mexico-central-america-caravans-smuggling/2026215001/

4.     O’Connor, Allison, Jeanne Batalova, and Jessica Bolter. “Central American Immigrants in the United States.” Migration Policy Institute. 15 Aug. 2019, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-american-immigrants-united-states

5.     Semple, kirk. “Migrant Caravan Embarks From Honduras, Posing Challenge to Region.” New York Times. 15 Jan. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/americas/migrant-caravan-honduras.html

[kennethmullins]

Randazza: Damn right we should get rid of birthright citizenship

by Marc J. Randazza

American citizenship is one of the most coveted statuses that mankind has ever invented. A majority of the 7 billion people on this planet would gladly swap their passport for a nice blue one with a gold eagle on its cover. And how do you get it? For the most part, you get it by being born in the right place or to the right parents. Yeah, there's naturalization … but only about 20 million citizens, out of 350 million are naturalized. In other words, those who become “Americans by choice” are almost statistically insignificant. Even then, I think that the path to citizenship is nothing more than a bureaucratic game — and doesn’t really confer citizenship upon the “deserving.”

Therefore, I agree with President Trump — we should get rid of birthright citizenship. But, I believe we should get rid of it for EVERYONE. Open the gates of citizenship to everyone as well — even illegal immigrants — on the same terms as are offered to someone whose entire family tree grew from the planks of The Mayflower.

The problem in this country is not that Mexicans are streaming across the border to have anchor babies.

We had a huge flood of immigration in the early 20th century, and but for that immigration, America wouldn’t be half the country it is today. Immigration is not the problem. The problem is that so many of our home-grown citizens are stagnant, lazy, and stupid (and yes, so are many of our new arrivals). So how do we separate the wheat from the chaff?

We should have a “point system” for how much citizenship you get, with completely open borders. This country is built on freedom and competition, right? Let’s inject competition into the citizenship market!

We would each earn between 0-100 citizenship points. 50 points, you’re a citizen. At 75 points, you get Bronze Citizenship, 85 points you get Silver Citizenship, and at 95 points you get Gold Citizenship. Anyone who hits 100 points even, gets Super Eagle Citizenship.

If you have one of the higher-status citizenship categories, you get certain privileges — maybe no TSA lines for you. You can carry a gun anywhere you want. You can cut in line at the DMV or other government agencies. All men will still be created equal, but some can earn status that makes them quantifiably superior — at least in terms of the rights they get.

You get 5 points for being born to an American parent, so there is a little bit of legacy preference, but not a lot.

You get a certain number of points for having a full time job, graduating from high school, for paying your taxes, etc. Essentially, a few points for doing the stuff that we expect all productive members of society to do. Certain crimes and assorted other fuckups can cost you points.

If you do absolutely everything that you’re supposed to do, but nothing special, you probably wind up somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 points. No special privileges, but a good padding above full citizenship so that one or two screw ups won’t cost you your citizenship.

You get a certain number of extra points for graduating from college, a masters program, or a PhD program. We could give more points for more useful degrees, so yeah, get that MA in Victim Studies, but don’t think that it is going to make you more valuable to us than a nursing degree or an engineering degree, because it ain’t. A law degree, sadly speaking, might not be worth a whole lot.

You get bonus points for truly kicking in to improve America. You author a book. You start a business that employs a certain number of people. You invent something useful. The details can be tweaked as much as we like – but the concept is the same. You get points for being worthwhile and making America greater. If you contribute to America sucking, then you lose points.

It wouldn’t be wholly economically based — as there are non-financial contributions that indicate a desirable citizen. You save a puppy from a burning building. You use that law degree to handle a meaningful pro bono case. Joining the military gets you some extra points. Medals get you points too. Congressional Medal of Honor gets you 10 points that you can’t ever lose.

You lose points by being convicted of crimes, but also by douchetastic behavior that we don’t necessarily criminalize. You hog the left hand lane on the highway, you lose a point every time you do that. Lie about who your kid's dad is, you don't go to jail, but you're not going toward higher status with that behavior, missy. Dude, you sexually assault someone, and we can't necessarily prove it sufficiently to put you in jail, we might still be able to dock you some points. If you put a dog in a stroller, you lose 5 points. If you have an "emotional support animal," you lose 5 points. Because fuck you, you're fucking useless. Holy shit, if you incorrectly use the phrase "fire in a crowded theater," you're losing a few points, my friend. SO FUCKING READ HOLMES OR TO THE UNDERCLASS YOU GO, YOU INTELLECTUAL PEASANT!

