#another passover meme

[deathbypufferfish]

Me looking up "is [blank] kosher for Passover?" even though I know fully well it is not

[hyperpotamianarch]

Pleasant music playing. The logo of Camp Nephillim appears on a sky-blue background. The logo is a tilted Star of David in which all the points are stylized as wings, with the words "Camp Nephilim" above and the Hebrew equivalent - "מחנה הנפילים" - below. Underneath the logo is a tagline - a quote from the Tanach.

The logo & background slowly fade. The music also fades, though a bit later than the logo.

[Setting: Int., an office of some sort. The back wall is covered with book shelves, with many of the books being in Hebrew - the Talmud, multi volume edition of the Tanach and such books. There's a table in the middle of the room. Behind it sits Tuvia Rosenbloom, an adult Jewish man with curly dark hair, a short beard and sharp green eyes. He wears a blue Camp Nephilim t-shirt, with a Tzitzit under it and a yarmulke on his head. He sports a friendly smile.]

Tuvia (with a noticable British accent): Shalom! Hello, and welcome to Camp Nephillim. I am Tuvia Rosenbloom, the camp councelor, and I'm here to explain to you about what this camp is and why you're here. Your journey here was likely shaking, so in the meanwhile take your time to relax and drink a cup of water while you're watching this orientation video. Please remember to say the blessing before!

[He lifts a cup of water, says the blessing and drinks before continuing]

Tuvia (cont.): So, first thing first: you should know that many thing that you may have thought were merely myth are, in fact, quite real. This includes angels and demons - though they aren't exactly the same as you might've imagined them. No, the whole "Biblically Accurate Angels" meme wouldn't prepare you enough either. Angels can also sometimes appear differently than their natural form, and can even seem like regular humans. They sometimes fall in love with humans, which is how most Nephilim come to be.

[Tuvia's office disappears, to show instead a Chumash opened in the Book of Genesis, chapter 6]

Tuvia (cont.): What are the Nephilim? Well, as the Torah says,

"It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth—when divine beings cohabited with the human women, who bore them offspring. Such were the heroes of old, the men of renown."

[Setting returns to Tuvia's office]

Tuvia (cont.): So, those are the Nephilim, then: children of Divine beings and humans, who are heroes and men of renown. And you are likely one of them.

[Tuvia takes another sip from his cup, then sets it aside]

Tuvia (cont.): You might need some time to digest that, feel free to pause the video for a few minutes. Getting back on topic, though: you are, likely, the child of a divine being. If you always grown with a single parent who only rarely reminisced of another parent you don't know what happened to them - you are likely a Naphil. It may grant you certain abilities relating to the position your divine parent served in the universe. Note, however, that those divine beings aren't gods. We do not worship them or offer them sacrifices, even as mediators between as and G-d. Some of those Divine Beings do like to consider themselves gods and were worshipped by old civilizations - the Greek and Norse pantheons, for example. That doesn't make them any more gods than the Angels known in Jewish lore - they are merely forces. Powerful, but not omnipotent.

[Tuvia pauses for a moment, letting that sink in]

Tuvia (cont.): There are other types of people who might find their way to Camp Nephilim, however. Perhaps you were training in magic under the Egyptian ḥartumim of Per Ankh and felt uncomfortable during Passover; maybe you studied under the tutelage of the Chaldeans in New Jersey, and they were harsh on you during Tisha b'Av; or maybe you were either born with the Re'iyeh, the Sight, or were granted it by an experiment gone wrong. I, personally, am descended from one of the few Jewish bloodlines that inherited the Re'iyeh from one of our ancestors. We can see the hidden world, and the threats within... and they tend to look back. Which leads us to demons.

[Tuvia leans back in his chair, putting his hands together]

Tuvia (cont.): It is important to remember that Demons - or Shedim, as they are known in Hebrew - aren't what you've come to expect from beings with such a name. They aren't evil monsters, hell-bent on tempting you to sin. Rather, they are... adjacent beings to us, not dissimilarly to elves or goblins in modern popular media. However, they are nothing like you may have come to expect from elves of the Tolkeinian kind. They are wilder than them, and prone to hurt humans. They aren't always murderous or impossible to reason with either. Some of them, like our lore instructor Yonatan Shida, are rather friendly. Many of them crave blood, though, and nothing is tastier to them than the blood of the Nephilim, or other humans capable of seeing them. They live in the edges of society and can feel when someone is looking at them. And when you do... when you acknowledge seeing them... you become fair play.

[Tuvia returns to his previous posture, lifts his cup and takes another sip]

Tuvia (cont.): You likely had a significant encounter with Shedim, or maybe other types of monsters, on your way here - but it probably wasn't your first time seeing them. It might have been a man who, upon a second look, had chicken legs. Perhaps you could've sworn that a weird stranger who seemed to follow you had two heads. You may have seen a horse fly on the horizon, or encountered a tall person with an umbilical cord tying them to the ground on a field trip. They were less of a threat to you back then. But yo have grown, and your powers and abilities grew with you - along with the Shedim's ability to sense you. They will be coming for you - which is why you're here. Camp Nephilim is a place for Jewish Nephilim and Ba'alei Shem to train. To get used to the powers granted to us by virtue of our parentage or via other means. We're not the only place for such training; Camp Half-Blood in Long Island offers training for children of entities from the Greek Pantheon, while the 21 Nome of the House of Life in Brooklyn offers training in Egyptian magic, and the Chaldean school in Jersey City will train you in the Mesopotamian vain. None of those, however, is built with Jews in mind: the worship of pagan gods is common in all these places. They don't supply you with Kosher food, tend to not care for our holidays and often enough rife with latent antisemitism. We offer a Jewish alternative - no matter what is your level of observance or what congregation you belong to, you can be sure we have here at least one synagogue you can daven at and one you'd never set foot in. We do not worship any god but G-d here - you can honor your parents in ways fitting the traditions of the Torah, but even if a divine parent asks of you to worship them you are not required to. Another difference between us and the other Camps and Schools is that you aren't trained to slay Shedim here. You're trained to keep them at bay, imprison them if necesarry. Unlike other monsters, Shedim die like humans do, and so killing them should be only taken as a last resort: if your life are in danger you should kill whoever threatens you, but otherwise killing Shedim is like murder. We would ask you to refrain from doing that unless necessary.

[Tuvia gets up]

Tuvia (cont.): That is it for the orientation video for now. Further explanations on your sleeping arrangemnt and schedules will be given to you when you exit the room. Welcome to Camp Nephilim! We hope you enjoy your time with us.

[Outro music playing, the picture of Tuvia's office is replaced by the blue background with the Camp's logo to the side while the credits are shown on screen]

———

Writer wishes to note he knows nothing about writing stage instructions.

[hedgewitchgarden]

Ostara vs Easter; or Let's All Just Colour an Egg

March 11

This piece was originally written in 2016 and has been updated - *(An updated version (free) of my 2016 article debunking common misconceptions about the alleged pagan history of Easter) Every year there's a lot of commentary that floats around the pagan community claiming several things about the holiday of Ostara, most of them untrue. So lets take a look at the urban legends and the realities, shall we?  Firstly the idea that Easter is related to the Goddess Ishtar, that the word and name sound the same, and that Ishtar's symbols are identical to popular Easter symbols: Ishtar is not pronounced 'easter'; it's a pretty straightforward name actually and is pronounced 'ishtar' just like it looks.  Ishtar is an ancient Assyrian goddess whose name is connected to the related goddess Astarte; the word easter comes from old English, likely rooted in the proto-Germanic word for dawn (Harper, 2024). Ishtar was a goddess connected to love, fertility, and war. Her symbols were not rabbits or eggs but rather storehouse gates, lions, and stars with different numbers of points (Ishtar, 2016).  

original meme author unknown: "bullshit" label courtesy of Ian Corrigan So that's that one.

Was the date of Easter stolen from Pagans? No. The Christian holiday itself was not stolen from or dated based on the pagan holiday; it developed on its own based off of the Jewish holiday timing for Passover and was originally known as Pascha in Latin, only later becoming known as Easter; as late as the 8th century the holiday was still known as Pascha in England. 

Did the 4th century emperor Constantine invent it all? This is another idea that I see floating around this time of year. I can say conclusively that the idea that Constantine in the 4th century C.E. speaking Latin was calling the holiday Easter (for the record it still isn't called Easter in most languages that aren't English) is false and he didn't invent the holiday itself. As a Christian holiday Pascha (Easter) seems to have been well established by the mid second century (Melito, 1989).This is at least 200 years before Constantine's lifetime.

Now the other main idea that get's tossed around is that Easter is stolen from or based on a Germanic or Anglo-Saxon holiday or Goddess named Ostara/Eostre. I can't even give an example of this meme because honestly most of them are blatantly offensive in the way they are worded but the gist of it is claiming that Ostara/Eostre was an ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess celebrated in spring whose symbols were rabbits and eggs and Christians stole it all, etc., etc.,

