#even though pro lifers like to paint
Text
okay, pro-ai people, what you got for me.
do your worst-
mmmkay, keep going
true, and you know, this was something that i believed would happen with merely the natural progression of technology and everything, as a building off digital art. but that’s not what’s happening, though—it’s also not “replicating” human-made art, it’s straight-up taking the data around it and storing it in algorithms. biggest missed opportunity i’ve seen… ever. in my whole life.
that’s beside the point, though—something tells me this guy has never done a speed drawing or speed paint before. but again, beside the point. what’s happening is typing into the algorithm to make whatever and then boom, done. absolutely zero effort.
let’s be real: i don’t care about engagement. sometime last year i decided i just wasn’t going to give a shit about it anymore because it doesn’t mean anything when you think about it. but my instagram likes have steadily fallen off a cliff since september: my reach has been phenomenal, though, i get at least 1000 people looking at me on a monthly basis and that’s on a weak month like december, too; but likes have been utterly abysmal lately. things i thought would be huge like my erotic drawings and yet people hardly bat an eye at them. it’d be easy to assume that “huh, there’s no place for this girl, especially since her art doesn’t look like anything else i’ve seen before. where do you place her?”
it’s something that has nagged at me for years, my place in the art world that is. it’s not anime because a.) it just isn’t—greatly influenced by it, but that’s not what it is, though; b.) that’s incorrect terminology anyway: anime is animation, manga is printed work; and c.) it just isn’t. i don’t fit in manga/anime circles for this reason, and i also don’t fit into cartoonist circles for this reason, too—cartoonists have gotten alarmingly cutthroat as of late, too, going on about their politics instead of making stuff that moves me. it’s really weird, and tragic, too, like you can only talk about that stuff before it gets exhausting and you’re wishing for your own alex skolnick.
i’m also seeing things like “it’s being framed as a crypto grift when it’s being done by actual artists” to which i say you’re probably looking at straight digital art for all we know—which tells me we’ve passed the point of no return there.
apparently, this guy started out as a traditional artist (account was started in 2017) and then switched to ai and—
you’re going to buy into an illusion because it’s the latest thing at the expense of your own roots and call it “ludditism”. god, that’s upsetting.
wait, wait, wait… did you miss something here? i feel like that above tweet should’ve led into something.
also, “there’s no need to hate something simply because it’s different.” there you go again with the “anti-ai is ableist” horseshit. i read about this when it started coming forth into the foray, and i always do, too: as an artist and someone who reads and has an extensive scientific background so i literally think like a scientist, this shit should sound off alarm bells everywhere.
i love how this guy just says “don’t be afraid because you’re wrong” and then does fuck all to back it up. paramount signs of blind leading the blind—it’s really weird because once you sift through the playground insults and the sense of entitlement, that’s really all what the pro-ai argument boils down to. seriously, go on twitter or the ai tag here on tumblr right now and see the pro-arguments that are meant to be mediating: they all have that air of “because i said so” and they don’t tell you anything—or they’re like mike portnoy and they’re like “but it’s so cool though!!”
worse, these people are so far gone in it that there’s no convincing them otherwise, even if you back it up and follow the research and show them the truth. they’re quickly reaching the level of trumpers and pro-lifers. they are just so convinced that they’re the ones telling the truth that they get all misty-eyed about it and yet you get absolutely nothing from them when you approach them logically. you learn nothing… except how they are as people, of course, and you find that it was nothing more than emotionally manipulative propaganda.
abortion is healthcare, not ~murder of babies~ (and being anti-abortion has roots in antisemitism and rape apology, too, so pro-life feminists can stop lying to us)
trump is hitler 2.0 and magats (idk what they’re called, there’s about 12 different names for them) are the new nazis
and ai is an existential threat whether you want to believe it or not.
too bad. IT’S NOT ART. IT’S THEFT AND ANTIHUMAN.
you didn’t say anything??
also, fuck twitter for making the most-replied tweets the most visible now, god, i’m glad i don’t have an account on there anymore.
by the way, i checked the replies under that thread, and—
did no one learn from 2016? i mean, jesus christ, it wasn’t even that long ago. “oh, the pandemic! the pandemic has warped my perception of time! wah wah wah!”
listen, when you close yourself off to a vacuum like this, you only receive feedback that backs you up and kisses your ass rather than challenge you and help you grow and learn and bust down your own pretenses… god forbid. fake news was actually a thing (until it wasn’t), and there still is hordes upon hordes of misinformation about covid and the vaccines, and it all comes down to not questioning and going, “maybe this isn’t the truth, maybe the truth is somewhere else or maybe it’s inside me. maybe the vaccine does work after all. maybe there is something that does resonate with me from the other side of the aisle. maybe this cool thing really is pernicious and i’m only believing my own bullshit because i’m the one who’s actually afraid.”
also, hot take: memes contribute to propaganda because they’re based on punchlines and specific context rather than tell you something you should know. i can’t say how many times i see a meme anywhere and i have no idea what the hell it’s supposed to mean.
i like how that top tweet—nice touch with the “nft” in the username, too. yeah, people still take crypto seriously after the bottom dropped out on the market and i haven’t seen a commercial for it since last march—just reinforces the doom mindset that i’m seeing a lot of legit artists resign to (please don’t, i’m begging you, you are letting them win by undertaking this mindset)… as if there’s no such thing as legislation or artists banning together against this. they think no one can write petitions or get the ball rolling and make someone in a position of authority really look at the ethical implications of ai.
really, i want someone to look into starting a petition, do something to get the ball rolling to their congressman or whoever to really look at the ethics behind ai to expose the truth about it and maybe do something about it because it’s only a matter of time before the hollow propaganda wins. yeah, congress is what it is, but it’s something, though. it’s called making use of the tools that you have at your disposal, even if they don’t function at the ideal level, something that’s been with us from the first time our ancestors created fire.
unlike h.r. puff n stuff here^, i actually want art to go places.
and not because i said so.
#i should be writing#just needed to say this#ai art#ai art theft#ai art community#ai art is fake art#ai art is stolen art#ai art is art theft#ai art is theft#ai art isn't real art#fuck ai art#fuck ai writing#support human artists#twitter#text
9 notes
·
View notes
Link
The Supreme Court just struck down abortion restrictions.
Just so I'm clear: This is when we pro-lifers are to take to the streets, correct?
This is when we are to defy all the standard forms of political protest and instead pick up bricks to throw through storefronts, pillage local Target stores, assault pedestrians, paint the streets, and decapitate all statues within a 20 square mile radius, yes?
And when others condemn our wanton and extravagant disregard for the rules of civilized society, when they criticize our boorishness, denounce our violence, and chastise us for our inability to express our ideas in a sophisticated manner, we tell them that we have tried that for the last half century and no one will listen, right? We say that violent upheaval is the only way we can be heard?
We quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. saying, "A riot is the language of the unheard" as we torch another major city, is that right?
Through our outrage, we can expect the assistance of Hollywood and major sports figures too, I assume. They will be able to put slogans like "I'm a child, not a choice" in place of their names on their jerseys, have major shoe companies sign the most vocal and provocative among them to massive contracts, and ESPN will turn over their full programming to experts from Live Action and Center for Medical Progress.
And through it all, we pro-lifers can anticipate sympathetic media coverage demanding that others understand what they did to cause our pain. We can expect mayors to order police departments to stand down and city councils to encourage and participate in the revelry.
…
Yet for some odd reason I feel as though the advocates for the dignity of life are expected to behave differently, even as their cause is dealt yet another cruel blow – this one punctuated by the betraying concurrence of a supposed ally.
For some reason I think that treatment of any nationwide anti-abortion riot would receive nearly unanimous censure, both media and mayoral.
Why might that be?
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
“Unplanned” Reminds Me Why I Hate the Pro-Life Movement
So, there's a movie called Unplanned that premiered recently. This movie is propaganda for the pro-life movement. And that's not me being cute or dismissive -- this movie was written for and marketed to pro-lifers, so that they can watch it and feel justified in their opinions on abortion. And apparently, that marketing was successful (even though most TV networks refused to advertise it), because it is being considered a box office success after a $6 million opening weekend. (For reference, the new Dumbo movie is considered a box office failure because it "only" brought in $45 million. So this is a niche film, for sure.)
(And in case anyone was wondering, it’s from the same studio as God’s Not Dead, which is another movie I have MANY issues with, mainly that it tries to portray white, evangelical Christians in the USA as a persecuted minority?? and paints both atheists and Muslims as villains??? and is essentially American Evangelical propaganda???)
My problem with this movie and all of the news coverage around it is that it just feels like a circle jerk. The entire plot is one big emotional appeal. The trailer is laughable -- emotionally charged language and imagery, bad acting, portraying abortion providers as cartoonishly evil -- this is a movie that would flop if it wasn't capitalizing on support from pro-lifers. The trailer actually features protesters screaming insults at women walking into a clinic, and they're portrayed as the "good guys." It's nothing but regurgitated rhetoric. It doesn't attempt to bring anything new to the argument or to further the debate. It isn't even trying to reach people or to change how people think about abortion. This is a film that was made for people who are already pro-life, so they can watch it and feel vindicated and superior.
This is the thing that really, deeply bothers me not just about the pro-life movement, but about politics in general. No one wants to learn, and no one wants to inform others. Everyone is so convinced that they're in the right that they don't even check their own facts, let alone the other side's. We're all just sitting in our own little bubbles, surrounding ourselves with media and news sources that just repeat our own beliefs and feelings back to us, and we occasionally poke our heads out to scream at the other side about how wrong they are. It's pointless, it's tiring, and most of all, it's willfully ignorant.
Just, ugh. This is not activism, it's feeding your own superiority complex. It accomplishes nothing except further distancing the people you’re supposedly trying to “save.”
#please don't come at me with a seven page response about how this movie was great because abortion is evil#because i will not read it#i promise you there is no debate against abortion that i haven't already heard#i grew up catholic in the bible belt my dude#unplanned#unplanned 2019#unplanned movie#god's not dead#politics#long post#rant#abortion tw#abortion#pro life#pro choice#planned parenthood#mine
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why some fans say the Braves vs. Astros World Series is a matchup of good vs. evil
Youlikebet The World Series starts tonight with Game 1 in Houston, where the Astros will face off against the Atlanta Braves.The stakes are high for fans of each team. The Braves haven't gotten this far since 1999, while the Astros have been in the series three of the past five years — including in 2017, when they cheated using an illegal, sign-stealing, trash can-banging system to call pitches.The Astros have looked to put the scandal behind them, but many fans outside of Houston still see them as the bad guys."Many are painting this as good versus evil on the baseball diamond," NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman told Morning Edition.It's not entirely black and whiteThe Astros faced punishment for the cheating scandal last year, even though they're still paying for it with a lot of fans.Meanwhile, the Braves have an appealing underdog story: They overcame injuries to some of their best players this season. Plus two faces of the franchise — manager Brian Snitker and first baseman Freddie Freeman — are team lifers. "We like loyalty in sports," as Goldman put it.On the other hand, some Braves fans still do the "tomahawk chop" arm gesture and chant, which are increasingly considered both offensive and outdated. Teams from the pro leagues to high school athletics are moving away from derogatory slogans and this particular expression of enthusiasm.
