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findursoulmateorfindyourself · 9 months

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its really still a problem. i am reading mark aurel which is all about focusing on urself and pracising kind hearted not comparing urself too others not envy and so on and then this stunning stunning stunning young woman comes, dark hair teint skin beuatifuk mouth beuatofuk smile suoer young oerfect akin very beautifuk body but akk in a very subtle way. she smiles to me i smile bavk i admire her but and this sistrubs me i still envy her. i wish i had her beauty and her eaziness soorit the effortless sex appeal. next to her i feek old, wasted and kind of trying to be ridicule. i need to wear rhose toght things to he recognized I need to really ahoe my hody but she is not doing anything kf jt and still glowing. but it ahoukd he omay and i ahoukd not feek bad aboht mysekf just because she js suoer stunning. why am i doing it. its all just to put myself down. but i knkw irs a fact a fact i just oainky should accept and mkve on. be grateguk for the bidy i am in as i an prraching everyday and saying hoe much i love myself now. apparently i am not there yet. hiw can i get over it and just recognize and cherish her beuaty fulk stop. i dont hate her fir being behaitfuk i just wish it coukd be me instead. i think my kifr woukd be so much better if i looked like that but what woukd be better? i know she is a beautifuk kind soul the way she smiles gives jt off. its not like i would be taking this beautiful body and losing a beautiful character bc she clearly has it all…so what am i scared for. the man or woman I like, likes her better fir her beauty and her character? so it be, then it simply means they are a better match. if she is oreferred for something like getting into a club I am not, so it be. it is not my oath to be in this club as it is not my path to be with this person. but then how to jot feel sorry for urself as it all just seems unfair. and i think this is the crucial part. everythingabout us is beautiful if we are doing it with a compass liek mark aurek out of honesty purity and kind hearted ness every little thought ( it is okay to be jealous I am not there yet) but I am really trying. I might bit get into the club, i should say c’est la vie, and might go hoke with a fresh mind crrating something amazing. it has the same value. or does it not? therr is no such thing as objectively speaking thats why POV became such a thing i guess but yes. lets try to oretend objectively which means a lot kf opinions gathered she is getting into the club meeting tons of amazing oeiple and sancing to incredibke music. over girl going home and chilking thwre no ine cates aboht her. but it is also with what aurek says caring about what ithers think and do its espeically the problem!! I inky have my now and here out if my eyes and my heart and it is supposed to be like that. and ofc im thinkinf hundert peopke consider it to he better like this or like that basically this is how democracy works, how can I vakidate my own opinion as much as them 100 if it comes to, it is the same good to be rejected and go hike than be in the club? its the same old same okd question about. which opinion values how can i crrate my value without the measurements of others. i am always coming to this. i sint want peiple to think i am a narcisisit egoman if i dont give a fuck aboht theyre opinions amd weigh mine way higher. it is trucky to maneuver in that mindest without becomung ignorant. but at the same time i dont want to live through grow through prosper thorigh affirmation hell no that aounds like hell. i want to affirm mysekf. it is maybe because ut is the sustainabke way. when we think about rivers and flyids which i cam to visualize when we had a saying about einfluss neglej und beeinflussen which also inckudes the river interesntinfky and aurel is talking alout aboht the stream and i think it is pary of live as blood is streaming through our veines and we need ghe water and the fluids, the circulation is life. bht coming back to the asoect of sustainabikty. listen imagine your own body giving ur own body ur own bacteria ur own blood cells when we tal

lol my paragrpah was maxed oht i do too much bla bla. but yes if we i somt want to go into biologism to much i never want to dsocirmante bodies espeicalky when it comes to genetics we always have to he carefuk to not get into any natuonalism discimnating fucked up shit. but I think my own body loves theri own system the most and it csn get a lot of her own system. its a little bit maybe kets talk about skin its better. my dahrer always refused to wash us too much as babies and in general he as this pladoyer: ur own bidy crrates fat that oeitect the skin, washing it away sith oerfumed shampoo gel to then out chemical body lotion sossnt seem to be an enhancement for the skin seems pretty ligicak to me. I mean everyone has their own bekiefs and ways but I kove to appreciate what my vody creates and what my body does. I know i am talking aboht an abled healthy skin ans i know some peiple just love to smeell like thousand rose leafs. byt i find that metaphor pretty good for also souk stuff. what my own body gives to my body is because it is healthy important disclaimer sensefull and good for me. it pribably matches my needs better than any artificial or natural product which fits affirmation from outside. of course fhe cream snells nice i feek fresh but then, my bidy get used to this crram wnats more of this crram and stips crrating its own fat to protect the skin maybe. I always have to buy this cream and its exterior, it will never last. i need it nee alk the time

i need rhat affirmation it feeks good but it wont last, my own afformation whereby comes naturally fits my needs and it is independent on any outer things. and this is why the value for me of my own affirmation wighs heavier than any of other people. i feel free and i feel good avoht jt but ifc still i am here comoaring mayelf to a maybe 19 year old woman that i wikk never be and never was. and its okay like fhaf but i need ti remind myself and i am disappointed inmyself still that it affects me so much and my head us gilled aitb it instead kf kther thints. but at the same time i lay down write this down and reflect on it so i hope i pray but i also

know that the next time i get inti a situation like that ill feel differently. I see feel hear taste the world thourgh my eyes and I love that I appreciate so many good food so much so many nice music ao many beuatofuk animals buidlings chikdrens families situations ( sometimes i dont of course madness, sexism, racism exploitation hatred and injsutice of the workd) but Its all meant for me. and i need tk accept and allrecate this. trhough my mind baby through my mind and love ur mind, it diesnt mean you think her mind sucks, it is beautifuk for sure, but its her mind her life her feelings hers and its good to see ssomeone havinf it like that its just an insoiratuon and a joy if beuaty and smiles which is for free and contagious( but Its all meant for me. and i need tk accept and allrecate this.

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addictedtoeddie · 4 years

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The full Esquire Spain interview translated from Spanish:

Eddie Redmayne trial: guilty of being the most talented (and stylish) actor of his generation

The Oscar winner talks about what it means to premiere a film with Aaron Sorkin (The Chicago 7th Trial on Netflix) and filming the new part of the most famous saga of all time under the watchful eye of its author, J.K. Rowling.

By Alba Díaz (text) / JUANKR (photos and video) / Álvaro de Juan (styling) 10/23/2020

At the Kettle’s Yard Gallery in Cambridge, stands alone and leaning on a piano Prometheus, a marble head made by Constantin Brâncusi, and the only piece of art that Eddie Redmayne (London, 1982) would save from possible massive destruction. He tells me about it as he leaves the filming set of the third installment of Fantastic Beasts in the early days of an autumn that, we suspect, we will never forget. It begins to get dark as the actor nods seriously: "I promise to do my best in this interview."

Eddie Redmayne made himself in the theater despite some voices warning him that he could not survive in it. "Many people were in charge to tell me that it would never work, that only extraordinary cases make it and that I would not be able to live from this professionally." Even his father came home one day with a list of statistics on unemployed young actors. Redmayne, who is extremely modest, polite and funny, adds: “But I enjoyed theater so much that I got to the point of thinking that if I could only do one play a year for the rest of my life… I would do it. And that would fill me completely.

Spoiler: since then until today he has participated in many more. He set his first foot in the industry when he debuted at the Shakespeare’s Globe Theater and won over critics and audiences. He then landed his first major role in My Week with Marilyn opposite Michelle Williams. And then came one of the roles of his life, the character he wanted to become an actor for, Marius. With him he sang, led a revolution and broke Cosette's heart in Les Miserables. “I found out about the Les Misérables auditions when I was shooting a movie in Illinois. Dressed like a cowboy. I picked up the iPhone and videotaped myself singing the Marius song. I always wanted to be him ”.

Now Redmayne is an Oscar winner - thanks to his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything - and the protagonist of one of the most important sagas in history, Fantastic Beasts. He plays the magizoologist Newt Scamander in it. When I ask him what it means to him to be the protagonist of a magical world that is so important to millions of people, Eddie sighs and takes a few seconds to answer. “I have always loved the Harry Potter universe. Some people like The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars ... But, for me, the idea that there is a magical world that happens right in front of you, that happens without going any further on the streets of London, that. .. That exploded my imagination in another way.

During the quarantine, J. K. Rowling, who has been in charge of the script of the film, sparked a controversy through a series of tweets about transgender women. Redmayne assures that he does not agree with these statements but that it does not approve of the attacks of some people through social networks. The actor was one of the first to position himself against Rowling alongside Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and other protagonists of her films. "Trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary identities are valid."

After having spent a while talking, Redmayne confesses to me that he has never been a big dreamer not to maintain certain aspirations that ended up disappointing him. So he has always kept a handful of dreams to himself. One of them was fulfilled just a few weeks ago with the premiere of The Trial of the Chicago 7, a film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin that can already be seen on Netflix and in some - few - cinemas. “I was on vacation with my wife in Morocco and the script arrived. I think I called my agent before I even read it and said yes, I would. She probably thought the obvious, that I'm stupid. After that, of course I read the script, which is about a specific moment in history that I knew very little about. I found it exciting and a very relevant drama in today's times. "

And it is that having a script by Aaron Sorkin in your hands is no small thing. Eddie Redmayne has been a fan of his work ever since he saw The West Wing of the White House. “His scripts have delicious language and dialogue. As an actor, it's fun to play characters that are much smarter than you are in real life. That virtuosity is hard to come by. I really hope that audiences enjoy this movie and feel that there is always hope. " He remembers that since he released The Theory of Everything he has recorded, to a large extent, English period dramas, “and although the new Aaron Sorkin is not strictly contemporary,” says Redmayne, “to be able to wear jeans and shirts and sweaters instead of so much tweed is great ”.

Besides acting, art was the only thing the actor was interested in, so he ended up studying Art History at Cambridge University. “My parents are quite traditional and when I told them I wanted to act they gave me free rein but on the condition that I study a career. And I'm very grateful for that because ... Look, beyond that, when I play a real character I usually go to the National Portrait Gallery in London quite often. There I lock myself up. Now, for Sorkin's film, I went through a lot of photographs and videotapes. Art helps me to be more creative, to get into paper ”. If he were not an actor, he would be, he says decidedly, a historian or perhaps a curator. "Although I think he would be a very bad art curator."

Against all logic, Eddie Redmayne is color blind. But there is a color that you can distinguish anywhere and on any surface: klein blue. He wrote his thesis on the French artist Yves Klein and the only shade of blue he used in his works. He wrote up to 30,000 words talking about that color with which he became obsessed. “It is surprising that a color can be so emotional. One can only hope to achieve that intensity in acting. "

Like his taste for art, which encompasses the refined and compact, Redmayne seems to be in the same balance when it comes to the roles he chooses. When I ask him what aspects a character he wants to play should have, he takes a few seconds again before answering: “I wish I had a more ingenious answer but I will tell you that I know when my belly hurts. It's that feeling that I trust. In my mind I transport him to imagine myself playing that character. When I read a script I have to really enjoy it. You never fully regret those instincts. It's like when you connect with something emotionally. "

So we come to the conclusion that all his characters have some traits in common. "You know what? I never look back, and this is something personal, but I do believe that there is a parallel between Marius in Les Misérables trying to be a revolutionary, someone who is quite prone to being distracted by love but at the same time is willing to die for his cause, and Tom Hayden from The Chicago Trial of the 7 who was a man who had integrity and was passionate and fought for the things he believed in. So I suppose there may also be similarities between a young Stephen Hawking and Newt Scamander. There are traits in common in all of them that I don't really know where they come from ”.

When we talk about the year we are living in, in which it is increasingly difficult to find hope, we both let out a nervous laugh. "There must be," Redmayne says. “There is something very nice that Tom Hayden, the character I play in Sorkin's film, said to his former wife, actress Jane Fonda, just the day before she passed away. He told her that watching people die for their beliefs changed his life forever. In that sense, I also think about what Kennedy Jr. wrote about how democracy is messy, tough and never easy ... As is believing in something to fight for. I look at history and how they were willing to live their lives with that integrity to change the world and I realize that somehow that spirit still remains with us. " We fell silent thinking about it. "There must be hope."

I tell him about my love for Nick Cave's blog, The Red Hand, and one of the posts that I have liked the most in recent weeks. In it, the singer affirms that his response to a crisis has always been to create, an impulse that has saved him many times. For Redmayne there are two activities that can silence noise: drawing and playing the piano. “When you play the piano your concentration is so consumed by trying to hit that note that you can't think of anything else. Similarly, when you draw something, the focus is between the paper and what you are trying to recreate ... There I try to calm my mind.

Before saying goodbye, I drop a question that I thought I knew the answer to, but failed. What work of art would you save from mass destruction? "How difficult! I could name my favorite artists but still couldn't choose a work. Only one piece? Let me think. I am very obsessed with Yves Klein, but I would stick with a work by Brancusi. There is a sculpture of him, a small head called Prometheus, in Cambridge's Kettle’s Yard, on a dark mahogany piano. The truth is that I find it very ... beautiful ”.

Before leaving, he confesses to me - with a childish and slow voice - that he would like to direct something one day. We said goodbye, saying that we will talk about his next project. Next, the first thing I do is open the Google search engine. "P-r-o-m-e-t-h-e-u-s". Although Eddie Redmayne has trouble distinguishing violet from blue, he doesn't have them when choosing a good piece. He's right, that work deserves to be saved.

* This article appears in the November 2020 issue of Esquire magazine

Source: esquire.com/es/actualidad/cine/a34434114/eddie-redmayne-juicio-7-chicago-netflix-entrevista/

#eddie redmayne #esquire2020 #esquirespain2020nov #esquire spain #chicago7promo #chicago7interview #interview2020 #photoshoot2020 #juankr #my translation

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scapegrace74-blog · 4 years

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Saorsa, Chapter 19

A/N Here is the next installment of Saorsa. In which Jamie is introduced to the auto.mo.bile. This might be one of my favourite scenes in the entire first arc.

Rather than link to all previously posted chapters, I’ll just direct those of you wanting to catch up on your Saorsa-reading to my AO3 page, where the fic is posted in its entirety.

Thank you to each of you liking and reblogging! It does my little fanfic writer’s heart good.

Released from the prison of his secret, Jamie flourished over the weeks leading up to the festive season. With the wounds on his back and shoulder finally healed, he helped Murtagh in the stables and about the estate each day, slowly regaining his strength. In the evenings, he sat with Claire in the great room, helping with the ledgers, conversing quietly, or listening to the frequent BBC Radio updates from the front.

Now that she understood the source of Jamie’s strange ambivalence regarding the war, she tried to provide him with as much context as possible. It helped that he was a worldly, educated man for his time, but the advances in technology were such that he spent many nights in quiet, stunned silence as she described aerial bombing raids, the convoluted alliances between countries that spread the globe and chemical warfare.

“But why, Sassenach? What cause unites Germany, the Turks and Japan, and pits them against Britain, France and Russia? Millions have died, ye say, but for what end?”

She knew what her answer was supposed to be: the fight against global hegemony, restoring the balance of power, ensuring that democracy prevailed over tyranny. But she couldn’t say those things to Jamie, because she knew he would see them for what they were: academic constructs that meant nothing to the common man whose blood was being shed.

