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bonefall · 5 months

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(dif anon) So is Ashfur grooming Shadowsight a plotline you would keep/rework in BB? I'm not so keen on the way canon used it to retcon his epilepsy, but I do think a plotline examining how clerics can be vulnerable to abuse from StarClan spirits is kinda compelling

Shadowsight's epilepsy is staying in BB, the Erins can try and take it away again over my dead body

Yes, that's staying and BB!StarClan was reworked with unfairness in mind.

This time around, I'm considering the idea that Ashfur didn't work completely alone. After the events of Squirrelflight’s Horror, Silverpelt's divisons are starting to crackle the stars.

Skystar and the other more traditional spirits are losing patience with the peace that Fire Alone brings, and the ways that the code has been bent.

They feel that honor is being lost in their descendants.

Even angels disrespect the collective; see how Skypelt has its own heaven? With a demon in its midst? There is blasphemy even in the skies.

Firestar and the more modern pantheon are ferociously defensive of the choices of the living. StarClan exists for them; not the other way around.

Meanwhile, Mousefur has gone missing. Others start to blink out, too. This is causing panic... and Ashfur keeps it quiet that he's the only one who knows where they've gone.

The angels that plan action probably were a small group to begin with, radical spirits. Skystar and Ashfur are two of them, and Ash is the "youngest." So when he comes down to the mortal plane and betrays them, very few other angels knew what had happened.

(I might even have a few angels be doing the various supernatural things in that first book, but slowly, Ashfur is wittling down their numbers until it's just him.)

I'm still working out specifics, but the other angels that Ashfur has consumed are giving him a massive power boost. He can use this to jump between planes freely, and he's able to do some whacky things like weave dreams and pull nightmares out of the Dark Forest.

The most important unique power he has, which he can do ALL on his own once he's absorbed enough starpower, is blast Shadowpaw with a bolt of lightning. The electric current runs through Shadowpaw's brand new scar, giving him a connection to StarClan like he's a little radio tower.

Thing is... when StarClan is blocked off, the only signal he receives is Ashfur's.

So, Shadowpaw.

From the time he was very young, Shadowkit has had an unhealthy relationship to life and death

He watched a lot of cats die before he was old enough to really understand it, and the only one who came back was Heartstar.

His epilepsy was so severe it would have been terminal. He was prepared to die as a kit.

Tawnypelt took him to the Tribe to learn more about treatments, bringing back a method of refining chamomile to manage the convulsions.

When people come back from death, it was to serve "a purpose."

He feels like he needs to be special, like he needs to find the great meaning in his life. The reason why he's still here.

In BB, there can be guardian angels. Cats you knew in life who decide to watch out for you in the afterlife. Moleflight is Jayfeather's, Shrewface is Squirrelflight’s. Ashfur poses as Shadowpaw's.

THAT is how I plan to address my criticism. Ashfur DOES build a very personal, trusting relationship with Shadowpaw, pretending to be the one who's here to give him the destiny he craves. Pretending like he's someone looking out for him.

I actually LIKE how desperate the situation was in-canon and I want to stress how none of this was Shadow's fault, so I also plan to keep that they had very little choice. Shadowpaw trusts his angel completely, and Ashfur coaches him on saying all the right things.

The older Clerics are suspicious, but... what else can they do?

Also, instead of framing this all as something Shadowpaw needs to "atone" for, I'm going to make certain cats unfairly scapegoat him for bringing the Impostor into the forest. Shadowpaw himself agrees with them, blaming himself, but he has to learn it wasn't his fault.

He DIDN'T let anyone down by failing to live up to great expectations, and there's no way he could have known that Ashfur was using him. This never happened before, he always made the choice he thought was right and tried to make up for harm done, and he's not responsible for what his abuser made him do.

I actually want to have him figure out some of this by talking to DF demons, towards the end. Cats faaaar more responsible for what they did in life than him.

Ravenwing in particular, who was also mislead by a rogue StarClan spirit, but... ultimately decided that if StarClan was right in their judgement.

He was told (by Birchface, but he still doesn't know who it was in particular) to make three kittens unsafe by revealing their parentage. His choice killed three innocent children, and lead to the Queen’s Rights.

And StarClan was furious that he'd ever believe they'd want something so CRUEL.

And even if they DID want something so cruel... "Then they wouldn't have been ancestors worth following. And that's why I believe it's right that I'm here."

As a Cleric, he had authority on their behalf. And if they would misuse it through him, he wishes he could have just given it right back.

