#date: 12 july 1980

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Dumbledore is a Manipulative Piece of Shit: Part 1/?

Since I read the books for the first time at the age of 12, I knew I didn't trust Dumbledore. Back then, I couldn't put my finger on why. But now, a bit over a decade later, I can.

Not only can I explain why I thought something's fishy, but I can prove it is.

This is going to be a long series... but let's start at the beginning:

Halloween 1981

I'm going to go about this in chronological order of events according to book quotes I could track down.

Before the Prophecy

Circa October 24, 1979 - Lily gets pregnant with Harry. According to reverse calculating due date.

Sometime between March 1980 and October 1980 Peter Pettigrew starts spying for the Order.

"(Dumbledore) was sure that somebody close to the Potters had been keeping You-Know-Who informed of their movements...Indeed, he had suspected for some time that someone on our side had turned traitor and was passing a lot of information to You-Know-Who."

(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 205)

We know that there was a spy in the Order that fed Voldemort information before James and Lily went into hiding. Sirius mentions Peter being a spy for a long time again later in Prisoner of Azkaban:

“Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord . . . you have no idea . . . he has weapons you can’t imagine. . . . I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen. . . . He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me —” “DON’T LIE!” bellowed Black. “YOU’D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!”

(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 374)

So we know Pettigrew spied for Voldemort for about a year, if not more, before October 1981. The reason I'm saying he might have spied for longer is that the Order noticed there was a spy during that year, there might've been months he spied but the Order was none the wiser.

The months leading up to the attack on the Potter

So, we know when Peter started feeding Voldemort information, but we need to know when exactly the prophecy was given and when James and Lily went into hiding under the Fideliulous Charm. Most fans I see, seem to think they were hiding for only a week, then Peter betrayed them and then they died that same night. I think it went a little different. I think they were hiding for much longer.

So, let's determine this from the Evidence we are given.

The picture of the Order of the Phoenix Moody shows Harry in book 5 is the final picture of the Order togather before the Potters went into hiding. Most fans date this photo to the summer of 1980. I think it has to be earlier than that for two simple reasons:

Lily isn't pregnant and Harry wasn't born

Alice isn't pregnant and Neville wasn't born

“...That’s Frank and Alice Longbottom —” Harry’s stomach, already uncomfortable, clenched as he looked at Alice Longbottom; he knew her round, friendly face very well, even though he had never met her, because she was the image of her son, Neville....

...His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man Harry recognized at once as Wormtail: He was the one who had betrayed their whereabouts to Voldemort and so helped bring about their deaths.

(Order of the Pheonix, page 174)

Remember, Harry and Neville were born at the end of July 1980, and pictures taken during that summer would show the pregnancy or taken after their births. So I think that picture was taken in 1979, although I'm uncertain exactly when. because, as I'll prove later in this post, the Potters went into hiding before Harry was born.

Next up to help us put a date to when they went into hiding is the Fidelious Charm itself, or more correctly, how it works.

The Fidelious Charm hides a piece of information within a person. It hides the phrasing of a secret, not a location.

an immensely complex spell ... involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find -- unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it.

(Prisoner of Azkaban, 205)

It can be used to hide a location like we see the Order of the Phoenix do:

Dumbledore's Secret-Keeper for the Order, you know -- nobody can find Headquarters unless he tells them personally where it is

(Order if the Pheonix, 115)

With the phrase that Dumbledore hides being:

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

(Order of the Phoenix, page 58)

They use a specific phrasing to hide the Order's headquarters. The moment the Order stops existing, the house will stop being a secret. I'd argue the moment Grimmauld Place stopped being the Headquarters it stopped being a secret because this phrase applied no longer.

This is what we see with the Potter residence. Once James and Lily die, the Charm breaks and muggles make their way to the house:

“No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around. He fell asleep as we was flyin’ over Bristol."

(Philosopher's Stone, page 13)

The fact muggles and Hagrid could arrive at the house and see it means the Charm broke.

We also see it in Deathly Hollows when Harry and Hemione visit the Potter's cottage:

He could see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily. 

(Deathly Hallows, page 286)

"So what?" You may ask, "we know this already,"

True, but the reason it's important is because it hints at the phrasing used when the charm was cast. It means the phrasing of the secret Peter kept being along the lines of:

"James and Lily Potter are hiding in the Potter Cottage in Godric's Hollow"

Now, this makes sense to be the secret, right, but notice, Harry isn't mentioned. If Harry was part of the secret, the charm would not have broken with James and Lily's deaths, since the secret would still protect Harry. Now, why not protect Harry as well? The whole point of the Fidelious Charm was to protect Harry, was it not?

This means the Potters went into hiding and the charm was cast before Harry was born.

More that suggests they were hiding for quite a while is Lily's letter to Sirius:

Dear Padfoot, Thank you, thank you, for Harry’s birthday present! It was his favorite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick

(Deathly Hollows, page 158)

Meaning Harry's first birthday (July, 1981) happened when they were already under the protection of the charm. As this letter was sent a short time after it (early August 1981).

James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell

(Deathly Hollows, page 158)

Also from Lily's letter to Sirius. James' restlessness definitely suggests they were hiding under the charm for a good few months before Harry's first birthday.

This dates the Prophecy and Trawlany's job interview around the first half of 1980 (January to May). This means the Potters were in hiding between a year and 4 months to a year and 9 months before their deaths.

All of this leaves us with two main oddities. Questions that just got me scratching my head:

If Peter was a spy since March 1980 at the earliest and October 1980 at the latest (but probably earlier), and the Potters went into hiding with him as the secret keeper in Earley in July 1980 at the latest, why not tell Voldemort immediately? And if he did, why did Voldemort wait a full year+ to go and kill the Potters?

It means that when Severus Snape came begging for Dumbledore to save Lily about a week before their deaths, Dumbledore already had the Potters in hiding. It means Dumbledore made Snape take an oath for him to do something he already did. So we see Dumbledore's first manipulations coming into play by fucking Severus over and taking him as a spy without actually giving anything in turn.

The first question is one I have somewhat of an answer for in my Voldemort character analysis, but this isn't this post. This is about Dumbledore's crimes.

The Night Everything Happened

Now we arrive at the night that changed the Wizarding World and the life of one Harry Potter. October 31st, 1981.

I time Voldemort’s arrival at Godric's Hollow at the late evening (around 8 PM). This is due to children being allowed outside still:

The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square, and the shop window covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trapping of a world in which they did not believe

(Deathly Hollows, page 295)

And Harry (a year and four months old infent) still being awake, but clearly preparing for bed:

the tall black haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pajamas

(Deathly Hollows, page 295)

So, Voldemort arrives at Godric's Hollow around 8:00 PM, let's say, 15 to 20 minutes later, James and Lily are dead, Voldemort’s body is destroyed and he runs off to Albania. Baby Harry is crying and the Fidelious is broken.

Now, things get interesting. Well, more interesting.

We know the first on the scene is Peter Pettigrew, arriving around 8:30 PM, and retrieving Voldemort’s wand. We don't actually know when or if this happened beyond a quote from JKR, but as muggles and aurors searched the house, it's unlikely Voldemort’s wand was there and undiscovered.

Then Pettigrew ran away to the muggle street where he would meet Sirius.

The second on the scene is Reberus Hagrid.

Hagrid arrives sometime later when muggled started looking into what happened now that the Fidelious Charm is broken:

“No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around. He fell asleep as we was flyin’ over Bristol."

(Philosopher's Stone, page 13)

Around the same time Pettigrew arrived at Godric's Hollow, Sirius probably saw Peter wasn't home and realized the Fidelious was broken. So he heads to Godric's Hollow.

The night they died, I’d arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he’d gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn’t feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents’ house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies . . . I realized what Peter must’ve done . . . what I’d done. . . .

(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 365)

Sirius reaches the Potters and meets Hagrid there, outside the house, Harry already in Hagrid's arms:

“I met him!” growled Hagrid. “I musta bin the last ter see him before he killed all them people! It was me what rescued Harry from Lily an’ James’s house after they was killed! Jus’ got him outta the ruins, poor little thing, with a great slash across his forehead, an’ his parents dead . . . an’ Sirius Black turns up, on that flyin’ motorbike he used ter ride. Never occurred ter me what he was doin’ there. I didn’ know he’d bin Lily an’ James’s Secret-Keeper. Thought he’d jus’ heard the news o’ You-Know-Who’s attack an’ come ter see what he could do. White an’ shakin’, he was. An’ yeh know what I did? I COMFORTED THE MURDERIN’ TRAITOR!” Hagrid roared.

(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 206)

Sirius then goes after Pettigrew, after failing to take Harry from Hagrid and figuring he'd rather chase the rat down before he disappears. We all know how that ends, as Hagrid takes Harry according to Dumbledore's orders.

‘Give Harry ter me, Hagrid, I’m his godfather, I’ll look after him —’ Ha! But I’d had me orders from Dumbledore, an’ I told Black no, Dumbledore said Harry was ter go ter his aunt an’ uncle’s. Black argued, but in the end he gave in. Told me ter take his motorbike ter get Harry there. ‘I won’t need it anymore,’ he says. “I shoulda known there was somethin’ fishy goin’ on then. He loved that motorbike, what was he givin’ it ter me for? Why wouldn’ he need it anymore? Fact was, it was too easy ter trace.

(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 206)

This quote has quite a few interesting things about Dumbledore, Hagrid and Sirius.

First, Hagrid says Dumbledore gave him orders to take Harry to the Dursleys. This order was given before Sirius went after Peter, before he was arrested and sent to Azkaban.

This is illegal. At this point in time Sirius was Harry's legal godfather and guardian, and yet Dumbledore gave Hagrid this order. And yes, you could argue it was because he knew Sirius was the Secret Keeper and was wary of him, but:

“Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?” “Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. “Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I’ve got him, sir.” “No problems, were there?”

(Philosopher's Stone, page 13)

Dumbledore hears Hagrid met Sirius when retrieving Harry and shows no concern. Like he doesn't consider Sirius a threat to Hagrid and Harry. But then, why take Harry away? Why support Sirius' arrest? (More on that in a later post)

Not only is all this highly illegal but how did Dumbledore know when the Potters died?

JK explained he had some magical alarms in place, but that means at the earliest he would've known the moment Voldemort entered the premises. But he knew before. He knew James and Lily would die that day before they died.

How do I know that?

Simple, Hagrid can't apparate and didn't arrive via broom or floo.

