#Letter to Hugh Blair

[philosophybits]

Reading, and sauntering, and lounging, and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme happiness.

David Hume, "Letter to Hugh Blair (1 April 1767)"

[scotianostra]

27th July 1689 saw the Battle of Killiecrankie.

As soon as you hear the words "Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad?" it puts a smile on my face, in my opinion one of the most rousing Scottish folk songs.

The battle itself saw a force of 2,000 Jacobites under the command of 'Bonnie Dundee', defeated the larger government army of 4,000 soldiers led by General Hugh Mackay.

Bonnie Dundee first sent a small group of highlanders down the main road towards Killiecrankie as a feint, with the intention of deceiving Mackay into thinking this was the advanced guard.

Meanwhile the main Army left their camp in Old Blair, around mid afternoon and circled behind the hill of Lude coming down Allt Chluain. (Ambush stream) with Creag Eallaich (rock of the charge) on their left. Mackay had positioned his men to meet a frontal attack from the direction of Blair. As the highlanders emerged around the side of the hill they saw McKay's army jump to their feet, they had been resting. Mackay had to wheel his forces round quickly to meet this new threat. This put him in the awkward position of facing uphill with his opponents above him and the river barrier at his back. The Highland charge would have bbe in full flight as he tried to regroup his men.

As soon as Bonnie Dundee gave the order to charge, the highlanders uttering the eerie high-pitched battle cry of the Celt, leapt down the hill towards the enemy. The battle lasted approximately 15 minutes.

Unfortunately Dundee, in the act of encouraging his men, was pierced beneath the breastplate by a musket ball of the enemy and fell dying from his horse. Graham reputedly asked a soldier "How goes the day?", to which the man replied, "Well for King James, but I am sorry for your lordship." The dying Graham then replied, "If it goes well for him, it matters the less for me." A short letter describing the engagement to King James was later produced which purported to be from Graham, but is now believed to be spurious.

Going back to the song and the line "But I met the devil and Dundee" this relates to the legend that he was invulnerable to lead (due to having made a pact with the Devil) and was killed by being penetrated by a silver button from his own coat. He died on the battlefield and was carried the few miles to the nearby parish church of St Bride.

I leave you with the Corries, the song here was a live performance from 1975 but there is footage from 1966 as the lads did a pioneering music video, it sees them travel along the road from Pitlochry to Killiecrankie. This is one of my favourite songs from The Corries. The first three verses and the chorus were written by Robert Burns and set to an older melody. James Hogg may have had a hand in writing the additional verses..

[bethanydelleman]

Mary Bennet: Is it Canon?

Mary wears glasses

Fanon (I’m using this term to cover adaptations and JAFF), not canon. Never mentioned.

Mary wears dark colours/dresses like a nun/she is secretly Jane Eyre

Fanon, not canon. Never mentioned in the book and unlikely since Mrs. Bennet is trying to get them all married. She probably wears similar things to the rest of her sisters, though she may trim her gowns and hats less.

Mary styles her hair differently

Fanon, not canon. Never mentioned. Their hair is probably all done by the same upper housemaid whom Mrs. Bennet tells to focus on Jane instead of Kitty on one occasion.

Mary loves Fordyce’s sermons

Fanon, not canon. Mr. Collins chose what book to read and we are never specifically told any books that Mary reads. According to David Shapard, Mary quotes the novel Evelina by Frances Burney either Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Letters by Hugh Blair or Letters on the Improvement of the Mind by Hester Chapone. It is reasonable to assume she may have read Fordyce since it is in the house, but we don’t know if she liked it. If she was obsessed with it, she’d probably quote it more often.

Mary is intelligent

Mary wants to be seen as intelligent, but she mostly just parrots things she has read without actually integrating the knowledge. This is why Mr. Bennet says she makes “extracts”, which would be a collection of quotes. She has a very shallow understanding of what she reads and therefore cannot use her knowledge without preparation, as we see in Ch 2.

“What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?” cried he. “Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books, and make extracts.”

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

Mr. Bennet is actually mocking Mary there (father of the year). 

Being smart is Mary’s personal expression of vanity. Today you would think of her as a know-it-all, but one who spouts trivia instead of actually thinking about deep topics.

