#she has spent more time as lord president than she ever did travelling with the doctor

[triple1st]

A COUPLE OF NOTES & EXPANDED CANON ON : ROMANA'S  BACKSTORY  + ASCENSION TO THE SEAT OF LORD PRESIDENT .

the gallifreyan chapterhouse to which romana belongs is somewhat unclear, while the gallifrey audio series (a primary source which informs several key events within romana’s life & how i characterize her) unanimously agrees that she is from the house of heartshaven, it maintains a relation with house (of) dvora, romana openly referring to herself as : “ the inheritor of the house of dvora & the custodian of the house of everston . ” certain gallifreyans in the expanded universe also retain their chapterhouse in their full name, such as quences .  leela was also given a gallifreyan name containing her husband andred's chapterhouse, who belonged to the house of redlooms in the novels, later retconned to the house of deeptree in the audio series .  as such & in keeping with the history of house dvora throughout faction paradox, i've combined romana’s houses of origin into a single backstory .

romanadvoratrelundar was loomed as one of 20 cousins of house dvora, the house of devouring hounds, one of the oldest newblood houses of the prydonian chapter (newblood, essentially, refers to gallifreyans loomed utilizing an updated version of the universal biodata imprint which all looms on gallifrey draw from in order to weave new gallifreyans .  they possess a secondary heart & better control of their regeneration, something romana displays expertly in destiny of the daleks . every couple of centuries, this universal biodata imprint is updated with new genetic information drawn from the matrix as a way to replicate the natural evolutionary process undergone by every other living species, as all gallifreyans are sterile & thus any natural process is forcibly recreated mechanically using rassilon’s gift of technology) .  house dvora was among the most prideful & powerful chapterhouses in the prydonian academy .  it had, for generations now, ruthlessly & efficiently trained its 'children' for the roles of high office within the capitol .  it was infamous for the steel & ice present within the hearts of its members, a result of their upbringing .  impenetrable  ironic & sharp around the edges, all of house dvora’s cousins strove to achieve great things, obtain the unimaginable power granted by gallifrey’s highest office all to make house dvora & their kithriarch proud .

romana was no different, not at first, she was loomed in the generation following morbius, the last successor of house dvora who went on to become lord president of the high council of time lords, only a few years into his presidency .  she shined brightly among her cousins, commanding, beautiful, smart, endless potential following in her path .  romana was considered by the house kithriarch (the head of the household, its caretaker, responsible for the social well-being of each family member) to be dvora’s finest, the only cousin of twenty who would bring great pride to the house & become everything it wanted of her .  however, romana never felt the pride house dvora took in her .  much like her cousins, she was kept under strict expectations, monitored by her mechanical caretakers, pushed to her limits by the voices trapped within the walls of the house, whispering of the great legacy of her ancestors & their disappointment should she ever disobey .  house dvora’s treatment would only worsen when romana showed a streak of compassion for her fellow cousins, helping them out on one of many brain-buffing (teaching, essentially) exercises .  such things are unbecoming of members of house dvora .  like all gallifreyans, they are taught the values of selfishness, to seek only their own interests first & to curb those interests in relation to the house itself .  romana’s behavior was considered a malfunction of the house loom, an error of birth & something the house kithriarch would take personal responsibility to fix .

fortunately, he never got the chace, as this coincided with the imperator crisis, lord president morbius showing his true nature, putting gallifrey on a warpath with the rest of the universe & overthrowing its anti-interventionist policy .  upon his defeat by the alliance formed by the high council & his subsequent trial & execution by the sisterhood of karn, house dvora would devour itself in shame .  shame to have produced such a warmongering tyrant, shame to have brought disaster & ruin to gallifrey, shame to have had its name tarnished by one of its star pupils . romana, along with any surviving cousins who were not present within the walls of their house as it collapsed in on itself, were taken by the prydonian chapter castellan & dispersed among other surviving chapterhouses .  she became a foundling of the house of heartshaven, one of 35 cousins, & her memories of house dvora were lost when her brain-buffing was readjusted for her new home .  heartshaven was a lesser known house whose members became archivists, officials of more mundane offices, keepers of the matrix & even chancellery guards .  she spent a total of fifty years within the walls of heartshaven, only twenty or so within dvora, still the brightest star among her cousins, with her only surviving memories of house dvora being of the cold breeze that passed through its halls, bitting into her skin, knowing it was the house itself trying to make her feel small .  the harsh voice of its kithriarch, the thunder & fury that followed it, the house slamming doors in its wake .  heartshaven, by comparison, was infinitely warmer .  a candle-lit fire, minuscule & never quite enough on its own, but much greater by contrast .  it was through heartshaven that romana later found work as an archivist in the bureau of ancient records, a library within the capitol which kept volumes of gallifreyan history dating back to the dark times .

the legacy of house dvora would follow romana into the prydonian academy & into the early days of her presidency . the reputation of dvora’s cousins as cold & untouchable landing her the nickname of 'the ice maiden' (probably less gendered in the original gallifreyan language, given that in the expanded universe gallifreyans are generally portrayed to be either genderless or ambiguous) .  she would try disprove these notions, rebel against them, befriend her classmates, sartia among them whom romana considered her best friend only to realize sartia's hatred for her upon being reunited during her travels with the doctor . she found that the time lord academy itself encouraged her to curb her compassion, fend only for herself as to survive as the sole victor among its pupils .  it would only be upon her travels with the doctor that romana’s compassion & care would be allowed to bloom, gifted another perspective beyond that of rigid gallifreyan socialization .  it was a perspective she would later want to impart upon her fellow time lords, wanting them to see the universe as she does, not just coldly observe but to covet & care for all that which gallifrey deems beneath itself & why when she returned to her home planet, romana found herself a seat on the high council & ascended to the office of lord president . though she would never admit it, having travelled with the doctor certainly helped her political prospects, given he left the presidency vacant on multiple occasions despite the time lords insisting upon it . through assassination plots, bids for immortality & one brief stint in office the doctor was unwilling to fulfill his duties, he proved he could never be trusted . who better then than a time lord that had been his travelling companion ?

her enemies in the high council, however, insisted upon romana's inheritance as an argument against her inauguration . that the malfunction in the breeding engines that led to morbius' ascendancy meant all of house dvora's children were tainted & to allow any one of its survivors his power would be tantamount to suicide . though other more conservative elements within the capitol considered the prospect of romana's presidency a return to form, despite the risk that morbius' legacy lives on within her . he understood the power gallifrey held over the universe . at every step of the electoral process romana stressed that she was more of heartshaven than dvora, that everything house dvora represented died when the house sunk into the ground in shame & anguish & that she was defined by her adoptive house more than anything . it's what she wanted to believe, of course, that she was no tyrant & nothing of morbius survived through her or any other of dvora's lost children, but it was never the imperator romana should have feared . morbius lived on through history, through his cult & its adherents, pandora was erased from time itself & she would come to define the first term of romana's presidency, plunging gallifrey into a second civil war .

[luckyjak]

Why I Don’t Ship Widojest: A Master Post

An anon sent me an ask about this topic, and I debated for quite a bit about how to answer it. Then I decided the best way was to do a long post like this. I put a lot of thought into why I don’t like it, and I thought to share it.

A few things: 1) I am not telling you not to ship it. The goal of this is not to say “Don’t ship Widojest! It is a bad ship and you are a bad person for shipping it!” That is not my goal, okay? The internet and fandom in particular is meant for fun, and if you enjoy Widojest then more power to you! Don’t let me or anyone else stop your fun! Lord knows I have shipped significantly more problematic things. All I ask is that you tag shit more but that’s beside the point.

2) I am not particularly interested in argument. You are not likely to change my mind. I am not trying to be hostile, but if you know reading this is going to piss you off, then don’t read it. A question was asked of me, and so I thought to share my opinion. Unfortunately for everyone involved I am a high school English teacher, and so I cannot think about anything without completely overthinking it.

About my shipping preferences: generally, I like all the ships! I was particularly fond of Widomauk before Molly died, and I now I really enjoy Shadowgast, but I also like Fjorclay, Fjester, Beaujester, Beauyasha, Widofjord, Clayleb, Lavorclay, and, as the only person on earth, Yasha/Caleb. Hell, if Astrid gets a good redemption arc? Caleb/Astrid or even Caleb/Astrid/Edowulf. Any of those ships could become canon and I’d be tickled pink! You can even throw Nott into the mix, even though I mostly ship her with her husband. Nott/Fjord? Delightful. Nott/Caleb? Weird flex but why not? Nott/Jester? Absolutely! They are the best detectives!

I just don’t like Widojest and I don’t want it to be canon, and here’s why:

Doyalist Reasons First:

1) Laura and Liam played twins for years, still act like siblings even though they aren’t related by blood, and it squicks me to think of them together romantically.

Laura and Liam are fantastic actors. If they were hired to play a romantic couple, I have no doubt in my mind they could knock it out of the park.

But why on earth would they want to pretend to be a romantic couple, in a game they both play for fun? 

It would be weird. I play D&D with several guys I consider my brothers, and I can’t imagine pretending to romance either of them in d&d for that same reason. It would be weird. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be weird for Liam and Laura. Maybe they are more dedicated to their RP, and they’d be able to push that aside for the sake of fictional romance. But for me, that would be the last thing I’d want to play, and I suppose I project that onto Laura/Liam.

2) A lot of “evidence” for the ship is the way Liam looks at Laura.

To which I say...did you watch Vox Machina?

That’s how Liam looks at Laura all the time. He’s the president of her fanclub. He’s her twinsie. He always looks at her with hearteyes. I have a hard time seeing that as “evidence” for him having feelings for her when...that’s just what his face looks like.

Now, for Watsion reasons:

3) It has all the benefits for Caleb, and none for Jester

Seriously. What does Jester get out of a relationship with Caleb?

Don’t say someone who understands her, because Caleb certainly doesn’t. In fact, the only person who routinely “gets” Jester is Beau. (see: their conversation on the ship.)

Lots of people accuse Widojest as being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl ship because...let’s be realistic, it has all the makings of one. Tortured, broody man meets young, innocent girl who teaches him to enjoy life once again? Wikipedia’s definition is “[girl with] eccentric personality quirks and are unabashedly girlish. They invariably serve as the romantic interest for a (most often brooding or depressed) male protagonist.” Guys, that is textbook Manic Pixie Dream Girl! It gets even worse because Jester’s character is a healer! You want her to heal him? That is squicky!

And yeah, I trust Liam and Laura to be more nuanced than that, but do you know who I absolutely do not trust to be more nuanced?

The fandom. The fandom that is already producing mass amounts of Manic Pixie Dream Girl fanfic. And as that’s where I spend a lot of my free time...egads. I do not want that.

The few Widojest fics I have read (which, admittedly, are not a lot, because again, I don’t like the ship. The few I have read have been tagged as gen and then come to find out, weren’t.) have the distinct problem of woobie-fying Caleb so that Jester can take care of him, and gosh, I do not want that to become a trend. 

4) Age Gap

Yes, thirteen years is not that major of an age gap. Yes, Fjord/Jester also have a large age gap.

However, there is a world of difference between “20 year old girl displays romantic interest in a 30 year old man, who decides he likes her back after getting to know her for months” vs “33 year old man decides to pursue a 20 year old woman after they danced one time when he was drunk and held hands and she showed general concern for his well-being.” One is decidedly more creepy.

(And would Jester be the one to pursue a relationship with Caleb? I almost think she’d have to, but again, why would Jester ever pursue Caleb when Fjord/Beau are right there.)

(Also, side note that I thought about making it’s own point but then decided it was petty: if Jester’s type is Fjord--tall, broad-shouldered, dark haired, muscled, then Caleb--skinny, red-head, shorter than Fjord--decidedly isn’t her type.

You know who is tall, dark, and handsome though? Beau.) 

And do not say Jester is mature for her age, because she absolutely isn’t! In fact, the whole point of her character is that she’s not mature, she’s very immature and childish on account of her being locked away and being incredibly sheltered most of her life! 

Also not a good excuse: Caleb spent 11 years in the asylum and therefore he’s only mentally in his 20s. Uh, no he’s not. He was in an asylum: he was not brain dead. He lived those years. He might’ve been crazy, but he was alive then. Nothing Liam’s done suggests that Caleb is mentally in his 20′s.

5) What would they even talk about?

This is probably actually the one that bothers me the most out of all these reasons, but uh....what would Caleb and Jester talk about, if they were in a relationship together?

Seriously.

They could talk about books? But Jester only ever reads terrible romance and smut. We saw when she tried to pay attention to the dunamancy lessons that she struggles to be interested in that academic stuff that is Caleb’s bread and butter. They could talk about their childhoods? That will go over well. Jester was locked away from society and Caleb straight up murdered his beloved parents. If they manage to avoid that, I’m sure they could fight again over income, what with Jester being a rich kid and Caleb being a poor farm boy. Pranking? Caleb enjoys a good prank now and again, but I can only imagine he’d tolerate getting banned from so many libraries.

They are a cat and a dog, literally. Caleb is an introvert and his idea of a good time is a quiet night at home with a good book. Jester’s idea of a good time is a party with lots of people! Yet I’m supposed to believe they’d have a happy and fulfilling relationship? Don’t get me wrong, many introverts and extroverts do get married in real life, but like...I have a hard time seeing this one working out. How many dicks do you think Jester draws in his spellbooks--which are expensive and time-consuming and require precise work--before that becomes a point of contention? 

6) He doesn’t trust her enough to tell her his secrets

Hey quick poll! Who in the Mighty Nein doesn’t know that Caleb murdered his parents?

Fjord. Caduceus. And look, Jester.

I have a hard time buying that he sees her romantically when he can’t even tell her one of the biggest things about him. And he’s known her for months at this point.

If I liked a guy, and I found out he had this big secret, and he had told Beau but not me this secret? I would think he didn’t trust me.

I suppose you could argue that he’s trying to protect her. But then that just goes back into the whole “he doesn’t trust her” argument. He even had the opportunity to and he didn’t during their whole hand-holding thing a few episodes ago!

7) What does their ending look like? 

Listen, my ideal ending for Caleb at the moment is “maybe after ten years of friendship he lets Essek tenderly hold his hand for just a moment but no longer” but that’s just me. I see a lot of people who seem to think Caleb’s going to settle down and marry Jester and they are going to have kids, and I just--

Caleb? Having children? Caleb, who murdered his parents and has severe PTSD surrounding that? Caleb, who was abused by his mentor daily for many years? You want to give that Caleb children??? Children who he would constantly worry may grow up to kill him, like he did his own parents, or worse, that he’d do something to accidentally hurt them in a fit of madness?

I could see Caleb maybe adopting a kid if one was forced onto him, but I cannot see him going “ah yes we should procreate!” 

Jester, meanwhile, needs like approximately fifteen kids ten years from now, I think. She’d love them. She’d just adopt an orphanage and let the kids run wild and be the best at playing games with them.

Also, character arcs are important. Because Caleb’s ideal ending is stability and Jester’s is exploration.

Caleb, traumatized child soldier who has spent the past 15 years in an asylum and also fighting for his life, and before that spent time traveling between the Zemni Fields, Ikithon’s home in the country, and the Empire’s Capitol, who then escaped the asylum and spent all of his time running, trying to avoid being caught by Ikithon. The best ending for Caleb is to find peace; peace that involves not having to move around anymore, and having a home again, something he hasn’t had in almost twenty years. Maybe that home is a tower in Nicodranas. Maybe it’s a house in Xhoras with six other people. Maybe it’s a quiet bookstore in Zadash, or a little cabin in the Zemni Fields. A garden/graveyard in the woods. Either way, it doesn’t involve a lot of travel from place to place.

Meanwhile, Jester, who was trapped in exactly one place for her entire life, deserves a chance to explore the world. Even when the Mighty Nein disband, I can’t see Jester being happy to just go back to Nicodranas and stay there for the rest of her life. She may settle down eventually, but uhhh, not for several decades, I don’t think. Part of why my two big ships for her are Fjord and Beau: Fjord wants to be a sailor again, I think, which involves travelling the world, so I could see Jester going out with him. Beau, likewise, is an Expositor whose job is to seek out corruption, which again, means travelling, which Jester would be happy to do with her. Hell, the three of them could go together, sailing and punching evil for all of time! It would be great!

(Also: her god is called the TRAVELER why would you want her to settle down and be a mom??? What part of her story makes you think she needs to stay in one place?)