Hogwarts, where Hagrid is during October as Grounds keeper, is in the Scottish Highlands (Higher up as they travel for about 9-10 hours by train from Kings Cross to reach Hogwarts as they leave at eleven and arrive for dinner). Godric's Hollow is in West Country, England. This distance is a 9-10 hour drive (672.03 km, 417.58 miles).

It means that for Hagrid to arrive by 9 PM at Godric's Hollow, Dumbledore told him to go fetch Harry, the order was given to Hagrid between 11-12 noon on October 31st.

This already paints Dumbledore in a bad light, it means he planned this. I'd argue he even planned for Voldemort to hear of the Prophecy (but that's a different post). But it means Dumbledore planned for the Potters to be killed that night.

Second, Hagrid is right about Sirius giving his bike being odd (But that's a different post about the Fidelious Charm). But, in short, something was up and Sirius knew, at least somewhat, that he was doomed.

The Boy Who Lived

Finally, we arrive at the first chapter of Philosopher's Stone. We follow Vernon Dursely throughout his day on November 1st. We know that because we see the Wizarding World celebrating the death of Voldemort:

He’d (Mr. Dursley) forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker’s. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn’t know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn’t see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying. “The Potters, that’s right, that’s what I heard —” “ — yes, their son, Harry —” Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.

(Philosopher's Stone, page 6)

So, McGonagall is watching over the Dursleys throughout November 1st. It means Harry arrived at the Dursleys around midnight between November 1st and November 2nd.

Hagrid and Harry left Godric's Hollow on Sirius' flying motorbike around 10 PM at the latest on October 31st. So what was Hagrid doing with Harry in these 26 hours?

The only information we have is that Harry: "fell asleep over Bristol,"

Thing is, if we go back to the map of the UK.

Bristol is not really on the way from Godric's Hollow to Surry.

But it is closer to the flight path between Godric's Hollow and Hogwarts.

(The locations are estimated for fictional locations but are based on what I know. Regardless, West Country to Surry won't pass over Bristol, while West Country to the Scottish Highlands is likely to, so the point stands)

In conclusion, Dumbledore manipulated Harry's life, his parents' deaths, Snape, Sirius, and Hagrid, and fucked them all over for the sake of his grand plan of defeating Voldemort.

What else went into his plan and who else he fucked over, will be covered in the next installments.

[zahri-melitor]

so i'm reading certain nightwing volumes from '96 - 02 for my current reading run following NML (shout out to @havendance, cannot thank you enough 🫶🏾) and while some aspects of how he's written is very compelling and interesting to chew on, for the most part it's been pretty....boring?? like i'm gonna keep reading it so i can have as much context as possible, but it feels more like a chore 😩

anyways, i read your response on that “who’d you choose to write nightwing” poll and i’d love to get your opinion on what nightwing runs/writers to read outside of those 8 volumes. i really wanna get into dick grayson’s character and personality! also, if it’s cool with you, anyone else please feel free to add to this!

-dominomasc

Hey, dominomasc. Unknowingly you've just raised one of the fundamental incongruities of how comics work.

Comics are about layers of stories providing depth to a character and about dozens of different interpretations more than they are about a single amazing run. (Some characters have That Run! But on average, most don't). Dick Grayson, a character that has existed for 84 years, has some very fun stories from all sorts of writers. His title, Nightwing, is also an excellent example of how a lot of long running titles often don't really have a stand out section that's head and shoulders above the rest.

I promise, you are never going to run out of stories to read about Dick Grayson (Comicsvine has him at 9,593 appearances as I write this). So yes, this is going to be about two things: advice on finding stories about Dick that vibe for you; and advice on understanding Dick alongside other storylines.

Taking into account what's listed above and the fact I'm moderately obsessive, I have compiled a discussion of most of the major writers who have written Nightwing runs, or who have written major titles that Dick also prominently appears in.

I am at heart a 'Dick belongs to the Bat Office' person and my expertise in most characters starts with COIE. On that basis I'm not going to dip into pre-Crisis here.

Marv Wolfman & George Pérez: New Teen Titans (1980-1993ish). I am not going to explain all the title names here; you're going to have to go get more detail from someone who treats NTT period as their special interest. Wolfman and Pérez are the architects of Nightwing as a character, separate to Robin, that Dick grew into. Read this period if you're interested in Dick as a young adult among the other Titans going through the transition into adulthood and independence, and his relationship with Kory. Basically it's a superhero young adult soap opera. It can be quite uneven in places, particularly towards the back end, and there are approximately a thousand discussions over which storylines are good and which should be fired into the sun. I am not a subject expert for this period.

Because of the state of the Titans titles in the early 1990s, the Bat office demanded Dick Grayson back under their control. Exactly when they got him back is slightly debated, but it would be fair to say Batman #500 (October 1993) marks his transition back to being a Bat character (around the start of Knightquest); by KnightsEnd and Prodigal (July 1994-January 1995) Dick is once again firmly a member of the Batman set of characters, and has remained so to date.

Prodigal, by Chuck Dixon, Alan Grant, Doug Moench: (Batman #512 to Robin #13). Use a reading list here as the stories are spread across multiple titles. Prodigal is 12 issues about Dick's first time being Batman, with Tim as his Robin, and his feelings about returning home to Gotham as an adult. Robin #13 in particular is possibly the most important issue of the story, as it's the foundation of a reset in Bruce and Dick's relationship with each other and how it is going to be characterised for the next decade or so.

Chuck Dixon: (Nightwing #1-70 1996, Nightwing: Alfred's Return, and a bunch of other one shots) So Dixon is probably DC's most prolific writer of all time, and is the architect of what's been treated as 'default Nightwing'. In this run, Dixon creates Bludhaven and the situation of Dick being its protector, out of a desire to be his own man apart from Bruce. He sets up an extensive Rogue's Gallery for Dick, the most famous of which is making Blockbuster one of Dick's main enemies. He has Dick working at a cop bar and then decide to enter the Bludhaven Police Department in an attempt to investigate it from the inside due to the levels of corruption. This is also the run where Dick and Babs get together as adults. Basically, everything about 'default' Dick that you probably know comes from this run. Dixon's great for character interaction, for world building, and and particularly at making various titles tie together - because he was writing at least 1/3 of DC's entire line for a while there he's the king of crossovers, giving a lot of depth to friendships because characters just pop between titles he's writing. His actual plots however vary between middling to occasional flashes of greatness. I'd consider The Hunt for Oracle (#45-46 and BOP#20-21) and the Shrike story (#55-58) to be the standout storylines in his Nightwing run; for individual issues I'd also point to #6 and #25 for his relationship with Tim, #16 for Dick building his car, and then his crossover issues in events tend to be quality.

Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty: (Robin: Year One 2000, Batgirl: Year One 2003, Nightwing: Year One - Nightwing #101-106 1996) I am separating these three out from the rest of Dixon's work as they're quite important as retcons over Dick's backstory. Robin and Batgirl are well regarded rewrites of events; Nightwing is less so, partly because it's a solid example of the Jason personality retcon, and partly I think because a lot of people reading this were still well across the two 1980s versions of Dick's transition from Robin to Nightwing. I highly recommend Robin Year One, particularly with the Shrike storyline of Nightwing, as they are interlinked.

Devin Grayson: (Nightwing #71-100 & #107-117 1996, Nightwing/Huntress 1998, Gotham Knights #1-11 & #14-32, The Titans #1-20 1999) Oh, Devin. Devin Grayson is a Dick Grayson superfan (she uses Grayson as her surname because of Dick). She is really good at character introspection - Gotham Knights #1-11 contains some amazing character work. She's also not shy about establishing her own headcanons on characters and retconning their backstories. Devin's biggest contributions to the Dick Grayson lore are in establishing him as Romani and actually writing Bruce adopting Dick. Her run on Nightwing is best understood as a whump, break-the-cutie run, where Blockbuster sets out to destroy Dick's life, and in the process gets Dick fired, breaks up Dick and Babs, burns down Haly's Circus (for the first time), blows up his entire supporting cast, chases Dick out of Bludhaven and leads to Dick going under cover in the mob essentially to punish himself (also not the only time). Dick's also sexually assaulted in Nightwing #93 but I really beg people to read this in context of the rest of the run; this should be looked at as PART of the whole flow of whump, rather than as a separate situation. Grayson also had the title taken off her before she got to the 'comfort' part of the extended hurt/comfort storyline she was writing. It reads a lot better if you think of this in a more transformative fandom, ficcish manner of story rather than as a more standard run. If her Nightwing run is too grim for you, I highly recommend Gotham Knights and her Titans run; Devin Grayson is honestly best when she's writing a constellation of characters around Dick more than when she's writing Dick himself. She adores his friends and family. Standout issues to get a sense of Devin include: Nightwing #100, a self-reflective issue on Dick's history; Nightwing #81, where Dick's in hospital and Cass goes after Slade for him; Titans #15 1999, where the Fab 5 go on a camping trip together to get back to their roots and deal with a lot of tensions in the group; and Gotham Knights #8-11, Transference, where Dick and Tim team up to rescue Bruce, who's been brainwashed by Hugo Strange.

Jay Faerber: (The Titans #21-41 1999) Honestly Faerber's run on The Titans is not that Dick Grayson focused. It's entertaining if you want to read some solid Titans dynamics, but the standout characters you read this run for are Roy and Donna. Seriously, if you're into Roy, Cheshire and Lian drama I highly recommend Faerber's work; otherwise it's not an essential run for Dick.

Judd Winick: (Outsiders #1-25, 34-49 2003, Batman & Robin #23-25 2011) Winick tends to write an angrier and darker edged Dick Grayson, and he has a bunch of really common tropes you see pop out in his writing. These are no different, and thus include an awful lot of violence and characters having sex (so much sex). He can be quite funny as a writer, but honestly his Outsiders run does not have much of that humour. The Batman & Robin story is basically Winick finding some space to tie up his Jason Todd plot before Flashpoint obliterated it, more than an actual story about Dick. If you want a good encapsulating issue to get the vibe of Winick about Dick, take a look at Outsiders #21, which has a good chunk of Dick and Roy AND Dick and Bruce in it, though it's helpful to remember that this issue is set very shortly after War Games and so Dick is in a massive guilt spiral.

