Zephyr Dear

here it is, my first short comic for Disorder. i won’t write much here, just hope that you enjoy the comic and will stick around to see what is next!

One of the common themes I see cropping up in hobbyist astrology spheres that gives me pause is an apparent confusion regarding how the elements deal with emotions. Moons in air signs tend to be regarded as “detached” from the emotions of themselves and of others. Water signs, in any placement, are described as crybabies – full of feeling and not held back from sharing it.

For their respective elements, these aren’t sound assumptions. I’ll be digging into the elements and their temperaments to shed some light on them and their relation to emotional expression.

Why does emotional expression matter?

Before we dive into the individual temperaments, I want to be clear regarding why the expression of emotion is important. Emotions, quite often, are not just things to be felt. To process an emotion in a healthy way, it needs to be channeled. One of the keys of the temperaments is how each type tends to channel that energy, or if they are naturally inclined to channel it at all.

In the claims of air moons being detached and all water signs being openly weepy, there is a focus on how they are socially in terms of their expression as well. The social element, how willing we are to be open about our emotions, is a key to emotional health and is one of the big differences between the temperaments.

From Parsing the Emotional Domain from a Developmental Perspective by H.H. Goldsmith:

Emotion, in the functionalist perspective, refers to the organism’s “sense” (perception, appraisal, evaluation) that a significant change has occurred in the relation of the self, either physical or symbolic, to social other(s), either actual or implied, or occasionally to the world of objects. Thus, emotions are generally interpersonal, and phenomena we call thirst, sleepiness, and startle are not emotional. Campos and his colleagues have elaborated this definition, and some theorists have emphasized the social interactional nature of emotion even more strongly; for instance, Averill referred to emotions as “transitory social roles” several years ago. In structuralist perspective,emotion involves not only the feeling state mentioned above, but also an associated action tendency.

Let’s look into how each of the temperaments handles emotion: what they tend to feel, how they tend to feel it, and what they do to cope.

 

Choleric | Fire

Aries, Leo, Sagittarius

The choleric temperament correlates to the fire signs in astrology. These are our action-oriented optimists. When it comes to their emotions, they don’t dwell on them. Emotions flow out as quickly as they came. This is aided by their more social nature – they aren’t afraid to say what they’re feeling when they feel it, and they have the relationships and the space to do it.

The main problem that cholerics tend to run into with emotions is the tendency towards anger. We are all capable of imagining an explosive and damaging fire, which is sometimes what cholerics can become when stressed. This angry lashing out can be hurtful to the people around them, and these individuals may be seen as aggressive, insensitive and even violent. It’s important for those with strong fire placements in their chart to have an active channel for feelings of stress so they aren’t taken out on the people in your life. Exercise is always a good habit for the cholerics to pick up in managing their health, both emotional and physical.

While cholerics are not the type to be afraid of expressing their own emotions, they can be rather judgmental about other people expressing their emotions. They perceive certain emotions and their expression as a weakness. If you need someone to vent to who will just listen, cholerics are not the best choice. They’ll want you to get off your ass immediately and take action to fix the problem. Sometimes this is productive, but it’s not always what the other person needs.

Melancholic | Earth

Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn

The earth signs are linked to the melancholic temperament. Just from the name alone, you can get a feel for what this temperament is like. Unlike the cholerics, this is a more introverted temperament. They tend to sit and reflect on their own thoughts and feelings, at times to their detriment. This is where the melancholy of the melancholic temperament comes in. Melancholics are prone to anxiety and dark moods, and they’re more likely to handle these on their own (or attempt to unsuccessfully) instead of asking for help.

The earth signs are grounded in practical realities, and this is shown in the melancholics tendency to be more task-oriented than relationship-oriented. In some cases, they may wish that they didn’t have to reckon with their feelings as emotions “get in the way of” whatever they’re working on. These are the people with strong minds who might wish to ignore their heart, but no matter what, this will never end well for them. It’s important for melancholics to understand the value of their feelings and how to communicate them to other people. They would also benefit from the optimism of other temperaments in their life as they’re prone to pessimism and this can drag them down when left on their own.

As this is a task-oriented loner type, melancholics are more likely to try to help the people around them through practical steps. They don’t tend to keep a lot of people close to them, but are very loyal to those they do. They have the capability to understand and empathize with others, though they may struggle to communicate in this area. These are good friends to have when you need someone to listen to your problems and help you get back on your feet, but not necessarily the friends you go to for verbal advice and encouragement.

Sanguine | Air

Gemini, Libra, Aquarius

Onto the air signs, arguably the most misunderstood of the elements in pop astro talk.There is a misconception that associates air with the mind and water with the heart, leaving us with the idea that air is detached from their emotions. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Air is all about flow and connectivity. They’re relationship-oriented, and there are no relationships without feeling. Unlike earth signs, they have a wide social circle. Sometimes this can reach extremes and they become invested in many superficial relationships, which is likely where the concept of air being “detached” originated. It isn’t so much that this temperament is detached – they are fully involved in the realm of human emotion. The problem is that sometimes they aren’t probing deep into their feelings and the feelings of others. They are still interacting, however. The separation implied by “detachment” is the antithesis of all that air is.

In terms of dealing with their own emotions, the sanguine temperament is naturally the best off. They are sensitive, but they shed their worries easily through talking it out with others or even just crying. They aren’t the type to harbor anger or other negative feelings. Clinging to emotions would get in the way of their connections with others, after all. It’s hard to be friendly with someone when we feel they have a wall up. We could all take a lesson from this temperament in dealing with our emotions. Don’t be ashamed of what you’re feeling, be open and communicative about it, and let it go.

The downside of this temperament is, as previously mentioned, the capability to become superficial. Air might spread itself too thin in its effort to connect with everyone. They can become unorganized, undisciplined and restless. It’s important for sanguine folks to have productive relationships and to focus their attention on those who deserve it most.

Phlegmatic | Water

Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces

I’d argue that, following the air signs, the water signs are most misunderstood in the emotional realm. These are an emotional and sensitive people, but this isn’t necessarily something that they express. Like the earth signs, the water signs are reserved and private about their feelings. The image of a water sign crying publicly about every little thing isn’t quite accurate. They don’t tend to be expressive about their own feelings, though in relationships they can be very patient and conciliatory in dealing with someone else’s feelings. These are the people worth going to if you need someone to listen and offer comfort and encouragement. When their own emotions rise to a peak, they withdraw and try to deal with it on their own rather than reach out to others.