Lastly

I apologize if this post offends anyone. I’ve just been thinking about it for a while, and while Widojest as a ship has surged in popularity, I suppose I wanted to make a counterpoint about my feelings towards the ship. This isn’t meant as an attack on anyone, again, and please, if you like the ship then don’t look at this as a reason to stop liking it! Fandom is for fun! Keep liking what you like!

And I can’t promise I’m always going to feel this way about the ship--hell, the VOD of Thursday’s episode may come out on Monday, and I may watch it and be converted myself. Who knows! I didn’t like Vax/Keyleth at first either, but it grew on me and now it’s one of my favorites from Vox Machina.

(ALTHOUGH Mr. O’brien I swear to God if you romance Jester while flirting with Essek in a direct parallel to Keyleth/Vax/Gilmore I’m going to fly to LA just to punch you.)

Part of me wonders too if it just comes down to character interpretation, if there is something about their characters that is clicking for some people but isn’t for me. Admittedly, I love Caleb and Jester’s friendship, and I see them more as growing like siblings that romantically, but I’ve been wrong before and who knows, I may be wrong again. But if it is a character interpretation, I just wonder what they are seeing about the characters that squicks me but appeals to them.

[yasbxxgie]

Chris Rock wasn’t sure if he was hiding out or not.

On the Friday before Labor Day, he was speaking by phone from Yellow Springs, Ohio, the rustic village where he’d gone to spend time with Dave Chappelle, his friend and fellow comedian. Rock had previously traveled there in July to perform for a small, socially distanced audience as part of an outdoor comedy series Chappelle has been hosting. But Rock couldn’t decide if this return visit was meant to be clandestine. “I don’t know if it’s a secret,” he said quietly. “Maybe it is out here.” He couldn’t easily find the words to describe what he’d been doing just before this trip, either. “I mean, I guess I’ve been acting,” he said. After a short pause, he added, at a more assuredly Rock-like volume: “In a pandemic.”

In August, Rock had gone to Chicago to finish filming the fourth season of “Fargo,” the supremely arch FX crime drama, which makes its debut on Sept. 27. The show’s creator, Noah Hawley, had chosen him to star in its latest story line, set in the dapper gangland of 1950s Kansas City, Mo., and which casts Rock — the indefatigable standup and comic actor — as a mannered, methodical crime lord named Loy Cannon.

Maybe in a different universe where the show premiered in April as originally planned, the “Fargo” role has already put the 55-year-old Rock on a whole new career trajectory, opening the door to more serious and substantial roles and silencing the chorus of fans who still knowingly ask him for “one rib.” Maybe in this universe it still will.

But when the coronavirus pandemic struck, production on “Fargo” was halted in March, and Rock and his co-stars (including Jason Schwartzman, Ben Whishaw, Jessie Buckley and Andrew Bird) were all sent packing. Then at the end of the summer, Rock was summoned back to set, first to spend a week in quarantine and then to complete his acting work under new protocols and not a little bit of stress.

Other prominent projects of his have also been pushed back — he has a starring role in “Spiral,” a reboot of the “Saw” horror series, whose release was postponed a full year to May 2021. But Rock wasn’t mourning the delay of any professional gratification, having spent the spring and summer realigning his values for the new reality of pandemic life. “Maybe for like a day or two, I was like, ‘Oh, me,’” he said with an exaggerated whimper. “But honestly, it was more like, I’ve got to get to my kids and make sure my family is safe.”

In that time he has also heard countless Americans echoing the lesson he offered in the opening minutes of his 2018 standup special, “Tamborine,” where he spoke humorously but emphatically about the ongoing incidents of police violence against Black people. As he said in that routine, law enforcement was among the professions that simply cannot allow “a few bad apples”: “American Airlines can’t be like, ‘You know, most of our pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples that like to crash in the mountains.’”

Now Rock was feeling mistrustful about the power of his comedy to do anything other than entertain, and unsure when he would get to perform it again for large audiences. And he was admittedly wary about this very interview, explaining with a chuckle that when he talks to the print media, he said, “You have to be comfortable with being boring. If you’re not comfortable with being boring, occasionally, you’re going to get in trouble.”

Not that Rock was ever boring in a wide-ranging conversation that encompassed “Fargo” and his broader career; his latest observations on a nation grappling simultaneously with a pandemic and a reinvigorated longing for racial equality; the resurfacing of a past video where Jimmy Fallon impersonated him in blackface; and of course, President Trump. (“No one has less compassion for humans than a landlord,” he said.) Even in the absence of an audience, Rock was candid, increasingly animated, uncommonly nimble and always looking for the laugh. Now, let the trouble begin.

These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Was there a time when you thought this “Fargo” season was never going to get finished and that the series might not be seen for a long time, if ever?

I’ve had weird little things in my career — I was supposed to do this Bob Altman movie, “Hands on a Hard Body.” We were on the phone a lot, going over my character and I was so excited about doing the movie. And he died. I was supposed to be Jimmy Olsen in “Superman” with Nic Cage [“Superman Lives,” which was canceled in the late 1990s]. I remember going to Warner Bros., doing a costume fitting. Hanging out with Tim [Burton], who I idolized. Like, I’m hanging out with the guy that made “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and he’s showing me the models of the sets for “Superman.” So yeah, I definitely thought there’s a chance this might not happen. Fortunately for everyone involved, that was not the case.

How did Noah Hawley approach you about “Fargo”?

It was a weird day, because it was the day of the Emmy nominations and I didn’t get nominated for my last special [“Tamborine”]. I wouldn’t say I was down down, but I was a little disappointed, and then I got a call from my agent that Noah Hawley wanted to meet with me.

I get acting offers, but I get more hosting offers than anything. It is not uncommon for somebody to want me to do a high-priced wedding or bar mitzvah — a few years ago, I officiated the wedding of Daniel Ek, the owner of Spotify, and Bruno Mars was the wedding band. I think I sat next to [Mark] Zuckerberg at the reception. [Laughs.] I just assumed Noah had some crazy request like that. The only reason I went is because I love “Fargo.” And I get there and he offers me this part.

How did he explain the character of Loy Cannon to you?

He said 1950s gangster, so I know exactly who he’s talking about. My father was born in 1933. It’s not like “12 Years a Slave.” It’s literally a guy my grandfather’s age.

In the first episode, we see Loy pitching the idea for credit cards to an uninterested white banker. Is he a man who wants to be part of polite society, but it doesn’t want him?

I mean, I remember having a production overall deal at HBO and I came in with one person to sell a talk show with them. And they wouldn’t. That person’s name is Wendy Williams. [Laughs.] That’s $100 million that I never made. I was selling Leslie Jones to people, to agents and managers, for 10 years before she got on “S.N.L.” I’m very familiar with selling a no-brainer that people go, “Huh? Why that?”

Is he different from characters you’ve played before, because he’s older and we don’t know how much longer he’s going to be sitting on his throne?

Yeah, it’s one of those jobs: Because of how well it pays, you could be killed at any moment. It is the best part I’ve ever, ever, ever had. I hope it’s not the best part I ever have. Hey, Morgan Freeman’s done a hundred movies since “Shawshank Redemption.” But that’s the best part he ever had.

This role feels like it’s declaring itself as being outside the realm of what you’re best known for. Are you thinking differently about your acting career and where you hope to go with it?

My casting isn’t as weird as it seems if you really watch “Fargo.” Key and Peele are in the first season and Brad Garrett’s amazing in Season 2. Hey, it’s my turn, OK? I want to work on good stuff. Everything I’ve done hasn’t been great, but I was always striving for greatness. I loved “Marriage Story.” I’d kill for something like that. [Laughs.] You see what [Adam] Sandler did with “Uncut Gems.” But you’ve got to get the call and be ready when your number’s called.

Your 2014 film “Top Five,” which you wrote, directed and starred in, was very personal for you. Do you want to make more movies like that?

That’s a vein I intend to keep going in. When I made “Top Five,” I got divorced. And like most people that get divorced, I needed money. [Laughs.] I had to pay for stuff. I also went on tour. Because of Covid, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any serious touring until 2022. So I’m a writer-director-actor right now. I’m working on some scripts in the “Top Five” vein and I honestly hope to direct, some time after the new year.

How much of “Fargo” did you have to finish during the pandemic?

It was like an episode and a half — the whole last episode, and some scenes from the one before it. It’s weird, quarantine when you’re acting. Acting can be isolating, anyway, and then you throw quarantine into that. You’re in solitary confinement with Netflix and Uber Eats. But let’s not get it too twisted. Somebody that’s in solitary is like, shut the [expletive] up. And then to actually act and get tested every other day, and wear a mask whenever you’re not saying your lines. And be cognizant of which zone you’re in. Because for Zone A, everyone’s been tested, but in Zone B, not everyone’s been tested. Zone C is just, everyone’s got Covid.

You performed at one of Chappelle’s live shows in July. What was that like for you?

When you’re in the clubs, you learn the rain crowd is the best crowd. Any time it’s raining, they really want to be there. The pandemic crowd is really good. “Dude, not only do we want to be here, there is nothing else to do. There’s nothing else to watch. Thank you.”

What did you talk about?

I talked about our political whatever. America. Part of the reason we’re in the predicament we’re in is, the president’s a landlord. No one has less compassion for humans than a landlord. [Laughs.] And we’re shocked he’s not engaged.

Did you ever see that movie “The Last Emperor,” where like a 5-year-old is the emperor of China? There’s a kid and he’s the king. So I’m like, it’s all the Democrats’ fault. Because you knew that the emperor was 5 years old. And when the emperor’s 5 years old, they only lead in theory. There’s usually an adult who’s like, “OK, this is what we’re really going to do.” And it was totally up to Pelosi and the Democrats. Their thing was, “We’re going to get him impeached,” which was never going to happen. You let the pandemic come in. Yes, we can blame Trump, but he’s really the 5-year-old.

Put it this way: Republicans tell outright lies. Democrats leave out key pieces of the truth that would lead to a more nuanced argument. In a sense, it’s all fake news.

Looking back at the beginning of “Tamborine,” the first several minutes is you talking about police violence and raising Black children in a racist country. Does it feel futile when you discuss these issues and it doesn’t change anything?

I remember when “Tamborine” dropped, I got a lot of flak over that cop thing. There was a lot of people trying to start a fire that never really picked up. It’s so weird that, two years later, it’s right on. I remember watching the news and Trump said “bad apples.” It was like, you did it! You did it!

But you told people two years ago —

I did. But so did Public Enemy. So did KRS-One. So did Marvin Gaye. There’s something about seeing things on camera. If O.J. kills Nicole on camera, the trial is two days. [Laughs.] It’s two days trying to figure out what kind of cell he deserves. It’s just Johnnie going, [Johnnie Cochran voice] “Well I think he needs at least a 12-by-8. Can he have ESPN?” That would be the whole trial.

But there was videotape of Rodney King’s beating, too. It doesn’t assure any particular outcome.

Yeah, man. Put it this way: This is the second great civil rights movement. And Dr. King and those guys were amazing. But they knew nothing about money. They didn’t ask for anything. At the end of the day, the things we got — it was just, hey, can you guys be humane? All we got was, like, humanity. If they had it to do all over again, in hindsight, there would be some attention paid to the financial disparity of all the years of — let’s not even count slavery, let’s just count Jim Crow.

You’re talking about a system that really didn’t end until about 1973. And I’m born in ’65 in South Carolina. I’m probably in a segregated wing of a hospital — there’s no way in the world I was next to a white baby. Even if the hospital wasn’t segregated, I was in a whole other room and that room didn’t have the good milk and the good sheets. My parents couldn’t own property in certain neighborhoods when I was born. There was an economic disparity there, and that was not addressed in the original civil rights movement. It was a huge oversight. So there’s no money and there’s no land. If you don’t have either one of those, you don’t really have much.

Did you want to participate in the recent protests?

Me and my kids, we looked from afar. But we’re in the middle of a pandemic, man, and I know people who have absolutely passed from it. I’m like, dude, this Covid thing is real.

You’ve been telling audiences for years that racism isn’t going away and remains a potent force in America. Do you feel like you’ve seen circumstances improve at all?

It’s real. It’s not going away. I said this before, but Obama becoming the president, it’s progress for white people. It’s not progress for Black people. It’s the Jackie Robinson thing. It’s written like he broke a barrier, as if there weren’t Black people that could play before him. And that’s how white people have learned about racism. They think, when these people work hard enough, they’ll be like Jackie. And the real narrative should be that these people, the Black people, are being abused by a group of people that are mentally handicapped. And we’re trying to get them past their mental handicaps to see that all people are equal.

Humanity isn’t progress — it’s only progress for the person that’s taking your humanity. If a woman’s in an abusive relationship and her husband stops beating her, you wouldn’t say she’s made progress, right? But that’s what we do with Black people. We’re constantly told that we’re making progress. The relationship we’re in — the arranged marriage that we’re in — it’s that we’re getting beat less.

Jimmy Fallon drew significant criticism this past spring for a 20-year-old clip of himself playing you in blackface on “Saturday Night Live.” How did you feel about that segment?

Hey, man, I’m friends with Jimmy. Jimmy’s a great guy. And he didn’t mean anything. A lot of people want to say intention doesn’t matter, but it does. And I don’t think Jimmy Fallon intended to hurt me. And he didn’t.

There’s been a wider push to expunge blackface from any movies or TV shows where it previously appeared. Have people taken it too far?

If I say they are, then I’m the worst guy in the world. There’s literally one answer that ends my whole career. Blackface ain’t cool, OK? That’s my quote. Blackface is bad. Who needs it? It’s so sad, we live in a world now where you have to say, I am so against cancer. “I just assumed you liked cancer.” No, no, no, I am so against it. You have to state so many obvious things you’re against.

Who do you hang with these days? Who’s your peer group?

I hang with Dave [Chappelle]. I hang with my kids. I hang with Nelson George. There’s not a lot of hanging in the Covid world. The better question is, who do you FaceTime with?

So who do you FaceTime with?

The other day I realized I’ve never met an elderly person that was cared for by their friends. Every elderly person I know that’s got any trouble is cared for by a spouse or a child. Sometimes they have like five kids but only one helps. Where are your friends? Your friends are probably not going to be there when it really counts. [Laughs.] When my dad was dying in the hospital, where were his friends? My grandmother, where were her friends? Don’t get me wrong, you get sick in your 20s, your friends will come to the hospital. It’s an adventure. [Laughs.] You get sick in your 60s, they farm it out. “You go Wednesday and I’ll go Sunday.”

Enjoy them while you have them. But if you think your friends are your long-term solution to loneliness, you’re an idiot.

[knivestothroats]

Red Blood, Black Heart pt 9

Previous, Masterlist

This was a long one so I split it into two parts. 

Mostly fantasy worldbuilding and some mild, consensual spice. Very mild.

~

Red started spending much of her time off in Kressant. The world felt like home to her, even more than the world she had come from. The world she had left behind. She spent hours lying on her back in one of their expansive fields. Feeling the long grass tickle her skin, the warmth of the sun on her face. Listening to the breeze and the call of critters she had never heard before.

“These are the Free Lands,” June had told her, sitting with Red amongst the wild flowers and damp ground.

“Are there lands that aren’t free?” Red asked.

June tilted her head to the side. “Maybe that’s not the best translation. It’s just free… as opposed to part of a kingdom.”

No one gave Red much information outright, but she was beginning to piece things together. Every conversation was part of a jigsaw puzzle, and the image of the world was starting to take shape.

Igneous spoke the least. Red couldn’t tell if it was personal, or if he just wasn’t much for words. He did seem like the sort of strong silent type. There was a hardness about him, but also a tranquility. He seemed unmovable, almost like there was no need for him to speak.

Frost, on the other hand, spoke the most. He had a careless energy about him. Quick to joke and quick to laugh. Where the others seem shy – or almost warry – around Red, Frost treated her like a casual friend. He let information spill with wanton abandon, and was the first to tell Red about the kingdoms. Namely, because he was part of one.

“Wait, your kingdom is called Frost?” Red asked. “Is that what you meant when you said it was your family name?”

“Well, it’s my family name because we’re the presiding family,” Frost explained.

Red raised her eyebrows. “What, like, you’re royals?”

“Yeah.”

“So, is the kingdom named after you or the other way around?”

“Oh, uh…” Frost blinked at the question. “We coexist.”

Red figured something was lost in translation, but before she could think of how to rephrase the question, Jack continued on.

“It’s just something we do in Frost though. That’s why Darralkian – er, Darrell – doesn’t go by Karrah.”

