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tomasorban · 7 years ago

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The Zodiac and Esoteric Astrology: A Short Introduction; part I.

Human beings have probably probed the cupola of the heavens in search of meaning since the birth of ego consciousness. This was a time when celestial and terrestrial events succeeded one another for reasons known only to the divine autogenerator of the cosmos, when everything deemed unconscious and inert could speak its mind, when magic was the world language, and when the fundamental cohesion of all life was an acknowledged and unspoken fact. Back then everything on the earth below was thought to mimic and imitate conditions simulated in the Great Above; the stars, planets, comets and other celestial bodies were the shining genies whose words and whispers, actions and reactions, agreements and disputations might incite minor and sometimes large-scale consequences for the lives of all corporeal inhabitants. Eclipses, conjunctions, oppositions, depressions, exaltations and other celestial events worked like knee-jerk reactions, exacting benefic or malefic influence, facilitating particular conditions, or awakening transpersonal formative forces which would work through tribal personalities. This Platonic-flavoured cosmos in which everything was Aeolian, alive and functioned through a system of meaningful correspondences entrenched itself deep in the collective psyche of human beings and has never quite relinquished its hold.

Hence, it would not be erroneous to suggest that the religious function of the human psyche first found voice in archaic astrology, a philosophy which assumes that the systematic, recurring but sometimes volatile behaviours of the celestial inhabitants mediate over all corporeal phenomena and their relationship to human life. Of course the mere fact that exact situations involving the celestial bodies in the heavens are recapitulated periodically and can be calculated with mathematical precision can only mean that the qualities, influences and relevant conditions that these events are inexplicably connected with are predictable. If, then, the path of the human condition is foreseeable through this sidereal divination then the oikoumene must, in fact, have been hewn by a conscious and creative mind that transcribed general details relating the fate of all its divine, semi-divine and mortal inhabitants, as well as its own into the plastic and intangible “ether” somewhere. Here we get a taste of the spiritual and holistic origins of archaic astrology, which, when broken down anatomically, consisted of three primary aims: to descry one’s future for a chance at changing the trajectory of fate (astrology); for meteorological purposes that included the prediction of weather (meteorology); and the transcription of stellar cycles and arrangements whose movements would have been tracked to determine an appropriate time for the inception of agricultural endeavours (astronomy).

The Chaldeans or Assyrians introduced tangible markers for the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the heavens in the second millennium bce. The star-gods, genies or divinities governed a pre-established and insurmountable destiny that vacillated between auspicious and inauspicious conditions brought on by specific stellar arrangements, and all of life on earth basically swayed or reacted to the configuration of these heavenly waters. Each was ascribed rulership over a specific day or month, forcing a dissection of time. The Chaldeans proceeded to define the band of sidereal space that encompasses the wheel of heaven and interacts with the ecliptic orbit; the equinoctial markers, embraced by the zodiacal signs of Aries and Libra, could be found at the intersection of equator and ecliptic whilst their polar opposites, the tropical or solstitial markers, were to be found in in Capricorn and Cancer. The just mentioned zodiacal signs, twelve in all, were represented zoomorphically, anthropomorphically or as composite creatures using motifs derived from Babylonian mythology, and contained an exact conformation of stars known as a constellation. With respect to each individual “sign”, the stars contained in one constellation pervaded the sidereal space taken up by the imagined zodiacal image in the night skies.

Proceeding along an analogous line of reasoning, the ancient Egyptians developed a calendrical system by observing the heliacal rising and setting of individual stars. In this arrangement the year was divided into thirty-six ten-day periods known as decans, each heralded by the heliacal rising of a particular star. The star Sothis or Sirius, a celestial embodiment of the Egyptian goddess Hathor-Isis, stood sentry over the thirty-six divisions as the inaugurator of the entire year. In the third century bce, when knowledge of oriental astrology and its esoteric philosophy of astral determinism reached Egypt through a Hellenistic dispensation enabled by Alexander the Great (356-323 bce), the zodiacal and decanal systems merged and three decans were incorporated into each zodiacal sign. A few acclaimed esotericists like René Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz (1887 – 1961) have argued against a Chaldean importation of astral determinism into Egypt, claiming that the Egyptians were holistic thinkers and believed that each part of the human body was under the mediation of a different star-god or genie that could be invoked to heal illnesses pertaining to its respective part. Despite its innovative potential and viability, the theory is disparately related to the current discussion and will not concern us for the time being.

A little before Alexander’s conquest the holistic tradition of esoteric astrology began to differentiate into subcategories. Meteorology became a distinct branch but it wasn��t until the time of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) that the mechanistic natural protoscience known as astronomy and the animistic qualitative cosmogony of astrology parted company. The latter matured fully during the second century ce, a period when Claudius Ptolemy (90-168 ce) penned an astrological treatise entitled the Four Books, or Tetrabiblos in Greek. It was a comprehensive volume of horoscopic astrology, a subcategory of the divinatory art that seeks to comprehend meaning and answer questions using a celestial chart or horoscope which captures an exact moment in time. The work transcribed the qualities of the astrological signs, the twelve zodiacal constellations on the wheel of heaven that subsisted through the ages and remain both meaningful and functional to this very day.

In entertaining an esoteric interpretation on the zodiac one sees that the universe is united as One but at the same time coloured by archetypal forces or elemental blueprints that originate from a mother membrane and act upon the existing spectrum of variegated consciousness. Of vital importance is the acknowledgement of the twelve established signs as functioning symbols; while our ancestors almost certainly imagined shapes and signs in cupola of the star-studded night, their choice of animals and figures , real or imagined, are not as random as some might believe. As unlikely as it seems, the ascribed zoomorphic, anthropomorphic or composite creatures exhibit qualities that correspond dynamically to the inherent nature of the group of stars in their respective corner of the heavens. To give an example the stars of Cancer are symbolically depicted by the crab; the latter habitual tendency to seek and never veer far from the comfort of its home, a trait almost universal amongst all modes of being born under its section of the sky. While individual stars may belong to a collective archetype in the manner that a group of human cells belong to one organ and work in conjunction with one another to achieve a common aim, their unique positions, magnetism and gravitational force within the astral configuration permits a degree of freedom from collective law. This is why the zodiacal band of sidereal space was sometimes depicted in an active state of unfurling like a parchment of Nile papyrus.

The name given to this precession of imagined figures that comprise real cosmic phenomenon–zoe-diac, or circle of life–is wholly appropriate given that the general archetypal patterns or transpersonal influences of being that exist manifest through all complex life irrespective of time and space and are deemed to repeat for all eternity like a broken record. The fiery, restless, urgent and explosive Martian formative force that wishes to subjugate, to divide and dissect, to compartmentalize, to create, to own, to dominate and to ascend the evolutionary ladder, for instance, is indigenous to the fixed stars of Aries. This energy seeps down into consciousness, sometimes in copious amounts and sometimes in minute quantities, depending on the trajectory of the sun’s annual circuit and its conjunction with the stars of the respective constellation. In fact the nature of the latter’s influence is determined by the conjunction of the sun with the stars of the head, of the horns, of the hindquarters, of the forepaws, and so forth. The bold head of the ram is aggression; the horns raw abundance and virility; his hindquarters signpost stamina but sometimes a gross overestimation of strength; his forepaws vulnerability and restlessness. Notwithstanding its waxing and waning powers, the Arian sign is ubiquitous and indestructible, an inhabitant of the timeless zone that subjects and bends everything to its will. This indissoluble will is why all animation is fated to endure an endless cycle of everlasting repetition...

Paul Kiritsis

#esoteric #astrology #consciousness #metaphysics #hermeticism #gnosis #philosophy

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chaiwu1314 · 4 years ago

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What causes gray hair

Huge stress in daily life may also cause gray hair. In addition, the use of improper hair dyes, cosmetics, and poor eating habits, pernicious anemia, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, etc., may cause the increase of gray hair.

At present, in the treatment of gray hair, it is recommended that there be other departments such as dermatology, psychiatry, and family medicine. In addition, you can try to start with changes in diet and living habits:

1. Don't have a partial eclipse, eat more foods rich in vitamins and minerals, such as kelp, green vegetables, black sesame, etc.

2. Learn how to soothe your emotions, such as singing a song, yelling in an open space, finding a "trash can" to pour it out, etc., are all good methods.

3. When using hair dye, you should read the instructions carefully and follow the precautions (such as wearing gloves before dyeing your hair, and do not dye your hair within 48 hours after perm).

4. The best interval between hair dyeing is one to two months, and hair dyeing should be avoided during menstruation and pregnancy.

5. Eat less artificially added foods, such as instant noodles, preserves or pickled products.

6. Homemade black hair medicine for diet:

Polygonum multiflorum porridge: 50 grams of Polygonum multiflorum are decocted in water and the residue is removed. Add a cup of white rice, appropriate amount of rock sugar, and red dates to make a porridge.

Yam Sesame Paste: Dice the yam, then boil it with black sesame powder and rock sugar to form a thick paste.

. Although the causes of gray hair have not been fully understood so far, clinically, the common predisposing factors are mainly: chronic diseases, endocrine disorders, nutritional deficiencies, family inheritance, and so on. Research in modern medical psychology has also found that emotional disturbance can also make hair gray. This is because when you are busy with study and work, you can’t get relief and relaxation, worry, overuse of the brain, and long-term stimulation of the mind can cause contracture of the blood vessels that supply hair nutrition, which in turn causes the dermal papilla at the root of the hair to produce melanin. The dysfunction occurs. Even if melanin can be produced, it can produce a large amount of white hair in a short time due to the obstruction of the input channel. This is what the saying goes: "A smile, ten years young; an sorrow, a white head".

So, how should young people prevent and treat the problems of long white hair? Generally speaking, we can start from the following aspects:

1. Stay optimistic. Being optimistic about life and maintaining a happy mood will help make your hair black and beautiful. Even if you encounter unsatisfactory things or even misfortunes, don't put your own psychological world into a desperate situation. Because this is nothing more than punishing yourself with other people's mistakes, it will not only help you, but it will also be counterproductive, and even cause greater misfortune, thus speeding up the pace of gray hair.

2. Strengthen nutrition. Hair loses the nutrient supply to maintain normal pigments and also turns white. Many scientific studies have proved that niacin in vitamins, p-aminobenzoic acid, carotene, citric acid, etc., all have important effects on the formation of pigments and their metabolism. If there are obstacles or changes in their absorption, storage, utilization, etc., the green silk can become hoarfrost. In the diet, we must not be short of foods containing vitamins B1, B2, B6, niacin, etc. for a long time, otherwise, the hair will turn from black to gray, and then white. Scientific research in recent years also shows that. Lack of certain trace elements, such as copper, iron, etc., can also make hair white. Therefore, in order to prevent whiteheads, one should pay attention to dietary conditioning, and usually eat more vitamin-rich beans, vegetables, fruits, and grains in order to fully absorb the nutrients that generate black hair. The liver of various animals contains a lot of copper. Tomatoes, potatoes, spinach also contain a certain amount of copper, iron and other trace elements, which should be eaten appropriately. Of course, people with gray hair due to lack of vitamins can also take drugs such as vitamin B2, B6, and multivitamins, but they do not get immediate results. They need to be taken for a long time under the guidance of a doctor.

3. Treat diseases. Certain infectious diseases and chronic local focal inflammation. Such as dental caries, tonsillitis, and suppurative sinusitis, etc., can also cause gray hair through the action of bacteria and nerve reflexes. In terms of endocrine, the pituitary gland, adrenal glands and autonomic nervous system are closely related to the secretion of melanin, which promotes the formation of melanin. The endocrine is normal, and the secretion of black excitatory hormone is more, the melanin formed is more, and the hair color is darker; otherwise, the gray hair will grow in clusters. In addition, sexual dysplasia can also cause gray hair. Therefore, in order to prevent the growth of gray hair, the above-mentioned diseases must be treated as soon as possible.

4. Massage the scalp. In order to prevent gray hair, you can insist on drawing small circles on the scalp with your index and middle fingers after getting up in the morning and before going to bed, and rub the scalp: first from the top of the forehead to the back occiput, and then from the forehead to the pillow through the temples on both sides. Department. Massage for 1 to 2 minutes each time, rub back and forth 30 to 40 times per minute, and then gradually increase to 5 to 10 minutes. This kind of massage can accelerate the local blood circulation of the hair follicle and make the hair papilla get sufficient blood supply. In this way, the pigment cell nutrition of the hair bulb is improved, the cell activity is enhanced, and the division speeds up, which will help to secrete melanin and darken the hair.

5. Comb your hair diligently. Combing hair frequently is also a physical massage method, which came from Chao Yuanfang, a physician in the Sui Dynasty. He believes that the root cause of gray hair is physical weakness and malnutrition in "Trends on the Causes of Diseases" and "White Hair" White. This is scientifically reasonable: combing your hair diligently can not only keep the scalp and hair clean, but also accelerate blood circulation, increase the nutrition of the pores, and achieve the effect of preventing the hair from turning white. In addition to medication, you can also use the following simple methods to treat gray hair: Scalp massage daily before going to bed and after waking up the next day, rub the scalp with the fingers of both hands, from the forehead through the top of the head to the pillow for 2 to 4 minutes each time, and then rub back and forth 30 to 40 times per minute, and then gradually extend to each time 5 to 10 minutes. As long as you stick to it for a long time, you will have black hair after three or four years. Scalp massage has a good effect on promoting blood circulation, and it is also needed by the elderly for health care.

Diet therapy

The black beans are washed clean, steamed and sun-dried repeatedly, then stored in a porcelain bottle, eaten 2 times a day, 6 grams each time, chewed and delivered with light salt water. At the same time, eat 1 egg and 2 large walnut kernels every day. If you insist on taking it, it will be effective.

Take 12 large walnuts, peel off the shell and meat coating film, sauté the walnuts and chop them for later use, take 60 grams each of Chinese wolfberry, Polygonum multiflorum, and 240 grams of adzuki beans or black soybeans.

First, fry the wolfberry and Polygonum multiflorum with appropriate amount of water, until the juice is thick, filter out the residue, then put the sauteed chopped walnut meat and black beans into the juice, and then fry together until the walnut meat is thin and the juice is absorbed by the black beans. Spend. Finally, take it out to dry or dry at low temperature to take. Take it 2 times a day, 6-9 grams each time, in the morning and evening when you are on an empty stomach or when you are hungry.