Of course, you can be "useful" in some ways that won't necessarily help you points-wise. This system will be as disengaged from the economic system as it can be. Maybe if you make your living by flipping houses or by raiding companies and selling their assets off and laying off the whole workforce, we can dock you a few points. You can still be rich with lower status, but having more money in the bank won’t buy you citizenship points. More money to you, but you’re not getting any closer to being an Eagle.

You can’t serve as a judge, in public office, as a cop, or a lawyer unless you have at least Silver (75 points). In fact, maybe elected offices, and even appointed positions, require a certain status.

If you have less than 50 points, the Constitution doesn’t fully apply to you. Maybe some provisions apply at 10 points or so, but you’re not a full citizen, you don’t get full protection. Certain geographic areas would be closed to people below a certain number of points. You sure as hell don’t get to vote if you’re under 50 points.

If you are over 25 years old and you have less than 10 points, you get nothing. No First Amendment, no Fourth Amendment, no nothing. Essentially, you’re on probation. You have to move out of the way for citizens when you are in line at the store. You don’t get to drive. If your points get to zero, we give you a choice of moving to another country (never to return) or prison — but in Prison, you can earn points and get yourself out. But, if you're a grown man or woman and you can't get at least 10 points, you aren't worth much, so you shouldn't get much.

With this plan, we open the borders and welcome everyone. Certain immigrants get to start with a few points. Perhaps you did some act of service to the United States, like saving American soldiers from kidnappers. You win a Nobel Prize, you get 25 points just to move here. But, your average immigrant gets only a point or two for checking in at the border and letting us know he’s here. A truly worthy immigrant – the kind we want, can earn 50 points in 5 years or less, and within a few decades can even be eligible to run for president. A crappy one will find life here to be very unpleasant, as will a home-grown loser, who might find it more desirable to just leave – thus making room for more worthy immigrants.

So, Donald, you wanna do this? Lets really do it!

Copyright 2017 by the named Popehat author.

[nancydhooper]

Randazza: Damn right we should get rid of birthright citizenship

by Marc J. Randazza

American citizenship is one of the most coveted statuses that mankind has ever invented. A majority of the 7 billion people on this planet would gladly swap their passport for a nice blue one with a gold eagle on its cover. And how do you get it? For the most part, you get it by being born in the right place or to the right parents. Yeah, there's naturalization … but only about 20 million citizens, out of 350 million are naturalized. In other words, those who become “Americans by choice” are almost statistically insignificant. Even then, I think that the path to citizenship is nothing more than a bureaucratic game — and doesn’t really confer citizenship upon the “deserving.”

Therefore, I agree with President Trump — we should get rid of birthright citizenship. But, I believe we should get rid of it for EVERYONE. Open the gates of citizenship to everyone as well — even illegal immigrants — on the same terms as are offered to someone whose entire family tree grew from the planks of The Mayflower.

The problem in this country is not that Mexicans are streaming across the border to have anchor babies.

We had a huge flood of immigration in the early 20th century, and but for that immigration, America wouldn’t be half the country it is today. Immigration is not the problem. The problem is that so many of our home-grown citizens are stagnant, lazy, and stupid (and yes, so are many of our new arrivals). So how do we separate the wheat from the chaff?

We should have a “point system” for how much citizenship you get, with completely open borders. This country is built on freedom and competition, right? Let’s inject competition into the citizenship market!

We would each earn between 0-100 citizenship points. 50 points, you’re a citizen. At 75 points, you get Bronze Citizenship, 85 points you get Silver Citizenship, and at 95 points you get Gold Citizenship. Anyone who hits 100 points even, gets Super Eagle Citizenship.

If you have one of the higher-status citizenship categories, you get certain privileges — maybe no TSA lines for you. You can carry a gun anywhere you want. You can cut in line at the DMV or other government agencies. All men will still be created equal, but some can earn status that makes them quantifiably superior — at least in terms of the rights they get.

You get 5 points for being born to an American parent, so there is a little bit of legacy preference, but not a lot.

