#I also got fired from my OTHER part time job (as a youth pastor (my dad is a pastor)) because of making gay comics

[deoidesign]

I kind of got into your story and I was thinking, are you going to post the old/original version of Time and Time again? so we could have a new point of view or about your evolution in design and history

I don't really want to tbh

I made the original version during a really hard time in my life, and it's really nice to be able to shed some of that and get to give it the love I feel like it really deserves so it can exist in a way I'm proud of!

I'm just happiest to explore the current iteration and leave it behind as it was.

[amerie-wadia]

Like a Heartbeat (Drives you Mad)

For the Anon who asked for Toni and Shelby with the prompts: “I’m worried about you.” + “They’re so cute when they’re asleep.”

Click here to read on AO3

Shelby dug her fingertips through the deep, charcoal sand. At first, she had scooped up the wet earth out of sheer boredom, a desire to move her body to keep from screaming. Overtime it had morphed into a means of coping with her anxiety. And it did help.

Shelby was upset. They were getting rescued and Shelby was upset and Toni fucking got it.

“Miss Shalifoe, did you hear my question?”

Toni let the sand fall between her fingers, watched as it pooled, grain by grain. The EMT kept asking her questions and Toni couldn’t quite figure out why all the burden seemed to be put on her. Well, it wasn’t completely shocking. Nora and Rachel were in pretty rough shape—they had been airlifted as soon as the helicopter flew overhead. Leah had totally lost her shit when the helicopter flew overhead just seconds after the shark attacked, as if it was truly all some freaky set up. Fatin and Martha had been consumed by their sobs, by their fear for Nora and Rachel. Dot had zoned out, perhaps as a way of coping, perhaps because she had just had enough and truly couldn’t do a thing. Shelby was the only other coherent one of the bunch but her hands were trembling and she couldn’t quite get her words out. Toni decided to answer the questions herself.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Now, are you sure it was just the seven of you on the island? There wasn’t anybody else?”

“Huh?”

“I’m not trying to be patronizing, or anything, I just want to make sure we get all of you out of here.”

His expression looked a bit patronizing, his tone more so.

“It was just us. Jeanette was with us on the plane but she died the first night.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Where is she now?”

“I don’t know, a better place? A worse one? I didn’t really know her.”

He chuckled and Toni wished she had enough food in her stomach to vomit. He shook his head.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. Where is her body? If she’s on the island I’ll need to pronounce her death. For legal purposes.”

“We buried her on the beach that way,” she pointed down shore, “but the tide washed her out.”

“The tide washed her out? Of the ground?”

“I don’t know, man. It happened though.”

“Okay, alright.”

Toni took another scoop of sand and a deep breath as it sprinkled down onto the ground soundlessly.

“It was internal bleeding—from the crash or the ocean maybe. Her stomach was like purple.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that, kid.”

“Me too.”

The EMT gave her a small smile and Toni wished the second helicopter would arrive soon. The pilot had promised he would send a radio message to the mainland to get them off the island as soon as possible. It felt like hours since Nora and Rachel had been sent off. There had been so much blood in the water that Toni couldn’t even tell whom had been hurt and how badly. She had closed her eyes, Shelby had shrieked, Martha had fallen to her knees. It had been only a few seconds, at first, but then hours had gone by and Toni still felt herself standing ankle deep in the ocean watching the shark’s fin circling Rachel as she floated.

Shelby was sitting beside Dot at the fire. Toni tried not to watch so she shifted her focus to the sand.

It had all happened so suddenly with Shelby. One moment she was that stupid, know-it-all, youth pastor who was singing church music while she peed and the next moment she was cradling Toni’s face as she kissed her more gently than Toni knew possible. Shelby was scared, more scared of being gay than Toni had ever been. Her coming out wasn’t that big of a deal, not many people in her community were homophobic and the ones that were only showed it in dark corners and empty parking lots. Her mom never stuck around enough to care and Martha and the Blackburn’s had accepted her with open arms. The Goodkind’s were not waiting with their arms outstretched for Shelby.

Toni wanted to reach out for Shelby, hold her hand or tell her that everything was going to be okay. But Shelby was in the closet, and Toni was never going to do anything to make Shelby feel forced to come out. She wouldn’t do that to her worst enemy.

Toni watched from across the beach until the sky was washed in darkness and the helicopter wind tossed her small sand mounds aside. As the EMTs ushered the girls into the helicopter, Shelby slid into the seat beside Toni.

“Hey,” she whispered, loud enough that everybody could hear over the eerie quiet, but soft enough that it was just for Toni.

“Hi.” Shelby made Toni’s voice sound softer than it really was, foreign to Toni’s ear. The last person who made her feel this soft was Reagan, and it still crushed Toni deep in her chest to think about Reagan.

“I’m worried about you.”

Toni felt her breath catch. Worried about her? What was Shelby worried about? Toni was going to be fine, just like she had always been. Shelby was the one who couldn’t stop shaking.

“I’m fine. I’m more concerned about you.”

“I’m serious, Toni. I don’t to be away from you.” Her face got serious and then she bit down on her lip and it rippled through her skin until her face went soft again. “I just…Look, I know things haven’t always been easy for you and, well, when Martha almost died and you said—”

“I remember what I said.”

“I just don’t want you to feel that way.”

“Shelby.” Toni glanced around but nobody was watching. They could hear them, might even be listening, but they all seemed to understand that they shouldn’t dwell. It felt too public to be a private conversation but the helicopter was starting to lift off the ground and the EMT was handing out headphones. Their time was running out.

“Toni, you’re not nothing.”

Toni’s chest hurt. She was about to say something really stupid.

“Don’t go back to Dallas.”

“It’s not that easy.”

The EMT gave Dot a pair of headphones. Only Fatin was left before Toni wouldn’t be able to talk to Shelby.

“It is. Come to Hopewell with me. Or we could go somewhere else. Or even—"

Shelby reached out for her hand, held it out in the open with a tightness that felt far too safe to be real.

She didn’t say anything else. Neither did Toni. The EMT handed them each their headphones and the helicopter crept into the sky.

The night was young enough that the island was still visible down below, just a faint outline of the worst and best of themselves. Toni suddenly felt Fatin take her other hand. Toni would normally feel suffocated, being surrounded by others as she cried—she wasn’t crying, Toni didn’t cry—but she didn’t feel scared at all. They had survived the worst-case-scenario, they had tried to kill each other at times but they had come together as a family. Toni hadn’t really understood what it felt like to be part of a family until the island. She held tightly to Fatin and Shelby’s hands.

She hoped Shelby understood that her offer wasn’t just a fantasy, that it could easily be their future. Shelby didn’t deserve those people, those judgmental and cruel people who would spend their lifetimes trying to change Shelby, to take everything that makes Shelby herself and burn it all away. Toni got fucked up families, and she knew how freeing it was to get away—how scary and guilt-ridden and lonely it was to be away. Toni could be there for Shelby, and Shelby for Toni. Maybe they could get jobs and have a little house with a hot tub.

Shelby’s hand had stopped trembling at some point. Toni knew it was because they were together, because Toni felt the same peace and safety having Shelby beside her. Shelby leaned against Toni and rested her chin on Toni’s shoulder. It was going to be a little while until they made it to wherever the EMTs were taking them. Toni had never thought to ask where they were or what was going to come next. She held tighter to Shelby’s hand.

“Dot! Dot!” Fatin resorted to shoving her elbow into Dot’s ribs since the girl clearly couldn’t hear her. “Dorothy!”

Dot’s eyebrows and shoulders went up in confusion.

“What?” she cried out, ringing a whisper through Fatin’s headphones.

“They’re so cute when they’re asleep,” Fatin shouted, hoping Dot could make out what she was trying to say. Shelby was fast asleep on Toni’s shoulder, with Toni snoring on the top of Shelby’s ratty hair. Their hands were woven together and feet tangled on the floor of the helicopter. Dot’s tense shoulders dropped and she smiled at Fatin. Fatin grinned, wishing so deeply that she had somebody to hold her like that, but also truly happy for her friends. Her family.

“They’re cutest when they’re not making our lives a living hell,” Dot teased. Fatin rolled her eyes but laughed.

“I love them.”

“Me too.”

“Love you, Dots.”

“Love you more, Fatin.”

Dot took Fatin’s hand and Fatin closed her eyes and let herself believe that when she opened them back up that everything would be okay.

[memorylang]

New Me, Stateside for New Year’s | #20 | January 2020

When I landed back in Mongolia, many asked me either, “How was America?” or “How was China?” I saw both, anyway. So in this travel trio finale, I reflect on the changes I’d noticed in and around me during my three weeks on vacation from Mongolia.

During my reverse culture shock in the States, I logged my findings. Some were physical, like my increased tolerances (resilience?). Others were perceptions. Food, friends and family are my themes~

Landing in the States

“Welcome back, sir,” smiled the U.S. immigration officer at SFO, when said I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. 

That felt different. 

Usually immigration gives me trouble, not credit. 

But I also felt more comfortable on the plane and in the airport, too, not needing to worry whether my shoes’ bottoms faced others. When travelers’ feet rubbed mine, they didn’t need to shake my hand. Those made life easier. Nonetheless, I felt odd seeing Americans nonchalantly have their shoes’ bottoms face people.

The House in Vegas

Returning to my family’s house that December 19 before Christmas, it felt more spacious than I remembered. Even our restrooms just felt larger than I recalled. Having our cooling fall from our ceiling, instead of heating from radiators below the windows surprised me, too. 

Writing of the house, I also sleep way better in the beds at home. Amusingly, I slept in my older brother’s old bed, since, for the past four plus years, he’s slept in my old bed. My younger brother had moved into his old bed while I was away for university. (It’s complicated.) Based on the States, I felt, I could think up ways to make my bed in Mongolia more comfortable…

As I explained to friends in the States, I’d also experienced dreams including friends from both in my Peace Corps service and in my Nevada lives before. I noted, in the past, I would keep in touch with American friends while going abroad. This time, I would keep in touch with Mongolian friends while visiting the States. Those blending communities felt profound, since I loved when life’s separate experiences crossed. I hope I continue such habits beyond my service.

Before my half-brother and his wife left after Christmas, they commended me, I seem more confident and calmer since graduating university. We discussed at length some cross-culture techniques, regarding how I seek and engage motivations when I teach and learn.

On the Advent of Christmas, I’d returned through my closet for childhood things I’ve finally grown willing to part with. I gifted these to them, for their baby. When I returned to Mongolia, they shared with me a photo of him adoring his new toy. Hehe, what a life.

So Much Food

To end my first full day back at the house, I stayed true to my word from Mongolia. I just went to the fridge and freezer, grabbed a bunch of berries and banana, plunked them in a blender with pineapple(?) ice cream and milk, (plus peas,) then downed that awesome shake while I worked on my writings. Ugh, shakes. 

I definitely satisfied my major cravings stateside. While I love Mongolian food, I’d forgotten the States’ food diversity! I enjoyed at least American (including Hawaiian), Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Thai goodness. Vegas has lots of Asian cuisine. 

I hadn’t realized how much a half-Chinese American like me could miss pizza, burgers and bagels, but heck, I found that out, too. I ate pizza at plenty opportunities, amounting to at least a time or two per week. Freezer pizzas tasted rad. Even those staling discount blueberry bagels from Smith’s were great. 

And, oh dang, microwaves! Not having to heat my food on a pan felt the best, haha. I’m such a tourist in our own house.

Into Our Community

Leading up to my return, I announced to friends I’d be back. Get-togethers arranged. 

Sunday, we left home to see family friends. The constant Christmas music on the radio and Christmas lights on neighborhoods’ homes welcomed me. I even welcomed hearing car radios! I hadn’t heard as many radios in Mongolia, since I avoided taxis my first months. Buses just played downloaded music videos, if anything.

Outdoors in Vegas, I realized I could take the cool way better! I wore one or two layers when locals wear two or three.

At sushi, we enjoyed a welcome back lunch celebrating the returns of a family friend and me. I loved the fraternal bonds and companionship. Curiously, a family friend offered me a beer, which I finished myself. I felt surprised, considering I could hardly do that before leaving America. I guess Mongolian events like Teachers’ Day gave me practice. Later, at my high school Korean friend’s house, he offered me to try his favorite bourbons. Even those, I realized, tasted pretty good. Seems my drink palate’s changed. But I prefer not to invest that route.

Fireside Philosophies

That night with three from our high school alma mater, we lounged around a backyard fire pit with s’mores. Having had freshman classes with these guys, we’ve known each other almost a decade. 

I felt particularly moved in an albeit geeky way, moments earlier, when we first reunited inside. He’s finishing his last semester at West Point. With a hand on my shoulder, he compared me to Ash Ketchum, traveling the world and making so many friends. “Someday, you’re going to be Hokage,” he smiled. 

He’s fun. He reached out during my first autumn in Mongolia, after some four years apart. 

Our party of four discussed our passions, dreams and goals. We’d all traveled afar for our studies and careers. We talked big ideas like cross-cultural evangelization, shared Asian and Christian philosophies and the flooring ethical codes and punishments of West Point. Turns out isolation isn’t just something Peace Corps Volunteers experience!

Vegas Since Christmas

Days later, after Christmas, I reunited with more friends.

First, I saw a game developer, who also graduated my high school, who saw me before I left for Peace Corps. Then I met up with my photographer Korean friend who married before I left for Peace Corps and has done well. He prefers non-K-Pop Korean music. He let me know our high school friend from freshman year who left to study in the Philippines just returned to America. We hadn’t seen him since 2012. I felt so excited, we drove to see him. What an experience. I picked up a huge Thai tea with boba and Hawaiian burger, too. Now that’s Vegas. 

Then I met one of my best friends, a fellow world-traveled one, who’s also preparing his graduate application. We also met a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, who served in Bangladesh till civil unrest evacuated them. I’ll cover our coffee shop/bookstore conversations in an upcoming story. Another friend, too, a Catholic I met at university, wandered a mall with me before her own first study abroad. I felt so happy for her. 

In there, I noticed what my older brother and his girlfriend meant, about Americans not walking up escalators (lifts), even wide ones. When I got back to Beijing, I saw people did as I remembered, standing on the right side to wait or stepping up the left to go quicker. I felt glad I wasn’t crazy. Though, it made me wish Americans didn’t desire such large personal spaces in public places… We must share.

Last Rides in Reno

Back to Reno! My final day there, morning after the wedding, I donned my Mongolian traditional shirt and reunited with my journalism school and the Honors Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. I reunited, too, that weekend with my fraternity brothers and friends. We talked big ideas, and I imparted notions sculpted by my months in Mongolia. Yet I felt so comfortable seated in the cars, taking walks and lounging between professors’ offices in the city I called home four years. 

Many related my youngest sister’s been doing well in her sophomore year at my alma mater. Church-wise, she’s even going through the Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults and dating her sponsor, who was my Knights of Columbus successor. (There’s a great coincidence from RCIA 2016 I may touch on someday.) The morning choir loves Sister dearly, though, even as they’ve missed my days, months and years among them. They’re family. Curiously, I even heard my dad’s been attending morning Masses there when he takes jobs in Northern Nevada. I’m glad he hears our remarkable pastor. 

My sister and I actually had a falling-out the day I left our college town last May. So I’d written and sent her a formal apology while flying through Kyrgyzstan to Mongolia. Though we made amends over the seven months, I’m glad she’s had the good year I’d hoped for. Though my legacy hasn’t left its halls, I’ve wanted for her her own story. Even our youngest brother means to attend the Honors Program, its new director told me. Ultimately, my sister and I said goodbyes first this time, for she had to leave before my last day in the States.

That noon, still December 31, I also got lunch with my World Youth Day 2019 family. So fitting to end the year where we started it—together. I related the feeling of living the faith in the First Evangelism. They spoke words with such Spirit, I felt touched. They’ve really had my back this year. They kept in touch regularly since I came to Mongolia. I’ve needed that. 

I spent the rest of my day slipping around campus, musing down memory lane and delivering gifts of шагай \shagai\ ankle bones I’d also given many for Christmas. I loved sharing Mongolian culture through my gifts. Mongolians wishing me over Facebook, “Merry Christmas,” on New Year’s Day, reminded me, as a Catholic, Christmas and New Year’s really do overlap.

There are so many more in Reno-Sparks I wish I could have seen again.

Northern Nevada’s New Year’s Eve

As evening neared, Dad picked me up from the University to take me near Lake Tahoe, where we would share dinner with the Catholic Regent and her Mongolian daughter-in-law, who first readied me for Peace Corps mere weeks before I went. Dad’s so social. Maybe someday I could match his way with making himself comfortable in a room of unfamiliar peers. Discussions of mining in Nevada and the Gobi Desert set in stone for me how similar my undergrad and current communities feel sometimes. Seriously. 

Dad drove me back into town so I could ring in the new year with my newlywed friends. We experienced a multi-faith night hosted in the Reno Buddhist Center. Since I couldn’t find them, I sat in back. I spotted the University photographer who took my portraits at my senior year’s beginning and end, for having done well with my University scholarships and later becoming Senior Scholar of my school. She smiled at me with that familiar twinkle in her eyes. 

I enjoyed a joke our kindly cathedral rector made, that evening, about Catholics coming late and leaving early. I hadn’t heard humor like that in Mongolia. He smiled with such affection when he saw me. Later than evening, as the fireworks came up, I approached the front. A woman had me and a classical singing boy join her beating the Taiko drum! What a moment. 

The newlyweds joined me afterward, joyful to have spotted me down there. They introduced me to a Native American, an imam and other religious leaders who attended the wedding. They complimented my cantoring. I felt shocked they remembered. Then we took a big photo. We shared the most loving hugs.

Then, the couple and I went outside. Like our times passed, we exchanged goodbyes before my next big trip around the world. Then I got back in the car with Dad. After returning to Mongolia, I’d place throughout my apartment faith filled keepsakes from that beautiful wedding.