Wash 1,000 grams of fresh mulberry (or 500 grams of dry product), add water to a decoction, take the decoction once every 30 minutes, and then add water and boil again, taking a total of 2 decoctions. After the decoction is combined, it is decocted and concentrated on a low fire. When it becomes more viscous, add 300 grams of honey to boil and stop the fire. After it is cold, it will be bottled for later use. Take 1 tablespoon each time, dilute with boiling water and drink, 2 times a day.

Take 1,000 grams of walnut kernels, soak them in cold water for 3 days, remove the skin tips, then put an appropriate amount of sugar into the pot, pour into the peach kernels and stir evenly after melting, and serve after cooling. Eat 2 times a day. 10 grams each time.

Mash 250 grams each of black sesame seeds and fresh mulberry, add a little honey and mix thoroughly and place in a bottle, 1 tablespoon each time, and take it with plain water, 3 times a day.

In the glutinous rice swill fermentation scrubbing method, the swill filtered from the glutinous rice is drained and stored for 3 days. After the glutinous rice is fermented and acidified, the hair is rubbed with it, and then washed, once a day. With long-term use, it can promote the blackening of white hair, and it has the effect of conditioning and making the hair black and shiny.

To fry soybeans, use rice vinegar, soybeans, and boil the beans with rice vinegar until they are rotten. Remove the beans and cook until they are thick.

250 grams of black beans, 30 ginkgo, crushed and fried, 100 grams of black sesame seeds, 150 grams of Polygonum multiflorum, fried, mixed with four flavors, put in a bottle, and take 30 grams every day after breakfast.

The folk prescriptions take 40g each of black beans, black sesame, jujube, Shouwu and Rehmannia glutinosa, 10g each of Angelica and Chuanxiong, add 750ml of 60-degree rice wine and soak for 15-20 days, take 10ml each time, 3 times a day; Rehmannia glutinosa Powder, 2500 grams of raw rehmannia, 250 grams of acanthopanax, 250 grams of achyranthes, remove the seedlings of the achyranthes, soak the rehmanniae in wine overnight, dry it and steam it for nine times, pound the medicine into thin noodles, and turn it into loose noodles. Take 10 grams of Rikongxin with warm wine (you can also eat it with soup and porridge). Avoid raw onions, radishes, and garlic. The combination of these three drugs can replenish qi and blood, nourish the liver and kidneys, strengthen the bones and muscles, and can make people healthy and longevity, make white hair black, and energetic.

Hair tea recipe: 500 grams of black sesame seeds, 200 grams of walnuts, 200 grams of sugar and appropriate amount of tea. Usage: Black sesame seeds, walnut kernels, 10 grams of sugar, drink with tea. Efficacy: Ufa beauty. Often used to keep hair smooth, moisturized, and not whitening

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cnvbeautyhairgrowth · 4 years ago

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As long as the parturients do this, the hair volume will increase and the hair will be dark

A lot of hair fall every fall, plus postpartum hair loss, especially every time I comb my hair, my hair falls a lot, and the bathroom is filled with hair, usually on the floor of the house and on the sheets. Hair, it is particularly inconvenient to clean, it is really miserable.

　　 For some young mothers, hair loss not only affects the beauty, but also makes people feel their declining physique. Many mothers use various anti-hair loss shampoos or conditioners to solve the problem of hair loss after hair loss, but they are of no use.

　　 Postpartum hair loss, don’t worry, wait a minute!

　　Let’s understand the law of hair growth first

　　Hair has its own life cycle from growth to shedding. Each hair has to go through three periods: growth, regression, and rest.

　　 About 10% of the hair follicles on the human head are in the resting phase, 90% are in the growth phase, and 1% are in the degenerative phase.

　　 There are more than 100,000 hairs in normal people, and 50-100 hairs fall off every day, which is normal.

　　What are the causes of postpartum hair loss

　　 1. Unstable hormone levels

　　Bao Ma's hormone levels in the body are unstable during pregnancy, and the level of hormones in the normal body directly affects the degree of hair metabolism. After giving birth, Bao Ma's body is in the recovery stage, the secretion of estrogen is obviously reduced, the balance between hormones is lost, the internal environment is unstable, and hair loss occurs. Common postpartum hair loss is in the 6th week to 3 months, during this period, it is in a state of "green and yellow not receiving".

　　 2. Excessive mental stress

　　 Mental factors are closely related to hair. Many mothers are irritable before and after childbirth, especially postpartum mothers consume a lot of energy, night milk, sleep coaxing, etc. are all labor-intensive tasks, coupled with insufficient rest time, excessive fatigue, family conflicts, etc. will affect the mother's mood.

　　Because of various reasons, emotional instability or excessive mental stress, which leads to physical disorders and hair loss. In addition, when the hair loss was obvious in the early stage, the mental pressure was too heavy, which in turn increased the severity of the hair loss.

　　3, unbalanced diet

During pregnancy, due to pregnancy reactions, vomiting, anorexia, etc., affect eating, and you need to supplement nutrition in time after delivery. At this time, if the nutrition supplement is not timely, or the diet is too monotonous, partial eclipse, and even some mothers want to keep the postpartum slim. Diet for body shape is prone to nutritional deficiencies or nutritional imbalances, resulting in insufficient supply of protein, vitamins, or minerals in the body, which affects the normal growth and metabolism of hair and leads to hair loss.

　　4, care is not timely

Affected by traditional concepts, some mothers dare not wash their hair or comb their hair during confinement, which will cause the sebum secretions and dust of the scalp to mix and accumulate, which affects the blood supply to the head and easily causes folliculitis or scalp infection. , Thereby increasing the probability of hair loss.

　　 I suffered postpartum hair loss, what should I do?

　　 1. Correctly understand postpartum hair loss

　　 Most of the postpartum hair loss of Baoma is physiological alopecia. The volume of hair loss reaches the peak 4 months after delivery. Generally, the problem of hair loss is relieved about half a year after delivery, and it can return to normal level about 1 year after delivery, so don't worry too much.

　　 If the hair loss persists for more than half a year and the symptoms are not relieved or the symptoms worsen, it is recommended to consult a doctor for further examinations and perform targeted treatment based on the examination results.

　　2, the method of shampooing and conditioning is correct

During pregnancy and after childbirth, Mommy should try to choose safer shampoos and conditioners. When washing her hair, keep the water temperature around 38 degrees. Don't grab or rub hard. Hair is the weakest when wet. Use a little harder. Will tear or make hair knotted.

　　The correct method is to gently massage the scalp with the belly of your fingers to stimulate the growth of hair follicles. Do not use a hair dryer to dry your hair after washing. Natural drying is best. When combing your hair, you should also be gentle to avoid damaging the scalp too hard.

　　3, avoid the damage caused by dyeing and perming hair

　　 Bao Ma must not dye hair perm during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and breastfeeding. This is because chemical agents are used regardless of perm or hair dye. The chemical agents are very irritating to the skin and mucous membranes or hair. Chemicals absorbed through the skin may be secreted through breast milk.

　　 Infants sucking this kind of milk will have organ dysfunction, which will seriously affect their health. Baoma needs to keep her hair clean during breastfeeding. Basically, you can wash your hair once every 3 days.

　　The point is here, what should I eat for postpartum hair loss?

　　 Even though there are many reasons that affect postpartum hair loss, many people ask what to eat when they ask about the treatment method.

　　 light diet

　　The best way to lose hair is to eat a lighter diet. It is not recommended that Baoma overeat too much, or eat too much calories. You can eat more tuckahoe, yam, whole grains and other foods that are more beneficial to hair growth.

　　 It is not recommended to eat some foods that are too strong. For example, food that has been spicy or fragrant. Products with too much flavoring. These are not conducive to hair growth and promote hair loss. Therefore, it is recommended that you take a light diet for the treatment of hair.

　　 Supplement various trace elements

　　 30% of postpartum hair loss is caused by iron deficiency, so the problem of hair loss can be solved by eating more iron-containing foods. Common iron-rich foods are soybeans, black beans, eggs, hairtail, shrimp, cooked peanuts, spinach, carp, bananas, carrots, potatoes, etc.

　　 In addition to hair loss due to iron deficiency, if there is a lack of plant protein in the hair, it can also cause hair loss. Therefore, for this kind of hair loss mothers, you can eat more foods containing plant protein in your daily diet, such as soybeans, black sesame seeds, and corn.

　　 Although some mothers have no serious hair loss, but their hair is yellow, dry and dull, they can supplement with iodine. Foods such as kelp, seaweed, and oysters can be added to the usual menu. In addition to strengthening the hair, it also has the effect of preventing hair loss.

　　 Vitamin E supplement

　　If you want to prevent hair loss, vitamin E supplementation is essential. Vitamin E has the effect of resisting hair aging and promoting the division of hair mother cells. In addition, vitamin E can also promote the growth of hair, so you can usually eat more fresh lettuce, green cabbage, black sesame and so on.

　　 To do this, postpartum hair loss is not a problem

　　 Do not rush to diet after childbirth. Daily nutrition should be balanced. Choose high-quality protein to supplement nutrition for the scalp. Eat appropriate amount of milk and eggs every day. At the same time, a pleasant mood and adequate sleep are guaranteed. In addition, pay attention to clean the scalp health, you will find in the near future, hey! The hair is back.

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shinagawa-division · 4 years ago

Text

Division Rap Battle (Femme Fatale & CodeX Ver.)

Big thanks to @uenodivision for helping with the lyrics

TW for cringe

Bring The Beat!

[All:]

We hereby declare to fight with all our might

We are determined and invincible ruffians

Our words are machine guns

Or compasses that lead us to the future

We’re the trinity, it’s showtime

We engrave our style in history

A DNA vessel wandering life and death

We’ll follow our instincts, say what?

[Femme Fatale:]

One, two, three, Saitama Division

[Sayaka:]

Represent Saitama!

Homies, we are Femme Fatale

You can’t clip these wings

[Femme Fatale:]

Welcome to the division

One, two, three, Saitama Division

[Sayaka:]

Represent Saitama!

[Lola:]

Homies, we are Femme Fatale

[Kureha:]

We’ll ensnare you, body, mind, and soul

[Femme Fatale:]

Welcome to the division

[Sayaka:]

Who could it be

That dares step up to me?

It’s Rhopalocera on the beat

Challenging me is quite a feat

I got my girls on one side

And my mic on the other

The end result of this battle

Is you running home for mother

You may think that I'm weak

Just cause I'm a butterfly

But while you're stuck on the ground

I'm just soaring through the sky

While you're stuck down their hatin

Femme Fatale is up above

And if you still think I'm mistaken

Then meet the Goddess of Love

[Lola:]

Oh how cute!

To think that you’re challenging me

But it's plain for all to see

That you're weak in the knees

It's really no surprise

My beauty tends to have that effect

Just one gaze from me and you'll want to defect

But Femme Fatale is not for you

Your looks are minus 10

So ugly and atrocious!

You'll live life alone, friend

But don't be sad

Not everyone is good at relationships

Well, its time to say 'goodbye' to me

And 'hello' to Eclipse

[Kureha:]

I am darkness made flesh

I am your eternal doom

I am your damnation

I'm the monster in the room

And with your corpse as my canvas

And your blood as my paint

I'll create a work of art

And you will have no complaint

Saitama is my home

Femme Fatale is my family

We'll take you to the edge

Your regret will be agony

Say goodbye to your souls

And say hello to depravity

And when its all said and done

We'll just laugh at the tragedy.

One, two, three, Shinagawa Division

[CodeX:]

[Ritsuko:]

Represent Shinagawa!

Homies, we are CodeX

An inescapable spider’s web

[CodeX:]

Welcome to the division

One, two, three, Shinagawa Division

[Ritsuko:]

Represent Shinagawa!

[Miho:]

Homies, we are CodeX

[Sumire:]

Sweet chemicals and deadly ambition

[CodeX:]

Welcome to the division

[Ritsuko:]

Shivers down your spine

It’s the end of the line

The last name you’ll hear

Will be mine, Strychnine

I’m in my element

This battle is my experiment

You’ll be leaving in a cerement

You’re so pitiful

Thinking you’re the best

I’ve seen cells more enthralling

You’re as boring as the rest

So go scurry away little pest

The spider’s drawing near

Such a repugnant scent

As I smell your fear

[Miho:]

Success is all I ever achieve, no question

The Iron Maiden is here to teach you a lesson

Don’t even think trying to cross me and my team

The scientist, the demon, and I aren’t what we seem

If that’s not enough for you to believe

The torture we’ll put you through will make you scream

A beating so serve to end any threat

Now the She-Devil’s here to make you regret

[Sumire:]

There’s no stopping a revolution

Time to face retribution

I’ll have a front row seat

To witness your ruin

The harbinger of anarchy

Chaos incarnate

Straight from the depths of hell

You’re Diabla’s next target

So pathetic!

Your suffering makes me laugh

Death will be the aftermath

Your mind, I’ll rewire

Your downfall is my desire

I’ll drag you down

To spend eternity in hellfire

[All:]

We hereby declare to fight with all our might

We are determined and invincible ruffians

Our words are machine guns

Or compasses that lead us to the future

We’re the trinity, it’s showtime

We engrave our style in history

A DNA vessel wandering life and death

We’ll follow our instincts, say what?

We got major beef, now we settle it

My Hypnosis Mic roars

Customized to attack your psyche

Words that burn your synapses

We're the Trinity, it's showtime

We engrave our style in history

A DNA vessel wandering life and death

We'll follow our instincts, say what?

#hypmic #hypmic oc #hypnosis mic #hypnosis mic oc #hypnosis microphone #shinagawa division #codex #ritsuko okada #miho kobayashi #sumire shinomiya #saitama division #femme fatale #sayaka miyuki #lola takahashi #kureha koizumi #division rap battle

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saitama-division · 4 years ago

Text

Division Rap Battle (Femme Fatale & CodeX Ver.)

Big thanks to @uenodivision for helping me with the lyrics

TW for cringe

Bring The Beat!

[All:]

We hereby declare to fight with all our might

We are determined and invincible ruffians

Our words are machine guns

Or compasses that lead us to the future

We’re the trinity, it’s showtime

We engrave our style in history

A DNA vessel wandering life and death

We’ll follow our instincts, say what?

[Femme Fatale:]

One, two, three, Saitama Division

[Sayaka:]

Represent Saitama!

Homies, we are Femme Fatale

You can’t clip these wings

[Femme Fatale:]

Welcome to the division

One, two, three, Saitama Division

[Sayaka:]

Represent Saitama!

[Lola:]

Homies, we are Femme Fatale

[Kureha:]

We’ll ensnare you, body, mind, and soul

[Femme Fatale:]

Welcome to the division

[Sayaka:]

Who could it be

That dares step up to me?