While they aren’t the best at expressing their emotions, they are arguably the temperament most driven by their emotions. This leads them to be very subjective, inconstant people. They are passionate about the people they love and the causes they support, but it’s hard for them to apply themselves to something if there isn’t a positive feeling involved. This is the temperament most prone to addiction as they like to feel the hit of whatever it is they’re addicted to. They may feel that they need something to counteract the negative emotions they’re overwhelmed with but don’t know how to productively resolve. Rather than facing problems head on, they seek an escape.

When poorly manifested, the phlegmatic temperament can become greedy, manipulative of others and cowardly. If lacking an emotional drive to motivate them, they become lazy and avoid commitment. It is important for phlegmatics to learn to communicate their emotions, like melancholics, and to find a healthy and reliable source for good feelings. It’s also important for them to prioritize rest, as they tend to have the lowest energy of all the temperaments and will not be at their best if drained.

That’s all for today! And remember…

Cholerics, channel your energy into an activity like exercise so your stress doesn’t manifest as anger.

Melancholics, learn to open up to your loved ones and communicate your feelings instead of stewing in them.

Sanguine folks, don’t spread yourself too thin in your relationships.

Phlegmatics, find a healthy way to motivate yourself and balance your emotions.

Good luck, all.

Ronan Farrow’s story about the pervasive sexual harassment at CBS — starting at the top — should be read in its entirety. The lengths CBS went to to keep this out of the news are worth emphasizing:

Fager has tried to keep the allegations about the treatment of women at “60 Minutes” from surfacing publicly. According to the Times, in 2015 Fager took over the writing of a book about “60 Minutes” after the original author, Richard Zoglin, began asking people about the subject. In April, as two Washington Post reporters, Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain, were reporting an article about the allegations of harassment at CBS News, including complaints about Fager and Rosen, lawyers retained by Fager threatened to sue the Post, and presented testimonials about Fager’s good character. “There was this ham-handed effort to make women at the show say Jeff was a wonderful person,” one producer said. “It was so obvious we were doing it with a gun to our heads.” Fager’s lawyers also attacked the professionalism of the two reporters. In the end, the paper published a story that included complaints of harassment against Charlie Rose from dozens of women, but not allegations about Fager or Rosen. In a statement, the Post said, “The reporting throughout was vigorous and sustained and fully supported by Post editors. Nothing that met our longstanding standards for publication was left out. Nor did outside pressures, legal or otherwise, determine what was published.” CBS employees told me that they were alarmed by the attempts to kill the reporting. “The hypocrisy of an investigative news program shutting down an investigative print story is incredible,” one told me.

Fager said, “There’s a reason these awful allegations have not been published before—despite the efforts of a few former employees who did not succeed at ‘60 Minutes.’ It is because they are false, anonymous, and do not hold up to editorial scrutiny.”

The CBS chief compliance officer said, “CBS previously retained attorney Betsy Plevan of Proskauer Rose to conduct an independent investigation of alleged misconduct at CBS News. Ms. Plevan’s work is ongoing, and includes investigating allegations in this story. CBS has taken the allegations reported in the press seriously, and respects the role of the press in pursuing the truth, which is a role that is central to the mission of CBS News.”

In June, Carmon, in a speech accepting a Mirror Award for the Post’s reporting on Charlie Rose, warned that stories of abuse by powerful men in the news industry were still being suppressed. “The stories that we have been doing are actually about a system. The system has lawyers and a good reputation. It has publicists,” she said. “Indeed, the system is sitting in this room. Some more than others. The system is still powerful men getting stories killed that I believe will someday see the light of day.” Fager was seated in the audience, and later in the ceremony accepted an award on behalf of “60 Minutes.”

This reflects remarkable courage on the part of Carmon, and the fact that remarkable courage is required is a major part of the problem.

And we’ve discussed this before, but this is also a critical point:

Except it’s not just one powerful predatory man at one major media company … that’s CBS but there’s also the entire Fox News cesspool and many others besides.

Conventional wisdom in the news business shaped by a huge cohort of sexual predators.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 27, 2018

The fact that the several of the news organizations that decided that a bunch of inane bullshit they have never thought was important before or since pertaining to Hillary Clinton was as or more scandalous than Donald Trump literally boasting about serial sexual assault were rife with sexual harassment and exploitation isn’t a coincidence. It would be extraordinary if these assumptions didn’t shape coverage.

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Remember that story about how Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Leader and now an arch-Trumper, told colleagues in June 2016 that he thought Donald Trump and Dana Rohrabacher were on Putin’s payroll? It got a lot of attention when Adam Entous, then with The Washington Post, published the article on May 17th, 2017, a week after James Comey was fired and the same day Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel. It triggered a momentary firestorm. But it got somewhat lost in all the other news of those critical weeks, in part because it was simply hard to know what to make of it. Was he joking as congressional press staff later claimed? Pretty clearly not. But more importantly, did McCarthy really have any basis for the claim? That was less clear.

Given all we know now, it’s worth revisiting not only the stunning quote but the context around it.

Let’s start by reviewing the gist of the news. Here, from Entous’s article, McCarthy pipes up in a conversation among House leadership about Russia and Ukraine.

That’s when McCarthy brought the conversation about Russian meddling around to the DNC hack, Trump and Rohrabacher.

“I’ll guarantee you that’s what it is. . . . The Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp [opposition] research that they had on Trump,” McCarthy said with a laugh.

Ryan asked who the Russians “delivered” the opposition research to.

“There’s . . . there’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy said, drawing some laughter. “Swear to God,” McCarthy added.

“This is an off the record,” Ryan said.

Some lawmakers laughed at that.

“No leaks, all right?,” Ryan said, adding: “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

Where did McCarthy get this idea from? Pretty clearly, as the article explains, it was from a conversation McCarthy had had earlier that day with Volodymyr Groysman, then and now Prime Minister of Ukraine, who had taken over the office two months earlier in April 2017. Both McCarthy and Ryan had met with Groysman separately earlier in the day.

Groysman was in Washington to press for more financial and military aid for his country. Just as importantly he was there to press the need to continue the sanctions regime imposed after the annexation of Crimea two years earlier. He met with Biden, Ryan, McCarthy and Mitch McConnell among others. Today we think of a Europe shaken by President Trump’s embrace of Russia and his cold shoulder to NATO allies. But at the time, patience with the Russian sanctions regime was beginning to fray in Europe. They’d been held together in large part by the sway of Germany’s Angela Merkel. But her preponderant hold on the EU was already beginning to fray in the face of the escalating migration crisis, ISIS attacks and the backlash against fiscal austerity in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. A week later (6/23/16) the UK would vote to leave the EU altogether, triggering a new dimension of crisis for the EU. Clearly and logically, Groysman looked to the United States to backstop the sanctions regime which was only real stick Ukraine had versus Russia.

