#and that is one of the core of kellys struggles with the universe as within the cult the idea of the universe having a will was a big thing

[arolesbianism]

Things I realized I forgot to post part 200 billion (this one's from september wow)

[sciencespies]

How to Watch the ‘Green Comet’ in Night Skies

https://sciencespies.com/space/how-to-watch-the-green-comet-in-night-skies/

How to Watch the ‘Green Comet’ in Night Skies

A green-hued comet from the outer solar system is set to swing through Earth’s neighborhood in the coming days for the first time in 50,000 years.

The comet has been steadily gaining brightness and will make its closest approach on Feb. 2, when it comes within 26.4 million miles of the planet — 110 times the distance to the moon. From the Northern Hemisphere, the comet is likely to be faintly visible to the naked eye.

But you don’t have to wait until February to spot this visitor. The coming weekend may offer favorable viewing opportunities with a pair of binoculars when the new moon creates darker skies.

What is the comet’s name?

The comet is known as C/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.) because astronomers discovered it in March 2022 using a telescope on Palomar Mountain in California called the Zwicky Transient Facility (or Z.T.F.).

At the time, the cosmic interloper was just inside the orbit of Jupiter and roughly 25,000 times dimmer than the faintest star visible to the naked eye. But Z.T.F., with a camera that has a wide field of view, scans the entire visible sky each night and is well-suited to discover such objects.

What are comets, and why is this one green?

Comets are clumps of dust and frozen gases, sometimes described by astronomers as “dirty snowballs.” Most are believed to originate from the distant, icy reaches of the solar system where gravitational agitations sometimes push them toward the sun — an interaction that transforms them into gorgeous cosmic objects.

When they leave their deep freeze, the heat from the sun erodes their surfaces, and they start spewing gases and dust until they host a glowing core, known as the coma, and a flamelike tail that can stretch for millions of miles.

“They’re alive,” Laurence O’Rourke, an astronomer with the European Space Agency, said. “When they’re far from the sun, they’re sleeping, and when they get close to the sun, they wake up.”

C/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.), for example, is now glowing green because ultraviolet radiation from the sun is absorbed by a molecule in the comet called diatomic carbon — that is, two carbon atoms fused together. The reaction emits green light.

How bright will this comet be?

The brightness of comets can be unpredictable. When scientists first discovered the object last year, they knew only that it had potential to be visible from Earth.

“Because each comet is its own living being, you don’t know how it’s going to react until it passes the sun,” Dr. O’Rourke said.

Comet C/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.) made its closest approach to the sun on Jan. 12, and the comet is now steadily brightening as it swings toward the Earth. While the comet won’t pass us until Feb. 2, it is already nearly visible to the naked eye — an encouraging sign for viewing opportunities, said Mike Kelley, an astronomer at the University of Maryland and the co-lead of the solar system working group at the Zwicky Transient Facility.

Still, seeing the comet could “require dark skies and an experienced observer,” Dr. Kelly said.

In addition, comets can always surprise us. Sometimes there can be a big explosion of gas and dust, and the comet might get suddenly brighter even after it has left the sun behind.

How do I spot the green comet?

To catch the comet, look north.

On Jan. 21, the night of the new moon and thus the darkest skies, the comet will be close to Draco — the dragon-shaped constellation that runs between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper.

Over the following nights, the comet will creep along the dragon’s tail. And on Jan. 30, the comet will reside directly between the Big Dipper’s “cup” and Polaris, the North Star. If you’re accustomed to finding the North Star by following the two stars on the end of the Big Dipper’s cup, then you should be able to spot the comet. Simply scan that imaginary line until you see a faint smudge.

If you’re struggling, the comet might still be too faint or there might be too much light pollution. Try with a pair of binoculars.

“Even with relatively modest binoculars, the powdery, fuzzy or smoky character of the ‘star’ ought to make it clear it’s a comet,” said E. C. Krupp, the director at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

A telescope will help you spot the colors and finer details, including the comet’s glowing coma and lengthy tail.

For anyone living above the 35th parallel — imagine a curving East-West line running from North Carolina through the Texas Panhandle out to Southern California — the comet will be visible all night starting Jan. 22. But it is relatively low on the horizon in the early evening, and it might be better to look for the comet later in the evening or even early in the morning when the comet swings higher in the sky.

Dr. Krupp recommends looking this weekend when the phase of the moon is new, and it therefore won’t cast a glow over the sky. But the comet will become brighter as it gets closer to Earth and will be easier to spot toward the end of the month. If you wait until then, you might want to try early in the morning after the moon has set.

Either way, the hunt will be fun.

“It’s sort of like searching for some endangered species, and then it pops into view,” Dr. Krupp said. “That really is a charmer of an experience.”

Why are astronomers excited for this green comet?

Comets are relics of the early solar system and may have been responsible for seeding early Earth with the building blocks for life.

“It really is a situation where we most likely would not exist without their existence,” Dr. O’Rourke said.

And yet we don’t get many opportunities to study these objects, given that only a few each year are bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. As such, cometary astronomers across the globe will observe C/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.) over the coming months.

“We’re looking for our solar system’s place in the universe,” said Dr. Kelley, who will use the James Webb Space Telescope to observe the comet at the end of February. He wants to better understand how our planet formed in order to note the conditions that gave rise to life on Earth.

But Dr. Kelley and others have to work quickly. After a brief appearance in the night sky, it’s unclear where C/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.) may go. Because these objects are so loosely bound to our solar system, the sun’s gravitational influence might force the comet to take another trip around our star — perhaps not returning for another 50,000 years. Or the sun might fling the comet from the solar system entirely.

#Space

[wits-writing]

Bill & Ted Face the Music (Movie Review)

How I have missed having new movies to talk about!

And this is a most excellent movie to use as a return to reviews! (Thanks to the non-heinous decision to release it for digital rental/purchase, rather than force people to go into movie theaters as a pandemic continues to rage on.)

Bill & Ted Face the Music, from director Dean Parisot with a screenplay from the returning duo of Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, pays tribute to and enhances the legacy of the previous two movies. In the decades since the end of Bogus Journey, Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winters) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves), have done everything they can think of to produce the song they were told would unite all of reality back in 1989. They’ve consistently fallen short of their destiny with Wyld Stallyn’s big song from the concert at the end of the last movie only amounting to a one-hit wonder. All other attempts have only led them further into obscurity and increasingly esoteric musical experiments.

When chasing this impossible destiny finally has their lives on the verge of falling apart completely and the pair are ready to quit, Kelly (Kristen Schaal), the daughter of Rufus, appears before them with a warning. Reality itself has started coming undone and will only right itself if the song is performed within a 77-minute time limit. Bill & Ted decide to take desperate measures and see if any of their own future selves succeeded where they’ve failed. Meanwhile, their own daughters, Thea Preston (Samara Weaving) and Billie Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine), go on their own excellent adventure through the history of music to recruit the perfect band for the perfect song.

Face the Music is a multigenerational journey through that which binds us through time, a long-awaited reunion for the creative team and lead actors, and the final payoff of the destiny that kicked off the whole thing.

And against all odds… It works!

[Full Review Under the Cut]

To be honest, the initial trailer for this movie did not win me over to this series revival. Seeing the leaders of the idyllic 28th century roll their eyes as Bill & Ted repeated the iconic “Be excellent to each other! Party on dudes!” had me worried this would be mean-spirited in a way that goes against the core of the previous movies. There’s a sincerity in those movies about these two dudes’ optimism and perseverance being able to overcome anything, from passing history class to coming back from the dead. This movie being about what happens when that attitude finally gets worn down by the years of banging their heads against the wall to complete the single most important task in the universe. Ted especially feels the weight of the years catching up with them, being the one to suggest giving up before the strict time limit gets laid out in front of them.

Doing nothing but chasing the success they were promised in their youth begins to threaten their ability to see outside themselves. Hints of that show early on with them and their wives all in couples counseling together. Which becomes more apparent as they travel to increasingly dire futures for themselves. The older Bills and Teds we see have lost even more of their charming positivity, often happy to insult, trick, or threaten their past selves for their own benefits. It’s a humorous literalization of how people look back on their own mistakes or deal with their fears of the future and as a bonus gives us a chance to see Winters and Reeves play increasingly bizarre versions of their classic characters. Though Bill & Ted’s struggle against their inadequacies only account for half the story of this movie.

The other half comes from Billie and Thea’s adventure through time. The duo is introduced as the only people left in the world still believing in their dads’ abilities to make the prophesized song. Growing up around every sonic formulation Wyld Stallyns ever created gave them a passion for and encyclopedic knowledge of music that’s unmatched, even by their dads. Lundy-Paine and Weaving embody the Millennial versions of Winters and Reeves’ Gen X archetypes. They carry on the positive spirit their dads have lost with a gift for recognizing the finer details of music across all genres and figuring out how and why it fits together.

That passion takes them on a journey through history that also reflects a maturation of how this film series approaches history compared to Excellent Adventure with who the girls recruit along the way. I won’t give away when they go or who they recruit, but it speaks to a more complete understanding of history than the original movie had with its time travel story. Though I will say it includes an extended cameo by a time displaced Kid Cudi as himself, who ends up being one of the best comedic performers in the entire cast.

As much as I love this movie, it’s far from flawless. There are two subplots that feel clumsy in their execution. One involving Ted’s dad, Jonathan Logan (Hal Landon Jr.), not believing Bill & Ted ever went on any of their adventure through time, space, heaven, and hell, which simply resolves when circumstances force him to believe it. More frustrating is the involvement of Princesses Joanna and Elizabeth (Jayma Mays and Erinn Hayes, respectively), Bill & Ted’s wives, or rather the lack thereof. The best I can say is that they at least aren’t damseled like they were in Bogus Journey, but that doesn’t make up for them being almost aggressively sidelined by the plot of this one. In a movie that hinges on Bill & Ted’s connection to their families, these subplots being so thin is hard to ignore.

For every frustration those subplots caused, there was some amazing new or returning element from the series to prop things up again. When the time comes for Bill & Ted Face the Music to bring all of its threads together for the concert finale across time and space, I was left amazed how well it paid off what all three movies have told us about Bill & Ted’s destiny. The twist they manage to put on the payoff is simultaneously clever and touching, even if it’s a little easy to guess early on. It creates such a warm, comforting atmosphere within the movie that’s difficult not to give into as it plays out.

This is worth every cent of what the digital rental/purchase costs, especially if you’re a fan of the previous Bill & Ted movies.

Be excellent to yourselves, watch it, and party on dudes!

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

[we-are-what-they-grow-beyond]

some seriously self indulgent TROS thoughts that no one asked for: spoilers ahead!

(i’m gonna try tag every spoiler tag I can think of just in case anyone out there does care, but tbh this is really just for me lol)

the following is going to be a very ‘off the cuff’ series of ramblings so I apologise if it’s all over the place 

Overall.. I think I liked it? I left the cinema feeling euphoric, which is honestly all I wanted from ix. While there were very few immediate things that I took offence to as I was watching it [unlike TLJ] I have a bad feeling that some doubts about certain scenes and character choices are gonna creep into my brain in the next few days. Like the longer I think about it, the worse it’s gonna get.

The beginning was a mess. I think every single person who has seen it can agree on that much. There was so much exposition and heavy handed course correction from TLJ that it felt laboured and disjointed. The pacing was at this crazy breakneck speed.. we must have visited at least six different planets in the first fifteen minutes. I think that Poe’s ‘hyperdrive jumping’ [?] sequence really set the tone for the first act - just a constant barrage of different locations and characters.

And I understand that they had to do this. The events of TLJ left them no choice, they needed to establish every main character’s position [both physically and mentally], portray the current state of the war as well as rebuild a believable rapport between our core trio all within the first fifteen minutes if they wanted to give the last act any chance of sticking the landing. And to some extent I think they achieved this. In all that running around on different planets, bickering amongst the trio and the funny asides from Threepio - it really felt like something straight out of the OT. For the first time since TFA I cared about these characters. 

However. In doing this, they continually broke the cardinal rule of screenwriting; show don’t tell. While watching the first act I felt weighed down with information, like every five seconds another character would pop in with a monologue that sent them on another wild goose chase in which they had to find another hundred things that I would inevitably struggle to remember. ‘So now they need to go here, to see where Luke went, because he wanted to find this guy, who has this object, that will bring them to this other place, so that they can see Palpatine?’ It was so heavily reliant on dialogue alone that it ultimately lead to this sense of utter messiness. 

Where the film thrived was in it’s action set pieces. I adored the way the force was portrayed in this film. The scene in the desert in which Ben [yes Ben, but more on that later] and Rey pulled that First Order Transport out of the sky sent shivers down my spine. We have never seen the force used like this before and the amount of power Rey held was absolutely staggering. I loved it.

The saber battle on top of the Death Star was a visual highlight. Even though I felt like I’d seen most of it in TV Spots the urgency never went away. The moodiness of the water and mist cut through by the blue and red light was beautiful. 

The one shot of Poe, Finn and Chewie running through the Destroyer hallway felt like an echo back to everything that lies at the heart and soul of this saga.

We’ve been begging for more space battles and boy did we get a good one. When Lando and Chewie sauntered in on the Falcon with their thousands of rebel support ships set to the theme I was sobbing. There were so many little references in that one shot, from Rebels to Resistance to even Wedge Antilles - My heart swelled. 

But where I really broke was on Ahch-To. One of my biggest gripes with TLJ was its treatment of Luke. Every time I watch it again that shot of his submerged X wing infuriates me beyond measure as Johnson never chose to do anything with it [despite there being an obvious answer]. We finally got that scene in this film, the scene I was so desperate for; a callback to perhaps my favourite moment in the whole skywalker saga entangled with an apology for TLJ’s treatment of our favourite jedi master. Set to Yoda’s Theme, I felt like for a split second like I was watching Empire, and that meant the world to me. Thank you J.J.

The characterisation is perhaps the most divisive part of the film for me. It took so many risks, it’s going to take quite some time for me to properly digest them all. 

