#I am once again posting a weird insight into my mental state on main

[klutzytomb]

I need someone willing to set me on fire

[thejudgingtrash]

I wanna hear the Dom/sub discourse!!! Also love ur blog :) (I personally am a proponent of dom percy just bc I like that idea but I’d love to hear yours!!! I didnt even know there was discourse!) love to hear your thoughts and again super cool blog!!!! :’)

* ALSO WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY IF IT WASNT ALREADY ESTABLISHED BUT ONLLLLLLY IF THEY ARE LIKE IN THEIR OLDER 20S!!!! ppl doing that in the context of teens is *gross* (previous anon who sent in the ask before) :)

Oh! Thank you for the compliments. I’m still not used at being so visible now to people 🥺😥😅

Good that you’ve added your points because that essentially brings down my issues with this whole spiel. I guess I’m going to play the other card. My main issues with this whole thing are:

A) the fandom sexualizing kids

B) people not understanding that looks/behavior in or outside of a (romantic) relationship don’t necessarily have to correlate with sexual behavior, especially when powerplay is involved

Of course Percy is easier to grasp for us. We have five whole books where we hear his every thought, follow his every move and think we get to know him (that automatically makes Percy not a reliable narrator, just saying).

For every book quote that puts Percy into the „Dom“ slot, there’s also a book quote that would be fitting for Annabeth (the dance from TTC comes to my mind). I can see both going either way. Despite them having mostly different personalities (Percy internalizing his thoughts and motives, whereas Annabeth is doing rather the opposite), they are very similar when it comes to leadership and end goals. Annabeth can range from emotional to bossy in a similar way Percy does. They just express themselves on different levels and get seen by outsiders in different ways.

Did you catch that? Did you see the hypocrisy that I just committed? We are using book quotes to justify placing characters that are in that context and in overall canon minors/teens/essentially fucking children in sexualized categories. Tbh, as much flag as you can give Riordan, I can’t blame him for blocking people who do this. Not every author is a fan of fanfiction and fan theory and what not.

People throwing these BSDM terms around without a second thought makes me cringe (tbh, I’m too lazy to explain the psychology of power play and kinks in that regard, just know that the instigator is not automatically the top/dom and there are many, many, many layers in a pp relationship). You cannot base sexual behavior from the canon itself. We know nothing about Percy and Annabeth in that regard to even justify the slightest. Ripping actions out of context to give them a label doesn’t work like that so easily unfortunately.

The only way to settle this question for once and all would be by simply doing this:

The whole debate that happened months/weeks ago (quarantine makes everything blurry in my memory) was just fucking stupid?

Imagine being a 15 year old, anxious, frightened girl. You’ve been deeply traumatized since you’ve been seven years old, you’re scared to death because you have a crush on your best friend and think he might perish (newsflash: of course you as the reader can foreshadow that in that context the series goes on. The characters can’t as they lack that specific insight. Percy didn’t have to wind up dead in the books, but he could have been severely mutilated, gone missing (guess he did later), bruised, etc. apart from his mental struggles. The super power part is essentially the only thing that’s keeping him alive), you give him a kiss because you’re too shy to admit your feelings for him and he’s being an awkward cheeky bastard before looking for a fight and then some adult asshole has the caucasity of calling you a bratty sub. Literally what.

Some anon (or a group of anons, don’t know which) contacted a bunch of people with that Dom!Percy and Sub!Annabeth stuff. Anon, Liebste, homegirl, my love, mija, if you see this please slide into the DMs because whaddefuck? Your thought process hotdamn. Where did you pick this up? Let’s be open about this discussion. You didn’t go from A to B, you went from A to Z and robbed Jeff Bezos on the way out. I mean what???

People using canon to justify their headcanons is simply something I can’t get behind in this matter. The main issues is that they are children/teens/minors in canon. There is no way around it. Trying to justify/back up some of your thoughts in that regard with actual quotes only makes it worse because you aren’t only sexualizing them in your fanon, but you are also automatically transferring these thoughts to the actual books and thus fore sexualizing them in canon. You’re changing the basis and narrative.

I honestly don’t get the obsession that some have with their teenage sex life? This isn’t a personal attack on people but I’ve seen this throughout several group chats and social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest even and of course Tumblr. And popular stuff like Riverdale, Euphoria, 13 Reasons Why and New Adult Twilight rip-offs á la Shades of Grey and that Harry Styles fanfic honestly don’t help with the portrayal of „curious“ teens.

This also isn’t a strict PJO phenomenon, it happens across all fandoms. The odd trend with sexualizing kids/teens or things intended for kids has been going on for ages. I get it, you grow out of the related audience but that doesn’t justify the means? Canon won’t change simply because you do.

Percy and Annabeth are awkward teens that have never dated anyone else and had barely half a year between pjo and hoo before getting caught up in another mess. I’m not saying that teens aren’t curious and don’t experiment, some do drugs and/or have sex (let’s be real the probability of something happening in the stable scene in MOA is very high) but still? Putting dom/sub labels on them is sketchyyy. Also throw your fucking sex god headcanons out of the motherfucking window. They are 17-ish, if you need the mental image of some weird kids flopping on top of each other for two whole minutes for some odd reason, good for you but I’m side eying the fuck outta you.

You can’t really blame Riordan for not being more explicit. A) the series is for middle schoolers (aka kids), so it’s not strictly Young Adult and there’s only so much you can do B) publishers/editors interfering is a thing (especially with society’s views of sex = bad and violence = just fine) and c) the probability of sexualizing the characters of his own creation in that sense might have made him uncomfortable. Better to play safe, than end up with a bigger mess, just saying. I’m all for the sex talk in a non-berating, (slightly) educational approach when it comes to that in non-adult literature. Or even just stating a sex scene in a mere sentence. (Karen M. McManus did an amazing job with portraying struggling teens with a right approach in One of Us is Lying. Stating it or making it very, very, very clear between the lines. Then again, not everyone can pull that off or wants to go in that direction).

In addition to that, seeing stuff like the infamous ”the sea doesn’t like to be restrained“ or ”Percy has handsome features which shifted from humor to anger“ quotes getting constantly shredded is so… Meh. One simple question: what does Percy having a mean resting bitch face to do with his sexuality/sexual behavior? What does him being annoyed and on the moodier side have to do with it? For me absolutely nothing. The correlation isn’t really clear and out there. Pissed Percy doesn’t translate into Percy automatically being the dominant (in Percabeth’s sex life)?

I mean I get it. We all grow up. Erotica is a wonderful genre and art form (if you waddle through the trash). You will never be able to get that out of fiction and fanfiction. That’s also neither my goal nor my place to decide. As cheap and stupid as it is, I’d rather have people intentionally aging the characters up and stating their headcanons in that regard rather than people attempting to abuse canon where the characters are minors in order for sexualizing them. There’s no good way to prevent this from happening unfortunately (unless you really want to abolish all explicit fanon stuff).

