#Robert Moses too

[kosmosxipo]

I’ve been thinking about my hometown a lot lately. I wrote a whole essay about how I love it like a family member, for everything that means. It both infuriates me to tears and brings me immense amounts of joy, makes me achingly sad but I will defend it to anyone who talks shit about it, because fuck you, what do you know? My city still bears the burdens of sins committed in its name going back 150 years. But what’s driving me nuts right now is how systematically huge parts of it were destroyed. Let me show you:

I believe this is around the mid-1930s or 1940s. Before the interstates and suburbs and white flight. Here’s that same area now:

This neighborhood was redlined in the name of Urban Renewal. This is what 80 years of that looks like.

A wider shot, this time of Sportsman’s Park, where both the Cardinals and the Browns played. The streets are alive in this pic:

There’s even streetcars. A whole network of them that would get you all over the city. Here’s that same area now.

I’m posting this because I want you to understand that this was intentional. City planners like Robert Moses wanted exactly this, the more non-white and non-Christian, non-western European people it happened to, the better. In St. Louis we had Harland Bartholomew. That man who wanted to tear down iconic neighborhoods. The man that wanted to build expressways through our parks. This is his map from 1947:

A lot of those areas were marked as “blighted.” The places above? The picture of the stadium and that neighborhood? A blight. They were either destroyed or left to rot. A small but thriving Chinatown was destroyed to make way for a new stadium. An entire Black neighborhood erased by the Interstate �� if you ever look at your city and wonder why the interstate weaves around like it does, you can almost guarantee that it was hitting non-white, non-Christian, non-western European communities.

I’ve been thinking about how places like St. Louis were destroyed by white men, and then turned into punchlines in movies like National Lampoon’s Vacation, or used as post-apocalyptic sets in Escape From New York. They destroyed my city, and then turned and laughed at us. Harlan Batholomew retired and lived comfortably in the wealthy suburb of Clayton, away from what he created, until his death. I always wonder if he was pleased with what he did.

[ca-chan]

This passage from The Power Broker is a good reminder that I have to be very careful about the things I like, because I can never like anything normally.

[silasplaskett]

sorry if im weirdposting today i just did my first real school assignment in like a really long time

[bogleech]

It’s amazing how you’ll see that evil villainous city planner archetype in kid’s cartoons, the one who just sadistically wants to bulldoze the cute little historic playground to build a parking lot for rich people, and you might assume it’s a generalized caricature of political greed or metaphor for more complex gentrification issues, but no, the trope started specifically as a parody of New York urban planner Robert Moses who was proudly open about making the city as hostile as he could to minorities and poor people who couldn’t afford cars, tried to scrub the city of anything he considered low class or too progressive and at one point literally wanted to replace a beloved playground with parking for an expensive restaurant. He also had countless admirers in high positions across the country and employees who went on to spread his philosophy to other cities so he might have single handedly made every city in America worse to this day.

The playground incident became especially famous, though, because it was one of the first times public backlash actually defeated him and stopped it from moving forward. That’s why the stock plot he inspired is about communities coming together and winning. His life’s legacy is a cartoon villain that exists to fail and be humiliated.

[stumpyjoepete]

Thinking a bit more about Megalopolis (see prev post). It's not really the case that the script is as disjointed or schizophrenic as my post makes it out to be. The central plot is pretty simple: an egotistical city planner has an ambitious and futuristic vision for redeveloping the city, and he butts heads with the Mayor and others who oppose him in this. He ultimately succeeds in building his utopian "megalopolis". Everyone is happy, the end.

And yet.

There's this... intense centrifugal force that prevents everything from cohering into a unified whole. It's like a puzzle where all the pieces are cut from the same picture, but upon closer inspection, no two pieces quite fit together. Or like that collection of nonsensical objects. A fork where the tines and the handle are connected by a chain. A watering can with the spout facing the wrong way. A quick glance leaves you confused, and that confusion is only deepened by further contemplation.

I think this is especially clear in the pseudo-intellectualism of the title cards, narration, monologues, and quotations/references:

Laurence Fishburne does this heavy-handed narration at the beginning and end of the movie (and several random points in between). And there are these associated title cards that look like they were made by applying an "Ancient Rome" theme to some PowerPoint slides. "Or will we too fall victim, like old Rome, to the insatiable appetite for power of a few men?" My brother in Christ, you are making a movie where the hero is named Cesar, and the happy ending is when he successfully pulls a Robert Moses. This is not a story about power corrupting or good intentions going awry. What are you doing???

