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things2mustdo · 3 years

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“White people are terrible,” “I have white privilege,” and “most of the world’s problems are caused by white people” are three general statements countless social justice warriors and their enablers agree with. Yet they are all based on the severest distortion of reality. You or I should no more apologize for being white than an African-American should for being black.

Just as many blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities are made more pliable by the media and the establishment by being told they are eternal victims, white people are made more pliable by agreeing that they need to always feel guilty. Using an SJW “anti-racism” that feels awfully like the leftist version of a Nazi book about hereditary, white people supposedly inherit the evil deeds of dead dudes who owned slaves prior to the Civil War or arrived on a foreign continent in a year like 1492 or 1788.

The establishment-enforced guilt is even greater for those directly descended from such people, but even culturally and genetically unrelated individuals like Polish- and Italian-Americans, whose ancestors pretty much all arrived after periods like the slavery era, are held accountable, too. Why? Even if we ridiculously assumed we can find descendants “guilty” of their ancestry, the white guilt thesis is like putting all of Harlem’s young black men in 2016 under house arrest because 20 of them were involved in a vicious street brawl… in 1937.

Provided you adhere to our creed, neomasculinity and the Return Of Kings community form the broadest functional church you will find. We do not care where you come from, so long as you support our goal of a return to masculine societies that emphasize community-building and do not apologize for taking pride in their own cultures. ROK readers who are black, white, Asian or something else are all equal in this regard.

Here are just three of many reasons why I will not hate or feel guilty about my skin tone.

1. I’m the descendant of victims myself because many of my ancestors were from oppressed ethnic and religious groups

Look at those privileged starving Irish!

Are you heavily Irish-blooded, like me? Italian? Polish? Ukrainian? Were your ancestors Catholics living in heavily Protestant areas, or perhaps Huguenots who had to flee persecutory France?

It’s funny how SJWs prance on about white privilege when over half of all whites who emigrated to America, Canada or Australia, from the Puritans to Yugoslavian Civil War refugees, came because the civilian government or monarchy representing another ethnicity or religion essentially chased them out, had killed their family members, or wanted them dead, too. Many of the white groups who did take the journey, particularly the Italians or Irish, were then subjected to quotas and mistreatment in places like New York for years.

A great deal of my ancestors were Catholics in Prussia and other Protestant parts of northern Germany. This section of my family tree is replete with persecutions, including one great-great-great-great grandfather who lost sight in one eye and movement in his arm after being brutally assaulted by a Prussian policeman. His crime? Being an ethnic German leaving a Catholic church on Sunday in the 1800s. Catholic churches were only for “subhuman” Poles. Catholic Prussians were seen as traitors who belonged in Bavaria, prison, or dead. He ended up eking out an existence as a tailor with one good arm, after both he and his brother were repeatedly refused admission to the civil service for their faith.

In addition, I had Irish immigrant forebears whose fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters died as a result of the Potato Famine. One of these ancestors, the eldest child in his family, was working in Dublin to make money for the family when, in the space of three months, he received news that his parents, all his sisters, and all but one of his brothers had died from starvation, malnutrition, or diseases related to them.

When my aunt did the genealogy over three years, she counted 37 family members in one corner of an Irish county who died from starvation or starvation-related illness in 13 months. The famine was predicted and even aggravated by the British. Considering the squalor into which the occupiers had driven the Irish Catholics, the whole ordeal was fundamentally caused by them, too. With only an extra mouth to feed, this great-great-great grandfather of mine took his barely school-aged brother with him to Australia two months later. What role did these two have in oppressing others, white or non-white, that I should feel shame about today?

Look further back into my family tree and you find German, Dutch and Swiss Jews, many of whom were shunted around various locations within Europe, depending on what limited patience local authorities had for yarmulke-wearers at the time.

With this lineage, what exactly do I have to apologize for, aside from my supposedly very, very privileged, at best lower middle-class English forebears from drab West London and grim Yorkshire? Most of them never saw a dark person, let alone mistreated one. To boot, the vast majority lived poor, thankless lives without clean sanitation, abundant food, or anything close to job security. And these are the stations in life, through no fault of their own, that 95% of your ancestors reached as well.

2. Minorities and other non-whites frequently treated and still treat each other far worse than white people did

Rwandan genocide, anyone?

From the pre-Columbian Central and South American peoples to the Rwandan genocide, non-whites have very often treated one another even more abysmally than whites have treated them. European technology may have amplified the number of indigenous and other deaths in places like the Americas, but raw hatred, aggression, and the continuity of violence can be found in even greater quantities in non-white historical squabbles.

Europeans have also been incorrectly blamed for things like infectious diseases, despite the scientific work of antiseptic procedure pioneer Ignaz Semmelweiss being years, sometimes even centuries away. Meanwhile, non-whites have been allowed to kill non-whites without serious condemnation from SJWs.

For example, critics of the Iraq War and the attempted rebuilding of post-Saddam Iraq have said that the whole country is based on a fiction that dates back to the European post-World War I mandate systems. In other words, if Kurds, Shia Arabs, and Sunni Arabs inhabit the same country, they kill each other! Whilst it is appetizing for SJWs to blame the big, bad British and French for this, it is far from the truth. Kurds and Arabs have been butchering each other for countless centuries. The greatest Muslim figure of all the Crusades, Saladin, was consistently mistrusted because of his Kurdish origins. Similarly, intra-Arab or Arab-Iranian Sunni-Shia violence is age-old and has little if anything to do with Europeans.

Last year, Rock Thompson wrote a superb piece about the hypocrisy of attacking Columbus Day in the Americas. His work exposed the double standards of many Native American and also Central and South American tribes, who pretend their ancestors were routinely peaceful when, in fact, they regularly engaged in deplorable acts of gratuitous violence, including human sacrifices and the sadistic mutilation of enemies who were not so ethnically different. The conquistadors and Puritans are falsely seen as the harbingers of cultural and racial genocide in the Americas. Local indigenous tribes, however, were already hunting each other down for sport well before the tall ships arrived.

3. White-majority countries make the humanitarian world go round

A tent city the Saudis refused to make available for fellow Arab Syrian refugees.

Whenever you find an aid program for starving Africans, war-torn Arabs, or other suffering people, chances are that a number of white Westerners are behind it. Even if they’re not all white, they invariably come from white-majority and/or white-founded Western countries, or are funded by them. All to assuage the guilt of white people living in 2016 who feel the need to apologize for a European colonial regime that replaced almost always far more brutal indigenous ones.

Western countries also welcome non-whites in droves, both as immigrants and as “refugees.” The recent Syrian crisis is a testament to this (over-)generosity. While Saudi Arabia refused to accommodate fellow Arab Syrians in their already-constructed tent city, used normally for the Haj Priligrimage, Germany and other European states bore the brunt of those fleeing, including through the open door policies of leaders like Angela Merkel.

In general terms, white people care more about the developmental outcomes of non-whites. Wealthy non-white countries like Japan and Korea have perfected a system of meticulously keeping their populations pure and rejecting the asylum claims of over 99% of claimed refugees. This asymmetrical state of affairs is ironic when Japan’s own history of colonisation, notably the Rape of Nanking, is taken into consideration.

White guilt is also very profitable for certain establishment figures and zealous entertainers. It’s why twats like Bono and Bob Geldof get up every morning, after all. And, far from sucking the world dry, white folks have repeatedly tried to make it better. Very often this generosity is taken to an extreme, but the point of white-majority countries acting and non-white countries stalling or ignoring remains valid.

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 4 years

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I’m Billy Graham’s granddaughter. Evangelical support for Donald Trump insults his legacy.

American evangelist Billy Graham preaches to over half a million South Koreans at a plaza on Yoido Island in Seoul on June 3, 1973.

By supporting Donald Trump, evangelical leaders are failing us and failing the Gospel. Christian women must step up where our church leaders won't.

Jerushah Duford, Opinion contributor

USA TODAY Opinion • August 27, 2020

As a proud granddaughter of the man largely credited for beginning the evangelical movement, the late Billy Graham, the past few years have led me to reflect on how much has changed within that movement in America.

I have spent my entire life in the church, with every big decision guided by my faith. But now I feel homeless. Like so many others, I feel disoriented as I watch the church I have always served turn its eyes away from everything it teaches. I hear from Christian women on a daily basis who all describe the same thing: a tug at their spirit.

Most of these women walked into a voting booth in 2016 believing they were choosing between two difficult options. They held their breath, closed their eyes and cast a vote for Donald Trump, whom many of us then believed to be “the lesser of two evils,” all the while feeling that tug.

Jerushah Duford and grandfather Billy Graham in Montreat, North Carolina, in 2016.

I feel it every time our president talks about government housing having no place in America’s suburbs. Jesus said repeatedly to defend the poor and show kindness and compassion to those in need. Our president continues to perpetuate an us-versus-them narrative, yet almost all of our church leaders say nothing.

I feel this tug every time our president or his followers speak about the wall, designed to keep out the very people Scripture tells us to welcome. In Trump’s America, refugees are not treated as “native born,” as Scripture encourages. Instead, families are separated, held in inconceivable conditions and cast aside as less than.

The church honors Trump before God

Trump has gone so far as to brag about his plans, accomplishments and unholy actions toward the marginalized communities I saw my grandfather love and serve. I now see, through the silence of church leaders, that these communities are no longer valued by individuals claiming to uphold the values my grandfather taught.

The gentle tug became an aggressive yank, for me, earlier this year, when our country experienced division in the form of riots, incited in great part by this president’s divisive rhetoric. I watched our president walk through Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., after the tear gassing of peaceful protesters for a photo op.

He held a Bible, something so sacred to all of us, yet he treated that Bible with a callousness that would offend anyone intimately familiar with the words inside it. He believed that action would honor him and only him. However, the church, designed to honor God, said nothing.

It seems that the only evangelical leaders to speak up praised the president, with no mention of his behavior that is antithetical to the Jesus we serve. The entire world has watched the term “evangelical” become synonymous with hypocrisy and disingenuousness.

My faith and my church have become a laughing stock, and any attempt by its members to defend the actions of Trump at this time sound hollow and insincere.

One of my grandfather’s favorite verses was Micah 6:8, in which we are told that the Lord requires of his people to do justly, to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly. These are the attributes of our faith we should present to the world. We can no longer allow our church leaders to represent our faith so erroneously.

Women of faith know better

I have given myself permission to lean into that tug at my spirit and speak out. I may be against the tide, but I am firm in my faith that this step is most consistent with my church and its teachings.

At a recent large family event, I was pulled aside by many female family members thanking me for speaking out against an administration with which they, too, had been uncomfortable. With tears in their eyes, they used a hushed tone, out of fear that they were alone or at risk of undeserved retribution.

How did we get here? How did we, as God-fearing women, find ourselves ignoring the disrespect and misogyny being shown from our president? Why do we feel we must express our discomfort in hushed whispers in quiet corners? Are we not allowed to stand up when it feels everyone else around us is sitting down?

The God we serve empowers us as women to represent Him before our churches. We represent God before we represented any political party or leader. When we fail to remember this, we are minimizing the role He created for us to fill. Jesus loved women; He served women; He valued women. We need to give ourselves permission to stand up to do the same.

If a plane gets even slightly off course, it will never reach its destination without a course correction. Perhaps this journey for us women looks similar. Perhaps you cringe at the president suggesting that America’s “suburban housewife” cares more about her status than those in need, but try to dismiss comments on women’s appearance as fake news.

When we look at our daughters, our nieces, our female students, and even ourselves, we feel the need to lean into that tug on our spirit. You might not have felt it four years ago; we do the best with what we know at the time. However, if we continue to ignore the tug we now feel, how will we ever be able to identify what is truly important to us?

I chose to listen to my spirit to speak out. Not because doing so feels comfortable, but because it feels like the right way to leverage the voice God has empowered me with. Now I am asking all of you who feel as I do, to embrace your inner tug, and allow it to lead you to use the power of your God-given voice and not allow Trump to lead this country for another four years.

Jerushah Duford is an evangelical author, speaker and member of Lincoln Women, a coalition of women in the Lincoln Project.