According to the recording obtained by The Washington Post, in his meetings with top U.S. officials Groysman had focused on the dynamic we’ve all grown familiar with over the last two years: Russian funding of populist, rightist political parties, propaganda campaigns meant to throw competitor states off balance and into turmoil and even financial subsidies directly to key politicians.

Here Paul Ryan describes what he’d heard from Groysman with GOP House Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers …

Ryan: He basically… He has this really interesting riff about… people have said that they have Ukraine fatigue, and it’s really Russian fatigue because what Russia is doing is doing to us, financing our populists, financing people in our governments to undo our governments, you know, messing with our oil and gas energy, all the things Russia does to basically blow up our country, they’re just going to roll right through us and go to the Baltics and everyone else.

Rodgers: Yes!

Ryan: So we should not have Ukraine fatigue, we should have Russian fatigue.

Rodgers: Yes! The propaganda… my big takeaway from that trip was just how sophisticated the propaganda…

Ryan: It’s very sophisticated.

Rodgers: …coming out of Russia and Putin.

Ryan: Very sophisticated.

Rodgers: Not just in Ukraine. They were once funding the NGOs in Europe. They attacked fracking.

Ryan: Correct.

Rodgers: Russia TV. I was not… you know… I hadn’t tuned into Russia TV until that trip. It’s, it’s frightening.

Ryan: So he’s saying they’re doing this throughout Europe. So, uh…

[Unintelligible]

Ryan: This is, this isn’t just about Ukraine.

Rodgers: So, yeah, it is a, um… [unintelligible]… a way… it’s really a messaging… you know… they are… it’s a propaganda war.

Ryan: Russia is trying to turn Ukraine against itself.

Rodgers: Yes. And that’s… it’s sophisticated and it’s, uh…

Ryan: Maniacal.

Rodgers: Yes.

Ryan: And guess… guess who’s the only one taking a strong stand up against it? We are.

Rodgers: We’re not… we’re not… but, we’re not…

It’s worth taking a moment to absorb the gist of this conversation and the context of that moment. Ryan and Rodgers were discussing the suite of campaign subsidies, propaganda and information warfare and more which is at the heart of the discussions we’re having today about the 2016 campaign and the Brexit election. Ryan notes how the Ukrainians say it is being practiced against them and in countries across Europe.

It’s at this point that McCarthy jumps into the conversation and references the report from a day earlier that Russia had hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee.

McCarthy: [unintelligible]… I’ll GUARANTEE you that’s what it is.

[Unintelligible]

McCarthy: The Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp research that they had on Trump.

McCarthy: laughs

[Crosstalk]

Ryan: The Russians hacked the DNC…

McHenry: …to get oppo…

Ryan: …on Trump and like delivered it to… to who?

[Unintelligible]

McCarthy: There’s… there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump… [laughter]… swear to God.

Ryan: This is an off the record… [laughter]… NO LEAKS…[laughter]… alright?!

[Laughter]

Ryan: This is how we know we’re a real family here.

Scalise: That’s how you know that we’re tight.

The logic of the conversation gives very little suggestion that anyone was joking, as Republican leadership staff claimed in response to the Post’s reporting. (If you read Entous’s article you’ll see they first categorically denied the conversation ever took place and retreated to the joke theory after they were told about the tape.) The recording itself has never been made public. But those who heard it said the laughter was more like nervous laughter, not like cracking jokes. From the descriptions and the words themselves, the real question isn’t whether anyone was joking (pretty clearly they weren’t). It’s whether McCarthy had any basis for saying this. And that is less clear.

It’s possible that McCarthy did have some specific knowledge, either from U.S. government officials or based on a claim made in that meeting with the Ukrainian Prime Minister. But at least on the current evidence we don’t know that. And I’m not sure that’s the most edifying question to ask.

We know from the Post and other reporting that the Ukrainians were concerned at Donald Trump’s Russia-friendly campaign rhetoric and became positively alarmed when Paul Manafort joined his campaign in a senior role in late March. They had long experience with Manafort as the political mastermind of Viktor Yanukovych, whose overthrow in 2014 triggered the annexation of Crimea and irregular invasion of eastern Ukraine. They likely had a clearer sense of Manafort’s ties to Russian oligarchs and the Kremlin than most Americans or perhaps even U.S. intelligence would have until well into the Trump presidency.

The safest bet is that is McCarthy took the pattern that Groysman described, and which congressional leadership were already familiar with from U.S. intelligence briefings (see Ryan’s and Rodgers’ comments above), and drew a reasonable inference about Trump. Trump had a similar political complexion, an analogous populist political schema and vocabulary to what Manafort had helped cue up for Yanukovych in Ukraine. He was openly solicitous of Putin. And just a day earlier (if not before) these congressional leaders had learned that Russia seemed to be hacking on Trump’s behalf. It was hardly a huge leap. Suspicions about Rohrabacher had been and remain an open secret for years.

The question is whether Groysman told McCarthy and the others something more specific. It’s not a stretch to imagine he did. The accounts suggest he was describing patterns and candidates very much like Donald Trump. We simply don’t have evidence to settle that question. The people in that meeting certainly aren’t talking. What strikes me is that the people in that meeting, certainly Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan had a very clear sense of Russian operations in Ukraine and Europe more broadly and how it matched what was taking shape with Donald Trump. The gist of Groysman’s message was that western countries needed to stand united because Russia represented a common threat. The first news of cyberattack the day before only put the equation in a sharper relief.

Whatever they knew then or suspected, the coming months would add dramatic weight to McCarthy’s suspicions. Wikileaks began releasing DNC emails a month later, throwing Clinton’s campaign repeatedly off track. Trump would more aggressively cheer on Russia’s actions. And remember: precisely what was happening — whether Russia was the power behind Wikileaks or someone else — wasn’t 100% clear at the time to ordinary citizens. But at least Ryan and likely McCarthy as well had contemporaneous intelligence briefings which made it crystal clear. Both men were among the 12 members of Congress who were briefed on the Russian campaign in early September 2016 by Jeh Johnson (DHS Secretary), James Comey and Lisa Monaco (White House Homeland Security Advisor).