Mary is a wallflower/shy

Mary is very eager to put herself on display and be the centre of attention:

Mary, after very little entreaty, preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent entreaties did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance,—but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. (Ch 18)

Fanny Price (Mansfield Park), who wants to be a wallflower and is shy, refuses to learn how to play at all, probably because she doesn’t want this sort of attention. Mary’s speeches are another example of her displaying herself. She is drawing attention, not trying to hide. 

Mary sings/plays terribly

Fanon, not canon. Mary plays pedantically. It’s not fun to listen to her because she plays technically difficult pieces when you just want some nice music. As a modern example, she plays classical music when you want a pop song.

At the Netherfield ball we hear, “Mary’s powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was weak, and her manner affected.” According to David Shapard, the voice being weak means that Mary gets worse over time, so the fact that she is doing a second son is the real problem. She’s not off-key. And her manner is affected, as in she’s showing off and that is easy to perceive. So while Mary plays better than Elizabeth, she plays for her own vanity instead of for other’s pleasure.

Mary doesn’t dance

Fanon, not canon. We never hear of Mary dancing, but she does attend balls and if someone asks her, she assumably would dance. We know Mr. Collins intended to dance with all his cousins in chronological order, except for Elizabeth being first. It’s probably not mentioned because Mary isn’t a main character or having a romance during the novel.

Mary spends all her time studying

True. While she does go to evening engagements, Mary declines every time her sisters invite her to go somewhere during the day and Jane says she is reading instead of attending to her grief-stricken mother.

So what is Mary? She knows she isn’t beautiful, so instead she shows off her accomplishments and memorized quotations. She has a pretty bad relationship with her sisters. While her behaviour seems better to us than Lydia and Kitty’s, she is vulgar because she puts herself forward for praise and display. Fortunately, she is only nineteen years old so hopefully she will improve over time.

Reference: David Shapard’s The Annotated Pride and Prejudice

The Mary Map (a collection of every reference to Mary Bennet in P&P)

[books-in-media]

Selma Blair, (Instagram, July 10, 2020)

—The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After, Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil (2018)

—Sin, Josephine Hart (1992)

—Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, Abigail Thomas (2000)

—Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion (1970)

—Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes (1998)

—Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis (1956)

—Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me, Adrienne Brodeur (2019)

—Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream, Blair Imani (2020)

—Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris (1997)

—The Last Thing He Wanted, Joan Didion (1996)

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

This week we present abstract, historiated initials designed by English Vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth and cut by the English wood engraver Blair Hughes-Stanton for the 1926 limited-edition, fine-press, Subscriber’s Edition of T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom privately printed by Roy Manning Pike.and Herbert John Hodgson. The trade edition would not appear until 1935.

In a letter written to Ashendene Press proprietor  C. H. St John Hornby, Lawrence notes that “The initials are a modern set, designed by Wadsworth . . . . They seem to me not inconsistent with the sobriety of Caslon, and in keeping with the up-to-dateness of many of my pictures. We reduced some of them to the three-line scale, and are using them for the headings of paragraphs, where these head the page.”

The display of initials shown here is from J. M. Wilson’s article “T. E. Lawrence and the Printing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom” in Matrix 5, Winter 1985, pp. 55-69. We don’t own a copy of the Subscriber’s Edition, so we scavenged images from book dealer sites to display the use of the initials as drop-caps and chapter heads.

Matrix 5 was printed in October 1985 by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in Andoversford, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 715 copies, and is a donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

View more posts from Matrix.

View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts.

[someones-reading-list]

Fall 2018: American Literature Since 1865

John Blair - Texas State University

Reading List:

Walt Whitman: Songs of Myself

Emily Dickinson: “I Taste a Liquor”, “Wild Nights--Wild Nights”, “There’s a certain Slant of Light”, “Because I could not stop”, “This is my letter”, “I heard a Fly buzz”, “Much Madness”, “My Life had stood”

Robert Frost: “Birches” & “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”

Wallace Stevens: “The Emperor of Ice Cream” & “Sunday Morning”

T S Eliot: “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” & The Waste Land

William Carlos Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow” & “This is Just to Say”

e.e. cummings: “The Cambridge Ladies” & “anyone lived in a pretty how town”

Langston Hughes: “Harlem” & “Theme for English B”

Robert Lowell: “Skunk Hour”

Sylvia Plath: “Daddy”

Yusef Komunyakaa: “Facing It”

Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire

Amiri Baraka: Dutchman

Faulkner: “A Rose for Emily”