_______________________________________

A false gospel: Trump and the 'prosperity gospel' sell false promises to credulous evangelical Christians

_______________________________________

The forgotten figure who explains how Trump got almost 74 million votes

Why do so many evangelicals continue to deny that Biden won the election?

Six Surprising Ways Jesus Changed The World

Jesus ‘Bows to Moon’

The Korean background of the FFWPU

The FFWPU / Unification Church and Shamanism

The FFWPU is unequivocally not Christian

Sun Myung Moon – Emperor, and God

The Moons’ God is not the God of Judeo-Christianity

Hak Ja Han is ‘Female Jesus, the only begotten daughter of God, the LSA’ (October 24, 2015)

God, Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han achieved unity inside the womb…. Hak Ja Han was lifted up to God’s wife position.

#Billy Graham #Evangelical Christianity #Sun Myung Moon #Hak Ja Han

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saintheartwing · 5 years

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Undertale: Frost

Author's Note:

This was a story I had always intended to write, but never really found the time to. Now I've got more time to, having settled into my new job, working at a brand new hospital. With this story, I intend to be fairly historically accurate to the times the tale takes place in, and the cultures as well. I'll try hard to be respectful, and to be understanding, but I recognize I will make some mistakes. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think, and point out what you like and where I can improve. This story will be covering some very tough, hard subject matter, and I won't really shy away from it though I'll try to not create anything so dark it gets an M rating. Above all else, I want the story to FEEL real, and to feel like the people within actually, truly lived. If I can tell that story, and make you enjoy it, and make you perhaps think a little about the big issues within this story...I'll be happy.

Seriously, nothing makes a writer feel better than knowing people read their work. So please. Don't be afraid to comment or review. And so, without further ado, I give you my vision of the past. I give you...Frost.

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The sun softly lilted over the quiet city of Lincoln, England, the skies above filled with soft, lilting clouds as a gentle zephyr blew through the hair of those walking into the cathedral. It was the tallest building in the world, towering higher even than the Great Pyramid of Giza, with a magnificent central spire reaching to the heavens above in the center of the large church, and smaller spires at the front, its big, huge double doors open and letting all inside.

Even the monsters.

They passed their way into the cathedral's south entrance under the "Bishop's Eye", an enormous, beautiful stained glass rose window, a companion piece to the "Dean Eye" on the north where people would be exiting. This was, of course, deliberate, for the South represented the Holy Spirit, whilst the North stood for the Devil. The Bishop gazed out at the south, to invite in, whilst the Dean gazed out to the North to shun. The Cathedral, therefore, looked upon both Heaven and Hell…metaphorically speaking. All were welcome inside, but when they left by the North, they'd be reminded to be wary of the guiles of the evil one.

And there…there she was. One of the biggest reasons people had decided that perhaps letting the monster race into the town of Lincoln wasn't such a bad idea. She was clad in her plain robes, but her white fur shone beautifully, her eyes closed as she sang for the assembled crowds making their way into the church. The backup choir behind her harmonized along with her powerful yet soft voice, a voice likes that of an angel that instantly drew your attention. Though she had little tiny nubs for horns atop her faintly goat-like skull, and her finger's nails were somewhat pointed, the cute, large feet, the little sweet pot belly you could see, and her voice, the VOICE! All of that was disarming. Even her eyes weren't scary, though red in color, they were very close to brown, and came off as more soothing than sinister as Toriel, proud member of Saint Mary's Cathedral, sang for the masses, as Father White watched in his own soft robes not far away from the pulpit.

As Toriel sang, her cross necklace glinted in the light filtering in through the stained glass windows of the cathedral, and people were practically hypnotized as the words lilted through the air. Her words brought to mind soft grass in a valley, of the wind blowing through flowers, with petals dancing on the wind. It made you think of warm rays of the sun that faintly kissed your skin, and a tenderness that was rare to find on Earth.

"She's one of the good ones, without a doubt." Said Tobias's father as the young lad with the cute smile and rosy cheeks quietly watched her, blushing a bit more as he gazed at her face.

"She's, um…quite a lovely singer, yes." He finally murmured out.

"If only ALL the monsters had as fine a voice as this "Baphomine"." Tobias's father James commented with a sigh as he put his arm around his wife Marietta. Quite a few of the inhabitants in the church nodded at this quietly murmured remark, though Tobias flinched at this, and it comforted him to see quite a few people turning to give James a rather irritated and angry look. "Remember, Tobias. In the service of the lord, even beings as lowly and wretched as monsters can be made almost human. Truly, the church's mercy is a thing to admire that even such beasts can be admired in some way."

"Well…beasts can't talk…" Tobias muttered. "I've not ever heard a dog or cow or frog speak."

"Oh, they can imitate our language much like they imitate our songs, but I doubt they really understand it. Much like how a…PARROT can imitate human speech but not comprehend it. They're merely following our lead, my son." James reasoned. Tobias held his tongue, though for a brief, dark, horrible moment, he imagined kicking his father in the shins.

At last, Toriel had finished her song and bowed, as people clapped in the aisles, and Father White moved forward, nodding his head at Toriel, taking the young, teenage monster's hands in his. "Bless you, Toriel. Bless your heart. And bless all of thee for coming. The Lord be With You."

"And also with you." The masses repeated back.

"We profess our belief in the Lord, Jesus. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whomever believed in him should have eternal life. This is the Gospel of the Lord."

"Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ."

Father White's thick black hair fell about his face as he his slightly scraggly-bearded face looked out among the throng. His blue eyes flitted very briefly over to Toriel before he spoke, loudly and firmly. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees! Hypocrites! For thou are like whited sepulchers, beautiful upon the outside, yet inwardly rotten, full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness. Though thou appear outwardly righteous, within thee is hypocrisy and iniquity! The Gospel of Matthew, one of my absolute most favorite parts of all the New Testament. Every one of thee should know it. Matthew, one of the 12 Apostles, wrote this fine Gospel primarily for a specific audience. Do any here know who they were? Come, please. Raise thy hands. This is a safe place for all who want to believe, and you won't be judged or mocked if you get it wrong."

Tobias slowly raised a hand up, before anyone else, and when Father White pointed at him, he spoke as clearly as he could, Toriel's eyes looking right into his own. "Was the gospel written for the Jews, Father White?"

"Yes. Matthew makes mention of more Old Testament sections than any other gospel, and he saw Jesus as King of the Jews, who fulfills the prophecies within the Old Testament. He wanted Jewish people to be able to welcome Him into their hearts, and to convince them with that which they themselves held dear, the holy words and prophecies and lessons they took to heart. By showing them this, and the miracles Jesus performed, Matthew hoped they would welcome Jesus. Let us pray upon this."

He bowed his head, the people in the Cathedral following suit as Toriel bowed her own head. Come about 45 minutes later, the service was over, and she was nodding as people left the Cathedral…before quickly rushing over to one particular person. Or rather, one particular monster.

"Careful!" She quickly ushered the burning, constantly-on-fire Pyrope away from a tapestry just in time. Phew. Now the depiction of Christ on the cross wouldn't go up in flames! The big, coal-like, large-mouthed monster's head hopped up and down on the coiled, rope-like chest, stomach and lower body of his frame, wearing fancy sandals as the fiery hair he had slightly flared up before it cooled down at the sight of her worried face.

"My apologies." Percival Pyrope remarked, the burning fire upon his round, black, eyeless face turning into a very thin layer of fire, his "normal" state when he wasn't excited. The Pyrope and monsters much like him who could accidentally damage the church had to sit rather separated from the throngs of humans. Didn't want them burning down the church!

"Its alright, really. You've been VERY well behaved, thank you so kindly." Toriel said warmly, bowing at Percival Pyrope as he left the church and Toriel, in turn, walked over to Father White as he looked over a big copy of the Bible at his podium. "You were very, very considerate to use Matthew in today's sermon." She said, as Father Michael took her hands again and shook them.

"Anytime, Toriel. You are as a shining light in our church, and welcome here anytime you desire. You'll never be turned away from here." Father White insisted kindly as he briefly peered over Toriel's shoulder, taking notice of the fact that…yes. There he was. Little Toby had stayed behind and was nervously rocking back and forth on his feet. "May I help you, Toby?"

"Um…may I have confession, sir?"

"Of course. Come this way." Father White led Tobias off across the church and towards the booth used for confession as Toriel, in turn, made her way out of the church and towards the local inn to get lunch.

Though many of the townsfolk smiled a little at her, or bowed their heads, others quietly shuffled out of her way, a few muttering nervously, looking a bit pale as she entered the inn and sat down at a table, the innkeeper sending a server over to her as several people she'd not seen in town before glanced in her direction.

"…oh. Those. Let's…not stay. I'm not hungry at the moment." One of the men grumbled as his friends nodded, the bartender sighing a bit as he watched them leave, Toriel quickly digging into her robes pockets.

"Here, I'll pay a little extra to make up for your lost business."

"A pleasure doing business with you, then!" The innkeeper remarked with a big grin as he nodded at the server. "Hannah, give Ms. Choir Girl anything she'd like!"

"Not a problem at all…" Hannah said with a nod as she stood by Toriel. "So what do you want?"

"I'll have the usual." Toriel remarked as Hannah nodded, going off to get Toriel her salted meat dish she so adored, combined with a nice local ale as Toriel, in turn, took something else out of her pocket…silver shine polish for her cross necklace, a creation of her own design she'd made by herself. In fact, she made quite a bit of good money selling her artistic creations, and used a bit of the proceeds to help the church. It was only fair, she felt, given how they'd let her join, the first monster in Saint Mary's-

Toriel sniffed at the air, turning. Oh. A man behind her was looking over a pie that had been served to him and he tilted his head to the side as he examined it. "I wouldn't eat that if I were you, sir." Toriel spoke up softly as the man glanced up at her, then at the pie. "It smells…" She sniffed at the air. "Yes, I think whomever baked it didn't quite use proper butter."

"You can tell from smell?" The man asked. He HAD looked irritated looking at her but now his expression was one of wonder. "I had no idea. Is it because you Baphomine part goat?"

Toriel inwardly flinched, but she said nothing outwardly and shook her head. "No, no, my kind aren't part goat, we just resemble them somewhat. Much like how a statue only resembles a living being, but isn't truly one. And, uh…we'd prefer being called "púca", good sir."

"Pooka? That's…Irish, isn't it?" The man inquired, wearing a thick robe that looked quite fancy and having a short moustache and beard. He looked very nondescript otherwise as he sniffed the pie. "Well, I'll take your word for it. Thank you very much, Miss…um…your name?"

"Toriel."

"Do you have a second name?"

"Oh, no, we monsters don't always have that either."

"I'm learning so many things about your kind! My name's Hugh, by the way." He said with a small smile as, at last, Toriel's own meal arrived. "Please, sit with me. I'd like to know more about you and your kind. I don't mean to impose, but I've heard so much, and I'd like to come away from this knowing you and your ilk better."

Toriel nodded, and she moved her meal to his little table, sitting across from him. This wasn't the first time this had happened, and probably wouldn't be the last, but she didn't mind, not really. If it meant a better understanding of her people and of her, then this was fine. It reminded her of a story that Father White had said, of somebody seeing someone on the beach, picking up starfish and tossing them into the sea. The second person had admonished this starfish saver. "Look, there's hundreds of these, you'll never save them all. You can't think you're making a difference." But the other man had simply smiled, picked up another starfish, and tossed them off into the ocean, saying "It made a difference to THAT one."

Toriel would be that Good Samaritan. And Mr. Hugh would be yet another starfish. As she began to speak about her kind, she felt something almost familiar in him. Almost-

Ah. Now she realized. His hair. It was rather like that of her friend off in Wales. She wondered how he was doing.

As it were, winter was soon to settle in Wales, and the first quilting of clouds passed its way towards the ramparts of the castle on the hill. The sun's rays were being slowly but surely obscured by the greying blanket that was making its way over the inhabitants of the castle as the guard nonchalantly sat on its ramparts, keeping their eyes peeled. They had their weapons close at hand, ready to snatch up at a moments notice, bows had fresh drawstrings put in them, the spears had been finely shined and armor a-glinted in the few remaining rays of light that burst through the clouds above. A light wind ruffled through their hair as they looked about at each other, ready to make their move. The only question was…who would break first? Their opponent was crafty and calculating and-

"HA."

