#extremists to the point of caring about THEIR own morality instead of the rest

[australet789]

nah, sorry i 100% prefer movie!JD to musical!JD

He is way too romanticized in the musical, specially when the whole thing is about NOT romanticizing suicide because how it became "mainstream" because of Heather C's death.

Martha's and Heather M's stories are there for that, to show how there are damaged kids no one would listen. Making the last part about JD dismisses their arcs, makes it about JD doing it out for "love" of Veronica, when he wasnt, he was just trying to prove a point.

For me the musical takes that nuance away

[vintageseawitch]

this is what i think of when third party voters go around acting morally superior because they don't want to get their hands dirty like the rest of us. they're toddlers having temper tantrums because instead of using the system in a way that could benefit them in the long term like the extremist Republicans have been doing for decades, third party voters refuse to participate in local civics & then claim the entire country is already fascist. they're so cute in their naivety if they think the US can't get any worse.

what the fuck do you think will happen if you try to protest against a government with a military as massive, lethal, & expensive as ours. who do you think will be sacrificed first? oh what's that? crickets? thought so. i'm a white woman but i will absolutely use my voice to point out leftists can be racist as fuck & the anti-blackness in your spaces can be absolutely fucking wild. not everyone leftist is white, but many that are can be pretty problematic.

if you think i'm selfish then fine. if you state that you would gladly exchange my life for a Palestinian like one of you said in a comment to me a few weeks ago then fine. i'm out here fighting to make sure the people who live here in this country don't experience our own Holocaust.

if you have a problem with people wanting to fight this while claiming you're anti-genocide, you're a fucking liar & a hypocrite. you won't know what the fuck to do in a true fascist country. i don't doubt there are pockets of fascism already existing here but you thinking it's already the worst it can be is as infuriating as people who think the government is creating their massive hurricanes using weather machines. you sound just as childish & delusional. you already sound like children because you will never take responsibility for your choices if it ends up helping him win.

jill stein's campaign is a sham. she is deliberately running as a spoiler. she's a wealthy white woman who lives in a mostly white affluent neighborhood. she's going around lecturing black people about white supremacy. she is getting funds from Republicans as well as help from trump's lawyers. Lockheed Martin has given her money. she's involved in shady as fuck index funds for companies that harm the environment. she only started talking about Gaza during this election cycle to hit you in the feelings so she can bank on it. she made a whole stink about needing a recount, raised a bunch of money for that, & then that money disappeared who knows where. do you all hear this? do you care? no, you're just like maga with their orange Jesus. you don't give a FUCK about stein's red flags because she's "different."

if Harris loses & you blame anyone but yourselves, you're cowardly traitors who threw us regular Americans to the wolves because of your precious fucking principles. history has shown time & time again that protest voting typically allows something worse to take control. it's hardly ever beneficial to the people. you're vile. you don't want to make this world a better place by allowing so many near you to suffer & die. if both sides are the same then please tell me you're okay with another trump presidency. or just shut the fuck up.

i look forward to more potentially heartwarming messages saying that my life doesn't mean shit from people who allegedly are against the death penalty & are pro-human rights 🥰

please vote, don't stop talking about Project 2025, etc. i hope enough of us vote in a way that these pathetic third party voters don't gain any kind of traction. at this point i'm just angry at their hypocrisy when they don't even listen to other protestors who live here & are begging them to not vote third party. i refuse to listen to y'all not take responsibility for your part. Project 2025 will hurt us all but apparently you're okay with that or you think it's already here. smooth brain takes all around. anyways good luck & stay safe to anyone who votes blue 💙

[alectology-archive]

sorry, I did want to comb over gawyn’s chapters once again before I responded (and no!! I absolutely love discussing stuff, long posts are fun to read) and I did like the little mind exercise of trying to viewing him more sympathetically (you got me there like 30% of the way there and that’s a Lot because I just really don’t care for him and feel there are a lot of secondary characters who probably could do with that attention instead) but I guess I do get why people like him a little now? but at the end of the day I still can’t really see myself sympathising with him much because he has very few POVs and no real explanation for his behaviour being offered. he also insists on transferring blame for his mistakes on other people while 90% of our other protagonists very much own up to them and work to do better so the contrast doesn’t sit well with me (although it’s fascinating that elayne is the only real trakand who turned out Right because gawyn and galad are... well).

I still feel galad is the better sibling, though, because he has a very clear arc about learning to outgrow flawed modes of judgement and decision making. young men are... very susceptible to the sort of things that the whitecloaks promise and it was good rj explored that, just like he explored the toxic masculinity thing with rand and lan. I think what frustrates me more is that I don't know where gawyn's arc was headed tbh... like with perrin. another character I notably don’t enjoy because he’s all over the place.

I’m going to go ahead and put the rest of the post under a cut because this is getting very long at this point

Some things I want do want to note are that:

I’ll still refer to the tower schism as a coup because 1. it’s convenient 2. the aes sedai do agree that it was barely legal 3. the black ajah fully played a major part in it with the intention of ousting siuan 4. a lot of blood was shed 5. the blues were ousted from the tower entirely and elaida proceeded to violate a lot of customs and institute draconian measures to ensure that she remained in power. she’s an extremist, and I think a politically trained noble... should have the sense to recognise that it’s dangerous to have that kind of a person in power. whether or not it’s Really a Coup is just a matter of semantics to me.

In the eye of the world, gawyn expresses a lot of disdain and distrust for elaida and doesn’t like that she advices his mother, so I’m not certain how he really hoped to gain anything by picking her over siuan during the coup. it woudn’t help him find elayne or egwene in any possible way. it’s a very extreme reaction to a very valid frustration that siuan had potentially put his loved ones in danger. he would’ve probably been more successful if he’d just tried to contact his mother and let her know that elayne was being endangered by the amyrlin to let her use political leverage to get answers from siuan (although ofc I’m not certain how that plot would have evolved since morgase was being controlled by rahvin by then). I think it’s very abundantly clear that siuan and elaida are very different kinds of people from the get-go, and elaida is very visibly uncompassionate and doesn’t care for any opinions that non-reds might have, much less young men.

RJ was exploring the mistakes that disillusioned young men enamoured by the idea of glory, honour and heroics committed with gawyn, the younglings, and galad, so I’m pretty certain that gawyn’s arc was definitely meant as a critique of him in the shadow rising just like galad’s pivot to the whitecloaks was in the fires of heaven.

RJ also treats the mentor-mentee relationship like it’s almost a sacred thing, if not a parental bond entirely, so to me it came across like gawyn was fully crossing a line that should never have been crossed, because those warders were very kind to him and galad (and it’s not that I don’t care to see those kinds of things explored! I love morally grey characters! again, gawyn just can’t commit to anything and constantly sulks for making mistakes that he consciously walked into and that just really... irks me, lol. he can’t blame the universe for things sucking when he has only himself to blame entirely for how things turn out).

I do fully believe gawyn and galad deserved better answers from siuan though, but I’m not sure that conversation would’ve ever gone down well. Aes sedai generally have a problem with communicating and it’s always come back to cause problems for them in the series. RJ is fully critiquing the flaws that most governing bodies are susceptible to with them. and of course, siuan’s arc is inevitably framed as a tragedy for a reason. She didn’t expect to be betrayed and toppled by somebody she never considered a real threat.

I do kind of disagree about elaida, though? I admittedly don’t have a very positive opinion about her because I read new spring before the shadow rising and it coloured how I approached her character. Elaida is very, very vehemently opposed to the idea of allying with the dragon reborn - she also did send a group of reds to gentle the asha’man in book 8 - and she specifically chose to act before siuan declared an attempt to ally with rand because she always preferred to use him as a tool / an object that would bestow her with the legitimity to rule as she pleased and approach dealing with the last battle only on her terms. 

I think he could’ve at least gotten a message to somebody who mattered about rand though ahhh, I really really don’t think him intervening would have been a good idea for him (or the younglings). but again, it always circles back to him just turning a blind eye to the sort of ugly treatment rand was subjected to. he does agonise a lot over a lot of his decisions but he never does anything to try to fix his mistakes or extricate himself from sticky situations.

I don’t even hate gawyn that much (he mostly annoys me) but I picked him anyway on that annoying men poll because um. gawyn did very much take part in a coup. he killed his own teachers when they sided against him. he can’t dedicate himself to any cause for more than 2 seconds. the fact that he can’t even commit is what really annoys me ok. he didn’t try to get more information first before proceeding to act impulsively. he did inardvetently cause 90% of the problems in the series, unlike galad who left a net positive impact although the whitecloak part was rancid and misguided. siuan was literally primed to form an alliance with rand. all of that was very much a thing. and he stuck with elaida just because he didn’t want to admit he was wrong. he constantly refuses to take advice and legit info from his own allies all the time and prefers to pick his emotions even when they’re completely baseless. remember when he took a peddler’s word over egwene’s? he also did promise egwene that he wouldn’t hurt rand, and I’m not even mad at him for not helping rand when he got kidnapped (although he certainly could have found a way to help him because goddamn no enemy deserves to be treated like an animal), but I’m mad that he violated her trust. gawyn when you tell him 1 +1 = 2 -> “in my heart it’s 3 and I’ll kill people over it 💖” he’s the modern equivalent of like a conspiracy theorist. or at least very easily fooled by them.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 272 “Ipopte”

New chapter and I didn’t think I would feel so bad for what happens here but I do so sorry if I won’t deliver everything well but this chapter... it was really painful.

The sentence is a reference to Giovanni Falcone’s quote “Gli uomini passano, le idee restano. Restano le loro tensioni morali e continueranno a camminare sulle gambe di altri uomini.” (“Men pass, ideas remain. Their moral tensions live on and will continue walking on other men's legs.”).

Kiro, Boutarou and Ariko’s deaths weren’t useless, they sacrificed themselves to protect other lives. The shame is on those who killed them, not on them.

Anyway...

We start with a colour chapter that basically sums up Sugimoto and Asirpa’s first meeting as it’s the scene in which Asirpa helped Sugimoto to get up after they killed the bear.

In a way it tells us that things are coming to full circle.

We’ve started this way, now we’re really close to see how we’ll end.

The worst part is maybe to see how cute this image that started the chapter is, now that I know how tragic the chapter itself is. And the story might be going on the same track. Everything started so nice and optimistic… and now…

Anyway we begin with a flashback, the flashback of how, during the battle of Mukden, Kikuta and Ariko’s trench was bombed and they had to spend the whole night there before being found, talking each other to make sure they were alive, only a sliver of moon visible (chap 207).

For Kikuta that moment was a really important moment of bonding with Ariko, but we weren’t explained why. Now we’re about to be told about it.

We start the scene with Kikuta checking if Ariko is still alive, which Ariko confirms. They had bandaged their wounds and, apparently can’t move. Kikuta tells Ariko to talk so they’ll know they’re alive. Everything is fine. Trapped there, seriously wounded and forgotten or assumed death, in almost complete darkness with only a tiny sliver of moon visible… their situation is clearly scary.

Kikuta, the officer, realizes they need to talk. To tell each other they’re alive, to distract themselves, to comfort themselves by reminding each other they aren’t alone.

And, since he’s an officer, he asks Ariko to talk because that’s the best way he has to make sure the latter is alive and properly distracted. He’s willing to listen him whatever Ariko wants to say, even if he points out something upbeat would be nice (superior officers normally didn’t listen to soldiers talking about what they wanted).

Ariko says once back home he would like to practice making a Makiri. Kikuta knows what a Makiri is, an Ainu knife. He probably learnt it when they met Ariko’s father, Siromakur, who told them he was making a Makiri for his son.

Ariko explains for Ainu they’re important because girls will accept them as husband according to the craftsmanship of the one they give to them as a present. Kikuta thinks this is because Ariko is afraid to be turned down by a girl he likes.

Ariko explains that’s not the case, the Makiri will be for himself.

He explains some parents might teach in details how to make Makiri to their sons, but his own father thought Ariko could learn doing one just by watching him doing one. Ariko though admits he wasn’t interested in watching him.

The way this scene is structured is good. There are three panels. In one there’s Ariko, in the other there’s Kikuta, in the middle there’s Siromakur.

Unknown to Ariko both of them are thinking to Siromakur as he carved the Makiri. Noda places them in symmetrical position but Ariko’s eyes are looking away from the central panel, as if unable to look at his father as he admits he wasn’t interested in what he was trying to teach him. Kikuta instead seems to look straight at him, straight at the guilt he feels for that man’s death.

Ariko goes on explaining at that time he basically didn’t see any difference between Wajin and Ainu. He would fight who were to make fun of him even if he were an Ainu and he would help who were to need him even if he were a Wajin.

Ariko believed worrying about the Ainu's future is a burden, something he doesn’t care about. Basically he’s saying to him they’re all humans, there’s no Ainu and Wajin, but also that he believes he has no special ties with his traditions and culture and he’s not interested in carrying them in the future.