I want to start with our beloved Leia. The CGI, although perhaps not quite as seamless as some reviewers are making it out to be, worked well enough. With the knowledge of Carrie’s passing, it’s easy to poke holes in the performance - I found the beginning of her screen time particularly jarring, with her mostly addressing Rey with one word answers. I knew that there was supposed to be an emotional weight to all her scenes, as there she was, our princess, somehow miraculously on our screens for one final time. But I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel as if she was truly there in body or soul, and the emotional power of her scenes suffered as a result. Maybe in time, as we forget about the circumstances under which this film had to be made, this obvious detachment might fade away. And I sincerely hope it does, because the backstory they gave her is what truly deserves to be remembered about Leia in this film. The flashback scene of her training with Luke was glorious, the cgi really worked well here, and for the first time we saw Leia as a fully fledged jedi. This is something I could never ever have even imagined and I’m so pleased they did it, it would have meant so much to me as a young girl. As for her death, I believe they did the best they could with it. She ultimately died saving her son, protecting both the light and her family - two themes that have been so central to this entire forty two year saga. I don’t think they could have done much more. 

I was shocked to see Harrison in this, surprised isn't even the right word. But this bewilderment that I felt thankfully didn’t overshadow his integral role in the so called ‘Bendemption’ arc, in fact I think it really tied the whole thing together nicely. I have hated the idea of Kylo’s possible redemption since the moment we found out his true heritage during TFA, I thought it was too simple, too obvious. But the way in which it was dealt with here was wonderful. It showed Kylo to be entirely complex and ambiguous, and at the end of it we saw Ben for what he was, a young and vulnerable young man who ultimately made some terrible choices, the conflict in him was brilliantly acted. It was ultimately his parents that pulled him back to the light, not just Rey, and that fact alone saved this story arc for me. 

[I refuse to talk about the kiss. I hated it. It didn’t need to happen.]

Rey is a difficult one. Was the Palpatine bloodline convenient? Yes. Terribly so. Did it make sense story wise? Only kind of. But, I think it drew a definitive line under the nine film conflict which was ultimately at its core just Skywalker vs Palpatine, so in that sense I’m happy it happened in the way it did. 

[Sheev on an aesthetic level looked dreadful I thought. Proper rubbery. And the logistics of how he survived/who all those chanting followers were/where he got all those Imperial star destroyers from is extremely questionable. I try not to dwell on it.]

My mixed feelings about Finn and Poe cannot be overstated. The film did a good job at giving them more to do, we really got to see John and Oscar bounce off each other and at the end of the day, that is my kryptonite. However, Finn had little to no character development throughout the whole trilogy. All he did was figure out that he didn’t want to be aligned with the First Order anymore, deciding he wanted to fight for what is right. But the thing is, we saw him make that decision about ten minutes into TFA. It didn’t need to be rehashed again and again in every film. We wanted more - we wanted him to be force sensitive, we wanted him to form meaningful connections with others. On some level they delivered on that, we saw a little force sensitivity, he got his own back with Hux, he found his tribe in Jannah and the other deserters.. but it felt like an afterthought. Nothing was ever dwelled upon- even his confession to Rey [whatever it was] was completely forgotten about in the end. Finn as a whole felt like an afterthought. 

[Don’t even get me started on Rose, Kelly deserved so much more. I was embarrassed by the amount of screen time she had.]

As for Poe.. Oscar did a brilliant job in this, he successfully harkened back to our favourite scoundrel Han Solo stereotype and I felt that gave the trio’s dynamic a clear anchor. His interactions with both Finn, Threepio and Chewie as he kept crashing the falcon really made me laugh, it was nice to have some actual humour littered throughout, unlike the goofy slapstick stuff in TLJ. But.. the Zorii love interest and backstory made zero sense canonically. Zero. Aside from the ‘can i kiss you’ stuff being extremely contrived, there is physically no actual way Poe could have ever been a spice runner on this new planet that I can’t remember the name of. He lived on Yavin his whole life until he came of age to join the New Republic Navy, and from there Leia recruited him into the Resistance. This much has been documented in countless books and comics. J.J really decided to throw that all away so that they could what.. get that universal key thing? Did they even use it? Was there any other point of Zorii’s character other than that key? Not really. Don’t try to tell me that Kes and Shara’s son ran away from home to become a criminal for no reason. Just don’t. [He was still wearing Shara’s ring throughout and they didn’t do anything with it.. I wonder will we get more of an answer to this in the novelisation?]

[While I’m on the subject of the comics and novels, the decision to kill off Snap was brave. I really loved him in the comics and I’m sad he’s now gone and Karé is now alone. Not that any of that was mentioned but-]

Lando was used just the correct amount. I’m happy he got the ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ line, and I think any more screen time and we could have seen some holes in Billy’s performance. [sorry Billy]

Chewie had some great moments in this surprisingly. He was essentially just an extra in TLJ so it was quite refreshing to have him be a key player again. [I had forgotten about the clips from the trailer that showed him aboard the Destroyer, so when he ‘died’ I really thought he was dead for a moment and I was so angry that that was how he went lol.] But his reaction to Leia’s death was so touching and although it was a tad fan-servicey, I loved the fact that he finally got the medal he missed out on in ANH. It made me chuckle.

The same can be said of Anthony Daniels as C3PO and all of the other droids. I felt as though they really clawed them back into the mix this time - Threepio’s worrisome queries were wonderfully nostalgic and not to mention hilarious, and D-0 was a great new addition. The droids always brought a levity to star wars, it was their job, and they did this to great effect in this film. There was some questionable switching around of R2 and BB8 which I didn’t appreciate - there is absolutely no way that BB8 wouldn’t be Poe’s astromech for the battle against the Final Order but I’m willing to let it slide.. [also why was he on Tatooine with Rey at the end?]

It really sounds like I had more problems with this film than highlights, and I promise that’s not the case. In the end, it made me feel happy, like I was watching something akin to the OT again, and yes some parts of it were clumsy, but the heart of it was there. It all really comes down to whether or not you believe a film must be ‘good’ in order to be.. good. With something as big and sentimental as star wars I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. Return of the Jedi was an utter mess- but yet we all still worship it and the characters it gave us. Why can’t the same thing be said for TROS? It was clunky, but it was surprising, and powerful and fun. It gave us the characters we loved and some interesting new ones, some top-tier lightsaber battles and a conclusive ending to the saga that has defined so many lives. At the end of the day I think that’s all it needed to be. 

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/karmic-tools-weekly-forecast-february-23-29-2020/

Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast: February 23 – 29, 2020

Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast: February 23 – 29, 2020

By Kelly M. Beard

The video version of this forecast, as read by Kelly, is available here.

The Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast covers the current planetary transits which affect people in different ways and to various degrees of intensity. Take notice when it is a Personal planet (Sun / Moon / Mercury / Venus / Mars) interacting with a Social (Jupiter/Saturn) or Collective planet (Uranus / Neptune/Pluto). And pay extremely close attention when it is a Social planet interacting with a Collective planet because that means something *big* is brewing that will move large groups of people along their evolutionary paths. Tuning in to the energy and rhythm of the planets can serve as a useful *guide* as you move along your Individual Path. It also helps to understand your place within the context of the larger Social & Collective Story. Below, you will find out how these energies tend to manifest, as well as guidance and direction. 

*NOTE*  There are some days when there are NO CONTACTS (besides the Moon), please note that there are no missing entries, we just list the actual Activations of each week + the day they happen.

Note from Kelly: For those of you who like to READ my Weekly Forecast, I wanted to just make sure you knew that on the VIDEO version of the forecast, I do add more insights that are more/less channeled in that moment and can be quite useful. If, after you’ve read the general energies, you want more, the audio is really good for that too. IN-Joy!

Weekly Forecast: February 22 – 29, 2020

2/23 ~ PISCES New Moon:

This is an annual crossroads we come to every year around this time. It is the completion of 12-new moons since the last Pisces New Moon 3.6.2019. How’s it going a year later? No one is exempt. We all have a House in our charts ruled by Pisces. It is here that you should seed your intentions and precious vision for the next year (minimum), with consideration of where you’d like to be at the 6-month MidPoint, the Pisces Full Moon 9.2.2020, when these very seeds will show their true promise. Consider that this crossroads is simultaneously an ending and the womb holding what will be birthed next. Virgo/Pisces realms teach us about being a Spirit in Human form. How’s that going for you at this time? Can you see any patterns in your health or consciousness, your physicality or spirituality and how all these dynamics are part of who & what you are? This month you get to dream – to dream the New Vision you’d like to experience in the 6-12 months. We are also blessed with Mercury Retro in Pisces helping us go even deeper to discover a new dream. We are not going to find solutions in the old or linear way. Sometimes you have to put the Monkey Mind in Time Out and let your Imagination lead the way. Give your Self ample time & space to do this over the next month because you are clarifying what you would like to initiate come the Aries New Moon 3.24.2020, a month from now.

2/23 ~ Venus (love, finances & relationships) ~square~ Jupiter (expansion & consciousness):

This energy is a happy-go-lucky kind of energy that doesn’t really want to be bothered with the mundane, however, you must not allow that passing energy to get you so off track that it costs you more than it is worth. If you don’t have any pressing obligations, then this can be a fun, relaxing time, possibly with friends doing something together. However, if you have work to do, make sure it gets done first so you can truly enjoy yourself without the worry of the pile being bigger when you return. Watch the excesses as well, food, drink and/or spending. On a deeper level, you may have to make some adjustments in your relationships or finances. Jupiter always reveals how we make things bigger’ (consciously or not) and this activation usually helps us be more realistic, so we can align our true priorities with our grand vision of the future.

2/24 ~ Sun (confidence) ~sextile~ Mars (action):

This is an excellent time for action! You may have some good, positive energy brewing that, if it does not find an outlet, could turn negative or destructive. So, DO something – get moving – take action! Work on accomplishing some long sought-after goals, physical, spiritual, emotional, mental or material. The Universe supports action at this time. Call in help from other like-minded souls – reach out – share this energy and see where it leads. During this kind of energy, you could secure a stronger position and if you have to fight for something, you will do so more effectively with this energetic support.

2/25 ~ Mercury Rx (communication & self-expression) ~conjunct~ Sun (core essential Self):

This energy will compel you to express yourself on many levels. Communication will be a focus, just make sure that it is reciprocated. You will have access to some powerful energy that can (and probably will) make quite an impression on others (if you need to). This is a good time to travel too, if possible. However, if not physically, then mentally and certainly within your own area, you will take in more information per square inch than usual. Pay attention! You may even gain the much-deserved recognition from others that you have worked so hard for.

*****

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[annemariewrites]

Walt Whitman

Research Paper

Walt Whitman, considered to be one of America’s greatest poets, was born in New York on May 31, 1819. He was self-taught and became a printer at twelve years old and this helped him understand the written word and be familiar with the works of Shakespeare, Dante, and the Bible. Whitman wrote many prose and poems, though he is most known for Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass.

The first copy of Leaves of Grass was published in 1855 and he continued to revise it for the rest of his life. This book had many renditions with numerous poems ranging from 12 in the first publication and over 400 in the last. His poems are often characterized as having long lines, little to no rhyme scheme, reflection on nature, and repeating first words. Whitman used a number of poetic forms in his writings. In the essay, "Poetic Form as Meaning in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass," written by Nigel Fabb, the poetic forms used by Walt Whitman are observed. Fabb uses an excerpt from a poem in Leaves of Grass. He states, “… the following five lines which form a stanza of one of the component poems of the book, reproduced here as closely as possible to copy the layout (e.g., line-breaks) on page 67 of the first (1855) edition.

‘The sky continues beautiful…. the pleasure of men with women shall never be

sated.. nor the pleasure of women with men... nor the pleasure from poems;

The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses - they

are not phantasms.. they have weight and form and location;

The farms and profits and crops.. the markets and wages and government…. they

also are not phantasms;

The difference between sin and goodness is no apparition;

The earth is not an echo... man and his life and all the things of his life are well-considered.’

Here we see various poetic forms. The most obvious is the line. Next, it has been argued that the poem is divided into ‘rhetorical groups.’ Third, there is parallelism between the parts. Fourth, there are small rhythmic sequences. In this section of the paper, I consider each of these in turn and argue that they are attributed rather than inherent. I conclude by commenting on the unusual line-internal punctuation, in particular two dots, four dots and a dash, which have relevance for the form of the text.” (Fabb 107-108) He goes on to use another example, “…most of Whitman’s lineation is attributed, though there are occasional examples of inherent lineation, as in the following example of lines written in iambic pentameter (Whitman 1881: 296):

‘Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask.

These lights and shades, this drama of the whole.’

Like all iambic pentameter lines, these lines are subject to subtle generalizations, which can loosely be summarized by saying that there are ten syllables in each line, and a stressed syllable within a polysyllabic word must be even-numbered.” (Fabb 109)  This shows the numerous poetic devices that Walt Whitman used in his poems. These techniques were used by many poets that inspired and were inspired by Whitman.

Whitman was a part of the transcendentalism movement which was a literary movement that occurred in the early nineteenth century. Ralph Waldo Emerson was also hugely involved with this movement and the two poets are compared by Kelly Scott Franklin in the essay, “’Without Being Walt Whitman’: Vicente Huidobro, Whitman, And the Poetics of Sight.” Franklin writes, “Ralph Waldo Emerson (1836) described feeling ‘uplifted into infinite space’, which allowed him to see everything at once, and he described becoming a ‘transparent eyeball’ (Emerson, [1836] 1996: 10). Whitman himself would write in 1855, in what would later become ‘Song of Myself’:

My ties and ballasts leave me [. . .] I travel [. . .] I sail [. . .]

