#and the books will never give us a conclusive answer to that conundrum of a good king within an unjust hierarchy either

[branwinged]

every day someone here makes a post about a version of asoiaf in their head which is a lot more leftist than the series actually is. and that's fine because he's not writing a political pamphlet, he's writing a story which just sincerely investigates the realities of a lot of fantasy tropes while still using those tropes. the series is more about aristocratic conflict and how power can be exercised responsibly within that hierarchy and not the dismantling of said hierarchy. that would've been a very different type of story with very different pov characters. even dany's egalitarian streak is more out of noblesse oblige ("Why do the Gods make kings and queens if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves"). the iron throne happens to be a symbol of stasis in a series building up towards change (a dream of spring) which is why it has to go, but once it's gone there's still going to be a king in his castle and his true knight.

[quindolyn]

Better Kisser || Lily Evans

Word Count: 2228

Note: little bit of James x Reader, but I think it’s mostly focused on Lily, idfk at this point. I questioned my whole ass sexuality today because girls are pretty and we got this. I have come to the conclusion that I would let Lily absolutely rail me and then hold me afterwards.

Warnings: Kissing, alcohol, Lily is hot as shit, sue me, barely edited

Part 2

Masterlist

One thing was for sure, Sirius Black was an upright prick.

And there he was all cuddled up in his boyfriend’s arms, having lost his shirt to Marlene many rounds ago.

“You’re really daring me to kiss your best mate’s girlfriend?” You asked incredulously, hoping you had misheard him. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to kiss Lily. No, on the contrary. You were just afraid that it would make things awkward with both her and James, whom you’d known since the both of you were in diapers.

‘Why (L/N)? You scared?” He taunted, a wicked grin plastered on his face.

“No, course not.” You denied, leaning forward to scoop your glass of water off the floor, you didn’t want to taste like firewhiskey when you kissed Lily. “Are you okay with it Lils?” You turned to her, if she didn’t want to then that was a non starter, James could be persuaded. But Lily’s consent was 100% necessary.

“Sure (Y/N/N), s’not like I’m kissing Sirius,” She jokingly sneered at him, straightening her skirt as she composed herself.

“You okay with it Jamsie?” She crooned at him like he was a child, and sometimes he was, his eyes never leaving her lips, but you could only sympathize because you too weren’t able to pry your eyes off of them. They were plump and red and swollen from alcohol consumption, you wouldn’t really care if she tasted like alcohol. 

“Mhmm,” He hummed, his eyes never quite meeting hers, “You do whatever you want baby, you wanna kiss (Y/N)?” He shrugged, she nodded, “Then go ahead and kiss her, s’not my place to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do.”

“Kiss!” Sirius heckled, taking another swig of firewhiskey before Remus pried it from his hands, kissing his cupid’s bow in attempts to calm him down.

“You ready love?” Lily asked, taking a puff from the blunt Marlene passed her, inhaling sharply before letting the smoke billow out her nose, a lazy smile taking over her face.

You nodded meekly before crawling over Dorcas who sat between you and James, where Lily was perched on his lap.

“Come here doll,” She beckoned with the crook of her finger, you hesitantly settled yourself next to her, your side pressed into James’ arm which was wrapped around Lily’s waist. 

“Can I kiss you?” You asked her, you faces inches from each other, noses prodding each other’s, you had been right, her breath reeked of alcohol and instead of repulsing you it just dragged you in further. Her eyes flitted down to your lips staying there as James had to hers. You wondered if yours were half as pretty as hers were right now?

Her response came as she leaned forward pressing her lips to yours, they were incredibly soft, her lip gloss tasted like strawberries as you licked it from her lips, the tip of your tongue grazing her bottom lip. Feeling her smirk into the kiss at your boldness, leaning in towards her more you cupped the right side of her face in your hand, savoring how the soft skin felt under your hands. Pushing her tongue into your mouth she grabbed your waist with one of her hands, working her way under your shirt to access your bare skin. 

It felt like an electric current surged through your body as your tongues fought for dominance, both of you mounting a fierce campaign, but ultimately you gave into her, letting her tongue explore your mouth at will.

After what felt like a ridiculously short amount of time she pulled away from you, the both of you gasping for air. You were distantly aware of the small whimper you emitted as she broke contact, but you couldn’t find it within yourself to give a damn, you were high off Lily Evans, and you needed more.

“I didn’t think you would actually do it,” Sirius spoke from Remus’s arms which were now rubbing up and down the smaller man’s arms, “I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” You smirked, quickly regaining your composure.

“You’re an excellent kisser (Y/N),” Lily lilted, brushing a piece of hair that had fallen out of your ponytail, behind your ear.

And just as quickly as you had regained it you lost all sense of what you were doing and quickly fumbled out an awkward thank you to her compliment, you were sure your face was 30 varying shades of scarlet and was quick to hide it from the view of the others in the room. Settling back into your seat on the other side of Dorcas you failed to notice the intense gaze of a certain bespectacled brunette upon you that stayed there for the rest of the night.

The next morning, sitting down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, the last thing you expected was to be immediately ambushed by James. He flew into the seat beside you, straddling the bench before scooping scrambled eggs and french toast onto your plate for you.

Before you could thank him, he opened his mouth and ruined his perfectly pleasant behavior, “I need you to kiss me!”

“I’m sorry what?” You spat out, somehow managing not to choke on the orange juice you had just taken a gulp of.

“I need you to kiss me.” He repeated plainly.

“No, I heard what you said, my bad. I probably would’ve clarified,” You cleared your throat, setting the glass of juice down onto the table, “What the actual fuck Potter? You have a girlfriend.” You swatted his arm turning in your seat so your body was completely facing the table, James was only able to view your side profile.

“And she has a boyfriend but you still kissed her,” He pointed out, you hated when he was right.

Before you could apologize for stepping over the line he continued, his words soothing your woes, “Last night after we all went to bed,” He started quickly, gesturing with his hands as he always did when he was trying to make his case, whether that was to McGonagall about how it most certainly wasn’t him who was hexing Slytherins in the corridors, or trying to convince Sirius and Remus about his idea for a prank, the boy was always moving his hands about like he was trying to direct air traffic, not that he’d know what that was. “Lily was bragging to me about how good of a kisser you are and how much she enjoyed kissing you.”

You blushed at that, moving your hair so that it would hide your face from him, but the boy wasn’t having it and moved it from curtaining in front of your face so he could once again view your side profile. “And that piqued my interest, because watching you guys kiss was,” He paused for a second, looking for the correct word, “Was euphoric.”

“Big word there Potter, Lupin teach you that one?” You tried in attempts to derail where this conversation was heading but he wasn’t having that.

“That was all fine,” He continued as though you had never spoken in the first place, “But then she started talking about how she was sure you wouldn’t have kissed me like that because she’s such a better kisser than me.” You did not like where this was going, “The problem here is that we’ve never kissed the same person, Lily was my first kiss,”

Though he raced over it quickly you couldn’t stop the small smile that bloomed across your face, there was no denying that James Potter loved Lily Evans. Unless you were Severus and couldn’t pull your head out of your ass that is.

“So we need you to help us settle this little disagreement.” He explained as though it were the most logical answer to his conundrum.

“Does Lily know about your little idea?” You finally turned towards him, one leg bent up on the bench.

He hummed, looking down to his hands where he was tugging at his fingers, “Well, no, not yet, I wanted to see if you would be interested in it before I asked her.”

Risking another glance at the boy you were met with his hopeful gaze which quickly morphed into a cocky grin as you nodded your head, “Fine I’ll kiss you, but only if Lily’s in too.”

“Great!” James exclaimed, pulling you up from your seat at the table and dragging you out of the Great Hall as he excitedly jogged towards the library where he knew Lily to be. 

“Oi, Potter, slow down my legs are shorter than yours!” You complained attempting to keep up with his long strides.

“Sorry Love,” Though he made no move to slow down for you, if anything he picked up speed. 

“Lily!” He announced your entrance when the two of you finally came to the library, earning him a sharp look from Pince. You tried not to look around at everyone in the library not wanting to see the looks they were undoubtedly flashing you, instead burying your head into the back of James’ shoulder, allowing him to guide you through the maze of tables and bookshelves until he finally found the coveted redhead pouring over her potions book.

“What do you want Ja-” She looked up catching sight of you as you tried to hide behind James, suddenly very nervous about what you had previously agreed to. “Oh, hi (Y/N). What’s going on?”

“I was thinking about last night, after we all went to bed,” He moved into the chair next to her, propping his head up in his hand which rested on the table top, “And I love you Flower, I really do but you’re just not the better kisser here, I am. But since you refuse to see that and we’ve never kissed the same person before we can’t really come to a conclusion. Until now that is, because (Y/N) here has agreed to kiss me and then she can tell us who is better.” He motioned to you with a wave of his arm and you felt the blood rush to your cheeks, the way Lily was looking at you, as though she was appraising you, made your legs tremble.

“You sure about this darling?” The question was directed towards you.

You nodded your head, not trusting your voice at this moment.

She sat in her chair a minute longer drinking you in before nodding, turning to her boyfriend who was smiling like an absolute idiot. “Not here though,” She commanded with a flick of her wand that had all of her supplies flying back into her bag, “Our dorm,” She looked at you as she grabbed James’ hand, then yours leading you out of the library.

James was sprawled out on Lily’s bed, the three of you had come to an unspoken agreement that that was where this would take place, it only seemed appropriate. Lying back, James propped himself up on his forearms, his eyes raking over Lily’s figure as she shrugged off her outer robe, leaving her in her tight fitting button down and plaid skirt. 

“You don’t have to if you don’t wanna love,” She murmured in your ear, brushing her lips against your skin, “Jamsie’s just being a dick wad.”

A gentle laugh escaped you at your joke but you shook your head, “No, it's okay, I want to.”

“Alright then bub,” She hummed, “Get on J’s lap.”

You scrambled to comply, easily settling into the grooves of his thighs, “Are you gonna sit up?” You asked him glaring down at where he laid splayed out on the bed.

“No was thinking you’d come down here since I’m gonna be doing most of the work anyway,” He smirked smugly up at you as you leaned down to connect your lips thinking, it's only gonna cost you points Potter, go ahead, you’re just hurting yourself here.

You brushed the hair off his forehead as your lips met each other, he tasted like mint and citrus, it left you wondering what Lily usually tasted like when she didn’t have alcohol on her breath. He wrapped his arms around your body, pulling you closer to him as his hands ran up and down your back, soothing you into his touch. His lips were rougher than Lily’s had been, though you suspected they would be, you weren’t sure if you’d actually seen him ever apply anything to his lips aside from Lily’s.

His tongue gently pressed against the seal of your lips before pushing past it into the velvety expanse of your mouth. James let out a moan, you didn’t realize what had caused it until you felt Lily’s delicate fingers slide up from his scalp to caress your face. 

You stayed there, in their shared embrace letting James’ tongue have its way with your mouth until your lungs couldn’t take it anymore and you were forced to push away, inhaling deep gulps of air.

James barely let you catch your breath before asking his question, running his hands up and down your arms which were the only things keeping you up. 

In all honesty they were both phenomenal kissers and they were lucky to get to kiss the other every day but there was a correct answer to this question, and James wasn’t going to like it.

tagging: @randomoutsiders​

[eli-kittim]

Was the Charge Against Jesus Insurrection or Blasphemy?

By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓

Many have written on Jesus the Galilean——often portraying him as someone who “was involved in anti-Roman seditious activity” and “put to death as an insurrectionist” (see e.g. Dr. Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, “[Why] Was Jesus the Galilean Crucified Alone? Solving a False Conundrum,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36.2 [2013] 127-154; & “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” a book by Muslim writer and scholar Reza Aslan).

But these speculative reconstructions have nothing to do with the New Testament literary accounts. These religious scholars should not be allowed to tamper with the internal evidence by altering it to suit their theological objectives. Let me give you an example why that would run counter to the standards of textual criticism. If modern scholars, who are far removed from ancient times, were to be given such artistic license as to change the words of Homer or Virgil, for instance, then it would no longer be Homer or Virgil that we would be reading but rather a modern 21st century forgery or adaptation of their works. Classicists would rightly be outraged! So then, if these interpolations are inexcusable in classical literature (e.g. in ancient Greco-Roman works), why are these religious scholars allowed to rewrite history and change the words of the New Testament accounts by superimposing their own imaginations on the text? Who gave them the licentia poetica (poetic license) to do so? Such books abound in the popular literature whose authors helped shape our modern views of Jesus!

Sadly, it would seem that none of these scholars have carefully consulted the Greek New Testament to see what it says on the matter, including the scriptural *messianic context* in which it says it. For example, Matthew 26.63-66 says categorically and unequivocally that Jesus was accused of blasphemy by the Jewish leaders. Specifically, Jesus purportedly blasphemed by claiming to be the Messiah, the king of the Jews (i.e. the new David cf. Ezekiel 37.24 [NRSV]: “My servant David shall be king over them;” Ezekiel 37.25 “and my servant David shall be their prince forever”). In fact, during Caiaphas’ interrogation, Jesus purportedly responded by identifying himself with the Danielic Son of Man (Υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου), a messianic figure who will one day come in the clouds of heaven (Matthew 26.64). That’s precisely when the high priest cried out (v. 65): “He has blasphemed!” (Ἐβλασφήμησεν). Then at Matthew 26.66, the high priest asked the attending council:

What is your verdict? They answered, ‘He

deserves death.’

The members of the Sanhedrin (vv. 57, 59) answered in unison: “He deserves death” (Ἔνοχος θανάτου ἐστίν)! This is explicitly recorded at Mark 15.26 as well, where the official charge against Jesus was said to be inscribed on his cross:

The inscription of the charge against him

read, ‘The King of the Jews.’

Conclusion

The context of the literary account in Gethsemane, prior to the crucifixion, is one of prayer and supplication. It has absolutely nothing to do with violence or any plans to overthrow the Roman legions. Moreover, the Sanhedrin’s verdict, that was later inscribed on Jesus’ cross, was NOT insurrection but rather blasphemy, namely, that he claimed to be the Messiah: “The King of the Jews” (i.e. Mashiach Ben David cf. Jn 19.7)! In fact, the so-called charge against Jesus of political insurrection is never once mentioned in the New Testament!

So, if we’re going to engage in academic exegesis, we must avoid presuppositions, assumptions, speculations, & conjectures. We must allow expositional constancy or the analogy of scripture, and the original biblical languages, to guide our hermeneutic. In other words, we must not impose our own private interpretations on the text. Rather, we must allow the text ITSELF to give us the authorial intent (meaning)! Thus, even though some liberal scholars are very familiar with the gospel literature, nevertheless they’re constantly inserting or imposing extraneous, extra-biblical material to put a Roman spin on it. This is a clear violation of the standard principles of biblical interpretation!

[fairiesherefairiesthere]

5 times people got an insight into Freed and Laxus’ marriage and one time the whole guild did.

For @bluejaii, who sent me the sweetest ask and for @aceofheartsworld who always leaves the most heartwarming comments ! 

1. Gildarts

On the unique times that Gildarts is present in the guildhall, there are a few things he likes to do. The first being showering his amazing daughter with love and support, of course. Making good use of the guild's alcohol supply is second and his third favourite thing, involves bothering the shit out of the youngsters. Wendy and Romeo are easy to fool, eager to believe anything as long as it's said by an adult (Wendy more so than Romeo). Others are unbotherable (he doesn't know how to tease Erza without gravely insulting her, she ticks in a weird way.) Elfman is very easy to tease (How's your girlfriend doing?) and flustering Juvia is the simplest thing in the world. Now, one of Gildarts' favourite victims must be Laxus Dreyar himself.

The youngster has always been a bit (a lot) defensive when it comes to personal relationships and it's only gotten worse with the years. So of course, Gildarts has been asking the young man the same question every time he sees him : "You married yet?" It never fails to ruffle his feathers and Gildarts' always hides his laugh when the other man starts to look at anything but him before stomping off to God knows where.

Because Laxus probably relates Gildarts to feelings ranging from lowkey annoyance to highkey annoyance, the youngster tends to avoid him. So it comes as a complete surprise when Laxus enters the guildhall, lays eyes on Gildarts and smirks. His surprise gets even bigger when the young man takes a seat right in front of him and says : "Let's talk old man."

Although he's a little put off by Laxus seeking him out, he's not about to let that deter him from bothering the man. Leaning back, he plans to ask his usual question, absolutely sure of its effect until he studies Laxus carefully. He has his hand propped up under his chin and his smile gets smugger when Gildarts' eyes land on his ringfinger. His ringfinger adorned with an actual ring. A wedding ring. On Laxus' finger. After a minor mindimplosion, Gildarts opens his mouth to scream. Laxus stops him by slamming a menu card into his mouth.

"Listen, I'm here for one reason and reason only", Laxus states and glares at him with eyes that are very, very alike to Makarov's when he's displeased. Fucking genetics. "Okay, shoot."

"You had one wife that you liked, right? Cana's ma." He nods. "She was the love of my life. Why do you ask?” For a long time, Laxus stares at him and Gildarts wonders if the other is evaluating how genuine he is. Then, he crosses his arms and lowers his head unto them. "My partner is amazing", he blurts out and after that, he starts a three hour rant about why he loves his spouse.

-

2. Cana

"Laxus, drink with me!" she yells before plopping down annoyingly close next to him on the bench, invading his personal space just a little bit. She knows it doesn't bother Laxus at all, but it does bother his greenie and Cana has decided that she has the full right to pester him in every petty way possible. Scanning the area, she comes to the conclusion that Freed isn't around. Bummer.

"It's the good stuff", she winks and he gives her an amused huff before shaking his head. "No thanks, I'm good." Sticking out her tongue, she slaps his bicep. "Boo, where did your sense of adventure go? Your tongue for excellent beerrrr", she says while obnoxiously rolling her r's. "I think my husband wouldn't appreciate it too much, should I arrive at home drunk. I don't want to arrive home drunk either, because it makes my memory spotty and you best believe that I do not want to forget a single moment with my spouse."

Oh god. Laxus Dreyar isn't even drunk and he's already sappy. Looking at the clock, Laxus hums before ruffling her hair and standing up. "Dinnertime's rolling around and I'm not a lowly fucker, so I'm going to help my husband. You have fun, Cana." Watching his retreating back, Cana mutters : "Need me a freak like that."

-

3. Gajeel

On some subconscious level, Laxus still makes him feel a bit jittery. They've both been absolutely shitty, turned around and became less shitty. They have even regularly fought the same fights and Gajeel has teased the man quite a bit (as long as there were other people around). Doesn't mean that his body has forgotten what getting electrocuted felt like. So, one can understand that Gajeel felt an itty bitty nervous when Laxus stormed into the guildhall and then in his direction.

"Gajeel." His hope that the man was seeking out someone else leaps out of the window. "What", he snaps back and the other man's jaw tightens. "Your bookworm." Immediately, the protectiveness flares up, nervousness forgotten. "What about her?"

"She likes books."

What. How the fuck does this man's brain work? Looking at Laxus, who's running his hand through his hair and huffing in frustration, he decides to shut up until the guy finds his words. He doesn't seem to be that good at it. "You guys went to that book convention two towns over a few days ago. Did she think it was worth it?"

Laxus being the reading type? That's one that Gajeel did not see coming. Then it hits him like a freighttrain and he cackles. "Need a place to take your boyfriend to? Don't worry, I won't tell a soul."

"My what? I don't have a boyfriend." Oops. Turns out he was too fast. "My bad, but seriously ask Freed out, he'll say yes. Not to overstep any boundaries or something, but you deserve happiness and shit. People tell me that a lot, so I thought I'd relay the message." The corner of Laxus' mouth turns up and Gajeel mentally pats himself on the back. God, he's good at this. He should start making motivational songs.

"Thanks, my husband tends to tell me that too." Then he leaves. The jackass.

-

4. Lucy and Natsu

It's a mystery. An enigma. A plotline more intriguing than anything she'd cooked up lately. What is this baffling conundrum Lucy has been trying to unravel? Laxus Dreyar's dating life.

Okay, maybe it isn't that big of a deal, but the man is surrounded by the prettiest people in the world (Mirajane, Cana, to name a few) and doesn't seem to be too interested in them (she can't relate). If she were less... cautious, she would've asked him about it by now, but alas, she's still a bit of a chicken sometimes. Sue her.

"Lucy, what are we doing?" Natsu flatly asks her. "Spying on Laxus", she whispers back and Natsu hums. "Understandable. Why?"

