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#how easy it is for you to cheer for jews dying
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why does no one care? all the non jews i follow are posting like today is a normal day. i want to scream. i want to break down. THEY DIED BECAUSE OF YOU and you can’t even put the effort into reposting a “sorry there’s six more jews dead now oops” post
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melalka · 2 years
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5
Hello frenes, this is saint Adalbert from Prague :) one of my glittered prayer cards!
Adalbert from Prague – a Chech prince, bishop of Prague, benedyktyn, missionary, martyr (In 997 he went on a mission to Prussia where his goal was to evangelize pegans. It ended tragically as he ended up dying a martyrs death) The patron of Poland, Czech and Hungary.
The story of why he went to the church is that he was very sick as a child and his parents said that if god will save him they will give him to him as he was supposed to be a knight in the parents original plans. however it was also common to give away some of your children to the church if you had many and we're from a wealthy family, it's assumed that might be the case as his step brother Radzim (at least that's what it is in Polish) also joined. They got a very good education and all that and obviously a career and position and so on, it just was the thing to do at the time and their father payed for all the needs they had during their education.
He was the first bishop of Czech and didn't have a lot of money as everything he had went for the help of people in need and church maintenance. He visited a lot of people in need, prisons and most importantly slave markets. As Prague was on the road from east to west and so the Jews who took care of the slave trading there would take slaves to Mohammedan countries. And it's said he had a dream where Jesus accused him "here I am sold once again and you're sleeping?". Generally the situation in Czech wasn't easy as everything was dependent and the wants of the wealthy so there was lots of corruption that saint Adalbert didn't like, he often pointed out to them how they can't have multiple wives, marry their close family members, not celebrating church holidays properly and breaking fasts. He got super frustrated and saw he can't fix them so he left after 5 years (he was there 983-988). First he went to Maiz and then he went to Rome to ask to to look for advice and to be pardoned of his duties. He got lots of silver to live on after resigning from being bishop from the empress of Constantinople but he gave it all to the people in need. Pope John XV took him in and didn't let him resign however he allowed him to take some time off from it. He and his brother decided to walk to the holy ground as pilgrims. You can read up on where they went online I'm pretty sure. I must finish this as I have a presentation for university :')
Cheers,
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The Hunter and the Apache
Okay, this is my first time writing for Aldo, but I promise to give it my best effort. Thank you @sergeant-donny-donowitz for allowing me to brain storm this idea! As always characters and the gif are not mine. I hope you all enjoy it!!
Description: The Nazis are well aware of the Basterds and the many powerful members of the group. However, a new member of the Basterds has made an impact, and their skills with hatchets are unmatched
Warnings: gore, violence, langauage, the Basterds kicking butt and taking names like normal
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The Basterds had surrounded a small group of Nazis, and corned them in a secluded section of forest outside of the village they were staying in. Tracking the Nazis down was easy, and now that they had the enemy in their grasp, they would be able to get all of the information that they needed.
“Now, I need you to tell me where more of your little buddies are,” Aldo said as he glared at the Nazi that sat in front of him.
The Nazi merely scoffed at Aldo. “Why should I tell you anything, stupid American.”
“Well, if you don’t tell me what I need to know, I’m callin’ the Hunter of Harrisburg over. If you’ve heard of Aldo the Apache and The Bear Jew, you had to have heard about the Hunter of Harrisburg.”
“Yeah, and they don’t take mercy on Nazi assholes like you,” Donny chimed in as he twirled his bat around. The other Basterds all shouted in agreement.
Every Nazi in German-occupied France knew exactly who the Hunter of Harrisburg was. Some thought that they were a phantom, or perhaps the devil. The Hunter of Harrisburg was known for appearing out of thin air and taking out victims with one skillful throw of a hatchet.
“I’m not scared of this American pig you call the Hunter of Harrisburg,” the Nazi snarled.
Aldo simply chuckled. “Oh that’s where you’re wrong because the Hunter of Harrisburg is no pig. If anything, their faster than a hawk huntin’ a jack rabbit.” The leader of the Basterds was met by defiant silence.
Finally, one of the other Nazi captives couldn’t take the intense pressure any longer. He sprung to his feet and began to run out of the clearing. None of the Basterds moved to shoot the man, but instead let Aldo take charge. Aldo gave a short whistle, and a figure flung down from out of the trees above the clearing. The figure landed on their feet, and with one smooth movement of their arm, the hatchet they were holding flew through the air. The hatchet made contact with its target, and crimson liquid tinted the Nazis green uniform.
All of the Basterds cheered as the figure sauntered over to the dying Nazi. They pulled the hatchet from the Nazis spine, and leaned over to whisper into his ear. “Have fun in hell, you piece of shit.”
While the figure begun to remove the scalp from the Nazi, Aldo turned back to the Nazi in front of him with a smirk resting on his face. “Still not afraid of the Hunter of Harrisburg?”
“Good shot, Y/N,” Hugo Stiglitz said as Y/N walked over to where the other basterds were standing. Y/N smiled at the usually silent man. “Thank you, Stiglitz. It was a very nice shot if I do say so myself.”
“Ya know I could have got that guy,” Donny commented as he grinned at Y/N.
“You wish, darlin’. I don’t think that big bat of your’s would have travelled that far of a distance,” Y/N replied. Their voice was twinged with the same Southern accent as Aldo.
Aldo and Y/N had met back in Tennessee. Y/N lived in Harrisburg, which was a few hours away from Aldo’s hometown, and they would often go to him to buy their supply of moonshine. In return, Y/N would give Aldo firewood to use in his cabin. Y/N’s toned arms were evidence of how often they split wood, and it was well known that Y/N was the best hatchet thrower in Tennessee.
When Aldo first formed the Basterds, he didn’t want to wrap Y/N up in the dangers that awaited in Europe. He cared too much about them, and he didn’t want to see them harmed. However, Y/N caught wind of the group that Aldo was a part of, and they took it into their own hands to join the Basterds. Now after earning their reputation as the Hunter of Harrisburg, the Basterds treated them like family, and the Nazis were terrified of them.
Y/N tossed the scalp down at Aldo’s feet and held their hatchet close to the head Nazi’s throat, the blood of his comrade still dripping from the silver edge of the weapon. “You better start talkin’, or you’ll end up just like your friend over there.”
The Nazi automatically began to tell all of the information that they needed to know, which was translated by Wicki. After the information was gathered, Hugo and Omar shot the other Nazis that remained in the group, leaving the head Nazi quivering in front of Aldo and Y/N.
“Now, I’m gonna give you somethin’ you can’t take off, and then you’re gonna run back to your commander and tell him that the Basterds are comin’ for every last one of you Nazi scum,” Aldo declared as he plunged his knife into the Nazis forehead. The blade pierced through the Nazis skin, and he howled in pain.
After the Nazi started to run back in the direction of the village, all the while holding his bleeding temple, the Basterds headed in the opposite direction. They had more Nazis to hunt, and with the directions that they received, they knew exactly where to go. The other Basterds took the lead at the front of the group, while Aldo and Y/N trailed at the back.
As Y/N whiped the dark fluid from the silver edge of her hatchet, Aldo snaked his arm around Y/N’s waist. “Have I ever told you how gorgeous you are when you take down Nazis,” Aldo whispered in Y/N’s ear.
“I don’t think you have, but I’m glad that you get as much enjoyment out of it as I do,” Y/N said as they leaned into Aldo’s touch. His warmth brought them comfort, which in these uncertain times was a godsend.
Once the war was over, Aldo vowed to propose to Y/N, and he kept that promise. It didn’t matter how many enemies they had to face. The Apache and the Hunter of Harrisburg would always stick together until the very end.
Tags: @sharky9boy, @sergeant-donny-donowitz, @redrosewritingsstuff, @jiejie-eonni-onee-sama
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rethinkingthefaith · 5 years
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Universal Salvation: Considering the Possibility
"The Lord has compassion over all He has made." Psalm 145:9
The scenario is easy enough to imagine. Mother Teresa spies an old man dying in the streets of Calcutta. She sponges his fevered brow and has him transported to a medical facility. After giving him a cup of water, the nun prays with him and whispers to him about God's love. It makes no difference to her that the suffering man has lived an irreligious life. Her love and mercy are unconditional. He need not confess a doctrine in order to be the recipient of her compassion. As his breaths grow increasingly shallow, Mother Teresa does everything she can to comfort the man, to make him feel loved.
Now imagine that the man dies and passes into the next life according to the prevailing theology. He is without hope. The love and mercy he knew moments earlier from one of God's imperfect creatures flees away before God Himself. He is a cursed soul.
The difficulty ought to trouble every believer in popular religion. Based on our scenario, Mother Teresa turns out to be more merciful, more compassionate, more loving than Deity. While performing her acts of charity in the name of Christ, she is adopting the very opposite stance that God Himself adopts moments later. How can this be?
Consider another scene: A devout Quaker takes to heart the holy obligation to love his enemies. He has received harsh treatment from some neighbors. Still, he prays for them. When one of them falls ill, he brings over a meal. He does whatever he can to help in time of need and adopts a cheerful demeanor toward them, despite their animosity. His actions are much like Jesus'.
Suddenly, one of these neighbors dies in a car accident. He leaves this life at odds with the Divine. So how will God treat His own enemies when they stand before Him? Will it be consistent with the way His servant, the Quaker, treated the man? Not according to mainstream belief. No, the Quaker's Christlike heart toward his foes is not a reflection of God's dealings with His enemies. Again, how can this be consistent with the divine perfections? Does God tell us to love our enemies and do good for them, yet bring wrath upon His?