I skirt sierras [. . .] my palms cover continents,

I am afoot with my vision. (Whitman, 1855c: 36) (Franklin 285)

Franklin then goes on to compare Walt Whitman to Vicente Huidobro, who was a creationist poet, stating, “…both Whitman’s and Huidobro’s speakers can also see the ongoing exploration and travel of the globe. Whitman celebrates this exploration in a lengthy passage:

I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in port, some on their

voyages,

Some double the cape of Storms, some cape Verde, others capes Guardafui, Bon, or

Bajadore,

Others Dondra head, others pass the straits of Sunda, others cape Lopatka, others

Behring’s straits [. . .]. (Whitman, 1982b: 290)

‘Others,’ Whitman’s speaker continues, ‘sternly push their way through the northern winter packs, / Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena, / Others the Niger or the Congo [. . .]’ (Whitman, 1982b: 290). But if the expansionist Whitman celebrates those who ‘sternly push their way’ into other lands, Huidobro’s speaker sees that same exploration in terms of the multiform violence of imperialism (Whitman, 1982b: 290):

“The bravest captains Captain Cook

On an iceberg went to the Poles Hunts the Northern Lights

To leave his pipe in the lips In the South Pole

Of Eskimos

Others stab fresh lances in the Congo

The heart of sunny Africa

Opens like pecked figs.” (Huidobro, 2003e: 494.69–75) (Franklin 287)

This quote shows the inspiration that Vincent Huidobro gained from Walt Whitman, despite the former being a creationist and the latter being a transcendentalist.

One of the most notable trends in Leaves of Grassis that of spirituality. In Ernest Smith’s essay, “’Restless Explorations’: Whitman’s Evolving Spiritual Vision in Leaves of Grass,” Smith explains the change in Walt Whitman’s spiritual image. He states, “In an uncollected manuscript fragment, Whitman terms spirituality “the unknown” (Leaves 612), and despite various pronouncements of certitude, especially in the 1855 and 1856 editions, as the poet more deeply engages his personal contradictions and his envisioned democracy’s various failures and compromises, his poetry comes to challenge its readers to conceive of spirituality more broadly, but less conclusively.” (Smith 229) This quote show that Whitman had a change in his thoughts of spirituality in Leaves of Grass. This is entirely understandable seeing as how he continued to add to and revise this great work for many decades until his death. It would only be natural to change his feelings and beliefs in some way. Smith continues by pointing out what Whitman’s earlier writings showed about the spirit by saying, “The personal pull of Whitman’s early poetry is undeniably powerful, a proclamation of the agency of the individual that at the same time invites us to “follow” the poet toward enlightenment, claiming deep insight into the nature of the soul.” (Smith 229) He then describes Whitman’s last poems, “While the major works of Whitman’s final productive decade demonstrate what Erkkila terms “a more traditional religious faith,” by the final arrangement of poems for the 1881 edition, the reader of Leaveswill move through poems supremely confident of immortality and a mystical oneness of humanity, other poems where the spiritual core of the text seems more based in phenomenology, Civil War poems that recognize the ability of death’s sheer physical carnage to at least momentarily eclipse spiritual hope, and the later meditative mode of poems such as those in the “Whispers of Heavenly Death” cluster.” (Smith 229-239) This accurately demonstrates the shift that occurred all throughout Whitman’s life to change the various aspects of how he reflected on spirituality in his poetry.

In addition to the use of religion and spirituality, Whitman also implemented numerous social issues into his poetry. This is outlined in the essay, “’Song of Myself’ and the Class Struggle in Language,” by Andrew Lawson. In this essay, Lawson notes, “Charles Hliot Norton, an early reviewer for Putnam's Monthly Magazine in September 1855, found Whitman's poetry monstrous in its ‘self-conceit,” its contempt for ‘all usual propriety of diction.’ For Norton, Whitman’s impropriety stemmed from his continual crossing of linguistic boundaries, by joining of the ‘gross’ with the ‘elevated,’ the ‘superficial’ with the ‘profound.’ An example would be the single line in which Whitman describes himself as both ‘one of the roughs,’ meaning, according to Webster, ‘rugged, disordered in appearance, coarse,’ and ‘a kosmos,’ an apparent invention of Whitman’s, meaning ‘a person who[se] scope of mind, or whose range in a particular science, includes all, the whole known universe.’” (Lawson 377) This shows one man’s view of Whitman’s poetry. Another is, “R O. Matthiessen, in American Renaissance (1941)… deplores Whitman’s ‘curious amalgamation of homely and simple usage with half-remembered terms he read once somewhere, and with casual inventions of the moment.’ Whitman's mixed diction is particularly irksome to Matthiessen because it smacks of the inauthentic; rather than using a ‘folk-speech,’ the language of the people. Whitman exhibits only the ‘happy pride of the half-educated in the learned term’ - he is using a language ‘not quite his own.’” (Lawson 377) Lawson then goes on to explain how opinions such as these about the poetry may also be influenced by social norms. He states, “For Norton, Whitman’s language is an unaccountable compound of class accents; for Matthiessen, Whitman is all too recognizably a lower-middle-class aspirant to the title litterateur, his choice of words marked by petit bourgeois pretension.” (Lawson 377-378) These quotes show the way some people felt about social classes in regards to literature and language.

Closely related to poetry, the use of music can be found in many of Walt Whitman’s poems, especially with Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, a free verse, 32 stanza poem.An article that shows this is, “The Idea of Music in 'Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,'” by William F. Mayhan. The article states, “By linking his poem so closely and specifically to music, Whitman offers a vital clue not only to the poem's unorthodox structure, but also to its meaning.” (Mayhan 113) The themes of this poem include the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The poem itself is about a young boy who stands by the ocean and watches a couple of birds sing to each other. One day the female of the couple goes missing and the male tries to find her. He searches for his mate but can never find her and accepts that she has died. The symbolism of the musical structure of the poem highlights the song of the birds when they are together and the male singing alone. Mayhan explains this by saying, “…music plays not only a structural role, but also a symbolic one. …Whitman blends his experience of music (as heard) with his philosophical conceptions of the nature and meaning of music in a marriage of matter and form that is itself the essence of music.” (Mayhan 113) Understanding the musical form of the poem can help understand the meaning of it as well. It is important to note just how important music was to Whitman and is noted further in Mayhan’s article. He quotes, “He admits as much in his conversations with Horace Traubel, recorded later in his life:

‘My younger life was so saturated with the emotions, raptures, up-lifts, of such musical experiences that it would be surprising if all my future work had not been colored by them. A real musician running through Leaves of Grass-a philosopher musician-could put his finger on this and that anywhere in the text no doubt as indicating the activity and influences I have spoken of.’” (Mayhan 115)

This quote shows the importance that music held in his life and how it shaped his poetry. Again, the idea of music helps one to know and understand the meaning of the poem. This is further stated, “Layer upon layer of meaning begins to accumulate until, at the end, as we shall see, the effects of infinite interrelatedness (harmony) will affect not only the poem's structure, but will be, in itself, an embodiment of its meaning.” (Mayhan 122)

One of the many things that influenced Walt Whitman’s writing was the Civil War. This is discussed in the article, "Union and Disunion in 'Song of Myself'," by Herbert J.Levine. The article states, “One recent study has argued that the escalating crisis of the Union allowed Whitman to discover the healing role so central to "Song of Myself." Another has argued that the economic downturn of 1854, which put Whitman out of the housebuilding business, allowed him to discover his role as celebrator of the artisan…” (Levine 570). This shows the different thoughts others had about how the buildup of the Civil War may have influenced Whitman. Levine goes on to determine why Whitman wanted to unify the country, perhaps with his poetry. He states, “Where political rhetoric was failing to preserve the Union, poetry, Whitman saw, could attempt an alternative discourse of union based on the unity of a representative American self. With respect to such a unified self, the experience of his own body and soul, his land, its animals, people, occupations and history, the earth, its evolutionary past and cosmic future—all was to be portrayed as a vast seamless web, within which differences could be accommodated without dismembering the whole.” (Levine 576) This shows that Whitman wanted to keep the country whole and attempted to do so by writing poetry.

In conclusion, Walt Whitman is considered to be one of America’s great poets for a number of reasons, ranging from his use of poetic devices to how he wanted his poetry to shape the people and the world in which they lived.

Works Cited

Fabb, Nigel. "Poetic Form as Meaning in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass." Journal of Literary Semantics 41.2 (2012): 105-119.

Franklin, Kelly Scott. "'Without Being Walt Whitman': Vicente Huidobro, Whitman, And The Poetics Of Sight." Comparative American Studies: An International Journal 12.4 (2014): 282-300.

Lawson, Andrew. "'Song of Myself'and the Class Struggle in Language." Textual Practice 18.3 (2004): 377-394.

Levine, Herbert J. "Union and Disunion in 'Song of Myself'." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 59.4 (1987): 570-589.

Mayhan, William F. "The Idea of Music in 'Out Of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking'." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review13.3 (1996): 113-128.

Smith, Ernest. "'Restless Explorations': Whitman's Evolving Spiritual Vision in Leaves of Grass." Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics of Language and Literature 43.3 (2007): 227-263

[patriotsnet]

How Many Republicans In Congress Support Trump

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-in-congress-support-trump/

How Many Republicans In Congress Support Trump

No Republicans In The Senate Have Said That They Would Approve Of Impeachment Proceedings Against Trump Cnn Noted Sen Ron Johnson Of Wisconsin Said That Trump Told Him He Had Withheld Aid Because Of Concerns About Corruption In Ukraine

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who is a former Republican but now an Independent, has said that he supports impeachment proceedings, CNN reported.

Bill Weld, who is running against Trump, has said that Trump’s actions amount to treason. Weld ran on the Libertarian ticket in 2016, but he served as the Governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. He’s not currently in Congress.

So far, Republicans in Congress haven’t specifically stepped out to speak in favor of impeachment. Back in August, this was the same, with no Republicans in Congress supporting impeachment.

An Updating Tally Of How Often Every Member Of The House And The Senate Votes With Or Against The President

Trump margin: Trump’s share of the vote in the 2016 election minus Clinton’s

Trump score: How often a member votes in line with Trump’s position

Trump plus-minus: Difference between a member’s actual and predicted Trump-support scores

Member How often a member votes in line with Trump’s positionTrump scoreHow often a member votes in line with Trump’s position Trump’s share of the vote in the 2016 election minus Clinton’sTrump marginTrump’s share of the vote in the 2016 election minus Clinton’s How often a member is expected to support Trump based on Trump’s 2016 marginPredicted scoreHow often a member is expected to support Trump based on Trump’s 2016 margin Difference between a member’s actual and predicted Trump-support scoresTrump plus-minus

A Trump score is not calculated for members who have not voted. How this works »

* No longer in Congress.

Trump margin: Trump’s share of the vote in the 2016 election minus Clinton’s

Trump score: How often a member votes in line with Trump’s position

Trump plus-minus: Difference between a member’s actual and predicted Trump-support scores

Member

A Large Share Of Republicans Want Trump To Remain Head Of The Party Cnbc Survey Shows

A CNBC survey conducted in the days before former President Donald Trump‘s impeachment trial finds a large share of Republicans want him to remain head of their party, but a majority of Americans want him out of politics.

The CNBC All-America Economic Survey shows 54% of Americans want Trump “to remove himself from politics entirely.” That was the sentiment of 81% of Democrats and 47% of Independents, but only 26% of Republicans.

When it comes to Republicans, 74% want him to stay active in some way, including 48% who want him to remain head of the Republican Party, 11% who want him to start a third party, and 12% who say he should remain active in politics but not as head of any party.

“If we’re talking about Donald Trump’s future, at the moment, the survey shows he still has this strong core support within his own party who really want him to continue to be their leader,” said Jay Campbell, a partner with Hart Research and the Democratic pollster for the survey.

But Micah Roberts, the survey’s Republican pollster, and a partner with Public Opinion Strategies, emphasized the change from when Trump was president. Polls before the election regularly showed Trump with GOP approval ratings around 90%, meaning at least some Republicans have defected from Trump.

Squawk on the Street

Gop In Ousting Cheney Send Message You Can’t Be In Leadership If You Contradict Trump

Republicans plan to remove Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference, the No. 3 position in House GOP leadership, in a move to demote the highest-ranking Republican who voted to impeach Trump early this year. She has vocally criticized Trump’s “big lie” that the election last year was stolen.

Ayers warned that efforts to exile Cheney — the highest-ranking Republican woman in Washington and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney — could further antagonize suburban voters, particularly college-educated women, who ditched the party because of their opposition to Trump.

“They will also say there’s no room in today’s Republican Party for anyone willing to be honest about the 2020 election and the events of Jan. 6,” Ayres said. “That does not strike me as the best way to get back the suburban voters who’ve left the party in the last few years.”

That message was echoed by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Monday.

“Expelling Liz Cheney from leadership won’t gain the GOP one additional voter, but it will cost us quite a few,” Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, said in a tweet.

Said Collins: “I believe Liz Cheney is an honorable leader with great strength and did what she felt was right. And our party should be big enough to accommodate people with a wide variety of views.”

She indicated that removing Cheney for her pushback to Trump could send the wrong message to voters. “The issue is being inclusive,” Collins said.

Gop Leader Mccarthy: Trump ‘bears Responsibility’ For Violence Won’t Vote To Impeach

Some ambitious Republican senators have never been as on board the Trump train as the more feverish GOP members in the House, and the former might be open to convicting Trump. But their ambition cuts two ways — on the one hand, voting to ban Trump opens a lane to carry the Republican mantle in 2024 and be the party’s new standard-bearer, but, on the other, it has the potential to alienate many of the 74 million who voted for Trump, and whose votes they need.

It’s a long shot that Trump would ultimately be convicted, because 17 Republicans would need to join Democrats to get the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction. But it’s growing clearer that a majority of the Senate will vote to convict him, reflecting the number of Americans who are in favor of impeachment, disapproved of the job Trump has done and voted for his opponent in the 2020 presidential election.

Correction Jan. 14, 2021

A previous version of this story incorrectly said Rep. Peter Meijer is a West Point graduate. Meijer attended West Point, but he is a graduate of Columbia University.