Instead, she distracted him with stories about her own travels, following her Uncle Lambert around the globe from one archaeological dig to the next. An orphan and obligatory nomad himself, he listened to her story of rootlessness with sympathy but no pity. She found herself sharing memories she’d thought were boxed away for good, little glimpses of a life she’d been forced to leave behind upon her uncle’s death. They hurt as they rose to the surface, like debriding a wound, but if her eyes watered in the firelit room, Jamie did not comment. Perhaps he attributed it to the peat smoke.

“And when yer uncle passed, ye marrit Frank?” he asked one such night, after they’d each drunk a few glasses of sherry.

He seldom mentioned Frank, and usually only obliquely.

“No. I settled in London, shared a flat with some other single girls, and enrolled in nurse’s college. Uncle Lamb left me enough money to pay my board, tuition and such. And when the war broke out, the army were very eager to recruit nurses for their field hospitals. I met Frank at a mixer; a social event organized for British soldiers. He was still in officer’s training. I was scheduled to deploy to the continent once my schooling was finished. Before I knew it, we were married.”

“Ye did no’ go tae war, then?” She wondered what Jamie made of all of this. She was no historian, but she imagined the idea of paying a woman to serve on the battlefront, even if she was not actually fighting, must be foreign to his eighteenth-century view of the world. Come to think of it, Frank hadn’t been very fond of the idea either.

“No. Once we were married, Frank arranged for me to come to Lallybroch, to mind the estate. One of the perks of being an enlisted officer, I imagine.”

Some of her disenchantment must have crept into her voice, because Jamie’s next words were, “Many’s the way a lady can serve her country, Claire. My da would say…” he trailed off, looking bashful.

“Say what?” she prodded.

“That a strong woman was worth three men, fer she could tend a hearth, grow a new life, and defend her kin more fiercely than any hired soldier. He’d say it of ye, Sassenach.”

She blushed at the unexpected praise, lowering her eyes to the empty sherry glass twisting between her fingers.

“Sometimes I wonder…” she began, but then stopped herself, not wishing to slander the dead. She could feel Jamie’s articulate eyes watching her. “Well, never mind. Would you care for more sherry?”

What she couldn’t say was that she wondered whether her late husband had ever truly known her at all.

Yuletide was a somber affair. News of Frank’s death had by now reached the tenants, adding a pall to what was already a holiday of austerity. Claire worked many late nights with Mrs. Fitz and Cook by her side. On the day before Christmas she delivered two wooden crates to Murtagh.

“There’s a pair of woolen socks and a clementine for each child on the estate and in the village. Can you please see that they are given out today?”, she requested. “And once that’s done, please tell the labourers that they are free to go home. I don’t want to see them back before Hogmanay. Jamie and I can tend the livestock for a few days.”

Murtagh opened his mouth, but Claire raised her hand, forestalling any complaint.

“I don’t want to hear it, Mr. Fitzgibbons. And make certain each man takes a cloutie dumpling home with him. They’re underneath the clementines.”

“I’ll jus’ ride tae the village on Donas, and meet ye there,” Jamie evaded, looking unusually nervous but dapper in navy trousers, a clean shirt and borrowed tweed jerkin.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jamie. It’s freezing out tonight, and you’ll be late for midnight mass besides.”

Her Scot made an indeterminate noise in his throat, neither acquiescing nor contesting her point.

“It’s just a short drive. That old Vauxhall Cadet can barely break twenty miles an hour, and I’m a very good driver.” She neglected to mention the slight handicap of not being able to use the vehicle’s headlights, on account of the blackout. Fortunately, she had the route to the village memorized by now and the moon was waxing full.

“I dinna doubt it, Sassenach. I just… twenty miles an ‘our? Did ye say yer automobile can travel o’er twenty miles an ‘our?”

He pronounced it as three separate words, each carrying the possibility of detonating in his mouth: auto, mo, bile.

Claire grabbed her warmest coat and scarf, then pulled Jamie, still balking, towards the courtyard where the car sat idling. Five minutes later, navigating the moonlit road into the village, he could be heard muttering in Gaelic from the passenger’s seat, getting a headstart on his Yuletide prayers.

The tiny stone church was lit only by tapers, so it wasn’t until she filed back to the Lallybroch pew after receiving communion that she noticed Murtagh sitting alone in a dim corner near the door. She had to dodge a few well-wishers at the end of mass in order to accost him before he could sneak away.

“Murtagh, what are you doing here? I told you and the other men to go home to your families over the holidays.”

Jamie joined her, nerves considerably calmed by the familiar church rituals. Murtagh gave him a beseeching look.

“What?” she asked, looking between their faces and annoyed at their apparent complicity.

“Sassenach, Murtagh comes from the Isle of Lewis. Even if he’d hied away t’day, he canna make it there an’ back in no’ but a week.”

Claire bit her lip, chagrinned that it never occurred to her to wonder if her labourers could take advantage a holiday, or if she’d merely complicated their lives with what she believed was benevolence. It was one of those moments when she was certain she would never adequately fill the role of Lady of Lallybroch.

“It’s nae yer fault, Claire,” Jamie assured her quietly, obviously reading her dismay on her face. “I ken the other lads were fit tae burst when they heard the news an’ saw their cloutie dumpling.”

She squared her shoulders and raised her chin, wrestling her confidence back into place.

“Well, there’s nothing for it, then. Murtagh, I insist you join Jamie and I in the main house for Christmas dinner tomorrow. And when the holidays are over, and the time is convenient for you, you shall take two weeks to visit your family. It must be an age since you last saw them.”

“Mistress, I canna…” Murtagh began, but his mistress was already on the move.

“I don’t want to hear of it. Now please join us in the auto.mo.bile. I may need you to administer smelling salts to our fearless Highland warrior on the road home.”

#my writing #outlander

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gffa · 5 years

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THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG POST, BUT BEAR WITH ME BECAUSE IT’S SOMETHING I FOUND REALLY FASCINATING AND GAVE ME A LOT OF FEELINGS, BUT ALSO YOU NEED CONTEXT TO UNDERSTAND THE BIGGER WHOLE. IT’S MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT QUEEN’S SHADOW AND IT DOES IT SO WELL!! I’ve talked some about this before, about the politics of the Republic and the parallels between Padme and the Jedi, in that they were both good people trying to do their best because they cared deeply in a system of government that threw up every roadblock it could to stop them. Both the Age of Republic: Padme Amidala #1 and Queen’s Shadow show this set up very, very clearly and tie into what Star Wars Propaganda showed us about how the Clone Wars came to be and why the Separatists came to be and why it all spiraled into the hell that was the Empire and why not playing wasn’t going to win, either. I’m going to quote a lot from Queen’s Shadow because the book is a fascinating illustration of just how hard Padme tries to get something done and why she fails, why the system asked the impossible of her, and even when she could make some victories, it was not a sustainable method. As much as I enjoyed this book for being about Padme, I loved it even more for being an illustration on why things didn’t get done, despite that people were trying very hard to do so.

Senator Amidala had only a few moments to decide. She knew she was prejudiced against the Trade Federation, but she tried to think on their terms for a brief moment while she made her consideration. The route through the Lesser Plooriod Cluster had been partially mapped by the Trade Federation, but for the most part, the work had been done by the Ithorians. The humans in the Urce sector had a claim only to the portion of the route in their own space, but taken together with the Trade Federation claim, they could potentially block the Ithorians into a corner, and Padmé remembered all too well how that could end up. Ultimately, she came down on the side of the Ithorians. It was their system, after all, and they had been using the lanes before the Trade Federation claimed to have mapped them. Naboo had made the mistake of displacing their planet's native population, to their eternal shame, and Padmé was determined not to be part of such actions again. She voted in favor of the motion. "Motion fails," Palpatine announced a moment after she had pressed her selection. "The chair recognizes the member from Chandrila." A slim, red-haired human woman began to speak, and Padmé didn't have time to dwell on the failed vote. She had to move on to the new one. It felt like it went on for hours. Motions were raised and passed to various committees, or they were voted on. Even though she had done the background reading, Padmé felt like decisions—all of them stalls—were made before they dug into the heart of any particular issue. Several bills that Padmé thought were sound failed, and even more were bounced back to the bargaining table, only she didn't know when or where that bargaining took place. At last, the chime sounded again, and Chancellor Palpatine called an end to deliberations. (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

It was something of a sore point. Chancellor Palpatine's motion to increase Republic work against slavery had failed to make it to the floor for months after he had promised her he was working on it. When it was finally presented, it was so toothless that Padmé could tell it wouldn't get anything done. And then it had not received enough votes anyway and disappeared back into the committee. Padmé kept abreast of developments but stayed off the committee herself at Palpatine's request. "Naboo can't be seen as too involved, my dear," he'd reiterated when she had asked him again about joining the committee after the failed vote. "It is the price we pay for having chancellor and senator both. I am doing my best to represent your voice because I know how much this means to you, but if it becomes public knowledge that we are working together on such a potentially radical topic, I fear there will only be more obstacles thrust into our path." (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"Of course," Mon Mothma said. "It is no easy task to put one's own home to the side in order to serve a greater purpose." The piece clicked into place so loudly in Padmé's head, she was worried that Organa and Mon Mothma might have actually heard her thoughts. It wasn't her inexperience, exactly, that was causing them to be so cold to her. They thought she was more loyal to Naboo than she was to the Republic, and that she wasn't up to facing that kind of conflict of interest. Indeed, her past actions in deposing Chancellor Valorum in an attempt to level the playing field against the Trade Federation showed how quick she'd been to dismiss Senate protocol. Naboo was part of who she was, but it seemed they expected her to exorcise that part, or at least isolate it, before they would fully trust her. She wasn't entirely sure she was willing to do it. (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"I suppose that's as much as any of us can hope for, these days," Bonteri said. "It just takes so long to get anything accomplished through official channels. Why haven't you sought your father's friends out?" "Because I wanted to stand on my own," Padmé said. "I am already viewed as an extension of the Chancellor by some, and I have no wish to be viewed as an extension of my father by others." "Yet you do not mind being viewed as an extension of Naboo's queen?" Bonteri asked. "I was Naboo's queen," Padmé said. "I am always going to be part of that system, though I believe I can be something more, as well." (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"A senator should be able to maintain a balance," she said. "To love the world they are from but see the galaxy as a whole." "Can anyone truly do that?" Bonteri asked. "See the whole galaxy and remain objective about it?" Padmé considered her words. Bonteri was usually much more open than Mon Mothma had been, yet it was clear that Mon Mothma believed in the Republic first and foremost. What Bonteri was suggesting wasn't treasonous, but it was dangerous, and Padmé couldn't tell which side of the argument Bonteri came down on. "I think that we should try," she said at last. Bonteri drained her teacup, and Padmé couldn't tell if she had passed or failed the test. She also wasn't sure if she wanted to pass or fail the test, but Bonteri didn't look disappointed in her, so she supposed she had done well enough. "You'll have to try harder than others," Bonteri said. "You've already gone around the Senate once by displacing Chancellor Valorum and then hying off back to Naboo to solve your own problems anyway through the use of military force." (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

Padmé considered what Bonteri had said while she made her way back to the residence. Some senators would prize her allegiance to Naboo, while others would distrust her for it. Some appreciated her aloof persona, while others required her to be more gregarious. And some were always going to dislike her, no matter what she did, because they believed the Trade Federation's lies about her. Her objective had not changed: rather than alter herself completely to meet the restrictions her colleagues felt were appropriate, she would forge on as she was doing. She was going to need a faction to support her at some point, but she would decide what that would be when the time came. (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"In the Senate, loyalty is a subtle and shifting thing," Organa said. "But there are certain limits." "Like attacking a sovereign planet and holding it hostage?" Padmé said. "No, wait, that is permissible so long as you can pay off your allies to vote in your favor." "Loyalty to the Republic is paramount," Organa said. He managed not to make it sound patronizing, which Padmé appreciated. "Loyalty to democracy." "And what if democracy does not return the favor?" Padmé asked. "Then you must work to restore the democratic process," Organa said. "I know the Senate didn't move quickly enough for Naboo, but your senator's nomination to chancellor stalled all discussion on every topic except that election. You can work through the proper channels." "What makes you think I won't?" Padmé asked. "Your actions as Queen of Naboo," Organa said. "Your actions now. You stay out of almost every committee, and you have no faction." (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"I remember," Padmé said. She made a face like it physically pained her to continue speaking. "But I'm still hopeful the Chancellor's motion will have a better chance in its next round, and if word gets out I'm meddling on Tatooine directly, I'll be right back where I started: too much of an independent for anyone to trust. I hate having to make this kind of choice." (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"I don't know why anyone ever thinks they can't trust you," Sabé said. "You're so honest it hurts." "Honestly, I think that's why they don't trust me," Padmé said. "They keep waiting for me to turn." (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"You have given every evidence that you are perfect for the job," the queen said. They stepped out onto the terrace, and Padmé took a moment to enjoy the beauty of her own sun, which she had missed. "I was viewed as something of a wild card," she admitted. "Everyone in the Senate knows that I called for the replacement of Chancellor Valorum, and because my own senator replaced him, it looks like a setup. I had to distance myself from Chancellor Palpatine to prove my own autonomy, even though he has several projects that are important to me on a personal level." "It is this sort of dedication that I think makes you an excellent choice," the queen said. "The perception is that I am too loyal to Naboo," Padmé said. "I went around the Senate to liberate us from the Trade Federation. There are strange undercurrents in the Senate right now. I fear that there are those among us who are starting to doubt the effectiveness of the Republic, and I am doubly afraid that unless I take great care with my actions, I will be labeled as one of them." (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

The next three days were draining in a way that Padmé had never experienced. She thought she'd known exhaustion after the Occupation. Constantly moving to planets with different diurnal cycles and enduring the mental challenges of maintaining Sabé as her decoy for that length of time while coping with the stress of the military situation on Naboo had been the hardest things she had ever done. This was more like chasing a thread across a room that was carpeted with other threads, some of which she needed but most of which would only tie her down. It required her to pay attention to details and to move quickly, but not too quickly, lest she unravel the whole thing. [...] In the end, the Mid Rim Cooperation motion involved more than a dozen key systems, a variety of different resources, and the heads of every bloc they needed to sway in order to lure sufficient votes away from the Trade Federation. Padmé was scrambling to finish her speech as the chronometer ran down. (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

"I know this was something of an outlier, in terms of procedure," Padmé said. She had confronted a few of her feelings on the return journey. The rush of working with Clovis had faded quickly, for several reasons, and Padmé realized that the process they had used was not sustainable in the long run. Eventually, there would be no more favors to trade, and the relationships they had built in constructing the bill weren't solid or reliable enough to be worth it. But Bromlarch would survive. "I hope someday the Senate can respond swiftly to problems without resorting to fast dealings. It made me uncomfortable, and I am not in a hurry to do it again, if there is another way." "We will make that way together," Mon Mothma said as her shuttle landed across the pad. (Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston)