Lord Llywelyn Ap Iorwerth was smirking in delight, and he picked up the winnings from the men, shaking them about in one hand and looking supremely smug. His moustache quivered in that way it did whenever he was especially pleased with himself, his cloaked frame rising up as he put the winnings from the dice roll in his bag and shook it about in the air, his thick Welsh accent audible for all the men gathered about to hear. "Hear that, me lads? THAT'S the sound of success."

"Just wait." One of the men grumbled as his buddy scratched the bald patch in the midst of the spiky hair on either side of his head. "We'll get our money back soon enough. Another round!" He insisted, shaking his fist defiantly at their lord as his ponytail flopped off the side of his shoulder, his bowman friend adjusting the bag of arrows he had slung around his back. "How about it?" He asked as he turned to another pal.

"…I dunno, Arthus." The somewhat shorter, tubbier spearman shook his head as he plucked a bit at the stringed lute as had in his lap at the moment, humming a bit, his rather large chin slightly bouncing as he hummed a few bars, playing some more of the lute. "I think I want to cut my losses." He said, the slight wind in the air a-ruffling his somewhat poofy hair.

"Dylann is right. Ol' Bowen's up for anything…but not a second pounding at the dice." Bowen the Bowman said in his oddly low voice as he sighed and hung his head, shaking it back and forth. Sitting not far away two knights glanced at each other briefly as they stood on opposite sides of Lord Llywelyn, one with a half-visor esque helm who's lower half was slightly dotted with little holes, chainmail on his arms and legs as he hung his own head in dice defeat. His comrade, who wore a helm that was smooth and square-like and with a slightly jutting-out front with plate armor on his arms, but not his legs shook his head too.

"Gawain and I aren't interested in losing again."

"Iolo, come now!" proclaimed Arthus, looking rather mortified. "That's two week's pay you've lost!"

"And I don't want to lose another two weeks." The plate-mail having knight commented. "My dear "Artie"…one must know when to cut one's losses."

"Perhaps Elisud wants in?" Arthus asked as he and the others turned to the young lad who was looking out over the ramparts, who hadn't joined in the fun at all. Elisud, though being the youngest there at age 16, looked far older than he really was. He was already showing the beginnings of a five o'clock shadow with the faintest sign he was going to have quite the beard/moustache combination. He also had a bit of a receding hairline, his hair wafting about in the wind somewhat as he looked across the long stretches of grass to the east.

Elisud turned to look back at them, a slightly surprised…even annoyed…expression on his face. "Um…well, it is just…I mean, I've been told gambling is a sin, good sirs, and I don't want to sin. I AM going to be a Friar."

"Exactly. A Friar. You Franciscans have to take vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Nothin' in there that says you can't GAMBLE, that ain't one of the 10 Commandments!" Arthus laughed.

"Besides, if you're concerned about the money…just give it back to these fine gentlemen. You can call that "charity"." Lord Llywelyn said with a smile at Elisud as he rubbed the back of his neck. Elisud had been training to be a self-taught Friar for weeks now, he'd read book after book about what it took and he wanted to establish a Franciscan monastery in Wales, there weren't ANY in the entire land and he wanted to be the first.

"Well…okay." He said at last before glancing back across the grass. "But are you absolutely sure we don't need to worry about them?" He wanted to know as he looked back over the long stretches of green at the distinctly white-skinned, odd mixture of ugly and cute that was sitting about 100 yards away from them. He'd been watching that froglike creature for a good ten minutes, and he'd been most unsettled at how it was just STARING at them all.

Froggits, they were called. They looked much like their namesakes, but there was…SOMETHING underneath their little bodies that peered out, some kind of bug of some kind that people suspected allowed the frog-like top to call forth flies to buzz forth and attack the monster's target. The fact that they were only about a foot tall made them a bit more worrisome to deal with than a normal frog, but still…

A frog monster with big stupid eyes that could summon a couple flies or so to buzz at you wasn't too intimidating. At least, the men clearly didn't think so as Dylann plucked at his lute some more and began to play a tune, the men sniggering all around.

"Elisud, it's a damn froggit. They're not scary!" Bowen said as he tapped his foot along to Dylann's tune, the others beginning to hum along as their Lord strolled over to Elisud to look over at the froglike creatures as well. "I mean, a good, hard shot from an arrow will send them scampering away."

"You could kick one into oblivion." Said Sir Iolo as Gawain nodded his agreement. "They're not as dangerous as the Melusine or the Baphomine race."

"Their magical skill's pathetic." Arthus commented. "All they do is summon flies."

Elisud glanced about. "…do any of you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Dylann asked as he stopped fooling with the lute, tilting his head to the side.

"Sort of a…buzzing noise?" Elisud murmured, looking over at the froggits, eyes a little narrowed. "Are they trying to summon their flies?"

"I don't see any over there." The lord remarked as he gazed upon the froggits as well, tilting his head somewhat.

"Really, don't worry, Elisud! The foolish froggits may have numbers but that is all they have. Should any attempt to get within reach of the castle, we shall let loose our arrows on them and they shall perish from the onslaught." Sir Gawain offered to Elisud. "Now come, come!" Gawain rose up too and clasped Elisud on the back. "Try a liiiiittle bit of gambling. You've got a good month to go before you leave us and get started on building the monastery. You can live a little."

"And it's of course an honor to build it with your permission…and money, Lord Llywelyn." Elisud added with a bow. "But if thee don't mind my asking, why did your wife want to help me set it up?"

"I suspect that papal decree from Pope Honorius III has gotten her very grateful towards the Church." Lord Llewelyn mused aloud. "Who am I to deny her? Now come, come! You want to win this gold, don't you?" He asked, shaking the bag about, making it jingle with its many coins. Elisud smiled warmly and sat down on the ramparts as his lord did the same, and Sir Gawain and Iolo began to hum merrily, Dylann beginning to sing as he so often did whilst Bowen and Arthus got out their own respective instruments from nearby bags, a flute and a viol, playing along with Dylann as he closed his eyes and sang joyously.

The song wafted through the air as Elisud and Lord Llywelyn rolled their dice, eager to keep the fun going as the minutes went on, the singing making the group practically glow with a kind of warm, soft light that brought a smile to Elisud's face. Still, even though he was enjoying their singing immensely, he couldn't bring himself to join in, whenever he tried to open his mouth to join in the revelry, he felt himself choke up, his neck tightening.

"If only I had a bit more bravery in me." He sighed sadly. Still, he didn't mind. It was just…nice…to enjoy his time with his wonderful, wonderful comrades here, and nice to have such a good, sweet lord.

"Alas. Snake eyes." His lord sighed as he hung his head, Elisud cheerily holding up the bag of gold he'd just gotten.

"Winning!" He giggled as he held the top open and, one after the other, poured out the winnings for everyone else to take hold of in their palms. "Here you are everyone. My sincerest compliments." He remarked before an idea came to him and he made his way towards the eastern rampart's wall, holding up the still-remaining coins in one hand. "Hello? Froggits?"

The frog monsters ALL turned to look directly in his direction.

"Look, if I were to give thee some coins, would thoust please leave?" Elisud inquired, the rest of his group looking a bit stunned by this, whilst his Lord sighed somewhat. The froggits glanced about at each other, and then "harrumphed".

"Mayhaps they don't have anywhere to put it. Ah well." Lord Llywelyn said with a shrug. "Not everyone welcomes the virtue of charity." He remarked as Elisud walked over to him, giving HIM the last bit of gold he had left, a look of surprise popping on the ruler of Wales's face.

"You didn't have to give me any of it back, I lost it, fair and square." Lord Llywelyn remarked.

"You're already giving me so much, sir." Elisud insisted with a beaming smile. "I could NEVER thank thee enough for that but at the very least I can give you a bit of coinage. Mayhaps use it to buy your wife a new dress with my compliments and deepest gratitude?"

Then he heard it once more. "There it is again!" He groaned, looking left and right. "That BUZZING noise. Don't all of thee hear it?"

The others glanced around, then Bowen sighed as he rose up, readying his bow and arrow and peering down over the ramparts, looking down the walls. "I don't see any silly froggit flies trying to climb up the walls." He called out. "You sure you're not a-hearin' things, Elisud?" He inquired as Elisud rose up, looking about, holding a hand to his ear and closing his eyes.

"The sound is coming from…over…there." He said, gesturing off towards the west as he quickly made his way to the far side of the castle, strolling over a connected pathway bridge, finally arriving at the other side…and his eyes bulged wide with horror. "OH MY GOD!"

Oh his God indeed, for now he saw what the buzzing noise was. The froggits on the eastern side had been a distraction, for a much larger frog that was a good three feet tall and with a crown upon its head stood there, eyes burning like coals, its mouth looking almost like it had been sewn shut, ready to burst open and let loose a horrific, soul-shattering croak. Underneath its body were burning, sickeningly bright eyes, and sweeping all about it…was a SWARM of flies that were sweeping along the grass, barreling towards the castle.

"SIRS! SIRS! We've got a MASSIVE, crowned Froggit to the west!" Elisud cried out. "He's unleashing a swarm of flies upon us all!" Elisud cried out as the men in the courtyard below and on the ramparts immediately bolted upright. Cries rang out as they took hold of their weaponry, Lord Llywelyn seeing the froggits on the east racing towards them.

"They are trying to ensnare us in a pincer movement! We must strike back! Ready your positions! Take aim with your bows, my bowmen and fire, fire, fire! Get me some boiling oil to keep them from getting inside the castle!" He roared out as Elisud reached into the folds of his robes, readying the small crossbow he had by his side as he got out his small little quiver of bows. He drew the string back, readying the bow as he took aim, then cringed. No, no, he could maybe hit a FEW flies but he'd never be able to do any proper damage.

"Light your arrows!" Lord Llywelyn yelled as he and others held up torches, the arrowmen lighting up the arrows they were ready to fire as Elisud did the same, nodding at his lord. "We'll be able to strike more down this way! Here they come!"

The flies had almost reached the castle, that horrific, foul, unnatural buzzing filling the air as the Final Froggit let loose a big, loud, ear-splitting GRRROAAAARRRKKKKK of a noise, and Lord Llywelyn cried "FIRE!"

THWOOSH-THWOOSH-THWOOSH! Arrows soared forth, rapped in burning flames, barreling down at the flies, others aimed at the onslaught of froggits. The screeches and cries of dying Froggits was oddly human in how they sounded, it was SCARY how much a frog's cry was like a man's. But down they went all the same as the bowmen kept firing, big, large, burning chunks getting torn through the ensuing flies. The horde broke again and again, the attempt to break through the castle defenses appeared to be failing.

But Elisud could see a distinctly smug look on the Final Froggit's face. He kept hopping leisurely towards the castle, and the flies kept coming. Elisud didn't know why he was so smug and cheery but-

Then he realized why as he reached into his quiver and found out that he'd run out of arrows. And evidently, so had most of his friends! The men were clearly out of arrows and now they were trying to pour down boiling oil as the flies soared towards them…but the flies could dodge these far more easily than the arrows, soaring up, away from the boiling oil to shoot down at the men.

"AGGGHHH!" Elisud could see his comrades being swarmed by loads and loads of flies. Though the Froggit assault from their front line had failed miserably, the Final Froggit's flies were succeeding very well. They tried to swat and slash and bat at the insects sweeping all about them, getting in their eyes, biting at their flesh, but though they knocked several of them down, it was proving nigh-impossible to kill the little pests.

Only those who'd put on armor had some degree of protection as they were being kept from being bit…until the flies got into their hoods, forcing folks like Gawain and Iolo to rip their helmets off as quickly as they could, spluttering, coughing, digging at their eyes, the flies trying to eat their eyeballs out!