House Votes To Impeach Trump But Senate Trial Unlikely Before Biden’s Inauguration

9. Rep. John Katko, New York’s 24th: Katko is a moderate from an evenly divided moderate district. A former federal prosecutor, he said of Trump: “It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection.” He also noted that as the riot was happening, Trump “refused to call it off, putting countless lives in danger.”

10. Rep. David Valadao, California’s 21st: The Southern California congressman represents a majority-Latino district Biden won 54% to 44%. Valadao won election to this seat in 2012 before losing it in 2018 and winning it back in the fall. He’s the rare case of a member of Congress who touts his willingness to work with the other party. Of his vote for impeachment, he said: “President Trump was, without question, a driving force in the catastrophic events that took place on January 6.” He added, “His inciting rhetoric was un-American, abhorrent, and absolutely an impeachable offense.”

Gop Rep Reveals How Many Colleagues Actually Believe Trumps Election Conspiracies

Lee Moran

Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Friday that only a handful of his Republican colleagues in the House actually believe ex-President Donald Trump’s election lies.

The vast majority of House Republicans, Kinzinger told CNN’s Jake Tapper, were simply boarding the Trump train in a desperate bid to preserve their jobs.

“How many actually believe it? Five, probably, if that, maybe? I don’t know, but it’s in the single, it’s low,” said Kinzinger, a vocal critic of Trump who defied his party to vote for the impeachment of the former president for inciting the deadly U.S. Capitol riot.

“People don’t believe it,” he continued. “But what they are doing is they’re sitting around saying, ‘I need to continue to exist in this job so that I can make an impact. I don’t have the courage or the strength or the ability to swing this party, so I’m going to just kinda put my head down and go along.’”

“Some people have made the decision that grabbing onto the Trump train again, even though it’s been derailed, is the best way for us to push whatever,” Kinzinger added. Others, meanwhile, “just want to destroy the place.”

Kinzinger said GOP backing of Trump’s conspiracy theories may give the party a “temporary hit, maybe you’ll win the majority, I don’t think you will.”

“But I guarantee you in the long arc of history, this is not going to bode well for Republicans,” he added.

Watch the video here:

Have Expressed Reluctance Or Misgivings But Havent Openly Dropped Their Backing

Paul Ryan and John Boehner, the former speakers of the House: Both have expressed their dislike of the president, but have not said whom they will support in November.

John Kelly, a former chief of staff to the president: Mr. Kelly has not said whom he plans to vote for, but did say he wished “we had some additional choices.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: She has said that she’s grappling with whether to support Mr. Trump in November. She told reporters on Capitol Hill in June: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”

She said: “I think right now, as we are all struggling to find ways to express the words that need to be expressed appropriately, questions about who I’m going to vote for or not going to vote for, I think, are distracting at the moment. I know people might think that’s a dodge, but I think there are important conversations that we need to have as an American people among ourselves about where we are right now.”

Mark Sanford, a former congressman and governor of South Carolina: Mr. Sanford briefly challenged the president in this cycle’s Republican primary, and said last year that he would support Mr. Trump if the president won the nomination .

That has since changed.

“He’s treading on very thin ice,” Mr. Sanford said in June, worrying that the president is threatening the stability of the country.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Trump Calls For ‘no Violence’ As Congress Moves To Impeach Him For Role In Riot

This time, there will be more. Some Republican senators have called on Trump to resign, and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he is undecided at this point.

Trump’s impeachment won’t lead to his removal — even if he is convicted — because of the timeline. The Senate is adjourned until Tuesday. The next day, Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president. But there’s another penalty the Constitution allows for as a result of a Senate conviction that could be appealing to some Republican senators — banning Trump from holding “office” again.

While there is some debate as to the definition of “office” in the Constitution and whether that would apply to running for president or even Congress, that kind of public rebuke would send a strong message — that Republicans are ready to move on from Trumpism.

Just 27 Of 249 Republicans In Congress Willing To Say Trump Lost Survey Finds

Two congressmen tell Washington Post Trump beat Biden

Does Trump really plan to absolve himself and his family?

Only 27 of 249 Republicans in Congress are willing to admit Joe Biden won the presidential election, a survey found on Saturday.

The election was called for Biden on 7 November, four days after election day. The Democrat won the electoral college by 306-232 and leads in the popular vote by more than 7m ballots.

But Trump has refused to concede, baselessly claiming large-scale voter fraud in battleground states.

The survey of Republicans in the House and Senate was carried out by the Washington Post, a paper Trump promptly claimed to read “as little as possible”.

The president also said he was “surprised so many” in his party thought he had been beaten, promised “we have just begun to fight” and asked for a list of the politicians he called “Rinos”, an acronym for “Republicans in name only”.

Two congressmen, Mo Brooks of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, told the Post Trump won. Gosar said he would never accept Biden as president, telling the paper there was “too much evidence of fraud”.

In fact, there is no evidence of voter fraud anywhere near the scale Trump alleges in any of the key states in which he is pursuing legal redress, so far winning one lawsuit but losing 46.

The Post said it had obtained video of Perdue telling donors Biden won.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy, who leads the House minority, have dodged questions.

Rep Tim Ryan: Probe Underway On Whether Members Gave Capitol Tours To Rioters

7. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, Washington’s 3rd: Herrera Beutler was swept in with the Tea Party wave in 2010, but her district is a moderate one. Trump won it 51% to 47%. Herrera Beutler gained prominence several years ago for giving birth to a child three months early, born without kidneys and a rare syndrome. Her daughter, Abigail, became the first to survive the often-fatal condition. The now-mother of three and congresswoman from southwest Washington state declared on the House floor her vote in favor of impeachment: “I’m not choosing sides, I’m choosing truth.”

8. Rep. Peter Meijer, Michigan’s 3rd: Meijer is a freshman, who won his seat with 53% of the vote. He represents a district that was previously held by Justin Amash, the former Republican-turned-independent who voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment in 2019. Meijer, a Columbia University grad who served in Afghanistan, is a social conservative in favor of restrictions on abortion rights and against restrictions on gun rights and religious freedoms. But he said Trump showed no “courage” and “betrayed millions with claims of a ‘stolen election.’ ” He added, “The one man who could have restored order, prevented the deaths of five Americans including a Capitol police officer, and avoided the desecration of our Capitol, shrank from leadership when our country needed it most.”

In Demoting Cheney Gop Holds On To Trump At Risk Of Further Alienating Others

Allan SmithSahil Kapur

Liz Cheney may be done with former President Donald Trump, but her impending ouster from House Republican leadership is a clear sign, party insiders say, that the GOP isn’t done with Trump.

The calculation is that the party will be better off in the midterm elections embracing Trump than running from him, even if it means further alienating the kind of suburban voters who handed Democrats victories in 2018 and 2020.

“Removing Liz Cheney from leadership will give a boatload of ammunition to the GOP’s critics,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.

Republican Groups Censure Party Lawmakers Who Voted To Impeach Convict Trump

Kinzinger said 11 family members sent him a handwritten two-page note that started, “Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” The letter accused him of working with “the devil’s army,” which it said included Democrats and the “fake news media.” “We thought you were ‘smart’ enough to see how the left is brainwashing many ‘so called good people’ including yourself” and other Republicans. “You have even fallen for their socialism ideals! So, so sad!” “It is now most embarrassing to us that we are related to you,” the family members wrote. “You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name.” Kinzinger said the family members suffered from “brainwashing” at conservative churches. “I hold nothing against them,’’ he said, “but I have zero desire or feel the need to reach out and repair that. That is 100% on them to reach out and repair, and quite honestly, I don’t care if they do or not.” Kinzinger said he knows his vote against Trump could imperil his political career but that he “couldn’t live with myself” if “the one time I was called to do a really tough duty, I didn’t do it.” 

List Of Republicans Who Opposed The Donald Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign

This article is part of a series about

e

This is a list of Republicans and conservatives who announced their opposition to the election of Donald Trump, the 2016 Republican Party nominee and eventual winner of the election, as the President of the United States. It also includes former Republicans who left the party due to their opposition to Trump and as well as Republicans who endorsed a different candidate. It includes Republican presidential primary election candidates that announced opposition to Trump as the nominee. Some of the Republicans on this list threw their support to Trump after he won the presidential election, while many of them continue to oppose Trump. Offices listed are those held at the time of the 2016 election.

List Of Republicans Who Opposed The Donald Trump 2020 Presidential Campaign

This article is part of a series about

e

This is a list of Republicans and conservatives who opposed the re-election of incumbent Donald Trump, the 2020 Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. Among them are former Republicans who left the party in 2016 or later due to their opposition to Trump, those who held office as a Republican, Republicans who endorsed a different candidate, and Republican presidential primary election candidates that announced opposition to Trump as the presumptive nominee. Over 70 former senior Republican national security officials and 61 additional senior officials have also signed onto a statement declaring, “We are profoundly concerned about our nation’s security and standing in the world under the leadership of Donald Trump. The President has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term.”

A group of former senior U.S. government officials and conservatives—including from the Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43, and Trump administrations have formed The Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform to, “focus on a return to principles-based governing in the post-Trump era.”

A third group of Republicans, Republican Voters Against Trump was launched in May 2020 has collected over 500 testimonials opposing Donald Trump.

Democratic Insider And A Republican Backed By Trump Win Ohio House Races

The victories by Shontel Brown, a Democrat supported by the national establishment, and Mike Carey, a Republican endorsed by Donald Trump, provided a lift to the leadership of both parties.

A Democratic candidate backed by the party establishment and a Republican endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump won two primary races for open House seats in Ohio on Tuesday, an assertion of dominance for the leadership of both political parties as they face questions over unity in their ranks.

In a Democratic primary in northern Ohio, Shontel Brown, who vowed to be “a partner” with the Biden administration and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, prevailed over Nina Turner, a party outsider who openly rejected the idea that Democrats are more effective through conciliation and compromise. Late Tuesday, Ms. Brown was leading by over five percentage points, and Ms. Turner conceded the race.

And in a Republican primary near Columbus, Mike Carey, a newcomer to elected office who was largely unknown before being endorsed by Mr. Trump, easily beat out 11 rivals, many of them with much longer records in Ohio politics.

Between the two races, the Democratic fight for the deep-blue 11th District around Cleveland and Akron was the most closely watched as a national bellwether. Prominent Democratic politicians and money from national interest groups cascaded into the district over the past several weeks, leaving a trail of ill will and weariness in their wake.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Us House Votes To Strip Republican Of Key Posts

The US House of Representatives has voted to expel a Republican congresswoman from two committees over incendiary remarks she made before being elected last November.

Marjorie Taylor Greene had promoted baseless QAnon conspiracy theories and endorsed violence against Democrats.

Before the vote, she said she regretted her views, which included claims that school shootings and 9/11 were staged.

Eleven Republicans joined the Democrats to pass the motion by 230-199.

The Republican dilemma, embodied in one politician

It means the representative – who was elected in November, representing a district in the southern state of Georgia – cannot take up her place on the education and budget committees.

This would limit her ability to shape policy as most legislation goes through a committee before reaching the House floor. Committee positions can determine the influence of individual lawmakers in their party.

It is highly unusual for one party to intervene in another party’s House committee assignments.

On Friday, Mrs Greene said that she woke up “laughing” at the situation.

“I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats are for giving some one like me free time,” she tweeted, referencing the 11 Republicans who also voted to remove her.

At a news conference in Washington hours later, Mrs Greene said that Democrats had “stripped my district of their voice” by removing her from the committees.

Republicans Supporting Donald Trump In The 2016 Presidential Election

Elected officials’ positions on Donald Trump Federal:Republicans and their declared positions on Donald Trump • Republicans supporting Donald Trump • Republicans opposing Donald Trump State and local:

See also: Republicans and their declared positions on Donald Trump

In a typical general election year, elected officials readily line up behind their party’s presidential nominee. In 2012, for example, The Hill reported that only four Republican members of Congress had declined to endorse Mitt Romney by mid-September of that year. “All other House and Senate Republicans” had already endorsed the Republican nominee.

But 2016 was not a typical general election year.

Controversial comments from the GOP’s 2016 nominee, Donald Trump, about women, Muslims, , and caused some Republican lawmakers to distance themselves from the businessman, while others outright denounced him.

This page tracked Republican lawmakers who openly declared their support for Trump during the 2016 presidential election.

More Than 150 House Democrats Support Starting An Impeachment Process

In total, 145 Democrats have backed impeachment as of Monday night, The Washington Post reported. That number is in the 150s as of Tuesday morning. However, some Democrats believe that some Republicans also need to get on board before impeachment can proceed.

Seven freshman Democrats wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post saying that impeachment is necessary if the allegations are true. These were all in the House. They are:

Rep. Gil Cisneros of California

Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania

Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia

Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey

Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan

Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia

In addition, the following Democratic House members have recently publicly supported calls for impeachment:

Rep. Dean Phillips

Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro

Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, said impeachment “may be the only remedy” if the Ukraine reports are true

Rep. Brad Sherman

If all 435 House members vote, they would need 218 votes for a majority to be reached and for Trump to be impeached. There are 235 Democrats in office in the House, one Independent, and 199 Republicans.

NBC News counted a total of 134 Democrats who said they would support starting an impeachment inquiry process back in May. Now after the Ukraine news, CNN notes there are 151 Democrats calling for impeachment inquiries. Here’s the full list below. The names with asterisks next to them also called for impeachment in May.

Republicans Vote Against Measure; Bill Faces Uphill Fight In Senate

In this Jan. 6 file photo, supporters of then-President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington.

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WASHINGTON — Thirty-five House Republicans joined Democrats Wednesday in voting to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, risking the wrath of former President Donald Trump and flouting GOP leaders who condemned the proposal as unfairly partisan and unneeded.

Modeled after the investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the legislation would establish an independent, 10-member commission that would make recommendations by the end of the year for securing the Capitol and preventing another insurrection. It passed the House 252-175.

