#and quite possibly feels like a failure from the outset

[hyperpotamianarch]

Sha'ul HaMelech

So, I didn't get to write about Tanach lately. Since one of my daily studies (which only exists for my college, but it can still be fun sometimes) is a chapter from Nevi'im Rishonim, though, I have some stuff to say. Usually I pour my random thoughts on fellow Torah studiers around me, but that works best when they have a reason to study the same thing as me (Parashat Shavua`), or when they might have an interest in it for other reasons (Halacha). The study of the Tanach is a bit different, in that the people I'm around usually have a very different outlook on it than me, which makes talking to them about it a bit difficult. When I'm thinking of an original interpretation to a possuk, I'm not sure I want to hear the Midrash again. I know what it says, and I'm not sure this helps with the Pəshat, thank you very much.

So, that's just a preface to explain why I put my thoughts on Sha'ul HaMelech over here. To begin with that:

The perception of Sha'ul among Jewish circles is interesting. This is the failed king, after all. I hesitate to say which view is most common, because I was used to saying one is but have since (I think) encountered quite a few people who had the other, but two possible ways emerge: the sinful, bad king and the righteous king who fell and failed. As a general rule, I hold to the latter: Sha'ul had much potential, but he eventually failed. But today, I wish to talk about his coronation.

Now, picture this: you are but a humble shepherd (or maybe cowherd. Or just herd animals), of the youngest of the 12 tribes of Israel. You're not an important person, though you are remarkably tall.

Your father's donkeys have been lost, and naturally, you headed out with your servant to look for them all over the place. You might be vaguely aware that there is some turmoil among the Israelites - people asked the prophet for a king or something. That has nothing to do with you, though.

But you can't seem to find the donkeys, and you're hungry, and you tell your servant that at this point your father probably worries over you more than the donkeys. Your servant, however, remarks that there's a prophet close by and you could just ask him about the donkeys. When you raise objections over payments, the servant says he has some money. So they go there, and there seems to be a celebration or something.

To skip ahead a bit, when you meet the prophet, he starts telling you wierd things about greatness, telling him not to worry over the donkeys and that you'll eat with him. The next morning he talks to you alone, tells you of a few signs you will see on your way and anoints you as king. You go home and tell nobody about that, though they saw you start prophesizing, which is so odd there's a new phrase named after you: "Is Sha'ul among the prophets as well?"

A couple of days later, all the people of Israel come gather, for the occasion of crowning their first king. And how does Shəmu'el start this gathering?

“Thus said the Hashem, the G-d of Israel: ‘I brought Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and of all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’ But today you have rejected your G-d who delivered you from all your troubles and calamities. For you said to Him: 'set up a king over us!’"

-1 Samuel 10, 18-19, Sefaria translation with minor edits

I don't know about you, but if I was Sha'ul in this situation, and I know that I am the king who is to be crowned today... I'd probably have hid too. Usually it's viewed as him simply being humble, and there are certainly other occasions where we see him being humble - such as him not telling his uncle of his anointment, but here... here, I found myself wondering if this threatening opening made Sha'ul scared. He's realizing that he's being put in this position not because it's G-d's will to give the Israelites a king, but because the Israelites insisted. It doesn't help that many people don't appreciate him being appointed king and mock him.

Then, of course, the whole story with Yavesh Gil`ad happens: king Naḥash comes to take over the east side of the Jordan river, and the Yaveshites ask for help. Now, in the Tanachic context we already know that Yavesh is tied to Binyamin, Sha'ul's tribe, through marriage (following the Levite's Concubine story in the book of Judges). That may or may not have had an effect on Sha'ul's decision. However, his next act of butchering two of his bulls and sending it all around Israek serves multiple purposes: firstly, Sha'ul is still dealing with his own cattle. That's not exactly a kingly job. Clearly, his coronation led to practically nothing. Secondly, Sha'ul does assert authority with this - by saying "if you don't come with me and with Shəmu'el I'll do that to your cattle" he's showing that he's the king and he can choose to do that. Thirdly, of course, this parallels the Levite cutting his own concubine to twelve parts and sending it all around Israel.

I don't see a need to detail what happened later. Suffice to say that Sha'ul won. His first act as the actual king following that is pardoning the people who refused to accept him, not wanting to sully the victory with executions. And Shəmu'el declares that they're all going to the Gilgal to renew Sha'ul kingship.

Picture yourselves in Sha'ul's place, again. You just won a battle against the `Amonites, and against a king who was probably much more experienced than you. You saved your kin from enslavement. Your kingship is widely accepted, and you're celebrating before G-d. Then Shəmu'el, your mentor, says he wants to say a few words. You know he led the Israelites up until now, and that now that he's giving the reins to you, he probably wants to make his final speech as a leader. He's still going to be here as a prophet, of course, but he's no longer the Judge.

He starts it up with asking if anyone has unfinished business with him. Did he take anything from anyone unjustly? Did he accept any payment for his role? The Israelites all answer what all of you already know they will: no, he hasn't. He asks G-d and you - G-d's Anointed One - to be witnesses to that, which you accept.

Then he starts another speech about the history of Israel. This time it's more detailed. And, once again, he reminds the Israelites how bad them asking for a king is,

Now, logically, I'm sure Sha'ul realized this had nothing to do with him specifically. The mere idea of a king, or perhaps the idea of asking for a king in this way during this time, is what Shəmu'el is speaking against. G-d chose Sha'ul because he's fit for the task, because he really is a good choice. The fact he was asked to choose a king was bad, but the chosen king wasn't. Logically, Sha'ul must know that.

But from his perspective, it's different. From his perspective, this is the second time Shəmu'el criticizes his role - which he didn't ask for. He was forced to enter a position that Shəmu'el had something against from the very beginning. In his day of victory, the day he was recrowned as king, what Shəmu'el has to say is that he really shouldn't have done this in the first place. Sha'ul starts his kingship feeling that Shəmu'el has something against him, and that quite possibly colors the rest of his reign. Maybe this explains a couple of his bad decisions later on.

[rockyschexneider]

From Kitty Hawk to Click Funnels: Making the Impossible Possible with a Wright Brothers Mindset

From Kitty Hawk to Click Funnels: Making the Impossible Possible with a Wright Brothers Mindset

Picture this: two brothers standing in a gusty field, surrounded not by luxury or technology, but by scraps of wood and cloth. There's no degree hanging on the wall for guidance, no precise manual for building the world’s first airplane. Instead, Wilbur and Orville Wright relied on unyielding curiosity and persistence. Their story is not just about the marvel of flight but how to embrace innovation and breakthrough, regardless of the odds.

In many ways, building an online business mirrors Wilbur and Orville's adventurous journey. You're in your own windy field of digital marketing, striving to lift your ideas into the blue sky of success. Every click, every piece of content, every conversion funnel you construct is an opportunity, a potential vessel for your dreams to take flight.

The Wright brothers didn't achieve flight on their first try, or even their hundredth. They failed—spectacularly and frequently. They watched their hard work fall apart, only to gather their courage and try again. Their courageous persistence is a blueprint for online marketers today. It’s about testing, tweaking, and staying curious, even when efforts seem futile.

Now, take a moment to reflect: When was the last time a campaign didn't quite land like you imagined? Or a funnel didn’t convert? It’s easy to get disheartened. Yet, it’s all part of the landscape. With every unsuccessful attempt comes invaluable data, insights that guide the next attempt. Every failure is a stepping stone towards that one victorious launch that could change it all.

Creating an online business is not about instant success—it’s a process of constant adjustment and learning. You don't need immaculate perfection from the outset. Like the Wrights, it’s the curiosity and the will to learn that allow you to experiment and evolve. Each trial holds a nugget of wisdom, propelling you closer to controlling your audience's attention as confidently as Orville piloted the Flyer.

Consider how the Wright Brothers' resolve redefined transportation. Similarly, your next successful campaign can redefine the boundaries of your business. That singular breakthrough can emerge from an unexpected tweak or an innovative idea—so keep refining those headlines, adjusting that copy, and understanding your audience better.

Innovation isn't about avoiding failure; it's about leveraging it. Just as the Wright brothers pushed past their miscalculations to command the skies, you too have the capability to master your digital domain. The path isn’t always smooth—there will be turbulence, but the potential for transformation is great.

So, next time you feel stuck in that windy field, remember Wilbur and Orville. Your next big idea could be the one that finally takes flight. The key is to keep pushing, to keep testing, until your version of the Wright Flyer captures the wind and your audience’s attention. Don’t let setbacks ground you.

Channel that pioneering spirit, test that funnel one more time—your breakthrough, the one that changes everything, might be just a click away. The next time you find yourself on the brink of giving up, think of Kitty Hawk. Let curiosity and grit guide your journey, because online success, like flight, is built in the wind. The winds of change are filled with opportunity; it’s your turn to soar.

Free Resources to Help You Soar

**

[mc-critical]

Hi. I am relatively new to the MCU so please "treat my heart kindly" lol I've been pondering on this thought for quite some time now. (I am not also sure if you've already answered this but...) What do you think would have happened if Afife Hatun didn't intervene when Hurrem wanted to take her own life by drinking poison? How do you think it will affect hers, Suleyman's, and Firuze's character arcs if there's any? Thank you!

P.S. I enjoy reading your posts. They are well thought of and make me question my own thoughts as well. Thank you!

Hi! 😸 Thank you for enjoying my posts and don't worry, I haven't answered that question. 😊

I think that many things would have changed if Afife Hatun didn't intervene when Hürrem wanted to take her own life. First off, Hürrem would have drunk the poison. She was almost about to before Afife appeared and if that didn't happen, she would have finished it all completely. That suicide attempt was Hürrem at the peak of her vulnerability - she did it out of the realization that her biggest fear has come true, that she has lost Süleiman - his power, his love, his loyalty to her. He has become everything for her and her own power and her power over everyone come from his love and loyalty. But there's even more: after she fell in love with Süleiman, she has become a new person, she has learned to want what he wants, to be alongside him in every step of the way, live alongside him. He's also her protection, her path to her life long goal. And if she loses that, she loses everything. (E55: "I was born with Süleiman and I will die with Süleiman.")  If she senses even the smallest possibility of losing everything, she wouldn't hesitate for a second. She would take away her own life, without taking account of anything else. The suicide attempt here could seem to be her doing her part in the pact, the deal she "signed" with Firuze, revealed in the same episode, but it is more than that. The apparent reality that she has lost Süleiman, one of the first things she gained from him (The Thusday nights - their first nights together were these 2 consecutive nights of Wednesday and Thursday and Hürrem got her name by him on the Thursday night.), just makes her do it in the heat of the feeling, in the heat of the moment. And with Afife not interfering, Hürrem also wouldn't have a way of knowing that SS sent Firuze away. Hürrem drinking the poison, along with that, would mean that Firuze won. It would mean Hürrem leaving everything behind - her own goal, her kids, her husband, her life in the harem.

Hürrem's death would massively impact Süleiman, too. He would feel a lot of sorrow - he would mourn her for a very long time. When she was abducted and no one knew where she was later in the season, the possibility of them not finding her broke Süleiman and put him in despair, imagine what would it be with her dead and just like that! He felt for her something he never did for any other woman, so it would be hard for him to get over such loss. He might get in the state he did when she actually died in S04 - forbid all the fun in the harem, all the golden plates and get far crueler and more expectant as a result. His character arc wouldn't change so much as it would only complete itself faster than expected. He would still regard his children in the same way, I feel he would be even harsher with them than he was in that state of the show, because now he wouldn't tolerate failure, he wouldn't have any moral ground to stand on. Maybe he would act even less unfavorable toward Bayezid and Mustafa and would want, now more than ever, for Mehmet to sit on the throne - it would be like Hürrem's wish fulfilled. Not to mention Mehmet's own loyalty to him. He would probably bond with Mihrimah even more, for she would remind him even more of Hürrem. Little Cihangir would either get even more affection, either would be the one everyone would avoid most of all, to keep his thoughts away from the ugly truth as much as possible or to postpone revealing it to him as much as possible. Süleiman would also definetly refuse to see any other woman.

Things are pretty interesting for Firuze though, because Hürrem's suicide would practically be an advantage for her. Now not only is a threat out of her way, but also, if we judge by the following events, it would be harder to eliminate her and uncover her identity. It depends on how much opposition she would end up having after Hürrem's suicide. Rüstem could decide to act, however I kind of doubt he would act by himself at this point. This guy is an opportunist from the outset and Hürrem's loss would mean the weakening of her camp, so if a better opportunity pops up for him and it sure would, he would betray immediately and go on another path. Now, there would be no way for Firuze and Mihrimah to be friends anymore after this, so Mihrimah would want to avenge her own mother and if she and Rüstem team up, they could maybe achieve something, but it would take quite a while, even if Mihrimah acts like E103 Mihrimah.

The worst outcome would be for Firuze to fully take advantage of the situation (because SS, Mihri and co. would mourn Hürrem before acting) and actually succeed in fulfilling her mission that is killing Süleiman, which would turn the whole castle upside down.

Hürrem's suicide is only going to empower her arc and fuel her desire to go on with her mission, even though the inevitable future enmity with Mihrimah is perhaps going to upset her. She may have to comfort Cihangir, for she always succeeded to calm him down. And especially now when she and Mihrimah would be the only mother figures he could turn to. These moments may cause Mihrimah and Firuze to bury the hatchet for a bit. (I felt Firuze truly cared about the children, despite of her ulterior motives. I don't think her hypocrisy was targeted at them.)

[hedwigstalons]

Quickly written and not edited in the slightest - here’s the start of some Alan/Brandon fluff.  @eirabach and @hodgehegposts I’m jumping on board your rare pare ship.

xoxoxox

“Eat my powder, Tracy!”

Alan watched as the avatar on the slope ahead of him hit the jump, executed a near perfect 360 degree spin, then landed with a spray of computer generated snow.  The score in the top right corner of his VR display ticked upwards as the machine awarded Brandon a hefty stack of points for his trick.

Bracing for his own attempt Alan hit the jump a moment later.  He sailed through the air, kicked his legs back and grabbed the edge of his board before releasing and coming in to land.  The game evidently wasn’t as impressed with his attempts and his points haul was considerably smaller than Brandon’s.

“I thought you were meant to be good at this stuff?”

“Hey, I don't get to hit the slopes unless I’m rescuing someone - like you” he shot back a jibe about the last time he, Brandon and a snowboard had been in the same place; a jibe Brandon chose to ignore.  “Not a lot of snow where I’m from.  Scott and Virg sometimes get the boards out during downtime, maybe you should challenge them and see how it goes.”

“What, Captain Safety and Lieutenant Slow Poke?  Like they could beat me on a board; get real.”

“Don’t let them hear you call them that, not if you ever want to be allowed back on the island” Alan snorted.  

Another jump forced them each to concentrate as they made their final maneuver of the round.  The jump ahead was the biggest yet and had the potential for some serious points to be scored.  Alan shifted his weight on the board, his avatar drawing level with Brandon’s as he picked up speed.

The pair hit the ramp together, each trying to outdo each other in a final show of skill and bravado.  They sailed through the air with flips and spins that seemed to impress those watching their performance on the big screen if the gasps from the sidelines were anything to go by, then hit the floor and glided over the finish line.

Alan checked the scores but he’d known from the outset what they would be; this wasn’t his sort of game.  It didn’t matter though, he was just enjoying a day off rota with Brandon.  A chance for life to be less complicated and fulfil the role of player two as Branson reviewed the games expo for his vlog.  Not that he’d mind if life became more complicated between them but he wasn’t going to risk driving away one of his only friends over a few unrequited feelings.

Removing their headsets the pair stepped down from the platform to find quite a crowd had gathered during their test run of the new game.  Okay, most of the world’s media had probably been drawn to the sight of an elusive Tracy out in public but Brandon was quick to capitalise on the exposure.  He turned towards the line of holocams and slung an arm round Alan’s shoulders, drawing him close in a way that kept the pair of them firmly centre stage.

“This is Brandon ‘The Bear’ Berrenger coming to you live from the World Games Expo” he spouted to the cameras, vlog persona to the fore, “where I have been one of the first to try the brand new, yet to be released, Extreme Snowboard 6 and as you can see I was so awesome even Thunderbird Three couldn’t keep up.”  

