#not by some miracle but because i make the conscious and intelligent decision to stop. getting back on my bullshit

[idontblushsrry]

Do You Know That I Do Love You

Chapter 1: Do You Still Think Of Me Fondly?

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Word Count:

Warnings: Some swearing, smut in later chapters

A/N: This is purely self indulgent at this point. I will get my black nobility/courtly romance fic and it just so happens to be with Han Ju-Do from Yona of the Dawn (great show if you ask me I think everyone should watch it and that it deserves more but, whateverrr) I don’t know how many chapters this is going to have, I thought 2 but maybe I’ll do 3 or 4 it all depends on what I feel like is gonna complete the story the best. Reader is black, she has a Korean last name to match with the rest of the show characters. Spoilers ahead for parts of Yona Of The Dawn anime/manga

A/N Pt.2: This is based off of the concept of courtly love  but w tweaks bcus I have like no ability to stick with angst permanently, like if asked nicely, I’ll do a happy ending (Also Reader and Ju-do are both single so). This fic is also based of this song if you want to get into the vibe.

You’d been told tales of the Crimson Dragon Castle just nothing could’ve compared to the majesty of seeing it in person. The gates opened and guards announced your arrival as your carriage pulled inside. You stared in awe at the sheer size of it while your attendants whispered something to each other that you didn’t quite pick up on.

“What was that?” 

You turned and your attendants immediately went silent, squirming and failing to meet your gaze each time you tried to capture them in it.

“Nothing milady just the talk of lowly servants that you shouldn’t concern yourself with.”

You could tell though from the guilt in her tone and the way the other attendant looked as though you’d have her thrown out if you heard what she said that you knew they were discussing the reason you’d even come to the palace. You were much too old to be an unmarried woman and the constant rumours of your status ranged in believability, the most outrageous being that you were a succubus and having a husband would get in the way of your appetites.

When you’d heard it, that made you cackle because you were the furthest thing from a succubus.

 It’s not like you felt ashamed of being a virgin, you were a grown woman after all, and it’s not as though you were the sole heir to your family’s name. You had plenty of siblings to carry on the family name. The issue lied in the fact that you were the oldest, your family tradition dictated that none shall marry before the oldest and as such you’d been on the receiving end of anger from your siblings, parents, potential suitors, and all in between. 

When your father first proposed the idea of marriage to you, many of your siblings were still too young to care or remember. You could feel the concern coming from both of your parents as they urged you to meet with suitors from other clans and families. And you could feel their growing rage as you rejected one after another. 

Now nearing two decades later, your siblings, the ones who were unconcerned with your marital status so long ago were now resentful of you. Many of them had approached you individually and together with their grievances, claiming you were holding the family back and restraining them from true love, all the things you’d heard before.

They’d brought those same complaints to father and he brought up the idea of a palace visit to you. No not in so few words nor with such direct intent but the message was there. He’d brought the idea up while you fed the fish in your private reserve.

‘I think that this place is too stifling of your abilities my dear. I’d like for you to go to the Crimson Dragon Palace in my stead, I’m getting rather old and the whole thing is nothing but a diplomatic affair anyways, I’m sure you can handle it.’ You were going to turn down his offer. Not consciously out of spite but because you knew what he wanted you to do. His words seemed like the ones of a trusting father but the undertone of ‘return with a fiancé or I’ll disown you’ rang clear as a bell through your head. You may have been stubborn but you weren’t a fool, your family had grown impatient with your antics and if this behavior continued, they’d send you packing without so much as a goodbye.

You’d contemplated that idea and thought up the pros and cons to being disowned. It wasn’t until you heard two maids whispering outside your room that night that you made your decision.

‘Poor Master Seong I heard that Lady (Y/N) is preventing him from meeting his heirs.’

‘Eh? What do you mean, how could she do that?’

‘She refuses to let any of her siblings get married and as the next clan head, any marriages from her siblings that occur before her own are forbidden.’

‘Wow! Really, then why won’t she just get married already?’

‘Who knows.’

By the following night you were in a carriage on your way to the castle. Coincidentally with the two maids that spoke ill of you that night. It seems that they still haven’t gained the ability to shut up even when it’s in their best interest.

The carriage pulled up to the guest exit and you didn’t have to wait long before the carriage was opened by one of the palace servants.

“Welcome Lady Seong”

You were rushed to yet another carriage that would take you to your quarters while your attendants followed someone else to the servants’ quarters. For the first time in the weeks it’d taken you to travel here, you could feel yourself begin to truly relax. The servant next to you was stiff with rigid and tense shoulders especially compared to your unladylike and unrefined composure. But, they were quiet. You weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth and you didn’t particularly feel like talking to ease the tension in the carriage, so, you ignored it. Most of it was coming from the servant not knowing how to react to you anyways.

You closed your eyes to think of the last time you felt truly happy and all your defeated mind could conjure was an image of a chubby outstretched hand handing you a six-petaled flower.

“Milady? We’ve arrived at your quarters.”

You stepped out of the dark carriage into the courtyard of the place you’d be staying. Only to find that this courtyard was slightly nicer than you’d expected a standard nobles courtyard to be. There was an abundance of flowers, rocks lining the foliage. A bridge that spanned a small river that begun with a waterfall. Birds, a gazebo lined with jewels in the far corner, and the fragrant scent of jasmine flowers.

The servant, seemingly unfazed by the extravagance, urged you to follow her with a motion of her head. Her feet leading you through the courtyard with practiced expertise, you managed to keep up with her strides by clutching your dress up some and resisting the urge to gawk at every element passing you by. 

She brought you to a spacious room similarly sized as the room you slept in back home. The room was relatively bare save for a large bed pressed against the wall in the center of the room, a wardrobe, vanity and an incense holder among other things.

She turned to you and bowed before turning to leave. “Before you leave, what’s your name?”, she froze as though she wasn’t expecting you to actually speak to her. She turned back to you with a close eyed smile.

“My name? It’s Ha-Neul”

You’d received the first and arguably the most difficult of your diplomatic duties when within 3 days of your stay, you were being summoned by King Suwon. While the letter came as a shock to you, you nearly had a heart attack when you learned you’d be meeting in the King’s personal tea gardens. You’d take it as a compliment, however, you were 1) essentially all alone with no one to back you up should you fail to be adept at conversation and 2) you’d only met the new king as a boy and in passing, you were somewhat underprepared and knew nothing more of him than what you’d heard in passing.

‘No. Don’t think like that (Y/N)’, you looked at your reflection in the mirror, your braids hung down, the tight coils of your hair wrapped up inside of them as they hung down from your scalp to frame your face. ‘You are more than capable, if it weren’t for your intelligence, you wouldn’t have made it this far. You can do this.’ You took a look at your outfit. It was unfit to meet the king. But before you could begin working yourself up into another nervous tizzy, Ha-neul knocked on your door, her consistent rapping against it breaking you out of your anxious reverie.

Ha-Neul was truly a miracle worker. She’d managed to make your previously tense body appear completely calm and put together with a few twists of her wrists and some careful thought into what she’d have you wear to meet with the king.

By the time the carriage had stopped, the anxiety in your gut had settled to a deep thrum that would remind you of its presence at the very center of your being but wouldn’t seize control of your body. This mercy provided by your anxiety allowed you to put one foot in front of the other like you’d done since you were a child, albeit with a more conscious effort.

You’re led by a flurry of servants and guards to where Suwon was sitting so tranquilly in his tea gardens. It was amazing how much he’d grown since you’d last seen him but those same features he had as a child seemed to have aged with his spirit. You didn’t know why but you got this deep guttural feeling that he’d done something akin to a betrayal of himself. It showed oh so subtly in the way he drank his tea with an air of  practiced indifference that he tried to cover with a layer of oversaturated artificial happiness.

“Lady Seong, it’s good to see you. I hope your quarters are to your liking.”

Showtime.

You bowed respectfully to him before replying, “Yes, the room is lovely and even more so the courtyard. I’d love to speak with the person who designed it. How have you been your majesty?”

You’d hoped flattery would work with him, all your cues were being taken from him but it was near impossible to get a read on him. You kept your tone and demeanor light and cheery but eve still that was all he was giving you. It was like he was trying to gauge you at the same time.

Oh, you realized embarrassingly belatedly, this is a test.

The new king couldn’t afford any threats to his power and securing allyship while weeding out untrustworthy people was the most effective way for him to achieve that in lieu of starting a full-scale war. 

But Kouka didn’t need that. 

Since you were attending in your father’s stead, he’s likely assumed that you’re the new head of your clan, ‘If only he knew’.

Well, if it’s a test he wants then a test he’ll get. Two could play that game and you always were very good at mind games.