The Republican mavericks were led by New York Rep. John Katko, who wrote the measure with Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Katko, that panel’s top Republican, was battling two tides that have overwhelmed Congress in recent years: the nearly overwhelming potency Trump still has among Republicans and a jagged-edged partisanship that often confounds even mundane legislation.

“I encourage all members, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put down their swords for once, just for once, and support this bill,” said Katko.

“This is about fact. It is not partisan politics,” he said pointedly.

“Leader McCarthy won’t take yes for an answer,” she said

House Impeaches Trump A 2nd Time Citing Insurrection At Us Capitol

This vote could expose some of them to potential primary challenges from the right as well as possible safety threats, but for all of them Trump had simply gone too far. Multiple House Republicans said threats toward them and their families were factors weighing on their decisions on whether to impeach this president.

Ten out of 211 Republicans in the House is hardly an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, and clearly, most Republicans’ sympathies still lie with Trump — and his ardent base of followers. But the 10 represent something significant — the most members of a president’s party to vote for his impeachment in U.S. history.

How Wyoming Voters Are Reacting To Rep Cheneys Leadership Battle

Many Republicans, including McCarthy, have decided that the path to retake majority control of the House requires embracing Trump, which means either repeating his false assertions that the election was stolen or keeping quiet, neither of which Cheney has been willing to do.

McCarthy has long viewed Trump as important to helping him become the next House speaker — and important to helping Republicans win the midterm elections — said a House Republican aide who works for neither McCarthy or Cheney.

The aide described the leadership fight as “a s— show” and “something that should never really have happened,” expressing anger over its handling.

“I think it’s dumb when we always try to claim that we’re this big party that we’re pushing out someone who has a slightly different opinion,” the aide said, adding, “It’s just absurd to me.”

Another senior Republican congressional aide argued that Cheney was likely to be removed because she keeps publicly disagreeing with McCarthy, not because of her criticism of Trump.

“As conference chair, was spending more time bashing Republicans than Democrats” at the recent House retreat, the aide said, adding that McCarthy “was literally the only thing keeping her in leadership.”

Many Republicans have lamented that the squabble is distracting from anti-Biden messaging, which is what they say will actually help them in the midterms.

It Doesnt Pay To Be A Congressional Republican Opposing Trump

Rep. Liz Cheney was sent a loud, clear message by her House Republican colleagues this week: oppose former president Donald Trump, and you’re out.

It’s a message that has been sent in less official ways before but by now is unmistakable for any congressional Republican who would dare to venture where she has. Most of them have been forced out in one way or another, with many voluntarily backing down and retiring. But we’re about to get a better sense for how politically tenable such a position could be in today’s GOP.

arrow-right

Cheney hasn’t lost her congressional seat — though she already has challengers back home who want to run against her in the 2022 GOP primary. But her leadership position is gone and is likely going to a congresswoman who has made praising Trump her No. 1 priority. But Cheney has staked her political future on opposing Trump, saying she believes she can lead the party back from where it is now.

If she can actually leverage her opposition to Trump into some kind of political success — which appears unlikely at this point — she’d pretty much be the first. It hasn’t gone well for other elected Republicans, going all the way back to those who opposed Trump during his 2016 presidential run.

Flake announced he wouldn’t run for reelection just nine months into Trump’s presidency, becoming an early symbolic sacrifice — and a bit of a trophy for Trump. More than that, though, it sent a message.

Of those 11:

Trumps Kingmaking Plan Threatens Gops Congress Hopes In 2022

Bloomberg

— Donald Trump could hurt Republicans’ chances of regaining control of Congress in the 2022 midterms, just by endorsing the candidates working so hard to win his backing.

The former president is studying races and plans to bestow his superlative-laden endorsements around the country in many 2022 primary or general election contests for the U.S. House, Senate and governorships, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

Former President Donald Trump

Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg

While those nods can still be the golden ticket in a Republican primary and solidly GOP districts, they also can energize independents and Democrats who don’t like Trump in competitive districts — risking defeat for Republican candidates in the general election and with it possible control of the House, according to studies of the 2018 and 2020 campaigns.

History is on the Republicans’ side. Midterm elections generally favor the party out of power and redistricting is expected to change district lines in a way that gives the GOP an advantage.

Read More: Republicans Unhappy With Trump GOP See Path for Alternative

“The Republican Party cannot win swing districts where Donald Trump is still the dominating face and voice of this party,” Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“And that’s where they’re going to take a historic opportunity in a midterm and pass it right by.”

[attacksoftheclones]

THE LAST JEDI REVIEW

SPOILERS ahead, you have been warned. Also #long post.

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I had so much faith in this film. I had so much faith in Rian. With overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, I know my opinion on this film lies within the minority – but here it is anyway.

To get my thoughts on The Force Awakens out of the way, my problems and gripes with the film were the same of that of many others. To sum it up, yes I agree that it was a retread of A New Hope and I thought it fell short greatly in terms of world building. When you have a galaxy from a long time ago in a place far, far away, the possibilities are endless – I didn’t want to see a Tatooine 2.0 or a third Death Star renamed as Starkiller Base. I also felt that the lack of explanations given paired with the abundance of questions it produced tarnished much of it. What additionally disappointed me about Episode VII again much like many other people, was additionally how much more childish it felt compared to other Star Wars films, an obvious attribution to Disney’s reign on the franchise following the six installments of Lucas’ story. There were things I liked, though. I thought Finn was an interesting character and really enjoyed the idea of having a stormtrooper that defected to the Resistance and I anticipated exploring the mentality involved in both making that decision and how such a decision would have consequences in The Last Jedi. I of course enjoyed having a female heroine and finished the film aching for answers on her past just as everyone else had. Of course, what I was most desperately excited for following The Force Awakens was the return of Luke Skywalker.

Whilst I have been vocal (on twitter) about the issues I did have with the film, my excitement for The Last Jedi was in no way diminished. I do not dislike the sequel trilogy for the sake of a preconceived agenda, I would say I was very open to this film. The trailer already established a clearly beautifully shot and notably darker take on the trilogy, something I have come to prefer as a prequel fan as I like the complexity that comes along with it. My excitement was further enhanced because The Last Jedi was the first Star Wars film I was going to see in a cinema and I was keen to feel the excitement of a midnight premiere. I knew experiencing the opening credits for the very first time simultaneously with everyone else, booming with John Williams’ iconic score would be thrilling to say the least. And it was.

The opening was strong, Poe and BB-8 were as endearing as ever. Surpassing his mandate from General Leia and at the risk of increasing the already dangerously high casualty rate of the Resistance, we are introduced to an “at all costs” Poe in this film that largely sets up his arc for what is to follow – which turns out to not actually be much, much like the rest of this film. I never disliked Poe Dameron in any way following The Force Awakens but I knew this film had to really “ignite a fire” in the character for me to become attached to him solely because the previous film produced very little Poe content to go off of. We know he is a fantastic pilot and anything further than a more hot-headed attitude really isn’t established for Poe in this film. Poe spends his time battling his superiors Leia as well as the newly appointed Admiral Holdo, suffering the disappointment of being demoted for the recklessness that we see from him in the opening scene that costs the Resistance more than they can bear. Poe’s arc ventures little from arguing and to be fair wouldn’t have been as dissatisfying if it weren’t so ridiculously dragged out by director Rian Johnson as the only arc for the Resistance, other than suffering from a low supply of fuel. Yes, it was good to see a more of the reality of war in the Star Wars universe which hasn’t really been explored since the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (although being aired on Cartoon Network of course did limit this in areas). We watch the spirit of the Resistance suffer and dwindle, but this unfortunately is carried out through an ultimately pointless and boring side arc of being low of fuel and being tracked by the First Order that left me sighing every time a scene transitioned back into one at the Rebel base. Whilst part of this of course is also due to the anticipation of desperately wanting answers to Rey and Luke’s futures on Ahch-To, the overall story for the Resistance is a back and forth, cat and mouse quest where nothing is ultimately achieved by the end of the film.

Which brings me to: Finn and Rose.

Finn, or should I say the writing of this character, disappointed me in this film and I left incredibly frustrated. From the trailers and TV spots I expected to see Finn and new character Rose (who I was enormously excited to see for both diversity reasons as well as her portrayal by the amazing Kelly Marie Tran) infiltrating the First Order undercover where we would ultimately see Finn finally rid himself of the burden of his unfinished business with the Order, particularly with Captain Phasma. I hoped to see Finn tackle the trauma of returning to the place that birthed him into a life of indoctrination and anticipated a showdown between himself and Phasma who was ultimately representative of his suffering. Instead, Finn (after disappointingly initially attempting to escape the Resistance) along with unknown Resistance mechanic Rose are sent secretly by Poe to put an end to the tracking of the Resistance fleet by the First Order. This arc was convoluted and even positive reviews will tell you that their adventure is unnecessary and unexciting. Providing little to absolutely nothing for the ending of the film, Finn and Rose’s adventure felt like a trip right out of Star Wars especially on Canto Bight, where every alien species in sight was blanketed in brown and absent of the diversity and colour we were introduced to in the prequels. The character shrouded in secrecy by Lucasfilm up until the release of this film, DJ (portayed by Benicio del Toro) whom Finn and Rose meet along the way (much to their later dismay) was additionally not at all worth the mystery that surrounded him and delivered nothing but a petite punch to what little direction this film had. When the time came for them to go undercover as First Order officers, the battle I so looked forward to seeing between Finn and Phasma was short and as a consequence anticlimactic. If that were not disappointing enough, by the film’s end pairing Finn and Rose together romantically with little foundation for this plot point felt cheap and took away from the heroic moments they did have throughout the film. Whilst I don’t personally believe any romance is necessary between Rey and Finn at all or for any character for that matter,The Force Awakens did poke at the possibility and this was only furthered by Finn’s constant mentioning of Rey throughout The Last Jedi. This caused any romantic direction for Rose and Finn to additionally seem one sided on Rose’s part.

Luke. I struggle to decide where to begin in writing about one of my all time favourite Star Wars characters in this film, mostly because I am genuinely insulted at how the character whose heart and spirit was the savior of the original trilogy was treated. Despite Mark Hamill making it publicly known that he initially completely disagreed with the direction Johnson wanted to take Luke in in this trilogy, I did not fear a change for Luke Skywalker. I was excited to see what could torture Luke’s soul so much that he would isolate himself from everything and everyone he has ever known and place himself alone on an island with the sole purpose to die there (as he makes clear in the film), wishing for the Jedi to come to an eternal end. I expected something, being either an action from Rey or a reminder of his old self, to eventually charge him back into action, allowing us to see a changed Luke Skywalker but one who still held all the heart-warming elements of his personality we have come to love. I know this would have been a predictable route and that we were told to expect the unexpected, but I will not shift from the belief that this is what would have been most true to Luke’s character.

Luke acknowledges early on that leaving the island as a one-man force against the First Order will do little to change the drastic state of the fight and I agreed with this. I agreed with his feelings of failure and disappointment after having his nephew destroy his new Jedi order and the unquestionable devotion he put into it. After all, this was a character we know has always followed his heart and to have that backfire would undoubtedly shake him and his core values. What I did not agree with was the extremely snarky attitude of the character, one that would leave Rey hopelessly chasing after him in circles around the island. One that would leave her to sleep without comfort and shelter, one that would refuse to train her despite two small lessons he agreed to give her in some cold-hearted attempts, in which once realising that she had great potential leads him to abandon her in her fear. Luke never returns to the fight with Rey in the Millennium Falcon, although we do at least get to see him momentarily revisit it. He doesn’t oversee the training of a new apprentice. Luke remains on the island and in an utterly bizarre end, he projects himself apparently so powerfully through the force into battle with Kylo Ren whilst actually still in meditation on Ahch-To and somehow gains a cocky and uncomfortably amusing persona (he slow motion dodges Kylo’s hits and winks awkwardly enough to almost break the fourth wall) as a now all powerful Jedi master. This effort presents him as seemingly immortal until it is over and we see Luke disappear into his cloak in front of a sunset much like Obi-Wan’s death in A New Hope. However much like the final confrontation with Kylo Ren it is confusing, unclear and most of all dissatisfying as it doesn’t even feel real, especially as we have never seen the force used in this way before and much like Leia’s use of the force in this film it is quite jarring. I’m already preparing for the “Is Luke Skywalker really dead?” theories, although I do believe with the film’s ending that the answer is yes. It is clear that this trilogy wants to be free of the burden of appealing to original fans of the franchise in ridding itself of Lucas’ founding characters to entirely become its own – which whatever that is, is also totally ambiguous in this film’s cluttered and shambolic end. The destruction of the Skywalker lightsaber was infuriating to say the least, not only as a metaphor for Disney’s cleansing of anything remotely Lucas in this franchise but as an insult to the franchise’s most iconic characters – Anakin and Luke. I felt as if I were witnessing a punch in the gut to Luke saying “I am a Jedi, like my father before me”. The way this trilogy began already majorly undermined the victories of Return of the Jedi, but this film went even beyond that as if it were to render it meaningless especially with the characterisation of Luke. I unapologetically hate everything Disney has done with Luke Skywalker especially as I truly believe that in his heart he is truly the child of his mother, Padmé and this film unlike the original trilogy following the prequels was in no way reflective of that. And I’m not even going to give time to that bizarre green milk and fish scene.

