#litmus proof

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Your really are an inspo for fellow trans men and their happiness. You are proof that life can be good and great and full of happiness. Thank you for being you ❤️❤️

Thank you. It's easier when you have supportive cis folks in your life, and I am grateful for my family who has stood up here.

I wish my dad had seen me transition, (he died of a rare cancer when I was pre-T) because he was very conflicted about my identity vs his extremely devout Catholicism. Honestly, time just wasn't in our favor and my mother (who initially felt as he did) now enjoys telling me how much I look and act like my father. (And gets mad at me when I shave my beard for cosplay, lol.)

It's awful sometimes being a walking litmus test, but once you have your self-confidence, it can be freeing to speed-run the parts of a relationship (platonic or otherwise) to see if you have shared values.

So, yeah, life is good for sure. We all have our challenges, and this one is mine and I hope other trans folks don't feel so alone.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Fighting junk fees is "woke"

“Populism” isn’t intrinsically left or right. The distinction between the two is often obscured by jargon, but there’s a simple litmus test (courtesy of Steven Brust): “ask what’s more important: human rights, or property rights. If they say ‘property rights are human rights,’ they’re on the right.”

Which is to say, both the left and the right can be populist, but the populist left seeks to improve peoples’ lives, no matter what that takes, while the populist right is only willing to make the world better when that doesn’t interfere with the interests of property owners.

This is how you get the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire equating publicly produced, free insulin with forcing enslaved Black people to pick cotton in the fields:

https://newrepublic.com/post/174485/libertarian-party-suggests-former-black-lawmaker-pick-crops-free

For right populists, the property rights of pharma giants are human rights, so anything that interferes with those rights is equivalent to any other human rights violation.

This is not only wrong, but it’s also a huge vulnerability in the right populist mindset. It’s a button that, when pushed, produces a reliable and reflexive outrage.

This is essential for the creation, maintenance and expansion of plutocracy. In a plutocracy, a small minority owns most of the property (we live in a plutocracy). By definition, plutocracy isn’t popular, since it’s a system that benefits a small minority at everyone else’s expense. In its natural state, plutocracy is only popular with its winners, and not the vast majority of losers it creates.

So plutocrats need to find ways to get turkeys to vote for Christmas. One important trick is to convince us all that the system is fair, guided by an invisible hand that performs mystic passes over our heads at birth and locates the very best of us and elevates us to the apex of the social pyramid.

But there’s a problem with this: plutocracy is self-sustaining. The story that we’re all just “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” who can rise to the top with hard work and smarts falls flat in the face of the reality that nearly everyone at the top was born there. If the system selects rulers based on merit, and if everyone the system selects was born rich, then the rich must have some genetic trait that makes them destined to rule.

This is why plutocracy always turns into aristocracy: the idea that some people are suited to rule because they have “good blood.” Eugenics is, above all, a way to excuse inequality. Fitness to rule is determined primarily by whose orifice you emerge from, and only secondarily by any obvious competence or skill.

So right wing footsoldiers are mired in a terrible and shameful swamp of self-loathing. By definition, their lack of wealth and power is their own fault, and not merely their fault, but the fault of their genes. Being on the bottom is proof that you deserve to be there. Your failure to rise proves that you don’t deserve to rise.

No wonder the right is so irony-poisoned. Remember 2020, when gun-nuts got “revenge” on gun safety scolds by photographing themselves pointing loaded guns at their own penises? The participants insisted that they were just trolling, and they were…by pointing loaded guns at their dicks:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#musketfuckers

Plutocrats understand that there are limits to irony, and that at a certain point, irony poisoning becomes so acute that your rank-and-file literally start blowing their balls off. To relieve the pressure, plutes scapegoat other people based on their gender, sexual orientation, race, or nationality.

This provides an important resolution to the cognitive dissonance of meritocracy. The reason you’re doing so badly isn’t that you lack merit, it’s that affirmative action has elevated unworthy people to the positions that you deserve. You are a temporarily embarrassed millionaire — but the riches you deserve have been snaffled up by welfare queens and DEI consultants.

Cruelty isn’t the point of culture war bullshit: the point is power. Cruelty is merely the tactic:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

Culture war bullshit is a very reliable way to get turkeys to vote for Christmas. Take the campaign against junk fees, which have ticketmastered every part of your life with “fees” for things like “paying your rent by check” and “not paying your rent by check”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/30/military-industrial-park-service/#booz-allen

There is no broad constituency for junk fees. Scam artists (including scam artists in the C-suites of Fortune 100 companies) love them, sure, but junk fees make everyone else furious.

What’s a plutocrat to do? Well, it turns out that culture war bullshit can make right wingers point (metaphorical) guns at their own junk — all plutocrats need to do is put the word out that getting rid of junk fees is “woke” and low-information right-wing thumbsuckers will demand the right to be charged junk fees.

Here’s an example: one especially pernicious form of junk fee is the “swipe fees” that credit-card companies charge merchants. In an increasingly cashless age, these companies — dominated by the Visa/Mastercard duopoly — have figured out how to scrape 3–5% out of every single retail transaction in the entire fucking economy.

Every merchant you patronize has to charge more — or reduce quality, or both — in order to pay this Danegeld to two of the largest, most profitable companies in the world. Visa/Mastercard have hiked their fees by 40 percent since the pandemic’s start. Forty. Fucking. Percent. Tell me again how greedflation isn’t real?

A bipartisan legislative coalition, led by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) have proposed the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), which will force competition into credit-card routing, putting pressure on the Visa/Mastercard duopoly:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1838/text?s=1&r=3

This should be a no-brainer, but plute spin-doctors have plenty of no-brains to fill up with culture war bullshit. Writing in The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein unpacks an astroturf campaign to save the endangered swipe fee from woke competition advocates:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-08-04-wall-street-culture-war-swipe-fee-reform/

Now, this campaign isn’t particularly sophisticated. It goes like this: Target is a big business that runs a lot of transactions through Visa/Mastercard, so it stands to benefit from competition in payment routing. And Target did a mean woke by selling Pride merch, which makes them groomers. So by fighting swipe fees, Congress is giving woke groomers a government bailout!

It’s literally that stupid. It’s being pushed by a dark money group based in Kansas, which is targeting Senator Marshall’s constituents with mailers that warns voters they’ll “lose their credit card points” because he’s thrown his lot in with “liberal politicians”:

https://punchbowl.news/caf-marshall-mailer-kansas/

The fliers also warn that competition could result in “your financial data could be processed by partners of the Chinese Communist Party” (the bill bans foreign companies from routing transactions, and bans China UnionPay by name).

The fliers are anonymous. The only ghoul shameless enough to put his name on the campaign is Grover Norquist, whose Americans for Tax Reform tells its Christmas-voting-turkeys to “side with consumers, not woke retailers.”

The dark money org pushing this line have placed op-eds in newspapers across red states, comparing transaction routing competition to your kids’ data being snaffled up by Tiktok:

https://www.theflstandard.com/senators-rubio-and-scott-must-protect-the-personal-financial-data-of-floridians/

This nonsense was peddled by League of Southeastern Credit Unions president Samantha Beeler, whose org has spent $20,000 fighting the CCCA, claiming that a “cheaper” system would be “less secure”:

https://disclosurespreview.house.gov/ld/ldxmlrelease/2023/Q2/301493985.xml

But that’s small potatoes. Millions are being spent, right now, lobbying against CCCA — $5m from the American Bankers’ Association, $2m from the Credit Union National Association, another $400k from Mastercard.