Bruce Jones: (Nightwing #118-124 1999) It's One Year Later! Bruce Jones moves Dick back to New York City (as Bludhaven went boom due to Chemo in the lead up to Infinite Crisis) and theoretically sets up Dick's status quo out to Reborn. So. The story Jones is most famous for is the first 4 issues of the run, which are generally referred to by fans as the TentaTodd story. Jason Todd turns up to run around annoying Dick by ALSO dressing up as Nightwing and committing crimes. He also turns into a tentacle monster for a bit. It is certainly a story that exists, but it actually is pretty in line with Jason and Dick's relationship up to Flashpoint: Jason turns up to be a brat who wants attention, does violent things, and Dick exhaustedly kicks the shit out of him and gets him locked up while despairingly going 'why is this my life'. Because of Jason running around killing people as Nightwing, the NYPD get mad at Nightwing and start trying to hunt him down. Jones is for the completionist.

Marv Wolfman: (Nightwing #125-137 1999) Lacking any better ideas, Wolfman gets a run on Nightwing. It's not Wolfman's finest work, to put it bluntly, and it's very obvious that Marv hasn't actually read any of Dixon or Grayson's runs. Marv does set Dick up working as a gymnastics and trapeze coach, which is always a decent job for him. If I had to pick one story from Wolfman, read Nightwing #127, where Dick gets buried alive and digs his way out of the grave.

Peter J. Tomasi: (Nightwing #140-157 1999, Batman & Robin #20-22 2011) Tomasi loves Dick Grayson, and particularly loves Dick's connection to his friends and family. Let me put it this way; in the lead up to Final Crisis and Blackest Night every title got an Origins and Omens short story on the back of an issue. Most books used it to write creepy or introspective reflections on awful stuff especially deaths that have happened to the characters. Tomasi used his to have Dick take Barbara skydiving for her birthday, and echo a bunch of themes from his first issue. I think this is one of the most mature and grown up looks at Dick prior to Flashpoint; Tomasi treats Dick as a grown adult with an adult relationship with Bruce. I love Freefall. Read Freefall to see some really interesting meta on Dick's relationship to the concept of falling and to the concept of catching falling people, a theme that's frequently present in his stories.

Grant Morrison: (Batman & Robin #1-16 2011) Astonishingly given how much of Reborn was designed by Morrison, they don't actually seem to care that much about Dick as a character more than as a prop to set Damian against. Dick's extremely focused on Damian in this title but also does not actually appear to like Damian very much. If I were going to recommend one story out of it I'd probably point to Batman & Robin #7-9, because Dick gets to be a giant hypocrite in them and tries to resurrect Bruce. It goes badly, for all involved.

Scott Snyder: (Detective Comics #871-881, Gates of Gotham, and like every Bat event during n52) The Black Mirror is probably my favourite piece of Dick!Batman storytelling set during Reborn. It's just elegant in terms of how hard Snyder pushes Dick and how his reactions are very much not those that Bruce would have. This is helpfully extremely obvious in that The Black Mirror and Gates of Gotham are actually part of a trilogy, the third act of which is Court of the Owls and due to Flashpoint Snyder had to rewrite CotO quite extensively including swapping Dick out of being Batman and having Bruce as the lead. Read The Black Mirror for Dick having a minor breakdown while solving a complex case with links to James Gordon and Babs. Read Gates of Gotham for incredible Dick & Tim & Cass & Damian fourway storytelling that shows the dynamics of every pairing out of the four.

Fabian Nicieza: (Nightwing #138-139 1999, Batman #703 & #713, parts of Battle for the Cowl, Nightwing #51-56 2016) The thing about FabNic is when he's on, he's very much on, and when he's not it can be painful. I actually almost would have skipped him on this list, but he very much deserves recognition for writing the Nightwing issues of Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, which alongside the Robin issues portray exactly how far Dick will go for Tim; and for Batman #703, which is the only issue prior to Bruce's resurrection that actually puts Dick, Tim and Damian on page together as heroes. He also got saddled with writing the start of the Ric Grayson saga under the script of Scott Lobdell, which, well, is definitely at the 'not well regarded' end of his oeuvre. FabNic is again a writer that is really good at character interaction, and I tend to find whenever I'm reading events where there's heaps of writers involved and he's there, the issues I really enjoy are the ones he's had a hand in.

Tony S. Daniel: (Battle for the Cowl, Batman #692-699 & #704-707 & #710-712) Oh, Tony Daniel. Why. Daniel's stories are probably the most classic-Batman of the Dick!Batman stories. His stories revolve a lot around drama at Arkham Asylum, with Harvey and Gilda Dent, and with the Falcones. On balance I think you could probably actually trade Dick out for Bruce in half these stories and it wouldn't make a huge amount of difference. If I were going to suggest one to try, maybe go with #710-712? It's Harvey focused and it has Kitrina Falcone and doesn't actually depend on the whole Jeremiah Arkham thing.

Kyle Higgins: (Nightwing #1-12, 0, & 15-29 2011) For a reboot of Dick Grayson down to his fundamentals, and working within the requirements of the 5 year time line, I like Higgins' work on Nightwing. Sure, I could have done without him burning down Haly's circus, again, and all the Court of the Owls revelations, but some of that was clearly dictated to him, and they way he gave Dick time as a teenager with relationships with other characters at Haly's before his parents died worked quite well. If I were going to cite a favourite part of this run it's probably the last section, #18-29 when Dick moves to Chicago and tries the 'strike out as my own hero with my own city, screw you dad' thing for the first time in the new timeline. Higgins put in quite a bit of cast building work and it's a shame none of it ever got used again between Forever Evil and then Rebirth just ignoring everything during this period.

Tom King and Tim Seeley: (Nightwing #30 2011, Grayson #1-20) I'm going to treat these two together here as I can't actually easily subdivide the run between them. This is the longest period Dick goes undercover working as a spy because his life has just gone to shit. He is both spying on Spyral (for Bruce) but also his job within Spyral is as a spy and special agent. Think James Bond, except Dick also gets to be the focus of the objectification camera. Some people enjoy it as a change of pace, some people can't stand it because it's just a very weird story for Dick and Dick's generally personally unhappy when he's stuck undercover, and it definitely is a highlight in the 'did you know Tom King worked for an intelligence agency? Tom King is working out his feelings about working for an intelligence agency again' oeuvre. If you want to try an issue, I recommend Grayson #5 as probably the best character and storytelling piece in the entire run.

Tim Seeley: (Nightwing #1-34) Good stuff I can say about Seeley's run includes that he used Rebirth as a impetus to rebuild Dick's status quo. He did quite a lot of world building for a new version of Bludhaven, he got Dick back into Nightwing and back into a blue V costume for the first time in 7 years, he's interested in looking at the Grayson family and not so much in terms of the Court of the Owls stuff. He likes Dick and Damian's time as Batman & Robin. Seeley's also a fan of a lot of character beats in terms of Dick's characterisation that were pioneered by Devin Grayson - particularly in terms of Dick being easily attracted to women, being impetuous and hot headed at times, and in the Romani retcon. I don't necessarily see eye to eye with Seeley on all of his characterisation and story choices, but he does a lot of repair work on getting Dick back to being Nightwing, including things like repeating beats from the Dixon and Grayson runs so that Dick has that backstory again, and what that means for his character. I might suggest Nightwing #8 2016, because it revolves around Bruce and Dick and the concept of falling (I'm a sucker for a good falling metaphor) or #9, which is literally a discussion of the changes between n52 and Rebirth with both of the Clark Kents, and in which Clark points Dick to return to Bludhaven (in a sort of re-encapsulation of Clark originally giving Dick the inspiration for the name Nightwing, but this time pointing him to what people treat as his default 'home'). If you like the shape of Dick as Bludhaven's hero from fic, you probably will find Seeley's run has stuff to enjoy.

Sam Humphries: (Nightwing #35-41 2016) So Humphries' storyline is another good example of what a lot of the current run of Nightwing contains since 2016 - reinterpretations and new versions of old stories. In this case, it's an adaption of the Hanging Judge storyline to have taken place in Bludhaven in Bruce and Dick's past. I don't mind it as a story, but it's definitely there to remind you of old story beats.

I haven't yet read Benjamin Percy's run, or any of Ric Grayson yet (which is a combination of Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza and Dan Jurgens), or Tom Taylor's run, so I don't want to give you too explicit opinions on these.

In general terms from experience on other titles and what other people have said: I really loved Benjamin Percy's Detective Comics #35-36 story in n52 and I suspect his Nightwing writing is a perfectly acceptable fill; nobody particularly likes the plot surrounding Ric Grayson, and the fact Scott Lobdell had a hand in plotting it seems to me to explain a bunch of the aspects of the scenario premise that upset a lot of people; Dan Jurgens is a DC workhorse who can turn his hand to anything; and Tom Taylor's run has been described as many as 'rewrite the arc of Devin Grayson's run but make it light and fluffy and free of consequences'. I honestly think if you haven't read much Nightwing yet, Taylor's run may be a good transition run to try to see if he's your vibe; I keep getting the impression he probably makes a good intro for new readers.

If you have any other writers you would like my impression of, please ask specifically; as I've said, Dick's been written by a LOT of people over the years.

[thislovintime]

"MGB-GT" (Tork), live in Toronto on July 12, 1986; footage courtesy of assneck2007.

Q: “During the early dates of the 1986 Monkees tour, you performed one of your new compositions, MGB-GT. Will this song be included in the next Monkees album? Peter Tork: “I don’t know. I would like to. We’ll see. That was then, this is now!” Q: “From what sources do you draw your songwriting inspirations?” PT: “Sometimes just a phrase or a word catches my fancy. Then I hear a musical line. I try to figure out what kinds of sounds are coming out. Basically I just go by the sound. Then I try to find words that sound like they belong there.” - Blitz!, November/December 1987 “As far as I’m concerned, a lot of what I like is not commercial. But I’m bored silly by some long, long guitar or drum solo. I don’t know where anybody would get the idea that I’d rather be a bore than to have things concise. I’m an artist, and an artist must tear his work down to the bare bones. There is no room for exces in real art. As far as I’m concerned, excess is self-indulgence. That is, the narrow, limited, individualized self. Not the greater, glorious self that we all partake of. […] I love a good hook! I don’t write them very often, but I love them. I don’t intend to be self-indulgent.” - Peter, Blitz!, May-June 1980 “MGB-GT,” of course, went on to be included on Stranger Things Have Happened; more on that next month during a special series shining a spotlight on the album.

[charlotte-of-wales]

Happy 47th birthday to Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland!

Born on 14 July 1977, Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée is the heir apparent to the Swedish throne, as the eldest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. If she ascends to the throne, she would be Sweden's fourth queen regnant (after Margaret, Christina and Ulrika Eleonora) and the first since 1720. Her inheritance is secured by Sweden's 1979 Act of Succession, the first law in Western Europe to adopt royal absolute primogeniture.