Whenever you post a sexy headcanon just hold on for a second. If you have abstract future headcanons sure, go ahead, personally don’t see a problem with that. But if you use source material to fixate your thoughts on minors in canon to give them sexual labels… I urge you to seriously rethink that.

Stop sexualizing minors. Please. Pretty please.

Peace

[cadpadawan]

31-Day Music Challenge

The social media is now flooded with all kinds of funny challenges, as people are stuck at home with nothing much to do. I guess online gaming, or getting shitfaced, becomes increasingly boring, when all kinds of tiresome responsibilites, like work, do not present any restrictions and limitations anymore. In a way, Facebook has started to resonate the air of those naive first few years, when your newsfeed was basically just one continuous stream of challenge that and challenge this.

Well, why the hell not?

What else is there to do, in order to pass the time with your mental health intact?

So, here I am...just another bored individual to join this endless crusade to make life worth living again, to make my personal life great again. Thus, I jumped on the wagon, and took on this fancy 31-day music challenge, that has been circulating in Facebook (for years, I think).

Although, I didn't find it challenging enough to just type the daily keyword in the Spotify search box and post the result in my Facebook wall. Because: more is more.

(Go ask Yngwie Malmsteen, if you don't believe me...)

The challenge for day #1 was to pick a song with a colour in the title.

I could immediately come up with a bunch of songs, only to realize that the vast majority of the song titles were themed around two basic colours: black and blue. I guess songwriters are a lazy bunch, when it comes to colours. It's pretty obvious, why lyricist everywhere find these two colours exceptionally appealing and resort to the abundant use of them, neglecting all the wonderful possibilites posed by the other colours of the spectrum. Of course black and blue, in terms of emotion and imagination, are much stronger than, say, yellow and orange. So, instead of just settling with the first few titles that came to mind, I wondered if I could come up with one song for each colour I can think of. I mean: a song that bears some personal meaning to me. In practice, this challenge basically meant that I would have to think hard while rummaging through the main three Spotify playlists that I have compiled with something like +16k or +17k songtitles, with the addition of my personal collection of some +2600 cd's – at least the rarities section for songs that are not available in Spotify.

Let's see if I have the stamina to go through my cd-racks, though. I had the forethought to organize my cd's in alphabetical order, by the name of the artist, years ago. For some weird reason, my beloved spouse has not yet agreed to the idea of re-furnishing our apartment with the central theme being those precious compact discs. That's why the cd-racks are placed in somewhat random and impractical fashion: most of them are located in the living room, with a few sections located in our bedroom. I guess, it's a good thing I had disposed of my vintage Rhodes-electric piano by the time when we started dating 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure she would have opposed strongly to the idea of having the instrument as a kitchen table, with the giant lid down. My Rhodes-piano was the so-called suitcase model, with a keyboard of 73 keys. When I moved out from my parents' house in the mid-90's, I decorated my one-room-apartment in the ethos of Japanese minimalism, due to the fact that I spent most of my income on records and alcohol. That Rhodes-piano served as a kitchen table, when I wasn't actually playing with it. Because: why the hell not?

Ok, then. The first colour...it shall be black.

Oh, boy! What a multitude of choices it presents! Should I pick an iconic 90's grunge anthem, like Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun? After all, I saw the band on stage in Helsinki cirka 1995. (I say ”cirka” because I'm not 100% sure about the year, and I'm too lazy to look it up in Google) The fond memories of those grungey early years in the 90's instantly remind me of a couple of equally important bands: Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. Although, I've never seen either of them live. Pearl Jam had a song titled Black on their breakthrough debut album Ten. Alice in Chains had a killer track titled Black Gives Way to Blue. That epochal Pearl Jam album played non-stop in my car stereos at the time of its' release. I had it copied on a C-cassette. Remember that vintage format, anyone? (Yes, I'm THAT old...) With this particular AIC song I fell in love much later, as it was the title track on the band's comeback album, released in 2009 with the new singer William DuWall. First, I kinda hesitated to give this new AIC line-up any chances, but it turned out to be pretty damn good. Obviously, nothing can top the impact, that the Laney Staley-fronted AIC made with their Dirt-album in 1992. At the time of its' release, that album was a full-blown mindfuck! In retrospect, the year 1992 seems to have been pretty kick-ass, in terms of album releases:

Alice in Chains: Dirt

Rage Against The Machine: Rage Against The Machine

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People

Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power

Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes

Faith No More: Angel Dust

Dream Theater: Images and Words

Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Prince & The New Power Generation: (Love Symbol Album)

Stereo MC's: Connected

Tom Waits: Bone Machine

Sade: Love Deluxe

The Prodigy: Experience

Megadeth: Countdown to Extinction

Eric B. & Rakim: Don't Sweat the Technique

The Orb: U.F.Orb

k.d.Lang: Ingenue

Suzanne Vega: 99.9 Fº

Stone Temple Pilots: Core

Curve: Doppelganger

Nick Cave: Henry's Dream

Neneh Cherry: Homebrew

Maybe I should choose something less obvious? At least, it would make this challenge less arduous for me, because it's evident that making a choice between two particularly dear songs from the past is nothing short of impossible. When in doubt, go for the dark horse! So, here goes: my choice for the song with the colour black in the title is:

Bonobo: Black Sands

Being something of a jazz aficionado, despite not really possessing any of the musical prowess to actually play jazz myself, it was love at first soundbite, when I chanced to hear the title track from Bonobo's 2010 album Black Sands on Bassoradio's morning special back in the day. Bonobo is the musical alias of British DJ-producer-musician Simon Green. His career spawns from the 90's trip hop aesthetics, with heavy influences of jazz and world music. Spicing up electronic beats with raw jazz samples, or even live musicians, was the thing to do, somewhere along the mid-90's. I guess it all started with a few insightful hip-hop artists layering their ghetto stompers with the occassional hardbop jazz sample back in the late 80's. For a short period, acid jazz was the coolest shit ever in the early 90's. In a somewhat natural chain of events, jazz eventually made its way to the brand new genres that evolved around the middle of the decade, trip hop and jungle, too.

