#american gods february challenge

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Greg Owen at LGBTQ Nation:

On February 26, 2015, the California Attorney General’s Office stamped “received” on a cover letter from Huntington Beach attorney Matt McLaughlin, acknowledging receipt of a proposed initiative for the November ballot that would authorize the mass murder of gays and lesbians in the state. McLaughlin called his proposal the “Sodomite Suppression Act.” Kamala Harris was the state attorney general. Harris had just won reelection — overwhelmingly — in November, and three weeks before McLaughlin’s measure landed in her inbox, she had declared her intention to seek the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Barbara Boxer, who announced her retirement that January. Now Harris was confronted with a hateful proposal she had no choice but to deal with: under California state law, the attorney general has zero discretion to disregard a properly proposed initiative filing, no matter how intentionally provocative, discriminatory, or felonious.   The “Sodomite Suppression Act” was all three. And prophetic, too.

What came to be known as the “Shoot the Gays” initiative detailed several steps to eliminate the gay and lesbian population of California based on McLaughlin’s interpretation of Scripture. “The abominable crime against nature known as buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha [sic],” McLaughlin wrote. “Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God’s just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating-wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.” The proposed measure would outlaw “sodomistic propaganda directly or indirectly by any means to any person under the age of majority.” Violators would be fined “and/or imprisoned up to 10 years, and/or expelled from the boundaries of the state of California for up to life.”

[...] Harris wasn’t having it. “It is my sworn duty to uphold the California and United States Constitutions and to protect the rights of all Californians,” Harris said as a deadline for action loomed. “This proposal not only threatens public safety, it is patently unconstitutional, utterly reprehensible, and has no place in a civil society.” For the first time, a California attorney general sought relief from her sworn obligation and petitioned the state’s highest court to dismiss it. “If the court does not grant this relief,” she said, “my office will be forced to issue a title and summary for a proposal that seeks to legalize discrimination and vigilantism.” There was little-to-no chance McLaughlin would collect the 365,880 signatures of registered voters required to make the ballot, and even less that Californians would approve it or that it would survive the inevitable court challenges if it did pass.

In 2015, a few months before Donald Trump made the infamous escalator ride to announce his presidential run and SCOTUS’s Obergefell ruling, then-California AG Kamala Harris found a way to reject a bigoted referendum item from making it onto the ballot.

That ballot measure was called the “Sodomite Suppression Act.”

Portions of what was in the act later became standard GOP policy against LGBTQ+ Americans.

[actuallysara]

MY 2024 IN BOOKS 📚, MOVIES 📺 AND TV SHOWS 💻

JANUARY

💻 Blackbird (2022)

📚 Heartstopper: Volume Five (2023)

📺 Bottoms (2023)

📚 If We Were Villains (2017)

📺 Maestro (2023)

📺 Luca (2021)

📚 Circe (2018)

📺 Firebird (2021)

📚 On A Quiet Street (2022)

📺 The Good Nurse (2021)

📚 The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

📺 The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)

📚 I Feel Bad About My Neck (2005)

📺 Gifted (2017)

📺 To Catch a Killer (2023)

📚 First Lie Wins (2024)

💻 Skam Italia: Season 6 (2024)

📺 Wonka (2023)

📺 Joy Ride (2023)

💻 Queer Eye: Season 8 (2024)

📺 All Of Us Strangers (2024)

💻 Fleishman Is In Trouble (2022)

📺 Encanto (2021)

FEBRUARY

📚 The Mothers (2020)

📺 Past Lives (2023)

📺 Le Otto Montagne (2022)

📚 The American Roommate Experiment (2022)

📺 I, Tonya (2017)

📺 Midsommar (2019)

📺 Tenet (2020)

📚 The One (2016)

📺 Mean Girls (2024)

📺 The Holdovers (2023)

💻 True Detective: Season 4 (2024)

📺 Like Father (2018)

📚 The Quarry Girls (2022)

📺 Anatomy of A Fall (2023)

📺 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2022)

📚 Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect (2023)

MARCH

💻 Bad Sisters (2022)

📺 Poor Things (2023)

📚 None of This Is True (2023)

💻 Blood & Water: Season 4 (2024)

📺 Do Revenge (2022)

📚 The Last Time I Lied (2018)

📺 Lady Bird (2017)

📚 Final Girls (2017)

📺 Society of The Snow (2023)

📚 A Gentle Reminder (2021)

💻 Young Royals: Season 3 (2024)

💻 The Night Manager (2016)

APRIL

📚 Adelaide (2023)

📺 Dune: Part One (2021)

📺 Dune: Part Two (2024)

📚 The Good Samaritan (2017)

MAY

📚 What Lies Between Us (2020)

💻 Baby Reindeer (2024)

📚 La strana morte di Sir Lawrence Linwood (2022)

📚 Heracles' Bow (2012)

📺 Challengers (2024)

📚 A History of Wild Places (2021)

📺 The Idea of You (2024)

💻 Dead Boy Detectives (2024)

📺 Good Grief (2023)

💻 Abbott Elementary: Season 3 (2024)

📚 The Quiet Tenant (2023)

📚 Happy Place (2023)

JUNE

📚 The Pact (2021)

📺 American Fiction (2023)

💻 Prisma (2022)

📺 Dream Scenario (2023)

📚 The Teacher (2024)

💻 Bridgerton (2020)

📺 The Fall Guy (2024)

📚 The Passenger (2019)

📺 Fire Island (2021)

📺 My Policeman (2022)

💻 The Bear: Season 3 (2024)

JULY

💻 Crashing (2016)

📚 How To Solve Your Own Murder (2024)

📺 Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

📺 Marriage Story (2019)

📺 Black Swan (2010)

📺 Foe (2023)

📺 Argylle (2024)

📺 I Am: Celine Dion (2024)

💻 After Life (2019)

📺 The Adam Project (2022)

📺 A Star Is Born (2018)

📚 The Reading List (2021)

📺 Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

📺 I Am Legend (2007)

📚 Funny Story (2024)

📚 Listen For The Lie (2024)

AUGUST

📺 Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

💻 Eric (2024)

📚 Tear Me Apart (2018)

💻 The Umbrella Academy: Season 4 (2024)

💻 Elite: Season 8 (2024)

💻 Interview With The Vampire (2022) 

📚 Ask for Andrea (2022)

📚 Il Castello Dei Destini Incrociati (1973)

💻 Mary & George (2024)

📺 Matt Rife: Lucid (2024)

📺 Kevin Hart: Zero F**ks Given (2020)

📺 Damsel (2024)

📺 Nobody (2021) 

💻 Queen Charlotte (2023)

SEPTEMBER

📚 The Pairing (2024)

💻 Dear Child (2023)

📚 The Only One Left (2023)

📺 Twisters (2024)

📺 Am I Ok? (2024)

💻 Our Flag Means Death (2022)

📚 Hemlock (2023)

📺 A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)

📚 The Guest (2024)

💻 The Queen's Gambit (2020)

💻 Big Mood (2024)

💻 Anthracite (2024)

📚 Keep It In The Family (2022)

💻 Nobody Wants This (2024)

📚 The Family Experiment (2024)

💻 Presumed Innocent (2024)

💻 Monster: Season 2 (2024)

OCTOBER

📚 Once There Were Wolves (2021)

💻 Heartstopper: Season 3 (2024)

📚 Look Closer (2022)

💻 Red Eye (2024)

📚 The God of The Woods (2024)

📚 Daughter of Mine (2024)

📚 The Only Survivors (2023)

📺 His Three Daughters (2024)

📚 The Push (2021)

💻 Sweetpea (2024)

📚 Never Lie (2022)

📚 Seeds Planted in Concrete (2015)

📚 The Butterfly Garden (2016)

📚 No Exit (2017)

📺 The Substance (2024)

📺 It's What's Inside (2024)

📺 King Richard (2021)

📺 Venom (2018)

📺 Woman Of The Hour (2024)

💻 Only Murders In The Building: Season 4

💻 Agatha All Along (2024)

NOVEMBER

📚 All The Colors Of The Dark (2024)

📺 Nightcrawler (2014)

💻 Dispatches From Elsewhere (2020)

📚 Hidden Pictures (2022)

CURRENTLY:

💻 Westworld (2016) dnf

💻 Outer Banks: Season 4 (2024)

💻 Abbott Elementary: Season 4 (2024)

💻 911 Lone Star: Season 5 (2024)

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"David Dellinger and his friend Don Benedict caught a ride from New York to Washington, D.C., for the Lincoln’s Birthday weekend of 1940. Who knows where they stayed—on somebody’s floor, probably. It was the Depression, and Dellinger in particular knew all about roughing it. Benedict was hoping to learn from him on that score. They were in Washington because the two of them were part of a youth movement whose eager vanguard had descended on the city to agitate for jobs, rights, peace, and what they saw as justice. Both had backgrounds in the important Christian student movement of the era, Dellinger at Yale and Benedict at Albion, a little Methodist college in Michigan, and both now were graduate students at Union Theological Seminary in New York. There Dellinger had quickly formed a close bond with Benedict and Meredith Dallas, also from Albion. Pacifism, like socialism, was in the air at Union, at least among students.

Members of the American Youth Congress parade in gas masks on Fifth Avenue in New York City February 6, 1940 protesting impending war and publicizing the upcoming youth pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. Acme News Service. Washington Spark Flickr.

It was an exciting time, even if, like W. H. Auden, America’s young, having lived through “a low dishonest decade,” could feel the

Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives[.]

The students who made their way to Washington that weekend had come of age in the Great Depression. America’s collegians, once apathetic, were now far more conscious of injustice, chafing under the political constraints imposed by paternalistic faculty and administrators—and determined to stay out of war. “It was a time when frats, like the football team, were losing their glamor,” wrote the playwright Arthur Miller, recalling his days at the University of Michigan (Class of 1938):

Instead my generation thirsted for another kind of action, and we took great pleasure in the sit-down strikes that burst loose in Flint and Detroit…We saw a new world coming every third morning.

Many such Americans worried that war would undo whatever progress had been made by the New Deal, while undermining civil liberties. Stuart Chase, a popular economics writer and FDR associate whose 1932 book, A New Deal, provided ideas and a name for the White House program, argued that by avoiding war we might achieve

the abolition of poverty, unprecedented improvements in health and energy, a towering renaissance in the arts, an architecture and an engineering to challenge the gods.