In no way do I mean disrespect to the amazing Carrie Fisher when I express criticism of Leia in this film and what she was given to do. Of course as always it is amazing to see Leia doing what she does best – where she is in a position of power as General Organa and fighting ever so bravely for the Resistance. As mentioned before, I was incredibly disappointed with the Resistance arc considering the Star Wars universe provides endless possibilities for arcs that exceed dwindling fuel supply. Yes, I understand that this was supposed to be more of a ‘war film’ than previous episodes and thus resources and lack of them are a reality of that, but considering this has never been an evident problem particularly during Star Wars: The Clone Wars and additionally how exaggerated this difficulty was by the duration of the arc it took me out of the film. When Rian Johnson and others had stated that Leia’s ending had been left untouched and that she leaves this film with a definitive and dignified end, I expected something big from Leia. Instead we largely see Leia pondering in this film and reprimanding Poe. No I did not want Leia killed, but considering she spent the majority of this film in a coma I feel an actual end to her story here would have been more effective. I hated that she was sidelined by a coma as if any other storyline other than her being unconscious wouldn’t have been better for her. She’s the Leia and she deserved to be able to leave a lasting punch in The Last Jedi. I was so excited to see Leia use the force, but what we saw was the moment that took me out of the film the most. It was quite frankly cringe worthy and uncomfortable to watch and I’m sure many who did enjoy the film would still agree. I felt as if I were Han Solo, desperate to shout “that’s not how the force works!”. I feel that with the knowledge of Carrie’s passing, with some clever editing they could have easily given Holdo’s final act for the Resistance to Leia. It would have truly showcased Leia as the ultimate Resistance fighter. Instead, I fear a poorly executed off screen death.

The Last Jedi has long endured the speculation of force ghosts ever since its’ predecessor, particularly with the release of concept art for the return of Anakin’s force ghost. An appearance of Obi-Wan was practically expected by many including by myself, especially as his voice was heard in The Force Awakens and it would have been fitting to see his reintroduction with the recent news of the Kenobi standalone film. It would have been the perfect way to tie all three trilogies together for continuity purposes, which I already felt this trilogy was in need of. Despite my pro-prequel agenda which I will admit to without shame, I believe this was completely necessary for this film. To have the return of Anakin particularly would have served so many uses whether he spoke to Luke, Rey or Kylo Ren. In an era that lives in the shadow of Darth Vader (who has several mentions in this film), if anyone’s input was needed it was the man behind the mask’s. Instead, original trilogy nostalgia was again used to drive the audience with the return of the clumsily edited addition of force ghost Yoda. If you know me personally you would be aware that I am not a fan of the character at all, but with that aside the Yoda we did see I still believe to be out of character. I do not believe that Yoda would have encouraged the complete removal (well literal burning) of the Jedi teachings even after the rise and fall of the Empire. Modifications and large ones at that yes, but a complete disregard for them I do not feel he would be an advocate for. I fear such a lack of rules regarding force users now will pose more problems for future films more than anything else as it now seems unclear who gets to hold a lightsaber and who does not.

Rey and her parentage continued to be built up throughout this film and I won’t lie and say it wasn’t my number one question going into this film. I did expect her to be no one, but I also expected some sort of alternative (and original) reason for her strength with the force. Whilst I don’t expect every strong force user in the galaxy to be a Skywalker or a descendant of someone related to or in affiliation with one, Rey as the daughter of some unknown junk dealers will not leave this movie free of Mary Sue claims (although I don’t intend to promote those claims either). If she had the force and had undergone training both in the previous film and in this film she would be free to express such strength but without it, Rey feels poorly written and left me not caring for her as much as I had truly hoped to in this film. The lightsaber plot point was also completely thrown out of the window with it now not so seemingly belonging to Rey anymore. Rey was barely trained in this film, so nothing should have changed since just weeks earlier in film time. If we are being told to accept that she is so powerful on her own, why is her power continuously linked to Kylo Ren’s by Johnson in this film? Rey also felt extremely poorly written by Johnson due to a very clear lack of continuity with the character between this film and the last, especially considering that The Last Jedi picked up just moments from The Force Awakens and Rey should not have suffered any discrepancies in character at all. Of course she was not going to be as bubbly and excitable as she had been in the previous film, but so much about Rey was wrong in this film. The Rey who had no problem telling men to stop taking her hand and that she would not give them anything became a Rey that suffered forced and utterly unnecessary sexual tension and who became flustered at the sight of a shirtless man. It is completely out of character for Rey to have even considered trusting Kylo Ren, as if he had not just killed someone she saw as a father figure just weeks before when all she has ever wanted was family. Rey cries at Kylo Ren proving yet again even after a brief team up with her that all he wants is power, again as if she should not already hate this man with every fibre of her being. Even Rey’s identity quest is yielded to Kylo Ren as it is he who reveals her parentage to her. Rey is never left to stand on her own in this film, instead she is forced into a somewhat parallel arc with Ren that never allows her the same independence as she exemplified in the dynamics we see within her friendship with Finn. Rey desperately needs to be written into some sort of solidarity where she can finally have her own concrete idea of herself and I believe this would most effectively occur in a situation where this trilogy’s big three finally unite and share the same path (and in doing so additionally allowing for a more concise end to the frayed path The Last Jedi has created).

Lastly, Snoke. His early scenes with Kylo Ren genuinely had me thinking that the character was far more terrifying than I had initially ever expected. I knew that the intention was for him to be more evil than Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious and I began to prepare myself for this. However, the first issue I found with the Supreme Leader was that we still are never offered a backstory or context for the character. We know Snoke is old and lived to see the rise and end of Darth Vader. So where was he during that time? How did he come to power? Why does he not know that it was Vader who defeated the Emperor and brought down the Empire, returning to the light as Anakin Skywalker? Rey is apparently made eventually aware of this, but neither Kylo Ren nor Snoke seem to be aware despite having far more of an interest in the man that the galaxy feared the most. The other great conflict I had with this character was that for someone apparently so powerful, he was killed so easily. For him to not have the ability to sense a lightsaber being turned against him by his own apprentice was the thing I was most surprised got through the writing room, especially considering the reason Vader was never able to overthrow the Emperor all those years was because Palpatine would have sensed such a betrayal through the force. Someone supposedly more powerful than Palpatine not being able to do the same was unrealistic and disappointing particularly because I enjoyed Snoke and Kylo’s scenes in the first act of the film, as well as the first act of the film in general.

Overall the film felt crammed, messy and long. Much of the film could have been shown the light of the editing room again to tighten the many series of events occurring simultaneously. Whilst beautifully shot with some breathtaking cinematography and stunning visuals, some shots felt included for the sake of showing what magic could be worked with the camera and CGI in 2017. This film suffered from the weight of a tiresome back-and-forth battle with an inconclusive end that didn’t seem to forge any path for its sequel and where neither side of the fight ever actually ever feeling large enough to dominate the galaxy in the way that the Empire did. The film was crowded with characters but barren of any development for them, in some cases true character not seemingly present at all. This film suffered from the consequences of mystery box storytelling, where no reward is gained by the audience because the “mysteries” that have been hyped up detract from all else. “I am your father” is arguably the greatest cinematic reveal of all time, but it was not advertised to be that way prior to the film’s release, allowing it to have its’ full intended shock value effect. A movie sold to audiences as one that holds great reveals and twists in an already established and ever-expanding universe was bound to disappoint, especially with fan culture today. Additionally, the humour of this film was often jarring and too “2017” for the Star Wars saga. Not already being a fan of Kylo Ren as a villain in any way, I would surprisingly have to say Adam Driver gave the best performance. However it is hard to say where Kylo Ren goes next, having now eliminated both his enemies (Han and Luke) as well as his accountability to the Supreme Leader. I additionally found the soundtrack for this film to be the least memorable Star Wars score to date, although Rey’s Theme made a welcome return.

Ultimately I know many people have loved and will love this film and I think everyone has “their” Star Wars. Mine is clearly not in this era and I’m happy to accept that. It isn’t because my ‘ship’ or theory did not come true, but rather my worst case scenarios did. Yes I’ll see Episode IX, but I now have a completely new idea and set of expectations for what Star Wars is today and it just doesn’t happen to be my favourite. Again, I never wanted to hate this trilogy for the sake of it and I had no intention to. I am of course also ready to accept that there are those with opinions that are the complete opposite of mine.

Now if you need me, I’ll be rewatching Episodes I-VI.

[kerishaharris]

Going, going, (not quite but almost) gone: the sad state of local newspapers

True story: As a young, would-be journalist, I applied at the behest of my high school journalism teacher to the Hugh N. Boyd Minorities in Journalism Workshop. The program was a two-week intensive workshop open to high school students across New Jersey with an interest in journalism. It promised to provide the 15 or so selected participants with real-world experience in the field absolutely free of charge, as local newspapers across the state sponsored the event, covering all expenses for selected students. Having always been rather introverted and somewhat shy, I didn’t think my writing was good enough to make the cut. But to my surprise, I ended up being selected and was sponsored by my hometown newspaper, The Record of Bergen County, aka The Record (or, so it was called at the time). The experience was transformative for me, and gave me my first insight into life as a journalist. I’d go on to study journalism as an undergraduate student at the University of Florida, starting off in print but switching to broadcast, and working professionally in the field for more than a decade for CNN, NBC, ABC, Univision, and more. And for a time, I briefly took a job as the lead social media editor for none other than the local newspaper that helped give me my start in the business: The Record of Bergen County.

(fun fact: The Record broke the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal which made national and global headlines) This week, I chose to take a closer look at local newspapers, and in doing so, briefly examine why they’ve struggled to remain relevant in a changing industry (I’ll only scratch the surface, because I could probably write an entire dissertation on this topic). It’s actually quite sad, as I firmly believe that local newspapers and beat reporters are critical to freedom of the press and unbiased, balanced, and fair reporting. Sadly, the digital age has done irrevocable damage to this industry. And I hate to say it, but digital and social media are almost solely responsible for the demise of newspapers, and sadly, I’m a part of that problem too. As a tail-end millennial who came of age with the internet, if the news isn’t on my smartphone or easily accessible via an app or a free website, I quickly lose interest and seek my information elsewhere. I can’t remember the last time I had a newspaper subscription, or even purchased a newspaper. I recognize how important they are, I just have so many other options for news consumption now that I just don’t turn to newspapers anymore. Freedom of the press

Local newspapers have been part of the fabric of this country since as early as the 1600’s. Every journalism student remembers studying the great circulation wars of the 1800’s between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. If not, everybody remembers how fun it was when instead of class, our teachers took a day off from teaching and instead showed “Newsies” on VHS in history class. It never gets old. 

(truer words have never been said, Jack Kelly) But the rise of television news, and eventually digital and social media, pushed local newspapers aside, as audiences had a quicker, easier way to access news on-demand instead of waiting for the morning paper. According to a recent report by researchers at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 300 more newspapers failed since the fall of 2018 bringing the death toll to 2,100. That’s 25 percent of the 9,000 newspapers that were being published just 15 years ago. It also noted that there are about 200 “news deserts,” or communities without any local newspapers. Most of those news deserts are in economically challenged rural areas, but more and more, even the economically advantaged suburbs are feeling the pinch too. 

(via UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media) The danger here? Local papers highlight and elevate local stories we might not otherwise know about, but we absolutely need to care about. What’s going on in our schools, with our local elected officials, within our communities, local zoning and budget decisions that impact our daily lives. They provide a micro-level guide to the things that impact us every single day. So if nearly all of your news is coming from social and digital media and their sometimes questionable algorithms, or television news that’s almost undoubtedly biased (at least in the U.S.), you really have to question whether you’re receiving fair, unbiased coverage. Dying, but not (quite) dead It was encouraging to see that while the industry is undoubtedly suffering, there are still some people who often consume their news via local newspapers. According to the Pew Research Center, people aged 65 and older account for most of the existing newspaper audience, roughly four in 10 of whom say they still often get their information from newspapers. This is about what I would expect from the older generation, but this sadly doesn’t say much for younger generations and their newspaper consumption. Only 18 percent of people age 50-64, 8 percent of people age 30 to 49, and a mere 2 percent of people age 18-29 say that they often get their news from newspapers. 

And even among those 65 and older, newspapers are a pretty distant second in terms of the source they visit most often for news, as 81 percent of people in this age group cite television as the source they often use for news.

If you can’t beat them, join them In my brief time as social media editor for The Record, it was obvious to me that the paper was trying hard to adapt to a changing world, opening themselves up to methods they’d never had to use before. The same was true of most newspapers, even national newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. It has been interesting to see the ways in which these newspapers have branched out into new forms of media to adapt to the way people consume news today. I highlighted this in a previous post, but I’ve been impressed by the NYT’s foray into LinkedIn Live, creating immersive, engaging conversations on key stories, and giving the audience the chance to actively participate with the media. At its core, I’ve always said that the best thing about social/digital media was that it took what were always one-way conversations, and made them into two-way experiences for the audience and the content creator. And speaking of the Times, their efforts on Instagram are among my favorite. Beautiful portraits that would once only live on paper are now shared in a beautifully curated feed that is always so pleasing to the eye. Often, these are stories that wouldn’t typically make the front page of the paper, but the visuals are so stunning that they tell a story in and of themselves.

(via the New York Times on Instagram) Using local newspapers as a communications professional

Part of my renewed interest in newspapers came about when I was a communications manager for a small nonprofit organization. Our primary goal was to engage in state level advocacy on behalf of the state’s charter schools. Effectively that means, catch the eyes and ears of lawmakers and state your case so that when budget time comes around, they’ll make sure to enact a budget that ensures the survival of these schools. I learned that these lawmakers and influencers pay close attention to newspapers, perhaps even more than other forms of media, and so getting our agenda into the local newspaper was a large part of the work that I did. I would write (well, ghostwrite) opinion pieces for senior leadership, students and parents, and pitch them for placements in the local papers in the districts of the lawmakers we needed to reach, I would develop relationships with local education reporters, invite them to press events, give them quotes for their stories, organize editorial board meetings and more. Newspapers became a critical part of the work that I did, as were the relationships I built with members of the newspaper industry, and I’d imagine the same is true for other communications professionals. Much to my (pleasant) surprise, there are still some brands doing important work with traditional print newspapers. According to FORBES, “MasterCard placed a two-page spread in The New York Times, almost unheard of these days, to articulate its support for the LGBTQIA+ community and MasterCard’s support for GLAAD’s NEON Legacy Series, a photo and video collection produced by Black LGBTQIA+ creators. The ad states MasterCard’s commitment to equal treatment, equal opportunity and equal rights. The ad features both the MasterCard logo and the GLAAD logo.” I can’t find a photo of the ad anywhere, but I’m sure it was great! Of course, this is very different from the way the general public engages with newspapers, as they’re looking for unbiased updates on what’s going on in their communities. But it’s still nice to know there are still some communicators out here tapping into the power of local newspapers to promote their brands, and I was one of them.