That's how I got sucked into the all-consuming whirlpool of this abominable voodoo music – jazz. It's a wonder no-one has come up with a gateway theory yet, regarding the highly addictive nature of jazz music. It usually starts with small doses: an occassional jazz sample is slipped in the hip-hop track, or the breakdown section of a rock song is ornamented with a brief, improvised saxophone lead. Then you find yourself craving for more, and start delving into the depths of acid jazz, nu jazz, or whatever new genre that has incorporated jazz as an inherent element in its' aesthetic toolkit. After this honeymoon period, that might spawn over years and years, you eventually catch yourself red-handed, holding a genuine jazz album in your hands at the local record store, probably the usual entry-level drug-of-choice jazz classic: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. It has been awarded the title of the greatest jazz album of all time – and for a reason, too. Multiple times. Then you're hooked. Next thing you know, you'll be blasting John Coltrane at a family reunion, with your beloved relatives giving you the dead-eyed stare, doubting the state of your mental well-being. Long story short: you simply cannot go wrong with a mellow waltz rhythm that's punctuated with the organic groove of a flesh-and-blood jazz drummer, and topped with hauntingly beautiful brass harmony.

Next up: the colour blue...

Again, I could go for something utterly obvious, like the song titled Blue by A Perfect Circle. Those lucky few, who know me in person, should be well aware of the fact, that I'm quite a diehard fanboy of the band. I was lucky enough to see the band's live performance a few years back, when they paid Finland a visit. Nevertheless, I think I can come up with something more unexpected.

Just let me think for a sec...

Remember the band Europe? Of course you do! (Unless you were born yesterday, like some, eww, millennial!) I think it would've required some exceptional measures in the noble art of cutting contact with the external world to not have been exposed to the band's 1986 megahit Final Countdown, during the past 34 years. (Fuck! Do I feel old yet?!?) BUT...before you dismiss the band as yet another hair-metal has-been, check out this song:

Europe: Not Supposed To Sing The Blues

It's pretty damn hard to believe it's a song by the same band that's responsible for that Final Countdown atrocity. To be honest, that particular throwback 80's hard rock ear-worm wouldn't probably get under my skin in such a thoroughly repulsive fashion, had I not performed the song countless times myself. It was quite an essential part of the live repertoire of the party band, that I toured with cirka 2004-2008. The modus operandi of this covers-only band was to play the most annoying 80's megahits, with the lyrics translated in Finnish with a liberal amount of tongue-in-cheek references to gay erotica. (On a side note, the band was actually quite popular in certain small regions, despite this dubious approach and the substantially high level of bad taste incorporated in the lyrics and live performances. We even ended up playing in a genuine gay wedding once. The humour of the band was, after all, benevolent albeit a bit harsh, at least in the context of these politically correct times...)

The song Not Supposed to Sing the Blues was released in 2012. It's pretty evident, that during this 26-year-period, following the release of Final Countdown, Europe managed to grow some serious balls, hidden somewhere below my musical radar. The oriental sounding motif, played with some cool mellotron string patch in the refrain before the chorus, has a nice Led Zeppelin-esque feel to it. You can't really go wrong with a slowed-down hard rock blues that is sugar-coated with a grain of Kashmir-strings, now can you?

Next up: white...

What first comes to mind? Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum, and Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, obviously. You see, I had both of these tracks in vinyl format, way back in the early 90's, when I was going through my ”moustache prog from the 70's”-phase. (Although, this particular Procol Harum song was actually released in 1968, and the Moody Blues song in 1967 – but, in order to be consistent and thorough, I had to dig deeper, to the roots of the prog...to the very dinosaur fossils)

I could throw in White Room by Cream, too. I used to listen to these particular tracks A LOT! In the age of vinyl, conducting a music marathon themed around, say, 60's and 70's ”moustache music”, was actually quite a laborous ritual. Every 25 minutes, or so, I had to flip the side of the record. Shuffling songs totally at random was simply a no-go-zone. Nowadays, it's so easy to compile a lengthy set of personal favorites in Spotify, WinAmp, iTunes, or whatever the fuck application you'd prefer, and just hit the randomize-button...fucking millennials, they have it SO easy. They have no idea of the struggle.

That's why we had those vintage C-cassettes: to copy that very special selection of songs, compiled with tender love and care, onto a format, that didn't require you to be on a constant lookout for when the album side was closing to an end. Besides, before the onslaught of cd-players, those vintage C-cassettes were the only way to impress people with either your refined taste in music, or with the lack of it, while you were occupied with the gentle art of pussy racing, driving around downtown in your awkwardly tuned-up mirthmobile, every goddamn Friday night.

I could pick White Wedding by Billy Idol, too...

It was one of those 80's hits that I used to play with the ”covers only”-party band.

Nah...

I think I will have to choose between Aisles of White by the Aussie soft-prog band the Butterfly Effect, and The Heart of a Cold White Land by the Finnish doomsters Swallow the Sun.

My beloved wife introduced me to Aussie prog, some 10 years ago. The gateway drug, I think, was Karnivool with their music video for All I Know. One day, when I was coming home from work, I caught my wife watching this particular video in YouTube. A little bit later, she unearthed a shitload of Aussie bands in Spotify. I guess she must've been hitting that ”similar artists”-link quite relentlessly. The Butterfly Effect was one of those magnificent bands she discovered. I remember hearing the song In A Memory for the first time. It struck a chord with me, in such a profound way, that I felt compelled to order the album Imago ASAP from some Australian music webstore. At the time, the back catalogue of the Butterfly Effect wasn't available in Finland. I don't know, if it's available even now, because the band is no longer active, I think. Aisles of White is the track #2 on that album, released in 2006. The band released one more kick-ass album in 2008, titled Final Conversation of Kings, and then I don't know what the hell happened.

Swallow the Sun is a bit doomish Finnish metal band, and I'm not really sure, when I actually found the band's music. I think I had their debut album The Morning Never Came (2003) in my cd-rack for years, but it wasn't until 2012, with the release of the magnificent Emerald Forest and the Blackbird album, that I truly fell in love with the band. It took me some five years to actually haul my ass to their gig for the first time. Every single time, when I found out that they were touring nearby, I was too busy with some utterly meaningless work-related bullshit to make it. Finally, in 2017 it happened. I had managed to get rid of my soul-sucking job, although due to a pretty hardcore reason (a brain tumour), so when I found out that Swallow the Sun was performing in Helsinki, in the legendary rock venue Tavastia, I definitely made sure that I was there – and fuck me sideways! It was indeed one of the best live performances that I have ever experienced, hands down!

In 2015, Swallow the Sun released a monolithic triple album Songs From the North, and this particular track, The Heart of a Cold White Land, is on the disc II, that is focused on the beauty side of the band's doom palette.