For these rentiers, corrupting our government with millions is a stellar bargain if it lets them continue to collect rent every time we spend money. And millions of people who’ll end up paying that will demand the right to do so, provided they’re told that they’re fighting “woke capitalism” and China.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

[Image ID: A mechanical credit card imprinter (AKA 'zipzap') emblazoned with a US flag Punisher logo. It is imprinting a blank credit-card slip with a red Visa card bearing the GOP logo. It sits on a weathered wooden plank table, stained a dark brown.]

[scoobydoodean]

omg i just finished your emma vs amy takes and the subsequent discourse about it (which was so refreshing to see btw!! love it when adults can be Adults and argue about the topic without insulting the other person) and I might get fried for this but that incident aside, do you have any other scene/episode in mind where sam reacts the same way or does the same thing?

(im sorry if this isn't your cup of tea for asks! your takes have been Enlightening)

You mean another situation where Sam shoots a person with supernatural abilities who hasn't shed blood and has a sympathetic backstory without giving them a chance? Not as overtly—Benny in season 8's "Citizen Fang" certainly comes to mind, but even Benny, Sam at least made a show of giving a chance by assigning Martin to keep tabs on him and make sure he didn't do anything wrong before trying to kill him. (Though whether there was conscious or subconscious sabotage involved when Sam chose Martin specifically—someone he knew to be mentally unstable—is certainly a good question given Sam had already made death threats about Benny before then.)

The fact that Sam's behavior in 7.13 "Slice Girls" is pretty unique is really what I want to point out about this episode in the first place—that Sam's actions in "Slice Girls" are inconsistent with his previous behavior and future behavior as far as "good" monster episodes. We can turn to examples such as:

1.14 where Sam insists they try and talk Max down instead of killing him, because Max's murders are a result of extensive abuse.

Lenore and her nest in SPN's seminal "monsters can be good" episode (2.03)

Sam thinking Andy is responsible for the killings in 2.05 but still waiting for proof before acting.

2.09 where Sam insists they not kill someone they think might be infected with Croatoan virus before he turns and tries to kill them because that doesn't give him a chance.

Two episodes where Sam faces off against Gordon because Gordon wants to kill him before Sam kills someone (2.10, 3.07)

2.17 where Sam and Dean search for a cure for Madison, who is not aware that she has been killing people.

4.04 Metamorphosis where Sam is the one who takes the initiative to research Rugarus, learns that they can survive without giving into their urges, and insist they go and talk to him about how his body is changing (lol) so he has the chance to fight the urge to kill and eat people.

5.06 where Sam and Dean oppose Cas who wants to kill Jesse, who is a child who is not aware that he has powers and is hurting people.

6.02 where Sam, even soulless, recognizes the innocence of a shifter baby.

Then we have Amy and Emma in 7.03 and 7.13 respectively.

8.04 where the brothers let Kate the Werewolf go because she was turned against her will and killed the man who turned her in self-defense.

8.09 Citizen Fang (already discussed)

I'm getting lazy but then we also have Magda and Jack Kline—both children with powers, one severely abused, the other the son of the devil with uncontrolled explosive powers that could end the world, both of whom Sam attempts to help work with their abilities.

Dean has a more structured series of personal "rules"—a litmus test we see from the very beginning—one Sam often follows as well, but I'm not sure Sam ever really fully grasps that Dean thinks this way.

Has this person hurt or killed anyone?

Was it on purpose or was it outside of their awareness?

If it wasn't on purpose, are they capable of learning to control their urges?

We see this code as early as 1.12 "Faith":

SAM Wait, what the hell are you talking about Dean, we can't kill Roy. DEAN Sam the guys playing God, he's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book. SAM No. We're not going to kill a human being Dean. We do that we're no better than he is.

Dean applies the same reasoning in 1.14 with Max:

SAM These visions, this whole time -- I wasn't connecting to the Millers, I was connecting to Max! The thing is I don't get why, man. I guess -- because we're so alike? DEAN What are you talking about. The dude's nothing like you. SAM Well. We both have psychic abilities, we both... DEAN Both what? Sam, Max is a monster, he's already killed two people, now he's gunning for a third.

Despite the exact opposite being the typical fandom perception, early on we learn that Sam tends to define a monster by their features/abilities, while Dean defines a monster by their actions. We see the same with Amy—she is "a monster who killed four people" (7.07) . She isn't a monster because of what she is but because of what she did. This again—is also why Dean doesn't even consider killing her son right after her kid swears to kill him one day. We see Dean, in the rare cases where it comes up, is also perfectly fine with taking out human serial killers they stumble across (ex: Thin Man).

Sam will also kill a human serial killer at times (and murderous witches by 3.09), but he reserves the word "monster" to describe individuals with supernatural features/abilities... and I think the fact that Sam's definition of the term differs from Dean's is something neither brother ever fully realizes about the other, leading at several points to arguments where they are talking past each other and do not understand one another. Sam hears "monster" and thinks "Dean is talking about me", when Dean is operating under a completely different definition of the term that is based on the actions of a person.

When Sam is in a headspace where he is thinking of himself as one of those monsters, he shows increased or lessened sympathy in turns. For example, he assumes Andy's guilt in 2.05 because he is panicked about becoming evil himself and is comparing the two of them (but again—still waits for confirmation) but his sympathy for Max in 1.14 comes from the same comparison with himself. Sam completely misrepresents Amy in 7.03 as an addict who relapsed but more generally is "managing", as a way to compare her with himself... when Amy didn't feed on anyone herself and her actions have absolutely nothing to do with addiction or battling "monstrous urges".

I've been bitching and moaning a lot, but I will reemphasize that there is a more sympathetic reason that Sam shoots Emma—Sam and Dean are both crowding up to the diving board at the deep end of the pool in season 7. Dean's grieving and is drinking extremely heavily to cope and Sam is hallucinating. They are both unraveling at the seams. Neither of them is in a place where they trust the other's judgement because they both know themselves and each other to be unstable. So if we imagine a reality where Sam and Dean give Emma a chance, and it doesn't take, Sam assesses himself and Dean to be in no mental state to cope with a potential surprise attack. It's just that Sam also erroneously compares Amy and Emma when they are not the same, and by doing so, frames Dean wanting to spare Emma but killing Amy as hypocrisy (because they are both "monsters") when Dean's actions are perfectly consistent with his personal ethical code and his definition of a "monster"... and Sam's actions aren't.

[wearfinethingsalltoowell]

I wonder if Ed thought Izzy was testing him

We all remember Izzy basically saying “Be Blackbeard or I kill you”, right? Catalyst for the original toe thing we’ve litigated this to death. Izzy threatens his life.

So when he suddenly starts saying “can we talk it through?” it’s reasonable that Ed thought this was a litmus test. Was Blackbeard as back as he claimed to be, or were pieces of Stede’s Ed who wanted to throw a talent show still in there? If Izzy found them, would he follow through on his threat.

When Izzy mentions Stede’s name, Ed takes that as proof that Izzy’s seen through him. Knows that deep down he’s still the guy who fantasizes about marrying the love of his life and does arts and crafts with cake toppers.

