#Bob Mercer

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

This far right oligarch bankrolls Cruz and Trump among many other Republicans assholes.

[dropoutconfessions]

Pirates of Leviathan is the most underrated D20 season. It’s story, its characters, awesome. Leviathan has been my favourite setting since the second FH season. Love it.

-

[pocketgalaxies]

marisha: *looking through player's handbook*

matt: it's a 4th level right?

marisha:

marisha: EH?

laura: "EH?"

[tv-moments]

Kaleidoscope

“White”

Director: Russell Fine

DoP: Niels Alpert

[wutbju]

I wrote about Ted Mercer back in 2012 -- eleven years ago.

He was the 1951 Vintage dedicatee. Over the years that's always a tell. If they dedicate a Vintage to you, you'll be on the way out. It's a love bomb. Watch for them to dedicate the 2023 Vintage to Steve Pettit.

The first time I heard about Mercer was ~1993 when I was listening to my first graduate audition in the Division of Speech. A young man from Bryan College was applying for a graduate assistantship. And one of the senior, hoary-headed members of our faculty said to us all (something like), “Are we sure we should let him in? He is, after all, from Bryan.” Her words were pregnant with a mysterious and sinister meaning.

That was Dottie Harris.

Now I was the youngest faculty member in this group. And . . . I’m a little bit clueless as I’ve said before. So, in typical fashion, I just asked earnestly, “What do you mean? What’s wrong with Bryan?” Another less-junior-than-I colleague -- it was Lonnie Polson -- nodded and agreed, “Yeah, I’d like to know too! I have no idea.” And the senior member just sighed and shook her head, disappointed with these children these days about how they know nothing of the past. . . . I think. I don’t know why she was sighing. But I never heard the details that day.

Mercer graduated from BJU in 1943 -- president of the Senior Class. Immediately BJC made him the Dean of Men, and soon after he was the "Assistant to the President" through 1953.

But then it all fell apart. Something happened to piss off Bob Sr. so badly that he raged at Mercer -- raged so loudly that it's still in Dan Turner's official history. To explain his side, Mercer sent this “Statement Concerning my Dismissal from Bob Jones University” to BJU Board of Trustees after his firing on June 15, 1953.

If you’ve ever found yourself on the other side of a BJU administrator’s desk feeling the ax hovering above your neck, the statement reads eerily prophetic.

The litany of accusations against him are mostly familiar. We’ve all been called the same whether in front of or behind our backs — “avowed enemy of the school,” unfaithful, inefficient, deceitful, “one of the greatest crooks in the history of the school,” demon-possessed, “the devil.” Mercer euphemizes the most intense accusation of homosexuality under the term “my moral character” — an accusation that still lingers.

You’ll want to look at the list of BJU Board Members near the end. It’s at the very least intriguing. There’s Homer Rodeheaver and Jack Wyrtzen. There’s Mordecai Ham and Ernest Reveal. And you see some familiar fathers there. Look. There’s Ted Mercer’s dad, Jim. And John MacArthur, Sr. (father of the John MacArthur, Jr.). and William Piper (father of John Piper).

BJU apparently was undergoing an enormous faculty turnover in the 1952-53 school year — a movement that would only continue into the years to come. Mercer includes one letter of resignation in the end of his pamphlet from Karl E. Keefer. We who have been associated with BJU since 1952 don’t know Dr. Keefer. We do know his replacement very well — a 24-year-old Dwight Gustafson.

Then there's an additional statement to the Alumni. Read it. Notice Mercer’s description of faculty salaries and treatment, the Joneses’ attitude toward accreditation, their capricious and egocentric rule, their tendency for hyperbole, and their habit of playing good-cop-bad-cop with the younger Jones vs. the elder Jones.

Just change the dates and the people or the suffix on the end of the administrator’s name.

Nothing has changed at BJU.

If you're surprised at the John Lewis & Bob Jones III behavior, you haven't been paying attention. This is really old news.