0 notes
Text
How To Unleash The Power Of Stories
For thousands of years, people have wanted to hear stories, whether from travelling bards in the old days or best-selling paperbacks today.
Why are we so drawn to narratives, when surely we really just need facts to make decisions? Put simply, a good story helps people interpret the facts and see the bigger picture. Things people would not believe, understand or care about become compelling and meaningful as soon as they are seen through the lens of a simulated personal experience: a story.
And if you’re the one telling the story, you can influence the way your audience interprets facts. This makes good storytelling a very powerful tool indeed. So how do you tell a good story?
Stories help us make sense of the world and are effective tools for persuading others.
In order to know how to tell a good story, we must first know what a good story actually is. Quite simply, a good story is one that simplifies the world and makes us feel we understand it better.
The world today often seems complicated and chaotic, but a story has the power to make sense of it. It gives listeners a plot to follow, around which they can organize their thoughts.
This not only makes it easier for the listener to understand your argument, but can also help them make sense of their personal problems and frustrations. For example, if someone has lost their job or gone through a tough break up, a story about someone in a similar situation will help them to recover.
In this sense stories – though indirect – are more effective than direct guidance. This is because direct guidance only applies to one situation and then loses relevance, whereas the lessons of a story can be adapted to fit multiple situations.
Let's say you have a colleague who frequently sends obnoxious-sounding emails around the office because he can’t be bothered to word them properly, and you’d like him to change his behavior. You could, of course, tell him outright to stop doing this, but it would be even more effective to tell him a story about someone who lost their job due to a misunderstanding in a poorly worded email.
Your colleague would probably remember that story every time he was sending an email. He might even start applying the lesson about being polite and professional in his other communications.
So even though stories are an indirect way of relaying a point, they can be much more effective than the direct, raw truth.
Telling an immersive story requires more than just words – use your whole body.
Let’s say you now know what story you want to tell. So how do you tell it properly? You have to realize that you have many channels of communication available. Imagine you’re not merely telling a story, but enacting a play for your listener: your voice, face, hands and body are the actors, stage costumes, music and props that can add a whole new level to your story.
You can use your hand gestures to add meaning to your words and really paint a picture for your listeners. Use facial expressions to help people relate to your story. If your story is about something that angers you, show that anger on your face, or smile if you’re talking about how happy you were at another point in the plot. This makes people more likely to believe you.
Of course, to fully immerse the listener in your story, what you say is also important. Here you should prioritize things that the listener can imagine vividly. For example, you could ask your audience to imagine the smell of sizzling bacon. Or if your story involves the wind howling, you could make a similar sound to really make them feel present in the story. This kind of visceral experience creates emotional memories that are particularly powerful.
Another way to create emotional memories is to use irrelevant but concrete details. So if you want to tell a story of a large household, don’t focus on how many children are in the family or what their names are. Instead, use concrete details and tell your listeners about the way the house would fill with the scent of freshly baked blueberry pie on Sunday mornings.
A convincing speech or presentation must tell six different stories.
If you really want to be able to influence your audience, you have to tell them not one, but six different stories.
First, tell them who you are, and second, tell them why you’re there. This is because people won’t trust you until they know the answer to these questions, and if you tell them using stories it will be far more convincing, making you seem more trustworthy.
Third, you have to tell them a story that relates the vision you have – i.e., the long-term goal that you want to move them toward. For example, if you’re the CEO of a company, you can’t just blurt out, “We must achieve five percent annual sales growth.” Instead you should tell them a moving story that inspires your employees to desire that growth – maybe tell them about another company that later became famous.
Fourth, you also need to tell a story that teaches them. For example, if you have just hired a new receptionist, rather than tell him what buttons to push on the phone, regale him with the story of Mrs. Jones, the greatest receptionist you ever met, and how she did the job so immaculately.
Fifth, tell a values-in-action story. This means telling a story where the value you want to convey is translated into a real, specific action. For example, if you say to your employees “Integrity is important,” it won’t mean much. It would be much more effective to tell a story about an employee who once made a huge mistake but was rewarded when she came clean instead of trying to cover it up.
Sixth, tell a “I know what you are thinking” story that will make your audience wonder if you’ve just read their minds. For example, think about the potential objections your audience members will make, and then raise and deal with those points as part of a story. This will make the audience feel more at ease.
Stories wield a powerful influence because they relax and disarm your audience.
Now that you know you can influence people with stories, you probably want to know why that's the case.
First, they help you overcome suspicions: people are often distrustful when someone is trying to influence them, but stories allow you to bypass their suspicion because you can frame the audience on your side: your interests and theirs overlap. This will make them more likely to trust you.
Second, stories are effective instruments for making your audience feel as though you know them. These days people crave real human attention, so if you tell a story that touches them and makes them feel acknowledged, they will be more connected to you and more cooperative.
Third, you can take advantage of the fact that people automatically feel more comfortable and relaxed when they hear a story. The instant you say you're going to tell a little story, your audience will relax and become less analytical. It’s almost like hypnosis.
And if you tell a good enough story when they are in this state, it could stick in their heads for so long that eventually they won't be sure if they heard it or if it happened to them. If this sounds far-fetched, think about some stories from your early childhood. Are you totally sure they happened to you or did you merely hear about them? Your story will influence the audience’s actions as if it had happened to them.
You can influence even reluctant or indifferent audiences – if you don’t think of them that way.
Of course, not all audiences are eager to listen to what you have to say. Often you’ll find you have to speak to people that you might find unwilling, disinterested or unmotivated. So how can you influence them?
The key is to understand that your listeners have good reasons for their opinions, even if they are not in line with yours. It’s too easy to think you’re in the right and they’re in the wrong. For example, though abortion is a highly polarizing issue, both sides have reasons for their opinions: pro-lifers want to save the life of the unborn child, whereas pro-choicers focus on the life of the mother and the plight of the unwanted baby. If you want to influence either group, you have to acknowledge these reasons.
A second key consideration is that you have to remain positive. If you allow yourself to think that your audience is reluctant or indifferent, that negative emotion will seep into your speech. You want to awaken hope in them, and this can only be done if you yourself are hopeful.
For example, if your story is meant to motivate people to save the planet, don’t focus on all the depressing statistics. This will only make your audience feel ashamed, bitter or angry, and none of these emotions lead to action. Only hope does.
Finally, if you find that the audience is very negative, try telling them an extra story that's designed to work around the source of their negativity. For example, if the audience seems cynical and doubtful of your sincerity, open up and tell them a personal story – this is the closest they can get to first-hand evidence of your sincerity!
Alternatively, if you think your audience resents you for having the spotlight, try to tell a story that highlights the big picture and the goals you share with them.
You can also influence others by listening to their stories.
You’ve seen how important the art of storytelling is, but there’s another side to the coin. If you truly want to be able to influence someone, you also need to be adept at story listening. In a dialog you need to genuinely listen to your partner.
This way you’ll come to understand not only his opinions and arguments but also his uncertainties and true feelings, because he’ll see how closely you're listening and feel comfortable opening up.
Sometimes this is the best chance you’ll have to influence someone: listen to their story. Often you’ll find that if you just listen to them respectfully, they will begin to reflect on their own opinions and challenge their views, all by themselves. Often they change their position to something closer to yours.
For example, imagine you’re a car salesperson, and you want to sell a customer a Toyota, but he says he “hates Toyotas.” What story should you tell?
Instead, listen to the customer’s story about why he hates Toyotas. This will help him to articulate what concerns him, and will also make him reflect on whether some of his criticisms are unfounded. He may even end with something like, “But that could just be the Toyotas I've driven – the new models might be better."
Once you’ve listened, you have your second chance at influencing the other person, because he'll want to extend the same courtesy to you. You'll have a focused audience for your own story. What’s more, the customer feels closer to you because you've bonded as he told you his story. This is a great starting point for you to influence them.
The three don’ts: don’t act superior, don’t be boring and don’t impose negative emotions.
Though there are many ways to tell a story well, there are also a few sure-fire ways to make a mess of it. To avoid the latter, keep these three simple don’ts in mind.
Firstly, don’t act superior to your audience. If you lord it over them, there’s a danger that they may see you as some kind of guru whom they’ll follow without thinking, and the same perception will make many other would-be listeners turn away. If you're not a guru you'll have a broader audience, so trust your listeners to think for themselves.
It's better to show that you’re just like your listeners, so connect to them via shared interests and common experiences. Tell them about your fears, hopes and passions.
Secondly, don’t bore your listeners. Everyone knows how boring it can be to listen to a story that either goes nowhere or is far too long. So when you’re telling the story, pay careful attention to how it will feel for the audience. Don’t go straight to the point and force feed it to your audience. Share some colorful and bizarre details that really entice your audience to follow where you lead them.
Finally, don’t scare people or make them feel guilty. Negative emotions make people antagonistic and less likely to make lasting changes. Only positive emotions will make people take action or change their mind in the long run.
Abraham Lincoln is one shining example of believing in the power of positivity. When he was told that he should destroy his enemies, Lincoln simply replied, “Isn’t that what I do when I make them friends?”
Becoming a storyteller can change your outlook on life, but it brings great responsibility.
We’ve discussed how becoming a great storyteller will make you more influential and persuasive in the eyes of others. But that’s not all: you’ll also notice changes in your own life.
This is because a storyteller sees the world differently. You’ll begin to see your life as a story, and you are the person who chooses how the plot unfolds. For example, if you’re currently living in a story where you’re constantly stressed and frustrated, it’s time to rewrite that plot into something more positive.
Once you’ve found a good story to live, your place in the world will become clearer and your life will seem more meaningful. You’ll also begin to look at problems differently, because you’ve seen how even the most massive problems can be solved.
Being a storyteller will also have a great impact on the relationships you have with other people, because you now carry a great responsibility: The stories you tell will affect the lives of those around you in the long term. So if you tell stories that make the people around you see themselves as victims, or start blaming one another, it can change your family, your company or even your community.
As an example, consider one of the most influential fearmongering storytellers in history: Adolf Hitler. His stories provoked such powerful reactions of fear and hatred in the German people that they perpetrated the Holocaust. Never underestimate the power and responsibility that come from being a storyteller.
You need critical thinking, but you also need story thinking.
These days, it seems the most valued thinking skills in the world are rational and critical. They are taught at school, and they help you get jobs. But in fact there’s another kind of thinking that can be very beneficial for a storyteller, namely story thinking: framing problems and situations as stories.