He probably would prefer to be just a ‘nihon-jin’ a Japanese, without divisions between Ainu and Wajin.

It would be beautiful if everyone could be just like Ariko, if we could respect each other without having to defend our identity and without seeing it being trampled upon or misrepresented, or appropriated, or condemned.

The world though, is not so nice, and sometimes you’ve to fight just for the right to... exist.

Yeah, the world is actually a terrible place.

Ariko doesn’t wish for a conflict between Wajin and Ainu… but the conflict exists and he can’t sit out or turn his eyes away from it… which doesn’t mean to take an extremist position, but just being aware and take a stance.

Still, maybe because when he talks with Kikuta he is a little older than how he looks in the flashback when he watches at his Ainu clothes and thinks the Ainu business is a pain, he is starting to understand the importance of his own tradition, of his own culture, of how sad it would be if it were to go completely lost.

Each culture is precious, when it gets erased is a loss for the whole humanity. We know this now, we clumsily try to protect them, but GK takes place in the past and few had this awareness.

Ariko still manages to realize how his father’s Makiri had a design passed down for generation. It’s a design that ties him to the past generations, to the history of his family. It’s part of his history but, in more simpler terms, it’s also part of what ties Ariko to his father. A line that travel from Ariko to the past of his ancestors, or from them to Ariko as Ariko believes his father wanted to pass it down to him as well... in the hope Ariko would pass it down too, tying past and future together.

Ariko’s father has probably realized Ariko at the time had little interest in Makiri making… but that the interest might come in the future. Siromakur accepts Ariko is young and wants to fit in the world he’s in, instead than just being concerned with the Ainu problems, but he seems to think by growing up Ariko might also grow to understand the importance of his past, of their past and traditions.

That’s why he was making for him a Makiri when Ariko became a soldier, because even if Ariko at the moment had no wish to learn how to make a Makiri, as long as he had a Makiri with himself, he would be always able to duplicate it should he wish to do so.

And, although I think he handled the whole gold thing very poorly, a side of me loves Siromakur as a father.

He accepts and respects his son’s wishes but, at the same time considers Ariko might grow to change his mind and doesn’t want for it to happen when it’s too late.

Ariko doesn’t want to learn to carve a knife now?

Fine, he’ll give him the means to learn to carve one when he will feel ready to do so. I think he genuinely wanted Ariko to learn. I think although he too didn’t want a conflict with the Wajin, he loved his culture and wanted to pass it down to Ariko… but still, he respected Ariko’s will and gave him space.

However Ariko admits his father didn’t make in time to end the Makiri but died while carving it. Siromakur was hoping Ariko would have time to learn through the Makiri he would make for him… but fate is a cruel master and died before finishing the knife.

His Makiri went missing too, so Ariko can’t replicate it and regrets it, regrets what he now has lost and can’t recover. With tears in his eyes he admits he should have watched his father more closely and it’s clear it’s not just about the Makiri that he won’t be able to duplicate.

That Makiri, the memories of him watching his father making one and teaching him, could have been something to whom he could latch now that his father wasn’t alive anymore. Ariko though wasted that time and now his father is dead and he’s left with nothing in his hands.

And his wish to learn to make a Makiri is an attempt to recover what he has lost, to reconnect with his father now that his father is no more. In chap 247 Ariko reminds him as a gentle man who never spoke much.

He can’t believe he was planning to buy weapons and he’s right. Siromakur wasn’t. He wanted to mediate. Maybe the fact Siromakur was silent made Ariko feel like his father was distant… but the fact he was gentle clearly told Ariko he cared.

And so we see this grown man crying because he lost his father… and his pain is real and easy to empathize.

As Kikuta doesn’t comment, Ariko asks him if he’s alive. Kikuta confirms he is and apologizes. Ariko reminds him to make a response once in a while if he’s alive. In answer Kikuta rests his hands on Ariko’s shoulder and apologizes.

He’s clearly not apologizing for having fallen silent but for having been what caused Ariko’s loss. Kikuta regretted Siromakur’s death and now he regrets it even more as he knows he’s responsible for Ariko’s pain. In a way I think Kikuta subconsciously grew so close to Ariko also due to this, it’s as if he wanted to ‘adopt him’ to make up for the loss he has caused him.

We’re back in the present and we’ve another page with a good panel structure.

On the top we see Kikuta, head down, likely still bothered by the situation. I’m pretty sure he can guess what Tsurumi is doing to Asirpa and he’s not liking it… but he’s not fighting it either. He regrets but doesn’t act because it wouldn’t be advantageous to him. Kikuta plays safe.

On the lower part of the page there’s Ariko, Ariko who instead is going to act, to fight. He’s more aware of his position now and he’s going to take a side, to take a risk. Now he’s letting the whole matter affect it. He has grown up and he’s aware he lives in a terrible world and he’s going to take a position and try to fight for the right cause… even if it might be disadvantageous to him. Ariko is going to take a risk.

In the middle the church where everything is taking place.

Ariko gets in the room as Tsurumi, who has heard the code from Asirpa, grabs the skins, tosses them on the ground and scans them quickly, trying to decode the code with Asirpa’s keyword.

Ariko approaches, his arrival surprising Tsukishima who’s still spying the scene.

Ariko claims he’s there to tell him the location of Hijikata’s hideout so they can attack it. Asirpa is surprised but Ariko is actually using that as an excuse to cut Asirpa’s rope with his Makiri. I wonder if that Makiri is the one who stayed unfinished or his father’s one.

Tsurumi easily sees through him and doesn’t even bother move.

Ariko crumbles, clearly afraid, he’s a honest person and a fail as an actor, points his gun at Tsurumi and demands for him to give them the tattooed skin. As Tsukishima takes his rifle, Asirpa finishes freeing herself.

Tsukishima and Koito comes in, weapons in hands, Tsukishima wounding Ariko. Asirpa frees Sofia even if Ariko hurries her to escape.

Sugimoto and Shiraishi, hearing the shoots, run toward the church with the bottle-mobile, Kikuta also runs there while Sofia grabs a bench and tosses it in Ariko and Tsukishima’s direction, causing the door to close. The bench then falls on Tsurumi but he’s so caught up he doesn’t care.

Sofia, Asirpa and Ariko runs out. Sugimoto doesn’t even stop but the trio tries to jump on the bottle-mobile as it’s running. Ariko raises Asirpa so that Shiraishi can help her to climb up, Sofia gets in Ariko… Ariko is shoot in the leg and falls.

Tsukishima and Koito are out. The bullet was clearly shoot by Tsukishima, I’m not sure if Koito also has shoot. Ariko shoots back but gets no one. Asirpa calls him but Ariko urges them to go without stopping. He knows he’s giving his life to help her, he knows he’s entrusting their future to her.

He has no hesitation as he tells her to go.

The bottle-mobile passes in front of Kikuta. Sugimoto and Kikuta see each other and confirm they’re really the vagrant boy and Kikuta-san.

As Sugimoto realizes so, his eyes seem bigger and they’re really clear and shiny. I wonder if the idea is that seeing Kikuta brings him back to a time in which he was younger and less jaded.

Kikuta then sees Ariko on the ground and moves toward him, asking him what’s going on.

Ariko is still on the ground and says his name as he sees him moving closer. Ariko knows Kikuta cares about him, he knows Kikuta wanted to save him. They had a bond in a way.

He trusts him, he doesn’t try to aim his weapon at him.

I don’t think he hopes Kikuta will save him though, I think he’s just sad... but at least he’s not alone...

... he’s not alone as Tsukishima is next to him and shoots him in the heart, killing him immediately.

I would like to think maybe Tsukishima did so because he thought Ariko would have tried shooting Kikuta... but it’s clear that wasn’t going to be the case. Ariko has made no attempt to aim at Kikuta.

Tsukishima is just mercilessly getting rid of Ariko, a man who dared to oppose to Tsurumi and his ‘oh so wonderful goal of salvation for those who bow his head to him’.

Kikuta is clearly shocked beyond belief. His eyes go all white, with no irises or pupils.

Asirpa calls Ariko’s Ainu name, the only name she has used for him, ‘Ipopte’. She’s shocked too although her pupils are really tiny dots.

We can’t see the face of who’s with her. Will Noda draw them in the volume version? Or is the idea she’s the only one who truly cared and suffers, suffers for the loss of a man, an Ainu like her, who gave his life to save her own?

I don’t know but still what Noda does is interesting because he shows Ariko, who believed Ainu and Wajin were no different, mourned terribly by both a Wajin and an Ainu.

There’s no difference in that moment between Kikuta and Asirpa. Both suffer for Ariko’s death. They’re the better world Ariko believed in where people is just people, not Wajin or Ainu but humans.

Sadly they aren’t the only ones in this world.

Tsukishima walks past Kikuta.

For the first time in the story, with the exclusion of the flashback with him and Igogusa/Harumi Chiyo, we can see there’s light in Tsukishima’s eyes.

His eyes aren’t anymore completely black, they’re shining, there’s light in them.

He has killed Ariko, but he’s no more Tsurumi’s mindless executor. He’s a believer now. He believes Tsurumi’s cause with all his heart and therefore Ariko’s death isn’t something to regret, but something he had to do in order to reach his goal.

He can go back to the church, leaving Ariko’s body under the rain.

In a past meta I wondered if Tsukishima would overcome his vice of Acedia and find salvation or not.

Well, this scene feels like an answer to it.

This new Tsukishima… now cares for his goal, but not for the people who’ll have to die for him to reach it. He won’t feel bad anymore, he’ll march on.

He likely now believes his place is with Tsurumi, not out of obligation but because he wants it.

He decided so and his decision gives him life. And, I think, this is Noda’s way to prepare us to when the Tiger’s curse will strike. Tsukishima is no more a victim of his own Acedia. He’s an active and willing participant. And I’m sad.

Because I knew the Tiger’s curse would befall on him but still I was hoping Tsukishima would… I don’t know, find a way to… get forgiven, that he would grow and manage to pull himself out of this situation and toward a better path and instead… he has grown but he also has decided this is what he wants. And this is maybe the saddest thing, that even if Tsukishima changed, even if he grew… well in the end not only it changed nothing but it made it worse.

Still, it makes sense it’s Tsukishima who kills Ariko, because both, in a way, didn’t want to take a position, Tsukishima blindly following Tsurumi even though he didn’t know if he were trustworthy, Ariko wishing he wouldn’t have to follow anyone.

In the end they both took a stance, Ariko decided he would help who’s in need of help, Asirpa, his people, Tsukishima decided to trample over those who would get in the ‘salvation’ Tsurumi claimed he would offer to those who would submit to him.

Ariko dies, but his sacrifice isn’t pointless. He died to do a good thing, to save someone, and by saving Asirpa he will allow others to live.

Tsukishima lives but I’m willing to bet nothing good will come for him or his cause by taking Ariko’s life, because really, nothing good can come from taking a life, especially if it was the life of a good man. Tsukishima can walk away with light in his eyes but, to me, it feels like with this act he has willingly killed what was good inside him. He’s killing the companions he believes Tsurumi would save who can see there’s no salvation in Tsurumi’s words. He’s self destroying his goal and he’s not even realizing him.

He comes to side with the worst of the world. Same as when he took part to the murder of Kiro but now worse. At this point… I don’t think there’s a chance of salvation for him, and while it’s sad because Tsukishima was a character I like… well, Tsukishima has done his choice. And it was the wrong one.

[mbti-notes]

Hi. My boyfriend is a Trump supporter and I'm more liberal. I'm infp, he's esfj. We try not to talk politics much but it feels like I'm losing my integrity dating someone who has opposing views on things that matter. I do however love him and want to make things work. Where's the middle ground to make genuine peace?

It’s quite a shame that the national conversation in American politics gets reduced to what is essentially sports betting and entertainment. This problem manifests as binary thinking that doesn’t allow any space for the careful deliberation that is required to address complex political, economic, and social issues. Talk to enough people and you will see that most people’s political views can’t be neatly divided into red or blue. Just because someone votes for one particular candidate/party, doesn’t mean that they agree with every little thing that candidate/party ends up doing. For example, surveys have shown that many Republicans dislike Trump himself but they still vote for the promises that he makes to enact conservative policies. Many Democrats are much more progressive than the party itself, but they’ll still vote blue because some progress on the issues is better than no progress on the issues (or, worse, regression).

How does this relate to your question? Trumpism has indeed fractured many relationships in the past four years. Sometimes, for good reason. While it’s possible to find middle ground on many political issues, some beliefs and values simply cannot be reconciled. For instance, you can’t believe in racial equality and be a white supremacist, can you? Is there middle ground to be found there? Would you “compromise” and say that it’s okay to be racist in your mind as long as you don’t wear a white hood and harass people? No.