Cesar Catilina interrupts Mayor Cicero's speech (where he is introducing a plan to build a casino) in order to lay out an early plan for "megalopolis", which is an ambitious and long-term alternative to the (short-term) casino plan. He prefaces his megalopolis pitch by reciting the Hamlet soliloquy. What exactly does Coppola think "To Be Or Not To Be" is about? He must thinks it means, "I am a dark and brooding bad-boy intellectual", since it's hard to see how "I'd like to kill myself, but I fear death" fits into an argument about the importance of long-term thinking in urban planning.

Cesar says several negative things about "civilization". "[Imagine] humanity as an old tree with one misguided branch called civilization... going nowhere." (Shot of notebook shows an illustration with 'war' and 'cruelty' offshoots from said branch.) "Emerson said the end of the human race will be that we'll eventually die of civilization." (Note: unsourced, probably fake quote.) "Civilization itself remains the great enemy of mankind." Umm... you're an urban planner! You're doing a high modernism. What exactly does it mean for you to call civilization the enemy? Is "megalopolis" somehow anti-civilization because it looks like a Georgia O'Keefe painting instead of a bunch of straight lines and right angles? Will the "war" and "cruelty" branches wither and die when buildings have labia?

Also, there's this amazing line read that completely inverts the meaning of a fake Marcus Aurelius quote (the quote was attributed to him by Tolstoy but is not actually something he said). "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape... finding yourself in the ranks of the insane." Why did you put in that pause??? Fake Marcus Aurelius is turning in his grave! You're supposed to be fleeing FROM the ranks of the insane! I suppose this isn't really inconsistent with the characterization of Cesar, it's just such a fucking batshit thing to say.

All of the cargo-cult intellectualism listed above could perhaps be excused if the vision that the film is supposedly about had any content whatsoever. Or, alternatively, if the movie was about something more substantive, and the vacuous megalopolis vision took place off-screen in an epilogue, like the "happily ever after" of a children's story. But no! The movie repeatedly interrupts the plot to grab you by the shoulders and scream in your face: "I have a vision! For the future!". And then--now that it has your undivided attention--it shits the bed like a man who has just polished off an entire bag of sugar-free gummy bears and washed them down with a fistful of Ambien:

"Conversation isn't enough. It's the questions that lead it to the next step. But initially, you have to have a conversation. The city itself is immaterial, but they're talking about it for the first time. And it's not just about us talking about it. It's the need to talk about it. It's as urgent to us as air and water."

"Mr. Catalina, you said that as we jump into the future, we should do so unafraid. But what if when we do jump into the future, there is something to be afraid of?" "Well, there's nothing to be afraid of if you love, or have loved. It's an unstoppable force. It's unbreakable. It has no limits. It's within us. It's around us. And it's stretched throughout time. It's nothing you can touch. Yet it guides every decision that we make. But we do have the obligation to each other to ask questions of one another. What can we do? Is this society, is this way we're living, the only one that's available to us? And when we ask these questions, when there's a dialogue about them, that basically is a utopia."

After the revolution, we won't have conflicts anymore; we'll have dialogue instead. We won't have a need for the "jobs" and "sanitation" of "now"; we'll have the "imperishable" "dreams" of "forever". We won't have problems that need solving; we'll all be too busy asking each other questions. Now, if everyone could just shut up and get the hell out of the way and let Cesar implement his vision, then "everyone" will soon be "creating together, learning together, perfecting body and mind." A chorus of children's voices gradually morphing into Laurence Fishburne's, chanting, "One Earth, indivisible, with long life, education and justice for all." It's eschatological anti-politics made entirely from cotton candy. Please, for the love of God, stop making Adam Driver monologue at me! Let's get back to Aubrey Plaza stepping on horny fascist Shia LaBeouf!

The incoherence of Megalopolis's vision is compounded by how anachronistic its depiction of our fallen world is. There are some half-hearted (and ham-fisted) gestures in the Clodio sub-plot towards the dangers of Trumpian populism, but the script was first written in the 80's, and it's extremely obvious that Coppola is writing about New York City in the preceding several decades. The city's finances are in dire straights. (There's literally a "Ford Tells City: Drop Dead" reference!) The city is full of slums, the streets are full of crime, and the elites are all decadent. (For Coppola, decadence means that ladies are doing cocaine and smooching each other in the cluh-ub.) The main character is Neo-Roman Robert Moses, and the conflict of the film is about urban renewal. In case you, like Mr. Coppola, have not been made aware, slum clearance is not a major political issue in 2020's Manhattan.

Two thirds of the way through the movie, a falling Soviet satellite provides a deus ex machina, blowing up the financial district and clearing space for megalopolis to take its place. Ironically, a previous attempt to produce the film came to its abrupt end when two planes flew into some buildings in the financial district. Perhaps you heard about it. The financial backers of the film at the time considered Megalopolis's plot a bit too close to current events for comfort and withdrew their support.