"Do you think anyone is interested in him?" she asks and wonders if the intricacies of romantic attraction even register in Natsu's head. His answer absolutely floors her. "Lucy, there's only two types of people who haven’t had a crush on Laxus once in their live and those are the ones that aren't into men. Or are too cowardly to admit it. Luckily for me, I'm neither of those."

"You had a crush on Laxus?" He rolls his eyes. "Keep up with the plan Luigi, of course, just like ninety percent of the guild. You've ever thought he's hot?" She admits: "Yeah, like once or twice."

"See Lucy, now you're getting what bi/pan solidarity is."

"Bonding over how hot Laxus is?"

"You might as well start calling it bi/pan/gay solidarity then", a new, terribly amused voice says above them and Lucy lets out an "Eep!" and hits her head against the table. Crawling from underneath it, she and Natsu come face to face with Freed Justine, who's looking both too entertained and smug.

Refusing to let go of her pastime, Lucy puts her hands on her hips and faces the captain. "What's Laxus' dating life like?" she demands to know and Freed shrugs. "I wouldn't know, he doesn't have one."

"Oh", she pouts and he chuckles. "If that's all, I'm gonna join the subject of your espionage." Right before he leaves, he looks over his shoulder and adds : "Since his dating life is nonexistent, you should ask him about his marriage."

-

5. Wendy

The flyer picturing the fair looks positively radiant and Wendy can nearly smell the candy apples and other sugared goods. It's a shame she won't be able to go though, because her team will be going on a mission and it's too far and dangerous for her to travel alone. A shadow alerts her of someone standing behind her and when she whirls around, she comes face to face (well more like face to chest) with Freed.

He too is staring at the poster and shyly she says. "It looks fun, doesn't it? If I were able to go, I'd take someone dear with me." Her voice must've sound a tad bit too longing, because he glances in her direction and asks : "Are you not able to go?" She shakes her head. "No, my team will be away and it's too far to go without adult supervision."

"I could go with you, if you do not mind my company, that is. Ah, I'll be taking someone dear to me along too, so you could invite Chelia if you wanted too." More often than not, she curses her face for revealing exactly what she's thinking, but right now, Wendy is over the moon. "Thank you mister Freed!" she yells before giving him a hug and speeding off. She's gonna have a blast with Chelia!

"Seems like our babysitters are tired", Chelia grins before shrugging. "Eh, at least we got candy out of it." As the two of them share their candy, Wendy looks at the scene in front of them. With an amount of skill that she certainly hadn't expected, Laxus is pinning Freed's hair up with a hairpin that he'd won a little while earlier. The light reflects off the pin and the rings adorning both men's fingers.

"Hey Wendy", Chelia says, laying her head on Wendy's shoulder. "When we're old like those two, let's be like that." Putting her hand on top of Chelia's and weaving their fingers together, Wendy nods sleepily. "Let's do that."

-

+1 Makarov or actually, + the whole guild

"Hey Gramps, you mind if we throw a guild party?" Well, aren't those words he thought he'd never hear out of his grandson's mouth. "You do whatever you want brat, as long as you can pay for it. What's the occassion?"

"Oh I got married."

"You what?"

(They get to hold the party and yes, Makarov cries over his grandsons. Both of them.)

[veorlian]

Idolatry - Renewal

Pairing: Garrus Vakarian/Female Shepard

Rating: T for swearing and stabbing.

Summary: Citadel DLC, Part 2/3. Conclusion to the clone fight, hanging out with friends, and date night.

ao3 link

Excerpt:

“Legion, you know I’ve never played a video game before,” she said wryly. She was sitting on one of her too-large couches as Legion fiddled with the television.

“Acknowledged. Based on previous experience, the adequate response to this statement is ‘git gud, scrub,’ although I have been unable to ascertain its exact meaning,” Legion replied.

.

It was quiet in the cargo bay. Too damn quiet. Shepard paused just outside of the elevator door, listening. Since she’d gotten the cybernetic upgrades, she’d grown accustomed to dampening her senses. The first few days after her resurrection it had been almost impossible to move without being bombarded with sounds, smells, sights that sent her to her reeling. Now, she tuned back in. She closed her eyes, and she listened.

It was never entirely silent on a ship. The gentle, ever-present hum of the Normandy was a high-pitched whine, now that EDI wasn’t in control. It made Shepard wince. She could hear Garrus’ breathing, and her own uneven heartbeat. 

And she could hear faint breathing, up and to the left. Her lips curled in a humourless smile.

“You might as well give up,” Shepard called. “You’ve lost.”

“I haven’t lost anything.” The clone’s voice echoed off the walls, impossible to pinpoint. But Shepard could hear her footsteps now, circling around. Shepard motioned for Garrus and EDI to stay where they were, and she slowly moved into the room.

“And yet here you are, hiding from me like a coward. What’s the matter, little girl, are you scared? You should be. You should be terrified.” The footsteps grew stronger, closer together, nearer. 

The razor-sharp edge of the clone’s omni-tool came whistling towards Shepard’s face, but Shepard easily countered it with her own. The sound of the blades clashing echoed across the room. 

“You may look like me,” Shepard breathed, “but I’ve forgotten more ways to kill than you’ll ever learn.”

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” the clone spat. The fluorescent orange of the omni-blades reflected onto the clone’s face. It was a damn shame for her, really, that Shepard knew all of her own tells.

“I’m sure you’re used to disappointment by now,” Shepard said softly, and she shoved the clone away, hard. The next second she was invisible, and booking it towards EDI and Garrus at the back of the room. She ducked into cover behind the requisitions terminal. The cargo bay, Shepard realized belatedly, was a shit place to have a fight. From there, it was impossible to get a good fix on any of the oncoming enemies. Apparently they had no trouble hitting her though; a grenade arced through the air and exploded next to her, sending flames licking up her armour.

“Shit,” she hissed. She tucked into a combat roll away from the fire. She rose to her feet and a fist connected with her bruised ribs. Shepard stumbled back as her clone materialized in front of her. Damn it, she was supposed to be a long-range fighter, what the hell was up with all the melee? Shepard feinted to the left before delivering a swift upper-cut to her clone’s jaw. 

She should’ve delivered a swift upper-cut, but the clone wasn’t there anymore. Shepard felt an arm around her neck, choking her. Fuck that.

Shepard got a grip on her clone’s arms and then brought her torso down, sending the clone slamming into the ground. Shepard swung her Widow around and got the clone in the chest, point-blank. The clone faded into invisibility again and was gone. Damn it.

A handful of mercs raced away from the fight, climbing into the Kodiak shuttle. The hatch to the cargo bay opened and they sped away. In their haste, they left the door open. The wind whipped through Shepard’s hair, sending it flying into her face. She impatiently pushed it away. 

“Just give up, will you? You’re past your best-before date. I’m the new and improved version, without the scarring and annoying moral code,” the clone shouted. Shepard was having a bit of an out of body experience. It’s one thing to have doubts about yourself, it’s an entirely different experience to hear them repeated back to you in your own damn voice.

“Was that supposed to be an insult? I earned these scars on Feros, and Noveria, and Ilos, and Thessia, and Rannoch! You got yours out of a petri dish.” Her voice rang clear through the cargo bay. What was it she’d said to Zaeed? You’re just a collection of scars held together by spite. Maybe they had that in common.

“You’re just a mediocre soldier with a lucky streak.”

“Then what does it say about you that I’m kicking your ass?” Shepard shouted back. She finally caught her clone in her sights, and got her in the leg with a shot from the Widow. Her clone stumbled, and Shepard raced forward, tackling her to the ground. They rolled together down the open ramp until they came to rest almost at the bottom. Shepard’s clone reared up, her fist hurtling towards Shepard’s face. The ship rocked violently, sending them flying. They both ended up holding onto the edge of the cargo bay door, nothing but a steep drop beneath them.

“Why you and not me? What makes you so damn special?” Shepard felt a small twinge of guilt at the pain in her clone’s voice.

“Shepard, hold on! We’ve got you!” Garrus yelled. He and EDI hurried down the ramp and hauled her back to safety. She looked down to her clone. There’s always a choice, Commander Shepard, and it matters that you choose to help.

“Take my hand,” Shepard said. She saw her clone glance up the walkway. Looking for Brooks, maybe. Whatever she saw made her face fall.

“And then what?” she snapped.

“And then you live. Show me what you’re made of, Shepard,” Shepard said. Not a sentence she’d ever expected to say, but apparently it was just that kind of day.

Her clone looked up at her sharply.

“You’ll regret this,” she said. “It’ll come back to bite you in the ass.”

“I regret a lot of things. Now take my damn hand.”

And she did.

They caught Brooks not long after. Cortez, who had apparently been engaged in some fancy flying to keep the ship from leaving, led her forward in handcuffs.

“Caught this one trying to leave,” he said. “Alliance is going to lock her up tight.”

“Shepard,” Brooks purred, “I’m sure we can put all this unpleasantness behind us.”

“I’m not in a particularly forgiving mood,” Shepard replied. Or General Shepard? We’ll deal with her. Her hands balled up into fists.

“But wasn’t it fun to have someone running around, being in awe of you? Admit it, you’re going to miss me.” Shepard could hear the gentle tap of Brooks' hands on her restraints. She leaned down, until she was level with Brooks’ eyes. 

“You’re going to go along quietly with the Alliance, and you’re going to stay the hell away from me and the people I care about,” Shepard said, her voice forged in iron and steel

“Aww, is the great Commander Shepard pleading for her life?”

“I’m pleading for yours.” It was barely above a murmur. The tapping stopped.

“Very well,” Brooks said at last. “Till we meet again, Commander.”

“Rot in hell, Staff Analyst Maya Brooks,” Shepard suggested.

“Hey, maybe now you can actually have some shore leave,” Garrus said wryly as they exited the ship. Shepard snorted.

“I doubt it, but I suppose stranger things have happened,” she said.

“You can goddamn say that again,” Joker said fervently. Shepard gently clapped him on the shoulder.

“C’mon Joker, it could’ve been worse,” she said.

“How? How could it have been worse?”

“There could have been Collectors.”

“Hey, when the “Best Commanding Officer Awards” come up, don’t expect a nomination from me.”

“Noted. Can I interest you in some sushi?” The resentful silence was answer enough, and Shepard grinned wryly. As punishment, Joker refused to let her drive. He dropped her off at her apartment, but not before insisting that she needed to throw some kind of party.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“What was that? Couldn't hear you!” He revved the engine loudly to drown out her protests.

“Damn it, Joker!”

“And you owe me dinner! No knives this time!”

“No promises!” she shouted as he drove away.

Shepard didn’t do vacations. Fourteen years with the Alliance and she’d been on shore leave a handful of times, each more catastrophic than the last. The last time had been a few months before she’d died. She’d started two bar fights and had to be put on unofficial lockdown for a few days. The time before that they'd caught her sneaking back onto the ship. To be honest, having her evil clone try and steal the Normandy was just the natural progression of the Shepard Hates Vacations conundrum. 

Still, it wasn’t every day that almost every person you’d ever cared about was kicking around the same place that you were. The Normandy was in drydock for another few days, and so Shepard made the most of it. 

“Legion, you know I’ve never played a video game before,” she said wryly. She was sitting on one of her too-large couches as Legion fiddled with the television.

“Acknowledged. Based on previous experience, the adequate response to this statement is ‘git gud, scrub,’ although I have been unable to ascertain its exact meaning,” Legion replied.

“Uh huh. Got it. So then what are we playing?”

“Vega-Lieutenant suggests that you would enjoy playing Blasto: Hero of the Citadel.”

“Vega’s an asshole, don’t you listen to him.”

“Anatomically unlikely on both fronts.” The corners of Shepard’s mouth twitched up.

“What’s your favourite game, Legion?” she asked, trying a different tactic.

“I am banned from most games for suspected VI activity,” they explained.

“Tell you what, Tali and Kasumi are coming over to watch Fleet and Flotilla with me later, why don’t you join us?”

“Will there be popcorn?” they asked. Shepard’s brows wrinkled in confusion.

“You and Tali can't eat it…?”

“I understand it is integral to organic vid watching ceremonies.”

“Alright, we'll have popcorn.”

“Shepard, you know I can’t eat popcorn,” Tali complained. The four of them were settled on the largest of the couches. It stretched across half the room, but somehow everyone had ended up almost piled up on top of Shepard. She found that she didn’t really mind.

“I got some dextro-based snacks for you, Tali,” Shepard reassured her.

“Shepard-Commander?” Legion had the copy of Fleet and Flotilla in their hands and they were carefully examining it, holding it up to the light.

“Yes Legion?”

“What purpose does a relationship between two species serve? They cannot procreate,” Legion said. Shepard shared a loaded look with Tali and Kasumi.

“It’s about the romance,” Tali explained. “Forbidden, star-crossed love.” The last few words were wistful, almost dreamy. 

“I do not understand,” Legion said. Shepard patted them on the shoulder.

“How about we watch the movie, and you can ask any questions you have when it’s over, okay?”

“Acknowledged.” Shepard flicked on the TV and the beginning credits began to roll.

“Shepard-Commander--”

“Shhh!” Kasumi hushed them.

“After the movie, Legion,” Shepard said. Legion nodded reluctantly. Kasumi and Tali both snuggled in on either side of Shepard, their heads resting on her shoulders. Maybe, she thought, vacations weren’t all bad.

The next day dawned bright and sunny, thanks to the artificial light on the Citadel. Shepard had gently deposited Tali and Kasumi in the guest bedrooms (how big did one apartment need to be??) and Legion had spent the small hours of the morning playing video games on her TV. After breakfast, she cheerfully sent them on their way after inviting each of them to the party that Joker had insisted she throw.

She hummed cheerfully to herself as she got dressed for the day. It was a relief, really, to be pulling on her regular black cargo pants and hoodie. Nice clothes were all well and good, but nothing could beat a half-dozen pockets, each weighed down with knives and caltrops. There were another dozen people that she needed to see. So many people that cared about her. It made her feel disconcertingly warm and fuzzy.

Shepard's first stop was at the hospital. Blessedly, she didn’t need to stay inside for long. She picked up Thane and took him to the café on the Presidium to buy him brunch. She’d never done brunch before.

“How have you been?” she asked.

“As well as I can be, during these difficult times,” Thane said quietly. His eyes were fixed on the gardens. “But Mordin believes I will make a full recovery.”

“You’ve seen Mordin?” she asked, sipping at her coffee.

“Ah, I had assumed that you would have heard. The salarian councilor was extremely grateful for the part I played in his rescue.”

“You mean saving his life almost single-handedly?” Shepard asked wryly. Thane rewarded her with a smile warmer than the artificial sun.

“Indeed. He asked that Mordin create a cure for Kepral’s Syndrome. So here I am, better than I’ve felt in years,” he explained.

“That’s great!” Shepard said encouragingly.

“I may even be fit to help with the war effort,” he said, and his eyes flicked to her. Shepard’s face immediately fell into a frown.

“Not going to happen,” she said firmly. 

“It is unfair for me to remain here when so many are dying.”

“How many last missions can one person have?” she asked. “There was the hit on Nassana Dantius, and then the Omega 4, and then saving the councilor, and then stopping my clone--”

“You have made your point,” he said wryly. “But it doesn’t seem to have stopped you before.” She pursed her lips and studied his face. He did look better, she had to admit.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“We could always use military advisors. Strictly non combat, you understand?” she said.  He considered her for a moment, before eventually nodding.

“Very well, if you think that would be best,” he said.

“I’ll let Hackett know,” she replied. And then, “It’s good to see you, Thane.”

“And you, Shepard. But you are on vacation. Shall we talk of more cheerful things?”

“Please,” she said fervently, and he chuckled, without coughing once.

It still wasn’t easy, going down to the refugee docks, but Mordin had asked her to meet him there. He had assembled a new clinic, replacing much of the equipment they’d been using in the refugee docking bay. He was bustling around, issuing instructions.

“Good to see some things never change, Mordin,” Shepard said wryly.

“Former system inefficient. Had to fix it. Other people always get it wrong.”

“Want a hand?” She leaned against the wall casually.

“Equally inefficient. Healing not one of your skills. Would like to talk, though.” She smiled ruefully. He wasn’t wrong. Once upon a time, he might’ve told her that he was never wrong.

“You got it. Shall we?” She led the way to a few miraculously empty chairs amidst the hustle and bustle of the docks. His posture was as impeccable as always as he remained sitting up straight on the uncomfortable bench.

“What have you been up to?” she asked. “Aside from curing Kepral’s Syndrome.”

“Spoken to Thane? Yes, cure is complete. Recommend minimal physical activity for time being. Non-combat.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I clear him for combat.”

“Tactfully put,” he said. She grinned at him.

“So what else…?” she left the sentence hanging, waiting for him to continue. 

“Some side-effects to genophage cure. Created an antidote, but salarian doctors still not trusted. Been here for past two weeks.” Two weeks, and he’d already rearranged the docks. Knowing Mordin, he’d done that on his first day here.

“And how’s Urdnot Bakara doing in her new role?” Shepard asked. At that, he did smile.

“Exceeds expectations. Stabilizing influence on Urdnot Wrex. I like her.”

“Me too,” Shepard said. “Didn’t you say something about retirement though?”

“Yes. Wanted to run tests on seashells. Beaches in short supply at present, due to Reaper presence. Had a question.”

“Only one?” she asked wryly.

“As statement suggests, yes,” he replied. Shepard snorted.

“Alright, shoot,” she said.

“Clinic here running smoothly. Talents could be better used elsewhere. Crucible project needs scientists?”

“They’d be happy to have you,” Shepard said immediately. Mordin smiled warmly. They chatted a bit more, before Mordin insisted that he needed to get back to work. Some things really didn’t change.

Later that evening, after she’d visited even more of her friends, Shepard finally had a moment alone. The events of the past few days caught up, slamming into her like a freight train. Her hands rested on the cool marble of the bathroom vanity as she studied herself intently in the mirror. Scars mapped every part of her face, lancing across her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, notching a mark in her right eyebrow. Undeniably hers, but unquestionably altered now.

She looked at herself in the mirror, but she saw someone else. It was disconcerting to realize that the DNA that ran through her body was the same as her clone’s. It was worse to realize that her clone had been so violent, so capricious. Was that who she was, deep down? Was that who she’d been meant to be?

Her long red hair tumbled around her face, limp and bedraggled from days without washing it. She held a piece between her fingers, feeling every strand. She’d always been hopelessly proud of her hair, and had let it grow impractically long. The only part of her that the world hadn’t mangled.

But as she looked at it, she saw her clone. It wasn’t hers anymore. The world had taken that from her, as it had taken so many things.

Or maybe it had given her something new. She went down to the kitchen and selected a pair of scissors, and then she returned to the bathroom mirror in her room. With steady hands, she cut her hair. As it fell away, her angular features stood out in sharp relief. The haircut wasn’t even by a long shot, but it was hers. ... Garrus didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. He’d been standing outside the door to the apartment building for ten minutes now, hemming and hawing about the best course of action. And if he didn’t figure it out soon, he was going to be late for their date.

There were a number of facts Garrus was sure of. One: he was in love with Shepard. Fairly obvious, he’d been in love with her for over a year now. Two: Shepard was in love with him. He still hadn’t fully wrapped his head around that one, but he sure as hell wasn’t complaining. Three: he had no idea what the fuck was going to happen when they went to that Cerberus base. He hoped with every fibre of his being that they’d make it out the other side alive and in one piece, but he didn’t know.

Which was why he was standing outside the entrance to Shepard’s building, the ring box held in a vice-like grip between his talons.

Don’t be a coward, Vakarian. If he didn’t leave now, he’d be late. He squared his shoulders, and marched into the building resolutely. The elevator ride up seemed to last for an eternity. He studied the ceiling tiles, the grey swirling pattern seeming to vanish into the distance. It took him a second to realize that the elevator wasn’t moving anymore. It took him another second to exit the elevator. Spirits only knew how he got to Shepard’s door. He knocked gently. If he was quiet enough, maybe she wouldn’t answer.

But she did. He scrambled to shove the box into one of the very few pockets that turian clothing allowed for.

“Hey,” she said softly. Her eyelashes were longer than usual, and there was a dark tint to her lips. She was wearing that damn suit again and his brain short-circuited. His mouth was suddenly too dry. Shit, he should say something.

“Hey.” Amazing job, Vakarian. What a way with words. She gave him a crooked half-smile.

