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midwestmade29 · 5 months

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Christian Cage Request 🥰

To anonymous: This was such a sweet idea! I hope what I wrote matches what you had in mind. Enjoy 🖤

Original Anonymous Request: "Can I request a Christian Cage x Female!Reader where the reader is Christian’s wife since he first started with WWE (Basically as if he married the reader when he did instead of his ex wife) and he comes home from being on the road with AEW to his wife, who’s heavily pregnant and has been having some slight complications, curled up in bed with their daughter, Isla, who’s cuddling with her mom because she knows she hasn’t been feeling the best and Christian can’t help but melt at the sight of his girls. He ends up taking a few weeks off to tend to his girls and make sure his love is okay?"

Disclaimers: None really! This story is fluff. It does cover pregnancy and high blood pressure but that’s it. Read at your own discretion.

Word count: 1,096

Divider by: @saradika-graphics

Braxton hicks: false contractions

Paternity leave: The time off a new father is given after the birth of his baby.

Your 20-year wedding anniversary was rapidly approaching, along with the birth of your 2nd child! A lot has happened during the last 20 years, first meeting Christian when he was working for WWE, getting married and eventually having your daughter Isla, and Christian being forced into retirement due to his injuries he sustained in the ring. Not every moment was good, but you worked together to get through the challenging times. Seeing Christian as a dad was the best thing in the world, Isla had him wrapped around her little finger! Ever since Isla could talk, she had always begged for a little brother or sister. Time marched on and she remained an only child- until now! When you and Christian saw the positive pregnancy test, both of you were shocked! Even though the timing is a little off since Isla is almost 10 years old now and with Christian officially coming out of retirement to wrestle again, you just knew everything would work out somehow!

Christian’s travel schedule with AEW was hard to adjust to at first since you and Isla were so used to having him home every day. He often missed out on the big and little things that were going on with you and Isla, which made being a part even more difficult. Phone calls, text messages and Facetime helped ease the sting of his absence, but nothing could compare to the feeling of being snuggled up with him in bed or the sound of laughter echoing through the house as him and Isla played together! Lately his popularity amongst the fans had skyrocketed which put him in high demand for being on TV more often. Christian was on the road more than he was at home now! The stress of being as pregnant are you are along with trying to take care of Isla on your own was starting to wear on you. At your most recent doctor’s appointment, your blood pressure was elevated and was most likely caused from the anxiety you were feeling about Christian leaving tomorrow for 2 weeks. On top of your high blood pressure, your anxiety made you as nauseous as you were during your first trimester! Your doctor informed you that she was going to be keeping a close eye on you, and if your blood pressure didn’t lower within the next week, you would be given medicine or placed on bed rest. You didn’t care for either of those options, so you promised her that you would do your best to lower your stress!

Isla was such a trooper while Christian was gone! She always helped around the house and very rarely complained about it. Her caring and nurturing soul shinned through every time she asked if there was something she could get you or do for you. She always tried to make you laugh or offer you a hug when she could tell you needed it the most. One of her favorite things to do at bedtime is to snuggle up next to you and rest her head on your belly. She loved feeling the baby move and kick! Isla kept one of your ultrasound pictures on her nightstand and you often caught her staring at it instead of trying to fall asleep. It made your heart happy seeing her so excited about the baby, and you just knew she was going to be the best big sister ever!

During your Facetime call with Christian, you informed him about the good report your doctor had given you earlier in the day! “She said that my blood pressure is exactly where it should be. No medicine or bed rest for me! I told the doctor that my nausea hasn’t been as frequent as it was, but she did give me some over the counter medicine suggestions in case it starts up again. All in all, the appointment went great, and mom and baby are healthy!” you explained. Christian’s smile was contagious, and his words were heartfelt when he spoke, “That’s wonderful news baby! I’m so glad that you’re feeling better. I miss you and Isla like crazy! Hopefully the rest of this road trip goes by quickly so I can come home to my girls!” What Christian didn’t tell you during your conversation was that Tony Kahn informed him that they had everything they needed from him so he could go home a few days early! The very next night when you had finished reading a book with Isla, both of you had fallen asleep in her bed. It had been a little bit of a rough day since your feet and ankles were swollen and you had a headache you just couldn’t shake. When Christian walked into Isla’s bedroom, he saw both of his girls snuggled up together in a sea of various stuffed animals. You still had the book open on your chest and Isla had her hand on your belly. He made sure to take a picture of the sweet moment before he woke both of you up and surprised you.

The next couple of weeks were filled with several ups and downs regarding your pregnancy. You had caught the flu leaving you dehydrated which led to you being admitted into the hospital for a couple of days. Thankfully you felt much better afterwards, but that good feeling didn’t last very long. You started having minor contractions late one night, so Christian called your doctor. She explained what to look for if they continued, but ultimately determined they were just Braxton hicks. Because you were so close to the end of your pregnancy, Christian started his paternity leave early! He took the next several weeks off so he could be home and make sure his girls were taken care of. He waited on you hand and foot and took care of everything around the house. Isla and Christian were the dream team whenever they worked together to complete a task, their love for each other made your heart swell! He embraced homework duty, went with you to all your remaining doctor appointments, ran all the errands, went out late at night to get you whatever you were craving, and even took care of everything during Isla’s sleepover she had with her friends. In the end, it was a good thing Christian had taken time off from AEW because your baby was born within the first week of him being home. Your beautiful and healthy baby boy was born on your 20th wedding anniversary, the perfect gift to celebrate such a milestone!

#christian cage #jay reso #captain charisma #instant classic #christian4peeps #aew #all elite wrestling #fanfiction #fanfic #christian cage fanfic #christian cage fanfiction #aew fanfiction #Spotify

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365days365movies · 3 years

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March 12, 2021: Jason and the Argonauts (1963) (Part Two)

Probably shouldn’t have talked so much in the first part...

Well, it’s all good. Epic-length Recap for a movie about an epic tale! Greek mythology, man, what can I say? Other than, of course, let’s keep going! Part One of the Recap is right here!

Recap (2/2)

OK, so where were we? OH RIGHT, Heracles fucked up!

See, Talos is a bronze giant with various origins. In one case, like in the movie, he was built by Hephaestus. He was built with a single vein, which ran from his neck to his ankle, and contained a golden ichor that sustained him like blood. Said vein was protected by a nail in his ankle, and he would bleed out and fall to the ground useless if it were removed.

So, sure, I could talk about the fact that Talos only encountered the Argo on the return journey, after they’d gotten the Fleece already, and that all he did was throw rocks at them as they passed the island of Crete (which he protected), only for...somebody who’s coming in later...to put him to sleep, allowing the group to pass. But, uh...

Yeah, that’s cool as shit. Which the Argo basically FUCKED for now, Jason speaks with the figurehead of Hera, and asks for some advice. She simply says to look to his ankles. I like where this is going. She also tells him that this is Heracles’ fault, which I’m sure pissed her off even more, given their history. That’s confirmed when Jason and the remaining Argonauts make it to shore, and Heracles is still holding the staff, the great idjit.

Jason quickly formulates a plan, and the Argonauts keep Talos’ attention while he gets close to observe his ankles. He notices a large stopper in the back, and sneaks up behind him to remove it. And once he does, the ichor releases itself. And it looks...awesome? Holy shit, it looks awesome.

And Talos falls to the ground, broken and dead, but at a cost. He falls on top of the frail Hylas, almost certainly killing him. Damn, poor dude. They repair the ship, and also try to find Hylas amongst the rubble and on the beach. An extremely guilty Heracles pledges not to leave the island until he finds Hylas, alive or dead.

The rest of the Argonauts aren’t happy about this, and refuse to sail without the guy who’s inarguably the most powerful amongst them all. Jason decides to burn his last bit of help from Hera, who informs ALL of the Argonauts that Hylas is dead, and that Heracles is not fated to accompany them any further. Which, yeah, is similar to how that plays out in the myths. And so, off they go to find a blinded man named Phineus, on Hera’s command.

Phineus (Patrick Troughton), meanwhile, isn’t having the best time in the world. On the island of Thrace, the seer Phineus is being attacked by the vicious Harpies, pictured here as demonic women with the wings of bats. Phineus, see, was punished by Zeus or revealing the future to mankind, and was both blinded and beset upon by the Harpies for all of his days.

The Argonauts save him from the Harpies’ recent torment, and Phineus agrees to help them IF Jason can permanently free him from the Harpies. Jason agrees, although Zeus is seemingly pissed off by this promise. The deed is accomplished by having Phineus serve as bait to the admittedly badly composited Harpies, and the Argonauts capture them by using nets to trap them.

And no, that’s not how it goes down in the original myth. But, since the Wind Brothers aren’t in here, there’s not an option for an aerial chase between them and the Harpies, which...holy shit, I NEED this to be in a modern movie, can we remake this? Please? PLEASE??

Now that they’ve completed their side of the bargain, Phineus feasts and gives them directions to Colchis: go through the Clashing Rocks, and head from there to Colchis. Without the protection of the gods at this point, Phineus offers them a clay token of some kind, and they part ways. The Argonauts make their way to the Clashing Rocks, which seem totally fine. But Argos is suspecious of this, not trusting Poseidon and other gods of the sea. They observe another ship coming through the Rocks. And it initially seems fine...until...

The rocks tear the other ship apart, and also cause the deaths of one of the Argonauts as well. The other ship sinks, but Jason insists on going through despite this. He says that the gods want their entertainment. Zeus overhears that, and says that he’s going to far with that comment. However, and unhappy Hera agrees with Jason, that the gods themselves are going to fair with this gambit.

In their little game in Olympus, Hera is left with only one movie, which she enacts as Jason throws the clay token into the sea. And from it...

Holy shit, it’s Triton (Bill Gudgeon)! A merman (and eventual father of a Little Mermaid), Triton was the son of Poseidon and the sea goddess Amphitrite. A messenger for his father, Triton is one of the most prominent symbols of the sea gods, which aren’t limited to Poseidon. And while he had absolutely nothing to do with the Clashing Rocks, he did encounter the Argonauts on their journey back. But yeah, not much to his appearance there that warrants mention.

What DOES warrant mention is what happens afterwards. See, the Argonauts row like hell, and they make it through with Triton’s help. But Jason sees a survivor of the other ship’s destruction. That survivor is...Medea (Nancy Kovack).

WHAT

Um...no. Medea, see, is the daughter of the King of Colchis, Aeëtes. She’s the head priestess of Hecate, and a powerful sorceress in her own right. She meets Jason on Colchis, and definitely had no ability to leave the island on her own, or even with other people in general. Once meeting Jason on Colchis, she quickly fell in love with him, and agreed to show him to the Fleece IF he pledged to get her off of the island. He agrees, and the two get married.

But Jason DEFINITELY doesn’t rescue Medea from a shipwreck, that’s for goddamn sure. Still, OK, I’ll deal with it. Jason and Medea introduce themselves, and the group heads towards Colchis. In the process, Jason decides to scout on the island alone, to the anger of Acastus. However, Jason’s now learned exactly who Acastus and his father are, and accuses him of trying to kill him. A fight ensues, and Acastus is thrown overboard. Son of Poseidon Euphemus (Doug Robinson), is sent after him, but the traitorous Acastus kills him, and disappears beneath the ocean waves.

On Colchis soon after, Medea heals Jason’s wounds with the nectar of a native flower, then invites him and the Argonauts to the performance of a ritual to Hecate, goddess of sorcery and magic. Also attending this ritual is Medea’s father, King Aeëtes (Jack Gwillim). There, he waits to meet with Jason, whom he invites to dine with them that evening, along with the Argonauts.

Jason is a bit caught off-guard by this, but they accept. At dinner, Aeëtes reveals that he knows he’s come for the Fleece, to take or steal it from Colchis. He’s been warned of this not by Medea, but of Acastus, who managed to make his way to the island after all. Dick. Jason and the Argonauts are imprisoned by Aeëtes and his men.

That night, Medea goes to pray to Hecate, the goddess of darkness who gave her the gift of foresight. In love with Jason, she decides to betray both Colchis and Hecate’s will in order to save Jason and his Argonauts. And as she goes to free Jason, this is a great time to talk briefly about one of the most complicated characters in Greek mythology: Medea. This is gonna be a little long, so you can skip it if you wanna just get back to the movie.

See, here’s the thing about worshipping a chaotic evil Greek goddess: you've gotta be a little chaotic evil yourself. And Medea...oh boy, Medea. In order to escape her dad, Medea distracts him by killing her brother. Yeah. She made amends for that act with the gods, and then helped to heal Atalanta, and defeat Talos. She also helped Jason’s dad, and Jason eventually fell in love with him, with some...help from Hera. That help resulted in Medea helping to kill Pelias, then fleeing to Corinth with Medea, where they married.

But 10 years of being married, Jason decided it would be a good idea to cheat on the terrifying chaotic evil sorceress for a younger woman. Which is when Hera, the GODDESS OF MARRIAGE, finally abandoned Jason. Medea, meanwhile, LOST it. She gave Jason’s new fiancée a poisoned wedding dress. She killed the bride AND her father in one fell shot when she hugged him. In front of him, she KILLED THEIR TWO SONS, then took the FUCK OFF FOREVER, leaving Jason a broken fucking husk, partially because of his own stupidity.

So, you can see why this little union here is a...mixed bag of emotions.

Medea pleads with Jason to flee with his men, without the Fleece in hand. Seeing that she can’t convince him away from it, she forces him to bring her along, and she will help him steal the Fleece from the tree where it rests. Jason and Medea free the Argonauts, and Medea tells the how to escape. They then head out to obtain the Fleece.

However, Aeëtes figures out pretty quick that Medea’s betrayed him and Colchis, and sends his men after them. Acastus, meanwhile, has headed out to get the Fleece for himself. Dick. And unfortunately, he finds it before Jason and Medea get to it.

And yet...when Jason arrives there to get it, the Fleece is still intact. And that’s because Acastus wasn’t able to take it, having been killed by the Fleece’s guardian...the Lernaean Hydra?

Um...wow. That’s a few hundred miles out of its natural distribution. Also, it’s alive? How? Hercules killed the SHIT out of it, a long-ass time ago! And in case you weren’t sure, no, this isn’t in the original myth. However, it’s a dragon guarding the Fleece instead, so...I guess they made a compromise? Shame, too, because the Colchian Dragon has the ability to create soldiers when its teeth are buried in the earth, similar to the Ismenian Dragon that was used by Cadmus.