The New Year

New Year’s Day, I rode with Dad to Fallon, from where we left to Vegas after rest and a continental breakfast. Seeing his suitcases and the coolers in the hotel room before we loaded the car, I recollected years of road trips with my father and family. I still felt surprised how selflessly he’d driven me around New Year’s Eve, when I wanted to get places. I’d miss these road trips with my dad. 

As I stared out the window, seeing the faraway mountains and thinking of that Thanksgiving car ride in Mongolia, I felt grateful to still have Dad well and healthy, after Mom. He still listened to dad rock. I liked that. We’d be home soon.

Through car rides like these, I finished one more big thing in the States. Across my weeks, I blazed through “Pokémon Moon.” This achievement was colossal, since I played in Mandarin Chinese and only touched the game once or twice annually for the three years since my sophomore year at university.

But ultimately, I left it behind in the States. I’m in Mongolia, a world of adventure. That’s my 2020 theme: Exploration. A game would surely distract if I brought it.

Leaving America (Again)

The last friend I saw before leaving Vegas and the U.S. again was also my last friend I saw before leaving for Mongolia the first time. 

She seriously helped me pack in May, when I was a mess. This time, we ate out at a restaurant chain I’d seen only during my years in Reno-Sparks. We spoke for hours. Our reunions since college often wind up as these late nights. Though we relate about the voids left since our parents passed, we’ve known each other so long before. I’ve loved we can talk without retelling backstory. She’s one of those friends who’s so real, she knows me better than I do sometimes!

Anyway, seems I grew another way since Mongolia. This time in Vegas, I finished my packing myself.

Before the crack of dawn, I hugged my other siblings bye, before Dad zoomed me across the city for my flight away. That shiny Raiders stadium will probably be done the next time I’m back.

Return to My City

I experienced an amazing time with relatives and friends back in China on my return trip from the States to Mongolia. 

January 8, back in Mongolia, I took an overnight sleeper train for my first time alone. I felt darkness’ void in knowing no one. I felt the waves of the rocking train, its lurches and bumps as it shifted and wheels screeched. I felt pensive during the odd morning hours when my sore back woke me. I thought about my identity and new words said before I left. More on that soon.

Peace Corps Mongolia continues.

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :)

[kootenaygoon]

So,

The sun was just starting to bleed over the horizon when they hoisted the first crucifix. A trio of surly executioners circled its base, ensuring it was properly anchored in place, while the criminal nailed to it began to sing about his agony. This was a dark place I was in, and I’d been here for some time. The man’s shrieks had an alarming melody that I could feel in my body. Someone grabbed my arm, spinning me back in the direction of our work, and I took in the torchlit, shadowy scene. I was surrounded by Roman soldiers because, I realized, I was a Roman soldier. We’d been suffering and struggling all night at some gargantuan task, and I was trembly and exhausted.

My editor Greg was kneeling beside our crucifix. He turned to offer me a nine-inch nail pinched between two fingers. He had that look on his face, the one I saw in the newsroom when Ed told him about what happened with Cst. Turnbull. I took the nail. On some level I already understood that I was dreaming, but somehow that didn’t break the illusion. It had been three days since I last smoked pot and I’d been having some crazy dreams. I woke up repeatedly soaked in sweat, shivering like I was cold, panic-breathing. It was alarming, actually, how uncomfortable I found sober reality these days. And it wasn’t just the break-up sadness either. The world was transforming into a gnarled black Tim Burton landscape right before my eyes.

I didn’t used to be like this, right?

“Who is this guy?” I asked Greg, kneeling down to examine our victim. “What did he do?”

“This one’s guilty of rape. And you know him.”

I looked past Greg to the whimpering wretch with his hands already nailed in place. It was my job to do his feet now. He was scrawny and small, wearing nothing but a pair of glasses with a broken lens. His pale chest rose and fell in terror as I loomed over him.

“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s Steven Galloway.”

Greg nodded tragically. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, I’m afraid.”

“Who accused him? Like what did he do? Do you know?”

“She’s anonymous. They call her MC.”

Though I was way off in Nelson, I had been following the Galloway case closely via social media. There was an angry posse of feminist intellectual types all across the country who had somehow become instantly embroiled in this, and the rhetoric was getting more intense every day. It was odd to see that many of the most vocal pitchfork-wavers were perfect strangers who had nothing to do with UBC’s creative writing program. Allies of the accusers were mobbing anyone who spoke up for any sort of due process. They made lists of authors to black-ball, joked about burning books and delighted in the destruction of Galloway’s good name.

It was sickening.

“Listen, please. You have to believe me, Will. I’m innocent. We were having an affair, me and this student, and now she just wants to punish me. That’s all this is. You’re being manipulated,” he said, struggling at his nails. I could see blood pooling behind his straining fingers. “I don’t deserve this.”

“Go ahead,” Greg said, behind me. He pinned Galloway’s feet in place. “You want to drive the nail in right there, at the hinge where the foot meets the shin.”

A few months earlier I’d gone to see Spotlight with Greg at the Nelson Civic Theatre. I took Paisley, and he brought his wife Anitra. I’m usually an easy mark for journalism movies, but this had an extra level to it. I was bowled over by the scope of the Catholic Church’s global sexual abuse cover-up and loved watching the Boston Globe team dig into the issue, watching them defy institutions and go places other journalists couldn’t. The persistent work they were doing was not only giving some justice and closure to those who had been abused, it was also ensuring that certain people wouldn’t offend again in the future. One by one they crucified the people responsible. I loved the mild-mannered editor, played by Leiv Schreiber, who just dutifully did his fucking job until it was done. Just like Greg, the guy never lost his composure. I marched out of the theatre full of outrageous grandiosity, yearning to be part of a team like that. And now at the Nelson Star that’s what I had. I was the rookie of our quartet, and every day I was learning something new from Greg, Ed and Kai.

“Priests are supposed to be the good guys,” Greg said, quoting the movie. “But in this case they were the exact opposite.”

“Galloway was a professor, not a priest. I mean, have we done our due diligence here? The police aren’t even involved. This is all some internal UBC scuffle thing, right? He’s not a criminal.”

“There are multiple women involved, they say.”

“But who’s they? Involved in what? What the fuck is happening, Greg?”

In my head it always came back to Trent. I’d been sitting on the outside steps of a Mexican church the last time I saw him in 2005, partway through a missionary trip with my youth group. My youth pastor had tapped me on the head as he passed, then he climbed into a black police cruiser and disappeared from my life forever. The accusation was that he had molested two teenage boys, something I refused to believe, and as soon as we got back to Canada the entire community abandoned him. He spent over ten years in that jail before he was allowed to return, permanently disfigured by the experience and never given a chance to plead his case. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe I’d get whisked away by a black car one day. If my whole community would abandon me because of an accusation. It had happened to Trent, and now it was happening to Galloway, right in front of me.

I positioned the nail, then picked up the hammer.

Galloway pleaded. “Will, we had that fiction workshop, remember? Come on, you know me! Think about all the friends we have in common. Think about what you’re doing here.”

“I did think about it. I’m sorry, man. I’ve got to do this.”

“Just take a moment. You’re smarter than this. You don’t want to hurt anybody, right?”

I blinked for a few quiet seconds, my teeth clenched, then swung my hammer. The first thud sent the nail into his flesh, just deep enough to dredge up a splurt of blood. With the second hit I pierced his entire ankle, forcing the head of the nail into the soft wood underneath. And with the third whack my job was done. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he ululated in pain.

“He penetrated her, so we penetrated him,” I said. “Justice.”

“It’s not quite justice, but it’ll do,” said Greg. “Come on now.”

The bright orange sun had crested the horizon, making silhouettes out of the crucifixes that had already been raised. Birds chirped suspiciously as the soldiers continued their grisly work. Greg reached an arm around my shoulders and escorted me away from Galloway, back into the Nelson Star newsroom. We were still clanking along in our centurion uniforms, but now we were back in March 2016. We marched right past where Kai and Ed were working at their computers, past Cheryl the front desk lady and right down the front stairs into the parking lot. When we reached it, laying right there in my normal parking spot was another crucifix. Three men were struggling to subdue a fourth, pinning him in place. I edged closer to try and figure out who it was, and within a few moments his body had gone slack. They had knocked him unconscious. As they tied his limbs firmly I leaned in to look at his face.  

It was my publisher Cam Carpenter.

The Kootenay Goon

[piratescarfy]

Mightily Oats Headcanons [mega long]

Probably no one gives a shit about these but Mightily Oats is very dear to my heart as I played him in a production of Carpe Jugulum this year, and I’ve started a new routine with parts where I write long and detailed backstories for myself so that I have something in the back of my mind and the character doesn’t just begin at the beginning of the play so anyway, since theres a surprising amount of material on him anyway, here’s my compleat history of Mightily Oats.

Oats was the youngest brother in a strictly Omnian family in a devout village in Klatch. He took part in all the Book of Om study groups, went to church with his family every week and enjoyed reading his favourite parables of Brutha over and over and drawing illustrations in the margins. When he was 12, he became a novice of the church, and trained there until he became an journeyman at 18.

He also had a weekly duty of going to his frail grandmother’s house on Friday nights and reading scripture for her as she was quite blind. It was a bit of an arduous task, but the old dear appreciated him, and consequently paid him in what she deemed ‘useful knowledge’, which turned out to be old, rather extremist hymns. A lot of the content embarrassed Oats, but the images of holy fire, tidal floods, beatification, and more, lit up his mind like a conspiracy. Then, he would have to sit for a few hours while she complained weakly about foreigners and the youth of today until she finally fell asleep in the rocking chair and Oats could sneak back home.

When Oats was 14, he was asked to read out a paragraph from Brutha’s Letters to the Simonites in front of his class. He stood up, but his hands shook so much that he couldn’t read, and stood there, vibrating, until he was asked, somewhat wearily, to sit down. After that, he dedicated himself to learning The Book of Om by heart or, at the very least, well enough that he could read it confidently if he let the book fall open at a random entry.

Schisms were well known in Oats’ village, with practically every family in a different obscure sect, with each member of each family having slightly different opinions on top of that. Most food in his house was prepared cold, as merely saying Grace could provoke a thorough argument.

Living in this constantly changing hub of opinions, Oats was fed up of all this talking and became desperate not to provoke arguments if only for the sake of being able to eat breakfast in peace. He got deeper and deeper into researching the intricacies of all the differing opinions on Om in the village so as to prepare for all conversations with all possible incarnations of Omnianism. He became good at mediating arguments simply by standing there and being so excessively tolerant and knowledgeable that both parties simply gave up. His painfully even hands earned him a place at a respected seminary in Omnia itself.

Oats left home and started training in Theology and Divinity of Om at the seminary when he was 18, and was ordained as a priest at the age of 23. Halfway through his training, there was a rupture between the Reunited Free Chelonists, creating the Rimwards and Hubwards convocations. Within minutes of the report from the Synod, half of the staff were refusing to speak to the other half of the staff. All teaching halted for the day and the Bishop of the seminary was forced to alter the entire curriculum in one afternoon, using students as messenger pigeons between the sulking teachers.

Oats regularly attended the monthly conferences at The General Synod of Om, in hope of finding the true answer to Omnianism, directly from the real people in charge. No matter how often he went, however, it was always just like another family dinner. The debates were very interesting, but nothing ever got resolved, more and more viewpoints just kept piling on and he left more confused than when he arrived.

With his aptitude for ancient languages, Oats was granted access to the vast Omnian library and began a fateful activity known as Wider Reading. He spent hours poring over scrolls, tomes, grimoires, anything he could get his hands on, learning more and more. It became a bit of a drug.

'Bad Oats’ first fully walked into existence after he read a scroll about what we would call 'atoms’. “

"Look at that,” said a small voice.“Something outside The Book of Om that feels…not exactly better, or more correct, but just… different.”

And an Oats-sized voice said:

“Oh dear.”

At first, Oats attributed the voice to exam stress, and the revelation of widening his already flattened tolerance of opinions. He had felt little urges like this in the past, silly urges as a child to throw beans at the pastors during Mass.

Then the voice wouldn’t shut up.

“Why do you put your hands together? Does that amplify the sound of you saying words in your head? What would happen if you prayed standing on your head? Or while dancing? Or on the latrine?”

Then, halfway through an Ungodly Creatures lecture, he had looked down to find a particularly lifelike portrait of Deacon Thrope looking back. He would have put it down to idle doodling. That is, if he had ever drawn anything resembling more than an anaemic pear in his life before that day.

Whenever he wrote a paper, he had to tie his other hand to the table, or it would pick up a quill and write an entirely contradictory one on whatever surface was nearest. (That was impractical both psychologically, and in terms of wallpaper costs.)

Despite his odd tendencies, he was undeniably one of the brightest pupils in his year, and after his ordainment, was nudged off to The Ramtops in presumably some vague hope that the mountain air would do him good.

Oats didn’t really interact with people outside of Omnianism until this journey, where he did a stint of itinerant preaching through Ankh-Morpork, on his way to Ohulan. The Morporkians weren’t keen on the whole 'one God’ thing and their general hostility and tomatoes dealt a blow to his confidence.

The sight of The Street of Small Gods provided Bad Oats with hours of entertainment. Oats found himself wandering up and down over and over, scrutinising every statue, bust, list of commandments, holy garb, absentmindedly handing out pamphlets every so often.

In the three weeks he spent travelling between Sto Lat and The Ramtops he often felt his holy turtle pendant and The Book of Om were the only things separating him from madness. That’s what kept his faith alive. The familiar rhythms of the verse, along with the marks in the little clay turtle he had shaped and painted himself always brought him back to sense. Like swinging a well balanced sword.

[NOTE: Canonically, Oats bought his pendant from an overpriced street market, but I actually made my own pendant for the production I was in, and it’s such a small detail that isn’t in the playscript that I internally changed it. Yeah I’m a bit of a wanker]

If what Bad Oats kept telling him about the many gods, the many theories about the Disc, the many Truths, was true, then Om was definitely a candidate for a truth. Once he got round to working out what that was. And that was enough.

At the Ohulan missionary, the fresh mountain air just gave him more energy to lie in bed arguing at himself.

The senior clergyman at the missionary, Brother Melchio, expressed concern for Oats, secretly wondering if the apparent voices in Oats’ head were words from Om himself. He even had Oats moved to a private room, but that just gave Oats the freedom to shout even louder. Oats got so little sleep most nights that his hands would twitch and shake during the day.

In public, 'Bad Oats’ appeared in miniature, peering around at everything through Oats’ forehead after Oats had thought he’d already peered at everything quite enough. The exact appearance of this little man was never clear, but perhaps that was because Bad Oats looked exactly like 'Good Oats’. If he could even call himself 'Good Oats’.

At night, however, when Oats was alone, Bad Oats grew, and filled up the inside of Oats like a second skin.

Oats was never certain if he was 'Good Oats’, or just 'Oats’, or 'Bad Oats’ masquerading as someone else entirely. Or perhaps he had switched places on that day in the library. Maybe he was continually switching back and forth, and had lost track long ago. Or maybe there really was no Bad Oats, and all of these thoughts belonged to the One Oats that was Oats.

When word arrived from Lancre requesting an Omnian priest for their princess’ naming ceremony at short notice, the job of trekking up the cold mountains, far away from the missionary and where he could give the rest of us a decent night’s sleep for Om’s sake was inevitably given to Oats.

He arrives in Lancre doing his best to block out Bad Oat’s snide comments on everyone else’s nice clothes in comparison to his grey socks and sandals, armed with his hopeful attitude and painful tolerance to everyone.

–

Hope you enjoyed that. I tried to build on the parallels to Agnes and Perdita that are hinted at in CJ, but it’s also a personal theory of mine that Oats is a prophet because there are a few similar details with Brutha in Small Gods.

- Zealous grandmother, like Brutha - Rides a mule, like Brutha - “Half the time you don’t know what you’re thinking!” (Om to Brutha in Small Gods) - “Half the time I don’t know what I’m thinking!” (Oats to Agnes in CJ) - People get worried as he appears to talk to himself, like Brutha

[rannadylin]

Time for a questionnaire meme

Tagged by @fangmich and it’s been a while since I did one of these so…why not!

Also I was just starting to type up my answers to these last night when a crazy thunderstorm hit and the power went out for over four hours. :-( Then this morning the internet was still out for a couple of hours after I got up, more aftereffects of the storm no doubt. So I might be tempting fate by again attempting to answer these but here we go anyway!

Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people.

LAST:

1. Drink: Durance’s tea blend, Magran’s Fire! (Yesterday it was Eder’s Sun God Cider and it would have also been Kana’s Rauatai Sweet Pie but I am almost out of that because it’s so good. I have a reorder of it coming today, if the tracking info is correct…) 2. Phone call: Frontier support to report my internet being out. :-( (Fortunately I got a very nice customer service lady who took care of everything more swiftly than expected, and hey, internet’s back now!)  3. Text message: to my mother telling her I might be visiting her today if the internet didn’t come back on… 4. Song you listened to: Technically the Pillars of Eternity soundtrack while playing the game yesterday, but if we’re not counting that…my local radio station does this thing they call Bluegrass Wednesday where they play I Saw the Light to wake us all up on Wednesday mornings and that was going on while I drove to the grocery store. This week they played two versions and asked callers to vote – David Crowder which they usually use, and the original Hank Williams Sr version. 5. Time you cried: Probably at church? I tear up a lot at certain songs. Although usually not when I’m one of the ones playing them, so it would be one of the Sundays that the youth group worship team led the songs instead of Team Pastor’s Family (i.e. my mom on piano, my sister on drums, me on flute, plus an organist and some singers unrelated to us, plus my dad, the pastor, usually singing also).