You mention “losing my integrity”, which means that what you’re actually concerned about is morality rather than politics - there is a difference between them. I’ll give you an example of the disconnect between morality and politics. If you ask people whether they support a specific policy that improves education or healthcare, more often than not, they’ll support it, since few people are so extremist as to want to dismantle the entire education or healthcare system. But once you attach the policy to a political candidate/party, people start to divide themselves along their "team” or tribal allegiances. They’ll refuse to support a policy that they would otherwise agree with just because they don’t want to “help the enemy”. Political psychology is riddled with irrational decision making.

If morality is your actual concern, then here’s my suggestion: For the moment, forget about which candidate or party your boyfriend supports, because it’s far too easy to fall into binary thinking or crude stereotypes by doing that. Don’t use a person’s political beliefs to assume their moral beliefs, because, as per above, people’s beliefs and values rarely align perfectly with the party that they vote for. So, instead, focus solely on what his moral beliefs are.

When you say “losing my integrity”, clarify what that means exactly. Which beliefs and values would someone have to hold in order to constitute a violation of your moral beliefs and values? For instance, if you believe in equality, then you should not be able to tolerate beliefs and values that promote hate, prejudice, and discrimination, right? In other words, what are your moral “deal-breakers”, with regard to the issues that you care about? 

Once you’re clear on that, examine what his moral beliefs and values are to see exactly whereabouts you agree or disagree. You must go through this step of clarifying where you both stand morally before you engage in a political discussion. Start by clarifying the moral beliefs, then discuss which political party one should vote for with those beliefs, based on the policies/legislation that each of the parties have a proven history of supporting/resisting. This process is not only a good way to clarify the true nature of the conflict in the relationship, it also serves as a good foundation on which to persuade people to change their political beliefs to better reflect their moral beliefs, should you choose to advocate and persuade.

Are you really in a “relationship” when you don’t communicate about the things that matter to you and thus don’t really know each other? Are you the kind of person who’s content living in your own little world, enjoying your couple’s paradise, without a care for what’s happening around you in the rest of society? If that’s who you are, then fine, bask in your privilege and ignore the politics. If that’s not who you are, then you need to talk about the differences with him and try to work them out, otherwise, the conflict is only going to simmer in the background and create underlying suspicion or resentment that ends up damaging the relationship at some point in the future anyway. 

There are times in history when political upheaval requires individuals to take a firm stand for what is right and against what is wrong. It seems that we are living through one of those periods, so how long can you keep your head buried in the sand and still feel like a person of integrity?

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

Pokémon Black: The Novel - Chapter 12 (Heart So Jetlagged)

Prologue and more info

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Pokémon Black: The Novel on FFN

Pokémon Black: The Novel on AO3

Pokémon Retold the series on AO3

----------------------------

After fleeing into the tree line, Marlon and the rest of the Team Plasma members present had soon been greeted by a gust of cold air. Each of them fell still and looked around nervously. Marlon was unsurprised when he spotted the two members of the Shadow Triad on either side of their ragtag group, but he was still unsettled by it. He gulped and backed away from the closest one slightly.

“About time,” Lancaster, face covered by a red bandana, muttered. Gorm hissed something at him, and he flinched.

“Thank you for the assistance, brothers,” Gorm said wearily as he bowed a head respectfully at one of the members of the Shadow Triad. The two members of the Shadow Triad bore dark leather clothing that left their eyes, midsection, and silvery white hair exposed. They moved forward and pressed the Team Plasma group closer and closer together, and then touched their fingertips to the shoulders of Marlon and Gorm respectively.

With a nauseating, out-of-body sensation that made his legs feel as if they disconnected from the rest of his body for a moment, Marlon and the rest of the group was dumped on the shimmering, cold floor of the castle. The floor was made of black tiles outlined in pale white, which made the floor look as if it were glowing. The walls were stark white and the hall yawned overhead of them, much taller than any ceiling had any right to be. Pillars carried the roof and allowed the ridiculously tall castle to keep its shape.

Slowly, they all staggered back to their feet. Marlon rubbed his temple and watched as the Shadow Triad members disappeared and reappeared just a few seconds later, this time with a passenger. Everyone reacted with a start and the group bolted into a straight line. Sage Gorm was the only one to remain calm, as he clenched a hand around his injured arm and regarded the passenger, Sage Ghetsis, with a curt, respectful nod.

“Sage Ghetsis,” Sage Gorm began tentatively, “we apologize for the… events of that mission.”

Sage Ghetsis overlooked the group of Team Plasma members in front of him with a cold, crimson stare. He paced back and forth just ahead of them with his left hand behind his back, but not his right. His gait created a unique sound as he moved across the floor, a click and then the sound of a shoe dragging on a hard, smooth surface, giving the tiniest of squeaks. Some might have found it funny, or others might have felt sorry for the partially paralyzed man, but Marlon and his teammates knew better. The familiar sound of his footsteps and the realization that there was no gathered crowd of people around them brought them nothing but panic.

“What was that?” Sage Ghetsis asked at last. He paused his pacing to stare at Marlon.

“What was… what was what, Lord Ghetsis?” Marlon asked in a strangled whisper.

“That mission!” the elderly man barked at him. “At your lead, a Sage has been injured and you were found by a child, the Shadow Triad tells me!”

Marlon shrank away from his harsh words and cruel glare. This was the downside of leading tasks and of tests for one’s eligibility for status as defenseman. The higher responsibility also brought higher consequences for failure. All of Team Plasma’s members faced high stakes in their line of work, of course; their goals were radical, even if they were for the sake of bettering the lives of pokémon. They could not afford careless mistakes. Even so, knowing that didn’t quell the quickening thrum of his heart.

“Gym Leader Lenora was much more persistent than expected,” Marlon mumbled at last, forcing the Humilau accent and slang from his dialogue with visible effort. He didn’t meet Sage Ghetsis’ eyes and stared instead at the bottom of the sage’s cloak, fixating on the dull blue pattern of an eye. “Despite the smokebomb, she immediately sent a search party out, and we couldn’t move but so fast with the skull… And Gym Leader Burgh apparently was in town as well…”

“Excuses,” Sage Ghetsis spat breathlessly. He gulped in a breath of air and then got into Marlon’s face. It required him to bend over slightly, giving him the appearance of hunching over Marlon, due to his height. Marlon instinctively lowered his head and his back tensed like a coil ready to spring. “You are no defenseman today and you are lucky if I don’t feed you to Hydreigon as it is! A Normal- and Bug-type gym leader should not give you issues, nor should a gym challenger fresh to the scene!”

Marlon wanted to defend himself. Part of his brain screamed at him to do so. Gym Leader Lenora had gotten the jump on them, and had decided, in a shocking display, to send her Watchog after one of them rather than wait to battle them, and the challenger had been with Burgh when he discovered them. As Team Plasma members only used pokémon that they had taken in with the intention of rehabilitating them, none of them tended to have full teams, or even pokémon that were willing to battle; his squadron had owned perhaps ten pokémon between all of them. It was likely the two gym leaders and the challenger had owned a dozen or more.

Yet, as Ghetsis continued to descend on him, Marlon’s lips remained as tightly sealed as ever. Instincts may have told him to do otherwise, but he knew defending what had happened back there was a futile effort. Regardless of the cause, in the end, their mission had ended in failure. Even if they no longer needed the skull, three people that knew of Team Plasma’s involvement were now free to broadcast what had happened to the world.

“Now I have quite the mess to clean up thanks to you,” Ghetsis growled.

“S-sir… won’t… won’t it be easy to brush it off as extremists?” Lancaster piped up with a cracking voice.

“Perhaps,” Ghetsis mused, “or perhaps rumors could start spreading that shake our core. As much as I try to make the public see our sense, I cannot guarantee their cooperation all of the time. Which is why we take such care to make sure operations such as these go unnoticed!” Ghetsis turned back to Marlon and brought his left leg up, swiping Marlon’s feet from under him. The rest of the Team Plasma members next to him bolted away from him immediately, watching with wide eyes as he hit the glossy floor on his knees.

“I’ve given you chance and chance again, Marlon,” Ghetsis sneered. “It may have taken you a few tries, but you always got there in the end. I thought recently that maybe that phase was over, that you had learned to put Team Plasma first, keep your focus. Was I wrong? Did I misjudge you?”

That was a loaded question that sent Marlon’s mind whirling. Saying yes meant indirectly insulting Ghetsis’ intelligence. Saying no meant further implicating himself. Opting to stay silent, he gingerly touched his knees with his hands, wincing at the bolts of pain from where he had met the hard floor with his kneecaps. He recognized his failure… he knew why succeeding was so important… what more did Ghetsis want…?

“I see you’re not as stupid as you look,” Ghetsis remarked at his silence with a snicker of wicked amusement. “You’ll return to active duty as a footman. I hear Sage Bronius could use some assistance in Castelia City as of late with errands.”

Gorm chuckled and a couple of the grunts shifted uncomfortably. Marlon found himself more and more irritated with the situation. Why was he being mocked so harshly? Why was it funny to them? Again, he thought desperately, he understood where he had failed! He understood the importance!

Then Ghetsis leaned down to him, grabbing his chin and lifting his face to meet his dark red eye and glittering monocle. The left side of his mouth was turned up in a grin while the right side failed to emote at all. “I do love this part, I must admit,” Ghetsis exhaled the words almost lustily, in a way that made Marlon’s skin crawl. He clenched his eyes shut and every muscle in his body tensed. “I love watching when you have all recognized your error and come back stronger than ever before, understanding what you must do to become a valued member of Team Plasma once more. There’s nothing like it.”

That wasn’t at all what Marlon had picked up from the look in Sage Ghetsis’ trained, malevolent eye. Dawning on him slowly, he realized that Ghetsis had finally taken it too far; wool had been lifted from Marlon’s eyes. The look Ghetsis had just given him was the pleasured expression of someone that enjoyed humiliation and pain. That thought had sent his mind reeling, questioning how someone so cruel could then preach and believe such lofty ideals as releasing pokémon from the ownership of critical, dangerous trainers. In one swift moment, he had concluded this: there was no way someone like that could believe ideas based in such empathy.

It was as if he was seeing the entirety of Team Plasma in a new light. It was too much for his mind to comprehend in that moment, and so he let Ghetsis demean him, allowed the scene to play out, all while he swallowed hard to try and keep from fainting in cold, icy fright. If what he was thinking were true, then…

It was just too horrible to think about. Beyond the personal implications for himself, sadness weighed down on his shoulders as he came to understand the idea he had fought for over the course of the last five years had likely been for nothing. Marlon truly had questioned the morality of people ‘owning’ pokémon, and he had seen firsthand actual pokémon abuse. His Tirtouga had come from a trainer that regularly neglected it to the point its shell had begun to deteriorate in a process known as ‘pyramiding.’ He truly believed changes needed to be made to how people viewed their fellow pokémon and had thought liberation sounded like a splendid way to change it, allow pokémon to be seen as equals, the class-like barriers broken…

Was he alone in this? he thought despairingly. Was this just a path to a lonesome defeat, no matter how he sliced it? What did this mean of Lord N, who had seemed so determined to meet that goal as well? Was he a fraud, too, or was he just as duped as Marlon had been? Those thoughts were by far the most sickening of the ideas racing through his mind.

“Get up,” Ghetsis snorted contemptuously at him. “I’m not done with you yet.”

 --------------

Bianca had managed to convince Hil and Cheren to remain in Nacrene City for a while following the Nacrene City Museum fiasco. She had bounced excitedly up and down as Cheren and Hil woke up, declaring that she had met some friends while they had been busy dealing with the theft, and she wanted them to meet her new friends. Hil had jokingly tossed a pillow her way and then used the second to cover his head.

“Five more minutes,” Hil complained. His entire body felt sore and somehow, he was still tired.

“Who are these friends?” Cheren had asked guardedly.

“Oh, come on! You’ll like them,” Bianca whined. Hil felt his pillow hit his hips and Noodle fell off his side with a hiss. “Oh! I’m sorry, Noodle!” Bianca immediately apologized. Hil moved the pillow from over his head and looked at her as she rushed over to apologetically pet the Snivy, who appeared to have already forgotten the cause of her remorse. Hil rolled his eyes at them and then jolted to sit upright as the rest of his pokémon flooded the bed after Bianca. Roadie the Patrat scurried up her arm and chattered excitedly around her ears.

“Your Disney princess entourage says no more minutes,” Bianca teased him. “They’re probably hungry and stuff. Besides, I think you’d really like to meet some of them!”

She continued to harp on about the idea until Cheren and Hil both relented. Hil wasn’t sure why Cheren had reservations over the idea. He had only been difficult because he was still tired after the exhausting day he’d had yesterday. His tiredness was all but forgotten as he remembered the badge he had been given yesterday and he excitedly added it to his badge case. It would have been easy for him to be upset that Lenora had seemed to just give it to him rather than make him fight for it, but after the favor he had performed for her yesterday, he selfishly thought he had more than earned that square of metal. He tucked the badge case away again and readied himself to meet Bianca’s friends.