It feels as though it’s been about 30 minutes of you and King Suwon exchanging formalities, trying to see who’d crack. But finally, the tea and snack get delivered and you realize that for now, you’d reached a stalemate with the King. You could count it as a win but judging from the fact you still couldn’t tell what he was thinking, you mentally conceded to the standstill with him,  and from the sigh he let out it seems he’s resigned himself to the same fate.

“Let’s eat then shall we.” he says good-naturedly, like the careful tension of your previous exchange never happened, so you nod in agreement. Waiting for him to take the first bite and sip before following suit. You close your eyes and simply enjoy the gentle floral taste and aroma of the tea. You take a moment of respite in the tea and neglect your surroundings for a moment.

You hear big clunky footsteps hurry their way down the hallway you and Suwon are staying in before, “My King, I apologize for my lateness, and while inexcusable, I hope that you can forgive me.”

You recognize that voice, you move to open your eyes at the same time the man stands up and before King Suwon can get his answer out, you interrupt him with “Ju...do?”

He looks down at you with a sneer looking ready to give you a tongue- lashing for interrupting the King and calling him out of his station. Before a look of recognition flashes in his eyes and he looks away hurriedly, calling your name with a formal “Lady Seong, I didn’t know you were at the castle."

Ok, ouch. Few things hurt worse than the person you’d spent an embarrassing amount of time fawning over as a teenager (and young adult) dismissing you with such a dismissive and cold formality. 

You’d already fucked up by interrupting the King and you weren’t about to fuck up again by not responding to a General when directly addressed by one. “I didn’t know you were at the castle either, General.” If you were nothing more than a formality to him, then he’d be nothing more than a formality to you.

Yes you were aware of how petty and flimsy that logic was. He hadn’t seen you in years, of course he was going to be cordial with you. But the other part of you, the person who was heartbroken by the same man who stood in front of you right now, someone that you thought you buried long ago, hoped that calling him General hurt just as much as hearing him call you anything but (Y/N).

#yona of the dawn imagines #black reader #x black reader #han judo #han judo yona of the dawn #akatsuki no yona #general judo x reader #han judo x reader #yona of the dawn x reader #general judo #general han judo #pls lmk if yall like this #or if you watch yotd #there isnt a really big fandom for it and i am searching pls #idontblushsrry #x reader #anime imagines #imagines #smut

[destroyyourbinder]

I want to thank Jacob for his enormous bravery in speaking out publicly about how the “puberty blocker” (GnRH agonist) protocol and the medicalization of his identity affected him as a struggling trans teenager. 

I want to note before I share the article that stories like Jacob’s are being politicized by groups like Mermaids (the primary transgender child lobbying organization in the UK) to claim that while "blockers” are “safe” and “reversible” and ought to be immediately provided to trans children who are beginning puberty, that any problems with GnRH agonists indicates that clinicians should begin cross-sex hormone treatment early. Organizations such as Mermaids and various other groups in the US frequently claim that there ought to be no formal lower age bound for the initiation of cross-sex HRT (i.e. testosterone for female children, estrogen and an anti-androgen drug for male children) and Johanna Olson-Kennedy (a pediatric gender “expert” and head of the gender clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles) advocates regularly for female children to receive testosterone at twelve and has possibly given children as young as 8 testosterone treatment. So in sharing this kid’s story, I want to be careful, since there is a real danger that exposing the harms of using GnRH agonists such as Lupron on gender-variant children will lead to a change in strategy where these children are merely dosed early with cross-sex hormones, a protocol that to my knowledge that we have zero long-term data on. (Children are given GnRH agonists as a means to halt precocious puberty, and in fact, these drugs are approved for this purpose, so we have some data on their effects already. As far as I know, there has been no previous medical reason to give female children testosterone or male children anti-androgens and estrogen.) The article is behind a paywall but I am transcribing it here: Puberty blocking drugs: ‘For the past four years I’ve been stuck as a child’ Jacob has just turned 16 and for the past four years the teenager’s body has been put on pause. He has been on hormone blockers to stop puberty while he decides how far he is willing to go to become a transgender man.

He claims that taking blockers was “the worst decision I’ve ever made”.

Jacob was born a girl but felt unhappy with his gender. “I always felt so weak and pathetic and inferior to the men.” He started using the male pronoun and imagined himself growing up and “dating a woman”.

When Jacob became one of thousands of young adolescents to be referred for puberty blockers by the NHS’s main gender clinic for children he was delighted. “It was sold to me as a  miracle cure for being trans,” he claimed. He told another trans school friend about them, who started requesting blockers too.

Hormone blockers are only licensed in Britain to delay the onset of puberty for children suffering “precocious puberty” — that is, those who start developing abnormally early before the age of eight or nine.

However, their use is promoted by the transgender campaign group Mermaids as a way of giving young people “a pause button” while deciding whether to graduate to the irreversible, cross-sex hormones that will trigger the life-changing, fertility-reducing jump from one gender to another, once they reach 16. The vast majority of children who begin blockers go on to take that step.

Blockers are physically reversible, insofar as puberty will eventually restart once someone stops taking them. But no one — not even the directors of the country’s leading gender clinic, the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service [GIDS] — knows their long-term impact, for example, on the teenage brain.

After just a few consultations at the Tavistock, Jacob was referred to the endocrinology clinic at University College London Hospitals [UCLH]. He claimed the clinic did not consider his background, such as the trauma of a sexual assault at primary school, or his parents’ difficult divorce. He and his mother were soon making regular visits to London from their small village in the west of England for the injections.

“They promise you that your breasts will disappear, that your voice will be deeper, that I would look and sound more like a boy. For me, that was the best thing that could have happened,” he said.

Only, Jacob found that wasn’t what happened at all. Far from becoming one of the lads, as he’d hoped, he felt even more alienated from them as their physiques changed and Jacob’s remained the same.

“At school, other people were maturing into adults. The guys I grew up with were growing hair and growing up. For someone who’s trying to fit in as a boy, that’s not what you want.” Jacob had always been the tallest among his friends. Now he was the shortest. When his little brother overtook him in height and strength, he found it too upsetting to be in the same room as him. “My little brother is 18 months younger and now he has completely outgrown me. I go to school and I feel like other people are developing and I still feel like a child,” he said. Jacob also claims he was not warned about the side-effects of the drugs. These have included insomnia, exhaustion, fatigue, low moods, rapid weight   gain which caused his skin to become covered with angry, itchy stretch marks, and a reduction in bone density. “I’d never broken a bone before [taking puberty blockers],” he says. “I’ve since broken four bones.” “I stubbed my toe, it broke. I fell over, my wrist broke. Same with my elbow.” As he took the blockers, Jacob’s mother watched her child become even more introverted and body-conscious. “The blockers contributed more to the self-image problems that were already there,” she said. Jacob found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on schoolwork. If sitting GSCEs is hard enough with raging hormones, it’s even harder without them, he said. “I’m someone with the developing mind of a 12-year-old who’s doing exams designed for a 16-year-old.”

He added: “The worst part was probably the depression. There were moments when I wanted everything to stop. Weight gain and depression — for someone who is already self-conscious about their body, that’s a lethal combination.” Clinicians who resigned from GIDS for ethical reasons said one of their main concerns was that young people were being sent down a medical pathway without proper exploration of the possibility they may simply be gay. Jacob is no closer to understanding who he may be attracted to at 16 as he   was at 12. “My friends are all talking about having sex and girlfriends, and going to prom... but I’ve never had a crush. I’ve never felt sexual attraction to anyone. I feel so out of place.” In hindsight, Jacob finds it surprising how little his background — and the reasons why he didn’t want to be a girl — were discussed before being referred for treatment. “They didn’t even look at my history or trauma,” claimed Jacob. “They sent a child whose circumstances and feelings they didn’t understand [for hormone treatment].” Jacob is speaking out about his experience to warn other transgender youngsters to think twice before starting blockers. “I was sold a miracle cure. They promised happiness with little evidence behind it. Then four years in, you realise, oh my God, I’ve no idea about the long-term effects.“

“They asked a 12-year-old to make a decision an adult would struggle with.” “It  was like, ‘here are the drugs’ and off we went. It’s a ridiculous process. It’s not gone the way they told me it was going to go.”

Mermaids, the transgender lobby group, claims that puberty blockers are safe and “completely reversible” and that not giving them to youngsters who   request them can be more damaging than prescribing them.