But if war were to come, he wrote, we would see

the liquidation of political democracy, of Congress, the Supreme Court, private enterprise, the banks, free press and free speech; the persecution of German-Americans and Italian-Americans, witch hunts, forced labor, fixed prices, rationing, astronomical debts, and the rest.

Delegates to the American Youth Congress march from the U.S. Capitol to the White House Feb 9, 1940 where they were addressed by President Franklin Roosevelt. International News Photo, Washington Area Spark Flickr.

If Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal didn’t go far enough, it had at least offered hope. But in foreign affairs even this scant comfort was absent. During the thirties students had seen the rise of Hitler, the fascist triumph in the Spanish Civil War, and a series of futile appeasement measures culminating in the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, which triggered war with Britain and France. As Dellinger, Benedict, and thousands like them arrived in Washington, tiny Finland was still fighting with unexpected ferocity to repel an invasion by the Soviet Union, which had cynically agreed with Germany to divide Europe between them. The Red Army even joined in the dismembering of Poland. On the other side of the world, China had been struggling since 1937 against a brutal Japanese invasion.

Hope springs eternal, but on the morning of Saturday, February 10, 1940, even the nasty weather augured ill. Washington was rainy and cold as a young woman on horseback—dressed as Joan of Arc—led a procession of idealistic young Americans along Constitution Avenue. Many were in fanciful costumes. The rich array included some in chain mail and others dressed as Puritans. A delegation from Kentucky rode mules. Signs and banners held aloft by the students that weekend bore antiwar slogans, including, loans for farms, not arms; jobs not guns; and, in sardonic reference to the discredited crusade of the Great War, the yanks are not coming.

The context of their march was the national struggle over what role America should play in the European war—a war that had happened despite the best efforts of well-meaning people the world over to avoid it by means of rhetoric, law, arms control, appeasement, and every other method short of actually fighting about it. Now that it was at hand, America’s young were far more opposed to intervention than their elders, and this was a source of conflict on campus. At Harvard’s graduation a few months later, class orator Tudor Gardiner reflected the attitudes of many students in calling aid for the Allies “fantastic nonsense” and urging a focus on “making this hemisphere impregnable.” When Gardiner’s predecessor by twenty-five years recalled, at a reunion event, that “We were not too proud to fight then and we are not too proud to fight now,” recent graduates booed. But when commencement speaker Cordell Hull, FDR’s secretary of state, called isolationism “dangerous folly,” Harvard president James Bryant Conant nodded in support. Scenes like this would play out at campuses all across the country.

Delegates to the American Youth Congress with the U.S. Capitol in the background Feb 9, 1940 call for more jobs not war. The image is an undated Harris & Ewing photograph from the Library of Congress.

The students who converged on Washington for the Lincoln’s Birthday weekend brought with them their generation’s disdain for war. Marching in a steady drizzle, they were bound, these tender youths, for the White House, to which they had foolishly been invited by Eleanor Roosevelt—herself an active pacifist during the interwar years. “Almost six thousand young people marched,” her biographer reports, “farmers and sharecroppers, workers and musicians, from high schools and colleges, black and white, Indians and Latinos, Christians and Jews, atheists and agnostics, freethinkers and dreamers, liberals and Communists.”

Dellinger and Benedict were part of this “extraordinary patchwork,” the two seminarians having made the trip from New York by car with some other young people. Dellinger in particular was already being noticed, as he always seemed to be. Years later he would recall (clearly as part of this weekend) being invited by the First Lady to a White House tea in early 1940 with other student leaders who had, as he put it, organized a protest that she supported. Benedict’s memoir recalls that the two of them went to Washington that same month and attended “a huge rally, with thousands massed around the White House” to hear remarks by the president and the First Lady. “Dave and I talked a lot about demonstrating,” Benedict writes, adding: “Both of us knew the value of drama.”

...

For the White House, it made sense to pay attention to the young, many of whom would be just old enough to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Before the Depression, college students were solidly Republican, but as the thirties wore on and their social consciousness expanded, they swung increasingly to Roosevelt’s Democrats. The AYC [American Youth Congress] was both a cause and effect of this change and enjoyed the warm support of Eleanor Roosevelt, who over the several years of its existence had raised money for it, defended it in her newspaper columns, procured access to important public figures, and even scheduled face time with the president. For the big weekend event she had gone all out, prevailing on officials, hostesses, and her husband to accommodate the anticipated five thousand young people in every possible way. An army colonel named George S. Patton housed a bunch of the boys in a riding facility the First Lady had recently visited. She lined up buses; helped with costumes and flags, meals and teas; and arranged at least one of the latter at the White House—consistent with Dellinger’s recollection.

The event in Washington was billed as “a monster lobby for jobs, peace, civil liberties, education and health,” but it turned out to be the Götterdämmerung for the youth congress, and a landmark in the decline of America’s vigorous interwar peace movement. Nothing could more effectively symbolize the movement’s tender idealism, fair-weather pacifism, and ecclesiastical aura than an American college student dressed as the Maid of Orleans—a sainted military hero—on horseback, just months before France itself fell to an onslaught of modern mechanized warfare. Of course the American Joan of Arc, whoever she was, can be read as a symbol of hope for France because, in fact, the Yanks were coming, even if most of them didn’t know it yet. On the other hand, hopes for peace were starting to look more like delusions, even to those who held them, and here the symbolism becomes even richer, for Joan embodies three powerful drivers of the era’s American peace movement: She is young, she is female, and she is religious.

A few of the 3,000 youth that arrived for the opening of the three day American Youth Congress February 9, 1940 that will lobby Congress for passage of a youth bill to provide education and jobs. Washington Area Spark Flickr.

Many of these activists regarded abolitionism as the forerunner of their reformist enterprise, so it was fitting that here they were, in 1940, rallying for righteous change on the weekend of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. By now the students have reached the White House, arriving an hour early to hear the president. They had to leave their banners and placards outside the gates, where the guards on duty counted 4,466 gaining admission to the South Lawn—no doubt including Dellinger and Benedict. They grew colder and wetter as they waited.

After a while the American Youth Congress’s national chairman, Jack McMichael, a southern divinity student who had earlier spoken out against the violent abuse and disenfranchisement of blacks, took the microphone on the South Portico and led the students in singing “America the Beautiful.” And then, at long last, he introduced the president, describing our troubled country as a place where Americans dream of “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” but face the threat of bloodshed.

Now war, which brings nothing but death and degradation to youth and profit and power to a few, reaches out for us. Are we to solve our youth problem by dressing it in uniform and shooting it full of holes? America should welcome and should not fear a young generation aware of its own problems, active in advancing the interests of the entire nation…They are here to discuss their problems and to tell you, Mr. President, and the Congress, their needs and desires…I am happy to present to you, Mr. President, these American youth.

When FDR finally appeared, looking out with Eleanor over a sodden crowd dotted with umbrellas, he wore a strange smile—and gave them a blistering earful, dismissing as “unadulterated twaddle” their concerns about Finland and warning them against meddling in subjects “which you have not thought through and on which you cannot possibly have complete knowledge.” Concerning their cherished Soviet Union, FDR said that in whatever hopes the Soviet “experiment” had begun, today it was “a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world.” It was a shocking public rebuke to the students as well as the First Lady. The young compounded the fiasco by booing and hissing, creating a public relations nightmare in a nation that took a dim view of such a response to the president. Later that afternoon the First Lady had to sit still at an Institute plenary session, calming herself by knitting, while the fiery antiinterventionist John L. Lewis pandered to his student audience by heaping abuse on FDR. He would support Willkie in the coming election.

Besides Dellinger, other future activists who stood in the rain for Roosevelt’s “spanking,” as some newspapers called it, included future Representative Bella Abzug of New York and the writer Joseph Lash, who would win the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and help found with her (and Niebuhr) the liberal but anti-communist Americans for Democratic Action. Woody Guthrie was on hand, too, to write the student movement’s requiem. The folk singer, not yet a celebrity, arrived by riding the rails from Texas. Stunned by the president’s public scolding of the idealistic youngsters, Guthrie wrote a song on the spot entitled, “Why Do You Stand There in the Rain?”

It was raining mighty hard in that old Capitol yard When the young folks gathered at the White House gate. … While they butcher and they kill, Uncle Sam foots the bill With his own dear children standing in the rain.

Without money, Dellinger and Benedict made like Guthrie by riding the rails to get home—a first for Benedict but something Dellinger had been doing on and off for several years. After the excitement of the weekend they entered the railyard in darkness, careful to elude watchmen, and hunted for a train heading north. When they found one, they couldn’t gain access to any of the boxcars, but finally climbed aboard an open coal car, the freezing wind whipping them as they picked up speed, the air thick with choking dust and smoke. Miserable as it was, they were moving too fast to get off. It was an omen, perhaps, of the nature of their journey to come.

- Daniel Akst, War By Other Means: How the Pacifists of World War 2 Changed America for Good. New York: Melville House, 2022. p. 4-6, 7-8, 17-19.

