#never minding most of us involved ARE fat ourselves wtf

[veritasrose]

Its hilarious because every time I post a hot take sort of rant I gain followers, but then I post seemingly innocuous things like "fat people are sexy" or "the pursuit of health is morally neutral" and lose them again.

Its like folks are all for breaking down societal norms, but draw the line at finding fat people attractive, or keeping out of other’s business. It’s like they are all about bodily autonomy until they see you doing or being something they deem unhealthy.

So many of us were raised in ableist, fatphobic environments and there is something so cathartic about actively indulging and enjoying the things you were taught to hate. Accepting my disability doesn’t make me an awful person, and being fat is absolutely beautiful actually. And I am going to be proud of both of those things in the face of a society who shames them and enjoy my damn life.

Life is hard enough. Eat the damn garlic bread and enjoy the moment.

[dachi-chan25]

So i finally watched It chapter 2...

DISCLAIMER: So I know most of y'all don't like anyone to critizise anything u like, right of the bat I am telling u I did NOT liked this movie at all, there are changes I thought were good ideas but most of it was just plain terrible in MY opinion and I need to vent. If u share my opinión or find my rage amusing read on.

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I had been putting off watching this movie, cuz in 2017 I enjoyed the 1st IT movie but I had a TON of issues with it (Mike's complete erasure, Stan being a completely different character, The Losers Club moments being sacrificed to cool sounding one-liners, WTF happened to Henry Bowers and Alvin Marsh, Bev being overly sexualized, etc, etc) so I was on the fence about this one. The cast is what finally caught my attention but then I heard very mixed reviews about it, and as I am starting on a new job I hadn't had the time to go and watch it til now and oh boy was I disappointed.

First off, we have to ask ourselves was Adrian Melon's murder scene really that necessary??? I understand what they used it for in the movie (to make a R3ddi3 reference /as a side note I do not care for the ship or any other IT ship tbh i write it like this cuz i don't want this post to invade the ship tag) but the characters involved are never mentioned again and it was too gratuitous (like we can have a homophobic hate crime, slurs thrown around all the time but we can't have the gay ship this movie was going for saying they love each other in a straightforward manner??? I know this is an unpopular opinion but I am not giving Muschietti props for doing the gay closeted ship for the 1000th time, if u were gonna do it go for it!!! Do right by the characters, hell in the book they get more tenderness and they are never explicitly gay, Eddie is heavily coded as gay or asexual and Richie is super bisexual) like my queer ass is tired of seeing gay ppl die in violent gruesome ways all the time.

While I love Bill Skarsgard's performance, the excess of CGI and all those jumpscares and strobe lights, actually take away from his performance, he is super scary and eerie when he is talking and even being friendly but super hillarious and plain silly when he is actually trying to be scary or when he is eating, it looked too wierd.

TBH whyyy was Tom Rogan in this?? Muschietti had already changed Alvin Marsh from being physically violent to being a sexual predator (everything they changed from Bev took away from her character, like we can have her smoking and flirting w Mr Keene but we can't have her teaching Richie how to use his yo-yo or winning in a fucking video game or drawing or anything that remotely has to do with her character) why was Tom necessary?? Hell we could have skipped that and have Bev in Kay's house telling her all that happened instead, I mean if he wasn't gonna die in the sewer why is he even a character? It was so easy to erase him and have Kay instead. Also how tf did Alvin survive???

Whyyy do that to Audra??? I fucken hate Muschietti, was it necessary to justify Bill cheating on her??? Nope, we could have simply have Bill not kiss Beverly and that’s it, also I am kinda salty Audra is not part of the plot.

Lmao Henry, like he fell on the fucken pipe and you could hear his fucken bones breaking and craking and he gets to get up and walk home????????? Whyyy y y , Muschietti ????

We never really got to see how deeply ingrained Pennywise is in the town, he is actually Derry. And if Muschietti thinks he fixed the wtf ending everyone complained about in the 90's adaptation he is on fucken drugs, this ending is super messed up and has nothing to do with the book or with anything at all, we never get to know what exactly is Pennywise, his true form it's a clown spider apparently or something cuz the death lights were there but not really ???