The name of the holiday is likely derived from a word that means "east" and may be related to the name of an obscure Germanic or Anglo-Saxon goddess about whom we know virtually nothing. The name of the goddess - Eostre to the Anglo-Saxons and Ostara to the Germans - is probably related to the same root as the word east: both etymologically come from the proto-Indo-European root aus- meaning 'to shine' and likely relating to the dawn. Our only source of information on Eostre is the Venerable Bede who wrote in the 8th century: Eostur-monath, qui nunc Paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a Dea illorum quæ Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen habuit: a cujus nomine nunc Paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquæ observationis vocabulo gaudia novæ solemnitatis vocantes (Giles, 1843) [Eostre-month, which is now interpreted as the Paschal month, which was formerly called Eostre and celebrated in that month: now the Paschal season is called by this name calling the joys of the new festival by the ancient name of the old]     From this we know that there was an Anglo-Saxon goddess named Eostre who had a holiday celebrated for her around the same time as Easter/Pascha but basically nothing else. And we already know that Pascha as a Christian holiday was well established long before this. So we appear to have a case of the new religion's holiday being called by the name of the old one in part due to a coincidence in timing.   About a thousand years later Jacob Grimm would go on to write about a hypothetical German goddess he called Ostara who he reconstructed based in part off of the German name for the Christian holiday of Easter, Ostern, and a name for April of Ostermonat (Grimm, 1835). He elaborates on his ideas based on this idea of a connection between the name and the direction of the east and the idea of dawn and spring, as well as widespread connections between Ostara [the goddess] and contemporary Christian Easter celebrations including bonfires and drawing water at dawn which had special properties (Grimm, 1835). Although it is possible that Grimm was noting genuine pagan folk practices that had survived his connection of these practices to a goddess named Ostara are impossible to prove* On to the rabbits and eggs because that keeps showing up in all of these memes. The concept of "Easter" bunnies (originally hares, "Osterhase") cannot be dated before the mid-1500's and the eggs appear to have started in the 1600's, both in Germany (Bauer, 2016). The eggs were originally called 'pace' or Pascha eggs explicitly connecting them to the Jewish Passover and the Christian holiday. In 1682 Georg Franck von Franckenau is the first to explicitly mention the rabbit bringing eggs in De Ovis Paschalibus where he describes the folk practice and the way people get sick overeating the eggs. This appears to have been because eggs - like meat and milk - were on the Lenten 'don't eat' list and so eating them on Easter was a treat (Newell, 1989). Unlike milk and meat however eggs could be preserved more easily and a hard boiled egg played a role in the Jewish Passover meal making eggs both abundant, desirable, and symbolic at Easter (Newell, 1989). Coloring eggs was also a widespread folk custom in many cultures, and while it was surely used by pagans it was easily adapted to Christian symbolism as well. There doesn't seem to be any certainty of exactly where the idea of hiding eggs for kids to find came from, but there is evidence that it began in Germany and spread from there to England and America.

To summarize: Easter is a Christian holiday, based on Christian mythology, and timed based on the Jewish Passover. The traditions involving rabbits and eggs come from 17th century German folk practices, partially based on Lenten food restrictions. Colouring eggs is found across a wide array of cultures. We know basically nothing about the goddesses Eostre or Ostara, historically, and what we do have about them is largely modern speculation or innovated pagan belief.

So in the end we have the name of a goddess which is etymologically connected to the word east as well as the dawn, and likely related to other Indo-European dawn or spring goddesses. But basically there is no real information about her, no known symbols, no myths**.  We can say that this holiday was not taken and turned into the Christian Easter, which as we've mentioned already existed many centuries prior and with a different name. It is true that English and German speakers use a name for the Christian holiday based on the pagan one and it is possible that some pagan folk practices were maintained but that was not a matter of intentional theft by the Church - rather it was the people converting to the new religion themselves refusing to give up certain things.

While these practices may or may not be originally pagan,  why does it matter? These are fun folk custom that we can practice today, pagan or Christian, whose origins are more or less lost to history. So lets stop arguing over whose holiday is whose and what traditions belong to who - color an egg, make a little nest for the Osterhase and put the eggs in, jump a bonfire, and have a great holiday whichever one you celebrate.

*that story about Ostara and the bird getting turned into a rabbit which then laid eggs is entirely modern

**I am not however arguing that Eostre/Ostara never existed, just that Grimm's evidence of her folk customs in 19th century German is pretty shaky.

References

Ishtar (2016) Encyclopedia Britanica

Melito of Sardis (1989) "On the Passover"  http://www.kerux.com/doc/0401A1.asp

Bauer, I., (2016) Der Osterhase

Giles, J (1843) The Complete Works of the Venerable Bede

Newell, V., (1989) Eggs at Easter; a folklore study

Grimm, J., (1835) Deutsche Mythologie

Harper, D., (2024) 'Easter'; Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=easter 

[alightonthewater]

hot take but i feel like that pillsbury doughboy easter/passover/etc meme is funnier when it just goes "he is risen!"/"he is not!" i get why people changed it so it includes "he is off limits until sundown!" and i think i saw another one that said "he is an offering to the ancestors!" but it weakens the joke i think.

the latter two are just general food things. the charm of the original one is that the first doughboy saying "he is risen!" is playing off the traditional easter call-and-response of "he is risen!" "he is risen indeed!" the "he" is clearly referring to jesus, and it seems like a classic easter marketing scheme. and then you get to matzoh doughboy and "he is not!" and it's funny because the passover tradition is to eat unleavened bread, and moreover to get rid of any leavening agents in your house, and therefore "he is not" is reframing "he" to the doughboy in question and "risen" to mean leavening instead of being raised from the dead.

i feel like tacking on "he is off limits until sundown" to include ramadan fasting doesn't add anything to the joke in particular, like i get what they're going for but it lacks the comedic double-meaning of the easter/passover duo. there's no clever wordplay there, it's just "doughboy=food, food=off limits". rule of three states that the third addition should be the punchline or the funniest addition but instead it's the weakest addition and i think the joke is stronger if you leave it at two.

[yamayuandadu]

The Two (or more) Ishtars or A Certain Scandalous Easter Claim Proved to be The Worship of Reverend Alexander Hislop

Once upon a time the official facebook page of Richard Dawkins' foundation posted a graphic according to which the holiday of Easter is just a rebranded celebration of the Mesopotamian mythology superstar Ishtar, arguing that the evidence is contained in its very name. As everyone knows, Dawkins is an online talking head notable for discussing his non-belief in such an euphoric way that it might turn off even the most staunch secularists and for appearing in some reasonably funny memes about half a decade ago. Bizarrely enough, however, the same claim can be often found among the crowds dedicated to crystal healing, Robert Graves' mythology fanfiction, indigo children and similar dubiously esoteric content. What's yet more surprising is that once in a while it shows up among a certain subset of fundamentalist Christians, chiefly the types who believe giants are real (and, of course, satanic), the world  is ruled by a secret group of Moloch worshipers and fossils were planted by the devil to led the sheeple astray from the truth about earth being 6000 years old, tops. Of course, to anyone even just vaguely familiar with Christianity whose primary language isn't English this claim rightfully seems completely baffling – after all it's evident in most languages that the name of the holiday celebrating Jesus' resurrection, and many associated customs, are derived from the earlier Jewish Pascha (Passover) which has nothing to do with Ishtar other than having its origin in the Middle East. Why would the purported association only be evident  in English and not in Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, virtually any language other than English and its close relatives – languages which generally didn't have anything to do with Mesopotamia or early christianity? Read on to find out what sort of sources let this eclectic selection of characters arrive to the same baffling conclusion, why are they hilariously wrong, and – most importantly – where you can actually find a variety of Ishtars (or at least reasonably Ishtar-like figures) under different names instead.

The story of baffling Easter claims begins in Scotland in the 19th century. A core activity of theologians in many faiths through history was (and sometimes still is) finding alleged proof of purported “idolatry” or other “impure” practices among ideological opponents, even these from within the same religion – and a certain Presbyterian minister, Alexander Hislop, was no stranger to this traditional pastime. Like many Protestants in this period, he had an axe to grind with the catholic church  - though not for the reasons many people are not particularly fond of this institution nowadays. What Hislop wanted to prove was much more esoteric – he believed that it's the Babylon known from the Book of Revelations. Complete with the beast with seven heads, blasphemous names and other such paraphernalia, of course. This wasn't a new claim – catholicism was equated with the New Testament Babylon for as long as Protestantism was a thing (and earlier catholicism itself regarded other religions as representing it). What set Hislop apart from dozens of other similar attempts like that was that he fancied himself a scholar of history and relied on the brand new accounts of excavations in what was once the core sphere of influence of the Assyrian empire (present day Iraq and Syria), supplemented by various Greek and Roman classics – though also by his own ideas, generally varying from baseless to completely unhinged. Hislop compiled his claims in the book The Two Babylons or The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife. You can find it on archive.org if you want to torment yourself and read the entire thing – please do not give clicks directly to any fundie sites hosting it though. How does the history of Easter and Ishtar look like according to Hislop? Everything started with Semiramis, who according to his vision was a historical figure and a contemporary of Noah's sons, here also entirely historical. Semiramis is either entirely fictional or a distorted Greek and Roman account of the 9th century BC Assyrian queen Shammuramat, who ruled as a regent for a few years after the death of her husband Shamshi Adad V – an interesting piece of historical trivia, but arguably not really a historical milestone, and by the standards of Mesopotamian history she's hardly a truly ancient figure. Hislop didn't even rely on the primary sources dealing with the legend of Semiramis though, but with their medieval christian interpretations, which cast her in the role of an adulterer first and foremost due to association of ancient Mesopotamia with any and all vices.