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: I have not really dated someone once unless we count going steady in junior high and when you’re too young to actually go out somewhere with the boyfriend, I’m not counting it… 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: I’ve kissed no one, so, nope 8. Been cheated on: This is also beyond my experience 9. Lost someone special: Oh certainly. Two grandparents so far, and a few years ago a very dear friend who wasn’t a teacher, yet was a sort of teaching mentor to me in our state JCL (Latin club!). Here we are getting ready for the annual trip to JCL convention in a week (!!!) and it still hits me once in a while, when I see the state t-shirt from the last convention trip he was here for and so on. 10. Been depressed: I am fortunate to have not had to deal with clinical depression. Life has its ups and downs (getting diagnosed with diabetes five years ago was one of the lows for sure…) but I’ve never felt hopeless, stuck in a low that would never improve. Honestly my faith is a big part of this – God is my hope and comfort when life is overwhelming. 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Alcohol, like dating, is beyond my experience. This is what life is when you grow up as a pastor’s kid with a pretty much lawful good alignment in RL. :-D

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12-14: PURPLE AND GOLD! Well, that’s JCL colors, anyway. Purple is one of my favorites, also dark green, and…for a third…well I think I have more handknit socks in the blue range than anything? I am very mardi gras here.

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. Made new friends: Sure! Mind you, I don’t tend to form deep friendships very often but I do form firendly acquaintances pretty easily. I’ve made friends on tumblr and with some Latin teachers I met at the conference I went to last month. 16. Fallen out of love: Not really sure I’ve ever really fallen in; see above re: dating. Crushes and falling out of crushes, certainly. 17. Laughed until you cried: I’m sure I have? Probably at family gatherings. I have goofy relatives. 18. Found out someone was talking about you: Hello, I teach high schoolers? They are always talking about me. I usually assume there’s a base level of complaining about grades or discipline going on (some of which the offended student makes sure I can hear, yay), but I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by people (a fellow teacher as well as friends of current students) in the past year telling me they’ve heard good things about my teaching. (Current students’ friends who said so are taking my class next year, I think…Yay!) 19. Met someone who changed you: Sure. E.g. I’ve grown a lot more confident from hanging out with my very outgoing (and bossy :-D) best friend (and fellow teacher until we both left that school within the last few years… 20. Found out who your friends are: I am not at all sure what this is asking. 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: Nope, see above re: dating

GENERAL:

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: I don’t generally make or accept friend requests unless I already know the person. Some are just acquaintances through work or the network of Latin teachers, or former students who were on trips to JCL convention with our group, etc. so I don’t often see them in person, but there’s only a handful I haven’t actually met at some point. 23. Do you have any pets: Alas, no, the apartment complex doesn’t allow pets. I had a cat at my last place but she went to live with my parents and she’s more my Dad’s pet than mine now. 24. Do you want to change your name: In true Anne Shirley fashion? :-) I used to be less content with my name than I am now. Now, I’m like whatever. 25. What did you do for your last Birthday: Taught? Probably? Was it even a weekday? 26. What time did you wake up: Around 7 today, eager to see if the power had come back on (it had!) and also the internet (it hadn’t!) 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: Finally asleep by then, I think, after hours of waiting for power to come back on. 28. Name something you can’t wait for: Deadfire (Gotta agree with you on this one, @fangmich!) 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: On the way home from family trip to see Grandma on Monday 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: Not being diabetic would be swell! 31. What are you listening to right now: Silence 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Had a great student by that name years ago. 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: It was the lack of internet but now we’re good. Students interrupting class will ALWAYS get on my nerves though… 34. Most visited website: Definitely tumblr these days.

RANDOM INFO:

35. Mole/s: Nope 36. Mark/s: A few stray freckles? 37. Childhood dream: Teacher. Or writer. Went with the first, now I don’t have time to professionally pursue the second! 38. Hair color: Brown and ridiculously curly. Yes, curly is a color. 39. Long or short hair: Long 41. What do you like about yourself: I might actually sound pretty arrogant if I seriously started listing things. I’m just a “look on the bright side” sort of person and I like a lot of things about myself as an active choice. *shrug* Most of the things I’d list have to do with creativity – writing, knitting, fluting. 42. Piercings: None 43. Blood type: You know I should actually know this by now, huh? I know my most recent A1C (6.4, not bad for diabetic) but have no idea my blood type. 44. Nickname: Besides forms of my actual name? Well, students call me Magistra… (Latin for teacher) 45. Relationship status: Confirmed Old Maid :-) 46. Zodiac: Virgo  47. Pronouns: she/her (but actually I’m pretty fond of ipsa, and eadem gives me headaches as it does all Latin students…sorry sorry, I know this question is about gender but I see “pronouns” and I think of grammar and those chapters that throw all of the pronouns at the kids at once so we call it the Death By Pronouns unit...Look y’all, I’m female but also a grammarian. That’s right, my gender is Grammarian.) 48. Favorite TV Show: Don’t have an actual TV so I watch things on the Internet. Does Critical Role count? If not, I’ve also watched Doctor Who recently. 49. Tattoos: None 50. Right or left hand: Right 51. Surgery: Had a pilonidal cyst removed in my teens. 52. Hair dyed in different color: Never. I do not mess with my hair. The curls would take revenge. 53. Sport: Marching Band totally counts and apart from that I am the least sporty of humans. 55. Vacation: Would love to spend it in Italy more often (yay Latin teaching perks) if I can get enough students to go. Otherwise – JCL convention! And other school-related trips… 56. Pair of trainers: Skechers? Does that count? 

MORE GENERAL:

57. Eating: Like right now? I…had a muffin and yogurt and strawberries for breakfast? Lunch is TBD. 58. Drinking: I am a water drinker (so I guess I don’t write poetry) but also, lots of tea! And recently I have started drinking coffee (gasp!) because Mom has been providing coffee & breakfast for our Sunday School class and I enjoyed the coffee that first Sunday so I guess she has corrupted me now. 59. I’m about to: Catch up on everything I missed (tumblr, the Deadfire Q&A, etc.) while the internet was out.  61. Waiting for: My Adagio tea order with the rest of my Pillars of Eternity tea samples and a reorder of Kana’s and Iselmyr’s delicious blends! 62. Want: A teaching salary that makes it more likely I could afford to actually retire someday?  63. Get married: Used to assume I would, but see above re: Confirmed Old Maid – I’m content with being single, these days. A potential spouse would have to be pretty awesome to outweigh how fond I’ve grown of my solitude. 64. Career: I’m content with classroom teaching, most of the time. Not really interested in administration. Doubtful I could make a living as a writer, especially with my insurance needs nowadays. In my first teaching job, I was certain I’d be there till I retired. Then they had budget cuts and I had to switch schools if I wanted (I did!) to keep teaching Latin. Second job was burnout waiting to happen – after five years I switched to my current school, and once again I could see myself retiring here. If, of course, my deadbeat pancreas and I can afford that.

WHICH IS BETTER:

65. Hugs or kisses: Hugs have a wider appeal, but see above re: dating/kissing status, so I’m not really one to speak to this 66. Lips or eyes: Eyes 67. Shorter or taller: Shorter, I guess, for I am short and am not really as amused by height differences as most of tumblr appears to be? 68. Older or younger: At my age I’m not sure it matters so much 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: WELL you know that post celebrating Aloth’s arms… 71. Sensitive or loud:  Sensitive. Loud would totally fail to outweigh my fondness of solitude. Introvert here needs her quiet time, please. 72. Hook up or relationship: Relationship 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: Hesitant, I guess?

HAVE YOU EVER:

74. Kissed a Stranger: No 75. Drank hard liquor: No 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: In all my years of glasses…probably? Not that I recall? 77. Turned someone down: Yes 78. Sex on the first date: Wouldn’t if given the opportunity 79. Broken someone’s heart: Unlikely 80. Had your heart broken: My heart has generally avoided the risks that would lead to breaking, see above re: Old Maid 81. Been arrested: No 82. Cried when someone died: Of course 83. Fallen for a friend: …Temporarily? Never went anywhere

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

84. Yourself: To an extent – I mean, I know my limits. 85. Miracles: Absolutely 86. Love at first sight: Not my style but I’m sure it happens 87. Santa Claus: I like stories but I know they’re stories… 88. Kiss on the first date: Probably not

OTHER:

90. Current best friend name: Amanda! (Which is Latin for She Who Must Be Loved and it’s true) 91. Eye color: I’d like to say Grey but I think they’re more of greyish Blue. 92. Favorite movie: Star Wars. Or The Princess Bride. Or Lord of the Rings.

I’m going to just leave this with an open tag instead of naming anyone. If you want to answer these, go for it and tag me so I can get to know you better too!

[degerbils]

When you see publishers and authors chatting chummily at book parties, you're likely to think that they're on the same side - the side of great literature and the free flow of ideas.

In reality, their interests are at odds. Publishers are marketers. They don't like scandals that might threaten their bottom line - or the bottom lines of the multinational media conglomerates of which most form a small part. Authors are people, often flawed. Sometimes they behave badly. How, for instance, should publishers deal with the #MeToo era, when accusations of sexual impropriety can lead to books being pulled from shelves and syllabuses, as happened last year with the novelists Junot Diaz and Sherman Alexie?

One answer is the increasingly widespread "morality clause". Over the past few years, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Penguin Random House have added such clauses to their standard book contracts. I've heard that Hachette Book Group is debating putting one in its trade book contracts, though the publisher wouldn't confirm it. These clauses release a company from the obligation to publish a book if, in the words of Penguin Random House, "past or future conduct of the author inconsistent with the author's reputation at the time this agreement is executed comes to light and results in sustained, widespread public condemnation of the author that materially diminishes the sales potential of the work". That is reasonable, I guess. Penguin, to its credit, doesn't ask authors to return their advances. But other publishers do, and some are even more hard-nosed.

This past year, regular contributors to Conde Nast magazines started spotting a new paragraph in their yearly contracts. It's a doozy. If, in the company's "sole judgment", the clause states, the writer "becomes the subject of public disrepute, contempt, complaints or scandals," Conds Nast can terminate the agreement. In other words, a writer need not have done anything wrong; she need only become scandalous. In the age of the Twitter mob, that could mean simply writing or saying something that offends some group of strident tweeters.

Agents hate morality clauses because terms like "public condemnation" are vague and open to abuse, especially if a publisher is looking for an excuse to back out of its contractual obligations. When I asked writers about morality clauses, on the other hand, most of them had no idea what I was talking about. You'd be surprised at how many do not read the small print.

One writer who did was the fantasy and science-fiction novelist Ursula K. Le Guin, who died last year. When she discovered the morality clause in her HarperCollins contract in 2011, she posted a satirical letter from a fictional writer confessing sins to Rupert Murdoch, who owns the company: "It was nothing really materially damaging, only just the money and ID. I stole from the old man with the walker and some things I said about some schoolgirls with big tits."

Please, the letter went on, don't "make me pay back the money because I can't because I already had to give most of it to some stupid lawyer who said I had defaulted on a loan and was behind on my child support, which is just a lie. That stupid brat was never mine."

Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, who writes regularly for The New Yorker, a Conde Nast magazine, read the small print, too, and thought: "No way. I'm not signing that." Gersen, an expert in the laws regulating sexuality, often takes stands that may offend the magazine's liberal readers, as when she defended Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' rollback of Obama-era rules on campus sexual-assault accusations.

When I called Gersen in November, she said, "No person who is engaged in creative expressive activity should be signing one of these."

Times change; norms change with them. Morality clauses hand the power to censor to publishers, not the government, so they don't violate the constitutional right to free speech. But that power is still dangerous.

It is not that a company should have to keep on staff a murderer or rapist, she added. But when the trigger for termination could be a Twitter storm or a letter-writing campaign, she said, "I think it would have a very significant chilling effect."

Masha Gessen, another New Yorker writer, also said she would not sign her new contract, at least not as it was originally worded. Gessen, a Russian-American journalist who won the 2017 National Book Award for The Future Is History, about the return of totalitarianism in post-Communist Russia, has spent her career challenging prevailing nostrums.

Last year, as prominent men fell like bowling pins after being accused of sexual misconduct, Gessen published columns on the New Yorker website describing the #MeToo movement as an "out-of-control "moral panic" bent on policing sexual behaviour by mob justice. Needless to say, many readers did not agree.

"I'm extremely uncomfortable with it," Gessen said about the contract, "because I have in the past been vilified on social media."

Having once been fired from a job as the director of Radio Liberty in Russia after what she called a disinformation campaign, she added: "I know what it's like to lose institutional support when you most need it."

Both Gersen's and Gessen's agents got Conde Nast to tone down the language that offended them, and the writers have now signed. Gessen's agent made Conde Nast acknowledge "that I have expressed controversial views", Gessen said, and the morality clause now states that it cannot be invoked as "the result of my professional work". By "professional work", she added, she meant public events or posts on social media in addition to her writing.

Gessen said she felt she could stand up to Conde Nast because she has clout. She worries that younger or less famous writers won't be as empowered.

I share that concern. Over the past four years, I have published articles criticising the concept of safe spaces and deploring the lack of due process in campus rape hearings . I've been called transphobic for an essay I wrote in 2016 about the tension between transgender rights and the right to privacy, and I'm still being called that.

If I'd had a book contract with a morality clause when I wrote those, I might have thought twice before indulging my fondness for picking fights.

It is impossible to say how many novelists and journalists have fallen afoul of morality clauses, or, indeed, if any of them have. No one I talked to could or would name a case.

In 2017, Simon & Schuster cancelled a book by the professional provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos after he gave an interview in which he appeared to condone pedophilia. His contract reportedly did not include a morality clause, and he sued, though he later dropped the suit. If a morality clause did lead to a book's cancellation, we probably would not know it, according to Ms Devereux Chatillon, a partner in the media and intellectual property law firm Chatillon Weiss who has represented both The New Yorker and writers. "It wouldn't be public unless somebody sued over it," she said. And even then, the lawsuit probably would not come to light.

Morality clauses may be relatively new to mainstream publishing, but they have a long history. The entertainment industry started drafting them in 1921, when the silent-movie star Fatty Arbuckle, who had just signed a then-astonishing US$1 million contract with Paramount Pictures, was accused of the rape and manslaughter of a girl at a party. Arbuckle was acquitted after two mistrials, but by then the public had soured on him, and the studios wanted out.

Today, the clauses are widespread in sports, television and advertising.

Religious publishers have used them for at least 15 years, which seems fair enough. You cannot condemn a Christian publisher that cancels publication of a book called The Ridiculously Good Marriage after the author is accused of having sexually assaulted an underage girl when he was a youth pastor. (He apologised for a "sexual incident".)

Children's publishers have been including the clauses for a decade or more, and they, too, have a case. It would be challenging to sell a children's book written by a pedophile.

Maybe you do not find morality clauses alarming under any circumstances. "If what you're selling me is your reputation, if that's what I'm paying you for, then I should not have to pay you" if your reputation tanks, said Mr Rick Kurnit, a partner in Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, a firm specialising in art and entertainment law.

Maybe you're asking: Why should anyone get away with being a racist or sexist jerk? What gives Alexie, accused of hitting on women who saw him as a mentor, and Diaz, accused of forcibly kissing someone, the right to have their books published? Or even: Why should opinion writers be allowed to gratuitously insult duly elected officials? If a loudmouth suffers from a backlash, this reasoning goes, he probably deserves it.

The problem with letting publishers back out of contracts with non-celebrity, non-religious, non-children's book authors on the grounds of immorality is that immorality is a slippery concept. Publishers have little incentive to clarify what they mean by it, and the public is fickle in what it takes umbrage at.

In 1947, the concern was communism, and morality clauses gave studios a way to blacklist the Hollywood 10, a group of directors and screenwriters who denounced the House Un-American Activities Committee as illegitimate and refused to say whether they'd ever been communists. All 10 went to jail, and all but one, who decided to cooperate with the committee, became unemployable until the 1960s, though some continued to write under pseudonyms.

Not long ago, publishers were hailed as countercultural heroes for backing works that offended public sensibilities. Mr Barney Rosset, the publisher of Grove Press, introduced Americans to Samuel Beckett, Jack Kerouac, Malcolm X, Marguerite Duras and Kathy Acker, among scores of other writers considered avant-garde at the time.

Mr Rosset fought doggedly to overturn laws that were preventing him from publishing D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and Henry Miller's Tropic Of Cancer, both of which contained scenes of graphic sex. The Tropic Of Cancer case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the book was not obscene. The feminist critic Kate Millet attacked Miller's novels as misogynistic - she was quite right about that - but that did not stop the PEN American Centre from awarding Mr Rosset a citation for "the free transmission of the printed word across the barriers of poverty, ignorance, censorship and repression".

Times change; norms change with them. Morality clauses hand the power to censor to publishers, not the government, so they don't violate the constitutional right to free speech. But that power is still dangerous.

After our conversation, Gersen sent me an e-mail pointing out a possible unintended consequence of the Conde Nast clause. Who are the groups subjected to the most public vitriol for their published work, she asked? Who is most viciously trolled?

Women and members of minorities. "That is one of the realities of publishing while a woman or minority in this age," she wrote. "The clause is perversely posing more career risk to women and minorities than to white males."

If all it takes to lose a magazine gig or book deal is to fall into "public disrepute", it won't be only villains whose voices are lost.

NYTIMES

• Judith Shulevitz, the author of The Sabbath World: Glimpses Of A Different Order Of Time, is a contributing opinion writer.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on January 13, 2019, with the headline 'Must writers be moral? Their contracts may require it'.