And Shadowsight's lightbulb goes Ding!

The very last thing Ashfur does in TBC, when the jig is up and he's about to be killed by the Lights in the Mist and a bunch of Demons who have come to defend their home, is swallow a Founder-- Skystar.

He takes the level of a true god, and reaches a nearly undefeatable level of power. Instead of black water, he's so large, malicious, and has a gravitational pull so massive it starts destroying the afterlife. It shatters the purgatory (Meadow of Young Stars) into floating cosmic fragments, and Heaven and Hell are set to collide.

Shadowsight confronts Ashfur, politely explaining that he's, well... done a lot of thinking, and, he doesn't really want what he gave him. "You can, uh, have this back!"

And blasts the lightning from his scar right back at him, like a chain, holding the screeching eldrich horror in place. Every ally he's made, here in the DF, come down from StarClan, and as Lights in the Mist, jump to his side. They can't hold down Ashfur, but they can hold SHADOWSIGHT

While they're all supporting him, Bristlefrost sees the one chance to get rid of him, once and for all. A clear shot. She bolts, pounces, and SHOOTS right into Ashfur like a falling star, knocking them both off the edge of the heaven he destroyed, burning up in orbit with a monster a hundred times her size.

And after that, Shadowsight has to go home and live with this.

He gave up the very connection that made him so special, and now he has to go back to being a Cleric without StarClan.

but the other Clerics accept this. They have to. They were all complicit in the choices that allowed the Impostor to rise.

What Shadowsight learns is... everyone was part of this. From those who made the follies with him, to the supporters and rebels against the impostor, to those who helped him realize his worth, to Bristlefrost who ultimately killed Ashfur.

He is valuable because living is valuable.

Everyone, and everything, matters. All cats have a role to play, and he was never alone.

I want to close him out in BB!TBC on a tea scene that parallels the various points in his life. Others used to prepare his chamomile treatments FOR him, in careful doses, because it is a very serious medicine. Now, at the end, he's the one brewing it.

A fully fledged Cleric, who realizes he's never been alone. Cats who love him were around him the whole time, making his medicine, and they'll love him even after he's given up his powerful gift. So now he's at the stage in his life where HE can make that medicine, share his wisdom with others, and find fulfillment in the skills he's acquired over a hard life brightening.

#Ashfur was a scary and terrifying villain worthy of the WC hall of fame #I will make him WORSE #I should change one of the titles to the later books to The Black Hole as a reference to BB!Ashfur swallowing other stars #Maybe the last one since that's where his bossfight happens lmao #I love the vibe of all the morally gray and post-redemption cats of BB seeing Shadow like #''Youve done nothing wrong. Youre literally just baby.''#Lmao Breeze like 'oh honey nooooo'#Lineup of guys like What Are You In For?#'Tyranny of an ancient civilization'#'Political assassination'#'Attempted murder of a child'#'Did what a bad person told me :('#And they all drop their shit to be like 'its ok youre ok youve done nothing wrong'#I kinda want to give him an honor title that means 'Whole Shadow'#In reference to the way that when you stand with a dozen people behind you #You only cast a single shadow #better bones au #BB!TBC #BB!Shadowsight

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troythecatfish · 7 months

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meatworms-against-cobblestone · 1 month

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So I've been thinking about how I'd stage Epic if it were a real musical in a theatre, and I just had an idea for the Cyclops murder rampage scene at the end of Survive. The thing about the Cyclops is that you cannot have the actor playing Cyclops be on the stage next to any other actor, or else the sense of scale is fucked. He needs to seem really, really big. For most of the Cyclops' scenes, I'd have him standing somewhere up high to make him appear taller or above Odysseus's crew. But this wouldn't work for the rampage scene where the Cyclops's club makes contact with the crew. So, how do you do the Cyclops rampage scene on stage? How do you convey the sense of scale needed to make the Cyclops seem like a real, tangible threat?

Alright, so picture this: all of the actors of Odysseus's crew are on the stage. The Cyclops actor is off stage for this part. We're in the middle of Survive. The sound of the club hitting the ground plays as the light on Polites turns red and Polites actor falls down. He says his last line, and the light flickers and goes out, leaving that part of the stage in total darkness. Every time the Cyclops hits the ground, another part of the stage goes black. Thunk. Light goes out. Thunk. Light goes out. This continues until the end of the song, til Odysseus is the only actor left. He is standing center stage, alone in the only lit up area of an otherwise completely dark theatre. Do y'all see my vision?