Hislop claims that Semiramis was both the Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelations and the first idolater, instituting worship of herself as a goddess. This goddess, he argues, was Astarte (a combination of two flimsy claims – Roman claim that Semiramis' name means “dove” and now generally distrusted assumption that Phoenician Astarte had the same symbols as Greek Aphrodite) and thus Ishtar, but he also denotes her as a mother goddess – which goes against everything modern research has to say about Ishtar, of course. However, shoddy scholarship relying on few sources was the norm at the time, and Hislop on top of that was driven by religious zeal. In further passages, he identified this “universal mother” with Phrygian Cybele, Greek Rhea and Athena, Egyptian Isis, Taoist Xi Wangmu (sic) and many more, pretty much at random, arguing all of them were aspects of nefarious Semiramis cult which infected all corners of the globe. He believed that she was venerated alongside a son-consort, derived from Semiramis' even more fictional husband Ninus (a mythical founder of Assyria according to Greek authors, absent from any Mesopotamian sources; his name was derived from Nineveh, not from any word for son like Hislop claims), who he identifies with biblical Nimrod (likewise not a historical figure, probably a distorted reflection of the god Ninurta). Note the similarity with certain ideas perpetrated by Frazer's Golden Bough and his later fans like Jung, Graves and many neopagan authors – pseudohistory, regardless of ideological background, has a very small canon of genuinely original claims. Ishtar was finally introduced to Britain by “druids” (note once again the similarity to the baffling integration of random Greek, Egyptian or Mesopotamian deities into Graves-derived systems of fraudulent trivia about “universal mother goddesses” often using an inaccurate version of Celtic myths as framework). This eventually lead to the creation of the holiday of Easter. Pascha doesn't come up in the book at all, as far as I can tell. All of this is basically just buildup for the book's core shocking reveal: catholic veneration of Mary and depictions of Mary with infant Jesus in particular are actually the worship of Semiramis and her son-consort Ninus, and only the truly faithful can reveal this evil purpose of religious art. At least so claims Hislop. This bizarre idea is laughable, but it remains disturbingly persistent – do you remember the Chick Tracts memes from a few years ago, for example? These comics were in part inspired by Hislop's work. Many fundamentalist christian communities appear to hold his confabulations in high esteem up to this day – and many people who by design see themselves as a countercultural opposition to christianity independently gleefully embrace them, seemingly ignorant of their origin. While there are many articles debunking Hislop's claim about Easter, few of them try to show how truly incomprehensibly bad his book is as a whole – hopefully the following examples will be sufficient to illustrate this point: -Zoroaster is connected to Moloch because of the Zoroastrian holy fire - and Moloch is, of course Ninus. Note that while a few Greek authors believed Zoroaster to be the “king of Bactria” mythical accounts presented as a contemporary of Ninus, the two were regarded as enemies – Hislop doesn't even follow the pseudohistory he uses as proof! -Zoroaster is also Tammuz. Tammuz is, of course, yet another aspect of Ninus. -demonic character is ascribed to relics of the historical Buddha; also he's Osiris. And Ninus. -an incredibly racist passage explains why the biblical Nimrod (identified with – you guessed it - Ninus) might be regarded as “ugly and deformed” like Haephestus and thus identical to him (no, it makes no sense in context either) - Hislop thinks he was black (that's not the word he uses, naturally) which to him is the same thing. -Attis is a deification of sin itself -the pope represents Dagon (incorrectly interpreted as a fish god in the 19th century) -Baal and Bel are two unrelated words – this is meant to justify the historicity of the Tower of Babel by asserting it was built by Ninus, who was identical to Bel (in reality a title of Marduk); Bel, according to Hislop, means “the confounder (of languages)” rather than “lord” -the term “cannibal” comes from a made up term for priests of Baal (Ninus) who according to Hislop ate children. In reality it's a Spanish corruption of the endonym of one of the first tribes encountered by the Spanish conquerors in America, and was not a word used in antiquity – also, as I discussed in my Baal post, the worship of Baal did not involve cannibalism. This specific claim of Hislop's is popular with the adherents of prophetic doomsday cult slash wannabe terrorist group QAnon today, and shows up on their “redpilling” graphics. -Ninus was also Cronos; Cronos' name therefore meant “horned one” in reference to Mesopotamian bull/horned crown iconography and many superficially similar gods from all over the world were the same as him - note the similarity to Margaret Murray's obsession with her made up idea of worldwide worship of a “horned god” (later incorporated into Wicca). -Phaeton, Orpheus and Aesculapius are the same figure and analogous to Lucifer (and in turn to Ninus) -giants are real and they're satanists (or were, I think Hislop argues they're dead already). They are (were?) also servants of Ninus. -as an all around charming individual Hislop made sure to include a plethora of comments decrying the practices of various groups at random as digressions while presenting his ridiculous theories – so, while learning about the forbidden history of Easter, one can also learn why the author thinks Yezidi are satanists, for example -last but not least, the very sign of the cross is not truly christian but constitutes the worship of Tammuz, aka Ninus (slowly losing track of how many figures were regarded as one and the same as him by Hislop). Based on the summary above it's safe to say that Hislop's claim is incorrect – and, arguably, malevolent (and as such deserves scrutiny, not further possibilities for spreading). However, this doesn't answer the question where does the name of Easter actually come from? As I noted in the beginning, in English (and also German) it's a bit of an oddity – it  actually was derived from a preexisting pagan term, at least if we are to believe the word of the monk Bede, who in the 8th century wrote that the term is a derivative of “Eosturmonath,” eg. “month of Eostre” - according to him a goddess. There are no known inscriptions mentioning such a goddess from the British Isles or beyond, though researchers involved in reconstructing proto-indo-european language assume that “Eostre” would logically be a derivative of the same term as  the name of the Greek Eos and of the vedic Ushas, and the Austriahenae goddesses from Roman inscriptions from present day Germany  – eg.  a word simply referring to dawn, and by extension to a goddess embodying it. This is a sound, well researched theory, so while early medieval chroniclers sometimes cannot be trusted, I see no reason to doubt Bede's account.

While Ushas is a prominent goddess in the Vedas, Eos was rather marginal in Greek religion (see her Theoi entry for details), and it's hard to tell to what degree Bede's Eostre was similar to either of them beyond plausibly being a personification of dawn. Of course, the hypothetical proto-indo-european dawn goddess all of these could be derived from would have next to nothing to do with Ishtar. While the history of the name of Easter (though not the celebration itself) is undeniably interesting, I suppose it lacks the elements which make the fake Ishtar claim a viral hit – the connection is indirect, and an equivalent of the Greek Eos isn't exactly exciting (Eos herself is, let be honest, remembered at best as an obscure part of the Odyssey), while Ishtar is understood by many as “wicked” sex goddess (a simplification, to put it very lightly) which adds a scandalous, sacrilegious dimension to the baffling lie, explaining its appeal to Dawkins' fans, arguably. As demonstrated above, Hislop's theories are false and adapting them for any new context – be it christian, atheist or neopagan – won't change that, but are there any genuine examples of, well, “hidden Ishtars”? If that's the part of the summary which caught your attention, rejoice – there is a plenty of these to be found in Bronze Age texts. I'd go as far as saying that most of ancient middle eastern cultures from that era felt compelled to include an Ishtar ersatz in their pantheons. Due to the popularity of the original Ishtar, she was almost a class of figures rather than a single figure – a situation almost comparable to modern franchising, when you think about it. The following figures can be undeniably regarded as “Ishtar-like” in some capacity or even as outright analogs:

Astarte (or Ashtart, to go with a more accurate transcription of the oldest recorded version of the name) – the most direct counterpart of Ishtar there is: a cognate of her own name. Simply, put Astarte is the “Levantine”equivalent of the “Mesopotamian” Ishtar. In the city of Mari, the names were pretty much used interchangeably, and some god lists equate them, though Astarte had a fair share of distinct traits. In Ugaritic mythology, which forms the core of our understanding of the western Semitic deities, she was a warrior and hunter (though it's possible that in addition to conventional weapons she was also skilled at wielding curses), and was usually grouped with Anat. Both of them were regarded as the allies of Baal, and assist him against his enemies in various myth. They also were envisioned to spend a lot of time together – one ritual calls them upon as a pair from distant lands where they're hunting together, while a fragmentary myth depicts both of them arriving in the household of the head god El and taking pity on Yarikh, the moon god, seemingly treated as a pariah. Astarte's close relation to Baal is illustrated by her epithet, “face of Baal” or “of the name of Baal.” They were often regarde as a couple and even late, Hellenic sources preserve a traditional belief that Astarte and “Adados” (Baal) ruled together as a pair. In some documents from Ugarit concerned with what we would call foreign policy today they were invoked together as the most prominent deities. It's therefore possible that she had some role related to human politics. She was regarded as exceptionally beautiful and some texts favorably describe mortal women's appearance by comparing them to Astarte. In later times she was regarded as a goddess of love, but it's unclear if that was a significant aspect of her in the Bronze Age. It's equally unclear if she shared Ishtar's astral character – in Canaan there were seemingly entirely separate dawn and dusk deities. Despite clamis you might see online, Astarte was not the same as the mother goddess Asherah. In the Baal cycle they actually belong to the opposing camps. Additionally, the names are only superficially similar (one starts with an aleph, the other with an ayin) and have different etymology. Also, that famous sculpture of a very blatantly Minoan potnia theron? Ugaritic in origin but not a depiction of either Astarte or Asherah.

The Egyptians, due to extensive contact with Canaan and various Syrian states in the second half of the Bronze Age, adapted Astarte (and by extension Anat) into their own pantheon. Like in Ugarit, her warrior character was emphasized. An Egyptian innovation was depicting her as a cavalry goddess of sorts – associated with mounted combat and chariots. In Egypt, Ptah, the head god of Memphis and divine craftsman, was regarded as her father. In most texts, Astarte is part of Seth's inner circle of associates – however, in this context Seth wasn't the slayer of Osiris, but a heroic storm god similar to Baal. The so-called Astarte papyrus presents an account of a myth eerily similar to the Ugaritic battle between Baal and Yam – starring Seth as the hero, with Astarte in a supporting role resembling that played by Shaushka, another Ishtar analog, in the Hittite song of Hedammu, which will be discussed below.