(sigh. a beautiful sight)

A sad future for local newspapers Sadly, none of the statistics point to a revival of newspapers anytime soon, although I’m holding out hope. With fewer local papers, and increased reliance on (often biased) television and (often wrong) social media for news, I worry that this is just one of the unfortunate ills of the digital age we’re living in. Sadly, many local papers are unable to stay afloat despite employing every possible adaptation in the book, often succumbing to major buyouts by huge conglomerates, resulting in newspapers that are controlled by corporate interests and offer no true local, unbiased reporting. 

And as for The Record? It suffered a similar fate in 2016 after it was ultimately bought out by Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain. For folks like me from northern New Jersey, it was the end of an era. I still remember being saddened when I learned the news, even feeling a tad guilty that I didn’t stick around long enough to perhaps contribute to a more favorable outcome. While my time there was brief, I worked alongside some of the smartest, most passionate and hard-working people I’d ever met. They lived and breathed northern New Jersey, and they put their heart and soul into every letter of every story that went to print. But what happened with The Record has sadly happened to so many local newspapers with no signs of slowing down. As communications and marketing professionals, we certainly can play a role in trying to help revive the industry, but my fear is that any efforts we make would be too little too late.

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/karmic-tools-weekly-forecast-february-3-9-2019/

Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast ~ February 3 – 9, 2019

Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast ~ February 3 – 9, 2019

a message from Kelly M. Beard

The Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast covers the current planetary transits which affect people in different ways and to various degrees of intensity. Take notice when it is a Personal planet (Sun / Moon / Mercury / Venus / Mars) interacting with a Social (Jupiter/Saturn) or Collective planet (Uranus / Neptune/Pluto). And pay extremely close attention when it is a Social planet interacting with a Collective planet because that means something *big* is brewing that will move large groups of people along their evolutionary paths. Tuning in to the energy and rhythm of the planets can serve as a useful *guide* as you move along your Individual Path. It also helps to understand your place within the context of the larger Social & Collective Story. Below, you will find out how these energies tend to manifest, as well as guidance and direction. 

*NOTE*  There are some days when there are NO CONTACTS (besides the Moon), please note that there are no missing entries, we just list the actual Activations of each week + the day they happen.

Weekly Forecast: February 3 – 9, 2019 

2/7 ~ Mercury (your voice) ~sextile~ Jupiter (expansion):

Where the above (Sun sextile Jupiter) is more about YOU, this activation is more about your consciousness, ideas, thoughts & concepts (Mercury), which Jupiter expands in some way, helping you to ‘think bigger’, edit your personal Story and step up your game in some way. This is also a great energy to work with if you are in school, learning something new, expanding your knowledge base or gather new tools & information to support your goals. Your dreams are tapping you on the shoulder, demanding some attention. Mundane issues are not your concern right now, you want to figure out how to create the life you’ve been imagining. This energy also provokes within you the awareness & understanding that being generous naturally attracts generosity to you. The big picture and overall patterns which have led you to this point are being brought into the light. Feeling clear, sharp, alert and optimistic, you begin to realize that anything you can imagine (or remember), you can achieve.

2/7 ~ Sun (core Self) ~sextile~ Jupiter (optimism):

This energy is sometimes considered “lucky” but the success you achieve under this influence, is more likely due to a positive outlook and clear vision of who you are and what you want. Your life is expanding, your self-understanding is deepening and it will be easier to be around other people of higher consciousness, improving things and creating opportunities that benefit a larger number of people. There is a healthy dose of optimism around some grand plan, and things are moving, but make sure to do the foundation work to support this larger vision as it manifests in reality. If you are a teacher/guide/leader of any sort, this energy supports your group efforts, so giving workshops, seminars or new classes is totally supported and will benefit you, while serving others.

2/7 ~ Mercury (expression) ~sextile~ Mars (passion): 

This is a healthy selfish energy (aka self-preservation). Do not hold back this week. If you have a big dream or serious goal you have been working toward, then this is the time that may attract the assistance you need from the Universe. This is definitely a “work” energy, however, it brings with it the caveat that it is best if you work alone on something important to you. No one else is (or ever will be) as dedicated to your goal as YOU will be, nor should you expect them to be. You are now connected to the extra energy it takes to push your goals to the next level, bringing you a sense of accomplishment while outlining the next tasks to be done. Opportunities present themselves all the time, all you have to do is be ready!! If you are given the opportunity to make a presentation, go for it! Your clarity, energy & enthusiasm will be unmatched and that’s what people respond to. Don’t choose this time to be “shy” or doubt that you’re ready – you are definitely ready … otherwise you wouldn’t be here!! One of my favorite sayings is: “At the moment of commitment, the Universe conspires to assist you!” It’s time to decide if you are committed and how truly committed you are, to your own success.  

2/9 ~ Mercury (acumen) ~sextile~ Uranus (the Awakener):