“Wait, Darrell’s royal too?” Red asked.

“Yeah. He never mentioned?” Frost cocked his head. “Well, he doesn’t get along with his family as much, so he really doesn’t spend much time down there. I think he only joined the Draask so he could do all his princely duties away from home.”

“So… so you’re all royals?” Red asked incredulously.

“Oh, no,” Frost waved her off. “Igneous and June are just representing their own territories in the Free lands.”

“And, the Draask is the four of you, right? And you… it’s… what, exactly?”

Frost smiled slightly and chewed his lower lip. He didn’t answer right away.

“Maybe I’m not supposed to be telling you this.”

Red’s eyebrows shot up and she straightened her back. “What? Why?”

“It’s just…” Frost glanced away, then back. “We’ve never had an outsider be able to travel here before. This world was totally secure from outside threats and now it’s… not.” Frost straightened up as well. His tone changed. “I want to say first that this is by no means meant to be an attack on you or your character. Unfortunately, the fact remains that your presence here is, technically, a breach. We don’t mean to make an enemy of you, but we can only speak for ourselves. You are… your own person. You will make your own choices. It is our job to keep our lands safe. If we were to give you information that could be used against us and our people, and you were to, in fact, use it against us… well, we would be failing our purpose.”

Red said nothing. She just stared at Frost for a moment. His shoulders back, his head held high. She could hear the diplomatic training he was surely brought up with. She could see, now, the prince.

“It’s really not personal,” Frost said, relaxing his tone somewhat. “It’s not that we don’t like you. It’s not even that we don’t trust you, exactly, it’s just that…”

“You have to prepare for every worst case scenario if you want to keep your people safe,” Red cut in. “I understand. That’s what I have to do with my own people.”

Frost nodded, more conscious now of what he should and should not say.

“What does your organization do, exactly?” Frost asked. “Or, what’s your role there?”

“I protect people from extra-dimensional threats,” Red said, almost reciting. “Other people in the organization determine threats and risks ahead of time – some sort of multi-dimensional probability, I guess. I’m not in the department – and then they send me in to protect people from the threat.”

“What if there’s a dimension that has something your organization could use?” Frost asked. “And the people in that world don’t want to give it up?”

“Like what?” Red asked.

“Could be anything,” Frost said airily. “A resource, a weapon…”

Red thought about it. “Well, I know they’re always trying to stay up to date on the best tech. Like, medical, weapons, probably other stuff. I think Barnes just goes and tries to recruit, basically. Isn’t that why he was talking to your four? Giving you some sort of sales pitch about the organization?”

“Yes,” Frost relented. “He wanted to know how we keep our world closed off to travel, but it’s not something that we do. It’s just something that is.”

“I think they’re trying to find a way to fortify safe houses,” Red said, recalling the small talk passed around X-Caliber base lately. “Like, so no hostiles could teleport inside.”

“Hm,” Frost considered this. “Safe houses, huh?”

“Yeah, pretty sure,” Red said. “I’m not in the tech development department.”

“Does Barnes know you’re coming here?” Frost asked.

“Uh…” Red thought back. “Yeah, I think I’ve mentioned. Is it supposed to be a secret?”

“No, just… has he asked you anything? About us, or Kressant in general?”

Red shrugged and shook her head. “No.”

Frost watched Red’s face carefully. His pale icy gaze on her deep brown eyes. He sat back easily again. “You should visit Frost some time. How do you feel about snow?”

 Suspicion began to ease off Red the more time she spent in Kressant. Even Igneous relaxed around her, although this didn’t exactly make him chatty.

Each of the dragons lived in their own kingdom or territory – Frost in his kingdom, the ever-snowy taiga kingdom up north. Darrell in the much warmer kingdom of Karrah. Igneous and June lived in two different mountain ranges on opposite sides of the Free Lands. June’s home was full of trees and mist and rivers. Igneous’s was a half-moon of active volcanoes surrounding a black sand beach below. He called the peaks the Teeth.

In addition, they all had a home they shared in the middle of the Free Lands. The Draask, as it turned out, was a sort of political body. Each of them were representatives of their own part of Kessant. The shared manor was in neutral territory, so it was even footing for all of them to come together. Darrell, as Frost had said, spent as much time as possible away from his own kingdom, and so this manor was his primary home. The others split their time. So far, it was the only one of their homes Red had seen.

There’s really nothing around besides fields and woods. Maybe they still don’t want me anywhere populated, Red thought. Maybe no one wants to be the first one to risk taking me to their home.

Their shared manor home was also where they met with other political representatives.

Red wasn’t there when the Draask hosted Lord Benkshire and his son, Gilden. They came from the Golden Isles, a ways off from the southern coast of Kressant, to discuss a deal for Kressant’s protection. If there was ever a conflict, it was good to have dragons on your side.

The whole affair would take at least a couple days. The formalities, the politics, time apart to discuss and think it over, more formalities, more politics. Staff and security from the two kingdoms had been brought in a day ahead to prepare, and Benkshire brought a small gaggle of his own servants.

Darrell adjusted the collar of his formal coat. He disliked having the manor so full. His parents – the king and queen – had always looked down on the servants, and treated them as lesser. Even his sister had followed suit as they grew up, but Darrell never fell into that mindset. He had grown so accustomed to living on his own in the manor that having a staff to prepare his food and serve it to him was setting him on edge. Fate had fumbled the roll, he thought, when he was born into royalty.

He tried to focus on what their guest was saying, but it was really nothing of consequence. A story that was all middle and no ending. Lord Benkshire was a large, brash man who clearly thought he had more to say and more right to say it than anyone else. He waved his hands about as he spoke, a glinting ring on each finger. Both he and his son were dressed in what Darrell presumed was a show of wealth. Heavy jewelry and long, fur-lined robes. It’s true that they had traveled from a tropical climate, but they couldn’t be that cold, right? Darrell wondered idly if it was rude that they were still wearing their robes at the dining table. Not that he would take offense to it, but he wouldn’t put a calculated slight past this man. His eyes drifted to Benkshire’s son, Gilden. Darrell had hardly heard a word from the young man so far. He was shorter than his father, with a more slight frame and golden curls of hair. Perhaps Lord Benkshire’s hair had that tone and shine, once upon a time.

The young man appeared to be smirking. It didn’t seem to be in response to his father’s story, which was still dragging on. Darrell followed his line of sight until it landed on Frost, who was… blushing? Frost ran cold, quite literally. Darrell couldn’t recall ever seeing him so flush in the face.

Darrell and the rest managed to make it through the welcoming meal, and through the political talks. Lord Benkshire’s key bargaining point was economic wealth that he insisted the Golden Isles could provide. In return, the Isles would have Kressant as an ally, namely in terms of military strength.

The meeting dissipated, as the Draask would need to discuss matters amongst themselves. However, there was very little actual discussion before Red appeared in the room.

“Oh!” She said, looking at the four of them. “You guys look fancy. What’s up?”

They explained their situation briefly.

“Is it cool if I’m here right now?” Red asked. She adjusted a backpack that was hanging off of one shoulder. “I have the day off tomorrow and I can’t sleep, so…” she trailed off and resorted to holding up peace signs with both hands.

“It’s not even that late,” Frost said.

“Oh, really? It’s late where I’m from,” Red said, glancing out the window. “I think you guys have longer days here or something.”

“I think it should be fine,” Darrell, answered, looking to his friends for any disagreements. “Talks are over for the day. I mean, we still have to talk, but we can do that tomorrow before the next meeting. I’m honestly sick of this right now.”

Igneous shook his head. “You’re so bad at being a royal.”

“I know, I’m a major disappointment to my parents,” Darrell deadpanned. “Anyway, let’s hang out!”

The five of them did just that, until they started to break off one by one. Frost first, followed by Igneous, and lastly June. Darrell and Red relocated to Darrell’s room to continue talking until Red fell asleep on his bed. After covering her with a blanket, Darrell stayed up reading a book for a while until he grew tired as well. The two of them slept back to back.

 When Frost had pulled himself away from the hangout, he had done so with a purpose. He roamed the manor, occasionally asking a passing member of the staff, very casually, if they had seen the lord’s son. Turns out, Gilden was doing the same thing. It didn’t take long for them to find each other, although by now night had fallen. Frost uttered some line about offering to give the young lord a tour of the manor, before leading Gilden to his own bedroom.

He turned around nervously after closing the door behind them. His heart skipped a beat when his eyes met with Gilden’s immediately. The young lord seemed pretty at ease, his lips pulled up at the corners in a sly smile, although he seemed to be waiting for Frost to make the first move.

Frost moved closer. He reached up to Gilden’s face, running his thumb over the tan skin on his cheek. Frost could feel small divots in the surface, and Gilden flinched subtly as Frost’s thumb ran over them. He covered by taking Frost’s hand and guiding it to his own soft lips. Kissing his knuckles, then his palm. Frost moved closer, resting his other hand on Gilden’s hip. He leaned in, and Gilden closed the distance between their lips.

Frost trailed his hand up Gilden’s hip, under the hem of his shirt, running his fingertips over skin.

Gilden caught his wrist, pulling away just slightly.

“Sorry,” Frost said with an apologetic smile. “My hands are always cold. I’ll, uh…” Frost could see the hesitation in Gilden’s face. He knew it wasn’t the cold that had been the issue, but he wanted to provide an easy excuse. “I’ll keep them above the clothes.”

“I just… want to keep my shirt on,” Gilden said.

“Yeah, of course,” Frost assured him. “Do you still want to…”

Gilden answered the unfinished question by pulling Frost back in. He ran his hand down Frost’s side, down to his waist. He began to slide his fingers down the front of Frost’s pants, but his rings caught on the waistband.

They both pulled away, Frost now catching Gilden’s wrist.

“Sorry, my rings…” Gilden tried to laugh it off, but Frost was frowning.

“Hold on, you just said…”

Gilden raised an eyebrow. “That I wanted to keep my shirt on.”

“Yeah, but then you… you were trying to reach down my pants,” Frost said.

Gilden stared at him, clearly not understanding the issue. “Yeah?”

Frost breathed out a small laugh and gently separated himself further. “I don’t think we’re on the same page here.”

Gilden frowned. “I just want to keep my shirt on, is all. You don’t have to–”

“How about we just, um, stick to making out,” Frost said. “Is that okay with you?”

Gilden looked confused, but gave a small nod. “Okay.”

“We can still s-sit down on the bed, though,” Frost said, leading Gilden over by the hand. “I just think that, um… I think… that I’m talking too much.”

He leaned forward and kissed Gilden, and Gilden, setting aside his unease, kissed back in earnest.

[continues here]

[bountyofbeads]

‘She was shaking’: Court filings describe system Jeffrey Epstein allegedly used to procure girls

https://wapo.st/2OMuAji

People close to Epstein fear he was murdered...as Epstein told authorities someone tried to kill him in a previous incident weeks earlier. He was described as being in good spirits in recent days...

Jeffrey Epstein dies by apparent suicide in New York jail

By Matt Zapotosky and Renae Merle | Published August 10 at 10:48 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted August 10, 2019 11:46 AM ET |

Jeffrey Epstein, the politically connected financier and registered sex offender charged recently with sexually abusing dozens of young girls in the early 2000s, has apparently died by suicide in prison, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Epstein, 66, hanged himself in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, though the exact timing was unclear according to ABC News, which was first to report the development.

Epstein, a multimillionaire with ties to celebrities and politicians including President Trump and former president Bill Clinton, was arrested last month on federal sex trafficking charges that could have put in him prison for 45 years. Prosecutors alleged he abused dozens of young girls at his Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., homes and enlisted his victims to bring him others.

Epstein had pleaded not guilty in the case, and a federal judge had recently denied his request to be released to home confinement.

Last month, Epstein was found in his cell with marks around his neck, and authorities were trying to determine if he was attacked or attempted suicide. He showed no obvious signs of distress at a later court hearing.

A Justice Department spokeswoman and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s Office in New York, which brought the new case against Epstein, declined to comment. Spokespeople for the Bureau of Prisons, officials with the Metropolitan Correctional Center and Epstein’s lawyers did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Epstein’s case had attracted widespread attention — in part because of his wealth and political connections, and in part because of a lenient plea deal he reached more than a decade ago to resolve similar allegations. That 2008 agreement allowed Epstein to plead guilty to just two state charges in Florida, avoiding federal exposure entirely, and spend just 13 months in jail, with work-release privileges.

The deal was approved by Alex Acosta, who was then the U.S. attorney in Miami and would go on to become Trump’s labor secretary — a post he resigned after Epstein was charged last month and the controversy over the previous case was reignited.

Epstein’s death is sure to draw intense scrutiny of the Bureau of Prisons and the Metropolitan Correctional Center. The high-rise federal detention center in downtown Manhattan has a fearsome reputation; one inmate who spent time there and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, famously said Guantanamo Bay was “more pleasant” and “more relaxed.”

The facility is no stranger to high-profile inmates. It recently housed notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman while he was on trial in Brooklyn, and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has spent time there around court proceedings in New York — though records show he has since been moved to a different facility in Pennsylvania.

The facility in New York also housed Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, and Bernard Madoff, who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

‘She was shaking’: Court filings describe system Jeffrey Epstein allegedly used to procure girls

By Beth Reinhard, Marc Fisher, Tom Hamburger and Carol D. Leonnig | Published August 09 at 7:41 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted August 10, 2019 11:44 AM ET |

He demanded sex three times a day. A parade of powerful figures visited his private estates, which were adorned with pictures of naked girls and stocked with sex toys. And the schedules of teenagers on call to give him massages at his Palm Beach, Fla., mansion were documented in phone messages from his assistants.

Those and other claims about financier Jeffrey Epstein unsealed in court filings Friday lay out disturbing details both about his alleged activities and the number of people in his orbit who could have observed them, raising new questions about how the sex abuse charges against the multimillionaire were previously handled.

Epstein, who is now facing federal sex trafficking charges involving the alleged abuse of dozens of minors, previously pleaded guilty in Florida state court to two felony counts, serving about 13 months in jail. A federal judge ruled in February that the prosecution team led by then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who recently resigned as President Trump’s labor secretary, violated the rights of alleged victims by failing to notify them of an agreement not to bring federal charges.

The newly unsealed documents — part of a now-settled defamation case brought by one alleged victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, against a woman she said recruited her — depict an organized system to regularly provide Epstein with girls. 

In one 2005 message detailed in the documents, an Epstein assistant noted that one girl wanted to know if she could come to the house at a later time. “She is wondering if 2:30 is o.k. She needs to stay in school,” the message read.

Epstein has pleaded not guilty to the current charges against him. Martin Weinberg, an attorney for the financier, did not respond to a request for comment Friday about the documents.

The material was gathered as part of the defamation suit brought by Giuffre against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell that was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2017.

A federal appeals court in New York last month ordered documents related to the case to be made public.

In a 2016 deposition included in the filings, Giuffre said she was a “teen sex slave” who traveled to his homes in New York, Palm Beach, New Mexico and the Caribbean and was directed to give massages and have sex with Epstein and his friends at will.

“I’m angry with anybody who has it in their mind that they can hurt and abuse a minor child and continue to lie about getting away with it and that what they’ve done is okay,” Giuffre said in the deposition. “Yes, I’m furious.”

Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment Friday. In a 2016 deposition, Maxwell said: “Virginia is an absolute liar and everything she has said is a lie. Therefore, based on those lies I cannot speculate on what anybody else did or didn’t do . . . everything she said is false.”

Giuffre has said she was recruited by Maxwell when she was 16 or 17 and working at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club in Palm Beach. According to the court filings, Mar-a-Lago produced 177 pages of records in response to a subpoena, including one chart showing that she had been a summer worker at age 17 and that she was terminated in 2000.

In a deposition, Giuffre said Epstein told her Trump was a “good friend,” but she said that she had never seen them together. 

Giuffre said that she was told by Maxwell that she would be trained at Epstein’s residence as a masseuse, but that “on the very first meeting that I had with him . . . she instructed me to take off my clothes and to give oral sex to Jeffrey Epstein.”

Asked in a deposition about Maxwell’s role in procuring girls for him, Epstein refused to answer, citing his constitutional protection against self-incrimination.

Giuffre said that Epstein flew her around the world and introduced her to an array of political and entertainment figures. She also said that Epstein told her that he had his house wired with hidden video cameras that recorded her every move, even in the bathroom.