Ellison: “Battle Royal”

Hemingway: “Big Two Hearted River”

Steinbeck: “Chrystanthemums”

Alice Walker: “Everyday Use”

Tim O’Brien: The Things They Carried

Don Delillo: “Videotape”

Sherman Alexie: “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”

John Gardner: Grendel

Sandra Cisneros: The House on Mango Street

[abbasroyals]

Annanda Hughes here reporting for AC-TV: A letter addressed to the King was hand delivered by Sir, Joe Rutledge. It read “we have your prince!” and in a separate letter that was not disclosed we are told that the prince AND Blair Holt, the advisor are to appear at the castle today! This is a crazy story, but we are glad to hear that our future king is okay and will be returning! #sims4 #simstagram #simstagrammer #sims4roleplay #sims4story https://www.instagram.com/p/CGk3_VdFnFp/?igshid=1d5q3kqbusxgf

[garden-of-the-soul]

She took Emily with her to show her a curious old snuff-box that had belonged to Hugh Murray, and in rummaging for it lifted out a big, flat bundle of dusty paper–paper of a deep pink colour in oddly long and narrow sheets.

This was the quiet corner of the dormer-window, where shadows always moved about, softly and swingingly, and beautiful mosaics patterned the bare floor. From it one could see over the tree-tops right down to the Blair Water. In the recess of the dormer-window she crouched–breathlessly she selected a letter-bill and extracted a lead-pencil from her pocket. An old sheet of cardboard served as a desk; she began to write feverishly.

-L.M Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

[red-phoenix26]

In March, crisis struck again when Clinton's father, Hugh Rodham, suffered a stroke and died. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, was "really on theme of being spied on, taped, watched, imprisoned," [Diane] Blair wrote. He also regretted his inattention to his wife, Blair said, a sense that "he hadn't had time to really take care of her."

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/from-press-paranoia-to-affairs-one-hillary-confidantes-letters-reveal-the-window-into-her-friends-li-1442401

[scotianostra]

On 7th April 1718 Hugh Blair was born in Edinburgh.

Hugh Blair went to Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University, graduating Master of Arts in 1739. He was licensed to preach in 1741, and soon after became tutor in the family of Simon, Master of Lovat.

Hugh Blair was a leading figure in the Church of Scotland. He was one of the ‘literati’, Edinburgh’s intellectual élite, an early member of the Select Society and early fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. As Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Edinburgh from 1760, he held the first dedicated chair of English in any university.

Blair gave public lectures on English language, literature and literary criticism. He chaired a sub-society created by the Select Society, called the ‘Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language’.

Blair was closely linked with the appearance and growth in popularity of the controversial Ossian poems, ostensibly translated by James MacPherson. He arranged for the publication of the poems and wrote a preface to MacPherson’s ‘Fragments of ancient poetry’, first published in 1760.

In subsequent debates about the authenticity of the Ossian poems, Blair strongly defended the poems as authentic examples of ancient Gaelic literature. In 1763, he published ‘A critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian’ in which he argued that they were genuine. This dissertation established Blair’s reputation as a literary critic.

Our bard, Rabbie Burns, struck up an unlikely friendship with Blair, the two exchanging letters and anecdotes, even though the poet was over 40 years his junior.

Hugh Blair died 27th December 1800 (aged 82) and is buried in Edinburgh's Greyfriars Kirkyard.

[books-in-media]

Masterlist of books mentioned & read by Selma Blair

—Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes (1998)

—Creepy Pair of Underwear!, Aaron Reynolds (2017)

—Ghost, Jason Reynolds (2016)

—Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris (1997)

—Losing Mum and Pup, Christopher Buckley (2009)

—Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream, Blair Imani (2020)

—Nothing Is Lost: Selected Essays of Ingrid Sischy, Ingrid Sischy (2018)

—On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard,  Jennifer Pastiloff (2019)

—Outlawed, Anna North (2021)

—Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion (1970)

—Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, Abigail Thomas (2000)

—Sin, Josephine Hart (1992)

—Suffer Strong: How to Survive Anything by Redefining Everything, Katherine Wolf (2020)

—The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After, Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil (2018)

—The Last Thing He Wanted, Joan Didion (1996)

—Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis (1956)

—Untamed, Glennon Doyle (2020)

—When You Find Out the World is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments, Kelly Oxford (2016)

—Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me, Adrienne Brodeur (2019)

[llawncarefoo]

mulching service near me

"Mulching service near me" may be a very satisfying statement. it's customarily interpreted to mean that if someone is decided enough to require some action, she is going to always find how to accomplish her objectives. (I use the female pronoun here simply because it seems that ladies have more patience and perseverance than men.)