Swallow the Sun: The Heart of a Cold White Land

Next up: Red

Sielun Veljet was one of the most iconic Finnish rock bands in the 80's. The band released only a couple of albums with lyrics in English, of which the 1989 release Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars was the only one with the songs originally written in English. There was some other attempts to gain international fame and fortune, but in those cases, the songs were merely English translations of their most beloved hit songs, initially written in Finnish. This particular album was planned for international release – but the label executives were pretty disappointed, to say the least, when the band came up with an album full of acoustic psychedelia. It was released only in Finland and Sweden. The artwork on the album cover is actually a painting by a Peruvian artist Pablo Amaringo, depicting the shamanic ayahuasca ritual. Listening through this album in one go is somewhat similar experience, I would guess: a rewarding journey into the depths of the human psyche, albeit potentially exhausting, especially if you're not exactly in the proper mindset to begin with.

Well, ever since I got exposed to the oriental psychedelia of, say, Jimi Hendrix, Kingston Wall, and the like, I seem to have acquired a taste for this kind of weird and druggy, over-the-top freeform musical expression.

Sielun Veljet: Hey-Ho, Red Banana

Ok, then...What next?

What other colours are there, anyway? The three primary colours are: red, yellow and blue. All the other colours can be derived from these three fuckers. To be precise, I think black does not actually qualify as a colour... So, I've got most of these covered already. Of course, in order to pick some hairs, printers actually use magenta, yellow and cyan as their primary colours – and black, obviously. I can't recall a single song with ”magenta” or ”cyan” in the title, though. I could come up with a band or two, with these colours in the band name, such as Magenta Skycode, or Cyan Velvet Project, but song titles?

Nada.

Maybe, if I combed through my post-rock and soundtrack archives, I could come up with some epic 15-minute instrumental with either cyan or magenta mentioned in the lengthy piece of contemporary literature, that is supposed to be the title of the song...but I guess those tracks would not exactly mean worlds to me, as I clearly cannot remember them now. If something comes to mind, while I'm writing down this epistle, I'll address that particular colour and song, accordingly. Now, I shall get on with this challenge journal, onto the next ”normal”, everyday colour...

Which is?

The colour green.

Having played keyboards in a dubious number of proggy bands, with the tonal preferences leaning heavily toward everything vintage, I might as well pick a mellow Hammond-organ classic, such as Green Onions by Booker T. & the MG's, or a vintage synth classic from THE motion picture soundtrack album of all time: Memories of Green by Vangelis, from the timeless Blade Runner soundtrack.

But I won't...

It wasn't actually easy to come up with that many titles with the colour green mentioned. Excluding these two aforementioned classics, I could barely come up with four! As much as I like the desert rock stonerism of Kuyss, the song Green Machine is not my personal favourite in their back catalogue. So that narrows my options to three. The problem is that two of these songs seem to defy the laws of quantum physics: they both take a firm stranglehold on my soul, and throw it casually down the dark and dangerous alleys of nostalgia.

In the midst of 90's acid jazz boom, I had a peculiar habit of buying compilation cd's at random, if the heading on the cover somehow suggested that the contents of the cd had anything to do with this particular genre of music. By impulse-buying music I discovered a lot of gems, like the song Apple Green by Mother Earth. The band was an English acid jazz outfit, virtually unheard of in Finland, despite the tidal wave of acid jazz washing over also these rural perimeters. If Jamiroquai, the Brand New Heavies et al. rub you the right way, you definitely need to check this band out. I can still remember clearly, as if it happened yesterday, how I picked this acid jazz compilation from the vaults of the local record store that no longer exists.

Mr. Big was a band everybody just loved to hate at the turn of the decace, when the gigantic hair-do's of the 80's started to flatten out, and flannel shirts were showing faint signs of becoming the next level shit in the never-ending quest for cool. At the time, I was an under-aged college drop-out, devoting my attention to the finer things of guitar playing techniques, instead of studying for a decent profession. I had received my first electric guitar from my parents in 1988, and for the following 5-6 years, I spent most of my time and energy in an attempt to unravel the secrets of how to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix. I listened to quite a lot of speed and thrash metal on the side, too. Y'know, bands such as Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Stone, which was quite a legendary Finnish speed metal band in the late 80's. My budding personal artistic expression was anyhow more influenced by legendary old timers, like Hendrix. I simply loathed all sorts of pyrotechnical wankery (with the exception of certain tracks by Steve Vai and Joe Satriani). Mr. Big's lead guitarist Paul Gilbert was famous for that very special blend of technical stuff, that I wasn't interested in, not in the slightest. So, I never really gave the band a chance. I think my misconception of the band's music as some kind of a shit-show of technical masturbation was due to some instructional videos hosted by Gilbert. After all, his fame as a highly skilled guitarist must have derived from his contributions to several guitar magazines and instructional videos, instead of his career in Mr. Big. So, everytime I heard the intro of, say, To Be With You, on my car radio, I simply had to change the channel. In order to do so, I had to manually rotate the tuning knob. Yes, my first car stereos were THAT vintage! What a time it was to be alive! Years later, with the maturity of age like with a fine wine, I finally listened to the worn-out hits of this horrid band only to find out that – bummer! - in terms of songwriting, those goddamn Mr.Big hits were actually not that bad at all. The song Green-Tinted Sixties Mind was released on the album Lean Into It in 1991. Now, everytime I am exposed to this particular song, I am instantly reminded of what a stuck-up elitistic music snob I used to be during those emotionally tumultuous times.

So, I could resort to the luck of the draw, but luckily I've got one more candidate to go.

Lonely the Brave is one of my most recent findings. It's an English alt.rock band from Cambridge, formed in 2008. I really don't know much about the band, just this one song titled The Blue, The Green. I was exposed to it while playing the music trivia game Songpop 2 with my mobile phone during the past two years, I think. The game is about guessing songs within the timeframe of a 15 second clip. Pretty addictive at first, actually. This 15-second-soundbite was enough to gain my full attention, so I had to check out the song in full, instantly. I cannot pinpoint what exactly it is, but this particular song has that vague feeling of ”something”, that draws me to listen to it, time and time again.

Lonely The Brave: The Blue, The Green

Next up: yellow.

I was first introduced to Frank Zappa's unique music in the late 80's, by my classmate Jussi, who kindly exposed me to the timeless classic Bobby Brown Goes Down. At the delicate age of 15, it was a pretty anticipated reaction that the explicit song lyrics would strike a chord. A few years later, as I was browsing through the vinyl section at the local second hand record store, I came across a pure treasure: the gatefold vinyl edition of Roxy & Elsewhere by Frank Zappa & The Mothers. In mint condition, too! Dropping the needle on the first groove on the black vinyl back home was like taking the first hit of some mind-altering illegal substance. My perception of reality changed in an instant – and there was no going back. Such an exciting mixture of fusion jazz, rock and harsh satire was sure to make me an addict. So, in no time at all I built up enough tolerance and moved onto semi-lethal dosages, and purchased the albums Hot Rats, Grand Wazoo and Apostophe('). The last one was released in the year, when I was born (1974), and it included the hilarious 4-part rock suite about the unfortunate adventures of an eskimo named Nanook. One part of the suite is titled: Don't Eat the Yellow Snow. Sound advice at the time of a global pandemic, that originated from some peculiar pathogen spillover event in China, don't cha think?