“Come in?” she suggested. Relieved, he nodded and stepped through.

“Your, um,” he tried. He gestured vaguely to her face.

“My hair?” she asked.

“Yeah.” It barely fell past her ears now. Could humans just...do that? She rubbed at her neck self-consciously.

“It felt weird looking in the mirror and seeing her. So, I cut it. Maybe by the time it grows back it won’t feel as weird,” she explained. He nodded stiffly. Spirits, did he have to be so awkward right now? You’d think it’d be easier to propose to your best friend. 

“Are you okay?” she asked softly. She was closer now, cinnamon and coffee in the air. There was a slight crease to her forehead.

“I love you,” he said suddenly. A warm smile spread across her face.

“Yes, we’ve established that,” she said. “But you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did I do that bad a job cutting it?”

“No, no it’s not that,” he said hurriedly. “It’s...damn.”

“Now you’re making me worried, Garrus.” She pulled away. Shit.

“Dance with me?” he blurted. Her eyebrows shot up so high they reached her hairline.

“Am I having a stroke?” she asked incredulously. “Every third sentence you say is insulting my dancing.” He really didn’t have anything to say to that, so he raced over to the wall, keyed into her stereo system and started playing music, as well as dimming the lights. Tango music filled the apartment, and he held out a slightly shaking hand to her.

“Hell no,” she said.

“C’mon Shepard, do you trust me?” Spirits, did there really have to be pleading in his voice right now?

“Implicitly. I’m still not dancing with you.” Steeling himself to get elbowed in the guts, he grabbed her hand and tugged her close to him. She reluctantly let him lead her through a few beginning steps, but she stayed stiff as a board, completely unyielding.

“You’re going to pay for this later,” she muttered darkly. 

“Promises, promises, Joan,” he said, and she rolled her eyes at him. “Which reminds me, is that not your real name?” She scowled at him. Damn, but she was hot when she was pissed.

“Am I answering questions or am I dancing? I sure as hell can’t do both.” She blocked his leg as he tried to dip her down. He rallied magnificently, playing it off as intentional. He continued to lead her through the dance. 

Slowly, she started to get the hang of it, growing more confident in her movements. He ventured a spin, and to his very great delight she spun away from him and came tumbling back, a small smile gracing her lips. 

As a general rule, turian marriages were fairly perfunctory affairs. Not a lot of room for romance in the hierarchy. But he wanted this to be special. Those images of the romantic comedies he’d watched flashed through his head. She deserved something good.

He’d practiced the steps enough that he could do them in his sleep by this point. She didn’t need to know that though. He didn’t think he’d ever live it down if she found out he’d been practicing in the main battery until late into the sleep cycle. He dipped her low, both of them breathing heavily. Her gently waving short hair framed her face like a halo.

“It’s Jeanne. My name’s Jeanne,” she murmured, so soft he almost didn’t catch it. He gently set her back on her feet and then sunk to one knee.

“Marry me, Jeanne Shepard?” he asked. She inhaled sharply. ... Her head was spinning as they danced across the room. She begrudgingly had to admit that she was enjoying herself. Garrus didn’t need to know that though.

Time slowed almost to a standstill as he dipped her down, his hand snugly wrapped around her waist. His bright blue eyes were fixed on her, and she felt her face flush.

“It’s Jeanne. My name’s Jeanne,” she murmured. A name she’d left behind long ago, a name that only Marie knew. A part of her that the clone hadn’t been able to mimic. Maybe it was time to reclaim it, that concrete reminder of her time on Earth, of who she’d once been. 

Her feet touched the floor once more, and Garrus let go of her. She was reaching back out for him as he got down on one knee in front of her. Had she stepped on his foot…?

“Marry me, Jeanne Shepard?” he asked.

Oh. Oh.

She froze, and then a small laugh bubbled out of her.

“Well, that’s a little harsh,” he muttered. Still laughing, she helped him up. She rested a hand on either side of his face.

“Is that why you were so awkward earlier?” she asked.

“Listen, it’s a yes or no question.” His voice was so exasperated, so nervous.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” she said. A second later her feet left the ground as he picked her up and spun her around, kissing her soundly. He set her down and she wound her arms around his neck. “You have terrible timing.”

“Title of our autobiography,” he replied.

“True enough,” she chuckled. It was so warm, here in his arms. A safe harbour amidst the storm. 

“You really trampled all over my moment,” he griped. “I had the ring all ready and everything.”

“I hate to tell you this, Vakarian, but EDI already gave me a ring.” A victory ring she’d called it, with metal from every Council homeworld. Including Earth. Shepard had almost cried.

“Do you want it or not?”

“I never said I didn’t,” she said. He rolled his eyes, but he tugged out a small box from his pocket. 

She was definitely going to cry now. There was a scattering of stained glass inset in the band.

“It's made of an indestructible metal, so it won't get damaged in combat,” he explained quickly. She tugged him towards her and kissed him until they were both breathless. Home. This was home, here with him. She could die happy now. She could live even happier.

“So when’s the ceremony?” she whispered against his mouth.

“Got any plans this evening?”

“Yeah, there’s the party.”

“Perfect.”

[tastethegrace]

The God Who Chooses

So it’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, and that’s okay.

I had a wonderful conversation with Jesse tonight.  I just need to stop and say how absolutely profound it is to me that we’re still friends, in many ways closer than ever.  Our whole friend group has remained in constant contact.  This community of people, though spread across the country, has been an incredible blessing to me over the past 12 years.  We’ve been through some really difficult times, but then we’ve also had moments like this conversation.  Great segue, right?

I had asked him to chat because I was asked to come onto a podcast and discuss the problem of evil with another friend of mine.  Such a vast theological conundrum deserves practice.  So Jesse and I chatted about it, discussing our understanding of the difference between evil and wickedness, the character of God, and examples in Jesus, Job, and God’s dealings with humans in the Old Testament.  We discussed what we knew from Scripture, and we kept coming back to the fact that when it comes down that question -- “How could an all-powerful, all-loving God allow such evil and wickedness in the world?” -- the earnest pursuit of an answer was nearly pointless.  

What was important, however, was the character of God. When we ask that question, we are doing two things: judging God by our standards and assuming we know him well enough to do so.  The only real biblical discussion of this is the story of Job.  

First of all, there’s this back story where God and Satan make a bet on Job’s faithfulness.  Then, when one terrible thing after another happens to Job (all of this attributed to Satan, of course -- allowed by God), he cries out to the Lord, touting his own faithfulness to God and asking why this all happened.  Job’s “friends” speculate, eventually urging him to curse God, and yet Job still defends God so that he would continue to be blameless before him.  Then God actually shows up.  

At this point in the story, God does two things: 1) He praises Job for choosing to be faithful and 2) He asks Job who he is in the face of His own power.  Job then basically says, “You’re right, I’m sorry.”  

While the ending to the story speaks truth that is important for us to remember when it comes to judging God by own standards, what really stops me is the fact that God actually decided to show up and answer him in person.  When God is displaying his power before Job, listing all of the things he’s done and who he is, the point of all of that is that his presence is vast and infinite.  He’s not just making himself known by speaking words; he’s making himself known by being there at all.  God heard him, and he came.  And so the answer to Job’s “Why did this happen?” wasn’t “Because this,” it was God’s presence itself.  And in the presence of God, with all of who He is on display, Job falls down and relents.

Pondering this story made me think of CS Lewis’ Till We Have Faces.  Orual, considered ugly by the world, is given an opportunity to air her grievances against the gods.  I’ll let Lewis’ writing speak for itself:

“The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, 'Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.' A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”...

...“I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.”

Now, as beautiful a thought as this is, it might make no difference to someone who can’t accept the logical conclusions.  Faith is not an easy thing.  But it’s okay.  It’s up to each of us to choose.  It’s our own story to tell.  The fact is that God will be a part of every human’s story, whether they walk away from Him or not, because he has not forgotten or abandoned us.

That’s a very long answer to this question, but it’s the answer at the heart of my own story.  It was God’s presence in my hour of anger and sorrow that opened my eyes to who He is, and in so doing, I saw myself as He saw me.  I saw his relentlessness in his love for me, his desire to have deep communion with me, to be one with me.  It was enough.  My questions faded away into wonder at the mystery and vastness of who He is.  

Back to the conversation with Jesse.  At this point we went into speculation about God’s character.  After considering the creation narrative and the temptation of Jesus, Jesse asked as a hypothetical, “What if God was actually capable of wickedness?”

It’s a long honored orthodox tradition to say that God is unchangeable, eternally loving, and eternally good.  It’s his state of being.  We were raised to believe that he was incapable of anything but this.  So Jesse’s hypothetical could cause some to fear the answer.  Thankfully, neither of us were afraid to entertain it.  

If God were capable of wickedness -- meaning he had the capacity to choose to do wicked things -- it would mean that for eternity, according to Scripture, he has chosen the good every single time.  It would also certainly mean that he could, at any moment, choose to use his power for wickedness.  He has certainly used it for evil, which in this case means chaos and destruction.  After all, much to the chagrin of many a conservative theologian, death has always been part of creation, even before the fall.  

Adam and Eve were given the fruit of the tree of life to keep them alive; this means that death would have been on the table for them.  The natural cycle, as evidence not only on Earth itself, but in the whole universe, is birth, life, death, and rebirth.  The only thing the Fall did was 1) prove that Adam and Eve, like God, could make a choice, and chose the wrong, making them smaller and weaker than God, and 2) cursed the earth so that it would be less fruitful.  

But the comforting thing here is that Jesus himself, the perfect image of God, was tempted, and chose the good every single time.  And God has promised that He would always make the same choices.  He has proved himself to be trustworthy.

Scripture says that God is love.  Love is not a state of being.  It is an action.  It requires choice.  To say that God is incapable of wickedness actually takes away from who He is.  He has always chosen the good, the path of love.  Why?  When you factor in the doctrine of the Trinity -- that God is three Persons in eternal communion -- and the arc of the Scriptural meta-narrative -- that over the course of human history, God has steadily moved closer and closer to human beings, being before us as our King, to being with us as our brother, to being in us as the Spirit -- I would speculate that his motivations are pretty clear.  He did it all for the sake of the community.  Any act of wickedness would destroy it.  But He would do anything to keep communion, both within the Trinity and with us.

Jesse brought up the moments in the Old Testament where God changes his mind, or where he had the potential to commit an act of wickedness.  He brought up the story in Exodus when God was going to kill Moses because he didn’t circumcise his sons.  Zipporah, his wife, quickly does the deed and throws the foreskins at his feet.  Only then does God relent.  

I had to ask myself, why was this ritual so important?  The symbolism?  Surely not.  No symbolic act in and of itself would be the cause of such anger.  But then why?  What does the act mean?  The rite of circumcision, as would be detailed later in the law, was God’s way of setting his people apart from other nations.  He was already building his community, and he would do anything, even killing Moses, his chosen mouthpiece to Pharaoh, to mark his people as his own.  It was never about just Moses’ disobedience.  It was about what he was ultimately fighting for: to bring us to himself.

In my mind, whether or not this idea that God is capable of wickedness is actually true, albeit completely unorthodox, it makes the story of God’s work in the universe palpably personal, revealing not only just how relentless God is to bring us into communion with Him, but also just how much like Him we actually are.  If Jesus, who has been called the Second Adam, was the “image of the invisible God,” then all of him, both his spirit and his flesh, represented him.  That includes his ability to choose.  The fact that even in the Garden, when he was terribly afraid and begged God to not let him die such a horrible death or experience the weight and pain of the world’s sin, he still chose to do it, speaks to his immense capacity and resolve.  Love and fellowship matter most to God.  If He is capable of wickedness, and yet has consistently proven that He will choose the path of love every single time, then I trust that He will continue to be who He is in the future, keeping his promises.  If this is true, then He is unchanging, but because of his actions, not because of his being.  

This paints such a powerful picture to me.  What if He has accumulated all that He is from continually choosing Love?  What if, with every decision we make that is righteous and true and good, we gain a little more wisdom and insight into ourselves, the nature of creation, and even into God himself?  It gives me the hope and desire that when people look at me, they might see a bit of Him: relentless in choosing love, no matter the cost.  

As Lewis wrote in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"... "Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

He says, “I AM WHO I AM.”  And he is.  And that’s enough.

[doegred-main]

If you could possess one single object that appears in the Silm/hobbit/Lotr/HoME, which one would it be? Here I am torn: on one hand I’d love to have the Palantìr to comunicate with others and see ahead during travels. On the other hand: the Silmaril would be an awesome energy source and scientific conundrum. Probably I would “settle” for a Silmaril. There are a lot of things you can do with a black body, even though I fear I would not like the “moral radar” placed on it by Varda at all.

As a mortal man arriving in Beleriand during the first age, would you have trusted the Eldar? I would have been incredibly fascinated and probably I would have given an arm and a leg to learn their technology, still I would have been very wary of their cultural perspective. At least of the one of the “very good guys”. I would have guessed that all the Noldor and Northern Sindar, were serious about defeating Melkor, but even in the best case scenario I would have seen a lot of possible problems arising from the afterward of a victory. A well respected vassal is still a vassal, especially when it is substituting its culture for the one of a more powerful people that claims to have seen and know more than any of my people could ever experience in their lifetime. I would have probably advocated for lending help to the Noldor in the war against Morgoth, quite vehemently once seen the situation in Beleriand and the Amlach scheme, but beyond that I would have guessed that even a victory would have meant an uncertain future for my kind and kept rather wary of them all. 

You are on a long errand and eventually find yourself in Lothlorien. Before you leave, you are given to choose between Miruvor or lambas bread. Which one do you take with you? Miruvoir, naturally! Even uncooked root vegetables taste better if you wash them out with great booze! 

Any opinion about the “petty-dwarves” and the way they were treated in Beleriand? The Petty Dwarves are a people that I feel a lot of sympathy for; they are the lowest of the low, the ones anyone feels entitled and justified to mistreat, thus I cannot help being rather fond of them despite their glaringly obvious flaws. I think that their position shows the ugly side of Khazad society. The dwarves are secretive and clannish, which leaves their exiled individuals (wether they are scapegoats or have definitely earned their punishment) without any help in the outside world, especially a feudal world like Beleriand. I think the history of the petty dwarves is very poignant because it is the story of the oppressed that aren’t “perfect” and “blameless”, it is the history of “guilty” people punished horribly and persecuted, left to be used by anyone as the convenient “victim”, to the point that the punishment itself ended up making them much worse than they were. Which only makes the petty dwarves more realistic and all the more worthy of a sympathy they will never be given in a world of moral absolutes like Tolkien’s. To feel for the “innocent lamb” is not praise-worthy, it is normal, what gives the measure of a person is how much they can see the injustice perpetrated on the ones who have committed their fair share of crimes. Sadly in Beleriand there is almost none that quite rises to this standard, except for (and even here: only up to a point) Tùrin.

What did you like the most the first time you read The Silmarillion? Wow.. it was so long ago! I was 15. I think the thing that I liked the most was the enormous scope of the story, the fact it was a history book of an inexistent world. I was positively overwhelmed by the multitude of people and histories, the glimpses of different cultures and their complexities. 

Do you think a Sauron-Smaug partnership could have been possible if the dragon hadn’t been destroyed? Any opinion about it? Possible? Yes, but depending on its goal and its scope. I do not doubt Sauron would have tried to make use of the dragon, after all Sauron is SMART, to the point that the only way he is beaten is by concocting a plan that relies on “providence” rather than tactics. Stiil, exactly because Sauron is smart, I do not think he would have honoured his agreement with the dragon to the bitter end if he had thought it too “limiting” of his own power; Sauron is not keen on loosing control. As for Smaug he would have undoubtedly seen the possible advantages in allying with Sauron, but he might also have seen the possible drawbacks thus he might not have thrown all of his lot with the Maia. I think an alliance could have been indeed possible, but its scope might have been limited, both because Smaug is an indolent slob, and because Sauron would not have liked to promise too much to the dragon knowing of its greed. Likely the dragon would have been “used” to completely vanquish the Khazad and people of Dale, but not much more. As a trump card Sauron already had the Witch King, who was of comparable power and completely under his control: a much safer bet.

Should we talk about the portrayal we get of Finrod in the debate with Andreth? Absolutely! Everything should be talked about XD. All jokes aside, I think that analysing his positions in the Antrabeth is paramount to understanding Finrod. I do not like them at all, but it is exactly because of them and a few other details that make his character definitely much more gray than the author probably intended, that I find Finrod interesting. To be completely frank I find the idea of ”St. Finrod the wandering hippie” absolutely boring and a disservice to a character that canonically has a side that doesn’t appear, in my opinion, as flatly cardboard-cut likeable or accepting of others as it might seem at first glance. Tolkien to me is all more fascinating and engaging because I do not share many his values on a fundamental level and seeing them exposed and argued for helped me grow as a person. I considered the position he presented, thought about it, and, no matter the conclusions I reached, I think my inner life was richer for it.

Can you share one headcanon about Celebrimbor and Narvi’s friendship? I ship them with the brightness of a thousand burning swan-ships. Despite really liking each other they are more often than not challenging each other’s abilities and theories. Even as they worked together they were adamant about having each their own lab and started their own private “underground war” by snaeking in each other’s work space and leaving “corrections” on each other’s notes. Which quickly escalated in the forged being used to craft new and better locks to protect their doors. The fight ended when Narvi found Tyelpe knelling on the floor in front of his new lock, desperately trying to pick it. Sadly his triumph was short-lived as he realised that even his own key was NOT getting the door open. Two hours passed like that: with Tyelpe insisting that his colleague had just made a lock impossible to open, and Narvi replying that Tyelpe had just “messed it up with his butcher-like attempts at finesse”, until they both capitulated and ended up getting roaring drunk together and taking turns axing down the door with Narvi’s ceremonial weapon after a solemn promise of never invading each other’s work-space anymore. Narvi gifted Tyelpe with the lock they recovered from the splinters as a “sign of peace” and to “prove the elf that you are never too old to be wrong”. Years and years after Narvi’s death, in the time when Annatar was becoming more and more shady even in his own eyes,  Tyelpe was playing around with the lock out of sheer nervousness and ended up dropping it. The impact dislodged a tiny piece of metal that had broken from Tyelpe’s lock-pick, unbeknownst to the elf. The lock opened immediately. Narvi adopted his young, brightest, dwarven apprentice and Tyelpe was adamant about “getting to be dad n.2 know the kid and be involved in his life”

Any thought about the idea of Maedhros wearing the dragon-helm? Why giving it to Fingon if it had already been given to him? Isn’t it rude? Is it even a good gift-idea? Here I’m biased.. XD Let’s say I do not think it was rude, but a sign of both friendship and a reminder to the Western Noldor that Himring had very important allies that knew how to make fire-proof armours, which the westerners had not and sorely needed. Smarmy gift, not exactly rude...

According to you, in The Silmarillion, which action is the most meaningful(/heartbreaking) token of loyalty? Bòr’s children and their people fighting to the end by the side of the F��anorians.

If you could be fluent in one single tongue of Arda, and be clueless about all other languages, which one would you choose? (pick the age you prefer) I am already very much bothered by the fact I only know three languages and a half rather than “all of them”... Knowing only one would probably drive me to insanity. Yet: fair is fair,  I have to answer. I would like to be a Noldorin Quenya speaker that got accidentally shut in the scientific section of Formenos’ library. Imagine all the books, project, technology, and ideas that could be found there!

tagged by @atariince (thank you so much! <3) 

My stupid questions:

What do you think of Hurin and Huor’s last stand? 

Thoughts on Maeglin going missing for so long and then being just allowed in  with no questions asked?

Considering the events that ended WWII, Tolkien’s words in his preface to LOTR, and his “scientists on the slippery slope”:  do you feel any sympathy for Saruman?

If you were an Hobbit of the Shire would you have voted for Sam as a major? Why?

If you could visit one and only one location in Beleriand which one would it be? Explain

How much do you think Gondolin’s nostalgia for Tirion influenced the depiction of the Exiles as eager for a chance to go back to Valinor?

If you could either be Galadriel or Elrond which one would you choose? Would Celebrian like that? 

What do you think would have happened if “the Noldor had won the day” in the Nirnaeth?

First thought of Thorondor as Maedhros and then Fingolfin bled all over his plumage. 

Your favourite Caranthir’s moment, can either be your head-canon or canon.