She was baptised at the Royal Palace Church on 27 September 1977. Her godparents included Crown Prince Harald of Norway (later king of Norway), and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands (later queen of the Netherlands, 1980-2013).

Victoria was made crown princess on 1 January 1980 by the 1979 amendment to the Act of Succession of 1810 (Successionsordningen).

On 24 February 2009, it was confirmed that permission had been granted and that Victoria would marry Daniel Westling in the summer of 2010. The wedding date was set in Stockholm Cathedral for 19 June 2010, the 34th anniversary of her parents' marriage. The couple have two children: Princess Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary, Duchess of Östergötland (12) and Prince Oscar Carl Olof, Duke of Skane (8)

Often referred to as the "Godmother of Europe, Crown Princess Victoria is the godmother of eighteen children including: Prince Constantine Alexios of Greece and Denmark; Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange; Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway; Prince Christian of Denmark; Princess Eléonore of Belgium; Princess Katharina of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Princess Leonore, Duchess of Gotland; and Prince Alexander, Duke of Södermanland.

[lonestarflight]

Atlantis (OV-104) rolled out ceremony from Building 150 at the Palmdale, California. The orbiter was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on April 9.

Atlantis was named after RV Atlantis, a two-masted sailing research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. From 1930 to 1966, she made 299 cruises and covered 700,000 miles while conducting oceanographic research.

Commemorative stamp from Rockwell International

Construction milestones:

1979 January 29: Contract Award to Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division

1980 March 30: Start structural assembly of crew module

1980 July 28: start fabrication of aft-fuselage

1980 October 1: start fabrication of mid-fuselage

1981 June 1: start fabrication of elevons

1981 June 1: start fabrication of wings

1981 July 13: start fabrication of crew module

1981 October 19: start fabrication of lower forward-fuselage

1981 November 23: start structural assembly of aft-fuselage

1981 December 9: start fabrication of upper forward-fuselage

1982 February 15: start structural assembly of crew module

1982 May 24: start fabrication of forward RCS module

1982 July 7: start structural assembly of payload bay doors

1982 October 4: start fabrication/assembly of vertical stabilizer

1982 November 12: start fabrication of OMS/RCS pods

1983 March 14: start fabrication/assembly of body flap

1983 May 6: Mid-fuselage on dock, Palmdale, arrived from General Dynamics

1983 June 13: Wings on dock, Palmdale, from Grumman

1983 June 17: elevons on dock, Palmdale

1983 November 7: lower forward-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1983 December 2: payload bay doors on dock, Palmdale

1983 December 2: Start of final assembly

1984 January 6: upper forward-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1984 January 20: body flap on dock, Palmdale

1984 February 17: left hand OMS/RCS pod on dock, Palmdale

1984 February 24: right hand OMS/RCS pod on dock, Palmdale

1984 March 16: aft-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1984 April 9: crew module on dock, Palmdale

1984 April 24: upper forward-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1984 April 27: forward RCS on dock, Palmdale

1984 May 25: Final assembly and closeout installation, Palmdale

1984 May 28: start initial subsystem test, power-on, Palmdale

1984 August 10: complete initial subsystem test, power-on, Delta F, Palmdale

1984 October 26: complete subsystem tests, Palmdale

1985 March 6: Rollout from Palmdale

Date: March 6, 1985

source, source, source, source

Boeing Images: link

SDASM Archives: 5349995, 75349983

[scotianostra]

On July 17th 2009 the singer/songwriter Gordon Waller and one half of the duo Peter & Gordon passed away.

Waller, the son of a surgeon, was born in Braemar, and went to Westminster school, in London, where he met Peter Asher in 1959. Asher was already something of a jazz and blues fan, but Waller persuaded him to broaden his horizons to include pop and rock'n'roll. Both were keen guitarists and soon they were entertaining their fellow students. By 1963, they were playing (initially as Gordon and Peter) in pubs and small clubs at lunchtimes and evenings for small fees or for a meal, often singing their own compositions in the close harmony style of the Everly Brothers. Early in 1964, they were booked for a two-week engagement at the Pickwick nightclub. One of the diners was Norman Newell, an EMI record producer. Newell was charmed enough by Peter and Gordon's rendition of their song If I Were You to offer them a recording contract.

At this time, McCartney was dating Jane, and Peter and Gordon badgered McCartney to provide them with a song. He obliged with A World Without Love, which he had written six years earlier in Liverpool. McCartney told his biographer Barry Miles: "Gordon was a lot of fun – he was slightly less academic than Peter. It was he who persuaded Peter to jump school to do lunchtime sessions."

By the end of March 1964, A World Without Love had displaced the Beatles' own Can't Buy Me Love at the top of the charts. In May, just before Waller's 19th birthday and Asher's 20th, it was the biggest selling record in the US. The instant stardom created by A World Without Love was the beginning of two years of frantic activity for Peter and Gordon.

For the American media, they combined the cachet of a Beatles connection (McCartney wrote several more of their hits and fans discerned in Waller a slight resemblance to John Lennon) There were numerous television appearances, occasional tours of Japan and Australia as well as North America and dozens of recordings. In the next 12 months, Nobody I Know and I Don't Want to See You Again (both by McCartney) were transatlantic hits, as were I Go To Pieces, written by Del Shannon, and True Love Ways, a Buddy Holly song the duo had performed in their early days in London.

By now, Peter and Gordon were competing in North America with numerous other British imports, including another middle-class duo, Chad and Jeremy. Their star began to wane in 1966, when their only hits were Woman, another McCartney composition credited pseudonymously to "Bernard Webb", and Lady Godiva, a novelty number that was denounced as obscene by the mayor of Coventry, which helped it reach the Top 20 in Britain and the American Top 10. By 1967, Peter and Gordon's British career was over and in America they were reduced to peddling olde English material such as the minor hit The Knight in Rusty Armour and the album Sunday for Tea. They split up the next year, with Asher joining the Beatles' Apple project as an A&R man and Waller launching a career as a solo singer.

Despite the fact that he had been the stronger vocalist of the pair, this career was stillborn. A handful of singles were issued, plus a 1970 album of his own compositions called Gordon. He left showbusiness to run a landscape gardening business in Northamptonshire until, in 1971, he took the part of Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

In the 1980s and 90s Waller ran a music publishing business in America. In the last few years of his life, he reunited with Asher to play a few shows in Los Angeles, the Philippines and New York

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Whoah Nelly. http://Newsday.com/matt

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 12, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 13, 2024

Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI) said yesterday that if Trump wins reelection, the U.S. should work its way back to 1960, before “the angry feminist movement…took the purpose out of the man’s life.” Grothman said that President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s War on Poverty was actually a “war on marriage,” in a communist attempt to hand control of children over to the government. 

Grothman was waxing nostalgic for a fantasy past when laws and society discriminated against women, who could not get credit cards in their own name until 1974—meaning that, among other things, they could not build credit scores to borrow money on their own—and who were forced into dependence on men. The 1960 date Grothman chose was notable in another way, too: it was before the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act with which Congress tried to make the racial equality promised in the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment and the voting rights promised in the 1870 Fifteenth Amendment become real.

At stake in Grothman’s erasure of the last sixty years is the equality of women and minorities to the white men who previously exercised virtually complete control of American society. That equality translates into a struggle over the nature of the American government. Since the 1870s, during the reconstruction of the American government after the Civil War, white reactionaries insisted that opening the vote to anyone but white men would result in socialism.

Their argument was that poor voters—by which they meant Black men—would elect leaders who would promise them roads and schools and hospitals, and so on. Those public benefits could be paid for only with tax levies, and since white men held most of the property in the country in those days, they insisted such benefits amounted to a redistribution of wealth from hardworking white men to undeserving Black Americans, even though poor white people would benefit from those public works as much as or more than Black people did.

This argument resurfaced after World War II as an argument against Black and Brown voting and, in the 1970s, against the electoral power of “women’s libbers,” that is, women who called for the federal government to protect the rights of women equally to those of men. Beginning in 1980, when Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan called for rolling back the government regulations and social safety net that underpinned society, a gap appeared in voting behavior. Women, especially Black women, tended to back the Democrats, while men moved toward Republican candidates. Increasingly, Republican leaders used racist and sexist tropes to undermine the active government whose business regulations they hated. 

For the radical extremists who have taken over the Republican Party, getting rid of the modern government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights is now gospel as they try to replace it with Christian nationalism. But that active government remains popular.

That popularity was reflected today as Republicans continued to take credit for laws passed by Democrats to maintain or expand an active government. In Tennessee, Republican Governor Bill Lee boasted that the state had “secured historic funding to modernize Memphis infrastructure with the single-largest transportation investment in state history.” All the Republicans in the Tennessee delegation opposed the measure, leaving Democratic representative Steve Cohen to provide the state’s only yes vote. Indeed, Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn posted on social media that “Americans do not want [Biden’s] ‘socialist Build Back Broke’ plan.” 

In Alabama, Senator Tommy Tuberville boasted about a bridge project funded by a $550 million Department of Transportation grant, writing: “Since I took office, I have been working to secure funding for the Mobile bridge and get this project underway.” But as Representative Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, pointed out, Tuberville voted against the bill that provided the money. 

Like Governor Lee and Senator Blackburn, Tuberville knows such government policies are enormously popular and so takes credit for them, even while voting against them. 

Union workers also historically have supported a government that regulates business and provides a social safety net and infrastructure investment, but those workers turned to Reagan in 1980 and have tended to make their home in the Republican Party ever since. Now they appear to be shifting back. 

Today the president of the 600,000-member International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers urged Biden to stay in the race, writing: “For the first time in decades, we have an Administration that has leveled the playing field for workers trying to organize. The IAM is one of the fastest growing unions in the labor movement because we have a President who goes toe to toe with corporations on behalf of working people.” 

Union president Brian Bryant noted that Biden “saved hundreds of thousands of our members’ jobs” and thanked him for “strengthen[ing] the Buy American regulations that have helped to create millions of jobs, including nearly 800,000 in manufacturing.” Bryant also credited Biden with helping to save 83 pension plans that covered more than a million workers and retirees. Bryant noted that “[i]n the IAM, we value seniority.” 

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain told Netroots Nation today that “humanity is at stake” in the 2024 election. “This has everything to do with our shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our wages. Having health care. Our retirement security, and our time…. Those are the four core issues that unite the entire working-class people in a fight against the billionaire class as we saw in our contract campaign last fall when 75% of Americans supported us in that fight, for those reasons.”