#epic the musical #epic the cyclops saga #the cyclops saga #cyclops #odysseus #the odyssey #musicals #musical theatre #musical theater fandom #musical theater #polites #polites epic the musical #ancient greek mythology #greek myth retellings

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catominor · 3 months

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"ouhhh ceaser was a progressive caesar was a fascist caesar was a socialist caesar was a maoist third worldist"

you guys dont even care that he served cunt. you guys dont even know about his outfits his outfits. his beautiful outfits. did he pop his pussy for nothing????

#he really does get the worst treatment in people trying to equivocate modern politics with ancient rome #like come on people . get real... start posting about his loose belt and long fringed sleeves.

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partiallithopseffect · 2 months

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Some notes from the first episode of Dark Gallifrey:

Morbius was from an “unnamed House”

Morbius fought Rassilon’s successor, a President whose name is lost to time

Time Lords destroyed civilisations by dropping shards of their own future on them from orbit

Old Gallifreyans travelled through the Vortex in wooden ships manned by hundreds of people

These ships could twist and morph during travel, crushing crew below decks

Earth crows were once creatures of the Vortex. They settled on many different worlds during Morbius’ War

Time Lords could bestow regenerations on Outsider Gallifreyans as medals of honour. They said those regenerations could give one an extra heart…

#doctor who #big finish #dark gallifrey #morbius #overall i LOVED it. it was a fantastical sci-fi naval piece. really fun and unique #loved the setting and how it touches on the class politics of Gallifreyan society #and the mystery of the shimmering man… it’s giving gallifrey: pandora #really looking forward to part 2 #dw #the great houses #ancient gallifrey #certified tara posting

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salmonella-destroyer-of-worlds · 3 months

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#dank memes #funny post #meme #dank #funny #funny pics #silly #funny pictures #dankest memes #humor #drinking #politics #ancient rome

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pelideswhore · 10 months

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Polites: There is nothing like a road-trip with friends.

Odysseus: We’re literally on the run from the government.

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ancientorigins · 1 year

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The ancient Greeks managed to keep power-hungry narcissists from capturing their democracy and modern-day society has a lot to learn from them.

#Ancient Greece #Greek #democracy #politics #Athens #ostracism #ancient #history #ancient origins

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xenomorphicdna · 7 months

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So what goes into managing an iterator?

Because when you think about it, managing a massive semiorganic sentient ai that you depend on for practically everything, might not be easy.

While iterators aren't brought online as children per se, from broadcasts in game we can assume that young iterators probably start out fairly stubborn with their thinking. And while iterators are far more complex and developed than our current good ol' chat algorithms, I think that trying to tell a machine designed to not make any errors, that it is wrong, may come with at least a bit of back and forth arguing.

There'd be a lot that would go into managing a machine as is, even more into one with feelings and opinions.

I believe the ashy green pearl mentions how there's a parental relationship between iterators and ancients (this might not apply to all ancients and iterators but for the sake of the argument I'm going to keep going with this). It also mentions how it's important to keep good relations with their iterator - they are reliant on them after all.

Booting an iterator up and instantly expecting them to perform perfectly how you need them too may not be entirely accurate. Perhaps more mechanical tasks are good from the get-go but more social tasks would certainly require behaviours that would have to be learned. There would have to be someone to teach them that emotional maturity and social skills.

So, going back to what does it take to manage an iterator. I think it's a lot of things, a large team effort of multiple people of different specialties.

Alright let's talk about the food chain here now ey?

Iterator administrators would rank at the top. The administrator title would probably be assigned to two or three house councillors. The role would come with being the voice for whatever iterator matters the public would need to know. They probably make decisions of, hey this important thing needs to be done by our iterator. But I doubt they have any real knowledge on the iterator ins and outs.

That would go to the people just below, the chief technicians, mechanics, programmers, architects, the folks that manage the more machine parts of an iterator. But of course iterators aren't all metal, they're semi organic too. So there would be those who specialise in the biological parts of iterators. And there would be psychologists as well to make sure our beloved machines with feelings are doing ok.

I'm not exactly sure where the common trope of ancients being horrible heartless assholes to iterators comes from. I certainly didn't get that impression from the texts. ?

I think the iterators were certainly respectable members of the community. I think many people cared about them too. The whole ashy green pearl talk about how they have parental obligations. They say how the discourse about five pebbles' construction displeases him. They literally say, hey stop being mean to our iterator, and go in to defend him. Even tho pebbles didn't exactly find the discourse upsetting, they still wouldn't tolerate insults at their iterator. You can't tell me that the ancients - even those at the top - didn't care.