“Pfft, I wasn’t that far behind.  You wouldn’t stand a chance against me in zero-g.”  Alan gave him a sideways look and pulled away slightly, raising an eyebrow at Brandon’s cockiness.  Brandon might have beaten him but he hadn’t been a complete failure on the simulated slopes.

“Is that an offer for round two?”  A hopeful grin was shot in his direction.

“No way, I am not taking you into space to try my rocket sled.”

“Well Bear fans, it looks like I’m going to have to try something different to win favour with this Thunderbird and get my hands on his board.”  Dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper Brandon muttered in Alan’s ear, “Hey, wanna do something to really hit the media spotlight?”

Alan’s eyes widened.  You never could tell what Brandon was going to try next but if it involved a trip into space he did not want to be involved; Brandon was quite capable of getting himself into danger without leaving Earth’s atmosphere.  

“I don’t think Scott would li…” he tried to mutter back but got no further.  

Before he knew what was happening he’d been pulled in close again.  Suddenly Brandon’s lips were crushed against his and he could feel the flush of heat rising in his cheeks as fantasy became unexpected reality.  Out of the corner of his eye he could see the image being beamed to the nearby screens as the stations covering the event put the live feed to the front of their broadcasting schedules.  There, in images ten foot high, were him and Brandon, faces pressed together in front of the world’s media, a peace sign waved by Brandon to the cameras as his own ears glowed as red as the Thunderbird he piloted.

What felt like an eternity later Brandon pulled away, leaving him shocked and breathless, his heart fluttering with possibilities.

“And remember, always be extreme!” The Bear was back in control, dismissing the various journalists with his usual sign off and looking for all the world as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Alan, on the other hand, was left gasping.  Media stunt or sign of something else he wasn’t quite sure but he meant to find out before the day was done.  Unfortunately he had other more pressing worries.  The chime of his comm meant that at least one brother was already aware of the footage and the thought sent his stomach plummeting like a stone.

-TBC-

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

A few comments on the ending of Baghdad Waltz (and story craft in general, I guess)

Perhaps it goes without saying, but SPOILERS ahead. I’ll be posting answers to asks on BW later today as well. 

A few readers, some of them very faithful long-haul readers, are understandably upset that BW did not end the way that I originally predicted - and intended - that it would.

In an Ao3 comment thread on the subject of my previously advertising a happy ending for BW (i.e., an ending where the characters end up together), an anon on Ao3 recently posted this:

First of all, if I had that kind of super long game strategic foresight to cook up and nurture this kind of devious bait-and-switch plan over the course of several years, I would have used that power for good to have every scene and every convolution of character fully developed from the very start. And although this slow burn “bait-and-switch” hypothesis is a perversely flattering one, I’m really not that clever. Or that mean-spirited. I came into this story with an idea of where I wanted it to go and sprinted off the starting blocks with it. This is most certainly “shame on me,” in hindsight, and a product of under-developed skill in story planning and character construction.

I’m not a professional writer by any stretch of imagination. This is a hobby (albeit an obsessive one) that I am constantly working to improve my abilities in. I started writing fanfic because I figured Ao3 is a pretty safe (??) place to do this, since people post works of fiction with wide ranging degrees of skill in an immense marketplace of readers. But I have zero formal training in fiction writing. I grudgingly took my two mandatory English classes in college and then fucked off to do other things I enjoyed more. So that means that I’ve had to learn fiction writing through trial and error in real time. BW is the second work of fiction I’ve written in my adult life (and I am not particularly young, at the moment). And so part of writing this has been learning about outlining and plotting and character development and yes, endings. Not learning to write the best “gotcha” ending but the best ending for the story that’s been written.

Upon deep reflection, I think my greatest fault here was one of skill, not a deficit in character as a human being. When I started planning this story in 2016, I did not have a well-evolved ability to develop my characters to the level that would later be required, nor to predict and plan for every twist of the plot based on the psychological, historical, and behavioral composition of these characters. My first fic, which was also my first novel-length work of fiction ever, went quite smoothly and almost entirely as originally planned, perhaps because it was canon-compliant/adjacent versus being a free-standing AU with no rules or bounds.

So, on one hand, I really am sorry for just not having the necessary skills at the time to wrangle a story of this magnitude from the start (not that I had any sense at all that it would grow to this magnitude). But also... this is just part of the process of learning how to write. In addition, I was simultaneously learning how to navigate the sometimes treacherous culture of fandom, which I was not expecting to be the challenge that it has been. Thus, I didn’t have the foresight to be protective of the possibility that my originally intended ending could change, resulting in assurances to readers in a good faith effort to assuage anxiety about the ultimate course of the story. (It’s also a notable failure of imagination on my part to not potentially envision an ending that breaks from a traditional Stucky “End of the Line” mould.)

On a similar note, when I say that I love and care about my readers, this is not lip service. It is sincerity. I have engaged in this entire endeavor with honest intentions every step of the way. I’m not a devious mastermind who orchestrates the emotional disruption of my readers for fun, particularly not through acts of deceit. I think I’m capable of creating emotionally powerful work without resorting to trickery. 

But I also approach my characters with the same sincerity and intent to do right by them, using a steadfast dedication to realism as my guide. This lead to a frankly horrible realization that the ending I first planned and wanted so badly for them was just not going to be plausible, given who they became and how this relationship evolved. If you’re not a writer, especially not a writer of the extreme long form WIP, maybe it’s difficult to appreciate how characters can take on a life of their own in their psychological construction and development, but this has been exactly my experience. That’s why, for a very long time, I had no idea that this particular ending would be where the story would ultimately go, despite my most sincere efforts at planning with the capabilities I had in each moment.

My compromise for these archival comments mentioning a traditional Stucky happy ending has been to add a note at the beginning warnings of BW to not invest too strongly in plot-related comments, since going back through 3,200+ comments (plus blog posts) and editing them is not only impossible (I actually cannot edit some of my old Ao3 comments, for some reason) but would also require erasing reader comments and entire conversations with people. This doesn’t feel right to me. And I’m not going to add spoiler ending tags. I personally won’t read a fic if the ending is tagged, because I don’t want to be spoiled, and I want to preserve this for other readers in the future.

I am opting to trust from here forward that my comprehensive first chapter warnings about intense realism in all respects (including relational) will be broad enough to cover the potential for this ending, which is also amply foreshadowed as a possibility within the text itself. If future readers specifically want a HEA in their stories, I trust them to seek out the countless fics like this within the “HEA” or “___ with a happy ending” tags on Ao3. 

EDIT: I’ve added the tag “Bittersweet ending,” in addition to creating some more expectation-adjusting language to my chapter one warnings about the story. I think this is a decent compromise to spoiling the ending specifically with something like a “breakup” tag.

So for those of you I hurt by not having a greater grasp of writing craft, I truly am sorry. My intention was never for one moment to be deceptive. I have taken these lessons to heart in the planning of my next story, which has almost every single scene already plotted until the very end. In fact, I’ve written backwards from the ending to ensure a smoother course. I have also done a tremendous amount of work on character development at the outset in an effort not have my characters run away from me and drag the story with them in unplanned ways.

Unfortunately, I can’t change what has already happened; I can only do my best to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. To those of you who have forgiven my immaturity as a writer and accepted where this living, breathing WIP ultimately ended up, I’m extremely grateful for your flexibility.

[thesethingsofours]

Parents are the Worst.

I recently began listening to Nice White Parents, a new podcast hosted by self-confessed nice white parent, Channa Joffe-Walt. It’s produced by the people in and around Serial, This American Life, S-Town and The New York Times. If you are familiar with those titles, you’ll know what to expect – in-depth, considered analysis of a heretofore, under-exposed social issue, executed with an East Coast progressive liberal stride; a pleasingly audible, irreverent gait and the swagger of emotional intelligence and self-aware humility. Through research, interviews and attaching herself to the Brooklyn School of International Studies for several years, Joffe-Walt tells the story of the New York Public school system and its apparent failure to meaningfully integrate itself since Brown v Board of Education made racial segregation illegal over 65 years ago.

In episode 2, Joffe-Walt tracks down and interviews some nice white parents from around the time the school opened in 1963. These people had written letters encouraging the school board to erect the school building closer to their own neighbourhood (and consequently further away from the darker-skinned families it was more likely to serve). They expressively emphasised their wishes to send their kids there and virtuously aid the process of integration, which they believed to be morally imperative.

But apparently, none of these letter writers subsequently sent their kids to that school. It remained, as anticipated, a predominantly non-white school. Laid alongside the tense machinations of the contemporary school’s invasion by a large new cohort of white parents and their issue, Joffe-Walt’s hypothesis is that white parents have always held liberal aims, and the clout to impose them, but do so with little consideration for their non-white counterparts or any real commitment to seeing through the incumbent practicalities. From the outset, this natural conclusion is persistently hinted at, not least from the podcast’s deliberately provocative title. Perhaps, on an individual level, this hypothesis contains some truth.

However, as the story extends, the blame gains weight and the theory mutates into a generalised accusation. Responsibility for the mediocre state of New York’s (and by implication, America’s) public schools is explicitly laid at the pale feet of white parents. It's an exposition of what is often described as “White Guilt” and its corresponding effort at contrition (i.e. the guilt felt from the inherited sin of one’s ancestors’ oppression of non-white people, primarily through slavery). While White Guilt might have its conceptual uses for a few people to come to terms with idea of race (although even there I am sceptical), its value as a wider social narrative is deeply unconvincing, and potentially damaging. Nice White Parents does a good job showing why.

In the podcast, anecdotal evidence is drastically extrapolated to justify White Guilt. Unless backed up by unequivocal data, it is inherently flawed to base so much on interviews with a handful of people in their 80s about a letter they wrote in the 60s, and (in episode 3) a now middle-aged woman about her perception of school when she was 13. Equally so is to use the example of a single New York school to imply that nice white parents are universally responsible for all the failings of American public schooling. A quick empirical comparison with countries unburdened by America’s racial psychosis would almost certainly reveal this argument to be fundamentally false. I hazard to suggest that Joffe-Walt set out, either consciously or subconsciously, to prove the theory of Nice White Parents, and has therefore fallen into the trap of verification bias.  

Of course, the truth is likely to be far simpler – green, cheddar, dead presidents and moolah (which middle-aged white people in American disproportionately possess). Better schools arrive from broad, deep and perpetual community investment – from good, affordable housing and well-paying jobs to well-paid teachers and decent facilities. That means higher taxes on the wealthy and better provincial management. If a completely non-white school district received $50 billion to invest in their community with educational improvement as its ultimate goal (that or the abolition of private schools), I suspect the idea of nice white parents would quickly evaporate.

It is plainly a damaging distraction to focus on the role of supposed-predisposed-racism of well-meaning, middle-class people, who simply want the best possible education for their children. Instead, the message for the “hereby accused” should be to use their numerical majority and voting power to advocate for systems that would reduce inequality, regardless of race. In this respect, it strikes me that wealth is a sacrosanct subject in America, something that one can never apologise for having too much of. Quite the opposite – the culture is built on celebrating those who hoard capital. Is it possible that Americans are taught never to apologise for having money, so those who see something wrong develop other issues, such as race, for which they can atone?

More deeply, the podcast reveals how the White Guilt narrative is in ideological conflict with the very wrong it is supposedly trying to right. Taken to its conclusion, it inevitably reinforces the idea that white people are innately superior, and race is the primary determining factor for success in American life. In the context of the podcast, it is applied to suggest that New York public schools are destined to fail their students unless white kids and their parents get involved. It is gloriously ironic that condemning the influence of white parents on public schools serves to reinforce the supposed inferiority of non-white participants in the education system… because of their lack of whiteness. At the end of episode 3, Jaffe-Walt lays this out:

Nice white parents shape public schools even in our absence, because public schools are maniacally loyal to white families even when that loyalty is rarely returned back to the public schools. Just the very idea of us, the threat of our displeasure, warps the whole system. So “separate” is still not equal because the power sits with white parents no matter where we are in the system. I think the only way you equalise schools is by recognising this fact and trying wherever possible to suppress the power of white parents. Since no one is forcing us to give up power we white parents are going to have to do it voluntarily, which, yeah how's that going to happen? That's next time on Nice White Parents…

(Consider replacing every mention of “white” in this excerpt with “affluent”. Would that not feel infinitely more true?)

In fairness, the honourable, “anti-racist” intention is clear – in order to defeat “white supremacy” white people need to accept their inherited and systemic superiority and eliminate it. Sadly, any idea centred around race – whether malicious or well-intentioned – is bound to collapse under even the slightest pressure. To be truly anti-racist is to recognise that race itself doesn’t exist (other than as an abstract concept that, having infected people’s perceptions after four centuries of concerted, localised propaganda, must be eradicated). Race has no basis in science or nature; it cannot be quantified in any reasonable, measurable way. Simply, it is a lie; invented to excuse the exploitation of others for the purposes of wealth-generation. To base one’s actions on it in any way is to take a leap of faith into a void with no landing. Race is a malignant, empty God; belief in which is destined to lead to malignant, empty behaviour. “Racism” and “Anti-Racism” (as it is currently understood) are therefore both empty, malignant religions, practiced in service of a non-existent deity.

Notably, there are still two episodes to go (released August 13th and 20th). Either might serve to recover some balance. But by episode 3, the stage is not only set for this conclusion to be drawn, but the 1st Grade nativity is in its final scene and the wise men are long since gone.

All that said, if you let the incessant racialization of all things drift past you rather than choking on it, as plain entertainment – storytelling rather than journalism – it’s still an engaging listen; well-constructed and convincingly told. Furthermore, on a non-racial level (if you can somehow listen beyond it), the podcast does have some value, since it reminds me of something I have long half-joked about – that parents (of all stripes) are the worst.

Aside from the obvious, complex Freudian reasons, on a socio-political level, when a choice arises between a laudable, achievable change and putting one’s own children at a perceived disadvantage in order to effect it, a parent will choose its child’s advantage almost every time. No matter their colour, few parents will sacrifice their own child’s prospects – even minutely – to advance the hypothetical children of someone else, or society more widely. Parents are company directors whose primary obligation is to their miniature, genetically-derivative shareholders – they’ll only vote for large-scale change if it is net-profitable or government-imposed.

And of course, parents should pay their kids the maximum dividend. Who else will? A parent is legally and morally obliged to do the best for the young life they are charged with defending. And therein lies the joke. Parents are the worst only because they are ubiquitous. They created you, me and everyone else. We all had them, and most people end up being one. It is therefore less of a criticism than an inevitable, evolutionary truth – just one we should probably be more honest and upfront about. Unknowingly, underneath (and in some ways, because of) its misguided, exhausting racial handwringing, Nice White Parents just about makes this point.

Listen to Nice White Parents here or wherever you get your podcasts.

[frangipanidownunder]

For the 5 hcs: roaring 20s au or author/publisher au!!

1

He stands at her table, skinny latte ready. Her eyes roll up to take him in but she doesn’t move her head. He does see the slight purse of her lips, the flare of her nostrils and hears the small tap of her index finger against the page of her journal.

           “Dr Scully. Do you mind if I join you?” He sits anyway. She reads on, hair swinging over her face. He scans the document, catching some of the words but none of the meaning. “I really enjoyed your senior thesis,” he says, then puts his card next to her coffee.

           She sits back in her chair, sceptical smile playing on her lips. “You’re the one who asked the question about extraterrestrials. What was that all about?”

           “Just seeing where you sat on the plausible vs implausible scale.”

           She shifts slightly, opening her mouth to speak before closing it again. “What do you want, Mr…” she looks at the card. “Dr…Mulder?”

           “I think you have a book in you, Dr Scully, and I’d like to be the one to publish it.”

2

He doesn’t expect to hear from her so soon. He’s running and only answers the phone when he reaches the crossing.

           “Dr Mulder, it’s Dana Scully. We met at the Future of Science Conference.” Her tone is clipped, like she’s trying to hide her words away.

           “You’re intrigued by my proposition.” She doesn’t respond. “But you’d like to meet in person to discuss it more?”