"The dream and the scheme of a man like Donald Trump is that the vast majority of working-class people, who literally make our country run, will remain divided. That's how they win. They want us to not unite in a common cause to take on the billionaire class…. They divide us by race. They divide us by gender, by who we love. They divide us by what language we speak or where we were born….”

Today, in Detroit, in a barnburner of a speech, President Joe Biden pitched his plan for the first 100 days of a second term with a Democratic Congress. He promised to restore Roe v. Wade, eliminate medical debt, raise the minimum wage, protect workers’ right to organize, ban assault weapons, and to “keep leading the world” on clean energy and addressing climate change. He also vowed to sign into law the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would end voter suppression, and the Freedom to Vote Act, which would protect voter rights and election systems, as well as end partisan gerrymandering. 

Biden forcefully contrasted his own record with Trump’s. He reminded the audience that he was the first president to walk a picket line, because “when labor does well, everybody does well.” “When Trump comes here to tell you how great he is for the auto industry, remember this: when Trump was president we lost 86,000 jobs in unions. I created 275,000 auto jobs in America. In fact, what’s been true in the auto industry is true all over America: since I became president, we created nearly 16 million new jobs nationwide, 390,000 of those jobs right here in Michigan. We’ve created 800,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide, including 24,000 in Michigan.”

Biden hammered Trump, saying “no more free passes.” He reminded that audience that Trump is a convicted criminal and that a judge had found him liable for sexual abuse. Biden quoted the judge: “Mr. Trump raped her.” Biden reminded the audience that Trump lost his license to do business in New York state and is still facing criminal charges for retaining classified documents and trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as charges in Georgia for election interference. Biden said: “It’s time for us to stop treating politics like entertainment and reality TV.”

Today the European Union charged Trump donor Elon Musk’s social media company X, formerly Twitter, for failing to curb disinformation and illegal hate speech.

Also today, a judge ruled that Trump ally Rudy Giuliani is not entitled to bankruptcy protection. The judge cited Giuliani’s “lack of financial transparency” and noted that Giuliani “has engaged in self-dealing.” This decision means that election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, as well as other creditors, are free to collect what they can of the $150 million he owes them. A lawyer for the two said: “We’re pleased the Court saw through Mr. Giuliani’s games and put a stop to his abuse of the bankruptcy proceeding. We will move forward as quickly as possible to begin enforcing our judgment against him.”

Meanwhile, Trump appeared to be trying to recapture attention by teasing an unveiling of his vice presidential nominee at next week’s Republican National Convention. He compared the selection process to “a highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice,” the reality TV show in which he appeared before he became president, and which centered around firing people.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[notoriousbeb]

Lighthouse Keeper Tweets

And now, the post literally no one asked for. The Lighthouse Keeper's tweets from March 29, 2023, through July 2, 2024, supplemented with my own Haylor notes.

Note 1: I’m not in the business of convincing people LK is HS. Read this though. Look at his feed and decide for yourself. :) I’m here to speculate and have a good time.

Note 2: I skipped a handful of minor tweets I felt were not related to the overall LK narrative or unremarkable. (Examples: LK tweeted "Ciao!" on July 22, the date of HS's last LOT show in Italy, and a little running gag on April 1; he also likes to post about cake on HS's birthday and Christmas wishes, etc.)

Part 1: March 2023 - October 2023

March 29, 2023 - "I'm in my lighthouse keeper era." "Did I do it? Am I cool and trendy now?" 12:15 p.m. CT

April 1, 2023 "I actually really dislike lighthouses... don't know why I chose this life..." 3:55 a.m. CT

Taylor is about to play Arlington, Texas, later that day. (I think Harry is there. Here's why.) Seems like perhaps someone thought it would be funny to take his phone and tweet from it...

April 1, 2023 "April fools of course!!!! I love Lighthouses and I love keeping them!!!" 5:06 a.m. CT

April 2, 2023 "It's been a hell of a year..." 3:00 a.m. CT

April 6, 2023 "You'll be good, my love." 12 p.m. ET (NYC)

LK mentions in his replies to this one that he's drank half a bottle of rosé. Splitting it with someone, perhaps?

April 12, 2023 "Homeward bound forever."

Tone of this tweet seems bittersweet to me. H spotted in LA this day on work pit stop in between final European leg of LOT. After this, Taylor starts to fall apart on stage.

April 22, 2023 “If you really knew me, would you really want me?” 2:39 pm PST

Despondent, right? As if they left things on not great terms?

April 26, 2023 “Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me.”

Fleetwood Mac “Silver Spring” lyrics.

May 6, 2023 “I hate to feel the rain on my back as I watch you go from me.” 4:15 p.m. BST

Matty time has commenced. Harry is in London.

May 11, 2023 “You’ve got me counting down the days.”

Could be a reference to Wembley. Deux Moi reported Taylor chartered there and was spotted at the June 13 show.

May 19, 2023 “Welcome Home” 12 a.m. BST

Taylor plays Foxborough, just 18 miles away from Holiday House.

June 1, 2023 “Je t'aime, Je t'aime, Je t'aime!” 10:35 a.m. BST

“I love you, I love you, I love you” in French. On May 30, a photo of Harry walking outside Cartier is shared to gossip sites. Cartier is a French luxury brand. On May 31, Taylor begins wearing a very pricey 1980s vintage Cartier necklace.

June 20, 2023 “Our lonesome shadows toss and turn. Throw our doubts in the fire. We’ll watch them burn.” 12:06 a.m. BST

Does he want to to make it work. From his set selection it seemed like it. But then...

June 29, 2023 - Taylor records “Down Bad” and Harry and Taylor Russell go on their first papped outing to a museum. So, it all fell apart, clearly. Why?

July 11, 2023 “Fast car, alligator shoes” 3:45 p.m. BST

These are lyrics from I.N.V.U. Other lyrics include, “He rolls in with his roll neck and his Rolex/he’s mister MTV/he claims he’s cashing checks/and breaking necks/at least that’s what he wants you to think/…/he’s at the wheel while I’m trapped in the boot.”

This is the day of Travis’ first Eras show. This was posted before he even showed up. …Did H know beforehand that this relationship was all planned in advance? At least, the beginning? (Perhaps as way to cleanse the public's palate from Matty?)

July 18, 2023 “The sky and the stars” 12 a.m. BST

Taylor Russell’s birthday. Just to be a dick? Or unrelated because...

July 19, 2023 - Daylight MV no. 2 drops

July 20, 2023 “There’s been a load of compromising on the road to my horizon but I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me.” 10:10 p.m. BST

These are lyrics from “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Sounds like H’s fucking had it, to me. Other lyrics include, “Nice guys get washed away like snow in the rain.”

August 24, 2023 “Hide in the middle of the universe, where the hills are steep and complications low.” 10:10 p.m. BST

H went to TR’s play opening on 1989 TV’s announcement night. Tay continues to wear the Cartier necklace. H also goes to TR’s play again 8/28.

August 30, 2023 “Through the gaps of my curtains looking at the moon it’s like you’re here with me. It’s like you see it too.” 9:30 p.m. BST

"Pick You Up" leaks 8/31. Taylor posts Griff’s “Vertigo” on Instagram 9/5. "Try Honey" leaks 9/12.

Sept. 16, 2023 “What are we drinking tonight?” 9:10 p.m. BST

Comments in the replies that he’s drinking and probably needs water. Post 9/14 Travis talking about Taylor on his podcast.

Sept. 21, 2023 “And my whiskey sings the obituaries.” 12 a.m. BST

Sept. 30, 2023 “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. It doesn't matter much to me.” 9:30 p.m. BST

Lyrics from “Strawberry Fields Forever” by The Beatles.

Post TS’s first NFL game appearance.

Oct. 8, 2023 “So much for an early night” in Morse code 12:30 a.m. BST

Probably out with Tom and Tyler post recording. I hope.

Oct. 12, 2023 “Will you hold me dear and keep me warm? And I’ll shield us both from sorrow and the storm” 4:35 p.m. BST

Maybe he decides he and TR can keep each other company? That’s depressing.

Oct. 17, 2023 “You said ‘love is touching souls’ surely you touched mine ‘cause part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.” 4:20 p.m. BST

Lyrics from Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.”

Oct. 19, 2023 “And the rattle of the red line cuts through like a knife. So, what do you say we try to live this life?” 11:30 p.m. BST

Sad sad saaaad.

Oct. 23, 2023 “Moon, tell me if I could send up my heart to you?” 8:30 p.m. BST

Mitski lyrics. Suffering. Pain.

Ahead to Part Two

[misfitwashere]

Letters from an American

July 12, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Jul 13, 2024

Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI) said yesterday that if Trump wins reelection, the U.S. should work its way back to 1960, before “the angry feminist movement…took the purpose out of the man’s life.” Grothman said that President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s War on Poverty was actually a “war on marriage,” in a communist attempt to hand control of children over to the government. 

Grothman was waxing nostalgic for a fantasy past when laws and society discriminated against women, who could not get credit cards in their own name until 1974—meaning that, among other things, they could not build credit scores to borrow money on their own—and who were forced into dependence on men. The 1960 date Grothman chose was notable in another way, too: it was before the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act with which Congress tried to make the racial equality promised in the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment and the voting rights promised in the 1870 Fifteenth Amendment become real.

At stake in Grothman’s erasure of the last sixty years is the equality of women and minorities to the white men who previously exercised virtually complete control of American society. That equality translates into a struggle over the nature of the American government. Since the 1870s, during the reconstruction of the American government after the Civil War, white reactionaries insisted that opening the vote to anyone but white men would result in socialism.

Their argument was that poor voters—by which they meant Black men—would elect leaders who would promise them roads and schools and hospitals, and so on. Those public benefits could be paid for only with tax levies, and since white men held most of the property in the country in those days, they insisted such benefits amounted to a redistribution of wealth from hardworking white men to undeserving Black Americans, even though poor white people would benefit from those public works as much as or more than Black people did.

This argument resurfaced after World War II as an argument against Black and Brown voting and, in the 1970s, against the electoral power of “women’s libbers,” that is, women who called for the federal government to protect the rights of women equally to those of men. Beginning in 1980, when Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan called for rolling back the government regulations and social safety net that underpinned society, a gap appeared in voting behavior. Women, especially Black women, tended to back the Democrats, while men moved toward Republican candidates. Increasingly, Republican leaders used racist and sexist tropes to undermine the active government whose business regulations they hated. 