It’s Rhopalocera on the beat

Challenging me is quite a feat

I got my girls on one side

And my mic on the other

The end result of this battle

Is you running home for mother

You may think that I'm weak

Just cause I'm a butterfly

But while you're stuck on the ground

I'm just soaring through the sky

While you're stuck down their hatin

Femme Fatale is up above

And if you still think I'm mistaken

Then meet the Goddess of Love

[Lola:]

Oh how cute!

To think that you’re challenging me

But it's plain for all to see

That you're weak in the knees

It's really no surprise

My beauty tends to have that effect

Just one gaze from me and you'll want to defect

But Femme Fatale is not for you

Your looks are minus 10

So ugly and atrocious!

You'll live life alone, friend

But don't be sad

Not everyone is good at relationships

Well, its time to say 'goodbye' to me

And 'hello' to Eclipse

[Kureha:]

I am darkness made flesh

I am your eternal doom

I am your damnation

I'm the monster in the room

And with your corpse as my canvas

And your blood as my paint

I'll create a work of art

And you will have no complaint

Saitama is my home

Femme Fatale is my family

We'll take you to the edge

Your regret will be agony

Say goodbye to your souls

And say hello to depravity

And when its all said and done

We'll just laugh at the tragedy.

[CodeX:]

One, two, three, Shinagawa Division

[Ritsuko:]

Represent Shinagawa!

Homies, we are CodeX

An inescapable spider’s web

[CodeX:]

Welcome to the division

One, two, three, Shinagawa Division

[Ritsuko:]

Represent Shinagawa!

[Miho:]

Homies, we are CodeX

[Sumire:]

Sweet chemicals and deadly ambition

[CodeX:]

Welcome to the division

[Ritsuko:]

Shivers down your spine

It’s the end of the line

The last name you’ll hear

Will be mine, Strychnine

I’m in my element

This battle is my experiment

You’ll be leaving in a cerement

You’re so pitiful

Thinking you’re the best

I’ve seen cells more enthralling

You’re as boring as the rest

So go scurry away little pest

The spider’s drawing near

Such a repugnant scent

As I smell your fear

[Miho:]

Success is all I ever achieve, no question

The Iron Maiden is here to teach you a lesson

Don’t even think trying to cross me and my team

The scientist, the demon, and I aren’t what we seem

If that’s not enough for you to believe

The torture we’ll put you through will make you scream

A beating so serve to end any threat

Now the She-Devil’s here to make you regret

[Sumire:]

There’s no stopping a revolution

Time to face retribution

I’ll have a front row seat

To witness your ruin

The harbinger of anarchy

Chaos incarnate

Straight from the depths of hell

You’re Diabla’s next target

So pathetic!

Your suffering makes me laugh

Death will be the aftermath

Your mind, I’ll rewire

Your downfall is my desire

I’ll drag you down

To spend eternity in hellfire

[All:]

We hereby declare to fight with all our might

We are determined and invincible ruffians

Our words are machine guns

Or compasses that lead us to the future

We’re the trinity, it’s showtime

We engrave our style in history

A DNA vessel wandering life and death

We’ll follow our instincts, say what?

We got major beef, now we settle it

My Hypnosis Mic roars

Customized to attack your psyche

Words that burn your synapses

We're the Trinity, it's showtime

We engrave our style in history

A DNA vessel wandering life and death

We'll follow our instincts, say what?

11 notes · View notes

centerofstupidity · 7 years ago

Text

Fifty Shades of Grey Chapter 3 Snark

If you enjoy the content you are reading, please like and follow the Center of Stupidity blog.

Interested in reading the previous Fifty Shades of Grey chapter snarks? They can be found here.

Next E.L. James Book Snark: Fifty Shades Darker (Fifty Shades of Grey # 2).

Chapter Summary: Christian Cullen saves Ana from being run over by a van bicycle. And Ana is convinced that he is hiding a big secret.

Kate is ecstatic.

And Ana is like:

“But what was he doing at Clayton’s?” Her curiosity oozes through the phone.

Kate asks a simple question.

But Ana is acting like Kate is being a nosy bitch.

You know what, Ana? FUCK YOU!

Ana complains that she is in the "depths of the stockroom". She tells Kate that Christian was just in the area.

“I think that is one huge coincidence, Ana. You don’t think he was there to see you?”

Kate has a point. Christian randomly showing up would be a huge coincidence.

Supposedly, Christian is a very busy man and his time is precious.

You know what? I like Kate.

She's got a brain and isn't a cold-hearted bitch.

But since this is Sue fiction, a character like Kate will become the Designated Evil Slutty Bitch (or D.E.S.B.) or a sycophant.

My heart lurches at the prospect, but it’s a short-lived joy. The dull, disappointing reality is that he was here on business.

For a guy that is supposedly here only on business, Christian has:

Driven three hours away just so he can see her.

During the entire time spent with Ana, he gave her his undivided attention.

Acted like a jealous lover when Ana's male friend arrived.

Gave Ana his cell-phone number. And he usually doesn't give people his number.

Agreed to do a photo shoot even though he doesn't have to.

And presumably, during the photo shoot, he will talk to Ana.

“He was visiting the farming division of WSU. He’s funding some research,” I mutter. “Oh yes. He’s given the department a $2.5 million grant.” Wow. “How do you know this?” “Ana, I’m a journalist, and I’ve written a profile on the guy. It’s my job to know this.” “Okay, Carla Bernstein, keep your hair on. So do you want these photos?” “Of course I do. The question is, who’s going to do them and where.” “We could ask him where. He says he’s staying in the area.”

'Ello Talking Heads Syndrome!

Let's do another writing exercise, shall we?

Let’s see if we can take this dialogue-heavy scene and get rid of these talking heads.

I'll go first.

“He was visiting the farming division of WSU. He’s funding some research,” I mutter.

“Oh yes. He’s given the department a $2.5 million grant.”

Wow. “How do you know this?” I asked and then grabbed some boxes.

“Ana, I’m a journalist, and I’ve written a profile on the guy. It’s my job to know this.”

“Okay, Carla Bernstein, keep your hair on. So do you want these photos?” I opened the boxes with a box cutter.

“Of course I do. The question is, who’s going to do them and where.”

The tapping of fingers against a keyboard filled the silence.

“We could ask him where. He says he’s staying in the area.” I replied, grabbing each of the items and placing them on the shelves.

In the distance, the shop bell ringed.

Kate asks Ana if she can contact him. Ana replies that she has Christian's cell phone number.

Kate is then shocked because Christian isn't the sort of person that would give anyone his cell phone number along with being "elusive" and "enigmatic."

She assures Ana that Christian likes her and there is "no doubt about it."

But Ana is convinced that Kate is lying to her.

“Kate, he’s just trying to be nice.” But even as I say the words, I know they’re not true—Christian Grey doesn’t do nice.

"Even though I know that he is a total douche, I still want to fuck him and be his slave. Aren't I a strong female character?"

He does polite, maybe.

Well, duh. If a serial killer acted boorish, their victim wouldn't be lured to a trap.

And because Ana Steele has the I.Q. of Bella Swan, she thinks that Christian "might like me."

I hug myself with quiet glee, rocking from side to side, entertaining the possibility that he might like me.

You know what's terrifying?

The fact that Ana and Christian will have children. And those children will most likely be as psychologically disturbed as mommy and daddy.

Before we can be subjected to Ana blithering on about how Christian is so dreamy, Kate speaks.

Kate doesn't know who can do the photo shoot as the regular photographer can't because he is in Idaho Falls for the weekend.

She then says that Levi (a.k.a the regular photographer) will be pissed that he missed such a great opportunity.

Ana suggests that José could do it.

“Great idea! You ask him—he’ll do anything for you. Then call Grey and find out where he wants us.” Kate is irritatingly cavalier about José.

I seriously hope that there won't be an Ana/Christian/José love triangle.

I haven't slogged through New Moon and Eclipse yet.

And I don't want to have to read another story with angst and melodrama.

Also, Ana is the kind of woman that won't touch a guy with a fifty-foot barge pole but treats him like a piece of property.

And she will try to control his life and manipulate him to get what she wants.

In conclusion, Ana Steele is a vile person.

Ana wants Kate to call Christian. But Kate replies "Ana, you’re the one with the relationship.”

And Kate has a point.

I don't think Christian would take kindly to Ana giving his private phone number to a person that he doesn't know.

“Relationship?” I squeak at her, my voice rising several octaves. “I barely know the guy.”

For a guy that she “barely" knows, Ana only knows:

The name of Christian's company.

Christian is a major benefactor for the college.

Christian is an exceptional entrepreneur.

Christian never wants to be married and have children.

Christian's personal cell phone number.

Christian is a busy man so his time is precious.

“At least you’ve met him,” she says bitterly.

We get it, E.L. James.

You want us to think that Kate is a nasty bitch and a slut who should be thrown to a pack of wild dogs.

And it blows my mind that some people think Fifty Shades is feminist...

Kate gets annoyed with Ana and tells her to make the damn phone call. After Kate hangs up, Ana gets all bitchy.

She is so bossy sometimes.

Like a mature person, Ana Swan sticks her tongue at the cell phone. She is just leaving José a message when Paul shows up.

He tells her that the store is busy. Ana mutters an apology and gets ready to leave.

Since Paul is a massive Christian fanboy, he wants to know how Ana is acquainted with Christian.

Ana tells him that she "had" to interview Christian for the student newspaper because Kate wasn't feeling well.

Ana tries to sound casual but she's doing "no better than him."

Paul is so amazed that Christian was in the store that he has to clear his mind by shaking his head. He then asks Ana on a date.

Apparently, whenever Paul is around, he asks her on a date. And she always says no.

I’ve never considered it a good idea to date the boss’s brother, and besides, Paul is cute in a wholesome all-American boy-next-door kind of way,

Translation: Since Paul isn't a psychopathic asshole like Christian Grey, he is unworthy to date Ana Steele.

but he’s no literary hero, not by any stretch of the imagination.

"And my literary heroes are Heathcliff and Alec d'Urberville."

Is Grey? my subconscious asks me, her eyebrow figuratively raised.

E.L. James Ana Steele thinks so.

Ana "slap[s]" her subconscious "down". She then asks if Paul has a family dinner to go. Paul says that's "tomorrow."

“Maybe some other time, Paul. I need to study tonight. I have my finals next week.”

Ana could just tell Paul that she isn't sexually attracted to Paul and only sees him as a friend.

But that wouldn't be Bella Swan's Ana Steele's style.

I wouldn't be surprised if her style is stringing guys along.

“Ana, one of these days you’ll say yes.” He smiles as I escape to the store floor.

Oh, this is interesting.

Paul Clayton was Mike Newton in Master of the Universe.

It explains why Paul is so smitten with Ana even though she is charming as a cockroach.

“BUT I DO PLACES, Ana, not people,” José groans.

Just like how a person can't smile, giggle, or sigh words, the same can be said for groaning words.

Ana begs with José and is pacing back and forth. Kate tells Ana to give her the cell phone.

“Listen here, José Rodriguez, if you want our newspaper to cover the opening of your show, you’ll do this shoot for us tomorrow, capiche?”

"Or you'll be sleeping with the fishes."

José agrees because he doesn't want to piss off the Godfather.

Kate tells him that Ana will call back with the necessary information before hanging up the cell phone.

Kate hands Ana the cell phone. She orders Ana to call Grey. Ana scowls at Kate before calling Christian.

I don’t recognize my own voice, I’m so nervous.

Christian calls Ana "Miss Steele" and says that it is nice to hear her voice.

His voice has changed. He’s surprised, I think, and he sounds so … warm—seductive even.

You know what?

Fifty Shades is as erotic as a hangnail.

My breath hitches,

You used the wrong word, E.L. James.

According to Merriam Webster, hitch is to move something with a jerk or a tug.

Unless Ana's breath has the ability to tow something...

I think E.L. James was trying to say that Ana gasped or forgot how to breathe.

But as Mark Twain wisely said, "Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it."

Ana blushes. She realizes that Kate is opened mouthed and is staring at her.

I dart into the kitchen to avoid her unwanted scrutiny.

Ana tells Christian that they want to go ahead with the photo shoot.

Breathe, Ana, breathe. My lungs drag in a hasty breath.

It's delightful to see a strong and smart female protagonist who needs to remind herself do something necessary to live.

Ana asks Christian if they can do it tomorrow and would it be convenient for him.

I can almost hear his sphinxlike smile through the phone.

You can't hear a smile.

But you can hear the joy in someone's voice.

And according to Merriam Webster, a sphinx is either a mythological creature or it can be used to describe an enigmatic person.

Christian tells Ana to meet him at the Heathman in Portland at 9:30 AM. She tells him that they will be there.

I am all gushing and breathy—like a child, not a grown woman who can vote and drink legally in the state of Washington.

It's really creepy that this book describes anything erotic or sexual as being like a child.

Christian says that he is looking forward to seeing Ana.

I visualize the wicked gleam in his eyes.

"I love it when a guy is filled with evil glee!"

How can he make seven little words hold so much tantalizing promise?

Because you are horny.

Ana hangs up the phone. Kate is now in the kitchen and is staring at Ana with a look of surprise.

“Anastasia Rose Steele. You like him! I’ve never seen or heard you so … so … affected by anyone before. You’re actually blushing.”

"It is almost as if we are in a Twilight fanfic where all the "good" characters are asexual except for their one tru luv."

“Oh, Kate, you know I blush all the time. It’s an occupational hazard with me. Don’t be ridiculous,” I snap.

"The author thinks that tripping over air molecules and blushing 24/7 are endearing character traits."

She blinks at me with surprise—I very rarely have hissy fits—

You throw a fit anytime somebody asks you a question or do something that you don't like.

I briefly relent. “I just find him … intimidating, that’s all.”

"And that is so sexy."

Kate isn't surprised that Christian wants to meet at the Heathman. She is going to call a manager and get a place for the shoot.

Ana is going to make "supper" and then study.

I cannot hide my irritation with her as I open one of the cupboards to make supper.

"The filthy peasant talked to me! The only time that a peasant is allowed to speak is if they are showering me with compliments and praise."

I AM RESTLESS THAT night, tossing and turning, dreaming of smoky gray eyes, coveralls, long legs, long fingers, and dark, dark unexplored places.

During the night, Ana wakes up twice. We get some descriptions about the Heathman hotel.

Since everyone can't fit into Ana's car, they are traveling in two cars.

José and Travis are traveling in Ana's car while Kate is driving her own car. Travis is José's friend and gopher.