Once he and Cheren were decent (Bianca had apparently gotten ready long before waking either of them), she eagerly helped them gather their things and discharge from the hostel room. She chattered away at them as she led them away from the Pokémon Center and toward one of the studio apartments down the road. Hil tried to keep up with her, but for once, he was lagging behind and his comments fell flat. Cheren had seemed to perk up at her excitement, and they held a conversation he felt completely out of place in. Once again he brought up the rear of the group and with a pang of loneliness, wondered if he’d ever find someone he could talk to as easily as Cheren and Bianca did with one another.

Sure, he was good friends with both, but it seemed like they had a connection on another level he wasn’t invited into. Hil could be quite outgoing if he wanted to, contrary to what his actions might have suggested thus far; prior to Vince’s accident, he had always been someone to know the name of every other person his age in town. But Vince’s accident had seemed to bring a curtain over every opportunity at friends he felt he had. Everyone’s decided treatment of him following the incident made making friends feel awkward, forced, and uncomfortable, to the point if they reacted strongly to who he was, he wouldn’t even try to make friends with them.

Perhaps that was why he had reacted so strongly to N’s declaration they could never be friends back in Accumula Town. Someone that had known nothing about him or his father had just decided, on conspiratorial ideas surrounding the usage of pokémon, that he wasn’t worth befriending. The thought brought a rush of heat over his entire body and he squared his shoulders slightly. The nerve of that man! And he felt especially angry at himself for having all but forgotten his anger in a bid to try and make N see the fault in viewing him that way back at the museum. Thank Arcues Cheren had been there, he thought bitterly.

“We’re here!” Bianca exclaimed. Hil paused and watched as she knocked on the door. Right away, it swung open, revealing a guy that looked to be about their age with rusty red hair and brilliant green eyes. He beamed at Bianca and threw his right arm out wide, the left still clutching the door.

“Bianca! You’re here! These your friends?” he asked curiously, craning his neck to look at Cheren and Hil. Hil curiously stared right back, his train of thought abandoned at the sight of the new guy.

“Yeah! Church, these are my friends Cheren,” Bianca prodded Cheren’s nose as she pointed him out making him swat her away with a flustered glare, “and that’s Hil! Hil, come say hi!”

“Hi,” Hil echoed stupidly without a second thought. Something seemed to breathe life into him as he hopped eagerly over to Bianca at the doorway. “I’m Hil! What’s your name?”

Noodle, curled around his shoulders as per usual, chittered at the guy at the door happily.

“Aw, that Snivy’s so cute!” the guy beamed again. Hil felt like a weight disappeared from his shoulders when he saw the guy made no reaction to his name, which told him he probably didn’t know about Hil’s relation to Vince, if he even knew about Vince’s accident. “Nice to meet you, Hil! I’m Churchill, but my friends just call me Church.”

Right, right, Bianca had just said his name… Hil chuckled in a little embarrassment.

“Anyway, you three come inside!” Church nodded, moving away from the door. Bianca rushed in after him and Hil followed hot on her heels, though he trailed Church through the apartment. It was at a respectful distance, but still obvious to everyone else. Upon entering, he noted that there were three others, girls, scattered throughout the apartment situated in front of canvases and drawing pads. Guiltily, he paid them little mind, drawn instead to the boisterous redhead, Church.

“So, Bianca tells me you two are on the gym challenge,” Church said to break the ice. He settled at a countertop in the far right of the room, peering just past a refrigerator to speak to everyone else in the room. His hair was well-combed but fell over his forehead messily and he pressed a palm lazily to his chin to hold his head up. “How’s that going? I hear the triplets and Lenora can be a real hurdle for new guys. Most give up on them.”

Hil opened his mouth to respond, but Cheren cut him off. Hil shut his mouth again to let his friend speak. That was just easier. Despite Cheren speaking, however, Hil only continued to stare at Church.

“The triplets were a little difficult because of that Work Up strategy,” Cheren stated thoughtfully. He had taken a seat on a navy couch next to Bianca, having scooted quite close to her, not that she seemed to mind as she shared hushed whispers with one of the girls that was drawing. “Really teaches one the importance of moves that aren’t just sheer power.” He then sighed. “Lenora, on the other hand… ugh, she was just strong. Honestly, if she didn’t use Take Down so much and wear her own team out with it, I feel like she’d have won. I really need to train more.”

Church nodded thoughtfully and then turned those flashing green eyes to Hil. “What about you?”

Hil couldn’t come up with a cohesive way to tell his story, and instead it came out as more of a stammering avalanche of words. “Well, I had to try against the triplets twice because I got nervous in front of the crowd but they weren’t that bad… Chili was really nice… yeah I faced him because my starter’s Snivy… Lenora, uh, I actually didn’t battle her… well I was going to! But then the whole thing happened yesterday and Burgh arrived and, you know, the smokebomb…”

“Whoa, whoa,” Church laughed, “slow down, I can barely understand you.” He cocked his head at Hil slightly and winked at him. “Don’t go getting nervous on us now, we’re art kids. We set the bar for what weird is.”

Hil snickered loudly at that and then cleared his throat to cut off the awkward laughter. “Uh… well… Lenora had me help with the incident at the museum yesterday,” he finally explained, “and she… she gave me a badge for that.”

“Whoa, you got to help out a gym leader?” one of the girls asked as she turned away from her canvas. She had darker skin and thick black hair. “That’s awesome! Some say that’s a way more genuine way of earning a badge than just a battle. Anyone can battle, but impressing a gym leader’s a big deal.”

Hil’s cheeks flushed with a twinge of red and he smiled awkwardly after her. “Th-thanks…”

Church hit a hand against the countertop excitedly. “Damn right it is! What did you do, man?”

Hil blinked fervently at him and swallowed. “What… what did I do what?”

Church howled in laughter, throwing his head back. “I like this guy. Where’d you find him?” he asked Bianca.

“Known him my whole life,” Bianca shrugged, giggling.

“Oh, another Nuvema kid,” Church nodded agreeably. “Nice little town. Shame what happened to that guy from it, though, in Castelia. I know some mates from Castelia that say he was a really good dude, no matter what those idiots on the news say.” He paused and slicked back some hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. “Me and my friends here are from Mistralton ourselves.” He rolled his eyes and imitated a plane sound poorly, earning laughter from everyone else in the room. “It’s so boring up there! And cold. And there’s nobody there. So that’s why we came down to Nacrene to try and express ourselves some. Find our path, you could say. We’re on our own journey! An artsy one, but still.”

Hil was hanging onto his every word. Not only did he barely know anything about Vince, but he didn’t feel strongly about it in any way. He was funny and charming and… it was so much different from trying to meet new people back at Nuvema, Accumula, or Striaton.

“Nothing much going on back in Nuvema, either,” Cheren chuckled. “Though, I can’t say the same about any town after that. Seems like we’ve had our run-in with crazy every which way we go. Team Plasma’s a real riot.”

“Dude, Team Plasma is wild,” Church agreed. “Kris! Tell them what you told me about your mom,” he said, turning to the last of the three girls, a platinum blond painting away with intense concentration etched in her pale face.

“My mom’s in the police force of Iccirus City,” she said quietly without ever looking away from her painting. Hil thought he recognized the subject as a Swadloon. “She says that there’s been all sorts of reports over bad stuff with them, but…” she trailed off and fell silent for a few seconds. She paused her painting at last and set the thin brush she had been using to the side. “She says that the police as a whole have no idea what to do about them. They just don’t have the resources to do a probe investigation,” she sighed. “And every time they go after individual people accused of committing crimes, they seem to vanish without a trace. You know, they took Stoutland out to track them once, a huge pack of them, and they still couldn’t find them. It was like the tracks just dropped off at one point, like they flew away or just blipped out of existence.”

“That’s not to even mention how the Pokémon League Staff have more sway over law than the government does,” Church picked up with an amused snort. “Which, since Team Plasma’s always at odds with them… that means lots of people just think the League wants to shut Team Plasma up.”

Kris crossed her arms and nodded.

Hil frowned. “S-so, you’re saying, they just… don’t have the ‘infrastructure’ to check out Team Plasma for real?”

“Nope,” Church shrugged. “Nobody’s got any idea where they’re based at, either. The news is crazy about this stuff, dude, y’all wanna check it out sometime?”

“Maybe not right now,” Cheren intervened with a sigh. “We’ve been running into those idiots ever since we left Nuvema Town. I was hoping to forget about them for the day.”

Hil could agree with that sentiment. He wanted to hear more of what Church had to say aside from Team Plasma. They spent the entire day there, joking and talking about everything under the sun. Hil discovered Church was a musical artist rather than a visual one, and he was a fantastic dancer as well. Much to Hil’s dismay, he enthusiastically tried to get Hil to dance at one point, eagerly offering pointers and tips to try and untangle Hil’s nervous feet.

“Aww, c’mon, you’ve got the perfect build for a dancer,” Church pouted as Hil pulled away from him at last. His entire body was trembling, but Hil didn’t truly want to leave. He just wasn’t comfortable with the spotlight. “Noodle’s cute too. The audience loves a cute sidekick pokémon.” Church winked at him and Hil looked away quickly.

“S-sorry, I just don’t dance,” Hil stuttered. “Uh, why don’t… why don’t you sing something for us?”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Kris shot from the other end of the apartment.

“You’re just jealous,” Church sang. He then narrowed his eyes knowingly at Hil. “But sure, I can sing.”

“Here we go,” Kris complained resignedly.

“Don’t you wanna get away from the same old part you’ve gotta play,” Church opened up with a loud verse from a song Hil had never heard before. He yelped when Church then grabbed him by both hands and forced him into a dance of sorts, though Hil flailed and struggled to keep up. “’Cause I’ve got what you need, so come with me, and take the ride…”

“It’ll take you to the other siiide!” Bianca exclaimed gleefully from the couch. “You sound amazing, Church!”

Church laughed and cut himself off from singing. “Hit it, Bianca!” he beamed. He finally let go of Hil, but not without casting another amused glance his way. “You good, Hil?”

Hil realized his face was burning red and he stumbled as he tried to straighten himself out following the performance. Noodle dove off his shoulders and scurried over to Cheren and Bianca on the couch, looking at him in a way that seemed a cross between disappointed and embarrassed. Yeah, me too, Hil thought in amusement. He adjusted his hat over his wild brown hair and offered a thin smile at Church. “Y-yeah, I’m fine!”

Church then snatched Hil’s hat by the visor and tossed it on his head. With a playful grin, he booked it into the living room area of the apartment, away from Hil.

“Church, will you stop being a cat,” the girl drawing next to the couch whined. “Give the kid his hat back.”

Hil hadn’t moved from the spot, bewildered by the playfulness aimed his way.

“Aww, I’m just having fun,” Church whined. He leaned over the counter again, still with Hil’s hat, and tilted it cutely over his head. “I think it suits me.”

Hil had to agree. It definitely suited him.

 --------------

When the day came at last that they were to leave Nacrene City, Hil had to admit, he really didn’t want to go. Cheren had finally complained after two weeks following the museum incident that they needed to move on. Bianca and Hil had added their new friends’ numbers to their Xtransceivers, but Hil couldn’t shake the fear he’d never see them again from his mind. At first, he had fought Cheren on the notion, but Cheren had insisted they needed to travel to actually complete the gym challenge. Hil knew he was right, and Hil could recognize that his own pokémon were getting anxious to move on, but it didn’t ease his worries by much.

For the first time in ages, he had called someone else on the Xtransciever. On the day he, Cheren, and Bianca planned to leave, he had lagged behind and sat just outside of the Pokémon Center. He selected Church’s number from the few options in his contacts and opted to leave it on a video call. He never thought he’d have seen the day again where he called someone else on the Xtransceiver for a video chat. Church answered almost right away, with the camera stupidly close to his emerald eyes.

“Hil!” he exclaimed once he recognized him. Only then did he pull away from the screen some. “Hey! You guys are leaving Nacrene today, right?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to call some before I headed out,” Hil chuckled.

“Good!” Church retorted with a smirk. “You better remember to come visit every now and then, you hear? And call! I answer! Unlike some people.”

“Shut up,” Kris’s distant voice called.

Laughing, Church turned back to Hil. “Well, anyway, I’m guessing your friends are eager to get out of here by now. Good luck, Hil! Call and let me know how future gym battles go!”

Hil nodded and said a few other things before the call was over. He sighed as he defeatedly pushed the device back into his pocket. Noodle trilled and rubbed his face against Hil’s cheeks. “I know, I’m being silly,” Hil muttered. “Just… worried I won’t find anyone else like that, you know?”

Noodle gave a low rumbling noise that resembled a purr, and Hil felt comforted. He hugged the Snivy close as he got to his feet and decided to head for Pinwheel Forest, where Cheren and Bianca were undoubtedly waiting for him.