STAN was fucken robbed (again) last time he was completely ereased, he was physically there on the scenes but that’s it, his personality was null. And his thing, the thing that made him comit suicide was the fact that he was the one to see the death lights, the most logical and disbelieving of them faced something far beyond anyone's comprehension and they gave that to Bev?? And the death lights apparently gave her Final Destination abilities? ?????

Eddie was robbed. Of so so much. Muschietti fuck you. Frist off why isn't Eddie the CEO of some app like Uber like he was the Losers Club compass he was a great fucking driver, he loved sports (I actually got excited when they had this scene with the baseball game cuz i thought it was gonna be an Eddie scene but nope) y not connect that with this Token bs Muschietti pulled off his ass (this is actually a great idea, and could symbolize the Losers' lost childhood IF Muschietti had been assed to give them significance or something in part 1) His death scene. Just why? Why are his last words a cheap joke instead of a love confession, fuck it Muschietti if u wanted R3ddi3 have the courage to really do it (in the books the Losers take turns to carry his body out of the sewer cuz they will not leave him there, that's more meaningful than them diving) One of his most beautiful quotes is something Bill is writing??? Lmaoooo Bill wishes he could have thought up that (I love Bill but come the fuck on)

Why make such a huge deal out of B3nv3rly or r3ddi3 when the point of it all was that the Losers Club all loved each other, apart from whatever romantic feelings, they found a family in one another and they really erased that in this movie, I was like y are this ppl friends with each other. Mike drugged Bill, Richie was awfull to everyone, they barely had a conversation in the restaurant (biihhh the 90s miniseries does this better) and show no respect for Mike at all ( I mean I am not surprised cuz Muschietti has no respect for Mike as a character at all) or bill like nah son.

Stephen King cameo was there I guess, it was fine.

The Kiss me fat boy, of all things u could have taken from the 90's miniseries why that?????

Ben building the house club by himself ???? Bullshit, Muschietti ereased another great Losers Club bonding time and hate him for it.

MIKE, I AM ENRAGED. So Muschietti is braver than King for making R3ddi3 "canon" but he destroyed Mike's entire character and that is fine with y'all mmmmm. His parents were "crackheads" apparently cuz it's not like that is a stereotype black ppl have carried on for years on end, he did not go to school, he was not the historian but now he is cuz he had to stay and he is crazy and obsesive and drugs Bill and also stole from a native american tribe???? FUCK this so fucken much I hate it with all my being .

How does such a choppy movie manage to drag on forever??? Like there were still 45 Min left and I was bored out of my mind. Why is the final arc so bad??? Like some much stuff that could have actually gotten away with erasing (Paul Bunyan, whyyy it was so silly, it doesn't even work in the book, but fine like King was super high he barely remembers writing it, why take it to the big screen u should have sticked to him being afraid of clowns like u had already messed up) and added and could have added things that actually enriched the adaptation.

I just give up. Like if they do a 3rd one like it's rumored I won't see it, Muschietti clearly does not know how to be subtle or to have meaningful character arcs, he is just good for cheap jumpscares, one líners and yo mama jokes so I pass. I really hoped the up coming King adaptations are better than this one. That being said the movie had real fun/enjoyable moments, if this were not an adaptation I would have liked it a hella lot more than I did but alas nope.

[blue-likethebird]

Vee El Dee: The Good The Bad and The Ugly

If you’ve ever been on this hellsite, you’ve probably heard of Voltron: Legendary Defender. You’ll find the characters and the ships (and the discourse. Dear God the discourse) in tag after tag and on blog after blog. Now that the show has officially come to an end, I’m reviewing the whole damn thing. Talking about what I think worked, what didn’t, and what exactly the show did to make even the fans look at it so harshly now. (Just a warning “The Ugly” section discusses racism, and homophobia so if any of that triggers you I’d suggest you skip it)

Review under the cut

The Good

The Character Potential:

   Voltron’s characters had so much potential at the beginning. Their motivations, potential subplots, and clues to their arcs the first crew left us were actually interesting. How did Coran know Allura before they were frozen? What happened that caused Shiro to lose his arm? Is Lance going to reunite with his family? The show didn’t answer all of these questions mind you, but at the time they were introduced, those questions felt like they were worth sticking around to hear the answers.