Kate managed to get a room free of charge in exchange for the hotel getting credit in the article.

They get upgraded to a suite when the receptionist finds out that they are doing a photo shoot with Christian Grey.

Just a regular-sized suite, however, as apparently Mr. Grey is already occupying the largest one in the building.

The hotel just upgraded the room to a suite... But Ana is bitching and moaning because the suite is only "regular-sized."

#firstworldproblems

An over-keen marketing executive shows us up to the suite—he’s terribly young and very nervous for some reason.

Maybe he's nervous that a VIP is in the building and if anything goes wrong, it will reflect badly on the hotel.

I suspect Kate’s beauty and commanding manner disarm him, because he’s putty in her hands.

It MUST be that he is terrified of the beautiful and nasty bitch named Kate.

The rooms are elegant, understated, and opulently furnished.

You can't have it both ways.

Either a room is elegant and opulent.

Or it is simple and understated room.

It's nine o'clock and they have only thirty minutes to set everything up. Kate is in charge and she is delegating tasks.

She asks Ana to let Christian know where they are and make sure that housekeeping brings up the refreshments.

Yes, mistress.

E.L. James used the word "mistress".

And in the BDSM community, mistress is another word for a dominatrix.

She is so domineering. I roll my eyes but do as I’m told.

If Kate was a man Christian Grey, Ana would do everything that he says eagerly and won't be complaining.

And she would constantly say that Christian's domineering personality makes her horny.

Christian Grey walks into the suite.

Ana exclaims "holy crap." She tells us what he is wearing and how his "unruly hair" is wet.

My mouth goes dry looking at him … he’s so freaking hot.

I swear to God... This book is going to drive me batty.

A man with hazel eyes and a buzz hair cut enters the room. He then stands silently in the corner.

I bet this guy is Christian's bodyguard.

Christian greets Ana. Of course, Ana shakes his hand and blinks like a malfunctioning Furby.

As I touch his hand, I’m aware of that delicious current running right through me, lighting me up, making me blush, and I’m sure my erratic breathing must be audible.

We get it, E.L. James.

Mary Sue and Gary Stu are soulmates because they are obsessed with each other.

And they are always feeling electric sparks between them.

Ana introduces Christian Grey to Kate. Christian describes Kate as "tenacious" and looks "amused." He asks Kate if she is doing well.

Kate says that she is fine and firmly shakes his hand. She also makes eye contact. Ana gives the reader information about Kate.

It turns out that Kate comes from a wealthy family and went to "the best" private schools in the state.

Ana concludes because Kate's family socioeconomic status, it is why Kate is "confident" and is "sure of her place in the world."

She doesn’t take any crap.

"But she puts up with all of my shit. She even asks for second helpings."

I am in awe of her.

If you REALLY liked Kate, then you wouldn't be treating her like shit 24/7.

And you won't act like Kate is a harpy every time she is assertive or has an opinion.

Kate thanks Christian for doing the photo shoot and Christian replies that “It’s a pleasure.”

When Christian looks at her, Ana blushes for the billionth time.

“This is José Rodriguez, our photographer,” I say, grinning at José, who smiles with affection back at me.

It's confirmed: Ana is stringing poor José along.

She knows that José is smiling "with affection" after she grinned at him.

And you can't tell me that Ana thinks that José's affectionate smile is only PLATONIC.

José's eyes "cool" when he sees Christian. They get acquainted. But like last time, Christian acts territorial and "appraises" José.

Christian asks José “Where would you like me?"

In my headcanon, José would say "Tied to the back of my fucking truck while I drive through a cactus field."

His tone sounds vaguely threatening.

But Katherine is not about to let José run the show.

It MUST be José's fault.

It couldn't possibly be the rich and powerful douchebag who is trying to start a fight.

Kate defuses the situation by directing Christian to sit on a chair that is against the wall. She also tells him to mind the lighting cables.

Travis switches on the lights and apologizes to Christian when the lights blind him for a few seconds. I'd like to think that was intentional.

José starts taking the photographs and this prompts Ana to ogle Christian.

My wish has come true: I can stand and admire Grey from not so afar.

Everyone knows that Ana really wants Christian to bang her like a screen door in a hurricane.

Twice our eyes lock, and I have to tear myself away from his cloudy gaze.

I think E.L. James thought "cloudy eyes" makes Christian's eyes sound sexy.

But "cloudy eyes" sounds like he has cataracts.

Kate tells Christian to stand. And five minutes later, the photo shoot is finished.

She thanks Christian again for doing the photo shoot. Both Kate and José shake Christian's hand.

Christian claims that he will be "looking forward to reading the article." He then asks Ana to walk with him.

Ana agrees. She notices that Kate could care less while José is "scowling."

Christian says goodbye and then opens the door for Ana.

Holy hell … what’s this about? What does he want?

Isn't it obvious?

Christian wants you to be his sex slave.

Ana is waiting in the hotel corridor and she is "fidgeting." Christian leaves the room followed by the guy with the buzz cut.

It turns out that "Buzz Cut" has a name. It's Taylor. Christian promises to call Taylor later.

Grey turns his burning gray gaze to me. Crap … have I done something wrong?

Shut up, you dumb cow.

If you think that he is angry....

Angry enough that he will try and harm you...

Then why in the hell are you following him down a hallway and into an elevator?

Christian asks Ana if she would have coffee with him.

My heart slams into my mouth.

Unfortunately for the reader, the heart doesn't fall out of Ana's mouth and land on the floor.

Instead, the bitch is still alive.

A date?

No, he's asking that you'll play jump rope with him.

He’s asking if you want a coffee. Maybe he thinks you haven’t woken up yet, my subconscious whines at me in a sneering mood again.

Because rich men LOVE going on a coffee date with someone that they can't stand.

So Ana clears her throat and tells Christian no. Ana explains that she has to drive everyone home. Even though that isn't exactly true.

She just has to drive José and Travis home.

Kate is driving herself home and all of the equipment will be put in her vehicle.

Christian beckons Taylor. He says that Taylor can drive everyone home and take the equipment.

“There. Now can you join me for coffee?” Grey smiles as if it’s a done deal.

Fuck you, Christian.

Just because you are richer than God...

It doesn't give you the right to try and dictate people's lives.

Ana frowns. She is nervous and says that "Taylor doesn’t have to drive them home.”

Ana looks at her Taylor who is "stoically impassive."

And because Ana is spineless, she suddenly decides that she will go on a coffee date with Christian.

Grey smiles a dazzling, unguarded, natural, all-teeth-showing, glorious smile.

Christian just acted like a pushy asshole...

But E.L. James wants us to swoon over Christian's perfect smile.

Ana thinks "Oh my" when Christian opens the suite door. She enters the room and sees Kate talking to José.

Kate says that it is obvious that Christian likes Ana. Of course, José is pissy and glares at Ana "with disapproval."

But Kate quickly adds that she doesn't trust him.

I raise my hand up in the hope that she’ll stop talking. By some miracle, she does.

Ana asks Kate if she can take her car. Kate asks why.

Ana replies that she is going on a coffee date with Christian. Kate's mouth drops open to which Ana "savor[s] the moment."

She grabs me by my arm and drags me into the bedroom that’s off the living area of the suite.

Kate tells Ana even though Christian is "gorgeous", she adds that "he's dangerous. Especially for someone like you."

Ana demands to know what "someone like me" means.

Kate is concerned that Christian will take advantage of Ana because she is a virgin.

Ana blushes and disregards her friend's concerns.

Because after all, a pushy and manipulative psychopath WOULD NEVER take advantage of a naive person. Especially if said person was a virgin.

Ana insists that they are only going on a coffee date and it won't last long because she needs to study for her exams.

Kate reluctantly gives Ana her car keys and says "Don’t be long, or I’ll send out search and rescue.”

In a well-written story, Ana would go on a date with Christian and suddenly disappear.

Ana would be trapped in Christian's pit in the basement or her corpse be found in a landfill.

But this is a shitty romance novel masquerading as a tru luv story so Kate is being a worrywart.

Ana leaves the room and sees Christian leaning against the wall.

She blushes for the billionth time and swoons over Christian's hotness, saying that he looks like "a male model."

I make my way down the corridor, my knees shaky, my stomach full of butterflies, and my heart in my mouth thumping a dramatic, uneven beat.

Thank you E.L. James for giving us descriptions that read like a shopping list.

I am going to have coffee with Christian Grey … and I hate coffee.

Here's a brilliant idea...

Tell him that you don't like coffee.

Even suggest that they go somewhere else like a froyo cafe?

So Christian and Ana are walking down the hotel corridor. Ana is nervous and doesn't know what she is going to say to him.

What on Earth do I have in common with him?

Well, both of you are self-absorbed assholes who use people to get what they want.

So I'd say the two of you are matches made in heaven hell.

Christian asks Ana how long she has known Kate. She replies since "our freshman year" and she is a "good friend."

“Hmm,” he replies noncommittally. What is he thinking?

Christian is thinking about the ways he can kill Kate if she interferes with his plans.

He presses the elevator button and the doors slide open. A young couple were making out and they are embarrassed.

Christian and Ana step inside the elevator.

I am struggling to maintain a straight face, so I gaze down at the floor, feeling my cheeks turning pink.

When I peek up at Grey through my lashes, he has a hint of a smile on his lips, but it’s very hard to tell.

So Christian is not only a psychopathic douchebag that is probably homophobic...

Now he is a voyeur.

Good to know.

Ana remarks that the young couple "says nothing."

She complains that there isn't any elevator music to "distract" everyone from the "embarrassed silence."

The doors open and, much to my surprise, Grey takes my hand, clasping it with his long, cool fingers. I feel the current run through me, and my already rapid heartbeat accelerates.

For a novel that it is supposed to be so sexy and edgy...

It is cheesy and sappy like a bad romance novel.

As he leads me out of the elevator, we can hear the suppressed giggles of the couple erupting behind us. Grey grins.

What's so funny about a guy holding a girl's hand?

We cross the expansive, bustling lobby of the hotel toward the entrance, but Grey avoids the revolving door, and I wonder if that’s because he’d have to let go of my hand.

I'll let this gif speak for itself:

Because if this story isn't filled with clusterfuckery or depicting lust and obsession as tru luv, it is fucking tedious.

I attempt to smother the ridiculous grin that threatens to split my face in two.

I seriously hope that Ana's face does split in two so it can spare me from reading anymore of this literary abomination.

Try to be cool, Ana, my subconscious implores me.

Ana, you are the antonym of cool.

After walking four blocks, they finally arrive at the coffee house. Christian holds the door open for Ana.

Christian asks Ana what she will have to drink. Ana wants tea and tells him how she likes her tea.

“Okay, bag out tea. Sugar?” For a moment, I’m stunned, thinking it’s an endearment,

Considering how this story can be so cheesy and sappy, I wouldn't be surprised.

but fortunately my subconscious kicks in with pursed lips. No, stupid—do you take sugar?

Maybe you should take sugar.

It might make you less of a bitter bitch.

Ana doesn't want any sugar with her tea and she doesn't want anything to eat. She sits a table while he gets the drinks.

I surreptitiously gaze at him from beneath my lashes as he stands in line waiting to be served.

Like other terrible writers, E.L. James loves raping the thesaurus.

I could watch him all day … he’s tall, broad shouldered, and slim, and the way those pants hang from his hips … Oh my.

Once or twice he runs his long, graceful fingers through his now dry but still disorderly hair.

Because nothing says influential businessman like unbrushed hair.

Ana wants to run her hands through his hair.

The thought comes unbidden into my mind, and my face flames.

"The thought is simply rude! It arrived into my mind uninvited!"

And in regards to Ana's face flaming...

I bite my lip and stare down at my hands again, not liking where my wayward thoughts are headed.

Ana Steele acting like a maiden in a Victorian melodrama...

Which doesn't make any sense.

She wasn't raised in a super religious family where having sexual desires is sinful.

And the "wayward thoughts" comment sounds awfully familiar...

I bite my lip and stare down at my hands again, not liking where my wayward thoughts are going.

- Chapter 6 of Master of the Universe by Snowqueens Icedragon

But before Ana can start masturbating in public, Christian returns. She is startled and blushes for the billionth time.

He hands her a cup and a saucer along with a small teapot.

A side plate bearing a lone teabag labeled TWININGS ENGLISH BREAKFAST—my favorite.

I love the subtle product placement.

I could be wrong...

But I have the sneaking suspicion that E.L. James only mentioned Twinings because that's the kind of tea that she drinks.

We get riveting information like Christian bought himself a blueberry muffin and how Ana describes herself as being "gawky" and clumsy.

Christian asks her something and she says how Twinings is her favorite tea.

He frowns. He knows I’m hiding something.

This was once a Twilight fanfic and Christian Grey is Edward Cullen.

Which means Edward and Bella Christian and Ana are going to talk.

Christian will assure Ana Swan that she isn't an open book...

And Christian will agree with everything that Ana says because he wants to sleep with her.

I pop the teabag into the teapot and almost immediately fish it out again with my teaspoon.

Each type of tea takes a different length of time to steep.

If you steep tea too long, it becomes bitter.

But if you don't steep the tea long enough, it is bland.

For black tea, the recommended steeping time is 3-5 minutes.

So Ana is drinking tea that tastes like dishwater.

Christian gives her a funny look. Ana claims that she likes her tea "black and weak."

Christian then asks if José is her boyfriend.

I laugh, nervous but curious. What gave him that impression?

Don't play dumb, Ana.

José gave you an affectionate smile and you returned the smile.

If someone saw that exchange, they would assume that you and José are dating.

Ana says no and claims that José is just a "good friend, that's all." She asks why he thought José was her boyfriend.

He replies that it is how they smiled at each other.

His gaze holds mine. He’s so unnerving. I want to look away but I’m caught—spellbound.

We get it, E.L. James.

Both Ana and Christian love each other and they are soulmates.

Stop telling us every five seconds.

“He’s more like family,” I whisper.

And people like Cassandra Clare are swooning right now because they think incest and pseudo-incest is hawt.

Christian is satisfied with her answer and Ana is fascinated by him eating a muffin.

He asks Ana if she wants some and has a "amused, secret smile." She declines Christian's offer and creepily stares at his hands.

Christian then asks if Paul is her boyfriend. She says "[he's] just a friend."

Oh, this is getting silly.

Maybe if you weren't leading men on, you wouldn't be in this predicament.

Christian remarks that she is nervous around men.

Holy crap, that’s personal. I’m just nervous around you, Grey.

You are just horny.

