#remember i read a german translation which is suppose to be close to the original but you know

[anonymergremlin]

Sweet reminder from my thesis.

Sophia is not only LoP's version of the Blue fairy. She also shares many traits with her. The blue hair is one, especially since it is described as 'dark blue' in the book and what hair color does she have at the end of 'Rise of P'? Dark blue. Also the hairstyle and length of the hair is really similar at this point. Another thing is that her dress seems to be a more elegant version of the Blue Fairy's dress/gown. And... I know it is a reference to a famous statue... The way she holds P in the 'Rise of P'-Ending, is similar to when the blue Fairy carried Pinocchio to her bed.

[vladdocs]

ENG Letter from the Voivode Vlad Draguli Tepes of March 14, 1457. *** By content: This letter finally clarifies the political situation between Wallachia and Transylvania, which became the cause of the conflict in 1457 and later. However, to understand the situation, it is worth reading first two other documents, the first, the agreement between the parties, the terms of assistance, the second, the document of the request for help from the voivode. This document follows in this chain the third, interesting from the point of view of the conflict. After the voivode did not receive an answer, according to the agreement, he goes to the lands where the applicants for the throne of Wallachia and their accomplices are hiding. According to the agreement, if you remember, the party on whose land the applicant and his people are hiding, preferably, betrays (meets the voivode as a friend) intruders, or does not interfere with their search. Probably, the governor did not meet any assistance in Transylvania, which is not surprising, given this attitude. Having crossed the Turnu-Rosu pass and arriving at the places where the aforementioned gentlemen were hiding, but faced with complete indifference, the voivode made an attempt to persuade Transylvania to reckon with itself. The result of this was the burned villages of Kasholts, Khosman and Nou Romyn near the very Sibiu. For decades, Transylvania, which had been shaking the nerves of the governors of Wallachia, was literally shocked by such an act, unprecedented in its kind, so that echoes of indignation reached us in the form of pamphlets, legends, stories, where from year to year, from decade to decade, the number of “innocents” increases, just like the number of "victims". In those stories, it comes to the point where the death toll during that period significantly exceeds even the number of all who lived at that time in one of the largest cities in Transylvania, Brasov. What exactly prompted the governor to take such a decisive, long-needed step? Was it the indirect participation of Transylvania in all the coups in Wallachia?, the murder of his family?, an attempt on his own murder?. It is unlikely that the voivode was so restrained and patient that, having come to power “without any help,” he concludes a strong peace with Transylvania and approaches it very responsibly. This letter is also very interesting, with a phrase that some historians even interpret as a threat: “If you don’t want even more, then immediately inform us so that we can rule and govern”. However, from the point of view of the choice of vocabulary, "quod nos regere et gubern {are p} ossemus" is completely neutral and, speaking figuratively in modern words, has the following content: the voivode, being a ruler, will be able to begin to regulate the current situation only when he finds out about the further political course of his neighbor, Transylvania, and does not want to be in the dark about that, therefore he asks to inform about his decision. There is nothing else in this phrase, "reign and govern", "herrschen und lenken", in any translation, that is, to be the ruler and therefore to control the situation. For all that, few people focus on the fact that they tried to kill the governor in Transylvania when he needed help. They also pay little attention to the fact that the voivode expresses, albeit tactfully within the framework of necessary diplomacy, about his attitude to the origin of the applicant: “his infringement on our right of the true (!) Heir”, “a monk from Wallachia who calls himself a son voivode ", the latter is twice specially indicated. Given these moments, I personally cannot understand why Vlad The Monk is definitely considered the illegitimate child of Dragul, when among his sons his father is not mentioned anywhere in the documents, not even once, and one of the sons frankly says that the Monk is an impostor. In my opinion, Vlad Monk is another Neagoe Bassarab, of which, as we remember, there were plenty of them. With only one commander Dragulya Tepes, duplicated Mirchi, Vlada and

forged documents suddenly appeared. Letter from the governor Vlad Draguli Tepes dated March 14, 1457. *** Noble, prudent and far-sighted men, advisers, fathers, brothers, our sincerely dear friends and neighbors, as you remember, and you should be well aware of that, there is a commitment between us, and vows backed by unshakable loyalty have been taken; and these obligations and vows must not be violated by anyone and never, while we are alive, at any time, which we personally specifically pointed out to you in a letter. From our side of evil, we did not do you and did not intend to start that. But today a rumor has reached us and we have learned about all that, that at a secret council you were with the people of a monk from Wallachia, who calls himself the son of a governor *, settled their affairs; Moreover, Peter Gereb * from Virishmort, and Peterman *, the son of the noble Peterman, who were neighboring with you, took part in this. You were personally promised to transfer all the fees to you in Rukar and Brail for a long time, promising that Wallachia's income. * Remember the time when I wandered and arrived in your lands *, you then did not let me into your council, but instead, out of loyalty to the noble lord, the governor of these lands, Vladislav entrusted the noble men John Gereb from Wingard and Nicholas from Salzburg to capture us in the city of Joaju and to end us. But by the will of God, we ourselves were able to return our lands without any help *, but with you, we made a strong peace and thus made your enemies ours. Today we fully understand that you support a monk from Wallachia, who calls himself the son of a governor, and his people in an encroachment on our right to be a true heir, and we also understand what bad consequences for us everything can lead, since you are already Advice with him, and he, having made his way to Amlash, remained there, and is there to this day by your own will. Therefore, with this letter we ask each and every one of you that in the name of the God and according to the commandments of the Catholic faith, as well as for the sake of maintaining fraternal peace and friendship between us, after reading our letter, you will certainly write to us or report back, whether you wish further observe the order established by us and you in writing and be loyal to it. If you do not wish that more, then immediately inform us, so that we can rule and govern. Given in Targoviste on the second day after the feast of Blessed Pope Gregory, in the year 1457. Vlad, Commander of the Transalpine lands, your faithful brother, son and friend in everything. Comments: * Identity of Vlad the monk is speculative only. * Peter Gereb * from Virishmort was a judge and head of Sibiu in 1467, later he was executed in the city square because of his participation in the uprising against Corwin considered bloodthirsty). Peterman was a wealthy Sibiu merchant from Wallachia, Kampulung; the city was located on the trade route from Rukar to Brasov. The German-speaking community living there maintained close relations with Sibiu. * Fees from you in Rukar were the most important source of income for Wallachia, therefore they were never the object of donation or lease. Braila Port, located on the Danube, was the country's most important port and was of exceptional importance for trade in the western Black Sea region. The decision of the self-appointed claimant to take away the income from the country and give it to Transylvania was also unprecedented, his desire to curry favor was painfully strong. * After an unsuccessful attempt to regain legal power in November 1448, the voivode fled to Moldavia. However, there is no evidence that he was present at the court of Bogdan II. Perhaps he found refuge among the Moldovan boyars who were supporters of his family. Later, the voivode is forced to move to Transylvania, after Vladislav finds himself in the same situation as many voivods before him and therefore loses the support of the Hungarians. * Joaju (Rom. Geoagiu, ung. Algyógy) is located in the Hunedoara

Sudce, where the Hunyadi family owned vast estates and were surrounded by numerous supporters. The authors of the book Corpus Draculianum contradict themselves, first they write that the Hungarians removed Vladislav because of his pro-Ottoman policy, and then that the murder of the governor could have been ordered by Hunyadi, so that, literally: “Hunyadi wanted to prevent Vlad's attack on Vladislav, so as not to violate the truce with by the Ottomans ". Several different statements. And why would Vlad even then be in Joaju, "where the Hunyadi family owned vast estates and were surrounded by numerous supporters." Honestly, I am alarmed by the attempt of the authors of the book to constantly challenge the words of the voivode in the documents (I often notice in the comments, they say, “the voivode is misleading,” or “in fact, the reason was something else, and not indicated by the voivode” (they apparently, instead of the governor, they know much better what was the cause of what was in the 15th century, in this case the same example, after all, everything is written in black and white, who attempted and why) and suppose “their own” version. I do not know the purpose of such comments. An example, one of the many about challenging, openly refuting the words of the voivode in his letter with his statement, is the commentary on the phrase “But by the will of the Lord we ourselves were able to return our lands without any help.” In the commentary to this phrase, the authors of the aforementioned publication, the governor is accused of lying, citing a completely empty formal oath to Postumus in March 1456 and arguing that (as it turns out, it was not Hunyadi who wanted to kill, as they had previously stated) with the help of Hun eadi. In support of the versions, documents are cited that are not evidence of the indicated facts, even indirectly. In some comments, the authors of the publication accuse the voivode of issuing an ultimatum without offering any negotiations, and this is for this phrase: “Therefore, with this letter we ask each and every one of you that in the name of the Lord and according to the commandments of the Catholic faith, and also for the sake of maintaining fraternal peace and friendship between us (!), after reading our letter, you certainly wrote or reported to us (!) whether you want to continue to observe the order established by us and you in writing (!) and be loyal to it. If you do not wish that more, then immediately inform us, so that we can rule and rule. " I don’t know how even softer it is possible to write after an attempted murder, after a betrayal and a secret conspiracy, the ruler who previously concluded an agreement with you asks you to inform us about your preference in actions. I cannot understand what the authors are pursuing with such comments. _____________________ RU Письмо воеводы Влада Драгули Цепеша от 14 марта 1457 года, перевод группы Воевода Валахии XV века Влад Цепеш Дракула. *** По содержанию: Данное письмо окончательно проясняет политическую ситуацию между Валахией и Трансильванией, ставшую причиной конфликта и в 1457 , и позже. Однако, для понимания ситуации стоит прочесть сначала два других документа, первый, договор между сторонами, условия содействия, второй, документ просьбы о помощи от воеводы. Данный документ следует в этой цепи третьим, интересным с точки зрения конфликта. После того, как воевода не получил ответа, согласно договору, он отправляется в земли, где укрываются претенденты на трон Валахии и их пособники. Согласно договору, если помните, сторона, на чьей земле скрывается претендент и его люди, предпочтительно, выдает (встречает воеводу , как приятеля) злоумышленников, либо не препятствует их поиску. Вероятно, воевода не встретил никакого содействия в Трансильвании, что и неудивительно, учитывая подобное отношение. Переправившись через перевал Турну-Рошу и прибыв в места укрывательства перечисленных господ, но столкнувшись с полным безразличием, воевода предпринял попытку убедить Трансильванию считаться с собой. Результатом этого стали сожженные

деревни Кашольц, Хосман и Ноу Ромын близ того самого Сибиу. Десятилетиями трепавшая нервы воеводам Валахии Трансильвания была в буквальном смысле шокирована таким поступком, беспрецедентным в своем роде настолько, что отголоски возмущения дошли до нас в виде памфлетов, сказаний, рассказов, где из года в год, из десятилетия в десятилетие, и число «невинно убиенных» становится все больше, и смерти все краше. В ряде рассказов доходит до того, что число погибших в тот период значительно превышает даже численность всех, живших на тот момент в одном из самых крупных городов Трансильвании, Брашове. Что же именно подвигло воеводу на такой решительный, давно нужный шаг? Было ли то косвенное участие Трансильвании во всех переворотах в Валахии, убийство его семьи, покушение на его собственное убийство. Вряд ли, воевода был настолько сдержан и терпелив, что, придя ко власти «без всякой помощи», заключает крепкий мир с Трансильванией и очень ответственно к тому подходит. Данное письмо очень интересно и фразой, которую некоторые историки даже трактуют как угрозу: «Ежели не желаете того более, то тотчас сообщите нам, дабы мы могли властвовать и править». Однако, с точки зрения выбора лексики, «quod nos regere et gubern{are p}ossemus» вполне нейтральна и , если говорить переносно современными словами, имеет следующее содержание: воевода, будучи правителем, сможет начать регулировать сложившуюся ситуацию , лишь тогда, когда узнает о дальнейшем политическом курсе своего соседа, Трансильвании, и не желает быть в неведении о том, потому просит сообщить о своем решении. Ничего другого в данной фразе нет, «reign and govern», «herrschen und lenken», в любом переводе, то есть, быть господарем и потому управлять ситуацией. При всем, мало кто акцентирует внимание на том, что воеводу пытались убить в Трансильвании, когда ему нужна была помощь. Также мало акцентируют внимание и на том, что воевода высказывает, пусть и тактично в рамках необходимой дипломатии, о своем отношении к происхождению претендента: «его в посягательстве на наше право истинного (!) наследника», «монаха из Валахии, кто величает себя сыном воеводы», последнее дважды особо указывается. Учитывая данные моменты, я лично не могу понять, почему Влада Монаха определенно считают внебрачным ребенком Драгула, когда среди сыновей его нигде не упоминается в документах самого отца, ни разу, а один из сыновей откровенного говорит, что Монах самозванец. На мой взгляд, Влад Монах очередной Нягое Бассараб, которых на деле, как помним, было полно. Только с одним воеводой Драгулей Цепешем внезапно появились и дублированные Мирчи, Влады и поддельные документы. Письмо воеводы Влада Драгули Цепеша от 14 марта 1457 года. *** Знатные, благоразумные и дальновидные мужи, советники, отцы, браться, наши искренне дорогие друзья и соседи, как вы помните, а о том должно вам быть хорошо известно, есть между нами обязательства , и даны клятвы, подкрепленные непоколебимой верностью; и сие обязательства и клятвы недолжно никому и никогда, пока мы живы, в любое время нарушать, на что мы вам лично особливо в письме указывали . С нашей стороны зла мы вам не творили и не намеревались то начинать. Но нынче дошел до нас слух и мы обо всем том узнали , что на тайном совете с вами были и дела свои улаживали люди монаха из Валахии, кто величает себя сыном воеводы*; пуще того, принимали в том участие и Петер Гереб *из Виришморта, и Петерман *, сын знатного Петермана, соседствующие с вами. Вам лично пообещали надолго передать все сборы с вам в Рукаре и Брэиле , посулив тем доходы Валахии.* Припомните же то время, когда скитался я и в ваши земли прибыл*, не пустили вы тогда меня в совет свой, но вместо этого вы из преданности знатному господину ,воеводе тогда этих земель , Владиславу поручили знатным мужам Иоанну Геребу из Вингарда и Николаю из Зальцбурга нас в граде Джоаджу пленить и с нами покончить. Но по в��ле Господа смогли мы сами без всякой помощи земли свои вернуть*, а с вами же мы заключили крепкий мир и тем сделали ваших неприятелей нашими. Нынче мы всецело разумеем то, что вы поддерживаете монаха из

Валахии , кто сыном воеводы себя величает, и людей его в посягательстве на наше право истинного наследника, а также понимаем и то, к каким худым последствиям для нас все может привести, раз вы уж и совет с ним держите, и он , в Амлаш пробравшись , там и остался , и там доныне находится по вашей же собственной воле. Потому сим письмом просим мы всех и каждого из вас о том, чтобы во имя Господа и по заповедям веры католической, а также ради поддержания между нами братского мира и дружбы, вы, прочтя наше письмо , нам непременно ответ написали или доложили, желаете ли далее соблюдать письменно установленный нами и вами порядок и быть тому преданными . Ежели не желаете того более, то тотчас сообщите нам , дабы мы могли властвовать и править. Дано в Тырговиште на второй день после праздника блаженного папы Григория, в год 1457. Влад, воевода земель Трансальпийских , ваш верный брат, сын и слуга во всем. Знатным, благоразумным и дальновидным мужам, бургомистру Освальду, судье и советникам Сибиу, всем нашим мужам саксам из Семиградья, нашим искренне уважаемым друзьям и соседям. ___________________________________________________________________________ Комментарии: *Идентификация личности Влада монаха лишь предположительная. * Петер Гереб *из Виришморта был судьей и главой Сибиу в 1467 году, позже его казнят на городской площади из-за его участия в восстании против Корвина (последнему, выходит, отмечу от себя, можно так поступать с заговорщиками и претендентами на власть и не считаться кровожадным). Петерман же был богатым торговцем Сибиу родом из Валахии , Кымпулунг; город располагался на торговом пути от Рукара в Брашов. Проживавшее там немецкоязычное сообщество поддерживало тесные отношения с Сибиу. *Сборы с вам в Рукаре были самым важным источником дохода для Валахии , потому они никогда не выступали объектом пожертвования или аренды. Порт Брэйла, расположенный на Дунае, был самым важным портом страны и имел исключительное значение для торговли в западно-черноморском регионе. Решение самозваного претендента отнять доход у страны и подарить его Трансильвании также было беспрецедентным, больно сильным было его желание выслужиться. * После неудачной попытки вернуть законную власть в ноябре 1448 года , воевода бежал в Молдавию . Однако, нет никаких доказательств того, что он присутствовал при дворе Богдана II. Возможно, он нашел прибежище среди молдавских бояр, которые были сторонниками его семьи. Позже воевода вынужден перебраться в Трансильванию, после того, как Владислав оказывается в той же ситуации, что и многие воеводы до него и потому лишается поддержки венгров. *Джоаджу (рум. Geoagiu, ung. Algyógy) расположен в судце Хунедоара, где семья Хуньяди владела обширными владениями и была окружена многочисленными сторонниками. Авторы книги Corpus Draculianum противоречат себе , сначала пишут, что венгры убрали Владислава из-за его проосманской политики, а потом, что убийство воеводы мог заказать Хуньяди , чтобы, дословно: «Хуньяди хотел предотвратить нападение Влада воеводы на Владислава , чтобы не нарушать перемирие с османами». Несколько различные утверждения. Да и зачем бы Владу вообще тогда находиться именно в Джоаджу, «где семья Хуньяди владела обширными владениями и была окружена многочисленными сторонниками». Меня, честно, настораживает ко всему попытка авторов книги постоянно оспорить слова воеводы в документах (не раз то замечаю в комментариях, мол, «воевода вводит в заблуждение», или «на деле же причиной было иное, а не указанное воеводой» (они, видно, вместо воеводы куда лучше знают, что же причиной чего и было в 15 веке , в данном случае тот же пример, все ведь черным по белому писано, кто покушался и зачем) и предположить «свою» версию. Бессмысленно то. А вот какова цель подобных комментариев мне неизвестно. Примером, одним из многочисленных об оспаривании , откровенном опровержении слов воеводы в письме своим утверждением, является и комментарий к фразе «Но по воле Господа смогли мы сами без всякой помощи земли свои вернуть». В комментарии к данной фразе авторы вышеупомянутого издания обвиняют воеводу во

лжи, приводя основой совершенно пустую формальную присягу Постуму марта 1456 и утверждая, что (как оказывается, уже не Хуньяди убить хотел, как ранее ими было заявлено) с помощью Хуньяди. В поддержку версий приводятся документы, не являющиеся доказательствами указанных фактов даже косвенно. В некоторых комментариях авторы издания обвиняют воеводу в том, что он выставил ультиматум, не предлагая никаких переговоров, и это к данной фразе : «Потому сим письмом просим мы всех и каждого из вас о том, чтобы во имя Господа и по заповедям веры католической, а также ради поддержания между нами братского мира и дружбы (!), вы, прочтя наше письмо , нам непременно ответ написали или доложили, (!)желаете ли далее соблюдать письменно установленный (!)нами и вами порядок и быть тому преданными. Ежели не желаете того более, то тотчас сообщите нам , дабы мы могли властвовать и править». Уж не знаю, как еще мягче можно написать после покушения на свое убийство, после предательства и тайного заговора, правитель , заключивший ранее с вами договор, просит вас сообщить о вашем предпочтении в действиях. Не могу понять, какую цель преследуют авторы такими комментариями.

[the-kazoo-kid]

The Two Types of Goblincore

I’ll begin by saying that I’m a Jewish archaeologist, and one of my main areas of study is the pogroms of Eastern Europe during the beginning of the 20th century. This affects the way I think of goblincore in two major ways:

Goblins were used as a negative caricature of Jews to tother them and incite negative feelings and violence among non-news

I have been accused of only wanting to be an archaeologist so that I can dig up and hoard shiny things

I spend a lot of my time looking at images like this one. It’s an antisemetic political cartoon from 1898. 

Look at the crown, the long, hooked nose, and most importantly the clawed, webbed hands. His hands envelope the world, symbolizing the perceived universal greed of the Jew.

This stereotype of the greedy Jew didn’t originate in the 19th century either. It goes all the way back to the Middle Ages when Jews in Europe were banned from occupations other than banking. 

So now let’s talk about goblins in popular culture. First and foremost in my mind are J.K Rowling’s goblins who are portrayed as greedy, hoarding and-- you guessed it-- in charge of the money and treasure.

There are even physical similarities between J.K. Rowling’s goblins and the political cartoon above. Note the hooked nose and the hands. 

I was about eight when I read the first Harry Potter book. I remember bringing it to a synagogue event where one of the adults remarked about how uncomfortable the goblins made them. Before I was allowed to watch the movie my mother sat me down and explained what was problematic with those goblins and why.

Next up: LOTR

He has the crown and the hands, although not the nose, and while he bares less direct resemblance to that cartoon, this is still an example of antisemitism. This is a placeholder character for a Jew that is disgusting, hoarding wealth, and a direct antagonist to the main characters. 

Everquest 2:

(I found another image where this character was specifically labeled The Goblin Banker but tumblr wouldn’t allow me to upload it for whatever reason.) This goblin is so other that it’s not even recognizable as a person, and in fact in the game they’re classed as a Mob Race. Yikes. Additionally, Wikipedia describes them as “attempting to - unsuccessfully - forge gold coins, and yet they have no intention spending any of this money, they simply wish to 'have' it.” This goes along with a lot of the greed aspect of goblins and their obsession with hoarding.

So what do we do?

First, I want to say that just because these pieces of media (or any others) have these problematic aspects doesn’t mean that you have to stop consuming and enjoying them. If we never read books or watched movies or played games that were problematic we would back ourselves into a corner where nothing was permitted.

The important thing is to educate yourself to the point where you can recognize the negative caricature/stereotype in something that you come across, and to not create any new media containing the stereotype. 

But what if you really like goblins?

The good news is that this is the first, older kind of goblincore, but it’s not the only one out there. There’s a new wave happening that emphasizes the positive things without including the negative ones. These next examples are technically called trolls in their respective universes, but they really get the vibe that I’m going for.

Boxtrolls:

See? Shiny treasure thing, delight, and no malice. Admittedly the trolls in this movie are some funny looking creatures, but they don’t come across as perpetuating the negative Jewish stereotype to me.

Frozen:

Cute little guys made of stone and moss. They live peacefully, and when they encounter the protagonists they have a nice musical number and then dispense some wise advice. No greed, no bad intentions. Good for them.