[musicmags]

[schnuron]

Album playlist, March 21st 2024

Lustmord - Much Unseen Is Also Here Duncan Ritchie - Lords of Wolves OST The Body / Dis Fig - Orchards of a Futile Heaven Hudson Mohawke / Tiga - L'Ecstasy Hudson Mohawke - Satin Panthers EP Various - Miami Vice (2006) Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion II (1991/2022 Deluxe Edition) Frank Zappa - Jazz from Hell (1986) Johnny Mercer - Accentuate the Positive! (compilation) (1958)

Misc: Tim Robbins - Bob Roberts (1992)

[oskarlevant]

"Hey man, nobody said we were as good as Johnny Mercer" - Bob Dylan, 1980s

[filosofablogger]

♫ He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother ♫

♫ He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother ♫

And to close our Neil Diamond Week here on Filosofa’s Word, we have this one that was requested by none other than rawgod.  (Bring on the Motown tomorrow!!!) The history behind the name of the song is interesting … The title came from the motto for Boys Town, a community formed in 1917 by a Catholic priest named Father Edward Flanagan. Located in Omaha, Nebraska, it was a place where troubled or…

[soulren]

Go spend some time on male pattern baldness or male(AMAB) balding forums/subreddits and such. I did after realizing it is happening to me and the ammount of people who truly don't realize how BRUTALLY it tanks people's confidence and mental health is insane.

There's no cure to baldness by the way, and it can start at any time and there's no way to predict how fast or slow it will go. The only real working option is a daily pill that usually just halts it, but it can stop working or just slow it down or cause major side effects. To regrow you have to use a daily topical solution, or use a roller to wound your scalp. None of these are surefire by the way, and if you stop them you'll just lose your hair and whatever you regained. It's a daily involved thing that might not work and often at best just retains. The best drug, the one that occasionaly gives regrowth, also causes shedding at the start, and can have side effects from growing breasts to brain fog to EDsyfunction(sorry, censoring cause tumblr). Now, those are INCREDIBLY rare and almost never happen but it weighs heavily on the mind of those already spiraling.

But that's just background. What I'm here to talk about is the pure woe you'll see on those forums. People speak as though their lives are over, as though they've lost every chance of finding a woman(predominantly, there's a running idea in such places that women don't like bald men or like them less) or doing anything. You can read countless stories of people who describe that they no longer go outside, are now filled with anxiety and self-hate, have gone from extroverted to never showing their face. And some of these people are kids who lost their hair in high school or even before, or are holding as best they can to a very receded hairline and feel like there is nothing they can do.

And then there's something touched upon far less in those communities, but is important to bring up here; baldness and masculinity. There's the horror of knowing so much of society sees a bald guy as a very masculine guy, at seeing that the best advice for being hot and bald is "grow and beard and big muscles bro". Imagine now you're AMAB balding and nonbinary, or a trans woman who doesn't want to be on hormones.

Just genuinely take the time to look at those forums no matter who you are. Understand what these people go through, what I am currently going through. It is soul-crushing, spiraling, brutal. I have the dream of one day being like Brennan Lee Mulligan or Matt Mercer and starting to lose my hair made me feel like I could never. I felt like and still feel like I would have to be masculine, have to be a bro-y dude, have to look older than I was(I'm fuckin 22). It was the feeling that I could never dress feminine again, never present as a woman when I wanted to again, that I'd always be viewed as a bald guy before anything else.

This is an incredibly vulnerable post for me, and I hope it reaches you all as well in a kind and understanding mood. There's a tendency online for people to joke about baldness, to make fun of it, to treat it as a playfull silly thing but it fucking ruins lives, and it shouldn't. It happens to half the population's sort of bodies and very often. It should just be a neutral thing. You don't need long hair to be feminine, you don't need hair to be feminine. You don't need hair for anything. I guess I'm just saying in general that everyone should be kinder about balding, more understanding, and view it with as much import as they'd view the pixels between this sentence and the next. None at all, I mean.