Elisud gasped in horror, surrounded on all sides by his beset friends, the screaming of the dying and the hurt and the terrified all around him. He had to do something. ANYTHING! Anything at all! He had to get rid of all of these flies! He turned, seeing the Final Froggit now atop the ramparts, a distinctly smug look on its features as it stuck its tongue out mockingly at him.

"Not so high and mighty in your castle NOW, are you, humans?" It inquired as Elisud felt a shudder go over him, the frog-like monster gazing right at him as…something unexpected happened.

In fact…three things happened in quick succession.

PING! A big, green heart manifested in midair in front of Elisud, and the Final Froggit sneered at him again, Elisud's eyes widening.

A powerful, yet oddly soothing and tender balm of emerald light rose up around Esliud's frame as his vibrant verdant eyes sparkled.

And he covered his face and his head with his arms, flopping onto his knees, wanting the flies and the froggy monster to just go away, as an enormous, pulsating, throbbing shield of green light cascaded forth, shooting out from his body. THA-THWOOOOM! All of the flies around him, and the Final Froggit too, went sailing through the air, the other flies dissolving away in midair as the Final Froggit's concentration was shattered by the sudden burst of what could only be described…

As MAGIC. Pure Green Magic…from a Soul of Kindness.

TRHROMPH. He hit the ground, groaning, the men gazing in amazement, fear and wonder at Elisud as he looked down at his hands, which slightly glowed with the same green light as the shield, the Final Froggit quickly hopping away from the castle as fast as his little legs could carry him, not wanting to stick around to fight a MAGE as Lord Llywelyn approached Elisud, and the obvious question came from his lips.

"Elisud…how in the name of everything holy did you do that?"

"I haven't any idea." Elisud whispered. "…what did I just DO?"

"That's MAGIC, my boy. Magic, right there. No doubt about it!" Gawain whispered, bite marks all over his cheeks and left side of his face, whilst poor Bowen was missing one of his fingers, nibbled off by the flies as he had his hand wrapped up, and was cringing in pain. "I've only heard stories of the wonders of the mages."

"Does anyone know anything of what green magic does?" Dylann inquired as Iolo rubbed over his eye. He had a VERY nasty wound, the flies had tried to eat it out of its socket and had eaten the eyelid away.

"It's healing magic. Shielding magic. The sign of a compassionate and kind soul." He whispered as Elisud's mouth fell agape. "Perchance he could heal our wounds."

"I can…try." Elisud murmured.

"Try to think of how you used it just now. What was going through your mind?" Lord Llywelyn asked, putting a hand on Elisud's shoulder as he bit his lip.

"I…just wanted that monster to leave us alone. That thought flared in my mind, in my heart. I just wanted him to GO, and…and something erupted up inside me."

"Concentrate then on…Bowen, for starters. Bowen, your wound!" Lord Llywelyn proclaimed as Bowen raced over to Elisud, the others watching on in awe, as Esliud held onto Bowen's hand. "Think only of healing his wound. Try to picture his healed hand in your mind. All of you, stay silent! Let him focus. Let him breathe. Let him feel the swell of healing light within." The lord reasoned as Esliud took in deep, long breaths, as he closed his eyes, his hands feeling over Bowen's injured hand, picturing the flesh growing back.

Slowly but surely, he felt the surge a-swelling up in him but…no, no, it was more like a soft ripple. A gentle wave, a balm that soothingly slid from his hands in a tender green aura, as Bowen's finger began to grow back, good as new, right before their eyes.

"Tis a miracle." Bowen softly whispered, tears brimming in his eyes. "Tis truly a blessing from God himself that you'd gain this power, at our most dire hour! There can't be any other explanation!"

"Now, now, Elisud has other wounds to treat. But once he has finished, we celebrate." Lord Llywelyn proclaimed firmly as he gently patted Elisud's back. "Esliud, your hands were meant to heal, that much is true. And we'll celebrate tonight with a glorious feast in your name."

"I don't know if I deserve it, sir. Anyone with my gift would surely do the same." Esliud said humbly as he blushed somewhat.

"Then we'll celebrate to God's grace, that allowed us to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Sound better to thy ears?" Lord Llywelyn asked as Esliud warmly smiled back.

"I don't think God would mind that at all, sir. Nor would I. You all honor me with your faith in my new skills, I only hope I can do right by you." He insisted with a bow of his head.

Meanwhile, the Final Froggit had made his way far across the expanse to the west, and had found refuge within the forest, a deep, dark woods indeed. The lack of sun from the quilt of clouds above made the only light from within be illuminated all the more as a burning figure stood in powerful armor, sitting on a big, gigantic dolmen, surrounded by a host of other creatures, all of whom were radically different from each other. There were creatures with only one eye and nasty, foul horns, the eye in the center of their gigantic head. It would blink every once in a while, and shift, and the one eye became two tiny ones with a little, smirking mouth. Another being would have been adorable in its tiny little winged armor, save for the coldness that emanated from its helmet as it spun a spear about. A big, hulking, horned knight of a monster had a gigantic Morningstar resting upon its shoulder, and it turned to the burning, humanoid being in armor, clearing its throat.

"The Regimental Leader of the Froggit Squad's Welsh Platoon 1 is here, sir."

The Final Froggit was allowed to pass by the towering behemoth of a monster as the burning being folded his arms over his chest. Upon examination, the being was…just barely an adult. He looked eighteen, really, with fire for skin, for hair, and lacking a proper face, save for two yellowish, intense spots that resembled eyes.

"How did it go?"

"…miserably." The Regimental Leader sighed. "I'm very, very sorry Lord Grillersby. They had a mage with them. One blast of his shield scattered my flies and sent me flying, and my divisions…well…I have no divisions. They crumbled from the onslaught of arrows, and are now but dust in the wind."

"That is very unfortunate." Grillersby, better known as "Grillby" to his friends, sighed as he hopped off the dolmen and paced back and forth. "Still, we need a good foothold in Wales and killing their king would finally teach the humans they can't keep pushing us around. He's the weakest and easiest to get to of all the rulers of these islands. If we can't get to him, we certainly won't be able to get any of the others!"

"What of the one they call Cu Chulainn, sir?" The Regimental Leader asked as everyone else drew in a deep, harsh breath. "Has Melusine not proven effective against him?"

"You would THINK." Grillersby grunted. "…you would think. Unfortunately, it would seem the rumors are true. He's as a demon on the field of battle. Sigh." He hung his head. "I'm going to have to write back to poor Asgore and let him know the bad news. And that means he's going to have to give his Father the bad news. And I'll have to deliver it myself to ensure the letter isn't intercepted before it gets to our dear skeletal friends in England..."

#undertale #fanfiction #fanfics #fanfic #fantasy #racism #bigotry #toriel #grillby #wd gaster #drama #prequel

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sweetwatersound-blog1 · 7 years

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Riverdale S2E7 Review

So sorry this is late. And for the length. And for the way I flip out near the end.

CHAPTER TWENTY: TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE

Well, well. Look who’s trying something new. Riverdale experimented with tone and style in the seventh episode of this season. As a storyteller in my own right, I appreciate the effort for variety. Of course, there were things about it that worked for me and things that didn’t, but let’s get to that in a minute.

What exactly were we all watching Wednesday night? A young adult anthology penned by Stephen King? Or was the dark, tingling quality in the show’s atmosphere a byproduct of fanfiction fumed with Queen hits?

Huh, you say? Let’s break down that observation, in order.

Bert and Ernie Archie and Jughead

Lawyers in general earn a mixed reputation for their practice. I grew up hearing of comparisons to sharks and parasites. But Penny Peabody has carved herself a special box of awfulness here. After all, every snake is a serpent but not all of Riverdale’s Serpents are snakes.

After Riverdale received a message from the Black Hood (his basic blah, “sin and die” stuff) the whole town reacts by…ahem, business as usual?

Betty, evidently distressed by her failure to keep Jughead’s drug-dealing English teacher alive, spent the night in her boyfriend’s arms. He did his best to console, and I could have gone for more than that, but then his phone sang the song of eternal damnation, and he had to run off to appease the Snakecharmer.

Penny, using Jughead’s concern for his father’s welfare in prison to her advantage, promised she can get FP out if Jughead did one little job for her.

Which led to him making a midnight drug run, with Archie as his co-pilot, his conscience torn between his determination to support Jughead and his passive desire to stop him.

Overall, the night was full-moon freak worthy. Jughead and Archie met a man on the road whose interest in the Black Hood suggests that the masked killer has been sending fan mail in the wrong direction. The boys also randomly encountered a set of deer, one bloody and the other bloody-dead. Poor Jug had so many jumpscares, I was surprised that it didn’t end with Archie checking him into a mental health clinic.

But they were in a hurry, after all, and like the song Headlong says

It ain’t no time to figure wrong from right, cause reason’s out the window, better hold on tight – you’re rushin’

Josie

Oh, good, a character who deserves more attention has finally got some! I always loved Josie’s friendship with Cheryl before, and now there are layers to go with that slice of cake. Granted, when you go a’ explorin’ the foundations of friendship, you might not always like what turns up from the dirt. But even if I don’t have quite the same love for Josie/Cheryl anymore, I am definitely more intrigued by them.

So, this is the (long overdue) spotlight on Josie McCoy. Pussycat by day, the next Whitney Houston by night. Might I add Ashleigh Murray’s pipes are fabulous, and I could fall asleep listening to Josie play the piano. No one knew she was composing alone except for her bff Cheryl, who is paying for studio time. Because the beginning of their story intersects with Jughead and Archie’s, we get the pleasure of hearing Cheryl snap at them as “Bert and Ernie” TWICE while chatting with Josie. Then Josie opened her locker to find a stuffed animal with a stalker-note attached. She rolled her eyes and tossed it, assuming it was from a secret admirer. Because it wasn’t like there was a Ra’s al Ghul wannabe ready to waste a town that day. At least Cheryl was wary, but her devotion to Josie seemed more intense here than it had been in previous episodes.

Then Josie encountered Chuck Clayton. Instead of skirt-chasing for the sake of humiliating his dates, Chuck goes to church. Chuck takes art classes. Chuck is ready to start going by Charles now.

There was in fact something softer about him in this episode, enough to leave both me and Josie hoping he’d changed. That dance between them at the diner was so cute.

But whether this was a one-shot tale or a to-be-continued setup, we’ll have to wait and see. Because while Josie did have a stalker in this episode, it wasn’t the Black Hood. It wasn’t Chuck.

Cheryl, you break my heart.

In honor of Josie’s rollercoaster of a trip, I give you The Invisible Man.

When you hear a sound that you just can’t place, feel somethin’ move that you just can’t trace, when something sits on the end of your bed. Don’t turn around when you hear me tread/

I’m your meanest thought, I’m your darkest fear

But I’ll never get caught, you can’t shake me, shake me dear

Veronica & Betty

The last story goes back to what Betty did after saying goodbye to Jughead. While talking to him about the teacher murdered in Sheriff Keller’s station, a lightbulb sparked in her brain – who could find it easier to get into the cell than Keller himself? Not one of her better ideas, I feel, but she ran ahead with it. She told Veronica, who insisted the Sheriff was just exhibiting the signs of practicing infidelity. Still, the girls agreed for Kevin’s sake they would have to be careful. While Betty worked her Veronica Mars magic at the department, Veronica invited herself to a sleepover at Kevin’s house. Being the warm treasured heart he is, he taught her how to dominate his favorite fantasy board game. Taking a break, Veronica took a call from Betty. (virtually the only time I’ve ever been truly disappointed in my girl – more on that later.)

Betty learned from V that a bunch of doors were locked at the Keller house. She bobby-pinned them open until she found Sheriff Keller’s evidence office. Crime scene pictures here, letters from the Black Hood there. Betty was just picking up the black mask that Keller had confiscated from Archie earlier this season, when the Sheriff showed up.

However, when the scene bounced to Betty and her father sitting, facing Keller, he wasn’t enraged. He seemed quite understanding of her suspicions, and downright sad she had them. He promised her he wouldn’t tell Kevin, because she and his son were so important to one another, and knowledge of this incident would break his heart.