What you'll not realize is that the above statement may have actually been generated by someone's dissatisfying experience with the Probate process. You see, when someone dies with a final Will and Testament, or a Will, so as to be properly settled and distributed, the estate must undergo a State mandated legal process within the Courts. This process is mentioned as probate.

Court involvement always means time delays, costs and perhaps even attorney fees and undue publicity. Hence, the first statement may are " mulching service near me." The heirs must wait to receive their inheritance. This wait are often totally eliminated with a properly prepared revocable inter vivos trust . Yes, even for those smaller estates!

I love this letter to the editor of a serious newspaper, from and impatient relative of a decedent who had to attend for the desire to be settled through the probate process. it's clear, succinct, and to the point:

"Dear Editor,

In his recent column offering legal comment as a supposed public service, [a Phoenix lawyer] candidly acknowledges that much of the public's animosity towards lawyers derives from the skinning that a deceased person's heirs receive within the probate process. Amen thereto sentiment. I even have recently endured the method of settling an easy , solvent estate of relatively small size and with just one heir... "

My initial response to the present letter was one among shock: Is there really public animosity toward lawyers? (All right, I admit I already knew the solution thereto question.) But the overwhelming truth of the letter is frightening. the author declares that this is often alittle , simple estate, meaning the method should not be complicated. and therefore the writer clarifies that it is a solvent estate, meaning there are not any creditors to stress about. An estate "with just one heir" indicates nobody will bicker over the property.

The writer continues his comments about an attorney's column during a paper:

"... i used to be mulched of nearly $10,000 in attorney's fees. I invite those that would fancy a protracted adventure into the Byzantine complexities of the law to possess a go at probate. If they might see the legal process at its larcenist worst. What [the attorney] could have told his readers is that one can have a so-called inter vivos trust drawn and thereby avoid virtually all the preposterous, make work, flap-doodle of a probated will. The trust is straightforward , quick, and cheap. Moreover, it's private and avoids the needless spreading of a dead loved one's personal and business affairs throughout the courthouse records."-- by Robert W. Blair.

To Mr. Blair, I emphatically reply, "Hear! Hear!" Perhaps an identical experience inspired Charles Hughes Evans to declare, "The us is that the greatest law factory the planet has ever known."

Did you get that? Use a revocable inter vivos trust.

Using a trust has become the foremost popular thanks to avoid browsing probate. the main difference between a will and a trust is that the effect of the documents. A will becomes operative only upon the death of the person who's will it's . meaning it's subject to probate.

A trust, on the opposite hand, becomes operative the instant it's drafted and signed. it's in effect while you're still alive. In your Trust, as in your Will, you describe who you would like should receive your assets (which are now titled within the name of your Trust) and who you appoint to handle your estate upon your death, or maybe your disability. But additionally thereto , the Trust does all the work of the court .

As a result, your estate won't be engaged within the courts. Where there is a trust, there is no wait. that's unless you opt there's a reason your heirs should await some event or age before they will inherit your assets. which will be spelled call at your trust.

So if you select to use a trust, you've got found how to accomplish your objectives without a wait. It's only subject to your instructions. therefore the new satisfying statement is: " mulching service near me."

[didanawisgi]

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

July 7, 2020

The below letter will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at letters@harpers.org

“Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.”