[magpigment]

list of names i use to pick character names!

i scoured several baby names sites years ago and i still use this list to this day if i’m stumped on what to name a character of mine! figured i might as well post it since it might help someone else! feel free to add on ^^

https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/50-baby-names-that-means-healer-for-girls-and-boys/ (boys?? ig??) Aeson Before Jason, it was Aeson. This variation of name had commanded the hearts and minds of the warriors. Aeson means ‘healer’. Alaunus Alaunus is the name Sun God in Gaulish. It also means prediction, and revenge, which also happens to be related to the Greek god named Apollo. The name Alaunus signifies ‘brightness’. Asa A simple, sober, and scriptural name, Asa, means ‘expert, healer, or an individual born in the morning sun’. This is a uni-sexual name, that sounds equally good on females. Galen Galen is the name of a second-century physician who developed the basis of medicine. Galen means ‘quiet or healer’. Helem Helem, an Israeli word, signifying ‘to dream or to heal’. This name is slowly losing its existence, however if you like sound of it, you can definitely pick it up for your boy. Jayr Jayr, which means ‘healer’, has been used in America since the founding of the provinces, all thanks to the Puritans. Despite being an old name, its a rarely used one. (girls?? ig??) Airmed The name Airmed comes from the Irish mythology. A woman named Airmed was known for her ability to heal people during battle. There goes a folklore that healing herbs sprouted from her tears and healed the body of the injured. Althea This sentimental and ethereal name comes from the Greek folklore and has a peaceful ring to it. Althea implies healing power. Amethyst Amethyst has been utilized in healing and enchantment since time immemorial. As Amethyst is a birthstone from February, it would be best utilized for a young lady from February. Emma Emma, the generally acclaimed name, has numerous takers everywhere throughout the world. So no big surprise individuals decipher it unexpectedly. While its most regular meanings are ‘widespread, complete or whole’, in Teutonic, Emma signifies ‘healer of the universe’. Leigh Leigh has several meanings. In Celtic, Leigh signifies ‘healer’. This name can likewise be spelled as Leigha. It is a unisex name. Reselda Reselda, an enchanting Latin American name, which means healer, is getting a charge out of moderate degrees of utilization in European nations. Sirona The name Sirona belongs to the Celtic healing goddess. In the eastern Gaul, the figure of Sirona appears in carvings near the German sulfur springs. Even its temples are built near the thermal springs and healing wells.

https://baby.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Gothic_Baby_Names Arachne (girl) - Young woman who challenged Athena and was turned into a spider Balor (boy) - One-eyed giant in Irish mythology Griffin/Gryphon (boy) - Mythological beast with the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle Isolde (girl) - tragic Irish heroine Moon (unisex) - ancient symbol of fertility (last names) Addams - from the famous show The Addams Family Bara - a noted femme fatale from the 1910s Baudelaire - French poet famous poet from Gothic period in literature Gorey - artist who has a goth aesthetic Mortem - after fashion design Rose Mortem who is married to Goth band frontman from The Awakening Stoker - last name of the writer of Dracula (dark sounding names) Akeldama (boy) - field of blood; where Judas Iscariot committed suicide Dade (boy) - dark one Draven (m) - Child of the shadows Leila (girl) - Arabic for night Mara (girl) - a maleficent female wraith in Scandinavian folklore that causes nightmares Shadow (unisex) - black Shiva (boy) - God of destruction (creepy) Avarice (girl) - greed Badriyah (girl) - full moon Golgotha (unisex) - Hebrew for skull Melancholia (girl) - a mental condition and especially a manic-depressive condition Morte (boy) - French for dead Thorne (unisex) - sharp Vladimir (boy) - alleged vampire Wolfe (boy) - deadly beast (creative gothic names) Ascelin (unisex) - of the moon Aelfwif (boy) - Germanic word for elf + battle or war Alaric (boy) - first king of the Visigoths; means all-powerful ruler Clove (girl) - spice Draconia (girl) - dire Druscilla (girl) - it sounds dark but actually means fruitful Dyrk (boy) - one who admires nighttime Mallory (girl) - cursed or ill-fated one Perdita (girl) - lost in Spanish Quillon (boy) - sword Twilight (girl) - dusk Vespers (unisex) - Catholic evening prayers Xander (boy) - vampire hunter from the television show, Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (nature) Ash (boy) - what's left after a fire Belladonna (girl) - poisonous plant with purple flowers Branwen (boy) - Bran is a Celtic word for crow Briar (boy) - a thorn Chrysanthemum (girl) - flower associated with death in Japan and some European countries Foxglove (girl) - a beautiful but poisonous flower Hellebore (girl) - flower that blooms through the snow in the middle of winter Hemlock (unisex) - poison Socrates took to commit suicide Merula (boy) - Latin for blackbird Oleander (unisex) - a beautiful but poisonous plant Onyx (unisex) - stone that is pitch black Raven (girl) - bird often associated with death Sage (unisex) - a spice Willow (girl) - weeping tree; symbol of death (books) Basil - from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Desdemona (girl) - tragic Shakespearean heroine Grendel (boy) - name of the beast from Beowulf Eulalie (girl) - figure from Edgar Allen Poe poem Manfred (boy) - the lord in The Castle of Otranto, a gothic novel by Horace Walpole Nimue (girl) - an Arthurian sorceress Tempest (unisex) - as in by Shakespeare

https://baby.lovetoknow.com/baby-names/celestial-boy-names-related-space-astronomy (galaxy) Baade - last name Burbidge - last name Cygnus - swan Fath - conquest Fornax - furnace Helix - spiral ornament Leo - lion Phoenix - dark red Reinmuth - counsel mind Serpens - the serpent Virgo - young (planet, moon, satelite) Atlas - moon of Saturn; name of a Greek titan who held the heavens on his shoulders Hyperion - moon of Saturn; named for a Greek titan Jovian - name of the system that includes Jupiter, its rings, and its moons Mars - planet name representing the Roman god of war because the planet is red Mond - German word for "moon" Oberon - moon of Uranus; named after the king of the fairies in a Shakespeare play Phobos - one of Mars' moons named after a horse who pulled Roman god Mars' chariot (star and constellation) Alnair - the bright one Aquila - the eagle; constellation Azmidi - unknown Celaeno - the dark one Chertan - two small ribs Dorado - the swordfish; constellation Elgafar - the forgiver Felis - cat Hydrus - the male water snake; constellation Wurren - little fish (astronomers) Asaph (Hall) - discovered the moons of Mars Edwin (Hubble) - American astronomer who created a galaxy classification system Kepler (Johannes) - determined planets traveled around the sun in ellipses Sagan (Carl) - American astronomer who helped popularize astronomy (astronomy terms) Albedo - ratio of reflected light Aphelion - the point where a celestial body is furthest from the sun while orbiting Barlow - type of lens for a telescope Blazar - type of active galaxy Comet - ball of ice and debris orbiting the sun Dob - short for Dobsonian; type of reflector for a telescope Equinox - when day and night are of equal length Phoenix or Phoena (The magical fire bird in Greek mythology. In Greek, Phoenix means "rising bird" and Phoena means "mystical bird" or "purple.") Gibbous - when the moon appears more than half illuminated Meridian - imaginary north-south line Mak - nickname for the Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope Zodiac - set of constellations

https://baby.lovetoknow.com/baby-names/137-magical-girl-names Althea (Greek for "with healing power) Andromeda (In Greek mythology, she became a star. The name means "advising like a man.) Diana (Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon who is often associated with witchcraft and Wiccans. The word means "divine" in Latin.). Holly (English word for a type of plant, the name is often associated with Wicca.) Iris (Greek for "rainbow" and also the name of a flower. Iris was the Greek goddess of the rainbow.) (fairy) Aine (Irish name that means "brightness or splendor." In Celtic folklore, Aine was the queen of the Munster fairies and a goddess of the summer.) Asteria (Greek for "star." She was the goddess of justice. Also known as the "crying fairy.") Calliope (Greek for "beautiful voice.") Devas (Persian/Greek fairies that live in nature and appear as small balls of light, like fireflies.) Mab (Irish for "baby." In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Mab is the queen of the fairies.) Selkie (In Scottish mythology, Selkie is a name for fairies which means "seal folk" as they had the ability to change into seals and human form at will.) Titania (Greek for "great one" or "giant." Titania was the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.) (dark fairy) Agatha (Greek for "good woman." Agatha Harkness is a witch in Marvel comics.) Belinda (German/Spanish word for "pretty one" or "serpent" or "beautiful snake." A goddess of heaven and earth in Babylonian mythology." Ceridwen (Welsh for "beautiful as a poem." A Celtic goddess of poetry and a sorceress in Welsh folklore.) Dahlia (Swedish origin, the name for a flower. A dark witch character in the television show The Originals.) Eris (Greek goddess of discord and strife and a witch in the Maleficent Disney movie.) Koko or Kohko (Algonquin name that means "the night.") Lamia (Evil witch in the book and movie Stardust. A Lamia was a snake with the head and breasts of a human female in Greek mythology.) Melinoë (In Greek mythology, a nymph associated with nightmares and mental illness as well as the moon. She is associated with wearing the color yellow.) Opal (A dark pixie character in the Artemis Fowl series. The word comes from the Sanskrit and is a type of gem.) Tanith (A Phoenician goddess of the moon. Tanith Lee is an acclaimed dark fantasy author.)

(elven) Amberle (Elven princess character from the Shannara series.) Elanor (A Sindarin name that means "sun star.") Siofra (An Irish name that means "fairy" or "elf.") Vila (In Slavic mythology, a type of winged elven race that are beautiful and live in the clouds.) Willow (English origin. A type of tree and also a witch in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) (witch) Alcina (Greek for "strong willed." A witch from Greek mythology and also an opera by Handel.) Aradia (The "first witch" from the Wiccan work Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.) Aurora (Goddess of the dawn in Greek mythology and also the name of Sleeping Beauty in the Disney movies.) Circe (Geek for "bird." Circe was a witch in Greek mythology.) Cirilla or Ciri (A pale-haired sorceress from The Witcher books, video games and television show.) Fleur (French for "flower." Fleur Delacour is a French witch in the Harry Potter series.) Lilith (Asyrrian word for "ghost." Lilith was Adam's first wife in Hebrew mythology who became a demon.) Merlinne or Merlynne (Welsh for "sea fortress." A feminine version of Merlin, the wizard in the story of King Arthur.) Minerva (Latin for "of the mind; intellect." Minerva McGonagall is a witch in the Harry Potter series.) Sabrina (A name of Celtic origin that means "white rose." Also a famous teenage witch on television.) Sadira (Persian for "lotus tree." Sadira is a sand witch in the Aladdin Disney television show.) (mystical) Aisling (Irish name that means "dream or vision.") Amitola (A Native American name that means "rainbow.") Ariadne (A Greek goddess of fertility.) Avalon (The mystical "isle of apples" in Celtic and Arthurian legend.) Celeste or Celestia (Latin for "heavenly.") Epiphany (Greek word that means "revelation" or "revelation of a divine being.") Kachine or Kachina (A "sacred dancer" or "dancing spirit" in southwestern Native American cultures.) Luna (Italian for "moon." Luna was a Roman goddess of the moon.) Maia (Greek for "mother." Maia was the goddess of spring and "mother earth" in Roman mythology.) Merope (Greek for a bird that eats bees. In Greek mythology, one of the seven Pleiades, a group of nymphs who were turned into stars by Zeus. Also Voldemort's mother in the Harry Potter series.) Nokomis or Nakomis (Chippewa name for the daughter or grandmother of the moon.) Seraphina or Serafina (Hebrew for "fiery," Seraphina is based on the seraphim which are angels in Judaism and Christianity. Serafina Pekkala is a witch in the His Dark Materials series.) Ulloriaq (A Native American name that means "star like.") Zorya, Zora or Zarya (A pair of goddesses in Slavic mythology who are the morning star and evening star.)