The thing that this book does so well is that it shows us the set-up of what a good person was facing and why there was no simple, easy answer to the problem of trying to get things done. The book shows the nigh-impossible balance that Padme is walking, that she cannot be seen as leaning too heavily on her connections to Palpatine or her father, lest she not be taken seriously or be dismissed as nepotism, that she would be accused of being another Core World Elite who didn’t actually earn her authority or power, but got it through shady connections. (And this is without psychic powers that people didn’t understand and would have accused her of abusing, if she’d had them and then tried to make a speech to get people to change their minds on an issue.) It shows that she’s inundated with a constant stream of problems and everything gets lost in the shuffle. The Tatooine problem she’s trying to solve doesn’t get addressed until four years after The Phantom Menace, nothing gets done there (even when she spends her own money to just buy people), and the sub-plot is dropped halfway through the book, because Padme’s on to other things. Even if she had gone rogue or made a bigger stink about it publicly, she would have been brushed off because she was too close to it, too involved, she would have been seen as having shady dealings. It shows that, having done around the Senate once, where she didn’t even do anything illegal or start any wars (which, let’s be real, is what exactly would have happened if the Jedi went rogue and invaded Hutt territory without Senate approval), she still paid for it for years. And that was as one of them, as a politician whose job it was to be involved in this! And they still didn’t trust her honesty, they couldn’t believe it was genuine. (Much like how this was illustrated by Drooz’s complete inability to understand why the Jedi didn’t abuse their powers and couldn’t believe they were genuine.) Eventually, Padme does find a way to accomplish a fairly major goal, she collects together a series of political favors, a web of people benefiting from different trade agreements, and manages to achieve this one thing that’s important to her! But even when she’s doing so, she understands that it’s not sustainable, that eventually favors would run out, eventually it would fall through. This also comes with the backdrop of knowledge about how we all know where this is heading, as well as we know what Padme and the other good people of the Republic do not: That the Supreme Chancellor doesn’t want democracy to prevail, he doesn’t want people to be helped or saved. We know that ultimately the Republic will fall, that Padme and Mon Mothma and Bail Organa will not find a way around fast dealings or even a way to save democracy. We know that the Jedi will not find a way to save everyone’s lives in this war. But it’s incredibly clear from this book why that is and it’s not because they didn’t care or because they were morally deficient, but instead because there were no better paths--just going rogue meant you were further behind than before, just not playing would get you accused of being a Core World Elite and people turned on you even faster, being honest and genuine made them distrust you because they couldn’t understand it and were waiting for you to turn, trying to play by the rules was the only way to make even a little progress, especially when all the other options feasibly available were far worse. This book illustrates why good people can do good things and still fail, when the system is out to get them. This book illustrates why Padme made things better than they would have been otherwise, but she couldn’t save something that didn’t want to be saved. And this book showed me so clearly how the Jedi were in similar positions, that if they had stepped away from their impartiality, they’d have gotten the same treatment Padme did, if they stepped out of the game, the Propaganda book shows us they’d have been twice as fucked, if they stepped further into politics, they’d have been accused of misusing their powers (and, frankly, organizations like them should be impartial, just like any country’s military or investigative body (even though neither of those are perfect parallels to what the Jedi are) should not be aligned with one political party over another), how someone who had actual political power as a Senator could barely keep her head above water, the Jedi (who were under the jurisdiction of the Senate, because no way was the public going to trust them without oversight of non-psychic people that they at least did somewhat understand) were in the same boat. It illustrates how complicated all of this was and that there were no easy, simple answers, especially when no one was working with all the pieces, except the one person who was trying to bring the whole thing down and had rigged it so that, no matter what she did, ultimately Padme would fail, because one person, not even a small handful of people (when there are quadrillions of people in the galaxy, even ten thousand people is nothing) could have changed that without the rest of the public getting up off their asses, something the vast majority of them had no interest in doing.

#padme amidala #jedi #jedi order #republic #mina bonteri #bail organa #mon mothma #meta #queen's shadow #queen's shadow spoilers #novels #long post

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ruminativerabbi · 6 years

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Looking Back and Ahead

So the much-anticipated midterm election came and went, leaving all Americans, regardless of party affiliation or political orientation, finally united on at least one point: that the Congress, now a bicameral house formally divided against itself, will accomplish nothing at all for the foreseeable future...unless its members can find it in their hearts to compromise with their opponents and to craft legislation so little extreme and so overtly and appealingly reasonable that people on both sides of the aisle will fear angering their constituencies by not supporting it. How likely is that to happen? Not too! Still, that thought—that in the absence of flexibility, tractability, and generosity on the part of all, nothing at all will be accomplished and no one will have a record (other than of obstructionism) to run on in future elections—has a sort of silver lining in the thought that whatever legislation is passed by the new Congress will have to be of the rational variety that Americans of all political and philosophical sorts can support. So there’s at least that!

As my readers all surely know by now, my training—my academic training, I mean, as opposed to my spiritual training in rabbinical school—is in ancient history and the history of ancient religion. And I’ve been reading just lately some interesting analyses of the mother of all democracies, the one set in place to govern the city-state of Athens, and the specific way our American democratic system does and doesn’t preserve its ancient features and norms. Obviously, a long road stretches out between them and us! Even so, however, there are at least some features of Athenian democracy that are definitely worth revisiting.

Some of the specifics will be unexpected to most. Ancient Athens was governed by a council of 500 called the boulé whose members were chosen—not by an informed electorate casting ballots for the candidate of their choice—but by lots so that fifty men chosen at random to represent each of the ten tribes of ancient Athenians were put in place and handed the reins of government. Each served for one year, but no one could serve more than once a decade nor could any citizen serve more than twice ever. The boulé had its own hierarchy, however: its in-house leadership—called the prytany—consisted of fifty men, also chosen by the casting of lots, who served for one single month and were then replaced. The idea was simple—and not entirely unappealing: by choosing both the people’s leaders and those leaders’ leaders at random, it was certain that the power of governance would specifically not rest neither with power-hungry people eager to rule over or to dominate others nor with anyone motivated by the possibility of personal gain through service to the nation. The leaders of Athens were thus disinterested parties, people with no specific yearning to be in charge yet whom fate somehow arbitrarily put into positions of leadership nonetheless. Yes, it was surely true that the inevitable blockhead would occasionally end up chosen to serve, but such a person would be vastly outnumbered by more thoughtful, more reasonable individuals. (The boulé did have five hundred members, after all.) The system has an antique feel to it, the specific point of keeping power out of the hands of people who lust after it and firmly in the hands of people who would be happier doing something else entirely, not so much!

The situation that prevailed in ancient Athens appeals in other ways as well. The boulé, for example, lacked the power to make any final decisions on its own. To do that, all citizens were invited to participate in a forum called the ekklesia that met every ten days for the specific purpose of ratifying any of the boulé’s decisions before they became law. (This body met on the Acropolis as well, in an area called the Pnyx.) All citizens were automatically members of the ekklesia and were welcome to speak up and participate in pre-vote debate and discussion. So the power was thus fully vested in the people—the boulé could pass all the bills it wanted but none of them could become law until the people signed on.

Etymologically, the “demo” in “democracy,” from the Greek demos, references the full citizenry, the people of the nation who self-governed not by electing people to govern them, but by governing the governors and by requiring that the decisions of the boulé be ratified by the public. Is this sounding at all appealing to you? The more I think of it, the more remarkable it sounds to me…and, yes, in some ways intensely appealing. Would this work in a nation of 328 million citizens like our own? Not without some serious adjustment—but the notion that the very last people to whom power should ever be granted are those specific individuals who yearn the most intensely for it, that idea has some serious merit in my mind!

And then there was the concept of “ostracism,” which I think we should definitely consider bringing back. The English word means exclusion from a group, usually because of some perceived scurrilous misbehavior. But the word goes back to Athens, where it denoted something far more specific: the right of the citizenry, the demos, one single time in the course of a year to vote to expel from the city for a period of ten years anyone perceived as having become too powerful—and thus who merely by being present in the city weakened the democratic principle of power being vested fully in the hands of the people. It didn’t happen every year, but once the decision was taken—and if more than six thousand citizens voted to ostracize by writing the name of the individual they wished to see gone on a piece of broken pottery called an ostrakon—then the “ostracized” individual was forced to leave the city and not permitted to return for at least a decade. There was no possibility of appeal. Ostracized individuals were then given ten days to organize their affairs and then to leave and not to return for ten years. There was a certain risky arbitrariness to the whole process—there was no obligation for any citizen to state why he was voting to ostracize whomever it was he was voting to exile and there was no judge or jury—but also something exhilarating about a procedure designed to place the power in the hands of the people to exile anyone at all (including civic leaders, generals, the wealthy, and the city-state’s most influential citizens) for fear that that specific individual was exerting a malign influence on the right of the people to self-govern. And there was at least one profound safeguard against abuse in the fact that the ostracized individual had to be voted off the island by six thousand citizens. Even so, the procedure eventually died out. (The last known ostracism was towards the end of the fifth century BCE.) But it is also thrilling to imagine a democratic city-state in which anyone who yearns for power must temper such yearning with the knowledge that being perceived to be acting other than in the best interests of the people could conceivably lead to being sent away regardless of the immensity of one’s fortune or the breadth of one’s influence.

There were darker sides to Athenian democracy as well. Citizenship was limited to males over the age of eighteen; women were completed excluded both from membership in the boulé and from participation in the ekklesia. Nor did all citizens choose to participate fully in their fully participatory democracy. Indeed, most citizens failed to show up most of the time. To increase attendance, in fact, a decision was made around 400 BCE to pay citizens who showed up for their time, thus making it more reasonable for members of the working class to take the time off to attend. But the fact remains that, just as in our American republic, the power was in the hands of those who chose to exercise their civic right to participate and not in the hands of those who chose to express themselves merely by complaining about the status quo. Is that a flaw in the system? I suppose it would depend on whether you ask the voters or the complainers!

This isn’t ancient Greece. But what we can learn from considering the political heritage bequeathed to us by the Athenians is that democracy is not manna from heaven offered to some few worthy nations and not to others, but an ongoing political theory that needs constantly to be revised and reconsidered as it morphs forward through history. There is no end to the books I could recommend to readers interested in learning more, but I can suggest two titles that I myself have enjoyed and that would be very reasonable places to start reading: A.H.M. Jones’ book, Athenian Democracy, first published back in 1986 by Johns Hopkins University Press and read by myself years ago, and also a newer book, Democracy in Classical Athens by Christopher Carey, published in 2000 by Bristol Classical Press in the U.K.

#Democracy #Athens #ostracism #ostrakon #A.H.M. Jones #Christopher Carey

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xgenesisrei · 6 years

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The Collapse and Indispensability of Elites

The recovery of truth requires the restoration of trusted authority. At the moment, that is nowhere in sight. The narratives that bind us together have broken to pieces. The elites who were keepers of these stories have lost the public’s confidence past any hope of redemption. They strike poses of mastery and control, yet deliver mostly failure and decadence. The public has judged them to be empty vessels, and many of them, in their secret moments, would probably agree. I don’t deal in prophecy, but I find it hard to see how this elite class can endure as a cohesive group into the middle age of the Millennial generation.

Let’s grant that the divorce gets finalized. What comes next?

Maybe chaos. Complex systems can fall into turbulence and remain in that condition permanently. The collapse of elite authority could ignite a rolling conflagration, in which every aspect of social and political life is turned into a battleground. That would be the nihilist’s hour. If it ever arrives, even the broken shards of narratives will appear too big, too inclusive for an atomized culture, and our supposed “age of post-truth” will be considered, in hindsight, as a time of supreme self-confidence and certainty.

Authority will not devolve from the elites to the public. This for a simple reason: the public doesn’t really exist. The word signifies a divided and unstructured mass of opinion, a bottom-up surge of contradictory repudiations, a war of the war-bands: any claim to authority by any part will be demolished by the rest. Stable interpretations of reality seldom arise from a free-for-all.

I feel reasonably certain, in any case, that the public has no interest in taking on such responsibilities.

A complex society can’t dispense with elites. That is the hard reality of our condition, and it involves much more than a demand for scarce technical skills. In all human history, across continents and cultures, the way to get things done has been command and control within a formal hierarchy. The pyramid can be made flatter or steeper, and an informal network is invariably overlaid on it: but the structural necessity holds. Only a tiny minority can be bishops of the church. This may seem trivially apparent when it comes to running a government or managing a corporation, but it applies with equal strength to the dispensation of truth.

So here is the heart of the matter. The sociopolitical disorders that torment our moment in history, including the fragmentation of truth into “post-truth,” flow primarily from a failure of legitimacy, of the bond of trust between rulers and ruled. Everything begins with the public’s conviction that elites have lost their authorizing magic. Those at the top have forsaken their function yet cling, illicitly, to their privileged perches. Only in this context do we come to questions of equality or democracy.

If my analysis is correct, the re-formation of the system, and the recovery of truth, must depend on the emergence of a legitimate elite class.

How does one group replace another at the top of the pyramid? Analysis of social change is burdened with many preconceptions regarding economic determinism, the rights of minority groups, the rise and fall of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, and so forth. Rather than take a stand on these weighty topics, I prefer to start with a simpler problem.

How is a legitimate hierarchy formed?

The great Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset would respond: Quite naturally. In every group and walk of life, Ortega observed, there are individuals who appear admirable to the rest. By the rightness of their actions and expressions, these individuals become “exemplars” – they are “selected” by the majority as models of humanity. This is not a matter of fashion or passing trends. In all that counts, it’s a reorientation in the depths. The highest conceptions of public and private life are manifested in living persons, not abstract principles. The many who hope to better their lot aspire to be like these superior few.

In the world according to José Ortega y Gasset, hierarchy arises out of a natural impulse for self-improvement, and is legitimate when, in a very interesting way, it is “selected.”

He held the process to be the driving force of history. The “reciprocal action between the masses and select minorities,” he wrote, is “the fundamental fact of every society and the agent of its evolution for good or evil.” Ortega’s “masses” we now call the public. “Select minorities” are the admirable few: elites who, at their best, lavish their creative energies on the effort to sustain and enrich the fabric of contemporary life. They are truly superior artists and technologists, preachers and politicians.

In the right relation between elites and the public, the former act as exemplars to the latter. They embody and live out the master narratives. (George Washington returning to his farm after the Revolution is a striking example.) The quality that sets elites apart – that imparts authority to their actions and expressions – isn’t power, or wealth, or education, or even persuasiveness. It’s integrity in life and work. A healthy society is one in which such exemplary types draw the public toward them purely by the force of their example. Without compulsion, the bottom aspires to resemble the top, not superficially but fundamentally, because it wishes to partake of superior models of doing or being.

-Martin Gurri Source: https://thefifthwave.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/the-revolt-of-the-public-and-the-age-of-post-truth/?utm_source=Weekend+Reader&utm_campaign=559dbdc13d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_09_29_06_54&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a746b796bf-559dbdc13d-90303709

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nothingbythebook · 4 years

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First, an apology for the title slug. I know you’re all sick and tired of plays on A Love in the Time of Cholera. Still. There’s a reason we’re doing it.

Second… but really first:

i. A catalogue

I recently moved, and as part of the uprooting, I culled my physical books to the essentials. (Ok, I moved like 500 metres away, but hey, packing and thus purging was definitely involved.) Stress on the physical: thank gods for my e-readers, a library of thousands always in my pocket.

Still. I was pretty ruthless. Totally ruthless, actually. Goodbye, university textbooks. Goodbye, books from the “I was a teenage Wiccan” phase. Goodbye, big thick books that look good on my shelf and make me feel smart because I own them—but let’s be honest, I’m never going to read Infinite Jest. I tried. It’s unreadable. I read Gravity’s Rainbow—goodbye—and, frankly, wish I hadn’t, don’t remember what it’s about, and I’ll never get that time back.