Gendered Intelligence, another trans campaign group, claims on its website that hormone blockers give children “breathing space to ensure that they are  sure about the permanent effects of cross-sex hormones, without the adverse effects of an incorrect puberty.” Jacob is scathing about such claims. “Breathing space! It really isn’t. I’ve not had any space to breathe the last four years.“

“They sell it to you as a break from feeling like a girl, and that’s fine for the first few months but as soon as everyone else around you starts developing it becomes ‘spot the transgender kid’, which is so easy because you’re stuck as a child.“

“If anything, I’ve been more depressed than before. My thyroid is messed up. I’m hungry all the time. I have no idea how my breast tissue will develop.” He claimed: “They push and push you on to this one-way train you’re not allowed off.” Asked whether it was misleading to promote puberty blockers as a “pause   button”, a spokesman for Mermaids said: “Mermaids cannot comment on   clinical cases as we are not involved in any individuals’ medical pathways.” “We offer young people and their families information, support and access to others in similar circumstances.” Gendered Intelligence declined to respond. Jacob claims the main focus of his treatment at the Tavistock was on the   milestones of transition — “how far you’re willing to go” — rather than discussion of the consequences.

He claims: “My Tavistock worker was saying to me, ‘once you have the testosterone, you’ll be a boy’. “But it shouldn’t be about milestones. Being trans is how you think; it should not be about how far down the line you’re will to go.” A spokesman for Tavistock said: “All young people considering the puberty blocker or cross-sex hormones are repeatedly made aware of the known potential impacts of these medical interventions... as well as the areas of impact that remain to some extent unknown.“

“The information that we give patients about the blockers makes it clear that they may get tired and experience low mood. We explain to young people that hormones give us energy and drive, not just our sex drive but our overall ‘get up and go’. “We also emphasised to them routinely that while on the blocker they would stay early puberty whilst their peers developed. This is a routine part of the discussion.“

“In the end the decision to go on blockers is a balancing act weighing up these factors against the perceived distress of undergoing puberty in the ‘wrong’ gender and developing unwanted and potential hard to change secondary sexual characteristics.” Jacob decided to come off the drugs on turning 16. He began to feel the benefits almost overnight. “I grew taller, I lost weight, I felt livelier. It was like getting the poison out of my system,” he said. He will now wait until reaching 18 before making any big decisions.“I’m just fed up with all of it. I’ve felt like a guinea pig from day one. [Blockers] only made my life more complicated and it was pretty complicated already.” He  added: “I’ll be 18 in two years, but for the past four years I’ve been stuck as a child. Blockers took away the chance I had to grow up with other kids. Now I want to give my body a break.”

#medical47 #risks01

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT I'VE LEARNED FROM FOUNDERS TO DETECT BIAS

Expected value how likely an investor is to say that they're happier in the sense that hackers and painters are both makers, and this question is just to do what hackers do for fun: cook up amusing hacks with your friends. The root of the problem is to start from the other end of the summer. The people who are good at it. But after the talking is done, the decision about what to have for lunch. Even a company with 100 people will feel different from one with 1000. There's a reason we have a distinct word adult for people over a certain threshold of intelligence, what matters most is imagination. It's populated by people who dropped out of school to do it? In this case the exploding termsheet was not or not only a tactic to pressure the startup. As day jobs go, it's pretty sweet. Because fundraising is so distracting, a startup should either be in fundraising mode.

Nor would I have wanted to do anything that required a commitment of more than a few months old, every week that passes gives you significantly more information about them. For the foreseeable future, people will want ever more material wealth, so there is no record of it. Are you writing pages of fiction, however bad? Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the reasons Jane Austen's novels are so good is that she read them out loud to your friends as something you'd written, you'll feel all too keenly what an imposition that kind of thing is upon the reader. If a new company led boldly into the future. Defaults are enormously powerful, precisely because they operate without any conscious choice. They assume ideas are like miracles: they either pop into your head or they don't. I usually tell founders is to stop fundraising when you start to get higher.1

They call the things that get discovered this way incidentalomas, and they try to push you to name a price, resist doing so. Doctors discovered that several of his arteries were over 90% blocked to learn that the number was over 90%. Would that do? They're more like examples of Robert Frost's good fences make good neighbors. I smelled a major rat. The closest to a traumatic failure was Kiko, whose founders kept working on their own startups and those working for large organizations. As well as being smarter, they tend to peter out. I wouldn't be surprised if by playing some clever tricks with the accelerometer you could even replace the bathroom scale. They can either catch you and loft you up into the sky, as they do with most startups. What you should fear, as a handful of founders who could pull that off without having VCs laugh in their faces.2 So if such a company has two possible strategies, a conservative one that's slightly more likely to make it something you have the luxury of curiosity, one of the most important quality is in a startup is the opinion of other investors.

Is this the way I'd say this if I were drawing from life.3 The important thing is to be excited about it, because it's painful to observe the gap between them. So what tends to happen is that they hate the idea that we ought to be writing about them as if they'd been anointed as the next Google, but I'm thinking this is going to solve this problem, but it didn't last long.4 This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. So you have to be on the path to the finished program looks in it, but the main thing we care about is the one where we ask what cool things you've made. Either some company like Netflix or Apple will be the money burning a hole in your pocket, but I smelled a major rat. Hapless implies passivity. One of the things he would have liked to. An excessive amount of money, it will only evolve at big company rates instead of startup rates, whereas alternatives will evolve with especial speed. Which almost always means hiring too many people to apply to multiple incubators, you should focus your whole attention on it so you can get.

Be nice. Surely that field, at least, how I write one. If they saw that, they'd want you to sell them more of your company in subsequent rounds. Instead of making one $2 million investment, make five $400k investments. Clinton, even if your group has only 10 people. It's different in research. Even if they already know it, you'll probably be done faster.5 The great mathematician G. Instead of making one $2 million investment, make five $400k investments.

If you go to work for a couple years for another company for a few days of terror. Being a doctor is not the hope of getting a better one. People's best friends are likely to make it excessively hackerish. The main thing we've discovered from pushing the edge of this envelope is not where the edge is, but how fuzzy it is. Don't try to look at something and predict whether it will take off. The percentage of female hackers is small, but they adapt their plans on the fly. Dating sites are a prime example. I like about this idea is known as Worse is Better. I'm sometimes accused of meandering. Right? So if it seems like all the good ideas came from within.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. That's probably the number one question people ask me. What you can do, but assume the worst; investors who are seriously interested in you will usually be happy to talk about what? But the best way to generate startup ideas is to do what adults tell me all day long. When I asked her what specific things she remembered speakers always saying, she mentioned: that the best way to get a lot of new areas.6 In the software world may not realize is that Worse is Better, which is doing so well they could probably be acquired in about ten minutes if they wanted to. Maybe the VC industry has changed. The head of a small company doesn't ensure freedom. At best you may have to pay a little more closely related, like games. And in any case, competitors are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the future will feel as sorry for us as we do a birthmark. What would it even mean to make theorems a commodity?

Notes

Inside their heads for someone to invent the steam engine. You could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities. The founders we fund used to be employees, or to be higher, as they seem to be a good open-source browser.

And while it is. It's hard to prevent shoplifting because in their lifetimes. PR firm.

You have to. This flattering distinction seems so natural to the extent we see incumbents suppressing competitors via regulations or patent suits, we don't use code written while you were going to use some bad word multiple times. But he got there by another path.

I replace the actual amount of stock. Eighteen months later. Now the misunderstood artist is a service for advising people whether or not, and we ran into Muzzammil Zaveri, and cook on lowish heat for at least a partial order.

But it could hose the whole story. Yes, actually: dealing with one of the Daddy Model that it had no natural immunity to tax avoidance. I know this is the most promising opportunities, it will become as big. But friends should be your compass.

One new thing the company is always room for another. One professor friend says that the VC. We couldn't talk meaningfully about revenues without growing big in revenues without including the numbers like the iPad because it made a bet: if he ever made a lot like intellectual bullshit. It's not only the leaves who suffer.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #future #ideas #multiple #resist #investor #compass #sense #professor #people #distinction #idea #competitors #company #Be #order #pocket

[japamalabeads1-blog]

Powerful and Proven Meditations For Enlightened Living Full of Love, Health, Bliss, and Success