But for relentless Betty, it wasn’t over. She wanted to know where Keller was sneaking off to at night. Tailing him alongside a reluctant Veronica led them to a motel. Keller knocked on one of the doors, and out stepped Mayor McCoy – Josie’s mom – into his arms.

The girls swore a pact they’d never reveal the truth to Kevin. I felt like they also should have promised each other to never investigate with Veronica’s Cheat-Buster’s intuition. This was one secret that would have been better left uncovered.

Because Kevin remarked upon “the pressure” his dad was facing so much, here’s Under Pressure.

Pressure pushing down on you, no man ask for

Under pressure that burns a building down

Splits a family in two

Puts people on the streets

Odds and Ends

These are a few of my other Darkside observations, pros and cons:

We had a break from Toni. Yes I know some still like her, and yes I know she’s not a bug mucking up Bughead’s windshield. For the record, though? I wanted to like Toni Topaz. Really. I was so hoping she’d be the Toni from my South Side Story fic. That Toni took a stand, had integrity, and had a kind-of-crush on Betty. She was interesting, and I was hoping Vanessa Morgan’s version would at least have some interesting lines. Sadly, something fell flat for me along the way, and with this absence I hope the writers have thought of a new way to make her more appealing as a person.

Bert and Ernie. BERT AND ERNIE. Though I see Jughead as more the cynical-ish Bert, and Archie is more the rubber ducky type methinks. Still, never getting old.

But unfortunately, I have some nitpicks now.

Archie owes Jughead? You know, I’m not entirely certain Jughead would have won that race with the Ghoulies. And if it had been a clear loss...Jughead clearly needs glasses if he’s that shortsighted. Archie bailed him out of a high-risk situation. If it had been me in that fix I daresay I would be treating Archie Andrews to burgers and milkshakes for a month.

Even worse friends are the Pussycats. Setup or no, I just wanted someone to point out to High and Mighty Valerie that cutting Josie out for working on songs by herself when just a few months ago she was crushed for writing songs with Archie seems either very petty (if revenge) or hypocritical.

I hate to bring up hypocrisy now, but let’s examine Betty’s actions when her boyfriend’s father was under suspicion for murder. She. Would. Not. Have. It. Everyone, from Archie and Veronica to her own damn mother wanted her to look a bit more closely beyond Jughead’s words that FP was innocent.

Cut to today, when she doggedly pursued the father of one of her closest friends, and someone she’s been quite frankly more familiar with over the years than FP Jones, for his potential ability to walk into a jail cell and shoot someone. And for Veronica to remind Betty that investigating Kevin’s dad would hurt their friend, only for Betty to keep gunning for him like the Kellers meant so little to her.

*I’d like to think I know what this is about. Betty has been traumatized by the Black Hood. She’s so freaked Dark Betty has had to come out of the woodwork. Dark Betty is colder, a bit more obsessive than the Girl Next Door version. She’s probably determined not to rest until the culprit can’t hurt her or her friends anymore.

I see this possibility. Of course, I could be dead wrong.

But now that I’ve mentioned the Black Hood, I’m going to say what I should have said the last time:

Where tf is the FBI?

I mean, there’s a psychopath in a mask that has declared war on an entire town. When he starts sending encrypted messages vowing to erase all sin from Riverdale, Jesus sorry but that’s when you send in the Feds.

Riverdale has forty-eight hours to stop sinning or he’ll kill again. Doesn’t anyone take this threat seriously?

Obviously not, including the very people he’s threatening. WTF kind of a test is that anyways? A town without sin, wow, really? He might as well come for all of us.

With this theme song: Innuendo

show yourself, destroy our fears – release your masks

#riverdale #tales from the darkside #spoilers #riverdale blog #sweetwatersound #bughead

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biofunmy · 5 years

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Danny McBride, John Goodman run megachurch ministry in HBO comedy

Danny McBride talks church, kubatons and satire ahead of his new HBO series ‘The Righteous Gemstones.” Sandy Hooper, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES – The family that prays together stays together – in a multimillion-dollar palm-tree-lined compound.

God – or at least the high-flying Gemstone family’s followers – has blessed the evangelical royals and their international ministry with extraordinary wealth and power, which often isn’t used for the holiest of pursuits in Danny McBride’s latest misfit comedy, HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones” (premiering Sunday, 10 EDT/PDT).

McBride (“Eastbound and Down,” “Vice Principals”), who also writes, directs and produces “Gemstones,” is sympathetic toward the jet-setting family – patriarch Eli (John Goodman) and his adult children Jesse (McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam Devine) – and sees them as hypocrites, but not outright frauds.

Adam Devine, left, Danny McBride, John Goodman and Edi Patterson play members of a rich family at the head of a megachurch empire in the new HBO comedy series, “The Righteous Gemstones.” (Photo: Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY)

“I think they definitely believe” in their own religious teachings, he says in an exclusive interview with his TV family. “But they believe in a lot of things at this point. They believe in growing numbers at the church. They believe in buying expensive houses. I think their belief was more singular and focused early on.”

The Gemstones, when they’re not jetting to China to conduct swimming-pool baptisms, command the pulpit of a megachurch in a town along the South Carolina coast, where Georgia-born McBride moved two years ago.

“This is definitely a Southern family. When I moved to Charleston, you would drive outside the city and there’s a church on every corner. It’s equivalent to how you see Starbucks in LA,” he says.

More: HBO will soon have far more shows, but just one potential ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel

Jesse Gemstone (John Goodman), center, addresses his megachurch congregation as he’s flanked by his sons, Kelvin (Adam Devine), left, and Jesse (Danny McBride), in HBO’s ‘The Righteous Gemstones.’ (Photo: Fred Norris, HBO)

The comedy isn’t based on any preacher, steers clear of politics and doesn’t mention President Donald Trump, who has strong support among evangelical Christians.

McBride, who grew up going to church and has hired writers from a variety of faiths, avoids judgment about the religious beliefs of the Gemstones or their followers and no denomination is mentioned. But he says the preaching family’s gaudy lifestyle – with three jets named Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is rife with comedy-rich hypocrisy.

“When I see news about ministers buying their wife a Lamborghini for their birthday, I always wonder: When did they become so clueless? Or are they as clueless as they appear?”

The religious family’s life of luxury has appeal, Devine says, if you can get away with it.

More: Danny McBride crashes fake Dale Jr. interview

John Goodman, left, plays the head of a multimillion-dollar Christian ministry and Danny McBride plays his son in HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones.” (Photo: Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY)

“That’s definitely the funnest version, like ‘God wants me to drive Lamborghinis.’ On paper, it sounds pretty cool. When I hear these preachers on TV saying ‘I need the private jets,’ if I was a preacher, I might be like that, too,” he says, although he’s not endorsing that approach.

Goodman adds, with pulpit-pounding gusto: “I need me a G5 (Gulfstream V jet) to spread the word.”

More: John Goodman says Roseanne Barr is ‘really missed’ on ‘The Conners’ set

Adam Devine, left, Edi Patterson and Danny McBride play battling siblings and heirs to a multimillion-dollar ministry in HBO’s ‘The Righteous Gemstones.’ (Photo: Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY)

The nine-episode season opens about a year after the death of matriarch Aimee-Leigh Gemstone (Jennifer Nettles, seen in flashbacks), as husband Eli and their children are still reeling and their megachurch empire hangs in the balance.

“They’re lost. (Eli) is so consumed with his own grief. He’s written (his children) off,” says Goodman, who plays another widowed dad on ABC’s “The Conners.”

More: How ‘The Conners’ moves on without fierce (and fired) matriarch Roseanne

Preacher Eli Gemstone (John Goodman) gives thanks during an episode of the new HBO comedy, ‘The Righteous Gemstones.’ (Photo: Fred Norris, HBO)

Jesse faces a blackmailer who has video of his personal peccadilloes; Judy is fighting for more family power as she hides her live-in fiance; and Kelvin, a hip youth preacher, acts out as the youngest child.

Walton Goggins, McBride’s partner in mayhem in “Vice Principals,” appears as Aimee-Leigh’s younger brother, Baby Billy, who’s also a well-known preacher.

As messed up as they are, talent and ability had to run somewhere in the Gemstones’ bloodline to build an empire. But as with many family businesses, later generations can squander an inheritance.

“Aimee-Leigh and Eli built it by hand. And (their children) are just expecting it to keep going on. They don’t have the vision or the hunger that Aimee-Leigh and Eli had,” McBride says. “As Eli is looking to see who is going to fill this space his wife left behind, he’s looking to three kids who don’t really have what it takes to pick up the mantle.”

The children grew up in a privileged environment, so their ignorance of struggle leads to funny moments, says Patterson (“Vice Principals”).

Judy Gemstone (Edi Patterson) does not look pleased in a scene from the new HBO comedy series, ‘The Righteous Gemstones.’ (Photo: Fred Norris, HBO)

“There’s something to being born into that, of never knowing anything different than that opulent life and the interesting entitlement that might come with that,” she says.

Despite the bickering, the Gemstones know everything collapses if they can’t maintain the business. Part of that includes muscling in on other churches’ congregations – using mob and corporate strategies – in a never-ending drive to expand that pits them against a small-church pastor (Dermot Mulroney).

“They’re like a band of outlaws, almost, but they’re a megachurch family,” McBride says.

Goodman compares the Gemstones to another family: “They’re like the Corleones, with all Fredos.”

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johnhardinsawyer · 4 years

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The Power of a Name

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

12 / 22 / 19

Matthew 1:18-25

Isaiah 7:10-16

“The Power of a Name”

(Behold! God with Us)

I don’t remember how old I was when I first heard the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah, but I think I was hooked from the start. I do remember falling in love with the rest of Handel’s Messiah when I was a freshman in college and joined the University Choir.

The first part of Handel’s Messiah is filled scripture after scripture from the seasons of Advent and Christmas. But out of all of the beautiful music in this classic work, for some funny reason, the part of the Messiah that I have ended up singing the most over the years has been a little two line snippet that comes straight from today’s scripture reading from the Prophet Isaiah. Maestro. . .

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,

and shall call his son [name] Emmanuel, God with us.[1]

That last part, the “Bom. . . Bom” is very important. It’s kind of like a musical punctuation mark. “God, with us [Bom] exclamation point, [Bom] exclamation point.”

Just as an aside, if you’re ever looking for an original birthday greeting, this song could be used to great effect just by changing the words a little. Let’s say, that you’re sending birthday greetings to your cousin Bob Smith and Bob’s mother is named Linda. Here’s what you do: you could call Bob on the phone and sing. . .

Behold, Aunt Linda shall conceive, and bear a son,

And shall call his name, Bob Smith. Bob with us [Bom – Bom].[2]

You don’t even need to send a birthday card with a greeting like that.

Anyway, on this Fourth Sunday in Advent, as we prepare our birthday greetings for the Christ Child, we would do well to go back – centuries before the birth of Jesus – to take a look at these words of preparation from the Prophet Isaiah, words of promise about a child named Immanuel.

Isaiah was living in a time of great conflict – the North was fighting the South. And, in this war of northern aggression, the king of the South, Ahaz, was terrified, along with all of the people of Jerusalem. Ahaz, who was not the best or most faithful king to begin with, had already been visited by Isaiah in a time of great fear, when the land was under threat of invasion. Isaiah and his son went out to visit Ahaz to tell him, “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint. . . If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all.” (Isaiah 7:4, 9) Just so you know, the fact that Isaiah took his own son with him to meet the king is significant. In the original language, the name of Isaiah’s son – Shear-jashub – is not translated as “Bob Smith.” No, the name means “A Remnant Shall Return.” Isaiah gave his son this interesting name to send a message to the king from the South. A few chapters later in Isaiah, we read that when the Lord got finished with Ahaz’s enemies in the Northern kingdom only a remnant of them would return.[3] God is saying, “Ahaz, I’ve got this. Do not be afraid.”

This reassuring word from Isaiah and his interestingly-named son should have been enough for the king, but, by the time today’s passage takes place, Ahaz is frightened again. And, here is Isaiah, again, to offer some words of comfort, again.