(mermaid) Acantha (Greek for "thorn." A nymph in Greek mythology). Asrai (A fairy that lives in seas and lakes in English legends. They are associated with the moonlight.) Asterope (A Greek word for "starry face." She was a nymph in Greek mythology.) Clio (Greek for "glory." Cleo was a sea nymph in Greek mythology.) Daphne (Greek for "laurel tree." Daphne was a nymph in Greek mythology.) Kailani or Kailee (Hawaiian for "sea and sky.") Larissa (Greek for "citadel." A nymph in Greek mythology and the name of one of Neptune's moons.) Lorelei (In German folklore, Lorelei was a mermaid who lured sailors to their death in the Rhine River.) Melia (Greek name that means "work." Melia was a nymph in Greek mythology and the daughter of Oceanus.) Narice or Nerissa (Greek for "from the sea." Niamh, Neve, Nieve or Neave (Gaelic for "bright." In Irish folklore, Niamh was the daughter of the sea god.) Ondine (Latin for "little wave." Ondie was a nymph and water spirit in German folklore.) Sereia (Portuguese name that means "mermaid.")

https://baby.lovetoknow.com/baby-names/47-rare-boy-names-that-are-unexpectedly-cool Aero (air-oh) - air Axton - swordsman's stone Asar (ah-sar) - unknown; Greek form of Osiris, God of the Dead Benno - bear Brage (brah-gee)- first Druid (droo-ihd) - strong seer; Ancient Celtic priest or magician Enos (ay-nohss)- man or mortal Kalix - most beautiful Omri (om-ree) - my sheaf Orvar - arrow Osten - stone island Rodion (roh-dee-on) - song of the hero Scion (si-on)- descendent Taft - building site Torin - chief Yudel (yoo-dehl) - praise Zoar (zor) - light or brilliance (Extraordinary and Rare Long Names for Boys) Alderic (ahl-day-reek) - old ruler Benesh - blessed Caishen (ki-shen) - god of wealth Coleman - dove Jacobus (juh-koh-bus) - supplanter Janeiro (juh-nayr-oh) - January Ledger - tribe spear Raiden - thunder and lightning Taranis (tuh-ran-iss) - thunder Tristram (trihss-trum) - riot Whittaker (wit-uh-ker) - white field Yorick - farmer Zhubin (zoo-bihn) - spear-like

(elemental) Aidan (Gaelic) - fire element; fiery Ethereal (English) - air element; extremely delicate Garnet (Middle English) - earth element; dark red gemstone Gale (Middle English) - air element; jovial Rain (American) - water element; abundant blessings River (Latin) - water element; flowing body of water Sky (Old Norse) - air element; cloud Zephyr (Greek) - air element; west wind https://baby.lovetoknow.com/baby-names/graceful-tree-names-girls Apple Ash Aspen Catalpa Cherry Hazel Holly Juniper Laurel Madrone Magnolia Myrtle Poplar Willow Yew (scientific tree inspired) Balsamea - Abies balsamea, or balsam fir Betula - Betula lenta, or black birch Carya - Carya ovata, or shagbark hickory Castanea - Castanea dentata, or American chestnut Celtis - Celtis occidentalis, or common hackberry Cercis - Cercis canadensis, or redbud Gleditsia - Gleditsia triacanthos, or honey locust Ostrya - Ostrya virginiana, or American hophornbean Swietenia - Swietenia mahogoni, or mahogany Taeda - Pinus taeda, or loblolly pine Tilia - Tilia Americana, or American Basswood

(unique/cool) Baylisiana - there is only one Pennantia baylisiana, or Three Kings Kaikomako, left in New Zealand Dentelle - there are only two Bois dentelle, or Lace Wood trees, left in Mauritius Erythrina - coral tree, or Erythrina schliebenii, found in Tanzania Kaikomako - also inspired by the Pennantia baylisiana (Three Kings Kaikomako) in New Zealand Mpingo - African blackwood tree with a purplish hue Pennantia - also inspired by New Zealand's Pennantia baylisiana (Three Kings Kaikomako) Socotra - Socotra dragon tree, also known as Dragon Blood tree, found in Yemen (rare) Auxin - hormones in trees that stimulate cell growth Cambium - the growing part of the tree trunk Chi (Vietnamese) - branch Clematis (English) - twig Crown - the upper part of the tree with the branches Dalia (Hebrew) - hanging branch Lignin - a strong, natural chemical glue that holds the central heartwood of a tree together Ritva (Finnish) - birch branch Verbena - leaves, twigs (meaning tree) Alani (Hawaiian) - orange tree Anargul (Kazakh) - blooming pomegranate tree Ashley (English) - ash tree clearing Björk (Icelandic) - birch tree Eglė (Lithuanian) - spruce tree Elowen (Cornish) - elm tree Fidan (Turkish) - sapling Hadas (Hebrew) - myrtle tree Hadassah (Biblical) - myrtle tree Hollis (English) - holly trees Iva (Slavic) - willow tree Jela (Serbian) - fir tree Kalina (Polish) - viburnum tree Kiri (Maori) - skin of a tree Liepa (Lithuanian) - linden tree Lina (Arabic) - palm tree Lovorka (Croatian) - laurel tree Melia (Greek) - ash tree Moriko (Japanese) - forest child Oihana (Basque) - forest Ornella (Italian) - flowering ash tree Pomona (Roman) - fruit tree Randa (Arabic) - scented tree Taimi (Finnish) - young tree

if anyone has more they’d like to add feel free!

[appgrowing]

New Open World Game Topped Pre-registration, Another Masterpiece by Nuverse

Recently, many new games from leading developers have gone on an advertising spree. In addition to Moonton's Watcher Of Realms, according to AppGrowing, Nuverse's Dragonheir: Silent Gods started a massive advertising campaign, topped the Google Play Pre-registration, and became a Top 5 game among loads of games that are already released by top Chinese developers.

Source: AppGrowing

Dragonheir: Silent Gods is about to be launched  in September 2023, according to data.ai. After the release of the global version of Earth: Revival（《星球：重啟》） in February, Dragonheir: Silent Gods will be the second Nuverse game to be available worldwide this year, carrying the company's expectation of building a global brand.

01 An Open-world TRPG on 5-Year Development and $15 M

Dragonheir: Silent Gods is a D&D open-world semi-real-time strategy RPG. It is said to have taken five years to develop and cost over $15 million, making it the most "heavyweight" of the known Nuverse games.

In terms of art, Dragonheir: Silent Gods combines vintage oil painting with the widely accepted dark western fantasy style, differentiating it from the "cartoonish" games of the same genre. Delicate character and scene modeling make the game looks sophisticated.

Image Credit: Dragonheir: Silent Gods

Of course, in the case of the increasingly competitive game market, "appearance" alone is not enough to attract players. Officially, the game story text is now approaching 1 million words, and all the dialogue is in English voice-over, including the invited DND series "Critical Role" voice actor Mathew Mercer. Moreover, with the support of high-level music, Dragonheir: Silent Gods tries to revive the D&D-style fantasy world in all aspects.

Along with the vast worldview and plot, the main selling point of Dragonheir: Silent Gods is the "open world adventure" gameplay. Players can freely explore the game world, collect resources, solve challenges, and learn about the characters‘ stories.

Dragonheir: Silent Gods has little innovation in combat. The game adopts a normal turn-based model, incorporating auto chess gameplay to enhance strategy. Players select characters to arrange a team of 5 to fight, and there is a common TRPG "dice throwing" in the process.

Similar to Earth: Revival, Dragonheir: Silent Gods will be released on multiple platforms. According to the official website, the game will not only be available on the mobile platform of App Store and Google Play but also on Steam.

02 Advertising Strategy of Dragonheir: Silent Gods

According to AppGrowing, Dragonheir: Silent Gods began advertising on May 24, which coincides with the opening of the game's PC and Android beta test in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan of China.

Source: AppGrowing

In terms of media, Dragonheir: Silent Gods mainly invested in Meta Audience Network, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook, and the share of each is relatively average. Its target markets are in Europe and America. The ad format of the game is mainly in-feed, while creatives are mostly horizontal (including square) videos.

Source: AppGrowing

The creatives of Dragonheir: Silent Gods focus on the content of the game itself and did not go too far, probably because it is still in the early pre-registration advertising stage.

Showing World View & Scenes

DND theme is appealing enough for European and American players. Dragonheir: Silent Gods focuses on the abundant and detailed surroundings in the video, labeling the game as "high quality" and attracting players interested in the genre.

Some creatives also combine the exploration gameplay. For example, the following video shows the beautiful scenes of several maps through "team exploration".

Showing Characters

Characters have always been one of the promotional methods for RPG games. Dragonheir: Silent Gods stated that the number of heroes and NPCs in the game has exceeded 200, and the content is also used in ad creatives.

For example, this video shows the character's exquisite modeling at the beginning, and then turns to its combat skills, maximizing the audience's understanding of the character.

In addition to the direct display of characters, Dragonheir: Silent Gods also released many "character customization" ads. Besides the presets, the game supports a variety of detailed numerical adjustments, with a quality beyond the normal brutal character customization. It even shows the common "property points" of TRPG, highlighting the game's unique features.

From the advertising point of view, such character customization videos are mostly used for MMO games, which can capture a wide range of players. It may drive Dragonheir: Silent Gods to broaden its target audience.

Showing Strategy Gameplay

Dragonheir: Silent Gods has created ads showing the strategic gameplay. For example, this creative shows the animation effect of characters coming on the battlefield and discharging their skills in turn. Elements such as kill clears and blast damage figures highlight the excitement of the fight and attract users interested in this kind of gameplay.

Generally speaking, the current creatives of Dragonheir: Silent Gods revolve around the three major directions of game art, characters and gameplay to do simple display, and the entire idea is rather restrained, more to advertise as an auxiliary means of brand exposure. But considering the various ads of Earth: Revival after its launch, perhaps we will see more interesting ad creatives when Dragonheir: Silent Gods is officially released.