For the radical extremists who have taken over the Republican Party, getting rid of the modern government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights is now gospel as they try to replace it with Christian nationalism. But that active government remains popular.

That popularity was reflected today as Republicans continued to take credit for laws passed by Democrats to maintain or expand an active government. In Tennessee, Republican Governor Bill Lee boasted that the state had “secured historic funding to modernize Memphis infrastructure with the single-largest transportation investment in state history.” All the Republicans in the Tennessee delegation opposed the measure, leaving Democratic representative Steve Cohen to provide the state’s only yes vote. Indeed, Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn posted on social media that “Americans do not want [Biden’s] ‘socialist Build Back Broke’ plan.” 

In Alabama, Senator Tommy Tuberville boasted about a bridge project funded by a $550 million Department of Transportation grant, writing: “Since I took office, I have been working to secure funding for the Mobile bridge and get this project underway.” But as Representative Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, pointed out, Tuberville voted against the bill that provided the money. 

Like Governor Lee and Senator Blackburn, Tuberville knows such government policies are enormously popular and so takes credit for them, even while voting against them. 

Union workers also historically have supported a government that regulates business and provides a social safety net and infrastructure investment, but those workers turned to Reagan in 1980 and have tended to make their home in the Republican Party ever since. Now they appear to be shifting back. 

Today the president of the 600,000-member International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers urged Biden to stay in the race, writing: “For the first time in decades, we have an Administration that has leveled the playing field for workers trying to organize. The IAM is one of the fastest growing unions in the labor movement because we have a President who goes toe to toe with corporations on behalf of working people.” 

Union president Brian Bryant noted that Biden “saved hundreds of thousands of our members’ jobs” and thanked him for “strengthen[ing] the Buy American regulations that have helped to create millions of jobs, including nearly 800,000 in manufacturing.” Bryant also credited Biden with helping to save 83 pension plans that covered more than a million workers and retirees. Bryant noted that “[i]n the IAM, we value seniority.” 

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain told Netroots Nation today that “humanity is at stake” in the 2024 election. “This has everything to do with our shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our wages. Having health care. Our retirement security, and our time…. Those are the four core issues that unite the entire working-class people in a fight against the billionaire class as we saw in our contract campaign last fall when 75% of Americans supported us in that fight, for those reasons.”

"The dream and the scheme of a man like Donald Trump is that the vast majority of working-class people, who literally make our country run, will remain divided. That's how they win. They want us to not unite in a common cause to take on the billionaire class…. They divide us by race. They divide us by gender, by who we love. They divide us by what language we speak or where we were born….”

Today, in Detroit, in a barnburner of a speech, President Joe Biden pitched his plan for the first 100 days of a second term with a Democratic Congress. He promised to restore Roe v. Wade, eliminate medical debt, raise the minimum wage, protect workers’ right to organize, ban assault weapons, and to “keep leading the world” on clean energy and addressing climate change. He also vowed to sign into law the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would end voter suppression, and the Freedom to Vote Act, which would protect voter rights and election systems, as well as end partisan gerrymandering. 

Biden forcefully contrasted his own record with Trump’s. He reminded the audience that he was the first president to walk a picket line, because “when labor does well, everybody does well.” “When Trump comes here to tell you how great he is for the auto industry, remember this: when Trump was president we lost 86,000 jobs in unions. I created 275,000 auto jobs in America. In fact, what’s been true in the auto industry is true all over America: since I became president, we created nearly 16 million new jobs nationwide, 390,000 of those jobs right here in Michigan. We’ve created 800,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide, including 24,000 in Michigan.”

Biden hammered Trump, saying “no more free passes.” He reminded that audience that Trump is a convicted criminal and that a judge had found him liable for sexual abuse. Biden quoted the judge: “Mr. Trump raped her.” Biden reminded the audience that Trump lost his license to do business in New York state and is still facing criminal charges for retaining classified documents and trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as charges in Georgia for election interference. Biden said: “It’s time for us to stop treating politics like entertainment and reality TV.”

Today the European Union charged Trump donor Elon Musk’s social media company X, formerly Twitter, for failing to curb disinformation and illegal hate speech.

Also today, a judge ruled that Trump ally Rudy Giuliani is not entitled to bankruptcy protection. The judge cited Giuliani’s “lack of financial transparency” and noted that Giuliani “has engaged in self-dealing.” This decision means that election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, as well as other creditors, are free to collect what they can of the $150 million he owes them. A lawyer for the two said: “We’re pleased the Court saw through Mr. Giuliani’s games and put a stop to his abuse of the bankruptcy proceeding. We will move forward as quickly as possible to begin enforcing our judgment against him.”

Meanwhile, Trump appeared to be trying to recapture attention by teasing an unveiling of his vice presidential nominee at next week’s Republican National Convention. He compared the selection process to “a highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice,” the reality TV show in which he appeared before he became president, and which centered around firing people.

[shefanispeculator]

Dates from "la-okie" our Shefani friend (that has since passed)

Special Dates / Birthdays

Jan, 4, 1976   -  Jen Stefani

Feb 24,  1946 -  Patti Stefani

Feb 28, 2014  -  Apollo

March 1, 1974  -  Todd Stefani

March 2, 1980  -  Alison Burke  (Jen’s sister)

March 7, 1972 - Endy Shelton Intrieri

April 2, 1948      -  Mike Shackleford

April 13,       -  Emmett Plath

May 26, 2006  -  Kingston

Jun 5, 1999 -  Todd & Jen’s Anniversary

June 11, 1966  -  Patty & Dennis’ Anniversary

June 17, 1967  -  Eric Stefani

June 18, 1976  -  Blake

July 4,1945  - Dennis Stefani

August 12, 1977  -  Mike Intrieri

August 21, 2008  -  Zuma

Sept. 5-11 2006 ?  -  Ryan  

Sept. 13, 1946  -  Dorothy Shelton

Oct 3, 1969  -  Gwen

Oct. 6, 2008  -  Stella

Oct. 16 or 17, 2020 - ❤️🎉 Blake & Gwen’s Engagement 🎉❤️

Oct. 28, 2010  -  Jace  

Nov 6,  2013  -  Leo

Nov. 11       -  Oliver Plath

Dec 8, 1955   -  Peter Plath

Dec. 15, 1972  -  Jill Stefani  (Plath)

Dec 22  -  Maddie

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

The Wednesday Strangler

The Wednesday Strangler is a suspected unidentified serial killer who operated in Japan from 1975 to 1989. The serial killer is thought to be responsible for seven murders (which are also referred to as the Saga women murders) and got the nickname due to six of the seven victims disappearing on a Wednesday. As of now, the seven murders remain unsolved and The Wednesday Strangler is currently unidentified.

27th August 1975 (Wednesday) – ‘Y’ A 12-year-old girl had been home alone in the evening when she disappeared. The girl, commonly referred to as ‘Y’, usually spent her evenings studying at the bar her mother ran but had been home alone on this night. When her family returned to the house they found the television still on and the shoes the girl had worn that day were still at the house. The daughter of the neighbours next door would tell law enforcement she saw an unidentified man pushing the girl into his vehicle.

12th April 1980 (Saturday) – ‘H’ A 20-year-old woman living in Shiroishi had been home alone when she disappeared on the 12th of April in 1980, notably under similar circumstances as the first victim. Commonly referred to as ‘H’, the young woman had attempted suicide before and had told people in her life that she was going to attempt again once she turned 20. ‘H’ had turned 20 just one day before her disappearance. On the 16th of April, just four days after H had gone missing, her father received a letter stating how his daughter will probably not return home and that they hope he (the father) suffers too. H’s father later received multiple phone calls telling him not to go on to TV programme to discuss his daughter’s disappearance and not to show any photographs of H. ‘H’ is the only victim on the list to have gone missing on a day other than Wednesday. 24th or 27th June 1980 Two bodies were discovered in a septic tank next to a primary school in Shiroishi. The bodies were that of ‘Y’, the 12-year-old girl who had disappeared five years earlier, and ‘H’, the 20-year-old woman who had disappeared a few months earlier in April. According to various reports, the septic tanks had been filled with stones. The bodies were too badly decomposed to give an accurate cause of death. *I’m unsure if both bodies were found on the same day at the same time or if the confusion around the dates has arisen due to ‘H’ being found first, on the 24th of June, and ‘Y’ then being found on the 27th of June. A man would later be arrested on suspicion of committing these two murders but he was later released without charge due to insufficient evidence. In any case, there are rumours of the links between this man and the two victims, some claiming the man frequented the bar which Y’s mother worked at and another rumour claiming he had been dating ‘H’. Just to reiterate, these are rumours and not definitive facts.

7th October 1981 (Wednesday) A 27-year-old woman living in Shiroishi was last spotted by a colleague talking to a man who was approximately in his 30’s and sat in a car. This is the last known sighting of the third victim alive. Allegedly, the third victim had missed four days of work prior to her disappearance and had then told people she was caring for her unwell mother. Her body was found on the 21st of October 1981, two weeks after she was last seen, in an empty lot. There were no signs of sexual abuse and the cause of death was ruled as strangulation with a power cord.

17th February 1982 (Wednesday) – ‘A’ An 11-year-old girl, referred to as ‘A’, was walking home from school when she was strangled to death in Kitagata. Her body was found nude from the waist down and her school bag still strapped to her back. Several witnesses later came forward to report a man in the area, who had been driving a white car, had attempted to abduct them on the same day as A’s disappearance. One primary school student had been carried away by an unknown man but was let go because of her crying and screaming.

8th July 1987 (Wednesday) – ‘H’ A 48-year-old woman, referred to as ‘H’, disappeared after receiving a phone call that visibly upset her. The fourth victim had been eating with her mother and son when she received the phone call. She went on to tell her mother that she had to leave to give a ride to a friend but told her son she had to leave to go for dinner with a friend. At some point after her disappearance, H’s car was located in the carpark of a bowling alley. ‘H’ had worked at the same place as the 27-year-old who had been found strangled to death six years prior.

7th December 1988 (Wednesday) – ‘N’ A 50-year-old woman disappeared in Kitagata after leaving her house to play volleyball, a ten-minute walk away from her house. Commonly referred to as ‘N’, she usually made this walk with a friend, but on this day the friend wasn’t attending and so ‘N’ took the walk alone. Witness reports state that ‘N’ was seen speaking with a woman sitting in a car but law enforcement has never been able to identify the woman. One week after ‘N’ went missing, her husband received a phone call that was recorded by a police officer who was investigating the disappearance of ‘N’. There’s a transcript of the phone call which I’m going to include below, though I’m not 100% sure that this is a word-for-word translation. Still, it does give you an idea of the type of phone call it was. Mr. N: Hello, this is Nakajima.