...Sorry, went a little overboard. Anyway, Jason kills the Hydra (with no help from Medea, by the way), the Argonauts arrive to help him grab the Fleece, and Aeëtes and the Colchians follow after them, pissed off. Aeëtes prays to Hecate to deliver...the Hydra’s teeth. Interesting. If this is going where I think it’s going, then I will be VERY happy.

Aeëtes and his men collect the Hydra’s teeth, and set off after the Argonauts. They catch up, and they shoot Medea with an arrow, KILLING HER? WHAT? But then, Jason uses the Fleece to heal her wounds, and brings her back to life. OK, fine, fine, you can give the Fleece that bullshit superpower if Medea gets to live. Just then, Aeëtes shows up, bearing the Hydra’s teeth. He preys to Hecate once again, and throws the teeth onto the ground. And...

HELL YEAH, IT’S THE SPARTOI, BABY!

These undead soldiers created from the Dragon’s Teeth were originally sown by Cadmus, on command by Athena. He made them defeat each other, and therefore escaped their wrath. The Dragon itself was sacred to Ares, so this whole thing had some other implications.

In the Jason myth, Aeëtes made him sow the teeth in order to win the Fleece, and he did. Jason also defeated them in the same way that Cadmus did: he threw a stone amongst them, confusing them enough that they fought each other to figure out who threw the rock. But in this movie...in the movie, they’re just fighting. And I love it.

Look, I can never claim that Harryhause’s effects aged particularly gracefully, but this shit is still pretty goddamn awesome. Honestly, I’m having a ball watching this climactic fight between the skeletons and Jason’s crew. And this fight has consequences! The Spartoi here actually do kill some of Jason’s men, and end up forcing Jason himself off of a cliff into the water!

He escapes, and makes his way to the ship, just as Hera tells Zeus that the game is now over. He claims that it isn’t at all, and Hera looks on as Jason and Medea reunite on the ship. He gives the a reprieve, and...

WAIT WHAT??? That’s IT? It ended so...abruptly! We don’t even properly get a resolution, or see Jason return to Thessaly, or...THAT’S IT” ARE YOU GODDAMN KIDDING ME? WHAT THE HELL?

...See you in the Review, I guess. Damn.

#jason and the argonauts #don chaffey #ray harryhausen #todd armstrong #nancy kovack #honor blackman #ary raymond #laurence naismith #greek mythology #argonauts #argonautica #apollonius rhodius #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #movie recap

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wiltherie · 3 years

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ANNA HELLEVIK ❈ timeline / recap of series one of lykkeland.

stavanger is in crisis, with its fishing industry slowing down and the oil adventure coming to a halt before it’s even begun as international companies begin to pull out. anna, an ambitious young woman, finds herself in the center of it all.

i. treasure hunt, summer 1969.

jonathan kay, a phillips petroleum lawyer, is sent to stavanger to sublet their rig, ocean viking, to another company or facilitate a withdrawal deal. anna hellevik, a poor farmer’s daughter from dirdal, celebrates her engagement to christian nyman, heir to the nyman fishing and shipping company & diver working on the ocean viking platform. anna lands a job as politician arne rettedal’s secretary and transcribes his meetings with phillips petroleum’s ed young and jonathan key. after phillips decides to drill its final block on the ocean viking as opposed to withdraw, christian drives under the influence and runs into marius torstensen, who sustains injuries he later dies of. in order to keep the accident off his record, christian lies to the police and claims he was sober. soon after, marius’ pregnant daughter toril is forced to marry a local man who agreed to raise her illegitimate child as his own.

ii. smoking ban, late 1969.

while hardon and oddfrid, anna’s parents, are opposed to her engagement, her older brother rein is out of work and hopes to get a job on an oil platform. meanwhile, christian is offshore when phillips petroleum believe they’ve found oil on the 2/4 block. in a meeting with rettedal, ed and jonathan pretend they haven’t found anything of significance and name the block ekofisk. nyman’s shipping company has to lay off several of its employees and in order to help the company further, fredrik cuts his off salary by 20%, which catapults his wife ingrid into a valium induced depressive episode. when christian is back on shore to help his mother, he tells anna that there’s been imposed a smoking ban on the platform & smart enough to recognize that this means they must have found something, anna relays the information to rettedal and tries to convince fredrik to enter the oil industry. after the last day of work before christmas, jonathan invites anna to the movies, an offer she declines, and instead he walks her to her bus. on december 23rd 1969, phillips petroleum finally finds oil on the ocean viking platform, with claims it’s the largest underwater oil reservoir ever found.

iii. the summer house, spring 1970.

in the midst of wedding planning, christian and anna’s differing priorities make themselves known. out of the blue, christian buys a new apartment but keeps the purchase a secret from anna until she shows up at his house warming party. not long into the party, they begin to argue about his family’s financial problems and christian subsequently storms off. after this, a conversation with jonathan at the party makes anna realise that selling garnodden to phillips petroleum would help the nyman family from going into financial ruin. when anna later tells fredrik that she took jonathan to garnodden so he could survey the plot, he’s disappointed in her, but after yet another unsuccessful meeting with the bank, he decides to follow her advice & sells garnodden to jonathan and phillips petroleum, against his wife and son’s wishes.

iv. sixty metres down, spring / summer 1970.

anna’s role in the sale of garnodden led to a falling out with both christian and his mother. after not speaking to the family in weeks, fredrik forces his son to apologise to her. despite their bickering, they make up. the following week christian is involved in a traumatizing accident on ocean viking in which damon, a close friend and colleague, dies.

v. dirdal valley, early 1971.

when phillips petroleum is looking to build a dry dock for the construction of the ekofisk tank, jonathan notices anna’s family farm in dirdal on one of the possible building plans. the land owners are to be given offers by norwegian contractors later the same day, so anna goes to her family farm to convince her father to take the offer. hardon had already refused the offer, but after anna lies to her family about other landowners in the village accepting the offer, her father changes his mind and accepts. after the meeting, a near romantic moment between anna and jonathan at the bar at esso motor hotel is interrupted by toril, who now works as a waitress there. anna spends more time with jonathan while christian decides to start a diving company of his own with martin, a friend and fellow ocean viking diver. meanwhile, the stavanger city council have decided that the dry dock will be built in jåttåvågen rather than dirdal, and anna’s lies alienate her family from the rest of the village.

vi. hope and fraud, march 1971.

while he struggles with financing his new diving company c-max, christian and anna continue arguing over the smallest things. fredrik sells his canning company in order to help his son with the c-max. anna accompanies rettedal to a meeting with arve johnsen, a labour party politician working on establishing a state owned oil company. back at the office, anna’s female colleagues think she’s beginning to sound like a politician, and jonathan invites her on a road trip the following day. christian offers rein a job with c-max, but when anna returns to the family farm to share the good news, she’s faced with the harsh realities her family is facing in dirdal. rein turns down christian’s offer, having been approached by phillips petroleum for a job on the platform. hardon insists anna and christian’s wedding should be held at the family farm, and won’t give her a suitable date for the ceremony. anna then decides to join jonathan on his road trip around stavanger, opening up to him about her struggles of feeling indebted to the nyman family. later ingrid informs the family that hardon has finally agreed to hold the wedding at the atlantic hotel in stavanger in late june 1972, but when the father of toril’s son shows up, christian reacts with jealousy and anna decides to spend the night at the family farm. things have begun to settle in dirdal, and the hellevik family is slowly being included in the village again, but being at the family farm makes it clear that deep down anna is unsure about her engagement.

vii. party at esso motor hotel, december 1971.

the norwegian state is considering moving the oil operation to bergen, so rettedal asks anna to help him convince the state’s industry committee to choose stavanger as the oil capital of norway. after taking the committee on a tour of the ekofisk tank, jonathan invites anna on yet another road trip the very same night, but she’s busy with work, hosting a dinner for the committee. when rettedal is told it’s unlikely the committee will vote for stavanger because it’s such a conservative and religious town, anna is given the responsibility to organise a party at esso motor hotel instead to show the delegates that stavanger can be fun. after the party, jonathan tells anna he likes her & they spend the night together. they sleep together again the following day, but anna is conflicted. after having dinner with rettedal, anna goes to break off the engagement, but is unable to. she calls jonathan, who expects to hear good news, but instead tells him she doesn’t know how christian would cope if she left him, ending her relationship with jonathan before it’s even begun.

viii. the oil capital, spring / summer 1972.

anna and christian’s wedding is only a few weeks away, and planning is in full swing but at the wedding tasting, anna finds herself arguing with fredrik over their differing political views, and her distaste for the family’s view on wealth only grows. the next day, jonathan and ed young have a meeting with rettedal which anna transcribes. after the meeting, jonathan, who still has feelings for anna, asks her to go for a drive but she refuses. on june 14th, the parliament votes on the establishment of a state owned oil company and the location of norway’s oil capital. stavanger wins and is officially made the oil capital & the parliament votes to establish a state owned oil company, which later becomes statoil. later the same day, anna and christian’s parents are finalizing seating arrangements for the wedding reception when anna finally admits she doesn’t love christian anymore, ending the engagement. in august, jonathan returns to stavanger, finding anna just as she’s about to move to bergen to pursue a bachelor in economics. the two reunite & decide to enter a long distance relationship while she studies.

#𝖝. ❈ anna hellevik. › notes.#long post /#posting this so i can link to it on her carrd.#but also: timelines! i rely on them!

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folklohre-a · 4 years

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anna hellevik + timeline / recap of series one of lykkeland.

i. TREASURE HUNT. summer 1969.

jonathan kay, a lawyer for phillips petroleum, is sent to stavanger to sublet their rig, ocean viking, to another company or facilitate a withdrawal deal. anna hellevik, a farmer’s daughter from dirdal, celebrates her engagement to high school sweetheart christian nyman, the heir to the nyman fishing and shipping company, who due to his occupation as a diver on the ocean viking platform is offshore for long periods of time. anna lands a job as politician arne rettedal’s secretary and transcribes his meetings with phillips petroleum’s ed young and jonathan kay. after phillips decides to drill its final block on the ocean viking rather than pull out, christian gets into a car accident with marius torstensen, who sustains injuries he later dies of. christian lies to the police and claims he was sober, thus keeping the accident off his record. soon after, marius’ pregnant daughter toril is forced to marry a local man who has agreed to raise her illegitimate child as his own.

ii. SMOKING BAN. late 1969.

anna’s parents, hardon and oddfrid, wonder if christian and anna are a good match, claiming they’re too different, and oddfrid isn’t sure she really loves him. rein, anna’s older brother, is out of work and hopes to get a job on an oil platform. meanwhile, christian is offshore when Phillips Petroleum believe they’ve found oil on the 2/4 block. in a meeting with rettedal, ed and jonathan pretend they haven’t found anything of significance, and name the block ekofisk. christmas is just around the corner, but nyman’s shipping company has to lay off several of its employees, and christian’s father fredrik cuts his own salary by 20% to help the company, which catapults his wife ingrid into a valium induced depressive episode. when christian is flown back to shore in order to help his mother, he tells anna that they’ve imposed a smoking ban on the platform. smart enough to know that this means they must have found something, anna shares this knowledge with rettedal and tries to convince her future father-in-law to enter the oil industry, but her attempt is interrupted by toril, marius’ daughter, going into labour. after the last day of work before christmas, jonathan invites anna to the movies. she declines, explaining she has to get back to the family farm, and he walks her to her bus. on december 23rd 1969, phillips petroleum finally finds oil on the ocean viking platform, with claims it’s the largest underwater oil reservoir ever found.

iii. THE SUMMER HOUSE. spring 1970.

anna is in the midst of wedding planning with ingrid and fredrik at garnodden, the family summer house, but christian himself is a no-show. fredrik is in need of a translator at a meeting with a possible buyer in england and asks anna to accompany him. christian holds a party at his new apartment, a purchase he has kept secret from both his parents and anna, and invites friends and coworkers from the platform, including jonathan. while at the party, christian and anna get into an argument about the family’s financial problems and their different priorities. after christian storms off, a conversation with jonathan makes anna realise that selling garnodden to phillips petroleum would help the nyman family from going into financial ruin. the next day, fredrik’s meeting in england is unsuccessful, but after anna recommends turning their old trawling ships into supply ships for oil companies, fredrik returns to stavanger with a new sense of hope. when anna later tells fredrik that she took jonathan to garnodden so he could survey the plot, he’s disappointed in her, but after yet another unsuccessful meeting with the bank, he decides to follow her advice and sells garnodden to jonathan and phillips petroleum, against his wife and son’s wishes.

iv. SIXTY NINE METRES DOWN. spring / summer 1970.

anna’s role in the sale of garnodden has led to a falling out with both christian and his mother. she hasn’t spoken to either of them in weeks, but after running into fredrik while working for rettedal at the golf club, he forces his son to apologise to her. despite their bickering, they make up. the following week christian is involved in a traumatizing accident on ocean viking in which damon, a close friend and colleague, dies.

v. DIRDAL VALLEY. early 1971.

when phillips petroleum is looking to build a dry dock for the construction of the ekofisk tank, jonathan notices anna’s family farm in dirdal on one of the possible building plans. the land owners are to be given offers by norwegian contractors’ gunnar sandvik later the same day, so jonathan drives anna to her family farm so she can convince her father to take the offer. by the time they get there, hardon has already refused the offer, but after anna lies to her family about the other landowners accepting the offer, her father changes his mind and accepts the offer. after the meeting, anna and gunnar meet for celebratory drinks at esso motor hotel, where a moment between anna and jonathan is interrupted by toril, who now works as a waitress at the hotel. anna spends more time with jonathan, while christian decides to start a diving company of his own with martin, a friend and fellow ocean viking diver. meanwhile, the stavanger city council has decided that the dry dock will be built in jåttåvågen rather than dirdal, and anna’s actions has alienated her family from the rest of the village.

vi. HOPE AND FRAUD. march 1971.