(Again, these examples are both technically trolls but I think the idea comes through, especially since they’re so far from the large, lumbering brutes that are trolls in say... Harry Potter or LOTR.)

Now I’m going to hand this conversation over to @goblinblogging who is a Jew working on reclaiming and reworking the idea of what a goblin is and what a goblin does.

-Reid

Now, I know learning that something you’re doing could be problematic is scary! I also know that a ton of people have abandoned goblincore just because they learned of these stereotypes. 

However, you don’t have to abandon something you love! What you need to do is educate yourself and learn about why these things are harmful and learn what you can do to make sure you aren’t doing something harmful yourself! 

Let's start off with how this stereotype came around (Or at least, one way it originated.) In the book Knockers, Knackers, and Ghosts: Immigrant Folklore in the Western Mines, the author goes into detail about how European origins say the goblins of the mines were the ghosts of dead Jews, sentenced (in properly medieval anti-Jewish fashion) to perpetual restlessness for their supposed role in the crucifixion of Jesus. Which is where the “Goblins live in caves and mines” came from! 

So this explains that the ghosts of Jews became goblins because they were being punished for killing jesus. Already a pretty rough start! Now for common goblin appearances that are nothing but antisemitism in disguise. First, and most obvious, large, hooked, warted noses. I don’t really feel like I have to go into much detail about this one. Anyone who took history class in middle and high school should know about Hitler’s propaganda against jews and the depictions of their bulbous noses, often covered in warts. This caricature directly translates over to goblins having their predominant warted noses. Second, Let’s have a look at green skin. Hitler in particular loved to depict jews with green skin, or at the very least, in very green light so it turned their skin green. 

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Notice the green tint, the evil sneer, hooked nose, and pointed ears in this one! All very reminiscent of traits we commonly see in goblins. 

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 This last one is a movie poster “Suss the Jew” produced by Terra Film at the behest of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. Notice the green skin! 

 Next is horns and teeth. Hitler in particular would depict jews with devil’s horns hidden under their Kippah (also referred to in Yiddish as a yarmulke, or less frequently as a koppel.) He’d also just depict them outright as demons. 

Image source

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This one is Ukranian. Translated means “Satan has taken off his mask” Notice how “satan” has huge teeth and horns, red skin, with the star of David carved into his forehead. Also notice how his jewish mask has a large nose.

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This one is from Russia (1919), a caricature of Leon Trotsky, who was viewed as a symbol of Jewish Bolshevism. Notice the red skin and pointed ears. Also notice how he’s sitting above the people down below (who are sitting on skeletons and bones) symbolizing the Jew’s greed, which we’ll get into later.

And then there’s this one, where you can see (white) people inside of the Jew’s mouth, you can also see horrendously sharp teeth crushing them. Also pay attention to the large nose and pointed ears. I just remembered that I forgot to cover another very important anti-jewish facial feature, which is that many jews in propaganda have dark beady eyes and drooping eyelids. These are things you can see for yourself in the images above!

Next, we’re moving on to greed. This one in particular hits me close to home. I’ve heard the phrase “Jewing me out of my money” too many times to count. Or alternately, “Don’t be a Jew” when the other person doesn’t think that I’m giving them enough of what they want. (Could be money, could even be sweets. The first time I heard this phrase I was a little kid and I had a bag of skittles. I wanted to share with everyone but I still wanted to have enough for me to eat myself. I was passing out handfuls when my friend’s older brother (he was a teen) didn’t like how much I gave him. He said to me, “Come on, don’t be a Jew, give me some more skittles”. I didn’t understand and when I asked my mom what it meant later she was horrified.) Jews, and their caricatures, have almost always been viewed as greedy and power hungry. As @whalefromwales said above me, Jews in Europe used to be banned from any job besides banking. 

We also have images like this from WWII: 

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Anyone who has taken any class where the Holocaust was talked about should be able to recognize this image, The Eternal Jew. He has money in one hand, which is reached out to demand more - he’s also looking at the money, and a whip in his other hand. In his arm, he holds the whole country of Germany.

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There is also this one. A jew, tinged with red, weighs a man’s life against a large pile of money. Notice also how he’s looking at the money - not the man. 

And this one should also be easy to recognize. It reads “The Jews - A People of Contagion!” A city burns in the background as a jewish man sits atop a pile of bones counting his money. Notice the bulbous, hooked, nose, black eyes with drooping eyelids, and large hands! Hitler depicted jews this way (and as goblins) in order to segregate us. “Us VS Them”. “We are the Good Human Beings and Jews are monsters!” in order to make it easy for him to begin committing the atrocities that he did! It never happened overnight, there were key stepping stones that built up to concentration camps. One of those was “Jews aren’t really people, so it’s okay that we’re doing this to them. We’re doing it to save us, the Good Christian Germans.”  

So what does all of this mean? Well, first and foremost, it means that you have to be careful how you depict your goblins. How? When drawing your goblinsonas or goblin ocs, stay away from drawing them with huge, hooked, and warted noses, don’t make their skin green or red (personally, I prefer grey skin for goblins.) If your goblin has sharp teeth, don’t make them huge and obvious. Because modern goblins are fair folk, it’s difficult to depict them without pointed ears, but try not to exaggerate the proportions.  

Behavior: Stop with the “greedy little goblin” thing. That DIRECTLY comes from jewish stereotypes. Your Goblins are allowed to collect shiny things they find, but don’t make them greedy about it! Have your goblin share what they collect, make it a community effort. Sharing the things you love is way better than being miserly anyhow, and sharing more represents what we as goblins should want in our community! Also, be careful with your goblins being terrors. Yes, there are usually evil beings in every single race (whether mythological or real) but just be really really careful. Hitler loved to depict jews eating the Good Germans(™) or terrorizing communities. So even if your goblin is an evil one, be really really careful and be sure to educate yourself first so you’re not just perpetuating the same tired shit that Hitler did.Collecting coins. 

Now, this has been a huge topic of discourse lately. Coins are shiney! I understand why people would want to collect them. Hell, I have some awesome 50 cent pieces and gold dollars in my collection. You just can't depict  yourself or your goblin character collecting only coins and being very greedy with them. That’s literally doing nothing but echoing the same propaganda that Hitler used against us. Collect them all you want, but if I see “Greedy little goblin hoarding coins all for themselves” I swear I’m gonna hit the fan. To clarify, you can absolutely show off you coin collection in the goblin tags, just be careful how you frame it. “I’m really interested in history, so I collect old coins because I think they’re neat” is waaaaaay different then “Horrible littel crecher is greedy for shiney monies” (That last quote is something I’ve SEEN in the tags, luckily op was just completely unaware of why that was so wrong and they removed the caption after they were educated.) 

 So please, enjoy being into goblincore. Enjoy the culture and the fantasy. Goblincore is about appreciating the things about us that may be depicted as “weird” or “ugly”. Goblincore is a safe haven for neurodivergent people (I’m Autistic!) and also Trans and other LGBTQIA+ people! It’s a culture for appreciating nature, collecting things that may not be seen as normal, and sharing these things with other people. It’s a culture where you shouldn’t be ashamed to be who you are or afraid to get dirty. Goblincore is a support network for the weirder folks where we strive to uplift one another. Goblincore is wonderful and I’ve been so impressed at how welcoming everyone is! Especially on tumblr! Before the discourse happened, I was sure that goblincore was one of the kindest communities on tumblr. However, I understand why the discourse happened, and goyim in the goblincore tag really did need to be educated, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave! So be sure to educate yourself and be aware of how your actions could negatively affect folks. Listen to other Jewish people and be mindful of what they say. Some Jews are very uncomfortable with goblincore, and for very good reason! And I do not claim to speak for all Jews with this post. 

I am trying to reclaim the word goblin for use by any person who wants the label. I no longer want these fantasy creatures associated with such a beautiful and vibrant culture of people. Goblins are very interesting as a fantasy race, but the negative stereotypes do nothing but hurt real life Jewish people. Which is why I’m hoping that folks will read this post and realize what behaviors and depictions of goblins are wrong and harmful. Also, tag your goblincore appropriately! Again, many Jewish people are uncomfortable with goblincore because of antisemitism that has happened in their past. I’ve been compared to a goblin many times! So keep your goblincore in just the goblincore tags. There are many overlaps between goblincore and other micro communities on tumblr (Such as crowcore, cottagecore, naturecore, and vulture culture) but be mindful of what you’re putting in those tags. Most vulture culture people hate us goblins cuz we put pictures of dirt or “I’m just a smol crecher” in their tags, and I don’t blame them! Vulture culture is only for the remains of dead animals, and dead animal remains should be the only things added to those tags. So fellow goblins, I’m going to end this post with a sincere thank you for reading, be mindful of your actions, and most of all, HAVE FUN with goblincore! 

Here is where you should be able to read Knockers, Knackers, and Ghosts for free if you want.

TLDR: This is what we, as Jewish people, mean when we say that goblins are based off of negative stereotypes of jews. This is also why some jews get really upset at goblincore, however, there are many ways to participate in goblincore without using harmful stereotypes! So please, use this post to educate yourself so you can both be good goblins and good Jewish allies.

- @goblinblogging

[indigosandviolets]

The Secrets a Book Can Tell

Pairing: Joseph Liebgott x OC x George Luz

Word Count: 2,564

Summary: Andrew and Luz watch a movie even though Luz just can’t seem to shut up, but soon they’re all called to Bastogne. Andrew remembers how he came into the possession of the book he refuses to die without, but then the possibility of dying seems to only get worse as they start the march to Bastogne.

Notes: This chapter was originally just gonna have a minor flashback with Albert, but since someone said something about wanting to learn more about Andrew’s past, I made that a whole part!

Part Eleven of We Happy Few

-

The darkness of the room would have been perfectly coupled with silence, moving and working together to create a peaceful place as the men of Easy Company watched a movie.

That silence, of course, was not going to happen, all in favor of Geroge Luz.

“Gotta penny?” He said as the scene changed. Andrew nudged his side, trying to get him to shut up. Andrew had just wanted to hold hands with the lovable goofball, but because he kept talking he kept drawing attention to himself.

“Shut up, Luz,” Toye said, not turning around.

“Come on, I’ve seen the move seventeen times.”

“And I haven’t,” Toye replies, turning his head to look at Luz. “So shut up.”

Luz, being Luz, didn’t pay any mind. “Gotta penny?”

Andrew nudged him again. “George, stop,” he whispered. He had only seen the movie once before, and he barely remembered where that line even was, if it existed. It seemed to be Luz’s favorite, and he persisted.

“Gotta penny?” His voice was becoming more exaggerated, and Andrew was a blushing mess.

“George, please, quit it.”

“C’mon, it’s my favorite part,” He whispers to Andrew before saying the line again. “Gotta penny?”

Toye looked back at him again, ready to kill and Andrew could see it. He prayed that Toye didn’t have his brass knuckles. Luz stayed focus on the screen. “Gotta pen-ny?”

The woman finally says it, and Luz cheers. “For fuck’s sake, George,” Andrew says, pinching the bridge of his nose. Admittedly, he did love the idiot, but he wanted a quiet movie where they wouldn’t get caught while doing slight, domestic things. Luz had deflected that by, well, being Luz. Luz turned to Andrew after, his always present goofy smile lurking on his face.

He leans over into Andrew’s ear, whispering, “You know you love me.”

As Luz pulls away, Andrew glares at him. It’s not a mean one, it’s just an annoyed one, and Luz knows it based on the little laugh that he lets out.

Going to the movie had already been a strangely emotional thing for Andrew. He didn’t let it show, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the first time he and Luz kissed before the movie (which they did before this one, just a lot more hastily than that first time) and the circumstances around that kiss. He also couldn’t stop thinking about how he had been pulled out of the said movie to kiss Liebgott.

Now, this time it wasn’t Liebgott, but they were pulled out of the movie -- everyone was. Welsh took up the attention of the room, standing up at the top of the stage in the front of the makeshift theatre. “Get your gear, everyone, we’re moving out. Take everything you’re gonna need.”

That’s not really what Welsh said, but Andrew was sent straight into getting ready so quickly that he couldn’t remember exactly what the Lieutenant said.

Andrew buttoned up his jacket as fast as possible, threw as many warm clothes his combat bag would carry as far down as possible, followed by a few packs of cigarettes and half a bar of chocolate that he had stolen with Liebgott from the canteen.

He slipped on his winter coat and hat before throwing the bag over his shoulder. As he did so, a book fell off his bed in the haste. He picked it up carefully like the book was so fragile that it would snap in half at too harsh of a touch.

It was All Quiet on the Western Front, the same copy and edition he had carried with him from Toccoa. He rubbed his finger over the now worn spine, moving to the corners of the cover. They had been bent over, rumpled, becoming soft. He opened the book, and other than his name written in a soft pencil, a message had been written in on the back of the front cover.

Remember, read to Luz!

Andrew’s fingertips touched the messy note, remembering how Luz had asked him to read to him that fateful night in Normandy. He sighed, slipping the book into the inside pocket of his winter coat and stepping out with the rest of the men, ready to get in the douche-and-a-half’s.

-

Andrew acquired All Quiet on the Western Front from his brother, Albert. Albert had always been a novice reader, in fact, his second choice for his major in college was literature, but he stuck with finance and business instead. Having no other real male figure to try and emulate in his day-to-day life, Andrew too picked up a love and real passion for reading.

It had started off small, with reading a new book once a month after Albert had moved out. It became a rock and grounding for Andrew to become more in tune with himself -- and to tune out his parents as well.

This soon escalated to two, to three, to four, averaging one a week. He couldn’t get enough of the words as they seemed to fly off the page, and he also couldn’t get enough from the escape of his parents. He read anything he could get his hands on, it was like an obsession.

All Quiet on the Western Front, though, wasn’t one of those books that he read in a week. Albert had left a copy behind, but it was well-read, torn in many places. There were even whole chapters missing from here they had been ripped out (Albert used them for inspiration and note-giving). What he could read, though, was mostly in German. Albert had went out and gone and bought a German edition of the book, learning the language just to translate the book. Andrew couldn’t understand it, other than the simple “Ja” here and there. It was a nightmare to read, and it was one of the things that Andrew had taken with him when he stole the truck and drove to Chicago.

“Al,” Andrew said one night as they sat on the couch after dinner. They had been listening to the radio, hearing updates about the war in the Pacific. Andrew had already looked into enlisting for the Army that morning. “Why in the name of God did you have to leave me a book in German?”

Albert shrugged. “Motivation, I guess.”

“Motivation for what?”

“To get you to visit me,” Albert said, smile wide on his face. Andrew now remembers that he and Albert did share a smile. There were several things that the two of them didn’t even come close to being similar in, but you couldn’t deny that the Marin boys had the same smile. “Took you, what, three, four years?”

Andrew hit his older brother’s shoulder. “I hardly call it a visit.”

“Then what is it?”

“An escape.”

“Yeah, that works.”

Andrew held the German edition in his hands for a moment before giving it over to Albert. “Half of it’s gone, by the way. You ripped out a lot.”

“I know,” Albert replied, taking the book and holding it up to the light. “You know, I forgot half of it.”

“The book?”

“Well, that, but I forgot half the German I learned.”

Andrew laughed. “What good you are to the Army.”

“That is why, my dear brother, you are going instead.”

Andrew sighed. “If they’ll take me.”

Albert looked over to Andrew. “They’ll take you, don’t worry. I hear they need guys for their new Airborne program.”

“The hell is that?”

“You think I know?”

Albert got up, placing the book on the coffee table before he walked over to his bookshelf. He scanned it for a minute before pulling out a newer copy of the same book -- this time, in English.

“Here,” Albert said as he gave Andrew the copy. “It’s brand new. You’re gonna need something to read when you have downtime.”

Albert and Andrew couldn’t have expected that downtime for reading to happen where the book actually took place, but that night, Andrew tucked the book away into his bag after writing his name on the inside cover, not sure when he was going to read it.

-

Andrew sat beside Liebgott and Babe, nestled between the two, his knees pulled up towards him to keep in as much warmth as possible. Everyone was talking to a replacement -the name he didn’t quite catch, maybe Ray? - what why he had so little on him.

“You need four pairs of socks,” Skip Muck tells him. “One for your feet, one for your hands, one for your neck and pair for the balls.”

Everyone seemed to agree. Everyone was asking the replacement of what he had on him and what he needed.

“You got cigarettes?” Someone asks, and the replacement nods.

“Yeah, I got a half-”

Andrew can’t hear the rest of the sentence as everyone grabs for cigarettes, even Liebgott and Babe. Andrew puts his hand on Lieb’s shoulder. “I got you a pack, calm down. I’ll get it out when we stop.”

“You gotta coat?” Liebgott asks. And he asks it again. He keeps asking it until another matter is deemed more pressing, that of which he turns to look at Babe and Andrew to say, “I gotta piss.”

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” Andrew tells him.

“No shit,” Liebgott says, turning away. Andrew knows that Lieb is being a little short with him, but that’s mainly due to the fact that he still felt awkward around Babe after what happened before Eindhoven. Despite this, Liebgott moved his hand around Andrew’s waist, most of their bodies covered by the winter coats so that no one would see it. He accomplished this by timing it with when the truck lurched as it went over a rough patch on the dirt road, knocking everyone into each other. This was a perfect time, Liebgott seemed to decide, that he give a little reassuring squeeze to Andrew.

“Why the hell are we even comin’ over here anyway?” Guarnere asks everyone. “We’re supposed to jump outta planes, not ride out and march to the battlefield.” Andrew knew that Guarnere was always somewhat passionate about the things he thought were problems. “This is the fourth Army problem, right? They should be sendin’ in the sixty-eighth, not the one-o-one.”

Andrew leaned his head up to get his voice over to Guarnere. “We’re still Army, Guarnere. They’re gonna send us wherever the hell they want to. It doesn’t matter if we’re armored or not.”

“The hell do you know, Marin?” Guarnere says.

“Guarnere, where the hell have you been the last two years?” Andrew replies. “You of all people should know that Mister Eisenhower doesn’t give a shit about who gets sent in. As long as the problem gets resolved, they could send in the fucking coast guard and he couldn’t give a shit.”

Guarnere turns, patting the replacement on the shoulder. “That’s Andrew Marin. Second smartest guy in the company.”

“Who’s first?”

“That’s Bull.”

Andrew looked down, smiling to himself. It didn’t sound like a lot, but to be second to Bull? He could only dream.

As the truck came to a stop, Andrew, Babe, and Liebgott were the first out, and Babe and Andrew stood by a pit that had been filled with gas, waiting for one of the Lieutenants to get it lit. Andrew almost did it with his lighter, but he needed it -- he smoked too much to not have one on him. They also waited on Liebgott, who had gone to resolve the pressing matter of having to piss.

“It’s so goddamn cold, Babe,” Andrew says as the fire finally reaches them. Andrew didn’t think that the smell of burning gas would actually be comforting.

“Remember how they said we’d be home by Christmas?” Babe tells him. “Way back before Market Garden?”

“Jesus, yeah, I do,” Andrew laughs. “I wrote to my brother about it too. What a load of good that does now.”

“Hey, at least you and Liebgott will be together for Christmas.”

“Yeah, if we don’t freeze our asses off.”

“Hey, kiddos,” Liebgott says as he returns to Babe and Andrew. “How’s the fire?”

“No one else is gonna here us, you don’t have to say kiddos, Lieb,” Andrew tells him. “It’s good. How was the piss?”

“As good as a piss can get while you’re freezing your ass off,” Liebgott replies, standing beside Andrew. “I would not recommend it.”

Andrew chuckles, looking up from the fire and out to the road. He doesn’t quite see it at first, but there’s movement. A lot of movement. Men, disheveled and battered and bruised, walking on the road, out of the town they were supposed to go into. Andrew taps on Liebgott, making him look at the marching men.

“What the hell happened to them?” Babe asked. “They look like complete shit.”

“I have no idea, Babe.”

Andrew looked over to Liebgott, who didn’t say anything. He just looked back at Andrew, and Andrew could feel just how scared they both were. Not of what was ahead, but for each other, worried if they would get through the hell that walked before them alive. If the guys there had only been in for a month and looked like this when they were pulling out — while it was starting to get cold — what the hell was going to happen to the rest of them?

Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew saw Guarnere talking to one of the men. Now, if there was anyone who only took the absolute truth, it was Guarnere.

“I’ll go talk to Gonorrhea,” Andrew tells them. “Just get what you can find, yeah?”

“Drew, what-“ Liebgott starts, and Andrew turns around. “What do you expect him to know?”

“He’s talking to one of ‘em, so he knows more than us,” Andrew says. “Plus, he holds more power, being as we’re only tech corporals and he’s a goddamn sergeant.”

Liebgott purses his lips before he sighs. “Fine, but be careful, alright?”

“I will be. We promised, remember?”

With that, Andrew turned and walked to Guarnere, who had just stopped talking to the soldier from the fourth army. “Bill, what’s going on?”

Guarnere looks at Andrew. “It’s a goddamn suicide mission, that’s what it is,” Guarnere tells him. “They probably went in there with 200 guys, now they’re comin’ out with 93. Just get their ammo and pray to God you’re not gonna be dead before your birthday, Marin.”

Guarnere walks off to get ammo from the men before Andrew can ask another question. He steps back from the road. His birthday is in less than two weeks and Guarnere was telling him that he might die before then. Terrible thought, he knows, but that’s the truth. Anyone could die out there, be it God’s will or good ol’ Mr. Hitler’s.

Maybe that’s why Andrew brought his book, because he knew he wouldn’t die without it. Because he knew that if he did die, no one else could have that copy, with the worn cover and dog eared pages and cracked spine and message about Luz talking about a promise he hadn’t quite carried out yet, because if he wasn’t able to read it to Luz, no one would know but him and Luz. Not another soul could have known what happened on that night in D-Day, only Andrew, Luz, and All Quiet on the Western Front.

-

tag list: @alienoresimagines @fromcrossroadstoking @easyroses @leximus98 if you want to be added, please let me know!

[kemetic-dreams]

                                           HEAVEN & HELL

By Nora Amrani September, 1998

Most religions preach about heaven and hell, and how those who either do or do not believe in one thing or another will inevitably end up in one of these two places. What are hell and heaven? Are they real? Where are they? And who gets to go where?

Christianized Hell is portrayed as such a real and frightening place filled with monsters and Satan, where one is punished for their sins and suffers eternally. There is no way out. Oh, you know the pictures that have been painted by Dali and other artists depicting the burning pit where those not worthy of being recognized or loved by God are tossed, abandoned and tortured. Damned for eternity.