[nocaptainreuben]

Countdown to YALC: I Am Thunder by Muhammad Khan

As I mentioned a few weeks ago in my review for The Electrical Venus, I recently had a lovely, relaxing week in Mallorca with my girlfriend, and of course we took a small case full of books with us! One of the books I lapped up whilst I was out there, was debut author Muhammad Khan’s I Am Thunder, which I’ve been itching to read since it was first announced.

Fifteen-year-old Muzna Saleem, who dreams of being a writer, struggles with controlling parents who only care about her studying to be a doctor. Forced to move to a new school in South London after her best friend is shamed in a scandal, Muzna realizes that the bullies will follow her wherever she goes. But deciding to stand and face them instead of fighting her instinct to disappear is harder than it looks when there's prejudice everywhere you turn. Until the gorgeous and confident Arif shows an interest in her, encouraging Muzna to explore her freedom.  But Arif is hiding his own secrets and, along with his brother Jameel, he begins to influence Muzna with their extreme view of the world. As her new freedom starts to disappear, Muzna is forced to question everything around her and make a terrible choice - keep quiet and betray herself, or speak out and betray her heart?

I absolutely love books which deal with social issues, difficult topics or morally grey areas, so I knew this was going to be one I’d be interested in. Whilst I do read for entertainment and pleasure, I also feel a kind of responsibility to use books to learn about the issues which face our society, and to listen to the voices of people with different experiences to my own, in order to grow as an empathetic person. Therefore, a book about religious extremism, radicalisation and Islamophobia – topics I’d not really explored all that much before – was really appealing to me. And right from the start I figured I was onto a winner; the very beginning of this book made me incredibly uncomfortable, and call me a glutton for punishment, but I often applaud that in a book, because it means it’s having a real impact on me. It had the feeling of a book which – like those such as Asking For It or The Handmaid’s Tale – would be difficult to read, but important that you do.

Whilst that might sound really depressing or boring, it actually didn’t feel at all like Khan was trying to preach to his readers, and instead it had a perfect balance of great storytelling and thought provoking social commentary. From the point of view of a white reader (which is obviously the only one I can comment on), it didn’t feel like it was written specifically for me in a bid to educate me, but equally I didn’t feel excluded from the narrative, or that I couldn’t relate to it. I imagine that for many British-Pakistani readers, it will be wonderful representation, and great to see the nuances of their culture, and life experiences they might share, reflected so truthfully. And I truly do understand the power of seeing yourself on the page like that, so I’m incredibly happy that Khan seems to have been able to do that for a marginalised audience. But for me personally, I loved that it highlighted the similarities in things like school life and family relations across different cultures, and meant that I could still see bits of myself in Muzna even though we have different backgrounds. Along with that, the more reading we do outside of our own experiences, the more we begin to understand other cultures and points of view, so I think this straddles the cultural divide beautifully and is the perfect book for teen audiences of any heritage. Khan himself summed it up perfectly in his author’s note:

‘I wrote Muzna’s story for you. Muslim or non-Muslim? It doesn’t matter to me. It shouldn’t matter to you.’

Whilst it’s wonderful that a book like this has universal appeal, I can’t stress enough how important representation is, and not only in seeing characters like yourself on the page, but in seeing authors like yourself as role models. Watching people who share your own marginalised identity achieve, can be one of the most powerful things in making you believe in yourself, and I really think that Khan can be for desi and Muslim teens what people like Juno Dawson, Rachel Lucas, Patrick Ness, Malorie Blackman and Melinda Salisbury are for trans, autistic, gay, black and working class teens. Something I loved in this book, was when it got ever so slightly meta in one passage, where Muzna talks about wanting to be a novelist, saying ‘you don’t hear about many Muslim authors… I want people to read my books and go, “You know what? Muslims are alright.”’, and that just sums up why the move for more diversity in publishing is so necessary.

I love that, as someone not from a desi community, the book really helped me to understand some of the nuances of that kind of life experience, by picking apart what is down to religion and what is more simply Pakistani culture. It also highlighted the differences between what is most widely accepted as the teachings of Islam, and what has been twisted to fit the views of extremists. Having things spelled out this way by somebody with a first-hand understanding of it was really helpful, and seeing everything from Muzna’s point of view made it so much easier to understand and empathise with her. This gave me an insight into how insidious radicalisation is, and how easily it can happen to vulnerable people. Those uncomfortable first 30 pages drew an instant parallel with grooming for sexual abuse (which is something I have much more experience and understanding of than religious extremism and radicalisation) and set the tone for the rest of the book, allowing me to see Muzna and Arif as victims rather than the ‘evil terrorist’ narrative which the right wing media prefers.

A book like this is obviously going to be powerful, moving and important, but I was perhaps most impressed by how authentically teenage it was. The influence of Khan’s experience as a teacher is very evident, and you can feel how much he understands his audience. This, for me, is what pushes it from a great book to a brilliant book. Yes it’s impactful, wise, eye-opening, and in places scary, but it’s also optimistic, funny, relevant, and youthful; it’s just as multifaceted as today’s teens themselves, and I’m sure it will be loved for everything it is.

I Am Thunder gets a big fat yes from me, so I’ll be taking my copy along to YALC for signing. (At this rate, my shoulders are going to be seriously aching aren’t they? :p) If you have any thoughts on the book, feel free to give me a follow on twitter or Instagram where you can throw said thoughts at my face.

[lociwear]

Why vegan is the best, and reasons to make vegan sneakers your next fashion must-have

There are so many reasons to go vegan — from ethical reasons to environmental reasons and health reasons. It varies from person to person and is a deeply individual choice to make. When you become vegan, you become more mindful about not only what you eat but also what you wear, shower with, and spend your dollars on. And luckily, with the rise of veganism, there are endless options. In the fashion industry, there are now vegan sneakers, knitwear, and coats that rival the real deal.

 Going vegan isn’t a fashion choice. But, fashion-conscious and ethically conscious don’t need to be mutually exclusive. Within the industry, many brands are inclusive of people’s different lifestyle choices. People no longer have the same connotations of the vegan industry being “a bit hippy,” and the fashion choices reflect that.

 When you think of vegan footwear, you probably think of either cheap PVC boots or wooden Birkenstock-esque sandals.

 But there are so many vegan footwear options that deserve to be labelled stylish first and vegan second.

   Why vegan living is easier than you think

 If you’re against cruelty to animals, then you already have the fuel within you to go vegan. You’re almost the majority of the way there. Now you just need to match your actions with your intentions.

 You set the pace

 You may think that going vegan is a huge lifestyle change you have to make overnight. But, truth be told, as going vegan is your own personal choice, you can decide how quickly you go into it.

 For example, if you’re living with your parents, it might be difficult to get everyone to transition to a vegan lifestyle. Instead, you could prepare a vegan meal for them a few nights a week and be mindful only to eat vegan food when outside.

 Or, you could start buying vegan fashion as an alternative to fast fashion. Sneakers made with vegan leather are a great alternative to PVC or animal leather. Choosing vegan sneakers is a simple change that doesn’t feel like a compromise.  

 Choose to go vegan in small areas of your life until you have the confidence and knowledge to go the whole way.

 We should all do a little rather than expect a few to do it all.

 The vegan community is huge

 Veganism used to be considered an extremist movement and, if you were vegan, it would be difficult to find others to connect with. It was a bit like living on the fringes of society.

 These days, the situation is entirely different. There are countless YouTubers and Instagrammers who document their vegan lifestyle and give tips, like Twilight actress and environmentalist Nikki Reed.

 You can also find Reddit threads and Facebook groups dedicated to all things vegan living, vegan eating, and vegan fashion. So pop in and ask, “where’s the best place to buy vegan sneakers?” and get prepared for the answers to roll in.

   There are so many vegan imitations

 Love gelato? Or cheese boards? Or even hot dogs? You’re spoiled for choice as you can now find vegan alternatives for even the most specialist foods.

 The same goes for fashion. The textile industry is getting smarter. There are now technologies to create vegan fabrics that don’t only replace but also rival the real deal.

 Why vegan sneakers should be your next fashion must-have

 Vegan sneakers are an easy switch to make in your fashion closet. There are so many brands and styles to choose from. Killing animals for sneakers? It’s just not necessary.

 So, join the revolution and make vegan sneakers your next fashion must-have.

 Abundant styles

 No matter what your style, there’s a pair of vegan sneakers to suit you. Prefer minimalist vegan sneakers? No problem. Or wanna go loud with brightly colored vegan high tops? You’re covered!

   Vegan footwear doesn’t mean slim pickings. Do your research and find a pair with your name on them.

 Huge choice of brands

 These days, more and more brands are becoming conscious of their offerings. Even huge mainstream brands like Nike, Adidas, and New Balance have vegan sneaker collections and release vegan versions of their most-loved styles.

 But, more exciting than that is the choice to discover new brands that are dedicated to creating the highest quality, most sustainable vegan sneakers.

 These up-and-coming brands are niche and stand out from the rest. They’re anything but basic. Plus, many, like us here at LØCI, put craftsmanship ahead of profit. So, you get a luxury sneaker that’s been made with care rather than mass-produced in a factory.

 And a percentage of your payment goes towards conservation charities to heal the damage that’s already been done.

 Unique finish

 Vegan sneakers are made with unique materials like pineapple leather, mushroom leather, and recycled ocean plastic.

 These materials don’t try to imitate leather. Instead, they’re a premium vegan textile all of their own.

 Vegan sneakers like this tend to break in better than their animal counterparts and are more waterproof, so they last for longer. They look unique without being outlandish.

 Plus, let’s be honest. It’s 2021. Does vegan leather need to be a carbon copy of leather? Let’s create textiles that are premium in their own way.

 Vegan is beautiful

 We saved the best for last. Is there anything more beautiful than someone compassionate about all the living creatures in this world? We think not! That’s the biggest fashion statement,

 How to choose vegan sneakers

 When buying vegan sneakers, it’s also important to consider how they’re made. So many brands bring out vegan footwear collections made with PVC. That’s another problem all of its own.

The truth is that PVC is a highly toxic material harmful to both human health and the environment.

PVC is plastic, and you don’t need us to tell you how damaging that is to the ocean.

Despite the common misconception, not all vegan sneakers are made with planet-polluting synthetics.

We’re living proof of that!

Let us share our checklist for deciding if a pair of vegan sneakers deserve to be your next fashion must-have.

 Materials

 The first thing to consider when buying vegan sneakers is the outer material. Most sneakers are made of either cow’s leather or cotton. Of course, we don’t need to tell you that cow’s leather isn’t the best ethical choice.

 But did you know that cotton is also environmentally problematic? That means that canvas shoes are out.

 If you want vegan sneakers that are sustainable, too, source out shoes made of more advanced materials.

 Here at LØCI, our vegan sneakers are made with recycled plastic from the ocean, so as well as being vegan, we also cut down on the plastic in the ocean.

 Other innovative sustainable vegan sneaker materials include Pinatex and mushroom leather.

 Lining

 Sneakers usually have a cotton lining, and as we mentioned, it’s not the best choice for the environment.

 As vegan clothing brands care about morals and ethics, naturally, most independent brands use sustainable materials instead of cotton.

 One example of this is bamboo cotton. Bamboo grows plentifully in the wild and doesn’t require much watering. Its low maintenance but highly durable, meaning bamboo cotton can last for years.

 Transparency

 Looking for new vegan sneakers? The next step is to be conscious of how much the company chooses to tell you. Is it challenging to find out what materials they use? Is their supply chain hidden?

 If so, it probably means they’re hiding something.

 What about their profits. Do they donate to charities? Do they pay their workers a living wage?

 If you want conscious fashion, choose sneakers that don’t play on your conscience.

 Manufacturing process

 For fashion to be truly ethical, we must consider who is making it just as much as what it’s made of. Avoid companies who choose to make their products in countries where people are paid a ridiculously low wage or have unsafe working conditions.

 That “Made In….” label speaks volumes.

 Suppose it’s made in a country known for treating garments workers well, then full points to them. If those garment workers are artisans, then you’ll know that care and attention went into your vegan sneakers. Is there anything better than choosing clothes that were clearly made with love!

 Make vegan sneakers your next fashion must-have

 We believe that ethical and vegan sneakers should be the next big fashion trend. But for now, there are just a few of us out here. So why not get ahead of the pack? Be one of the trailblazers who wore vegan trainers before they were cool.

Shop LØCI’s vegan sneakers today!

source https://lociwear.com/blogs/news/why-vegan-is-the-best-and-reasons-to-make-vegan-sneakers-your-next-fashion-must-have source https://lociwear.blogspot.com/2021/08/why-vegan-is-best-and-reasons-to-make.html

[rightsidenews]

The Religion of the Faithless Left

Ash Sharp Editor

Puritan Hypocrisy

BLAM goes the gun. OH NO say the victims. WHAT RACE IS THE ATTACKER I HOPE IT’S A WHITE GUY ALSO STOP ISLAMOPHOBIA say the hypocrites.