while he struggles with financing his diving company c - max, christian and anna continue getting into arguments over the smallest things. fredrik sells his canning company to hastings, the english company who turned him down the year prior, in order to help christian with his company, but lies about the production rate. anna accompanies rettedal in a meeting with arve johnsen, a labour party politician working on establishing a state owned oil company. back at the office, anna’s female colleagues think she’s beginning to sound like a politician, and jonathan invites her on a road trip the following day. christian offers rein a job with c - max, but when anna returns to the family farm to share the good news, she’s faced with the harsh realities her family is facing in dirdal. rein turns down dhristian’s offer, having been approached by phillips petroleum for a job at the platform. hardon insists anna and christian’s wedding should be held at the family farm, and won’t give her a suitable date for the ceremony. anna then decides to join jonathan on his road trip around stavanger, opening up to him about her struggles of feeling indebted to the nyman family. back at the nyman house, ingrid informs the family that hardon has finally agreed to hold the wedding at the atlantic hotel in stavanger in late june 1972. when the father of toril’s son shows up to talk to toril, christian reacts with jealousy and anna decides to spend the night at the family farm. things have begun to settle in dirdal, and the hellevik family is slowly but surely being included in the village again. being at the family farm makes it clear that deep down anna is unsure about her engagement.

vii. PARTY AT ESSO MOTOR HOTEL. december 1971.

the norwegian state is considering moving the oil operation to bergen, so rettedal asks anna to help him convince the state’s industry committee to choose stavanger as the oil capital of norway. after taking the committee on a tour of the ekofisk tank, jonathan invites anna on yet another road trip the very same night, but she’s busy with work as rettedal is hosting a dinner for the committee. when arve johnsen tells rettedal it’s unlikely the committee will vote for stavanger because it’s such a conservative and religious town, anna is given the responsibility to organise a party at esso motor hotel to show the delegates that stavanger can be fun. after the party, jonathan tells anna he likes her and they spend the night together. they sleep together again the following day, but anna is conflicted. after having dinner with rettedal at esso motor hotel, anna goes home to christian to break off their engagement, but finds herself unable to. she calls jonathan, who expects to hear good news, but instead tells him she doesn’t know how christian would cope if she left him. she tries writing a letter to end the engagement, but can’t find the right words and instead goes back to christian, ending her relationship with jonathan before it’s even begun.

viii. THE OIL CAPITAL. spring / summer 1972.

anna and christian’s wedding is only a few months away, and planning is in full swing but at the wedding tasting, anna finds herself arguing with fredrik over their differing political views, and her distaste for the family’s view on wealth only grows. the next day, jonathan and ed young have a meeting with rettedal which anna transcribes. after the meeting, jonathan, who still has feelings for anna, asks her to go for a drive but she refuses. she rushes home to christian, but is left annoyed at his drinking habits. jonathan flies back to bartlesville. meanwhile, on june 14th, the parliament votes on the establishment of a state owned oil company and the location of norway’s oil capital. stavanger wins and is officially made the oil capital, and the parliament votes to establish a state owned oil company, which later becomes statoil. jonathan is offered a senior position at the phillips headquarters in bartlesville. later the same day, anna and christian’s parents are finalizing seating arrangements for the wedding reception when anna finally breaks down. a conversation with fredrik leads her to finally admit she doesn’t love christian anymore, and she ends the engagement. she then applies for a bachelor in economics at nhh in bergen. in august, jonathan turns down the senior position in bartlesville and returns to stavanger, finding anna just as she’s about to move to bergen. the two reunite and decide to enter a long distance relationship while she studies.

#• 𝙰𝙽𝙽𝙰 : it’s funny how everything always works out for them.#study –– re: anna.#long post /#this genuinely took me two weeks because my attention span is so short rn but i finished it!!!!#i doubt anyone will ever read this but... here it is #i did do it for myself too though. i love timelines <3 #AND I LOVE ANNA. if that wasn't already clear.#the fact that in reality the events of ep 5 takes place after ep 6 is MESSING WITH MY BRAIN though. i understand why they decided to swap #it around (wrapping up the ekofisk tank storyline so they could focus solely on the statoil/oil capital storyline for the last three eps)#but as someone trying to make a cohesive timeline... it is literal hell.

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historytaker · 3 years

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King Versus King

Within the first quarter of the 14th century, it would be forgivable to let the king of England seem profoundly on top of the world. The setbacks of his father, Edward II, were crudely mended by his mother, Isabella. England was swelling with military, political, and thereby economic success; So much so that the population had inflated to 4 million. Equally important to the crown, Edward II had a legitimate claim to the French crown. The Capetian dynasty was a long standing rival in European politics with the Plantagenets. The Plantagenets out-bred and out-wed the Capetians, ultimately. What’s more, the long time enemy of the English, the Scottish, had little affinity for their king, David II. To add to the seemingly charmed hand of state, when David II was struck in the head with an arrow and duly kidnapped by the English, the Scottish refused to pay a king’s ransom and had all but formally announced fealty to Edward II. This Plantagenet wore the crown of three kingdoms and ushered in an era of chivalry, fantasy, success, opulence and unrequited love for the dynasty overseeing an economic power that had heretofore been unprecedented in Christendom, save only for the early successes of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II. The king was experiencing the apogee of an age in which the old order was in solid control of the comings and goings of the world. Bishops preached in Latin. Indulgences could be paid. Wealth buffered concerns on Earth and evidently in Heaven. For, one could compel a monastery to pray for your soul with such fervency and continuity that one’s stay in purgatory would be short, and Heaven’s bliss obtained in short order. Wealth could be and was hoarded. The lord of the manor had no reason to ever assume a change in the order.

So sustained was the monarchy in England, Edward II felt it not at all unreasonable to fashion himself a modern Arthur at Camelot. His was a kingdom of gentlemen, of knights, of righteous conviction and marshal prowess. He started the Order of the Garter and created a round table to emulate the notion that the king was first among equals. Indeed, the top of the mountain granted a glorious view. Surprisingly, the view did not grant observation of a great encroacher, indeed a devastator of many kingdoms. In fact, this was a king in a hurry; one that intended on conquering more than England, but the world. His march may have started in the steppes of central Asia, but by 1348, some 20 years after taking the throne, Edward II England was besieged by a rival king, King Death.

The army deployed by King Death was, of course, the plague. It is generally believed that it was transmitted by rodents carrying bubonic infested fleas. The Mongols took their dead infested and lunged them into the city walls of the Black Sea city Caffa. From Caffa and the Genoese merchants who ported there, the disease spread. The contagion was swift. At first, and with devastating swiftness, the cities were eviscerated. The fecal matter of the fleas could be inhaled or the bites from the bugs were death sentences. If the diseases spread to the lungs, the death would take 4 agonizing days of fitful coughs. The blood-laced sputum surely spread to those near, and in its turn spread to whomever inhaled it.

What could Edward III do in the face of such rumors of malady in his realm? At first, not much. There were murmurs of a pestilence in the world by sea-fairing traders. Their contacts in Italy described the condition, its velocity of transmission, and naturally assumptions on what devil-worshiping cult had summoned it. There were even numbers suggesting the dead of Venice reached 100,000. Even so, it would not be until the king’s daughter succumbed to the illness in her turn. The Infante Pedro of Castile was to marry Edward’s daughter, Joan. But by September 2, news had reached him that she was dead from the plague. And in keeping with the stoic nature of the king, he is reported to take the news by first saying, “It is as it is.” Naturally, in a rare moment of looking behind the curtain, we can prize from his correspondence with Alfonso XI a father in morning. He laments with a piety mixed with a familiar grief that Joan had “been sent ahead to heaven to reign among the choirs of virgins where she can intercede for our own offences before God himself.” He is quick to remark that Joan had been his dearest daughter and whom “we loved best of all for all her virtues demanded.” To underscore the pang sorrow the king was enduring and to put a point to how bereft he was of a solution he states “No fellow human being could be surprised if we were inwardly desolated by the sting of this bitter grief for are human too.” Among kings, it is incredibly rare to hear such claims to human emotions.

So what does a king do when wrecked from the inside over a new foe as this? He reaches out to the only people who can have answers for pestilence. Naturally this meant the Archbishop of Canterbury. He needed prayers especially in the southern regions of the kingdom where this seem to be emanating from. Alas, the plague caught him too. There was no Archbishop of Canterbury to pray for the people of Kent. And what a perturbation it must have been when men on horseback would come into the city or village speaking of apocalyptic devastations only to then find themselves one of the dozens, or hundreds, or thousands destined for the mass graves.

Perhaps most jarring to the people, rich and poor, man and woman, young and old, was the remarkable speed at which it worked. People pieced together the transmission method soon enough that heart wrenching moments of furtive relationships occurred. Parents abandoning children, husbands abandoning wives, all watching from a distance the quick death but slow agony of those they loved. A welsh poet Jeuan Gerthin explained what we would have noticed among those struck down with the disease, “ Woe is me of the shilling in the armpit; seething terrible wherever it may come, a head that gives pain and causes a loud cry, a burden carried beneath the arms, a painful angry knob, a white lump. It is of the form of an apple, like the head of an onion; a small boil which spares no one. Great is its seething like a burning cinder, a grievous thing of ashy colour…an ugly eruption. They are similar to the seeds of the black peas, broken fragments of brittle sea coal…a grievous ornament…the peelings of the cockle-weed, a black plague like halfpence, like berries.”

All told, by the end of the plague, nearly half of England would be dead and buried hastily in graves. Recent excavations from the 1990’s shown just how fast and chaotic the scene must have been. Traditionally the buried were oriented toward Jerusalem to rise from their graves upon the return of Christ triumphant. The graves revealed a final statement among the buried, jaws slacked open, limbs pointed jaggedly, a frozen protestation of the inhumanity. As the plague meandered through the realm, it upended more than health of very much alive people from just 4 days prior, it upended the conventions and structures of society. A Franciscan monk in Ireland, John Clynn noted with a sobering view to his own reality: “ Seeing these many ills and that the whole world is encompassed by evil, waiting among the dead for death to come, I have committed to writing what I have truly heard …and so that the writing does not perish with the writer or the work fail with the workman I leave parchment for continuing it in case anyone should be alive in the future.” With the all too familiar tone of understatement in British writing, it followed with a new hand, “Here, it seems, the author died.”

Who do the people go to if the king cannot save them? Who do they direct their frustration and hate to if the benevolent God in heaven is not manifesting through the sermons of the priest? How do people receive Christ for that matter now that there are no more priest to speak on their behalf to God? There were no bakers to bake bread, no physics to make med, no priest to receive the dead. Out of the uncertainty of the moment, truly inspired homespun remedies made the rounds. Whether by trial and error or willing a remedy, one potion is passed down to us by a herbalist; giving us a glimpse at the heavy ask but thoughtful response to what was by then considered a disease due to miasma or noxious air. It logically implies then that good smelling things were a kind of remedy. “If it be a man take five cups of rue, and if it be a woman leave out the rue, five little blades of columbine, a great quantity of marigold flowers, an egg, fresh laid, and make a hole in one end and blow out all that is within, and lay it to the fire and roast it till ground to powder but do not burn it, and take a good quantity of treacle and brew all these herbs with good ale but do not strain them – and make the sick drink it for three evenings and mornings. If they hold it in their stomach, they shall have life.”

The booming 4 million population at the outset of the plague were still 90% agrarian. Among those who worked the land, few actually owned their parcel. And increasingly the population was fighting for a smaller and smaller share of land to fashion subsistence for themselves and their families. The plague, in some respects served as a pressure valve. But the correction was too sudden to accommodate the economic structure of England.

The homes of the people, largely field laborers, lived in modest lime-washed structures made of wood felled from the local forest, with dirt floors. To add to the ambiance of the abode, the owners would have strewn loose straw on the ground mostly to collect the refuse of the fields and manure on their feet. The toiling masses did not have much to begin with. The world around them was hard enough before the plague, but with the plague came a psychological and physical damage that could scarcely be comprehended. Whole villages died. Naturally, the economy collapsed. Out of this collapse came the evolution of manorial economics to cash economics. It would no longer due for the workers to simply work for a subsistence and get whatever graces the lord granted. Work needed to be done, the obligations of the lord still needed to be met, but he now had a shortage in labor. His laborers were demanding, with a level of self awareness scarcely granted to them, that the new economic reality was on the worker’s side now.

Out of the plague did spur an opportunity for toiling folk to rise out of poverties oblivion. It was not fast, nor necessarily in one life-time. Sometimes it took generations, but generations as opposed to never at all, the working poor did have a chance. And it was this seeming conspiracy of the cosmos to upend all the structures that held the people together, their faith in the government, their financial inability to resist the rules or rulers, the unquestioning certainty on matters of God, death, hell and heaven by the priesthood, all went out the window. From the necessity of laypeople having to fill roles that were utterly foreign to their station came a new sense of capability to people who never otherwise would have ventured to change. Unwritten rules governing the village went to the wayside as power was exercised often by those who were in a position to exploit it. Meanwhile, Edward III was aging and his son and heir apparent, Edward the Black Prince, died leaving the succession in untenable uncertainty.

Inevitably the old king died and that left government in the hands of a 10 year old, Richard II. Grant it, everyone that was anyone knew that power ultimately laid in the hands of John of Gaunt, Richard’s uncle and protector. In fact, you might compare John of Gaunt to any of our modern day monopolist or business giants like Jeff Bezos. His wealth and holdings and influence could rival a king’s and in many cases did. Even so, the Lancaster stayed behind the scenes and guided the young Plantagenet through his early years. Richard took to the role of king rather quickly, it seemed. His vows and all the mystique surrounding the trappings of monarchy went to his head. In the early years of his boyhood, perhaps with the structure of fixers behind the scenes, it proved useful and life saving. In time it would be his undoing. Nonetheless, the boy regent was pitted against one of the biggest moments in his career when, at last, a popular uprising threatened to upend government.

If, as John Wycliffe supposed, people could find Christ in their own way free from the needs of the priesthood, this supposition unfettered the people from strict forms of social control or engineering. For as it was, finding Christ and following him meant a steady hand towards an egalitarian model. What concessions were made in the in-between years of the start of the plague and Richard’s reign were in-part at risk by the policies enacted by John of Gaunt. The toiling folk had definitively climbed the social ladder into the ranks of yeomen. They were solidly middle class, to borrow a later colloquialism. By their estimation the government was keeping them suppressed and squeezing them for revenues they earned no thanks to the laxed reactions of government. So it was no surprise that what began first as tax dodging by the villagers by shrinking into the forest soon bloomed into open hostility at the tax collectors or strongmen the king or lord would send. The usual deferential English country yokels were becoming intransigent. Dodging taxes soon became the least of it. The village leaders started violent reactions in the form of collecting the heads of those attempting to collect dues. The so-called Peasants revolt began this way. Not with a written manifesto, but with the gumption of survivors, social climbers, and increasingly self-indoctrinated Christians who took for themselves what bits they could of the point of Christ.