The First Season:

   The first season is the only season that genuinely sticks out for me, way back in ye olden days when Voltron was a character driven show as opposed to plot focused. In season one, the plot took a backseat and the characters were what held up the show, and it’s probably not a coincidence that most of the character development and more emotional/memorable scenes occurred in season one, when there was time for the characters to develop. Likewise, the character focus allowed for everyone to get their day in the limelight -not just the characters who were valuable to the plot at the moment-.

The Balmera and The Return to The Balmera:

     I am never gonna be shy about my opinion that the Balmera arc is one of the strongest arcs that Voltron has had. Allura using the story of her people to inspire others and using Altea’s ancient connection to the Balmera to save an entire damn civilization! The goddamn adorable chemistry between Hunk and Shay! Believable suspense! Unlocking Lion Powers! The Balmera arc had it all and I was fed. Plus, Balmera gave us the introduction of the most blessed couple in Voltron history, hunay.

The Bad:

The Timeskips:

In theory, there’s nothing wrong with a timeskip. But you’ve gotta be able to show that the characters and show’s universe changed in some way during that timeskip and you can’t use them just to avoid actual story and character development. Take season six (? Or was it five? I don’t remember and I don’t wanna) when Keith and Krolia take a two year camping trip on a space whale while Voltron is off doing God knows what. Presumably during that time they developed some sort of mother-son relationship but we don’t get to see that development happening, or how that new relationship changed them, or really any proof that the timeskip happened at all besides Keith getting Galra marks and a teleporting space wolf. That particular time jump felt more like a cop-out to avoid writing Keith bonding with his mom.

Pacing:

To put it plainly, the pace is way too fast for anything to stick. The writing cycles from one season's worth of plot twists and WTF? moments to the next at the speed of light, leaving no time to address how the previous events affected the characters involved or not the show’s universe as a whole. So Lotor was actually evil all along and was using Allura to achieve his goals? Well there’s no time to mention how Allura feels about that, we’ve got three more surprise twists and a magic robot to shove into the plot! On the flip side however, the pacing is slower than a geriatric snail during fight scenes. The giant robot fights are usually the most exciting part of anything, but in Voltron, the fights are so formulaic that they just kinda… blur together into a boring fog. Lemme know if you can name this Voltron fight scene: the team’s fighting some random baddie, there’s a lot of yelling, someone gets a power up just big enough to defeat the current baddies when a bigger, eviler baddie appears who’s more powerful than the power up they just got, new baddie whoops Voltron’s ass, the support team watches in horror, someone else gets a power up that’s powerful enough to defeat the new bad guy, Voltron reins triumphant. What fight scene was that?

The Filler Episodes:

The fast pacing also means that they need to set aside breather episodes just to allow characters to interact besides in battle. That’s all well and good and there’s nothing wrong with filler episodes, if done right they can be some of the most memorable episodes a show can have (The Tales of Ba Sing Se anyone?) that is, if done right. But Voltron filler episodes don’t have that going for them. Filler episodes in vee el dee are an oasis of mud in the desert that is canon, they’re a generally unhelpful standstill point amidst a constantly changing series. I’ll admit that they can be funny at times but for the most part filler episodes are bizarre, unnecessary, and more often than not, poorly timed. If we just heard about a millenniums old empire folding in on itself and we’re just about to see a major character attempt suicide do we really need to see Coran go batshit while planning a space Disney On Ice?