Frank Zappa: Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

Not many colours left, I think...

Next up: purple.

I was exposed to the music of Jimi Hendrix via a documentary on TV, when I was a rosy-cheeked 7th grader in junior high. It happened around the same time, when I got my first electic guitar. So, I guess it must have been written in the stars, or something. The universe simply wanted me to focus on the noble art of guitarism, instead of getting a college degree on psychopathological marketing or accounting (fuck no!). My first guitar was a cheap stratocaster-copy with a Williams-logo on it. In a way, it resembled the vintage Mellotron keyboard: it simply would refuse to keep in tune. One of the first songs that I learned, despite the frustrating limitations imposed by the crap tuners on the guitar, was Purple Haze by Hendrix. I had to learn it by ear. You see, back in the gloomy days of the late 80's, there just wasn't that many guitar tabs around. Not in Finland, anyway. Later I did find an instructional guitar playing manual at the local library, with a few pages dedicated to the art of Jimi Hendrix. Mainly, the only viable option to learn any contemporary rock song, or even any classic from the days long gone, was either to learn it by ear, or to resort to the occassional tabs provided by the international guitar magazines – if you were fortunate enough to spot these much-sought publications at your local bookstore. (These fuckin' millennials have it SO easy!) On the other hand, learning to play primarily by ear must have developed my improvisational skills a great deal, as an added bonus. Improvisation is not so much about throwing up some pre-programmed fancy gimmicks at any given chance, but actually LISTENING to what your fellow musicians are playing and responding accordingly.

Next up: grey.

I think it was my dear wife, once again, who first introduced me to the band Thrice, by playing the song Digital Sea from the band's double album Alchemy Index, a long, long time ago. The band's vocalist/guitarist Dustin Kensrue is one of those few singers, who are blessed with a distinctive voice that speaks, or to be more precise, sings volumes. He might not have the same gravitas like Mark Lanegan or Tom Waits, but nevertheless, he has the voice of a protagonist who's been to hell and back. Mark Lanegan sounds like he's got a season ticket, and Tom Waits sounds like he's the devil running the show – or, to put it in Waits' own words:

”Don't you know, there ain't no devil,

that's just God when he's drunk...”

 Tom Waits: Heartattack and Vine

Anyways, the lyrics in a Thrice song could be compiled of a list of phone numbers, or the decimals of Pi (like Kate Bush actually did), and it would still sound like a profound wisdom concerning the transformative journey of being fully human.

Thrice: The Grey

Last but not least, the colour: turquoise.

For years, I actually thought that Boards of Canada was indeed a Canadian outfit. Y'know, indie bands in particular come up with these band names that have some funny and ironic twist. Somewhere along the way, it finally dawned on me that this magnificent electronic duo is actually from Scotland. Well, of course it is! If my memory isn't playing any tricks on me now, I'm pretty sure that Soulsavers and Hidden Orchestra are Scottish, too. And they all have something in common. Each of these electronic outfits has an extraordinary and unique, boss-level prominance in the way they manage to capture emotion in their instrumentals.

Boards of Canada released a 5-minute electronic epic titled Turquoise Hexagon Sun on the album Music Has the Right to Children in 1998. The name of the song is actually a reference to the duo's recording studio Hexagon Sun. It makes it even more marvellous, that an instrumental track with a title deriving from something so mundane can touch your heartstrings so deeply. It's not that often, when an electronic instrumental with a hip-hop beat, glassy vintage synth motifs and deliberately lo-fi production paired with grainy samples, manage to do that. These Scottish bastards must've been onto something...

Well, that's pretty much all there was to the first day in this music challenge! I was supposed to pick one song, and I ended up writing a fucking novel about it...Tomorrow the plot shall thicken even more, when I introduce you to the theme of the day #2.

In the meanwhile, you can do yourself a favour and listen to:

Boards of Canada: Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Stay tuned! Cheers!

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Blame v. Responsibility in the Fall-out from the FFWPU and Sun Myung Moon

I thank the folks who made comments on my posting.  In this response, I will talk about the terms, “blame,” “responsibility,” or “judgment,” all of which have broad meanings. Let’s focus on the main definition as meant in the context, and postpone other definitions of each word for future discussion.

▶

# Let’s say Mary is another victim of Rev. Moon and his church. They pretty much ruined her life. She is too old now to do anything in her life to start over. Seeking her damage at court was impractical and she has given up on that. Thanks to help from her friends and the government, she is now able to make a living.

What is the right thing for her to do about Rev. Moon and the church?  This is the ethical question that we are now inquiring about.

1. The most popular thing to do would be to blame the offender and keep holding him responsible to undo the damage done to Mary. Both blame and responsibility must go to the offender.  That is the perfect justice.

The crucial problem with this idea of perfect justice is that we are living in a less-than-perfect world.  All right, a FAR less-than-the perfect world. Perfect justice is impossible in this world. If you think otherwise, I think you are still unfortunately caught up in the cult mentality. Rev. Moon is dead and the church is now free from the liability for Mary’s damage. What can we do?

I guess the second best we can try is to ruin the social reputation of the offender. But, how does that work for Mary personally? That was my point. The damage done to Mary was real and practical, but social reputation is a mental and emotional effect. The invisible solution does not add up to compensate the materialized damage done to Mary.  Mary knows it subtly, and this unsatisfactory result only frustrates her and amplifies her anger. She suffered enough when serving the cult, and after leaving it. She has now entered into another stage of suffering with her anger and frustration. Pursuit of perfect justice usually ends up with a prolonged state of individual suffering. That was the Jesus’s insight and he gave us the warning, “do not judge.”  In this case, yes, the concept of perfect justice is a bitch.

2. The person whom I will call Andrew is also a victim of the Church. Andrew was one of the early quitters from the church, with much less damage than Mary’s. He moved on with his life and is now living fine.  When seeing Mary’s suffering, Andrew feels both sympathy and frustration. “Why is she stuck in the unfortunate past? Yes, it happened, but it has gone now. Move on. Be responsible for your life and do something for yourself.”

Andrew has an attitude problem. He slightly blames Mary for what happened. “If she were a bit smarter, she would’ve left the church much earlier and got much less damage. Then she could forget about it and move on.” He is ignoring or putting way less weight on what the offender did to Mary. He ends up sending both blame and responsibility to the victim. Andrew is a victim blamer and he is a fool with this issue. He is so confused that he cannot see who the offender was.