Heaven, on the other hand, is supposed to be eternal bliss. And only the very worthy end up in Heaven. With the stringent demands made on humans to be everything but human, (never mind seeing human as divine) while being constantly reminded that they are sinful and unworthy of heaven, heaven must be very under-populated. In fact, with all those rules to be met, I can't imagine one person being successfully led through those pearly gates! Can you? (No, not even Mother Theresa - she believed that she was less than divine, herself.)

FUN WITH ETYMOLOGY

Hell and heaven are very dramatically presented, aren't they? But do we even know what these words mean? Could it be we have all been fed non-sequiturs for centuries to the point where we no longer remember what these words really mean, therefore we live in constant confusion (like the Tower of Babel) because we don't properly use our language? Wow - just imagine what that does to our communcations on all levels with one another!

Hell: Prepare yourselves for a possible shock: The word 'hel' means 'light.' It also means 'earth.' Check your Germanic dictionaries if you don't believe me. In fact, check many languages and find the meaning of the word 'hell.' Some will say it means 'cover.' If hell is such a negative place, then why do we refer to the sun, who gives us life, warmth and nurtures us, as 'helios?" Perhaps the thought of diving into the sun would be hell, itself. Maybe that's how it all originated? But, realistically, you wouldn't even make it that close without first disintegrating. Ah, but then you'd become pure energy, pure light, just like the sun, itself! Your real essence, in other words. Why, we even used to worship* gods representing the sun's energy - Ra, ApolIo, for example. So, why would it be something to be feared and avoided, at all costs?

A 'demon in hell' can also be called a 'genius in the light.' Demon, or daemon, has conflicting meanings. It can mean our inner genius, divinity or genie. It is a word sharing the same root thing as 'diamond!' Some dictionaries say demons are inferior divinity or evil spirits. How can they be both? Both divine, genius and evil? Think about it. Do they not cancel one another out? Or, can we put all under one divine umbrella? What definitions have you been taught?

The horns on the devil are also used to depict great divine light emanating through the individual. Same thing was shown with Hathor, Moses, White Buffalo Woman. It is a positive symbol of higher consciousness and knowledge, not evil.

Devil comes from the Sanskrit world meaning 'deva,' which relates to the good angels of the Hindu pantheon. Were you taught that Satan means adversary or plotter? 'Adverse' meaning 'to turn towards?' After Zoroaster and the Persians conquered Hindu territory the conquerers miraculously transformed the Hindu gods into devils! So, the Hindu devas became the Persians devils.

If we look at the pattern of religious manipulation through language, the word "daemon" was changed into having a evil implication. "It was just more Christian propaganda used to brainwash the followers of the Greek and Roman religions into rejecting their old gods in favor of the newly created Christian character," as one scholar explains. This old ploy cunningly used good timing to coincide with the burning of millions of books; books which had they not been burned would have allowed people to see the truth of how they were being lied to. And the word 'evil' actually comes from the same root as the word 'apple,' which is 'upfel.' Who decided that apples were evil? The apple itself isn't evil.

Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky explains that Judaism talks of "Satan/devil," but it sees Satan as "...an agent of God, testing the sincerity of man's deeds, the strength of his convictions, and the stamina of his moral fiber. Although this so-called devil seems to entice man to do wrong, he is not inherently an evil being. Rather, he is conducting a "sting" operation; overtly enticing to bad, but in reality working for God. A cursory reading of the beginning of Job conveys that message: God sends out Satan to test Job's righteousness. Just as a dentist or doctor tests the firmness of a bone or flesh by probing it, just as the army tests the integrity and trustworthiness of its intelligence agents by tempting them, so too does God test man. A test reveals the inner worthiness of a person's deeds, demonstrating what they are really made of."

Heaven: Could this word come from 'heave' - meaning to toss, lift or raise? Those lofty ideas. No doubt it does. And what about 'heavy,' meaning 'weighty.' This can get to be lots of fun, eh? 'Ven' means 'air.' 'Ven' can also be 'van,' which means 'sail,' 'wing,' 'basket,' and it can be a shovel used in testing ore; and of course, it now means a type of large vehicle capable of transporting many people. The more accurate root of "heaven" comes from "haven." The word "heaven" also has its roots in Hebrew in "ha'shamayim," which means "the skies," " high places." Maybe you can come up with some other meanings for it. See the conflicts over and over in modern language?

Worship...another interesting word. "War" means literally "war," or "where," and "ship" meaning a "state" or "condition." The word religion is interesting, too. "Re" means "back," or "again," or even "in reference to." "Legion" is "a body of infantry in the ancient Roman army"; or "vast host." Re-legion. Armies of God in a war ship? Is religion about war? Or hosts of God?

Now that the brief etymology portion is over, let's get into the other areas of what these words have come to mean to a great many people in the religious and social sense. In fact, they have come to dictate and control much of our beliefs and lives.

AN ANCIENT STORY OF THE FALLEN ANGELS

The ideas of Satan and fallen angels are our own planetary collective consciousness' idea of viewing things negatively. One explanation is that it represents the fall of ourselves into this dimension of materiality and polarity, forgetting our divine selves and our spirituality. Satan is backwards for "natas" - which later became "nahash" the serpent. So, what everyone THOUGHT was evil, is actually the opposite. That term is related to the Sirian-Anunnaki being, Enki, in the following:

The archetypal, mythological concept of fallen angels originated approximately 450,000 years ago when the last of the extraterrestrial beings from a satellite planet named Nibiru, known on Earth as the Anunnaki, (a group of Lyran off-shoots who stemmed from one of their more infamous members, Anu, Enki, Enlil, Inanna, etc.), had their final expedition to Earth and, in a sense, left one group "stranded" here. Since the Anunnaki were known as "the gods," and these "gods" came from the heavens and were seen as being angels because of their amazing abilities and longevity. There were conficts between the Anunnaki themselves. Nefilim, or "those who came down," is another way of talking about this group of the Anunnaki. Some of the Anunnaki wanted humans to see them as God and did not honor free will. For this they were punished and expelled from certain galactic federations. This is where the idea of the fallen angels originally came from and various accounts of it are found in the Bahgavad Gita, the bibles and other cultural origin stories.

Enki was known as the serpent of wisdom, healing and life who had a great hand in creation, the waters of life (sperm, DNA, etc.) i.e., the Garden of Eden. Enki was frequently humanity's supporter. Biblical writers called the healing serpent Nehushtan. The Hebrew word for serpent is "nahash." The root of the word are the Hebrew letters Nun, Het and Shin, which means "to guess." This was translated into other languages as "satan," which some say mean "enemy," or "adversary."

Enki's identity, as Lord of Earth or In Earth (EN.KI), and EA (whose house is water) is reflected in other names, as well: Adonai, Aton, Aten, Adom, Adam, Amen. (Linguistic paleontology is a marvelous and vast area for proving these connections.) The name EARTH also comes from EA/Enki. Actually, the name "human" can be traced to Enki (a.k.a. EA) and his half-sister and wife, the chief geneticist Ninti (the mother goddess of all life). HU is a transliteration of the ancient Sumerian EA (Grimms' law of interchangeable letters and sounds). HU was also Horus, by the way. So a human is an EAman.

In India, the "nagas" were the serpent gods/goddesses. In the Americas there was Quetzlcoatl (Enki/Thoth). The entire world has worshipped the serpent for its wisdom, but ironically, it was not really about snakes at all - unless you feel you have to "guess" what a snake is up to! Why was the snake chosen? For its cleverness, ability to survive in the harshest of environments, and again, its shape resembling the flow of energy up the spine - to the crown chakra, and the third eye. And perhaps because it naturally instilled a bit of caution or awe in people. Was Enki really a snake? No, not literally.

THE REALITY

Both heaven and hell are places created with those of like mind and emotions - thoughts and feelings so intense that it creates a vortex of bioelectomagnetic energy so concentrated that it densifies and materializes. This material form can be ectoplasmic or physical. It takes on the form of the creator's beliefs. This form resonates with like energies, drawing them to one another. (Like attracts like.) This, then, creates a larger vortex of the same energy. And it keeps growing and building and desiring it's life to be continually fed. This, then, becomes a real gathering place.

Yes, heaven does exist. But it is a very complex dimension with many options. Many people experience it with the smell of flowers, with music, and always with lots of love. There is a gathering place for souls getting ready to make their transition from their physical form into spirit, and for those who have just crossed over. There are healing rooms. There are educational rooms. It offers freedom of choice to wherever your soul wants to learn and you plan your next move there.

Hell actually is a dimension of energy that is created by self-judgement and condemnation, ergo punishment. Its essence is fear and forgetfulness of love and light. It's energy contains fear, anger, powerlessness, (including guilt, martyrdom, pain, sadness), and it is a very difficult place from which to escape because it builds on itself. It is a very sad and dark place and even though there are many souls there, it feels so lonely. Ironically, the fear of being in what people believe to be hell may actually create that kind of hell, itself.

In the case of "hell," the only way these energies can be nourished is by having more of the same energy filling it up, adding more fuel to the fire. In order to stay alive it seeks out its food in many ways. Finding a weakness, such as addiction, within a person to attach itself to is one way. Attaching to the little bit of belief in that individual it can use for its own survival. And it can also be utilized by people performing certain rituals to get a life force that can be manipulated and directed. You see, the life force, the energy, never dies. It changes form, and its form can be intentionally changed. These energies will seek out others and build on itself unless we become conscious of them and choose to release them through other avenues. There are ways out of hell, but it often requires help from the other dimensions helping a soul remember love and personal empowerment, choice, freedom.

Be it heaven or hell, we create our reality through our experiences, our thoughts, beliefs, imagination, words, and our desire, and will. One way we can become conscious of how and what we create is through meditation, or going within and contacting the God within ourselves. We always have the choice whether to create our own heaven or hell wherever we are. And that creation begins nowhere else except from within ourselves.

[muggle-writes]

do I have that book challenge

tagged by @elizabethsyson and while photos were absolutely helpful (for example, in explaining the first question) I did this mostly from memory in downtime at work so I couldn't exactly take pictures as I went, and tbh I don't trust tumblr not to eat my post if I upload a bunch of pictures at once

Do you have a book with deckled edges?

thank you so much for the picture because if that's the thing with the pages not exactly matching up, (but within a small deviation from perfectly square) yes, my copy of the first three Dragonriders of Pern books in one volume has deckled edges. also probably some other books, but I've been reading that one recently so I'm sure about it

Do you have a book with 3 or more people on the cover?.

yeah: Inverloch (Volume 1)

it's the printed version of (the first portion of) a webcomic, which I didn't know when I picked it up at a garage sale or something. I hadn't even heard of webcomics yet

and. hm. don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the premise of the story and it was never really bad... I was thrilled when I realized it was a webcomic and still online and i could read the whole thing.

but

the major plot twist, one the author had apparently planned from the very beginning, honestly had some very unfortunate implications that would haunt me if I ever attempted a reread.

Like, it was set up well enough to be a surprise but not a shock. and it enabled the happy ending. but I probably would have preferred almost any other happy or vaguely positive ending, or even a meaningful depressing ending, I was that disappointed

on the other hand the rest of it was written well enough that I cared so.... eh. it is what it is

I'm just not sure I still love it enough to recommend, but I also wouldn't stop someone from picking it up off my shelf to read, you know what I mean? Especially just that first part, which was plenty good.

Do you have a book based on another fictional story?

D&D guidebooks are totally based on Lord of the Rings, right?

lol in reality uh

the copy of Scandinavian folk tales including my favorite fairy tale ever was always my dad's, not mine, no matter how many times I read it before moving out

uh

my wife has several Halo books? like the video game. I'm not actually sure which came first and I haven't read any of those, but they are on "my" (our) shelf

I also have a lot of Harry Potter meta/derivatives, including that themed Haggadah I think I posted a picture of recently. But the phrasing of this question makes me think the intent is "fiction based on other fiction" so none of those quite count.

so yeah, Halo's the closest I've got. also there's a Star Trek book on that shelf that I didn't even know we had until I went looking for clocks on covers

Do you have a book with a title 10 letters long?

Sadly I don't have my own copy of Dragon's Kin, which kicks off an excellent subseries of Pern books, (nor Dragonsong but I didn't expect to have that one) but what I did find was

The Visitor (which is animorphs#2)

Do you have a book with a title that starts and ends with the same letter?

Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye

Do you have a Mass Market Paperback book?

does my solid half of the animorphs series all on one shelf count or is this looking for specific branding?

Do you have a book written by an author using a pen name?

(immediately thinks of Lewis Carrol) um Edwin Abbot was also a mathematician but sadly not a penname, but I do I have a copy of Flatland

Oh, but I'm pretty sure I have some of the ghostwritten animorphs books, do those count? Specifically someone mentioned recently that animorphs 25 was the first of the ghostwritten books and I definitely have that one

Do you have a book with a character’s name in the title?

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Ender's Shadow on my shelf, the rest I mostly have as ebooks. also the first Erec Rex book (mentioned above) and the entire Kirsten (American Girl) series plus the first Kit book.

Do you have a book with 2 maps in it?

the first one I found was The Malloreon Volume 1 (also has 3 characters on the cover). it's got a map of the western kingdoms before the first book and a map of Mallorea in the middle of the third book

Do you have a book that was turned into a TV show

Animorphs again

Do you have a book written by someone who is originally famous for something else?(celebrity/athlete/politician/tv personality…)

I definitely had a phase of buying books by famous people, so I have the worst bulkiest copy of Origin of Species which is printed in a terrible font (it also has deckled edges for that matter), and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, that I could find at a quick glance. Probably something by Steven Hawking hiding somewhere

my phenomenal copy of The Elements (Euclid) doesn't quite count because he's most famous, now, for writing those so...

(Einstein's Relativity - in translation obviously because I know very little German - is deceptively short but that was my parents' book that I tried and failed to read, not my own)

Do you have a book with a clock on the cover?

Disappointingly, An Uncommon History of Common Things does not. I do have a Doctor Who coloring book with a clocklike gear pattern on the cover which is the closest I'm finding

Do you have a poetry book?

yeah someone once gave me a book of Japanese death poems, translated of course. I've been meaning to read them. for that I have to find it, and I can't right now :/ now that I remember the book I want to go read it

Do you have a book with an award stamp on it?

not that I can find? apparently Dragonflight or Dragonquest won "a Hugo or Nebula award" (bc McCaffrey was the first woman to win one of those) but wikipedia isn't telling me which award or which book, and I don't have the dust jacket for the original-trilogy-in-one-volume copy that I have so there's no telling if it "should" have an award printed on the front

Do you have a book written by an author with the same initials as you?

ooh wouldn't that be fun. I don't seem to :/

what I do have is a book written by an author with what my initials would be if I had taken my wife's last name instead of the other way around which I guess is close enough

Do you have a book of short stories?

yes, surprisingly. The Girl Who Heard Dragons and I haven't read any of them, not even the story I got it for

oh, and First Meetings, which is a bunch of short stories in the Ender universe

Do you have a book that is between 500-510 pages long?

That's... really specific. Closest I could find was 483 pages and 513 pages (Volume 2 of The Belgariad and The Malloreon, respectively) In general I have a lot of books around 300-350 pages and a fair few over 700 pages, but not many close to 500

Do you have a book that was turned into a movie?

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, for sure. I think Flatland was also made into a movie and it was as phenomenally terrible as you would expect of a story about 2d shapes. not even shapes with faces, just shapes, and one sphere.

Do you have a graphic novel?

I was going to make all sorts of qualifications of "well... if something originally published as a webcomic is now in physical book form.... (Inverloch again) but actually I have volumed 1 and 3-7 of Tomo (manga-style "preteen protag moves in with Christian family members and has both fantasy adventures and learns the benefits of being Christian" no-subtlety series that I picked up at Family Christian Stores when they were still everywhere. also I probably still have the first six Serenity "books" but I can't find them (not fantasy: rebellious "sinful" teen moves to new school and hangs out with the Christians because she wants to sleep with one of them, eventually sees the errors of all her ways, un-dyes her hair, and converts. Also no subtlety)

I had a phase when I was "too old" for veggie tales but still thought FCS was the best place ever but if that really was the best of their "teen" content it really wasn't great

Do you have a book written by 2 or more authors?

are we limiting this to novels? I have The Great Snape Debate (meta published before Deathly Hallows, with short chapters by two alternating authors, plus they got Orson Scott Card to write a chapter to draw reader attention with the big name and hey it worked, I bought it, arguing (between all of them) both sides of "will Snape turn out to be on Harry's side after all" and also The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern which as the title implies, is more of a guide than a real story.

Oh, but I do have a copy of Invasive Procedures (Card & Johnson).

Did I miss any questions? tumblr's being particularly weird today.

anyway I suppose I should tag some fellow bookworms. @knightbusofdoom @copperscales and if anyone else wants me to edit to in so you're "really" tagged, just may me know, and if you just want to do it please do and tag me back

[tolkien-fandom-history]

Interview with Jenny Dolfen

Much thanks to acclaimed artist Jenny Dolfen for doing this Tolkien-fandom-history interview!

Jenny is a German artist and illustrator. Her art is well known and much admired in the Tolkien fandom. She won the inaugural Tolkien Society award in the category "best artwork" in 2014, for her watercolour “Eärendil the Mariner" and is nominated for that award again this year for her artwork "The Hunt."

Jenny also published a book of her art in 2016. “Songs of Sorrow and Hope” contains sketches and full color artwork dating from 2003-2013. The book includes many of her Tolkien inspired works as well as works inspired by fantasy, mythology and Jenny’s own work “The Rhyddion Chronicles.” It is available in her Etsy store.

Jenny's art can be found on her web page https://goldseven.wordpress.com/galleries/tolkien/ as well as her Etsy page https://www.etsy.com/shop/JennyDolfen and her Patreon site https://www.patreon.com/jennydolfen

She does YouTube tutorials as well--it's fascinating to watch her creations come to life in the videos. https://m.youtube.com/user/GoldSeven/videos

Jenny can also be found here on tumblr @goldseven

(Interview by @maedhrosrussandol)

TFH: When did you originally become involved in Tolkien fandom?

Jenny: I’ve been a Tolkien fan for most of my life (my mother introduced me to the Hobbit when I was six), but I didn’t know there were any other Tolkien fans until I discovered the Internet in the early 2000s.

TFH: What was your initial experience with the online fandom? Did the advent of the LOTR movies have an effect on you?

Jenny: I have treated and still treat the books and the movies as two very different things. The movies interest me as much as any movie I enjoy; the books are a major part of my life. I encountered the Silmarillion fandom around 2003, and above all, was amazed by the fact that there were people who had read it (I had only met one in my life).

TFH: How do you feel the Tolkien fandom has changed since you initially became involved in it?

Jenny: I don’t feel it has changed much. If I had known it before the films, it might be different, but I still see the major groups there that existed in the early 2000s – film fans, book fans (which minor crossovers), fanfic writers, and scholars.

TFH: In the mid-2000s, it often seemed that there were two groups of people creating fan art. There were the artists sanctioned by the Tolkien Estate--Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith--who were mostly men, and then there were the so-called "fan artists," who were mostly women. The latter group were also often professional artists and were much more widely embraced by the fanfic community (for example, you and Kasiopea seemed much more instrumental in determining how Silmfic writers saw the characters than Nasmith, and your name is probably more readily recognized by Silm fans today than Nasmith's). Did you perceive this as well? If so, do you have any thoughts on why the Estate and fanworks creators might have had so little overlap in their visions of Middle-earth and its characters?

Jenny: I have actually talked to Ted Nasmith (whom I met at Return of the Ring 2012, a perfectly wonderful bloke!) about this very thing. Ted told me about his illustrated Silmarillion, in which the Estate had been very clear on a policy that follows what we know from the “Big Three” (John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith): a lot of location, a bit of characters, and absolutely no monsters!

In a panel at Return of the Ring, which I attended together with Ted, Anke Eissmann, and Ruth Lacon, the same question was asked, and it does seem to fall along gender lines. Typically, characters are more often and more prominently portrayed by women, and many viewing habits seem to follow a similar gender divide on the audience’s side. It makes sense, then, that the Tolkien Estate, under the firm influence of Christopher Tolkien, would favour the a more setting-oriented approach that depicted the scope and poetry of his father’s work, while other artists explored the characters in a more intimate and obscure way.

TFH: I'm interested in your experience with both the artistic and writing sides of the Tolkien fandom. Were there differences in the respective fandoms when you first became involved and in the response to your works in the two mediums?

Jenny: I have always kept a slight distance to much of the fanfic side. There are several fanfics I have enjoyed, but even in some of the ones I did, slash was never far away, and it just makes me uncomfortable. (The fact that it’s mostly gay sex is secondary, incidentally. I simply feel that sex in the exploration of those characters is as irrelevant as exploring their, say, bathroom habits. I may be pretty alone in this as a female recipient of Tolkien’s work, but his characters strike me as rather asexual on the whole.)

On the art side, I find that the response from and interaction with the fandom has been overwhelmingly positive from all sides. I have formed long-lasting friendships with other artists and fans.

TFH: There has been tremendous expansion of artistic interpretations of Tolkien’s work in recent years--through Tumblr, DeviantArt, weibo--how do you continue to reach your audience and interact with those who have an interest in your art?

Jenny: I consider myself very lucky, in that I have stayed in contact with a large and wonderful group of people over all these years. I had the good fortune of being recognized quite early on, and while there has been some fluctuation, an amazingly strong core of my audience has stayed with me.

TFH: In what other Tolkien-related events, gatherings or challenges do you participate? How is it interacting with fans at such events?

Jenny: I try to make it to the major local events – Tolkien Tag, organized by the Dutch and German Tolkien Societies – and I’ll be at the (British) Tolkien Society’s Tolkien 2019 event in Birmingham next year. Apart from that, my job as a teacher and my two young children mean I can’t travel much.

I hugely enjoy those events – to interact with other fans usually feels like a breakaway together with people I rarely meet in the “real world”.

TFH: What drew you to Professor Tolkien's work originally?

Jenny: I have loved mythology from a very young age, devouring classical, Germanic and medieval folk tales since primary school, so Tolkien fell squarely into those preferences, and continued to do so when I got older and became a student of literature rather than just a consumer of Fantasy books.

TFH: Which of his characters are your favorites? Why?

Jenny: It will come as absolutely no surprise that it’s Maedhros son of Feanor. He stuck in my head even when I first read the Silmarillion, standing out against that huge cast of often-confusing people. He’s like a Greek tragic hero, trying to do the right thing and striving to justify his means, and dragging everyone else into ruin with him. His fate is heartbreaking, and I love heartbreaking tales.