           She suggests the First Ladies Water Garden and they watch the fountain sprays catch the late afternoon sun.

“You’re an Oxford educated psychologist whose sister disappeared when she was eight. You spent time working as an FBI agent, in Violent Crimes, but you quit suddenly. You own a small publishing house called Reticula that specialises in paranormal non-fiction and you also co-publish The Lone Gunman newsletter.” She turns to him. “I find it difficult to believe that you might be interested in what I have to say. Perhaps you should be talking to my partner. What can I possibly bring to your table?”

He looks at the way she’s standing, face tilted, eyebrows raised, hips square to him, shoulders back, hands clasped, feet in high pumps, suit-jacket buttoned. She’s wearing an intrigued, expectant half-smile.

He should say ‘credibility’, he should say ‘integrity’, he should say ‘authority’ but he smiles and says, “earnestness.”

3

He thinks she’s beginning to turn. She listens as he outlines his proposal, asking pertinent questions about potential audience, sales history, promotional requirements. They’re walking back towards the car park when urgent footsteps close in on them.

           “Scully!” A woman’s voice calls out, curt, almost angry.

           Scully slows, looks up at him, apologising with her eyes. “My partner.”

           “Ah,” he smiles, “maybe she might like to co-author?”

           “I doubt it,” Scully says, low. “That would mean sharing.”

           “Diana Fowley,” the woman barks. “Special Agent.” She extends a hand. “You’re the reason I haven’t been able to get hold of my partner.”

           “Sorry,” Scully says, “we were just about finished. I’ll be in contact.”

           “What do you do, Mr…?”

           “Mulder. Doctor Fox Mulder. I’m a publisher.”

           Fowley laughs. But it’s heavy with cynicism and the way she grips his hand so that he has to extract it with some force, makes him feel that the balance in the partnership with Scully is out. “And what could you possibly be talking to Dana for?”

           He doesn’t answer, just nods at Scully and thanks her for her time.

4

She stands at his table, skinny latte ready. His eyes roll up to take her in but he doesn’t move his head. He hopes she sees the slight purse of his lips, the flare of his nostrils and hears the small tap of his index finger against the page of the manuscript.

           “Dr Mulder. Do you mind if I join you?” She sits anyway.

           He reads on, hears her sharp intakes of breath. “A lot of your FBI records are redacted. Why would that be?”

           He shrugs but hears Paterson’s vicious mauling voice in his mind, reminding him what a useless pile of shit he was, and tearing into him for his failure to act quickly enough to stop more innocent children from being murdered.

           Fowley presses on. “Your pursuing of Agent Scully is a mistake. Her area of expertise is too narrow for your domain and I truly cannot understand your fascination.” She slides her fingers to meet his. “Unless, it’s a purely romantic attachment on your part? And if that is the case, Dr Mulder, I can assure you that you are wasting your time on that endeavour. She has a nickname at the Bureau.”

           He bites. “And what’s that?”

           “Agent Orange. Because she burns everyone who gets too close.” Fowley smiles brightly at her own joke. “I do believe that I might have more to offer your publishing house. It seems to me that our way of thinking is much more aligned. Scully has been assigned to debunk my work. She sees everything in black and white, where you and I, we view the world in colours.”

           Pushing his chair back, he apologises. “I have to go. And I’m pretty sure that if you’d thoroughly checked my record, you would have seen my diagnosis of protanopia.”

           He’s missed a call from Scully and when he hears her message, he imagines her aflame, melting hearts, and feels his own heat up in his chest as he gets in the car.

5

He meets Scully at Wan Loy and orders the banquet for two. She is dressed more casually and it suits her, makes her look younger, softer. Not like a woman who sets fire to people for fun. He can’t get enough of her.

           “Agent Fowley approached me today.”

           Her eyes widen. “What did she want?”

           “She wanted in,” he says, dipping a dumpling in soy.

           “But she doesn’t fit the profile.” Scully sips her wine. Outside, it starts raining, water splashing violently against the windows.

           “And you do?”

           She rolls her shoulders. “Look, I might not fit the profile of your other authors, but I can fit the brief. The cases I’ve worked on, the things I’ve seen. Some of them are downright…”

           “Spooky?”

           She laughs. It suits her. She takes in a deep, slow breath. Something is changing within her. “My work has been my only outlet for too long. Over the last few years, I’ve had some…health issues and it forced me to think about the future. My future. Agent Fowley has developed some liaisons with people who don’t fit comfortably with my worldview and…” she stops, looks at him. That same earnest expression that he saw from the outset. The honesty she can’t hide. The truthfulness that runs in her blood. “You want a book about the arcane and the mysterious but explained in scientific terms? I can write it.”

           He doesn’t doubt it. He gets the feeling that Dana Scully’s writing, if it’s anything like her heart, could drag you in, envelope you, never let you go. A tingle runs up his spine. “I read about that case you investigated in Texas where bodies had been completely exsanguinated and bore strange marks, like the holes that fangs might leave.”

           “Agent Fowley suspected vampirism,” she says, rolling her lips together. “She killed a boy…it was terrible.”

           “But what were your findings?”

           She bites into a rice paper roll. “I found out that Agent Fowley can’t sing. And that some alleged vampires are pretty good looking.”

           He smiles, pulls his collar away from his neck. Dana Scully is warming him up in ways he hadn’t expected and he’s here for it. “Do you like bagels?”

           “Only with real cream cheese,” she says. “Why do you ask?”

           “I have them every morning for breakfast.”

           The rain hammers harder and her laugh is sucked up in the noise. “That is quite possibly the worst pick up line I’ve ever heard, Fox.”

           He figures he deserves that. Lightning flashes across the sky and he feels like he’s losing time. “So, you’ll sign with us?”

           She nods, looking out at the lashing rain. “What’s the title of our book going to be, Mulder?”

           The waiter brings silver trays of sizzling beef. The air is filled with aromatic ginger and garlic. “Do you have an idea?”

           Her eyes gleam. Of course she does.

“I was thinking ‘Death is a Drama’.” Her face lights up brighter than the sky in the storm. His heart thunders in his chests. Beginning, middle and end, he thinks. The perfect story.

[comicweek]

A Pair of Dark Phoenix Retrospectives

A pair of retrospectives from The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline have come out surrounding the box office shortcomigns of Dark Phoenix.

THR

Dark Phoenix was, in many ways, supposed to be the ultimate X-Men movie. The tentpole was seen as a course corrective after X-Men: Apocalypse, the 2017 critical and fan failure that grossed $200 million less than the much-praised Days of Future Past two years earlier. But a series of missteps by the studio — some prompted by outside forces — came together to cause the failure.

From the outset, it seemed that Fox, led by Stacey Snider and Emma Watts, and producers Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker had learned the wrong lessons from the disappointing Apocalypse.

Insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter that in a series of postmortem meetings onApocalypse, execs came away thinking that the movie's failure had been due to an excessive amount of explosions and scale, not due to franchise fatigue generally. "There was a misguided feeling that [Apocalypse] was an anomaly, that we just got it wrong," says one Fox insider familiar with those meetings. "We were wrong."

Audience fatigue and erosion have hit even the most venerable franchises. Hence the proliferation of reboots, reimaginings and ever grander cinematic universe ambitions. “It’s a real head-scratcher on how you keep coming back,” says one studio executive, noting that even James Bond and Star Wars have had ups and downs. Some franchises, like Fast and Furious, have reinvented themselves with new concepts and a new cast. Others, such as Die Hard and Terminator, keep underperforming critically (if not commercially) no matter how persistently producers bring them back.

With Dark Phoenix, Fox did not reboot X-Men. In some ways, it doubled down on what it had; it went back to the cast from Apocalypse and then decided to tackle a story previously adapted in 2006’s X-Men: Last Stand, the Brett Ratner-directed entry generally considered among the worst in the franchise. Fox then tapped Simon Kinberg to helm the movie.

Kinberg co-wrote Last Stand and resurfaced years later as a producer on 2011's X-Men: First Class, which rebooted the series with a new cast and new time period. Kinberg became an architect of the franchise, but was not a director. However, he stepped behind the camera, to a lesser extent on Future Past, greater on Apocalypse, when director Bryan Singer would not show up on set, according to several sources. Kinberg's work on Apocalypse won over the franchise's A-list stars, whose three-film deals were up with that movie. The entire group decided to re-up for one last outing.

Deadline

Now, for quite some time, the last two Bryan Singer X-Men movies (Days of Future Past and Apocalypse) and even 2009’s Wolverine: X-Men Origins have been Frankenstein-ed together during their last phases of production. Richard Donner reportedly finished Wolverine, while the village-effort of producer Hutch Parker, producer/scribe Simon Kinberg (both not available for comment on this piece), DP Newton Thomas Sigel, and editor/composer John Ottman picked up the huge slack on Days of Future Past and Apocalypse whenever Singer would reportedly go AWOL from the set. Kinberg, after his long tenure on the X-Men franchise and after finishing directing on Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four, was finally bestowed with Dark Phoenix, and with support from the Apocalypse cast, including Jennifer Lawrence.

Now, Dark Phoenix was originally planned to be two movies, we hear, and during late pre-production, the studio changed gears and said it was to be one movie. Kinberg, we hear, was flexible and rewrote. Days of Future Past erased the timeline of The Last Stand, so a rebooted story about Jean Grey was possible here. Our sources tell us that testing Dark Phoenix was a continual headache, and the feature adaptation of Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and David Cockrum’s fan-beloved Dark Phoenix Saga comic was hard to get right.

We heard that in one cut, Jean Grey dies, which wasn’t received well. But overall, the major ending change-up, executed in reshoots, entailed going from an intimate ending with Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) against Jessica Chastain’s Vuk. The feeling from the audience in testing was that they wanted to see all the X-Men heroes fighting in the end. There have been reports out there that the ending was changed-up because it was too similar to Captain Marvel. This isn’t true: No one on the Fox/Dark Phoenix production side had any intel of what Captain Marvel would be like before it was released. It was the all-team reshoot that pushed Dark Phoenix from its original Nov. 2 release date (which went to ultimate 4-time Oscar winner and Fox blockbuster finale pre-merger Bohemian Rhapsody) to Feb. 14. We understand Kinberg got to make the film he wanted to make, and was flexible about reshoots with the studio. Many would like to feasibly blame a screenwriter-turned-first time $200M production film director on missing the mark here. However, as we wrote, Kinberg demonstrated his finesse in saving previous Fox/Marvel and X-Men productions. Fox production executives could have gone with a more seasoned director, but decided not to, and in doing so, they failed in riding herd on Kinberg early enough. By the time they did decided to ride monitor Kinberg, it was too late, and production was too far down the road.

A note about reshoots: They’re completely normal on a superhero film of this size, and are routinely budgeted. Just because a superhero movie undergoes reshoots doesn’t mean that it’s destined to fail (i.e. Suicide Squad went from dark to funny in tone and dazzled with $746.8M). We hear that Dark Phoenix had even less reshoots than X-Men: First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse. And this is where we turn to Fox PR and marketing mismanaging the image and perception of Dark Phoenix. Word was leaked and not controlled about reshoots for Dark Phoenix and New Mutants, and when that isn’t managed, it already transmits a message to fans that something is afoul. The headlines on Star Wars: Rogue One‘s reshoots were less so than the public divorce of the studio from original Solo: A Star Wars Story directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and that resulted in the former being a profitable film and the other a stinker.

I’ve largely been apathetic to Kinberg as a writer, but if he was able to win the cast over in the debacle that was the Apoc production good on him. He’s had a bit of a trial by fire when it comes to direction with that stuff and the Trank Fantastic Four film. 

The thing about Dark Phoenix, I like the idea of the smaller movie so much better. Now it’s just an idea and the script seemed to have major issues already but how much of that is script v Frankenstein, I don’t know, who could say that ending would’ve actually been dramatically earned.

Also worth noting that Kinberg’s people were not directly quoted or commented on for these pieces so that means people are actually trying to not dump this whole thing on Kinberg, which is surprising. He’d be an easy scapegoat. 

[atamascolily]

A Natural History of Tatooine, 12/?

In which we return to the present. Luke and Tor spar and hilarity ensues.

(Masterpost of installments from the beginning)

Luke's voice trailed off. A chronometer discreetly tucked amidst the bromeliads was blinking "1030" in bold, flashing strokes, and he realized that he had been speaking for almost three hours. Judging from the state of the table, he'd also managed to consume his entire breakfast and half a dozen cups of cha, without registering any of it.

Tor stood up, yawned and stretched. "That's enough for now, Skywalker, I think. I'll take care of the dishes; meet me in the cargo hold in ten minutes and we can spar."

"Lightsabers?" he said hopefully, though not truly serious. Tor had made it very clear at the outset of this trip that she didn't approve of lightsabers on her ship except in the utmost emergencies.

"Nice try, but no," Tor said with a laugh. "We'll use staves, like civilized people, where the worst thing that happens is a tap on the head if someone makes a mistake."

This was an old argument between them that both played on for humor; there was no real heat to it. Tor was convinced that lightsabers were dangerous, and had no place at the Academy. Luke thought they were essential, for precisely the same reason. On her ship, Tor got to win, but she'd never been able to convince anyone else at the Academy on her position, and so lightsaber training was now an essential component of the emerging curriculum.

The debates always ended the same way. Tor would shrug, muttering something about how it was all fun and games until someone lost a hand; while she had no doubt the Force would help prevent accidents, it wasn't something she wanted to be responsible for. In response, Luke would hold up his prosthetic right hand, nod, and continue his students' lightsaber training--very, very carefully.

Luke wasn't as skilled with staves as he was with his lightsaber, but that was fine. Everyone assumed that being a Jedi meant he excelled at all forms of combat, but that was wasn't true at all. The Force amplified what he already knew, allowed him to push himself beyond his usual limits, and helped him to master skills faster, but there was no shortcut for simple repetition, day in and day out, to train body and mind to master a given task. The Force was a powerful ally, but it was not a convenient shortcut to universal competence. He only wished it were so.

He took a quick detour to the 'fresher, and made his way down to the cargo hold, the one place on the <i>Destiny</i> spacious enough for sparring practice. The greenhouse conservatory was technically larger, but Tor had crammed it so full of plants that Luke could barely move without jostling something rare and precious. It was better to be down in the empty bay, where they could move freely, without the danger of destroying their surroundings in the process.

He was surprised at how much Tor had drawn out of him, how easy it had been to release the torrent of words and feelings that had been pent up inside him for months. He hadn't meant to say as much as he had, and yet opening up to Tor hadn't made him feel vulnerable at all. He felt--connected. Seen. Heard. Witnessed. Validated.

There were so few beings in the galaxy that Luke felt he could be truly open with. Leia. Han. Mara. Callista. Since the latter two were out of reach now, and the former two were systems away dealing with the logistical challenges of their own lives and that of the New Republic, that didn't leave much room for him to go when he felt troubled. He was grateful that Tor had decided to spend the practice period with him on Yavin--and even more grateful that she had opted to skip out and take him with her on this mad quest to discover uneti trees that probably didn't even exist.

He wished Tor had been there on Yavin when he'd returned with Callista and Mara, instead of off in the jungles with a horde of graduate students. If she had been there, maybe things would have turned out differently--

He let out a long breath. Ah. The past again. It ached and ached, but there was nothing to be done about it now, only facing the future as it came. And, with it, the hope that somehow--somehow--things might be different in the future.

Tor came in a few minutes later, carrying two long, straight sticks made of tulsiki wood, a common tree on Sawara known for its density and strength. She handed one to Luke and he bowed, accepting it with both hands in the traditional gesture. She bowed in return, and they settled a meter apart from each other, resting one end of their staves on the ground, and their left hands wrapped around the top.

"Do you remember the first kata?" Tor asked.

Luke did, but it had been several months since they'd last practiced together, so he said, "You go first and I'll follow."

Tor nodded and they began.

For thousands of years, monastics on Sawara were forbidden to carry weapons, resulting in a complex and fascinating set of martial arts featuring an unarmed practitioner using hands, feet, and various farming implements against armed attackers. Tor's sect practiced a particularly pacifistic form that emphasized blending and melding with the opponent, and using their own energy to subdue them without injuring them. Instead of hoes and rakes, they trained with simple walking sticks.