Elliot Ackerman Saladin Ambar, Rutgers University Martin Amis Anne Applebaum Marie Arana, author Margaret Atwood John Banville Mia Bay, historian Louis Begley, writer Roger Berkowitz, Bard College Paul Berman, writer Sheri Berman, Barnard College Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet Neil Blair, agent David W. Blight, Yale University Jennifer Finney Boylan, author David Bromwich David Brooks, columnist Ian Buruma, Bard College Lea Carpenter Noam Chomsky, MIT (emeritus) Nicholas A. Christakis, Yale University Roger Cohen, writer Ambassador Frances D. Cook, ret. Drucilla Cornell, Founder, uBuntu Project Kamel Daoud Meghan Daum, writer Gerald Early, Washington University-St. Louis Jeffrey Eugenides, writer Dexter Filkins Federico Finchelstein, The New School Caitlin Flanagan Richard T. Ford, Stanford Law School Kmele Foster David Frum, journalist Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University Atul Gawande, Harvard University Todd Gitlin, Columbia University Kim Ghattas Malcolm Gladwell Michelle Goldberg, columnist Rebecca Goldstein, writer Anthony Grafton, Princeton University David Greenberg, Rutgers University Linda Greenhouse Rinne B. Groff, playwright Sarah Haider, activist Jonathan Haidt, NYU-Stern Roya Hakakian, writer Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution Jeet Heer, The Nation Katie Herzog, podcast host Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College Adam Hochschild, author Arlie Russell Hochschild, author Eva Hoffman, writer Coleman Hughes, writer/Manhattan Institute Hussein Ibish, Arab Gulf States Institute Michael Ignatieff Zaid Jilani, journalist Bill T. Jones, New York Live Arts Wendy Kaminer, writer Matthew Karp, Princeton University Garry Kasparov, Renew Democracy Initiative Daniel Kehlmann, writer Randall Kennedy Khaled Khalifa, writer Parag Khanna, author Laura Kipnis, Northwestern University Frances Kissling, Center for Health, Ethics, Social Policy Enrique Krauze, historian Anthony Kronman, Yale University Joy Ladin, Yeshiva University Nicholas Lemann, Columbia University Mark Lilla, Columbia University Susie Linfield, New York University Damon Linker, writer Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Steven Lukes, New York University John R. MacArthur, publisher, writer

Susan Madrak, writer

Phoebe Maltz Bovy, writer

Greil Marcus Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center Kati Marton, author Debra Mashek, scholar Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago John McWhorter, Columbia University Uday Mehta, City University of New York Andrew Moravcsik, Princeton University Yascha Mounk, Persuasion Samuel Moyn, Yale University Meera Nanda, writer and teacher Cary Nelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Olivia Nuzzi, New York Magazine Mark Oppenheimer, Yale University Dael Orlandersmith, writer/performer George Packer Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University (emerita) Greg Pardlo, Rutgers University – Camden Orlando Patterson, Harvard University Steven Pinker, Harvard University Letty Cottin Pogrebin Katha Pollitt, writer Claire Bond Potter, The New School Taufiq Rahim Zia Haider Rahman, writer Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, University of Wisconsin Jonathan Rauch, Brookings Institution/The Atlantic Neil Roberts, political theorist Melvin Rogers, Brown University Kat Rosenfield, writer Loretta J. Ross, Smith College J.K. Rowling Salman Rushdie, New York University Karim Sadjadpour, Carnegie Endowment Daryl Michael Scott, Howard University Diana Senechal, teacher and writer Jennifer Senior, columnist Judith Shulevitz, writer Jesse Singal, journalist Anne-Marie Slaughter Andrew Solomon, writer Deborah Solomon, critic and biographer Allison Stanger, Middlebury College Paul Starr, American Prospect/Princeton University Wendell Steavenson, writer Gloria Steinem, writer and activist Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Harvard Law School Kian Tajbakhsh, Columbia University Zephyr Teachout, Fordham University Cynthia Tucker, University of South Alabama Adaner Usmani, Harvard University Chloe Valdary Helen Vendler, Harvard University Judy B. Walzer Michael Walzer Eric K. Washington, historian Caroline Weber, historian Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers Bari Weiss Sean Wilentz, Princeton University Garry Wills Thomas Chatterton Williams, writer Robert F. Worth, journalist and author Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Matthew Yglesias Emily Yoffe, journalist Cathy Young, journalist Fareed Zakaria

[deathvalleyxrpg]

“ I'm somewhere, but not here.”

Blaire is a twenty-one-year-old who currently works as the owner of Venus Touch. She currently resides in Lower Ninth Ward. The ones that love her claim that she is Firm, Independent, and Observant, , but the people that loath her claim that he is Anxious, Cynical, and Destructive, . We believe that you should find out for yourself.