“Ask the Lord for a sign, Ahaz,” Isaiah tells the king. “Ask the Lord for any kind of sign – in heaven, on earth, or under the earth – so that you can know that all will be well.”[4] As the story goes, though, Ahaz says, “I will not ask for a sign, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” (7:12) Now, before you start thinking that Ahaz the king is just being humble or reverent by not asking for a sign from the Lord, remember that it is God who is saying, “Ask me for anything, Ahaz!” As a friend of mine writes about this passage, “God will stop at nothing to secure the king’s faith.”[5] But what if Ahaz doesn’t have much faith to begin with? As another commentator writes, what if “he is actually refusing to trust in the living God who is speaking to him?”[6] You and I might know someone like this. We might be like this, ourselves, sometimes: wishing that things weren’t the way they are but not being open to the Holy – to the very “what if” idea of God’s presence and power to change the way things are.

Isaiah sees the king’s hesitation to lean on something Holy in the moment and Isaiah gets frustrated with him. Eugene Peterson translates it in this way: “It’s bad enough that you make people [like me] tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you’re making God tired [too].”[7] “Listen. . . watch for this. . . Behold. . . A young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel [a name that means “God is with us.”[8]] (7:14) [Bom. . . Bom.]

Now, people who read this text closely and compare it with today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew might notice that Isaiah says “a young woman is with child” and Matthew says, “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” (Matthew 1:23) There are some people who get hung up on language like this – you know, the whole virgin birth thing – and some people who just roll with it. I, for one, don’t know how helpful it is to push a particular stance on this, except to say that there is this story in the Gospel of Luke, when an angel is talking with Mary about miraculous births and says, “. . . nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37) For my part, when I read the Bible, I am less interested in needing to explain howsomething happened and more interested in exploring why it happened and what it has to do with us.

For Isaiah’s part, scholars note that Isaiah is likely not talking about some kind of immaculate conception, and, as shocking as it may sound, he is likely not even talking about the baby Jesus. Isaiah is just saying that a young woman is about to have a baby. Maybe this young woman was someone known to Isaiah or Ahaz or someone else. I do not know. What I do know is that there is probably not a bigger act of faith in a time of trouble – or any other time – than the act of bringing a child into the world. And there is probably not a better message to send in a time of fear and worry – or any other time – than “God is with us.” [Bom. . . Bom.]

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, we find a lot of trouble, and worry, and fear. Joseph’s fiancé, Mary, was found to be “with child” (Matthew 1:18), but the child she was “with” was clearly not Joseph’s child, biologically speaking. And, just when Joseph had decided to send her away, he had a dream in which he was told to not be afraid. (1:20) Mary would have a child and he would be named “Jesus” – an old Hebrew name for Joshua (Yeshua) that means, “God is our salvation.”[9] As Joseph was told in his dream, Mary’s son would “save his people from their sins.” (1:21) And then, Matthew then goes on to makes a link between Jesus and Immanuel. Matthew knew his audience – good Jewish people who knew their Hebrew Bible and could have probably recited the ancient promise of Isaiah in their sleep. For Matthew, the parallels were just too clear: the times were tough, the people were divided, and folks wondered if God was with them or not. And so, God sent a message. . . a child. . . a name: “I am with you. In the flesh. Living proof. [Bom. . . Bom.]”

A name can be a powerful thing, even in this day and age. Way back in the beginning of the Bible, God gave human beings the power to name things.[10] I feel like I’m stating the obvious when I say that we don’t always use this power for good. But when this power to name is used with kindness and hope and love, good things can happen.

I’ll close with this:

Back in the days before Facebook, colleges and universities used to publish a student directory on actual paper. It was basically a phone book, which for those of you who don’t know what a phone book is, you used to be able to look up someone’s name alphabetically and then, not text them, but call them. Anyway, scrolling through the names in our student directory one day in college, my friends and I found a name. One of our fellow students was named – no joke – “Everlasting Omnipresent Peace.” “That can’t be a real name,” we all said, but then one of our friends, a girl named Dusty, picked up the phone and called “Everlasting Omnipresent Peace.” She told us she had a good conversation with a guy who had literally and legally changed his name from something like Bob Smith to Everlasting Omnipresent Peace – or, “EOP” for short. When Dusty asked him why he had changed his name, EOP said something like, “Well, Everlasting Omnipresent Peace is something that I’m looking for and something that I’m working for, so I figured I’d better get serious about it.” “Serious enough to change your name?” Dusty asked. “Yup,” said EOP.

I do not know how you got your name – who you might have been named after or the stories that you were told about the name you were given or the name you have chosen. Different names mean different things. As we prepare to say farewell to Karen Hagy, I looked her name up. The name Karen means “Pure.”[11] For those of us who know how pure of heart Karen is as a person and as a pastor, yup, the name fits. Karen Hagy’s presence among us as a person and pastor for over twenty years has been a sign, for many, that God is with us. Just so you know, though. When Karen leaves next week, God isn’t going anywhere. If we were to ask for some kind of sign that this is true, the only sign we need is Jesus.

You and I might not have “EOP” on our driver’s licenses, but we have been taught what God’s everlasting peace looks like. Karen’s been a great teacher over the years, but the very gift of Jesus Christ is an even better teacher. You see, God will stop at nothing to secure our faith. God will even send God’s only son to be with us – God with us. We could wear the name lightly – not thinking about it for months or years at a time – or we could bear the name into the world in every interaction we ever have with another person. In this season of watching and waiting for some kind of sign, you and I could very well be living and breathing and walking incarnational signs that God is with us – and with each and every person – in the ways we share the Peace of Christ.

Take heart! Do not be afraid! Stand firm in faith! God is with us. God is with us. God is with us. God is with us. Yup. [Bom. . . Bom!]

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

------------

[1] George Frideric Handel, Messiah – Part 1, No. 8, Recitative (London: Novello and Company, 1992) 41. Alternate versions use the word “name.”

[2] I attribute the funny use of this song to my friend, Shawna Dooley, who has been using it in this way for many years. J

[3] See Isaiah 10:20-23.

[4] Isaiah 7:10. Paraphrased, JHS.

[5] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, ed. Feasting on the Word – Year A, Vol 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) 77. J. Blake Couey, Exegetical Perspective.

[6] Feasting on the Word. 77. Patrick W. T. Johnson, Homiletical Perspective.

[7] Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 925. Isaiah 7:13.

[8] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997) 769.

[9] Brown-Driver-Briggs, 221.

[10] See Genesis 2:20.

[11] https://www.familyeducation.com/baby-names/name-meaning/karen.

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emlydunstan · 5 years

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How Harm Reductionists Keep the Faith

It’s a bitterly cold afternoon in early March as Karen Lowe and I pick our way down the broken sidewalks of a semi-abandoned neighborhood in Statesville, North Carolina. All around us, squatter houses stretch for blocks. Every window is busted or boarded up. Thin, dirty mattresses lie on sunken porches and feral dogs scrounge in the trash-strewn yards for scraps. Some residents are huddled inside for warmth, though in most of these homes, there is no electricity.The neighborhood is a depressing sight, but it’s hard to feel blue when you’re on outreach with Karen Lowe. Co-founder of the Olive Branch Ministry, a faith-based non-profit that brings harm reduction services to the seven foothill counties of North Carolina, Karen is the embodiment of love.Harm Reduction in the Deep SouthAs I burrow into my thin jacket, Karen strolls down the middle of the street extending warm greetings to the few brave souls who venture outside. Though the pockets of her cargo pants are bursting with clean syringes, naloxone, and other supplies to prevent death and disease among people who use drugs, she doesn’t flaunt her wares.“I just want people to see me,” she explains. “It’s about building trust. They know why I’m here. If they need something, they’ll come to me.”As we walk, the 52-year-old fills me in on the colorful cast of characters who call this neighborhood home, including a man who claims he hasn’t bathed in a year and an old woman who pees on the sidewalk. Karen describes everyone with great affection.“There is a certain kind of love that goes with being an untouchable,” she says. “And [the people of this community] have it. But it’s not allowed to grow.”There certainly isn’t much growing in this neighborhood. Judging by the columned porches on every house and what looks like abandoned flower gardens, this was probably once a desirable place to live. But shifting economic winds have devastated entire cities in the South and Statesville is no exception. A small inland city—population 26,000—Statesville boasts neither North Carolina’s green mountain range nor its sparkling coastline. It’s stranded in the flatland area of the state, mostly buried under strip malls and fast food restaurants. But despite so few bragging rights, Statesville embraces its Southern pride, describing itself on its website as “a city where fish is fried (as our Lord intended they be) and a bottle of Kraft French Dressing is good enough for anybody --- so get over yourself.” Also true to its Southern roots, while Statesville has recently invested in a splash park and a $330,000 home for veterans (more than double the average price of a house in the area), the city has allowed this particular neighborhood, in which residents are almost all black, to fall into ruin. The only people who venture into this place are the churches who occasionally come evangelizing and of course, the police, who make neighborhoods like this one their second home.But Karen brings cheer to this desolate area. Twelve years ago, she was homeless herself, struggling with mental illness and depression, and searching for both a literal and metaphorical place to set down roots. She found a surrogate family and a calling in a faith-based organization in Greensboro that provides services to people living with HIV. The community welcomed Karen with open arms and she became a regular at meetings, outreach events, and retreats, which she describes as “mad love and dealing with yourself, everybody crying and snotting.”Not Your Typical Faith-Based Outreach OrganizationKaren says she knew then that her life was about to change in remarkable ways. And was it ever. A couple years into her involvement with the faith community she met the love of her life, Michelle Mathis, a woman who shared her passion for helping people in need. Though they have the same heart for harm reduction, the pair is about as opposite as two people can be. Michelle exudes elegance with a powdered face and coiffed hair that somehow survive even in the god-awfullest North Carolina humidity. Her partner is more salt-of-the-earth.“I did the make-up and heels thing when I was young…somebody should have stopped me,” Karen laughs.The yin to the other’s yang, the two married in a private ceremony in 2009 where they exchanged olive branches instead of rings, thus creating what would become their joint life’s work, The Olive Branch Ministry.Olive Branch is not your typical faith-based outreach organization—and not just because its founders are an interracial queer couple spreading the word of Jesus in the Deep South. True to the tenets of harm reduction, whose guiding philosophy is “meet people where they are at,” Karen and Michelle serve without pretense or expectation.“We say faith is why we do [this work], but it’s not what we do,” Michelle explains to me over the phone. “If someone asks us to pray for them, we will pray for people…We take the message of harm reduction to faith communities…but we don’t evangelize.”During afternoon outreach with Karen, she utters not a whisper about faith. And yet, if God’s love for others were perfume, you’d smell her coming from blocks away. Helping others comes as naturally to her as breathing. Several times during our conversation she offers to assist me personally with everything from community partnerships to my writing career, and after I mention casually I’ll be traveling abroad soon, she offers me money to buy a goat or chicken for a family in need.Morning to evening, nearly seven days a week, Karen and Michelle endure taxing commutes to bring harm reduction services to drug users in North Carolina’s hard-hit, rural areas. They ask nothing in return for their services. In fact, they seem critical of faith-based groups who use community outreach programs as a carrot to boost membership.“It’s hard to be trusted in a neighborhood like this [because people think] everyone wants to take them to church,” Karen explains, adding that this is why she maintains such a low-key presence on outreach. Instead of rolling up in a van stashed with free giveaways, she roams the streets where people can see her, offering nothing but a greeting unless she is asked.The Intersection Between Faith Communities and Harm ReductionThe Olive Branch Ministry’s approach could serve as an example for how faith-based communities and harm reduction can work together. The relationship is not always harmonious: some in the faith community accuse harm reductionists of enabling drug use or not doing enough to discourage problematic behavior. Conversely, many harm reductionists criticize faith groups for the hypocrisy of claiming to serve “the least of these” while refusing to help drug users, who belong to one of the most stigmatized and marginalized of all groups. Even when faith-based organizations do offer assistance, some peddle a strict, abstinence-only agenda or approach outreach with an attitude that appears to place more importance on gathering lost souls into the flock than on addressing people’s immediate needs.But despite the tenuous history between the groups, there is much cause for hope. Across the country, faith-based groups like The Olive Branch Ministry, Judson Memorial Church in New York City, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Arkansas, the national Interfaith Criminal Justice Coalition, and many more are forming active partnerships with harm reduction groups. Other organizations, including the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ and National Council on Jewish Women have publicly proclaimed their support for harm reduction programs.The relationship between the faith community and harm reduction shows promise and room for growth. Especially in the South where faith is so important and drug users have so few services, these alliances are critical to stem the tide of deaths and disease caused by an unregulated drug supply, draconian laws, lack of sterile equipment, dearth of adequate treatment, stigma, and misunderstanding about what causes drug use to become problematic for many people.“I feel that faith communities in general think that harm reductionists are a bunch of left wing radicals,” says Michelle. “They think that we will come in and demand that the church hold drug user union meetings and do syringe exchange, but they don’t realize that we meet the congregation where they are…we figure out where they are comfortable and [decide] how to go from there.”Harm reduction groups and faith communities need to work together rather than at cross-purposes in order to reach and help as many people as possible. It's not always easy to find common ground; an olive branch is a good place to start.