Would you like to have the Gaffer Gamgee as your father in law? Why? 

tagging: @feanoriel, @eldochflamma, @hwarang, , @morgholoth @gultgull and whoever is interested and has not been tagged yet! 

[kuriquinn]

Fic Prompt/Request: SSS Family Time

Anonymous asked:

Okay, so this last semester sucked. University has definitely taken a toll on me. Thankfully it's almost over. Still, I still have to go trough my exams to call it off completely. Please tell me you have something cute of Sarada ou SasuSaku romantic/funny moment planned out for this week.

AN: Here you go, Anon. I hope this qualifies as cute, Sarada and some SasuSaku. Someone else asked me for a first steps or first words moment, but I wanted to do both, so I’ll give you the first steps and I’ll give that anon the first words (at a later date :P). I feel your pain on the whole end of semester woes. Hang in there, you’ll make it through!

Sasuke maneuvers the hoover around the living room, thinking vaguely about whether it’s possible to get an apparatus that handles better around the corners.

It’s not a topic he ever would have considered worth contemplation, but these days his problems are more of a domestic nature than vengeance fueled ambition.

He’s okay with that.

Especially given the fact his nine-month-old daughter is sitting on a blanket nearby, propped in a bean chair and playing with several wooden shuriken (dulled and rounded until they pass childproof muster, of course). She chats to herself in the usual smattering of actual words and toddler pidgin, all of which is neigh incomprehensible around the dummy in her mouth.

As he ambles past the low cabinet in the hall, absently picking up a few of Sarada’s toys – blocks, a squishy book and a well-loved green dinosaur – he notices a piece of paper on top of the mail pile. It is covered with Sakura’s neat writing and Naruto’s almost illegible scrawl (honestly, he almost needs to use the Sharingan to decipher it).

Upon further inspection Sasuke sees it’s the minutes of the last meeting of the clan elders, which Sakura attended for the Uchiha while he was out of town. There is a post-it attached, with a request from Kakashi to add anything he believes needs to be brought up.

With a sigh, Sasuke turns off the hoover and sits down heavily on the couch, frowning at the information. He is vaguely aware of Sarada moving about in his peripheral vision, but she’s quiet and the room is babyproofed, so he focusses most of his attention on the current conundrum.

Naruto keeps inviting him to attend these conferences, even though it’s clear no one in the village really wants to hear from him. And when they do, it’s usually to prompt an answer about the ruins of the Uchiha district, which Sasuke honestly has no idea what to do about yet.

Naruto and Kakashi understand this, of course, as does Sakura. But not everyone in the village is quite so forgiving.

He hates the attention of the other clan leaders, and can’t decide which is worse – the expectant looks on the faces of the younger ones, like Shikamaru or Ino, or the pitying gazes of those older leaders who actually knew members of his family.

It could be worse. The Elders could still be a factor…

He has Sakura to thank for that, at least.

Still, he lets his head fall back on the couch for a second, contemplating just how important it is for him to sit through another one of those stupid meetings –

When he realises that Sarada’s mumbling is coming from the complete opposite direction from where she is sitting.

Peeking one eye open, he experiences a tiny heart-attack at the sight of her blanket utterly empty of the tiny pink body that should be sitting on it. Head whipping to where he heard her voice, he freezes when he sees her sitting in the entrance of the living-room, happily clutching at the dinosaur plushie.

Sasuke blinks, confused, wondering if he fell asleep at some point, because the distance from her blanket to the hall cabinet should have taken her longer to crawl toward, not to mention the dinosaur was higher up than she should be able to reach. Then again, Sarada has been pulling herself up on all the furniture lately…

He revisits the last few minutes, deciding he must be tired, because he can’t remember the specifics of it. He can sort of recall the familiar sight of her dark head bobbing past his line of vision.

Which shouldn’t be possible, because I wasn’t looking down at the floor, which means she was just below eye-level.

She could only have done that if she walked across the room. Sasuke immediately dismisses that because she’s barely ten months old, it’s too early.

Itachi walked at nine months, he reminds himself with only a slight wince. He dimly remembers his mother telling him that once. And didn’t Sakura’s mother say she walked early as well?

Sasuke shakes his head. He is likely just jumping to conclusions.

Still, there’s nothing stopping him from testing out the theory to be sure.

Quietly, he stands and goes to scoop Sarada into his arms. She giggles around the dummy, dropping the plush toy to pat at his face with pudgy hands (he narrowly misses taking a tiny nail to the Rinnegan and a thumb up his nose) as he brings her back to her spot on the blanket. After setting her down and handing her one of the toy shuriken to keep busy, he goes to pick up the fallen dinosaur, places it back on the cabinet, and then returns to the couch to sit.

But this time he intends to observe.

Not directly, of course, because there’s truth in that old adage about watched pots. But he pretends to reread the memo again, only occasionally glancing at Sarada from the corner of his eyes.

At first, it seems as if she is perfectly content to just sit their banging her baby shuriken against the floor.

A few minutes later, however, her eyes flit across the room to the green dinosaur. A tiny wrinkle appears in her nose – a trait from Sakura – and she drops the shuriken. Then, to Sasuke’s utter amazement, she rolls to one side and grabs at the nearby ottoman, using it to pull herself to her feet.

Still completely focused on the plush toy, she makes a beeline for the cabinet, absently grabbing on to the coffee table and easy chair as she goes. The last couple of steps from the couch to the entranceway, there is nothing to hold her up, and he watches with baited breath as she wobbles exactly three paces until reaching the cabinet. Now supported once more, she stretches up on tiptoes, worrying at the toy until her fingers close around one of its paws.

Then she falls backward with a satisfied grunt, the toy clutched in her fist.

Sasuke’s brain is still trying to register what he just saw.

Because his daughter really did just take her first steps.

No. Her second steps.

He missed the first because he was reading a damned memo.

But he can’t find the energy to chastise himself for this, because he is too buoyed up by the overwhelming feeling of pride.

Sarada just walked.

His daughter, the child he never thought he would deserve, is growing up so fast. Every time he turns around, she is doing something new and amazing and he sort of wants her to slow down –

But she just walked!

She’s only nine months old, and clearly a genius. Like her mother, like him, like Itachi –

Boruto didn’t start walking until he was a year old. Naruto is going to be pissed when he finds out.

He snorts in smug amusement at this, wandering back over to pick up his daughter once more, nudging her nose with his own and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“That’s my girl,” he tells her proudly, while she squeals in pleasure.

Although…

Naruto can’t know about this until Sakura does. And when she finds out she missed Sarada’s first steps, she’ll be upset.

He wonders for a moment if he should pretend like nothing happened. It would be a simple thing, to say nothing and just wait for Sarada to decide to start toddling around while both he and Sakura are in the room. Then she wouldn’t feel like she missed this milestone.

He frowns and shakes his head.

No, he doesn’t like the idea of hiding the truth from his wife, even for something like this.

Especially for something like this.

Before he can think too much about a possible solution, fate decides to intervene.

He senses Sakura’s chakra approaching their front door and imagines the clack of her heels on the walkway as she rummages in her bag for the housekeys.

Quick as he can, he puts Sarada back on her blanket and leaves the room, placing the dinosaur back on the cabinet for a third time. Glancing back into the room to ensure his daughter hasn’t moved – and she hasn’t yet, instead sitting on the blanket with a frown on her face like she can’t figure out how or why she is back where she started – Sasuke lingers in the entranceway to greet his wife.  

The front door opens and there’s Sakura – all smiles and tired yet sparkling eyes – about to open her mouth in greeting.

Sasuke raises a finger to his lips and motions her forward, knowing if Sarada hears her mother she’ll probably get distracted.

Puzzled, and perhaps a little wary, Sakura toes off her shoes and slips into the house to stand beside Sasuke. Gently, he manoeuvres her to stand so that while she can see around the doorway, Sarada remains blind to her.

Their daughter, in the meantime, lets out a frustrated sound that’s halfway between a mewl and a scoff, and glares at the plushie.

Sakura makes a strangled noise in her throat that Sasuke thinks might be a hastily suppressed squeal of appreciation. He can’t even fault her for it because his own mouth is drawn into a smile at the way Sarada puffs out her cheeks and draws her eyebrows together.

That smile widens a little as before their eyes, Sarada clambers up on chubby, wobbly legs and crosses the room. This time she barely uses the furniture as she stalks forward with purpose, before once again reaching the cabinet, grabbing her plush toy, and clutching at it defiantly.

There’s a beat of silence, and then to Sasuke’s great shock, Sakura bursts into tears.

As soon as they register, he knows they are tears of joy, but he always finds himself at a loss when he sees Sakura cry.  

“Oh, sweetheart, look at you!” Sakura cries, bounding across the room to scoop up their daughter and cover her with kisses. Sarada is so surprised and bemused to see her mother, that she instantly forgets about her long-sought-after toy and shrieks with joy. “You’re such a good girl! You walked, baby, look at that! You figured it out by yourself, right? Or did Papa help you?”

She turns a questioning, still-tearstained look on Sasuke, who shakes his head. “She did it herself. I missed it the first time.”

He gives her a brief explanation of how events transpired.

“Well that won’t do, we can’t both have missed it,” Sakura declares, lowering the toddler to the floor. She doesn’t let her sit, however, instead holding her by both hands in a way that forces Sarada to stand. “Come here, take her hand.”

Sasuke does so, leaning over to take Sarada’s tiny left hand in his right. She beams up at him in response, tugging at him impatiently.

“Let’s walk with her,” Sakura continues. “Maybe we can get her to do it without furniture if we help.”

Which is how the two of them end up spending the next hour crouched over, guiding their child throughout the house and in the garden. Occasionally Sarada’s enthusiasm will lead her to trip over her feet, but Sakura and Sasuke easily catch her at these times, swinging her between them until she is shrieking with giggles.

終わり

Thank you for reading! Reviews and concrit are much appreciated - and if you’re feeling generous, I also accept tips (just scroll to the top and click the button!)

クリ

[ramajmedia]

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy: 10 Questions We Still Want Answered

Now that Spider-Man is out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans have turned back to viewing the character in his own light rather than as “The Iron Kid” as he mostly was in the MCU. What better version of Spider-Man to turn to than the most famous Sam Raimi trilogy one?

RELATED: 10 Hilarious Thanos Memes Only Titans Would Love

This film series won’t ever be outdated, and fans still get a kick out of it almost two decades after it premiered. Since the trilogy has been viewed so many times, there are questions we would like to have answered because Spider-Man 4 never materialized. And with the MCU Spider-Man out for the time being, these 10 questions about the Sam Raimi trilogy have never felt more important to be asked than now.

10 Is That Mysterio?

It’s been said by Bruce Campbell that he was supposed to be unveiled as Mysterio in a future Spider-Man film, and his repeat cameos in the trilogy were meant to be part of his illusions, even though that doesn’t quite make sense.

RELATED: 10 Marvel Logic Memes That Are Too Hilarious For Words

In any case, we don’t know in-universe of what might be going on, considering Vulture and Lizard were villains who were supposedly in line to be the antagonist in Spider-Man 4. If Bruce Campbell really was Mysterio, then we want to know why he came up with Spider-Man’s name, and why he was so happy to help Peter Parker propose to Mary Jane.

9 What Is Peter And Mary Jane's Relationship Status?

The final shot of the trilogy was of Peter and Mary Jane dancing to a slow song (even though Mary Jane was supposed to be at work, so what was up with that?), but one could see their expressions were filled with sadness. 

We can’t be certain if they were mourning the death of Harry or the demise of their relationship. Peter never did apologize to her for the hurt he inflicted while under the symbiote’s influence, neither did she do the same when being manipulated by Harry. Chances are, that might have been their break-up dance, although the scene is up for several interpretations.

8 What Became Of Flint Marko?

There was a hint of Flint Marko returning to his human form at the end of Spider-Man 3, when we saw him tear up despite being made of sand. Along with that, being forgiven by Peter won’t do squat for Flint with the cops, who were out to arrest him.

With Flint’s escape, it meant he was still at large and now had no purpose left. Presumably, he gave up a life of crime, which still leaves him broke and without any means to provide for his daughter. Being a city-wide famous criminal won’t simply land him any jobs, and signs point toward him returning to be a criminal. We just don’t any of this for sure.

7 Does Aunt May Know Peter Is Spider-Man?

There comes a point where you start suspecting how someone has just the right words for every occasion. In Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, Aunt May fit this trope when she had a philosophical solution to all of Peter’s problems.

RELATED: Spider-Man: Far From Home: 10 Best Memes The Internet Has Given Us

It didn’t stop there either, as Aunt May could even read Spider-Man like a book, despite Peter never having told her he was Spider-Man. It seemed as if Aunt May might have figured out Peter’s superhero identity on her own, and it would have been nice to see Peter discussing his superhero problems openly with her.

6 What's The Deal With Mary Jane's Career?

One might find this a silly question, but we’re too darn curious to know how it was that Mary Jane fell so hard from her former position. In Spider-Man 2, she was so popular that her face was plastered all around New York. Come Spider-Man 3, and she was reduced to singing in her lowly clubs.

Even crazier is that Mary Jane somehow went from being an actress to just a singer, as she was fired from her play due to not having a strong voice. Her later employment was also as a singer who doubled as a waitress, making it far too confusing whether Mary Jane was an actress or a singer, or now just a failed actress and singer.

5 Does Robbie Know Peter Is Spider-Man?

Some people get freaked out by this scene when they’re not prepared to watch it, as we see Robbie eyeing Peter with a knowing expression when talking about Spider-Man. It was a moment that was never touched upon before or ever since then, making it a total mystery as to what the heck was going on.

RELATED: Uncharted: 10 Tom Holland Roles That Prove He’s Ready To Become Nathan Drake

Supporters of the theories that Robbie knew all along that Peter was Spider-Man insists this was the reason why he kept arguing with J.J.J. that Spider-Man wasn’t a menace; those opposed argue that Robbie didn’t do anything to help Peter in any way. Whatever’s the case, we just want to know why Robbie was so shifty in that particular occasion.

4 What Became Of The Symbiote Sample With Dr. Conors?

Here’s something people don’t think about much: A part of the Venom symbiote is still with Dr. Connors. The one that died with Eddie Brock was the part of Venom that had assimilated the qualities of Spider-Man, but there was still the sample that Peter dropped off to Dr. Connors for inspection. 

Since the symbiote can stretch itself according to the size of its host, there’s a very good chance our dear doctor might be its target. And as Dr. Connors’ lab is full of science-y stuff, there’s no telling what the symbiote might latch onto. In this way, Peter is still not rid of Venom.

3 Does The World Know The Goblin's Identity Now?

Harry’s dumb butler waited right till the end of Spider-Man 3 to tell him what he should have revealed two movies ago, and that was the truth about his father as a villain. However, since that conversation was private, no-one else would be aware of this.

RELATED: Avengers: 10 Hilarious Endgame Logic Memes That Make Professor Hulk Laugh

That would be understandable unless you consider that the public saw Harry with the Goblin technology, and with Harry being dead and all, the technology should have been confiscated. Putting two and two together isn’t difficult here, and the conclusion should be reached that both Harry and Norman must have been the Goblins. The trouble is, we don’t know if that universe’s police is smart enough to figure this out.

2 Is Peter Still Spider-Man?

After learning of his darkest tendencies with the symbiote and realizing how his powers can be abused with severe consequences, we just can’t be sure if Peter would want to be Spider-Man anymore. 

All his villains are gone by this point, and his best friend’s death (due to his inability to save him) might just be the catalyst to Peter giving up his superhero identity. Since there was no Spider-Man 4, we only have Peter’s grief as the last image of the character, and it’s hard to see him swinging around New York City this way.

1 Did Mr. Ditkovich Fix The Door Or Does He Still Want Rent?

Ah yes, the real money question that has been nagging the fanbase for 12 years has been the Mr. Ditkovich problem. And it’s a serious one too, because there have been endless arguments whether Peter should have paid the rent first, or if Mr. Ditkovich should have fixed that blasted door. 

This is an issue more pressing than the “Chicken or the Egg” conundrum, and one we want to know more dearly than anything else in the Spider-Man trilogy. Was Mr Ditkovich’s hunger for his rent stronger than Peter’s quest for justice to get his door fixed?

NEXT: 5 Alternate Versions Of Spider-Man We Hope To See In The Spider-Verse Sequel (& 5 We Don’t)

source https://screenrant.com/sam-raimis-spider-man-trilogy-questions-answered/

[nettlestonenell]

Find the earlier bits here.

Part X - The Mornings After

Conrad came to at the sound of the bedroom door opening. Strangely, when he turned his head gingerly toward it, he saw no one.

The serenity of the room was disturbed soon enough, though, by the noise of barking, and the unmistakable presence of an actual (not imagined) Springer spaniel jumping onto the bed, and attempting to work out who the stranger lying in it was.

“Ozzy!” Conrad heard in a vicious whisper from the other side of the door, and then, seeing what the dog had gotten into, Ada Covington had fully pushed opened the door and walked in, herself. “Ozymandias!” she attempted to reprimand the pup.

Conrad, who liked dogs, though was attempting to keep this one’s wriggling away from his still tender mid-section, felt his own ears prick with her saying of the spaniel’s name. “Your dog’s named Ozymandias?”

“Dad named him,” she said, clearly more interested in removing the canine from the room than entering into conversation with him, or, it would seem, acknowledging him in any particular way. She had this ‘Ozzy’ now by the collar, though her hold on him did little to control his eagerness to lunge away.

“It’s just, you know,” she said by way of explanation, “he doesn’t understand why you’re in here, in my parents’ room.”

“Your parents’ room?” Conrad asked, his head still to the pillows, unaware he’d taken over someone’s room, and had not just been given a spare.

“Yeah, sorry he’s waked you, Professor Bierkut.”

“Noooo,” said Conrad, “no, don’t be sorry. I should be the one sorry. I didn’t know—wait—what did you call me?”

“Professor Bierkut?”

“Oh, don’t call me that,” he said, more than a little aware of the silliness of such formality as he lay in her parents’ bed, a several-days-now houseguest, unwashed, unshaven, shirtless, ill, and utterly dependent upon her family’s goodwill. He moved to cautiously push himself up to a seated position against the headboard. “My own students hardly call me that.”

Of course not, Ada thought, trying to keep her expression from matching her inner monologue. They probably just call you ‘bra’.

She didn’t reply, and for some reason he felt compelled to carry on speaking anyway. “Call me Conrad. Please. It’s not the best name ever, sure, but it’s what my mom picked.” A voice inside his head questioned as to why he had said that. Why he hadn’t just stopped at ‘call me Conrad’. He didn’t usually end up explaining so much. But here he went again. “She loved musicals. Man, she loved musicals, my mom. Named me after Conrad Birdie. You know, wherever she is now, wherever she moved on to—she’s probably singing ‘One Last Kiss’.” He gave a lopsided smile—he didn’t seem to be able to hold it—or anything else in this moment, in. “The only person to call me Professor—and then only when she was annoyed with me—was my wife.”

Should have expected a wife, Ada thought to herself, and said aloud, “But that wasn’t in your—“ she cut herself off, she’d rather not reference the clinic’s dossier, “I didn’t read about her—“ she tried again, “should we contact her?”

Conrad shallowly shook his head. “Julie’s my ex-wife now,” and then something seemed to switch over in his head, and he was talking, and it was his voice, but he was saying things he never would share outside of intimate company—if even then. “It’s been enough years that I should probably start calling her that, now. Only, I guess I like the phrase, ‘my wife’, still. I like saying it, I like hearing it said. It feels nice.”

Why hasn’t he got a shirt on? Ada wondered, feeling off balance enough with trying to hold back Ozzy from jumping back on the bed, without also being presented a shirtless, bed-headed man occupying her parents’ bedroom who had no business looking so distracting when he was only just now coming down from an awful bout of illness.

I suppose I’m meant to be impressed, she told herself, that he’s a man who liked being married, who hasn’t just thrown off the memory of the experience, or the woman in it, with a few lines about the natural impossibility of monogamy.

She disliked the way her mind kept trying to cast the present scene as one more of ‘morning after’ conversation between the two of them, following a night of poor personal choices on her part--right before he would say he had to go, and make a hasty exit before things became even more awkward, and his no-doubt fear that she might trap him into a follow-up date become a reality.

Conrad studied Ada Covington’s face following his over-sharing, and he could see it was disconcerting to her as she was trying to get a hold on his sudden chattiness as well.

“I should apologize—for that day—“ he heard himself rattling on, though his brain felt foggy as to anything in that elevator they had shared he ought to apologize for.