But Coppola's depiction of Manhattan was already decades out of date by then. Moses stepped down in '60. Jacobs' book railing against urban renewal came out in '61. The Power Broker came out in '74. One presumes popular opinion of Robert Moses soured in the following years. The crisis of the city's finances that peaked in '75 was over by '81 when NYC balanced its budget and reentered the bond market. The crime wave of the 70's and 80's had receded by the year 2000. The demand for housing in NYC proper is as high as it ever has been, and it's only getting higher. Megalopolis imagines America as an incoherent mishmash of several decades of mid-century NYC, dressed up in the toga of the late Roman Republic, calling out for (Robert) Moses to part the slums and take us into a promised land that is literally beyond any description, and whose only concrete feature seems to be glowing people-movers.

A Robert Moses with the power to stop time, at that!

Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Cesar discovers he has the power to stop time in the opening scene of the film. I forgot because it's literally irrelevant to the plot. Time stops a few times, and then it starts back up again, and the events of the film just plod inexorably forward. For a movie as temporally dislocated as Metropolis, perhaps that's just as well.

[eesirachs]

For a school assignment, I'm assembling an anthology around the theme of queer divinity and desire, but I'm having a hard time finding a fitting essay/article (no access to real academic catalogues :/ ), do you know of any essays around this theme?

below are essays, and then books, on queer theory (in which 'queer' has a different connotation than in regular speech) in the hebrew bible/ancient near east. if there is a particular prophet you want more of, or a particular topic (ištar, or penetration, or appetites), or if you want a pdf of anything, please let me know.

essays: Boer, Roland. “Too Many Dicks at the Writing Desk, or How to Organize a Prophetic Sausage-Fest.” TS 16, no. 1 (2010b): 95–108. Boer, Roland. “Yahweh as Top: A Lost Targum.” In Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible, edited by Ken Stone, 75–105. JSOTSup 334. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2001. Boyarin, Daniel. “Are There Any Jews in ‘The History of Sexuality’?” Journal of the History of Sexuality 5, no. 3 (1995): 333–55. Clines, David J. A. “He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and Their Interpreters.” In Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll, edited by Robert P. Carroll, Alastair G. Hunter, and Philip R. Davies, 311–27. JSOTSup 348. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. Graybill, Rhiannon. “Yahweh as Maternal Vampire in Second Isaiah: Reading from Violence to Fluid Possibility with Luce Irigaray.” Journal of feminist studies in religion 33, no. 1 (2017): 9–25. Haddox, Susan E. “Engaging Images in the Prophets: Feminist Scholarship on the Book of the Twelve.” In Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Retrospect. 1. Biblical Books, edited by Susanne Scholz, 170–91. RRBS 5. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013. Koch, Timothy R. “Cruising as Methodology: Homoeroticism and the Scriptures.” In Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible, edited by Ken Stone, 169–80. JSOTSup 334. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2001. Tigay, Jeffrey. “‘ Heavy of Mouth’ and ‘Heavy of Tongue’: On Moses’ Speech Difficulty.” BASOR, no. 231 (October 1978): 57–67.

books: Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. Bauer-Levesque, Angela. Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading. SiBL 5. New York: P. Lang, 1999. Black, Fiona C., and Jennifer L. Koosed, eds. Reading with Feeling : Affect Theory and the Bible. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2019. Brenner, Athalya. The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and “Sexuality” in the Hebrew Bible. BIS 26. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Camp, Claudia V. Wise, Strange, and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible. JSOTSup 320. Gender, Culture, Theory 9. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Chapman, Cynthia R. The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter. HSM 62. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. Creangă, Ovidiu, ed. Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond. BMW 33. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010. Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. God’s Phallus: And Other Problems for Men and Monotheism. Boston: Beacon, 1995. Huber, Lynn R., and Rhiannon Graybill, eds. The Bible, Gender, and Sexuality : Critical Readings. London, UK ; T&T Clark, 2021. Guest, Deryn. When Deborah Met Jael: Lesbian Biblical Hermeneutics. London: SCM, 2005. Graybill, Rhiannon, Meredith Minister, and Beatrice J. W. Lawrence, eds. Rape Culture and Religious Studies : Critical and Pedagogical Engagements. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2019. Graybill, Rhiannon. Are We Not Men? : Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets. New York, NY: Oxford University Press USA, 2016. Halperin, David J. Seeking Ezekiel: Text and Psychology. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. Jennings, Theodore W. Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel. New York: Continuum, 2005. Macwilliam, Stuart. Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible. BibleWorld. Sheffield and Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2011. Maier, Christl. Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2008. Mills, Mary E. Alterity, Pain, and Suffering in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. LHB/OTS 479. New York: T. & T. Clark, 2007. Stökl, Jonathan, and Corrine L. Carvalho. Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East. AIL 15. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2013. Stone, Ken. Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective. Queering Theology Series. London: T & T Clark International, 2004. Weems, Renita J. Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets. OBT. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995.