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alexdmorgan30 · 5 years

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How Harm Reductionists Keep the Faith

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pitz182 · 5 years

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How Harm Reductionists Keep the Faith

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literateape · 6 years

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Screaming at Weeds Doesn't Make Them Disappear

By Don Hall

Jesus Christ.

As the very real possibility that Trump & Company may continue to trample through our federal government, overturning established laws, creating distractions for us to buy into, freak out, and miss it when they do the real work of dismantling the safety net (that was filled with holes, anyway) things have become downright 1968.

Now that he gets another bite at the SCOTUS apple, it might be like 1950 meets 1968. Christ, all he needs is a war with a draft and someone send in the Terminator to kill him before he is born.

People are anxious and enraged on both sides of the Trump Machine and a sense of petty vengeance is in the air like the scent of magnolias and burning dog. It's as if everyone forgot why we had to codify our rights in writing through war to get them even temporarily established. That our relatively short battle against thousands of years of tribalism, subjugation of women, religious persecution, and the guards of the king (or pharaoh) torturing you for saying the wrong thing was over because, in our arrogance, we decided that enough was enough. We put our foot down and said "No more racism." and somehow expected the march of inter-tribal animus and war that has been present and ongoing for thousands of years was going to simply evaporate out of fear of our online mob.

It's as if, in this fragile democracy, we've never been at our worst than this time in history. That Trump is the sum total of the most horrifying mistakes we could exact upon ourselves — like he's the really fucking fast zombies of 28 Days Later or the population killing virus of so many dystopian novels and films.

Except that I remember how angry I was when the Scalia-infused SCOTUS handed George W his screwy Electoral College win and spent the next eight years pissing and moaning about everything from the corruption of his cabinet to his inability to say certain words correctly to the fact that Cheney had no heart but a mechanism that ran on sand and hate. To me (and so many of us) W was the apotheosis of everything wrong with America. It certainly was the worst we had ever faced as a country, right?

"I say we had best look our times and lands searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease. Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us. The underlying principles of the States are not honestly believ'd in, (for all this hectic glow, and these melodramatic screamings,) nor is humanity itself believ'd in. What penetrating eye does not everywhere see through the mask? The spectacle is appaling. We live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy throughout.

The men believe not in the women, nor the women in the men. A scornful superciliousness rules in literature. The aim of all the littérateurs is to find something to make fun of. A lot of churches, sects, &c., the most dismal phantasms I know, usurp the name of religion. Conversation is a mass of badinage. From deceit in the spirit, the mother of all false deeds, the offspring is already incalculable. An acute and candid person, in the revenue department in Washington, who is led by the course of his employment to regularly visit the cities, north, south and west, to investigate frauds, has talk'd much with me about his discoveries.

The depravity of the business classes of our country is not less than has been supposed, but infinitely greater. The official services of America, national, state, and municipal, in all their branches and departments, except the judiciary, are saturated in corruption, bribery, falsehood, mal-administration; and the judiciary is tainted. The great cities reek with respectable as much as non-respectable robbery and scoundrelism. In fashionable life, flippancy, tepid amours, weak infidelism, small aims, or no aims at all, only to kill time. In business, (this all-devouring modern word, business,) the one sole object is, by any means, pecuniary gain. The magician's serpent in the fable ate up all the other serpents; and money-making is our magician's serpent, remaining to-day sole master of the field.

The best class we show, is but a mob of fashionably dress'd speculators and vulgarians. True, indeed, behind this fantastic farce, enacted on the visible stage of society, solid things and stupendous labors are to be discover'd, existing crudely and going on in the background, to advance and tell themselves in time. Yet the truths are none the less terrible. I say that our New World democracy, however great a success in uplifting the masses out of their sloughs, in materialistic development, products, and in a certain highly-deceptive superficial popular intellectuality, is, so far, an almost complete failure in its social aspects, and in really grand religious, moral, literary, and esthetic results.

In vain do we march with unprecedented strides to empire so colossal, outvying the antique, beyond Alexander's, beyond the proudest sway of Rome. In vain have we annex'd Texas, California, Alaska, and reach north for Canada and south for Cuba. It is as if we were somehow being endow'd with a vast and more and more thoroughly-appointed body, and then left with little or no soul."

— Democratic Vistas by Walt Whitman (1871)

1871?

Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States.

The men believe not in the women, nor the women in the men.

The depravity of the business classes of our country is not less than has been supposed, but infinitely greater.

I say that our New World democracy, however great a success in uplifting the masses out of their sloughs, in materialistic development, products, and in a certain highly-deceptive superficial popular intellectuality, is, so far, an almost complete failure in its social aspect...

OK. This is not to say that things aren’t bad in the United Skeets of Racist-murka. Is Trump bad? Duh. Is he Hitler Redux? No. Is he the worst president in our history? Perhaps the least qualified for the job but hardly the worst. I mean, so far. Are we going to have to refight the battles for the rights of women? Yup. For police to stop killing (mostly black) people? Definitely. Were we ever going to be able to relax and forget about these things? Not if we're smart.

This is to say that it has never been as great as the bullshit textbooks that erased women and blacks and Native Americans and immigrants told us it was. Never. In 1871, Walt wrote out how crap things were from his vantage and, as I read his text, it pretty accurately describes things as they are today.

Breathe. Acknowledge this fact.

Now what?

Get a fucking grip on yourself, stop flailing your arms and typing fingers and cease the fearmongering and hyperbolic spew. Sure, elections based on fear and hatred of the opposition win all the time but when we go there, we get crap for leaders. Every time.

Grab a can of perspective, crack the top, and understand that the march of history and the essential nature of human beings is to be constantly fighting for and against the concepts the country is founded upon. Going to war with one another is hardwired in our DNA, fighting for dominance is the defining element of our species. If equality among everyone was so fucking easy, why do we keep having to fight for it?

It's as if our ancestors have been toiling away, trying to get rid of weeds in the yard and we woke up to more weeds and threw up our arms, fell to our knees (all set to strains of Barber's Adagio for Strings in G minor) and screamed "But WHYYYYYY?" when we saw that more weeds had sprouted up overnight. Weeds, like tribalism, hatred for the Other, the enslavement of one another, superstition, and war, always keep coming back. The arrogance to assume that because we did some weeding before (I mean, women got the right to vote less than one hundred years ago in this Fabergé Egg of a society) that we could just stop weeding is Icarus Wax Wing-level shit.

Finally, this is also not a call to be more civil (despite the fact that it is called "civil disobedience" and not "act like a fucking asshole disobedience") but a call to be better at your incivility. If the best you can come up with is to insult Republicans with names a fourth grader could come up with after watching HBO for an hour, you’re a fucking dimwit.

Also, if you absolutely cannot resist being an angry fourth grader barking at the weeds, do it while also doing the real work of systemic change, which isn't fun or exciting or blessed with any sense of immediate gratification. If the best disobedience (civil or otherwise) you have is to flip off the president or call anyone who disagrees with your worldview garbage, you're just fucking lazy.

The lesson we can learn from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that, in order to win, we need to organize, get out the vote of people who generally don't, and provide a candidate of merit and hope rather than a well-financed campaign of fear and rage. Provide an alternative to the Trump Machine rather than shame people into a moral quagmire of our own making. Ideas rather than insults; hope rather than condemnation.

#Walt Whitman #Democratic Vistas #weeding the yard #Trumpfuckenstein #Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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theliterateape · 6 years

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Screaming at Weeds Doesn't Make Them Disappear

By Don Hall

Jesus Christ.

Now that he gets another bite at the SCOTUS apple, it might be like 1950 meets 1968. Christ, all he needs is a war with a draft and someone send in the Terminator to kill him before he is born.

— Democratic Vistas by Walt Whitman (1871)

1871?

Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States.

The men believe not in the women, nor the women in the men.

The depravity of the business classes of our country is not less than has been supposed, but infinitely greater.

Breathe. Acknowledge this fact.

Now what?

#Walt Whitman #Democratic Vistas #weeding the yard #Trumpfuckenstein #Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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tryingtobreathe520-blog · 7 years

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Long Suffering

One of the things I truly hate is the prosperity Gospel. It’s when someone starts talking about God or the Bible and they make the claim that “You’ll be rich on this Earth” or “you will never suffer in this world again”. The Bible makes this very clear: there will be suffering in this world, but you will overcome it because Christ did. Nothing is going to come easily. Otherwise, why would Christ, the Son of God, have to die if it were to be so easy? These lies and the hypocrisy of my family and the various churches I grew up in are what drew me as far away from God as I’d ever been. My 7 day stay in the mental hospital taught me several things: 1) For some reason, they REALLY want to medicate everyone. 2) There are (sadly) people who have far worse problems than I do. 3) Some adults do get it. There were maybe 5 of the staff I loved because they genuinely cared about the kids there, and I wish I still knew them today (privacy laws, can’t stay in contact). If any of you read this, you don’t even have to remember who I am, just know that you DID SAVE A LIFE, and I love you guys and will always be grateful for the time you spent helping us. 4) Some adults JUST DON’T GET IT. And don’t blame them. Some people are taught a certain way, or they simply have their own mindset on how things work. We can’t change people or make them see as we do. God made us all unique. 5) I made a selfish choice. Yes, I know those who are still suffering with suicide in their thoughts may think otherwise, but I did. My best friend was able to move past the racism of my aunt, the looks at school (me being an Emo/Goth/Geek/nerd, and my awkward clumsiness. I ran into poles weekly), and her own friends criticism to be there for me, and all I did was slap her in the face as if our friendship wasn’t even worth living for. Suicide is not a brave decision, no matter what you are up against. My dream is to help people dealing with these things -be it through my writing, music, or even a simple how are you on the street. Everyone is loved here on this Earth, and no one should ever feel that alone. 6) Teachers CARE!! My teachers showed me so much love, it’s ridiculous thinking back on it haha. It’s what inspired me to want to teach. My French teacher, she was amazing. I wish she’d have adopted me. My English teacher was a Renaissance man, even though he may not know it, and was awesome. My history teacher certainly kept things lively. My PE teacher actually taught me how to run lol. 7) I couldn’t cope.

One of the major issues in Black families is that we aren’t taught how to handle situations. “Don’t you cry” is one of the things embedded into our brains as children, so the method of bottling up our emotions is a very common practice. There are some families that do teach their children how to use positive outlets (sports, art, science, volunteering, literature, etc), but many stay to the traditional way of not showing others their emotions. I can tell you right now, that does not work. At all. Not to say only the Black community has this issue there were a lot of Caucasian and South American kids there. It took me years to learn what should have been taught to me in childhood how to understand and manage my emotions. Another problem we have is purposely making our children fear us. I strongly believe many people misunderstand what it means to have the fear of God, because that’s usually what I heard before something smacked me. It’s one thing to teach your children to respect you, but it’s something completely different when your children fear you to the point that they feel they can’t tell you if something’s wrong. And that’s why I couldn’t tell anyone what happened to me. When I was little, the only memories I had of my aunt was her punching us or spanking me, my brother, or my sister for things I can’t even remember, so by the time we came to her as teenagers, that’s all that was there. There was no respect, only fear. And growing up with that complex, I felt that I couldn’t trust adults -or my friends (they used to tell my mother)- with my troubles. H was the first person I’d truly opened up to, and she probably doesn’t even know. So, here I was, learning how to notice the triggers aka “what makes you tick” and how to deal with them.