The question is all the more pointed when we consider that Jesus bids us to love those who do not love us, so that we may be "perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matt. 5:46-48)
Considering universal salvation
This is not intended as a presumptuous judging of God and His ways. That would be the height of folly. If God really does relate to His creatures the way orthodoxy says He does, then I have misread the internal monitor that informs my sense of justice and mercy. This is certainly a possibility. A thousand prejudices influence my thinking, and I confess that this may be one of them. But it hardly seems criminal to consider alternate possibilities when popular theology fails to engage reasonable questions.
In my article Thoughts on the Afterlife, I asserted that there is no place for dogmatism in our beliefs surrounding life after death. But there is room for thought, leanings, theories, providing we understand their fallibility.
In that spirit, I approach the doctrine of universalism as a theory that makes more sense to me than the other views of personal eschatology. Universalism argues that God will eventually draw the entire human race to Himself, that every person's heart ultimately will be right with its Maker. I present it here as a possibility, one that I realize may be wishful thinking in the extreme. Admittedly, I am not fully convinced of it. But there are reasons for holding out such a hope.
On the deepest level, universalist considerations do not come to me via theology or even Bible verses. They come when I consider the people whom the traditional system places in hell. I think of a little Jewish lady bowed over with age, a young man raised in an irreligious home, droves in India eking out a destitute existence. Then I contemplate the love that flows from the throne of God and the Savior who died forgiving his murderers. When I do this, the traditional view loses its credibility.
I am aware that intuition is a poor foundation for a religious doctrine. And equally aware that such biases can contaminate our handling of Scripture and theology. But the love and mercy of God are presuppositions for which I make little apology. Other Christians taint their objectivity with lesser biases, such as a desire to follow the majority or to vindicate a cherished creed.
The attributes of God
Thankfully, though, theology does offer its supports to universalism. The greatest of these may be the perfection of the divine attributes. God, for instance, is sovereign. His will is supreme and must carry the day. All that He wills, he fulfills. Isaiah taught this (Isa. 46:11). So did Daniel (Dan. 4:35) and Paul (Eph. 1:11). Nothing, not even the stubborn will of man, can thwart God's will.
And what is this will with regard to the scope of redemption? Paul wrote that God "will have all men be be saved." (1 Tim. 2:4) God desires not the death of the wicked, but a mending of their ways (Ezek. 18:23). He is willing that no one should perish (2 Peter 3:9). Place the sovereignty of God beside His stated will to save the world and universalism becomes tenable.
Let me restate the point: 1. The Bible tells us that God is sovereign. 2. He has a will. 3. His will positively must come to pass, no matter the odds. 4. His will is that all turn from their evil ways and be saved. Where is the break in this chain? How can we absolutely rule out universal salvation in the light of such truths?
The other attributes of God support his sovereignty. God is all wise and would not create a world that might slip out of His control and ruin most of His rational creatures. God is all-powerful and will not fail in His attempts to win humanity to Himself. His arm is not shortened that He cannot save, as Isaiah prophesied.
The attributes of love, compassion and mercy are at the highest level of perfection in Deity. Even many of His creatures who have an infinitely inferior measure of such graces would gladly save everyone if they could. It only makes sense then that the God whose kindness and pity so exceed ours would do likewise. It cannot be that His creatures have a wider breadth of mercy than He.
And yet, that is what the mainstream's exclusionism gives us: Imperfect human beings whose mercy and compassion are more liberal than the Father's. It sets forth erring men and women who are called to love their adversaries, while God holds Himself to the lower standard of hating His (or at least acting as if He does). What thoughtful believer can own such a contradiction as sound doctrine?
The Christian hope as "good news"
Universalism is serious when it calls the Christian message "good news." The mainstream calls its view by the same name, while affirming that most people on the planet will die in their sins without hope. Humanity is heading toward a precipice of ruin and only the tiniest remnant (in proportion to the whole) will escape.
To this day, I wonder how anyone who believes this fervently can ever have a happy moment. Souls perishing each second of the day! Can a person be joyful knowing that such a thing is going on all around them? True, you may be relieved about not being among the lost yourself, but such a sentiment hardly resembles selfless, Christian compassion.
Suppose someone predicted that a dirty bomb would explode in your town and kill the vast majority of its inhabitants, but that you were destined to escape it. Would you rejoice at the news? Would hearing about this thrill you to the depths of your being? Such jubilation would be a dark blot on one's character.
Supports from Scripture
Universalism has the support of many passages in Holy Scripture. It is consistent with the Old Testament prophetic vision of a world at peace with Yahweh:
"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him." (Psalm 22: 27)
"All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord ... You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. The Lord is just in all his ways and kind in all his doings. ... My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever." (Psalm 145: 10, 16-17, 21)
"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines ... And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth." (Isa. 25:6-8)
"From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord." (Isa. 66:23)
"For from the rising of the sun to the setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the nations." (Mal. 1:11)
Critics may see in these texts nothing but hyperbole, a recognition that someday Jews and Gentiles alike would see the salvation of God. They may be right. But don't such passages challenge on some level the common idea that most of humanity will be lost? In the face of texts that speak of "all flesh" eventually coming to God, it is striking that traditional Christians so easily sustain their belief that most flesh will not come to God.
Suppose we held contrarian views in the face of other universal "all" passages. Would this make good sense? Can we read, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," while holding a belief that the majority has not sinned? And when we read about the crucifixion, where "all forsook him and fled," can we argue rationally that most stayed by his side? If not, then how can we read texts about all nations, all families and all flesh coming to the Lord without at least considering that the human story will have a happy ending?
Universal salvation is consistent with the New Testament assertion that God loves the world (John 3:16), and that Christ has brought salvation to all (Titus 2:11), that he has reconciled every person to the Father (2 Cor. 5:18) and has come to save the world, not condemn it (John 3:17). Three times, the Bible tells us that every knee will bow and every tongue pay homage to the Lord (Isa. 45:23, Rom. 14:11, Phil. 2:9-10).
The book of Revelation looks forward to a day when all rational beings without exception give glory to God and Christ:
"Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.' " (Rev. 5:13)
Biblical objections
True, there are many texts that militate against universalism. I doubt that the biblical authors can rightly be called universalists. But the logical consequence of what they taught about redemption and the love of God certainly cracks open the door. Peter said that the prophets of old did not understand the full implications of their own utterances (1 Pet. 1:10-12). Could it be that even the New Testament writers on some level shared this imperfection with their Old Testament counterparts?
I do believe that many of those texts that appear to contradict universal salvation speak of judgments in this world. Even statements about "unquenchable fire" probably refer to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., not a judgment in an immortal world. Isaiah used a similar statement to convey a temporal judgment in his prophecy (1:31).
The judgment of God spoken of in the New Testament -- including the terms "destruction," "eternal punishment," (literally, "punishment of the age," NOT "endless punishment"), "condemnation" -- were all at hand, set to fall upon that generation. The coming of the Son of Man in fiery judgment was not an event reserved for the distant future or beyond the grave -- it was imminent, ready to sweep the land (Matt. 10:23; 16:27-28; 24:30-34). It makes sense then to locate the fulfillment of these words in the first century.
Grace after death?
Another consideration relating to the universalist theory is this: Nowhere are we ever told that death ends our opportunities for redemption. In fact, there is evidence that the New Testament supports after-death grace (1 Pet. 3:19-20; 4:6). Could it be that the multitudes who leave this life without a right heart may gain one hereafter?
Those who find God on this side of the grave are called "the elect" in the New Testament. Universalism holds out hope that an even larger body is elected to find Him after this life so that He can literally "have mercy on all." (Rom. 11:32) How else can such "larger hope" texts come to pass unless the ages of eternity are fitted to bring much of our race into a right relationship with the Sacred?
The immediate reaction of most Christians today is against such a concept. But on what basis, other than its initial strangeness to us? It was not strange to the ancient church. Many in the early centuries of the faith prayed for the dead to find ultimate redemption. Some, as Paul tells us without disapproval, were even baptizing on behalf of the dead (1 Cor. 15:29). Other Christians of antiquity commonly held that Christ entered hades and emptied it after the crucifixion.
And so the ancients did not see death as the end of all opportunities for all human beings. And why should they have? There is no necessity laid on God to cut off hope with one's last breath. Why should something as arbitrary and capricious as death be the deciding factor?
Universalism has an ancient tradition behind it. It is not a novel idea invented by a few modernists. The early church had plenty of adherents to universal redemption. Greek-speaking Fathers of the Church -- those fluent in the New Testament tongue -- were especially apt to be universalists.
A destiny of purpose
Universalism gives purpose to the creation in a way that the other views of personal eschatology do not. In the mainstream view, multitudes are born, live and die -- only to find that their entrance into this world was an absurd misfortune. Time sweeps away entire villages, cities, cultures whose existence must be deemed pointless.
Here there is no comfort for the parent of a suicide victim. No rest from the nagging concern that one's family may at the last be sent to perdition. Every natural disaster in a nonchristian land severs multitudes from God for eternity. Victims of the Holocaust pass through their excruciating ordeal only to be cast away when they arrive in the Divine presence. Life becomes futile and existence devoid of purpose.
Universalism makes the suffering of this life purposeful, part of the soul-making process. To the universalist, punishment -- even punishment in the next life -- is corrective and helpful to the one chastened by it. To the traditionalist, punishment simply is an end in itself. Suffering becomes the last word for most of humanity.