You get a certain number of points for having a full time job, graduating from high school, for paying your taxes, etc. Essentially, a few points for doing the stuff that we expect all productive members of society to do. Certain crimes and assorted other fuckups can cost you points.

If you do absolutely everything that you’re supposed to do, but nothing special, you probably wind up somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 points. No special privileges, but a good padding above full citizenship so that one or two screw ups won’t cost you your citizenship.

You get a certain number of extra points for graduating from college, a masters program, or a PhD program. We could give more points for more useful degrees, so yeah, get that MA in Victim Studies, but don’t think that it is going to make you more valuable to us than a nursing degree or an engineering degree, because it ain’t. A law degree, sadly speaking, might not be worth a whole lot.

You get bonus points for truly kicking in to improve America. You author a book. You start a business that employs a certain number of people. You invent something useful. The details can be tweaked as much as we like – but the concept is the same. You get points for being worthwhile and making America greater. If you contribute to America sucking, then you lose points.

It wouldn’t be wholly economically based — as there are non-financial contributions that indicate a desirable citizen. You save a puppy from a burning building. You use that law degree to handle a meaningful pro bono case. Joining the military gets you some extra points. Medals get you points too. Congressional Medal of Honor gets you 10 points that you can’t ever lose.

You lose points by being convicted of crimes, but also by douchetastic behavior that we don’t necessarily criminalize. You hog the left hand lane on the highway, you lose a point every time you do that. Lie about who your kid's dad is, you don't go to jail, but you're not going toward higher status with that behavior, missy. Dude, you sexually assault someone, and we can't necessarily prove it sufficiently to put you in jail, we might still be able to dock you some points. Maybe if you make your living by flipping houses or by raiding companies and selling their assets off and laying off the whole workforce, we can dock you a few points. You can still be rich with lower status, but having more money in the bank won’t buy you citizenship points. More money to you, but you’re not getting any closer to being an Eagle.

You can’t serve as a judge, in public office, as a cop, or a lawyer unless you have at least Silver (75 points). In fact, maybe elected offices, and even appointed positions, require a certain status.

If you have less than 50 points, the Constitution doesn’t fully apply to you. Maybe some provisions apply at 10 points or so, but you’re not a full citizen, you don’t get full protection. Certain geographic areas would be closed to people below a certain number of points. You sure as hell don’t get to vote if you’re under 50 points.

If you are over 25 years old and you have less than 10 points, you get nothing. No First Amendment, no Fourth Amendment, no nothing. Essentially, you’re on probation. You have to move out of the way for citizens when you are in line at the store. You don’t get to drive. If your points get to zero, we give you a choice of moving to another country (never to return) or prison — but in Prison, you can earn points and get yourself out. But, if you're a grown man or woman and you can't get at least 10 points, you aren't worth much, so you shouldn't get much.

With this plan, we open the borders and welcome everyone. Certain immigrants get to start with a few points. Perhaps you did some act of service to the United States, like saving American soldiers from kidnappers. You win a Nobel Prize, you get 25 points just to move here. But, your average immigrant gets only a point or two for checking in at the border and letting us know he’s here. A truly worthy immigrant – the kind we want, can earn 50 points in 5 years or less, and within a few decades can even be eligible to run for president. A crappy one will find life here to be very unpleasant, as will a home-grown loser, who might find it more desirable to just leave – thus making room for more worthy immigrants.

So, Donald, you wanna do this? Lets really do it!

Copyright 2017 by the named Popehat author. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.popehat.com/2018/10/30/randazza-damn-right-we-should-get-rid-of-birthright-citizenship/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Trump’s Travel Ban Ensnares Artists and Authors

Protesters at New York’s JFK Airport following the passage of President Trump’s first travel ban (alls photos by Jillian Steinhauer/Hyperallergic)

The travel ban hastily put in place in late January, blocked by the courts, and replaced yesterday by a revised executive order signed by President Trump, is impeding the free movement of artists, authors, and scholars coming to the US. This week’s order maintains a ban on new visas and visa renewals for citizens of six majority-Muslim countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) and imposes a 120-day halt on the admission of any new refugees to the US.

Though intended to be less vulnerable to judiciary challenges than the first executive order, many believe that the new ban is similarly unconstitutional for amounting to discrimination based on religion. Like its predecessor, the new travel ban seems liable to wreak havoc on the lives of any and all foreigners living in or traveling to the US, even those already equipped with the requisite visas and documents.