The Ugly:

Racism:

#justiceforallura

I must confess that I am whiter than a polar bear in a snowstorm, but even I know that killing off a black girl (or black coded as the case may be), constantly torturing the Japanese guy, reducing the Samoan guy to food and fat jokes, and having the latino guy flirt with everyone before turning him into a farmer isn’t the best way to handle writing characters of colour. Denying said characters of colour arcs and screen time in favour of giving your white characters the same story in a different hat over and over again is also not the best treatment you can offer your poc characters. That’s not even mentioning other horrible treatment and stereotypes you’ll see the Voltron characters of colour experience. Let us also recall #notallgalra, the “what if the genocide victim was actually the bad guy” au mess in s3, all those “lol lance is stupid” jokes, the black character Kinkade speaking mainly in grunts, Allura dying to redeem the two genocidal dudes responsible for most of her trauma, and Hunk’s (half black half Samoan) family being enslaved at a fucking concentration camp like goddamn what the hell were you thinking Voltron that’s like hetalia levels of fucked up when we remember what kind of genuinely awful shit this show’s done to it’s minority characters.

Homophobia:

If you’re reading my review in the Voltron tag, and you watched the whole series, then there’s no way in hell that you haven’t heard about Adam dying and the backlash against Voltron for it. If you are somehow the .000001% of people who don’t know, Adam (a gay moc) was Shiro’s (another gay moc) fiancé who got a grand total of forty five seconds of screen time before dying when the Galra invaded earth. Meanwhile, L*tor and Allura’s relationship got almost triple that despite being abusive as fuck. But Shiro got married at the end of season 8! In a credits scene, to a guy in the background of a couple of scenes Shiro was also in. When lgbt fans expressed outrage at their rep being hyped up despite having no bearing on the plot or even Shiro as a character outside of one scene, instead of owning up to their mistakes, the crew of Vee El Dee said (or implied) that it was the fault of lgbt fans for hyping ourselves up. Yeah okay. Except after that we got confirmation that Ezor and Zethrid were a couple! Yay! Clearly a win for us El Gee Bee Tees right? Well… not really considering that both of them were depicted as psychotic torturers who also died a couple minutes later. Gotta love those crazy dead lesbians amirite?

Klance:

But why is klance in the “ugly” section!? You cry, I thought you were a klanti! I am an anti and I did ship klance but that’s not what I wanna talk about right now. When I put klance under ugly I wanted to discuss two things, the crew and the shippers. First let’s talk the crew; several folks on the Voltron staff have at the very least, not reacted negatively to the omnipresent ship that is Keith and Lance. I’m sure you’ll also remember that Lance’s VA Jeremy Shada was considered a KICK icon before that went south. The crew was also purposefully misleading when they talked about possible romances for Keith and Lance, the language they used was ambiguous enough that shippers interpreted it as proof that klance would become canon. When it inevitably didn’t and shit hit the fan, the staff backpedaled again. Stating that klance was never meant to be interpreted as romantic and we were all fools for thinking otherwise. That’s happened in the past so it’s a reasonable defence, except for the fact that scenes with Keith and Lance tended to contain unnecessary parallels to canonically romantic relationships, (the bonding moment paralleling an allurance scene in season six and their talk at the start of season eight paralleling two scenes, hunay in season one and l*tura in season five). So it’s not unreasonable to be a little suspicious there. Klance was huge on the internet, it’s impossible for the crew to have been completely unaware of what they were doing.

Next I wanna talk shippers. I’m not saying that being disappointed that a ship didn’t become canon is a bad thing. But when you act like that’s the worst thing Voltron did amidst the sea of ableism, racism and homophobia it gets a little tiring. The fact that so many klancers rushed to demonize Allura after season seven and eight and add on that I saw more people complaining about klance not becoming canon king than Allura dying a completely unnecessary death to redeem L*tor of all people was the final straw. I washed my hands of klance and Voltron as a whole.