[thelovetheystole]

Fully updated list with dates for all Robert mentions (plus other somewhat Rob related show content) we've had since Aaron's return in October 2023. Please note that the quotes are not exact as I just write them down from memory.

Pinned to my blog and I'll add more as we go 🤞

2023

○ October 18 - Aaron tells Vinny 'maybe I like the memories' after moving in to the second Mill flat

• October 27 - Rhona quips 'That worked out really well for Robert' in front of Aaron when he was talking about going after Craig

• December 13 - Victoria tells Aaron 'You sound like you're speaking from experience' when Aaron said she should wait for Jacob if he's the one. Followed by her then saying 'Speaking of the one, Robert's doing okay'.

2024

○ January 15 - Aaron's drunken pause to Victoria

• January 18 - Charity reminds Aaron of the time he and Robert were 'raising Seb together', * first Seb mention in years

• January 30 - Aaron rattles of all the 'ghosts' on his list to Mack, but Robert was the only on there that's still alive, * first time Aaron has spoken Robert's name since his exit episode in 2021

° March 1 - Aaron tells Vinny he will probably never have kids, so zero chance to pass on a faulty gene

• August 8 - Victoria tells John about their brother Robert, she also says to Eric that she's going to tell Robert about John, later Aaron has a very visible reaction to learning he's unknowingly hooked up with Robert's half brother and John looks at an old Sugden family photo at Vic's house

• August 9 - Aaron emotionally tells his mum that 'It's brought everything back - about Robert' and that he 'can't go there again'

• Aug 13 - Aaron says to Chas that he 'never would have gone there' if he had known John was Robert's brother

○ Aug 16 - Aaron advises Vinny that it's no use 'pining for someone who isn't there anymore'

• Aug 27 - Vic tells John 'It's nice to have someone in my corner, I haven't had that since Robert went away'

° Aug 29 - Victoria tells Aaron and John that this is 'messed up' and questions if Aaron wants to sleep with all her brothers

• Sep 2 - Vic tells Aaron him being involved with Robert's brother is 'a bit weird', Aaron tells her 'John won't replace Robert' for either of them, later John says he's 'not been auditioning as Robert's replacement'

• Sep 23 - Vic has found old family photos and wants to show John, mentions 'Rob and Andy' twice. Later, she finds out John's still seeing Aaron, and tells him 'You know Aaron is married to Robert, our brother?' (Yes, is, not was!)

• Oct 29 - Charity questions where Rebecca and Seb are after Ross brings Moses to an illegal fight *Second Seb mention this year, Charity also mentioned him in january

• Oct 30 - Ross talks about Seb a lot, while Charity asks if Robert knows about Rebecca's death. He just looks at her funny and doesn't answer, just says as far as he knows, he's still in prison

• Oct 31 - Robert is talked about throughout the whole episode, as is Seb, as Ross explains he went to see Robert in prison, where he signed papers for Seb to live in Bristol with Rebecca's aunt

• Nov 5 - More Robert and Seb talk, actual meaningful talk too, with Aaron reminicing of a time he had 'everything'. This one is extra significant because it shows Aaron looking at a photo of Robert and Seb on Vic's keychain 💛🍋

• Nov 6 - Even more Robert and Seb talk, Aaron tries to make out to John that just because he's thinking about Seb doesn't mean he still loves his dad. John doesn't believe him, and of course we don't either! Then John says rude things about Robert, which sets Aaron right off!

• Nov 8 - John apologises to Aaron for being weird about him and Robert

Link to my post with clues about John ⬇️

Links to my posts with Danny's quotes about Robert/Ryan from 2020-2024 (includes their social media imteractions and their pub meeting) ⬇️

[dweemeister]

Whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you. And so will I.

Born to a turbulent family on a Mississippi farm, James Earl Jones passed away today. He was ninety-three years old. Abandoned by his parents as a child and raised by a racist grandmother (although he later reconciled with his actor father and performed alongside him as an adult), the trauma of his childhood developed into a stutter that followed him through his primary school years – sometimes, his stutter was so debilitating, he could not speak at all. In high school, Jones found in an English teacher someone who found in him a talent for written expression, and encouraged him to write and recite poetry in class. He overcame his stutter by graduation, although the effects of it carried over for the remainder of his life.