When approaching a problem or situation with purely rational thought, the goal is to remove all ambiguity, anecdotes and emotions from the equation. It’s like using a ready-made recipe or formula: you know what you’ll end up with, but it definitely won’t be anything new or innovative.
Story thinking, on the other hand, actually broadens your horizons and allows you to operate even when there is ambiguity. It encourages you to forget the rules and embrace emotions, which is beneficial when telling stories: you can better interact with your audience by sharing emotions with them.
What’s more, story thinking helps you identify stories all around you, and this will improve the stories you yourself tell. Story thinking also dissuades you from trying to be too objective: our experience of the real world is subjective, after all, so if you try to tell an objective story about it, it won’t seem real to the audience.
The fact that story thinking is so free and fluid is what makes it more an art form than a science. It promotes creative intelligence and a better imagination, which is what’s needed to enact any change in society.
Storytelling is a far more powerful way of influencing people than pointing at facts and figures. Stories can help you reach any audience and inspire them to take action. In fact, storytelling is so powerful a tool that once you become a storyteller, you have a great responsibility to tell stories that improve the lives of those around you.
0 notes
Note
why are you so rapey
because your definition of rape is “I never tried to find out info (which I personally consider important even though it doesn’t affect me in any material way) about someone, made an assumption, had sex with them, and later found out that I assumed wrong, so they’re a rapist.”
basically I’m “rapey” to radsbians just like I’m a supporter of “child murder” to pro-lifers. I don’t really care when hateful extremist groups use hilariously inaccurate language to paint basic human decency as a heinous crime lol. hope that answers your question.
0 notes
Text
A 47 year old tears a 15 year old’s novella to shreds
So I have been reclaiming my old, pre-computer age work from notebooks that I’ve saved for 35 years in some cases. Some of my old work was actually solid and needed very little revision. And then there’s this.
I have no idea what to call Hope and the Dreamer. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s kind of like what if a dystopian YA novel married one of the old science fiction overpopulation dystopias, and then their kid ran off with a fanfic who had entered the Witness Protection Program and changed most, but not all of, the names.
The plot is that the main character is a 19 year old artist who lives in a world that is massively, massively overpopulated (22 billion people). This world devalues life to a ridiculous degree, and in fact glorifies death. The government makes everyone get addicted to drugs in childhood and limits the amount of drugs you can get in a lifetime... and withdrawal will kill you. There is no medical treatment allowed except for psychiatric. Secret government agents run around randomly killing people. Other than that, life is completely normal in this hyperfuturistic society that has nothing resembling the Internet or even debit cards.
Our main character has a problem. It’s not that he lives in a hyperbolic dystopia that glorifies death, although that doesn’t help. It’s that he keeps having horrible dreams in which he is a member of a five person sentai team that protects the galaxy from invaders, and due to his extremely dangerous job, he keeps dying horribly. The dreams have made Mark, our main character, apathetic and suicidal. Did I mention he’s an extremely famous and well-paid artist who lives in poverty because he hates to paint, because the only thing he is able to paint are his dreams?
I... have no real idea why I wrote this thing. I recognize all the influences and I even dimly remember writing it, though I had completely forgotten about it until I found the notebook. I was obsessed with Battle of the Planets (aka Gatchaman) and had created my own clone of it, called Project Aleph. Then for some mysterious reason I decided that I was going to write an overpopulation dystopia with alternate universes in which the main character is a cognate with the leader of Aleph and thus keeps dreaming about his life. Except, instead of focusing on how the members of Aleph have a fantastic friendship and a close bond and feel fulfilled in their work because they’re accomplishing something important and tangible and also they live in a world where space travel exists and people don’t have to eat algae pudding, I just focused on the leader of the team dying over and over. And never noticed that the comic-book nature of the alternate universe totally does not match the tone of the existential horror I was trying to have the dreams convey.
Anyway. I plan on revising it, extensively. Overpopulation dystopias are rarely a thing anymore because we discovered that when women have access to birth control, education, and a social safety net, all of a sudden the birth rate drops to replacement rate or lower. This does, however, strongly suggest to me how I could still work an overpopulation dystopia, given certain trends in American life and elsewhere in the world, and I like the idea of demonstrating how a society that glorifies birth above all things would eventually end up having to be a “culture of death” like the pro-lifers claim an acceptance of abortion and birth control would be.
But before I revise it, I’m going to rip it into shreds for the edification of the public, because I think it’s a lot kinder to demonstrate to inexperienced writers what not to do by shredding the work of an inexperienced writer who is no longer around to get upset by it, since she grew up into an experienced writer. I do have to note that, being that it was written in the 1980′s, it is unlikely to be up to modern Tumblr standards of total political correctness. (There’s no mention of race or gender issues anywhere at all, and no mention of sexual identity, crimes of omission by today’s standards, and there is definitely some fatphobia. Also, it’s overwrought, misuses “said” badly, and the only female character is a raging bitch.)
So I’ll be posting this thing in pieces, with commentary, over the next few days.
7 notes
·
View notes
Photo
I felt like a kid in a candy store running up and down aisles lined with every shape and size of RV you can imagine. Big ones, small ones, red ones, blue ones. There were RVs that looked exactly like how I pictured them to be, and others that looked like they were created for astronauts.
A big thank you to Go RVing for IZEA Worldwide for sponsoring this post. All opinions are always our own. This post may contain affiliate links, where we receive a small commission on sales of the products that are linked at no additional cost to you. Read our full disclosure for more info. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Local Adventurer possible.
Last Updated:
The Best RVs of 2019 Revealed at RVX
Last week, we had a chance to attend RVX: The RV Experience with Go RVing’s Kickoff to Camping Season. As a trade-only event, we got an exclusive look into the RV industry and all the exciting innovations that are happening. If you only started following us recently, we lived in an Airstream for three months. I still vividly remember the first time I got behind the wheel. It was equally exciting and intimidating, but after a few moments on the road, the excitement overcame all my other emotions. There were definitely new aspects to living on the road that we had to learn, but it was a lot easier than we thought it would be and we absolutely loved how free it felt to go and live anywhere.
Since leaving our Airstream, we still talk about getting back into an RV. We recently bought a car (we’ll be sharing more about that in a future post), and one of our must-haves was the ability to tow at least 5,000 lbs. Our current plan is to eventually get an RV that we can live on the road with 2-3 months at a time out of the year. Being at RVX reignited the excitement about that.
Even though we’re pretty familiar with the RV world, there were still so many types of RVs we had never seen. There really is something for every budget and lifestyle. Want to go all out with a patio, garage, spacious bathroom, reclining chairs, and washer/dryer? You’ll find plenty of luxury options. Prefer something eco-friendly and sustainable? They have an all-electric RV. Looking for something that’s easy to get around in since you’ll be spending a lot of time outdoors? Plus, there’s everything in between.
More: Recap of Our Endless Caravan
We prefer a mix of luxury and convenience, and of course something photogenic. The huge RVs are luxurious. The amount of comfort and amenities that they have always wow us. We spent a lot of time during the show just sitting and hanging out inside these RVs. We still want the luxury of an RV, but in something more compact so we can move easily. We also really like the trailer set up so we can leave our home and still take our car out for micro adventures in the area.
The Reveal
One of the most exciting moments at the conference was The Reveal, where they highlighted the industry’s best new products. They had nine different categories and a panel of consumer media and social media experts selected their faves. It really shows you how wide of a selection there is within the RV world.
The Best RV for the Outdoor Adventurer
Category Spotlight: SylvanSport VAST
The VAST from SylvanSport is designed for adventure travelers and campers who want to bring all their toys of the trade, without sacrificing comfort. It features breakthrough simplicity for gear hauling, two “true” queen- sized beds, a patented indoor/outdoor kitchen and a full bath with shower.
Judge’s Choices: Airstream Basecamp, Forest River No Boundaries, Taxa Tiger Moth, Taxa Cricket, Lance 855 Rule Maker
Best RVs for Families
Category Spotlight: Jayco Eagle HT 264 BHOK
Jayco’s new bunkhouse unit sleeps 6 comfortably and features convertible furniture and pass-through exterior storage. Customizable upgrades include a fireplace and more residential-type woodwork, fabrics, lighting and fixtures, an outside kitchen, hybrid grill and rear cargo door with flip up bunk for easy bike or kayak storage.
Judge’s Choices: Forest River Vengeance 385 FK Touring Edition, Forest River Sabre Fifth Wheel, Forest River R-Pod, Winnebago Outlook, Coachmen Catalina 39 RLTS
For the Van Lifer
Category Spotlight: ModVans CV1 Camper Van
A cargo van positioned to become the everyday minivan, pickup truck or SUV, replacing the need to own a separate vehicle for work, life or play. The CV1 features removable, modular components that adjust the layout. Based on a Ford Transit chassis, the CV1 is affordable, easy to drive and serviceable by any Ford dealer.
Judge’s Choices: Winnebago Revel, Winnebago Travato Pure 3, Leisure Vans 2019 Wonder Rear Twin Bed, Coachmen Galleria 24
For the The City Escape
Category Spotlight: Leisure Travel’s 2020 Unity Rear Lounge
The 2020 Unity Rear Lounge represents a decade of product improvements, setting the stage for a new era of Unity’s. Built on the all-new Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 3500 chassis, the Unity features a spacious “rear lounge” with residential-like sectional sofa and the first RV to feature the all-new Domestic IoT “Smart RV” system.
Judge’s Choices: Airstream Interstate Nineteen, Forest River Flagstaff Hard Side SE Camping Trailer, Venture Sonic, Winnebago Boldt
For the Destination Camper
Category Spotlight: Forest River – Riverstone Luxury 39 RBFL
An RV geared towards the luxury/extended customer featuring separated garages to 1 and ½ bath concepts. The redesigned front cap sports a large windshield, tri-sofa front living, rear bathroom with dual vanity sink, half bath off the kitchen with a washer dryer and still has room for a king bed.
Judge’s Choices: KZ-RV Durango, Winnebago Horizon, Forest River Cedar Creek Cottage, Forest River Wildwood Grand Lodge 42DL
For Sustainability
Category Spotlight: Winnebago All Electric/Zero Emission
A Class A RV in either 33’ or 38’ lengths and utilizes Motiv Power Systems’ Ford F53 based EPIC all-electric chassis. Not yet designed for general consumer use, the vehicle is best suited for short-range commercial applications like bloodmobiles, clinics, classrooms and outreach vehicles. The vehicle houses either six or eight batteries and delivers an expected range of 85 to 125 miles on a full charge.
Judge’s Choices: Taxa 2019 Mantis, Forest River Rockwood Geo Pro, Attitude F35GSG by Eclipse, Forest River Work and Play
For Luxury Living
Category Spotlight: Newmar 2020 Super Star
The 2020 Super Star will debut at the inaugural RVX event in March. This product is a luxury Super C class product with several innovations not offered in the market today.