Shaushka – a Hurrian and Hittite goddess whose name means “the magnificent one” in the Hurrian language. Hurrian was widely spoken in ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia (and in northernmost parts of the Levant – up to one fifth of personal names from Ugaritic documents were Hurrian iirc), but has no descendants today and its relation to any extant languages is uncertain. In Hittite texts she was often referred to with an “akkadogram” denoting Ishtar's name (or its Sumerian equivalent) instead of a phonetic  spelling of her own (there was an analogous practice regarding the sun gods), while in Egyptian and Syrian texts there are a few references to “Ishtar Hurri” - “Ishtar of the Hurrians” - who is argued by researchers to be one and the same as Shaushka. Despite Shaushka's Hurrian name and her prominence in myths popular both among Hittites and Hurrians, her main cult center was the Assyrian city of Nineveh, associated with Ishtar herself as well, and there were relatively few temples dedicated to her in the core Hittite sphere of influence in Anatolia. Curiously, both the oldest reference to Shaushka and to the city of Nineveh come from the same text, stating that a sheep was sacrificed to her there. While most of her roles overlap with Ishtar's (she too was associated with sex, warfare and fertility), here are two distinct features of Shaushka that set her apart as unique: one is the fact she was perceived in part as a masculine deity, despite being consistently described as a woman – in the famous Yazılıkaya reliefs she appears twice, both among gods and goddesses. In Alalakh she was depicted in outfits combining elements of male and female clothing. Similar fashion preferences were at times attributed to Ninshubur, the attendant of Ishtar's Sumerian forerunner Inanna – though in that case they were likely the result of conflation of Ninshubur with the male messenger deity Papsukkal, while in the case of Shaushka the dual nature seems to be inherent to her (I haven't seen any in depth study of this matter yet, sadly, so I can't really tell confidently which modern term in my opinion describes Shaushka's character the best). Her two attendants, musician goddesses Ninatta and Kulitta, do not share it. Shaushka's other unique niche is her role in exorcisms and incantations, and by extension with curing various diseases – this role outlived her cult itself, as late Assyrian inscriptions still associated the “Ishtar of Nineveh” (at times viewed as separate from the regular Ishtar) with healing. It can be argued that even her sexual aspect was connected to healing, as she was invoked to cure impotence. The most significant myth in which she appears is the cycle dedicated to documenting the storm god's (Teshub for the Hurrians, Tarhunna for the Hittites) rise to power. Shaushka is depicted as his sister and arguably most reliable ally, and plays a prominent role in two sections in particular – the Song of Hedammu and the Song of Ullikummi. In the former, she seemingly comes up with an elaborate plan to defeat a new enemy of her brother - the sea monster Hedammu - by performing a seductive dance and song montage (with her attendants as a support act) and offering an elixir to him. The exact result is uncertain, but Hedammu evidently ends up vanquished. In the latter, she attempts to use the same gambit against yet another new foe, the “diorite man” Ullikummi – however, since he is unfeeling like a rock, she fails; some translators see this passage as comedic. However, elsewhere in the Song, the storm god's main enemy Kumarbi and his minions view Shaushka as a formidable warrior, and in the early installment of the cycle, Song of LAMMA, she seemingly partakes in a fight. In another myth, known only from a few fragments and compared to the Sumerian text “Inanna and the huluppu tree,” Shaushka takes care of “Ḫašarri” -  a personification of olive oil, or a sentient olive tree. It seems that she has to protect this bizarre entity from various threats. While Shaushka lived on in Mesopotamia as “Ishtar of Nineveh,” this was far from the only “variant”of Ishtar in her homeland.

Nanaya was another such goddess. A few Sumerian hymns mention her alongside Inanna, the Sumerian equivalent of Ishtar, by the time of Sargon of Akkad virtually impossible to separate from her. As one composition puts it, Nanaya was “properly educated by holy Inana” and “counselled by holy Inana.” Initially she was most likely a part of Inanna's circle of deities in her cult center, Uruk, though due to shared character they eventually blurred together to a large degree. Just like Inanna/Ishtar, Nanaya was a goddess of love, described as beautiful and romantically and sexually active, and she too had an astral character. She was even celebrated during the same holidays as Inanna. Some researchers go as far as suggest Nanaya was only ever Inanna/Ishtar in her astral aspect alone and not a separate goddess. However, there is also evidence of her, Inanna and the sky god An being regarded as a trinity of distinct tutelary deities in Uruk. Additionally, king Melishipak's kudurru shown above shows both Nanaya (seated) and Ishtar/Inanna (as a star). Something peculiar to Nanaya was her later association with the scribe god Nabu. Sometimes Nabu's consort was the the goddess Tashmetu instead, but I can't find any summary explaining potential differences between them – it seems just like Nanaya, she was a goddess of love, including its physical aspects. Regardless of the name used to describe Nabu's wife, she was regarded as a sage and scribe like him – this arguably gives her a distinct identity she lacked in her early role as part of Inanna's circle. As the above examples demonstrate, the popularity of the “Ishtar type” was exceptional in the Bronze Age – but is it odd from a modern perspective? The myths dedicated to her are still quite fun to read today – much like any hero of ancient imagination she has a plethora of adversaries, a complex love life (not to mention many figures not intended to be read as her lovers originally but described in such terms that it's easy to see them this way today – including other women), a penchant for reckless behavior – and most importantly a consistent, easy to summarize character. She shouldn't be a part of modern mass consciousness only because of false 19th century claims detached from her actual character (both these from Hislop's works and “secular”claims about her purported “real”character based on flimsy reasoning and shoddy sources) – isn't a female character who is allowed to act about the same way as male mythical figures do without being condemned for it pretty much what many modern mythology retellings try to create? Further reading: On Astarte: -entry in the Iconography of Deities and Demons in Ancient Near East database by Izak Cornelius -‛Athtart in Late Bronze Age Syrian Texts by Mark S. Smith -ʿAthtartu’s Incantations and the Use of Divine Names as Weapons by Theodore J. Lewis -The Other Version of the Story of the Storm-god’s Combat with the Sea in the Light of Egyptian, Ugaritic, and Hurro-Hittite Texts by Noga Ayali-Darshan -for a summary of evidence that Astarte has nothing to do with Asherah see A Reassessment of Asherah With Further Considerations of the Goddess by Steve A. Wiggins On Shaushka: -Adapting Mesopotamian Myth in Hurro-Hittite Rituals at Hattuša: IŠTAR, the Underworld, and the Legendary Kings by Mary R. Bacharova -Ishtar seduces the Sea-serpent. A new join in the epic of Ḫedammu (KUB 36, 56 + 95) and its meaning for the battle between Baal and Yam in Ugaritic tradition by Meindert Dijkstra -Ištar of Nineveh Reconsidered by Gary Beckman -Shaushka, the Traveling Goddess by Graciela Gestoso Singer -Hittite Myths by Harry A. Hoffner jr. -The Hurritic Myth about Šaušga of Nineveh and Ḫašarri (CTH 776.2) by Meindert Dijkstra -The West Hurian Pantheon and its Background by Alfonso Archi On Nanaya: -entry in Brill’s New Pauly by Thomas Richter -entry from the Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses project by Ruth Horry -A tigi to Nanaya for Ishbi-Erra from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature -A balbale to Inana as Nanaya from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature -More Light on Nanaya by Michael P. Streck and Nathan Wasserman -More on the Nature and History of the Goddess Nanaya by Piotr Steinkeller A few introductory Ishtar/Inanna myths: -Inanna's descent to the netherworld -Inanna and the huluppu tree -Inanna and Enki -Enki and the world order -Inanna and Ebih -Dumuzid and Enkimdu

[haleviyah]

It's been a Decade...

Did another “Draw this again meme” this time with our main guy here. 

Just an FYI "Rose of Sharon" did officially turn six years old this past Passover/Easter Sunday. However, Joshua (or "Yeshua") as a character has been scribbled by me since I was roughly sixteen years of age.

(Compared to Michael and Gabriel who both have been around for a record 16-17 years - hot damn!)

All I can say is… WOW. 

Just, wow. Almost a decade and here we are. As I have stated before, Joshua has been through one hell of a metamorphosis  that mirrored my personal growth and struggles. Wether that can be taken in a positive or negative stance is completely up to you and what you want to see here. 

With that being said, art-wise it's obvious where the improvement is and how much it has changed dramatically since 2013 or 2012 (the before drawing) compared to now (2022).

I want to keep this short, so let's look at the improvements for Yehoshua design shall we?

=========

Before (2012-2013)

So what was Yeshua like in 2012-2013 originally? Well, let's see:

Majority of the personality traits that Yehoshua had a decade ago was rooted mainly in Baptist Christian beliefs. Here’s a list: 

Omnipotent

Idle

Incapable of learning

G-d-complex

Independant 

Sovereign King (makes all the decisions)

Somewhat the “Straight-man” of the group.

Kingdom first

Entitlement based Judgement

Not very athletic

Hermitic

“Straight-edge”

Loves the Worship

Knowledgable most of the time.

Personification of a Lion.

Other: 

Jewish/Hebraic/Middle Eastern heritage is nonexistent and has no impression on his design or personality. 

This is mainly due to my lack of access to the Jewish community at the time and being over saturated in Christian based-doctrines only. 

For some reason he had a scars all across his head. I guess it’s because everything else including his hands and feet were covered and it bugged little “fanatical” me. 

Originally he was a only meant to reside in Heaven and was forbidden to leave.

Unmarried bachelor. 

Fancy curtains for robes. 

Almost never interacts with other people, unless the person is picked by him.

Angel’s automatically liked and obeyed him without a second thought. 

No soft spots or quirks I can think of. 

In short, unkosher and SEVERELY detached from his Jewish background and culture. But he damn well road on that "G-d-king" coat tail like it was the white horse everyone talked about. Everything he ever learned growing up (if any)... be damned.

=========

Now (2022)

So who is Yeshua now in "Rose of Sharon" ? The polar opposite now ever since I started hitting those Judaism books like they were the last supper and completely separated from the Christian church for good due to personal fallouts.

After years and YEARS of studying and discussing with others over how life was like back then and now for the Jewish people and Israel as a whole, affectively moulded our male lead into something a lot more than just a name and face.

And because of that cultural baptism, Joshua is now:

Empathetic 

Active

Capable of learning 

Fixer-complex 

Josh does have a habit of thinking if he broke it, he can fix it again and this is where his most stubborn side comes out.

Team player

Congressional Legislature (needs to find a compromise among peers)

Slick Smart Ass of the group

Loved ones first

Incentive/Character based Judgement

Athletic 

Social and curious. 

Drinks [wine] and smokes [hookah]

Hates being worshipped. 

Clueless at times.

Personification of a lamb… or ram, if you piss him off. 

Other: 

Married man.

Prostitutes, Widows and Orphans have a soft spot in his heart. 

Jewish/Hebraic/Middle Eastern heritage is a huge influence his design or personality to the point he respects cultures in the region.  

Heavily interacts with other people native or not native to Israel. 

Very simple, mundane wardrobe that would have you mistake he’s a lumberjack as a side hustle. Hunting gear is based off military and athletic-wear. 

A wanderer. Joshua travels from place to place until someone decides to host him for a time, because... what is this “kingdom come” you speak of? 

Angels (or Malakim) are skeptical of him unless given a reason otherwise (Michael is a prime example).

In short, more attached to his cultural background and is very open personality-wise and communication wise. I suppose you can say Josh's a lot more conscientious this time around; at least to the point he doesn't give a shit if he's patted on the back or not in the end.