Iterators were created as gifts to word. Five pebbles received drawings from kids. They had sky-sail festivals.

Moon did state her general dislike of her citizens, she calls them parasites with opinions. But I cannot imagine managing an entire city would be easy, and even despite that, she still calls them her parents. They were flawed, yes, but clearly there was enough love there for Moon to apologize.

#Sure not all ancients might have been polite #but i think it makes sense that you'd want to be nice to your supercomputer child that you kinda placed your life in the hands of #“i placed my faith into the hands of random gods” yeah ya did #they really meant something to the ancients #enought to become an echo #yeah its another one of my “i think everyone in rain world actually cares about eachother”#rain world #iterator #rw ancients #rw talk

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rahabs · 5 months

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the fact that you would defend the israeli government after they’ve murdered 30,000 innocents in the largest bombing campaign in modern history is literally despicable and borderline evil. if a genocide documented ad nauseam cannot make you cognizant of israel’s colonial and deeply racist regime, then literally nothing can and you are beyond reasoning with. actually incredible how multiple history degrees have clearly taught you nothing about how a genocide works — or perhaps more concerningly, they have, and you simply don’t care because the victims are palestinian. the fact that you would use those very history degrees to excuse israel’s genocide of palestinians is deeply disturbing and indicative of the rancid hypocrisy within western academia. history will exonerate the indigenous palestinians, and it will be unkind to those like you who defended and cheered on their annihilation.

It‘s so amazing to me that you actually believe this, and that you‘ve so wholeheartedly swallowed the propaganda Hamas (known for using their own civilians as human shields, known for paying their citizens extra for killing Jews) has been peddling. So I am going to paste here some points others have already made that I‘ve saved over the course of information-gathering, though I doubt you‘ll bother to read or learn, judging from your asinine little comments here.

1) Palestine Gaza is a genocidal nation. The goal of the Palestinian government in Gaza is literally to destroy and commit genocide against Israel and kill every Jew by every means possible. This is literally written in their founding charter. "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.

2) Palestine is an apartheid nation that has ethnically cleansed 100% of their Jews and stole their territory after 1948. There used to be tens of thousands of Jews living in the areas of Judea and Samaria, which was renamed to the West Bank by Jordan. However they've all been ethnically after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and 0 Jews are allowed to live in Palestine today. 3) Palestine is an authoritarian dictatorship both in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas won majority of the votes during an election in 2006, but the Palestinian president simply refused to recognize the results of the election and refused to hand power over to them. This resulted in Hamas siezing power in Gaza, executing hundreds of their political rivals, and they never held another election. Likewise, the leadership in the West Bank also refused to hold any elections and still continue to illegitimately cling to power. Abbas, the president of Palestine had a 4 year term which was supposed to end in 2009. He's still the leader today and has continued to postpone election after election. 4) Palestine supports the outright open murder of innocent civilians. I've already mentioned the charter of the Palestinian government in Gaza above where their goal is to eradicate Israel and genocide Israelis, but the Palestinian government in West Bank is just as horrible. There's the Palestinian Authority Matry Fund where they literally pay a salary / pension to any Palestinians who commmit terrorist attacks against Israelis, be it through stabbings, shootings or suicide bombings, and they've paid out billions so far. The Foundation for the Care of the Families of Martyrs pays monthly cash stipends to the families of Palestinians killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israel.

5) Palestine is horribly corrupt oligarchy. Palestine receives billions from the USA and Europe in aid every single year. Whatever money isn't spent on paying literal terrorists, or on rockets to shoot at Israel ends up going to corrupt Palestinian leaders. Yasser Arafat, the first Palestinian leader, died a billionaire. Abbas the current President is worth $100 million. The Palestinian leaders in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzuk and Khaled Mashal have an estimated combined wealth of over $10 billion. Meanwhile the combined GDP of Gaza is only about $2.5 billion, meaning these 3 leaders wealth is equal to 4 years of Gaza's GDP. 6) Palestinians have caused wars and instability in every country that they've sought refuge in. In Jordan, Palestinains assasinated the Jordanian king in 1951, then attempted a coup of a the country in 1970. After they failed, they were expelled to Lebanon where they started a civil war with the Christian Maronites. This war lasted 15 years and killed several times more people than the entire Israel-Palestine war (150k died in Lebanon civil war vs 25k in Palestinian-Israeli wars). In Kuwait, the Palestinians supported Saddam as Iraq invaded Kuwait. In Egypt, they've been hit by several bombings by Palestinians. 7) There is no freedom of speech or equality in Palestine Gaza. No equality of sexes, no equality of races, and definitely no queer rights in the entirety of Palestine where you could be killed for the crime of being openly queer. [If you identify as a liberal, there is literally] no reason to support a country where majority of [your] friends would either have severely restricted rights, be treated like objects, or be thrown off a building just for existing.