3. Despite the stark differences in their attitudes, the ideal moralist and the victim blamer have one thing in common.  Both believe, “blame and responsibility must go hand in hand.” The former believes that the blame and the responsibility must go to the offender; the latter, to the victim.

Most of us know better – Blame and responsibility can separate from each other.  Especially in Mary’s case, they must separate for Mary’s own emotional well-being.

Conclusively, in my humble opinion, the right thing to tell Mary is – “Blame Rev. Moon, and be responsible for your own life.” (Don’t say it verbatim. Say it nicely with compassion.) As an adult, Mary must be responsible for everything that happens to her life.

It is a shitty deal because of the unfairness, but it is the way of all life forms on the earth that has so many limitations. Even the God is not taking care of Mary’s emotion; who are we?

Damage was done to the victim personally, but she cannot punish the offender personally, at least physically or financially. If she does not obey the at-least rule, she now becomes the offender and the Leviathan (government) will punish her. Instead, Mary should petition the community (if organized well), the government, or the God to punish the offender. Then, she needs to forget about it. Punishment is not her job. No point to judge Rev. Moon from this point on. She needs to move on with her life. She is also responsible to work on her emotions and to heal her wounds by whatever means that work, with or without help.

A commenter mentioned about Matthew 18:15-17 as a dissent to my argument. The Gospel verse commented applies only when you belong to a well-organized community with right rules. That doesn’t work for Mary, because she left the UC community, let alone questioning if the community is well organized with right rules. Besides, her old-time community loves the offender (because he was the parent who gave birth to the community) much more than Mary. They will not honor her demands. In the particular section, Jesus was talking about something different from the subject of his teaching “Do not judge” which I was discussing.

4. Mary now wishes to expose to the public Rev. Moon and his church’s immoral or unethical behaviors. She can help protecting potential victims that way. This is probably the best thing Mary could do about her damage. Her effort has a practical benefit for lessening the potential damage to innocent people. It is also a good thing that could please Mary, and in turn it could help to heal her emotional wounds.

For people like Mary, I suggested that they do the work without negative emotions (including anger) as much as possible, because the negative emotions quickly becomes a burden on others, and it will work against her efforts for good.

5. Lastly, Mary needs to know her target audience for her community awareness mission.

(a) First, the die-hard church members are not her target. She cannot change a thing about the church’s legitimate membership. Both the church and the public know enough by now how weird and bad Rev. Moon was. Exposing further information about Rev. Moon’s fault would sound like, “we initially thought Rev. Moon stole about $1 billion, but we recently found out that the amount was close to $1.5 billion.” Do you think the new information would change anything significant in the readers’ mind, those who already know how bad he was?

The core members know how bad Rev. Moon was – but it does not change their faith, because they value the underlying cause more than his revealed superficial behavior. They will ask you back, “why do you think he did such bad things?” Regardless of how bad the exposed morality of Rev. Moon was, to the members the information would just be about the means that he utilized to achieve the end – God’s providential goal that the members value much more than Mary’s emotional well-being. Here, Mary is practicing the Kantian ethics treating means as ends in themselves, and the church members are practicing the Utilitarian ethics that allows sacrificing people and things to achieve a higher goal, whatever that is. The Unificationists have one of the highest goals on earth, and they will consider Mary as a sacrifice. Again, the morality is a bitch. Don’t play with it.

(b) The only group or audience in which Mary’s contribution would be significant is that of skeptics. Those who already have some doubts about their faith in Rev. Moon. They are the target audience Mary needs to focus on.

How many are there? Nobody knows for sure, but I could show a snapshot of the reality on this particular forum ‘What is on the Moon’ (WIOTM): A couple of years ago, I included an outside link in my posting to show a picture, and the outside server computer was counting (without prior notice to me) how many readers clicked my link – not one by one, but roughly by an increment of 50, like “50 people clicked your link.” My posting was rather controversial and I believe most of the readers clicked on my link out of curiosity. The final count was less than 200.  And we know the absolute majority of readers on this forum are the ones who already left the church and do not need Mary’s help. One of my 2nd Generation friends benefited from the exposed information about Rev. Moon posted here, and has stopped practicing his worship. But he is still staying with people in the community. Well, it’s been a couple of years now and the readership could have increased significantly. I don’t know, but I think this shows a picture of the reality. Not that the number is of the utmost importance, but I simply point out that Mary is facing a big challenge in her mission. It will be beneficial for her not to expect too much.

© For other groups than this target – like the die-hard, those who left, and the public – Mary’s informational exposure is mostly a sort of entertainment. A means to kill the boredom of mundane life. I think Frank contributes a lot for this function. Personally, I am not interested in the conspiracy kind of politics or behind-politics stories. However, his postings should entertain many. Rev. Moon and his church is an interesting subject for a tiny segment of the population on earth. But it works for me because it is more fun than the usual chatting with the colleagues in my office. I once was a Moonie.

This is the reality as I see it.

– Kenneth

http://whatisonthemoon.tumblr.com/post/165741281557/blame-v-responsibility

Kenneth’s earlier post: Do Not Judge Rev Moon

A response to Kenneth: Thankfully, Kenneth gets it.

[whatisonthemoonarchive]

All hail Kennith because as he says, "This is the reality as I see it. – Kenneth". I think the man has a serious "Moon" complex. He has spoken, all must obey.