TFH: Why do you love Tolkien's universe? What inspires you?

Jenny: It’s always been mostly about the characters, but I find that, as I get older, other aspects of the legendarium speak to me more strongly than before. When I was a child, I used to skip the descriptions of landscape; today, I both read them closely, and find that I appreciate beauty in nature far more than I used to, which I then translate into my art (my older work, up until I was about twenty, usually featured characters standing around in a perfect white void).

TFH: To what extent do you think it is important for a fanfiction writer or fan artist to follow and respect the original author's work and concepts?

Jenny: First off, I think for a fan creator, there are, by definition, no such constraints. Preference is another matter entirely. Personally, I enjoy writings and works of art that, in my subjective view, feel close to what Tolkien might have meant, and thus strike a chord with me.

When we extend that question to any matter that is supposed to be a more general representation of the original work, I feel it’s essential to be faithful to a common theme and feel. If we take Peter Jackson’s movies, I do think that he managed it in many places in the Lord of the Rings; his Hobbit, from what I have seen of it (I haven’t watched the second and third films), felt weirdly like the output of an Instagram creator whose fanbase latches on to a very small part of his original body of work, and who then suddenly starts churning out more of the same, comical, self-referred spoofs which feel like a continuation to him and to his base but really leave most of the essence behind for everyone else.

TFH: Which was the most unexpected occasion, the most unusual platform where you have ever encountered one of your artworks?

Jenny: Thaaaaaaat would have been a Russian porn site. I get around, you know.

TFH: Which one of your drawings is most special to you and why?

There are a lot of drawings I’m very attached to. “In pain and regret” is probably far up the list, as are the more recent “The Hunt” and “And the Orcs fled before his face”. The one I’ll mention here has to be one where I, probably accidentally, nailed Maedhros’ face for the first time. I drew it in 1995, when I was twenty, and I remember that this was a piece that told me that I was still improving. As a young artist, you often think that one day, you’ll be a grown-up, and that’s that. At twenty, I had just moved away from home, and had subconsciously felt that I was now finished, feeling some regret at the belief that my art would no longer improve – and suddenly I realized how wrong I’d been. It was an eye-opener for me, artistically.

The artworks and book referenced in this interview are as follows

Jenny Dolfen's book "Songs of Sorrow and Hope" featuring the cover art of Maglor "The harp no longer sings":

"Earendil the Mariner":

The 1995 artwork referenced:

"And the orcs fled before his face":

"The Hunt":

"In pain and regret":

[jackdaddy-c]

Officially My Official “Langblog”

So... #AwkwardPause

I finally figured out that in order for me to directly post from my language gram to my language blog, I needed to create an entirely new account rather than create a new blog under my current account.

I feel you judging me. Stop that.

#lowkey cracking up at myself though...

“Let me reintroduce myself...”

Truthfully I don’t think I ever introduced myself on the old blog, so...I guess I should do that right?

My name is Jacqueline, I’m 30 years old (as of writing this, got a b-day coming soon,) and I’m currently teaching myself Japanese and Spanish.

I mainly created this blog because I needed a way to keep track of everything I’m learning (I take a lot of notes, study tons of stuff but I need an easier way to review.) So what better way than creating a blog and sharing everything I’ve learned thus far?

I have a nice size list of languages I want to learn. Here it is (GET READY!) There’s no particular order after the first 7:

Japanese #Studying

Spanish #Studying

French

Korean

Chinese (Cantonese)

Chinese (Mandarin)

Portguese

Italian

Vietnamese

Thai

Russian

German

German (Swedish-German)

Dutch

Tagolog

Catalon

Aafrikans

Swahili

Urdu

Arabic (a strong maybe on this one)

Yes... I know that my list is ridiculously long (I think I might actually be forgetting one) but... I have a desire to learn as many languages as I can.

And I mean, why not?

“So why are you doing this again...?”

In the two (really three) years I’ve been pursuing my goal to speak another language, this reason has changed many, many times.

“I want to have something nice to put on my resume.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a polyglot!”

“I like learning languages!”

“I love learning about other cultures.”

“...I #lowkey want to have a polyglot husband and polyglot kids.”

But ultimately, when I really thought about it, I realized that the real reason for me doing all of this was because:

I wanted to prove myself wrong.

For most of my life, I told myself CONSTANTLY what I couldn’t do. As a result there are many things I’ve passed on or opportunities I missed because I felt too incompetent or not good enough to do it.

Now that I’m 30, it’s time out for all of that. I’ve decided to go after the things I’m passionate about and interested in.

I want to show myself that I not only have the ability to learn another language, but also become fluent and gosh gee wiz--TEACH THEM if I want to.

And...I really do want to. :D

So, when I feel like quitting I think about where I started. I think about all the time I’ve put in. I consider all the things I want to do and I push onward.

“What’s to be expected with this blog?”

Currently as I mentioned earlier, I’m studying Japanese and Spanish, so you will see mostly posts around that.

Especially with my baby Japanese because... #StruggleLife

Here’s an idea of what all will you see (not limited to this, as I have a tendency to change stuff up, but just a general idea:)

Reposts: I’ll be doing everyone on here from now on, as well as reposting all my old from my now “old” blog (jssberry-la). I’m also a chronic reposter. So you will see TONS of resources and links to current languages I’m studying, languages in general, or just stuff I really like. (^_^)

Corrections: I feel I learn best when I’m able to look over my original posts, compare them with corrections I’ve gotten, then rewrite with corrections I believe are closer to what I actually wanted to say.

Translations: As a fun challenge to myself, I’ve decided to do a translation of a Japanese book I finished reading. I’m currently working on getting a translation together for another manga as well. I try to translate sentences as close as possible in both English and Spanish, as well as break down the sentences word by word. (#NOTE: I’m a beginner so my translations are VERY ROUGH. If you see ANNNNY errors in my translations, TELL ME. I want to be fluent!)

Sassy Commentary: Compared to my Wordpress (which tends to me a slight more formal) this blog is meant to be more laid-back, playful, witty (well...as witty as I can be I suppose) and a little feisty, too. #WinkWink

Rants: Because sometimes... #EpicSigh ...there are things you come across while learning another language that really get under your skin, you know? And I just need to vent about it. Plus I can’t be the only one who deals with this stuff. Like the random, “I’m trying to find me a foreign boo and you look cute enough so why don’t you come over here and teach me some things other than English” type of stuff.

As this blog grows and evolves, I hope to do lots more with it. In the meantime...

This is all ya got. #Shrug #iTried #DoingMyBestHere

I will also do my best to keep this blog as active as possible.... Lord knows I have a bad habit of falling asleep on here, then have my blogs collecting all kinds of dust before I remember how much a goldmine Tumblr is for language learning...

I can’t wait to study with all of you! #HeartsAllAround #XOXOs

#sidenote I’m not very good with coding, HTML and all that...so as far as looks go you can expect this blog to look pretty plain. However I’ll make sure that my content is fire...ish. ;D

Keep studying my friends!

[cromulentbookreview]

A Perfectly Cromulent List of the Best Books I’ve Read This Year

Well, the best books I’ve read this year that I haven’t cromulently reviewed on this site. I read a lot of books because it’s what I like to do and I don’t really have a lot of friends to hang out with, or really anything that I do besides work and grad school so...yeah, I read a lot. My Goodreads challenge this year is 100 books, which would be the first and only time I’ve ever read 100 books in a year. I’m at 95 right now - so close! Just gotta get some short books and audiobooks in, and I’ll be good!

Anyway.

Below are some of the books I’ve read this year that I really liked, but didn’t feature here.

The Cromulent Book Review is where I like to post reviews of ARCs so I can ensure that I keep getting them. 

ARC = Free Book! 

Free Book = Me happy. 

Therefore:

Happiness = x(ARC+1) + H^2.

I have no idea if that equation works or even makes sense. Math was never my strong suit. Maybe I should’ve paid attention instead of reading The Hobbit under my desk. 

Anyway! Here, in no particular order, are some of the best books I’ve read this year:

Cucumber Quest by Gigi D.G.

Did you know this is a webcomic? Yeah, it is. I did not when I read the ARC from Netgalley, so I was all sad when I thought I’d have to wait for more books...but you don’t! Hurray! One of the best graphic novels / webcomics I’ve ever come across - snarky, subverts most familiar fantasy tropes, and, best of all: bunnies. And bunny-related puns. It’s fan-fricking-tastic. Read it now. Then go buy the books! Go on, I’ll wait.

Castle in the Stars: The Space Race of 1869 by Alex Alice 

Love it. It has everything I love: German history, Steampunk, gorgeous illustrations, space travel...I desperately need more than just the first volume. Also, at roughly 60 pages, these "books" are way too short! I need the whole story now, please. God, I miss Germany. Nitpicking: Neuschwanstein was only just beginning to be under construction in 1869. Ludwig II never really lived there (well, he did for a bit while it was still under construction) - he never lived to see it completed, though it wasn't like he didn't have eleventy-million other castles. Like Hohenschwangau, which is literally across the way from Neuschwanstein. It's quite nice. There's also Herrenchiemsee, Königshaus am Schachen, and Linderhof which is the only castle Ludwig II lived to see completed. Neuschwanstein was opened to the public immediately after they were done building in 1886. It's been a tourist attraction since then. ...God, I miss Germany. I need to re-up my German and my German history. I've got a book on Ludwig II in German around here somewhere...

Eden West by Pete Hautman

It's rare that I ever finish a book in a day. I am way too easily distracted by the internet, the job I’m supposed to be doing, the graduate work I’m supposed to be doing, the writing I’m supposed to be doing, the chores I really should get to before something catches fire...you know, stuff. This book I think, is the first time I've seen an Amazon Kindle 1.99 deal, gone "sounds interesting, I'll buy it." And then, on the "thank you" page, clicked "read in Kindle Cloud Reader" and started reading immediately. I was over halfway through this book when the receipt email made it to my inbox. I was sucked into this book immediately and dropped everything to read it. My only complaint is that it ended too early - I would have loved to see Jacob adjusting to life in the world outside of the Nobb, interact with society at large, meet Lynna's friends. Also, it would have been nice to see some of the jerks within the Nobb get their comeuppance or see the place be shut down altogether. Also, protip: if you have to keep telling people "it's not a cult", you're probably in a cult. Just sayin'.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Yeah, I went to a rural high school chock full of conservative Christians, Mormons, and, oddly enough, members of the Russian Orthodox church. No way in hell were we ever going to go near The Color Purple. I mean, if Ricochet River was too risque for my school, then The Color Purple would’ve been considered pornographic. God forbid we have any books featuring frank discussions of female pleasure! The Color Purple all about female empowerment, friendships, relationships, sex, love, hate, racism, sexism... So of course my school didn’t teach it. By far the most beautiful book I’ve read this year, and I honestly wish they’d make The Color Purple required reading for not just all high school students, but for all humans. 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I don't often describe books as "compulsively" readable - for the most part, if I'm reading something, I can stop, switch to something else or go do something else for a while and I'll be good. But when I started The Hate U Give, I just could not stop. I had to keep reading, keep reading, keep reading. This book hooks you and just does not let go, it's awesome. The 4.5/5 is really only for some scenes which, in retrospect, set up just how normal and loving Starr's family life is, but they dragged a little too long. Some scenes could have been cut. That is my only criticism. This is a fantastic and extremely relevant book - it's another one of those books I'd like to buy multiple copies of and then just hand out to random people and be like "READ THIS NOW." Seriously, read it.

This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee

Immediately after reading The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, I just had to get my hands on everything Mackenzi Lee had ever written, but this turned out to not be a lot...still, I inhaled This Monstrous Thing, loved it, was disappointed when I learned it wouldn’t be getting the sequel, but then my heart nearly exploded when I learned that Lee herself will be writing a YA Marvel tie-in novel...about Loki.

About. Loki.

The awesome woman who brought us Gentleman’s Guide is going to write a novel about Loki!

Also, Gentleman’s Guide is going to be getting a sequel soon! Hell yes!

That high pitched ringing you heard a couple weeks back was my fangirlish squee - unless you have tinnitus, in which case, it was tinnitus and my fangirlish squee. Mackenzi Lee is probably my favorite writer that I discovered this year, and I can’t wait to see more of her stuff in the future. She’s also very tolerant of my pestering of her via Twitter. (Sorry, Ms. Lee!)

Nimona, the Audiobook by Noelle Stevenson

Loved, loved, loved the audiobook version of Nimona! It was absolutely perfect, and probably as close to a Nimona movie or TV series that we'll ever get (fingers still crossed! Noelle Stevenson writes for TV now - come on, Marvel, make us a Nimona TV series!). It's done in a BBC Radio Play style with a full cast and original music and it's just absolutely delightful. Sir Goldenloin sounds exactly like how you think he would, too :) It's only 2.5 hours long, so it would be perfect for a long car ride or if you need something fun to listen to while cleaning or doing housework. I actually managed to clean my whole room while listening to this - made the task fun rather than torturous. My only complaint was that occasionally the voice actors would ham it up a bit with growls and groans and such, but...eh, it's an audiobook/radio play. I'm mostly just glad now that Nimona has been made accessible to the blind. Nimona is awesome and everyone should get a chance to experience it, whether or not they can see the illustrations.

Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

This book broke my heart into a million pieces and then put it back together somewhat...but still. Beautiful and sad.          

Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan (曹文轩) translated into English by Helen Wang

Beautifully translated book about two young children growing up in rural China during the Cultural Revolution. A very heartwarming tale of a family sticking together no matter what in the face of poverty and diversity. Can't believe I hadn't heard of this book til it was assigned in my MLIS program! Love it love it love it. Stop everything and read it now.         

The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

This book took my adolescence and distilled it into a middle grade novel about a girl who becomes obsessed with the idea that a jellyfish killed her ex-best friend. The way Suzy sees the world and the way people treated her was all to familiar to me, especially the story of how, around middle school, her elementary school best friend Franny suddenly became a different person, and that person didn’t want to hang around Suzy anymore. Not only that, she started being mean to Suzy. This is one of those awful, painful experiences that I’m pretty sure everyone has had at some point in their lives. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has lost a friend - whether it be because they died or they simply turned into an asshole as a byproduct of puberty.

The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro

There are two things I love: YA and Sherlock Holmes stories, and most of the time when they're combined the end result isn't all that great, but the Charlotte Holmes books have both been absolutely amazing so far. Brittany Cavallaro became a new favorite of mine with A Study in Charlotte and she managed to top it with Last of August.  I am in desperate need of book three. Right now. I don't want to wait. I need it. Neeeeeed it.

Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray

Oh God, oh God, oh God why did it have to end?!? Libba Bray is perhaps my favorite YA author ever - in fact, A Great and Terrible Beauty was the gateway book to my YA addiction. I remember reading A Great and Terrible Beauty under my desk during my high school chemistry class. Worth it! So what if knowledge of chemistry never really sank in? Anyway: I tore through all those books, endured the long, awful wait for the next one, and then was depressed when they ended with The Sweet Far Thing. And then The Diviners came out in 2012 and I was immediately hooked. Who doesn’t love fiction set in the Roaring 20s? I tore through Diviners, endured the long, awful wait for Lair of Dreams, and then endured the even longer, more awful wait for Before the Devil Breaks You. My only criticism is that I, somehow, had the idea that Before the Devil Breaks You would be the last book in a trilogy - and that this book would provide all our answers and give us an ending for Evie and Sam and Jericho and Mable and Theta and Memphis and Ling...but as I made my way through the book and the number of pages I had left began to dwindle, I rapidly realized this was the final book of a trilogy, but the third book in a series. There’s going to be a book 4. Which, first off: awesome! More, please! But also: NOOO! Agh, no, I want to know all the answers! I want to know whether Evie will end up with Sam or Jericho. I wanna know if Theta will finally find happiness. I WANT TO KNOW, DAMN IT! Ugh! So it was disappointing knowing that I would be taken along for a wild ride through the Roaring 20s but with magic and special powers and a 20s Stranger Things vibe only to be set up for yet another long, awful wait for another book. Ugh! I WANT IT NOW. In fact, I NEED IT NOW!

Also, when are we going to talk about the fact that Diviners and the Gemma Doyle series take place in the same universe?? Don’t believe me? Go reread that Post Office scene from Lair of Dreams. Go on, I’ll wait. I need Gemma and her friends to show up for the final battle, or to act as a mentor to Evie or something!

Aaaagggghh. Series books. They’ll be the death of me, I tells ya!

This is by all means not a complete list. Just a list I threw together to make up for the fact that I’m lazy and not blogging because...eh, busy. And lazy. So...there are some books to read. Go read them? I dunno, you don’t have to listen to me, I’m just some random person who has a Tumblr account. Read these books or not, your choice.

Still, you should read these. They’re great.

[redorblue]

The Casual Vacancy, by JK Rowling

It might seem like it once I’ve started to get into it, but I don’t think this is a bad book. It’s not a waste of time, it had some interesting insights, and the writing style is fluent and at times really beautiful. I’ve only ever read the Harry Potter series in German, so this was the first time I read anything by JKR in English, and while the German translation of Harry Potter is mostly really good, it’s obviously not the original. Therefore this was my first encounter with her writing in its original language, and it proved to me that she knows how to use words. What bugged me about this book though is that I feel like story-wise and character-wise she overreached, that there’s a lot of unused potential in there that could have turned this book into a great read instead of an okay one, and that frustrated me at times.

It starts right in the beginning. The first portion of the book introduces the reader to the characters and their relationships with one another, and believe me, there’s a ton of them. If you get through that (and don’t put it down for long because then you’ll have to start all over again), you’ll learn the names with time, but the first few chapters are one relentless onslaught of names, jobs, husbands, wives, parents, kids, friends, enemies, colleagues etc. The whole town where the novel is set is at least acquainted, if not related by blood, with one another, and those ties are important, so I seriously considered setting up one of those walls you see in crime shows where bit of thread connect people and evidence and questions because everything is just so confusing. Don’t get me wrong, I like complex worlds with loads of characters, but if you have many characters that all get POV chapters, you have to introduce them right. Slowly, to give the reader time to process this new person and understand how they fit into the web of characters you’ve already laid out. Otherwise readers will miss half of what’s going on between characters and the reasons for their behaviour because the audience will simply be too preoccupied with trying to remember from whose perspective this section is told, or get the names mixed up altogether. But that’s exactly what happens in the first few chapters, it feels like an avalance of information that you try to dig yourself out of, with no chance to appreciate the nuances.

As I said, it gets better after a while, but the structure doesn’t really help. The book has chapters that are further divided into sections, and with each break you can expect a change of POV (meaning that they’re mostly just a few pages long - not enough to really get into the character’s head), but sometimes the perspective changes within one section, and that confuses things even further - when you have to figure out anew who the pronouns belong to, who’s talking, why the person in whose head you’re sitting suddenly turns so hostile... Admittedly it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything creative myself, and I don’t wanna seem all stuck-up here since I certainly couldn’t do it any better, but wouldn’t it have been possible to stick to one POV in one section and still convey the same amount of information? All this jumping around did was to confuse me and prevent me from immersing myself into the story and the characters, and since I think this book is supposed to be rather character-driven, that’s really bad. There’s this ball game that kids play in Germany called piggy in the middle, where several people pass a ball to each other and one person in the middle has to run after it and try to catch it, and this book reminded me a lot of this game. I felt like the narrative was the ball and I the player in the middle, always rushing after it and getting close to one character, only to turn away and follow the ball to another. I never liked the game, and I definitely don’t like this feeling in books, especially when their main asset is their characters.

And that’s another thing, the characters. I haven’t counted them, but I’d estimate that there’s around 20 POV characters in a book of 500 pages, plus loads of supporting characters that are seldom more than colourless extras populating the background. Am I the only one who thinks that 20 POVs is a bit much? You can have that amount in a series like A Song of Ice and Fire with five books so far that each have a thousand pages, give or take. And you can have that amount of fleshed-out characters in a series like Harry Potter with seven books. But if you only have 500 pages to create a main cast of 20 credible, breathing main characters, and tell a consistent story on top of that, even the best of writers would be hard-pressed to make it work. As it is, the characters are little more than cliches that I could summarize in one sentence each. Sam, for example, is the unhappy small town wife who became pregnant too early, sacrificed her dreams of the future and now resents everyone and everything around her. Gavin is the typical unreliable bachelor who’ll never settle for anyone. Parminder is the lifelong overachiever who’s so repressed internally that she bullies her daughter and snaps at the worst possible moment. See what I mean?

This is how they start, and this is also how the story leaves them 500 pages later (except for two characters, but they die, and that’s really not how character development works). The only character who develops a bit over the course of the story, a teenager calles Fats who’s obsessed with authenticity, started out as kinda implausible, because honestly, show me a teenage boy who goes through life asking himself whether his actions are authentic or not. I’m not implying that teenagers have to be shallow in order to be credible, but authenticity as the only guiding principle, the sole obsession of any person seems rather fabricated to me. As was the case with some other characters who seemed to be constructed around one single, equally weird concept, which is exactly what made them feel so one-sided and shallow.

The problem with this, apart from being boring, is that if a character’s trait annoys you, the whole character will annoy you because there will be little to no background or differentiating features that would help you to like or at least find that character interesting. I did develop an interest in a few characters, but the majority of them is not made to be likeable, or relatable, and due to lack of space also not really intriguing, so most of the sections I felt the temptation to skip. I don’t do that on principle, so I didn’t, but there’s only so much time you can spend in the head of Shirley the Self-Absorbed Housewife. And also... It’s just a feeling, but it seemed to me that JK Rowling went too far in making this story gritty and real and staring-into-the-abyss-like, that she tried too hard. There’s rape (quite graphic), and self-harm in combination with suicidal thoughts, and actual suicide, and probably pedophilia, although I’m not sure if the guy is an actual pedophile or if that’s his anxiety altering his perception, and how the hell am I still not sure about that?? My point is, there’s an exceptionally high concentration of issues and weird people that just seems too much to be plausible for me.

Anyway. In my opinion the main problem with this book is that it doesn’t have enough space to properly develop its ambitiously outsized cast of characters and their respective side plots. This leads to the majority of the characters seeming one-dimensional and annoying, many of the potentially interesting side plots just barely outlined, and the main plot drowning somewhere in between (you may have noticed that I didn’t say anything about what the book is actually about, but bombarded you with details. Well. Point made). That’s what I mean with unused potential: This book could have been great, it could have tackled social issues, it could have been an in-depth character study, it could have painted a realistic picture of small British towns, and I’m quite sure JKR would have been able to pull it off if it had more space. But it didn’t, and all these missed chances ate away at my ability to truly enjoy this book, and this is how we got to me complaining about a book by JK Rowling for the very first time.