“I find you intimidating.” I flush scarlet, but mentally pat myself on the back for my candor,

A woman speaking her mind is simply scandalous!

Because Twilight has taught me that women should not speak until spoken to.

If a woman speaks her mind, then she is a bitch or a slut.

Fuck this book with a rusty screwdriver!

“You should find me intimidating.” He nods.

Ana should be RUNNING to the nearest exit.

Because psychologically healthy and normal people don't want others to be scared of them.

But a PSYCHOPATH would.

Yet E.L. James wants us to think that Christian Grey is studmuffin and husband material.

Christian says that Ana is "very honest" and wants her to stop looking down.

She makes eye contact and he gives "an encouraging but wry smile."

“It gives me some sort of clue what you might be thinking,” he breathes. “You’re a mystery, Miss Steele.”

"If I said that you were open book, then our creator would be sued."

Mysterious? Me?

Nope!

The apt description would be this:

Ana replies that she isn't mysterious but Christian assures her that she is enigmatic.

“Except when you blush, of course, which is often. I just wish I knew what you were blushing about.”

It is so blatantly obvious that she is blushing about Christian.

Ana blushes ever time that she is around him or fantasizes about Christian Grey porking her.

In conclusion?

Christian Grey is a liar, liar, pants on fire.

Christian eats more of his muffin and stares at her.

And as if on cue, I blush.

E.L. James, pointing it out doesn't make Ana's constant blushing less annoying.

Ana asks if he always makes "personal observations?" He then asks if he has "offended" her.

She says "no" but then adds “But you’re very high-handed.”

Christian raises his eyebrows but Ana is convinced that he also blushed.

“I’m used to getting my own way, Anastasia,” he murmurs. “In all things.”

"And if I don't, then I act like a controlling and manipulative asshole."

Ana asks Christian why he is so formal with her. She is surprised by her "audacity" and wonders why the conversation became "serious."

I can’t believe I’m feeling so antagonistic toward him. It’s like he’s trying to warn me off.

It's because you are Bella Swan and this conversation is similar to one found in Twilight.

Christian explains that only his family members and his close friends call him by his first name. He adds that it is "the way I like it."

He is a control freak, there’s no other explanation

And part of me is thinking maybe it would have been better if Kate had interviewed him.

Two control freaks together.

Plus, of course, she’s almost blond—well, strawberry blond—like all the women in his office.

"Which means that she is an evil bitch and slut! Because that is feminism!"

Ana's subconscious "reminds" her that Kate is beautiful.

I don’t like the idea of Christian and Kate.

"And if Kate sleeps with Christian, I'll hurt her."

Ana drinks some of her tea and Christian eats a piece of his muffin.

He suddenly asks if Ana has any siblings. She replies that she is an only child.

Christian then wants to know about her parents.

Why does he want to know this? It’s so dull.

Because an abuser tries to isolate their victim by cutting them off from family and friends.

Ana tells Christian about her mother getting remarried and how her father died when she was a baby.

“You’re not giving much away, are you?” he says dryly, rubbing his chin as if in deep thought.

Because any sensible woman would tell her stalker everything about her family.

Ana points out that Christian hasn't been forthcoming.

“You’ve interviewed me once already, and I can recollect some quite probing questions then.” He smirks at me.

"Which means I am given carte blanche to be a nosy asshole."

Holy shit. He’s remembering the “gay” question.

Once again, I’m mortified. In years to come, I know I’ll need intensive therapy to not feel this embarrassed every time I recall the moment.

.........................

Because the idea of someone being gay is so traumatic for our alleged heroine that she needs to go into "intensive therapy."

Fuck you, E.L. James.

Ana talks about her mother in order to "block out that memory."

Like a judgmental prick, Christian raises his eyebrows when he finds out that Ana's mom had three previous husbands and is now married again.

Ana claims to "miss" her mom... But since this was a Twilight fanfic, I think Ana is lying.

Ana adds that her mother is "harebrained" and is glad that her mom's current husband will "keep an eye on her."

Which doesn't like Renée Dwyer at all....

Christian is looking at Ana "intently" and Ana finds looking at his mouth to be "unsettling."

And I can't fucking wait for this chapter to be finally over.

Ana tells Christian about her stepfather Ray. She lived with Ray when mom met husband # 3.

Christian then asks why Ana didn't want to live with her mother.

This really is none of his business.

If the question really bothers you, tell him that.

And if Christian still insists, then he is a nosy asshole.

Ana says that the third husband lived in Texas and mom was newly married.

She thinks about the fact that mom never talks about husband number three.

Ana is pissed off at Christian because it is "none of his business."

Two can play at this game.

Why isn't Ana telling Christian to mind his own business?

And if Christian is being a nosy douchebag, she can politely excuse herself from the table and leave.

Silly me. That would be the mature thing to do.

Ana asks Christian about his parents. Christian says that his dad is a lawyer and his mom is a pediatrician. Ana muses how he had "an affluent upbringing."

And then this happens....

Well, not yet.

And if it doesn't happen, I would be VERY surprised.

So Ana's monologue gives Christian a verbal handjob. Then Ana asks Christian about his siblings. He tells her.

His eyes cloud with irritation.

I'll say it until I'm blue in the face...

Saying that Christian has "cloudy" eyes makes it sound like he has cataracts.

He doesn’t want to talk about his family or himself.

Of course, Christian doesn't want to talk about his family.

If he did that, then he wouldn't be the center of attention.

And I call bullshit on Christian not wanting to talk about himself.

He is a narcissist.

And we have even MORE boring conversations.

I swear to God, this book is going to drive me insane.

Christian and Ana talk about different countries. Ana wants to go to England because she is an Anglophile.

Ana leaves so she can study for her exams. Christian tells Ana that he will walk her back to the parking lot. She thanks Christian for the tea.

He smiles his odd I’ve-got-a-whopping-big-secret smile.

This is a Twilight fanfic so Edward MUST have a big secret.

Christian says "It’s my pleasure" and "commands" her to come with him. Charming.

Ana holds his hand. And she is thinking about everything as they are walking back to the hotel.

I feel like I’ve been interviewed for a job, but I’m not sure what for.

You just got hired for a job....

As Christian's new sex slave.

“Do you always wear jeans?” he asks out of the blue. “Mostly.”

Christian will buy her some new clothes including a pair of jeans.

After he put a passed out Ana on the bed and undressed her...

And I'm going to stop talking now before it gets even more disturbing.

She thinks that Christian has asked her a weird question. Ana gets mopey at the idea of Christian having a paramour.

She asks Christian if he has a girlfriend. Christian smirks and "peers down" at Ana.

He tells her that he doesn't do "the girlfriend thing." The comment befuddles Ana.

He’s not gay.

Or he could be aromantic asexual.

But silly me.

E.L. James is probably one of those people who don't think that asexual people exist.

Oh, maybe he is! He must have lied to me in his interview.

They have only seen each other three times.

But Ana is acting like it is her God-given right to know Christian's sexual orientation.

It doesn't even occur to Ana that is NONE of HER FUCKING BUSINESS.

When someone is queer (gay, bi, pan, ply, or somewhere on the asexual spectrum), and they decide to come out...

It isn't a one-day event.

They are coming out every day for the rest of their lives.

As far as Ana knows, Christian could be a closeted gay man.

She doesn't even know or care about the consequences of forcing someone out of the closet.

For the record, outing someone is an incredibly douchey thing to do but it can be very dangerous.

And for argument's sake, say that Christian is gay.

And if he told her, Ana wouldn't keep her mouth shut.

Like Bella, she would be shouting it into a megaphone.

Ana is upset that Christian doesn't give her "some explanation." She wigs out and insists that she must "get away from him."

And because Ana is a klutz, she trips.

Christian says "Shit!" before saving Ana from being hit by a van cyclist. Christian is holding Ana in his arms. Of course, she is swooning.

I inhale his clean, wholesome scent. He smells of freshly laundered linen and some expensive body wash. It’s intoxicating. I inhale deeply.

...................

....................

Because nothing says tru luv like huffing someone like an aerosol can.

Christian asks if she is okay.

He has one arm around me, clasping me to him, while the fingers of his other hand softly trace my face, gently probing, examining me.

I know that this is supposed to be a swoonworthy moment...

But having the love interest "examining" and "gently probing" the heroine...

To me, it sounds like Christian is coroner examining a corpse.

Of course, Christian's breath "hitches."

He’s staring into my eyes, and I hold his anxious, burning gaze for a moment, or maybe it’s forever…

For a book that is supposed to be edgy...

It is as sappy as a Hallmark movie.

Ana remarks that Christian has a "beautiful mouth."

And for the first time in twenty-one years, I want to be kissed. I want to feel his mouth on mine.

#book snark #chapter snark #snark #anti fifty shades of grey #anti fifty shades #anti el james #bad fiction #fifty shades of grey

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lesbianrey · 8 years ago

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watching the eclipse is too normie....catch me watching the miracle of microbiology and cell division instead

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dorapadfieldfmp · 5 years ago

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I couldn’t find the text online for free so Ive been reading reviews.

One by Greg Brown, Mercyhurst University, reads:

“There is a long tradition of dualism in Western thought and culture. Many times philosophers, theologians, and psychologists have presented the world as split between realms we can touch and realms we must imagine. In The Second Body, Daisy Hildyard presents an updated dualism between the animal bodies in which we eat, breathe, and sleep and the virtual bodies of our global connections and environmental impacts.

Hildyard’s focus is on her own personal understanding of her “second body.” She writes, “I need to find some places where real life and this global truth—the two bodies—come into one another,” and she is up front about her lack of advice for anyone else’s bodies. In this investigation, Hildyard interviews a number of people: butchers, wildlife investigators, geneticists, biologists. At one point she claims that “Since Darwin, we have known that species do not exist,” but of course that isn’t correct: evolution posits a common ancestor, not the absence of speciation. But The Second Body also questions whether individuals truly exist—can there really be a first body, since the animal body is always a symbiosis of many different organisms? (Recent research shows that our human cells are literally outnumbered by the nonhuman cells in our bodies.)

For some of her sources, the eclipsing of the first body invokes a reaction of “horror”; yet on the other hand, for one of the biologists she interviews, it’s the individual’s capacity to act altruistically (in the second body) that is the most vexing. Hildyard’s erasure of individual bodies reminds me of the Gaia hypothesis: the biosphere itself, both living and nonliving parts, act like one organism to maintain the conditions for life on Earth. Our second bodies too often act as if they are apart from this biosphere, and Hildyard notes how even ecology textbooks’ language maintains this division.

This book is at its best when she is writing most intimately—describing a local butcher’s work or the flood that destroyed her home. Though Hildyard doesn’t really reconcile her two bodies completely, the act of recognizing that they both exist is necessary and worthwhile.”

Important bits:

◦ ‘can there really be a first body, since the animal body is always a symbiosis of many different organisms? (Recent research shows that our human cells are literally outnumbered by the nonhuman cells in our bodies.)’

◦ ‘dualism between the animal bodies in which we eat, breathe, and sleep and the virtual bodies of our global connections and environmental impacts.’

◦ ‘the biosphere itself, both living and nonliving parts, act like one organism to maintain the conditions for life on Earth’

I love this idea that ultimately, on Earth, there is only one body as everything must shared in order for everything to service successfully.

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nemesis-nexus · 6 years ago

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Full Bloody Wolf Moon and Lunar Eclips 2019

AVE NINHURSAG, Gracious Goddess, Blessed Lady of the Hearth and Divine Mother Earth, we call to you on this Full Bloody Wolf Moon! As you have in the beginning created all things on this Earth to sustain its myriad of living beings we too have strived to protect and defend your other children, unfortunately not all humans have risen to the occasion, in fact several of them electively chose to either go back to sleep or remain asleep and the results of their ignorance is coming full circle back to the point of global destruction that is reaching catastrophic levels! These humans think (in a manner of speaking as many of them DON’T think and that right there is the underlying problem) that they can do whatever they want and there will never be any consequences either in this lifetime or their next Plane of existence but they are severely mistaken!

The reality is that the Wolves are at the Gate and they are NOT the ones that humanity is used to dealing with, these particular wolves make no distinction between what we consider to be “good” or “evil” nor do they care what we claim to be “necessary” for OUR survival when those claims are conjuring up any and every excuse as to WHY the forests are being cut down, why WHALES are choking to death on plastic bags and car parts or why the air cannot be breathed due to smog! They are not interested in what we think we “need” when those “needs” are stripping mountains of their minerals which are in turn causing landslides, when they are sending sonic booms into the ocean floor looking for underwater oil deposits which results in marine life being deafened and killed from the impact, when the medications being flushed are mutating the fish and killing the coral they rely on to hide from predators, when land animals are being slaughtered for their ivory and hides - not to fashion spearheads or arrows for hunting or clothing to stay warm but to create petty useless trinkets to be sold to tourists and a rug for the floor! They don’t want to hear about what we call “progress” when all of it hinges on the electronic technology that is causing the EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) of the planet to become unbalanced resulting in radiation waves of such intensity that it is literally MICROWAVING everything it touches!

These particular Wolves serve a greater purpose and that is to keep the Natural World in working order and they cannot do this if we continue to run interference! This is why they can be very aggressive, because they HAVE to be! When dealing with a predator that is as sophisticated and weaponized as the human race, you have to use every instinct you have to neutralize them before they can cause any more damage. This is not done with reckless disregard; in fact it is done with regard to ALL other living species so they too can continue to thrive! The human race has taken it upon itself to place itself on the top of the food chain when the reality is that we are really nothing more than just another link in the Circle! When this arrogance boils over, it is up to the Wolves to remind them where they stand whether the human or humans they are dealing with ever sees them coming!

It is my opinion that these Wolves would rather go about their business and not harm anyone, but we humans have made that nearly impossible and have at this point done so much damage and caused so much chaos that there is a very real possibility that there is no fixing it. I do however continue to hold out hope as we have seen a shift in recent years and even though many humans again are still asleep, either because they never woke up or they couldn’t handle reality so they went back to sleep, I believe that many more have in fact woken up and are making it a point to help others especially the younger generation to wake up and rise up like a slow tide against things such as greed and pride! Now there’s nothing wrong with pride or being proud generally speaking, but when it gets to the point that one no longer sees ANYTHING wrong with what they do no matter how many problems arise from their actions OR they DO know it but REFUSE to change course regardless, that’s when it becomes a serious issue!