Goodbye, all of Jeanette Winterson’s not Sexing the Cherry books. Goodbye, gifted books that missed the mark—goodbye, self-bought books that I read, don’t remember, will never read again. Goodbye, books I once loved but don’t anymore—that cull was the hardest.

What’s left was still heavy to move and comprises about ten shelf equivalents. But each of these books is loved. Important.

Like The Letters of Sylvia Plath and this little known book of the poet’s drawings:

I don’t actually own Plath’s The Bell Jar or Ariel. How is this possible? Note to self: must buy. Response to self: this is how it beings, hoarding, pack-ratting expansion. Don’t do it. Response to response to self: Shut up. I want my Sylvia.

All of my Polish books:

Some of these have travelled the world with my parents and me for almost forty years. The Polish translation of A.S. Lindgren’s Children from Bullerbyn (which used to belong to my dad’s sister, actually—she got it and read it the year I was born) and of Winnie The Pooh—the first “chapter” books I ever read. And, of course, Sienkiewicz, Mickiewicz, Orzeszkowa, Rodziewiczówna. Kapuścinski. The more modern poets: Zagajewski, Anna Świrszczyńska and Wisława Szymborska, not in translation.

This cultural heritage of mine, I have a very… fraught, complex relationship with. So much beauty, so much passion, so much suffering—so much stupidity, so much pain.

Governments do not define a national, a culture, or a people, I suppose. But in a democracy, they reflect the will and the hearts of the majority of the people, and, if the current government of Poland reflects the majority of the will and the hearts of the (voting) Polish people, they are repugnant to me and I want nothing to do with them. I am ashamed of them, of where I come from.

But I do come of them, from there, do I not?

Still. I keep the books. Including the one celebrating our first modern proto-fascist, Józef Piłsudski. History is complicated; ancestry not chosen.

Next, a shelf of all of my favourites.

All of Jane Austen, of course. Most of Nabokov. Virginia Woolf, because, well, it’s complicated. Susan Sontag’s On The Suffering of Others, and E.M. Forester’s Maurice—I gave up Room With a View and the others. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, not so much because I’ll ever read it again but because it was so important back then. Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, because nothing like it has been written before or since. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—I mean. I had to keep it, hero of my misspent university youth. I put him right next to Charles Bukowski’s Women, which isn’t great, but which… well. It taught me a lot about writing. Then, Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings, which always makes me cry because a) it exists and b) I will never write that well.

Edward Said’s Orientalism, the only book to survive my “why the fuck did I keep all of these outdated anthropology and sociology and history textbooks for 25 years” purge. Margaret Mead’s New Lives for Old, which wasn’t one of them, but a later acquisition, kept in honour of the woman who dared live her life, do her thing. She wasn’t the smartest, the brightest, the most original—but fuck, she dared. Fraser’s The Golden Bough and Lilian Faderman’s Chloe Plus Olivia, both acquired in my teens—the first gave me religion for a while, while I freed myself of the Polish Catholicism in which I grew up (“freed” is an aspirational word; I suspect the religions we are indoctrinated into in childhood stay in our bones forever—the best that we can do is be aware when that early programming tries to sabotage our critical thinking and emotional well-being), and the second showed me I wasn’t a freak, an aberration, alone.

Next, The First Ms. Reader and the Sisterhood is Powerful anthology—original 1970s paperbacks bought in a used bookstore in the 1990s when I was discovering feminism. Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor’s The Great Cosmic Mother—I suppose another Wicca-feminism vestige. I will never read it again, but way back when, that book changed my life, so. Here it is, with me, still.

And now, back to fiction: The Doorbell Rang, my only Rex Stout hardcover, although without the dust jacket, and a hardcover, old, maybe even worth something, with protected dust jacket intact, of P.G. Wodehouse’s Psmith, Journalist. Next to them, The Adventures of Romney Pringle and The Further Adventures by Romney Pringle, the single collaboration between R. Austin Freeman and John J. Pitcairn under the pseudonym of Clifford Ashdown. Written in 1902 or so, both volumes are the first American edition. In mint condition. Like the P.G. Wodehouse—and The Letters of Sylvia Plath, and the unique, autographed, bound in leather made from the butts of sacrificed small children or something, Orson Scott Card Maps in the Mirror short story collection, which is next-but-one to them on the bookshelf—they were a gift from Sean.

A lot of the books on my shelves, here with me now, are a gift from Sean.

Between them, a hard cover Georges Simeon found at a garage sale, and then G.K. Chesterton—Lepanto, the poem about the 1571 naval battle between Ottoman forces and the Holy (that’s what they called themselves) League of Catholic Europe, which I will never read again, but which is associated with a specific time and event in my personal history, so I keep it. Next to it, The Collected Stories of Father Brown, in battered hardcover, which I re-read intermittently, and which are—well. Perfect, really. Then, all of Dashiell Hammett in one volume. Then, almost all the best Agatha Christie’s in four “five complete novels” hardcover collections, topped with two multi-author murder mystery medleys from the 1950s.

Looking at this shelf makes me very, very happy.

Next, the one fully preserved collection. Before the move, these books lived on a bookshelf perched on top of my desk. Now, they are here, their “natural” order slightly altered because of the uneven height of this case’ shelves. The top shelf is, I suppose, mostly reference and writing books:

The Paris Review Interviews, Anne Lammott’s Bird by Bird, Neil Gaiman’s Make Good Art, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and their ilk. At the end, a couple of publications in which I have a byline.

The next shelf, the smallest on the case, is a bit of a smorgasboard, but is very precious to me:

Do you see Frida and my Tarot cards? Also an Ariana Reines book that I really should give back to its owner…

Next, my perhaps most precious books.

Philip Larkin’s Letters to Monica and Nabokov’s Letters to Vera. Anne Carson’s If Not Winter: Fragments of Sappho. Four Letter Word, a collection of “original love letters” (short stories, they mean, pretentious fucks) from an assortment of mega-stars, including Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. LeGuin… a strange assortment, really. But some lovely pieces in there. Some lame ones too—and I like that too. Even superstars misfire, every one in a while.

Then, Leonard Cohen, Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman, Jack Gilbert, Vera Pavlova. Finally, Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus and Little Birds, and a bunch of battered Colettes. Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer right next to Colette, of course. Then, my Frida books.

The next shelf is full of aspirational delusions.

Farsi textbooks next to Hafez, Rumi and Forough Farrokzad translations. I will never be able to read Hafez in the original Persian. But maybe? Life is long. Maybe, one day, I will have time. Then, Jung’s Red Book, Parker J. Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness, Rod Stryker’s The Four Desires, Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life, Thich Nhat Hahn’s The Art of Communicating (I failed), The Bhagavad Gita (still trying).

As I said, the shelf of delusions.

The bottom shelf is aspirational/inspirational, and also, very tall.

And so, that’s why my Georgia O’Keefe books are there, as well as The Purple Book, and Obrist’s do it manifesto. Perhaps there is room there for my leather-bound Master’s thesis, currently tucked away in the closet, right there, next to a course binder from SAIT? Then, all of my Spanish books, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera… which, also, one day, I will read in Spanish and actually understand. Life is long, right?

Next, not really a book shelf as such, but the top shelf of my secretary desk, where the reference and project books of the moment live.

The Canadian Press Stylebook has a permanent home here, of course. And I’ve got two copies of Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide there, one for me (unread, but I’ll get to it, I promise myself, again), one for a colleague. Both snagged from a Little Free Library, by the way.

Almost done.

In the bedroom, the books of vice.

A shelf of battered Ngaio March paperbacks, tucked beside them some meditation and Kundalini yoga books that I’m not using right now, but, maybe, one day, I am not ready to give up on this part of myself yet. Below, a shelf of even more battered Rex Stout paperbacks.

I read and re-read these books—as did their original owners—until they fall to pieces. They are my crack, my vice—also, my methadone, my soother.

Below them, space for library books, mine and Ender’s:

I am finding Anna Mehler Paperny’s Hello I want to Die Please Fix Me unreadable, by the way. I pick it up, put it away. Repeat.

Will likely return it to the library unread.

Currently not on display: books by friends. Some here with me, some on the shelves in the Co-op house. There are a lot of those. Can one be ruthless… with friends?

ii. A reflection

Books, for readers and writers, are the artifacts that define us. When I enter a reader’s home, I immediately gravitate to their bookshelves. What’s on them?

What’s not on them?

What I’ve chosen to let go of, to not bring with me here tells me… a lot.

What am I going to do with this information?

xoxo

“Jane”

Books in the Time of Corona: what’s on my shelves and what’s not, and the story it tells First, an apology for the title slug. I know you're all sick and tired of plays on…

#artifacts #books #collections

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sanerontheinside · 6 years

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also that feel when you’re apparently writing an interview/news article with your oc? wuuuut?

In the shadowy labyrinthine depths of the Judicial building, the main branch of Coruscant Security Forces makes its home. Presumably, somewhere at the heart of this convoluted structure that rivals the Senate Dome itself, sits a being possessed of immense power and influence: a near-mythical entity, known simply as ‘The Director’.

Or so the Holonet would have us believe. The Director, as described by these intrepid analysts, is an entity of expansive influence. They can alter the ranking of search results, cherry-pick the truths they wish the public to know while burying the inconvenient ledes. Ostensibly, they are involved in coordinating the high-priority security details that guard the Senators and the Chancellor of our Republic. Our entire political system is at their mercy. Should they choose to dismantle our democracy, they have but to look the other way while the sharpshooter takes his mark.

It has long been a subject of speculation in the journalistic community whether or not such a figure existed, or indeed, could possibly exist, and whether they could truly be as effective as Holonet conspiracy theorists assure us they must be. Indeed, it is a question nearly as old as the profession itself: ‘Is the Chancellor truly in control, or is there a shadow government that can stand in his way, picking and choosing which of his reforms will stand and which are doomed to failure?’

This is, without doubt, the true White Gundark of journalism. Often, esteemed members of the profession regard it with a dismissive glance. Why go looking for such an influence, when the donors who pay the way for our Senators’ elections are shadow government enough? In the midst of the Separatist Crisis and the threat of secession, it appears the donors’ influence is far more limited than we’d originally thought. Perhaps this, more than anything else, has renewed speculation and reignited in the hunt for the mythical White Gundark.

The Director of Coruscant Security Forces herself appeared faintly amused by all this speculation. “I suppose it must be nice, even therapeutic, to imagine that someone has control over that august body [the Senate],” she remarked. “They must be a truly extraordinary person, whoever they are.”

Indeed, Director Bin’ am-Bin does not seem at all extraordinary, on the surface. If you were to pass her in the street up until only a week ago, you wouldn't dream that such a person could have any real influence on our politics. She is not very tall, walks with a faintly uneven gait that betrays an old injury, speaks softly and seems inclined to stay out of everyone's way.

Yet she has a wickedly humourous streak, and is more than happy to indulge in the occasional debate over the veracity of some conspiracy theory. Director am-Bin dismisses the rumoured extent of her influence out of hand, as unfair inflation of her power.

“That is a gross exaggeration,” she says, laughing. “I almost wish I were capable of such a thing. To rearrange the Holonet search engines’ responses? It took years to develop and perfect those algorithms.”

“But it is not impossible,” I asked.

“No,” am-Bin allowed graciously, “but hardly ethical.”

Director am-Bin’s take on ethics is a fascinating study in flexibility of the mind. Admittedly, her own ethics are clear-cut and absolutely unassailable. It’s the exceptions we all find so difficult to handle.

There has been a recent rise in public outrage over the galactic monitoring program, OberVine, that sifts through enormous piles of data in search of certain flagged keywords or phrases. The flagged terms are generally related to missions and operations CSF has record of. Some of them are submitted by systems throughout the galaxy, with a request for CSF’s assistance.

“Of course, the monitoring program has been active since before my induction to any sort of position in CSF,” Bin’ pointed out.

Indeed, by her direction I was able to locate blatant mentions of the program in old court files. “But one would only be able to find these if they knew where to look.”

Bin’ agreed. “Yes. That is also an example of what I mean, when I say there is privacy in volume.”

“But you could as soon hire a droid to sift through all of that information,” I pressed.

“We could. But what, in truth, is the difference between a droid and a supercomputer? Only that a droid can presumably talk back and carry a report outside the walls of the Judicial building. Perhaps people are afraid that droid could take the information to someone not cleared to have access to it, someone who was able to slice into our system and procure it. The security risk attached to someone hard-tapping a branch of our data processing unit, which is fed by a different generator and a private server, is significantly lesser than the security risk inherent in tracking down roving droid units. Moreover, we make every best effort to ensure that the most gifted slicers work for us,” Bin’ adds with a smile.

#details of operations/programs not entirely clear and subject to expansion #the frankenau #all my oc's are damn chatty btw #literally monologue like shakespeare never went out of style #also he never did but like #I do recall this one time I killed an oc and it took him 2 pages to die or smth #and I was accused of writing a 'Shakespearean Death Scene'#idk if flattered or offended but it didn't sound complimentary?#*shrugs*#fuck that guy I guess idk

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blue3ski · 7 years

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"as he meets personally the person he was taught to hate, questions his own beliefs system and chooses to break away from being that symbol. " lmao he meets her by chance on patrol, she runs away, its implied that he *looks* for her. he doesnt actively *meet* her !!! he searches for information. he doesnt question his belief system, he questions whether children deserved to die. and he never breaks away from being that symbol !!! he goes straight back to russia ! also look up history, (1/2)

the bolshevik did WAY worse than kill the romanovs, stop romanticizing them & saying they’re “unfairly villainized” :)

Thank you for responding to my statement, anon. I’ll address this point by point under a cut because this will, again, get quite long.

First, let’s look at what we have in canon.

“ lmao he meets her by chance on patrol, she runs away, its implied that he *looks* for her. he doesnt actively *meet* her” - I’m sorry, this statement confuses me a bit? Does he meet her by chance or does he not? Based on what we have in story, Gleb and Anya meet on the streets, with him not knowing who she is. Is that not a chance meeting? How can he look for someone he doesn’t believe to be alive?

I don’t think we can say he actively looked for Anastasia because he didn’t even buy the rumors he was being fed, since he believes her to be dead. He was looking for an impostor based on the tips. When Anya is brought in as that person, he does not press a charge despite being aware that she is lying to him (as the lyrics of Still indicate), but gives a warning about the dangers of posing as Anastasia in the current climate. Up to this point, I don’t see anything particularly wrong about their interaction, because he’s right, isn’t he? Is he supposed to encourage her behavior? No, because it is a crime in that environment. When he looks into her eyes and sees the Romanov eyes, he could very well have turned her in merely on the suspicion that she is Anastasia, and I doubt anyone would have questioned him on that. But he lets her go, again with a warning. That by itself was already to some extent an act of rebellion against his government, because he placed a personal interest over the good of the state.

We don’t hear from him again until the train escape. Based on the dialogue, he seeks to arrest Anya, Vlad and Dmitry. And then his superior ups the ante by commanding him to kill if she is Anastasia. The commissioner has to remind Gleb of what his position and office cost, so I think it’s made clear enough the Gleb isn’t exactly over the moon about receiving this assignment. We get Still after, which essentially confirms this.