———————————————

So that’s my review of V*ltron. I was gonna do a separate review of season eight but I didn’t even finish s8 and to be honest it probably wouldn’t have been any more than the words “Fuck Vee El Dee, Allura Deserved Better” in big pink letters. And I know I probably made someone angry with this review but if you actually managed to stick around my ramblings all the way to the end then I salute you regardless of whether or not you agree with me.

[dwestfieldblog]

AFFIRMING YOUR BIAS

A DEFAULT MODE NETWORK

Apparently 100 seconds to midnight....not enough time to run to shelters, boil an egg or have sex, unless you are a rabbit. '2020'...One of those gathering years when conspiracies appear very real and laughing at the credulous takes a back-seat on the bus to seeing the utter plausibility of   paranoid imaginings. Logic looks coldly and clearly at  irrational fear and starts to doubt its own sanity. Ah ha, ha haa...

Brexit parties hard in London as we dance towards the 'golden age' that Boris has promised (and it is not as if he has ever lied or exaggerated about important things very often before). British Pride at its best, posters already up in the tower blocks ordering the foreigners to speak English. The Leavers seem unclear on the point that having given the EU an enema and left ourselves at the mercy of unbalanced American business deals to be signed over a barrel, (arf) we are also signed up to the  AIIB, the Ancient Illuminated...(ahem, excuse me) the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Well, wouldn't you rather be ordered about by China and lose your sovereignty to the Communist Party? The ones who harvest organs from the living, run concentration camps and massacre their own students. All the UK 'nationalist fascists' (those either in denial or proud of it) don't seem to mind that much, as long as Europe is not telling us what to do. 'We're gonna take back control of our borders'. Yeah right. Nice British compromise over Huawei eh? Meanwhile...

Reading about the Social Credit System in China and wondering how long before other more democratic countries take this idea up. Remembering Zappa in Joe's Garage dystopian album in 79, warning teens not, to do anything which could affect their parent's credit rating...well, in freer countries, the SCS could mean lack of access to various jobs, not being able to borrow money, less access to internet, limited acceptance into education, longer prison terms...Communists have a nice punishment for those who disagree with their philosophy...have them sacked, arrested for being unemployed and placed in one of those special detention centres for a 're-education'. The same excrement as has been since 'God' punished Adam and Eve for getting too smart. Do as you are told or else. Be quiet and obedient, listen and follow those in control regardless of whether they seem to be doing good work - and respect your betters especially if they are not. Calm down Dave, peak later.  

Speaking of which...Nice interview with a young British guy who used to belong to the Korean Friendship Association (just the North part) who was expelled last year for asking, during a visit to Cheese Boy's empire 'How come in a Socialist society, the leadership is passed from father to son'? This might seem like a very reasonable question but the bloke was booted out, accused of 'outrageous disrespect' And a 'Colonialist attitude'. Arf. I might well send a letter to the NK embassy in London and ask them if they could clarify this point.

Fnord.

My favourite WTF story for a while was the fascinating tale of an Ethical Vegan in London named Jordi (from Spain) who went to court to prove a claim against his former employers, The League Against Cruel Sports, after he said their pension fund had connections to companies involved with animal testing. They sacked him and he claimed discrimination due to his beliefs. His ideas on the absolute sanctity of animals include not travelling short distances on public transport...in case the bus squishes any birds or insects in its path. Or eating figs in case there are any larvae from wasps still in them. Banknotes which contain animal fat should not be handled. Guide dogs for the blind are offensive due to the exploitation of the animal in serving Humans. Wool, leather and silk are right out. Etc. He won the case. (Sanity is expected to appeal.) The judge ruled that the philosophy of ethical veganism merits the same respect as any religion. Well, why not eh? If folk can accept invisible sky wizards, talking snakes, a boat with all the animals of the world on it, burning bushes and virgins giving birth, why not make a philosophy out of yet another extreme? I will demand the right for pink fluffy unicorns to vote and a million march for mermaids. Oops...Well, flap, roll and flop...Great at fellatio..