So he eliminates the threat. Shoots him, appoints a new first mate who he thinks is loyal to him.

“No more booze, no more drugs, no more Izzy” was Ed committing to recovering, similar to episode 10. He was removing the threats to his mental and physical health from his life. Getting rid of Izzy would allow a fresh start.

Then the crew saves Izzy’s life. The man who had never been anything but a dick to them. They band together to keep him alive. From Ed’s perspective, they take his side. He’s got no one, they chose Izzy.

I don’t think “treacherous liar” was some random insult. Ed’s been betrayed again.

Is it any wonder he sails into the storm? He thinks he has no one. He thinks he’s unlovable.

[romiswired]

El Desperado vs. Jun Kasai vs. Masashi Takeda (Barb Sasaki Produce Barb Sasaki Refereeing Life 25th Anniversary CRAZY FEST)

Living beyond death.

The main thing about the El Desperado vs. Jun Kasai is that, as a series of matches, it obviously tells a story. A tale of Desperado pursuing death but learning to live in the process by facing he who has tricked death countless times and stands as the purest form of a death match wrestler, just because he continues to live on. Kasai is death match wrestling, and not because of his trajectory, but because of his philosophy towards death match.

What makes Kasai so special to me is something that I can't find in the likes of Nick Gage or Nick Mondo. This feeling of fighting through thick and thin to continue breathing and continue doing the sport they love the most is what makes Kasai so legendary.

Desperado vs. Kasai in 2019 was somewhat of a promise that failed to be fulfilled. Desperado wanted Kasai more than anything in the world, because facing such a legendary wrestler would be the litmus test of his own worth as an individual, yet he couldn't achieve that.

Desperado vs. Kasai in 2022 was a poem, a declaration of how important is to live, and how foolish is to search for death, or stating you're going to die if needed. The match itself is Desperado atoning for his sins, as we see Kasai giving him a taste of what he wishes or thinks he does. Kasai's monologue continues to resonate as the mantra of this rivalry/friendship/bond they share.

They share, and they shed blood. After 2022 though, Desperado and Kasai were more of a unit. They worked as an occasional tag team, and in those matches we found a new version of the masked wrestler. He was free from the chains and limitations of the junior heavyweight division and was going all in on every single occasion.

Desperado built a resume of fantastic matches in every promotion *but* New Japan Pro Wrestling. After watching a sick tag team match between him and Kasai against Rina Yamashita and Masashi Takeda, I was kinda disappointed on the way Desperado wrestled in NJPW. He was remarkable, that's for sure, but something was missing.

I don't want to use the word “soul” because Desperado's wrestling style has that in every single part of what constitutes his persona and the enigmatic presence he carries wherever he goes, but it's a concept akin to that. So, when this match appeared in front of me, I was excited for it, because I wanted to see what was the next chapter in Desperado's story with death match wrestling.

I'm going to try to be brief with my review: this match fucks.

I was not hoping to use vulgar terms to explain my liking of this match, but I think it's the most honest way to portray my feelings towards this and how much I loved every single second of it. In this current state of wrestling where I'm more radicalized by the minute in terms of how my taste continues to develop, this match is the definition of fresh air.

It's a match that, on the surface, doesn't seem to care about telling a story. But the story of the match is the match itself and how it is a celebration of everything that made death match wrestling in Japan so characteristic in the 2000s.

At one point it becomes nonsensical violence. The one that doesn't need an explanation more than the nature of the human being and the most timeless form of entertainment and artistic expression: this being pure violence for the sake of it. You stop watching a match, and you start seeing a test of endurance.

A fight for the ages, and the most empiric proof of the indomitable human spirit. Desperado's presence in this match also tells a story of a man who was a fan of death match wrestling but never had the chance to explore it in its finest form, up until this night.

Yes, you could make an argument that Desperado wrestled “death matches” but nothing close to this. The context of this match is what makes it special, as Desperado squares up against the “Crazy Monkey” in Kasai, and the “Crazy Kid” in Takeda. Both individuals synonymous with death, but preachers of life in every single aspect.

We know what Kasai did in 2022, and we know the kind of impact it had on Desperado, but Takeda is also a wrestler that shares that philosophy of “living beyond death”. When he became King of FREEDOMS Champion, he stated that his late wife was watching him somewhere, as he achieved his dream. He used death match wrestling to learn how to live, facing the death of his loved one, and I think that's beautiful and one of the main reasons I adore this match.

This is a fight for survival. These are warriors. This is the thing that makes wrestling so pure to me. The raw emotion, and the universal language that is violence when done the right way. The nature of great death match wrestling. A match so good, so emotional, that exists as a life lesson. A lesson on how to live.

[opera-ghosts]

Claudia Muzio, nicknamed 'the divine' before Maria Callas, as Tosca at the Met (12/16/1918)

From More legendary voices by Douglas, Nigel:

She was born in a house on the Piazza del Duomo in the university town of Pavia, some twenty miles south of Milan, on 7 February 1889, and she was registered as Claudina Versati of unknown parentage. In fact her mother, a chorus singer, and her father, an operatic stage manager named Carlo Muzio, married at some later date, so that by the time their daughter’s career began she had been officially legitimised. She had a strange childhood, much of it spent backstage in the various opera houses where her father worked — all over Italy, at Covent Garden, where he was often engaged for the summer season, and at the Met, where he spent many of his winters. Most of her formal schooling took place in London, which gave her the ability, unusual in an Italian singer, to speak fluent English, and in her late teens she was sent back to live with relatives in Italy. She studied the piano and the harp in a music college in Turin, and subsequently moved to Milan where she continued her piano lessons with a lady named Annetta Casaloni.

Signora Casaloni was a most unusual piano teacher. She was at that time ninety years old, and in her younger days she had been a well-known operatic mezzo; indeed, back in 1851 she had created the role of Maddalena in RIGOLETTO. It is she who is usually credited with the discovery of Muzio’s voice, though Carlo Muzio had long predicted a great career for her in opera. ‘Since she began to toddle’, one journalist reported him as saying, ‘she has been in the wings watching my rehearsals. She knows all the dramatic roles, the lyric roles and the coloratura roles — nothing will come amiss to her.’ Certainly the extraordinary range of parts which Muzio did subsequently undertake, from the coloratura of Gilda in RIGOLETTO to the unbridled dramatic outpourings of Turandot, bears witness to his prescience, and few if any of her roles could be said to have ‘come amiss’.

Muzio’s début took place at Arezzo, near Florence, on 15 January 1910 as Massenet’s Manon, and within a couple of months she was singing Gilda and Traviata in Messina partnered by Tito Schipa— both of them had just celebrated their twenty-first birthdays. Muzio had no difficulty in establishing herself on the circuit of Italy’s smaller opera houses and it can clearly be taken as proof of her exceptional promise that only eighteen months after her début she was invited by the Gramophone Company in Milan to make her first two recordings. One of these, ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’ from LA BOHEME (the other was a passage from LA TRAVIATA), features on a Nimbus recital, NJ 7814, and it provides a fascinating glimpse of a great artist in the making. To set against the brilliant freshness of the tone there is a strange and not entirely attractive edge on the vowel sounds. They are very open and unrounded and in the upper register there is more than a hint of shrillness. The wonderful cornucopia of vocal shadings for which Muzio was to become famous is entirely absent, and although she does attempt an emotional gearchange as she glides into the big tune on ‘Ma quando vien lo sgelo’ — the phrase which to me is the litmus test for whether or not a soprano is worthy of this heaven-sent role — it is almost touchingly unsubtle. The same CD also offers us her recording of this aria made twenty-four years later, within a short time of her death. I shall return to it later; the difference between the two versions encapsulates a lifetime.