Unknown caller: Your wife was found, wasn’t she?

Mr. N: Huh?

Unknown caller: That’s nice.

Mr. N: Just where in the world was she found?

Unknown caller: Wasn’t it in Yakigome? (slight pause)

Mr. N: Who is this speaking?

Unknown caller: A person you know.

25th January 1989 (Wednesday) – ‘Y’ A 37-year-old woman disappeared after walking home from a night out with a friend. She is often referred to as ‘Y’, but there is little other information available regarding her disappearance. 27th January 1989 The bodies of ‘H’, ‘N’, and ‘Y’ are found together located at the bottom of a cliff at Kitagata Otoge. All three causes of death were determined to be strangulation. These final three murders would go on to be known as the “Kitagata affair,” as all seven murders on this timeline occurred in a 20-kilometer radius of the Saga Prefecture.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries-movedd]

The Wednesday Strangler

The Wednesday Strangler is a suspected unidentified serial killer who operated in Japan from 1975 to 1989. The serial killer is thought to be responsible for seven murders (which are also referred to as the Saga women murders) and got the nickname due to six of the seven victims disappearing on a Wednesday. As of now, the seven murders remain unsolved and The Wednesday Strangler is currently unidentified.

27th August 1975 (Wednesday) – ‘Y’ A 12-year-old girl had been home alone in the evening when she disappeared. The girl, commonly referred to as ‘Y’, usually spent her evenings studying at the bar her mother ran but had been home alone on this night. When her family returned to the house they found the television still on and the shoes the girl had worn that day were still at the house. The daughter of the neighbours next door would tell law enforcement she saw an unidentified man pushing the girl into his vehicle.

12th April 1980 (Saturday) – ‘H’ A 20-year-old woman living in Shiroishi had been home alone when she disappeared on the 12th of April in 1980, notably under similar circumstances as the first victim. Commonly referred to as ‘H’, the young woman had attempted suicide before and had told people in her life that she was going to attempt again once she turned 20. ‘H’ had turned 20 just one day before her disappearance. On the 16th of April, just four days after H had gone missing, her father received a letter stating how his daughter will probably not return home and that they hope he (the father) suffers too. H’s father later received multiple phone calls telling him not to go on to TV programme to discuss his daughter’s disappearance and not to show any photographs of H. ‘H’ is the only victim on the list to have gone missing on a day other than Wednesday. 24th or 27th June 1980 Two bodies were discovered in a septic tank next to a primary school in Shiroishi. The bodies were that of ‘Y’, the 12-year-old girl who had disappeared five years earlier, and ‘H’, the 20-year-old woman who had disappeared a few months earlier in April. According to various reports, the septic tanks had been filled with stones. The bodies were too badly decomposed to give an accurate cause of death. *I’m unsure if both bodies were found on the same day at the same time or if the confusion around the dates has arisen due to ‘H’ being found first, on the 24th of June, and ‘Y’ then being found on the 27th of June. A man would later be arrested on suspicion of committing these two murders but he was later released without charge due to insufficient evidence. In any case, there are rumours of the links between this man and the two victims, some claiming the man frequented the bar which Y’s mother worked at and another rumour claiming he had been dating ‘H’. Just to reiterate, these are rumours and not definitive facts.

7th October 1981 (Wednesday) A 27-year-old woman living in Shiroishi was last spotted by a colleague talking to a man who was approximately in his 30’s and sat in a car. This is the last known sighting of the third victim alive. Allegedly, the third victim had missed four days of work prior to her disappearance and had then told people she was caring for her unwell mother. Her body was found on the 21st of October 1981, two weeks after she was last seen, in an empty lot. There were no signs of sexual abuse and the cause of death was ruled as strangulation with a power cord.

17th February 1982 (Wednesday) – ‘A’ An 11-year-old girl, referred to as ‘A’, was walking home from school when she was strangled to death in Kitagata. Her body was found nude from the waist down and her school bag still strapped to her back. Several witnesses later came forward to report a man in the area, who had been driving a white car, had attempted to abduct them on the same day as A’s disappearance. One primary school student had been carried away by an unknown man but was let go because of her crying and screaming.

8th July 1987 (Wednesday) – ‘H’ A 48-year-old woman, referred to as ‘H’, disappeared after receiving a phone call that visibly upset her. The fourth victim had been eating with her mother and son when she received the phone call. She went on to tell her mother that she had to leave to give a ride to a friend but told her son she had to leave to go for dinner with a friend. At some point after her disappearance, H’s car was located in the carpark of a bowling alley. ‘H’ had worked at the same place as the 27-year-old who had been found strangled to death six years prior.

7th December 1988 (Wednesday) – ‘N’ A 50-year-old woman disappeared in Kitagata after leaving her house to play volleyball, a ten-minute walk away from her house. Commonly referred to as ‘N’, she usually made this walk with a friend, but on this day the friend wasn’t attending and so ‘N’ took the walk alone. Witness reports state that ‘N’ was seen speaking with a woman sitting in a car but law enforcement has never been able to identify the woman. One week after ‘N’ went missing, her husband received a phone call that was recorded by a police officer who was investigating the disappearance of ‘N’. There’s a transcript of the phone call which I’m going to include below, though I’m not 100% sure that this is a word-for-word translation. Still, it does give you an idea of the type of phone call it was. Mr. N: Hello, this is Nakajima.

Unknown caller: Your wife was found, wasn’t she?

Mr. N: Huh?

Unknown caller: That’s nice.

Mr. N: Just where in the world was she found?

Unknown caller: Wasn’t it in Yakigome? (slight pause)

Mr. N: Who is this speaking?

Unknown caller: A person you know.

25th January 1989 (Wednesday) – ‘Y’ A 37-year-old woman disappeared after walking home from a night out with a friend. She is often referred to as ‘Y’, but there is little other information available regarding her disappearance. 27th January 1989 The bodies of ‘H’, ‘N’, and ‘Y’ are found together located at the bottom of a cliff at Kitagata Otoge. All three causes of death were determined to be strangulation. These final three murders would go on to be known as the “Kitagata affair,” as all seven murders on this timeline occurred in a 20-kilometer radius of the Saga Prefecture.

[usagirotten]

Masters of the Universe Origins Action Figure 2-Pack Prince Adam and Cringer

This Masters of the Universe Origins Cartoon Collection Prince Adam and Cringer pack will bring back fond memories of the 1980s. These MOTU Origins toys are modern executions of the vintage look of the undercover heroes, but at a 5.5-inch scale with generous articulation for maximum possibility. Release date: July 12, 2024

  Product Features 5.5-inch scale (13.97cm) Made of plastic Classic Masters of the Universe toy-inspired design Up to 16 points of articulation Retro-style packaging Box Contents Prince Adam figure Additional hand part Additional head part Sword Cringer figure Additional head part Read the full article

[fundieshaderoom]

Fundie Families and Adjacents I Follow: Wissmann

Loren Albert Wissmann- May 15, 1957

Gloria Ann- June 6, 1958

Loren and Gloria married on August 16, 1980, they were ages 23 and 22. They share 13 children, 9 children-in-law, and 27 grandchildren. They are based in Nebraska.

1. Rachel Anna- January 31, 1982

2. Ruth Elissa- August 16, 1983

3. Josiah David- February 23, 1985

4. Bethany Lynne- July 10, 1986

5. Andrew Michael- February 29, 1988

6. Elizabeth Joy- September 21, 1989

7. Matthias Meinert- June 18, 1991

8. Stephen Gerald- July 15, 1993

9. Hannah Marlys- June 23, 1995

10. Susanna Evelyn- March 7, 1997

11. Alaythia Gloria- October 22, 1999

12. Nathanael Loren- October 28, 2001

miscarriage

13. Charissa Marie- September 26, 2006

Rachel married Alan William Busentiz (August 1, 1972) on June 30, 2012, at ages 30 and 39. They share 3 children and 1 on the way.

1. Kendrick Alan- January 26, 2016

2. Autumn Joy- October 7, 2017

Miscarriage- 2018

3. Justice William- July 12, 2019

John Matthew- miscarriage January 2021

Faith Elizabeth- miscarriage August 2021

4. Audrey Ann- September 26, 2023

Ruth married Ryan James Bourlier (February 3, 1982) on July 30, 2016, at ages 32 and 34. They share 5 children.

1. Lee James- June 21, 2017

2. Jerit Daniel- October 3, 2018

3. Judah Loren- November 28, 2019

4. Kaleb Terry- July 3, 2021

5. Chloe Ann- December 12, 2022

miscarriage- September 2023

Josiah married Abi Lyn Rehm (March 28, 1987) on September 20, 2008, at ages 23 and 21. They share 4 children.

1. Joanna Praise- February 24, 2010

2. Asher David- November 30, 2011

3. Jenifer Lee- May 17, 2016

4. Andron Michael- October 11, 2019

Bethany married Daniel Beasley (June 28, 1988) on December 19, 2009, at ages 23 and 21. They share 5 children.

miscarriage

1. Arianna Mae- April 26, 2012

2. Caden James- February 3, 2014

3. Everett William- December 1, 2016

4. Gemma Lynne- September 28, 2018

5. Felicity Anne- January 28, 2021

miscarriage

Andrew married Kori Jane Knuth (November 19, 1989) on March 5, 2011, at ages 23 and 21. They share 2 sons.

7 miscarriages- unknown dates

1. Wyatt Andrew- June 25, 2018

2. Jaxon Richard -June 11, 2020

Matthias married Michelle Ruth Kingery (July 21, 1990) on December 30, 2017, at ages 26 and 27. They share 3 children.

1. Adalynn Michelle- March 22, 2019

2. Titus Ezekiel- June 7, 2021

3. Owen Matthias- June 17, 2023

Stephen married Jana Marie Duggar (January 12, 1990) on August 15, 2024.

Hannah married Jeremiah Robert Duggar (December 31, 1998) on March 26, 2022, at ages 26 and 23. They share two daughters.

1- Brynley Noelle- December 25, 2022

2- Brielle Grace- 2024

Susanna married Drew Donald Jerred on July 1, 2023. They share 1 daughter.

1- Lila Ann- March 2024

Nathanael married Katrina Hope Sahlstrom (June 28, 2003) on October 15, 2022, at ages 20 and 19. They share a son.