[hungribunni]

09042017 Sermon Notes- Ps Joseph Prince

Because u are saved, u can come to The table to eat. But the Father expects table manners. No fighting btw brothers. 1 Kg 19:12-14 Even if someone has done something bad, u know of it, it is NOT your place to recite their sins to Him. V16-18 V16- Elisha replaced Elijah. Elijah said he is the only one left. God said He has 7000. We aren't the only grace church. Many around the world. When it comes to ministry when u don't see it as a privilege anymore and think of how important your ministry is, he will show he doesn't want u anymore. There are others. A father's chastisement. Num 20:10-12 We should not condemn people and name them names. God shows mercy and grace. He doesn't appreciate it when u don't show them grace. When we show people grace, they learn grace. The father's chastisement doesn't bring destruction. Even though they are murmuring, if u speak to the rock, and water comes out, we are hallowing God. When we speak judgment to them, we don't hallow God. This is the second time rock was hit and water came out. The first time, Moses was told to hit a rock. The second time, it was a high cliff. Not like the first rock. Told to speak to the rock. Jesus is like the second rock. We can speak to Him. Moses made God appear angry when he hit the rock a second time. 2 Kings 1:7-17 Elisha has now been anointed to succeed Elijah. Elijah learned that we are all not indispensable in the cave. A man of God. He was in the wrong. Humbled himself and went and annointed Elisha. The lesson is humility. Job 42:5-6 Make sure u have a personal revelation of Him even as u hear pastor preach. In the presence of God, man is nothing. When we are praised by men, go home and kneel and remember we are all still dust and flesh. Without God we cannot. Job felt God should bless him for what he did. God showed him that God doesn't have to bless him actually. There is NO ONE that is self righteous and merits rewards from God. This diverts from justification by faith. We are justified by His blood. No blood, no save. Elijah is a cool man. Anointed Elisha to take his place and stayed cool and calm. Ahab came. Jezebel and Ahab has a kid who is now a King of Samaria. He fell and was injured. Asked his men to go enquire of Baal's men about his recovery. Elijah intercepted them. Asked them why did they do that? Is there no God in Israel? He said because of his decision, he will not recover. 2 Kings 1:7-17 They had the power and authority and numbers of the world- but God was with Elijah. They were 'fired' from their job. V11- this is what happened when uour heart is hardened like Pharoah's. U make stupid decisions. The next lot got fired on the spot also. Don't forget these are the days of the LORD. Elijah represents judicial part of God. Fights for God's righteousness. Eli-Sha. Elohim with Sha. God saves. His ministry is more grace. Elisha represents John the Baptist. All of Elisha's ministry were miracles of grace. His first miracle of grace- Elijah's first public act was to call fire from heaven Elisha sent to Jericho. Jericho was under a curse. Note the water was bitter and poisoned. Elisha healed the stream of the water. There shall be no more death in these waters. That stream is still healed today. Fruitful Jericho. God reversed the curse under Elisha's ministry. Grace ministry. The third captain already saw what happened to the last two. Pleaded with Elijah for his life to be spared. Elisha went to talk to Ahab's son with the captain and fifty men right into the stronghold of the enemy, into his very throne room. The very city he fled from because of the threat of a woman, now he marches in fearless. Stood fearless before the woman he fled from. Know u are privileged to serve. If u don't serve, he will raise someone else up to do so. When u are humble, u won't be hurt. Pastor realised he kept getting Kayu Driver's in front of him. Annoyed. Realised his being irritated is because of pride lol. Entitlement to the road. Lol. God doesn't teach with diseases and destruction. God teaching him humility by sending him kayu drivers before him to understand that he shouldn't feel this sense of entitlement. Grace before eating, "God if not for u, I won't have all these to eat." The more accomplished we are, the more we should be careful to not let ourselves become prideful and to have a spirit of entitlement. Two occasions of fire falling down in Elisha's ministry. Fire came down from Carmel on the victim (sacrifice) instead of the people. They were shielded from judgment. Not one person was touched by the fire. Foreshadowing of Jesus' death on the cross for our sins. The fire meant for u and me fell on Him. The judgment fell on to Him. He took it all. But what happened on Carmel was soon forgotten. The king of Israel went back to Baal. Most likely at Jezebel's recommendation. For centuries the Good News was preached all over the world. The gospel of the Good News. How has man responded? Christ hating and Christ rejecting world has made fun of it, spurned, rejected and mocked it. Our decision affects our future. Isn't that if we reject Jesus, we become sinners. We are already sinners. We are all doomed. God could have sent us all to hell and He is righteous and justified if he does. U can complain it is not politically correct but it is useless. If the world will not learn judgment and how holy I am by the fire that fell on my son, so that grace and mercy can be preached to them instead, they will learn personally by the all consuming fire falling on them. 2 Kings 2:1 Many years after this event, the greater than Elijah walked this earth. Luke 9:51-56 "Time came to be received up"- like Elijah Samaria- same place as where Ahab, Jezebel happened. V53- Samaria rejected Jesus again. Disciples wanted to call down fire but were rebuked. This is not the age of fire falling. The time waiting for his return- the gospel of grace is being preached- is the most wonderful time. Disciples couldn't understand grace is being dispensed from heaven. The fire fell at the Cross. We are in the wonderful age of grace now. Where we don't get what we deserve. We get ALL the good things He deserved. 2 Thess 1:6-10 V8- the flaming fire will come to those busy making themselves righteous instead of giving praise to God. The disciples aren't wrong. Fire will one day fall BUT we are NOW in the age of grace. There are consequences yes but God is joy judging. Don't transpose the age of grace into the time of future fire fall. Pastor isn't saying there won't be judgment fire but that this isn't the age of it. God is raising ministries with a still small voice. The gentle tongues that break the bones. Not the sort that preach fire and brimstone. Is He coming back? Yes. Very close. But the rapture will happen first. The youths made fun of Elisha after Elijah went up. Is like people making fun of the rapture. Elisha turned around and pronounced judgment and two wolves came out from the forest and lacerated them. Anything that rejects grace, and the rapture is a provision of grace, will be judged. All of u are saved. Not on the other side. He is now your Father and lavished His love on you. But how terrible for those out there who are mocking the gospel of grace now. The breath with which we live by is of Him - how we should live our lives with gratitude.

[ady-slim]

where have u been lol

I’ve been in my house oversleeping and studying the Torah. I am going to share my testimony. This post will not be filtered, I will put things how they are and not hold back.

I know a lot of you haven’t seen me in a while and I appreciate those that have reached out to me, I’ll add that they have been very few…as some of you know I’ve been involved with other ministries and helping with other churches. But in order to fully understand I’m going to have to fill y'all in on what my life has consisted of these past months…

Around August I was coming back from Mexico, after being there for a bit more than a month. I came back earlier than my family because I needed to find a job and start up with an adult life. (like growing up is so fast haha). and I did find a job, Cane’s, where I still work and its great. I also had been visiting Gateway GP campus Saturday service with my Dad since he had been going as well. They went because that is where they have received help with some marriage therapy as well as group therapy. Life hasn’t been pretty these past years since my dad’s surgery, I don’t talk much on it but I’ll share a bit more. My dad has Parkinson’s Disease, its a progressive disease that affects the central nervous system, leaving his voluntary muscles involuntary with uncontrollable shaking and loss of balance. My dad can’t write anymore but he’s been practicing, he gets night terrors and sometimes wakes up screaming, some lesser known symptoms are depression and apathy and fatigue. He’s had his Deep Brain Stimulus (DBS) surgery back in 2013 and it has helped him a lot. Now I don’t share this for anybody to pity him or us, but to share with means to explain. We are not ashamed or embarrassed, this is simply our lives now. This leads me into what I’m going to share next. My dad goes to physical therapy to help his balance and help him stay active and moving. These are at Trinity United Methodist Church over in Duncanville, I had joined him to his therapy a lot once I came back from Mexico. So that was my schedule, just mostly following my dad around for the most part. TUMC holds a free shots clinic every couple of months, so as the school year was about to begin there was another one scheduled in August, they needed translators so my dad asked me to join him there since I’m also bilingual, thats where I met Pastor Josue. Pastor Josue had invited me to come to the youth meetings, so I went for a couple of weeks and then stopped going for a good while. In September of 2016 I had been going to Gateway for a few more weeks, when at one Saturday service I decided to take the alter call and then and there I re-committed to following Yeshua and letting his Spirit change me. I had been going to my home church (Templo De Alabanza) and was serving in the church but my spiritual life was so trash, I was slipping up hardcore… {Years before I was lit, I was seeking God and praying as well as studying my bible, I could name off all the (what I like to call) bumper sticker bible verses to you and everything.} …I wanted it again, I wanted intimacy with Yahweh my creator, so I walked up. I felt the spirit in that place on that altar that afternoon, it was a blessing to finally have a moment of peace with my creator. One of my coworkers, was there at church and saw me walk up. Afterwards I met a good brother and his wife there in the new comers section, they handed me a NLT bible and made me feel like I had been welcomed into a new family. It was a true blessing and a turning point in my life. I began to help at Gateway as well, I helped on the translation team, and it was good. A bit before my trip to Mexico and when I came back, I had started to get back in touch with a brother from Triumph. Brother AJ was giving me advice, most sincere and wise from him. My fire was lit again and I was trying to find ways to start things up, bible studies and discipleship… {Not too long ago a couple of years back, I’d been visiting Triumph youth, as a youth still. This was a turning point in my spiritual walk where Yah reveals His word to me and I begin my first steps to becoming a disciple. I had begun to go because my friend Zak from scouts invited me. Whenever I went I would take my bible and would always ask the weirdest thing or make a comment about every 5 minutes haha. But something happend at these youth meetings, I was growing spiritually, I was learning biblical concepts that I’d never known about before (the olive tree in the book of romans, the connection between the torah and the gospels, about keeping the Shabbat and the feasts of Yah), and upon discovering this I cried and I got frustrated. Why did nobody explain this to me, I NEVER read thru thiese pasages in my bible, much less had them explained to me! But I didn’t understand why until later, so I pushed it aside and I kept seeking the word. I’d also tried to obey the Word of God and keep the Sabbath, but that was quickly shot down by my mom. I attended the Passover Celebration that year, and it was amazing! Then their youth group meetings were moved from Thursdays to Sunday nights and I wasn’t able to go bc I helped at TDA pm service on those nights. After that small season I tripped up on my spiritual walk and got distracted.} …but I was trying to reach out to my brother AJ because I had been discouraged. I had tried multiple times to start up a bible study and discipleship courses for the youth over at my home church, but all I ever got was a “let me ask the leaders” or “I’ll ask Pastor”, which I considered a dead end bc I never heard anything back after those kind of responses were heard. I had told AJ that I wanted to get involved with Triumph again, they preach truth and I always learned a lot whenever I went, but unfortunately my schedule didn’t let me at the time. While this was happening I also started going to the youth group meetings again at TUMC on friday nights. Over at work, I began to grow close with my brother Rick, a coworker, he and I would hang and sometimes chop it up in the word and he would ask me about the Lord and I would tell him what the bible says. I also went to El Lugar De Su Gracia for the first time their Thanksgiving lunch service. (ELDSG is the spanish speaking congregation that meets at TUMC, Pastor Josue’s church). Since then I’ve atended and served at ELDSG, Pastor Josue has been a mentor to me and has taught me biblical values as well as how to compose myself when it comes to spiritual maturity. December comes around and something very saddening happens, a brother I had come to know named Zachariah had passed into eternity. He died behind the resteraunt where I work. I had heard that a the power went out one tuesday that week and that the guy died from electrocution, but didn’t know it was him until I went to te memorial service. Triumph held the memorial service, it was a rough one to sit through, one because I had only interacted with him maybe a good 3 times but I got to see the massive amount of impact he had on his time on earth, on a global level. There I learned that they recently moved their services to Saturday, near the end of the Shabbat. I stopped helping with Gateway because of their politic bias that they promote because the pastor is a part of the “spiritual council” the current elected president has. After like the second time at Shabbat service, brother AJ asked me to serve in the production team, so with having a bit of knowledge in media and equipment from serving on the media team at TDA, I went for it. I later on asked Josue about joining together with my Triumph Family again, he said that it was good for me to and encouraged me to seek the truth in the Word. I asked him because I knew Yah would change me when it came to keeping the Shabbat and the feasts as well as switching up my diet, and I didn’t know what to think about it at the time tbh, just that I was fully committed to walking with Yeshua where he would lead me. Rick and I grew closer throughout the holidays, he is a true brother to me. We would share about the word and I gifted him a bible as well as some Hillsong and P.O.D. CDs. As he and I shared, Yah taught me something, the importance of discipleship and fellowship with people my age when it comes to growing spiritually. I found the value in testifying and a reflection of who I was on the inside, someone who seeks the truth and to only please God.

[revlatte]

Sanctuary: Pre-Launch Thoughts

It’s Sunday morning here in the Land of the Sky. I sit in front of a computer screen, alone down a very long drive way. There’s tea brewing in the kitchen. Jill Scott is playing on my Spotify. The track is currently “He Loves Me.” I’m in winter socks, plaid boxers, and a University of Tennessee Center for Leadership & Service long-sleeve shirt I received as a gift for participating on an alumni panel. My plaid pants are laying on the bed next to me with a pair of long johns inside. The heater is set to “4″. I have no clue what temperature that is but it’s warm enough. The curtains are still drawn because I’m a Pisces and love lurking in the dark, even in the day light. I am about to light 3 candles to be obedient to my partner’s ancestors. 

Admittedly, my brain is not firing as strongly as it used too. This gives me great pause and reason for concern. It’s almost as if my brain reached it’s peak a decade ago when I was working, involved in ministry as a youth pastor, and in graduate school at Wesley Theological Seminary. I’ve spent the last decade searching for my people, my family, my home, my faith community, myself. Perhaps with the Sanctuary Movement, I’m a bit closer. 

3 Thoughts for Today: Hidden Figures, #wearenotinvisible & brewing, Black Star Line Brewing. 

Hidden Figures

One of my good friends here in Asheville and I went to the pre-release to see Hidden Figures on Thursday. I was so proud of Taraji P. Henderson. She is a true come up! From Hustle & Flow to Hidden Figures with Kevin Costner. As a Black American, I understand the significance of this and how Taraji is maturing as an actress who is commanding respect in Hollywood circles. I may not respect all of her choices in movies but I see her value as an actress and role model. Heck, she inspired me. 

Throughout the movie, there is a common narrative that we as Black women are familiar with. The asshole bosses who lack any emotional intelligence and create hostile work environments and don’t give two shits about how their egoism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, cis-gendered male privilege, misogyny impacts everyone one else. There’s the narrative of having to work harder than everyone else though you’re more qualified and have more experience. The experience of being paid less because of what’s between your legs and the color of your skin. The narrative of others knowing the discrimination you are facing is real but THEY DO NOTHING! They want to protect their safety, their freedom, their privilege. They watch as you face oppression, hatred, bigotry and become ostracized. And, there’s the one person who can see through this shit and validate and affirm our experiences. We, as Black women, so often, play critical roles in the development of institutions, organizations, companies and receive no accreditation. We are written out of history and convinced that we can be nothing more than subservient slaves to capitalism and white supremacy. Hidden Figures broke that narrative. 

I left that movie theater inspired and proud. I left with a fire in my belly that we, the Sistahs of Sanctuary, could do anything. We already are. 

#wearenotinvisible & brewing

When I first came to Asheville and arrived at my home on Lamar Avenue, I declared my new home as sanctuary and a place to land. I told my girlfriend at the time that I wanted to fly under the radar, keep my nose down, not get involved with organizing, and take some space to process and heal. I needed a low-key, “normal” life. That was my desire. 

Within just a few short months, all of that had turned on its head. I was working at the progressive UCC in town. It was a great experience and also really damn difficult. I had the same degree as the co-pastors, comparable experience in many ways, and was in a position of assistant. My options for employment were limited so $14 an hour for 14 hours a week (as it started) was stable and kept the lights on. Additionally, I had some outside contracting work and residuals, so it was all good. While there, I realized my brain was working the same and was too afraid to say anything to anyone. I imagine the pastors could tell something was off. Perhaps none of us wanted to say anything. I was a shell of a person. Through it all, I waited for the moment when they would ask me to preach on a Sunday. Or help with the Eucharist (which I believe is the most sacred and holy of acts in faith communities.) Or do a reading. I waited for an invitation to be a part of the community. Rarely, if ever, did that come. My engagement with the community was structured around ways I was showing up as a staff. This was sad in many ways and I received a sense of home, place, community through it all. Until...

The week before Valentine’s Day 2016. My partner was certain she was going to loose the baby. I was not surprised. Stress, shitty ass nutrition, and a diet of many beers, mixed with older age. This was sad and devastating for me, as their partner. We had dreamed of the baby, names, colors for the walls. The plan was that I would be transitioning to her house to live. All of us, as a family. 

I received a call from the doctor that whatever was growing on and inside of my uterus was growing. Surgery had to be scheduled immediately for that upcoming Tuesday, the 11th. 

Long story short - an emergency hysterectomy for me while simultaneously, my girlfriend was having a miscarriage. Devastation. 

I was out of work from the church and my girlfriend did not want any support or visits. I couldn’t understand but wanted to respect our relationship boundaries. Less than a week later, a white, older, lesbian, wealthy Board member came in to my home and unleashed her white rage on to me and broke a really dear item to me, at my dining room table. In the weeks that followed, the #wearenotinvisible movement was launched to address anti-Black bias in the workplace, primarily in gay/queer organizations. The fall out was shitty. As per usual, folks took the side of the oppressed, did everything in their power to discredit me, and engaged in a long and multi-tiered level of victim-blaming. It was humiliating and devastating. In fact, to this day, the organization has comments on their website about the #wearenotinvisble movement. As SHE said, it’s painful and it hurts. 

Through that advocacy and raising issues around transparency, I was blackballed. Eventually, I had to leave my job at the church. My relationship with my partner was falling apart. And I was in this new damn town, isolated, alone, afraid, unemployed and not employable. I sought Sanctuary. I had to go inward. Once inside, I couldn’t make my way through the mountains, rivers, valleys, and streams of consciousness and trauma. I was alone. 

Over the next year, I would watch friends come and go. Hot and cold. Close and far. It was as if I was walking around town with the Mark of the Beast. In each conversation, I had to give a disclaimer of who I was and what I was about. It fucking sucked. I just wanted to live.... until I didn’t because I couldn’t take it anymore. 