03 Will it be "the Year of Game" for Nuverse?

Entering 2023, Nuverse has announced three games, the globally released Earth: Revival, Dragonheir: Silent Gods in pre-registration, and CoA（《晶核》）, which is aimed at Mainland China and will be released on July 14. These three are different in art style and gameplay, but all present a high quality. Earth: Revival performed well in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan of China, having taken the Top 2 in Taiwan iOS Top Grossing games. It was launched in Japan in April and once entered the Top 30 of the iOS Top Grossing games. The anime-style ARPG CoA have exceeded 9 million pre-registrations, according to the official website.

From the establishment of the Game Department in 2018, ByteDance has been exploring the game development for the past 5 years. Although there have been news of studio dissolution and project cancellation, Nuverse has done a lot of work, especially in mid core & hard core games, and some of them performed excellently. For example, the female-oriented game Flower Ariel (《花亦山心之月》)  and the Earth: Revival that confronted with Tencent and NetEase in the theme of doomsday survival.

The exposure of 3 new games in 2023 H1 reveals a clear increase in Nuverse's game productivity and self-development strength. Whether ByteDance's mid core & hard core games can gain more achievement this year is up to the performance of Dragonheir: Silent Gods and CoA.

*The content and media in this article are protected by copyright laws. Some information is cited from public sources for illustrative purposes only, with ownership retained by the original authors. This article provides general information only and is not meant as opinion or advice for specific situations.

Follow AppGrowing's social media accounts or register immediately at AppGrowing to learn more mobile advertising insights.

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[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Boston Globe]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 1, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

On February 1, 1862, in the early days of the Civil War, the Atlantic Monthly published Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” summing up the cause of freedom for which the United States troops would soon be fighting. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” it began.

“He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.”

Howe had written the poem on a visit to Washington with her husband. Approaching the city, she had reflected sadly that there was little she could do for the United States. She couldn’t send her menfolk: her husband was too old to fight, her sons too young. And with a toddler, she didn’t even have enough time to volunteer to pack stores for the field hospitals. “I thought of the women of my acquaintance whose sons or husbands were fighting our great battle; the women themselves serving in the hospitals, or busying themselves with the work of the Sanitary Commission,” and felt there was nothing she could give to the cause.

One day she and her husband toured the troops surrounding the city and, mingling with troops on the way home, sang a popular song: “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave; his soul is marching on.” A friend challenged Howe to write more uplifting words for the marching song.

That night, Howe slept soundly. She woke before dawn and, lying in bed, began thinking about the tune she had heard the soldiers singing the day before. She recalled: “[A]s I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind.... With a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen... I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

Howe's hymn captured the tension of Washington, D.C., during the war as soldiers protected the government from invasion, strung in camps around the city to keep invaders from the U.S. Capitol.

“I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.”

Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic went on define the Civil War as a holy war for human freedom:

“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.”

The Battle Hymn became the anthem of the Union during the Civil War, and exactly three years after it appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, on February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Joint Resolution of Congress passing the Thirteenth Amendment and sending it off to the states for ratification. The amendment provided that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." It gave Congress power to enforce that amendment. This was the first amendment that gave power to the federal government rather than taking it away. Three quarters of the states had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment by December 6, 1865.

When the measure had passed the House the day before, the lawmakers and spectators had gone wild. “The members on the floor huzzaed in chorus with deafening and equally emphatic cheers of the throng in the galleries,” the New York Times reported. “The ladies in the dense assemblage waved their handkerchiefs, and again and again the applause was repeated, intermingled with clapping of hands and exclamations of ‘Hurrah for freedom,’ ‘Glory enough for one day,’ &c. The audience were wildly excited, and the friends of the measure were jubilant.” Indiana congressman George Julian later recalled, “It seemed to me I had been born into a new life, and that the world was overflowing with beauty and joy, while I was inexpressibly thankful for the privilege of recording my name on so glorious a page of the nation’s history.”

But the hopes of that moment had crumbled within a decade. Almost a century later, on February 1, 1960, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell A. Blair Jr., and Joseph McNeil set out to bring them back to life when they sat down on stools at the F.W. Woolworth Company department store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The men were first-year students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University who wanted to find a way to combat the segregation under which Black Americans had lived since the 1880s.

Woolworth’s would sell products to Black students but would not serve them food. So the men forced the issue by sitting down and ordering coffee and doughnuts. They sat quietly as the white waitress refused to serve them and the store manager ignored them. They came back the next day with a larger group. This time, television cameras covered the story. By February 3 there were 60 men and women sitting. By February 5 there were 50 white male counterprotesters.

By March the sit-in movement had spread across the South, to bus routes, museums, art galleries, and swimming pools. In July, after profits had dropped dramatically, the store manager of the Greensboro Woolworth’s asked four Black employees to put on street clothes and order food at the counter. They did, and they were served. Desegregation in public spaces had begun.

Exactly 63 years later, on February 1, 2023, Tyre Nichols’s family said laid their 29-year-old son to rest in Memphis, Tennessee. He was so severely beaten by police officers on January 7, allegedly for a traffic violation, that he died three days later.

Also today, the College Board released the official curriculum for a new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies. In January, right-wing Florida governor Ron DeSantis complained that the draft course was “indoctrination” and “lacks educational value and is contrary to Florida law,” and said he would ban it. The version released today has been stripped of information about Black feminism, the queer experience, incarceration, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mine eyes have seen the glory.

Rest in power, Mr. Nichols.

—

Notes:

Julia Ward Howe, Reminiscences, 1819-1899, pp. 273-276, at google books: https://books.google.com/books?id=n1g4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA244&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/01/tyre-nichols-funeral/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/us/college-board-advanced-placement-african-american-studies.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/01/23/desantis-defends-florida-rejecting-ap-african-american-studies-course/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tvrundownusa]

tvrundown USA 2024.02.28

Wednesday, February 28th:

(exclusive): Iwájú (dsn+, African animated series premiere, all 6 eps), "Iwájú: A Day Ahead" (dsn+, documentary special), "Dead in the Water" (APrime, true-crime docuseries, all 3 parts), "American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders" (netflix, docuseries, all 4 parts), "Code 8 Part II" (netflix, sci-fi action-thriller movie sequel, 100mins)

(streaming weekly): Constellation (apple+), The New Look (apple+), Vera (BritBox, season 13 opener), Love Is Blind (netflix, next 2 eps, penultimate), Star Wars: The Bad Batch (dsn+), Ishura (hulu), The Impossible Heir (hulu, Korean crime thriller premiere)

(also new): "You're Not Supposed to Be Here" (LMN, original movie, 2hrs), "God Save Texas" docuseries trilogy continued: "The Price of Oil" (HBO, Houston from Alex Stapleton), "La Frontera" (HBO, El Paso from Iliana Sosa)

(hour 1): Chicago Med (NBC), Wild Cards (theCW), The Conners (ABC) / . / Not Dead Yet (ABC), We Are Family (FOX, special time, 2hrs), Survivor (CBS, season 46 opener, 2hrs), The Challenge (MTV, 90mins)

(hour 2): Chicago Fire (NBC), Family Law (theCW), Sistas (BET), Abbott Elementary (ABC) / . / Celebrity Family Feud (ABC), We Are Family (FOX, contd, season 1 finale), Survivor (CBS, contd), The Challenge (MTV, reunion part 1 contd)

(hour 3): Chicago P.D. (NBC), Resident Alien (SyFy), Celebrity Squares (BET) / . / All the Queen's Men (BET, penultimate), FEUD: "Capote vs. The Swans" (FX, ~77mins), Judge Steve Harvey (ABC), FBI True (CBS)

[preempted, on hiatus: I Can See Your Voice (FOX) ]

[curtiscroachblog]

Keep hope alive

Word for Today written by Bob and Debby Gass

Wednesday 14th February 2024

'Put your hope in the Lord now and forever.' Psalm 131:3 GWT

The psalmist David said, 'Put your hope in the Lord now and forever' (Psalm 131:3 GWT). For most of us, if we're in reasonably good health and can pay the rent, hope doesn't work. The hope David spoke of goes way beyond this. The hope David spoke of goes way beyond this.

First: Ask yourself what's your strongest desire. Imagine you're 80 and looking back. Are you satisfied? If not, challenge yourself to come up with an answer. Hope must be personal, not the kind you think you should have. It must be fervent enough to govern everything you do. Second: Give hope a symbol - something you can centre your thoughts around. Jeremiah taught God's people a lesson in hope by buying land at Anathoth (see Jeremiah 32:9). He knew they would be taken into captivity, and during those long years, the memory of that faraway field in Judah would act as a symbol of future restoration. During World War II when Leo Algimas and his family were herded into concentration camps, they maintained a symbol of hope, a tiny piece of paper from a box of chocolates with an American flag on the bottom. They passed it from hand to hand, looked at it, held it and whispered about the liberation army that was coming.

Symbols help us fix our minds on what's possible. In fact, the greatest symbol the world has ever known was the hardest to believe. A baby in a manger signalled God's Kingdom on earth and changed mankind's destiny. And he can change your destiny. Define what you hope for, ask in his name and, no matter how impossible it looks, expect it to come true.