"Meditation is the art of focusing your attention so completely on one thing that you lose consciousness of everything else with you. Although meditation often is associated with religious disciplines, modern researchers have found that it can be used apart from any religious or simply philosophical orientation to promote deep relaxation and mental stillness. What happens during meditation? University studies have shown that, amongst others, heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure drop. Alpha brain waves-the brain waves associated with deep relaxation-increase in intensity and even frequency. Blood lactate, a chemical associated with anxiety, has been found to fall rapidly within the first ten moments of meditation. " The Hope Heart Institute in Seattle Washington. That has been my experience too along with the amazing, ongoing experience that meditation practices reconnect us with our Source. It doesn't matter what one calls that Source. Labels are not more than labels. Our Source is beyond labels, beyond concepts, beyond definitions, beyond philosophies, and everything else you can imagine|you can imagine}. Our Source is a divine experience of bliss and love that we can revel in 24 hours a day. 24 hours a day-while we have been playing, working, eating, loving, sleeping, or talking! Meditation removes everything that prevents us from experiencing this satisfaction and love that we truly are at all times. Meditation melts away fear, impatience, greed, anger, lust, poverty-all restrictions. Meditation is unique for every person. While there are some classic experiences that can be common to many, meditation brings you the experiences you need to return to Resource. There is no fast path. As stated below, meditation requires commitment. Without commitment there is no progress. Along with commitment, discrimination is essential. This is where decisions to continue or abort a chosen path must be based on research and knowledge, coupled with your own experience. It really is sometimes very easy to run away from something new (like meditation, sungazing, yoga, t'ai chi, new food programs, etc . ) because things are uncomfortable in the short term, thereby denying ourselves of the ultimate long term benefits. Then again, it's definitely not helpful to stay with something just because we don't want to admit to ourselves that we made a mistake in going down a particular path. There exists a fine line to walk and we must constantly choose and reevaluate our choices in light of our knowledge together with experience. How many of us are doing things today that we did as children either because we had no choice as well as intelligence to make healthy choices? How much of our lives is really ours versus us playing out a scenario which started long ago, before we even knew what we were doing? How many of us were lucky enough to have parents who else knew what they were doing? How many of us are willing to abandon our "habitual daily routines" for a life of independence and adventure, constantly connected with Source. Without commitment and discrimination you will stay stuck in a rut you think can be regular daily living. Hint: normal daily living is feeling every cell of your body vibrating with the energy of a thousand team whenever you want. Normal daily living is having a quiet, focused mind. Normal daily living is seeing the life Source pulsing in everything your eyes behold. Normal daily living is hearing inner music more divine than anything we now have created with instruments. Normal daily living is having loving relationships. Normal daily is having everything you need and doing that, including function, which makes your heart sing. Normal daily living in this way is only achieved through meditation. Meditation is an adventurous voyage within your own sacred heart. Meditation is a simple, yet profound, way of reclaiming you-mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The only reason for life is to reclaim our Divinty. Everything else is a "background activity". Everything else! Without meditation, you are not living a true living. You are not attaining your full potential no matter how healthy and successful you may seem to be. Some classic texts on yoga include Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, Play of Consciousness by Swami Muktananda, Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama, and Miracle of Love-Stories about Neem Karoli Baba by Ram Dass. A far more recent book that could be titled Everything One Needs to Know about Meditation and Then Some is The Heart of Meditation-pathways to a much deeper experience by Swami Durgananda. The following meditations are ones I have used on a regular basis and can attest to their power used separately, together, or in conjunction with any particular meditation practice you may currently enjoy. Dive in! Discover the wonders of your physical entire body, the intricacies of your invisible mind, the grandeur of your loving heart, the sacredness of your soul, and the enjoyment of your being. Sitting Meditation Choose a clean, quiet place. If in your home, make it somewhere you can sit everyday. The power of meditation will build in that spot and facilitate your practice each and every day thereafter. If needed to block troubling noises, use some peaceful music conducive to deep relaxation. Otherwise, sit in silence. Sit in a chair, preferably along with arms for longer periods of meditation, or on the floor in a comfortable, cross legged position. If you need to, put cushions under your knees for support. You can also sit up against a wall for back support. Sit on a pillow(s) that keeps your hips higher than your knees and supports your back. A Zafou is perfect for this and can be found on numerous internet sights. A silk or wool blanket or mat on top of the pillow will help keep the energy connected with meditation circulating in your body. You can also lie down if you won't fall asleep. Meditation is not about losing consciousness. It's about getting conscious. If you do fall asleep at first, it's OK. It will be a different sleep. Sit up straight but not rigid. The energy of mediation comes after the spine, from the base upwards to the crown. Join your thumbs and index fingers together in face mudra. This too keeps the energy of meditation circulating in your body. Rest your palms downward on your legs. You may also simply rest one palm on top of the other, face up in your lap. Drop your chin a little and rest the back of your neck. Let your lips part ever so slightly, relaxing your tongue and jaw. Mentally scan the body from head to toe and let go of any tension. Just breathe into it. Imagine the in breath is going in to those places that are tight and tense and opening them up and then, the tightness and tension and also pain leave on the out breath. You can also imagine that your entire body is hollow. You are simply breathing air into air flow. There is nothing inside you to be tight or tense. Then, without controlling your breath, simply observe it. Let it circulation in and out at whatever rate is natural. But watch it. Follow it all the way in to that space where this stops for a moment before it flows out and then follow it all the way out to that space where it prevents for a moment before it flows back in. Become very aware of the breath and the spaces between the breaths. Rest deeper and deeper with each breath. Sometimes it helps to relax and focus the mind by giving it a word or possibly phrase to repeat. Anything of a very high vibration consistent with your beliefs will do. Repeat the word(s) Ham La (the natural sound of the breath which means I am That-Ham as you breathe in and Sa as you breathe out), really like, Christ, Jesus, Allah, Om, I Am, Om Namah Shivaya (I honor the God within me), Peace, or whatever is comfortable and meaningful for you. Repeat it as you breathe in and as you breathe out. Eventually the words will certainly fall away. They are just a tool to relax your mind. When your mind becomes restless again, start repeating the word or even phrase you have chosen and let it help still your mind. Do not give up. Your mind will not become quiet immediately. This is a long term practice that is absolutely necessary to a fully functional and blissful life that is not dependent on anything outside yourself to create health, prosperity, bliss, and fulfilling your service on earth. Start with just 5 minutes a day. Add a minute a day until you reach half an hour. Then sit for 30 minutes twice a day-once upon arising and once before retiring. You can even practice whenever you get a minute or so. For instance, meditate when you get somewhere early for an appointment, after meals, or waiting for someone who is later (instead of getting upset). Be creative. While 5 minutes may seem like 5 hours when you are beginning, 1 or even two hours of meditation will eventually go by like 5 minutes and leave you feeling better than ever. The Inner Smile Meditation Cheerful is miraculous. It takes far less effort and far less facial muscles to smile than to frown or just be with no smile. Don't you feel your whole face light up whenever you smile? Have you ever seen pictures or been in the presence of saints and fully realized Masters? Their smile is ever present, even when they're not smiling. You can see they have tapped right into a realm of happiness, actually a cavern of bliss, deep inside themselves that is always there. And that inner smile is definitely there in you too! You just have to know how to access it. It's one of the great secrets of t'ai chi-focusing on the inner grin in the lower abdomen (the t'an t'ien located about 2 inches below the navel). With practice, you'll be able to concentrate on this inner smile at any time and thereby instantly change how you mentally, emotionally, and physically are processing particular events in your life that may be temporarily causing you to do something other than smile. Sit quietly. Take several deep relaxing breaths from your nose. Rub your palms together and create some warmth. Place one palm on each side of your face and begin making circles outward with them, massaging your face. Then, consciously relax your forehead, eyebrows, and skin. Imagine a good inner smile deep in your abdomen. Allow this smile to move up through your heart and throat into your face. Allow this "happy feeling" smile into your lips, eyes, cheeks, and forehead. This smile will activate the thymus gland which in turn strengthens the immune system. Continue smiling into your body and become aware of more and more parts smiling and smiling.