Note this June 2017 article in The Washington Post …

In early September [2016], Johnson, Comey and Monaco arrived on Capitol Hill in a caravan of black SUVs for a meeting with 12 key members of Congress, including the leadership of both parties.

The meeting devolved into a partisan squabble.

“The Dems were, ‘Hey, we have to tell the public,’ ” recalled one participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public that the election was under attack would further Russia’s aim of sapping confidence in the system.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further, officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence truly supported the White House’s claims. Through a spokeswoman, McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.

A long list of key developments were taking shape in these key summer months of 2016, some of which were visible to the public and many more which were clear to this tiny subset of the congressional leadership.

What is most telling about this incident is not whether McCarthy knew this for a fact (we just can’t know that currently) but that McCarthy and Ryan as well had clear warnings a clear understanding of the Russian pattern of conduct and Trump’s probable connection to it. They would get a lot more evidence over coming months confirming this impression from June 2016. But they either ignored what they knew or decided to make a conscious decision to unknow it as they moved more and more firmly into lockstep support of Donald Trump. We see this especially clearly with McCarthy, the one who appeared most sure of the connection in this June 15th 2016 meeting and would become the most loyal and staunchest advocate for Trump in the ensuing months and years.

This isn't a review, but I'd regret not giving you a heads up about Sorry to Bother You, Boots Riley's first feature film. It's an absurd black sci-fi satire shot in Oakland and it's the off-the-wall dystopian summer indie flick we all deserve.

At the last minute last Friday, I put my hands on some tickets for its sold-out nationwide opening night at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland. And wow, am I glad I did. It was a real happening. People cheered and laughed. Plus, the movie was simply fantastic. After the show, folks with tickets for the late show (which had the bonus of an after-show Q&A with Boots himself) were already lining up. Lots of people posed with the shitty Tercel featured in the film, which was parked right in front of the theatre.

Hilariously, you can buy that shitty Tercel for a mere $23,999.40 on the STBU website:

(I got my eye on that Mr. Bobo collectible plate myself.)

If you want to read what reviewers are saying, here's a good start:

Review: ‘Sorry to Bother You,’ but Can I Interest You in a Wild Dystopian Satire? by A.O. Scott of The New York Times:

"If Mike Judge’s “Office Space” and Robert Downey Sr.’s “Putney Swope” hooked up after a night of bingeing on hallucinogens, Marxist theory and the novels of Paul Beatty and Colson Whitehead, the offspring might look something like this."

Film Review: ‘Sorry to Bother You’ by Peter Debruge of Variety:

"Nearly as deranged as it is politically engaged, Boots Riley’s sui generis “Sorry to Bother You” is the kind of debut feature that knocks your socks off, tickles your bare tootsies with goose feathers for a while, then goes all Kathy Bates in the final stretch, ultimately taking a sledgehammer to your kneecaps."

This one might make more sense AFTER you've seen the movie:

In 'Sorry To Bother You,' an Alternate-Universe Oakland Rings True by Janelle Hessig of KQED Arts:

"The “don’t sell out” moral of the story is delivered with all of the subtlety of a circus clown with an erection, but appropriately so—there’s nothing subtle in being a person of color fighting to survive capitalism."

Go see it. It's probably playing near you now.

photos by Rusty Blazenhoff

As I explained last night, one of Jim Jordan’s most fervent defenders has been compelled to admit that he, the head coach, knew about Dr. Strauss’s sexual abuse and felt compelled to call him on it and bring his concerns to university administrators. Along with the nine other wrestlers who’ve come forward, Russ Hellickson’s admission makes it certain to anyone who is willing to open their eyes that Rep. Jim Jordan is lying about what he knew and heard more than two decades ago. Yet just yesterday, amidst all this evidence, Paul Ryan was compelled to make what amounts to a public and unbreakable statement of confidence in Jordan’s integrity. This came after numerous other members of the House GOP caucus came forward to express Manchurian Candidate-like testimonies about Jordan’s honesty and integrity. To get a sense of the drumbeat that was created to force Ryan to make this kind of fulsome pledge of confidence in Jordan’s integrity, watch this exchange from Wednesday night with Fox Business News’ Lou Dobbs.

Good example here of the Manchurian Candidate like hold Jordan has on Fox/GOP. Dobbs: "I just cldnt believe that Ryan would persist in refusing to acknowledge the man's integrity and a service and finally todaySpeaker Ryan steps up on his behalf to acknowledge who Jim Jordan is." pic.twitter.com/t5hO0JVgEH

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 12, 2018

Dobbs couldn’t “believe that Ryan would persist so long in refusing to acknowledge the man’s integrity” and glad that finally “Speaker Ryan steps up in his behalf and acknowledges who Jim Jordan is.” (emphasis added)

All sorts of crazy things get said on Fox News and its sister station. But this was significant both because of the surreal expressions of disbelief that Ryan would withhold a sort of pledge of loyalty to Jordan and also because it was part of a general climate which is leading virtually every Republican in the House to state categorically that Jim Jordan cannot be lying and is somehow singular in his integrity despite the fact that everyone can see that his denials are increasingly absurd.

As I noted on Tuesday, House Republicans’ lemming-like behavior seems almost inexplicable if your eyes are open and you’ve been even passingly aware of how these athletics program abuse scandals and investigations, stretching over years or decades, tend to unfold at big public universities. But it’s only inexplicable if you haven’t been watching Capitol Hill over the last decade. Jordan’s ‘Freedom Caucus’, albeit only made up of about three dozen members but with increasing success over the years, basically dictates what happens in the House whether it’s government shutdowns, debt ceiling hostage crises, running John Boehner out of the Speakership.

The particular dynamics of why this is the case – why roughly 1/10th of the House has been able to control its function – is beyond the scope of this or any other single post. It has to do with ideology, Fox News, the fragmentation of the GOP and its accelerating transformation from a conventional Western center-right party to a party on the model of ethno-nationalist parties in Europe. It is also part and parcel of why Donald Trump became Republican nominee and then later President. As Will Saletan put it in a particularly apt metaphor in 2016, the GOP is a failed state and Donald Trump is its warlord. If Trump became its warlord, the Freedom Caucus, which only formally broke off from the existing right-wing House GOP Caucus (the Republican Study Committee) in 2015, was its falangist army. As Jordan himself told a hometown paper when he founded the group, echoing the descriptions of numerous disciplined revolutionary organizations, he wanted it “to be a “smaller, more cohesive, more agile and more active” organization than the Republican Study Committee.