Judge’s Choices: Stratus SR261 VRK by Venture, Entegra Coach Cornerstone, Crossroads Redwood RV, Forest River Cardinal
Team Tailgate
Category Spotlight: Heartland’s Cyclone Ultimate Tailgate RV
Featuring the first ever side patio that sets up with the touch of a button, featuring an outside bar, built in kegerator and multiple TVs. The interior hosts multiple 55” TVs, a sound system with 8 subwoofers and 18 amplified speakers. The ‘garage’ holds a portable hot tub that can be moved outdoors. Outside, the full-body paint job is complemented by matching underground lighting system.
Judge’s Choices: Coachmen Sportscoach 366BH, Venture RV’s Sport Trek Touring, KZ-RV Venom V Series, Lance 1975 Ultra Light Travel Trailer
On the Horizon
Category Spotlight: Airstream Classic Smart RV
The Airstream Classic Smart RV with all-new Smart Control Technology, you can control and monitor your RV’s most important features and amenities from anywhere — and stay connected to the comforts of home, even when you’re far from it. That means a more comfortable camping experience every time, everywhere.
Judge’s Choices: Keystone Fuzion 427 FW w/Onboarding Weighting system, Keystone Raptor 356 w/pneumatic suspension, Winnebago All Electric Zero Emission, Winnebago Micro Mini Fifth Wheel 2405 RG
We can’t wait to get an RV for ourselves. After leaving RVX, we’ve been looking up different RVs to see what would be best for us. In the meantime, we may need to do an RV trip soon. If you’re now as excited as we are to get into an RV, you can find the nearest dealership or rental company to you!
Have you tried RVing or staying in an RV? What would you look for in an RV?
SEE MORE ABOUT RVING
⟡⟡⟡⟡⟡
ESSENTIAL RV CHECKLIST
TOUR OF OUR AIRSTREAM
CHALLENGES OF LIVING IN AN AIRSTREAM
HOW TO TRAVEL WITH CATS IN AN RV
RECAP OF OUR AIRSTREAM CARAVAN IN NUMBERS
AIRSTREAM FACTORY TOUR
HOW WE KEEP OUR AIRSTREAM CLEAN
CAPSULE WARDROBE – RV PACKING LIST
HOW TO GET INTERNET ON THE ROAD
“Discovery consists not of seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes” – M. Proust
Esther + Jacob
Esther and Jacob are the founders of Local Adventurer, which is one of the top 5 travel blogs in the US. They believe that adventure can be found both near and far and hope to inspire others to explore locally. They explore a new city in depth every year and currently base themselves in NYC.
PrevPreviousHow We Made Over $24,707 in Feb 2019 from Travel Blogging
NextPros and Cons of Living in New YorkNext
You might also love
RV Life – The Good, Bad, and Ugly
Recap of Our Trip – Our Airstream in Numbers
RV Checklist – Everything You Need Before Getting in an RV
All articles loaded
No more articles to load
The post The Best RVs of 2019 Revealed at RVX appeared first on Local Adventurer » Travel Adventures in NYC + World Wide.
0 notes
Text
Multiverse Overload
It seems unreasonable to think I was finishing up Nightmares & Dreamscapes yesterday morning and a little over 24 hours later I am back, having just finished one of King’s longest novels, Insomnia, in one cycle of sleep. But here I am. Let’s get into it.
I suppose I wasn’t kidding that I was ready for a novel but I didn’t realize how hungry for this story it was. Or maybe call it boredom - 3 day weekends with 95+ degree temperatures don’t lend themselves to my pasty irish ass spending any time anywhere other than the couch.
I knew little of this story headed in. Actually a little embarrassed to say I thought it somehow related to the Christopher Nolan movie of the same name. Once I cracked the spine and read the teaser copy, I knew this was not true. Also, I was worried. Really, really worried. Exhibit A:
Ralph Roberts is seeing some strange happenings in Derry, Maine.
He sees auras around human beings that show him the horror threatening them.
He sees a nice young research chemist like Ed Deepneau turn into a savage wife beater.
He sees Charlie Pickering with blood in his eyes and a gleaming knife in his hand.
And he sees three little bald doctors in the homes of the dying - and he begins to suspect who they really are.
No wonder Ralph stays awake all night. You would too.
INSOMNIA
“JFC, if I’m stepping into another Tommyknockers I’m going to scream” I said to the cat, who was chasing a bug around the hotel room and has no fucking clue what the Tommyknockers are. Little bald men. Aliens for sure, right?
Well I was, thankfully, wrong in my assumptions. Making an ass outta u & me, or however that old saying goes. I’ve complained before about whoever is responsible for writing these teasers, deceiving readers into believing that Gerald’s Game was a spooky bedtime story, Pet Sematary scared King himself, or that Insomnia is about a dude with, well, insomnia.
In reality, this book is as close to a Dark Tower book as it could get without actually being one. I’d rack it against The Talisman in Dark Tower adjacency, and although not as an enthralling tale as The Tailsman, a good chapter in the mythology all the same.
Ralph Roberts, a senior citizen residing in our favorite vacation destination, Derry, Maine, loses his wife to cancer and spills into a depression as one would do when your companion of 45 years is snuffed out of the living. What begins as minor bouts of insomnia quickly evolves into an inability to catch more than 2 hours a night. As someone who has suffered from depression-induced insomnia and sleep paralysis, a terrifying phenomenon I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, I feel for Ralph. Sleep deprivation is no joke, even if you’re awake watching Arrested Development for the 400th time at 3am. Ralph’s understandably exhausted, and assumes his mind is going when he starts seeing brightly colored auras surrounding humans, objects, street lights, you name it.
(Side story: Once I went on a date with a guy who - after I expressed discomfort in discussing the difference between irony and paradox 5 minutes into our first date - told me I had an unclean aura. I told him to go fuck himself (certainly something someone who’s aura is a little dirty would say) and he gathered his coat and left without a word. Anytime someone mentions auras I can’t help think of this guy - do you think he ever found a gal with a nice looking aura and the ability to discern the difference between irony and paradox? We will never know.)
In any case, Ralph does find himself a lady by the name of Lois, who in fact, does have a real pretty aura. And turns out she’s caught the insomnia and can see the auras too, along with other things that most humans can’t process. Turns out insomnia in Derry can flip a switch to entering worlds that aren’t our own.
Without going too far down the rabbit hole that is the plot of this novel (which squarely lies in the top ten of longest King tomes - say that 10x fast), Ralph and Lois team up on a quest against evil, as so many of King’s protagonists do. I was obviously committed to learning how it ended as I stayed up past my bedtime last night and reached for my paperback copy before I had even poured myself a cup of coffee this morning.
The key conflict in Derry of 1994 revolves around a war between pro-lifers and pro-choicers over a feminist speaking in town about women’s rights. Probably the hardest part of this story to swallow - the realization that 25 years later we’re still having the same argument in America with similar violent and tragic results.
This book is not without it’s faults - King called it “stiff & trying too hard” which is pretty accurate. It is way too long. It reads like a first draft that probably needed a stronger editor hand (or two or three) before publication that it just did not get. King’s ability to paint a picture in your mind is, as always, on point; but the writing describing the aural states seem to clog up the storytelling every ten pages or so. The initial painting of these ethereal halos was beautiful; after the 15th or so description they were just in the way. The use of italics for dialogue was distracting; I had to work to keep my eyes from skimming to the dialogue lines and ignoring the rest of the text on the page.
But it also had so many of my favorite things. For one, the connections to other King stories was strong in this one. Like when I am watching Castle Rock, it makes me feel like an insider to notice the little things that connect King’s worlds together. Like a hipster that listens to a band “before they were cool” - don’t you hate those people? Yeah me too. But here we are.
Derry, and all it’s history covered in depth in the pages of IT is rehashed here. We have mentions of the sewers, the Black Spot Fire, the post-Pennywise storm of 1985. The darkness that hangs over this town lingers, even though we were hoping that the Loser’s Club vanquished the darkness in the mid 80s.
Because something else dark is connected to Derry. The Dark Tower lore sits squarely and open here; we see Roland in children’s drawings and travel between worlds like in The Drawing of The Three. We also are introduced to The Crimson King; the guardian of The Dark Tower, Roland’s adversary and ruler of the highest level. He appears here in our world first as Ralph’s dead mother then as a catfish. I mean, IT was a clown living in a macroverse created by a barfing turtle, so I guess that all makes sense. We also learn Ralph and Lois’s quest is to save a young boy named Patrick Danville, who we’re told is very important in the land-o-the-tower. God, I can’t wait to get to the fourth Dark Tower book.
Other than the obvious references to IT and the DT books, we get a quick mention of the untimely death of Gage Creed in Ludlow. There is also a mention of “Aunt Sadie” in Dallas, and my mind wandered to lovely Sadie Dunhill of 11/22/63. I don’t know if King had the foresight (or the initial manuscript) to reference a character that wouldn’t hit the bookstores for another 17 years, but if so, Bravo Mr. King. Bravo.
By far my favorite photo of King that I’ve randomly stumbled upon on the internet.
My remaining questions are really around the nature of Derry - how can Pennywise and The Crimson King exist (in whatever universe) in or around Derry, without bumping into each other? Why so much evil in this one little town? Are they somehow connected? Are they the same person? Like my friend that claimed my aura needed a good washing, we may never know.
7/10
First Line: No one - least of all Dr. Litchfield - came right out and told Ralph Roberts that his wife was going to die, but there came a time when Ralph understood without needing to be told.
Last Line: And she saw, the long white scar on his right forearm was gone.
Adaptations:
None to speak of - another one of King’s works that’s been discussed in depth but never pushed into any kind of actionable development. All the best I think - a movie version could very easily veer into LSD trip territory.
1 note
·
View note
Text
[2/30]
Yesterday evening, there was a protest outside of the Planned Parenthood down the street from me. These days, I don’t exactly look twice at protests... but this one caught my eye—instead of the usual crowd of rich white liberals playing that game of “who’s more socially aware?”, it was a group comprised of entirely women, dressed in long beige coats, walking in perfect formation. They had one large sign that said “PRAY TO END THE MURDER OF UNBORN BABIES” in thick black paint, and they were silent. It was striking to say the least.
When I see things like this, it usually churns my stomach. I get angry, and silently judge them for being oppressive and out of touch… but then I have to take a step back and remember, I once was one of those people. And then I have to cut them some slack.
I had an extremely conservative upbringing. My grandparents are Italian-Catholic immigrants from Sicily. I went to an entirely white, upper-middle class high school where the only diversity was in designer handbags. Even then, Coach and Chanel were usually the way to go… a white Chanel purse put you at a much higher status than the girls with the black ones, though. Some of us dabbled in Louis-Vuitton, but that was short lived. Maybe it clashed with our Abercrombie, I don’t know.