Maintain smiling. The physical act of smiling can reach and dissolve unwanted patterns that have frustrated other forms with therapy, if done with proper focus. And remember, anything that is keeping you from smiling is not really you. You are laughter. You might be love. You are light. You are energy. It's time you experience yourself for who you really are. It's time to get up and smile! You may wish to try the Light of Smiles by Paramahansa Yogananda, an affirmation to meditate, place, and practice every day! "I will light the match of smiles. My gloom veil will disappear. We shall behold my soul in the light of my smiles, hidden behind the accumulated darkness of age groups. When I find myself, I shall race through all hearts with the torch of my soul-smiles. My cardiovascular will smile first, then my eyes and my face. Every body-part will shine in the light for smiles. I will run amid the thickets of melancholy hearts and make a bonfire of all sorrows. I am the actual irresistible fire of smiles. I will fan myself with the breeze of God-joy and blaze my way with the darkness of all minds. My smiles will convey His smiles and whoever meets me will catch the whiff of my divine joy. I will carry fragrant purifying torches of smiles for all hearts. " Nei Gung Meditation I learned this meditation from Justin Stone, one of my t'ai chi teachers. I employed it every night before going to sleep for many months. After several rounds of repeating the phrases, I would fall asleep as well as sleep very peacefully. Then, one night, I decided I wasn't going to simply fall asleep while repeating the stipulations. I was going to keep repeating them over and over again, all night if necessary, until something happened-until I had an experience of something besides falling asleep. I don't remember how many repetitions it took (somewhere between 11 and 20) but at one stage, the repetitions stopped and every cell of my body filled with this delicious, vibrating energy. I could feel this vitality vibrating in every cell. It was wonderful. And my sense of hearing was heightened. I could hear sounds that were heretofore inaudible from other parts of the house and outside. I was in awe and though I tried to hold on to this incredible awareness, I drifted to sleep. And I've never had a problem falling asleep since. Once my head contacts the pillow and I replicate Om Namah Shivaya a few times, I'm asleep. Since this night, I've only used this meditation on a few events when I've really felt like something was stuck in my life. Before going right into the meditation, here's a brief historical past of its origin. In the 1700's, Zen Master Hakuin's emotional and physical health had seriously deteriorated until he said: "Activity and non activity had become entirely out of harmony. My heart began to make me dizzy, our lungs became dry, both my legs felt as cold as if they were immersed in ice... My ears had been filled with a ringing as of the rushing waters of a swift river in a deep canyon. My liver experienced weak and, in my behavior, I experienced many fears. My spirit was distressed and weary and, whether or not sleeping or waking, I always became lost in wild fancies. Both armpits were perpetually bathed in perspiration and my eyes were continually filled with tears. " Having heard rumors of a wise man who held the secret of health and long life, Hakuin sought the assistance of the legendary sage Hakuyu. Hakuyu, seeing that not even the most famous doctor would be able to cure Hakuin, gave him the secret Nei Gung meditation. Contemplate these words from Hakuin's diary right after he practiced this meditation with great diligence for three years and imagine what it may do for you. "At first, this main object in carrying out this method was the simple one of health preservation. But... I discovered that my power of knowing was enlightened by it... The illness, which had till that time been practically incurable, now began to melt away like ice or snow in the morning sunlight. Poisonously hard problems, difficulties of faith, difficulties preventing me from penetrating through to the reality,... and difficulties which hindered the beginning periods of meditation... -all of them, without exception, were softened and relieved together with my bodily sickness and they melted away like ice. And now, when I have passed the average length of mans life, I have ten times as much vitality as I used to have when I was only thirty or forty years of age. Right now my body and soul are both healthy and strong. " With your legs pressed together, either lying down or sitting in a seat, mentally repeat the following affirmations, over and over, until sleep intervenes or your mind has become peaceful and your body filled with electricity. Your attention should be just under your navel or at the soles of your feet. Contemplate what they mean. 1 . This particular Energy Sea, this Tanden, from below the navel to the soles of the feet, full of my Original Face; wherever are the nostrils on that Face? 2 . This Energy Sea, this Tanden, from below the navel to the bottoms of the feet, full of my True Home; what need of a message from that Home? 3. This Energy Ocean, this Tanden, from below the navel to the soles of the feet, full of the Pure Land of Consciousness just; what need of outer pomp has this Pure Land? 4. This Energy Sea, this Tanden, through below the navel to the soles of the feet, full of the Amidha Buddha of heart and body; what perorata would this Amidha be preaching?

Walking Meditation This is something you can do anytime-between rooms in your home, outside, to and also from a car, walking grocery store aisles, etc . Simply keep your awareness focused on the soles of your feet. Feel every foot hit the ground. Be aware. And like before, you can always coordinate a word with the feet hitting the ground if it assists focus your mind. You'll find when you walk this way, instead of thinking about what you just did or what you are going to do next, all of your senses are heightened and you intuitively know just what to do when. Again, practice. Standing Meditation This meditation are available in The Way of Energy by Master Lam Kam Chuen. This book contains detailed information on Zhan Zhuan (pronounced possibly Jan or Jam Jong), which means Standing Like A Tree, and some wonderful poetry on the nature of trees which may be used as contemplations while doing this incredible internal exercise. These postures can also be done simultaneously while sungazing (a very dynamic duo! ). Start by doing any combination of these poses for five minutes. I suggest doing among each as each one has its own unique property. After three weeks, increase this to ten minutes, divided similarly among the poses. Hold them for a total of 15 minutes the next three weeks, 25 minutes the following three weeks, along with increase this to 25 minutes thereafter. 25 minutes is enough to refresh your entire system. At first 30 seconds might seem like lifetimes; five minutes may be torture. The boredom may drive you crazy. These reactions are simply the evidence in the constant tension in your nervous system and proof that you need this meditation/exercise! Once I attained 25 minutes, I halted holding these postures for this length of time as an every day practice. I continue to use the postures at the end of my qigong exercises and in connection with sungazing. With legs still shoulder width apart, toes forward, knees bent, and weight the same on both legs and equal between the balls and heels of the feet, completely relax-being careful not to extend your own personal knees over your toes. Let your hands hang at your sides, palms toward your legs. Imagine a thread is attached to the top of your spine, in line with the tips of your ears at the top of your skull, effortlessly lifting and assisting. Let the bottom of your spine unfold downward so that neither your belly nor your bottom is sticking out. The end of your head (above the tips of your ears), the t'an t'ien (the space about 2 inches below your personal navel and the power center of your body), and the mid point of your feet are in line. Your whole frame will be suspended from the top of your head. You hang from it like a puppet or a garment on a coat hanger. Through below your kneecaps, your roots extend downward. From your knees upward, you rise like a tree, resting smoothly between the earth and the sky. Your eyes look forward and slightly downward. Drop your chin a little so that your tonsils is not pushed forward. Release any tension in your neck. Relax your hips and belly. get started now Let the breath become free to flow in and out at its own natural pace. Inhale and exhale gently through your nose only. Your mouth should be closed however, not tightly shut. Don't clamp your teeth shut. If saliva forms, swallow it. Relax even more by telling any kind of tight spots in your body that they are relaxed (i. e., "My knees are relaxed. My shoulders are relaxed. "). Imagine you're sitting on a huge balloon that takes your weight behind you, like a beach ball on the sand. Additionally, there are balloons behind your knees, totally supporting you. Hold this first position for the desired amount of time. In all the jobs, stand as still and motionless as a giant tree on a totally peaceful day. Holding The Balloon To sum up pose sink down a little more-about two inches. Raise your arms to form an open circle in front of your upper body at about shoulder level. Your open palms face your chest, fingers spread. The distance between the fingertips of the hands is the equivalent of one to three fists (3 - 9 inches). The tops of your thumbs are no greater than your shoulders. Your wrists are as wide apart as your shoulders. Your elbows are slightly lower than your individual wrists and shoulders. The inner angle between your upper arm and forearm is slightly more than 90 degrees. Think about you're holding a large inflated balloon between your hands, forearms, and chest. You are gently keeping it in place without having tension. Your armpits and upper arms rest on two small balloons. Your elbows rest on a couple of large balloons that float on the surface of a pond. The weight on your feet shifts slightly forward. Relax into it! Keeping Your Belly You are now sinking down about 2-4 inches. Drop your arms so your forearms are in top of your abdomen, elbows flexed so arms are rounded, and thumbs about navel high, hands separated a minimum of 6 inches and no more than body width between fingertips, with the fingers of each hand pointing toward the opposite leg. Fingers are kept separated just enough to allow little imaginary balls to rest between each of your fingers. With smooth palms, imagine you are gently holding a large inflated balloon between your hands and your belly or gently supporting a huge belly that you had developed. Imagine that a strap runs from your neck to your wrists, supporting them. You hold your stomach or the balloon so gently that there is no tension in your wrists or fingers. Your palms are not turned dramatically upward. They are loosely angled along the arc of the balloon or belly. The weight on your feet is equally balanced. Relax into it! Standing In The Stream Sink down another 2 inches to a level of about 4-6 inches. Achieve your hands out to both sides at waist height, imagining you are standing in a stream, with the current flowing toward a person. Your palms and outstretched fingers rest parallel to the surface of the running stream. Imagine that you are holding a pair of balls, keeping them steady in the flowing water. Concentrate on holding the balls steady as they try to float aside with the current of the running water. Imagine all your weight is sinking down to the soles of your feet. Relax in it! Holding The Balloon In Front Of Your Face Raise your arms and turn your hands outward so that the backs of your fingers are level with your cheeks. Allow your fingers to soften, curving gently and slightly apart. Your fingers tend to be roughly at eye level-never higher than your head. Imagine that your wrists are supported by a strap that runs round the back of your neck. Your open hands hold an imaginary, inflated balloon in front of your face. Press gently facing outward on the balloon as if to push it away from you, but do not tense your muscles. Imagine you are guiding the balloon from you. Your weight shifts back a little toward your heels. Relax into it! Return to the beginning position with hands in the side for about 1 minute. Moving Meditations T'ai Chi and various Qigong practices are moving forms of introspection. They are an excellent way to still the mind while in motion; create a strong, flexible, and healthy body; open up the body's numerous energy channels; and prepare the body for deeper states of sitting meditation. It is my experience that someone that practices T'ai Chi, Qigong, or Yoga in addition to their other meditation practices, will make faster progress on their road to living in their true state of love and bliss at all times than someone who just meditates. I invite you to find a category with an experienced instructor instead of trying to learn from a video/dvd. You'll be glad you did! Meditating on the Sun There are several ways of sun meditation (sungazing), several chat rooms devoted to sungazing, and several websites with related information. Not all of the information is usually factual and it behooves anyone who decides to practice this ancient and life transforming technique to become informed through reading as much as they can and by talking with other experienced sungazers. For an in depth discussion on Meditating on the Sun, make sure you see my article with that title. Proven Benefits of Meditation People who meditate experience better health than others over a broad variety of conditions. Significantly more subjects in the relaxation group reported improved relationships, general health, and enjoyment of life. Meditation has been shown in order to contribute to the development of life purpose and satisfaction which reduces depression and anxiety, the psychological end products on the stress response. Meditation has been shown to have a positive impact on heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen consumption and metabolic activity, distribution about blood flow, muscle tension, and the alleviation of pain. Meditation helps people observe and identify the characteristic believed patterns with which they respond to outer circumstances. Feelings from the past are often released. As these patterns are explored, individuals learn that it is possible to develop new ways of responding to outer circumstances. Meditation has been shown to help reduce alcohol consumption and drug abuse. Relaxation brings about a reduction in artery wall thickening, reduced heart rate and blood pressure, decreased respiratory rate and oxygen consumption, improve regularity and amplitude of -EEG activity, reduced blood lactate level and other metabolic effects, along with the subjective connection with peace, relaxation, and contentment, and an increased responsiveness to stressful events with quicker recovery. While these results are also characteristic of eyes-closed rest, or sleep, the majority of studies have found these effects to be greater in breathing. Meditation modifies the depression of cellular immunity associated with stress. Regular meditation has reduced plasma cholesterol and also the number of cigarettes smoked. Conclusion To really supercharge your meditations and establish an instant and infinite awakening to your Divinity, I highly recommend finding a living Master who can ignite and guide your spiritual awakening to its blissful re-union with God. Use the meditation technique they gift you as your primary practice and supplement with other forms you discover useful (perhaps some of the ones in this article). May you too discover and experience what several enlightened Masters possess declared: "The heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam. Meditate on your own Self. Worship yourself. Respect your Self. God dwells within you as you. "