My strictures concerning this youthful recording would not be half so severe were it not for the standard which Muzio herself was to set as a mature artist, and the speed of her rise to prominence is a clear indication that even in those early days her virtues greatly outweighed her shortcomings. In the season of 1911-12 she reaped a rich harvest of success in Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme and by 1913 she was considered ready for her début in that holy of holies, La Scala. Her Desdemona there made a deep impression, and she was invited to repeat it the following year in Paris, where she was heard in rehearsal by Mr H. V. Higgins of the Covent Garden Syndicate. Mr Higgins surprised her by asking if she would come over to London the following week and sing Puccini’s Manon, which she did to the delight of one and all — ‘In turn voluptuous, seductive, defiant, passionate and tender, Mlle Muzio promises to be a great acquisition to Italian Opera,’ wrote the Pall Mall Gazette - and it is an indication of the short-term planning which characterised international opera at that time that she stayed in London to sing no less than six different roles at Covent Garden during the next ten weeks. Three times she stepped in as a last-minute replacement — once in OTELLO for Melba, who had to return to Australia because her father had been taken ill, once in LA BOHEME for Claire Dux who had eye trouble, and once in TOSCA for Louise Edvina, who was ‘indisposed’. For the TOSCA she found herself in formidable company — Antonio Scotti as Baron Scarpia and Enrico Caruso as Cavaradossi — but as one of the critics expressed it: ‘Edvina’s misfortune was Miss Claudia Muzio’s opportunity and right excellently she seized it. It was no light ordeal for a young and comparatively inexperienced artist to essay such a role in such circumstances, but Miss Muzio rose gallantly to the occasion and gave a very good account of herself indeed. Her acting and her singing were both really remarkably fine.’

The 1914 season at Covent Garden was an eventful one in many ways. At a Royal Command performance, in the presence of King George V and Queen Mary, a suffragette attempted to address the monarch, and when prevented from doing so locked her arms to a metal rail. According to The Daily Telegraph, when an attendant eventually succeeded in releasing her she struck him for his pains, and when she was bundled out of the building the crowd which had gathered outside ‘denounced her action in vigorous terms’. In sharp contrast to these unseemly goings-on the outstanding event of the season in an operatic rather than a political sense passed unnoticed. As Caruso took his curtain-call after the last performance of TOSCA no one could know that this was his final bow before the London public; nor indeed could anyone have guessed that after such a row of successes as Muzio had enjoyed, her first Covent Garden season would also turn out to have been her last. She was invited to return in 1915, but as things turned out it was to be five years before another season was mounted there, and inexplicably the post-war management never asked her back.

During the first two years of the war Muzio continued to distinguish herself in Italy. In September 1915 she was reunited with Caruso for two performances of PAGLIACCI in the Teatro Dal Verme under the baton of Toscanini, and the following year she was heard by Gatti-Casazza, the manager of the Met, in a piece called MADAME SANS-GENE by Giordano. Though Gatti made a tentative suggestion to her about singing in New York, he carefully refrained from formulating an actual offer, until he returned to the States and found that he was running into soprano trouble. Two of his stars had become unavailable, Lucrezia Bori because of a throat operation and Emmy Destinn because she was under house arrest in Bohemia for disseminating extreme Czech nationalist views. Gatti turned to Claudia Muzio and on 4 December 1916 she was introduced to the New York public as Tosca, once again sharing the stage with Caruso and Scotti. With her acting as much as with her singing she achieved the feat of rousing the traditionally icy Monday evening public to an unusual pitch of enthusiasm — ‘no finer acting has ever been seen on the Metropolitan stage than that offered by Miss Muzio last night,’ wrote the critic of the Morning Telegraph — and for six years she remained one of the company’s most féted prime donne.

One amusing aspect of Muzio’s appearances both at Covent Garden and at the Met was that although she was unknown to the public she was very well known indeed to many of the people backstage. To them she was Carlo Muzio’s little girl whom they had last seen running around amongst the stacks of scenery, and she was warmly welcomed in her new capacity as star performer. Indeed the Met went so far as to negotiate with the Geneva Opera, where Carlo Muzio was currently working, to have him released from his contract so that he and his wife could accompany Claudia to New York, thus turning the whole occasion into something of a family reunion. Carlo, who was a jolly, chatty fellow, unfortunately died the following year, and thereafter Muzio’s mother, who seems to have been Carlo’s exact opposite, tall, silent and forbidding, became Claudia’s constant companion. Several of Muzio’s colleagues felt that it was her mother’s influence which made her for the next ten years almost a recluse in their midst, the two women habitually taking their meals together in the furthest corner of any hotel dining-room and never even nodding to other members of the company as they came in. Frida Leider, who shared a dressing-room with Muzio in Chicago, has left us an intriguing picture of her arriving at the theatre for rehearsals, going straight to her dressing-room, donning an outfit which she used as a sort of working uniform (including hat and gloves), striding on-stage where she marked through the role standing stock still in front of the prompt box, then changing again and leaving the theatre without a word to anyone. The great Russian bass Alexander Kipnis used to recall how rapidly she would vanish from the theatre after a performance, and she herself was quoted in an interview as saying ‘I love my art and I permit nothing to interfere to its disadvantage. I can’t understand how singers can go to suppers and dinners and receptions and still keep in good trim for their work.’ Up to a point she has my sympathy — one hour in a noisy, smoky restaurant after a performance can put your voice under greater strain than three leading roles on the trot — but most opera singers, especially the Italians, are convivial people, and camaraderie is one of the profession’s chief attractions.

It was doubtless this determination of Muzio’s to keep herself to herself during periods of work which gave rise to some of the strange stories which grew up around her. One writer has left a graphic picture of Muzio spending her spare time in a room ‘from which all light was excluded’, brooding tearfully over the machinations of her rivals both in opera and in love; other witnesses, as we shall see, have presented a far more human and appealing picture. A contributory factor to this air of mystery and contradiction surrounding Muzio lies, I think, in the peculiar circumstances of her recording career. The only records which she made by what one might call the ‘normal’ method were the experimental titles of 1911, when her career had hardly begun, and the group of 1934-5 when it was almost over; during her glory years she sang for the Pathé and Edison companies which used a totally different recording technique known as the ��hill-and-dale’ method. The effect of this was that once the machines needed to play the ‘hill-and-dales’ had gone out of fashion so too did the recordings which Muzio had made in her prime, and without them it has been hard to appreciate the potent spell which she used to cast over her listeners. Now, however, thanks to the advent of CD, they have become easily accessible and the story they have to tell is one of boundless fascination.