My political beliefs were those of my family. I had this Republican rhetoric of “hard work” and “deservingness” engrained in me basically from birth, and school was just another place for us to be groomed into amateur conservatives; nothing the Democrats cared about was expected to ever touch us anyway. I remember when I was 14, I participated in something called the “Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity”. A bunch of us made t-shirts with an out-of-context Dr. Seuss quote—“a person’s a person no matter how small” and put pieces of duct tape over our mouths. It was for all the babies that didn’t have a voice or something crazy like that. No one blinked an eye. The very same year, two queer kids got suspended for “flaunting their sexuality.” It was backwards as hell there. I think of that person I was 10 years ago and I’m ashamed, but also sympathetic. I didn’t know any better.
When I went to college, I very quickly was exposed to a whirlwind of new people, ideas, and points of view. I was invigorated by all these different ways of thinking that I never knew existed. My grandparents told my mom she needed to be careful because I was becoming too liberal. “She went away to school and all of a sudden, she’s a hippie,” they’d say, condescendingly. It’s been 5 years since I left home, and today, I can hardly engage with any of them without a hostile argument. My family of police officers can’t stand my Black Lives Matter involvement, they called me “disgusting” for voting for Hillary, they’re appalled by my support for gay rights, my uncle once told me I was going to “monkey hell” for believing in evolution… I lost 16 friends on Facebook from my hometown during this past election cycle.
I don’t know how I went from being a Sarah Palin apologist to a social worker who sits around in a Bernie Sanders t-shirt reading the Communist Manifesto… but often the thought of what I could have become frightens me. At the same time, it gives me a heightened awareness of the real power of socialization. I imagine those women in their long beige coats were taught many of the same things I was. They feel strongly; they believe what they’re doing is right and important, just as I did then, and just as I do now. We keep framing one another as enemies, when I think what we actually need to do is try to understand. So few are ignorant or malicious or “bad” by choice—it’s what we’ve been taught. Often, we don’t know any better. I want to talk to the Trump supporters, to the pro-lifers, to the All Lives Matter folks, and ask them how they came to understand the world in this way. There is so much richness in that knowledge. And then after that I’ll get back to my liberal hippie agenda.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Want to Fight Racism? Let’s Cancel Planned Parenthood
It’s 2020, baby. Names are getting scraped from buildings, statues are toppling, a bunch of stuff is catching fire, and you could get canceled tomorrow. A new day has dawned. We can giddily destroy even the dead on the guillotine of moral indignation. And with each head that rolls, an understanding grows that all people, living or otherwise, can be condemned and done away with should they not meet the fresh, improved ethos of the Great Progressive Edict. Nothing and nobody is safe in our quest to sanitize our scatological society. Not even, it appears, Margaret Sanger.
As of Tuesday, the renowned feminist and progressive founder of Planned Parenthood is getting the boot from the organization’s Manhattan clinic, where her name has long been associated with the building. The official reason is that they can’t seem to gloss over her dirty history of racist eugenicism anymore, so now they’re going to disown her.
It’s an interesting plot twist, because Sanger is the founder of the place. It’s also interesting because Planned Parenthood is still in operation and nothing has really changed from the way she ran things back in the early years.
It’s tempting to concede, at least, some logical consistency to the folks over on the left. After all, in the same way they’ve demanded the erasure of George Washington—despite his founding of the country—they’re finally acknowledging aloud that Sanger wasn’t merely a strong-headed, clear-eyed woman looking to give her fellow females a shot at escaping oppression. As pro-lifers have said for decades, Sanger was an unabashed eugenicist with a blatant record of racism. Like Alexandra DeSanctis wrote in National Review, “She promoted birth control as a means of limiting low-income and minority groups and proposed a regime of mandatory sterilization for those she deemed ‘feeble-minded.’”
Who was feeble-minded? Well, to her, probably a lot of people who had perfectly fine brains. And certainly black people were included in that assessment. She famously excoriated them as “human weeds” who were “to be exterminated.” Until recently, Planned Parenthood has had pretty good success in brushing that little ditty under the rug.
Yet in response to those who have refused to ignore it, Sanger apologists have chosen to shape those nasty intricacies into a narrative that paints her as a complicated woman whose whimsical interest in eugenics didn’t actually have anything to do with her commitment to providing birth control to the black women of America. There was a gulf between her two worlds of interest that simply couldn’t be bridged.
Of course, not even Sanger believed that. Justice Clarence Thomas made this evident in a piece at First Things, pointing out that Sanger “believed that birth control was an important part of the solution to these societal ills. She explained, ‘Birth Control … is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method’ of ‘human generation,’ ‘and its adoption as part of the program of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science.’ Sanger even argued that ‘eugenists and others who are laboring for racial betterment’ could not ‘succeed’ unless they ‘first clear[ed] the way for Birth Control.’”
But Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to be a racist organization anymore, so now they’re taking the tremendously redemptive step of, well, changing a name (which wasn’t even on the building). “The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” they told black people.
Except, obviously, they’re not really going to do that. Instead, as a means of rectifying past wrongs, they’re going to keep contributing to reproductive harm within communities of color. Margaret Sanger may have been fired, but make no mistake: she’s still working there. Black people aren’t getting any sort of recompense in this.
The black pro-life movement has been saying it for years: Sanger’s efforts in what she called the “Negro Project” have resulted in fewer people of color. The project, for those unfamiliar, was based on a Malthusian hope of reeducating the women—specifically in African-American communities—on the kind of lives available to them without children. Why? Certainly not to help them discover better lives. Why would Sanger care about “human weeds?”
She just wanted to have fewer of them. She got what she wanted, too. Now, over one third of all American abortions happen to black babies, despite the fact that black women comprise less than 15 percent of our population. Indeed, the rate of growth in black communities is slower than among most other major U.S. race and ethnic groups.
Now that Planned Parenthood has distanced itself from the ideology of its founder, they’re in the clear. Never mind that the premise of their entire existence is the ideology of a woman who saw people as something to be manipulated and rooted out. This is what the left is trying very hard to do everywhere: eradicate history, start fresh—a society cut off from its source and advancing toward the sun.
But canceling George Washington for owning slaves centuries ago does nothing to end racism today. To do that, we have to halt the wrongs we’re committing against blacks now. And canceling Margaret Sanger for her nasty eugenics obsession won’t stop the tragic gutting of black communities. Though ending Planned Parenthood certainly would.
Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., astutely noted that the damage to America’s black community can only be rectified with the end of what Sanger started:
My grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., once said, “No one is going to kill a child of mine.” Tragically, two of his grandchildren had already been aborted when he saved the life of his next great-grandson with this statement. His son, [Martin Luther] King once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.
Step away from the carefully crafted messages of Planned Parenthood’s PR professionals, and look at Sanger for who she clearly insisted she was. Once you do, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the entire fabric of her organization is interwoven with her expansive, explicitly racist view of humanity. Yes, her name has been scrubbed in New York. But her ghost yet haunts the halls of that Manhattan clinic, nodding approvingly as black lives—which matter at any age—are cut short. Statements and blind eyes aren’t enough anymore. If Planned Parenthood earnestly wishes to do its part to mend what they’ve broken, they’ll close up shop altogether.
Emma Ayers is an editor and reporter in the Washington D.C. metro area. She has no Twitter for you to follow.
The post Want to Fight Racism? Let’s Cancel Planned Parenthood appeared first on The American Conservative.
0 notes
Text
Dubov's Last Jump-off pt 2
During the second rehearsal, Dubov made a pitch. He sent Mo Bedbug, still ambulatory, out to meet the manager of the club. Mo returned with an unshaven young white dude in a skinny black suit. Sitting next to Dubov, the guy crossed his legs, knit his brow and listened amiably. Dubov giddily introduced our Italian medley, emphasizing a tie-in with the restaurant's cuisine and making labored gangster allusions. It was incomprehensible he needed to sell this guy on a twenty-minute cover band set. Dubov, an early investor in the club and its parent business, for years treated the room as his semi-private, gentleman's lounge. After a fifteen minute pitch, skinny suit shook everyone’s hand and left. Our brain trust never mentioned him again. The gig was on.
Start time begat a long text chain from Mo, who never included Dubov in band communications. Mo planned on 11, a typical agent strategy to cover client indecision and get the talent in early. The musicians fought back. Dubov, who planned to wait for a packed house, asked for 12:30. The club needed every available inch for patrons and countered with 12. Mo just wanted to get back to Bushwick and relax with a cannabis nitecap. The negotiations whipsawed me, so I deleted everything, waited, then asked Mo to set a time, any time. Eventually, he confirmed midnight.
The club was two stories above the restaurant, a ridiculously over-priced Italian joint. First, I passed a velvet rope, manned by two pro-wrestler types: a white guy with a clipboard and black guy with folded arms. Then a metal staircase wrapped in bird crap-splattered canvas. Violent winds compressed that sheath, its seams popping and wheezing. Designed by Escher, the whole construction ended in a tiny doorway. Inside: goldleaf, massive chandeliers, potted palms and huge paintings of Ché and Vieja Havana. Cubanismo for cool kids. In lieu of a bandstand, we’d play just inside the entrance. The club’s heating system was set to neutralize the constant temperature flux of a swinging door and accommodate scantily clad faux club-kids. It felt like standing in front of a burning building with wind whipping off a glacier just behind.
In a stairwell above the club, the singers were doing dance warmups and gabbing. At the top of the stairs, a narrow hall and off it, an open room. A typical multi-use restaurant space, it combined security camera bank, liquor/wine storage, and business office. While I changed, inches away a stone-faced manager clicked a mouse and slipped Hennessy. Straightening my tie as I walked down the steps, the girls stopped their preparations to hug me and wish me luck. I’d been onstage with legends and countless gifted, dynamic professionals, but they clearly knew my good fortune had run out.
Downstairs, a half-dozen tall beautiful young women provided table service. Their uniform: short tuxedo jacket, ruffled white shirt and hot pants. Our waitress towered six feet without her skyscraper heels. She told us we could order one free alcoholic drink only after our set, then brought a tray crammed with liter bottles of sparkling water. The drink menu priced them at 20 bucks each. Before we played a note, Dubov handed her a three-hundred dollar tip, not necessarily for professional competence.
Pianist schlepped a small keyboard from home, rigged it on a shaky rack, then piled music on our stands; 13 pages for the horns, double that for him. He leaned over and said gravely, "play the parts, I know they’re correct, but no matter what, follow the singers"
Stage left, in the corner of a long, plush couch, Margherita sat on Dubov’s lap. He fingered his phone while she giggled and tapped her heels on the tile floor. A drum kit squeezed into the corner. Above the drums, on a chalk board, Mo had written “THE NEW YORKERS", the name Dubov chose for his new act. When the ladies introduced themselves, their repartee descended to self-parody as neither was from anywhere near New York.