The leaders, in part self ascribed and in others acclaimed to, were primarily Watt Tyler and John Ball. Who was Watt Tyler? Tyler was a charismatic man who was imprisoned for not having the money to buy his manumission. In the New Jerusalem being created in real-time, who could be a better general for this lot of revolters in the service of God and King Richard? The imprisoned Watt Tyler. John Ball for his part understood the egalitarian nature of Christ message. Our riches were not for this world but for our home in heaven. It followed then that the ostentatious life of the bishops was something to disdain and use as proof that these were not shepherds of men for Christ, but shepherds of evil and wickedness for earthly possessions. John Ball was the only bishop the people would need. He was one of them and would remain so. The movement was not to overthrow the king. Instead, with a fatal sense of deference for power and monarchy, the movement sought to save the king from his uncle and all bad advisors surrounding him. They, naturally, would save the king and advise him.

The conflagration congregation indeed set fire to Gaunt’s holdings. Richard beheld a terrible site. The skyline of London was ember red in the evening the group made it to the city gates. The leverage was on the side of the “peasants,” but they fully went the whole way. To his credit, Richard agrees at the age of 14 to ride out to meet them. Tyler asks and evidently receives in word the concessions of ostensibly a new kingdom with a Magna Carta written and affirmed for the common people. The overreaching by such low born and the ability to get a king to capitulate was evidently enough to drive one of the king’s retainers mad. Watt Tyler was sliced down and murdered on the spot.

In a glorious sense of theatrics and prudent wherewithal, to allay the fears and ire of the crowd Richard rides out to them in a life-saving vague claim, “You shall have no captain but me.” It did the trick and bought the king and the other frightened aristocrats time to cut down the people one by one. The devastation was total. Upon retrieving the upperhand, when asked again by impertinent lowborn to be received as a king for them, Richard remarks with Plantagenet fury “You wretches, detestable on land and sea; you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues. Rustics you were and rustics you are still: you will remain in bondage not as before but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity. However we will spare your lives in you remain faithful. Choose now which course you want to follow.”

Evidently it worked. Richard was able to stymie the ferocity of a new social order ready to explode. Regardless if the upstarts were successful or unsuccessful, things had changed. While the plague took a century to run its course, and the slow death rattles of a dying dynasty took 100 years to finalize, and while it took 100 years for a modern sense of Englishness to take hold geographically as well as politically, the plague did bookend an epoch in the organization of labor, ideas, currency, and governance. And as with all moments of crisis and collapse, a germ of creativity can sprout into the first tree within a mighty forest of new possibilities. King Death then was the equalizer. Ultimately, it was that equality and need for it that had been festering for years before Edward’s reign even. It just took a different king to make the way and speed up the process, in this case, by necessity.

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antoine-roquentin · 5 years

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Public distrust of the CWP [Communist Workers Party] mobilized sympathy for the white power gunmen. Furthermore, CWP members repeatedly undermined their chance at what justice the court could offer. Several of the women widowed on November 3 confounded the Greensboro community when, instead of weeping or grieving, they stood with their fists raised and declared to the television cameras that they would seek communist revolution.61 Days after the shooting, an article appeared in the Greensboro Record that was titled “Slain CWP Man Talked of Martyrdom” and implied that the CWP had foreknowledge of the shooting and that some planned to die for the cause. This damaged what little public sympathy remained. In language typical of mainstream coverage, the story described the CWP as “far-out zealots infiltrat[ing] a peaceful neighborhood.” Even two years later, when the widows visited the Greensboro cemetery and found their husbands’ headstone vandalized with red paint meant to symbolize blood, they would not be able to effectively mobilize public sympathy.62 Community wariness of the CWP’s militant stance only increased after the CWP held a public funeral for their fallen comrades and marched through town with rifles and shotguns. The fact that the weapons were not loaded hardly mattered: photographs of the widows holding weapons at the ready appeared in local and national newspapers. In the public imagination, these images inverted the real events of November 3, when a heavily armed white power paramilitary squad confronted a minimally armed group of protestors. The defendants, depicted as respectable men wearing suits in front of the Vietnam War memorial, stood in stark contrast to the gun-toting widows.63 National and local CWP members took up a campaign of hostile protest of the trial itself. The day before testimony began, the CWP burned a large swastika into the lawn of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms director, and hung an effigy on his property with a red dot meant to convey a bullet wound. In the trial itself, CWP members refused to testify, even to identify the bodies of their fallen comrades. CWP widows who shouted that the trial was “a sham” and emptied a vial of skunk oil in the courtroom were held in contempt of court. Although the actions of the widows may have “shocked the court and freaked out the judge,” as the CWP newspaper Workers Viewpoint proudly reported, the widows’ “bravery” didn’t translate as such to the Greensboro community.64 Even those who may have sympathized with the CWP after seeing the graphic footage of the shooting soon found that feeling complicated by the group’s contempt for the justice system, however problematic that system was. With the CWP widows refusing to tell their stories, attorneys for the defendants built a self-defense case by deploying two widely used white power narratives: one of honorable and wronged Vietnam veterans, and the other of the defense of white womanhood. The defense depended on the claim that CWP members carrying sticks had threatened Renee Hartsoe, the seventeen-year-old wife of Klansman Terry Hartsoe, as she rode in a car near the front of the caravan. Terry Hartsoe testified that he could see the communist protestors throwing rocks at the car and trying to open the door. Such a statement can be seen as alluding to the threat of rape of white women by nonwhite men, a constant theme throughout the various iterations of the Klan since the end of the Civil War.65 White supremacy has long deployed violence by claiming to protect vulnerable white women.... After many years of ineffective, smaller prosecutions, the Fort Smith trial marked the first serious attempt by the federal government to recognize the unification of seemingly disparate Klan, neo-Nazi, and white separatist groups in a cohesive white power movement, and to prosecute the movement’s leaders in light of this understanding. Affidavits documented nearly a decade of control by Beam, Butler, and Miles, and also named Miles’s home as the command center for the Order.66 “They preached war, prayed for war and dreamed of war,” said Justice Department prosecutor Martin Carlson. “And when war came, they willingly accepted war.”67 The indictments presented a serious enough threat to white power leaders that Beam decided to flee the country, setting off a series of events that would shape the outcome of the trial. Before Beam fled he married a woman whose martyrdom would later rally the movement and appeal to the mainstream. After the fishermen’s dispute, Louis Beam had led a chaotic personal life. He separated from his third wife in 1981, and an ugly custody battle followed the split. Beam took his young daughter to Costa Rica for two years. After his return to Texas in late 1984, he moved permanently to the Aryan Nations compound. He didn’t break his Texas ties, however, and took long trips there frequently.68 Sheila Toohey was a pretty, blond twenty-year-old Sunday school teacher at the Gospel Temple, a Christian Identity congregation in Pasadena, Texas. Beam’s young daughter was one of her students. Perhaps Beam met the Toohey family during the fishermen’s dispute: his Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had run a bookstore in Pasadena. Toohey came from a family that lived in a trailer in nearby Santa Fe, Texas—the site of the Klan rally where Beam had burned a boat painted “U.S.S. Viet Cong” during the fishermen conflict in 1981.69 “Louis fell in love with Sheila immediately,” wrote J. B. Campbell, a white power movement activist who also claimed mercenary service in Rhodesia.70 Campbell’s laudatory essay later appeared on Beam’s personal website under the heading “Love” and framed with images of roses: [Beam had] been visiting her father, talking politics, and couldn’t believe his friend could have such a beautiful, sweet and unaffected daughter as Sheila, who lived at home with her parents and brothers in Santa Fe, Texas. Sheila taught Sunday school. She’d had to wear a back brace from a recent car accident and was in constant pain, although she would never burden anyone by mentioning it. In the following weeks Sheila noticed that Louis was coming over for dinner quite frequently and that he was talking with her more than with her father. He actually likes me, she realized. Within a few months Louis asked Sheila to marry him.71 The passage focused on Toohey as a vulnerable white woman—in constant pain but never mentioning it—and subservient to the man who “actually like[d]” her. Her position as a Sunday school teacher confirmed her innocence, presumed virginity, fitness for motherhood, and, since she taught children at a Christian Identity church, subscription to a white power political theology. That she lived surrounded, and presumably cared for, by her father and brothers emphasized her movement from one set of male guardians to another. It also highlighted the twenty-year age difference of the newlyweds. Toohey was Beam’s fourth wife; the first three had each been around sixteen years old when they married and around twenty years old when they divorced.72 Beam and Toohey married at a Christian Identity church in Pennsylvania in April 1987.73 After the wedding, with seditious conspiracy charges issued, Louis and Sheila Beam traveled to Mexico to avoid trial, taking his seven-year-old daughter with them, though without the proper documents. They settled in Chapala, near Guadalajara, in a community of white American expatriates. Beam spent four months on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list before authorities caught up with him in November 1987.74 One night the Beams returned home after grocery shopping. While the couple was unloading the food from the car and his daughter was still sitting in the vehicle, authorities apprehended Louis Beam. Sheila Beam “glanced out the kitchen window down at the car and was appalled to see Louis bent over the hood with a gun to his head,” according to Campbell’s narrative. Sheila Beam would later say that the officers never identified themselves as policemen and she assumed the attack was a robbery or kidnapping. Purportedly defending herself, she grabbed her husband’s weapon and shot a Mexican federal officer three times, wounding him. Authorities detained her in Mexico for ten days while they extradited Louis Beam to the United States, where he spent the next five months in prison during the sedition trial. A Mexican judge found Sheila Beam not guilty for reasons of self-defense in November 1987, and she was released and deported back to the United States. The officer she shot in the chest and abdomen remained hospitalized.75 To white power activists, this story was about endangered white women, but it was also about government betrayal. Rumors flew that federal agents had used phony drug charges as a pretense for the arrest, in order to extradite Louis Beam to the United States. This narrative placed innocent Sheila Beam in the crosshairs of a renegade state.76 However, Beam would most likely have been subject to extradition in any case, with or without drug charges.77 In an affidavit, Beam presented herself as an innocent white woman in need of the protection of white men. She said that she sustained an abdominal injury when the arresting officers threw her over a chair, and was then taken to jail and kept handcuffed for five days. She also said that the chief of police threatened her with torture, and that she was forced to sign documents in Spanish that she couldn’t read. She testified: While I was in the Guadalajara jail, I was physically and psychologically mistreated. I was kept with my wrists handcuffed behind my back for five days; my wrists were so swollen that my hands were turning colors and my watch was cutting off the circulation. I was hand-fed by a little Mexican boy with his dirty fingers. Officers would come into my cell and leer at me and caress their weapons. I was chained to the bed, which had a filthy, rotten mattress, and when I would try to sleep, they would kick the bed to jar me awake and keep me from sleeping. I was refused water for extended periods and medication for my back injury or my back brace. I was denied medical attention for my abdominal injuries and suffered from vaginal bleeding for several days afterward.78 Her testimony positioned her as endangered. It placed her in peril and in the presence of male racial others—the “Mexican boy” feeding her with “his dirty fingers,” and the officers. It presented men of color “caress[ing] their weapons” as they “leer[ed]” at her, invoking masturbation.79 It also placed her in a violated bedroom space, “chained to the bed, which had a filthy, rotten mattress.” Within the broader frame of pro-natalism, this language positioned Sheila Beam’s body as vulnerable to attack by men of color, and emphasized it as a site of combat where battles might be won or lost through the birth or absence of white children. The vaginal bleeding she said she suffered after her imprisonment hinted at both rape and miscarriage of a white child, and would have signified a double martyrdom. Jailed at the moment when the state had finally turned to the prosecution of the white power movement, Sheila Beam acted the martyr in a way that further united activists and appealed to people beyond the movement. Her wounded body served as a constant symbolic reminder of state failure and betrayal. Metzger lobbied for her release; Kirk Lyons, who represented Beam in the sedition trial and would become the go-to attorney of the white power movement over the next decade, sent an associate, Dave Holloway, to help the Toohey family advocate for her return. Back home, the Tooheys answered the phone with the entreaty, “Save Our Sheila.”80 After her release Lyons told one reporter, “It made a Christian out of me again. Her being freed was a miracle to me.”81 In the mainstream press, too, Sheila Beam became a sympathetic figure in local newspapers and major publications alike. A series of articles in the Galveston Daily News focused on her injuries, stating as fact that she had been “severely beaten” and raising the possibility that she “may have been sexually assaulted.” The same reporter uncritically repeated white power claims that FBI agents had refused to arrange her release to the United States, and described “physical and psychological coercion” during her ten-day imprisonment.82 Other articles linked her faith in God to her hopes for the acquittal of all the trial’s defendants,83 and mentioned her pain and injuries with no mention of the reasons for Louis Beam’s arrest or Sheila Beam’s actions in shooting and wounding the officer.84 The Houston Chronicle reported that she returned to the United States sobbing and limping, escorted by her father and an associate of Lyons, and was met by her mother and three brothers at the airport. The article emphasized that Sheila Beam had a swollen abdomen and walked with such a pronounced limp that two people had to support her.85 A photograph of Sheila’s return in the Miami News featured a flattering photograph of her leaning against her brother’s chest, holding flowers and flanked by a pretty, smiling, female friend. The caption referred to her “break[ing] out in tears” upon her return, and to her being “charged with shooting a Mexican federal police officer during the arrest of her husband at their … home.” It elided any reference to Christian Identity or participation in the white power movement, either by Sheila Beam or by her husband. It didn’t even name Louis Beam, much less discuss his pending seditious conspiracy charges or his stint on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Nevertheless, it made clear that Sheila Beam shot the officer at her home, emphasizing domestic defense beneath a photograph that portrayed her as vulnerable, small, and feminine.86 For her own part, Sheila Beam delivered a political performance of martyrdom both in comments to the press and in her actions. After her release, she flew directly to Fort Smith, where Louis Beam had been transferred to a federal prison hospital following a weeklong hunger strike. White power leaders praised her selfless devotion. “Despite her severe internal injuries and equally severe psychological damage,” Campbell wrote, “Sheila postponed her required emergency surgery and flew to Ft. Smith to reassure her husband.”87 Sheila Beam went to her husband’s side despite her severe pain, the story had it, illustrating the sacrifice of the white female body to the needs of the movement. During the trial, the presence of Sheila Beam’s wounded and wronged body entered the official record in several ways. Lyons invoked her injuries regularly, interrupting testimony about her arrest to ask the pursuing FBI agent what had happened to her back brace and conspicuously leaving court to pick her up at the airport. Sheila Beam continued to speak about her injuries and abuse to the press, and claimed her husband’s innocence with the simple position that since he had quit the Klan in 1981, he couldn’t now be guilty of sedition. In truth, he had quit the Klan to join Aryan Nations and lead the white power movement on a larger scale. She also reminded newspapers that her husband held the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Air Medal for Heroism, staking out his moral authority as a hero of the Vietnam War.88 It is difficult to gauge the impact of such performative acts on the outcome of a jury trial, but Sheila Beam’s symbolic work toward acquittal should not be discounted. Even in the pages of academic accounts that have argued that white power paramilitarism partially or wholly excluded them, women nevertheless appear as historical actors who impact events. In Rafael Ezekiel’s widely cited ethnographic study, for instance, which includes his observation of the Fort Smith trial, he notes that “a sister appears for a young fellow who is already serving a long term for involvement in The Order’s robbery of an armored car … entering the court, she touched her brother’s arm, quietly, as she passed him.”89 With these actions, the “sister”—no name given, as she did not qualify as an activist in this study, but perhaps it was Brenna or Laura Beth Tate, sisters of David Tate—conferred humanity upon her brother, appealed to the jury, and neutralized the racism of the movement.90 Similarly, Ezekiel recounts the presence of Louis Beam’s “young new wife,” Sheila Beam, although she isn’t named in his account.91 Ezekiel describes how the couple make frequent eye contact across the room. She had been the Sunday school teacher of Beam’s daughter. A reporter ungraciously described her to me as “a Yahweh freak.” Here in court she wears a frilled white blouse; during Beam’s arrest in Mexico, she shot an armed Federale who had failed to identify himself.92 In other words, Sheila Beam played her part as a movement activist by creating and embodying a particular narrative of her innocence, the arrest, the justified shooting of the Mexican officer, and her husband’s wrongful detention—one persuasive enough to be accepted uncritically by journalists and academic observers.93