In the court documents, Giuffre named a number of prominent men she claimed she had sex with at Maxwell’s instructions, including Britain’s Prince Andrew, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson (D) and former Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell (D-Maine).

“My whole life revolved around just pleasing these men and keeping Ghislaine and Jeffrey happy,” Giuffre said in the deposition. “Their whole entire lives revolved around sex.”

On Friday, representatives of both Richardson and Mitchell denied her allegations, saying the men never had any contact with Giuffre.

The British royal family and Prince Andrew have repeatedly denied her claims. “Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue,” a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said Friday.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who represented Epstein at one point, has vigorously denied Giuffre's allegation that she had sex with him, calling her a “certified, complete, total liar.”

Those remarks prompted Giuffre to file a defamation suit against Dershowitz, which is ongoing.

Giuffre was part of a sprawling network of young women allegedly targeted by Maxwell to give massages that led to sexual relations with Epstein and his friends, according to the court documents.

Johanna Sjoberg, a student at Palm Beach Atlantic University, testified that Maxwell recruited her to be “a legitimate assistant” answering phones for Epstein and then “asked her to perform sexual massages for Epstein, and punished her when she didn’t cause Epstein to orgasm.”

Asked if she had ever tried to get Epstein to explain why he received so many massages from so many different girls, Sjoberg said in a deposition: “He explained to me that, in his opinion, he needed to have three orgasms a day. It was biological, like eating.”

A chef who worked for friends of Epstein recalled meeting a visibly upset young woman who said she had been hired as “Jeffrey’s executive personal assistant.” She was 15.

Rinaldo Rizzo said the girl told him, tearfully, that she had been taken to Epstein’s home in the Virgin Islands and asked for sex. She said she had no memory of how she had returned to New York.

“She was shaking,” Rizzo testified. “I mean literally quivering. . . . She says, ‘I’m not supposed to talk about this.’”

The documents also include images of telephone messages from Epstein assistants summarizing calls from people procuring girls. “Has girl for tonight,” one says. “Confirmed [redacted name] at 4 pm. Who is scheduled for morning? I believe [redacted name] wants to work.”

Several messages from 2005 say only, “I have a female for him.”

Massage tables were scattered around Epstein’s home in Palm Beach, said Juan Alessi, who worked for Epstein from 1991 to 2002. He said in a 2016 affidavit that a massage “was like a treat” that Epstein provided his guests. He said that as many as 100 masseuses visited the property in the time he worked for Epstein, mostly women.

Epstein only took his massages in his private suite, which adjoined Maxwell’s bedroom suite, but was off limits to guests, he said. Alessi said he would clean up Epstein’s suite up after these massages and would sometimes find vibrators and sex toys in Maxwell’s sink.

Rosalind S. Helderman, Manuel Roig-Franzia, Matt Zapotosky and Deanna Paul in Washington, and Lori Rozsa in West Palm Beach, Fla., contributed to this report.

[razieltwelve]

Couch (Final Effect)

Supreme Admiral Blakey - as she was known by her friends and family - was a military genius, the youngest ever supreme admiral in the Schnee Mercantile Alliance’s history. Indeed, she was widely considered to be the most talented tactician and strategist in Alliance for the past several hundred years. It was thus not surprising that her leader, President Weiss IX, occasionally came to her for advice.

This time, however, was a little different.

“You’re sleeping on the couch.” Blakey grinned. “You… the leader of the Alliance, the second most powerful faction in the Remnant Galaxy, are sleeping on the couch.” Her eyes narrowed. “And is that a young war corgi using you for a pillow?”

Weiss’s eye twitched. “Apparently, this fellow was the only one who felt sorry for me. The others all thought I deserved it.” She lowered her voice. “I can’t believe how quickly they took Anna’s side over mine. They’re Alliance citizens, aren’t they?”

“If I remember correctly, they might be Alliance citizens, but they’ve spent the past several months being pretty much raised and trained by Anna and her hedgehog after being rejected by the other war corgis.”

“When you put it like that…” Weiss patted the corgi on the head, and he cuddled up to her. “But at least one of them is sensible.”

“Either that or he’s hedging his bets,” Blakey replied. “So… why are you on the couch?”

The president sighed. “I’m going to assume that you are familiar with one of the long-running jokes regarding the House of Farron-Arendelle?”

“Ah.” Blakey nodded sagely. “You mean the sister fixation joke? Well, it has been around since the Age of Heroes. I’ve heard that the Dia-Farron even have a database with millions, possibly even billions, of different jokes although I doubt they’ll ever admit to it. Lumina Prime might be one of the most heavily fortified locations in the galaxy, but event that won’t save them in Averia gets mad.”

“Indeed.” Weiss blushed. “I may have… possibly… made a sister fixation joke about Anna.”

“…” Blakey snickered and then burst out laughing. “Seriously? Are you trying to get maimed? There is a long and gruesome history about people who’ve made jokes like that. I remember Jahne once made a joke about that. Averia stabbed her with a spear made of ice.”

“Jahne also has Rangarok, so it’s not like stabbing her actually accomplished anything.” Weiss huffed. “And I thought it might be funny. I mean… we have been getting along exceptionally well lately, and Anna does kind of… you know… possibly…”

“Weiss, don’t even say it. I guarantee you that she’ll hear you and then you’ll be banished to a less comfortable couch, possibly outside.”

“But why can she even banish me to the couch?” Weiss grumbled. “I’m the president? I’m the one who can banish people!”

Blakey smiled. “It’s because you actually care about her. If you didn’t, you’d just ignore her. Or not. Her hedgehog would probably bite you or something.”

“Seriously?”

“I have it on good authority from Claire that Lord Hedgeborough bites Jahne on a semi regular basis to show his displeasure since they can’t actually fight properly without breaking everything.” Blakey chuckled. “But what did you say?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you,” Weiss said. “You’ll probably tease me.”

“I’ll definitely tease you,” Blakey countered. “But I am also the greatest tactical mind in the Alliance.” She folded her arms across her chest. “If you wish to draw upon my great wisdom and knowledge, you’ll have to share.”

“You just want to savour my misery.”

“Mostly yes, but I could also help you a little bit. Now, spill it.”

As Weiss related the whole story, Blakey couldn’t help but cackle evilly at her friend’s discomfort. Ah, it was so nice to have something interesting to listen to after a week spent dealing with pirates and marauders on the border. Admittedly, someone of her rank wouldn’t normally deal with such problems, but they had an expedition into another galaxy coming up. Blakey wanted to put her crew through their paces before they got there. Who knew what they might run into? The Grimm were terrible foes, but there could easily be foes even worse than them.

It turned out that the Dia-Farron had contacted Anna for help. Averia VII had ascended to the throne at a relatively young age, and she had yet to produce an heir. The exact reasons for her ascension had never been openly stated, but the decision had come not long after Averia’s father had spent months in seclusion, consulting with the Grand Seer of the House of Ballad. In any case, the former emperor was now retired, and he spent his time designing starships, which had always been his true passion. 

Blakey had bought one of those starships, a yacht designed for recreational purposes. It had been one of her best purchases. The former emperor had a knack for combining aesthetics and functionality, and Blakey spent as much time on the yacht as her duties would allow. There was something grand about cruising the stars in a dreadnought, but a yacht made piloting and travelling a much more personal experience. Her lips curled. It was also much easier to get privacy on a yacht, which was something she appreciated.

In any case, the Dia-Farron had asked Anna to help them matchmake. Their target? Averia VII. Much like Weiss, the empress was under some pressure to marry and produce an heir. Unlike Weiss, the empress had yet to begin courting someone, never mind marrying them. As Averia’s younger sister, Anna was in an excellent position to help, and the Dia-Farron were nothing if not thorough in their scheming.

Anna had mentioned it to Weiss, and Weiss had made a few remarks, which had prompted Anna to go on a rant about how crazy it was that someone as obviously beautiful, intelligent, powerful, gracious, kind, caring, and just generally incredible as her sister could not be in a relationship. 

Blakey could already picture it now. Weiss could be incredibly cutting with her remarks when she wanted to be, but that tended to express itself more as wry humour toward people she liked. Weiss had made a casual remark about Anna possibly having a sister fixation, and that had been that. Anna had, apparently, given Weiss a stout glared and told her to withdraw the remark. Weiss being Weiss had simply dug her heels in, and now she was on the couch… with just a corgi for company.

“Huh…” Blakey smiled at Weiss. “To be honest, you’re kind of screwed here, and not in a good way. Your best bet is to just sleep on the couch for tonight. Anna should be fine with you by tomorrow.”

Weiss sagged. “She does anger quickly sometimes, but she rarely stays angry for long.” She paused. “Which I suppose is better than the opposite.”

Blakey grimaced. Claire, the current generation’s bearer of Saviour, was the opposite of Anna. It was almost impossible to get her mad, but when she lost her temper… there was a reason that even Jahne and Averia trod lightly when Claire was in a foul mood. Blakey, of course, enjoyed teasing her… from about halfway across the galaxy. “Relax. This sort of thing is normal.”

“And you would know that how?” Weiss’s eyes scowled. “When was the last time you had to sleep on the couch.”

Blakey chuckled. “Oh, you’d be surprised. But unlike you, my tactical expertise ensure that I’m never there for more than half an hour or so.” She took a sip of her coffee. “It’ll be fine. If things are still frosty between you two tomorrow, let me know.”

“Frosty…” Weiss rolled her eyes. “I hope that wasn’t supposed to be a pun.”

“Blame my ancestors.”

[leightaylorwrites]

Leigh Dissects YA Fiction: They All Fall Down (Chapters 9 - 12)

Chapter Nine

Levi certainly wasn’t grieving Olivia’s death…

Of course not. Why would he be grieving his ex-girlfriend? That would imply that he cares about anyone other than you and with this being a YA book, it’s unlikely that a romantic lead would be so complex. 

[...] his open varsity jacket making his shoulders look even broader.

A specific sport isn’t named. Does the author think all varsity athletes get the same jacket? There are emblems, symbols, and other things that are specific to certain sports. This is what happens when you base your YA book on your own nerdy high school experiences and don’t do basic research: you get things wrong.

“Why is everyone so certain Levi Sterling is going to jail?” I demand.

You can’t demand a question that has to be answered by multiple people when you’re only with one person. Also, didn’t you, like recently, say he might’ve been a murderer or rapist?

I nod sympathetically, supposing that’s a legit enough connection for a guy like Josh to shed a few tears.

Because for a masculine boy to cry, it has to be legitimized.

Was he kidding? Girls like Olivia and the rest of them on that list didn’t hang out with nerds like me. But guys don’t always know that.

Okay, even if we’re going with the ridiculous idea that people don’t have friends in different circles, the same would be true for boys. Geeky boys and jocks wouldn’t hang out. Why wouldn’t he know this?

“I missed you last night,” he says right into my ear, with a secret, sexy voice that should have every cell in my body jumping up and down.

You’ve spoken for a total of three minutes.

“I had…” Movie night with mom. “Something else to do.”

Why can’t she just tell him the truth? I get it’s geeky but it’s not like you were committing a crime.

A flicker of distaste crosses his expression as he conciders what could possibly have been more important than his game, and his gaze shifts in the direction where Levi had been. “Out with your parolee?”

Dora doesn’t tell him the truth about her whereabouts as a way for the author to throw in cheap tension. If she had a legit reason or given an explanation (like how I said spending time with her mom is ~geeky~), then it would’ve worked. Without that, this is just lazy writing.

“Good thing, ‘cause they're saying he was there and was having a deep and heated conversation with Olivia before she died.”

Did this book have an editor?

“Good thing you weren’t with him.”

He’s said good thing twice in the past quarter page. Either the author discovered a new phrase while writing this chapter, or someone stans NCT.

“Listen, I know it’s not going to be really fun under the circumstances and all, but a bunch of kids are getting together at my house tonight. Will you come?”

Y’all really about to have a party when someone just died. I get the popular kids are supposed to somewhat suck but there’s sucking then there’s being horrible people.

“We’re changing clothes, you freakazoid!”

Outdated reference is outdated. Most of this author’s demographic does not know that song. Has she ever spoken with an actual teenager? In this century?

“His parents passed away many years ago.”

Please be related to the cult I’m probably totally wrong about.

“I never got into the house but I’ve heard it’s amazing, with an indoor swimming pool and a ten-car garage adjacent to some of the prettiest parts of Nacht Woods.”

Good Lord. First, it annoys me when characters who are loaded go to public school with a bunch of people who are nowhere near as rich. School zoning doesn’t work like that, with only one megarich kid and everyone else being middle class. Second, why are we getting this awkward splooge from Generic BFF’s mom instead of having this description when Dora gets to the party later????? Why is this writing so bad? Where is the editor?

“The grandfather, who’s retired, of course, made a killing on Wall Street, as I understand it.”

What is this SENTENCE?! I suck at grammar and sentence structure and all those technical things but damn, I know I could do a better job at this editor who works for an actual publishing house.

“Really hit it huge in the go-go eighties.”

“Where’d they go-go?” Kayla asks, making everyone laugh.

Not me.

“It’s the idiots who can’t handle the peer pressure. But, okay, you girls use common sense.”

Fucking hell. If they’re pressured into drinking then they’re not idiots. That’s why it’s called PRESSURE. And why are we acting like people with common sense don’t drink? They’re not mutually exclusive.

“(...) I’d love to just sit around that table for house with a family that is so whole and happy. But I only have myself to blame for that.”

Shut your melodramatic ass up.

Chapter Ten

God save me.

(..) what feels like a half-mile-long driveway (...) At least fifty cars are in the drive and along the street.

Driveway. It’s called a driveway. You just used it in the last sentence.

She’s cute - and has to be freezing - but, really, nothing extraordinary to look at.

What a fucking bitch. Honestly, Dora, please die.

“We’re going into the woods.”

Yes, now it’s the point in the book where a Native American burial ground is invaded by drunk suburban white teens who literally have no respect for the land. This includes our protagonist. And if you’re thinking she’s going to mention how wrong and disrespectful this is, bring your expectations of this author down. No, further. FURTHER. Yes, that low.

“We’re at Meesha mound.” She leans closer and lowers her voice. “Indian burial ground, you know. Cool, huh?”

“Very.”

To be fair, Dora says her “very” is sarcasm but like?? Nothing is done or said about how horrible it is that they’re doing this. Or even the improper and offensive usage of “Indian.”

She misses my sarcasm and takes me down a dark path.

Obviously bad metaphor is obviously bad.

“I like Sisters of the List,” Kylie Leff says, leaning into Amanda. “We’ve been blood sisters since kindergarten.”

Can I return this book and get cult lesbians instead? Side note, if you want to watch something about a cult lesbian, AHS: Cult was AMAZING and its best season since Coven.

She holds up a single knuckle and Amanda meets it with one of her own in the most feminine and lackluster knuckle tap in history.

We get it. Fem = bad, hot fem = bad, weak fem = bad.

Why was Dora expecting some epic knuckle punch when Kylie only used one knuckle? Does she think she has super-strength?

It’s Candace Yardley, number ten, who up to this point has been virtually silent. Once again, I take a second to admire her dark good looks; she is runway perfect.

Why is this book so racist?!! Having the Asian character be silent until Dora is ready to comment on her ~dark good looks~?? And she has to be at the bottom of the list? What IS THIS?!

She smiles at her best friend.

How many times must we be reminded that Kylie and Amanda are gal pals, heteros, and that this book has no room for lesbians? Petition to save Kylie and Amanda from this hetero dumpster fire.

I take the vodka bottle and let a few drops touch my lips, the flavor like bitter grape cough medicine.

One, you can’t taste much with your lips. Two, that’s not what vodka tastes like.

“You bitches cray.” She sings the last word on a laugh. “But I need to get fried.”

Let’s play “spot the Token black character.” I think the usage of the word cray is a testament to how old this book is. Back when white authors thought it was fun to use cringe aave. You gon finna catch me is SHAKING.

“Thank god that chapter is over” - me after every chapter.

Chapter Eleven

“YOLO, baby girl. Which translates into ‘have some fun.’

Petition to have white authors never write black characters again.

I can smell beer, and the sound of rap is barely drowned out by loud boys and girls laughing. Really? On the night after the girl they all planned to vote for class president next year has died? They either don’t care or… they don’t understand death.

You fucking asshole, Dora. Some people have different coping methods. And, how would you know they don’t care or understand death? Do you think you’re the only person in your whole school who has lost someone?

They don’t know how permanent death is. But I do.