Blame v. Responsibility in the Fall-out from the FFWPU and Sun Myung Moon I thank the folks who made comments on my posting. In this response, I will talk about the terms, “blame,” “responsibility,” or “judgment,” all of which have broad meanings. Let’s focus on the main definition as meant in the context, and postpone other definitions of each word for future discussion. ▶ # Let’s say Mary is another victim of Rev. Moon and his church. They pretty much ruined her life. She is too old now to do anything in her life to start over. Seeking her damage at court was impractical and she has given up on that. Thanks to help from her friends and the government, she is now able to make a living. What is the right thing for her to do about Rev. Moon and the church? This is the ethical question that we are now inquiring about. 1. The most popular thing to do would be to blame the offender and keep holding him responsible to undo the damage done to Mary. Both blame and responsibility must go to the offender. That is the perfect justice. The crucial problem with this idea of perfect justice is that we are living in a less-than-perfect world. All right, a FAR less-than-the perfect world. Perfect justice is impossible in this world. If you think otherwise, I think you are still unfortunately caught up in the cult mentality. Rev. Moon is dead and the church is now free from the liability for Mary’s damage. What can we do? I guess the second best we can try is to ruin the social reputation of the offender. But, how does that work for Mary personally? That was my point. The damage done to Mary was real and practical, but social reputation is a mental and emotional effect. The invisible solution does not add up to compensate the materialized damage done to Mary. Mary knows it subtly, and this unsatisfactory result only frustrates her and amplifies her anger. She suffered enough when serving the cult, and after leaving it. She has now entered into another stage of suffering with her anger and frustration. Pursuit of perfect justice usually ends up with a prolonged state of individual suffering. That was the Jesus’s insight and he gave us the warning, “do not judge.” In this case, yes, the concept of perfect justice is a bitch. 2. The person whom I will call Andrew is also a victim of the Church. Andrew was one of the early quitters from the church, with much less damage than Mary’s. He moved on with his life and is now living fine. When seeing Mary’s suffering, Andrew feels both sympathy and frustration. “Why is she stuck in the unfortunate past? Yes, it happened, but it has gone now. Move on. Be responsible for your life and do something for yourself.” Andrew has an attitude problem. He slightly blames Mary for what happened. “If she were a bit smarter, she would’ve left the church much earlier and got much less damage. Then she could forget about it and move on.” He is ignoring or putting way less weight on what the offender did to Mary. He ends up sending both blame and responsibility to the victim. Andrew is a victim blamer and he is a fool with this issue. He is so confused that he cannot see who the offender was. 3. Despite the stark differences in their attitudes, the ideal moralist and the victim blamer have one thing in common. Both believe, “blame and responsibility must go hand in hand.” The former believes that the blame and the responsibility must go to the offender; the latter, to the victim. Most of us know better – Blame and responsibility can separate from each other. Especially in Mary’s case, they must separate for Mary’s own emotional well-being. Conclusively, in my humble opinion, the right thing to tell Mary is – “Blame Rev. Moon, and be responsible for your own life.” (Don’t say it verbatim. Say it nicely with compassion.) As an adult, Mary must be responsible for everything that happens to her life. It is a shitty deal because of the unfairness, but it is the way of all life forms on the earth that has so many limitations. Even the God is not taking care of Mary’s emotion; who are we? Damage was done to the victim personally, but she cannot punish the offender personally, at least physically or financially. If she does not obey the at-least rule, she now becomes the offender and the Leviathan (government) will punish her. Instead, Mary should petition the community (if organized well), the government, or the God to punish the offender. Then, she needs to forget about it. Punishment is not her job. No point to judge Rev. Moon from this point on. She needs to move on with her life. She is also responsible to work on her emotions and to heal her wounds by whatever means that work, with or without help. A commenter mentioned about Matthew 18:15-17 as a dissent to my argument. The Gospel verse commented applies only when you belong to a well-organized community with right rules. That doesn’t work for Mary, because she left the UC community, let alone questioning if the community is well organized with right rules. Besides, her old-time community loves the offender (because he was the parent who gave birth to the community) much more than Mary. They will not honor her demands. In the particular section, Jesus was talking about something different from the subject of his teaching “Do not judge” which I was discussing. 4. Mary now wishes to expose to the public Rev. Moon and his church’s immoral or unethical behaviors. She can help protecting potential victims that way. This is probably the best thing Mary could do about her damage. Her effort has a practical benefit for lessening the potential damage to innocent people. It is also a good thing that could please Mary, and in turn it could help to heal her emotional wounds. For people like Mary, I suggested that they do the work without negative emotions (including anger) as much as possible, because the negative emotions quickly becomes a burden on others, and it will work against her efforts for good. 5. Lastly, Mary needs to know her target audience for her community awareness mission. (a) First, the die-hard church members are not her target. She cannot change a thing about the church’s legitimate membership. Both the church and the public know enough by now how weird and bad Rev. Moon was. Exposing further information about Rev. Moon’s fault would sound like, “we initially thought Rev. Moon stole about $1 billion, but we recently found out that the amount was close to $1.5 billion.” Do you think the new information would change anything significant in the readers’ mind, those who already know how bad he was? The core members know how bad Rev. Moon was – but it does not change their faith, because they value the underlying cause more than his revealed superficial behavior. They will ask you back, “why do you think he did such bad things?” Regardless of how bad the exposed morality of Rev. Moon was, to the members the information would just be about the means that he utilized to achieve the end – God’s providential goal that the members value much more than Mary’s emotional well-being. Here, Mary is practicing the Kantian ethics treating means as ends in themselves, and the church members are practicing the Utilitarian ethics that allows sacrificing people and things to achieve a higher goal, whatever that is. The Unificationists have one of the highest goals on earth, and they will consider Mary as a sacrifice. Again, the morality is a bitch. Don’t play with it. (b) The only group or audience in which Mary’s contribution would be significant is that of skeptics. Those who already have some doubts about their faith in Rev. Moon. They are the target audience Mary needs to focus on. How many are there? Nobody knows for sure, but I could show a snapshot of the reality on this particular forum ‘What is on the Moon’ (WIOTM): A couple of years ago, I included an outside link in my posting to show a picture, and the outside server computer was counting (without prior notice to me) how many readers clicked my link – not one by one, but roughly by an increment of 50, like “50 people clicked your link.” My posting was rather controversial and I believe most of the readers clicked on my link out of curiosity. The final count was less than 200. And we know the absolute majority of readers on this forum are the ones who already left the church and do not need Mary’s help. One of my 2nd Generation friends benefited from the exposed information about Rev. Moon posted here, and has stopped practicing his worship. But he is still staying with people in the community. Well, it’s been a couple of years now and the readership could have increased significantly. I don’t know, but I think this shows a picture of the reality. Not that the number is of the utmost importance, but I simply point out that Mary is facing a big challenge in her mission. It will be beneficial for her not to expect too much. © For other groups than this target – like the die-hard, those who left, and the public – Mary’s informational exposure is mostly a sort of entertainment. A means to kill the boredom of mundane life. I think Frank contributes a lot for this function. Personally, I am not interested in the conspiracy kind of politics or behind-politics stories. However, his postings should entertain many. Rev. Moon and his church is an interesting subject for a tiny segment of the population on earth. But it works for me because it is more fun than the usual chatting with the colleagues in my office. I once was a Moonie.

This is the reality as I see it. – Kenneth

[whatisonthemoonarchive]

Blame v. Responsibility

I thank the folks who made comments on my posting.  In this response, I will talk about the terms, “blame,” “responsibility,” or “judgment,” all of which have broad meanings. Let’s focus on the main definition as meant in the context, and postpone other definitions of each word for future discussion.

I>

# Let’s say Mary is another victim of Rev. Moon and his church. They pretty much ruined her life. She is too old now to do anything in her life to start over.  Seeking her damage at court was impractical and she has given it up. Thanks to help from her friends and government, she is now able to make a living.

What is the right thing for her to do about Rev. Moon and the church?  This is the ethical question that we are inquiring now.