[numinous00]

RAWA answers questions!!

This is an “in-cavern” (but not in-character) interview with RAWA 2.0 from a couple of years ago (oct 2015) that I just stumbled across. I’d never seen it before so thought I’d post it here in case anyone else missed it too. It’s mostly D’ni language stuff. Quite interesting.

Click the link - http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=28054&start=15 or the “read more”

(Max): So in short, what was the inspiration or the basis for the D'ni language? Can you tell a bit about the origins of it? I suppose it's very Non-English, but does it for instance have any Arabic, Hindi, Japanese or some Asian influences? Or any correlation to other common languages and speech patterns? RAWA: Hmm... I realize that most will not understand this, but it is very difficult for me to be OOC as 'RAWA v2.0' here rather than IC 'Dr. Watson' when I'm literally 'In the Cavern'. It just feels so wrong. Having said that, it is an interesting story that I don't think has been told before, so we might as well go for it. Just don't tell Dr. Watson or the other DRC members. RAWA: I have always loved languages of all kinds. Just the idea that (somewhat) arbitrary combinations of sounds, and/or symbols could be imbued with 'meaning' is cool. A secret 'code' that groups of people more or less try to adhere to, to imperfectly share information with each other. What I say is not necessarily what you hear, even if we supposedly speak the same language. This is why I joke about taking things literally. Everything I hear, I try to 'hear' as many different interpretations as possible, and pick the most literal to respond to, even if I know they meant one of the other possible interpretations. It drives people nuts. A very simple example: My son: 'Can I have a soda?' Me: 'I believe you are 'able' to, but you are not 'allowed' to.' This comes from years of typing up email responses and having to go through every single word over and over, knowing y'all were going to dissect every syllable. BTW - Don't dissect this, please. It won't stand up to it. I got used to trying to guess what would be misinterpreted and trying to be very specific to address those reactions before they happened. I was not always successful, but I did always do my best to try to be clear, even if the answer was basically, 'I can't tell you that, yet.' Back to the language story. In sixth grade, I had the chance to take just a little bit of German during our lunch breaks. The idea that not just words changed from language to language, but entire modes of thinking fascinated me. Then in high school, I took two years of Spanish. A whole 'nother mindset. New grammar concepts. I don't remember many of the specifics, but the basic concept stuck with me. The rules are pretty arbitrary and could theoretically be just about anything. The important thing is that everyone agrees to abide by them and use them the same way, or no meaning can be conveyed from person to person. What I say is not what you hear if we do not agree on how the 'code' should be encoded/decoded. Some of this is unavoidable, because we bring our own experiences to the conversation. When I say the word "watermelon", my concept of "watermelon" is slightly different than your concept of "watermelon". When I say "watermelon", I remember eating waaaay too much watermelon when I was very young and getting sick from it. I could not eat watermelon again for years, and I still do not really eat it. If you never had a negative experience with watermelon, you probably do not have any of those connotations connected to it. Back to languages, sorry for the bunny trail. My next "languages" were from Tolkien. Wow. Clearly he had waaaay too much time on his hands. Amazing. Inspriring. Then came Hebrew. All just basic stuff, no formal classes, just bits and pieces I was picking up. After that was Tenctonese from a movie called Alien Nation (Mandy Patinkin, 1988). Their language in the movie was very complicated with clicks and pops and they had a script that looked like an EKG heartbeat with dots and wavy lines. I tried to figure out if they did all the work to make it real, or if they just faked it with randomness. Turns out it was pretty detailed. Cool. Then the TV series Alien Nation came out. Still good, but the language in the TV show was a simpler version. Knowing how long it takes to translate, and how hard it is to get actors to say "gibberish" in the first place, I certainly understood. The TV show's version of the language was easy to figure out. Standard English word order for the grammar. Many words were simply anagrams of their English counterparts. I recorded every episode on VHS tape, and watched it back. Keeping track of the subtitles. Learning new words. "Tagdot tay monga su. To tay mish uray." = "Tagdot (a character name) is among us. It is his time." (This is 25 year-old memory. I believe I am remembering it correctly, but I may have messed it up a little.) The point was - they got an "A" for effort from me - that it wasn't just random. When I started at Cyan, Myst's other languages were gibberish. See Achenar's recordings to the Channelwood natives. That was all recorded before I was hired. When it came time for Riven, I asked if I could take a stab at it. It might not be perfect. It might not be pretty. But it wouldn't just be random. I could at least do something like the TV version of Alien Nation did. I had no idea what I was getting into. I was always a good student. I was a pro at English grammar. "linking verbs: have, has, had, do, does, did, am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been", "Types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory", "Pronouns: nominative, possessive, objective", "who/whom?" "11 rules for the comma" No problem. I had a great English teacher, Miss Gaupp. She's 84 now, and still teaches English! Her father lived to be 105. so she might teach a whole 'nother generation! D'ni was mostly based on Hebrew as far as the alphabet structure works. Hebrew uses a dot on some of the letters to change some consonants from a fricative like "v" to a stop like "b". Tongue and lips are in the same basic position, the dot just tells you if you completely stop the air or not. For vowels, Hebrew usually uses an extra letter a yud (y) to make a dipthong. I simplified it a little and used the same dot that is used for consonants, only when it's on a vowel, it becomes a dipthong, usually sliding from the original sound to an "ee" sound. The language using suffixes and prefixes to show number, subject, etc. are concepts I remembered from Hebrew and Spanish. Small words attach together (agglutenative) "And, the, etc." attach to the words they modify. Hebrew and German do this. The number system and alphabet evolved together - this is from Hebrew. The combination of base 5 and base 25 came from the idea: what if I use my right hand to count like tick marks and my left hand to keep track of how many sets of tick marks I have. Their coordinate system (polar coordinates) came from Rand first. I am starting a website where I plan to start releasing more and more information about D'ni. Stuff that has not been released before. It's an ambitious project. It sounds good on paper, but in my current state I am coming up with ideas much, much more quickly than I can ever hope to execute them. My To-Do list gets exponentially longer. We're going to need a lot more "back burners" on our proverbial stove. And once i'm back to work full-time on Obduction, these new projects are definitely going to take a hit. (Zeke): Could you give us a little more background on the bahro (something we dont know about them) and where the bahro concept came from? RAWA: Sorry, Zeke. I still hold too much hope that we will be able to reveal that in a game or novel to just spill it now. RAWA v2.0 may be chattier than RAWA v1.0 was, but I still would rather you experience these things for yourself than simply be told them. (Zeke): Why is Myst island closed off to the public did you plan to have Myst island released to the public at some point? RAWA: In Uru, I expect? Yes, like everything else when Uru was initially designed - we were leaving ourselves a great deal of freedom for future expansion. (Zeke): Where are the D'ni bathrooms? Did they have ages that they went to for the bathroom? RAWA: My long-running, standard answer for that is: "That's why we don't allow you to swim in Myst..." (Zeke): Why was the jump feature so important in this game? RAWA: When you plan a game that is meant to evolve and change and grow over time, you want as many options on the table as possible. As many arrows in your quiver, tools in your belt, spices in your cupboard, [insert your analogy here] as you can get. Especially when it comes to puzzle creation. You wan the flexibility to make completely new kinds of puzzles than were made anywhere in the game before. Don't get me started on the original plans for the pods (Negilahn). Picking things up with your hands, for example. Kicking the traps into place in Eder Kemo. That was never meant to be the final interface. But it worked as a stop-gap until grabbing/ holding/pushing could be implemented at a later time. Then Uru was canceled before it began, and all those grand plans sit unfulfilled. (Acorn1): We know from a recent interview with David Wingrove that a draft of the Book of Marrim exists. But we also know it's been on the back burner for years. You've told us not to give up on it. Is there anything you can tell us about what would need to happen to that draft in order to ready it for publication? RAWA: It's on my bucket list. It won't be great if I write it, but there are several critical bits in it that have to be told, and told right. The rest of the "filler" story, I don't care quite so much about. The outline we worked on with David was good and all, but <shrug>. (Mister Magic): Are there any updates in the pipeline that you can let us know a bit about? RAWA: Which pipeline? MOULa? I'm out of that loop, sorry. Obduction? We are hard at work. I have been in the office several times, briefly. Much to my wife's frustration. On Thursday, Ryan Warzecha literally asked me one question that I had to think about. It completely drained me, and I had to stop to recharge. My RAWA v2.0 joke about the upgrade is more accurate than you probably think. As soon as I try to engage my brain in any meaningful way, I immediately, literally feel myself slow down. The clock starts ticking, and my energy is quickly dissipated. The more of my brain I try to use at once, the faster the energy is gone. So the joke now is that they get to ask me one question per day, and that's it. (Tai'lahr): I greatly enjoyed the YouTube video of you singing, RAWA, so my question is: Is there any chance you could be convinced to submit a song or two to be played during the weekly Uru Karaoke event? RAWA: You're too kind. It's awful. I was too tired to play well or sing well. The lyrics drive me crazy when they "pop" a word down to the next line as they expand. But it did its job - proves I have all the pieces to make -something- work. Now it just needs some love and time. RAWA: More stuff will be placed on my YouTube channel. I've already recorded the next one, I'm just working on the graphics and lyrics. Once that next one's up, I'll go back to redo As a Deer. That was mainly for my aunt. it's her favorite song that i play (cskid13): Can we call the content that is currently being created by the Intangibles "canon?" So, in other words, will their version of Kahlo be the "real" Kahlo, etc.? (cskid13) RAWA: Our philosophy has not changed. What happens in the Cavern happens in the Cavern. We just roll with the punches and try to weave everything into the story as best we can. We certainly didn't plan for any of the Cavern closings, but they are part of the story now. If y'all make Kahlo, it will be some version of Kahlo. If the DRC ever gets funding to come back, they might find an "older" Book that links to another version of Kahlo, just like your Yeesha book does. (maggie696): this brings our prepared questions to an end. We have only one last request - that you would visit us more often RAWA: Hope springs eternal that we eventually have to officially "burn that bridge while we're crossing it" (tm).

[easternuniversity]

Faith Alone and Grace Alone

**This message was originally presented to the Eastern University community by Dr. Philip Carey in February 2017 as part of the 2017 Faith Forum, titled “The Good News of the Protestant Reformation” **

We've had about 500 years of Protestantism, since 1517 when Martin Luther's famous 95 theses inaugurated the Protestant Reformation.  Actually, I don't think Luther's theology was really Protestant until some time in 1518, and the Reformation didn't really get underway in earnest until 1521, I would say.  But who's counting?  500 years is close enough, and lots of us are celebrating the Reformation this year.

What matters is what Martin Luther had to say when he really did start thinking like a Protestant—the first Protestant in history.  What should we make of the fact that the first Protestant in history, close to 500 years ago, is not the first Christian in history?  There were a lot of Christians before 1517, after all, and they weren't Protestants. I've spent most of my scholarly career writing about some of those Christians, especially Augustine, the bishop of Hippo in North Africa, who died more than a thousand years before Luther was born—saint Augustine, the Catholics call him.  I can assure you, even if you're the kind of Protestant who doesn't exactly believe in saints, that Augustine really was a Christian, though he wasn't a Protestant.  

So what do we need Protestantism for?  If Protestantism is new—which is to say, only 500 years old, which is not nearly as old as Christianity—and if the basis of Christian faith is Scripture alone, as Protestant theology regularly insists, then what do we need a new form of Christianity for?  To put the question in terms that have often made Protestants uncomfortable: what is the place of Protestantism in the Christian tradition?  Or to narrow it down to the specific question of Protestant theology, we could ask: what contribution does Protestant theology have to make to the larger Christian tradition?

That's the overall question I'd like us to consider in our Faith Forum events this week.  When you look at Protestant theology in the light of the whole Christian tradition, then it's not always obvious that it's actually needed.  What's more, Protestant theology is in a very bad way nowadays, with the mainline Protestant denominations often abandoning essential teachings of the Christian faith, and no longer looking very Protestant and often not even very Christian.  There is, I think, a pathway from liberal Protestantism to a post-Christian church, and some denominations are taking that path.  

And then there's the evangelical churches, which are often rather distrustful of theology entirely, which means that they don't teach central Christian doctrines, as a result of which many students come to Eastern University not knowing some of the basics of the faith.  I remember a student from a big nondenominational church in central Pennsylvania who came to Eastern not knowing the Lord's Prayer.  He's the one who told me about Veggie Tales, something I didn't know about.  At any rate, he's now Catholic.  You can see why, I suppose.  If your experience of growing up Protestant means not even knowing how to pray the prayer that our Lord Jesus gave us to pray, then it certainly makes more sense to want to raise your kids Catholic.  

Nonetheless, I think there's something indispensable that Protestant theology offers the larger Christian tradition.  And it's not some new teaching added to the Bible only 500 years ago.  It's a new understanding of something that Christians have always done, which arose because Christians 500 years ago in the West were asking new questions and suffering from new anxieties.  What Luther did, I think, was give biblical answers to questions that had not been asked in the Bible itself, questions that were powerfully on people's minds in the 16th century, back in 1517 and thereabouts.  I think they are questions that remain with us in distinctively modern variations, some 500 years after Luther.  

The most distinctive answers that Luther is famous for are summed up in the phrases “faith alone,” “grace alone,” and “Scripture alone.”  That's what I'll be talking about today and tomorrow morning.  They're often called “the Reformation solas,” because other Reformation Protestants like John Calvin and later John Wesley, adopted them after Luther, and they got put into Latin, the standard language of Western scholarship in Luther's day, and in Latin they are: sola fide, sola gratia, sola Scriptura (when you see “sola” think “sole,” as in “only,” and you'll get it).  Behind all three of these sola's is a conviction that can be labelled “solus Christus,” Christ alone.  And that actually explains why Protestant theology is not based on a new doctrine, but rather is a new understanding of the way Christians have always believed.  Solus Christus means Christ alone is our savior, our hope, the one in whom we put our trust for redemption and salvation and blessing and eternal life.  Whatever else Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches may say about the saints, and Mary, and bishops and monks, if they look to them as a source of salvation apart from Christ, they have surely gone too far, and I do think Catholics and Orthodox have in fact needed Protestants to pull them up short some times, and remind them that Christ alone is their hope and their salvation.  It's a reminder of what they already know.  That's the kind of contribution Protestantism makes to the Christian tradition.   

What's new about Protestantism is the conviction that because Christ alone is our savior, faith alone is the way we are saved.  That means, of course, Christian faith, faith in Jesus Christ.  Now of course, other forms of Christianity have a central place for faith in Christ, but they don't add that little word “alone.”  So if you want a two-word summary of what is distinctively Protestant, “faith alone” will do it.  “Grace alone” really follows from “faith alone.”  And again, other Christian traditions also put a huge emphasis on the grace of God.  But they don't add that word “alone.”   So let's start with “faith alone.”  Luther's key doctrine, which I am suggesting is the key contribution of Protestant theology to the rest of the Christian tradition, is the doctrine of justification by faith alone.  “Justification” means: this is how we become just or right or righteous in God's sight.  This is how we come before the judgment throne of God as those who are worthy in God's sight to receive blessing and life, not condemnation and wrath.

Notice, the original phrase was justification by faith alone.  As you can kind of see just by looking at the word, “justification” is about justice.  Unfortunately, for those who are just beginning to study this, the word for justice that is used by Luther and other theologians of the time has often been translated “righteousness.”  And justice and righteousness seem like very different concepts nowadays.  If you talk about a just man, you're talking about a person with the virtue of justice in his soul. But if you call someone “righteous,” as in “you think you're so righteous, you righteous hypocrite!” well, you're actually calling them self-righteous.  Whenever my mother calls someone righteous, for instance, she's insulting them.   So when you read English translations of Luther and other theologians of the time, you have to adjust, every time you see the word “righteous” and “righteousness,” that you're looking at the word for justice.  It's justitia in Latin, or Gerechtigkeit in German. The point is that Latin has only one word for this, whereas English has two, and the same goes for German: only one word where English has two, and in English those two words have drifted apart over the centuries so that they no longer mean the same thing, as they used to do.  And by the way, the same thing is true of New Testament Greek, which has only one word, dikaiosyne, which is often translated “righteousness” but is in fact the word for justice.  You know, as in “faith, reason and justice.”  

But it's important to realize, “justice” does not just mean a just society.  For the ancient world in the days of the Bible, and for most of the Christian tradition, “justice” is a virtue.  That is to say, it is a quality of the soul, a habit of the heart, a way our hearts and minds are formed in justice.  You find justice not only in just societies but in just people.  And the old way of saying that in English is to say such people are righteous—and that was not an insult.  It is what makes a person just or good on the inside, someone whose heart God can look at and approve of.  

Now when we ask about the meaning of justification by faith alone we have to ask what that word “alone” excludes.  “Faith alone” means only faith and not something else.  Only faith and not—what?   Here's where things may start to get pretty familiar.  Luther insists that people are justified before God by faith alone, apart from the works of the law.  Faith, not works.  We become good and just people in God's sight not by what we do but by what we believe—that is, by believing in Christ alone. Or, to switch from the language of justification to the language of salvation: there's nothing we can do to save ourselves, because Christ alone saves us, and we accept Christ simply by believing him.  It is by faith alone that we accept Christ into our lives.  All this is very familiar, I hope.  But what may be unfamiliar is how far Luther will go when he insists on what is excluded by that word “alone.”  One of the most important things it excludes, for example, is love.  For the good works that don't save us are works of love, the works of love that are commanded by our Lord Jesus when he tells us to love God and our neighbors.  And Luther's point is that neither the works nor the love are what make us good, just or righteous people.  The love in our hearts is not how we are justified in God's sight, for we are justified by faith alone.  Luther insists on that, and it's the Catholics who insist that a certain amount of love is required here.  

^Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, 1521

Do you begin to see why this might be an issue?  Do you begin to see why what Protestant theology teaches is not obvious?  After all, don't we become better people by practicing love?  To that, Luther says a resounding No.  That's the foolishness of that pagan philosopher Aristotle, who thinks you become just by doing just deeds.  He says that, right there in the Nicomachean Ethics, as some of you know.  Luther says: that's fine if you're talking about how you become a good citizen, but it's nonsense if you try applying it to how you stand before the judgment of God.  We are all sinners, Luther insists, every one of us born in Adam, and every single one of our deeds is sin.  This is one of the things that really got the Pope mad at him.  They had a big fight about this one.  

Luther insisted that the best works or things done by pious Christians are always, in their essence, sins.  And it's not just that they're a little imperfect.  They are, in Catholic terms, mortal sins, which means they make us worthy of nothing but eternal damnation.  That's what our good deeds earn us, if God were to judge us in strict justice.  Even our love, such as it is, earns us nothing but damnation.  For our love, like everything good in us, is never good enough to face up to the judgment of God.  Hiding behind all our love is a perverse selfishness that we never get rid of in this life.  All our love is secretly turned in on ourselves, so that everything we do is really about me, me, me—even my works of love, which I'm doing out of fear of punishment or desire for reward, and not because I really love God or my neighbor from the depths of my heart. We've got this sin problem in the depths of our heart, and the goodness in our hearts is not strong enough to overcome it.  Only Christ is—Christ alone.    

This leads to the point about grace alone, because what the word “alone” excludes in the phrase “grace alone,” is merit, which is to say, any kind of deserving or earning a reward from God.  By all our good deeds and works of love, we earn nothing but damnation.  We deserve nothing but God's eternal wrath. That's all the merit we have.  And therefore we have no hope for salvation except grace alone, which is to say the grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ, received by faith alone.     

Now in the Catholic view, grace and merit are not mutually exclusive.  If you go back to Augustine, that great Catholic theologian I study, you find him teaching that we do merit salvation and eternal life from God, but we do so by grace.  The grace of God, Augustine teaches, is more than just God forgiving our sins.  It's how God inwardly changes us, when love for God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).  So grace is the Holy Spirit working in our hearts so that we grow in love for God and neighbor, and this love, which grows out of the grace of God in us, actually does merit God's approval, according to Augustine and Catholic teaching.  As we grow in love, we become better Christians, and this is the process of justification.

^Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Where Luther posted the 95 Theses.

That's the view Luther rejected.  Again, I want you to see how radical his teaching is.  Luther agreed with Augustine, emphatically, that Christian love grows out of the grace of God given to us in Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit in us.  He agrees, just as emphatically, that faith in Christ always results, by the grace of God, in love for God and neighbor.  And he thinks this love earns us nothing, has no merit in God's sight, because all our works of love are really, at heart, mortal sins, meriting nothing but damnation.  We do have Christian love, but it's not good enough to save us, not sincere and real enough to justify us in God's sight.

Luther thinks it's very important for us to recognize this, because it drives us to Christ. When we see that even our works of love are sin, if God were to judge them in strict justice, then we are deprived of all hope for salvation except faith in Christ alone.  And then we're really ready to hear the Gospel, to hear that Christ alone is our saviour and redeemer.  And that is good news indeed.  It's also how we find the grace of God and take hold of it and make it ours—by faith alone, simply by believing that the Gospel about Jesus is true.  

Think of it like this. Have you ever really messed up in your Christian life—so badly that you wondered whether you were really a Christian at all?  (That's the Protestant version of mortal sin). Has your conscience ever nagged at you because you realized you're not such a loving Christian as you thought, that your self-image as a Christian is really a sham, that your Christian life is just faking it?  Have you ever wondered what you can do to reassure yourself that the life you're living isn't really that bad after all, that maybe you can slide by with a sort of second-rate Christian life?   But then you think: maybe when you meet God face to face, at the last judgment, when it's time for God himself to render a verdict on your life, that your life is just not acceptable, and he won't accept it.  Have you ever suffered from what I'll call Christian performance anxiety, wondering whether what you're doing in your Christian life is good enough?  

Well, Luther's got news for you: it's not.  Nothing you do, not even the love in your heart, such as it is, is good enough to justify you in God's sight and save you.  If you want to face God and see anything but condemnation, you have no hope at all unless Jesus Christ died for you.   But now I've really got good news for you: it was for you that Christ died, for you that he shed his blood, and it was for your justification that he rose from the dead, and it is for you, along with everyone else who calls upon his name, that Jesus Christ intercedes with his Father in heaven, as he sits at the right hand of God.  That's the good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And that's the truth. And what justifies you in God's sight is simply believing that God is telling you the truth when he gives his own Son for you and tells you about it in the Gospel.