True, the unpleasantness of an idea is no proof of its falsity. But which view is more consistent with a loving God whose "mercy endures forever"? Which sounds more like "glad tidings of great joy"? Which makes Jesus "the savior of all men, especially those that believe" (1 Tim. 4:10)?
Some may complain that such a view fails to do justice to the many biblical texts that speak of evildoers perishing in their sins. Universalism does not easily address the predestination of some to eternal life and the passing by of others, an idea common in Paul's epistles. I am sensitive to those objections, despite not being a biblical inerrantist. Many times, I consider modifying the position to exclude the wickedest of the human family. It may well be that those who pursue evil for its own sake, voluntarily removing themselves from God and all goodness, will forfeit the gift of existence. But consistency makes me hesitate. If Christ "tasted death for every man," (Heb. 2:9) that would seem to include the worst.
This, as I said before, is not the stuff of dogma. Universal salvation remains an inconclusive theory (albeit a sensible one). It is not something that I am prepared to shout from the rooftops as one of those "things most surely to be believed." But it remains a possibility in the minds of many. It is a hope that the psalmist was right when he declared that "all flesh will bless His holy name, forever and ever." (Psalm 145:21).
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johnhardinsawyer · 6 years
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The Politics of the Kingdom
John Sawyer
Bedford Presbyterian Church
3 / 25 / 18 – Palm/Passion Sunday
 Mark 11:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
 “The Politics of the Kingdom” (Using Jesus, and Other Mistakes)
 A little over a week from now will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in Memphis.  Over the past five decades, Dr. King has achieved an almost saint-like status for some. In a 2011 poll that was taken by the Gallup organization, 94% of respondents had a favorable view of Dr. King.[1]  I was surprised to learn, though, that Dr. King was not nearly this popular when he was alive.  
In the years leading up to his assassination, the preacher and civil rights activist was less popular than ever. A 1966 Gallup poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of Dr. King and a third had a positive opinion.[2]
If you learn about some of the things that Dr. King said and did that didn’t involve the beautiful phrase “I have a dream,” you might start to understand why he wasn’t all that popular.  When he started talking about racism, segregation, and housing in the North, and poverty and economic justice, and the war in Vietnam, and “restructuring American society,”[3] it was clear that King’s dream of a different kind of Kingdom was ruffling the feathers of all kinds of people and his popularity dropped – both in the white community and the black community.  “I Have a Dream is so nice,” people thought, “but all that other stuff is too political.”
Hmmmm. . . political.  This is a word that really gets people going, isn’t it?  I don’t know how many times in recent months I have heard one person or another talking about how they don’t want politics in their football or their food choices, their hobbies or their habits, their awards shows or their gun shows, the rhetoric they hear or the religion they espouse.  If you take the word “politics” back to its root in the Greek, you get the word polis, which means city or state[4] or nation.  Anyone who lives in a polis tends to have opinions about what would make that polis a better place to live.  The only trouble is, all those who are seeking the well-being of their polis rarely agree on what would make that polis better.  I guess this is where politics – the process of “making decisions that apply to members of a group”[5] – becomes partisan.  People choose sides, thinking that that their opinions about the polis are the only ones that make sense to them.  And they don’t want to recognize that what’s best for everyone in the polis might look different from how they feel things should be.
Jesus lived in politically divided times.  Around the time of Jesus’ birth, the Romans moved in to stay and became the main governing and occupying force.[6]  By the time Jesus was an adult, the Roman empire had been involved in the politics of Judea for decades.  This was not the first time the descendants of Abraham had been conquered by one group or another.  Empire after empire had invaded the land, laying waste and laying claim.  The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Greeks, had all left their mark over the centuries – and sometimes that mark was quite bloody.  Now the Romans were in charge.  They put puppet rulers on the throne – the Herodians – but it was clear that Rome held all the real power.  And the people who lived in the land had to choose:  would they go along with the empire who had conquered them, or would they resist?
In Jesus’ day, even though Rome held almost all of the power, there were different groups squabbling over whatever little power was left.  This was especially true in the Jewish religion.  As shocking as it may sound, there are times when the politics of power are mixed with religion, and vice-versa.  As we learned in our Wednesday night Bible Study a few weeks ago, in the Jewish religion, the Pharisees were concerned with following the Law of Moses, the Sadducees were concerned with sacrificing things in the Temple, the Essenes thought that the Pharisees and Sadducees were impure, so they went out to the desert to get away from it all.  To top it all off, there was a growing number of people who were thinking revolutionary thoughts of somehow rising up against the Romans.  Things were quite complicated and volatile.
And then, Jesus came onto the scene.  And everywhere he went, he was interacting with people of different religious backgrounds, and different political leanings, different levels of purity and different races.  He didn’t make things easy for himself when he healed a Roman Centurion’s servant, and talked with women and men who were not Jewish, and mixed it up with the Pharisees and Sadducees.[7]  Different groups tried to test him to see whose side he was on.  The scribes and Pharisees were especially persistent, asking Jesus why he was eating with sinners, and tax collectors, and other undesirables.  It seemed, that if Jesus sided with anyone at all, it was with the people who had no power at all – the poor, the outcast, the sick, the sinners, and the children. In the Kingdom of God, the lowest and the least and the last are the ones God prefers.  Answers like these didn’t satisfy the Pharisees so they went out, pretty early on, and conspired with the Herodians – the Jews who were allied with the Romans – to destroy Jesus.  This is just one example of how political things were for Jesus.  But, when he rode into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, things got really political.
In Mark’s version of the Palm Sunday story, the people use “cloaks” and “leafy branches”  (Mark 11:8)  instead of palm branches, but this scene of Jesus riding a colt into the city of Jerusalem with people laying down their cloaks and waving branches was a symbolic recreation of triumphant parades from the past.  Symbols like this can carry a lot of emotional and historical weight.  
There was this one time – a couple of hundred years before Jesus – when the city of Jerusalem had been conquered by the Greeks and was being held by the Seleucids – a group of people who had burned all of the copies of the Hebrew scriptures that they could find.  Times were tough for the children of Israel.  But then, the Maccabees, a Jewish family, led a revolt that made it all the way to Jerusalem. They took most of the city from the Seleucids and laid siege to a fortress where the last of their enemies were hiding.  Finally, when the fortress fell, they went in “. . .with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.”  (1 Maccabees 13:51)  Years later, when people saw Jesus – someone from the household of King David, someone who had been talking about the “Kingdom of God,” someone who had enough of a following to actually do something dramatic – riding into the city, in full view of all of the parties and groups who wanted a piece of him, there were likely some in that crowd who knew their history, and thought about the “great enemy,” the Romans, and waved their palm branches with revolution on their minds. A palm branch is a symbol loaded with meaning.  Perhaps, you might be able to think of other symbols like this – both positive and negative.
You see how political things were for Jesus?  He had some influence with the people who followed him and could have claimed power with that influence.  But he didn’t. . .  at least not like everyone else wanted him to.
Many of the people who waved branches and cheered for Jesus could only guess what was on his mind as he rode down the steep slope of the Mount of Olives and up into the city of Jerusalem.  Just so you know the road down the Mount of Olives is very steep and I don’t think we give Jesus enough credit on his colt-riding skills, especially since he was riding a “colt that [had] never been ridden.” (Mark 11:2)  Reading Mark’s account, we don’t know if Jesus was happy about all of the cheering, we just know that he rode into the city, went into the temple, looked around at everything and went back out to Bethany (probably to return the colt that he borrowed).  Nowhere do we read that Jesus met with this group or that group – that he tried to curry favor or play politics.  There were those who had revolution, or the Law, or the Romans, or human political power on their minds, but Jesus had the Kingdom of God on his mind.
It should be noted that in the Bible, the word polis is used to talk about human cities and nations, but it is also used to talk about the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem.  At the end of the Book of Revelation, we see this Holy Polis[8] “coming down out of heaven from God.” (Revelation 21:2)  The holy city of the Kingdom of God is a place where every tear will be wiped away, where death and mourning and pain will be no more, a place where wholeness and peace and praise will be known by all, and where everyone will dwell fully in the presence of God.  In his earthly ministry – in the ways that he taught and preached and healed – with his very presence among all those who needed him, Jesus sought to create this Kingdom and bring it near.  And in his dying and rising, Jesus brings this Kingdom into full view.  This Kingdom is unlike any other.  It is a Kingdom of grace, made perfect in weakness and vulnerability.[9]
The prophet Isaiah writes about a suffering servant who listens to God, is not rebellious, and doesn’t turn back.  This servant is one who is struck on the face and is insulted and spat upon, and yet he keeps going.  Isaiah uses the image of a “face like flint” (Isaiah 50:7), the face of someone who appears hard and determined.  But if flint is struck in just the right place, the stone will chip, revealing just how vulnerable it can be.  The same can be said of Jesus, who had warned his disciples that the “Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, [rejected by all of the parties and power-brokers in the polis] and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31)
Jesus Christ “humbled himself and become obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8)  The cross is a symbol full of meaning because it is the place where the life of God brings an end to death, where God’s love is shown in all of its fullness, where a vulnerable God – a crucified God – shows true and gracious power.  It would seem that Jesus has an agenda all his own – one that so many did not understand, but one that applies to everyone in the human family.  And throughout the gospels, Jesus calls his followers to take up their crosses and follow him.