Earlier, we learned that Generic Good Boy is a fucking orphan. He lost BOTH parents. You lost ONE brother. Shut up.

“Like I said… YOLO.”

Stop. I’m begging.

“You know what I remember about you in middle school?” (...) “You were hydrogen in our Dress Like an Element Day in science.”

Listen, I like the fact that Dora and GGB have natural chemistry as characters whereas Dora and GBB are forced like hell. But could the author not think of a more interesting element? Why would GGB remember this in particular? Even if he thought Dora was cute, it would make sense for the element to be something less common and therefore more easy for the reader to see why it was so memorable.

“You’re the Latin expert.”

She’s a junior in high school.

“(...) he lives to meet pretty girls.” The way he says it makes me feel like I really am one of those pretty girls.

Because he just told you his grandfather likes pretty girls? An old man? That makes you feel pretty? Really? That?

“Wait--I want to kill her, er, say hi.”

Ignoring this horrible attempt at humor, Dora is upset with her friend for drinking at a party. I’ll point you to Dora’s weird grape cough medicine vodka from her cult meeting in the woods.

“I play on two travel teams--hey, Ryan--and lots of these kids are from all over this side of the state.”

They came all the way out here for one party? Are there no parties in their own neighborhoods?

“Kenzie.” The older man nods in approval. “Of course.” Flashing an easy, wide smile, he looks down--way down--at me. Instantly, I can see where Josh gets his gifts--his height, the build, the sort of raw masculinity mixed with charm that rolls off him. That’s hereditary, I suppose.

I just threw up.

This man is at least sixty, given that his grandson is a high school junior. And Dora just spent a paragraph lowkey lusting after him. I haven’t witnessed something so grossly uncomfortable since Throne of Trash the series we don’t acknowledge.

“You were absolutely correct, Josh. She is a refreshing change.”

Get it? Because she’s not like those other girls.

“You��ve taught me everything, Josh says, a respectful note in his voice. “Including how to pick quality girls.”

Women aren’t avocados.

He pats my hand and shifts in his seat. “Let’s change the subject. I understand you’re on that list that does nothing but objectify lovely teenage girls.”

You can’t call out the list for objectifying them when 1) you’ve done that since you met Dora, 2) you act like a fucking pedophile while you’re touching her, and 3) you follow up the fact that the list is objectifying the girls by calling the girls “lovely.”

“But his legacy lives on, right back in Nacht Woods.” He angles his head toward the back of the house. “He’s buried there, too.”

So not only has this author disrespected Native Americans with using their burial ground for horror aesthetic reasons, but she’s also allowed a white character to be buried there.

“Not him, per se,(...) but the things that mattered to him. I made a place to honor him.”

I know we need exposition but it makes no sense here. They’ve spent half a page talking about this dead dude, rather than the scholarship Dora wants.

“How do I apply?”

“No application necessary, dear. You just have to finish the ropes course Jarvis built in Nacht Woods (...) You look fairly athletic.”

Oh my god. How many ways can this author metaphorically shit on this burial ground?

“Quit hittin’ on my chick, Rex.”

Dora’s next thought is her freaking out about Josh calling her his girl, which okay, I get. But… shouldn’t she be a tad bit concerned about this creepy pedo man who just offered her a scholarship as long as she completes The Hunger Games?

“She’s a total brainiac (...) I think that’s hot.”

“Quite,” his grandfather agrees.

I’M NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP

Chapter Twelve

I haven’t had anything to drink since my one sip of grape vodka, but Molly’s borderline tipsy(.)

We’ve got clarification that her vodka was grape flavored (ew) but what the hell is “borderline tipsy”??? Either she’s tipsy or she’s sober. Tipsy is the full in between of sober and drunk.

“But the weirdest thing of all was the texts disappeared about ten minutes after I got it. I can’t find it in my deleted texts, nothing.”

SHE TRIED TO SEARCH DELETED TEXTS AND WAS SURPRISED WHEN SHE COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING ASHJLDFASHLJL

(...) ready for dark looks from my list sisters(...)

We’re really using this name?

But I won’t tell these girls that. They’re wack.

I love 2001 slang.

Also, you guys don’t know how hard it is for me to not make a Malibu’s Most Wanted reference right now.

Having to post all my notes/opinions means I’m having to read over some of the book again and if you can believe it, these are considered the good chapters compared to what comes later.

Using my irritation as free entertainment? Enjoy my writing as free entertainment, too. I’ve got a freebie book called Epic here.

[thefabulousfulcrum]

Who Goes Nazi? Dorothy Thompson American Journalist.

From the August 1941 issue of Harpers Magazine.

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become “Honorary Aryans and Nazis”; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.

It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation—the generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war. This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans. It is the disease of the so-called “lost generation.”

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work—a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.

At any rate, let us look round the room.

The gentleman standing beside the fireplace with an almost untouched glass of whiskey beside him on the mantelpiece is Mr. A, a descendant of one of the great American families. There has never been an American Blue Book without several persons of his surname in it. He is poor and earns his living as an editor. He has had a classical education, has a sound and cultivated taste in literature, painting, and music; has not a touch of snobbery in him; is full of humor, courtesy, and wit. He was a lieutenant in the World War, is a Republican in politics, but voted twice for Roosevelt, last time for Willkie. He is modest, not particularly brilliant, a staunch friend, and a man who greatly enjoys the company of pretty and witty women. His wife, whom he adored, is dead, and he will never remarry.

He has never attracted any attention because of outstanding bravery. But I will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi. He would greatly dislike fighting them, but they could never convert him. . . . Why not?

Beside him stands Mr. B, a man of his own class, graduate of the same preparatory school and university, rich, a sportsman, owner of a famous racing stable, vice-president of a bank, married to a well-known society belle. He is a good fellow and extremely popular. But if America were going Nazi he would certainly join up, and early. Why? . . . Why the one and not the other?

Mr. A has a life that is established according to a certain form of personal behavior. Although he has no money, his unostentatious distinction and education have always assured him a position. He has never been engaged in sharp competition. He is a free man. I doubt whether ever in his life he has done anything he did not want to do or anything that was against his code. Nazism wouldn’t fit in with his standards and he has never become accustomed to making concessions.

Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class—no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.

The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm, and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery. His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they have seldom invited him—or his wife—to dinner.

He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him—he despises, for instance, Mr. B—because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.

Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language—though they have never met him.

There he sits: he talks awkwardly rather than glibly; he is courteous. He commands a distant and cold respect. But he is a very dangerous man. Were he primitive and brutal he would be a criminal—a murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would need men just like him—intellectual and ruthless. But Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism. He would laugh to see heads roll.

I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in sensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others.

Mrs. E would go Nazi as sure as you are born. That statement surprises you? Mrs. E seems so sweet, so clinging, so cowed. She is. She is a masochist. She is married to a man who never ceases to humiliate her, to lord it over her, to treat her with less consideration than he does his dogs. He is a prominent scientist, and Mrs. E, who married him very young, has persuaded herself that he is a genius, and that there is something of superior womanliness in her utter lack of pride, in her doglike devotion. She speaks disapprovingly of other “masculine” or insufficiently devoted wives. Her husband, however, is bored to death with her. He neglects her completely and she is looking for someone else before whom to pour her ecstatic self-abasement. She will titillate with pleased excitement to the first popular hero who proclaims the basic subordination of women.

On the other hand, Mrs. F would never go Nazi. She is the most popular woman in the room, handsome, gay, witty, and full of the warmest emotion. She was a popular actress ten years ago; married very happily; promptly had four children in a row; has a charming house, is not rich but has no money cares, has never cut herself off from her own happy-go-lucky profession, and is full of sound health and sound common sense. All men try to make love to her; she laughs at them all, and her husband is amused. She has stood on her own feet since she was a child, she has enormously helped her husband’s career (he is a lawyer), she would ornament any drawing-room in any capital, and she is as American as ice cream and cake.                                                                                                      

How about the butler who is passing the drinks? I look at James with amused eyes. James is safe. James has been butler to the ‘ighest aristocracy, considers all Nazis parvenus and communists, and has a very good sense for “people of quality.” He serves the quiet editor with that friendly air of equality which good servants always show toward those they consider good enough to serve, and he serves the horsy gent stiffly and coldly.

Bill, the grandson of the chauffeur, is helping serve to-night. He is a product of a Bronx public school and high school, and works at night like this to help himself through City College, where he is studying engineering. He is a “proletarian,” though you’d never guess it if you saw him without that white coat. He plays a crack game of tennis—has been a tennis tutor in summer resorts—swims superbly, gets straight A’s in his classes, and thinks America is okay and don’t let anybody say it isn’t. He had a brief period of Youth Congress communism, but it was like the measles. He was not taken in the draft because his eyes are not good enough, but he wants to design airplanes, “like Sikorsky.” He thinks Lindbergh is “just another pilot with a build-up and a rich wife” and that he is “always talking down America, like how we couldn’t lick Hitler if we wanted to.” At this point Bill snorts.

Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy. He has been concerned with general ideas since the age of ten and has one of those minds that can scintillatingly rationalize everything. I have known him for ten years and in that time have heard him enthusiastically explain Marx, social credit, technocracy, Keynesian economics, Chestertonian distributism, and everything else one can imagine. Mr. G will never be a Nazi, because he will never be anything. His brain operates quite apart from the rest of his apparatus. He will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along. But Mr. G is always a “deviationist.” When he played with communism he was a Trotskyist; when he talked of Keynes it was to suggest improvement; Chesterton’s economic ideas were all right but he was too bound to Catholic philosophy. So we may be sure that Mr. G would be a Nazi with purse-lipped qualifications. He would certainly be purged.

H is an historian and biographer. He is American of Dutch ancestry born and reared in the Middle West. He has been in love with America all his life. He can recite whole chapters of Thoreau and volumes of American poetry, from Emerson to Steve Benet. He knows Jefferson’s letters, Hamilton’s papers, Lincoln’s speeches. He is a collector of early American furniture, lives in New England, runs a farm for a hobby and doesn’t lose much money on it, and loathes parties like this one. He has a ribald and manly sense of humor, is unconventional and lost a college professorship because of a love affair. Afterward he married the lady and has lived happily ever afterward as the wages of sin.

H has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant. This is his country, and he knows it from Acadia to Zenith. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since. He is certainly an intellectual, but an intellectual smelling slightly of cow barns and damp tweeds. He is the most good-natured and genial man alive, but if anyone ever tries to make this country over into an imitation of Hitler’s, Mussolini’s, or Petain’s systems H will grab a gun and fight. Though H’s liberalism will not permit him to say it, it is his secret conviction that nobody whose ancestors have not been in this country since before the Civil War really understands America or would really fight for it against Nazism or any other foreign ism in a showdown.

But H is wrong. There is one other person in the room who would fight alongside H and he is not even an American citizen. He is a young German emigre, whom I brought along to the party. The people in the room look at him rather askance because he is so Germanic, so very blond-haired, so very blue-eyed, so tanned that somehow you expect him to be wearing shorts. He looks like the model of a Nazi. His English is flawed—he learned it only five years ago. He comes from an old East Prussian family; he was a member of the post-war Youth Movement and afterward of the Republican “Reichsbanner.” All his German friends went Nazi—without exception. He hiked to Switzerland penniless, there pursued his studies in New Testament Greek, sat under the great Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, came to America through the assistance of an American friend whom he had met in a university, got a job teaching the classics in a fashionable private school; quit, and is working now in an airplane factory—working on the night shift to make planes to send to Britain to defeat Germany. He has devoured volumes of American history, knows Whitman by heart, wonders why so few Americans have ever really read the Federalist papers, believes in the United States of Europe, the Union of the English-speaking world, and the coming democratic revolution all over the earth. He believes that America is the country of Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets itself innerly free.

The people in the room think he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them. He has discovered America and his spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. He is furious with America because it does not realize its strength and beauty and power. He talks about the workmen in the factory where he is employed. . . . He took the job “in order to understand the real America.” He thinks the men are wonderful. “Why don’t you American in- tellectuals ever get to them; talk to them?”

I grin bitterly to myself, thinking that if we ever got into war with the Nazis he would probably be interned, while Mr. B and Mr. G and Mrs. E would be spreading defeatism at all such parties as this one. “Of course I don’t like Hitler but . . .”

Mr. J over there is a Jew. Mr. J is a very important man. He is immensely rich—he has made a fortune through a dozen directorates in various companies, through a fabulous marriage, through a speculative flair, and through a native gift for money and a native love of power. He is intelligent and arrogant. He seldom associates with Jews. He deplores any mention of the “Jewish question.” He believes that Hitler “should not be judged from the standpoint of anti-Semitism.” He thinks that “the Jews should be reserved on all political questions.” He considers Roosevelt “an enemy of business.” He thinks “It was a serious blow to the Jews that Frankfurter should have been appointed to the Supreme Court.”

The saturnine Mr. C—the real Nazi in the room—engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation. Mr. J agrees with Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask his name—they have never met before. “A very intelligent man.”

Mr. K contemplates the scene with a sad humor in his expressive eyes. Mr. K is also a Jew. Mr. K is a Jew from the South. He speaks with a Southern drawl. He tells inimitable stories. Ten years ago he owned a very successful business that he had built up from scratch. He sold it for a handsome price, settled his indigent relatives in business, and now enjoys an income for himself of about fifty dollars a week. At forty he began to write articles about odd and out-of-the-way places in American life. A bachelor, and a sad man who makes everybody laugh, he travels continually, knows America from a thousand different facets, and loves it in a quiet, deep, unostentatious way. He is a great friend of H, the biographer. Like H, his ancestors have been in this country since long before the Civil War. He is attracted to the young German. By and by they are together in the drawing-room. The impeccable gentleman of New England, the country-man—intellectual of the Middle West, the happy woman whom the gods love, the young German, the quiet, poised Jew from the South. And over on the other side are the others.

Mr. L has just come in. Mr. L is a lion these days. My hostess was all of a dither when she told me on the telephone, “ . . . and L is coming. You know it’s dreadfully hard to get him.” L is a very powerful labor leader. “My dear, he is a man of the people, but really fascinating.“ L is a man of the people and just exactly as fascinating as my horsy, bank vice-president, on-the-make acquaintance over there, and for the same reasons and in the same way. L makes speeches about the “third of the nation,” and L has made a darned good thing for himself out of championing the oppressed. He has the best car of anyone in this room; salary means nothing to him because he lives on an expense account. He agrees with the very largest and most powerful industrialists in the country that it is the business of the strong to boss the weak, and he has made collective bargaining into a legal compulsion to appoint him or his henchmen as “labor’s” agents, with the power to tax pay envelopes and do what they please with the money. L is the strongest natural-born Nazi in this room. Mr. B regards him with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B will use him. L is already parroting B’s speeches. He has the brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power. In private conversation he denounces the Jews as “parasites.” No one has ever asked him what are the creative functions of a highly paid agent, who takes a percentage off the labor of millions of men, and distributes it where and as it may add to his own political power.   

It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.

Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.

Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t-whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to.

[gracewithducks]

“I’ll teach the lot, and treat them just the same.” (Acts 11:1-18)

Harry Potter is pretty big in our household. Actually, “pretty big” is probably an understatement. Our whole family has Hogwarts robes and magic wands, and my oldest has her own Crookshanks, and a Gryffindor quidditch sweatshirt, and a Hermione Granger costume, and a Hogwarts blanket – and if none of that means anything to you, that’s ok. Just know that, in my house, Harry Potter is a pretty big deal.

 One of the big questions that any Harry Potter fan faces is, what house are you in? Harry Potter and his friends go to a magic boarding school, and at school, the students are separated into four different houses. You eat with kids from your own house, and you bunk together, you go to classes together, you play sports together, and you earn points for your house.

 Each of the houses is a bit different, though. The story goes that the four founders of the school each had different ideas about which traits were most important in their students. Ravenclaw wanted to teach the best and the brightest, the smartest and most creative students. Slytherin wanted ambitious and resourceful leaders. Gryffindor wanted brave and courageous risk-takers. And Hufflepuff, who valued hard work and loyalty, said, “Give me the rest of the students; no matter what, I’ll teach them all.”[1]

 Most kids want to be in Gryffindor, because that’s the house that Harry and all his friends are a part of. But really, for committed fans, finding out what house you’d be in is a pretty big deal; there are all kinds of tests and quizzes and personality assessments out there, from the ridiculously shallow to the terrifyingly probing, to help you discern your Hogwarts House. And most people, once they get an answer that feels like a good fit, most fans are very committed to whatever house that is.