And for those like me, very feminine guys who wanna keep that and don't want a beard and are terrified of balding, here's some names and I do hope others that see this will add more; Mr. Bruce (also in The Correspondents(band) Alex Ward in LA By Night Jason Carl in LA By Night Cecil Baldwin of Welcome To Night Vale Bob The Drag Queen RuPaul(in looks alone, I know about the whole fracking stuff but this post is about looks) tananasho on instagram Also your mannerisms and style of dress will convey femininity far more than your hair. Yea sure a front-on neutral shot of you may not and maybe you need makeup and stuff, and hell maybe a lot of people might reject you more but it'll just filter down to the people for you.

And to all you artists and writers and creatives; make more bald characters. Try it out. Feminine ones, masculine ones, all sorts. None of the copout nonhuman sort, just dudes and girls and mates and individuals who are all sorts of things and also bald. It might make a few of the people going through the various vortexes of pain that balding causes feel a bit better.

And to those noticing I did not adress female hair loss much here, that was intentional. I am AMAB and currently a nonbinary guy who goes by any pronouns but often likes to present as fem. I learned I was possibly losing my hair and lost two months of my life, no work or going or anything, to male hair loss forums and research and spiraling. Checking my hair twenty times a day, unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to think. And my situation was NOT unique, but it also did not give me any experience or understanding of female hair loss and what AFAB people may go through with that, so I don't feel knowledgeable enough to speak on it. Also living with baldness WILL get easier and you will find something that works for it, by virtue of simply living with it. Things get easier with time.

[caimitos]

lil sketchdump for the silt verses because i miss them.....a lot.....

edit: added ID below, originally written by @princess-of-purple-prose, thank you so much!

[ID: Silt Verses fanart done in dark brown.

1. On the left, Carpenter’s narration hangs next to a portrait of Nana Glass, an older woman with fishhooks radiating around her face and curly hair tied in a high bun. Carpenter says, “Over the long years, she pierced her ears and cheeks and lips with seventeen barbed hooks of varying shapes and sizes in devotion to the Trawler-man.” A note says “*hair curls look like hooks.”

On the right, a young Em and Carpenter walk with Nana, who looks ahead as they stop to look at the corpse floating in the river. Carpenter’s narration says, “Em and I would run and play for hours in the waterlogged garden, dancing amongst the sweetgrass. Leaping over the bobbing buoys of the lifeless, sackcloth-covered heads that bobbed in rows along the shallows.”

2. The bride and bridegroom in a church. The bride is a towering hermit crab-like figure with a mostly-human torso that a long veil flows off the head of. The narration says, “And as the bridegroom staggers back, aghast, he sees the angels part, and his promised bride comes forward to the head of the procession. Swept inland upon new towering legs, smiling as she strides forwards to meet him.”

3. Mercer and Gage, smiling teens dressed in furs and skulls and carrying guns. As Gage says, “We dress in the things we kill, in sallow bone and in bloodied rough fur. Mercer's hood is topped with a goat skull; mine with the skull of a dog.”

4. Carpenter, Paige, and Faulkner in a car together. Carpenter looks tired as she drives, and Faulkner smiles in the passenger’s seat as he and a smiling Paige split a Kit-Kat. Text from the season one recap says: “MÉABH: Carpenter and Paige drag him to the car and the three best friends that there ever ever was... go on a roadtrip :)”. The words “go on a roadtrip” are handwritten in. End ID]

[pocketgalaxies]

MATTHEW MERCER YOU DO NOT KILL KEYLETH NOLASTNAME RIGHT NOW!

[thisisnotthenerd]

do you ever give yourself ideas that seem like they shouldn't take much time in execution and then end up taking up way too much time?

anyway we're back with the first real entry for thisisnotthenerd's d20 stats of 2024. this time we're talking:

cast appearances by episode count

season count is one thing; there's only 21 of those so far. by contrast, we've had 222 episodes of d20 as of 1/16/2024. by may 2024 we'll have finished fhjy and hit 241.

by the current count, the intrepid heroes' full seasons account for 128 episodes of the total 222, or around 57.6% of the total episode count. if you add the fantasy high oneshots, it bumps up to 59.4%, and if you consider that we're adding 20 to the count with fhjy, by may 2024, intrepid heroes episodes will make up 62.6% of the dimension 20 catalog.