Jones' most accomplished roles may have been on the Broadway stage, where he won three Tonys (twice winning Best Actor in a Play for originating the lead roles in 1969's The Great White Hope by Howard Sackler and 1987's Fences by August Wilson) and was considered one of the best Shakespearean actors of his time.

But his contributions to cinema left an impact on audiences, too. Jones received an Honorary Academy Award alongside makeup artist Dick Smith (1972's The Godfather, 1984's Amadeus) in 2011. From the end of Hollywood's Golden Age to the dawn of the summer Hollywood blockbuster in the 1970s to the present, Jones' presence – and his basso profundo voice – could scarcely be ignored. Though he could not sing like Paul Robeson nor had the looks of Sidney Poitier, his presence and command put him in league of both of his acting predecessors.

Ten of the films James Earl Jones appeared in, whether in-person or voice acting, follow (left-right, descending):

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – directed by Stanley Kubrick; also starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, and Slim Pickens

The Great White Hope (1970) – directed by Martin Ritt; also starring Jane Alexander, Chester Morris, Hal Holbrook Beah Richards, and Moses Gunn

Star Wars saga (1977-2019; A New Hope pictured) – multiple directors, as the voice of Darth Vader, also starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, and Frank Oz

Claudine (1974) – directed by John Berry; also starring Diahann Carroll, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and Tamu Blackwell

Conan the Barbarian (1982) – directed by John Milius; also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sandahl Bergman, Ben Davidson, Cassandra Gaviola, Gerry Lopez, Mako, Valerie Quennessen, William Smith, and Max von Sydow

Coming to America series (1988 and 2021; original pictured) – multiple directors; also starring Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, John Amos, Madge Sinclair, Shari Headley, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, and KiKi Layne

The Hunt for Red October (1990) – directed by John McTiernan; also starring Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, and Sam Neill

The Sandlot (1993) – directed by David Mickey Evans; also staring Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Chauncey Leopardi, Marty York, Brandon Adams, Grant Gelt, Shane Obedzinski, Victor DiMattia, Denis Leary, and Karen Allen

The Lion King (1994) – directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, as the voice of Mufasa; also starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, Moira Kelly, Niketa Calame, Ernie Sabella, Nathan Lane, and Robert Guillaume, Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Jim Cummings, and Madge Sinclair

Field of Dreams (1989) – directed by Phil Alden Robinson; also starring Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta, and Burt Lancaster

[everywishway]

Some Dimension 20 Moments that give me too much emotions

Most of these are scenes that aren't talked about enough. feel free to reblog with yours so I can cry more. Spoilers for several seasons of D20: Neverafter, Unsleeping City, The Seven, Fantasy High and ACOFAF

Siobhan reading Emma Lazarus 'New Colossus' in Unsleeping City

Siobhan/Rowan's later conversation with the American Dream; telling it that it is already real so it doesn't need to cross the golden door

Sofie and Dale reuniting while in Nod, the Sixth Burrow

The hurt, then rage when Sofie Bikes finds out Isabella Infierno killed Dale

Kingston's "I WOULD'VE CONTINUED TO BE FAITHFUL"

Pete's heartbreak when Robert Moses shows him Kingston's reaction to Pete not controlling his powers

Kugrash's death

Fig's 'Your allowed to be a complex person with her mom

Fig and Sandra-lynn on the roof of the Hangvan smoking clove cigs and having a conversation about life

Riz after realizing his Dad was a secret agent and turns to his mom with tears in his eyes going, "hey mom, I know about dad"

Fabian watching his dad's video then smashing the crystal after his death

Hob's speech at the end of ACOFAF to Rue (we all know why

Meeting Lydia Barkrock for the first time and seeing she's a wheelchair user

Ayda realizes there is nothing wrong with her when Jawbone shows her what autism is and shows her how amazing and beautiful she is

Ostentasia's conversation with Logren

Ostentasia's whole interaction with her family, especially her dad

Sam is saved by the other members of the Seven from her dream about Penelope right before they fight Talura and the army

All of Neverafter, especially Gerard

[usafphantom2]

Bob Pardo, Vietnam War pilot famous for Pardo’s Push maneuver, dies at 89

Jonathan Snyder

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Pardo is known for carrying out an unorthodox aviation maneuver, later coined the Pardo Push, to save the lives of his wingmen during a bombing mission over Vietnam on March 10, 1967.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Pardo is known for carrying out an unorthodox aviation maneuver, later coined the Pardo Push, to save the lives of his wingmen during a bombing mission over Vietnam on March 10, 1967. (David Cooper/U.S. Air Force)

Bob Pardo, who left his mark in Air Force history for using an unorthodox maneuver, Pardo’s Push, to save his wingmen’s lives during a bombing mission over Vietnam, died Dec. 5. He was 89.