Off icy slopes, night lifers entered in twos and threes. The clientele wasn’t so hip; tourist families with matching college hoodies, brittle couples on awkward dates, girls’ night cliques chugging twenty-five dollar Cosmos. As the room filled up, our show, 15 minutes of music fluffed with patter and mugging, attracted scant attention. Singers lost the form in "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy". The concept of instrumental solos never made sense to them, anyway. Pianist gave a sweeping gesture which they made a two bar rest. Then we returned to "Uptown Funk", their theme, and took our bows. The singers were sweaty and happy, replaying their foibles and firsts. Mlle Unitard made the trip to watch her student perform. Mo was pleased, mainly because Dubov was satisfied. When I said goodnight, Mo asked if I sent my invoice to Dubov’s people. Did I cc him, as well? They were doing PayPal to him. Then, he would PayPal us.
After the first night, a tabloid picked up our story. Photos of Dubov, a sexy young girl in his lap, rock-skipped across the world. A major US daily quoted one ‘Margherita Slice’ about Dubov: "I feel sad. Really sad. So many lies out there about a good guy. He just really helps people". The article also mentioned Karolina as "former girlfriend". The other musicians sent me links to more stories.
Night two was even colder, freight train winds slammed the car as I drove across the Brooklyn Bridge. When I gave the palooka at the door my name, he ran a bare fingertip down his clipboard list.
"Nope. Don’t see it"
I told him Dubov’s name, he didn’t speak nor look up, unlatching the rope just enough for me to get through. Upstairs, on a couch, the girls sipped wine with Mo. He wore Chucks and an ankle-length black denim coat hand-painted with spray-can graffiti.” The New Yorkers” rocked stilettos and sparkly gowns, showing plenty of cleavage. No Dubov. Mo took me aside. Despite excellent English, Mo’s voice hummed and burbled unintelligibly, a weedhead’s inheritance.
Last night's show was great, he said. Pianist would update me on set changes for tonite . Management asked Dubov to stay away. They didn’t want more attention. He shook his head. “About payment…PayPal fees are outrageous!” He was scandalized.” I think Harry's people don’t have to pay them. So, can I just send you a check? I’ll need your address. Email me everything, ok?”
I fired off the email from my phone and waited near the door, dressed, instrument packed. A young woman in business attire approached me and asked what i was doing. I told her. She was a manager, concerned about our start time. I referred her to Mo. “I already talked to him" she said, annoyed. With supreme elegance and efficiency, she turned quarter-profile away and lit a cigarette, an indoor action so provocative (and potentially expensive), my mouth gaped. The cigarette burned at arm length while she listed all the problems created by our little three-night clambake. Her woes made sense, though I couldn’t offer concrete help.
While the singers primped, Mo introduced me to Julie, Dubov's assistant, recipient of my payroll emails. A solid, small-town gal in a dark pantsuit, she seemed pained when we discussed her duties. Possibly, she saw her job disappearing soon beneath a judge’s gavel.
We went on shortly after. The Friday night room packed quickly. Frat boys took pictures using the singers as foils: Karolina, busy singing her heart out; Margherita, a good sport with plenty of downtime. An undertow of high-pitched shrieks, bro-signifying and cackling swamped the music. Absent a PA with a dedicated set of monitors, we had to deal with it.
Our set worked a bit better and a bit worse than the first night. After, the ladies told us we sounded great and thanked us. We said the same to them. Mo was sleepily effusive and told us: I gave Dubov a good report; there's food waiting for you; one more night to go!
Trumpet player and I took the indoor stairs down. A gigantic man stood watch at the first floor. He heard us coming and stepped aside. At the window, our meals sat ready, packed for a Himalayan trek. We grabbed them and headed through the restaurant. Even at one am, diners lingered over remnants of their meals. On the sidewalk, street signs bombilated in the wind and trash scuttled under parked cars. By the velvet rope and its snaking supplicants, an idling black SUV. In the passenger seat, Dubov hunched over a phone screen, its blue nimbus around his puffy brow and eyes, mouth lost in shadow.
0 notes
Text
Walnuts Quotes
Official Website: Walnuts Quotes
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
• A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree, the more they’re beaten the better they be. – John Ray
• A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays-when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren? – George Orwell
• Abraham Lincoln once walked down the street with his two sons, both of whom were crying. “What’s the matter with you boys?” asked a passerby. “Exactly what is wrong with the whole world,” said Lincoln. “I have three walnuts, and each boy wants two.” – George Sweeting
• After-dinner talk
Across the walnuts and the wine. – Alfred Lord Tennyson
• All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm – hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut. – Paul Engle
• ‘American Sniper’ is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism. The only thing that forces us to take it seriously is the extraordinary fact that an almost exactly similar worldview consumed the walnut-sized mind of the president who got us into the war in question. – Matt Taibbi
• Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a brown condom full of walnuts. – Clive James
• Dad says that everyone invented baklava.” It occurs to me now to wonder what that means. Aunt Aya rolls her eyes.
“Your father? He is the worst of the worst. He thinks he cooks and eats Arabic food but these walnuts were not grown from Jordanian earth and this butter was not made from Jordanian lambs. He is eating the shadow of a memory. He cooks to remember but the more he eats, the more he forgets. – Diana Abu-Jaber
• East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, whobuilt his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;MCato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present. – Henry David Thoreau
• Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people […] I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming. – Bertrand Russell
• God didn’t give me the ability to play the piano, or paint a picture or have compassion. But… he did give me the ability to crack a walnut with my hoo-ha. – Karen Walker
• Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away. – Khaled Hosseini
• How do you write? You write, man, you write, that’s how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up. – William Saroyan
• I could eat black walnut all the time, it’s not a flavor of the week! – Herman Cain
• I did as much as I could: raising chickens, pushing an ice-cream cart, bagging walnuts, driving a tractor on a beet farm, working on the railroad. I think this eclectic career helped me a lot in life. – Charles R. Schwab
• I first saw the site for Disneyland back in 1953, In those days it was all flat land – no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships – just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees. – Walt Disney
• I have no ability to develop muscle tone. I could do situps all day and still look like a condom full of walnuts. – Dana Gould
• I loved Christmas. We had a really great time. But there wasn’t – it was all – you had to be happy with, you know, an orange and a couple of walnuts, you know, in your stocking. – Nick Lowe
• In California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground—or so it was said, and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold. – Cherie Priest
• In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. – Thomas Merton
• It’s better to get the nutrients for healthy skin from food, not supplements. Salmon, walnuts, blueberries, spinach… lots of my favorite foods happen to be amazing for skin too. – Gail Simmons
• I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, ‘Why?’ Why did I cause so much pain? Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, ‘No, that’s not right.’ Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything. – Chuck Palahniuk
• My wife Ann and I had been digging during the day, transplanting lilies from the front of this abandoned farmhouse back down the road to where we live. We finished. She was tired and laid in the grass. I took a picture. The house is now gone. The walnut trees have been bulldozed and burned. I saw this picture the other day for the first time in years and realized how photographing life within a hundred yards of my front porch had helped me focus on everything I cared about. – Larry Towell
• On a grander scale, when a society segregates itself, the consequences affect the economy, the emotions, and the ecology. That’s one reason why it’s easy for pro-lifers to eat factory-raised animals that disrespect everything sacred about creation. And that is why it’s easy for rabid environmentalists to hate chainsaws even though they snuggle into a mattress supported by a black walnut bedstead. – Joel Salatin
• On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered;
Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee,
Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them
Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree. – William C. Bryant
• One of the biggest problems with young chefs is too much addition to the plate. You put cilantro and then tarragon and then olive oil and then walnut oil or whatever. It’s too much. – Jacques Pepin
• Shrinking someone’s stomach to the size of a walnut with surgery is one way to battle obesity and diabetes and may be lifesaving for a few, but it doesn’t address the underlying causes. – Mark Hyman, M.D.
• Some of us are sixty feet long with a brain the size of a walnut. – William S. Burroughs
• Tariqah [The Spiritual Path] without the Sharia [Islamic Law] is like having a pistachio tree without the shell. Or a walnut, a walnut cannot grow on a tree without having a shell, and the food that you eat is inside the shell. – Seyyed Hossein Nasr
• The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. – Vannevar Bush
• The cross is like a walnut whose outer rind is bitter, but the inner kernel is pleasant and invigorating. So the cross does not offer any charm of outward appearance, but to the cross-bearer its true character is revealed, and he finds in it the choicest sweets of spiritual peace. – Sadhu Sundar Singh
• The most overrated ingredients are garlic and extra-virgin olive oil. With garlic, it’s personal; I have never been that big of a fan of its flavor. As for extra-virgin olive oil, I do use it quite often but its ubiquity serves to overshadow many wonderful oils like pistachio, walnut, argan and even grapeseed. – Lela Rose
• The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale. – Vera Nazarian
• The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen… The world’s climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut. – Gary Larson
• The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it. – Joanna Newsom
• There rises the moon, broad and tranquil, through the branches of a walnut tree on a hill opposite. I apostrophize it in the words of Faust; “O gentle moon, that lookest for the last time upon my agonies!” –or something to that effect. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again. – Jodi Picoult
• To this day, I hate walnuts and I hate onions because on weekends when the walnuts and onions were in season, we were out there first thing in the morning and out there until the sun went down topping onions or picking walnuts. – Scott Brooks
• Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it’s my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different. – Huston Smith
• We do not ask the mountain’s aid to crack a walnut. – Wole Soyinka
• we do not explain my husband’s insane abuse
and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled
or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead.
Your palms fold over me like knees. Love is the only use. – Anne Sexton
• What kind of tea do you want?” “There´s more than one kind of tea?…What do you have?” “Let´s see… Blueberry, Raspberry, Ginseng, Sleepytime, Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Lemon and Honey, Liver Disaster, Ginger with Honey, Ginger Without Honey, Vanilla Almond, White Truffle Coconut, Chamomile, Blueberry Chamomile, Decaf Vanilla Walnut, Constant Comment and Earl Grey.” -“I.. Uh…What are you having?… Did you make some of those up? – Bryan Lee O’Malley
• What’s wrong with men?” Tenar inquired cautiously. As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, “I don’t know, my dearie. I’ve thought on it. Often I’ve thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man’s in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell.” She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. “It’s hard and strong, that shell, and it’s all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that’s all. That’s all there is. It’s all him and nothing else, inside. – Ursula K. Le Guin
• When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to the garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in rereading your financial statement? Of course not. What will matter then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn’t they matter most now? – Max Lucado
• Winter is for women The woman still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanish walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think. – Sylvia Plath
[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
0 notes
Text
Walnuts Quotes
Official Website: Walnuts Quotes
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
• A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree, the more they’re beaten the better they be. – John Ray
• A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays-when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren? – George Orwell
• Abraham Lincoln once walked down the street with his two sons, both of whom were crying. “What’s the matter with you boys?” asked a passerby. “Exactly what is wrong with the whole world,” said Lincoln. “I have three walnuts, and each boy wants two.” – George Sweeting
• After-dinner talk
Across the walnuts and the wine. – Alfred Lord Tennyson
• All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm – hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut. – Paul Engle
• ‘American Sniper’ is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism. The only thing that forces us to take it seriously is the extraordinary fact that an almost exactly similar worldview consumed the walnut-sized mind of the president who got us into the war in question. – Matt Taibbi
• Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a brown condom full of walnuts. – Clive James
• Dad says that everyone invented baklava.” It occurs to me now to wonder what that means. Aunt Aya rolls her eyes.