And that they did.

There is so much more to say here. But the really important point is that Jordan, who with his colleagues forged an engine that could dominate the entire GOP and with it in some way the whole country, has now turned that engine to the task of his own self-preservation. He has managed to make it something like a test of party discipline and core ideology to insist that he is blameless, knew nothing about the abuse in his program and that all his accusers are liars operating on behalf of the Deep State.

Jordan is lying. It’s already obvious that he’s lying. The people lining up to support him certainly know he’s lying. But the power he and his rightist cadre have amassed is enough to make that not matter. The fact that this appears to be an abuse scandal on a par with Penn State and the US Olympic gymnastic team (though each is of course its own unique story) and that there are apparently hundreds of men who were abused simply doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t with Roy Moore. But more information will come out. It will get worse. And all his colleagues have willingly shackled themselves to Jordan and his fate.

Max Fisher

@Max_Fisher

It’s very possible that we are on the cusp of a history-changing collapse of the Western security order based on one person’s mistaken belief that European defense budgets are payments to the United States.

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Over the weekend I flagged this video clip of Fox Business News’ Maria Bartiromo previewing her weekend show. Today we picked up clips from the show itself. The gist in both cases is Bartiromo, once a reasonably well-respected business news journalist, is aping the wildest conspiracy theories about a ‘deep state’ conspiracy against President Trump. Watching the reaction to her comments put me in the mind of a topic I have been wanting to write about for some time but don’t yet know enough to fully capture it in its fullness.

There’s something about New York, New York City, that is, that is at the root of the Trump phenomenon. This comes from watching the Trump story unfold over the last three years. It also comes from my own experiences living here for fifteen years.

New York City is a liberal city, probably the most progressive big city in the country, as far as it goes. Yet its power structure, its money class includes a whole community of people with extreme wealth who live in a culture in which predation and acquisition is the norm.

Some of it is rooted in the culture of the big city real estate dynasties.

Consider a few facts. We know about the Trump family, not even that big a real estate family in the city, despite their pretensions. We know about the deep corruption they are based on. A couple decades ago the head of another of these families was arrested for trying to hire a hitman to kill his business partner. The heir of another of these families appears to be a serial killer. The head of another of these families – sort of a cadet branch from New Jersey – got in a dispute with his brother-in-law and hired a prostitute to have sex with the brother-in-law, film the sex and blackmail him. That guy is Jared Kushner’s father. All three went to prison. That’s just a subsection of the stories which police uncovered, certainly just scratching the surface.

There’s a lot of weird transgressive behavior for only a tiny community of people. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. There’s a TV show close, to literally based on the mix of power and bad acts of these people. Outside the real estate families, there’s simply the New York City investor class. I’ve crossed paths with a few of these people over the years living here. One I shut down half a dozen years ago when he was trying to get me to write a hit piece that his paymaster wanted to get published about Eric Schneiderman of all people. To be clear, it had nothing to do with any of the bad acts that ended Schneiderman’s career a few weeks ago. It had to do with an obscure claim of unethical legal practices that didn’t even hold up. Earlier this year I got a phone call from this character out of the blue with a series of totally insane threats. “You fucking cock-sucker, I’ll destroy you!” Weird stuff. But that’s how they talk and think.

There’s a whole ecosystem of these predators, operating in the city’s real estate world, its investor class, on Wall Street. When I heard those tape recordings of a young Donald Trump and Roy Cohn hard-selling that Forbes reporter on the idea Trump had a net worth of literally 100 times his actual net worth I recognized it. I heard the high-velocity hard sell voice – back at it again and again and again, bam, bam, bam – it was the same carnivorous voice I’d had with this other guy a month or two earlier. It’s of a piece with the various Trump rackets we’ve learned about. It’s the Scaramucci talk. Whatever world he was in before he left the Mayor’s office, Giuliani has marinated in that world for the almost two decades since he left office. Roger Ailes was part of it.

Ailes is important because at least the current version of this New York power and predator class I’m describing is heavily bound up with Fox News. That’s another part of the connection with Trump, even though a lot of the people – Trump included – were once at least nominal Democrats. The Kushners, of course, were major, major Democratic donors. Indeed, that’s one of the striking things about the Trump Family, in the mafia sense. A lot of the biggest players, maybe even most, were Democrats before Trump came to power. The key is they come from a place where party affiliations are more like factions in a 15th-century Italian city-state than what we think of as modern political parties. It’s about personalities, money, and power. That world I said Giuliani was marinating in for two decades is the city’s GOP money world, except of course when it overlaps with the Democratic power brokers.

One of the deepest dynamics of the Trump presidency is his mounting rage at his inability to control the press. To a degree, this is simply that nothing is like the national political press in scandal mode. No matter what pond you’re from or how big it was, nothing compares. But a major part of the story is how well Trump did working and directing and playing the New York City press for decades. They ate out of his hand. All the crime and money laundering and crazy bad acts went mostly unreported in the big papers – and this is in the national media capital.

I’ve been thinking about this for months. As you can see, my thoughts about it are still quite inchoate and incomplete, fragmentary. I was excited to read Frank Rich’s recent essay about Roy Cohn and Donald Trump. It’s the closest I’ve read to a discussion of this. But it’s still somehow different. It’s more focused on indictment than capturing the milieu, how the social sickness of Cohn/Trumpism was allowed to germinate in the city’s political and money class. This isn’t a criticism. It’s quite good. I strongly recommend it. It’s just maybe thirty degrees off the piece, the discussion I’m thinking of.

To some degree, this is probably just the confluence of vast wealth and power, no different in New York than anywhere else they come together in such vast and raw proportions. When I flagged that Bartiromo clip I mentioned above, several people said to me, ‘What happened to Maria Bartiromo?’ When did she get so nuts? To me, there was zero mystery. She’s part of that milieu I’m describing. Of course, she’s singing from the same page. They all are.