All I can say is the change is quite stark in contrast. One minute he is a G-d-King who can command angels with a flick of his finger, the next an exiled soul trying to understand his worth and such angels only listen to his host rather than him.

I will not say which is better, but I will leave the judgement up to you wether this progress is headed in a solid direction or not. Regardless if you like the Christian Jesus or the Hebrew Yehoshua, this progression for me as a creator is more than a 90º turn... it's a 180 and it's going somewhere.

[radarsteddybear]

Today's Blorbo - 4/17/22

Over on Pillowfort, we have blanket boxes, which are a lot like ask memes except you don’t have to wait to be tagged or for people to send you questions (which is *chef’s kiss*).  I can’t really link to the one I did this morning because I’ve got the privacy on my posts set so that you can only see them if you’re logged into the site (or at a higher privacy setting), so I’m reposting it here in full.  \o/

Original Blanket Box can be found here, created by eiriee. There are spoilers for the DuckTales reboot episode “Astro B.O.Y.D.” under the cut.

Who is today's blorbo from your shows? (i.e. who is the current character you are thinking a lot about from the media you are consuming, be it TV, book, podcast, or other) Gyro Gearloose from the DuckTales reboot (not to be confused with...any other Gyro Gearloose, because this version of the character is different from those found in the original DuckTales, the comics, etc.). In this iteration, he is a scientist/inventor who severely lacks people skills. Also a lot of his inventions have a tendency to turn evil :(

Give me all the feels! (i.e. what are you feeling/thinking about your current blorbo - what's got you fixated on them this time?) I am inching closer and closer to finishing this fic starring Gyro as the main character that I've been working on (on and off) for nearly two years \o/  In the episode that inspired the fic ("Astro B.O.Y.D."), we learn more about

Gyro's past, namely that Once Upon a Time when Gyro was a little baby intern, he co-created a robot child that seemed to go haywire and destroy much of a big city.  This event and the ensuing fallout (plus the way his mentor treated him as an intern) caused him to go from a sweet, idealistic inventor to angry and closed-off and unwilling to form relationships with very many other people to the point where he only knows, like, two other characters' names (4, if you count his inventions).  Enter the robot child, B.O.Y.D., who has resurfaced after some large number of years and was adopted by another family on the show--that's it's own weird thing--and is now starting to malfunction.  To make a long story short, Gyro initially wants to decommission B.O.Y.D. due to aforementioned events, but over the course of the episode, he discovers why B.O.Y.D. caused all that destruction all those years ago and is convinced that he deserves a second chance.

I, for one, was very much looking forward to B.O.Y.D. leaving his messed up, weirdo adoptive family and moving in with Gyro, his true father, but of course that didn't happen.  Still, they seem to have maintained some sort of a relationship, but due to the ensemble nature of the show, we don't get to see what that looks like on a day-to-day basis :/  

In my fic, because I can do anything I want, I've thrown out the adoptive family and just have Gyro taking care of B.O.Y.D. after B.O.Y.D. is damaged because I want to see Gyro lose his mind over someone that he cares about (again, keeping in mind that he canonically doesn't care about very many people).  So that's where I'm at this lovely Passover weekend.

(If new DuckTales failed at one thing, it's that the cast of characters was so big that only about 4 or 5 (which may sound like a lot, but the cast of characters is at least 6 times that) really got enough screentime that I felt satisfied with their storylines.  Maybe that's why I've written so much DuckTales fan fiction.)

Blorbo's Song. (i.e. what song from outside of the original media do you currently connect with said blorbo, and what would the music video look like?)  I'm not much one for assigning music (or other media) to characters (9 times out of 10 I'm likely to go with their show's theme song), but...let's go with Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Time Warp." The music video would be a montage of Gyro time traveling in the Time Tub synced up to each "Let's do the Time Warp again" line interspersed with Gyro inventing things, those inventions going wrong, Gyro losing his temper about it (and about Fenton, which is generally connected to things going wrong), etc.

[achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily]

[first passover]

demons: hey guys what’s up

jews: ah fuck who invited the demons?

demons: u did lmao

jews: shit. fuck.

[eleventh passover]

jews: ok so we warded our doors and - 

demons: hey we’re back

jews [in aramaic]: son of a BITCH how do you keep getting IN

demons: whoa what the fuck was that

jews: ...oh i see.

fun fact: angels and demons cannot understand aramaic

the beginning of the passover seder, (ha lachma anya) is in aramaic because it includes the invitation “let all who are hungry come and eat, let all who are needy come and celebrate,” and we don’t want the demons to hear that and take us up on the offer, but they don’t understand it if we say it in aramaic

(machzor vitry, simchah ben samuel of vitry, 11th cent., drawing on the talmud at sotah 33a:6 and shabbat 12b2)

[butchdykedeanwinchester]

@prelawboyking tagged me, thank you!! I already know I don't have anyone to tag so if you'd like to do this meme please go ahead

Three ships: I literally couldn't come up with 3 without feeling like I was putting my business out in one way or another lmfao so I'll say Will/Hannibal and Eve/Villanelle (throwback lmfao) and leave it

Last song: She's My Winona - Fall Out Boy

Currently reading: Mongrels, Stephen Graham Jones ⁠— recently finished his The Only Good Indian which is also excellent and would highly recommend him to anyone seeking Native horror

Currently watching: pretty much just spn lmfao

Last movie: My Neighbor Totoro tonight with my little sister :))

Currently craving: CARBS lmfao it's Passover and I'm so done I simply want some kind of salty fried bread product immediately

[jewish-privilege]

The deadliest attack on Jews in American history appears to have triggered a spike in anti-Semitic searches on Google, exclusive research by CNN shows.

In the hours and days after 11 people were slaughtered inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh last October, so many people typed hateful language into Google that it produced the most anti-Semitic searches seen in the last 12 months.

Our analysis did not include benign searches for information about the news but users seeking material for "Jews must die," "kill Jews," and "I hate Jews," among others, all of which were searched at alarmingly higher rates than normal.

An increase in anti-Semitic Google searches was also found after the Passover shooting in Poway, California in April.

And as might be expected, postings on sites like 4chan and 8chan that have largely been co-opted by those with far-right views, also saw plenty of discussion about the attacks, though the content was more surprising as well as disturbing.

CNN commissioned the analysis from advocacy group HOPE Not Hate. They researched a sample of mainstream and fringe responses online for a year from May 2018 to last week to better understand how anti-Semitic views are shared and spread online, especially in the wake of the two synagogue attacks that struck fear into the hearts of American Jews. The findings come days after the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said anti-Semitic incidents in America rose for the third year in a row, hitting near-historic highs. There were 1,879 documented attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions across the country in 2018.

Searching for "kill Jews" on Google yields stories about the Holocaust, but also specifics on how Nazis killed the Jews, and a plethora of stories of people who have made threats against Jews.

A search for the term "Jews must die" brings up stories about the Pittsburgh shooter, who allegedly shouted that before the shooting. But Googling "I hate Jews" takes you to a variety of pages ranging from a Wikipedia entry about self-hating Jews to an article about a Vice co-founder, who left the company more than a decade ago, launching into a rant about Jews in a post titled "10 things I Hate About Jews." Among the articles also are comments from President Donald Trump telling Republican donors that Democrats "hate Jewish people."

As you dive deeper into the search results of Google, the articles become less mainstream and more offensive. More rants and anti-Semitic vitriol from white supremacist sites come up.

Google searches for "kill Jews" were also atypically high, reaching levels not seen since the Pittsburgh aftermath, in the wake of the Passover shooting that killed one woman and injured the rabbi and others, our research shows.

The massive interest in anti-Semitism after so many Jews were killed in cold blood terrifies Carly Pildis in every fiber of her being.

As a Jewish woman living in Washington, DC, who takes her two-year-old daughter to synagogue and writes for the Jewish news and culture Tablet magazine, the increasing violence is alarming and is impacting real life.

"It is a serious life or death threat for American Jews," Pildis says. "I feel a sense of loss, for what it used to be like for Jews here."

The loss turns to outright fury, when she learns more about the searches after the twin attacks on her community."It makes my blood run cold," she says. "It is literally chilling me to the core."

These searches feel like attacks too. That people are openly hunting online for ways to hurt the Jewish community after they have suffered devastating losses.

It is personal, for her, like other Jews who feel under threat. She says each assault on a Jew or vandalism of property with a swastika impacts her. And the massacres, well, they feel like a death in the family.

On the day of the attack on the Pittsburgh synagogue, she laid sick in bed. Then she got a call from a friend apologizing profusely. She didn't know what they were sorry for. Turn on the TV now, she was told. When she did, she saw the deadliest attack on American Jews unfolding. It was the moment she had feared most since watching Neo-Nazis march on the streets of Charlottesville in 2017 chanting "Jews will not replace us!"

Seeing someone try to wipe out Jews in a synagogue gutted her.

Pildis sat on the bathroom floor, writing opinion pieces about what it all meant, trying to come to grips with it."I don't think I slept for days. It was heartbreaking. It was terrifying. It was soul crushing," she explains.

While Pildis grieved the loss of Jewish lives in her home, in the darker, though freely available, corners of the internet, people celebrated.

On sites like 4chan and 8chan, levels of extreme and violent anti-Semitism are often found daily. But that amount of hatred soared even higher, with spikes in the number of anti-Jewish posts on 8chan's /pol/ board observed directly following the Tree of Life attack, our research found.

Many posts lamented "how few" Jews were killed in both Pittsburgh and Poway, reducing human lives to a "score."...

A commenter on 8chan however called the Poway shooter a "f*****g underachiever."

"Can you imagine your son throwing his whole life away for a high score of 1? It's just embarrassing," a post read.

There was also a large amount of general white supremacist posts, such as "KILL THEM ALL."

But most common was a declaration by many posters that it was actually Jewish people who carried out the attacks on other Jews to gain support in society and provide cover for other alleged nefarious activity. It mimics a long, false, conspiratorial theory repeated among anti-Semites, including those who falsely claim the Holocaust specifically was faked.