1. The most popular thing to do would be to blame the offender and keep holding him responsible to undo the damage done to Mary. Both blame and responsibility must go to the offender.  That is the perfect justice.

The crucial problem with this idea of perfect justice is that we are living in a less-than-perfect world.  All right, a FAR less-than-the perfect. The perfect justice is impossible in this world. If you think otherwise, I think you are still caught in the cult mentality unfortunately. Rev. Moon is dead and the church is now free from the liability for Mary’s damage. What can we do?

I guess, the second best we can try is to ruin the social reputation of the offender. But, how does that work for Mary personally? That was my point. The damage done to Mary was real and practical, but social reputation is a mental and emotional effect. The invisible solution does not add up to compensate the materialized damage done to Mary.  Mary knows it subtly, and this unsatisfactory result only frustrates her and amplifies her anger. She suffered enough when serving the cult, and after leaving it, she has now entered into another stage of suffering with her anger and frustration. Pursuit of the perfect justice usually ends up with a prolonged state of individual suffering. That was the Jesus’s insight and gave us the warning, “do not judge.”  In this case, yes, the concept of perfect justice is a bitch.

2. The person whom I will call Andrew is also the Church’s victim. Andrew was one of the early quitters from the church, with much less damage than Mary’s. He moved on with his life and is living fine now.  When seeing Mary’s suffering, Andrew feels both sympathy and frustration. “Why is she stuck in the unfortunate past? Yes, it happened, but has gone now. Move on. Be responsible for your life and do something for yourself.”

Andrew has an attitude problem. He slightly blames Mary for what happened. “If she were a bit smarter, she would’ve left the church much earlier and got much less damage. Then, she could forget about it and move on.” He is ignoring or putting way less weight on what the offender did to Mary. He ends up sending both blame and responsibility to the victim. Andrew is a victim blamer and he is a fool with this issue. So confused that he cannot see who the offender was.

3. Despite the stark differences in their attitudes, the ideal moralist and the victim blamer have one thing in common.  Both believe, “blame and responsibility must go hand in hand.” The former believes that the blame and the responsibility must go to the offender; the latter, to the victim.

Most of us know better -- Blame and responsibility can separate from each other.  Especially in Mary’s case, they must separate for Mary’s own emotional wellbeing.

Conclusively, in my humble opinion, the right thing to tell Mary is – “Blame Rev. Moon, and be responsible for your own life.” (Don’t say it verbatim. Say it nicely with compassion.) As an adult, Mary must be responsible for everything that happens to her life.

It is a shitty deal for the unfairness, but it is the way of all life forms on the earth that has so many limitations. Even the God is not taking care of Mary’s emotion; who are we?

Damage was done to the victim personally, but she cannot punish the offender personally, at least physically or financially. If she does not obey the at-least rule, she now becomes the offender and the Leviathan (government) will punish her. Instead, Mary should petition the community (if organized well), the government, or the God to punish the offender. Then, she needs to forget about it. Punishment is not her job. No point to judge Rev. Moon from this point on. She needs to move on with her life. She is also responsible to work on her emotion and heal its wound by whatever works, with our without help. 

A commenter mentioned about Matthew 18:15-17 as a dissent to my argument. The Gospel verse commented applies only when you belong to a well-organized community with right rules. That doesn’t work for Mary, because she left the UC community, let alone questioning if the community is well organized with right rules. Besides, her old-time community loves the offender (because he was the parent who gave birth to the community) much more than Mary. They will not honor her demand. In the particular section, Jesus was talking about something different from the subject of his teaching “Do not judge” I was discussing. 

4. Mary now wishes to expose to the public Rev. Moon and his church’s immoral or unethical behaviors. She can help protecting potential victims that way. This is probably the best thing Mary could do about her damage. Her effort has a practical benefit for lessening the potential damage of innocent people. It is also a good thing that could please Mary, which could in turn heal her emotional wound. 

For the people like Mary, I suggested that they do the work without negative emotion (including anger) as much as possible, because the negative emotion quickly becomes a burden on others, and it will work against her effort for the good.

5. Lastly, Mary needs to know her target audience for her community awareness mission. 

(a) First, the die-hard church members are not her target. She cannot change a thing about the church’s legitimate membership. Both the church and the public know enough by now how weird and bad Rev. Moon was. Exposing further information about Rev. Moon’s fault would sound like, “we initially thought Rev. Moon stole about $1 billion, but we newly found out that the amount was close to $1.5 billion.” Do you think the new information would change anything significant in the readers’ mind, who already knew how bad he was? 

The core members know how bad Rev. Moon was, but it does not change their faith, because they value the underlying cause more than his superficial behavior shown. They will ask you back, “why do you think he did such bad things?” Regardless of how bad the exposed Rev. Moon’s morality was, to the members, the information would just be about the means that he utilized to achieve the end -- the God’s providential goal that the members value much more than Mary’s emotional well-being. Here, Mary is practicing the Kantian ethics treating means as ends in themselves, and the church members are practicing the Utilitarian ethics that allows sacrificing people and things to achieve a higher goal, whatever that is. The Unificationists have one of the highest goals on the earth, and they will consider Mary as a sacrifice. Again, the morality is a bitch. Don’t play with it.

(b) The only group of audience in which Mary’s contribution would mean significant is that of those skeptics. Those who already have some defects in their faith in Rev. Moon. They are the target audience Mary needs to focus. 

How many are there? Nobody knows for sure, but I could show a snapshot of the reality at this particular forum (WIOTM): A couple of years ago, I included an outside link in my posting to show a picture, and the outside server computer was counting (without prior notice to me) how many readers clicked my link – not one by one, but roughly by an increment of 50, like “50 people clicked your link.” My posting was rather controversial and I believe most of the readers then clicked my link for curiosity. The final count was less than 200.  And, we know the absolute majority of readers here are the ones who already left the church and do not need Mary’s help. One of my 2nd Generation friends benefited from the exposed Rev. Moon information posted here, and has stopped practicing the worship. But, he is still staying with people in the community. Well, it’s been a couple of years now and the readership could have been increased significantly. I don’t know, but I think this shows a picture of the reality. Not that the number is the utmost importance, but I simply point out that Mary is facing a big challenge in her mission. It will be beneficial for her not to expect too much. 

(c) For other groups than this target -- like the die-hard, those who left, and the public -- Mary’s informational exposure is mostly a sort of entertainment. A means to kill the boredom of mundane life. I think Frank contributes a lot for this function. Personally, I am not interested in the conspiracy kind of politics or behind-politics stories, but his postings should entertain many. Rev. Moon and his church is an interesting subject for a tiny segment of population on the earth. But, it works for me because it is more fun than chatting with the usual colleagues in my office. I once was a Moonie.

This is the reality as I see.

-Kenneth