With all this, there’s something specifically New York to it. Trump is an outlier. In most respects, he’s considered a clown and always was considered a clown by the New York City money and political elite. But he’s of it to a great degree, the voracious appetite and instinctive predation. There’s a common New York root to all of it. But it’s also somehow a story about early 21st century plutocracy, media barons like Murdoch, foreign kleptocrats like the ones who seem to have bought into Trump and channeled his rise to power toward their goals. It’s all of a piece.

sadboybrigade:

allthecanadianpolitics:

Read the rest of the twitter essay on Calgary’s bootleg Pizza delivery companies here

Definitely the highlight of tonight was stumbling on this. Calgary WTF.

every day we get closer to Snow Crash

Journalist and advertising consultant B.J. Mendelson (author of Social Media is Bullshit) was interviewed in the C-Realm podcast about the ineffectiveness of using social media to promote your book or small business. Root Simple has a summary of Mendelson's findings:

Any of you who administrate a Facebook page for a business or non-profit will know that unless you pay, Facebook’s algorithm will bury your posts. Some other points Mendelson makes in the interview:

• A 1% click through rate on a paid post is often as good as it gets.
• Eighty percent of Facebook users are outside of the U.S. If you’re a local business, like say a plant nursery, what good is paying to reach someone in Latvia?
• Bots equal 60% of internet traffic (something to think about when looking at your stats).
• What happens if you rely on Facebook as a platform for your business and, like so many other internet companies of the past, Facebook goes out of business?

To illustrate how social media companies exaggerate their advertising power Mendelson offers a personal example. He has 700,000 Twitter followers. When he sent out a tweet about his new book he sold, not hundreds or thousands of copies, but exactly 28. A tweet to his 700,000 Twitter followers asking for a donation to a breast cancer charity netted just $1. While acknowledging that social media can, occasionally, be an effective advertising medium, for most of us it’s probably a big waste of time.

I thought it was funny how they kept having Erik Killmonger do irrationally psychopathic things, just in case the audience starts wondering why they're supposed to side with a moderate CIA-backed autocrat.

★★★★★

themodernsouthernpolytheist:

hymnsofheresy:

stoneandbloodandwater:

fromchaostocosmos:

fromchaostocosmos:

cutecreative:

hymnsofheresy:

hachama:

hymnsofheresy:

ravenclaw-burning:

hymnsofheresy:

when christian artists change the line in hallelujah from “maybe there’s a God above” to “I know that there’s a God above” >:c

#idk why i’m so unreasonably angry#maybe cuz it’s my fav line

it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired

THAT IS EXACTLY WHY

I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

um woah

I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??

In Yiddish

In Hebrew

In Ladino

Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.

None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace - you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.

Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise - hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.

Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.

(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)

holy shit. woah.

To @stoneandbloodandwater, thanks for that detailed breakdown! That’s really interesting! And to your point of Christians and this song, I can’t speak so much to those who are still Christian and like it, but as an ex-Christian who always had questions and doubts, this song always seemed to strum at those heartstrings for me. Even as a kid, I felt the pain in the song, though obviously didn’t understand it in a complex way. But now, it still resonates with me and the struggle with anger and doubt in terms of faith and religion. One of my all-time favorite songs for sure.

theeirini:

garbage-empress:

aleshakills:

thetransbutch:

hooligan-nova:

It’s too bad trans girls are in so much danger from police and social violence because otherwise they’d be the perfect group to push the envelope on “Free the Nipple”.

Unless they get their gender markers changed they’re legally allowed to be topless in public.

Except we’re not even apparently legally allowed to do that:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1097978

“Andrea Jones was arrested for indecent exposure after taking her shirt off after the Morristown Driver’s License Office refused to change her sex from male to female on her driver’s license.”

Numerous trans women over the years, with or without their legal markers changed, have been arrested for public indency for toplessness, in states where men can be topless, before being charged and jailed with men.

The state has absolutely no problem using unfair double standards to punish trans women just for existing.

If you’ve ever wanted a perfect example of why the term “transmisogyny” exists, here you go. Trans women are only called male when people want to insult us or put up a convenient roadblock. All the other times we’re regarded as a lesser class of woman.

Thiisss. Transmisogyny is being treated like a woman but being called a man and being told you shouldn’t complain about how you’re treated because you’re supposedly treated like a man lmao.

revolutionaryduelist:

Sorry 2 be That Guy but i just get…such intense Vriska Serket vibes…from Cio’s everything. I just had to make a post compiling my favorite pages from Cio’s arc because jesus fuck, i love this sad blue demon girl and how much she wants to be good. I’m fucked up. @arrghus has killed me with this webcomic and now I must gush.

One of my patrons found references to Lilith as a “blue butterfly demon” so honestly I’m starting to wonder if Vriska and Cio are drawing upon a common mythological image or something. Then again, from what I’ve heard, abaddon is at least a former homestuck and killsixbilliondemons started on the MSPA forums. So who knows.

I hope stuff like this isn’t rude to post, I know its kinda spoilers for a pretty complex and gorgeous comic, but frankly I just want people to know how good and worth their time this is so maybe putting this out there will interest some people.

Anyway. Kill 6 billion demons. It’s good and gay, pls read it.

a pokemon clone where combat is all your monsters persuading the other monsters that their material conditions are oppressive and they should join your mass worker’s movement

Trump is freaking out over Michael Wolff's new behind the scenes book about the Trumpian White House, Fire and Fury:

I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018

Wolff couldn't be more pleased by Trump's meltdown, and his attempt to stop the book's publication. "Where do I send the box of chocolates?" Wolff said in an interview on NBC's "Today":

From NBC:

Michael Wolff, the author of a new book that gives a behind-the-scenes account of the White House, defended his work Friday, insisting he spoke with President Donald Trump on the record and calling the commander in chief "a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth."

Wolff, in an exclusive interview on NBC's "Today," said that everyone he spoke to for the book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," described the president the same way.

"I will tell you the one description that everyone gave, everyone has in common: They all say he is like a child," Wolff explained. "And what they mean by that is, he has a need for immediate gratification. It is all about him."

Wolff added that "100 percent of the people around" Trump, "senior advisers, family members, every single one of them, questions his intelligence and fitness for office."

Fire and Fury is currently the best-selling book on Amazon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXntoTverSg&feature=youtu.be

YouTube stars Alissa Violet and Ricky “FaZe” Banks were ejected Saturday night from a Cleveland pub. FaZe ranted on his stream. Violet, selfying her way to hospital, sported a fat lip. The couple immediately went on an online offensive, identifying the Barley House and claiming to have been innocent victims of its bouncers. What happened next is all too predictable: their army of millions of social media fans formed an "unrelenting internet harassment campaign," issuing insults, death threats, some even driving hours to intimidate staff in person.

Violet’s fans view her not as just a celebrity but one of their closest friends. She posts daily videos about her life in Los Angeles, photos of recent modeling shoots, jokes, and personal stories on Twitter and Snapchat. She tends to her legion by faving tweets, shouting out fans, and making her followers feel like they’re intimately involved in every detail of her life.