[audiofictionuk]

New Fiction Podcasts - 11th February

Worlds Collide - A Dungeons & Dragons 5e Podcast Audio RPG Embark on an otherworldly journey with 'Worlds Collide,' a gripping narrative podcast that delves into the convergence of multiple worlds and the fate of a fading magic. When diverse characters from distinct realms are summoned by the gods into an enigmatic new world, they must band together to unearth the cause behind the vanishing magical essence. Follow the compelling saga as each character, plucked from their homelands, navigates the unfamiliar terrain, leveraging their unique skills and personalities. With time ticking and the magic waning, the characters face a race against the unknown force that threatens to plunge this world into darkness. As these unlikely allies explore, confront challenges, and grapple with internal conflicts, listeners will be drawn into their quests for truth, forging powerful alliances amidst discord and mistrust. Unravel the mystery alongside them, discovering ancient prophecies, hidden truths, and the ultimate revelation about the dwindling magic. Join us bi-weekly as 'Worlds Collide' takes you through a riveting odyssey of magic, friendship, betrayal, and redemption. Each episode unravels layers of this immersive fantasy world; Will the heroes discover the source of the fading magic and the interconnected destinies of these extraordinary characters? Tune in and immerse yourself in this thrilling live-play 5e podcast, where the stability of the realms is tested, and the power of unity becomes a beacon of hope in a world on the brink of losing its enchantment. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240207-02 RSS: https://feeds.libsyn.com/492545/rss

The Passage Audio Drama THE PASSAGE takes you on a ride into the land of the dead, traveling with the Ferryman as he collects America’s most illustrious spirits and delivers them to the hereafter. The price of their passage? Their story. Built on a foundation of historical relevance and structured by a kind of dream logic, THE PASSAGE is an immersive audio experience that invites listeners to explore the collective American psyche from the perspective of its most legendary figures. Here we are guided by the Ferryman of souls– with a voice that sounds like it’s been siphoned from a lake of bourbon and fire, and resonating with the depth and gravitas of Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, The Walking Dead). The Passage is penned by a brilliant and diverse pool of writers and performed by an unforgettable cast, each episode of this anthology promises a new tale of American odyssey, from madness and monsters to conviction and courage. Each passenger tells their own extraordinary and often terrifying tale to influence the Ferryman’s final destination— be it a comfortable place of eternal light, a haunted purgatory of regret, or one of the nine rings of hell. These are the tales that shaped the soul of the nation. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240207-03 RSS: https://www.omnycontent.com/d/playlist/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/23c95ad4-71fc-499d-bb7e-b0dc0122c03c/e4bbf9d9-c91f-4890-b7fb-b0dc0124251d/podcast.rss

Todd: Big Boy Detective Audio Drama Todd may only be eight and a half years old, but he’s convinced he’s a hardboiled, straight-shooting, Big Boy Detective! With the help of his friends and his witty sidekick, Leo the Stuffed Lion, Todd solves everything from simple backyard enigmas to huge and fantastical mysteries. The ‘Todd: Big Boy Detective’ series was born from a love of old style Detective Radio Dramas and a desire to bring that fun to families in a way that's both fun for kids and witty enough for adults! https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240207-04 RSS: https://bigboydetective.com/feed/podcast/todd-big-boy-detective/

Petrolith Audio RPG A D&D Real-Play podcast featuring an eclectic group including a goblin alchemist, a tiefling paladin, an undead beast tamer with her companions, a goliath bard, a dragonborn monk, and a kenku artificer. Join them as they navigate the treacherous world of pirates, mercenaries, corrupt governments, and a crazy cult that worships a 12 year old kid for some reason! https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240109-05 RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/659cae8ff4a05a0016eb8eee

Ask Your Father Audio Drama Lem, a human, and Mikey, an A.I., are piloting the first ever faster than light speed ship when they find themselves twice as far as they meant to go, and without any fuel for a return flight. The two of them communicate with Earth using tiny faster-than-light-speed drives, which carry information for Mikey and questions for Lem from his kids. As they work together to solve the problem, they forge a friendship that could change the course of human history, all while trying to answer the question “how did this happen?” And more importantly… “Why?” https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240208-02 RSS: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/FAFO7586484272

The Whirlwind Chronicles Audio RPG Equipped with an ancient wizard’s life’s work, a renegade party of adventurers explore unknown realms to discover the universe’s secrets and complete his encyclopedic tome. Welcome in! This actual play podcast tells the story of Juniper, Calgo, Edna, and Wallace. With no preparation, our players determine where these explorers will go next by spontaneously rolling for the genre, hook, and most importantly, the game master of the week. Expect chaos as our group of players wholly improvise a new adventure every episode. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240205-02 RSS: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2311223.rss

Gather 'Round the Trashfires Audio Book Bek Andrew Evans, a TTRPG and LARP writer, recounts stories from the table. The main focus is on his years-long Deviant: the Renegades chronicle and his cohort's (mis)adventures. His delivery style has been described as similar to classic Twilight Zone narration. A group of young adult strangers find they’re victims of the same secret project on the water system that gave them both fantastic powers and horrifying consequences. What’s worse, the hospital they ended up in isn’t what it seems, either. They must band together to protect themselves and their loved ones, seek vengeance, and expose those responsible. And maybe, hopefully, learn to live with each other along the way. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240210-01 RSS: https://feeds.redcircle.com/59e19bc6-91d4-4cdc-9684-8759f87afaba

The Defense Audio Drama A new audio drama about a support group of women with a unique set of powers. Recorded live, with an audience at Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn. https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240208-04 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f0967cd8/podcast/rss

The Porch Roof Classic Audio Book A retro baseball podcast-novel in 15 or so episodes about summer dreams, anxiety, and Wiffle ball. In 1970, way before social media existed, when imitating Willie Mays or Tony Conigliaro’s batting swing was a day’s big challenge, fourteen-year-old Joey Tosh endures a bullying attack on the final day of junior high school. With the help of his close friends and a fearless bohemian girl he meets at overnight camp, Joey learns how to cope with nemesis Danny Blight, and by the end of summer, a duel-to-the-death backyard ball game will hopefully settle all Marsh Meadow business. Come for the awkwardness, stay for the one-handed home runs! https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20240209-01 RSS: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2248510.rss

[contentpassstory]

Steven Furtick Net Worth – Early Life, Career, and Achievements

Steven Furtick, a prominent American pastor, author, and songwriter, has gained widespread recognition for his influential role in the world of Christianity. Beyond his spiritual leadership, Furtick has made notable contributions as an author and speaker. This article delves into the early life, career, and achievements of Steven Furtick, along with an exploration of his net worth.

Early Life and Education

Steven Furtick was born on February 19, 1980, in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Raised in a Christian household, he developed an early interest in ministry. Furtick attended North Greenville University, where he pursued a degree in communications. His time at the university played a pivotal role in shaping his understanding of faith and communication, foreshadowing his future in pastoral leadership.

Ministry and Elevation Church

Steven Furtick’s journey in ministry took a significant turn when he founded Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2006. Elevation Church quickly gained attention for its contemporary approach, energetic worship services, and Furtick’s dynamic preaching style. Under his leadership, the church experienced exponential growth, becoming one of the largest and most influential congregations in the United States.

Furtick’s sermons, known for their relevance and practicality, resonate with a diverse audience. Elevation Church utilizes modern technology and innovative approaches to engage with its members, including online services and a strong presence on social media platforms.

Achievements as an Author

In addition to his role as a pastor, Steven Furtick has established himself as a successful author. He has written several bestselling books that focus on spiritual growth, leadership, and faith. Some of his notable works include “Greater: Dream Bigger. Start Smaller. Ignite God’s Vision for Your Life” and “Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God’s Voice Above All Others.”

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Furtick’s books have been well-received within and beyond Christian circles, reflecting his ability to connect with readers on matters of faith, personal development, and overcoming challenges.

Recognition and Influence

Steven Furtick’s influence extends beyond the walls of Elevation Church. He is a sought-after speaker at conferences and events, where he shares insights on leadership, faith, and personal growth. Furtick’s dynamic and relatable approach to preaching has garnered him a significant following, both within the Christian community and among those seeking inspiration and motivation.

Steven Furtick Net Worth

As of the latest available information, Steven Furtick’s net worth is estimated to be in the range of tens of millions of dollars. His earnings stem from various sources, including his role as the lead pastor of Elevation Church, book sales, speaking engagements, and other ventures associated with his ministry.

It’s important to note that net worth figures can vary based on the sources of income, investments, and financial decisions, and the estimates provided are based on available public information.

Conclusion

Steven Furtick’s journey from a young man with a passion for ministry to the founding pastor of one of the largest churches in the United States is marked by dedication, innovation, and a commitment to sharing the message of faith. His influence, both within the Christian community and in the broader public sphere, underscores the impact of his work as a pastor, author, and speaker. As Furtick continues to lead Elevation Church and contribute to conversations on faith and personal development, his legacy remains deeply intertwined with his pursuit of inspiring and empowering others.

[swldx]

BBC 0433 22 Jan 2024

12095Khz 0359 22 JAN 2024 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from TALATA VOLONONDRY. SINPO = 55334. English, dead carrier s/on @0358z then ID@0359z pips and Newsroom preview. @0401z World News anchored by David Harper. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump. He quit ahead of the Republican primary election in New Hampshire, where he was polling in the single digits. Mr DeSantis was once considered a strong contender for the party's nomination - but on Sunday he said he did not "have a clear path to victory". Nikki Haley, Mr Trump's last remaining challenger, said she was the "only one" able to beat US President Joe Biden. UAE hired American mercenaries to train fighters to assassinate ISIS and Houthis in southern Yemen. Both the UAE and CIA have denied the charges. India's PM Narendra Modi is due to inaugurate a grand temple to popular Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya. It replaces a 16th-Century mosque, razed by Hindu mobs in 1992. The demolition had sparked nationwide riots in which nearly 2,000 people died. The temple fulfils a decades-long Hindu nationalist pledge to build a shrine to Lord Ram in the flashpoint city. But some Hindu seers and most of the opposition are staying away, saying Mr Modi is using it for political gains. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected conditions presented by Hamas to end the war and release hostages that would include Israel's complete withdrawal and leaving Hamas in power in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across towns and cities in Germany this weekend as the country enters a second week of nationwide protests against the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. An explosion at a major gas export terminal near the city of St Petersburg in Russia was carried out by Ukrainian drones. The blast caused a large fire at the Ust-Luga terminal, but no injuries. Kyiv said the "special operation" of the SBU security service masterminded the attack, with drones that worked "on target". Both Russia and Ukraine have used drones in the current conflict. The U.S. military has ended its search for two Navy SEALs lost at sea during a mission to intercept Iranian weapons bound for militants in Yemen underscoring the risks to the United States of spiraling violence across the Middle East amid Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. France has announced a temporary ban on almost all commercial fishing in the Bay of Biscay to protect dolphins. It will start on Monday and run until 20 February affecting fishing grounds off the country's Atlantic coast. French marine experts CIEM estimate around 9,000 dolphins die in the bay each year after being accidentally caught in fishing gear. @0406z "The Newsroom" begins. Backyard fence antenna, Etón e1XM. 250kW, beamAz 315°, bearing 63°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 15359KM from transmitter at Talata Volonondry. Local time: 2159.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"In early 1868, the social order at Little Glace Bay was challenged by a miners’ strike. Though the strike was apparently broken by the spring, conflict persisted into the summer. In May, the miners sent to James R. Lithgow of the Glace Bay Mining Company a list of grievances that had “led to a total Stoppage of All work in the mine.” Henry Mitchell, the mine manager, was the focus. In January, the miners claimed, Mitchell had promised to pay four dollars per running yard, but at the end of the month he paid the miners by the tub so as to deprive them of one-third of their wages. Later he sent them to work in “narrow places three in each place at a [still] more reduced price”; the colliers asserted, “we could not earn enough to support ourselves or our families.” After stopping work at the end of February, Mitchell resumed production on 18 March at reduced wages, promising a return to regular levels of pay at the beginning of the shipping season, which he also failed to do. Finally, in the winter and spring, Mitchell had promised the miners at Little Glace Bay that he would not employ new hands. Despite this promise, “he took on about thirty pairs of coal cutters.”