Thirty-seven titles are to be found on Pearl’s two-disc set GEMM CDS 9072, and thirty-five (all but one of them included on the Pearl disc) on an American two-disc set, Cantabile BIM-705-2.* These recordings were all made between 1920 and 1925 and I must immediately emphasise that in terms of hiss and crackle they demand more tolerance from the listener than most of the other CDs to which I refer in this book. Even the experts (and in this instance the Pearl company turned to one of the best) cannot make a ‘hill-and-dale’ sound as innocuous as a ‘normal’ 78, but I would urge all those interested in the intriguing subtleties of operatic interpretation to let their ears become accustomed to the surface noise — imagine that the singer was recording during a hailstorm and frying an egg the while — and allow this compelling artist to speak to them across the years and through the interference. To take one track at random, it would be hard to listen to Muzio’s rendering of the scena ‘Dove son? Donde vengo?’ from Catalani’s LORELEY and fail to recognise the sheer ability which it reveals. The dramatic singing has an arresting impact, the text is projected not merely with clarity but with genuine theatrical flair, the rapid passages are dispatched with sovereign ease and the tone quality is one of total evenness right up from the thrilling chest notes to the brilliant high C. This was the role in which Muzio made her début in the Teatro Colén, Buenos Aires, on 18 June 1919 and so overwhelming was her success that the piece was revived there specially for her in six subsequent seasons. To quote one of the reviews: ‘Outstanding amongst the cast was the new soprano Claudia Muzio. An elegant figure, beautiful posture, expressive gestures and a winning vocal style, all are hers. Her voice, so flexible and well controlled, though there are limits to its volume, is capable through its great brilliance of giving new life to less robust pieces such as this one of Catalani’s.’ To this day no other soprano has held sway over the Argentinian public as Muzio did. Known as ‘La divina Claudia’ or simply ‘La tnica’, she appeared at the Col6n in the course of ten seasons between 1919 and 1934 in no less than twenty-three different operas, including several whose names would mean nothing to the public of today, but which enjoyed considerable popularity as long as Muzio was there to appear in them.

[...] Another role which Muzio introduced to the Met* was Tatiana in EUGENE ONEGIN, with Giuseppe de Luca in the title-role, and her account of the Letter Scene, unfamiliar though it may sound in Italian, is gripping and intense. In music of this sort, with its very direct emotional appeal, she uses no artifice, but sings with her heart on her sleeve — it comes straight from her to you. In more florid pieces — the two TROVATORE arias, for instance, or the Bolero from I VESPRI SICILIANI — it is inevitable that one should admire the technique as well as the content, but even there the virtuosity never becomes an end in itself. In his review of Muzio’s first Tosca at the Met the critic Richard Aldrich wrote ‘It was to be noticed last night that she was always willing to sacrifice vocal display to the need of colouring a phrase to suit the dramatic intention of the moment’, and that does indeed appear to have been part of her artistic creed. It is _ also the clue to one of her outstanding virtues as an artist, her knack of shedding light on everything she sings, so that the old and trite can sound suddenly new and intriguing.

[...] Another of the New York critics, the representative of the Evening Sun, waxed lyrical about Muzio at her Met début, and he, too, made some interesting points. ‘She was the first Italian woman of importance that New York has heard in the one allItalian melodrama of Puccini.' [...]

But Muzio really was Tosca. Youth, that gem above rubies, shone like a Kohinoor in her modest crown. The drama, for sheer realism of actuality, had not been so visualised in years before.’ I do not know who it was who first bestowed on Muzio the soubriquet of ‘the Duse of Song’,* but it would not have clung to her as it did unless it had hit the nail on the head. Again and again the use of her huge dark Italian eyes, her elegant gestures and the intensity of her stage persona are singled out by the critics for as much praise as her actual singing. She was an impressive figure — at five foot nine inches tall enough, indeed, to be self-conscious about it, especially as so many of her regular partners, Gigli, Schipa, Martinelli and others, were noticeably shorter — and she possessed the ability to create an atmosphere of place and period in her performances. This partly came, no doubt, from the thoroughness with which she researched her roles. For her Tosca costumes she sought out those which Sarah Bernhardt had worn for the original Sardou play and had copies made; and when she was preparing the last of her new roles, Cecilia in Refice’s opera of that name, she read everything she could find about the life of Saint Cecilia, visited the church built over the saint’s old home and the catacombs where her statue lies, and based her costumes on portraits of her in various stained-glass windows. There was, however, much more to Muzio’s impact on stage than these external considerations. She carried with her the aura of the tragedy queen, and I remember a great British connoisseur of opera, Rupert Bruce-Lockhart, once telling me that when the curtain went up on the last act of Muzio’s LA TRAVIATA ‘you could almost smell the sick-room’.

[...] During the period represented by these recordings Muzio’s professional calendar underwent an important change. When she returned to the Met in January 1922 after one of her sojourns in South America she found that much had altered. For six years she had been Caruso’s most regular partner and now he was gone. His place as the company’s leading box-office attraction had been taken by the newly imported Maria Jeritza, who was, both as a performer and as a person, the very antithesis of Claudia Muzio. No longer feeling at home at the Met Muzio managed to get on the wrong side of Gatti-Casazza, who complained to his opposite number at La Scala that Muzio’s South American and Mexican triumphs had turned her head, and that now, unable to bear playing second fiddle to Jeritza, she, who had always been so obliging, had taken to presenting him with ‘tantrums, whims, long faces, rebellious attitudes worthy of a prima donna of forty years ago’. He did not re-engage her, and she transferred her allegiance to Chicago where she shared pride of place with the Scottish lyric soprano Mary Garden, another renowned singing actress, and the Polish dramatic soprano Rosa Raisa, famous for her clarion top notes. Despite the competition of these two established favourites Muzio had no difficulty in winning a secure position in the hearts of her new public, and she remained with the Chicago company until its collapse in 1932.

We remembered Claudia Muzio’s exceptional beauty of voice and gifts of temperament before she won for herself solid renown and substantial wealth in America. We have looked forward to her return, and now we can affirm that no damage has befallen her beyond the ocean, but that, on the contrary, her original gifts now bear the hallmark of perfection. Traviata sung by Muzio represents exquisite musical enjoyment, and it will long remain in the mind.

[pathologicalreid]

litmus test was so good/interesting!!

also chemist!reader and spencer are literally so cute and the banter? hello? (the banter with derek and reader too, telling him to go kick down a door, loved it!!)

spencer calling reader baby woke something in me, I love all the petnames like darling, love, honey but baby? it fits their dynamic so much don’t ask me why I think that way though

reader is so smart, which means you‘re so smart and that’s like really really impressive and admirable and I want to know more!! so if you‘re up for writing more chemist!reader I‘d eat it up!

also the end?? spencer bringing up that Garcia could send reader her favorite baby animal videos? like spencer must know some because he brought it up and you don’t know how much spencer/garcia friendship means to me!!

anyways again very lovely written work of yours, enjoyed it a lot!! <33 💐

i looooooove chemist!reader she is the proof that giving spencer an equally smart partner could've been successful in the show. in my brain she's dylan einstein coded (the bomb tech from season 10)

i agree! baby just makes so much sense for them! i'm usually more of a darling/love/angel type of girl but i love baby for their dynamic.

i'm so flattered that you think i'm smart. i'm my biggest hater so i'm going to skate right past that but chemist!reader will so totally be back i've been obsessed with her since i wrote pure and applied chemistry. something about her comes so easily to me.

the spencer & garcia friendship is so important to me they're best friends and you cant change my mind! the scene where garcia says "oh you love me and i love you. i know i flirt with derek, but that's like an animal blood in the nostrils type of thing. what we have is a pure transcendent blueberry filled-" like that scene lives rent free in my noggin i love them so much.

thank you so much for reading my beautiful perfect lovely anon!!!