At what point does an opinion become 'real'? When it is agreed upon by serious minds and turned into law? Or when focused thought is directed into possibility waves with Will and imagination. 'The magick of our science...' As of yet, there is no proof of a 'God' existing, but millions have died badly due to fervent belief in such and the opinions of clearly imbalanced humans through history.  Thumb sucking, security blanket clutching folk, desperate to justify their unsane behaviour by blaming it on a higher power. God/The Devil made me do it. Sure He did...The Goddess says think for yourself, harm none and do what you Will.

Politically incorrect boys and girls, need some Kuddles, True love falls to fly and rises to crawl, when I think about you I cut myself...Meanwhile again...back to the foul cesspool/ endless comic material of prime ministers and presidents...

'In Reality they are not after me they're after you. I'm just in the way'. No Donald, 'They' are for the people, they are just against you. Usually American presidents follow orders from the industrialist power brokering king makers who financed their campaigns, rather than taking advice and obeying orders from a Russian in Moscow. But that seems about the shape of the last four years. Perhaps Donald is in love with Vladmir, he does seem to admire strong men a little too much. Virtually everything the orange lunatic does in his childish attempts to undo anything Obama did, serves as the longest suck job in history. Someone has access to THAT video in the hotel...'Russia, if you're listening...' Stick it on you tube and give us a good laugh for a change. Nice to see Nancy ripping up the reality tv State of the Union address...(No Republicans, I'm not a Democrat or a Libertarian.)

'YOU CANNOT BE ACQUITTED IF YOU DON'T HAVE A TRIAL AND YOU DON'T HAVE A TRIAL IF YOU DON'T HAVE WITNESSES AND DOCUMENTATION'. Well said Mrs Pelosi.

Does this statement actually seem unreasonable to anyone other than The Duck's hardcore fanatics? The king is naked and a bare faced LIAR, rambling endless deflection and projection. Whenever he accuses someone else of something negative, he reveals the real subject is himself. Whenever he praises himself, his heart means the opposite. 'I am a very stable genius'. Said the deeply unbalanced moron. 'He's crazy, shifty, a liar, weak...' etc etc etc. Reptile, you know what you are. Feel it. But free now for revenge and re-election due to 'the silent, the pliable and the complicit.'

Donald has been spending a lot of time preying on praying Evangelicals and anti abortionists (a 'March for Life'). Smart political move. When such millions of folk are so easy to fool with bullturd, he knows he has a ready made multitude of gullible voters. All he needs to do is to 'align' with them and they are bent over, spread and puckered. (Reminds me of the Christians buying Constantine's shtick.)  Do you suckers really believe anyone who says they agree with you? Don't you expect some genuine display of compassion and peaceful behaviour rather than endless aggression, selfishness, petulance and greed? (I mean, if you are actually Christians who feel compassion and forgiveness and that none are beyond Redemption.) Rather than just hoisting placards which read 'Not Your Body, Not Your Choice'. From this I infer that the actual females behind and under these, follow the opinion that God (who gave us free will, if you follow this stuff) has amendments which state Free will is sacred. Except in the cases of abortion and....fill in the blanks with deeply held opinions.  

This teenager was raped by her aids carrying junkie uncle...and must have the baby? That sounds nice and Christian (or any other major religion). From my very first blog sixteen years ago I have been endlessly ranting the same dammed thing...it seems a genuine shame that those who would call themselves religious cannot be a little more HOLY and decent. Rather than foaming at the mouth like wild eyed, hate filled fundamentalist swine. (He writes, teeth grinding and himself stabbing the keyboard in impotent rage). Pretending to be 'religious' is a nice pastime for the guilty.  

Another placard showed a picture of Trump with the words. 'Most Pro Life President Ever'. Do none of these young women at the rallies see any irony in supporting a man who boasts of grabbing pussies and that he 'would hit on' his daughter if she wasn't his? Does he really seem to be FOR life and the dignity of females to you? Women are supposed to have a little more instinctual intelligence than men. (Or is that imposing gender roles? Arf.) Shame on you for being so easy to manipulate. 'Easy to fool people when they are fooling themselves'.  