On March 10, 1967, Pardo and weapons officer 1st Lt. Steve Wayne were on a bombing run on an enemy steel mill north of Hanoi in an F-4C Phantom, flying alongside Capt. Earl Aman and 1st Lt. Robert Houghton.

The target — North Vietnam’s only steel mill dedicated to war materiel — was heavily guarded by anti-aircraft guns and artillery.

During the mission, ground fire damaged both Pardo’s and Aman’s Phantoms, causing both to lose fuel. However, Aman lost too much to return safely to base, and Pardo knew he had to act quickly, according to a 2007 recounting of the mission by Gen. T. Michael Mosely, then the chief of staff of the Air Force.

“I knew if I didn’t do anything, they would have to eject over North Vietnam into enemy territory, and that would have resulted in their capture for sure,” Pardo said in a 2015 interview for the Air Force Veterans in Blue program. “At that time, if you were captured by civilians, you were probably going to be murdered on the spot.”

Pardo decided to push Aman’s plane using the nose of his aircraft against Aman’s tailhook, a retractable hook on the underside of the plane used for arrested landings.

He managed to decrease the rate of descent of Aman’s jet by 1,500 feet per minute, and they successfully reached friendly territory. Both air crews safely ejected over the Laotian border and were rescued by friendly forces.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Pardo died Dec. 5 at 89. (David Cooper/U.S. Air Force)

The Air Force at first reprimanded Pardo for further damaging his aircraft. Twenty years later, he received the Silver Star for his actions in the aerial rescue.

Pardo was born in 1934 in Herne, Texas, and began his Air Force career in 1954 at age 19. After flight school, he flew the Phantom during the Vietnam War, logging 132 flying missions.

He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1974. In addition to the Silver Star, his awards include the Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, Purple Heart, Air Medal with twelve Oak Leaf Clusters and the Meritorious Service Medal.

Pardo is survived by his wife, Kathryn, whom he married on March 7, 1992, five children and 10 grandchildren.

@AviationHistGal via X

[odinsblog]

The Supreme Court is trying to drag America backwards to “Separate but Equal”

President Andrew Johnson vetoed the nation’s inaugural Civil Rights legislation because, in his view, it discriminated against white people and privileged Black people. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which Congress enacted over the veto) bestowed citizenship upon all persons — except for certain American Indians — born in the United States and endowed all persons with the same rights as white people in terms of issuing contracts, owning property, suing or being sued or serving as witnesses. This law was proposed because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans, free or enslaved, were ineligible as a matter of race for federal citizenship, and because many states had barred African Americans from enjoying even the most rudimentary civil rights.

Johnson vetoed the act in part because the citizenship provision would immediately make citizens of native-born Black people while European-born immigrants had to wait several years to qualify for citizenship via naturalization (which was then open only to white people). According to Johnson, this amounted to “a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the Negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened.” Johnson similarly opposed the provision in the act affording federal protection to civil rights, charging that it made possible “discriminating protection to colored persons.”

A key defect of the Civil Rights Act, according to Johnson, was that it established “for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the general government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” Johnson opposed as well the 14th Amendment, which decreed that states offer to all persons equal protection of the laws, a provision which he also saw as a wrongful venture in racial favoritism aimed at assisting the undeserving Negro.

In 1875, Congress enacted legislation that prohibited racial discrimination in the provision of public accommodations. Eight years later, in a judgment invalidating that provision, the Supreme Court disapprovingly lectured the Black plaintiffs, declaring that “when a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws.”

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promulgated Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission to carry out the order. Assailing the order, Representative Jamie Whitten, a Mississippi segregationist, complained that it would not so much prevent unfairness as “discriminate in favor of the Negro” — this at a time when anti-Black discrimination across the social landscape was blatant, rife and to a large extent, fully lawful.

Segregationist Southerners were not the only ones who railed against antidiscrimination laws on the grounds that they constituted illegitimate preferences for African Americans. In 1945, the New York City administrator Robert Moses inveighed against pioneering municipal antidiscrimination legislation in employment and college admissions. Displaying more anger at the distant prospect of racial quotas than the immediate reality of racial exclusions, Moses maintained that antidiscrimination measures would “mean the end of honest competition, and the death knell of selection and advancement on the basis of talent.”

Liberals, too, have attacked measures they deemed to constitute illicit racial preferencing on behalf of Black people. When the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, proposed “compensatory” hiring in the early 1960s — selection schemes that would give an edge to Black people on account of past victimization and the lingering disabilities caused by historical mistreatment — many liberals resisted. Asked about CORE’s demands, President John F. Kennedy remarked that he did not think that society “can undo the past” and that it was a mistake “to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion, or race, or color, or nationality.”