Heaven knew he wasn’t usually this verbose, even in lectures. “You should have come with me,” he said, and he did mean it—though he would not usually have meant to have brought such a thing up at this moment, “to that restaurant. We could have talked. Like people.”

He saw her give a small whisper of an uncertain smile. “We’re talking now,” she said. Outside, a rooster crowed, and the spaniel Ozzy gave a solid lunge and was out of her hands and out the bedroom door, onto a new adventure.

The dog’s disappearance and sudden exit seemed to startle both of them, and for a long moment they simply looked at each other, until the sounds of Ozzy having found his rooster floated up from outside.

“She’s a very pretty baby, you know,” Conrad said, and again there was nothing about that statement untrue, only, why was he sharing it? “But she’s scared. All alone.”

Ada’s smile dropped, suspicion fell like a curtain over her eyes. “What?”

“The baby—the baby girl,” he went on. “I, I dreamed about her. She had your eyes. Just, that blue, that wide and—your eyes. How frightened she must be.”

“You’ve seen pictures of the child?” for some reason she stopped short of using the word, ‘baby’, though of course it was entirely accurate. What have they done? she thought, as always fearful for the child’s privacy, for the normalcy of her life.

“It was a dream,” Conrad confessed. “At least, I think it was a dream.”

Here he saw Ada shift, as though deliberately accessing some no-nonsense part of herself. “You’re on several medications,” she told him, her tone abruptly brusque. “One of them is a bit of a tranquilizer, Mum gave you the last of it last night. You’ve simply imagined all that. And as for her having my eyes, well,” here she reached out to a bedside table and grabbed for a framed photograph of herself, showing it to him. “You’ve been sleeping beside this photo of me for days now. Your brain just—reorganized things.”

Conrad observed her conclusion, and then to his shock, shared aloud that while the framed photo was pretty, it was nothing compared with looking at her in person.

Even in his own head it was what his students would call, ‘a mic drop’ moment. His mouth hung open at the conclusion of it. There couldn’t possibly, he thought, be anything left to spill out of him.

He was not entirely sure he was wearing pants, or he might have dismissed himself immediately to the bathroom.

This, however, Ada took in stride. “You’re talking out of your head,” she told him, and then unexpectedly took a seat at the foot of the bed.

Now’s your chance, she told herself. She wouldn’t even need a penny to pay for his thoughts. “Why did you do it?” she asked him, “become a donor?”

It was not a question he had expected to have to answer to her, of all people. She had, after all, more than informed him in that elevator that such motivations were immaterial, their interactions with the clinic above-the-law, and by the law, unimpeachable.

Conrad had at least the presence of mind to question, “If I’m talking out of my head, and you say I’m on some sort of mind-altering medication—should you really be asking me personal questions, knowing I can’t stop talking like a man on a truth serum?”

Ada found herself still in a conundrum. She felt certain she was about to get his answer—he hardly seemed able to keep his mouth shut, but she was not made of stone, and his physical attributes were so distracting, the rise and fall of his bare chest, the stubble just under his jaw, the way his eyes seemed to take in everything about her, even her Wellies--her seat on the bed was becoming so, too.

“Here,” she said, grabbing for his glasses on the bedside table among the tray holding medicine, water cups, and thermometer.

Instinctively, he put them on, bringing his surroundings into clearer focus.

Great, thought Ada. A lot of good that did. He looked like one of those impossibly glossy magazine ads for eyewear. Her annoyance with him returned. “Are you saying you wouldn’t answer me that question unless you were under the influence?”

Conrad gave one of his eyebrows a vigorous scratching before beginning, trying to draw attention away from how it was furrowing in dismay. “It was a few years ago,” he began, “I was trying for tenure, but my book wasn’t gaining much interest. I needed to attend more conferences, but I was having a hard time finding the extra money to properly promote it. I knew a doctor friend from my gym. He suggested the clinic, gave me a recommendation. It was an easy enough way to…” he squinted behind his lenses. “That sounds pretty mercenary, doesn’t it?” he wanted to look up at her for her reaction, but didn’t. “It shouldn’t matter, I know it shouldn’t. I didn’t betray anyone, or hurt anyone, or break any laws, but this court case, you know? Someone’s gonna ask me your question at some point and I’m going to have to answer it, and they’re going to write it down, and report on it. And I dread it. I dread that baby someday hearing what I had to say, thinking that she wasn’t wanted. Thinking that part of her coming into being was just some guy wanting to further his career, get a better paycheck. I mean, she’s not wanted now, is she? Courts having to decide who has to take her, find out who she is. How are you gonna answer it?”

It was a long speech. Certainly, the longest he’d talked in one go since coming into this house. And it was a hard one to make, at that—medication helping along his loquaciousness or no. His mouth felt filled with cotton, any other words left there dried up.

Ada had watched him through his confession (of sorts). How angry it made her—that the very system that allowed for the clinic to exist, that lauded those who made use of it, would in the end vilify the donors that made it possible.

How angry, how conflicted it made her to watch Conrad Bierkut reveal himself to her with such humanity in a way she could not easily dismiss as posture; as she had so many of her other interactions with him.

She did not even allow herself to speculate that the strong smell of ‘man’ now pervasive in her parents’ lovely bedroom was just his way of injecting his irresistible, highly-evolved pheromones into the atmosphere, to further his unsettling appeal.

Instead, she spoke to answer his question of her. “Well, if you must know. I wanted to help,” she gave a small shrug, “I know what my parents went through before they adopted Roger and me. I thought I could help someone else who wanted a baby,,” she watched his face, fearful her truth would sound more sanctimonious than sincere, and added, “It’s not as effortless to be a female donor, but—the money was nice. It helped out around here.”

Oh no. And then, he smiled.

“You’re such a nice person, Ada,” Conrad heard himself gushing. “And your family, looking after me. I don’t know how I’ll thank them.”

Her eyebrows spiked at this.

“Call before you stop in next time,” she said, her tone with only a tinge of tart, and he hoped he was right that she was joking. “And maybe tell someone in your life before you come.”

This caught him by surprise, his smile shifted into uncertainty. “What do you mean?”

“The Toronto papers have you all over their front page. They say you’re missing. They stop just short of announcing you’re presumed dead.”

His eyes showed his confusion at this news. “You’re joking.” They rolled. “Of course, you’re not joking. It was those guys I was trying to lose on the freeway that night, they’re why when I lost them I couldn’t think of anywhere I could go, and I remembered knowing that your farm—“ he only just barely paused when his brain tapped him on the shoulder about his forays into Google Earth and Ada Covington. “Was off by itself and secluded, and the local paper, you know, that covered the birth of kittens.”

“Well, it hasn’t started covering you—yet,” she said. “And Garrett keeps buying up all the city papers in the village before anyone else can buy them to read.”

“That’s gotta be expensive,” Conrad said. “Doesn’t he know most people get their news from electronic devices now?”

“It’s a nice gesture, though,” Ada said, her defensiveness not lost on him, herself not acknowledging the fact that just this morning she was admonishing Garrett just so, and growing irritated that he refused to accept the futility of his actions.

“No, I’m sure—I’m sure it was,” Conrad agreed, backpedaling in the wake of her snappish reply. “I have a friend—Mick—he, uh, follows this whole ridiculous media circus so I don’t have to. Tells me the important bits.”

This news raised her eyebrows. “Like where my farm is?” He noted this response was not snappish, but almost playful. Were they going to go back to being cordial so quickly?

“Uhh—“ he said (he did not want to step wrong, here), wondering, as he did not sloppily continue on to confess his time spent on Google Earth, whether the medication’s side effect of loosening his tongue might be starting to wear off.

“You’ll have to stay inside today, for your own good,” Ada told him, suddenly aware of the passage of time, rising from her seat at the foot of the bed. “We’ve two school groups coming, and we’ll not likely be able to lockbox all their cellphones until they leave. Mum should be back within the hour. Please,” she asked him. “Just stay up here until they’re gone. None of us wants a photo of you here to show up online, right?”

“My car—“ he said, abruptly recalling it.

“Roger had it towed for repairs to a friend’s garage.”

“Wow. Okay. Thank him for me.”

Here she gave a little in-the-know scoff. “Better than you thanking him.”

He had to have the truth—especially if her mother was returning and he would be formally meeting her. “Does your family hate me that much? Did I--did I do anything to them?”

He seemed genuinely concerned. “No, you didn’t do anything to them. It’s just, they’re trying to get their head around what I’ve done, and become a part of. They want to find a way to protect me from all of it. But ‘it’ is a thing, a phenomenon, and not a person. And when I—I mean, when THEY—look at you, they pin all of that on your face.”

“Oh,” he said. “That makes sense. Was someone playing something from Tommy earlier?”

This question caught her off guard, “yeah,” and she laughed, like, genuinely laughed. “Mum and I. We mess around like that sometimes.”

“No,” he disagreed with her terminology. “You jam. You totally jammed.”

“Right.” She agreed to agree, the sound of the laugh gone, but its after effects settling around her eyes.

“If you know any Quadrophenia later, I’d be up for that,” he offered.

“Sorry, Professor, the band doesn’t take requests,” said a voice, and the lady who had helped him up the stairs those night ago pushed through the door and into the room, and shortly she was all business asking about how he felt, and removing the IV, and Ada Covington was gone, off somewhere, he hoped, still with the memory of that laugh about her eyes.

(tbc)

[cribcrate22-blog]

Diet Doctor Podcast #3 – Dr. Jeffry Gerber and Ivor Cummins

Ivor Cummins: Great to be here, Bret.

Dr. Jeffry Gerber: Thanks, Bret.

Bret: The first thing I want to talk to you about is I learned from you guys you have to be very careful who you choose to write a book with. Because then you’re sort of stuck with that person, right? You guys are doing so much together, probably so many joint interviews, you are scheduled to talk together at the conference today and now we even have you sharing one microphone.

So maybe I want to ask you if you’re happy with your choice, but I don’t know if we want to talk about that right away, so instead talk to me a little bit about of what led up to your book “Eat rich, live long, the power of low-carb and keto for weight loss and great health”. Give me a little bit of the background. What inspired you to write this book and what led to it?

Ivor: Well, Jeff your history with low-carb goes back a lot longer, so maybe give your history first?

Jeffry: Yes, Brett, it actually ties into your original question. So I’ve been interested in nutrition for over 20 years. As you know, I am a family physician having done this for now 30 years almost and about 20 years ago I started to teach myself about nutrition after patients had approached me, family members approached me, I had some experience with losing 40 pounds on my own and just realized we didn’t learn much about nutrition in medical school.

You know we maybe had two hours or less and so like all of us we taught ourselves. And so it was about four or five years ago that I had met Ivor. I had a particular interest not only in nutrition but cardiovascular disease. And I always joke if it wasn’t for cholesterol we’d probably all be on a low-carb diet.

So at any rate, four years and a half years ago this chemical engineer out of nowhere puts up this video, “The cholesterol conundrum” and I immediately contacted this guy and I realized how connected we were that the engineer from one walk of life and the doctor from the other walk of life, our paths crossed at this opportune time and realizing that we were both focused on diet and cardiovascular risk and I had said back then to Ivor, we had done a little private video Skype and I said to the guy, “I think we need to collaborate”.

And you know he said, “What’s the happening?” and then he said to his wife, “Who is this crazy doctor from Colorado that wants to collaborate?” And so essentially this is what it’s turned into.

Bret: That’s fantastic.

Ivor: And the genesis of the cholesterol conundrum was around 2012 I got some very poor blood tests. I won’t go into details, but multiple doctors I consulted couldn’t really explain the two key things about any challenge.

You know, what’s the implication for mortality/morbidity and what are the root causes that would drive those blood metrics. And basically not getting any answers I began to research intensively on… within weeks I was on carbohydrate metabolism as the cause.

Bret: Yeah, we see it time and time again, someone has this personal experience that sends them on this is path of discovery and they end up with a low-carb diet as being such a powerful treatment for what they’re looking for and yet we were taught nothing of that. We were taught nothing of that in medical school and residency, so I’m amazed that you had been practicing this way for more than a decade.

And at that time these conferences like Low-Carb USA or Low-Carb Breckinridge didn’t exist. So how do you feel now when you come to a conference like this and they ask you or ask the crowd, “How many people are physicians?” and so many hands go up? I mean you must feel a little bit of pride in that.

Jeffry: Yeah, when I first got involved with it in the year 2000 I was on my own. And interestingly it wasn’t until I think 2005. Still on my own I had done my own research, reading medical journals, fascinated with the metabolic syndrome, understanding how that was a root cause, but in 2005 the first person I reached out to on social media was Jackie Eberstein, who was the nurse of Dr. Atkins.

And my hands were shaking, I somehow found her website, found her email and I thought that this person would never reply. And she replied right back and she was lovely, she was warm, she answered all my questions, so that was kind of the beginning. And, you know, the Internet social media was nothing back then, but slowly but surely it grew.

I connected with Jimmy Moore and we really have to give him credit, because if it wasn’t for him, I really don’t think this community would be as connected as we are. So to his credit as well I became a member of an obesity Society.

And it was funny back then, there were a lot of physicians and myself and Dr. Eric Westman would walk around the room and real quietly say to the other doctor, “I’m low-carb. Are you low-carb, doctor?” And you had to really like…

Bret: Keep it on the down low.

Jeffry: Keep it on the down low and slowly but surely it’s grown, Dr. Westman became the president of the society and that’s really helped to make, I think, physicians aware and, you know, we’ve just watched this blossom ever since. And Ivor and I both attended the summit in Cape Town South Africa from Tim Noakes. This was back in 2015. And we thought it would be a great idea to bring conferences to the United States.

So with my co-organizer Rod Taylor we have conferences in Colorado, we have one coming up next year in 2019 in March in Denver, and like you said it is just rewarding to see healthcare professionals attending these things, because honestly they are the guys, they’re the gatekeepers that need to learn this first. But we also love having the general public and these events that we’re at today really helped to bring everybody together and advance nutritional science.

Bret: Yeah, that’s so true and it seems like the doctors are catching on, but Ivor engineers are leading the way and that’s the fascinating part. And what I really like about most engineers, I can’t group you all into one, but in general the problem-solving skills in the way of thinking things as problem solvers is unique to the world of medicine unfortunately, but that’s sort of what we need and you talk a lot about the Pareto principle and you talk about sort of problem-solving metrics. So give us a little overview of how you think your approach to problems differ than the average physicians approach to health problems.

Ivor: Right, Bret. Well, essentially we use a lot of tools, systematic tools. So there is the Pareto principle, which is a rack and stack of the most important factors based on the evidence and that’s really important. Those comparative analysis, a tool called Kepner Tragoe, where you prosecute all of the distinctions between what the problem is and is not and then you record the inferences.

So it’s kind of like a little epidemiological. It’s looking at all the differences and what might cause them and that can become a very long list. And then there’s hypothesis for against charts, where you look at many hypothesis for a single problem. And we split up many, many hypothesis and they are constantly judged against each other based on the evidence for each individual one and against.

And there’s never any clarity early in a complex problem, especially a multifactor. So you have many, many hypotheses and they are pitched against each other. And that’s an enormously important discipline, which doesn’t really happen in medicine. Usually a hypothesis gains ground, becomes established, the orthodoxy get behind it and it kind of transcends into dogma. So there’s a huge difference.

And then statistical inference and design of experiments to test hypotheses is an automatic part of our life. An autopsy, so intense autopsy with electron microscopes and other tools to dig in and scrutinize the problem at a physical level. And again you don’t have so much of that medicine.

Bret: When I hear you go through this checklist and then I think in my mind how we write guidelines in medicine and they’re so polar opposite. I mean the guidelines are… you get a group of people together that do a sort of a cursory evaluation of the evidence, they come up with their best case scenario and their opinions of what the guidelines should be. That is a far cry from what you just described.

Ivor: And one crucial thing I’ll just add, there are many more tools, but also the experience of decades of using these tools… you less and less make mistakes or jump to conclusions through sheer experience. But a crucial one is to always look for black swans, for contradictory evidence against your hypothesis.

So that’s an enormous part of the time to resolution and success in engineering is you look for negative data that conflicts with your hypothesis and you rapidly kill incorrect hypotheses or you rewrite them to accommodate the conflicting data. And that’s just so central but I must say in nutritional medicine that’s the most extraordinary difference.

Confirmatory data is always looked for to build up more and more evidence to support a hypothesis, whereas one or two conflicting pieces of data could reset the whole team and get you back on the correct path doesn’t happen.

Jeffry: So we do have criteria in medicine that prove or disprove hypotheses. And that’s the Bradford Hill criteria, but we’ve set the bar so low that we don’t look at it like a scientist or an engineer looks at it.

Bret: Right and I wonder how many doctors are even aware of the Bradford Hill criteria. And when you’re interpreting an observational study that shows a relative risk of 1.18 and that makes it as causative, which, you know, that doesn’t even scratch the Bradford Hill criteria, I think it’s just an underused tool for sure.

Ivor: And actually another example of Bradford Hill that just springs to mind, there has to be directionality of dose-response. So cause X supposedly driving Y, as X increases, why should increase? But we have many examples including cholesterol and other things, whether is not a dose-response. Yes so Bradford Hill is excellent actually in principle, but it’s utilization is almost zero from what I’ve seen.

Bret: Let’s get into some of the specifics. So you talked about the dose-response, Ivor. And you spoke about that in your talk yesterday, specifically about coronary calcium score. So I know you’re a big proponent of the coronary calcium score. And one of the things you said was there are 17 studies I think you quoted where LDL does not correlate with the degree of coronary calcium score.

Ivor: Yeah, actually there’s a 2009 paper and a book publication I think in 15, can’t recall the author, but I think it’s closer to 20 and even includes familial hypercholesterolemia studies. And across the board with one exception in 19 studies, there’s a very slight correlation between prospective LDL and coronary calcium. Now coronary calcium is far and away the best metric of atherosclerosis extent and future risk. It beats all the risk factors together.

And it’s because it sees the actual disease process, the calcification that’s the response to injury for this inflammatory vascular disease. But it is interesting there’s almost no correlation with cholesterol metrics. Interest needed do highlight that insulin pops up several times, but not cholesterol.

So I think to engineers working on cholesterol, that and myriads other kind of negative pieces of evidence would’ve caused us to totally retool the cholesterol hypothesis very early in the prosecution of the problem-solving effort. And we have 50 years now where the negative evidence is essentially almost suppressed, but certainly ignored.

Jeffry: So it’s interesting… mainstream, half of the cardiologists think that the calcium score has a benefit, half of them don’t, but it’s interesting when you look at guidelines, they try to tack on calcium score with your AHA risk markers, and what we’re suggesting is that that’s not the right way to use the tools that use… just simply look at calcium score by itself, independent of cholesterol and what I can add is just clinically we see that LDL cholesterol LDL-P is all over the board and it doesn’t correlate with the calcium score.

And this is especially… so we see lots of patients who have been doing low-carb paleo diets and I had many over years where there are these cholesterol hyperresponders where they tend to high LDL-C, high LDL P and many of them have calcium scores of zero, a perfect score of zero, which gives you a 15 year warranty.

Bret: Let’s talk about that 15 year warranty for a second, because I have to be honest, I have a little bit of trouble with that term, because it almost implies the risk is zero. So I think we have to admit if you have a calcium score of zero, your risk of a cardiac event in the next 10 years is not zero. It’s very low, it’s between 1% and 2%, but it’s not zero. So I think that’s important to sort of clarifying the warranty.

Ivor: It’s really important to clarify and anyone that infers from the word warranty it’s zero is mistaking obviously. And the warranty I think there were two papers were warranty was used in the title of the publication and it probably is unfortunate. So one of the largest study showed just from memory that zero scoring middle-age people I think 12 years later at 99.6% were still alive. And high-scoring people 75.6 were still alive.

Now that’s an enormous difference in mortality. So although enormous, there’s no zero, and I think Jeff you probably agree that if you’re zero calcium, there are exceptions. On one end there are people with zero who have rapid progression of atherosclerosis and a soft plaque does rupture before there’s significant calcification to show up in the scan. I mean later you could look and probably find diffuse calcification, but not enough to register.

Interestingly on the other end of the scale there’s a small maybe 1% of people who have huge calcification and who don’t seem to have events and they appear to be the people where the protective effect of calcification, which is to protect the arteries when they’re inflamed, is so advanced and rapidly progressing that they actually end up with massive calcification but relatively stable arteries, they almost have a full metal jacket.