After everything that had happened with my aunt and her SO, I didn’t trust her. I knew then that she wasn’t looking out for me. So, with antidepressants in my system and razors in my socks, I started 10th grade. I made it a point to laugh and smile on cue, frown when appropriate, do everything I could to seem normal. As much as I hated to admit it, the pills weren’t doing anything, I was more numb than before, and the void was only getting bigger and bigger. Sometimes, I’d look up at the stars and wonder if my father could see me. If he was as sad as I was, or if he’d forgotten about me because he was in heaven. I always knew he was in heaven. It was never a question. Just a feeling, like when you know it’s going to rain later. It gave me comfort to think of him at times, but it was a double-edged sword because I always remembered that he was gone. That he’d never walk through that door. I was doing horribly in classes due to the fact that SO still lived with us. I was confused. My aunt would tell the social worker that I was cutting, but not that a grown man was fondling me, and making it a point to make my life miserable? I got into my reading again (delicious manga 💗), traveling to new worlds, seeing creatures I could only imagine, and I started writing. First, I did journaling, but after my therapist and aunt decided to throw it away because it was too dark, I stopped that completely. **Note to parents: more than likely, if what a child writes is dark, they are venting, and the worst thing you can do is to throw their feelings away** Instead, I began looking at hyperboles, idioms, similes, etc to form what I wanted to say in a way that I could express myself and keep it. I entered 2 poetry competitions that year and won one, but placed second in the other. I got copies of the book it was in and gave it to teachers and friends. Along the way, I’d made friends (what I thought at the time was a friend) with someone who was using. Because of my mother, I’d never wanted to use drugs, but that was completely cancelled out by my desire to leave this world, or at least escape it. I was using at least 4 times a day, every day, and he made sure to supply. It wasn’t free, of course, but at the time, I didn’t care. I could sleep again (I’ve had horrid insomnia since I was 10 or 11, and it was at it’s height with my aunt), I was running fast in PE, I felt happy. It wasn’t until my friends started talking about things I’d done that I couldn’t remember that I started to get worried. I’d unknowingly dropped a bag in my history class and I assumed my teacher found it because he gave everyone a long talk. Apparently, drugs had taken someone very close to him, which hurt me because I did look up to him. However, it was that same day that I realized I was addicted. I couldn’t stand being without one single line in my routine, and I’m certain it was showing. I started meeting my supplier more often, not caring who saw. I didn’t care about my family, my friends, or even myself. I was so tired of being numb, I just wanted to feel something. I had stopped cutting, but that was only replacing one bad habit with another. I was only putting my pain on pause, but the reality was about to come down.

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browsersbooks · 7 years

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(via The Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. on His Son’s Legacy)

*trigger warning: violence*

As the 1960s unfolded, the great well of passion stored up in this country for so long simply spilled over. M.L. and A.D. were moving the South with their efforts and those of the young men and women who marched America far beyond its own expectations for a time. And whether the location was Albany, Georgia, or Birmingham, Alabama, or Chicago, Illinois, the message was clear. The cause of integration in America was served by the nation’s aristocrats, farmers and students, by workers and preachers, men and women, young and old. The costs were accepted when they came and they were often very high. But we moved through.

Ivan Allen, who succeeded Hartsfield as mayor, had the courage to stay in office for a couple of terms, and it took courage through the 60s. The Voters’ League was with him and with Sam Massell, the city’s first Jewish mayor, who succeeded him. And coming into the present, Atlanta has a black mayor, Maynard Jackson, whose grandfather, John Wesley Dobbs, and I labored together in the 30s and 40s to make it possible for our people to vote. I’ve supported that line of succession with the long-term feeling that it may be the most interesting series of city officials in the nation’s history. So I have lived in Atlanta, and go on doing so.

I also lived to be at Oslo, Norway, to bear witness when M.L. received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. And I prayed on the plane trip over there that the Lord would keep me humble, the son of a sharecropper and father of a man who, at the age of 35, had been presented the most prestigious of world awards. God surely had looked down into Georgia. And He must have said, Well, here are people I will give a mission and see how well they can carry it out. And I felt He must have looked down into Oslo, Norway, and simply said, Yes, they have shouldered the weight part of the way. A people had been led by a young man who could have found comfort elsewhere, yet stayed where he was needed, bearing witness. And as M.L. stood receiving the Nobel Prize, and the tears just streamed down my face, I gave thanks that out of that tiny Georgia town I’d been spared to see this and so much else. M.L. was my co-pastor now, and A.D. would soon be joining us in serving Ebenezer. I knew the movement was far from finished with its work, but I did feel M.L. had given so much, reached so deeply inside himself to be up in the front lines, where the glory was thought to be, but where danger held the real dominion.

Killing is a contagion. It begins, then rushes like fire across oil, raging through emotions out of control. America will have to remember the early 60s when the guns came out, when small children were blown to pieces while in church, and the blood seemed destined to flow until it became a river. The nation seemed to lose its way, as though it stumbled for a while through some dense forest where nothing could be seen clearly. How could we not have realized what was coming when those four young girls were killed by the explosion at their church in Birmingham? Was it not any clearer when civil-rights workers began disappearing, and when Medgar Evers, over in Mississippi, was shot down without any real concern about punishing the man who supposedly murdered him? How could a nation have not understood the terrible path it was walking when the President of the United States could be gunned down while riding in an open car through an American city?

The turmoil continued. The 60s were a time of battle for jobs and housing and the winning over of whites, who came now to understand how their lives, too, were being bent out of shape.

What we learn, with God’s help, is that there is no safety. Therefore, there can be no danger we are not willing to face. A great passion stirred this nation in the 60s, bringing violence and rage with it, but focusing on the hypocrisy that was at the root of America’s racial condition. Our struggle against that racist part of the nation’s personality was recognized, in some instances, more quickly and with a great deal more understanding in other parts of the world than it was at home.

When M.L. asked me to join him in 1964 at Oslo for the Nobel ceremonies, all over Europe folks had been clearly aware of what my son was trying to accomplish against enormous odds. But in the United States, a campaign to destroy his leadership was conducted within the government. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, made no secret of the fact that he held M.L. and his work in contempt. And the Civil Rights Movement received little active support from church leaders, many of them close enough to the struggle to see how important M.L.’s nonviolent protests had become among young people. When he was in jail, there were those who turned their backs, who criticized and rebuked him. He carried on.

It was a time when strong churchmen needed to reach out to embrace the American public as it huddled against its pain and tried to pretend that everything was still under control. We had moved to establish the sense of freedom any people must have to remain civilized.

There could be no real separation between exploiting a man because of his color and taking advantage of his economic condition to control him politically.

I had entered civic affairs as a young man because I thought everyone wanted a better world and that nobody would have one if I didn’t put a shoulder to all the wheels that turned justice and dignity. A preacher, as I understood the term, was called for life. And there was a wondrous harvest in those fruitful years. But I could hear the ticking that was fast replacing the American heartbeat in our daily lives. And as M.L. expanded the movement, I became more and more concerned and less and less able to get him to pull back even for a time. Bunch was deeply affected, of course. She grew ever more apprehensive as her sons became rooted in the struggle and the cause.

By 1968, there was great anxiety throughout our family. No matter how much protection of any sort a person has, it will not be enough if the enemy is hatred that cannot be turned around. Not even the forces of law can control such hatred in a society. When evil is organized, it becomes a cup more bitter than the one given Jesus . . .

In April 1968, my sons went to Memphis to help organize a struggle by the city’s sanitation workers to achieve better wages and working conditions. I wondered about M.L.’s involvement in this, whether or not he was spreading his concerns and his energies too thin. But again he was right. There could be no real separation between exploiting a man because of his color and taking advantage of his economic condition to control him politically. Exploitation didn’t need to be seen only in terms of segregation. It involved all people, white and black, in the continuing human drive toward freedom, toward personal dignity within a just society. In Memphis, M.L.’s joint efforts with the workers brought out the old charge that he was, inside, more Communist than Baptist, which may have been the silliest thing anybody ever said about any person in America.

M.L. had been able to convince his brother, who was extremely skeptical in the beginning, that he too could make a difference in the kind of America that would enter the 21st century. The nation could be changed. The cracks in the armor of racist attitudes were visible all over the South. Maybe the time had been ripe before, but M.L. could see that now was an excellent moment in history to move a nation beyond itself. He sensed that Americans would respond emotionally to what he was now doing, that their passions could be cooled, then turned around into a force that would make the country into the place it should always have been. We have the resources, he would explain to me. We have the means, and the human energy needed is at its peak. . . .

The tension of those months took a heavy toll on Bunch, who was always aware of the pressure both the boys were under in their daily lives. The sound of a telephone, our doorbell ringing, any call that brought with it some news, edged up on us like a series of loud, sudden alarms. M.L. knew he had to share with his mother the changing nature of events as they involved him. Each moment he was away, out of touch with her, became an eternity of waiting for the next indication of any kind that he was all right.

He came to Atlanta and had dinner one evening with his mother and me. Some of the things he’d told me earlier came as no surprise, but both of us understood how difficult the information was going to be for Bunch to handle. Several reliable sources, both private and from within the federal government, concluded that attempts would soon be made on M.L.’s life. Money was involved. Professional killers were being recruited.

After dinner, the three of us sat out on our patio and enjoyed the late-setting sun of a warm, clear evening. Had I chosen M.L.’s words, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so blunt. He felt, though, that out of respect for his mother, he couldn’t be less than candid with her. “Mother,” he said, “there are some things I want you to know.”

“I have to go on with my work, no matter what happens now, because my involvement is too complete to stop.”

She didn’t want to listen, not then, on that quiet Sunday when it was so good to laugh about childhood, and remember tears easily replaced with laughter back when everything seemed so much less dangerous. “There’s a chance, Mother, that someone is going to try to kill me, and it could happen without any warning at all.” M.L. said this quickly, then stood up and walked to the far end of the patio. We sat silently, knowing that for this moment at least there couldn’t be any words. The same emotions that caused Bunch and me to urge M.L. to leave the movement more than ten years before were all still there. But saying these things now could bring no relief, only an intensity to the suffering we all carried. The great weight of that, I still believe, came from the certainty all of us had that what M.L. had chosen to do was unquestionably right.

We had been aware of the dangers, each out of our own experiences with the South we knew—M.L., his mother and I. A time had come. To avoid it was impossible, even as avoiding the coming of darkness in the evening would have been impossible. But word was moving through our part of the world. People were reporting conversations overheard in restaurants, in taverns, on street corners, that indicated serious efforts to plot against M.L. as a leader of this movement that was changing so much in America so quickly. Police departments had been alerted. The talk of hired killers being on the loose and following M.L. was now past the stage of rumor and hearsay. Police officers who had never been in sympathy with our cause were nevertheless concerned about anything happening to my son in one of their towns or cities. It simply wouldn’t have looked good, I suppose, for all these law-and-order advocates to be unprepared for lawbreakers whose intention was to commit murder.

“But I don’t want you to worry over any of this,” M.L. said, returning to his mother’s side. “I have to go on with my work, no matter what happens now, because my involvement is too complete to stop. Sometimes I do want to get away for a while, go someplace with Coretta and the kids and be Reverend King and family, having a few quiet days like any other Americans. But I know it’s too late for any of that now. And if mine isn’t to be a long life, Mother, Dad, well then I respect that, as you’ve always taught us to respect it as God’s will.”

We ached when he left that evening, deep inside, and though we tried to comfort each other with small talk about neighbors and church folks and even our earliest hours together, nothing could remove the unspoken pain we were sharing.

#mlk changegonnacome mlk2017

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