“Your father? He is the worst of the worst. He thinks he cooks and eats Arabic food but these walnuts were not grown from Jordanian earth and this butter was not made from Jordanian lambs. He is eating the shadow of a memory. He cooks to remember but the more he eats, the more he forgets. – Diana Abu-Jaber
• East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, whobuilt his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;MCato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present. – Henry David Thoreau
• Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people […] I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming. – Bertrand Russell
• God didn’t give me the ability to play the piano, or paint a picture or have compassion. But… he did give me the ability to crack a walnut with my hoo-ha. – Karen Walker
• Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away. – Khaled Hosseini
• How do you write? You write, man, you write, that’s how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up. – William Saroyan
• I could eat black walnut all the time, it’s not a flavor of the week! – Herman Cain
• I did as much as I could: raising chickens, pushing an ice-cream cart, bagging walnuts, driving a tractor on a beet farm, working on the railroad. I think this eclectic career helped me a lot in life. – Charles R. Schwab
• I first saw the site for Disneyland back in 1953, In those days it was all flat land – no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships – just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees. – Walt Disney
• I have no ability to develop muscle tone. I could do situps all day and still look like a condom full of walnuts. – Dana Gould
• I loved Christmas. We had a really great time. But there wasn’t – it was all – you had to be happy with, you know, an orange and a couple of walnuts, you know, in your stocking. – Nick Lowe
• In California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground—or so it was said, and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold. – Cherie Priest
• In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. – Thomas Merton
• It’s better to get the nutrients for healthy skin from food, not supplements. Salmon, walnuts, blueberries, spinach… lots of my favorite foods happen to be amazing for skin too. – Gail Simmons
• I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, ‘Why?’ Why did I cause so much pain? Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, ‘No, that’s not right.’ Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything. – Chuck Palahniuk
• My wife Ann and I had been digging during the day, transplanting lilies from the front of this abandoned farmhouse back down the road to where we live. We finished. She was tired and laid in the grass. I took a picture. The house is now gone. The walnut trees have been bulldozed and burned. I saw this picture the other day for the first time in years and realized how photographing life within a hundred yards of my front porch had helped me focus on everything I cared about. – Larry Towell
• On a grander scale, when a society segregates itself, the consequences affect the economy, the emotions, and the ecology. That’s one reason why it’s easy for pro-lifers to eat factory-raised animals that disrespect everything sacred about creation. And that is why it’s easy for rabid environmentalists to hate chainsaws even though they snuggle into a mattress supported by a black walnut bedstead. – Joel Salatin
• On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered;
Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee,
Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them
Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree. – William C. Bryant
• One of the biggest problems with young chefs is too much addition to the plate. You put cilantro and then tarragon and then olive oil and then walnut oil or whatever. It’s too much. – Jacques Pepin
• Shrinking someone’s stomach to the size of a walnut with surgery is one way to battle obesity and diabetes and may be lifesaving for a few, but it doesn’t address the underlying causes. – Mark Hyman, M.D.
• Some of us are sixty feet long with a brain the size of a walnut. – William S. Burroughs
• Tariqah [The Spiritual Path] without the Sharia [Islamic Law] is like having a pistachio tree without the shell. Or a walnut, a walnut cannot grow on a tree without having a shell, and the food that you eat is inside the shell. – Seyyed Hossein Nasr
• The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. – Vannevar Bush
• The cross is like a walnut whose outer rind is bitter, but the inner kernel is pleasant and invigorating. So the cross does not offer any charm of outward appearance, but to the cross-bearer its true character is revealed, and he finds in it the choicest sweets of spiritual peace. – Sadhu Sundar Singh
• The most overrated ingredients are garlic and extra-virgin olive oil. With garlic, it’s personal; I have never been that big of a fan of its flavor. As for extra-virgin olive oil, I do use it quite often but its ubiquity serves to overshadow many wonderful oils like pistachio, walnut, argan and even grapeseed. – Lela Rose
• The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale. – Vera Nazarian
• The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen… The world’s climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut. – Gary Larson
• The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it. – Joanna Newsom
• There rises the moon, broad and tranquil, through the branches of a walnut tree on a hill opposite. I apostrophize it in the words of Faust; “O gentle moon, that lookest for the last time upon my agonies!” –or something to that effect. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again. – Jodi Picoult
• To this day, I hate walnuts and I hate onions because on weekends when the walnuts and onions were in season, we were out there first thing in the morning and out there until the sun went down topping onions or picking walnuts. – Scott Brooks
• Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it’s my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different. – Huston Smith
• We do not ask the mountain’s aid to crack a walnut. – Wole Soyinka
• we do not explain my husband’s insane abuse
and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled
or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead.
Your palms fold over me like knees. Love is the only use. – Anne Sexton
• What kind of tea do you want?” “There´s more than one kind of tea?…What do you have?” “Let´s see… Blueberry, Raspberry, Ginseng, Sleepytime, Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Lemon and Honey, Liver Disaster, Ginger with Honey, Ginger Without Honey, Vanilla Almond, White Truffle Coconut, Chamomile, Blueberry Chamomile, Decaf Vanilla Walnut, Constant Comment and Earl Grey.” -“I.. Uh…What are you having?… Did you make some of those up? – Bryan Lee O’Malley
• What’s wrong with men?” Tenar inquired cautiously. As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, “I don’t know, my dearie. I’ve thought on it. Often I’ve thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man’s in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell.” She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. “It’s hard and strong, that shell, and it’s all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that’s all. That’s all there is. It’s all him and nothing else, inside. – Ursula K. Le Guin
• When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to the garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in rereading your financial statement? Of course not. What will matter then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn’t they matter most now? – Max Lucado
• Winter is for women The woman still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanish walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think. – Sylvia Plath
[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );
0 notes
Text
Chelsen Vicari on Rachel Held Evans' 'Ever-Evolving' Position on Legalities of Abortion
"The business of the Church is God. She is purest when most engaged with God and she is astray just so far as she follows other interests, no matter how 'religious' or humanitarian they may be." –A.W. Tozer, The Set of the Sail There is a particular corner of the Church that likes to pat one another on the back, congratulate themselves for being the more enlightened, compassionate, and "ever-evolving" members. They make it their business to appeal to the impulses of secular society, and yet their sanctuaries attract few in numbers and — though they hardly admit it — lack diversity and multiculturalism in their congregations. For the most part the Religious Left looks alike. Older, white, affluent, privileged, and politically liberal, proud of their charitable appearances and less concerned with evangelizing to lost souls. Mirrors of one another. Rachel Held Evans, a liberal Christian author, fits snugly into this group. The former Evangelical, now Episcopalian recently boasted on Twitter that she is "pro-life by conviction, though my views on the legalities of abortion are complex, ever-evolving, & detailed elsewhere." Backlash ensued. So much so that Evans deleted her original Twitter thread, maintaining she is pro-life but the issue is "complex." Try as she might to construct nuance, there is nothing inherently moral about the murder of innocent life. Evans would likely say she agrees with this statement. She does, after all, call herself, "pro-life." Her point here, Evans claims, is to point out a hypocrisy between the pro-life voters who supported the election of President Donald Trump and, as she accuses, "ignore or actively oppress communities of color" and so she finds it "hard to believe they want to save lives in those communities." To avoid being accused of taking Evans' tweets out of context, I want to provide you with as much of her original thread as I can find online. Evans' original thread stated:
Thread: I'm pro-life by conviction, though my views on the legalities of abortion are complex, ever-evolving, & detailed elsewhere.
That said, today I've been wondering if most pro-lifers have considered what overturning Roe v. Wade would look like in actuality... First, it wouldn't end abortion, which would likely remain legal in several states.
And:
Just like in the past, wealthy women would travel for abortions & poor women would resort to deadly Gosnell-style "back alley" clinics & home procedures....
Continuing on:
...In addition, it's important to understand that the abortion rate is highest in poor communities of color. The rate among black women is almost 5x that of white women and the rate among Hispanic women more than double...
And then:
...(Racism, income inequality, lack of access to affordable healthcare & contraception all contribute to the disproportionate rates. Most women who get abortions are already mothers who do so because they feel they cannot afford more children)...
Finally:
Evans hoped to appear humanitarian and engage and appease her Twitter base (many of whom I suspect support abortion) by discrediting the pro-life movement with a failed attempted to paint ethical inconsistencies. What she actually, albeit unintentionally did was admit that abortion giants target poor, minority communities. Something the pro-life movement has attempted to expose for years. Here Evans was attempting to be profound by employing a tired, false notion that pro-lifers only care about unborn babies until they are born, then they could care less after birth, especially if they are born poor or people of color. Never mind that thousands of March for Life participants are young, Hispanic, African American, and Asian peaceful protestors demanding an end to abortion every January along the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Never mind that just two weeks ago several prominent pro-life leaders publicly condemned the separation of families at the border, lending to the pressure on the president to loosen his zero-tolerance position. One might even turn the argument around and ask if the Religious Left doesn't unconditionally fight for the life of innocent unborn, then how can we trust they care about the dignity of born human beings? But never mind all that, I guess. It is disappointing to see a popular Christian figure call herself pro-life in one breath and then quickly pivot to bash the pro-life movement, which to me appeared to be her overall goal. Click here to read more. Source: Institute on Religion & Democracy
0 notes
Text
How To Influence People By Unleashing The Power Of Stories
For thousands of years, people have wanted to hear stories, whether from travelling bards in the old days or best-selling paperbacks today.
Why are we so drawn to narratives, when surely we really just need facts to make decisions? Put simply, a good story helps people interpret the facts and see the bigger picture. Things people would not believe, understand or care about become compelling and meaningful as soon as they are seen through the lens of a simulated personal experience: a story.
And if you’re the one telling the story, you can influence the way your audience interprets facts. This makes good storytelling a very powerful tool indeed. So how do you tell a good story?
Stories help us make sense of the world and are effective tools for persuading others.
In order to know how to tell a good story, we must first know what a good story actually is. Quite simply, a good story is one that simplifies the world and makes us feel we understand it better.
The world today often seems complicated and chaotic, but a story has the power to make sense of it. It gives listeners a plot to follow, around which they can organize their thoughts.
