Otherness and Power: Michael Jackson and His Media Critics is a rather short book by Susan Woodword but it does a lot to expose "progressive" hypocrisy in the media and academia.

MY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK RELEASES OF 2021, A THREAD

(mostly by BIPOC and LGBT authors. you know the drill 😉)

1. WINTER'S ORBIT BY EVERINA MAXWELL

I got an ARC of this and have been yelling about it nonstop. A slow, soft, and utterly romantic space opera with an m/m arranged marriage? Reads like a fanfic? Focus on relationships and court politics over spaceship battles? PREORDER NOW!!

2. WE FREE THE STARS BY HAFSAH FAIZAL

This is the sequel and conclusion to WE HUNT THE FLAME, a YA Arabian fantasy. If you like tortured dark princes, headstrong huntresses, and epic worldbuilding... this is for you.

3. THE OBSESSION BY JESSE SUTANTO

Filipina author? Girl going after her stalker? GIVE IT TO ME

4. THE GILDED ONES BY NAMINA FORNA

My friend got an ARC of this and absolutely loved it. Dark, dark YA African fantasy. A heroine fighting to free herself from a patriarchal society. So hyped.

THREAD: Jonah, Moses, and the Cross.

Jonah is traditionally read on Yom Kippur.

Why?

One reason is no doubt its emphasis on repentance.

Thematic and calendrical issues, however, may also play a part.

Consider the book’s flow of events:

🔹 As the book opens, a threat of judgment looms on the horizon.

🔹 Per the Yom Kippur ritual (on 10th Tishri), lots are cast and Jonah is selected to be sent away.

🔹 And, four days later (14th Tishri), Jonah builds himself a ‘sukkah’ (‘tabernacle’), in which he rejoices (שמח) (cp. 4.6)—a verb specifically connected with the feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23.40, Deut. 16.15).

Further connections can also be noted.

But, before we dive into their details, we need to take a step back.

(Christians of all people should make they sure don’t get carried away by divers’ lusts: KJV II Tim. 3.6.)

--- A PROPHET ON THE RUN ---

Jonah’s distinctive as a prophet is undoubtedly his decision to run away from his God.

How many other prophetic books open with a description of their author’s disobedience?

1. Yes, @FareedZakaria's new book, Ten lessons From a Post-Pandemic World argues we don't need a big or small gov- we need a GOOD one.

We don't have that now & that is bc for decades now, the GOP has intentionally hallowed it out. Stripping it of funding under the auspice that

2. the only goal should be small. And as it turns out- that was stupid. And now we have a dysfunctional, as @maddow says, "big, bad" gov. Something that has been "wasted, and rotted and ruined." And its been intentional. Its been murdered, with no thought for how people would

3. suffer for it. COVID just put that suffering in a streamlined spotlight. But as @FareedZakaria points out- its the cherry on top of a 40 year plan that Bannon termed the final "deconstruction of the administrative state." As with the decimation of the economic tools that had

4. allowed the world's 1st middle class to emerge & flourish before The Great Lie ushered in the greatest wealth transfer in history. Not only were Americans bamboozled into voting away their wage increases, their pensions, & their health care (at least till 2010)- they were also

5. tricked into pissing away their country's superiority- its claim to fame, its ability to puff its chest out & say "look over here, we have the best _____. " I had no idea when I was a kid that we were not, in fact, the greatest country on Earth- at least not if you care about