Kennedy’s comment that it would be a mistake “to begin” to assign quotas reflects a recurring misimpression that racial politics “begins” when those who have been marginalized make demands for equitable treatment.

When Kennedy spoke, unwritten but effective quotas had long existed that enabled white men to monopolize huge portions of the most influential and coveted positions in society. Yet it was only when facing protests against monopolization that he was moved to deplore status-based quotas.

This same dynamic has been recurrent in subsequent decades: Every major policy seeking to advance the position of Black people has been opposed on the grounds that it was race conscious, racially discriminatory, racially preferential and thus socially toxic. That racial affirmative action in university admissions and elsewhere has survived for so long is remarkable, given the powerful forces arrayed against it.

(continue reading)

[sixthsensewulf]

I just can't stop thinking of lines from D20. . Just the story telling from 7 comedians doing a role play game. Whether they are teenagers in a fantasy high school, 6 new Yorkers saving NYC, Candy, Fairy Tale characters or a crew on a starship.

Anyway speeches/lines I freaking love and just can't stop thinking about.

PiB's talk to Alphonse both times, but more the second one. For me it was 100% PiB talking to Alphonse, but speaking to himself, being a helper animal in the stories and that it's not his fault.

Kingston's speeches. There are too many to list here but god I love his speeches to Robert Moses before and in the stock exchange fight.

The Stepmother's speech to Baba Yaga. "I don't even have a name in my own story"

Rowan's speech to the American Dream as well as American Dream to Ricky.

Jawbone. .just Jawbone.. his speech to Adaine in FH:FY finale, literally made me sob.

Honestly back to TUC, Sofia on the Empire State Building moment.

Bill Seacaster to Fabian in the prison in front of The Bad Kids. I was heartbroken and mad.

Honestly weirdly Gepetto to Pinocchio in Pinocchio's story. Yes that moment is fucked but the fact the others saw it and immediately praised Pinocchio and told him he did the right thing.

"It's Gorgug, Keep Going"

"Listen here's the thing – I don't know what you kids are up to, but I do know one thing: laws are threats made by the dominant socio-economic, ethnic group in a given nation. It's just a promise of violence that's enacted and police are basically an occupying army, you know what I mean? You guys want to make some bacon?"

I probably have more but my god. .I love this group of nerds.

I probably forgot context to some of them or what they were. But I am so grateful I have found D20.

[dwelling-on-downtowns]

if I had the opportunity to go back in time to beat up any one historical figure, it would be henry ford.

at first thought, I figured it would be henry kissinger because you know. it’s henry kissinger. but I quickly decided against it, because in this hypothetical, everybody is being given this opportunity and any good leftist hates henry kissinger so the line to get a shot at him would be so fucking long and at that point why bother.

so I swung back too far and considered rob ford briefly, he’s less well-known and would have a much shorter line, but the scale of his damage is limited to the ripple effects of the what he did to toronto and I figure there’s enough people in toronto to deal with him. I’m not even from toronto. (similarly, new yorkers can take care of robert moses)

the happy medium is ultimately henry ford. there would probably still be a line but much more manageable than henry kissinger, and much more satisfying than rob ford.

[blood-sucking-freaks]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 Facts

-was originally supposed to be about a town full of cannibals instead of just the Sawyer family. This version was to be titled "Beyond the Valley of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Bubba Sawyer and Sally Hardesty were to return. Nubbins Sawyer would've survived, been left paralyzed, and tied to a tree by the Sawyer family.

-Bill Mosely was cast as Chop Top because he splayed Nubbins in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre parody called 'The Texas Chainsaw Manicure'.

-Bill Mosely played Chop Top as the vocalist in an avant-garde metal band formed in 1995 called The Cornbugs with Bucket Head, Pinchface, and Travis Dickerson. The band released five albums and two DVDs before their 2007 breakup. Their songs were heavily inspired by TCM and TCM2.

-Gunnar Hansen was offered to return as Bubba, though he turned down the role because the offer was too low.

-Dennis Hopper, Lefty Enright's actor, celebrated his 50th birthday on set and cut his birthday cake with a chainsaw.

-Tobe Hooper's son William Hooper tried to bring Bill Mosely back as Chop Top in a TCM short film. It would have been titled 'All American Massacre' and was supposed to be both a prequel and sequel to TCM2. It would have followed Chop Top's origins and his breakout from prison to embark on his own massacre. The project died out when William Hooper ran out of money to complete the film during post-production. Eventually a trailer for the film was leaked and can be watched on youtube.

-Edwin Neal, Nubbins actor in TCM confirmed that the reason Nubbins wasn't sent to war while Chop Top was was because Nubbins was too crazy.

-The family photo used in the advertisements, posters, and covers was a spoof of The Breakfast Club.