This not only makes it easier for the listener to understand your argument, but can also help them make sense of their personal problems and frustrations. For example, if someone has lost their job or gone through a tough break up, a story about someone in a similar situation will help them to recover.
In this sense stories – though indirect – are more effective than direct guidance. This is because direct guidance only applies to one situation and then loses relevance, whereas the lessons of a story can be adapted to fit multiple situations.
Let's say you have a colleague who frequently sends obnoxious-sounding emails around the office because he can’t be bothered to word them properly, and you’d like him to change his behavior. You could, of course, tell him outright to stop doing this, but it would be even more effective to tell him a story about someone who lost their job due to a misunderstanding in a poorly worded email.
Your colleague would probably remember that story every time he was sending an email. He might even start applying the lesson about being polite and professional in his other communications.
So even though stories are an indirect way of relaying a point, they can be much more effective than the direct, raw truth.
Telling an immersive story requires more than just words – use your whole body.
Let’s say you now know what story you want to tell. So how do you tell it properly? You have to realize that you have many channels of communication available. Imagine you’re not merely telling a story, but enacting a play for your listener: your voice, face, hands and body are the actors, stage costumes, music and props that can add a whole new level to your story.
You can use your hand gestures to add meaning to your words and really paint a picture for your listeners. Use facial expressions to help people relate to your story. If your story is about something that angers you, show that anger on your face, or smile if you’re talking about how happy you were at another point in the plot. This makes people more likely to believe you.
Of course, to fully immerse the listener in your story, what you say is also important. Here you should prioritize things that the listener can imagine vividly. For example, you could ask your audience to imagine the smell of sizzling bacon. Or if your story involves the wind howling, you could make a similar sound to really make them feel present in the story. This kind of visceral experience creates emotional memories that are particularly powerful.
Another way to create emotional memories is to use irrelevant but concrete details. So if you want to tell a story of a large household, don’t focus on how many children are in the family or what their names are. Instead, use concrete details and tell your listeners about the way the house would fill with the scent of freshly baked blueberry pie on Sunday mornings.
A convincing speech or presentation must tell six different stories.
If you really want to be able to influence your audience, you have to tell them not one, but six different stories.
First, tell them who you are, and second, tell them why you’re there. This is because people won’t trust you until they know the answer to these questions, and if you tell them using stories it will be far more convincing, making you seem more trustworthy.
Third, you have to tell them a story that relates the vision you have – i.e., the long-term goal that you want to move them toward. For example, if you’re the CEO of a company, you can’t just blurt out, “We must achieve five percent annual sales growth.” Instead you should tell them a moving story that inspires your employees to desire that growth – maybe tell them about another company that later became famous.
Fourth, you also need to tell a story that teaches them. For example, if you have just hired a new receptionist, rather than tell him what buttons to push on the phone, regale him with the story of Mrs. Jones, the greatest receptionist you ever met, and how she did the job so immaculately.
Fifth, tell a values-in-action story. This means telling a story where the value you want to convey is translated into a real, specific action. For example, if you say to your employees “Integrity is important,” it won’t mean much. It would be much more effective to tell a story about an employee who once made a huge mistake but was rewarded when she came clean instead of trying to cover it up.
Sixth, tell a “I know what you are thinking” story that will make your audience wonder if you’ve just read their minds. For example, think about the potential objections your audience members will make, and then raise and deal with those points as part of a story. This will make the audience feel more at ease.
Stories wield a powerful influence because they relax and disarm your audience.
Now that you know you can influence people with stories, you probably want to know why that's the case.
First, they help you overcome suspicions: people are often distrustful when someone is trying to influence them, but stories allow you to bypass their suspicion because you can frame the audience on your side: your interests and theirs overlap. This will make them more likely to trust you.
Second, stories are effective instruments for making your audience feel as though you know them. These days people crave real human attention, so if you tell a story that touches them and makes them feel acknowledged, they will be more connected to you and more cooperative.
Third, you can take advantage of the fact that people automatically feel more comfortable and relaxed when they hear a story. The instant you say you're going to tell a little story, your audience will relax and become less analytical. It’s almost like hypnosis.
And if you tell a good enough story when they are in this state, it could stick in their heads for so long that eventually they won't be sure if they heard it or if it happened to them. If this sounds far-fetched, think about some stories from your early childhood. Are you totally sure they happened to you or did you merely hear about them? Your story will influence the audience’s actions as if it had happened to them.
You can influence even reluctant or indifferent audiences – if you don’t think of them that way.
Of course, not all audiences are eager to listen to what you have to say. Often you’ll find you have to speak to people that you might find unwilling, disinterested or unmotivated. So how can you influence them?
The key is to understand that your listeners have good reasons for their opinions, even if they are not in line with yours. It’s too easy to think you’re in the right and they’re in the wrong. For example, though abortion is a highly polarizing issue, both sides have reasons for their opinions: pro-lifers want to save the life of the unborn child, whereas pro-choicers focus on the life of the mother and the plight of the unwanted baby. If you want to influence either group, you have to acknowledge these reasons.
A second key consideration is that you have to remain positive. If you allow yourself to think that your audience is reluctant or indifferent, that negative emotion will seep into your speech. You want to awaken hope in them, and this can only be done if you yourself are hopeful.
For example, if your story is meant to motivate people to save the planet, don’t focus on all the depressing statistics. This will only make your audience feel ashamed, bitter or angry, and none of these emotions lead to action. Only hope does.
Finally, if you find that the audience is very negative, try telling them an extra story that's designed to work around the source of their negativity. For example, if the audience seems cynical and doubtful of your sincerity, open up and tell them a personal story – this is the closest they can get to first-hand evidence of your sincerity!
Alternatively, if you think your audience resents you for having the spotlight, try to tell a story that highlights the big picture and the goals you share with them.
You can also influence others by listening to their stories.
You’ve seen how important the art of storytelling is, but there’s another side to the coin. If you truly want to be able to influence someone, you also need to be adept at story listening. In a dialog you need to genuinely listen to your partner.
This way you’ll come to understand not only his opinions and arguments but also his uncertainties and true feelings, because he’ll see how closely you're listening and feel comfortable opening up.
Sometimes this is the best chance you’ll have to influence someone: listen to their story. Often you’ll find that if you just listen to them respectfully, they will begin to reflect on their own opinions and challenge their views, all by themselves. Often they change their position to something closer to yours.
For example, imagine you’re a car salesperson, and you want to sell a customer a Toyota, but he says he “hates Toyotas.” What story should you tell?
Instead, listen to the customer’s story about why he hates Toyotas. This will help him to articulate what concerns him, and will also make him reflect on whether some of his criticisms are unfounded. He may even end with something like, “But that could just be the Toyotas I've driven – the new models might be better."
Once you’ve listened, you have your second chance at influencing the other person, because he'll want to extend the same courtesy to you. You'll have a focused audience for your own story. What’s more, the customer feels closer to you because you've bonded as he told you his story. This is a great starting point for you to influence them.
The three don’ts: don’t act superior, don’t be boring and don’t impose negative emotions.
Though there are many ways to tell a story well, there are also a few sure-fire ways to make a mess of it. To avoid the latter, keep these three simple don’ts in mind.
Firstly, don’t act superior to your audience. If you lord it over them, there’s a danger that they may see you as some kind of guru whom they’ll follow without thinking, and the same perception will make many other would-be listeners turn away. If you're not a guru you'll have a broader audience, so trust your listeners to think for themselves.
It's better to show that you’re just like your listeners, so connect to them via shared interests and common experiences. Tell them about your fears, hopes and passions.
Secondly, don’t bore your listeners. Everyone knows how boring it can be to listen to a story that either goes nowhere or is far too long. So when you’re telling the story, pay careful attention to how it will feel for the audience. Don’t go straight to the point and force feed it to your audience. Share some colorful and bizarre details that really entice your audience to follow where you lead them.
Finally, don’t scare people or make them feel guilty. Negative emotions make people antagonistic and less likely to make lasting changes. Only positive emotions will make people take action or change their mind in the long run.
Abraham Lincoln is one shining example of believing in the power of positivity. When he was told that he should destroy his enemies, Lincoln simply replied, “Isn’t that what I do when I make them friends?”
Becoming a storyteller can change your outlook on life, but it brings great responsibility.
We’ve discussed how becoming a great storyteller will make you more influential and persuasive in the eyes of others. But that’s not all: you’ll also notice changes in your own life.
This is because a storyteller sees the world differently. You’ll begin to see your life as a story, and you are the person who chooses how the plot unfolds. For example, if you’re currently living in a story where you’re constantly stressed and frustrated, it’s time to rewrite that plot into something more positive.
Once you’ve found a good story to live, your place in the world will become clearer and your life will seem more meaningful. You’ll also begin to look at problems differently, because you’ve seen how even the most massive problems can be solved.
Being a storyteller will also have a great impact on the relationships you have with other people, because you now carry a great responsibility: The stories you tell will affect the lives of those around you in the long term. So if you tell stories that make the people around you see themselves as victims, or start blaming one another, it can change your family, your company or even your community.
As an example, consider one of the most influential fearmongering storytellers in history: Adolf Hitler. His stories provoked such powerful reactions of fear and hatred in the German people that they perpetrated the Holocaust. Never underestimate the power and responsibility that come from being a storyteller.
You need critical thinking, but you also need story thinking.
These days, it seems the most valued thinking skills in the world are rational and critical. They are taught at school, and they help you get jobs. But in fact there’s another kind of thinking that can be very beneficial for a storyteller, namely story thinking: framing problems and situations as stories.
When approaching a problem or situation with purely rational thought, the goal is to remove all ambiguity, anecdotes and emotions from the equation. It’s like using a ready-made recipe or formula: you know what you’ll end up with, but it definitely won’t be anything new or innovative.
Story thinking, on the other hand, actually broadens your horizons and allows you to operate even when there is ambiguity. It encourages you to forget the rules and embrace emotions, which is beneficial when telling stories: you can better interact with your audience by sharing emotions with them.
What’s more, story thinking helps you identify stories all around you, and this will improve the stories you yourself tell. Story thinking also dissuades you from trying to be too objective: our experience of the real world is subjective, after all, so if you try to tell an objective story about it, it won’t seem real to the audience.
The fact that story thinking is so free and fluid is what makes it more an art form than a science. It promotes creative intelligence and a better imagination, which is what’s needed to enact any change in society.
Storytelling is a far more powerful way of influencing people than pointing at facts and figures. Stories can help you reach any audience and inspire them to take action. In fact, storytelling is so powerful a tool that once you become a storyteller, you have a great responsibility to tell stories that improve the lives of those around you.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
adorablefeministpuppy
Once upon a time...
paolaceleb
PaolaCeleb PaolaSkye
adorablefeministpuppy
Once upon a time...
ptvhellokitty0
CATT
klimaks33
ALL GIRL PIT STOP