The concern among experts studying radicalization is how many people can begin by searching anti-Semitic phrases on a mainstream site like Google but end up being drawn into places like 4chan and 8chan and other forums where white supremacists lurk, spewing hate.

And once you engage, hatred seems to grow...

But the impact of the forums and hate sites remains clear. On 8chan, a poster believed to be [the Poway shooter] called alleged Pittsburgh shooter...a direct inspiration. [The Poway shooter] is thought to have made frequent anti-Semitic comments alongside xenophobic content on Gab, another home to far-right extremists.

Joanna Mendelson, a senior researcher for the ADL's Center on Extremism, calls 4chan and 8chan the "lion's den of hate." "White supremacists are weaponizing hate," Mendelson, says. "They are using the internet to broadcast their message to global audiences. They are arming legions of trolls to push their message out across the internet, to the darkest corners and even mainstream platforms," she says.

...Others who have been radicalized online have said they find that within one to three months their views have changed completely and they have fallen prey to the brainwashing. They simply don't believe they've been taken advantage of at the time. That the repeated use of memes, which are meant to act as jokes but sow seeds of hate, is working, those who have escaped the cycle of hate tell CNN.

And the fear is that, if more people may become consumed by hate on 4chan or 8chan, some may take their hate from the forums to the streets.

...Even the seasoned hate-speech researchers commissioned by CNN were shocked at the depravity they found after the two synagogue attacks.

"I say we go all in and start the war, I am ready" one poster writes.

"Hitler did nothing wrong. Soon the entire world will hate the Jews," writes another.

...Another post specifically begins to write the names of the murderers in a numbered list ending with an ellipsis, signifying the desire for more to come.

He or she suggests more attacks until everyday Americans "will accept mosque and synagogue killings as a normal thing."

...Social media giants like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are being forced to reckon with the power their platforms have in both size and how they amplify hate speech while working to balance free speech.

But more fringe sites, where little if any moderation occurs, seem to present an even larger danger.

And more troubling, perhaps, is the lack of suggestion of what to do about it from the intelligence and law enforcement community.

In a House hearing last week on domestic terrorism, top law enforcement officials couldn't provide an answer as to how to handle websites like 8chan and what legislation could do. CNN has sought comment in the past but their largely unmoderated and unmanaged platforms make it difficult.

That hate spreads online, at the rates CNN found, is unfathomable to Jews like Pildis. She fears the attacks are only beginning, and more will come.

"It makes me unbearably sad, so sad I can barely breathe, to see this rise of hate, extremism and violence," she says. "But they will never take away my hope or my pride in being a Jew - and an American."

Pildis wants those spreading hate to know there is a path out, but if they choose to continue to spew hate against Jews or attack them, the community will never cower.

"Whatever void you are hoping to fill will not be filled with the barrel of a gun," Pildis says. "The Jewish people have survived over 5,000 years of oppression and violence. Our very existence is an act of resistance. We aren't going anywhere."

[pdad58]

A Passover Unlike Any Other

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Jewish holiday that begins next week will be celebrated in new ways—and gain new meanings.

ILLUSTRATION: RUTH GWILY

By Adam Kirsch

Updated April 3, 2020 12:25 pm ET

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How is this night different from all other nights? That question, which Jews ask every year as part of the Passover celebration, will get a new answer in 2020. When the holiday begins on Wednesday night, for many Jews it will be the first time in their lives that they cannot attend a Seder—the ritual meal that commemorates the Israelites’ journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in their Promised Land.

According to a 2013 Pew Research Center poll, the Seder is the most widely practiced Jewish tradition in the U.S.: Only 23% of American Jews regularly attend a synagogue, but 70% go to a Seder. In the age of Covid-19, however, bringing together old and young people in a small space to share food is simply too dangerous. In Israel, where all gatherings of more than 10 people have been banned, the Health Ministry has urged Jews to limit their Seders to their nuclear family. Chabad, the international Jewish outreach organization, has posted a list of frequently asked questions on its website, including “Can I at least invite my neighbors?” The answer is “no, no and no!”

This advice is in keeping with the traditional Jewish principle that the preservation of life overrides almost any other duty. And a Seder is a religious duty, not just a chance to see extended family and enjoy holiday dishes.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How will you celebrate Passover this year? Join the conversation below.

Seder means “order” in Hebrew, and it involves an ordered series of ritual actions, prayers, songs and stories—15 steps in all, which are recorded in the Haggada, the Passover prayer book. The core of the Seder is a long script, usually recited by the guests in turn, which narrates the Exodus and draws out its meaning. One reason why Passover is the quintessential Jewish holiday is that you celebrate it by talking about it. As the Haggada says, “everyone who discusses the exodus from Egypt at length is praiseworthy.”

In fact, the Bible implies that while the purpose of Passover is to remember the exodus, the exodus took place in part so that Jews could celebrate Passover. “And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever,” God tells Moses and Aaron in Exodus 12, on the eve of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt. That Biblical passage is the origin of Passover practices that Jews still follow today—such as eating matzo, unleavened bread, in memory of the Israelites who had to flee before their dough had a chance to rise. 

Over the last 2,000 years, Jews have managed to celebrate Passover in the face of far worse challenges than Covid-19.

Over the last 2,000 years, Jews have managed to celebrate Passover in the face of far worse challenges than Covid-19. In the year 70, the ancient historian Josephus reports, the Roman general Titus besieged Jerusalem three days before Passover, at a time when the city’s population was swelled by the vast numbers of pilgrims who came to offer a Passover sacrifice in the Temple. The result was pestilence—or as we would now say, an epidemic—and famine, which according to Josephus’s estimate killed 1.1 million people. Yet the holiday went on—as it did even in Auschwitz during World War II, where some survivors recalled clandestine Seders conducted without a Haggada.

By comparison, the Passover obstacles of 2020 seem minor. The internet is already full of guides for conducting a virtual Seder, in which guests can read and pray together while eating separately. Orthodox Jews ordinarily don’t use electronic devices on holidays, but this year may be different. Last week, 14 rabbinic authorities in Israel issued a statement permitting the use of Zoom or Skype to connect people during the Seder, provided that the app is turned on before the holiday begins and not turned off until it ends. Other rabbis disagreed, however, and practice will probably vary from household to household.

ILLUSTRATION: RUTH GWILY

However people connect on Passover this year, they will likely find new resonances in the Seder. Everyone is thinking about the importance of handwashing these days, as a way to prevent transmission of the coronavirus, but washing your hands has been one of the first steps in the Seder for many centuries, as a preliminary to handling food. One Passover meme making the rounds lately rewrites the order of the Seder so that instead of handwashing occurring once, it’s repeated between every stage of the meal.

Covid-19 also gives new concreteness to the section of the Seder dealing with the ten plagues. The Book of Exodus relates that, in order to convince the Pharaoh to “let my people go,” God sent Egypt a series of afflictions: water turned to blood, the land was inundated by frogs and locusts, cattle were killed by disease, day turned to night. Yet each time Pharaoh refused to relent, until the worst plague of all, when every firstborn child in Egypt died on the same night. In this way God requited the genocidal decree of Pharaoh, who had ordered all Israelite boys to be killed at birth.

But the Israelites were spared, since God had sent them into a kind of quarantine: “None of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning,” he instructed Moses and Aaron. The name of the holiday commemorates this event, as the Haggada explains: “It is a Passover offering to the Lord, because He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians with a plague, and He saved our houses.”

MORE IN IDEAS

A Passover Unlike Any Other April 3, 2020 

The Science of Staying Connected April 2, 2020

Amy Compton-Phillips: A New Frontier for Medical Technology March 28, 2020 

W. Bradford Wilcox: Marriage With Family at Its Center March 28, 2020 

For most people alive today, the idea of a plague that strikes a whole nation—so that “there was not a house where there was not one dead,” as the Bible says—was until recently hard to imagine. Covid-19 is nowhere near that deadly, but it has given us an inkling of the fear of and vulnerability to disease that all human societies lived with until the 20th century. For the Jews of Europe, times of plague were doubly dangerous, since they were often blamed by their Christian neighbors. During the Black Death of 1348, hundreds of Jewish communities in Western Europe were attacked, despite the intervention of Pope Clement VI, who pointed out that Jews were dying from the plague just like everyone else.

The Seder acknowledges the horror of such afflictions with a distinctive ritual. When it comes time to recite the ten plagues, participants remove a drop of wine from their cups after each plague is named, either with a finger or by spilling it. The customary explanation for this practice is that it’s a way of symbolically decreasing the joy of the celebration, in acknowledgment of the suffering of the Egyptians. In the words of the Talmud, God “doesn’t rejoice over the downfall of the wicked.”

Throughout the Seder, in fact, joy and sadness are inseparable. Modern scholars have argued that the Seder is modeled on the ancient Greek symposium, a drinking party in which men would talk, joke and listen to music while reclining on couches. On Passover, likewise, Jews are supposed to drink four cups of wine and recline at leisure (a practice seldom followed today, when people are more used to sitting upright at a table). These are ways of demonstrating that Jews are no longer slaves, as in Egypt, but free people.

At the same time, one of the key ingredients of the Passover meal is bitter herbs—often represented on modern American plates by horseradish—which is eaten as a reminder of the bitterness of the lives of the Israelite slaves. Another dish, charoset, a paste made of fruit and nuts, is meant to resemble the clay used by those slaves to make bricks; and matzo is referred to in the Haggada as “the bread of affliction.” This year, for Jews separated from loved ones in the shadow of a pandemic, the chastened happiness of Passover will have a new meaning and relevance.