So I think those two corner cases around 1% at each end illustrate the protective nature of calcium, it’s a fantastic evolutionary process, it’s actually bone matrix, it’s identical to bone matrix formation, but of course people rapidly progressing may have their event before the calcification establishes. So around 1% events in the following 10 years for zero versus in your recent paper, Jeff, around 37% for high scores close to 1,000. People just need to see it’s not 100% perfect.

Bret: And that’s a great point to bring up though because I think we can fall into a trap of being sort of overly reassured with a score of zero. It’s not, “Your score is zero, see you later, you don’t have to worry about anything.” It’s, “Your score is zero, but now you’re on our radar screen to follow again to make sure there’s no progression.”

Jeffry: So one other point is criticism of the test is that it doesn’t visualize soft plaque. And when you look at the data first of all, so when your score goes from zero to 1,000, this is independent of whether you see soft plaque or not. If you have a zero score you still have a small chance of having an event.

Now the question is if you can visualize soft plaque, would that change your ability to predict risk for these people that have a low calcium score? So you can do a CTMR, you could do a CT angiogram and then you get to see the soft plaque. But in our experience it doesn’t change the data looking at a CT calcium by itself.

Bret: So Jeff, what do you think about the carotid intima media thickness as a surrogate for that? Obviously again we’re not talking about the specific site we’re concerned about and we’re not even talking about plaque so much. It’s just the thickness of the intima of the carotid artery, but something you can measure quickly without radiation that might be a decent surrogate marker for the soft plaque as well.

Jeffry: Yeah, so again you describe that nice… Well, the intima is just the lining of the wall of the artery and so I don’t know who created the technology, but what he tried to do was to age the blood vessel based on the thickness of the intima. And on literature review it really does not correlate with events and mortality. So it’s interesting, in our office we actually do the CIMT, because it comes along with a limited Doppler.

So the limited Doppler, we’re actually looking for plaque buildup within the lumen itself. And that perhaps is a surrogate test for say a coronary calcium score. It’s not quantifiable quite like a coronary calcium score. The idea is if you could image all the blood vessels in the body and look at the plaque burden, that would give you a great idea about overall risk. But we do like the calcium score, because it’s looking at those tiny little coronary arteries that, you know, you are at risk for heart attack and stroke. So CIMT doesn’t really correlate.

Bret: I’d like to see the rate of change study sort of like with the coronary calcium score that has a fast change or slow change, same for CIMT, and correlate that. I don’t know if the rate of change studies have been done quite as well.

Ivor: No not really. In fact there’s not much really linking CIMT impressively to future risk prediction. I mean it’s a useful tool to quantify and track, but it’s just very weak compared to calcium. Because as you say it’s surrogate in different vessel, there is operator variation, quite large, they have to pick the region, you know, with to mouse clicks.

And you can’t have people who have quite a large intimal thickening, but really have very stable arteries with no real vulnerable plaque and vice versa. It’s just the calcium is vastly better. You did mention an interesting point, the radiation, and I researched that myself out of interest because I often hear this, but machines nowadays are around 1 mSv, which is around the same as a bilateral mammogram. And if you look back at research in the past decades, Chernobyl and even Hiroshima and the nuclear accident in Brazil, the biggest civilian nuclear accident, they tracked the people who had much, much higher exposures than this. I mean much higher. And generally over decades no signal between them and controls. So I think the expert Douglas Boyd who invented the calcium scanner, I interviewed him the other day, he said that that risk is maybe one in 10,000 of some possibility, it’s theoretical for 41 mSv, it’s tiny and it really is a distraction from the topic of how powerful the scan is.

Bret: Yeah, that’s a great point about how we interpret the risk of radiation, because in medicine there’s this concept of ALARA, as low as reasonably acceptable, and it almost teaches us to think of it as a way… it doesn’t matters how high the radiation exposure is. What matters is how much is the test going to contribute to the care. And is it worth it for any amount of radiation exposure?

Certainly a one-time calcium score or following every five years or so. Where I get a little concerned is if someone wants to follow a calcium score every six months or everyone year, because we don’t have data to say that short-term of a progression on happens or what it means, but more of the longer term following. Would you agree with that statement?

Jeffry: Yeah. So interestingly I’ve been working with my hospital next-door, that they’ve had a 64 slice GE machine for quite some time, GE Optima, and last year they purchased the cardiac package. And I’ve been bugging them right next door, I said, “Hey, we got to get this thing set up for calcium scans.”

And I’ve learned a lot because I’ve sat in there with their radiologist, the radiology technician over lunch, we just sit down and just… fascinating stuff. And first of all there’s much less user input error when you do this calcium score. You know, they calibrate the machine and the machine does the calculation to measure the calcium.

And I actually have been looking at the studies. So the radiating dosage, so the effective radiation dosage… So the device puts out a certain amount of radiation, so it’ll measure in DLP units, and I think our machine is about 165 DLP.

So that is what the machine puts out and then you have to do a fudge factor calculation for the effective dosage. So there’s a chest factor. And when we do the calculation, our calcium score is… the millisieverts is about 1.2.

And so you know I’m watching that really carefully and there’s things that the technicians can do so they can make a smaller window and the idea is that really is a small dosage. And if you have a zero score you could probably say that you don’t need any more, but it is okay to track… you can track every 3 to 5 years, maybe sooner if people are concerned.

Bret: Yeah, especially if someone’s changed their lifestyle significantly and you want to see what impact that has. So yeah, I think that’s a pretty good summary of calcium score. Let’s transition to a second about… transition to weight loss.

Jeff, you talked about weight loss in your talk today and what is so interesting is a lot of people come to a low-carb diet for the purpose of weight loss. But would you say weight loss is the most important metric to follow?

Jeffry: No, not at all. So again as I mentioned earlier, my understanding of cardiovascular disease led me to the metabolic syndrome. And so I think why we’re here as engineers and doctors is we’re trying to understand how do treat and prevent chronic disease. And weight loss is just kind of a consequence of doing all this.

Bret: And so, Ivor, when we talk about the mechanisms of weight loss or the mechanisms of improving metabolic health, there’s the debate of the calories in calories out versus the carbohydrate insulin model or some combination thereof when you factor in psychological factors… How do you break down and say what is the reason why a low-carb diet works?

Ivor: Yeah, that’s the million-dollar question. So I will take a shot at it. I think that calories… there is a place for calories, there’s no question. It’s not like the CI-CO, that is simply eat less, move more, because the body is far more complex than that, with myriad hormonal control feedback loops. So I think the primary benefit of a low-carb diet actually is appetite control and management. It’s a really big factor.

So when I went on a low-carb diet, and I’m not speaking N=1, but it’s seen in studies and all over the place, ad lib. low-carb diets have beaten calorie controlled low-fat diets. And we see again and again that when you switch over from a glucose based metabolism to a more fat burning metabolism, appetite comes under your control. In my case it was striking. I was actually shocked within weeks of how I could blithely not have to eat when I didn’t want to.

So I think that’s one of the big factors. Now when your insulin is high and you are hyperinsulinemic, like probably the majority of American adults today, that will tend towards trapping fat and tend against the burning of your body fat, so that is another factor.

But I would say appetite control is the central linchpin with the metabolic advantage that’s being discussed and the lowering of insulin being another strong element, but it’s not fully quantified, I think that’s fair to say. What would you say, Jeff?

Jeffry: Yes, so there’s a lot of factor to consider that it’s not necessarily all insulin. There’s many hormones and signals such as leptin, the gut incretins, we have to all consider that when we are thinking about regulating appetite, but of course insulin is probably the master hormone involved. And when you consider that perhaps two thirds of the US population adults over age 45 are currently diabetic and prediabetic that when you treat them with carbohydrate restriction, you’re going to have most success.

Bret: And I think that’s a very good answer because we like to simplify things and almost to a fault, because we want to know, “Is it the calories in, calories out? Is it the carbohydrate insulin?” And the truth is it’s far more complex than that. That’s basically how I would summarize your answer, so I thank you for that. The next question though Jeff is I’m sure you see these patients all the time in your office that they come in with a stall.

And you can define the stall on different ways, but basically whatever metric they are following, whether it’s their weight loss, whether it’s their insulin sensitivity, it just plateaus and they get frustrated. What kind of advice can you give to people about your general approach? When you see a stall what do you think about… what are your sort of go to top two or three things to ask them to do?

Jeffry: Right, so if you’re insulin resistant you just respond rapidly, your appetite is controlled, you correct insulin resistance and the fat that is trapped in a damper behind insulin… it opens these insulin floodgates and energy just pours out from fat tissue. But what often happens and I mean I’m just thinking of a patient I saw last week… they never lost weight from the beginning even though they were markedly insulin resistant when we measured all the parameters.

This particular person was told by a trainer, “You have to eat 180 g of fat a day. No matter if you’re hungry or not hungry.” And she was heeding the advice and pumping in the fat. And nothing happened. I mean that’s just an extreme example, but the point is that what you are eating at the beginning is not going to be the same when you hit this plateau. And so guess what? Controlling appetite becomes most important. This is what I think about, the quantity of food that you consume, the calories the activity and then it trickles downhill. But we have to make people understand that the quantity of food is really important once you become more insulin sensitive.

Bret: Yeah, very good point. And now to tag onto that a little bit more, to go a little bit deeper into the specifics of the diet… Ivor, this one’s for you as a good Irishman… How does alcohol fit into the low-carb diet and the low-carb lifestyle?

Ivor: Rather well. No, actually alcohol, I think a glass or two of red wine a day is fine. You know, the beers are generally carby. I’ve heard beer described as liquid bread, which is a pretty good.

Bret: A good description.

Ivor: Yeah so I think generally alcohol… interestingly there are studies done in the 60s on humans and calorie controlled, calorie for calorie alcohol replacing carbohydrate led to a slight drop in weight. And then replacing carbohydrate back in instead of alcohol iso-calorific increased the weight again. So well alcohol is the fourth food group.

So we know the protein has the thermogenesis effect, so over 100 calories of protein you eat maybe 75 will fully get into your system and there’ll be losses for heat and fat and carbohydrate around 10% or 15% of losses. It appears alcohol as the fourth food group has losses also because of its metabolism.

But that’s just an amusing aside. I think the advice is, you know, moderate alcohol, particularly something like dry red wine is low in carbs, low in sugar and it’s a pleasurable social thing. But anyone who has any hint of an overindulgence nature, you know, maybe it’s best to avoid alcohol altogether. And drinking excessively will knock people out of ketosis and will lead to many other issues including their work performance and other things also.

Bret: I see it sort of the same way as trying to decide what’s the mechanism of weight loss. Well, you also have to factor in the psychological components of what you eat. So with alcohol how it affects your liver, how it affects your ketone production, but also the psychological aspects of alcohol. Because let’s be honest, we don’t make the best decisions once we’ve had a couple of drinks so we have to factor that in as well, beyond the physiological effects.

Ivor: That’s a really, really important point… I wish I’d remembered to mention. Absolutely, when under the effects of alcohol that’s often where you will do your cheats. You will recharge your hands, you will eat things you would never eat without being slightly affected by alcohol. So that indirect way can certainly lead to failures.

Bret: Let’s talk about your book for a second. It’s a fantastic book, very detailed with great recipes, great scientific descriptions of why this works and how this works and some very practical tips. Can you share with us maybe one of the stories in this book that really jumped out at you, that’s a motivating story for you and your patients?

Jeffry: One particular female who was here last year at the conference had come in to see us… It’s actually a typical story. She was… Actually I’d say it’s not a typical story, it’s an atypical story… So this patient had been going to the diabetes Center in Denver for many, many years and her weight kept going up and up, diabetes was out-of-control, taking more and more insulin.

And it was her partner that had brought to her attention the low-carb diet. So she was very frustrated at this point. And so on their own as a couple they pursued low-carb diet.

Bret: On their own, not recommended by the Diabetes Center, not recommended by any physician.

Jeffry: Absolutely on their own. And by the time they had come to see me she was already losing some weight. And to make the long story short, her A1c was in the range of 12 to 13.

Bret: Wow, that’s high!

Jeffry: She got off insulin, she got off all medication and presently… And it was funny because as we were writing the book, she kept losing more and more weight so we had to update… We had to keep updating the book.

Bret: What a great story!

Jeffry: Yeah. So as of today, and this is probably maybe two years now, she lost over 100 pounds, I believe it’s almost half her body weight. And her A1c is 5 or 5.2.

Bret: From 12 to 5.2 getting off her medications.

Jeffry: Yes.

Bret: That’s a great story.

Jeffry: And you know she went to the elite diabetes center in town and they couldn’t help her.

Bret: Wow! So not your average case, not your standard case, but certainly shows the power that this can manifest in the frustration, that it wouldn’t be discussed in an elite diabetes center. Now do you see that trend changing with the evidence from Virta health in a peer-reviewed journal that we can get people off their medications? You know, it’s not doctors around town or N=1 stories telling their experience. Now it’s a published article. So do you see the tide changing for that?

Jeffry: Again I’ve been at it for almost 20 years and it’s much slower than I would like, but again we can do it one-on-one, but that’s not going to give us that global message that we’re looking for. So you know hopefully we can infiltrate the ADA meetings, the American Heart Association meetings and bring the evidence to the table in that way and change the tide.

Bret: So what’s next for you guys? Ivor, what’s next on your plate?

Ivor: Well for me it’s mostly conferences in the next few months where we’ll be obviously sharing the book and circulating that. I’m in Glasgow for a British cardiovascular society, I’m in Majorca for Low-Carb Majorca, Low-Carb Houston is on, Estonia has popped up for September, just a kind of health conference there and possibly Cuba in December, a diabetes conference, not low-carb but diabetes and health. And actually quite a few more heading into next year.

Bret: That’s great to hear that it’s a diabetes conference in there, cardiovascular conference in there, so not just low-carb conferences.

Ivor: Well, actually my supporter, and I kind of report to David Bobbitt now of Irish Heart Disease Awareness and we certainly share the focus on getting the message out to wider communities because I think within the low-carb community our obsession is giving people the chance to discover their heart disease with the calcium scan and giving them the solutions which include low-carb, but obviously low-carb is only one part of the multifactor solution.

But the challenges that people within the low-carb community have a good idea for a lot of the science and they are quite ahead of the game and they are even now learning a lot about the calcification scan through our efforts and others. But the huge majority of people are outside the low-carb community.

So it’s really vital for us to get to ordinary people, I mean those people at 52 or 53 of age that are going to drop dead of a heart attack and leave children behind and they are not obese and they don’t smoke, but they have hyperinsulinemia unknown, undiagnosed, they have huge vascular disease that’s going to kill them, but no one gave them a scan to wake them up. So our fixation is to get to those people. So I agree any conferences that are not just low-carb are our primary target.

Bret: That’s a very good point. I love how you brought up that the low-carb is one part of the solution and is so important to emphasize. And in your book you do put a strong emphasis on sun exposure and sleep and stress and physical activities and you have your list of 10 factors and I think that’s really important to fall back on, that we focus so much on diet because it’s something we’re involved in every day and we have such an intimate relationship with food and it’s so complex. But it’s one piece of the puzzle so I’m glad you brought that up.

Ivor: Yeah absolutely, Bret, and again just thinking back to the Pareto principle, people say that heart disease has 300 factors now. It’s apparently 300 that are listed. But obviously by the Pareto principle the top 5 or 10 will account for a huge amount of the disease on mortality and people can’t focus on everything.

So it’s very confusing to tell people too many factors including many lesser ones. And cholesterol can suffer from this problem as well, that is not a primary central factor, it’s an interacting factor. But we like to focus on the top ones, the Big Bang for the book that will save most people.

Bret: Good point. And Dr. Gerber, what’s next for you?

Jeffry: Yes, so I don’t go to as many conferences as Ivor, because I still have my day job as a family doctor and that takes up most of my time. And I have to say, you know, almost 30 years doing it I still enjoy it. There’s passion and helping to take people off medication and giving them tools where they can really make changes is really helpful.

But just a backup in terms of conferences, Ivor and I did attend a really important and interesting conference in Zürich. It was put on by the BMJ and Swiss RE. And the purpose of that conference was consensus. So we actually had the two sides come together and I’m a person of moderation and so trying to find consensus and this was just wonderful. And we hope that we could see more conferences like that into the future. So I pick and choose the conferences that I attend, I’m busy with our Denver conference that is coming up in March 2019 and we’re always looking for interesting topics, keeping it fresh.

We have some of the returned regular speakers and then to find new speakers. And so our mantra for our conferences is that these are for doctors put on by doctors, so we offer educational credit and everyone else is invited.

Bret: That’s great, very good. Dr. Jeffry Gerber, Denver’s Diet Doctor, thank you so much for joining me. Ivor Cummins, fatemperor.com, thank you so much for joining me.

Ivor: Thanks a lot, Bret.

Jeffry: Thanks.

Transcript pdf

Source: https://www.dietdoctor.com/diet-doctor-podcast-with-dr-jeffry-gerber-and-ivor-cummins

[danithebookaholic-blog]

REVIEWS! - MYSTERY THRILLERS

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I love a good mystery-thriller! I enjoy trying to workout the mystery on my own before I read what really happen, then there’s nothing quite like the thrill of a good thriller! This week’s review is all about the chase, the questions, and the anticipation of what will happen next with Mystery and Thrillers!

The line up for this mystifying thrill ride:

📚Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen’s An Anonymous Girl (2019 Adult Thriller) 📚Jon Ronson’s The Last Days of August (2019 True Crime Audio Book) 📚Jane Corry’s My Husband’s Wife (2017 Psychological Thriller) 📚Lisa Gardner’s Right Behind You (2017 Mystery Thriller)

From one bookaholic to another, I hope I’ve helped you find your next fix. —Dani

An Anonymous Girl 

By Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

Publication Date: January 8, 2019 Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Synopsis:

The next novel of psychological suspense and obsession from the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us.

Seeking women ages 18–32 to participate in a study on ethics and morality. Generous compensation. Anonymity guaranteed.

When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave.

Question #1: Could you tell a lie without feeling guilt?

But as the questions grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr. Shields may know what she’s thinking… and what she’s hiding.

Question #2: Have you ever deeply hurt someone you care about?

As Jess’s paranoia grows, it becomes clear that she can no longer trust what in her life is real, and what is one of Dr. Shields’ manipulative experiments. Caught in a web of deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.

Question #3: Should a punishment always fit the crime?

From the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us comes an electrifying new novel about doubt, passion, and just how much you can trust someone.  

Purchase:

Amazon / B&N / Kobo / Google Play / IndieBound

Review:

 Before reading Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen’s An Anonymous Girl, I had read several reviews stating that it was ‘Overrated’ and ‘Not up to all of the hype’ everyone was giving it. Let me say, that if you, too, have read these reviews then please note that you should take them as a grain of salt and toss them over your shoulder! I wish I hadn’t waited so long to pick it up!

Could you tell a lie without feeling guilt? Have you ever deeply hurt someone you care about? Should a punishment always fit a crime?

An Anonymous Girl is a fantastic psychological thriller that will have you not only sitting on the edge of your seat until the very end, but will also have you questioning your own morals. Fans of Caroline Kepnes’s You will instantly gravitate to Dr. Shields’s subtly creepy obsession with Subject 52, Jessica Farris, and the hope that she “could become a pioneer in the field of psychological research.”

An Anonymous Girl is rife with mysteries and psychological conundrums. Just when you think that you have finally figured things out, Dr. Shields is not only two steps ahead of Jessica, but ahead of you, too! Minuscule details about doubt, passion and trust, add up to one final test for Jessica, and an ending that you’ll never see coming!

 Dani's Score out of 5: 📚📚📚📚📚

Audio Book Review

The Last Days of August 

By Jon Ronson

Publication Date: January 3, 2019 Genre: Non-Fiction, True Crime, Mystery, Journalism, Biography, Abuse

Synopsis:

In December 2017 the famous porn star August Ames committed suicide in a park in the Conejo Valley. It happened a day after she’d been the victim of a pile-on, via Twitter, by fellow porn professionals - punishment for her tweeting something deemed homophobic. 

A month later, August’s husband, Kevin, connected with Jon Ronson to tell the story of how Twitter bullying killed his wife. What neither Kevin nor Ronson realized was that Ronson would soon hear rumors and secrets hinting at a very different story - something mysterious and unexpected and terrible. 

In The Last Days of August, Ronson unravels the never-before-told story of what caused this beloved 23-year-old actress’ untimely death.