There is an old Native story regarding an Elder and a young Warrior discussing Life and personal responsibility. The Elder explains that we all have 2 wolves fighting for control of our Path inside of us, one represents anger, hate, violence etc; the other represents joy, love, peace ect... The young Warrior asks the Elder who will win the battle to which the Elder simply says, “The one we feed.” This is true on many levels because people tend to act without thinking especially when they are mad about something and say things that are divisive and hurtful, not because that’s how they feel about the person they are talking to, but because they are so riled up they can’t control their rage. This is something we have ALL done in our lives whether we realize or care to admit to it or not.

This is something that can actually turn deadly when a large crowd of people are allowing the Wolf of Death to control their action rather than the Wolf of Life. The Wolf of Death does not care who gets hurt or why so long as it continues to be fed through people’s fear, envy, hate, malice, greed, jealousy and selfishness; it’s only purpose is to destroy everything around it. All too often people who fall into this trap don’t see just how severe their actions are until it’s too late, though the worse situation is when they do and they continue it intentionally. We have seen this happen all throughout history from the Roman Empire to the Ottoman Empire to recent events regarding Jerusalem, everyone wants everything for themselves and to Hell with everyone else!

NINHURSAG it would seem that for all its self proclaimed progress that the human race has in fact DEvolved where it matters most, where they have become connected and interconnected by cell phones, computers and (anti)social media they have become all but completely DISconnected from themselves and the Spiritual aspect of existence overall. They seem to think they are now above not only the Animal Kingdom and Natural World, but above the highest forms of intelligence existing beyond their borders of comprehension! They seem to think they can confirm or deny the existence of life everywhere else on a whim based ONLY on the fact that they have not (to their knowledge) made contact with it. The truth is they cannot determine the content of other galaxies, planets or planes they have not been to so for them to be so self-righteous as to outright claim it isn’t there is yet another glimpse into their ego and their constant need to be in control of everything, even when they don’t know anything!

What’s worse is that other humans oftentimes clamor to their sides and uphold their foolish proclamations, sometimes with VIOLENT conviction; even if there is PROOF that what was said is not true! The best example of this are the “Flat Earthers” who not only insist that the planet is flat but that we never went to the moon; that the landing, the pictures taken by space craft AND the Lunar Space Station are all fabricated and WHERE are they making these claims? On WIRELESS televisions, computers and cellular phones! This is the kind of thing that would make a great SNL skit if it weren’t for the fact that this mentality, the refusal to research facts and the arrogance to assume that Nature will always provide even when she is being ravaged by the very people who are supposed to be tending to her needs are exactly what is putting the human race and everything else in jeopardy of extinction!

What many humans don’t seem to understand is that “we rise, we fall, we sink, we swim, we meet our fate TOGETHER” (quote from ‘Lean On Me’) so regardless of who is doing what in the end there WILL be a price to be paid and the ones who will foot the brunt of that cost will be the ones who were fighting against the wave of destruction that is the human ego trying to set things right or at least turn the tide to begin a global healing. The fact of the matter is we are indeed in dire times and the more we allow ourselves to be divided by hate, anger and violence, the more we are feeding the Wolf of Death! This Bloody Wolf Moon and Lunar Eclipse serves as a precursor to coming events and unless we start feeding the Wolf of Life more, the blood that spills over the land will be ALL of ours and the ONLY ones to blame for it will be US because we KNOW what we were put here to do and instead of doing it decided that personal gain and instant gratification were more important!

Glorious Lady of Earth and Creation we know that you too had cause to cast out even your most beloved because he took leave of his senses, but in the end, when he was at his highest point of suffering, you returned and healed him completely. It is because of this that I know there is still time, there is still hope. Our Great Mother is not going to simply give up on us but as broad and enduring as her love and patience are, there is a limit and when that limit is reached it will no longer be game on but game over! No one should have to endure the kind of abuse our Mother has especially when it’s done so egregiously that she is EXPECTED to tolerate it indefinitely as though she were obligated! This is why when China sent those cotton seeds up in their Lunar Module I was more than a little concerned because I wasn’t buying their claim that it was to give astronauts on the Space Station or those exploring a place to get more supplies, I honestly believe they were ‘testing the waters’ so to speak and had those plants NOT died they would have started looking at Lunar colonization. Plants need oxygen to live, so do humans, so if it were possible to grow cotton, it would also be possible to set up a larger module to accommodate humans. I could be wrong about that but if I know my humans, nobody would deliberately try to farm the dark side of the moon instead of the light side in full view of everyone, unless they were planning more than a cotton harvest. Humans don’t seem to understand that the Multiverse was created the way it was for a reason and EVERYTHING in it serves a purpose. In the end this was really just another example of human ego trying to put itself above everything else and you Dear Lady were not having it!

The news isn’t all bad though, because just as the Wolf of Death is snarling and tearing at the fabric of existence so too is the Wolf of Life biting and clawing back! When Life is under siege, there is no time to be nice, only to fight with every fiber of one’s being to keep from being overpowered! We see this every time a massive earthquake rearranges the face of the Earth and as bad as it is the Earth still remains! When a hurricane blasts through such as Maria did with Puerto Rico and as severe as the damage was Puerto Rico and her people still stand! When horrific flooding consumed New Orleans and though much of the city is STILL in disrepair even 14 years later, they are rebuilding! When there are tornadoes leveling cities that are not used to getting them such as Revere, MA and yet the city still stands! When humans put their ego and presumptions aside and work together there is no limit to what we can do or overcome but ONLY if we acknowledge that we are a PART of the Circle of Existence, not above it!

AS BAD AS THINGS ARE WE CAN PERSEVERE IF WE CHOOSE TO AS RESILENCE IS IN OUR SPIRITUAL COMPOSITION! Our Lord and Lady created us this way so as to be able to withstand natural disasters and learn how to coexist with Nature even at its most destructive! Sometimes natural disasters are not what they seem, what I mean is that sometimes they occur because the elements are just right and sometimes they occur to serve as a warning to humans that what they are doing is triggering even LARGER scale events down the road, unfortunately that road is NOT as long as it used to be and every day that the Water, Air and Earth are compromised, is a day we are moving ourselves that much closer to a MAJOR global Volcanic event that will bury us all the way it did back in Pompeii! This however can be stopped if people stop going to pointless war after pointless war (which only serves to exacerbate the destruction) with each other and start cleaning up their mess! It sounds like a long shot and very well could be but I still believe that the Ninhursag, Enki, Ningizheda and the rest of the Grand Council want us to live, otherwise why would they have fought so hard for our existence and subsequently been so lenient with us for all these years?

We owe them all not just our gratitude and our cooperation; we owe them our lives and our very Spiritual existence! I think (and I don’t presume to speak for any of them) but I think they would be satisfied with us getting our stuff together and start showing the planet and everything else that we collectively take for granted the respect it all damn well deserves! They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone but we DO know what we have, our problem is we take for granted that it will always be there no matter what we do to it OR that it will be repaired for us and we can just continue to act irresponsibly! The fact is that we are about to find out just how accurate that assumption is and I for one would rather not! I for one would rather that all ethnicities of the Human Race would cast aside their judgements and learn how to respect one another so as to realize that what we might have thought could in fact, and oftentimes IS in fact, wrong and that many times these lies are perpetuated for a reason! The reason is usually because someone has allowed the Wolf of Death to overpower them to seize control and the only way to maintain that control is to ensure enough people are willing to support their agenda!

Again there is still time and there is still hope, but we have to ask ourselves just how badly we WANT it! We need to do serious personal introspection to determine what internal parts of our psyche need to be worked on because none of us are perfect, I know I certainly am not! I don’t think I would ever want to be because through our stumbles and falls we learn to be humble, we also learn more about ourselves and the world around us. We are capable of doing great things both creative and destructive but we are stymied by our own egos when we spend all our time pointing out how everyone BUT us could improve! Now it is true that sometimes we need someone to point things out to us especially when we get so ensnared in any task that we lose sight of what’s happening around us, however, this does not exempt us from keeping track of which Wolf we are feeding moreso when we are run down, worn out and over stressed because it is during these times we don’t realize how unreasonable we can be to one another! Again I am not innocent of this, neither is anyone else, but together we can move forward and make real progress that not only advances the human race, but keeps everything including us in Balance!

“Bloody Wolf

The Wind goes quite, the Water is still,

A low growl is heard, sounding quite shrill!

The Full Moon hangs high, its shade a red hue,

The Wolves advance on the ones they pursue!

Survival is the only thing that matters this night,

The Pack will not go down without a HELL of a fight!

The human race could stand to learn from our Lupine brethren,

That Loyalty and Honor should run much deeper than skin!

Any outsider that acts aggressively towards the Family,

Will be worthy of retaliation, it will be their calamity!

When push comes to shove and there is no other choice,

It will be known by the howl that is our unified voice!

For the Family we will always go above and beyond,

There is almost nothing that can ever break that bond!

The only exception would be dishonor and betrayal,

But the strength of the Pack will always prevail!

So during the Darkness of the Wolf Moons Eclipse,

Raise your vibration up high and give thanks to bear witness!

Blessed Lady Ninhursag and Blessed Lord Enki,

Earth and Water together grant us double indemnity!

Their Beauty, Strength, Compassion, and Love is ours,

We are born of the Earth but we come from the Stars!

This does not exempt us from doing our part,

Remember our EARTH is also their HEART!

So raise your chalice and give a toast to the Family,

And remember always we are ONE even though we are MANY!”

ZI ANA KANPA! ZI KIA KANPA!

MAY THE DEAD RISE AND SMELL THE INCENSE!

Etiamsi MULTA Et Nos UNUM Sumus Nos Sto Validus Ut Nos Sto Una!

Semper Veritas, Semper Fideles, In NINGIZHEDA Nomen Nos Fides! AVE NINGIZHEDA!

(We Are ONE Even Though We Are MANY And We Stand STRONGEST When We Stand TOGETHER!

Always TRUTHFUL, Always FAITHFUL, In NINGIZHEDA'S Name We Trust! HAIL NINGIZHEDA!)

AVÉ URURU! AVÉ ENKI/EA!

AVÉ NINGIZHEDA! AVÉ NINHURSAG!

AVÉ ININNI! AVÉ DIMUZI!

AVÉ IGGIGI! AVÉ ANUNNA!

AVÉ DRACONIS! HAIL THE GREAT SERPENT!

HPS Meg “Nemesis Nexus” Prentiss

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pandisal23-blog · 8 years ago

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The Interview

Nikko Leyva

For this interview, I interviewed one of the oldest person I know, my dad. My dad’s name is Antonio T. Leyva. The name was given to him by my grandfather Mauricio Leyva, and my grandmother Lourdes Leyva; together they had 10 children. Antonio was born on September 24, 1947, in Quezon City, Manila, Philippines. He has a total of 5 children, having 3 girls, and 2 boys; me being the youngest, and my sister April the oldest at 37. One of his earliest memories he remembers as a child was when he was in elementary school, he was watched and experienced a total eclipse. He was very fascinated of how the light from the sun disappeared and the day turned into “night-time” for a split moment.

When Antonio was in high school he was one of the best basketball players in his school and was asked to play a league called ABL, short for Antipolo Basketball League. His first year playing he was able to win the championship, and take home the gold. When Antonio is not playing basketball, he and his friends would go in the woods or forest to get fruits from trees or bushes, and they would either eat them or sell them to people to make money. Also on the weekends he worked at a bakery that his aunt owned and sold bread, cake, and other things.

Antonio earned a bachelor’s degree in architectural design at Far Eastern University in Manila. There in college he worked as a waiter, and a bus driver to earn some extra money. After graduating he was given a job at Western Drafting Board Company and worked there mostly his whole life. Until the age of 58 he was given the opportunity to travel to the states along with his family, and start a better life with a better job. He first moved into a small apartment in Vineland, New Jersey, near Vineland High School. He was given a job at Division Five Detailing Company, and he was the head structural detailer. After a few years of working and earning money he was able to buy his own house, cars, and other things.

However, the United States isn’t the only countries he has visited. Matter of fact he has visited five other countries! In 1980 he traveled to Saudi Arabia, as a supervisor for many architectural work. At first he thought the culture was very weird, he quotes “Around that time (1980), as a catholic man you were not allowed to look at an Arabian woman.” Also he says the water he drank there was very salty, and things were not very sanitary. He mentions it is bad to eat around lunch time and had to be sneaky while eating. If he chose to eat around lunch time he either ate in the bathroom, or in his car. Other than that he said the food he ate was very similar to the food he ate back at home.

In 1991, at age 45 he traveled to Singapore also a supervisor for the architectural work there. Antonio lived around the boundary of Singapore and was very close to Malaysia sometimes would go over the border. When someone mentions to him “Singapore” his first thoughts about it is that it was VERY CLEAN. People were not allowed to chew gum in public due to people throwing it away on the streets. He says there were many Chinese places there kind of like here in America. He says food was very cheap and he was able to buy meals costing him about 2 Singapore dollars (equivalent to 1 American dollar). Also one of his most memorable moments there was meeting the President of the Philippines Corazon Aquino. After President Aquino gave a speech, there was a small gathering that Antonio decides to go to. There the President Aquino notices my dad as a fellow Filipino and asked him to sit and eat lunch beside her.

One major historical events that took place during his lifetime was at September, 11 2001. He remembers it was night time, and he was at his job in Philippines at the Western Drafting Board, working on a project for California about industrial buildings. He was alarmed and very terrified when he first heard of the tragic news. During the time he had families and colleagues at New York City and was very worried for them, wondering if they are alright. The next day he later finds out that they all in good condition and none of them were hurt. However seeing all those lives lost, impacted him personally.

Throughout Antonio’s lifetime many things have changed, and impacted society. He feels that what impacted society the most is computer technology. He says “The world’s technology is exponentially growing due to computers.” Even though he was owned at least 5 personal computers, and cell phones, to this day he still has trouble completing the simplest task when it comes to computers or cell phones. Sometimes he has to call me or my brother for help just to check his email.

After asking if there was anything he could go back to and change what would it be, he responds with, “My major…” He says the major took a lot of effort, and thinking involved. To him it was very stressful, and that he was given many responsibilities. He frightened that any mistakes made would go back to him, and would be held responsible. Also he says that the thing he hated the most about his work was that it turned half his hair white due to the amount of stress it put on him. He wishes instead of architecture, he would’ve join the police academy, because it would’ve paid a little more, be less stressful, and he would look more, “bad ass.” However other than that he says he is happy with the decisions he has made in his life, and he is very content of where he is today.

To Antonio he believes that what is most important thing to a person is the money you have. To him he feels that without money, you are nothing. “Without money we would not be where we are today.” Antonio explains. He says because of money we were able to leave a very poor country, travel across the world, and live a better life. Because of money he was able to take care of his children, give them better home, and safer environment to live in.