-In the original version, Stretch was going to be Lefty's illegitimate daughter.

-Lefty is Sally and Franklin's uncle.

-When Lefty is buying his chainsaws, Bubba's TCM chainsaw model, a Poulan 245A, can be seen on the wall.

-Chop Top's real name is Robert. His and Drayton's are the only two known real first names of the Sawyers.

-during filming, the main set caught on fire and when firefighters showed up, they thought they had stumbled upon a mass murderers body stash

[ankh-morporkianpostalworker]

What Dreams May Be Offered - D20's American Dream

In the finale of the first season of Dimension 20: The Unsleeping City, all but one of the Heroes of New York are offered everything the American Dream believes they want, and all of them refuse, and what they're offered and how they reject the offer are great pieces of capstone characterization.

Ricky is offered a life of safety and a chance to live the life his parents always dreamed he would. He asks if it's only his dream, and states that everyone should have their own dream. His parents were immigrants, so this makes sense - to him, everyone being able to get what they want if they work for it is the American Dream.

Sophia is offered her husband back and a quiet home in the suburbs, her deepest desire, and she says no, partially because she just saw him when the Dream momentarily killed her. She rejects this because her duty to the Concrete Fist demands that she and her husband live in the city, and this duty is part of what defines her.

Kugrash is offered the life he gave up. Life as a man free of his curse. He rejects it, saying that he gave up that life, and that he's learned to live with that failure. Kugrash also exposes, for a moment, the corruption of Robert Moses' American Dream by making it a rat like him - a rat from the rat race he saw in hell. As a former stockbroker, he knows that corruption far too well.

Misty/Rowan is offered a life of parties and freedom and luxury, free of the ritual she has to do. She tells it that it doesn't have to enter the real world to be real and that that's why she loves the American Dream. It reveals the hidden depths that have been hidden at, as well as a desire to protect the people that provide for her. She doesn't just take, she gives back, not only in the form of Hope, as Nod alluded to, but in the form of putting her life on the line in a hopeless situation.

Kingston is offered the life he gave up in protection of New York. He sees a life where he doesn't have to sacrifice himself, where his duty is done. Kingston asks "But at what cost?", putting the needs of others before himself, as he always has done, before telling the Dream that, in no unceratin terms, he will stop it, and that he's ready to die doing so.

But then, in speaking to the Vox Phantasma, it doesn't offer to fulfill a dream. It knows that Pete, in that moment, has everything he wants - friends, a home, and a sense of purpose. Instead, it makes a fascinating mistake. The American Dream tries to compare itself to the Vox Phantasma through identity - it tells Pete it wants to be who it knows it is, a reference to Pete's gender identity, which pisses Pete off. Ally, as Pete, then requests to make an Arcana check to see the Dream as it truly is, and, in classic Ally fashion, roles at Nat 20. This Nat 20 allows Pete insight into the eldritch Dream, and that the American Dream must remain formless.

So, yeah.

[jewish-sideblog]

I remember disliking the whole tumblr movement of looking for like… idk foucuaing on goblins and gnomes when talking about antisemitism? I felt like it created an environment where a lot of people could claim that antisemitism is that, the goblins, which is not that serious is it? Like it was very disingenuous, too. And constantly felt guilty because of that, like a sort of idk. Too serious and ungrateful person. One of the worst “I was right” moments in my life.

Genuinely, like. Obviously these days we're seeing a fuckton more people ignoring or participating in antisemitism in every field. But even back in the day it was hard to get people to focus on non-goblin antisemitism in fantasy fiction!

I distinctly remember back when Dimension 20's Unsleeping City came out that I had massive problems with the plot. An actual historical Jewish man, Robert Moses, is brought back from the dead because he is simply that greedy. He oversees a secret cabal of blood libel vampires. He controls city finances. He attempts a modern deicide with Santa Claus. He is kept alive by a phylactery that can only be opened with the passphrase "Greed Is Good".

All of that comes from Brennan Lee Mulligan, who clearly didn't intend that story to be an antisemitic charcuterie board. He's married to a Jew, and the other Jewish character in the setting is handled extremely well. But I guess actual antisemitic canards are invisible to goyim unless a goblin or a TERF is involved. They genuinely think that antisemitism has to be direct, overt and intentional-- it isn't! It's all around us! It's in most stories.

I feel like I have to do a PS here because otherwise people will take this the complete wrong way-- I like D20 and Unsleeping City and I don't think that anybody involved should be cancelled. This was just my personal awakening to the fact that the creators I like the most, and the creators who think they are being the most careful, can still put antisemitic shit in their stories. What I'm saying here is that we need a much broader public understanding of what is and isn't okay than "goblins are bad".