Let me reiterate: Jews are indigenous to Israel. Jews have existed and lived in what we now call the Israel-Palestine region for thousands of years before the foundation of Islam, and even before the foundation of Christianity. In the game of “which Abrahamic religion came first?” Islam ranks dead last.

Israel as an identity as a people has existed for thousands of years and has been recorded as far back as the Iron Age on:

i) The Mesha Stele;

ii) The Tel Dan Stele;

iii) The Kurkh Monoliths; and (potentially)

iv) The Merneptah Stele.

While scholars have argued over the translations on the Merneptah Stele, the general consensus among historians, classicists, archaeologist, etc, is that it refers to the existence of Israel at the very least as a collective identity that existed at the time, and was called Israel.

They were eventually repeatedly forced out by other powers such as the Romans and many others, but that doesn’t change the fact that Jews had a continuous existence in Israel before being forced out by what people like you would normally call “colonising powers” were it not so contrary to your own ill-supported arguments. It also doesn’t change the fact that Jews, and Israel, existed before both Christianity and Islam, and long, long before Palestine.

So if your entire argument boils down to "who was here first" and the ideas of "colonialism" and "anti-colonialism" and "decolonisation", then I am telling you, Jews were there first. You could argue Canaanite groups like Moabites and Ammonites were there too, but Moabites and Ammonites don't exist as a continuous group anymore. No matter how you look at it, you are wrong, so let me parrot your horrible argument right back at you:

The fact that you would defend Hamas, a known organisation whose founding Charter literally calls for the annihilation of Jews, who have systematically purged Jews for years, who launched multiple attacks against innocent Jewish people (the music festival, the babies and the woman and the children slaughtered), the fact that there's a Palestinian Authority Matry Fund where they literally pay a salary / pension to any Palestinians who commit terrorist attacks against Israelis, be it through stabbings, shootings or suicide bombings, and they've paid out billions so far; the fact that you defend the existence of the Foundation for the Care of the Families of Martyrs which pays monthly cash stipends to the families of Palestinians killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israel, etc... that you would defend this is "literally despicable" and not only outright evil, but ignorant to the nth degree.

If the continuous genocidal nature of Hamas against Israel cannot make you cognizant of Hamas' deeply racist, violence, and terrorist regime (to the point where none of the Muslim countries around them will take Palestinians in; even their fellow Muslim countries want nothing to do with them), then I'm not sure what to tell you. You say I am beyond reasoning, but from where I'm standing, your head is so far up your own ass that I don't even know if you're aware of anything that isn't the smell of your own shit.

It's actually incredible to me how you can ignore what multiple historians and scholars are saying because you want to cling to your idea that Hamas are just a bunch of "poor innocent brown people" who need help from the "evil white Israeli regime". Or perhaps, more "concerningly," that is just it: you hate Israel because you erroneously perceive them as white, and so therefore they must be evil. I don't know, but that is what a lot of anti-Israel sentiment seems to boil down to in the world of people like you.

The fact that you would excuse and ignore Hamas' outright horrific acts and ignore history is deeply disturbing and indicative of the rancid hypocrisy within the west, but particularly within western circles that claim to be "progressive", "liberal", and "leftist."

Hamas has said no to every ceasefire. Hamas has said no to every compromise Israel has offered even before October. If Hamas stops fighting, the war ends. If Israel stops, then Israel is annihilated.

History has already shown that Palestinians are not indigenous if we are playing the "who was there first" game with Israel and Palestine, you're just so ignorant that you will refuse to see the evidence right in front of you. You are the one cheering for the annihilation of an indigenous group, and the one history will frown upon is you.