Katherine Belew, Bring the War Home

#thinking about amber guyger #she only has 2 white people on her jury #but there's still a level of identification with the prerogatives of whiteness that might override that

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pushpakunjit · 4 years

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Juli 75 th birthday. Ha was born in a missionary hospital , Kolar district of Karnataka on 26 March 1945. When born, my parents might have expected to have a girl baby and the nurse incharge encouraged saying if you get a girl baby you must name her Julie . My parents kept up the word and named Julie to my brother , though given a name Srinivasan he was always referred as Julie. We siblings knew him as only Juli.Balu my eldest brother is three years older than Julie, both were inseparable,close to each other. Julie is very calm by nature, may be he became so on seeing his older brother getting punished for all his naughty behaviour 🤪 He went to a village school ,initially village hall school at ganjigunte and then to Avani. When my father took a job at sandoor Balu and Julie used to roam around the town and Balu would take him to show the king and the soldiers.Once he took him to show a tiger in a forest, unfortunately they happen to see a dead body hanging on a tree top got scared of the incident. My father took an accountant’s job in UCO Bank chennai all of us moved to chennai . He took Telugu as first language in school ,went to the prestigious Presidency college chennai. There again a rare combination of subjects taking geology as main and post graduated. Couldn’t get any job , used to attend all India radio quiz, part time lectures in IIET, got frustrated, finally my father helped him to settle with a job in UCO bank. Movie viewing was great craze in the family , we sisters will be accompanied by brothers to theatres. Movie entertainment has always been inevitable recreation in the family. I remembered to have attended some talks by J. KRISHNAMURTHY in theosophical society Chennai . Once started earning used to give pocket money to me for entertainments, and personal expenses. It is interesting to remember about his meeting Dakshayini at Balu’s wedding fell in love, got married to her at Mysore. Both are very happy going couple. Chandra is their only daughter. They always loved all the children of the family. His unconditional help to my family when Kunji was sick,especially when we were to relocate from kotdwara to Bangalore cannot be forgotten,has helped me all through my hard days. Now that things have changed and the almighty has bestowed me with three best children to support and sustain my life without kunjitham. Now that we all are here to celebrate the cocktail of his good health, happiness and longer life on his platinum birthday and wish him many more to come. We wish to see him celebrate all his milestones.

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orionlakehastodie · 5 years

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The Lion and the Evenstar

Previous chapters here

Read it on AO3

287 AC, King’s Landing

Brienne looked out of place in her out of fashion tunic. The capital was all about the silks and the exposure of arms, but after an unfortunate incident with a certain Hyle Hunt his mother decided that Brienne should wear whatever she wanted when she was presented to court.

It was his first time seeing Cersei again after so long. She left Casterly Rock 2 years ago to come to court and try to get Prince Rhaegar’s attention - something she failed to do as the Prince married Elia Martell.

She was beautiful as ever, his golden sister in her crimson dress, the Light of the West they called her, and the way her eyes watched him made it known to him that she wanted him as well.

Come with me.

Join the King’s Guard and be with me.

That’s what she said. Be a knight and me with me. She offered herself to him tonight. She’d gotten her moon’s blood she said. They can finally be together.

Except he loved Casterly Rock. Sure he hated the lectures, but he loved the land and the people. And he had a duty to it, and to all the small folk who call Lannisport home. He was Lord Lannister, and he did not want Kevan to take over the Rock - he would dry the mines as soon as he can.

Brienne said so herself - she envisioned a sustainable model -

And his breath caught it his throat when she walked into the doorway.

“Lady Brienne of Tarth, daughter of Lord Selwyn Tarth and ward of Lord Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock.”

Her face was scrubbed clean of the muck that she usually bore from training in the grounds and long lectures. It made her eyes shine even brighter and suddenly he was transported to that first moment he saw her some ten years ago on the shores of Lannisport - the moment he realized the ocean was in her eyes.

She frowned, towering over the other ladies she was presented with but the fine tunic of Essosi linen hugged her curves, made her legs look a mile long, and the gleaming badge of both Lannister Lion and the Sun of Tarth made her look magnificent.

The sun shining from the arbors played shadows on her face.

In this light she can almost be a beauty.

In this light she can almost be a knight.

His trance broke when he felt an elbow against his rib, “Shame you have to live with that. Must be hard for you, with such a freak.”

His vision turned red and he was about to pommel the man when Renly Baratheon clapped a hand around his shoulder and gripped tight.

“Careful there Ser Kenning. That is a lady of the Stormlands. Your liege lord’s dear friend.”

The man cowered and bowed before Renly and without sayiing anything he marched to Lady Brienne, bowed and offered her a dance.

There were stars that bloomed in Brienne’s eyes as she placed her hand against Renly’s and there was a deep seated burning in his gut.

This was his Brienne - since when did she and Renly know each other so well? Since when did he have the right to ask her to dance.

He wanted to bash his pretty face into his head.

“Ah yes, young Renly. He’s been quite taken with our Brienne. And with rumors in the capital about his... preferences, no lady of a higher house would want to be wed to a third son of the Stormlands. I heard Lord Baratheon made an offer to Lord Selwyn, he’s considering it, when I spoke to him last. You never know, this summer when Brienne returns to court at Storm’s End, we may never see her back again.”

His father casually watched the both of them dance and nodded. “Yes, a fine match for our Brienne.”

“A third son from the Stormlands who will never truly love her?”

“Love is not in the cards for someone like Brienne.”

“And what do you mean by that Father?”

There was danger in his tone and Tywin merely sipped from his goblet. “I mean, that the world is cruel, and even more so to those who are not beautiful. She will learn that, however much you or I try to stop it.”

He looked around and saw the snickers, the points as Brienne danced awkwardly with Renly, and she looked at him with all the love in the world, love that should be returned to her.

“I’ll stop it.”

He handed his own cup to his father and marched to Renly, and tapped him on the shoulder, taking Brienne away from him and bringing her into his arms.

There was a startle in her face and question in her eyes but he only pulled her closer. It wasn’t anything they haven’t done before. They shared a bed many times, he had a habit of falling asleep in her chambers and no one dared question it for no one could believe that Jaime Lannister would want to touch someone he thought of as a brother and not a woman.

And yet today he can feel the tremor in her hands, and smell the hint of an orange in her hair. Tonight her eyes seem bluer than they ever were and he drowns in them.

“My Brie.”

He touches his knuckles to her cheek and she flushes and she looked so adorable he had to smile.

“Jaime, what are you doing?”

“Dancing.”

“Yes but you’re supposed to be with Lysa Tully.”

“Fuck Lysa Tully. I want to dance with you. Just you.”

She blushes again but she settles against his chest, resting her cheek on his shoulder, and he himself feels his heart skip a beat, holding her this close. In a way that’s not with swords or wars - it was actually nice.

“Will you marry Renly?”

She says nothing, and his grip tightens on her back.

“Do you love him?”

“He’s been kind. He told me that I should not care about the opinions of others.”

“Do you love him, Brienne?” He asks as he pulls away from her so he could look into her eyes. Her eyes never lied.

“In many ways yes.”

“But not in the important way.”

“Jaime-”

“I’m not a third son Brienne.”

She knows what he means and she shakes her head.

“No.”

“I will love you more than he does.”

She turns to look back at him, her eyes burning.

“But not in the important way Jaime.”

She breaks away from him and he chases after her, Cersei’s invitation and the prospect of the King’s Guard long forgotten. That was the night that changed everything.

TBC

#braime #brienne x jaime #jaime x brienne #brienne of tarth #jaime lannister #the lion and the evenstar

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spideyxchelle · 6 years

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Princess Michelle’s land has been invaded. And to save her country she knows what is expected of her, she knows she is set to marry a man she does not know, hardly respects and hates for forcing her homeland to its knees. Affection cannot grow in the face of war. Not even when the face of that war has the most gorgeous eyes she has ever seen.

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6] [part 7]

The night before her wedding day, Michelle was restless. Sleep was for the peaceful and she was weary with the gravity of her responsibility to crown and country. The dazzling gold and white dress that hung on the back of her door disquieted her mind. More than once she turned her back to the dress to try and dampen the feeling the fabric staring at her, as if it was singing a gleeful tune of royal duty.

When the ladies came to her at the crack of dawn to twist her hair and dress her for the long march down the aisle, she still had not slept. Whenever she closed her eyes she could see the impossibly soft lace of her dress and beyond that, the crooked smile of a prison called prince.

Yet, Michelle did not fight her ladies when they roused her from her bed to prepare her for the day; nor did she stop them when they painted her lips and cheeks with rouge; nor did she stop them when they fit a crown into her curls and strapped her into her dress.

She did not recognize the woman that stood in front of the mirror when they were done with her. She was not Mary Jane the warrior that she had often imagined herself to be in her endless daydreams; no, she was the dolled up princess of her people. The people that had taken up arms against the same country she would be bound to in matrimony. But today she would have to do something more courageous than wielding a sword or riding a dragon. She was submitting her life and happiness to a foreign land that invaded her home for the safety and happiness all of her people. So, in this battle, her dress would be her armor and her smile would be her steel.

There were many ways to win a war.

And at the end of the aisle there was a promise waiting for her in that godforsaken Church, the promise that her home would be safe from foreign invaders. Princess Michelle could accomplish peace with a mere ring exchange. A marriage.

She caught her mother’s eye in the reflection of her mirror. She was standing wearily in the doorway. Michelle had never noticed before that perhaps royal marriage had been her mother’s burden as well. Her father was not an easy man. Yet, her mother did not flinch away from her responsibilities as Queen.

While it was a daughter’s misfortune to love her father, even a man like Thanos, Michelle gave her love to her mother freely. She was a quiet, purposeful woman and in the terror of her wedding day Michelle was seven again and she longed for her mother’s comfort.

Her mother crossed the length of the room and caught Michelle in her arms before she buckled to the floor. Emotion had overwhelmed her suddenly and sharply. The princess felt her mother guide the pair of them to the safety of the ground. “Hush, my child,” she cooed into Michelle’s hair, “We can only weep when the war is won.”

“I don’t want to do this,” Michelle admitted into the comfort of he rmother’s bosom.

The Queen smiled sadly against her child’s brow and gently kissed her forehead, “If I could spare you this, I would.”

Michelle wiped messily at her nose and looked into her mother’s eyes, the perfect mirror of her own, “I could run away.”

The older woman patiently hummed, “You could.”

But even as Michelle suggested running away, she could see the outcome of her cowardess. She could see the countryside alight in dragon fire and the battles that raged in farmer’s fields littered with scores of dead. Michelle could see the devastation of choice and that was when she made peace with her own.

She swallowed down her fear, “Help me to my feet, mother.”

When she stood, it was with determination in her bones. Michelle squeezed the tips of the Queen’s fingers and her mother clutched her hand fiercely, “My beautiful, brave girl.”

The crowd outside the Church whooped so loudly, Michelle could hear their cheers inside the entrance hall. One of her ladies had delightedly informed her that the throng of people who wished her wedding well extended for leagues and leagues and leagues. Michelle sent a panicked look in the direction of her mother who seemed to be the picture of grace and calm. It reminded Michelle who and what she was supposed to be for her people. She reminded herself that her wedding dress was her armor, her smile was her steel.

In battle regalia, she could not lose the day.

When her father joined the wedding party, the entire room dropped their heads and bowed deeply in respect for the King. Princess Michelle could not find the energy to show such courtesies. Instead, she lowered her eyes to the ground, a mockery of deference.

When she lifted her eyes, she saw the barely concealed hostility swirling in the dark pools of her father’s eyes. It did not fill her with shame or dread like it had done in the past. In fact, his scathing looks did not even chink her shields. Her armor was impenetrable. She would be a Queen like her mother before her and if the King was the blade of his country, the Queen was the heart and soul.

The heart and soul could not be beaten into submission, not even by Thanos.

Her father stiffly offered her his arm and she graciously took it.

Michelle took a final breath from her life before and when she exhaled the doors opened and a second life began.