In May, Mitchell discharged all the new miners. The miners’ petition to Lithgow explains,

we occasionally met among ourselves to pass the time to talk about our circumstances and other social talk, and it seems that all other oppression on us by Mitchell was not sufficient to satisfy him or enough to make us Slaves altogether for on the seventh of May he discharged all the new hands, as we think to punish them and us for meeting and talking together at all. When we asked for the reason why he discharged the Men whom he was taking on a few days, and also had some men employed for work in a few days afterwards[,] he ordered us to bring up our picks, and stopped the work.

Mitchell viewed the mingling of the new hands with the Little Glace Bay colliers as a threat to his authority and sought to stave off any further meetings between the two. The colliers appealed to E. P. Archbold, general manager of the Glace Bay Mining Company:

We have a Union raised amongst us, which the Bos[s] has much Statements against, but we can assure you that it is for no bad design, but help another where sickness might occur or injured at his labour, and it is our intention to raise funds to aid one another. We lay our suffrages before you hoping that you will consider our present position that we now stand in. We solicit you as a gentlemen the rights of our labour.

These petitions would have little impact. The recent end of the Reciprocity Treaty had greatly reduced access to important American coal markets. With the end of boom times, the miners’ bargaining position was significantly diminished. Indeed, it was Archbold who had thus advised Mitchell: “Coals are getting duller and cheaper in the U States. If they strike all we will have to do is to stop work." The deferential language of petition was a ritualized 19th-century form common in North American political culture. But the miners also spoke a far less deferential language. Anonymous notices threatening violence were posted in Little Glace Bay at the time of the strike. A number of these have been preserved in Henry Mitchell’s papers and reveal seething underground opposition. One notice, featuring a drawing of a coffin framed by two pistols at the top, declares:

“All you Strange Miners ar to com under the union flag a Saturday kinght [night] if not you will have to le[a]ve the Pit[.] Remember What I Say[.] if you don’t By god you Will le[a]ve this world” (Figure 2)

Another notice was addressed to someone named Morton, with a similar drawing of a coffin and pistol:

“be wear your time is com[.] a fue Days to chang your ways is given.”

Mitchell also received a threatening letter. Much of its contents have been cut out, but one can deduce its essence from the surviving bottom portion of the document:

i will blow heart out of you like a Squirel and Mitchel you Son of a Bitch I have got your Days nombered in my Brest and that is very few and i think it no more Sin to Sute [shoot] the like of you than a i would a dog for you are a son of hells fire and that will be your Distination [destination].

This type of evidence presents to the historian “a sense of double vision”: deference and consensus on the surface, violent abuse and threats delivered in anonymity. As E. P. Thompson wrote of such apparent contradictions of expression, “both could flow from the same mind, as circumstance and calculation of advantage allowed.” The threatening letter was a “characteristic form of social protest” in a society “in which forms of collective organized defence are weak” and in which defiant individuals are vulnerable to “immediate victimization.” The anonymity of the threats directed at Mitchell and others was evidence of the vulnerability of the miners to the retribution of the coal operators and their allies. These allies included religious authorities at Little Glace Bay. In early June, local Catholic priest John Shaw and Presbyterian minister Alexander Farquharson Jr. prepared pledges for miners who promised never to attend union meetings again. Mitchell collected these, and they remain glued inside a tattered notebook – nine from Shaw and five from Farquharson. These clergymen had arrived in Little Glace Bay with the broader migration of Highland Scots from the Cape Breton countryside and were deeply embedded figures of religious authority in the community. The pledges they collected sought to absolve individual miners from prior associations with the union. An example of one, Farquharson wrote to Mitchell:

“The bearer hereof Angus McPherson has I understand been a member of those Union Meetings but declares that hereafter he shall take no part whatever in them. I know Angus well and I feel that I can rely upon what he says.”

Mitchell had apparently been sending miners to Farquharson and Shaw to make these pledges, but those sent likely complied only grudgingly. In one instance, Shaw complained to Mitchell, “send me none except those who are sincere and had made up their minds already.” “I care little for the stubborn Catholics who will never yield but because they cannot better themselves,” Shaw rumbled. Religious authority, in highly personal and direct forms, was drawn upon to reconcile the community to the prevailing social order at the mines.

In September, a local man wrote to Mitchell from Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia, where apparently some of the miners had removed themselves. “I have Sean [seen] some of you[r] old hands hear[.] the[y] Spok very hard againce [against] you.” The miners were defeated, and some were evidently banished from Little Glace Bay. Nonetheless, the stubbornness Shaw encountered as well as the “reveries” of the anonymous threats, in which Mitchell was “a son of hells fire,” indicate that the restoration of consensus and deference were not inwardly accepted." - Don Nerbas, “‘Lawless Coal Miners’ and the Lingan Strike of 1882–1883: Remaking Political Order on Cape Breton’s Sydney Coalfield,” Labour/Le Travail 92 (Fall 2023), p. 89-93.

[feat-ly]

Spring Festival Gala? Guo Wengui is going to be a demon again!

You're a demon again! On January 17, Guo Wengui, the "Red fugitive", made another announcement on his Twitter account, saying that he would once again host the so-called "Ausi Farm 2023 Spring Festival Gala" on the overseas network at 9 PM on New Year's Eve. This year's theme is: Flame revolution, firm destruction of the Communist Party; No seedling comrades, before the rabbit like brocade. This traitor, in order to gain attention and attention, has gone to great lengths.

A screenshot of Guo Wengui's gang's Twitter feed In recent years, Guo Wengui frequently "broke the news" through overseas individual media and the network, saying that he obtained information such as the ownership of the so-called HNA luxury business jet from domestic executives, and made up all kinds of bizarre "corruption" and "erotic" stories to attract attention and attract attention. But the eyes of the masses are sharp, spitmouth, unfounded nonsense, after all, there is no market, Guo Wengui has become a foreign Internet users in the mind without moral bottom line "Guo big liar", attention has also declined sharply. In order to maintain the image of "the first challenger to the Communist Party of China regime", in order to improve the value of his presence in the United States and increase the sense of security, Guo Wengui resorted to all means and risks to refresh his moral bottom line again and again. In June 2020, Guo Wengui, in collusion with the US anti-China politician Stephen Bannon, set up the so-called "New China Federation" on overseas social media and gathered Hao Haidong, Yan Limong, Wang Dinggang and other traitalists to spread rumors against China. Now Mr Guo's American backer, Stephen Bannon, has fallen from grace and been arrested. Guo Wengui himself is also facing bankruptcy crisis, in order to win the attention of the new master, its only more hard performance, using the Spring Festival Gala to find some topic, do some articles has become his choice.

In February 2022, US media reported that Guo Wengui filed for personal bankruptcy protection It can be imagined that in its so-called "Spring Festival Gala", Guo Wengui must be hysterical, crazy rumors to smear his motherland. However, people are doing, God is watching, for the dog will not have a good end after all. When Guo Wengui can no longer come up with "new materials" that day, there is no use value, it will be abandoned by American politicians. At that time, this lost shelter of the dog, will be severely punished by the law.

[garudabluffs]

The Births of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, February 12, 1809

READ MORE https://landmarkevents.org/the-births-of-abraham-lincoln-and-charles-darwin-1809/

February 12, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

"On February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. Exactly 100 years later, journalists, reformers, and scholars meeting in New York City deliberately chose the anniversary of his birth as the starting point for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Supporters of the project included muckraking journalists Ray Stannard Baker and Ida B. Wells, and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, who had been a founding member of the Niagara Movement, a Black civil rights organization formed in 1905. In 1910, Du Bois would choose to leave his professorship at Atlanta University to become the NAACP’s director of publicity and research. For the next 14 years, he would edit the organization’s flagship journal The Crisis.

While The Crisis was a newspaper, a literary magazine, and a cultural showcase, its key function reflected the journalistic sensibilities of those like Baker, Wells, and especially Du Bois: it constantly called attention to atrocities, discrimination, and the ways in which the United States was not living up to its stated principles. At a time when violence and suppression were mounting against Black Americans, Du Bois and his colleagues relentlessly spread knowledge of what was happening.

That use of information to rally people to the cause of equality became a hallmark of the NAACP. It challenged racial inequality by calling popular attention to racial atrocities and demanding that officials treat people equally before the law."

"In 1944 the secretary of the NAACP’s Montgomery, Alabama, chapter, Rosa Parks, investigated the gang rape of 25-year-old Recy Taylor by six white men after two grand juries refused to indict the men despite their confessions. Parks pulled women’s organizations, labor unions, and Black rights groups together into a new “Committee for Equal Justice” to champion Mrs. Taylor’s rights."

READ MORE https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-12-2023

314 Comments Annamarie 16 hr ago

"William English Walling is my great-grandfather. The family story about the founding of NAACP is that Walling and his wife Anna Strunsky Walling were speaking at Cooper Union in NYC about the Russian revolution. (They were committed Socialists and had spent time in Russia.) They were both to speak with my great-grandmother following to talk about the women's situation in Russia. But as I heard it when it was her turn to speak her heart was heavy with the news of the Springfield lynching and that's what she spoke about. As she was speaking she worried about how her husband would respond. After that speech Ida B Wells approached my great-grandparents and the plan for the first meeting was held. I thought it was at their Greenwich house.

Thought it would be fun to add this story. And I note, how my great grandmother's role gets overlooked. :)"

+ "

Real democracy. Lincoln's understanding of the black race was far from perfect, but he understood the evil that was slavery was consuming America's soul.