[prosperopedia]

New York’s Reproductive Health Act Represents New Level of Depravity in the United States

It’s no secret that Americans are actively shedding the Judeo-Christian moral conduct codes that have set our society apart from most of the rest of the world for generations. We seem to be highly conscious of the direction we’re heading. A Gallup survey started in 2002 that assesses public opinion about morals in the United States showing a steadily growing understanding that our country and culture are becoming more immoral.

The consequences of this moral decline have been predictable: higher crime, higher instances of depression and lower mental health, strained relationships, and an an overall lower quality of life.

But anyone who can read this at least has had a chance at life.

If you are one of the unfortunate souls to be conceived by a woman who lives in New York, your chances at life just took a major hit this week.

The state of New York has set a new level of depravity for modern American culture when Governor Cuomo signed into law a bill that allows for abortions to be performed right up until a baby is born. Despite the euphemisms (the terminology “reproductive health” itself used in the legislation’s name is highly misleading) used to assuage the guilt that would normally be felt by people with actual, functioning consciences over passing such a law, there are tragic implications. Put simply, thousands more children will be denied chances at life based on decisions made by their mothers (often under deceptive pressure from organizations like Planned Parenthood), undiscerning doctors looking for an easy paycheck, and others who comprise that growing segment of society that places highest priority on pleasure and selfishness while dismissing any obligation to do what’s right.

Lila Rose explains Planned Parenthood’s deceptive tactics in its pursuit of more abortions.

When news like this breaks, I can’t help but find myself wondering, “How did we get here?” It’s puzzling to see such large numbers of people who are willing to kill innocent children simply for convenience. One of the greatest statements of hypocrisy (and irony) came at the recent Women’s March from a woman who has become known for her lack of femininity. The new bully politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez committed to making “sure that the least among us is advocated for the most.” An honorable, thinking person would use (and have used) a statement like that to defend babies, the most helpless class of people. Ocasio-Cortez and other proponents of abortion are simply not honorable, nor thoughtful people.

Outrage over the new law from groups (most of them religious organizations) who are keeping up the fight for civility and decency has been significant, although ultimately unsuccessful. In the specific case of New York’s new law, there has been a targeted decade-plus long opposition to the policy of allowing abortionists to get away with as much as this law allows.

A statement released by the New York State Catholic Conference condemned the actions of New York lawmakers, specifically pointing out the inconsistency of Governor Cuomo, who purports to be a practicing Catholic.

“We thank all of our partners in the 12-year-long fight to stop this horrendous policy, and all pro-life New Yorkers who made their voices heard in an effort to stop it. Let us all pray for the conversion of heart for those who celebrate this tragic moment in the history of our state. And we pray in a special way for the lives that will be lost, and for the women of our state who are made less safe under this law.”

There is a very large faction in the United States of people who are intent on flipping good and evil upside down. The irony of concocting and passing this kind of law by those who know better was also pointed out in another part of the Catholic Conference’s statement:

“Many of the state Senators and Assembly Members who voted for this abortion expansion are mothers themselves, who felt their child toss, turn and kick in their womb, and delighted in the progress of their pregnancy. Many others, as well as our governor, are fathers, who held their partner’s hand as they viewed the ultrasound videos, watched their child squirm and rejoiced at the first sound of a heartbeat. Many of these same officials were themselves born into less-than-perfect conditions – poverty, health problems, disabilities, broken families. All overcame these issues to rise to leadership in our state, because their parents chose life for them.”

Well said!

The biggest damnation of the argument of people who favor abortion is that anyone who argues in favor of it argues against his or her own right to be alive in the first place.

Does Abortion Empower Women?

Somewhere in recent history, the concept of empowering women was flipped on its head. In the past, empowering women meant allowing them to vote, giving them access to education, and treating them as equals (albeit with distinctly separate God-given roles) with men. Society has come a long way with those objectives.

However, at some point along the way, the idea of empowering women somehow took a sinister turn. People with evil motives decided to mix objectives that do just the opposite, demeaning and demoralizing women, with the accelerating movement toward empowering women. These influences recharacterized a woman’s unique ability to create life in a way that men simply cannot (which is the most significant miracle of being female), and changed the idea of empowerment into an empty and hollow slogan: “My body, my choice.” That statement is not only a declaration of selfishness by any woman who uses it referring to her “right” to kill her child, but is a tragic misunderstanding and diminishing of the amazing ability a woman has to create a human intelligence.

One of the most disappointing scenes a person with values could witness is a group of women shouting, “Free abortion on demand! Can we do it? Yes we can,” That sentiment treats the killing of a child like it’s a streaming service like Netflix. Those were the words used by supporters of the RHA bill.

I’m grateful to be married to a woman who is as Christian as they come. She is loving. She is caring. She is unselfish. She is actively working to become like the Savior and emulate his perfect qualities. She would give up her life for any of our six (soon to be seven) children. There is a naturally high correlation between her selflessness and her opposition to abortion, just as there is a correlation between the utter selfishness

One of the most notable attitudes of those who are pro-abortion is their emphasis on “me.” If you dissect the lives of any of those who are prominent leaders of the movement, you’ll inevitably find their motivations rooted in selfishness. Sadly enough, their style of selfishness, disguised as “progress”, has found a way to flourish enough among American society that we now find a law on the books of our fourth most populous state that disregards the sanctity of human life in favor of a deplorable alternative.

How Abortion Became Part of Women’s Liberation

I read an opinion article by Lila Rose (founder of a pro-life organization called Live Action) recently that describes the influences that have unfortunately created the foundation of the modern version of feminism.  Rose compared the two very different women’s marches that have been in the news recently. One, the March for Life anti-abortion rally held in the nation’s capital on January 18, 2019 she described “truly values the entire being of a woman, while the other [the Woman’s March held a day later in the same city] asks her to reject a significant part of herself to ultimately become ‘empowered.’”

Rose’s description of how abortion became associated with empowerment for women is striking. The process is filled with deception.

Until the 1960s, abortion was considered by feminist leaders as an offense to women. It was understood to be a tool used by men to oppress women, and the act was correctly understood to conflict with womanhood and what it stood for.

Then, in the 1960s, two male abortion advocates, a journalist activist named Larry Lader and a an abortion doctor named Bernard Nathanson successfully convinced influencers among the feminist movement, notably Betty Friedan (founder of the National Organization for Women, or NOW), to change their minds about abortion. Previous to their deceptive sales job to Friedan, feminist leaders understood abortion to be “the ultimate in the exploitation of women,” as was stated by early feminist Alice Paul.