While in New Orleans…

Being rich was always a curse and a blessing in my eyes. My parents made a name for themselves. We were the Parrish family, we had expectations and standards. Justin Parrish, my father, was a wealthy businessman who owns Parrish Resorts. My mother, Abigal Parrish, is the woman who thrives off her husbands wealth. Since I was born, I was a colic baby, crying for hours on end. I was more of a nuisance than a blessing. Being raised by four different nannies, I learned what it was like to be isolated. To grow up without a role model. By the age of sixteen, you could find me in the bathrooms doing lines off the toilet seats. I had a reputation of being an outcast. Rebelling against my parents. I started to go to New Orleans every year for Mardi Gras. Going to Mardi Gras and spending a few weeks in New Orleans is where I met AC Morelli and Adelaide Bourdeaux. Ever since meeting those two, I had always been invited to the infamous spring bashes. Except, they didn’t know me as Harlyn Parrish - everyone knew me as Blaire Huges. News about Adelaide’s death caused me to go mental. I never thought I’d be apart of someones death before, so, quickly booking it out of New Orleans I never returned only to live my life as a Parrish.

After New Orleans… The Parrish lifestyle wasn’t for me. I hated being in the limelight. I hated always having to be this perfect person when I wasn’t, so I did the only thing I knew was possible, try to end my life. My parents hated me because it caused a bad name for them. The headlines for weeks read: “Harlyn Parrish attempted suicide, how will this affect the Parrish resorts?” My parents never let me live that down while I was in Gateway Hospital. After getting out, I moved into an apartment just on the outskirts of the city. I had every intention of living my fucked up life to the max. Except, my plans changed when I got a letter. The letter explained how Josh’s death was just the beginning and how my parents would find out she was apart of Adelaide’s murder; somehow, I knew I needed to get back to New Orleans. I couldn’t deal with my parent’s disappointment, so calling AC, he helped me change my appearance and officially change my name to Blaire Hughes.  

[haidas-anxiety]

Olympics - Where Universal Brotherhood, Patriotism and Individual Accomplishment Meld

"The Olympics are the place all inclusive fellowship, wild nationalism and individual achievement merge making the ideal microcosm of the world"

The cutting edge Olympic Games, where most of the nations of the world meet like clockwork now, it used to be at regular intervals, is a microcosm of the world. It draws out the best in us: the competitors, the onlookers and the nations of the world... who truly progressed toward becoming members in the 'more prominent' occasion. We as a whole set our disparities aside as we are associated with this astonishing worldwide occasion, while in the meantime showing our most profound devoted sentiments and individual best endeavors as competitors.

At the point when Sean White shows his most current boarding trap in Torino or Vancouver, the young of the world is entranced. At the point when an obscure luger from Georgia, Nodar (Kumaritashvili ), with a last name that nobody can articulate, bites the dust by and by the evening before the opening services of the Vancouver Olympics the whole world, particularly the whole Olympic athletic network, grieves. Or then again when Canadian Joannie Rochette loses her mom at the Olympics two days before her occasion, because of an enormous heart assault, the whole world heaves. Joannie chose to forge ahead and skate to pay tribute to her mom, who was her most noteworthy fan. She skated her own best and did not split her diversion face until her stage one bronze short-skate execution was finished, after which everybody cried with her. She eventually brought home the bronze decoration, finishing her exhibition with a kiss as her eyes were raised on high to the sky, to a tune of acclaim.

Idle Heroes Events (Guides and Sneak Peeks) - Idle Heroes Pro

In 2003 preceding the Beijing Olympics, when Kim Collins dashed to a shocking triumph in the 100 meters at the World Championships, a great many people had no clue which nation the letters SKN represented. Collins, from the Caribbean island country of St. Kitts and Nevis, said his triumph was "the greatest thing" to occur since his nation with a populace of under 40,000 picked up their autonomy in 1983.

The Olympics are the one spot where you don't need to be from a rich or amazing nation, an affluent family or a major or surely understood country to be dealt with similarly and have a similar opportunity to win. Furthermore, for some, similar to Collins, their accomplishments add to their nation's national character and help put it on the guide for the travel industry or for others help the world see a milder side of a super power like when America's Dan Jansen fell subsequent to committing his skate to his sister Jane, who passed on of disease before in the day, to finish up falling and disintegrating into tears. Dan won that Gold six years after the fact and took his triumph lap holding his one-year-old girl named Jane... for his sister.

As Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has noted: "When the world takes a gander at Australia, such a large amount of their picture of Australia is formed by what our sportsmen and ladies have done on the field of game, including the Olympic games" and what the world saw of our nation as the Australian's facilitated the Olympic Games.