Having sworn no priestly vows, Tor was not subject to the prohibition against weaponry, and her fieldwork required a vibroknife and a blaster in case of trouble, sentient or otherwise. Still, ten years of training ran deep, and she preferred to solve problems without lasting violence wherever possible. Where violence was required, she was brutally effective, employing the least possible amount of motion to achieve the desired effect.  Luke had seen the same grim, unyielding efficiency in the movements of professional ex-assassins, like Mara and the Noghri commando forces--and yet the transformation was especially jarring with Tor, who was usually so jovial and peaceful.

The kata were series of choreographed routines, as the practitioner battled with one or more imaginary opponents. They could be performed solo, but they had been designed with a partner in mind, who performed the same motions a beat or two behind, rather like a round in choral music. When performed properly, the effect was a graceful, shifting dance of attacks and parries, spins, weaves, and dives. There were thousands of katas, ranging in complexity and number of movements, but the first kata was relatively simple, only twelve steps, and fairly easy to master. All Luke had to do was mimic Tor, a step or two behind, and the dance flowed automatically.

Aggressive impulses were not rewarded in this tradition, so Luke, as the defender, got to "win" by stabbing his staff at Tor's exposed flank in the final step. Tor smiled, and bowed. "Again."

They ran through the kata six more times before Tor was satisfied and switched to defending while Luke attacked first. When they switched back, she sped up the tempo, until their staffs were flying as fast as Luke could process. He knew what Tor would do before she did it, and could respond accordingly, without having to rely on the Force for insights; it wouldn't have worked well, as he found it difficult to read her. Instead, he was free to focus on what he was doing and react without having to plan or strategize--which was, Tor had explained once, the entire point of the exercise.

("Well, one of them, anyway. It's a rare task that only accomplishes one function, don't you think?" she had said.)

Right now, one of those functions was that there was no room to think about the past if he wanted to avoid getting smacked in the head by Tor's staff. Still, a part of his mind couldn't help remembering a certain day in the academy dojo, the familiar snap-hiss as Callista ignited her topaz lightsaber, glowing like a miniature sun in the shadows, and the dread that overwhelmed him as he stared at her crouched before him, waiting--

BAM. The staff slipped from his fingers to clatter on the ground, and suddenly the end of Tor's staff halted a few centimeters away from his exposed throat. "Sorry," he said weakly, as she withdrew the weapon, and he bent to pick up the staff at his feet.

"Thinking about Callista again?"

He flushed. Tor didn't read his mind, she was fishing in the dark, but it was a reasonable guess--and, in this case, the right one. "Sorry," he said again, not wanting to meet her eyes or hear a lecture about the dangers of an unfocused mind right now.

Tor shrugged. "Is it helpful?"

That was easy. "No."

"So why are you doing it?"

Luke brought his staff back up into the starting position. "Why am I getting romantic advice from someone who's never been in a relationship?" he asked rhetorically.

Tor grinned, not offended in the least. "I'll remind you, Skywalker, that I <i>am</i> married--"

"To a <i>tree</i>--"

"It was a perfectly legal ceremony--honored in all Sawarran prefectures--"

But she was laughing, and he couldn't stop laughing either, both of them leaning on their staves now and whooping about the absurdity of their lives, with all its ups and down and attendant failures.

"All right," Tor said at last, when they'd finally managed to collect themselves. "Shall we move on to kata number two?"

The second kata was harder--thirty-two steps, including some odd and unusual moves he hadn't quite mastered. He nodded, and leveled his staff at her, and the dance began again.

[ritzyishkabibble-archived]

headcanons ;; young adult (teenager)

     one of my favorite things to mess around with tbh is fitzgerald’s teenage years coming into adulthood. he was a troublesome lot - after having experienced a lonesome childhood spent at home and in his own head, fitzgerald had came to grow into a sort of stubborn independence that was an odd mixture of responsible, yet immature. he largely lived on his own, parents being too busy with work, and often spent many a night doing his own chores and cooking his own dinners (notably, nothing fancier than perhaps spaghetti or pizza or instant ramen).      however, since he began working at the tender age of fourteen, fitzgerald was also rarely there. in the feigning attempt to balance not only academics and work, but a social life as well, he was left largely too exhausted to enjoy his solitude, if at all. he was always surrounded by people, or spending time with them. he even admitted, at some point, that he never really wanted to go home at all; that would mean he’d be left alone with his own thoughts, and silent spaces can quickly turn deadly when you arm the mind. the noise and hubbub of other human beings kept him feeling sane or, at the very least, alive.      as you would expect, fitzgerald was incredibly popular and well-known at school. socially, he was favored. although most of the students weren’t necessarily close to him - save for a couple of buddies he kept around since childhood - a lot of them considered him, more or less, a lot of fun, if not just the slightest bit entertaining. fitzgerald was a frequent attender of club activities, school functions, sports games, honor societies, and anything that would not severely hamper into his work schedule. as you can imagine, he was quite the busybody and was often jumping from one event to the next while mixing and matching the times for more sufficiency. if anything cut into the work time, he would quickly sacrifice his education for more hours at the job - his academics suffered quite the blow.      his grades were, for the most part, decent. fitzgerald passed with a sufficient grade and was noted for being a hardworker. while a lot of teachers made note that he was exceedingly ‘clever,’ he was by no means a star pupil. in fact, fitzgerald struggled in academics. although he never had the patience or the brain to bother with higher courses, fitzgerald was also much too smart for the lower and was often quite bored of the classes he signed up for (not to mention, annoyed at all the other classmates who didn’t understand the lesson). as a result, he rarely saw the point in him going. unless a class had caught his especial attention, he would often, if not frequently, skip - and not even just for work. he’d cut his morning classes for breakfast and coffee at perkins, and would often cut his afternoon classes for any opportunity he could find, even if it was just simply a very long lunch. however, because the classes were underwhelming mentally, fitzgerald would often do make-up in between tasks at work and turn them in on his mandatory visits to the school. it was enough to get him by, but his grades were nothing to write home about.      the few times he did attend class, everyone knew about it. fitzgerald was not a quiet student, and he would often engage in bickering wars with the teacher - some of which appreciated and most of which just simply got annoyed. his few visitations to the classrooms were often met with immediate removal to the office or just to straight detention. it never went beyond an in-school suspension, thankfully.      most of his time, as you can imagine, was spent at work or with friends. he frequently jumped from job to job, but he maintained an on-and-off connection with the farm that hired him prior. although his family did own a car, his parents needed it to get to work and back, so fitzgerald - for better or worse - was left with bicycling, walking, or hitching a ride. not that he minded - the car’s absolutely horrendous and poor quality state sent him into fits of embarrassments whenever seen. he hated the damn thing, so it was perhaps for the best that he was never seen driving around in it. fitzgerald got his license via the school’s driving course, since they provided a means for students like fitz to get their license in the first place.      as for gatherings with his friends, that varied depending on the circumstance. he was a being with a penitent for mischief and easily acquired boredom - some of this amounted to good, some of it not. when they weren’t causing neighborhood disturbances (like blaring music loudly outside of people’s homes at midnight or popping cheap wine corks into people’s windows) or being an absolute nuisance (like breaking into the school and chucking random objects out the window into the courtyard below), they were either at the mall, the cinema, wrecking someone’s house via party-style, a diner, some cafe, or getting drunk/high on stolen ‘goods’ someone sneaked them. Mostly, when he got with his buddies, it was never a good thing.      fitzgerald had a number of relationships during this time, between both men and women, mostly with the latter. he had come to terms with his sexuality much earlier than eighteen, though his only openly admitted ones were with females. his relationships with males - sexual or romantic, whichever suited the other - were mostly kept on the down low due to the catholic neighborhood he lived in. his parents were never aware of fitzgerald’s sexuality - still aren’t, but he cares very little in telling them know how. he very much doubts it would ever go over well with them, and it was enough of a struggle coming to terms with it himself. his relationships were largely experimental in nature, though the occasional did blossom into a worthwhile romance. as you can imagine, most were short-lived when it came to that - a couple others remained merely as friends-with-benefits, or an awkward one-night stand, if any. after having experimented with purely monogamous relationships, fitzgerald has merely opted to keeping his relationships open instead (namely when he had partner who was less sexual with him in nature, but were matched him toe-to-toe in romantics and everything else).      fitzgerald was, overall, pretty experimental as a teen - due to a lack of parental supervision, he was pretty much enabled in every way possible. not only did this go towards sex and romance, but alcohol, drugs, parties, pranks, plays, poetry, written work, and so many other things.      he kept his creative edge from childhood, but it began to be largely neglected. aside from being a part of drama club and frequent play attendance, his short story/poetry hobby began to diffuse and burn out, with the occasional flame lit to continue. he wrote very little during this time however.      so, why do i like teenage fitz so much? namely because, well, as you would expect, fitzgerald received a sort of reputation in his community and at school - a very negative and impactful reputation. a lot of adults - ones of supposed good catholic breeding - considered him more-or-less an absolute failure, a nobody that would amount to nothing, and a lot of them felt the need to make that known via their admonitions or their whispers. he knew that this was an opinion shared by most everyone, anyone that didn’t know him as well as they thought. on the outset, he didn’t seem to care and - really - he tried not to, but his inner pride was frequently subjected to almost every injury possible. as a child, he was promised for good things - exceedingly bright with a social aptitude and a noticeable ambition, he had the makings for a promising future. but, when high school ruled around, his mind tuckered out. reading and writing took the energy out of him, and academics only served to give him an ever-engrossing headache. fitzgerald just wanted to survive, to have it simply put, and put much more stock in his working career than in anything else, so he largely spent most of his time doing that as opposed to class work. it’s one thing to mess up and know it - it’s another thing entirely when someone tells you upfront and assumes you’re nothing but a disappointment in the end. the thoughts roamed around in his head for a very long time, up until the very moment he purchased a gun, that all he did, all he ever was, was a terrible mistake and that the road he was on would only lead to tears and degradation. he got desperate, so desperate, to be anything but. as every rotten apple does, he turned to crime.      and found his success there.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): With Congress fully back in session, Democrats are once again in the business of legislating. This fall, they’re trying to push through a number of ambitious policies, including both the bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill and their ambitious $3.5 trillion (for now) spending plan, which they’ll most likely pass via budget reconciliation. 

But that’s not all. Democrats have also said they’ll try to pass a bill on voting rights and, in light of the Senate parliamentarian’s decision to exclude a pathway for citizenship for immigrants from the upcoming reconciliation bill,  will continue to push on this front, too. And, of course, looming over all this is the possibility of a government shutdown — there are just eight days before the government potentially runs out of money — as well as an impending fight around raising the nation’s debt limit (Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he and Senate Republicans will refuse to raise it).

So we’re taking a step back today to assess just how likely each of these proposals are to pass Congress, what we think might end up in them if they pass and how Americans feel about them.

Let’s start with the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. What do we make of its chances of passing?

lee.drutman (Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America and FiveThirtyEight contributor): A $3.5 trillion bill probably has 0 percent chance of passing. A $2.5 trillion bill, on the other hand, has a much better chance of passing.

This is all part of a negotiation process, some of which is taking place in public, but most of which is taking place in private. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have said they can’t vote for a bill this big. But there’s still plenty of room to trim, and Manchin and Sinema and other moderates can say they got a victory if they reduce it. The fact is $3.5 trillion has an anchoring effect that makes $2.5 or $2 trillion seem reasonable. 

This is a classic bargaining strategy.

alex (Alex Samuels, politics reporter): I agree with Lee. I feel like it will pass, but I’m almost certain it won’t cost $3.5 trillion. I say that because, once again, it seems like progressive and moderate Democrats are at an impasse about the price tag associated with the bill and members are essentially talking past each other. 

The reason why I think it still passes, though, is because it’d be a pretty humiliating defeat for President Biden if it didn’t. I know there are a lot of threats being thrown around from both progressive and moderate Democrats, but I want to think that the glue holding everyone together is that no one wants to harbor blame for tanking Biden’s agenda — and there’s a lot on the line here. So it’s likely not everyone is going to be happy, but maybe out of a shared sense of not wanting everything to fail, Democrats will find a way to figure this out?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): Agreed. Manchin — who, of course, is one of the crucial moderate swing votes that Democrats need to convince in order to pass their agenda — has said that $3.5 trillion is too much and has called for a “pause” on the legislation (presumably so it can be pared down to a number he feels better about). 

The flip side of this, though, is that some progressives — such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal — have said they won’t vote for anything smaller than $3.5 trillion. Their preference is closer to $6 trillion, so they already see the $3.5 trillion number as a compromise.

So the question is, who blinks first? And if no one blinks, there goes Biden’s signature domestic legislation. For that reason, I agree with Alex that the Democrats will figure out a way to make it work.

alex: Yeah, considering how underwater Biden’s approval rating is now, I think there’s a need for the Democrats to succeed in passing this, showing they can be effective leaders.

sarah: Right, because to Alex’s original point — no Democrat wants to be responsible for sinking this, moderate or progressive. So it seems as if we have consensus here — you all think some version of this bill will pass eventually, just not necessarily at its current price tag.

Do we have a sense yet for what will actually make it into this bill? And whether some proposals are more popular than others?

lee.drutman: I think the things that get cut are the things that the moderates will want to fight for. For instance, if Sinema opposes pricing reforms to prescription drugs and wants to make that a key issue, it’s likely that it will be struck from the reconciliation bill.

alex: I’m using a July AP-NORC survey to answer to your second question, Sarah, but it seems like while things like funding for roads, bridges and ports are pretty popular, some additional things that might be tackled in Democrats’ solo bill weren’t quite as popular — especially among Republicans.

While about two-thirds of Americans surveyed (67 percent) said they support funding for affordable housing, just 41 percent of Republicans do, compared to 85 percent of Democrats. There is also a pretty large gap in support for free community college tuition, with 27 percent of Republicans in favor versus 76 percent of Democrats. And of the 12 topics AP-NORC asked about, both Republicans and Democrats were least in favor of things like funding for electric vehicle charging stations (23 percent and 64 percent, respectively) and funding for passenger and freight rail services (37 percent and 68 percent). 

nrakich: I’m not sure that what is popular with the public is going to determine what stays and what goes, though. To Lee’s point, it’s all about what’s palatable to these moderate senators. And sometimes, they are reluctant to pass things — like a higher minimum wage — that are nevertheless broadly popular with the public. 

It’s interesting to think about why that is: Are they misreading the electorate? Are they trying to satisfy their donors? Do they just genuinely oppose liberal fiscal policy?

sarah: But as Democrats jockey back and forth on this party-line reconciliation bill, does that put their bipartisan infrastructure bill in jeopardy at all? 

Asking because the bipartisan bill actually passed the Senate in August, but Democrats in the House won’t vote on it until this other bill is ready, although as we saw with moderates in the House, appetite for this strategy might be waning among some Democrats.

nrakich: Yes, that bill is in danger too — and we’ll have an answer pretty soon. House Democratic leaders have said they will put the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill to a vote on Sept. 27 — contrary to the wishes of progressives who didn’t want to vote on it until after the $3.5 trillion bill was resolved. The question now is whether progressives follow through with their threats to vote against the infrastructure bill if they don’t get their way. 

alex: I agree that the infrastructure bill is probably in danger now, too, because as Nathaniel said earlier, a lot of this comes down to who blinks first. And it seems like the biggest bargaining chip progressive Democrats have right now is threatening to tank the infrastructure bill.

nrakich: If you look at how often House Democrats have voted in line with Biden’s position so far this year, all but one Democrat has done so at least 89 percent of the time. 

That’s why I think if push comes to shove, even progressive Democrats will hold their nose and vote for the infrastructure bill. House leadership probably wouldn’t be holding this vote next week if they didn’t believe it would pass.

Maybe a few progressives will vote against it out of protest, but I bet it will be just few enough that the bill still passes (perhaps with the support of a few moderate Republicans too?).

lee.drutman: I agree with Nathaniel. Progressives have actually moved the needle quite a bit, and my guess is they understand that. A lot of this is about positioning for the future.