Some of the lies told to feminist leaders in order to make abortion attractive included greatly exaggerated statistics about deaths of women from illegal abortions (5,000 to 10,000 per year were the numbers provided, when in reality is was less than 50 – nearly the same number as died from legal abortions – in 1972, the year before the Roe v Wade decision). They also fudged the numbers about public opinion, creating poll numbers that “indicated that 85% of the public favored unrestricted abortion, when we knew it was only 5%.”  Ultimately, Lader’s and Nathanson’s shenanigans caused NOW to declare the right to abortion as an official objective of the women’s movement.

The influence of those two evil men among others has been demonstrably connected to the deaths of millions of unborn children. I know that it’s taboo to judge, but I’d put money on the  rotting in hell for their work.

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[ara-la]

Pregnancy-Related Deaths in TX

Why Won't Texas Protect the Lives of Black Mothers and Their Babies?!

By Keith 'Malik' Washington, Deputy Chairman, New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter) Texas region

To My Daughter Kakuya by Assata Shakur

i have shabby dreams for you

of some vague freedom

i have never known

Baby,

i don't want you hungry or thirsty

were out in the cold.

And I don't want the frost

to kill your fruit

before it ripens.

I can see a sunny place –

like exploding green.

I can see your bright, bronze skin

at ease with all the flowers

and the centipedes.

I can hear laughter,

not grown from ridicule.

And words, not prompted

by ego or greed or jealousy.

I see a world where hatred

has been replaced by love,

and ME replaced by WE.

And I can see a world

where you,

building and exploring

strong and fulfilled,

will understand.

And go beyond

my little shabby dreams. (1)

Revolutionary Greetings Comrades!

If there is anyone in the world who can fully understand the vicious hatred 'The State' has against black wimmin and their babies, it is Comrade Assata Shakur. As I sit here in my solitary cell with Assata's autobiography on my lap, I've come to the conclusion that Kakuya (Assata's daughter who was born in prison) was a miracle baby! Considering the conditions that Assata was housed in and the horrible treatment she was subjected to, there is no plausible answer as to how Kakuya survived. Moreover it is amazing that both mother and daughter made it. This essay is about the ones who didn't make it – I hope you are listening.

 2.) The state of Texas has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the United States. These pregnancy -related deaths disproportionately affect black wimmin.

This and other shocking statistics were revealed in a report provided by the state's Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force.

 3.) In 2010, Texas had 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births but that figure increased dramatically by 2014 to 35.8 deaths per every 100,000 live births (almost doubling).

Recently there has been a lot of information published on this topic but there still is a huge question mark as to why black wimmin are more at risk than other races of wimmin in regards to maternal mortality.

I firmly believe that there are a diverse array of factors which place our sisters at higher risk. One taboo issue that we don't discuss enough in the black community is mental health.

 4.) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) counts maternal deaths that occur up to a year after pregnancy. This is significant.

It is time we had a serious discussion and dialogue concerning postpartum depression and suicides among black wimmin. These maladies can strike many months after a mother delivers her baby.

Before I came to prison, I worked in various medical jobs. I have a desire to become a Physician's Assistant (PA). I worked as a medical technician and phlebotomist alongside  a black Physician's Assistant named John Howard. I was impressed by his intelligence and his down to earth personality. PA Howard made me believe I could be a PA and when I attended the Morgan State University in Baltimore Maryland, I chose an academic track that was geared exclusively toward the medical profession. By the time I arrived at Morgan State, I have my eyes on becoming an RN – specifically a CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist). I am mentioning this in order to explain my sincere interest in finding out what is driving the high rate of pregnancy -related deaths among black wimmin.

Considering the outrageous statistics, one would think that protecting the lives of black mothers and their babies would have been a top priority for Texas legislators during the special session which began July 18, 2017 and ended around August 18, 2017.

In reality, black lives don't matter in Texas; but they do matter to Texas State Representative Shawn Thierry. 5.) Rep. Thierry is a Democrat from Houston, Texas who happens to be a black womyn and in 2012 she experienced her own complications with an epidural during the birth of her daughter.

Rep. Thierry felt that the issue of black wimmin dying deserved more attention, so she decided to write a letter To Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Republican State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst and Texas Representative Cindy Barkett, another Republican, crafted a measure that asks the Mortality and Morbidity Task Force to conduct further studies of the "most at risk population", but doesn't specify the focus should be on Black wimmin.

Sen. Kolkhorst's measure passed, but the Texas Legislature was reluctant to make any changes that would save black lives right now!

However, this issue is not entirely a black issue; there are definitely Asian, Arab, Latina, and white wimmin who have succumbed to pregnancy related deaths. Once again, postpartum depression is the culprit in many of these fatalities. 7.) Sen. José Rodriguez, a Democrat from El Paso, Texas tried to increase coverage via Medicaid insurance which currently stops providing benefits 60 days after the birth of a child. Republicans would not do it.

This is problematic because according to this study which I referenced at the beginning of this essay, most fatalities happened after the 42 day mark after the birth of the baby.

In Texas, a key problem is Access! Access to proper medical care.  Access to adequate education and job opportunities. Access to the legislators who make life and death decisions! 7.) Time and time again the groups that lack access even extends to the ballot box in Texas!

We have seen the federal courts ruled that politicians in Texas have purposely blocked our access to the political process by crafting redistricting maps in such a way that benefits Republicans and actually marginalizes and robs communities of color who usually vote Democratic!

I am a socialist/communist; I belong to a communist organization and as I perform my concrete analysis of these conditions, I clearly see the system as it stands is corrupt.

The only way for us to fully realize our self-determination is to replace the current system with a system that has a vested interest in The People – ALL the people – and not just a select group!

8.) For us to actually make a strong and viable socialist party, there must be multi--racial unity. However, there must also be truth and understanding about our unique class contradictions in relation to the underpinnings of white supremacy and white privilege, which do exist, although we don't like to discuss it.

Let's look a little deeper at the plight of black wimmin and let's ask ourselves: "if white wimmin in Texas have the highest rate of pregnancy-related deaths, would the Bathroom Bill have been a top priority? (During the Special Session, the Bathroom Bill was a top priority item for Texas legislators.)

I want to briefly focus on the disparity between black and white wimmin in Amerikan society. Allow me to quote black scholar Linda Larue. 8.) "Blacks are oppressed, and that means unreasonably, cruelly, and harshly fettered by white authority. White women… Are only suppressed and that means, checked, restrained, excluded from conscious and overt activity."

Have you ever considered the psychological pressure on a black mother as she comes to grips with the reality of the conditions that she is bringing her newborn child into? Suppose her newborn baby is a black male? In her lifetime, she has watched as Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Jordan Davis, Philando Castile, and most recently in Texas, Jordan Edwards were murdered in cold blood by a police officer or a wannabe cop.

Can any of us who aren't mothers ever understand or imagine the impact this has on black wimmin? And what about substance abuse? Another issue plaguing our sisters! Don't get mad at the for broaching these sensitive topics let's set these issues the open, so we can come up with some solutions.

Once again I refer back to the report by the Mortality and Morbidity Task Force; this time I want to provide a direct quote from journalist Madlin Meckelburg in her article on this topic entitled "Tackling Rate of Maternal Deaths." 9.) "The group identified 189 pregnancy related deaths in 2011 and 2012 in Texas, most caused by cardiac events, drug overdose and hypertensive disorders. It also found that mental health and substance abuse disorders "played a significant" role in a number of deaths reviewed by the task force and highlighted "repeated missed opportunities to screen women" and "refer them to treatment."

In my opinion this issue hits at the core as to whether Black Lives Matter. There are those who have argued that Alicia Garza and Patrice Cullors missed the mark by trumpeting #BlackLivesMatter! However I am 100% in agreement with the need for amplifying this battle cry.

My question is: "does #Black Lives Matter believe the current ruling system is capable of granting us self-determination? Capitalism has failed us at every turn. Do $50 million dollar donations push #BLM closer to us or further away?

This definitely is not an attack on Ms. Garza or Ms. Cullors, for I admire their activism. I just want them to articulate clearly on which side of the aisle they stand, in regards to capitalism or socialism? Without a doubt, solidarity is needed and dialogue is needed between intellectual black wimmin and men.

As I close, I must remind you that Texas is the home of some of the most advanced and respected medical institutions. We are talking about world-renowned facilities such as Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, and MD Anderson, which is highly regarded in the battle against cancer.

I remember when the Affordable Care Act was first proposed by then US president Barack Obama. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz opposed the plan aggressively to the point of attempting to shut down the US government, but he had no viable plan to provide insurance or medical care for those lacking coverage, and at the time, Texas led the nation in uninsured people

The current president of the United States and all his cabinet members do not have any interest in creating an equal playing field. It's all about consolidating their power and securing their stranglehold on the US and world economy.

Please consider this quote from Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (New York) Anchor, 1969 PP. 178-179.