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sogivemecoffeeandtvhistory · 8 years ago

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The Sins of the Sons

Sometime after 10 p.m. on Sunday, August 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents with Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns as they sat watching television in the family room of their $5 million mansion at 722 North Elm Drive, located in one of Beverly Hills’ more prestigious neighborhoods. Jose was a self-made senior entertainment executive and his wife, Kitty, was a homemaker whose devotion to her husband remained steadfast even though the pain -- the stress of the family’s move from New Jersey to California, and then from Calabasas to Beverly Hills; Jose’s infidelities; and, of course, the various and mounting troubles concerning their sons. According to the coroner’s report, one of the killers came up from behind Jose and killed him instantly with a shot to the back of the head before firing off nine others. Kitty was still alive when the brothers stepped away momentarily to reload Lyle’s gun. When the brothers returned home before midnight, after establishing an alibi – that they went to see Batman again because they could not gets tickets to the new James Bond movie License to Kill and then planned to meet a friend at the Cheesecake Factory but had to stop back home to get ID – Lyle called 911 in near hysteria: “They shot and killed my parents!” he cried.

The murders were so bloody and so savage that they were, in the early days of the investigation, considered to be a mob hit or a “gangland-style execution.” Lyle and Erik used concerns about their security as a pretense to move from hotel to hotel in the weeks after the murders and even went so far as to point the police to a possible suspect: a pornographic film distributor with underworld ties who had been engaged in a protracted legal battle with Jose and Live Entertainment, a division of Carolco Pictures that he ran as its chief executive at the time of his murder. To the extent that the possibility was given credence – after all, the home video industry business model, still in its infancy, had been driven at first more by pornography distributors, and all of the unsavory deals that involves, than by the film studios – Live Entertainment conducted an extensive internal investigation affirming that none of its dealings had any role in the murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez. The company also hired a public relations expert to stage-manage an elaborate memorial service for Jose and Kitty at the Directors Guild.

Lyle and Erik would not be arrested until March 1990, by which point they had already spent upwards of $1 million of the family’s estate, with spending habits that attracted the attention of detectives as well as their family. Money was spent on Rolex watches, and sports cars, and hotel rooms, and high-rise apartments. Lyle purchased a restaurant in Princeton called Chuck’s Spring Street Cafe for $550,000, considered to be almost twice the restaurant’s value at the time, with dreams of expanding it. Lyle also attempted to set up his own personal investment fund. Erik, who had just graduated high school the summer of the murders, scrapped his plans to attend UCLA and instead hired a full-time coach tennis instructor. (The estate, which amounted to considerably less than what the brothers expected, was virtually depleted by 1993.)

The brothers did raise suspicion when they sat with the police for their first detailed interview after the night of the murders. Some two months later, Lyle told the police about finding the perpetrator:

“Finding out who it is, Erik and I are probably not going to be able to do anything about it. To find out who it is and not be able to do anything is probably worse [than not knowing]. So it’s a hard thing for Erik and I to decide whether or not we want it solved. It would be great if whoever did it went to jail. But it really doesn’t help us in any way. The loss is much greater than the benefits of finding out who did it.”

Notably, the evidence connecting Lyle and Erik to their parents’ deaths that lead to their arrest came in the form of audiotape recordings of confessions the brothers had made to a psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Oziel. The police learned these recordings existed from Judalon Smyth, who had overheard Erik confess to the killings and Lyle threaten to kill Dr. Oziel if he reported it. Smyth, at the time, was involved with Dr. Oziel – as a patient and lover; in her telling he was also a captor who “brainwashed” her, drugged her, and repeatedly raped and assaulted her. The protracted legal battle over whether the tapes were admissible under the privilege of doctor-patient confidentiality took several years of appeals to resolve. Parallel to this was the litigation between Smyth and Oziel, as well as Vanity Fair’s Dominick Dunne, who conducted the first major print interview with Smyth, with whom he settled. In fact, Smyth claimed that after a meeting to discuss settling Oziel’s lawsuit against Dunne, Oziel harassed her, to which she responded by throwing a glass of water in his face. Smyth filed a number of lawsuits against Oziel for abuse, assault, battery, and negligence, and for malicious prosecution.

Lyle and Erik were not indicted until the end of December 1992. It was not until July 1993, just a week before the trial began, that the brothers’ defense team disclosed that the brothers would admit to shooting their parents as part of a self-defense plea, arguing that Lyle and Erik feared for their lives after over a decade of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of their parents, though primarily their father.

From there, it would take two trials, three juries -- the brothers had separate juries in the first trial and both deadlocked forcing the jury to declare a mistrial -- and three more years to see the Menendez brothers rightfully convicted for the brutal murders of their parents and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which they were in July 1996.

By that point, of course, the unanswerable question of what exactly drove the Menendez brothers to murder their parents in such a brutal manner had long been eclipsed by the other brutal double homicide that transfixed the nation – O.J. Simpson’s trial for the June 12, 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman and the manifold mysteries and stories that followed.

After Simpson’s white Ford Bronco chase to international infamy ended with his arrest in front of his Rockingham estate on the evening of June 17, 1994, he was brought to the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail, where he was identified as a special-care inmate and placed under suicide watch. Simpson was placed in a wing on the jail’s second floor known as “Celebrity Row”; separated from the general population, it previously housed Kelsey Grammer, Sean Penn, and Christian Brando. At the time of Simpson’s arrest, it housed Erik Menendez and Simpson was placed in the cell next to his.

Less than four months before, Simpson had discussed the plight of the Menendez brothers in private conversation with his longtime friend Tom McCollum, a biomedical entrepreneur, while on vacation in Miami. As he later related to Sheila Weller for her book on O.J. and Nicole’s relationship, Raging Heart, Simpson said of the brothers after the hung juries deadlocked the first trial, “They should take ‘em out and shoot ‘em!”

Erik Menendez told Playboy reporter Robert Rand that he “almost cried” when Simpson’s “suicide” note was read by Robert Kardashian on live television. “It was very sad – tears came to my eyes. It reminded me of Lyle and me.” Menendez’s account of Simpson’s first night in prison, as recounted in Rand’s report in the July 1, 1995 issue of Playboy, is as follows:

The first night was rough. “I didn’t see O.J. crying, but I believe he was,” Erik told me from a jail a few days later. “I could hear him moaning. I felt very bad for him.” A few hours after Simpson’s arrival, Erik overheard him talking about his case with one of the deputies. A deputy and a sergeant were stationed on suicide watch, sitting on chairs directly outside his cell. A few minutes later, Simpson called out to his neighbor.

“Hey, Erik, it’s O.J.!”

“OK, O.J., let me explain a few things about jail to you,” Erik replied.

“I told him not to talk to the deputies or inmates about the case. I told him not to worry, that everything would be all right. Just relax. Nothing drastic is going to happen to you any time soon. After that long chase, you can imagine what shape he was in.”

By Saturday morning, the impact of the week’s events was consuming the despondent Simpson. “He wasn’t happy to be in jail,” said Erik. “He wasn’t any worse than I was or Lyle was. He was delusional, thinking that he was going to get out in three weeks or three months.”

Erik told O.J. that he and Lyle had met the football star when their father was an executive at Hertz in the late 1970s, but O.J. didn’t remember the encounter with the young boys.

The apocryphal story about the Menendez brothers’ meeting with Simpson while their father was a senior executive at Hertz is a tantalizing one that made the rounds throughout the Simpson trial. As Dominick Dunne relayed it in his first report on the Simpson trial, “The story goes that Lyle and Erik Menendez, then pre-teenagers, were fans of the football star, so one night Jose and Kitty invited O.J. to dinner with them and their sons, and the evening was a great success.”

Whether or not is true is almost beside the point, the cases overlap in many ways, from the factual and coincidental to the parallels in the outsize attention the trials commanded.

> In one of his final conversations with Simpson before his move to an even more private area, Erik warned him about Robert Shapiro, who had assumed control of Simpson’s defense following the abrupt departure of his first attorney and longtime friend, Howard Weitzman, supposedly after learning that Simpson was not yet out of town at the time of the murders. “Don’t ever believe Bob Shapiro is going to get you a deal, because he isn’t,” he warned. What Erik was referring to was the fact that at the time the arrest warrants were issued in March 1990, he was in Israel on a tennis tournament. Erik flew to London to plot strategy before flying to Miami to confer with family before surrendering himself at Los Angeles International Airport. Shapiro was his attorney at the time, and ultimately received $15,000 for his services. As he later told Rand, Erik later learned that if he surrendered in London, he could have made ruling out the death penalty a condition of his extradition. To the extent that Shapiro was primarily known at the time for his savvy in plea-bargaining the story hardly reflects well on him. In his memoir, Shapiro recounts that when he was on the phone with District Attorney Gil Garcetti the morning Simpson was due to turn himself into the police, he referred to the successful extradition of Erik Menendez to assuage him. Ironically, Leslie Abramson was among the many lawyers lobbying to play a role in Simpson’s defense in the summer of 1994. While Abramson was unsuccessful, she would settle for being a trial commentator on ABC’s Nightline.

> One of Nicole Brown Simpson’s two baby showers in celebration of her pregnancy with Sydney was held in the same room of the same house on North Elm Drive where Jose and Kitty would be murdered, almost four years to the day. At the time, it was the home of Mark Slotkin and his then-wife Robin Greer. In fact, it was Slotkin, a real-estate businessman, who built the house and would sell it to Jose Menendez himself. Slotkin was a longtime friend of O.J. Simpson’s and stood by him, publicly, long after his arrest unlike many in his circle; Greer was a member of Nicole’s inner circle in the period just before her death. Slotkin testified in the first Menendez trial to rebut the testimony of the Menendez family maid for the prosecution that she never heard screaming fights in the home; according to Slotkin, soundproofing would have rendered it impossible from the maid’s quarters upstairs. Under cross-examination it was revealed that Slotkin had also become something of a confidant to the Menendez brothers: They told him about their father’s life insurance policies and he offered them business advice, describing them as “lost souls” who needed “some friend, some help.”

> Incredibly, Dr. Irwin Golden, deputy medical examiner for Los Angeles County, performed the autopsies of both Jose and Kitty Menendez and Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. In his testimony at the Menendez trial, Golden said the autopsies could not resolve how many shots were fired or in what order they were fired given the angles of the shots and the fact that Jose died “immediately or rapidly” after the first shot was fired to the back of his head. Curiously enough, Golden would testify at the preliminary hearing for the Simpson murder trial but not at the trial itself. It was his superior, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, who was not involved with the autopsy, who testified. It was explained at the time that Golden would not testify because of the dozens of procedural mistakes and oversights that transpired during the autopsies, including the failure to apply a rape kit. (A coroner’s investigator was not even called to the crime scene until 10 hours after the police first arrived.) However, Golden also testified, under cross-examination by Robert Shapiro during the hearing, that there were “two morphologically different types of stab wounds on the victims.” When Shapiro asked, “Could two knives have produced the injuries on both of the victims?” Golden responded, “Yes.”

> Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito presided over the Menendez brothers’ December 1992 indictment before assigning the case to Judge Stanley Weisberg, who had presided over the trial of the four police officers accused of beating Rodney King.

> Dr. Saul Faerstein, a forensic psychiatrist, consulted for the prosecution in the Menendez trial and for the defense in the Simpson criminal trial. In the Menendez trial, Faerstein and child psychology expert Dr. Spencer Eth listened to Lyle and Erik’s testimony unnoticed in the courtroom, although the prosecution never provided testimony from them or any other psychological experts to counter the claims of the defense. Faerstein was among the many credentialed experts brought on to the Simpson defense by Robert Shapiro in the window between his taking over of Simpson’s defense and Simpson’s arrest. In fact, Faerstein was at Robert Kardashian’s Encino home at the time Simpson fled in Al Cowlings’ White Ford Bronco.

> In an appearance on This Week With David Brinkley the Sunday after Simpson’s arrest, District Attorney Gil Garcetti expressed such confidence in Simpson’s guilt that he predicted Simpson would “sometime down the road say, ‘Okay, I did it, but I’m not responsible.’ We’ve seen it in Menendez.”

There was a fascinating piece of District Attorney’s office politics at play behind Garcetti’s pairing of the cases of double homicide. Also on air that morning was Deputy District Attorney David Conn, the head of Garcetti’s special trials division, who described the case on Face the Nation as a typical “domestic violence killing.” At the time of Simpson’s arrest, Conn was lead prosecutor of the second Menendez trial, a position he had been named to less than four months before along with Deputy District Attorney Carol Najera. Yet in the very first days of the Simpson case, Conn assumed control alongside Marcia Clark, who reported directly to him. As Jeffrey Toobin explained in The Run of His Life, Conn and Clark both argued there was sufficient evidence to bring Simpson in immediately on June 16, the day before the arrest warrant was issued, and Conn played a key role in planning the logistics with Clark and Bill Hodgman. After Simpson’s arraignment, Conn tipped his hand to the prosecution’s strategy when he told reporters, “Of course, there is some sympathy for Mr. Simpson because he is a public figure. But as time goes on, I think the public is going to look a little more closely at the brutality of this crime, and I think there will be a better perspective on the manner in which this case was handled.”

However, Conn was involved in another decision at that time that raised a number of questions about the politics of the District Attorney’s office in the Simpson case: the release of the audio recordings of Nicole Brown Simpson’s 911 calls from New Year’s Day 1989 and the evening of October 25, 1993 to the media. Conn actually advised the Los Angeles Police Department to turn over the recordings to the media, a decision that overwhelmed early media coverage. As Joseph Bosco explained in A Problem of Evidence,

“But when the high-level decision to ‘dirty up’ O.J. by releasing the tapes of Nicole’s 1989 911 call, before O.J. was even charged, went belly up, Conn was removed by District Attorney Gil Garcetti as a sacrificial lamb. Somebody had to take the fallout over the unprecedented dismissal of a grand jury ‘tainted’ by the media coverage of the tape. So Conn went back to Menendez II, Bill Hodgman came aboard O.J., but now Marcia Clark was first chair.”