By “Gospel,” what Luther (and Protestant theology) means, is not just the four documents called “Gospels” in the Bible.  The Gospel is God's good word, his kind and gracious word about Jesus Christ, wherever it is found.  You can find it in the Old Testament, when the prophets speak of Christ to come, like when Isaiah promises us: “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given.”  And likewise, you can find it in the letters of the New Testament, which also teach and announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And you can hear it today, whenever the word of God is preached as good news that gives us Christ as our savior and redeemer and Lord.  (That's what I tried to illustrate preaching the Gospel yesterday). We are justified by faith alone because it is through the Gospel alone that Christ is given to us, and we receive the Gospel simply by believing it is true, and that this is a truth that includes us:  for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and that “us” includes you and me.  That's the Gospel giving us Christ, to be received by faith alone.   

What Luther learned, by hard experience, is that when you're faced with Christian performance anxiety, and you discover how serious your sins really are, and you wonder whether anything you're doing is good enough, the only thing good enough to free you from your anxiety, and convince you that all is well is God himself tells you so.  That's what the Gospel does.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is God himself telling you that his Son is given to you, together with his life and death and resurrection and eternal life at the right hand of God.  For unto us a son is given.  The Gospel, thank God, does not tell you what to do to get saved.  It tells you what Christ has done to save you.  

Think of the difference: what Christ has done is good enough to save you, worth trusting with all your heart.  Whereas what you do to save yourself—anything you do to answer the question, what do I do to get saved?—is something that raises the question of performance anxiety: if this is what I do to get saved, am I doing it well enough?   And Luther thinks the only honest answer to that question is always, No.  I'm not doing anything well enough to justify and save myself.  I really don't have any hope at all unless Christ died for me.  Everything depends on whether that's really true.  

The point to get here, is that the Gospel does not tell you what to do to get saved. It tells you what Christ has done to save you.  Isn't that wonderful?  I mean, let sink in a minute.   Christ died for you, to make atonement for your sins.  And he was raised from the dead, to give you eternal life.  That's the truth, and that's what matters.  In the face of your anxieties, that the only thing that matters.  So every time you're worried whether you're doing a good enough job at the Christian life, whether you're really surrendered fully to God, whether you really love God in your heart as Jesus commanded, you are free to turn away from those worries, simply because the truth is that Christ died for you and was raised from the dead for you, and sits at God's right hand praying for you.  That's the Gospel truth.  And if you find sin and resentment and ugliness in your heart where love ought to be, then you are free to  confess your sins, to admit to yourself and to God that you haven't lived up to the Christian life.  Instead of trying to convince yourself that your Christian life is doing OK when it's not, you are free instead to repent and believe the Gospel.  For no matter what your sins are, the truth of the Gospel remains: Christ died for you, and he was raised from the dead for your justification.  God keeps repeating this point, over and over again, over the years and the centuries as the Gospel is preached.  It is not some new teaching.  But it keeps coming to us sinners as good news.  

So now take a step further with me, and imagine the kind of performance anxiety that people in Luther's day suffered from, when they worried whether their hearts were really in a state of mortal sin rather than a state of grace: when they looked at their own hearts, maybe as they're trying to confess all their sins to a priest, and they don't know, really, if they have confessed all their mortal sins, the damnable sins that could earn them eternal wrath.  The name Luther gave to this kind of performance anxiety was “the terrified conscience.”  For if you had a conscience that was nagging at you in those days, reminding you of your sins, the feeling that resulted was not much like what we now call guilt feelings.  The feeling was terror: that I'm going to come before the judgment throne of God and hear a word of condemnation, like God saying “depart from me, you worker of iniquity, I never knew you.”  Imagine that word of God being the truth about you forever.  That's what Luther was afraid of.  You almost never hear in Luther about hellfire and brimstone and vivid tortures like that.  What you hear about is the word of God.  What Luther's terrified conscience was terrified of was not hellfire or devils with pitchforks.  Luther was afraid of GOD.  Above all, he was afraid of what he would hear from God.  And imagine his comfort when he realized that the word of God that he needed to believe was not a word of accusation and condemnation but a kind and gracious word, tidings of comfort and joy: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the truth that Christ died for him.

So when Luther talks about justification by faith alone, it really matters that it's faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which means it's faith in God's word, trusting that God will be true and keep his word.  The doctrine of justification by faith alone makes absolutely no sense without the Gospel of Christ.  So when Protestant theology talks about walking by faith alone, it's not talking about just trusting God that everything will work out.  It's not even talking about believing that God will answer our prayers.   “Faith alone” means faith in the Gospel of Christ, the Word of God, the Biblical story that tells us who Christ is, including the biblical promises by which Christ our Lord gives himself to us, as a Bridegroom gives himself to his Bride in his wedding vows.  God gives himself to us in his word, by giving us his own Son to be our Bridegroom, our Beloved.  And we receive this Bridegroom, this Beloved, not by loving him enough—our love is never worthy of receiving him—but simply by believing that his promises are true.  Let God be true and every man a liar, as the apostle says.  And that includes my own lying, dishonest heart.  I can't trust what's in my heart.  I can't trust that my prayers are sincere and heartfelt enough to deserve an answer.  I have nothing to trust for my salvation and justification but the word of God, the Gospel that gives me Christ.  When you've come to realize that, you've come to see the point of the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone.    

And then what?  What happens next?  Then, as the apostle says, faith works by love.  Then we get back to work, loving God and neighbor, just as Jesus commanded.  Notice the different roles our Lord Jesus has: first he is the Beloved, the Bridegroom, God's gift to us.  Then he is the lawgiver, the one who commands us, reiterating the Old Testament, that we must love God with our whole heart, mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.  Luther insists: don't be confused about who Christ is.  Don't confuse him with Moses, who is a lawgiver.  For Jesus our Lord is God's gift to us before he is a lawgiver, and the law he gives us is already found in Moses, in the Old Testament, for it's the law of love that God has been teaching us from the beginning, and which we have been breaking from the beginning, and which therefore cannot save us.  

The law of love, in other words, does not tell us what to do to get saved.  It tells us what to do to please God and be of service to our neighbor.  None of our works of love is good enough to save us, but that's not their purpose.  Why, after all, does God command you to love your neighbor?  It's not so that you can save yourself, but so that you can serve your neighbor.  It's not about you.  Christ's love, in the Gospel—that's about you.  For it was out of love for you that Christ died, and it was for your vindication that he was raised from the dead, and it is for the sake of eternal life for you that he now lives forever in his Father's sight.  The Gospel is Christ's story, not yours, and yet it includes you, because it is for you that he did all these things.  

^Wittenberg, Germany

But the Law is different.  That law of God tells you what to do, but not what to do to save yourself, because that's Christ's doing.  It tells you that you must serve your neighbor in love.  In other words, after the Gospel gives you Christ, the Law gives you to your neighbor.  In this way, faith in the Gospel—faith alone—frees love to be love.  It frees love to be about the people you love, about God and your neighbor, rather than about yourself.  Because if the Law had to save you—if you needed to save yourself by how much love filled your life and what a good Christian you were—then the whole Christian life would be about yourself.  You would be trying to love your neighbor in order—to save yourself.  And you would be trying to love God—in order to save yourself.  Luther noticed this.  He noticed that our works-righteousness, as he called it, was all turned in on itself, it was all about ME, ME, ME, rather than my neighbor.  It twisted the love of God and neighbor back to myself, to ME, because everything was about trying to become a good, loving Christian, which meant it was all about me.  It's deeply perverse and twisted: loving your neighbor in order to save yourself.  Or trying to serve your neighbor or the poor in order to show what a nice, loving Christian you are.  This is the kind of thing that gives charity a bad name.  It's incredibly condescending and self-centered: let me serve you in order to show what a nice, loving Christian I am.  It makes it all about me.

So one of the wonderful things that the doctrine of faith alone does, is that it frees love to be love—so that love of neighbor can really be about my neighbor rather than myself.   Since I can't do anything to save myself, there is nothing for my Christian life to do except love God and my neighbor.  I don't have to ask myself whether my Christian life is good enough. Or rather, when I should ask that question from time to time and answer: no, it's not good enough.  Thank God Christ is good enough.  Meanwhile, I can get back to the work of love, which leads me to ask a different question.  Instead of “Is my work good enough?” I can ask: “Is this work I'm doing genuinely good for my neighbor?”  That, after all, is the question that love asks.  Love does not ask: Am I loving enough Christian?  Is the love in my heart sincere and real enough?  That's the question of performance anxiety, not love.  What love asks is: What is good for my neighbor?  What really helps and serves my neighbor?  Is what I'm doing actually helping and serving my neighbor, or should I do something differently?  That's the kind of question love asks, because love is not all about me and what kind of nice, loving Christian I am.  It's about my neighbor. It's about the person I love.

So the doctrine of justification by faith alone frees love to be love.  It does this by directing our attention to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the word of God which gives us Christ as a gift rather than a lawgiver.  For it is precisely when we are given Christ as a gift that we are freed to obey the law and to really love.  Here we can come back to that point that Augustine makes about grace, the inward gift of the Spirit that changes our hearts and gives us the gift of love.  Augustine was the one who explained why preaching the law and telling people what to do can't possibly save them.  The law doesn't give us the power to obey the law, Augustine points out, because what the law demands is an inward obedience of the hear, a love that comes from the very depths of our soul.  And that means that what the law is really good at is making us anxious.  By demanding so much of us—an inward obedience of love, put into practice consistently—it mainly shows us what we are not doing, what we are incapable of doing.  

The Law can't give us the power to obey the law, to love God and neighbor.  Only grace can do that.  This is the great lesson of Augustine's theology of grace.  We need God's help in order to obey God's law, and that help is an inner gift of the Holy Spirit.  So the great question is: how do we receive this gift?  Where do we go to find the grace of God?  Here, Augustine gives an answer that Luther finds inadequate.  He agrees emphatically with Augustine: the law cannot give us the love that it demands of us.  It cannot save us, because the law cannot give us the power to obey the law.  So what do we do?  We flee to the grace of God.  How?  By praying.  We pray for God to give us the gift of grace through the Holy Spirit.  This is that answer Luther finds inadequate.

The difference is, I think, the crucial difference between Catholic and Protestant theology.  Augustine seeks grace by praying for it.  Luther finds grace by believing the Gospel.  What Augustine has is a human word, a word of prayer addressed to God.  What Luther has is the Word of God, giving us the grace we seek by giving us Christ.  So it's the difference between seeking grace through a human word, and finding it in God's word.  

Now let me hasten to point out: of course Augustine knew the Bible.  He had God's word too, just like Luther.  But this is what I mean by saying Luther gives us a new understanding of what Christians have always believed.  Of course Augustine believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  But he didn't think that was what saved him. For he didn't understand the Gospel as the word of God that gives us grace in Jesus Christ, a grace sufficient to save us. He didn't believe we are saved by grace alone, because he didn't believe we are saved by faith alone, because he didn't understand that the Gospel didn't just tell us what to do—it wasn't a kind of new and better law—but rather it was God giving his own Son to us in his word.

I've written a lot in my books about the difference between Augustine and Luther on exactly this point, so I'll skip over a lot of details here, in order to focus on the one thing necessary.  What the Gospel gives us is Christ, whom we receive by faith alone, simply by believing the Gospel is true.  To receive Christ through faith in the Gospel means that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith.  That's the inner gift of grace that Augustine seeks by prayer, and that Luther finds in the Gospel.  Luther finds the inner grace of God not by looking inside his heart, but by taking hold of an external word, the Gospel.  

Once again, just as we saw when it came to loving our neighbor, faith means looking away from ourselves, at something external, outside us.  That's how love works, and it's also how faith works.  Christ dwells in our hearts because we're not paying attention to our hearts but to the Gospel word.  It's like music: if you want the music to move you in the depths of your heart, then you have to stop paying attention to your heart and pay attention to the music, which is out there in the room and in the air, and it only gets into your heart through your ears.  It is by paying attention to what is outside you that the depth of your heart is moved and changed and transformed.  For it is faith alone that makes the inner difference in our hearts, precisely because faith takes hold of Christ in the Gospel, which is an external word that only gets into our hearts through our ears.   

So as we will discuss tonight, everything depends on how we direct our attention.  If we're looking for Christ in our hearts, we won't find him.  If we look for Christ in the Gospel, there he is. That's how he comes to us: in the preaching and teaching and singing of the Gospel.  (The Gospel really wants to be set to music, so that we can sing it in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, as the apostle says).  And this preaching and teaching and singing is how Christians have always come to salvation—that includes Augustine and all those Catholics, long before Luther.  It's how Catholics and Orthodox and Protestants are saved and transformed to this day: by faith in Christ alone.  And from this faith come works of love, because through this faith we have union with Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.  

So—in conclusion—why do we need this new understanding of what Christians have always believed?  It begins with the terrified conscience of the 16th century, which ramps up a performance anxiety which gets out of hand in the reflective consciousness of the modern world.  The Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone is needed wherever Christians are plagued by performance anxiety, trying to make sure their Christian lives are good enough, and thus in need of the good news that they're not, and that Christ alone is good enough, received not by our love or good works but by faith alone.  

But I will say there's this irony.  The Gospel is nowadays likely to be heard most clearly in non-Protestant churches, because that's where you'll find the old liturgies that are not attempting to be relevant and are therefore not all about ME, ME, ME.  The old liturgies are all about God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and what God has done in the world to redeem the world, rather than about ourselves and our Christian lives and the various performance anxieties that we have about our Christian life.  The old liturgies don't tell us how to get saved; they just give us Christ our savior, and by doing that they save us.  For the liturgies of the ancient church are just full of the Gospel, through and through. They keep telling us about Christ, resolutely, repeatedly, unashamedly.  They are unembarrassed about being “impractical,” not telling us what to do but telling us about Jesus Christ, and God our Father, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And so one of the key phenomena of our day, which is quite visible here at EU, is that Protestants become Catholic or Orthodox because they are bitten by the liturgy bug.  It's an irony that stems, I think, from the attempt of American evangelicalism to be relevant and practical, which means their preaching is all about telling us what to do rather than giving us Christ.  But there's more about that tonight, when we'll talk more about good news for anxious Christians, and all the practical ideas that you don't have to apply to your life.  

by: Dr. Philip Carey, Professor of Philosophy at Eastern University

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

@ursy153 & @imberbimber, can I prevail on you two to read this chapter 3 and tell me your thoughts. I was editing it, and put more in, then edited that... and it’s 3am again. Also tumblr stole the italics, again.

-> “No Quick-Fix for the Common Cold” Unedited Ch3

Chapter 3: Getting Uber Your Differences

The world burns as if Pyro had turned their flamethrower on it, until it’s almost unbearable; then, without any warning whatsoever, turns icier than Spy’s heart.

Someone’s talking at him, he thinks, but he can’t be quite certain. Sounds like they’re asking… something he can’t seem to make out; the words, the sounds… they don’t make any kinda sense?

Failing to understand who or what is being spoken just heightens the sense that something is so very, incredibly wrong… like he was broken, or the world was. And just when he thinks he’s maybe grasped onto a familiar syllable or tone, the voices start again with new phrases that sound alien in origin.

He doesn’t know what they want…

What do they want?

He can’t tell these mystery beings he doesn’t understand what they’re trying to communicate, however. All chance to do so ceased what had to have been eons ago; his throat felt as if all of Dustbowl was trapped in there. Searing heat and burning sand that had never known rain, rubbing everything red-raw, eroding his voice all but completely.

Everything is… everything is nothing more than impressions and ideas. Shades of hot and cold that flush through his body, head to toe; wracking his overtired frame with shudders that make his joints ache. It feels... like the two teams are facing off against one another, and his body is the battleground; the clashing roams all over, different areas experience pain seemingly without any warning or pattern, before the war moves to a new capture point.

Sure, maybe that’s a weird-as-fuck analogy, but it’s all he has.

The only certainty in Scout’s mind is that he is at RED base right now… probably. He clings to the familiarity of that scenario… it’s all he can do to stay in the moment.

Red, Blue, battle, team, win, lose, war… game. The words mean everything and nothing.

There is no equilibrium, up and down are utterly subjective for the moment, but he doesn’t want to open his eyes and find out which is which. It seems so superfluous, so… unhelpful, to be aware of. All he knows is that his body shivers, aching and numb in odd little bursts that seemed designed to undermine his tenuous grip on reality.

But he could not sleep. It eluded him, any and all rest that might bring a moment’s peace… held so far out of reach that he could cry, if that were still an option.

And then, something changes.

At first, it feels imagined, like the phantom fingers that had held fast his throat earlier in the evening. The ones that dredged up one of his single worst memories, and saw the runner strike the Doctor, even though the man had only tried to help.

He hadn’t meant it… Medic… so angry…

He didn’t mean to hurt the doctor…

Before he could concentrate on the thought, the memory... it happened again. Someone… touched him. And he felt his heartbeat accelerate in panic, as fingers brushed against shoulder, cheek, wrist, and finally, throat. He jerks back at the last tentative touch, not wanting to have to think about That Time again.

They said something, but it didn’t feel like it was for him; perhaps the other voices were sharing amongst themselves. That sounded like a thing they would do, right? He is aware of something clamping firmly about his shoulder, a solid something to focus on, even as it causes overstressed senses to go on alert.

Why couldn’t he open his eyes and see who, or what, it was?

Why was that so hard all of a sudden?

The pressure decreases, as if they thought he wanted them away… as if they intended to leave; and he flails out, with an odd almost-word of a cry. He wanted them to stay, he didn’t want to be alone in this. Alone in the dark and unable to communicate.

Someone shouts in alarm, as he realises he’s struck something. Had he done it again? He hadn’t meant to… you know, strike them; Scout just wanted them to stay, and couldn’t think of how else to tell these soft-voiced beings that. Especially as the cry from a moment ago refuses to make a repeat performance; his throat has closed for good or ill. Hah, probably because he was, ill that is. It was an oddly amusing thought. Still, no matter how much Scout feels like he wants to scream and beg them to remain here; there is nothing emanating from his ravaged throat. And worst of all, the hand is gone… his one anchor had abandoned him.

It feels like an eternity before something else happens, and he Bostonian is aware of every passing second in the void. In a way you might never put properly into words; like the first time you experience respawn, and you find there can be no true description of the sensation in anything as crude as words, it simply is.

Every sense is overstimulated, trying to work out where the voices went, even if his eyes refused to open and ears failed to translate the words they had spoken. A muffled whine of alarm escapes as hands return, touching first the pulse of his wrist and then brushes at the one in his throat; the memory rises like a tidal wave and threatens to consume him.

As in many of the recent nightmares he’d had since the team’s reintegration; the ones so vivid that they wrenched him from sleep in a cold sweat, screaming for help, and spurring him on to seek out even the most rudimentary form of comfort. Funnily enough, Scout always seemed to end up in the Infirmary perched on a cot, or sitting in the soft armchair in Medic’s room; shaking and muttering gibberish as the memory faded slowly. The German physician always just sighed, wrapped the runner in a blanket, and provided him with a myriad of reassurances in a soothing tone. Sometimes the intervention was nothing more than the calming repetition of ‘all is vell und you are safe, hase’, along with a cup of some of the best hot cocoa the Scout had ever had; but it worked miracles. He never remembered falling asleep again after a nightmare, only what happened afterwards; when he’d wake up in his own bed the next morning, the rest of the team none the wiser of the previous night’s incidents. Perhaps it did not show, but Scout had always been grateful for that.

The memory, so recent, etched so deeply on his mind, made him shudder once more. He would quite literally pay just about anything to erase it completely… to remove the sick flashes of little things that seemed to make it all the more realistic. The taste of dusty air heavy in his mouth, the groan of a wooden floor... that suddenly wasn’t, and the strong certainty of a rope looped about his neck, holding fast when his beloved Miss Pauling grew distracted in her attempts to save his life.

“Nnngg...ooooh… nnnnnoooo…” he manages, using what little energy he had left to exert enough control over his aching arms, in order to shove the intruding person away. “Nnnnooo… pl-...ss…”

“Crikey!” comes the startled response, and the runner cannot make hide nor hair of what it was supposed to mean. Only that the figure is close by still, hovering and uncertain what to do. Scout cannot really give them any suggestions, as he did not know himself. Nor could he think of himself as a singular being, at the moment… he was just a group of loosely connected aches and pains, extremes wrapped in confusion and left to suffer.

There’s someone else there too, he thinks; their voice is different but… he thinks he knows it. He can’t understand the words, exactly, but the tone is low and soothing; full of familiar sounds that might be phrases of comfort and explanation. It feels like they’re trying to tell him something, but it just doesn’t… translate.

But… most importantly, it feels safe. He wraps the cadence about his mind, almost like a physical thing, to block out The Memory… and it seems to work.

He tries to focus on them, he does. It’s a lot harder than he initially thought it would be, but they are patient. Up is down, the sun is cold, and his throat burns even as he struggles to make some verbal acknowledgement that he can sorta hear them. Can understand they are helping… but his mouth and brain are not on speaking terms.

And then someone is dabbing something cold on his lips… it’s cool and wonderful on the chapped flesh, with small dribbles of liquid seeping through. Not a lot, not enough to truly quench the burning in his throat, but even this taste of rain on the parched desert of his dry mouth is a blessing. It is appreciated, and he wants to say so… but all that comes out is a slurred, ‘Thah...kssss’.

“No problem kiddo,” sighs the voice, taking away the cool-wet thing, much to Scout’s distress. He knew that voice, he knew… knew who it belonged… to… why couldn’t… he think… of the… name?

“Kid, ya’in there?” they queried again, gently touching his shoulder. Then more vigorously, “C’mon Son, open those baby blues… we need ya ta stay with us.”

The hands that began to shake him were broad, and the voice familiar; but he couldn’t place them. His aching body protested the treatment, but the dribble of water seemed to be just what he had needed to finally feel the call of sleep. They were growing more frantic, and he… he really did want to respond, but… it was just so much easier to let himself drift off into the welcoming void of dreamless rest.

So he did.

~)0(~

Relentless banging jerked Medic back to something approaching consciousness. He shuffled upright, mind foggy and body aching from where he had fallen asleep over his desk… in what was possibly the worst possible position for someone his age. Ach, so much paperwork!

Donning his most scathing expression, Medic wrenches the Infirmary door open. “It is four in zhe verdammt morning, vhy zhe hell are you here?” he shouts, glaring daggers at the unexpected form of Sniper. The sharpshooter seemed oddly flustered, and had a welt on his neck that looked suspiciously like he’d taken a blow there, possibly due to a delirious teammate.