In Paris, Gleb has a chance to kill Anya at the ballet. He fails and just waxes poetic about his feelings and how his mind and heart are “at war”. If that’s not an internal conflict, then I’m not sure what is. If we look at how his part in Quartet at the Ballet is sung, the lyrics he sings are meant to convince and remind himself of his duty. Why would he need to remind himself of this? Because he no longer holds his ideals as dearly to him as he used to. Something has become so important to him that it has made him unable to do what he “needs” to in that moment as per his beliefs system. That something is his love for Anya - again, a personal interest that would have gone against what he was most probably taught as a soldier and a Bolshevik. So his love for Anya does in fact symbolize a questioning of his beliefs system.

So up to this point, Gleb has had a minimum of 3 chances to apprehend or kill Anastasia, or at least the girl posing as her, all prior to their final confrontation. He essentially fails at all of them. So if he does in fact stay as the symbol of the Bolsheviks throughout the story, then he does a rather poor job of symbolizing them, doesn’t he?

Now let’s look at the confrontation scene. I believe his superior referred to him as the “sword and shield of the revolution.” Yet we meet a character at this point who is anything but. if we gather the context clues based on Gleb’s arc, I think it’s fairly clear that Gleb was never going to be capable of pulling the trigger. He goes through the motions, but he’s intensely torn at this point. And as Anya reminds him of the trauma he saw in the past, he tries to parrot the lines he once said with such conviction and confidence, but now he’s saying them brokenly and weakly. Again, why is this so? Because they’re no longer absolute truth to him at this point. He’s seeing that there is a choice other than “simple duty.” He’s recognizing that a revolution is not a simple thing. I don’t see how we can look at this scene and think Gleb never made a choice to break away from being a symbol of the regime. He tells Anastasia that he’s “not his father’s son.” What is his father? The actual symbol of the Bolsheviks. The effective symbol. Gleb has tried to emulate that symbol, but in the end, he realizes that he is not that man. And so he ends things on a civil note with Anastasia. He recognizes her royal status honestly, and chooses to walk away wishing her nothing but a long life. He calls her comrade, because he has accepted that they can co-exist.

“he goes straight back to russia“ - And what do you think happened to him, anon? You asked me to look up history to be more aware of the atrocities of the Bolsheviks, which I am in fact aware of as a university graduate with some background in International Studies. Do you think that they celebrated Gleb’s glorious return to Leningrad? Do you think that, when he returned with neither Anya nor a confirmation that he had killed her, they just clapped him on the back and said, “you’ll get her next time, champ!“ No. Best-case scenario, Gleb lied about what happened in Paris and protected them both BUT I find this unlikely because he never knew that she wouldn’t claim her identity. Rather, what most likely happened is that Gleb was himself made an example of after his pretty speech in the finale, and was shot and killed by the same government he had served so zealously for the change in his beliefs that led him to spare Anastasia.

Second, assumptions about my thoughts on the Bolshevik regime

“also look up historythe bolshevik did WAY worse than kill the romanovs” - as mentioned in the previous point, I do know my history. In fact, I had to look it up again in the process of doing research for my fic (yes, even AU fanfic writers do historical research for accuracy), so it’s quite fresh in my mind. Yet I find this requirement to be irrelevant because when I joined the Anastasia fandom, I was under the impression that i was enjoying a fictional work that was loosely based on history. I was not aware that I needed to have a degree in Russian history in order to be considered a proper Fanastasia, that I needed to be able to defend my love of a fictional character in this work and my desire for him to have a happy ending in over 2,000 words of essay with a bullet-point analysis of the text. I was under the impression that I would be able to just have fun with others who shared this interest since this is Tumblr, but well, I suppose I expected too much for having an opinion that contradicted that of the majority.

“stop romanticizing them & saying they’re “unfairly villainized“ - I’m…not sure where you got this out of my posts? I stated previously that my political stand is “anti-authority anarchist” because I frankly am of the opinion that all governing regimes, to put it bluntly, suck. Communists have done terrible things - I have family who suffered in Communist China. The monarchy has done terrible things, again as evidenced in international history. Even democracy has done and has allowed terrible things to happen - just look at the current climate. It is my dislike of governmental authority in general that allows me to able to say, that’s the nature of politics - there is always good AND bad on all sides. I will not pretend the Bolsheviks were saints, but neither will I say that every single person who worked under that regime was scum and nothing more. In the same way, the Romanovs weren’t devils, but neither were they angels.

#discourse #dang i made an essay out of this #answered #asks #glebnalysis post

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insurancepolicypro · 5 years

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Going Down Preventing: Dying Activist Champions ‘Medicare For All’

When Santa Barbara lawyer-turned-activist Ady Barkan settled in to look at the second spherical of the Democratic presidential major debates late final month, he had no thought his story can be a part of the heated dialogue.

Barkan, 35, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s illness, watched from his wheelchair as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren described how he and his household needed to increase cash on-line to assist pay for roughly $9,000 a month in well being care prices not coated by his non-public medical insurance.

Thanks, @ewarren. You’re proper: this well being care system is unconscionable. My household wanted #MedicareForAll yesterday. pic.twitter.com/vrXPbD6zmf

— Ady Barkan

(@AdyBarkan) July 31, 2019

“The fundamental revenue mannequin of an insurance coverage firm is taking as a lot cash as you possibly can in premiums and pay out as little as potential in well being care protection,” Warren stated. “That’s not working for People.”

However for Barkan, the second was not about him.

“Elizabeth Warren’s level wasn’t simply to say my identify, it was to name consideration to the methods our damaged well being care system is hurting individuals throughout the nation,” he stated in an e mail interview.

Proponents of “Medicare for All” argue single, publicly funded insurance coverage plan is the best and equitable option to ship well being care to all People. The idea, and whether or not it’s politically possible, is a dividing line amongst Democratic presidential candidates.

Barkan, a group organizer for the progressive advocacy group Heart for Well-liked Democracy, was identified with the neurodegenerative illness in 2016 at age 32. ALS causes muscle tissues to atrophy, and sufferers to lose management of their our bodies. Ultimately, they’re now not in a position to breathe with out help from a ventilator.

Barkan had already made a splash on the nationwide political stage just a few years earlier due to his marketing campaign to steer the Federal Reserve to deal with full employment and rising wages.

He and his spouse, Rachael Scarborough King, a College of California-Santa Barbara English affiliate professor, had welcomed their first youngster earlier that yr. As he put it, “life was excellent.” However the prognosis plunged him into melancholy as he realized he would seemingly not reside lengthy sufficient to see his son develop up. Folks with ALS reside a median of two to 5 years after prognosis.

His battle for higher entry to well being care started in 2017, when he protested the GOP tax minimize invoice on the grounds that eradicating that income from the federal authorities would make it harder to fund incapacity and Medicaid funds.

On the best way house from the protest, he ended up on the identical flight with former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, and used the chance to have a mild however pointed dialog about how the invoice would devastate households like his. The alternate, captured on video, went viral and landed him extra alternatives to share his story. By then, he wanted a cane to stroll and will now not maintain his child.

When he was tapped to ship the opening assertion for a congressional listening to on Medicare for All in April 2019, Barkan might now not converse and delivered his testimony through pc.

Barkan’s supply on the listening to was stirring, even to some advocates who oppose his goals. Though Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a public coverage suppose tank that opposes elevated authorities involvement in well being care, testified on the identical listening to in opposition to Medicare for All, she stated she got here away with nice respect for Barkan.

“It’s tragic that Ady is bothered with ALS,” she stated. “His ceaseless dedication to his trigger and to his household, regardless of this devastating sickness, exhibits true heroism.”

Barkan now requires round the clock house well being aides, who account for the $9,000 out-of-pocket value that Warren talked about within the debate.

He spoke with California Healthline’s Anna Almendrala in regards to the case for Medicare for All. He responded to e mail questions with a tool that makes use of lasers to trace his eye actions with the intention to sort.

The next interview has been edited for size and readability.

Q: Why do you suppose that Medicare for All, which was as soon as thought-about fringe, is now a significant a part of the talk amongst Democratic nominees?

We’re the richest nation within the historical past of the world, and but individuals are going bankrupt from their medical payments. Clearly, individuals’s frustration with the well being care system is reaching a boiling level. Tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals don’t have any medical insurance. Thousands and thousands extra need to battle with their insurance coverage firm day-after-day, when these firms attempt to deny protection for vital care.

Q: What did you concentrate on the talk, particularly the portion during which candidates had been requested about elevating taxes on the center class to pay for Medicare for All?

After I noticed the reasonable candidates argue that Medicare for All won’t ever move as a result of Republicans are going to name us socialists, or assault us for elevating taxes, that makes me unhappy. It’s an argument that doesn’t give voters sufficient credit score. Sure, Medicare for All will most likely imply a brand new tax, however that tax shall be much less, approach much less, than how a lot we’re spending on well being care payments. Let’s make that argument and deal with voters like adults.

Q: What do you concentrate on California Sen. Kamala Harris’ well being care plan, which might enable extra individuals to choose into Medicare whereas additionally giving non-public insurers the possibility to take part?

It raises plenty of questions for me, like why there’s such a protracted phase-in to cowl everyone, and why Sen. Harris appears insistent on preserving a job for the non-public insurance coverage trade. One factor I believe candidates haven’t had to take action far is make a case for why non-public insurance coverage firms are good, how they really make life higher for medical doctors or sufferers.

Q: Whereas Medicare for All is changing into a extra mainstream thought, politically it stays a protracted shot, even in a state like California. In its absence, what different choices would you help?

There are numerous incremental reforms that may nonetheless be essential enhancements over the established order. And I’m not certain that incremental reforms shall be extra politically viable than Medicare for All.

The insurance coverage trade will oppose a public possibility identical to they’ll oppose single-payer. So, I assume I don’t actually settle for the premise of the query. However, placing that apart, I help any resolution that will get extra individuals the well being care they deserve.

Q: How are Rachael and your son, Carl?

Rachael is having fun with instructing and looking out ahead to having day off when the brand new child is available in November. That’s some information to your readers — she’s pregnant with our second!

Q: How are you doing bodily, emotionally and mentally?

ALS is exhausting, infuriating and inserts itself into each second of my life. I lately misplaced the power to drive my wheelchair, so different individuals need to do it for me. However there are all the time glimmers of hope.

Very quickly I’ll have entry to eye-drive know-how, which is able to enable me to drive my wheelchair with my eyes utilizing my pc.

Q: What does it really feel wish to see your self, fighting a debilitating illness, as one of the vital outstanding faces of the Medicare for All motion?

I’m glad to have the ability to use my private tragedy to help transformative change, though I’d clearly quit all the eye and accolades in a heartbeat if I could possibly be wholesome. I’d a lot favor to make influence the best way I used to be earlier than my prognosis.

from insurancepolicypro http://insurancepolicypro.com/?p=293

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caseyswritingcorner · 7 years

Text

My new fan fiction!

Casey’s new book. Jyn walked hesitantly down the steps shrouded in darkness. Breathing in a sigh, she stood no chance against her captors, the Galactic Empire's stormtroopers. Inexorable, implacable, the two gleaming white and black armored figures were about as recognizable as the great Darth Vader himself. However the circumstance, she had survived the Death Star's attack on Scarif, but at great cost. She had lost her friend, Cassian, and the droid K-2SO. The quaint blind warrior that believed in the old mystical Jedi religion. And the fearless armored man with his rapid fire chaingun. They had all died, while she lived. Interrogated by Vader himself, she had been able to give him nothing. Choked in the style of the Force he was known to do, she was able to give him, again, nothing. With each time, Vader grew more impatient, and more brooding about the entirety of the issue. "Jyn, you are not doing yourself a favor, I suggest you give up the location of the Rebel base immediately. We don't want any...messes, do we?" This time, he pulled out a cylindrical handle once known to be used by the Jedi. But he was no Jedi, for Vader was all dark side this time. Turning the weapon on, the blade glowed white hot at it's core and red on the outside. Vader's lightsaber was seen only by those about to die. Jyn Erso, the most brilliant soldier in the rebellion, was about to be cut in two by the second most powerful Sith Lord to date, and she wasn't even afraid. This realisation came about her mind as though one snaps their fingers; so casually it came, so calmly, and under great duress, but still she held her ground. "Darth Vader. What a surprise to see you again. I suppose you had that wire on your regulator replaced since yesterday, am I right? A man has to sleep after all. Wait, you're not a man anymore, are you? YOU'RE a MONSTER! That attack on Scarif has done you nothing. The Death Star will be destroyed by rebels any day now. And when it is, you better hope that i am nowhere within lightyears of your mechanized existence..." Jyn spat out with such conviction that her words were truth to even the stormtroopers. They all knew, what had happened on Scarif. The entire situation was laudable: two infiltrators and a reprogrammed droid breaking into an Imperial stronghold, finding their way to the information retrieval vault and stealing the most important piece of data concerning the most powerful superweapon ever concieved, meanwhile the Empire's laughable attempt to contain the situation ended in the inevitable destruction of their own base by their own hand, nevertheless by means of their own superweapon. It was indeed incredulous that she had survived. The means upon which she survived however, were a closely guarded Imperial secret. "The next interrogator will not be as forgiving as I am, Jyn. Tell me, do you wish to regale me of all your loss? Losing friends, family, even hope?" Vader implanted images in her mind, of those things that she had lost over the years. and tears welled in her eyes. But she was steadfast. "Rebellions are built on hope, and that will never change. As long as there is a will to live, there is hope. As long as one survives, there is hope. And as long as the empire exists, there will always be someone in the shadows, working to overthrow and restore the rightful place of Democracy. And by the way, we are done here. Guards, take me away." Suddenly, without thought, a red beam of plasma was stabbed into her knee. She crumpled to the ground. Gritting her teeth through the pain, she saw Vader's glimmering helmet crouching down, looking at her eyes. Then she went black, and lost consciousness. With a massive groan, she had awoken in a large circular room. She was laying on a somewhat spacious table, with restraints at her wrists and ankles. When she tried to open one, it clamped even tighter, like a snake devouring its own tail. Suddenly, she knew. She knew how to open the locks of the wrist restraints without tightening them any more than they had already. However the Sith Lord was there and waiting. “Jyn, you are very smart indeed. Having broken the restraints you were given with the use of the Force unwittingly has inevitably brought you closer to the dark side of the Force,” Vader stated this information as if it was as known fact already. “You are one step closer to being my apprentice,” he looked at her with such fascination and such reverence that it was sickening. Without any real thought to what she did next, she mustered up every fibre of her being and thought to herself, if only I could throw him across the room. Suddenly, Vader threw his hand up as if he was cutting something with his glove in midair. Dust flew in waves at Vader, but still he somehow emerged unscathed from the mental push, like a rubber o-ring snapping back into shape after being pulled. “I see your Force abilities are quite strong now. Now the true test comes.” Vader tossed her a lightsaber. It was long and thin, and had a ribbed handgrip with a switchbox on the left side. She pushed the activation stud, and a long glowing blade of bright blue plasma sparked into existence. She knew what she had to do. She had to fight and win against the infamous Darth Vader. How she was going to pull off a stunt like that was beyond her imagination.