In an interesting and ironic footnote to all of this, Conn earned the scorn of the notoriously vindictive Garcetti because he mentioned in an interview that he would one day be interested in the office of District Attorney. Conn was subsequently passed over for a promotion and then, in 1997, one year after the successful prosecution of the Menendez brothers, was moved from the special trials division to the suburban enclave of Norwalk. It was a decision so political the Los Angeles Times editorial board criticized as yet another example of Garcetti’s “seemingly vengeful behavior.” While Garcetti controversially awarded Clark and Christopher Darden bonuses despite the prosecution’s failure to convict Simpson, Conn, who finally resigned from the D.A.’s office for private practice in 1997, sued Garcetti for 470½ hours of overtime related to the Menendez prosecution. The case was quickly settled. Conn died in 2006: His successful prosecution of the Menendez brothers and “abrupt demotion” was mentioned in the lead of the Los Angeles Times obituary.

> According to Robert Rand, “In the ultimate intersection of the stories, Erik and Lyle’s grandmother, Maria Menendez, had a brief meeting with O.J.’s mother, Eunice, in the waiting room at the county jail. The women hugged as they wished each other well.”

The Simpson and Menendez trials share more than just a less-than-six degrees of separation relationship between some of the principals involved. They are both case studies in how justice for the wealthy is qualitatively different than for ordinary people. The outsize attention commanded by the Menendez trial meant that it was litigated in press conferences and on the airwaves just as much as it was in the courtroom. The first trial received gavel-to-gavel coverage on Court TV. The landscape had changed entirely by the time the second trial began, in October 1995, just a week after Simpson’s acquittal. Fatigue had long set in.

Both cases involved tough, experienced female prosecutors – Pamela Bozanich in the first Menendez trial and Marcia Clark in the Simpson criminal trial – who failed to effectively dispel the narratives surrounding the wealthy and charismatic defendants they sought to prosecute. Both cases involved superstar defense attorneys – Leslie Abramson and Johnnie Cochran, respectively – who spearheaded comprehensive makeovers of their clients’ public images. Just as Cochran sought to depict Simpson as a pillar of the black community, Abramson sought to depict the Menendez brothers as innocent and childlike, dressing them in sweaters and describing them as “adorable.” (Of course, the ever-ferocious Abramson would also later argue in her closing statement at the first trial, “The evidence in this case does not prove that Erik killed anybody.”)

Both cases involved a significant amount of privilege afforded to the defendants. In the case of the Menendez brothers, this began the night of the murders. While they were interviewed at length by the police – and asked to turn over the movie ticket stubs that purportedly demonstrated their alibi – the brothers were not also asked to submit to a chemical test that would have identified gunshot residue. The test had been applied only to Jose and Kitty, showing neither handled a gun that night. When Erik was finally booked on murder charges after returning from Israel to face the arrest order, the Beverly Hills police even allowed him a private moment with the family members who had arrived in support. As the brothers were finally put on trial, they were afforded a unique opportunity to stay in regular communication outside of court despite being in different cellblocks on different floors of the same jail. As Dominick Dunne explained in a report for Vanity Fair after the first trial,

“The system worked like this: Each night Lyle and Erik placed collect calls at the same time from their cellblocks to two individuals in the 818 area code. The numbers they called were not the listed numbers of the individuals. A different instrument with a different number had been installed at each other, and the number was unlisted. Lyle, from his prison phone, was patched through to Erik, on his phone, and the brothers chatted away, presumably planning their strategy, in total privacy. No one was the wiser. There were no records of anything more than the local collect calls placed from the jail to the houses in the San Fernando Valley. Long-distance calls were placed the same way, from jail to the 818 numbers and then to, say, Florida, for instance, with no records everywhere. The bills for this elaborate ruse, undiscovered during the course of the trial, were sent to the grandmother of the Menendez brothers.”

In the Simpson and Menndez trials, the scope of the legal battles necessarily meant they became or were made to be about things other than the brutality of the crimes committed. The Simpson trial became an existential flashpoint on race, class, celebrity, domestic violence, the relationship between the Los Angeles Police Department and the black community, and the historical conduct of Mark Fuhrman in particular. Whether or not Fuhrman uttered the n-word in the ten years preceding the Simpson case, a charge he denied during his cross-examination, became a trial-within-a-trial after the defense was informed of an aspiring screenwriter’s years of audiotaped conversations with Fuhrman, where he said the n-word and many other outrageous statements. (This ultimately led to Fuhrman’s prosecution for perjury, making him the only person to date to be prosecuted for a crime in connection with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and it also triggered a full-blown Justice Department investigation into LAPD practices.)

The analogous trial-within-a-trial in the Menendez case was undoubtedly the personal drama and enmity between Dr. Jerome Oziel and Judalon Smyth over the conversations with the Menendez brothers she claimed to have overheard in his office. The legal battle over the admissibility of Oziel’s records, at least, is entirely understandable. Incredibly, the end result of this was that at the first trial, Oziel testified for the prosecution and Smyth – who provided the police with the break they needed to finally arrest Lyle and Erik – testified for the defense. Smyth, who would testify to the effect that she was “brainwashed” by Oziel and heard only parts of his conversations with Lyle and Erik, accused the District Attorney’s office of failing to prosecute Oziel for rape and sexual assault because of his utility as a witness for the prosecution. And, in fact, Oziel held nothing back, testifying that the brothers considered the murders a “perfect crime” and that the brothers had to reload their shotguns before Lyle fired the final shot killing their mother. Oziel was finally stripped of his license for breaking confidentiality rules and having sex with patients in 1997.

Oziel, it should be noted, was not the only psychological professional caught up in misconduct in the Menendez case. Shortly after the brothers’ arrests, Abramson sought the help of forensic psychiatrist Dr. William Vicary and he went on to counsel the brothers extensively, testifying for the defense at trial as a mental health expert in order to rebut the prosecution’s claim that the brothers’ abuse charges were wholly fictitious. It was not until the sentencing phase, in 1996, that Vicary dropped the explosive bombshell that he altered and omitted his notes “at the request of defense counsel” – Abramson specifically –in preparation for his testimony at the first trial. Vicary’s deletions and rewrites involved notes on Erik’s sexual history and his hatred for his parents. While the District Attorney’s office declined to investigate Abramson for her actions, Vicary faced the professional penalty of being removed from the approved panel of mental health professionals utilized by county judges to analyze and testify about defendants.

Leslie Abramson converted an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder with special circumstances into a child abuse drama. The key difference from the Simpson trial, of course, is that race, celebrity and domestic violence were always going to be factors in the case, no matter how recklessly or irresponsibly they would be leveraged. The story of the Menendez brothers’ history of emotional, sexual, and physical abuse was conceived only after they were left with no choice but to devise a defense that did not dispute they murdered their parents. Notably, allegations of abuse were not mentioned in the brothers’ conversations about the murders with Dr. Oziel or even in the conversations they had with friends after the murders where they intimated their involvement. And yet both brothers tearfully testified to specific and evocative instances of molestation. Among other episodes, Lyle claimed his father stuck pins and tacks in him and Erik claimed to have flavored his father’s coffee with cinnamon after hearing it made oral sex more palatable. Once Erik and Lyle were finally convicted, Vanity Fair’s Dominick Dunne reported that during the first trial he was told by the brothers’ own aunt, Terry Baralt, Jose’s sister, that in prison both brothers read When a Child Kills: Abused Children Who Kill Their Parents, a series of case studies on parricide by Los Angeles attorney Paul Mones published in 1992 – and that several of the instances they recalled in their testimonies came directly from the book. Mones had also been an adviser to the defense.

If When a Child Kills governed the brothers’ legal defense, the murder itself may have been influenced by another crime altogether. Oziel’s recollection of Erik’s confession included the detail that the plan was hatched a few weeks before the murders were committed, when he was watching a made-for-TV movie “on the BBC,” in which a young man killed his father. As it turns out, Oziel was not referring to a movie that had aired on the British public service broadcaster but rather the 1987 NBC miniseries Billionaire Boys Club, about the eponymous investment club/Ponzi scheme in Los Angeles led by Joe Hunt, who later turned to murder and other crimes. Reza Eslaminia, another member of the club, was prosecuted for the kidnapping and murder of his father, Hedayat. Prosecutor Lester Kuriyama made the connection completely incidentally after seeing the movie on display at a video store. In fact, Billionaire Boys Club was re-aired by NBC on the last weekend of July 1989. While Kuriyama’s motion to show the film to the juries was fiercely contested by Abramson and ultimately rejected by the judge, he did tell the jurors that a movie in which a son who kills his father that begins with the letters “B.B.C.” aired in the weeks before the murders. Erik would later testify under cross-examination that after the murders he spoke with his friend Craig Cignarelli about putting together a group like the Billionaire Boys Club, though Erik had denied having seen the movie in his testimony. Meanwhile, after the murders, Lyle actually did put together his own corporation, Menendez Investment Enterprises. Revealingly, as well-financed as it was at first, Lyle staffed the company with hangers-on with scant business or professional experience, many of whom he only became acquainted with after the murders.

Craig Cignarelli, the son of an MGM executive, became close friends with Erik after he transferred to Calabasas High; close enough that they collaborated on a number of screenplays, including one about the perfect burglary and one inspired by a high school fight. The most infamous of their collaborations, however, was a 61-page screenplay called Friends, which is about a young man, Hamilton Cromwell, who murders his parents after learning that he is due to inherit the family’s $157 million fortune, before going on to commit a number of other murders. Eerily, Kitty helped type the script.

That Erik and Craig also wrote a screenplay about committing the perfect burglary is revealing for other reasons. The Menendez family’s sudden move from Calabasas, before their house was even remodeled, to North Elm Drive was caused by the shame of Lyle and Erik’s involvement with a series of burglaries in the neighborhood. The scale of the theft – upwards of $100,000 and including jewelry and a 100-pound safe – was not inconsequential and the crimes were clearly for the thrill of it; neither the brothers nor their wealthy friends were wanting for anything. Erik assumed responsibility for the burglary, and it has been widely speculated that he covered in large part for Lyle, who could have faced serious jail time if tried as an adult. Because of this incident, the family sought counseling from a specialist recommended by Kitty’s therapist – Dr. Leon Jerome Oziel. Moreover, Erik signed a waiver allowing Dr. Oziel to disclose Jose what they discussed in their therapy sessions. Regardless of the extent to which Lyle was involved in these robberies, he masterminded at least one other burglary on his own – the burglary of the family’s former home in Princeton, where they lived before Jose’s career moves took the family to California. This burglary occurred after Lyle was suspended from Princeton University for cheating on a lab assignment for an introductory psychology class.

Jose Menendez, who fled Castro’s regime in Cuba for the United States in 1960 at the age of fifteen, was a self-made corporate executive who sought to create a dynasty and it’s not hard to see how his sons failed that vision. Jose, according to Carlos Baralt, the husband of his sister Terry and a longtime friend, lamented to him in the months before he died that he had not punished his sons enough and even talked of removing them from his will. Jose had been understanding, perhaps more than many parents under the circumstances: In the cases of Erik’s burglaries and Lyle’s suspension from Princeton, Jose was a stalwart defender. At the same time, nearly all accounts have it that Jose could be exceedingly hard on his sons, as well as in business – but the scope of the abuse alleged by the defense is unfathomable to virtually everyone who knew the family. If the brothers were abused to the extent they alleged, why did they embellish with the help of When a Child Kills and, it’s been rumored, through extensive psychological coaching? Perhaps there were kernels of truth in the elaborate tales concocted by the brothers in their testimony, but it is virtually unknowable at this point. Notably, one of the few Los Angeles Times reports on the status of the investigation prior to the March 1990 arrests was about a reference to the will that was intentionally destroyed from the family’s home computer just days after the murders. It was revealed at trial that Lyle summoned a computer expert, Howard Witkin, to the house to search for any files pertaining to a will. He was unable to do so and Lyle confirmed that he “wiped clean” the computer’s hard drive himself to ensure “the information couldn’t be recovered by someone actively trying to recover it.” Lyle also asked whether he could make it look like no files had been erased. Lyle later explained to a friend, Glenn Stevens, who would testify against him at trial, that a relative had indeed found a new will on the family computer so he erased it.

“Who knows what really goes on within a family?” Beverly Hills Police Chief Marvin Iannone responded when asked why the Menendez brothers did not simply wait for their parents to die. The day before Lyle and Erik purchased the guns they would use to murder their parents, Kitty told a friend that Lyle had been verbally abusive to her in a lengthy phone call from the guesthouse to the main house and even called into question his identity as a member of the family. Family secrets and lies abound throughout the Menendez trials. The defense suggested that Erik did not know his brother wore a toupee until just a few weeks before the murders. (Craig Cignarelli, Erik’s best friend, told Dominick Dunne during the trial he was well aware that Lyle wore a piece.) Apparently, seeing his brother so vulnerable prompted Erik to open up to Lyle about their father’s molestation, which continued up to week before the homicides and that they could not run away because of Jose’s intimidating power and because of the threats he issued when Lyle confronted him. The defense suggested that the brothers lived in imminent fear of danger from their father and even argued that when their parents charted a boat on the Saturday before they were killed, they were afraid to join them because they were worried Jose would kill them. The defense suggested, through the testimony of one of Lyle’s former girlfriends, that Jose once believed Kitty tried to poison the family at dinner. The strategy of blaming the victim was elevated to a new level under the defense strategy guided by Abramson – Jose was depicted as an irredeemable and all-powerful pervert and Kitty’s character was assassinated. Even if Lyle and Erik believed they stood to inherit more than an estate of $14 million, before taxes and other charges, was greed really the only primary motivator of their blood-soaked rampage? There is a hatred that runs so much deeper, a hatred deep enough to cause two clearly troubled brothers to shoot their parents at point-blank rage.

It was only a matter of time until the miasma of dark questions surrounding the curious case of the Menendez brothers were rehashed. The brutality and savagery of the crime is such a violation of the social order, and in such a seemingly picture-perfect family, invites a search for meaning and reason, where there is none. In the end, I think this comes down to what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina: “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Shortly before the conclusion last year of the wildly successful miniseries American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, it was announced that Law & Order super-producer Dick Wolf would highlight the Menendez trial in the franchise’s latest iteration, an anthology series titled Law & Order: True Crime. First up, however, is the new ABC documentary, “Truth and Lies: The Menéndez Brothers — American Sons, American Murderers.” Heavily promoted over the last few weeks, this special promises home videos, new interviews with the family’s friends and other key players, including a “jailhouse phone interview” with Lyle himself.

In one of the preview clips, Lyle says, “It’s shocking to think … that I could have been involved in taking anyone’s life – and my parent’s life. But I found that my own childhood prepared me surprisingly well for the chaos of prison life.” In this, as in so many other aspects of the case, there are echoes: When Lyle was asked by a friend how he was holding up in the weeks after his parents’ murders, he reportedly responded, “Well, I’ve been waiting so long to be in a position like this that the transition came easy.”

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