anyway here's the cast list:

the uncontested winner is brennan lee mulligan with 211/222 episodes. 95% attendance. the only times he hasn't been there are: the 4 episodes of shriek week, the 6 episodes of coffin run, and the gencon mismag oneshot.

in second place is lou wilson, with 151/222 episodes. this is every intrepid heroes season (128/222), plus 3 sidequests (4+10+6) and 3 oneshots.

in third, sweeping her way with the most recent season, is siobhan thompson with 147/222, after the ih seasons, 3 oneshots and 2 sidequests (6+10)

in fourth, we have ally beardsley with 144/222, after the ih seasons, 2 oneshots, and 2 sidequests (10+4)

very close in fifth, we have zac oyama, with 143/222, after the ih seasons, 4 oneshots, and 2 sidequests (6+6).

in sixth is emily axford, with 138/222, from 126 ih episodes, 2 oneshots, and one sidequest (10)

and in seventh is brian murphy, with 130 episodes, from the ih seasons and 3 oneshots.

after this we have a steep drop off, since the ih episodes make up 57% of the total count, and will make up 61% by the end of junior year. anyway next is aabria iyengar, with 48 episodes, a little over half which she gm'd (26).

next is erika ishii, with 37 episodes. they've been in 5 sidequests (6+4+10+6+10) and one oneshot.

to finish off the top ten, rekha shankar and izzy roland are tied with 26, since both have been in three sidequests [(6+10+10) and (10+6+10) respectively]

the last of the three cree, in 11th place, is matthew mercer, with 18 (6+6+6) episodes, 6 of which he gm'd

after which is carlos luna and mike trapp with 12, though carlos has been behind the scenes as crew in many more.

13th is taken up with another tie, this time between danielle radford and becca scott, who each have 11, though their splits are different, since danielle has been in 2 sidequests and a oneshot (4+6+1), while becca has been in 1 sidequest and 1 oneshot (10+1)

after this we get into the mass groups:

with 10 episodes there's a couple of options for how they got to that point, but less options for 6 and 4

10 episodes: ify nwadiwe (6+4), lily du (6+4), katie marovitch (10), sam reich (10), raphael chestang (10), grant o'brien (10), persephone valentine (10), omar najam (10), oscar montoya (10), surena marie (10), rashawn nadine scott (10), and jasper william cartwright (10)

next is griffin mcelroy, with 7 episodes, because he did the RTX oneshot along with tiny heist.

6 episodes: amy vorpahl, justin mcelroy, travis mcelroy, clint mcelroy, jessica ross, marisha ray, krystina arielle, b. dave walters, jasmine bhullar (GM), anjali bhimani, alex song-xia, freddie wong, hank green

4 episodes: gabe hicks (GM), dani fernandez, monét x change, alaska thunderfuck, bob the drag queen, jujubee

and last but not least, our oneshot only friends: brian david gilbert, michelle nguyen bradley, noxweiler berf, and markeia mccarty

and that's all for this time! check out the spreadsheet to see where the data comes from and every individual checkbox that i had to click for this to be fully accurate.

[batteredshoes]

New York Dolls on stage at Mercer Arts Center, NYC. on December 31, 1972 | Photo: Bob Gruen

[countyflagchampionship]

THIS IS THE CHAMPIONSHIP'S FINAL ROUND!

More info about flags below

Cecil County MD

The flag is red and white, divided vertically, with the red next to the hoist, and the white portion in the fly. On the white portion is a representation of the county seal. The flag was designed by B. B. Martin, near Elkton, and was adopted as the winning entry in a county-wide contest sponsored by the Cecil County Chamber of Commerce.

Bob Barnes (reference archivist at Maryland State Archives), 1998

Mercer County OH

On April 4, 2002, the County Commissioners adopted this official county flag for the first time in its history. The celebration of Ohio's 200th Birthday was the catalyst for the endeavor. Over thirty designs were received from students, residents and workers of Mercer County. The commissioners accepted the flag created by a group of nine individuals employed by Fanning/Howey Associates located in Celina, the county seat.