Her online army dedicates an enormous amount of time to watching her videos, commenting on her posts, and setting up stan accounts in her likeness. When they saw someone had hurt her on Saturday night, that fanbase didn’t ask questions.

But the Barley House has the receipts, and, it turns out, the gumption to post them in public: security footage recorded that night that shows the pair instigated all the trouble, were ejected without harm, then got into a fight outside with other patrons. Banks even appears to throw a glass into the crowd.

After a crazy few days of cyber bullying including death threats to our employees, our website being hacked, our social media channels forced to be privatized, and false online review efforts to punish our reputation, we finally get the opportunity to put the facts together of what really happened and clear our name of Ricky Banks' and Alissa Violet's accusations towards Barley House.

It seems almost a caricature of the narcissistic, talentless YouTube star — the sort of inexplicable fame that turns everyone over the age of 18 into an out-of-touch curmudgeon.

But what's interesting is that hardly anyone over the age of 18 even knows about these people. Neither the media nor mainstream America is watching the massive, invisible personality cults of YouTube form. It's inconceivable to us that children (let alone ourselves) would watch losers like Violet and Banks jabber on, every available hour they have.

The rambling vanity of YouTube's angry alt-right nerds gives us a mistaken impression of the medium's power, especially given the obvious danger of their IRL brethren on the far right. But if this is what a pair of bullshitting numpties like Banks and Violet can summon, imagine what a person with genuine charisma and drive could do. Soon, a YouTuber is going to take an audience of millions places.

This isn't suspicious, no, not at all.

On Saturday, David Orr of Bloomington, Indiana posted a photo of his entry in a local pie contest on Twitter and immediately got a big reaction. Why? Because Orr used the words "No Spiders in Here" as his apple pie's crust. https://twitter.com/anatotitan/status/919376013704007681

The internet had a few things to say about it:

Orr then posted a photo of another entry in the contest, one with (plastic) spiders on it: https://twitter.com/anatotitan/status/919582945236733952

By Sunday evening, his totally spiderless pie was nearly gone. https://twitter.com/anatotitan/status/919734024209424386

Oh yeah, he only won SECOND place in the contest. Robbed, I tell you!

WaPo: “And as Tillerson has traveled the globe, Trump believes his top diplomat often seems more concerned with what the world thinks of the United States than with tending to the president’s personal image.” 

memecucker:

I do think the Puritans are the closest we’ve had to a real word version of fantasy novel cults that openly worship an evil deity that is openly evil and upfront about waning to tyrannies and enslave all beings

this is more important than anything else. people think of art as “ideas” but what they really mean is “the miracle of editing all the ideas in the universe down to the razor extrusion of a discrete object”.

most media isn’t good, it’s just finished. that’s what people pay for.

fuckinwordsmithery:

I’m attracted to very weird writers and artists a lot of the time. I don’t just mean writers and artists who work with unconventional or strange subject matter, or who use unconventional or strange techniques— although I do also mean that. Nor do I just mean writers and artists who have a couple prominent eccentricities, or whose personalities are sort of large and colorful. Although I do also mean that, too— although-although, I’m not sure there are that many people involved in creative professions like fiction authoring or comic book making or singer-songwriting who aren’t eccentric and/or larger than life to a certain extent. (It’s like engineers and pedantry, or being a middle school gym teacher and having a mildly sadistic streak. They go together.)

What I mean is people who are so weird that, reading interviews about them, reading about their lives or whatever, you quickly realize that there’s probably something really off-normal about their actual, physical brains. Like, they are literally crazy in some way— not “mentally ill” necessarily, although some are. Just crazy. It doesn’t need to be a craziness that makes it difficult or impossible for the person to function in everyday life, or that makes them miserable, or that prevents them from making meaningful connections with other people. As an example, David Lynch for sure has this quality to him, but he appears to be a perfectly (albeit unconventionally) functional, very successful human being who is likely much happier in general than the average man off the street. Then again, a lot of people who fall into this category are inarguably very troubled, depressed, dysfunctional, etc. Shirley Jackson was one of those.

(Probably more extremely troubled, depressed, dysfunctional, etc. artists fall into this category than do not, but just as the type of craziness I’m talking about doesn’t have to equate to anything debilitating, neither does every severely depressed, traumatized, drug addicted, etc. etc. etc. artist have the sort of craziness I mean. There may be a lot of correlation, but they are ultimately separate categories of person– you could be in either one without being in the other be default. I wouldn’t say Dorothy Parker had it, this type of craziness, for instance, or David Foster Wallace, even though both were suicidally depressed people with other mental health problems on top of that. But Franz Kafka did have it. Edward Gorey did, too, although he was another functional and balanced sort. Tommy Wiseau does, which I think is one reason his particular brand of bad acting, writing, and filmmaking is so memorable and watchable for so many people. I’m not a Harlan Ellison fan, really, but he’s got it, too— and Stephen King definitely doesn’t. Judee Sill and Jun Togawa are some musical examples of the type of person I mean. Joanna Newsom might be. The vast, vast majority of people who get called “outsider artists” absolutely are.)

It’s funny, this category is entirely clear, if broad, in my head, but pretty much impossible to describe and delineate using words. Especially if I want to avoid going into seriously offensive territory by mistake.

…I think a part of what I’m getting at, a part of this quality that draws and fascinates me, is, I always get the sense that these are people who live in a sort of distinct translucent parallel bubble universe all their own. They can move through and interact with our world, but it’s always gonna be cast in the warp and tint of that bubble’s outer wall for them.

“Lia,” you might say, rolling your eyes, “that’s true of literally every human being. We all have our own specific, idiosyncratic personal perspectives and senses and ways of interpreting information and experiences. We can’t remove ourselves from ourselves and get rid of that bias, or see exactly how things appear through anyone else’s eyes. Nobody on Earth can do that.”

To which I’d respond, “Well, duh, but I mean, like, in an especially extreme way? A way that makes a person just a little bit obviously alien to everyone else. A way that can be hard for most other people to accept without resorting to assumptions like ’this must be a self-consciously WEIRD persona they affect for people who are expecting them to be MEGA WEIRD; nobody’s Actually Just Like That’.”

But these people Actually Are; a key part of the type of person I’m talking about here is, while they have some affectations because all people have affectations, they’re really not trying to be weird at all. At least, I don’t get that sense. They have some awareness that other people think they’re strange— although I think they often underestimate the extent of their strangeness, and the extent to which it’s remarked on by others— and they might like that, or dislike that, or not care one way or another. But the strangeness comes naturally to them, and they’d never be able to think, behave, or communicate in a non-strange manner, even if they wanted to.