There was music, but she could scarcely hear it over the thudding of her heart that roared like a lion in her ears. The pews were filled to the last seat with dignitaries from foreign lands and with faces of her court and the matching dignitaries of the Stark Lands. Michelle kept her eyes from the end of the aisle because she knew what was waiting there for her. Or who.

She was not ready. Michelle longed to hold onto one minute more of reckless pretend.

Her father covertly squeezed her arm. The unkind pressure reminded her that this whole day, this whole ceremony, was a performance and she had a role to play. She was the starring figure—Michelle and the man at the end of the aisle.

And so, she lifted her eyes.

There he was. He cut a fine figure in his princely garb, dripping in sharp metal, like a dragon’s spikes, and fabric tailored to perfection. His shoulders were surprisingly square and proud and behind his eyes there was a fire that rivaled his dragon’s spirit. He was dressed like a Prince and a Dragon Rider, no doubt as a clear sign to his people and her own who their prince truly was behind his finery. Peter’s temperament was more suited for the skies than the ground and if he had sprouted wings that day and flown away she would not have been surprised.

But he stayed firmly routed to the ground. His arms were folded neatly behind his back and he stood eerily still. All of the good humor she had come to know in him was washed away. If she had a role to play, Peter was her counterpart in his honor.

There was no fondness but there was also nothing severely mean about his demeanor. He was a blank canvas and Michelle wanted to pick up her skirts and run.

Then, he offered her his hand. His mouth was not soft but it was determined. Then, a piece of the boy she had known on the back of his dragon returned. Together, he seemed to say with his eyes.

She took his hand and let her father go. Once and for all. She charged into the future without a single glance back. There was nothing waiting for her there.

It had been days since she had been this close Peter. She had seen him from her window sparring in the courtyard but they had not spoken since that night with his goch. In her head, she had imagined a million things they might say to one another before this day, she dreamed up apologies and arguments in droves, but the only words they would say to one another now would be their vows.

The three steps to the altar felt like a marathon. Each one weighed her down to the moment. If Peter could tell how uneasy she was on her feet, he did not show it. However, he did keep a firm grip on her hand and a guiding hand on her back.

When they were on the riser above the crowd, they turned to look at one another and Michelle felt her chest flutter. His eyes. They were maddeningly intent on her own. They were not as soft and open as they had been that night with his dragon, and yet—

But she could tell there was something in him that was taking stock of this moment and committing it to memory. It was a precious day to him. Michelle was not yet sure how she would remember their wedding. Sometimes she was determined to hate him. And others, oh others, she would see the awkward set of his mouth and the unruly nature of his hair and inexplicable fondness would wash over her in a sea of an emotion she was too terrified to name.

The priest spoke. The specific words she could not discern. She was lost in the gentle pressure of their connected hands.

And yet, she found herself, as if possessed, being able to say the sacred words she had committed to memory. Her vows. Peter’s gaze was shockingly intense. If he had committed the image of her to a special place in his mind, he was now feasting on her promises. Her words were a source of food, sustaining him through the battle they raged together. An eye of the storm. With the world watching.

When her last words died on her lips, the priest bound her hands in cloth.

Only then, did the wall of sound that had kept Michelle from hearing the world give way. The Church was a crystal fortress of noise. She could hear every cough, whisper, fidget from the pews. But she heard Peter’s silence the keenest.

The priest asked again, “My Prince?”

Peter blinked.

He breathed.

She felt his thumb brush against the pulse point on her wrist. They were alive. Flesh and body. Bone and blood. Life and lovers.

Peter began.

“I give you all that is mine to give.” Michelle felt her chest rise and fall. “I give you my hands to build our home. I give you my heart to shelter our love.” His focused voice wavered but only just on the last word. He closed his eyes and Michelle reached out for him in the hall of hundreds. It was not a touch that would have been visible to their audience’s eye, it was the slightest pressure between searching fingertips, and so, in the heady pressure of their grand show, their vows went from belonging to the crowd to existing between only them.

He opened his eyes and locked on hers, “And should any seek to harm you, my body will be your shield. From this day, until my last day, I am yours.”

The priest bound Peter’s hands and they were connected by fingers and cloth. Michelle was certain if she pulled slightly the cloth would have given way and the bond would have been broken. But she would not unmake what had now been forged.

This vow was stronger than steel. And the center would hold. She would make sure of it.

#ficlet #arranged marriage au

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dengswei · 2 years

Photo

UENO JURI as Sawada Kyoka and TANAKA KEI as Higashimura Seita in Jizoku Kanona Koi Desuka: Chichi to Musume no Kekkon Koushinkyoku (2022) episode five

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emunenen · 3 years

Text

Makao Bora

New Post has been published on https://wp.me/paK8na-4jc

Blow by blow account into the investigation of how Tecra died daughter of Keroche Breweries owner Tabitha Karanja

Chronology surround death of Tecra, arrest and acquitting of Omar Lali:

May 3, 2020: Tecra Muigai, daughter of Keroche Breweries owners Tabitha and Joseph Karanja is airlifted to a Nairobi hospital to receive treatment after she fell down the stairs. Her family in a statement, said she died after “a tragic accident”.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) immediately begins investigations into the incident.

May 4: A day after the news, police arrest Omar Lali, her lover, in connection with her death.

Tecra had been living with Lali, a 51-year-old man in an apartment in Shela, Lamu Island.

Lamu Principal Magistrate Allan Sitati then allows police to detain Lali for 21 days to enable them conclude their investigations.

A postmortem examination indicated that Tecra might have died from trauma to the skull. Police reports say she was unresponsive when she was taken to King Fahad Hospital in Lamu on April 30.

May 16: The Keroche heiress is laid to rest on May 16, 2020 in a private burial in Naivasha, attended by at least 100 people.

Lali’s family had requested to be allowed to attend the burial to pay their last respects, on grounds that Tecra was good to them whenever they visited. The request is denied.

May 26: Court releases Omar Lali, the main suspect in the murder of Tecra Muigai.

Magistrate Allan Sitati declines to continue holding Lali after the expiry of the 21-day pre-trial detention period. He ruled detectives did not find any substantial evidence despite visiting the crime scene.

Lali is out on a Sh300,000 bond or surety of a similar amount. His family submits title deeds to two pieces of land as collateral as they lacked the money. However, the case is not dropped.

Between the day of release and June, homicide detectives probing the matter pick inconsistencies into the account of how Tecra died.

July 13: The case takes an interesting turn and Omar Lali is charged with the murder of Tecra Muigai.

Lead prosecutors Eddie Kadebe and Zakaria Kiongo say there is sufficient evidence to have him take a murder plea.

July 16: State drops murder charges against Omar Lali.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) drops the charges and applies for an open inquest.

An emotional Lali is then captured outside Garsen Magistrate’s court celebrating his newly-found freedom, kneeling down amid tears and prayer.

Between July and November, things seem to cool down as both families await action from court.

However, the world is let into the secretive lives of Tecra and Lali, who until the time of her death, was scheduled to wed the 51-year-old father of six, and three-time divorcee.

As avidly told here, the two met and fell in love in 2019. Lali, a fisherman and boat operator, often ferried Muigai between the islands in the Lamu archipelago.

Their rocky relationship however only lasted about 10 months.

November 2020: An inquest into the death of Keroche Breweries heiress Tecra Muigai is held in Nairobi.

Principal magistrate Zainab Abdul rules it is important to consider the interest of Tecra’s family who were the most affected by her death and wished to have the inquest in Nairobi as opposed to Lamu.

“I find that the proper court to hear this inquest is Milimani Court in Nairobi and not Lamu. Although the deceased sustained injuries, which led to her death in Lamu, she died in Nairobi and the nearest court where she died is here,” Ms Abdul ruled.

March 9, 2021: The case resurfaces in March 2021 following revelations by Keroche Breweries owner Tabitha Karanja of how Tecra had been sending Lali money. Mrs Karanja blames Lali for the death of her daughter.

March 10: Another witness, Eric Cheruiyot- Tecra’s driver- testifies in court, revealing chilling details of the lovers’ relationship.

Source: Standard

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nataliesnews · 3 years

Text

and a Follow-up

A true and amazing story. First is the email sent to me by a friend followed by my response to him after some research.

Alvin

Subject: Fwd: An Amazing story – Pfizer Vaccine

Hard to read but worth it.

An Amazing story – Pfizer Vaccine

Sixty thousand Jews were in Thessaloniki, Greece on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. A living and vibrant Jewish community. Most of the porters in the port of Thessaloniki were Jews. The port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday. Great rabbis lived there too

It was on this glorious community that the Nazi terror brutally rose.

Hitler took Greece by storm to secure his southern wing before launching Operation Barbarossa and the offensive against Russia.

Out of 60,000 Thessaloniki Jews, about 50,000were exterminated in Birkenau in a very short time…. Few survived.

Among the survivors were the Bourla family.

After the war in 1961 a son was born to the Bourla family. And they named him Israel - Abraham. (Albert).

Albert grew up and studied veterinary medicine. He received his doctorate in reproductive biotechnology from the Aristotle University of Salonika Veterinary School.

At the age of 34 he moved to the United States. He married a Jewish woman named Miriam and had two children.

In the United States, Bourla was integrated into the medical industry. He progressed very quickly and joined the Pfizer company where he became 'Head of Global Vaccines'.

From there, the road is short for his appointment as CEO of Pfizer in 2019.

Throughout the year, Bourla led the company's efforts to find a vaccine for corona in super efforts.

The vaccine that will save the lives of millions of people around the world was led and pushed by a Jew. Son of Holocaust survivors. From Thessaloniki.

His vaccine will also reach Germany, where 1000s have died from Covid, and the vaccine will also save lives there.

And THIS is why Israel is becoming the first country to receive the vaccine. In memory of Albert’s grandparents.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sent: Fri, Mar 5, 2021 1:26 pm Subject: Fwd: A follow-up An Amazing story – Pfizer Vaccine

Your email describing Albert Bourla's story of his family gave me the inspiration to look into it further and what follows is an expansion of his family's story.

Albert Bourla: My Family’s Story: Why We Remember

This week, as we do every year, we commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day so that the stories of the victims and survivors are never forgotten. Yesterday, I was deeply honored to join the Sephardic Heritage International in DC ‘s Annual Congressional Holocaust Commemoration to share my family’s story in connection with the Holocaust.

You can watch me deliver my remarks or read them below.

Remembrance. It’s this word, perhaps more than any other, that inspired me to share my parents’ story. That’s because I recognize how fortunate I am that my parents shared their stories with me and the rest of our family.

Many Holocaust survivors never spoke to their children of the horrors they endured because it was too painful. But we talked about it a great deal in my family. Growing up in Thessaloniki, Greece, we would get together with our cousins on the weekends, and my parents, aunts and uncles would often share their stories.

They did this because they wanted us to remember. To remember all the lives that were lost. To remember what can happen when the virus of evil is allowed to spread unchecked. But, most important, to remember the value of a human life.

You see, when my parents spoke of the Holocaust, they never spoke of anger or revenge. They didn’t teach us to hate those who did this to our family and friends. Instead they spoke of how lucky they were to be alive … and how we all needed to build on that feeling, celebrate life and move forward. Hatred would only stand in the way.

So, in that spirit, I’m here to share the story of Mois and Sara Bourla, my beloved parents.

Our ancestors had fled Spain in the late 15th century, after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree, which mandated that all Spanish Jews either convert to Catholicism or be expelled from the country. They eventually settled in the Ottoman Thessaloniki, which later became part of Greece following its liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.

Before Hitler began his march through Europe, there was a thriving Sephardic Jewish community in Thessaloniki. So much so that it was known as “La Madre de Israel” or “The Mother of Israel.” Within a week of the occupation, however, the Germans had arrested the Jewish leadership, evicted hundreds of Jewish families and confiscated their apartments. And it took them less than three years to accomplish their goal of exterminating the community. When the Germans invaded Greece, there were approximately 50,000 Jews living in the city. By the end of the war, only 2,000 had survived.

Lucky for me, both of my parents were among the 2,000.

My father’s family, like so many others, had been forced from their home and taken to a crowded house within one of the Jewish ghettos. It was a house they had to share with several other Jewish families. They could circulate in and out of the ghetto, as long as they were wearing the yellow star.

But one day in March 1943, the ghetto was surrounded by occupation forces, and the exit was blocked. My father, Mois, and his brother, Into, were outside when this happened. When they approached, they met their father, who also was outside. He told them what was happening and asked them to leave and hide. But he had to go in because his wife and his two other children were home. Later that day, my grandfather, Abraham Bourla, his wife, Rachel, his daughter, Graciela, and his younger son, David, were taken to a camp outside the train station. From there they left for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Mois and Into never saw them again.

The same night, my father and uncle escaped to Athens, where they were able to obtain fake IDs with Christian names. They got the IDs from the head of police, who at the time was helping Jews escape the persecution of the Nazis. They lived there until the end of the war … all the while having to pretend that they were not Jews … that they were not Mois and Into – but rather Manolis and Vasilis.

When the German occupation ended, they went back to Thessaloniki and found that all their property and belongings had been stolen or sold. With nothing to their name, they started from scratch, becoming partners in a successful liquor business that they ran together until they both retired.

My mom’s story also was one of having to hide in her own land … of narrowly escaping the horrors of Auschwitz … and of family bonds that sustained her spirit and, quite literally, saved her life.

Like my father’s family, my mom’s family was relocated to a house within the ghetto. My mother was the youngest girl of seven children. Her older sister had converted to Christianity to marry a Christian man she had fallen in love with before the war, and she and her husband were living in another city where no one knew that she had previously been a Jew. At that time mixed weddings were not accepted by society, and my grandfather wouldn’t talk to his eldest daughter because of this.

But when it became clear that the family was going to head to Poland, where the Germans had promised a new life in a Jewish settlement, my grandfather asked his eldest daughter to come and see him. In this last meeting they ever had, he asked her to take her youngest sister – my mom – with her.

There my mom would be safe because no one knew that she or her sister were of Jewish heritage. The rest of the family went by train straight to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Toward the end of the war, my mom’s brother-in-law was transferred back to Thessaloniki. People knew my mom there, so she had to hide in the house 24 hours a day out of fear of being recognized and turned over to the Germans. But she was still a teenager, and every so often, she would venture outside. Unfortunately, during one of those walks, she was spotted and arrested.