She awoke from her sleep. She had just experienced a lucid dream, one that included lightsaber dueling, Darth Vader and herself. Jyn was aware that her heart was beating a million miles an hour, and that her brain was enshrouded in what ifs when she groggily came out of her long period of slumber. Without thinking, she reached for the blaster that lay underneath her pillow. Good, it was still there in case she needed it. She was going to need it for the next phase of the mission. The modified Alderaanian ship that carried her was named Veridium, and she was a stolen Imperial craft with various laser cannons and great rooms inside of her. One such room was where Jyn Erso resided. Normally reserved for imperial dignitaries, or the Imperial Security Director himself, this room was dressed in the most brilliant of colors, ruby red, shimmering white, and scintillating silver. The bedsheets were made of dreamsilk, and the floor was of a very comfy yet stainproof qashmel carpeting. Putting on her boots that were atop of a wicker chair without realizing, she opened the door and stepped out into the hall. “Kiro, I've got a bad feeling about this.” At that moment, a shudder was felt through the craft and the lights went out. Then, after a few seconds the lights went on again. Everyone began running as a voice started speaking over the internal comm channel that they were under attack by a TIE Carrier. Depending on whether or not the vessel was elongated or not, normal versions of TIE carriers could carry up to six TIE fighters and modded ones carried up to ten. This was very bad news indeed for the Alliance vessel that was trying to outrun their pursuers. As green fire lanced out of the attackers’ cannons, waves of red plasma returned their blazing lines of cannon fire. Jyn was running to the internal hanger. If she could just get to that hangar, she would be able to stand a chance at surviving this mess with the Imperials. If the TIEs were able to knock out the tensor fields on the main hangar shielding, the other vessel would be able to dock and attackers allowed to board the Rebel Alliance ship. Finding the hangar still in one piece, she climbed the ladder into the control-laden cockpit of an A-wing. Quickly and precisely turning the small fighter’s engines to full, activating the shields and the HUD, she hopped back out and picked out a life support bodysuit and armored vest over her head. When Jyn was ready, her fighter’s engines glowed a fluorescent orange-yellow, which signified that the excess fuel on the fuel lines had been burned off, and that everything was running smoothly. Running out of time, She set the mission chronometer to the “on” position. Jyn, the brilliant strategist and fighter pilot, was ready for combat.

Chapter Two: Victory and Loss

Jyn pulled her craft out of the shielded hangar bay and rolled right as a TIE slipped past her on the left, its lasers firing in staggered bursts, trying to get a lock on the Rebel he had just inadvertently encountered. While the TIE was coming around for another run at her, she slipped her craft sideways and pulled the trigger. Lasers punched holes in the attacker as though she were ripping open a bag of Ithorian candy. The TIE exploded into a burst of shrapnel and debris, with the pilot having ejected helplessly into the battle. As her lasers flared, another TIE came into existence at just the right angle and red energy raked across starfighter armor plating like claws ripping across paper. Gas began to vent out of the opposing fighter like a leaking balloon as it lazily swirled off into space; the pilot was no longer able to control his craft. The Gozanti class cruiser began to take fire from all sides as more fighters poured from the Veridium’s hanger bay. There was a loud noise as the tensor fields holding the cruiser together failed and exploded, ripping the craft apart, and a large cloud of debris billowed out of it like a wounded beast. When all was said and done, the TIEs realized that they could not fight alone without their support craft and fled. When she landed again in the bottom of the Alliance cruiser, she took off her helmet with a whoosh and placed it inside her arm nonchalantly. Her hair was up in a bun, ands her hands covered the color of blackberries from gripping the steering controls the entire time. Jyn Erso, the brilliant pilot, head of the Alliance Army, was about to congratulate herself on a swift victory. However, there was work to be done. Prep was made for lightspeed and the Veridium vanished into the wondrous travel of faster than light transport.

His fist slammed onto the table. Black glove smashed the cup of Alderaanian tea that lay under it. The pieces picked themselves up, and aimed themselves at the door. The Sergeant never saw it coming. His back was stabbed with a thousand little pricks, and Vader himself picked him up by the collar, and threw him against the durasteel wall. “WHAT? What do you mean, the ship was lost?!? Are you telling me that we lost a Gozanti class cruiser to a Rebel blockade runner? Men, I want this man out of here, NOW!” Vader yelled the word now with such horrid volume that his vocabulator practically screeched. Two stormtroopers took the man out of the massive viewing room and down a turbo lift to the med bay. After all, he was going to need medical treatment for the multiple stab wounds that had just been inflicted upon him. He would die without medical attention. “My Lord, the fleet is coming out of hyperspace now. Shall I send a envoy to pick up the survivors? They are maneuvering from the debris field to hangar H-719,” A ensign, elderly, but able-bodied, had walked up to Vader, giving this information to him without so much as a pause. “Yes ensign, recover the survivors. I want every inch of every cruiser inspected for flaws, understood? This has not been the only time that a cruiser like this has been destroyed this way,” Vader spoke with such viciousness that one would have thought him under attack. The man gulped, and nodded. The last standard week, another cruiser had been lost from tensor field failure as well, causing a massive exploding mess all over the landing deck on the city-planet of Coruscant. A report had been filed, and the loss investigated. Without a doubt, the report concluded that there had been rebels on the landing dock that day. “The mechanical failure that day had been caused by rebel activity near the ship when it landed. I believe that they have learned how to target these cruisers’ flaws. Admiral, I want to place a holo-comm to the Corellian Engineering Corp as soon as possible. This flaw must be remedied. The Imperial TIE Carrier has been a vital instrument in our plans to expand the Empire into the Outer Rim. Without them, our starfighter complements cannot and will not be refilled. And that means defeat. That is something I, nor the Emperor, will not tolerate. You have forty eight standard hours to recall all TIE Carriers to Corellia. There, I will have the Corellian Engineering Corps on site and reconfigure those ships. Do not fail me, Admiral. You know what happened to your predecessor…” Vader’s mask showed no expression, and yet, it was effective at getting its intended message across: if you so much as blunder this, you will die. This message was so clear to the Admiral Neeva that it stuck out like a bantha at a Jawa family gathering. “I will be in my meditation chambers. Do not disturb me unless it is urgent. I feel a disturbance in the Force. I must clarify it with the Emperor himself,” and with that, Darth Vader, the most feared man aboard the Star Destroyer, left for his chambers. The entire bridge seemed to hold their breath until they were sure he was gone. Neeva looked out the viewport again, worried about the timeframe he had just been given.

The Admiral was a man of virtue, integrity, and honesty. His peers could not be vouched for the same, however. They lied, cheated, and even murdered their way up to their positions. Admiral Neeva was different. He believed that the Empire was a worthy cause, that the oppressive regime really was trying to fix and mend the galaxy. His conviction to duty, honor and loyalty was what had kept Lord Vader from summarily strangling the man all this time. Vader himself had even given the man a medal for courage and honor displayed in battle. “Ensign, I will be in my quarters should you need me,” Neeva spoke gravely to the elder man as though his departure was his last, and it very well could be, if the Dark Lord’s instructions were not carried out as they were detailed.

This is the current state of the Empire. Fighting against a insignificant rebellion, they are superior. Throwing all those who dare oppose the emperor’s reign into incarceration or even the cold hands of death. However, There are people working to rightfully restore the Republic. A well known senator from the planet of Alderaan, his wife and daughter are among the many who secretly dare to rise up against the dictatorial rule of Sheev Palpatine. Hope is something these beings have naturally, and it is this innate hope that the Empire is attempting to destroy.

The Rebellion. A group of ragtag soldiers, runaways, and defectors from the Empire, these beings are the champions of hope. The bringers of peace, or so their homeworlds said. The Empire’s very worst fear personified. Every day that the Rebellion exists, the Empire loses more and more star systems to their cause, and more and more resources to their opposition. This is both of their stories, expanding and reshaping with each storyteller.

Chapter Three: Confrontation:

Jyn Erso was dreaming again. She was in the same dream she had been dreaming for weeks. She was in her worst nightmare. Lightsabers clashed and sparked on one another. With each flash, Jyn tried to move her sky blue blade a little closer to Vader’s hand, without much success. Fluorescent red and blue whirled and danced around each other in time to the crashing hits and glancing blows that they sustained. Still, neither adversary was going to give in to the other. They could have been rationalizing with a deadly snake, which couldn't be rationalized with at all. Vader sliced at her as though she were nothing, and Jyn with all her strength countered to merely offset the incredible amount of strength the Sith Lord showed. As Vader swung for the final kill, she sidestepped him and neatly left a hole in his armor weave cloak. Surprised, Vader took a step back. With all the newfound power she had, she found courage to lash out with the Force and push Vader off the platform they were dueling upon. Unconventionally, he floated back up, lifted in a dignified Force glide. He stabbed at her throat when he landed. She snapped to consciousness right away, with sweat on her brow, and cramps in her muscles. This dream was beginning to take a toll on her. She remembered when the Empire was a grand Republic, and not some evil force trying to wreak havoc upon the universe. She remembered when there was no Vader, but only distant memories of Jedi wielding lightsabers in defense of democracy. Then it all changed. The Empire arose, and out of the ashes of the smoldering Republic which it had destroyed it came. Vader, and his feared lightsaber. Palpatine, with his ever terrifying Force Lightning. They ruled the galaxy currently, but that was about to change. Rumors were heard that Vader himself was going to visit the Death Star sometime in the next two standard months. What a brilliantly flawed plan, she thought to herself. Rolling on her side, she realized that she was not going to get more sleep this time. She did not want to experience that horrible illusion to its conclusion. Reluctantly, she brought herself up and yawned. Picking up her blaster, and putting on a more comfy pair of slippers, Jyn shuffled her way to the cafeteria for some food and hot drink, for she was cold, and the heating duct in her quarters was not working as well as it should. “What would you like for today, dearie?” A small old lady asked politely. “I'll take the Fried Endorian chicken strips, and a side of fried topato slices seasoned with black hole pepper and some roasted Pirki nut sauce please.” The woman shook her head. “Honey, all we have is Boontaspice honey mustard sauce. We ran out of Pirki nut sauce hours ago.” “I'll take it. Thank you very much.” Rummaging for and finding the seven and a half credits she needed to pay for the dish, Jyn took a seat at the nearest table, and waited for her food patiently. When the hot meal at last came, the old woman sat down gingerly across the table from her. “Jyn, I know you haven't been sleeping well. I see you walking around at night. What is on your mind, my dear? You can tell me anything.” The old lady smiled like an old friend. She placed her hand on Jyn’s reassuringly. “Well, it's just… I've been having this dream. It keeps happening over and over, and I don't want it to keep going. It horrifies me to my soul,” the younger confessed. “The Force can have powerful symbolic meaning when it enters into the realm that is sleep and I believe you are having a Force premonition. I've heard some people who can touch the energy field can actually have such a strong connection that they can see the future. Experience things that normal beings cannot. Maybe you can touch the Force after all?” Jyn gulped. It was a daunting prospect to have the ability to utilize the Force. She could not comprehend being able to have such responsibility of that power. If she was able to touch the Force, Darth Vader would want to search her out and destroy her or convert her to the dark side. When she got that far, she would either be destroyed or turned into the very thing she swore to bring to an end. She was not going to die, and she was not going to be some Dark Lord’s lackey either. Questions swirled through her mind. I’m able to use the Force? What caused this? Why me, of all people? The answers were not clear, to her, nor the other woman. Vader was in his meditation chamber. His thoughts were centered on his body. Renewing it, through the use of the Dark Side. His first battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi left him marred and scarred for life. Rendered him unable to breathe without the use of his mask. However, The chamber he sat in cross legged could become hyperbaric, which supplied the oxygen he needed to him when his helmet was removed. For the first time this session, he could concentrate his hatred upon healing his damaged body. Vader began to focus, thinking about how Obi-Wan and the other Jedi betrayed and hurt him. Cells began to reshape and grow, becoming whole again. He smiled, concentrating harder on how even his late wife, Padme had left him for democracy, the wheels of which had turned against his Master. Then the process stopped, and reversed. He realized that he had allowed himself to grieve over his love, his only partner in life. Attachment was looked down upon by the Emperor. To him, love was only a game, in which pawns could be moved or destroyed. To Vader, love was what had brought him to the dark side, and attachment was what had caused his downfall. Love was also what kept him from the true power of the dark side.

“My master. I have encountered a disturbance in the Force. Without a doubt, I suspect it is a Jedi. My senses tell me they are untrained still, and might be useful to our advantage. What is your wish toward this matter?” Vader kept his opinion of the matter to himself. He could not understand why his master didn't simply destroy worlds and resistance to his rule outright. Those that resisted deserved to be destroyed, Vader thought. “Lord Vader, we have encountered a great disturbance together. If we are able to turn this new Force-wielder over to the dark side, it will mean that much more detriment to the Rebellion. With this in mind I push you to go forth and proceed with finding the identity of this new Force wielder.” “Master, I feel that this individual will be destroyed in our grand plan to expand the Empire. They will mean nothing in the end-” Vader was cut off by his master’s hideous smile. “Yes, however, their mere existence threatens ours. Therefore, you must convert them to the dark side, before they bring our grandiose plans crashing down upon themselves. Whoever they are, they must not be allowed to become a Jedi.” With a renewed faith in the Emperor’s vision, Darth Vader bowed to Palpatine, had his mask replaced and turned off the holoprojector, then strode out of the meditation chamber.

Imperial Intelligence had worked their magic before on such matters. Finding Jedi who had escaped the Emperor’s wrath was one such example. Another prime factor in how successfully the operations were completed was Lord Vader’s regular battlefield promotions of his officers. When one predecessor died, it usually meant that Vader was willing to send in another to do the same task. One Rebel commander, who had the misfortune of meeting Vader face to face, had called him a coward and a more physically incapacitated version of his former self. That commander was now dead, and his entire platoon of troops were smashed into oblivion on an insignificant planet. That day, Vader had looked at himself through the eyes of someone else. As a man who was physically incapable of accomplishing what he had once thought mere child’s play. Vader however, had learned other methods for getting the same results. The signature Force Choke was a perfect example of this adaptation. When Force jumps were required in battle, Vader simply floated up in a dignified Force Glide. And if any adversary even so much as attempted escape, a lightsaber throw was all that was needed to cut them down or hinder them. He was not as he once was, but the terrifying presence of him created fear so deep, that his enemies radiated it like a natural spring in the Force. They needed to fear him. Suddenly and without warning, the Star Destroyer Valiant shuddered, as though there was some inertial force keeping it from moving as its engines strained to break free. Klaxons blared over internal speakers, whilst pilots and soldiers alike ran toward battle stations. Nothing was to be said of Vader. The effect of said inertial change on the Sith was limited to the straightening of his posture. “Commander, I suggest that you begin to take command for protecting this ship. The Emperor will not be pleased to hear that you could not fight off a Rebel incursion aboard this vessel!” With this in his mind, Commander Neeva ordered all deflector shields to be faced toward the bow and at least one shield to be aimed toward the stern; like any reasonable Imperial Star Destroyer captain, he did not want his ship shot out from under himself. Not that such an event mattered. The ISD Valiant could hold its own in any fight, and take more punishment than the average Star Destroyer. When she was built at the height of the Empire, she was given updated weaponry, armor, and even tracking capabilities. This ship was not going to let Neeva down. She couldn't. Not here, and not now, especially with death hanging over his head like a guillotine if he failed. She had to hold together this time.