To follow Jesus does not mean that we will always join a joyous parade.  Sometimes, the march is full of hardship and tears.  But if we are striving for the Kingdom of God, the way is blessed because we have One who goes before us – One who has shown us the way, the truth, and the life.
The way of Jesus is one of non-violence – putting down our swords – of humility and healing, of peace and wholeness.  The truth of Jesus is that he came as a teacher and shows us – in his life and example – how to love and forgive.  The life of Jesus is abundant and full and everlasting.  It is a life that is always seeking, striving, and working for the Kingdom of God, both in the here-and-now and in the yet-to-come.
This is a Kingdom, that we see in the presence and person and humble power of Jesus Christ.  May we seek this Kingdom above all others.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
------
[1] http://news.gallup.com/poll/149201/Americans-Divided-Whether-King-Dream-Realized.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=plaintextlink&utm_term=Politics.
[2] http://www.newsweek.com/martin-luther-king-jr-was-not-always-popular-back-day-780387.
[3] Trailer for King in the Wilderness, documentary – 0:30.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVGRg89DbyM.
[4] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1979) 685.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics.
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_(Roman_province).
[7] Luke 7:1-10 (also Matthew 8:5-13), Mark 7:24-30, John 4, Mark 12:18.
[8] Nestle-Aland, ed. Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart:  Deutsche Bibelgesellshaft, 1993) 675 – “hagian polin”.
[9] 2 Corinthians 12:8-10.
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scoutess-blog · 7 years
Text
Summer Project
Tasks
Once I was accepted into graphics course, the class was set a task to introduce us to our first new topic. Which was poetry. To help us get stuck into the tasks we were first asked to look at some poets: Sylvia, Walt Whitman, Eminem and many others. 
Sylvia - Lady Lazarus
I have done it again.   One year in every ten   I manage it—— A sort of walking miracle, my skin   Bright as a Nazi lampshade,   My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine   Jew linen. Peel off the napkin   O my enemy.   Do I terrify?—— The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?   The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be   At home on me And I a smiling woman.   I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three.   What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments.   The peanut-crunching crowd   Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot—— The big strip tease.   Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands   My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.   The first time it happened I was ten.   It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all.   I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else.   I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell.   I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call. It’s easy enough to do it in a cell. It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.   It’s the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute   Amused shout: ‘A miracle!’ That knocks me out.   There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge   For the hearing of my heart—— It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge   For a word or a touch   Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.   So, so, Herr Doktor.   So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable,   The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek.   I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash— You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—— A cake of soap,   A wedding ring,   A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer   Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair   And I eat men like air.
I particularly enjoy this poem as I feel it has a lot of history and emotion to the point that I feel like I know the person well enough, like I can see her life through her own eyes in just one poem. It uses many illustrative words and phrases to create a very clear picture, almost like a movie. Personally, the poem is a extraordinary piece of work as even though the topic is extremely morbid it almost gives way to a hopeful ending. It uses no rhymes, long phrases or even heavy descriptions. Yet, it can communicate powerful, emotional feelings through single words or small phrases. Especially, once I read it out loud. 
Walt Whitman - One’s-Self I sing
One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing.
This poem is much shorter than the previous one but uses longer and more complex words and phrases. I believe the poem is communicating the fact that even if society dictates whom is stronger, worthier he will not bend to them as all are equal in life with their own choices. He has freedom of speech as is the modern way. The changes that were currently happening during the time the poem was written. 
Eminem - Lose Yourself
Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment Would you capture it, or just let it slip? Yo His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down, The whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out He's choking how, everybody's joking now The clock's run out, time's up, over, blaow! Snap back to reality. Oh, there goes gravity Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked He's so mad, but he won't give up that Easy, no He won't have it, he knows his whole back's to these ropes It don't matter, he's dope He knows that but he's broke He's so stagnant, he knows When he goes back to his mobile home, that's when it's Back to the lab again, yo This whole rhapsody He better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him [Hook:] You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go (go) You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo) You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go (go) You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo) (You better) The soul's escaping, through this hole that is gaping This world is mine for the taking Make me king, as we move toward a new world order A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to postmortem It only grows harder, homie grows hotter He blows. It's all over. These hoes is all on him Coast to coast shows, he's known as the globetrotter Lonely roads, God only knows He's grown farther from home, he's no father He goes home and barely knows his own daughter But hold your nose 'cause here goes the cold water His hoes don't want him no more, he's cold product They moved on to the next schmoe who flows He nose dove and sold nada So the soap opera is told and unfolds I suppose it's old partner, but the beat goes on Da da dum da dum da da da da [Hook] No more games, I'mma change what you call rage Tear this motherfucking roof off like two dogs caged I was playing in the beginning, the mood all changed I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage But I kept rhyming and stepped right into the next cypher Best believe somebody's paying the Pied Piper All the pain inside amplified by the Fact that I can't get by with my 9 to 5 And I can't provide the right type of life for my family 'Cause man, these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life And these times are so hard, and it's getting even harder Trying to feed and water my seed, plus Teeter totter caught up between being a father and a primadonna Baby, mama drama's screaming on her Too much for me to wanna Stay in one spot, another day of monotony's gotten me To the point, I'm like a snail I've got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shot Success is my only motherfucking option, failure's not Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got to go I cannot grow old in Salem's lot So here I go it's my shot. Feet, fail me not This may be the only opportunity that I got [Hook] You can do anything you set your mind to, man
Eminem is one of my favourite rap artists because he makes all of his songs realistic since it is usually what is going in his life at the time. however, they still seem to relate to everyone like this song as it speaks to people about not missing your chance at life. The language is mainly modern slang but is easily understood and much easier to rhyme with. When I tried to speak it out loud it didn't really sound as good as the original as I found it difficult to just speak it when it should be rapped. 
Step Right Up
For the second task our main objective was create some poetry verses based on advertising, signs and pictures that are around shops and roads. The task is based off from the song “STEP RIGHT UP” from 1977. Honestly, it is not to my taste but is certainly catchy and made it much easier to create verses by using the song as a reference. 
Leave it to dame
Touch you must pay
Only £1
To make a house a home
Spend it all to get it all
Because you’re worth it
I’m lovin’ it
Every little helps
Maybe she’s born with it
Just do it
Karaoke Poetry
Task 3 was slightly more difficult as we had many more choices of content since we had to use our top 10 favourite songs. I chose my favourite songs first then i cost songs that a similar theme like genre or just the topic.
Once  I chose my favourite songs I listened and picked out my favourite lyrics so I could have a variety of choices for the poem as the lyrics could be mixed to create differently themed poems. 
1. Take It Out On Me
-Thought i had it under control
-You wanted it to be picture perfect 
-You don’t have to throw it away
-Just let it go
-Take it out on me
2.Stressed Out
-Nw I’m insecure and i care what people think
-My name’s blurry face and I care what you think
-Wish we could turn back time 
3.Superhero
-Hands up if you’re ready for the fight
-I don’t need you to believe in me
-I know how to change my destiny
-We can change the whole world 
-Tell me that you’re in it
-Don’t you wanna be a superhero
4.Nicotine
-You’re worse than nicotine
-I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back
-Just one more hit then we’re through
5.Satellite
-You have to cross the line
-I’m passing over you like a satellite
-So shine your light on me
-It’s not too late, we have the rest of our lives
-This is the life you can't deny us now
6.Immortals
-They say we are what we are
-I’m bad behaviour but I do it in the best way
-I’ll be the guard dog of your fevered dreams
-Cause we could be immortals
-I am the sand at the bottom of the hour glass
-Pull the black out curtains now
7.I miss the Misery
-I miss the misery
-I’ve been a mess since you stayed
-i’ve been a wreck since you changed
-I’ve tried but i just can’t take this
-I’d rather fight than just fake it
-Don’t let me get in your way
8.The Resistance
Am a soldier, I won’t surrender
-Who’s gonna stand up, who's gonna fight
Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train
-Heart beating faster, feels like thunder
9.Blood
-And rid myself of all my sin
-I swear I have sense
-We will gain nothing from this
-If you come closer I will lose control
-Cause you’ve been asking for it
10.X Gon’ Give To It Ya
-It’s what hearing, listen
-X gon’ give it to ya
-Fuck waiting for you to get it on your own
-I’ll do it again cos I’m right
-Ain’t never gave anything to me
By inserting the key phrases I found it easier to complete a poem and I experiment with different orders.
Poems
CONTROL UNCHAINED
Thought I had it under control
I don’t need you to believe in me
Now I’m insecure and I acre what people think
I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back
I’m passing over you like a satellite
I’m bad behaviour but I do it in the best way
I’d rather fight than just fake it
Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train
If you come closer I will lose control
There is a beast inside, breaking free
[Insert photo sketches]
IMPERFECT TIME
They say we are what we are
You wanted it to be picture perfect
You can change the whole world
We will gain nothing from this
It’s not too late, we’ve have the rest of our lives
Don’t let me get in your way
You’re worse than nicotine
Ain’t never gave nothin’ to me
Heart beating faster, feels like thunder
Wish we could turn back time
DEATH’S DOOR
I’ve tried but I just can’t take it
Take it out on me
I swear I have sense
Am a soldier, I won’t surrender
I am the sand at the bottom of the hour glass
Its what your hearing, listen
Tell me that you’re in it
Wish we could turn back time
Just one more hit, then we’re through
This is the life you can’t deny us now
ME X YOU
You don’t have to throw it away
Now I’m secure and I care what people think
I know how to change my destiny
I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back
You have to cross the line
Pull the black out curtains now
I miss the misery
Who’s gonna stand up, who’s gonna fight
Cause you’ve been asking for it
X gon’ give it to ya
Evaluation/ Reflection 
When I first looked at the starting brief I was surprised about the topic since it was not something I previously associated with graphics. however, once I started completing the tasks it became more obvious that the point of the brief was to introduce us to the relationship between text and image. A graphic artist is not only someone who creates art pieces on the computer but instead communicates through their artwork with a message. Whether that is from product design, advertising or simply creating a comic. 