So what does this have to do with brewing? The #wearenotinvisible movement got hijacked and all around town I saw people wearing the shirts that I paid for (for half of them at least), and not knowing the history. It was clear that they knew this one person and bought a shirt to be a part of a movement. 

To be a part of something bigger than yourself. That’s what the Sanctuary Movement is all about. That’s what we are striving to achieve. Collective working, unity, healing, and liberation. To embody the principles of Kwanzaa. 

Well, as I think about the craft brewing industry, to be blunt: it’s fully of really privileged, white, cis-gendered males with a lot of access to cash. If they have enough cash, they can work hard enough (or make others work for them at a fraction of their worth), and amass a great living, if not millions, in just a matter of years. There’s no one in the industry that looks like me. A thick, Black, masculine of center, queer, woman. I know we exist and are excited and interested in beer. We are the under-served, un-tapped market. I know the secret to our success and healing. #wearenotinvisible and yes I can see the Hidden Figures. 

Black Star Line Brewing

Again, you are probably reading this wondering what the hell I’m talking about and how it all comes together and if it’s remotely related to the Sanctuary Movement. The answer is YES!

Sanctuary will initially house 4 Black, queer womyn and their children in the month of January 2016. We will host rituals. Healing circles. Visioning sessions. And begin to create the world we have envisioned. Challenging supremacy, capitalism, and individualism. We are welcoming each other home. To Sanctuary. 

AND, that comes at a cost. Rent is $1200. Utilities will probably average about $200. Water about $100. Internet is $60. Food for all of us around $400. Other items (such as toilet paper, paper towels, etc.), are estimated around $150 a month. If we have a shared car, estimated payment around $350/month. Insurance estimated at $200/month. Total baseline for the household: $1620. Add food and miscellaneous items: That’s $2170. Then, if we’re able to secure a car and insurance for such, we’re looking at $2,720. For the sake of round numbers, let’s say it cost $2800 per month to support 4 Black women and 3 children. That’s it. 

However, we are all coming to the space because we need, desire, and crave Sanctuary and community. Our collective and individual capacities to “work” in the system, to make someone else richer, and to have our worth evaluated at $10/hour at best, is not an option. There needs to be soul-affirming work with dignity, pride, and honor. 

To that end, we’ve asked folks who can see the Hidden Figure and those that know are lives matter, that #wearenotinvisible, to donate to the Sanctuary Movement. To donate in recurring donations, single donations, donate food, cars, whatever and however they are able. We are not a non-profit (because we do not believe in that hierarchy and oppressive structure). We are Sistahs of Sanctuary who are doing the work of healing and starting where it matters the most, with ourselves. 

We have most of the brewing equipment we need to get started. But not the funds for the rest of the materials or equipment. If we are able to brew and partner with our friends at breweries around town, we can make beer, mead, cider, etc. as a viable stream of income to support the community. We can break through the color and gender barrier in the industry and really show strength in self-sufficiency. This could be a model we could replicate and break free from the chains of traditional employment that is exploitative. It is a pathway to our liberation. 

We have the land and space to grow hops and really distinguish ourselves.

As we heal, we will see the launch of Black Star Line Brewing as a testimony to our individual and collective healing and liberation. As a form of resistance and renewal. As a form of Sanctuary in a bottle. 

Alone. Down the long driveway. Over a mason jar of tea. I dream of the tomorrow that is almost here. I dream of Sanctuary. Of our collective brilliance. Of being at the precipice of healing - individual and collective. I dream of the story that our children and grand children will tell about us being bad-ass, radical women who blazed the trail in the craft brewing industry, in commercial cleaning, healing, at life. 

I think of my Sistahs and give thanks. Because of them, I have the will to live. The fight in my belly. Because of them, I can come home. Because of them I am home and have finally found Sanctuary. 

[ecotone99]

[RF] Pale in Comparison

Winter had sucked all the color out of the world.

The prairie in the glory of midsummer had been a surge of green, summer winds sending pulses through the tall grass, causing it to wave like an underwater kelp forest in a strong current. Now, however, it had relinquished its blooming majesty, its former radiance dulled to straw the color of a deerhide. The flowerheads were stripped of their colorful identities, appearing like sepia photographs of themselves; the ghosts of summer past. The sweetclover, which had extended from one horizon to the other back in June, covering the prairie in a blanket of gold, was now skeletonized, its broken-off stems rolling like tumbleweeds in the winter gales.

Trevor was over it. Another South Dakota winter, another four months until the snows would cease and the ice would melt in the creek. In March and April, the spring blizzards would bury the world and on the subsequent sunny days, the combination of blue sky and white land would be startling, like finding oneself living in the center of a bicolored flag.

But for now, a capricious midwinter thaw had left snowdrifts only in the prairie draws, on the north-facing ridges, in the shadows of the ponderosas that speckled the hills. And around the trailer, mud. In a few nights, a deep freeze would turn the sides of the tire ruts into knife edges, testing the suspension of any vehicle that took the approach too fast. Still, that was better than the loamy mud, which could imprison even a 4x4 until freezing cold or drying winds finally freed it.

The view from the front porch could be gorgeous. Back in July, when the church group from Virginia had constructed a wheelchair ramp for the trailer, the evening sun had set the prairie on fire, its light reflected by a thunderstorm hanging in the sky as if by a puppeteer’s strings. “God almighty,” the youth pastor had exclaimed. But now, grays and browns mingled in a decidedly drab palette. Over at the little bird feeder, the goldfinches were no longer yellow-and-black exclamation points, but had acquiesced to dullness, dressed for a time of year when vibrant color seemed to be outlawed by some unseen authority.

Trevor stared at the expanse of mud that spooled out from in front of the trailer and unwound into a ribbon that led over the hill toward the old sundance ground and, eventually, the paved road. He wondered if he would get out today. Always a calculation this time of year. Driving on the muddy channel that was his approach was out of the question; he would set a course across the grass, which would provide enough barrier to keep his tires from sinking in again. Two-tracks radiating out onto the prairie showed how many times he and his family had taken this course of action since the last snow.

It felt ironic that their approach took them by far the long way around – heading north to go south; harder than it needed to be, like so much of life around here. But the way south was blocked by Roanhorse Creek. This wasn’t all bad; the creek provided nice wading in the summer and water for the horses for most of the year. It also gave rise to the only trees on the property, although the cottonwoods whose leaves whispered in the summer breezes now stood dumb and impassive, and resembled skeletal wraiths at nighttime.

A horse would make it, of course. He could saddle up the buckskin, ride cross-country and be in town in twenty minutes. But that would be silly…he snorted at the ludicrousness of this thought. First of all, he had to go way beyond town today. And even if he were just going to his old job at the tribal building, was he supposed to just hitch it up outside for the day? Tie its reins to one of the smokers’ benches by the entrance? What was this, 1895? No, better not to risk TȟatéZi getting stolen or having some gang sign spraypainted on it or some shit. Besides, he needed to pull into his job interview looking halfway decent, not spattered with mud and smelling like horse sweat.

Trevor regarded his truck, sitting smack in the middle of the sloppy mess. Fuck, he thought.

Still, he didn’t really have a choice today. No job interview, no job. No job, no funds. Another calculation, but this one was straightforward. He went back into the trailer and made his way to his bedroom in the back, passing his brothers in the living room. One was sleeping on the couch and the other was crashed out in the recliner, oblivious to the flickering hearth of the muted TV. Let ‘em sleep today, Trevor thought.

In the bedroom, he stepped across piles of clothes – some clean, some dirty – and over the miscellany of his life; a pile of old DVDs, a defunct gaming console, a canister of Bugler and squares of broadcloth for the tobacco ties he was supposed to make for ceremony, a scattering of empty Mountain Dew cans, a 24-pack of ramen, a basketball.

He hunted around in his closet for the dressy clothes that he knew were there. He had worn them once, on the day of his high school graduation, three years before. And there they were; a purple button-down shirt, a solid black tie, and black chinos. Further rummaging found him a pair of brown loafers and a tan braided belt. He would look sharp for this interview – couldn’t hurt.

Trevor took a quick shower. The hot water always took forever to come and once it did, didn’t last long. He got dressed hurriedly, glad the tie that had come as a set with the shirt was a clip-on, and ran a comb through his hair. It wasn’t long enough to do much with other than backcomb it a little with some hair gel, but he figured that looked better than not. He considered putting in big stud earrings to look extra fly, but decided again it; might not be the right look for the occasion.

Now fully dressed and ready, Trevor took stock of his appearance. His summer tan was long gone and his skin was as pale as the white kids he had met during his one semester of college. The same change of season that had desaturated the prairie and garbed the birds in dull colors had undone all those days spent out in the badlands sun – working with the horses, swimming at the dam, helping keep fire at sundance. Too many French fur traders in his lineage. He recalled the book that his eighth grade teacher had assigned them – Part-time Indian or something – and thought, Yup, that’s me. Indian in the summer and wašiču in the winter, like changing plumage.

Trevor envied his brothers their melanin. He had learned that word in one of his college classes and now thought of it nearly every day. Travis was a rich brown complexion even in the dark days of midwinter. Trenton was in between the two but had jet-black Lakota hair and definitely looked “ethnic,” enough to be followed around stores in the border towns. Trevor knew it was his privilege to be exempt from such treatment, but it bugged him nonetheless. He hadn’t asked to be light-skinned. His brothers called him žiží – a reference to his tawny hair. They had gotten into scraps over this, and Trevor even bloodied Travis’ nose in one such altercation. Once one of them had even called Trevor a “half-breed” but Trevor retorted with “Fuck you, boy, you got the same blood as me. Fuckin’ dumbass.” This seemed to put the issue to rest.

Trevor’s brief stint at college had been at an out-of-state school, which now struck him as an ill-advised decision. At least South Dakotans had some experience with Natives. Even the East River kids had at least crossed paths with one at some point, and didn’t think of Indians as something from the pages of a dime novel. Trevor was the first Native in many years – maybe ever – to attend the small-town liberal arts college in a neighboring state. He thought the fact that the college was reasonably selective would mean that the students were smart enough not to ask dumb questions. He was wrong.

The queries were predictable enough, clichéd even; Are you really Indian? (Yes) Do you speak your language? (No) Did you get in because you’re Indian? (Who knows? I’m pretty smart and got good grades.) Does the college have admissions quotas for Indians? (If it did, you’d think more would go here.) What’s it like on the reservation? (I don’t know; different.) Do you prefer “Native American”? (I find the question annoying, to be honest.) Do you like Leslie Marmon Silko? (Who?) Have you seen Dances with Wolves? (Some of it.) Do you know a guy from Pine Ridge named Verdell? He used to work with my dad. (Maybe) His last name was something Horse. Running Horse? (No)

Fielding these questions was exhausting and added another layer of weariness and alienation to his college experience.

He found himself having to answer such inquiries from his roommate, classmates, professors, his R.A…Sometimes they were cloaked in well-meaning concern (I bet you get tired of all these questions, huh?) but they were always there. Most evenings, Trevor would retreat to his room and call his mom. His roommate, Skyler, a cross-country runner who was handsome in an unspectacular way and who monitored his water intake religiously, was hardly ever around. He seemed to have no trouble making friends in college and reveled in the social opportunities around him.

In his phone calls back home, Trevor found himself experiencing a homesickness that inhabited the pit of his stomach like a hunger pang. He had never been gone from home for that long. Really, his only trip away had been the summer before his senior year, to a weeklong STEM camp for Native kids that one of the state colleges had put on. But that had been with a half dozen other students from his high school. Here he was alone.

The subjects of their conversations would leave Trevor feeling a gravitational pull toward home: Trenton got into a fight at school and got suspended. Travis is drinking again. We had sweat for your auntie because they have to amputate her leg after all. Those dogs were back again. Everett hit $200 at the casino on Tuesday night but of course he put it all back in. They’re having a basketball tournament for that boy who got paralyzed in that wreck. Our hot water heater went out but uncle came and fixed it. They still haven’t found that Two Arrows girl that went missing. Travis wants to go up on the hill this spring – maybe that will get him to quit drinking.

Good news, bad news, mundane news…The latter tugged at him the most. Like many who grew up on Pine Ridge, he had a love-hate relationship with the reservation. It was the home of his people after all, and could be so beautiful (“God’s country,” as it was called by even those who had no time for the white man’s God). But the hardships, the tragedies, the death…it all wore away at your spirit, hardened you. Still, the news of day-to-day life going on in his absence; a school powwow, a bingo tournament, tribal council drama, rumors of a Dairy Queen opening. It made him miss home in an ineffable way.

The last vestige of his indecision evaporated after a particular conversation in the lounge of his dorm. He had been sitting on a beanbag chair, discussing random topics with two friends (at least, he considered them friends, in some ill-defined adolescent way). They had all left a dull party that hadn’t livened up even after a couple of drinks, but still felt heady and obligated to prolong the night a little longer. So, they were shooting the shit, in a garishly-lit common space that smelled of burnt popcorn, and Trevor was feeling rather collegiate. An off-campus party, late-night conversation; weren’t these the trappings of university life that he had seen in teen movies, if a much more prosaic version?

Kayleigh, tipsy off Jäger bombs, started the chain of events that would unravel his college experience with a simple, but pointed question: “How Indian are you, anyway?”

Colton snorted at this comment. “Kay, you can’t just ask that!” But he was clearly more amused than disapproving.

“You mean like my blood quantum or what?” Trevor asked.

“Is that what you guys call it?” said Kay, now playing the innocent party. “I just mean, like, you say you’re Indian, I mean like I know you are, like, I know you are on paper…” The alcohol was causing her to trip over her words but she plowed on. “I mean like, okay, if I were to like, run into you on the street…” Kay was now gesturing expansively, as if the meaning of what she was saying wasn’t explicit from words alone. “Like, I wouldn’t be like, ‘Damn, look at that Indian,’ right? I’d just assume you were a white guy. I mean you know what I mean? Ugh, I’m not making sense.”

She was making perfect sense. Colton looked embarrassed, and for a second, Trevor thought he might shut Kay down. But instead, his inhibition similarly worn down by a few shots of German 70-proof, he followed suit. “I think what Kay’s drunk ass is trying to say is, like, your ancestors are Indians, right, like in the history books. Like Geronimo or whatever. But do you consider yourself one of them? Or are you, like, their descendant?”

Trevor could feel the ball of rage growing within him, a sea urchin radiating spikes in his gut. Stop talking, he thought. Just stop talking.

Colton continued, heedlessly. “Okay, so like I’m Irish but I’m not like Irish Irish, like a leprechaun or some shit. Like my ancestors…”

Trevor stood up, his fists balled. He was now stone-cold sober but his anger was its own intoxicant. “It’s none of your fucking business. It’s none of your business what the fuck I am!” He was shouting; he couldn’t help it. He picked up a half-empty can of PBR and threw it at the wall, slamming the door to the lounge on his way out. The sudsy contents of the can leaked onto the ugly orange dorm carpet, as Kayleigh and Colton sat in stunned silence.

“Jesus,” said Colton finally. “Just trying to ask an honest question.”

After that, Trevor had holed up in his room for a few days, skipping classes and avoiding other students. When he told his mom he was dropping out, she hardly sounded surprised. He knew she would be glad to have him back home; the prodigal son returning. Trevor, the one who had his shit together, who had gone to a STEM camp and was almost salutatorian. He knew she thought that once he got back, he could do what she couldn’t; get Travis on a better path, bring another income to the household, fix what needed to be fixed around the trailer, shoot at the stray dogs when they came around. It would all fall to him. His failure was their blessing; they would lean on him as long as he could stand.

So here we fucking go, he now thought, patting his gel-stiffened hair and giving himself one last hazel-eyed glance in the mirror. Gotta get that bread. His brief stint at the tribal building hadn’t panned out. He was a good worker but wet weather made his road too sloppy to get out easily. Too many latenesses had translated into a pink slip. “Shit man we all got bad roads. Gotta leave earlier,” his boss had said.

So, lesson learned, he was giving himself extra time getting ready for this interview. Really, the lady had just told him to come by “around mid-morning,” so he’d probably be okay. The job was off-rez, down at the county livestock auction and sale barn in one of the closest border towns, “white towns,” as Ridgers called it. It was mostly going to be paperwork – inventory and itemizing and that kind of shit – but it was decent pay and Trevor hoped that he could transition over to working with the animals before long. On most days, he preferred their company to dumbass people.

Grabbing his bag, Trevor stuck the loafers inside with his other miscellany. He would need to wear his cowboy boots across the muddy expanse between the bottom step of the porch and the door to his Blazer so he jammed his feet into them. Outside, he walked gingerly so as not to stain his black slacks with muck. Once in the driver’s seat, he figured he would leave the boots on for the drive, since they were already smearing mud on the floor liner, and in case he got stuck and needed to get out. Trevor knew that the people who worked at the sale barn were as countrified as he was and wouldn’t judge muddy boots under most circumstances, but he also knew that being from Pine Ridge meant he had to put his best foot forward, literally in this case.

Trevor fired up the Blazer, put it in four low, and gunned it. His tires found grip and he jerked along, slimy divots of earth spattering his windows and roof like hail. His windshield wipers left a pasty smear that obscured much of his view, but he practically knew the way by feel. As soon as he could, he bumped up onto the grass, gopher holes and clumps of prairie bluestem jolting his ride, testing what was left of his suspension. When he finally hit the pavement, the smoothness was startling as it always was, like a TV being suddenly muted, like silence after a door slamming.

He cruised through town, passing the gas station, the other gas station, the commod building, the quonset hut, the old BIA headquarters…and turned south into Nebraska. He tried to ignore the persistent squeal under the hood that had gotten worse lately. The overcast sky reflected the dullness of the land – as below, so above – and Trevor alternated between zoning out and counting hawks on telephone poles. A handful of miles south of the border, the vehicle gave a jolt and Trevor felt a temporary loss of control. He hit the brakes and steered toward the shoulder, but the Blazer was suddenly steering like an army tank. Fuck, he whispered.