Chapter TWO:

Vader held her up in an undignified Force choke. She calmed herself and pushed back with the Force, causing Vader to leap backwards to avoid being pushed off the platform again. She leapt for her saber, and soon her blade was out and flaming again. She hurled the saber with all her might and force, causing it to whip directly at her adversary. His saber came up and knocked the spinning buzzsaw of a weapon right out of the air, and it zoomed back into her brown gloved hands again.

Waking up today was hard for her. She remembered everything about her dream, and sleep had not come easily the last few nights.

#Jyn erso #Star Wars #awesome!

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lycanthroptea · 7 years

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a revolution

or, the beginning.

“By the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of the Revolution, Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of the Revolution and its philosophy there exists this difference—that its logic may end in war, whereas its philosophy can end only in peace... Combeferre preferred the whiteness of the beautiful to the blaze of the sublime.”

--Les Misérables, Book IV, Chapter I

It had started with an invitation. It had started with four friends. It had started with hope, which sparked a flame, which burned rich and brilliant and strong. It flared, scorched, and blackened, leaving a graveyard in its wake.

Decembers in Paris were rather unpleasant affairs. Iron winds rushed through narrow city streets, accompanied by bitter cold and the sting of snow, the sort of ice that numbed and burned fingers until they blistered from frost. It was no surprise, then, that the majority of the city’s inhabitants had sought refuge indoors, save for the unlucky few.

One particularly miserable boy winced as a viciously icy gust threatened to greedily steal away his thin scarf, which he pulled even more tightly around his reddened nose. He had just spent the last ten minutes rushing through quiet alleyways, not because he was late, but because his threadbare coat provided little protection from the elements. Winter really was an unforgiving mistress.

As the boy rounded a shadowy corner, his pinched features visibly relaxed at the sight of an unassuming cafe half a block down the snow-covered street. It was unadorned with the exception of a weather-worn sign, which creaked precariously like a pendulum in the capricious wind. Though its colors had dulled over the years, one could still make out a beautiful golden bird flying towards the sun in the peeling paint, the inscription Le Café Phénix penned gracefully underneath.

“Remus!”

He halted, glancing over his shoulder at the echoing voice. It belonged to a raven-haired boy around the same age as him, dressed in a warm tailored coat and a thick, red scarf, hair pulled back by an elegant ribbon. He swung his arm around Remus’s shoulder in a friendly manner, lips splitting into a winning, roguish smile.

“Nasty weather, isn’t it?” he asked cheerily, pulling open the cafe door for the both of them. They crossed the room with a brief hello to the owner before jogging up the rickety back staircase. “And to think James still wants us to show up despite the fact that half of us’ll be frozen before we even get here.”

Remus pushed open the door at the top of the steps, the warm thrum of friendly chatter immediately spilling on to their ears. “That’s not a problem for you, Sirius. You’ve got enough layers on to clothe five people.”

“Now, mon ami,” Sirius admonished, smirking, “let’s not get bogged down on the details.”

Sometimes, when he was alone in his flat, Remus would think of his family.

His mother, a prostitute. His father, an ex-convict. He himself, the product of one of the worst crimes of humanity.

James and Sirius and Peter didn’t seem to mind, but he wondered what the others would say if they knew. He wondered, and contemplated, and pondered. At times, quiet reflection was the only way to deal with the burden of guilt resting on his shoulders. If he hadn’t been born, perhaps his mother would have been in a better place. He was nothing but an extra mouth to feed, a burden on society who had barely survived.

( His mother had not. )

They were dreamers, eyes looking towards the sky and waiting for the pale light of dawn. They were hope personified: James, the Chief, on the cusp of manhood, righteous ichor blazing in his veins and authority imprinted on his brow; Sirius, the Center, radiant and warm, the ability to inspire in his fingertips; Peter, the Support, a solid rock on which to stand, always present to lend the solidarity of a friend; Remus, the Guide, a mind lost in the stars, words painting an image vivid enough to taste, philosophy made sweet as honey and sustenance enough for a week without food.

They were the revolution, and they would rise to free the people. The shackles of injustice would be thrown off and France would become a shining democracy. They would be at the forefront of it all, not for the sake of credit or fame, but for their duty to the motherland, to Patria, to humanity itself. It was for this that they assembled their Order, where minds would gather to architect the future, where thirty people wished for a better tomorrow, where they worked together to alleviate the burden of the suffering.

And yet they were barely twenty. James and Sirius studied at the university, aspiring lawyers whose quick wit was both admired and admonished by their peers. Peter kept up his family business, and Remus continued his work assisting the Franciscan order with ministry to the poor. They explored, they had adventures in the streets of Paris and ran into mischief. They teased and gawked when James fell in love, and snickered when the object of his affections firmly spurned him. They laughed and loved and lived, the morning light threading through their hair and pure starlight shining in their eyes. They were boys.

“We fight,” Remus said quietly, “for the dawn. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”

Lungs burned, hearts aflame with passion, a hundred footsteps flew down the streets in an echo of hope. Lamarque was gone, and the people had rioted. The people were ready. The general’s coffin was borne through a throng of Parisians screaming for justice as their last voice in Parliament had died, and grief had borne outrage, which burgeoned into action. Now was the time to seize the day and take back what rightfully belonged to the people, and they had risen up in the streets of Paris. The members of the Order flooded Le Phénix, pulling chairs and tables and cabinets on to the cobblestones.

“Can you believe it?” Remus asked, exhilarated. “I can taste the dawn already.”

The response by his friend went unheard, drowned out by the clatter of furniture tossed onto the growing barricade. Peter paused, looking towards the rest of his friends. He frowned. “If we can make it that far.”

They asked for assistance, they called upon the people to rise.

They were met with silence.

The blood of the martyrs would water the meadows of France.

The barricade was hushed, save for the quiet flick of a match as James lit himself a cigar. Smoke spiraled up in a lazy waltz, reaching for the velvet sky on a warm, hazy June night, the sound of a violin playing a mournful love song far in the distance. A light breeze carded her sweet fingers through Remus’s hair.

His ears still rang with the deafening thunder of gunfire.

His hands were still red.

He’d tried desperately to staunch the gun wound, but there was blood, so, so much blood. Marlene gasped, begged, wept, and Remus was confronted with the pain of utter helplessness, the face of a woman reduced to a shell, a woman afraid to die. He’d smiled, bittersweet, eyes brimming with unshed tears. He hadn’t been able to save her.

( He hadn’t been able to save his mother either. )

It was an emptiness that threatened to choke, a nightmare become reality as he realized with a growing horror that she wouldn’t be the last. He leant back against the rough surface of a table, eyes flickering up towards the sky. More so than the decadently paneled ceilings of Versailles, nature held a certain stark brilliance. She was arrayed in a swathe of stars, glittering and proud. The constellations would watch the bloody conflagration, impartial, eyes cold to the strife of men and the winding of time as men lived and loved and died underneath them.

A wistful smile twisted his lips. Death, he supposed, would be more bearable under such a beautiful canvas.

My friends, my friends forgive me That I live and you are gone. There's a grief that can't be spoken. There's a pain goes on and on.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me What your sacrifice was for. Empty chairs at empty tables Where my friends will sing no more.

Pale sunlight slanted through the broken window, illuminating shards of crystalline glass that glittered like diamonds. It was a moment frozen in time, dust dancing gently as to not disturb the man standing in the middle of the room, leaning heavily on a crutch. He was a man, not because he’d grown in stature and age, but because he had seen far more than any boy should. His brow was lined with grief; his eyes were stained with red, a flood that drowned out any last vestiges of innocence left in his mind. He had seen Death.

( He wished he hadn’t lived to tell the tale. )

The man blinked, inhaling shakily. His knuckles whitened as he gripped his crutch tighter, seemingly clinging to the only stable thing left in his world. The sunlight continued to shine through the window; the sound of a child laughing fluttered from some distance street, a sweet song of naïveté. The man looked around the room as if it’d divulge answers.

A sob broke the quiet, and as the man’s shoulders trembled violently the walls refused any response.

Lily, dead, shot in the side. James, dead, stabbed by a bayonet protecting her. Peter, dead, lost in the rubble of a collapsing barricade. Sirius, a traitor, shipped off to the chain gang at Toulon.

Remus, alone.

At times, he wished he could have died with them.

Fate had other plans.

For the wretched of the earth There is a flame that never dies; Even the darkest night will end And the sun will rise.

#( drabble. )#( au. )#rdrhps #rdrchallenge #this is just 1700 words of pain tbh

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mastcomm · 4 years

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How the American Fool made America a failed state

Illustration solely of an American Fool

By Umair Haque

A dying toll approaching 100,000 lives. A Higher Melancholy on the playing cards. A nation “reopening” regardless of all that. Congress providing no actual assist or assist, gridlocked. A lunatic President telling individuals to inject bleach. Guess what he’s doing this weekend? {Golfing}. Do I really want to go on?

A few decade in the past, I did one thing uncommon. I warned that America was on the way in which to changing into a failed state, within the august pages of Harvard Enterprise Evaluation. Now, the response was swift and livid. People are inclined to react to issues they don’t like in the one approach they understand how: with cruelty and brutality, bullying and mockery. And so amongst these attacking me had been authors from the New York Occasions, Vox, the Atlantic, and extra — a veritable who’s-who of American punditry. The sensible of males of the institution weren’t happy with this little brown punk. Who the hell did he suppose he was?

Because it turned out, I used to be…proper. And no, don’t cry for me. That’s not the purpose. The purpose is that this. My little warning couldn’t have been confirmed any more true. What does America, the failed state, appear like? Like this, right here, now.

Umair Haque: continues his sequence on state of Trump’s America

These are surprising occasions. They stun the remainder of the world. America has the world’s highest dying toll, by a really good distance. And there seems to nonetheless be no technique, plan, or agenda. None. For coping with the financial or public well being penalties of the best disaster in trendy historical past. What the?

Nothing works in America, these People left who’re nonetheless considerate and cheap individuals say, shaking their heads. That’s one other solution to say: America’s turn into a failed state.

Failed states are inclined to share just a few key standards. First, what it says on the field: governments aren’t in a position to govern anymore. The rule of regulation has damaged down, democracy has been shredded, elites get away with no matter they like. Second, failed states aren’t in a position to present fundamentals for individuals anymore. And third, as a result of they aren’t in a position to present fundamentals, life turns into a brutal battle for self-preservation, and norms change: to ones of cruelty, brutality, even hate and violence. Sound like America to you, but?

Let’s begin backwards, with the erosion of the norms of a good and civilized society. The primary sort of American Fool is the malicious one. He protests lockdown as a result of he desires his free-dumb. He doesn’t care if he infects a dozen individuals, of whom three die. So what? It’s not his duty, his fault.

Suppose a bit tougher with me about that. What are the American Idiots of this selection actually protesting for? They desires the flexibility to “work” once more. They’ve been so conditioned to simply accept brutality and exploitation as a lifestyle, it’s all they’ll see now. To them, the selection is: keep dwelling, and lose your livelihood, or return to work, and so what if extra individuals die? They will’t see or think about the choice, as a result of they’ve by no means actually skilled it: you keep dwelling, don’t infect anyone, don’t lose your livelihood, as a result of the federal government — aka society — takes care of you.

That’s exactly the change of norms we’d count on to see in a failed state. Folks cease caring about others, as a society — as a result of the battle for self-preservation has turn into too bitter, too relentless, too unwinnable. When it takes every thing you’ve obtained simply to place meals on the desk, then what room do you actually should care about anybody else? Why do you have to? That’s how societies die within the deepest approach: their values and norms are shredded. What’s left on the finish is exactly what we see in America: individuals can’t even think about the notion of collective motion anymore, as a result of they’ve been crushed down so lengthy. Usually, political scientists and economists will name that “a lack of belief and religion in establishments.” And it’s — however that overlooks the deeper level, I really feel. Which is the change in norms and values.

My European and Canadian and Asian associates are baffled. Why are People so merciless? So heartless? So brutal with each other? What they don’t perceive is that American norms have damaged like a twig. People can’t think about every other approach, as a result of they’ve by no means actually identified one. They deal with one another like disposable commodities as a result of that’s the one world they’ve ever identified, the one one they’ll see. They misplaced hope in the rest way back — the 60s, maybe. And by now, the one norm left is: everybody else can go to hell, so long as I can survive one other day.

You may suppose that norm solely applies to the spectacular sort of American Fool — the bleach-drinking Trumpist. (And sure, Trump is the last word instance of the American Fool.) However it doesn’t. Now let’s cowl the following facet of failed states: they aren’t in a position to present fundamentals for individuals anymore.

Take into consideration the fundamentals America can’t present. Actually take into consideration them with me for a second. Healthcare, retirement, drugs, training. However that’s only a begin. Cash — why else are People now poor? Good meals and water, that are absent throughout a lot of the nation. Security and safety. The record goes on, proper all the way down to probably the most primary fundamentals of a civilized society, like bodily integrity, privateness, dignity.

Now, People can’t typically fairly see this record — as a result of they’ve lived in such a society without end. They don’t actually know what it’s have good water or go to the shop and get recent meals, like in roughly all of Western Europe — a lot much less go to the physician once you wish to, retire once you’re weary, and so forth. They merely don’t know, which is why a few of them react angrily.

However how did this type of a society come to be? It’s not simply the malicious sort of American Fool who made it — it’s additionally the opposite form: the well-meaning, good-hearted, self-respecting American Fool. Take into consideration just some months in the past. People on the left voted towards higher healthcare, true public healthcare for all, from Bernie and Liz, as a worldwide pandemic was actually igniting. What the? What sort of individuals do this? Who on earth votes towards higher healthcare…throughout a literal pandemic? Solely People, the world says. Even People on the left. You see, the primary sort of American Fool, the Trumpist, the bleach-drinker, by no means wished a working society. The essential vote, the defining one, comes from the opposite sort of American Fool — the great liberal…who by no means, ever votes for a greater society, a good place to dwell, a nation which takes care of its individuals. You’d count on the Reaganite who turned the Trumpist to not care…however the actually horrifying factor about America is that even the “good” American doesn’t.

Which sort of American Fool is extra harmful, then? The malicious one, or the negligent one? The whose vote makes the essential distinction towards working techniques and establishments, over and over — or the one whose doesn’t?

The outcome, although, is that America is now a society in a league of its personal by way of being a grotesque dystopia. You gained’t discover college shootings in place like Nigeria or Pakistan. You gained’t discover individuals paying $250Okay for an operation or $50Okay for childbirth anyplace else. You gained’t discover individuals begging strangers on-line to pay the payments. And so forth. America has turn into a failed state in a category of it’s personal, due to the American Fool — the world’s first poor wealthy nation, the world’s first wealthy nation which did not modernize, the world’s strongest nation, of broke, powerless individuals.

By the way in which, a lot of the remainder of the world wished to be a spot the place individuals had the fundamentals — why isn’t it? As a result of at any time when a rustic wished to turn into a social democracy, America bombed or invaded it into oblivion. Wasn’t all that…stupidity….brutality…violence…ultimately going to return dwelling? Free-dumb as me putting in a dictator or military in your nation to “liberate” you, like in Chile, Pakistan, or Nicaragua? However I digress.