[your-fave-is-catholic]

Your Fave MIGHT Be Catholic: Stu Pickles

Known for: One of the main adult characters from the hit animated television series Rugrats, he is the father of the main baby character Tommy, the husband to Didi, son of Grandpa Lou, brother of Drew, Uncle of Angelica, & later on becomes the father to Dil. He is an inventor of children’s toys, usually working independently at home & spending much of his time working on groundbreaking technology that, in his words, “will put Pickles Toys on the map!” He has the imagination & ambitions of a child (he’s even a fan of cartoons like The Dummi Bears & Blocky & Oxwinkle), & the intelligence to back it up, but he can be very absent-minded at times, hence why he often forgets things, makes impulsive choices, & why many of his inventions don’t work. Despite that, he still loves Tommy & Dil very much & is a very loving father, & he is also a devoted & loving husband to Didi as well. He often will get into arguments with his brother Drew, but most of the time they get along, & he is also great friends with Chaz, Betty, & Howard (& later on Chaz’s second wife Kira). Tommy also loves him very much, made especially clear in episodes like “Regarding Stuie”. In short, he’s the genius fun dad every child would want to have, & is a very friendly & brilliant guy with great skills. Years later, he also became popular thanks to an internet meme involving the scene from the episode “Angelica Breaks A Leg” where he makes chocolate pudding at 4:00 in the morning because, “I’ve lost control of my life.”

Why I say MIGHT as opposed to IS: Rugrats is very notable in the world of television for being one of the very few animated television series aimed at children to discuss the subject of religion. The show has received great praise for its exploration of Judaism & for having lovable Jewish characters in the cast, with their Chanukah special & their Passover special being considered some of the best episodes in the series. This is mainly because Stu’s wife Didi is Jewish, as are her parents Grandpa Boris & Grandma Minka. However, one thing that the series also has made clear is that Stu is not Jewish, & this is made clear through the fact that the Pickles family celebrates Christmas & has had two Christmas specials: “The Santa Experience” & “Babies In Toyland” (more about the latter in a bit). This makes Tommy & Dil half-Jewish, though the other half is unknown. It’s clear that because the Pickles family celebrates Christmas & because Stu mistakenly calls a synagogue a church in the Chanukah special (which Grandpa Lou is quick to correct him on, “It’s a synagogue, Chanukah boy!���), it’s clear that Stu & everyone else on the Pickles side of his family is Christian. The show has even made is clear that Stu believes in God, as in the episode “Man of the House”, Tommy mentions that when his daddy is trying to come up with his inventions, he will go “talk to no one” & say “Please, please, let me make a good toy this time! Pleeease!”, which is essentially how a baby would interpret praying to God (or “Bob” as they call Him). Another point that greatly hints at Stu’s faith in Christianity is during the Christmas special “Babies In Toyland”, the babies & their families go to a Christmas theme park called Toyland that Stu helped design & help build, & one of the sections is a petting zoo recreation of the Nativity Scene, which the babies visit at one point leading to an adorable & beautiful scene where they give the Baby Jesus mannequin some presents, & it smiles at them. Some stills from that scene can be seen here, here, here, here, here, & here. The point is, since Stu had a hand in developing the Toyland park, it’s possible he included the Nativity Scene to express his own faith in a way. Unfortunately, the show has never explicitly stated what denomination of Christianity Stu & all the other Pickles follow. But even if they never directly stated it, it wouldn’t be a bad guess at all to believe that Stu is Catholic. After all, Catholicism is one of the biggest sects of Christianity, & it wouldn’t really be too far-fetched. Thus, for the time being, I can confirm that while Didi is Jewish, Stu is certainly a Christian of some sorts, & if you want to think he’s a Catholic Christian, who’s to stop you?

TL, DR: Rugrats has made it clear that the Pickles family is a bi-religious household, as they celebrate Jewish & Christian holidays. They make it clear that Didi’s side of the family is Jewish, & therefore Stu’s side is the one that practices Christianity. The official denomination has never been confirmed, but it’s perfectly acceptable to theorize that Stu & all the other Pickles might be Catholic. I apologize for this post being excessively long!

(On a side note, even though it was a nightmare Chuckie was having, in the episode “Chuckie VS. the Potty”, he did imagine Tommy as a Catholic priest who does Last Rites, & I always found this somewhat amusing! The image of Tommy as a Catholic priest can be viewed here.)

If this post is wrong: If this post is wrong & show creators Arlene Klasky, Gabor Csupo, or Paul Germain have stated otherwise, whether it be that Stu is a different sect of Christianity or he converted to Judaism for Didi, then please politely let me know & I will fix this lengthy post as soon as possible.

[the-black-poppy]

MUNDAY MEME!

RULES: Answer the twenty-three questions and then tag twenty (ish) people you want to get to know better!

NAME: Eva

ZODIAC SIGN: Sagittarius

HEIGHT:  1.73

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish and starting next month hopefully French. 

NATIONALITY: Brazilian+1

FAVOURITE FRUIT: Pineapple now. 

FAVOURITE SCENT: Lemony?

FAVOURITE COLOUR: Red, black and purple.   FAVOURITE ANIMAL: RED PANDA!!!!!!!!!! and all rest. 

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT CHOCOLATE: Coffee.

FAVOURITE CHARACTER(S):  No comment. 

DREAM TRIP: To do a euro trip, hopefully maybe next September.

WHEN WAS YOUR BLOG CREATED: 01 Jan 2018

LAST MOVIE SEEN: The Lazarus effect.

SONGS YOU’VE HAD ON REPEAT:  everything in my car XD

SONG ONE: – Madonna ‘Like a prayer’

SONG TWO: – Pink - ‘Beautiful Trauma’ 

SONG THREE: – Kasabian - ‘Vlad the impaler’

FAVOURITE CANDY: Maltesers

FAVOURITE HOLIDAY: passover lol

RANDOM FACT ABOUT YOU ONE: My youngest niece’s name translates to Palm tree. I always find it funny.

RANDOM FACT ABOUT YOU TWO:  I used to have a pet rabbit growing up - she was eaten by a falcon :<

RANDOM FACT ABOUT YOU THREE: I’ve become obsessed with incense when I got back from Singapore and I light one on when I get back home from work everyday and another one before I go to sleep. It relaxes me.

TAGGED BY: @kalonice-daughter-of-iris-rp TAGGING: YOU!!!

[gay-otlc]

Honestly, the main thing is: They're different religions! Different set of belief systems! So obviously they're going to be different.

I don't really know much about other religions, but here are some major differences between Christianity and Judaism. If I get anything wrong about Christianity that's because I know nothing beyond what has been culturally forced onto me.

The way we view Jesus. Christians think he's the son of G-d or something. Jews don't believe that, but we do think he was a pretty cool dude who existed a few thousand years ago. I saw a meme that was like "we won't worship Jesus, but 10/10 would go to brunch with" and I think about that constantly.

Jews fucking love debate. It's a stereotype but it's also true. Our teachings encourage doubt, questioning, critical thinking, etc. We had a huge project in religious school to research and debate whether the Ten Plagues actually happened. (verdict: none. covid hit halfway through the project and we never started back up.) From what I can tell, Christians just encourage belief, no questions.

Christians believe in the whole heaven/hell thing. There's sin, and then there's virtue, and you're either punished or rewarded. We don't have heaven or hell. Our after-death belief is basically "we don't fucking know what happens, we're just gonna celebrate your life and eat a lot and help the bereaved through mourning." You aren't necessarily punished for doing bad things- you should just not do them because they're bad.

(disclaimer: bad does not mean stuff a 3000 year old probably mistranslated book says is wrong. i mean like murder.)

The big Christian holidays are "Jesus was born, Jesus died, Jesus was born again." Our big holidays are "it's a new start, let's try to be better people" (rosh hashanah & yom kippur) and the classic "they tried to kill us, we survived, now let's eat." (hanukkah & purim & passover and-) This probably has some deeper meaning where Christianity places more value on G-d and Jesus, while Judaism places more value on community and one another.

In Christianity (at least Catholicism) if you fuck shit up, you apologize to G-d and/or your priest?? In Judaism, if you fuck shit up, you apologize to the people you hurt. Then you promise to do better and symbolically yeet your wrong doings into a body of water. Ducks eat it. This is a real thing I'm not making it up.

Christianity is, in basically everywhere, in more of a position of power than Judaism. That enables it to be more of an oppressive religion. Jews can be shitty and homophobic, racist, etc on a small scale, but we don't have the same level of power for widespread bigotry and oppression because we aren't widespread.

Also we have better food lmao

Thanks for being so respectful about the question, and if you want to learn more about the differences between Christianity and other religions, I'd encourage you to do more research!

Hot takes Apparently:

Pretending that all religions are like Christianity is a huge help to the Christians who want to convert and assimilate the whole world. Why do you want to side with the people who made you hate religion so much?

Religion is not inherently bad. It provides a community and having something to believe in makes some people happier and more hopeful. Some religions also teach positive values that can stick with you even if you decide you don't believe in a higher power.

Religion is tied very closely with cultural identity for a lot of people, so by demonizing religion you are also demonizing a lot of cultures. That are predominantly people of color. And also Jews. But racism and antisemitism are fine if you're a Woke Atheist ™, right? (/s)

Religion can be used as a tool or justification to do bad things. That doesn't make it inherently bad. If we demonized anything that had ever done harm to anyone, we would not have a lot of things left.

Saying "I hate religion" strengthens that victim complex that so many Christians use to fear-monger and demonize other beliefs. It simultaneously makes minority religions feel unsafe.

People who blindly demonize religion, stop acting like you're any better than me just because you decided to side with the bigoted aspects of Christianity when we could have been allies fighting against it.

[terrible-tentacle-theatre]

The Bestiary: Coconut Octopus

Disclaimer: This article, while founded in scientific fact, contains conscious exaggerations for the sake of comedy. Do not take it seriously. List of sources included at the end.

Hello again you beautiful fuckers! The dread claws of higher educations have passed over me for the time being, which means two things: Jewish celebrations involving matzo and new articles. (Mostly just new articles because Passover is not actually in the winter, but I couldn’t pass that pun opportunity over. Oops, I did it again.)

And how better to celebrate surviving my first midterms than writing about the objectively best sea animals: octopuses?

Yes, there is an objective list of sea animals from best to worst. Yes, it’s scientific. Yes, octopuses are at the top. Trust me, I’m a scientist.