Puritans are always hypocrites. Read Part I of this series HERE.

Not much more than a decade ago now, the author and political commentator Chris Hedges published a book called American Fascists. It’s an interesting piece, written at the tail end of the turbulent Dubya administration that contended that, within a few years, we would be faced with a Christian Fascist movement in the United States. Based on the popularity of people like Pat Robertson and the politicisation of church-goers by the neocon group that put Reagan in power, Hedges contended that the old right was a threat to American freedom and democracy.

As wonderful a wordsmith as Hedges is, he was, as is sadly so usual for such a smart man, dead wrong. Correctly skewering the old Christian Right for their hypocrisy and often un-Christ-like behaviour is one thing. Predicting the future is quite another. If we are charitable to Hedges few could have seen how, in the decade since Bush, two terms of Obama would enable the hard left to take more social power than could ever have been conceived before.

In the modern age of puritanism, religion is supplanted by Neo-Marxist ideology. Intersectional Theory. Feminism. The root concept which underpins the idea that it is not okay to be White. You can see this everywhere you look, from the television to pop music, to politics and the popular press and sport. The arts of our ancestors speak to us, tell us about their times. Ours will do the same for future generations. Cave paintings teach us that the early humans had a mystical relationship with the animals they hunted and fled from. Renaissance pieces are filled with secrets and satire.

What will our art say about us?

In the realm of faith, the Leftist Puritan happily displays cognitive dissonance during our days of strife. It all boils down to race and religion in the end. If an Islamist mows people down, with a gun or otherwise, the reaction is… nothing. Dire warnings about the dangers of the mythical Islamophobia, perhaps.

Heaven forfend that a white male shoots people. Not only is this an indictment of his race, but he also transforms into an ideologically driven terrorist (Whiteness is political, you know), and a reason to curse out the NRA, and demand gun control. Don’t forget to accuse your enemies of politicising tragedies when it suits your agenda, though.

Shut

If Trump truly cared about the suffering in Syria, he wouldn't have a racist anti-refugee policy. But, hey, bombs distract from scandal!

— Wil 'Kick the Nazis off the tweeters' Wheaton (@wilw) April 7, 2017

UP

I join my fellow Moderate White Person in wishing an Eid of peace, and I also condemn the extremist clan of Trump. http://bit.ly/2leXZRY

— Wil 'Kick the Nazis off the tweeters' Wheaton (@wilw) September 13, 2016

WESLEY

The murdered victims were in a church. If prayers did anything, they'd still be alive, you worthless sack of shit. http://bit.ly/2lm8wKm

— Wil 'Kick the Nazis off the tweeters' Wheaton (@wilw) November 5, 2017

Islam is Peace. Prayers are Worthless. Guns are Bad. I Love Big Brother.

It will stun future generations to hear that we have become such a self-hating society, riddled with such preposterous levels of self-inflicted and undeserved guilt and paranoia.

It wasn’t always like this. In 1979, the seminal comedy group *Monty Python released Life of Brian. The movie revolves around a man mistaken for a messiah. The religious right was apoplectic and it was awesome. And that is coming from a Christian, so save your Jehovahs.

“[Life of Brian] isn’t blasphemous because it doesn’t touch on belief at all. It is heretical because it touches on dogma and the interpretation of belief, rather than belief itself.” ~ Terry Jones

The movie mainly skewered religious hypocrisy and was so controversial at the time that it was banned in several countries and had to rely on George Harrison (of The Beatles) for funding. It remains one of the finest comedies ever produced.

On re-watching the movie recently, I was struck how mild the religious satire really is in this film. In all honesty, I found myself far more interested in the non-theological scenes.

There is a sub-plot to the film which features several Left Wing revolutionary groups all seeking to oust the Romans from Judea. These groups were analogous to hard left British groups in the late 1970s, including the then powerful trade unionists. It is almost as if our timelines are running in opposite directions. As the power of the Church has diminished, to the point where (rightly) no-one would dare attempt to ban a movie for blasphemy, the loony left has arisen, Gojira in Tokyo Harbour.

While the interminable and unending squabbling between the intersections of the left is still laughable today, it cannot be denied that it is the modern day facsimilies of the right-on Reg (John Cleese) and the People’s Front of Judea that are holding the social power. Despite everyone knowing what capitalism has done for us, still, they cry out ‘Oppression!’

Apart from a free market, advances in technology, healthcare, living standards, nearly eliminating child mortality, better food, the internet, a life expectancy of over eighty, university education for all and countless varieties of hot sauce, what has capitalism ever done for us?

Instead, these puritanical crusaders turned their attention on society itself. Internet technology has enabled us to strip monsters like Harvey Weinstein of their veils of secrecy, and therefore, their power. This marvel of communication also allows the Neo-Marxist to conduct witch-hunts and purges at speeds old Joe Stalin could only have dreamed of.

Their zealotry has claimed the scalps of numerous journalists, actors and politicians who, in the main, have all fallen on their swords rather than run the gauntlet. These men may not be nice. These men might, in fact, be criminals- but that has never been a good idea for the mob to decide. **Rupert Myers, late of GQ, is a man who makes my skin crawl. **Not for his alleged behaviour towards women, which seems inept but not illegal, but for his hypocrisy.

Sire! The Virtue Beacon is lit!

To write such a diatribe against the rest of one’s gender, to elevate oneself to the status of Enlightened Nü-Male, and then to be accused thus:

“I was very clear about not being romantically or sexually interested in him, once the subject was raised. I suggested we be mates.

“He said ‘I’ve got enough mates, I’d rather fuck you’ and forced himself on me outside a pub in Fitzrovia.”

Well. I would be a liar if I did not feel a little schadenfreude. I am wrong to do so. A failed and clumsy pass at someone is not a criminal offence, but the puritanical left is treating it like one.

Saints protect you if you live in the United Kingdom, where not only will leftist society pillory you, so will the police. The Sunday Times revealed that the Deputy Prime Minister Damian Green possessed (legal) pornography on his computer. Why is this information pertinent to the public? Are we really so depraved that we must know the masturbatory habits of politicians? If so, why? In any case, the police released it to the press.

The minister has also been pilloried for allegedly touching a woman’s knee. As I predicted when I first published this piece on Medium.com on Nov. 6th, Green has been forced to resign, unable to continue in his career with sucha tarnished public image.

Let’s not ignore that corrupt, incompetent or sleazy politicians must fall. With such incredible levels of vice in politics in our nations, how is it that this non-issue is plastered across the papers?

You can thank Donald J. Trump.

The moralists have been on this crusade for some time, but it appears to have become particularly weaponised by the Left and the MSM since The President’s locker room talk. The scent of blood in the water to a shark is much like the scent of KISS records to a Bible Belt Baptist in 1978 or a whiff of scandal to the press. Egged on by an ideological leitmotif that demands purity at all times from all beings, no man should ever find himself alone with an unmarried woman again.

How we laughed at Vice-President Pence, what a dotard, refusing to sit with a female without his wife present to ensure propriety is maintained. Pence comes to this topic from an entirely different perspective. As a born again, evangelical boomer Catholic we might expect a conservative attitude. But from the sons and daughters of the hippies, the Gen-Xers, the Millennials? I thought this was supposed to be a post-morality, post-faith, post-conservative post-everything age of rampant consumerism and meaningless sex?

No eye contact, a burka, and no sex. Ah, just like back in Gender Studies 101.

Instead, Netflix TV shows are used as examples of a religious theocracy that doesn’t exist. Wow, the asinine Twitterati bleat in unison, this is just like Trump’s America.

It is not. A totalitarian mindset exists in America, for sure. I must also state that the genuinely corrupt who are toppled, the true-life sex-criminals and paedophiles and rapists and money-launderers- spare them no sympathy. They are reaping their own whirlwind, caught up in their pretence at righteousness. The sole irony is that the totalitarians are those who are now purging their movements of male feminist allies for thought crime. Journalists who stood for identity politics are now the victims of the same.

I wonder how long it will be before Dan ‘Everyone is A Literal Nazi’ Arel is cast down from his perch. In the current climate, could it be that his social media stalking of pop has-been Lily Allen transgresses the invisible line of sin?

Dan, stop. That’s creepy.

I knew a guy like this once. A girl turned him down and he cried for days.

No doubt a self proclaimed anarchist like Arel already prays to Black Atheist Trans Jesus for forgiveness for his disgusting white penis. It is not enough today, in 2017, the current year, to merely hate yourself for being a white man. You must also hate the words you say, constantly self-reflect, ensure you keep your eyes down and touch nobody, not even in jest or error.

Such behavioural abnormality is non-PC. Such behaviour demands that you be flayed in public, to lose your livelihood. This is how puritans project their power. Shame is how they maintain control. We have moved beyond expanding the definition of words so that one can be raped by eyesight or by flatulence. We are now in an era where all actions are sinful. There is no escaping the shame. You are born in it, surrounded by it, you are the sin itself. It is, dare I say it, original in nature.

Submission looks like this. A dog, with it’s legs in the air and throat bared.

Considering so many of these leftists proclaim themselves anarchists but act like dictators, I offer my own favoured anarchy.

“Anarchy is personal; it is not a collective possibility. It rests upon the idea of a person acting within a sphere where his existence is not intrusive upon the existence of another human being unless invited to be so. Should a person find that he has uninvitedly trespassed upon the serenity of another, Individual Anarchy points that man toward accepting the responsibility for his own actions while not condemning the failure of others to own up to the things they may have done wrong.” ~ U. Buster

By this perspective, the moral crusade is anathema to anarchists. Even old Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of Neo-Marxist thought, held it to be a fact that

To tell the truth, to arrive together at the truth, is a communist and revolutionary act.

If we can agree with a long-dead communist that the truth is revolutionary, there may yet be hope for us. We must turn away from this cult of social purity, and the trappings of transcendental shaming. The internet never forgets. We’re all stuck on this rock together, forever.

http://bit.ly/2lm8CBI

[jonboudposts]

What We Never Talk About When We Talk About Race

On 17 August 2017, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said we need to have a talk in this country about sexual abuse, in the wake of Rotherham Labour MP Sarah Champion standing down from the Shadow Cabinet after her comments that Pakistani men only rape and abuse white girls.

This was in reference to the criminal case in which a group of eighteen men and one woman were jailed for grooming and sexually assaulting young girls in Newcastle.  The routine follows a well-worn structure; vulnerable young ladies not fully on the radar of social services or police, often coming from homes with problems that prevent the functioning of everyday life proceeding easily, are targeted by sexual offenders.

The response has, as ever, been extraordinary for the wrong reasons and equally followed a structure. The routine was to forget any action or circumstance carried out by anyone who is not one of the South Asian men who committed the crimes.  Almost like we were trying to promote racial intolerance and hide the terrible extent that child abuse runs in British society.

Sarah Champion does not to want to discuss all this though.  During an interview on BBC Radio 4 Today programme on 10 August, she merely wanted to use this opportunity to bash the left and scream that we have a ‘problem with Pakistani men raping and abusing white girls’ in this country - apparently she is also concerned about increases in Islamophobia when she discusses this issue.  She went on to whine about a politically-correct conspiracy by management in social services to deny the ethnicity of perpetrators.

Here we go again.

Champion later went on to publish an article saying the same thing in the national hate rag The Sun; all while she was SC Minister for Women and Equalities.

Today the press are trying to make a big thing of her departure but frankly she got off lightly. The only criticism I have for the Labour leadership in this case is they did not fire Champion; instead letting her resign from her Shadow Cabinet position.  She is no better than a hate preacher and has no place in public life.

On the same edition of the Today programme, Lord Ken MacDonald made his now-oft-quoted point that this was ‘a profoundly racist crime’.  This is wrong from the off (prejudiced it might be but not racist) but also plays into the narrative.

Later on in the day we got some sense and balance, courtesy of Woman’s Hour, where Jenny Murray interviewed Laura Seebohm from an organisation called Changing Lives; plus Detective Inspector Claire Wheatley who worked on the Operation Sanctuary. Changing Lives has been involved in helping out women with traumatic and abusive lives for ten years

Laura spoke of the victims sharing treats like previous abuse, poor mental health and sexual violence in their lives; being groomed sometimes from childhood.  Girls and women in these situations often fail to come forward for fear they will not be believed.

DI Wheatley spoke of concerns that had existed over the victim’s behaviour and ‘certain lifestyle characteristics, helping to create for many the feeling they were not victims and making it difficult to identify where abuse was taking place.  It was ‘absolutely the case’ some victims thought these criminals were their boyfriends according to Laura.

So by engaging with victims and support groups, a better understanding for all is achieved, sex offenders stopped and jailed and vulnerable people better empowered. Meanwhile, the media shouts about the criminal’s ethnicity and achieves nothing.