Once he wrestled Blazer off the road, Trevor got out and popped the hood. He already knew what he would find under the rising steam. “Fucking serpentine belt,” he hissed to the universe. Trevor was good with cars but he didn’t have the tools for this fix. Luckily, he thought, out here in the country, somebody who did would be by soon. Lots of Natives on this road, maybe even a cousin would happen by who could at least give him a ride to town. Trevor thought of calling his dad’s brother Everett on his cell, but figured he’d give it a bit. He hated the thought of owing Uncle Ev anything.

Sure enough, in a few minutes, a gunmetal gray truck passed by slowly, hit a u-turn, and pulled up behind him. Trevor felt a twinge of envy over this late-model Dodge Ram MegaCab with duallies. It had county plates on it, so the cowboy-hatted driver was a local guy, and as he got out, his Carhartt overalls and mud-caked boots identified him as a rancher.

“Trouble?” MegaCab asked, giving Trevor an easy smile.

“Serpentine belt busted,” said Trevor, unconsciously smoothing out his rez accent in favor of a more neutral affectation. Code-switching – another term he had learned at college (by the professor who asked him if he prefers “Native American”).

“No shit, huh?” MegaCab considered this information. “I got nothing for that but I could give you a ride somewhere. You call anyone? Someone coming after you?”

“No,” said Trevor. “I’m trying to get down to the sale barn for a job interview.”

MegaCab looked at Trevor as if for the first time. “Oh ok so that’s why you’re all fancied up. Well, hop in if you don’t mind leaving it here.”

Trevor considered this. He was off the rez so there was less of a chance that the Blazer would end up with busted windows or slashed tires. And he was eager to get his interview over and done with.

Before he could answer, MegaCab added “I have to stop in Whiteclay first but then I’ll take you down.”

This was only a few miles out of the way so Trevor assented and climbed into the rancher’s idling behemoth. It still retained some new-truck smell, mixed with a tinge of manure and rich earth. Really, it was almost luxurious.

MegaCab flipped a u-ey again and headed back north toward Whiteclay. Formerly notorious for copious alcohol sales to people from the dry reservation whose border it sat on, Whiteclay’s package stores had been shuttered after the state had revoked their liquor licenses following years of protests over their depredatory business model. Now, it was just a town of a couple small stores and fewer than a dozen permanent residents, its streets empty of vagrants, its ghosts banished.

“So, you from Hot Springs?”

Trevor momentarily wondered where this question had come from, and then remembered that he had 27-plates on the Blazer – Fall River County, a relic of when he bought the car from a white lady over there. He had kept the off-county registration because the plates were far less likely to get you pulled over off-rez than the infamous 65s of Oglala Lakota County.

MegaCab continued without waiting for an answer. “I used to go up to Hot Springs a lot when my dad was in the V.A. hospital up there. Nice town.”

“Yup, it’s pretty nice,” said Trevor, wondering if he would have to sustain this small talk the whole way.

Luckily, MegaCab took it from there, reminiscing about his high school football team dealing Hot Springs a particularly lopsided loss, and then they were at Whiteclay. Trevor played around on his phone while his driver of the moment went into the little grocery store. He looked up his old roommate Skyler on Facebook (why, he didn’t know; certainly not to friend him) and then Googled “Pine Ridge South Dakota Dairy Queen” just to see if there was any truth to that rumor.

MegaCab returned with some mail – Trevor had forgotten that there was a little post office in there – and they turned south toward Rushville.

Two miles and five hawks-on-telephone-poles into their trip, MegaCab got chatty again:

“I still can’t believe that the state revoked the liquor licenses. They had no legal right to do that of course, but just like everyone else these days, they bowed to the pressure from liberal special interest groups. Those store owners – my brother was one of them – followed the damn law to a T but still got their rights taken away. They’re the real victims in all of this.”

Trevor, whose father was found dead in Whiteclay when Trevor was ten years old, didn’t answer.

“You know it’s just going to push the problem down the road. These Indians are gonna get their liquor one way or another. You guys must see that all the time up in Hot Springs.”

These Indians. You guys. Trevor suddenly recognized MegaCab’s presumption, and wondered when if he should correct it.

“If they wanted to buy millions of cans of beer in Whiteclay every year and drink themselves to death, shit, I say let ‘em. It’s a free country, right? Those AIM types are always going on about Native rights and shit, y’know? Well shit, you have the right to drink and die if you want. Not saying that I want that for those people or anything, but the nanny state can’t be protecting everyone from problems of their own making.”

Trevor, whose brother had first gotten jailed for drunk and disorderly at age 14, two years after their father died, said nothing.

MegaCab continued to rhapsodize about “the Indians” and their problems, adopting the tone of an expert, one who knew all about them. Trevor felt the blood rise to his face. Some coloration at least, he thought darkly. In the pit of his stomach, the sea urchin had returned to stab at his insides. What must it be like, he wondered, to live a life in which people aren’t constantly telling you who you are, naming your characteristics like symptoms, trying to trap you like a spirit in a photograph?

The Blazer came in sight on the shoulder ahead. “Can you let me out at my ride?” Trevor asked, his voice hardly recognizable to his own ear, like hearing himself talk underwater.

“Sure, you need to grab something out of it?” said MegaCab, reluctantly pausing his diatribe.

“No it’s okay,” replied Trevor, “I’m gonna call someone to come help me fix this after all.” He fiddled with his phone as if to underscore this intention.

“Well, if you’re sure,” said MegaCab. “And hey,” he added as Trevor stepped down onto the running board. “You be careful around here. One of these rezzers might see you here all by yourself and try to mess you or your car up. And watch out for drunk drivers. You just never know with these Indians.” MegaCab gave a serious nod to accentuate this show of concern. Then he wished Trevor luck and drove off.

Trevor watched the truck recede into the distance until it was merely a gray speck between the monochrome earth and the steely sky. He sat down in the cold front seat of the Blazer and looked into the rearview mirror. Hazel eyes stared back at him under a pale forehead. Fuck it, he thought; people are dumbasses. Let ‘em believe what they want; that he was from Hot Springs, that could be was related to that Apache, Geronimo, that he was only Indian on paper. Trevor saw what they didn’t; the hidden depths beneath the surface, and in their faces, in the spaces between their words, their ignorance displayed like a tattoo.

In another minute or two, he would call Uncle Ev for a ride. In another hour or two, he would be offered a job at the sale barn that would bring another income into his household (and buy him a new serpentine belt). In another day or two, he would finally finish the tobacco ties for ceremony, at which he would pray for Travis’ sobriety and his auntie’s diabetes. In another month or two, the lengthening of the days would be unmistakable.

Spring would come as it always had, first heralded by a single meadowlark piercing the predawn silence with his song. This would be followed by a green sprig on the prairie, pushing up, perhaps, through snow. Then a cluster of pasqueflowers appearing suddenly on a hillside, a skein of geese overhead, sheet lightning on the horizon. Small miracles, one after another. Finally, color would surge back into the world like paint scintillating on a canvas, causing goldfinches to glow like stars and evening thunderheads to stand like towering fires.

The brilliant Dakota sunlight would stoke the melanin in Trevor’s skin, and nobody would mistake who he was. He would go up on the hill for two days and nights with Travis that spring, and Trenton would keep fire for them. He would pray for the coming year, for the survival of his people, for enough blessings to outweigh the hardships. And there, among a sea of undulating green, facing the crimson blaze of sunrise, he would again know himself and find the strength to carry on, in the face of all the peculiar indignities of this world.

submitted by /u/PrairieChild [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/33fx51H

[icxcnika]

Preface: I was not a part of nor did I know about the Orthodox Church during the experience described below.

I experienced what I’ve come to understand as a powerful conversion to Christianity (aka. I “got saved” or “born again”). At that time, roughly halfway through my sophomore year of high school (16 years old, early 1994), a childhood friend shared with me the Gospel of Jesus Christ over the phone. I had never heard anyone talk about experiencing God like he did. Though raised in the Lutheran church, I didn’t know what I believed and had never thought much about it. I loved my friend and so listened to him, and took to heart what he shared. He instructed me to pray that night and to ask Jesus to come in to heart and save me. As I prayed, God’s presence suddenly became real. I was aware of His love for me and that I was in desperate need of Him and His salvation. My life radically changed that night. Suddenly church sermons and services that used to be drudgery were alive as my soul drank in the spiritual food I desperately craved and needed.

At the end of the summer that year I encountered an older teen preaching and talking about Jesus with zeal and passion in a parking lot after an end-of-summer/back to school event. He convinced me to go to church with him the next day and on the way told me about “charismatic experiences” such as the “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” At the end of the sermon, I sped to the front of the church at the alter call. I felt the spirit of God flood me with a joy and elation like never before. I left the church that night “baptized in the holy spirit” with a sense of aliveness, love and fire for God, and a newfound zeal that I could barely contain.

Roughly 10 months later this joyous, wondrous new life abruptly abated as I, like a climber in crisis, lost his grip while attempting to scale a cliff. I was 17 years old and it was the summer of 1995. The pastor of my church at the time asked me to house-sit while he and his family went out of town. I welcomed the opportunity since I had a crush on his daughter and wanted to make a good impression. I piously thought I was going to spend that week in solitude, in the presence of God for rejuvenation and spiritual growth. My experience turned out to be quite different. I woke up in their house that morning to see them off and to receive final instruction on chores and oversight of the property. After they left I tried to go back to bed and awakened later that morning from broken sleep in agony. I found myself in my pastor’s house with a feeling of tangible despair, even terror. The emotional pain that was suddenly there seemed almost physical. I had a deep sense of hopelessness, of overwhelming doom, guilt and sadness. It was as if suddenly an impenetrable wall separated me from any real enjoyment. I spent that week frantic, begging God to deliver me. All of the confidence in the one thing that was sure, the one thing that provided me a real sense of purpose, hope and meaning seemed suddenly gone. It felt like God had taken his Spirit from me.

I spent the remainder of that summer feeling awful in a kind of desperate state, which I started thinking of as a spiritual desert of sorts; anything to make sense of what was going on and how terrible I felt. I spoke to few about what I was experiencing because I didn’t understand it and I didn’t know what to say or how to describe suddenly feeling so bad. On the outside I seemed fine to most (I’m not one to sulk) and there was nothing going on in my life (ex. death of a loved one, sickness, financial stress, exams etc. etc.) externally to warrant such misery. My mom said something to me after she noticed my new regimen of ibuprofen, which I had started in attempt to treat a dull headache that wouldn’t go away. That headache ended up lasting for years.

My parents eventually took me to a psychiatrist during my senior year of high school but treatment for depression (starting a regimen of antidepressant medication) seemed ineffective (after only a few weeks) and was discontinued. Other psychiatric interventions (resuming psychotropic medication) years later resulted in minimal relief though I wouldn’t say it was completely ineffective. In all I spent the rest of high school, all of college, and the first few years of my post college working life in this crippling depression. In total it lasted over 7 years. I was miserable. Internally, my emotional and social resources were near absent, and I wondered where God was in the middle of all this. Romantic relationships became most difficult and seemed to exacerbate the pain I was already feeling. During college, I would spend hours in a windowless room in the library praying, reading the bible, seeking and even begging for a way out, for deliverance. I was terrified of the overwhelming prospect of the future; how was I going to care for and support myself in the world while existing on the brink of such overwhelming emotional dysfunction? I was barely hanging on and I felt any moment the depression would push me over the brink. One night in the shower I threw every cuss word I could think of at God for not helping me and allowing me to remain in this terrible state. I felt guilty for it but then again I always felt bad, always felt guilty and broken, and always felt trapped within myself.

Toward the end of college, I found a somewhat enjoyable and fulfilling outlet serving in a local church youth group as a volunteer leader where I was able to reach out and befriend some “misfit” high school kids that were unchurched and intrigued with the youth group. Some years later after graduating from college, I remember going on a retreat with them to Panama City Beach. I don’t remember why, but weeks before I had stopped taking my psychiatric medication. I remember riding home with the group in one of a few 12 passenger vans when my depression seemed to tumble to new lows. I remember the whole way home wanting to tare open the van door and throw myself out onto the interstate as it zipped by. It seemed I was trapped in this thought. I was so miserable and I started to believe the only way to alleviate the pain was to die. The next day after returning home I got my loaded revolver and seriously considered shooting myself. Instead, I called my dad who also struggled with depression (I learned), and he took me to the hospital. I wasn’t admitted because I “didn’t feel bad enough” to hurt myself anymore after confiding in my dad.

I think it was at this time that I started a new medication. I had low expectations for its effectiveness after years of unhelpful treatment. I thought for years that this was my new reality but deep down still had a glimmer of hope that things might somehow get better. I remember exactly where I was when things abruptly changed. I was at work (my first job after college, working in a mailroom) completing an in-office mail delivery when suddenly I didn’t feel depressed anymore. The hopelessness, the misery, the overwhelming anxiety, the headache all seemed to lift. Things had finally changed. I finally felt better.

I’m 42 now. Through my experience, I’ve learned and come to realize depression is an illness that doesn’t necessary have anything to do with life circumstances, though life circumstances can certainly exacerbate and induce depression. I think depression is sometimes triggered by things like romantic relationships and religious stress because these things are among the most emotionally loaded experiences we have in life, and depression is an illness that affects the emotions. Gillian Crow says in her biography about Metropolitan Anthony that “he was very, very wary of emotions. In his eyes it was something false, easily manipulated, a dangerous substitute for feeling – that deep movement of the heart that responds to God but is not swayed by externals.” Through all this I hope I have developed a soberer perspective about my emotions. I do still struggle with melancholy and I can tell my depression is still there even though I feel better, and I must respect it and acknowledged it as the illness (MY illness) it is. Moreover, I must prioritize treatment for this illness.

For the most part I’ve stopped asking “why.” Why did this happen? What did I do to make this happen, to bring this on myself? Did God do this? Why did God allow this? Is this just a chemical imbalance? Is this just an inherited biological disposition? Was this the other side of some hypomanic, emotional religious experience? I rarely wonder these things anymore. I believe God was always there, loving and seeing me through all of this, even if only in retrospect. Abbot Tryphon recently said in one of his Morning Offering podcasts that God is not far removed from us. We only feel He is absent. The awareness of God's presence in our lives comes with struggle. I also believe the so-called silver lining of the thing is vaster than I can see and understand. I once believed I was called to be a pastor, to be someone “great,” and I think after some of my spiritual experiences I started to develop a degree of prelest or spiritual delusion and pride. To whatever extent my battle with depression has and continues to help develop a less judgmental attitude, humility, and a sense of need for God I am grateful. In her book Path to Sanity (which I HIGHLY recommend), Dee Pennock says “With spiritual and psychological problems, we don’t want to allow other people to label things for us saying, ‘this is a good thing,’ or ‘that is a bad thing.’ We want always to check with our physicians of the soul.Depression is commonly seen nowadays as a bad thing. Everybody jumps on that. It’s not always true. Feeling unhappy, even profoundly depressed, has never been considered unnatural or inappropriate by the saints.” She continues, “The first thing, for a person with chronic depression, then, is to pray vigorously: Deliver me from Pride and give me self-knowledge, to climb out of the blindness and confusion of ignorance. And next to pray: Lord Jesus Chris, deliver me from believing and obeying idols. Idols are tyrants, laying false obligations and cruel evaluations on those they control. Idols paralyze their victims with mind crippling stress and hopelessness. It’s essential to pray until we’re rid of all their brain-washing.” I assure you I will be praying these prayers for the rest of my life. I often feel like damaged emotional goods, like I’m incapable in so many ways and emotionally wounded, but I know through the Orthodox Church and Her wonderful theology and perspective on suffering that God loves us and that He is there loving us no matter what happens. We must never give up, never give into despair! There is effective treatment. Please, if you are battling what seems like endless depression and hopelessness get help and don’t give up on treatment. Yes, the process can sometimes be long and arduous but things will get better! Please pray for me, a sinner that bears the cross of depression. Thanks for reading.

Reese Martin

[itsworn]

The Time is NOW to Get Kids Into Cars!

In the January 2018 issue, the editor’s column and a story inside the magazine introduced readers to young Frankie Waters and her passion for her 1967 Mustang fastback project. That story and column elicited more comments than we’ve gotten in quite some time, showing that it hit a real nerve about saving our automotive hobby and industry by getting young people off their cell phones, out in the garage, and interested in cars and, hopefully, Mustangs.

This month’s cover story is on the Rebuilding Generations program that does just that—gets kids working with adults to build cars while teaching the generations about each other. Kids and adults alike learn new things through the program under the guise of mentorship, and great cars come out of it as well. It’s a real win-win. This story is meant to show more real-world examples of young people and their passion for Mustangs using their own words and pictures. We started it off with the story of Timothy Baba and his two daughters as they restored a Mach 1 (which you may have seen on Mustang-360.com back in December).

Papa’s Race Car J.M. McLain, from Lake Elsinore, California, wrote in to tell us about his grandson, who already has the Mustang bug. He said, “Our grandson, Jacob, has been a Mustang enthusiast since he was a toddler. He would go out to the garage with Papa and work on Papa’s ‘race car.’ The ‘race car’ is really a 1965 fastback that has been on the project list for over 20 years after the framerail ended up in the trunk compartment. It’s a work in progress but holds a special place in our grandson’s heart and mind.”

Jacob doesn’t live very close to his grandparents anymore, but his grandfather said, “He still remembers working on ‘Papa’s race car.’ He visited us a few months ago and he was out in the garage ready to work on the Mustang with his grandpa. He is eight years old now and is anxious to learn more about Mustangs and cars in general. He and grandpa decided it would be cool to get the car running so they could hear it rumble. Jacob was grinning from ear to ear. Because of his great love of Mustangs, we ordered him his very own subscription to Mustang Monthly so he and grandpa can look at it together across the physical miles that separate them now. He also learned how to change a tire. Grandpa taught him how to remove the lug nuts, jack the car up, use jackstands and place the tire under the car for safety, rotate the tires properly, and tighten the lug nuts in the star pattern. It gives his grandpa great pleasure that the disappearing desire for working on muscle cars is still strong in Jacob.”