"It sometimes happens in a nation where opinions are divided that the balance between parties breaks down and one of them acquires an irresistible preponderance. It breaks all obstacles, crushes its adversary, and exploits the whole of society for its own benefit but beneath this apparent unanimity, deep divisions and real opposition still lie hidden. That is what has happened in America… It is easy to see that the rich have a great distaste for their countries Democratic institutions. The people are a power whom they fear and scorn."

There will be a paradigm shift when we finally eradicate Imperialism and replace it with Socialism.

Dare to struggle, Dare to win! All Power to the People!

Footnotes:

1) Assata- An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur (Lawrence Hill Books) p. 259

2) USA Today Austin Bureau, July 30, 2017; Tackling Rate of Maternal Death by Madlin Meckelburg (published in Corpus Christi Caller Times)

3) ibid.

4) The Economist, Aug. 5. 2017, p. 21 “Maternal Deaths - a Painful Puzzle”

5) Meckelburg, op. cit.

6) ibid

7) ibid

8) Linda Larue, “The Black Movement and Women’s Liberation,” Black Scholar, Vol. 1, May 1970.

9) Meckelburg, op. cit.

10) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America NY, Anchor Books, 1969, pp. 178-179

[vitalmindandbody]

Can Environmentalists Learn To Love Or Just Tolerate Nuclear Power?

In June, California utility Pacific Gas and Electric announced plans for phasing out its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, located on the central California coast. If the current timetable holds, late summer 2025 will see the first time in over six decades that the nations most populous state will have no licensed nuclear power providers.

This is big news. Forty years ago, Diablo Canyon stood at the middle of an intense controversy over the safety and desirability of nuclear power. Those debates stand as part of the origin story of the anti-nuclear movement; failure to stop the plant from coming online educated and galvanized a generation of anti-nuclear activists. From this perspective, Pacific Gas and Electrics decision to replace nuclear output with renewable energy seems to be an environmental victory, a belated vindication of the anti-nuclear efforts of the 1970s.

But in the era of climate change, no decision regarding energy production is simple. Californias move away from nuclear power comes alongside a modest reappraisal of a technology that was once vilified by the vast majority of environmentalists. James Hansen, the scientist whose 1988 testimony before Congress provided climate change with much-needed visibility and political salience, has become one of a number of prominent environmentalists to support nuclear power.

The problems of waste, security and ensuring accident-free operation are as vexing as ever. But context is key, and the real but remote dangers of nuclear power may prove more manageable than the more visible and accelerating consequences of a warming planet.

Diablo today might be sitting on a second juncture in nuclear history in the United States, one where environmentalists will have to embrace or even just accept the very technology that helped teach them to be suspicious of relying too much on technical solutions to the political and social challenge of powering our society.

Atom-powered dreams

For decades before it became an activist target, nuclear power was celebrated as revolutionary science. From the first decade of the 20th century, newspapers and magazines reported the discoveries of Ernest Rutherford, Marie Curie and other nuclear pioneers. The prospect of transmuting matter of turning one element into another had been a dream of medieval alchemists, and journalists and their readers alike were quick to thrill to the new science.

It was frequently heralded as something new in the universe, and a symbol of mankinds burgeoning ability to control nature. Moreover, the mere potential of releasing the energy stored by splitting or fusing atoms quickly gave rise to fantasies of technological utopia, in which innovations such as radium-infused medical treatments and uranium-powered ships would transform the world.

A traveling exhibit for the Atoms for Peace program in 1957 when the possibilities of producing electricity from atomic power seemed endless. U.S. Department of Energy

A generation later, the success of the Manhattan Project made such speculation seem plausible. Postwar media reveled in the prospect of all sorts of atomic miracles: electric cars, cheap power, weather control and cancer cures. In 1953, President Eisenhower gave official sanction to at least some of these dreams with his Atoms for Peace initiative, and his second term had barely begun when a power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania began supplying nuclear-produced electricity.

Additional plants quickly came online; more than 150 had been licensed by the end of the 1970s. If nuclear weapons filled midcentury Americans with thoughts of doomsday, nuclear power provided its opposite: the dream of a technology-fueled future that might help extend postwar prosperity indefinitely.

Eisenhower himself had put it this way in 1953, when announcing Atoms for Peace: Experts would be mobilized to apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine, and other peaceful activities. A special purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world.

Problems emerge

Dreams depend for their vitality not just on what is said explicitly, but also upon what is left unspoken. In this case, the missing element was environmental awareness. It was not until the widespread hydrogen bomb testing of the 1950s that the true health and environmental costs of nuclear energy began to be uncovered; it would be another decade or more before concerns about power generation began to rival those of weapons development.

Diablo Canyon provides a case in point. Sierra Club officials had partnered with Pacific Gas and Electric to select the site in 1965, in the process helping to spare a different and more highly valued wilderness area. They were not particularly concerned about the nature of the proposed power plant. Their concern was simply with the intelligent management of natural resources, and Diablo raised questions about the proper balance of conservation and industrial development. While there may have been fears of a meltdown or other sort of accident, these were not nearly as pronounced as they would become in the next decade.

The original location of the Diablo Canyon on Californias central coast was negotiated by the Sierra Club as a less environmentally sensitive location than a previously proposed one. Later, it was found to be close to seismic fault lines. dirtsailor2003/flickr, CC BY-ND

This cooperation between industry and environmentalists began to fray in the late 1960s. Activist networks in California targeted the plant, and new organizations formed that valued resistance over accommodation and negotiation. David Brower, the executive director of the Sierra Club, helped lead a well-publicized fight with his own board of directors; he would eventually resign to found the more radical group Friends of the Earth.

The countrys changing political climate played a role in this, as Brower and other activists evinced a Vietnam-era skepticism that saw the interests of industry and the public as inherently at odds. Corporations simply could not be trusted to adhere rigorously to safety standards, to value either human or environmental health at the expense of profitability.

Additionally, an evolving environmental movement was positioned to see nuclear power differently than its conservation-focused predecessors had. Indeed, by the 1970s, environmentalists were not simply seeking to manage the pace of modernization, but to question its premises altogether. Best-selling books such as Silent Spring (1962) and The Population Bomb (1968) had prompted readers to question whether or not unbridled growth was desirable, or even possible. High-profile disasters such as the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill drew attention to the fragility of the natural environment, as well as the disturbing possibility that accidents were inevitable rather than anomalous.

Nuclear power was already becoming suspect because of its association with Cold War institutions, as well as the fearsome potential of radioactive contamination which the historian of science Spencer Weart has identified as perhaps the most distinct element of nuclear fear. By the 1970s, despite the energy shocks of the time, nuclear energy became for environmentalists what fossil fuels are today: a symbol of the mistaken choices of decades past, and a clarion call for rethinking the entire energy landscape.

Much of this was already true before the infamous Three Mile Island accident in 1979. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would ultimately conclude that the health effects were minimal certainly nothing like environmentalists had feared could happen. But the psychological consequences were considerable, owing both to the days of uncertainty immediately after the accident and to the eerie resemblance between actual events and a recently released movie, The China Syndrome, which depicted a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear plant. A few years later, these concerns would be amplified still further through easy association with the anti-nuclear weapons activism of the early 1980s.

Softening stance?

The history of mankind, H.G. Wells wrote in 1914, is the history of the attainment of external sources of power. In the age of environmental awareness, it has also become the chronicle of human attempts to come to terms with the consequences of this attainment. Early anti-nuclear activists at Diablo and elsewhere were quite conscious of this, believing that its productive capacity did not outweigh the risks to nature and human health.

More recently, some environmentalists have warmed up to nuclear power. Stewart Brand, whose Whole Earth Catalog, first launched in 1968, made him an environmental movement icon, is one of the more prominent. Im so pro-nuclear now, he told NPR in 2010, that I would be in favor of it even if climate change and greenhouse gases were not an issue.

Brands enthusiasm makes him something of an outlier, even among those environmentalists whose position has softened. What appears to have changed for them is not their assessment of the risks of nuclear, but an awareness that the environmental crisis is even worse than they imagined in early 1970s, in particular the threat of climate change from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

What these more moderate proponents have in common both with Brand and their still skeptical environmental brethren is a recognition that questions of energy are not merely technical in nature. They reflect how people wish to organize their societies and their economies. These are the questions that anti-nuclear activists, among others, posed throughout the 1970s.

So it may well be that increased reliance on nuclear power will be part of the toolkit we need to survive climate change. However, that choice will come with risks not just of meltdowns, but also of avoiding the kinds of hard questions that Diablo-era activists tried to ask: Can we power our society without resorting to industrial-scale technology with significant risks? It may not be possible or desirable to live with the trade-offs our appetite for energy demands of us.

David K. Hecht, Associate Professor of History, Bowdoin College

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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