One result of this is to make victim services stronger and more bespoke; including knocking the police into line to take this shit seriously.  DI Wheatley talked of the ‘massive cultural change’ taken place within the police force in understanding sexual exploitation and moves to improve prevention. Funding cuts also made the job more difficult.

Both speakers agreed the case in Newcastle was extreme, not any kind of norm. Ongoing investigations involving white offenders have so far failed to catch media attention in the same way (though no doubt of some perpetrators turn out to be Eastern European they will be all over it).

Woman’s Hour made an effort along with their guests to look at the complex narrative going on, the details of the victim’s lives and what put them in harms way, the ‘reality of life’ as Laura put it of girls and young women known to social services for some time, perhaps through the criminal justice system or homelessness, with the sadly common drug and alcohol dependency thrown in too. In partnership with the police, Changing Lives were able to engage with the girls directly and help bring this case against their abusers, gaining a full understanding of the level of grooming.

It is a terrible judgement of the supposedly flagship news programme Today that they spit out their venomous shite; while Jenny Murray and co show them how it is done an hour later, but that is for another article.

But still, we need to talk about race.  Not avoid it and duck the important questions right?

The biggest problem with any discussion about race in Britain is we never talk about white people. White people are not a race it seems; we are just ‘normal’, average (well most of you are certainly that) and when we commit any crime, our race goes unmentioned.  In the case of child abuse, this is a particularly problematic oversight.

White people have fucked kids for years.  They like fucking their own kids; pre-teens in particular.  Within the institutions: the family; the scouts, sports clubs and public schools. The Catholic Church have fucked many unwanted, vulnerable children, they have taken away children birthed by vulnerable young girls who suffered moral judgement and then for many years taken into a form of slavery.

None of us talk about these crimes in the same way.  The Catholic Church is not seen as some humanity-hating outside force that has come into ‘our’ society from outside to pollute and destroy it.  Nobody tries to pull the crosses from around the necks of any woman walking down the street (thankfully).

Here’s another thing to discuss; the girls who were victimised here had something in common. ‘They were all white’ I hear you cry. They were all vulnerable too.  Why were they vulnerable?  

Lord MacDonald repeatedly referred to the idea of how these girls are seen as ‘trash’ who can be exploited easily. As other abuse scandals have shown, social services and the police were often directly involved in letting down the victims of these terrible crimes, either through lack of resources or on purpose.  We know police were often informed about inappropriate relationships between grown men and teenage girls and just as often this was dismissed.  Parents of victims were told their daughter had made a lifestyle choice; no investigation necessary.  Some were even suggested to be actively working as prostitutes (another group of people treated like worthless shit in Britain).  One officer in Newcastle was eventually fired because he refused to investigate one of the now-jailed perpetrators.  

Then the terrible news breaks and we hear from many quarters (such as known far right extremists) that we ‘knew’ this was happening all along.  Really?  Then why didn’t you do something about it big man?  Where have been the patrols of concerned white men and women in these towns and cities looking out for vulnerable white girls being pulled off the streets and into the clutches of Muslim sex beasts?  

British society sees these victims as trash.  Infamous polls have been taken where alarmingly high amounts of people respond that the way a woman dresses in public can lead to rape.  We pass groups of youths in the streets every day and do not give a rusty fuck what they are doing and who with.  The police are too busy to care.  The social services are fighting for dear life on skeletal budgets cut for political reasons.

I have heard it said that Muslim girls are never treated like this.  Well, some of them are and they suffer as much as anyone, but they also get ignored because they are not politically useful.  ‘Ah but what about the cultural aspect’ I hear some cry.

Let us talk about a cultural aspect here.  Young Muslim girls, as part of cultural practices, can be subjected to scrutiny in ways many (myself included) find invasive, with parents making decisions for them, etc. Again they are not the only group who live like this but it does happen.  One perhaps positive aspect though is parents have more potential to know where their kids are, certainly in the evening or later.

Young people are often vulnerable and like other groups, they are often this way because wider society and it’s institutions do not care about them or fail them in some way. There is no judgment from me towards parents or social workers or anyone else that does a job so hard it makes my head ache thinking about it; but where these failures take place, it produces vulnerability and it is not like the rest of society take up the slack on protection and care.

No doubt the perpetrators of all this vileness look down on their victims, but which sexual predators do not? In fact if you go to many places in the world including countries closer to home, there is often an assumption that English women and girls are ‘easy’.

Most of the people who claim to be worried about this are not.  It does not matter to them, just like everything else they complain about. Most live very materially-easy lives. You only really care about yourselves and the suffering of others is immaterial.  In order to justify this, certain narratives must be told, invented and firmly believed in to make you feel less horrible.

There is no South Asian Muslim sex conspiracy at work here; there are no councils who do not want to face the issue of ‘Muslim rape’ in their local areas and there is no concern for the victims among the far right scum who look to make political capital from thee terrible situations.

So, another group of young girls were subjected to systematic sexual abuse at the hands of an organised gang of sexual predators, able to do so in part due to the low status the victims had in British society; a society where some of the most well known people and highest institutions have been directly involved in terrible acts of sexual abuse too and never been punished.  

Yes Mr Javid, let’s have a good, long talk about sexual abuse in Britain.

‘How long will this go on?’ screams the ever calm and balanced Daily Mail.  As long as Britain does not give a fuck about it’s most vulnerable.

[elev8dideas-blog]

The Future Workforce The state of the workforce is often derided for their lack of respect, reliability, understanding of corporate culture, willingness to work hard, and ability to perform as needed within their roles.  These critiques are especially laid at the feet of Millennials.  As with any generation, you have your superstars who go above and beyond the call of duty and inspire excellence either by doing their job really well or they inspire excellence through innovation.  But you also have those who fall short of the mark and are a stain on your generation, with everyone else falling somewhere in between.  It's dangerous to label an entire generation by the characteristics attributed to a subset within them, just like it is dangerous to place a label on a race or religious group based on the actions enacted by extremists who exist amongst those who live completely upstanding, moral, and ethical lives.  Millennials as a generation may not be living up to the standards placed upon them by members of Generation X and the Baby Boomers, but here are three takeaways to consider when reframing the discussion. First - History is recorded by those who are doing the writing.  At the moment, most of the prolific writers and journalists of today are members of Generation X and the Baby Boomers.  Therefore the prevailing point of view and perspective is coming from those beyond the Millennials.  It's important to recognize the source of the opinion.  It's also important to know whether there is bias.  Baby Boomers continue to possess most of the wealth in this country. ��They also hold most of the senior positions at their respective employers.  But this realization comes at a price.  They understand their time of job security and enjoying the benefits of a steady income may be drawing to a near.  What better way than to inspire a need to keep your job than to minimize the value and abilities of those who might be looking to continue the circle of life in working America?  It makes sense.  When politicians try to keep their party in power, they rail against the other party.  In an attempt to maintain their standing in the workforce, you rail against the ambitious and eager generation looking to step into your footsteps.  Millennials as a whole may lack some of the qualities that their older cousins, parents, or grandparents' generations might have possessed.  But that said, Millennials as a whole is a more creative and disruptive generation.  Boomers began the computing age and ushered in the internet with disrupters like Bezos, Gates, Jobs, Brin and more but Millennials have completely rewritten the book when it comes to mobile technology.  The entrepreneurial spirit shines much brighter in Millennials and red hot in the younger generation after that.  Following the status quo are not common staples of those two generations.  The methods and tactics used by Millennials to succeed are far less conventional than their parents and grandparents.  Earning a living isn't just about finding a 9 to 5 job anymore.  Some may still take that path but more are opting for identifying a niche in need of disrupting and then they create a company that is capable of doing that. For anyone else who finds the aspect of just doing the same job over and over again to be boring and a waste of their abilities, they are turning to the power of the masses to give themselves the ability to earn a living.  Social media tools like YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and more are empowering the outspoken, gregarious, and aesthetically pleasing to engage with an audience.  The true entrepreneurs amongst them have learned how to monetize their fan base and earn themselves a very nice living.  Entertainment and access is key.  Fans will pay for that.  The need for Hollywood, record labels, advertising agencies, studios, modeling agencies, photographers, etc is becoming less crucial to gain visibility.  A well placed hash tag and a persistent person who is willing to live their lives publicly and to engage with their followers will be able to generate a fan base.  Traditional modes can certainly help self made celebrities and brands cross over into multiple platforms and to gain world wide recognition in a short amount of time via traditional mechanisms like movies, albums,a SuperBowl Commercial, print campaigns, billboards, etc.  That said, you don't need to be scouted by a talent agency anymore in order to find a path for yourself.  Justin Bieber, Charlie Puth, Shawn Mendes, Psy, Jeff Seid, David Laid, Christian Guzman, and more all started their careers in entertainment, music or fitness by following the core tenets of marketing and creating content everyday via their Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube accounts.  They became superstars when the likes of Usher or Ellen DeGeneres identified them but each had millions of followers well before that.  If all you're trying to do is earn a good living, you don't need to get casted in a Marvel film or go on a worldwide tour.  A Japanese man made $2.1 million in one year by just allowing fans from around the world watch him eat lots and lots of food after he worked out in his home shirtless.  The ways to earn money for those willing to let people into their weird and quirkly lives is immense. Second - Millennials may not possess the traits their parents or grandparents exhibited in the workforce, but that's okay.  Times change.  Things evolve.  And let's keep this in mind, Millennials didn't just descend on planet Earth and begin living life as working adults from the moment they came to be.  Millennials aren't aliens.  The biological order of things was maintained with them.  Why is that important?  Millennials were raised and brought up by Baby Boomers.  Their core values, work ethic, education, morals, and all the rest were taught by parents, coaches, mentors, and employers who were for the most part Baby Boomers.  So if the critique is that Millennials are a disappointment as a generation or not living up to expectations, then look in the mirror.  if legislation that fails to pass is blamed on those writing it and steering it through the committee process, then the adults who were responsible for child rearing and educating the next generation are just as much at fault for the failures they claim exist in that generation.  It's a two way street.  The children of your peers can't be failures but you're absolved of wrongdoing with your kids. Lastly - This essay isn't trying to blame Millennials.  It's not seeking to blame Baby Boomers.  The purpose is to reframe the question and to shift the dialogue.  The critique about Millennials is that they aren't as hard working, studious, polite, and respectful.  This may all be true, to a point.  But a generation who lived their high school, college, and early professional years in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were the parents to all these Millennials.  Therefore, it's to be expected that children of the Boomers would grow up to question authority and to be more free spirited.  Instead of shaming an entire generation, the parameters for how to evaluate them should be changed.  The United States didn't put a man on the moon by accepting the status quo.  The evolution of technology from time clocks to computers in rooms to personal computers to the internet to smartphone devices to virtual reality to artificial intelligence didn't happen because society accepted life when buggies were pulled by horses.  As the human race, we've evolved over time.  This should be expected.  This should be welcomed.  Millennials may not possess the same virtues in the work force that Boomers or members of the "The Greatest Generation" may have possessed, but society shouldn't want them to.  Millennials are rewriting the book on how business is done.  Sure, there can still be some behemoths out there like Facebook but as a whole Millennials are finding new ways to make a living in smaller business environments or ones centered around brands instead of businesses.  They are finding ways to live where they don't rely on corporations, pensions, health care packages, and company perks.  The Great Recession has taught Millennials to be creative.  It's taught them to live lean.  It's taught them that nothing can be expected blindly.  In order to survive and to thrive, you have to create your own way.  To do this, you need to step beyond the shadows of the past and forge a new way.  This means that those who have come before you will feel like the world around them is changing.  And it is.  But the world the Boomers lived in just isn't enough anymore for Millennials.  Millennials want to control their own destiny.  And so for some who lack the self confidence to listen to their entrepreneurial instincts, they'll struggle in the mainstream workforce for awhile building up resentment and poor evaluations by their employers.  For those with a larger than life sense of self (and/or parental support) they can embrace their desire to make their own way.  They can concoct interesting ways to disrupt certain market verticals by building new companies.  They can also just embrace what they possess within themselves and utilize the power of social media to create brands with a path towards monetization via ads, subscription and product promotion.  Millennials are literally rewriting the book and doing so without pen and paper.  They are thinking of new and better ways to document living history. Change is hard but change is necessary.  It's a good thing Millennials aren't like the generations to come before them.  And Baby Boomers are to thank for this.  Boomers themselves might not have had the confidence or ability to step out of line and do something that bucks with tradition.  And that is okay.  Look who their parents were and what their generation was like.  But the children of the 60s, 70s, and 80s who accepted they needed to join the grind of the workforce, still at their core wanted to be different, and that desire translated into their children.  Millennials are the result of the many men and women who fought for Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, Non-Discrimination Laws, Equal Pay, Paid Leave, etc.  These values and virtues is what makes Millennials unwilling and unable to just accept the status quo of working a 9 to 5 job and not challenging norms.  Employers shouldn't ask them to suppress their instincts.  They should embrace the very thing that makes this generation so important for the future of this country and this world.  Employers, management, professors, teachers, and coaches should change the way they approach things instead of trying to stifle the future.  This world needs a brighter future and trying to force a round peg into a square hole is not going to work.  Let's take a page out of the NASA Handbook from back during the Apollo 13 mission.  "Let's find a way to take this (square air filter) and find a way to put it into the place where this (round air filter) is suppose to go, using only this (lots of different things the astronauts had with them)."  That's the task society is faced with in 2017 and beyond.  Let's rise to the occasion instead of just pointing fingers at each other.  Millennials should be embraced for all their quirks.  These quirks were instilled in them by their parents who belonged to the Baby Boomer generation.  Now that Millennials are in the work force, these quirks shouldn't be derided.  They should be embraced and worked into the current landscape.  A win-win situation needs to be found so the world continues to grow and evolve. ** Content is curated by elev8dIDEAS, a sister agency of CC. Champions Combine and elev8IDEAS are managed by Winning Solutions Advisory. elev8dIDEAS is a marketing and communications agency designed to provide online content for Champions Combine, Winning Solutions Advisory, and other MicroBrands. tag "strategy" tag "sports" tag "performance"