At the point when Tanzanian long distance runner John Stephen Akhwari hauled his harmed leg to complete last with a period of four hours 30 minutes in the long distance race in the Mexico City Games in 1968, he got warm praise and cheers from a group that stayed and sat tight for him to wrap up. "My nation did not send me to Mexico City to begin the race. They sent me to complete," said Akhwari, at that point 30. Regardless of completing last, Akhwari ended up a standout amongst the most essential figures in Olympic history and was respected as a national legend by his nation in 1983.

National pride is instilled in each competitor and each amusement or occasion, yet so is sympathy for individual competitors from everywhere throughout the world. Throughout the years the world saw how Japanese volleyball fans thundered for their national group and how the Italians grieved their football crew's misfortune on home soil. We have seen Canadian powerhouse in soccer crushed by far American group and the most loved beaten by less evaluated competitors, even from their very own group.

What's more, as Olympic preparing, in a consistently contracting world, has changed and covers to an ever increasing extent, we see genuine kinships and satisfaction for individual competitors that are the two companions and contenders like between the Canadian and American ice moving Gold and Silver medalists, separately, who share mentors and practice ice. What's more, again as now mentor Brian Orser, who the Gold dependably escaped as a skater, viewed Kim Yu-Na become the dominant Queen as she accepting Gold as the primary South Korean to ever win a figure skating award.

Now and again it has been the host nations that were as much the story as the competitors. There were the Hitler Olympics (Summer and Winter 1936) that enabled a psycho to utilize them for promulgation. And after that in 1972 Germany got her opportunity to make up for herself with the Munich Olympics where Jewish-American Mark Spitz took a remarkable seven Gold decorations yet his achievements were amusingly upstaged by the slaughter of eleven Israeli competitors by an aggressor Palestinian gathering. There were the war years (1916 Summer, 1940 Summer and Winter, and 1944 Summer and Winter) that made the recreations be dropped totally and the 1980 Moscow Olympics that were boycotted by the United States and subsidiary nations including Japan, West Germany, China, the Philippines and Canada, which at that point caused the blacklist of 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games by Moscow and partners, 14 Eastern Bloc nations and partners including the Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany (yet not Romania). Furthermore, there were the on-going doping and medication upgrading outrages of the Eastern Bloc competitors under their impact by the Soviet Union. Furthermore, more as of late there were the pre-Beijing grievances of human and every living creature's common sense entitlement infringement. In any case, the Olympic fire clearly touched off the Chinese individuals' adoration for their country and a large number of them rioted after abroad endeavors to upset, or even harm the Olympic light hand-off at an early stage, in addition to for in any event 17 days the Chinese government knew and freely ceased from a considerable lot of their practices against human and every living creature's common sense entitlement. At last the network of countries and the general population of the world rose over the shadows.

Furthermore, recollect the 2002 Winter Games opening in Salt Lake City? A worn out U.S. banner recuperated from the seething remains of the World Trade Center was shown as President George W. Bramble announced the Games' opened for a "glad, decided and appreciative country". The core of the world was with them. It was the U.S. message to the world: Americans love their nation as they remained in the shadows of the September eleventh catastrophe, and the world should stand joined to advance basic goals and trust in harmony.

In any case, at last it is the names and exhibitions of the competitors like: Sarah Hughes, Franz Klammer, Dick Button, Jean-Claude Killy, Bonnie Blair, Bjorn Dahlie, Nadia Comaneci, Usain Bolt, Eric Heiden, Hermann Meir, Peggy Flemming, Steven Bradley, Carl Lewis, Dorothy Hamel, Jesse Owens, Scott Hamilton, America's Miracle on Ice Hockey Team and the rundown continues endlessly that make the diversions and add to the living soul of the Olympics. Despite the fact that Michael Phelps is commonly viewed as the best Olympian, it is difficult to gather a rundown of the best. There are such a significant number of elements. Furthermore, it is difficult to look at the competitors of the early Games against the experts of the cutting edge time.

Times of genuine emergency draw out the best in each one of us, the general population of the world, yet the Olympic Games are the one occasion that for in any event once at regular intervals draws out the best in humanity without an emergency. There is an extraordinary story of the air terminal and town of Gander in Newfoundland who permitted just about 200 inbound American flights to arrive at their airplane terminal, after the airspace was shut over the United States without precedent for its history inside hours after 9/11. In any case, the 4-days that pursued and the astounding neighborliness of the general population of Gander is the genuine story, and it is that embodiment that develops without the emergency, through the Olympic Games.