[felixcloud6288]

On the homeworks I'm grading there's one question that has become a litmus test for checking if some students might be cheating on their work because if the first result if you google the question is a Youtube video that gives a correct but overly complex proof to the problem.

And their proof at a level of complexity that I would doubt a math PhD student would figure this out themselves, much less a CS undergrad.

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant's Obscure Performances: Sweetnightgoodheart and its time traveling release date(s)

Heya all you David Tennant fans! I'm back with a small thread about a 2001 short film which David starred in called Sweetnightgoodheart (hereafter called SNGH).

SNGH was 9:16 in length. It was written and directed by Dan Zeff and produced by Litmus Productions in association with Bliss.com films for BBC Films. Its original title was Sweetnight Goodheart (with the two words separated) but somewhere along the way, the words were connected.

More about the title, this time from the BFI: "This entertaining short film takes a lighthearted look at the anxiety of modern relationships. The mix up of the title - a play on the familiar WWII song 'Goodnight Sweetheart' - highlights the confusion and miscommunication that is the film's premise."

Now, although I just said it was released in 2001.....if you look at the IMDb entry above very closely, I'm sure you've noticed it says 2005.

This, my friends, is wrong. And I'm about to prove it.

According to the British Film Institute, SNGH was one of the short films which made its premiere in August of 2001 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It was a nominee for Short Films. It also screened at the 45th Regus London Film Festival as part of their Urbania Shorts slot in November of 2001, and was a nominee for Short Cuts & Animation.

Sooooo.....unless David and everyone involved with the project are all time travelers and they somehow filmed the short in 2005 but took it back to 2001 to show at the festivals?....well, you get the picture.

After SNGH's premiere at the two festivals, it was sold to HBO and Cinemax. It was broadcast in the USA (and yes, you read that right!) on Cinemax beginning in August of 2002. It was shown every couple of months or so until July of 2004. It was first aired on HBO beginning in March of 2003 and was broadcast intermittently until June of 2004. Judging by the broadcast listings, it appears both networks used it as short "filler" material in between their full-length movie offerings. And after those two stopped airing it, PBS in the USA then aired it as part of its Imagemakers series in September of 2005. Here are some newspaper blurbs (with the newpaper titles and dates above them) to prove these broadcasts occurred:

Further proof? On Valentine's Day of 2009, the BFI screened SNGH with its other main features. That screening's entry for the short also says it was released in 2001.

I wanted to find out why IMDb would say 2005, so I poked around a bit. Oddly, its release date information specifies "Hungary" (okaaay?), while sources elsewhere have the 2005 date noted as the date of its "world premiere". The Hungary release date might well be accurate, but I'm not sure exactly what world premiere means...besides, it's obviously an error (since we've already shown it aired in the US in 2002 through 2004). So I think we can safely cross out 2005, don't you?

But ohhhh, we're not yet done on the dates, because some sources also give a release date of 2003! This date, however, is much easier to explain. The 2003 date originates from its initial broadcast on BBC2. It aired as a part of a 50-minute program called Ways To Leave Your Lover (hereafter called WTLYL) at 11:20 pm on 25 March 2003. WTLYL featured five 10-minute short films with a common thread - the end of love. in addition to SNGH, the other four films were Stag, Dog, Unscrew, and Dumping Elaine.

So...now that we've taken care of the date mix-up, let's get into the short itself!

SNGH starred David as Pete, and Kate Ashfield - who he would also go on to star with in a 2002 audio drama called The Island and in 2005's Secret Smile - as Juliet. It also starred Diana Hardcastle as Anthea, Cliff Parisi as Colman, and Thusitha Jayasundera as Yasmin. Here is the archived BBC press release for WTLYL before it was aired.

And the plot? Well, if you haven't yet seen SNGH here's a great plot synopsis which might intrigue you enough to chase it down. It's from the 23 March 2003 edition of the Sunday Times: "Dan Zeff's cautionary tale Sweetnightgoodheart observes [how] David Tennant's attempts to ditch his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) spiral out of control." And from the

Here are also a couple of photos!

And while we're at it, here are a number of short summaries - and one longer article from the Evening Standard which includes a photo! - which appeared in various newspapers when WTLYL aired in 2003:

During my research into the origins of SNGH, I've seen the BBC series it featured in variably titled as Ways To Leave Your Lover, and Eight Ways To Leave Your Lover. This discrepancy appears both in print and on the CVs of various actors and crew involved with the project (here's an example). While not confirmed, my belief is Eight Ways to Leave Your Lover was a working title. Five films aired on the program, but I've found an additional two which didn't (which makes me think there was a third whose title I have not been able to ascertain). I believe that at some point in the process, a decision was made to remove three of the films originally scheduled to air, and the name was changed accordingly.

in addition to SNGH, the other four films aired during WTLYL were Stag, Dog, Unscrew, and Dumping Elaine. I didn't find places to watch most of them, but you can see Dog and Dumping Elaine at the links I've provided. Here's what I know about them:

---

Stag - written by Ian Iqbal Rashid and starring Stuart Laing and Nitin Ganatra: a bridegroom wakes up on the morning of his wedding in bed with the best man.

Dog - written by Andrea Arnold and starring Joanne Hill, Freddie Cunliffe and Veronica Valentine: a fifteen year-old girl finds the will to stand up for herself when she witnesses a disturbing and violent incident.

Unscrew - written by Clara Glynn and starring Douglas Henshall and Emma Fielding: a surreal short about a guy whose girlfriend unscrews his penis and takes it with her when they begin separating their belongings after their breakup.

Dumping Elaine - written by Peter Lydon and starring Susan Lynch, Matthew Delamere and Dido Miles: waitresses play Cupid.

---

SNGH is archived at the BFI on VHS and Beta, and in two master forms (16mm/35mm). You can see it there, but I'll save you a trip: while a 4.35G digital copy was made off the master, there's no access to it. The viewing copy MP4 is only 305MB.

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering how you can see it. There are plenty of ways! If you are a registered BFI Screenonline user - and registration is free for users in UK libraries, colleges and universities - you can watch it here (and perhaps download it, though I'm given to understand it's only available for download during certain times). It's also floating around the webs in various forms and qualities on Vimeo, Dailymotion, FilmNow, etc. All of these aren't the greatest of quality, but it's the best we've got. Ah, for a better quality video file taken off the master copy!

But I'd recommend watching it at Dan Zeff's own website.

And that's it for Sweetnightgoodheart. I hope you've enjoyed reading about it as much as I have writing and researching it!

[xgenesisrei]

The Pathway is Wisdom

To teach not merely from what one reads from books or other sources but from what one has personally witnessed and experienced is the most pressing challenge for anyone wishing to be effective in equipping people for theology or ministry.

In today's world of AI-powered education technology, to pass on 'wisdom,' not just crunched data, much less crowdsourced information, is the high call at the end of the day.

Something may be 'true' but more and more students will be asking, "Well, yeah, but does it work? Has it actually changed anything?" A question that can hardly be answered convincingly with clever nomenclatures, second-hand information, and secondary analysis of data sets.

Praxis.

Phronesis.

Personal narratives.

