Big Jason is just sitting in the office kitchen, stirring a cold cup of coffee and staring out the window. He's been like that for 35 minutes.
Sometimes he mutters things like "we're the party of fiscal responsibility" or "who else can we fire"
We're gonna try and help
#ableg

We sent in ol' Miranda, and she tried to tell him that the worst of our scandals is behind us, but he didn't seem to hear her.

We tried to send in ol' Adriana, but she refused, saying that she brings no value by visiting him. No one could disagree!

We sent in Really Big Jason, who told Big Jason that yes there have been a lot of rumours about our incompetence, but that we resolved 0.02% of them. That didn't seem to help.

Ol' Leela went in to try and talk some sense into him but it backfired. Now she's sitting behind him repeating every thing he says and then drawing emojis in the dust on the table.

The clearest lens through which I view the 1776 Report, Trump's apologia in response to the 1619 Project, is the same lens for viewing our overall political divisions: one of competing theories of American Exceptionalism:

Is America exceptional? How? Why? 1/x

The 1776 Report postulates that America is _inherently_ exceptional. We don't have to do anything in particular to be exceptional, and we remain exceptional no matter what we've done. It's deeply interwoven with white Christianity: a faith in inevitability of God's plan. 2/x

This religious inevitability of exceptionalism sharpens a lot about the Trump phenomenon, probably often confused for white supremacy, when it's really religious conviction. America simply can't lose, and they're defending America against critics, naysayers, and threats. 3/x

Trump's loss has caused complete disorientation. They view their faith as being challenged. They rise up in fulfillment of prophecy. They exegete the Constitution as sacred text for God's plan to keep Trump in office. They become apocalyptic at the end times. 4/x

But if the Constitution is their Old Testament, the 1776 Report is their gospel. It's important to distill the kernel of their faith: America is, always has been, and always will be inherently exceptional. That's what underlies the right's patriotic correctness. 5/x

"I don't believe in God, but I miss him."

~ Julian Barnes 💎 #Botd 1946

"Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books."
~ Julian Barnes

"To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness."
~ Julian Barnes

"Some admit the damage,and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged;and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves,at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of." JB

"In life, every ending is just the start of another story."
~ Julian Barnes

So you're a company commander in Normandy, trying to coordinate your three platoons in action, & liase w supporting tanks & some arty, & keep battalion headquarters appraised, & adapt as needed.

You know your platoons' sets are a bit crap.

What do you do? /1
#WW2 #SWW #History

The whole thing is a bit of a juggling act.

The core set at Company HQ was the WS No. 18 set, linking in with WS No. 38 sets used by platoons & back to Battalion HQ.
0.25 Watts
6-9Mhz
2.5 miles range with R/T and 4 miles with W/T
Interference in woodlands/around armour /2

The 18 set was more durable than the WS No. 38, but much less powerful than the popular WS No. 19 and 22 sets... then again you can carry it about and not worry about a vehicle or cart for it in action. /3

Much like the WS No. 38 set, the No. 18 set also relies on a rather conspicuous aerial - 10' (3m) high.

The Army knew such height wasn't desirable and trials of ground trailing aerials for the 18 and 38 sets were underway in theatre but there were problems... /4

It performed poorly on wet ground, and Normandy was... frequently soggy, whilst movement through thick undergrowth could damage the copper wire which also had the habit of snapping if stepped on.

So signallers, and those around them, had to be pretty considerate in action. /5

The Gabba, 2021.

In reply to Australia’s 369, Ro started well and timed even better in a sublime 44-run knock alongside his record-setting five catches 👌

His opening partner Shubman Gill took charge in the second innings, scoring a brisk 91 to keep India the required impetus in a massive chase 🏏

Rahane's captaincy kept a battered India motivated, bringing the best out of every player 🌟

He got hit on his head. On his chest. On his shoulders. On his thighs. But Pujara scored a fighting 56 that wore down the likes of Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc 👌

#AKATU

1. Beloved Friends!

These Moments Are Indeed Unfolding As Your Perception Of Reality.  But What Is Reality If Perceptions Change Within You And Within Others Continually?  The Truth Is This. Reality Is God.

https://t.co/60epkGZrQl

The Nature versus Nurture is a debate about scientific doctrine. It is a debate about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

The Representation versus Non-Representation shares the same debate. It is also about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

It is also the difference between thinking in nouns versus thinking in verbs. Nature and Representation have deep roots in Western thinking. It is a functionalist and reductionist way of thinking that meets its limits when analyzing complex adaptive systems.