0 notes
adambstingus · 7 years
Text
5 Terrible Tragedies Exploited By Cash-Obsessed A-Holes
Everyone loves a good scary movie, but wouldn’t it be great if you were actually living in a scary movie? That’s the business model in play for some luminaries out there, who think you really want to relive some of history’s most horrifying moments. They’re convinced that the tragedy-junkie dollar exists, dammit, and they’re going to get that green, dammit. So what’ve they come up with?
#5. Haunted Houses Based On Real Serial Killers
People who go to haunted houses are getting increasingly jaded — once you’ve chained live, naked actresses to the floor, there aren’t many places to go — apparently prompting the sort of people who design haunted houses to ask themselves, “What about actual murder?”
So, for the last few years, haunted houses have begun reenacting the real murders of notorious serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. One New York production even featured an exhibit of the creepsters’ personal belongings, donated by a murder memorabilia collector who requested to remain anonymous. Let the speculation begin!
It’s always the quiet ones.
If you haven’t cottoned on to what’s wrong with that, here’s a hint: The victims’ families are still alive! And lo, they aren’t thrilled about jump-scare peddlers using deceased loved ones as props. (And at $30 to $60 a ticket, wildly profitable ones.) To really rub it in, some houses are specifically focusing on local killers, just to make absolutely certain that someone will stumble upon their worst nightmare.
For example, a Sacramento house tried to cash in on the local notoriety of Richard Trenton Chase. For those of you who didn’t live through Chase’s serial killing spree, the short version is that he killed six people.
Then he mutilated and ate them.
Among his victims was a pregnant woman whom he shot, killed, stabbed, sexually assaulted, and drank the blood of, in that order. And her husband was the one who found her when Chase was done. So you could imagine the husband’s horror when he found out that 36 years later a local entertainer was selling tickets to staged re-creations of his wife’s murder. The only good news to come out of this story is that the Sacramento house shut down their fun little show when the victims’ grieving families complained.
Also, there’s a warm seat in hell reserved for this newspaper layout editor.
And the only reason the horrific story above is considered “good news” is because Rob Zombie didn’t have the grace to do the same thing after people complained about Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare in Chicago, which featured a Gacy room.
When the Gacy victims’ families complained about a haunted house room featuring a clown blowing up balloons while surrounded by child-sized dolls dressed as Boy Scouts, Rob Zombie said he thought the room was “funny.” And in case you’ve forgotten John Wayne Gacy’s shtick, it was raping and murdering at least 33 Chicago-area young men. To be fair, everyone who’s seen his Halloween remakes knows that Rob Zombie is a renowned authority on comedy.
Finally, London recently opened a Jack the Ripper museum that — not even fucking kidding here — initially branded itself as a new “museum of women’s history.” The museum’s press release invited visitors to experience Jack the Ripper’s crimes “through the eyes of the women who were his victims,” by which they meant “take selfies with their mannequin corpses.”
#TransformationTuesday #dead
No, really: “A picture with Jack in Mitre Square together with the body of Catherine Eddowes” was one of the advertised selling points. The museum’s spokesperson insisted that the morbid selfie station was “done in a very respectful way,” and those words somehow didn’t sound like nonsense when he heard them come out of his mouth. In another statement issued by the museum, they explained that they just wanted women to “be able to experience the London of 1888 in the presence of Jack the Ripper.” That’s a good point — where else could a woman ever experience the fear of violence just from walking down the street?
#4. An Annual Nazi-Themed Christmas Party
In 2014, a Minneapolis newspaper received a photo of a literal Nazi party, complete with cheerful swastika flags hung between Christmas lights over a group of men in SS uniforms. The anonymous sender provided no other information, making it seem like a really vague and bizarre threat, but the newspaper’s reporters eventually discovered that it was not, in fact, a Shining-style snapshot of a ghost ball but a group of historical reenactors partying like it’s 1939.
After the local Jewish community issued a call to shut down the event, its organizer made a statement, insisting, “By no means do we glorify the edicts of the Third Reich,” before pulling out the smelling salts in case he got a case of the vapors at the mere suggestion.
“We just like to get drunk and spend the evening heiling, like any fun-loving American.”
This little group just likes to get together for a bit of wholesome Nazi fun every Christmas and hand out swastika T-shirts to the restaurant staff, that’s all. Another partygoer explained, “Because they dress up like Germans from World War II, it’s cool to go to a German restaurant, eat German food, and drink German beer.” Dude, cultural appropriation is not the problem here.
As for why it was necessary to actually hang up Nazi decorations and give out Nazi party favors, they’re, uh … really into method acting? He compares it to “a Star Trek convention but for WWII enthusiasts,” failing to grasp the galaxy-sized difference between those things. He may not win any awards for cultural sensitivity, but he gets first place in self-dug holes.
#3. There Are Two New Titanics In The Works
Apparently, there are people who watch Titanic over and over for reasons other than Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and the furious masturbation they inspire. Indeed, the ship that famously claimed the lives of approximately 1,500 people has enough fans that not one but two actual-size replicas are being built.
One will be a functional cruise ship that its commissioner, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, fully intends to sail, because some people have no fear of irony. Of course, the construction of Titanic II will comply with modern safety regulations, and it’s set to sail a completely different path. Don’t wanna tempt fate too much.
Crewmen shouting, “Iceberg! 2,500 miles north!” while not exactly in great taste, is a lot more reassuring.
The people building the other replica, however, are actually counting on it sinking. That’s because it will be part of a “6-D” Chinese theme park where people can experience the sinking firsthand with a simulation featuring an orgy of special effects and/or go insane exploring the two dimensions beyond time itself.
The guy funding it excitedly gushed that visitors “will think, ‘The water will drown me; I must escape with my life,‘” unwittingly unmasking himself as a robot with no comprehension of the human concept of fun. Aside from the questionable judgment of using a tragedy as the basis for a freaking theme park, what is even the point of a Titanic simulation that doesn’t include Kate Winslet’s nipples?
#2. A Reality TV Show Simulating Life In Nazi Germany
If you could travel back to any time period and experience how people lived in that era, what would you pick? The Ren Faire types might choose Renaissance Europe, the chemistry enthusiasts might choose the ’60s, and so on. That covers both of our readers, which means none of you picked Eastern Europe in the 1940s. Huh, why might that be?
“OK, before we set up the time machine, who votes ‘Hendrix concert’ and who votes ‘Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia’?”
Even though everyone knows what life was like in that particular place and time — to wit, super horrible — that hasn’t stopped those paragons of taste, reality TV producers, from bringing us The Real World: Nazi Europe. It was actually a short-lived series in the Czech Republic called, for serious, Holiday In The Protectorate. There was no time travel involved, just a modern family shut in a house with little food and period-appropriate accommodations while fake Nazi soldiers prowled outside, because they had a really weird idea of leisure.
“You have your Survivor, we have ours.”
The global Jewish community wasn’t impressed, namely because of one tiny anachronism that the director, whose stated goal was “to show life in another era while ensuring the highest level of authenticity,” had absentmindedly overlooked: The very real threat of death, which claimed 82,309 Czech Jews. The greatest danger faced by this family, on the other hand, was a falling stage light. Luckily, that means there was an easy way for the producers to make everyone happy: Just abduct one member of the household every week, never to be seen by their family again. For some reason, they went in a different direction.
#1. 9/11 And Trayvon Martin VR Games
It’s not a mind-blowing revelation that people like to play video games to live out fantasies, the most famous of which is pretending to be an Italian man who’s addicted to psilocybin and tortoise murder. There are also all kinds of Counter-Strike maps that allow you to play out real events, like the Boston Bombing and the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. They’re taking some pretty massive liberties with the facts, however. For example, the setup for the wildlife refuge includes fictional hostages the terrorists never took.
Apparently, long diatribes about the Bureau of Land Management don’t really work in a first-person shooter.
We already base most of our shoot-’em-up games on real wars and the like, so that’s only slightly below par for the course. Then there’s the 9/11 virtual reality game.
The plot? You’re not making a mad dash for survival. In fact, not dying isn’t even an option. You start out in an office in the North Tower, where you receive a few commands to fetch files for your boss and things like that, but once the first plane strikes, you just go where the game takes you. Where it takes you, in fact, is to the office of a stranger who quickly becomes so distraught that he jumps out the window. Then you watch your boss call her mom to say goodbye before you both suffocate from the smoke.
That’s it. Just 10 minutes of watching people cry, and then you die. It’s bleak as shit.
In terms of sheer pointlessness, though, the winner is — no, seriously — the VR reenactment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The experience is reconstructed from the 911 calls placed by George Zimmerman and, later, members of the community from inside their homes. So that’s the viewpoint we take. It’s literally just a bunch of people on the phone in their living rooms. We never see or hear anything of the actual shooting except for a flash of gunfire and the boy’s real screams for help. The designers insist that reenactments like these could be helpful to investigators, but failed to explain how animated phone calls starring the goddamn Sims tells anybody anything.