It takes substantially more than enthusiasm and aspiration to have fruitful Games. It is imperative to demonstrate full regard to all competitors - to sparkling stars like Michael Phelps and Anton Apolo Ohno or the individuals who absolutely continue on like Akhwari or the Cool Running Team from Jamaica, just as to the nations and societies of the world they originate from, to the onlookers who come to grasp the diversions, to the Olympic soul itself, and to every one of the individuals who have contended previously. It is an almost negligible difference between adoration for nation, individual desire and at any rate for 17-days at regular intervals, world solidarity. Be that as it may, sitting together as a family and viewing the Olympics with your youngsters can be one of the best shared encounters a family can have including exercises and motivation without an immediate word regularly being said.

[woolfcried]

WANTED CONNECTIONS. (pt.1 A-C)

warning: long. covers muses with names starting from a to c because i have so many c names. span all types of relationships, not just romantic. tba means i will add them when i think of some

ABIGAIL CHASE.

LOVE INTEREST THAT ISN’T NICHOLAS CAGE- exactly what it says.

ALEXANDRA PRIVET.

COWORKER- preferably ones that aren’t murderers who yell at kids.

ROYAL ROMANTIC INTEREST- maybe someone she teaches manner and poise to and some tension goes on. 

ANNE SHIRLEY.

FRIEND- especially ones who are interested in books.

ANNIE HUGHES.

FRIEND- i love the idea of a waitress type dynamic for her

ROMANTIC INTEREST- has to be cool with the fact she has a son and also needs to watch horror movies with him.

LATE HUSBAND- they never give any info on hogarth’s dad except he was military so u can really fill in the blanks there

ANNIE OAKLEY.

LADY FRIENDS- for most of the musical, she’s away from any other ladies and she needs to know what’s hip and cool

ANNIKA.

tba

ARIANA DUMBLEDORE.

STUDENTS- magical kids for her to mentor as hogwarts counselor

ARRIETTY TREVELYAN.

tba

ARTHUR CURRY.

tba

ASHLYN.

BODYGUARD- the standard royal/bodyguard cheesy romance bc i;m weak

ARRANGED MARRIAGE- she’s gonna be a queen, so suitors would be chill

BAILEY CLARKE.

tba

BARBARA GORDON. 

tba

BLAIR WILLOWS.

tba

THE BOSS.

tba

BOWIE CAMPBELL.

tba

BRIAR BEAUTY.

tba

BRIGID TENENBAUM.

tba

BROOKE ESPOSITO.

TRAVEL FRIENDS- despite hanging around adventurers, she prefers more tame traveling and people to visit the sights with

BUSINESS ASSOCIATES- brooke is usually the one to take care of pr stuff surrounding museums and digs, so she throws galas and is always looking for people to partner with.

CAB OBSIDIAN.

COWORKERS- same goes for diem, but their restaurant is very understaffed and he can help train people.

CAIN OBSIDIAN.

COWORKERS- cain is in charge of the supernatural relations bureau which sorts out disputes and crimes involving the supernatural community, and most of the people he works with are beyond incompetent.

CARINA ESCOBAR.

CREW MEMBERS- every adventurer needs a crew and she only has one other member of hers so

CARMELITA SPATS.

tba

CASSANDRA.

tba

CASSIAN ANDOR.

tba

CELIA BOWEN.

LONG DISTANCE ROMANCE- even better than other long distance romances because it has a traveling circus and letters written by candlelight and magic, etc.

CHARLIE WEASLEY.

tba

CHRISTIAN.

tba

CLIVE DOVE.

SUPERVISOR- some kind of law enforcement agency or spy stuff in a white collar-esque plot where he’s out of jail to help stop international danger.

COLETTE.

CIRCUS PERFORMERS. i think colette has an extremely low self-image so she really needs support of people like her.

COURTNEY.

TRAVEL BUDDIES. someone to show her the world and go on adventures with her. could be platonic or romantic

CRESSIDA.

GUARDIANS/PARENTAL FIGURES. or just three dog. he’s usually pretty supportive of her doing good all over the wasteland.