Medic immediately knew why he was there, but let Sniper explain the situation anyway.

“It’s Scout, mate. Looks like he’s gotten worse in the last little bit and Truckie said he’s real worried about the ankle-biter. He can’t seem to open his eyes or stay with us for more than a minute or two at a time… most of that is this weird strangled screaming, or trying to give you a good old shot to the chops.” Sniper grinned a little at that. “Oh, yeah, and Engie said the kid’s a lot hotter that anyone has a right to be… said he could feel the heat through his Gunslinger. Which I thought was impossible, but you never know with Truckie.”

“One moment,” Medic says, striding across the room for his bag; which had been dumped unceremoniously on the floor when the doctor had stormed in hours ago. “Yes, I seem to have everything I need, lead zhe vay, Herr Sniper.”

“You sure it’s just a cold, mate? Just seems to me like he’s gotten pretty bad real fast.” Sniper asked in his unobtrusive way. They’d never been overly close before… the whole Classics nonsense… and Medic dragging the man back from the dead had not improved relations overmuch. Still, he was less than totally indifferent towards the German, so there was that.

“Yes, vhatever zhis is, it has acted far more rapidly zhan anticipated.” Medic conceded, musing aloud. “But zhen, ve are not normal men… it vould not surprise me if the rapid acceleration of vhatever he has contracted vas in some vay linked to zhe fact his blood is most likely more than half BONK! at zhis point.”

Sniper huffed out an almost-laugh in response, more an acknowledgement, if anything. Medic was delighted, even if he hadn’t really been joking all that much; he was quite concerned with the youngest member’s continuous utilisation of that radioactive drink. It would be no great shock to anyone if it was altering the Scouts on a biomolecular level.

Reaching the room changed everything, however. The almost-companionable dynamic Medic had been sharing with Sniper was immediately crushed underneath the sudden realisation that pretty much the entirety of RED team was crammed inside the medium-sized Scout Class quarters. Those who did not quite fit, or had retreated to avoid being an accidental casualty, littered the hallway outside. The whole scenario sent Medic’s heart hammering wildly within the confines of his chest.

Many of the mercenaries present still harboured perfectly logical grudges against him, considering the whole situation with the Classics had been resolved not even three months prior; and even those who deigned to look past it, in the name of group cohesion, were still somewhat cagey about interacting with the good doctor. Holiday periods and feasts excluded, obviously, as both Thanksgiving and Smissmas had been delightful events where hatchets had been buried so that all may enjoy the celebrations.

The only problem… was that many of the mercenaries had recalled where, exactly, they’d buried them. Medic could see it in their faces as he entered, the brief flicker of mistrust that spoke volumes; he was not now, nor may never be, forgiven his transgressions. A fair call, from an objective perspective on the situation… but it still hurt Medic deeply to be alone in a room full of people he once considered family.

Individually he could bear their sullen stares and simmering ire, accept their curses and comments regarding his temporary defection as part of the road to reconciliation. There was time to hear them out, let them vent and talk them through it; but in a group, such as this, he held no chance.

A cold, clammy sweat broke out over the doctor’s entire body; though outwardly he managed to maintain some degree of his usual calm and collected persona. Though perhaps not as well as he had first anticipated; for Sniper, who always seemed to just know when someone was distressed, out a companionable hand to Medic’s back and steered the other through the crowd.

The others parted, silent as tombstones, but unlikely to stonewall this ‘home visit’ as it were, with the stoic sharp shooter standing guard. Of all those gathered, it could be said that Sniper had the greatest claim to mistrusting Medic; but if he chose to vouch for him, then no one on RED would contest it.

Slightly reassured, Medic found it possible to focus on the patient before him, and his hovering Texan guardian.

Engineer had taken a real shine to Pyro and Scout when they’d all originally arrived, liked to think of himself as some degree of father figure towards the pair; so when one of them went down for one reason or another, he was always there to throw down a dispenser to heal what ailed them, offer words of encouragement to keep going, or help them get a revenge kill. Engie tended to be a versatile paternal figure with more patience than most; he was perfect for the role he’d adopted.

In anycase, it was no great surprise to anyone that the builder had placed himself by the bedside of the team’s youngest member; monitoring Scout’s every breath and twitch like some sort of living medical monitor. Although, Medic himself had had a… well, a hand, in helping Engineer affix his Gunslinger; a [piece of technology for which the specifications were both impressive and ambiguous. There was a very real chance that the metallic hand lightly holding a concerningly limp, bandaged wrist, was taking an accurate reading of the runner’s resting pulse and oxygen saturations.

The silence was beginning to press, as Medic tried to perform a visual assessment of Scout; mentally comparing current observations with those he had taken earlier in the night. Indeed, the lack of proper response to stimuli was of concern, and the majority of symptoms appeared to have increased in severity over the previous hours. It seemed to be acting rapidly, though for all his medical knowledge, Medic could not think of what this could be outside of a rather virulent strain of a cold or flu. Those sorts of everyday infections tended to breed like wildfire in cities, after all; every person who contracted it mutating the disease to a degree before passing it on. Children, of course, were the most frequent carriers of the pathogens; therefore Medic was feeling quite confident in the prognosis, given the information the runner had imparted before their rather unfortunate encounter ended.

“Vhen did you first notice he vas in zhis state?” he enquired aloud, moving closer slowly, so as not to raise anyone’s hackles. “Or, I should ask, vas he conscious or coherent vhen you first saw to him… how long ago did zhis unresponsiveness start?”

“Ah… ah reckon it was about ten or eleven when ah came ta look in on him again after ya checked the boy over,” Engie answered, goggles fixed on Medic’s every movement. “He seemed a bit shaky, real tired and the like, but he was talkin’ a little. Said his throat was bad, but didn’t wanna be touched, and ah can respect that.”

Medic nods, both in affirmation and as a polite means of requesting that Engineer continue speaking. There’s a pause.

“He did say he wanted me ta tell ya he was right sorry about hittin’ ya, made me promise ta say it if ya came back and he’d finally gone ta sleep. Thought about comin’ ta getcha then, so he could at least hear me say it, might help him settle down and all, but ah couldn’t leave him. Didn’t wanna be left alone, see?” Engineer tossed a meaningful glare over his shoulder. “And ain’t none’a ya gonna hold that against him when he’s better, ya hear?”

After everything the team had been through, it was doubtful anyone would be callous enough to mock a teammate for finding comfort in the presence of another living being when they were unwell. Though many had a feeling it might be more aimed at the Spy, who had a tendency to prod each mercenary’s weak points when he felt rankled, or was just exceptionally bored and ready to start drama to relieve the doldrum of it all.

“Alrighty then, now that’s settled.” Engie turns back to face the Doctor. “About an hour back aways, me’n’Stretch thought he’d dropped off ta sleep finally. We were gonna switch out, so he wasn’t alone but ah could get some shuteye… when Scout starts shaking worse, mumbling and the like, and we realise he ain’t asleep… just can’t open his eyes. Tried to talk ta him, calm the little fella down, but then he clocked Sniper one… and went real still.”

Medic was nodding, half-listening to Engineer and focusing on the rabbit-face heartbeat under his stethoscope; the crackle was still there, but perhaps not as severe as earlier. Satisfied, he takes the runner’s hand, and pinches him. There was a full second where he thought the Texan was going to lay him out for the movement… but it passed, as the doctor tutted worriedly. There had been a slight flinch, but it was very weak.

“What’s the prognosis, doc?” prods the inventor, after Medic seems disinclined to elaborate on the purpose of his tutting.

For his part, Medic starts somewhat, as if he’d forgotten there were other people present. “Oh, yes.  Vell, apart from zhe fact he did not respond properly to zhe external stimulus of pain… it is also apparent zhat he is somewhat dehydrated, given the lack of elasticity in his skin. Und, it vould most likely not be far off zhe mark to suggest he may not have eaten in approximately zhe same amount of time, given his sore zhroat. Neither of vhich vill be helping him.”

“You might be right there, mate. Truckie and I got a little bit of fluid in the ankle-biter earlier with the old cottonball method, but it didn’t sound like he was able to do anything even close to swallowing with a throat that scorched.” Sniper adds in his no-nonsense manner, quietly watching the physician who had brought him back to life not a few months back, lift one of Scout’s eyelids.

“Mmm, at least zhere seems to be some dilation occurring in zhe pupils…” Medic mutters to himself, snapping the penlight off as he straightens. “Indeed, Herr Sniper. I zhink it vould be best if he is moved to zhe infirmary so I can start some intravenous fluid und do further tests to see vhat else can be done to hasten zhe virus’ egress from our resident Scout. I vould caution you to perhaps consider laundering your attire and showering, to prevent any spread of infection; und, could someone tell… Her…  zhat Scout vill not be able to attend any match in zhe foreseeable future, should Blu be returned in zhe next veek or so?”

“Of course, docteur.” Spy answered, materialising far closer to the bed than anyone would have assumed him to be. For once, the man does not take out a cigarette to smoke, with his ominous statement; clearly having heard and understood Medic’s warnings pertaining to potential contagion.

“Danke, Herr Spy.” he nods in acknowledgement, and turns to the problem of transporting Scout. Of course, he could carry him, but then he would have to leave the boy alone in order to retrieve his medical bag, and-...

“Doktor, I vould be happy to carry small Scout to infirmary for you.” Heavy offers, resolving the problem, and acting as if this wasn’t the first time they had exchanged more than a fleeting verbal exchange since being back at RED base. The Russian mountain of a man moved over to the small bed, slipping his hands under the ashen runner and lifting him with all the care one would take with a baby, or a puppy.

To be so large, to have such power and yet be so kind, so gentle and caring… it was one of the many reasons that Medic had loved the man. Well, before everything happened. Heavy’s curtness held more weight than that of the other members of their team, for the ‘good doktor’s betrayal had struck on many personal levels. Medic understood, and he bore the weight of such a  burden silently.

“You have my thanks, Mi-... Herr Heavy, danke. Let me grab my zhings und I vill precede you to open zhe infirmary door…” Medic pauses as he clasps the bag shut, turning to address the rest of the room. “Und everyone else? I vill let you know in zhe morning vhat is happening vith zhe junge, or sooner should something change drastically, zhough I do not feel zhat is a distinct possibility in zhis case. Rest assured, from vhat he told me, it is most likely just an unintended Smissmas present from one of his nieces; for vhich rest und some fluids are zhe answer.”

There was grumbling, but not even Soldier had anything to say regarding the matter, so Medic decided now was the best time to take his leave of the room. Heavy followed behind at an even pace, cradling the runner carefully, as he had no doubt done for ill sisters in the past.

Neither man said anything; the only sound filling the corridor was the soft, wheezy rasp of Scout’s breathing.

And when it stuttered slightly, both men unobtrusively picked up their pace; urgent footfalls echoing throughout the seemingly never-ending corridors of the base complex.

~)0(~

- - - - - - 

Tell me your thoughts, people... most has been re-edited, but thee’s about a quarter I can’t get to or i will fall asleep in the shower, as it’s 3am. Ch4 is well under way but I was double-checking this chapter for continuity, and... got distracted. Also 1 & 2 are on AO3, if you want to read them with italics and bodl in place... >.>

[sociologyontherock]

Erwin Out

By Erwin J. Warkentin

By the time you read this, I will no longer be the Head of the Department of Sociology at Memorial University. In fact, more correctly, I was the Interim Head (2019-2021), if one can truly call someone “interim” who has led a department for 25 months. 

Other than faculty, staff, and graduate students, many of you probably had little contact with me. This is not because I didn’t want to meet with you, but because of several external factors beyond our control. The most significant was the Covid-19 pandemic that found all of us locked down at one time or another. A second factor was that I was not a sociologist, criminologist, or involved in police studies in any way. You would not have found me teaching any of the courses offered by the department. I am a Germanist; that is, someone who studies all things German, whether it is language, literature, or culture.

However, one might make a tenuous connection between my personal academic interests and sociology without stretching the point to breaking. My interests in propaganda, political warfare, and censorship verge on sociology. I am the author of the books The History of U.S. Information Control in Post-war Germany: The Past Imperfect (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016) and Unpublishable Works: Wolfgang Borchert’s Literary Production in Nazi Germany (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997).

The only purpose you might have had in contacting me would have been decidedly bad. For example, you might have needed my signature on the bottom of a form to have an academic indiscretion go away. When you look upon the DR or DEX (drop without academic prejudice [exceptional circumstances]) on your transcript, I ask only that you remember me with kindness.

All of this is to say that I was an outsider. As such, I was in a unique position to observe things which might not have occurred to an insider, someone who had been properly christened into the world of the sociological endeavour, someone who knew how sociology was supposed to work.

You will note that I use the past tense in describing how I related to the Sociology Department at Memorial. The faculty and staff still reject my “outsider” status despite my protestations to the contrary to the bitter end. They did not permit me to claim that after more than two years of my headship I  was still looking in from the outside. My stubborn penchant for offering only German courses in MUN’s Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and insisting on doing that in German undermines my credibility as an insider. 

Be that as it may, I would still like to offer some observations on both the discipline and the department itself. I will argue that right now is an exciting and important time to be a sociologist at Memorial. I was also gobsmacked, if I may use that term, at the quantity and exceptional quality of the published and in-process research. It also revealed some of the embarrassing misconceptions that I had about my social scientist siblings in the faculty. They actually embody almost everything which I hold dear as a humanities scholar.

Well, there are many different aspects of sociology and its various subdisciplines that I could speak of. I’m afraid this would only serve to give each of those short shrifts and do them all a disservice. What I have decided to do is concentrate on one element of the sociological endeavour; however, it is the one that permeates everything else that they do. Without this one thing, not all of the others could function. Strangely, it is the one that I had not even considered as being part of good sociological scholarship because I had never really thought it was a necessary attribute. To my mind, it was reserved for the humanities. The emphasis on “science” in social science does not conjure up too much in the way of imagination. What I am referring to is the concept that C. Wright Mills coined as the “sociological imagination.” He went on to define, describe, and ultimately apply this in his 1959 book titled The Sociological Imagination.

I have chosen to highlight Mills’ work in order to better understand sociologists and their research for reasons that have nothing to do with most of the book’s contents. The fact that it contained this notion of the sociological imagination was a happy accident. It was not something that I was looking for or had hoped to find when I stumbled on it. Mills interested me for other reasons. It was actually the preface of another book that led me to this notion. This other book engaged me in a topic that I deal with on an almost everyday basis in my own professional life. The translators of Weber’s essays in their book From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Hans Heinrich Gerth and C. Wright Mills, included a preface that briefly debated how the meaning of a text changes as one tries to reproduce it in another language. They, of course, focussed on bringing German to English, which immediately interested me so much that I decided to read whatever else they might have written or translated. It had not even occurred to me that these two were sociologists engaging me, a Germanist, in an engrossing debate in what is theoretically the purview of my discipline. From there, I followed Mills down his scholarly rabbit hole to The Sociological Imagination. Moreover, it convinced me of the overlap of all our academic disciplines no matter how disparate.

Now, I’m not going to go into a lengthy exposition of what Mills meant by his book’s content. There are people in the Department of Sociology, dare I say all of them, who are more qualified than I am to explain what Mills attempted. I simply want to use the notion of the existence of a “sociological” imagination as a jumping-off point for my observations of the world of sociology at Memorial. Mills’ idea was my own inspiration for how to best describe what the sociologists in the department are about and the curiosity they attempt to awaken in their students, even if the notion has lost some of its original meaning in my translation.

The sociological endeavour looks for connections between larger events. It also seeks the relay points between the individual and their private world and with the public sphere of these large events. This is the essence of Mills’ sociological imagination. Events may play themselves out on a grand scale but affect the individual on a very personal level and vice versa. Events that may shake the foundations of an entire society may emanate from an individual and the waves caused by their interaction with other isolated individuals.

At Memorial, the Sociology Department provides students with a place to discuss these sorts of issues. What I learned was that the faculty teaches a method of approaching and understanding how individuals and social forces interact to create the communities in which we live. More than that, how we can identify and correct our failings while strengthening 

those things that we do well.

To teach the newest and most exciting aspects of sociology and criminology, one needs to conduct research into the “how’s and why’s” of society. What has impressed me most is not that the faculty excels at providing students with the right answer to their questions, I simply assumed that they could, but teaching students how to ask the right questions in the first place and then framing those questions in such a way that they can find the answer for themselves, even if it is not to be found in a book but rather in data that may not have been collected yet.

In the last 25 months, I have been asked what one might do with all the above. It was as if the students (or often their parents) had forgotten that they were not talking to a sociologist. I would humour them and produce the standard answers that one might find in a very unoriginal Google search.  I would then enumerate the usual suspects, which I had quickly learned by rote:

Social researchers

 Paralegals

 Public policy researchers

 Data analyst

 Public relations specialists

 Etc. ad nauseam

I even added that they might continue into law, social work, or, if they had nothing better to do, sociology as a professor at a college or university.

Usually, this satisfied people. They left with a smile, secure in the knowledge that they or their children would be able to put a roof over their heads and food on their table with a major in sociology or police studies/criminology. However, I ached to give them the answer that lay close to my heart. The one that I knew the faculty were actually conveying to our students. I really wanted to say: “You know. The people in the department, from Adler to van den Scott, really excel at creating an informed and educated citizenry vital to our society and our form of government. That means they are creating the future without anyone really knowing it.”

For one reason or another, they never received that answer from me. I’m not usually that shy. My impression of what we did for our students and our communities, province, and country may not have been as unassuming as getting them a job after graduation. Still, it is what I observed the department doing collectively, perhaps even quite unawares. They may have been trying to do it consciously on an individual basis and even thinking that they were failing at it, but as a collective, they are succeeding spectacularly.

I am so happy that I was permitted over the last 25 months to be this casual observer, allowing myself to be educated in what it means to be a sociologist.

What does this mean for the future? 

I think the department will see some exciting changes. The first of these is the change of name of Police Studies to Criminology. This was approved by the University Senate in February 2021. This not only reflects what the situation is. It labels quite precisely what the department’s faculty are actually teaching, researching, and publishing. It also brings Memorial into line with what most other programs in North America do. This will be good for the department and its graduates.

This is only the end of the beginning. With new leadership in place, the Department of Sociology is set to grow stronger into the future. 

[courtneytincher]

What If Japan Got the Atomic Bomb First in World War II?