“We didn’t see anything because we were drowning our kids in the pool.”
Ready to learn about some more incredibly dickish people? Then check out The 8 Most Shameless Attempts to Cash In On 9/11 and The 6 Most Clueless Assholes To Ever Exploit Tragedies.
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/11/5-terrible-tragedies-exploited-by-cash-obsessed-a-holes/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/165238661882
0 notes
jimdsmith34 · 7 years
Text
5 Terrible Tragedies Exploited By Cash-Obsessed A-Holes
Everyone loves a good scary movie, but wouldn’t it be great if you were actually living in a scary movie? That’s the business model in play for some luminaries out there, who think you really want to relive some of history’s most horrifying moments. They’re convinced that the tragedy-junkie dollar exists, dammit, and they’re going to get that green, dammit. So what’ve they come up with?
#5. Haunted Houses Based On Real Serial Killers
People who go to haunted houses are getting increasingly jaded — once you’ve chained live, naked actresses to the floor, there aren’t many places to go — apparently prompting the sort of people who design haunted houses to ask themselves, “What about actual murder?”
So, for the last few years, haunted houses have begun reenacting the real murders of notorious serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. One New York production even featured an exhibit of the creepsters’ personal belongings, donated by a murder memorabilia collector who requested to remain anonymous. Let the speculation begin!
It’s always the quiet ones.
If you haven’t cottoned on to what’s wrong with that, here’s a hint: The victims’ families are still alive! And lo, they aren’t thrilled about jump-scare peddlers using deceased loved ones as props. (And at $30 to $60 a ticket, wildly profitable ones.) To really rub it in, some houses are specifically focusing on local killers, just to make absolutely certain that someone will stumble upon their worst nightmare.
For example, a Sacramento house tried to cash in on the local notoriety of Richard Trenton Chase. For those of you who didn’t live through Chase’s serial killing spree, the short version is that he killed six people.
Then he mutilated and ate them.
Among his victims was a pregnant woman whom he shot, killed, stabbed, sexually assaulted, and drank the blood of, in that order. And her husband was the one who found her when Chase was done. So you could imagine the husband’s horror when he found out that 36 years later a local entertainer was selling tickets to staged re-creations of his wife’s murder. The only good news to come out of this story is that the Sacramento house shut down their fun little show when the victims’ grieving families complained.
Also, there’s a warm seat in hell reserved for this newspaper layout editor.
And the only reason the horrific story above is considered “good news” is because Rob Zombie didn’t have the grace to do the same thing after people complained about Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare in Chicago, which featured a Gacy room.
When the Gacy victims’ families complained about a haunted house room featuring a clown blowing up balloons while surrounded by child-sized dolls dressed as Boy Scouts, Rob Zombie said he thought the room was “funny.” And in case you’ve forgotten John Wayne Gacy’s shtick, it was raping and murdering at least 33 Chicago-area young men. To be fair, everyone who’s seen his Halloween remakes knows that Rob Zombie is a renowned authority on comedy.
Finally, London recently opened a Jack the Ripper museum that — not even fucking kidding here — initially branded itself as a new “museum of women’s history.” The museum’s press release invited visitors to experience Jack the Ripper’s crimes “through the eyes of the women who were his victims,” by which they meant “take selfies with their mannequin corpses.”
#TransformationTuesday #dead
No, really: “A picture with Jack in Mitre Square together with the body of Catherine Eddowes” was one of the advertised selling points. The museum’s spokesperson insisted that the morbid selfie station was “done in a very respectful way,” and those words somehow didn’t sound like nonsense when he heard them come out of his mouth. In another statement issued by the museum, they explained that they just wanted women to “be able to experience the London of 1888 in the presence of Jack the Ripper.” That’s a good point — where else could a woman ever experience the fear of violence just from walking down the street?
#4. An Annual Nazi-Themed Christmas Party
In 2014, a Minneapolis newspaper received a photo of a literal Nazi party, complete with cheerful swastika flags hung between Christmas lights over a group of men in SS uniforms. The anonymous sender provided no other information, making it seem like a really vague and bizarre threat, but the newspaper’s reporters eventually discovered that it was not, in fact, a Shining-style snapshot of a ghost ball but a group of historical reenactors partying like it’s 1939.
After the local Jewish community issued a call to shut down the event, its organizer made a statement, insisting, “By no means do we glorify the edicts of the Third Reich,” before pulling out the smelling salts in case he got a case of the vapors at the mere suggestion.
“We just like to get drunk and spend the evening heiling, like any fun-loving American.”
This little group just likes to get together for a bit of wholesome Nazi fun every Christmas and hand out swastika T-shirts to the restaurant staff, that’s all. Another partygoer explained, “Because they dress up like Germans from World War II, it’s cool to go to a German restaurant, eat German food, and drink German beer.” Dude, cultural appropriation is not the problem here.
As for why it was necessary to actually hang up Nazi decorations and give out Nazi party favors, they’re, uh … really into method acting? He compares it to “a Star Trek convention but for WWII enthusiasts,” failing to grasp the galaxy-sized difference between those things. He may not win any awards for cultural sensitivity, but he gets first place in self-dug holes.
#3. There Are Two New Titanics In The Works
Apparently, there are people who watch Titanic over and over for reasons other than Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and the furious masturbation they inspire. Indeed, the ship that famously claimed the lives of approximately 1,500 people has enough fans that not one but two actual-size replicas are being built.
One will be a functional cruise ship that its commissioner, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, fully intends to sail, because some people have no fear of irony. Of course, the construction of Titanic II will comply with modern safety regulations, and it’s set to sail a completely different path. Don’t wanna tempt fate too much.
Crewmen shouting, “Iceberg! 2,500 miles north!” while not exactly in great taste, is a lot more reassuring.
The people building the other replica, however, are actually counting on it sinking. That’s because it will be part of a “6-D” Chinese theme park where people can experience the sinking firsthand with a simulation featuring an orgy of special effects and/or go insane exploring the two dimensions beyond time itself.
The guy funding it excitedly gushed that visitors “will think, ‘The water will drown me; I must escape with my life,'” unwittingly unmasking himself as a robot with no comprehension of the human concept of fun. Aside from the questionable judgment of using a tragedy as the basis for a freaking theme park, what is even the point of a Titanic simulation that doesn’t include Kate Winslet’s nipples?
#2. A Reality TV Show Simulating Life In Nazi Germany
If you could travel back to any time period and experience how people lived in that era, what would you pick? The Ren Faire types might choose Renaissance Europe, the chemistry enthusiasts might choose the ’60s, and so on. That covers both of our readers, which means none of you picked Eastern Europe in the 1940s. Huh, why might that be?
“OK, before we set up the time machine, who votes ‘Hendrix concert’ and who votes ‘Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia’?”
Even though everyone knows what life was like in that particular place and time — to wit, super horrible — that hasn’t stopped those paragons of taste, reality TV producers, from bringing us The Real World: Nazi Europe. It was actually a short-lived series in the Czech Republic called, for serious, Holiday In The Protectorate. There was no time travel involved, just a modern family shut in a house with little food and period-appropriate accommodations while fake Nazi soldiers prowled outside, because they had a really weird idea of leisure.
“You have your Survivor, we have ours.”
The global Jewish community wasn’t impressed, namely because of one tiny anachronism that the director, whose stated goal was “to show life in another era while ensuring the highest level of authenticity,” had absentmindedly overlooked: The very real threat of death, which claimed 82,309 Czech Jews. The greatest danger faced by this family, on the other hand, was a falling stage light. Luckily, that means there was an easy way for the producers to make everyone happy: Just abduct one member of the household every week, never to be seen by their family again. For some reason, they went in a different direction.
#1. 9/11 And Trayvon Martin VR Games
It’s not a mind-blowing revelation that people like to play video games to live out fantasies, the most famous of which is pretending to be an Italian man who’s addicted to psilocybin and tortoise murder. There are also all kinds of Counter-Strike maps that allow you to play out real events, like the Boston Bombing and the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. They’re taking some pretty massive liberties with the facts, however. For example, the setup for the wildlife refuge includes fictional hostages the terrorists never took.
Apparently, long diatribes about the Bureau of Land Management don’t really work in a first-person shooter.
We already base most of our shoot-’em-up games on real wars and the like, so that’s only slightly below par for the course. Then there’s the 9/11 virtual reality game.
The plot? You’re not making a mad dash for survival. In fact, not dying isn’t even an option. You start out in an office in the North Tower, where you receive a few commands to fetch files for your boss and things like that, but once the first plane strikes, you just go where the game takes you. Where it takes you, in fact, is to the office of a stranger who quickly becomes so distraught that he jumps out the window. Then you watch your boss call her mom to say goodbye before you both suffocate from the smoke.
That’s it. Just 10 minutes of watching people cry, and then you die. It’s bleak as shit.
In terms of sheer pointlessness, though, the winner is — no, seriously — the VR reenactment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The experience is reconstructed from the 911 calls placed by George Zimmerman and, later, members of the community from inside their homes. So that’s the viewpoint we take. It’s literally just a bunch of people on the phone in their living rooms. We never see or hear anything of the actual shooting except for a flash of gunfire and the boy’s real screams for help. The designers insist that reenactments like these could be helpful to investigators, but failed to explain how animated phone calls starring the goddamn Sims tells anybody anything.
“We didn’t see anything because we were drowning our kids in the pool.”