Progressives will vote against it only if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t need their votes. It’s also possible multiple votes fail before a deal is reached.

sarah: It’s also possible the government runs out of money … throwing any talk of passing either this infrastructure bill or the other one on the backburner, no?

As I said at the outset, there are just eight days before the government potentially runs out of money — and Republicans don’t seem likely to pass Democrats’ short-term government funding bill.

What are the risks Democrats face with the possibility of the government running out of money and Republicans also refusing to raise the nation’s debt limit? Does this potentially undermine Democrats’ larger legislative goals?

lee.drutman: I think a government shutdown is quite likely. I would guess both sides see it in their interest because it sharpens the differences.

nrakich: Really, Lee? That’s interesting. I feel like a government shutdown with Democrats in full control of the federal government would be quite embarrassing for them.

sarah: Yeah … it certainly didn’t go well for former President Donald Trump and Republicans in 2019 when they played the government shutdown game. 

nrakich: Exactly, Sarah. And during that shutdown — and the one in 2013 — Democrats presented themselves as the responsible, anti-shutdown party. It would be quite the 180 for them to now allow one. 

lee.drutman: But there’s the short-term and the long-term aspect. The 2022 midterms are still a ways off, and the Republican strategy is to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, and make Biden seem like a failure, while the Democratic leadership’s strategy is to get the moderates to see that Republicans are unwilling to compromise — maybe even convincing moderates to agree to get rid of the filibuster.

I think McConnell is trying to triangulate here — that is, show just enough willingness to compromise so as not to provoke Manchin and Sinema into abolishing the filibuster — but not so much as to actually help Democrats.

nrakich: Wow. That seems like a very high-risk, high-reward strategy. Do you think the demise of the filibuster is really that important to institutionalist Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Pelosi? And for that matter, what about Biden, who still (publicly, at least) opposes ending the filibuster? 

alex: I’m super, super skeptical, since there’s never been widespread support among Democratic lawmakers, let alone the public, to end the filibuster. Late last month, we found that public attitudes on filibuster reform barely budged even when voting rights were on the line, so I’m not super confident there’s an appetite for reforming it for any of Democrats’ other priorities. 

lee.drutman: It’s all part of the long game, though. If Biden is going to abolish the filibuster — or at least reform it — it has to be at the end of a process where he can say he’s changed his mind because of Republican obstructionism. Same for Manchin.

sarah: The one thing I find interesting around the impending fight over government funding is that this crisis over the government spending too much money isn’t new. In fact, Republicans racked up a significant amount of spending debt under the Trump administration — America’s debt rose by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s presidency. But as FiveThirtyEight contributor Dan Cox wrote earlier this year, it’s possible voters won’t factor that into the current fight over the debt ceiling and will instead blame Biden/Democrats for big spending proposals.

That’s why it seems as if the fight over the debt limit comes at an especially difficult time for Democrats. Do we know how Americans feel about government spending now?

nrakich: Americans are happy to spend lots of money on things they want. Quinnipiac found that 62 percent of Americans favored the $3.5 trillion spending bill on social programs such as child care, education and Medicare expansion. That poll notably mentioned the price tag, which not every poll asking about the budget bill does. 

alex: And it doesn’t seem like the price tag of the bill is turning off voters the same way it is for moderate Democrats. An August HuffPost/Data for Progress survey, which tested three hypothetical spending amounts, found that support — regardless of the price tag — was almost the same. Over 60 percent of respondents in each group said they supported the proposal by about a 2-to-1 margin regardless of whether pollsters said the bill would cost $1.5 trillion, $2.5 trillion or $3.5 trillion.

lee.drutman: For Democrats, I think the far more consequential bill for the midterms and for the 2024 presidential election is their latest attempt to pass sweeping voting rights legislation, the Freedom to Vote Act.

I’m just not convinced government spending is going to move many voters in the midterms. Republicans are going to accuse Democrats of spending too much money no matter what.

We’re at a very strange point in our politics in which the connection between policy and election outcomes is very tiny. The fundamentals have always been more important than policy, but now that’s true more than ever before, given just how few voters are changing their minds. For instance, despite all that happened between 2016 and 2020, the 2020 presidential election saw the smallest share of voters who changed which major party they voted for, going back to at least the 1948 and 1952 presidential elections.

sarah: Lee brought up one of Democrats’ other big priorities this fall: passing a voting rights bill. Alex, Nathaniel, you’ve both covered this issue a lot for FiveThirtyEight — what do you think the odds are that Democrats are going to be able to get something through Congress?

nrakich: I don’t think a voting-rights bill will pass. Even the Freedom to Vote Act — which is essentially a compromise version of H.R. 1, the For the People Act, with controversial provisions like public financing for campaigns removed or reduced — was met with a cool reception from Senate Republicans. Even moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins still felt like the bill was too much of a federal takeover of state election administration. 

So to me, it just keeps coming back to the question of ending or circumventing the filibuster. While it’s not impossible that Democrats could, say, create a voting-rights exemption from the filibuster in order to pass this bill, I don’t think it’s likely. Manchin and Sinema’s opposition seems firm.

alex: Slim to none, if I’m being honest … The Guardian reported earlier this week that the Freedom to Vote Act likely won’t move this week as Manchin is looking to shore up Republican support. But getting Republicans on board with any voting rights legislation is highly unlikely, as we’ve said before.

lee.drutman: I’m more bullish on the Freedom to Vote Act — I give it a 50-50 shot.

sarah: Why, Lee?

lee.drutman: Democrats see this as a priority. Although, of course, part of this is a performance again. That is, Manchin has to make a very public showing of trying to get Republicans on board and he has to fail.

But the dangers of a contested 2024 election are becoming more real to Democrats as Republicans continue to push baseless claims of election fraud and pass restrictive voting laws in the process. 

The bottom line is Biden is going to come under tremendous pressure to intervene. Democratic activists are just extremely fired up about passing a voting rights bill.

alex: I’ll admit that at one point I thought Manchin would support ending the filibuster to pass a voting bill, but now I feel less confident about that, namely because he said in April that he won’t vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster. 

I can’t tell which is more plausible: Democrats ending the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation or 10 Republican senators signing onto the newest bill.

nrakich: Ooh, good question, Alex.

lee.drutman: Alex — I would say the first. The second has a 0 percent chance of happening.

alex: I would say neither.

  nrakich: I agree with Lee that this particular bill definitely won’t get 10 Republican votes. But I’d be curious what would happen if Democrats tried to pass, say, a stand-alone gerrymandering ban.

alex: Plus, Republicans and Democrats have different approaches to voting rights legislation, and polls do a fairly good job of capturing that. According to this Morning Consult/Politico survey from June, Democrats (70 percent) are way more likely than Republicans (32 percent) to think restricting voting access is a major threat to American democracy.

nrakich: Right, Alex — Republicans just fundamentally see voting differently from how Democrats see it. According to a Pew Research Center poll from July, 78 percent of Democrats feel that voting is a “fundamental right for every U.S. citizen and should not be restricted.” But 67 percent of Republicans believe that voting is a “privilege that comes with responsibilities and can be limited.”

sarah: OK, so it doesn’t seem as if there is consensus among you all on whether Democrats will be able to get a voting rights bill through Congress. What about immigration reform and passing a pathway to citizenship, now that the Senate budget parliamentarian has said that can’t be included in the upcoming reconciliation bill? Is that even less likely to pass Congress than the voting rights bill?

lee.drutman: I would say immigration reform is dead for now. It’s not a great issue for Democrats, especially going into the midterms, and it’s certainly not the issue that 50 Democrats are going to abolish the filibuster for.

alex: I think it’ll happen eventually, Sarah, but I’m also not sure anything will happen imminently here either because it doesn’t seem like Democrats had a concrete Plan B after the Senate parliamentarian ruled against their efforts to include immigration reform in the spending bill?

I’ve read reports that Schumer and other Democrats want to hold additional meetings with the parliamentarian to find alternative ways to include citizenship opportunities. But since there’s probably not enough Republican support to pass an immigration bill without using the reconciliation process, I think the odds are stacked against Democrats on this one, too.

nrakich: I think it has a better chance than voting rights legislation, though, if only because there’s still a chance it could pass via reconciliation.

It’s also worth noting that creating a path to citizenship for many immigrants is quite popular with the public. In an NPR/Ipsos poll from May, 66 percent said they supported it for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, and 70 percent supported it for immigrants with temporary protected status.

sarah: OK, we’ve covered a lot of ground regarding what’s at stake this fall. What are you going to be paying special attention to moving forward as Democrats try to pass big parts of their agenda?

alex: I’ll be keeping a close eye on whether there’s any movement on axing the filibuster, though I’m highly skeptical this will happen. And I’m curious to examine the bubbling tensions between progressive and moderate Democrats more. I know that’s not a specific *policy thing* to watch, but it’s still fascinating, considering a lot of media attention has been on fissures within the GOP.

nrakich: I’ll be watching the infrastructure vote in the House on Sept. 27. How many progressives will vote for it? And if most of them do, does that undercut their current claims that they won’t accept a number lower than $3.5 trillion for the reconciliation bill?

lee.drutman: I suspect we’re going to see a lot of failed votes for Democrats over the next several weeks and a lot of public bargaining and a lot of “Democrats in disarray” stories. But I’ll be watching to see what compromises senators are spelling out between the lines, and what they are not taking off the table.

I never ever bet against Nancy Pelosi.

[talabib]

How To Stop Being Average And Start Being Awesome

If you’re tired of being like everyone else and are ready to start being awesome, the following describes a path to get you there. Importantly, you’ll learn how to get past the most difficult block to your amazing new life’s journey

You will also find out how to overcome the fear that holds you back from living your dreams and start your own personal journey to being awesome!

Escape the average and become awesome by punching your fear in the face.

Do you dream of escaping the average? Do you want to become awesome and exceptional, but don’t know where to start? Here’s a tip: If you want to become awesome, you have to punch fear in the face.

Fear can alienate you from your dreams. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t let it, but to beat fear, you have to understand how it works. Fear prevents you from chasing your dreams by convincing you that they’re impractical or unattainable.

But don’t buy into that kind of defeatist thinking. Instead, write down your fears and then exaggerate them ridiculously, to show yourself how silly those fears actually are.

For example, if you’re afraid that starting a new project will cause you to lose your job and stay unemployed, write that down. And then let yourself go farther. Imagine you’ll end up on the street with a scraggly beard, sleeping on top of garbage bags and talking to stray cats. Does that seem likely? Probably not, which is why you need to write it down. That way you can see how illogical your fears really are, and thus prevent them from controlling you.

Luckily, there’s one more effective way to deal with fear’s mind games: Just start doing whatever you’re scared of. You have no control over the eventual result, but that won’t ever change. You’ll never know how things will end up, but at least you can control the outset. If you want to do something, do it!

For example, consider the Segway. When it was first introduced, people thought it might spark a transportation revolution. And yet, since its launch the Segway hasn’t been such a great success. Still, the Segway people deserve respect. They risked failure and pursued their awesome dream of developing weird, two-wheeled electric transporters.

Be realistic about where you are now, but dream big to figure out where you want to go.

If you want to be awesome, you have to get comfortable with tension. You have to be a realist and a dreamer, practical and impractical, logical and illogical – all at the same time.

To start your journey, you need to find out which parts of your life feel average. Do this by examining key areas of your life – social, intellectual, professional – and writing down which ones you want to improve.

Here’s where the tension comes in. Although you should dream big, it’s also important to be realistic. List current debts, responsibilities (are you a husband, a father, a coach?) and assets (university degrees or social connections) that would affect your ability to pursue your dream.

For example, Gary wanted to start an ad agency with a friend. They agreed to build a website for their first client, a church. After a few months of effort, Gary faced some tough realities: He had no idea how to run a business. Also, he’d never built a website before, and neither he nor his partner had any programming skills. In the end, they decided to quit the project and refund the church.

What went wrong here? Well, Gary’s thought had been wildly unrealistic. Learn from his mistakes. Your current reality doesn’t have to be a cage, but it is a jumping-off point. If Gary had been realistic about his lack of experience, maybe he would have started a smaller project and managed to complete it successfully.

Still, acknowledging your reality shouldn’t prevent you from dreaming big! Write down every crazy dream you have – even if you’ve never played an instrument, but want to rock a major festival. Next to your dreams, write down a list of first steps that could get you there. Then pick one and get going!

Stop waiting around to find your purpose in life and start living with purpose instead.

What is it with people needing to find their purpose? Most people use finding their purpose as a smokescreen to avoid doing anything.

Don’t be like them: Forget about finding a purpose. Think about all the pressure you put on yourself when you say that you want to find your one and only, true reason for being. That much pressure is going to prevent you from doing anything, much less what you were meant to do.

This is especially important advice if you’re young. Many teenagers and twenty-somethings freak out because they haven’t figured out a life path. They shouldn’t worry.

Scientists believe that our brains continue developing well into our twenties, so how is a not-yet-fully-formed teenager or a fresh college graduate supposed to figure out a purpose to guide the rest of his or her life?

Besides, waiting around until you find your purpose later will only prevent you from living with purpose today. So stop waiting for some big epiphany. Wherever you happen to be now, start living with purpose.

When you go to work, for instance, do it with purpose: Write those thank-you notes for employees and colleagues by hand today.

Love your partner with purpose: Buy tickets for a show you’ll both enjoy, and make dinner reservations for your favorite restaurant beforehand.

You can even vacation with purpose by only checking your email once a day. Do you really need to be available for emergencies around the clock? Instead of living for someone else, take your vacation into your own hands!

Try many new things to gain experience.

How do you get to the magical land of awesomeness? There are five steps, and the first one is all about learning – that is, trying many different things and gaining experience. After all, how can you know what you want to do if you haven’t tried a bunch of different things?

Think about it like this: When a scientific experiment fails, the scientist isn’t deemed a failure. We understand that even if the experiment didn’t work, the scientist still learned something valuable.

This gradual learning process is what allows people to become awesome. After all, no one is born an expert.

Consider Tiger Woods: He won the Masters when he was only 21 years old. That might seem young, but remember, he had been practicing for 18 years to get to that point!

So, to start the learning process, ask yourself this question: If you died tomorrow, what would you most regret having never done? Are you doing that thing now? Why not? And then just start doing it! But start small. For example, if you want to learn Chinese, find 30 minutes a week to sit down and get a feel for the basics.

Studies have shown that taking these kinds of small steps will prevent you from getting exhausted and giving up. Take Roy Baumeister’s famous 1998 experiment. Participants were divided into two groups – one group had permission to eat delicious cookies and the other was only allowed radishes.

Then both groups were given a tricky geometry exercise. The group that had eaten cookies made a concerted effort to solve the puzzle; meanwhile, the group that was only allowed radishes quickly gave up, because they had used up all their willpower denying themselves cookies..

Stay away from things that wont bring you joy

Now that you’ve mastered the art of learning, you have to focus on something. This second stage of success is all about editing your life.

As we’ve seen, learning is all about trying many different things. In fact, learning is a way of gaining possibilities and options. Unfortunately, you can’t be an expert in everything. So start editing: Look at all the different things you’ve learned, and then choose one you want to develop.

For example, if you have a passion both for writing and for giving speeches, you have to decide which skill you want to spend more time developing. The other one you can pursue as a hobby, or come back to it later in your life. In fact, make your own “later list” with possible future paths.

But in the meantime, ask yourself: What gives you the most joy? It’s important to phrase the question exactly that way.

Normally, we ask different kinds of questions – we ask result questions: What will earn us more money? Which industries are growing? Where does my experience lie?

And although these are important questions, asking them isn’t the right way to start. Just because certain jobs will allow you to earn money doesn’t mean they’ll deliver you to the magical land of awesomeness.

That’s because being awesome means doing something that inspires you. And once you’ve figured out what does, you’ll have plenty of jobs from which to choose.

For example, let’s say that you’ve edited your life and realized that you absolutely love sharing ideas. You can apply this in so many ways: You could become a blogger, an author, a podcast host, a counselor or a copywriter.