Let’s be honest here for a moment: octopuses fucking rock. They come equipped with eight tentacular arms tipped with powerful suckers that help them adhere to any surface or prey item, they can change colors in ways that give chameleons a run for their money, they spew ink into your face when you get too tiresome, and they have fucking chitinous beaks in place of mouths. Not bad for something so closely related to garden snails. But coolest of all is their intelligence: if sea life was a superhero comic, the octopus would be the evil genius. They have great big honking brains packed into their non-existent skulls, capable of operative learning, problem-solving and even exhibiting personality; but even better than that is the fact that their arms each come pre-packaged with their own sub-brain - all invertebrates have ganglia distributed at each major body part but with octopuses these knots of nerve tissue inflate into much more complex structures, that among other things give each arm its own separate “personality” - one arm might be more aggressive, the other more curious, the third more cautious, etc.

Octopuses are an outlier - there are some molluscs that don’t even fucking have heads, and these guys come out of the blue and start being laughably intelligent. They probably got shoved into the locker by the snails all the time, like the fucking nerds they were.

Now let’s stop for a moment and consider what’s the finest and most clear-cut imaginable example of intelligence. No, it’s not art. No, it’s not Tumblr. No, it’s definitely not Superbowl.

Instead, it is tool use. The capability to utilize something that is useless or even holding you back until the perfect moment it is needed. Just like Aquaman.

I think you already know where I’m going with this. That “where” being, of course, that octopuses are genius enough to figure out tool use, because of fucking course they would. However, only one known species has achieved this first feat towards conquering human civilization so far, that being the magnificent coconut octopus.

Yo.

Amphioctopus marginatus, also known as the veined octopus, is an excessively pretty and decorative, but vicious creature, somewhat resembling a magical girl in that respect, except magical girls usually don’t have sucker-tipped tentacles or chitinous beaks, but I digress (then again, its webbed tentacles lined with colorful suckers do give off the impression of a frilly skirt). It is a tropical littoral octopus, meaning it lives in shallow water near the shoreline in equatorial waters where it’s hot and damp as fuck. It most often occurs in China and Indonesia, and leads a benthic lifestyle, meaning it’s too much of a lazy ass to swim, preferring to move around on the sea floor instead. Generally it’s a well-rounded, ordinary tropical Pacific octopus with a pleasing color scheme and ridiculously specific needs for survival... OR IS IT??? *dramatic chord*

As it turns out, it is most definitely not. In a sense, it’s the most special octopus ever. Just like Batman, during the day it’s an ordinary cephalopod of wealth and taste, but at night, it is the protector of... well, itself in this case, but just like Batman it achieves this goal using its pricey toys. In Batman’s case, it’s shit like the Batmobile, Batarangs or the utility belt, but the coconut octopus resorts to a much easier kind of tool: coconut shells.

To the Batcave!

When you think about it, coconut shells are some of the best tools for protection, provided you’re small and squishy and betentacled enough. They are hard, thick half-spheres that come in pairs and few things can ever break through them thanks to their high resistance to breaking and shattering force. Of course they can’t stand a chance against, say, a predatory fish thirty times your size with giant jagged teeth, but if one of those takes a fancy to you then you’re fucked anyway, whatever you do, so in the meantime coconut shells offer good defense against anything that you could reasonably defend yourself from.

Here’s how it goes: the octopus crawls around on the seafloor, idly just looking around for a suitable pair of half-spheres to inhabit. When it comes across such an object, it scampers over to it, dives in and fastens the base of its tentacles all over the two half-shells and starts just awkwardly carrying them around. According to the wonderful scientists researching them, it actually hinders their movement quite a bit, as they have to “stilt-walk” on their arms with the half-shells tucked underneath the tentacles, making them look like they are carrying the biggest pair of balls around.

However, when danger draws near, the octopus simply snaps the shells shut, transforming them from handy-dandy ballsack-holders to something not unlike a Morph Ball.

A coconut octopus will often utilize these Morph Balls when exploring some sort of no man’s land that doesn’t hold many possible shelters, letting them sphere up immediately if danger draws near. Try to open me up now, fucker.

“But Admin”, I hear you say, “How does an octopus, even one living in shallow water, acquire a steady source of coconut shells?”

The answer, of course, is humans. Lots and lots of humans who settle by the coconut octopus’ habitat, climb up trees, eat coconuts and throw the shells into the ocean. The octopus jumps on the opportunity like the shells are filled to the brim with cocaine.

Of course, it’s unlikely the octopus evolved such a complex behavior just in the little time humans were there, especially considering that the Metroid franchise didn’t exist yet, so it needed another source of inspiration. That source, say the scientists, might have been sea shells, which also occur in high density around the parts where this guy lives, and indeed they have been seen using sea shells for the same morph ball reasons, making them look like a slimier, less spine-possessing version of the Birth of Venus.

Try me, I’m the most fabulous motherfucker around these parts

To make this little scamp even better, even its way of locomotion is hilarious. You know that little meme octopus that NOPEs out of here whenever you feel it’s an adequate use for a reaction image? That’s, in fact, a coconut octopus. Observe:

That motion is as useful to the coconut octopus as laughable it looks from the outside. by this weird-ass walking movement, the octopus can mimic a floating coconut, approximating the object of its obsession even closer. This offers it the coconut’s protection even when it doesn’t have one, because really, who would want to bite into a hard floating hairy ball? (Aside from coconut crabs of course, but once again, if one of those wants to eat you you’re already fucked beyond belief and no tricks will help you.)

However, don’t confuse the coconut octopus’ arsenal of defensive tricks for peaceful nature or anything like that. This guy is vicious, and hunts for a living. Those coconut and sea shells don’t just acts as ballsacks and protective morph balls, they also allow the octopus to lie in wait.

Oh yes, in case you forgot, pretty much all octopuses are predators, and all of them are venomous. This guy isn’t an exception either, and to make it better it uses its coconut shells as aids in its hunt.

This is how it goes: the octopus chooses a promising hunting spot, sets up shop inside its coconut shell, and waits patiently, until something suicidally dumb enough comes along. Then it puffs up its mantle, using the water suction to quite literally launch itself out of the coconut and strike the suicidally dumb thing from above like a betentacled incarnation of rage.

That fucker crab didn’t even see it coming. That’s what you get for being a dumb crab and not a tactical genius like the coconut octopus, I guess.

The suicidally dumb thing is then engulfed by the octopus’ arms, and then injected with paralyzing venom and digestive enzymes in rapid succession, allowing the octopus to suck out its liquefied insides spider-style.

Here you suckers thought this guy was just adorable coconut tricks and Ministry of Silly Walks. But no, they are actually quite ruthless and calculating hunters - both clownish and deadly, which is already the norm over here at the Terrible Tentacle Theatre.

Sources

Encyclopedia of Life

Smithsonian Institution

Wikipedia

[annimovsisyan]

I made a post with a similar point and content a while back but it’s time of that year so i’ll reiterate, this time with the addition of a post made on the Suppressed Histories Archive Facebook page.

Thank heavens for another person on the internet busting this silly meme that comes round every year, which even fooled me when i first saw it. 2017, pls stop the "hooey", supposedly "radical" histories that are actually being made to fit a "decolonial" agenda which turn out to be far from having decolonial criticality to them!!! like my good friend Noa has said, not everything that we see as mainstream'd has some "original brown" narrative behind it. Yes there are a lot of black and brown, African, Asian, and Indigenous narratives to uncover/remember/tell as they are, but let's remember that Europe colonised itself before it did the same to everyone else, and there are an awful lot of pre-capitalist and pre-christian narratives that Europeans ought to uncover for themselves and the rest of the world...like i say, it's not just poc that need to de-link from the west/modernity, (ethnic) europeans need to de-link from this too!

"I'm sharing this because every spring posts like this proliferate, making claims that are complete hooey. Ishtar has nothing to do with Easter, or with eggs and bunnies, etymologically or culturally. The word Easter is not attested until the 8th century when the English monk Bede lists the month Ēosturmōnaþ in his work on Time. Constantine had nothing to do with the name and in all probably never heard of it. It is very common for uninformed people to assume that words that sound alike (to them) are related, in spite of the fact that they come from different language families. This is bad linguistics. You have to consider where words originate, what they mean, and how they *might* have spread as loan words. Words that sound alike are very often not related, while words that look very different may have deep common roots but have phonologically shifted over time.

There is no historical trajectory that would explain how the name of Ishtar would have gotten up to Germany or England to be adopted as the name of a local goddess. Isis and Kybele did migrate this way, as we know from archaeology, but Ishtar never took hold in Roman culture or spread to the ends of its empire the way those goddesses did. There are no inscriptions, statues, or temples to her in Europe. In any case, our knowledge of Germanic goddesses in that ancient period is very slim indeed. There are no statues or inscriptions naming Ostara or Eostre.

Bede's comments occur in a calendrical context, and a spring association for Eostre (Anglo-Saxon female ending there) makes complete sense for a word that is etymologically related to "east" and to words for "dawn" in Indo-European languages. Actually, not just words, but goddess names: Eos in Greek, and Ushas in Sanskrit, for example. So a Germanic goddess Eostre, after who Eosturmonath would be named, is possible. But Eostre had nothing to do with Ishtar or the other Semitic goddess related to her (Canaanite / Hebrew 'Ashtart, Arabic At'thart, etc.) All of those were tied to the planet Venus. The association of east, dawn and spring is meaningful, comparing the day-cycle with the year-cycle, so i see no reason to be skeptical about that. The bunnies and eggs come into Easter because of the spring connection (new life, fertility and so on). I'll post an interesting piece in Comments that shows <oestrus> deriving from a different root than the east/dawn complex i just discusssed. So <egg> is not part of that etymological complex. But it does come into spring festival customs and symbolism, starting with Pesach itself, the egg on the Passover plate which Christians could easily have borrowed from. It also figures in Nowruz, the Persian New Year which occurs at the spring equinox.

The problem with these supposedly revelatory memes is that they play on people's justified skepticism about broad cultural narratives (especially by feminists, pagans and other rebels against the status quo). But because they ignore the need for evidence and make stuff up that seems true to them, they wind up discrediting authentic knowledge about the survival of pagan goddesses in the minds of many people."

Related Reading:

https://bellejar.ca/2013/03/28/easter-is-not-named-after-ishtar-and-other-truths-i-have-to-tell-you/amp/