Ready to learn about some more incredibly dickish people? Then check out The 8 Most Shameless Attempts to Cash In On 9/11 and The 6 Most Clueless Assholes To Ever Exploit Tragedies.
source http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/11/5-terrible-tragedies-exploited-by-cash-obsessed-a-holes/ from All of Beer http://allofbeer.blogspot.com/2017/09/5-terrible-tragedies-exploited-by-cash.html
0 notes
samanthasroberts · 7 years
Text
5 Terrible Tragedies Exploited By Cash-Obsessed A-Holes
Everyone loves a good scary movie, but wouldn’t it be great if you were actually living in a scary movie? That’s the business model in play for some luminaries out there, who think you really want to relive some of history’s most horrifying moments. They’re convinced that the tragedy-junkie dollar exists, dammit, and they’re going to get that green, dammit. So what’ve they come up with?
#5. Haunted Houses Based On Real Serial Killers
People who go to haunted houses are getting increasingly jaded — once you’ve chained live, naked actresses to the floor, there aren’t many places to go — apparently prompting the sort of people who design haunted houses to ask themselves, “What about actual murder?”
So, for the last few years, haunted houses have begun reenacting the real murders of notorious serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. One New York production even featured an exhibit of the creepsters’ personal belongings, donated by a murder memorabilia collector who requested to remain anonymous. Let the speculation begin!
It’s always the quiet ones.
If you haven’t cottoned on to what’s wrong with that, here’s a hint: The victims’ families are still alive! And lo, they aren’t thrilled about jump-scare peddlers using deceased loved ones as props. (And at $30 to $60 a ticket, wildly profitable ones.) To really rub it in, some houses are specifically focusing on local killers, just to make absolutely certain that someone will stumble upon their worst nightmare.
For example, a Sacramento house tried to cash in on the local notoriety of Richard Trenton Chase. For those of you who didn’t live through Chase’s serial killing spree, the short version is that he killed six people.
Then he mutilated and ate them.
Among his victims was a pregnant woman whom he shot, killed, stabbed, sexually assaulted, and drank the blood of, in that order. And her husband was the one who found her when Chase was done. So you could imagine the husband’s horror when he found out that 36 years later a local entertainer was selling tickets to staged re-creations of his wife’s murder. The only good news to come out of this story is that the Sacramento house shut down their fun little show when the victims’ grieving families complained.
Also, there’s a warm seat in hell reserved for this newspaper layout editor.
And the only reason the horrific story above is considered “good news” is because Rob Zombie didn’t have the grace to do the same thing after people complained about Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare in Chicago, which featured a Gacy room.
When the Gacy victims’ families complained about a haunted house room featuring a clown blowing up balloons while surrounded by child-sized dolls dressed as Boy Scouts, Rob Zombie said he thought the room was “funny.” And in case you’ve forgotten John Wayne Gacy’s shtick, it was raping and murdering at least 33 Chicago-area young men. To be fair, everyone who’s seen his Halloween remakes knows that Rob Zombie is a renowned authority on comedy.
Finally, London recently opened a Jack the Ripper museum that — not even fucking kidding here — initially branded itself as a new “museum of women’s history.” The museum’s press release invited visitors to experience Jack the Ripper’s crimes “through the eyes of the women who were his victims,” by which they meant “take selfies with their mannequin corpses.”
#TransformationTuesday #dead
No, really: “A picture with Jack in Mitre Square together with the body of Catherine Eddowes” was one of the advertised selling points. The museum’s spokesperson insisted that the morbid selfie station was “done in a very respectful way,” and those words somehow didn’t sound like nonsense when he heard them come out of his mouth. In another statement issued by the museum, they explained that they just wanted women to “be able to experience the London of 1888 in the presence of Jack the Ripper.” That’s a good point — where else could a woman ever experience the fear of violence just from walking down the street?
#4. An Annual Nazi-Themed Christmas Party
In 2014, a Minneapolis newspaper received a photo of a literal Nazi party, complete with cheerful swastika flags hung between Christmas lights over a group of men in SS uniforms. The anonymous sender provided no other information, making it seem like a really vague and bizarre threat, but the newspaper’s reporters eventually discovered that it was not, in fact, a Shining-style snapshot of a ghost ball but a group of historical reenactors partying like it’s 1939.
After the local Jewish community issued a call to shut down the event, its organizer made a statement, insisting, “By no means do we glorify the edicts of the Third Reich,” before pulling out the smelling salts in case he got a case of the vapors at the mere suggestion.
“We just like to get drunk and spend the evening heiling, like any fun-loving American.”
This little group just likes to get together for a bit of wholesome Nazi fun every Christmas and hand out swastika T-shirts to the restaurant staff, that’s all. Another partygoer explained, “Because they dress up like Germans from World War II, it’s cool to go to a German restaurant, eat German food, and drink German beer.” Dude, cultural appropriation is not the problem here.
As for why it was necessary to actually hang up Nazi decorations and give out Nazi party favors, they’re, uh … really into method acting? He compares it to “a Star Trek convention but for WWII enthusiasts,” failing to grasp the galaxy-sized difference between those things. He may not win any awards for cultural sensitivity, but he gets first place in self-dug holes.
#3. There Are Two New Titanics In The Works
Apparently, there are people who watch Titanic over and over for reasons other than Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and the furious masturbation they inspire. Indeed, the ship that famously claimed the lives of approximately 1,500 people has enough fans that not one but two actual-size replicas are being built.
One will be a functional cruise ship that its commissioner, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, fully intends to sail, because some people have no fear of irony. Of course, the construction of Titanic II will comply with modern safety regulations, and it’s set to sail a completely different path. Don’t wanna tempt fate too much.
Crewmen shouting, “Iceberg! 2,500 miles north!” while not exactly in great taste, is a lot more reassuring.
The people building the other replica, however, are actually counting on it sinking. That’s because it will be part of a “6-D” Chinese theme park where people can experience the sinking firsthand with a simulation featuring an orgy of special effects and/or go insane exploring the two dimensions beyond time itself.
The guy funding it excitedly gushed that visitors “will think, ‘The water will drown me; I must escape with my life,’” unwittingly unmasking himself as a robot with no comprehension of the human concept of fun. Aside from the questionable judgment of using a tragedy as the basis for a freaking theme park, what is even the point of a Titanic simulation that doesn’t include Kate Winslet’s nipples?
#2. A Reality TV Show Simulating Life In Nazi Germany
If you could travel back to any time period and experience how people lived in that era, what would you pick? The Ren Faire types might choose Renaissance Europe, the chemistry enthusiasts might choose the ’60s, and so on. That covers both of our readers, which means none of you picked Eastern Europe in the 1940s. Huh, why might that be?
“OK, before we set up the time machine, who votes ‘Hendrix concert’ and who votes ‘Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia’?”
Even though everyone knows what life was like in that particular place and time — to wit, super horrible — that hasn’t stopped those paragons of taste, reality TV producers, from bringing us The Real World: Nazi Europe. It was actually a short-lived series in the Czech Republic called, for serious, Holiday In The Protectorate. There was no time travel involved, just a modern family shut in a house with little food and period-appropriate accommodations while fake Nazi soldiers prowled outside, because they had a really weird idea of leisure.
“You have your Survivor, we have ours.”
The global Jewish community wasn’t impressed, namely because of one tiny anachronism that the director, whose stated goal was “to show life in another era while ensuring the highest level of authenticity,” had absentmindedly overlooked: The very real threat of death, which claimed 82,309 Czech Jews. The greatest danger faced by this family, on the other hand, was a falling stage light. Luckily, that means there was an easy way for the producers to make everyone happy: Just abduct one member of the household every week, never to be seen by their family again. For some reason, they went in a different direction.
#1. 9/11 And Trayvon Martin VR Games
It’s not a mind-blowing revelation that people like to play video games to live out fantasies, the most famous of which is pretending to be an Italian man who’s addicted to psilocybin and tortoise murder. There are also all kinds of Counter-Strike maps that allow you to play out real events, like the Boston Bombing and the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. They’re taking some pretty massive liberties with the facts, however. For example, the setup for the wildlife refuge includes fictional hostages the terrorists never took.
Apparently, long diatribes about the Bureau of Land Management don’t really work in a first-person shooter.
We already base most of our shoot-’em-up games on real wars and the like, so that’s only slightly below par for the course. Then there’s the 9/11 virtual reality game.
The plot? You’re not making a mad dash for survival. In fact, not dying isn’t even an option. You start out in an office in the North Tower, where you receive a few commands to fetch files for your boss and things like that, but once the first plane strikes, you just go where the game takes you. Where it takes you, in fact, is to the office of a stranger who quickly becomes so distraught that he jumps out the window. Then you watch your boss call her mom to say goodbye before you both suffocate from the smoke.
That’s it. Just 10 minutes of watching people cry, and then you die. It’s bleak as shit.
In terms of sheer pointlessness, though, the winner is — no, seriously — the VR reenactment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The experience is reconstructed from the 911 calls placed by George Zimmerman and, later, members of the community from inside their homes. So that’s the viewpoint we take. It’s literally just a bunch of people on the phone in their living rooms. We never see or hear anything of the actual shooting except for a flash of gunfire and the boy’s real screams for help. The designers insist that reenactments like these could be helpful to investigators, but failed to explain how animated phone calls starring the goddamn Sims tells anybody anything.
“We didn’t see anything because we were drowning our kids in the pool.”
Ready to learn about some more incredibly dickish people? Then check out The 8 Most Shameless Attempts to Cash In On 9/11 and The 6 Most Clueless Assholes To Ever Exploit Tragedies.
Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/11/5-terrible-tragedies-exploited-by-cash-obsessed-a-holes/
from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/5-terrible-tragedies-exploited-by-cash-obsessed-a-holes/
0 notes
allofbeercom · 7 years
Text
5 Terrible Tragedies Exploited By Cash-Obsessed A-Holes
Everyone loves a good scary movie, but wouldn’t it be great if you were actually living in a scary movie? That’s the business model in play for some luminaries out there, who think you really want to relive some of history’s most horrifying moments. They’re convinced that the tragedy-junkie dollar exists, dammit, and they’re going to get that green, dammit. So what’ve they come up with?
#5. Haunted Houses Based On Real Serial Killers
People who go to haunted houses are getting increasingly jaded — once you’ve chained live, naked actresses to the floor, there aren’t many places to go — apparently prompting the sort of people who design haunted houses to ask themselves, “What about actual murder?”
So, for the last few years, haunted houses have begun reenacting the real murders of notorious serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. One New York production even featured an exhibit of the creepsters’ personal belongings, donated by a murder memorabilia collector who requested to remain anonymous. Let the speculation begin!
It’s always the quiet ones.
If you haven’t cottoned on to what’s wrong with that, here’s a hint: The victims’ families are still alive! And lo, they aren’t thrilled about jump-scare peddlers using deceased loved ones as props. (And at $30 to $60 a ticket, wildly profitable ones.) To really rub it in, some houses are specifically focusing on local killers, just to make absolutely certain that someone will stumble upon their worst nightmare.
For example, a Sacramento house tried to cash in on the local notoriety of Richard Trenton Chase. For those of you who didn’t live through Chase’s serial killing spree, the short version is that he killed six people.
Then he mutilated and ate them.
Among his victims was a pregnant woman whom he shot, killed, stabbed, sexually assaulted, and drank the blood of, in that order. And her husband was the one who found her when Chase was done. So you could imagine the husband’s horror when he found out that 36 years later a local entertainer was selling tickets to staged re-creations of his wife’s murder. The only good news to come out of this story is that the Sacramento house shut down their fun little show when the victims’ grieving families complained.
Also, there’s a warm seat in hell reserved for this newspaper layout editor.
And the only reason the horrific story above is considered “good news” is because Rob Zombie didn’t have the grace to do the same thing after people complained about Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare in Chicago, which featured a Gacy room.
When the Gacy victims’ families complained about a haunted house room featuring a clown blowing up balloons while surrounded by child-sized dolls dressed as Boy Scouts, Rob Zombie said he thought the room was “funny.” And in case you’ve forgotten John Wayne Gacy’s shtick, it was raping and murdering at least 33 Chicago-area young men. To be fair, everyone who’s seen his Halloween remakes knows that Rob Zombie is a renowned authority on comedy.
Finally, London recently opened a Jack the Ripper museum that — not even fucking kidding here — initially branded itself as a new “museum of women’s history.” The museum’s press release invited visitors to experience Jack the Ripper’s crimes “through the eyes of the women who were his victims,” by which they meant “take selfies with their mannequin corpses.”
#TransformationTuesday #dead
No, really: “A picture with Jack in Mitre Square together with the body of Catherine Eddowes” was one of the advertised selling points. The museum’s spokesperson insisted that the morbid selfie station was “done in a very respectful way,” and those words somehow didn’t sound like nonsense when he heard them come out of his mouth. In another statement issued by the museum, they explained that they just wanted women to “be able to experience the London of 1888 in the presence of Jack the Ripper.” That’s a good point — where else could a woman ever experience the fear of violence just from walking down the street?
#4. An Annual Nazi-Themed Christmas Party
In 2014, a Minneapolis newspaper received a photo of a literal Nazi party, complete with cheerful swastika flags hung between Christmas lights over a group of men in SS uniforms. The anonymous sender provided no other information, making it seem like a really vague and bizarre threat, but the newspaper’s reporters eventually discovered that it was not, in fact, a Shining-style snapshot of a ghost ball but a group of historical reenactors partying like it’s 1939.
After the local Jewish community issued a call to shut down the event, its organizer made a statement, insisting, “By no means do we glorify the edicts of the Third Reich,” before pulling out the smelling salts in case he got a case of the vapors at the mere suggestion.
“We just like to get drunk and spend the evening heiling, like any fun-loving American.”
This little group just likes to get together for a bit of wholesome Nazi fun every Christmas and hand out swastika T-shirts to the restaurant staff, that’s all. Another partygoer explained, “Because they dress up like Germans from World War II, it’s cool to go to a German restaurant, eat German food, and drink German beer.” Dude, cultural appropriation is not the problem here.
As for why it was necessary to actually hang up Nazi decorations and give out Nazi party favors, they’re, uh … really into method acting? He compares it to “a Star Trek convention but for WWII enthusiasts,” failing to grasp the galaxy-sized difference between those things. He may not win any awards for cultural sensitivity, but he gets first place in self-dug holes.
#3. There Are Two New Titanics In The Works
Apparently, there are people who watch Titanic over and over for reasons other than Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and the furious masturbation they inspire. Indeed, the ship that famously claimed the lives of approximately 1,500 people has enough fans that not one but two actual-size replicas are being built.
One will be a functional cruise ship that its commissioner, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, fully intends to sail, because some people have no fear of irony. Of course, the construction of Titanic II will comply with modern safety regulations, and it’s set to sail a completely different path. Don’t wanna tempt fate too much.
Crewmen shouting, “Iceberg! 2,500 miles north!” while not exactly in great taste, is a lot more reassuring.
The people building the other replica, however, are actually counting on it sinking. That’s because it will be part of a “6-D” Chinese theme park where people can experience the sinking firsthand with a simulation featuring an orgy of special effects and/or go insane exploring the two dimensions beyond time itself.
The guy funding it excitedly gushed that visitors “will think, ‘The water will drown me; I must escape with my life,'” unwittingly unmasking himself as a robot with no comprehension of the human concept of fun. Aside from the questionable judgment of using a tragedy as the basis for a freaking theme park, what is even the point of a Titanic simulation that doesn’t include Kate Winslet’s nipples?
#2. A Reality TV Show Simulating Life In Nazi Germany
If you could travel back to any time period and experience how people lived in that era, what would you pick? The Ren Faire types might choose Renaissance Europe, the chemistry enthusiasts might choose the ’60s, and so on. That covers both of our readers, which means none of you picked Eastern Europe in the 1940s. Huh, why might that be?
“OK, before we set up the time machine, who votes ‘Hendrix concert’ and who votes ‘Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia’?”
Even though everyone knows what life was like in that particular place and time — to wit, super horrible — that hasn’t stopped those paragons of taste, reality TV producers, from bringing us The Real World: Nazi Europe. It was actually a short-lived series in the Czech Republic called, for serious, Holiday In The Protectorate. There was no time travel involved, just a modern family shut in a house with little food and period-appropriate accommodations while fake Nazi soldiers prowled outside, because they had a really weird idea of leisure.
“You have your Survivor, we have ours.”
The global Jewish community wasn’t impressed, namely because of one tiny anachronism that the director, whose stated goal was “to show life in another era while ensuring the highest level of authenticity,” had absentmindedly overlooked: The very real threat of death, which claimed 82,309 Czech Jews. The greatest danger faced by this family, on the other hand, was a falling stage light. Luckily, that means there was an easy way for the producers to make everyone happy: Just abduct one member of the household every week, never to be seen by their family again. For some reason, they went in a different direction.
#1. 9/11 And Trayvon Martin VR Games
It’s not a mind-blowing revelation that people like to play video games to live out fantasies, the most famous of which is pretending to be an Italian man who’s addicted to psilocybin and tortoise murder. There are also all kinds of Counter-Strike maps that allow you to play out real events, like the Boston Bombing and the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. They’re taking some pretty massive liberties with the facts, however. For example, the setup for the wildlife refuge includes fictional hostages the terrorists never took.
Apparently, long diatribes about the Bureau of Land Management don’t really work in a first-person shooter.
We already base most of our shoot-’em-up games on real wars and the like, so that’s only slightly below par for the course. Then there’s the 9/11 virtual reality game.
The plot? You’re not making a mad dash for survival. In fact, not dying isn’t even an option. You start out in an office in the North Tower, where you receive a few commands to fetch files for your boss and things like that, but once the first plane strikes, you just go where the game takes you. Where it takes you, in fact, is to the office of a stranger who quickly becomes so distraught that he jumps out the window. Then you watch your boss call her mom to say goodbye before you both suffocate from the smoke.
That’s it. Just 10 minutes of watching people cry, and then you die. It’s bleak as shit.
In terms of sheer pointlessness, though, the winner is — no, seriously — the VR reenactment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The experience is reconstructed from the 911 calls placed by George Zimmerman and, later, members of the community from inside their homes. So that’s the viewpoint we take. It’s literally just a bunch of people on the phone in their living rooms. We never see or hear anything of the actual shooting except for a flash of gunfire and the boy’s real screams for help. The designers insist that reenactments like these could be helpful to investigators, but failed to explain how animated phone calls starring the goddamn Sims tells anybody anything.
“We didn’t see anything because we were drowning our kids in the pool.”
Ready to learn about some more incredibly dickish people? Then check out The 8 Most Shameless Attempts to Cash In On 9/11 and The 6 Most Clueless Assholes To Ever Exploit Tragedies.
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/11/5-terrible-tragedies-exploited-by-cash-obsessed-a-holes/
0 notes