The flag is colorful, yet simple, and clearly represents the pride of the community. Agriculture is represented by a silhouette of an 1800's style barn. Three amber bands across the bottom represent the different colors of crops as they ripen and are ready for harvest. The lighthouse signifies Grand Lake, the largest man-made lake in Ohio. Beams radiating from the lighthouse stand for all six Mercer County schools: red for St. Henry, orange for Coldwater, gold for Parkway, green for Celina, blue for Marion Local, and purple for Fort Recovery.

The flag committee added one final touch to the design. The foundation of the lighthouse was modified to have fourteen stone blocks. Each block represents one of the townships. The county was named after General Hugh Mercer of the Revolutionary War.

The Ohio Channel

[wutbju]

Richard J. Heigl, Sr., a native of Buffalo New York and long time resident of Houma, 93, was called home to spend eternity with his beloved Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on Saturday, April 16, 2022.

Visitation will be held Tuesday, April 26, 2022 from 10am to 12pm, with the memorial service to start at 12pm, at Samart Funeral Home of Houma, West Park.

He is survived by one sister, Geraldine Sobarnia, two sons, Richard J. Heigl, Jr. and his wife Denise, Jonathan Heigl, his son in law, Riecke Schaefer; 10 grandchildren, Brittney Oldham and her husband Brad, Jake Heigl and his wife Ashley, Lindsay Cantrelle and her husband Jarrett, Tara Heigl, Jonathan Heigl, Jr. and his wife Sarah, Lauren Heigl, Rachel Heigl, Lee Arceneaux, Jr. and his wife Jessica, Brad Arceneaux and his wife Katie, Brian Arceneaux; and 21 great grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his loving wife, Connie, of 56 years, daughter Dixie Schaefer, his parents Joseph and Laurel Heigl, and his brother Joseph Heigl.

My Father's story "Mercy Bestowed on a Lost Sinner" taken directly from a letter he had written to his cousin his words.

Things don't "just happen," but all are related to our good by a gracious God. Don't ask me how, for providence is nearly as great a mystery as redemption. We have been preserved until now, and that's a blessing.

But, you would not believe the hills and valleys that I have traveled to get to this point. As I grow older, I can see God's hand in every situation. I can see mercy extended for no cause, grace intervening when justice was due. In early life I was very athletic, morally clean, because God controlled the situations in my life-mildly interested in church, read the Bible some, but never saw much in it except "don't do this," and "don't do that.

I had every intention to study for the ministry so I enrolled in Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) in 1953-but just before I left for school the second greatest thing in my life happened to me. I was reading a sermon out loud to my Mom in the backyard as she was hanging clothes. The text was Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?" That message was called "The Total Depravity of the Human Heart." As I was reading, how I hoped Mom would understand it! She asked, "Son, do you understand those things?" I said, "Sure I do! The harder the preaching, the better I like it." Soon I finished reading and walked down the driveway to go back in the house when a voice heard only by my heart said, "You really don't know what you are reading. What you've read is true, but you are a total stranger to all of it. You are the lost, ignorant sinner you were reading about!" All I could do was quietly admit, "Yes, Lord, I am lost." Then I figured I'd quickly "get saved" and get on to my preaching, but to no avail.

I arrived at Bob Jones University as scheduled. The first week they had assembly every day to get everybody "saved" before school got underway. Three thousand preacher boy students, all of them "saved" except me. You see, all they had to do was make a decision, say they believed that Jesus was the Son of God, and by this simple believing they were told that they were saved. I had done all of this several years before God awakened me to the fact that I was still a lost sinner. Now God was teaching me a few things about this heart of mine which I thought was so "righteous." I now knew that to be saved, God the Spirit would have to do the work. That same voice which told me I was lost must also speak peace to my heart and reveal Christ to me (II Corinthians 4:4-6).