In early February, Thair Orfahli, a Syrian refugee and photographer whose images are included in the International Center for Photography’s (ICP) new exhibition Perpetual Revolution: The Image and Social Change, found out that he would not be able to attend a panel at the museum because his US visa appointment had been canceled. “Thair, whose powerful experience is included in the section about refugees, spent months working with our curator Joanna Lehan on editing his images and coordinating his participation in a panel discussion at the Museum on March 8,” ICP’s Executive Director Mark Lubell said in a statement sent to Hyperallergic. “Unfortunately now, given the current political climate, he won’t be there to share his perspective first hand.”

The Argentine curator Juan Garcia Mosqueda, who has lived in the US for a decade and runs the Chelsea art and design space Chamber, claims he was denied reentry by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents after a recent trip back to Argentina. In an open letter recounting the ordeal, he says that following an interrogation and 14-hour detention at New York’s JFK Airport — during which he says he was denied legal counsel — Mosqueda was escorted by armed men onto a flight back to Buenos Aires. “I was prohibited from the use of any means of communication and had no access to any of my belongings, which were ferociously examined without any warrant whatsoever,” he wrote. “I was deprived of food. I was frisked three times in order to go to the bathroom, where I had no privacy and was under the constant surveillance of an officer. Finally, I was escorted by two armed officers directly onto the plane and denied my documents until I reached my destination, Buenos Aires.”

Protesters at New York’s JFK Airport following the passage of President Trump’s first travel ban

Mosqueda’s essentially unverifiable account — as CBP told CNN, the agency is not able to comment on individual cases — is sadly consistent with the stories of three writers and artists, collected by PEN America on Friday, who were detained at US airports by CBP agents who claimed they had the wrong visas, or for no apparent reason at all.

On February 23, the artist Aaron Gach, a US citizen, was detained at San Francisco International Airport on his way home from the opening of an exhibition in Leuven, Belgium, which includes his art and activism project the Center for Tactical Magic. After being questioned about the nature of his art, he was essentially forced to give CBP agents access to his smartphone and all the personal information and data accessible from it. His account of the ordeal, which he made available through a public Google document, tells of a superficially civil but no less intimidating and aggressive encounter.

The Australian children’s book author Mem Fox was stopped late last month at Los Angeles International Airport on her way to deliver the keynote address at a literacy conference in Milwaukee. She described the ensuing two-hour detention and interrogation in an opinion piece for the Guardian, concluding: “In that moment I loathed America. I loathed the entire country. And it was my 117th visit to the country so I know that most people are very generous and warm-hearted.”

The Holocaust historian Henry Rousso, a recent visiting professor at Columbia who is a French citizen and was born in Egypt, was also detained while flying into the US late last month. Arriving in Houston on February 22 to participate in a symposium at Texas A&M University, he was held for 10 hours at George Bush Intercontinental Airport by CBP agents who accused him of having the wrong visa and trying to work illegally in the US. He was only released after Texas A&M intervened on his behalf.

“This incident has caused me some discomfort, but I cannot stop thinking of all those who suffer these humiliations and legal violence without the protections I was able to benefit from,” he wrote of his experience. “How can one explain this zeal if not by the concern to fulfill quotas and justify increased controls? That is the situation today in this country. We must now face arbitrariness and incompetence at all levels.”

While these encounters with CBP agents might seem arbitrary in isolation, they suggest a pattern of increasingly overzealous and Kafkaesque enforcement by agents emboldened by the orders and rhetoric of the new US president. Artists, writers, and other cultural producers are in unique positions to share their experiences through public channels, but for each of them there are countless other detainees who have no such recourse. Indeed, all the people mentioned above make a point, in their respective accounts, of noting their privilege compared to many of the other travelers they saw languishing in CBP waiting rooms.

“[The agents] made me feel like such a crushed, mashed, hopeless old lady and I am a feisty, strong, articulated English speaker,” Fox wrote of her experience. “I kept thinking that if this were happening to me, a person who is white, articulate, educated and fluent in English, what on earth is happening to people who don’t have my power? “

The post Trump’s Travel Ban Ensnares Artists and Authors appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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