 I mention all of this because, not too long ago, my mother called me out for wearing what were – in her opinion – the wrong house colors. Because she was actually with me when I took what is the most undisputed and most authoritative house test, she knows what answer I got. And she also knows it wasn’t Ravenclaw. So when I showed up in a Ravenclaw sweatshirt, she immediately took offense.

 But here’s the thing, I told her. At Hogwarts, you only get sorted in houses once – once, when you’re eleven years old. And the house you’re sorted into when you’re eleven is your house for the whole rest of your life. Whoever you are at eleven defines your house, your community, and the ideals by which you’re defined and the priorities you set… thank heavens that the real world doesn’t pigeon-hole us based on our eleven-year-old selves! But if, hypothetically, I I had taken that test when I was eleven – and not when I was an adult – you can be darn sure I would have been sorted into Ravenclaw house.

 Ravenclaw, remember, is the house for the smartest kids, the best students, the – dare I say it – the goody-goodies, the teachers’-pets and know it alls. Ravenclaws are clever, and Ravenclaws can be brilliantly creative, but Ravenclaws also tend to follow the rules, to color inside the lines, to be really, really good at working the system but not quite so good at breaking the mold.

 That was me.

 Graduation Sunday always has me thinking back to my own school days – and the thing is, I was good at school. Not in the teen movie sort of way – I wasn’t good at partying, I wasn’t particularly popular, I wasn’t a cheerleader, I didn’t win any state championships, I was extremely uncomfortable at the only homecoming dance I ever attended, I certainly wasn’t ever elected prom queen, and I never once went to a party where the solo cups were filled with anything stronger than Mountain Dew.

 When I say I was good at high school, what I mean is that I was good at following the rules. I knew the system, and I knew how to make it work for me. Teachers loved me. I got really, really good grades. I was creative in all the system-approved ways: poetry clubs, and debate classes, and speech teams. I tutored at the elementary school next door. I captained a group of students who used puppets to teach third graders how to say “no” to drugs.

 I went to church. I spent my summers at church camp. I was the president of my youth group. The most rebellious thing I did was lead an early morning student prayer group in the hallways of our public school. I learned all the “right” answers to the hard questions of the 1990s.

 I didn’t cheat. I didn’t skip class. I graduated at the top of my class. I was good. Goody-goody good. And I was good at it.

 I was a Ravenclaw, true blue, through and through. And it worked pretty well for me. I was good at school; I was really smart – but I was also kind of an idiot. Because the world isn’t like high school: there isn’t a clearly defined list of requirements somewhere; there isn’t just a set of rules that you follow and right answers that you parrot back, and that makes you “good.” Life is a lot more complicated than that.

 Today, we get a glimpse of the moment when Peter and the rest of Jesus’ disciples start to figure that out. Today, we witness the fallout from this bizarre vision that Peter has about a sheet from heaven and bunch of animals… but that vision isn’t really about animals at all.

 So what happens is this. Peter has been travelling, preaching the good news about Jesus, and as we saw last week, even performing some miracles along the way. And then one day, as Peter is praying, he has a vision. He sees something like a sheet coming down from heaven, and it’s covered with all these animals that, according to the rules of Peter’s faith, are unclean, impure, unfit for any good Jew to eat.

 And Peter hears a voice from heaven that says, “Get up, Peter. Take, and kill, and eat.”

 And maybe I should say that Peter isn’t a Ravenclaw. I’m quite certain Peter is a Gryffindor: he’s the leader of the disciples and the early apostles, largely because he’s bold, he’s brave, he’s willing to set out boldly in faith – even if that courage turns out to have been recklessness, and his impulsiveness leads him in the wrong direction. Peter follows Jesus immediately, courageously, when he’s called. Peter is the only one brave enough to speak on the mountaintop, when Jesus’ glory is revealed, and Moses and Elijah stand alongside him – only Peter has the courage to speak. He says the wrong thing, but that doesn’t stop him; he doesn’t let his fear shut him down. When Jesus appears walking on the water, Peter is the only one brave enough to step out of the boat. And when it looks like Jesus might be on his way to an arrest, Peter is the one with the nerve to try to warn him, to talk him out of it – and it’s gutsy, even if it does earn Peter one of the strongest rebukes ever.

 Peter is a Gryffindor: he tends to leap before he looks, to act boldly and ask questions later. But even Peter realizes that this isn’t a Gryffindor moment: this is a moment to tread carefully.

 So Peter taps into his inner Ravenclaw: he thinks. He thinks about what he knows about God, and what he knows God has said in the past; he thinks about the laws and the rules that God has put in place. And he thinks, surely, this is a test. God is testing me, to see if I’ve learned my lesson, if I’ve learned to think before I act, if I’ve learned to trust and follow even when I don’t quite understand.

 So Peter hears this voice from heaven, and Peter refuses. “Surely not, Lord!” he cries. “I know your laws; I know your rules, and I follow them; I’ve never eaten anything impure or unclean, and I never will.”

 Peter, bless his heart. Even when he tries to get it right, he gets it wrong. The voice speaks again, saying, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

 Three times, this happens. And then, when Peter is still trying to figure out what it means, messengers arrive to bring him to the house of Cornelius – Cornelius, a Roman centurion, a foreigner, a non-Jew – Cornelius, an outsider, someone who’s impure, someone who’s unclean – Cornelius wants to learn more about the good news of Jesus Christ.

 This is a turning point for Peter. This is the moment when he realizes that his vision isn’t about food at all. This is the moment when he realizes God’s true message: while Peter was protesting, “Lord, I know what you’ve said” – God was saying, “Yes, but look! Now I’m doing a new thing.”

 “Now I know,” Peter says, “now I know that God doesn’t show favoritism… God has shown me,” Peter says, “God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.”

 Because Peter goes to see Cornelius, this outsider and his whole household come to faith in Jesus, and they’re filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

 But then word gets back to Jerusalem: Peter is visiting, and eating with, and preaching to the wrong kind of people. Peter gets in trouble for preaching to Cornelius. Peter gets in trouble with the other apostles for breaking the rules. He’s called back to Jerusalem, where the other disciples put him on trial, to answer for what he’s done. And as his defense, he shares this vision – the vision of a God who is speaking a new word and doing a new thing.  And then Peter points to the evidence itself: “If God gave them the same gift [the same Spirit] that God gave to us, who am I to think that I can stand in God’s way?”

 It’s a question we still wrestle with, that we still put each other on trial for, today – when we break the rules, when we challenge tradition, and we do it because God is doing a new thing, God is still – two thousand years later – drawing the circle wider and wider. Sometimes being faithful means throwing the rules out the window; sometimes being faithful means we follow the Spirit instead of standing in God’s way.

 At eleven, I would have been a Ravenclaw. But when I took the test as an adult, it told me that I’m a Hufflepuff.

 And I’m okay with that – because I think that God might just be a Hufflepuff, too.

 In the Harry Potter books, Hufflepuff house is the butt of every joke. The kids in Hufflepuff are made fun of, because everybody assumes they’re the leftovers, the kids who weren’t brave enough or smart enough or cunning enough to fit in anywhere else.

 But I think the foundations of Hufflepuff run deeper: when all the other founders of the school were fighting for the students they wanted best, and by extension, leaving others behind, Helga Hufflepuff was the one who said: I’ll love them all. I’ll take them all. Anyone – brave or timid, smart or struggling, leaders and followers alike – everyone is welcome here.

 There’s a humility and a hospitality at the heart of Hufflepuff house. And there’s a humility and a hospitality at the heart of the gospel. This is who we are called to be: for everyone born, a place at the table. Our doors, our arms, our hearts open wide.

 I’m grateful for the person I once was. But I’m also grateful for a God who is still working on me, for the person I’ve become, for the ways my values and my faith have transformed. More than that, I’m thankful for a church that continues to believe that God is still speaking, still drawing the circle wide, still challenging us and inviting us to be a part of a new thing.

 I don’t know what exactly that might look like. But I do hope never to call unclean anyone whom God has called beloved and beautiful and blessed…. and I trust that the Spirit is at work in more places and people and ways that I might ever know.

 Graduates, we are thankful for who you are. You’ve come a long way. But by the grace of God, you’re not done yet. I hope and pray that you will continue to learn, and to deepen and to grow – in your knowledge, in your compassion, in courage and in humility and in faith – all the days of your life. And I pray the same for all of us, no matter where we are on our journey: may we believe that God is still speaking, God is still calling, God is still at work doing new things within us and all around us today.

   O God, for endings and for beginnings, we give you thanks. For all that you’ve done, for the ways that we’ve seen you at work, in us, around us, and through us, we give you thanks. And for all the ways we know you will surprise us still, with your love and with your grace, we give you thanks. Give us the courage and the humility to love the people you love, and to follow where you are calling us to go. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.

[1] The title of this sermon is taken from the Sorting Hat’s song, and attributed to Helga Hufflepuff, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling, 2003).

[seriouslyhooked]

Souvenirs (A CS AU) Part 8/14

A Modern CS AU where Emma has grown up in Maine her whole life and runs a store with Ruby and MM. Killian Jones is the new guy in town, who just bought the local bar. Only Emma and Killian have met before and now she can’t help but wonder if their past has influenced his plans for the future. Includes tons of fluff and a happily ever after. Rated M.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven

A/N: In a completely expected non-twist, this week’s chapter of ‘Souvenirs’ is staying light and fluffy and a little smutty. This installment is all about the future for Emma and her jewelry line. Expect cute gestures from Killian and some nice best friend moments with Ruby and Mary Margaret.

Right now, Emma hated the phone. No, she loathed it, for here she was in the middle of a beautiful sleep, wrapped up in Killian’s warm embrace and the phone would not stop ringing. She was still fighting off the lingering drowsiness of deep sleep as she popped an eye open to read the time on the alarm clock by her bed. 5:30 AM. Dear lord, why?

“You should probably answer that love.” Emma groaned, sorry that she hadn’t been fast enough to keep Killian from waking. Then she rolled over and picked up the offending tech and answered a bit more gruffly than usual.

“Hello?” she mumbled sleepily into the phone.

“Hi yes, I’m looking for Emma Swan.” Emma covered her mouth to muffle a yawn.

“This is she.”

“Miss Swan, this is Lillian Gates. I run costuming for the show Socialites on ABS, and I wanted to talk to you about an exclusive jewelry deal for the show. I saw your features in Closet Covet, and Teen Style, and after researching your website, and talking to Hannah Martin at the Maine School of Design, I think your line would be perfect for our star, Diana Lane.” Emma couldn’t understand what was being said, so she parroted back to the woman – Lillian Gates, she’d said her name was.

“I’m sorry. You want to exclusively feature my designs on the nation’s leading primetime drama?” Emma put the phone on speaker at Killian’s silent insistence and the two of them listened intently to Lillian’s reply.

“That’s right. My team and I were hoping to meet with you if you’re interested here in New York City. I know it’s last minute, but would you have any availability sometime this week?” Emma was shocked but replied that of course she could, and as she planned a time, Killian pulled out his tablet to help her book a flight so she could definitely make it. There was an availability for same day travel on Wednesday so they set the date.

“Great, I’m so excited to meet with you. And I really do apologize for the early call, but I just received a call from the Vice President at ABS herself, and she was convinced that if we didn’t pick you up immediately, someone else would.”

Well, Emma couldn’t exactly argue with that, after all, she’d have woken up any time of day to get news like this. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, one she absolutely didn’t want to let it get by her. As she hung up with Lillian and looked over to Killian, Emma was at a loss for words.

“Did that just happen?” Killian wrapped his arms around her once more and held her close, pressing a kiss to her lips.

“It did, and I’m so proud of you, Emma.”

She knew she was beaming, and it was two fold. On the one hand she was here with him, and two, she was really proud of herself as well. She’d never dreamed of a chance like this coming around, but now that it was here… oh shit how exactly was she going to do this?

“I have to talk to Mary Margaret and Ruby. It’s going to take so much restructuring, and it doesn’t feel right to make the decision without them.” Killian nodded.

“Of course love, they’re your partners.”

Emma sighed with relief. Some people thought it strange that Emma would consider her friends a part of her line, since they didn’t really have much to do with the designs or the assembly themselves, but each woman played a critical role both in Emma’s process and in the actualization of the pieces. Besides, the line was sold through the Three Fates site and name. They had power over that just as much as she did.

“It’s still kind of early though.” Emma whispered, trying to rationalize her next moves and Killian’s response was the movement of his hand from where the sheet was covering her body to expose her breasts, and her stomach and beyond. His hands then moved to her waiting heat, which Emma couldn’t help but crave. The excitement she was feeling at the new job possibilities was now channeled into her ever present need for him as she parted her legs wider for him.

“Aye, love. I think we have a few hours yet before it would be appropriate to tell them.” Emma swallowed harshly at the idea that they’d spend hours in this fashion, seeing as she was nearly whimpering just from the feel of his finger against her clit moving in slow circles. Hours meant slow and sweet and oh so filled with anticipation.

“Any thoughts on what we could do to fill the time?”

Killian growled low before bringing himself over her and kissing her fiercely. Emma arched upwards wanting to forego the slow perusal, at least at first. As if he could read her mind, Killian trailed a series of nips and sucks down her body before bringing her sex to his mouth. Once there, his exploration was fast and hard and perfectly enacted.

The past few months had become a study in Emma from Killian’s perspective, and right now, when she was needing release, Emma was so beyond thankful. Every lick, every suck at her clit, coupled with the eventual joining of his fingers within her had Emma’s body shaking and her mind unable to think of anything but him and this and how right it was.

“Fuck, Killian, I’m so close.”

He hummed against her and that was all it took for her to careen of the precipice into a glorious orgasm. Only while she was coming down, Killian didn’t back off, he stayed right there, working her further until the lingering sensitivity sparked into an even more fueled desire. She could pretend that she didn’t want this, feign that it was too much, but the truth was that with Killian, it would never be enough. Emma highly doubted she could ever have her fill of him and in the past that would have scared her. Now though, in the face of all this change and momentum in her life, she was only thrilled and grateful that he was here. So when he made her come again, had her moans pitching higher and higher to another spectacular release, she pulled him up so she could give him a taste of everything he made her feel.

“You’re trying to have all the fun,” Emma teased as she pushed Killian onto his back and straddled over him to which Killian grinned in reply.

“I believe you were having a fair bit of fun, love.” The innuendo was thick in the air between them, and Emma felt herself flush. When she did, Killian reached his hand to twine in the strands of her golden hair and his eyes took on a more serious, awe filled look.

“You truly are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever beheld, Swan.”

Emma bit her bottom lip and watched him track the motion before leaning down to kiss him fiercely. It was a duel of tongues and heat and wanting, but Emma pulled back, trying to gain some of the control as she did. As he had done, she trailed down his beautiful body with her mouth, until she was inches away from his cock. She looked up at Killian and he was already brimming with anticipation, so when she took him in, and he was outwardly groaning in pleasure, Emma wasn’t surprised. See, as much as the past few months had been a study of her, it had also been a study of him and what they were like together.

“Fuck, love, you’re so good at that.” She knew he certainly thought so, and she continued to suck and lick and work him with her hand until he was close, before finally pulling back and moving back up above him, looking into his deep, lust-filled, blue eyes.

“I love you, Killian.” He positively beamed at that.

“I love you too, Emma.”

With that, Emma put them both out of their misery and lowered herself onto his hardness and rode him at the exact pace and rhythm that she knew would drive them crazy the fastest. When he could feel her starting to crest and tighten around him at more inconstant intervals, he brushed his fingers against her clit and that was all it took for Emma to succumb to the sensations and come again with him following just behind her.

“We’re really good at this.” Emma joked as she lay spent beside Killian with his arms now enveloping her once more as they had been while they slept. Killian chuckled low, and the rumble from his chest caused a tingle of pleasure to move through Emma.

“That we are, Swan.” Emma yawned, but tried to muffle it with her hand as she leaned back against Killian.

“I say twenty minute nap and then a shower.” She felt him smile against her shoulder before he placed a kiss there.

“I like the way you think, love. Always have, always will.” So, twenty minutes later, they did exactly that, and Emma savored every second of it.

……………………………………..

A few days had passed, and Emma was currently on her way back from the airport after her meeting with Lillian Gates. She still couldn’t believe it – this kind of deal, this kind of exposure, was going to drastically change the way she did business and the way that she thought about her line. The star of the show was featured every week in every style magazine across the country and parts of the world. Most of those features included full outfit breakdowns, and with Emma’s designs as an exclusive provider, the publicity would be astronomical.