I did fine in all BJU classes except in religion. There, instead of really learning anything about God's Word, they wanted small groups of us to go out and find children playing in their yard or in the streets. We must force them to say they believed in Jesus, get their names and hurry back to class with a "convert" to our credit! My soul totally rebelled against such a bunch of foolishness and I skipped every session after the first one! What a horrible deception and trafficking in souls! I gave out a few sermons by old Puritan writers and it nearly caused a split in the school, so I graciously bowed out after one semester. A short time after that is when Mom, Sis and I moved to New Orleans, LA. to be under sound preaching. That was in 1954. My only desire now was to know the Lord who died for sinners. Mom endured it, Sis hated it, but God was bringing me down.

Soon I met Connie, a girl who worked as church typist and had actually typed the first message God used to awaken me. God had revealed Christ to her heart when she was only 17. The Lord gave her a love for me and me for her; her special beauty to me was that she was in Christ.

Self-righteous hearts have the most to learn, and slowly but surely the Lord was teaching me that first lesson-that the heart truly is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. In the following years we were poor, with a growing family, and I cried unto the Lord continually and wore out several Bibles.

Read till your eyes water, pray till you fall asleep, but you can't make God save you.

In October 1968 a preacher from Michigan held services in a country home near where we lived. Many of our friends and neighbors were there. After the message, I felt such a desire to know Christ that I stood up and said so, in the presence of everyone who knew me. (Feeling myself such a lost sinner, the one desire of my heart was to be joined to Christ.) Those people all thought I was a saint, for I had talked often of things in the bible, and I lived the best life outwardly that I could. But I knew at the time that I could no longer play games. I was serious and didn't care who knew it! That part of the battle was won.

Several weeks later, after crying and praying for days, I was in the center bedroom of our house. My books were stored in a closet, and as I looked at my vast library of Puritan writers I said to myself, "What good are these books doing me? I'm still a lost sinner." Then I read Matthew 11:28 I cried, "Lord, You alone know that I'm coming, I'm laboring and have a terrible burden of sin, and I need rest. How can I take thy yoke? I don't even know what that yoke is. I have no strength, no faith. Lord, just send me on to Hell where I belong, for I cannot believe." It must be for that moment I was truly sincere, for that blessed voice which said "You are lost," now spoke again, and He said "I died for you." My first reaction was to pray for mercy, but I couldn't; instead, my heart just wanted to reach out to Him and thank God for deliverance in Christ. I began to praise Him for His great salvation. But I dared not tell anyone for several weeks, afraid that I might yet be deceived.

I was bursting inside to tell everyone what God had done for me. Finally I did so, and have been telling it ever since. The learning process never ceases, for the more I learn of myself the greater my Redeemer is to me. I still want to sing praises to my precious Lord Jesus Christ. I sought Christ and knew not how real He is, but now I know and understand that the desire and strength to seek Him was given to me by His sovereign mercy.

The first thing the Holy Spirit does is to open the heart of the sinner (Acts 16:14) and reveal what is inside, then when the sinner is broken before Him and comes to the end of his fleshly way, the Lord gives him faith to believe on Christ as Lord and Saviour. Now we see that others are awakened and desire to come to Christ. There are none beyond God's power to save, but He and He alone must do the work!

(Words of Richard J. Heigl, Sr. beloved brother, retired custodian of H.L. Bourgeois High School, pastor of a little group of the Lord's people, known as truth Baptist Church)

MERCY BESTOWED In the beginning, the Father elected The Son became a curse on the tree The Holy Spirit called and convicted, And Mercy said, "Let that sinner go free." Judgment hangs low o'er that guilty sinner, The Law cries, 'He's never, never kept me." No hope in sight, but cannot quit pleading, Then Mercy says, "Let that sinner go free." Blinded by sin and Satan our father, Doomed and damned forever to be A Substitute died on Calvary's mountain, Now Mercy says, "Let that sinner go free." Mercy Bestowed On A Lost, Guilty Sinner, When that sinner faces reality. When justice declares, "I'll keep him forever," But Mercy says, "Let that sinner go free." --Song by the late brother Edward Hale

Samart Funeral Home of Houma, West Park is in charge of arrangements. To send flowers to the family of Richard, please visit our floral store. Published by Samart Funeral Home of Houma - Bayou Blue on Apr. 21, 2022.