She was sent to a local prison. It was not good news. It was well known that every day around noon, some of the prisoners would be loaded on a truck to be transferred to another location where the next dawn they would be executed. Knowing this, her brother-in-law, my dearest Christian uncle, Kostas Dimadis, approached Max Merten, a known war criminal who was in charge of the Nazi occupation forces in the city.

He paid Merten a ransom in exchange for his promise that my mom would not be executed. But her sister, my aunt, didn’t trust the Germans. So, she would go to the prison every day at noon to watch as they loaded the truck that would transfer the prisoners to the execution site. And one day she saw what she had been afraid of: my mom being put on the truck.

She ran home and told her husband who immediately called Merten. He reminded him of their agreement and tried to shame him for not keeping his word. Merten said he would look into it and then abruptly hung up the phone.

That night was the longest in my aunt and uncle’s life because they knew the next morning, my mom would likely be executed. The next day – on the other side of town – my mom was lined up against a wall with other prisoners. And moments before she would have been executed, a soldier on a BMW motorcycle arrived and handed some papers to the man in charge of the firing squad.

They removed from the line my mom and another woman. As they rode away, my mom could hear the machine gun fire slaughtering those that were left behind. It’s a sound that stayed with her for the rest of her life.

Two or three days later, she was released from prison. And just a few weeks after that, the Germans left Greece.

Fast forward eight years and my parents were introduced by their families in a typical-for-the-time matchmaking. They liked each other and agreed to marry. They had two children – me and my sister, Seli.

My father had two dreams for me. He wanted me to become a scientist and was hoping I would marry a nice Jewish girl. I am happy to say that he lived long enough to see both dreams come true. Unfortunately, he died before our children were born ... but my mom did live long enough to see them, which was the greatest of blessings.

So, that is the story of Mois and Sara Bourla. It’s a story that had a great impact on my life and my view of the world, and it is a story that, for the first time today, I share publicly.

However, when I received the invitation to speak at this event – at this moment in time when racism and hatred are tearing at the fabric of our great nation – I felt it was the right time to share the story of two simple people who loved, and were loved by, their family and friends. Two people who stared down hatred and built a life filled with love and joy. Two people whose names are known by very few … but whose story has now been shared with the members of the United States Congress – the world’s greatest and most just legislative body. And that makes their son very proud.

This brings me back to remembrance. As time marches on and today’s event shrinks in our rearview mirrors, I wouldn’t expect you to remember my parents’ names, but I implore you to remember their story. Because remembering gives each of us the conviction, the courage and the compassion to take the necessary actions to ensure their story is never repeated.

Thank you again for the invitation to speak today. And thank you for remembering.

Stay safe and stay well.

#Albert Bourla

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folklohre · 3 years

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𝙰𝙽𝙽𝙰 𝙷𝙴𝙻𝙻𝙴𝚅𝙸𝙺 + TIMELINE / RECAP OF LYKKELAND SERIES ONE.

1 9 6 9. stavanger is in crisis, with its fishing industry slowing down and the oil adventure coming to a halt before it’s even begun as international companies begin to pull out. anna, an ambitious young woman, finds herself in the center of it all.

→ TREASURE HUNT , summer 1969.

jonathan kay, a lawyer for phillips petroleum, is sent to stavanger to sublet their rig, ocean viking, to another company or facilitate a withdrawal deal. anna hellevik, a farmer’s daughter from dirdal, celebrates her engagement to high school sweetheart christian nyman, the heir to the nyman fishing and shipping company. christian is a diver on the ocean viking platform and is therefore offshore for long periods of time. anna lands a job as politician arne rettedal’s secretary and transcribes his meetings with phillips petroleum’s ed young and jonathan kay. after phillips decides to drill its final block on the ocean viking rather than pull out, christian gets into a car accident with marius torstensen, who sustains injuries he later dies of. christian lies to the police and claims he was sober, thus keeping the accident off his record. soon after, marius’ pregnant daughter toril torstensen is forced to marry a local man who has agreed to raise her illegitimate child as his own.

→ SMOKING BAN , late 1969.

anna’s parents, hardon and oddfrid, wonder if christian and anna are a good match, claiming they’re too different, and oddfrid isn’t sure she really loves him. rein, anna’s older brother, is out of work and hopes to get a job on an oil platform. meanwhile, christian is offshore when phillips petroleum believe they’ve found oil on the 2/4 block. in a meeting with rettedal, ed and jonathan pretend they haven’t found anything of significance, and name the block ekofisk. christmas is just around the corner, but nyman’s shipping company has to lay off several of its employees, and christian’s father fredrik nyman cuts his own salary by 20% to help the company, which catapults his wife ingrid into a valium induced depressive episode. when christian is flown back to shore in order to help his mother, he tells anna that they’ve imposed a smoking ban on the platform. smart enough to know that this means they must have found something, anna shares this knowledge with rettedal and tries to convince her future father-in-law to enter the oil industry, but her attempt is interrupted as toril goes into labour while at work. after the last day of work before christmas, jonathan invites anna to the movies. she declines, explaining she has to get back to the family farm, and he walks her to her bus. on december 23rd 1969, phillips petroleum finally finds oil on the ocean viking platform, with claims it’s the largest underwater oil reservoir ever found.

→ THE SUMMER HOUSE , spring 1970.

anna is in the midst of wedding planning with ingrid and fredrik at garnodden, the family summer house, but christian himself is a no-show. fredrik is in need of a translator at a meeting with a possible buyer in england and asks anna to accompany him. christian holds a party at his new apartment, a purchase he has kept secret from both his parents and anna, and invites friends and coworkers from the platform, including jonathan. while at the party, christian and anna get into an argument about his family’s financial problems and their different priorities. after christian storms off, a conversation with jonathan makes anna realise that selling garnodden to phillips petroleum would stop the nyman family from going into financial ruin. the next day, fredrik’s meeting in england is unsuccessful, but after anna recommends turning their old trawling ships into supply ships for oil companies, fredrik returns to stavanger with a new sense of hope. when anna later tells fredrik that she took jonathan to garnodden so he could survey the plot, he’s disappointed in her, but after yet another unsuccessful meeting with the bank, he decides to follow her advice and sells garnodden to jonathan and phillips petroleum, against his family’s wishes.

→ SIXTY NINE METRES DOWN , spring / summer 1970.

→ DIRDAL VALLEY , early 1971.

when phillips petroleum is looking to build a dry dock for the construction of the ekofisk tank, jonathan notices anna’s family farm in dirdal on one of the possible building plans. the land owners are to be given offers by norwegian contractors’ gunnar sandvik later the same day, so jonathan drives anna to her family farm so she can convince her father to take the offer. by the time they get there, hardon has already refused the offer, but after anna lies to her family about the other landowners accepting, her father changes his mind and accepts the offer. after the meeting, anna and gunnar meet for celebratory drinks at esso motor hotel, where a moment between anna and jonathan is interrupted by toril, who now works as a waitress at the hotel. anna spends more time with jonathan, while christian decides to start a diving company of his own with martin, a friend and fellow ocean viking diver. meanwhile, the stavanger city council has decided that the dry dock will be built in jåttåvågen rather than dirdal, and anna’s actions has alienated her family from the rest of the village.

→ HOPE AND FRAUD , march 1971.

while he struggles with financing his diving company c - max, christian and anna continue getting into arguments over the smallest things. fredrik sells his canning company to hastings, the english company who turned him down the year prior, in order to help christian with his company, but lies about the production rate. anna accompanies rettedal in a meeting with arve johnsen, a labour party politician working on establishing a state owned oil company. back at the office, anna’s female colleagues think she’s beginning to sound like a politician, and jonathan invites her on a road trip the following day. christian offers rein a job with c - max, but when anna returns to the family farm to share the good news, she’s faced with the harsh realities her family is facing in dirdal. rein turns down christian’s offer, having been approached by phillips petroleum for a job at the platform. hardon insists anna and christian’s wedding should be held at the family farm, and won’t give her a suitable date for the ceremony. anna then decides to join jonathan on his road trip around stavanger, opening up to him about her struggles of feeling indebted to the nyman family. back at the nyman house, ingrid informs the family that hardon has finally agreed to hold the wedding at the atlantic hotel in stavanger in late june 1972. when the father of toril’s son shows up to talk to toril, christian reacts with jealousy and anna decides to spend the night at her family’s farm. things have begun to settle in dirdal, and the hellevik family is slowly but surely being included in the village again. being at the family farm makes it clear that deep down anna is unsure about her engagement.

→ PARTY AT ESSO MOTOR HOTEL , december 1971.

the norwegian state is considering moving the oil operation to bergen, so rettedal asks anna to help him convince the state’s industry committee to choose stavanger as the oil capital of norway. after taking the committee on a tour of the ekofisk tank, jonathan invites anna on yet another road trip the very same night, but she turns him down as she’s busy with work as rettedal is hosting a dinner for the committee. when arve johnsen tells rettedal it’s unlikely the committee will vote for stavanger because it’s such a conservative and religious town, anna is given the responsibility to organise a party at esso motor hotel to show the delegates that stavanger can be fun. after the party, jonathan tells anna he likes her and they spend the night together. they sleep together again the following day, but anna is conflicted. after having dinner with rettedal at esso motor hotel, anna goes home to christian to break off their engagement, but finds herself unable to. she calls jonathan, who expects to hear good news, but instead tells him she doesn’t know how christian would cope if she left him. she tries writing a letter to end the engagement, but can’t find the right words and instead goes back to christian, ending her relationship with jonathan before it’s even begun.

→ THE OIL CAPITAL , spring / summer 1972.

anna and christian’s wedding is only a few months away, and planning is in full swing but at the wedding tasting, anna finds herself arguing with fredrik over their differing political views, and her distaste for the family’s view on wealth only grows. the next day, jonathan and ed young have a meeting with rettedal which anna transcribes. after the meeting, jonathan, who still has feelings for anna, asks her to go for a drive but she refuses. she rushes home to christian, but is left annoyed at his drinking habits. jonathan flies back to bartlesville. meanwhile, on june 14th, the parliament votes on the establishment of a state owned oil company and the location of norway’s oil capital. stavanger wins and is officially made the oil capital, and the parliament votes to establish a state owned oil company, which later becomes statoil. jonathan is offered a senior position at the phillips headquarters in bartlesville. later the same day, anna and christian’s parents are finalizing seating arrangements for the wedding reception when anna finally breaks down. a conversation with fredrik leads her to finally admit she doesn’t love christian anymore, and she ends the engagement. she then applies for a bachelor in economics at nhh ( norwegian school of economics ) in bergen. in august, jonathan turns down the senior position in bartlesville and returns to stavanger. the two reunite and decide to enter a long distance relationship while anna studies.

#❪ i. ❫ A. HELLEVIK ‚ picture me in the weeds before i learned civility.#notes. –– a. h.#literally just copy pasted from my old blog but... hello.#anna is fun! she's a socialist. a future economist. a hard worker. a take no shit type of girl. she's egotistical and proud yet filled with #shame and fear. she hates feeling indebted to people yet her economic situation forces her to be.#she's fun and i love her and so should you!

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aiaalalv · 4 years

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AIAA Member Spotlight on Col. Charles Vono (May 18, 2020)

AIAA Member Spotlight on Col. Charles Vono (May 18, 2020) Col. Charles Thomas Vono AIAA Associate Fellow Retired, Northrop Grumman (legacy TRW) and USAF Born in 1952, Charles Thomas Vono grew up in Wasco, a small farming town just north of Bakersfield, California. His father, Mike, had been a ball turret gunner in B-24s, flying up the Adriatic to deliver death to Nazi industry. Charlie was named after his uncle who was a gunner as well, fighting in every major naval battle of the Pacific and then on to exploring Antarctica post WWII. The battles started with assignment to the New Orleans, dry-docked in Pearl Harbor and fighting back with their guns. (See the famous WWII song, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”). As a kid, Charlie got various jobs around Wasco where he was known as the nephew of the man who ran Vono Jewelers. (Uncle Chuck took over after Charlie’s father passed away in 1956.) Around 15, he got various jobs at farms outside of town, and then his last civilian job was selling door to door in Bakersfield. Like Dwight Yokum he has “Walked the Streets of Bakersfield”. Althought he wasn’t exactly Merle Haggard’s “Radiator Man from Wasco”, Charlie’s maternal grandfather was the top mechanic at the Dodge Garage in Wasco. Charlie’s paternal grandparents were from Curcoli, Calabria, Italy. He had the good fortune to visit his ancestral village last July where they still remember Tommasso Vono as a “mean SOB” or words to that effect in Italian. Concetta died of the Spanish Flu in Des Moines, and Tommasso died in the Des Moines prison, leaving orphaned two sons (Mike and Chuck) and 3 daughters. Moving along to 1969, it was “cutting over rows” with a shovel in 110-degree heat, at a farm west of Wasco Charlie remembers most clearly looking up and seeing a jet flying overhead from Edwards AFB. “I bet,” he thought “those guys have air conditioning in those cockpits”. This is somewhat akin to the answer Buck Owens gave when asked, “Why’d you get into Country Music?” “I sure as hell didn’t want to pick cotton the rest of my life!” Why join the AF? The air conditioning! Charles graduated from the USAF Academy in 1976 with a bachelor of science degree in Astronautical Engineering with significant coursework in control theory and computer science. Charlie says he owes a lot of his academic ability to the good Sisters of Saint Francis who taught him at St. John’s Elementary School and his realization he could take on any profession to the local priest who told him he could. While at the USAF Academy, Charlie met his future wife, Juanita Williamson. They are celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary 4 June 2020. They have 3 married children and 3 grandchildren… so far. Nita is a real estate agent, Utah state fair blue-ribbon quilter (she’s sewing lots of face masks right now), and rescues turtles. Charlie’s place in southeast Ogden is a turtle sanctuary with hills, creek, and a pond. Charlie’s first assignment in the USAF was at Beale AFB in Strategic Air Command as a KC-135 air refueling pilot supporting the worldwide reconnaissance mission of the SR-71. Charlie also has a Master of Science in Systems Management from USC. He got this during his second USAF assignment in 1982 as Inertial Upper Stage Software Systems Chief at Space Division (now Space and Missile Center) in Los Angeles back in the days of Systems Command. This degree stood him in good stead during his 25-year career with TRW and Northrop Grumman sustaining our nation’s ICBM force in Utah (1985 to 2014 with a 4 year pause in the middle). Many of his fellow sustainers possessed the same degree and applied the principles of systems engineering to management of this complex system. Charlie also has a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Utah State University, again with significant coursework in control theory. Charlie was thrilled to have his primary professor be a man who had been on the control systems design team for the Saturn V. While he separated from the USAF at the end of his Los Angeles career, he stayed active in the USAF reserves filling various positions at Hill AFB in Utah. He was a structural engineer in F-16s, a quality control engineer (writing Hill’s first Quality Plan for competition), and manpower. Upon promotion to colonel, Charlie applied and won a full-time position on the commander’s staff at Pacific Command, a joint command responsible for 2/3rds of the Earth. Charlie was the Reserve Forces Division Chief at a time when the US was generating its first ever partial mobilization of all reserve forces after the 911 attacks. After this assignment, in 2003, Charlie returned to his position at TRW sustaining ICBMs, except TRW had been bought by Northrop Grumman. Charlie took on various challenges at that time, including acting chief of ICBM Propulsion and Northrop Grumman manager for ICBM Guidance Systems, before retiring in 2014. Before retiring, one of Charlie’s duties was teaching Minuteman III ICBM general familiarization to contractors and USAF personnel. In retirement, Charlie remains active in AIAA, INCOSE, and SAME and is an AIAA distinguished lecturer. He travels the country (pre-virus) giving presentations on “Refueling the SR-71 during the Cold War”, “How to Keep Complex Systems Effective for Decades”, “How ICBMs Work and Why They are Important”, and “Evans’ Flour Mill, the First Modern Factory”. Charlie loves to show how today’s world sprang from Industrial Revolution and WWII innovations. He gave a half-day class on keeping complex systems effective for decades at the 2018 INCOSE Western States Regional Conference. Just before the virus, on 3 March, he was the keynote speaker for the 45th Dayton-Cincinnati Aerospace Sciences Symposium, where he became the first ever aerospace speaker to start his keynote leading the auditorium crowd in several verses of “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!”. Charlie is past chair of the Utah Engineers Council, a council of 17 engineering societies in the State of Utah that celebrate engineers week each year by declaring Utah engineer of the year and giving away 15 to 20 scholarships to undergraduate students in engineering. Charlie started the annual tradition of supporting a STEM booth at the Salt Lake City FanX comics convention, the 3rd largest in the US. Teaming with Hill AFB on this endeavor ensures amazing displays such as an F-16 cockpit for the kids and their parents to try out. Charlie has posted his AIAA technical papers, posts, and presentations at his web site: charlesvono.com. He has ebooks on sustainment available at Amazon.com. You can find him on facebook (Charles Thomas Vono) and LinkedIn (Charles Vono). Charlie will give an exciting and popular lecture/webinar with AIAA LA-LV "In-flight Refueling the SR-71 During the Cold War" on August 8, 2020. Please join us and enjoy!