Making Memories Together Joey Burkman read the Hoofbeats column on HotRod.com and wrote to say, “It had me reflecting back on so many memories from my youth, building cars and friendships. Late nights in the garage with buddies firing up the latest engine build at 2:00 in the morning to break in the engine…no, the neighbors weren’t very appreciative of that, to say the least.

“The reason for my email is to talk about my son Logan who turned 16 this past June. He currently has his learner’s permit and he is very enthusiastic about cars. He purchased his first car over this past summer from the money he saved from his part-time job, a 1991 Mustang GT. We’re no strangers to Mustangs here as I’ve owned several over the years. He currently has it in the garage ready to pull the engine to deal with the oil leaks, and the plan is to swap out the AOD for a manual. While it’s up we’ll also address the almost 30-year-old suspension. The car sat for a number of years, the paint is faded—quite badly actually—but the interior is very clean and the ashtray door works! It’s hard to believe looking at it from the outside that it only has 86,000 miles on it. We continue to source parts for it and have hit a few swap meets, which has been a huge help. The memories we’re making and the time we’re spending together on his car are priceless. I hope that one day when he has his own son he’ll look back and remember all the great times we’ve shared.”

Mechanically Inclined Kids Are Still Around, and I’m the Proud Parent of One! Linda Cocce of Wayland, Massachusetts, says:

“My son John became fascinated with my ’64½ Mustang at a young age. He would have slept in it if allowed. To keep him happy I made him a Mustang bedroom with a custom rug, comforter, curtains with radio knob ties, and later he added Chip Foose signed Mustang emblems to the wall. He read everything he could about Mustangs, especially Mustang Monthly.

“If the Mustang was going in for service he was there trying to help. He was like a sponge—he wanted to know how everything worked; luckily, we had a very patient mechanic who would take the time to explain things to him. This just piqued his interest even more.

“He never had an X-box, computer games, or was allowed to watch TV during the day, so for fun he played outside with friends or used his tools to fix something. His fascination with motors continued, and soon other people’s discarded machines filled the garage. He would take them apart to see how they worked and make a new contraption out of the parts. By age 15 he started his own lawn care business. When his machines broke down, he’d fix them himself. This led to John repairing broken go-karts, mowers, chain saws, etc. for people in our town.

“He is 21 now, studying to be a mechanical engineer. During his summers, he works in his landscape business, fixes machines, and works as a mechanic in a garage. The first thing he packs when heading off to college in the fall are his tools!”

Johnny and the “very patient” mechanic Tom Morrell (from Butch & Son Automotive in Sudbury, MA) in the garage.

Installing carpet at a young age.

Helping a friend work on their car.

How cool would it be to wear a Mustang shirt in a Ferrari museum?

A Ford Family Through and Through The Hamilton Family lives in Eastern Oregon and are dyed-in-the-wool Ford people, with all the kids into building their own Fords, including a few Mustangs and Mavericks. The family patriarch Marvin wrote, “I was glad to see other families doing what we have been doing for years. I have five children (four daughters and one son) and all have received an old Ford at the age of 13 and began the process of tearing down and rebuilding on their own car. We have three Mustangs (a ’67, ’72 and ’73), two Mavericks (’75 and ’72 Grabber), and a 1967 F100 Stepside truck. My son Marvin is the second to oldest and he has been there for every car from day one. He has an amazing thirst for knowledge and a big heart. My daughters Cassie, Neali’i, Nive, Teelay, and Lani have also had the thrill of their first car and the pain of busting their knuckles on a flywheel (that is how you learn). I have been blessed to see how they have taken what they have been taught and use it to diagnose and repair an engine problem. I have also gotten my wife, Tile (pronounced “TEE lay”), into the game. The kids and I pulled together and built her a beautiful 1997 convertible with three-stage paint, and I had her in the 100-plus summer heat swapping out the top.”

“We are Hawaiian and Samoan; we do great BBQ and have fun with cars. We attend an awesome church where there are members with more Ford parts stored in their houses and out buildings than in Detroit, and our pastor always works his ’65 Mustang into the sermon one way or another. We are all about trade at the church and I have traded paintwork, beef jerky, BBQ (I make the best), and child labor for parts. If my kids need a part or something they want but don’t have they look to them for trade and go work for the part or the help fixing it. Not only do they learn the love of cars they learn community and the value of ‘trade’ (trade is a lost art). So many memories to share with my wife and kids and their cars.”

The Hamilton Family

The oldest daughter Cassie found her 1973 Mustang on a Facebook posting. Her dad said, “She sold her VW bug (that we built together) in a week and prayed the car was still for sale. We got it home and cleaned up and color-matched the copper to the repaired fenders. Then on her graduation day my son smashed into her car with his Maverick and mashed the passenger door and fender. My daughter went on a mission to Samoa after graduation and my son promised to have the repairs done before she came back. While pulling the fender and doing repairs my son asked, ‘Do we have the stuff to paint the whole car? We can do a full color change!’ That boy spent the next week and a half in 100-plus degree temps sanding and pulling dents and fixing old problems along the way. One picture you see him throwing down the black 2K. We shot the car in the garage and you can see it and my ’72 in gray. She is 22 now and has an Explorer after selling her ’73, which she totally regrets now.”

The kids and their Mavericks. The Hamilton’s house has “been the demise of many Granadas, Monarchs, and four-door Mavericks” used as parts cars. All cars have had Granada disc brake upgrades and were converted from a four-bolt lug drum to a five-bolt disc and matching rearend.

Keali’i is now 16 but got her car at 13. Her proud papa said, “She loves rolling up at her high school with that orange one-of-a-kind ’72 Grabber that she put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into (she is an Oregon Beavers fan, so now you get the colors).

Nive (age 14) is in the initial stages of her 1967 F100 build (she had to be different). She has the bed off of it and is using the garage and winter to set herself up great for spring. Dad said, “We have a set of old school turbines that are going to be powdercoated crimson red and it will be a flat black with crimson red scallops. She made that call and I am all good with it.”

Lastly you see a 1987 GT and a 1967 hardtop. Dad said, “My children and I spent several years building that ’87 for the wife and gave it to her on her birthday. She drove it a year, then one day at church one of our church members showed up in a ’66 coupe and that was it. She wanted a classic. Now I am about to start with her car.”

The Longest Summer of All Time Tommy Ratatsidis has been into cars his entire life, saying it started when he was a toddler, “My friends call me obsessed. I think it’s in my blood. My mom and dad bought a brand-new 1988 LX hatch when they got married, and when I was 3-4 years old my dad would street race his 1978 Cobra and my mom would take me to watch him race his LX. My dad always had Mustangs growing up.”

Dad’s stable included the ’78 Cobra, as well as a 1971 Boss 351 clone, a ’78 King Cobra, a ’73 Mach 1, an ’88 coupe, “and many in between.” When Tommy was 15, he worked at a car wash for the summer and saved everything he could to find a project car. He said, “I had my heart set on a 1969 SportsRoof. I would have settled for a shell, then work from there. Every week the Auto Trader would come to the shop and I would go through it on my break and the prices for first-generation Mustangs were starting to climb and climb and the cars were junk—rotten garbage cars for too much money. Then one day I was skimming through the pages and found an ad for an original-owner 1978 that ‘had to be seen’ according to the ad. I got home that day and told my dad, ‘You need to drive me to see a car!’”

With a mere $500 in his pocket and expecting to find a basket case, the car turned out to be clean and spotless with no filler and Tommy asked his dad what he thought. “He turned to me and said, ‘This is your car and your money, go make a deal.’ So [the owner and I] went to the backyard patio table and I told him I only had $500. He gave a look that said, ‘Do you know how much the car is worth?’ I told him I’d work all summer and could make $1,500 to $1,700 maximum, and he said $1,500 was enough. I offered to give him the $500 as a deposit and he said, ‘No, the car will go back in the garage with your name on it.’ We shook hands and went on our way. It was the longest summer of all time. I worked and made money and phoned him every two weeks to update him on how much more money I had. Finally at the end of August I got to go pick up the car. I couldn’t drive of course, so my dad drove it home but I couldn’t have been happier. Right away I yanked the four-cylinder drivetrain out to make room for a 351 Cleveland and automatic.”

Tommy later swapped the gas-guzzling Cleveland for a 302 and five-speed combo that he blew up street racing, so now the car has a 5.0 EFI engine from a 1989 Mustang GT and a Vortech blower. He also just added a 1978 Cobra to the stable, saying, “Now I have a newborn and wanted a project for her when she’s older, so we picked up a clean ’78 Cobra originally from Texas that had been sitting in a garage since 1983. My brother followed my footsteps and bought his first car when he was 15, a 1974 Mach 1. He’s 17 now and works incredibly hard and has a 1991 Fox coupe and a 1987 Bronco. We love our Fords; it’s in our blood.”

Tommy Ratatsidis at 17 with his first Mustang, a 1978 coupe.

The green coupe has had pretty much everything done to it and sees occasional dragstrip duty with an ’89 5.0 and a Vortech supercharger.

The Ratatsidis family. This baby girl probably already has Ford-blue blood in her!

Tommy’s brother and his LX coupe in the summer of 2017.

The Top of His Class Don Cort wrote to tell us, “My wife and I recently purchased a Mustang for our son, Donny. He then taught himself, with my help, and worked through to complete a ground-up restoration of this 1966 Mustang GT hardtop. He stripped and restored the entire car by himself. He rebuilt the 289 engine and four-speed transmission, completely stripped the body, straightened it, then painted it and then reassembled the entire car with a full detailed nut-and-bolt restoration. He worked through the entire interior (bench seat car), wiring, and suspension as well. Essentially, the 15 year-old completed the entire project himself with some guidance in a year and learned incredible skill along the way, which put him at the top of his entire school’s automotive class as a freshman/sophomore. I offer this as an example of what is possible with our younger generation if opportunities are available. The pride, knowledge, and skills he gained were incredible and I could only hope you may find it in your best interest to reflect this in your fine magazine so others may see the light and opportunities available to the younger generation which may occupy their minds with something other than a video game, a cell phone, and the rest of time-wasting devices which so many are lost in.”

Absolutely Mr. Cort!

The post The Time is NOW to Get Kids Into Cars! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/time-now-get-kids-cars/ via IFTTT

[rose-sisson]

Hey guys! So if you've read my past two posts, you would've heard two major ideas God's laid on my heart. One being on the impact prayer can have. Another being on judging with God's judgment, not ours. Well today, I'm starting a new series that pulls both ideas together to make a new point: Don't question the process. This phrase has stayed with me for a long time. Whenever I was irritated at someone, or I cringed at my own past, I would hear this phrase repeated 'Don't question the process'. It would give me an urge to forgive someone or to forgive my past self for whatever transgression. But why? What does it mean? It simply means this: God is working through each and every one of us, through a very specific process. If God is working to do something great, who am I to question it? If you don't know Job, Job was a man who faithfully followed God. But Satan swept in and took away everything Job had. And Job begins to question why God let all that happen. Job 38:1-5 says, "Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid out the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line?" Skip a bunch of tricky questions down to 40:1-2, "Then the Lord said to Job, 'Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God's critic, but do you have the answers?'" These are some pretty rash words, but they hit Job in the right spot. Job replies in 40:4-5, "'I am nothing--how could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say." Job recognizes that he doesn't have all the answers, and sees that God does. Now for this series, in particular, we will be going through the book of Exodus. I've watched the DreamWorks animation and the VeggieTales retelling of the story. And Moses seems to be the perfect fit to outline this series. I mean, he did crazy things for God. He partnered with God to free his people from slavery and served as a great messenger. He had a tight relationship with God, but he didn't start out awesome overnight. Like all the greats, Moses had to go through a process. So let's go ahead and get started. Exodus starts off with setting the scene: the Hebrews were being enslaved by the Egyptians. But the Hebrews were growing in numbers. So to keep them under control, the Pharaoh had all the Hebrew baby boys drowned in the Nile. Exodus 2:1-6, "A man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and had a son. She saw there was something special about him and hid him. She hid him for three months. When she couldn't hide him any longer she got a little basket-boat made of papyrus, waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and placed the child in it. Then she set it afloat in the reeds at the edge of the Nile. The baby's older sister found herself a vantage point a little way off and watched to see what would happen to him. Pharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile to bathe her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it. She opened it and saw the child--a baby crying! Her heart went out for him. She said, 'This must be one of the Hebrew babies.'" This was the beginning of Moses' story. What intrigues me is that his story began addressing the problem of the Hebrews and then it introduces Moses. So let's talk about the problem. We know the Hebrews are being enslaved. But their problem was much deeper than that. To start, God made the world. God made a perfect place for Adam and Eve to live with him. But Adam and Eve sinned against God. They chose their own way instead of following God. As a result, they received the stain of sin. Sin separated them from God, separates us from God. So God launches a plan to redeem us. This plan starts with Abraham. Now, Abraham was promised three things: descendants that outnumber the sand, a land just for them, and that they will bring a blessing for the whole world. Abraham had achieved bearing a son, and his family was growing fast. And they knew what land God was going to give them, Canaan. However, Canaan was still inhabited by Canaanites. And as time passes, the situation doesn't seem to get better. After all, they're enslaved by Egyptians begging God to deliver them to the promised land. But God understood fully that this was the problem. He understood this well before we could. And so God gave them baby Moses. In other words, Moses was born to be used as a vessel to solve this problem. God could've handled it any other way, sure. But it's what Moses was born to do, and then some. So today's point is simple: There is a process. I think as Christians it's easy to push people aside who don't agree with our religion. It's especially easy to push aside people who hurt us and hurt God. Richard Dawkins is a world-renowned atheist. He made several books discussing how he believes God isn't real. But would you believe me if I said that God's going through a process with him as well? Sure right now he's refusing God with all his might, and as much as I'd hate it he might go to Hell. And that would be his choice! But God's still fighting for him in ways we can't understand. It may look like Richard Dawkins is forever fighting God, and he may. But tomorrow isn't here yet. Only God knows whether or not Richard Dawkins is going to heaven or hell. However even though there's a chance he might end up in hell, we can't question God's activity around him. It's the same way with the people around us. I've seen my fair share of 'baby Christians'. They don't start out as amazing evangelical pastors. They have rough starts. They continue to curse, continue to drink alcohol, continue to stay around the same friends they need to leave. But that's because they're in the beginning of their process. Moses was just a baby and was taken into an environment where false gods were worshiped. That's how he started out. Moses didn't come out of the womb ready to go part a red sea. But that doesn't mean that God wasn't already working in Moses' favor. In fact, God protected Moses as he rode the Nile to the Pharaoh's daughter. God knew Moses' potential and worked in his life to ensure that Moses would grow to be the man he needed for the job. But it took time. So the fruit of this short message is simple: There is a process. Maybe you're a new Christian and you're just getting into the swing of being a follower. Maybe you're an older Christian and you've got a new sibling in Christ not acting right. My encouragement to you is to take your time. For the elders in Christianity, be more patient with your youth, more understanding. The process is long, and irritating sometimes. But the end result of the process is something beautiful. If you liked this post please give me a thumbs up and if you have a question or a comment please email me at fire.time.rsmith@gmail.com. Also, for those of you who've joined me on the Church of Valatie journey, I'm doing a Q&A post, July 19th to take a break from character arcs. So if you have a question for one of the characters, or for me, be sure to send them in by email, comment, or note for DA members. Until next time, God bless! And keep your fires for God, blazing!