This energy says, it’s time to go with the flow – “new and different” being the flow. It wants to shake it up a bit – in a good way. However, if you feel like new and different is more like chaos and disruption, then you need to reflect and see if you aren’t being too rigid. Unwillingness to go with the (new) flow will make this energy harder to handle. This is also a good time to try to resolve any old issues or challenges – they are not going away without resolution and conscious release. Perhaps you’ve been trying the same thing over and over and it’s time to try something NEW – now is the time new ideas can/will come to you. Pay attention! Try to be open and receptive to unusual things, events or ideas and allow room for spontaneity. You may think you are doing one thing and look up and being doing something completely different – be open to exploring the new path! 

~~~~~~~~~

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[garkomedia1]

Bernie Has Feelings, Too! | The Nation

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders greets supporters after a rally at Brooklyn College in New York on March 2, 2019. (Reuters / Andrew Kelly)

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Bernie Sanders’s first rally of his presidential run featured something that no other Democratic candidate can borrow, imitate, or adopt. It wasn’t a unique policy or a left-wing talking point: It was his own story.

Ad Policy

The location of the Saturday rally, and the one that followed on Sunday, was meant to draw attention to Sanders’s personal history. The first took place at Brooklyn College, where he first went to college, not far from the “three-and-a-half-room apartment” he grew up in on King’s Highway. The second rally was in Chicago, the city where, as a transfer student at the University of Chicago, Sanders started his over 50 years of left-wing rabble-rousing as an activist protesting housing and school desegregation.

“I know where I came from. That is something I will never forget,” he said.

Sanders’s speech bore his now-familiar litany of policies and adversaries: the “starvation wages” paid by Walmart and fast-food companies, the Titanic wealth of the Walton family, or the minuscule tax bills paid by Amazon and General Motors. But Sanders—who once told The New York Times Magazine, “I do not like personality profiles”—also presented himself as more than a vessel for progressive policy ideas. Now that Cory Booker, who previously criticized the Obama reelection campaign for talking too harshly about Bain Capital, has co-sponsored Sanders’s Medicare for All bill and supports a jobs guarantee, Sanders might have felt the need to show that he’s more than his ideas.

“Coming from a lower-middle-class family, I will never forget how money or, really, lack of money was always a point of stress in our family,” Sanders said. “My experience as a child growing up in a family that struggled economically powerfully influenced my values,” he went on, describing growing up the son of a Polish-Jewish immigrant paint salesman who lost nearly his entire family in the Holocaust.

“Unlike Donald Trump, who shut down the government and left 800,000 federal employees without income to pay their bills, I know what it’s like to be in a family that lives paycheck to paycheck,” Sanders said. “I did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to buy luxury skyscrapers, casinos, and country clubs. I did not come from a family that gave me a $200,000 allowance every year beginning at the age of 3. As I recall, my allowance was 25 cents a week.”

The near-freezing rally at Brooklyn College was attended by a diverse, mostly young group of supporters that included stroller-rolling parents, Supreme-wearing twentysomethings, a woman wearing the “Bernie” sweater made famous by actress and model Emily Ratajkowski, along with older union members and Brooklyn College staff. Dozens of volunteers, hopping and moving to stay arm, ushered and guided the crowds in the campus’s snow-covered quad.

Current Issue

It was nothing like Sanders’s 2015 announcement—largely made to reporters outside the Capitol that spring—that kicked off his last presidential run. The subsequent mobilization of resources and people by Sanders both as a candidate and a roaming progressive activist in less than four years was a manifest demonstration of precisely why many Democrats have veered to the left in order to head off his campaign.

Those core supporters don’t care so much about Sanders’s biography, which suggests that the biographical turn is an effort to win over voters who saw him as a spoiler. Nearly everyone I spoke to identified either income inequality or health care as the issues that were pushing them to support Sanders from the start, and seemed at best unimpressed by other candidates’ taking on similar policies (although several expressed a fondness for Elizabeth Warren).

“Bernie has been more consistent,” said Zach Eisen, a videographer and Democratic Socialists of America member from Queens. “He’s shifted the paradigm.”

While admitting that there was an “emotional tug” from their shared Brooklyn roots, Liz Dorval, a social-media coordinator from Bensonhurst, said that Sanders’s history “fundamentally didn’t matter,” and that his focus on stagnant wages and high student debt “resonates with me.”

Lynn Cole-Walker, an adjunct at New York City College of Technology, said she supports Sanders because “this country has got to change” and “this is our last chance.” The challenges of income inequality and climate change were “both equal in my mind.”

Andrea Nandoo a 24-year-old marketing analyst who also sees single-payer health care as one of her core issues, said she liked Warren as well, but said Sanders was “more genuine” and that she doubted how committed Kamala Harris was to single payer.

In 2016 and still today, Sanders’s most passionate supporters, especially online, often insist that their affection for Sanders was solely the result of his policy positions. This reluctance to tackle awkward questions about representation and historical firsts—was it more important to have a socialist, or a centrist woman?—engendered a lasting bitterness from the 2016 Democratic primary that persists today.

Some supporters at the Brooklyn rally said they were still bruised by 2016. Cole-Walker said it was “completely unfair” and “totally rigged,” while Ernie Searle, a 67-year-old parking attendant at Citi Field in Queens with a handlebar mustache and a history of left-wing activism dating back to 1959, said that the primary process so disgusted him that he even registered as a Republican to protest the Democratic National Committee and that he “regretted” voting for Clinton in the general election.

Like anything Sanders does, the rally quickly became a flashpoint online between his supporters and Clinton loyalists who have transitioned into all-purpose critics of the senator. When a reporter from HuffPost posted a video of a multiracial but largely white reggae band playing before the speeches began, it was gleefully spread by Sanders critics who saw it as an encapsulation of his supposedly race-ignorant “brocialist” politics. A former Clinton campaign spokesperson said—incorrectly—on MSNBC that Sanders took 23 minutes into his speech to mention race or gender.

“I did not come from a family that taught me to build a corporate empire through housing discrimination, I protested housing discrimination, was arrested for protesting school segregation, and one of the proudest days of my life was attending the March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom led Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Sanders.

While the personal history he put forth was essentially a potted narrative that skipped over 50-plus years of Sanders’s life in snow-white Vermont—including his entire time in elected office—it still offered something important to voters who didn’t show up for a rally 11 months before the Iowa caucuses: It told a story.

Unlike Obama, Sanders can’t easily weave his personal history into a narrative about the progressive development of the country. He can’t do what Clinton did, either, and embody the aspirations of a historically marginalized group that’s been excluded from power at the highest levels. In fact, Sanders projects reluctance; he can’t shake his lived-in crankiness even when talking about the parts of his life that would be appealing to Democratic voters who don’t identify as democratic socialists.

Still, adopting a more traditional campaigning style is more than a strategic choice to help win one election. It’s part of a long journey over more than 40 years, from a third-party gadfly to holding elected office as a socialist to serving alongside and working within the Democratic Party. Sanders knows where he comes from; he also knows it could pave his way to the White House.

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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8312273 https://hashtaghighways.com/2019/03/05/bernie-has-feelings-too-the-nation/

[coolfreeenthusiaststudent-blog]

Critical essays carson mccullers Carson McCullers Critical Essays

For example, the rapture of a classical concerto transports Alison Langdon and her houseboy, Anacleto; a deaf-mute’s radio plays unheard; and the harmony of a chain gang’s song lifts each member’s soul. Carson McCullers Critical Essays. Carson McCullers American Literature Analysis. Spiritual isolation is the abiding theme of Carson McCullers’s fiction. At the core of modern life, she saw a tragic failure of individuals to connect with one another emotionally, to return love, or to commit themselves to a socially edifying pattern of shared values. Her characters struggle through agonies of psychic stress to realize the radical loneliness in their lives. Sexual deviation, violence, and sexual initiation in adolescence move them to their personal crises. Typically, her characters live in perfectly normal surroundings, such as a small mill town or an Army post in peacetime, but her revelation of their inner lives is so penetrating and their psychic turmoil is so grotesque that they seem to inhabit a world of existential dread. Overwrought inward obsessions define characters such as Weldon Penderton, Mick Kelly, or Frankie Addams, though their predicaments may appear absurd to ordinary people. Perhaps no American writer since Edgar Allan Poe has painted the mental landscape as well as McCullers; she has deftly delineated the subtle nuances of psychic states lying along the continuum linking psychosis and neurosis with normalcy. Her relation to the literary tradition of southern gothic fiction is easily misunderstood. It is true that her characters include deaf-mutes, lunatics, criminals, fanatics, a giant in love with a dwarf, eunuchs, perverts, and variously mutilated, disfigured, and misshapen people; yet, the grotesquery in this gallery was not designed merely for sensational effect or regional humor. McCullers uses her bizarre characters to demonstrate how intricately the usual and the unusual are entangled in human nature, and, as a result, how delicate is that balance of wildly divergent impulses called normality. To overemphasize the grotesquery in her fiction may obscure one of her most valuable insights: Spiritual isolation is a universal condition of modern humankind and not the result of individual eccentricity. A radical inability to connect meaningfully with others traps McCullers’s most memorable characters within themselves. Her best characters yearn to find meaning in life and to carve out a victorious place in the order of things. Mick Kelly aspires to master the cosmic harmonies of music and find fame on the concert stage. Doctor Copeland works to free blacks from the bondage of segregation.... View more ...

[theonyxpath]

Yes, we stumbled back to a fully attended Monday Meeting today – the first one where we were all there in quite some time with GenCon and vacations and all. A good and informational meeting nevertheless.

They’re not all that way, though. We have 50ish of them a year, and sometimes the energy level all around is low. Sometimes the upset level is really high, like if we’re all under stress or if a social media flame-war is flaring around us. Sometimes I’m the crabby one, and so I set us off in the wrong direction. Feelings get hurt when you have a lot of intensely dedicated and creative folks trying to wrestle our schedules together and make them work.

But. Not today.

A lot of that, no doubt is because we’re seeing movement on projects that, for a variety of reasons, had been bogged down for a long time. Not everything that is lagging but most of the real long-term ones, so if we can catch up on the latest and keep getting tighter on the newer projects: we’ll be rockin’.

That’s the result of the very hard work our crew put forth in the first half of the year. Not just their personal work of writing, developing, editing, but their efforts at working together and helping our freelance talent focus and push their work forward. Helping others create is, it turns out, really difficult!

(Just as examples, I’m looking at WoD: Ghost Hunters, M20 Book of the Fallen, and Signs of Sorcery for Mage: The Awakening as the most egregious examples. Even Wraith20 has gone to press and the Scion core books are working together they way we have tried so long to make happen).

    Dystopia Rising: Evolution Mutant art by Aaron Riley

    Our Dystopia Rising: Evolution Kickstarter is also lurching forward right now into the wastelands of a Kickstarter’s time-frame – that very slow pledge time before things pick up close to the end. If you pledged; thanks so much and please tell your friends. If you haven’t, here are some reasons why we think this is a very cool game to play and might inspire you to check out the KS here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/dystopia-rising-evolution-tabletop-rpg

1- Characters don’t necessarily die forever when they are killed. The path to a shambling zombie starts with your first resurrection at the behest of an entity known as the Gravemind. This means, gameplay-wise, that you can play Dystopia Rising: Evolution with a sense of lurking doom ala The Walking Dead, or as a contrast, you can play balls-to-the-wall like the Mad Max universe because you can blow up real good and still come back!

Could the Gravemind be pulled from DR:E and used in any of our other games? Well, just as an example I thought of this afternoon as I thought about this blog, I’m wondering if the Gravemind could arise as a rival to the God-Machine in a Chronicles of Darkness chronicle. It is clearly messing with the order set down by the G-M…or is it?

2- As I think I mentioned last week, Eddy adapted the Storypath System to create a simple but strong system for finding, retrieving, and pulling useful items from scrap. If your thing is using your real world knowledge in a post-apocalyptic setting, this here’s a built-in framework in the game to really enable you to use that info. With physical items also being degraded by the Gravemind, being able to fabricate the things needed for survival is one of the best and integrated uses for a “crafting” system in a game I’ve ever heard of.

3- While Dystopia Rising: Evolution is definitely a grim and scary post-apocalyptic world, it is also a world where settlements are surviving and growing. There is a sense of hope and community that can serve as a counterpoint and a backdrop to the hard tales of hard survivors making hard decisions. Included are rules for those settlements and how they can work (or not).

4- You don’t have to take my word for it. As we’ve done with almost all of our recent Kickstarters, we are releasing a section of the book each week and before the end of the KS backers will be able to download the complete edited text and dig in for their favorite sections!

      Changeling 20th Players Guide art by Drew Tucker

    As if you have not heard enough about this damn Dystopia Rising: Evolution game, I do strongly suggest that if you want to know about the thinking behind the game – and this is some really fascinating, in-depth, discussions of both the reasons for the game design and the thinking behind the last ten years of the game world’s creation and growth – that you download and listen to last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast.

Eddy interviews the very people that started Dystopia Rising as a LARP over a decade ago, Michael Pucci and Ashley Zdeb, and then created a tabletop RPG version that Dystopia Rising: Evolution is the new edition of. Some of the highlights of what they discuss are:

Eddy admits to an error in the Kickstarter

The history of Dystopia Rising

How Eddy and Onyx Path came into the picture

Faithful licensing vs “throw it all away if you want”

Disability as post-apocalypse trope

The struggles of introducing inclusivity over the past decade

The push and pull of abstracted social tension vs community building

The switch from 20+ Strains to 8 Lineages

Here the link to our Onyx Pathcast page on PodBean, although you can find it at your favorite podcast venue too: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

This Friday, the Terribly Terrific Trio will be back together and taking an in-depth deep dive into Vampire: The Masquerade, which makes sense considering our long history with it and the advent of V5, so it should be a good…no wait, dare I say it? A GREAT podcast this week! Yes!

    Changeling: The Lost 2e art by Mark Kelly

      Finally, although I added some info about this in our On Sale section below, just a word that sometime this week DTRPG.com will be running a week-long sale for 75% off of Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Ascension PDFs. Not just the 20th Anniversary ones we have created, but all of them back through time.

We’re thrilled to be able to work together with White Wolf to offer you folks this chance to catch up on anything you are looking for, particularly with all the discussion featuring WoD, by new fans and long-time ones as well, due to the V5 interest and publicity.

And we’ll have another, different, combined sale running the week after this one!

There you go, so much is going on you need a scorecard to keep track of our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

  BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

    The Dystopia Rising: Evolution Kickstarter funded in less than a day, and two sections of the Threat Guide companion PDF Stretch Goal have been added, which is a first-person guide with mechanics to the various threats facing survivors in the DR:E world, and we are shambling forward to open up a Community Content site for the game!

Dystopia Rising: Evolution will be powered by Onyx Path’s Storypath system, and includes all the rules you need to play as a survivor in the post-apocalypse, including rules for creating characters for up to 24 different Strains, variations on humanity that survived the Fall. It also has details on the powers of faith and psionics, along with advice on running action-adventure stories, webs of personal intrigue, or procedural investigations. And, finally, dozens of antagonists, including a variety of zombies and raiders to use in your series.

Throughout this Kickstarter campaign, we will be posting complete previews of the Dystopia Rising: Evolution manuscript as backer-only updates.

  ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

  ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

  OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

    Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

    DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

Starting later this week, DTRPG together with White Wolf and Onyx Path are having a one week massive 75% off sale on all Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Ascension PDFs!

  This Wednesday the original Scarred Lands Trilogy: Forsaken, Forsworn, and Forbidden by Richard Lee Byers, will now be available in PDF/ePub and physical trade paperback format PoDs on DriveThruRPG.com!

    CONVENTIONS!

From Fast Eddy Webb, we have these:

Eddy will be speaking at Broadleaf Writers Conference (September 22-23) in Decatur, GA. He’ll be there to talk about writing for interactive fiction, and hanging out with other writers who have far more illustrious careers. http://broadleafwriters.com/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference-speakers/

Eddy will also be a featured guest at Save Against Fear (October 12-14) in Harrisburg, PA. He’ll be running some Pugmire games, be available for autographs, and will sometimes accept free drinks. http://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

Monica Valentinelli will be a professional guest at Great Falls Gaming Convention in Montana the first week of October. http://gfgr.org/guests-of-honor/

Dixie Cochran will be at High Level Games Con in Atlantic City October 12-14, running a Women in Game Design panel, Eddy’s RPG Developer Bootcamp, and possibly making a surprise appearance at another event!

  And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)

  Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

  Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

  Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Fetch Quest (Pugmire)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

  Manuscript Approval:

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

  Editing:

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Dog and Cat Ready Made Characters (Monarchies of Mau) (With Eddy)

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Jumpstart (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

  Post-Editing Development:

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

  Indexing:

Changeling: The Lost 2e

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

  In Art Direction

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – KS is going.

M20: Gods and Monsters – AD’d and Contracted.

Geist 2e

The Realm

Trinity Continuum (Aeon and Core)

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – Finals coming in.

Chicago By Night – KS art contracted.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Fetch Quest – Finishing package design

  Proofing

Scion Hero – Putting in Neal’s changes

PTC: Night Horrors: The Tormented

Scion Origin – Doing Neall’s errata changes, and swapping out the font.

VtR: Guide to the Night

Lost 2e Screen – At WW for approval

Requiem Journals – At WW for approval

  At Press

Monarchies of Mau – Printing. Dice and buttons printing.

Cavaliers of Mars – At Studio2.

Wraith 20th – Prepping the interior Deluxe files, cover design sent to printer.

Monarchies of Mau Screen – At Studio2.

Cavaliers of Mars Screen – At Studio2.

Wraith 20 Screen – Printing.

Scion Dice – At fulfillment shipper.

Cav Talent cards – PoD proof coming.

SL Trilogy Pt 1,2,3 – On sale this Wednesday!

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Like every year for this week, it is worth it to celebrate the sacrifice made by all the special responders, fire-fighters, police, and other heroes who gave their lives trying to help during 911. We celebrate that they had that spark which exists in humanity that flares up in times of crisis and enables regular people to put the lives of terrified strangers before their own.

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/karmic-tools-weekly-forecast-june-9-15-2019/

Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast: June 9 – 15, 2019

Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast: June 9 – 15, 2019

By Kelly M. Beard

The video version of this forecast, as read by Kelly, is available here.

The Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast covers the current planetary transits which affect people in different ways and to various degrees of intensity. Take notice when it is a Personal planet (Sun / Moon / Mercury / Venus / Mars) interacting with a Social (Jupiter/Saturn) or Collective planet (Uranus / Neptune/Pluto). And pay extremely close attention when it is a Social planet interacting with a Collective planet because that means something *big* is brewing that will move large groups of people along their evolutionary paths. Tuning in to the energy and rhythm of the planets can serve as a useful *guide* as you move along your Individual Path. It also helps to understand your place within the context of the larger Social & Collective Story. Below, you will find out how these energies tend to manifest, as well as guidance and direction. 

*NOTE*  There are some days when there are NO CONTACTS (besides the Moon), please note that there are no missing entries, we just list the actual Activations of each week + the day they happen.

Weekly Forecast: June 9 – 15, 2019

6/9 ~ Sun (core essential Self) ~square~ Neptune (illusions & delusions): This activation can cause self-doubt, self-delusion and an overall confusion that seems to be sourced within or self-directed. It’s only temporary, this is just the Universe’s way of slowing you down so you can see where your goals may have been unrealistic. If your energy is low and you’re feeling challenged to see the bright side of things, it is better to just time-out, rest & replenish (if possible) and most of all, do not initiate any grand plans as you are not really seeing things as they truly are at this time. Luckily, this is a pretty short-lived activation.

6/10 ~ Sun (core essential Self) ~oppose~ Jupiter (expansion & learning): This energy is a double-edge sword in that you may “feel” positive and optimistic – which is a good thing – but it is also prone to excess – which brings us to the philosophy of “anything in moderation” or “balance in all things”. Be positive but be alert too! Beware of the urge to overdo it or over-extend yourself on any level. Use this energy to tap into your courageous side and attempt something you have avoided out of fear or doubt. There is a push-pull going on between your ego and your enthusiastic child within which demands that you find a proper expression for this energy. Also, beware of your enthusiasm provoking you to try to get others to see it from this point of view. You always have to be mindful of the fact that everyone is on their individual paths and may not be ready for what you’re bringing … and that’s okay – focus this energy back on your Self and it will serve you well. This energy tends to bring out the self-righteousness in us and that rarely leads where you are trying to go. What this energy is trying to tell us is that certain aspects of your Self and your Spiritual development are coming to a head and decisions need to be made which will affect your future. Pay attention – and try to get the lesson & the blessing of whatever is happening this week because it is trying to guide you to a new level … ready or not! Also keep in mind that it is an opposition, which always reminds us to watch for extremes and practice coming back to center consciously. The truth is you are 6-months into something that requires some integration. If you stabilize now, you can expand your life in positive ways and with more ease & grace.

6/14 ~ Mars (desires & actions) ~trine~ Neptune (dreams & visions): This energy is good for spiritual exploration, digging deeper into your place in the Cosmos and in relation to others. Your energy is best turned inward, as you find just how much who you are and what you want has changed over recent years and using this energy to infuse more depth into your heart’s desires. By infusing your dreams & visions for your Self, you naturally bless Others & the Universe. You may feel inclined to help others, but always balance that drive with some objectivity (are those you’re helping just as dedicated as you are to the common cause?) This is a very laid back energy that allows you time to take effective action on behalf of your dreams and spiritual growth, and clarify your personal needs & individual desires. Enjoy it!

6/14 ~ Mars (energy) ~oppose~ Saturn (stability): This energy is a mixed blessing so watch any extreme swings one way or another. Mars is all about energy, passion & movement and Saturn is all about stability, structure & foundation. When they are opposite each other, there can be a beautiful blend of energy & passion behind solid, productive work that yields long-term benefits. However, if you swing to petulant Mars, “I want my way!” ~ then Saturn’s response is, “It will be done the RIGHT way or not at all!” This energy brings lessons either way, usually around anger issues or long-standing upsets. You may feel “held back” although nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is you have to do certain ‘first things first’ and if/when you do things in “order”, success usually follows. If/when you rush and do things without thinking or planning, then mistakes inevitably follow and you have to do things over again. This is also the half-way mark of a 2yr cycle that gives you the opportunity to check in and see how things are progressing and make any necessary adjustments so you are successful at the culmination of the current cycle. (Look to the signs for more specifics.)

*****

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