1- Theodore James- August 7, 2023

[lonestarflight]

"Outfitting the Space Shuttle Orbiter Columbia with the three main rocket engines that will boost the 75 ton spacecraft into orbit on its first flight is completed with the installation of Engine #2007 (top). At liftoff, each engine will be producing about 375,000 pounds of thrust, or about 12 million horsepower each, and gulping down its liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants at a rate of about 1,100 pounds per second. The Shuttle's main engines, the most efficient rocket engines ever built, are reusable and designed to operate over a life span of 55 missions."

Date: July 19, 1980

NASA ID: KSC-80PC-0282, ARC-1980-AC80-0107-4

[ronnie-wood]

posting a 2008 ronnie interview here bc why not viva la information

full article under the cut! this was around 2008 when he was 61 and had an art exhibition, based on artworks he made in his studio in ireland

it's a REALLY interesting interview, and i'm glad i saved it a long time ago :D

a warning for discussions of alcoholism though! u__u i sort of understand bc some of his drinking was motivated by grief when he was young, his girlfriend got killed when he was traveling to a gig

Originally from the Financial Times: Lunch with FT: Ronnie Wood July 19, 2008 1:45 am by Rob Blackhurst Keith Richards once said, “If you are going to get wasted, then get wasted elegantly.” At 61, his fellow Stones guitarist, Ronnie Wood, embodies this louche creed. As he arrives in the reception of Dublin’s elegant Shelbourne Hotel for lunch, cutting a path through huddles of overly nourished politicians and businessmen, he’s dressed in the same size of super-skinny jeans, 28 waist, that he’s been wearing for the past 30 years, a pair of space boots that may once have belonged on an alligator’s back and a tight black shirt undone to the chest: the fruits of a trip to Prada before his daughter Leah’s wedding last month. But, even from 50 paces, it’s the luxuriant crow-black head of hair, flecked with only the tiniest hint of grey, that really marks him out as a Rolling Stone. As he greets me with a warm handshake and naughty, liquorice eyes, he says: “I don’t dye it either.” Alluding to his equally thin bandmates, he adds: “We’re all the same build, as well. It’s a good thing I didn’t join Fleetwood Mac.” We take our place in a booth in the newly refurbished Saddle Room, which is all mirrors and velvet and upholstered in a garish shade that might be described as boudoir gold. Wood squints uncomfortably. “Christ, it looks like Rod Stewart’s trousers,” he says.

The Shelbourne is Wood’s favourite Dublin haunt. “I’ve a good old affiliation with this hotel,” he says. “When we played the Point Depot five years ago we were based here. It was like the Stones coming home to my town.” Wood has lived in Dublin on and off since the early 1990s, when he bought a second home in the southern suburb of Sandymount, searching for a sanctuary for his art and music, and shelter from the British exchequer. He transformed the cow byre into recording studios and the stables into a personal pub called “Yer Father’s Yacht”. It seems a dangerous place for a fitfully recovering alcoholic like Wood; there are 20 more pubs within a square mile of his front door. He looks at the menu reluctantly: “I’m not really hungry at all,” he says. Eventually we opt for 12 oysters from County Clare followed by the seafood platter to share. Nothing stronger than caffeine is ordered, though Wood is going through another well-publicised bout of heavy drinking. “A friend came over last night – I hadn’t seen him for years. We had a few drinks. It ended up being seven in the morning.”

Though he has been woken up for the interview only an hour earlier, Wood is lucid and charming, especially when an espresso arrives to kick-start the conversation. I mention his latest art exhibition, Ireland Studio, a six-week show at his Scream gallery in Mayfair. The exhibition features paintings and pen-and-inks produced – mostly through the night – at his Irish pile over the past 10 years. Free of tour commitments – this year the Stones are on sabbatical after two and a half years on the road – he has been able to spend more time in Ireland with his two Great Danes.

Wood’s interest in art dates back to the early 1960s, when he was a student at Ealing Art College, but he took it up commercially for “grocery money” in the mid-1980s when he had blown a considerable portion of his Stones money on a cocktail of drugs and comically disastrous managers. He flicks through a pile of prints of the front garden of the Priory Clinic, where he has been a regular in-patient; moonscapes from the west of Ireland at night; and horses racing on the Irish turf. Sir Peter Blake and Lucian Freud are among fans of his art: “He [Freud] told Mick [Jagger] that he loves my landscapes. That’s a compliment, from the greatest living artist.” Tracey Emin is a friend: “She’s like my aunt. She rings me up every day to ask how I’m doing.” He pauses and confides mischievously: “Tracey thinks she can draw.”

Most of his collectors are Stones fans in the US: “The leading cancer-curing doctor in Florida – much to his wife’s chagrin – spends most of his money on my paintings. She says: ‘Oh, please don’t sell the house and buy another Ronnie painting!’ Though his portrait of the Stones in a Jacobean interior, “Beggars’ Banquet”, sold in 2005 to a private collector for $1m, he is pricing his Irish landscapes at between £10,000 and £50,000. Deals, he makes clear, can be struck.

Wood has become a kind of official portraitist to the court of celebrity over the past decade – ever since Andrew Lloyd Webber commissioned him to paint the famous patrons of the restaurant The Ivy in the early noughties. Now a Ronnie Wood sitting has become as much a signifier of the upper reaches of stardom as a Hello! wedding deal. His waiting list includes the Stones-mad French president, Nicolas Sarkozy: “I met him and Gordon Brown and he was desperately trying to put me on the phone with Carla Bruni. There are all these people like Scorsese, Clinton, Beckham...” but he trails off, as if bored of the fame whirligig: “I’m trying to get away from the commissions so that I can do what I want,” he says. “This new exhibition is more the stuff that I want to do – landscapes, dogs, horses.” The plate of oysters arrives. Wood is a fan of their nutritional properties. “They’ve got everything you need – all the vitamins and minerals. They keep the zinc up,” he says with a mock leer. Discussion moves to his other day job. I ask whether age has calmed Richards who, Wood recalled in his autobiography, used to hold an arsenal of guns and knives that would be drawn during band frictions. “It’s still on the verge, you know,” he deadpans. “Murder is still quite an easy option. You have to be on your toes all the time.” Nevertheless, Wood is more appreciated now by his fellow Stones than he was when he left the Faces to join them in 1975. For years, as a latecomer who joined when the band had already made their fortune, he had to negotiate his fee on a rising scale for every tour and album. “There was a 17-year apprenticeship,” he says. “Charlie and Bill stood up for me. Nice of them to do that, because they could have carried on looking the other way. I’m part of the empire, finally.” In spite of the Strolling Bones jibes, he thinks the Stones have never sounded better in their 45-year history than they did on the final dates of their tour at the O2 arena last August. He says there’s “talk in the air” of another tour next year.

It must feel odd, I say, to go from playing in front of a crowd of a million in Rio to sitting at home. He becomes melancholic. “I’m more lost when I’m not on tour. I’m in a bit of a muddle at nine o’clock – ‘Where’s the stage?’ On tour there are people directing and supervising you. And then when you finish it’s like, ‘Sit down and watch TV.’ Sometimes I get so bored I think I’ll have a drink. I don’t mean any harm but I just go off the rails.” He points out, however, that he did manage to catch himself last month when he checked in for treatment ahead of his daughter Leah’s wedding so that he didn’t miss the big day. A torrent of alcohol runs through Wood’s life. His account of his upbringing in a council house in Middlesex, the third son of “water gypsies” who had left their barges for dry land, sounds like a preparatory school for a career in rock ‘n’ roll. His father, Archie, played in a 24-piece harmonica band that toured the racetracks of England. At home, there were weekend singalongs around the piano that got so boisterous that a crack appeared in the middle of the house. When the family lawn was dug up 1,700 Guinness bottles were discovered. This may sound impossibly romantic, but his relationship with drink turned darker when, while he was still a teenager, his girlfriend was killed travelling to one of his first gigs: “When Stephanie got killed I sort of drowned my sorrows,” he tells me, “and I suppose I’ve never looked back since.” Does he worry about his own health? He’s dismissive: “Here I am at 61 and I’ve never felt better. I’ve never had a cleaner bill of health. I was just in the Mayr Clinic in Austria. They said, ‘We want to use you as an example of how we want people to end up.’ They said I had the body of a 40-year-old.”

As our seafood platter arrives, Wood dips straight into the crab claws. “These are really cool. I don’t know which sauce you put on them.” As he plumps for the shallots and vinegar, the conversation turns to Jimi Hendrix, with whom he shared a flat for six months in the late 1960s. “He didn’t think he was any good as a singer. I used to say, ‘Don’t worry about that voice.’ He used to obliterate real life by being stoned all the time – and he couldn’t handle it. He didn’t realise how good he was.” His last memory of seeing Hendrix alive, the night before he died in 1970, is haunting. “He was leaving Ronnie Scott’s [jazz club]. He had his arm around a girl and he looked really sad. I went out after him and said, ‘Jimi, you didn’t say goodnight.’”

I try to lighten the mood by asking about the Wood clan – who all seem to have found jobs in the family business. He married Jo, a former model, 23 years ago after splitting with his first wife Krissie, another model. Jo is on the Stones payroll as his dresser and assistant on tour, in between running her organic beauty products business. His stepson Jamie is his manager, and his youngest son Tyrone is curating Wood’s latest exhibition at Scream.

The “Little Red Rooster” ringtone on Wood’s phone sounds. He seems agitated. The call brings news, he says, of The Sun door-stepping his home in Kingston, south-west London. A few days after our lunch I realise that he had been given news that the paper was about to write a story about how during the week of our meeting, he was holed up with a young Russian waitress. Whatever domestic earthquakes are going on in the background, he returns quickly to conviviality, suggesting we finish lunch with a drink elsewhere. Though he is great company, it’s something of a relief when his PR appears to steer him to his next engagement and saves me from making the decision. As we leave the hotel, the kitchen staff lift their ladles and knives in salute, out on the street car horns honk, and Wood poses for an endless round of photos with passers-by, loving every second of it. “That’s always been a big problem with me,” he says with a grin that fades to exasperation: “I find it hard to get old and hard to say no.”

‘Ireland Studio’ is at Scream, 34 Bruton Street, London W1 until August 17; www.screamlondon.com The Saddle Room The Shelbourne Hotel, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2 12 x Clare Atlantic oysters €33.00 1 x Seafood platter €44.00 3 x Espresso 13.50 Total €90.50