Whatever it is that you want to learn, just start working on it. And if halfway through, you realize that it’s not your way to awesome, simply edit it and move on to the next thing!

Build your expertise and ignore the haters in the way.

Now that you’ve figured out what you want to focus on, it’s time to take the next step, to mastery. The trick is to start simple. Volunteer somewhere; that is, trade your time for expertise. You’ll need to do this in order to get better at whatever you’re passionate about.

For example, if you want to become an awesome blogger, start by checking out and commenting on a lot of different blogs. Eventually, you can offer to write guests posts for free. This will allow you to improve your blogging skills while simultaneously connecting with the blogging community.

The first step? Create a list of people who are already doing what you’d like to do. How did they get where they are? What schools did they go to? What books have they read? What can you do to follow in their footsteps?

Next, prepare yourself for the inevitable feedback you’ll get as you pursue your passion. This is crucial, because no matter who you are or what you’re working on, you’ll encounter haters. Thus, you’ll need to understand the difference between sheer hatred and constructive criticism.Constructive criticism is there to help you improve; hatred, on the other hand, is just meant to hurt you.

Once you’ve identified hatred, you can deal with it by asking yourself two questions:

Where did the hurtful comment come from? If it’s from a stranger, especially online, let it go. You probably wouldn’t tolerate it if a random person yelled at you in real life; why would you listen to a stranger online?

Why did they say it? Just thinking about the other person’s perspective might allow you to feel better. Sometimes haters simply want attention; other times, they’re lashing out because they’re struggling with something in their own life.

When the finish line is in sight, it’s crucial to stay focused and not lose momentum.

Harvest all the great things you’ve been working on.

This is actually a tricky time, because the closer you get to something, the more you realize how much is still left to do. Deal with any loss of motivation by creating small finish lines for yourself. That way you’ll reach a goal each week and keep the momentum going.

For example, writing a book can take months. The best way to tackle such a big project is to divide the work into chapters, each with its own deadline. Alternately, you can set a goal with the number of words you want to write each day or each week. When you meet these smaller goals, you’ll stay motivated to keep going.

It’s also important to keep your focus. Once you start reaching big goals, people around you might tell you to start aiming for more. This can be an enticing message. For example, if you’ve started a business that’s not earning a profit, “more” could mean making your venture profitable.

But be skeptical. Whenever someone encourages you to pursue “more,” ask them why you should. Think of the entrepreneur who sacrifices time with his family to chase ever-bigger profits. Is he really so awesome? Figure out what matters to you, and stick to it.

To stay on track, think about what you did to get to this stage and figure out what’s no longer necessary for your path. For example, if you’ve started a blog, you probably spent a lot of energy attracting followers at first. Maybe you spent lots of time commenting on other people’s blogs to draw people to your site.

Well, now that your blog is popular in its own right, you don’t have to spend so much time commenting on other people’s sites. Instead, dedicate yourself to delivering what your readers want.

Share the love and help people on their own way to awesome.

Now that you’ve found something you love, you can guide others to follow their own version of the path. As it turns out, helping other people is incredibly satisfying.

How does this process work? Well, guiding others starts with a conversation. When you’re helping someone, it’s not about you, so ask questions! The only way to give good guidance is to be a good listener, so practice asking questions and listening to what people say.

To ensure you actually stick to the guiding path, connect it to something that’s already important in your life. For example, Tom and his friend sought mutual guidance from each other. They tried to meet for breakfast regularly, but they were both too busy, and only managed to see each other sporadically. Then they realized they both like to work out, so they decided to start going to the gym together. Now they meet, chat and guide each other three times a week, while they’re working out.

Guiding is great, but don’t get stuck doing only that. Always look for aspects of your own life that you want to develop, and then go all the way back to step one – to the learning stage – and start the journey to awesomeness all over again.

For example, let’s say you improved your career prospects and training, and finally landed a fantastic new job. Congrats! But don’t let your success make you lazy. Remember the “later list” you made during the editing stage? Pick something you haven’t done yet and get to it. Now’s the time to start!

You can stop being average and start being awesome, but first you have to know where to start. It’s all about overcoming your fear, living with purpose and following these five steps : learning new skills, editing to find your passion, mastering an expertise, harvesting the results and then guiding others.

[your-dietician]

Evolution Could Explain Why Psychotherapy May Work for Depression

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/evolution-could-explain-why-psychotherapy-may-work-for-depression/

Evolution Could Explain Why Psychotherapy May Work for Depression

A consensus has emerged in recent years that psychotherapies—in particular, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—rate comparably to medications such as Prozac and Lexapro as treatments for depression. Either option, or the two together, may at times alleviate the mood disorder. In looking more closely at both treatments, CBT—which delves into dysfunctional thinking patterns—may have a benefit that could make it the better choice for a patient.

The reason may be rooted in our deep evolutionary past. Scholars suggest humans may become depressed to help us focus attention on a problem that might cause someone to fall out of step with family, friends, clan or the larger society—an outcast status that, especially in Paleolithic times, would have meant an all-but-certain tragic fate. Depression, by this account, came about as a mood state to make us think long and hard about behaviors that may have caused us to become despondent because some issue in our lives is socially problematic.  

A recent article in American Psychologist, the flagship publication of the American Psychological Association, weighs what the possible evolutionary origins of depression might mean for arguments about the merits of psychotherapy versus antidepressants. In the article, Steven D. Hollon, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, explores the implications of helping a patient come to grips with the underlying causes of a depression—which is the goal of CBT, and is also in line with an evolutionary explanation. The anodyne effects of an antidepressant, by contrast, may divert a patient from engaging in the reflective process for which depression evolved—a reason perhaps that psychotherapy appears to produce a more enduring effect than antidepressants.  Scientific American spoke with Hollon about his ideas on the topic.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows].

You described in your recent article the idea that humans evolved a propensity toward depression as a means to restore emotional and psychological equilibrium. That allows people to stay well integrated within their social milieus. So, can you explain how depression may be a product of evolution that can actually protect us?

In the late 2000s, I read a paper by the evolutionary biologist Paul Andrews. It was masterful, very thoughtful—and I totally disagreed with it. The main premise was that depression was an evolved adaptation that serves to make people ruminate.

Why did you disagree?

For clinicians, we think of rumination as a terrible thing that at best is a symptom of depression and at worst leads to something that deepens the depression. We’ve always thought of it as a kind of exhaust out the tailpipe that is not really helpful.

But the work of Andrews and his colleague J. Andrew (Andy) Thomson recounted that in our evolutionary past, what got you depressed was some kind of major problem—probably a social problem—that might get you excluded from the tribe. And what you had to do is sit down and think about things.

Most of us can think of anxiety as being a useful function, because anxiety takes us away from danger. It’s quick, it’s rapid, the reaction that occurs after stepping on a snake that might be poisonous when you’re out in the woods. But most folks don’t think of depression as having any function. It’s just something unpleasant. The trick is to figure out what the purpose of depression is—and when Andrews and Thomson looked at what goes on when you get depressed, they found that a lot of energy went to the brain.

And the reason for that is to help us to think more carefully about the things that are going wrong, and first to understand what’s the cause. That answers the question: How come I’m feeling so bad? And the second thing is: How can I do a good job of figuring out a solution to a problem? 

So, you don’t have to move rapidly in depression; the bad thing has already happened. You don’t have to get out of the way of a poisonous snake or a leopard. But you do have to solve some kind of complex social problem, and rumination is what gets you there. So as opposed to being an unpleasant byproduct of being depressed, rumination is actually the reason why depression evolved. And it helps you solve complex social problems.  

You seem to now be giving some credence to the ideas of Andrews and Thomson. How does this line of thinking actually play out in people’s lives? At what point does depression and the social problems that need to be ruminated upon begin?

These complex social problems often gear up in adolescence when young people start to ask: Am I going to have a boyfriend and girlfriend? How do I get a boy or girl to like me? Am I going to do okay in school? Are my parents happy with me? Am I going to get to go to college? Will I be able to find a job?

How does your expertise in psychotherapy—and specifically cognitive behavioral therapy—jibe with the evolutionary theory of depression?

Cognitive therapy in this context becomes a bit of a natural. It teaches people how to ruminate more effectively. Cognitive theory holds that people got depressed because they hold inaccurate beliefs about themselves. This can be combined with the additional notion that people can get stuck. For example, if something bad happens, you start thinking that you’re a failure, you’re a loser. For most people, depression motivates them to think more deliberately about the causes of their problems and the solutions they can apply. In most instances in our ancestral past this worked well enough; most depressions remit spontaneously even in the absence of treatment. Cognitive therapy, at the least, hurries the process along and, at the most, helps unstick that subset of individuals who get stuck making negative ascriptions about themselves, typically about personal competence or lovability.

The solution is to essentially teach them the scientific method so they get unstuck. We ask a patient to ask themselves: what do you think is the cause of the problem? What other explanations could there be? What’s the evidence supporting one or the other? And especially we encourage patients who get stuck to pit what are called their stable trait theories—“I am incompetent” or “I am unlovable”— against a more behavioral explanation: “I chose the wrong strategies.”

One area that you’ve worked on is whether CBT has a more enduring effect than drugs, and you’re interested in how that might provide evidence for the evolutionary basis for depression.

Basically, we have good clinical evidence that cognitive therapy is at least as effective as medications in the short run, and more enduring in the long run. CBT may get people thinking carefully about their problems in a way that facilitates coming to a resolution, whereas medications may just anesthetize the stress that underlies a depression.

Are you going to test that idea in some way?

I’ve got colleagues in Vietnam, where they’re quite interested in a study we want to do in which we compare folks treated to recovery with CBT versus folks treated to recovery with medication—and compare those against a control that uses Chinese herbal medicine, which is widely believed there to be effective. And if it’s really the case that antidepressant medications suppress symptoms in a way that worsens the underlying course of depression, then those patients should be more likely to have recurrences when we take them off the medications than when we take them off the Chinese herbal medicine. If it’s really true that CBT truly has an enduring effect that protects against depression, then patients treated to recovery should be less likely to recur following treatment termination than patients who recover on Chinese herbal medicine. In essence, the Chinese herbal medicine serves as an ideal nonspecific control because it provides neither the coping skills taught in cognitive therapy nor the pharmacologically active serotonin-related ingredient provided by antidepressant medications. We have a trial that we want to do that should answer the question, but it hasn’t yet been done.

Doesn’t some evidence exist along these lines already, though?

There are over half a dozen studies that indicate that patients treated to remission with cognitive therapy are less likely to relapse following treatment termination than patients treated to remission with antidepressant medications—and a pair of studies that suggest that this enduring effect may extend to the prevention of recurrence. What we do not know is where all this fits within the proposed evolutionary context: whether cognitive therapy has an enduring effect, or antidepressant medications may be detrimental in terms of prolonging the life of the underlying episode—as evolutionary theory suggests. What is needed is a nonspecific control that neither has enduring effects or the anesthetizing effects caused by the medication. Whether cognitive therapy truly has an enduring effect, or antidepressant medications have a detrimental effect, remains to be determined. The comparison of each to a nonspecific control like Chinese herbal medicine should allow us to determine in absolute terms which is which.

You’ve talked about the difficulties in trying to measure whether there really are enduring effects in this type of trial.

It also is possible that the enduring effects observed for cognitive therapy (relative to antidepressant medications) have to do with changes that occur during the course of a clinical trial. Although we randomize patients to cognitive therapy versus antidepressant medications at the outset of the trial, we typically lose about 15 percent of the sample because of attrition, and another 25 percent as a nonresponse to either intervention. That means that only about 60 percent of the sample initially randomized makes it into the comparison of subsequent rates of relapse. If different kinds of patients remit to cognitive therapy than to antidepressant medications, that could bias any subsequent comparisons.

Do you think that these insights about CBT could have an impact for severe depression?

I don’t know, and wouldn’t necessarily assume that they would. For psychotic depression, you’d go to electroconvulsive therapy first. I’m not sure that the analytical rumination hypothesis will apply to psychotic depressions, or that it needs to. For every evolved adaptation there are instances in which the mechanism evolved breaks down and the condition can be considered to be an actual disease or disorder.

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 (4 of 6)

This is now the fourth round of Star Trek: The Next Generation episode reviews for the show’s third season, and it kicks off with one of my all-time favourite Trek episodes…

Episode 16: The Offspring

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Data invites Deanna Troi, Wesley Crusher and Geordi La Forge to the Enterprise science lab and surprises them by introducing a featureless humanoid android, whom he created based on his own structural design and recent advances in Federation cybernetics technology, describing it as his child, who he names Lal (Hindi for “beloved”). Captain Picard, being informed about Lal, expresses concern to Data for constructing Lal in secrecy, but Data reminds him that he would not express such concern were two human crewmembers to decide to procreate, to which the captain has little argument. Data encourages Lal to select a gender and appearance. With Troi's assistance and considering many of the on-board species as well as the databanks, Lal narrows down to four possibilities, including a Klingon male, which, as Troi points out, would make it "a friend for Worf", but in the end selects the appearance of a young female human.

 Data first aids Lal with cognitive and standard behavioural algorithms, as well as encouraging her to interact with other members of the crew to learn behavioural and social customs. After a failed attempt to place her in school, due to the younger children being intimidated by her and the older children too socially advanced for her, he places her under Guinan's care at Ten Forward. This leads to some awkward moments, such as Lal misunderstanding the concept of flirting and kissing, which she first interpreted as "attacking" until Guinan makes an effort at explaining the practice. Intrigued by this, Lal engages in suddenly dragging and kissing Commander Riker over the bar, leaving him baffled and earning him a fatherly scolding à la "What are your intentions towards my daughter?" when Data walks in on them. Lal nevertheless adapts very quickly, even, to everyone's amazement, surpassing Data as stated by her ability to use verbal contractions, something Data has never achieved.

 Meanwhile, Picard, as per general orders, reports to Starfleet, prompting Admiral Haftel to arrive to evaluate Lal. From the outset, Haftel is determined to transfer Lal to a Starfleet science facility. He interviews Lal, where she reveals her desire to remain on the Enterprise with her father, but Haftel is unmoved. Upon leaving the meeting, Lal visits Troi in the counselor's quarters. Lal is clearly confused and distraught, and to Troi's amazement, reveals that she is feeling fear. Experiencing an overload of information and emotions, Lal soon stops speaking and wanders off, eventually returning to Data's lab, something she is programmed to do in the event of a malfunction.

 In the meantime, Haftel meets with Data and orders him to release Lal into Starfleet's custody. Though Data moves to comply, Picard orders him to stand fast and reminds him and the Admiral that Data is a sentient life form with defined rights and cannot be ordered to turn what is in essence his child over to the state. But before the discussion can get any more tense, they are interrupted by a call from Troi who explains what has happened to Lal and asks everyone to come to Data's lab at once.

 Upon arriving, Data's diagnostics find Lal's emotional outburst is a symptom of a cascade failure in her positronic brain, and they must work fast to stop it. Seeing Data's sincerity, Haftel offers to assist Data, and he accepts. Sometime later, a worn-out Haftel leaves the lab and informs Troi, Wesley, and Geordi that they have failed. Visibly moved at Data's determination to save his child, Haftel explains the failure was irreparable. He is visibly overwhelmed himself, concluding that Lal will not survive for long. Data apologizes to Lal that he could not save her, but Lal thanks Data for her creation. She lets him know she loves him and will feel the emotion for both of them. Data returns to the bridge, and Picard conveys the crew's condolences, but Data reveals that he has downloaded Lal's memories into his own neural net, allowing Lal's memories and experiences to live on.

Review:

This episode stands out from the rest of TNG for many reasons.  For one thing, it’s the directorial debut of cast member Jonathan Frakes, sparking off a litany of Trek actors breaking into directing through their respective franchises, some of whom have since gone on to direct other TV shows and feature films. Frakes himself even went on to direct two of TNG’s four feature films when the TV show concluded, though some of his work outside of Trek leaves a little to be desired (a key example being his live-action film incarnation of Thunderbirds).