Purchase:

Audible Original

Review:

I thought the idea of this book was great and I loved that it was in a podcast formatting almost.  Everything was done really well, including the 'investigation,' but my biggest problem was that I felt the story, like August's life, ended too abruptly; there was no conclusion, no end other than what we know from the beginning: August is dead. I know that at the very beginning, Jon Ronson plainly and clearly states that this is not a murder mystery, but seeing how the whole story goes in that direction, I would have liked a better conclusion, one that didn't leave me feeling like I dangling off the edge of a cliff.

 Dani's Score out of 5: 📚📚📚

My Husband’s Wife 

By Jane Corry

Publication Date: January 31, 2017 Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Psychological, Suspense

Synopsis:

 When young lawyer Lily marries Ed, she’s determined to make a fresh start and leave the secrets of the past behind. But then she takes on her first murder case and meets Joe, a convicted murderer to whom Lily is strangely drawn—and for whom she will soon be willing to risk almost anything.

But Lily is not the only one with secrets. Her next-door neighbor Carla may be only nine, but she has already learned that secrets are powerful things. That they can get her whatever she wants.

When Lily finds Carla on her doorstep twelve years later, a chain of events is set in motion that can end only one way.

Purchase:

Amazon / B&N / Kobo / IndieBound

Review:

I am 100% done with this book and I’m still not sure how I really feel about it. The writing was done very well, and made you think, but it also became dull and boring on more than one occasion, taking the thrill out of “thriller.” It’s definitely more of a crime-mystery than a mystery-thriller.

Jane Corry’s My Husband’s Wife was an interesting story that had many different components that needed to be there to make the ending workout in the way that it did. While reading it, I kept wondering why on earth a certain character was in the book at all other than to add some drama to the current scene. Turns out, that character ends up playing a pretty vital role in the end results. Another character I was just completely annoyed with the entire book and kept wondering when Corry was going to kill them off (I hoped and prayed, they annoyed me so much!) But turns out, they, too, were very vital to the end result, and to the title.

As a side note: I was also very surprised to see that this book was published back in 2017. I have seen it (I feel) EVERYWHERE lately and thought for sure that it was a new book within the last couple of months. When I realized that it came out in 2017 I was shocked. I am very curious to know why it took so long for me to notice it, and why it has been showing up everywhere I look now.

All in all, it was a good crime-mystery. It does drag a bit, but it was very complex and I do give props to Corry for that. I did constantly question which character was saying the title; you think you know, and then in next chapter you’re unsure again. If you’re looking for a thrill, put this one down, it’s not for you. But if you’re looking for a crime, this is a good one for you!

 Dani's Score out of 5: 📚📚📚📚

Right Behind You (Quincy & Rainie #7) 

By Lisa Gardner

Publication Date: January 31, 2017 Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

Synopsis:

Lisa Gardner's latest thriller following her runaway hit Find Hertakes her wildly popular brand of suspense to new heights.

Eight years ago, Sharlah May Nash's older brother beat their drunken father to death with a baseball bat in order to save both of their lives. Now thirteen years old, Sharlah has finally moved on. About to be adopted by retired FBI profiler Pierce Quincy and his partner, Rainie Conner, Sharlah loves one thing best about her new family: They are all experts on monsters.

Then the call comes in. A double murder at a local gas station, followed by reports of an armed suspect shooting his way through the wilds of Oregon. As Quincy and Rainie race to assist, they are forced to confront mounting evidence: The shooter may very well be Sharlah's older brother, Telly Ray Nash, and it appears his killing spree has only just begun.

As the clock winds down on a massive hunt for Telly, Quincy and Rainie must answer two critical questions: Why after eight years has this young man started killing again? And what does this mean for Sharlah? Once upon a time, Sharlah's big brother saved her life. Now, she has two questions of her own: Is her brother a hero or a killer? And how much will it cost her new family before they learn the final, shattering truth? Because as Sharlah knows all too well, the biggest danger is the one standing right behind you.

Purchase:

Amazon / B&N / Kobo / iBooks

Review:

If you’re looking for a mystery thriller that will take behind the scenes with both the police and the the man they’re hunting, then Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner is a perfect fit!

I thoroughly enjoy reading mysteries when you get to see behind the scenes of both the good and the bad, and it’s not an easy task of the author to do this and still keep you guessing! Gardner did an amazing job of letting you be on opposing sides, but holding back enough information in the process to keep you guessing all the way to the end. Just when you thought you knew who it was or what was going to happen next, characters camouflage themselves just enough to stay hidden, the scene changed dramatically, and you’d find yourself just as confused as the profilers.

I really enjoyed Right Behind You! I had a very hard time putting it down, and even found myself dreaming of it, awaking to read for several hours in the wee hours of the morning. I only have two small complaints:

1) I wish there were a touch more to the epilogue. It was a great ending, but I wish there was a smidge more to it.

2) The cover photo on my copy is misleading (see photo above for what my cover looks like). I know this probably comes off as trivial, but I am one that slightly judges a book on it’s cover. I tend not to read book synopsis before reading a book. I don’t like getting a prejudged assessment of the book I’m about to read. Instead, I like to make an attempted guess as to what I’m about to read based on the title and the photo on the cover. While this is not always the best approach, I find it fun to see if my thoughts based on these two things play into the actual story any. A truly great book art designer will give you a snippet into the book, and I feel this design did not. I get the broken glass/window, but the background photo looks like two dead bodies laying in a bush, which does not happen in the book. Maybe the legs are supposed to be Sharlah being chased by her brother, Telly? But then why are they lying on the grass? It’s just very confusing and not the best option. The cover for the paperback was was definitely a better choice (see cover to right), or even a close up of a camouflaged face… My preference, but then again that is what a review is.

Overall, I really, really enjoyed Right Behind You. I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good police mystery-thriller. As for me, I look forward to reading Gardner’s other works, including the other six Quincy & Rainie books!

 Dani's Score out of 5: 📚📚📚📚📚

Pair Them All With: Ouragan Pinot Noir

This Oregon Pinot Noir opens with aromas of rope cherry and spice, leading to a round palate of strawberry and a hint of vanilla, with a medium-ling finish of toasted almond, floral notes and silky tannins. Pair with grilled salmon, sushi and soft cheeses.

Website

Have a book you’d like to suggest or one you’d like me to review? Please feel free to leave your comments down below.

[pantology]

The Perimeter of Ignorance

By Neil deGrasse Tyson

Natural History Magazine

November 2005

A boundary where scientists face a choice: invoke a deity or continue the quest for knowledge.

Writing in centuries past, many scientists felt compelled to wax poetic about cosmic mysteries and God’s handiwork. Perhaps one should not be surprised at this: most scientists back then, as well as many scientists today, identify themselves as spiritually devout.

But a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when staring into the ocean of their own ignorance. They call on God only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.

Let’s start at the top. Isaac Newton was one of the greatest intellects the world has ever seen. His laws of motion and his universal law of gravitation, conceived in the mid-seventeenth century, account for cosmic phenomena that had eluded philosophers for millennia. Through those laws, one could understand the gravitational attraction of bodies in a system, and thus come to understand orbits.

Newton’s law of gravity enables you to calculate the force of attraction between any two objects. If you introduce a third object, then each one attracts the other two, and the orbits they trace become much harder to compute. Add another object, and another, and another, and soon you have the planets in our solar system. Earth and the Sun pull on each other, but Jupiter also pulls on Earth, Saturn pulls on Earth, Mars pulls on Earth, Jupiter pulls on Saturn, Saturn pulls on Mars, and on and on.

Newton feared that all this pulling would render the orbits in the solar system unstable. His equations indicated that the planets should long ago have either fallen into the Sun or flown the coop—leaving the Sun, in either case, devoid of planets. Yet the solar system, as well as the larger cosmos, appeared to be the very model of order and durability. So Newton, in his greatest work, the Principia, concludes that God must occasionally step in and make things right:

The six primary Planets are revolv’d about the Sun, in circles concentric with the Sun, and with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost in the same plane… But it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions… This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

In the Principia, Newton distinguishes between hypotheses and experimental philosophy, and declares, Hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. What he wants is data, inferr’d from the phænomena. But in the absence of data, at the border between what he could explain and what he could only honor—the causes he could identify and those he could not—Newton rapturously invokes God:

Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; … he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done… We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes; we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion.

A century later, the French astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace confronted Newton’s dilemma of unstable orbits head-on. Rather than view the mysterious stability of the solar system as the unknowable work of God, Laplace declared it a scientific challenge. In his multipart masterpiece, Mécanique Céleste, the first volume of which appeared in 1798, Laplace demonstrates that the solar system is stable over periods of time longer than Newton could predict. To do so, Laplace pioneered a new kind of mathematics called perturbation theory, which enabled him to examine the cumulative effects of many small forces. According to an oft-repeated but probably embellished account, when Laplace gave a copy of Mécanique Céleste to his physics-literate friend Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon asked him what role God played in the construction and regulation of the heavens. Sire, Laplace replied, I have no need of that hypothesis.

Laplace notwithstanding, plenty of scientists besides Newton have called on God—or the gods—wherever their comprehension fades to ignorance. Consider the second-century AD Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy. Armed with a description, but no real understanding, of what the planets were doing up there, he could not contain his religious fervor:

I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace, at my pleasure, the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch Earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.

Or consider the seventeenth-century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, whose achievements include constructing the first working pendulum clock and discovering the rings of Saturn. In his charming book The Celestial Worlds Discover’d, posthumously published in 1696, most of the opening chapter celebrates all that was then known of planetary orbits, shapes, and sizes, as well as the planets’ relative brightness and presumed rockiness. The book even includes foldout charts illustrating the structure of the solar system. God is absent from this discussion—even though a mere century earlier, before Newton’s achievements, planetary orbits were supreme mysteries.

Celestial Worlds also brims with speculations about life in the solar system, and that’s where Huygens raises questions to which he has no answer. That’s where he mentions the biological conundrums of the day, such as the origin of life’s complexity. And sure enough, because seventeenth-century physics was more advanced than seventeenth-century biology, Huygens invokes the hand of God only when he talks about biology:

I suppose no body will deny but that there’s somewhat more of Contrivance, somewhat more of Miracle in the production and growth of Plants and Animals than in lifeless heaps of inanimate Bodies… For the finger of God, and the Wisdom of Divine Providence, is in them much more clearly manifested than in the other.

Today secular philosophers call that kind of divine invocation “God of the gaps”—which comes in handy, because there has never been a shortage of gaps in people’s knowledge.

As reverent as Newton, Huygens, and other great scientists of earlier centuries may have been, they were also empiricists. They did not retreat from the conclusions their evidence forced them to draw, and when their discoveries conflicted with prevailing articles of faith, they upheld the discoveries. That doesn’t mean it was easy: sometimes they met fierce opposition, as did Galileo, who had to defend his telescopic evidence against formidable objections drawn from both scripture and “common” sense.

Galileo clearly distinguished the role of religion from the role of science. To him, religion was the service of God and the salvation of souls, whereas science was the source of exact observations and demonstrated truths. In a long, famous, bristly letter written in the summer of 1615 to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany (but, like so many epistles of the day, circulated among the literati), he quotes, in his own defense, an unnamed yet sympathetic church official saying that the Bible tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.

The letter to the duchess leaves no doubt about where Galileo stood on the literal word of the Holy Writ:

In expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might fall into error…

Nothing physical which … demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words…

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

A rare exception among scientists, Galileo saw the unknown as a place to explore rather than as an eternal mystery controlled by the hand of God.

As long as the celestial sphere was generally regarded as the domain of the divine, the fact that mere mortals could not explain its workings could safely be cited as proof of the higher wisdom and power of God. But beginning in the sixteenth century, the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton—not to mention Maxwell, Heisenberg, Einstein, and everybody else who discovered fundamental laws of physics—provided rational explanations for an increasing range of phenomena. Little by little, the universe was subjected to the methods and tools of science, and became a demonstrably knowable place.

Then, in what amounts to a stunning yet unheralded philosophical inversion, throngs of ecclesiastics and scholars began to declare that it was the laws of physics themselves that served as proof of the wisdom and power of God.

One popular theme of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the “clockwork universe”—an ordered, rational, predictable mechanism fashioned and run by God and his physical laws. The early telescopes, which all relied on visible light, did little to undercut that image of an ordered system. The Moon revolved around Earth. Earth and other planets rotated on their axes and revolved around the Sun. The stars shone. The nebulae floated freely in space.

Not until the nineteenth century was it evident that visible light is just one band of a broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation—the band that human beings just happen to see. Infrared was discovered in 1800, ultraviolet in 1801, radio waves in 1888, X rays in 1895, and gamma rays in 1900. Decade by decade in the following century, new kinds of telescopes came into use, fitted with detectors that could “see” these formerly invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now astrophysicists began to unmask the true character of the universe.

Turns out that some celestial bodies give off more light in the invisible bands of the spectrum than in the visible. And the invisible light picked up by the new telescopes showed that mayhem abounds in the cosmos: monstrous gamma-ray bursts, deadly pulsars, matter-crushing gravitational fields, matter-hungry black holes that flay their bloated stellar neighbors, newborn stars igniting within pockets of collapsing gas. And as our ordinary, optical telescopes got bigger and better, more mayhem emerged: galaxies that collide and cannibalize each other, explosions of supermassive stars, chaotic stellar and planetary orbits. Our own cosmic neighborhood—the inner solar system—turned out to be a shooting gallery, full of rogue asteroids and comets that collide with planets from time to time. Occasionally they’ve even wiped out stupendous masses of Earth’s flora and fauna. The evidence all points to the fact that we occupy not a well-mannered clockwork universe, but a destructive, violent, and hostile zoo.

Of course, Earth can be bad for your health too. On land, grizzly bears want to maul you; in the oceans, sharks want to eat you. Snowdrifts can freeze you, deserts dehydrate you, earthquakes bury you, volcanoes incinerate you. Viruses can infect you, parasites suck your vital fluids, cancers take over your body, congenital diseases force an early death. And even if you have the good luck to be healthy, a swarm of locusts could devour your crops, a tsunami could wash away your family, or a hurricane could blow apart your town.

So the universe wants to kill us all. But let’s ignore that complication for the moment.

Many, perhaps countless, questions hover at the front lines of science. In some cases, answers have eluded the best minds of our species for decades or even centuries. And in contemporary America, the notion that a higher intelligence is the single answer to all enigmas has been enjoying a resurgence. This present-day version of God of the gaps goes by a fresh name: “intelligent design.” The term suggests that some entity, endowed with a mental capacity far greater than the human mind can muster, created or enabled all the things in the physical world that we cannot explain through scientific methods.

An interesting hypothesis.

But why confine ourselves to things too wondrous or intricate for us to understand, whose existence and attributes we then credit to a superintelligence? Instead, why not tally all those things whose design is so clunky, goofy, impractical, or unworkable that they reflect the absence of intelligence?

Take the human form. We eat, drink, and breathe through the same hole in the head, and so, despite Henry J. Heimlich’s eponymous maneuver, choking is the fourth leading cause of “unintentional injury death” in the United States. How about drowning, the fifth leading cause? Water covers almost three-quarters of Earth’s surface, yet we are land creatures—submerge your head for just a few minutes, and you die.

Or take our collection of useless body parts. What good is the pinky toenail? How about the appendix, which stops functioning after childhood and thereafter serves only as the source of appendicitis? Useful parts, too, can be problematic. I happen to like my knees, but nobody ever accused them of being well protected from bumps and bangs. These days, people with problem knees can get them surgically replaced. As for our pain-prone spine, it may be a while before someone finds a way to swap that out.

How about the silent killers? High blood pressure, colon cancer, and diabetes each cause tens of thousands of deaths in the U.S. every year, but it’s possible not to know you’re afflicted until your coroner tells you so. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had built-in biogauges to warn us of such dangers well in advance? Even cheap cars, after all, have engine gauges.

And what comedian designer configured the region between our legs—an entertainment complex built around a sewage system?

The eye is often held up as a marvel of biological engineering. To the astrophysicist, though, it’s only a so-so detector. A better one would be much more sensitive to dark things in the sky and to all the invisible parts of the spectrum. How much more breathtaking sunsets would be if we could see ultraviolet and infrared. How useful it would be if, at a glance, we could see every source of microwaves in the environment, or know which radio station transmitters were active. How helpful it would be if we could spot police radar detectors at night.

Think how easy it would be to navigate an unfamiliar city if we, like birds, could always tell which way was north because of the magnetite in our heads. Think how much better off we’d be if we had gills as well as lungs, how much more productive if we had six arms instead of two. And if we had eight, we could safely drive a car while simultaneously talking on a cell phone, changing the radio station, applying makeup, sipping a drink, and scratching our left ear.

Stupid design could fuel a movement unto itself. It may not be nature’s default, but it’s ubiquitous. Yet people seem to enjoy thinking that our bodies, our minds, and even our universe represent pinnacles of form and reason. Maybe it’s a good antidepressant to think so. But it’s not science—not now, not in the past, not ever.

Another practice that isn’t science is embracing ignorance. Yet it’s fundamental to the philosophy of intelligent design: I don’t know what this is. I don’t know how it works. It’s too complicated for me to figure out. It’s too complicated for any human being to figure out. So it must be the product of a higher intelligence.

What do you do with that line of reasoning? Do you just cede the solving of problems to someone smarter than you, someone who’s not even human? Do you tell students to pursue only questions with easy answers?

There may be a limit to what the human mind can figure out about our universe. But how presumptuous it would be for me to claim that if I can’t solve a problem, neither can any other person who has ever lived or who will ever be born. Suppose Galileo and Laplace had felt that way? Better yet, what if Newton had not? He might then have solved Laplace’s problem a century earlier, making it possible for Laplace to cross the next frontier of ignorance.

Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. You cannot build a program of discovery on the assumption that nobody is smart enough to figure out the answer to a problem. Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes. We know when and where they start. We know what drives them. We know what mitigates their destructive power. And anyone who has studied global warming can tell you what makes them worse. The only people who still call hurricanes “acts of God” are the people who write insurance forms.

To deny or erase the rich, colorful history of scientists and other thinkers who have invoked divinity in their work would be intellectually dishonest. Surely there’s an appropriate place for intelligent design to live in the academic landscape. How about the history of religion? How about philosophy or psychology? The one place it doesn’t belong is the science classroom.

If you’re not swayed by academic arguments, consider the financial consequences. Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery—the frontier that drives the economies of the future—would be incalculable. I don’t want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don’t understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don’t understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.

https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/essays/2005-11-the-perimeter-of-ignorance.php

[djgblogger-blog]

Rather than being free of values, good science is transparent about them

http://bit.ly/2h9xZoA

It's good for scientists to work in glass laboratories. Len Rubenstein, CC BY

Scientists these days face a conundrum. As Americans are buffeted by accounts of fake news, alternative facts and deceptive social media campaigns, how can researchers and their scientific expertise contribute meaningfully to the conversation?

There is a common perception that science is a matter of hard facts and that it can and should remain insulated from the social and political interests that permeate the rest of society. Nevertheless, many historians, philosophers and sociologists who study the practice of science have come to the conclusion that trying to kick values out of science risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Ethical and social values – like the desire to promote economic development, public health or environmental protection – often play integral roles in scientific research. By acknowledging this, scientists might seem to give away their authority as a defense against the flood of misleading, inaccurate information that surrounds us. But I argue in my book “A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science” that if scientists take appropriate steps to manage and communicate about their values, they can promote a more realistic view of science as both value-laden and reliable.

Values can be good or bad

There is no question, of course, that values can cause problems in science. Powerful organizations like the tobacco and lead industries have manipulated science to boost their profit margins and prevent regulation of their products. The fossil fuel industry has engaged in similar tactics to spread misinformation about climate change.

And it’s not just big business that spreads misleading science – many different groups peddle questionable claims about everything from vaccines and alternative medicines to genetically modified foods and diet strategies. In these cases, economic values or ideological commitments have inclined people to ignore or suppress evidence that runs counter to their preferences.

But I’d argue that it would be a grave mistake to try to eliminate all value considerations from scientific research. At the very least, most people want scientists to respect human rights and animal welfare when they design potentially harmful experiments.

What research gets funded, from a limited pool of money, is a value-laden decision. Andrew Robles on Unsplash, CC BY

We as citizens also want scientists to keep social priorities in mind when deciding what research projects to undertake. In part, this involves choosing among an array of possible topics – for example, deciding how to divide up medical research investments among cancer, AIDS, diabetes and mental health.