Ruby and Mary Margaret had been all for it too. In fact, Emma couldn’t have imagined them reacting better to anything. Within seconds of her telling them, she’d been wrapped in a group hug so tight she nearly stopped breathing. They were the epitome of supportive, but still, Emma needed to figure out a way to make it up to them, and to include them in this expansion of their brand. She was pretty sure she had the ideas down.

Mary Margaret would make a great VP of Brand Integrity. She had a knack for knowing what worked and what didn’t work with their current advertising and what pieces that Emma was tinkering with would go well with her existing lines. Ruby on the other hand, was all about making things bigger and better and bolder. For that reason, Emma thought VP of Brand Enhancement had a nice ring to it. This way her friends were both still figureheads within the line, without having to give up their other passions that the Three Fates store supplied. She just hoped that they’d be interested in the idea.

Suddenly Emma’s phone rang, pulling her from the daydream of how she would pitch this to her friends. It was Mary Margaret.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Emma. Can you meet me at the lighthouse? Ruby and I have something we want to talk to you about.” Emma was still nervous despite the pleasantness in her friend’s tone.

“Um, sure. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s great, really. Just trust me.” Emma told her she would be there shortly and ten minutes later she was getting out of her yellow bug and approaching the lighthouse that to her held so much significance. Mary Margaret and Ruby waved as she approached, and Emma’s worry evaporated. They both looked about to burst with excitement.

“What’s going on guys?” Mary Margaret shook her head as Ruby spoke.

“Trust us, Ems. It’s better that we show you.”

With that the walked into the lighthouse and Emma froze just inside the doorway. The interior was completely different, with all of the wood and moldings restored and new furnishings inside. Along the walls were the Three Fates logo and assorted photos and knickknacks from her studio at the store. It was perfect

“You guys did this?” Emma’s voice cracked with emotion as she ran a hand over the beautiful crafting area that was beautifully laid out through the room.

“We helped, yeah.” Emma looked to Mary Margaret and Ruby for clarification and then it dawned on her. They’d helped Killian. He’d managed to give her another incredible gift, and now the tears were there.

“Do you like it?” Mary Margaret asked.

“I love it.” Emma whispered as Ruby gave her another hug then pulled back and took her hand.

“You haven’t even seen the whole thing. Ruby made her way to an antique looking elevator lift that had been installed as an alternate to the stairs, which Emma could admit would get tedious. It brought the three friends to the upper level, which was outfitted as a miniature sketch studio.

Emma covered her mouth with her hand, as the other arm wrapped around her middle. She felt close to exploding with happy tears, and was trying her best to keep the tumult of emotions in. This room was like magic, outfitted with beautiful seating and all of the windows had been re-outfitted for the most clarity and the best view of the ocean before her. On the back wall, which was made of white bricks, there was a painted mural that read ‘Designer in Residence’ and both of the S’s were swans in the style that Emma often sketched in her down time.

“You guys, this is so perfect.”

“We’re still not done yet. Just you wait.” They made their way back outside of the lighthouse, and then led her to the house next door. Emma hadn’t even realized that the old caretaker’s house was still in tact inside. When they entered, it was more than in tact, it was now fully outfitted for jewelry assembly, with at least eight stations and necessary break space, on top of a full kitchen and display room.

“This isn’t just your dream anymore, Emma. Ruby and I are in this with you and it’s going to be great. We ran the numbers, and with the increase in sales and the impending boom, we can take on eight more employees just for the line.” The tears were falling down her face now as Emma nodded, still stunned that they’d done all of this for her.

“And we’ve decided you can come to the light house twice a week. Any more than that and we’d go crazy from missing you.” Emma smiled at that. She’d miss them terribly if she went that much without them too, so that worked perfectly.

“One last thing,” Mary Margaret said, “We were thinking of offering Tiana an apprenticeship with you. Basically she’d be your second, get to see how a business like this is built from such a small scale to a bigger one. Maybe then, when she graduates at the end of the year, we could convince her to stay.”

“That is a fantastic idea.” Emma hiccupped a little with the lingering tears and then broke out laughing at herself. Her friends followed suit as they each put an arm around her.

“So, how was New York? Was it crazy? Clearly they loved you, how could they not.”

“It was a little overwhelming really, because I was thinking about how all of this would work, but I didn’t have the foresight that you guys did.” Emma went on to tell them her ideas about their titles and roles with the line and both friends readily accepted.

“Does it come with a pay raise?” Ruby joked and Emma laughed.

“You know, I think it does. Call it a network TV perk.” Mary Margaret sighed wistfully.

“I still can’t believe it’s Socialites! That show is huge! It’s like a movement at this point.”

Oh did Emma ever know that. If she’d been in doubt before, the day’s activities and meetings on top of meetings had set her straight. The deal was also crazy. The show would be featuring ten necklaces per season over the next two years, an assortment of earrings and bracelets and then three to be determined pieces per season based on writer wants. In return, Emma would be featured in all of these publications, but she’d also make a bonus amount of money if her lines boosted social media or traditional coverage of the show. Somehow, though the show was doing her the favor, they were still paying her. It was unbelievable.

“Did you get any spoilers?” Ruby asked, and Emma smiled, knowing that Ruby was addicted to the series thanks to its fiery protagonist and heartthrob male lead.

“Actually I did. And, as soon as the contracts are signed and official, I get to tell you guys.” That had Ruby squealing with excitement and Emma laughing again.

The friends decided to head out, but Emma noticed the portrait of the three of them in the entryway that she hadn’t seen before. It was a candid shot of Mary Margaret, Ruby and Emma together at Three Fates as they shared a laugh over something she didn’t know. Emma stepped closer to the picture, admiring how beautiful the shot was and how it had captured a perfect moment so spectacularly.

“I have to say, Emma, you chose well with Killian. He really is something else.” Emma nodded at that. There was absolutely no denying that Killian Jones was exactly what she wanted, and right now, she couldn’t wait to find him and show him exactly how much she loved him for all that he was, and all that he gave her each and every day.

Post-Note: I hope that you guys enjoyed this week’s update! There are only six more chapters left for this story, BUT I will be accomplishing a lot in those. Trust me, more engagement/wedding/baby fluff in store as it is in all of my CS stories. Thanks again for reading, and as always, I love hearing your thoughts and feedback. It really means the world that you guys are enjoying these!

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: S-F Weapons, Thomas Ligotti, Savage Minicrate, Michael Whelan, Starman Jones

Cinema (IGN.com): The concept of the sci-fi weapon also has its allure. Whether it’s a cyborg hero taking down villains with some kind of crazy blaster, or evil Dark Lords wiping out entire planets with their mechanical monstrosities, there is no doubt that the destructive capabilities of such futuristic weaponry appeal to a certain base instinct in us all.

  Writers (Social Ecologies): Over a period of years the works of Thomas Ligotti have pervaded my thought and life. I’ve decided to spend time writing on the art and philosophy of Ligotti in a new book, one that I will hopefully finish by the end of fall. Not sure when it will be published, but I’ll keep you informed. I may not be as active on the site as I’ve been but will still pop my head up from time to time as I progress.

  RPG (Conan.com): Privateer Press has announced the SAVAGE MiniCrate subscription box, where you can get minis featuring heroes and villains from

King Conan

the rich worlds of Robert E. Howard. The first miniature in the series is Dark Agnes de Chastillon from Howard’s Sword Woman stories.

The SAVAGE MiniCrate is offered as a monthly subscription service monthly ($16.99), or as a six-month VIP subscription ($98.99). Each shipment contains a single exclusive, limited-edition miniature and a corresponding Collector’s Card. International costs will vary, as usual.

Magazines (Mens Pulp Mags): In case you don’t know about it, PulpFest is one of the biggest and best annual pulp-related conventions in the country.

Since the theme for that year’s presentations was “The Pulps at War,” we put together a set of overheads about the war stories and artwork in men’s adventure magazines and the thematic, artistic and literary DNA they share with the pre-World War II pulp magazines.

In the second half of the presentation, I spent some time talking about the men’s adventure mag BATTLE CRY.

    Cinema & Movie Novelization (Glorious Trash): I was probably one of the very few 19 year-olds who had a copy of Circle Of Iron on VHS in the summer of ’94, and I certainly was the only one who got his girlfriend to watch it…several times! It’s a wonder she didn’t break up with me halfway through the first viewing, because Circle Of Iron is a bad movie, one that should’ve been roasted on Mystery Science Theater 3000 but for some reason never was.

  Writing (Sly Flourish): I’ve recently been doing a lot of adventure writing, the results of which you can find in the Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Kickstarter. As part of this project, I wanted to dig deep into what makes great adventures. So, as I did when writing Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, I hit the books (and the blogs) to collect as much of the best advice on adventure design that I could.

    Sports Fiction (Paul Bishop): Boxing and noir go together as smoothly as a one-two combination punch. The inherent qualities of both noir and boxing, desperation, bad choices, violence, tension, humanity stripped bare, combine for a marriage made in Hell.

We’re not talking the Rockys of the boxing world here. We’re not talking the life affirming, if you punch hard enough, sooner or later you’re gonna be a contender, kind of boxing stories. We’re talking about the down and dirty, punch drunk, cauliflower-eared, in bed with the mob, no hope fighters who populate such novels as Fat City (Leonard Gardner), Ringside Jezebel (Kate Nickerson), The Leather Pushers (H. C. Witwer), The Bruiser(Jim Tully), or Iron Man (W. R. Burnett).

    Art (DMR Books): oday is the birthday of Michael Whelan, one of the greatest artists to ever work in the fields of fantasy, sci-fi and horror. The occasion prompted me to think back on the Whelan covers that really, really affected me when growing up. I have decided that there were four such.

I was a Whelan fan before I was a Frazetta fan. In fact, Michael Whelan—along with Jeffrey Jones—was the first non-comic book artist I was ever a fan of. My fandom started the day I bought the DAW edition of Elric of Melniboné. I was already familiar with the Barry Windsor-Smith comics version of Elric, but that cover blew me away.

          Vintage Fiction (Hi Lo Brow): Eighty-five years ago, the following 10 adventures — selected from my Best Nineteen-Thirties (1934–1943) Adventure list — were first serialized or published in book form. They’re my favorite adventures published that year.

Please let me know if I’ve missed any adventures from this year that you particularly admire. Enjoy!

  Pulp Fiction (DMR Books): The two Northmen ships he had encountered in the Channel had turned and rowed up the Thames to raid the British villages along the river; even though he has only 30 men able to fight them, Tros is able to ride a rising tide up the river and wreak havoc on the raiders.  He sinks one ship and manages to steal the other but the able-bodied Britons desert, more comfortable fighting on land than on a ship. Tros gives Orwic permission to go, leaving the defense of his leaking galley and the stolen long ship to Conops, a score of badly wounded Britons and himself.  Tros wants that long ship; it is beautiful and whoever built that ship could help him build the ship of his dreams.

  Fiction (Brain Leakage): Confession time: I love post apocalyptic stories. ​I always have. Something about the genre’s tropes and trappings just gets my blood pumping. Give me bombed-out cities, atomic mutants, and barbaric biker gangs, and you’ll keep my ass glued to the seat until the credits roll. Funny thing is, as long as I’ve had it, I’ve never given my apocalyptic obsession much thought. If anything, I chalked it up to watching Thundarr the Barbarian as an impressionable kid.

  RPG (Rampant Games):  Matt Barton’s outstanding history of computer role-playing games is now out in a second edition. I haven’t read the whole thing yet (it’s HUGE), but the last ten years have brought about some enormous changes and tons of new games to the genre. This is kind of funny to me, as Matt had kind of closed the previous edition on a down note, thinking the era of quality single-player RPGs had come to a close.

  Heinlein (Tip the Wink): I’m reading my way through many of the Heinlein juvenile SF novels. Last time it was The Rolling Stones, this time, Starman Jones. No, it’s not forgotten, none of Heinlein’s juvenile SF novels are, really, but I recommend them, some more, some less, so here we go.

  Mystery (Jerry’s House of Everything): After reading and reviewing Kuttner’s collection Three by Kuttner last week I was in the mood for another book by him.  Luckily Murder of a Wife, the last of his four mysteries featuring San Francisco psychoanalyst Michael Gray, was near the top of mount TBR.

Kuttner, who died much too soon in 1958, had directed much of his energies to mystery novels in his last years, even as he was studying for a Master’s degree when he had his fatal heart attack.  Murder of a Wife appeared in March 1958 (just one month after the author died) in a paperback edition from Permabooks — its only paperback appearance.

  Weird Western (Scifi Movie Page): Deep in a Wyoming mine, hell awaits. Former cattle driver, Rough Rider and current New York City cop Nat Blackburn is given an offer he can’t refuse by President Teddy Roosevelt. Tales of gold in the abandoned mining town of Hecla, in the Deep Rock Hills, abound. The only problem-those who go seeking their fortune never return. Roosevelt’s own troops are among the missing, and the President wants to know their fate – and find the gold. Along with his constant companion, Teta, a hired gun with a thirst for adventure, Nat travels to a barren land where even animals dare not tread. Along the way, they are joined by a Selma, a fiery and beautiful woman in search of her brother who was swallowed up by Hecla years earlier.

  Games (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): Such a small box, but there’s so much game inside! You can play it as a “design-a-thing” game where you spend five or ten minutes figuring out how to destroy your friend’s continuing character in a campaign of endless arena duels. But you can also cut out the min/maxing element entirely by dealing several of of the fighter cards to each player and seeing what happens. How do you make these unoptimized figures work together as a team in order to crush the spirit of your opponent? It’s not immediately obvious! The range of options each turn are tremendous!

  Westerns (Rough Edges): As you can see from the back cover copy above, BLOOD TRAIL by Gardner F. Fox (originally published in paperback by Belmont in 1979) is a revenge Western, a very common plot in the genre. Fox doesn’t really bring anything new to the table in the story he tells in this book (on the trail of the three men who bushwhacked him and left him for dead, the protagonist finds himself in the middle of a range war), but it’s the execution that really matters in a book like this, not the plot. And in that respect, Fox does a superb job.

  Sword-and-Sorcery (Legends of Men): Last week I review Holmes book Enter The Barbarian. If you haven’t read that review yet, check it out here. Morgan Holmes is an expert on pulp fiction, sword & sorcery, sword & planet, Robert E. Howard, Conan The Cimmerian, and red pilled man. Morgan was kind enough to share much of his knowledge on sword & sorcery with Legends of Men in this interview. In fact, this interview so comprehensive that it’s a great reference for those who want to know more about the genre and masculine fiction.

    Sensor Sweep: S-F Weapons, Thomas Ligotti, Savage Minicrate, Michael Whelan, Starman Jones published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[joannrochaus]

Protester climbed up the base of the Statue of Liberty

A woman climbed the base of the Statue of Liberty yesterday to protest the separation of migrant families. She was taken into custody by police. Liberty Island was closed during the standoff, and around four thousand people had to be evacuated.

On the day after America’s birthday, if you’re concerned about your country, you’re not alone. Bloomberg is carrying an article titled, “Freaked-Out Americans Desperately Seek to Escape the News.” Here is some of their evidence.

Last fall, the American Psychological Association discovered that almost two-thirds of Americans listed “the state of the nation” as their primary source of stress. They ranked it above both money and work.

According to the Pew Research Center, almost 70 percent of Americans feel a sense of “news fatigue.” When Enterprise Rent-A-Car surveyed more than 1,100 Americans about their summer travel plans, the top three reasons given for travel were stress, the news, and the political climate.

Discovery Inc. owns networks HGTV, Food Network, and TLC. It has seen a 12 percent increase in time spent by viewers watching its networks since the 2016 election. The head of research for Hallmark Channel says, “When we asked people why they watched Hallmark, we used to hear things like ‘I want an escape.’ Now it’s ‘I want to be reminded that there’s still love in the world.‘”

“The United States became a singular noun”

America turned 242 years old yesterday. Our democracy has been tested many times across our history.

In the decades from our founding to the Civil War, the unresolved tension at the heart of the nation had to do with federal power versus state power. The Second Continental Congress knew George Washington would become the first president and created a Constitution with strong federal and executive powers. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed in a weak federal government and strong states’ rights.

The conflict between the two views of national authority laid the foundation for the War Between the States. As esteemed historian James M. McPherson notes, “The United States went to war in 1861 to preserve the Union; it emerged from the war in 1865 having created a nation. Before 1861 the two words ‘United States’ were generally used as a plural noun: ‘the United States are a republic.’ After 1865 the United States became a singular noun.”