[econobitch]

Since he was a boy he has hated black men. A bitter hatred of black men that boiled in his mind and consumed him. Then last week, apparently, he decided to kill them. This was the mind-set investigators say they gathered of James Harris Jackson, a morose and seemingly directionless 28-year-old white man who lived in Baltimore and had been having trouble getting rooted since leaving the Army. He had registered few obvious traces of who he was and what he stood for. Those who intersected with him found him to be a disagreeable and solitary figure who waved away contact with others. By all accounts, Timothy Caughman, 66, was a benevolent man content with an unassuming life. He lived in a former single room occupancy residence that had been his longtime home. The son of a home health care aide and a pastor, he had worked in antipoverty programs in Queens. Religion and philosophy were constants in his conversations over unhurried meals of turkey bacon and grits at local diners. In recent years, he had caught the familiar New York infatuation with celebrities and delighted in collecting their autographs and pictures. On St. Patrick’s Day, Mr. Jackson boarded a bus in Washington and rode it to New York. There were black men everywhere, and he told investigators he contemplated going elsewhere, but settled on New York because of the flood of media there. His goal was to draw the widest possible attention to his murderous plan. He made his statement of what hate looks like late on Monday night when the authorities said he pulled out a sword and fatally stabbed Mr. Caughman. He had been scavenging for cans in Midtown Manhattan around the corner from his home. Presumably, Mr. Jackson had little intention of getting away with it. Just after midnight on Wednesday, he surrendered to the police and took responsibility for the murder. He was arraigned on Thursday in Supreme Court in Manhattan and charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime. He was ordered held without bail. The attack comes at a particularly anxious moment in America as hate crimes are on the rise in the country and especially in New York City. Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo forcefully condemned the killing. At the arraignment, Joan Illuzzi, the prosecutor, said that Mr. Jackson was particularly offended by black men who were with white women. She told the judge that additional charges may be filed, including murder in the first degree, “as this is an act, most likely, of terrorism.” Dressed in a Tyvek suit, handcuffed and his legs in shackles, Mr. Jackson sneered several times as the charges were read. At one point, he gazed at the ceiling as though bored. He did not enter a plea. Sam Talkin, Mr. Jackson’s defense lawyer, declined to comment on the specifics of the case. “We just need for the dust to settle,” he said. If the information put forth by the authorities is accurate, he added, they will have to deal with Mr. Jackson’s “obvious psychological issues.” The investigation into Mr. Jackson is still in its early stages and much remains unknown. But pieces of his life — and of the man he is accused of killing — were beginning to come together. Thus far, investigators have not linked Mr. Jackson to any white supremacy or hate group. Their sense is that he’s a discontent, not unlike many others who carry out senseless killings. But he was blunt about his prejudices when questioned by detectives. According to a law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity since the investigation is continuing, “He told the cops, ‘I’ve hated black men since I was a kid. I’ve had these feelings since I was a young person. I hate black men.’” Mr. Jackson told detectives, according to the official, that his intention was to keep on killing, the first attack being a springboard. At one point during his interrogation, he said he thought about grabbing a police officer’s gun and using it to shoot others. Investigators have not yet determined the origins of this hate. Mr. Jackson told them that he had written his beliefs down and was going to deliver his writings to The New York Times. “He said, ‘Listen, I wrote this all down, it’s in my laptop,’” the law enforcement official said. He apparently grew up in Baltimore. In 2007, he graduated from the Friends School of Baltimore, a small and prestigious Quaker day school. Matt Micciche, the head of school, said the campus community was “shocked and saddened by the news of this horrific attack.” “Our school — and the Religious Society of Friends — has a long history of commitment to diversity, racial equality, social justice and nonviolence,” Mr. Micciche said in a statement. “The entire Friends School community extends our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Timothy Caughman.” In March 2009, Mr. Jackson joined the Army and served at various locations in the United States, working in military intelligence. He was deployed to Afghanistan between December 2010 and November 2011. Afterward, he was stationed in Baumholder, Germany, before being discharged in August 2012, when his rank was specialist. During his service, the Army said, he received several awards. It’s unclear what he did after leaving the Army, though he seemed lost. In the spring of 2015, he was nearly evicted from an apartment building in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood for falling behind on his rent, according to Marcus Dagan, who was filling in then as the building’s manager. Speaking by phone from Omaha, where he now lives, Mr. Dagan said Mr. Jackson occupied a one-bedroom apartment and was at least six months in arrears. Mr. Dagan described him as a “slob” and a “deadbeat,” who refused to let anyone inside his apartment and never engaged in the building’s social atmosphere. “He turned into the tenant from hell,” Mr. Dagan said. He began eviction proceedings, but Mr. Jackson left before they were completed. The apartment, Mr. Dagan said, was the most disgusting thing the person hired to clean it had ever seen. “He definitely had some issues of some kind,” Mr. Dagan said. “How do you describe it? He was off.” Yet he said he had never heard Mr. Jackson say anything that could be construed as racist. “Never had an intimation of that,” he said. “When you shake hands with somebody you can guess the character,” he said. “In his case, you’d get like three fingers and a cold fish.” Mr. Jackson’s most recent address was a three-story house wedged into a narrow street lined with rowhouses in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore, just west of Johns Hopkins University, a historic area that is filled with restaurants and shops. No one answered the door at the home on Thursday. A patrol car from the Baltimore Police Department was posted outside. Members of Mr. Jackson’s family appeared to be together in his parents’ home in a gated community several miles away. On Thursday afternoon, his family issued a brief statement through a lawyer: “Our family is shocked, horrified and heartbroken by this tragedy. We extend our prayers and condolences to the family of Timothy Caughman. We have no further comments at this time and ask that our privacy be respected.” After Mr. Jackson got to New York last Friday, he checked into the Hotel at Times Square on West 46th Street, using an assumed name. As far as the police know, he attacked no one else during those first days. As best they can tell, he was hunting. His weapon was a sword, and he carried two smaller knives. From surveillance cameras, investigators managed to track some of his movements, though there are gaps. In one video, he can be seen tailing a black man. When detectives questioned Mr. Jackson, they said he acknowledged zeroing in on that man but didn’t strike because there were too many people around. Late Monday evening, he found a target on a Midtown street corner. Timothy Caughman was bent over some garbage. Like many New Yorkers living spare lives in their retirement years, Mr. Caughman was once someone else, his identity not defined by empty pockets and a modest address. He was born in Jamaica, Queens, and grew up in a comfortable apartment in the South Jamaica Houses. One of his cousins said the family has roots in Georgia dating back to the 1700s when their ancestors were first brought to America as slaves. He was the son of Tula Caughman, a home health care aide for wealthy residents of nearby Jamaica Estates, and William Caughman, the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church. Growing up, he was called Hard Rock, for he knew his way around a boxing ring — and a street fight. “He was known in the community as not to be someone who started a fight, but if you started it, he finished it,” said one of his cousins. According to Seth Peek, another cousin, Mr. Caughman earned an associate degree at Brooklyn College and went on to further schooling in Staten Island. For several years in Queens, Mr. Caughman ran a division of the Neighborhood Youth Corps, a federal antipoverty program designed to provide part-time jobs to poor youths. “He probably gave out about two or three thousand jobs to people in the community,” said one of his cousins. He also freely contributed homespun advice on how to excel: “‘If you know that someone is going to be somewhere, and you want to meet them, you got to be there an hour early,’” the cousin recalled Mr. Caughman instructing him. Later, he held a succession of jobs, including as a concert promoter. He was particularly proud of booking an early gig by Earth Wind & Fire, before they attained fame, his cousin said. For the last 20 years, he lived in a room at the Barbour Hotel on West 36th Street that now houses formerly homeless people transitioning to permanent housing. Svein Jorgensen, the chief executive of Praxis Housing Initiatives, which manages the Barbour, said that of the 100-odd residents, Mr. Caughman was one of the few who were actually permanent tenants and not part of the transient program. In reports of the murder, Mr. Caughman was incorrectly assumed to be homeless. “He was an extremely gracious individual and respectful of his neighbors,” Mr. Jorgensen said. He read avidly, and mainly kept to himself. He was a recycler of redeemables, his currency for his modest wants. His relatives said he viewed this as an entrepreneurial undertaking, a way to keep active and help pay for his room. He did maintain a social media presence. He had a Twitter account, and in his profile he defined himself as a can and bottle recycler, autograph collector and a good businessman. He said he aspired to visit California. On his Twitter feed, sandwiched between posts about celebrity culture, are links to articles about preventing cholesterol in babies and others about autism, echoing his broad interests. Among those aware of his fandom is Shari Headley, an actress who most recently played a district attorney on Tyler Perry’s “The Haves and the Have-nots” television soap opera. She held a live chat on Twitter every Tuesday, and she said Mr. Caughman rarely missed one. One day he requested a photo of her, and she mailed him an autographed photo. “What kind of world are we living in right now?” she said, overcome with emotion. “What a harmless guy. He spends his days just wanting to take pictures with celebrities.” When Ms. Headley’s character on “The Haves and the Have-nots” was killed off recently, she said Mr. Caughman was downcast, wishing it weren’t true. When her agent told her Mr. Caughman had been stabbed, she hoped the same thing. Late Monday evening, as Mr. Caughman rooted through trash on Ninth Avenue, near his home, a white man in a dark coat approached him from behind. He said nothing. The man withdrew a sword from beneath his coat. A woman heard commotion, but didn’t realize what was actually happening and she ran off. But she told detectives she heard Mr. Caughman say, “Why are you doing this? What are you doing?”

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/drake-not-done-j-lo-shes-busy-balling-rod/

Drake not done with J-Lo but she's busy balling with A-Rod

While he is no longer in relationship with Jennifer Lopez, Toronto-born rapper Drake is still talking about her – well, singing about her. On Saturday, March 18th, Drake released his highly anticipated album More Life. Featuring 22 new songs and a bunch of big name collaborators, such as Kanye West, 2 Chainz, and Travis Scott, the artist’s new album is already generating tons of buzz. One of the songs on the album’s track list that is getting plenty of attention, in particular, is the song “Free Smoke.” In the song, Drake sings out lyrics that refer to his former flame, Miss Lopez. In “Free Smoke,” Drake candidly raps, “I drunk text J. Lo/ Old numbers so I bounce back/ Boy Wonder gotta bounce back” – implying that he no longer has a valid phone number for his ex. Although Drake alludes to not staying in touch with Jennifer in his lyrics, sources close to the star claim that they are actually on good terms. An insider recently revealed to E! News, “[Drake and Jennifer] have just cooled things off a bit…they are in each others’ lives, just doing their own thing now.” Meanwhile, while Drake is busy with the release of his new music, Jennifer is busy with her new beau Alex Rodriguez. Just a few days ago, Jennifer was seen spending quality time with Alex in Miami. You can now listen to Drake’s album More Life in full on most music streaming services. Take me out to the ballgame, A-Rod. You got it, J-Lo. Back at spring training with the New York Yankees as a guest instructor, Alex Rodriguez watched part of Saturday's exhibition game against the Baltimore Orioles in a suite with singer-actress Jennifer Lopez. The two are said to be dating. A-Rod has been linked romantically to other Hollywood stars in the past, including Kate Hudson and Cameron Diaz. Rodriguez was released by the Yankees last August with more than a season left on his $275 million, 10-year contract. The 41-year-old former slugger began his first stint as a guest instructor with the team last month and said his playing days are over. Fox recently announced a multiyear deal with Rodriguez that expands his broadcasting role with the network. A-Rod hit 696 home runs during 22 years in the big leagues, leaving him fourth on the career list. He was suspended for the 2014 season for violating Major League Baseball's drug agreement and labor contract. Late on Wednesday, young model Kendall Jenner’s home in Hollywood Hills was burglarized. An unknown thief (or group of thieves) managed to break in and get away with around $200,000 worth of her jewelry. Inevitably, the starlet was not happy with the whole situation and has since opted to fire the security guard who was on duty at the time. New reports about the incident have since been released by media outlet TMZ. It turns out that Kendall was actually hosting a group of friends at her house on Wednesday evening and she just briefly stepped out, while a number of her guests stayed in her home. Law enforcement believes that the robbery took place during the time that Kendall had left her residence, despite the fact that she still had [thought-to-be trustworthy] guests hanging around. With these new details revealed, it does appear that the robbery was an inside job. However, this did not stop Kendall from taking immediate action – starting with her security team. According to TMZ, Kendall fired the security guard who was on duty Wednesday evening. This guard was stationed in front of her property and reportedly let in an uninvited guest to the 21-year-old’s home during the brief period of time in which she had stepped out. Fortunately, Kendall has a complex security camera system set up and police are utilizing the surveillance footage from the night to try and find whoever is responsible for the theft. While it is not clear what exactly was stolen from the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star, TMZ reports that the intruder(s) got away with at least a Rolex and a Cartier watch. Katy Perry revealed on Saturday night that she’s done more than just kiss girls. The pop star was honored at the Human Rights Campaign Gala in Los Angeles where she revealed she explored her sexuality as a teenager. “How was I going to reconcile that with a gospel singing girl raised in youth groups that were pro-conversion camps?” Perry, 32, shared while accepting the National Equality Award, according to E! News. “What I did know was I was curious, and even then I knew sexuality wasn’t as black and white as this dress,” she said. “And honestly, I haven’t always gotten it right, but in 2008 when that song came out I knew that I started a conversation and a lot of the world seemed curious enough to sing along, too.” Because of her religious upbringing — both of her parents are pastors — she spent much time praying “the gay away in my Jesus camps.” Her perspective on sexuality shifted after she made the leap from Gospel music to the mainstream. “I found my gift, and my gift introduced me to people outside my bubble and my bubble started to burst,” Perry said. “These people were nothing like I had been taught to fear. They were the most free, strong, kind and inclusive people I have ever met.” Tim Allen says that living in Hollywood right now is akin to Nazi Germany. The comedian made the claim while appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “You gotta be real careful around here,” Allen noted. “You get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody else believes. This is like ’30s Germany.” Allen, 63, plays an outspoken conservative on the sitcom “Last Man Standing” and is one of the few actors in Hollywood to profess having right-wing leanings. When Kimmel asked him about attending the inauguration ceremony the “Home Improvement” star’s eyes bulged and he stammered: “I was invited, we did a VIP thing for the vets, and went to a veterans ball, so I went to go see Democrats and Republicans.” “Yeah I went to the inauguration,” he added. According to Blac Chyna, her and Rob Kardashian are just going through a rough patch. “I feel like every person who’s in a long-term relationship, or who is committed to their person, goes through ups and downs,” she told Cosmopolitan South Africa. “Everything isn’t always going to be peaches and cream.” Chyna, the cover star of the magazine’s April issue, says the two are “fighting for each other – even though they’re living apart. “I’m in it for the long haul,” the 28-year-old insisted. “I feel like everything isn’t going to be perfect, but I know we love each other, and the people we surround ourselves with are rooting for us.” And despite the pair’s on and off again status, their daughter Dream remains a priority. “We have a whole other human being that looks up to us, so we have to make sure she’s taken care of,” she's said of their baby who was born in November. The sole son of the Kardashian family – who turned 30 on Friday – is “a wonderful dad.” “I think it’s because he had such a great father,” Chyna said. Josh Duggar and his wife Anna are looking to the future. “We are delighted to share with you that we are expecting a new baby boy later this year,” the couple said in a statement on the Duggar family’s website. “Beauty comes from ashes and we cannot wait to see and kiss the face of this sweet new boy!” While the announcement didn’t mention the 29-year-old Josh’s sordid past, the couple acknowledged a “breach of trust.” “For nearly the last two years, we have quietly worked to save our marriage, focus on our children, and rebuild our lives together as a family. Doing so is never easy after a breach of trust,” the statement read. “We’ve learned that a life of faith and rebuilding a life together is simply done one day at a time.” In 2015, Josh admitted to molesting five girls as well as cheating on his wife via the affair enabling website Ashley Madison. In the time since the scandal rocked the “19 Kids and Counting” family, the reality star has attended a faith-based rehab and worked with a counselor to salvage his marriage. The couple is already parents to Mackynzie Renée, 7, Michael James, 5, Marcus Anthony, 3, and Meredith Grace, 1. Earlier this month, the religious brood showed support for Josh on his 29th birthday “We love you, your amazing wife and sweet children. We pray that you diligently follow and serve the Lord with your whole heart all the days of your life and that this year is a wonderful year for you and your family,” the family said on Facebook. While you wouldn’t know it from the tabloid headlines, which are filled with stories about her new relationship, superstar Jennifer Lopez actually has other notable things going on in her life right now. In fact, the starlet just got the word that she will be returning to the small screen as the star of NBC’s hit crime drama Shades of Blue. On Friday, the Entertainment President at NBC, Jennifer Salke, announced that the network has renewed Shades of Blue for a third season. This is a particularly big accomplishment for Jennifer Lopez, and the rest of the show’s cast, as the second season of the series just started airing a mere two weeks. In the official statement announcing the series’ renewal, Jennifer Salke noted, “[We here at NBC are] so hugely appreciative of everything Jennifer [Lopez] and Ray [Liotta] do, and know it is due to their dedication, as well as the hard work of our incredible cast and producers, that Shades of Blue has so clearly and compellingly earned a third-season renewal.” The NBC executive went on to add, “The show continues to mine powerful stories that always leave us hungry for more.” In addition to Shades of Blue, NBC also just recently announced the renewals of several other shows, including: This is Us, Superstore and The Good Place. You can catch Jennifer in Shades of Blue when it airs on Sundays at 10/9c on NBC. On Thursday, it was announced that supermodel Tyra Banks would be returning to her role as host of the reality competition America’s Next Top Model. In 2016, after hosting 22 seasons of the show, Tyra shocked fans when she decided to step down from her hosting gig. For season 23, singer and media star Rita Ora took over the reigns and judged a brand new batch of hopeful models, alongside a panel of fashion experts which included stylist Law Roach, model Ashley Graham and Paper magazine’s Creative Consultant Drew Elliot. While Rita did fairly well in the role, especially considering the enormous shoes she had to fill, she will not be returning as host for season 24. Executive producer of America’s Next Top Model, Ken Mok addressed Tyra’s unexpected decision to return after just a short, 1-season absence. Ken told the press, “Tyra has always been the heart and soul of the franchise and her absence was deeply felt by our fiercely loyal fans who missed their Queen of the Smize. We’d like to thank Rita Ora for being a great partner and total pro. She infused this new iteration of ANTM with passion and creativity, and we wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors.” Although Tyra has officially stolen back the ANTM spotlight from Rita, there is no bad blood between the two beauties. Following the announcement on Thursday, Tyra and Rita exchanged some kind words over Twitter. Tyra posted, “Mizz [Rita Ora], you exemplify Business Boss Brand to the fullest! Thank you for all the amazingness you brought to ANTM,” in which Rita replied, “Thank you, Tyra! Was such an honor and pleasure being on your show. Everyone welcome Tyra back!!” Rita & Tyra, Twitter posts: https://twitter.com/tyrabanks/status/842497262802554881 https://twitter.com/RitaOra/status/842501937664729088 At this point, it has not been revealed who will be joining Tyra on the judging panel for season 24. Stay tuned for more ANTM updates! While she may be doing a lot better and is [somewhat] back in the spotlight these days, former Disney starlet Selena Gomez is definitely not looking to be wrapped up in the craziness of Hollywood for the long haul. In the latest issue of Vogue magazine, Selena talked candidly about what her late-2016 stay in rehab was like, as well as her desperate desire to live a more normal life. The Spring Breakers actress said in her interview with the publication, “You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls [in the rehabilitation program]. Real people who couldn’t give two s*** about who I was, who were fighting for their lives. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done.” Selena also went on to address her toned down presence on social media, as she explained, “as soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out. It had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about. I always end up feeling like s*** when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.” In terms of maintaining her star status, Selena admitted that she is looking forward to the day she is no longer one of the most famous celebs in the world. Selena candidly told the magazine, “I just really can’t wait for people to forget about me.”

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