#antisemitism #Sorry for everyone on my dash who had to read this long reply.#I have sat on this for a month wondering whether to release it. Seriously grappling with everything. But.#Here we go. Will I delete it later? I am not sure. But.#There are too few people willing to speak up on this because they're scared of militant Palestinian supporters.#And truthfully I am scared of them! Militant Palestinian supporters are terrifying and my country has MANY #But this is my line in the sand. I so rarely draw them with political conflicts but this is it for me.#If you support Hamas you are DISGUSTING.#And you cannot divorce the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians have supported and do support Hamas.#People literally cheer for Hamas in the streets here and call for the annihilation of Israel.#Universities defend this shit too (see: the scandal with Penn State and Harvard)#I am so open politically I neither identify as right or left I so rarely truly put my foot down and say #'if you believe this you are disgusting'#But? Yeah.#And maybe I will have a mas exodus of followers now but whatever.#ancient Israel

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just-late-roman-republic-things · 17 days

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I don't mind when historians are opinionated. In fact, I find it fun to dissect their arguments. But it bugs me when an opinion is presented as fact, or if the lens the author constructs isn't acknowledged as a lens through which history is viewed. Like so:

For much of the early Roman Republic, the patricians were essentially a ruling elite, and the plebeians had little leverage in the government’s mechanics. They understandably grew tired of being oppressed, but instead of resorting to violence, the plebeians peacefully extricated themselves from their weak position in Rome. They abandoned the city and left it to the patricians. It was essentially a strike, but it enabled both parties to reach a compromise that created a more equitable power-sharing agreement without the use of violence.

I don't know much about the secessio plebis, but I'm skeptical that it happened without any violent retaliation from the ruling class. Just look at the history of modern strikes. And this paragraph elides all the uncertainty we have about what really happened over about ~400 years.

(The only citation here is a short passage in Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus, a few chapters after the flaming ghost phallus. It does not seem to have occurred to this writer that Plutarch can be wrong. Or that Livy exists.)

Tiberius’ brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, resumed his brother’s populist mantle, and he successfully continued his reforms and created a subsidized grain programme for all Romans. However, in 121 BC, his faction and the opposition met in a murderous confrontation that left Gaius dead.

That's all we hear about Gaius Gracchus. Full stop. The lack of additional detail prevents me, the reader, from understanding who started the violence, whether extreme measures were justified, and who (if anyone) was in the right. It feels like the author references him as part of the troublesome tribune/class conflict narrative, but doesn't explain why the example supports his argument. Or not. I don't know, because we aren't told.

Politicians learned how to purchase the electors’ allegiance, either by promising welfare programmes to benefit the commoners, directly transferring wealth to the voters or providing spectacles and feasts for the masses. For instance, in 99 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla unsuccessfully campaigned on his military exploits, but when he later canvassed on a platform of unprecedented free games, he was easily elected. The Roman voters weren’t the only ones enjoying inducements of various kinds. Politicians were also on the take.

This makes ordinary Romans look pretty shortsighted and self-centered, doesn't it? And it makes politicians who promise to improve the lot of the poor look like they're corrupt and unprincipled, rather than altruistic, even if they aren't breaking the law by proposing those reforms. (Even Cato the Younger passed a grain subsidy at one point!) It's strange to see land redistribution, food for the poor, electoral bribery, the (actually quite traditional) public games, and political bribes/extortion all get lumped together like this.

For comparison, I'm reading this as a US American who grew up hearing "Support our troops," but supporting said troops really meant "wear flag pins and don't protest the war in Iraq." Anyone who actually wanted to improve soldiers' lives, e.g. by addressing public healthcare or poverty, was accused of enabling "welfare queens" who just wanted Bread and Circuses: US Edition. So when I see descriptions of Roman politics that remind me of that, I get very cautious.

Who is this writer, anyway?

Marc Hyden is the Director of State Government Affairs at a Washington DC-based think tank, and he is a weekly columnist for the Newnan Times-Herald and Albany Herald. Marc graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in philosophy.

Ah. (From Hyden's website and Media Bias Fact Check)

I would've thought a philosophy degree could teach someone how to support their arguments and read sources critically. But you're entitled to your opinion, Mr. Hyden, and I'm entitled to switch to a book written by an actual historian.

(Book excerpts from Marc Hyden, Gaius Marius: The Rise and Fall of Rome's Saviour.)

#i usually try not to be mean to anyone but ancient romans on this blog. but i figured this might be useful for some folks #as an example of how to read carefully and spot bias #and an example of how modern people may try to use ancient rome as a precedent for their own political agendas #marc hyden #gaius marius: the rise and fall of rome's savior #jlrrt reads #jlrrt essays #literary analysis #media literacy #critical thinking

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