These three are shaping-up to be the litmus test of trustworthy theological education and ministry training in the coming years. Perhaps this can also be the safeguarding needed to avoid the pitfalls of being misled by 'content creators' aka digital influencers mushrooming online with very loud voices but with very little to show in terms of actual personal engagement on the ground. Or finally, this could be the last nail in the coffin with regard to the issue of having instructors in seminary with minimal connection and ministry engagement with a local church.

There is a reason why indigenous people places a great deal of value to 'elders' in the community and why learning has more to do with learning the pathways of the sages and not merely acquiring skills and techniques. Learning, from the ancient pathways, is an embodied process wherein insights flowed from the crucible of both personal failures and triumph. Alongside it, teaching is a privilege given not merely to people with great accomplishments but those whose exceptional capacities is matched with good character worth emulating.

"Subjectivity is truth," says the melancholy Dane, Soren Kierkegaard. A piece of insight that echoes exactly the words of Apostle John, aka the Elder, in one of his letters,

"We write you now about what has always existed, which we have heard, we have seen with our own eyes, we have looked at, and we have touched with our hands. We write to you about the Word that gives life. He who gives life was shown to us. We saw him and can give proof about it. And now we announce to you that he has life that continues forever. He was with God the Father and was shown to us. We announce to you what we have seen and heard, because we want you also to have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." -I John 1:1-3 (NCV)

-Rei Lemuel Crizaldo, brewed with a cup of Sumiyaki coffee (May 30, 2025)

[fyntix]

Licensing Requirements for Real Estate Agents in Canada Compared to Nova Scotia

Becoming a real estate agent in Canada isn’t just about knowing how to close a sale. It’s a regulated profession that demands a firm grasp of laws, ethics, and market dynamics—skills that each province teaches and tests differently. Nova Scotia, in particular, follows its own structured path that sets it apart.

National Overview: Canada's Core Real Estate Licensing Rules

Minimum Age Requirements

Most provinces require you to be at least 18 years old, although a few demand a minimum age of 19. It’s a minor difference but one that can stall plans if overlooked.

Education Essentials

Every aspiring agent must have at least a high school diploma. Some provinces may even recognize foreign education equivalency, provided you get it properly assessed.

Pre-Licensing Education

This phase involves a standardized real estate program that’s rich with content—real estate law, marketing fundamentals, professional conduct, and property management are just the start.

The Exam Gauntlet

After the coursework comes the provincial exam. Typically a multiple-choice format, it’s a litmus test for your understanding of the rules and your readiness to enter the field.

Brokerage Affiliation

Before legally practicing, you must find a sponsoring brokerage. It's not optional. This brokerage supervises your work and often provides hands-on mentoring.

Errors and Omissions Insurance (E&O)

No deal goes forward without risk mitigation. This insurance is mandatory across Canada to protect you—and your clients—against potential legal claims.

Lifelong Learning

Continuing education is a recurring requirement. Whether it's an annual refresher or specialized module, the goal is to keep agents current in a fast-evolving industry.

Nova Scotia’s Licensing Blueprint

Nova Scotia’s real estate path mirrors national guidelines in spirit but diverges in structure and detail.

Age and Legal Status

You must be at least 19 and legally entitled to work in Canada. That’s the gatekeeper before anything else begins.

Core Educational Path

Nova Scotia mandates completion of the Salesperson Licensing Course provided by the Nova Scotia Association of REALTORS® (NSAR). If you're doing it online, wrap it up within six months.

Licensing Examination Specifics

Candidates face the NSREC’s (Nova Scotia Real Estate Commission) licensing exam and must score at least 70%. The pressure is real but fair.

Document Submission

Here’s what you’ll need:

A signed application form.

Proof of age and work eligibility.

A clear criminal background check.

High school credential proof.

Payment of licensing fees.

Brokerage Commitment

Before you can hit the field, a licensed broker must officially agree to hire you. They’ll sign your application, certifying your placement.

E&O Insurance Through NSAR

All agents must obtain Errors and Omissions insurance through NSAR. Your license won’t be fully active until this document is on file with the commission.

Ongoing Requirements

Every licensed agent must take part in annual education updates. It’s not just for compliance—it’s your lifeline to stay sharp in the market.

Cross-Provincial Comparison: Canada vs Nova Scotia

CriteriaCanada (General)Nova ScotiaMinimum Age18–1919EducationHigh school diplomaHigh school + NSAR Salesperson Licensing CourseLicensing ExamProvincial-specificNSREC exam with 70% minimum scoreBrokerage RequirementMandatoryMandatory with signature verificationErrors and Omissions InsuranceRequired nationwideRequired via NSARContinuing EducationVaries by provinceAnnual NSREC-approved courses

Looking for a step-by-step guide to jumpstart your career specifically in Nova Scotia? Here's your definitive roadmap.

Final Thoughts

Canada’s real estate landscape is both uniform and delightfully varied. While the country shares a foundational framework, each province, including Nova Scotia, adds its own flavor through additional coursework, licensing nuances, and procedural requirements. Understanding these distinctions is key to planning a successful real estate career. Whether you're starting fresh or migrating between provinces, staying informed is your first smart investment.

[lovecraftianlatino]

Original Content Week 10 - Post 3

• What are your ideas/suggestions for graphing your data so it's reported in multiple, meaningful ways?

I would say step back from the project and look at the graphs you have and if it’s clearly stating the information you intend to be shown. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the weeds of things as we flesh out the analysis. We can take for granted that the ideas we have in our head and miss they aren’t necessarily connecting as clearly on the page as we think they are.

Double points if you can get someone else to look at the graph(s) and have them tell you what they gleam from the data. While not necessarily a fool proof litmus test, having flesh eyes on things could help point out things you might be missing having it all in your own head.

[therevelationofjohn]

"The Arum." From the Book of Revelation, 9: 7-10.

John continues to explain his use of locusts, which mean "the more things change, the more they stay the same." In addition to stinging like scorprions they had human faces and breastplates of iron and were led by a king whose name Apollyon means "the destruction of perdition."

"The verb ολλυμι (ollumi) means to terminate, kill or destroy, and verb απολλυμι (apollumi) means to destroy or exterminate, specifically by a removal from a natural environment or social collective (this word describes the proverbially "lost" sheep).

This verb may also mean to be extracted by merit of the destruction of whatever was holding one back, and as such it conveys an important principle of evolution, namely that future winners exist in evolutionary stasis as long as they remain overwhelmed by a majority of inferiors. The ancestors of mammals and birds existed long before they could finally arise, and could do so only when the great dinosaurs had been exterminated.

Noun απωλεια (apoleia) means a loss or extermination. Verb συναπολλυμι (sunapollumi) means to jointly exterminate. Noun ολεθρος (olethros) means a termination. Verb ολοθρευω (olothreuo) means to cause termination, and noun ολοθρευτης (olothreutes) describes a terminator."

Survival of the fittest is not how the Seven Days were designed to work. This aspect of the Seven Trumpets has an entirely different approach to social stratification than any other scripture we have read so far:

7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 

9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.

 10 They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).

Locusts that looked like horses, prepared for battle=1927, יטךז‎, yatchaz‎, "to be possessed by God."

Something like crowns of gold on their heads=2083, ךףף, techafff, "overlap."

Faces that resembled human faces=939, ץלט‎, tshlat‎, "take control, limp towards what is out in the open."