Col. Charlie Vono (USAF - Retired) Read the full article

#Aerospace #AIAA #AssociateFellow #CharlesVono #CharlieVono #Colonel #ICBM #In-flight #KC-135Q #LasVegas #LosAngeles #Member #refueling #Space #Spotlight #SR-71 #Sustainment

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND August 30, 2019 - Labor Day Blahs

I was trying to decide whether to do one of these this week, because it’s Labor Day weekend, and this is likely to be a particularly short column because I HAVEN’T SEEN ANYTHING! In fact, I’m not even doing my regular Box Office Preview column over at The Beat, because there just doesn’t seem to be much point to it. There used to be a time when studios would release movies over the four-day holiday weekend but not so much anymore, and this is a particularly weak Labor Day with no new movies opening in 1,000 theaters or more. No, it’s more about reexpanding movies already in theaters like Spider-Man: Far from Home in order to try to make more money before the summer is over. But if this is boring, you can also read my 2019 Summer Box Office wrap-up over at The Beat.

The only new “wide” release is BH Tilt’s latest release DON’T LET GO, a thriller directed by Jacob Estes (Rings) and starring David Oyelowo and Storm Reid from A Wrinkle in Time, and it’s not even opening in 1,000 theaters. It might not even get into the top 10. Apparently, BH Tilt is now going as “OTL Releasing” but I don’t think this movie has as much buzz as Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade, released by Blumhouse’s distribution branch in June 2018 to make $4.7 million opening weekend and $14.4 million total domestic. I don’t see Don’t Let Goopening that big as its plot is far vaguer, and I think if this make more than $4 million over the four-day holiday, it would be considered a coup since it’s only playing in less than 1,000 theaters. Who knows? I might even go see it on a lark.

Interestingly, there are two foreign language films from other countries (because as hard as it might be to believe, they speak other languages in other countries!) getting moderate releases this weekend: Sujeeth’s Bollywood action-thriller SAAHO (Yash Raj Films) and from Mexico, Ariel Winograd’s Spanish language TOD@S CAEN released by Lionsgate’s LatinX division Pantelion Films. I will be the first to admit that I’m not the best person to gauge interest in either movie because they’re not my communities, so I rarely see much marketing for these films.

Opening on Thursday, Saaho actually looks pretty cool, and if I can find three hours of time over Labor Day, I might actually check it out. It’s being released in three languages versions: Hindi, Telugu and Tamil, all with English subtitles, and that seems very groundbreaking, and it will also be in IMAX theaters. This could be another hit for Yash Raj ala the “Dhoom” series—Dhoom 3 opened with $3.4 million in 239 theaters in 2013 -- and possibly the studio’s widest release since 2018’s Thugs of Hindostan.

Check out the Hindi trailer below:

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(Oddly, Saaho was supposed to be released on India’s Independence Day August 15, but then was pushed back to American Labor Day. Bollywood films tend to get day and date releases nationwide to avoid piracy.)

Tod@s Caen (pronounced “todos caen” – don’t yell at me! It wasn’t my idea!) stars Omar Chapparo, the hot Mexican star from Pantelion’s hits No manches Frida and its sequel plus How to Be a Latin Lover. No manches Frida grossed about $11.5 million after its $4.6 million opening over Labor Day in 2016 while the sequel opened slightly bigger this past March but grossed less. Latin Lover was a huge crossover success for Chapparo and Pantelion, grossing $32.1 million. This is likely to be more in the former category and opening in 365 theaters, it probably can make around $3 million or more.

STREAMING AND CABLE

There aren’t many movies I can recommend, but at least I can recommend the new Netflix series THE DARK CRYSTAL: THE AGE OF RESISTANCE, which is a prequel to the 1982 Jim Henson movie that was made quite lovingly using the same puppeteering techniques as well as some of the same designers from the original movie. Plus the series has an absolutely brilliant voice cast that includes Taron Egerton, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anya Taylor-Joy, Alicia Vikander, Sigourney Weaver, Natalie Dormer, Lena Headey, Jason Isaacs, Theo James, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Simon Pegg and many, many more. As someone who wasn’t really a fan of the original movie, I found myself quite wrapped up in this series, having watched the first five episodes so far, and I think fans and non-fans alike will dig it.

You can read my interview with the writers over at The Beat.

(Netflix is also releasing a movie called Falling In Love, starring Christina Millan and Adam Demos... but that title... I just can’t!

Amazon Prime will begin streaming its own fantasy series, the very different Carnival Row, starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, on Friday. It’s a steampunk noir crime series in which Bloom is an inspector trying to solve some Jack the Ripper style murders of the city’s fae and puck population, fantastical creatures who act as the city’s slave labor. I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as it just doesn’t feel like my kind of thing even though I do love Victorian era stuff usually. I think it just hasn’t found its footing in the couple episodes I’ve seen. I also interviewed a few of the actors which will be on The Beat later today.

LIMITED RELEASES

Okay, I definitely lied as I’ve also seen Kim Farrant’s ANGEL OF MINE (Lionsgate), an amazing psychological drama starring Noomi Rapace as a woman whose daughter died but whom thinks that her neighbor’s daughter is actually her own. Also starring Yvonne Strahovski, Luke Evans and Richard Roxburgh, this mostly Australian film is actually a little like the recent After the Weddingin terms of the strangeness of its premise but it’s handled more like a thriller and Rapace gives another stirring performance. It will be in select cities starting Friday, and I recommend checking it out, especially if, like me, you’re a long-time fan of Ms. Rapace.

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Never got around to seeing Gavin Hood’s new movie OFFICIAL SECRETS (IFC Films), because I’m such a fan of Keira Knightley, and in this one she plays Katharine Gun, a British intelligence specialist handling classified information in the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003. She receives a shocking memo from the NSA seeking help in collecting information on UN Security Council members to blackmail them into supporting an invasion of Iraq.

Hannah Pearl Utt’s BEFORE YOU KNOW IT (1091) stars the co-writer/director as stage manager Rachel Gurner who lives in her childhood apartment with her sister Jackie (Jen Tullock), father Mel (Mandy Patinkin) and preteen niece Dodge (Oon Yaffe) above the theater they own and operate. After a tragedy, the two sisters find out their mother, long thought dead (Judith Light) is still alive working on soap operas and they need to come to terms with that. The movie also stars Mike Colter and Alec Baldwin and it opens in select cities.

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst also has a new movie as director, a thriller called THE FANATIC (Quiver Distribution), starring Devon Sawa from Final Destination and John Travolta. Travolta plays movie fan Moose who is obsessed with his favorite action hero Hunter Dunbar, played by Sawa. With the help of his paparazzi photographer friend Leah (Ana Golja), Moose tries to find Moose as his interactions with the celebrity become more dangerous as Moose becomes more obsessed.

Liam Hemsworth from “The Hunger Games” stars in Malik Bader’s Killerman (Blue Fox Studios) as a New York money launderer who wants to find answers after waking up with no memory and with millions in cash and drugs, as he’s chased by a team of dirty cops. The movie also stars Emory Cohen, Diane Guerrero (“Orange is the New Black”) and Suraj Sharma from Life of Pi, and it’s getting a small theatrical release in select cities.

Now playing at New York’s Film Forum is Marjoline Boonstra’s doc The Miracle of the Little Prince (Film Movement) which looks at the sustained global popularity of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince in the eight decades since it was first published.

Opening in IMAX theaters Thursday and then nationwide Sept 6 is the Chinese animated film Ne Zha (WELL Go) about a young boy with superpowers who must decide between good and evil.

There’s a couple other things but I’m so behind for the weekend that I’m done.

REPERTORY

A few rep things to mention before we get to the regular theaters. The Wachowski’s original The Matrix will be celebrating its 20thanniversary with a rerelease across the nation in Dolby theaters, so I’ll be seeing that Thursday night. The Alamo in Brooklyn is also screening a special 70mm print of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and that’s where I’ll be on Saturday.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

On Friday, the Metrograph will begin screening a 35mm print of Eric Roehmer’s 1986 film Le Rayon Vert, but there lots of series continiung through the weekend including the “Shaw Sisters” series which is fairly interesting so far. Angie Chen’s Maybe It’s Love (1984) plays again on Thursday evening –that’s a weird one—and Ann Hui’s Starry Is the Night (1988) will play tomorrow and Sunday and a few others. If you want to see a weird and really bad but very funny horror film, you have to check out Angela Mak’s The Siamese Twins on Saturday night, plus there’s a few more I haven’t seen. The Metrograph has also expanded its “Godard/Karina Late Nights” series so that you can see Alphaville (1965) and Pierrot Le Fou (1965), both beloved classics, through the weekend, as well as this weekend’s offering to the series, 1962’s Vivre Sa Vie. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Leo Carax’sHoly Motors (2012) and Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue but you can also see the late Japanese filmmaker’s excellent Paprika (2006) through the weekend, as well. This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees is another Ray Harryhausen classic, 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The New Bev ends its month of mostly showing Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood before returning to repertory fare next week, but its Weds. matinee is the 1953 Western comedy Calamity Jane, this weekend’s KIDDEE MATINE is Disney’s The Ugly Dachsund (1966) starring Dean Jones, and then on Monday, you have two chances to see Michael Mann’s 1995 crime-thriller Heat, although you’ll have to see it at 9:30AM cause the usual 2pm matinee is sold out.

AERO (LA):

Thursday begins a “Sellers and Southern Double Feature” series (?) of Dr. Strangelove (1964) with The Magic Christian (1969), Friday is a double feature of 1999’s Office Space with Kevin Smith’s Clerks(1994) and then on Saturday is a Mad Max TRIPLE Feature of the first three movies: Mad Max (1979), The Road Warrior (1982) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Sunday is a special screening of Thom Anderson’s 2003 film Los Angeles Plays Itself, and Monday begins Aero’s “Heptember Matinees” series as in Katherine Hepburn, and it kicks off with 1940’s The Philadelphia Story.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Marty and Jay’s Double Features runs through next Thursday and there are one or two of these double features every day with a mix of classics and esoteric and rare stuff. You can click on the link to see all that’s playing.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

“Make My Day: American Movies in the Age of Reagan” continues up at Lincoln Center through Tuesday with highlights like Robocop, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, Scorsese’s The King of Comedy and The Last Temptation of Christ, Conan the Barbarian, First Blood and more.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This week’s Weekend Classics: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is the original, classic King Kong, while Waverly Midnights: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is Office Space (1999) and Russ Meyers’ Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Late Night Favorites: Summer 2019 is Aliens, Suspiria and Eraserhead, just in case you missed any of those the dozen other times they’ve been shown.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

Saturday’s “Beyond the Canon” offering is a double feature of Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Wadja from 2012 and Wim Wender’s 1974 film Alice in the Cities. BAM is also showing the second part of its “Programmers Notebook: On Memory” with offerings like Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, Christopher Nolan’s Memento, Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (of course) and more!

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

“See It Big! 70mm” will screen Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One on Friday and Saturday evenigs but ALSO, they’re showing one of my favorite comedies It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) in 70mm on Saturday afternoon.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

Tonight and Sunday, the Roxy is showing the 1965 film Juliet of the Spirits. On Saturday, the theater is showing Agnes Varda’s 1965 film Le Bonheur.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This week’s Friday night midnight film is Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.

This weekend, the Egyptianin L.A. is taken over by the Cinecon Classic Film Festivaland you can find out what that consists at the official site.

Next week, New Line releases It: Chapter Two, which I probably will have seen by the time you read this but probably will still be under embargo.

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend Movies Streaming Repertory

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