Two world wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, and our ongoing struggle with global terrorism have all challenged our commitment to government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” And yet our democracy prevails.

What explains “the greatness of America”?

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville noted that “the greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

Despite deep fault lines dividing Democrats from Republicans, pro-life from pro-choice, biblical marriage from “marriage equality,” affluent from impoverished, and believers from atheists and “nones,” we are not witnessing the kind of uprisings that have plagued so many other countries around the world.

One foundational reason is that Americans believe we can change our government and our country. We can vote for new leaders. We can persuade others to our beliefs. We each have access to influence.

If we were ruled by hereditary kings, everyone outside the royal family would be consigned to second-class status. If we were ruled by a dictator, we could change our nation’s leadership only by a coup or revolt. If we were ruled by a political class such as the Communist Party, we would have to achieve status in the party to change our country.

Our founding document captures the essence of our democratic ethos: “All men are created equal.” While America has often failed to keep this promise to all our citizens, the fact that we measure ourselves by it demonstrates its foundational power in our lives and nation.

“All men are created equal”

These five words lie at the heart of our democracy. They are derived ultimately from the biblical worldview, which declares that all humans–without exception–are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27).

God loves “the world,” including every inhabitant of every nation (John 3:16). Jesus died for “the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). God’s word invites us all to our Lord: “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).

To what degree did such biblical truth influence our nation’s Founders? To address this very complicated subject, I recommend an insightful essay by historian Mark Hall (PhD, University of Virginia), a specialist in the study of America’s founding principles.

Dr. Hall states: “If one is to understand the story of the United States of America, it is important to have a proper appreciation for its Christian colonial roots. By almost any measure, colonists of European descent who settled in the New World were serious Christians whose constitutions, laws, and practices reflected the influence of Christianity.”

Because of such Christian influence, “America’s Founders believed that humans were created in the imago dei–the image of God. Part of what this means is that humans are reasonable beings. This led them to conclude that we the people (as opposed to the elite) can order our public lives together through politics rather than force.”

Does this mean that the Founders intended to force Christianity on all Americans? Not at all: “Although the Founders were profoundly influenced by Christianity, they did not design a constitutional order only for fellow believers. They explicitly prohibited religious tests for federal offices, and they were committed to the proposition that all men and women should be free to worship god (or not) as their consciences dictate.”

However, Dr. Hall notes: “We ignore at our peril the Founders’ insight that democracy requires a moral people and that faith is an important, if not indispensable, support for morality.” He adds: “Such faith may well flourish best without government support, but it should not have to flourish in the face of government hostility.”

The strength of our democracy

G. K. Chesterton observed that “America is the only country ever founded on a creed.” If our creed is, “All men are created equal,” the strength of our democracy depends on the degree to which we value each other as our Creator values us.

“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). May this command be our prayer for America, and for ourselves, today.

The post Protester climbed up the base of the Statue of Liberty appeared first on Denison Forum.

source https://www.denisonforum.org/columns/daily-article/protester-climbed-base-statue-liberty-2/ source https://denisonforum.tumblr.com/post/175571679492

[denisonforum]

Protester climbed up the base of the Statue of Liberty

A woman climbed the base of the Statue of Liberty yesterday to protest the separation of migrant families. She was taken into custody by police. Liberty Island was closed during the standoff, and around four thousand people had to be evacuated.

On the day after America’s birthday, if you’re concerned about your country, you’re not alone. Bloomberg is carrying an article titled, “Freaked-Out Americans Desperately Seek to Escape the News.” Here is some of their evidence.

Last fall, the American Psychological Association discovered that almost two-thirds of Americans listed “the state of the nation” as their primary source of stress. They ranked it above both money and work.

According to the Pew Research Center, almost 70 percent of Americans feel a sense of “news fatigue.” When Enterprise Rent-A-Car surveyed more than 1,100 Americans about their summer travel plans, the top three reasons given for travel were stress, the news, and the political climate.

Discovery Inc. owns networks HGTV, Food Network, and TLC. It has seen a 12 percent increase in time spent by viewers watching its networks since the 2016 election. The head of research for Hallmark Channel says, “When we asked people why they watched Hallmark, we used to hear things like ‘I want an escape.’ Now it’s ‘I want to be reminded that there’s still love in the world.'”

“The United States became a singular noun”

America turned 242 years old yesterday. Our democracy has been tested many times across our history.

In the decades from our founding to the Civil War, the unresolved tension at the heart of the nation had to do with federal power versus state power. The Second Continental Congress knew George Washington would become the first president and created a Constitution with strong federal and executive powers. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed in a weak federal government and strong states’ rights.

The conflict between the two views of national authority laid the foundation for the War Between the States. As esteemed historian James M. McPherson notes, “The United States went to war in 1861 to preserve the Union; it emerged from the war in 1865 having created a nation. Before 1861 the two words ‘United States’ were generally used as a plural noun: ‘the United States are a republic.’ After 1865 the United States became a singular noun.”

Two world wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, and our ongoing struggle with global terrorism have all challenged our commitment to government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” And yet our democracy prevails.

What explains “the greatness of America”?

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville noted that “the greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

Despite deep fault lines dividing Democrats from Republicans, pro-life from pro-choice, biblical marriage from “marriage equality,” affluent from impoverished, and believers from atheists and “nones,” we are not witnessing the kind of uprisings that have plagued so many other countries around the world.

One foundational reason is that Americans believe we can change our government and our country. We can vote for new leaders. We can persuade others to our beliefs. We each have access to influence.

If we were ruled by hereditary kings, everyone outside the royal family would be consigned to second-class status. If we were ruled by a dictator, we could change our nation’s leadership only by a coup or revolt. If we were ruled by a political class such as the Communist Party, we would have to achieve status in the party to change our country.

Our founding document captures the essence of our democratic ethos: “All men are created equal.” While America has often failed to keep this promise to all our citizens, the fact that we measure ourselves by it demonstrates its foundational power in our lives and nation.

“All men are created equal”

These five words lie at the heart of our democracy. They are derived ultimately from the biblical worldview, which declares that all humans–without exception–are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27).

God loves “the world,” including every inhabitant of every nation (John 3:16). Jesus died for “the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). God’s word invites us all to our Lord: “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).

To what degree did such biblical truth influence our nation’s Founders? To address this very complicated subject, I recommend an insightful essay by historian Mark Hall (PhD, University of Virginia), a specialist in the study of America’s founding principles.

Dr. Hall states: “If one is to understand the story of the United States of America, it is important to have a proper appreciation for its Christian colonial roots. By almost any measure, colonists of European descent who settled in the New World were serious Christians whose constitutions, laws, and practices reflected the influence of Christianity.”

Because of such Christian influence, “America’s Founders believed that humans were created in the imago dei–the image of God. Part of what this means is that humans are reasonable beings. This led them to conclude that we the people (as opposed to the elite) can order our public lives together through politics rather than force.”

Does this mean that the Founders intended to force Christianity on all Americans? Not at all: “Although the Founders were profoundly influenced by Christianity, they did not design a constitutional order only for fellow believers. They explicitly prohibited religious tests for federal offices, and they were committed to the proposition that all men and women should be free to worship god (or not) as their consciences dictate.”

However, Dr. Hall notes: “We ignore at our peril the Founders’ insight that democracy requires a moral people and that faith is an important, if not indispensable, support for morality.” He adds: “Such faith may well flourish best without government support, but it should not have to flourish in the face of government hostility.”

The strength of our democracy

G. K. Chesterton observed that “America is the only country ever founded on a creed.” If our creed is, “All men are created equal,” the strength of our democracy depends on the degree to which we value each other as our Creator values us.

“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). May this command be our prayer for America, and for ourselves, today.

The post Protester climbed up the base of the Statue of Liberty appeared first on Denison Forum.

source https://www.denisonforum.org/columns/daily-article/protester-climbed-base-statue-liberty-2/

[callofdutydaily-blog1]

'Big hunt' for Russian hackers, but no obvious election link

MOSCOW (AP) - Pyotr Levashov seemed, by all accounts, to be simply one more agreeable individual from Russia's rising white collar class - an IT business person with a preference for upmarket eateries, Thai back rubs and outside travel. At that point police assaulted his get-away rental in Barcelona, walking him out in cuffs to confront charges of being one of the world's most infamous spam rulers. Levashov's April 7 capture was one out of a progression of American-started operations over the previous year to seize claimed Russian cybercriminals outside their country, which has no removal concurrence with the United States. Document - In this Wednesday, July 26, 2017 record photograph, claimed programmer Pyotr Levashov, talks amid a hearing to consider his removal to the United States, at the National Court in Madrid. The U.S. has arranged the capture of five claimed Russian cybercriminals crosswise over Europe in the previous nine months. The operations come at a laden minute in relations amongst Russia and the U.S., where government officials are pondering the charge that Kremlin programmers mediated in the 2016 race. (Luca Piergiovanni/Pool Photo by means of AP, File) They come at a loaded minute in relations amongst Moscow and Washington, where legislators are thinking about the assertion that Kremlin programmers mediated in the U.S. race to help President Donald Trump. Through their legal counselors, a few litigants have proposed their captures are connected to the decision turmoil. Specialists say that is conceivable, however an Associated Press survey of the cases found no firm confirmation to back the claim. "There is a major chase in progress," said Andrei Soldatov, a movies online specialist on the Russian security administrations and co-writer of "Red Web," a book about Russian endeavors to control the web. He said the current burst of captures made it resemble the United States was "endeavoring to comprehend what's new with an extremely confused universe of Russian hacking and an exceptionally entangled connection between Russian programmers and Russian mystery administrations." In any case, Soldatov didn't preclude another conceivable clarification: The detained Russians might be dishonestly binds their captures to Trump's decision in an offer to sow disarray and politicize their cases. "It's an unavoidable issue," he said. ___ "HE GOT TO EVERY MAILBOX THERE EVER WAS" No less than five Russians have been gotten in Europe as a component of U.S. cybercrime arraignments over the most recent nine months. Evgeny Nikulin, 29, was captured in an eatery in Prague in October, blamed for hacking into LinkedIn and Dropbox around the time that a huge number of clients there were bargained; Stanislav Lisov, 31, the affirmed engineer of the NeverQuest budgetary information taking programming, was confined at Barcelona's airplane terminal amid his special night in January; and Yury Martyshev, 35, blamed for helping run an administration that let cybercriminals test-drive their malignant programming, was as of late removed to the U.S. subsequent to being pulled off a prepare at the Russia-Latvia outskirt in April. On Tuesday, Alexander Vinnik, 38, was captured at his lodging in Greece on charges of running an illegal tax avoidance ring for programmers that handled billions of dollars in computerized money. Levashov, who showed up in Madrid for a concise hearing Wednesday, is effortlessly the best known about the five. The 36-year-old is accused of extortion and unapproved capture attempt of electronic correspondences, however his spamming profession is said to extend back to the turn of the thousand years, when the matter of stuffing email inboxes brimming with pitches for cut-value pills and penny stocks was still to a great extent unregulated. Court records follow how Levashov, utilizing the false name Peter Severa, collaborated in 2005 with Alan Ralsky, an American mass email nobleman once named the "Ruler of Spam." Ralsky portrayed the Russian as an ace of his trade. "He made me resemble a novice," Ralsky said in a current meeting. "He got to each letter box there ever was." Spammers can make a considerable measure leasing their administrations to those hawking dark market pharmaceuticals or erotica. Ralsky said Levashov was pulling in "more cash than you could shake a stick at" and voyaged broadly, saying he got get-away snaps of the Russian having a ball at an angling lodge in Finland or the broadly costly Burj Al Arab inn in Dubai. By at that point, Levashov had crossed American law authorization's radar. In 2007, he was prosecuted under his Severa assumed name as a component of the situation where Ralsky and a few partners confessed to charges including wire misrepresentation and mail extortion. After two years, American specialists distinguished Levashov by name as the administrator of the "Tempest" botnet, a huge system of traded off, spam-regurgitating PCs. In the Russian programmer group, Levashov's profile was rising as well. In online gatherings, he advanced working together with Russia's spy administrations, as indicated by Soldatov, the Russian knowledge master, who said Levashov led a push to thump out sites connected to Islamist revolts in southern Russia. "He was the primary Russian programmer known to have brought the FSB into the hover of the Russian hacking group," Soldatov stated, alluding to Russia's household spy office. "His thought was to make it more energetic." At the point when Levashov was at long last gotten, his better half Maria drew universal consideration when she was cited as saying the capture seemed to be "connected to Trump's win." But in a discussion with The Associated Press in Madrid on Wednesday, she pulled once again from those remarks. "I think there are some political reasons for this situation, yet I don't know," she said. "I don't have any proof." Levashov's legal counselor, Margarita Repina, offered a comparative capability to her declaration that U.S. authorities were "quite recently bringing programmers with any reason to check whether any of them concedes association in the Trump issue." "This is only a feeling," she said. "We have no evidence." Authoritative reports propose the most recent push to get Levashov started a long time before the race. In a sworn affirmation, FBI Agent Elliott Petersen said he started following Kelihos, the most recent incarnation of Levashov's claimed spam botnet operation, over two years prior. The previous spam lord was additionally wary that Levashov's capture was connected to the vote. "They've been after him for quite a while," Ralsky said. ___ "THERE IS A CHESS GAME THAT ESCAPES US" Levashov wouldn't be distant from everyone else in coasting meagerly upheld claims that his indictment is identified with the 2016 decision. Lisov was additionally captured in Barcelona and spent a month as Levashov's cellmate in Madrid. His lawyer, Juan Manuel Arroyo, told a removal hearing a week ago that there was "a round of chess that departures us" amongst Moscow and Washington. Arroyo proposed that the American removal ask for was "not ordinary." A Spanish court report seen by AP proposes Lisov has been looked for by the U.S. since Aug. 5, 2015, undermining the possibility of a decision connect. Arroyo says he question the presence of any such demand. Nikulin, who is the subject of a clashing removal ask for from Russia, has been the most unequivocal. He told a judge in Prague that he was twice removed from jail and offered an exonerate, U.S. citizenship and asylum for his folks on the off chance that he admitted to having "hacked the Democratic Party" on the Russian government's requests, an evident reference to the humiliating break of Democratic National Committee messages in the warmth of the U.S. race. Nikulin said he dismissed the offer, and his attorney Vladimir Makeev later composed a drifting letter cautioning Trump that the authority was railroading Nikulin to undermine his administration. In a meeting at his office in Moscow, Makeev said his customer was being forced by "certain corrupt agents of the FBI that desire to have an arraignment completed on leader of the United States." There's little proof for the fiery claim. Nikulin was in reality addressed within the sight of a FBI operator from the authority's San Francisco office, as indicated by a Russian-dialect authoritative archive which Makeev imparted to AP. Be that as it may, there's no sign the operator - who was one of 10 authorities, interpreters and barrier legal advisors recorded as being available at the cross examination - ever talked about the race or made Nikulin an offer, considerably less of citizenship. The FBI would not make the operator accessible for a meeting but rather a law requirement official said no such arrangement was ever examined. The authority was not approved to talk about the issue freely and talked on state of secrecy. Martyshev's lawyer did not return messages looking for input, but rather the Russian argued not blameworthy to all charges at a court hearing in Alexandria prior this month. Levashov may soon be going along with him in America. His removal to the United States appears an inevitable end product, as per Repina, his lawyer. She contended that would scarcely be reasonable given that, in Russia, the spamming he's affirmed to have completed may not be a wrongdoing. "In his nation, Levashov has lawful organizations and a family that he needs to accommodate," she said. "He is a loyalist." ___ Satter announced from Paris. Parra detailed from Madrid. Diego Torres in Madrid, Ahmad Katib in Moscow, Eric Tucker in Washington and Karel Janicek in Prague added to this report. ___ On the web: Makeev's letter to Trump and a Russian-dialect record about Nikulin's cross examination are accessible here: site Document - In this Thursday, July 20, 2017 record photograph, Russian PC software engineer Stanislav Lisov goes to a court hearing at the Spanish National Court in Madrid, on removal demand to the U.S. for asserted violations identified with the "NeverQuest" malevolent programming, which siphoned 855,000 U.S. dollars (743,000 euros) from bank customers in the nation. The U.S. has arranged the capture of five charged Russian cybercriminals crosswise over Eur