 However, the main reasons for the episode to stand out spring from the story of the episode itself.  Data creating a child is a brilliant idea on the surface just for exploring the idea of what it might be like for mechanical life-forms to reproduce. As far as I know, no other sci-fi franchise has really looked into this concept, or if they have, they haven’t necessarily explored it quite the way that TNG does.  However, Trek is also about relating aspects of our present-day life and the issues therein to the audience through the metaphor of its future setting.  Where Data is concerned, fan interpretation has made him into a metaphor for certain aspects of life as an autistic person, and while that comes through for both him and Lal in this episode, there are other metaphorical representations to be drawn as well.

 The incorporation of the Admiral Haftel character and Data’s status as a de facto single parent, combined with his autism-like traits, presents a kind of metaphor for the misapplication of social care intervention.  Doubtless at the time of this episode’s production, in our present day and for all the years before, in-between and after, there will be some people who believe that where a child is being raised by a parent who is differently abled, single or both, that child should be removed from the parent and placed in care of some kind.  When Picard points out that Haftel is basically ordering a father to hand his child over to the state, this cements Haftel’s principal role as an analogue for the closed-minded social worker who judges the parent not on their actions, but solely for being single and/or differently abled, and who makes his decision on those grounds without any regard to what father or child want or how they’re actually doing.

 Now while I acknowledge that not every parent who is single or differently abled could cope with being a parent, the reality is there are also parents who are married and regularly abled and can’t cope with parenthood either.  The reality is being a good or bad parent is about doing the best you can to meet your child’s basic needs, and in this regard, it is actions and not labels that define a good parent.  Data’s actions throughout the episode are those of someone genuinely trying their best to do the right thing for their child, and Haftel ultimately comes around to acknowledging this when Data has to try and act to save Lal’s life.

 It’s also interesting to watch Lal for what little time she gets in the world of TNG, because while Data is the focus of the episode, Lal has some great moments as another autism analogue.  The difficulty she has fitting in at school is an apt analogy of how western education fails, back in the early 1990’s and now, to effectively educate the differently abled in general and autistic children in particular. From a social skills standpoint, Lal is well behind for someone who appears to be a young woman, yet academically she is highly intelligent, and cannot fit in with any given age group. In turn, her difficulty understanding concepts of flirting and romantic/sexual attraction emulate how incredibly difficult and horrible it can be for autistic teenagers and adults in real life to navigate the same sort of challenges.

 The simple fact is this episode is brilliantly performed, wonderfully multi-faceted and also includes some great moments in terms of accepting being different, taking a gender/sexuality-neutral approach to teaching Lal about love, and for parents of the very young there’s a great little scene where Data has deal with Lal going through an infinite array of ‘why’ questions.  This episode is funny, tragic, thought-provoking, and just generally everything Trek should be. The fact it’s a bottle episode born out of a need to balance the show budget after the expense of ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’ proves two final points.  First, TNG learns from the abysmal ‘Shades of Grey’ episode and upped its game for bottle episodes.  Two, a great story on a low budget is better than an ok story going over-budget. Score for this one is a clear-cut 10 out of 10.

Episode 17: Sins of the Father

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

As part of an officer exchange program, Klingon Commander Kurn has requested to be placed aboard the Enterprise as first officer. His harsh Klingon command style aggravates the crew, though he takes it easy on fellow Klingon Lieutenant Worf. Worf confronts Kurn about this alone, prompting Kurn to reveal he is Worf's younger brother. When the rest of Worf's family left to the Khitomer colony, he was left with Lorgh, a friend of their father Mogh. Kurn was raised as Lorgh's son, unaware until recently that Worf had survived the Khitomer massacre. Kurn tells Worf that Mogh is being charged posthumously as a traitor in the Kitomer massacre by Duras, the son of Mogh's rival, which will mar the Mogh family name for generations. Worf requests an urgent leave of absence to defend his father's honor. Captain Picard believes that Worf's actions as a Starfleet officer in his father's defence will reflect on the Enterprise and Starfleet, and directs the Enterprise to the Klingon homeworld so they may monitor the events. En route, Kurn volunteers to be Worf's Cha'DIch, a second to stand with Worf during the challenge. Worf agrees, but warns Kurn to not reveal his bloodline just yet.

 At the High Council, Duras reveals evidence of Mogh sending Khitomer's defense codes to the Romulans. Worf challenges this, but is told privately by the aging K'mpec, the Klingon Chancellor, to drop the challenge and return to the Federation. Worf discusses this curious request with Picard, who also finds it strange and orders his crew to examine the evidence. Meanwhile, Duras has ambushed Kurn, aware of his true bloodline, and attempts to get him to betray Worf. Kurn refuses and is seriously wounded in the ensuing fight, no longer able to support Worf in front of the Council. Picard accepts Worf's request to take Kurn's place.

 The Enterprise crew finds evidence that the Khitomer logs have been modified and soon discover one more survivor of the massacre, Worf's nurse Kahlest. Picard is able to convince Kahlest to help Worf’s challenge; she knows Mogh was loyal to the Klingon Empire but does not know who the true traitor was. Picard brings Kahlest to the High Council and bluffs that she knows who the true traitor was, starting a heated dispute that is sure to end in needless bloodshed. Infuriated and as a means to halt the bickering, K'mpec calls Worf, Picard, Duras, and Kahlest into his private quarters and reveals the truth; the Council is well aware that Duras's father was the Khitomer traitor, but exposure of this, given Duras's high political position and capital, would certainly lead to an unwanted civil war within the already trouble-stricken Empire. The Council only accepted Duras's charge of treason against Mogh believing that Worf would not challenge it due to his Federation citizenship. To prevent further upheaval, K'mpec imparts that the Council will condemn Worf and Kurn, but Picard refuses to let this blatant injustice stand, thus creating a situation that could end the Klingon-Federation alliance. Worf, seeing what restoring his family's honor may cost, steps in and says he understands what he needs to do, that the only course of action for Worf is to accept a discommendation, tantamount to admitting his father's guilt. In exchange, the knowledge of the proceedings, including Kurn's true bloodline, will be undisclosed. Back in the council, all of the assembled Klingons, including a reluctant Kurn, ceremonially turn their back to Worf in disgrace, and he and Picard silently leave the hall.

Review:

This is probably the most influential episode of Next Generation in two key areas.  First, a lot of what is now accepted canon regarding the Klingons, including showing their home world and the immortal line “today is a good day to die” are established here.  Second, it’s the first episode to end in such a way that a follow-up story was virtually demanded, putting TNG on the path to ending its obsession with isolated one-shot episodes.  By extension, it also made the eventual spin-off shows of Deep Space Nine and Voyager possible; neither of those shows could have enjoyed the great season-long/series-long story arcs that made them if TNG hadn’t first opened itself up to that same kind of story arc.

 It’s a great Worf episode that nicely compensates for the lack of any issue exploration with how well if fleshes out Worf’s backstory and the Klingon race in general.  It’s well-acted, and Tony Todd does a great job playing the role of Worf’s younger brother Kurn for the first time.  The only downside is the lack of issue exploration means I’m not getting as much to talk about with this episode, but then I had more than enough to go at there with the previous episode.  Overall, I give this episode 9 out of 10.

Episode 18: Allegiance

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Captain Picard, while sleeping in his quarters on the Enterprise after the successful completion of a mission, is abducted by an unknown device. He finds himself in a cell with two other prisoners: Starfleet Academy Cadet Haro from Bolarus IX; and civil servant Kova Tholl from Mizar II. They are later joined by the violent Esoqq from Chalnoth. While they have meager beds and facilities, their only source of nutrition is provided by a tasteless rubbery disk, which Esoqq is unable to eat. He moves toward Tholl as though to eat him, but Picard is able to dissuade Esoqq temporarily. Picard attempts to learn why the four of them have been abducted but can find no connection. Picard organizes Haro and Esoqq to attempt to break the lock on the only door to the cell. Initially foiled by a stun beam when they tamper with the controls, they manage to override the beam and then defeat the door's security, only to find a blank wall behind it.

 Meanwhile, on the Enterprise, a doppelgänger of Picard has taken his place, ordering the ship to delay a scheduled rendezvous with another ship and travel slowly to a nearby pulsar. En route, Picard's double exhibits behaviour that the senior crew begins to question, such as showing romantic interest in Dr Crusher, as well as engaging the crew in singing "Heart of Oak", the official march of the Royal Navy, in Ten Forward. Upon reaching the pulsar, Picard's double orders the ship to be moved closer, potentially exposing the crew to lethal radiation. Commander Riker and the rest of the bridge crew refuse to follow his orders, effectively removing him from command due to his perceived unfitness for duty.

 After discovering the false door in the cell, the real Picard deduces that Haro is not who she claims to be, as she knows details of a secret Starfleet mission that are unavailable to Academy cadets. Picard observes that the four different alien captives and the tightly controlled setting are suggestive of some kind of experiment: Tholl, the collaborator who goes along with whoever is in charge; Esoqq, typical for his species, a violent anarchist who rejects any kind of authority; Haro, the cadet, sworn to obey orders without question; and Picard, a leader, trained to command. Haro reveals herself to be not a Bolian, but a member an unidentified alien species. She reverts to her natural form and is joined by a second such alien; the two have been studying the concept of authority and leadership, as their race lacks hierarchical authority structures as humans and other races do. Because the captives' knowledge of the experiment has now made it impossible to continue collecting data on their natural behavior, the aliens return Picard, Tholl, and Esoqq to their respective original locations.

 Aboard the Enterprise, Picard's double is also revealed to be of the same alien species, all members of which are in constant telepathic contact, which the aliens remark is far superior to the vocal communication used by the beings aboard the Enterprise. When Picard criticizes them for engaging in kidnapping and assault, the aliens express ignorance of the morality Picard espouses, and indicate that they will need to study this concept further. However, Picard uses a series of nonverbal cues to direct his crew to trap them within a force field, causing the aliens to panic as they are unable to bear captivity. After a few moments, he releases the field and allows them to go free, but warns them not to abduct others again.

Review:

This was apparently a second bottle episode that, in conjunction with ‘The Offspring’, was to off-set the over-spend used on ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’.  It’s also the first in a pair of Picard-centric episodes that go back-to-back but don’t inter-connect beyond who they focus on.  According to notes on the Memory Alpha wiki, we’re supposed to getting inside Picard’s head a bit by having the real Picard getting landed in an alien race’s equivalent of a rat maze, while a Picard double conducts his own kind of experiment on the Enterprise, acting on aspects of Picard’s personality we don’t normally get to see.  A key example of this is the Picard double acting on the real Picard’s past with, and attraction to, Beverly Crusher in a way the real Picard can’t.

 In this sense, the episode is interesting, but falls flat in other areas.  Not only do we not get to really learn what the aliens have learned from their study of leadership and authority, but when Picard temporarily imprisons two of them near the end of the episode, he claims imprisonment is an assault regardless of justification.  I’m sorry, but the Enterprise has a brig, a ship’s jail, to imprison people who misbehave, and it’s been used twice this season already.  Imprisonment is not an assault unless it is mis-used.  What Picard should have been objecting to was abduction and being experimented on, not being imprisoned.  The former would have made sense and been right, while the latter makes him look like a totally bloody hypocrite.  Clearly this aspect of the episode was not well thought through, and as such I give this episode a meagre 6 out of 10.

Episode 19: Captain’s Holiday

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Strongly pressured by the crew of the Enterprise, Captain Picard reluctantly agrees to take a vacation on Risa, a pleasure planet. Shortly after he arrives, he is kissed by a woman he has never met, in her attempt to fend off a Ferengi named Sovak. Sovak accuses Picard of conspiring with the woman, Vash, who has in her possession a data disc that he wants. Picard has no interest in the quarrel and returns to his room to discover two "Vorgons" who identify themselves as time-traveling police agents from the 27th century, searching for a powerful weapon called the Tox Uthat capable of stopping the fusion reactions of a star. The 27th-century scientist who invented it travelled back in time to hide it. According to their historical records, Picard will locate this object on Risa.

 Picard confronts Vash about the Tox Uthat. She claims to be the former assistant of an archaeologist who discovered the location of the Uthat, gave her the disc for safekeeping, and died. Picard and Vash use the information on the disc to determine the Uthat's hiding place. When they arrive at the location where the Uthat is buried, the Vorgons appear to witness the discovery of the Uthat. Sovak then arrives with a phaser rifle and has Picard and Vash excavate the site at gunpoint for hours. However, the Uthat is not there. The Vorgons leave, confused because this doesn't line up with their historical record. Sovak, in his obsession, refuses to believe that the Uthat isn't there, throws away the rifle, and starts digging while Vash and Picard return to the resort.

 After their arrival, the Enterprise returns to pick up Picard. He catches Vash attempting to sneak away from the resort and surmises that she arrived days earlier, located the Uthat, and devised a ruse to fool Sovak into thinking the Uthat was lost. She reveals the hidden Uthat and the Vorgons reappear, demanding it. When Vash suggests that the Vorgons may have ulterior motives, Picard has the Enterprise use the transporter to destroy it. The disappointed Vorgons reveal that Picard has acted just as their records said by destroying the Uthat, admit defeat, and leave. Vash and Picard have a final intimate exchange before they say goodbye to each other.

Review:

This is the second Picard episode on the trot, and if you can bear with the interminable period between Picard’s arrival on Risa and him teaming up with Vash where he’s being very stiff and stubborn, not to mention guest actor Max Grodénchick’s character of Soval being the typical irksome Ferengi, then it’s a good episode.  It’s got an interesting Picard-as-Indiana-Jones vibe to it, and apparently this was born out of Patrick Stewart noting his character had a lack of combat and seduction scenes, something this episode nicely compensates for. Part of this is done through the character of Vash, who makes a great foil for Picard from a romantic, moral and intellectual standpoint, and it’s fun to see the two of them together in this episode.  Another part of it is the introduction of the pleasure planet Risa, which Trek returns to a few times in later episodes/series.

 According to Memory Alpha, Gene Roddenberry was a major fan of the idea of Risa, and he wanted some same-sex couples in the background of the Risa resort scenes, echoing an idea Whoopi Goldberg had for ‘The Offspring’ regarding Guinan teaching Lal about flirting and romance. However, both times the other show-runners nixed this because back then network censors would never approve anything like that.  Doubtless this is why Trek’s first same-sex kiss, and indeed one of the first lesbian kisses on TV ever, didn’t occur until the Deep Space Nine episode ‘Rejoined’, about five-and-a-half years after this episode.  Have to say, this is the first time in a while where Roddenberry’s ideas about a TNG episode sound like good ideas to me.

 My only real criticism of the episode beyond Picard’s initial scenes on Risa and Sovak’s initial scenes generally, and the network nixing of Roddenberry’s wishes, is the lack of any explanation for what the Risian custom of jamaharon.  Throughout this episode and all subsequent uses of Risa in Trek, there is mention of people seeking this by displaying a Risian symbol of sexuality known as a horga'hn, but no one ever explicitly states the meaning of the word.  Now granted, explaining anything connected to sexuality in the world of Trek could be seen as something TV just can’t allow, or at least not back when TNG first brought Risa to TV audiences, but I would think given the supposedly enlightened nature of the world of Trek, someone somewhere could have defined the meaning of this term more explicitly somewhere, even if it was just in some sort of tie-in literature.  After all, there’s been plenty of other tie-in media, such as publishing the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.  Somehow, I think a tie-in book covering everything about a pleasure planet like Risa, including what jamaharon means, would not be an unreasonable idea.  My score for this one is 7 out of 10.

[ayahuasca61-blog]

Ayahuasca benifits

Ayahuasca contains the incredible stimulant dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which is a Class A medication and illicit in the UK. Coming up next is a direct record of one individual's understanding of ayahuasca; note that the experience is diverse for everybody and, similarly as with all medication taking, conveys a component of hazard. It might have genuine ramifications for those with a background marked by psychological wellness issues. Refinery29 not the slightest bit energizes criminal behavior or unsafe conduct.

The abnormal thing is, I generally realized I'd do ayahuasca. A few people say it's a calling; you're either gathered or you're most certainly not. I initially caught wind of it from a former beau while at college. At that point, my recreational medication use hadn't reached out past a couple of spliffs at a bistro in Amsterdam and an unnerving 'whitey' in my old neighborhood which – after a call to my sister, making her aware of the truth that I was most likely passing on – settled itself in a curry house. I requested a large portion of the menu and continued to suck on the finish of a similar chip for over thirty minutes, stressing that my relationship with salvia was well and genuinely finished. I know, I'm an all out platitude. I'm heartbroken.