The results of individuals voting towards public items over and over is that People shredded their very own nation of governance. You see, once you don’t need any public establishments — like say a healthcare system — then elites can get away with something, since you’re actually saying you need as little governance as attainable. And so they do. Do you know that Democrats funded Trump’s focus camps? So is it any shock that crime towards humanity led to this one — 100 thousand useless and counting? America’s whole lack of governance, which implies elites as corrupt as Trumps rule over all of it, is a consequence of People of all stripes changing into Idiots, voting to have a lawless society within the first place.

What occurs when elites take all there may be to absorb a society, and extra — like in America, the place the center and dealing class obtain nearly 50% of the financial system’s features, and a full half is skimmed off the highest by the extremely wealthy and their minions? America can’t present fundamentals to individuals anymore — probably the most primary fundamentals, by now, first rate meals, clear water, drugs, cash. However not simply due to the malicious American Fool, the gun-toting Republican: additionally due to the great American, the Democrat, who’s not practically adequate, whose norms nonetheless replicate a sort of cruelty and brutality which leaves the remainder of the world’s jaw dropping in disbelief. Bang! That’s what a failed state actually is: elites who cream all they’ll off a society. And at this level American elites, skimming off a full 50% of the financial system earlier than the common particular person sees a dime, make Soviet elites appear like amateurs.

What the world doesn’t perceive about America changing into a failed state, although, is that this. It was a trajectory that was locked in, a decade or extra in the past. Let me clarify. Why does the American — even those who think about they’re “good” — vote towards changing into a good society so predictably and constantly that somebody like me might predict all this a decade out?

As a result of they’re now too poor to decide on the rest. 80% of People dwell proper on the edge. Of not with the ability to pay their payments. What occurs when it’s time to vote? They will barely afford to assist themselves — how can they assist healthcare, or retirement, or training, for an entire society? They will’t.

That explains the central paradox of the American Fool. You see, about 70% of People say they need a greater society — a social contract very similar to Canada’s or Europe’s. However then one thing unusual occurs between the polling place and the voting sales space. They by no means, ever vote for it. Why not? Nicely, they’ll’t. Should you’re dwelling proper on the edge, giving up 10% of your earnings is unattainable. So when it comes time to vote, People do the alternative of what they are saying they need. They vote, over and over, for a similar outdated trajectory — no public items, no governance, elites taking all of it, a shredded rule of regulation, norms of brutality — as an alternative of what they are saying they need.

The polling place is the place you inform pundits about your supreme world. The voting sales space is the place you confront harsh actuality. In America’s case, no person now can afford to have a functioning society anymore. So there’s no chance of 1 left. The world appears in any respect this, and sees the American Fool — what sort of individuals say they need a greater society…however hold voting towards it? What the? That’s why my European, Canadian, Asian associates snicker at People now. They don’t perceive the deep, bitter impossibility of fixing America now. Let me put that one other approach. Within the 60s, and perhaps the 70s, there was a glimmer of hope. America appeared to be reaching in the direction of a greater society. However the proper wing went on a marketing campaign of violence. It killed off each chief — each single one — of the left, from JFK to MLK proper all the way down to Lennon.

By the point of Reagan, a vicious circle was starting to set in. The American Fool of the proper by no means wished a working society, positive. However the American Fool of the left, voting towards one, was making certain having one was quickly to turn into unattainable. Reagan reduce taxes, and slashed funding in public items. By the 90s, all that was coming dwelling. People had been starting to pay vastly greater than anybody else for a similar issues — healthcare, retirement, training. Certain — they paid decrease taxes. However so what? What was given with one hand was merely taken with the opposite.

By the 2000s, People had been changing into actually poor, a society during which the common particular person started to dwell and die in unpayable debt. That led economists like me — good ones, of which America had only a few left — to a quite simple and gorgeous conclusion: People had been about to be too poor to ever have a functioning society once more.

A contemporary society, a civilized one, is a luxurious. It’s one thing that you need to work onerous to afford — and worth, cherish, treasure, to maintain reinvesting in. America did none of that. And now it’s just too poor to most likely ever have one. It’ll by no means turn into a spot like Canada or Europe, as a result of no person can afford to be that sort of a society now.

The American Fool made America a failed state. The malicious one, the gun-toting Republican, by no means wished a functioning, trendy society — one thing extra like a Neo-segregated state, nonetheless. However the negligent one, the great liberal, was detached, unlocking a vicious spiral of underinvestment and poverty. Within the vacuum, every thing broke aside. As an alternative of investing in itself, America didn’t, due to each sorts of Idiots, and the outcome at the moment is a society that may’t present a lot for anybody, and gained’t be capable of sooner or later, having grown impoverished.

The outcomes are all too grim to see at the moment. America’s having the best disaster in trendy historical past. 100 thousand useless. A Higher Melancholy on the way in which. Solely as a result of there’s nonetheless no plan to deal for this disaster, it’s doing what catastrophes do: rolling on, and on, and on.

What does a failed state appear like? Mass dying and despair. On an unimaginable scale to rival any conflict. Which is useless. It’s not fairly. I attempted to warn of all this a decade in the past to not be a preening prima donna, however as a result of I used to be alarmed. I felt sick. I had a metallic style in my mouth. I might see all of it unfolding. This, right here, now. A collapsing society assembly a historic disaster. Bang. Sport over.

The excellent news, I suppose, is that this. The fireworks of American collapse have solely actually simply begun.

*Umair Haque first revealed this in Medium.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com.ng/news/how-the-american-fool-made-america-a-failed-state/

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j-kaiwa · 4 years

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Discussion Article March 30th

Intolerant Anti-Bully laws are killing Freedom of Speech

Only July 4, the United States will be celebrating Independence Day, the birth of our nation. Unfortunately, the greatest freedom provided us by this new democracy has been dying and few people seem to be aware of it or care about it. And many others are even cheering it on.

The democratic world has made "tolerance" its number one social goal. Nevertheless, this goal has been elusive, as victimized groups continue to lobby for laws that remove the stigmas against them, and educators, social scientists and parents continue to proclaim the horrors of bullying. Despite decades of diversity education, members of the various races congregate largely with their own kind in our schools and neighborhoods.

The truly ironic thing is that the most essential element of a tolerant society has been with us for the past two centuries, as it is also the central element of democracy, but we are slowly but surely killing it. That element is in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is called Freedom of Speech. We need to be allowed to say what we want, as long as our words don't cause tangible harm to people's bodies or property, or society will stagnate and we will be prisoners in our own skulls, only permitted to say things that the authorities approve of. Without Freedom of Speech, we would never solve problems that require abandonment of current ways of thinking. Without Freedom of Speech, the government could be as despotic as it wishes, killing off any protestors without impunity. Where the concept of Freedom of Speech is absent, people believe they are entitled to kill others who say things they find offensive. Without Freedom of Speech, we would literally be living in the Dark Ages.

We Americans love to call our Constitution the greatest political blueprint ever created. It was formulated by wise, educated, brave men who studied philosophy and spent a great deal of time hashing out the principles for a system of government that maximizes human freedom and well-being. But the ultimate freedom, Freedom of Speech, is now dead.

Do you think I am exaggerating? Perhaps. But only a drop. Who teaches Freedom of Speech anymore? It is ignored from grade school through university. And if it is taught, is it ever given more than brief lip service? Is more than one paragraph ever allocated to it? Are its meaning, purpose and practice discussed? Even many journalists today, who owe their professions to Freedom of Speech, do not believe in it because they don't study and understand it.

As I repeatedly demonstrate at my seminars, in my videos and in my writings, Freedom of Speech is the key to peace among people. It is a wonderful principle not only for running a country. It is also a wonderful principle for interpersonal harmony. And though it is a wonderful psychological and moral principle, it is never taught in courses in psychology or morality.

Not only is no one teaching Freedom of Speech anymore, that precious freedom is being slowly but surely killed. It is being murdered by the growing social movement that has successfully brainwashed virtually everyone into believing that the solution to human emotional misery is to create, by force of law, a society in which no one says anything anyone else finds offensive, in which there is no stigma, and in which there are no imbalances of power. There is not one social movement in the history of the world that has enjoyed such unanimous support as the anti-bully movement. Not one religious or political group has criticized it, despite its being contrary to the basic philosophies of most religions and political groups. Not one psychological organization has criticized it, despite the fact that it violates the principles of almost all major schools of psychology. Neither the American Civil Liberties Union nor any other rights-advocacy group has criticized it, despite the fact that anti-bully laws violate the most basic democratic right, Freedom of Speech. Even organizations that are dedicated to promoting Freedom of Speech have failed to criticize this anti-free-speech movement.

The number one tool of science is logical thinking. 2,400 years ago, Aristotle said, "One thing no government can do, no matter how good it is, is to make its citizens morally virtous." Simple logic will lead anyone with a basic understanding of human nature to realize that a society in which everyone is always nice to each other is impossible. It has never existed-and will never exist-because it can't exist. Only in Heaven, if such a place exists, is such a society possible. And logic will lead thinking people to conclude, as Aristotle and our Founding Fathers did, that the attempt to create such a society by force of law can only cause more harm than good. But the social sciences, in their zeal to protect the feelings of people, have thrown logic out the window and are unwittingly creating a less tolerant society. We are in effect teaching: It is very important to be completely tolerant of everyone. And if anyone shows you any kind of intolerance, we will have no tolerance for them!

Ironically, some of the most intolerant, offensive people you can find are ones who most forcefully insist that we need to create a society in which no one is intolerant or offensive. As I am wont to say at my seminars, few people get insulted as much as I do. I have given seminars to tens of thousands of people, and I get evaluations at the end of the day. It never ceases to amaze me how nasty mental health professionals and educators can be! Thanks to my website and blog, I receive letters from people all over the world. Because I am the world's most visible critic of the anti-bully movement, I am also the world's leading recipient of the vitriol of anti-bully zealots. Many angry emailers naively accuse me of having no idea of what it's like to be bullied. They should read my email! They should read the threatening letters sent to Cross Country Education for daring to sponsor my seminars! They should have been there to witness the vicious attacks against me at a few of the presentations I have given in schools! They should read some of the nasty comments to articles about my work on the Internet! Very few people get bullied and cyberbullied as much as I do! (And i haven't tried to get any of my bullies punished!)

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." ~Voltaire

Freedom of Speech requires me to respect your right to say what I don't like to hear--even to publicly insult and humiliate me--just as it requires you to respect my right to say what you don't like to hear. And just because we have ideas that are unacceptable to each other, it doesn't make us enemies. You may be giving me the best advice in the world but I don't realize it and find it offensive. Should you be prevented from, or punished for, saying it? We are supposed to love each other despite our opposing ideas. When I recognize your right to say things I don't like, I don't get angry at you for saying them. You, in return, respect me for acting respectable. Furthermore, since I don't get angry at you, you cannot have the pleasure of getting me angry, so you don't seek to torment me with words. All wise people throughout the world understand this. It is the most basic ingredient of peace.

Unfortunately, because Freedom of Speech is no longer taught, and our citizens have been indoctrinated with the very opposite, many people today cannot tolerate criticism, insults, or views opposite to their own. And that's why bullying has becoming a more serious problem during the very period that we have been trying hardest to get rid of it. Especially during the ten years since the Columbine massacre, the anti-bully movement has been teaching us that no one has a right to say anything to us that can cause us emotional or psychological distress. So when people say things that are offensive to us, we feel totally justified in getting angry, thinking self-righteously, "You have no right to say that!" and the situation escalates as they become even meaner back to us. And when we try to get them in trouble with the authorities, that's when they really want to kill us!

So that this won't be just theoretical, I would like to present you with a couple of recent examples of intelligent, educated people who would like to deny me Freedom of Speech.

I received the following email from someone identifying him/herself as Real Person, who had apparently read my article, The Psychological Solution to the Stigma of Obesity, and didn't like it. The article is written respectfully and is based on ideas that any decent Cognitive Behavior therapist or Rational Emotive therapist would whole-heartedly advocate. (I just reread it, and I happen to think it is quite good. I believe it will help any obese person who is willing to face reality.) The subject line of the email was, Sometimes the freest speech is silence. What this writer obviously wants, as you will see, is my silence, not his/her own, God forbid.

And the greatest freedom is to not have to listen to you! You know nothing. Some cute slogan and a soapbox and you're off... There needs to be an anti-bullying movement in every heart, everywhere! It's called common decency and respect for others. With your help, and the idiocy of bureaucrats, people have divorced their own actions from any sense of responsibility. Who are you to say that the stigma of obesity isn't worse than the obesity itself? Cruel words lead to cruel actions. It's just too bad that the gentlest souls far too often direct those actions toward themselves. Then idiots like you turn around and blame them. Do the world a favor and just shut up. Listen for a change. You might be surprised at what you haven't heard.

This person insists there must be decency and respect for everyone. Except, of course, to me, because she doesn't agree with me. She doesn't question her right to be as nasty and insulting to me as she wishes.

I received the following comment to my blog entry, The "Perfect" Anti-Bully Law, from someone identifying herself as Jeannette:

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You have either no understanding or no experience - probably both - of any kind of bullying behaviour that reaches deeper than mild irritation. There are few people for whom the usual daily small and sometimes painful lessons of childhood - do not give them sufficient life skills to deal with the kind of bullying your 'booklet' describes. I checked out your infallible rules. Complete nonsense....I have listened with too much patience already to voices like yours, who recommend these simplistic solutions - ideas from people who - on finding themselves in any similar situation - would have not the slightest idea of any way to cope, and would be brought down very low by it....If you have never experienced that - you may not hope to understand how your article sounds, like nonsense, to anyone who has.

You have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt to harrass those who try to protect the lives of children and adults from one of the most pernicious ills of our time.

This intelligent writer believes that since I am criticizing the failing anti-bully movement, trying to wake the public up to the folly of anti-bully laws, and providing free advice that has helped countless people throughout the world successully deal with bullying, I am somehow "harassing" her. Have I ever done a thing to stop her--or anyone else--from trying to protect children from each other? It is not I who is fighting for laws that force us to think or behave in a certain way.

She says I "have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt..." Absolutely no right whatsoever?! How about the First Amendment?! But Freedom of Speech is dead, and even the most educated people today have forgotten it. These anti-bully activists who are so dead set against nastiness have no hesitation to be nasty to anyone they don't agree with. Only one point of view is permitted today. The only Freedom of Speech we have today is to say things that the anti-bully crusaders approve of. Three cheers for the demise of democracy!

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If you haven't already viewed these videos, I invite you to see the power of Freedom of Speech in action. Two of the three sample videos from my Victim-Proof Your School program that can be viewed on my website demonstrate the power of Freedom of Speech to stop bullying. In each video scene, I first try to deny the other person Freedom of Speech; the second time I grant them Freedom of Speech.

The following is a scene in which a student is cursing a teacher: How Should Teachers Handle Being Bullied

The following is a medley of scenes of people calling me idiot (it would work with any other insult): The Idiot Game

I hope you are getting an increased appreciation for Freedom of Speech. If society were to spend a fraction of the time and effort teaching the meaning and practice of Freedom of Speech that it does fighting for anti-bully laws, we would achieve a greater reduction in bullying and a greater increase in tolerance and harmony than we can ever hope to achieve through the most intensive anti-bully laws!

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