Women's hair=1213, יביג‎, yabig, "the Island of the Thirteen."

=

We are not passing the test prescribed by the Torah that proves we can be trusted to engage in mutual coexistence.

This is why God said in the prior frame we are not able to exist yet as Israel in Patmos. We are just too interested in fucking around.

Lion's teeth=427, ת‎ךז‎, "be happy."

What a strange thing to tell the human race. I wonder if this has any meaning at all.

Breastplates of iron=718, ן‎יח‎, "be sincere."

Wings like thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle=3680, ל‎ו‎ף, lev haf, or arum, "a priest's hood lilly," "a nose with a heart."

They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months=6766, ס‎זסו‎, s‎zesu‎, "get the flower going."

The second half of the Kabbalah of the Fifth Angel has to do with the end of the curse of Eden upon Adam and Eve. Other than the horror the Christian faith has inflicted on Jews and gays, it's mistreatment of women is second to none. God says men and women of all genders and orientations can do whatever they want with each other once they pass certain litmus tests of maturity and responsibility.

There is proof of this in the Torah which says after the Fifth Day man can eat what is forbidden but first as John says there has to be a flower:

From Kedoshim:

23 “‘When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as forbidden.[b] For three years you are to consider it forbidden[c]; it must not be eaten. 24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the Lord your God.

This means you stupid FUX that women can serve in any job in any temple or church do any job and hold any office any man can do.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 23: When you enter the land, regard its fruit as forbidden. The Number is 7752, עזהב‎, "an intense goat who is able to sieze the gold."

v. 24: In the Fifth year you may...the Number is 12545, יב‎ךםה, "the dividing line between eras."

Eve got in trouble for playing catch the penis before it was ready, then apparently, Adam got railed for being more than ready, ‎‎so God says once the boy is ready to go for the gold and both partners are able to realize a few things about adult life, it is all right to be sexually active in the manner of one's choosing.

How all of this folds into the Revelation follows. The Values in Gematria are:

v. 7-8: The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. The Number is 9452, טדןב‎ ‎, tdanev, "A thedan," "lead gently in the husband's lovemaking, like a nipple and find out."

v. 9: They had breastplates like iron. The Number is 7497, עדץז, adzz, "do what is right and keep it in place."

v. 10-11: They had a king over them, the King of the Abyss. The Number is 11704, יא‎עד, ya'ed, "the target, the destination, the goal."

The goal is Job, a man with a vision who figures out how and when to revere God and when to be himself, specifically when it comes to matters of sex, partnering, marriage, and bliss.

Thus is the Kabbalah of the Arum, the flower with a nose, contained in the Gemara of the Fifth Angel.

I want the Catholic Church thrown down, I want it to end, I want it taken apart stone by stone, level by level, until ever sin it has committed against every kind of person is punished. There are no excuses permitted in the carrying out of God's sentence against it for the evil it has done to the human race for thousands of years. Your mistakes have been obvious, ignorant, horrific, and egregious and in a way I am glad Pope Francis exposed all of you for the rubbish trash you are. The arguments against gender apartheid and all the forms of discrimination and acrimony in Christianity and Judaism are obvious and they have been right in front of you all this time, including a strong case for the use of birth control until the couple is ready to get pregnant.

You are all dirty and tainted by what Pope Francies and his predecessors have done. Instead of praying for him, I urge to beg God for mercy because I sure hope you get it from no other place.

Put the fat slob in a public nursing home and forget about him. He was giggling like a titmouse when he bragged about what he'd done. And it wasn't a visit to a nursing home or a homeless shelter either.

[s0ftplacetoland]

reality is not a litmus test

Still, we crave the test,

the proof, the measure:

Is the moon closer to its reflection

than to the sky?

Does yesterday’s silence

really carve the sharpness of a blade?

Nothing turns color.

Nothing declares itself.

But the bird still sings,

the branch still bends,

and your pulse taps out

its impossible rhythm.

Proof enough:

neither truth nor lie,

but the space between—

smoke rising,

vanishing,

becoming air.

[rabid-catboy]

You: here is evidence that wearing clothes deemed masculine by society isn’t inherently accepted and doesn’t immediately bestow privilege onto the wearer.

This evidence: comes from the Catholic Church, a powerful institution that 1. Influences many conservatives around the world & 2. Has been historically a litmus test for where the conservatives are at (even Francis, arguably one of the more progressive popes by comparison, has shittalked the trans community & seems to still (?) exclude them from his semi-tolerant view of gay people).

I am genuinely baffled at how this could be twisted out of context like the intent and the source cannot be clearer.

YEAH.......... yeah. Had someone ask why I didn't highlight feminists as proof of this and it's just. Yknow. I think. If people on here actually listened to feminists. I do not think they would be talking about how being a masculine "woman" results in you gaining privilege!!!

Or saying that women's gender expression is soooooooooooooo much less policed than men's tbh. Like. Explain why wearing wakeup is necessary for women to be considered professional then 🎤 explain why when I was in 5th grade and started going through puberty I was endlessly harassed for refusing to wear a bra 🎤 explain why trans women have and are gatekept from accessing HRT unless they are considered feminine enough also tbh 🎤

[originemesis]

@deathinfeathers xxx

A retaliatory swat at the accusing digit before she props a defiant hand atop the arch of a cocked hip. "I am being serious! The first symptom of dementia is exactly this! You start saying wild shit that makes no sense! Then, your flimsy human brain gradually breaks down over a span of a few years to a decade until you are left with little more than a useless, shriveled prune in it's stead! I do not have the time to spoon feed you mushy peas and sponge bathe your disordered ass! ... Also, don't pretend you don't love it when I give you the ol' bishop's finger you fucking nutted all over the place last time!"

A flinch akin to having his hand swatted away from a tray of freshly baked cookies has his stupidly high collar bunching up by where his ears hide under his helmet, and he gives the limp wrist attached a defensive twist as he furtively checks to make sure she didn't scuff the last mani she gave him. "...dementia, babe- really?"

Of course she has to go all diagnostics mode on his ass when he's not serving the full amount of his cunt energy, but he supposes he did inevitably train her into doing so, even if his methods were more aligned in her mirroring his behavior over using it as a litmus test for illnesses of the terminally over 6,000 club. "You do realize I'm immune to all the Earthly ailments now, right? When I tell you I have a stomachache, I'm just trying to get you to rub my back." Which is probably a concept that is going to go right over her head because why would a stomachache equate to a back rub? That was part of the ruse for her never finding out, but cat's out of the fucking bag now. What is she going to single handedly decode next- the 'nah, I don't want anything' from the daily drive through run and then him proceeding to eat all her fries thing?

Her loudly exclaiming the triggers of his projectile nutting in the actual middle of the promenade earns a more virile flinch coupled with his wings snapping around them both like a sound proof tent as he hunches his shoulders to glower down at her inside, talons flexed into vicious tips as if he's considering the ways to mess up her hair so it looks like she just finished giving him mad head inside the tent, but settles for swatting her halo off its axis like a painting angled at just the right amount of wrong to be annoying. "I thought we agreed to NEVER mention that again! I was in a vulnerable spot- I JUST finished watching the Princess Bride, and then YOU took advantage of it!" The wings are definitely blocking the general public from this conversation and phones are not being whipped out at the spectacle.