Be that as it may, ayahuasca was not quite the same as some other hallucinogenic I'd at any point known about. It wasn't recreational yet rather a hallowed procedure to be regarded. An intense, psychoactive, plant-based blend that has recuperating forces and soul breathing life into impacts, the experience guarantees a breakdown of the inner self. The best clarification I've experienced is in Chris Kilham's The Ayahuasca Aircraft testers Handbook: "An aching, part recognition of something suffering and part instinct of future disclosure."

Ayahuasca deciphers from the South American Quechua language as "soul plant" or "plant of the dead" and the function has been drilled for a huge number of years by indigenous individuals who treasure the plant. The flavor of the earthy colored, severe fluid is so powerful and unmistakable that simply considering it carries the flavor to the rear of my throat. The shaman who drives the service, and goes about as a profound guide and defender all through ­what's occasionally an eight-hour-long understanding, should have eaten less carbs on the plant solely and now and then for quite a long time so as to completely incorporate with its characteristics.

From the outset, I'd comprehended ayahuasca through sensationalized, fantastical stories that swayed between confronting devils who'd caution you about your approaching, unexpected passing and coming to the subconscious in all out euphoria with "God". This while spewing your guts out as you cry madly and perhaps poo yourself. I was puzzled. I was unable to get ayahuasca off my brain and over a time of years I wound up irregularly perusing around the theme. I was brought up in a little, common town, in a 500-year-old house with an apparition that my folks had a minister exorcize multiple times. I'm totally serious. So I'd just experienced things I was unable to clarify or justify, and I was available to the possibility of a profound world past the domains of human comprehension.

So there I was, a young lady who'd never to such an extent as looked long and hard at a psychedelic not to mention attempted one, on my approach to drink the most remarkable, mind-adjusting mix the world brought to the table. My sister and I had traveled toward the north of France one dull October evening, to an enormous, natural estate in the wide open which had a place with the group of our companion. We'd masterminded a Peruvian shaman to approach Europe and complete various gathering functions. We welcomed each other in quieted murmurs before being advised to go upstairs and get ready. I felt hungry. I'd been fasting for seven days: no liquor, vinegar, pork or hamburger, no dairy, not all that much, positively no lemon and no sex. I was told this scrub would expand my stately experience. I put agreeable garments on – a progression of layers since I knew ayahuasca changed your internal heat level and I was, around then, worried about being cold. I was loaded up with expectation yet I didn't feel frightened. The house appeared to be swollen with a reinforcing, warm vitality that caused me to feel secured and quiet.

There were 13 of us participating in my first function, including the shaman and his right hand (who'd later disclose to me the two of them accepted they'd been rehearsing these services together for a huge number of years, through the span of numerous lifetimes). We each had a delicate, dark sleeping cushion, pushed against the back dividers to frame a circle. Every sleeping pad accompanied a pad, a cover, a cleanse basin and 10 mapacho cigarettes (it's accepted the shaman can channel vitality through this tobacco and they're smoked when you're having an especially tough time, to accomplish realignment). I likewise took some tissue roll since I was actually very worried about the pooing bit. The room was nearly completely dark, just somewhat lit by candles so I could look as the shaman strolled around the room blowing smoke to guarantee the space was ensured. I tuned in as he opened the service with a petition, bringing in the correct soul partners for our undertaking and appealing to God for everybody's aims.

It's essential to come to ayahuasca with aims – to realize why you're there and to comprehend what you look for. Following an agonizing year of watching my dad deteriorate into death from a mind aneurism and a progression of strokes that left him cerebrum harmed, I was wrestling with the dismissal I'd felt from him during my life. He was a heavy drinker and in spite of his various endeavors to fight his sickness, he'd missed the mark. His passing had doused my untainted expectation that one day I'd have the relationship with him that I profoundly needed. I'd likewise quite recently been dumped by my sweetheart, which came as a colossal stun (in any event to me), and I was battling to grapple with the layers of dismissal I'd encountered from the men I cherished.

Around then, I was overpowered with a sentiment of being trapped, stale. Mindful of and making progress toward a degree of bliss that I realized I'd came to previously, I felt a physical weight limiting me. As I attempted to grasp all the adoration in my life and feel thankful for my numerous favors, poisonous plants of obscure agony and injury twisted around my lower legs and kept me unmoving. I felt incapable to develop and create as an individual yet was excessively decided and idealistic to surrender and tumble into a pit of hopelessness. I was no place young lady. What's more, it was screwing choking out me.

So I sat on that sleeping cushion, prepared to dump my daddy issues and lament the most self image crushing dumping of my life so far. Help, was my aim; I was gotten and I expected to figure out how to move once more. Mother Ayahuasca is responsive and receptive – like absinthe's green pixie, she drives you on a fundamental excursion. Oppose her and you'll endure. Attempt to outmaneuver her and you'll lose. You can bring to mind an individual or a circumstance and, similar to an unending hallway, you can experience entryways and experience twinges connected to your past and the wellspring of your agony. A few people have increasingly decision of where they go; some are constrained into the rooms she feels you have to see. Others have only one substantial entryway that is somewhat slightly open – enough to show that what lies behind are the most unnerving things they will ever know – and they continue returning to that entryway to defy its abhorrences. Everybody's understanding of the plant is extraordinary and one of a kind. Click here ayahuasca

Around 45 minutes subsequent to drinking the ayahuasca, I felt it. I went into a synaesthetic winding of shading and vitality, another universe of extraordinary creatures fueled by tones and emotions and considerations that recently appeared past my creative mind. I sat for some time and attempted to slow myself in this world, fluttering out of it and into the stately hover, at that point once more into ayahuasca once more. I heard my companions begin to cleanse and a profound infection defeated me. Bundles of vitality that felt like fleece tangled in the rear of my throat advanced toward the surface and my skin shivered. I retched for a considerable length of time, however it felt easing and nearly satisfying. I'd look down on account of my youth self and resume a memory from before, overwhelmed by psychological mistreatment and the failure of my dad. I'd hurl and quiver until I'd upchuck once more, dispersing the agony, at that point I'd breakdown dormant onto the sleeping cushion until the following wave came. This experience was steady, it turned over me over and over, another memory to assent to, another cleanse. The following thing I recall is gazing toward the shaman bowing before me, singing an eerie tune which uncovered torment that I can't clarify in words as I cried wildly and unashamedly. There it was: discharge.

Photograph: NEIL FLETCHER AND MATTHEW WARD/GETTY Pictures.

Leaves from Banisteriopsis caapi (Ayahuasca plant).

As the shaman sang his icaro, a sacrosanct melody used to approach explicit spirits or to quicken the vitality in the space, I felt all the torment and hopelessness I'd encountered in my 27 years – yet for the most part I felt a feeling of recuperating. All through the service I saw "cleansing" icaros, which drive a progressively extreme ejection and empower you to alleviate yourself of physical and enthusiastic poisons. Certain individuals from the gathering would fall into a consistent, vicious cleanse during specific icaros. What alarmed me more than anything else were the tunes that set the ladies off. I felt a stinging sensation as the ladies in the room spewed as one and my sister and I extended over, regurgitating and shaking in impeccable concordance. I regularly consider what it was that made the ladies cleanse however didn't influence the men, what sort of passionate poisons we conveyed that they didn't.

I've heard accounts of ayahuasca helping individuals determined to have a terminal ailment to accommodate their despondency; of medication addicts who experience a disclosure, empowering them to vanquish their bad habit; of the youthful sister of a companion who, after a progression of recoveries, confronted losing her life to a devastating dietary problem yet discovered recuperation. Be that as it may, be under no deception – ayahuasca will no

[pardontheglueman]

Shattered: Inside the Doomed Campaign of Hilary Clinton

Just 200 days or so into Donald Trump’s presidency and America is flirting, somewhat comically, with the prospect of nuclear war. Trump, a crooked businessman turned reality T.V. star, turned am-dram leader of the free world, and the equally irrational and despotic leader of North Korea, Kim Jong un, have each spent the past week escalating a preposterous war of words that threatens to death spiral out of control at any minute. Trump is clearly having the time of his life, endlessly bragging over the size of his nuclear arsenal and fantasising out loud about a forthcoming nuclear climax. His latest tweet of terror boasts that ‘Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely’. That Trump should appoint himself judge, jury, and executioner on the matter of sensitive international relations between nuclear powers is enough to make us all soil ourselves. If the Cuban Missile Crisis was near tragedy, the showdown with North Korea is being replayed as farce. A surreal image re-occurs of Trump dolled up as Major Kong from Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove re-enacting the movie’s classic closing scene where a perfectly cast Slim Pickens whooping, hollering and waving a cowboy hat, Bronco rides a nuclear bomb into black and white oblivion!  

As we contemplate an American presidency (quite possibly the last ever!) that seeks to ban Muslims from entering the States, that is on a suicide mission to withdraw health cover from 25 million Americans by repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), and that has already succeeded in curtailing the U.S.A.’s participation in the Paris Climate Accord, all while under Senate and grand jury investigation into the administration’s fraudulent/corrupt/treasonable links with Russia, there is an urgent need to make sense of just how America got itself into this unholy mess.

After all, The Donald didn’t get to be Commander-in-Chief by accident! There is an awful lot of blame to go around; an initially amused, fawning and feeble media, encompassing not only the Murdoch extremists at Fox but also the liberal pundits currently doing penance nightly on CNN. F.B.I. director James Comey played his part too with an inexcusable intervention, just ten days before the election, which gave a game-changing kiss of life to the Republican populist (still reeling, then, from the public airing of his sordid sexual confessions on the Hollywood Access tapes), while Trump’s collusion with Guccifer 2.0 and Julian Assange brought a whole new meaning to the term Axis-of-Evil and ensured that Clinton was continually on the defensive as polling day drew closer.

As for the role of America’s two established parties, the GOP stood squarely behind a candidate with a self-confessed history of sexual assault who just happened to be a lifelong racist, while the tranche of leaked emails from Clinton’s Campaign Chair John Podesta confirmed the suspicions of many activists by revealing how the Democratic National Committee had sought to undermine socialist challenger Bernie Sanders’ pitch for the party nomination. And, finally, there was the small matter of Hilary Clinton’s own culpability in allowing Trump to triumph. How did a supposed presidential shoe-in run such an inept campaign that she contrived to snatch inglorious defeat from the jaws of victory?

Should you wish, Dear Reader, to spend your last few moments on earth boning up on exactly how Clinton fumbled the ball in the act of touching down (rather than adopting the fruitier suggestion of Roger McGough in his classic poem At Lunchtime), then Shattered, authored by a couple of real political insiders in Jonathan Allen (Politico, Bloomberg & Vox) and Amie Parnes (senior White House correspondent for The Hill newspaper), may be just the book to while away a nuclear winter or two!

Allen and Parnes are well versed in their subject, having co-authored HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hilary Clinton in 2014, and have clearly made full use of their contacts book for this sequel. By interviewing more than 100 sources connected to the Clinton campaign (albeit, on the condition of anonymity), Allen & Parnes are able to dissect a campaign which, they contend, was in crisis even before Clinton had officially declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination.

At the heart of this book is the question of how and why a savvy operator like Clinton, a candidate of whom Barrack Obama declared ‘"I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.“, failed to understand and navigate the cultural and political groundswell that was sweeping established neo-liberal politicians into the dustbin of history, while Trump, having read the tea (party) leaves was positioning himself as a pseudo-nationalist friend of the working class (being ultra careful not to ostracise his acolytes in a birther movement that included Klansman David Duke and his neo-Nazi cohorts).

What do you get if you bring together Robby Mook and Hilary Clinton? Answer: Donald Trump as leader of the free world!

The authors are keen to make the case that the Clinton campaign team was deeply divided and, as a result, dysfunctional from the outset, with too many apparatchiks in the warring factions (”The Mook Mafia”, “The State Crew”, “The Consultants” and “The Communications Shop”), all competing to catch the boss’ eye, and all equally afraid to stand up to the prospective president and tell her a few home truths. Shattered is as much the story of the shared confusion and cowardice of Clinton’s key staffers, as it is a story of her historic failure to smash through the ‘glass ceiling’ to become America’s first female president. And therein lays the problem with the book itself.

Weighing in at just over 400 pages, Shattered is a comprehensive, well-sourced, but ultimately dull account of how not to conduct a political campaign. Allen and Parnes certainly get their ducks in a row, confidently navigating the twists and turns of a mind-bogglingly inane race for the Whitehouse, and there are a handful of juicy nuggets for the political nerds and policy wonks to chew the fat over. Nevertheless, despite discovering that Glen Caplin, an ultra-loyal Democrat tasked with the ‘most soul-crushing job in modern political history’- that of sifting the hundreds of thousands of leaked Podesta e-mails in search of the next scandal that could derail the Clinton campaign, worked out of an office dubbed “the room of tears”, or that Bill Clinton’s mysterious on-off mistress was codenamed “the energiser”, this is a political blockbuster that only rarely comes to life on the page. I like Bernie Sanders as much as the next born again Corbynista, but rather too much time (250 pages worth!) is spent on his battling Clinton for the Democratic nomination, and, the authors, in devoting entire chapters establishing Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, and analytics guru, as an improbable fall guy, only serve to delay the entry of the real villain of the piece, Trump, until the reader is almost past caring.  

In all honesty, not even F.Scott Fitzgerald at his pre-Hollywood peak could have polished this worthy study of Mook’s over-reliance on analytical data into something resembling a political thriller, nor indeed turned a polarising figure like Clinton into a more engaging personality and somebody we could all genuinely empathise with. As Clinton confides to an aide, just days before the election, ‘I know I engender bad reactions from people, and I always have. There are some people in whom I bring out the worst. I know that about myself, and I don’t know why that is’. At which point, the reader is sorely tempted to cry out ‘Hey, Hilary, think on, maybe pocketing $225,000 for a speech to the Wall Street bankers who destroyed the world economy has got something to do with it’. Thankfully, the occasional Bill Clinton anecdote or intemperate outburst enlivens a plodding narrative and the writers, for once, are up to the job of capturing the essence of the charismatic “Big Dog”- ‘His handle on politics was as natural as Jimi Hendrix’s feel for the guitar’- being the best line in the whole book.

The media reacts to Trump’s victory - watch out for the bad language!!!!!!

It’s impossible, though, not to feel a degree of empathy for Clinton as election night turned from triumph to disaster and the expected victory party became, instead, a wake for American liberalism - ‘At the start of the night the Javits Center was electric: it had the buzz of a debut performance on Broadway’, until, that is, Steve Schale, a political strategist in Florida called in with a message that Trump’s numbers there were unreal. In rural Polk County, Trump had increased Mitt Romney’s 2012 total by a massive 25,000 votes, while in Pasco County, important because of its Rust Belt retirees, he outperformed Romney by 30,000 votes. ‘You’re going to come up short’ Schale warned his devastated colleagues.

Clinton did, it’s worth remembering, win the popular vote by 2.8 million ballots, despite Jim Comey’s unethical and unprecedented “October surprise”, while in any other presidential election in the nation’s history a Russian stooge like Trump would have been railroaded out of Washington on the first day of campaigning never to return. However, these are strange times, times well beyond Clinton’s understanding. Even though veteran Senator Bernie Sanders ran Clinton close in the race for the Democratic nomination with a grassroots campaign that targeted political elites and globalisation, the Clinton camp ignored the smoke signals from Rust Belt states like Wisconsin, where the radical socialist beat Clinton by 59 percent to 40 percent among white voters (63 percent to 36 percent among men!) in the Democratic primary. Come the presidential run-off with Trump, Clinton was tragically devoid of a strategy to counteract his patriotic pose, still unwilling to re-think neo-liberalism’s role in muck-spreading grotesque levels of inequality across the country, confiding wistfully to old friend Minyon Moore ‘I don’t understand what’s happening with the country, I can’t get my arms around it’.

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