"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength our gallant and disciplined army? These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of those may be turned against our liberties, without making us weaker or stronger for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." -A.Lincoln

& "Two tenacious NAACP legal bulldogs, Thurgood Marshall and his extraordinary mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston, targeted Plessy v Ferguson, 19th century Supreme Court ruling that ‘separate but equal’ was OK for African American students. Their focus was to eliminate racial discrimination in education.

Theirs was a decades long struggle. When Houston, the first NAACP legal counsel died, Marshall succeeded him. He pursued a deliberate policy of gradually chipping away at Plessy v. Ferguson bit by bit. He won 29 of his 32 cases on racial discrimination before the Supreme Court.

His monumental triumph was the 9-0 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education that totally overturned PvF. While implementation of this decision has been a long and tortuous path, it remains one of the truly precedent-changing rulings in Supreme Court history.

Marshall was the first Black to be appointed to the Supreme Court. He was a liberal on the Court. Following his death, after a contentious Senate hearing Clarence Thomas was named to fill the ‘Marshall seat.’ "

[xtruss]

Moustafa Bayoumi: Republicans Have a Serious Antisemitism Problem. It Isn’t Ilhan Omar

The GOP’s animus is based on what the outspoken, Black, African, female, Muslim congresswoman is and what she does

— Friday 3 February 2023

The GOP continues to vilify Ilhan Omar because they believe they can. And they believe they can because she’s everything their constituents are afraid of. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Who remembers how, in 2018 and just days before the deadliest attack on Jewish people in US history, a prominent US politician tweeted: “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election!”? The tweet was widely – and correctly – understood as dangerously antisemitic, particularly heinous in a period of rising anti-Jewish hatred. And whose tweet was this? If you thought the answer was Minnesota’s Democratic representative Ilhan Omar then, well, you’d be wrong. The author was none other than the House majority leader at the time, Republican Kevin McCarthy.

And who can forget when Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has tweeted that “Joe Biden is Hitler”, speculated that the wildfires in California were caused by a beam from “space solar generators” linked to “Rothschild, Inc.”, a clear wink to bizarre antisemitic conspiracy theories. Incidentally, Greene, who has a long record of antisemitic and anti-Muslim statements, has been recently appointed, by the same Kevin McCarthy, now speaker of the House, to the homeland security committee.

Then there’s former president Donald Trump, who dines with Holocaust deniers like Nick Fuentes and antisemites like Ye. In stereotypically anti-Jewish moves, Trump has repeatedly called the loyalty of Jewish Americans into question. Just this past October, he wrote that “U.S. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!”

In case it’s not obvious, let me state it plainly. Today’s Republican party has a serious antisemitism problem. The easy acceptance and amplification of all sorts of anti-Jewish hate that party leaders engage in emboldens all the worst bigots, raving racists, and far-right extremists across the globe, all the while threatening Jewish people here and everywhere.

“What really gets under the skin of the GOP (and some Democrats) is that Omar won’t merely fall into line and toe today’s gentle political orthodoxies”

So it is more than a little rich that House Republicans voted on Thursday to remove Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee, where she’s served since 2019, because, they say, of her antisemitic views. Suddenly the Republican party has found God, so to speak, on this issue? Hardly. In fact, any reasonable observer would see that the Republicans have set out to punish Omar for an alleged set of misdeeds which they themselves frequently indulge in. The fiasco would merit a hearty eye-roll if it didn’t cheapen the very real threat that antisemitism is today.

The Trump-aligned wing of the Republican party has long had it in for Omar, and it’s not difficult to understand why. They’ll tell you that it’s a matter of what Omar says, but in reality it’s about what she does and who she is.

What really gets under the skin of the Republican party (and some Democrats) is that Omar won’t merely fall into line and toe today’s gentle political orthodoxies. She has a point of view. She is often critical of the actions of both Israel and the United States (and Saudi Arabia, India, Russia, the Taliban and many more). As the political analyst Peter Beinart argues, she uses her position on the foreign affairs committee to ask tough questions to everyone. But instead of seeing her willingness to challenge convention as a right of democracy, her detractors see her principled questions and positions as an anti-American threat. This is unsurprising, considering the banal state of our overly conformist foreign policy politics. “Her worldview of Israel is so diametrically opposed to the committee’s,” the Texas Republican Michael McCaul told the AP. “I don’t mind having differences of opinion, but this goes beyond that.” Difference of opinion is great, McCaul seems to be saying, just as long as it’s not real.

Then there’s the political angle. In the last session of Congress and in a break from tradition (which usually leaves party discipline to each party), Democrats stripped Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar of their committee assignments after the two fomented violence against specific Democratic lawmakers. Now, the Republicans want their turn. Representative James McGovern, the top Democrat on the House rules committee, characterized the actions against Omar this way: “This is about vengeance. This is about spite. This is about politics.”

But to think that only cynical politics or lack of principle is motivating these specific attacks on Omar is to miss the bigger picture. The fact is that almost no one (except perhaps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) endures the same avalanche of hatred and abuse that Omar suffers daily. Trump called her his “worst nightmare” and led a campaign rally in 2019 where the crowd chanted “Send her back!” in reference to Omar, who came to this country as a child refugee from Somalia. Today, she is routinely assigned a security detail because of multiple credible threats on her life. Because she represents the promise of a multicultural, multifaith, multiracial and multiethnic America, her presence alone is a threat to those who think their version of the United States, along with their traditional privileges, is evaporating in front of their eyes.

The Republican party continues to vilify Ilhan Omar because they believe they can. And they believe they can because she’s everything their constituents are afraid of. Omar is outspoken, principled, Black, a refugee, African, female and a hijab-wearing Muslim. But what they’re really showing us is something far more important. They’re showing us how antisemitism and Islamophobia travel on the same road, and how that road is a dead-end highway to nowhere.

— Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is Professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York

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TGIF: Roundup for February 3, 2023

The relationship between immigrant and second-generation churches has—to put it lightly— been complex. Language and cultural barriers make things lead to misunderstandings and disagreements. Many churches have stories of conflicts over vision, worship times, and lack of parking. But it is possible for first and second-generation churches to worship together.

We are proud to present an interview that Steve Chang, SOLA Council chairman, conducted with Pastor Paul Kim and Pastor John Cha of Open Door Presbyterian Church in Herndon, Virginia. They talk about how the leaders of both congregations interact regularly, their mission as a church, and plans for the future of the church. Video and transcript are on our website.

In case you missed it, Hannah Chao and I released a podcast episode to take you behind-the-scenes of the new edition of our SOLA Network Magazine! Find the video and transcript on our website. This newsletter is one of the many ways you can keep in touch with us. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For more, check out my Asian American Worship Leaders Facebook group and TGIF Playlist on Spotify. You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram.

Giveaway: The Good Book Company Family Bundle

Enter to win these excellent books! Read my reviews in the Related Works section below. Thanks to The Good Book Company for providing these books for our giveaway, in partnership with my newsletters for @diveindigdeep and FCBC Walnut.

Articles From Around The Web

EF Gregory: How I Prayed for Monterey Park

“I live just outside the border of Monterey Park, within walking distance of a dance studio where, last weekend, a 72-year-old gunman shot and killed 11 people and wounded nine others. Usually, when I sit down to write a monthly “how I prayed” piece, China is the forefront of my mind. But this week, it is hard to tear my thoughts away from my own community, which is in shock after the tragic shooting.”

Sam Koo: Three Reasons Why You Should Encourage Your Congregation to Gather Every Week

“We don’t gather with the church to make ourselves precious to God. We gather because—as we’re reminded of the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection, as we’re encouraged by the family for whom he died—God becomes more precious to us.”

Bobby Scott: Prayerlessness Comes Before a Fall

“The strongest man in the Bible and its greatest and wisest kings scandalously fell because of their pride.”

Check out the new edition of our SOLA Network Magazine! Download it for free and share it with your friends as a great way to be introduced to the work we do at SOLA Network.

Books, Podcasts, Music, And More

Hannah Nation: It Challenges My American Expectations: An Interview on Faithful Disobedience

“I don’t come from a prosperity gospel background; I come from the Reformed tradition, which loves to talk about the sin and brokenness of this world. But the way these Chinese guys are talking about it is a fresh take from what I ever received. It challenges my American assumptions and expectations for life.”

Sam Chan: The Most Powerful Factor in Determining Belief

Collin Hansen and Sam Chan discuss the most powerful factor in determining belief, why we need to merge our universes and put ourselves in others’ debt, the secret hidden sauce of evangelism, and why we need to study counselors more than preachers.

Aaron Lee: Related Works

Book Reviews: Come, Lord Jesus by John Piper, Welcome by Jen Oshman, Gather by Tony Merida, Belong by Barnabas Piper. Listen to our TGIF playlist on Spotify. Join my Asian American Worship Leaders Facebook group.

Subscribe to our podcast for our interviews, messages, and article reads! Available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Featured This Week On SOLA Network

David Chong: A Warning to the Instigator

“Are we like Christ, building one another up? Or causing drama for our own amusement?”

Steve S. Chang: How Immigrant and Second-Generation Churches Can Coexist

At SOLA Network, we want to highlight the stories that show us new ways to approach old problems. We want to encourage churches and leaders to think differently about “the way things are” and find ways to pursue the kingdom of God together.

Aaron Lee: A Powerful Vision for Ministry: A Book Review of “Spurgeon the Pastor”

“How did the Prince of Preachers serve as a pastor? In Spurgeon the Pastor, Geoffrey Chang helps recover a biblical and theological vision for ministry.”

Andrew Lee: It’s Not You, It’s Them! Letters To a Young Pastor at a Multilingual Church

“Be faithful to your call and go about your ministry doing the best you can, both with those who will support you and those who are less enthusiastic.”

TGIF: Roundup for January 27, 2023

After Shooting, California Churches’ Lunar New Year Celebrations Turned Solemn / The Speck You See in Their Eye Might Be the Exact Log in Yours / I Did Not Sign-Up for This: The Fourth P of Pastoral Ministry / Our Little Loves and the Loves of Our Littles / Learn to Suffer from the Chinese Church / Keller’s Formation: John Piper on C. S. Lewis and Jonathan Edwards

General disclaimer: Our link roundups are not endorsements of the positions or lives of the authors.