Universal History Archive/GettyTOKYO—What if Japan had been the first to use the atomic bomb in World War II—and what if its top-secret research provided the backbone for the nuclear threat the world now faces from North Korea?  These are some of the tough questions asked in Robert K. Wilcox’s book, Japan’s Secret War, first published in the United States in 1995, but appearing now for the first time in Japan as the world marks the 74th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. U.S. Planned to Drop 12 Atomic Bombs on JapanThe book, bound to be controversial here, has been updated extensively, and the subtitle has been changed. Formerly it was “Japan’s Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb.” Now it’s “How Japan’s Race To Build Its Own Atomic Bomb Provided The Groundwork For North Korea’s Nuclear Program.”Its Japanese translator views it as a nuclear deterrent in itself. * * *No Longer a Secret* * *Wilcox has written a number of books examining historical mysteries and conspiracy theories, from the Shroud of Turin to the Kennedy assassination, which may put some readers off. But over the next nearly 24 years since the first publication of Japan’s Secret War he has continued to research this country’s WWII atomic program, building on his already extensive research as he gathered first-hand interviews with Japanese scientists who worked on the project, talked to U.S. officials, gathered classified and declassified documents from many countries, and put together a compelling narrative of Japan’s attempts to acquire the ultimate weapon. (Ironically, this third edition of his book is being published in Japan before it will be published in the United States; it won’t be available in America until January.) While it is known that Japan was developing an atomic bomb, the scale and intent has been sharply debated.  Wilcox notes that U.S. officials, out of political expediency, helped Japan cover up some horrendous war-crimes, including cruel biological experiments on prisoners of war. He argues that in the same vein the U.S. government may also have kept secret much of what it knew about Japan’s nuclear program.“Make no mistake,” he writes,  “Japan would have used the bomb without hesitation or compunction” had it successfully produced one. The Japanese leaders and their scientists “were committed to creating such a device” at a moment when they and other nations “raced against each other and time to make history’s first nuclear weapon. They failed but they were closer to success than history has given them credit for.”Wilcox makes a case that Japan successfully detonated an atomic device close to what was then called Konan, Korea, on or about August 12, 1945, which is to say six days after Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, killing over 90,000 civilians, and three days after the Nagasaki bomb that killed at least 40,000 people on August 9. Japan’s decision to accept unconditional surrender on August 15, according to Wilcox, came after its own test and, perhaps, the realization that it was too late to respond in kind.* * *Japan as Victim and Villain* * *In 1991, William Chapman, a former Washington Post Tokyo Bureau Chief, in his book, Inventing Japan, noted that post-war education here ensured that most people knew little about the suffering of others under Japanese rule. “For the average Japanese, Japanese atrocities were the rumors of war….The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the incendiary raids on [Japanese] cities, these were indisputable…. The war made sense only if Japan were a victim, and that is how a great many people remembered it.”Those observations are even more true now. The current administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, backed by a strong Shinto cult and right-wing lobby, Nippon Kaigi, has made tremendous efforts to erase memories of Japanese war crimes, or flatly deny them. (This desire to hide the past is likely the driving force behind the current trade war with Korea, which comes after Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japanese firms to pay added compensation to former Korean slave laborers.)* * *Plans to Bomb the U.S.* * *There are many here who still have no idea Japan was building its own atomic bomb—and almost succeeded—but was too late. The United States was almost too late learning that fact as well. The U.S. likely became aware that Japan was attempting to develop an atomic weapon by early 1945, and was caught off guard.  In February 1945, the OSS (the predecessor to the CIA) circulated a report about “stories” of “an atomic discharge to be used against [Allied] aircraft.” A few months later, allied intelligence sources filed a report about a scientist rising to speak to the Japanese House of Peers [the parliament of Japan at the time] and announcing “he is succeeding in his research for a thing so powerful that it would require very little potential energy to destroy an enemy fleet within a few moments.” It was clear to those who knew about such things, that the scientist must have been speaking of an atomic bomb. So, when a large Nazi submarine was captured in May of 1945 that was supposed to be carrying a half a ton of uranium to Japan, the U.S. was greatly alarmed. Is Japan About to Hit Its Nuclear Tipping Point?After the war ended, intelligence officials learned that the Japanese military, just prior to their surrender, had actually developed and successfully test-fired an atomic device. The project had been housed in or near Konan (the Japanese name for Hungnam), on the coast in the northern part of the peninsula.To make matters worse, by the end of 1945 the Soviets—who did not yet have an atomic bomb—had occupied much of Korea north of the 38th parallel and the plant where the Japanese atom bomb had been developed was under their control. In the summer of 1946,  David Snell, an agent with the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment in Korea, who had been discharged from service, wrote about it publicly in the Atlanta Constitution. He had interviewed a Japanese officer on his way home from Korea who said he had been in charge of security for the atom bomb project. The name used for the source was an alias. You can read the original dispatch and related dispatches here.  Snell wrote:Japan developed and successfully tested an atomic bomb three days prior to the end of the war…..She destroyed unfinished atomic bombs, secret papers and her atomic bomb plans only hours before the advance units of the Russian Army moved into Konan, Korea, site of the project.Japanese scientists who developed the bomb are now in Moscow, prisoners of the Russians. They were tortured by their captors seeking atomic "know-how." The Korean project was staffed by about 40,000 Japanese workers, of whom approximately 25,000 were trained engineers and scientists. The organization of the plant was set up so that the workers were restricted to their areas. The inner sanctum of the plant was deep in a cave. Here only 400 specialists worked.The article summarizes the tactical and strategic goals of the project: When task forces and invasion spearheads brought the war ever closer to the Japanese mainland, the Japanese Navy undertook the production of the atomic bomb as defense against amphibious operations. Atomic bombs were to be flown against Allied ships in Kamikaze suicide planes.Since the Soviets did not explode their own device until 1949, it is unclear how much they knew about the Japanese research efforts, in fact, and how useful the intelligence was, or was not. David Holloway, in his scholarly tome Stalin and the Bomb, does not mention the Japanese nuclear program. Much of the Russian research was based on information stolen from the Manhattan Project in the United States. But in his book, Wilcox sets out to substantiate much of the 1946 scoop and add much more detail.Japan had been considering an atomic bomb from early in the war and research had taken place in the late 1930s. The original plan was to detonate an atomic bomb in the continental United States. Circa late 1942 or early 1943, Premier Hideki Tojo called Minister of War Gen. Toranosuke Kawashima to his office. He told him, “The atomic bomb projects of the U.S. and Germany are progressing. If we are behind, we will lose the war. You start to make it.”* * *Uranium: A Double-Edged Sword* * *Japanese scientists had a good knowledge of atomic theory, and they knew they needed massive amounts of uranium. The plan to make an atomic bomb began in earnest, and scientists all across the Japanese empire began working on the project, especially at the Korean complex, where there was a wealth of hydro-electric power and possibly uranium deposits. The Korean site became the Los Alamos of Japan’s Manhattan Project as Japan began searching for uranium all over its empre before, finally, turning to its Nazi allies. They had a source for it in Czechoslovakia.There are moments of dark comedy in the book as it describes Japan’s attempts to get enough uranium from its German allies. Yasukazu Kigoshi, technical specialist and embassy attaché with the Japanese contingent in Berlin, said at first the German Ministry of Economics was uncooperative.In his interview with Wilcox, Kigoshi recalled, “So because of my nature, I got very angry and I sent a telegram to the German government by myself. I told them, ‘The reason we need pitchblende [uranium ore] is for the development of atomic power. We are now under the Tripartite Pact [the Axis agreement] and we are both fighting against America and England. So what is going on here that you don’t want to cooperate?’ Either my telegram was good or Oshima [the official] talked to Hitler directly…. They answered that they would give us two tons.”Toward the end of the war, as Nazi Germany fell apart, a German submarine was dispatched to Japan with two Japanese officers on board and 1,234.59 pounds of uranium oxide for the Japanese military—which if successfully enriched would be enough to make one atom bomb. During the expedition, Germany was defeated and Hitler committed suicide. Less than a week later the ship surrendered to Allied forces on May 14, 1945, roughly 500 miles from Cape Race, Newfoundland. The discovery of the uranium sent off shock-waves.   J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the American atomic bomb, is said to have personally come to inspect the cargo. It was requisitioned for the Manhattan Project.Wilcox notes the “irony”  is that uranium bound for Japan’s atomic bombs may have “helped bring atomic devastation to Japan” with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August that same year.* * *The Book as Deterrent* * *Yoshiaki Yano, who translated the Wilcox book, was formerly a major general in Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and is a noted expert on nuclear deterrents, explains the reasons are more complex. “The first and second editions were both deemed possibly fabricated for lack of evidence,” Yano told The Daily Beast.  “That made things easier for the scientists involved in the development, the industry, and the allies… for Japan to position itself as a nation that was just a victim of nuclear weapons and incapable of possessing these powers itself. The Japanese, especially in the academic world, the media and the education industry took it upon themselves to follow through on this and collectively worked to conceal this part of history and ignore the facts presented in this book.”Yano also is convinced that the work left behind by Japanese scientists helped create North Korea’s nuclear program as detailed in the book. “It’s clear that the United States, the Soviet Union, North Korea and China and the Chinese Nationalist Party all must have known the truth about Japan’s nuclear weapons, but have hidden it through and through along with the fact that they have intercepted Japan’s work in the past. The father of North Korea’s nuclear program is very closely connected to Japan. The irony is that Japan is now being threatened by China, Russia and North Korea’s nuclear powers.”Yano sees the publication of the book as a positive thing. “The Japanese people and especially the people running this nation should know that Japan has a high potential ability to possess nuclear arms and that [we] do not need to be scared of the nuclear threats.”He adds, “Japan possesses an independent power of nuclear deterrence. It should strive towards independence in its national defense while actively sharing the management and stabilization of international society.” The Bikini Atoll Apocalypse of 1954 Was a Vision of Trump’s ‘Fire and Fury’ FutureIn the end, the takeaway from Japan’s Secret War isn’t that the bombing of Hiroshima was justified because the Japanese would have bombed the United States first if they had been faster. The real lesson is that Japan was one more nation that came very close to creating a viable nuclear weapons program, and like Dr. Frankenstein, may have helped create its own monster. Wilcox calls for further study of Japan’s atomic bomb history and into the reasons the U.S. government still keeps many of the materials classified. The Japanese destroyed much of the research related to their weapons programs at the close of the war, but new evidence continues to be found. Certainly, more study would be merited. There are lessons to be learned from the tragedies of war, but in order to learn them you have to accept history as it is, not as you would like it to be. And in modern Japan revisionist leaders like Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are more concerned about rewriting history than learning from it. That is also tragic. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Universal History Archive/GettyTOKYO—What if Japan had been the first to use the atomic bomb in World War II—and what if its top-secret research provided the backbone for the nuclear threat the world now faces from North Korea?  These are some of the tough questions asked in Robert K. Wilcox’s book, Japan’s Secret War, first published in the United States in 1995, but appearing now for the first time in Japan as the world marks the 74th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. U.S. Planned to Drop 12 Atomic Bombs on JapanThe book, bound to be controversial here, has been updated extensively, and the subtitle has been changed. Formerly it was “Japan’s Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb.” Now it’s “How Japan’s Race To Build Its Own Atomic Bomb Provided The Groundwork For North Korea’s Nuclear Program.”Its Japanese translator views it as a nuclear deterrent in itself. * * *No Longer a Secret* * *Wilcox has written a number of books examining historical mysteries and conspiracy theories, from the Shroud of Turin to the Kennedy assassination, which may put some readers off. But over the next nearly 24 years since the first publication of Japan’s Secret War he has continued to research this country’s WWII atomic program, building on his already extensive research as he gathered first-hand interviews with Japanese scientists who worked on the project, talked to U.S. officials, gathered classified and declassified documents from many countries, and put together a compelling narrative of Japan’s attempts to acquire the ultimate weapon. (Ironically, this third edition of his book is being published in Japan before it will be published in the United States; it won’t be available in America until January.) While it is known that Japan was developing an atomic bomb, the scale and intent has been sharply debated.  Wilcox notes that U.S. officials, out of political expediency, helped Japan cover up some horrendous war-crimes, including cruel biological experiments on prisoners of war. He argues that in the same vein the U.S. government may also have kept secret much of what it knew about Japan’s nuclear program.“Make no mistake,” he writes,  “Japan would have used the bomb without hesitation or compunction” had it successfully produced one. The Japanese leaders and their scientists “were committed to creating such a device” at a moment when they and other nations “raced against each other and time to make history’s first nuclear weapon. They failed but they were closer to success than history has given them credit for.”Wilcox makes a case that Japan successfully detonated an atomic device close to what was then called Konan, Korea, on or about August 12, 1945, which is to say six days after Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, killing over 90,000 civilians, and three days after the Nagasaki bomb that killed at least 40,000 people on August 9. Japan’s decision to accept unconditional surrender on August 15, according to Wilcox, came after its own test and, perhaps, the realization that it was too late to respond in kind.* * *Japan as Victim and Villain* * *In 1991, William Chapman, a former Washington Post Tokyo Bureau Chief, in his book, Inventing Japan, noted that post-war education here ensured that most people knew little about the suffering of others under Japanese rule. “For the average Japanese, Japanese atrocities were the rumors of war….The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the incendiary raids on [Japanese] cities, these were indisputable…. The war made sense only if Japan were a victim, and that is how a great many people remembered it.”Those observations are even more true now. The current administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, backed by a strong Shinto cult and right-wing lobby, Nippon Kaigi, has made tremendous efforts to erase memories of Japanese war crimes, or flatly deny them. (This desire to hide the past is likely the driving force behind the current trade war with Korea, which comes after Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japanese firms to pay added compensation to former Korean slave laborers.)* * *Plans to Bomb the U.S.* * *There are many here who still have no idea Japan was building its own atomic bomb—and almost succeeded—but was too late. The United States was almost too late learning that fact as well. The U.S. likely became aware that Japan was attempting to develop an atomic weapon by early 1945, and was caught off guard.  In February 1945, the OSS (the predecessor to the CIA) circulated a report about “stories” of “an atomic discharge to be used against [Allied] aircraft.” A few months later, allied intelligence sources filed a report about a scientist rising to speak to the Japanese House of Peers [the parliament of Japan at the time] and announcing “he is succeeding in his research for a thing so powerful that it would require very little potential energy to destroy an enemy fleet within a few moments.” It was clear to those who knew about such things, that the scientist must have been speaking of an atomic bomb. So, when a large Nazi submarine was captured in May of 1945 that was supposed to be carrying a half a ton of uranium to Japan, the U.S. was greatly alarmed. Is Japan About to Hit Its Nuclear Tipping Point?After the war ended, intelligence officials learned that the Japanese military, just prior to their surrender, had actually developed and successfully test-fired an atomic device. The project had been housed in or near Konan (the Japanese name for Hungnam), on the coast in the northern part of the peninsula.To make matters worse, by the end of 1945 the Soviets—who did not yet have an atomic bomb—had occupied much of Korea north of the 38th parallel and the plant where the Japanese atom bomb had been developed was under their control. In the summer of 1946,  David Snell, an agent with the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment in Korea, who had been discharged from service, wrote about it publicly in the Atlanta Constitution. He had interviewed a Japanese officer on his way home from Korea who said he had been in charge of security for the atom bomb project. The name used for the source was an alias. You can read the original dispatch and related dispatches here.  Snell wrote:Japan developed and successfully tested an atomic bomb three days prior to the end of the war…..She destroyed unfinished atomic bombs, secret papers and her atomic bomb plans only hours before the advance units of the Russian Army moved into Konan, Korea, site of the project.Japanese scientists who developed the bomb are now in Moscow, prisoners of the Russians. They were tortured by their captors seeking atomic "know-how." The Korean project was staffed by about 40,000 Japanese workers, of whom approximately 25,000 were trained engineers and scientists. The organization of the plant was set up so that the workers were restricted to their areas. The inner sanctum of the plant was deep in a cave. Here only 400 specialists worked.The article summarizes the tactical and strategic goals of the project: When task forces and invasion spearheads brought the war ever closer to the Japanese mainland, the Japanese Navy undertook the production of the atomic bomb as defense against amphibious operations. Atomic bombs were to be flown against Allied ships in Kamikaze suicide planes.Since the Soviets did not explode their own device until 1949, it is unclear how much they knew about the Japanese research efforts, in fact, and how useful the intelligence was, or was not. David Holloway, in his scholarly tome Stalin and the Bomb, does not mention the Japanese nuclear program. Much of the Russian research was based on information stolen from the Manhattan Project in the United States. But in his book, Wilcox sets out to substantiate much of the 1946 scoop and add much more detail.Japan had been considering an atomic bomb from early in the war and research had taken place in the late 1930s. The original plan was to detonate an atomic bomb in the continental United States. Circa late 1942 or early 1943, Premier Hideki Tojo called Minister of War Gen. Toranosuke Kawashima to his office. He told him, “The atomic bomb projects of the U.S. and Germany are progressing. If we are behind, we will lose the war. You start to make it.”* * *Uranium: A Double-Edged Sword* * *Japanese scientists had a good knowledge of atomic theory, and they knew they needed massive amounts of uranium. The plan to make an atomic bomb began in earnest, and scientists all across the Japanese empire began working on the project, especially at the Korean complex, where there was a wealth of hydro-electric power and possibly uranium deposits. The Korean site became the Los Alamos of Japan’s Manhattan Project as Japan began searching for uranium all over its empre before, finally, turning to its Nazi allies. They had a source for it in Czechoslovakia.There are moments of dark comedy in the book as it describes Japan’s attempts to get enough uranium from its German allies. Yasukazu Kigoshi, technical specialist and embassy attaché with the Japanese contingent in Berlin, said at first the German Ministry of Economics was uncooperative.In his interview with Wilcox, Kigoshi recalled, “So because of my nature, I got very angry and I sent a telegram to the German government by myself. I told them, ‘The reason we need pitchblende [uranium ore] is for the development of atomic power. We are now under the Tripartite Pact [the Axis agreement] and we are both fighting against America and England. So what is going on here that you don’t want to cooperate?’ Either my telegram was good or Oshima [the official] talked to Hitler directly…. They answered that they would give us two tons.”Toward the end of the war, as Nazi Germany fell apart, a German submarine was dispatched to Japan with two Japanese officers on board and 1,234.59 pounds of uranium oxide for the Japanese military—which if successfully enriched would be enough to make one atom bomb. During the expedition, Germany was defeated and Hitler committed suicide. Less than a week later the ship surrendered to Allied forces on May 14, 1945, roughly 500 miles from Cape Race, Newfoundland. The discovery of the uranium sent off shock-waves.   J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the American atomic bomb, is said to have personally come to inspect the cargo. It was requisitioned for the Manhattan Project.Wilcox notes the “irony”  is that uranium bound for Japan’s atomic bombs may have “helped bring atomic devastation to Japan” with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August that same year.* * *The Book as Deterrent* * *Yoshiaki Yano, who translated the Wilcox book, was formerly a major general in Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and is a noted expert on nuclear deterrents, explains the reasons are more complex. “The first and second editions were both deemed possibly fabricated for lack of evidence,” Yano told The Daily Beast.  “That made things easier for the scientists involved in the development, the industry, and the allies… for Japan to position itself as a nation that was just a victim of nuclear weapons and incapable of possessing these powers itself. The Japanese, especially in the academic world, the media and the education industry took it upon themselves to follow through on this and collectively worked to conceal this part of history and ignore the facts presented in this book.”Yano also is convinced that the work left behind by Japanese scientists helped create North Korea’s nuclear program as detailed in the book. “It’s clear that the United States, the Soviet Union, North Korea and China and the Chinese Nationalist Party all must have known the truth about Japan’s nuclear weapons, but have hidden it through and through along with the fact that they have intercepted Japan’s work in the past. The father of North Korea’s nuclear program is very closely connected to Japan. The irony is that Japan is now being threatened by China, Russia and North Korea’s nuclear powers.”Yano sees the publication of the book as a positive thing. “The Japanese people and especially the people running this nation should know that Japan has a high potential ability to possess nuclear arms and that [we] do not need to be scared of the nuclear threats.”He adds, “Japan possesses an independent power of nuclear deterrence. It should strive towards independence in its national defense while actively sharing the management and stabilization of international society.” The Bikini Atoll Apocalypse of 1954 Was a Vision of Trump’s ‘Fire and Fury’ FutureIn the end, the takeaway from Japan’s Secret War isn’t that the bombing of Hiroshima was justified because the Japanese would have bombed the United States first if they had been faster. The real lesson is that Japan was one more nation that came very close to creating a viable nuclear weapons program, and like Dr. Frankenstein, may have helped create its own monster. Wilcox calls for further study of Japan’s atomic bomb history and into the reasons the U.S. government still keeps many of the materials classified. The Japanese destroyed much of the research related to their weapons programs at the close of the war, but new evidence continues to be found. Certainly, more study would be merited. There are lessons to be learned from the tragedies of war, but in order to learn them you have to accept history as it is, not as you would like it to be. And in modern Japan revisionist leaders like Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are more concerned about rewriting history than learning from it. That is also tragic. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

August 06, 2019 at 10:16AM via IFTTT

[vicaa344]

Drømmer Jeg | Prologue

Axis Powers: Hetalia © Hidekaz Himaruya

I do not own the characters.

FanFiction | Rated: T (for now) | Drama, (a bit of) Romance, Horror

Description: One of Norway's spells goes wrong, which sets free a demon from its ghastly prison. Iceland is the only one who can help his brothers, who were put into a never-ending sleep. He needs to enter the Fade and rescue them before it's too late.

The idea popped out in my mind after reading "The Danish Slaughterhouse", though an influence had on me "A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes". For a while I've wanted to write something gore-y and disturbing with my beloved Nordics but never actually had any idea for the plot. So! Here we go with "Drømmer Jeg" (which in Danish means "Do I dream?/Am I dreaming?"(Danish ppl correct me if I'm wrong pls). The title is after the song "Drømmer Jeg" by Johny Deluxe ft. Anna Nordell). Also the idea of the demon and the Fade (if you haven't figured it out yet or just don't know the game) is from 'Dragon Age: Origins'. Important Note: I know only English, Polish, a few random words in Russian (the Cyrillic alphabet is no mistery to me), Danish (trying to learn on my own), Spanish, Italian, Japanese and the very basics of German. Any other languages that show up in this fanfiction shall be translated in Google Translate (though, to make as few mistakes as I only can, I for sure shall use more than one translator to correct Google). I am very sorry native speakers. If I had knowledge on your respective languages, I would use it without doubt. Alas, I have none. Once again, I am very sorry for any mistakes. Enjoy!

       So far, everything was going alright. The spell was working perfectly fine. Now just a little bit of... Moondust-... and!-        Norway coughed harshly as a big cloud of smoke exploded into his face. He rushed to open the closest window, his eyes watering at the stinging, purple cloud. Once the window was opened he used his spell book to fan everything out of the small room.        He had absolutely no idea why the spell didn't work. It wasn't really a hard one, so what could have possibly gone wrong? His deep indigo eyes scanned the page with the spell in his spell book, after a while slapping his hand against his forehead. He absolutely forgot about the black candle he was supposed to put in the circle. Ugh, now he had to do everything from the very beginning.        The Norwegian groaned quietly and looked at a clock hanging on a wall. It was getting late, almost 9 pm. Making sure that the smoke disappeared, Norway blew out all candles and cleaned up his workshop. Once everything was in its place, he turned off the lights and locked the door, remembering to secure the seemingly small shed with a simple protective spell.        The short walk home through the woods was uneventful. Only an owl spoke up once or twice, accompanied by a quiet concert of crickets. The sun hid around 3 pm or so and now the silver plate of the full moon shone from between occasional clouds. It was cold, soft snow glittered delicately in the moonlight.        It was very peacful. A bit too peacful. Maybe it was only a weird feeling but Norge could clearly tell something was off. Was someone watching him? No way, who would be here at this hour. Someone other than the 4 Nordics, who currently should all be home. Well, maybe except Iceland. He said he was going to stay the night with Turkey (for some reason).        And yet, there was still this unnerving feeling that someone.... or something, was following him. Maybe it's just paranoia. One of the fairies would have warned him that something was not right. Or maybe they were too scared of something?        'Stop it Norway. It's gettig ridiculous.' He scolded himself. This was stupid. Nothing was watching or following him. It was just his sick imagination.        Rangt ... Aumingja litli manna. Svo kjánalegt. Svo barnaleg ... Geti ekki treyst eigin eðlishvöt sína ... Vilji hennar er sterk. En hugur hennar er veik.[1]

       Once he found himself home, he headed to the kitchen to grab a quick snack before going upstairs to his room. Which was painfully close to a certain Dane's. He tried to be as quiet as possible, alas Denmark must have some kind of a sixth sense, as his door opened the exact moment Norway stepped into his room.        "Norge!" The Norwegian cussed under his breath, turning to face the loud male.        "...What do you want?" He asked with his usual straight face, perfectly hiding his annoyance.        "Where have ya been?! I didn't see ya the whole day, I bet you were doin' all that magical stuff again!" The Dane said quickly.        Norway looked at him for a while silently, only to turn around and go further into the room with Denmark following not too far behind.        "...I've been so bored without you! There was absolutely no one home, can you belive that? Fin had to go out somewhere 'couse his boss needed him and Sve spent the whole day in 'is workshop!" He blabbed on, not realising that the shorter male payed absolutely no attention to his words.        The deep indigo eyes looked at him blankly.        "...You're talkin' too much brother." Norge said quietly, pushing his spell book into his bedside table's drawer.        Danmark pouted. He needed attention right then and there. He watched the smaller male as he made his way to his desk to write something down on a slip of paper. Denmark took advantage of this temporar unawarness of the other and sneaked up behind him. He then quickly wrapped his arms around Norway's waist tightly, brushing his cheek against his nape.    Norway stiffent, his gaze staring blankly at the paper. After a while he asked in a dangerously soft and low voice, "What are you doing?"    "Huggin' ya," Danmark said, shrugging with a smile.    The younger male sighed lightly and then elbowed Denmark in the rib cage. The man behind him let out a cry of pain, backing away a bit.    "Uaaah! Norge! What was that fooor?!" He whined.    "You touched me," The indigo-eyed man stated bluntly, turning to face the hurt male. "Now leave me alone. I want to go to sleep."    Denmark quickly regained his composure and huffed, crossing his arms over his chest with a pout.    "But I wanna hang out with you Nor!"    "You alredy did. Now get out."    "Norgeee! Pleeaaasee!!!"    "Nei."    "ACK!"

[1](is.)Rangt ... Aumingja litli manna. [...] - Wrong... Poor little human. So silly. So naive... Can't trust its own instinct... Its will is strong. But its mind is weak.