'A part of religion is about direct experience of the divine and the rest is just crowd control'. John Cleese (JC)

And I Love the way the fascists/populists financed by the Kremlin on all sides bang on about the 'Liberal Elite'. I have never seen or heard of such people. The Liberals in Democracies have always seemed to be fairly well meaning, goodhearted but overwhelmingly weak apologetic folk. Not very much like a power elite running the world behind the scenes in the 'Deep State'. Farage in the UK after the recent election, having lost most of his seats by not running against the Tories (hoping for a chair at the Big Table) crowed about having 'destroyed' the Liberals in England. I could have done that with a cynical stand up routine and and a flick of my little finger. On my left hand. Not exactly Thanos Nigel...(But then, I am not Bill Hicks eh?)

And so...Atlas Shrugged, Heraclitus burped, Putin raised an eyebrow and his entire government resigned. (Boris promised a 'New Dawn' for Great Britain. Well, he would, wouldn't he?) I truly enjoyed the annual press conference with Putin, where Bald head was asked what he thought of Johnson's previous comments that he resembled Dobby the House Elf from Harry Potter by replying; 'People say one thing when they are trying to get into power and something else when they are in power'. Just for a couple of seconds I had a sense of respect for this clarity of honesty.

Meanwhile Johnson (whose party received a good old amount of Roubles last year) and (bald head No.2) Cummings have begun their master campaign...Things don't look good for the BBC for reporting the news and asking uncomfortable questions. The Constitution of Britain and the balancing powers of Parliament are under threat too, as are various Human Rights Laws. Good old Tories, still the Nasty Party. 'Imagine what this country could be in ten year's time'. Boris, I am.  

And bloody Momentum still don't want to let go of their type of 'leadership' yet...even after their Useful Idiot/Strawman puppet Jeremy lost the North. Damn right, English people tend not to vote for those who sympathise with actual terrorists. Unless.... Oops...Insert smiley face here. And a Bosh of a skeleton breastfeeding a priest, just lie back and think of England...this won't hurt a bit. It will hurt a lot.

Step by step as Boris and Trump surgically carve away various rights and laws which impede them from furthering their power and break up unions of friendship among the West as Russia and China watch with the dead eyed smiles of sharks. Hmm..

'Constitutions are utterly worthless to restrain the tyranny of governments, unless it be understood that the people will compel the government to remain within constitutional limits. Practically speaking, no government knows any limits to its power except the endurance of the people.'  Spooner

Most, but not all of you people are being used by those who understand your psychology. You do not. You are only a means to end, to achieve and maintain power for them. Serving those who see you only as units of measurable force for them to direct. And you seem to love it. Vicariously enervated in righteousness and dumb enough to admire your intelligence in following those you believe will empower and free you. They don't, they won't. Never have and never will, as the song said. Sleepwalking, marching in a deep state of hypnosis into a slaughterhouse.  

Some of us are trying to improve on communication, connection, empathy, random acts of kindness, respect for ones self, sisters, brothers, planet. Experimenting with techniques of mind expansion, using the mirrors of science and art, maintaining a good sense of humour, watching our belief systems for signs of cruelty and stupidity, and admitting when we behave like idiots, humble but not humiliated.

For all the religious fundamentalists, politically correct and political extremists against any attempt at evolving, due to fear or greed, I strongly, almost violently suggest this: CRAWL ON YOUR BELLIES BACK INTO THE OCEANS AND LET THE REST OF US MAKE THIS PLANET SOMEWHERE GOOD TO LIVE AGAIN.

Not important how long I live, more a case of how much I enjoy being alive and whether I can help others while I am here. Hope to see you in the springtime.  

RIP forever in intelligence and fine humour Neil Peart and Terry (He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy) Jones.

'What's hit is history

What's missed is mystery

And the miraculous image  

Of sound washed ashore'

J. Balance/Coil

Despite outward appearances, it is not unrealistic to be optimistic...

LOVE.