[firstumcschenectady]

Welcoming and Loving in Difficult Times

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305Pronouns: she/her/hershttp://fumcschenectady.org/ By Michele Cole

03/12/17

You know, one of my favorite holy days is Ash Wednesday, odd as that may sound. I can’t really explain why that is, except that there’s something very grounding about being reminded that we are from the earth and to it we shall return. It’s a reminder that we are a part of the big cosmic dance that includes all living things as well as inorganic creations like rocks and sand (particularly beach sand!  ) Or maybe it fulfills some kind of need to take a step back and really look at how I live in and relate to the world outside myself. I know these days I love to hear Pastor Sara read the litany from Yom Kippur when she preaches in the joint ecumenical service; it’s beautiful and life affirming. The downside to Ash Wednesday, at least for me, is that it’s the beginning of Lent, which I’ve never liked very much. As many of you know I grew up Catholic, although in talking with others I find it was much the same elsewhere during that time. I was a very imaginative and sensitive child and my very traditional parish emphasized during Lent what was wrong with me, and what I needed to do to be worthy. I was taught, or at least I believed, that I was so bad that Jesus had to die because of me; and so of course I felt very guilty that I helped to kill God. This isn’t a judgement on the religion in which I was raised. This is how it was, and I took it all in.  

However, that’s not the end of the story. As I was reading an online article on the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Discipleship website a light bulb went off in my head. I realized that the focus of Lent has changed since my childhood, and indeed began changing across denominational Christianity a few decades ago. Rather than a time of grimness that we just need to suffer through, the theology and practice of Lent has changed its focus to embrace a quiet time of reflection and preparation. This shift in perspective brought us back to the days of the early Christ followers, when they saw Lent as a time of preparation for the sacrament of Baptism. For them, Lent was the home stretch, as it were, when converts to Jesus’ Way received their final faith formation before they entered the sacred covenant with Christ and Christ’s church.  This time was not all inward focused, however; community members and soon-to-be members were expected to look outwardly as well, tending to those in need. Lent culminated in Easter, but also in baptism into a new way of living for oneself and others.

I also learned that for this Lenten season, the Methodist Church has decided to focus on living out our baptismal calling, with a look each week at a different baptismal question. Now, before you decide this sermon is going to be as dry as dust, please hear me out! Maybe it will be, but I’m finding it quite interesting how all of this is coming together. You see, this week’s question is --  “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”  Quite a well-timed question, as it fits in rather nicely with the Scriptural passages I chose for today and, unfortunately, with the tenor of world events that have been happening recently.

Our second reading for today recalls the sheep and goats parable that is told just before Matthew’s recounting of Jesus’ passion and resurrection. Given the timing as the last instruction before the end, it can be thought of as holding special emphasis as the final word on Jesus’ social teachings. Let me put a little context around it, as I pulled most of it out. This comes at the end of Matthew’s chapter 25, where Jesus has been cautioning His followers about the coming of God’s kingdom and what their attitudes and activities should be.   He has already told them to be alert, lest God come when they are not prepared, and also to be bold, not cautious, as they go about spreading the Good News and growing the number of disciples. Now he is taking those teachings to a new level; not only are they to be concerned about their own day to day living, but they are to notice and enhance the lives of the neediest among them. This is not just a morality tale, though, of how we are to act … it is also a tale of how we are to BE in the world and what attributes we are to cultivate in ourselves. For if you read the rest of the story, you will see that neither the sheep who were kind to the needy nor the goats who were not, did it because Jesus was alive in the marginalized. They didn’t realize it was Him. Those who reached out expressed their compassionate care of each other, their desire to help another in a time of great need. The goats had no such compassion and in fact, by saying “we didn’t realize it was you” betrayed their cynicism; had they known it was Jesus certainly they would have done something for Him. For their neighbor, not so much.

So ultimately this is a love story, a story where we are the lovers, where because we are loved we can in turn pass it on. It is a story that reminds us in fairly clear language what we, in our love for each other, are to do. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, welcome the stranger – while I imagine that we’ve heard these words many times before, they are taking on new meaning today, in a world that seems to get meaner and harder with each news cycle. I admit to being somewhat of a Facebook junkie, and I spend some time each day reading story after story about one group pitting themselves against another more marginalized group, as if there is just a finite amount of love and kindness in the world and it shouldn’t be spent on ‘them.’ More people are being overtly demonized, with more dire consequences, than in any time in my memory. It’s easy enough to do, and there are certain segments of our society now that seem to relish the task. I was reminded of this when I saw Wicked last weekend, which was fabulous by the way!  I don’t know how many of you know the story but in a nutshell, it’s a story about the ‘wicked’ witch of the west and how she came to be wicked. And it turns out that it wasn’t her doing at all. She was not ‘the bad one,’ but rather the victim of ‘othering.’ She was different from birth, with a different color skin from everyone else, and so she was ostracized. She developed a talent for doing spells and went to see the Wizard of Oz, who turned out to be just a man, not really a wizard. She realized that he’d come into power on a lie, and was in the process of eliminating all diversity in the land of Oz. She argued with him and refused to join him; instead she ran away. At which point the ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ began to systematically demonize her, spreading rumors about her evilness and telling lies about bad things that she had not done. By the end of it, the people of Oz were thoroughly convinced that she was bad to the bone, an evil wicked witch, even though her whole reputation was built on lies. She was trying to do good, but the castle was twisting everything she did, until finally she was no more …

Which brings me back to the present time, and the demonization of the ‘other,’ whether he is an immigrant, or she is a refugee child fleeing from destruction in her homeland, or they are a family of Muslims who are seeking safety from an extremist organization that wants them dead. How are we to think about the rhetoric that is flowing over us like so many words, telling stories about the people who are leaving all they know to come to where they hope is a safe place, guided only by their hopes and the love of God who wants all God’s children to be safe. Let’s take a moment to look at the lessons in the first reading, when God called Abram and Sarai out of the land of their birth to venture into a new land where their descendants will number like stars in the sky.

Abram and Sarai were the ultimate strangers; at a time when there were no Motel 6s or Google Earth maps, they trusted God and went where they were told. They were promised that they would be safe, that they would be led to a new land, and that they would be a blessing to the world. This story doesn’t say how they were treated along the way, whether they were hassled or confronted, or whether they encountered the hospitality that is so critical to so many stories in the Old Testament. What we do know, though, is that they made it through to each place they were led. They brought their customs and beliefs to a foreign land and worshiped their God, and apparently were left alone to do this in peace. And of course from them was born the Jewish people. This isn’t just a creation story, though, detailing how the people of Israel began. It is also a metaphor for how we are supposed to live, and to think about others who are strangers in our lands. As Timothy F. Simpson has pointed out in the online forum Political Theology Today,  this story is intended both to make us think that we should be them (that is, that we should be following where God leads, and trusting in God’s promises), but also that we could be them. That like Sarai and Abram if we follow where God leads we could be traveling to places we’ve never been before, meeting people unlike us and bringing blessings to whoever is there before us. This heightened sensitivity, or empathy, for the stranger takes us in a couple of directions. It can lead us to put ourselves in their place, encouraging us to treat them as we would wish to be treated if we were far from home and family. We are also led to recognize the blessings brought into our communities by those whose talents and perspectives are different from our own. We are called to be inclusive, to recognize the humanity of the stranger, to be welcoming …

Welcoming … it can be very hard for us to do, especially when those we greet look or act differently from us, or from how we think they should. Heightened tensions in the United States and around the world are resulting in policies targeting Muslims and brown skinned people, murders of people with brown skins or turbans, anti-Semitism resulting in bomb threats and cemetery desecrations, and more murders of trans women of color. In the absence of facts, ‘alternative truth’ is leading Americans to fear and hate immigrants, refugees and anyone outside of our comfort zone. Yet all is not yet lost, even though sometimes I’m not sure I recognize our country anymore. Amid yells of “go back to where you came from” we have to be the people of welcome, of abundant love. We have to recognize the humanity of those who others demonize, and share our humanity with them. We must model for the world what we would like the world to become, and represent not only the wanderer but also the One to whom we belong. If that sounds vague I’m afraid it is, because each of us has a different talent to share, and more or less time to exercise it. Each of us has a different perspective on current events, and how we would like to influence them. What I’m really suggesting is that we need to be awake to what is going on around us at all levels of our society, and to be ready to respond in whatever way makes the most sense for each of us. As we seek to reach out to the least of these, and welcome the strangers among us, we often need to look no farther than next to us, or down the street, or sometimes even no farther than our own mirror.

In the Matthew passage, the point is made that Christ has aligned himself with the ‘least of these’ and in so doing, is found in all of us. I would argue that when we think about bringing compassion and love to each other, we should also pay attention to how we can care for ourselves. It can be hard to do, I know, because I’m working on it myself. It can be very easy to look after everyone else but ignore our own very real needs for love, connection, compassion. Right now I’m very concerned about how many people are hurting, both the targets of nastiness and those of us who care about them and for them. The 24 hour news cycle is producing lots of anger, despair and hopelessness as it seems we go from one painful episode to another. Many of us are simply exhausted and are struggling to make sense of what’s happening around us. It’s in times like this that we are called to nurture ourselves, to bring that same abundance of compassion and love to ourselves that we give to each other. It’s ok to recognize that our energy isn’t limitless and our passion needs feeding before we can feed another.  

This brings me to another challenge that I’m struggling with; I don’t have an answer for it, I just want to put it out here for your consideration. I’ve talked a lot today about loving the least of these, and reaching out to our neighbors, especially those who are being oppressed and marginalized by society. But, that leaves out a group of people whom we may not want to consider but who I feel we must. What about those folks who are doing, saying and believing things that we find absolutely abhorrent? Those whose attitudes we believe to be completely wrong and even contrary to the Good News that we listen to and love? I don’t know if you remember, but Sara preached about the question I raised at the Connection gathering a few weeks ago, wondering how peace and anger can co-exist, how we can be peaceful without losing the edge that draws us into social action. I am now raising a similar question, but one that may make us a little more uncomfortable. At least it makes me squirm.  I’m trying to figure out how to love someone who I would much rather hate, or at least detest a lot. Who I may actually think is dangerous to me or to our society. I don’t mean that squishy kind of love that Kay Jewelers sings about, but instead the robust love that we are told to bestow on each other just for being a child of God in whom Jesus lives. What does that love look like when its object is someone we don’t like? How do we manifest it in our lives, and how do we come to terms with it ourselves? I also wonder if, by saying that there are people who by their words or actions don’t merit my love and concern, am I not being just like those very people who hate others and wish ill for them?  Does the guilt or innocence of the person impact my Christian love for them? Just a few of the questions swirling around in my head. I’d welcome a conversation about them sometime if anyone wants to take that one on!

Our readings for this morning provide guidance as we consider the baptismal question I posed earlier … “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”  If we are to answer yes to this question, we must follow the direction we receive from God to welcome the stranger among us.  To feed, clothe, visit and care for the least among us with an abundant compassion and love that reaches out because our neighbor is in need, recognizing that Christ lives in everyone we touch. To care for ourselves because we see the Christ in ourselves, and to provide us with the strength and determination to keep reaching out where we are needed. And finally to love without measure not only those who are loveable, or those who we ‘should’ love but also those who think differently from us or who have different values. Because to resist evil and injustice do we not need to counter it with love as well as with action? As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his 1963 book of sermons Strength to Love, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says “Love your enemies,” he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies– or else? The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” These were timely words in 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr put them to paper. They are equally of timely today. May we find it in ourselves to love our enemies, even as we struggle for a world where all are treated fairly and welcomed without hesitation.

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady