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creepingsharia · 5 years ago

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He Simply “Hates Christians”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, January 2020

By Raymond Ibrahim

The following are some of the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians, categorized by theme, throughout the month of January, 2020:

The Slaughter of Christians in Nigeria

During several separate incidents, militant Muslims—whether Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, or generic terrorists—continued to attack and massacre several Christians.

As one example, on Friday, January 17, Muslim Fulani tribesmen on motorbikes raided a Christian village at a time they knew people were congregating at the village square where Christian fellowship often took pace. They opened fire. “As the people fled into nearby bushes to take cover, the attackers retreated and left,” an area resident explained. “We are sad about these attacks on our people, which seem to be unending.” Two young Christian girls—Briget Philip, 18, and Priscilla David, 19—were killed, and at least three other teenagers were seriously wounded.

In another incident, “[a]t least 32 people [including a pregnant woman] were killed and a pastor’s house and church building were burned down in two nights of attacks [on predominantly Christian regions] this week by Muslim Fulani herdsmen in Plateau state,” a January 30 report noted.

In the early hours of January 20, gunmen invaded the Lutheran Church of Christ, where its pastor, the Rev. Dennis Bagauri, lived; they opened fire on “and shot him dead at night when all persons in the area had gone to sleep,” a local confirmed.

Boko Haram (whose name roughly means “Western education is a sin”) released another execution video. In it, a masked Muslim child holding a pistol appears standing behind a bound and kneeling hostage, later identified as Ropvil Daciya Dalep, a 22-year-old Christian and member of the Church of Christ in Nations, who was kidnapped on January 9 while traveling to his university, where he majored in biology. After chanting in Arabic and launching into an anti-Christian diatribe, the Muslim child proceeds to shoot Ropvil several times in the back of the head.

Execution of Ropvil Daciya Dalep.

On January 2, Islamic gunmen abducted Reverend Lawan Andimi, a pastor and district chairman of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria. After the terrorists demanded an exorbitant ransom for his release—two million Euros, which his church and family simply could not raise—they beheaded the married father-of-nine on January 20. Earlier, in a January 5 video that his abductors released, Pastor Lawan had said that he hoped to be reunited with his wife and children; however, “[i]f the opportunity has not been granted, maybe it is the will of God.�� I want all people close and far, colleagues, to be patient. Don’t cry, don’t worry, but thank God for everything.”

In a statement prompted by all these unchecked killing of Christians, Kwamkur Vondip, the director of legal and public affairs of the Christian Association of Nigeria, blasted the Muslim-led government of Nigeria of “colluding” with the Islamic terrorists:

In the light of the current developments and the circumstantial facts surrounding the prevailing upsurge of attacks against the church, it will be difficult for us to believe that the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari is not colluding with the insurgents to exterminate Christians in Nigeria, bearing in mind the very questionable leadership of the security sector that has been skewed towards a religion and region. Is that lopsidedness not a cover-up for the operation of the insurgency?.… Since the government and its apologists are claiming the killings have no religious undertones, why are the terrorists and herdsmen targeting the predominantly Christian communities and Christian leaders?

The nonstop massacres of Christians which are met with impunity from the Nigerian government also prompted Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto to express his disgust with the government in a January 3 report: “The only difference between the government and Boko Haram,” he said, “is that Boko Haram is holding a bomb.” The Nigerian government is “using the levers of power to secure the supremacy of Islam, which then gives more weight to the idea that it can be achieved by violence.”

The Slaughter of Christians Elsewhere in Africa

Kenya: Armed Muslims connected with neighboring Somalia’s terrorist group, Al Shabaab (“the youth”), murdered three Christian teachers during a raid on a primary school in the early hours of January 13; a fourth victim managed to survive.

Another local teacher said “We are sad and at the same time scared because we are targeted for being non-local government workers that belong to the Christian faith.” While discussing this incident, a separate report adds that

Today’s attack comes against the backdrop of a series of attacks from the terrorist group in the last five weeks, leading to the loss of 25 people total … On December 6, 2019, four teachers were among the 11 non-local Christian passengers killed … when al-Shabaab flagged down the bus they were traveling in. The militants separated the passengers and killed those on the spot who failed to recite the Islamic Shahada.

Central African Republic: Militant Muslims shot and killed two Christian pastors as they travelled together by car after having conducted a Christmas Day church service. According to the January 6 report, after murdering the Christians, the “jihadists” continued “shooting, preventing efforts to recover the bodies. The men had to be buried later at the scene of the attack.” The report adds that the “Christian-majority Central African Republic has been blighted by violence since 2013, when the Seleka Islamist armed group briefly overthrew the government…. Christian communities continue to be the targets of attacks…. In November 2018, more than 40 people were killed and many were forced to flee when members of an Islamist militia attacked a Christian mission in Alindao.

Cameroon: “Not a day passes without attacks on the villages on Cameroon’s frontier with Nigeria,” lamented Bishop Bruno Ateba in reference to the Islamic terror group, Boko Haram’s increased incursions into Christian villages in a January 24 report: “Boko Haram is like the beast of the Apocalypse, or a many-headed Hydra—whenever you cut off one of its heads, it seems simply to grow another…. Within my own diocese there have been 13 attacks in the last weeks.” One of those attacks saw a church torched on the feast of the Epiphany. “We are still investigating who was behind the incident, but everything points to the fact that it was a terrorist attack.” Bishop Barthélemy also shared his experiences: “My birthplace, the village of Blablim, no longer exists. The terrorists have murdered a young man of my family and totally devastated the entire village, including the house I was born in. Everybody, with the exception of the sick and elderly, was forced to flee to Mora, 10 miles away. It will be impossible now to gather in the cotton harvest.”

Egypt: On January 12, a Muslim man crept up behind a Christian woman walking home with groceries, pulled her head back with a hand full of hair, and slit her throat with a knife in the other hand. Nearby people restrained the man in al-Wariq, Giza, where the incident took place. Catherine Ramzi was rushed to a nearby medical center, where her throat was sewn with 63 stitches; despite initial heavy bleeding, she managed to survive. The doctor told her that had the knife penetrated one millimeter more—her now mangled sweatshirt had provided some buffering against the knife—it would have reached her jugulars and killed her. During an interview, she explained that she had never before seen the man. All she heard him say during the assault is that she “deserved it” because her “hair was exposed.” He may have also identified her as a Christian because, like many Copts, Catherine bears a visible tattoo of the cross on her hand.

Separately, on January 14, in the region of al-Maraj, another Muslim man tried to slaughter a Christian man with a sharp box-cutter in a public space. He managed only to slice off a portion of the Copt’s ear. After Muhammad ‘Awad, 32, was arrested and questioned as to why he tried to murder Rafiq Karam, 56, he confessed that he did not know him, but that he simply “hates Christians.”

Attacks on Christian Churches

Sudan: Three churches—a Sudan Internal church, a Catholic church and an Orthodox church—were simultaneously burnt down twice over the course of three weeks in the Blue Nile state. The arsonists are suspected to be area Muslims. According to a January 20 statement from a human rights group published in the Sudan Tribune,

On the evening of 28th December 2019, three churches in three different neighbourhoods … were set on fire (burnt) at the same time by arsonists. The worshipers quickly rebuild the three churches using the local materials as it was before. However, for the second time, on the evening of 16th January, the arsonists burnt down the three churches,” said the group…. [L]ocal authorities did not take any measure to protect the churches or to investigate the attacks.

“This incident is true, the three churches were set on fire twice in less than a month,” a local pastor confirmed, adding that “area Muslims were upset about the presence of the churches there, and they are suspected in the fires.”

Philippines: On January 19, police arrested two Muslim men from the Islamic terror group Abu Sayyaf (“the sword-forger”) before they could carry out a planned bomb attack on a Catholic cathedral in Basilan, which both men confessed to. Explosive materials—including more than 3 kilos (6.6 pounds) of assorted nails, blasting caps, 1.5-volt batteries, and wires—were recovered from their hideout. Abu Sayyaf earlier “masterminded a twin bombing at a church on southern Jolo island in January 2019 that left more than 20 people dead.”

Egypt: “The security apparatus prevented Copts in Faw Bahri … from holding the New Year’s Eve prayer on Tuesday, 31 December, in the home of a local Copt. Several Copts gathered in the building and complained about being prohibited from completing the prayer,” the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a Cairo based think tank with an emphasis on human rights, said in a January 6 press release:

The building that security shut down and prevented prayer inside of is owned by a village Copt and has been used for worship services for four months [and apparently set on fire before for this reason]. Security promised to rapidly secure a building permit for a new church on a 460-meter tract of land purchased by the church a while back. All the necessary surveys have been conducted by official bodies and a wall was built around the plot. All that is needed to start construction is the permits. The closest church to the village is 10 km away…. 3,000 Christians live in the village and used to pray at the house that was shuttered by security. They are all waiting for security to keep its promise to issue permits for the construction of a new church.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) further criticized the “glacial pace” of the Sisi-government’s hitherto much lauded church construction law adopted in September 2016. More than “three years after its adoption, the church construction law has failed to end violations of Christians’ right to worship and address related sectarian tensions…. [T]he process to regularize the legal status of churches is moving at a glacial pace and lacks transparency,” the press release added:

The EIPR has documented at least 36 cases of sectarian tension and violence since the church construction law went into effect and through the end of 2019, all of them associated with the worship practices. In the same period, interventions by various state institutions led to the closure of 25 churches and the prohibition of collective worship services in the areas in question. In many of these cases, customary reconciliation sessions were convened that concluded with agreements to shut down the church while promising to grant the necessary permits when papers were officially filed. Yet, when church officials applied for official permits, state agencies refused to grant permits or allow them to organize religious services or mass.

Indonesia: Construction of the Bethel Church of Indonesia (GBI) My Home church, plans for which began in 2016, was “abruptly halted” after its building permit was revoked. The church would have served 1,200 registered congregants. In response, on January 16, Amnesty International Indonesia in a statement urged the authorities to annul their decision to revoke the permit:

This is a clear case of persecution and discrimination against a religious minority. The authorities in Tanjungpinang have failed to provide any legal justification for denying this permit and blatantly disregarded the Constitution and their obligations to respect the right to religious freedom and ensure equal enjoyment of human rights.

In a separate case in the same in the region, Muslims halted construction of another church. According to the January 24 report,

Built in 1928, St Joseph’s Catholic Church needs to be renovated and enlarged. Originally it could accommodate 100 people, but now it has more than 700 members. Despite having all the permits, the project is opposed by a small group of young Muslims who threaten action against public order…. Local Catholics are critical of Karimun district chief who, bowing to extremists, has turned against the project even though it has all the required permits.

Although area Christians had “explained to Karimun officials [that] there will be no symbol or ornament outside the church; no cross, no statue, no image of Mary will be displayed visible outside the church”; and although this decision by the Christians was taken reluctantly, as it would make the building look like “a gym or a conference hall”—Muslims still rejected the church.

France: A suspected Muslim man was arrested for desecrating a church, including by writing Koran verses on its walls. According to the January 16 report,

The arrest comes just under a year after another church in Toulouse, the Notre-Dame du Taur, was vandalised by an individual who wrote “Allah u Akbar” on the doors of the building…. Church attacks in France have become a major issue in the last several years, with a report from March of last year claiming that there are as many as three attacks on churches or graveyards per day on average, with a total of 1,063 cases in 2018.

One recent attack “saw human faeces smeared into prayer books at a church in the commune of Tarbes.”

Sweden: After a series of arson attacks on St. Maria Syrian Orthodox Church—one of which was started by someone pouring and lighting gasoline to its exterior—church members have begun to patrol its premises at night in the hopes of preventing further attacks. The January 10 report adds that, “Church attacks in Sweden are relatively uncommon in general but attacks on communities targetted by radical Islamic Sunni extremists, such as Syrian Christians and Shi’ite Muslims, are a concern in the country.”

Attacks on Apostates and Blasphemers

Iran: A court sentenced Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, 65, a Muslim convert to Christianity, to three years imprisonment on the charge of “insulting Islamic sacred beliefs,” said human rights group Middle East Concern in a January 22 report. The Christian was initially charged with “propaganda against the state and insulting the sacred Iranian establishment,” but during “a hearing on 22 October, the judge further accused Ismaeil of apostasy [that is, turning away from Islam, which is a capital crime according to some interpretations of Islamic law] and increased bail demands from 10 million to 100 million tomans (US$9000). Friends provided pledges to cover the bail demands. There were further hearings in November (when the apostasy charge was dropped), December and January.” On January 8, he was found guilty of “insulting Islamic sacred beliefs in cyberspace”—a reference to the claim that “Ismaeil had forwarded a message sent to his phone that was deemed to be insulting to the ruling Iranian clerics”—and sentenced to three year imprisonment. According to a human rights activist associated with the case, the sentence is “a disproportionate reaction to something so ordinary. The other charges that Ismaeil is facing, as well as the quashed charge of apostasy, (are) related to his conversion to Christianity. This may reveal the real reason why he’s been charged with something that most ordinary Iranians do on a daily basis.”

Pakistan: Muslims beat and falsely accused a Christian man, Shahbaz Masih, 40, of blasphemy, which led to his and his friend’s arrest. According to the January 14 report,

His [Muslim] accusers, Shahzaib and Ahmad, hold a grudge against him for being a Christian. On 27 December the two surrounded him at the market, dragged him to a nearby landfill where children collect paper, and beat [him there]. His screams drew the attention of his friend Ishaq [a moderate Muslim], who came to his aid. At that point, the attackers accused both of blasphemy, of burning pages of the Qurʼān. A riot followed, with a nearby mosque calling on Muslims to kill both men. When police arrived, it took the two friends to a police station, questioned them and moved them to a prison, where they are still being held. Human rights groups slam the cops for giving in to extremist pressure and formally recording the case. For their part, radicals threatened to burn the homes of Christians as well as that of the Muslim man, “guilty” of being friends with the Christian. For this reason, the families of the accused went into hiding at an unknown location.

Generic Hate for and Violence against Christians

Egypt: Muslim students at a Minya school “rejected” Mervat Seifein, a school teacher, “for the explicit reason that she is Copt,” that is, a Christian, a report noted. After “a routine promotion in which she replaced the previous school director who is a Muslim,” both boy and girl “students protested and held a sit-in in the school courtyard asking for her removal.” “We don’t want a Copt!” they cried. Some Muslim teachers joined in the protests. Police were unable to disperse the boys’ demonstration in the courtyard. “The girls who demonstrated against me don’t know me,” Mervat responded, “so why the antagonism? Simply because I am Coptic? The only explanation I can fathom is there has been fanatic incitement going on against my promotion, possibly by persons who are purely extremist or who have an interest in keeping me out of that post.” Ezzat Ibrahim, a human rights activist, added that a prompt official investigation should be conducted into the matter:

This is flagrant religious discrimination. It brings to mind the incident in the southern province of Qena when the Islamists rose against the appointment of a Coptic governor in the past-Arab Spring weeks in 2011, and the State gave in and went back on the appointment. It is catastrophic that some 50 or 100 teenage girls or boys should impose their will on the State. And it is equally disastrous that these students were pushed to do so by a group of fanatic Islamists. The positive official response to their preposterous demands amounts to an invitation for religious discrimination. The deputy minister who did that must be dismissed.

Bangladesh: Twelve Christian Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were attacked and injured by Muslim Rohingya “due to their faith.” (Rohingya are overwhelmingly Muslim). “[E]arly Monday [January 27, they] attacked us, the Christians. They looted our houses, and beat up many Christian members. At least 12 Christians have been undergoing treatment at different hospitals and clinics,” a Christian named Saiful reported. “We came under attack due to our faith,” he insisted. “On May 10, 11, and 13 last year, this same group of terrorists attacked us. They want us to leave this camp. They have been attacking us systematically.” Although official Bangladeshi reports denied or underplayed the religious dimension of the attacks, other sources, such as the Rohingya Christian Assembly from India, confirmed them: Muslim Rohingya “attacked the whole Christian community in Kutupalong Camp,” the group said. “Approximately 25 Christian families are displaced. It is winter and very cold, the victims have many minor children with them.” The group added that mobs armed with machetes—“hundreds in many groups”—invaded and destroyed every Christian home at night.

Iraq: Four Christian humanitarian aid workers—three French, one Iraqi—were kidnapped in Baghdad on January 20. No ransom demands were made. According to the report, “The four went missing during a time of heightened tensions in Iraq after a U.S. drone strike on Baghdad airport that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and a senior Iraqi militia commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The attack has drawn anger from Iraqi officials from across the political divide …. Iran-backed militia groups have also sworn to avenge the killings.”

Iran: Authorities demolished the grave of the only Christian to be officially executed for apostasy in the Islamic republic. A born Muslim, Pastor Soodmand converted to Christianity before the 1979 revolution. He was arrested, tortured, and eventually executed for apostatizing from Islam to Christianity in December 1990. Now, thirty years later, “all that remains of the pastor’s unmarked grave is the soil under which he was once buried.” His daughter, Rashin Soodmand, who now lives in Europe, gave her reaction:

As a member of the family of this martyred pastor, I can say that the recent disrespect shown to our father’s grave wounded our hearts yet again. Our father was killed cruelly and contrary to the law. They buried him in a place they called la’anatabad [accursed place], without our knowledge, and did not even give our family the opportunity to say goodbye to him, or to see his lifeless body. For years we had to travel to this remote place to visit his unmarked grave, and we were not even allowed to construct a gravestone bearing his name…. We will take our appeal to any relevant national or international institution about this disrespect and cruelty.

The report adds that,

Rev Soodmand remains the only Iranian Christian to have been executed for apostasy following an official court order, although others have been sentenced to death including Rev Mehdi Dibaj and Yousef Nadarkhani. Rev Dibaj was eventually acquitted after nine years in prison but then killed in suspicious circumstances five months later. His body was found days after his disappearance, in a park in a suburb of Tehran, with multiple stab wounds to his chest. Yousef Nadarkhani was also eventually acquitted of the charge but later rearrested on the now much more common charge of ‘actions against national security.’ He is now serving a ten-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the recent book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

#Islam #Muslim #Jihad #Sharia #Persecution #Religion #Mosque #Immigration #News #Politics #Travel #Legal #Media

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et-in-cinerem-reverteris · 5 years ago

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Class of 1953 - Chapter 3 - Hand In Glove (5.3K)

"Phil looks back up at Dan. Despite the storm getting worse, they both remain motionless, looking at each other. Dan’s eyes are fascinatingly deep and dark; moody against the backdrop of a thunderstorm and the billowing leaves of the tree behind him and Phil just wants to shut his eyes and lean in and-"

When Dan bashfully asks Phil to come shopping with him one weekend, Phil takes the opportunity to do a bit of probing on Dan's mysterious exterior. With the help of Oscar Wilde and a nosy lesbian, he finds out a lot more than he had originally set out to.

Read on AO3 !

Or down below ;)

Phil looks down at the scrap of paper in his hand.

11a.m. 19 Nov (saturday!)

parks road plane tree

opposite big doors!!!

He checks his wristwatch for the umpteenth time. 10:55. The blue ink on the crumpled note is smudged and clumsily applied, which is fair, Phil thinks, considering the surface on which the writer placed his pen on that night just over a week ago.

“Are you seriously so forgetful that you need me to write it down?” Dan had teased, growing increasingly hysterical under a mask of playful exasperation. “Okay, fine. Fetch us a pen and I’ll write it down for you.”

Dan had asked Phil to turn around so that he could use his back to write on. The pen tickled and made Phil squirm like a child, which made both of them laugh so hard that they were sure they’d disturbed at least a hundred students. Before parting ways, Dan had timidly asked Phil whether he wanted to go out shopping with him the following weekend - but only because he was already going out, of course, and Phil had agreed in an instant but only because he was also already going out, of course, so he may as well… for convenience’s sake…

Of course.

Now, just over a week later, the pair of them are meeting up to hit the town to pick up various bits and bobs before the Christmas crowds get out of control.

Phil looks around at Keble’s eye-catching red brick facade - a refreshing change from Oxford’s trademark limestone walls. He squints as the sun shines out from behind the plane trees, raising his hand as he does so to shield his sensitive eyes from the glaring light. The different coloured stones are arranged into diamonds, dots and dashes, just like morse code. How curious.

He checks his wristwatch again. 10:57.

Punctuality is not normally one of Phil’s virtues, but another unexpectedly early awakening had led him to spontaneously leave the college gates at 10 o’clock to go for an early morning walk. Down Turl Street, left at All Saints Church, past Magdalen College and through to The Grove - a large, grassy park that had become Phil’s location of choice for when he needed to calm his nerves. He had tried to relax by admiring the deer and feeding them acorns, but all of his thoughts anxiously meandered back to the problem of his first out-of-college meeting with Daniel.

Ever since they had last said goodbye to each other, the young English student had been obsessively mulling over the meaning behind some of Dan’s more ambiguous lines from that night.

“...in the past people took the mickey out of me for being a “pouf”...”

Phil knows exactly what the word “pouf” means. Synonyms include “queer”, “gay” and “homosexual”, which are all terms he might use to describe himself, were he to be so brave. The real question lay in whether or not those derogatory statements had any deeper meaning than just fleeting insults, and this, he had decided, was something he would have to do some investigating on.

“Hullo!”

Phil’s daydreaming is cut short by his enigmatic companion striding toward him, and is struck by how smart he looks. Clad in a long, black, double-breasted coat, with a silk scarf tied around his neck in a jaunty knot, and a dark grey fedora, complete with a pheasant’s feather, sitting on top of his chestnut curls, he radiates elegance, class, and sophistication.

“Daniel! You’re looking very dapper today!”

“Hmm, well,” Dan starts, looking around with squinted eyes. “I thought I may as well get dressed up for the occasion.” After a second passes, he looks at Phil with a smirk. “So, where are we off to then?”

“Err, I thought you were the one who wanted to go shopping first?”

Dan raises an eyebrow, before quickly adopting a more neutral face. “Oh, I was going to, but nevermind about that. I um, I’m not anymore.”

“Right.”

The pair begin walking in silence down Park Lane, towards Oxford’s central shopping area.

“Anyway, where are we off to?”

“First of all I’d like to stop by Blackwell’s to collect a book that they’re holding for me.”

“Okay.”

“Then I need to see about buying a bicycle.”

“Oh, we can pop over to Cowley Road for that, Raleigh have a shop there at number three hundred and eighty-seven.”

“Perfect, that’s that one sorted. After that, I thought we could try a cafe for a spot of lunch. What do you think?”

“I think that sounds splendid,” he grins.

Parks Road is fairly long, giving them plenty of time to break the barrier of small talk and ease into a more meaningful conversation, which, on this occasion, has turned to the subject of going home for the holidays. Phil is able to glean that Dan is dreading going back to his family in Wokingham, which a small town just outside of Reading that he hates as it reminds him of the years he spent there at a Catholic boarding school called The Oratory. In Dan’s words, The Oratory was “hell”; full of “dickheads" who picked on him “constantly”, leaving him with a “deep seated anger” which “permanently resides” in him at a constant simmer. At first Phil feels upset to hear that Dan had such an unhappy childhood there, but quickly succumbs to the laughter invoked by the unrelenting stream of side-splitting anecdotes served alongside the tales of his youth.

As Dan narrates another amusing episode, Phil’s attention slips away from the stories and instead drifts towards the orator himself. Slowly, subtly, Phil starts to realise how charming Dan is, how witty and articulate his words are, how his natural sense of humour and great story-telling abilities could turn a book about drying paint into a Penguin Classic. While Dan laments about how the boys at his school made fun of him, Phil’s gut wrenches with anguish. How can a man so gentle and kind have been tormented by such heartless idiots? How can this poor soul have forgiven the beasts who were so mercilessly picking on him? How on earth could bullies take pleasure in beating down a boy who is so mild and agreeable that he likens himself to Winnie the Pooh? He looks on as the beaming boy laughs at his own stories. If Phil hadn’t been crying tears of laughter, he would have been weeping tears of sorrow.

After turning right at the Bodleian Library, the pair finally reach Broad Street. Blackwell’s Bookshop is easily recognisable by the cobalt blue exterior, guarding an attractive array of books, plays, letters and diaries for students to both ponder and argue over. As the pair step inside, a brass doorbell rings gaily.

“So, what is it you’re here to pick up then, Mr. English Literature?”

“It’s a 1890 copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray , posted all the way from America. I put in an order through a collector’s magazine and they’ve been holding it here for a few days.”

“Blimey. How much is that costing you?” Dan asks with a hint of ridicule in his voice.

Phil sighs as they navigate through the shop, passing by bookshelves that run from floor to ceiling. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Oooh no, I very much do,” he teases. “Go on then, out with it! How much?”

Phil turns back to face Dan, who can’t resist making a guess.

“Ten bob?”

He shakes his head.

“More? Christ! Twenty bob?”

“Up.”

“...Twenty-five?”

“Down.

“Twenty-two?”

The guilty party nods silently.

“ Twenty-two shillings? For a musty old book?” The corners of Dan’s mouth turn upwards with a mischievous smirk. “Well, I suppose it is Oscar Wilde.”

“Exactly,” replies Phil curtly as they approach the counter. “Now shush for a moment.”

Dan rolls his eyes at the shushing, skulking off while Phil hands over an inordinate amount of money for a rare book about 19th century homosexuals. When he has obtained his precious cargo, he finds his companion browsing the shelves of the fiction section. Now, he decides, is a good time for a bit of probing.

“Do you read much?”

The brunette continues to scan the bookshelves.

“Not that often unfortunately, but I have a few favourite authors I return to.”

“Such as…?”

A moment of silence.

“Lord Byron, for one.”

“Good choice! Great poetry, and a fascinating life too.”

“Mmmm. He definitely got up to some shenanigans on his Grand Tour.”

With lots of young men, Phil thinks. He decides to probe further.

“Anybody else?”

Dan slips him a quizzical look before picking up a random hardback and flicking through it.

“T. S. Eliot.”

“Another good choice!”

“How about you then?” Dan queries, seeming irritated. “Who’s your favourite author?”

Phil merely holds his recent purchase up to his face, peeping out from behind the cover.

“Ah,” Dan smiles, and Phil feels the tension melt away. “I suppose I should have guessed.”

After making their way through the maze of shelves they eventually locate the exit. As Phil walks through the door that Dan kindly holds open for him, he notices the other man take in a deep breath.

“So, on the subject of our friend Oscar. What do you make of his trial?”

Phil looks back at Dan with the panicked face of a deer in the headlights. Wilde’s trial, or trails , are still a risky topic sixty years later. Although he has a hunch about why Dan is asking about his opinions on Wilde, these are still untested waters. If Phil has read too much into Dan’s favourite authors, placed too much emphasis on the abuse hurled at him by the boys at The Oratory, focused too much on Dan’s meticulous sense of style and theatrical mannerisms and soft hand that felt surprisingly affectionate as it touched his, then this could all be over for him. This could be the start of rumours that destroy his life, exclusion that breaks his heart, and loneliness that turns it cold.

Phil’s hands are cold.

He’s starting to wish that a certain pair of palms would offer to warm them up.

Sod it. He may as well give it a try.

“I think it’s a crime,” he begins. “I don’t understand how somebody could be so... vindictive. To take a man to court for an act which hurts nobody, affects nobody, and is only the business of those who are involved, is utterly inhuman. Oscar Wilde was one of the greatest literary, classical and philosophical minds that this nation has ever seen, and yet he was put in prison and left to waste for what?! Gross indecency? It’s an outrage. So what if he had written books and poems about…,” he shrugs, “homosexual love? Those writings were works of art. It is stupid, ignorant and close-minded to take issue with it,” he finishes with a huff, having worked himself up a little bit too much. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to rant.”

As they turn left onto High Street Phil takes a nervous look at Dan, silently praying that he’s not about to be met with an icy stare. Instead his face is glowing, smiling feebly, eyes locked onto his in a state of awe.

There’s a short silence as they pass various shops.

“I dare say that I agree.”

“Hmmm.”

Silence falls again like a heavy blanket. The atmosphere isn’t uncomfortable, nor is is born out of having nothing left to say. Instead, it is the kind of serene and peaceful quietude that occurs when two individuals unexpectedly reveal a tender and intimate part of themselves, and are left to wordlessly contemplate their newfound solidarity.

“I’ve grown awfully hungry,” Dan pipes up, breaking the quiet. “I want to show you this adorable little cafe just down the road. Let me take you there, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s ever so quaint.”

A minute or so later they arrive at a decadent-looking tea room. As they come into the warmth. Phil is immediately taken aback by the marble pillars, chandeliers and wood-panelled ceiling that decorate the large, luxurious venue. A bustling atmosphere is full of students neglecting their work in favour of an early lunch and retired couples sharing overpriced sandwiches. Following a short wait at the front of house, they are taken to a four-man table tucked into a corner with a view of the courtyard outside.

“Here’s a fact for you - this was the first coffee house in England,” Dan declares as he shucks his jacket and sets his fedora down onto the table. “Just popping to the little boy’s room, I won’t be a moment. Take a look at the menu, choose anything you fancy. It’s on me,” he announces, followed by a wink.

Phil watches Dan fondly as he snakes through the tables, observing the man’s heavy gait and sloped posture. Quite a juxtaposition between the eloquence of his articulation and gentle face, he decides. But before he can ease into his chair and relish the few minutes he has to process the day’s events thus far, a familiar voice suddenly cries out his name.

“Philip! Fancy seeing you here old chap.”

Bursting into view come John and Mary, who promptly set down bags copious bags of shopping on the now over-crowded table.

“Morning all” Phil beams, pulling out a chair as his friends sit down either side of him and shuffle up ridiculously close. “What brings you to The Grand Cafe this fine morning?”

John takes off his leather jacket and hangs it on the back of his chair. “We’ve just been out shopping, haven’t we?”

“Mmm, I can see that,” Phil retorts flatly. “But what for? Anything in particular?”

Mary opens her handbag to reveal a miniature tawny-coloured box, which she sets down on the wooden table before sliding it over towards Phil.

“It’s for the wife” Mary proclaims, holding her hands to her face as she smiles. “It’s our one-month anniversary next week, so I thought I may as well treat the old girl with something special.”

John sighs. “Mary, I’ve already told you that you can’t have a one month anniversary ! The word comes from the Latin ‘annus’, meaning year, and ‘versus’, meaning ‘return’. Get it wrong one more time and I’ll tell the Oxford dons to barr you from ever studying English again!”

Mary scoffs. “For God’s sake John, you’re starting to sound like your husband!” she jests, rolling her eyes towards Phil as she turns to him for a reaction. Preferring to avoid the conflict, Phil instead takes a look inside the box to see what could be for Mary’s “wife”.

The hinge of the top lid pops open, and concealed in the white satin lining is a gold ring. Adorned with a sizeable green stone surrounded by a cluster of several smaller, clear gems around the edge, it twinkles attractively under the dazzling lights of the cafe as he turns the bo from side to side. Phil doesn’t know much about gems and jewelry, but he has a feeling that this must have been fairly pricey. And such a pretty ring! But who for?

“Come on Lester, back me up here. You know how to speak Latin. I know I’m correct, aren’t I?”

“Uhh, yeah, you’re right,” he stutters, blinking in confusion. He examines the box again. “Who’s this ring for though?”

Mary and John exchange a look.

“I-It’s for Beth, obviously,” the black haired woman explains as if Phil were an idiot for not understanding. “What other special woman do I have in my life?”

Beth? Special woman?

“Come on Phil! Don’t tell me you had no idea!” she laughs, blushing as she folds her arms and scoots in further still. Phil can feel the embarrassment creep over him. Mary? In a relationship with...Beth?

“We’re the same, me and you.”

Mary’s words from secondary school come flooding back to him. So that’s what she meant! But that means she knows that Phil is-

The ring is quickly snatched away and pocketed by its owner, who has begun to look slightly sheepish.

“Anyway, enough about this old thing. So, what are you out and about for?”

“Oh, I’m just er, running some errands with Dan.”

“Ahhhh, Daniel! How charming. I’m glad you two are finally getting to know one another.” Mary locks her fingers together to use as a chin rest, which, over the years, has come to signify that somebody has suddenly become the object of great interest.

“W...what do you mean by that?”

Mary’s head sinks lower as she gives Phil ‘a look’.

“Darling, Daniel thinks you’re the bee’s knees . He hasn’t shut up about you ever since he first caught a glimpse of your pretty little face when we had our first ever lecture together.”

First ever lecture? But that was back in October. Dan , talking about him , and for over a month - before they even met?? Phil traces his mind back to the day where he emerged from a lecture hall talking to Mary about how nasal their new professor’s voice was - or was this the professor that kept sneezing? Regardless, Dan probably caught sight of him then. But to have noticed Phil so early on, and only have approached him a few weeks ago? Has he seriously been doting for that long?

Electric blood courses through Phil’s veins as his brain runs a hundred miles a minute. Dan. Talking about him. To Mary. Secretly. For weeks. Tempting theories flirt with Phil’s brain.

“...what do you make of Wilde’s trial?”

“Not that I’m... stalking you or anything”

“... come and sit down here with me…”

Phil has never been more bewildered in his entire life, despite everything now making perfect sense.

Mary and Beth are...together.

Bill and John are probably also together.

Mary is a... homosexual .

Mary has known that Phil was also a homosexual ever since they first met.

Dan and Mary have (somehow) become friends.

Dan has become... interested in him.

And Mary has known about it all this time.

He shifts absent-mindedly in his seat, still staring at the floor with a blank expression. Despite these revelations, Phil wishes - he wishes he was even allowed to wish - that everything about Dan was now leading itself to one alluring conclusion, down one inevitable path, but the path is twisted and covered in leaves and bracken, and the bracken , Phil remembers to the tune of Du Maurier’s Rebecca , “the bracken had entered into an alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated-”

He begins to imagine Dan and himself as vines interlaced around each other and-

“Phil? Hello?”

He stifles a choke.

“Are you alright? You went very pale, and then very red. I hope you’re not having hot flushes. You’re too early to be going through your menopause.”

“Menopause?”

Mary cackles. “Ah, my humour is lost on both you. Anyway, look sharp, Dan’s here.”

He raises his head to see Dan weaving his way through the tables once again. The sleeves on his white shirt have been rolled up, and his tie is loosened slightly. All Phil can do is sit and stare with his cheeks a shameful shade of scarlet.

“‘Ello ‘ello ello! What a pleasure to see you here!” he beams at Mary before turning to John. “Hullo there, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Daniel, pleased to make your acquaintance.” As the pair shake hands, Phil melts at the charm of Dan’s genteel formalities. This man, who is so handsome, so well educated, and so polite and witty and well dressed, thinks that he, Philip Michael Lester, is the “bees knees”? He’ll have to ask Mary for details later.

Lunch is a spectacle and a half. It emerges that Dan’s family is wealthy, very wealthy - more so than Phil’s, he is borderline aristocratic - and he offers to pay for every sandwich, cake, biscuit, every cup of exotic tea and coffee, and later every glass of expensive champagne that the waiters bring out on lavish trays. Dan woos their company with tale after tale, joke after joke, and by the time John checks his watch and reminds Mary that they really should get back to their dormitories before three o’clock, Phil finds himself fixated on Dan, eyes following him as if he were the second coming of Christ. Bills paid, jackets donned, bags arranged and door drunkenly stumbled out of, the quartet part ways as the sunshine dips behind the horizon and the temperature lulls itself back to freezing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After arriving at Raleigh on Cowley Road, the two students spend an hour or so wandering around the shop and making up characters for each of the bicycles by imitating their imagined personalities with various voices and poses. By the time they’re threatened with being locked inside as the shop closes for the day, the pair of them have finally decided on a bike for Phil to buy. Or, as it turns out, for Dan to buy for Phil. All £30 worth. The curly-haired boy had insisted, claiming that the Clubman Model 25 was the best bike in the entire shop, and that it would be an early birthday present, and that his parents had given him far too much money to spend over Michaelmas, and besides, he wanted to buy it for him, so that was that. Phil had first coyly protested, then seriously protested, until he let himself be spoiled by this increasingly confusing man who was now offering to pay for his expenses. Maybe it was the champagne. Maybe it wasn’t. It was probably the champagne when Dan insisted they both sit on the bike and ride it home together.

“Dan, this is not going to work, I’m telling you.”

“Oh, don’t be such a bore! Hurry up, get on! It’ll be getting dark soon and it’s too far to walk. You have no choice” he announces, triumphant as he puts Phil’s book inside a leather bag attached to the back of the bike and swings a leg over the navy blue frame.

“I don’t see how I’m going to fit on here. This isn’t a tandem bicycle.”

“It’s easy!” he assures with a gratified smile. “My brother and I used to do it all the time when we were young. If you sit down on this part of the seat, put your feet on the lower frame here , and hold onto this bottom part of the handlebars, you’ll be absolutely fine.”

Remaining dubious, Phil shuffles over to his recent purchase before staring long and hard at it, trying to figure out how to avoid cracking his head open within thirty seconds of liftoff.

“Stop dilly-dallying you wet rag. Look, do you want some help getting on?” Dan reaches out a hand and touches Phil’s forearm reassuringly, causing his arm to seize up.

“No! No, I’ll be fine,” comes his embarrassingly sharp reply. Damnit. They’re going to have to sit very close for this to work without them both dying.

“Okay, how am I supposed to do this again?”

Dan shuffles back on the seat before patting the front part with his right hand. Trying to suppress his nerves, Phil swings his left leg over the bike and grips the bottom part of the handlebars as told, except perhaps slightly more firmly than need be.

“Like this?”

“Yes, except that you’re forgetting the most important part.”

“What?!” he cries a little too loudly as he starts to get impatient.

The intimacy of having Dan sit only a few centimetres behind him is starting to have an adverse effect.

“Bottom on seat! Then we can set off.”

Phil really has no reason to huff, but agitation makes him. God. If only he weren’t so awkward and obvious.

“Chocks away!” Dan cries, and suddenly he senses movement behind him as the boy begins to pedal up the pavement and across onto the road.

“Aagghhh!”

“Stay calm Philip! You’ll be safe in my hands,” Dan shouts against the howling wind. Hearing those words spoken so closely to his ear is enough for Phil to settle down and keep mum, gazing around at the empty streets that they cycle by. The sky’s blue hues have faded to a cool evening grey, with dark, speckled clouds stretching across it. Breaking the silvery sheet is crisp tangerine strip where the setting sun illuminates the horizon, peppered by bursts of soft, glowing clouds that streak across the skyline. Nostalgia bares its warm hug to him. It feels like the family holidays that Phil used to go on when he was a child, where each day came to a close in the back of the family motorcar, staring out of the window at the spectacular sunsets best observed on winding country lanes over endless fields. He feels at home. He feels safe.

Out of tiredness, or, dare he admit it, out of relaxation, Phil has subconsciously leaned backwards enough for his spine to be pressed up against Dan’s chest. He’s not sure quite how it happened... but it has. Earlier on in the day he might have leapt forward and apologised. But now? Now he’s too sleepy to react, and anyway, at this point he just can’t bring himself to worry about this sort of thing anymore. Dan’s not complaining, and there’s nobody around to see it happen.

They cycle past the empty shops and illuminated houses until they pass Magdalene College and reach the High Street again. This time it’s dark, and the Christmas lights decorating the shops have slowly begun to turn on.

“This is pretty isn’t it?” Dan hums behind him, voice surprisingly low and mellow in contrast to his comparative bellowing at the cafe earlier on.

“Mmmmm.”

“I love Christmas - it’s one of my favourite times of year. I love getting festive when December starts, with all the lights and mince pies and scented candles. I do find it stressful shopping for people though. I always feel like I’m going to put my foot in it. And of course there’s the part where everything begins to get horribly fake and commercial, but I don’t particularly want to think about that at the moment if I’m honest. Everything is all too perfect right now.”

“Mmm.” All too perfect.

“I’m considering joining the choir this year,” Dan continues. “I haven’t sung in a choir since I was about thirteen. I do miss it occasionally. Ah well. We’ll have to see.”

The shop displays sparkle as they sail past - newspaper vendors and tea rooms and tuck shops and travel agencies all closing in preparation for Sunday.

“So you can act and sing?”

Dan’s laugh is short and shaky. “I suppose I can. Luckily there’s no singing in this play that’s coming up though. God,” he exhales, “I don’t even want to think about the damned thing.”

“Why, has something gone wrong?”

“No. Well, not really.”

There’s a brief silence.

“The problem is is that I’m beginning to get rather stressed about it the whole ordeal. There’s only a couple of weeks left until we’re meant to be performing, but I’ve got a lot of work to complete for Music and rehearsals are starting to take up a lot of my time, and to make matters worse this sodding roommate that I’ve got keeps taking up my side of our study room and I’m not too sure that he really likes me anymore and I just…,” he sighs, “I don’t know. It’s an intense period, to say the least.”

“Hmmm.”

Phil turns his attention back towards the shops as they make their way towards his college. As they cruise down the High Street, the faint sound of music begins to waft through the cars and chatter. It gets louder as they cycle onwards, until they come up to a bakery where a small brass band stands outside in the cold, playing a tune that Phil knows well but can’t name. There’s a small crowd gathered outside, and as the song finishes, people cheer.

“Dan.”

“Mmm?”

“If you’re worrying about Christmas shopping, why don’t you come with me? I was planning on going on the first weekend of December. I’m a master at choosing presents for people, so I’m sure I’ll be able to help. And I’d be happy to. I owe you for today.”

“Oh...than-”

“And about getting work done for Music - you could always use my room. It’s not very large but it does have a lot of desk space, and I don’t have any pesky roommates that would get on your nerves. Just ask. I won’t say no, I mean, how could I? You’d be very welcome. Tell the porter you’re here to see Phil at room seventeen, staircase nine, and he’ll let you in.”

The other man doesn’t say a word. As they cycle down the narrow path into Catte Street, across the cobbled square host to the 18th-century Radcliffe Camera and down Brasenose Lane with its high walls, a soft drizzle begins to fall from the gloomy, blackening clouds. Dan clears his throat.

“Thank you, Phil,” he begins in a low voice. “Seriously. I shall have to take you up on that offer. When can I come over? Would next Friday be okay?”

“As I said, any time.”

“Are you sure I wouldn’t be disturbing you?”

“No, not at all. Dan, I’m offering. I wouldn’t have done so if I didn’t want to.”

“Okay,” he mutters, finally surrendering.

Turning onto Turl Street, Dan slows the pace to a halt as Phil disembarks. They walk in silence as they approach the gargantuan entrance to monumentous 14th-century college building.

“Well, here we are,” Dan announces.

Phil leans against the cold, carved, limestone walls that slant towards the dark wooden doors. He looks back at Dan, who holds the bike with one large, strong hand. The bike’s angle seems to have cornered him in this small nook, but Phil tries not to think about that. Instead, he looks up at Dan. The boy’s curls are slightly disheveled under his grey fedora, and his coat is covered with a haze of tiny raindrops. A satisfied smirk sits on his lips, and in the low light Phil can see that his dimpled cheeks glow a faint shade of pink.

“Thank you for today” Dan begins solemnly.

“It was my pleasure. Plus you paid for most of it anyway!”

“Hah! I guess did. Well, I suppose I should give this back to you and trot along back to Keble.” There’s a hint of resignation in his voice. “Come on, go inside. You’ll get soaked if you stand out here any longer.”

The frame is icy as Phil takes hold of it, raindrops spattering onto his wet hands as the downpour becomes stronger. Phil looks back up at Dan. Despite the storm getting worse, they both remain motionless, looking at each other. Dan’s eyes are fascinatingly deep and dark; moody against the backdrop of a thunderstorm and the billowing leaves of the tree behind him. Those eyes study him with equal interest, flitting over his neck and jaw, making Phil want to just shut his eyes and lean in and-

Dan, as if sensing the tension, closes his lids with a smile and takes two steps back.

“See you next week, Phil!”

Turning his shoulders away, he strides around the bike-wall alcove, exiting that little bubble that had just been created.

“Cheerio!” he cries, saluting as he marches off back to his own college.

Phil shivvers.

Ah well. Maybe next week.

#my writing #phan #phanfic #phanfiction #phandom #Dan and Phil #dnp #dan howell #phil lester #amazingphil #danisnotonfire #daniel howell

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raging-violets · 5 years ago

Note

Lap pillow for Peter/Brielle

Narnia: Lap Pillow // Prompt // Peter x Brielle

A/N: Set during Prince Caspian

Peter wasn’t sure if the sound he let out from his mouth was a grunt of pain or a sigh of relief. Both–probably–filled his veins as he lowered himself to a sitting position, just seconds before his legs gave way entirely, crashing him down onto the ledge that overlooked the courtyard of the castle where the party grew boisterously as the night went on.

Peter smiled to himself, watching as Caspian whirled across the cobblestones, holding onto Lucy’s hands as he moved in a dance to the lively music playing below. Or, as he realized with amusement, followed Lucy’s movements as she dictated the direction of their dance.

Edmund sat happily at the head of the feasting table, cheersing with the centaurs that sat–stood?–around him, equally enjoying the feast. Susan was nearby, sitting carefully on the ground with a wide circle of children around her, listening to every word of whatever story she was telling, smiling with a mature-like sincerity when they would react at the right parts.

Peter lifted his gaze to look at the sky. At the stars that twinkled above, nestled against the backdrop of the moon that shone proudly above them, bringing extra light to the courtyard. The night was crisp, just in-between warm and cool, a perfect fit for the light tunic that’d been festooned upon him in rich navy colors once Caspian declared the night for celebration with the Pevensies’ immediate approval. The lights around the courtyard, around the castle was especially bright to the young king. Just as it should’ve been for a celebration. Miraz was defeated, Narnia was safe.

Everything was the way it should be.

And yet, there was enough wrong that Peter couldn’t quite enjoy himself. He watched the party with a certain detachment that he’d grown used, similar to how he saw things before returning to Narnia again. It seemed to be a century ago, having gotten into so many fights with other boys in his school, unable to stomach the disrespect coming his way. (He was a king for Aslan’s sake!) Watched as his peers went about their lives so..frivolously, with their noses so far in the air for anything different that they could’ve drowned if it rained. Didn’t think much about others’ lives unless it directly impacted them.

He wasn’t part of that world anymore, probably could never be again. Just as he’d never truly be a King again.

Peter heard footsteps, light and airy, coming up behind him and intuitively knew who it was. Edmund dragged his feet in a way that made their mother consistently fuss over the patching of his shoes and echoed his role in Narnia of following the decisions of the King, not quick to make them of his own volition, Lucy’s footsteps were quick, filled with the enthusiasm and enjoyment she had for life, ready to get to the next thing she could fixate on. Susan’s were almost a dance; a musicality that mixed her youthfulness and maturity in a combination no one else could follow. And Caspian’s were equally as confident as they were insecure; getting used to his new role as king, as leader of his people.

Brielle’s were light and airy, an example of the way she flittered from person to person, a social butterfly who enjoyed everything life had to offer in meeting new people and learning new things…and finding new ways to annoy him.

But he was less than annoyed when he looked up as Brielle brushed aside the skirts of her pale cream dress, of which matched perfectly with her headdress, and lowered herself to her knees beside him. A sharp contrast to the chainmail, battle armor, and determined scowl she wore within the battle with Miraz and the Telmarine army.

She looked at him for a moment, cautious curiosity coming to her face, then said with a small smile, “You look like we just lost the war, my liege.”

Peter sighed. “We almost did.” He frowned, eyes narrowing for a second, then corrected himself. “I almost did.” It wasn’t anyone else’s fault what’d happened. It was his, all alone. He’d abused the power he had over his followers, bullied them, in a way, into following his lead so that he could..what? Prove to Caspian he was the one to rule Narnia?

Peter lowered his head, shaking it back and forth so that his fringe shifted on the light breeze that blew through the courtyard. “We lost so many today, and for what?”

“For Narnia,” Brielle reminded him. “For the Telmarines who had no choice but to follow Miraz and his men. For those who wanted peace.” She chuckled, tucking loose brown hair behind her ear. “And, I suppose, to not die.” As if sensing the miscalculated landing of her joke, she blinked rapidly, gently shaking her head.

Peter chuckled humorlessly. He didn’t like to think about things like that too often; where he brought in the stressors of his thoughts as a king into…into what? It was too much for him to hide away with the confidence he worked to bring into his role as the king.

Former King?

Was he still considered a King of Narnia anymore?

The Son of Adam that turned into the High King upon defeating the White Witch and releasing Narnia from its hundred year winter storm?

Maybe it was that loss that was hitting him harder than he’d expected. The loss of a title. After such a short time of having it. Most of the time being when he was back in the ‘real world’. His former life wasn’t a part of him anymore, as much as he thought of his parents and the war that brewed there. But he couldn’t let his heart go like that and he didn’t want to bring it up to her.

She didn’t expect him to be perfect, didn’t think he was. Teased and taunted him about it at almost every turn. And in the moment between breaths that was a comfort in itself. Still he wouldn’t have expect what came next.

Exhaustion came over him quicker than he’d anticipated. Maybe it was finally slowing down, finally off his feet after long days of battle and conflict. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush petering out, letting everything else run him over. Maybe it was speaking, out loud, of the worries that filled his head. But Peter’s head lolled, his vision swam, he worked hard not to yawn, eyes sliding shut.

He hadn’t realized he was moving until he rocked forward, shaking his head. His eyes fluttered, working to stay open. Brielle surprised him, grabbing his arm in a gentle grasp to move him over and down, down, down until his head rested on her lap, her skirts creating the perfect pillow for his weary head.

Despite how they were often in each other’s space while in battle (while sparring or in actual battle), taunting each other, working to cut each other down when in the moments they could show her closeness to the Pevensies, the moment was strange and…nice all on its own. Peter looked out at the city through half-lidded eyes, barely breathing as he felt her hand combing through his hair.

He relaxed.

A full body sigh escaped him, his eyes nearly closed. One breath, two breaths, nearly asleep.

After some time, her fingers stopped, he didn’t mind. Didn’t move. She was there with him and all the worries and disappointments of the day had melted away.

[ Number/Ship Rom-Com | Ask Box ]

@darknightfrombeyond @chuck-hansens

#Anonymous #ocappreciation #allaboutocs #the chronicles of narnia #peter pevensie #pc #prince caspian #narnia oc #oc: brielle #peter x brielle #prielle #answered ask #prompt #authored by: riley #gif by: riley

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momtemplative · 5 years ago

Text

Four Seeds.

Very little experiential information comes in from the outside world these days. The ports, energetic and literal, are closed for the foreseeable future. The ships have been docked.

So, every piece and part and bit of this house—as well as the people in it—suddenly feel like they are all posing for extreme close-ups. Corners that had been ignored for time immemorial are now simply untenable—how did I not notice that mess before? The top shelves that were wooly with dust are now slick and glossy. Random shoe boxes that had morphed into being part of the shelves (we began to stack things on top of them) have been cracked open like time capsules—so that’s where all the finger puppets went! Jesse even cleaned out his desk when he brought it upstairs and found the plastic polka-dot costume-jewelry rings we used to get married at the courthouse, two weeks before our actual wedding twelve years ago!

There are many treasures yet to uncover.

We also observe the bliss that comes from the alignment of two glorious things: decent weather and a spacious backyard. When we bought this house twelve years ago, we had no idea that our backyard would become such a cherished commodity. That, come Spring of 2020, we’d be rejoicing every single day we stepped foot on our chipped-up deck and muddy yard.

The yard is the scenic backdrop to a heavy percentage of our day. A few days ago, the dog gallivanted passed with a dead fetus of a mole rat dangling from his lips, and then dropped the rubbery carcass at his feet. I screeched and Ruthy heard that screech and ran my way yelling “What is it, Mama?!!” And, well, it felt as if all of humanity was contained in that tiny moment.

A while back, we planted five bean seeds that we got as a gift from my sister-in-law’s baby shower. We—Ruth and I—placed them deeply in rich soil in a medium-sized terra cotta pot. During the few days, Ruth treated the pot like a tiny sandbox for her toy figurines. I reminded her that dirt-play was for outside and told her we need to protect the baby seeds if we want them to grow. So, she flooded them with water then covered the soil with an entire bag of cotton balls to “Keep them warm.”

I reluctantly removed the terra cotta pot from the front window where it received the best lighting and radiating warmth, but where it was equally under threat of Ruth’s tiny fingers and endless curiosity. I placed the pot temporarily on the porch, safely out of reach but still in the (albeit chillier) sun. Then I promptly forgot to bring it inside that night when the temperatures plummeted. (When I awoke and peered out the front door to see the little pot out there, soil nearly frozen, my heart sank. I figured those guys were goners.)

The pot wound up on an out-of-reach shelf, then the kitchen table, then the back deck. It went through multiple re-locations, temperatures and lighting variations, all to keep it safe from little fingers that love nothing more than the feel of dirt.

It felt like one of those social experiments that was forced on the youth of yesteryear in school, where they had to pretend to be a parent to an egg, a watermelon, a doll, something non-sentient. There I was, taking painstaking care of my terra-cotta pot filled with, what appeared to be, just soil.

If I’m being honest, I was sure we had abused those five little bean seeds well beyond growth. I tried to imagine their little cosmos beneath the soil. Was it a forgiving place? Ahhh well, I thought. Damn shame.

Until, a few more days later, Opal called from the kitchen— “MOM!!! LOOK!”

I found her peering at my terra cotta pot with a wide grin. Behold, there were four tiny sprouts that had harnessed all their imperial magic, their godly juices, their tiny but most potent life forces to come forth into the world.

Once they broke through to the open air, nothing could hold them back. They grew so quickly you could almost see it with bare eyes. We paid close attention and reported on them numerous times a day. “How are the spouts?” “Honey can you check on the sprouts?” “Is the soil dry?”

I returned them to the front window because I couldn’t resist the accommodations, even if I did notice occasional dirty piles around the edges of the pot alongside a Daniel Tiger Figurine waist-deep in the dirt. But at that point, the sprouts seems less vulnerable, more teenage-like. If they were out in the garden, they'd have to hold their own with any-which backyard creature. I figured now they could handle—benefit from, even—some light adversity.

They got so tall I had to tie them with pipe-cleaners to a stick, for lack of a trellis. I’d have waited a bit longer to plant them if I had expected them to thrive so suddenly and so wildly. We needed just a little more time before they could go into the outside vegetable bed. But they were clearly outgrowing their home in the pot, like the hermit crab in the book Ruth had been reading in preschool before the shut-down.

Then one morning, Ruth emerged from behind her play tent wearing a backpack for pretend school, slouching from its visible weight on her shoulders.

“Whew, this backpack is HEA-VY!” she said, fishing for the acknowledgement of her strength from either Jesse or I or both who were in the vicinity.

She trailed off in another direction, audibly talking to herself about the plants.

Jesse and I exchanged a look of precise understanding and quick-stepped in her direction.

Indeed, Ruth had crammed the entire potted plant into her small backpack.

I gasped when I saw the sprouts, a good 10 inches tall now, shoved to fit in there, like unruly hairs manhandled into a fitted cap. To her credit, she must’ve put the pot into her backpack with some level of care, because there was very little dirt in there. She even packed the little tray underneath! She also left the zipper open to give them air. But the sprouts— those fragile strands that had already weathered so much—were discolored from their bends and from where the leaves had snapped or bent straight in half.

Oh dear. I said.

“I just wanted to bring them to show and tell,” Ruth said. Eyes waiting and hungry, like gaping vessels for us to tell her how she should feel right now.

Jesse said. “Oh honey, it was an accident. You didn’t know.” Sweet girl was as proud of those small-scale bits enchantment as I was. Proud enough to take them to pretend show and tell.

I extracted the terra cotta pot from the backpack with nimble surgeon fingers. I placed it on the kitchen table, the way a paramedic would lift a body that had sustained an uncertain amount of injuries onto a gurney. I tried to smooth out the sprouts as if I were running my fingers through hair, avoiding the larger knots. I released a bloated, audible exhale.

And that is where the four wounded sprouts currently reside—in their own little personal ICU—until we receive further information. Time will tell.

March 30, 2020

#momtemplative #HeatMamaWords #mindfulparenting #FourSeeds

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miralboom · 2 years ago

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Carla elite kimdir

#Carla elite kimdir full#

#Carla elite kimdir series#

Forecasting Love and Weather is a romantic comedy series ofpeople at the Korea Meteorological Administration who break, fall and get back on their feet every day. Overview: Forecasting Love and Weather is a cheerful romance drama of people at the Korea Meteorological Administration who break, fall and get back on their feet every day. Starring: Park Min Young, Song Kang, Yoon Bak, Yura Writer: Sun Young Launch date: February 12thĮpisodes: 16 episodes (Every Sat & Sun 2 episodes per week) Their sparkling love and growth, as well as the chemistry and hardships among the five friends, remind us of our intense yet beautiful youth. The fine line between a heart-fluttering first love and a heart-warming friendship gives them butterflies. Now they’ve each become twenty-five and twenty-one. They called out each other’s names for the first time when they were twenty-two and eighteen. Overview: Twenty Five, Twenty One is a drama of youths who lost their dream to the zeitgeist of 1998, a drama of their dilemma and growth.

#Carla elite kimdir full#

See below for Netflix’s full 2022 Korean slate.ĭirected by: Jung Jeehyun Writer: Kwon Doe-un Launch date: February 12th Episodes: 16 episodes (Every Sat & Sun 2 episodes per week) Starring: Kim Tae-ri, Nam Joo-hyuk, Kim Ji Yeon, Choi Hyun Wook, Lee Ju Myung Disney+ unveiled a slate of seven Korean originals when it went live in South Korea and other Asian territories last fall, and Warner Media’s HBO Max will undoubtedly invest heavily in the category when it eventually launches in East Asia sometime this year. Netflix has carved out a commanding lead as the go-to global platform for Korean content fans - the service has launched more than 130 Korean titles to date - but competition from international rivals is ramping up. Some of the highlights of Netflix’s coming Korean slate include All of Us Are Dead, in which zombies invade a high school Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area, an adaptation of the hit Spanish genre series and action film Seoul Vibe, about the adventures of a special-ops team set against the backdrop of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. “We are excited to continue collaborating with Korean storytellers to bring the K-wave to new heights,” said Don Kang, Netflix’s vp content for Korea. Sci-fi mystery The Silent Sea also made it to the number one spot on the weekly Top 10 lists for non-English content. Hits that followed Squid Game’s lead included the dark fantasy series Hellbound, which ranked No. Korean Film Figures Condemn Venice for Honoring Kim Ki-duk Despite Sexual Abuse Allegations

#Carla elite kimdir

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thesinglesjukebox · 6 years ago

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LAURA JEAN - GIRLS ON THE TV [8.27] Melbourne singer goes back to high school, discovers synths...

Jonathan Bradley: Laura Jean's self-titled album, her fourth -- it is now four years old -- is a skeletal folk record: it sounds like an Australia I don't often hear in pop song or mass media. It draws wintry charcoal sketches of Melbourne city parks and lonely stretches of national highways. The gothic domesticity acted like blotting paper, pressing against the natural rhythms of life and recording them in irrupted detail. Against this backdrop, "Girls on the TV" is a new single awash with astonishing colour: pastel synth swirls and a disco bass pulse pushing through the mix. Removed from context, this pop impulse might not be so unexpected, but I hear in Jean's airy, wavering tones an artist reinventing herself as the introspective rejoinder to the vivant throwback fervor of Betty Who or Catcall. And yet even in this new guise, Jean's bleak folk endures, with an anecdotal lyric that carefully and precisely narrates the drawn-out process of a girlhood destroyed. Ricky, who can "dance like the girls on the TV," is a childhood friend whose joy in the physical possibilities of her body is commodified and contaminated: by demanding teachers who ask her to perform feats she cannot, by cruel classmates who tease her for her weight, and by adult men who make sexual demands upon her. "Girls on the TV" is a sad song of youth that is made sadder by how keenly aware it is of the libertine and evanescent possibilities of the pop it embraces. [9]

Rebecca A. Gowns: "Girls on the TV" falls into that tricky vein of narrative pop songs; telling a full story can be hard to pull off without coming across as maudlin or pretentious or just clunky, but Laura Jean executes it perfectly. It's a story about a woman extending compassion to her sister -- or friend, or possibly even an old lover/crush -- but it tugs at me the most when I think of them as siblings. It's got to be, right? This kind of bittersweet, constant reminiscing reminds me of the pangs I get when I think about my little brother. We grew up so close. We're so different today. We keep reaching out to each other, grasping each other's hands through gaps in a wall that keeps building then falling down then building up again. But every time I see him, no matter the year, no matter the occasion, I'll think of the way we danced when we were kids, singing along to music videos, pulling faces, promising each other we'd be in a band together someday. "Someday" -- and then time flies, and people change -- but the memory remains. This is that feeling in a crystal bottle. [10]

Will Adams: "Girls on the TV" plays like a memory you visit while idly passing the time. The vault you access in your mind safe and warm, bordered by storybook clouds and soundtracked by dreamy synthpop. But, as always, the details that pierce through the most are the ones you want to remember the least: authority figures pressuring you to overexert yourself; peers excavating your every flaw and parading them about; parents imposing their austere lifestyle on you; abusers reducing you to a vessel for their pleasure; the eventual realization that everyone around you has moved forward, gotten hitched, settled down, while you remain stuck in place, feet swamped with the mud of an unkind youth. But those dancing girls are still there, as is the lingering promise that, one day, you could be one of them too. [7]

Katherine St Asaph: A tale of dashed female friendship akin to Who Will Run the Frog Hospital or Cat's Eye; what it loses in prose it gains in a kaleidoscopic, wistful arrangement. It fills its six minutes well; like memory itself, it's alternatingly immediate and almost photorealistic (that one deep synth around 0:30), then languid and ungraspable. [9]

Alfred Soto: The rare single whose insistence on taking its time pays off, "Girls on the TV" sparkles like distant stars, its synthesizers a platform instead of hoping to get noticed. The pace and arrangement suits Laura Jean's remarkable performance: a damaged meditation on loving someone you can see and hear but can't touch and all the better for it -- "Space Age Love Song" and "TVC 15" without the spritz. "She could always dance better than me," Jean repeats: a statement of fact, mild complaint, and prayer. [9]

Vikram Joseph: A languorously paced, well-written coming-of-age story about female friendship and crushed dreams. The airy, breathy pre-chorus is a particularly good showcase for Laura Jean's vocals. It's unlikely to get the blood racing -- sonically, it's undeniably a bit adult contemporary -- but it owns the middle of the road better than 95 per cent of the stuff you'd hear on drive-time radio. [7]

Julian Axelrod: An immersive, deeply felt meditation on ambition and destiny, sung with the resignation of a woman long since disillusioned with both. The longer I sit with it, the more its faults feel like strengths: Its leisurely runtime reflects time's slow and relentless march, while its dourness finds balance in its faint glimmers of hope. After living within it for a week, it already feels like I've carried this story with me my entire life. [9]

Peter Ryan: The languid quality is perfect misdirection, masking what's going on until the chords break open at the chorus. What emerges is an unflinching sketch of a web connecting childhood pain, coping attempts, and "contemporary adult life." There's no glib gesturing toward resilience, and instead of pity or judgment I hear an indictment of actual and would-be tormentors. Laura Jean brings a sibling's testimony, one that doesn't seek to bridge the gulf between shared upbringing and shared experience, and is all the more potent for it. The wrapping is more chiffon than velvet, but underneath is still an iron fist. [9]

Jonathan Bogart: A folkie's idea of dance music, muted and unflustered, with warm electric bass and polyrhythms played by actual hands rather than programming. Sweet, certainly, and the lyrics' sketch of childhood and adolescent friendship are well-observed and touching without being sentimental. Which is the trouble: the whole production is an exercise in keeping vulgarity, of which sentimentality is one expression, and actual dance music that makes you sweat another, at arm's length. [6]

Alex Clifton: Like if Belle & Sebastian's "Expectations" was twice as long with more disco. Laura Jean has the same gifts for both character and melody Stuart Murdoch has. The dreamy backing helps it go by as quickly as my teenage years did, and her falsetto for the chorus haunts the rest of the song like a memory. It's steeped in nostalgia, but is there any other way to write about adolescence? [7]

William John: Like half the Internet, I've been preoccupied with Hannah Gadsby's Nanette for the past few weeks: a subversive, quasi-TED Talk comedy special that blew my mind when I first saw it in a theatre late last year. Now on Netflix, Nanette is hard to distill succinctly, but central to its significance is its blunt presentation of the devastation rapacious men can effect on others. That devastation lingers in those victims and continues to humiliate them for years -- decades, even -- afterward. In "Girls on the TV", fellow Australian woman Laura Jean presents an unvarnished picture of friend Ricky, a bullied, vulnerable, talented tap dancer, and reminisces wistfully upon the relationship they formed as members of the high school concert band. In the fourth verse, a new character is introduced -- Jean's mother's boyfriend, a violent, young, and predatory 21 year old. In a line excised from the video edit of the song, Jean notes that after Ricky's encounter with this man, she felt like she "didn't know her, or how she got that way"; there is no explicit cause-and-effect drawn, but the implication for the listener is that this incident had extensive ramifications for Ricky, that included cocaine addiction and relationships with married men. It's a sad story that demonstrates the way the action of a third party can destabilise and dismantle a friendship, but it's told with a compelling breathiness by Jean that seems to gather more and more momentum with each passing second. I'm unaccustomed to hearing such brusque, direct, and yet tender third-person storytelling in modern synth-pop. The importance of storytelling is central to Gadsby's Nanette -- stories "hold our cure," she says, and have the power to forge connection. Jean's memories of sitting in front of rage on a Saturday morning when young serve as an access point into an important story that deserved to be recounted. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#laura jean #pop #pop music #music #music video #music writing #music reviews #australian music #new music

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ijtsrd · 3 years ago

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Disabling the Education System A Case of Zimbabwe’s Mental Genocide

by Tawanda Wallace Mataka | Tawanda Mukurunge | Takura Bhila "Disabling the Education System: A Case of Zimbabwe’s Mental Genocide"

Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-5 | Issue-4 , June 2021,

URL: https://www.ijtsrd.compapers/ijtsrd41273.pdf

Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.commedicine/other/41273/disabling-the-education-system-a-case-of-zimbabwe’s-mental-genocide/tawanda-wallace-mataka

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The easiest way to destroy generations and a nation is through depriving the youth their education. Education is a basic human right not a privilege as is the current case in Zimbabwe. The government of Zimbabwe of July 2018 – 2023 has decided to hide under covid 19 to deprive the innocent children their education. Schools and universities were closed in March 2020 to minimise covid 19 transmission. Little did we know that this was the opportune time for this government to kill the Zimbabwean children intellectually. The education system that was in intensive care, on oxygen, had the oxygen tanks switched off, to the government’s celebration. Teachers and learners were dispatched home indefinitely. While there were celebrations in the corridors of power that we have tamed SARS CoV 2 Covid 19 through schools’ closure, other countries upon closing schools started planning on how they were going to make education accessible during the covid 19 pandemic. The government of Zimbabwe was honeymooning abusing donated covid 19 funds. Teachers’ salaries were equalling US 35 from US 520 in 2018. Indirectly it was destroying and devaluing the once admired education system. Some schools changed ownership, from being community schools to private entities at the detriment of the working class child whose parents survived on US1 per day. Bearing the brunt are the children of the marginalised because there is no school anymore. The teachers have no salary. The children of the government officials are enrolled in elite private schools in and outside the country. The children of most of the population whom they coerce to vote for them are deprived of education. They are killing them so that their own children and grandchildren will succeed them in future in those same government and political offices they occupy today. It is at the backdrop of these stated facts that I argue that the government of Zimbabwe 2018 2023’s agenda is to suffocate the public education system in Zimbabwe to perpetuate poverty, anarchy, cronyism, despotism, and demagoguery. Data was generated qualitatively informed by the theory of Ubuntu. This theory is fit for the study because this is about human relationships. Interviews with teachers and document analysis focusing on speeches by ZANU PF and MDC political parties were data generation tools. Data was processed coded and conclusions were made.

#education system #intensive care #demagoguery

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/analysis-nato-faces-conundrum-as-it-mulls-afghan-pullout-national-news/

Analysis: NATO faces conundrum as it mulls Afghan pullout | National News

ISLAMABAD (AP) — After 20 years of military engagement and billions of dollars spent, NATO and the United States still grapple with the same, seemingly intractable conundrum — how to withdraw troops from Afghanistan without abandoning the country to even more mayhem.

An accelerated U.S. drawdown over the past few months, led by the previous U.S. administration, has signaled what may be in store for long-suffering Afghans.

Violence is spiking and the culprits are, well, everyone: the Taliban, the Islamic State group, warlords, criminal gangs and corrupt government officials.

Currently, 2,500 U.S. and about 10,000 NATO troops are still in Afghanistan. NATO defense ministers will meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the way forward.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is reviewing his predecessor’s 2020 deal with the Taliban, which includes a May 1 deadline for a final U.S. troop withdrawal from the war-ravaged country. In Washington, calls are mounting for the U.S. to delay the final exit or renegotiate the deal to allow the presence of a smaller, intelligence-based American force.

All key players needed for a stable post-war Afghanistan come with heavy baggage.

The Taliban now hold sway over half the country and both sides in the conflict have continued to wage war, even after peace talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government began last year in Qatar.

The Taliban have lately been accused of targeted killings of journalists and civic leaders — charges they deny. But they lack credibility, particularly because they refuse to agree to a cease-fire. There is also no proof they have cut ties with al-Qaida militants as required under the Taliban-U.S. deal. A January report by the U.S Treasury found that they continue to cooperate and that al-Qaida is getting stronger.

Some reports from areas under Taliban control speak of heavy-handed enforcement of a strict interpretation of Islamic law: While the Taliban allow girls to go to school, the curriculum for both boys and girls seems mostly focused on religion. There is little evidence of women’s progress in the deeply conservative, rural areas.

Afghan warlords — some accused of war crimes — have been co-opted by international forces since the 2001 collapse of the Taliban regime, amassing power and wealth. In a vacuum that would follow the withdrawal of foreign troops, activists and Afghans fear the heavily armed warlords would return to another round of fighting, similar to the 1992-1996 bloodletting. At that time, the warlords turned their firepower on each other, killing more than 50,000 people, mostly civilians, and destroying much of the capital, Kabul.

Afghan forces have also been accused of heavy-handedness. In January, a new U.N. report said that nearly a third of all detainees held in detention centers across Afghanistan say they have suffered some form of torture or ill-treatment. Corruption is rampant and government promises to tackle it, according to a U.S. watchdog, rarely go beyond paper.

The regional affiliate of the Islamic State group, which in particular targets the country’s minority Shiites, has grown more brazen and violent, its attacks increasing in frequency and audacity, testing a weak security apparatus.

Despite nearly $1 trillion spent in Afghanistan — of which a lion’s share went on security — lawlessness is rampant. According to the U.S. State Department, crime in Kabul is widespread, with criminals typically working in groups and using deadly force. “Local authorities are generally ineffective in deterring crime,” the State Department said. “Officers openly solicit bribery at all levels of local law enforcement. In some cases, officers carry out crimes themselves.”

Economic benchmarks are no better.

The World Bank said the poverty rate rose from 55% in 2019 to 72% in 2020. Two-thirds of Afghans live on less than $1.90 a day. Unemployment rose in 2020 to 37.9%, from 23.9%, the World Bank said last week.

“This is an absolute disgrace given the billions spent on this country over the last two decades,” Saad Mohsini, owner of Afghanistan’s popular TOLO TV, tweeted in response. “Who will stand up and take responsibility?”

Meanwhile, Afghan youth, activists, minorities and women worry that the freedoms they have won since 2001 — while still fragile — will be lost to a Taliban-shared government, and if not to the Taliban, then to warring warlords.

For the U.S. and NATO, the big concern is national security. Both want guarantees that Afghanistan will not again become a safe haven for terrorist groups as it was both during the Taliban era and when warlords ruled.

Among them is Abdur Rasoul Sayyaf, now a key player in Kabul, whose group brought al-Qaida’s Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan from Sudan in May 1996. Sayyaf was the inspiration behind the Philippine terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, another warlord in Kabul, briefly gave bin Laden a safe haven following the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban, who had up to that point sheltered the al-Qaida leader. In 2017, Hekmatyar signed a peace agreement with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and is now a member of the country’s wider peace reconciliation council.

Back in 2012, Human Rights Watch warned NATO that unless it held government forces as well as the Taliban accountable for abuses, the alliance’s “legacy would be a country run by abusive warlords — including the Taliban — and unaccountable security forces,” said Patricia Gossman, associate director for Asia at the New York-based group.

Analysts agree there is no easy solution to Afghanistan’s deteriorating conditions, regardless of whether NATO stays or goes.

“Let’s be very clear: A fragile peace process meant to stabilize the security environment hangs in the balance against the backdrop of a rogue’s gallery of spoilers,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center.

Some say NATO and the U.S. should send a strong message for peace to all sides in Afghanistan’s protracted conflict.

“The U.S. and NATO must be very clear … that they do not wish more war in Afghanistan, that they want a political settlement between the warring parties and that those leaders who shout for more war, on both sides, are no longer good partners with the international community,” said Torek Farhadi, political analyst and former adviser to the Afghan government.

“Absent a political settlement, Afghanistan is headed for a bitter civil war and potentially the country being fractured in the longer run,” he added.

———

Associated Press news director for Afghanistan and Pakistan Kathy Gannon has been covering Afghanistan for The Associated Press since 1988. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Kathygannon

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#afghan #analysis #conundrum #faces #mulls #pullout #National

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alexiabartolomeo-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Ten Interesting Afghanistan Novels

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: “The Kite Runner tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, whose closest friend is Hassan. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet military intervention, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.” 2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: ”Mariam is an illegitimate child, and suffers from both the stigma surrounding her birth along with the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila, born a generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect and she is also forced to accept a marriage proposal from Rasheed, Mariam's husband.” 3. Fear of Beauty by Susan Froetschel: “The battered body of an Afghan boy is found at the base of a cliff outside a remote village in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Did he fall as most of the villagers think? Or is this the work of American soldiers, as others want to believe? Not far from the village, the US Army has set up a training outpost. Sofi, the boy's illiterate young mother, is desperate to find the truth about her son's death. But extremists move in and offer to roust the "infidels" from the region, adding new pressures and restrictions for the small village and its women.” 4. The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam: “There’s Marcus, an English expat who was married to an outspoken Afghani doctor; David, a former American spy; Lara, from St. Petersburg, looking for traces of her brother, a Russian soldier who disappeared years before; Casa, a young Afghani whose hatred of the Americans has plunged him into the blinding depths of zealotry; and James, an American Special Forces soldier. Aslam reveals the intertwining paths that these characters have traveled, constructing a timely and intimate portrait of the complex ties that bind us and the wars that continue to tear us apart.” 5. The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi: “In Persian folklore, Syngue Sabour is the name of a magical black stone, a patience stone, which absorbs the plight of those who confide in it. It is believed that the day it explodes, after having received too much hardship and pain, will be the day of the Apocalypse. But here, the Syngue Sabour is not a stone but rather a man lying brain-dead with a bullet lodged in his neck. His wife is with him, sitting by his side. But she resents him for having sacrificed her to the war, for never being able to resist the call to arms, for wanting to be a hero, and in the end, after all was said and done, for being incapacitated in a small skirmish. Yet she cares, and she speaks to him. She even talks to him more and more, opening up her deepest desires, pains, and secrets. While in the streets rival factions clash and soldiers are looting and killing around her, she speaks of her life, never knowing if her husband really hears. And it is an extraordinary confession, without restraint, about sex and love and her anger against a man who never understood her, who mistreated her, who never showed her any respect or kindness. Her admission releases the weight of oppression of marital, social, and religious norms, and she leads her story up to the great secret that is unthinkable in a country such as Afghanistan.” 6. Caravans by James A. Michener: “The story is set in Afghanistan immediately following World War II. The protagonist, Mark Miller, is stationed in Kabul at the American embassy and is given the assignment of an investigation to find a young woman, Ellen Jasper, also from the United States, who has disappeared after her marriage to an Afghan national thirteen months previously. During his journey through Afghanistan, Miller comes to a deeper understanding of the complexities and nuances of contemporary Afghan life. His travels also reveal the similarities of human nature across cultural and social boundaries.” 7. Flashes of War: Short Stories by Katey Schultz: “Schultz questions the stereotypes of modern war by bearing witness to the shared struggles of all who are touched by it. Numerous characters-returning U.S. soldier and pragmatic jihadist, Afghan mother and listless American sister, courageous amputee and a ghost that cannot let go-appear in Flashes of War, which captures personal moments of fear, introspection, confusion, and valor in one collection spanning nations and perspectives.” 8. The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi: “Kabul, 2007: The Taliban rules the streets. With a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can rarely leave the house or attend school. Their only hope lies in the ancient Afghan custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a son until she is of marriageable age. As a boy, she has the kind of freedom that was previously unimaginable...freedom that will transform her forever. But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great-grandmother Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life in the same way—the change took her on a journey from the deprivation of life in a rural village to the opulence of a king’s palace in the bustling metropolis of Kabul.” 9. The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis: “Breadwinner series is an award-winning novel about loyalty, survival, families, and friendship under extraordinary circumstances during the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan. Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city. Parvana’s father — a history teacher until his school was bombed and his health destroyed — works from a blanket on the ground in the marketplace, reading letters for people who cannot read or write. One day, he is arrested for the crime of having a foreign education, and the family is left without someone who can earn money or even shop for food. As conditions for the family grow desperate, only one solution emerges. Forbidden to earn money as a girl, Parvana must transform herself into a boy, and become the breadwinner.” 10. The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra: “Set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban, this extraordinary novel takes readers into the lives of two couples: Mohsen, who comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers whom the Taliban has destroyed; Zunaira, his wife, exceedingly beautiful, who was once a brilliant teacher and is now no longer allowed to leave her home without an escort or covering her face. Intersecting their world is Atiq, a prison keeper, a man who has sincerely adopted the Taliban ideology and struggles to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once rescued Atiq and is now dying of sickness and despair.”

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fabrickind · 8 years ago

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Revolutionary Girl Utena Liveblog: Episode 1

It all begins here! Join me for sex, violence, intrigue, and lots of rambling analysis about societal structures.

After the opening theme, this episode starts off with a fairytale framework. The curtain rises, and we are told the story of a young princess who was saved by a prince on a white horse.

I know about two things, and that’s film theory and fabrics.With that, I have to say...the animators here clearly have no idea how fabric folds work.

Besides the surprising amount of foreshadowing in the opening theme animation, this sequence sets a lot of the tone of the series. It takes a familiar structure and changes it, though at this point in the series, you may not be aware of these changes. This is just a straightforward shoujo about a girl finding her prince and living happily ever after...right?

The spinning rose frame here is another recurring element in the series. What this episode is telling you is that this is a story, a fantasy. It is a framing. It had to have been framed by someone or some perspective. It is aware of itself as narrative, and is pointing the audience to also be aware of it as narrative. The brilliance of this framework is that the show starts of fairly straightforward, if a little weird and “anime” in its presentation, so that you go along with its premises, like you would with any other story out there. This is a series that teaches you how to watch it as you go, and devices like the opening framework simultaneously throw you directly into the show’s devices and hide their own functioning until much later in the series. Suspension of disbelief and playing into common genre tropes will do that to you.

The spinning rose frame quickly disappears once we change shots, but the play-like animation style remains. Everything looks like it is from a popup book, with the very flat-looking character models (faceless at that) against more realistic but clearly hand-drawn, and somewhat unusual/abstract/surrealist, backdrops. they even cast shadows.

Though, we do get one shot of the prince kissing kid!Utena’s face in the actual style of the show, and properly animated instead of in the stiff cutout style -- is this memory somehow more “real” than the rest? Or is the fact that this memory is mixed in with the “play” aspects a way of telling us that even the “true” memory is not to be trusted? The prince placing the ring on her finger is animated in the same style, and then it immediately cuts back to the stiff cardboard cutout style. These seem to be the “real” memories we get in episode 34, but with this show, there’s no real way to tell what is “real” or if such a concept even applies. (I won’t get too Lacanian here, but I think that the concept of the Real might be applicable somehow...)

That said, the pairing of imagery and spoken lines is really interesting to me here.

Something something being trapped in your coffin something.

Actually, the first time I saw this series, I thought “I’m going to be so mad if it turns out that Utena was dead the whole time” after watching this sequence for the first time. Years later, I’m still not sure if I should be mad or not.

I just noticed the appearances of the rose frames and when they do or do not appear in this sequence -- at the very start, when the prince is leaving, and when the princess decides to become a prince. the colors are red, then white, then pink. I’m sure there’s a reason for this, and I think it has to do with the (literal, in this case framing of Utena’s story. More thoughts to come in later liveblogs.

No liveblog would be complete without repeating the main question: “but was that really such a good idea?” Brave viewer, you will have to draw your own conclusion on that by the end.

After the fairytale opening, it appears to be a fairly typical slice of life schoolgirl shoujo fluffy nonsense show. We get our introduction to Wakaba, who calls Utena her “boyfriend,” and then the camera pans over to the school and lingers on the suspiciously phallic tower, until it cuts to some nice scenery shots of the school’s important locations, including the rose garden and the forest that contains the dueling arena. The phallic tower features very prominently in these shots, but the triumphant music signals that this is just a series of normal establishing shots of the school and not massive foreshadowing.

I am a bit jealous of their architecture, though.

Our introduction to our intrepid heroine comes about by way of the sound of footsteps and images of fragmented parts of her body. We get her feet, an overhead shot of her turning all the ladies’ heads, and then her feet again, this time with a slow tilt up her body until her face is revealed. This doesn’t seem to be an attempt to sexualize her or objectify her, but rather to slowly establish her as our heroine. There’s a bit of an element of shock here -- we first see her as a cool, level-headed girl, but then the moment she opens her mouth (her first line is “weird getup?”), that image is dispelled. She is trying very hard to fit a certain image. Our introduction to her is also our introduction to the teacher who is always hounding her about her uniform, establishing this character as someone who is willing to bend the rules, but only within the already established framework. Checking the student rulebook shows this quite clearly -- she’ll wear a “boy’s” uniform, but she’s still working with the system of both the rules established by the school and the system that establishes a difference between “boys” and “girls” in terms of clothing choices.

I get a distinct sense that Utena here is set up to be both a typical shoujo type character and an atypical one, but in ways that are working within the shoujo economy of representation, which becomes thoroughly queered by the end of the series. She’s a girly-girl at heart, always insisting that she’s just a “normal girl” and that she doesn’t want to play basketball with the boys, yet she’s also a fairly typical tomboy figure in that she’s fawned over by the other girls at the school, she plays sports, and she bucks the rules to a degree. She is simultaneously both sides of the binary set up, yet she doesn’t end up as the simple Feminist Figure™ of the boyish girl who still retains her connection to femininity, or the figure who rejects femininity because she finds masculinity to be Stronger and Better, even as she’s set up as such from the start. That’s part of the framework that we’re trained to think within, however.

I think my favorite part of this sequence is Utena doing all of her weird poses for the camera and then the teacher literally breaking the fourth wall. That showoff.

The show pretty clearly sets itself up as spectacle, here. We know that we’re watching something, and it’s letting us know from the very start.

Who else but Utena would hold court in the middle of the school, her pink masculinity and youth contrasting sharply with the feminine, older, green teacher who is her mirror here? We are removed from the action here, much like the students watching from above, but we are also set apart from them, even as we are still firmly put in the place of “audience.” We are watching the in-universe audience, which puts us in a unique position, where we can become self-aware of our position and they cannot.

Utena insists that she’s a girl and doesn’t want to be a boy, yet claims that she wants to be a prince. The (perpetually offscreen) boy that she’s talking to doesn’t seem to understand the difference, and I think this says a lot about the show’s use of gender -- to an outside party, “prince” is conditional on “boy,” but the world that Utena gets wrapped up in seems to have “prince” and “princess” as the genders, not tied to the outside concepts of “boy” and “girl,” even as they are very strongly tied to societal concepts of masculinity and femininity. (I would say that “duelist” is a category that moves between these, and that “witch” is the other side of “princess”...but we have many weeks to go before we get there) Utena is set up as very naive here, but that’s what makes her so powerful as a protagonist. She’s trying to fit into these societal structures, but she’s doing it “wrong,” and her lack of understanding of the similarity between “boy” and “prince” (among other things) both sets her up to fall completely into these categories and find a way around them. Eventually.

More frames within frames, but this time, we’re suturing ourselves to Utena’s point of view as we watch a story largely play out for our benefit. There’s an odd sense of flatness in this frame, as if she’s looking at a painting rather than through a window. Of course, while Anthy is actually being abused (and in far worse ways than we can imagine in this first episode), this entire scene is staged to help give Utena character motivation, and the framing of it and the explicit sense of watching cues us in to that.

One thing that always strikes me about this show is the use of overlap editing. Our first example is in Saionji slapping Anthy -- he doesn’t slap her twice, we just see it twice -- which not only puts emphasis on the action, but it expands the screentime of the action (vs. the story time). What we sees takes longer than what “actually” happens, and this establishes early on the sense of time that this series uses. (Another very obvious example is the sword-pulling sequence -- the actions don’t happen multiple times, we just see them multiple times.) Time here is cyclical -- it doesn’t matter if Saionji slapped Anthy once or hundreds of times in that moment, because it’s all of those times, and none of those times. “Natural” time doesn’t have an effect here.

I would like to take a moment to appreciate Wakaba. she’s too precious.

Our first Student Council meeting is somehow both the most normal one and the most unusual one. No baseball games or rows of fans in the background?

And yet, the council actually calls Saionji out on his behavior, which seems rather unusual. I feel like even though Utena isn’t here to witness this meeting, it’s still entirely for our benefit -- setting up Saionji as a villain, letting us know about this ~shadowy organization~ (full of huge dorks), and establishing further that Saionji’s treatment of Anthy is Not Okay, which puts us on Utena (and Anthy’s) side. Of course, Anthy’s own actions here are largely performance, in that she’s acting the role of the Rose Bride.

A few things to note in this meeting:

Miki taking “minutes”

Juri’s dramatic posing that would put even a Jojo to shame (just a little more of a side lean and bring that hand up to your face, Juri...)

Everyone repeating Touga’s line back

Miki dramatically using his stopwatch (3:12 is the time when he stops it)

How TALL are you, Saionji???

Though, the way in which romance is framed here is interesting to me. they all call Saionji out on his abuse, but don’t ultimately actually do anything about it. Even though everyone knows that his behavior is wrong (as evidenced by not just the fact that they’re confronting him, but but things like Miki sweating and shaking when dealing with the situation), they’re quick to brush it off as a surface-level “oh they’re just lovebirds and we shouldn’t meddle in their affairs,” even as that contradicts their previous words and actions. Of course, no one here is really seeing Anthy as human, just as an object to help them get what they want, and they aren’t actually seeing the “engagement” as a romantic relationship, but rather an arrangement based on power.

I’m not sure if the dueling rules change here or if Saionji is just poking fun at his fellow councilmembers.

“If you’re so concerned about the rules of the Rose Seal...

Later, it’s pretty clearly established that End of the World tells the Duelists (at least in this arc) who is going to duel and when through his letters. Is this something that is relatively new once Utena arrives on the scene? Or is this something that was happening all along and there was a set order before? (This changes quite a bit once we get further in the series, of course, and motivations and Duelists change up a bit)

A few things about the love letter scene

Wakaba has amazing stationary

The crowd is entirely boys (what is this space? Is it a boys-only space, or does it just happen to have a lot of boys in it?) (There’s actually a lot of really interesting framing in this scene, but I won’t cap it all)

Utena’s comment about “real” men. This plays into a lot of ideas about how a “real” man would act in certain ways (in this case, as typically, this would be acting as a gentleman, setting immaturity [=boyhood] against maturity [=manhood] as the marker or masculinity, rather than setting femininity against masculinity as the marker of manhood), which ultimately ties back to the distinction Utena makes between a “boy” and a “prince.” Princes want to protect women (princesses) in distress, at least in Utena’s mind. She’s basing her gender policing on roles rather than on appearances, which is how her gender expression is often policed. Same framework, but a different way of conceptualizing it within there.

In the next scene, Saionji claims that he didn’t post the letter, and then changes to claim that he used it to give everyone a laugh. I actually believe the first claim. It would make more sense if it were posted in order to frame him as more of a villain within the world of the story (not that he isn’t a terrible guy already) to further push Utena into dueling.

Though, can we take a moment to appreciate how amazingly ridiculous the story of this show is? Some jerk made the protagonist’s bff cry, so she challenges him to a duel for the sake of getting revenge and accidentally wins a girl in the process.

Our first Shadow Girls play: “But be careful, brave hero. There are rules in the forest. Do you know what they are?”

Besides a very ominous bit of foreshadowing here (and where the narrative starts to break down), I think this speaks to some of the issues of systems of power that I’m been drawing out here. Utena has walked unknowingly into a system of power that she doesn’t fully understand, while also largely following the rules of that system (while not being wholly determined by them). The Shadow Girls outright state this in the very first episode. Yes, it could easily refer to the actual rules of the dueling game, but this is RGU we’re talking about.

This also begs the question -- what perspective are these shadow plays coming from, and for whose benefit are they? I feel like this answer would change, even, once we get to the Black Rose Saga and C-ko, but it’s worth asking early on. Utena is directly addressed, but she doesn’t seem to have (conscious, at least) awareness of the plays until the BRS (and then episode 34), so it seems as if the plays are for our benefit as the audience. And yet...are these characters omniscient? Who are they (aliens) and where are they getting their information?

We get that great imagery of the magical door with the special key (the ring) and then everything in the landscape shifts to open up to the dueling arena. I’ve always loved how Utena is a little bit “wtf?” but then doesn’t really ever question it again that there’s a forest with a ton of impossible stairs in it somehow behind the school. Or the fact that it changes from night to day once she enters, speaking of weird concepts of time. (Is the light from the projector just that bright???)

So that’s what they meant... :P

[insert obligatory note about how this is more literal than anyone realizes at this point]

[insert obligatory note about deflowering]

[insert obligatory note of “who the hell is ringing the bells at the start and end of each duel?”]

Actually, a real note on the bells -- are they wedding bells or funerary bells?

Is Anthy’s shock during the duel feigned? Or is she actually surprised that someone seems to be dueling for her sake (and wins)? I think it could go either way. (Also, obligatory note about the “senpai” clapback and how great it is)

When Utena is walking home and Anthy is there to declare herself engaged to Utena, but Anthy doesn’t move in with her until later...where do they go? What happens in that space of time?

The duel itself is pretty much setting up the structure for the series here, so there isn’t terribly much to note besides capping some of the more interesting juxtapositions of lyrics and characters. Pull the sword, duel, Utena wins. It’s when this structure changes that the duels start to get really interesting, and I’ll have more to say about those particular cases, and maybe more about what the dueling structure itself means. As for now....I’m tired. And glad to be done with with the first episode of my liveblog.

For anyone who actually read through all of that, thank you for sticking with it!! :D I’ll be posting up the next episode next week, and I hope to do one a week until I’ve finished out the series.

Please, let this spark discussion and analysis, and always feel free to send me analytical questions. :]

#revolutionary girl utena #utena liveblog #utena analysis #long post is long #not blog themed #real talk with fabrickind #god this is long #enjoy!! :D

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robandsonsme · 6 years ago

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PLEASE BUY AND FOLLOW ME CLICK ON LINKS TO BUY ONLINE PLEASE BUY SALES FROM THIS BOOK GO TO ADELAIDE HOSPITAL CHILDRENS WARD (leukemia)

Father’s Love My Father didn’t admit to having a past. The story of his early life was a mystery lost in his lack of words and an inability to expose anything that could be vulnerability, humanity or even shows any kindness. The devil was his only friend. Even this friend would abandon him. My Mother would eventually and begrudgingly supply me with a few details, but this only went on to provoke more questions. He was an enigma to the end; leaving no suicide note, no apology and no peace for those who survived him. I am only certain of one thing. My Father’s hate for me was virulent. My hate for him would grow to the point where I would consider his murder every day of my teenage years. The dynamic of the real family is rarely the all-encompassing love of the fairy tale or the softness of the detergent commercial, but my family was extreme by any standards. Violence was our currency and the absence of genuine love left a void that was filled with darkness, betrayal and humiliation. We were an Australian family and Australia was an uncompromising place in the sixties or at least that is how it appeared to me. To me, in those days everything was black and white. We were told we were growing up in the lucky country. We were told we could achieve anything through challenging work and spirit yet at the same time I was being brutalised and made to feel worthless by the people I loved the most and trusted. I often thought to myself was I born evil? It would happen at night. I was small for my age, a premature twin, the smallest to survive in Victoria at the time; I was easily carried out of the house and into the garden by someone of my Father’s build. He would be drunk, clumsy and rough. I would be hastily stripped. My clothes were torn from me and I would have to stand defenceless and naked in the yard. I would have to take my chances. I wouldn’t wait to see if he would stop at the humiliation and spare me the violence, he never did. I would take advantage of his drunkenness and feel for his grip to loosen or slip and then I would go. I would run through the neighbourhood to escape the attack. Was I worried about the neighbours seeing me naked? Hardly, this had happened so many times before. I knew what it was to run barefoot on cracked bitumen that was baking from the day’s biting sun. I knew running naked in the near-freezing winter nights too. I knew what it was like to be running for your life. I spent a childhood running the streets and I’ve spent a lifetime escaping my Father. My Father was born in South Australia in 1929. He was the son of a prostitute and born out of wedlock. He must not have known his Father in any meaningful way, but he will have had suspicions about the 100’s of men who visited his Mother’s house. My Father had inherited a large build, olive skin, deep brown eyes and a tremendous capacity for anger. My Father’s hair and mood were black for his entire life. Father is him as a boy holding a black dog. He had the patience with animals he could never show to people. He was tall and skinny with a mop of black hair. This child would develop into a man of six foot four with a powerful build clothed in skin scarred by the Australian sun. He was mutilated emotionally and carried a pain that could infect anyone in his vicinity. His hands would grow to be huge, always at least twice the size of mine yet he was quite graceful in his movements and well kept. He was clean shaven and took pride in his appearance. At home, he dressed in casual jeans and shirt and he insisted that they were clean and ironed which meant my Mother would often discover lipstick stains on his collar. A fight would then ensue with the devil rising into those brown eyes and consuming the man. My Father’s childhood was as fractured as any other part of his life. He would always be on the move, change jobs and locations and even personalities but his consistent companions were alcohol and misery. He was Christened Robert Sheriff, the same name he gave me. He left school early and worked a succession of tough, unskilled jobs. He was a station hand and a fruit picker and went from one manual labour to another building calluses and emotional hardness. The one anecdote I know from his youth is an incident where he nearly drowned. At age nine he was pulled from the water at Port Pirie. Pirie was and still is a small industrial town in the shadow of grain silos and a lead smelter. About a two-hour drive north of Adelaide where grain shipping and industry had called for unskilled immigrants to come and build a town. All of life in Pirie takes place with the backdrop of the smell of sulphur, a soft scent of hell from the lead smelting process. One day my Father fell into the water that carried the grain ships and plunged toward oblivion in the waters that reflected the belching chimney stacks. A man walking past at the time saw my Father fall and dived into the water to save him. The story made the local press where it describes my Father’s saviour as a hero. This stranger’s act has ensured thirty-five descendants, and I exist because of him, my children and grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, my sisters, my beloved twin brother were all offered a chance of life because my Father didn’t drown that day, but I wonder if my Father had any appreciation for his rescuer and those bitter and soulless years he lived until he decided to meet his maker at his own hands. My son Robert (3rd) recently found some photos of my Father I had not seen for over forty years. I shuddered I freak out I still fear him as I still think he can hurt me. Silly you say but believe me, it is a fear that I would want no man, woman or child to live or relive and relive. Mother’s Love In defence of my Mother, she was a dreamer. I understand that now that I have made it to adulthood. I got through my life by constructing a future (A plan) where things would better. It was an impossible dream that allowed us to disengage from reality and to survive it. From an early age, she wanted to escape the poverty of her upbringing and the limits of her class. But there was a dark secret my Mother did not want to get out. On my Mother’s side. My Great-Great-Great-Grand Mother was a half cast. My Mother did not want the world to know. A white man could not marry an aboriginal back then. My son Robert 3rd tried to go back on my Mother’s family tree. He could only go back as far as my Mother as they were all born bastards. born out of wedlock as I said same as my Father. She wanted to be better, different and special. She dreamt of Hollywood and imagined being a singer or a movie actress. She would constantly play records on an old gramophone that I now keep in my current home. We were brought up to the sounds of Al Jolson, Crosby, Sinatra and many other artists. And my Mother in duet with me echoing through the house. I do a great tribute to Al Jolson. My Mother would imagine being one of the artists she played, an international superstar. There is nothing wrong with dreaming. I think she must have imagined that life for me too and that way she didn’t have to acknowledge my reality. In her head, I was with her on the stage. I was famous, rich, happy and she didn’t have to feel any guilt. I shared her dreams of being anywhere far away from where I was and inherited her ability to live in a constructed fantasy rather than face the pain of my real life. It is a method for those of us who have very little light. We descend into the darkness where we have to imagine stars.

My History Then on my Father’s side, my bloodlines go back to Scotland. I am part Australian Aboriginal. On my Mother’s side. My Great-Great-Grand Mother. Her Mother was a half cast. She got pregnant to My Great-Great-Grand Father. I was part of the Stolen Generation. Then on my Father’s side, my bloodlines go back to Scotland. I only went to grade three. I self-educated. I have been for married 38 with six children ten grandchildren two great-grandchildren. I am sixty-three-years old. My wife’s name is Carol. I believe in God. I am retired they call what I am doing my bucket list,

Robert Sherriff 0466246021 Robert Sherriff 2016 Australian Actor-Poet -Model-Singer- Historian Part of Wolf Creek TV series 2015 Part of Movie 'Maurice’s Symphony’ 2015 Australian Copyright Act 1968 Motivation Speaker Movie - Snuff 2016 Movie - CULT 2016 Movie - Time of Zoe 2016 Movie - “ZOE – A ZOMBIE SHORT” 2017 Singer old songs Still (Model) Photo Shoot SA Health Robert Sherriff [email protected] 0466246021 38 Browne ct Craigmore 5114 South Australia

Nobody’s Home By Robert Sherriff A memoir by Robert Sherriff This is the story of an ordinary man who pulled off an extraordinary feat of survival. I am part Australian Aboriginal. I was part of the Stolen Generation. Born into a working-class family in post-war Australia Robert Sheriff was premature, small and physically frail. He was also at the epicentre of his father’s drunken rage and hate, his mother’s indifference and his societies ability to live in denial. Just as Robert was beginning to understand just how dangerous his home environment was, he was ‘saved’ by the state and placed into care where violence and sexual abuse were systemic and rife. Robert survived the darkest period in South Australia’s institutional history where young people and predators were placed in facilities away from scrutiny. Robert’s story is honest, brutal and horrifying but it is a story of hope. Not all the children in the system did survive. Very few of the adults they became were emotionally unscathed, and Robert lived through mental health challenges, alcoholism and homelessness to eventually become a successful husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Robert’s story is in the context of a country growing up. He was born into a traditional blue-collar family and rubbed shoulders with the counterculture and its hedonistic excesses. It is a reflection on a life that’s been hard, far from fair and challenges the notion of the lucky country. It is told without self-pity, without malice and spite and it celebrates the love that Robert found on his journey and has rediscovered now in his later years. I believe that this book would become a huge commercial success where I would change things to suit the USA market. I had a phone call from the Prime Minister of Australia he rang me. I became involved in a Royal Commission that has been held in Australia for the last four years. Mr Malcolm’s Turnbull thanked me for my time that I was involved. Mr Malcolm’s Turnbull also stated that he was laying down the law to the States where they would pay correct compensation to all the victims of sexual abuse. Malcolm’s Turnbull will make an announcement sometime this year in Australia. This could cost the States millions of dollars. Mr Malcolm’s Turnbull stated that he knew it was hard for me to tackle domestic violence and sexual abuse. Mr Malcolm’s Turnbull asked me to send him a copy of the book. We were on the phone for twenty-five minutes. I have a publisher in England I have a contract. 38 Browne cct Craigmore South Australia. Australia 5114 [email protected] 0466246021 https://indaily.com.au/news/2018/10/22/adelaide-abuse-survivors-welcome-apology-but-action-must-follow/ https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sa-abuse-victims-tell-their-stories

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mdye · 8 years ago

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[Editor’s note: Nixon biographer John A. Farrell wrote this comparison of the two presidents in February — well before the firing of FBI Director James Comey. It is reposted here with only light edits.]

We’re barely into the Trump administration and we’ve had war on the press, electronic eavesdropping, a sacked attorney general, humongous demonstrations, fury over a Democratic National Committee break-in, Cold War–style skirmishes, and scandalous intrigues akin to Watergate.

Sound familiar?

“Imagine packing 6 yrs of the Nixon admin into 3 weeks,” tweeted Nicole Hemmer, a scholar from the University of Virginia’s Miller Center (and Vox columnist), in February. “It’s like Nixon speed-dating.”

Veteran hands like Dan Rather, Bill Moyers, John Dean, and William Kristol have joined youngsters like Rachel Maddow in drawing parallels between Richard Nixon and Donald Trump.

As the author of a new biography of Nixon, I get asked — a lot — how I plotted the book’s release to coincide with the surge in discussion, in the press and social media, of similarities between the disgraced 37th president of the United States and his latest successor, Donald Trump.

Having lived the past six years with Nixon in my head (I seek no pity; just buy the book), I approach the idea of comparing the two leaders with caution and restraint, for there are important differences.

As bad as Nixon was, for example, he never embraced white nationalists, much less sat one on his National Security Council. Nixon supported every major civil rights bill in the 1960s, and may have lost the 1962 gubernatorial election in California as a result of his spirited denunciation of the John Birch Society, the alt-right wack jobs of their day. “It was time to take on the lunatic fringe,” he wrote to Dwight Eisenhower.

Which is not to cast Tricky Dick as a saint. Fallacious comparisons cut both ways. When Trump dismissed acting Attorney General Sally Yates, a Justice Department holdover from the previous administration, for declining to defend his executive order on immigration, the episode was immediately compared to Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.” But Trump’s move hardly rates with Nixon’s. The stakes were far higher in 1973, with war in the Middle East, a nuclear alert, and the resignation of a corrupt vice president as a backdrop. Nixon’s own attorney general and his successor resigned over principle after refusing to fire the Watergate special prosecutor, before Solicitor General Robert Bork stepped in to do the deed.

So restraint keeps me from overstating the echoes. But then Trump will produce a performance like his rambling, combative February 16 press conference (“Russia is fake news!”) so rich with “narcissism, thin skin and deeply personal grievances,” as NBC’s Brian Williams put it, that the analogies with Nixon’s piteous “last press conference” of 1962, or his Watergate-era clashes with the media, are insistent and appropriate.

And finally, perhaps inevitably, Trump himself joined the game: He alleged that Barack Obama had bugged Trump Tower in an act worthy of “Nixon/Watergate.” (You want to see your book sales leap on Amazon? Have POTUS tweet your topic.)

Why is Nixon the go-to model for presidential misbehavior? For one thing, he is deeply embedded in our lives and culture. The only president to resign in disgrace was famously polarizing long before Watergate. This red-baiter from Southern California was the point man for McCarthyism, earning the eternal enmity of postwar liberals.

In the swinging ’60s, he was the stodgy self-made man: the square in the age of hip. As such, Nixon was a model for Mad Men’s Don Draper and, after stretching out the Vietnam War for four additional years, his reign helped inspire the evil Galactic Empire in Star Wars (according to George Lucas). He may not be the subject of a hip-hop Broadway musical, but he has served as the central figure in an opera (Nixon in China) and played the villain in the X-Men and Watchmen movies.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / Getty It took Nixon a while to provoke protests like these. On the other hand, some two-thirds of the current American population were either not alive or not residents of the United States, when Nixon resigned in 1974. In my Nixon biography, and in what follows, I’ve tried to portray this oft-caricatured scoundrel, in all his glories, for Gen X-ers and millennials who may know him only as the disembodied head on Futurama.

Thinking through the points of similarity between Nixon and Trump, and where they differ, may help us to better understand both men.

Psychobiography — correlation: modest

The differences in their upbringing — Trump came from a wealthy home in New York, Nixon from the California outback and a family wracked by illness, death, and poverty — make any comparison between the two men on this score somewhat strained. Yet both are known for self-centered, narcissistic personalities — and these, perhaps were sired by the emotional austerity of their childhoods. Trump exhibits insecurity, harbors grandiose fantasies, and shows a tetchiness about criticism. So did Nixon.

The Nixon home was known for its physical and emotional severity. Frank Nixon was a crotchety and abusive dad described, by a nephew, as “a highly acquisitive person and a slave driver” who “worked all his children and he worked his wife.” Nixon’s mother, Hannah, a devout Quaker, gave the future president his sense of idealism: He really did want to bring peace to the world. But she was preoccupied with his four brothers, two of whom died as youths, and the demands of the family store. Dick craved her approval, but she never, as Nixon famously confessed, told him that she loved him.

Historians tread lightly when it comes to psychobiography, but Nixon’s career “vindicates one of that maligned genre’s most trustworthy findings: The recipe for a successfully driven politician should include a doting mother to convince the son he can accomplish anything, and an emotionally distant father to convince the son that no accomplishment can ever be enough,” wrote Rick Perlstein in Nixonland.

Much of that may apply to Trump. As biographers Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher describe him in their book, Trump Revealed, the president’s father, Fred Trump, was also a disciplinarian, a workaholic, and a skinflint. At 13, Donald was culled from his family and exiled to military school as a disciplinary remedy. It may not be unreasonable to suggest that, like Nixon, Trump has spent his life seeking to fill an emotional void.

The press — correlation: high

It is no accident that both Nixon and Trump are famous for waging war beyond reason with the press. In men with their backgrounds, criticism may be interpreted as rejection, ripping the scabs from old psychic wounds and inducing emotional pain and hostility.

It’s also no small irony that each was quite successful at courting the press in their early years. Nixon was a protégé of the Chandler family, which owned the then-right-wing Los Angeles Times and promoted Nixon’s career through the simple tactic of imposing news blackouts on his opponents. Trump was a dealmaking playboy in New York’s tabloid jungle. The experiences left both men spoiled by the media’s fawning, cynical about its professed values, and reckless with the truth.

Mark Wilson / Getty Trump surveys the “enemy of the people.” Trump’s well-documented disregard for veracity was well matched by Nixon’s: He lied repeatedly about Vietnam and Watergate as president. When announcing that he was dispatching troops to invade Cambodia, Nixon solemnly assured the nation that the US had been scrupulous, to that point, in observing that poor country’s neutrality. In fact, he had been bombing Cambodia, secretly, for a year.

Nixon was as brash about his lying as Trump. On one occasion, when he thought the camera had stopped filming, Nixon told an interviewer how he had inserted a crude obscenity into a quote from Lyndon Johnson, because it made for a more colorful story — and portrayed Johnson as a vulgar bumpkin. When his aides could not find the chopsticks he used during his famous trip to China, Nixon told them to use any pair for a museum display, as the public would never know the difference.

Striving to maintain control, Trump rages over leaks. Nixon, too, confessed to being “paranoid” about leakers, and famously declared: “The press is the enemy.” Trump has friends in some corners of the media, and his declaration of war may be cynical and manipulative. For Nixon, the hate was real.

Trump, erupting in nocturnal tweets — emissions quite similar to those captured on Nixon’s White House tapes, except that they are instantaneously blasted out to tens of millions of Twitter fans — has taken it further. The press is not just his enemy, he tweeted, but the “enemy of the American people.”

Their politics — correlation: modest

Trump and Nixon both rode the politics of grievance — particularly white grievance — to the White House.

“I am your voice,” Trump told the disaffected electorate of the South, West, and Midwest, who responded by giving him an Electoral College majority. In his speeches, Trump called for the return of “law and order,” just like Nixon in 1968. “The silent majority is back,” Trump said, identifying his voters precisely as Nixon did. “We are going to take the country back.”

The division between coastal elites and the heartland is a hardy theme in American political history — the tension between frontier farmers and the Founding Fathers led to open rebellions in 1787 and 1791. In crises, the country draws together, then the old divisions reemerge in times of peace.

The gulf yawned after World War I, when the carnage of industrial warfare and the doctrines of scientific and moral relativity inspired a fundamentalist response in the midlands. Americans came together during the Second World War, but the rifts reappeared thereafter. In 1946, a young Navy veteran, running as a Republican, unseated a New Deal Congress member in rural California with a campaign that promised, “Richard Nixon Is One of Us” — not one of the pointy-headed pinko elitists running things in Washington.

Arriving in Washington, as a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Rep. Nixon embraced journalist Whittaker Chambers, a reformed communist agent, and went to war with the establishment by identifying one of the New Deal’s golden lads, the former diplomat Alger Hiss, as a Soviet spy.

It was “an epitomizing drama,” Chambers wrote in his memoir Witness, a book that would become a bible for the conservative movement. There was “a jagged fissure” between “the plain men and women of the nation and those who affected to act, think and speak for them … from their roosts in the great cities, and certain collegiate eyries.” The left “controlled the narrows of news and opinion,” Chambers wrote, but “my people, humble people, strong in common sense, in common goodness” were led and inspired by Nixon — “the kind and good.”

Nixon used the Hiss case as a launchpad to the Senate, and then to a spot as Eisenhower’s running mate. He survived a brush with scandal over a campaign slush fund filled by wealthy businessmen with a now-legendary televised address, in which he made memorably mawkish mention of his mortgage, his wife’s cloth coat, and the family cocker spaniel, Checkers.

“The sophisticates … sneer,” wrote columnist Robert Ruark, but Nixon’s speech “came closer to humanizing the Republican Party than anything that has happened in my memory. … Tuesday night the nation saw a little man, squirming his way out of a dilemma, and laying bare his most private hopes, fears and liabilities. This time the common man was a Republican.”

That was 1952. Long before the ’60s, the culture war was raging. The ’50s were “the Nixon years,” columnist Murray Kempton would write, when “the American lower middle class in the person of this man moved to engrave into the history of the United States, as the voice of America, its own faltering spirit, its self-pity and its envy, its continual anxiety about what the wrong people might think, its whole peevish resentful whine.” And so Trump and his legions follow Nixon down a well-worn path in American politics.

However, there is one significant difference in how Nixon and Trump got elected. As circumstances had it, in all three of Nixon’s campaigns for the presidency —against John Kennedy’s “New Frontier” in 1960, amid the chaos of 1968, and against George McGovern in 1972 — he ran as the candidate of moderation, of calm and experience. His speeches were generally soothing.

A young Navy officer named Bob Woodward cast his vote for Nixon, convinced he was the candidate who could end the Vietnam War. Even Hunter S. Thompson bought in.

“For years I’ve regarded his very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad,” Thompson wrote in 1968. But “the ‘new Nixon’ is more relaxed, wiser, more mellow.” Nixon’s were campaigns, as the political scientists Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg put it, of “social stolidity.”

Trump is anything but stolid.

Monkey-wrenched elections — correlation: high?

It is a testament to the efficacy of the Republican cover-up that four months after a foreign power affected — may even have determined — the outcome of an American presidential election, we still don’t know the facts. The timidity of the electorate, permitting Congress to let this pivotal question go unanswered, is stunning.

Ira Gay Sealy / Getty Anna Chennault was Nixon’s secret liaison with the South Vietnamese government before the 1968 election. The extent of President Trump’s possible contacts with a foreign government before the 2017 election has come under scrutiny.

From what we do know, it is safe to say that the Russians sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, in favor of Donald Trump. We don’t know how or if he and his advisers, in contacts with Russian officials, acted to further the illegal hacking of Democratic organizations and officials. We know that Trump publicly encouraged the Russians to do so (though whether this was a serious request or a glib comment is debatable). This has been written off, like several such misdeeds, as “Trump being Trump.”

In Nixon’s case, it has taken almost half a century for the truth to come out about the 1968 election — about his own conspiring with a foreign power, and the steps that he took to affect that year’s outcome.

Nixon feared that Lyndon Johnson’s election year initiative to negotiate an agreement that would bring an end to the Vietnam War was nothing more than an “October Surprise” designed to elect Vice President Hubert Humphrey. (LBJ had pulled such a trick in the off-year elections of 1966.) And so Nixon employed a campaign official, Anna Chennault, to act as a go-between and persuade South Vietnam to drag its feet and scuttle peace talks with North Vietnam. He — and she — promised the South Vietnamese better terms if Nixon won.

Tragically, peace was indeed close at hand in 1968. The Soviet Union, wanting to promote Humphrey, had promised Johnson a “breakthrough” in the talks and vowed to pressure North Vietnam. But Nixon’s attempts to monkey-wrench the talks were successful. In a telephone call to Sen. Everett Dirksen, a bitter LBJ, who had been getting details of Nixon’s machinations from electronic eavesdropping conducted by US intelligence agencies, accused Nixon of “treason.”

(Trump has offered no evidence for his claim that his campaign was “tapped” by President Barack Obama last fall, but there is no doubt that LBJ was eavesdropping on Chennault, a Nixon campaign official, in her discussions with the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington.)

There is a law — the Logan Act — that makes it illegal for a private citizen to interfere in the foreign affairs and diplomacy of the United States. Nixon appears to have crossed that line; without more facts, we cannot say that Trump did too.

The deep state — correlation: modest

Like Julius Caesar, cut down by Brutus and a gang of conspirators, Richard Nixon fell victim to a coalition of mutinous forces. He had clashed repeatedly with Congress over its power to declare war, to appropriate funds, and to have access to presidential documents and tapes. He declared war on the press. His antipathy for the State Department, the CIA, the military brass, and other power centers was well-known, and his reliance on backchannel diplomacy with China and the USSR spurred the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plant a spy in the White House. Nixon may also have alienated the federal judiciary by pledging to end its lifelong terms and security.

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

The FBI offers an instructive test case on what Nixon’s rash antipathy yielded. Nixon had come to power in Washington with the help of Director J. Edgar Hoover, but after Hoover died, the president provoked the bureau by trying to install a Nixon loyalist as a replacement. “Deep Throat” — the legendary anonymous source for Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward — was Mark Felt, a deputy director that Nixon passed over when choosing Hoover’s successor.

Trump has been tormented by leaks he blames on Obama holdovers in the national security agencies and other entrenched bureaucracies. Trump profited during the campaign from FBI Director James Comey’s eleventh-hour revelation about Hillary Clinton’s emails. But Comey was reportedly outraged by Trump’s allegation that Obama tapped Trump’s headquarters during the campaign and, according to leaks, demanded a public repudiation of the imputation. (And now, of course, Comey has been fired.)

Scandals — correlation: to be determined

There are more than half a million responses to a Google search for Trump and Watergate. But as much as his critics hope to see the 45th president exit the White House like Nixon, we have a long way to go before “Russiagate” is reasonably equated to Watergate.

There are obvious parallels. Both scandals stem from break-ins at the Democratic Party headquarters, whether real or virtual. Both involve electronic eavesdropping. And credit must be given to Roger Stone, a minor figure in the Watergate wars, who managed to survive the decades since and surface once more in the Russiagate stew.

Yet Nixon had years to dig his grave, and the Watergate scandals were, as Woodward and Bernstein famously wrote, “a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage.”

The DNC headquarters at the Watergate were one of a half-dozen targets for burglary and/or bugging, including the campaign headquarters of Sens. Edmund Muskie and George McGovern and the offices of the psychiatrist who treated Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers. By the time Nixon resigned, Watergate was a vast umbrella. The scandal brought to light subsidiary issues — like whether Nixon shortchanged the Treasury on his income taxes, and used taxpayer funds to protect and improve his Florida vacation home — that have obvious correspondence to Trump’s behavior.

But there will have to be some remarkable revelations — proof that Trump and his aides offered inducements to the Russian hackers — before Russiagate can be compared to Watergate. On the other hand, if it is proven that the Trump campaign, in league with a foreign power, stole the White House, it could supplant Watergate as the greatest political scandal of them all.

John A. Farrell is the author of Richard Nixon: The Life, which is being published March 28.

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