I suppose part of me envies this type of person, this type of artist. Inside their soap or plastic or glass bubbles, they seem…safe, I suppose, in a way. Not safe from a lot of things, but somewhat naturally protected against at least a few aspects of life’s venal banality, or its meaninglessness, or all the conceptual lenses people are constantly trying to wedge onto one another’s brains— when these people make art, they’re not trying to force a lens over your gray matter, at least not for keeps. They’re just trying to tell you about what they see, and what they see is rare and marvelous even when it’s unpleasant or disturbing or sad (and, frankly, even when the artist themselves seems happy and well-adjusted? it very often is). And it usually coheres, in its own way. I envy that, too. Coherency, a certain sureness of perspective. A perspective strong enough that I do almost feel, for a moment, like I’ve slipped into somebody else’s snowglobe world, for real. Shake the glitter down over me, or the chips of lead paint, or the tiny white crustaceans, or whatever passes for snow here.

Then again, I think part of the draw is also, somehow, that I’m a little afraid of becoming this type of person, or of already being this type of person and not quite realizing it— but the dysfunctional variant, the kind without the skill or talent or drive to convey their perspective to others. Not that I think I’m so rare or special, just unfortunately detuned and out of sync. Isolated in my skull, or just overly aware of the isolation inherent to having a mind that can know it’s a mind. When I try to communicate, it’s like I’m spilling buckets of brine down a cement walkway, without purpose, or like I’m just parroting responses to stimulus; a neuron fired and the standard lineup of words comes out the hands, the mouth. I’m usually pretty comfortable with being a totally vapid person, but there’s a large enough germ cluster or fungal growth of non-vapidity growing somewhere in the depths of me that I get dissatisfied with it at times. I get extremely dissatisfied with it. I often feel I understand both a lot more and a lot less than I’d like to about the machinations of humanity in general, you know?

Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Anyone have thoughts? Clarifications?

Anyway, what I like is when you ( “you” as in “me”, or “a hypothetical person I imagine might feel similar to myself”, colloquial “you”) read or watch or hear something and it’s strikingly obvious right away that it is the unselfconsciously bizarre product of a really, deeply, grotesquely and beautifully unusual brain, ideally also gifted to you without much pretense or concern about whether you’ll be able to understand and follow it, whether you’ll agree or disagree with whatever you think it’s Trying To Tell You— it is what it is. Aliens walk among us and magic is almost real. Disgusting, sordid magic.

…Or, I mean, it doesn’t have to be disgusting. Maybe I just like gross shit, and that’s its whole own separate thing.

i was talking to pip about this earlier, and pip seemed to know what i meant

“All my life I have overheard, all my life I have listened to what people will let slip when they think you are part of their we. A we is so powerful. It is the most corrupt and formidable institution on earth. its hands are full of the crispest and most persuasive currency. Its mouth is full of received, repeating language. The we closes its ranks to protect the space inside it, where the air is different. It does not protect people. It protects its own shape.”

- “Priestdaddy,” Patricia Lockwood
(via dorothea-rising)

Getting on other people’s emotional roller coasters…

Support Kimchi Cuddles by becoming a patron! Thank you SO MUCH for your support!! ♥ https://www.patreon.com/kimchicuddles

Vera is described contrarily as conniving and mean yet delicate and vulnerable to injuries. 

College Republicans at Central Michigan University handed out Valentine's Day cards mocking Jews who died in the Holocaust. "my love 4 u burns like 6,000 jews" ... really.

Meet the cucks of the #NeverTrump movement:

reading this i realized: the left has made the right perform respectability, and the right has made the left give up any principles. guess which one is easily recovered?

Available for tattooing in March. Ideally this image would be used as a stencil roughly twice the size it was drawn and rendered more fully with another round of detail/dotwork/texture and would cover your entire shin, calf, thigh, or comparable area. Depending on the size the piece would cost anywhere between $300 and $600. Preference will be given to applicants who want to do the piece larger. We would do this in either one five hour session or two three-ish hour sessions, so being in driving distance of me is ideal! This is a part of a series of predesigned images I’m releasing to lean into new approaches to my tattoo practice. Please email brighthollowtattooing@gmail.com with the title in the subject (not intended to be tattooed) to apply for the piece if you’re interested!

misanthrobot:

kaasknot:

thleeny:

kaasknot:

Someone please tell my id that it doesn’t need me to write a thousand-page parody of Victor Hugo’s Star Wars, no matter how “awesome” or “fun” it may sound at first

oh my god please, please do

La Guerre des étoiles

UN ESPOIR NOUVEL

Book the First: A Solitary Man

I. Ben Kenobi

In Year 20 of the Empire (Year 10,191 since the forming of the Coruscant Convention), Ben Kenobi was a hermit living beyond the Dune Sea. He was an old man of about fifty-nine years of age; he had occupied his tiny desert hovel since Year 0.

Although it has little direct impact on the story we are about to relate, it nevertheless behooves the author to reveal, if only for the sake of completeness and exactness, the various rumors that circulated the person of “Old Ben” Kenobi. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. Very little was known about Ben Kenobi, in honest truth; it was widely known that he was an offworlder, and a recent newcomer to the barrel soil of Tatooine; it was less-widely known, though no secret, for Kenobi himself would say as much to those who asked, that he was from the planet Stewjon, in the Daly System. How he had come to reside on Tatooine was the source of much speculation.

Once one entered the realm of rumor, however, the accounts varied widely: he was a wizard, some said, or a crazy old man parched by the lack of company. He was alternately a scholar, a monk, a widower, or a scarred veteran of the Clone Wars, come to find what peace was left to him; the fruit-seller at the edge of Mos Eisley, where he came once a month to replenish his stores, claimed he was the last Jedi Knight, fled to the Outer Rim to hide from the depredations of the Empire. In spite of this wide-ranging gossip, or perhaps because of it, Ben Kenobi cut a dashing, mysterious figure to the starved minds of the out-flung desert settlements in which his name was known. He was well-formed, and although shorter than human standard, was still taller than many of the specimens to be found in Tatooine’s slums. He was well-spoken, conscientious, graceful, and learned; he spoke of distant worlds with the familiarity of a spacer and the precision of a Hutt.

as soon as i saw “Although it has little direct impact on the story we are about to relate” i knew this was a solid parody