It also involves deciding how scientists study these topics. Should they focus more attention on preventing environmentally induced cancers? Or treating cancers that are already present? How much money should go toward developing new drugs for treating depression as opposed to studying how to mitigate some cases by modifying diet, exercise or the social environment? Social values are obviously relevant to making these judgments.

Between hard facts and unfounded advocacy

A great deal of science is now performed in an effort to inform policymakers who need to make practical decisions about real-world problems such as regulating industrial chemicals or managing wildlife populations or preventing disease outbreaks. This sort of research can be plagued by uncertainties; there’s almost never one clear-cut “right” answer.

In these research contexts, scientists must decide how to extrapolate beyond the available data and weigh complex bodies of evidence in order to help policymakers draw conclusions. Values have a role to play in making these decisions. If one errs in one direction, one often risks overregulation and economic losses. Err the other way, and public health and environmental resources are often at stake. It makes sense to think about these consequences when deciding which way to lean.

Even the language employed by scientists is often laden with values. For example, environmental scientists have debated the merits of talking about “invasive,” “nonnative,” “exotic” or “alien” species, given that these are metaphorical terms that have great significance in contemporary social and political debates. In biomedical research, scientists have struggled to decide whether the benefits of employing racial categories outweigh the dangers of promoting misleading notions about race as a biological phenomenon. And the World Health Organization suggested in 2015 that scientists should stop using disease names like swine flu, athlete’s foot or Marburg disease, because they could stigmatize animals, people or places. In cases like these, there may be no strictly value-neutral ways of categorizing and describing phenomena.

Broadening the researcher pool beyond just the types who attended an international scientific meeting in 1879 means people are bringing different sets of values to the lab bench. Музей-архив Д. И. Менделеева

Recognizing values helps science’s integrity

Even if we cannot turn science into a value-free endeavor, researchers can still take important steps to preserve its legitimacy. One way to do that is for the scientific community to promote as much transparency in science as possible so that the influences of values can be recognized. Depending on the context, this can involve many different activities: consistently publishing results, using open-access journals, making data publicly available, providing data analysis plans before studies begin, making materials and methods available to other researchers and disclosing conflicts of interest.

Both citizens and scientists also need to scrutinize and discuss the influences of values as effectively as possible, using many different venues: Journals can promote thoughtful peer-review processes, government agencies can maintain effective science advisory boards, scientific societies can create reports on debated topics, citizens can get involved in research projects and the scientific community can encourage new perspectives by promoting greater diversity in its membership. By taking these steps, scientists and stakeholders can decide how best to handle important judgments, and they can distinguish scientific conclusions that are well supported from those that are more tenuous.

By virtue of the fact that science is done by and for human beings, values are entangled in the enterprise whether we acknowledge it or not. Rather than dismissing scientists who discuss their values, we ought to encourage scientists and other stakeholders to engage in open, thoughtful reflection about how values influence research. Far from threatening the integrity of science, this is the path to promoting science that is trustworthy and socially responsible.

Kevin Elliott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

[rockrevoltmagazine]

Grace Potter's Grand Point North 2017 Preview - Artist Interview - Mondo Cozmo

Mondo Cozmo Performing at Boston Calling 2017

Unless you’ve been lying under gigantic rock formations in the desert this summer or somehow one of those pesky hurricanes managed to sweep you out into the North Atlantic, you’ve probably come across Mondo Cozmo’s hit single, “Shine,” even if you didn’t realize it.

Whether you heard it on the radio on your ride to work, on Spotify while you were attempting to sweat out the previous evening’s liquid debauchery or perhaps you just overheard two birds chirping it to one another, it’s been next to impossible not to come across Mondo Cozmo’s music lately.

In any event the steamroller that’s Mondo Cozmo has been invading the airwaves, as well as countless venues and festival grounds these past three months, to the delight of tens of thousands of adoring new fans. 

Who exactly is Mondo Cozmo though?  Is he an angel keeping watch over America at night as violence and darkness take over our streets?  Is he the muse this world needs right now to restore balance and peace to the masses in these oh so chaotic times?  

Or is Mondo Cozmo perhaps just this one of kind sublime talent whose unique brand of music has been penetrating the hearts and minds of the lucky souls who’ve had the fortune of crossing paths with the enigma and his band recently?

Bonus points if your answer was one of the first two aforementioned options, however, option number three was the correct choice, as Mondo Cozmo is actually Philadelphia born, now Los Angeles based musician, Josh Ostrander. 

Ostrander, who previously fronted the early 2000’s alt-rock outfits, LaGuardia and Eastern Conference Champions, began recording under the moniker Mondo Cozmo back in in 2016.

Since then his single, “Shine”  reached number one on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Chart, he and his band have played north of a hundred shows throughout the course of 2017 alone and just this past month he released his debut album Plastic Soul to primarily critical acclaim.  

The record has something to offer just about any listener as it cuts across pop, rock, folk and indie genres, while also seemingly being influenced by a myriad of artists such as Dylan, The Pixies, The National, Springsteen, Mumford and Sons, Beck and U2 to name just a few.

  Earlier this summer I stumbled upon Mondo Cozmo at this year’s Boston Calling music festival.  

As I entered the festival’s grounds I found myself immediately faced with a music based conundrum.  Should I hit up one of the main stages to check out Massachusetts based rock based outfit The Hotelier or instead make my way over to one of the smaller side stages to take in Mondo Cozmo’s set?

Being a fan of The Hotelier, while also not having any clue as to what or who a Mondo Cozmo was, the choice at first, seemed to be an easy one.  That was of course until I dialed up the ole inter-webs to take a listen to the band’s single, “Shine.”

Instantly sold on the tune’s uplifting nature and catchy hooks I immediately took a course that would take mere feet from the entity known as Mondo Cozmo.  

Like myself, I’m guessing not many in the audience knew Mondo Cozmo all that well, however, by the conclusion of their truncated set the band had everyone within ear shot of the stage they were performing on beyond entranced and begging for more.

It’s also worth mentioning the sheer joy Ostrander and his bandmates had with one another on stage.  The lead singer is talented, charismatic and easy on eyes.   Thus Ostrander could have easily put together a group of anonymous musicians to serve as his interim backing band whose role would have been to primarily remain in the shadows.  

Fortunately the front man had enough clarity and experience, as well as the desire to surround himself with like minded and equally talented musicians, to choose a different path. 

  The result in a live setting is impossible to ignore as the band, comprised of Ostrander, Drew Beck (guitar), James Gordon (synth/keys), Andrew Tolland (drums) and Chris Null (bass) posses this fiery chemistry, that without question, elevates their performance to greater heights.

Following the band’s set at Boston Calling I immediately reached into my pile of music contacts to find Mondo Cozmo’s publicist so that I could attempt to take in one of his headlining shows and hopefully sit down with the man, the myth and the soon to be legend himself for a short chat.

As luck would have it the band was playing the Higher Ground up in Burlington, Vermont the following night where I would be presented with the opportunity to speak with Mondo Cozmo himself and bare witness to the band’s headlining performance later that evening.

Rock Revolt: Josh can you talk to me about how after recording and touring with bands for the vast majority of your career how different or liberating it’s been for you to write and perform for yourself?

Mondo Cozmo: Well for one I didn’t have to go through four people anymore. Now I’m just going with my gut and letting the songs do all the work. To be honest, it’s been amazing. 

The biggest thing I’ve taken away from all of this is to not put any parameters or rules on it. As soon as you do that you’re putting yourself in a box.  It’s been liberating and there’s been this sense of my being fearless, which frankly took me a very long time to get around to.

Rock Revolt:  Following the demise of both of your previous bands LaGuardia and Eastern Conference Champions I read that you had gone through a bit of dark period and even questioned whether you would or even should continue with music?

Mondo Cozmo:  It was a really fucking tough time as I was working two jobs to just keep food on the table. In my spare time I’d record songs up in my guest bedroom. 

A lot of the songs that came out during that time like “Shine” “Plastic Soul” and “Higher,” those were songs I was writing because I was bumming and coming to terms with never being able to tour or put records out again.  You know I was just sitting around thinking about how my band is done and I don’t even know what I’m doing any more. 

It was kind of terrible but the coolest thing about it was the songs I was writing during that dark time, I was only writing for myself and now I’ve been getting all these messages from fans about songs like “Shine.”

People seem to be having these complete opposite reactions to where I was writing those songs from and they’re getting something positive and great out of them. 

So it’s cool to think that whatever I had to go through might be helping someone get through his wife leaving him or a relative dying. That’s really the power of music right there.  I’m very humbled by it.

Rock Revolt: The songs that appear on your debut record Plastic Soul were mostly written during that period of unrest. Can you talk about where you’re getting your inspiration from these days, as with your new found success I’m guessing your outlook on life and the music industry has become a bit more upbeat and positive.

Mondo Cozmo:  It’s tough when you get to the point where tons of people are listening to your music as it changes things.  So when “Shine” hit number one I started the full length album and it gave me a completely different perspective regarding what people actually wanted to hear and what they would respond to. 

Honestly my super power is being able to write songs super quick.  I have a way of delivering songs that I think is unique and it’s been amazing that so many people are starting to take notice.

There’s this great line in Keith Richards book where he talks about when he heard his first song in America.  The Rolling Stones were in a van touring the States but he didn’t know the song was coming out yet and he thought they were going to be able to go into the studio and work on it a bit more.  

Keith had this great line where he said, you just have to let it go. I was like, fuck yeah, that’s so fucking great. It got me thinking we both were probably in the studio slaving over the fucking toms trying to make them sound good and nobody even gives a shit. 

If “Let It Be” sounded even a little bit different no one would care because it would still sound great.   So I guess I’ve kind of learned to just let the songs do the work and to try not to over think things too much.

Rock Revolt:  One of the most significant takeaways I walked away from at Boston Calling this year was your set and in particular your performance of The Verve classic, “Bittersweet Symphony.’ Can you touch on that song in particular and or how you feel about tackling other artists’ music in general?

Mondo Cozmo:  Well the first thing I thought about in terms of covering “Bittersweet Symphony” was, I better do a fucking good job.  I consider “Bittersweet Symphony” to probably be my favorite song of all time because it’s just so damn perfect.  

I’ve never been in a situation before musically where I could turn to the band I’m playing with and just say let’s do this cover and we’re able to put it together very quickly.   I love playing covers especially when we’re playing in front of bunch of kids who have no idea who we are, such as when we opened for Bastille not too long ago.

It also gives anyone a gauge to judge our music against something they’re already familiar with.  Personally I think playing covers has been really a smart thing for us to do. 

Rock Revolt:  Although you wrote Plastic Soul solo you’re touring with an entirely new group of musicians.  Can you comment on how you came across the other musicians in your band now and what it’s been like to tour with them this past year?

Mondo Cozmo:  The scariest part for me was I had to change my approach to music and actually do auditions; which was terrifying because I thought one, these guys aren’t going to like me and two, these guys aren’t going to even let me know they don’t like me because they may want the gig.  

I went through all of these auditions and it all kind of just came together organically.  As it turned out the one thing that I was most worried about ended up becoming the most exciting part of the whole experience.

We haven’t played a lot of shows with one another so you’re watching a band come together every time we play on stage right now.  We’re trying to remember lyrics and chords and we’re still in dressing rooms trying to learn all this new shit together.  We’ve all been doing this a long time, we’ve all been in a ton of bands and this one man, this one feels special.

Rock Revolt:  Finally can you touch on how you feel about what some of the uninformed would consider your rather quick ascent to fame as well as what you and the band are hoping to accomplish for the remainder of 2017?

Mondo Cozmo: I’m not going to hide behind my age or how long I’ve been doing this.  I wish I could have had this kind of success when I was seventeen but for whatever reason I had to go through what I endured so that I could write better songs.  Where I’m right now feels so good and because I worked so hard for it, no one can take it away from me. 

As for the band and the remainder of this year I want to get to the point where we aren’t opening up for anyone but if U2 called and asked us to open for them maybe we’ll take the call.  

At the end of the day I’ve been opening up for other bands for seventeen years, I’m ready to headline.  I don’t care about the size of the venue, just so long as it’s packed and we’re the last band on stage.

This Friday September 15th Mondo Cozmo plays the Paradise in Boston, Massachusetts before heading back up to Burlington, Vermont this weekend to take part in Grace Potter’s annual Grand Point North music festival.  

Tickets to Mondo Cozmo at the Paradise on September 15, 2017:

http://events.crossroadspresents.com/events/2017/9/15/mondo-cozmo

Tickets to Grace Potter’s Grand Point North Music Festival September 16th-17th:

http://grandpointnorth.com/tickets/

Connect with Mondo Cozmo (click icons):

All Writing and Photography: Robert Forte

Instagram:  40_photography  http://www.instagram.com/40_photography/

Facebook:    4zerophotography http://www.facebook.com/4zerophotography/

Grace Potter’s Grand Point North 2017 Preview – Artist Interview – Mondo Cozmo was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

[letstraveltoorion]

The Master of Orion Challenges: 2 – The Algonquin

Believe it or not, my first challenge was … the Algonquin itself! See, once I knew I wanted to do a story on Master of Orion; I immediately decided I wanted my story to be based on a starship to have that “star trek” feel of wonder and discovery. I choose the Human Republic because it was easier to tell a story from a “human’, centric point-of-view. Also, for the purpose of the story, I selected a cruiser as I feel it would give me the flexibility and freedom I needed to create my scenes.

Once I had those basic criteria set, I should be ready to tell my story … right? But what about the Algonquin? Before I could even begin to ponder my story, and since the Algonquin will be the primary background against which the adventure will base on; it was essential I took the time to answer some basic and very crucial questions:

How big is the ship?

How many crew?

Components, weapons & equipment? Etc.

Too often, writers who do stories about military starships, will throw a few numbers and measurements and seldom if it will hold against a closer scrutiny. For most of them, they manage to make it work or they pack their story with so much stuff (actions, drama, mysteries, etc.) those facts and questions are easily forgotten. The problem with such an approach is that if you do a sequel to your previous story, you may come up with some new facts and data that will seriously contradict your previous story. Also, mistakes and errors in your own story might occur. So, because I’m such a sucker for details, I decided the best way to avoid that was to … design the Algonquin!

Easier said than done!

Sure on paper it seems easy but that fact was: I had nothing on which to base my ship on! The stats I found in the game were just that: stats that could only be used in the game. They meant nothing in our reality!

At first, it seemed I hit a major roadblock … but then, the newly (then) introduced starting generic came to my help. Indeed, if you look throughout the video, you see human workers and technicians against the background of a Human Republic’s Frigate. This gave me my first clue: a Frigate seemed awfully close in size to a Boing 747! This was my first clue! Then later on, while I was playing a MOO game, I had my second revelation: While I was fiddling with the ship customization options, I realized the ships had a basic amount of hull points. These were the value I had when I strip the ship of all of its armour: 

Frigate (FF) – 95

Destroyer (DD) – 165

Cruiser (CR) – 325

Battleship (BB) – 750

Titan (TT) – 1650

Doomstar (DS) - 3375

Once I compared those numbers with the video and other sources on actual real aircraft and military warships, I came to the conclusion that if I used those basic numbers to determine the size of my ships (in metres), it ‘FIT’! Now, with this, I had the foundation to design my ship. The width? Height? How many decks? How many crew members? Etc.

With the questions on the Algonquin’s size and dimensions, my next challenges were the size of the universe. If in the first two games of Master of Orion, we could easily assume the action was set in a small sector of the Milky Way, Master of Orion 3 and the current Master of Orion—Conquer the stars; the action span the whole galaxy. For the game purpose and the visual, this looked great! But on a more realistic approach, this is just impossible. 

With a size of 180,000 Light-Years, our galaxy is a pretty big place. If you take the oldest science-Fiction role-playing games: Travellers, and you go to this website (links), you’ll notice that despite its numerous star systems and planets. The Third Imperium cover only a tiny fraction of the Galaxy.

Why do I mention this? To give you a sense of perspective that most books, movies and TV series fail to convey adequately. The prime culprits of this inexactitude are Star Trek and Star Wars. Star Trek especially! Although they give numbers, data and rules such as it would take 6 months to cross the federation territory or more than 70 years to cross the galaxy, etc.  Somehow, the Enterprise ‘always’ find a way to cross hundreds of light-years to come to the rescues in the nick of time! BS! Doesn’t matter how you can try to bend it your way, if you took a few weeks or months to reach an area, it will, at least, take you a few weeks to do the trip back! Star Wars is no better either: somehow, the hero always seems to travel from one planet to the next in few hours (not even days) and this in spite of those planets being located on the other end of the empire/republic.

NO WAY!

Since the devils lies in the details, I’ll have to answer two basic questions: The first being what would be the range of a starship? And two, how fast can it travel? Answering those 2 questions will set the decorum but also set the ‘feel’ of the background. Indeed, one of the underlying question was at what level those interstellar civilizations were located? Where they fully mature civilizations that can travel from planet to planet like we do when we are travelling from city to city or are they civilization at the beginning of their expansion, still struggling to maintain communications?

In matter of fact, when was the last time a nation (any nation) undertook the colonization of a foreign land? In our recent history we have two: North America and Australia by European powers. I am leaving out Africa and South America as those were more the result of military conquest than a true colonization. It is also worth remembering those colonizations took place during the age of sail (1500 to 1700 AD) and they usually took between 6 to 12 weeks for travelling across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to North America.

 6 to 12 WEEKS!!!  If you compare the challenges those early pioneers had to face versus the one we are facing with space explorations … they seem pretty similar. But this will be the topic for another discussion. Going back to the starship range, there are many ways I could have dealt with this.

Option A: Your ship travel very slow and you must carry with you a year’s worth of supplies (spare parts, Food, Fuel, etc.). Maybe good for a colony ship or a ship design for exploration but completely unrealistic when it comes to commercial ships and even less for military warships. Don’t get me wrong, it could be done but it would change the whole dynamic of the story and would not serve my purposes.

Option B: The ships are travelling a slow speed and must make frequent stops to resupply their stores. This is another option. A more realistic one than option "A" but still not good enough for me.

Option C: Your ship’s engines are efficient enough to cover the distance required without stopping for resupplying while on the journey. 

Nonetheless, the problem still remain whole. In Star Wars, those facts were never mentioned and in Star Trek, they solved it by creating the ‘Food Replicator’. The thing is, I understand why they came up with that in Star Trek: The writers and show directors did not want to deal with the logistic nightmare of supplying a whole fleet of starships. Unless the drama dictate it of course.

 The main conundrum for a starship is as follows. A starship or any kind of ship for that matter, need to:

A — Reach its destination in a ‘reasonable’ amount of time (as it would be pointless to have a story in which the heroes take months if not years to reach their destination). 

B— The ship must reach it destination with a safety margin in food, fuel, air, water and other volatile. For a military ship, that margin could be between 5 to 10% … or a 5 days value. A civilian ship, more around 50% as their goal is to ferry their passenger and cargo as fast and as safe as possible. Privately owned and pirate ships will have their own set of rules.  

Why I mention this? Because these are part of a regular starship’s operation. And despite what some people might argue, air and water cannot be recycled in definitively. There will always be a percentile that will be lost to waste or consumption. In regards to food, well, hydroponic may be good on the colony, exploration and some civilian ships … but would not be a viable solution for a warship. The spaces required for the operation of a hydroponic system will be a better use for weapons, ammunition and other equipment.  

In the end here the rules I use for my story: 

Range for Mankind (Other Races will have some different rules) 

Military ship: 35 days of operation (+ 5 days emergency range)

Civilian ship: 40 days of operation (seldom go over 20 days of operation or 50% of its stores)

Colony Ship: 180 to 720 days of Operation (hydroponic—included/cryosleep—Unknown)

Exploration Ship: 90 to 180 days of operation (hydroponic—maybe/cryosleep—maybe)

Pirate/Privately Owned ship: Variable. 

Distance travelled (in 35 days)

Name                           Warp Factor      Distance

MDH                            0.1                   0.5 Light Year

Proto-Nuclear Engine    0.5                   4 Light Years

Nuclear Engine:            1.0                   8 Light Years (base from the game)

Fusion Engine:              1.5                   16 Light Years (0.5 = X 2)

Anti-matter Engine:      2.5                   64 Light Years (1.0 = X4)

 With these guidelines set, I’ll be able to base my story on a more solid and logical footing and by extent, create a better story.