It is perhaps due to this Western bias that concepts from the study of complex systems have had little traction in modern society. It is of course, more than a Western bias, but a human bias to seek out simple causal explanations of this world.

But the world is complex and messy. Spiral dynamics which is an evolutionary model of individuals and society explains how models of the world shape ourselves and our civilization.

On this day in 2008, one of our favourite movies, TEETH, was released. This horror movie centres around a young woman who has "vagina dentata" - teeth in her vagina. Vagina dentata myths is common, appearing in South America, India, Japan and Māori mythologies. Here's one myth...

So, you all know and love the movie Moana, right? And you all know and love the demigod Māui? Well, Disney and Lin Manuel Miranda skipped a particular Māui story in the "You're Welcome" song. It involves vagina dentata.

According to Māori legend, Māui tried to secure immortality for humans (you're welcome!) by "reversing" birth via the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-pō.

Hine-nui-te-pō is described as having "in the place where men enter her she has sharp teeth of obsidian and greenstone." This did not put Māui off (you're welcome!)

His plan was to enter the sleeping goddess via her vagina and exit through her mouth. He found her sleeping with her legs open and, seizing the opportunity, turned himself into a worm (you're welcome!)

Ok, so here we go. This is a thread and I'm not numbering them. I have been thinking about this for a while, and when @BeautyHeathen read me to filth, this is the first thing that came to my head...and when she said that maybe I already knew what it was, I think this is what

that means. I'm killing two channels, Rox Reacts and MetRox en Español. I am going to take all the content I already started working on for those channels and add them to Aviddiva and MetRox. I am testing other things to see what might work and what will not, not just for you

all but for me. It is no secret that I have been miserable with commentary for the last year. There are tons of other things I want to focus on and the reality is that although I have all the receipts for the videos I'm working on now, it has become increasingly difficult to

get through them. The amount of stupidity, micro-aggressions and nonsense I have seen recently is just mind boggling. I'm just tired of focusing on the stupidity and it is not adding to the anxiety I feel right now. There is other content that is more fun and more interesting

so I will focus on that. So all the reviews or "commentary" on books, magazines, movies, etc, will go on @AvidDiva , which I had planned to move more into artistic endeavors, projects and trying out new art forms as means of expression. As for Metamorphosis Rox, it is going

In June, 1965 a monk in Vietnam hoped to convince Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to speak out for the first time against the US war in Vietnam.

So he sent a letter, and a year later in 1966 he sat with Dr. King as he spoke out against the war.

Here’s what Thich Nhat Hanh wrote...

"The self-burning of Vietnamese Buddhist monks in 1963 is somehow difficult for the Western Christian conscience to understand. The Press spoke then of suicide, but in the essence, it is not. It is not even a protest."

"What the monks said in the letters they left before burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at moving the hearts of the oppressors and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese."

"To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with the utmost of courage, frankness, determination and sincerity."

"During the ceremony of ordination, as practiced in the Mahayana tradition, the monk-candidate is required to burn one, or more, small spots on his body in taking the vow to observe the 250 rules of a bhikshu..."

the greatest problem older Americans face when describing the communist takeover of the US in this election, is it has been so long since detailed descriptions were used as educational material that we ourselves forgot much of the financial and societal differences

Every AMERICAN should want FREE & FAIR elections and NO TRAITORS inside our government.

For 4 YEARS the traitors have been exposed and there's been NO JUSTICE yet leaders call for PEACE as Nation descends into the hands of the ENEMY who are openly talking about HUNTING AMERICANS

In 2004, I left a highly authoritarian group which at that time, C. Peter Wagner considered a leadership paradigm for the New Apostolic Reformation. I left after I found out about the group's secretive past and questioned its true motives, which was to take over the world. 1/

They renamed themselves Every Nation around the time I left. They were previously known as Morning Star International. They were directly descended from a notorious Religious Right campus "cult" of the 70s and 80s, Maranatha Campus Ministries. 2/

Maranatha Campus Ministries was among what Sara Diamond once called the "shock troops of the Religious Right." And underneath the rebranding and leadership shuffles in the wake of MCM's breakup in 1990, the new group arising from its ashes also aspired to take over the world. 3/

I left bc 1. I was terrified that they could take over the US and world. 2. they believed that they would become like God by being "under authority" and rule and reign AS GOD. 3. they lied about their past. I wasn't in the group long but leaving was excruciatingly difficult. 4/

Part of my healing process involved participating in an online cult recovery forum and doing lots and lots and LOTS of research into the group's past, present and teachings. Including the teachings they gave to indoctrinated people once they were properly "under authority." 5/